The Vanishing Point (8 page)

About forty years old, the man was easily the most sophisticated person she had seen on this shore. He wore a doublet of wine-colored leather over his voluminous linen shirt, which was laundered to such whiteness that it hurt her eyes. His wig, if modest, appeared brand new and of the latest fashion. His breeches were linen and his boots were of claret leather to match his doublet. Unlike the strutting planters she had seen on the ship and in Anne Arundel Town, there was a look of true nobility about him. He didn't need jeweled rings and silk waistcoats, Hannah thought, to prove he was a person of distinction.

"A surgeon, you say?" Her hands itched for the box of surgical instruments hidden at the bottom of her locked trunk.

"Seeing as you have so kindly expressed your concern, I trust Mrs. Mearley will not object if I share this revelation with you." He inclined his head. "The good lady's husband has a stone in his kidney."

Hannah opened her mouth in an O. She saw Mr. Byrd splayed on the table, the scalpel in her hand as she cut to the stone. How cleanly she had made the incision. How proud Father had been. She raised her eyes to the gentleman, about to tell him she could indeed operate on Mr. Mearley, when she caught herself. What possibility was there that Mrs. Mearley would let a strange young woman with a scalpel anywhere near her husband?

The gentleman addressed Mrs. Mearley. "If I were you, madam, I would try once more to persuade your husband to sail back to England at the first opportunity and there make use of a surgeon. In the meanwhile," he nodded to Hannah, "I understand there are two herb women aboard the ship. If you could fetch them, Mistress Powers, perhaps they might at least provide enough physick to dull Mr. Mearley's pain."

"Lucy Mackett and Cassie, you mean." Hannah ducked her head. "I will see if I can find them, sir."

***

Hannah joined Cassie and Lucy in the cooking house, where they measured out herbs for Mr. Mearley's remedy.

"Lucky for him, I had the witchgrass in my pouch," Lucy said.

Their tincture required young birch leaves, speedwell, and chicory. The last two they procured from Mrs. Mearley's store of dried kitchen herbs, but no new birch leaves would be found until spring.

"We must make do," said Lucy. "An incomplete remedy is better than none."

Cassie squatted at the hearth and poked the fire with a stick while waiting for the kettle to boil.

"If his stone is small, such a tincture might help him pass it," Hannah said. "But if the stone is large, only a surgeon can save him. Why can they not find a surgeon for him on this shore? The voyage to England might well kill him."

"My girl," said Lucy, "there
are
no surgeons on this shore."

"How can that be?"

"Who would trade a life of comfort in the mother country for this?" Lucy waved her hand around the cluttered cooking shack. "The patients are so far-flung, he would spend all his time traveling."

Cassie lifted her head from the hearth. "I hear in Anne Arundel Town there is a trained blacksmith. They could summon him to cut for the stone."

"A common blacksmith?" Hannah felt sick.

"Aye," Lucy said shortly. "Then he would die from the bleeding afterward."

"My father was a physician and surgeon." Hannah spoke rapidly so they wouldn't interrupt her. "Many times I assisted him. I saw him make the cuts. I have the instruments in my trunk. If the Mearleys would allow it, I could remove the stone."

Lucy laid her hand on Hannah's shoulder. She was struggling not to laugh. "You would offer to cut into a strange man's privy parts?"

Cassie guffawed.

Hannah's face burned. "But I—"

"No." Lucy spoke firmly. "A girl like you should not meddle in these things. Besides, the man is fifty. His sons are nearly grown. He has lived longer than most. God has not been unkind to him."

***

When the tincture was bottled and ready, Lucy and Cassie presented it to Mrs. Mearley.

"We are obliged," Mrs. Mearley said. She gave them a small cask of home-brewed ale as payment.

Back on deck, Hannah waved again at the children on the landing. She thought of Mrs. Mearley with her new oak table and chairs, of Mr. Mearley with his pinched gray face and his look of perpetual torment. What if she had been brave enough to present the scalpel and her book of anatomy? What if she had been courageous enough to tell them how she had successfully removed a kidney stone from Mr. Byrd back home?
They would never believe you.
She recalled the look Mrs. Mearley had given her.
They would call you a lying, deluded girl.

"Still feeling pity for Mr. Mearley?" Cassie approached with a traveler's tin cup of Mrs. Mearley's ale. "The brew is weak," she complained.

