‘It really would be best for everyone,’ Mr. Buell went on. ‘You could have the husband that is overdue you. And we could take charge of Louisa’s child, whomever’s he may be. In fact, to ensure appearances are convincing, you and I could…’
‘I will tell you how it will be.’ Elswyth stood up, surprising herself at the sheer volume of her voice. ‘You will remain quiet and do as you are told. You will eat and drink when I say so. You will not leave except on my errands. Since you have escaped punishment, I will make your home a cage. And you will never lay a hand on my sister again. Or you shall face my father’s wrath. I am in love with Mr. Thomas. Until he returns, you are a prisoner.’
Mr. Buell remained motionless on the bench, stunned by Elswyth’s outburst.
She looked over the calm waters. ‘I’ll see you at the wedding.’ She then hiked her skirts and marched herself back to the museum, unescorted.
FAM. SCIURIDAE
GEN. ANKYLOGLOSSIA
13.9.43, 3:30, 65 deg., 10 knots, 2/10ths cloud coverage
Desert country near rivers with great mesas on either side
Rodent or weasel perhaps, though I have seen in neither order a species so large. Striped fur, wicked little claws, and a long serpent tail. Late last night I woke to find this varmint rooting through my remaining things. I shouted and kicked dust from where I lay, but that did not prevent him from gnawing at my sack, looking at me with what I can only describe as evil eyes, a forked tongue flickering in and out at a regular interval, quite like a snake. Eventually I had to get up and beat the ground around him with my blanket to scare him off. He showed his dirty little teeth and made nasty faces about it. Our stand off lasted long enough to make a passable rendering. I name him the Numrat.
ELSWYTH COMPOSES A SONNET. LOUISA CUTS A HOLE IN HER QUILT. THE SISTERS GRAY QUARREL. ELSWYTH SENDS A TELEGRAM.
n a whim, Elswyth composed a sonnet of her own, for Mr. Thomas. Until she’d said it to Mr. Buell, she hadn’t realized how in love with him she was. If only she’d followed her heart.
When love first called I spurned his advance,
For dabbling in the dew keeps milkmaids fair.
And to the fates above I owed a chance,
Lest season’s end bring silver to my hair.
Who should want to wed marriage’s false pact?
Not spring, nor butterfly, nor bird, nor I.
For, ever joined are these two by fact:
A ring’d finger and wrinkles ’round the eye.
But now the fates have put thou at remove.
And also ravaged those fields of my youth,
I find myself praying that time shall prove,
Thy courting words realized in blooming truth.
Beauty is but a sparkling of the eye,
Remaining in thine I shan’t be passed by.
She began a letter to him, but could not finish. She placed them both in an envelope and was filled with despair. There was no place to address it to, if she could bring herself to send it. And Mr. Buell certainly couldn’t be trusted with the post. She longed to communicate with Mr. Thomas. She must compel him to return. It was the one small hope that remained.
She put the writing materials away, wishing the thoughts that accompanied them would stay put away as well. When she was finished, Elswyth brought her sister’s dollhouse up to her room. Louisa was asleep, lolling in the same nightgown she had dressed her in days before. Elswyth resolved that when she woke, she would wrest it from her and launder it in the tub.
Elswyth set the great dollhouse down in the corner of the room and a giant moth fluttered out, startling her. She brushed away the dust and cobwebs, and took some of the dolls out and arranged them about the front door. She glanced at Louisa, prone on the bed. The pitcher of water on the nightstand was empty.
She frowned at the old dollhouse. The dolls were stiff and awkward, as if unsure what to do with themselves. Elswyth knelt down to set them in a more social arrangement. Greeting visitors from a distant land, perhaps before an afternoon tea party. She was setting up the table inside when she heard Louisa stir.
‘Mother?’ she cried out.
Elswyth stepped to her bedside and pressed a hand on her forehead. It was hot. Perhaps a cold compress was needed more than a new nightgown. ‘It’s Elsie. I’m here, dear.’
‘I want to go to the fair. The petting zoo…’
‘You’ve been to the fair. We can’t go now. I’ve told you. Do you want some water? I’ll fetch you some.’
