VIII. A Woman's Place
Late afternoon's dimming light shadowed the grassy veld of Isabella County before Mary returned to the field where Daniel was hard at work near the drill. It marked the first time she had personally witnessed him performing the hands-on scutwork himself and so centralised on his labours was he that it was plain something was irrefutably wrong. Not daring to disrupt him while he worked off his problems, she patiently perched on the office steps, watching the men toil diligently. Henry no longer presided as a decoy king at the desk, elevating her mood since he wouldn't nuisance her with conversational attempts or badgering about her infatuation with Daniel.
No trace of H.W. was found anywhere. A hollowness twisted in the pit of her stomach, predicting that, despite Henry's assertion, some tragedy must have befallen the boy who otherwise would have been present. A disturbing image of a fire-flayed H.W. formed in her mind, sickening her. There was no wonder why Daniel succoured himself with hard work to banish the tragic circumstances from his mind.
"My sweet Mary," his gruff voice addressed, stepping before her and crumbling the horrid ideas. "How are you today?"
Behind his voice was a hidden secret that she disliked.
"Where's H.W.?" she bluntly questioned.
The sound that Daniel released was a long, piteous blend of sigh and growl, like a tired old lion who didn't want to be pestered by its young.
"Why don't you join me for supper and we'll talk about it?"
She agreed and her hand was enclosed by his much larger one before he escorted her to the mess hall. In the fashion of a true gentleman, he held the door open, letting her enter first. She picked the table where they sat and he ordered a steak for them to share from the cook who'd appeared and disappeared with the suddenness of a rabbit from out of a magician's hat.
"If I can't eat supper at home I'll get hit," she cautioned.
"They won't raise their hands to you," he proclaimed sternly.
One of his infamous feats of prestidigitation produced the dreaded flask from his back pocket out of which he took a large gulp.
"You care very much about H.W.," he began. "That's good. He adores you. But he's been beyond our reach since his accident. He's changed. I can't help him. I don't know how. It's not doing him any good to stay here locked inside himself."
She waited out another partaking of booze, patient because he would eventually tell what she wanted to know. Then it came and it was bad.
"I had to send him away, Mary. I couldn't handle his special needs. I had to send him to someone who could, someone more experienced than I am. I had no choice. I have too much to do. He was unmanageable."
More of the whiskey was downed.
"Did he set the fire?" she inquired.
Daniel rewarded her concern with a smile.
"You've heard about that?"
"I went to visit this morning."
He paused, structuring his next sentence with care, as the cook came back with her glass of goat's milk and their silverware. Daniel handed him the flask, ordering that it be refilled, which it was then expediently returned moments later along with the half empty bottle and their food. The cook was dismissed for the night and the swift efficiency gave the girl an impression that this was routine. Dividing the food into two portions, Daniel placed a plate before her but her eyes never left him.
"Yes, my sweet," he at last edified. "H.W. set the fire. He didn't get hurt, if that's what you're wondering."
"Why did he set it?"
A second pause allowed Daniel the liberty to guzzle from the replenished whiskey.
"I don't know," he declared. "It's impossible to communicate with him. I wish I had answers but I don't."
"Where is he?"
"In San Francisco. There's a teacher there. She refused to move here so I had to move H.W. there."
"Why aren't you with him?"
"I didn't have the heart…to go…it was…unbearable. The hardest thing I ever had to do."
"He went by himself?"
Already tipsy when she met with him and becoming gradually drunk, he shook his head with the indefinable torment of a parent forced to make a difficult choice.
"Mr. Hamilton went with him. I…couldn't…" His voice was distant, detached, and she knew he simply was not there with her. Then, in equal lachrymose heartache, he remarked, "You won't leave me. Will you, Mary? You'll never leave me."
"No. I'll never leave you."
And she meant it.
"Come here."
He gestured for her and she readily abided. He needed her and she did not plan to disappoint him. This infallible man who, beforehand, had indented upon her a portrait of impermeable strength and wisdom, who knew how to best solve problems and dealt with them straight-on, suddenly and shockingly did not know what to do. He was always supposed to know how to handle things and she couldn't understand his newborn incompetence. The new fractious revelation baffled Mary and cast doubtfull prehensions over her beliefs. Not regarding God or religion but about the varying roles of masculinity.
What is a man? Is he predefined by the chemical and physical maleness given by nature or the masculine traits society sets for him? Is he a defender of all he loved, a champion white knight enlivened from the pages of a fairy tale? An exemplary leader of his community who everyone admired and strove to imitate? An almighty effigy of flesh favoured in the eye of his spiritual creator, even more valued than his female counterpart? A powerfull warrior whose victories or defeats determined his public status as an unlawfull terrorist or a mercifull sovereign? Is he a savage beast disguised as a civil gentleman tamed only by law? Is he judged based upon his kindness or his wickedness, upon how many love or fear him? Is he carved of stone with emotions comprised of rage and vengeance or an amplification of humility capable of having his feelings hurt so that he weeps openly, unafraid of judgement?
What is an angel? Is it a demi-God tethered to do its creator's bloodthirsty will? Is it a solacing guardian sent to defend the weak or a terrible warrior out to rectify errant men? Is it a creature manufactured by glory or one insane with murderous intent? Is it a sword-wielding member of a pantheon of assassins awaiting its next assignment or the victim of manipulation, forced to implement tasks that it did not agree with? Is it a holy being whose moral fabric is tested every second of its existence or an immaculate war machine? Does an angel always have to be a mystical figure or can a good man also be revered as one?
