Dominion (37 page)

“You're the best wife a man could have,” he said, sitting down beside the bed. “All will be safe.”

She smiled at him, as she thought how one day she must create a scene that was not only from her own head but from their life together there at Stonehouses. Alas, it would not be one from that winter.

With the exception of Christmas Day itself, she stayed in bed through the holidays until the first of the New Year—though she counted it bad luck to be idle on New Year's Day. She ate the food Claudia prepared for her in the kitchen, and took her medicine as well. When Adelia visited she said she thought the girl looked in far better health than she had that time last year, and left thinking it only required patience before all was over and well.

Caleum, living with her every day, was more anxious by then but careful not to let his wife see his growing worry. There was, after all, nothing that had triggered his concern except her own, and his wanting
everything to turn out as it should. As late as the third week of the year he could still hope this would be the case—things turning out as they should. However, he entered the house one day, after a morning spent out in the barns and curing sheds, to hear his wife's diminishing sobs and Claudia saying, “There there, mistress.”

It seemed to him then he could hear a woman crying in each earthly direction outside the window, and her maid with her, replying with the same consolation. “There, there, mistress.”

He went to his wife's room, where he found her no longer in bed but seated in a chair next to it. “What happened, my Libbie?” he asked. “What has gone wrong?”

Claudia looked between the two of them, then hurried from the room. Caleum looked after her retreating form and felt an unpleasantness in the bowels of his stomach.

“The baby,” Libbie said. Her tears had dwindled by now, so there was scarcely any emotion on her face. “I have lost another child.”

When she was finished speaking Caleum heard echoing in his ears again Claudia's words from when he first entered the house. “There, there, mistress.” His first gesture was to give his wife a solacing embrace. His mind, however, immediately began to race with suspicions. “It is not your fault,” he consoled. “Only bad luck.”

When she heard him say this, she knew that was not the case either; it had nothing to do with luck at all. “It is simply a woman's lot,” she retorted. “Just as it is sometimes her lot to have children, she sometimes must lose them.”

Caleum had never heard his wife speak so hard before, and his impulse was to try to shield her from her own words; to say she did not mean what she had said. However, looking at her withdrawn face, which was like some ancient stone mask, he thought it better to hold his tongue for the time being, deferring to her in the matter. “Is there anything you need?” he asked.

“No,” she answered, looking at him tenderly for the first time during that conversation. “Let me rest now. Everything will be as it is supposed to be.”

He took comfort in her words as he left the room, thinking she certainly knew best, and if it was what she thought then all would indeed be as it was supposed to be. As he sat alone in the darkened parlor,
though, drinking a glass of rum, which for him was very rare since his days as a schoolboy, his comfort began to leave him and his mind to grow cold. In each direction he turned then, he heard again his wife's cry.

When Claudia came to ask what he wished to eat for supper, he looked at her distantly and the machine of his fears began to whir and hum. He was not a hard-hearted man, but felt very passionately for what had befallen his wife, and that passion found then a place to alight—before he even knew that it was searching. “It's a shame about your mistress,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” Claudia answered him. “But it ain't no more than she can bear.”

He looked at the woman narrowly and knew he could see her guilt. He thought then only of punishing her. “Claudia, I think I'll have supper over at the main house,” he informed her. “I must attend to something I forgot about before. Please look after Libbie.”

He was so cold as he answered her that Claudia knew instantly she had somehow misspoken. “I'm sorry if I said something out of turn,” she offered, not knowing why she apologized. His reply, though, was all equanimity.

“You didn't say anything but what was on your mind, Claudia. There couldn't be anything evil in that.”

He was conciliatory when he spoke, but when he left the room she felt herself to be in gravest danger, though, of course, she did not imagine for one moment the cause.

