Wild Rose (26 page)

The lawyer reached inside his coat and brought out a leather purse, glanced at its contents, then swung his chair around so that his back was to her, and bent from the waist, his dark coat straining between his shoulders. She had thought him thin and was surprised by the breadth of his back the strained fabric revealed. By the slight click and whir of the lock turning, she realized that there was a safe installed behind his desk, and she waited again, holding her breath, her body rigid with anxiety.

The safe door swung open, Archibald rummaged about for a moment, then pushed the door shut and swung his chair back so that he faced her. “Will you accept twenty dollars?” Tears started in Sophie’s eyes: nearly a month’s wages for a labourer or a washerwoman, or – “I had no idea,” she said, meaning that the brooch was so valuable. “You are too kind, Monsieur Archibald –” She hesitated. “Perhaps you should take the ring too?”

“No, no, my wife wouldn’t want the ring.” He added, hastily, “She has several. Anyway, I don’t want to rob you of your ring,” and he laughed in something that might have been, again, embarrassment.

“That is a most satisfactory price,” she said, carefully. “I am very grateful to you for –” she struggled for words, wanting to say, for not trying to take my brooch for as little money as possible. “You are very generous,” she said finally. As she spoke, he was extracting an envelope from a desk drawer and placing the money into it. He closed it and pushed it toward her, not looking at her.

It occurred to her that it might be that he was ashamed of helping in the selling of the farm out from under her, and was trying to soothe his conscience, but she reached out, picked the envelope up with care and put it into her pocket, while he refolded the cloth around the ring, and pushed the small package toward her with his long-fingered, clean hands with their white-tipped fingernails. She hadn’t seen such perfect hands on a man since she had left
l’abbé
Deschambeault behind in Québec, and found herself distantly indignant again at the priest.

“Merci, Monsieur,”
she said, flustered, taking the package, and thrusting it back into her skirt pocket. “I must ask you also,” she said carefully, “Do you know anybody who might wish to buy some fine china – a Sèvres porcelain dinner set that came from France during…”

“Fine china,” he said, his voice falling on the last note. “Fine…china…” She waited. He pushed a paper on his desk forward an inch, and then back an inch to its original position.

“There is a woman,” he hesitated. “This woman, she’s called Smith, I believe. She might perhaps – But no, this isn’t a good idea.” He appeared rattled at this. “Hmmm, let me see.” Knowing at once who the lawyer meant, Sophie herself was confused. The woman, come to think of it, didn’t dress like a poor woman. Maybe that was all he meant, that she could afford to buy Sophie’s dishes, and then realized how improper it would be for Sophie to have any commerce with her. To have her precious dishes end in the hands of a prostitute!

“A certain rancher and his wife from far west of here will be coming to see me later this week. I’ll ask them if they would be interested in some excellent china dishes. From France,” he added. “Sèvres.”

“I would be most grateful,” she said. “And, of course, if I hear of any suitable young girl for your wife, I will tell you at once.” Having recovered her dignity just a little by this offer, she stood, smoothing down her skirt, clasping her hands together at her waist like the convent girl she had once been, although now so he wouldn’t see how they trembled.

He had already risen too, and she set Charles back on her hip, nodded gravely to the lawyer, who had gone around his desk to the door into the waiting room, and held it back for her to exit.

“Be careful, Mrs. Hippolyte,” he said to her softly as she passed, “Where you put that money. There are – thieves.” She had broken her step as he began to speak, and when he had finished, she merely nodded, not looking at him and went on through the chairless waiting room, out the screen door, and carrying Charles, crept down the none-too-solid wooden steps to the ground below, satisfaction and a nebulous, free-floating anxiety at war in her chest and head. And she was fighting back tears, not a few sentimental drops accompanied by lady-like sniffing, but chest-heaving sobs, a deluge of water from her eyes.
I must not; I must not
, she told herself, and did not, and was surprised by her own small strength. No, she would learn to act as
les anglais
, did: As if pain did not hurt; as if blows could not make one stagger.

