The Movement of Stars (14 page)

hearing Day dawned bright and hot as coal. It fell on the fifteenth day of the sixth month, cleaving the year in two. The date made perfect sense to Hannah, who charted its approach as keenly as another woman might have welcomed her wedding day. As the sheep fog that enveloped the moor and Commons in a thick, wet haze gave way to the warm, bright days of June, she swatted away any whisper of doubt caught muttering and scampering around her periphery, grasping the echo of Edward’s five-month-old letter as if it were a buoy.

I’ll be home by shearing,
he’d written. And though she’d heard nothing since, she’d kept the specter of Philadelphia at bay by refusing to consider the possibility that the
Regiment
wouldn’t make it to port in time for the festival. He had to come.

A wavy, indistinct blur rose from the little city of tents in the meadow north of Miacomet Pond, where the animals had been washed the day before. The encampment buzzed with women in muslin summer skirts and eyelet bonnets, their sleeves rolled up to their elbows. The men were overseeing the division and shearing of the animals, or doing the work themselves, while their mothers and wives and daughters filled the tent- tables with the fruits of their labors.

Hannah hated the huddled and helpless pens of animals, the spectacle of their exposed skin. She would have preferred to avoid the whole event. She was sweating profusely in her navy linen summer dress, even with its sleeves rolled up and collar unbuttoned. She drew off her bonnet and shielded her eyes against the glare, scanning the crowds for the boy she’d dispatched to the wharves to wait for a flag on the horizon. The air was tangy with grease from the doughnuts Lydia Black was frying in bacon fat, and tart with apples from the cider Fayth Shambaugh—the old whaling captain’s young wife, who sold the best pickled vegetables on the Island—was pressing in her tent. The scents mingled with the sizzle of lamb on an open-fire spit, the sticky sweetness of molasses buns, the lulling aroma of fresh-baked bread.

