She stopped at the hallway glass at the foot of the stairs, trying to find a suitable face to present to the woman. Her pulse visible in the pale skin of her temples. She stepped through the kitchen to the back door. Mary Tryphena was still looking out over the property and Ann Hope had to clear her throat to get her attention, then stood back from the doorsill.
They sat at the kitchen table, facing one another for the first time since the night Levi was born. Ann Hope folded her hands on the tabletop.
—I needs to speak to your husband, Mary Tryphena said.
There was something infuriating in the nonchalance of the statement. Your husband. She’d been looking about the property with the same casual innocence while she waited, without the slightest inkling it was all down to her.
Ann Hope long ago recognized that everything Absalom set out to make of himself was for lack of Mary Tryphena Devine. Every quintal of fish, every pelt-laden schooner, every stick of wood in every vessel and building, every calf and foal and lamb, every egg laid by every hen. She thought it impossible the woman could be oblivious to the truth of that. But she saw now Mary Tryphena had no idea Absalom loved her still. Ann Hope felt something give way in her chest, a sudden spring of feeling like milk coming in after giving birth. Little rivulets of anger and despair seeping through her. Somehow Mary Tryphena’s ignorance made her betrayal less forgivable.
—Mrs. Sellers, Mary Tryphena said.—I don’t expect you’d be happy to see me. And I wish I could have spared the visit, given how Mr. Sellers is feeling so poorly. But I don’t know where else to go given what Levi have done to Lazarus and his crew.
—I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about.
—We got youngsters will go hungry this winter. Your own blood some of them.
—Not my blood, Mrs. Devine.
Mary Tryphena took three deep breaths. She said, I didn’t come here to beg. I come to ask for what’s fair and proper. Levi got no right to change the culler’s grade of those fish and give us less than we deserve.
Ann Hope stood from her chair.—My son operates his business as he sees fit. I can’t help you.
—If I could have a word with your husband.
Ann Hope smiled down at her guest. She was angry enough she thought she might be sick.—Absalom and I did not marry for love, Mrs. Devine, you know that. But I’ve been a good wife to him. Better than you had it in you to be.
Mary Tryphena stood herself then and walked to the door before turning back to the woman at the table.—We’d been better off if I let you die in the bed, she said, you and Levi both.
Adelina came downstairs when she heard the door and found her mother still standing at the table’s edge. She eased Ann Hope into a chair, set the kettle over the fire.
—How is your father?
—Still sleeping.
Ann Hope nodded. She reached for Adelina’s hand, ran her fingers over the smooth skin. No sign of the warts that made her childhood such a torture, just the scars of the knife she’d used as a six-year-old to try and dig them free. From the moment the girl was born there was talk she was afflicted by some ancient curse laid on King-me Sellers, which made Ann Hope’s stomach churn. It was bad enough Adelina was forced to endure her singular disfigurement, she thought, without adding superstition and dread to the mix. Half a dozen people told her Mary Tryphena Devine might charm her daughter free of warts but Ann Hope dismissed the notion so coldly they felt obliged to apologize for the ridiculous suggestion.
Adelina gouging at herself with a knife then, the sleeve of the child’s dress red with blood. It made her daughter’s despair so palpable that Ann Hope sat up half the night with Virtue, bawling helplessly.—I know you don’t want to hear talk of it, Virtue said.—But I can go over to the Gut and see Mary Tryphena.
—You think this is some kind of curse too, I suppose.
Virtue shrugged.—If there’s some relief to be offered the child, why keep it from her?
Ann Hope was about to give birth to Levi and she cradled her massive belly in both hands, shaking her head.
—Mary Tryphena might not even have to step foot in the house, Mrs. Sellers.
The baby kicked against her hands and Ann Hope turned them palm up to stare at them.—You won’t tell her I sent you.
—I’ll take care of this, Virtue said.
The following evening Virtue made Adelina a cup of tea, as she was instructed. The girl was sent out of the kitchen when she finished, the dregs emptied into the fire and the cup placed upside down on the highest shelf in the cupboard. Ann Hope was standing at the door, watching.—No one touches that cup, Virtue told her.
