Thoreau on Wolf Hill

by Oak, B. B.

  “Indeed they should, dear Julia, so that when the time comes for them to part with their maidenheads they will know what to expect. Most girls do not, and the shock of it takes away from the pleasure.” Mrs. Swann smiled at the wide-eyed Phyfe sisters. “And I assure you, my pets, there is nothing more pleasurable than an orgasm.”

  “What’s that?” Calista said.

  “Never mind,” I said.

  But Beatrice seemed to think she could enlighten her little sister. “Don’t you remember what Papa taught us, Callie? An organism is an individual form of life, be it animal or vegetable.”

  “I am still confused,” Calista said. “Pray who is this large member of Congress?”

  “I am not sure,” Beatrice admitted. “But if he is so stiff, he is most likely a Whig.”

  I glared at Mrs. Swann. “There, you see! They are complete Innocents! They don’t even know what you are talking about.”

  Arabel ran out of the room in tears, and Mrs. Swann’s smile grew even wider. “That one does,” she said.

  I assumed Arabel had gone out to the Necessary, as she had done a few times during yesterday’s sitting, but when I glanced outside and saw her bonneted head bob past the front windows, I realized she was heading home. It seemed pointless to continue without her, so I dismissed her sisters, requesting that all three come back for another session tomorrow. After they left, I turned to Mrs. Swann, more puzzled than angry.

  “Whatever possessed you to read to them from such a salacious book as that?” I said.

  She shrugged. “It amused me.”

  Her glib reply infuriated me. “Your reckless amusement might well cost me dearly, Mrs. Swann. If the girls tell their father what they heard here today, they will never be allowed to return.”

  “Girls never discuss such things with their fathers.”

  “How can you be so sure? I need this commission in order to pay for food and coal and wood. Indeed, in order to pay for your services, Mrs. Swann, however much or little they are worth.”

  “From your tone I infer you do not think my services are worth much at all, Julia. But allow me to point out, my dear, that you have not paid me a penny for them.”

  “Only because you refuse payment!”

  “Well, there you are,” she said, throwing open her arms, palms up, in a theatrical manner. “So you have nothing to complain about, do you?”

  I found arguing with Mrs. Swann most frustrating. “My complaint concerns your inappropriate frankness with the Phyfe girls about sexual matters.”

  “Permit me at least to be frank with you, dear Julia. After all, we are married ladies with experience in such matters. Let bigoted churchmen and canting hypocrites rail against the sin of carnal knowledge all they want to; we both know what delight there is in copulation, do we not?”

  I remained silent.

  “Have you never experienced such delight with your husband?” Mrs. Swann said.

  Again, I said nothing.

  Mrs. Swann sighed. “You were doubtless a bridal virgin, ignorant of all passionate desires.”

  I did not think it necessary to confess to her the passionate desire I had felt for my cousin before I married Jacques Pelletier. “A virgin, yes,” I allowed.

  “Then you most likely discovered on your wedding night that ignorance was not bliss.”

  Oh, how right she was on that score! “Never mind about me, Mrs. Swann. We were discussing the Phyfe girls.”

  “Well, why should they remain ignorant of fleshly pleasures? Indeed, I have taken it upon myself to educate as many young ladies as I can.” She rose from her chair and came to stand close to me, redolent of bergamot and sandalwood. “I would be most happy to educate you too, dear Julia, on the various ways to pleasure the male member.”

  I turned away from her and back to my drawing. “I do not care to continue this conversation, Mrs. Swann.”

  “Very well. I was simply trying to explain to you why I took it upon myself to enlighten the little Phyfe fillies. But I shall never bring up the forbidden subject of sex with them again if that is what you prefer.”

  “I do. Now if you will allow me to go back to my work”—I began shading my drawing—“I shall let you get back to yours. You must have various duties to attend to.”

  “Such as what?” she inquired, sounding genuinely perplexed.

