Asia cares not one whit. “Either that or break my neck trying,” she answers gaily. She hands Fanny’s reins to Pink Hall, and tells Dan and Jim to sit on the porch steps while she fetches a pitcher of cider. Dan is thin and pale with excellent teeth and wild, curly hair, a thoroughly presentable young man. Asia feels her blood quicken delightfully, brushing past him on her way into the house. She thinks that she can find her way back into his good graces anytime she likes.
For a time, her affections waver between the brothers, though neither relationship lasts. She would have retained a friendship with Walter, had he been willing. As to Dan, she pleads with Jean never to pen his name again. “It looks to me now like a coil of snakes,” she says. “A doom upon my happiest dreams,” which is the way Asia’s romances generally seem to end.
* * *
—
John’s friends from St. Timothy’s Hall come to call—Samuel Arnold sometimes, but far more often, Jesse Wharton. Asia is surprised to hear John referred to as Billy. She learns that Billy Bowlegs was John’s nickname at school, chosen because John’s legs curve like his father’s did, and inspired by the Seminole Chief Billy Bolek. It’s quite clear that this nickname is meant more affectionately for John than for Bolek, and that John takes it as intended. But Asia suspects that, since he never spoke of this, John must not have liked it much.
Jesse Wharton is a handsome boy, with a wide smile and an open, readable face. He and John and Asia walk through the woods together, the leaves now more brown than red. But the sun is out and the day mild enough to sit on the steps down to the spring, the place where Asia once made Edwin give her all his pebbles.
The boys smoke their pipes and the smell of tobacco wafts about. Asia fills and empties her cupped hand with cold water, listening to the music of it falling, but also to Jesse. He tells a story she’s never heard before, a story of a wild river and a day in which John, sucked under by a powerful current, nearly drowned, which makes Asia suddenly remember the dream she’d had. She has a brief image of John, floating face down amongst the books and chairs. For just a moment she can’t breathe.
“We thought we’d lost him for sure,” Jesse says. “We thought he’d never open those big eyes for us again.” He throws his arm over John’s shoulders and John lays his cheek briefly on Jesse’s hand. A thin column of smoke rises like a charmed cobra from the bowl of his pipe.
“No, I’m not to drown,” he says. “Nor burn nor hang, though my sister has long believed I’m marching towards a martyr’s death.”
Does Asia believe that? She doesn’t want to.
Years later, she will write that it was a golden afternoon. She will write of her deep contentment. How she watched the two boys, leaning together in the sunshine, so gifted, so beautiful, so brilliant, and wondered about their futures. Surely both would leave a shining mark upon the world.
* * *
—
Eight years later, in April of 1862, Jesse Wharton will be killed in the Capitol Prison in Washington, DC. A captured Confederate, he’ll be shot by the sentry on duty. Maybe he stuck his head out of the window, refused to retreat, and abused the sentry with awful oaths and the taunt that he was too cowardly to shoot. Maybe he was quietly minding his own business, in fact, had just looked up from his mother’s favorite Bible verse, when he was murdered, suddenly and without cause. It all depends on whom you ask.
All this was known to Asia when she wrote about his shining mark. But on that lovely, quiet afternoon, she was unaware and unconcerned. The war was several years and a handful of verses to the beautiful Miss Booth in the future.
* * *
—
Asia is sitting in the parlor, mending a torn hem, when she hears a horse and carriage coming down the lane. No one is expected and she sets down her sewing to go and see who is arriving, but Rosalie gets there first. Suddenly Rosalie is calling for Mother, her voice uncommonly loud and excited.
Asia hurries out to the porch, just in time to see June taking baby Marion from Hattie’s arms and helping her down. He turns to look at the women running towards him, one after another, from the house he’s seeing for the first time.
It’s been years since Asia saw him. In that time, he’s grown to resemble Father so much, her breath stalls in her throat. He looks simultaneously enormously pleased and slightly abashed. “Surprised?” he asks them.
x
The railroad across Panama is nearly complete and that perilous journey now reduced to a comfortable four-hour train ride. June makes it sound as if dropping in unexpectedly from San Francisco will soon be normal, as if they might expect him at any moment. Nancy Hall runs off to find John and bring him back to the house.
June doesn’t escape a scolding. Ann Hall is mortified by the dinner she’s cooked, which is now too simple and contains none of his old favorites. Mother is appalled not to have a room ready so that poor, exhausted Hattie can immediately lie down. Rosalie has a grip on June’s arm that shows no sign of loosening. Asia takes the baby.
Asia loves babies. Marion’s face crumples at the sight of her and she sobs for her mother, but Asia’s not discouraged. She peeks from behind her hands, sings songs, waltzes Marion about the room, determined to make herself a favorite. She can’t wait to give Marion a bath. Right now, Marion smells of urine and spoiled food. Her dress is stained and clean cloths will have to be found to diaper her since the ones Hattie brought, including the one she’s wearing, all need a desperate washing. And yet, she’s adorable, lots of hair and big brown eyes.
Asia’s feelings for Hattie, who also has hair and eyes, are more complicated. On the one hand, Asia hardly knows her. On the other, Asia’s awed by this woman, only a few years older than Asia herself, who’s already traveled so far and seen so much.
The dinner hour is filled with stories of San Francisco, stories that center on theaters and culture rather than the brothels and murders for which the city is also famous. The notorious Catherine Sinclair has been performing there, often with Edwin as her romantic lead, though she’s sixteen years his elder. Catherine Sinclair is a beautiful woman, but her success is due mostly to her divorce from the far more famous Edwin Forrest. Affairs were alleged on all sides, the newspapers all but eaten by the scandal for days on end. That’s the woman people pay to see.
“And what do we know of Laura Keene?” Mother asks. Edwin has recently left with Keene to tour Australia.
June doesn’t understand what’s being asked. “Promising, but unseasoned,” he says.
Hattie does a better job of cracking Mother’s code. “A complete professional. Edwin is safe with her.”
This is the answer Asia wants, but she resents Hattie being the one to have it. Hattie can have June if she likes: Asia doesn’t care so much about this brother who left the house before she was quite old enough to know he was in it. But Edwin is hers. She doesn’t want to hear that he and Hattie are close.