And, most profoundly, what is a father? A gentle hand that guides in the right direction with a caress or a fist unfurling into a cold-hearted slap across the face? Is he pure, unparalleled love, a lodestar circumspect of his every action out of fear that he set a bad example for his children to follow, namely his daughters? Or a stringent disciplinarian who forces his offspring and wife to follow his orders else suffer dire consequences? Is he concrete truth behind the oath he professed on his wedding day? Is he appreciable only by what he could provide for those under his care? Is he the sum of his parts – his family – or a whole entity onto himself?
Of these three beings, the girl could attest only to what a father meant to her. A figure of limitless love there to tuck her in at night and ward off monsters with a chaste kiss, a teacher who imparted upon her all of the knowledge accumulated from his experiences, a willing sacrificial lamb, a warm body to snuggle against on cold nights, a gentle caress, a firm voice, safe arms in the dangerous dark. He would enfold her in those strong arms to quiet her fears, discuss her worries no matter his exhaustion or the late hour, and cease every activity to focus his undivided attention on her. He was the linchpin linking her past, present and future, holding together her life and the blazing path she would follow over the course of her lifetime. She was his one pure thing, and he could do no wrong in her eyes. His desire was to give her the world, not fully understanding that he was her world. He was a man who would die for her as assuredly as he lived for her…and dreamt of her when they were separated. Fierce in heart, he epitomised a sacred infusion of the traits of man and angel. Whereas a man was an extension of his society and an angel was an extension of its God, a father was quite different: a son grew up to be a copy of his father but a daughter became an extension of him; he was her first true love and she would search for him in every man she would ever meet. Father is man. Father is angel. Father is God.
Daniel exemplified each of those ideal traits, for he was precisely what she had always wanted in a father: firm in voice and gentle in hand. Be he a non sequitur dismantled by a single tear from his wounded eyes or the disabused idol she had always pictured him as, Daniel had been through enough in the span of a single day. Reaching down, he lifted her and placed her upon his lap then, with utmost tenderness, brushed back a loose strand of flaxen hair from her freckled face.
His emerald eyes, alive with sentiment, were wet with looming tears and red from a merger of dust and tears already spent. His arms wrapped around her, pressed her dearly against him. His insuperable remorse was heartrending beyond description. Removed from the presence of critical adults who would find faulty weakness in his emotion, the strong panjandrum, the idol she admired shattered, the veil lifted from her eyes. Once impervious to maudlin displays other than love for children, he now crumbled before her and her alone.
With his face tightly pressed against her shoulder, he granted himself freedom from his bathetic affliction. There was no other sign that he cried save for those stealthy tears that dampened the sleeve of her dress. Unlocking her heart for him, she reciprocated the embrace, inhaling the familiar scent of salty sweat, tobacco and whiskey that she'd come to associate with him and with fatherhood. After a prolonged amount of time he released her, quickly wiping the evidence of breakdown off his face with the back of his hand.
"My sweet, sweet Mary," he professed. "I'm so broken I'm unfixable. I need you so much. What would I do if you weren't here?"
"I don't know."
Her reply was as soft as cotton, salving his wounds.
"I don't know either and I don't want to," he confessed. "But isn't that the problem with sons? They grow up to leave but daughters stay forever."
The problem was H.W. hadn't grown up and left. He was shipped away to a strange city, separated from his friend and father when he needed them most. Yet she still couldn't blame Daniel for the decision that crippled him with portentous intimacy. Words and be damned, Mary rejected that H.W. was a malcontent firebrand and nothing more to his father as his statement implied. The boy was his crown jewel, the carrier of the Plainview name and seed, a fact undeniably of great importance to him. They were of the same flesh and blood. Despite Daniel's acceptance of her as family and her edacious desire to belong and to bear the Plainview surname, Mary would never be a Plainview in the same essence and context that H.W. was. For all of his longing to have a daughter, Mary was conscientious of the propensity a man of Daniel's prominence had for a son. Any daughter in a man's world would never be a fungible asset for a son.
Nestled against him and cradled by him, she was determined to enjoy him in any possible way. If love had foundered him, then it could raise him back up. To her delight he quietly murmured a song into her ear. The child relished his love, having never received any from her real father. Why couldn't Abel Sunday love her the way Daniel Plainview did? The question smothered her with concurrent irritation and hate towards father yet adulation and gratitude for the man who held her now. This bittersweet experience with Daniel brought forth the dearth of what she had been missing in her oppressed life and its wakefulness throbbed inside her with the agony of a rotten tooth.
Hindsight was clearer and perhaps Eli was right about many of Daniel's character faults. Altruism was the ingenious disguise for questionable morés. This man, an intolerable misanthrope, founded his wealth off the sequacious natives who were rightfull owners of the land he arrogated from them then treated them with the cold indifference of a monarch who thought little of his peasant subjects. His perfectly implemented usufruct that allowed him alone to enjoy the rights of the land brought about strong feelings in everyone because despite their souls belonging to the God Above, their bodies belonged to Daniel and his God Below. Enmeshed in an ambitious rivalry comprised of avarice and envy with her brother, Daniel did what was necessary to ascertain what he wanted, unapologetic of the expense as long as it was someone else's. A conniving thief, he spoke with a forked tongue to those whose possessions he coveted.
Unravelled now with her, he was a reformed creature almost clean of his wrongdoings. All traces of malevolence were erased, traded for tender nurturing and he became as needy as any other human being, forswearing her sacred apotheosis of him. This was the part of him hidden from everyone but her, evoking her adoration for him beyond what any words were capable of expressing. Strongest at his weakest, his soul was laid bare to her. For all of Daniel's foibles that were incessantly brought to her attention, his garbled image was repaired by their need for each other.
