Which Way Home?

by Linda Byler

  Hester gave Miranda the black shawl and hat. Hester’s fingers moved restlessly on the black handle of her satchel; her heart beat loudly in her ears as her eyes took in the sheer grandeur of this house.

  The stairway was almost as big as Heinz Hoffman’s whole house. The foyer, the hallway with the adjoining library and receiving room, would hold five or six of the poor hovels.

  She had not known that wallpaper existed. Flowers and leaves and birds on a wall were unthinkable. How did they get there on that paper? How did the scrolls of paper get stuck to the walls?

  “Are you listening?” The woman’s voice came from far away.

  “Oh, yes, yes, of course.”

  “I am Cassandra Breckenridge. I am pleased to make your acquaintance. I gather you are Hester King.”

  “Yes.”

  “My daughter is very sick. The doctors are puzzled.”

  Hester nodded.

  “You may follow me.”

  Hester followed at a polite distance, the brilliantly flowered skirt bobbing up the stairs ahead of her, the ruffles sweeping the dust carefully as she moved. A white hand with four short fat fingers trailed along the gleaming banister, each one circled by jeweled rings either gold or what she supposed were diamonds. She had never seen diamonds, or any precious stones, so how would she know?

  The room they entered was a vision of pink tulle and huge puffy roses on the wallpaper, as if someone had dreamed of this room and placed it here. The bed was high and deep and wide, the coverlet of white as pure as snow.

  The girl reclining on the pillow was short and round-faced, like her mother. Her hair resembled spun gold, with waves that reminded Hester of a pool of water when the wind disturbed it. Her face was flushed, her blue eyes bright with fever, the lids drooping with the weariness of the sick.

  A tall glass of water stood on the round-skirted table by her bed, next to a box that held what Hester supposed were confections, a new sweet Bappie had spoken of, which the English brought across the ocean from their home country.

  “Cynthia, this is Hester. She is a plain lady from the Amish. She has herbal decoctions to make you better.”

  A look of sulphuric, hissing blue was cast in Hester’s direction. The pink lips blossomed prettily into a pout of steely rebellion. “I won’t take it.”

  Instantly, a fluttering and whining began, a tearful pleading that led to hysteria, the mother hovering and bowing as she begged.

  “Won’t do it.”

  Hester stood, waiting till the mother settled down.

  Finally, she said, “Tell her where it hurts.”

  “No.”

  “Darling girl, oh, please, please, please obey your mother.”

  “I want to talk to her,” Hester said.

  Dipping and swaying, perspiring effusively, the mother settled herself on a chair, moaning softly to herself.

  “Can you tell me?” Hester ventured carefully.

  “My stomach.”

  “Top or bottom?”

  The girl widened her eyes, her eyebrows lowered, as she pouted prettily. “It just hurts.”

  She allowed Hester to feel the swollen abdomen.

  What had the book said? The old grandmother? Hester felt the stomach, which was swollen a bit, but not hard. She needed to summon the courage to inquire of this wealthy woman questions only a doctor should be asking.

  Hester drew down the girl’s soft, pink nightgown, replaced the covers, and gave her a gentle pat and a shy smile. Turning to the still moaning mother, she crossed her arms tightly below her chest and coughed lightly, self-consciously biding her time. She would not be able to ask of her a question so dubious, so personal.

  The delicate apparition on the chair had ceased to moan and had taken out a well-used crocheted handkerchief. Flinging it over her nose, she began a wailing that made Hester decide to speak before she brought more sickness to her poor daughter.

  “Mrs. Breckenridge, please don’t.”

  From the bed, the fever-bright eyes turned toward the mother and a sour expression came down over her face like a gray, mottled cloud. “Oh, Mother, shut up.”

  The words were spoken wearily and without respect, her spoiled face turning into a caricature of her mother’s weeping one before a triumphant smile stretched across her face.

  “Does Cynthia have …” Hester hesitated. “Does she, are her, um, are her bowels loose?”

  Hester’s face flamed with embarrassment. These things simply were not spoken for anyone to hear, except perhaps a doctor.

