Woodsburner (27 page)

“Eliot! Do come here!” Margaret's excited voice reached him from somewhere above.

“I believe the master of the house is needed,” Mr. Mahoney said.

Eliot hurried up the stairs. His father-in-law-to-be watched him take the risers two at a time with an expression Eliot judged to be a mixture of longing and recollection. When he reached the second floor, he looked into two fully furnished rooms before realizing that Margaret was calling from above. He bounded up two more flights, ignoring the dark paintings that hung at the landing. On the third floor, Margaret motioned excitedly. She stood in a bright doorway, and from the hallway Eliot could hear the noise of people and carriages in the street below.

Margaret walked to the middle of the room, her dark silhouette surrounded by a nimbus of bright light alive with swirling dust motes.

“Oh, Eliot, look. Here is your study.”

Eliot remained in the doorway, stunned by the room's brightness. A green carpet filled the expanse, and two armchairs sat before
bookcases that covered the walls from floor to ceiling. The shelves were already crammed with books; the dark leather of their spines swallowed their titles.

“And here, look.” Margaret pointed to an empty bottom shelf. “Father has left a space for you to put your books. He really is too kind. Oh, Father!” She ran from the room, and Eliot heard her soft footfalls on the carpeted stairs.

A scalding torrent of light poured in through the huge windows, and from below the din of the street intruded with impunity. Eliot felt dizzy. He stepped uncertainly toward the enormous mahogany desk that perched on heavy, pointed legs and braced himself against its corner. The noise in the street seemed to grow louder. He held his hand at his brow to shield his eyes from the glare, but it did no good. It was too bright to see, too loud to think. Eliot closed his eyes, felt the room spin, and winced as a loud pain pierced his temples like the sharp clap of a slamming door.

Eliot's first child was born in the third-floor bedroom one year after he and Margaret moved into their new home as husband and wife. The child was a boy, and they named him Josiah Edward. Eliot acknowledged that a firstborn son was the wish of nearly every man since Adam, and yet, despite his gratitude toward whatever forces of nature or heaven were responsible for fulfilling this most fundamental yearning, he nevertheless felt a concentrated hollowness beneath his heart. He tried to fill this space with the language assigned to the presumptions of fatherhood, but no matter how solidly he attempted to pack the heavy void with simple words
like pride
and
duty
they seemed only to pass through the space, slip away, as if carried off by the coursing of his blood. What he felt along the circumference of the hollowness seemed
more closely related to some sense of remorse—a nameless, illogical sorrow for having forced this child into a world that he himself had not yet mastered.

The emotions that dared flit across this void were unexpected. Eliot found himself moved to incredible sadness one afternoon as he watched Josiah Edward, at only six months, straining for a shiny object beyond his grasp. The infant sat on a sky-blue blanket, and just past the blanket's edge a bright ninepence sat on the red carpet. The child grunted softly, rocking forward onto his chubby thighs, breathing hard through a mouth wide open in expectation of tasting some new fascination in the ever-expanding world. The struggle could not have lasted more than a minute, but to Eliot it seemed the quest of an hour's duration, an example of preternatural tenacity in so young a mind. Eliot watched his son rock back and forth, straining, resolved, increasing his reach by a hair's breadth each time, pudgy fingers scratching at the blanket. Eliot felt utterly powerless to intervene. By stages the child pulled himself onto his soft round knees, stretched too far, and slowly toppled forward. His forehead struck the carpet with a harmless thud. Josiah Edward lay facedown, confused and unable to right himself, his fingers still wiggling in an ineffectual grasp. And then, quietly, the infant began to whimper.

Eliot roused himself from his chair and lifted his son with a sweeping motion, as if this act might banish the recent disappointment. He felt a deep melancholy on the boy's behalf—for the nature of things, for the arrangement of the world, for the structure of what passed for reality. And then he realized that the cause of his sadness was not the futility of his son's determination, not the boy's inability to recognize that what he wanted was beyond his reach but, rather, the fact that the shiny coin, once grasped, once tasted, would have proved unworthy of the effort. At that moment, Eliot wanted to pull his son into the heavy,
empty space in his chest, so that he might fill himself with his child and replace his confused feelings for the boy with the boy himself.

How suddenly Eliot's life had changed into an utterly foreign thing. Even when his bookshop was thriving, the profits never seemed enough. The house on Beacon Hill, while a generous gift, to be sure, was a burden to maintain. And though the bookshop's profits met his household expenses, the bills were steady enough to make any missteps unthinkable. The house had demanded attention from the start, and it had not occurred to him—not until Margaret pointed out with her tinkling-chandelier laugh—that such a house could be properly maintained only with two servants, at the very least.

And then came more children: after Josiah Edward there was Abigail Marie, Nathaniel Thomas, Humphrey Joseph, and, finally, Samuel Titus. Margaret seemed to have the names at the ready, as if she had known in advance each child's inevitability. Eliot was not sure why he allowed himself to feel surprised every time. He had not thought that he would be childless, and he believed he welcomed the idea of children. But he had not thought their arrival, one upon the other, would be quite so swift, quite so relentless. He knew of playwrights who had children, but he had never encountered fathers who wrote plays.

With the children came additional expenses, and he raised the prices on his most valuable books. If he could only generate slightly higher profits, he reasoned, he might employ a clerk to oversee the shop in his stead, freeing himself to devote an hour or two each day to working on his plays. He expanded the range of inks and nibs he carried. He imported expensive Faber pencils but later replaced these with the superior ones manufactured by John Thoreau & Co. He tried stocking unusual items: reading glasses from France and bookmarks studded with jewels. In an effort to
attract wealthy collectors, Eliot devoted an entire wall to exquisite books he ordered from Hatchards bookshop in London. Yet, despite his best efforts, he seemed able to outpace his debts only by the barest of margins, until the day the account books revealed that he was gradually slipping into debt.

