The Vanishing Point

by Mary Sharratt

  Hannah pressed her fist to her mouth. She couldn't keep it in anymore. She began to sob helplessly.

  "Mistress Powers," he said in alarm, "I had no wish to make you weep."

  She took a few paces, filling her lungs with air, trying to regain self-control. "Did you come to torment me about Mr. Washbrook again? Is that your game?"

  "Do you think it a game I play with you?" He sounded hurt.

  "He said he was innocent. He swore he never harmed her. He swore an oath on the Bible."

  "Mistress Powers, please. I did not come here to make trouble. I honor your loyalty to the man. Mr. Washbrook is most fortunate to have won your affection."

  When she turned to face him, he held out a handkerchief. She took it from him and wiped her eyes. When the fine cambric touched her cheek, she remembered Gabriel's words. He said you were a good woman and I did not deserve you.

  "I thank you." She tried to give him back the handkerchief, but he waved his hand.

  "Keep it."

  She regarded the crumpled cambric. He probably had more handkerchiefs at home, possibly a whole box of them.

  "I've no wish to vex you as I did last time," he said. "But my conscience moves me to repeat my offer. Would you let me take you and your son back to my father's house? Your little one will have a playmate. My stepmother has a boy only a few months older than your Daniel. In truth, my sisters are silly, empty-headed creatures, but I think you would like my stepmother. She is lonely and longing for companionship. You would make her very happy if you accepted our hospitality. She wanted to come with the midwife this winter, but she was feeling poorly."

  Hannah looked to the woods where Gabriel was collecting his traps.

  "Do you ask me to abandon Mr. Washbrook?" Daniel started fussing. Soon she would have to nurse him.

  "Abandon is a very strong word. Let me speak plainly. You believe Mr. Washbrook to be innocent. I grant you that we have no solid proof against him. Let me say for argument's sake that I share your conviction in his innocence. I would still make you this offer. Would it not be best for you and your son to live in society again? The almanac forecasts much rain this summer. In our climate, that means contagion."

  He stopped abruptly. "Have you heard of the diseases we have here? The flux and the fevers?"

  Hannah nodded.

  "Last year we were lucky. I did not hear of many outbreaks, but I fear this summer will not be so kind. If you and Mr. Washbrook should both fall ill, what would happen to your child?"

  Hannah remembered May's description of Cousin Nathan's high fever and shakes that had culminated in his death. "We have the bark of cinchona."

  "And if you are both too weak to make the remedy? Of course, you must know that small children are at the greatest peril to disease."

  She hugged Daniel tighter and kissed the top of his head.

  "I do not think Mr. Washbrook would begrudge you for wanting to live amongst others again, especially for the health and safety of the child. He could visit you whenever he wished."

  All she had to do was say yes. She could go into the house to nurse Daniel, then pack a small satchel. For an instant, it seemed within her grasp—she in her good cotton dress, seated with Mrs. Banham at the tea table. If the lady had a new baby, she couldn't be as old as her husband. She might be close to her own age. It would be such a joy to have companionship, to confide her thoughts and worries about Daniel to another mother. To lead a regular, civilized life, no longer isolated in the wilderness like some outcast.

  Gabriel would come back from the woods to an empty house. She could find a piece of paper somewhere and write him a letter, leave it beside the pot of honey. My dear Gabriel, I have gone to live with the Banhams. It would be like stabbing him in the heart. How could he bear such a betrayal?

  Richard Banham seemed to sense her discomfort. "Perhaps you wish to discuss the matter with Mr. Washbrook first. If you wish, I could return tomorrow."

  She shook her head. "No, sir. I know he would be against it. He would not want me and the baby to live in your house." There seemed no point in varnishing the facts.

  Banham let out his breath. "The man does cling to his grudges."

  Hannah dropped her head. She wondered what would happen when Gabriel lost his leasehold. It would happen eventually, even if the Banhams bore nothing but goodwill toward them. The rents on the land had not been paid since 1690, the autumn her sister had died. Regardless of all the furs Gabriel had collected, they could not afford to keep the plantation. They were squatters.