Her hand stroked over his roughened cheek, marvelling at the contrast against her soft palm. A responsive kiss was planted on her forehead before the song was temporarily reprised, interrupted only when he ingested more whiskey. The caress across his face was haptic therapy for them both, she fascinated innately with the sandpapery sensation of his stubble and sharp masculine angles. Never before had she been allowed to touch a male in this way and she was naturally curious, more so because it was taboo. The mandatory duty of a father was to embody what a daughter sees in other men and Daniel was more than willing to step in where Abel was not.
As if to affirm her thoughts he sighed, "My sweet Mary. My sweet daughter. I love you so very much."
The sun dipped lower, coolling the day's heat and she dispelled the goose flesh by snuggling closer into him. Time ticked by in a momentous, idyllic silence and Mary basked in his attention, remiss of the obscure hour. No bad person could touch her as long as she was squeezed in this embrace; she swore she felt great wings fold around her body.
The mess hall door unexpectedly swung open, drawing her interest, but it was no deterrence for Daniel. It was Henry, removing his hat and nodding an acknowledgement to her as he entered. Daniel's concentration went unbroken even when his name was called. Henry sidled closer, reached out and gingerly shook his brother's shoulder.
"What do you want, Henry?" he grumbled, annoyance prevalent in his voice.
"Don't you think Miss Mary should be getting home? I'm sure her folks are waiting for her."
Sluggish from the whiskey, a leaden tongue formed his obtuse speech with greater effort, unleashing more sentimental candour.
"They can go to Hell. Abel Sunday doesn't deserve her. He spent her entire life misusing her and I'm the only one who stopped him. Mary is more my daughter than she is his."
"I know that, Daniel. I do. And so does she. But her mother loves her and it isn't right to keep her worried."
"Her mother doesn't love her. If she did, no hand would ever harm her."
"That may be but either way she shouldn't be up this late. You're a father. You know that."
Henry's sober reasoning sank into Daniel who complained that Mary was rightfully his and biology did not create decent parents out of monsters. He held her gaze for a long while, contemplating Henry's eristic logic.
"You'll come back to see me tomorrow, won't you?" he finally asked her.
"Yes," she responded. "I promised."
"Yes, you did. Thank you so very much for that. You and H.W. are the world to me." He kissed each of her freckled cheeks, intending to prolong what was abruptly foreshortened. "Be a good girl now. Go with Henry. He'll get you home safe. Before you know it you'll be back here with me in your rightfull place."
Her arms were thrown around his neck, a solemn kiss bestowed on his cheek. He helped her slide from his lap, bequeathing her a compassionate smile and a parting wave. When she told him she loved him and he said it back, her faith that life was a gift from God replenished.
During the brief, awkward walk from the mess hall to the Sunday house, Henry kept his peace over several paces. For that she was thankfull, however ephemeral it was. The inexplicable aura about him that she could not trust lurked like a vulture circling overhead in wait of death and she wished to have as little contact with him as possible.
"He loves you a great deal, Mary," he told her as if she wasn't aware. "You're very lucky to have so much of his love. It's hard to come by."
"He's right, you know. He's more my father than the man who really is."
"Then it's good that he found you."
"He changed my life. He saved me."
"Yeah. Seems like he's got a way of doing that for people. You could say he did the same for me."
They halted at the door of the ranch house.
"Good night, Mary," he wished. "Don't you worry. I'll take care of him."
"Thank you. Good night."
The she stepped inside where her parents and Eli were assembled around the table, immersed in conversation. Their topic was plain despite her absence; the sudden stillborn atmosphere and wicked glare of Eli's eyes told her everything.
"Where have you been, young lady?" asked mother.
The girl flinched because she loved mother and, despite Daniel's inflammatory accusation, she knew that it was reciprocated. While she wanted no secrets between her and mother, the oil man was not open for discussion in front of the Sunday men. The least desirable thing was to delate any private information to her craven brother or to needle him at this late hour when her aspired destination was bed.
"With Mr. Plainview," she answered, bearing pith, not risking a lie.
Daniel's name successfully inflamed the bonfire already behind Eli's eyes but the ordained Holy Spirit's vessel miraculously kept his composure.
"Of course you were," mother brushed off. "Off to bed with you now. It's late."
"That's all? She was away at a ridiculously late hour with that unregenerate backslider and you shrug it off with an order for her to go to bed?" Eli oppugned. "You shouldn't let her spend as much time with him as she does. He is a bad influence and she is callow and impressionable. She will go astray if we do not tighten our hold."
Too fatigued for rebuttal, Mary plodded to her room where Ruth was already in bed, leaving Eli to battle mother's decision. The stench of oil being pumped out of the ground from the derricks surrounding the property drifted into the room from the leaky windows but Mary breathed deep, savouring it as the scent of change for her. Though unpleasant, it was associated with better things.
Only a few short months ago she damned the immutable, desolate California plains. Now the whilom desert she called home was forever altered by the wells, derricks and all the strenuous, unending toil of their existence. Along with the landscape, her home was not beyond the indomitable reign of the splenetic Daniel Plainview; the cycle of physical abuse surceased because of his renowned ill temper. The tide had changed and Daniel's close scrutiny on father's defective paternal conduct asphyxiated the religious fanatic, the fear he once inflicted on her of him exchanged for his of Daniel. Paul excepted, the Sundays were family only because she had been born to them but her allegiance lay with the man who acted as her father rather than the one who said he was.
With H.W. gone she wanted to stanch his agony as payment for the improvements he made for her. Sleep descended upon her with her friend's welfare on her mind but it would've been a lie to think she wasn't glad for the opportunity to get closer to her appointed father figure without anyone else in the way.
