Love's Reckoning (34 page)

'Twas early. The landscape yawned empty. No one was about at such an hour. All stayed huddled by their hearths, seeking warmth after a shivering night. Smoke puffed from the smithy chimney, but she veered away from it, crossing fields and fences, secure in the knowledge that she was alone. The willow in the far field beckoned, its ice-clad arms bent low over a lone grave. Her throat grew tighter the closer she came.

Oh, Jon, I loved you so.

A wooden cross poked through the new-fallen snow,
straight and solemn. Silas had taken care to fashion it, the babe's name carved in careful letters. Time and the elements would soon erase it, but the lovely if lonely image would never leave her. Kneeling, she uttered a quiet prayer.

Slowly she turned back toward Hope Rising. The snow was unbroken across field and road till she started uphill. A lone horseman had recently passed this way, the hoofprints clearly marked.
Silas.
Her heart, so ravaged and torn, seemed about to burst. Through a whirl of wind and blowing snow, she changed direction, walking westward till the tracks grew so faint she could not follow.

When she looked up again, she felt lost. All was white, windswept, radiant as a bride. Her hands and feet, benumbed by cold, no longer seemed to belong to her. Her cape was an icy white, her boots blocks of ice. Would that her heart could feel the same . . .

Yet nothing mattered but that Silas was free.

She continued on, unsure of where she was. Nothing looked familiar. In time a welcome warmth stole over her and she grew sleepy. The air beneath the pine she huddled against was sharp and sweet. She dreamed she heard a violin.

Her last thought was of him.

 33 

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying.

Robert Herrick

Philadelphia
April 1793

The spring sky was a brazen banner of pink and gold, deserving attention, but Eden's gaze was fixed on the stone steps at her feet. As she stepped out the foundling hospital's front door to greet the dawn, she took a bracing breath. In the profound quiet she could detect a lingering sense of loss—an almost palpable heartache. Nearly every morning her response to the poignant sight awaiting her was the same. As she knelt among baskets, boxes, and crates, the newborns within became a crying, cooing blur. Thankfully, a handkerchief was always on hand, as was her assistant, Betsy Simms.

“God be praised, Miss Lee! Only three this morning, I see.”

Only three.
Eden expelled a relieved breath. Once nine had been waiting. Rarely was there but one. A small sign near the courtyard's entrance instructed mothers to attach
an identifying token in the unlikely event they returned to claim their child. None did. Still, Eden was careful to pin each offering to the baby's admission billet, marveling at the variety. Lush scraps of velvet. Lumpy wool. Sheer slips of ribbon. Buttons. Tiny pieces of embroidery in multihued thread. A bit of verse in an unknown hand.

Her painstaking care was one of the qualities that had propelled her from a fledgling assistant to assistant director of the Philadelphia Foundling Hospital six years before. That, and the fact her predecessors had all married or been buried as she quietly and competently performed her duties round the clock, becoming a favorite of staff and children alike. Stephen Elliot, the board's president, once remarked, “If only we could collect and keep competent hands like Miss Lee's the way we collect foundlings each and every morning.”

But such praise did not turn Eden's head, nor elevate her in the slightest degree. The hospital board's premise was plain: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Surrounded by Friends who lived out this principle from Scripture day by day, she found it easy enough to emulate. Yet deep down, Eden couldn't escape the niggling certainty that her position had more to do with her Greathouse connections than her own competence.

“Ah, this one looks a mite peaked,” Betsy crooned, examining the tiny boy cocooned in a tattered blanket. “Needs a bit more nourishment, looks like, to set him right.”

“A great deal more.” Eden bit her lip in contemplation. “It matters not that we have the best record for saving babies from Boston to Charleston. We still lose far too many.”

Though the hospital was renowned for its staff and procedures, half the infants perished within a few weeks of arrival. Those who thrived continued to be suckled by wet nurses and cared for by nursery staff till they were of age to begin their schooling. Eden had been there long enough to see a
few of the babies she'd gathered off the steps apprenticed to tradesmen, the girls prepared for service in fine Philadelphia houses. But she most remembered the babies they'd lost.