When Elswyth returned, Louisa was sitting up in bed, awake. Elswyth handed her an overfull glass of water, and Louisa managed to spill a good deal on the bedclothes before bringing it to her lips. She drank the entirety in one swallow.
‘How are you feeling?’ Elswyth fixed the end of Louisa’s plait, which had come undone.
‘Fine.’ Louisa shrank back under the quilt.
‘I’ve brought your dollhouse and your dolls. I couldn’t find your favorite though.’
‘Maryposa is here.’ Her little blonde head appeared.
‘Oh, there she…Louisa! Did you cut a hole in that quilt? Mother sewed that, how could you?’
‘It’s a hole in the cave. Maryposa is staying in the cave.’
Elswyth snatched up the star-patterned quilt to inspect the damage. Louisa had cut holes in seven different sections. It would take a long time to mend. Once the quilt was off, Elswyth noticed her sister’s blister-red feet.
‘Have you been jumping in the laundry tub?’
‘Aunt Anne made me scrub them, and then held them over the fire to dry. She said that makes the baby grow.’ Louisa put a hand to her stomach.
‘Nonsensical superstition. I suppose she told you to cut these holes in the quilt, that the baby may breathe?’
‘They are caves. In the south. We are going away, Mr. Buell and I, on a great adventure, and we’re taking Grapes, and we will have our own family in a beautiful home on the prairie in Texas, and I will be away from wretched, smelly Chicago.’
‘Louisa, you must grow up. Mr. Buell has no such means. In fact, he’s from the same family as Mr. Thomas. Can’t you see that everything that monster says is a falsehood?’
Louisa slid her doll back through the mouth of the quilt cave.
Elswyth sighed. ‘Louisa, I am going to marry Mr. Buell, and we are going to raise your child. It is the only way to save you…’
‘No.’ Louisa sat up. ‘No. Mr. Buell is marrying me. I have his child. He promised me.’
‘Louisa you are too young to…’
‘Mr. Thomas is your suitor, Mr. Buell is mine.’
‘Mr. Thomas may never return. And if he does not, though I am loath to, I have to marry Mr. Buell instead. I am old, and my courting time is passed. You mustn’t miss yours.’
‘No!’ Louisa shouted and ran to block the door. Elswyth, being a bit taller, grabbed her by her shoulders and marched her straight back to the bed.
‘Why don’t you go after Mr. Thomas and disappear yourself?’ Louisa began to weep with abandon. When Elswyth tried to soothe her, Louisa wrested free and punched her in the arm with all her might.
The more she tried to restrain Louisa, the more inconsolable her sister became. When Louisa picked up her water glass and shattered it on the floor, Elswyth ran out. She told herself the only thing to do was to leave her to Aunt Anne, who could calm Louisa and clean up the mess. Truly, Elswyth knew that her own composure was on the verge of collapse.
Louisa should recognize her good fortune. She only had to hide away for nine months, then she could continue a normal life and be introduced to society as though none of it had ever happened. It was Elswyth who would be forever ruined.
Elswyth didn’t want her sister to see her cry, yet something in her needed to be released. She thought of calling on the doctor and saying she felt ill, just so he would bleed her again. The thought sickened her, but she could think of no other way she might gain some relief. She determined to go, just as soon as she’
d visited the post office and mailed Mr. Thomas’s letter.
Back in her room, as Elswyth dressed, a new plan arose in her mind. She knew her letters had been compromised by Mr. Buell’s meddling, but he had foolishly revealed his theft by naming Mr. Thomas’s location. Now that she could guess where he would likely be, a much more reliable way of reaching him there occurred to her—a telegram.
They were costly to send, but all at once she knew that this was the answer to her troubles. Why had she even bothered with a silly sonnet? Leaving her shoes aside, Elswyth tiptoed toward her father’s study.
She found him snoring, reclined on his couch. His brow was creased and he muttered to himself, but Elswyth knew his fitful sleep—it would take some commotion to rouse him. Something as soft and quiet as sliding his pocketbook out of his waistcoat would not interrupt his wild dreaming.
