Wilson's Hard Lesson (89 page)

There was nothing worth saving. I’d not expected to save any
of the paper, and of course, the inks and solvents Father used in the print
shop were all extremely flammable. They’d burned with such an intense heat that
the old press was warped beyond recognition, and the new press – the one
designed for high speed production – was totally destroyed.

“We can’t fix it.” I wasn’t asking, but Father took it as a
question.

“I’m afraid not, my girl. It’s done for.”

“What will we do about Mitchell’s handbills?” The
advertising flyers, I knew, had been paid for in advance; they were no more
than a pile of cinders now, and we had no hope of replacing them.

Father laughed. There was no humor in the sound. “Those
handbills are the least of my worries,” he said.

“We’ll rebuild, Papa,” I said. I couldn’t bear to see him so
sad. “I know it all looks hopeless right now, but before you know it, we’ll
have the shop looking as good as new.”

Father shook his head. “I wish that could be so,” he said,
“but that’s not how it’s going to be. My days as a business man are over. This
has ruined me.”

“Surely not!” During the war, I’d seen many other businesses
leveled; there were those who said not a single square mile in the Shenandoah
Valley had gone untouched.  But one after another, the shops and factories had
slowly come back. Things weren’t equal to what they’d been, or so I’d been
told, but due to our neighbor’s determination and hard work, the region was
beginning to be prosperous once again.

“Oh, my darling girl.” Father reached out and took me in his
arms. His embrace was strong and passionate, quite unlike his normally reserved
manner. “I am going to miss your spirit and optimistic nature.”

I stepped back and looked at Father. “What do you mean,
you’re going to miss me?”

He looked at the ground and did not answer me.

“Are you going somewhere, Father?”  I’d heard about people
had been finding gold out West, in the wild California country.  Fortunes were
being made, but I couldn’t imagine my Father making a cross-country journey at
his age.  Even if he arrived safely, would he be strong enough for prospecting?
The thought of claim jumpers filled me with dread. “I am going to go with you!”

Father shook his head. “It’s not me that’s leaving,
darling.” He looked at the smoldering wreckage of the shop, and then at me. I
was astonished to see his brown eyes welling up with tears; even at his most
upset, my Father never cried. “It’s you.”

“And where am I going?” I demanded.

Father turned his back on me and started to walk into the
house. “I think you’d better come inside,” he said. “The time has come and I
can’t put this off any longer. You and I, we’ve got to talk.”

“I want you to know I’ve never purposely kept things from
you, Abigail.” My father was pacing back in forth in the kitchen; I sat propped
in my favorite chair beside the cook stove.  “But I didn’t want to worry you
with a possibility that seemed remote at best.”

I nodded. “I understand that, Father.”

“You have to understand I had no choice.” He took a deep and
shuddering sigh. “If the shop was to be viable, I needed the rotary press. We
had to have it. Otherwise, we couldn’t handle the larger volume orders – things
like Mitchell’s flyers.”

Again, I nodded. Nothing Father was saying was news to me;
while I hadn’t worked in the shop alongside him, I knew enough about the
operation of the business to follow his thinking. “You did what you thought was
best.”

“No,” he said, with an anguished cry. “I did what I had to
do.” His pacing increased in speed; I was worried he would lose his footing due
to his agitation. “Neither a borrower nor a lender be, that’s the sensible
way.”

“So you borrowed money to purchase the press?” I smoothed my
hands over my skirt. “It seems a sensible enough thing to do. Surely whoever
leant the money to you will understand about the fire.”

Father looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “When you
take on a debt of this size, the lender often requires you to put up some sort
of collateral – a guarantee that you’ll surrender in case you cannot pay the
debt.”

My stomach sank. Suddenly I understood what Father was
saying. He’d put up our home as collateral for the business loan. The lender,
whoever that might be, was going to be taking possession of it in lieu of
repayment. We were going to be vagabonds; pitiful creatures without a roof over
our heads. The idea made me frantic.

“Who did you borrow the money from? We must go to him and
plead for a little time.”

Father shook his head sadly. “I’ve had that conversation
already, my darling. The man’s heart is made of stone. He will not delay
collecting his due by even a single hour.”

I took a deep breath. “Then we’ll go West.” California,
which had seemed an impossible destination moments before, was suddenly
appealing. “Even if we can’t find gold ourselves, we’ll find work. Start fresh.
Build a life for ourselves. You’ll see, Papa!”

Father cocked his head, clearly puzzled.

“It doesn’t matter if this man takes the house from us,” I
explained. “I know it looks impossible right now, but we can start anew.” I
thought of what the fire marshal had said about bearing disappointments with
grace. “It will be an adventure.”

