Bellefleur (50 page)

Ewan and Gideon came in (for they had been—incredibly—out in the storm) to report that the Nautauga River was rising a foot an hour; and that most of the roads were washed out; the Fort Hanna bridge was said to be washed out; there had been a train derailment at Kincardine. And already three people were reported missing. . . .

“You’re pleased about this, aren’t you!” Leah screamed. “The two of you!
Aren’t you!
”

. . . and Garth and Little Goldie, who had planned to return from their honeymoon in time for the party, must be caught in the storm somewhere to the south. . . .

“Oh, I hate you all! I hate this! I won’t stand for this! It was Elvira’s hundredth birthday and it won’t come again and all my work—my weeks and weeks of work—my guests—I won’t stand for this, do you hear!” poor Leah screamed. In her frenzy she ran to Gideon and began pounding his chest and face, but he caught her wrists, and calmed her, and led her back into the kitchen (which was the only warm place in the drafty old house) where he instructed Edna to make a rum toddy for her. And he stayed with her until her sobbing quieted, and she pressed her tear-lashed face against his neck, and fell into a kind of stupor, murmuring
I wanted only to do well, I wanted only to help, God has been cruel, I will never forgive Him. .
. .

In the end the storm was to be somewhat less severe than the Great Flood of twenty years previously; but it was still a hellish thing, and took away the lives of some twenty-three people in the Lake Noir area alone, and caused damage of upward of several million dollars. The roads
were
washed out, many of the bridges damaged past repair; trains were derailed and train beds torn away; Lake Noir and the Nautauga River and Mink Creek and innumerable nameless creeks and runs and ditches flooded, propelling debris along: baby buggies, chairs, laundry that had been hung out to dry, lampshades, parts of automobiles, loose boards, doors, window frames, the corpses of chickens, cows, horses, snakes, muskrats, raccoons, and parts of these corpses; and parts of what were evidently human corpses (for the cemeteries once again flooded, and relief workers were to be astonished and sickened by the sight of badly decomposed corpses dangling from roofs, from trees, jammed against silos and corncribs and abandoned cars, washed up against the foundations of homes, in various stages of decay: some aged and leathery, some fresh, soggy, pale; and all of them pathetically naked); and spiders—some of them gigantic, with bristling black hairs—ran about everywhere, washed out of their hiding places and frantic with terror.

Flood damage was comparatively minor at Bellefleur because the house was on somewhat higher ground. But even there the fruit orchards and gardens stood in a foot of muddy water, and the handsome pink gravel of the walks and drives was washed into the lawn, and the newly planted trees and shrubs in Leah’s walled garden were uprooted; and it was a terrible sight, the drowned creatures everywhere—not only wild animals but some of the household cats and dogs, and many of the game fowl, and a pet black goat belonging to one of the boys. A number of Bellefleur workers had to evacuate their cottages and the low barracks-type building at the edge of the swamp; they were moved by truck to temporary quarters in the village, at the Bellefleurs’ expense, and of course the Bellefleurs volunteered to pay for their food and clothing, and to reimburse them for their losses in the flood. Elsewhere, on other Bellefleur-owned property, there was considerable damage, the most grievous being the loss of an entire herd of Holsteins, drowned when a creek overflowed. The creatures had been penned up, rather stupidly, on low ground.

At the castle the cellar was flooded (the cellar was
always
flooded, even in minor rainstorms); many windows were broken; slate was torn from the roof and flung for hundreds of yards. Every chimney was damaged, every ceiling was water-stained. When the Bellefleurs, at the height of the storm, at last remembered great-grandmother Elvira, and hurried up to her room, they found the poor old woman in her rocking chair, in a virtual rain that fell from the ceiling. She had pulled her black cashmere shawl up over her head, and though she was shivering, she did not seem especially pleased to see them. She’d sent her maid away hours ago, she said, because she wanted to enjoy the storm in private; and so she
had
enjoyed it, despite the dripping ceiling and the terrible cold. She had particularly liked, she said, the lightning flashes over the lake.

She seemed to have forgotten, or perhaps did not care to mention, the fact that it was her hundredth birthday, and that a great celebration had been planned: which of course would not now take place.

SO THE STORM
passed by, leaving damage and heartbreak in its wake, and next morning the Bellefleurs looked out to see a transformed world: ponds everywhere, great puddles of water that, reflecting the sky, looked like glassy lead, fallen trees, small mountains of debris that would have to be cleared away. The men—Gideon, Ewan, even Vernon, even grandfather Noel—made their way by foot down to the village, to help with the flood relief; Cornelia talked of “opening the castle doors” to the homeless. In the end, however, the only flood victim who was taken in was an elderly man discovered by one of the boys over in the barnyard—jammed against the stone foundation of the stable. At first, the boy said, he naturally thought it was a corpse: but it
wasn’t
a corpse: the poor old man was alive!

