The Island of Doves (4 page)

“And you’ve no family who could help you?”

Susannah shook her head. “My parents are dead. Their parents are back in Ulster and for all I know, they are dead too. I am alone here.”

“And no friends of your family? No one who knew your parents?”

“Everyone who knew my mother and father knows my husband too. I don’t know where their loyalties lie.”

The nun took two teacups down from the shelf and spooned tea leaves into each one. “You must be thankful that you have no children. God has protected you in that at least, I see.”

Susannah stared at the woman’s back, the black garment she wore even in sleep, and realized she was unafraid to tell the truth. “I do not rely on God for much anymore.”

Sister Mary Genevieve ignored this comment and sat back down in the chair. “What if I told you I could help you run away and he would never find you?”

“I would say that you do not know my husband very well.”

“Perhaps. But Father Adler has known many, many men
like
your husband. And many women like you.”

“He has?”

“Oh, yes. And just as he helped them, he can help you. The past can be lopped off like a head in a guillotine.”

The image startled Susannah. “I’m sorry, Sister, but I do not believe anyone can help me.”

The nun observed her a moment. “Do you believe that you are a daughter of God?”

Susannah looked down at her lap, her eyes pooling.

“Look at me, child.” Susannah looked up, and the tears spilled down to her chin. “The Book of Matthew says that the very hairs on your head are numbered. Do you believe that is true?”

Susannah nodded. “I want to,” she said, her voice breaking. “But I feel so very alone.”

“Every particle of your body is sacred, each muscle, each bone.” She touched Susannah’s bandage. “But I must know if
you
believe that before Father Adler can help you. For the path will not be an easy one. One must want—need—to survive.”

“I do believe it,” Susannah said. She felt again in her chest, just as she had when she stood in the dress shop, the hardness of her resolve. No matter what happened, despite all of the ways in which she had suffered, that stone was always there, the weight that kept her from floating away.

“Then he and I will begin the arrangements. We are fortunate to have an early spring this year. The boats will start running soon.”

“Where am I going by boat?”

The sister did not answer the question. “Still, I will need some time to prepare things. In the meantime, be patient and do not despair.” She opened a small box on the table next to Susannah’s chair and removed from it a pale gray feather. She placed it in Susannah’s hand. “Keep this with you to remember: You can endure anything now, for this part of your life is nearly over.”

The kettle had begun to boil. Sister Mary Genevieve dipped a tin pitcher into the water and filled their cups. The tea leaves hissed and expanded in the silence of the cabin.

“How will I know when to come to you?” Susannah asked, twirling the feather between her fingers.

“Don’t worry. You’ll know.”

D
espite what Sister Mary Genevieve had said, Susannah did indeed begin to despair. As soon as she left the rectory cabin, in fact, fear and worry swarmed in. Wives just didn’t disappear without their husbands coming to look for them. And Edward Fraser wasn’t the sort of man who would merely shrug his shoulders and give up. He was as ruthless and unchanging as a man could be, and Susannah knew he would do anything, spend any sum, to bring her back under his control.

And if she doubted this fact as the days passed, Edward reminded her time and again. The worst night came three weeks later, after dinner in the cramped dining room at the Bealses’. Everything about the evening had seemed to irritate Edward. His soup was lukewarm. Eliza Beals’s custard was too sweet, and the meddlesome woman had dared to ask about Susannah’s injured hand, then didn’t seem convinced by the explanation Edward gave.

They returned home and Susannah stood in her room pulling the pins out of her hair, her scalp tingling with relief. She unfastened her corset and marveled at just how many pins and hooks and laces it took to make her suitable for public display.

Exhaustion bore down on her and she slipped into bed without bothering to open her book. Images of the previous weeks tumbled over and over in her mind like leaves caught in a stream where two currents meet. She heard the whisper of Madame Martineau’s peach silk, then felt the familiar heavy air of her greenhouse in her lungs. Susannah turned beneath the blankets. The piano keys flashed straight and white like Edward’s front teeth, a smile masking his cruelty. And then there was the pain, throbbing in her fingers.

Thump.

The sound broke into the reverie and Susannah’s eyes flew open. Edward’s boots on the stairs, his hand on the doorknob. She sat up in bed, folding the blanket back neatly across her lap.

Edward entered and lit the lamp. His forehead shone and he walked to the window, throwing it open. “This room is stifling.”

“I was trying to keep out the draft. Eliza was talking tonight about the fever again, and I suppose I let her worry me.”

Edward took off his jacket and waistcoat, draping them over the chair in the corner. “Eliza Beals is a dim cow of a woman. Don’t listen to a thing she says.” His voice was distant, as if his mind weren’t actually engaged with the words he spoke.

Susannah sighed. “All right, Edward,” she whispered. “I won’t.”

He detected the exasperation in her voice and his mind snapped back into focus. “Dim she may be, but she
does
know her place. She had three children by the time she was your age. And she is a grandmother now.”