  "Is there nothing I can say to convince you?" He was certainly patient, almost as if he were paying court. Immediately she blushed and pushed the ridiculous notion away. Richard Banham would never court a woman like her. No doubt his father would find him some highborn virgin whose portion included several hundred acres.

  "No," she said. "I am wed to him in my heart even if not in a church. My place is beside him." Her ringless hand moved up and down Daniel's back. She had left her pearl and ruby ring in the Bible box lest she muck it up with garden dirt.

  Young Banham bowed. "I shall leave you in peace. But if you will pardon the liberty, I shall pay you another visit in the summer to see how you and the child fare." Clapping his hat back on his head, he mounted his horse.

  Hannah raised her face to the bruised sky. "Travel home in good speed, sir, before the rain comes."

  He waved to her before trotting back into the woods.

  The clouds seemed low enough to touch the treetops. Hannah imagined them opening to drown her. Heavy rain would make the bay mare's hoof prints vanish; Gabriel would never have to know Richard Banham had come to call. She would hide the honey at the bottom of her trunk and dole it out only if Daniel had a cough.

  ***

  Rain lashed the roof. Stirring the soup of beans, onions, and salt pork, Hannah prayed that the downpour wouldn't wash out the seeds she had planted. Their winter provisions were nearly gone. This summer, I fear, will not be as kind as the last. Richard Banham's words lingered in her mind. She imagined the rain pelting his golden head as he spurred his mare through the forest. God willing, he would make it home safely without catching the grippe.

  She had washed his handkerchief and hung it over the fire to dry. His initials stood out, embroidered in bold crimson. Had his stepmother or one of his sisters sewn him the handkerchief, or had he ordered it from a shop in Oxford? He must have cut quite a figure dressed in the black robes of a scholar. What would it have been like to be courted by a learned man, a man of the law? She dropped her spoon into the soup, then scalded her fingers when she fished it out. The heat and smoke from the fire were making her dizzy. She imagined herself legally wed to a man who owned an entire shelf of books. If she betrayed Gabriel, it was only in her thoughts. It was the loneliness that was making her half mad, the doubts and rumors hanging over them like a cloud. Surely people had been driven to lunacy by enduring less than what she had been forced to bear. Her sister buried in unhallowed ground as though she were a criminal or a suicide.

  Outside, Ruby barked, and was answered by a chorus of baying dogs. Gabriel was back. Snatching the damp handkerchief, she stuffed it through the opening in her skirt and into the pocket bag that hung from her waist. She turned stiffly as the door banged open and he stumbled in, water streaming off his deerskin hat and coat. Mud dripped off his sodden boots. His breeches, too, were soaked.

  "Crossing the creek, I stumbled," he muttered. "The traps do weigh me down." He could hardly speak for his shivering. When he shrugged off the traps, they hit the floor with a clatter that made Daniel wail.

  "Hush, don't cry." Hannah scooped him off the floor. "That is your father."

  Gabriel pulled off his hat, spraying water across Hannah's face. With his damp hair plastered to his skull, he looked like a stranger come out of the woods.

  "Get those wet things off." She kept her voice brisk and practical. "Hang them near the fire."

  Soon he was stripped naked, shaking and
chilled. Setting Daniel down, she took a cloth and rubbed Gabriel dry, working as dispassionately as she used to with her father's patients. She took one of the deerskins from the bed and wrapped it around his shoulders, then sat him down and gave him a pan of warm water in which to soak his feet.

  "You are good to me, Hannah." He lifted his hand to touch her face.

  "When the beans are soft, we can eat the soup." She made her voice sound gentle. She loved him, she believed him. She had told Banham she was wedded to Gabriel in her heart. The ring was back on her finger. "I will fry you some griddle cakes."

  Daniel was still crying.

  "Give him to me," Gabriel said.

  "You are too chilled to hold him." Hannah picked up the baby, bounced him on her hip, and set him down again. Then she went into the pantry. They had nearly reached the bottom of the salt pork barrel, and she reckoned only a week's supply of corn-meal remained. How could this be? The previous year, the corn-meal had lasted until the first runner beans were ripe and the river was leaping with fish. But this winter had been long, the spring late, and nursing the baby gave her such an appetite. She was eating more than she ever had, and yet she kept getting thinner.

