Bitter Eden (32 page)

"But the cost! Peter, we'll be out of business before we've begun."

"Bother the cost. You spend too much time in the fields and brewhouse." Peter shoved the books at him. "Look at them. It's there, Stephen. Orders. Money. In-

come from contracted crops. We've been operating at a profit for months. Next year's crop is already spoken for." Peter sat back again with the confident look of merriment that was so much a part of him now. "Build your brewery. Now. It's time. Already I've had tavern owners and suppliers asking for beer—and that coming from the miserable stuff Callie peddles at the market. They're begging for you, Stephen."

"I am not going to attempt to fill orders commercially from Paul Grampe's brewhouse. No! Don't even consider it. I can't control the quality of the beer properly, and I haven't got the right equipment. I don't want to start out that way. When someone drinks Be-rean ale or brew, I want them to know they can count on the best—consistently the best."

"We'll enlarge it . . . equip it however you want."

Stephen listened as Peter talked on. His enthusiasm was catching. Stephen rubbed his forehead, then gave up, smiling. "Perhaps," he said. Peter's smile was triumphant "Perhaps" from Stephen was as good as a promise.

"Then we'll celebrate. We'll take Callie and Rosalind to Buffalo. We'll stay a whole week . . . make it a real holiday. I don't know anyone more deserving than ourselves. What do you say?"

"You're off your head. You take a week to play if you want. I can't."

"It won't hurt you. You need some fun."

"I can't leave the brewing for that long. I haven't got anyone to step in for me."

"I told you to start training someone. We've plenty of good lads who could learn. What about the McHenry boy? He seems eager."

"He isn't ready yet. Next time."

"Whatever you say," Peter said and shrugged his disappointment

"I say I'll be ready next time."

"All right. I can see it will do no good to argue with you. I have to go to Buffalo on business anyway. There's a power-driven brewery up there. I thought you might like to see it ... I just thought we could make a trip of it."

"The brewery will keep, but my brew won't unless I tend it." Stephen stood up. "Have a good time."

Peter went to his bedroom. Rosalind sat at the vanity he had bought for her the last time he had sold a big order of hops. If she sat before the mirror overmuch, it was excusable. She had changed so much since coming here. She enjoyed herself, and for once had no fear that she would be looked down upon. She was far easier to love here than she had been in Kent.

Rosalind's world had opened up when they left England, as had Peter's. No one knew or cared about Rufus Hawkes. Rosalind presented herself as a refined, cultured English lady. Whenever she was in doubt she dredged out of her mind the mannerisms of Mrs. Foxe, and that served her well. People accepted her for exactly what she wanted them to; more, they seemed to like and admire her. In a remarkably short time Rosalind no longer looked upon herself as an imitation. She felt completely real and confident as a lady.

Peter came up behind her, placing his hands on her bare shoulders.

"You look very pleased with yourself," she said to his image in the mirror.

"At the moment I am* pleased with you."

"Oh? How so? What marvelous thing have I done?"

He turned her to face him. "It's not what you have done, but what you are about to do." He grinned wickedly.

"You're crass/' she said, but took his hand as he led her to their bed.

"As long as you sit before your mirror half naked, I shall continue to be—crass." He picked her up and placed her in the middle of the four-poster bed. He drew the drapery, enclosing them in a tiny disheveled world.

It was nearly time for supper when he told her of the trip to Buffalo. She was pleased, as he knew she would be. He took her to New York City often, but seldom anywhere else. She liked new things, especially if they sounded important

"Will we be going with a party? Whom?" she asked, her eyes glistening. Whom they went with made all the difference in what she would wear and who she would concentrate on pleasing.

"No party. Just the two of us."

"The two of us?" she repeated "What shall we do by ourselves?"

He touched her lips with the tips of his fingers. "We'll make a party of our own," he said softly.

She began to protest, then looked at him quite seriously, a new thought obvious in her eyes. "We've never taken a trip together, Peter—alone, I mean."

