The Gardener (17 page)

That night Tom woke from a dream of revenge so realistic that he was drenched in sweat. He knew full well that if he laid a hand on Radstone, he would be captured and hanged, this time successfully.

His misery was compounded by Miss Radstone's constant sidelong, fawning stares. She remained on the edges of his consciousness like an ever-present shadow, until one day, as the family was eating supper, she unexpectedly looked up from her untouched plate and broke the silence by addressing him. “T—Tom?”

Mabel never spoke at dinner. Especially to him.

“Yes, Miss Radstone?”

“I wonder ... would you mind terribly calling me “Mabel?”

Swallowing, he darted a look at Radstone for his employer's reaction. The hulking blacksmith was shoveling a hunk of dripping beef into his mouth and seemed not to be paying attention to the conversation. Grease spotted his soiled shirt, which was unbuttoned to his dark chest hair, and sweat stains darkened his armpits.

Tom grimaced and grasped at the proprieties as if to a lifeline, although the fact that he, an indentured servant, was sitting with the family proved that the proprieties meant nothing here.

“Er ... I do not know if that would be advisable, Miss Radstone. I am a servant, after all, and ....”

“I wouldn't mind. I wouldn't mind at all.” She was looking directly at him now, as if she had summoned up all her courage to do so. Horribly embarrassed, Tom darted another look at Radstone, who was munching contentedly, seemingly unaware of the undercurrents at his own dinner table. The girl's infatuation was painful to see, and Tom cringed. Until now, he'd done his best to ignore it, helped by the fact that until now he'd scarcely been aware of the girl's existence except as a minor annoyance.

Isaac's warning echoed in his ears: “It is going to get you into trouble, lad ....”

“Yes, Miss ... er ... Mabel,” he mumbled, and shoved food in his mouth quickly so he would not have to speak again. Fortunately she quickly looked down at her plate, and the rest of the meal was conducted in silence, except for the sound of Radstone's loud chewing and hawking into the spittoon located next to his place.

*     *     *

Tom was surprised when the next day, Radstone summoned him into the parlor. Surprised at the change in routine, Tom stood staring at the dust motes swimming in the light that penetrated the grease-smeared windows until gradually, his master's words sank in. “Er … I beg your pardon, sir?”

“She has been pressing me to talk to you about it ever since yesterday. Do not tell me it has never crossed your mind .... I'm afraid the minx has made her mind up. She's more stubborn than you'd think, from the look of her. Oh, I'm the first to admit she ain't much to look at, but in these parts, I'm considered a wealthy man. You'll never want for anything if you take her on.”

“But ....” Tom found himself stammering. “M-marry Miss Radstone?”

“'Mabel', my boy, 'Mabel.' Marry her, and I shall release you from your indentures.” Radstone snapped his thick, scarred fingers to show how quickly the matter would be taken care of. “The letter you carried to town a few weeks ago was an order for Mr. Merkel to draw up the papers.” He chuckled, studying Tom’s stricken face. “You did not know that, did you? Everything will yours someday, as my son-in-law and heir. Well, boy, what do you say?” Radstone waited with an ill-fitting benevolence. His smile revealed a missing tooth.

Tom did not know what to say. Marry Miss Radstone? (He could not think of her as Mabel.) He would have laughed aloud at the notion but for what Radstone had offered with it. He remembered his conversation with Betty in the kitchen. Freedom. The most valuable gift of all, and Radstone was dangling it before him like a fat sausage in front of the ginger cat. All he had to do was....

He chose his words carefully to avoid giving offense. “Thank you, sir, for your most generous offer. However, I ... er ... I am not worthy of....”

“Balderdash. You wouldn't spit in a tub for her, and I know it as well as you do. But she wants you, and she's my daughter, after all.”

“I ... I need some time to consider—”

“You do that.” Radstone cut off Tom's babbling with a wave of his hairy fist. “You'll sire fine sons off her, my lad. She's not likely to come up with a better prospect, with or without her dowry. And remember—I shall make it worth your while. The forge ... need an heir ... business booming ....”

Nodding until his head felt as if it would come off, Tom backed away and escaped to his room. There, he sat on his cot with his hands over his eyes while he sorted out his thoughts.

Marry ...
Mabel
? He pictured her stick-like arms and ungainly neck, long and white as that of a goose. Her wiry hair and crooked teeth. And those bulbous, staring eyes.