In the morning Adelina found the warts lying loose around her in the bedsheets, each the size and texture of a raisin. Virtue gathered them up, enough to fill a teacup, and she burned the lot in the stove. Adelina was surprisingly subdued to find herself cured overnight, thinking she might just as easily wake some morning to exactly the opposite. And the relief Ann Hope felt was followed by a stubborn uneasiness. As if she’d surrendered some part of herself to the shore for good.
She went into labour three weeks later, the baby stalling as he crowned, and after several hours without progress Virtue gave her an ultimatum.—I can’t be any more help to you or that infant, she said, and I won’t be the cause of the child’s death, may God help me.
A hired man was sent to the Gut to fetch Mary Tryphena and things went as well as could be expected once she arrived. Ann Hope even managed to feel a grudging admiration for the woman’s impersonal effectiveness, her discretion.
She was supposed to lie in a week after the delivery but never could stand the enforced idleness. She hobbled downstairs when she woke the next morning, walking gingerly along the hall toward the servant’s room where Virtue was watching Levi. She stopped to catch her breath in the kitchen, one hand on the back of a chair. Saw the single cup on the windowsill where Absalom had set it. She couldn’t explain it to herself still, how seeing the cup there told her what she had no other way of knowing.
That evening Absalom came up to the bedroom where she lay with the baby. He stood at the bedside and held out his hands, but Ann Hope made no move to pass the child to his father.—You will not see that woman again, she said.
Absalom let his hands fall back at his sides.
—Promise me, Absalom Sellers, or so help me God.
He took a step back.—I never meant, he said.
—That will be all, thank you, she told him and she settled Levi closer to her breast.
They never spoke of the incident again, though it circled their lives like a moon, its tidal pull sucking at their heels. Henley Devine coming into the world nine months later, his hopeless stammer in her classroom. Ann Hope treated him like any other student, to protect Levi from the truth as long as she could. Strapping her own son when she caught him mimicking the bastard child’s stutter.
Adelina put her free hand over her mother’s.—What was it Mrs. Devine wanted?
—You don’t mention that woman to your father, Ann Hope said.
In the last weeks of Absalom’s life, Ann Hope closed off the sickroom to everyone but the doctor. She thought there was something purposeful in her husband’s tenacity, something in particular that was keeping him alive. A declaration to be made, some duty unfulfilled, and Mary Tryphena’s unexpected appearance at Selina’s House filled Ann Hope with dread.
It was a shock still to see herself such a pessimist, so vindictive. She’d arrived in Newfoundland determined to turn the wheel of progress a notch and managed only to grind herself down on the implacable rock of the place. She still spoke the language of reform but she’d lost her faith years ago. Ann Hopeless. Greedy to cling to what little was left her. There were whole seasons of her life when Mary Tryphena never entered Ann Hope’s thoughts. But she could see now that every day since Levi’s birth had been a fight to surrender nothing more to the woman. She lived in fear of Absalom asking to see Mary Tryphena before he died, b
ut the only visitors he showed any interest in were the Trim brothers. He mentioned them several times a day and eventually she relented, instructing them not to indulge in idle chatter that might tire or upset him.
The brothers spent their time in silence while Absalom slept or read to him from Jabez Trim’s Bible. Azariah read the story of Ishmael, prophesied by an angel of the Lord to be a wild ass of a man, his hand against every man and every man’s hand against him, and destined to dwell over against all his kinsmen. Absalom smiled grimly up at the ceiling.—That sounds like my Levi, he said.
—He’s a hard man all right, Obediah said quietly.
Absalom moved his head on the pillow.—Has something happened?
—Not since, Azariah said, no.
—Since what?
The brothers glanced at one another.—We oughten to trouble you sir, Azariah said.
—It’s too late not to trouble me.