Peter and Rosalind left at the end of that week. They boarded the canal boat, which looked like a floating box rocking gently in the water. Rosalind was pleased from the start when she saw that several well-dressed women would be traveling with them. Peter took her below to see the accommodations in the cabin section. At one time all a passenger could count on was a piece of crude tenting hung to divide the men's section from the women's. That was no longer the case, and Rosalind was satisfied with the attempts to make the rooms look livable. There were curtains at

the cabin windows, and tastefully arranged settees and writing desks.

As the barge moved along slowly, pulled by horses on the bank, Rosalind seated herself on the deck with the other passengers.

It was a precarious deck, higher in the center and sloping gently to the outside, presumably to keep water from collecting. It managed, however, to give inexperienced passengers some feelings of insecurity, as there was no netting or rail to prevent one from sliding off the edge of the boat. After the first small jiggle of the barge, Rosalind clutched Peter's coat sleeve. Til fall in. I very nearly did then . . "

Peter pulled his seat nearer hers. Til hold you to the deck as snugly as if you were nailed down."

She looked at him doubtfully and then at the other people. One woman was sewing, another was reading; a man had his fishing pole in the water without a concern for anything but the success of his baited hook.

"If you're really afraid of falling, we can go below."

"No. I'm being silly. No one else seems worried, and it is nice to sit here in the sun for a while."

He nodded, knowing that very soon Rosalind would be heading for the cabin anyway. It was best they enjoy the fresh air as long as they could.

The canal had been dug through many small towns and individual farms, sometimes cutting through the transportation routes. As a result, farmers and townspeople had built bridges at close intervals across the canal to provide crossings. The bridges were very low, with only the depth of the canal bank as headroom for the passengers on the boats.

Peter knew they would soon be coming to a grouping of these bridges, but on a nice day with nothing to bother him, he became interested in his newspaper

and lost track of the miles. He was surprised when he heard the bridgeman sing his song.

Low bridge! Everybody down! Low bridge! We're coming to a town!

Rosalind smiled. "Isn't that nice that he sings/*

Peter grabbed her hastily, tumbling her from her seat *

"Peter!"

"Get down!" he yelled and forced her flat on the deck.

"Low bridge! Everybody down!" was a precise and definite warning. The unheeding were fished out of the canal afterwards with a hook that all the boats carried.

"Peter!" Rosalind gasped, trying to straighten herself and locate her parasol. "What was wrong with that bridge? Was it falling? We could have been hurt."

"Most are that low," he said, hoping she wouldn't realize how many of them they were likely to pass under.

"Low bridge! Everybody down!"

"Oh, no!" she cried, flattening herself again, both hands over her head protecting her new hat. Peter lay at her side laughing until he thought his sides would burst at the travails of his wife dealing with a world that didn't work by her rules.

"This is terrible!" she fumed. "Imagine what we must look like to somone passing over that bridge. Why don't they raise these bridges! I will not be made to lay on this filthy deck again!"

"Let's go below. We can come up when we've passed the town. There aren't so many bridges when we come to the open land. Hurry! We're coming to another."

She had just seated herself on one of the settees in the cabin when she heard her archenemy sing out again in his clear angelic voice, "Low bridge! Everybody down!"

Throughout the canal boat trip, Rosalind had looked forward to seeing Buffalo, but found she didn't care for it after they got there. She had expected it to be like New York City, and it wasn't. In her eyes it was no place at all, offering her few shopping delights, and fewer opportunities for nightlife. She was restless and irritable long before Peter was ready to leave.

For him Buffalo had everything to offer. He received two orders for hops and one for Sam's barley. While he was there he made a point to see the brewery that boasted a steam engine to power its water supply. There were several types of steam engines being made and used for all manner of things; but the one he deemed best and most adaptable for a brewery was the Evans steam engine he saw in operation in Buffalo. By the time he returned to Poughkeepsie, he had decided to order one.

When she greeted him at the front door, Callie had a letter from Meg in her hand, and the steam engine was forgotten momentarily.

"It's so good to have you back! It's been too quiet around here without you, and Jamie has missed his mama and papa."

"Where is the little fellow?" Peter asked.

