The Visionist: A Novel (30 page)

It took all her strength, but she drew herself up to face the eldress. There could be only one reason that Elder Sister Agnes cared so vehemently that Ben stay behind. Silas was dead, isn’t that what the eldress had told her? So Mama would inherit the land. And if the land was Mama’s, she would leave part of it to Ben.

Elder Sister Agnes did not simply want to take her brother from her; she wanted his share of the farm as well. Poor Ben. Whether as an
X
on the Shakers’ Covenant or a blank entry in the town rolls, his existence—or apparent absence—meant only one thing to everyone except Mama and Polly. Land. He’d nearly been killed for it; now he was to be stolen. Polly felt sick.

“You think that if you keep my brother here, it entitles you to take the farm,” she said. “You think that if you can get my mother to prove that Ben is her son, then you can present him—a true Shaker—as the eventual heir to at least half of the property. Is that the reason you are so intent on keeping him?”

“Yes,” she said, matter-of-factly. “Benjamin’s gifts are many, as I have said, but one of them is the land he brings with him. You needn’t make me out to be a thief. We have the means to bring back your farm. Whatever you may think of me, I have no interest in hurting you. I seek the betterment of all believers, and as such, I have thought long and hard about your future. I offer you mercy, do you not see that?”

“Mercy?” Polly said. “Taking a child from his mother? Taking my brother from me? Is that what you call
mercy?
”

Elder Sister Agnes’s eyes hardened as she lost her patience. “Do you not remember the morning you arrived? Your mother
gave
you and your brother to us. She signed papers of indenture. You are lucky that I am so lenient as to consider breaking that pact where you are concerned. I do so only because I sense that it will be best for my fellow believers.”

She stopped herself, took a breath, and stood down. “You hate me now, Sister Polly,” she said, sitting and taking up her basket once again. “But someday you will see that I was right. I will come and find you when the inspector brings your mother to me. Please take heart in the thought of that reunion.” She looked up. “Now, go.”

Polly wanted to say so much more—she owed it to Ben—but she could not find the strength. She halted before opening the door to leave.

“Elder Sister Agnes,” she said. “How did you come to be a believer?”

The eldress looked up, startled. Then, evenly and clearly, she spoke.

“I was not wanted elsewhere, child. I arrived barren, beaten, and of no use to a single soul in the world. That is how I came to be a believer. Does that answer your question? You see, I hide nothing from you. I am not afraid of the past.”

Polly looked down at the floor and nodded. Her shame was complete.

Simon Pryor

AFTER MY REVELATORY
conversation with Cramby, I set out to find an errand boy to deliver my letter and went in search of Barnabas Trask, his signature as emblazoned on my mind as it was on the papers I carried. I did not know if he would continue to try to mislead me as to his interest in the property, just as I did not know how he would greet the news that I was aware of his association with May Kimball. I expected to discover yet another worm in the wood. After all, even the Shaker sister had proved more manipulative than her humble trappings would have led one to suspect. So much for spiritual purity.

“Ah, Mister Pryor,” Trask said as he opened the door, a look of surprise on his face. “I knew you were a diligent man, but I should never have expected you to deliver your reports in person. Come in, come in.”

I thanked him for the invitation and apologized for startling him. “I’ve a matter of some importance to discuss with you, and I’m afraid that I did not think it wise to wait for a formal appointment.”

His smile did not waver as he took my coat, but as he hung it on a rack in the hall, I noticed that confusion had darkened his brown eyes. Looking round, I saw that his study was not so very different from my own, though the leather and dark polished wood of the desk lent it an air of propriety distinctly lacking in my jumbled library. The place was dark and warm and woody with paneling, but as my eyes adjusted to the lack of light, I saw that the furniture had become rather threadbare—the leather armchair cracked and scarred; the desk full of gouges that had never been attended to; the dark red carpet worn in a track from the door to the fire to the desk and back again. Perhaps, I thought, the place had once contained the offices of an older and more successful solicitor.

Yet Trask’s surroundings suited him—a country lawyer, seemingly honest, hardworking, with never enough cases to allow him to become lazy. Seating myself opposite him by the fire, I stared into his face and saw a man not so very different from the person I had once hoped to be. Then I reminded myself that I had good reason not to trust him; perhaps Trask and I had followed more similar paths after all.

I dispensed with pretending to believe in the character he had initially presented. The signature on May’s papers had been straightforward enough. Why not let it do the work? I took the envelope from my pocket and held it out.

“Are you familiar with this, sir?”