  “Surely you know better than I, Mrs. Swann,” I replied. “The management of my husband’s chateau was already well established when I married him, and he wanted me to have nothing to do with it. Which was just as well, for the skills I learned during my girlhood were those of an artist’s apprentice rather than a housekeeper. You, on the other hand, have had long experience maintaining a house, or so you claimed when first we met.”

  “I suppose I could go about rousting dust or something,” she said vaguely. “Or leastways get that boy to make himself useful.”

  “Noah is not a servant here, Mrs. Swann. Pray do not treat him as such anymore.”

  “What makes you think I have?”

  “I found him blacking the stove earlier today for one thing.”

  “Well, I never asked him to do so, I assure you. But let us not forget, my dear, softhearted one, that he would have been called upon to perform far harder and dirtier tasks if he’d been bound out to the charcoal pit.”

  “Thank God he was not. And he is not to be treated as a servant here,” I repeated even more firmly.

  “Very good, madam. Your wish is my command,” Mrs. Swann said in a mock British accent and gave me a parody of a curtsy before she exited the room.

  I could not help but smile. Despite her improprieties (or because of them), she does amuse me. I have never encountered a woman quite like Mrs. Swann before. Nor have I forgotten that I am beholden to her for the Phyfe commission. I only hope she has not lost it for me!

  ADAM’S JOURNAL

  Friday, December 10

  As I was making my afternoon rounds today, Napoleon of a sudden began to favor his right foreleg. Climbed down and saw the horseshoe on that hoof had pulled loose and shifted so as to unbalance him. Fortunately, we were less than a mile from town. Pulled the shoe off and turned him around and walked beside him to the blacksmith shop. Left him there and went to my office for more bottles of laudanum to replenish the low supply in my bag. Try to be careful dosing my patients with such an addictive drug, but what else can I leave with consumptives to ease their pain and help them sleep?

  It was most providential that I was at the office when I am normally away from it, for as I was opening the medicine cabinet I glanced out the back window and heeded a thin trail of smoke wafting out the open barn door. Ran into the barn and followed the smoke to where it rose heaviest. Found young Noah passed out behind the stacked bags of oats. He was lying not a yard from flames that were licking through hay and heading right toward his inert form. Snatched him up and got him out of there. He was limp and loose-limbed in my arms as if in deep slumber.

  Laid him on the ground, made certain he was breathing and unharmed, and rushed back inside. Used an empty grain sack to beat down at flames that now flared high as my waist. Managed to whack them down to smoldering embers, then kicked away the hay. The smoke near overcame me, though. Fell to my hands and knees and crawled blindly away, butting my head hard against a post. Followed the glow of light through my eyelids to the barn door and out. Fell over beside Noah and blinked my eyes clear.

  Checked the boy’s breathing again and found it steady and slow. Went to the well and filled a bucket of water and washed his face of the black hay dust. His eyes blinked open. He clutched his hand at my coat, mumbled incomprehensible words at me, and then fell back silent again. Patted his cheek to reassure him.

  After I thoroughly doused the burnt hay with water to be sure no rogue sparks remained, I carried Noah into my office, put him on the sick-bay cot, and covered him with a blanket. Stoked the stove and kept watch as he continued to sleep deeply. Heard Julia come through the back door and
called to her. When she entered the office and saw Noah passed out on the cot, she went almost as white as he was. Told her how I’d found him in the barn and reassured her that he was not injured, just overcome by smoke inhalation.

  “He would have suffocated or burned to death if not for you,” she said.

  “That I came along before he did so proves it was not his time to die,” I said.

  “What it proves to me is that you are a hero, Adam.”

  Could not help but feel like one under her admiring gaze. When I was a boy I would risk life and limb in foolish acts of bravery to get that shining look from her. I loved her then with all my heart, but it was a chaste, noble love. Only later, when we met again as adults, did base physical desire complicate our once innocent relationship. And still does, I am sorry to say. Whenever she is in my presence, no matter how much she has hurt and disappointed me, I still desire her, damn it.

  “Where is that housekeeper of yours?” I asked her rather gruffly.

