Free The Vanishing Point by Mary Sharratt Page B

Mr. Gardiner caught up with them, exchanging loud banter with Banham. Dropping behind, Hannah followed them over the threshold, down a wide central passageway, and into a chamber where a linen-draped table was set with china plates and silver goblets.
    "Here is our hostess," Mr. Banham announced. "The incomparable Mrs. Gardiner."
    A heavily pregnant woman extended her hand for Banham to kiss. She was lovely and golden-haired, and her belly thrust out grandly beneath her gown of watered silk. Mrs. Gardiner did not look a day over eighteen. Her bodice, cut fashionably low, exposed her breasts, which were even whiter than her face. She gave off the scent of tuberose. Behind her was an open doorway leading into a bedchamber. In the middle of that room, a black woman sat on a stool and nursed a white child who looked about a year old.
    "Our son." Mr. Gardiner smiled indulgently. The boy had his mother's golden curls.
    When everyone was seated, servants poured claret into the silver goblets. They brought out platters of pheasant, oysters, roast pork and beef, and sweetmeats. The smell of the food alone nearly undid Hannah. This feast on the remote plantation seemed fabulous, like Joan's tale of the weary traveler who stumbled into the faery palace. If she blundered, the illusion would shatter. The fine victuals would turn into a pile of dry old leaves and empty acorn cups.
    Gardiner and Banham spoke heartily of tobacco prices, the London market, and the West India Company. Hannah imagined she should make conversation with Mrs. Gardiner, but she didn't know what to say. For all her blinding beauty, the lady was vacanteyed, smiling dimly without quite meeting anyone's gaze. She didn't utter a word, but merely went on chewing and swallowing the food that her servant placed in front of her. She sipped wine from her goblet until her face and breasts were rosy and flushed.
    ***
    Afterward Mr. Banham retired to a pallet set out for him in the room where they had dined. Hannah slept in a narrow chamber with the wet nurse and the little boy.
    In the pitch-dark, she awoke to the sound of footsteps on creaking floorboards, strange noises, dove-like cooing. The wet nurse muttered in her sleep and rolled over while Hannah froze, rigid on her pallet. Her skin burned as she listened to muffled laughter. There was a voice she distinctly recognized as Mr. Banham's, then Mr. Gardiner's. A woman sighed like a pigeon. Hannah thought of Mrs. Gardiner's breasts, trussed up and on display for the men. Her pregnant belly. A whimpering voice murmured unintelligible words.
    A strand of her own hair caught in Hannah's mouth like a bit. She thought of May and her lovers, then of her own maidenhood, her ignorance. Even if it disgusted her to admit it, the moans and cries moved her. Closing her eyes, she imagined an invisible hand stroking her belly and thighs. She recalled the times May had crept into their bed in the early morning, still glowing from her trysts, the scent of her lover rising from her skin. How peacefully her sister had slept afterward.
One of Banham's whores.
Had he also made her sister cry out like that? A sob caught in Hannah's throat.
    While the nurse slept on, the little boy began to cry. Hannah crept to his crib and tried to soothe him. "Shh," she whispered. "Shh."
    ***
    The following morning, Mrs. Gardiner did not appear at breakfast. Her husband explained that owing to her delicate condition, she needed her rest. With perfect equanimity, Mr. Banham inquired if Hannah had slept well.
    The convoy of low-slung boats set off early for the Banham Plantation. The first two boats were loaded with the supplies Banham had bought off the ship. Six men rowed each of these craft upstream. Hannah sat with Banham in the third and smallest boat, which had four men rowing. Huddled at the rudder was a boy of about sixteen—a new hireling Banham had bought off the ship. Silent as stone and looking weak from his poor rations, the boy was obliged to