Caleum walked the half mile through the frigid evening to the main house, thinking the entire time about revenge for the wrong he had suffered. When he entered the room where his uncle and aunt were sitting down to dinner, he tried to calm himself. Adelia invited him to join them at table and called Rebecca to make another setting. When he sat down in his customary place, he felt a great weight lift up from his shoulders and was soon enveloped in the comfort of familiarity and security.

His aunt had prepared roast beef, which was cooked pink as he liked it, and he took a slice from the serving platter and placed it on his plate.
He cut into it and ate silently for a while, with his head bent down, looking neither at Adelia nor Magnus.

“Caleum, what has happened?” Adelia asked, after she thought he had enjoyed sufficient time to warm up from the cold.

“Why do you ask me what has happened?” he asked. “Can't I only come by for a visit?”

“And to that you are always welcome, but something has happened to upset you,” Adelia answered, not seeing any reason to argue or to explain how she knew this to be true.

“Aunt Adelia, Libbie has lost our baby,” he answered, sitting up straight, only to slink back down in his seat. A caul seemed to descend on the room when he said this, and they were all silent where they sat.

“How is she now?” Adelia asked finally.

“Resting,” said Caleum. “She is out there with the witch who poisoned her. I would not have left, but I don't see what further harm she can do to her now.”

“Caleum, what are you talking about?” Magnus asked.

“Claudia,” he said, looking at his uncle directly. “She is a witch who has poisoned my wife.”

“Did Libbie tell you that?” Adelia asked.

“No,” Caleum replied.

“Then what do you have against her to sustain your charge?”

“She walks at night in the fields, or else the woods. I have seen her.”

“Is that all of it?”

“She cannot look me straight on, and not because of modesty, but from her guilt.”

“What does Libbie say?”

“That it is her burden, and all will be fine. I think she is still under Claudia's spell.”

“I thought her brother was a great friend of yours?”

“He was a friend of my youth, Uncle Magnus.”

“Aye.”

“My father warned me about taking her on.”

Caleum understood at last that Claudia was the reason they had seen so much misfortune.

“What do you plan to do?” Magnus asked the younger man. “You have no proof she has done anything.”

“I have the proof of what she has wrought,” he answered.

“Caleum, you know sometimes life by itself brings misfortune, and we can only live with it.”

“Why are you taking her side, Aunt Adelia?” he asked. “She poisoned my wife.”

“You should ask Libbie and see what she says.”

Caleum then felt there was some great conspiracy against him that even his family was party to. Was his wife as well? The thought was enough to make him mad, and he stood from the table in a barely controlled fit of anger. “I think I should go see how Libbie is,” he said. “As for Claudia, I don't think there can be any more debate about her. Do I have your support or not?”

“Well, what do you want to do?” Magnus asked.

Adelia looked at him as he stood from the table, and there was a coolness in her gaze he had not appreciated before when she replied. “That depends,” she said. “How will you run your house?”

He looked at his uncle for support, but Magnus nodded in consent with Adelia.

“No one is against you,” his uncle continued. “Only there is not always a convenient place for us to lay down blame for our miseries.”

Adelia was pleased to see her husband with her, instead of joining Caleum in his witch hunt, but she was concerned Caleum would not see things that way, and still do something rash.

“Good night,” he said.

Magnus and Adelia looked back and forth between each other, and Adelia stepped forth to say something to Caleum, but Magnus checked her. “Good night, Caleum. Give Libbie our heartfelt regards.”

As he left the room Adelia took his hand and squeezed it.

How will you run your house?

When Caleum descended the front stairs back into the frigid evening, a gust of wind swept the tails of his banian, and he could feel a chill that reached through his clothing to embrace him with its icy fingers. He wished then he had ridden over, and thought briefly about going to the stable for a horse. Instead, he took the wind as part of that design counter to his well-being, and pulled the fabric close to his neck as he trudged along, hugging the shore of the lake on the path that had been worn between Stonehouses and his own house.

