The Lightning Keeper (43 page)

“This is a problem without a solution, then, if it is a problem.”

“Perhaps not. My solution is here on the map. There is a battery here, a kind of battery that costs nothing. Can you find it?”

Harriet touched the tower on Lightning Knob. “Is it here?”

“No. It is not possible to store the lightning, or not yet. But that was a good guess.”

“I do not see your battery, then.”

“It is here.” And Steinmetz put his crooked fingertip upon Dead Man's Lake. “The water in this lake will make lots of electricity any time we want it, if we let it run down the mountain. These heavy black lines are the tuyeres, pipes just like the ones that drive Mr. Peacock's wheel, but bigger, very big.”

“But once you have caused that to happen, you would have to wait for the lake to fill again. A long time, I should think.”

“No, we send it back up.”

Now Steinmetz touched the Experimental Site and ran his finger along the line leading up to the Truscott pond. “You remember that our river flows all day and all night, yes? With the proper equipment—electrical pumps—the water in the lake could theoretically be sent back to the top of the mountain.”

Harriet studied the map and chewed absently on her thumbnail. “You speak in theory, then? This has not been done before?”

“It has not, though others are thinking about it. My friend Oskar von Miller says he will do it in Austria, at the Walchensee, but it has not yet been accomplished, or even begun. This would be a great work, a model for others to follow.”

“But this is Beecher's Bridge, not Chicago or Austria. It does not make sense to move a lake up and down a mountain just to light my lamp, and my neighbors'.”

“Perhaps not, but you are forgetting the grid. You see by these lines, the curved ones, how we have connected Beecher's Bridge, and the Experimental Site, and our pump-storage project to the grid. The water from your lake may light the towns all around you, perhaps Hartford, even Boston. Think of that, Mrs. Truscott.”

“Must it be done now? We do not even have electricity yet.”

“I am an old man, and I think for the future. This will be the last great work of my life.” He looked directly at her, into her eyes, and he seemed so expectant, so childlike, that she would say nothing to discourage him.

“You have spoken to my husband?”

“Of course. And to Mr. Coffin. And now to you.”

“I don't know what to say. It seems so overwhelming. Of course I want to help, but…”

“Take your time, Mrs. Truscott, and we will speak of it again when you are ready. If you will excuse me, I think I will lie down until dinner is ready.”

He bowed and left. Harriet stood over the map, looking at the pond and the dotted line around it that came very near the house. She looked out the window. Where was all that water to go?

 

A
S
H
ARRIET HAD WISHED,
and very nearly prayed, New Year's Eve dawned fine, clear, and cold. It would be perfect weather for her skating party. At nine o'clock she sent Carpenter and the stable boy down to the pond with shovels and instructions to clear as much of it as possible and lay a bonfire on the ice, at a safe distance from the boathouse and dock.

Only Toma had been invited for dinner. The other guests would arrive at ten, and their way down to the lake would be lighted by the bonfire. Would there be any way, she asked Lucy, that Caroline could be put to bed early and woken at ten? Lucy objected: it was difficult enough to keep Caroline on her regular schedule. But her cousin's appeal was so emphatic—did Lucy not remember those skating parties of her early childhood? And who knew when the opportunity would come again?—that Lucy relented.

Harriet had her hands full for the rest of the day: she gave instructions in the kitchen on how the goose was to be trimmed and what was to be served just before midnight in the boathouse: cold ham, mince tarts, mulled wine, cider, and of course champagne. Then she spent an hour with her father playing checkers. After lunch—she had barely touched the food on her plate—she went back to the kitchen to make the floating island. The cook would have done it, but it never came out right unless Harriet did it herself.

At four she went down to the boathouse carrying fur lap robes and fresh candles for the hurricane lamps. The mice had made a mess of the place; she tied her handkerchief over her face and set to work with the dustpan. Evening fell quickly. When she stepped out onto the deck
the pinch in her nostrils told her that the temperature had dropped below eight degrees, and there was the moon, just past full, and the evening star reflected on the ice where the snow had been cleared away. She was tired now, and famished, but she had done everything that had to be done. She looked forward to soaking in her bath.

