Читать книгу Wishful Seeing - Janet Kellough - Страница 11

Thaddeus was surprised by the little twinge of disappointment he felt when he failed to see Ellen Howell in Sully the following week. There was no reason why he should, he told himself. She was not a Methodist. She had been at the camp meeting with her husband, who evidently had business to conduct there. Like many others, she had attended The Great Baptism Debate, he was sure, for the entertainment of it, nothing more. Old Mrs. Gordon said that the Howell farm was south of Sully, but even if she lived in the village itself, he couldn’t expect to see her flitting about on the very day he happened to be there. And more to the point, why had he been hoping to see her at all? Yes, of course, there was a concern about her circumstances, but no more so than any number of other people, some of whom were actual members of his congregation. He would address the question of the bruised arm if he could, but it wasn’t really an overwhelming concern. He didn’t know why he kept thinking about it.

This was his first visit to Sully since the debate at Cold Springs, and he was pleased to see that here the effect of his triumph had not yet worn off. The meeting was full, but Thaddeus estimated that approximately half of the new faces attended out of curiosity, and he was sure that when they found it less exciting than the debate they would wander away again. A handful of the new attendees, however, seemed genuinely interested in joining the church on a permanent basis, and he hoped that he could safely deliver them into the arms of full membership. He made a point of greeting each person warmly. Honestly, he thought, he had enough sinners and backsliders to keep him more than busy. He needn’t go looking for trouble with the Howells when he had so much work right in front of him.

Still, after the meeting was completed and he made his way to the Gordons for his dinner, he resolved to ask about the bruise if the opportunity should arise.

It was a long time coming. The table talk over dinner was all about Jack Plews and the railway. According to Old Mrs. Gordon, half of her neighbours were annoyed with Plews for instigating the lawsuit and the other half with George Howell for sharp practice in the first place.

“Everyone’s afraid the dispute may delay the completion of the line,” she said. “They can see all the money flying away.”

“Surely it won’t come to that?” Thaddeus said.

“Oh no, I expect the railway company will just make good on the difference in price,” Leland Gordon said. “But they’ll do it with investor money. In the end, it’s the shareholders who will pay.”

“In the end it’s always the people who pay,” Old Mrs. Gordon pointed out, and Thaddeus could think of no argument to counter this, but he was distressed that even here, in this remote village, all anyone could think of was how rich they were about to become.

“I was at a meeting in Port Britain last week,” Thaddeus said. “There was an old, old man there who claimed that Plews couldn’t have had title to the land in the first place. He said there was some problem that prevented his uncle from buying it years ago. Of course, the old fellow couldn’t remember which uncle it was, so nobody took his story very seriously.”

“I don’t see how that could be,” Leland said. “Plews had been on the property for five or six years, and it had always been farmed before that. If there’s a problem, wouldn’t it have turned up before this?”

“I’m not so sure it hasn’t,” Mrs. Gordon said. “There were some disputes here a few years ago.” She began to chuckle. “Well, maybe not so few. I forget how old I am sometimes. But I remember my father talking about one of them.” Her face creased into a thousand wrinkles while she tried to recall the details. “It might have been Margaret Dafoe’s family.” She turned to her son. “You remember Margaret. She married a Palmer.”

Gordon shrugged a little. What was so clear in his mother’s memory had never registered with him. It’s the way of old age, I guess, Thaddeus thought. I must tell Martha to ignore me if I start talking about people she’s never heard of.

“Any road,” Old Mrs. Gordon went on, “it must have been sorted out somehow, because I don’t remember hearing anything more about it.”

“I don’t understand how you could get a mortgage on a piece of property you don’t own,” Thaddeus said. “There would be nothing to secure the loan.”

“I expect you can if you get it from D’Arcy Boulton,” Mr. Gordon said darkly. “Let’s not forget who most likely engineered the whole purchase in the first place.”

The talk turned then to the excellent turnout at the local meeting, and how Thaddeus’s fine showing during the debate had engendered so much interest in the church. It wasn’t until he was about to leave that he ventured to introduce the topic that remained uppermost in his mind.

