He went from pensive folded hands to twirling the ends of his mustache by the time my story ended. Mr. Davenport sat back with his arms folded across his chest.
“Admitting this is either very brave or a rather bad blunder on your part,” he said.
“It’s not a deed I lay claim to lightly, sir,” I said, casting my eyes downward, “and I accept the consequences for my actions wherever they lead.”
“You mean it, Dawson, don’t you? I find that rather refreshing,” he said. “You don’t mind if I call that do you? The female salutation seems somewhat ill-fitting in your case.”
I heartily agreed, and as I came to learn, we agreed on many other matters of substance as well.
“These geographical sketches you made,” he said, pulling out my maps of Australia assignments, “are far superior to any student work I’ve ever seen.”
“Thank you, sir. That’s very kind,” I said, blushing again.
“Kindness has nothing to do with it,” he snapped, sitting up straight. “If you have talent, it’s my job to cultivate it.”
I thanked him again for his generous compliments, but my joy was short-lived. He stood up, grabbing his new pointer. Punishment must be exacted for every infraction, he said, tapping the long stick on his desk; I gulped hard.
“I want you to…” he began, flexing the pointer between his hands, “sketch repentance, whatever that means to you. When you feel you’ve expressed yourself properly, bring it to me. That will be all.”
With a sigh of relief, I headed for the door.
“Dawson,” he said, stopping me in my tracks, “What is it you ’strines say, Hooroo?”
“Hooroo to you, sir,” I said, waving from the door.
I should’ve spent the afternoon fixing my hair and practicing my finishing school manners. Instead, I used my time to draw. Mr. Davenport had let me off easy and I wanted to show him his faith in me wasn’t unwarranted. Effortlessly, I sketched three scenes. One of a girl with her hands clasped in prayer, another of a child offering a basket of fruit to the viewer with her head bowed, the third of a girl gratefully accepted back into a group.
I was so proud of myself. At dusk I lit a candle in the widow’s walk to show off my work to Figgie. I waited for his eyes to light up and those fancy words of his to start flowing about my artwork.
But they didn’t.
He was quiet during most of the visit. He moved about my room as if he were in a place he didn’t belong. He picked up things, put them down, and stood with hands in his pockets as if he were cold. Figgie never sat down or leaned in to say any of the words I expected.
“They are photographic renderings of the highest caliber,” he said, while slipping out my window, “but, Savannah, they aren’t art the way my people understand it.”
Insulted by his comments, I decided he was unable to grasp the finer points of our culture. I couldn’t sleep with this germ of his festering in my mind. I was angry with Figgie for not recognizing what I had accomplished. Hours passed. I got up and looked at the drawings again. Tore them to pieces and threw them out the porthole.
Perhaps Mr. Davenport gave me this assignment expecting me to fail so I’d realize my place in life. I regretted not spending my time more propping myself up in front of the mirror. I stared at the blank paper, unable to lift a pencil, rest, or sift through my feelings. Those old demons were howling in my head again.
I slipped down my window tree into the moonlight and meandered down to the float dock. I waited for Jungay, but I never sensed he was coming. I worried that somehow, I had offended my new orca friends by abandoning them for school. The water slapped at my knees as I sat on the float dock watching the empty bay. Although the water was still at its warmest, the air was cool. Soon I wouldn’t be able to swim with the pod, and they would leave to follow their food.
Sickles of moonlight bobbed on the waves and sliced through my memories. They welled up as the disembodied faces of my classmates, Arizona, the crew, and townspeople. What did these apparitions want from me, why did they linger in my dreams? The serenity I had felt for the last week was shattered. Now I faced the full dread of responsibility. It was too easy to hide behind my obligation to attend school and not think of anything else.
