Bitter Eden (59 page)

"But I don't want you on a ship going so far away and-"

"Nothing is going to happen to me. Either I go, or Peter will have to stay there until sometime next summer. Do you want that?"

"No! You know I don't. I'm just afraid of losing you both."

He shook his head, smiling. "Never that. You'll have us both."

He left for New York City at the end of the week.

Tom Baker brought his ship into the Hudson River the day after Stephen left for New York. He came into Poughkeepsie late that morning. Before he had the mate put Peter off the ship, he handed him a statement declaring that he had been a passenger aboard the Hudson Lady and had been brought to Poughkeepsie safely by Tom Baker. "Put your mark there, Berean," he snapped, pointing at the bottom of the paper.

Too ill to do more than he was ordered, Peter scrawled an X in the space Tom indicated. "Now go on, you son of a bitch, get the hell off my ship."

The mate helped Peter down the gangplank, then left him on the dock.

Peter began to walk in the direction" the mate had pointed him. He no longer knew to what he was coming, only that he couldn't stop until he got there.

Callie had finished for the day in the dairy. She didn't want to go back into the house. It was unbelievably empty when Stephen wasn't there to fill it

with his laughter and nonsense. She came 'round the side of the house to the garden and sat down on the stone bench. Though it reminded her of him, it wasn't satisfying. It was Stephen himself she wanted, not some thought of him. He was due back from New York in three or four days. If she was this lonely when he had left on a short business trip, what would it be like when he went to get Peter and would be gone for months? She got down on her knees, plucking the weeds that had grown in the past week.

Peter saw Callie in her garden as he walked the last bit of road to their gate. His head was swimming, and he walked unsteadily, but he kept looking at her. He had forgotten what she looked like. She was all milk and honey. It gave him an uneasy feeling to see her, so softly different from what his own dream images of her had been. The tight stirring of fright that was always with him wavered and rose, making his chest hurt

He came up to the entrance of the gate and couldn't go any farther. He grasped the two gateposts, holding himself erect as he tried to breathe.

Callie glanced up, startled to see a man standing by the gate. He was raggedly dressed, his face , nearly covered with a scruffy growth of beard. But his hair, his pale blond hair and the slashing dark eyebrows over his dark brown eyes—she mouthed his name, then broke into a wide, radiant smile. "Peter!" She ran down the path, her white work pinafore and skirts flying. She flung her arms around his neck. "You're home! Oh, thank God, you're home."

Peter kept both hands on the gateposts as hard and tight as if they had been riveted in place. He closed his eyes, still unable to breathe; the blood seemed to drain away from him. Callie, the house, trees, sky, all went spinning off.

Callie was aghast as he slipped through her arms to the ground. "Mary Anne! Mary Anne!" she screamed until Mary Anne poked her head out the upstairs window. "Run and get help—get Dick from the fields/ 1

"Who's that?"

"Hurry! He's very ill."

"Why are you shouting, Callie?" Natalie asked as she came out the front door, peering curiously from around Callie s skirts. "Who is that? Is it Albert?"

"Go inside, Natalie. It's Peter."

Natalie let out a scream that petrified Callie. 'Tor the love of God, Natalie!" she gasped. "Go inside." She took Natalie by the arm and led her back to the house.

"No! No! No! Make him go away. Make him go!"

"I called the men, Miss Dawson," Mary Anne called from the side of the house. "They'll be here any minute. What's the matter with her?"

"Do something with her. Hurry, before she begins screaming again. Take her to her room. Anything."

Mary Anne looked at Callie, then obeyed, taking Natalie with her.

Two of the field hands carried, Peter upstairs. Callie, dashing ahead of them, frantically gave directions and told them where to put him. They laid him on his bed in his old room and then moved to the door to leave.

"Undress him for me," Callie said, handing Dick Adams some nightclothes. "He can't be left like that. He's ill."

She waited outside the door for what seemed an eternity until Dick finally stuck his head around the edge of the door. "Uhh—Miss Dawson?"

"Is he dressed?"

"Uhhh, no, ma'am-don't seem right to do nothing about this back of his. Where'd you come by this fel-

low? I think you ought to be told, ma'am, 'specially with Mr. Berean out of town, this man ain't nobody for you to be havin' in the housed

Callie waved her hand to stop his talk. "Back? What's wrong with his back?"