  She heard Gabriel's footsteps across the floorboards, the clank of metal hitting metal. The baby cried again. Rushing out of the pantry, she saw Gabriel, still naked, picking the traps off the floor. "I cannot leave these here," he said. "The child might get at them." His face was white with cold and his teeth were chattering.

  "Gabriel, you do not look well." She took his arm and led him to bed. "Rest here a while." She tucked him under the blankets and skins. "I will hang up the traps."

  "On the pegs." He pointed.

  The traps were heavy, massive, the metal slippery in her hands. Their jaws were shut now and couldn't snap her fingers. The rusted teeth had grown dull over the winter, but Gabriel would hone them again. He would oil and polish them, sharpen each metal point. A dull trap was far crueler than a primed one, though slow death from a broken bleeding limb was agonizing in any case. She couldn't help thinking of May's smooth white leg, her grave by the river.

  ***

  That night, having recovered from his chill, Gabriel embraced her in bed. He kissed her the way he used to when they first fell in love. "We can still be tender, Hannah."

  She kissed him back so he wouldn't think anything was amiss. When he pushed her thighs apart and stroked her, she wanted to tell him to stop. It was no use. Since having Daniel, her body below the waist had become a lifeless thing, her old hunger gone.

  "Hannah, what is it? Don't you want me anymore?"

  Numbly she kissed him. If she pretended to feel something, it would comfort him. While he kept stroking her insistently, she closed her eyes and imagined Richard Banham. His face and his fair hair. The way he had looked at her when he said, I did hear you singing. The hurt in his eyes when he said, Do you think it a game? She sat behind him on the mare, wrapped her arms around his chest as the mare moved beneath her, taking them through the forest. If such thoughts were traitorous, at least no harm could come of them. Richard Banham was so far beyond her reach, she might as well be dreaming about the King.

  The old hunger awakened, her body unfolding, opening up. Waves moved through her, mounting until they crashed. Eyes still closed, she blindly kissed Gabriel, reached out to stroke him, and whispered his name.

  ***

  The next morning as the rain drummed down, Gabriel sat by the fire and sharpened his traps with the same whetstone he used for his hunting knife. He worked with patience, humming under his breath. He did not seem the least bit concerned about dwindling cornmeal.

  Meanwhile Hannah washed the dirty clothes in rainwater. "What will happen when the rent collectors come?"

  Gabriel nodded toward the rain-blurred window and laughed. "Let them try coming upriver in this weather."

  Hannah thought of the path young Richard had taken through the forest. Soon the way would become treacherous. His mare would sink up to her knees in the mud.

  "We cannot stay here forever," she said, scrubbing mud out of Gabriel's breeches. "One day they will come and drive us off the land."

  Gabriel did not miss a single stroke of stone against metal. "The land stretches on forever. They might drive us from this house, but I could build another one. We will just wander out of their reach. Remember, Hannah, we are not like other people. We are not beholden to anyone."

  ***

  The cornmeal ran out, but Gabriel told her they would never be hungry. He went into the forest and returned with a plump rabbit. When he slit its belly, there were six little rabbits inside.

  Rain kept falling. Each evening at twilight, Hannah crushed snails in the garden before they could destroy the seedlings. While waiting for the garden to grow, they supped on eggs, goat's milk, and new dandelion leaves. Gabriel slaughtered a kid goat. Hannah thought of the jar of honey hidden inside her trunk.

  She hoed eggshells and chicken manure into the garden, hacked up the bloody kid bones with Gabriel's ax and mixed them into the soil, too. The earth demanded blood. When the apple and cherry trees blossomed and the first strawberries ripened, she told herself they were over the worst. But the rain also brought a terrible crop of mosquitoes, far worse than anything she remembered from the previous year. Even in the house, with the door and windows closed, there was no escape. They came down the chimney and through the chinks in the walls. Their bites covered poor Daniel's skin and left him howling. She had to coat him in bear grease. At night Daniel screamed with teething pains. She fed him goat's milk, chicken broth, and mashed strawberries. It was time he was weaned; the erratic diet had dried up her milk. As long as he ate and kept growing, she could hope. She prayed over him as he learned to crawl. By the time the cherries were ripe, he seemed more like a little boy than a baby. Summer dragged on, bringing more mosquitoes. They whined in Hannah's ears each night, even plagued Gabriel, who had seemed impervious to them before.

