A Difficult Boy (33 page)

“You're mad!” Mr. Lyman said, trying to grab Silas's arm and pull him away from the desk. “Who buried that boy's parents? Who kept him when nobody else would have him?”

Silas pushed his father off, like a mastiff shrugging off a nipping terrier. “Don't pretend you gave him any charity. He slaved for every stitch on his back and every mouthful of food off your table.”

“I never treated him any worse than I did you.”

“No, I'll say that to your credit. You never spared me the back of your hand, either.” Silas loomed over his father as if he were about to repay him for every beating. “You should be ashamed of yourself.” He shoved armfuls of books and papers at Ethan and Lizzie, gathered the rest for himself, and headed for the door. Ethan followed without thinking, dazed by Silas's fury.

“ ‘How much sharper than a serpent's tooth . . . ,' ” Mr. Lyman shouted after him. “It's fortunate your mother never lived to see you turn on me.”

Silas's tan seeped away, leaving his face a sickly beige. The books and papers in his arms trembled. For a moment, he seemed to shrink. Then, in a blink, he was steady again. “You're right. My mother would weep to see what you've become.”

But Mr. Lyman had the last word. As Silas neared the threshold, his father shouted after him, “It wasn't
my
sin that killed her!”

Silas staggered, drawing his stomach in as if someone had just punched him. The books in his arms crashed to the floor.

“There, boy, there's the truth, isn't it?” Mr. Lyman said. “A fine one you are to be passing judgments.”

“Don't listen to him, Silas,” Lizzie said. “He's only saying that to be cruel. Everybody in town knows it was an accident. She fell—”

“Because
he
made her.” Mrs. Lyman pointed an accusing finger at her stepson.

Silas turned away as if he couldn't bear Lizzie's gaze.

“You have no idea what it was like, do you?” Mr. Lyman said, his tone swaying between wheedling and cutting. “Seeing her in your face every day, reminding me she was gone, and who had killed her. I thought I could beat her out of you, but it was still her eyes looking at me out of your face, cursing me for what I'd done. I'd shut myself up and weep for her, and then despise myself for that softness. I vowed you'd never be that weak, suffer that way. I'd make you hard, as hard as Delia and I should have been. If we'd been hard, she'd still be alive, she and the baby. I vowed I'd make you hard. And I have, haven't I?” His voice was dagger sharp. “Damn you.”

Ethan drew closer to Lizzie. She took his hand and squeezed it. But her palm was sweaty and her fingers trembled.

Silas's hands clenched until his knuckles whitened. “I've been damned, sir, for most of my life.”

Mr. Lyman's bitter chuckle hung between them. “And bringing me down, that will redeem you?”

“No, sir,” Silas said softly. “It's too late for that.” He gestured toward the tumble of books on the floor. “But Paddy—Daniel,” he corrected himself. “Daniel and the others. Maybe it's not too late for them.” The two men's eyes locked for a moment.

Mr. Lyman's voice turned to steel. “You're still soft. Soft for these strangers. Can any of them do for you what I've done? Give you what I can give? Damn you, boy, I'm your father.”

“I have no father.” The hardness in Silas's voice matched Mr. Lyman's.

Mr. Lyman recoiled as if he'd been struck with his own switch. “How can you say that? Everything I've done—it's all for you. You only have to ask, son. Give up this madness and whatever you want is yours.”

“I want the truth.”

Mr. Lyman made a gurgling noise deep in his throat, as if someone were choking him.

Silas's eyes turned hard at his father's silence. “That's what I thought.” He stooped to pick up everything he'd dropped. Mr. Lyman groaned as though Silas had torn a hole through him. He lunged toward the spill of papers and books.

Silas elbowed his father away. “Here,” he said, pulling the books together. “The truth's in here, isn't it?”

“Ruin me, then. Ruin me, and ruin yourself as well. There'll be no farm for you to work, no house for you to live in.”

“It's no more than I deserve.” But from the ashen look on his face, Ethan suspected that Silas hadn't considered what exposing his father would really mean. Ethan himself hadn't
thought of anything but helping Daniel get Ivy and perhaps finding out the truth about Pa's debts. He'd never imagined that hurting Mr. Lyman would hurt Silas, too.

