by Peg Kerr
Eliza smiled in relief. “Aye, thank you. You are very good.”
Susanna, brimming with hope, fetched the humble gown and was delighted when it proved to fit well enough. As Eliza shook out the gathers of the skirt and tugged at the sleeve seams to straighten them down the length of her arms, she felt comforted at the reassuring touch of the rough linen.
“You’re sure, miss, you’ll not be wishful to keep the shoes and stockings, too?” Susanna asked breathlessly.
Eliza glanced up at her and her lips twitched a little at the expression on Susanna’s face, staring at the shoes. Since Eliza was accustomed to going barefoot all summer, the soles of her feet had hard calluses. Mud was easier to wash off bare feet than embroidered silk, anyway. “No. I do not want them,” she said quietly. “Please take them away with the dress.”
As Susanna bore away her booty in triumph, the farmwife brought out a trencher of bread and mutton. Eliza sat on a bench just outside the door of the cottage to eat it under the shade of an apple tree. As she chewed, she smiled at several children who had gathered around to stare, dirty fingers in their mouths, until their mother called to them sharply to go finish weeding the bean plants in the garden. When Eliza had finished and brushed the last crumbs from her lap, she drew a dipper of water from the well to drink. The farmwife, who had been keeping a watchful eye on her as she finished her churning, now came out again to offer a napkin tied around the promised egg and hunk of cheese.
“The road at the end of this lane goes west to Wincanton, doesn’t it?” Eliza asked.
“Aye,” the woman said after due consideration. “West and a bit south. It’s that muddy, but God willing, it will take you there.”
Eliza tried to remember the names of some of the towns the carriage had passed on its journey to Kellbrooke Hall. “And is that the same road that passes Blackford and ... and goes through Ilchester?”
“As to that, I don’t know, mistress. You’ll have to ask farther along the way.”
“I see.” Eliza swallowed her disappointment and picked up the napkin with the cheese and egg. “I will, then. Thank you, and fare you well.” She set off down the lane to the road, leaving the farmwife behind her shaking her head at the strangeness of the whole business.
Returning home to Nell took Eliza a week.
She was reluctant to spend the money Robert Owen had given her, hoping to return as much of it as she could to Nell. She did use a few coins to buy bread and other food at farmhouses along the road. Carts passed her occasionally, headed for Wincanton or, farther west, to the great cheese market at Yeovil, but she simply stepped off the road to let them pass, wary of asking for rides from strangers. Inns stood at regular intervals on the road, beckoning her with the promise of warm meals cooked to order and a bed for the night, but she passed them all by, choosing instead to sleep under hedges and in barns, and once on the floor of the cottage of a friendly dairywoman. She earned her supper and breakfast the next morning there by spending several hours weeding in the garden.
The road had hills, never too steep, but the gradual rise and fall, rise and fall of the ground beneath her grew wearisome after hours of tramping every day. The third day of her journey brought rain and, with it, mud and floods. Eventually, the downpour grew so heavy and her way so difficult to see that she sought shelter in a byre. She spent the day huddled there, shivering, watching the rain drip from the roofline past the door as around her cows chewed their cuds and doves cooed in the eaves overhead. A scrawny tabby cat came up to sniff delicately at her ankles in an inquisitive fashion and then settled down, purring, at her feet. She sat beside it in the straw and stroked its back for a long time, thinking. Now that she had decided upon her course, she felt increasingly eager to be back with Nell— back home, she corrected herself. Remembering what her father had said at their last meeting still gave her pain. But she was by nature a hopeful person, and as she brooded about it, she slowly came to understand that by disowning her, the Earl had in a way freed her, too. The constraints, the barriers she had always felt between herself and her friends in the village would be gone now. She might even be able to marry someone of her own choosing someday. Of course, she no longer had a dowry, but perhaps she might meet someone who would not expect that.
And yet, even as she tried to imagine what her life might be like now that her future was her own to shape, a troubling thought still gnawed in the back of her mind.
What could have possibly happened to her brothers?