  “I have no idea where Mrs. Swann is. She was in the kitchen when I left for the tailor shop about an hour ago. I told her I was expecting guests this afternoon and asked if she would be so kind as to bake some of her special chocolate puffs for them. She assured me she would do so, but as I passed through the kitchen just now I saw no sign of them. Nor was she herself there. Perhaps she had one of her unfortunate headaches and is resting in her room.”

  “If so, I should think she would have noticed smoke coming from the barn,” I said.

  “The windows face the street. I gave her Grandfather’s bedchamber.”

  “Did you?”

  “Why shouldn’t I have?”

  “Did I say you should not have, Julia?”

  “Your countenance did.”

  I made an effort to readjust my expression. In truth, I did not like the idea of Mrs. Swann, a complete stranger, living in the Walker house, much less occupying the master chamber. But it is Julia’s house now, and if she sees fit to give her housekeeper the bedchamber her grandparents had once occupied, that is her business, not mine.

  Noah awakened and sat up groggily. Julia and I urged him to lie down again and continue to rest, but he pointed to the skeleton hanging in the corner and shook his head.

  “Noah does not seem to care for the macabre company you keep, Adam,” Julia said with a small smile. “He would rest more easily in his own bed, don’t you think?”

  I carried Noah up to the room I had occupied two summers ago whilst Doc Silas was recuperating from a broken leg. Many a sleepless night had I spent there, fighting down the temptation to go knocking on the door of the adjacent room, where Julia slept. That I never did is to my credit, I suppose. And to my everlasting regret.

  We tucked Noah in his bed, and he fell back asleep immediately. Went out to the hall and rapped my knuckles sharply on the door of the master bedchamber. No reply came forth, so I opened the door and peeked within. Mrs. Swann was nowhere to be seen. Stepped inside to look about. Might well have invaded the woman’s privacy further by opening a large trunk at the foot of the bed if not for the padlock on it. Might have looked in the wardrobe and drawers, too, if Julia had not been watching me from the doorway. The scent of lavender and bergamot hung in the air, and some of Mrs. Swann’s lace-trimmed underthings were scattered about the room. I heard a carriage pull up in front of the house and looked out the window.

  “Why, it’s Henry and Lidian Emerson!” I said, turning back to Julia. “What a pleasant surprise to have them call.”

  “Pleasant to have them call, indeed,” she said. “But not a surprise to me. They are the guests I told you I was expecting.”

  “You might have mentioned their names.”

  “You might have asked me their names.”

  “It is not my business to inquire whom you invite to your home, Julia. Or even whom you invite to live in it.”

  “Do stop harping on Mrs. Swann, Adam.”

  “I think I have shown great restraint.”

  “Restraint in expressing your disapproval?”

  “Yes!” I admitted, for she had finally worn me down. “I think you acted most rashly when you took her in. But then you always do.”

  “Do what?”

  “Act rashly, Julia. And because of it, you have wrecked our happiness.”

  “All my past actions were meant to insure your happiness, Adam.”

  “Foolish, foolish woman!” How in God’s name did she think I could be happy without her as my wife?

  “Foolish, am I? Perhaps so. I was a fool to think we could be friends again.”

  “I don’t want to be your friend, Julia.”

  “You have made that most obvious, cousin, and—”

  Our argument was interrupted by the sound of pounding on the front door, and we hurried downstairs. When we opened the door, Mrs. Emerson gave us a benevolent smile, but Henry looked rather annoyed, which led me to suppose he had been kept waiting on the doorstep far longer than he saw fit. He can be amazingly patient when observing nature, but social calls set his teeth on edge.

  His expression immediately changed to one of alert interest as he regarded me. “How did it start?”

  Since I had not even had a chance to open my mouth to greet him, his question took me aback. “How did what start, Henry?”

  “The fire in the barn behind the house, of course.” Henry brushed some charred straw off the sleeve of my frock coat and gave me a sniff. “From the lingering scent of smoke upon your person, I surmise it occurred less than an hour ago. And seeing that the barn is still standing, I would like to congratulate you for successfully putting it out. But you have not answered my question yet, Adam. How did it start?”

