The Vanishing Point

by Mary Sharratt

  "Do they make glass here?" she asked.

  Cassie snorted.

  Lucy shook her head. "I heard that the Mearleys did order their glass from Holland."

  Scattered around the house were outbuildings of more primitive construction. Lucy pointed out the livestock barns and tobacco sheds.

  "That little cottage you see with the smoke coming out the chimney," said Lucy, "that is the kitchen. They cook in there so the big house doesn't get too hot in summer."

  "Then it must be very cold in winter." Hannah could not imagine a house without a kitchen.

  What Lucy did not point out were the hovels half hidden among the bushes and pines. Hannah reckoned those were the slaves' quarters.

  "Look," said Lucy. "The children are blowing horns." She raised her hand to wave at the cluster of young ones jumping and whooping. One boy shouted to the sailors to throw him a mooring line so he could tie it to the dock. A woman in a russet-colored dress waved so wildly, Hannah thought her arm would loosen from its socket. Hannah waved back. She was beginning to understand why Lucy said the ship's arrival was like Christmas. The woman in the russet dress was obviously the planter's wife and the mother of those children, yet she was waving with the enthusiasm of a young girl. Did May also wave to the ship like that?

  Everyone clapped and cheered. Black men began rolling huge hogsheads from the tobacco sheds down to the dock.

  "That is their entire fortune," Cassie said.

  "What happens if the harvest fails?" Hannah asked.

  "They go into debt to the ship captain. They pay by credit—as long as he allows it. If the debt keeps rising, they lose their leasehold. Not a single planter here truly owns his lands. All is on lease from the Lord Baltimore."

  "Further north I hear that storms have ruined the crops," Lucy ventured.

  May lived north of here, Hannah thought. What if her harvest had been lost?

  When the sailors lowered the gangplank, the first mate stepped ashore, saying he had letters for Mrs. Mearley. Hannah watched how eagerly she took them from his hands, how she hugged them to her breast as if they contained jewels. Hannah allowed herself to pretend she saw May clasp letters from home.

  Meanwhile the men unloaded the goods that the Mearleys had ordered the previous year. She listened to the first mate read the inventory to Mr. Mearley. "An oaken table and eight chairs, two casks of Rhenish wine, a box of China tea, a bolt of India silk, six cones of sugar, one steel plow..."

  "Do they not have ironmongers here?" Hannah asked Lucy.

  "Who would be an ironmonger when he could be a planter?"

  "Come." Cassie tugged Lucy's arm. "Let us go down and see if we are needed."

  "Is Mrs. Mearley expecting a baby?" Hannah asked. The woman on shore did not appear to be pregnant, though the fabric of her dress was bulky enough to hide a growing belly.

  "We tend to the others, too." Lucy nodded toward the shacks in the pines.

  ***

  Hannah wandered down the gangplank, but soon lost sight of Cassie and Lucy. Mrs. Mearley beckoned people off the ship to a table of rough planks, where a cask of ale and a plate of crabcakes were laid out.

  "Come and refresh yourselves!" she cried. "I'll let no one say that the Mearleys are not liberal and generous."

  Mrs. Mearley looked about thirty-five, still handsome, but when she smiled, Hannah saw the gaps in her teeth. For every child, a tooth, the saying went. She wondered if May had lost a tooth with her first pregnancy. Hannah reckoned Mrs. Mearley was hiding something behind her smile—she could make out the strain in her face as the lady pressed a pewter tankard of ale into the ship captain's hand.

  "I cannot tell you how pleased we are," Mrs. Mearley said to the captain, "to finally have the good table and chairs. For years we made do with what the servants could cobble together. At last we shall be able to receive guests in style. There is nothing Mr. Mearley likes better than company."

  Mr. Mearley, busy overseeing the loading of tobacco barrels, did not strike Hannah as a man who enjoyed guests, or much of anything. She observed him limping along as though every step caused him pain. His posture was one of forbearance, spine hunched and arms clutched to his belly as if to protect his inner organs.

  "In his condition, he should rest indoors." The captain spoke delicately. "I heard the news of his malady in Anne Arundel Town."

  A fretful look passed over Mrs. Mearley's face. "I tried to persuade him to book passage to Bristol so that he might have the care of a physician, but he refused." She lowered her voice. "He fears sea travel. Last time he boarded ship, he caught a fever that was nearly the end of him."