Hannah looked out over the ship rail. The Mearley house had already vanished from view.

Cassie grinned. "Did you not say your sister lives upriver from the Banham Plantation?"

"I did."

"Well, there he is," she said coyly. "There is your Mr. Banham." She pointed to the man in the leather doublet who had told Hannah about Mr. Mearley's kidney stone. He sauntered past, a shining sun surrounded by a coterie of lesser planters who were like moons reflecting his brilliance. They competed for his attention and hung on his every word.

"Are you certain?"

Cassie nodded. "I heard the captain introduce him to some other men."

"So he is my sister's nearest neighbor." Hannah remembered what the man with the rotten teeth in Anne Arundel Town had said.
Is your sister one of Banham's whores?
Mr. Banham was certainly pleasing to look at. May would think so, too. Unwelcome thoughts crowded her head. No, surely May would have renounced her loose ways by now. She was a married woman, a mother. Surely she would not ply her charms on Mr. Banham.

Hannah clutched the ship rail. The man in Anne Arundel Town had said
one
of Banham's whores. Did he have a reputation as a libertine, then? He had not struck her that way. His gaze had been frank and open, befitting an upright man.
Enough.
She couldn't afford to tear herself apart over every scrap of gossip. Soon she would see May and be able to speak to her about everything. May would laugh at her worries.

"Why is he traveling at this time?" she asked Cassie. "Why is he not at his own plantation to oversee the loading of the harvest barrels?"

"A true gentleman never works," Cassie said slyly. "For that he has servants and slaves. I heard he has just returned from Virginia. He bought land there." She raised her eyebrows. "Two thousand acres."

Hannah could not fathom one man owning so much land.

"So you see," said Cassie, "he is far too busy to oversee his own harvest." At that she drained her cup of ale.

***

Hannah waited for a chance to ask Mr. Banham about her sister, but it was hard to approach him. He ate with the captain and slept in prime quarters with the ship's officers. She did not succeed in catching his eye. Before she could question Cassie further, the ship anchored at the Turlington Plantation, where Cassie and Lucy said their goodbyes to her.

"If you are ever in need of a midwife, send for us." Lucy winked, then shouldered her small trunk and trundled down the gangplank.

***

The journey up the Bay continued. The ship emptied of passengers and goods from England, but filled with hogsheads, which weighed down the hold. Their passage was so sluggish, Hannah wondered whether she would ever reach her destination. When at last they arrived at the Gardiner Plantation at the mouth of the Sequose River, word came that storms had knocked down trees, blocking the waterway. Even the sandbars had shifted. The ship would not be able to navigate the river.

Hannah stood on the pier in the midst of the men struggling to load tobacco and unload cargo before darkness fell. Judging from the way Mr. Banham leaned against a crate and smoked his pipe, the ship's blocked passage appeared to cause him no anxiety. His men had loaded the harvest barrels onto smaller boats and sailed them down to Gardiner's Landing. She could only hope that the Washbrooks had done the same.

"Any news of the Washbrooks?" Hannah shouted at two men rolling a barrel.

One of them laughed. The other shook his head in annoyance. "The Washbrooks? How should we know their business?"

When she approached Banham, one of his servants was addressing him. "There is no damage to your house or any of your buildings, sir, although some fences were knocked down. Mrs. Banham took a fright, she did, sir, but she is better now."

Before Hannah could hope to get a word in, a man in an embroidered waistcoat swept up and embraced Banham. "Never fear that you must make the journey home by darkness, my friend. You are welcome, as always, to bide with us. Mrs. Gardiner would never forgive me if I didn't invite you to stay the night."

The ship captain approached. "Evening, Mr. Gardiner, Mr. Banham." He bowed. "There is another matter to discuss. A girl named Hannah Powers is also bound for Banham's Landing, sir."

Although she stood a few feet away, the captain referred to
her as if she were a child. Summoning her courage, she spoke up. "Mr. Banham." She dropped in a curtsy. "I am Hannah Powers, sir."

Banham smiled. "Ah, yes. The physician's daughter."

"Sir, I am bound for the Washbrook Plantation."

Something flickered across his face, but he said nothing. Inclining his head, he signaled her to go on.

"My sister is May Washbrook, wife of Gabriel Washbrook."

"Gabriel, you say?" He frowned. "I have only heard of Mr. Nathan Washbrook."