“He simply needs a mother's arms,” Eden said as Betsy passed the whimpering boy to her before attending to the girls in the admitting room just inside the hospital doors.

Gently Eden removed his soiled clout, murmuring soothing words all the while. Cornflower-blue eyes looked up at her—so like Jon's her throat tightened. Around his tiny neck was a faded silk ribbon, which she attached to his admission papers. A warm bath awaited, followed by a linen gown, snug cap, and clean blanket. This was her favorite part of the work.

As she made her rounds and supervised the staff, she often returned to the nursery and rocked the babies herself. After a few weeks, the infants seemed to recognize her, rewarding her with wide smiles and outstretched arms. If she couldn't have her own children, she had these, she reasoned. Sometimes that seemed enough.

“What shall we name them?” Eden mused aloud, more to herself than Betsy.

“You're fond of biblical names, and glad I am of that.” Betsy placed the baby girls together in a portable crib, ready to whisk them to a feeding. “Why not call the lad Daniel? He's in need of a strong namesake.”

“Daniel it is. As for the girls, the fair one shall be Ruth, and the dark-haired one Naomi.” The latter name brought a little pang. Bringing the whimpering boy to her chest, she struggled to push the unwelcome memory down.

“Worthy names, all,” Betsy said in a sort of benediction. “Seems like our Daniel is ready for Peggy Grimes's milk. She has enough for all three, from the look of her this morn. Here, let me take him.”

Pensive, Eden watched the door swing shut in Betsy's wake
before consulting the calendar she carried in her pocket. 'Twas Monday, and every hour was taken, beginning with a board meeting and then rounds with the doctors. Next was overseeing a delivery of linens and laudanum and, she recalled with a sigh, tiny caskets. Twin girls, shockingly premature when they'd arrived at the hospital's door, had died soon after and were to be buried in the hospital's cemetery. The chaplain, Betsy had reminded her moments ago, was on his way.

Hours later, as the clock in the hospital's entrance hall struck six and the streetlamps were lit, Eden walked from the furthest reaches of Prince Street to her boardinghouse at Fourth and Walnut, spirits low and head aching. The supper smells wafting from Mistress Payne's kitchen issued an invitation she was too tired to accept, unlike the noisy boarders already at table.

Shutting the front door as quietly as she could, she collected her mail from a table at the foot of the stairs before ascending to the second floor. A quick perusal confirmed it was more the post than her throbbing head that now stole her appetite. Letters from home, though rare, resurrected a host of unwelcome memories.

Her tiny wallpapered sitting room and bedchamber were dark, the door to the balcony ajar. She backtracked to the hall and lit a taper from a sconce before shutting the door and returning to the letter. In the pale orb of candlelight, the familiar handwriting was terse if heartfelt.

Dear Daughter,

'Tis been a while since I have written. Liege is unwell.

Eden sighed. Unwell or inebriated?

Thomas and Elspeth man the smithy in his stead.

She stared at the paper without focus, trying to recall the little brother who'd been but three when she left and was now . . . eleven?

I am still taking eggs and cheese to Hope Rising each week. Margaret sends her warmest wishes.

This never failed to make her smile. Mayhap the Lord did redeem difficult situations. She was glad for Mama, for Margaret—she missed them both. But pondering such things opened the door to the past and everything she'd tried so valiantly to forget.

The aching cold. The heartache of it all.

Would she never make peace with Silas's leaving? When she'd gone to Jon's grave and nearly frozen to death? To this day she had no feeling in her fingertips. If not for Sebastian, she would have died that snowy afternoon. He'd led the search party to her and then disappeared.

There had been no wedding to Giles Esh. No illegitimate child. Neither had she gone home again. Mama had come to Margaret's, where Eden recuperated from frostbite and a lingering fever, and somehow, miraculously, the two had resumed their foundered friendship.

She looked again at the letter.

You may know that Master David has taken a bride. Her name is Angelica, and she's just arrived at Hope Rising . . .

