All the Truth That's in Me (15 page)

I race against the dropping sun, which bronzes the path before me. I shade my eyes. It seems as though the sun sets right over my mother’s house. And, for that matter, yours.

You are going indoors when I pass by, your arms loaded with wood. You drop the wood when you see me and hurry out to where I stand. But you, in your boots, can only walk in the tracks you’ve dug out, while I skate over the drifts like a water bug on the stream. I look down upon you, and when you look back up at me the setting sun behind me blinds you. Your nose is red and dripping. I wonder if mine is, too.

“Judith,” you say. “Please don’t go.”

I look around for passersby, for the ubiquitous Goody Pruett. Out here in public, you could be fined for calling me by my Christian name. You are safe for today.

You move to one side so the sun is less cruel and look up at me again, scrutinizing me. I’m glad that this time I’m well covered from chin to toe.

You wipe your nose on your coat sleeve and make another attempt. “The other night I  .  .  . I don’t know where to begin. . . . I wish I hadn’t . . .”

I can wait patiently for many things, but the sun might set before you finish a thought. And I have no wish to revisit that night.

“Yesh?” The
sh
is so slight, it might go unnoticed.

You cock your head so abruptly it’s comical. Like a rooster. I want to laugh. This time I surprised you for certain. It makes me feel bold.

“Yesh, Mishder Whidhing?” I’m surprised and pleased at how close I sound to natural. Even in its foreign nature, my speech can be pleasant and warm, through the cadence and music of words. I don’t sound brutish. My father’s music is in my voice, and not even your father could take that away from me.

You’re roostering again. “You talk,” you say—rather stupidly, if you’ll forgive me.
Yes, I nod. Obviously. You look utterly confounded. I’m enjoying myself.
I rack my brain for the sounds I can and can’t make, the words I can and can’t say, searching for the choicest way to end this interview. And then I decide, it doesn’t matter anymore. There is no more shame. I no longer dream of pleasing you, so I’ll say whatever I wish to say, and what comes out will come out.
I make a small curtsy. “Goodh evenging, Mishder Whidhing,” as politely as Maria’s own mother might. And without looking back, I walk home toward the lip of the sun that hovers over my mother’s snow-shortened roof.

XIV.

I slip away to Sunday meeting, arriving early. Neither Mother nor Darrel goes. Convalescing is still their excuse, though I imagine they will not be able to stretch this pardon out much further. I come because it is the law, but I also come for words to fill my head, and people to observe from my pew in the rear. Not because I yearn for sermons and prayers.

