CHAPTER V
Weeks passed and the blank spot on the ground that marked off the site of the new chapel grew into a foundation. Peter progressed from making bricks to actually laying them, and Fin, though constantly looking for reasons to sneak out to the chapel site to see what was going on, was taking to Bartimaeus with increasing fondness.
She and Bartimaeus took long walks through the countryside each morning under the pretense of looking for wild herbs, and this was the high point of Fin’s day. Though they would often bring back some root or herb, the primary and unspoken reason for these walks was simply to get away from the bustle of the orphan house for a while, to walk and to talk, and to enjoy the quietude of small company. Most days, Bartimaeus prattled on about the movement afoot to declare independence from England. Fin didn’t much understand all his talk about Stamp Acts and taxation and representation but she tended to be very keen on the idea that the Crown had no business telling Georgians what to do.
“Why should we even care what King George says? If someone I didn’t know told me to give them money, they’d have a knuckle in their ear,” said Fin, indignant.
“Aye, and me too. But what if that someone was twenty feet tall, breathed fire, and ate your children if you didn’t pay him his due, eh? The king’s a king, missy. Got hisself armies and navies and gov’ners and what all to see he’s listened to. He’s a stranger but he’s no vagrant, see here?”
“We should just kill them all then.”
Bartimaeus chuckled. “And who’d be doin’ that killin’? And who’d be killed? There’s no army but the king’s, and half the British in the colonies is friends and family to them that you’d have dead. Nasty business it is.”
“Well they’ve no right telling us what to pay or what to do.”
“I reckon if you asked the king yourself he’d tell you God give him the right by makin’ him king. But more’n that, it was the king what built the roads and raised up the towns. Was the king what give the land to the folks to live here in Ebenezer. Folks round here got long memories and few are anxious to do wrong by them that done right.”
“Have you ever been to England?”
“Yes, yes, I’ve been,” he said, “and don’t wish to go again.” He frowned and looked somewhat ruffled.
“You’ve been on a ship then? Tell me about ships—and the sea! I’ve never seen the ocean.” She could hardly contain her excitement.
“Ah, the sea,” his eyes focused on some far distant past and the wheels of memory creaked to life inside him. “I remember first lookin’ on it and thinking I’d come to the edge of the world. So far, so wide, and so perfect it was. My young eye couldn’t fathom the distance of it. I was nineteen when I saw it first and twenty when it took me for its own, on a merchant ship, out of Charleston, carried me across to far London and a new world—the Old World, see here? After London, the sea became my life and in those young days my Eden, all green and blue, and God himself walked and talked with me across that foamy deep.”
His eyes darkened, and refocused on some angled space where the wheels of regret screamed and strained.
“It’s different now, see here, the blue and green they gone; turned cold, a grey waste what leads to poison shores and a broken beauty. Now life’s just,” he waved his hand in the air, “a walk among ruins.” His eyes swam back to the present and stared into the shadows.
“What happened?” Fin whispered. “Bartimaeus?”
“Things I wish had not.” He said it with finality. He was done speaking. He turned quietly, without looking at her, and headed back toward the orphan house. Fin stared after him a moment then caught up, and they walked back in an uneasy silence.
For the rest of the day they labored with few words between them. Whatever had been stirred up in Bartimaeus had rattled him and left him quiet and dark. Fin felt guilty that she’d brought up the questions that caused his dour mood, but all attempts she made to smooth it over or lighten his spirits resulted in little more than downcast eyes and indistinct mumblings about not having time to talk. She was frustrated not only at him but at herself. She wanted to make things right but didn’t know how to go about it.
After dinner, Bartimaeus approached her looking very much more serious than he normally did. “Miss Button, somethin’ I’d like to show you. Sister Hilde wouldn’t approve I reckon.” He was almost whispering. “About sundown make your way to the river. Careful not to let Sister Hilde see you.” Fin nodded. She was baffled, worried, and a bit excited.