Keeping with her daily routine, she met Daniel and Henry at the cottage in the morning, taking breakfast with them as appetite afforded her after she'd daintily picked at the one mother provided. Venturing to the field, Daniel accepted Mary's hand into his, gently caressing its back with his callous thumb. First they checked the progress of the well farthest out and the girl was treated to a simplified account of how the actual drilling process ran. When his qualitative analysis determined that all was functioning efficiently, they resigned to the office.
"You will be my new apprentice," Daniel proudly christened her. "Teach you about the oil business so you can help H.W. run it someday."
And thus she was enroled and so it began. Daniel started her training by having her complete small menial tasks such as retrieving ledgers or replenishing his ink. After a few days he sat her upon his lap and gave her remedial explanations and lessons on his work. Eager, she retained everything like a sponge, impressing him with her swift learning ability and voracious appetite for more.
In no time Daniel discovered just how much of a raw talent had been tapped from within the young girl. A proverbial diamond in the rough, she proved to be more than H.W.'s docile understudy but a gifted, incommensurable future business associate in her own right. She was an anomaly unique to the rural parts of Isabella County, nurtured by the scholarly interests of her open-minded brother Paul, and an exception to the widespread apocryphal assumption that women were worthless outside the home. Upon noting this, a deeper sense of hate for the rest of the townspeople ate at the oil man and he showed them all that his sweet Mary was greater than they, a rose whose scent was sweeter in the centre of their inferiority.
"It isn't enough to be good at something," he entrusted in her one day. "You have to be exceptional at it. I've always been anxious to do new things and ventured into them without fear. In life there is no time for fear. Either you do something or you don't. Never hesitate or you will lose. These people accuse me of being ruled by what they call greed. But at times, willingness to do new things often goes hand in hand with greed. That's when it's called ambition."
Listening to his wisdom with great interest, she took them with the advertent seriousness of death and undertook the striving quest to earn his highest praises every day.
The lessons worked other wonders too. Less lugubrious over H.W. now that there was another more positive occupation of time, Daniel threw himself into his work deeper than ever. Coalesced with the girl child in common interests, their separate but similar pain was attenuated by a growing and strengthening bond.
But a spoilsport always rears his ugly head and there was one guess given as to who it was in Little Boston. Passing the office on his way to the church, Eli happened to peer through the window one afternoon and caught her on Daniel's lap. Such a potent rage transmitted from him that the sensation of an invisible hand clamping down on her throat got Mary to glance up from her lesson and notice him outside. Construction of the new church stagnated the war between the materialistic preacher and the affluent oil man, the younger combatant perpetually preoccupied with spending the half of the fee that had been given to him after drawing up the contract for the ranch's sale.
The affectionate scene of Mary's education was the hostile fulcrum that catapulted Eli's dissent again. That Sunday's sermon was punctuated with sententious stories about the Devil's sneaky work of expropriating their homes and morality. He gazed directly at his little sister and pontificated that Satan was an "equal opportunity employer", recruiting cohorts amongst their female folk by instilling within them desire for knowledge arcane to women. Murmurs of ignorant agreement in the form of Amen! rippled like disturbed water through the room. Mary's eyes rolled and she sighed, exasperated. The only reason she bothered attending Eli's officious sermons was to keep a miniscule amount of peace in the Sunday homestead. She didn't wish for mother to be in a Hell worse than the one she was already in.
Nor did Eli's barbs cease at the pulpit. Daniel lavished her with a surplus of gifts: nothing as extravagant as the dress but small tokens including a new journal into which she jotted notes on her lessons with him, a good pen and a few barrettes to keep her bangs out of her face while she wrote. The expense graduated, however, when he purchased a locket for her one day. Placing her on the designated seat of his lap, he cracked open the locket, unveiling its contents of two portraits depicting him on one side and H.W. on the opposite.
"We will be with you all the time now," he explained. "It's proof of which family you truly belong to. No-one can contest that. No-one. Will you wear it all the time?"
She nodded, thinking his ceremonious asking silly.
"Henry, would you keep an eye on things here? I'd like to spend time alone with my daughter."
Henry studied Daniel with incredulity for the remark but nodded.
"Sure, Daniel," he accorded. "Whatever you want."
Daniel vacated his chair, gesturing for Mary to follow. Once their feet touched the dusty ground, he accepted her hand into his again and together they wandered away from the work fields and into the rougher terrain. His bad leg made him ungainly in sandy areas but when she attempted to help he declined assistance and managed on his own.
"Thank you, Mary," he said after his gangly legs recovered balance. "But it isn't necessary. The struggle only makes me more determined. Did you ever come up here with H.W.?"
"A few times. I miss him."
His personal longing was expressed with a sigh before responding, "So do I, my sweet." He paused for a brief moment then, without preamble, entrusted her with a private history. "My father was a ruthless man. He spared nothing to inflict harm on my mother or my sister Annabelle. Or me. He never needed reasons to hit us, excuses were all that were necessary and one was found every day to beat at least one of us. He was a rotten scoundrel who led a miserable life with liquor as his comfort and inspiration to make everyone around him unhappy. When he was laid off from the textile mill things got worse. My mother was forced to endure his abuse all day, every day. He was king of his household, you see, and everyone in it served him or suffered the consequences. We were always at the mercy of his drunken cruelty and none of us were ever safe around him.
"Annabelle found a boyfriend in a new schoolmate just before her seventeenth birthday, but she kept him secret from our parents for a long time. She told me about him straight away and arranged a meeting between us to get my approval since she wasn't going to get one from our father. His name was Charlie. I liked him and I've never liked many people. Annabelle was infatuated with him and he suited her. So, because I wanted her to escape our miserable life and find happiness, I approved. In only a few short weeks Charlie asked for my permission to marry her. Do you know what I told him?"
