“Is that all of it?”
“She cannot look me straight on, and not because of modesty, but from her guilt.”
“What does Libbie say?”
“That it is her burden, and all will be fine. I think she is still under Claudia’s spell.”
“I thought her brother was a great friend of yours?”
“He was a friend of my youth, Uncle Magnus.”
“Aye.”
“My father warned me about taking her on.”
Caleum understood at last that Claudia was the reason they had seen so much misfortune.
“What do you plan to do?” Magnus asked the younger man. “You have no proof she has done anything.”
“I have the proof of what she has wrought,” he answered.
“Caleum, you know sometimes life by itself brings misfortune, and we can only live with it.”
“Why are you taking her side, Aunt Adelia?” he asked. “She poisoned my wife.”
“You should ask Libbie and see what she says.”
Caleum then felt there was some great conspiracy against him that even his family was party to. Was his wife as well? The thought was enough to make him mad, and he stood from the table in a barely controlled fit of anger. “I think I should go see how Libbie is,” he said. “As for Claudia, I don’t think there can be any more debate about her. Do I have your support or not?”
“Well, what do you want to do?” Magnus asked.
Adelia looked at him as he stood from the table, and there was a coolness in her gaze he had not appreciated before when she replied. “That depends,” she said. “How will you run your house?”
He looked at his uncle for support, but Magnus nodded in consent with Adelia.
“No one is against you,” his uncle continued. “Only there is not always a convenient place for us to lay down blame for our miseries.”
Adelia was pleased to see her husband with her, instead of joining Caleum in his witch hunt, but she was concerned Caleum would not see things that way, and still do something rash.
“Good night,” he said.
Magnus and Adelia looked back and forth between each other, and Adelia stepped forth to say something to Caleum, but Magnus checked her. “Good night, Caleum. Give Libbie our heartfelt regards.”
As he left the room Adelia took his hand and squeezed it.
How will you run your house?
When Caleum descended the front stairs back into the frigid evening, a gust of wind swept the tails of his banian, and he could feel a chill that reached through his clothing to embrace him with its icy fingers. He wished then he had ridden over, and thought briefly about going to the stable for a horse. Instead, he took the wind as part of that design counter to his well-being, and pulled the fabric close to his neck as he trudged along, hugging the shore of the lake on the path that had been worn between Stonehouses and his own house.
What have I done to be treated so? he asked, of no one in particular. He felt then the entire world arranged against him in a unified mocking he was powerless to affect, nor could he escape it. It was a torture for him, as he walked on under a crisp, low moon and heard again the sound of his wife crying. I had only this one wish, he thought to himself.
He became convinced as he went that his aunt and uncle had sided against him only because they had never had children of their own and were jealous. No sooner had he thought this, though, than he realized he did not know the reason for their childlessness.
Because his mind was well-formed and rational, he was forced to admit as he continued on that there were those whose wishes were daily denied them, and he was only unused to it — having been granted far more than was withheld. He knew then there was no pact against him, only bitter circumstance; not two-faced plot-making.
I shall still throw her out, he thought to himself, with some small satisfaction. If he could not prosecute her criminality he could at least expel her presence and give himself peace of mind. A stab of guilt shot through him no sooner had he formed the thought, though, and he admitted to himself it was only wicked fantasizing. Still, to accept what had happened to him meekly was not the way he was used to being. He had been raised to think he could achieve whatever he wished with the strength of his body and will and his mind’s cunning. He was now defeated, however, and the barb was all the more jagged because it was with something that came so easily to others. He felt crushed as one upon whom a monumental boulder has fallen. It was with this admission that he opened the door on his house.
Inside he smelled smoke and was at first worried that, on top of his other burdens, fire had broken out in his absence. Only slowly did he realize it was not the house on fire but the smell of lit tobacco. He followed the scent out to the kitchen, where he found Libbie and Claudia sitting on stools at the table, puffing away on little pipes. He had never known Libbie to smoke before and was stupefied to see her engaged in it now. He held his tongue, though, not knowing whether he should chastise her or let the grievance pass. He was certain Claudia had introduced her to this as well.
When the women saw him they were at pains to extinguish their little smokes, fanning the air as if he had not already seen their misdeed. “Libbie, how are you?” Caleum asked, feeling a deep weariness that seemed to the others a kind of patience.
“I am fine,” Libbie answered, as Claudia withdrew. “How are Uncle Magnus and Aunt Adelia?”
“They are well,” he said. His earlier suspicions still had not left him entirely, but now came to rest upon Libbie herself, and he wondered whether if, fearing as she had, she had been the one to enlist Claudia in her aid. Nevertheless he pressed ahead in his original inquiry. “Libbie, I want to ask you something,” he said, seeing no reason to be mysterious about it. “How trustworthy do you find Claudia?”
Libbie felt a pain when she realized the jealous suspicions that were unleashed in her husband’s mind. “Completely,” she answered.
“You do not think she could have a hand in any of our misfortunes?”
“No,” Libbie answered, afraid of where she knew it might lead. “I told you it was only misfortune.”
“Very well,” Caleum concluded, with the same patience he displayed before, leaving his wife there in the kitchen as he went to the parlor to be alone. He sat down on a sofa that allowed him to look out on the lake beyond the window. He was not fully satisfied there was no pact against him, or that his wife’s misfortunes were only what she said. He had no evidence, however, of any foul deed, and no course to act, so tried to find a position of calm and stillness within himself.
How will you run your house? When he thought of his aunt’s question from earlier that evening it seemed a very different thing in this light, and he was shaken again with self-facing grief that he knew he must undo.
After a long hour of staring at the lake and listening to the frigid wind as it whistled through the trees and even seemed to move the house a tiny fraction, he finally went to bed with no answer and no true satisfaction; no peace at all save a mature, abiding grief.
nine
The spring rains were as relentless as the ones of the preceding autumn, storming down cold and hard from late February until the middle of March nearly without intermission, until the landscape began to show shadings of green that put all in mind of new beginnings: new hopes and chances in all their struggles, great and small. When the rains finally did ease, the stench of manure and winter decay mingled on the air, announcing the start of the new season. Caleum was happy that he could once again spend the better part of his days out-of-doors instead of inside the barns or his house, and he began to walk his land, like one who had been doing so many years, to assess its state and plan its future.