Fire Along the Sky (26 page)

Or maybe, Lily reasoned to herself, maybe it was just too soon for him to write. It was a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless.

She tucked her legs up under herself, took the letter her mother had written and held it against her cheek and inhaled, hoping for some vague scent of her. Right now she would give almost anything to have her mother here, but there was only the letter, and that would have to be enough.

The wax seal cracked under her thumb. Lily spread out the sheets and counted them. Eight in all, closely written: the essence of her mother, her thoughts and words in strong even lines, straight and clear.

She began to read. The story began without preamble or niceties or polite inquiries or reassurances, and that in itself set Lily to worrying. And here it was, finally: Hannah's story, the one they had waited for and despaired of ever hearing.

Her mother had written it in clear sentences, in logical order, and yet Lily could hardly make sense of any of it. She stopped and went back and read through again, and again, until her mind opened itself to the ideas and images, and then she put down the pages and wept for a while, her hands pressed to her face.

All this her sister had been carrying around with her, while Lily's worst problem was a love letter that would not come. She flushed with shame and sorrow for Hannah and the need to do something, anything that might help.

Finally she picked up the letter again.

. . . I might have started this letter—perhaps I should have started this letter—with very different, far more cheerful news of your brother and cousin. We have had a letter from Daniel and Blue-Jay, written in tandem, it seems, passing a quill filled with bullet lead back and forth. They are well, they tell us, and seem to be relishing the soldier's life. Gabriel is just across from me at the table, copying out your brother's letter to include with this one, so that you may read the news for yourself. Your little brother takes this job very seriously and I fear in his concentration he may bite through the tip of his tongue and never notice until blood spots the page, already much mishandled and smeared. In itself the letter is a true portrait of Gabriel, one you will appreciate, I think, for its own self.

Of your uncle Todd's death I find myself strangely unable to write at any length, but Mrs. Freeman assures me that she will do this and indeed you may have read that letter first, and of course Mr. Bump will have passed along our messages. It must suffice to say that he suffered greatly in the last weeks and is now at rest, for which we must be thankful.

Finally there is news in the village, news of such a shocking nature that I find myself again unable to even begin any reasonable accounting. That story I leave to your cousin Jennet, who is not so very attached to the persons involved and will, in this matter at least, be more capable than I of putting the story into words. I have specifically requested that Mr. Bump not speak to you of this matter, so that you have the whole directly from Jennet, who experienced much of it personally. Once you have finished reading you may wish to interview him, and indeed I believe he will have much to say, and his own perspective to add.

Having piqued your curiosity, I will close this already very long letter with the assurance that we here at Lake in the Clouds are in good health. As to your sister Hannah, I can say only that there is a blessing to be found in those sad events of Christmas Eve. For so many months she carried a terrible burden hidden inside her that is now open to the healing power of light and air and reason, and will mend, we trust and pray, in the fullness of time.

I have not written anything here about you or the news in your last letter, I realize now, but you mustn't believe, even for a moment, that I do not think of you. You are in my thoughts constantly. Some might believe that by now I should have become accustomed to your absence, but every morning it is a surprise to me to see your bed without you in it.

You must remember that whatever foolishness the men might discuss among themselves, I know you to be an intelligent and sensible young woman, capable of making decisions for yourself. They may not always be the decisions I would make. They most probably will not be the decisions Luke will try to make for you, in his brotherly concern and overly protective way. They may even be wrong decisions, at times, but they will be
your
decisions. And yet I am still your mother and so I will ask you (as you have been waiting for me to do, no doubt) to strive to favor the rational over the subjective as you select one course of action among those available to you.

I will admit that I hope you will not settle too far from us when the time comes (if, indeed, it does come; you may decide to travel from one teacher to another for the next ten years, and in that, too, I would support you, for how could I not support a curious daughter who longs to see the world?).

Your loving mother,
Elizabeth Middleton Bonner
January 3, 1813

It was an hour before Lily could bring herself to open Jennet's letter. She sat with it in her lap, and thought of throwing it in the fire. In it was a story so upsetting that her mother had not been able to write of it.

Lily felt in her bones that it must have something to do with Nicholas. This story, whatever it was, would explain why there was no word from him.

The very worst news, of course, would be that Nicholas had died. She imagined what Jennet might have written: of fire, of runaway horses or fever or a hunting accident. A strange thought came to her, one that sat heavy in her throat and would not be swallowed:
If he is dead, then the worst has happened. If he is dead, I am free of him
.

She was shocked at herself, so shocked that she looked around the empty room, sure someone must have heard her, for how could such wickedness be kept quiet?

Lily opened the second letter and began to read.

Later, she fell into a weary sleep with Jennet's letter pressed to her breast; she slept so long and so deeply that when she woke at sunset she was disoriented and even frightened, forgetting for that moment where she was in the world, thinking first of her mother, until she saw the canopy covered with embroidered flowers over her head. Her cheeks were tight with dried tears, but why?

The crackle of paper under her cheek brought it all back, every word and image. Lily sat up and looked at the letters, her mother's words and her cousin's. Curiosity's letter was still unopened.

There was a hollow feeling deep inside, as if someone had stolen something from her while she slept. Lily got up and walked to the hearth, stood for a moment looking into the flames and then dropped all the closely written pages in Jennet's hand into the heat. She could destroy the words on the page, at least. They caught one by one, glowed briefly, curled along the edges and became nothing more than drifting ash.

She washed her face and hands at the blue and white basin, pouring water that was close to freezing from the ewer and scrubbing her skin until it burned. Then she straightened her hair and went out into the hall and down the stairs.

