The Widow's War

The news Carrie has dreaded for so many weeks has arrived on her doorstep: William is dead. As Mr. Presgrove gives her the details, she presses her fingernails into the palms of her hands so hard that she later discovers she has cut herself. Every atom of her being fights against accepting this final verdict. Stop! she wants to cry. Stop! But Mr. Presgrove goes on speaking.

She registers, as if at a great distance, the sound of his voice explaining that he came down from Salvador near the end of the epidemic and forced his way past the quarantine to search for William. “And for you and your father as well, Miz Vinton.”

He found William somewhere—she does not recognize the name of the place—desperately ill and incoherent with fever, but he discovered no sign of her or her father. Somehow—and it does not occur to her until much later how unusual this is, what force of will it demonstrates—he managed to get the captain of the boat he arrived in to take William on board so William could be transported to São Paulo where he had a better chance of getting medical attention.

“No, please continue.” She wants to tell him that she feels as if a boa constrictor is coiled around her chest crushing the air out of her lungs, but that seems a strange thing to say. No doubt he would look at her blankly. William would have understood.

Mr. Presgrove sits down across from her and clears his throat. “I hope you will not mind me saying, Miz Vinton, that I feel as if I know you. My stepbrother spoke of you constantly, calling out your name as his fever rose, and then, during that precious day when he regained his senses and we thought the worst was over—”

“Yes, a bit more than a day, actually. During that time, he told me a great deal about you, Miz Vinton. He was terribly worried about you, because you had fallen sick and wandered off, and in his own sickness he had not been able to find you. He asked me over and over again if you were alive, and I always told him that, yes, you were, although of course at the time I had no way of knowing I was speaking the truth.” Mr. Presgrove pauses and looks at Carrie so kindly she nearly breaks down. “He said often that he loved you.”

“Yes. His affection for you was so strong that he thought more of you than of himself. When he realized he was going to die, he made me promise to take care of you and his mother. His mother’s marriage to my father was recent, you see, and I think in his delirium he had forgotten she had a new husband. I am not sure he even recognized me, but he thought constantly of your welfare.” Mr. Presgrove clears his throat again. “Miz Vinton, he died with your name on his lips.”

Carrie doesn’t believe this. She’s seen people die and their last words are rarely memorable. But even though it’s a lie, it’s a kind one, and it comforts her almost as much as if it were true.

“A few hours later he passed away. He was buried at sea wrapped in the flag of his country. There was no minister on board, but the captain read the funeral service. I . . ” He pauses again. “I hope you will not think I overstepped any boundaries, Miz Vinton, but I cut off a lock of his hair before he was sewn into the banner that was to be his shroud. I thought to preserve it as a keepsake because I had grown very fond of my stepbrother in the short time we were acquainted, but now I realize he would want me to give it to you.” He pulls out a small twist of paper and hands it to Carrie. “You might have it worked into a mourning broach.”

Carrie closes the paper, puts it on her writing desk, and stares at it for a moment, unable to speak. “Yes,” she says at last. “Yes, he did. He told me he came home to find his father dead and his mother remarried, and that his mother had a stepson who was, by coincidence, already in Brazil. He said you met in Salvador and shared a meal together, and that you had expressed a wish to come to Rio for our wedding. I admit I had forgotten all this until you arrived, and even then when your card was brought to me, I did not recognize your name. In the middle of an epidemic—well, I am sure you understand: confusion, no time to talk about . . . you can imagine . . .” How is she summoning up the strength to speak so calmly?

She closes her eyes. William gone. Blotted out as if he never existed. Where is he? In heaven? Trapped in darkness? Here in this room, a ghost listening? Nowhere at all? Where are the dead? Where do they go? Can Mae Seja really speak to them? Is there a country of the dead just like this one only separated from it by a veil? She wants to believe that somewhere, in some form, William still exists.

Carrie opens her eyes. The afternoon light streaming in from the garden seems as blinding as it did when she first woke up in the Casa de Misericórdia. I am seeing the sun, she thinks, a terra-cotta tiled floor, flowers in a green vase. I am alive and William—

“I do not have much more to say, I’m afraid. My stepbrother died so quickly. Before he lapsed back into delirium, he asked me to give you something. I hesitate to do so, knowing how painful receiving it will be for you, Miz Vinton, but I feel I must honor his wish.” Mr. Presgrove rises to his feet, retrieves his package from the side table, and sits down again. Pulling out a pocket knife, he cuts the string. He hands the package to Carrie. “This was to have been your wedding present from him.”

