A Northern Light (11 page)

Ada blinks at me with her huge, dark eyes, and even though it's boiling hot in our room, I suddenly feel cold. I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling. "No reason," I say.

John the Baptist was looking dustier than a man should. Even a man who spent all his time wandering around in a desert.

"Mattie, be careful with that! You know those figurines mean the world to me."

"Yes, Aunt Josie," I said, gently wiping John's porcelain face.

"Start with the top shelf and work your way down. That way you're—"

"—not dusting the dust that I already dusted."

"A smart tongue does not become a young lady."

"Yes, Aunt Josie," I said obediently. I did not want to anger my aunt. Not today. I wanted her in a good mood today, for I had finally thought up a way to get myself to Barnard—one that didn't involve my father's say-so or a job up at the Glenmore.

My aunt Josephine had money. Quite a bit of it. Her husband, my uncle Vernon, made a good living with his sawmills. Maybe, just maybe, I hoped, she would loan a little bit of it to me.

I was cleaning house for my aunt as I did every Wednesday after school. And she was sitting in a chair by the window, watching me work, as she did every Wednesday after school. My uncle and aunt live in the nicest house in Inlet—a three-story clapboard painted gold with dark green trim. They have no children, but my aunt has nearly two hundred figurines. She says her rheumatism keeps her from doing any real work because it makes her bones ache something wicked. Pa says his bones would ache, too, if they had as much lard hanging off them as hers do. She is a big woman.

Pa does not like my aunt Josie, and he did not want me to clean her house. He said I was not a slave—which was rich, coming from him—but there was not much either of us could do about it. I had started helping my aunt to please Mamma—Josie was unwell and Mamma had worried about her—and it wasn't right to stop just because Mamma died. I knew she wouldn't want me to.

Aunt Josie does not like my pa, either. She never thought he was good enough for my mother. Josie and my mamma grew up in a big house in Old Forge. Josie married a rich man, and she thought my mother ought to have married a rich man, too. She thought Mamma was too fine to live on a farm, and often told her so. They had a falling-out over it once, when Mamma was expecting Beth. They were sitting in Josie's kitchen, drinking tea, and I was in the parlor. I was supposed to be dusting, but I'd been eavesdropping instead.

"That huge farm ... all the
work,
Ellen," my aunt said. "Seven babies ... three buried because they weren't strong enough, because
you
weren't strong enough... and now another one coming. What on earth can you be thinking? You're not a field hand, you know. You're going to ruin your health."

"What would you like me to do, Josie?"

"Tell him no, for goodness' sake. He shouldn't make you."

There was a long, cold silence. Then my mamma said, "He doesn't
make
me." And then the parlor door almost hit me in the head as she burst into the room to fetch me home even though I hadn't finished dusting. They didn't speak for weeks after that, and when they finally did make up, there were no more words against my pa.

My aunt could be very trying and she made me angry at times, but mostly I felt sorry for her. She thought that figurines on your shelves and white sugar in your tea and lace trim on your underthings were what mattered, but that was only because she and Uncle Vernon didn't sleep in the same room like my mother and father had, and Uncle Vernon never kissed her on the lips when he thought no one was looking, or sang her songs that made her cry, like the one about Miss Clara Verner and her true love, Monroe, who lost his life clearing a logjam.

I put John the Baptist down and picked up Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. The quality wasn't so good on that one. Jesus had an odd expression and a greenish cast to his face. He looked more like a man with stomach trouble than one who was about to be crucified. I squeezed him tightly to get his attention, then sent him a quick prayer to make my aunt amenable.

As I polished him, I wondered why on earth someone would collect such junk. Words were so much better to collect. They didn't take up space and you never had to dust them. Although I had to admit I hadn't had much luck with my word of the day that morning.
Uriah the Hittite
was the first word the dictionary had yielded, followed by
stinkpot,
then
warthog.
And then I'd slammed the book shut, disgusted.

After Jesus, there was a bible with
THE GOOD BOOK
written on it in real fourteen-karat gold. I picked it up and was just going to tell my aunt about Barnard and ask her for the money, when she spoke first.

"Watch you don't polish the gold off that," she cautioned me.

"Yes, Aunt Josie."

"You reading your bible, Mattie?"

"Some."

