Bitter Eden (28 page)

"Keep me here," she whispered.

He wagged his head from side to side, too content to make the effort to talk.

"Keep me here. Don't let me go."

"Can't," he murmured and wrapped his arms

around her again, nuzzling against the soft warmth of her skin.

"If I were going to have your child?" she asked, nipping at him as she spoke.

"That would be different," he breathed.

"Then you'd better begin to think of a way to keep me here. I am quick with your child this very minute."

Albert lay still. Then he raised up on one elbow to look down into her small triangular face,

"It's true," she said.

"It can't be true. We agreed . . . you know how to prevent these things . . ." he stammered. "My God . . . the talk . . . my mother . . ."

She put her fingers to his lips. "Don t you know better than to trust a woman scorned, Albert?"

"For the love of God, Rosalind, this is no time for levity. It'll be a bloody scandal!"

"No joke. Your child will sail when I do. He will be raised as Peter Berean's son if you don't do something to prevent it. Just think of it, Albert . . . your bastard heir."

He sat on the side of the bed, not able to resist the impulse to look at her belly. "You're lying."

She got up and began to dress. "I'm not lying, Albert. It is your child. As you said, I know how to prevent these things, so I know whose child it is."

He looked at her baffled and disbelieving. "How could you let this happen? What am I supposed to do? What'll it do to Natalie?" he asked softly.

Rosalind backed away from him. "Natalie? You think of Natalie while I stand here and tell you I carry your child? What are you? You're no man at all!" she screamed and moved for the door, stumbling as she went. The chair overturned. She glared at him, accusing him with her eyes of everything that had ever gone wrong in her life.

"Rosalind! Wait!" He leapt up to grab her arm. ''Wait . . . I'm sorry. I didn't mean that the way it sounded. You know I must marry Natalie. Mother expects it and . . ."

"Damn your mother for the bloody interfering bitch she is\"

"You don't understand. I need the dowry shell bring. Don t you see, I'm the only Foxe left . . . the last of the line. I must have a wife with position and wealth. And I must have heirs. Try to understand. I can't help it. You know I love you. God above, I don't think I know how to live without you," he said and began to pull his own clothes on.

Rosalind waited, her face a hard little mask of hurt and anger. "You are a bloody pig! How could I ever have loved you?"

He came over to her and touched her cheek. "For the same reasons I love you. I do love you. You know that, don't you? What is poor Nattie compared to you?"

"I don't know what she is, Albert. But she will be your wife, because she has the money to buy you. And me? I'll bear your bastard son. What does that make me compared to poor little Nattie?"

"I'll talk to Peter. I'll do whatever you ask. Somehow well find a way out of this. Have you told him yet . . . about the child?"

"No."

"Tell him."

"Tell him I am carrying your child?"

"Rosalind, please!" he begged, running his fingers through his hair. 'This is difficult enough."

"Poor Albert."

That night Rosalind told Peter she was having his child. He was as happy as if she had told him she wanted to go to America, which was quite a lot for

Peter, for only there, free, did he see hope for them. And he was ashamed as he listened to her. He had doubted her. And she had been carrying his child. As always, when he was contrite, Peter blamed himself for her petulance and unhappiness. He'd left her alone too often. He'd not been gentle when he might have been. He hadn't understood the anxiety Natalie caused her. But he knew he would be able to make it up to her in America. There it would be different

He took her hands in his, his eyes admiring her, and as he expected, she responded. The hazel eyes, golden this evening, lit from within. She smiled at him. He saw the love there again.

He thought of her and the child. A delightful shiver of wanting what had been missing for a long time ran through him. He pulled her quickly into his arms. His kiss was long, searching and hungry.

T love you," he murmured, his lips pressed to her temple. "Lord, you are beautiful. What would I do without you?"

She laughed, her body taut and impatient as he undressed her leisurely, pausing to kiss her and whisper his love for each newly exposed part of her body.

