Fairer than Morning

by Rosslyn Elliott

  Eli and Phoebe lingered in the open double door, glowing with fun and good health in the cool afternoon light. Eli put a gentle hand on Phoebe’s shoulder, and Ann fought to keep her expression unruffled. That should have been her shoulder.

  He caught Ann’s eye and they exchanged a long look. Was he glad to see her? Phoebe must have noticed their mutual glances, for though she didn’t acknowledge Ann’s presence, she tugged at Eli’s arm like a coy little girl. He grinned at her in reply and they stepped out into the cleared space where others were dancing. Phoebe was the center of attention, for her dancing was so lively it made a girl want to get up and dance just for the sheer joy of it. Her black hair flew and her mouth opened in laughter as she nimbly cut the steps across the floor at Eli’s side. God had made Phoebe to dance.

  He apparently had not made Ann to dance; at least, she had never taken the obvious pleasure in it that Phoebe did. Ann always felt as if she moved like a courtier of the last century compared to some of her carefree friends. Perhaps if she danced with Eli her feet would be lighter.

  The fiddler launched into a frenzy of bowing—this dance would be ending shortly and a new one would begin. David Crawford approached from the refreshment table and held out his hand. “Will you dance with me?” He smiled his crooked smile, brown hair flopping in his eyes. “The floor is not the same without your grace, Ann.”

  I would rather dance with joy than grace. Ann set her cider down and rose to her feet to take his hand. “Thank you, David.”

  They moved to a place at the side of the floor to wait their turn as the fiddler struck up something slower. A quadrille. Ann loved this dance. It had been around the Continent for a number of years, or so her Welsh schoolmaster had said when he taught the young people the quadrille. He had taught them after school a few years ago. Not all the children were permitted to dance by their parents, and he would not have dared teach it during school hours. Nonetheless, most of the Rushville youth had learned it. It was a stern parent who would forbid even the pleasure of dancing, out here where there was little else by way of entertainment.

  Ann counted eight couples in the barn. She and David stood on the opposite side of the room from Eli and Phoebe, but to her dismay, several of the couples left the floor at the sound of the quadrille. Only four couples remained, which meant that she and David would have to dance in the same figure as Eli and Phoebe. Worse, they were standing on the diagonal from them, and thus they would dance with them immediately. It was too late to stand down without creating a scene. Eli supported Phoebe’s arm, but his attention to his partner was too rapt to be natural. He also must have realized that he and Ann were about to cross paths in the figures of the quadrille.

  When Ann and Phoebe stepped forward and interlaced their arms, circling each other as required by the first pattern, Phoebe’s eyes were like a dark wall, her arm stiff, an artificial smile plastered on her lips. Ann was immensely relieved when they finished that odd stalking circle. But what followed was even more trying: she had to place her hand on Eli’s shoulder as he rested his hand against her side where her dress fitted her closest. They circled each other. After a few seconds, she braved a glance up at his face.

  “You look beautiful.” He spoke quietly, under his breath. Shocked, she dropped her eyes and released her grip. Fortunately, it was the appropriate moment in the dance to go back to her place by David. She wasn’t sure she could maintain her composure, so she stared fixedly at the other pair of couples who were now dancing together in the center. They parted to reveal Eli on the other side. He was still watching her. Heat pulsed up the back of her neck and burned in her cheeks.

  The dance ended. Pleading over-warmth, she asked David to walk with her in the cool air outside. But when she went alone to retrieve her cape from a pile on a trestle table, Eli stood next to it, his fair head still, his gaze intent as he watched her approach.

  “You’re leaving?” he asked, again barely audible.

  “Not just yet. Soon.”

  “I wish we could sit awhile and talk.”

  “But you’re here with Phoebe.”

  “That doesn’t preclude talking.”

  “Oh, you mean sit together with you and Phoebe and talk?” She heard faint derision in her own voice.

  He winced. “No. Some other time, I hope?”