She was sad to discover one lone crumpled note inside, but it was the only way. She took it and carefully replaced the pocketbook. Mr. Gray rolled over with a snort.
Elswyth pitied her poor father and all his worldly troubles.
If she were married to Mr. Thomas, he would worship her and Louisa’s child besides, she was sure of it. They might raise the child together. Her father would banish Mr. Buell. If the child could have a pretend mother, why not a pretend father as well? Mr. Thomas could save her. It was a last desperate hope.
She flew from the house, scaring up a rat who had been cowering on the doorstep. She scurried toward the telegraph office, through the damp and darkening streets.
She passed a single worker who was fiddling with a new lamppost. The city had just lined the main streets with them, though they gave no light yet. He seemed to be watching her.
Breathless inside, she laid out her father’s last lonely note, and immediately requested one telegram to the first station inside the border of the disputed Texan territory: Santa Fe.
The sleepy clerk bent his head, and listened to her dictation for Mr. Zadock Thomas.
You must return to me by the 24th of October.
Otherwise I shall be married to Mr. Buell.
The few simple words were translated into the clacks of the telegraph machine, and then they were sent. An imprint of them remained in Elswyth’s mind as she hurried home from the telegraph office. She pulled her shawl close against the cold evening drizzle. She could afford no more than those two sentences. She could hear them ringing through the wires all the way down to that foreign land she could not entirely imagine. If her guesses were correct regarding his whereabouts, then she could trust Mr. Thomas would receive the telegram upon his arrival in Santa Fe, where she had addressed it.
It was but a small shadow of a hope. She missed him so. And she wished sorely to rid herself and her family of Mr. Buell.
Mr. Thomas would make it back in time. He must. He would receive the telegram and turn around straightaway and rush home. He had always been in love with her. He would obey her in this, as in all things. She must simply wait and hope. Her father had never quite approved of Mr. Thomas, but he couldn’t argue now. It was the best chance for the future happiness of all of them.
15/9/43
LOS PADILLAS, TEXAS
Dearest Elswyth,
There are no postal offices in this dusty country, but I will save up my letters until one can be found. I expect that once I reach Irion’s camp, he will have some means for posting letters.
I am near Albuquerque for a brief respite after a long ride with Rodriguez. He has been much happier out from under McMarrow’s thumb. D’Etre has proved an excellent steed, and as good a friend as I could hope for among any of the species of the earth.
Rodriguez’s family home is just south of Albuquerque in a place called Los Padillas. We were received by Sr. Rodriguez. He was surprised, but welcomed us immediately. The house is being maintained by his unmarried daughter, Doña Abril, Rodriguez’s sister. She is a handsome beauty of twenty-one years, with cheeks as red as a turkey’s nose. She is so deliberate and perfectly pristine in her manners and I must have seemed rude, for I could not bring myself to meet her gaze.
Rodriguez is a finer gentleman than I had even suspected before, and the comforts of his home and his refinement brought me relief.
The sala fronts the street and, instead of papering, the walls are painted in a singular fashion with sparrows and colorful moths. There are flowerpots and birdcages and a great many hounds. It being late in the season there are no blossoms in the flower beds, but the weather in this part of the west is so mild that the trees continue to bear fruit. I shall have my fill of the Illinois nut, which they call the pecan here.
If the grounds contain the riches of nature, the interior houses treasures crafted by man. Sr. Rodriguez carries the blood of nobility, and upon arriving I felt ashamed of the state I was in, dirty and disheveled. His great walls seemed to lean in with paintings of his ancestors looking down their noses. He has many filing cabinets and bookshelves stacked with fine volumes. You would love it here.
I had intended to leave this evening, the desert being a good deal cooler at night, but Rodriguez would not have it. He said he had thrown open the doors of his home to me and it was required that I at least stay one night. I struggle to tolerate this delay. I am anxious.
