by Oak, B. B.
“What a foolish woman I am,” she said for the fiftieth time, “racing about and frolicking with that child as if I were a child myself. But you see, it was so exhilarating to be skating so free and easy. As you said, Mr. Thoreau, it was like having wings of steel!”
“I also said to stay away from the stream,” he replied with cold, quiet anger.
“I know, but we were having so much fun, little Noah and I, that I did not heed where we were going. I am sorry! So sorry! Oh, how very sorry I am!”
And oh how very tired I was of hearing her grating voice. When I recommended that she go rest in her chamber after such an ordeal, I was greatly relieved that she followed my suggestion.
“There is something out of kelter with that woman,” Henry said when she’d left.
Did not ask him to elucidate. Had no interest in discussing her further. We talked of Noah instead. Henry agreed that another attempt should be made to talk to Mrs. Trescot, and the sooner the better. He said the only day he would be free to go to Boston before Christmas was tomorrow, and so it was settled we would meet at the Concord station at four, after I’d made my rounds.
By now it was dusk, and Henry had a three-mile walk back to Concord ahead of him. His own coat was soaking wet, and I insisted he take Doc Silas’s overcoat, an old-fashioned caped Garrick. When I told Henry he looked quite dashing in it, he almost took it off. Also gave him Doc’s rabbit skin hat. We’d all lost our hats at the pond, but at least Henry had not lost his head. Thanked him again for pulling Julia and me to safety.
“The moment I took hold of that tree branch, I knew we would be all right,” I said. “It was like gripping your very hand, Henry.”
He smiled. “Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself?”
Henry is a wonderful friend to have. Indeed, he is a man truly full of wonder. Even so I was glad when he departed, for all I wanted to do was go up to Julia’s chamber and be with her.
How pleasurable it is to see the woman you love in bed, propped up by pillows, with her golden hair down about her shoulders, and the glow of lamp light upon her lovely face. And how excruciating it is too, when every atom in your being desires her although she is wed to another.
I had brought her a warmed brick wrapped in a towel and offered to tuck it under her bedcovers. Rather than permit me this intimacy, she took the brick from my hand and placed it against her lower torso. “Oh, how good it feels!” she sighed.
“Would that I were that brick.”
She laughed. “You are a brick, Adam. A brick of a fellow.”
Sat on the edge of the bed and reached for her hand. She allowed me at least that familiarity. Played with her fingers. Stroked the beautiful blue vein of her wrist. The logs in the shallow fireplace crackled, and the little clock on the mantel ticked off the minutes. We had never minded sharing silence together, Julia and I.
But finally I spoke. “What I meant to say, Julia, is that we should be sharing a bed together as husband and wife.”
She gently extracted her hand from mine. “But we cannot.”
“Only because you already have a husband.”
“He is not the only reason, cousin.”
By calling me that, she seemed to be taunting me. But of course she was not, for she remained ignorant of the facts concerning our relationship. And the time had come for her to know the truth.
“I am your cousin in name only, Julia. We have no ties of consanguinity. The man who sired me was not your uncle Owen Walker. As Gran Tuttle put it to me, I was born on the wrong side of the blanket.”
“That cannot be! Your grandmother must be lying.”
“Oh, Gran lied all right. For years and years. To protect her daughter’s good name. And also out of kindness to Doc Silas, for he cherished the belief that I was the child of his beloved dead son. But I was no more kin to your grandfather, Julia, than to the man in the moon. So neither am I kin to you.”
“No kin to me?” she repeated as the meaning of this registered in her mind. “Are you telling me, Adam, that we could have married and had normal children?”
“Yes! Gran told me the truth right after you sailed for France, and I went after you on the next ship. I might well have flown there on the wings of happiness, for I was sure you would marry me now that the only obstacle between us had dissolved. Imagine my mortification when I learned that another obstacle had suddenly appeared between us in the form of a husband. It is most difficult to propose marriage to a woman who is off on her honeymoon with another man.”
“You must stop reproaching me for that, Adam. I became acquainted with an elderly gentleman named Jacques Pelletier on the very ship I took to get away from you. When I reached Paris I found Papa gravely ill and about to be carted off to debtor’s prison. Jacques offered to pay off Papa’s debts if I agreed to marry him. He seemed good and kind, and so I did. Why not? Since I could not marry you, I knew I would never marry for love.”
“But we could have married!” I near shouted at her.
“So you tell me now. And I do not thank you for making me realize that I have ruined my life for no good reason.” Tears filled her eyes as she looked at me.
“You had to know the truth, Julia.”
“Why?”
“So that you and I can be together as we are meant to be.”
“How? Divorce has been abolished in France. I will never be free to marry you, Adam.” She buried her face in her hands and rocked back and forth, moaning. Tried to take her into my arms to comfort her, but she pushed me away. “I have ruined my life for no good reason!” she said again, glaring at me through a shimmer of tears as if it were my fault. “My suffering has become meaningless, and I am left with nothing but regret.”
“But don’t you understand, my love?” I said. “We no longer have to avoid physical intimacy because we fear the consequences.”
Her eyes grew hard as she regarded me. “Ah, now I do understand. You are proposing I become your mistress.”