Susannah eyed him carefully. Venturing to speak in any way on this subject—even an attempt to placate him, to apologize for her fruitless womb—was a dangerous business. Edward was sweating at the temples. A lock of his slick hair had fallen out of line with the rest and was hanging over his brow.

“The Bealses are blessed,” she said.

Edward stood over her now, the lamp’s light shining behind him, throwing his face into shadow. “And according to that line of thought, we are cursed. Is that what you believe?”

Susannah looked down at her lap.

“Would you like to know what I believe?” He was gaining steam and Susannah braced herself for the coming blow. She clutched her knees in closer to her body, wrapped her arms around her legs.

“I believe the divine has nothing to do with this childless home. I believe
you’re
doing something to interfere.”

Her head snapped up then, and she met his eyes. She tried to cover her surprise with the mien of the wrongly accused while her mind went instantly to the seeds in the greenhouse. Had he found them? How could he have discerned their purpose? “I can’t imagine what you mean by that, Edward. Have I ever refused to lie with my husband?”

“You don’t refuse me, but that doesn’t mean you haven’t meddled. You’re doing
something
, I’m certain of it. We are young, I am healthy. My brothers have a dozen children between them and I
know
my seed is strong.” His voice was hardening now. “The hindrance lies with you.”

Susannah thought of the way the seeds stuck in her teeth as she chewed them. Perhaps they made no difference whatsoever and it was instead a flaw in her organs that kept her barren. She imagined her body was marshaling to save her, closing off the channel Edward was determined to travel. “We must be patient and accept the will of God.”

Her words ignited his anger like a match, and he clamped a rough hand on her thigh. Nothing infuriated him more than a reminder that some things were beyond his control. He yanked back the blankets, trying to scare her, she knew, but Susannah felt absolutely calm. When he lowered himself on top of her, she tipped her head back and stared at the dark planks of the ceiling. Without warning he slammed himself against her. She wouldn’t fight him, wouldn’t cry out, because she felt sure now that there was no chance of escape.

And then, the very next afternoon, a feather appeared in her greenhouse, identical to the one Sister Mary Genevieve had given her at the cabin three weeks before. She noticed it where it lay on the worktable and plucked it up, holding it between her thumb and forefinger, and ran the soft fibers across the back of her hand. Anyone else who saw it might assume she kept it nostalgically, as a quill for her notations, but a careful eye would note that its tip hadn’t been sharpened, didn’t hold the stain of ink.

Susannah sank down on her stool and held her breath. She glanced up at the window of Edward’s study out of habit, though she knew he was in Black Rock for a meeting about the railroad. The men planned to dine at the mayor’s house, and Edward wouldn’t be home until late in the evening. Susannah rose, her heart like a drumbeat, and walked across the greenhouse to the door. Her sleeves brushed the perfectly manicured globes of the orange trees, but she did not feel them. A spiderweb stretched taut in the doorway, its gossamer geometry a marvel, but Susannah did not see it. All she could feel, all she could see, were the years of misery and loneliness Hawkshill promised, and she moved as if they were chasing her.

She passed through the dining room to the door across from the kitchen and dashed out into the hallway. The oak stairs seemed never-ending and she took them two at a time, yanking herself along on the railing. In the bedroom she threw open the wardrobe door and scanned her dresses, realizing that she had no idea where she was going. Would it be cold there? Susannah selected a wool dress for its extra weight and warmth, laying it across the bed, and the boots she wore on her expeditions in the woods.

She closed the door and thought of her mother’s velvet-lined jewelry box. Susannah hadn’t opened it since her mother had died; the thought of it pierced her now and she went to the bureau. Cholera had taken her mother suddenly the previous year, but she had been ill for many years before that. Susannah’s father had lost his fortune trying to care for her. She opened the lid of the jewelry box. There were several pairs of earrings: gold filigree with enamel pansies, coral roses hanging on a chain, two ivory half-moons. Susannah touched the rings perched on velvet pillows—one with a cluster of pearls, another with gold carved into vines. The tray beneath these held a necklace, a double strand of garnets the size of peas, set in gold. This piece had been her mother’s pride and joy. Susannah had seen her wear it only once, but she let Susannah try it on many times at home when she was a girl. Her mother had explained that Noah himself had used the light from a garnet as a lantern to guide his ark.

The necklace glinted in her hand, catching the light from the window. She didn’t know anything about where she was going or the person who had promised to take her there. How could she set out with nothing but trust? She laid the necklace back in its tray, then rose and closed the door to the room. Swiftly, she unhooked the buttons that secured her dress at the back of the neck and lifted it over her head. Standing barefoot in her chemise, she hung the dress in the wardrobe and closed the oak door. She glanced down at her legs, their outline visible through the translucent linen of her chemise. The last few months had wrung her out like a rag, and her silhouette showed it: thighs diminished, knees angular and unsoftened by flesh.

Susannah crossed the room to her sewing basket and retrieved a needle and a length of white thread. She pulled an embroidered handkerchief from the top drawer of the bureau and wrapped the necklace tightly in the cotton. Then she stitched it with quick strokes to her chemise at her thigh.