Once the dining hall was clean, Bartimaeus gave her a wink and shooed her out the door. She found Peter sitting on the chapel steps waiting for her as he did every day.
“Dinner was good. Did you cook it?” Peter asked.
“Thanks and yeah, sort of . . . well, no. He tells me what to do but then ends up doing it all himself. I think he enjoys it too much to let it go.” She laughed. “He’s in a weird mood today.” She told Peter about their talk in the woods and then about her secret meeting at the river.
“What do you think it is?” asked Peter.
“I haven’t got the faintest clue. You should come. Just follow and be quiet.”
“You sure that’s a good idea?”
“Terrible idea—but when has that ever mattered?” She grinned at him and Peter gave in. “It’s probably just an old toadstool you can only find at night or something like that.” She waved and ran out the gate toward the river. Peter waited a moment then shook his head and followed.
When Fin got to the riverbank, she spotted Bartimaeus. He had a small fire lit and was sitting on a log with a black carrying case lying next to him.
“Safely escaped Sister Hilde, I take it?”
Fin grinned.
“Now, let’s see here,” he said as she sidled up next to him on the log. He picked up the case and set it on his lap. “You remember that little bit I was runnin’ on about earlier? Goin’ to sea and all that?” Fin nodded. “Well, that hauls up a whole lots of stuff that I came here to get away from, hurtful stuff you see, and you think I might not know it but I see a sort of hurtin’ in you sometimes. I’m thinkin’ you might have some old angry stuff tucked away over the way Hilde and the good Lord treat you sometimes, maybe about your folks too.” He patted the case gently. “This here is what I wanted to shew you, is what old Bartimaeus learned to do with all that hurtful stuff. Learned long ago you got to put it somewhere. Got to get it out from inside you and put it somewhere. That stuff can eat you up from the insides. Eat you up till there’s nothin’ left but hurt.”
He cocked his head to one side as if listening for something then spoke into the darkening woods. “Peter LaMee, that you?” he said with no anger or worry. Peter stepped out from behind a tree; his face was flushed red with embarrassment. “I should to have known you’d be followin’ after Miss Button. You come on up. I expect she goin’ to tell you what I say anyhow, might as well get it from my own mouth. You come on up.” Peter came up and sat down next to Fin. She rolled her eyes at him, thinking she’d taught him better how to sneak without being caught.
“I’m sorry, Bartimaeus. We tell each other everything,” Fin said.
“Now that’s all right, ain’t nothin’ goin’ on here that ain’t good for you both.” Fin breathed a sigh of relief.
“Now then,” he said and carefully thumbed up the latches on the case. He opened it and Fin and Peter leaned forward to see what was inside. The box was lined in red velvet, and the bottom half was molded to hold its three habitants. The first was a violin, glowing lusty red in the firelight. It was the most delicate and graceful thing Fin had ever seen. The curves and luster of it were stunning, feminine. The second object was the violin’s bow, long and elegant, strung with white hair. The third object in the box was a Spanish blunderbuss, made of dark red wood and adorned with silver flourishes. The handle was engraved with an ornate B and embellished with festooning swirls and curves. It was as beautiful as the violin but graceless and menacing, its barrel fl
ared out like a mouth yawning open into a scream.
“Now, see here, you got to put that hurt someplace, and this is where old Bartimaeus learned to put his.” He lifted the fiddle out of the case and caressed it.
“It’s beautiful,” whispered Fin.
“Aye,” he said and crooked it into his neck. He drew the bow across the strings and the instrument moaned a forlorn note. “Beautiful, that’s what you got to do with that hurtin’, you got to turn it beautiful.” He closed his eyes and began to play. He rocked back and forth on the log and let the song come out of him. He poured all his pain into the void of the violin and gently worked it out, turned it to beauty. Fin and Peter sat mesmerized by the music; they’d never heard anything like it. It was sweet and sad and felt like a lamentation. Neither could say a word. Fin’s face flushed red and her eyes glistened with held tears.
