The Vanishing Point (9 page)

"Our son." Mr. Gardiner smiled indulgently. The boy had his mother's golden curls.

When everyone was seated, servants poured claret into the silver goblets. They brought out platters of pheasant, oysters, roast pork and beef, and sweetmeats. The smell of the food alone nearly undid Hannah. This feast on the remote plantation seemed fabulous, like Joan's tale of the weary traveler who stumbled into the faery palace. If she blundered, the illusion would shatter. The fine victuals would turn into a pile of dry old leaves and empty acorn cups.

Gardiner and Banham spoke heartily of tobacco prices, the London market, and the West India Company. Hannah imagined she should make conversation with Mrs. Gardiner, but she didn't know what to say. For all her blinding beauty, the lady was vacanteyed, smiling dimly without quite meeting anyone's gaze. She didn't utter a word, but merely went on chewing and swallowing the food that her servant placed in front of her. She sipped wine from her goblet until her face and breasts were rosy and flushed.

***

Afterward Mr. Banham retired to a pallet set out for him in the room where they had dined. Hannah slept in a narrow chamber with the wet nurse and the little boy.

In the pitch-dark, she awoke to the sound of footsteps on creaking floorboards, strange noises, dove-like cooing. The wet nurse muttered in her sleep and rolled over while Hannah froze, rigid on her pallet. Her skin burned as she listened to muffled laughter. There was a voice she distinctly recognized as Mr. Banham's, then Mr. Gardiner's. A woman sighed like a pigeon. Hannah thought of Mrs. Gardiner's breasts, trussed up and on display for the men. Her pregnant belly. A whimpering voice murmured unintelligible words.

A strand of her own hair caught in Hannah's mouth like a bit. She thought of May and her lovers, then of her own maidenhood, her ignorance. Even if it disgusted her to admit it, the moans and cries moved her. Closing her eyes, she imagined an invisible hand stroking her belly and thighs. She recalled the times May had crept into their bed in the early morning, still glowing from her trysts, the scent of her lover rising from her skin. How peacefully her sister had slept afterward.
One of Banham's whores.
Had he also made her sister cry out like that? A sob caught in Hannah's throat.

While the nurse slept on, the little boy began to cry. Hannah crept to his crib and tried to soothe him. "Shh," she whispered. "Shh."

***

The following morning, Mrs. Gardiner did not appear at breakfast. Her husband explained that owing to her delicate condition, she needed her rest. With perfect equanimity, Mr. Banham inquired if Hannah had slept well.

The convoy of low-slung boats set off early for the Banham Plantation. The first two boats were loaded with the supplies Banham had bought off the ship. Six men rowed each of these craft upstream. Hannah sat with Banham in the third and smallest boat, which had four men rowing. Huddled at the rudder was a boy of about sixteen—a new hireling Banham had bought off the ship. Silent as stone and looking weak from his poor rations, the boy was obliged to take his turn at the oars to relieve the other men. Hannah nearly offered to row in his place—he hardly looked sturdy enough to hold his own against the swollen river's current. Mr. Banham dozed most of the morning while his oarsmen labored, their faces impassive.

Storm damage notwithstanding, the forest appeared impenetrable. Immense trees that had never known a white man's ax closed in around the waterway. Blood-red maple, golden ash, and birch stood ablaze against dusky pines. It would take a hundred strong men or more, Hannah thought, to clear the land for planting. Deer flitted through the foliage. Were there still Indians in these woods? she wondered. Cousin Nathan's letter had claimed that the Indians here were peaceable, but she'd heard from Elizabeth Sharpe that there had been massacres on the western shore a few years back. She wished Mr. Banham were awake so she could ask him.

The wilderness made her think of the ancient forests of Britain where the first people had lived. Once, when digging in the garden, she had found a stone arrowhead. Joan had told her it was elf shot—a faery's arrow. Now she pictured the silent ones moving through the woods, watching their boats as they struggled upriver. She could not escape the notion that they were being watched. Shielding her eyes from the sun, she scanned the forest for staring faces. The first people were observing her from the dark green shadows where they hid. She imagined a head emerging from the oak leaves. The Green Man.

Mr. Banham grunted in his sleep.