Father looked sadder than I’d ever seen him. “It wasn’t the
house I put up as collateral, darling.” He reached out and took my hand. “It
was you.

The blood in my veins had turned to ice; I was near to
frozen through with shock. “Father,” I demanded sternly. “Who did you borrow
this money from? What, exactly, have you promised?”

My father broke down, weeping. Great racking sobs overtook
his frame. He buried his face in his hands. “I can’t,” he said. “It is too
terrible to tell you.”

“No,” I said. There was steel in my voice I knew not the
source of. It was unfamiliar to Father as well, who looked up, startled, at the
sound. “It was terrible not to tell me, but that is what you have done. Now you
must let me know what is going to happen.”

“All right.” Father began pacing again, wrapping his arms
around himself one moment, flinging them wide open the next. “I am going to
tell you.”

I waited, but he was not any more forthcoming.  The silence
grew between us, long and uncomfortable. The whole house was quiet. I could
hear the clock in the front room ticking, each second passing with a loud
report.

Finally, it grew too much for me. “Papa,” I pleaded. “You
have to tell me.”

“Robert Benson,” he said in a great exhalation. “I promised
your hand in marriage to Robert Benson as collateral for the loan.”

I stood up, shocked, and then sank back down into my chair,
with my hands pressed over my mouth.

“He’s a wealthy man,” Father said. “You’ll never want for
anything as his wife.”

It was true. Robert Benson was one of the richest men in the
valley; his big brick house was the envy of the town. But while the property
was desirable, the man himself was anything but. He was a big man, loud-mouthed
and coarse, with a terrible temper and a worse reputation.

“Papa!” I whispered. “He killed his wife. And you’re sending
me to marry him?”

“That’s a rumor. There’s no proof of it that anyone can
find,” Father said, wringing his hands together. I knew he didn’t believe what
he was telling me. “I asked the sheriff for the truth of it before I agreed to
Benson’s terms.”

“And the sheriff said Benson didn’t kill his wife?”

Father’s gaze dropped toward his boots once again. “He said
there was no proof to be found. Kitty Benson might have run off on her own
accord.”

“Or Mr. Benson might have strangled her in a fit of rage and
thrown her body in a cave!” I snapped. I’d heard that story more times than I
could count; the aging banker had not taken too kindly to his bride’s
affectionate banter with a tradesman.  Kitty had disappeared not long after a
well-witnessed argument between the pair; the tradesman hadn’t been seen
recently either.

“There’s no proof, Abigail.”

“And that lack of proof was enough to convince you he was a
suitable husband for me?”

Father shrugged. “I never in a million years thought it
would come to this.” He shook his head. “It shouldn’t have come to this.”

“And yet it has.” I stood up, hands on my hips. “How long do
I have before this travesty takes place?”

Father exhaled slowly. “Benson’s up in Boston, meeting with
some business partners. He’s not expected back for another week.”

“But then I’ll have to marry him.”

Fresh tears filled my Father’s eyes. “Yes, my darling. I’m
afraid so.”

I couldn’t bear Father’s presence.  He kept crying, and the
constant river of tears, coupled with the theatrical nature of his sighs, was
more than any young lady in my situation should have to endure. It wasn’t him
condemned to a life tethered to a total stranger. He wasn’t the one whose life
had been promised away without consultation and consent. Yet it was clear he
counted himself the victim; life itself had conspired against him.

“What sin have I wrought that heaven punishes me so?” he
cried. “That my daughter should so cruelly be taken from me?”

“I wasn’t taken from you, Papa,” I said sternly. Perhaps it
was wrong of me to snap; a dutiful daughter would have been mindful of his
heartbreak. “You gave me away.”

He turned toward me, blue eyes wide and watery. “Such was
never my intention. You are my heart’s own treasure, Abigail. I swear it.”

“People don’t put their heart’s own treasure up as
collateral,” I replied, waving my arm in a gesture that took in all of our
modest kitchen and the sitting room beyond. “You could have used the property
to secure the loan. People do that all the time!”

“Damn it girl!” Father exploded. “I tried that. Robert
Benson would have none of it. He has more property than God himself, he told
me, and no interest in acquiring any more. The only surety he would accept was
the promise of your hand in marriage.”

“And he of course is the only man in all of Christendom who
could be found to stand you the money,” I snapped. Even within myself, I was
shocked at the tone of our conversation. Always I had been a dutiful and
respectful daughter, who never questioned my Father’s decisions. But this
announcement – the news that I’d been bartered away for a printing press –
broke something inside of me that I’d never known was there to break.  Rage
guided my words as much as logic did. Fury burned inside of me with an
intensity every bit the equal of the flames that’d consumed the print shop and
stolen my future from me.