Mary shook her head, spellbound by the narrative.
"I gave him my blessing but warned if he ever raised a hand against her then I would hunt him down and cut his throat as he slept. As far as I know he'd never hurt her but if I got a letter today telling me otherwise I'd make good on my promise." He sighed again before correcting, "I'm getting ahead of myself. The night she planned to elope with Charlie, Annabelle wrote a note to our mother telling her the story. I was supposed to sneak her out of the house and carry her baggage to where Charlie waited down the road. On our way out, she decided to leave her note on our mother's pillow next to her. As she did, our father, drunk and hiding in the dark, reached out and grabbed hold of her wrist. Before I could drop her baggage and go to her rescue he'd already roughed her up with a fist to her face. For the first time in my life I struck my father with the fury built on a lifetime of abuse and hatred. I told that monster that he would never hit Annabelle or me ever again and that it would be a long time before he hit our mother. I stomped the hell out of his hands untill I heard the fingers break, told my mother to leave while she was able and escorted Annabelle to Charlie without the comforts of her belongings. We were lucky to escape with our lives so she didn't complain.
"I don't know how our father found out about Annabelle's plans or if our mother ever got away because I never went back. I made my way west, out to Kansas to start a new life. I never looked back."
He plucked a cigarette from the pack in his back pocket, lit it and inhaled deeply from it as he stared into the distant darkened horizon, recuperating from the telling of his intimate anecdote before he spoke again.
"Since then I don't tolerate the abuse of children. I've made war with those who do. I had a nice talk about it with your father and you saw what I did to Eli. They won't harm you ever again. Someday you'll walk away, never look back and be all the better for it. Life is a blank book where we write our own destinies. No god controls our fate."
An important element had been omitted from Daniel's tale, she realised.
"What about Henry? Where was he?"
"Henry was elsewhere, my sweet. He didn't live with us."
"Why not?"
"That's a complicated story for another time."
"Why did you tell me this?"
"To show you that I know how you feel because I've been there before. And to let you know that you're worthy to bear the Plainview name."
She inched closer to her protector, the great paladin for children's rights, and encircled him in her empathic arms. Control of her tears was impossible and she never felt more honoured than when his wiry arm wrapped around her and gently caressed her back. They held each other as if posing for a painting untill he finished smoking and announced that he would walk her home.
At her doorstep, he stooped down with her hands held dearly in his, and gave her a smile so full of commiserated fondness that it was unlike any of the others that had preceded it. Common strife reinforced the father/daughter, teacher/pupil ligature already fashioned between them. Her recalled crush caused something light and feathery to churn inside her tummy, fluttering delicately for release. In response, she giggled and he returned the laughter.
"Good night, Mary," he softly whispered.
"Good night."
"I love you and I'll see you tomorrow."
Smiling jubilantly, she nodded.
"Sleep tight and don't let the bed bugs bite," he closed.
"I won't!" she laughed.
"Go on now. Get inside."
Mary dispensed a furtive kiss on his rough cheek and bounced into the house. Pleased that he did not budge untill she was fully inside, she loathed that she needed to shut the odious door between them.
"Mary!" mother greeted her. "Were you out with Mr. Plainview again?"
"Yes. He walked me back."
"That's nice of him. Are you hungry?"
She shook her head.
"Then wash up and go to bed."
Succumbing without protest, the weariness of the day struck her bones rapidly. Tonight she couldn't wait to crawl into bed and close her eyes. The sooner she did the sooner she could share another day with Daniel. Maybe he would impart more of his esoteric biography to her if she was lucky. The vignette recounting his past made her feel extra special because he never revealled personal information to anybody. In the months of his Little Boston residency, he remained as much a selcouth curio as he was the day he arrived.
Climbing into bed, she abruptly stopped the ruffling of her bed clothes when she heard two familiar voices outside the window. One was the unmistakable commanding growl of Daniel while the other was the mousy sacrosanct tone of Eli, each trying to gainsay the words from the other as was their frequent custom. Her ears rang from the intensity with which she listened.
"…what you did to your own son," her lickerish brother was caught in mid-sentence. "I suspect you intend to use Mary as a replacement for him. I've noticed how you pamper her as if she was your own…"
"She is a part of my family and she was a part of it before H.W. left. If that upsets you then it isn't my problem."
"Yes, but now you rid yourself of H.W. you want to use my sister as a pawn in your game against me."
"You think far too highly of yourself, Eli. She means more to me than she ever will to any of you. No real brother would treat her the way you do. She means nothing to you. She isn't your sister any more than this is your land. Go back to your church and stay there far away from me. And if you dare speak my son's name again I will cut out your tongue in front of your congregation and show them who the Devil really is."
By the shuffle of his familiarised gait, Mary knew that Daniel walked away. Minutes later she heard Eli saunter off in the opposite direction, put in his place again. She was gratified.
Daniel was already awake and his morning cigarette reduced to ash on the ground by the time Mary called the next day. He and Henry were leaving for work, taking her aback with disappointment that she had been excluded and uninformed about their intentions. It must have been men's business.
"Good morning, my sweet," greeted Daniel, smoothing back her hair and kissing her speckled cheek in faithfull practise.
"Where are you going?" she inquired, unafraid of his anger over her prying.
"We're going to meet some men today who want to make an offer on my land."
Mary's stomach ached violently.
"You're not going to leave me, are you?"
"No, no! I'd never leave you, Mary. It's just good business protocol to show up and hear what they have to say."
"Can I come?"
He lightly chuckled but shook his head.
"Not this time. It would be inappropriate to show up with a child…"
It was too late. Mary's ego rippled with insult.
"You'd take H.W. if he was here! You won't take me because I'm a girl!"