His was not a gambler’s face. When he glanced down at what I held in my hand, his cheeks reddened and his eyes opened wide beneath his furrowed brow. He drew a sharp breath and, for a moment, seemed unable to find his voice. He knew precisely what the packet was about, and I was glad for it.

“However did you come by it?” he asked, as wary as I had been bold. “May I look?”

I handed the sheaf to him. He studied it, turning the envelope over in trembling hands.

“Benjamin Briggs’s seal,” he said, almost as though he were speaking to himself. “After all this time, who would think the wax would have stuck?”

“It is indeed a wonder, sir,” I said. “Now, if you don’t mind, please enlighten me.”

He eyed me from head to toe, no doubt curious as to what my interest was beyond seeking to advance my case. “Can I ask you first,” he said, “whether this means that May and her children are safe?”

“I’ll tell you soon enough,” I answered. “It’s complicated. Please, sir. Indulge me.”

He heaved a sigh. “By now, you’ve no doubt come to the realization that I knew the Kimball family—I’m sorry to have concealed my connection from you. I didn’t see another way to…well, as I knew for whom you usually work, I wasn’t sure whether or not I could trust you.”

“Ironic, wouldn’t you say?” I noted dryly. “But of little import now. Go on.”

He opened the packet and held up the document. “And, as you can see, my father knew Benjamin Briggs.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “I have been made aware of that.”

He coughed as he looked down. Trask was not comfortable with having passed himself off as someone he wasn’t, and I liked him all the better for it.

“Benjamin Briggs and my family were well acquainted. Indeed, I believe I was as close to being a son to him as anyone. My father—after whom I was named—had been his solicitor. Briggs last saw him not long before he…died.” There was a moment of silence in the room; then he spoke again. “He was in an awful state. He’d noticed Silas changing as he grew, knew there’d been something wrong, knew he’d done nothing to protect his own daughter… When he found out May was pregnant and had married out of shame, it tortured him. He ordered Silas to leave. That wasn’t long before the accident.”

“So these papers,” I said, “how do they fit in?”

“Well, as you can see, it’s Briggs’s will leaving May the farm and everything in it. He didn’t know what was going to happen to her once he died, but he wanted to be certain it would be she who’d have control of all of his property and not Silas. So he wrote what’s known as a ‘sole and separate bequest.’ It’s common enough, though most folks are pretty backward when it comes to these things. They assume that, as it did in the past, everything always goes to the man. No longer true. Less and less so, in fact.”

“So Silas had no claim whatsoever? And this here—‘free from the debts of her husband.’ That protected May in some way as well?”

“That’s right,” said Trask. “No matter how much of a reprobate Silas became—racking up debt, drinking, gambling, name your vice—there was no way anyone was going to be able to put a finger on that land to pay off what he owed.”

I thought awhile on this. Briggs might have assumed he’d locked things up tight, but I doubted he’d ever met a man like Hiram Scales. As long as May owned the land, then May stood to lose the land—if Scales got hold of Briggs’s will and had his way.

“You look troubled,” Trask said. “Pryor, please tell me about May and the children now. I ask out of concern for their welfare and for no other reason.”

I paused. I wasn’t certain as to where I should begin, so I chose to build from bad to worse. “Well, as you saw for yourself,” I said, shooting him a significant look, “May Kimball was bought at auction just yesterday. What you don’t know is that I followed her to the horse barn where the man who bought her was keeping her. And I spoke to her—that’s how I came by this.”

Trask stared at the envelope and turned it over. “And why is my name scratched here with a piece of charcoal? Seems awfully crude…”

“It was a piece of burnt straw,” I told him. “May wrote that, just before she was kidnapped.”

“Kidnapped!” he exclaimed. “You mean right then and there? In front of you?”

I looked down. I was not proud of having failed to protect her once I’d finally found her. “That’s right,” I said. “James Hurlbut’s men.”

“Why would anyone…?”

“I believe you hold the answer in your hands, sir,” I said.

“This ancient document? What can it possibly have meant to anyone save May—and possibly me?”

“Speculators,” I said with a shrug. “James Hurlbut must have had an
intuition.
He had a feeling that if there was anything he needed to know about the land—any surprises he’d want to wangle free of before it went on the block—he’d get them out of May. These papers are exactly what he hoped he’d find.”

Trask was speechless for a moment. It hardly seemed surprising that his next impulse was to suspect me. “And you, Pryor?” he asked carefully. “What is the genesis of your involvement in all this?”