Tom wasn't vain about his broad shoulders and good looks; he never gave them a thought until he'd learned how useful they could be when housemaids turned and stared as he strode down the halls. At first, their effect had gratified, then amused him, but in the end, they had proved a deuced annoyance, even a danger. He'd never have been brought to this miserable hell-hole, he thought, if not for the curse of his effect on women.

Now history was repeating itself, only this time it would result in a different type of gaol: matrimony. In the past, he’d expected that if he ever took a wife,
he'
d be the one to choose who it would be. And the girl would be a woman he'd not only want to bed, but to share company with, grow old with. Mabel? Never!

And yet ... how could he decline Radstone's offer? The blacksmith would make the next six years a perfect hell.

When Tom passed Mabel in the hall, he muttered something and dashed by. He was tempted to go to Betty to ask advice.
She
would know what to do. The cook had a level head and profound understanding of human nature. If anyone could find a way out of this fix, she could. But he abandoned the idea. Betty had raised Mabel from a girl and was as protective as a mother cat hovering over her kitten. The African-born cook would not sympathize with his dilemma.

Yet it was Betty, in fact, who influenced his final decision. Her speech about liberty rang in his ears. Radstone had promised to tear up Tom's indentures, and freedom—even freedom attached with a wife—was better than servitude. After several sleepless nights, he went with dragging steps to tell Radstone the news.

Chapter Fourteen

The wedding was a simple affair, with few guests and little celebration. Tom had sent a message to Mrs. Parker, and he was gratified to see the entire Merkel family arrive in their Sunday best. A few strange faces were scattered in the congregation as well, relatives and friends of Mabel's family, who looked at him suspiciously and muttered to each other behind his back.

Tom ran a finger under his tightly knotted neck cloth while avoiding looking at his bride, who stood next to him wearing a high-waisted sprigged-cotton dress along with a new bonnet and reticule. After the ceremony, as they walked to the coach, Mabel pressed his arm to her side so tightly that he felt as if shackles were weighting him down. Her eyes shone so brightly that they outweighed her bad complexion. For the first and only time in her life, Mabel Radstone looked almost pretty.

His status as son-in-law allowed Tom to move to the main house where a room upstairs had been prepared for the new couple. With a red face he endured Henry's ribbing as he maneuvered his few possessions up the narrow steps.

The couple was to share a room under the eaves, and Mabel had obviously done everything she could to make it homelike. Over the past few weeks, she had braided a rag rug for the floor and purchased a rose-painted ewer for the nightstand. However there was no changing the fact that one could hear every squeak and whisper through the thin walls of the old house, and he found himself dreading nightfall—not to mention all the nights that would follow.

After dinner and a long, awkward hand of patience in the parlor with Mr. Radstone and Henry, the newlyweds excused themselves. Tom tried not to look at the others as they took their leave. As he closed the door upstairs, he eyed the narrow bed and wondered whether he could manage to pass the night without touching Mabel. It would be difficult, but he thought he might manage it if he scrunched up just right, next to the wall, and did not breathe.

Blowing out the candle, he lingered at the nightstand as long as possible, hoping his bride would fall asleep before he came to bed. But when he swung his long legs under the quilt, holding his breath so as not to wake her, she turned toward him, with a rustling of the straw mattress.

“Oh, Tom,” she whispered. “It is like a miracle, isn't it? That you came so far across the sea, just for this? It must have been destined.”

“Yes,” he lied. What else could he say? Then, because he did not want to shame her, he forced himself to turn over and kiss her. To his surprise, the sensation was not altogether unpleasant. Her lips felt warm and eager, and in the dark, he could almost forget her plainness. Without intending to, he kissed her again, this time longer. She was a woman, after all, and it had been a long time since he had been this close to a nubile female. Without volition, his arm crept out. Perhaps this ordeal would not be as odious as he had expected, Tom thought.

*     *     *

Radstone had promised to tear up Tom's indenture papers after the wedding, but a week later he still had not done so. “All in good time,” his new father-in-law promised, when Tom reminded him. “What's the hurry? After all, some day everything I own will belong to you.”

But Tom had no intention of staying until Mr. Radstone's demise. As soon as the papers were destroyed, he planned to take his new wife and leave for the Ohio Territory. The idea implanted during dinner at Mr. Merkel's house months ago grown into an obsession.

