Night Divine

Chapter Sixty-Two

Monday, December 15th, 1827

Jwaye Nwèl

Lucy decked the house with all the signs of Christmas she could muster, stringing garlands of cedar, pine, yew and conifer from every mantel and doorway. Beech Grove came to life. She missed everyone, her family, dead or alive, all of them as far away as Derbyshire, Fatland Ford, Louisville. What a blessing and a surprise that Gifford would soon arrive. Already she wondered if Woodhouse should leave with his brother after the holidays. Was it time?

With the Leyland cypress brushing the front room ceiling, Virginia pine boughs tied with orange slices and peppermint, Lucy strung more popcorn helped by her students, who were atwitter with news about the imminent arrival of Monsieur Gifford Audubon.

They quizzed Lucy.

‘When did you last see him?’

‘What does he do in Louisville?’

‘What is a counting house?’

‘Is he like his father?’

Then while weighing her answer, a young man she no longer recognised came through the front door with William Johnson trailing. Without any ceremony, he lifted Lucy from her seat, crushed her to him with a bright hello.

‘Gifford!’

‘C’est moi.’

Lucy’s students scattered, looking over their shoulders, gawping, not so much at a stranger, but at Miss Lucy, who broke into tears, hand over her mouth, stunned by her own son.

‘Maman,’ he laughed. ‘Yes, it’s me.’

‘Oh, Gifford, there’s so much to tell you. So much I want to hear.’

‘There is,’ he said, standing now close to the fire to warm himself from his journey. ‘I have gifts. From Aunt Eliza, Uncles Thomas, Wills and Nicholas.’

‘Just let me take you in.’

‘Oke.’ He turned, having fun with a language now out of use. ‘Mwen espere ou yo kontan.’

‘I am. I am. I’m very happy.’

As eager to see his triumphant brother as his mother was, Woodhouse barrelled past Mr Johnson and his family who had come in to see Lucy’s eighteen-year-old son. Before Lucy and Gifford had a chance to share another word, all sat around the great table with a tea hastily prepared in honour of this cherished young man.

Between Lucy and Woodhouse, Gifford kept one hand firmly on both, wanting only to know when they might be together in private to catch up, discuss the future, know where Papa was at present, and the big question: did he ever intend to return? Gifford wanted to know if Jean-Jacques was a madman tilting at windmills, as Uncle Nicholas, even Aunt Eliza, had hinted. Who would forsake a wife, sons, hearth and home to travel to England to seek fame and fortune when his trip to Philadelphia had left him generally thought a buffoon?

William Johnson raised a glass. The fire roared. The table groaned. Gifford stood, and stopped his host.

‘May I? Mr Johnson, thank you for looking after my mother and Woodhouse, collecting the tuition fees, doing everything I or my father should be doing.’

‘Young Gifford, you are welcome. But remember your father is busy. All will come good. I promise. His birds, well, they are without parallel.’

‘Or so he says.’

‘I must stop you. Jean-Jacques is my friend. I think his work is genius. The question for you, young Gifford, is,’ he paused, ‘when will you join him?’

‘Never.’

As soon as politely possible, Lucy took Gifford from the Johnson family. His journey had been long, he needed rest. Quickly and quietly, with goodnights all around, Lucy, Gifford and Woodhouse made their way to their private rooms, where Lucy closed the door. Everyone she loved most, with the exception of Jean-Jacques, was in that room.

‘Gifford, please take care with your manner,’ Lucy whispered. ‘It doesn’t serve anyone for you to heap the same shame on him that others do. We are a family in this.’

‘A family?’

‘Wi.’

‘So tell me. What happened to your going to England? Woodhouse to school?’

‘Plans change.’

‘As they always do. Never mind that three other people are thrown this way and that at the whim of “genius”.’

‘It’s true, but it will all come right.’

‘You are the dreamer,’ Gifford said. ‘Tell me. Did you send every last penny with him?’

‘Yes.’

‘How can you survive on nothing? I heard you sent $3,000.’

‘Look around you, Gifford. We have beautiful rooms, students, wonderful hosts who make sure that my debts are collected.’

‘Doesn’t it make you feel just a bit awkward not to have your own home, our own home?’

‘Yes. It does.’

‘He’s a madman. He’s just weaving tall tales. Smoke and mirrors, Maman.’

‘I will give you that, my son, we don’t truly know him as I would hope to have known someone that I have been married to for so many years, but Gifford, that is his way, to be unknown.’

‘Why is that? What is he hiding still? Even from us.’

‘Gifford, I am trying to make sense of his letters. One says come, the next, not. We know he is mercurial, touched by anything and everything. The best I can do is to balance, run a straight race.’

Woodhouse, sitting close to Gifford, looked almost to be his brother’s twin.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ Gifford said. ‘Woodhouse should come back to Louisville with me. Go to school. I will look after him. He, too, can learn the business.’

‘What about the birds, drawing?’

‘What about that, Maman?’

‘Your father wants him to carry on, draw every day.’

‘I’d say it’s not all about what Papa wants anymore, is it?’

‘Oh, Gifford. You might be a bit like him, you know, in your hot-headedness, in your thinking.’

‘Not at all. I have come to these conclusions after a lifetime of being the great Jean-Jacques’s son. I know what has gone on inside and outside this family, and I know, Mother, what you have done to keep everything together. If you want my verdict on his letters, he hasn’t changed at all. Don’t count on a word. Woodhouse should come to Louisville. You can trust me. I will take care of him. If Papa comes home, he comes, and if not, so be it. Meanwhile, Woodhouse, like me, will have your family and an education.’

‘Petèt.’

‘Do you know how much I have learned? Do you know how much I love it? Even the worst of it, this cotton business. I am just a clerk, but I have begun to read numbers like I read a book, and… the stories… So much makes sense now, whether I happen to like it or not, whether for the minute I can do anything about it or not.’

‘Gifford, I am proud of you.’

‘And I am proud of you, Mother.’

Gifford stood up, handing her a small money bag he had strapped to his waist. ‘I will always do my best to help you out.’

‘I can’t take this.’

Lucy now stood, going to Woodhouse, lifting his chin.

‘You and Woodhouse will need this money in Louisville.’

‘I can go?’ Woodhouse asked.

‘Yes,’ Lucy said. ‘At the moment we have two choices. We can all go to bed like good little church mice or we can make our way to the creek and go for a midnight swim.’

Without argument, the family chose a chilly splash. Gifford and Woodhouse splattered and sprayed each other, as Lucy gathered her skirts and waded in.

‘Manman, Jwaye Nwèl!’ Gifford shouted out, skimming his hand over the top of the water in a wide arc.

‘Wi, Manman, Jwaye Nwèl,’ Woodhouse laughed, also dashing a wide spray over the black water.

‘Happy Christmas,’ Lucy said as her sons larked about, etched in moonlight. In that moment, everything stood still, perfect, Gifford and Woodhouse, healthy, alive, thriving; well on their way to making their mark in the world.

Jean-Jacques, the only person missing, Lucy imagined as a sort of Natty Bumppo, the famed frontiersman in the Leatherstocking Tales. She laughed, seeing him toss his long locks, strike a pose, take London by storm, a live specimen, the last of the Mohicans, with his birds in tow.

How could Gifford or Woodhouse know, when she often forgot, that what he did, he did for her, for them, and he did it for love? How could any of them know at all what fiery things he would always be running from?

*