  When she looked back to the previous summer, Hannah began to believe that it was only the buoyancy of their new love that had raised them above the hardship. As the garden grew, she picked caterpillars off the young cabbages. She and Gabriel fought the insects over every ear of maize, praying they would have enough to see them through the winter.

  ***

  One sweltering afternoon, when she was pulling tassels off the maize, the dogs began barking wildly. She swung around to see Richard Banham and his horse at the garden gate. The sun shone on his golden hair and dazzling white shirt as he stroked Ruby. In his withy enclosure, Daniel squealed at their visitor.

  "Good day to you, Mistress Powers. I see your son has flourished since I saw him last." He extended his hand to Daniel, who seized his thumb and grinned.

  Tingling with gratitude, Hannah came to the gate. His voice was sincere; if he said her boy looked healthy, then it must be so.

  He rested his hand on the gate, a few inches from hers. "I did come again, as promised."

  "Sir, you are kind." Basking in her visitor's company, she smiled, then lowered her eyes. "Truly."

  "How does your garden grow?"

  She waved her hand toward the maize. "Every day I pluck off the caterpillars and weevils. A daily battle, it is. I do not know how people get on when they have acres of tobacco besides."

  Banham was about to say something when the dogs started up again. Hannah took a step back from the gate when she saw Gabriel coming. He had been chopping wood and carried the ax in one hand.

  "What brings you here?" Gabriel slapped the blunt end of the ax against his palm. "Did your father send you?"

  Banham bowed. "Good day to you, Master Washbrook. I come with a gift for your household."

  "We need no gifts from you."

  "Gabriel." Hannah's throat was dry and tight.

  Eyes locked on Banham, he ignored her.

  Richard Banham's eyes moved warily over the ax. "This gift, I fear, might be indispensable in the next weeks." He cast a quic
k glance at Hannah before looking back at Gabriel. "I bring no trifles this time, but a pound of cinchona bark in case your supply runs low."

  "What do you mean this time?" Gabriel's eyes were on Hannah now. "Do you mean to say you have come on previous errands bearing trifles?"

  "Only the honey, Mr. Washbrook. I had assumed Mistress Powers told you."

  "Honey." His voice was incredulous. "What do you say to this, Hannah? Did he come with a gift of honey for you?"

  "Mr. Washbrook, I rode out in early April, only to ask after her welfare." Banham spoke with quiet diplomacy, like his father. "It was meant in the spirit of being neighborly."

  Even with her eyes closed, Hannah could feel Gabriel's stare. "You concealed both the gift and the visit from me?" he asked her.

  Somewhere in the farthest reaches of her mind, she saw her sister spinning. May did not see her, did not look at her anymore. May had washed her hands of her.

  "Mr. Washbrook, I hardly think this is cause for you to berate the woman."

  Hannah cringed and stumbled away. So that was how Richard Banham thought of her—simply as Gabriel Washbrook's woman.

  "Mister Banham." Gabriel mocked his civil tone. "I think it is time for you to leave."

  Something inside her snapped. "Listen to yourself!" The anger surging through her gave her the courage to look Gabriel in the eye. "Why must you make everyone your enemy?"

  The muscles in his face twitched.

  "Will you make me your enemy as well?" she demanded. Marching out the garden gate, she climbed over the wall of Daniel's enclosure, picked him up, and went to Banham. "Sir, on my son's behalf, I accept your gift."

  Richard Banham looked from her to Gabriel. His eyelashes, she noted, were sandy and thick. He went to his saddle bag and pulled out a cloth sack, which he handed to her.

  "I thank you," she said. "God willing, we may one day be in a position to repay your kindness."