He hadn't made love to her like this since the first days of their marriage. She had forgotten how tantalizing it was to see the light of discovery in a man's eyes. He made her feel like wife and wanton at one time. And he believed her. More than believed her: he was ecstatic at the prospect of the coming child. Surely now, with his passions newly fired, he'd do whatever she asked.

The thoughts fragmented as Peter's hands and lips continued their hot hungry search of her body. There was no room left for thought. Only wanting. She forgot Albert and the baby and America. She forgot thai Meg or Frank or Anna might hear the impassioned

animal cries of joy emanating from her throat. She bit at him, nipping at his neck and ears. She clawed at his back, matching his urgency with her own lusty un-sated needs.

When it was over, she still longed for more. For something. She felt like laughing or crying. And he knew. Quieter than she, he turned to her, making love again with his hands, his words, and finally his body. And still, as she writhed in pleasure beneath him, she felt like crying like a madwoman, screaming at God: What was wrong with her? Why couldn't she love him? Why?

Finally quiet, Rosalind rested in his arms. He kissed her damp hair. "When will he be born.?"

"He will be born this autumn. September," she said, smiling and curling into the curve of his body.

"By September well be there. Hell be an American citizen, Rosalind. The first of our family born on that soil/*

The fears returned, drumming in her head. The loss of Albert. Being alone with Peter. Perhaps for the first time having to truly become his wife for there'd be no one else in the distant lost land of America.

He didn't notice her silence. He was too caught up in his own thoughts until she began to cry with heartbreaking softness. "I'll die there, Peter. Ill never see the new land or my house. If you make me travel in my condition, 111 die."

"Little love, you'll not die. Ill see you have the best cabin on the ship. You'll have everything you need. Maybe we can talk Ma into going with us. She could look after you."

"She won't come. She wants Natalie . . . only Natalie."

He didn't argue that "Well hire someone ... a

nurse. Shell take care of you, watch over you every minute."

TPeter, I don t want to leave England." "Sweetheart, you will. You re frightened and worried now, but you'll change your mind." He caressed her shoulder, then leaned over to kiss her.

Rosalind grimaced, pushing him away. "I won t." He turned away from her. He lay without moving or speaking. She could see only the broad muscles of his back expand and contract with his breathing. "You will," he said determinedly. Rosalind rolled on to her side, pulling the sheet up over her shoulders.

Chapter 18

Peter made the trip to London again. He returned buoyant and happy. He couldn't keep his hands off the two additional passage tickets he had purchased for Stephen and the as yet unhired nurse. He touched the edges, felt the texture of the paper, put them into and out of his pocket so many times they were dogeared and wrinkled. He looked around the house for Rosalind, then found her sitting listlessly on the stone bench in the herb garden.

Proudly he thrust the two tickets in front of her. "You've only to hire your nurse now. It's reaL We're on our way.*

She turned her face from him. "I don't want to see those, and I don't want a nurse."

"Hire a nurse, Rosalind, or you'll go without one*

"Such concern."

"It is."

"Then hire her yourself I I'm not going to do one thing to help you drag me from my rightful home." She jumped up from the bench and ran into the house.

Peter looked down at the two tickets, then up at the brewhouse beyond the garden wall. The smile returned to his face.

"Stephen! Ho, Stephen! IVe got them." Peter stopped at the door, holding on to the sides and leaning in.

"What the hell?" Stephen grinned as he saw his brother swinging forward on the doorjamb like a monkey. 'What's the simple smile for?"

"See that?" Peter again pulled the much-handled tickets from his pocket. "That is the great Atlantic Ocean to us. Miles and miles of endless water."

Stephen touched them reverently. "I can't believe it's true. A brewery of our own." He turned and walked back into the main room of the brewhouse, a worried frown on his face. "We can't take the equipment with us. I talked to Frank and he says he intends tg keep the brewhouse going."