Illinois nuts and grapes were both part of the best meal I have had in months. It was served in four courses by Abril along with delightful Mexican dishes of boiled meats, onions, cabbage, and potatoes. We drank aguadiente, a strong brandy the natives make from the root of the agave plant. After a few cups, Sr. Rodriguez asserted that Indians were the finest people of these lands, calling them honorable and just. He said they love each other as many men do not, and that they wisely heed the counsel of their matriarchs. He said his own daughter had spent time with their female shamans to learn their ways. He smoked cigarritas constantly, and offered them to me in a way I found difficult to refuse. They kept going out as I pretended to smoke them.
Sr. Rodriguez then revealed that he knew Irion, much to my surprise. He admired the man and agreed that Texas should not belong to Mexico, despite being a citizen. He has sent money, not only to protect his trade caravans but also to prop up the Texian rebellion and aid Irion’s fight. In the end, however, he does not think Texas should join the U.S. either. Instead he called it the crucible for a new society. He said Irion’s fight could be ours and described a utopian vision that sounded distant and overwhelming to me. He spoke of superior mechanical technology and a large society working together, focused on its internal affairs rather than on expanding its territory and defending itself against other nations. Sr. Rodriguez asserts that Irion is the man to do it, because he alone among the Texians is able to find peace with the Indians. And he is possessed of a vision.
At the conclusion he called me a fellow rebel. I was so full of food and drink and smoke, I hadn’t the head to ask what that meant. I took leave of my hosts and retired to the fine quarters they have provided. I am dead tired, and expect sleep will overtake me quickly tonight.
Yours from a Foreign Land, Zadock
FAM. PHRYNOSOMATIDAE
GEN. PHRYNOSOMA
16.9.43, 11:45, 95 deg., 5 knots, few clouds
Desert country. Outside Rodriguez’s estate, Los Padillas
Horned Toad. Reptile. 6 inches. Spiky head and dorsum. Brown with black spots, very much the color of the earth here. A disc-shaped body, with short legs. I found this rather ugly little toad on an anthill outside Rodriguez’s stable. He sat atop it, slurping up ants like some dragon feasting on a town of helpless men who had been flushed from their underground hiding-holes. I drew him quickly, as I didn’t much like the look of him, and Abril found me doing so. I said he looked like a horned toad, but she named him the Virgin’s bull, owing to the larger spines on his head, and to the fact that he wept blood. I could scarcely believe this latter fact, and told her so using the simplest English accompanied by explanatory gestures. Grabbing a long stick, she surprised me by poking at him merciless
ly. He hissed and puffed, but she continued, backing him against a rock wall. She said the creature could tell if a girl was pregnant. Finally, completely puffed up and highly agitated, the creature did indeed squirt blood from its eyes in a most terrible way. I have never seen such a horrifying skill, and feel sometimes I understand this alien world not at all.
MR. BUELL ENTERTAINS DARK THOUGHTS.
Mr. Buell had been up all night in the fencing salle, practicing lunges with a sabre. It was a fighting sabre, no practice weapon. He had decided he should not go about unarmed anymore. These were dangerous times, and the city’s police force was paltry.
Mr. Buell slashed over and over into an oak board he had carved out for a target. He practiced all the positions and sequences of every attack he knew, each time more quickly and violently. His flank cut was deadly accurate.
He pretended his target was the body of Mr. Thomas. A stack of his opened letters sat on the floor. He had read them all again, vowing that Elswyth never would. If it weren’t for Mr. Thomas, Elswyth wouldn’t be trying to control his life. Why should he be made responsible for her selfish heart? He imagined holding it in his hand, a pulsing red pomegranate. Mr. Thomas’s return was impossible. He was pale, sickly, and birdbrained besides. Mr. Buell feared he would spend the rest of his days trapped inside walls, married to his cousin’s temperamental love.
Mr. Thomas had fallen easily under Aunt Anne’s religious spell. He couldn’t stand to see them together sipping her wretched teas and speaking of mysteries that could only ever enchant idle minds. Any fool who put stock in the preposterous readings of tea leaves or spiritualist beliefs about the communing of souls had no place in a museum of natural sciences.
He hadn’t seen Louisa in many days now. It was his rightful duty to check on the health of his child and its mother. Maybe it would be best to steal them both away in the night. He could save them from being locked in Elswyth’s schemes as well.
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