"Mary Anne is giving him a bath. He made some delicious mud pies. She'll bring him down to you in a few minutes. I thought we'd give you enough time to take your coats off and catch your breath. Did you have a good time?"

"The best—at least I did. It turned out to be a poor trip for Rosalind."

Rosalind said nothing for a moment. She was looking at Peter as though seeing him for the first time. "I did like the trip," she said a little bewildered, realizing that the terrible canal boat trip had been a time of closeness and fun between Peter and herself. It had been Peters company she had liked so. She wondered when that had happened. When had she begun looking forward to the moments she could spend alone with him? 'Isn't it funny ... it was a horrible, uncomfortable trip . . . and I had nothing to do in Buffalo . . . but I liked it. Isn't that the strangest thing?"

Callie and Peter both laughed. Rosalind looked at them critically, then uncertainly, before she smiled and began to laugh with them.

"I have some news from home. Would you like to hear?" Callie asked, her eyes sparkling.

"Shall you tell us or shall we guess?" Peter asked.

"Oh, yes—do! Guess. You'll never get it right. But I'll give you one hint. It is not about . . . no, I won't give you any hint at all."

"Anna has finally had a child," Peter said.

"No."

"What then?"

"Guess! Just one more. Think hard."

Peter shook his head. "I don't know. It can't be something ordinary, or you wouldn't be ... I know! Frank has run off with the milkmaid."

"Tell us," Rosalind begged, laughing. "He'll never guess it."

"It's Natalie—she and Albert were married. Aunt Meg says she wrote to us before it happened, but we never got the letter. She guessed it must have gotten lost when I didn't mention it in my letter to her, so she wrote again. They've been married about four months." .

Peter sat down. "She must be well then," he said. "Married."

Rosalind said nothing. She didn't know what was wrong with her. Everything seemed so different. She really didn't care that Albert had married Natalie . . . it didn't seem to matter. "I think I'll go see Jamie," she said.

Callie glanced at her, then at Peter. Subdued, she handed the letter to Peter. "Would you like to read it? Aunt Meg describes the wedding and all. Nattie must have made a beautiful bride."

He smiled, shaking his head. "I can't believe she's married. Nattie always seemed such a child to me."

"You are pleased, aren't you?" Callie asked uncertainly.

"Pleased? Of course, I'm pleased. If she's well and happy, that's all anyone can ask. I'm just shocked. Yes!" he said more brightly, opening the letter. "I am pleased."

Later that evening Peter told Stephen about the trip and the steam-driven engine that could power the water and work elevators as well.

"Stephen, I simply do not have the patience that you do, and in this instance I feel that you are wrong in being patient. I know that it's a little sooner than we'd planned and it will mean another god-awfully busy year, but Steve, I hope you'll agree with me that the time to build the brewery is now. I want to start breaking ground."

Stephen grinned. "Would you like to go over my plans again? I've been collecting a few facts and figures here and there. All we need to begin is a crew and some bricks and mortar."

Peter shuffled through the blueprints and fact

sheets. "Good God! You've even figured out to the ounce how many bushels of malt and hops you need to the barrel. Three and one-eighth bushels of malt, two pounds seven and one-half ounces of hops—you haven't been idle."

"Those figures will vary a bit from time to time depending on quakty and what it is we brew, but it is a guide. Now, as to the buildings—I feel we must have a malthouse of brick with at least two cisterns and two kilns to start. We may be able to use your steam engine in the maltmill, but I still think we should plan on a horse-drawn mill."

"You don't trust my machinery," Peter said, frowning. "Have you no faith in the future?"

"It isn't that. Neither of us is familiar with it. I'd hate like hell to have to move those iron rollers by some improvisation if the engine should break down. Without the barley being milled into the malt, I can't do a thing. There must be some way to arrange it so we can alternate systems if need be. The important thing is that we can keep the water coming and the malt milling with the minimum of labor—especially mine."

"Agreed. Go on. What about the brewhouse?"

"Large storage cellar, and we can probably get away with two coppers to start. One of about two-hundred-gallon capacity and the other smaller. Otherwise just the regular equipment we've always used-fermenting tubs, mash tuns and all." Stephen handed him the list and specifications.