"We don't need it," Peter said grandly. "For what we'll build we'll need the very best commercial vats made. We'll come back here and buy the best when we're ready for it."

"Come here for it?"

"Naturally. We'll be wanting to visit, so well combine business and pleasure. Think of it, Stephen . . . we're going to do it all. We'll do anything we damned please. We'll take a look at the whole bloody world, and see if we like it."

Stephen drew two mugs of ale. "You're off your head, Peter—but here's to the whole bloody world!" He raised his mug.

"To the whole Atlantic Ocean—one mile at a time!"

"To Berean Brothers' fine beer!"

The more they drank, the more reason they found

to continue.

* * *

Anna looked concerned at the two empty seats at the supper table. "Shall I get them?" she asked Meg, doubtfully. "I'm not certain they're in any condition to come to the table."

Meg listened for a moment to the raucous sounds of laughter and snatches of song drifting on the night air. "Let them be."

'Til leave something for them in the scullery," Anna said with a baleful glance toward the brewhouse. "Perhaps they will be more themselves later." Callie smothered a giggle in her napkin.

The evening passed without sight of Peter or Stephen. Later, Callie lay in bed listening as the revelry continued far into the night.

They did not come in at all that night. They weren't seen at the table until late the following afternoon as each, pale and subdued, nursed an oversized, sensitive head.

By the end of March the hop shoots were well out of the ground, and the wires strung. Peter's attention turned to the practical matter of packing the necessities they would take with them. Larger items of furniture, he stored, asking Frank to ship them once they found their house. "The man I told you about, Sam Tolbert, thinks I may be able to purchase a working farm. If this Grampe place is suitable for hops as Sam has led me to believe, I'll send for the furniture immediately."

He organized the packing easily. His one remaining concern was Rosalind. Her pregnancy was beginning to show, and she had made no effort to hire a maid or a nurse to accompany her.

With their departure only two weeks away, he put an ad in the local paper. Only three girls came in answer to it. One changed her mind before she was interviewed. The second one made such cow-eyes at her

prospective employer that Meg sent her packing. The third was an anemic little thing who couldn't be trusted to survive the voyage. When she left, Peter slumped over the kitchen table, his head propped in his hands. "What do I do now?"

"I think the only solution for you is to take Callie with you."

"Callie? Good Lord, Ma, she's just a girl. She wouldn't have any idea of how to care for Rosalind. Suppose something happened . . . went wrong. What could Callie do?"

"A lot more than those ninnies you interviewed today, and what's more Callie would care. She'd love to go. It's written all over her face for those not too blind to see.

Peter looked hopeful for a minute, then looked down at his hands, finally saying aloud what he loathed to think about. "You're wrong, Ma. Callie would never want to come with me . . . not after . . . not after what I did to the dog. She hated that • . . hated me for it."

"Oh, Peter, will you never learn? She can overcome nearly anything if you give her the time. It is you who have not forgiven yourself, not Callie."

He looked at Meg for a long time, then said, "Callie . . ." testing the idea.

Meg smiled and patted his hand. "HI send her to you."

"Outside, Ma. Ask her to meet me outside."

Callie went hesitantly down the stairs. She and Peter had been cordial, but had had little to say to one another since the night Ugly had been done away with. She hadn't liked it being that way, but there was no taking back the things she had said to him, and there hadn't seemed a way for her to reestablish the friendship that had once been between them. She didn't

know what she could say now. But what was worse, she knew that what she wanted him to say was beyond the realm of possibility. After the horrible things she had said to him, he'd never want her near him by choice. Nevertheless her heart pounded an erratic rhythm. She came to stand in front of him, her eyes wide and questioning.

She was sixteen this spring. He looked down at her and saw cheekbones beginning to come into prominence. Her face was maturing and rapidly losing the overfished look of a child. Her eyes were deep and blue, still filled with the crystal-clear innocence that he had found appealing in the girl. In a woman, it made her tempting. He cleared his throat. He remembered her hurt fury when she had begged for Ugly's life. Had she forgiven him? She said she never would. He wasn't prepared for how much that hurt. When he managed to speak, his voice was thick and husky. "Could you see your way to coming to New York with us? I'd understand if you said no, but ... I hope you'll come."