Land existed for the taking in the West, the quiet-spoken solicitor had said. Farming in the wilderness would be hard work, far harder than pruning Lord Marlowe's prized rosebushes, but Tom had no doubt he was equal to the task. His late father and grandfather had been farmers, and their ancestors before them. Growing things came naturally to him. Hadn't Lemley always said so?

Meanwhile, Tom swallowed his disappointment and continued to work in the smithy, waiting with growing impatience for Mr. Radstone to release him from his indentures. His father-in-law's peremptory behavior chafed more than ever, but Tom forced himself to bite his tongue and bide his time. At night, he dreamed of the day he and Mabel could set up their own household on the other side of the mountains. It was all that kept him going.

In their attic room, Mabel listened to his plans without comment. Today, she was knitting a soft blanket from a skein of light-blue wool.

“Well?” he asked, finally noticing her silence. “Do you not want to go away so we can have our own farm?”

She looked up. “Of course, Tom. It is just that ... it will hurt my father's feelings if I abandon him so soon after getting married. Besides, he needs you in the forge.”

“He'll find another assistant. He cannot expect us to live with him forever.”

“Perhaps not. But it is so late in the year! By the time we arrive in Ohio, it will be too cold to plant crops.” She put down the knitting, looking at him with big, pleading eyes. “Wouldn't it make more sense to wait until spring, dear?”

He considered her words and nodded. It would take time to make the preparations, and it would not be wise to arrive so soon before winter. “All right,” Tom said reluctantly. “It will give me more time to save for the kind of wagon I want, strong enough for the kind of traveling we'll be doing. We'll need horses, too. And a milk cow.” He scowled. “At the rate your father pays me, or rather, doesn't pay me ....”

She smiled and leaned over to kiss his cheek. Tom's anger drained away. In spite of her changing his plans, he found himself enjoying indulging her whims, like one would humor a kitten. His initial disgust at his homely wife had turned into pity. Now it was turning into another emotion he could not identify, but which, he realized with surprise, had something to do with tenderness.

The winter was long and unusually cold. The only thing that kept him going was knowing he could escape when spring arrived. He saved every penny that Mr. Radstone grudgingly granted him and went into town frequently to oversee the progress on the sturdy wagon he had commissioned. When the flowers in the courtyard were about to bud, he knew it was time. “Tomorrow,” he told Mabel when he returned. “We'll tell your father tomorrow. Everything is ready. All I have to do is ....”

He realized she was not listening. Her pale face was glowing with some inner happiness, and he belatedly realized that there was something different about her. “What is it, Mabel?” he said, studying her closely.

“Can you tell?” She turned toward him eagerly. “Haven't you noticed? I have been wanting to tell you for the longest time, but I wasn't sure how you would feel about it ....” A blush flamed in her cheeks.

He fumbled for a chair and sat down heavily. “Do you mean you're—?”

She nodded. “I have known for nearly a month. Betty scolded me for not telling you sooner, but I was afraid that ....” She looked down, and twisted her fingers in her lap. “I wasn't sure you would be happy about the news. I thought you would be, Tom. But with you, I'm not always sure how you feel about things.”

After the first shock, he began thinking furiously. “Well, this doesn't have to change anything,” he said half to himself. “Plenty of women travel when they are with child. It makes sense, even, to start a new family at the same time we start a new li....”

Her smile had disappeared, and she was staring at him. “You mean ... you mean you still want to go?”

“Of course. Why not?”

“But ....” Her voice trailed away.

“What is it, Mabel?”

Tears welled up in her eyes. “But to be among strangers when the baby is born .... It would be so hard! So lonely! I could not bear it. Please, Tom, cannot we stay here, at home, just until the baby is born? Here, with Betty, and my father? It will not be much longer. A few months ....”

And then it will be autumn again, he thought, looking down at her little hand clutching his. Another year of misery? He had thought marriage would bring independence, the ability to plan his own future. Now, he felt more shackled than ever before. Freedom felt more remote and unattainable than ever.

Looking at her downcast face, however, he knew he could not disappoint her. It would be too cruel. “All right,” he said, swallowing hard. “But just until it is born.”

Beaming, she jumped up and threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you! I have already thought of a name. Clara if it is a girl, after my mother, and Thomas if it is a boy. What do you think?”