"He's all tore up . . . been flogged looks like. Think I'd better call the sheriff?"

"No. Absolutely not!" Callie pushed past him. Peter lay on his stomach on the bed, his back a mass of open, infected tears and sores. The odor and sight of the purpled flesh among the scar tissue sent her retching to the water closet.

Shakily she sent one of the maids after buckets of hot water and her strongest lye soap. She washed his back until she was satisfied it was as clean as she could get it. She made a decoctation of spikenard, bacon rind, everlasting, and wool into a great steaming mass. She applied the poultice to his back.

He moaned as she worked on him, but he neither awakened nor moved. She replaced each cooling poultice with a steaming hot one, drawing the poisons from the infected wounds. After putting a fresh one on his back, and when she was fairly certain he would remain quiet and not likely to roll over onto his back, she went to find Mary Anne.

"What are you doing bringing a man like that into the house, Miss Dawson? With Mr. Stephen gone, and just the two of us here to protect Master Jamie, what business have you bringin' a murderer right in here amongst us?"

"Mary Anne, I want you to look after Jamie for me. I'll have to stay up there. He's burning with fever."

"Over my dead body! You aren't going near that brute, you hear me, Miss Dawson! You just let Dick pack him up and get him out of here."

"It's Peter," Callie said, bursting into tears.

Mary Anne gaped at Callie. 'That's Mr. Berean? But I didn't know him . . . Dick said it was a murderer . . . marked with the sign . . . and ... I

didn't.. r

"Just care for Jamie for me, and don't let him come into Peter's room. Not until he is . . . well," she said and went back to Peter's bedroom.

He was dreaming, murmuring about dogs when she returned. Then he fell into a restless, exhausted sleep. By late afternoon his fever rose and he was out of his head, thrashing about in bed. The cuts on his back opened again, bleeding as Callie fought to keep him on his stomach. He struck out at her, trying to push away the poultices on his back. "A man is no beast. .. no beast . . . no . . ." He tried to get up, his eyes wild and unfocused as he fought her and the air around him.

Mary Anne, hearing the noise and Peter shouting, took her rolling pin and went to Callie's aid.

"Put that thing down," Callie ordered. "He's out of his head. He doesn't know what he's doing!" Callie sprawled as Peter's flailing arms hit her again. "Help me, Mary Anne. Take his other arm!"

Mary Anne hung back.

"Take it! He's too weak to really hurt you," Callie cried, trying to hold him on the bed.

Mary Anne dropped her rolling pin, reluctantly doing what she was asked. "Mr. Berean will hear about this. He should be here."

"He isn't here. Get him on his stomach. He's tearing his back to ribbons."

Peter still struggled, crying in shuddering gasps over and over, "A man is no beast ... a man is no beast. . . ."

"How're you gonna hold him there?" Mary Anne asked as Callie stretched across Peter so she could hold both his arms flat against the bed. "Seems like

you're doin' it the hard way. Why don't you just tie his hands to the bedposts? That's what my ma did when Pa lost his leg in the carriage accident"

"I don't want to tie him."

"Well, you can't stay like that! It's not even decent. He won't know what's happenin'. Look at him. He don't even know who you are. What's he gonna care where his arms are?"

Peter broke loose from Callie again, turning to his back, clawing at the poultice.

"He sure don't like that poultice on him. You better tie him."

Callie picked herself up off the floor again. She looked at Peter turning and writhing on the bed, and then nodded to Mary Anne. 'Tear one of the sheets. I don't want to put a rope on him; it is too harsh and biting."

"Sheets won't hold him."

"Then we won't tie him!"

Mary Anne tore the sheets into long strips, then braided them to make them sturdier. Periodically she glanced at Peter. "Leastways I'll feel a little safer with him tied to the bedposts. I just don't know what's got into you havin' this man in the house like this."

"Oh, Mary Anne, do be quiet!"

"Well, he's a murderer! I have a right to say what I think. Any man who can kill his own wife . . . there's no tellin' what he might do to you ... or me . . . even Master Jamie!"

"Mary Anne, if you say one more word against him, I swear 111 send you packing tonight! If I didn't need you to help me with Jamie and Natalie, I'd do it in any case!"

