Cinders to Satin. Fern MichaelsЧитать онлайн книгу.
night. No, Beth wouldn’t go there. She feared the hospital and all it represented: rejection, denial. To the right was the steep path leading down to the beach and the docks. The night air was frigid; frost crackled on the ground beneath her feet. Where was Beth? Where was Paddy?
Her heart beating wildly, Callie stepped onto the path to the dock. She peered through the dim light to the water of the bay where the packet ships lay at anchor. Her shawl was pulled tight around her shoulders, the light morning wind off the water ruffled the new freedom of her short curls.
Halfway down the path she heard the mournful humming of a familiar tune, “Sweet Maid from Killee,” Patrick’s favorite tune. “Patrick! Patrick!” A form, barely discernible in the light, straightened and began rushing toward her. “Patrick!” Her voice was a harsh cry; she had not known how desperate she was or how terribly frightened until she heard that cry break from her throat. “Patrick! It’s Beth! Where’s Beth?” Quickly she told him how she’d awakened to find Beth and Paddy gone.
“She’s probably taken herself off to the privy,” Patrick said logically, “Grab hold of yourself, Callie. I’ve never seen you this way.”
“No! Beth would never have taken Paddy to the privy. You know how she loathes the filth in there. Listen to me, Patrick, something is wrong, very wrong! I don’t know, there was something about Beth early this morning when I talked with her. Something desperate in the way she talked and what she said!”
Patrick responded to Callie’s distress. “Where do you think she might have gone? Beth! Beth!” he called at the top of his voice. The answering silence seemed to spur his growing alarm. “Beth! For the love of God, where are you?”
“Patrick. She won’t answer if she doesn’t want to. We have to find her. I’ll take the path down to the dock; you skirt around through the shelters and back to the privies and meet me down on the beach.”
Callie turned and tore off down the path, slipping and sliding over the loose rocks and pebbles underfoot. The wind from the river was rising with the dawn. Today would be another bleak day, harsh with the promise of the coming winter.
At the end of the path were the piers and docks, the longest of these a jetty of black and slippery rocks that snaked far out into the dark waters of the bay. At the head of the jetty Callie discerned a bulky shape—a woman holding a child, her face turned to meet the dawn. Beth!
At the sound of Callie’s footfalls on the pier, Beth turned, clutching little Paddy to her. “No! Don’t come any closer,” she warned, and to Callie’s ears it was the voice of a stranger. This was not Beth’s voice, soft and endearing—this was the sound an animal makes when he is cornered.
“Beth! Come back! Please, Beth! Patrick is looking for you; he sent me to find you.” Tentatively Callie approached, watching, listening for the slightest sound or movement. Paddy squirmed in his mother’s arms. “Callie, pick me up!” She heard his voice clearly as she moved closer to the end of the jetty.
“Hush, love,” Beth crooned. “Hush. It will all be over soon, so soon.”
The singsong quality of Beth’s voice frightened Callie more than anything else. It was the same voice Mrs. Collier used when her little Bobby had died of the influenza and she had rocked his dead body until they came and forcibly took him from her. Beth was rocking and crooning to Paddy in that same way, as though he were already dead.
“Don’t come any closer, Callie. You’ve been a good friend, but there’s nothing you can do for us now. There’s nothing anyone can do.”
“Beth, come away from the edge. There’s something I must tell you!” Desperately Callie searched for something to say, something that would give Beth hope, something, anything. “Beth, remember I told you and Patrick about my friend who owns a newspaper? He’s a very important man, Beth. I’ll send word to him about Paddy. He’ll help, I know he will. You remember his name, don’t you, Beth?” Cautiously Callie stepped closer and closer as she spoke, hoping she could divert Beth’s attention. “Mr. Byrch Kenyon. You said it was such a fine name, remember, Beth?”
As though Callie had never uttered a word, Beth lifted her head. Her voice was a harsh whisper; the madness in her eyes shone. “Tell Patrick I’m so sorry. Tell him the only thing I can give him now is his dream.”
Even as Callie watched, Beth stepped backwards, tumbling off the jetty, hardly making a splash in the cold black water, into the greedy current. Callie heard Patrick’s shout of denial from somewhere behind her. She heard his feet thundering along the pier, heard him cry his wife’s name. And that was all she knew until she found herself shivering in the arms of a stranger. At the end of the jetty there was a crowd of people, like buyers at a market stall. That was her first thought.
She looked down at the black and oily waters of the bay. This was a day she would never forget, didn’t want to forget. Tears streaming down her cheeks, Callie walked away from the crowd, away from Patrick, away from the knowledge of what Beth had done for love. All for love.
This was America.
This was the land of hopes and dreams.
This was the day Callie James grew up.
Chapter Six
Callie pulled her shawl closer about the shoulders of her brown woolen dress, careful not to disturb the hand-crocheted lace collar that had been a gift from Peggy. The dainty white cotton lace contrasted sharply with her wind-pink cheeks and the delicate paleness of her throat. It was her best dress, although it was now a bit short and swung just above the ankles of her high-topped, black-buttoned shoes.
She had risen very early that morning to have access to the privy where she washed herself all over, including her hair which now tumbled in thick chestnut curls about her head. Her shoes, a bit run-down at the heels, were wiped and polished with spit the night before. Everything she owned was rolled and packed into two pokes which were secured with laces from an ancient pair of Thomas’s shoes. She had to look her best, as Peggy had instructed, when she met cousin Owen for the first time. Only Mum couldn’t know that soaking in a tub for three days couldn’t remove the Tompkinsville stink that soiled not only the body but the soul as well.
Yesterday afternoon they had found the bodies of Beth and Paddy, snagged on rocks and tree stumps nearly half a mile from the pier where she had taken that final leap. It amazed Callie that hardly any thought was given to the living here in Tompkinsville but huge efforts were made to find a dead woman and child and bring them back for proper burial. Even in death, Beth could not escape Tompkinsville. The current in the river had carried her downstream but never across to the city of New York.
The last time Callie had seen Patrick was at the funeral. Patrick, thinking clearly for the moment, had instructed Callie not to utter a word that Beth’s plunge had not been purely accidental. Callie understood. Beth had died an unholy death by committing suicide and would not be allowed to rest in sanctified ground. The unbidden thought that Beth had also committed murder by taking little Paddy with her left Callie breathless and shaken. No one would understand that Beth had been out of her mind with grief and disappointment. Patrick was right. The less said the better. Everyone believed that Beth had had an unfortunate accident; no woman intent on suicide would take her unborn child and her young son with her.
On the flat of land behind the hospital, long deep trenches were dug in the soft and porous soapstone. Here the reek of death was all around, filling the air, even in the cold of November. The dead were buried in trenches nine feet deep, and the rustic coffins were placed in three tiers. The ground was dug out by pick, and broken pieces were scattered to cover the graves. The rain penetrated through the strewn rocks and thin earth, and the stink rose. Here, in an unmarked place, Beth and Paddy were laid. Patrick had stood woodenly at the grave site, head bowed, eyes dry, but in them an expression of grief and defeat that had never been there even during the hardest of times. Callie grieved for Beth and Paddy, placing on the lonely grave a bouquet of thistle and bittersweet she had picked in the bramble hedges along the road to the cemetery. But when the prayers were over, she looked at Patrick and