The Seekers (27 page)

Yes, he had much to do—

Commencing with the draft of a letter.

He found fresh paper, inked his quill and began to scribble in that small, compressed hand others found so difficult to decipher.

My dear Captain Lewis,

I am in receipt of yours of the first instant, for which my deepest thanks. I hope I do not place you under an undue burden by tendering a most urgent request which, at the same time, could well work to your benefit—

Ten minutes later, Gilbert stepped to the office door.

“Mr. Morecam?” The reporter hurried over.

“Sir?”

“Can you spare an hour from your duties?” Gilbert asked rhetorically. “You’ve a good hand—and I have a letter that needs to be copied three times—and kept entirely confidential. I want the letter to go to Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Louisville, so that I’m certain it reaches the recipient—just like the purchase treaty, eh?”

“I’ll be happy to make the copies, Mr. Kent.”

“Bring them in as soon as you’re finished and I’ll see about the posting.”

“By the regular mails? I can do that for you.”

“Speed is essential. I want to engage private couriers.”

Morecam goggled, contemplating the expense of that. Gilbert wheeled back into his office—and rushed out of the building an hour later. Seldom had employees of Kent and Son seen the youthful owner depart in such haste—and so early! A full hour before closing.

Nor had they ever seen such an intense luster in his dark eyes—or such touches of emotional color in his cheeks.

If Mr. Gilbert Kent the modernist was engrossed in another venture, it had to be a very important one indeed.

“
YOU MAY SERVE THE
plum pudding,” Harriet Kent said to the girl in the striped cotton dress and gingham apron. “No hard sauce for the boy. But refill the milk pitcher.”

On the side of the dining table opposite Abraham’s empty place, Jared Adam Kent made a face. “I don’t want any more milk, Aunt Harriet.”

The maid hesitated. The young woman at the foot of the table glared. “Jared, I am growing tired of your impertinence. You behave like a dock boy instead of a child reared in a Christian home.”

“Harriet,” Gilbert said softly, pursing his lips.

“The boy is disrespectful! To me, to the servants, to everyone! He’s a willful, headstrong child—”

As if to confirm it, Jared said, “I won’t drink any more even if you whip me.” He was handsome for a five-year-old, with long tawny hair and brilliant blue eyes. But his face had a fatigued, pasty look.

And his retort made Harriet furious. “You see what I mean, Gilbert? He not only looks like his mother, he acts like her!”

Jared reacted with a stunned look, then with obvious anger. In a controlled voice, Gilbert said, “Raking over the past is futile and cruel. Especially in front of—”

“I disagree. We’ve tiptoed around the issue too long. You’ve told me how his mother behaved. Defiant of everyone—”

“Please stop,” Gilbert broke in, aware of the hurt and hostility in the boy’s eyes.

Harriet opened her mouth, hesitated, then glanced sharply at the maid.

“Bring the milk, Esther.”

“Papa wouldn’t force me to have it,” Jared said.

Harriet leaned forward awkwardly; she was approaching the end of her term. Her huge stomach couldn’t be minimized, not even by the expensive, high-waisted maternity gown of lavender lawn she wore over a matching petticoat. Gilbert pushed his chair away from the table, noting unhappily that his wife’s features had taken on a familiar, pinched look. It had to do with her dark eyes. When she was angry, she tended to slit them, and frown. The contraction changed the proportions of her features subtly.

“Your father is not in charge of this household,” she said to the boy. “Indeed, if he were present for meals a little more often—present and sober—he’d take you in hand.”

Rapping his palm on the table, Gilbert said, “That will be quite enough, Harriet.”

“Why? It’s true—but you’re always evading that issue, too.” She gestured to the vacant place. “Abraham’s gone more than he’s here!”

“We had a great deal of work at the firm today. I asked him to stay late to help with it.”

Harriet’s pale lips compressed, branding the lie for what it was. She had an oval face, dark hair, fine patrician features. But bad temper destroyed the total effect.

Gilbert glanced at Jared. The boy sat on a pillow that raised him to table height. His downcast expression showed that he too disbelieved Gilbert’s statement. Jared had seen his father’s place empty too many evenings, watched Abraham come stumbling in from Beacon Street, unkempt and incoherent, too many times. Sadly, Gilbert reflected that Jared might not understand the word
sober
—or its opposite. But instinct surely told him his father’s behavior was abnormal, and wrong.