Thrusting her hand into the tissue paper, Carrie pulls out a silk shawl so beautiful it makes her gasp. Thin and light as sea foam, the cream-colored silk is a mass of flowers of every description. There must be hundreds of them, none bigger than the tip of her little finger. Unfurling the shawl, she holds it up to the light and the flowers glow, each surrounded by a tiny halo.

“It is . . .” Words fail her. She draws the shawl to her face and smells it, hoping William’s scent still lingers, but all the silk gives off is an odor of incense—not gardenia or musk or anything else familiar. Perhaps this is the scent of a flower that grows only in China. Disappointed, she removes her face from the shawl and finds Mr. Presgrove still looking at her anxiously.

“I wish I could have done more, Miz Vinton. I wish I could have brought you William alive and well. I did everything in my power to save the dear boy. I should probably not call him that, but he was five years younger than I am, you see, and during the time I was taking care of him, I came to think of him as the younger brother I never had.” He rises to his feet. “Now, with your permission, I’ll take my leave. I imagine you want to be alone.”

Carrie finds herself reluctant to part with him. He’s the last connection she’s ever likely to have to William, and there’s something he should know, something she hadn’t intended to tell him until the moment he called William “the younger brother I never had.”

Folding the shawl, she puts it on her writing desk next to the piece of paper that contains William’s hair. “Mr. Presgrove, are you returning to the States any time soon?”

“Yes. I plan to leave in a few weeks after I have finished my business in Salvador. Frankly, I’ll be glad to go home. There is too much death in the tropics.”

She is surprised to hear him utter the same thought she had been entertaining only a few hours earlier. “Could you carry a message to your stepmother for me?”

“I do not need to write it, Mr. Presgrove. It’s a very short message, and I doubt you’ll forget it. Please tell her—” She pauses, trying to gauge what his reaction will be, then decides it doesn’t matter because she will probably never see him again. “Please tell Mrs. Presgrove she’s going to be a grandmother.”

Mr. Presgrove looks at her in bewilderment. Suddenly he smiles. There’s not a hint of censure in his face. “A grandmother! You are carrying William’s child? Miz Vinton, this is the best news I have heard in . . . My stepmother will be overjoyed. Her health is frail, and I have been dreading the moment when I must face her and tell her of her son’s death. Now I can bring her good news as well as bad. I think your announcement may well save her life. You are an angel, Miz Vinton.”

“An angel, I say. Do not deny it.” He looks as if he is about to weep with happiness. Carrie is moved by his reaction. For the first time since he arrived, she likes him. It’s not his fault that he was forced to bring her the news of William’s death.

“What a gift you are giving us,” he continues. “I love children, Miz Vinton. I have always adored them. I have none of my own, you see, not being married, so to be told that I am about to become an uncle . . . well, I can’t tell you what great joy this brings me. Thank you.”

“Condemn you? How could I? Children are a gift from God, Miz Vinton. Now that we are to be related, I must call you ‘Carolyn’ and you must call me ‘Deacon.’ Would you mind that? I am sorry. I am being too familiar and probably not making sense. But a child! How wonderful! When is the happy event to take place?”

Again Carrie is touched. Overwhelming joy over the birth of a baby isn’t a trait you often find in a man who isn’t the father. She examines Mr. Presgrove’s face and sees signs of tenderness and sympathy she missed earlier. He’s a good man, she thinks. A decent man.

Later she will realize that she should have looked at his face more closely, but now in this parlor with her grief newly minted, she only sees a stranger with William’s warm heart who looks something like William.

“I will have my baby in June,” she says. My baby. The first time she has ever uttered those words aloud. William’s baby, too, she thinks. Suddenly she experiences a passionate hunger to be held and comforted, and an ache so deep all she wants to do is run from it. Unable to meet Mr. Presgrove’s eyes, she looks toward the garden and sees a hummingbird stabbing its beak into a purple and white-petaled flower. Passiflora edulis: maracujá in Portuguese; passionflower in English. The unspoken words fall on her tongue like dust. She chokes on her grief, turns the choking into a cough, masters her emotions, and turns back to Mr. Presgrove.

