Bitter Truth (31 page)

June 24, 1914
My Dearest Charity,
I feel like a blindfold has been lifted from my eyes and finally, for the first time in my life, my path is visible. I won’t dwell on the selfishness of my history except to say that suddenly I see it as a wasteland, full of regret and lost opportunities for grace, and am grateful to the heavens that I have come through it alive and with child. This life within me, still as yet unformed, contains the roots of all meaning for me now. I am as blessed as the Mary herself, and certain every mother feels this same sense of divinity. Father is delirious with joy, Hope fusses over me for once, and everyone moves about the house as if in a dance around the soon to be crowned king, including my dear husband
.
The shock of the announcement has worn off and, though he tries to hide it, I can see the excitement in his eyes too. Whatever dark and heavy load it is he carries, it seems to have lightened with the news of his impending fatherhood. He can bear once again to touch me with a gentle hand, caressing my swelling stomach. Sometimes, at night, we stay up late together and talk of the future, almost as it was on those long nights of our innocence before the tragedy of our wedding. Just last night he told me, with all his earnestness, that everything must be done to secure our child’s future in every respect. His devotion is an inspiration. Everything I do from here on to forever, every breath I breathe, will be devoted to nurturing that life to fullness and ensuring its blessed future

August 29, 1914
My Dearest Charity,
Our sister has relapsed into a crushing illness. She has taken once again to her bed and lost all strength. The news from Europe has disturbed everyone but it appears that our dear sister’s sensibilities are finer then the rest of us and it has affected her more, weakening her defenses against whatever beastly curse has been afflicting her all these years. We hired the finest nurse but still I insist on making her broth every morning and spooning it past her quivering jaw. I can feel the power of this life that swells within me flowing into the broth I cook each morning for our sister and in my heart of hearts I feel that power will be the key to her recovery. Her eyes are as ever alive with goodness and strength but there is about her body a feebleness that is frightening. I spend hours with her, reading her the latest novels and some poetry from the collection in your room, I hope you don’t mind, and her spirits are buoyant still, but there is about this spell something deeper and darker then previous bouts. Dr. Cohn patted our shoulders but his eyes were the eyes of worry

September 18, 1914
My Dearest Charity,
As I was making the broth this morning for our dear sister, I felt the life inside me contract. With each stir of the spoon my baby twisted and turned and then the contractions sent me to the red tile floor with a scream. It isn’t time yet, it can’t be yet. The nurse rushed down and seeing what had happened helped me to the parlor couch where I stayed until Dr. Cohn came. He gave me some medicine and prescribed rest and so I have been banished to the bedroom for the time being. When Christian heard he rushed home and clasped my hands and we prayed together for the health of our child. I have never seen him so devoted, never seen him so full of love

October 9, 1914
My Dearest Charity,
Hope was well enough today to sit up in her bed. Due to my condition I cannot spend the time with her I would but Christian is by her side for hours every evening, reading and talking. She is goodness incarnate and it appears the ministrations of dear Christian have delivered to her another measure of strength. Christian is a saint, doting on dear Hope’s every wish. It seems my pregnancy and Hope’s illness have finally turned us into the family I’ve dreamed we could be

November 15, 1914
My Dearest Charity,
While under Christian’s care Hope relapsed into her deep illness and fear has now replaced whatever good cheer had been extant at Veritas. The doctor has allowed me to rise from my bed and I do so with the gravest concern for our dear sister. This morning I was back in the kitchen, chopping the vegetables by hand, butchering the chicken, spooning off the scum from the bones and stirring the sweet, clear broth that I pray will cause the wishes I hold most dear to become realities. I work with all the will passed to me by my father. She barely takes a drop, but it is enough, I pray, to do its work. It is uncanny but with each stroke of the long wooden spoon this morning I again felt my child turn within me, to kick out, and I again felt my stomach contract around my fetus, but still I continued, in silence, wanting nothing or no one to get in the way of my sacred duty. Our father is desolate with worry, Christian wrings his hands with pain and dulls his sense with drink through the long evenings while she sleeps. That tragedy should swipe at us again is unthinkable. If only you were here, dear sister, to encourage us with your loveliness and give us the strength to bear the future’s pains