Hannah lifted her coiled braids from her neck in hope of a breeze, and fanned herself with an ostrich feather.
Miss Norris hustled up, leaning on her cane.
“Miss Price! Wonderful to see thee.”
“Miss Norris. I’m glad thee is hale.”
“It was just a sprain, dear. I’m surprised to see thee here, though.”
Hannah grimaced and sipped her lemonade. At least a dozen people had said the same over the course of the last three hours as they trailed by her tent. Compared to other families’ tents, Hannah’s spread was simple: roasted meat and two pies. But it had taken what felt like a stupendous effort for her to lay it, from trading a half bushel of summer squash and two laying hens for a leg of lamb, to surreptitiously studying the Atheneum’s battered copy of
The American Frugal Housewife
for a week straight
.
A bead of sweat rolled down her neck and continued to her shoulder blades, making her squirm. She didn’t want to make small talk, but there was nowhere else to go. Conversation swirled around her, and her eyelids grew heavy.
She’d spent the previous night roaming the rooms of the house, restless, and by dawn, when she’d heard the low hum of town selectmen and elders leading the sheep from the Commons up to the pens, she was shaky and distracted. Hannah scanned the crowd again as the men began pouring into the encampment from the shearing pens. A fiddler struck up, and Hannah dragged her stool into a small triangle of shade in front of her tent and slumped onto it.
It was so hot. And she was so tired. Hannah struggled to keep her eyes open. It wouldn’t do to fall asleep. But the heat blurred the very air, and her eyes fluttered. She was on a boat, or a mountaintop. Before her, a vast plain of deepest blue. The ocean reflected all the familiar points of light in the Heavens. In her dream, she was meant to create a map of the firmament from the undulating waves.
“I cannot be certain which are fixed,” she cried to someone she could not see. “They are all in motion!”
Her distress mounted as the vessel pitched. Each streak of light that crossed her field of vision was immediately obscured by a wave.
“But I saw it!” she cried. And then Isaac Martin was beside her on the roof-walk. Yet it was not her house. The platform was wide-planked but unstable.
“Take care,” Isaac whispered. The tiny, invisible hairs on her neck rose, magnetized. “Do not look down.”
But she did, and the world was upside down; she was floating through the sky itself, flying toward the stars but looking back at Earth. She reached for Isaac but he wasn’t with her. She struggled against whatever force carried her, but only moved farther away.
Hannah woke and bolted upright, wiping her brow.
“So boring to wait for one’s brother to arrive,” Edward said. “Anyone in their right mind would do the obvious thing and sleep through it.”
The next minute disappeared in the twins’ embrace, which was silent and fierce. Hannah was overwhelmed by relief. As her brother’s bony arms wrapped around her, she understood at once that the women of her Island survived the years of worry and longing by releasing them from memory, easy as kites, when their beloveds returned. The curious sensation made Hannah suspect that mothers who labored and tore and bled their babies into the world forgot that pain in the same way, and for the same reason.
Hannah and Edward drew back at the same time and surveyed each other.
“Where’s the rest of you?” Hannah asked, looking him up and down, a lump in her throat. She’d felt all his ribs through his clothes. His hair still stood up in random tufts, and glinted gold over new patches of grey. His brown eyes, so like her own, were now set in a weathered face that looked ten years older and five shades darker. But they still sparked with humor.
“Did I not report on the cuisine in my letters? I thought I would have described the king’s feast we enjoyed nightly.”
“If you had, I’d certainly remember, since they were so few and far between I easily committed each word to memory,” Hannah said, reaching for Edward’s hand and pressing it to her cheek, overwhelmed.
“A tear? Can it be? Heartless Hannah, don’t ruin your reputation!” Edward whispered, grinning and tipping his forehead so it touched hers. “I’m home and all’s well. And anyway, you haven’t even said hello to your new sister!”
“My what?” She looked around as if a small girl-child was going to appear in a puff of smoke.
Edward turned and nodded, and Hannah realized that Mary Coffey had been standing beside him the entire time. She stepped up and smiled at Edward, and he took her hand in his own. It looked like a lily in a tiger’s paw.
“Look,” Edward said, pushing the little hand at Hannah. “See what this brave girl has let herself in for.”
Mary wore a plain gold band upon her fourth finger. It glinted in the sun, and Hannah stared at it, calculations whirring like gears set in motion: the number of hours that Edward could possibly have been on-Island; the failure of the boy she sent to the wharves to spot the
Regiment
’s flag. The impossible span of years ahead in which this could not be undone. Mary and Edward stared at her, expectant. She should say something.
“How?” she whispered, turning her face to Edward. “When?”
“Early this morning,” he answered softly, lowering Mary’s hand but not letting it go. “I rowed myself in from the Bar. A Reverend Jenkins— a friend of mine from New Bedford—performed the ceremony for us at dawn. He came in on the packet last night.”
Edward smiled down at Mary. Hannah was numb. She felt the way she had the time she swam too long in early season and was pulled out by a riptide she couldn’t fight. Swimming parallel to shore until she was too tired to continue, what she’d fixated on was her own foolishness, her poor assessment of the tides and the conditions. In crisis, treading water, she’d processed facts: the likelihood of her freezing to death before regaining her strength; the nearest location of a crosscurrent.
When Hannah turned to Mary, her voice was as cold as the icy water that had nearly claimed her.
“And your family? They have approved?”
“They knew I’d never give Edward up no matter what they said,” Mary said, beaming at Edward. “And I’m of legal age to marry, so . . .” She shrugged as if her disregard for their wishes were of no more consequence than a pest in the storehouses. “Of course, they’d rather we had a proper exchange of promises at the Meeting House,” she went on. “And I’m sure we’ll oblige at some point. In any case, they won’t deny us our happiness.”
“Nor would anyone who cares for us,” Edward added, his eyes warning Hannah to be kind.
She turned away, toward the tent, unable to look at either of them. “You must be hungry,” she managed. “I’ll make you a plate.”

The next few hours passed in a haze of heat and well-wishers. Hannah sat upright on her stool beside the tent, feeling like a distant, elderly cousin instead of a sister-in-law. She hadn’t had a single moment alone with Edward, though every so often he reached over and squeezed her hand or handed her a cup of lemonade. It felt more like a funeral than the celebration she’d envisioned.

“I’m going for a walk,” she announced at four o’clock. No one seemed to hear. Edward and Mary were sprawled on the grass a few yards away. She had her head in his lap, and he was stroking her hair as he spoke to John and Libby Abbott and the Johnsons, two young couples Hannah and Edward had grown up with.

She stepped closer to the shadow of the tent so no one would see her watching. As children, they’d collected frogs and pinched each other across the benches at Meeting. But as adults those boys and girls had found each other again, and now they were joined by a mysterious bond Hannah did not understand.

Envy fired a hot streak through her chest. What was the defect in her that she had never felt such affection? Was it of the body? The spirit? Surely she was plain, but look at Libby. Her cheeks were round as a squirrel’s, and she had two chins and no sense. She talked all the time without making a point.

Hannah turned her back on the offensive scene and went round the back of the tent, then strode up to the top of the hill without stopping until she came over on the other side, which was empty. Once there, she halted and then knelt, squatting as a series of sobs ripped through her, one painful heave after another. She covered her face in case anyone should see her, then shielded her brow so that she appeared to be searching for something on the ground. Her thoughts felt muddled, and she had no sense of what to do next. Return to the tent? Go home?

