The Vanishing Point (24 page)

"He said she died of the childbed fever. Her baby daughter lived only a week and is buried beside her."

Richard Banham nodded grimly. "Well, let me tell you of the rumors flying around about Mr. Washbrook. The rumors were started by Patrick Flynn, a former indentured servant at this plantation. He was arrested in Port Tobacco on charges of thievery, being in possession of a gold signet ring and a set of silver knives and spoons that rightfully belonged to Mr. Washbrook. Now, some masters are indulgent with their servants, it is true, but the circumstances were suspicious, especially as Mr. Flynn had no papers saying he was a free man who had fulfilled his indenture.

"He was arrested and charged with thievery and desertion. The Port Tobacco authorities had every intention of returning both him and the stolen goods to Mr. Washbrook. Flynn was put in the stocks and whipped. But when the magistrate questioned him, something very shocking emerged."

He paused. "Flynn freely admitted to stealing the ring and silver and to running away from his lawful master. But he swore on the Bible that he had fled for his life."

Young Banham hitched up his breeches and squatted on his heels so that his face was level with Hannah's. "He said that his master, Gabriel Washbrook, flew into a rage, accusing his wife, May, of committing adultery with at least two of the servants, and that Mr. Washbrook murdered her in a most cruel way while she was still weak from childbirth."

Hannah shook her head. "No. No, sir. That is a falsehood." Her voice broke.

The young man handed her his linen handkerchief. "I know this is disturbing, but I beg you to hear me out." He paced in front of her. "The magistrates wrote down Patrick Flynn's testimony. He claimed that Gabriel Washbrook stabbed his wife in the chest before dragging her into the forest and laying her facedown with her leg inside a bear trap to make it look like a natural death—that she had met a fatal accident while running away from her husband, if you will. But the story went that it happened less than a fortnight after her giving birth. What woman just out of childbed would flee her husband? Unless she had good reason."

Still shaking her head, Hannah pressed her fingers to her temples to quiet the roar in her brain.
Don't go crossing the creek, Hannah.
He had always warned her to stay away from the bear traps. May accused of committing adultery with the servants. Yes, she could have done just that, as she had done all her life, her beautiful faithless sister. Gabriel had admitted she was untrue. Had he, then, stabbed her in a rage? Hannah touched the sheathed knife in her belt.

"You are overwhelmed, I am sure," Mr. Banham said.

Banham, is he here?
She remembered Gabriel saying that on the day she had arrived, his hand gripping the knife handle. And his nightmares during her first week in his house—were they proof of a guilty conscience?

"Never fear, Mistress Powers. I offer you refuge. My horse is strong enough to carry two. I will bring you to my parents' house."

What would Gabriel do if he returned to find her gone? She remembered his gentle hands tracing her body. His hands stitching mittens for her. Those weren't the hands of a murdering man. How could anyone malign him like this?

"What charges stand against Mr. Washbrook?" she asked. "You said the allegations of murder stem from the testimony of a thief." She took a breath, building up her courage. "Vile slander
spread by a runaway servant caught with stolen goods. Could he not have told these lies out of malice?"

Richard Banham bowed his head. "The fact that the suspicions stem from the words of a thief is the weakest part of the argument. Indeed, after Mr. Flynn's testimony was recorded, he broke gaol and has not been seen since. Without a witness to stand trial, evidence against Mr. Washbrook is slim at best. However, as his neighbor, I am duly concerned, for if there is any chance that he is a murderer, he must be brought to justice, for he endangers us all." He looked straight into Hannah's eyes. "Especially you, Mistress Powers."

"Do you intend to arrest him yourself? You have no authority."

"Granted, that is true. However, I have come with two witnesses, and I am a lawyer, having recently completed my education at Oxford."

Hannah wished she had the strength of mind to tell him that her father had gone to Oxford, that once she had been an accomplished, uncommonly educated girl and not just Gabriel Washbrook's pregnant mistress.

"Forgive me for asking," he said, "but I do believe your sister is buried on this property."

"She is."

"Can you show us where?"

