Part 52 (1/2)
In the morning Quent woke to the sound of Sally Robin's voice. He ran down the stairs knowing what it was had summoned her song even before he saw her standing in the door of Lorene's room. Quent pushed past her. Lorene lay on her bed. She looked peaceful. John was sprawled in a chair beside the fire. His legs were on the edge of the hearth, his head lolling sideways. He might have been asleep, or in a drunken stupor, but Quent knew he was dead.
Sally Robin's song ended and she came into the room. There was a decanter of brandy on the table beside Lorene's bed, and an empty blue bottle. ”What is that?” Quent demanded when she picked it up and put it in the deep pocket of her ap.r.o.n.
”Only a potion I made for the mistress. Something as would help rest her when the pain got too bad. She was dying, Master Quent. Sooner or later, that don't make much nevermind.”
He looked at his brother. ”John...”
”He be dying too. We all is, you know that.”
”But here, like this. I-”
”Let it be, Master Quent. Your mama, if she was here, she tell you to let it be.”
The double funeral took place at Squirrel Oaks the following day. They buried Lorene next to Ephraim. Pohantis was some distance away, but across from them both. John's grave was beside those of his six dead brothers and sisters. Quent had decided not to wait for a minister from Albany, so he read from the Bible himself, and Sally Robin sang.
”My go-to-heaven song, that be,” she told him afterward. ”It be peaceful where she is, never you mind about that.”
”And John?”
”I don't know, Master Quent. And you don't neither. Your mama, she didn't want you to worry overly 'bout your brother John.”
He'd always known that was true. He simply hadn't realized how much.
The slaves stood on one side of the burial ground, the tenants on the other. Ely Davidson was there with his new wife, and all the Frankels. Tim was still not married, but Ellie had a second husband. She was Ellie Frankel Bleecker Hodges now. Larky Hodges was a boot maker, a skill not before in good supply on the Patent, so Lorene had been well pleased by the union. Ellie's stomach stuck out so far Quent had to stand to the side of her to accept her condolences. ”We're gonna miss her a lot, Quent. I swear I don't know what the Patent will do without her.” Then, the question that was on everyone's mind: ”You plannin' on staying?”
”I'm staying, Ellie.” He spoke up loud enough so pretty much everyone could hear. The collective release of tension was almost a physical thing. ”I'll have to go away one more time. For a month, maybe, in the spring.” Whatever happened, he must be at Bishkek's second funeral. ”But I'm master of the Patent now. Shadowbrook will be the same as always. For everyone.”
Some things would be different, however. Quent walked over to the young Ashanti who worked in the stable. ”You're the one they call Tall Boy?”
”That be me, master.”
”What's your real name? What did they call you back in Africa?”
”White people no be saying my name, master. Tall Boy, that be fine.”
”Try me,” Quent said. The slave hesitated. ”A direct question deserves an answer. What's your African name?”
”Ajibwamemelosu.”
Quent smiled. ”It's a lot to say, I'll grant you that. Will it be all right if we call you Ajib?”
In five years, since the net had dropped over him when the slavers raided his village, no one had asked Ajibwamemelosu's permission for anything. ”Ajib be fine,” he said. ”I be mighty pleased you call me Ajib.”
Two days after Lorene and John were in the ground Nicole's fever broke. She opened her eyes. ”Ma Mere, je voudrais-” Then saw the black woman leaning over her and remembered. She was no longer a nun; G.o.d had rejected her. ”You're Sally Robin, aren't you? The one who sings those incredibly lovely songs.”
”I sing some, that be the truth, Little Mistress.”
Nicole wanted to ask why Sally called her that, but she had more urgent needs. ”Please, I'm so thirsty.”
”I 'spected that. Got some nice stuff brewed up for you right here.” Sally Robin held a mug of lukewarm tea to Nicole's lips, brewed of bark and flowerbuds and sweetened with honey.
”Thank you,” Nicole murmured. ”I think I want to sleep now. Could you sing me a song, Sally Robin?”
”Special rest-easy-and-get-well song,” Sally promised. She was only partway through it when Quent came and stood in the doorway behind her.
He waited for the song to end before he spoke. ”How is she?”
”Very tired, Master Quent. But Little Mistress, she be fighting a big fight with the poison in her, and she won. She sleepin' natural now. That be a good thing.”
He came and stood by the bed. ”Do you all call her Little Mistress?”
”Yes.”
”Whose idea was that?”
”Can't rightly say. Now you go away and be patient, Master Quent Soon as Little Mistress be able, I be calling you to come.”
The next day he was summoned to her bedside. ”Nicole, I'm so happy to see you like this.” They'd put a mobcap over her shorn hair, and dressed her in a fresh white linen nightdress. She smelled of lilacs, not sickness. Quent reached for her hand. ”Sally Robin says you're going to get well.”
She did not pull away from him, but her hand lay motionless in his. ”I am very grateful to you. And to Sally Robin. More grateful than I can ever say. I will pray for you both every day.”
They were alone, and he leaned closer and grinned at her. ”I'm glad of your sweet prayers, precious heart, but don't expect me to be satisfied with only them. I'll show you other ways to thank me, soon as you're well enough.”
Nicole turned her head away and didn't answer.
It was pretty much the same every time he visited. Eventually she was well enough to be carried to a chair beside the window, and by the first week of the new year she was taking a few tentative steps, leaning on the furniture or on someone's arm-Sally Robin's or Taba's, or even his own, but always she was as distant as she'd been that first day. Quent brought her two canes he had made from elmwood. ”I think they are the right size. I measured while you were sleeping.”
The sticks were beautifully carved and rounded and smoothed by his own hands, as he'd done with the boards he'd brought to build the place above the waterfall in Shoshanaya's glen. ”Thank you. I'm very grateful for everything.”
”For the love of Almighty G.o.d, Nicole, it's not grat.i.tude I want. I love you. I think you love me. Despite everything, I still believe that. In Shoshanaya's glen, you wanted-” The look she gave him was so stricken he broke off. ”You did,” he murmured. ”I know you did.”
”I was breaking my vow. All those people died because of it.”
”But you kept your vow. The abbess said you had. I heard her. You kept your vow and now G.o.d has sent you back to me.”
”I wish I could believe that,” she whispered. ”I cannot. Go away, please.”
Weeks went by. He visited her at least once a day, but he never saw her smile. In April, when the snow was mostly gone but the ground was still frozen and there was not yet any sign of spring, he went into her room at midday but found her gone. Stricken with sudden terror, Quent tore through the house yelling Sally Robin's name.
”I be right here, Master Quent. What you be wanting of old Sally?”
”I can't find Nicole. Little Mistress, Sally. Where is she?”
”She be wanting to visit your mama's grave, master. Little George, he fix her a horse and she go off a little past breakfast time.”
”A horse? I had no idea she was well enough to ride.”