Eliot took note of what interested his patrons, what books they bought, what books they examined and returned to the shelves, and tried to vary his stock accordingly. He had always made careful observations of the people who visited his shop, but it was not until his financial difficulties began to mount that he noticed a peculiar, pock-faced man nosing through the stacks, fingering books, staring at the other customers. The man came in every week but never bought anything. He introduced himself as Punch one day, and then set about his usual practice of examining Eliot's wares without another word. Eliot did not ask whether Punch was a first or last name or something entirely fabricated to suit the man's demeanor. The man's nose was permanently mashed to the side, one nostril twice as large as the other, and his breath wheezed noisily through the smaller opening. He bought nothing, spoke to no one, and seemed more interested in Eliot's customers than in anything on the shelves. Whenever Eliot asked him if he needed assistance, Punch merely smiled politely and shook his head, as if he did not understand what Eliot was saying.

Punch finally broke his silence one evening when Eliot was preparing to close. As soon as Eliot pulled down the shade on the front door, he was startled by a voice that sounded as though it had bubbled up from a thick pool of phlegm.

“I believe I may be of some service, Mr. Calvert.”

Eliot had thought that the shop was empty. He turned and saw the pock-faced man standing at the counter. Though Punch usually kept his hands hidden in his coat pockets, today he carried a canvas bag that bulged with flat, sharp angles.

“Mr. Punch,” Eliot said. “I did not realize you were still here.”

“Just Punch, please. Do I understand correctly that you are searching for new ways to fatten your purse?”

“I beg your pardon?” Eliot was stunned by the offensive question.

“Mr. Calvert, I have come to speak to you on the matter of money. These are difficult times. Money is in short supply, but I can be most helpful in this regard. You have indicated that you want more of it, have you not?”

Eliot had occasionally discussed his financial concerns with those shopkeepers and merchants whose discretion he trusted, but now it was clear to him that his worries had not remained a secret. He was not as shocked as he might have been at what Punch claimed to know, but the man's boldness was inexcusable.

Eliot grabbed the door handle. “Your question is most inappropriate, sir. I must ask you to leave.”

“It is why I waited until closing, Mr. Calvert. You will find that I value prudence above all else. Have I been misinformed as to your present needs?”

Eliot hesitated. “How dare you presume to speak to me of my needs?”

“Boston is not so large a city, my friend. You have made inquiries. Those inquiries have made their way to others, and some have made their way to me. You can certainly understand that a man of business must pursue opportunities when they arise.”

Eliot regarded Punch with suspicion. The man looked more like a pugilist than a merchant, and he did not at all resemble the sort of men with whom Eliot usually dealt. Still, opportunity often presented itself in unlikely forms. Punch was more eloquent than Eliot had reason to expect, and he spoke with a wheezing assertiveness.

“Am I to understand,” Eliot said guardedly, unsure why he did
not insist that the man leave, “that you wish to make a business proposition?”

“Indeed. I suggest that you expand your offerings.”

Punch hefted the canvas bag onto the counter and tugged at the drawstring.

Eliot held up his hands and shook his head. “I already carry a wide range of books. I daresay you'll not find better-stocked shelves in Boston.”

“Heh.” Punch's laugh squeaked through his flattened nose. “I've seen your stock, Mr. Calvert. I'd say there is room yet to augment your trove.”

Eliot stepped toward the counter to see what Punch carried in the dirty canvas sack. “I can assure you, my shelves have not an available inch of space.”

“The items that cannot be displayed on your shelves,” Punch said, “will likely demand a higher price than those that can.” He snorted, then glanced around the empty shop and grabbed the bottom of the sack by its corners. The open mouth gaped dark and mysterious. Eliot was intrigued.

Punch lifted the bag, spilling a jumble of cards and papers tied in bundles, small pamphlets, and several thin books.

Eliot shook his head. “I already carry chapbooks and card games.”

“Mr. Calvert, I doubt that you carry items such as these.”

Eliot grabbed a stack of cards tied with string, and as soon as he saw what was pictured his jaw went slack. The top card displayed a hand-colored etching of a bearded man reclining on a plush couch of red velvet. At his feet, a golden-haired woman knelt in devotion, and in her hands she held his bright pink penis.

“Good God!”

Eliot dropped the cards and they scattered across the counter. He saw that another card displayed a man and a woman entwined
in the unmistakable act. In the corner was stamped “No. 16.” The other cards displayed different numbers and a seemingly impossible array of contortions.

Punch grinned as he collected the cards, retied them with string, and rummaged through the pile on the counter.

“Lest you think me unlearned, Mr. Calvert, please note that I am also a purveyor of the written word.” Punch handed him a pamphlet, flipping the pages as he did so to show that there were no illustrations. “I have found that there are men who prefer something more in the way of, shall we say,
narrative
. For some it serves as an entertainment—for others it provides much needed instruction.”

Eliot scanned the pamphlet's first page and immediately identified a half-dozen words that he had never heard spoken except in the company of men. He should have been disgusted by the filth spread over his counter, but something kept him turning the pages of the pamphlet. Eliot looked out over the properly stocked shelves of his bookstore, and then let his eyes drop down to the cabinets behind the counter, where he stored his extra stock.

“Where did you acquire this rubbish?” Eliot asked sternly.

“Rubbish never commanded so high a price as this, Mr. Calvert.”

“I assume that you are the artist of these”—Eliot searched for the right word—“portraits.”