***

A while later, on a rocky outcropping, a huge black shape reared, maw open. Screaming, Hannah clutched the side of the boat. Mr. Banham lurched awake and reached for his musket while the oarsmen laughed. The bear dropped to all fours before melting back into the forest.

It took some time before her heartbeat returned to normal. She had seen a bear only once before, at a country carnival, and it had been a tame and toothless old beast dancing on its hind legs. But the animal she had seen on the outcropping could have ripped out her throat had she stood undefended on land. The true meaning of the word
wilderness
sank into her. Beasts, not men, ruled this forest. This was their world.

They rowed past abandoned fields, the soil exhausted from tobacco. Weeds claimed that forsaken earth. Soon the forest would return, she thought, even thicker and darker than before.

To pass the time, Mr. Banham chatted about various subjects, such as the cultivation of tobacco and which fish could be caught in the river. Hannah could hardly concentrate on his words. Her eyes kept slipping toward his hands, resting neatly on his thighs. She imagined those long fingers all over Mrs. Gardiner. All over her sister.

"Mistress Powers, are you quite well?" he asked. "In another hour or two, we will reach my plantation. My daughters, I am sure, will be very curious to meet you."

He slapped at a fly that lighted on his sleeve. "Be glad it is late in the year, otherwise the mosquitoes would devour us."

Hannah nodded and tried to appear grateful for his kindness. Every pull of the oars was bringing her closer to May.

***

By noon they reached the Banham Plantation. Stiff from the journey, Hannah lurched out of the boat. Three pretty girls floated down the dock, rushing past her as though she were invisible. "Father!" they cried, fighting to see which one would embrace him first. Hannah noted that Mrs. Banham had not come down to greet her husband.

"Easy now!" Mr. Banham laughed. He was busy seeing that his men unloaded the cargo properly. "Careful with that parcel!" he called out. "There's a skein of Flemish lace in there!"

"Lace!" the girls all shouted at once. "Oh, Father!"

Finally Mr. Banham appeared to remember Hannah. "Ah yes, I must introduce you." He put his arm around the tallest and prettiest of the girls. "This is Anne. Those two are Alice and Nell."

How clean those girls were, their creamy faces protected from the sun by wide-brimmed hats and parasols. They were delicate as snowdrops while Hannah was gritty from the boat, her face scorched from the sun. Her once white neckcloth was mottled brown and gray. The Banham girls glanced at their father, as if to inquire how they should address her.

"This is Hannah Powers, sister to May Washbrook," he explained. "She just sailed from England."

The girls blushed. Hannah concluded that they probably assumed she was a new servant their father had bought off the ship. Her sunburnt forehead throbbed. After such a long voyage among strangers, how was anyone to know that she was a physician's daughter, a planter's sister-in-law? How was she herself to remember who she really was?

"I think you would like a meal," Mr. Banham said mildly, "and perhaps a bath before your journey onward."

Hannah saw how his daughters exchanged looks, wrinkling their noses and curling their pink lips into mocking smiles.

"Sir, if you please, I wish to continue on." She willed herself to speak with the authority of an Oxford man's daughter. "My sister will be happy to see me in any case."

Mr. Banham found two fresh oarsmen and a smaller boat, then sent her on her way.

***

According to Banham, the trip would take another three hours upriver, but the afternoon dragged on. Fallen trees and beaver dams blocked the watercourse. At least a dozen times, the oarsmen had to unload her trunk, climb out of the boat, then heave the craft around a dam or a logjam.

"Why can't your kinsmen keep their part of the waterway clear?" one of the men asked, glaring at Hannah as though it were her doing. "We'll be damned lucky if we make it back before nightfall."

"Maybe they have not enough hands to clear away all these trees," she said, mostly to herself. In her letters, May had said there were only seven manservants. If Banham truly considered himself a considerate neighbor, he should send some of his many servants to help. She had heard him say he had sixteen indentured servants and more than forty slaves.

When they weren't cursing, the men lapsed into sullen silence, rowing hard against the current, muscles straining under their skin.

***

At last they reached a dock with missing slats and a boathouse with a caved-in roof, the sight of which sobered the oarsmen.

"Are you sure your people are still here?" one of them asked. His anger had vanished.

