Galore - Michael Crummey [151]
Eli stood within arm’s length of his wife, waiting for Coaker to move out of earshot. —Abel volunteered, Hannah, he said. —He won’t be anything but a stretcher-bearer, Mr. Coaker will see to that.
Hannah shook her head again. —You never give a thought to none but yourself, Eli, not once in your life.
Eli turned to stare in the direction Coaker had wandered off. —Tryphie says Levi Sellers come round to see you a while back.
—What does that have to do with Abel?
—I just wanted to say it wouldn’t serve you to have any gossip come out in the papers or in the courts, he said. —It wouldn’t reflect well on yourself or on Abel.
—I could kill you, Eli Devine, I swear to God, she said.
Eli stepped close so she could see every feature of his face in the pale moonlight. —I won’t have anyone belonged to me hurt Mr. Coaker, he said. —I won’t allow it.
Hannah covered her mouth with her hand, shocked to see so clearly something she’d tried to ignore all her life. She pushed past Eli, running back across the garden, and he stood watching as she went. Coaker ambled over to him once she was gone and they stood side by side in the dark. —Should we go in? he asked.
Abel left for St. John’s en route to overseas at the end of the week, the wharf and shoreline crowded with well-wishers despite the cold. Union banners on the stagehead, Adelina and Flossie Sellers presenting him with woolen socks and a scarf from the Women’s Patriotic Association, Reverend Violet offering a blessing before the boat departed.
Abel stayed at the rail of the F.P. Union long after his father and Coaker went below, watching the coastline slip by. Snow creviced in the headland of the Tolt, the nearly invisible entrance to the Gut snaking through the cliffs. Devil’s Cove where the quarry cut for the cathedral’s stones showed black through the drifts. Miles further on to Spread Eagle and Smooth Cove and the cold didn’t touch him the whole way. Esther hadn’t been on the wharf to see him off and he tried to tell himself he wanted no different. But by the time they sailed over the Rump his legs were watery and shaking and it was all he could do to keep from bawling. He wiped at his eyes and found the ridiculous socks from the Women’s Patriotic Association still in his hand, bent down to shove them into his kit bag. Discovered Jabez Trim’s Bible tucked away inside, tied up in its leather case. Only Esther could have stowed it there, he knew, to say something she was too goddamn precious or traumatized to speak, and in a fit of childishness he pitched the book over the rail. It floated alongside the boat awhile and Abel ran the length of the deck to keep it in sight, shouting at the water. He could just resist the urge to go over the rail after the book as it churned in the wake and sank below the surface.
Tryphie was surprised that Hannah stayed on with Esther after Abel left, though he guessed it was preferable to the company she might be forced to keep if she moved back to the Gut. He stopped by Selina’s House every few days to see the women had enough wood in and to ask after his daughter. There was no word from Abel and they expected nothing for weeks if not months. Hannah had to make do with speculation in the St. John’s newspapers and rumors passed on by Tryphie, or by Dr. Newman when he visited on Sunday afternoons.
At the beginning of April Tryphie came to Selina’s House with news that Eli was back from St. John’s.
—When did he get in?
Tryphie slapped at some invisible lint on his pant leg. —I saw him coming off the boat yesterday morning and he wouldn’t so much as look at me, Hannah. He’s holed up over in the Gut now. Haven’t even been by the union