  Immediately the mother ceased her wet, sloppy crying and dabbed indelicately at her eyes, her head held to one side, alert. “I don’t know.”

  From the bed came the angry, “How would you? You never empty the chamber pots. Miranda does.”

  “Honey, do you have, um, what she asked?”

  Indifferently, Cynthia shrugged her shoulders. “Ask Miranda. She knows.”

  With that, she flipped on her side. Up came the covers over her fever-red face as she burrowed beneath them like a squirrel.

  Whimpering, the mother bustled out of the room, her shrill voice preceding her, calling the servant.

  She reentered with the fast-breathing, portly Miranda in tow. Hester spent a few awkward moments, unsure of what she should do—go to the bed and question the sick girl herself, or leave it to the housekeeper?

  She viewed the beautiful room with appreciative eyes again. She stroked the glossy top of a dresser to be sure it wasn’t wet. How could anything wooden shine like that? Her hand dropped to her side as the mother disappeared out of the door with Miranda, and then just as quickly returned with her, urging her to speak.

  “Yes, yes, she do. She have the looseness. She sick. Her stomach not right. Course not. The doctor? What those doctors do? Nothin’. They don’t do nothin’. They don’t know what wrong with her.”

  Hester stood still. She saw the old Indian woman, her hand going to her stomach. She spoke of the pains, the things to take. So many different ones. So many herbs, and the matter of finding the right one.

  She was feverish, this young girl, which spoke of infection. Hester had listened closely as the old Indian woman spoke of the fermented juice of apples, mixed with the salt she gathered at the salt licks by the “waters.” Her black eyes had snapped with enthusiasm, and she laughed, a cracked, rough sound of triumph about the taste, but, she had whispered to Hester, the healing would not fail. She had never seen it fail.

  Going to Cynthia’s bed, Hester gently peeled back the covers. “If I bring some medicine, will you take it, even if it doesn’t taste good?”

  “No!” The scream was high-pitched, defiant, sure.

  “If I mix it with juice?”

  “No! The doctors all do that!”

  Again, Cassandra, the hovering mother, began picking at the pink coverlet, her voice pleading, cajoling, promising her sick daughter anything her heart desired, if only she would take what Hester asked.

  “No!”

  Miranda plucked at Hester’s sleeve and led her out of the room. “What you need?”

  “Vinegar and salt.”

  “I have both. Come with me.”

  Together, they moved down the wide staircase, back the wide, gleaming hallway, down another flight of stairs, and into a kitchen that seemed to have no end. A huge fireplace, two cookstoves, a deep sink with a drainer board on each side, and so many pans and pots and dishes, Hester could not imagine the uses for all of them.

  Miranda moved to the far wall, opened a wide door to a pantry lined with shelves, and got down a jug. “Vinegar.”

  Hester found the salt, measured it, then poured in the vinegar, enough to make a liquid.

  Miranda’s round brown eyes searched Hester’s face. “You’ll not do the young miss harm?”

  “No, this will not harm her.”

  Miranda lowered her voice, held a palm against the side of her cheek, and whispered, “That little miss is full of worms, that’s what. She eat sugar all the
time. Breakfast, cookies. Dinner, pie. All day long.”

  Hester smiled. “This will help.”

  “How you getting it in her?”

  “I think she’ll take it.”

  “Hmph.”

  They passed two African girls lugging baskets of clothes, their hair done with dozens of colorful ribbons within their braids. They were pretty, their faces wreathed in smiles as they met Miranda.

  When Hester and Miranda entered the room, the scene had not changed except for Cassandra’s elevated hysterics, her daughter a lump beneath the covers, unresponsive.

  Hester felt her patience snap. “Everyone leave the room,” she barked in a voice that carried well, brought the mother’s face, astonished, toward her, and sent Miranda scuttling from the room, her black eyes rolling in her head, the whites showing her fear and respect for this tall, dark woman.

  “I will not leave,” Cassandra said, her face a solid mask of resolve.

  “Your daughter will not live then.” Hester placed the bottle and spoon by the bed, picked up her black satchel, and prepared to leave.

