Mr. Burke tells them, shouting to be heard, that a few years back an enormous boulder detached from the cliffs and fell into the gorge, narrowly missing the staircase while he himself was inside. A few feet closer and neither he nor the staircase would be standing today. “I felt the careless finger of God,” Mr. Burke says, “just scratching an itch.”
The splendor of the sun on the crashing water leaves Asia nearly faint with awe, all her senses full to the brim. God the careless? No! God the creator, God the artist wielding his brush of light and liquid.
* * *
—
From the divine to the petty. They ride to the Canadian side through streets lined with tawdry curiosity shops, peep shows, and saloons. They pass by insistent pitches for tours, refreshment, pictures, pamphlets, bits of congealed mist, which Mr. Burke tells them not to buy as they are really just white stones. How is it possible that so many people can gaze on the face of God and see only a place where pigeons might be plucked? Asia watches a workman tip a wheelbarrow full of trash into the translucent green waters.
At John’s insistence, they stop on the field where the Battle of Lundy’s Lane was fought. Here Winfield Scott commanded the American troops, Gordon Drummond, the British. The fighting was close, more bayonets than rifles, and when it all ended some nine hundred men had died. It was the bloodiest battle of the War of 1812, Mr. Burke says. Every time they put a foot down, they are stepping on some soldier’s grave.
John talks excitedly to Mr. Burke about the movements of troops. They studied the battle at St. Timothy’s Hall, he tells them. He is showing off. “The armies fought on into the night. You must imagine them fighting by moonlight.”
“?‘Tongue, lose thy light! Moon, take thy flight! Now die, die, die, die, die,’?” says Edwin.
Not by moon nor star nor sun, does Asia want to imagine the soldiers gutting each other as if slaughtering hogs. She wants the thunder of the Falls, not the thunder of the guns. She’s impatient to move on. But John is focused on getting Mr. Burke to agree that Drummond’s bureaucratic stubbornness was no match for Scott’s expertise and bravery.
“The battle is generally reckoned a draw,” Mr. Burke says mildly, “except for those who feel that Drummond won outright.”
John loves opposition. “Only because the American casualties were so high! Only because he started with the superior ground!” Every sentence a thrust. “He didn’t outmaneuver Scott, who was by far the superior tactician. He just sent his men forward again and again and again.”
Asia wants to tell Mr. Burke to stop arguing. With all his disdain for mere dogged endurance, John’s debate strategy most resembles Drummond. He will send his men forward again and again and again until his foe is exhausted.
“Are there ghosts?” Jean asks.
“How could there not be?” says Mr. Burke.
* * *
—
The American Falls are mere prelude to the Horseshoe. Mr. Burke provides the party with protective gear—sacks of oilcloth that go from neck to ankle and belt with rope, a tight hood that leaves only the face exposed. None of the waterproof boots are small enough to fit Asia. She’s forced to shuffle along as if she has boxes on her feet. “We look dangerous,” John says. “Brigands.”
“We look like walking hillocks,” says Edwin.
The path under the Falls is narrow enough to make the fit of Asia’s boots a matter of concern. She holds tightly to Edwin’s belt as he proceeds ahead of her, from handhold to handhold on the rocky wall to their left. The next moment she is drowning. Water sprays from above and below, filling her nose and throat, blinding her. Her instinct is to turn back, but Edwin pulls her forward through the water and into the air. Wiping her face with her soaking sleeve, she sees that she is in God’s own church. She sees the great, soaring stone arch from which a wall of water pours.
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Two days later, with one night spent in New York, they’re on the train back to Baltimore. It’s dark outside and Jean and John have fallen asleep opposite each other, each reflected dimly in the black windows. The train clicks and sways. Asia’s more than contented. In the lobby of their New York hotel, John had mischievously leaned down and kissed Jean on the cheek. His apology—she looked so sweet, he said, he couldn’t help himself—and Jean blushing into her hands are delightful to remember.
Finally!
Edwin tells Asia a story. He’s talking quietly so as not to wake anyone. “One time Miss Hyde made me stay after school. I don’t remember what I’d done; no doubt it was dreadful. She set me some passages to copy. I’m sure I was there at least two hours. But when I got outside, Sleeper was waiting for me. He’d never gone home, but watched the whole thing through the window. He had a large rock in his hand. ‘If I saw her go for her cane,’ he said, ‘I was going to put this rock right through the glass.’
“Sleeper is such a good man,” Edwin says. “Faithful and steadfast. And he’s loved you forever. I’d be so relieved to see you married to him. Then I’d know that you’d be well taken care of no matter what might come.”
It’s true. Sleeper has been courting her for so long, Edwin working all that same time to bring the match about. Why should her schemes work out and not his?
She surely doesn’t want to end up like Rosalie.
So why not Sleeper? She can picture her life with him and it’s a good life, a comfortable life. He makes a good living. She believes he’ll be a good husband. She doesn’t love him the same way she’s sometimes been in love, but those passionate feelings led eventually to passionate heartbreak, sometimes hers, sometimes his. Bad feelings all around.
And shouldn’t twelve years of tireless devotion be rewarded? And shouldn’t Edwin be made happy in the bargain?
She thinks all these things. The sound of the engine and the wheels on the track are a sort of lullaby, singing her home. She’s drowsy and happy and she trusts Edwin completely. She trusts him with her heart.
It’s time, she thinks. Time to grow up.
“All right,” she says. “But tell him I still want to be asked.”
* * *
—
No one seems surprised by the engagement. Mother and Rosalie are pleased. Only John sounds a sour note. “He wants the connection to the Booth name,” he tells her. “You don’t know the extent of his ambition. I do.”
There is nothing wrong with ambition, Asia thinks.
“He doesn’t love you,” John says, but in her mind, Asia is far away, standing before a great stone arch and a thunderous wall of water, and she can’t hear a word.
Rosalie
viii