"Of course they are." Hannah's heart was beating too fast to entertain any other possibility. Before they could stop her, she leapt onto the dock. A weather-worn sign said
Washbrook.
"Give me the rope." She barked the command as though she were some highborn lady and not an unwashed orphan alone in the wilderness with two strange men. When they threw the line to her, she tied it to a post. As the men hefted her trunk onto the dock, she heard a chorus of barking.

"Aye, they are here!" Her heart brimmed with happiness. "Can you not hear the dogs?"

Reaching into the cloth bag that hung from her belt, she extracted bright silver pennies, tuppences, even a glittering shilling. For once in her life she could be generous without a thought to economy, spending the entire contents of her purse as if she were a true gentlewoman. She had rejoined her sister and all would be well. The men stared in astonishment when she pressed the money into their blistered hands.

"Thank you for bringing me here." Picking her way over the broken dock, she shouted to the boatmen over her shoulder. "You may leave me now. You may return home. Go while there is still light." Their journey downriver, at least, would be swift.

Racing up the overgrown path, she failed to notice the weeds grown high in front of the tobacco barn door. Out of the tangled blood-red leaves, dogs jumped at her, barking excitedly, snapping at the air. "Leave me," she commanded, hoping to sound fearless as she darted past them. They chased her, nipping at her skirt. "May!" she cried.

Sprinting up the narrow path, she ducked her head under a low-hanging bough and lost her linen cap. Her hair flew out of its coil. From beyond a stand of dogwood, she saw a shingled roof, a stone chimney with a plume of smoke curling in the golden evening sky.

Smoke in the chimney! May and Adele must be preparing the evening meal. Lifting her skirts, she ran toward the house. An exposed tree root caught her foot and sent her sprawling. The dogs were on her, their paws on her back, their hot breath and tongues on her nape.

"Away!" Gasping, she struggled to her knees. She heard a shout, then the earth shuddered with pounding footsteps. A young man's startled face emerged from the autumn leaves. His eyes were dark pools. When he stepped forward into plain view, she saw that he was dressed entirely in buckskin. His long black hair hung loose and uncombed. A sparse beard grew on his face. With one shout, he called off the dogs. She rose to her feet while the dogs circled around him, whining and slavishly nuzzling him, licking his hands, which hung slack at his side.

"Who are you?" Hannah asked, temples pounding. Her eyes rested on the sheathed knife on his belt.

"Gabriel Washbrook." His voice was strained, barely audible over the dogs. "This is my land. Who are you?"

"Hannah Powers, your sister-in-law. Where is May?" He looked just like a tinker. Had Father only known, he would never have allowed May to marry him.

The young man shook his head.

She tried to collect herself. It was understandable that he would be surprised, seeing as there had been no chance of sending a letter announcing her arrival. But why did he look at her that way, as though she were a ghost?

"How came you here?" He spoke with antiquated speech. "Did you not get the letter?" His voice sounded rusty, as if he had lost the habit of conversation.

"May's letters are in my trunk," she replied. "Your neighbor Mr. Banham brought me upriver."

"Banham!" His jaw tightened. "Is he here?" He gripped the handle of his sheathed knife.

"No," she said warily. "He sent me on alone with two of his men."

Finally the young man looked her in the eye. His gaze was stern, even angry. "You will return with them anon. There is nothing for you here.
Nothing.
Get you back to the dock. Go!" Raising a trembling hand, he pointed toward the river.

"What of my sister?" She shouted with such venom that the dogs flew at her again.

He called them off. His pointing arm fell back to his side. Again he looked right through her as though she were vapor. "Your sister is dead. The baby didn't live." He covered his eyes. "My father died of the flux. Then after ... after your sister died, there was no rule, no rule ... The servant girl ran off and then I gave the boundsmen their freedom. There was little else I could do. I am the only one left."

"My sister," Hannah kept repeating. "My sister." She had to dig her toes into the soles of her shoes to keep herself upright. Then it sank in. "You sent no word!"

"I did send word. I told you already of the letter. When I gave the boundsmen their freedom, one of them promised to post it in Anne Arundel Town, to the ship that was to sail out in spring. Mayhap you set sail before it arrived. Mayhap it was lost."