  “I’m leaving for Pittsburgh next week. I’ll be away for some time.”

  The wrinkle she loved appeared at the bridge of his nose. “Why?”

  “My father has a very important saddling commission. Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .”

  She took some satisfaction in leaving him standing there as she plucked her cape from the table. She swept off to walk with David, whose expression called to mind the proverbial cat with the canary.

  During their walk, she remained quiet and let David chatter on about horses. Perhaps there was something to the new dress after all. But, if she left for Pittsburgh now, Eli might very well be betrothed to Phoebe by the time she returned. The thought dampened her pleasure, but what else could she do? He had not waited for her. His words tonight might be only a whim on his part. She would not give up this journey with her father for a mere wisp of a chance.

  Five

  PITTSBURGH

  24th February 1826

  THE DUST OF CRUSHED BONE CLUNG TO HIS CLOTHES long after he left the hill. No doubt that was why Master Good had sent Will here every week for over two years. The master wished to remind him of how much worse things could yet be.

  This hill rose half a mile northwest of the city, where the smoke from the river foundries still drifted on windy days. Will climbed a rickety wooden stairway cut into the hillside, clutching the frayed edges of his coat. The buttons had given up their tenuous hold months ago. He could hardly choose which was worse: freezing his hands in the air, or shoving them in his pockets and leaving his coat to flap open and freeze his chest. For now, he chose to hold the coat closed with numb hands.

  He reached the door of the poorhouse. With an effort, he curled one hand into a fist and pounded it against the dark brown wood.

  “Oakum!” he yelled. The oakum he had brought, tarred rope from the docks, provided labor for those in the poorhouse, who had to untwist it by hand.

  The door opened and an old woman peeked out, her face like a wizened apple in its ruffled bonnet, her back hunched. “You the oakum boy?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I cannot bring the handcart up the hill. The able-bodied men will have to help.” He did not remember this woman from his previous trips to the poorhouse, but that was not unusual. The residents moved in and out, sometimes on their own feet, other times in the county hearse. Will was not permitted to walk the grounds without first speaking to whichever old crone happened to be answering the door.

  “You’ll have to go ’round the side and tell them,” the woman said and shut the door in his face.

  He trudged around the end of the ugly square building, counting his steps. At least he could find some kind of warmth in the work shed, though the wooden-slatted sides of the building looked thin and temporary. He stepped up to the dark doorway and pushed open the door—really more like a gate, with its primitive hinges and flimsy boards.

  “Shut the door!” a hoarse voice called out.

  “Shut it, ye dolt!”

  “It’s freezin’ already in here!”

  Will slammed the gate, standing still while his eyes adjusted to the darkness. The smell of rot was overpowering. The forms of a dozen men and boys took shape. They bent over the long stone troughs, their shoulders tight. Some had paused with their iron bars raised to ogle the stranger.

  “Don’t stop, ye laggards!” The man with the hoarse voice was the overseer of the poorhouse, portly Mr. Fogarty.

  The men began to beat their bars against the trough again. The white bones in the trough bounced, cracked, and powdered under the onslaught. Even from his place by the gate, Will could see the shreds of rotten horseflesh and dogflesh that still clung to some o
f the bones, causing the terrible stench. A coal fire guttered in a makeshift hearth between the two troughs, its rancid smoke thickening the soupy air.

  “Oakum boy, ain’t ye?” said Mr. Fogarty, rubbing his side-whiskers and giving a great snort as if to clear his nose. “I guess the men’ll be needing to go down and get it.”

  “Yes, sir.” Will breathed through his mouth to avoid nausea. His frozen fingers tingled with a first premonition of pain as they thawed. “It’s in the cart at the bottom of the hill.”

  Fogarty scrutinized Will. “You take an armful to the women in the main house, you hear?” The overseer pointed at one of the men. “You there! And you on the first trough! Go pick up the tarred rope this one brought. He can show you where it is.”