The house was quiet and dim. Standing in the front hall Lily listened very hard and heard nothing but the wind in the shutters and the faraway voices of the women working in the basement kitchen. There was no sign of Bump, and for a moment she wondered if she had imagined the whole thing. Then she saw the smear of ash on her hand and she had one thought only: to get away.

Lily dressed carefully, slowly, and then she opened the door and went out into the near dark. She took one of the lanterns that hung in the entryway out of the wind and began her walk across the city.

It was a cold night but not especially windy, and the snow seemed to hover in the air, not quite ready to fall. She passed the bakery where she visited most mornings, a milliner who had a fur-lined cap she had long admired, the butcher, other shops, all closed up for the day with shutters firmly latched. Her boots were hobnailed and she moved quickly and surely, throwing little divots of hard-packed snow up with every step. A soldier passed her and touched the brim of his hat; Lily averted her eyes and dropped her chin, walked a little faster until she was sure that he had gone on.

It was full dark by the time she came to the rue St. Paul, but she found the door without trouble. Between a bookshop and a tailor, she had heard him say, and here it was. The two small windows were shuttered like all the others but light leaked out from around the edges, like the halos that the saints all wore in the stained-glass windows of the churches.

Lily had visited Ghislaine's family in a house just like this one, and she knew what she should find here: a ground floor that served as a stall, home to one or two cows and goats and perhaps a pig, while the family slept and lived overhead. Lily was frontier raised and it took a lot to affront her sensibilities, and still it surprised her to find Simon Ballentyne living here. The man she knew took great pains with his clothes and his speech and had ambitions, or so she had thought.

She contemplated the knocker for a long moment and then used it: once, twice, three times, firmly. There were voices, one female, and for the first time Lily felt a rush of doubt. She would have turned right then and run away but the door opened. The woman who stood there was old, but straight of back and unflinching, her red hands folded below a substantial bosom.

“Mademoiselle?” she asked, her expression a little surprised but not unkind.

Lily opened her mouth to ask, and found she had lost all her French, every word of it gone.

She said, “I'm looking for Mr. Ballentyne. Simon Ballentyne.”

Then he was there. It seemed he was twice the size of the servant woman, and his face was in shadow.

“Simon,” said Lily, trying to smile and not quite succeeding. But it was enough. For him, it seemed, her almost-smile was enough.

Simon Ballentyne kept no animals, after all. The cobbled floor was scrubbed to gleaming, covered here and there with thick rugs. A hearth and scullery took up the far end of the long room. Near the door there was an oven tiled in the Dutch fashion, a table, a settle, and some other furniture she could not make out in the shadows. A screen as tall as she was kept the draft from the door out of the rest of the room, and Lily saw, with some surprise, that it was finely carved and painted with an elaborate hunting scene. On the opposite wall three paintings hung in simple frames, all landscapes. One of them, Lily saw immediately and with some surprise, was her own work: a small oil she had done after one of the sleighing parties. She had made a gift of it to Monsieur Picot when he admired it.

Behind her Simon Ballentyne said, “I bought it from your teacher.”

“Ah,” she said, a little affronted at Monsieur for selling her gift and, at the same time, pleased that Simon Ballentyne should have bought it and said nothing to her. It was a true compliment, and she meant to repay it in kind but found she could not. She said, “I should have thought to give you one of my paintings. I didn't realize you were interested.”

And turned her face away, because it was a lie and they both knew it. Simon showed as much interest in her studies and work as Luke did. More, sometimes, and she had never had the feeling that his questions were simple courtesy.

The old woman served them soup and bread and they ate in silence at the table. The little house was spartan, but comfortable; well ordered and clean. Every once in a while Lily thought of the letters—one unopened, one tucked into her bodice, the last burned—and that image shook her out of her daze.

Simon Ballentyne didn't notice, or perhaps he chose not to. He spoke to her as if this visit were nothing out of the ordinary, an unmarried young woman of good family calling on a single man, alone. She answered him in the same way. They spoke of the weather, of her brother's trip and when he might be back, of the business he hoped to accomplish in Québec. Simon told her what he had read in the day's papers of the war, and to this she listened a little closer for names of places that were close to home, and hearing none, relaxed again.

When they had finished eating the old woman cleared the table and then put on her mantle and her clogs and went to the door. Simon followed her and said a few words, put something in her hand and waited for her nod.

He said, “Genevieve will send her grandson to Iona to say where you are, that she's not to worry and that I'll bring you home this evening.”

There didn't seem to be any words left inside her, and so Lily said nothing. She straightened the saltcellar on the table and brushed away some crumbs and studied the wood grain.

Finally when she understood that he would not make it any easier for her she said, “You have a very comfortable home.”

“And so do you,” he said with a hint of a smile. “But here you sit. I'm mindful of the honor, lass, but—” He spread out his hands.

Lily said, “Does one friend need a reason to visit another?” It sounded silly and false to her own ears, but Simon was kind—she must credit him with that—and he spared her the sharp words she had earned.

Instead he blinked at her and a knot of muscle flexed in his jaw; even under his beard she could see it. He said, “You asked me to stay away, Lily. I take it you've changed your mind?”

She stood abruptly and moved to the other side of the room. A desk and bookcase stood in a shadowy corner and she put her back to the wall between them, crossed her arms.

“I shouldn't have come,” she said.

“Perhaps not,” agreed Simon Ballentyne from his chair.

He seemed content to leave the work of it all to her. Irritated now and close to tears Lily said, “You might at least try to make me feel welcome.”

At that he gave a short, surprised laugh and got up. When he was so close that she must raise her head to look him in the eye, he put a hand on the wall next to her head and leaned in. She felt his breath on her forehead, warm and soft.

“What is it you want from me, Lily? What's happened that brought you to my door? Word from your lover? Has your brother been wounded?”