She stood before him, the wind blowing her hair and whipping color into her cheeks, speechless.

He shifted his weight, gesturing helplessly. "You'd be Rosalind's companion. And then when the baby came . . . she'll need someone . . . say something, please."

"I can't," she whispered and put her hands over her mouth.

"Do you want to come with us?"

She nodded deeply, laughing and crying at once. "I thought I'd die from the wanting," she whispered. "Are you sure? I think I'd go mad if you didn't mean it"

"I mean it. Lord, do I mean it!" He grinned, taking a deep breath and laughing as he exhaled. "If you had

said no . . . I . . . we might not have gone at all. I couldn't find anyone for Rosalind, and I thought . . " He stopped, let out a whoop, tossing his cap into the air. "We're going!"

She stood where she was, hands still covering her mouth, laughing and crying. "We're going. We're going."

Callie was still not certain she believed it would come true until that final morning when they went to the docks. She gazed at the masts, so many and so close that they blocked out the sky. They walked from the carriage to the Blackwall frigate that would carry them to America. Her stomach remained in a tight knot, tensed for disappointment when it came.

"What's the matter with you, Callie? You're the eager one . . . why are you hanging back now?" Peter asked and gave her a gentle shove forward.

"I still can't believe it. The ship is sure to vanish before my eyes. I know it will." She squeezed her eyes shut and quickly reopened them. She looked at Stephen, afraid to glance back to the ship. "Is it still there?"

He took her arm. "Come along, you simpleton; it's there." He laughed. "You've got everyone on the dock looking at you."

"Are they?" she breathed and craned around to see the smiling, work-hardened faces of the men near the customs quay staring at her. "Oh, Stephen, do hurry! Tve made a spectacle of us."

The hard solid feeling of earth was left behind as they stepped onto the gangplank.

Meg waved good-bye to her sons and Callie, waiting at the dock until there was no sight of them. They disappeared into the*mist and the distance. She stood for a long time wondering if she should not be experi-

Sharon Salvato

encing some guilt for the relief she felt when they vanished from sight. She felt nothing. Without a word needing to be said, Frank took her arm and helped her into the carriage.

BOOK II

Chapter 19

Their first view of New York Harbor surprised them. It was a bustling, active port, as filled with ships and the evidence of trade as the British ports had been. Persuaded to come on deck, Rosalind stared agog at the activity on the dock below. Vehicles of all descriptions moved in a swift and busy tangle on West Street. Drays, expresswagons, butcher s carts, beer-skids, carriages, hansoms, trolleys, and garbage carts moved in all directions, their drivers all screaming to be heard above the roar of the dock. The waters were crowded with canal boats, freight ships being loaded and unloaded, barges and ferries taking on cargo and passengers and moving about the river in as frantic a bustle as the horses and carts moving on land. Grudgingly, Rosalind admitted to a stir of curiosity and excitement. "I told you you would like it," Peter said* "I would like anything that would relieve me of the taste of ship's food and the stench," she said, her eyes going back to the store fronts and the constant activ-

ity of the street. "Anyway, appearances can be deceiving."

He put his arm around her waist, squeezing her to him. "Say what you will. I don't care what changes your mind, as long as something does. I want you to be happy here." She glanced up at him, but he didn't give her a chance to say anything. He excused himself to go off to talk to a group of men standing on the quay. He was smiling broadly when he returned.

"Come along; our cab is waiting.' 9

Jauntily he told the driver to take them to the Saint Nicholas Hotel. "He's the patron saint of the city," he explained to Rosalind. "I thought it best we begin by getting on the right side of the patron. We may need his assistance."