“I’m sorry,” Father whispered. He buried his face in his
hands. “I am so, so sorry.”

I should have comforted him. I should have gone to my Papa
and wrapped my arms around him and assured him that everything was going to be
fine. For my entire life, Father had done his best to provide for my every
need, standing as both Mother and Father to me. His guidance and counsel had
made me who I am; the very least I could do in repayment is offer him up a
comforting stew of lies that I would surely find happiness as Robert Benson’s
bride and that everything would work out fine in the end.

I knew this. I knew this with a certainty that came from
deep within my soul. Yet I found that doing such a thing was impossible. There
did not lie within me the capacity for a deceit so tremendous; I could not
pretend to any happy certainty when my future was anything but.

So instead I stood, watching my Father cry. His face was
buried in his hands. Tears were working their way through the spaces between
his fingers, falling one by one to spot his pants. His shoulders were shaking.
He looked so very old and so very small.

It was not an easy sight, and I could not watch for long.
Papa did not look up as I walked out of the kitchen; I do not know if he saw me
open the front door. Stepping out into the sunshine was an awful revelation;
the world could choose to dress itself in beauty even as my life was falling
apart.

I put one foot in front of the other and started walking. I
wasn’t sure where I was going, but I knew I couldn’t stay where I was.

I met the fire marshal on the road. “Tell me you’re not
coming to say the flames have birthed themselves again anew?” he asked, concern
shining in his brown eyes.

“Who cares if they have?” I exclaimed. “Let it all burn, as
far as I’m concerned.”

The fire marshal looked past me, scanning the horizon for
any sign of smoke.  Seeing none, he returned his attention to me. “So your
Father has told you of your marriage, then.”

“How is it you know of this when I did not?” I demanded,
grasping the fire marshal’s strong arm. “Why are you privy to this sorrow of
mine?”

“Count it not a sorrow, Miss,” the fire marshal replied.
“Robert Benson’s a wealthy man. You’ll live an easy life, in a fine home.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“It’s true!” the fire marshal protested. “I’ve seen it with
my own eyes.”

“And how is it that such a humble man keeps company with one
of the valley’s richest fellows?” I asked, with my hands on my hips. “That you
can make such assurances to me?”

“I was there often enough,” the fire marshal snapped back,
“when my sister was his bride.” It was clear from his tone that I’d wounded his
pride, either with the doubting of him or by pointing out his ordinary station
in life.

“Kitty was your sister?” I exclaimed. “And you tell me to go
to her murderer’s home with joy in my heart?” I shook my head so violently that
some of the pins holding it up fell free; my heavy auburn hair spilled over my
shoulders in wild disarray. “What have I ever done to you that you hate me so?”

“There is nothing in my heart for you save simple Christian
charity,” the fire marshal protested. “And Kitty is my sister, the same as she
has ever been.” He looked around to be sure we were alone on the early morning
street. “And I tell you this: Robert Benson never killed Kitty. She run off on
her own.”

“And why would she do that?”

“Her story was what yours is about to be,” the fire marshal
replied. “Our family owed Mr. Benson quite a bit of money. When the debt
couldn’t be paid, she was sent to be his wife.” He shrugged. “She went to a
life one hundred times easier than the one she left behind, but that wasn’t
enough for Kitty. “

“Maybe she didn’t appreciate being sold into wedlock to
settle someone else’s debts,” I said, aghast at learning I wasn’t the first
bride Robert Benson had contracted for. “What’s wrong with this man that he
can’t get a wife by ordinary means?”

“You’ve seen him,” the fire marshal replied with a shrug.
“Mr. Benson’s smart and shrewd, but he doesn’t possess a single grace of the
sort ladies value.”

“So he buys them instead, without ever once bothering to
even introduce himself.” I shook my head. “I don’t have to consent to this
marriage.”

“He’ll ruin your father,” the fire marshal warned. “He did
his level best to destroy my family’s meager fortunes when Kitty run off.” Some
of the steel went out of the man and his shoulders sagged. “It was only after
my brother and I both agreed to labor for him two days each week that he agreed
that the debt would be settled and the court case pending against us dropped.”

“How long did you have to do that for?” I asked, wondering
at the size of the debt the family had amassed. A printing press ran dear
enough, but they must have been much more obliged than Father was.

“The way I figure, I’ll be at it for the rest of my life.”
The fire marshal shook his head. “That’s why you might as well resign yourself
to making the best of things.  Richard Benson’s not a man who lets things go.
He’ll make sure he gets his due, one way or another.”