  "Madam." Hannah spoke before she could stop herself. "What is the nature of your husband's illness?"

  Mrs. Mearley and the captain turned to her with puzzled faces. Mrs. Mearley appeared affronted.

  "This is young Mistress Powers from the ship," the captain said.

  "If you please, madam, my father was a physician, and I know something of physick myself. Perhaps I could be of service." Hannah curtsied with what she hoped was appropriate deference.

  "My dear girl, I think you overestimate your powers." Mrs. Mearley spoke in a high and brittle tone. "This is no matter for amateurs."

  "Begging your pardon, madam." She swallowed. "I only wished to offer help."

  "Your offer is kind, mistress," said a man who appeared at Mrs. Mearley's elbow. Hannah hadn't seen him until now. His voice was conciliatory and smooth as cream. "But Mr. Mearley requires a surgeon, not a nursemaid, however solicitous."

  About forty years old, the man was easily the most sophisticated person she had seen on this shore. He wore a doublet of wine-colored leather over his voluminous linen shirt, which was laundered to such whiteness that it hurt her eyes. His wig, if modest, appeared brand new and of the latest fashion. His breeches were linen and his boots were of claret leather to match his doublet. Unlike the strutting planters she had seen on the ship and in Anne Arundel Town, there was a look of true nobility about him. He didn't need jeweled rings and silk waistcoats, Hannah thought, to prove he was a person of distinction.

  "A surgeon, you say?" Her hands itched for the box of surgical instruments hidden at the bottom of her locked trunk.

  "Seeing as you have so kindly expressed your concern, I trust Mrs. Mearley will not object if I share this revelation with you." He inclined his head. "The good lady's husband has a stone in his kidney."

  Hannah opened her mouth in an O. She saw Mr. Byrd splayed on the table, the scalpel in her hand as she cut to the stone. How cleanly she had made the incision. How proud Father had been. She raised her eyes to the gentleman, about to tell him she could indeed operate on Mr. Mearley, when she caught herself. What possibility was there that Mrs. Mearley would let a strange young woman with a scalpel anywhere near her husband?

  The gentleman addressed Mrs. Mearley. "If I were you, madam, I would try once more to persuade your husband to sail back to England at the first opportunity and there make use of a surgeon. In the meanwhile," he nodded to Hannah, "I understand there are two herb women aboard the ship. If you could fetch them, Mistress Powers, perhaps they might at least provide enough physick to dull Mr. Mearley's pain."

  "Lucy Mackett and Cassie, you mean." Hannah ducked her head. "I will see if I can find them, sir."

  ***

  Hannah joined Cassie and Lucy in the cooking house, where they measured out herbs for Mr. Mearley's remedy.

  "Lucky for him, I had the witchgrass in my pouch," Lucy said.

  Their tincture required young birch leaves, speedwell, and chicory. The last two they procured from Mrs. Mearley's store of dried kitchen herbs, but no new birch leaves would be found until spring.

  "We must make do," said Lucy. "An incomplete remedy is better than none."

  Cassie squatted at the hearth and poked the fire with a stick while waiting for the kettle to boil.

  "If his stone is small, such a tincture might help him pass it," Hannah said. "But if the st
one is large, only a surgeon can save him. Why can they not find a surgeon for him on this shore? The voyage to England might well kill him."

  "My girl," said Lucy, "there are no surgeons on this shore."

  "How can that be?"

  "Who would trade a life of comfort in the mother country for this?" Lucy waved her hand around the cluttered cooking shack. "The patients are so far-flung, he would spend all his time traveling."

  Cassie lifted her head from the hearth. "I hear in Anne Arundel Town there is a trained blacksmith. They could summon him to cut for the stone."

  "A common blacksmith?" Hannah felt sick.

  "Aye," Lucy said shortly. "Then he would die from the bleeding afterward."

  "My father was a physician and surgeon." Hannah spoke rapidly so they wouldn't interrupt her. "Many times I assisted him. I saw him make the cuts. I have the instruments in my trunk. If the Mearleys would allow it, I could remove the stone."

  Lucy laid her hand on Hannah's shoulder. She was struggling not to laugh. "You would offer to cut into a strange man's privy parts?"

  Cassie guffawed.