She flustered. "Gabriel is the young Mr. Washbrook, sir. Nathan's son."

"Ah, yes." He glanced around. "Have your people not come to meet the ship?"

"No, sir." Her voice shook. "I think not. The men I spoke to have heard no news of them."

"This is most unusual. Surely someone from their plantation must have made the journey down."

Hannah fought tears. "Maybe there was illness in their household, sir. Maybe their boats sank or their harvest was ruined..."

He held up his hand to silence her. "My dear girl, you are making yourself quite wretched, and probably for nothing. The tobacco was harvested in August, then hung up in barns to dry. Unless the storms brought down their barns, their harvest I'm sure is safe. Perhaps they are tardy because they could not yet clear the river for passage. Perhaps the storms damaged their boats. They might still bring their barrels down to Gardiner's Landing. I believe the ship will call here one more time before leaving the Bay.

"So you see, all will be well. Tomorrow I will take you upriver. When we reach my plantation, my men will take you on to the Washbrooks. Fret not, Mistress Powers. In the space of a day, you will be with your people."

Before she could thank him, he turned to Mr. Gardiner.

"The Gardiners, I am sure, will allow you to stay the night
here in safety. All you need do is fetch your things off the ship. Oh, and whatever the Washbrooks have ordered." He turned to the captain. "Any goods for the Washbrook Plantation, sir?"

"And how will they pay with no harvest?" the captain inquired.

Hannah covered her mouth.

"Courage, my child." Mr. Banham spoke gently. "I can extend credit to the Washbrooks, sir. Now have you any goods for them on board?"

Hannah smiled, almost faint to witness such goodness.

"I think not, Mr. Banham," said the captain, "but I will look at the inventory."

Banham winked at her. "That's sorted, then." He snapped his fingers at one of the sailors. "If you please, fetch Mistress Powers's box from the hold. She is leaving ship."

Moments later, Banham led Hannah up the path to the Gardiner house with its lit-up windows glowing in the twilight. He told Hannah that he had a daughter her age who played the spinet. A dancing master had come all the way from London to teach her the minuet. Among the young planters she had many suitors. His favorite among them was a young Virginian who bred racehorses. Mr. Banham also had twins named Eleanor and Alice. His oldest son was a scholar at Oxford, while his youngest boy was not yet old enough to cut his hair and wear breeches.

"My father went to Oxford," Hannah said, unable to hide her pride.

"I should have deduced when I first laid eyes on you that you were an Oxford man's daughter."

She flushed in delight. "Sir, I hear you are my sister's nearest neighbor."

"That is the most curious thing. Though they are also
my
nearest neighbors, I know little of them. The Washbrooks have never been neighborly. Nathan Washbrook's son—pray, what did you say his name was?"

"Gabriel, sir."
"Gabriel Washbrook." Mr. Banham spoke slowly, as though committing the name to memory. "Let me tell you of our Christmas parties at the plantation. They are famous. We invite every soul, rich and poor, in miles. There is music and dancing, food and drink in plenty. No one is turned away. People up and down the Bay come. Why, we have guests who hail from the Eastern Shore and as far as Virginia. But the Washbrooks never came once." He spoke with calm neutrality.

Hannah could not think what to say.

"Though on one occasion I did meet your sister," he said kindly.

"You did, sir?" She could barely restrain herself from kissing his hand in gratitude. "Do tell me of her."

"I only met her briefly." The expression on his face was difficult to read. "A proud and handsome woman. Maybe when you live there, we will see more of your people. Women are by nature more society-loving than men."

As they neared the house, Mr. Gardiner caught up with them, exchanging loud banter with Banham. Dropping behind, Hannah followed them over the threshold, down a wide central passageway, and into a chamber where a linen-draped table was set with china plates and silver goblets.

"Here is our hostess," Mr. Banham announced. "The incomparable Mrs. Gardiner."

A heavily pregnant woman extended her hand for Banham to kiss. She was lovely and golden-haired, and her belly thrust out grandly beneath her gown of watered silk. Mrs. Gardiner did not look a day over eighteen. Her bodice, cut fashionably low, exposed her breasts, which were even whiter than her face. She gave off the scent of tuberose. Behind her was an open doorway leading into a bedchamber. In the middle of that room, a black woman sat on a stool and nursed a white child who looked about a year old.