She let her eyes wander from house to house across the way from where she stood. One of them, she knew, was the Tremblays’. She looked sharply at this one, then the one next to it, as if by dint of sheer examination she might discover it. But a woman was bending over in the midst of a large patch of potato plants to the side of one of the nondescript wooden houses, nearer to the livery barn. Sophie could see her back rising and falling as she worked, probably digging a few potatoes for supper. A small woman, thin, as far as Sophie could see, and with greying hair pulled back in a sparse bun. She felt certain, although she couldn’t have said why, that this was Madame Tremblay. But she looked away quickly from the green dress and faded hair.

Well down the street ahead of her was the house that belonged to the bachelor, Harry Adamson. Had he not saved Pierre’s life? She began walking in that direction, slowly, as if she were merely out for a stroll. Charles, who had missed his nap, had fallen asleep on her shoulder and she walked carefully, trying not to jolt him, while also trying not to turn an ankle on the rutted ground or catch a heel in a crack on the few strips of boardwalk. Her boots, that she had come West in, were so worn that they no longer provided support for her ankles, the soles so thin she felt every lump of earth, every pebble. It shamed her to think of her and Pierre’s poverty, a perspective from which she had never before viewed their lives, seeing it as temporary if she thought about it at all, or else as interesting, another challenge, how to make something out of nothing, as if the whole venture were merely a game that she could end with a snap of her fingers. No, no, she told herself; it was that she saw only the land and the future it promised then, soberly, allowed in just a tiny ray of truth: She had seen it all as a romantic game; she never saw how
real
it was. But Pierre did;
he saw the truth of it from the start
. Nausea struck; she thought she might vomit, before it passed.

Adamson’s cabin door was shut, the curtains on the one window firmly closed so that she could not peek in had she been so inclined. She knew that he had filed on a homestead, so of course he’d be on his land on this perfect harvest day, cutting his crop or stooking, or forking the stooks into a wagon to haul them somewhere for threshing. She glanced back down the street but there was no one about, and although it seemed hopeless, she knocked on his door anyway. To her surprise, she heard someone stir, the inside door opened, and a gaunt Harry Adamson leaned against the door frame, his head only inches below it, squinting through the screen door into the light. She saw at once that he was ill.

He stepped outside into heat, closing both doors behind him, a gesture for which she was grateful, knowing that the easy ways of the West, no longer applied to her. How pale he was, still blinking in the light, his cheeks hollow.

“Will you mind if I sit?” he asked, lowering himself carefully onto a broken-back wooden chair by the door. Here he must lounge evenings and watch the people of the village going about their business, she thought, and a warmth grew in her face again, that she had lost such comforts. “I’m sorry not to offer the chair to you. I am –” He began to rise again.

“No, no, Monsieur. I shouldn’t be seen –” She glanced around again. He said quickly, “Of course, Mrs. Hippolyte.” So he remembered her from a chance meeting, had perhaps seen her in town with Pierre. “What brings you to my door?”

“I’ll come to the point,” she said, “As I must get back to Mrs. Emery’s.” She noticed the fine line of sweat that had broken out along his hairline, that his breath was shallow and quick. “You know…” she hesitated, swallowed, then finished her sentence briskly, “what has happened to me.” He nodded, yes, gazing over the prairie to the east, lifting and falling gently in the waves of heat, not raising his eyes to her. “I choose not to bother my family in Québec to send me money. I will solve this problem myself.” The last came out more firmly than she had meant it to. He again said nothing, his eyes flickering upward to her face and down again quickly. “I’ve decided to sell what few – what valuables I possess.” She reached into her pocket, setting Charles down again, who, still groggy from his little sleep, stood blinking into Adamson’s face, as if trying to discover if this man was his father or not, as she produced the carefully wrapped package.

“Have you any use for this?” She held it out to him. He took it and slowly flicked back the wrapping to expose her ring. His fingers were pale and wrinkled as if he’d been soaking them in water. In such bright light, though, the ring looked better than she knew it to be, the gold gleaming, the diamond sending out a minuscule rainbow that rested on his index finger.

“Your wedding ring,” he said quietly, and lifted his head to gaze into her face, his expression changing so that she had to look away. She said, “I have no need for it.” Then cursed herself for sounding self-pitying.

“Pretty,” the bachelor said, then, apparently not hearing that note, laughing, “I can’t say I need it.” Her heart sank. “But, I’m still young, still hope to find a bride.” He smiled at her.

