Lake in the Clouds

by Sara Donati

  Hannah drank the last of her cold tea and put the cup down on the tray with the remnants of their dinner. The study was crowded with boxes brought back from the city, books Dr. Simon had sent as a gift to his colleague, gifts from Will and Amanda, all the supplies that Richard had ordered.

  A deep basket of nuts, candied fruits, and sweetmeats from the Far East sat on top of the new edition of Thacher’s Dispensatory; boxes of tea and coffee and tobacco vied for space with six dozen sealed jars of raw chemicals. A scarf woven of silk and fine wool had been flung over a box of vaccination supplies. Amanda had worked the pattern of twining ivy in silk thread, but Hannah knew that Richard might well use it to pull hot plates from the furnace and never even notice what he had done if it were not put away soon.

  The most expensive item he had asked for was a new lens for the precious microscope that sat on its own table by the window. Hannah had carried the lens herself for the entire length of the journey, wrapped in many layers of silk and muslin inside a canvas bag, like the most fragile and valuable of eggs.

  “Now maybe I should send you to Philadelphia to learn Dr. Rush’s treatment for yellow jack. As you did such a fine job with Dr. Simon. His letter is full of praise.”

  “You needn’t sound so surprised,” Hannah said.

  He cleared his throat, which she was meant to understand as an admonition. She went on anyway. “I have no interest in going to Philadelphia, or anyplace else for that matter. Don’t you want to talk about Kitty?”

  Then he did look up, his head cocked to one side. “Your letters were very detailed. I have all the information I need. Or maybe you want to complain about Dr. Ehrlich to my face.”

  Hannah shrugged. “No, the less said about him the better. But I would like to talk about her treatment.”

  He narrowed his eyes and dropped his chin to his chest to peer over the tops of his spectacles. “There is no treatment, you know that. Good food to build up her blood, restricted exercise.”

  “And something to occupy her mind,” Hannah finished for him. “You haven’t said a word about the baby.”

  He grunted, a low and dismissive sound but not an angry one. “She may keep the child if it amuses her.”

  A flush of anger took Hannah by surprise; she had believed Richard could not shock her, and she was wrong. She said, “She is a little girl, not a puppy.”

  Richard blinked at her tone, a little surprised, not entirely displeased. “She shall have what she needs,” he said, unruffled. “Short of adoption. Do we understand each other?”

  “Which ‘she’ are you talking about?”

  He threw up both hands in surrender. “Both of them. Both of them. I’ve had enough of this topic. What of the vaccination schedule? When will you take care of your own family?”

  “This evening,” said Hannah. “I brought enough stored virus to vaccinate everyone at Lake in the Clouds, except Runs-from-Bears and Pines-Rustling, of course, as they both have natural immunity. But there’s one more issue about Kitty that we must have clear between us.”

  “Oh really,” Richard said, shifting in his seat in high agitation. “And what is that?”

  “It would be disastrous for her if she should …” In spite of her best intentions, Hannah found the words she had practiced so faithfully, the sentences she had gone over with Curiosity again and again, had failed her. But it didn’t matter, because Richard knew already what she was trying to say. His usual disdainful and impatient expression drained away to be replaced first by regret and finally by a combination of fear and embarrassment and simple vulnerability; things he managed to hide from the world day by day.

  He said, “There is no need to fear. I will not endanger my wife’s health. I am surprised that you would suspect that I’m capable of such irrational behavior.”

  Hannah exhaled. She said, “Everyone is capable of everything, at any time. Another lesson from the city, one of the less pleasant ones.”

  Richard held her glance for a beat too long, and then looked away without troubling to challenge her on anything at all.

  Chapter 34

  ——

  June 15; full moon

  “Now you tell me if I’ve got this wrong,” said Anna McGarrity. “But it seems to me that I ain’t seen the two of you together in my trading post for more than a year.” She leaned over the counter and held out doughnuts to Elizabeth and Nathaniel, one in each sugary hand.

  “Why, Anna,” Nathaniel said. “I’m surprised you take any note of who comes in here. Newlywed as you are, and all. And you still blush like a bride too.”