"You should spend more time reading the Good Book and less reading all those novels. What are you going to tell the Lord on Judgement Day when He asks you why you didn't read your bible? Hmm?"

I will tell Him that His press agents could have done with a writing lesson or two,
I said. To myself.

I did not think the Good Book was all that good. There was too much begetting, too much smoting. Not much of a plot, either. Some of the stories were all right—like Moses parting the Red Sea, and Job, and Noah and his ark—but whoever wrote them down could have done a lot more with them. I would like to have known, for example, what Mrs. Job thought about God destroying her entire family over a stupid bet. Or how Mrs. Noah felt to have her children safe on the ark with her while she watched everyone else's children drown. Or how Mary stood it when the Romans drove nails straight through her boy's hands. I know the ones writing were prophets and saints and all, but it wouldn't have helped them any in Miss Wilcox's classroom. She still would have given them a D.

I put the bible back and started in on the Seven Deadly Sins: Pride, Envy, Wrath, Lust, Gluttony, Sloth, Greed. I had to stand on the step stool to reach them. They were on a shelf over one of the parlor's two windows.

"There's Margaret Pruyn," my aunt said, peering out the window and across the street to Dr. Wallace's house. "That's the second time this week she's been to the doctor's. She's not saying what's wrong, but she doesn't have to. I know what it is. She's as thin as a pike pole. Got that waxy look to her, too. Cancer of the breast. I just know it. Same as your mamma, God rest her." There was a sigh, and then a sniffle, and then Aunt Josie was dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief. "Poor, dear Ellen," she sobbed.

I was used to these displays. My aunt didn't have much to distract her and she tended to dwell. "Look, Aunt Josie," I said, pointing at the doctor's house. "There's Mrs. Howard going in. What's wrong with her?"

My aunt honked and coughed and pulled aside the curtain again. "Sciatica," she said, brightening considerably. "Pinched nerve in the spine. Told me it pains her something awful." Aunt Josie loves a good illness. She can talk about signs and symptoms for hours on end and is considered to be something of an authority on catarrh, piles, shingles, dropped wombs, ruptures, and impetigo.

"There's Alma on her way home," she said, craning her neck. Alma Mclntyre was the postmistress and my aunt's good friend. "Who's she with, Mattie? Who's that talking to her? She handing him something?"

I looked out the window. "It's Mr. Satterlee," I said. "She's giving him an envelope."

"Is she? I wonder what's in it." She knocked on the window, trying to get Mrs. Mclntyre's attention, or Mr. Satterlee's, but they didn't hear her. "Arn's been seen up at the Hubbard place twice this week, Mattie. You know anything about it?"

"No, ma'am."

"You find out something, be sure and tell me."

"Yes, ma'am," I replied, trying yet again to find an opening in the conversation so I could make my request, but my aunt didn't give me one.

"There goes Emily Wilcox," she said, watching my teacher walk by. "Thinks quite a lot of herself, that one. She'll never find herself a husband. No one likes a too-smart woman."

Aunt Josie must be reading Milton, too,
I thought.
He says the same thing, only in fancier Language.

"You know, Mattie, I'm certain that Emily Wilcox is from the Iverson Wilcoxes of New York City, but its odd because Iverson Wilcox has three daughters—two married, one a spinster. That's what Alma said and she would know; after all, her brother used to be a caretaker at the Sagamore, and the Wilcoxes summered there—but Annabelle Wilcox is a Miss and Emily Wilcox is a Miss—Alma says the return address on her letters always say
Miss
Wilcox. And Emily teaches. She would have to be a Miss if she teaches. She gets letters from a Mrs. Edward Mayhew—Alma's sure that's Charlotte, the third sister, and she's obviously married—but if only one is supposed to be a spinster, why are two of them Misses? She also gets letters from an Iverson Jr.—that's her brother, of course. And from a Mr. Theodore Baxter—I don't know who he is. And from a Mr. John Van Eck of Scribner and Sons—a publishing concern. What's young woman doing corresponding with publishers? They're a very shady bunch. You mark my words, Mattie, there's something fast about that woman."

Aunt Josie said all this with barely a breath. Pa says Uncle Vernon should rent her out to the forge; they could use her for a bellows. As soon as my teacher had turned a corner and Aunt Josie couldn't see her anymore, she stopped disparaging Miss Wilcox and changed the topic. To me.