November 19, 1914
Struck numb with heartbreak, I can barely lift the pen. What have we done to deserve such misery? What? What? Why are we so cursed? It seems that from the moment I first laid eyes on Christian Shaw tragedy has stalked me on clawed paws and I can’t yet figure out why. Why? All I know is that life has become too much to bear alone

November 20, 1914
The cook came into my room as I was still wracked with tears and showed to me a metal canister filled with a soft white powder. She found it, she said, among the tins stored in the great wooden cabinets in our kitchen. It was not hers, she assured me, but the scent was reminiscent of what the gardener has put out in the basement for the rats. I told her to throw it out and to tell no one, ever, of what she found. What mistake could have brought such powder to our kitchen cabinets? I can’t bear to even consider the possibilities of what other tragedy might have befallen us. The gardener will be fired, immediately, I will see to it. To be forced to contend with the daily concerns of this house while my sweet sweet sister lies so peacefully in her coffin is impossible. I pray even that the life inside me stops its ceaseless battering so that I can lose myself in the strong and welcoming arms of this abject grief

December 29, 1914
My Dearest Sisters,
Early this morning, just past the stroke of midnight, my son was born. Whatever pain we have suffered these last few years pales beside his magnificence. He is robust and pink and when he first cried as he gulped the air outside my body it was the sound of life itself asserting its glory against the tragedies of our days gone past. The labor was exquisitely painful, I shouted for hours and bit the nurse’s hand until it bled, but I welcomed the agony too, in a strange part of my soul, as expiation for everything that came before it. My son exists for all of us, dear sisters, and your spirits will be as real a presence for him through his childhood as my own. He was born of violence and tragedy and death but his cry is regal and he will inherit the whole of the Reddman empire and so I have named him Kingsley. Kingsley Reddman Shaw
.
To see Father’s joy as he held our baby, dear sisters, his sole heir, is to be lifted to the heavens. His life has been one of continued grace, and the fame of his philanthropy has outstripped the notoriety of his business acumen, but still he has lost so much in the past years, not the least your companionship and love, that he was starving for some new victory over loss. He sees in his grandson that victory, I believe, and a justification for all he suffered as he fought to make his mark
.
Christian has been absent from the house since Hope’s death, grieving deep in his soul for the purest life to ever touch this earth, and so my husband has not yet seen his son, but word has been sent to his usual places and I expect him shortly. I can imagine him leaping the stairs two at a time to reach his child and that vision fills me with sublime hope for the future. Our child is all the hope we need. He will be the redemption of the Reddmans, the savior of us all. He will honor your legacy and your sacrifices, dear sisters. You can be certain that Kingsley will carry on the greatness of our father as the Reddman family is once and forever reborn

IV

March 28, 1923
My Dearest Sisters,
A mountain cougar has been spotted in our county. It has slipped down from the heights north of us in search of food as this long wearying winter continues or has simply lost its bearings, but the effect is either way the same. A dog was mangled on a farm not far from us and one of Naomi Scott’s famed dairy cows was found dead in a far pasture, its haunch chewed to the bone. The presence of this wild beast has cast a pall upon the spring and the men are out with their guns, combing the hills in search of its tracks in the soft earth
.
Christian has gone out with Kingsley hunting for the cat. He has taken his father’s shotgun out of the case and given it to our son to carry, against my objections. Kingsley is too young to handle a firearm and Christian is obviously unable to handle it correctly, but as always, as regards dear Christian, my objections went for naught. It is as if he does not even hear me as I speak. There is for him only his son and the pond and the woods, where he sits for hours on end with nothing but the birds and the tiniest creatures to keep him company. His unhappiness is so evident it crushes any attempt to reach out to him. We have almost passed through his fourth year back and still he acts as if the battlefield is just behind him. Sometimes I think it would have been kinder had the jagged piece of metal that severed his arm slipped into his throat instead and saved him from the misery he has come home to
.
Seeing them walk off together, the quiet boy with the oversized gun cradled in his arms and the crippled man, I marveled again at the relationship they have forged. Kingsley barely speaks two words together, so shy and withdrawn he has become, and Christian’s wretchedness infects with melancholy all with whom he comes in contact, but together they seem a natural whole, like two wild animals perfectly at ease with one another. I had hoped that Christian would help me speak to the boy about his studies, for Kingsley obviously fails to heed my importuning, but Christian refuses to hear one word ill against his son. Kingsley’s newest tutor has failed to connect with the boy and reports that his pupil is still unable to read even the most simple-minded passages or add his figures correctly. I suspect, though I dare not breathe this to Christian or Father, that the problem is with the boy, not the pedagogue, but even so I am searching again for a more rigorous teacher

