Pearl was committed to indefinite care at a state institution upriver.
Silas's right hand took infection and he was held at Touro for a fortnight.
Wilder asked, on the third day, to be taken to the hospital to see the gentleman who saved me.
I would not have gone otherwise.
Silas was sitting up in the bed against three pillows when we came in. He had been freshly shaved. His face shifted when he saw the child.
He tried for a smile and did not quite manage one.
"Wilder. Does your throat pain you."
Wilder touched the small piece of plaster at his collar.
"No, sir. Thank you for saving me."
Silas's eyes filled.
"You are welcome."
Wilder reached into the pocket of his sailor pants and brought out a barley-sugar peppermint stick wrapped in waxed paper. He laid it on the metal bedside table by Silas's good hand.
"Mama says when a person is hurt, sweet things make them feel better."
Silas looked at the candy.
A tear fell out of his good eye onto the back of his bandaged hand. Then a second.
Wilder looked up at me, uncertain.
I took his hand.
"We have to go now."
Silas's voice was hoarse. "Beatrix."
I stopped at the door.
He said, "I am transferring the remainder of my Beauchamp shipping shares into Wilder's name."
"He will not take them."
"It is not a gift. It is a debt."
I looked at him.
"Some debts," I said, "should not be paid down on a child."
He held my eye a long moment.
"Then I will pay them to you."
He drew a parish notary's folder from under his pillow and opened it on the blanket.
I crossed to the bedside.
It was a deed-list, signed.
The Belle Rive chapel and the half-section of cane fields surrounding it.
The Marlowe Pontalba townhouse, lot 17, transferred from the Beauchamp estate, originally settled on Eulalia Marlowe in 1865 by act of donation entre vifs, in confidence, since recorded as Beauchamp.
The first-issue bank notes against my mother's marriage settlement, swallowed into the Beauchamp accounts in 'sixty-nine and accumulated at compound interest.
He said, quietly, "I have already signed. It only wants your signature for receipt."
I took up the pen and signed.
Not as forgiveness.
Only that those things had always been mine.
He put the pen back in the inkwell with his good hand.
He said, "Beatrix. I will not stand in your way again."
I looked up.
He gave me a faint, exhausted smile.
"In my dreams you die twice and I cannot find you. You are alive. You have a child. You have Thorne. I have no further claim. I will stop trying."
I did not answer.
At the door, Wilder turned and waved.
"Goodbye, sir."
Silas lifted his bandaged hand.
"Goodbye."
As the door closed I saw him reach for the peppermint stick and close his good hand around it as if he had taken hold of something lost and irrecoverable.
In the corridor, Cass was leaning against the wall with his hat in his hand. Wilder dropped my hand and ran the length of the linoleum and into him.
"Papa."
Cass caught him up. The word had not surprised him; the child had been calling him that since before the wharf.
He looked at the folder under my arm.
"He gave it."
I nodded.
"Take it," Cass said.
I looked at him.
"Cass."
"Hm."
"Marry me."
He stopped breathing.
Wilder put his hand over his mouth and laughed.
Cass looked at me. His Adam's apple worked.
"Say it again."
I let a smile come up.
"If you didn't hear me, never mind."
He came down the corridor after me with Wilder still on his hip, his voice a little hoarse.
"Beatrix Marlowe. You do not get to take it back."
The wedding was at Bay St. Louis on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in the second week of October.
There were no guests from any old family. There were no newspapers. Mlle. Toussaint stood up with me. A retired federal judge of Cass's acquaintance read the vows. Wilder walked behind me with the train of my plain ivory dress in both small hands, his face set in the grave seriousness of a boy who had been told this was the most important task of his life.
Cass stood under a green palmetto arch on the sand in a white linen coat that did not entirely fit him at the shoulders. He looked perfectly composed.
I came close enough to put my hand in his and saw that he was trembling.
I bent my head and said, "The famous Mr. Thorne is nervous."
"I am afraid you will run."
"And if I run."
"I will follow."
He looked at me.
"To the end of the earth, Beatrix."
The vows were short. When the judge began the exchange of rings, Wilder cleared his throat.
"I have a question."
The handful of guests laughed.
The judge bent down.
"What is it, son."
Wilder fixed his eyes on Cass.
"Sir. Will you make Mama cry."
Cass went down on one heel in the sand to face him.
"I will not."
Wilder considered this.
"If you make her angry."
"I will sleep on the divan."
Wilder nodded gravely.
"Will you protect her."
Cass took my hand and held it in both of his.
"I will stand alongside her, and we will protect our house together."
Wilder pursed his lips. He looked at me. He looked back at Cass.
He held out the ring.
"You pass."
The Gulf wind moved through the palmettoes. I felt the tears come up and did not bother to push them back.
In two lives I had thought I had been born to take the blow for someone else.
I had had to die twice to understand that no one's life is given over by anyone else, and no one's life is to be taken by anyone else.
After the ceremony, a porter brought me a plain cream telegram on a salver. It was unsigned.
WISHING YOU EVERY HAPPINESS. STOP.
I did not need a signature.
I did not answer.
Cass came up from behind and slid his arms around me.
"Who."
"No one who matters."
He laughed softly against my hair and kissed my temple.
From the water, Wilder called: "Mama. Papa. Come and be photographed."
I took Cass's hand and we walked down to him.
The photographer set the plate.
In the second before the shutter, Cass had lifted Wilder onto his shoulder so the boy could see. The Gulf sun came in low along the dunes and fell across Wilder's open hand.
The crooked life-line that ran the breadth of his small palm was clear in the light.
It was the same line that ran across mine.
On him it was not a chain.
It was only his life.