Around the River's Bend

by Aaron McCarver

  A sound overhead caught her attention, and she looked up into the cold sky. A flock of geese were winging their way toward the west, and she watched their flight until they disappeared. “I wish I could fly away like you,” she muttered. Then she shook her head in disgust. I’ve got to stop talking to myself. It’s getting to be a bad habit. It was, as a matter of fact, a long-standing habit, but it had never bothered Sabrina until recently.

  Sabrina was finding life with her aunt nearly intolerable, for Elberta was not an easy woman to live with—and that was putting it mildly. She was a miserly woman, and although Sabrina realized this was a necessity, she could not help resenting it. She had managed to come out of the wreckage of the financial morass her father had left with less than a hundred pounds, and she had given a quarter of this to her aunt. Sabrina hoarded the rest, not telling Elberta of it, and every night before she went to bed she took out the diamond necklace and the ruby ring and held them in her hands for a long time. At least here was something more than abject poverty.

  Now Sabrina turned back wearily into the house and began to gather the ingredients for a simple stew. Her aunt had gone down the street to visit a sick neighbor and had charged Sabrina with going to the greengrocer and the butcher to get a few groceries. She had given her a few coins, and Sabrina had spent them all. But now as she stood looking at the tiny morsel of meat she had been able to buy, the memory of the hams and legs of mutton and sides of bacon that used to adorn the kitchen in her old home came to her. The small bit she had brought home today would have gotten lost or thrown away as excess in that kitchen!

  The afternoon sun was sinking toward the horizon, and Sabrina knew that if she did not start the meal that her Aunt Elberta would not let her forget it. She had already received many lectures on how she was not a lady of property now and would have to learn to work along with the rest of them!

  A touch on her calf startled her, and she looked down to see Ulysses staring up at her. “Hungry, are you? Well, here’s a bit because you’re such a good boy!” Ulysses took the bit of meat from her hand. She stroked his fur, thinking of the argument she’d had with her aunt over the cat. Elberta had insisted she get rid of Ulysses, that it would be an extra expense, but Sabrina had won the argument. She stooped to pick up the cat. “You’re my best friend, aren’t you?” She felt him purr and held him tightly until he protested, then put him down and turned her attention to the meal.

  Sabrina had never learned how to cook and had made several mistakes that wasted food, burning a steak beyond the state of edibility, for one, and now as she sat at the table cutting up vegetables for the stew, she suddenly felt the enormity of her downfall. For short periods of time she was able to forget it, but then the thought of where she had been and where she now was would come on her and almost crush her with an intolerable weight.

  Suddenly she heard a knock and with a start realized she had been sitting there bitterly thinking of her life and making no progress on the stew for some time. She got to her feet and wiped her hands on her apron. She wore a scarf around her hair, for bathing was a luxury she had learned to live without. Elberta had no tub, and the only bathing possible was with a basin.

  Sabrina strode to the door and opened it to see Sir Charles Stratton standing there.

  “Hello, Sabrina.”

  “Hello, Charles.” Sabrina was suddenly aware of the difference in Stratton’s attitude. He had taken his hat off, but he was studying her with distaste. No wonder, she thought. I look like a charwoman. “Come in, Charles.”

  “I can’t stay but a moment,” Stratton said as he stepped inside.

  “Won’t you have a seat?”

  “No, thank you, I just came by to see if there was anything I could do for you. How are you getting on?”

  “Very well.”

  “I know it’s been very hard on you.”

  Sabrina shrugged her shoulders. “It hasn’t been easy.”

  “I thought I had better come by and see what I could do in the way of finances.”

  Sabrina’s head lifted. “What do you mean ‘in the way of finances’?”

  “Well, let’s be honest with each other, Sabrina,” Stratton said. He moved his hat around in his hands nervously. “I know your father made some unwise decisions.”

  “It seems everyone knows that.”

  “Well, it’s common talk.”

  “I’m sure it is. Now, what is the intent of your visit?”

  “Well, you must need money, my dear.” Stratton reached into his inner pocket and came out with an envelope. “I’ve thought a great deal about it, and I want you to have this.” He extended the envelope and stood waiting expectantly.

  For one moment Sabrina almost reached out and took the envelope. She certainly needed money badly enough. And she was not really angry with Charles Stratton. Sabrina was not naïve where people were concerned. She might not know how to cook, but she had been born with a sense of what people were like. Ever since she was a young girl she had found this talent to be very useful.

  “What you’re saying is good-bye, isn’t it, Charles?”

  “Why, of course not!”

  But Sabrina knew better. Charles Stratton would never marry a penniless woman. Sabrina Fairfax, the daughter of a wealthy man, was one thing, but Sabrina Fairfax, a penniless woman, was another. Sabrina was well aware that Charles had wrestled with trying to find a way to say good-bye to her gracefully. She understood instantly that his offer of money seemed to him the easiest way of doing it. This did not surprise her. Charles was no different from most men, she had long ago decided. A woman to him was an ornament, and if the ornament came with a fortune, why, so much the better. But as much as Sabrina needed the money, she would not accept it.

  “Thank you, Charles. It was kind of you to offer, but I can’t accept it.”

