More Than You Know (23 page)

which they kept their beast. And themselves, all together.

Sallie left Mercy and ran upstairs. Mercy could hear her in the front

room above her head, where Claris gave her music lessons. What was

Sallie doing? Nothing musical. She couldn’t play a note; she couldn’t even

whistle. Mercy could hear a thumping, as if Sallie was trying to break

something. Was she looking for her money? Was it gone? Or was it in

something she had to break to get at it? Mercy was doing a poor job of

concentrating on her Latin lessons.

Finally Sallie came downstairs. She was pale and grim, and crying

once more. “Mercy,” she said, “would you go ask my mother to come

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here?” Mercy said she would. She got up and put on her black cape and

hood and went out into the drizzle.

Claris came straight back to the schoolhouse with Mercy. She was

wearing a summer dress that belonged to Sallie. It was printed with lilacs.

Sallie stared at it when her mother came in as if this were the last straw.

And why? Mercy wondered, watching them. Mrs. Haskell had explained

to Mercy that her own clothes were wet from the wash and wouldn’t dry

in this weather. Would she explain this to her daughter? She would not.

Would Sallie care? She would not. Her mother was wearing her dress.

Nothing she had was really her own, especially her life. All this Sallie

said with the set of her head, the expression in her eyes. But Claris was

a match for her.

Suddenly Sallie said fiercely to her mother, “You could go home.”

Mercy, amazed and embarrassed that they were going to air their laundry

before her, went to her desk and sat down. They didn’t want to be alone

with each other, she saw. It wasn’t just with Danial. She saw that Claris’s

eyes went cold and still.

“No,” Claris said, nailing her daughter with her stare.

“Why not?” Sallie was wild. Mercy wondered, watching them,

Home. What did that mean? If someone said that to Mercy, it would

mean home to the Neck. Did it always mean that, no matter what age

you were? Did Sallie mean Claris could go back to the house where she

was born?

Claris’s nostrils flared. She looked like a schoolmarm about to issue

a rebuke, imposing and obdurate. The air between them almost crackled.

Because I say so, and don’t dare to presume to question me, was Claris’s

unspoken answer.

“This is your life, not mine!” Sallie cried. “I am not you! I want

to go and I can!”

Mercy tried to understand what she was looking at. Was Sallie

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opening a cage door for Claris, angry now because the rabbit wouldn’t

come out? Or was Sallie rattling the bars of a cage that imprisoned herself?

“You both can stay,” said Claris. There was nothing soft in this;

it was a rebuttal.

“Paul? Cheek by jowl with that?” Sallie’s hand jerked in the general

direction of the Haskells’ cove. It was a small, intense movement, like an

aborted blow.

Claris turned away from Sallie. Mercy could see her face though

Sallie couldn’t. Claris’s was dense with anger. At what? That Sallie thought

she had her own choices to make?

“When your brother—” Claris began, and Sallie seemed to go off

like a rocket.

“I don’t remember my brother!”

Claris wheeled around and stared at Sallie as if she had violated a

sacrament.

“I don’t owe you any more for him! I’ve paid, I’m done!” Sallie

spoke with force but as if she hoped, rather than knew, that what she

said was true.

k

For a long moment the two women faced each other, eyes locked.

Mercy stared as if she were watching spirit bodies wrestling in heaven.

Though nothing moved, not even their eyes, it was like watching some

huge machine blowing apart in front of her eyes. Instead of the gradual,

natural exchange of places that occurs in time as children assume the care

of those who once cared for them, these two had slammed together in

rage, full of will, at the exact moment that they seemed to be of equal

strength. All the huge spinning gears and tiny balance wheels of family

feeling, so strong to protect innocence in the young and dignity in the

old when running smoothly, were clutching and grinding, tearing into

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spiritual marrow, and the silence in which the battle was joined seemed

shattering.

Mercy was the first to look away. She didn’t know which of them

had won or lost. She didn’t know if they knew. She looked up from her

desk when she heard the door slam.

Sallie was gone. Claris was staring into the space where Sallie had

stood, her eyes burning as if she could see through walls and find what

was no longer there. After a few minutes, she too turned and left without

a glance at Mercy.

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I had forgotten all about Grandma Adele. The door of the

schoolhouse opened as Mr. Crocker and I walked toward the house,

and there, silhouetted, I saw not only the bosomy figure of Edith I was

expecting but also the smaller, squarer figure of her mother. In the

next moment, they moved aside to allow a third person to emerge, this

one wearing the uniform of the Hamlin County sheriff’s office. Oh,

Christmas, I thought. There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight.

“Hannah, what the hell have you done to yourself?” This was

Edith’s greeting as I stepped into the light of the entryway. That may

not sound like strong language, but for Edith Gray it was swearing

like a sailor. I guess she noticed I was wearing a not-very-clean lumber

shirt hanging nearly down to my knees and I’d cut my hair off. And,

oh yes, been absent without leave for about fourteen hours when I

was supposed to be on bounds, and embarrassed her before her mother.

