IT WAS MORNING before Elwyn returned to the Blackwell house. Rhoad wanted to hear the specifics of Elwyn’s campaign ideas. He was a man dissatisfied with generalities; ideas should be clear, strong and stand on their own feet. After that, tireless Rhoad wanted to negotiate the terms of Elwyn’s employment – his title, hours and wages. By the time they finished, it was nearly two in the morning, and a place was made for Elwyn in a guest suite.
Though it was late, Elwyn was not tired. He wasn’t hungry either. He lay in bed and felt the oxygen moving through his veins. He felt the sparks of connections in his mind; he felt pride. Elwyn felt fully alive in a way he hadn’t for a very long time.
The guest room was unlike any Elwyn had ever entered, but it felt familiar to him. It was a place that had lived in his imagination for years: the sprung mattress, deep silk sheets, crystal lamps, gilded wallpaper. Somehow it was all even brighter than the picture he had held in his mind, and he was comfortable there. Happy.
When Elwyn finally fell asleep, it was in a state so exhilarated that when he woke a few hours later, he was completely refreshed. Rhoad was working, but coffee and buttered white-flour rolls had been ordered for him and set on a tray beside his door. The taste was still in Elwyn’s mouth as he walked down the hostile streets. But none of the looks or words shot at him touched Elwyn at all. They rolled off his back like rain off a goose.
‘Uncle Timothy?’ Elwyn shouted when he entered the Blackwells’ house, not minding the rule against shouting. It was breakfast hour. Elwyn burst into the room, bright and breathless.
‘You’re late,’ Timothy said, not looking up.
‘I spent the night at the Rhoads’,’ Elwyn said, his pleasure doubling at the looks his aunt, uncle and cousin wore when they looked up at him. ‘I’ll be working there now. Earning money. I’ll be able to stay somewhere I won’t – what is it you said? – open you up to scrutiny.’
‘Elwyn, last night I may have been too hasty. There are perhaps other publishers to whom I can present my project. To align yourself with someone like Rhoad…’ For the first time, Timothy did not speak easily and abundantly. There were no little lessons tagged onto his words.
‘I’m going to some boarding houses this morning. Some won’t want to admit a Forester, but Rhoad has given me a note promising that I’m good for the money. I only stopped in to let you know.’ Elwyn felt radiant as he spoke. He had possibilities open to him that no one else could have planned for him, no one else would have thought possible.
‘So that’s it? You will so easily abandon your lessons? Abandon the future you vowed your devotion to?’ Timothy said, flaring with the same anger Elwyn had seen the day before.
Boaz seemed to be in a mixed state of delight and displeasure – delight over his cousin leaving, displeasure over the terms. But Piety’s face, for the first time, showed a glimmer of something beyond its usual composure. What she was feeling, Elwyn didn’t know, but it wasn’t happiness.
‘Timothy,’ she said gently. Timothy tried to compose himself by staring at the table, then shovelling a spoon of sugared porridge into his mouth, his hand shaking with suppressed anger. ‘I would like Elwyn to continue to stay with us,’ she said keeping her eyes on her nephew. Unlike her voice, her eyes were not gentle. There was something persistent, almost pleading in them.
Timothy threw down his spoon. ‘We had an agreement! If he stays, he must live in accordance with it!’
‘I know how important rules are to you,’ she said ‘But I can give you all kinds of reasons this new arrangement may benefit you. Letitia Rhoad’s family ownership of several presses out in St Louis. A greater audience for the book. Less fear from people uncertain about endorsing your work. But I’m sure that you will think of all these things in time yourself, and they don’t matter to me. What matters is that this is my nephew. I have promised to keep him here. And I like having him here.’
These words didn’t exactly make Elwyn happy. In fact, some of the buoyant pleasure drained from him. He had liked the idea of leaving the house victorious, and he knew he wouldn’t leave if his aunt wanted him to stay. As fraught as his feelings towards her were, he still felt bound to her in some way. He still loved her.
‘If you stay, and if you take this position’ Timothy said, ‘we will have to create some conditions.’ But there was a change in Timothy’s face. Elwyn could see that he was beginning to think about his book again, about his work.
‘That’s right,’ Elwyn said, turning back to his uncle. ‘We will. But I’m not helpless, you know. I’m willing to stay and assist you with your book, but things need to be different. I’ve agreed to work with Rhoad from early morning to noon five days a week. I can work two hours with you in the afternoon – and I’ll work hard – but I need to have some leisure time every day to enjoy myself.’
‘Elwyn, idleness…’ Timothy began, but then stopped himself. ‘Three hours.’
‘Two and a half.’
Timothy sat silently for a moment. The clocks ticked. Then he nodded, almost imperceptibly.
‘Well, Elwyn. I will have some notes and the book proposal prepared for you to pass on to Letitia,’ he said more serenely as he scooped another spoon of porridge. Piety gave Elwyn what was almost a smile while Boaz stormed out of the room.