  Instantly, two fat, white hands fluttered in her direction. “I’ll go, I’ll go. Only please, please don’t hurt my darling. Don’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to.”

  Hester’s answer was a steely gaze. Slowly, the mother backed from the room, a hand to her heaving chest, another going to her trembling mouth.

  As soon as the door closed behind her, Hester turned, flung off the covers, and said, “Sit up.”

  “No.”

  Firmly, Hester grasped the girl’s shoulders, turned her, and sat her up. Keeping her hands on her arms, she lowered her face, her dark eyes compelling, and said only one sentence in a voice to be feared. “You have a badly infected stomach.”

  Cynthia nodded, wide-eyed with fear.

  “Take this.” Pouring out a measure, she put it to the girl’s mouth. Keeping her hand on her forearm, she held it against her lips. When Cynthia turned her head away Hester turned it back. Quietly, and not ungently, she remained firm until Cynthia obediently opened her mouth and swallowed all of it.

  “I don’t like it,” she cried.

  “You’ll get used to it. I’m staying here to give you this every two hours all night long. You will get better if you obey.”

  Hester did not praise, neither did she scold. She merely did not relent. And Cynthia took the medicine two hours later and cried again.

  The mother and Miranda stayed out of the room, although Hester had to have a conference with them in the hallway, telling them Cynthia would not live if they interfered and the medicine was not taken.

  So steady was Hester’s trust in the voice of the Indian grandmother, she never doubted the ancient remedy. Not once.

  CHAPTER 23

  WHEN THE MOTHER DARED TO OPEN HER DAUGHter’s bedroom door late that evening, only wide enough to peer into the room unnoticed, she could not believe her eyes.

  Hester sat on the bed cross-legged, leaning forward in the soft, yellow light from the oil lamp. She was holding both hands up, her long, tapered fingers spread with a length of string wound through them. Cynthia was following Hester’s instructions—right then left, over then under—giggling. Her face was alight with the interest she felt. When the string was pulled and every intricate loop loosened in perfect symmetry, Hester clapped her hands. Cynthia squealed, bouncing up and down on the bed.

  When Miranda tapped on the door, the girl told her to come in, her eyes going to Hester’s face, questioning.

  Hester nodded.

  The glistening dark face of the housekeeper was followed by the anxious white one of the distraught mother. They stood side by side, short and buxom, their arms pressed to their stomachs, their eyes wide with the wonder of the scene before them.

  Hester stayed the night, sleeping only a few hours on the chaise lounge in the opulent bedroom. Precisely every two hours, she gave the child the bitter mixture, followed by an offering of milk or custard or thin sugar wafers, all of which she petulantly denied.

  In the morning, the fever had lessened noticeably, Cynthia’s glassy eyes had returned to their normal blue, and her flushed cheeks were pale and smooth.

  With strict orders to the mother and Miranda, Hester warned of a recurring infection if the girl’s earlier diet was not changed. She could have sweets only occasionally and only after other substantial fare.

  Cassandra Breckenridge pressed a wad of bills into Hester’s hand. The mother’s gratitude was as outsized as the floral wallpaper, resulting in words of praise and flattery tumbling over themselves. Hester quickly put on her large black hat, as if to protect herself from the vanity that could so easily strip her of the humility and submission she was committed to. She was, after all, of the Amish faith and not given to vain words that blew oneself out of proportion, larger than truth.

  She pinned her black shawl securely about her shoulders and prepared to be driven back to the safety of Mulberry Street.

  “You look like a witch.” This observation came from the bed where the child lay propped up.

  Laughing, Hester untied her hat, went to the bedside, and kissed the girl’s cheek. “I’m not a witch. I just dress Amish.”

  “I know.” As if to make up for the blunt speech, Cynthia threw her arms about Hester’s waist, clinging to her as if she’d never let her go. “Come back to see me, please?” she whispered.

  Hester stroked the silky, flaxen hair, her hand going to the smooth roundness of her cheek. “I will. I’ll come see you soon. And bring you carrots and turnips and parsnips.”

