"I've seen his books in the window at Grolier's," Serena said. "As you may imagine, they were quite taken with a Harvard man turned Natty Bumpo."
"As well as being a former librarian in Saint Louis," Wilkie noted.
"A librarian and an author," Serena said, "yet he'd stop us from harvesting the very thing books are made of."
Pemberton drained his second dram of scotch, felt the alcohol's smooth slide down his throat, its warm glow deepening his contentment. He felt an overwhelming wonder that this woman, whom he'd not even known existed when he'd left this valley three months earlier, was now his wife. Pemberton settled his right hand on Serena's knee, unsurprised when her left hand settled on his knee as well. She leaned toward him and for a few seconds let her head nestle in the space between his neck and shoulder. Pemberton tried to imagine how this moment could be better. He could think of nothing other than that he and Serena were alone.
At seven o'clock, two kitchen workers set the table with Spode bone china and silver cutlery and linen napkins. They left and returned pushing a cart laden with wicker baskets of buttered biscuits and a silver platter draping with beef, large bowls of Steuben crystal brimmed with potatoes and carrots and squash, various jams and relishes.
They were midway through their meal when Campbell, who'd been bent over the adding machine in the front room, appeared at the door.
"I need to know if you and Mrs. Pemberton are holding Bilded to the bet," Campbell said. "For the payroll."
"Is there a reason we shouldn't?" Pemberton asked.
"He has a wife and three children."
The words were delivered with no inflection, and Campbell 's face was an absolute blank. Pemberton wondered, not for the first time, what it would be like to play poker against this man.
"All for the better," Serena said. "It will make a more effective lesson for the other workers."
"Will he still be a foreman?" Campbell asked.
"Yes, for the next two weeks," Serena said, looking not at Campbell but Pemberton.
"And then?"
"He'll be fired," Pemberton told the overseer. "Another lesson for the men."
Campbell nodded and stepped back into the office, closing the door behind him. The clacking, ratchet and pause of the adding machine resumed.
Buchanan appeared about to speak, but didn't.
"A problem, Buchanan?" Pemberton asked.
"No," Buchanan said after a few moments. "The wager did not involve me."
"Did you note how Campbell attempted to sway you, Pemberton," Doctor Cheney said, "yet without doing so outright. He's quite intelligent that way, don't you think?"
"Yes," Pemberton agreed. "Had his circumstances been such, he could have matriculated at Harvard. Perhaps, unlike me, he would have graduated."
"Yet without your experiences in the taverns of Boston," Wilkie said, "you might have fallen prey to Abe Harmon and his bowie knife.
"True enough," said Pemberton, "but my year of fencing at Harvard contributed to that education as well."
Serena raised her hand to Pemberton's face and let her index finger trace the thin white scar on his cheek.
"A Fechtwunde is more impressive than a piece of sheepskin," she said.
The kitchen workers came in with raspberries and cream. Beside Wilkie's bowl, one of the women placed a water glass and bottles containing bitters and iron tonics, a tin of sulpher lozenges, potions for Wilkie's contrary stomach and tired blood. The workers poured the cups of coffee and departed.
"Yet you are a woman of obvious learning, Mrs. Pemberton," Wilkie said. "Your husband says you are exceedingly well read in the arts and philosophy."
"My father brought tutors to the camp. They were all British, Oxford educated."
"Which explains the British inflection and cadence of your speech," Wilkie noted approvingly.
"And no doubt also explains a certain coldness in the tone," Doctor Cheney added as he stirred cream in his coffee, "which only the unenlightened would view as a lack of feeling towards others, even your own family."
Wilkie's nose twitched in annoyance.
"Worse than unenlightened to think such a thing," Wilkie said, "cruel as well."
"Surely," Doctor Cheney said, his plump lips rounding contemplatively. "I speak only as one who hasn't had the advantages of British tutors."
"Your father sounds like a most remarkable man," Wilkie said, returning his gaze to Serena. "I would enjoy hearing more about him."
"Why?" Serena said, as if puzzled. "He's dead now and of no use to any of us."
Three
DEW DARKENED THE HEM OF HER GINGHAM dress as Rachel Harmon walked out of the yard, the grass cool and slick against her bare feet and ankles. Jacob nestled in the crook of her left arm, in her right hand the tote sack. He'd grown so much in only six weeks. His features transformed as well, the hair not just thicker but darker, the eyes that had been blue at birth now brown as chestnuts. She'd not known an infant's eyes could do such a thing and it unsettled her, a reminder of eyes last seen at the train depot. Rachel looked down the road to where Widow Jenkins' farmhouse stood, found the purl of smoke rising from the chimney that confirmed the old woman was up and about. The child squirmed inside the blanket she'd covered him in against the morning chill.
"You've got a full belly and fresh swaddlings," she whispered, "so you've no cause to be fussy."
Rachel tucked the blanket tighter. She ran her index finger across the ridge of his gums, Jacob's mouth closing around the finger to suckle. She wondered when his teeth would come in, something else to ask the widow.
Rachel followed the road as it began its long curve toward the river. On the edges, Queen Anne's lace still held beaded blossoms of dew. A big yellow and black writing spider hung in its web's center, and Rachel remembered how her father had claimed seeing your initial sewn into the web meant you'd soon die. She did not look closely at the web, instead glanced at the sky to make sure no clouds gathered in the west over Clingman's Dome. She stepped onto the Widow's porch and knocked.
"It ain't bolted," the old woman said, and Rachel stepped inside. The greasy odor of fry pan lard filled the cabin, a scrim of smoke eddying around the room's borders. Widow Jenkins rose slowly from a caneback chair pulled close to the hearth.
"Let me hold that chap."
Rachel bent her knees and laid down her tote sack. She shifted the child in her arms and handed him over.