"Indeed," Rosalind breathed and looked from one side of the carriage, leaning across Peter to see from the other side of the street. "It is far more of a city than I had thought."

Peter grinned, pleased. "That's more like it."

"How was I to know what it would look like? Anyway it may still be nothing."

Peter took her hand. "Not this time. You're free here, Rosalind, there are no taverns or Rufus Hawkeses or Mrs. Foxes with long nasty memories. You'll be happy here," he said in a low voice.

Rosalind looked at him, thinking abou£ him rather than herself, and for a fleeting moment knew that he had understood her from the beginning. Then the moment passed and Rosalind's eyes went back to the busy, crowded streets that sped by through the window of her carriage.

"When will we be seeing Sam Tolbert, Peter? Will he be meeting us here?" Stephen asked.

"I'll send a message as soon as we're settled in the hotel. I thought we'd take a day or two to see the

town. Well be doing a great deal of our business in New York. The more we know about it, the. . . . What are we stopping for?" Peter asked suddenly as the carriage halted at the intersection of Third Avenue and Fifteenth Street

"What is going on?" Peter leaned out and asked the driver. "Why are we stopping?"

"Nothing to alarm you, sir. Just a race."

"Race? In the middle of the street?"

"Yes, sir! You'll see it often on Third. It'll only hold us up for a moment."

He pulled back into the body of the carriage, grinning at Stephen. "Did you hear what the man said, Steve? It's a bloody throughway and they use it for sport. This is some town. Ill have to write to Frank about this."

"Peter . . . look at the women," Rosalind said. Along the street were throngs of people, shops, restaurants, and oyster bars, all with counters full and doors opening and closing as people came and went. Many of them were women, well-dressed in gay vibrant-colored gowns, going about their business.

Rosalind couldn't take her eyes from them. "They're dressed to the height of fashion, Peter. I've never seen such an array of color on ... I mean they must be ordinary people. There can't be that many nobility here, can there?"

"None, my dear; we are as noble as the lot of them."

"Are we truly?"

"Truly," he said and took her hand. Impishly he looked at her and put her hand to his lips.

She sat straighter, her chin going up just a bit. "We will do well here. I admit, Peter, I was wrong about coming here."

Callie, Stephen, and Rosalind spent the afternoon in their hotel rooms. Rosalind, searching through her

wardrobe, tried to select the most becoming gown that would still fit her, and Callie sewed frantically to let out seams and put in strategic tucks to accommodate Rosalind's cumbersome belly.

"I do wish my time would come."

It won't be long now," Callie said. "And you look lovely. You always do." She threaded the needle yet again.

Rosalind looked into her mirror, studying herself disapprovingly from all angles. One dress after another she tried and rejected. Callie kept altering and sewing, and Rosalind disapproving. It took the entire afternoon for her to select the gown she would wear to dinner that evening.

"You can hardly tell with this dress, can you?" she asked. "And if I wear my dark-blue cape—why, I wont look as though I am to have a child at all. Ill just look fat!" she fumed and tossed the cape onto the pile of clothes on the bed. "I shall have but one child," she said firmly. "One is all any woman should be asked to suffer. Months of looking so . . . pregnant women are not attractive. It is all talk. Something to say when no true compliment can be forthcoming." She walked to Callie, bowing awkwardly. "You are so radiant, Madame Cow. When will the happy event take place?"

Callie giggled, and Rosalind frowned. "It is not funny. I didn't mean it to be funny at all. It is true! I wish I wasn't going to have this child."

"Aunt Meg told me she felt like that with her first. Frank was more nuisance than joy while she carried him. Then she said the morning he was born and she first held him everything changed. Maybe it will be the same for you."

"You are comparing me to Meg Berean? Dear me!" Rosalind walked grandly to the chaise longue, arrang-

ing herself artfully over its curving surface. "You have managed to make a dull day intolerable. I think I had better rest before we go out. Bring me a wet cloth soaked in my violet water, Callie. I think you ve brought on one of my headaches."