The blind man’s face twitched as they gave a brief account of Levi’s activities, Absalom raising his hand for silence finally, struggling for air. The Trims stood from their chairs.—Go fetch Mrs. Sellers, Obediah said.
Ann Hope set him lower in the bed once he’d recovered himself, the brothers waiting against the wall to say their goodbyes, solemn and regretful, feeling they’d ruined what little time the dying man had left in the world. Absalom passed days in silence, unable to speak a word to his wife or daughter. He felt he must have poisoned Levi somehow, sleeping with Mary Tryphena in the servant’s quarters while the youngster took his first tentative breaths upstairs. Half a lifetime then waiting to be reconciled to one son before he could put things right with the other. Even as his life was reduced to this single upstairs room, to the deathbed he lay on, Absalom had managed to nurse the fantasy some miracle would spare him setting them one against the other for good.
When he woke from his fitful bouts of sleep he could tell there was someone in the room, his wife or daughter keeping an eye on him. A difference in the quality of the silence, occupied space.—Who’s there? he asked.
—It’s Adelina.
—I need to speak to your mother.
Ann Hope came into the room in a rush.—What is it? she said.—Can you breathe? Are you feeling ill?
—Sit down, he said.
She pulled the chair close to the bed and took his hand.
—I need to speak with Henley, he said. Absalom squeezed her hand to keep her close.—I need you to bring him here without Levi knowing.
Ann Hope extracted her fingers slowly, folding her arms across her breasts.—You aren’t well enough for visitors, she said.
He reached in the direction of her voice.—I know it’s unfair to ask you, he said. He could hear the sound of weeping muffled behind a fist.—But I won’t die with this on my head. If you feel anything for me at all, Ann Hope.
She blew her nose and tucked away the handkerchief.—Let me think about it, she said.
His time passed in sleep broken by brief moments of consciousness, the quiet of someone in the chair beside him or an empty room. He had no sense of how many hours or days passed before Ann Hope knocked lightly at the door and announced, There’s someone here to see you.
He could hear the man breathing where he stood just inside the door.—Tell him to sit, he whispered to Ann Hope.
—He won’t sit, she said.—He didn’t want to come at all.
—Give us a moment alone.
Absalom turned his head toward the door when Ann Hope left.—Thank you for coming.
—What do you w-w-want?
Absalom nodded to hear his childhood affliction echoed in his son’s voice. He cleared his throat.—You know I’m your father, he said.
There was no response but Absalom could sense the silence in the room shifting, like colours turning in a kaleidoscope.—I don’t expect you to forgive me, he said.
—Wh-wh-why am I here?
—I have six children. Three live in the United States and each will receive an equal monetary inheritance. Levi is responsible for my wife and for Adelina and he will inherit fully two-thirds of my estate and business interests. Which leaves one-third for you, Henley.
—I don’t w-want your god-d-damn money.
Absalom raised his hand.—My wife will have the papers drawn up, he said.
—F-fuck you, you b-b-b—he stamped his foot to shift the word ahe ad—bastard.
Absalom heard the door.—Henley, he said. But the footsteps were already halfway down the stairs. He tried to call out to Ann Hope but didn’t have the breath for it.
He woke hours later, the house submerged in the stillness of early morning.—Who’s there? he asked.
—It’s me, Absalom. It’s Ann Hope.
—Did you talk to Henley before he left?
—He was in rather a hurry. He looked very unhappy.
Absalom repeated what he’d told his son then, outlining the changes he promised to make to his last will and testament.—He claimed he didn’t want my money but he’ll change his mind once I’m gone. I’ll be easier to forgive when I’m dead.
Ann Hope laughed then, a harsh little bark.
—Will you do this for me? he asked.
—I’ll have the changes made, if that’s what you want.
—We can’t use the company lawyers. Go see Barnaby Shambler, have him draw them up.
—All right.
Absalom took a quick breath. He said, I never deserved you, Ann Hope, I know that for a fact.
—Perhaps I’ll forgive you once you’re dead as well, she said.
