And then, one night, he was out at the local tavern, drinking a cider and thinking of his sister’s predicament, when who should he see walk in but Mason.
（“He looked the same as ever,” Edward replied to David’s question. “I realized then that I had thought that if I saw him again he would look somehow transformed, as if his poor character and caddish ways would somehow have announced themselves on his countenance. But they had not. Thank goodness he was not with that girl, Sylvie, or I’d not have been able to do what I did.”）
He’d no plan when he stalked over to Mason, but just as he could see his brother-in-law recognizing him, Edward drew back his fist and walloped Mason in the cheek. Mason, once he’d recovered from his initial shock, responded, but their tussle was quickly ended by a number of the other patrons, who separated them—though, Edward noted with some satisfaction, not before he was able to tell them of his erstwhile brother-in-law’s despicable behavior.
“Manchester is a small place,” he said. “Everyone knows everyone else, and Mason is not the only doctor in town. His reputation will never recover, and why should it, for he has damaged his own prospects by his poor behavior.”
Belle, Edward said, expressed horror at his actions—and, indeed, Edward was remorseful as well: not for assaulting Mason but because his confrontation brought her further pain and embarrassment—but, he ventured to think, she was also secretly pleased. The two engaged in a long conversation the following day, after Belle had cleaned his face and sutured his lip （“I do not mean to boast, but I’m certain Mason got the worst of it, though I also must admit that throwing punches wasn’t the wisest recourse, given my profession”）， and agreed that Belle could not stay in either Manchester—where Mason’s entire extended family lived—or the marriage. Laura and Margaret had already sent first a telegram and then a letter urging Belle to come live with them in Vermont—there was plenty of room in their house, and Belle, who, David would recall, was trained as a nurse, would be able to find good work there. But Belle was reluctant to interfere in such a joyous and busy time for Laura, and besides, she confided in Edward, she yearned for some quiet, some time and room to think. And so the siblings decided that Belle would accompany Edward to Boston, where he would once again stay for several nights in the home of their family friends before at last returning to New York. Belle was very fond of these friends, and they of her, and there she would be able to consider her options more calmly: She would divorce Mason, that was certain, but whether she would stay in Manchester or perhaps join her sisters in Vermont was undetermined.
“So you see,” Edward concluded, “the trip was by no means what I’d anticipated, and every good intention I had vanished in the face of Belle’s difficulties. It was wrong of me—so very wrong of me—not to communicate with you, but I was so consumed with my sister’s struggles that I neglected everything else. It was terrible of me, I know—but I hope you can understand. Please tell me you forgive me, dear David. Please tell me you do.”
Did he? He both did and didn’t—he felt for Belle, of course, and yet, in his selfishness, he could not but persist in thinking that Edward might have found time to jot him even the briefest of notes; even that Edward ought to have, because if he had confided in him, he might have been able to help somehow. How was unclear—but he would have liked the opportunity to try.
Though to say any of this would have been too childish, too small. So “Of course,” he told Edward. “My poor Edward. Of course I forgive you,” and was rewarded with a kiss.
But Edward’s story was not yet finished. By the time they arrived at their friends’， the Cookes, Belle was already much calmer, more resolved, and Edward knew that a few days with them would steady her further. The Cookes, Susannah and Aubrey, were a married couple a little older than Margaret; Susannah, herself a Colony escapee, had lived with her parents in the building next to the Bishops’， and she and her siblings and Edward and his had grown up as great friends. Now she and her husband owned a small textile factory in Boston and lived in a handsome new house near the river.
Edward was pleased to see the Cookes again, not least because Susannah and Belle were so fond of each other, with Susannah assuming the role of a third elder sister—the two would repair to Belle’s room and talk late into the night, while Edward and Aubrey remained in the parlor playing chess. On the fourth evening of their visit, though, Aubrey and Susannah told the Bishop siblings that they wished to speak to them about an important matter, and so, after dinner, they all retired to the parlor together, and the Cookes announced that they had important news.
A little more than a year ago, the couple had been contacted by a Frenchman with whom they had traded over the years, and who presented them with an irresistible proposal: to establish California as the New World’s preeminent silk-growing region. The Frenchman, étienne Louis, had already secured a lot of nearly five thousand acres north of Los Angeles, planted almost a thousand trees, and established nurseries that could house tens of thousands of worms and eggs. Eventually, the farm would become its own self-sustaining colony: Already, Louis was employing the first of what was anticipated to be one hundred people expert in various aspects of the silk-making process, from tending the trees to feeding the worms to harvesting the cocoons to, of course, spinning and then weaving the silk itself. The workers would be, for the most part, Chinamen—many left indolent after the completion of the transcontinental railroad, unable either to return home or, due to the laws of ’92, to bring over their families from the Orient. An alarming number had fallen into destitution, depravity, and opium addiction, among other unsavory activities—the Cookes and Louis would need to pay them only a pittance; the city of San Francisco, where most of them lived, was even helping Louis find likely candidates that he might convince to come south. The plan was that the colony would begin its operations in the early fall.
The Bishop siblings took nearly as much excitement from the Cookes’ announcement as the Cookes did in the telling. It was, they all four agreed, a brilliant plan—the population in California was growing so rapidly, and there was so little organized textile industry, that they were certain of a handsome return. Everyone knew the sort of money a clever and industrious person could make in the West, and the Cookes were not just one clever and industrious person but two. They were bound for success. It was a cheering development, made more so after a difficult week.
But this was not the only surprise the Cookes had. For they intended to ask Belle and Edward to oversee their enterprise. “We were going to ask you anyway,” Susannah said. “You both and Mason. But now—and dear Belle, you will know I mean this with no malice—it seems providential. It is a new opportunity for you, a new life, a chance to begin again.”
“That is so generous of you,” said Belle, once she’d recovered herself. “But—neither Edward nor I know anything about textiles, nor running a factory!”
“It’s true,” Edward said. “Dear Susannah and Aubrey—we are very flattered—but surely you need someone with experience in such matters.”