Confluence - 10. Skirmishes

Elias Woodworth slammed his fist down on his desk, sending a paperweight rolling. His son Jeremiah winced slightly before resuming a placid expression.

“You worthless weasel! Millstone around my neck!” Elias shouted as he stood. “How much have you cost me this time?”

“It won’t be so bad,” Jeremiah said evenly. “And anyway it wasn’t my fault. She trapped me with her feminine wiles.”

Elias paced around the room. “Feminine wiles, is it? She’s fifteen years old!”

“Well, you suggested it. More than suggested it. You told me to take an interest in her.”

“An interest, yes! Marriage to her in a few years would have been very advantageous, her father being who he is. Now you’ve ruined everything.”

Jeremiah’s voice took a peevish tone. “You always do this!”

“Do what, you worm?”

“You press me to do wrong, and then when I do what you say, you curse me for not knowing better!”

“You useless, witless --” Elias thundered. “If the Aikens have the upper hand in this town, it’s because I’m saddled with you!”

“But nothing I do is good enough for you! I try to help in the business and you yell at me!”

“You’ve bungled every little job I’ve given you. I trust you to buy materials, you pay twice the going rate for lumber, and I’m supposed to thank you? You send out a shipment in a snowstorm so that it’s a complete loss and I’m supposed to pat your head?”

“You told me it had to go out as soon as possible!”

“And you went against the advice of the drivers, the foreman, and everyone else, and cost me a fortune!” Elias sat back in his chair. “Maybe there’s a job I can give you that you finally won’t screw up.”

“I know how to do things. If you give me a chance, I can.”

Elias was silent a moment as he reviewed Jeremiah’s early misbehaviors. Maybe one that was so alarming at the time could finally be put to use.

**********************************

On Sunday, July 7, fire broke out at the Winnipesaukee Paper Mill. When the building was half burned down, the two rotary bleachers, one ten tons, the other thirteen tons, exploded, sending pieces high into the sky and up to two hundred feet across the river. The fire lit up the night like vengeance raining down from Heaven.

People gathered in the morning to view the smoking ruins. The phrase “It’s a judgment” gained currency in the crowd. Some referred to Reverend Fielden’s comments the previous Sunday. His sermon now seemed prophetic.

Mrs. Ogilvy was swamped with cancellations of appointments. Owen’s Pharmacy saw a large drop in trade.

*******************************

Jordan Moreau lay back on the starched sheets of the little bed in the back of the church vestry. “I’m run a bit ragged tonight, Reverend. Sorry.”

Reverend Fielden shook his head. “Nothing to be sorry about. Entirely satisfactory on my end. And call me Joe, please.”

“All right, Joe, I can’t keep running around doing four jobs that aren’t what I was meant for. I’ve got to figure out a way to get into medical school.”

“Medical school?” Fielden wondered. “Why would you want to go to medical school?”

“To be a doctor. That why people usually go to medical school. Why do you think I’ve been assisting Doctor Layne?”

Fielden was flummoxed. “But is that realistic? Of course you’re a very bright young man, but your people are so gifted physically, and emotionally and artistically, as entertainers and so on - much more than in intellectual pursuits.”

“I beg your pardon?” Jordan laughed incredulously. “Did you actually just say that?”

“But wouldn’t you be happier in some solid trade, you know?” Fielden continued unfazed. “Maybe working in building construction, or you could join the military, or go out West and be a cowboy? Or a leather tanner? You could wear a whole outfit of your own black leather, I can just picture it --”

“You are amazing,” Jordan said. “I think you are actually trying to offer constructive advice. And that is both terrifying and appalling. Yes, I think that does it. I have got to get out of this town. And Reverend? I’m afraid we will not be seeing each other again.”

“What’s wrong? Did I offend you in some way?”

Jordan looked upward. “Lord, he has no idea. Not the tiniest inkling.” He extended his hand toward Fielden. “Goodbye, Reverend Fielden. It’s been an education.”

*************************

Owen continued to visit Layne in the apartment above the medical office when he could. They both carefully avoided mentioning Ellie and the wedding. Both sensed the end approaching. Each time, Owen looked around the apartment, fixing the details in his mind. When Layne told him to go home, Owen would say, “This is my home.”

The Aiken brothers dropped by frequently at the shop, but spoke little to him. They were looking grim since the fire at their paper mill, and talked more and more to Jordan. Owen saw Jordan listening, saying little but nodding from time to time. He thought he caught the phrase “fight fire with fire,” and something about “gossip.” When Owen asked, Jordan simply smiled and said, “Just a little private matter Mister Jonas and Mister Walter asked me to take care of. You can ask them, but it’s probably best that you don’t know.”