At a few minutes before seven, she heard a stamping of feet outside, followed by the sound of the latch. Her mouth was full of pins, her hair half up and half down.

“Fowler, I think that must be Toma. Will you go down?”

“In a minute, my dear. This tie will not cooperate.”

Harriet went to the banister of the stairwell and called down, “Toma, did you bring skates?”

“What did you say?” He climbed the stairs tentatively and stopped on the landing, facing her.

“There,” she said, placing the last pin. “How does my hair look?”

“I am no judge of these things, but I like best the part that has come away.”

She sighed and began to pull the pins. “You should know better than to come early to a party. It is your fault. Now, will you go up to the attic and find yourself a pair of skates? Take one of the candles there with you. I think they are hanging on the far wall, over to the left.”

He was staring at her now, and she made an effort not to meet his gaze. “The skates, Toma.” Just as she spoke, a door opened behind her and she heard the rustle of taffeta. “Lucy, you do remember Toma? Mr. Peacock? He is just going to find some skates. I forgot entirely to tell him.”

“Mrs…?”

“Mrs. Finsterwald. How nice to see you.” Lucy's voice conveyed a different message, and she did not stop to make conversation.

 

T
HE ATTIC WAS A
cavernous space made larger by the candle: beams and rafters above him shifted in its guttering light. He sat on a steamer trunk, blind to his surroundings. The line of her shoulder and neck interrupted by the clef of stray hair; the brilliance of the glancing eyes he could not hold; the thrilling cascade when she pulled the pins. For that one moment he had forgotten that they were not alone in the house.

The skates were where she said they would be, but there were many other items hanging or standing against the wall. Skis, various racquets, some curiously slender mallets, snowshoes, an artillery shell containing canes and walking sticks, and a collection of slender metal cylinders that made no more sense to him than the mallets. Fishing rods, as it turned out.

The skates were hanging from a rack of antlers. He chose a pair that seemed about the right size. When he turned around he saw his candle reflected in a row of tall glass-fronted cases. The first on his right contained dozens of eggs varying in size, color, and pattern. Then a broad cabinet of mounted specimens, from birds of prey down to a hummingbird in flight. Northeast of the Lammergeyer,
Gypaetus barbatus
, taken in Tanganyika, was a conspicuous void. The label here told him that the Roseate Spoonbill,
Ajaia ajaja
, was on permanent loan to the American Museum of Natural History. The last case held nests, from the shaggy and chaotic to the silk purse. Beyond lay a grouping of figurines in a dark polished wood, little people with exaggerated features, their limbs bent to serve as bookends and candlesticks. Along the end wall was another line of trunks. He lifted a lid and turned away from the rising fumes of naphtha. Under the layer of tissue paper a curved and sheathed sword lay upon folded silk, a garment of some sort with a brilliant blue pattern on yellow ground.

Something about this exotic clutter seemed familiar, although in his own home there had been nothing to spare and little to store: all his clothes and belongings hung on three pegs in his loft above the animals. Harwell, he thought, Harwell's home in England would look like this.

Still thinking about Harwell's collections, he opened a door—he believed it to be the same door—and found himself in a strange corridor with a narrow stairway to his right and a bedroom at the end.

“Who is that?”

Olivia came to the doorway before he could retreat. She had a hairbrush in her hand and she looked tired; her face was without expression. For months he had dreaded this moment, and now he didn't know what to say. He stood there like a stump, his mind racing, until she should speak again.

“All the places I looked for you…I never thought to see you in this house. But here you are. Did you get my letter?”

“Yes, thank you. All those drawings…”

“I didn't know what to write.”

“It was the only Christmas card I had.”

“Will you come in? This is where I stay now.”

“No, I must go down.”

“You have come for her, then.” She closed the door.