  Stratton’s jaw dropped. “Don’t be foolish, Sabrina!” he said sharply. “You need the money. Take it.”

  “Thank you, Charles. I think you’d better go now.”

  A flush suffused his cheeks. Angrily he stuffed the envelope back into his pocket and said stiffly, “Well, I trust you’ll have a good day.”

  “Thank you for coming by, Charles.”

  Stratton whirled and jammed his hat down over his head. He jerked the door open and let it slam behind him with a resounding bang.

  “Well, good-bye to you, Sir Charles,” Sabrina said aloud. She went back to the table and resumed cutting vegetables. She was surprised to find herself singularly undisturbed by the conversation. She had already said good-bye in her mind to Charles Stratton, knowing that he would never pursue her now that she had lost her fortune.

  She had finished chopping the vegetables and put the stew on the fire when she heard the door closing. Aunt Elberta came in and said, “I’m worried about Mrs. Peterson. That’s a bad sickness she’s got. We’ll have to take her some of the stew.” She lifted the lid on the pot. “You’ve got too many carrots in there.”

  “I’m sorry, Aunt Elberta.”

  Elberta stared with dismay into the pot. “And you cut them up too small. You have to leave them larger than that or they’ll just dissolve.”

  “I’ll learn how, I suppose, in time.”

  Elberta shook her head with disapproval. “Did you finish splitting and stacking the wood as I asked you to do?”

  “Yes, it’s all done.” Sabrina was careful to always answer Elberta in an even tone. The woman was extremely hard to live with, but no one else had volunteered to take her in.

  “Did anyone call?”

  “Charles Stratton.”

  “Sir Charles! He came here?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “What did he want? Did he ask you out?”

  “He came to say good-bye.”

  “What do you mean good-bye?”

  Sabrina was tired. She had worked hard all morning at menial tasks. She was a strong young woman, but housework was not something she could do with much cheer. It always disc
ouraged her and reminded her that she no longer had servants. She said coolly, “That was what he really came for. He offered to buy me off.”

  “Buy you off! What are you talking about?”

  “He offered to give me money so that he would have a clear conscience for not having anything else to do with me, Aunt Elberta.”

  “He didn’t say anything like that. He couldn’t! He’s too much of a gentleman.”

  “He didn’t say it out loud, but that’s what it was for.”

  “How much did he give you?”

  The avarice in her aunt’s voice was obvious. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t take it.”

  Anger danced in Elberta’s eyes. “Didn’t take it! Why not? Have you lost your mind? You need all the money you can get.”

  “I don’t need his money.”

  “You’re not too proud to come and live off my charity! I can’t see why you’re too proud to take money from him.”

  The barbed remark stirred Sabrina’s anger. She started to answer but then realized that if she answered as she was tempted to there would be an unpleasant period lasting for several days. Elberta could not take being crossed, and she knew how to make life totally unbearable. “I just couldn’t take it,” Sabrina said quietly, then got up and went outside. She buried her head in her hands and struggled against the tears that threatened to come. “I’ve got to stay here,” she said. “There’s no place else for me to go.”

  ****

  For the next few weeks Sabrina managed to endure her aunt Elberta’s endless criticism. Sabrina was a determined young woman and always thought she could do anything she set her mind to. She got up each morning mentally prepared for her aunt’s cutting remarks and constant criticism. She had long ago given up hope of doing anything that pleased the woman. The only thing she could do now was try to keep as much peace as possible between them.

  She had, during this time, met with two of her old friends, but it had been a painful meeting in each case. Both of them had tried to appear as though nothing had happened, but it was obvious to Sabrina that she was now not one whose friendship was highly regarded. As a matter of fact, she saw that she embarrassed both of them as they tried to show a sprightly interest. Why should they be interested in her life? Were they interested in making a few pence to buy food for two women? Could they take any possible interest in making old clothes over to last longer?

  Sabrina gained some wisdom from these two encounters. She saw in her friends the woman she once had been. “I would have done exactly the same if one of them had been in my position and I still had money,” she muttered. This came as a bitter truth to Sabrina. She had led a shallow, selfish life without realizing it, and now she was reaping some of the results.

  One late February day the pastor came to visit. She seated him by the fire, and he twisted his hat nervously between sips of his tea. His name was Simms, and Sabrina had seen him only in the pulpit, except on two occasions when he had called at the house. That had been months ago, and now as Rev. Simms sat in her aunt’s humble cottage, Sabrina realized that he was at a loss. His parish was composed primarily of wealthy people, and he knew well how to deal with their problems. But as she watched him squirm and try to make conversation, she realized he had no idea at all what to say to her.

  Finally, after a five-minute struggle to keep the conversation going, Rev. Simms put his cup down and said, “I’m so very sorry for your loss, Miss Fairfax. Your father was a good man.”

  “Yes, he was,” Sabrina said and offered no more.

  Simms looked around the room, which offered no evidence of wealth, and said, “I trust that you’re—” He broke off and then stood to his feet. “If there’s anything, my dear Miss Fairfax, that I can do, I pray that you will let me know.”

  “Of course, Rev. Simms.”