Later, Owen saw Jordan kneeling on the sidewalk, talking to some boys, the same ones who were chanting the taunting song about Layne and Owen. Jordan was giving the boys ice cream, and then speaking to them slowly and rhythmically, as if teaching them something.

Within a few days, the boys' chant had been replaced by new ones:

Darkie said to Pastor Joe,

Won’t you help me eat some crow?

We can share a chicken, too,

Some for me and some for you,

There’s no need for us to fight:

You like dark meat, I like white.

Papa said to little J.,

I’ve no time for you today.

Go away somewhere and play,

Here are matches and some hay,

You be careful, do not stray,

But a campfire would be gay.

********************

Louisa May’s establishment was more than a dressmaking shop. She sold fabric and notions and even gloves and stockings. For the women of Franklin, it served as something of a social club, a gathering place where men were unlikely to intrude. So when Jordan Moreau stepped inside and found half a dozen women sewing Ellie Aiken’s wedding dress, their conversation halted abruptly.

“Please go on with what you’re doing, ladies,” Jordan said. “Miss Aiken sent me over to have a look-see at your progress. Oh, and isn’t that beautiful! She is going to be so pleased. May I?” He approached and felt a bit of the fabric. The women gasped.

“Don’t worry, ladies!” Jordan said, holding up his hands. “That gorgeous white fabric will not suffer. This black does not rub off.” He waggled his fingers, then laughed.

A tiny titter escaped from one of the women, then they all burst into nervous laughter.

“And the lace is exquisite. So I see you’re putting it here, and here, and here -- you’ll be putting it here as well, surely?”

One of the ladies scoffed. “Oh, I don’t think so. No, not there.”

Another woman spoke up. “But we should. I thought from the start that there should be lace there.” Others assented.

The first lady said, “Do you really think so, Mister Moreau?”

“Oh, I know nothing about such things,” Jordan said. “It just seems more balanced to me that way. Don’t you think?”

After a hard look at the dress-in-progress, the woman said, “Well, if the rest of you ladies think so...” The rest nodded. “I suppose I can see your point. Very well, anything for our Ellie.”

Jordan took an empty chair and, finding an unused needle and thread, began to help the ladies sew the wedding dress as he went on. “Yes, I’m sure everyone admires Miss Aiken and wants her day to be perfect. And she and Mister Owen are so perfectly matched. Everyone says so.”

Another murmur of assent.

With the beginnings of a smile, Jordan continued, “So much better matched than Miss Aiken and Mister Jeremiah Woodworth. Of course, it had to be a disappointment to her when their association ended, but it’s as if fate saved her for better things. I suppose Miss Ellie is actually a little too mature for Mister Jeremiah’s tastes. He does seem to have an eye for the very youngest of the pretty girls.”

Silence in the room; but the women’s eyes opened wider while their lips pursed or betrayed a bit of amusement. One of the women whispered, “Rose McBurney was no more than fifteen.”

“But I’m sure that Mister Jeremiah’s interest in her was philanthropic, wasn’t it?” Jordan assured them. “After all, it wasn’t long after he showed such a keen interest in her that his father, Mister Elias, so generously paid for Miss Rose to go to finishing school for a year in Switzerland. And she was such a little slip of a thing when she left, and so grown-up when she came back.”

One of the women nodded. “And the same with Alice Peyton.”

“Shush, Laura,” another said. “We don’t know anything for certain.”

“We know that Elias Woodworth paid for her to go to Europe for a year, too, and she was fourteen when she left.”

“And Lizzie Brand, and Suzie Kelleher,” another said. “None of them over sixteen.”

“Oh, dear me, I do seem to have opened a can of worms here, ladies,” Jordan said. “But none of us can doubt Mister Elias Woodworth’s giving spirit. Why, he’s paying for Mrs. Thompson’s little boy Joshua to go to a real good school down in Massachusetts. Very promising scholar, that boy is. And isn’t it funny? He’s the spitting image of Mister Elias. Have you noticed? Maybe that’s what piqued his interest in the boy.”

The ladies nodded and murmured tight-lipped ‘Mm-hm’s and exchanged significant glances.

“Well, I really have intruded here long enough, ladies.” The ladies rushed to assure him that he was not intruding, but Jordan stood and bowed slightly. “I’ll tell Miss Ellie how splendidly everything is proceeding. It’s very clear that she’s in the best of hands.”

Jordan left the shop, hearing behind him a burst of laughter and a rush of excited chatter.