With a cracked voice and pouting lips, she wanted him to see how injured she was by his omission of her. By teaching her other aspects of his work he awakened a part of her that fed rapaciously off the enlightenment. Education was a necessary achievement if her life was ever to improve and she was offended that he who made her hungry for it now denied it to her. The more she learnt the more she wanted to know and now she would starve for it.
Daniel's attention redirected to Henry, sending a tacit request for a private moment and the Plainview sibling readily complied, as he did with all of Daniel's directives. When Henry was a suitable distance away, Daniel crouched down with painstaking consternation to meet her eye to eye. Placing his hands on her upper arms either to secure her or support himself, he spoke:
"How could you say that?" he questioned, his bruised objective glinting in this verdant eyes. "Tell me you don't mean it."
Silence wrecked her with combined remorse and shame, trussed as her age insisted.
"Mary," he barely whispered, then raised his voice firmly: "That just isn't true. You know it isn't. You know. If it was then I would've never given you lessons on the business. Listen to me. I don't take H.W. to these types of meetings either. I treat you with the same respect that I treat him with. I still sit him on my lap and teach him the same lessons in the same manner that I teach you. I know you're as strong and as smart as any boy. You've proven that to me on many occasions."
Anguish not quelled, a frustrating prolix unrest generated between them.
Finally he compromised, "How about this: when I return, you and I will take another walk down to the beach. Then we'll talk some more. All right?"
She nodded and was rewarded with a kiss.
"That's a girl. I'm so proud of you. I'll see you when I get back."
He struggled to stand again and she reverently helped him not only because the etiquette of her upbringing compelled her to but also because she despised watching her pillar of strength falter against his one Achilles heel. Thanking her, he hobbled off with Henry chasing in his shadow.
There was nothing much to do, her reliance on work with Daniel to consume her time ruined; the economics book that H.W. had perused on a passed afternoon was remembered. Trying the door, it opened and she unceremoniously entered, knowing its inhabitants welcomed her to do so.
Reading was evidently not a favourite Plainview pastime because there were neither bookshelves nor a visible library, so she pondered about where the text book was stashed. Being that it apparently belonged to H.W., it might've been hidden somewhere around his bed. Getting down on her hands and knees, her first effort bore immediate fruit as she ferreted out a stack of books secreted within the dusty space beneath. Striving to grasp and yank one out, her brother's voice jolted her away from her task.
"You've been warned and still you come here. I cannot save you or your precious reprobate. You came to a crossroads and willingly chose the left-handed path."
His eyes strayed to her breast where the locket Daniel gifted her with rested. If possible, his already phlegmatic eyes dulled deeper with the eerie emptiness of a doll's poignant stare. The child's flesh crept and broke out in a cold sweat.
"Material bribes in exchange for your immortal soul," he sneered, "things to further dissever you from your rightfull place. His munificent gift-giving rots your soul. Expensive gifts and a man's education. Oh, how he cossets you like a pet! Will it be worth it, Mary?"
"I don't think he'd like you being in here," she warned the execrated marplot, feigning counteractant bravery in the face of danger.
"I won't be long, there's no need to blab to him of this visit. I was walking by and spotted you through the window and saw you were alone. I stopped in to deliver some news to my morally wayward sister."
"I don't want to hear it, Eli."
"But I think you should, since the lap that you so joyously place yourself upon has also seated a cheap town harlot."
The vile, sacrilegious polemic kindled her infuriation.
"Stop lying about him, Eli, I won't believe anything you say."
"But it's a fact," Eli traduced, delighting in how his words lacerated her spirit. "No matter. You'll see for yourself eventually. The longer he babies you the more it will hurt when your eyes open to his heathen ways. Now that he's added whore monger amongst his other faults, you'll see the truth. Doesn't it bother you that a common whore shares the same lap you sit upon? Don't you feel filthy? Doesn't it make wonder what his intentions toward you might be? She may have infected him with a disease so you'd better take care. My concern only lies with you, my sister. Already his whore's tongue is as loose as her morality. She brags to everyone about the large sums of money he spends on her during their nocturnal trysts. Like he spends large amounts on you. I am not surprised. Wealth and success has disfigured his soul. Do you suppose he was with her the night he left H.W. with us? Imagine that: abandoning a sick child in favour of a dirty prostitute. I shudder to think of the judgement that will meet him in the afterlife and I pity him greatly, as do I all those who place themselves willingly upon his lap."
Finished with his latest tactless calumny against her father figure, the sanctimonious brother left, the trace of a faint smile across his boyish face. Mary flopped over H.W.'s bed, reflecting on what Eli told her. She did not want to take the newest defamation of Daniel's character seriously yet at the same time she didn't entirely ignore it. Disfigurement of the soul, indeed. Based on this revelation, Eli and Daniel neglected to join in her present epiphany comparing their frightening cognate behaviour. Then both possessed a deformity of the soul, their signatures signed in blood on Satan's contract. Each played the Devil against the other and ownership was interchangeable between them. Right now she was unclear as to who was the Devil to whom.
Was it possible that Daniel had fallen to the temptations of a whore? Unwanted, vivid images of him with a salacious woman perched on his lap with raised skirts and bared breasts, engaged in carnal rapture of each other surged through her mind. Her body heated, her concerted jealousy unbearable. The last thing she wanted was to think of him doing those disgusting things, whether they were voluntary on his part or not. If the implications were true and were done voluntarily then she would never forgive Daniel for it.
A chronic betrayal infected her that she didn't completely understand. In essence, Daniel owed her nothing. Their charade of relation was annulled by the reality that there was no shared blood in their veins. There were no romantic prospects because of the wide age gap and her illegal age so no lovers' tragedy would end their story. What difference did it make to her if he had a nocturnal playmate of ill repute? He was an adult and she a lovelorn child. So what exactly was she double-crossed by?