  Anna looked pointedly at Nathaniel’s free hand, which was planted firmly on the small of Elizabeth’s back. “Some folks never do stop acting like newlyweds, looks like to me. For my part, I thank the good Lord for a man who knows what to do with his hands. Ain’t that so, Elizabeth?”

  It was true that Elizabeth liked Nathaniel’s habit of touching her, just as it was true that Anna’s willingness to talk of such things made her uncomfortable. She bit into the doughnut to save herself the trouble of an answer, and in response Nathaniel’s fingers curved around her waist.

  “You see, Anna, you’re not the only one who can still blush,” he said, laughing.

  Elizabeth swallowed and said, “Two can play at this game, Nathaniel Bonner. Just you wait.”

  That made both of them laugh. Elizabeth would have walked away, but they had been propelled to the counter by the slow tide of people filling the room, and there was nowhere else to go.

  Anna said, “There’s no running off now, Elizabeth. Look at this crowd. It ain’t often we see so many folks in here at once.” She began to stack the doughnuts in neat pyramids. “Except maybe the time Charlie LeBlanc lost his wager on a shooting match and had to set still and let Old Man Cameron shave his head. Now just stay put and keep me company while I’m busy feeding these folks.”

  Nathaniel caught Elizabeth’s eye and winked. In spite of all there was to worry about he was in a good mood, with an easy smile for anyone who came his way. It was having Hannah home again, Elizabeth reasoned, and word of Luke. All four children present or accounted for, all of them healthy and safe.

  “Missus Bonner!” called Molly LeBlanc from across the room. “Good to see you again. Be glad to see my Willy getting back to school!”

  “I’m sure she will,” Nathaniel said under his breath. “Anything to be shut of that scoundrel for a few hours.”

  When Nathaniel was in such a mood the only course was to ignore him, and so Elizabeth kept her attention focused on the room. It was the first she had seen of many of her students and their families since she dismissed the school, and they greeted her so warmly that she was a little ashamed at her reluctance to come into the village.

  Nathaniel was right in one thing: those who seemed happiest to see her were the parents of her most difficult students. Jock Hindle worked his way up to the counter to tell her as much.

  “Seems like those boys of mine get into three times as much trouble when school is out. I still don’t understand how you get them to mind without a switch or at least a primed rifle over your arm.” He reached over to help himself to the doughnuts.

  Anna smacked good-naturedly at his hand so that a cloud of sugar and cinnamon rose into the air. “Hold on now, Hindle, let me see your money before you go stuffing yourself.”

  With a grimace the older man fished a few coins from the deerskin pouch tied to his belt. “Never thought so many folks would take the doctor up on his offer. A man cain’t turn around in here without getting a mouthful of his own hair.” He scowled down at the coins in his palm, stirred through them with a thick finger, and flipped the one he wanted to Anna with a flick of his thumb.

  Nathaniel said, “Oh, I don’t know. Cain’t imagine many folks passing this up.”

  “I won’t complain about the business,” Anna said. “But I got to say, it don’t seem quite right, a doctor bribing folks with ale. See Mr. Gathercole over there with my Jed, I
swear he’s going to bust trying to figure out how to disapprove of the drinking without saying anything that’ll get in Richard’s way.”

  “Poor Mr. Gathercole,” said Elizabeth, sending Nathaniel a sidelong glance. “Doomed before he even begins.” She could not quite avoid his pinch, but she did manage to swallow the squeak that followed. Mr. Hindle had turned away, and Nathaniel took the opportunity at hand.

  At her ear he said, “You and me are going to have a Mr. Gathercole talk right here in front of the whole village if you don’t stop rubbing up against me, Boots.”

  “Empty promises,” she hissed back at him as she pushed Nathaniel’s hands away. To Anna she said, “I am surprised to see the widow here.”

  Anna squinted in the direction of the hearth, where the widow Kuick had claimed the good rocker for herself. “Left her servants and the blacks at home. No sign of her son either, but she takes Jemima with her everywhere. Like one of them little dogs rich folks keep on their laps all the time.”