And not because I’m anxious to see you.
Eunice Robinson, on the other hand, clearly has no other objective in mind. At the tolling of the bells, she minces her way down the aisle and into the pew opposite you. She’s been pinching her cheeks in the entryway, I can tell. You reward her pains with one of your smiles.
Your hair is groomed to a shine, and your face freshly shaven. The ebony coat you’d had sewn for your wedding is brushed smooth. Shopping for a new bride already? Is it worth enduring more abuse from Leon’s relatives?
Not that your doings are of any consequence to me.
The villagers trickle in. The blacksmith, Horace Bron, and his wife, Alice, as small a woman as ever married a giant. The Cartwrights, senior and junior. The storekeeper, Abe Duddy, and his wife, Hepzibah. The Cavendishes and their six small children. William Salt, the miller, who still wears the black armband for his son, Toby. The Wills, the Robinsons. The pews fill. Sunlight slants through the windows in golden beams, like the morning of Creation.
Rupert Gillis, the slim schoolmaster, is the only one among us who ever studied music, so he leads us in the hymn. Then Preacher Frye, his limp even more pronounced, takes the podium. It seems to me that the silver streak in his hair is whiter than before. He takes his text from the eleventh chapter of Proverbs.
“The integrity of the upright shall guide them: but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them. Riches profit not in the day of wrath: but righteousness delivereth from death. The righteousness of the perfect shall direct his way: but the wicked shall fall by his own wickedness.”
The room is silent. Not even babies dare to peep. I don’t like the way Preacher Frye’s eyes linger on you.
“From the Book of Lamentations: ‘Our
fathers
have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities.’”
From where I sit I see only your back. Even so, I see you stiffen.
“Brothers and sisters, we had in our midst a deceiver, a wine-bibber, a man who dabbled in destruction. We believed, years ago, he had gone to his Maker to reap what he had sown.”
Oh, Lucas. Go home quickly.
“But he lay hidden away all these years, doing who knows what manner of mischief. Once he was rich, but did his riches profit him in the day of wrath? He appeared at the battle, and as the Scripture says, the wicked fell by his own wickedness. His perverseness has destroyed him. Be not misled into calling this man a hero.”
I am sick for you; I fear I will be physically sick for you.
“Thus saith the Preacher in the book of Ecclesiastes, ‘For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.’”
A late entrant opens the rear door, and a chill wind curls around the chapel. I feel it sharply on my sweating face. It is only Goody Pruett.
“Have we not found the answer to so many of our questions? Has the Lord not revealed to us the evil that has vexed us all these years? Thefts. Torments. Young lives taken. Altered forever.” Preacher Frye’s eyes rest on me. “There are no secrets in the eyes of God. He shouts the deeds of sinful men from the rooftops.
“Now, some among you will say, ‘Yes, Preacher Frye, but didn’t that man Ezra Whiting come and win the war for us? So it would seem. But listen, and I’ll tell you the word of the Lord on the subject.
“The Psalmist said it: ‘Thou calledst in trouble, and I delivered thee; I answered thee in the secret place of thunder: I proved thee at the waters of Meribah.’”
He slaps the open pages of the large church Bible.
“Women and families, were we not praying for deliverance? Men of Roswell Station, was it not a place of thunder? Was not the river our own ‘waters of Meribah’? Were we not tested and proved there to see if our faith would hold?
“It was the Lord who fought our battles for us. Not a sinner whom the Lord used as a tool in his hands, then sent to his eternal judgment. Make no mistake. Woe unto them who call good evil and evil good. And woe unto those that harbor iniquity in their families, for the Lord God visiteth the sins of the fathers upon the children, and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
Eunice shifts herself in her seat, angling her face away from you. You don’t fail to notice.
Reverend Frye goes on in this fashion for another half an hour, intones a prayer, and sits down. Rupert Gillis stands for another hymn, a halfhearted affair. More eyes are on your back than on the schoolmaster’s arm.
After the song, people rise to leave, but you stay rooted to your pew. The congregation lingers in the rear of the chapel, swapping conversation and dreading the wet snow.
Reverend Frye makes his way down the aisle toward you. Seeing him, you rise and stride down the aisle of the church, your Sunday coattails flapping behind you. Your gaze sweeps over Eunice’s bonnet, and I see a trace of sorrow. Yet another village belle you’ve lost. You see me, too, and press your lips together. Perhaps you know that I alone can empathize today. You push your way through the gossipers and leave. The others flow out after you and linger on the stoop.
“Lucas,” Alderman Brown calls out from the porch. “What ails you?”
You turn. Your face is livid. Even inside the church I can hear your answer.
“Did we risk our lives to defend a just society, where guilt must be proven and not assumed? Or are we no better than the oppressive kings from whom our fathers fled?”
I look over to where Reverend Frye leans on his cane in the doorway. He and I are the only ones left inside the church. He glances over and notices me, then returns to the podium to gather his things.

XV.

The breeze is warm and the sunshine bright on my way home from church. The snow turns wet and heavy but still has days of melting left. Chances are tonight the cold will strengthen and I’ll wake up to a sheet of ice.

I stomp my way through the thick mush, taking a child’s pleasure in it, in spite of everything.
Maria wasn’t in church this morning. Leon told me when I passed by him that she was feeling poorly today. He made a point of telling the preacher, too. I am sorry for her but pleased that Leon acknowledged me as his wife’s friend. I wonder if our shoveling had exhausted her. She wasn’t raised for hard work.
I pass by your house, and Jip comes flopping through the snow to sniff me and paw at my skirts. The poor old thing can’t smell, but habits last longer than senses. I squat down to pet him.
“Sshorry, boy,” I say, feeling wonderfully free with a deaf dog. “I haven’t gotth anything.” Better on the
N
s! I scratch between his ears and he squinches his eyes with pleasure. “Good boy,” I croon. “Good boy.” It sounds more like “goo boy.”
The sun is high overhead, and my stomach rumbles for its dinner. I pat Jip one last time and stand up. Just in time I see you move away from your front window, but not without seeing torment on your face.
Poor Lucas. No one wants to see a neighbor publicly shamed at meeting. If I could, I would read you Darrel’s book about the French girl. There’s a lesson in it for wouldbe heroes. The people you save won’t celebrate you. They’ll gather the wood and cheer while you burn.

XVI.