Not wanting to believe a single syllable, she also was not benighted enough to believe that all of his outings with Henry were business and certainly the one taken at night while H.W. was left with her family had not been. To save herself future disappointment, she decided to keep it at the back of her mind just in case. The odds strengthened her loathing of Eli, whether his claims were legitimate or malicious doggerel invented by a counterfeit. How would Eli know that Daniel had been with a prostitute unless he was with her too? Any dirt dug up about a hooker's clientele came with a price.
Bulwarked and protected by her lionised image of Daniel, she struggled to rid herself of the pejorative thoughts. Dwelling on it refreshed her hate for him, thus falling victim to Eli's nocuous scheme. Stretching out across the bed, she dispelled them with forced thoughts of H.W. and what life had been like for him after his banishment to San Francisco. There was no doubt he was receiving the best possible care courtesy of the Plainview fortune. Well fed and treated like a prince, he was probably replacing her with new friends. The likelihood of being substituted wounded her, resurfacing the newborn disgust for his father and further allowing Eli a vacuous win.
Blackness set in her eyes before she realised how tired idleness had rendered her. Hours later, a sinister dream jolted her up with a gasp as if a spectral hand was wrapped around her throat. While nobody else occupied the cottage, there was the original disconcerted thought that Henry was murdering her.
The day was belated, indicated by the room's loss of sunlight, and she knew that the brothers Plainview had to already be returned from their latest repleted business venture. Rising from the bed, she rushed outside and in the direction of the fields. Youth afforded her the energy to reach the parameter of the field in a brief span of time, the office in sight quickly despite the rough terrain. Wiping sweat from her brow, she was exhilarated when she noticed Daniel's lithe, magnanimous form inscribed by the setting sun as he smoked outside.
"My sweet Mary!" he declared, spying her. "I thought that you'd find your way back sooner."
"I fell asleep at the cottage."
"Then you're well rested for our evening stroll."
With Eli's story embedded in her memory, she nodded disinclination but clasped hands with him nevertheless and together they sojourned into the hills. The pair traversed a great distance away from the fields before Daniel selected a spot decent for sitting then drew her near after she stood for a moment half-glaring at him in animosity. The green Leviathan who presides over the sin envy coilled around her heart tighter but Daniel was oblivious.
"How was your day?" he asked genially. "Did you do anything other than sleep?"
"Not much."
"Don't feel too bad for it, my day was equally unproductive and I might as well have stayed in bed." Then in an almost incomprehensible mutter: "That idiot Tilford doesn't know who he's dealing with."
"Who's Tilford?"
Adamantine and detached, his expression warned that this particular ramble was not meant for her ears but he sighed deep and answered, "Someone who was lucky Henry was there with me. Funny how a sibling can impact your temperament. He's not like Eli. You need another brother who is good to you."
She had another brother who was good to her. Once a long time ago. Was he either leading up to something or fishing for information? Leviathan's monstrous jealousy was slain by a surge of hope that Daniel was going to expose the fate of her missing brother.
"Mr. Plainview, can I ask a question?"
"Promise to call me Daniel from now on and you can ask me whatever you like."
Biting her tongue in abstinent inquiry about the whore, Mary blurted out, "Did you know my brother Paul? I have another brother named Paul and Eli said he told you to come here."
"He did, did he?"
"Yes, and he said that Paul told you to take our land away from us."
"What makes you believe Paul told me to come here?"
"Paul was supposed to go to Signal Hill and bring back an angel who would make things better. You came from Signal Hill, didn't you?"
"Yes, before I came to Little Boston I was in Signal Hill. Tell me: why do you think I'm an angel?"
"Because you did what you were supposed to do. You stopped my father from hurting me. You made things better."
"Could you keep a secret?"
"Better than most grown-ups can."
A hearty laugh was elicited from him.
"So you can," he agreed. "Well I'll trust you to not tell one more. Eli's right. Paul found me and told me about the oil here. I came because he wanted me to."
Elated and upset simultaneously, she choked: "Where is he? Why didn't he come back with you?"
"Paul is…somewhere. Getting rich off another piece of land."
"Why hasn't he come back for me? He promised to come back for me. Doesn't he love me any more?"
"He does love you, Mary. He loves you very much. That's why he sent me."
Her shoulders slumped as she resigned, "I guess."
"I received a letter from him today. That's why I was adamant in talking to you tonight. I thought you'd like to read it for yourself."
Her eyes brightened with excitement and she nodded vigorously.
"Yes, please!" she cried, impatient as any doting sister would be for news from a lost treasured brother.
She watched, eager as he removed a folded but crisp letter from his pocket and presented her with it. Overwrought, her trembling fingers grasped and opened it to see her brother's uncommonly neat script, eyes darting to the familiar signature at the bottom for immediate verification.
Dear Mr Plainview:
I hope this letter finds you in good health and all is faring you well in my humble hometown. I hope you like my youngest sister Mary; she's a diamond in the rough with few good things to have come her way. All she needs is the proper guidance and she will excel. She will be convinced you are the angel she's been asking God for. I'm sure you'll grow to love her. She's sweet and bright. Please be kind to her and take good care of her in my absence.
I have good news on my end. I went on my own pursuit for oil, inspired by your success. The money you gave me was used to start my own drilling company. I heard there was oil farther south and decided to travel there to see. Turns out I was right. I believe I will have a very gainfull production here, enough so that I will never want for anything again. Tell Mary that I love her dearly and I will come back for her after I get off my feet better. Tell her I think of her every day. I trust she is safe in your hands.