Grateful for an excuse to get off the tree stump, she led him to the three graves by the river.

"My sister's is the middle one." The autumn crocuses she had planted the previous year bloomed delicate purple.

Mr. Banham's two companions unstrapped the shovels from their backs.

"We would ask your permission to exhume the remains of May Washbrook," Richard Banham said, for once not meeting her eyes. "If there is any truth in the story, it will be revealed by the corpse. If the leg is shattered or fractured, then Patrick Flynn's story about the bear trap will be proven true."

She thought the blood would drain from her body. "Surely you cannot do this."

"Mistress Powers, in the name of truth and justice, we must." Something about his highhanded tone told her that he had been condescending to her all along, making a great show of spreading his cloak on the tree stump. But if she scraped away the veneer of good manners, surely he held nothing for her but pity and contempt. A man of his station would look at her uncovered hair, shabby dress, and pregnant belly and see her as Gabriel Washbrook's whore. And if he was such an upright man of the law, what charges might he press on her if she allowed him to take her to his plantation, where she would be wholly under his power? Having a child out of wedlock was a punishable offense—she was guilty of both fornication and bastardy. Once the baby was out of her body, he could have her put in the stocks and whipped until her dress was in ribbons, her shameful flesh exposed.

Hannah pushed herself between the men and her sister's grave. "I forbid it." Abandoning all dignity, she threw herself on the grassy mound. "I do not give you leave to defile my sister's resting place."

Richard Banham let out his breath. "Not even in the name of your own safety? What if it is true that you live alone on this outpost with a ... a base murderer?"

"If you are so concerned, why did you not come here earlier? Why did your father not tell me this last year?"

"The rumors have only reached us of late."

"
Rumors,
" she said pointedly. She had never spoken out like this to a man so far above her. It was Gabriel's doing, Gabriel telling her he would have no master but God. The man's fancy clothes were mere outer trappings. If she stripped them off, he would be no different from any other man.

She looked straight into Richard Banham's eyes. "If you are as honorable as you say you are, you will come back when Mr. Washbrook is here and tell him these things to his face."

For a moment it looked as though speech had deserted him.
"If you bid me to leave, Mistress Powers, I must obey, but I do so with great reluctance. Think well on my words. Do you not put yourself in peril?"

Her words came out in a fervent rush. "Gabriel Washbrook is the kindest, gentlest man I have ever known. He could harm no one."

"So kind and gentle that he leaves you alone in the wilderness?" Banham shook his head.

Hannah clutched the soft tufts of grass that covered May's grave. "I have given you my last word."

"I see I cannot change your mind." He looked away from her, toward the rushing water. "But should you need to flee this place, follow the river through the forest. On foot it might take you a day's steady walking. We are hospitable people and welcome visitors. We turn no one away." At that, he gestured to his men and led them back to their horses. She remained on the grave until the forest swallowed them.

***

The night after Richard Banham's visit, the skies clouded over and burst. Rain lashed the window. A chill penetrated the chinks in the walls. Furs drawn over her, Hannah huddled in bed and prayed that Gabriel had found shelter.
Let him come safely home to me.
But the more she prayed, the more confused she became. Curling her body tight as a fern frond, arms and knees drawn around her belly, she wondered if she had made a brave stand that day, or if she had just been a fool. Would Richard Banham ride fifteen miles through the forest merely to slander Gabriel? Joan used to say that the devil could take many forms and handsome guises. But would Bessie fawn at the devil's feet? Dogs were wiser than humans in sensing good or evil in a person.

Granted, Richard Banham was no devil, but surely his words against Gabriel were touched and tainted by his father's designs on Gabriel's land. Still, Banham's words kept churning in her head. And his desire to open May's grave and see whether her corpse bore evidence of murder. What if she had permitted him?

Hannah buried her face in the furs. Why had Gabriel made her swear a pact not to speak her sister's name?
Did your own husband kill you, May? Am I carrying your murderer's child?

***

When she went to fetch water the next morning, the creek seemed to whisper in her sister's voice, urging her to be bold, hike up her skirts, charge through the water and into the forest beyond where Gabriel had forbidden her to go. The notion came to her that the truth would be revealed only if she could summon the courage to cross to the other side.