Bartimaeus lowered the violin. “Now missy, don’t you cry. You didn’t have no idea I had that hurtful stuff when you was askin’ me about them way-back days. I brought you here to show you I could get rid of it, see here?” Fin wiped her tears and nodded.
“What’s the gun for?” asked Peter.
Bartimaeus’s face darkened. “That’s where all that hurtful stuff ends up if you don’t get rid of it. Got to get rid of it. You don’t and it might just get rid of you, see here? I keeps it there to remind me. I put it down the day I got this here fiddle. Swore I’d never take it up again. Done too much hurtin’, got to turn that hurt to beautiful, see? Otherwise the hurtin’ turns hateful and the ole hand-cannon there like to wake up and do terrible things . . . terrible things.” The way Bartimaeus said it made Fin shiver.
“I reckon I rambled on enough for one night.” He put the fiddle back in the case and closed the lid. “You two run along now. I’m gonna sit here and think things out a bit. You go on, get some sleep.”
Fin and Peter said goodnight and walked back up to the orphanage. When they got to the top of the hill, Fin turned around and looked back down toward the river. Bartimaeus was silhouetted against the fire, standing still as an oak, his head bowed. She turned and walked on to bed.
CHAPTER VI
Despite her gnawing curiosity, Fin avoided broaching the subject of the sea or the black case with Bartimaeus for a few days. He went on teaching her his herbcraft and cooklore with the same old cheerfulness, but she sensed that it would be best to give him time before prying him further. Fin decided that Monday after dinner was probably time enough, though, and when she ran off to the chapel for classes that afternoon she was preoccupied with things she intended to ask Bartimaeus after dinner.
“You may put away your books,” said Sister Hilde to the class. “Today we are going to discuss something that is becoming increasingly important. Henceforth, we shall devote each Monday’s studies to this new curriculum. Let us call it Contemporary Happenstance.” She looked pleased with herself and was also pleased to find the class paying more attention than usual.
“Can any of you tell me what is going on in the world outside our little town?” She scanned the class for answers and Fin stuck her hand up. Hilde ignored it. “Exactly. You haven’t an inkling. The world is moving very quickly outside our gates and it is time that you understood it. Can anyone tell me what taxes are?” She scanned the room. Fin shot her hand up again. “Miss Button?”
“When the British take money that’s not theirs.”
“I see your work with Brother Bartimaeus has more than his cooking rubbing off on you. Taxes are monies collected by the government for the purpose of funding the needs of the country. Now, some people here in the colony of Georgia feel that the Crown of England is due little money from us, and to that effect, this past week in Savannah most of the merchants have stated their intent to boycott—refuse to buy—any British goods.
“Can anyone tell me what effect this might have on us?” She scanned the room. No hands.
“The overall effect is tension between the colony and the Crown. There are many here and elsewhere in the colonies that advocate independence. It is entirely possible, children, that there is a war coming.” The threat of war wasn’t something new, but that Sister Hilde had now spoken its possibility aloud gave it a substance it hadn’t had when it was nothing more than rumor and hearsay. “Our proximity to Savannah could have serious consequences for us. It is this situation that I wish to help you all understand on our coming Monday afternoons. Any questions?”
Danny Shoeman raised his hand.
“Yes, Mr. Shoeman.”
“If there’s a war, do we get to kill the British?” he said. Several other boys whooped their approval.
“The question, Mr. Shoeman, is rather: if there is a war, do the British get to kill you?” Hilde raised an eyebrow at him. “God save us all if it comes to war. Now, let us begin with the idea of representation. A proper understanding of Contemporary Happenstance is impossible without a proper understanding of the terms, ideas, and philosophies that drive it.”
She spent the rest of the afternoon talking about the Magna Carta and Parliament and other such things that would have put most of the class to sleep had she not been so vigilant a watchman. Fin was fascinated and couldn’t wait for a chance to talk to Bartimaeus about the new class.