Callie continued her care of Rosalind throughout the afternoon. Her own unpacking went neglected. She was still wearing the same travel-stained suit when Peter and Stephen returned to the hotel to take them to dinner.

Peter had scoured the city asking questions and talking to people. He already knew the location of the best oyster bars, the best restaurants, and had had his first conversation with the men who lunched daily at the Tontine restaurant to transact business.

It has been an informative day," he said to Stephen as they sat down to wait for Callie. "We are going to have to learn a whole new language here, it seems. English alone will not suffice. There is quite a mixture of Indian and Dutch and German and Danish and other languages all combined to make up this American English. My tongue has been twisted around itself half the day."

"But did you find out anything about the hop production?"

"Certainly. We ve come at the most opportune time. A fortune can be made right now. There is a great demand for good beer and ale, and few able suppliers. And the Erie Canal opened just five years ago. With it the way to the West is clear. We can send hops to Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit ... all over. The brewery industry has been very slow in starting here, and production is low. It was made for us, Stephen. We have a wide-open field. Berean Brothers' Brewery is not so much a vision as we thought. It is very possible, and something that is needed here."

"If it's so needed, why hasn't someone done it?"

Peter shrugged. "Be glad they haven't. And there are many who are starting. We'll not be alone. We'll have to work harder and longer than our competition. But well succeed. There are plenty of raw materials. Can you imagine that hops grow wild along the Hudson Valley and yet no one grew them commercially until 1808? It is unbelievable."

"Or maybe it is believable and we just don't know the reason. Perhaps it is not good land, or maybe the climate is wrong for hops."

"Ahh, Steve, you're looking for trouble where none is to be found. There are hop gardens—yards they call them here—all over the northern part of the state, but they are small. They are still importing English hops. From what I've been told today, and I trust the information can be relied upon, the favored type of hop is Farnham. That's what we'll grow. And well not make the mistake of starting out small. We'll put everything we've got into it. We'll start with the idea th&t we will be supplying the hops for the brewery industry. Now that they have imported the Englishmen, they can refrain from importing the hops."

"When can we see the farm? And where is this place, Peter? Is it in the midst of the hop country you speak of? I'll never get used to these Yankee names. Where are these counties?"

Peter's eyebrows shot up as he grinned. "Watch your name calling. I was told today we would be Yorkers, not Yankees. Some kind of an old holdover, . . . Who knows, but these people may be as touchy as we are about the Kents and the Kentish. Scratch deeply enough and I guess we are all similar under the skin." Then, as Rosalind appeared: 'Whenever will Callie be ready? I am near to starving. What have you

two been doing all day, Rosalind? Didn't she unpack at alir

"I unpacked all my things. As you can see I am ready and just as impatient as you to be on our way."

"Well, go see if you can help her."

Til do no such thing. You'll have to hire someone. We cant manage here without help."

Peter shook his head and got up to pace the room for the remaining fifteen minutes it took Callie to get ready. They dined at Fraunces Tavern. Peter had been told it was the best restaurant in town. Just as he had registered them in the hotel named after the patron of the city, so he would take them to the finest restaurants.

Among the other things Peter had learned from his afternoon of talk and sightseeing was that New Yorkers above all else admired success and all of its attendant evidences. There was no point in attempting to achieve success when one could begin at that level with no class structure to bar one from it. Never would he enter the second-best restaurant when the first-best was open to him.

The following day he took Stephen with him on his tramp through the city. Rosalind made her first trip to the shops that lined the streets, carefully garbed so that she was satisfied no one would know how close to her time she was. It annoyed her that her efforts resulted in making her look like a heavyset matron, but even that was preferable to the other.

Friday afternoon Sam Tolbert took the steamship from Poughkeepsie to meet the Bereans in New York. Already feeling that he was an old, favored customer by virtue of the two days he had been in New York, Peter arranged for Sam to meet him and Stephen at the Tontine.