Finally, on a cloudy afternoon an hour or two before sunset, she turned off the lane to the track leading to Nell’s cottage. Her steps quickened eagerly as she rounded the copse of apple trees. The last time she had come around this curve, she reminded herself, the Earl’s carriage had stood in the yard, waiting to take her away. There was no carriage there now, of course, only a few chickens scratching around in the dirt before the cottage. Eliza frowned, a small crease of worry appearing between her brows, wondering what they were still doing outside. At this point in the afternoon Nell ordinarily had them herded into the coop behind the cottage.
And then she saw the red rag tied to the door latch, swaying a little in the late afternoon breeze. She gasped and began running to the cottage. “Mother Nell? Mother Nell!”
The cottage door opened just as she reached it. Old Mistress Pollard, a neighbor who lived in the next cottage down the lane, stood in the doorway, her mouth open in surprise. “Oddsfish, Eliza! Why are you here? Nell did say you were gone forever.” She caught Eliza’s arms as the girl tried to push past her.
“Nay,” she said quickly, “you mustn’t go in there, child—”
“Where’s Mother Nell?” Eliza said through her teeth, her heart hammering hard with fear.
“—unless you’ve already had the smallpox?”
Eliza stopped trying to pass and stared up at Mistress Pollard, the blood draining from her face.
“What?”
“The smallpox. Eliza—”
“No. Oh, no!” Eliza slipped past Mistress Pollard before she could stop her. Nell’s bed stood only a few steps within the cottage’s entrance, and she fell to her knees beside it. Red curtains had been hung from the parlor windows, and the lurid light made seeing difficult. A basin of water and a rag had been placed on the table beside the bed. The airless room smelled closed and sour. Every red object Nell owned had been placed around her bed where she could see it, to help her combat the fever. Her shorn head lay still upon the pillow, eyes closed, face ravaged by oozing pox. Behind Eliza, Mistress Pollard hesitated, and then said it gently: “You’re too late, child. She’s dead.”
Chapter Eight
Fairest Isle, all isles excelling
Seat of pleasures, and of lores;
Venus here will choose her dwelling,
And forsake her Cyprian groves.
—JOHN DRYDEN, SONG OF VENUS
The jeans and denim jacket were out of the dryer by the time Elias got back to the apartment. Sean loaned Elias a small duffel bag to take and more clothes to pack into it. He even had a spare bathing suit to offer—not, Elias was relieved to see, a Speedo, but a pair of innocuous blue drawstring trunks.
“And here’s some cash for the weekend,” Sean added.
“Look, I don’t want to—”
“Of course you don’t want to,” Sean interrupted him firmly. “And of course, you’re going to pay me back out of your first paycheck. Aren’t you?”
Elias looked down at the bills in his hand. “Thanks,” he said unsteadily and slipped them into his pocket. “I will. Pay you back, I mean.” He smiled, pleased to be trusted and grateful that Sean had made that allowance for his pride.
They ate a couple of roast beef sandwiches and then left the apartment. Outside, the East Village basked in late summer splendor. Afternoon sunlight caught gold tinges at the edges of leaves, hinting at colder days to come. They started in the direction of First Avenue, passing walk-up apartments and the entrance to the Ukrainian baths. M
en leaned impassively smoking cigarettes against iron railings lining stairs that led down to lower-floor apartments. One caught Sean’s eye and waved a packet filled with white powder, but Sean simply shook his head with an affable “Sorry, not interested.” A woman with a weather-beaten face went by on the other side of the street, pushing a baby carriage with three dogs in it. At the corner store they went in to pick up supplies for the weekend. “You can get groceries on the Island, but they’re expensive because they have to send everything over by ferry. Oh, and we should stop at the liquor store up the block, too. Jerry’d like it if we bring wine for dinner.”