"I heard you were out gallivanting with Royal Loomis the other day," she said.

I groaned, wondering if the entire county knew. I still hadn't heard the end of it, especially from Weaver, who'd no said, "Gee, Matt, I always knew you liked dumb animals, but Royal Loomis?"

Lou teased me, then told everyone she knew, and they teased me, too. I tried hard to be good-natured about it, but I couldn't. Anyone with eyes could see that Royal was handsome and I was plain. And them going on and on about me being sweet on him was mean. Like asking a lame girl what she's wearing to the dance.

"I wasn't '
gallivanting
,'" I told my aunt. "Royal and I happened to be at the pickle boat at the same time and he gave me a ride home, that's all."

But a simple ride home was not good gossip and Aunt Josie was having none of it.

"Now, Mattie, I know when a girl's sweet on a boy..."

I didn't say a word, just kept on dusting.

"I have a present for you, dear," she wheedled. "Did you see that nice tablecloth I left on the kitchen table? That's for you."

I'd seen it. It was old and yellowed and frayed. I thought she'd meant for me to wash it, or mend it, or throw it out. I knew I'd better thank her lavishly, though, because that's what she expected. And what Mamma would have wanted me to do. So I did.

"You're welcome, Mathilda. Perhaps I can help you out with your trousseau. After you're engaged, that is. Perhaps your uncle Vernon and I could help you with your china and cutlery..."

I turned around to face her, determined to nip her engagement talk in the bud before it got to Alma Mclntyre and all over Inlet and back to Eagle Bay and Royal Loomis himself. "Don't you think you're rushing things a bit, Aunt Josie? It was just a ride home."

"Now, Mattie, I understand your reluctance to make too much of this, honestly I do. You're very levelheaded and you're probably thinking that attention from a boy like Royal Loomis is a bit more than a plain girl like you should expect. But it doesn't do to be too shy. If he's showing interest, you'd do well to pursue it. You might not get another chance with a boy like Royal."

I felt my face turn red. I know I have too many freckles and lank brown hair. Mamma used to call it chestnut, but it's not; it's just plain brown like my eyes. I know that my hands are rough and knobby and my body is small and sturdy. I know I do not look like Belinda Becker or Martha Miller—all blond and pale and airy, with ribbons in their hair. I know all this and I do not need my aunt to remind me.

"Oh, Mattie, dear, I didn't mean to make you blush! This has been bothering you, hasn't it? I could tell something was. You needn't be so modest! I know this must all be very new to you, and I know it must be hard—having lost your dear mother. But please don't fret, dear. I understand a mother's duty toward her daughter, and since your own mamma is gone, I will fulfill it for her. Is there anything you want to know, dear? Anything you need to ask me?"

I clutched the figurine I was polishing. "Yes, Aunt Josie, there is."

"Go ahead, dear."

I meant to be slow and sensible in my speech, but my words came out of me in a big, desperate gush. "Aunt Josie, can you ... would you ... I want to go to college, Aunt Josie. If you were going to give me money for china and silver, would you give it to me for books and train fare instead? I've been accepted. To Barnard College. In New York City. I applied over the winter and I got in. I want to study literature, but I haven't the money to go and Pa won't let me work at the Glenmore like I want to, and I thought that maybe if you ... if Uncle Vernon..."

Everything changed as I spoke. Aunt Josie's smile slid off her face like ice off a tin roof.

"...you wouldn't have to give it to me if you didn't ... if you didn't want to. You could loan it to me. I'd pay it all back ... every penny of it. Please, Aunt Josie?" I spoke those last words in a whisper.

My aunt didn't reply right away; she just looked at me in such a way that I suddenly knew just how Hester Prynne felt when she had to stand on that scaffold.

"You are just as bad as your no-account brother," she finally said. "Selfish and thoughtless. It must come from the Gokey side, because it doesn't come from the Robertsons. What on earth can you be thinking? Leaving your sisters when they need you? And for a terrible place like New York!" She nodded at the figurine I was clutching. "Pride. That's very fitting. Pride goeth before a fall. You're on a very high horse, Mathilda. I don't know who put you there, but you'd best get down off it. And fast."