“You are ill, Monsieur,” Sophie said. “I am sorry to trouble you –”

“It’s nothing. A summer cold. Tomorrow I’ll be back at work.” He had, after all, always been thin; he had no one to cook proper meals for him. “Yes,” he said. “If we can agree on a price, I’ll buy it from you and put it away for the day when I need it. I hope soon.” He held the ring in his large fingers and turned it slowly. “Or, maybe, once you’re on your feet again you’ll come and take it back from me.” Such a thought hadn’t occurred to Sophie and it caused her no pleasure. Why would she want back something that spoke to her only of betrayal? While she was considering this, he had risen shakily and gone back inside his cabin, emerging a moment later.

“Will this do?” he asked her, holding out coins. He was offering five dollars, which neither surprised nor disappointed her. The diamond was small, and although the ring was gold, it wasn’t heavy gold, nor was it engraved. Still, she had no doubt he was a poor man, and five dollars was a considerable amount. This thought made her hesitate – hadn’t he saved Pierre’s life? But then, he would have other money, he had no child to care for, he could earn money if he needed it. Not without a qualm, she said slowly, “Wouldn’t four dollars be fairer?” He had seated himself again, and laughed out loud, which made him cough. When he had caught his breath, he said, “A bargainer should bargain up, not down. Look, it has a diamond.”

“It’s very tiny,” she demurred.

“If anything,” he told her, “five dollars isn’t enough. Now, I want the ring for my bride-to-be, whoever she is, and I’m offering you five dollars, not four.” He spoke as if their transaction was a game they were playing, and she found herself smiling back at him, then blushed. Charles was gathering small stones from the road, making a pile of them, and seeing how dirty he was getting, distracted by this, she said, “Thank you with all my heart.” She put the coins in her pocket and was about to walk the few feet to Charles to dust him off, when Adamson said, “I think I’d better lie down again.” His face gleamed with sweat, blanched even more than when he’d opened his door to her. She put a hand under his elbow to steady him as he pulled himself to his feet, feeling a slight trembling, and his unnatural body heat radiating through the thin fabric of his shirt.
Alarmed, she reached to open the screen door and then the inner one so he might go through. His weakness surprised her; Pierre was never ill, and Charles seemed to have inherited his father’s strong constitution, a fact for which she could never be grateful enough.
Besides fire, her greatest fear had always been that she might lose Charles, a fate for most mothers even in the great cities; how much greater out here without doctors or hospitals nearby.

“How long have you been ill?”

“A week, no longer,” he replied. He grimaced slightly as if in annoyance at having to admit it, or else that it had been longer. “I’ll be all right as soon as I lie down.” Half inside his house he paused to rest against the door frame. Sophie didn’t know whether to go inside with him to make sure he got to his bed, or whether she would be better to leave him to make his own way.

He began moving again, so she said, “I will come with Mrs. Emery tonight to see how you are.” Not waiting for an answer, nor taking any time to glance around his room – in any case, it was so dark inside, and the light outside so bright, she could see nothing but blackness – she pulled the door shut behind him, let the screen door close, and turned away to pick up Charles.
Part of her was concerned for Adamson, but the other part was filled with elation. I am no longer destitute! She crossed herself with her free hand, murmured aloud a prayer of thanks, then stopped in surprise, her hand still raised at her breast. Blinking back tears – no, not even tears of happiness, she scolded herself – she hurried back to the boarding house.

~

As she and Mrs. Emery worked together
in the kitchen making the evening meal for the boarders, Sophie said, “I passed Mr.
Adamson’s house while I was out; he had stepped outside for a minute and I saw that he was ill –” She couldn’t say she had knocked on his door, and remained convinced no one must know that she now had a small cache of money – not that Mrs. Emery would be a threat – and was beginning to think that the villagers would forget her presence faster if she melted into the background as that shadowy woman who worked for Mrs. Emery. She, who had scorned secrecy as the resort of scoundrels, and as unworthy of her, was learning its value. “I was alarmed. I thought that maybe we should go back tonight to make sure he is not getting worse? Or should we try to reach a doctor for him?”