I got my drawing things and returned to the safety of the tool room to be with my wall orcas. I lined up my pencils, pens, and paper and got to work. I stayed up into the wee hours sketching through my troubles on paper. I drew pictures of Laura and the other characters from The Getting of Wisdom. I imagined the situations they put themselves in and drew them as if they belonged on the comics pages of Vumps for boys. Only this comic was about things we cared about, even if most of the girls I knew didn’t care much for what I cared for. These characters depicted more than a passing resemblance to my own classmates, though I left myself out of the drawings. Trying to sketch Repentance still lingered in the back of my mind, but Figgie’s voice and disappointed eyes blocked every image I wanted to draw.
I took the rough sketches of each orca I had made at the float dock and transferred them to the back wall where Derain’s image ruled. I thought of Figgie while I worked, which was both agitating and exhilarating. He had a way of distracting me when I needed to concentrate. Any image that came into my mind bled away. At the same time, his stories about the orcas and his reverence for them spurred me to try harder to capture what I wanted to draw.
Although he wasn’t there, his presence was.
After a few hours, Scud came darting in with his tail raised. Soon the rest of the cats followed.
“What’s the matter,” I asked, picking up as many of them as I could, “you fellas miss me?”
They meowed and pawed at my arms and neck, curious about what I was doing. I put tiny Emma on my shoulder like a parrot to keep her from knocking everything over. I continued feverishly drawing. My fingers tore at the wood and I worked my pencils down to nubs. When I finally closed the door, the first streak of the sun stretched across the sky.
I didn’t know if I was ready for that first glint of silverware later that afternoon or not, but I figured proper etiquette and war go hand in hand as long as the generals are fighting.
Once they leave the table, it’s cats in a tinderbox.
22.
Let me say, it’s a tragedy that it has taken so long for our two distinguished families to rendezvous,” announced Jacob Bittermen, standing and extending his glass in the air. “To the Dawson clan.”
“… and to the Bittermen family tree. May ya keep climbing up it,” said Papa, as he carefully lifted his long-stemmed flute, trying not to snap it in two. “Hope you weren’t too deigned inviting us over.”
I put down my fork, jumped to my feet, and raised my cup. I was standing there admiring all the fancy crystal when I realized that I was the only one standing. Well, I dropped to my seat faster than an anchor in Port Phillip harbor. Arizona covered her mouth with a napkin, but I knew she was giggling underneath it. I figured by Monday everyone in New South Wales would know, too.
If that wasn’t enough to make me sweat, the glass roof above us magnified the sun. Its pale twin, the comet, hovered low as if listening to every word. We sat at a table about the size of our cricket field. Papa needed his spectacles to see Bittermen’s face, but his pride prevented him from doing so. It was good that Arizona was more than an arm’s length away. It helped keep things civil between us.
Jacob Bittermen appeared the same as he did at the Dodd’s Cup match. A squat, low-browed man, his red stalks of prairie-grass hair looked best when covered by his wide-brimmed gaucho hat. His dark eyes revealed no secrets and his wispy goatee gave him an appearance of impatience. Wearing a bolo tie, snakeskin jacket, and boots to match, he reminded me of a swagman ready for a Saturday night dance.
“Now, Savannah,” Bittermen said, as if he had heard my thoughts, “I understand from reliable sources tha
t you are a whaler?”
I glanced over at Papa for a signal on how to answer. He nodded for me to go-ahead.
“Papa let me go out with the crew once,” I mumbled, playing with my fork, “but we didn’t catch anything.”
Bittermen tugged on his goatee and slumped back in his chair, as if someone had shot him. “You are the embodiment of Diana the Huntress,” he said, in his twanged accent. “I find that extraordinary, don’t you, Arizona?”
“Extra, extra ordinary,” Arizona said, chewing on a prawn.
“I do hope her participation wasn’t out of necessity,” chirped Bittermen. “My resources are always at your disposal.”
“Thanks,” said Papa, “but we’re holding our own.”
“That must have been a frightening experience,” said Bittermen, motioning for a refill of his and Papa’s glasses, “especially with those—”
“Orcas,” I said, interrupting him.