The maid waiting nervously for a final resolution of the milk question started to speak to Harriet. Gilbert was quicker. “We’ll not have any more milk, Esther. Nor the pudding either. You may retire.”

“Yes, sir.” She curtseyed and left.

“Jared, be so good as to go up to your room,” Gilbert said.

The boy started to protest, then took note of Gilbert’s stern expression and slipped off the pillow. Irked by her husband’s intervention, Harriet stared at him, spots of color showing in her cheeks. The color deepened when Jared blurted, “You don’t like Papa, do you, Aunt Harriet?”

“That is not a suitable question for a boy your age! This house is partly his—”

“But you wish it weren’t, don’t you?”

“Jared, go,” Gilbert said, soft but firm.

Jared paid no attention. “You wish we’d both leave and never trouble you again, don’t you?”

“Jared!”
Gilbert rose halfway out of his chair.

Eyeing his uncle, Jared looked less pugnacious all at once. Gilbert sat down again. “You owe your aunt Harriet the same politeness she owes you. And please remember, she’s expecting a child. That makes a person—well, rather cross at times. You do understand?”

Jared’s tawny hair shone in the light of the chandelier candles. His blue eyes were almost venomous as tears sprang into them and he cried, “I understand she doesn’t want Papa here—or me!”

He spun, dashed to the hall and clattered away up the stairs while thunder muttered in the distance.

The moment Jared had gone, Harriet vented her anger. “I’m sick of the way you coddle that boy. You’ve said time and again how willful his mother was—and when he flaunts his temperament, you overlook it!”

“Harriet—”

“Must we suffer another Elizabeth Fletcher in this house? Abraham is bad enough, but—”

“The immediate concern is the father, not the son. I don’t believe we should continue to discuss—”

“Why not? The boy resists the slightest imposition of authority! Absolutely refuses to behave as any respectable boy shou—”

“God’s sake, Harriet!”
he burst out, in such an unusually loud voice that his wife recoiled in her chair. “Is that all that ever matters to you—respectability? Did you look at that child? He’s tormented with fear!”

“Of me?” she asked in an arch way.

“Of you
and
his father. Harsh discipline won’t alleviate the problem. Nor will constant harping about his mother’s faults. You’ll only make him feel worthless—and his behavior will get worse.”

“Do you deny he’s headstrong?”

“Of course not. But the way to cure it is with kindness, not rancor. He hasn’t lived like normal children. Have you forgotten he saw his own mother murdered?”

“And whose fault is
that?
”

Gilbert uttered a dismayed sigh. “Is it necessary to place blame? It happened, that’s all.”

Harriet leaned forward again, a movement that emphasized her bulk and clumsiness. “But it would
not
have happened if Abraham hadn’t subjected his wife to the hardships of the west. Had he stayed in Boston, Jared wouldn’t be a spoiled only child. He’d have an older brother or sister—”

“You’re now blaming Abraham for Elizabeth losing her first baby?”

“Yes, he was responsible.”

“Nonsense. Utter
nonsense!
”

Harriet’s dark eyes suddenly became very bright. Her voice grew cool, malicious. “Is it? My dear, you told me a few weeks after Abraham returned that Elizabeth was the one instrumental in their departure.”

“I don’t see how that makes him responsi—”

“He was manipulated because he’s weak! As a man—the husband—he could have refused her unreasonable requests. He could have said no. But he didn’t. And he was repaid for his cowardice by the death of his first child, and then by Jared—who has inherited the worst qualities of both his parents!”

Gilbert seethed. “I wish I’d never repeated one syllable of the story! You twist it all so terribly to fit your view of Abraham—justify your dislike—”

“He
is
weak,” Harriet repeated emphatically. “God judged him so, and exacted punishment. You can see that in the way Abraham behaves—and his son too!”

Almost on the point of shouting at her, Gilbert controlled his temper with difficulty. He put the palms of his slim hands on the dining table. Through the strained softness of his voice he tried to show his wife how angry she’d made him.

“May we leave metaphysics out of this? The problem is tangible, urgent—and heaven has damn little to do with a solution.”