“I have something to ask you. It’s a bit of a delicate subject, and I don’t know if I’m speaking out of turn.”

“Oh, Mr. Lewis, I doubt you could ever speak out of turn,” Mrs. Gordon said. “Go ahead. Ask away.”

“It’s about Major Howell’s wife. I noticed a very nasty bruise on her arm the other day.”

Mrs. Gordon seemed to grasp what he was asking right away. The women always did. “And you’re wondering how it happened?”

“She claimed that a cow kicked her, but it didn’t look like it to me. It looked like the sort of bruise that would be left by someone wrenching her arm. Violently.”

“And you’re asking who might have done that?” Leland said. He thought for a moment before he shook his head. “I haven’t seen any other marks, but it’s not like I see her every day or anything. I go there only when there’s work to do on their fields. Even then, I wouldn’t see her unless she asked me to split some wood or do some other chore for her.”

“You probably wouldn’t see anything anyway,” Mrs. Gordon said. “In my experience, women try to hide those kinds of bruises. They don’t want anyone to know.”

“And that’s the problem,” Thaddeus said. “I’m by no means certain, and unless it happens frequently, it’s very difficult to come up with enough evidence to make an accusation. And sometimes bringing it up only makes matters worse.”

Leland looked dubious. “I don’t like Major Howell, but he doesn’t strike me as the type. Too much of a gentleman — in his own estimation if in no one else’s.”

“Sometimes those who profess to be gentlemen are the worst offenders,” Thaddeus said. “In any event, I thought I’d just mention my concerns, and perhaps you could keep a little closer eye on things, when you’re there. Even so, I’m not sure what I could do. They aren’t members of our church, after all, but perhaps I could ask their own minister to intervene if there’s a problem.”

“That would be the Anglican man, Reverend Barris, if it comes to that,” Mrs. Gordon said. “That’s where people like the Howells go.”

“Should we be concerned about the girl, as well?” Thaddeus asked. In his experience, violence in a family was seldom limited to one member. Most often, everyone felt the brunt of it.

“Now, that I really couldn’t imagine,” Leland said. “The girl follows her father around like a puppy. She seldom seems to notice anyone else. I doubt she’s ever said more than two words to me. Only occasionally do you see her with her mother, and when you do it’s clear she doesn’t want to be there. The Major seems to be the only human being she can be bothered with. She wouldn’t be like that if he was beating her, would she?”

Thaddeus wasn’t so sure. These cases were so complicated. Sometimes the victims were the staunchest defenders of the abusers. “Well,” he said finally, “I’d appreciate it if you could keep your eyes open. And let me know if you see anything.”

As he rode away from the Gordon farm, he puzzled over what possessed men to use their fists on their wives, and why there were so seldom any repercussions as a result of it. Except in cases of extreme injury, the law took the view that a husband was within his rights to raise his hand against anyone in his family, but why it should countenance even that was beyond his understanding. The Church declared that the Lord had given men dominion over women, but to protect them, not abuse them. He couldn’t imagine any circumstance that would ever have inclined him to strike his wife, and he had never disciplined his children with more than a word. He had scarcely disciplined them at all, truth be told. He was never at home to do it. He had left it all to Betsy.

If the Gordons were correct in their assessment, it seemed unlikely that George Howell was a brute who beat his wife. But why would Ellen Howell manufacture such a flimsy story about the bruise on her arm unless she was attempting to hide its true origin? It was his duty to interfere if he thought she was in danger, but in all honesty he couldn’t say that was the case. He had made his inquiry, and done what he could. Now he needed to put the woman firmly out of his mind so he could concentrate on the extra meetings he had scheduled in the wake of the debate. These had resulted in a far more hectic schedule than he had bargained for.

There was little enough time to spare before his next appointment, but Thaddeus couldn’t resist stopping for a few minutes at the shore of Rice Lake to watch the crew working on the bridge. Nor was he the only one who was curious. Several small boats full of sightseers bobbed in the water close to the construction barges. And farther out, Thaddeus could see the steamship chugging its way across the lake to the Sully dock. Passengers hung precariously over the port side, craning their necks in order to gain a better view of the work in progress.