  Simms was turning his hat even more rapidly, and Sabrina knew that he was not yet finished with his mission. He had come, she realized, with something definite to say and wondered what in the world it could be.

  “I think I should mention that we have a certain fund, which is under my hand.”

  “A fund? What kind of fund, Rev. Simms?”

  “Well, it’s—it’s for those who are in need.”

  “The paupers’ fund,” Sabrina said, and polar ice was never colder than her eyes. “Thank you, Reverend. I’m not quite a pauper yet.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean to offend you, but obviously—”

  “Thank you for coming by, sir.” She ushered the clergyman out and refrained from slamming the door. Instead, she forced herself to close it gently, then stiffened and leaned back against it. She felt like screaming and cursing and pulling her hair, but again she refrained from following her first instinct. “He meant well,” she whispered. “But deliver me from people who mean well!”

  ****

  When Sabrina had moved out of the house, she had dumped all of the papers from her father’s desk drawers into a bag with the intention of sorting through them later. With her aunt gone for the morning, now was as good a time as any. There were letters from people of all sorts—some from twenty and thirty years earlier—bills, notes, and old legal documents, most of them musty with age.

  Sabrina had no thought of finding anything worthwhile, but she checked every document just in case it was something she had need of. She read some of the love letters that her parents had sent to each other, trying to go back to the time when her mother had been alive. She missed her mother, who had been a soft-spoken, gentle woman who had left this earth at the age of thirty-three. She went over the lines of one tender love letter, thinking of the young woman who had written it and of the man who had received it, and wished that they were both still alive.

  She placed the letter with the stack of some fifteen or so items that were worth keeping. The larger pile was full of worthless things destined for the fire.

  She picked up the next item, which was a rather large envelope, and pulled two pieces from it. One proved to be a map. When she unfolded it, she did not recognize any of the places on the map, but a section of it was traced out with a heavy black line. She saw the names Holston and Cumberland. She knew that Cumberland was in England, but she had never heard of Holston.

  She wondered at the significance of the map for some time before turning to the other smaller sheet of paper that had been in the same envelope. She started reading it and realized that it was a deed. She was not, of course, an expert in law, but the deed plainly said that the property in question had been sold to Roger Fairfax, and it included the legal description. It seemed to be a rather large tract of land—some two thousand acres!

  A sudden hope came to Sabrina. “Two thousand acres! That must be worth something. And since the deed’s here, the lawyers and the creditors didn’t get it.”

  She read the deed more excitedly, and she saw that it had been signed in North Carolina. The name sounded familiar, but she could not place it. For a long time Sabrina sat there studying the map. There didn’t seem to be any large cities on it, but there were many rivers with strange names. Finally she realized with a shock that this land was not in England at all but in another country.

  But what other country? She could not tell, but she would go tomorrow to Mr. Franks. “He’ll know where it is,” she whispered. “Maybe it’ll sell for enough money so I can get out of here and start a new life.”

  ****

  The wind was chilled as Sabrina walked along the shore of the River Thames. Fishing boats were bobbing up and down, for the river was rough. The clouds rolled dirty and dark over the horizon, and the wind came ashore, making a keening noise.

  Sabrina drew her coat tighter around her throat as she went over her conversation with Mr. Franks once more in her mind. When she had shown the map and the deed to Mr. Franks, he had taken one look and said, “Why, this is in the Colonies, Miss Sabrina.”

  “The Colonies!” Sabrina had thought little about the Colonies.

  “The deed is clear, Miss Fairfax,
as much as I can tell from this far away. But, of course, things have been in a flux in that part of the world for some time. Especially the land west of the original Colonies. One would simply have to go there to find out. The land may be very valuable, or it may be worth nothing—or the deed may even be questionable. Impossible to say from this distance.”

  Sabrina stopped and stood there looking out at the river. She tried to imagine that it was the Atlantic Ocean and she was looking across at the new nation that had been borne out of the Revolution. She knew so little about that land. There were wild Indians there, she knew that much. She had heard there were large cities along the seaboard, but Franks had told her that this land lay far away, a rough land. She had never thought of leaving England, but now there was nothing here for her.

  I could sell the diamonds to get enough money for my fare to go to America. The land may be worth a great deal. The thought took her by surprise and disturbed her greatly. She couldn’t leave London! This was the only home she had ever known. She turned and walked quickly away from the river and tried to put the alien thought out of her mind. She was afraid, and she knew it. The idea of going to a strange land, knowing no one, with no profession, no friends, no relatives. Who wouldn’t be frightened?

  Suddenly she realized she was passing by the barge where she had seen the fight and thought of the man who had been beaten down. He had fought until he could not fight any longer. She stopped and stared at the barge. All signs of the fight were gone, but she remembered his courage and his strange name—Zion, was it?

  He’s from the lower class, she thought, but he has more courage than I have.

  Sabrina argued with herself for several minutes. Finally she decided, “What have I got to lose? I have nothing here—no belongings, no family, no land. I might as well go. Even if I discover that the land isn’t really mine, I haven’t lost anything! At that instant she made up her mind. “I’m going to sell the necklace and go to America!”