  Hannah's face burned. "But I—"

  "No." Lucy spoke firmly. "A girl like you should not meddle in these things. Besides, the man is fifty. His sons are nearly grown. He has lived longer than most. God has not been unkind to him."

  ***

  When the tincture was bottled and ready, Lucy and Cassie presented it to Mrs. Mearley.

  "We are obliged," Mrs. Mearley said. She gave them a small cask of home-brewed ale as payment.

  Back on deck, Hannah waved again at the children on the landing. She thought of Mrs. Mearley with her new oak table and chairs, of Mr. Mearley with his pinched gray face and his look of perpetual torment. What if she had been brave enough to present the scalpel and her book of anatomy? What if she had been courageous enough to tell them how she had successfully removed a kidney stone from Mr. Byrd back home? They would never believe you. She recalled the look Mrs. Mearley had given her. They would call you a lying, deluded girl.

  "Still feeling pity for Mr. Mearley?" Cassie approached with a traveler's tin cup of Mrs. Mearley's ale. "The brew is weak," she complained.

  Hannah looked out over the ship rail. The Mearley house had already vanished from view.

  Cassie grinned. "Did you not say your sister lives upriver from the Banham Plantation?"

  "I did."

  "Well, there he is," she said coyly. "There is your Mr. Banham." She pointed to the man in the leather doublet who had told Hannah about Mr. Mearley's kidney stone. He sauntered past, a shining sun surrounded by a coterie of lesser planters who were like moons reflecting his brilliance. They competed for his attention and hung on his every word.

  "Are you certain?"

  Cassie nodded. "I heard the captain introduce him to some other men."

  "So he is my sister's nearest neighbor." Hannah remembered what the man with the rotten teeth in Anne Arundel Town had said. Is your sister one of Banham's whores? Mr. Banham was certainly pleasing to look at. May would think so, too. Unwelcome thoughts crowded her head. No, surely May would have renounced her loose ways by now. She was a married woman, a mother. Surely she would not ply her charms on Mr. Banham.

  Hannah clutched the ship rail. The man in Anne Arundel Town had said one of Banham's whores. Did he have a reputation as a libertine, then? He had not struck her that way. His gaze had been frank and open, befitting an upright man. Enough. She couldn't afford to tear herself apart over every scrap of gossip. Soon she would see May and be able to speak to her about everything. May would laugh at her worries.

  "Why is he traveling at this time?" she asked Cassie. "Why is he not at his own plantation to oversee the loading of the harvest barrels?"

  "A true gentleman never works," Cassie said slyly. "For that he has servants and slaves. I heard he has just returned from Virginia. He bought land there." She raised her eyebrows. "Two thousand acres."

  Hannah could not fathom one man owning so much land.

  "So you see," said Cassie, "he is far too busy to oversee his own harvest." At that she drained her cup of ale.

  ***

  Hannah waited for a chance to ask Mr. Banham about her sister, but it was hard to approach him. He ate with the captain and slept in prime quarters with the ship's officers. She did not succeed in catching his eye. Before she could question Cassie further, the ship anchored at the Turlington Plantation, where Cassie and Lucy said their goodbyes to her.

  "If you are ever in need of a midwife, send for us." Lucy winked, then shouldered her small trunk and trundled down the gangplank.

  ***

  The journey up the Bay continued. The ship emptied of passengers and goods from England, but filled with hogsheads, which weighed down the hold. Their passage was so sluggish, Hannah wondered whether she would ever reach her destination. When at last they arrived at the Gardiner Plantation at the mouth of the Sequose River, word came that storms had knocked down trees, blocking the waterway. Even the sandbars had shifted. The ship would not be able to navigate the river.

  Hannah stood on the pier in the midst of the men struggling to load tobacco and unload cargo before darkness fell. Judging from the way Mr. Banham leaned against a crate and smoked his pipe, the ship's blocked passage appeared to cause him no anxiety. His men had loaded the harvest barrels onto smaller boats and sailed them down to Gardiner's Landing. She could only hope that the Washbrooks had done the same.

  "Any news of the Washbrooks?" Hannah shouted at two men rolling a barrel.

  One of them laughed. The other shook his head in annoyance. "The Washbrooks? How should we know their business?"

  When she approached Banham, one of his servants was addressing him. "There is no damage to your house or any of your buildings, sir, although some fences were knocked down. Mrs. Banham took a fright, she did, sir, but she is better now."