At this second stop, as Sean wandered up and down aisles comparing labels, Elias tagged after him, aware of a twinge of unease. Perhaps Jerry was Sean’s old lover, or maybe even a current one? It could be that agreeing to come at all was a mistake. He didn’t particularly want to spend the weekend as an awkward third to the party if Sean and his friend wanted to be left alone. After Sean selected a couple of bottles of Merlot and paid for them, they headed toward the First Avenue subway station on Fourteenth Street. By the time they had boarded the subway and found seats, Elias had decided he’d rather know the truth than remain in suspense any longer. “So,” he said with careful casualness, “tell me about this friend of yours, the one who owns the house—Jerry?”
“Yeah, Jerry Simms. I met him at NYU Law School.”
“You went to law school?” Elias raised an eyebrow.
“Wait, I thought you said you were a writer. A journalist, right?”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been a lot of things,” Sean said rather ruefully. “I took classes in law school for a year after”—he hesitated, so briefly Elias wasn’t sure he had— “some time after college.”
“Where’d you get your undergrad degree?”
“Northeastern. I majored in journalism and political science.” The subway train pulled away from the station; Sean had to raise his voice to be heard above the rumble. “Anyway, I met Jerry in my contracts class. We were in a study group together, and we used to go out for beers after the bull sessions, to bitch about the professor. Jerry barely passed that class, but he stuck it out, unlike me. Now he makes a great living doing environmental insurance defense. Except he says the travel sucks.” Sean smiled. The subway screeched as it began braking for the Sixth Avenue stop, a sound that set Elias’s teeth on edge.
“Anyway, he’s invited me out to the Island a few times. And I bet Rafe will be there, too—he’s Jerry’s lover. At the moment, that is. It’s kind of a moment-to-moment thing with them.”
Elias nodded at this, doing his best to hold on to his poker face.
They transferred to the C at Eighth Avenue and then got out at Perm Station to board the Long Island Rail Road.
“How long will it take us to get there?” Elias asked.
“It’s about an hour and a half to Sayville,” said Sean. “From there, we take a taxi to the ferry—they leave the dock about once every hour. We should be on the Island by sunset.”
“Yeah?” Elias said with a touch of wariness.
Sean took a closer look at Elias’s expression and grinned. “You look like a kid who doesn’t know whether to expect Christmas morning or a trip to the dentist. Count on it, Elias, you’ll have a wonderful time this weekend.”
“Well, I can’t help wondering—”
“Are you kidding? A great-looking guy like you?” Sean leaned back in his seat and stretched out his legs. “I bet you’ll fill your dance card for the weekend within a half hour of stepping onto shore.”
“That... isn’t exactly what I was worried about.” What he was worried about got a little lost for a moment as Elias turned his head toward the window in a jumble of surprise, alarm, and delight. Great-looking. He thinks I’m great-looking.
“Well then,” said Sean, “what do you— Oh.” Elias turned back to see Sean looking at him hard for a moment, apparently making a mental readjustment. “Relax,” Sean went on gently. “You don’t need to let any of those wild stories you hear about the Meat Rack get to you.”
“I don’t?” Elias said weakly. The... Meat Rack? Oh, my god. What stories?
“If it’ll make you feel better, just stick with me. I’ll help you get settled in, introduce you around to some people who won’t give you any pressure you don’t want.”
“That would be great.”
“On the other hand,” Sean continued, waggling his eyebrows, “if you hook up with a hot trick for the weekend, I’ll have the tact to know when to bow out.”
“Thanks. I think.” Elias wondered if his smile looked as strained as it felt. He felt a pang at Sean’s words that surprised him. Looking down at the bag of groceries at his side, he found himself wishing that maybe Sean wouldn’t be in a hurry to leave him to anyone else’s company. They passed back and forth sections of the New York Times Sean had picked up at the station. “Do you think Flores will take the Raiders to the Super Bowl again this year?” started an animated argument, with Elias championing the New York Giants and Sean the New England Patriots (“although I’ll admit to a sneaking admiration for the Steelers”).