The paper fluttered from Eden's hand to the floor, the feel of it like poison. She nudged it into the ashes of the hearth, where it would serve as kindling come morning, and returned her attention to the rest of the post.

A scarlet seal foretold an invitation to a May ball. Another, from Beatrice Greathouse, requested Eden be a godmother. She set them aside, thoughts adrift. Bea had borne her sixth child a fortnight before. Shortly before that, Anne had married. And now . . . David. She tried to summon some fine feeling, some spark of pleasure for their good fortune, yet all she felt was emptiness.

Happiness, she'd long since decided, was something that happened to other people.

 34 

An honest man's the noblest work of God.

Alexander Pope

Pittsburgh
April 1793

The two rivers hemming him in, Silas decided, were akin to the currents at work within his soul. The Monongahela, deep and still, flowed past like blue silk while the Allegheny foamed and churned, ever fitful. Of late Silas had felt more like the latter.

He hung a lantern from an iron hook along the moonlit dock. The light cast a broad beam across the water, a beacon for vessels traveling at night, and illuminated a sturdy wooden shingle: Ballantyne Boatworks. In time he hoped to replace it with something more substantial.

Ballantyne Ironworks.

When he'd first come to Pittsburgh, he'd been but a blacksmith fresh from the East, a hireling of Fort Pitt. Now he paid men to work iron in his stead. With a steady stream of
settlers pushing west, his time was better spent building boats. Keelboats. Flatboats. Schooners. Sloops. He pored over plans by night and oversaw a dozen men in construction by day, working alongside them amidst the ever-present distillation of freshly sawn lumber, river water, and pitch.

His gaze swung from the night watchman he'd hired as a precaution against trouble to the dog nuzzling his hand. A cold west wind was keening, and the air smelled storm-damp, heightening his disquiet. “We've a long walk, Sebastian,” he said, “and the weather is about to turn ugsome.”

He'd considered spending the night on a cot in his waterfront office, but the lure of the tavern atop Grant's Hill was too great. He had rooms there, and Jean Marie, the French émigré who owned it, employed the finest cook this side of the Allegheny Mountains.

“Send for the sheriff at the first sign of trouble,” he told the barrel-chested Irishman who stood near the locked office door. “I'll not be long behind.”

Turning his back on his livelihood, he committed it to the Lord's hands and started up the hill, a Scots saying trailing him.

Sorrow and ill weather come unsent for.

Mayhap he was about to get a bit of both.

Although the dining room of Grant's Tavern was empty, a corner table held a steaming plate, a chill tankard, and the latest copy of the
Pittsburgh Gazette
. Just like every night Silas could remember for the past five years. Jean Marie had a particular talent for anticipating her patrons' needs, thus making her the most popular innkeeper in Allegheny County.

He shrugged off his greatcoat, draped it over a chair back, and took a seat, eyes drawn to the window at his elbow. From
here he had an eagle's view of the valley now aglitter with candlelight far below. Night had drawn a benevolent curtain over a crude assortment of brick and timber houses, never-ending mud, prodigious wharf rats, and more. Yet Silas felt at home in every foot of it, raw as it was. He had a foretaste of what Pittsburgh, not yet a town, would someday become.

“Ah, Monsieur Ballantyne . . .”

The accented voice echoed across the room, holding a warm if weary note of welcome. Jean Marie swept through the foyer doorway, looking more mature Philadelphia belle than Pittsburgh tavern keeper. The copper silk of her gown shimmered in the low light, and her eyes shone with good humor. “I have fed the ravenous Sebastian.”

“
Merci
,” Silas said, eyeing the dish of apple tansy she set down. “You don't have to wait supper on us, ye ken.”

“And why not? You are my best boarder, no?”

“Your most tardy,” he said contritely.

“Did I ever tell you that you work too hard?”

“Aye, nearly every eve.”

“Yet you pay me no attention.” When he motioned to the seat opposite, she took it, work-worn hands folded atop the table. “You need a home, a family. You need to be married to something besides boats.”

Silas cut a bite of steak, eyes on his plate. “D'ye have someone in mind?”