  “I wonder if it was the free tankard of ale or the idea of seeing Richard take off his shirt that got the widow to come down and rub shoulders with the rest of us,” Nathaniel said.

  Anna laughed at that loud enough to make people turn around. Elizabeth could not hide a smile, but she elbowed her husband in the ribs for good measure.

  It was strange to see the widow here. Elizabeth could go for months without seeing her at all except at church services; she doubted that the lady had ever put foot in the trading post before. She sat there now with Mrs. Gathercole to her left on a low stool, like a lady-in-waiting. The minister’s wife looked ill at ease and flushed in the crowded room, one of Anna’s doughnuts balanced untouched on her knee. Curiosity had mentioned just recently that Mrs. Gathercole expected another child late in the year.

  As did Jemima Southern. Jemima Kuick, Elizabeth corrected herself, looking at the young woman who had once sat in her schoolroom and caused no end of trouble.

  She stood alone in the crowd in her fine silk dress, her breasts almost spilling out of the bodice. Where her husband might be was a question no one would dare ask her. Marriage had done nothing to mellow Jemima’s temper or sweeten her expression, and Elizabeth was sorry to see it. She would have wished Jemima well for her mother’s sake, as Martha Southern had been a good woman, as sweet as her daughter was sour. It seemed that Jemima had found a mother-in-law like herself, unwilling to be pleased, always ready to find fault.

  The widow took no note of Jemima’s unhappiness nor of Mrs. Gathercole’s discomfort. She sat straight backed and disapproving as any queen thrust unexpectedly among her lowest subjects, her gaze flicking from one unwelcome sight to another.

  Mariah Greber came up so that Nathaniel had to squeeze aside. She had her infant son in one arm and the youngest of her girls on her free hip. The girl presented herself to the world as a great tangle of hair and a mouth opened in a high-pitched howl.

  “Can you stop up this gal’s mouth with one of your doughnuts, Anna?” Mariah shoved the child over the counter. “Otherwise I’ll have to drown her like a kitten and be done with it. I’ll pay you just as soon as I can find Horace; he’s over there someplace with Axel and the trappers. All I can say is, thank the good Lord Dr. Todd will stand no more than one measure of ale to a man.”

  Anna took the girl with a sympathetic cluck and Mariah disappeared in the direction of the trappers who stood with their heads bent together and shoulders hunched while they talked. The men who spent their lives in the bush were a solitary bunch and rarely came into the village, but news of free ale moved fast in the bush and was enough to make any of them walk ten miles.

  The group parted and she caught sight of a big man in their center, a man with the expression of a slow child, dull and confused.

  “Good God,” she said, truly taken aback. “Look, Nathaniel. Dutch Ton, but with a clean face.” She craned her head to see if she hadn’t imagined the old trapper. “He hasn’t been in the village for three or four years at least. I always forget how big he is until I see him again.”

  “He wouldn’t be here now if he hadn’t let me scrub him down with lye soap and a long-handled brush,” said Anna, holding a cup of cider up to Charity Greber’s pouting mouth. “There never was such a stench. Sticks to him like mud to a hog. Why, he had so much rancid bear fat in his hair and beard it took four soapings and half a gallon of turpentine to get rid of it all. I said to him, Ton, it ain’t the bear fat that keeps the black-fly away from you, it’s the pure stench, so I did, said it plain. But he just smiled. Then I burned his clothes and sold him a new set to wear. I expect he’ll wear them till they fall to shreds on his back and then he’ll wrap himself in an old bear pelt until he can find his way back here.”

  “I wonder if he’s introduced himself to the widow,” Nathaniel said. “I’m sure she’d like to make his acquantance.” Anna put her head back and laughed.

  All the windows and doors stood open to the evening breeze, and children ran in and out, darting between legs and under tables. Cornelius Bump had climbed up on a barrel of salt fish to get a view of the room and he waved in Elizabeth’s direction, his round head bobbing.

  Many-Doves and Runs-from-Bears stood near the door, and with them Joshua and Daisy Hench and Curiosity and Galileo. As if they dared not come in any closer to the widow Kuick. Elizabeth pointed this out to Nathaniel and he raised his head to look just as the twins wiggled their way through the crowd to them.