She broke the thread and plucked up the dress she’d selected, throwing it over her head. The dress draped well over the concealed necklace. No one would know it was there but Susannah.
Just in case
, she thought.
In case things aren’t what they seem.

She tried to pass quietly through the kitchen, but Marjorie looked up from where she stood, chopping a head of red cabbage on the wooden block. Purple liquid trailed down her wrists and along the edge of the table. As Marjorie wiped her hands, Susannah gazed at them: fingers callused and knuckles rounded from work, a thin gold band on her ring finger.

Marjorie held Susannah’s gaze, and something passed between them. “Going out for a walk?”

Susannah nodded, and her voice stuck in her throat like a husk. “Could you help me fasten this?” She pointed at the laces at the back of her dress, then held up her lame hand. Marjorie stepped behind her and pulled the laces tight, then tied one of her expert knots. Then she turned Susannah around by the shoulders to face her.

Susannah struggled to say the words. “Perhaps I will be gone a little longer than usual.”

“Wait.” Marjorie crossed the room to the back door, where the cloaks hung on a peg. She lifted a gray shawl and Susannah’s cloak and carried them back to her. “Cover your hair. It stands out like a torchlight.” Susannah stepped toward her, and Marjorie crossed the ends of the shawl beneath Susannah’s chin, tucking them into the back collar of the cloak. Susannah leaned forward, pressing her cheek to Marjorie’s for the length of one long breath.

“Good-bye,” she whispered.

As she crossed the back of the property once again, the greenhouse loomed off to her left and reflected the afternoon sun. Susannah stepped inside and realized all at once that her cuttings and flowers and trees would desiccate in their clay pots, hostages behind the glass. All their striving for life would come to nothing without someone to bring them water. The herbarium too would remain incomplete. She felt the loss of it all but also a strange relief. Along with each specimen she flattened in the flower press, Susannah had preserved her anguish too. The herbarium was like a book of horrors, each page linked to a memory. The thought of abandoning it along with everything else thrilled her. She picked up her beloved Wakefield, its blue cover worn and soiled, and walked out.

Susannah made it nearly all the way to the rectory without seeing another soul. The frosted grass crunched beneath her feet. When she was almost to Pearl Street, a spaniel emerged from the trees, its mottled fur the color of coffee and milk. A man followed closely behind, a musket slung over his shoulder and swinging against his hip as he walked. When he stepped onto the road his eyes met hers. Perhaps he saw fear there, for he nodded and bowed a little. “Ma’am,” he said, then kept on after the dog. When he had passed, Susannah craned her neck to see him once more, but he didn’t turn back.

As the rectory came into view, Susannah wondered what would happen next. Sister Mary Genevieve hadn’t left any instructions. Would she be waiting? It was nearly dark now and she could hear creatures flitting across the canopy. Her breathing quickened.

Just as Susannah was thinking of turning back into the darkness to wait, she saw the sister’s face appear in the glass pane of the rectory’s door. Susannah glanced across the clearing. It was empty. As she raced toward the door, icy drops of water began to fall from the sky.

“You’ve brought nothing with you, I hope?” Sister Mary Genevieve eyed Susannah carefully in the darkness of the cabin once she had ushered her inside.

“No, nothing but the clothes I wear,” Susannah said, the lie tumbling easily out. “And this book.” She held it out.

The sister took the book from her and stared at it. “I can make good use of this, but you’ll need to leave it with me.” She set the book on the table and crossed the small room. She opened a trunk, pulling out a black wool gown identical to the one she wore and shook it out. “Here. Put this on. We don’t have much time.”

Susannah hesitated, then reached for the laces at the back of her dress. With the injured fingers on her left hand still bound, she fumbled.

Sister Mary Genevieve sighed. “Turn around. Hurry up.” Susannah felt the woman’s cold fingers at the nape of her neck as she released the collar buttons one by one. “I don’t have much hope for a successful escape if you’re a prisoner in your own clothing. You are certain you’ve brought nothing else with you?” the nun asked again. Susannah nodded, a feeling of dread in her stomach. When the nun lifted the dress over her head, Susannah concealed the lump on her chemise with her hand. The sister helped her into the black gown.

“The life you have known ends today, and you must not carry any piece of it with you. Do you understand? He must have no reason to suspect you are still alive.”

Susannah stared at her. “Then what
is
he to think? What are you going to tell him?” she asked, afraid to know the answer.

Sister Mary Genevieve tied a plain black bonnet beneath Susannah’s chin. “That I saw you fall into the river.”

Susannah’s mind reeled, still unable to believe that she was really daring to try to leave, to believe that she could thwart Edward for good. Sister Mary Genevieve took up Susannah’s dress and tore the sleeve away from the shoulder seam, then tore it again to make a ragged edge on the scrap of wool. She held it up. “I found this tangled in the brambles at the water’s edge.”

Susannah could see the tale unfolding and dared to hope that Edward might believe it.