In truth I was. As much as I hoped to marry her someday, I certainly did not want to wait until we found a legal way to make this possible. That might take years. Yet hearing her state my desire so frankly made me ashamed. And that in turn made me angry.
“How long do you expect me to wait for you, Julia?”
“I never expected you to wait for me at all! I expected you to forget about me and find a suitable wife for yourself. And I still expect you to do so. We have no future together, Adam.”
“Then why did you call me back?”
“Call you back from where?”
“Death! As I near drowned today, your spirit cried out to mine not to leave you behind.”
Her eyes softened. “I am glad you heeded it.” She began to cry again. “Pray go away, Adam. I cannot bear to look at you now that I know I gave you up needlessly.”
“Allow me to say one thing before I leave you, Julia. We are kindred spirits and belong together. Nothing else matters. And the sooner you realize this, the happier we both shall be.”
Left her an hour ago. Hope she has ceased her weeping by now and found a modicum of solace in sleep. Doubt I will sleep a wink tonight. Do I hear footsteps coming down the hall?
JULIA’S NOTEBOOK
Thursday, 23 December
If what I did last night was wrong, why do I feel so good about it? I do not repent in the least. Indeed, I cannot wait to repeat the experience again and again.
It took me a good while to collect myself after Adam left my chamber last night, for what he told me turned my world upside down and inside out. He and I have no blood relation! We could have married fifteen months ago and foregone all the wretchedness that ensued upon my leaving him. I would not have met Jacques Pelletier, much less married him. But what is done is done. There is no changing it, only dealing with it as best we can.
So rather than suffer further, or make Adam suffer for no better reason than propriety’s sake, I dried my eyes and went to him. I would have walked barefoot in the co
ld night air all the way to Tuttle Farm to reach him, but all I had to do was go down the stairs and through the hall to his office, where he has been staying in order to keep watch over me whilst a killer roams our town.
When he looked up from his writing and saw me at his threshold, there was such joy upon his beloved countenance that I began crying all over again. He sprang to his feet, took me into his arms, and kissed me with such pent-up passion that I felt myself swept into a vortex stronger than the current that almost carried me to my death. We surrendered to each other, drowned in each other, a confluence of male and female energy united at last as one, our souls and bodies throbbing.
Flushed with the pleasure we had given each other, we floated together in bliss, naked limbs entwined as we lay upon the narrow cot. But when I opened my eyes I saw lurking in the shadows a most horrible, hollow-orbed figure regarding us. I cried out and Adam leaped up, fists raised to do battle. When I realized ’twas only his anatomical skeleton that had startled me, I could not stop laughing. My well-knit flesh and blood man did not seem to find this as amusing as I did, but I easily cajoled him to lie with me again, and we resumed silently drifting together in the pleasure of the present moment.
Alas, we did not stay silent, and conversation soon brought both the past and the future into bed with us, almost crowding out our newfound happiness.
“We must find a lawyer who knows the legalities involved in dissolving a marriage made in France,” Adam said as he caressed the small of my back. “It will take time and patience and money, no doubt about it, but one day you shall be my wife in the eyes of the law as you already are in the eyes of God, my dear Julia.”
“In the eyes of God I have committed the grievous sin of adultery,” I bluntly stated. “Leastways that is how most religions created in His name would view my actions. As does society as well as the law.”
“But do you?” Adam asked me. He sounded hurt.
I hugged him closer to me. “In my heart I do not believe I have sinned, Adam. It is my personal belief that there is no sin but one—to intentionally do harm to another being. My love for you does no harm to my husband for he has no love for me. And how can I break marriage vows when they have already been shattered beyond repair by him? He took up with his established mistress less than a month after we were wed.”
“Is that why you left him?”
“No. I felt not the slightest jealousy toward her, only gratitude that she kept him away from me. I left my husband when I learned how he had made his fortune for I could not abide living off the profits of his trade. Jacques Pelletier was a slave trader, Adam. He shipped slaves from West Africa to Martinique.”
“My God, Julia. What manner of man did you marry?”
“More monster than man, I sadly discovered. But I am far away from him now.”
“Will he come after you?”
“Since he has not yet, I do not think so. He is an old man, with limited energy and many evil ways to expend it. He will not make the effort to get back a wife who has rejected him. His pride will not allow it.”
I could not bear to tell Adam what depths of despair and depravity my marriage had cast me into, and to stop further questions from him, I pressed my mouth to his. In the next moment our blanket was thrown off in the heat of our renewed passion. I did not leave his office until daybreak.
We have been apart for only a few hours, but I miss him with every fiber of my being. I pray he will succeed in gaining a personal audience with Mrs. Trescot. I wish I could have accompanied Adam and Henry to Boston, but felt it best to stay at home and keep watch on Noah. As he sits here in my studio, drawing contentedly on his pad, I see no signs of illness after his dip into the icy waters. What a spunky lad he is! And I am feeling quite spunky myself this afternoon. How wonderful it is to be able to love Adam without reserve. I await his return with shameless anticipation.