What have I done to be treated so? he asked, of no one in particular. He felt then the entire world arranged against him in a unified mocking he was powerless to affect, nor could he escape it. It was a torture for him, as he walked on under a crisp, low moon and heard again the sound of his wife crying. I had only this one wish, he thought to himself.

He became convinced as he went that his aunt and uncle had sided against him only because they had never had children of their own and were jealous. No sooner had he thought this, though, than he realized he did not know the reason for their childlessness.

Because his mind was well-formed and rational, he was forced to admit as he continued on that there were those whose wishes were daily denied them, and he was only unused to it—having been granted far more than was withheld. He knew then there was no pact against him, only bitter circumstance; not two-faced plot-making.

I shall still throw her out, he thought to himself, with some small satisfaction. If he could not prosecute her criminality he could at least expel her presence and give himself peace of mind. A stab of guilt shot through him no sooner had he formed the thought, though, and he admitted to himself it was only wicked fantasizing. Still, to accept what had happened to him meekly was not the way he was used to being. He had been raised to think he could achieve whatever he wished with the strength of his body and will and his mind's cunning. He was now defeated, however, and the barb was all the more jagged because it was with something that came so easily to others. He felt crushed as one upon whom a monumental boulder has fallen. It was with this admission that he opened the door on his house.

Inside he smelled smoke and was at first worried that, on top of his other burdens, fire had broken out in his absence. Only slowly did he realize it was not the house on fire but the smell of lit tobacco. He followed the scent out to the kitchen, where he found Libbie and Claudia sitting on stools at the table, puffing away on little pipes. He had never known Libbie to smoke before and was stupefied to see her engaged in it now. He held his tongue, though, not knowing whether he should chastise her or let the grievance pass. He was certain Claudia had introduced her to this as well.

When the women saw him they were at pains to extinguish their little smokes, fanning the air as if he had not already seen their misdeed. “Libbie, how are you?” Caleum asked, feeling a deep weariness that seemed to the others a kind of patience.

“I am fine,” Libbie answered, as Claudia withdrew. “How are Uncle Magnus and Aunt Adelia?”

“They are well,” he said. His earlier suspicions still had not left him entirely, but now came to rest upon Libbie herself, and he wondered whether if, fearing as she had, she had been the one to enlist Claudia in her aid. Nevertheless he pressed ahead in his original inquiry. “Libbie, I want to ask you something,” he said, seeing no reason to be mysterious about it. “How trustworthy do you find Claudia?”

Libbie felt a pain when she realized the jealous suspicions that were unleashed in her husband's mind. “Completely,” she answered.

“You do not think she could have a hand in any of our misfortunes?”

“No,” Libbie answered, afraid of where she knew it might lead. “I told you it was only misfortune.”

“Very well,” Caleum concluded, with the same patience he displayed before, leaving his wife there in the kitchen as he went to the parlor to be alone. He sat down on a sofa that allowed him to look out on the lake beyond the window. He was not fully satisfied there was no pact against him, or that his wife's misfortunes were only what she said. He had no evidence, however, of any foul deed, and no course to act, so tried to find a position of calm and stillness within himself.

How will you run your house?
When he thought of his aunt's question from earlier that evening it seemed a very different thing in this light, and he was shaken again with self-facing grief that he knew he must undo.

After a long hour of staring at the lake and listening to the frigid wind as it whistled through the trees and even seemed to move the house a tiny fraction, he finally went to bed with no answer and no true satisfaction; no peace at all save a mature, abiding grief.

The spring rains were as relentless as the ones of the preceding autumn, storming down cold and hard from late February until the middle of March nearly without intermission, until the landscape began to show shadings of green that put all in mind of new beginnings: new hopes and chances in all their struggles, great and small. When the rains finally did ease, the stench of manure and winter decay mingled on the air, announcing the start of the new season. Caleum was happy that he could once again spend the better part of his days out-of-doors instead of inside the barns or his house, and he began to walk his land, like one who had been doing so many years, to assess its state and plan its future.