So they brought him in, carrying him, since he was too exhausted to walk, and Dr. Jensen was summoned, and he was laid, half-unconscious, in one of the downstairs maids’ rooms. A
very
elderly man—with a livid scar on his forehead—toothless—his cheeks sunken—his skin cancellate, as if it had been soaked for some time—his ragged clothing in shreds—his arms and legs hardly more than sticks, he was so thin. Though his pulse beat was weak it
was
a pulse beat, and he was able, with difficulty, and with much dribbling, to drink some broth Cornelia gave him. Ah, how pathetic! He spoke
incoherently
—did not seem to know his name, or where he had come from—or what had happened—that there had been a terrible storm, and that he had been caught in it. You are safe now, they told him. Try to sleep. We’ve called a doctor. Nothing can happen to you now.

When the men returned they looked in upon him, and there he was, propped up against pillows, blinking dazedly at them, his toothless mouth shifting into a hesitant smile. A miracle, they said, that he hadn’t been drowned. (And he was such a very
old
man, and so very frail.)

But he was safe now. And he could stay with them as long as he needed. “This is Bellefleur Manor,” Noel said, standing at his bedside. “You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like, until your people come to claim you. You
don’t
remember your name . . . ?”

The old man blinked and shook his head no, uncertainly. His cheekbones were so sharp they seemed about to push through his veined skin.

In the late afternoon great-grandmother Elvira came downstairs to see him, followed by her cat, a white-and-bluish-gray female, and when she came to the foot of his bed she fumbled in her pocket, and took out her spectacles. She peered at the old man through her glasses, rather rudely. He was just waking from a light doze, and he peered at her, smiling his uncertain smile. The cat leapt up onto the bed, making a querulous mewing sound; it began to knead its paws against the old man’s thigh. For some minutes great-grandmother Elvira and the elderly man stared at each other. And then Elvira took off her spectacles, and thrust them back in her pocket, and mumbled, “. . . old fool.” And she gathered up Minerva and left the room without another word.

In the Mountains, in Those Days . . .

I
n the mountains, in those days, there was always music.

A music composed of many voices.

High above the mist-shrouded river. In the thin cold many-faceted light. Ice, was it?—or sunshine? Or the teasing mountain spirits (which
must
have to do with God, since they live on the Holy Mountain where the Devil dare not appear)?

Many voices, plaintive and alluring and combative and taunting and lovely, achingly lovely, so very very lovely one’s soul is drawn out . . . drawn out like a thread, a hair . . . fine, thin, about to break. . . .

God? Jedediah cried in his ecstasy. Is this God?

BUT NOT GOD,
for God remained hidden.

IN THE MOUNTAINS,
in those days, there was always music.

Catching at one’s soul. Seductive, yearning, frail as girls’ voices in the distance. . . . But not God. For God remained hidden. Coy and stubborn and hidden. Oblivious of Jedediah’s impassioned plea.
Make haste, O God, to deliver me; make haste to help me, O Lord. Let them be ashamed and confounded that seek after my soul: let them be turned backward, and put to confusion, that desire my hurt.
(For his father’s spies prowled the Holy Mountain, despite the danger of God’s wrath. Defiling the clear bright cold sky, the snowcap easing downward, downward, one day soon to swallow up the entire world in its frigid cleansing purity. . . . He saw them. If he did not see them, he heard them. Their mocking voices, “echoing” his most secret, most silent prayers.)

GOD’S BLESSING IS
not always to be distinguished from His wrath. Consequently Jedediah did not know—should he fall to his knees in gratitude to God, that he could hear (and sometimes even feel) the presence of his enemies?—or should he beg God to diminish the power (now grown extraordinary, and frequently painful) of his senses, particularly his sense of hearing?

O give thanks unto the Lord; call upon His name: make known His deeds among the people. Sing unto Him, sing psalms unto Him: talk ye of all His wondrous works. Seek the Lord, and His strength: seek His face evermore.

IN THOSE DAYS
there was always music but perhaps it was not
always
God’s music. The voices, for instance. Quarreling and chattering and teasing. God won’t show His face, whyever should He!—to a comical wretch like you! (So the dark-eyed girl giggled, lifting the lid off a pot of rabbit stew and flinging it against the wall. And why? Just for meanness. For deviltry.)

Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.

A voice, lightly jeering: Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace. . . . But with a false, wicked emphasis: Keep not
thou
silence, O God:
hold
not thy peace, and be
not still,
O God. . . . (As if the spirits were mocking someone of very limited intelligence. Halfwitted or retarded. Brain-damaged. Senile.)

IN THE MOUNTAINS,
in those days, the gigantic white bird with the naked red-skinned head appeared frequently, as if in response to a thoughtless utterance of Jedediah’s. (For just as he could hear so keenly, so could other creatures hear keenly. If he stepped on a twig all of the mountain was alerted. If one of his monstrous coughing attacks overcame him all of the mountain region heard.) A silent gliding bird. Its shadow, deceptively light, scudding across the stony ground. And then, suddenly overhead, its hideous shrieking: so that Jedediah’s heart nearly leapt out of his chest: and it was all he could do, to beat the creature away with the hardwood cudgel he carried with him everywhere.

Pray God, beg God, plead with
God,
Louis’s wife teased, pinching at his ribs, and what sails along but that nasty old
bird.

The bird gave off a terrible stench—it must have been its breath, fetid as if its very bowels were rotten.

Behold the fowls of the air.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God.

The spirits brushed near, nearer than the bird dared, and pretended to take his side. God isn’t listening, God is busy down in the flatland, God has betrayed you. Throw that silly old Bible down into the river!

(Ah, but it was one of the surprises of Jedediah’s life, that the Bible
was
lying some twenty or thirty yards down the cliff. . . . He could not believe it but there it was: someone had thrown it there: and it took him the better part of a morning, and cost him many cruel welts and scratches, to retrieve it. Even so, several pages were ripped away, and many pages were damaged. His bowels writhed with disgust and anger, and could he have laid hands on that bright-eyed spirit, what might he have done to her! I would show no mercy, he whispered, weeping, because you deserve no mercy.)

But the outrageous incident had the effect, at least, of loosening his bowels. For poor Jedediah, though he prayed God for relief, suffered cruelly from constipation.

In the winter especially. In the winter, certainly.

He had built a crude little outhouse in a thicket some distance from the cabin, hidden from the cabin. Bodily functions had always disquieted him. Not-to-be-thought-of, so he commonly silenced certain thoughts. Except when the pain overtook him deep in the pit of his belly and he was bent nearly double and even the spirits, aghast, fled his torment.

THE OUTHOUSE, OF
skinned pine; and a sturdier chimney; and a pretty little piece of stained glass, about a foot square, in a window facing east (sent up by way of Henofer, along with other unwanted things—a bright turquoise blue with beige and red lines—silly, vain, breakable—but undeniably pretty—and, he supposed, harmless: a gift from his brother’s wife down below); a shallow well halfway down the mountain into which spring water ran for several months of the year.

“You’re going to stay here forever, are you?” Henofer laughed, rubbing his cracked hands briskly and looking about. “Just like me!
Just
like me!”

Henofer and his letters, supplies, gossip, news of the War. (To which Jedediah only vaguely listened. For what did God care of the paltry doings of men—their lust for territory, for goods, for dominion over the high seas? Saliva flew from Henofer’s lips as he spoke passionately of the surrender of Fort Mackinaw. An allied force of British and Indians had captured it. And there was Fort Dearborn: captured by Indians: and most of the garrison
including women and children
had been slaughtered. By a general order issued from the War Department the state militia were arranged in two divisions and eight brigades, and thousands of men would soon see battle. The war was necessary; at the same time Henofer did not quite understand its background; nor did he (and naturally Jedediah did not ask, being too courteous) intend to enlist. He was supplying hides to Alexander Macomb and doing quite well.
Quite
well. Did Jedediah know who Alexander Macomb was? Formerly a partner of John Jacob Astor who was worth (so rumor had it) $10,000,000; could Jedediah comprehend what $10,000,000 was? No? Yes? Of course Macomb was not as wealthy but he was a rich man and perhaps it would interest Jedediah to know that his father Jean-Pierre had had some dealings with Macomb not long ago. There was trouble of some kind: and one of Macomb’s trading posts, out near Kittery, had been burnt to the ground. “Lightning was the cause,” Henofer said, laughing, wiping his eyes. But then some months later the Innisfail Lodge, which Jean-Pierre had owned, was burnt to the ground as well. However . . . the Innisfail Lodge was said to have been substantially insured. But of course Jedediah knew nothing of such things . . . ?)