“No, but you do, surely.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “What is this I hear about a ton of bricks being hauled out the river road to your new property? Word is you're getting ready to build a house . . . for a bride.”

He forked the bite of steak to his mouth, chewing thoughtfully, and smiled back at her with his eyes. “A ton of bricks does not make a bride.”

“Oh, you Scotsmen are so stubborn!” Exasperation lit
her features. “You've a brick head—and heart. Would that I could give you a measure of French passion, convince you of the finer aspects of life and family.”

He shrugged. “I have you and Sebastian. A fine supper. Conversation. What need have I of a bride?”

Sighing, she placed bony elbows on the table and stared him down. “There should be more for you, my friend. Time is of the essence. Though today you walk tall and strong in the dark along Water Street, tomorrow . . .” She hunched her shoulders, a furrow lining her brow.

“You're uneasy about the whiskey boys,” he finished for her.

“
Oui
, more than uneasy. I have heard things . . .”

Taking a sip of cider, Silas looked from her to the window, as if expecting a rock to hurl past the pristine, Philadelphia-made glass. “Such as?”

She leaned nearer, her eyes pale as agates. “Since Judge O'Hara appointed you to the Allegheny Court, there has been bad blood between you and the Turlocks, no?”

“Aye,” he said quietly, “they bear me a grudge for every fine and jailing.” The animosity the clan bore him was an ongoing concern, but as a jurist he took his oath seriously and insisted on order. “'Tis common knowledge they've been found guilty of each assault and battery charge against them, all involving whiskey. If the Turlocks kept to farming and distilling and no collieshangie—”

“Collieshangie?”

“Brawling and quarreling,” he said without missing a beat, “then they'd not come before the court, and we'd have no reason to fear walking along Water Street or otherwise.”

“Word is they saw you supping with one of the tax collectors at this very table a few nights ago. There is talk they feel you support the tax on whiskey.”

“They have faulty memories, then. 'Twas I who introduced a resolution against the tax to begin with.” Tired, temper rising, he swallowed some cold cider as if it could cool his ire. “The Turlocks can well afford the excise. 'Tis the poor farmers and distillers I worry about, which was the reason for that shared supper.”

Jean Marie turned her troubled profile toward the window, and Silas sensed what she wouldn't say. Though the “whiskey boys,” as the Turlocks and their supporters were called, had only tarred and feathered tax collectors thus far, threats of doing greater violence now swirled thick as the mud that lined Pittsburgh's streets. His gaze fell to the headline splashed across the
Gazette
's front page: F
ire
D
amages
M
ercer
M
ercantile
.

He pushed it aside. “I'd rather talk bricks—and brides.”

She smiled, revealing a silver-capped tooth. “Very well, then. The judge's daughter has just ridden out to see your new property, no? The future home of all those bricks?”

“Has she now?”

Jean Marie rolled her eyes. “Why is it that you always answer my questions with a question, Silas Ballantyne?”

“Do I?”

Sighing, she went to the kitchen and returned with an urn of coffee and pitcher of cream. “Lest I forget, the judge sent this round earlier.” She plucked a folded paper from her pocket and passed it to him, curiosity edging her thin features.

Smoothing it out atop the scarred tabletop, Silas took a reluctant look at the fine Italianate hand.

A reminder, my friend—dinner party at eight o'clock, Saturday eve, at River Hill. Dancing to follow. Isabel is home and anxious to see you. Hugh

The note was a not-so-subtle reminder that he'd forgotten the judge's last party, buried as he'd been in sawdust and cordage. Fresh from the frenetic launching of the sloop
Western Endeavor
, he'd only wanted a quiet room and a week's sleep. This time he had no ready excuses.

He glanced at the open kitchen door, where a stoop-shouldered Indian woman was scrubbing pots at a stone sink, and gave Jean Marie a quick wink. “Thank Mamie for the fine supper. I'll not be here tomorrow eve but at River Hill.”

Pushing back his chair, he tucked the newspaper and note beneath one arm, weariness and worry dogging his every step.