  The men looked up, their gray faces weary. They dropped their bars with a clang into the trough as they staggered to their feet. One man furtively picked a shred of meat from the ground and popped it in his mouth, making a terrible face as he chewed. Will’s gorge rose, and he turned and fumbled for the gate.

  He emerged gasping into the open air and light, stepping quickly away from the shack in the hope that the odor would fade. After him the men shuffled like ghouls over the dead grass, all still bent from labor. One stumped on a wooden leg; another had a torn sleeve that dangled empty by his side.

  Somehow they all made it down the hill. Even the bitter cold was better than the awful scene of the workhouse. The crippled men and three younger ones—about Will’s age—hefted the lengths of tarred rope. They did not speak, just turned and made their grim, bent way back up the hill. Will scooped up the last ropes and began the arduous climb for what he hoped was the last time. He was getting tired; his breath came in shorter puffs and his legs felt the strain of every stair.

  Of course, there would be no penny for this delivery. There never was. Master Good received the credit for his public-spirited munificence in picking up the oakum from the dock and delivering it to the poorhouse, and Will received nothing but chilblains.

  When he made his way back to the main building, the same old woman came to let him in. She opened the door wider and beckoned him through with a palsied arm.

  In the long hallway, only one candle flickered in a wall sconce to light their way. The old woman led him down to the far end and into a large room.

  Five or six women sat at tables, already picking oakum. The orange light of the fire revealed half of each woman’s face, leaving the other half in shadow. Their movements were slow and their cheeks sagged with bitterness and pain.

  “Put the oakum over there,” the old woman said, pointing to a large basket half full of oakum close to the fire. Will walked over and without ceremony cast the oakum in his arms down into the basket. He turned to go.

  Sitting at the end of the table closest to him was a girl of about his own age. Even in the eerie half-light, her face was not ugly with suffering like the others, though she was terribly thin. She looked up at Will from under a fringe of light hair that escaped the edges of her grimy bonnet.

  “Good day,” he said.

  She did not reply, but nodded slightly.

  The old woman snickered. “Don’t be a-courtin’ our girls, young man.”

  Will hesitated. This girl shouldn’t be in this grim place, but he knew of no way to help. He raised his voice to answer the crone. “I’m just bringing them some more work, ma’am.” Bending to the basket, he selected a piece of oakum and moved a few steps to hand it to the girl.

  She reached for the length of twisted rope, revealing fingers blistered and torn from her work. Pity sliced through Will and he searched for anything he might say. “God bless you and take you away from here soon.”

  Both of their hands held the rope, and for a moment it was as if he looked from the deck of a ship and saw a soul tossed on the waves. He held on to the rope, wishing he could take her with him, feeling the gentle pull of her hand on the other end. But he had nowhere to take her.

  “Stop dawdling!” The old woman’s voice was harsher. Will let go of the oakum and walked away. He didn’t look back for fear he would be moved to do something foolish.

  When he finally walked in the kitchen door of the Good home, Jane Good was standing over a chunk of spitted meat, turning it with a handle over the fire. She did not look up.

  “I need some water,” she said.

  Will bit his lip, turned, and scooped the bucket from the porch. He could not feel the handle cutting into his palm, and in his cold-weakened state, he found he had to use both hands. Stumbling across the yard, he threw the bucket down under the pump and grabbed the handle, working it hard. The faster he finished, the sooner he would get inside. He dreaded the pain that always came with thawing his fingers, but he had to warm them up soon. He knew boys who had lost fingers to the cold.

  The barn door opened and Tom came out, eyes shadowed, his coat as thin as Will’s, and only a rag around his neck to keep out the wind. “Are you getting back inside?” Tom asked, when he was close enough not to be overheard by anyone in the house or barn.

  “Just the water now,” Will said. After two years together under Master Good, they hardly needed words to communicate.

  Tom eyed Will’s hands. “Go ahead. I’ll get it.”