“June?” he says. “But Carolyn—Miz Vinton—you can’t possibly stay here. You must come back to the States immediately and let my stepmother take care of you. You cannot go through the dangers that attend childbirth alone.”

Again he echoes a thought that Carrie has been having. When she wakes at night in a panic, she not only worries about William; she worries about giving birth to their baby in the tropics. Her two brothers and only sister died as infants here. She is probably alive only because her mother returned to Indiana to give birth to her. She was six—well past the age of greatest danger—before her parents took her to Brazil where even in large cities like Rio the lives of babies are so short that sometimes their parents don’t name them until they prove they can thrive. She can imagine nothing worse than bearing William’s child only to have it die or dying herself and leaving their child an orphan. Her own mother succumbed to childbed fever not two miles from where she now sits.

Time is running out. She must choose between Brazil and the States while she can still travel. For a few more seconds she wavers. Then she comes to a decision. She cannot do less for her child than her mother did for her. She’s been waiting to find out what happened to William. Now that she knows he’s dead, what is there left for her here in Rio where every street reminds her of him? Since she came back to this house, she hasn’t even been able to sleep in her own bed because they once made love in it. That bed is empty now, made up with fresh sheets, neat as a coffin. It would be better to leave it behind. She needs to start over. This is no place for her and no place for her baby.

She looks up and sees Mr. Presgrove waiting for her to speak. “I plan to return to the States,” she says. “But—” She breaks off in mid-sentence. She intends to tell him she doesn’t want to impose on William’s mother, but the truth is, she’d like to have her baby’s grandmother with her when she gives birth.

Mr. Presgrove looks relieved. “I’m glad to hear you are leaving,” he says. “The fevers alone, Miz Vinton, not to mention the bad water, filth, heat, venomous snakes . . . well, Brazil is no place for a woman who is with child. If I had a wife, I’d ship her back home as soon as she told me the good news. Have you booked your passage yet?”

“Then let me do it for you. My family has a sugar exporting business in Salvador. We are doing quite well, and I can easily book you passage to New York on a clean, sturdy vessel.” He smiles kindly.

Under normal circumstances, Carrie would have smiled back, but grief is bubbling up in her again, threatening to overflow, and she can hardly trust herself to speak. She wants him to go away now and leave her alone to mourn William, but if she’s going to accept the hospitality of the Presgroves, there are arrangements to be made.

She is so busy trying not to break down that she pays no attention to Mr. Presgrove’s description of the family business in Salvador. Not until much later does she play back this conversation and realize how strange it is that the Presgroves are making money in sugar when everyone in Brazil knows the sugar market has collapsed. Coffee, she thinks. He should have said ‘coffee’, but what did it matter. I wasn’t listening for warning signs, not then.

“You must let me escort you,” he continues. “There’s no use protesting that you can easily find a suitable female companion to travel with you. She is welcome, of course, but I insist on coming, too. You should not make such a voyage without a man to look after you.”

“No, no, Miz Vinton, I beg you. Do not refuse. I will conduct you directly to my stepmother. At present she and my father are living in Washington. He’s a senator, Senator Bennett Presgrove of Kentucky. Perhaps you have heard of him? He’s been in the papers quite a bit lately.”

Carrie shakes her head. She hasn’t read an American newspaper in weeks. All she knows is that Franklin Pierce has been elected President and that the issue of slavery is becoming more and more divisive, but beyond that she has been out of touch ever since the epidemic began. She has never heard of Senator Bennett Presgrove.

“No matter, the point is, he and my stepmother have rented a very comfortable house in Washington, so you will not have to make the long trip to their plantation in Kentucky. As you know, the voyage from Brazil to the States takes two months—sometimes more. By the time you reach Washington . . .” He stops. “Well, you take my meaning, Miz Vinton.”