  “I have not had a chance to investigate that yet.”

  Henry’s eyes lit up. “Then let us do it together right now!”

  We took leave of the ladies and made our way to the barn. When I pointed to where I had found Noah lying unconscious, Henry asked how old the boy was but said nothing more about him. He searched the barn’s littered floor, found what was left of five locofoco friction matches, and held each up to examine.

  “Four are burnt down to the end,” he said. “That suggests they were lit for amusement, since it does not take but one lit match to start hay going. This last match is burnt to charcoal, however. It looks to be the one that dropped into the hay and started the fire.”

  “But was it dropped intentionally,” I said, “or accidently?”

  “That boy started the fire on purpose, or my name is not Mrs. Swann!”

  Henry and I swung around to see Julia’s housekeeper standing behind us. “We did not hear you come in,” I said.

  “I have little cat feet,” she replied.

  I introduced her to Henry. He nodded but did not extend his hand. Nor did she offer hers to him. Instead, she twirled a finger around one of the sausage curls that peeked out from beneath her frilly cap. Henry took a few steps back and observed her as he would any object of nature that caught his attention. (Although the bright yellow color of those curls was hardly natural.)

  “Julia just told me how you saved both the boy and the barn from burning up,” she said to me. “Bravo, doctor. I applaud your pluck.”

  That she actually clapped her hands together, as if I had put on a performance, irritated me. “Where have you been all this time, Mrs. Swann?”

  “At Daggett’s market. Chin-wagging the last hour or so away with Solomon Wiley. He has me near believing in vampyres, so convincing are his accounts of personal dealings with them. Vampyres have mortal minions, he told me, to do their evil bidding during daylight hours. Evil such as this.”

  “Such as what exactly, madam?” Henry said.

  “Why, setting fire to a barn! If it were an accident, it might be called boyish mischief. That it was deliberate can only be called evil.”

  “Why are you so sure the boy set the fire deliberately?” Henry said.

  “Because I have witnessed him doing so in the house.�
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  “He has set things afire in the house?” I asked most anxiously.

  “Yes, but nothing so bad as what he has done here!” She gestured toward the burnt hay. “He enjoys lighting bits of paper and cloth and such and then dropping them into the stove or the sink. No harm comes of it, so I have not mentioned it before now. Julia does not like to hear a word said against the boy, so I dare not tell her how much he frightens me.”

  “He frightens you when he burns bits of paper and cloth?” Henry asked in a disbelieving tone.

  “Indeed he does. When he strikes a match and gazes into its sulfureted flare, he looks like a soul possessed. Why, Satan himself could not look more delighted. I wager you found spent matches here in the barn. He does so like to watch them burn in solitude. I have tried to put a stop to it, but he always manages to filch kitchen matches no matter where I hide them.”

  Several small bats were flitting fretfully overhead as Mrs. Swann spoke, and one unexpectedly dropped down and swept not a foot from her left ear. Much to my amazement, she did not budge an inch or even blink.

  “You are a most unnatural woman,” Henry told her.

  She took umbrage, as any female would. “And what do you mean by that, sir?”

  “Most women are terrified of bats.”

  “As I am!” She glanced over her right shoulder at the creatures flying high up near the beams. “I have been keeping an eye on them, and if they come any closer I shall immediately depart. Hideous, unnatural creatures!”

  “Nothing unnatural or hideous about them,” Henry said. “They are viviparous quadrupeds with furry bodies that suckle their young. Usually they are torpid in the winter, but the dangerous scent of fire has disturbed them. In the summer they come out at night and feed on small insects.”

  “They feed on humans, too!” Mrs. Swann said. “They draw blood from sleeping people, especially babies.”

  “Not true,” Henry calmly refuted. “There is nothing I would welcome more in my bedchamber on a warm summer eve than a visit from a roving bat.”