  “It’s not worth it.” Will hoisted the full bucket and turned toward the house. They both knew that if Tom came with the water instead of Will, Mistress Good might report it to the master.

  Once inside, Will deposited the bucket carefully on the hearth and retreated to the kitchen table. Tom followed close behind and collapsed next to Will on the bench. The boys always ate there, while the Goods took their supper at the formal dining table around the corner at the far end of the room.

  The front door opened and closed, and boots trod heavily in the entry. The master. He emerged into the open great room and scanned it.

  “Loitering at the table, boys? Isn’t there enough work to do?”

  Will despised the word boys, at least when the master said it. Will was eighteen and Tom sixteen—old enough for more respect. But that was why Master Good did it, of course.

  “Will just returned from the workhouse and Tom from the barn,” Mistress Jane said. “They’ll need a minute to warm up if we want them to tend the pigs later.”

  That was the way of the mistress. No kindness, just ruthless practicality.

  Frowning, Master Good shrugged out of his coat. Jane hurried to take it for him and disappeared into the hall. The master always walked right past the coat pegs and still expected his wife to take his coat and go back to hang it up for him.

  “Supper is ready,” Jane said as she came back to the hearth. Her long, thin arms moved like a windmill as she removed the spit from the fire, picked a fork from its wall hook, and pushed the meat onto a platter.

  Will tried not to think of how that roast beef would taste as the aroma sent pangs through his empty belly. He and Tom would not be eating that meat. A pot of watery broth hung on the hook over the fire. The mistress usually boiled the inedible parts of the cow for the apprentices, threw in some old potatoes, and called it stew.

  “I have news,” Master Good said to his wife. “The saddler from Rushville is coming to town.” He looked at her significantly. “He will be staying with Dr. Loftin while he completes the commission.”

  “Indeed?” Jane asked. “It’s beyond me why the O’Hara woman wants that man to do the work, when she could have yours instead. And yours is so superior.”

  “It’s an insult,” the master said.

  Jane slopped some stew in the bowls, then thrust them in front of the boys at the table. She never allowed them to serve themselves—she said they would take more than their share.

  The master turned toward Will. “While the other saddler is here, I have a task for you.” He cracked his knuckles. “You must gain every scrap of knowledge about how he works the leather and attempt to learn his style. I’m determined that we will take any future O’Hara commissions from him. Appeal to h
is heart, make him pity you, so he holds back nothing.”

  Will was silent. Bad as it was to go cold and hungry much of the time, it was worse to be subject to this man’s every command.

  “What’s that? I didn’t hear your answer. Look sharp.” The master spoke evenly, but he moved a step closer to the corner where the whip leaned.

  “Yes, sir.” Will didn’t know whom he hated more at that moment—his master, or himself.

  Six

  CINCINNATI

  1st March 1826

  THEY WERE BEING FOLLOWED; ANN WAS CERTAIN OF it. The man with the beaver hat pulled down over his brow—she had seen him three or four times now as they made their way through Cincinnati’s streets to the dock. On each occasion, he slipped behind buildings or into open doorways as soon as she caught sight of him. She would never even have noticed him among the crowds were it not for his furtive manner.

  But immediately she chided herself. Who would pursue them all the way from Rushville to Cincinnati by stagecoach? No one could possibly have such interest in their little family, nor would anyone know to seek them here on the busy wharf at the steamboat packet office.

  As her father finished with the clerk and turned back to the girls, tickets in hand, a cry rang out from the edge of the waterfront.

  “Packet a-comin’! All passengers to dock!” A mustached man in a red uniform held his head high and bellowed his summons with satisfaction.

  The steamboat loomed behind him on the river, jaunty minstrel music drifting down from a piano buried somewhere in her towering decks. Steam gushed from her escape valves with a giant sigh; she glided inch by inch toward the dock. Black smoke billowed from twin chimneys, and an iron bell clanged from the pilot house.