  “Pretty much everybody’s here but the Todds and Hannah,” said Daniel, hopping from one foot to the other with excitement. “Should I run and fetch them?”

  “No need,” said Anna, pointing with her chin at the door. “Here they are now.”

  In spite of all she had heard from Hannah and Curiosity about Kitty’s condition, the sight of her was a shock. Elizabeth’s sister-in-law had always been slender and pale, but now she seemed as frail as a woman of eighty years. And yet there was an air of contentment about her: her complexion was good, neither too sallow nor too high, and she smiled warmly and spoke to everyone who greeted her with real interest. She waved in Elizabeth’s direction and called out.

  “You must come by tomorrow and see our Meg!”

  “There’s a chance,” Curiosity had said to Elizabeth. “That baby might be just what she needs to help her pull through. As long as she don’t catch pregnant again.”

  Neither of them had said out loud what they were thinking: how would Richard Todd take to the idea that Kitty could not provide him with the children he wanted? To thwart Richard was to ask for trouble; this Elizabeth knew from personal experience. She studied him, but for the time being nothing unusual was to be seen in his expression.

  He stepped up on a crate in the middle of the room and the crowd went suddenly quiet.

  They’re afraid of him. Elizabeth knew that, but it always amazed her again to see the proof of it. He was an impressive figure, there was no denying it. Richard had always been a big man but middle age and sedentary habits had added layers that made him more substantial still; whiskey had roughened his complexion and shortened his temper. A cantankerous old man in the making, Curiosity said of him, and Elizabeth saw the truth of that in the way he looked over the people of Paradise, as if they were unruly children who had earned a caning.

  He raised one hand to silence the whispering at the back of the room.

  “Glad to see there’s enough common sense left in Paradise to get most of you here. Now I never have been a man for a lot of talk—” His head swung from one side of the room to the other, looking for somebody brave enough to disagree with him. Satisfied, he carried on.

  “Let me call on the old folks here to start with. Many of you have lived through smallpox yourselves. Seen it kill whole families. I see faces here been carrying pox scars fifty years. Ain’t that so, Goody Cunningham?”

  The old lady nodded. “That’s true. The pox took both my folks, and then it robbed me of what little beauty I called my own.”

/>   Muffled laughter rose up from the back of the room where some of the older boys stood together, and Richard turned a sharp eye in that direction. The sound died away abruptly.

  He said, “It’s been a long time since we saw smallpox in Paradise. Too long. The young ones don’t know enough to be afraid of it and the middle-aged ones have forgot what it was like.”

  “I remember.” Runs-from-Bears spoke up, his deep voice carrying through the room. “I remember watching my four brothers burn up with fever and die.”

  Richard paused again, and Elizabeth thought how good it was that the widow Kuick was behind him and he could not see her expression, outrage and disgust and plain disbelief.

  He said, “Last summer the smallpox was in Johnstown, and this summer it could well be knocking on our door. Except now there’s less reason to fear it, if you’ll do what needs doing and not make a fuss about it.

  “You all know Hannah Bonner. Born and raised right here in Paradise, and she’s been in every one of your houses at some time or another, bringing you tea for your fevers or looking after your sick children. The grown-ups here will remember that both her grandmothers were rare healers in their own ways. For the past five years Hannah’s been apprenticed to me and I think enough of her to have sent her down to the city to learn how to do these vaccinations against the smallpox.

  “Now let me say one more thing before I ask her to explain all this to you. You’ll pay attention to what she’s got to say and you’ll ask civil questions or you’ll answer to me. When she’s done explaining I’m going to roll up my shirtsleeves and let her vaccinate me right here for you to watch. She can vaccinate four people today, and I’ll be looking for volunteers. Those of you who never had the pox all need to be vaccinated, most especially the children.”

  He looked around the room once again, as full of fire as any preacher. “Let me say this. If you don’t let the children be vaccinated out of superstition or for some other fool reason, then it’ll be on your own heads. I warned you.”