ADAM’S JOURNAL
Thursday, December 23
When Julia brought Noah into her home three weeks ago, how could she have known what evil accompanied him? Henry and I learned of this lurking malevolence today, when we met the woman who bore the boy.
A maid answered Mrs. Trescot’s front door and greeted Henry with a curt curtsy. “I have brought with me a doctor to see Mrs. Trescot,” he told her.
Apparently that phrase had the magical power of Open Sesame, for the maid let us in without the least hesitation. “Yet another doctor,” I heard her murmur as she led us up the staircase and right to Mrs. Trescot’s chamber door. She rapped softly and peered into the room. “There’s a new doctor to see you, madam,” she said.
“Let us hope he is better than the last one,” came a weak and weary reply. “Allow him in.”
I entered whilst Henry discreetly waited in the doorway. Mrs. Trescot, reclining on a chaise longue, was draped in shawls and blankets, but I deduced from the appearance of her thin neck and sunken face that she was wasting away. Despite her wizened appearance, I guessed her age to be no more than thirty-five. She looked at me with half-closed eyes, as if in a stupor.
“Are you Dr. Blough’s associate, come to bleed me?” she said.
Bleed her! Her emaciated body could not have contained an ounce of blood to spare. “No, Mrs. Trescot. Although I am a doctor, I have not come to treat you.” I beckoned Henry into the room.
“The purpose of our visit is to reunite you with your son,” he told her gently.
Mrs. Trescot’s eyes shot wide open. “Thank God you have found him!”
“It is you we have been looking for, Mrs. Trescot,” Henry said.
“You are not the detective my lawyer hired to find my son?”
“I have never met your lawyer, madam,” Henry said. “Nor am I a detective.”
A tall, broad-beamed nurse marched into the chamber and glared at Henry. “You again!”
“You recognize this man, Miss Dibble?”
“Indeed I do, madam. He came with the young woman who left you that bogus note. But I have not seen this other fellow before.”
“He professes to be a doctor,” Mrs. Trescot said.
“Ah, so that’s how they managed to trick their way into your chamber.” The nurse threw back her shoulders. “Leave immediately, the both of you!”
Henry paid her no heed and kept his eyes upon the invalid. “Hear us out or you shall forever regret it, Mrs. Trescot. And so will your son Noah.”
“I have no son by that name. That is why the note I received claiming Noah needed a mother made no sense. So I turned it over to my lawyer rather than reply to it myself. My son, you see, was named David.”
“Well, he is called Noah now, and he is residing in a town not far from Boston.”
“You know not of what you speak. My son resides somewhere in New York City.”
“Do not give these charlatans any more information, madam,” the nurse cautioned.
“Charlatans! Don’t be absurd,” I protested.
Henry ignored the insult. “Please listen, Mrs. Trescot,” he said most patiently. “The boy we have come to tell you about has a cleft lip.”
She blinked a few times. “When was he born?”
“On December 25, twelve years ago come this Christmas.”
“As was David,” she said softly. “My husband told me he had given our child to a good Christian couple in New York. That is where my lawyer sent the detective.”
“How long have you been searching for your son?” I asked.
“Since my husband died in May. When he was alive, he would not allow me to do so.” Mrs. Trescot brought trembling hands to her temples. “I am in need of some medicine, Miss Dibble. I am becoming distraught.”
“Calomel will only upset you more,” I said, quite sure that was what was causing Mrs. Trescot’s tremors and the loss of several fingernails.
Miss Dibble glanced my way. “Maybe you really are a doctor.”
“Of course I am. And I do not prescribe mercury poison to my patients.”
Miss Dibbl
e nodded and heaved a sigh. “Alas, most doctors do, and Mrs. Trescot has come to rely on it so.”
She went to a table laden with bottles and poured a dose of a heavy, yellowish-white liquid into a wineglass, added water from a crystal pitcher, and stirred the mixture vigorously. Mrs. Trescot took the glass from the nurse and could barely drink from it, it shook so in her claw-like hand, but she managed to get down a few swallows.
“That’s better,” she said and returned her attention to us. “How I want to believe you! But how can I be sure the boy you speak of is my son?”
“When you see him you will know,” I said. “The cleft in his lip has a most distinctive shape, and surely you remember what he looked like when he was born.”
“How could I forget? I stared and stared at him in horror and disbelief. I confess that I could not bear to hold him. Yet as soon as he was taken from me, I longed to have him back. I begged my husband to return him to me, but he refused. He simply could not abide raising a child who looked like that. You see, he married me for my beauty and expected me to give him beautiful children. But we had no other children after David. That was our just punishment for giving him up.”
“Your boy’s adoptive parents died recently,” Henry told her. “They worked at the Howard Theater, as we were told you once did.”
“I did not work there.” She lifted her chin. “I played there!” For a moment her eyes blazed as they must have on stage, then just as suddenly they dimmed. “I was so very vain in those days. So very foolish too. Who were these people who took in my child?”
“Edgar and Mary Robinson.”
“I knew them! Edgar built sets at the Howard. And Mary taught me to sing light opera. She was patient and kind and most competent, despite her blindness. Yes, she would have been a good mother to my son, I think.”
“He is a fine boy,” I said. “He was raised up well.”