 

T
HE ROAST GOOSE WAS
magnificent, her floating island all it should be, but Harriet thought that the conversation was halting and measured. They rose from the table at nine-thirty, before the other guests arrived. Left to his own devices, Fowler would find an excuse not to go down to the lake. Before he could settle into a chair, she handed him a basket with a flask of brandy, silver tumblers, and his cigar case. Would he speak to Carpenter about lighting the bonfire and the candles in the boathouse? And would he see that their guests got down safely? She heard the bells of the first carriages as she went up the stairs.

It took Lucy some time to change clothes and for the nurse to wake Caroline and dress her. Harriet put on a pair of woolen drawers under her skirt and then her boots. She shook out the hooded cape of heavy black cassimere that had belonged to her mother; the perfume of camphor bark reminded her, as always, of her loss. These were solemn moments of sadness and connection, to her mother, to her father as he used to be, to herself as she used to be. She sometimes felt like a stranger in this house, a stranger or even an impostor. But tonight, wrapped in the cape and gazing down the lawn to the fire on the lake, she felt very much herself and perfectly at home.

There were many people to welcome, and some of them Harriet greeted twice: it was hard to tell one person from another when they faced away from the leaping flames. The moon was gone. A low cloud cover had come in during dinner and now returned the light of the fire in a penumbra of rose that softened the dark shore. She knew this sign; it would snow before midnight.

She was a strong, sure skater and would have given much to be off on her own. Her guests were clustered on the cleared ice and made stately circuits of the fire. But it was the parchment of perfect snow beyond that beckoned to her; there was not even an inch of accumula
tion, just enough to deaden the sound of the skates: it would be like flying. Perhaps there would be time for that later.

Two sounds, unexpected, occurred almost simultaneously. The first was the music of a waltz—familiar, though she could not put a name to it—played on a harmonica. Who could have brought such a thing? At first she was anxious, because Fowler was bound to disapprove. And then she thought: how perfect. She hoped it would not stop. The other sound was Caroline's unhappiness. Lucy had left her on the dock to skate arm in arm with Cecil, and for once Dr. Steinmetz's magic had failed.

“Caroline, you mustn't spoil the party with crying. What is it?”

Caroline pointed imperiously at the fire, or the figures circling the fire, and managed the word “Mama” in a strangled sob.

“Shall we find her then? Will you skate with me?” She set off with Caroline in her arms, and then, because the child was well fed, on her shoulders. Wherever Caroline pointed Harriet would go, and when they found Lucy and Cecil, Caroline crowed from her perch.

Caroline's preference was for faster and farther, and she did not want to be put down on the dock.

“Fowler, will you go into the boathouse and find me one of those hide-covered chairs? The ones with the round bottoms and no legs. And a lap robe.” When the chair was on the ice she spoke to Dr. Steinmetz. “Come with me and you shall have your skating. Put Caroline in your lap, if you would.”

Off they went, and the circled slats at the base of this throne clattered over the ice. Harriet's position was at Steinmetz's right shoulder as they circled the fire with the other skaters, and she had to push in as well as forward to keep the chair from escaping its orbit like a rogue planet. After ten minutes or so, with Steinmetz humming the waltz to her, Caroline slumped back into the lap robe and slept.

“It seems the expedition was a success,” he whispered. “You may slow down, please. I do not need so much stimulation. There, that's better. Now tell me, have you had a chance to reflect on our conversation?”

“Heavens, Doctor, I have been so busy. I am still uncertain.”

“Then I suggest that tomorrow you and I make a reconnaissance of the frozen lake on the mountain.”

After supper, with just a few minutes left until the stroke of midnight, Harriet found Toma sitting on the edge of the dock. Guests clattered past on their skates, some with champagne glasses in hand, heading back to the ice and the bonfire.

“I have hardly caught a glimpse of you. Have you skated at all?”

“I tried. I went off to the side where no one could see me. I have not progressed. It seems impossible to me, not natural.”

“Oh, Toma, you are as much a baby as Caroline. I'll show you how as soon as we've seen the New Year in.”

She felt the first snowflakes against her cheek. The fire had subsided to embers, a richer light. “Look at that.” She turned to face him. “Isn't it extraordinarily beautiful?” His face seemed different in that ruddy glow, perhaps older.