Mr. Lyman pointed to his wife, her narrow face grown pale, her eyes no longer sharp. “Does your mother deserve—”

Silas cut him off with an abrupt sweep of his hand. “Your wife, you mean. I ruined my mother long ago, as you reminded me.”

“And your sisters, your brother?” Mr. Lyman continued, gaining strength as he spoke. “You'd cast them out into the streets?”

Silas turned to Lizzie and Ethan, his face haggard. Ethan prayed Silas wouldn't give in. But how could he expect Silas to sacrifice his livelihood, his home, his family for Daniel? Mr. Lyman stood a little straighter, a little taller, certain that he had won.

Ethan swallowed the lump gathering in his throat. He hoped Silas would forgive him for what he was about to do. He hoped even more that Mr. Lyman was wrong about ruining Silas. He stepped forward. “It doesn't matter if you keep Silas from telling. I will,” he said. His chest felt tight, and it was hard to breathe, but the words came out sure and steady.

Silently, Lizzie came to Ethan's side. She gave his arm a little squeeze, then knelt and began gathering papers and account books into a tidy pile. “I'm sure my father can make sense of these,” she said. She took off her apron and spread it on the floor to make a bundle of the books and papers.

The tightness in Ethan's chest eased. He knelt to join her.

“You see, sir.” Silas gestured toward Lizzie and Ethan. “It's not in my hands. They have no reason to protect you. Or me.” He bent to help Lizzie and Ethan bundle up the papers and account books. Ethan noticed the tightly clenched muscles
hardening the lines of Silas's jaw, making the tendons stand out like cords in his neck.

“Protect you?” Mrs. Lyman said. “From what, George? You've never cheated anybody. There's nothing here. Nothing that can harm us.” Her chin trembled. “Is there?” She went to her husband and put an unsteady hand on his arm.

For a moment, Ethan thought the storekeeper might lunge toward him and Lizzie and snatch the papers away. Then he turned to his wife and laid his hand over hers, his thumb tracing the blue veins that stood out on the back of her hand. “Leave us, Mercy, please,” he said, trying to guide her toward the door. “You don't need to hear any of this.”

“I think I do, George.” Mrs. Lyman released her husband's arm. She groped for a chair and lowered herself weakly into it. “I need to hear the truth, whatever it may be.”

He looked ready to crumple to the floor and weep. “The truth, then.” He returned to his desk and slumped into his chair. “Since you'll have it whether I will or no.”

Each time Ethan glanced at the storekeeper, he looked a little more faded, a little smaller. Ethan burst out with the question that had plagued him all day. “Why?”

“Why?” Mr. Lyman repeated. Ethan guessed that he'd never had to give a reason for anything before.

Silas rose and loomed over his father. “Yes, why? Why cheat an orphan out of ten acres of land that's barely good enough for potatoes? You didn't need it.”

Mr. Lyman stared at his empty desk for a long time before answering. “It was Lucius who gave me the idea.”

“Mr. Bingham?” Ethan couldn't believe it. Mr. Bingham was an odd man, but surely not a wicked one.

Silas growled in disgust. “So now it's someone else's fault. I should have known.”

Mr. Lyman nodded. “Lucius gave me the idea and didn't
even know it. A few days after the fire, he told me how sad it was that Linnehan had left the boy with nothing but debts. I never thought the man had made a secret of paying me. But he did. He told Lucius he wanted to see me about a Christmas surprise for his wife and children. Lucius thought he wanted credit to buy some frivolous thing or other. He said wasn't it just like a Papist to borrow money to buy presents when he should be paying off his debts. Then I remembered what Mr. Merriwether said about the fire. God's judgment, he called it. God's judgment on Papists for keeping Christmas like a pack of heathens. I saw God's hand in it, too.”

Ethan shuddered, remembering the sermons Mr. Merriwether had preached about how Papists couldn't be saved, how God would punish them for their wrong beliefs. It made God sound as mean as Mr. Lyman.

Silas rolled his eyes. “God's hand,” he repeated. “What did God have to do with it? Mr. Linnehan paid you.”

“Yes, he paid me, and we drew up the papers. But your uncle Henry was away. He was Justice of the Peace back then, too. We needed his signature before I could file the papers at the courthouse. I told Linnehan to hold on to his money until then, but he had some superstition about starting the New Year clear of debt. He said he trusted me.”