  Before Hannah could hope to get a word in, a man in an embroidered waistcoat swept up and embraced Banham. "Never fear that you must make the journey home by darkness, my friend. You are welcome, as always, to bide with us. Mrs. Gardiner would never forgive me if I didn't invite you to stay the night."

  The ship captain approached. "Evening, Mr. Gardiner, Mr. Banham." He bowed. "There is another matter to discuss. A girl named Hannah Powers is also bound for Banham's Landing, sir."

  Although she stood a few feet away, the captain referred to her as if she were a child. Summoning her courage, she spoke up. "Mr. Banham." She dropped in a curtsy. "I am Hannah Powers, sir."

  Banham smiled. "Ah, yes. The physician's daughter."

  "Sir, I am bound for the Washbrook Plantation."

  Something flickered across his face, but he said nothing. Inclining his head, he signaled her to go on.

  "My sister is May Washbrook, wife of Gabriel Washbrook."

  "Gabriel, you say?" He frowned. "I have only heard of Mr. Nathan Washbrook."

  She flustered. "Gabriel is the young Mr. Washbrook, sir. Nathan's son."

  "Ah, yes." He glanced around. "Have your people not come to meet the ship?"

  "No, sir." Her voice shook. "I think not. The men I spoke to have heard no news of them."

  "This is most unusual. Surely someone from their plantation must have made the journey down."

  Hannah fought tears. "Maybe there was illness in their household, sir. Maybe their boats sank or their harvest was ruined..."

  He held up his hand to silence her. "My dear girl, you are making yourself quite wretched, and probably for nothing. The tobacco was harvested in August, then hung up in barns to dry. Unless the storms brought down their barns, their harvest I'm sure is safe. Perhaps they are tardy because they could not yet clear the river for passage. Perhaps the storms damaged their boats. They might still bring their barrels down to Gardiner's Landing. I believe the ship will call here one more time before leaving the Bay.

  "So you see, all will be well. Tomorrow I will take you upriver. When we reach my plantation, my
men will take you on to the Washbrooks. Fret not, Mistress Powers. In the space of a day, you will be with your people."

  Before she could thank him, he turned to Mr. Gardiner.

  "The Gardiners, I am sure, will allow you to stay the night here in safety. All you need do is fetch your things off the ship. Oh, and whatever the Washbrooks have ordered." He turned to the captain. "Any goods for the Washbrook Plantation, sir?"

  "And how will they pay with no harvest?" the captain inquired.

  Hannah covered her mouth.

  "Courage, my child." Mr. Banham spoke gently. "I can extend credit to the Washbrooks, sir. Now have you any goods for them on board?"

  Hannah smiled, almost faint to witness such goodness.

  "I think not, Mr. Banham," said the captain, "but I will look at the inventory."

  Banham winked at her. "That's sorted, then." He snapped his fingers at one of the sailors. "If you please, fetch Mistress Powers's box from the hold. She is leaving ship."

  Moments later, Banham led Hannah up the path to the Gardiner house with its lit-up windows glowing in the twilight. He told Hannah that he had a daughter her age who played the spinet. A dancing master had come all the way from London to teach her the minuet. Among the young planters she had many suitors. His favorite among them was a young Virginian who bred racehorses. Mr. Banham also had twins named Eleanor and Alice. His oldest son was a scholar at Oxford, while his youngest boy was not yet old enough to cut his hair and wear breeches.

  "My father went to Oxford," Hannah said, unable to hide her pride.

  "I should have deduced when I first laid eyes on you that you were an Oxford man's daughter."

  She flushed in delight. "Sir, I hear you are my sister's nearest neighbor."

  "That is the most curious thing. Though they are also my nearest neighbors, I know little of them. The Washbrooks have never been neighborly. Nathan Washbrook's son—pray, what did you say his name was?"

  "Gabriel, sir." "Gabriel Washbrook." Mr. Banham spoke slowly, as though committing the name to memory. "Let me tell you of our Christmas parties at the plantation. They are famous. We invite every soul, rich and poor, in miles. There is music and dancing, food and drink in plenty. No one is turned away. People up and down the Bay come. Why, we have guests who hail from the Eastern Shore and as far as Virginia. But the Washbrooks never came once." He spoke with calm neutrality.