“—killer whales,” Bittermen continued, ignoring me, “around eating everything in my bay. They’re very destructive creatures.”
I stood up and defended the orcas. I told him how they live in family units, mate for life, and care for their babies for years. The orcas communicate like the rest of us, only through a series of clicks and whistles, I told him. They are sad and happy, like us, and they can camouflage themselves during a hunt. Most importantly, they take from the bay only what they need.
The forcefulness of my argument caught even me by surprise. Papa just winked my way. He said the killers haven’t caused any problems in sixty years and weren’t about to start. Bittermen clapped his hands and ordered the main course rushed out. Arizona fanned herself, casting a slight smirk in her father’s direction.
When the food wasn’t ready, Bittermen suggested Arizona show me the house while he and Papa talked business. Before we left to go upstairs, he swung open the double doors to the library. Though uninvited, Bittermen’s sweeping arm motions dragged me and Arizona in with the dust balls and cigar ash, revealing a gigantic portrait of a man in gray uniform on the back wall. The face glaring down at us reminded me of the comet. High on the walls, heads of a rhino, elephant, water buffalo, and lion stared frozen at attention, as if awaiting his orders.
“Who might that be?” I asked.
“Why that’s my father, Colonel Josiah Cornwallis Bittermen,” Bittermen said in mock admiration while holding up his glass.
I asked if the colonel was part of the royal dragoons. Bittermen seemed agitated by my question. He said his family was part of the Confederacy done in by political blackguards. The colonel, Bittermen added, believed in attacking first and attacking last while giving no quarter in-between no matter how puny the enemy. I recalled hearing Papa and the crew mentioning that Bittermen was from the American South.
“I was born into the tyranny of an uneasy peace,” Bittermen stated grandly for all to hear.
As Papa followed us into the great room, the paint on his boots peeled off in little black flecks across the white carpet. I didn’t know what Bittermen’s words meant, but they irritated Papa so I kept quiet. The heavy doors closed with a tumbler’s click. Our fathers’ silence swept us back out of the library toward the upstairs niceties of Arizona’s abode. If the two of us had one thing in common, it was that we both wanted to hear the goings-on behind those locked doors. Neither of us trusted the other enough to admit this so we began an uneasy climb up the spiral staircase.
“Daddy thinks I’m so much like grandpappy I’ll end up leading an army someday,” said Arizona, walking two steps ahead of me so we could see eye-to-eye. “I must say you pulled that off brilliantly.”
“Pulled what?” I asked.
“Tell me you and your father didn’t rehearse that whole whale story, knowing it would get my dear daddy’s goat,” she said, putting hands on her hips.
“It’s true, we’re whalers. That’s what we do,” I said, the salt riled in me.
“Fine,” said Arizona, starting up the stairs again. “I’ll let you play this hand for now, but I’m on to you.”
“I’m not playing anything,” I said, pulling her back by the elbow.
I squeezed her forearm hard. Figgie told me I shouldn’t beat the world to a pulp until it liked me. Even though I was still angry with him for blaspheming my drawings, I let her arm go.
“I wish I had your strength,” said Arizona, rubbing her forearm, “and those high cheekbones.”
I wanted to return the compliment, but there wasn’t anything about her I could aspire to. Arizona was showing interest in me the way that shark did when our boat was smashed. I still didn’t trust her, but her compliments were greasing the skids. Her bedroom seemed the size of Loch Bultarra with twice the furniture.
“This is hard for me to admit,” she said, placing her hand on my arm as we sat, “but I’ve misjudged you and I’m sorry for that.”
I tried to make the same stone face Brennan did when he drew a good hand. I sat there and said nothing. “Do you miss your mother?” Arizona asked. “I understand she died a long time ago.”
“How do you know that?”
“Small towns talk,” she said, “I’ve been a victim myself.”
Arizona told me her mother was a socialite. One day she discovered her having “amorous intentions with another.” She confided what had happened to her mother’s best friend. Her parent’s marital obligations ended up on hiatus as she put it.