“By then,” Carrie says, “I will almost be ready for what is called ‘my confinement.’ In other words, my condition will start to become quite obvious, and no amount of raising crinolines or taking out seams will be able to disguise it.” She knows she’s being overly blunt, but she doesn’t care. Her life is going to have to go on, and she intends to live as she has always has, straightforwardly without cloaking everything in cloying euphemisms.

“I need to warn you that I’m not a woman who puts much stock in conventions. When I was a child, my aunt despaired of turning me into a lady. I have no intention of shutting myself away for months in a dark house with the blinds drawn. It’s unhealthy and boring and completely unnecessary. Being with child is not an illness, and despite the fact that I’m unmarried—” Although she fights to control her voice, it trembles at the mention of marriage. She stops and takes a breath.

“Despite that, I am not ashamed. I intend to go out in public as long as I feel up to it, and if that makes you want to reconsider your offer, you had better tell me now.”

Mr. Presgrove doesn’t seem to be the least disconcerted. “Of course,” he says. “Whatever you wish. But you will allow me to escort you back to the States, won’t you? And you will let my stepmother have the joy of being present when her first grandchild comes into the world?”

Carrie’s desire to resist collapses. She wants to go home to have her child, and Mr. Presgrove is offering her a chance to do so in comfort and safety. She’s surprised that she still thinks of the States as “home,” but she does. All at once, she’s overcome with nostalgia. She wants to experience winter again, watch apple trees bud out in the spring. How long has it been since she has seen a robin or eaten maple syrup on her pancakes?

“I’ll travel to Washington with you,” she says. “Thank you, Mr. Presgrove. It’s a very kind offer, but are you sure William’s mother will welcome me?”

“She will welcome you with open arms.” He pauses. “And you must let me pay your expenses. Again I insist. After all, William’s dying wish was that I take care of you and,” he looks around the room, “I imagine you are experiencing financial difficulties. I hope you do not take offense at me saying this, but your father, famous though he was, could not have been a wealthy man.”

Carrie studies him warily. She does not like the turn the conversation has just taken. He seems sincere, but is it possible he doesn’t know she’s wealthy? She glances at the pile of condolence cards on her writing desk. If so, he must be the only unmarried man in Rio who doesn’t view her as a potential source of income.

“Yes, Miz Vinton. I heard that on the day I learned you were still alive. The news has spread to Salvador. Brazil is a large country, but Americans are few and when something happens to one, the rest know about it so swiftly it’s enough to make one believe in thought transference. So, yes, I did hear you had come into money, but when I saw you—pardon me for remarking on this—in a dress that is becoming but obviously worn, living in a home that is simple to the point of starkness, I decided those rumors were untrue. To be frank, I hoped they were untrue.”

“They are,” she says. “What would you say if I told you that I am nearly destitute? That this house is rented? That I have less than fifty dollars American to my name?”

He does not flinch. “I would say that it is fortunate indeed that I came here today, and I would ask you to have the goodness to accept any monetary aid my family or I can offer you. I know my father and stepmother would feel the same. I am sorry to hear you have been experiencing financial difficulties, but you must put any anxiety about money behind you. You shall never want for anything, nor shall the child.”

His face turns red; he seems to struggle for words. “Miz Vinton, I said just now that I hoped the rumors of your wealth were untrue, because I have something to ask you, and if you were rich, you might be inclined to think I had ulterior motives. I want to say, right at the outset, that I am thinking only of your welfare and the welfare of your child. I am a simple, plainspoken man. I know this is the worst possible time to ask you this question. You are grieving for William, as am I. I’ve never done this before and I don’t know how to find the right words, but I wonder if . . . that is, if you would consider doing me the honor of becoming . . . my wife.”

Mr. Presgrove looks agitated, as well he should. “I was afraid that would be your answer, Miz Vinton. That would be my own answer if I were in your position. I have heard you have been deluged with suitors who, despite your many obvious virtues, court you only for your money, but I am not one of these. Would you please hear me out before you give me your final answer? What I am about to say has grave implications for your child.”

Carrie wants to order him to leave, but when a man says he is about to say something that has “grave implications for your child,” what choice do you have but to listen? “Go on,” she says.

He clears his throat. “Thank you. You are every bit as kind as William said you were.” He clears his throat again. “I would hope that if you accepted my proposal you would in time come to feel affection for me, but however you choose to regard me, I will respect your feelings, and I will never attempt to compel your affections or ask you to do anything you do not want to do.

