Effigy (14 page)

More than one of them couldn’t wait until she and Mama had left the shop before they began whispering.
Orphan
. A sinister word, hissed across flour barrels or between bolts of webby muslin down the back.

The woman behind the counter pinned Dorrie with a look and said brightly, “Well now, Eudora Burr, what would you say to a peppermint stick?”

Nothing if she had her way, but the spasm in Mama’s hand told her different.

“Yes please, ma’am.” A small enough response, but it pained Dorrie to give it. Pained her and delighted everyone else—the
woman grinning like an idiot as she plucked the long candy from its jar, Mama squeezing her hand again, but softly this time.

On the boardwalk outside, the two of them sat surrounded by parcels on a hard-backed bench, awaiting Papa’s return. Mama insisted upon exchanging words with every passerby. Dorrie’s guts swam with sugar and nerves each time a skirt or a pair of trousers halted before them.

Then came a collection of bare, brown feet—not on the boardwalk, but beyond, on the dusty street. A flick of the eyes set Dorrie’s heart skittering. Indians. Two men, a woman and a boy. The grown-ups were dressed in charity, one man’s trousers cinched with rope, the other’s with a red necktie. The woman’s hem dragged in the dust. Only the boy was dressed in the old way, which was to say, scarcely at all.

All four kept their eyes lowered, a kinship Dorrie might have picked up on if she hadn’t been at the mercy of her thundering pulse. There was nothing to fear, she knew, especially here, in the centre of town. Like any good Saint, she understood that Indians were in fact descendants of the original Twelve Tribes—descendants gone astray, mind, but not without hope. Those who’d been saved come Judgment Day stood to be reclaimed by God. Dorrie knew this. And still she shrank inwardly at the sight of those brown feet shifting past.

She said a quick prayer for Papa’s return. Peering down the dusty street, she imagined every set of brown moustaches and faded grey hat was him, never mind if the cart was drawn by a mule or a black draft horse, or even if the man came on foot.

When Papa finally did arrive, pulling up in front of the rail, she chanced to be looking the other way. The man who’d caused her head to turn was clean-shaven, hatless. A hardened aspect, a crop of greasy, dust-coloured hair. Amid this river of strangers, here,
Dorrie felt, was someone she knew. She knew his mouth, full of bright teeth when he opened it to greet a man who crossed his path. Knew his blunt, extended hand. Knew especially the teary gleam, the doggy slant of his smiling eyes.

Perhaps he had visited the farm while she was ill—she might have glimpsed him then, mightn’t she, through the slit of a bloodshot eye? It scarcely mattered. She recognized him, and felt certain he would recognize her, too. Forgetting her manners, forgetting even that she could speak, Dorrie stood and pointed, singling him out.

Papa engulfed her. He bent her arm down harshly at the shoulder, as though it were a branch he would separate from its tree. “Get in the cart.” His voice hot in Dorrie’s ear, turning icy when he repeated the order to his wife. “Get in the cart, Mother.”

Mama obeyed, her movements jerky. No sooner were they settled on the bench seat than she was tucking Dorrie’s head beneath the brown wing of her shawl. The day was warm, but Dorrie didn’t struggle. Instinct told her to go limp, to breathe shallowly in the musky damp beneath Mama’s arm. She heard Papa load the parcels hastily behind their backs, felt him jam in beside her and bring the reins down hard.

The mulberry copse is private, enveloped in shade. It’s just the two of them, Ruth one tree over, two rungs up the ladder, reaching into green. Lal tears loose a fluttering handful, suddenly recalling what she’s told him a dozen times—a gentle twist to spare the twig. These trees must do for many years. He proceeds with greater care, switching to a different branch so he can watch her over the tops of his hands.

When his sack is full, he drops to the ground and crosses to stand close by her skirts. Her hand hangs at eye level, graceful and stained. Reaching up again, she causes her hem to rise, revealing her bloated feet. They’re bare, dark pink and satiny, slung like steaks over the rung. She catches him looking.

“Do they pain you?” he blurts.

She sighs. “They do.”

He drags his eyes downward, fixing them on a clot of bunch-grass.

“Lal?”

Ordinarily he would thrill to the sound of his name in her mouth. Just now, though, he’s distracted by an even sweeter voice.
Sssss. Rrrrrr
. The sly, secret rubbing of her underthings, cotton on silk on skin.

“Lal?”

She twists to look down on him.
Sssrrrrr
. He’ll touch her. No one will see. He’ll close his arms about her legs, press his face into her apron’s dirty lap.

“Lal.”

He looks up, startled.

“You’d not say a word to your mother. About my—my not wearing shoes.”