“Those are perfect names.” He accepted her show of gratitude grudgingly, admitting to himself that her delighted smile brought him pleasure. She would never be a beauty or a great wit, but she loved him unquestioningly as no one ever had, with a fierce and loyal devotion that gratified him. And pregnancy became her, he thought, looking down with surprise at her excited face. Her thin figure had filled out, her pale cheeks had grown rosy. Her joy made her a real person, not a shadow, as he had once thought of her.

In spite of the unwelcome delay, he reminded himself that escape was closer than ever. Spring would be here soon; in the meantime, he hoarded every dollar that came his way, tucking them under the mattress and withdrawing them only to purchase essentials for the trip. His dreams helped the long, cold months pass until his wife was brought to her delivery bed.

For the first time, his optimism began to waver. The labor was difficult. He had never seen a woman brought to the birthing bed, and although Mabel smiled at him and faintly assured him that all was well, it was soon clear that it was not. When her cries began to weaken and her grip on Tom’s hand relaxed, the midwife shook her head, and told Mr. Radstone he’d best send for the doctor. Radstone, who had been downing glass after glass of rum downstairs, sent Henry off with a kick and a curse. The doctor arrived in due course, running upstairs, and the door closed, with Tom left to pace in the hallway, leaning his ear to the door from time to time to check on progress.

After several hours, the doctor came out wiping bloody hands on a rag. He gave a Tom a shrug and a look of sympathy. Tom brushed by Betty, who was guarding the door, without a glance, hardly aware of her presence. The midwife looked up as she was placing a blanket-wrapped bundle in a bassinet.

“Stop. I want to see.” Tom grabbed the midwife by the arm and stared down at the perfect face of his tiny daughter. A crest of downy hair, closed eyes, a slight bump inside the folds of the blanket, hardly even there: motionless, like a tiny doll cast aside by an impatient child.

A chill ran through him and he forced himself to turn to Mabel, fearing what he would see. Her eyes were half-closed, and her hair straggled across the pillow like dead grass against a bank of snow. Her breathing was shallow and ragged. Bending over her, he gently took her fingers, which felt like bird claws swallowed up in his large hand.

“It is all right, Tom.” Mabel's voice was a whisper. She tried to smile but the effect was grotesque on her thin, exhausted features. “I shall be better soon. Everything will be as we planned. We'll get to the Ohio country yet. The three of us: you, me, and little Clara.

So she did not know the child was dead. He had not had the heart to tell her, after all she had been through, so he sat down, his weight causing the straw mattress to sink, and held Mabel’s slight, childlike body close to him. She felt as empty and weightless as a dried pod.

“Yes, Mabel. It will be all right. Everything will be just as we planned. In the spring, when you're better. When the flowers bloom ....” Whispering reassurances, he held her until her eyelids fluttered shut and her head fell back.

It took a moment for him to realize she was gone. Not just the baby, then, but his wife too? In that moment, he felt as if someone had raised a sledgehammer and smashed something inside his chest, the shards stabbing into his flesh like pieces of broken glass.

As he stared in disbelief at Mabel's peaceful face, he was overwhelmed by the wave of grief that swelled over him and left him reeling. How could he have lost both of them so quickly? If only she had not conceived. He was the one who had done this to her…!

The midwife roughly shook his shoulders. “Come along, sir, that'll do no good. You're a young man, you'll have another chance at a family. Get along now, I shall need to prepare the body.”

As she pulled the sheet over Mabel's face, he obediently stood and blundered from the room.

*     *     *

Two days later, Mabel was buried with her baby daughter in her arms. Tom watched stone-faced as the unvarnished pine casket swayed on its cables into the grave. The Merkels were among the mourners, but he scarcely acknowledged them.

The house, which had taken on a semblance of happiness the past year, especially in the small room beneath the eaves, was now plunged into mourning. Betty, her eyes red, sniffling constantly, folded up the unused baby clothes and packed them away. She did her best to console Tom, and he listened politely, but inside he felt numb. Even Henry had sense enough to let him alone.

He thought of the women in his life he had lost to death. His mother. His sister. His wife. His daughter. Mabel had loved him, given him everything, and this was the result.

As the days passed and the household went back to its usual routine, Tom gradually came to realize that there was nothing holding him here anymore. Neither Mabel nor the baby. Finally, at last, he was free.

He waited another month before acting. That seemed a decent interval. Then, one evening as his father-in-law closed up the smithy, Tom said matter-of-factly, “I have decided to leave next week.”