“If you wish, our marriage could simply be a legal arrangement for the benefit of my late stepbrother’s son or,” he adds quickly “daughter. Frankly, that would not be my preference, for, if you will excuse me for saying so, you are a very attractive woman, but for a daughter it is particularly important to have a legitimate father. You have not been back to the States for a long time, and perhaps you do not realize the stain an out-of-wedlock birth puts on an innocent child there. I don’t care that you and William never married, nor will my father and stepmother care. No matter what you decide, we will embrace your child as our own, but society will not be so kind.

“America is still Puritan. Saving your presence, I must use the word bastard here, Miz Vinton. I can think of no kinder word, and that is what people will call your baby. I do not want that to happen when you and I can so easily prevent it. If we marry, no one will dare question the paternity of your child.”

“Yes, Miz Vinton, we have, and that is why I now want to tell you something to prove my sincerity. I said that my father was Senator Bennett Presgrove. The name meant nothing to you, but it means a great deal in the States. Few men are more determined to extend slavery into the western territories, and few men make more ardent speeches in support of slaveholding.

“I will not attempt to deceive you by pretending that my father himself does not own slaves. When he argues for the extension of slavery, he speaks out of self-interest. He is one of the largest slaveholders in the state of Kentucky. I realize that in confessing this fact I run the risk of permanently alienating you, but I want you to know everything about me without reservation.

“Miz Vinton, please do not judge me on the basis of my father’s reputation. I may be his son, but I do not share his views on slavery. In fact, I find them abhorrent. William told me you were an abolitionist. So am I. My father and I have quarreled bitterly over slavery. I believe he may write me out of his will because of it, but whether he does or not is a matter of indifference to me.

“I’m an honest businessman, Miz Vinton. I’m not wealthy, but thanks to my late mother, I’m prosperous, and I can easily take care of you and the baby. You say you have no money, but even if you did, I would not need it, and I would insist that you agree to draw up a will leaving it all to the child.

“I know I am not a great catch, but I’m good-natured, and I love children, and, if you will excuse me for saying so, I’m told that I’m not bad looking. You deserve a better man than I will ever be, but time is of the essence. I am here and unmarried, and I would love this child as my own without ever attempting to replace his father. When the boy is old enough, we can tell him the truth. You can name him William Saylor Presgrove, and when he is of age, he can drop the ‘Presgrove.’ If you give birth to a girl, she will be my delight and treasure, and I will see that she marries well. Male or female, the child will not only inherit whatever money you may have; he or she will inherit my entire estate as well.”

Carrie is impressed. Surely no man who was merely interested in her money would confess to being the son of a slaveholding father. Still, what he is proposing is impossible.

“This is a generous offer,” she says, “a kind offer, very possibly a well-meant offer, but, Mr. Presgrove, I cannot accept it. My answer is still no. I cannot marry you. I will go back home dressed in mourning and tell people I am William’s widow.”

“Miz Vinton, that may work for a while, but although Brazil is on the other side of the globe, ships sail from the States to Rio more frequently than you might imagine. In the end people will find out. Sooner or later, they always do. I know my proposal has been unromantic, but do not think the less of me for that. I realize I can never take William’s place in your heart. I would never try. But what I would try to do is make you happy.”

Pulling out his card case, he removes a card, picks up Carrie’s pen, dips it in the inkwell, and writes something on the reverse side. “Here are names of some people who know me. And here is where I am staying. I have friends and business acquaintances in Rio. You can ask them about my financial status and my character. They will confirm what I have told you. Please at least think over my offer, Miz Vinton. If you discover something about me that makes you adverse to becoming my wife, then I will never mention the subject again. But if after verifying my story, you change your mind, I would be honored to be your husband.”

Mr. Presgrove rises to his feet, politely bids her good day, gives her a courtly Southern bow, and leaves. Two hours later a messenger arrives bearing a huge bouquet. There are so many flowers, Carrie cannot find enough vases to hold them. With them is a note, which reads:

My dear Miss Vinton,
Whatever you decide, I remain your loyal friend.
D.L.P.