I can hear them arguing before I reach the door. I linger outside for a few moments to survey the battle.“I will too go!” Darrel yells. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“You’ll slip and fall and break your neck.” Mother is slamming pots and trenchers around by the sound of things.
“Then that would be one less thing for you to worry about.”
“Don’t talk that way.”
“I’m no good like this. With schooling I could do something. Provide for myself. If I sit here, I’ll rot. If I die trying to better myself, so be it.”
“That’s fools’ talk. You think I can bear to see something worse befall you?” Mother’s voice has dropped, and I have to press my ear against the door to hear her.
Darrel doesn’t answer.
“You’re my only son.” Mother’s voice is gentle, cajoling.
There is a small silence.
“What about Judith?” Darrel says. “She’s your only daughter.”
Mother thumps her bowls some more. I feel a sinking dread in my stomach at what she might or might not say.
“We weren’t talking about her,” Mother says. “We were talking about you.”
My first thought is to slip away to the barn. My second thought is the one I follow.
I open the door and walk in.
Mother avoids my gaze.

XVII.

We pass a strained and silent afternoon. School isn’t mentioned again. After eating and chores, we all go to bed early.

In the morning I wake before Mother and tend to all my chores well before the sun is up. I pack a pail with some food for our lunch and hide it in a corner. I build the fire and heat water for breakfast, and I help Darrel dress himself. I try to do all that I would be expected to do during the day so she can have little occasion to complain.

Mother appears and watches us warily, eyeing us for a telling move, like a cat waiting for a mouse to bolt. But as the kettle is singing and the table spread for breakfast, with both of us dressed and seated, there is little she can say.

After we eat, as if by silent understanding, Darrel stands with his crutch and hobbles over toward where the coats hang by the door. He’s concealed his books and his broken slate in a strap inside one sleeve—he must have done it in the night. Clever Darrel! I wrap myself in scarves and a coat, take the lunch pail, and offer Darrel my arm.

Mother is silent. A cat about to pounce.
I open the door, and we go outside into the silvered snow. The sky is pale, and our breath freezes in puffs. Neither of us looks back. That’s all Mother would need to stop us.

I lean Darrel against the side of the house. “Wait here,” I tell him. As I suspected, the melted snow froze in the night, and every shoveled path now is deadly slick. I skate and scrabble my way once more to the barn and return with a sled Father built for Darrel when he was a boy. It’s a bit small for him now, but he can fold himself up and sit on it, and I can stomp my way through the ice and pull him to school this way. He pretends to propel us along with his crutch as if the sled were a boat.

No signs of life at your house yet, and knowing Darrel’s eyes are on me, I hide my looking.
We arrive at school early, which I intended. It gives me time to get Darrel unwrapped and into his seat before the other students arrive. Only the schoolmaster is there, feeding the fire.
“Well,” he says, seeing us come in. “This is an unexpected pleasure. Miss Finch.” He kisses my hand, which I hadn’t offered. How dare he be so forward? “And Master Finch. So good to have you back in class. We’ll have you caught up with your classmates in no time.”
I stand aside while the schoolmaster bends over the books Darrel has brought with him, murmuring his approval and pointing with long white fingers to the pages they’ll examine today. At length he turns and notices that I am still here.
“It was kind of you to help your brother get here,” he says, brushing his hair back off his forehead. “Dismissal time is at three o’clock, if you’d like to return then to help him get home.”
Darrel intervenes.
“She’s not leaving. She’s enrolling,” he tells the schoolmaster. “She wants to learn to read. She’ll be staying with me here when I come.”
Rupert Gillis stands up straighter and peers down at me with a gleam in his eye. “Well,” he says. “This is an opportunity, isn’t it?” He rubs his hands together. Students start to enter the schoolhouse, boys and girls bundled to their nostrils in winter wraps. They chatter together until they see Darrel and me.
“Let’s see.” The schoolmaster strides about the room. “Where shall we put you? With the others near your age? No, not the lads. You haven’t had much schooling, have you? Can you read? I thought not.” A pair of older girls in the back twitter.
The schoolroom fills rapidly now. Great boys swagger in and thump Darrel on the shoulder. I feel beads of sweat form on my forehead as all those eyes wonder at my presence. I hear little snorts of laughter. Reverend Frye’s red-haired daughter, Elizabeth, slips in, sees me, and looks away. She’s only two years younger than me, but it might be a dozen, she seems so young and shy.
The schoolmaster claps his hands, making me jump. “I have it.” He pulls a chair up next to his own. “You shall sit here beside me, so that I can mentor you directly. That way you’ll be spared the need to speak recitations with the partner at your desk. You won’t have to sit with the very young children at your level, nor with the lads closer to your age.” He rubs the seat of the chair beside him by way of inviting me to sit there.
My face is hot, yet I feel frozen. My skirts brush against my legs as I walk to his desk. The rustling bounces off the schoolroom rafters.
“Good morning, students,” Rupert Gillis says. “I’m sure we’ll all want to welcome Master Darrel Finch back to school. And now we have a new student. I’m sorry.” He smiles a closed-lip smile. “Master Finch, remind me of your sister’s name?”