"We'll see what's to be done as soon as Mr. Stephen returns. He won't put up with this nonsense of yours! Neither will the people around here. Dick Adams al-

ready tol* me if Mr. Peter comes back to the fields to work, he'll quit. He won't work for no murderer."

Callie looked at her furiously. "If you feel like that, why do you stay? Whydon't you just leave?"

Mary Anne raised her head, her long face serious and lined with prim dignity. "Because someone has to look out after Master Jamie's welfare and Mr. Stephen's. Looks like I'm the only one who will."

"Why you miserable hypocrite! You don't . . " Callie turned quickly as Peter cried out, thrashing wildly in the bed. She grabbed his arms and held them against her until he quieted, then got him back onto his stomach.

Mary Anne moved quickly. As Callie rolled him over she grabbed his left hand and lashed it to the bedpost, then hurried to the other side, tying his right hand securely. She stood back, satisfied. He wouldn't turn over again or strike out to hit Callie or anyone else. Then she jumped, clutching at Callie. Screaming, Peter arched his back so his chest was off the bed, fighting and straining at the binding sheets. Though he had been restless before and had thrashed about, there was no question that his struggles were different now. There was a frenzied desperation in his movements. The man was terrified, and his fear could be heard in his voice and seen in his movements.

"Oh, my God, Mary Anne! What have we done? Cut him loose! Hurry—oh, cut him loose!" she yelled, working at one of the knots. Peter pulled so hard against the restraints that Callie's efforts were in vain. He tightened the knots with every wrenching pull he made on the sheet ropes. His voice filled the room as he screamed for it to end.

Mary Anne ran to the sewing room and came back with Callie's shears; then she stopped at the entrance to the room.

"Hurry! Give them to me!" Callie shouted above Peter's impassioned cries.

"Don't cut him loose, Miss Dawson. Don't do it. Somethin' awful will happen. He's a madman . . . he . . ."

"Mary Anne! Give them to me!"

His hands released, Peter lay quiet, shaking and trembling. For a moment Callie was afraid to touch him, not knowing what any movement she made might bring on. She had no idea if it was the fever that had brought on the outburst, or if the sheet ropes in some way had hurt him, or if it was something she didn't understand. She suspected the last, but anything that could cause such a deeply fearful outcry as he had made was beyond Callie's knowledge or experience. When she decided to try once more to do something to bring him comfort, she brought her chair near the bed. She replaced the poultice, only to have him roll over on it. This time she didn't try to move him, but wiped the perspiration and tears from his flushed, fever-hot face with cool vinegar water. "Lie still, Peter," she whispered as he continued to shake, murmuring in a low frightened voice.

Throughout the night Callie sat, talking to him constantly, replacing the poultices as often as she could get him to stay on his stomach long enough for her to accomplish it. She worried, not only about the infected wounds, but also the fever that would not break or subside.

Through the long hours of the night she poured her attention on Peter and longed for Stephen's return. If only he were there; together they could manage. Alone she was afraid, and fought back the tears of giving up and knowing Peter wouldn't survive.

Repeatedly he went through his series of nightmares, crying out in terror and pain.

Just before dawn he was quiet for a time, sleeping almost normally. As she wiped his brow with the cold cloth, he opened his eyes. He lay still, looking at her. Then he turned over on his back, not violently, but to see her better. "Callie?"

"Yes, Peter," she said softly.

"What are you doing here?"

"You're home, Peter. It's all right. You're home."

Suspicion and cunning came into his eyes as he listened to her. She reached out to touch him. He pulled away from her. "You'll go away."

"No. I'll be here. I'll stay as long as you need me."

He watched her hand as a cat does a bird before it springs. He grabbed hold of it, a look of disbelieving triumph on his face. It was the first time he had ever been able to capture one of the air people. Without looking at Callie he rolled over on his stomach, her hand tucked beneath him, held close to his mouth as a child holds his nighttime doll. He slept, and Callie sat doubled over as he held fast to her hand.

Mary Anne brought her breakfast into her the following morning. "It's not decent you stayin' in here with him. He any better?"

"A little, I think," Callie said wearily. "His fever doesn't seem quite so bad."