Sleep seemed to drift down upon him from some great height, he could almost hear it as it approached, the weight of it like fathoms of ocean above him. He woke to the sound of a whispered conversation.—Who’s there? he asked.
—Mr. Shambler’s here to see you, Ann Hope told him.
—Hello Mr. Sellers.
—Did you bring the papers?
He could hear the man shifting in his chair.—I did, yes. He said, It’s not my place to tell you, Mr. Sellers, but I don’t see how this will help matters.
—You’re worried what Levi will do when he finds out you witnessed these papers behind his back.
—I’m too old to worry, he said.—And old enough to know that doing the right thing isn’t always advisable.
—Spoken like a true politician, Absalom said. He held his hands out in front of himself.—Show me where to sign.
Ann Hope spoke to no one at the funeral. She’d already packed the trunks she was taking to America and she was done with every soul on the shore but her husband who had only to be set into the ground.
The Episcopalian chapel was full to overflowing for the first time in years and the mourners talked of nothing but the length of Absalom’s illness and Ann Hope’s faithfulness, her unwavering vigil, which would have tried the nerve of a mule. She refused to leave the sickroom to eat or sleep or wash her face the last seven days of his life. Newman stopped in to see Absalom morning and evening though there was nothing to be done, he said, but wait. He lifted the bedcovers to examine the dying man’s feet, a mottled purple climbing past the ankles toward the knees.—Hours now, he said.—Days at best.
Ann Hope sat in the chair by the window and waited for Absalom to die. He rarely spoke or opened his blind eyes, but she was with him each time he came to himself.—Who’s there? he asked, though he was addled and sometimes uncertain who he was speaking with.
The funeral procession rimmed the harbour along Water Street and inched toward the Tolt Road. There was a carriage for Adelina and Florence and the children but Ann Hope insisted on walking to the French Cemetery. She kept her hand in the crook of Levi’s elbow, Absalom’s coffin an arm’s length ahead of them on the cart. She was still furious, though the anger that sustained her felt more diffuse now, its object less clearly defined. She felt an odd kinship with her husband to be saddled with the weight of an action so irreversible. She had listened outside the sickroom as Levi gave his flawless imitation of Hen
ley’s stammer, reminded just how skillful a mimic he’d been in school. The little stamp to shake a particularly stubborn word loose. F-fuck you, you b-b-bastard. That part of the conversation, at least, had been genuine.
All that was left to do afterwards was guide her husband’s hand to the bottom of a blank page while Barnaby Shambler told Absalom he was a fool, though he admired the man’s moral fibre to be so concerned with what was right and proper. He went through the motion of signing his own name beside Absalom’s illegible scribble and left the room with a smile on his face.
It had been appallingly easy to orchestrate, and watching Shambler at work almost undid Ann Hope, his businesslike act of deceit setting a niggle of guilt to simmer in her belly. She came to see something of her husband’s long-time prison in herself after the fact and she felt unexpectedly sentimental toward him in those final days. She camped out in Absalom’s room, turned him one side to the other every hour, wet his dry lips with a cloth, refused Adelina’s offers of relief. Relief was the last thing she wanted.
Hours before he died Absalom stirred in the bed beside her, the dry, cracked lips moving a moment before he managed to find his voice.—Who’s there? he whispered. It wasn’t forgiveness exactly, but she found herself willing to set him free of what she knew was holding him still. She leaned forward to take his hand.—Absalom, she said.—It’s Mary Tryphena.
{ 6 }
ABSALOM SELLERS WAS BURIED in the French Cemetery in November. The following April, Tryphie fell into a barking pot on the beach while the fishermen were curing their herring nets for the season. Fir bark and spruce buds were kept on the boil in a large iron cauldron, the concoction ladled into half-barrels where the twine was soaked before being laid out on the bawn to cure. A handful of boys horsing around nearby, Tryphie and Patrick Devine’s eight-year-old, Eli, leading games of pitch-and-toss and tag while the men shouted at them to mind their step, to keep clear of the fire, to shag off home out of it.
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