When Sister Hilde dismissed them, Fin caught up with Peter in the courtyard.
“Bartimaeus says there’s war coming for sure. He thinks the Brits got no business with us at all and we need to go independent, even if he won’t say it,” she said.
“Don’t really see that it has a lot to do with us. I never seen any British around here,” said Peter with a shrug.
“Oh, come on, Peter. Do you expect to spend your whole life in Ebenezer? When we get out of here, do you really want to be under the thumb of some king all the way across the ocean?”
“Never really gave much thought to leaving. Why would I go anywhere else?”
Fin balked. “Peter LaMee, if you think I’m going to stay my whole life in this town, you’ve got a block of wood between your ears.”
“What does my staying have to do with you?” Peter asked.
Fin tried to put together an answer to that question but couldn’t. When she attempted to open her mouth to speak, her trembling bottom lip interfered. A knot swelled up in her throat, and she felt the sting of ready tears in her eyes. She wouldn’t have it, though. A white flash of anger erupted in her mind and before she could untwist her emotions or get a word out, Fin reeled back and threw a punch. A perfectly baffled Peter LaMee received the blow squarely in the chin and Fin left him lying in the dirt.
After dinner, Fin washed up the dishes and swept the floor, then approached Bartimaeus as he was wiping down the dinner table. He looked at her out of the side of his face and knew she was up to something. He raised his eyebrows and made a beckoning motion with his hand.
“Well, get it out, missy. You been hem-hawin’ all day about somethin’, so I suppose you best let it out before you pop.”
“You remember the fiddle you showed me?”
“Oh sure, ain’t had to play it much lately, got all that stuff turned out,” he said.
“Could you teach me?”
He stopped what he was doing and looked at her for a long time, considering the request in his mind. “I was right about that hurtful stuff you got, eh?”
She shrugged.
“Miss Button, it would be my pleasure. But, see here now, Sister Hilde, she don’t like my fiddlin’, calls it heathen music. I got no idea why some music might be fit for the Lord’s ear and some ain’t, but I wasn’t never one for followin’ rules much, so I do it anyway.” He chuckled. “Now I’ll be happy to teach you, but we got to be quiet about it, see here? We can sneak the ole fiddle out when we goes on our walk for some herbs.”
“Thank you Brother Bart!” She ran to throw her arms around his neck, but he backed up and stopped her short.
“See here, you can’t be callin’ me that, missy. Don’t no one call me Bart no more and tha
t’s the way I like it. Bartimaeus is the name my folks give me, and I got no reason to go changin’ it.”
With a confused look, she acquiesced and finished delivering her hug. As she walked out the door, she threw one last smile back at Bartimaeus and saw him staring after her in serious consideration. It made her feel uneasy.
The next day, Fin was able to think of little more than getting through breakfast so she and Bartimaeus could take their walk.
Just outside the gates, the new chapel was taking shape in earnest. The boys worked day in and day out laying bricks and mortar. With each brick the walls seemed to rise out of the ground as if the new building was sprouting from a seed of stone in the earth.
In the short time that Peter had been working on the chapel, he’d managed to make quite an impression on Mr. Hickory as a hard worker and quick learner. He was also starting to make quite a different impression on Fin. The hard work had changed the boy of a year ago into a darkly tanned and tightly muscled young man, and some days she found herself sneaking out to the work site not to see how the chapel was coming so much as to watch Peter work bare chested in the sun. Fin found that more and more often she felt self-conscious when Peter’s eyes were on her. Brushing her hair and washing her face weren’t things she ever did unless the sisters ordered her to it, but lately she discovered that she had the uncontrollable urge to do so anytime she was likely to see Peter.
When breakfast was finally over and the kitchen was clean, Fin and Bartimaeus slipped out into the woods. They walked and talked until they came to a small draw near the river with a fallen cypress to sit on. Bartimaeus opened his case and lifted out his fiddle. He laid it into the crook of his neck and played a few notes. Then he tuned it up a bit and lowered it.
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