Hannah’s head snapped up like a rabbit. Had Edward even told their father? She wiped her cheeks with her sleeve. Rising, she brushed off her dress and composed her face to a semblance of normal—though she felt anything but—and walked the rest of the way down the hill, the clamor of the tent city fading behind her.

With everyone at shearing, the streets were hushed, and the squeak of the door when she opened it and her steps on the floorboards seemed to reverberate through the empty town.

Her father was sitting in the kitchen with a half-empty cup of tea and a stack of correspondence fanning across the table. He didn’t look up when she came in.

“Has thee been to the tents?” she asked, checking the kettle. It was cold.
“Mary’s father came to see me this morning,” he stated, glancing up at Hannah as if to admonish her for being coy. “I apprised him that I’d no prior information concerning the event, and that if I had I’d certainly have alerted him in time to prevent it.”
“Would thee have?” She was surprised in spite of her own fantasies about how the union might have been stopped.
“Of course,” he snapped. “Thy brother is in no position to marry. Though I’m certain he has some ridiculous, impractical scheme in mind.”
Hannah bowed her head and sighed, hoping to mollify him.
“I had a letter from William Bond today, ahead of one that he advises us to expect later this week,” he went on. “Apparently we’ve earned a small contract from the Depot of Charts and Instruments to operate a Nantucket station for the Coast Survey.”
He snapped the page he was reading so it crisped to attention.
“Really?” Hannah picked her head up. “The Coast Survey?”
“Indeed.” He passed William’s letter to Hannah. As she scanned the brief lines, a rush of hope bloomed in her chest like a field of flowers all opening at once. But her father looked grim.
“Is this not wonderful news?” she asked carefully.
“It should be,” he said, gazing at her over the top of the page. “But it pains me to say that I do not know if we can accept it.”
“But why would we not accept it? It’s an excellent opportunity! And think of the instruments.” She pressed her palms down on the table, taking comfort from its solidity, hoping that whatever the reason for his hesitation, she could settle it. She willed herself to stay calm, clear the sticky cloud of fear from her voice.
“I’m not certain that Lucinda will consent to wait another year for my presence in Philadelphia,” he said. “And as previously discussed, it is unlikely that the contract will hold if I am not in residence to oversee it.”
Hannah’s heart hammered against her ribs, but she managed to subdue her fear enough to keep her voice level.
“Could Edward and I not maintain the station together? With thy supervision, of course.”
Birds were fighting in the mulberry tree outside the window; the pair burst out at intervals, leaves flying in their wake. In the absence of other human sounds, their chatter seemed unnaturally loud.
Her father’s voice turned unexpectedly tender.
“Daughter,” he said, “I must advise thee to clear thy head of the notion that Edward will remain here.” Was that pity in his face? She had steeled herself to defend her brother, not herself, and now was unsure how to go forward with her argument.
“But why?” she asked, hating the quiver in her voice, vulnerability making her feel more like a child than a grown woman capable of running a station of the national Coast Survey. “Has he said as much?”
“I expect he shall announce his plans tonight. The Coffeys are holding a dinner. At their home.” He moved his newspaper the rest of the way down to the table and peered over his glasses at Hannah. “It’s not for a few hours yet.”
“But thee will attend?” She smoothed her skirt, which was patched with flour, stained dark with cider and butter. A button-size spot was still damp from her tears. She left her other questions unasked. There was no use in querying her father any further about Edward or pushing for a reconciliation. He felt as betrayed by Edward as Hannah did, she realized. But she’d diverted her pain into a kind of moat, buffering her from despair. Nathaniel had allowed his to harden into a wall. Maybe his way was better. At least he hadn’t had all his expectations dashed.
“Yes, I shall attend,” her father said, going back to his work. “If we’re lucky, the situation won’t tarnish our business relations with the Coffeys. The last thing the Bank—and this household— needs is the wholesale withdrawal of the accounts and chronometers of the entire fleet.”
“Does it really matter at this point?” Hannah muttered, losing her will to put on a professional show for her father. “If we’re to remove anyway, what difference can it make?” If her father decided to remove to Philadelphia without mending his bond with Edward, she’d have no chance of staying to run the station.
“Those of us whose support remains dependent upon the finances of this household are in no position to comment upon its needs, I should say,” he answered calmly, then went back to reading.
Shame weighing on her like a boulder, Hannah rose, careful with her feet, and left the room without saying anything else. She felt branded, like one of the penned sheep up by the pond, with a giant
F
for
Failure
.
She was nothing but a burden to the household, in spite of her meager income from the Atheneum. That’s what her father was saying. She’d failed to find a comet or anything of note in the Heavens; she’d failed to find a husband or even look for one. And apparently she’d failed in predicting the outcome of Edward’s journey and her own future.