“I would appreciate your refraining from cursing in my—”

“You drive me to it!”

He drew a deep breath, leaned back in his chair, finally went on. “Harriet, it’s absolutely pointless to debate who was responsible for what happened. That there’s any debate at all is my fault. I was foolish to discuss past history and Abraham’s confidences—”

“But you did.”

Gilbert’s mild demeanor seemed to harden. “I do ask you, as I’ve asked you before, never to mention any of what I told you. Don’t mention it in Abraham’s presence—or, from now on, in mine.”

“That has the distinct sound of a threat.”

“No, no,” Gilbert said hastily. “A request.”

Harriet gave a sniff of disbelief. Gilbert’s eyes fastened on hers. “But it’s a request I expect to see honored.”

Harriet averted her glance. She pretended to be hurt.

Gilbert wasn’t sure he’d succeeded in making his point. In public, Harriet accepted her husband’s dominance, as did most wives of her station and circumstance. But the festering dislike she felt for his half brother was an unusual factor in a marital relationship. In the privacy of the family, she might not bow to his politely phrased intimidation.

But he hoped she would. He was sure Abraham carried quite enough guilt without the burden being increased by his sister-in-law’s spite.

During the ensuing silence, the tension between Gilbert and his wife gradually diminished. Finally he felt comfortable enough to try to return the conversation to its original course.

“The problem, Harriet, is not in the past but in the present. Abraham is not himself—”

“How long are we expected to suffer because of that?”

Gilbert struck the table.
“Enough!”

For the second time, Harriet looked genuinely alarmed. He drew his hand back, wiped the damp palm on his trousers, swallowed once and went on.

“Let the past rest. I don’t excuse Abraham’s behavior, but I understand what drives him to it. I see nothing to be gained by punishing him—if indeed he deserves punishment, which I doubt. I see a great deal to be gained—I should say lost—if we fail to bring his son safely through this difficult period. You know very well that whenever Abraham walks in the door, Jared can’t predict whether his father will hug him or hit him. We have a duty to alleviate that situation if we can.”

“A duty I don’t accept.”

“But it must be accepted. It
must
be!”

Harriet obviously heard the strain, the emotion in her husband’s voice. She seemed unmoved. “Trying to help Jared is useless, Gilbert. He comes of bad stock, and he’ll never overcome that.”

“No, not if you keep telling him so. But I repeat—my first concern is with his father. I ask you to be tolerant just a short while longer. Just until I persuade Abraham to follow this plan I have in mind. Today I received an unexpected letter from Meriwether Lewis, the president’s secretary. You’ll remember Abraham served with him out west—”

Rapidly, Gilbert told his wife about the forthcoming expedition, and the chance he saw for Abraham to become part of it. By the time he mentioned the three letters he’d dispatched, enthusiasm had gone out of his voice, though. Harriet’s face was growing more and more sour.

The moment he finished, she said, “The very idea is idiotic.”

He pursed his lips. “Indeed. That’s your considered opinion? Having thought it over for all of five seconds?”

“I don’t need to think it over.”

“Just condemn it out of hand? It may be an unusual plan, but it’s not an impossible one.”

“I disagree.”

“Why?”

“Because I know Abraham. He’ll have nothing to do with it. He’ll laugh at you. Perhaps he’ll even thrash you—that would be like him. He’s a beast! Drunken, uncontrollable—what’s the matter?”

Gilbert started to answer, then quickly lifted a hand to cup his mouth. The spasm of coughing went on for almost a minute.

At last, recovered, he asked, “Why are you so averse to the plan? Why do you resist my efforts to help Abraham and the boy? Why do you detest them?”

“Abraham occupies too much of your time! I want this household to put attention where it belongs—on
our
lives.
Our
child!”

Unconsciously, her hand dropped to her swollen middle. Her features softened. She looked at her husband in a pleading way. “Even if you can get him to agree, it still means we’ll have to care for that vile-tempered little boy a year or more.”

“That’s true. But with Abraham gone, we might find Jared more tractable. I honestly think fear of his father has a great deal to do with the way he acts—”

“He has bad blood in him! He’ll never amount to anything!”

“Help me give him a chance!”