With Sincerest Gratitude,
Paul Sunday
So it hadn't been a fortuitous windfall that had sent the oil prospector to her! Paul's involvement was verified, the evidence clutched firmly in her hands. The emollient letter soothed the perpetual worry for her estranged brother but the desire for a reunion unfitfully stirred within her. Folding the parchment, she was about to slide it into the tiny pocket in the front of her dress when Daniel confiscated it from her.
"I don't think it's smart for you to keep it, my sweet."
"Why not?"
"There's a reason Paul wrote to me and not directly to you. I don't think I need to point out the evangelistic half of Paul's birth."
Mary shook her head, catching the hint.
"No, you don't," she admonished.
"If he writes again I'll be sure to let you know right away."
"Thank you. For that and for letting me read the letter."
"You're welcome. You can write back to him in my office tomorrow if you like. I'm going out with Henry tonight so I'll walk you back home now."
She did not contest him despite an intense desire to spend more time interrogating him about Paul. But he was the father and therefore he knew what was best so she willingly obeyed, wanting to remain in his good favour. At the door he kissed her good night and waited for her to disappear inside before leaving.
Sleep was troublesome; thoughts of the future weighed down her mind. Paul's ultimate plan was to return for her, zipping her off to a happier life. The problem was it meant she would be forced to leave Daniel, the one person who rescued her, the angel who made the most noteworthy impact on her life. Yes, Paul had sent him, but Daniel was the one who made the difference. It was unimaginable to be parted from her adopted father. The entirety of her life had been spent wishing for a man like Daniel Plainview and now that her wish was granted she determined to not lose the man she worshipped. Not ready to let him go, she would hold on to him with ardent tooth and nail, if need be.
An exciting idea formed: perhaps the solution was a partnership between the two. If Paul and Daniel merged their enterprises then maybe they could coexist as one family. Only one thing could foul that dream. An avaricious businessman, Daniel's hunger for power was insatiable and all was trampled in his quest for it. Without doubt he'd be reluctant to share authority and would exert it enough on the Sunday boy to engulf him. Mary put faith in the logic that Daniel understood that if they could ally themselves then he would gain more power from the arrangement. Together they would be unstoppable, a lucrative deal which Daniel would not be able to altogether resist.
The prospector was not at the cabin the next morning, nor was he at the office and Fletcher was clueless on his whereabouts too. The anxious glaze about the right hand man's face disconcerted the girl who inwardly cursed Daniel for his frequent mysterious disappearances. She was trapped inside walls of infinite worry for him. Daniel was a great man and great men were never at a loss of enemies or perilous run-ins.
Henry was untraceable too and old fears that he masterminded a horrid fate for his half-brother lashed at her. Yet Henry and Daniel inveterately went off together only to come back hours later, worse for the wear thanks to long nights of carousing but in good condition otherwise. No other recourse was open so she put worry behind her for the rest of the morning.
When mid-day came but the Plainview brothers did not, she relapsed into a maelstrom of panic. Fletcher offered kind words of mollification.
"Don't worry, Mary," he prescribed. "Daniel's tough as nails. He'll be all right, you'll see."
Yet Fletcher did not appear convinced of it himself.
"I'll wait for him at the cottage," she informed.
A letter answering Paul's correspondence to Daniel was penned in her ledger during her wait. Writing quickly but thoughtfully, her amateur but pretty penmanship filled the clean paper with brief details chronicling her life since his flight, questioning him on his time and experiences and whether he planned on coming back soon. He was missed terribly and she loved him more with each passing day, she finished, and by the time the letter closed it was five pages long.
After sitting for an hour in the rickety contraption of a chair outside the cottage door, Mary broke down, sobbing with reprieve when the distant sound of slow hoof beats signalled a horseman's steady and eminent approach. Her prayers were answered when Daniel appeared astride the loping stallion, resembling a war-beaten soldier returning from battle. Barely able to stay upon the horse, he all but collapsed from the animal's back when it stopped, his knees buckling when his feet hit the ground. Playing the part of the good daughter, she rushed to his side, doing her best at steadying him.
"Mary," he addressed, voice hoarse and husky. "Thank you so much. Help me inside, will you?"
She bore the burden of as much of his heavy weight as she could, he vying with painstaking effort to not place too much on her as they entered the residence. The repugnant stench of his unbathed, whiskey saturated body nearly made her gag and when he dropped down on the nearest bed – H.W.'s bed – she had to turn away from him to breathe easier for a few seconds.
"That's a good girl," he extolled, looking at her through eyes swollen from either tears or lack of sleep. "I knew you would help me. I appreciate it very much."
"Are you OK?" she asked inquisitively, wrinkles of tormented concern carved in her forehead.
"Yes, I am now. Now that I'm home with you to take care of me everything will be fine."
"Where's Henry?"
The query visibly rattled him as his bloodshot eyes widened a bit more to gaze at her. Clearly they pained him, indicated by the grubby hand he raised to his temple.
"Henry won't be with us any more," he chose his words deliberately.
Relieved to hear the confided discretion, Mary could not hide her interest in Henry's reason for leaving town so out of the blue after his acclaim that Daniel supplied a new genesis to an otherwise seedy lifestyle. Daniel had given him the means of a fresh start and in her opinion it was unappreciative of him to leave without warning as mysteriously as he had come.
"Why? Where did he go?"
But Daniel was as slick and oleaginous as the black ooze he pumped out of the ground.
"He had to leave, sweet Mary. He's buried in other work."
The severe gleam in Daniel's eyes cued her to not pursue the topic further. Nevertheless, she was dying to know what offensive crime Henry had committed that made him fall from grace and be unworthy of the coveted Plainview name.