  Cynthia wrinkled her nose.

  Bappie was anxious but resigned to the fact that Hester’s comings and goings would eventually be a routine part of their lives.

  “After the Breckenridges, who knows what will happen? You better hope the bishops allow this. You know there are quite a few of our members who look on these old healing remedies as witchcraft.”

  “Ach, Bappie.” Hester shook her head as if to erase the threat of being unable to practice the use of her medicines.

  “I mean it. Look at the warning I got.”

  “But I’m not on the town square, hawking my wares.”

  Bappie cast her a level look beneath lowered lashes. “No, you just ride in fancy carriages with lovelorn grooms.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Exactly what I said.”

  Hester’s face flamed with shame. Her fault again. How could she ever stop this? “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “Sorry for what?”

  “That the groom was … like that.”

  Bappie rose from her chair, her movement too quick, too calculated. She went to the window and peered between the wooden panes to the gray, windswept streets of the town. For only a moment, the longing, the dissatisfaction of being an older, single woman, barren and unnoticed, crossed her face.

  “Ah, Hester. Dear girl. Of course it’s not your fault. You can’t help that any more than a dandelion seed can help being torn from its stem and whirled away on fickle April winds. Only God knows where that seed will go and what will become of it.”

  “I wish I was like you, Bappie.” Hester spoke harshly and fast.

  “No, you don’t. You don’t. You will never have to know what it’s like to never be noticed, to never be asked to be someone’s wife.”

  “And you, Bappie, will never know what it’s like to shrink within yourself when men look at you with that leering expression. I hate it.”

  Bappie only nodded.

  They sat together in silence, each protected by the solitude of her own thoughts. The fire crackled and burned, the steam rose slowly from the bubbling pot on the hook. Outside, a branch scraped against the wooden siding of the house, a brittle leaf was hurled against the windowpane.

  “Think you’ll always be a widow?”

  The words frightened Hester. Like being pushed off a cliff, she was being confronted by the yawning, unknown depths ahead of her. It was
much too complicated to answer Bappie’s innocent question.

  Failing to be a good wife, failing to provide William with sons and daughters, angering Francis, Hans, and Johnny, and their intentions gone awry, the puzzle was too difficult to figure out.

  And yet. She longed for something she didn’t fully understand. She wanted the same kind of union she observed with Hans and Kate. That easiness. That toughness, the comfortable happiness. Was that kind of union possible only for special people like Kate? Likely.

  In answer, she shrugged her shoulders.

  Bappie nodded. Sighing, she said quietly, “Well, Hester, what say we cover the garden really well with about a foot of good horse manure.”

  “And where do you plan on getting it?”

  “From that cranky old Levi.”

  “You mean Levi Buehler? Surely he’d want to spread it on his own fields, which are lying fallow at this time of year.”

  “His wife is sick.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Wouldn’t know.”

  Bundled into heavy shawls, scarves, and gloves, they hitched faithful Silver to the courting buggy and drove off down Mulberry Street, past the livery, the wheelwright, and the candle shop, into the open road that led away from the town. Everything was bare and brown and windblown. Every crevice was filled with leaves, every tree branch, etched against the gray sky, moved back and forth, tossed by the stiff November breeze.

  Pieces of torn cornstalks whirled across the road, but Silver merely pricked up his ears and hopped across them. The straps on his haunches lifted, then fell with a flapping sound as he ran.

  An oncoming team pulled abreast. They both lifted their hands to wave at Frances and Elias. Frances’s white face was hidden well by the sides of her great hat. Elias sat stiffly, his black hat positioned squarely on his head, the brim wide and flapping, his hair cut well below his ears.

  “Shoo!” Bappie whistled. She looked at Hester. “Your cap tied?”

  Hester meant to nod without acknowledging the pious severity of William’s family, but a smile played at the corners of her mouth, tugging it into a reluctant smile, and then a wide grin. Finally she burst into a startling laugh that ended up being flung into the air, joined by Bappie’s lusty guffaw, and whirled away.