The creek was swollen with rain, which made her way difficult, but she waded through, then clambered up the steep muddy bank. Once she entered the forest, she was dumbstruck. Pine, birch, oak, and ash rose over one hundred feet in the sky, their trunks so massive that they would break Gabriel's ax. She recalled the story he had told her of how the Indians took months to fell a single tree, first starting a slow fire, which burned in a ring around the base of the trunk.

The woods around the house and garden were thinned out, with saplings and underbrush growing among the dead stumps, but here the trees were tall and straight, with no low-hanging branches. A man might ride through the forest on a tall horse without having to duck his head.

Heart beating fast, she moved over the mossy ground. Gabriel's traps could be anywhere. She remembered when he had let her hold the bear trap. How could she forget those iron teeth? If she stepped in one, it would snap her leg in half, and then she would die a slow death of bleeding.

Bounding footsteps rocked the ground. She cried out, only to see Bessie charging toward her. The dog barked and jumped on her, muddying her skirt. Hannah bent down to pet her. Then she gathered herself together and resolutely set off, not knowing what she hoped to find. Despite her fears, the forest filled her with peace. Walking in the shadows of those massive trees purified her, wiping away the stain Richard Banham had left. She arched her
neck to view the fluttering canopy of gold and red leaves far above her head. Feeling like a child again, she danced in a circle, Bessie nipping at her heels. Gabriel had carved his name on several of the smooth beech trunks, as if to mark these woods as his domain, the vast chamber reserved for him and his wild things.

Why had he excluded her from this beautiful place? Well, she wouldn't allow him to forbid her anymore. Echoing birdcalls drew her in deeper. Bessie sprinted off ahead, then looked back and wagged her tail, inviting her to follow. Hannah sprinted after her, filling her lungs with the pure air.

Bessie led her a few hundred yards, then stopped and barked, her whole body quivering. Hannah stroked the dog's head. "What is it?"

Then she caught the reek of feces, old blood, and rotting flesh. Flies swarmed through the air, a few landing on her face. She slapped them away. She and Bessie stood on the lip of a shallow ravine. On the bottom lay the trap, which held a severed animal paw in its steel jaws. The animal had gnawed through its leg to free itself. A trail of congealed blood led to a dead lynx. She wondered how long it had lain there. Flies gorged themselves on the decay. A few crows picked at the bloody stump.

Hannah attempted to walk away when her knees buckled, pitching her face-first on the ground. She pulled herself up and vomited, thinking of the furs Gabriel had taken to trade, the furs that warmed her on cold nights. If Gabriel were here, he would not be retching. He would be in his element—this was what he
did.
He would calmly walk down the ravine, take out his skinning knife, and go to work. He would take the pelt and leave the rotting flesh behind for the crows and wolverines. After cleaning the blood off the fur and tanning the hide, he would present it to her. "Spotted lynx," he would say, inviting her to stroke it, and she would tell him how beautiful it was. She would close her eyes and rub her cheek against it.

Bessie shoved her muzzle in Hannah's face, whining softly. Hannah wiped her mouth on her fist, then hugged the dog.

"Come on, girl," she said. Bessie led her back.

N
OVEMBER WAS THE MONTH
of slaughter. Adele lit a bonfire outdoors, over which a cauldron of water seethed. Warming her hands in the rising steam, May watched Peter and Jack hold a struggling pig while James cut its throat. Blood laced James's shirt, spattered his face and bright hair. The squealing was frightful, yet she would not allow herself to look away. She could no longer live in ignorance of such things. At home Joan had kept a swine in the garden, fattening it over the summer, then butchering it in autumn. Joan had done it herself, letting May spin and stitch like a lady, sparing her the bloody work. But now Adele was going to teach her how to cut a pig apart. If Nathan ever granted Adele her freedom, the task would fall on May as mistress of the house.

Releasing the animal into the dark red pool pouring from its gash, James stood up, red blade in hand. Blood ran down his face. May took the clout from her waistband.