Eventually, the conversation lulled. Elias glanced over the editorial page and then put it aside restlessly. He wanted to say something to break the silence, which had stretched on long enough to make him feel uncomfortable. He sneaked a glance at Sean, who was looking out the window at the Long Island scenery, humming lightly under his breath. After all the years I wanted to meet someone like me, I don’t even know what to say. When did you know you were gay? When did you first do it with anybody? What did your parents say, or haven’t you told them? Do you ever think about not being able to have kids?
So what do you ask when you really want to get to know someone?
“Why do you like Irish music?” he asked at random.
Sean’s face lit up. “Oh, not just Irish. Gaelic, Celtic, the old English ballad tradition ...” He paused. “I was ten the first time I heard someone play on the pennywhistle. It was a guy busking in Central Park. My god, I’ve never forgotten it. I’d been taking piano lessons for about a year at that point, suffering through those damn finger exercises, do-re-mi, dry as dust. And there was this guy playing what looked like a cheap sliver of metal, and he made it seem as natural as breathing to play this music that just about tore my heart out. It wasn’t just that he was technically good, either, although he was. When you listened to it, his music made you feel like you really were a spurned lover, or a dying soldier, or a wanderer leaving your home forever.” He sighed. “I don’t suppose,” he added with a touch of wistfulness, “that you’ve ever read James Joyce, have you?”
Elias blinked at the sudden change of subject. “Uh, yeah. Some.”
“You have!” Sean said, delighted.
“Well, not Ulysses or Finnegan’s Wake, I mean. But I’ve read Dubliners. And A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, just last year.”
“Did you ever run across his idea about how art revealed itself, kind of as an illumination, or a revelation?”
“Joyce called it... um, an epiphany, I think. Is that right?”
“Exactly,” Sean said, obviously tickled to be understood. “A glimpse of insight into other lives.”
Elias thought for a moment. “I had a lecture in English class on that once. Do you remember that description in Portrait of the girl wading by the shore who looks mystically like a bird? She just looks at the hero without saying anything, but something about her sets his soul on fire. I remember when we discussed that section in class I said I’d love to get a photograph of a face like that.”
“Have you seen the trailer for that movie coming out soon, The French Lieutenant’s Woman? It’s like the look what’s-‘er-name gives Jeremy Irons. Streep.”
“Yeah. Yeah, like that. I remember how astonished I was when another guy in the class said he’d never experienced anything like that feeling, and he didn’t know what the hell Joyce was talking about.”
“Do y
ou?”
“Yeah, I do. I mean, I think I’ve experienced epiphanies.” In fact, Elias thought, staring at Sean’s face, looking so pleased to be understood, maybe I’m having one right now.
“So have I. In music. Sex, sometimes, too.”
Elias decided to let the last remark slide by. He cleared his throat and raised an eyebrow.
“So—journalism and political science, huh?”
“Oh, well.” Sean looked abashed. “I suppose I flirted with the idea of being an English major for a while. I spend too much time plinking on a guitar, too.”
“And you cook a mean frozen waffle.” Elias smiled.
“And I cook a mean frozen waffle. Guess I’m just a Renaissance kind of guy.”
At Sayville they got off the train and headed for the taxi stand, lugging their bags and groceries. As Sean signaled the driver at the head of the line, Elias heard a voice behind him say, “Are you gentlemen headed to the ferry terminal? Would you allow me to share the ride?”
Elias turned around to find an elderly man in a tweedy coat with elbow patches regarding them with upraised eyebrows. A leather weekend case and several shopping bags rested at his feet. “Um... Sean?”
Elias said in an undertone.
“Hmm?” Sean said, turning around. “Oh, you want to cab it together? Sure. Hop in.”
The cab screeched to a halt in front of them, and the driver got out and slung their bags into the trunk.
“I would prefer to keep that one with me,” the other man said as the driver reached to pick up one of the shopping bags. “I don’t want the fruit to get crushed.” They all climbed into the backseat. The cab’s interior reeked of sweat, engine oil, and cigarette smoke.
“The ferry terminal,” Sean said, and the cab tore away from the curb.