“I’ve been banished to live with Father because of my honesty and trust,” she said, while showing me her dressing room, “imagine that?”
Arizona’s glum look after the revelation made me feel a kinship with her. I wanted to be charitable in my thoughts the way Figgie was.
“Sometimes I feel close to my mum, and at others, I feel motherless,” I said.
“Let’s start over, shall we?” she said. “We motherless ones should stick together.”
We lay on her twin fainting couches watching a couple of wagtails singing in a tree overhanging her balcony. When called back to the adult world, we fell into our familiar roles as obstinate girls. We giggled, fanned ourselves, and hid behind napkins. Something had changed during that past hour. It was more than a friendly conversation between classmates. There was an acceptance, a lowering of swords.
Why, I didn’t understand.
The table that appeared so sparse sparkled with silver and gold domed chafers. Oysters, turtle soup, filets of kingfish, saddle of lamb, and mushrooms on toast were just a few of the items I could remember. A butler stood next to each of us ready to serve.
The abundance of food upset Papa, though he tried not to show it. He often said the need for excess drives men to attempt foolish things. Without causing a scene, he served himself and I followed suit. Bittermen ignored our manners as he tucked a long napkin into his collar and told stories about the Virginian Commonwealth.
We were into mealtime small talk. At least our fathers were. We sat playing with our food, shared eye rolls, and answered the few questions lobbed our way. To liven things up, all of us played a game. We each wrote down our favorite word and everyone had to guess it. For Papa, the table guessed whale, but he said it was thanks. Mine was g-day though Arizona suggested it was water. She was hard to guess; we went several rounds before Arizona admitted it was trust.
Bittermen didn’t give us a chance to guess his.
“More,” he announced as the desserts arrived, “because that’s what I want. More of everything, more wealth, more land, more good friends.”
As we finished our fancy ice cream and assorted cakes, Bittermen lit cigars for him and Papa. After we finished, he had one final room he wanted us to see. We followed Bittermen down a short hallway. At the end was a large carriage door on rollers.
“I’m an ambitious man,” he said, pulling the sliding door open, “but I generously embrace others to join my dreams
.”
The dim glow of oil lamps slowly illuminated the room as if the sun were rising. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw the strangest collection of contraptions and inventions. There were glass flasks filled with colorful chemicals and jars packed with all types of animal parts – monkey hearts, cow brains, and squid tentacles. Miniature engine-powered carriages, winged trains, and cigar-shaped boats dotted the shelves or hung from the ceiling.
“Are you opening a museum with all this, Jacob?” asked Papa.
“No, no, this isn’t about the past,” he said, grabbing my chin. “It’s the future. Imagine what the world will be like in five years, or even thirty, for that matter.”
“What’s that got to do with us whaling?” I questioned.
“I’ll show you,” said Bittermen.
He removed his shiny snakeskin jacket, as if he were molting into another creature. He snapped the white sheet off a large table in the center of the room. A gaunt, worried look came over Papa’s face. Bittermen revealed a scale model of Paradise, Reflect Bay, and Doddstown, right down to the boulders on the beaches. The thing was it looked more like London or Paris than our little town. Tall buildings and long piers on both sides of the bay replaced most everything I recognized.
“What are all those pipes connecting the buildings?” I asked.
“Pneumatics, compressed air, the power of the future,” said Bittermen, his eyes growing wide.
This mystery power had us transfixed. The pipes delivered mail right inside someone’s home. Large tunnels would use forced air to propel omnibus canisters filled with people under the bay and to move elevators in tall buildings.
“You see these towers,” continued Bittermen. “I’ve invested with a consortium that will bring wireless telegraphic transmissions here. Sound with no wires.”
Bittermen could have used Mr. Davenport’s pointer as he was flicking his cigar at the Snowy Mountains, covering them with ash. From there, he explained, the rushing water from ten dams would provide hydroelectric power to New South Wales and Paradise. Everything would run on electricity.
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