March 31, 1923
My Dearest Sisters,
I can’t sleep, I can’t read, my mind is racing with an anger that I can only release in words addressed to you, my darlings. I had another row with Father about those people. I insisted once again that he force them from the property, that they be banished to where their anger can no longer infect our lives. New Jersey, I suggested, where they can do no more harm than has already been done, but once again Father ignored me. What is past is past, I argued with him, let it go, let them go. He reminded me that the property is deeded to the widow Poole and he is powerless, but even had there been no deed his answer would have been the same. I understand Father’s reasons, better than he can know, but the time for pity has passed, as the events of this afternoon demonstrate with utter clarity
.
I was in my room when the window darkened and a great cloud drifted overhead. In the face of that fearful sky I thought of the cougar and then of Kingsley and immediately went in search of my son. He was neither in the playroom nor in his area on the front lawn. The governess was having tea in the kitchen with Mrs. Gogarty. When I asked about Kingsley she sputtered something foolish and then lapsed into guilty silence. With admirable restraint I told her to find the boy. While she searched the house, I stepped onto the rear portico and down into the yard
.
The sky was gloomy and threatening, the wind brisk and undeservedly warm, like a tease of summer before cold again sets in. I first searched through the garden, peering as best I could over the shoulder-high hedges. I stepped carefully, with an unaccustomed caution, not knowing what kind of animal could be stalking me in the interstices of my maze, but the garden was empty of man and beast
.
From out of the garden I thought of returning to the house but for some reason felt drawn to the pond. It was with a dread that I stepped down the hill. That pond had scared me often, yes, and I had worried that someday my son would lose his footing and fall within its murky depths. But the surface was clear and the ducks still floated undisturbed upon the chop. Beyond the pond was the stand of woods where I dared not step and prayed that my son was wise enough to stay out while that animal was still alive and on the roam. It was at the edge of the pond that I first heard the sound, high and trilling, a voice like a bird’s almost, as best as I could tell from the distance. I followed it, moving around the pond, followed it to that decrepit wreck of a house
.
There on the decaying wooden steps sat Kingsley, leaning on his side, listening to the Poole daughter read to him. The sight of that hideous-faced girl, and the book she was holding, that book, filled me with the hatred that rises every time I see that family. But now it came from someplace deeper. She was sitting there with my son, reading from that book, and he was listening to her, raptly, absorbing every word of the vile hatred that was spewing from her throat. Is it not enough that they have wreaked their vengeance on our father and his children, must they now infect my son? It was too much to bear and the shout of outrage came unbidden from my throat
.
Kingsley jumped to his feet. I told him to get back to the house immediately and he hesitated for a tense moment, his head hanging in indecision, before sprinting past me and up the hill. I then turned my attention to the girl
.
She was still sitting on the steps, her frayed frock loose about her, her dark eyes staring at me with an indifferent hatred. As calmly as possible I said, “I don’t want you speaking ever again to my son.”
“I was just reading to him from Thoreau.”
“I know very well what you were reading,” I said. “Kingsley has a trained tutor who is helping with his reading. He doesn’t need your interference with his studies. You are not to see him again, do you understand?”
“
He’s a sweet boy, but lonely I think.”
“
His state is not your concern, ever. Any further interference in his affairs by you or your mother will have dire consequences to you both.”
“
My mother is too ill to even rise from her bed,” she said, as she reached behind and pushed herself awkwardly to standing. “There is not much more you or your family could do to her now.”
It was only then that I noticed what should have been obvious from the first, the grotesque fullness of her stomach that even the loose frock could not hide. I am not proud of the words that next came from my lips before I turned and stalked away but they were drawn from my throat by the glaring triumph in her eyes as surely as water from a hand pump
.
And so I went to Father and once again pleaded that they be sent away. It is bad enough that they have stayed in that house as a reminder for all these many years, but that they should plague us with their bastard is too too much. My only solace is that the deed grants the mother only a life estate and that upon her death the land and that house revert back to our family. With the mother’s evident illness we should soon be finally free of the shackles of their enmity