“He trusted you,” Silas echoed sarcastically. He shook his head in disbelief, lifting his hands and then letting them fall to his sides.

“We had Seth Palmer witness the payment. He was handy, and Lucius was busy with a customer. I don't think Palmer even knew what he was signing. If Lucius had been the one signing, he'd have examined every letter, every comma. And he'd have remembered.

“I was going to take care of the discharge, get it registered. But the more I thought about it—” Mr. Lyman plucked
at his son's sleeve. “There were ten acres of land in my pocket, free and clear, and the only one who knew I had no right to them was a dead man.”

Silas yanked his arm away as if his father's touch would contaminate him. “There was the small matter of his son.”

“The boy was dying. He had no family. There was no will. What was I to do, let the Commonwealth claim the land?”

“But he didn't die, George,” Mrs. Lyman said, her voice fraying. The more her husband revealed, the more she bent inward on herself, as if she had eaten something that was tearing at her insides.

Mr. Lyman straightened in his chair. His voice grew indignant. “I did right by him. Didn't I keep him in my household and raise him like family? How many times did I send for the doctor? You know he'd have died otherwise. And Mrs. Nye in to nurse him day and night. Who do you think paid for all of that?”

Ethan bit his lip, sure that Mr. Lyman's accounts would show that Daniel had been debited for all of that and more.

Silas grunted. He folded his arms across his chest. “And while he was dying—rather,
not
dying—of fever, you stole his land. Daniel got his Christmas surprise all right, didn't he?”

“I waited,” Mr. Lyman said, as if that should redeem him. “I put the paper away and waited. If anybody knew Linnehan had paid me, I could say I hadn't time to deal with it, what with the fire and the boy getting sick. But nobody said anything. When the estate went to probate, I waited until the last possible moment to make a claim. Nobody questioned me. God wanted me to have it. Why would He have let it be a secret if He didn't want me to have it? Why would He have brought Mr. Palmer to me at just the right moment?”

“And what else did you think God wanted you to have?” Silas said coldly.

Mr. Lyman looked away. He picked at a piece of blotting paper. “It was like a game in the beginning. A penny here, a penny there. At first I destroyed any proof of my doings. I thought I'd destroyed Linnehan's discharge. But then there were so many, I had to start keeping track. Each one needed to be handled differently. I couldn't risk getting them confused.” A wisp of a smile tickled his mouth, a wisp of the master Ethan feared. “And for my own satisfaction, too. It was all very clever, Mercy.” He leaned toward his wife, but she only stared at the floor, rocking herself. “Believe me, dear, you would have been impressed if you saw the method to it.” Mr. Lyman looked to the others for confirmation. “I pursued it with intelligence and discipline. Yes. It was no more than they deserved, the fools.” His voice grew strong, almost proud. He rose from his chair. “They had no discipline. If they couldn't mind their money, why shouldn't someone have it who could? They were better off without it, most of the time. Better off having the overseers of the poor look out for them. They couldn't look out for themselves.” Mr. Lyman nodded to himself, pleased with his speech. “Yes. Yes, I'm sure God wanted somebody else to take care of them.”

“And you were only doing God's work, I suppose?” Silas said. “How many were there?”

“How many?” Mr. Lyman blinked as though Silas had recalled him from a faraway place. When he met his son's eyes, he began to shrink again.

“Will you tell Uncle Henry and Mr. Flagg how many people you ‘took care of' the way you took care of Daniel?”

“I can't.” Mr. Lyman took out his handkerchief and wiped his face. “You know I can't. Please, Silas. I can't go to prison.”

“Why not? You'll be taken care of.”

“Prison! George, what have you done? What will become of us?” Mrs. Lyman was weeping now. “My girls! My baby!”

“What do you want from me?” Mr. Lyman's voice cracked with despair.

“Go to Mr. Flagg,” Silas said. “Tell him you won't pursue your complaint. Tell him to let Daniel go.”

“I can't. What will people say?”

There was no joy in the smile that spread across Silas's face. “They'll say what a merciful and forgiving man George Lyman is.”

“It's too late. They're gone. Flagg took him away hours ago.”