*
If Elwyn expected a change in his aunt’s manner, he was wrong. In the days that followed, Piety practised her usual sceptical reticence, moving in her own set of unseen friends and engagements, sitting in her private parlour. This disinterest confused Elwyn. At the dinner table, Elwyn often found his eyes going to his aunt, hoping for a sign of approval, a sign of something.
‘Well, and how was your first day assisting Cronus Rhoad? Please, share the details with us,’ Timothy asked over a lunch of salads and cold tongue. Elwyn had only just returned to the Blackwells’ and had a quick wash; the dazed satisfaction of the day still filled his mind.
‘It was note-taking mostly. Mr Rhoad likes to have someone there to jot down ideas while he’s busy with other things – eating breakfast, organising papers, that sort of thing. He says the morning hours are the most productive, and most people don’t use them well.’ Elwyn ate heartily, but between bites he glanced at his aunt to see if her face betrayed any thoughts. She cut at her food with no more interest in the conversation than Boaz had.
‘There is sense in that, no denying it,’ Timothy said, with his usual happy effort to find Rhoad agreeable, to find the whole new arrangement to his liking.
‘Then we went through town on an errand to get people accustomed to seeing us together. It was drizzling and I held Rhoad’s umbrella for him – that was my idea. I figure if people are afraid of Foresters because they think they’re dangerous, I should show myself being the opposite. Being kind. We’re doing the same sort of thing in the campaign – making sure I’m shown being helpful so people are less scared.’
‘Sensible, sensible.’
‘Rhoad thinks that Foresters have an important role in the Collective, and once people see that, we’ll all be better off. After the walk, some men from the campaign press arrived from St Louis, and I brought out the tea and some sweets for everyone. It was a huge tray. There were at least twelve types of chocolate.’
‘Extravagant, I’m sure… but I suppose allowances should be made for guests.’
‘They invited me to sit with them and we had a nice time. I even told some stories about Badfish Creek, one about when Dewey and I were little and tied our sled to the big buck that wandered around – we called him Old Smokey because he was so sagging and grey. They all laughed. They said they thought I’d be a great asset to the campaign.’ Elwyn felt excitement welling up in him as he said these words, and again he looked at his aunt and again he was disappointed.
‘And did you deliver my proposal? And my note to Rhoad concerning your continued schooling? Does he have any suggestions for a track we should take that might be of more interest to his wife’s publishers? I’d be happy to incorporate his ideas into our project, especially if he would like to assist in its promotion—’
‘He read the message. He said he’s sure that whatever you are doing is fine.’ Elwyn spoke absently. He wasn’t certain why his aunt’s disinterest bothered him so much. He wasn’t used to being troubled by the opinion of others. But Piety seeing the merit in Elwyn’s work felt essential to him. It felt like a matter of good versus evil, truth versus falsehood, light and dark.
That night, he got out of bed. He took the jam Piety recommended from the pantry, and the cheese and slices of bread to go with it. He knocked on his aunt’s parlour door and when she answered, he held out a sandwich.
‘I heard you like a midnight snack,’ he said. She raised an eyebrow, but invited Elwyn in. She had been sitting in the glow of lamplight, with her newspaper and book beside her along with a pot of tea, her carefully selected paintings and portraits looking on. ‘I want to talk to you about something,’ Elwyn said after he sat down.
‘Really?’ Piety said in mock surprise, taking a bite of her sandwich. ‘Well, then. Go ahead.’
But Elwyn’s words failed him. He stumbled trying to explain. ‘I want you to know what it was like to work at Rhoad’s today. There were times it was a little uncomfortable, you know, the way new things always are uncomfortable. But even then, it was just right. It was like that feeling when you are running really fast, and it takes no effort at all – you could just keep going and going.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ she said drily.
‘No. I want you to really understand. The first day I stepped into that house, I knew I wanted to be a part of that world, no matter how hard I had to work for it. But after talking to you, a part of me, a small part, was afraid I would be disappointed if I got what I wanted. But I’m not disappointed. It’s the opposite. It’s like, not only does everything there shine, but under every shiny layer is something bright and interesting. They have these candies and they’re wrapped in foil – all different colours of foil. And inside is hard candy and in the middle of the hard candy is something like rose sugar that melts in your mouth, liquid peppermint, or a cherry soaked in brandy. It’s like that. And Rhoad. He looks rich and has nice clothes and good manners, but below that, he’s also so smart. He’s thought everything in his life through, from the tiniest little bits of his day to the big ideas about history and the world.’
‘So this is what you want to talk about, Elwyn? Your infatuation with the life of that family?’
‘You said I’d find out that the things I’m aiming for in my life are empty,’ Elwyn said. His face was flushed; he could feel his pulse in his arms. ‘You were wrong. One scratch below the surface and you can see that there’s depth to everything. You must have felt that sometime. About something.’
Elwyn was ardent and sincere in this and thought his plea would have to touch his aunt’s heart. But she only set down the sandwich and picked up her newspaper.
‘Just when I was very young,’ she said. She held the paper high, and Elwyn could no longer see her frown. But he saw something else. There on the front page of the paper was a sketch of a familiar face. Elwyn rose, drawn to the image of Aelred Moone.
TRIAL DATE SET FOR MYSTERY GUNMAN