“Oh, no. Never.”

“Good lad.”

It hurts him to meet her gaze. He lowers his eyes again. “My bag’s full.”

“Well, lean it up by the cottage—the shady side, mind.”

He nods. “Will I do another?”

“If you like.” She turns back to the mulberry—
rrrrr
—moving one big foot—
rssss
—then the other—
ssrrrrr
—up a rung.

Mounted on Stride, Bendy takes the near pasture at a walk. He begins by hugging the margins, making mental note of every rotting post, every dangling rail. From there he works a narrowing spiral, looking down Stride’s neck—near side, off side—now and then slipping down to investigate a suspicious plant or kick dirt into a potential trip hole and tamp it down. Spying a frayed lick of twine, he reels up a tangle capable of jerking the most sure-footed of animals off its hooves.

At the verge of a shallow sink, he comes upon a thriving clump of hemlock. Unlashing his spade, he digs it up, hooking it by the roots through the buckle on his saddlebag. Several smaller clots come up easy, giving way with a good yank. He weaves them into the mother bush, to be burned later in the day. All this and he’s still nowhere near the pasture’s heart. He shakes his head. It’s a wonder Hammer’s got any horses left for him to tend.

Mr. Humphrey clearly held his subject dear. His lessons followed no set plan, at least none Ruth could discern. He might just as soon dwell upon the Catholic persecution that drove Huguenot weavers to British shores as on the manner in which the
Bombyx
silk moth spends its brief and flightless life.

The female’s perfume is irresistible to the male. He is equipped with a pair of feathery antennae, which sweep the air in search of her scent. Her abdomen swells to the point of rendering her immobile. Up to five hundred eggs, can you imagine, Miss Graves?

Often he focused on the wondrous fibre itself.

“Certainly one might tear a thin scarf along warp or weft, but
catch hold of two corners on the bias and you test the true mettle of the thread.” Mr. Humphrey rose from his armchair and drew just such a scarf—flesh toned, translucent—from his jacket pocket. Bending awkwardly from the waist, he laid it across her hand. “Pull. Go on, Miss Graves, exert yourself.”

She obliged him, eliciting a smile that seemed oddly pained.

“You’ll never tear it, will you? And see what it weighs? Nothing. Scarcely more than a handful of air.”

She pinched the scarf between finger and thumb, gauging its negligible weight.

“Ball it up. Go on, ball it up in your fist. Stuff it away.” His eyes were bright. “Feel it give?”

She nodded.

“Feel it—” He groped for the word. “—resist?”

Her answer was a smile.

“Good. Quickly now, one motion, open your hand.”

She gave a little cry as the scarf sprang from her grip. Splayed and fluttering, it shrouded her upturned palm.

“Such delicacy of draping. Unmatched, unmatched!” He snatched up the scarf, a clawing motion that made her jump. Beads of sweat stood out on his cheekbones, his bone-white brow. He blotted them, the scarf darkening with every dab. It was plain something ailed him, but she never dreamt what it was. He shuffled back and, in a slow collapse, resumed his chair.

“Silk will absorb up to a third of its own weight in moisture.” He spoke softly now, directing his voice to the crumpled dampness in his hands. “It is warm when warmth is required and yet it breathes.”

He looked up at her then, his eyes brimming. And still she didn’t see.

Ursula begins counting at her own end of the upstairs corridor. If asked, she would deny any reckoning. Would say instead
looking in on
, or
checking
.

The first door along the western wall represents zero, the nursery empty for another five months yet. The second opens in on her slumbering girls. A stooped, cover-smoothing inspection of each—
one, two
—and then she’s on her way past the head of the wide staircase to the chamber that holds her boys. Their cots form a triangle for her to walk. She hunches briefly at each of its points—
three, four, five
. It’s rare to find one of her lambs wakeful.

The last door on the children’s side Ursula leaves alone. Lal is far too old for a mother to check on. The Lord only knows what she might find.

Opposite Lal’s room lies the door to Sister Eudora’s empty chamber. Unaired space, a reminder of every wifely duty the girl leaves unfulfilled. Ursula lays an ear to Sister Thankful’s door. Too late to catch them in the act, she hears nothing but the rumble of Hammer’s snores. She straightens, her next embroidered motto springing fully formed to mind.

At Ruth’s door she thinks fleetingly of looking in—not so much on the woman as on the promise of the child to come—but
decides it wouldn’t do to risk disturbing her sister-wife’s sleep. Not when the idiot woman spent all day picking and hauling leaves, and will be up at least once in the night to lay down more. Ursula turns and descends the stairs.