I hid nothing. “I’m afraid that, as you already know, I have been called upon to serve James Hurlbut a number of times over the years, as an investigator and facilitator of sorts. I’m not proud of the association. But suffice to say, I have reasons that are nowhere near as unworthy as the acts they force me to perform. Just as you did, he hired me to investigate the fire at the Kimball farm—a labor that has led me to secure the very packet you now hold in your hands. The situation worries me, I’ll be frank. From what I know of Hurlbut—which is more than I care to admit—I think that this farm is something he wants badly enough to… Well, you said it before, when we first met. May Kimball is in danger and the sooner she can be rescued, the better.”

Trask looked as though he still needed convincing as to which side I was on. He bade me continue.

“Not long after he approached me,” I said, “you appeared on the scene. So you see, in no uncertain terms, I am here on business.”

“And yet you have chosen to return the envelope to me,” he said, looking perplexed. “What can you possibly have to gain by expressly going against Hurlbut’s wishes?”

I hesitated a moment before uttering the truest words I had yet to speak. “I despise the man, sir. And I have seen and heard described the misery of May Kimball’s life several times over. I want no part in stealing what could be her last chance at turning her fortune around. Now, if I have answered your questions to your satisfaction, let us return to discussing the contents of the packet.”

He turned, got up from his chair, and stood gazing into the fire. Something was on his mind.

Finally, he made his way to a cabinet across the room, took a key from his pocket, and clicked open the lock. “I’ve a few things to show you, Pryor. And if your object is to scuttle Hurlbut’s plan, then I believe you’ll be glad to see them. I’ll warn you now, there’s a bit of a story attached.”

“I’ve got time,” I said.

He smiled as I beckoned him back to his chair.

“Here is the first,” he said. “I’ve held it in secret for more than six years now.” He handed me a single page of sworn testimony. The signature at the bottom—firmly marked and accompanied by Trask’s familiar seal—was that of Mister William Peeles, my drinking partner from the squalid Ashland tavern.

I looked up expectantly.

“Peeles came to me directly from the birth,” Trask said. “Silas had threatened to kill the boy unless May left him, for all intents and purposes, invisible to the outside world. Peeles, being a decent and perceptive man, knew well enough to go along with the scheme while Silas was watching, but he also knew that the boy would be out of an inheritance if there was no record of his birth. He wasn’t a doctor, but he’d birthed the infant and was willing to swear to it. He never told May what he’d done. He feared Silas would find a way to beat it out of her.”

“So, May doesn’t know about this?” I asked.

“No. I never told her. Peeles asked me not to. Said if anything ever happened to May because of what he’d done, he’d never forgive himself. But now that Silas is dead, I see no reason for her…”

“Well,” I said, “clearly you’ve never met a Shaker by the name of Elder Sister Agnes. May shouldn’t be told about this until both of her children are free and clear of those people.”

“Is that where they are?” Trask asked. “May put them with the Shakers? That’s…well it’s a sad irony, that’s all.”

“Why?”

“Because when Briggs came to my father, he told him that he’d discussed the Shakers with May. Just wanted her to know they were there, and that she needn’t feel any shame if she ever had reason to go to them. Funny how things come full circle.”

“Isn’t it though,” I said. “Lucky she paid him no heed—well, in one respect, anyway.”

“Why’s that?” Trask asked.

“Because had she signed up, she’d have lost that land her father went to such lengths to secure for her. The Shakers would have made her give it to them, as part of their ‘covenant.’”

“Hmm,” Trask said, looking pensive. “Well, there’s no point worrying about that. Here. Exhibit B.”

He handed me a second document. “What’s this?” I asked, genuinely confused. “It looks like a deed. A deed signing the farm—
May’s
farm—over to…you.”

Trask shrugged. “She didn’t trust Silas—not for a minute. Once he started acting strange, once he started beating her in earnest, once he attempted…”

“To murder Ben,” I said, finishing his sentence. “Go on.”

“Well, she came to me behind his back and said she wanted to put the land where he could never get it. The children were too young for her to pass it on to them, so I suggested that she deed it to me.”

“How convenient,” I said, sarcastically. Perhaps Trask was the crook I’d suspected from the beginning—just sharper than I’d given him credit for.

“That’s not all I suggested,” he said quickly, handing me yet another document.

It was a trust agreement. It said that as soon as Polly came of age and Trask deemed her to be in a good position to take charge of the land as well as Ben’s interests, he would promise to sell it back to her—for one penny. And if she ever fell into the same misfortune as had her mother, then he was to hold on to the property and manage it in such a way as to benefit both Polly and Ben.

May had not left her children unprotected at all. Indeed, she’d shown remarkable foresight. With Barnabas Trask as the legal owner—even if only temporarily—no one could put a finger on the farm. Ruined as it was, the property would be there for the taking just as soon as the Kimball children were ready to receive it.