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I didn’t answer her. What was the point? What should I have ex-

pected? A hug?

Mr. Crocker said to the man in the uniform, “Hello, Ham.”

“Hello, Tom. Where’d you find them?”

“They got stranded out to March Cove. They’re all right. As

soon as the wind came up they tried to sail home.” He may have

blamed Conary, but he wasn’t going to invite these people to.

“This is Tom Crocker,” said the sheriff, or whatever he was, to

Edith. I gathered the three of them had had plenty of time to get to

know each other. Mr. Crocker stuck out his horny hand to Edith and

said, “Mrs. Gray.” Edith had to shake it. I thought all at once that

Conary’s father and Edith were probably near the same age, but Mr.

Crocker looked much older. He had the leathery burned skin of some-

one who is outdoors all day in all weathers, and although he was

perfectly sober now, he had a network of tiny scarlet veins across his

nose and cheekbones, like the vagrants who always have a pint bottle

in some pocket. He looked, in fact, not many steps away from the

men you saw in Boston those days selling apples on the street and

sleeping on heat grates.

He said, “They were easy to find once the moon came up. They

were drifting down the middle of the bay.”

“I can’t thank you enough, Mr. Crocker,” said Edith. She

couldn’t look at me.

I said, “Thank you, Mr. Crocker,” and took off his lumber shirt

and handed it to him. Underneath I was wearing the flannel shirt of

Conary’s, and I could see Edith eyeing it. She wanted me to take it

off and hand that over too, but I didn’t.

“Conary all right?” asked the man called Ham.

“Seems so. Hungry, but that won’t kill him. Guess I’d better get

along back and see how he’s doing. Sorry you all had to worry.”

“All’s well that ends well,” chirped Grandma Adele. She smiled

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at me, and I was thinking it was just about high time somebody did.

I smiled back, truly grateful, and she gestured to me to come in. Edith

was holding her hand out to Conary’s father. “We’re very grateful to

you for your help,” she said, and I saw as I passed her that she had a

green bill folded in her palm. He looked at it, then at her.

“Good night, Ham,” he said, and the sheriff’s man said, “Good

night, Tom,” and he was gone. Edith put the bill into her pocket and

bustled inside. Grandma Adele and I followed. I wanted some supper

and a hot bath so badly I ached, but one look at Edith’s face as she

led me to the kitchen told me not to get my hopes up.

The sheriff’s man picked up his hat from the kitchen table, ac-

cepted thanks, and said good-bye. Edith bustled around washing coffee

cups and a plate full of crumbs. I guessed they’d had a night of it.

Then she went to the phone and jiggled the hook for a long time until

she roused Mrs. Sylvester. Briskly she gave our telephone number in

Boston.

“Would you like some coffee?” Grandma Adele asked me. I

nodded. She poured the dregs from a pot on the stove and brought me

the grainy half-filled cup and a bottle of milk from the icebox.

“Milton?” Edith said. “She’s home. Yes, she’s all right. I don’t

know anything more now, but I’ll call you in the morning. Yes . . .

yes. Good night.” And she hung up loudly. She turned to me and

stood staring, as if she didn’t know where to begin. I looked at her

and then at Grandma Adele, desperately hoping one of them would

give me something to eat.

“Who exactly is Conary Crocker?” is what Edith finally decided

to start with.

“A boy . . .”

“Don’t be smart.”

“I wasn’t.”

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“How do you know him?”

“He’s Mrs. Eaton’s grandson.”

Edith and Grandma Adele looked at each other.

“Mrs. Eaton, who helps at Grandpa and Granny’s,” I said. I knew

Edith knew her.

“How do you know him?” she asked me again, so I said, “I

don’t know.”

“Did he have anything to do with that haircut? Is that the local

style now?”

I said nothing.

“What?” She moved a little closer to me.

“Of course not,” I mumbled.

“It’s not ‘of course not,’ it’s not ‘of course’ anything,” she said,

really loud. “Your judgment and your behavior are not . . . you have

no right to ‘of course not’ anyone, Hannah!” I couldn’t understand

what she was even saying, except that she wanted to choke me.

At that point Grandma Adele said, “I think the hair is rather

nice. She looks like Saint Joan.”

Edith seemed to inflate like a puff adder, but she couldn’t sass

her mother. Instead she snapped at me. “Did you hear me say last

night that you were on bounds for a week?”

There was a silence. I knew that Edith had been harping on this

all evening to anyone who would listen.

“Did you hear me?” she bore down on me.

“Yes.”

“Well then, how on earth did you end up stranded on some island

with a strange boy for twelve hours, instead of home here, to greet

your grandmother?”

“Are you hungry, Hannah?” Adele suddenly asked me.

“Mother, please,” Edith said. “Hannah, I’m waiting.”

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I said, “The wind died.”

“But what were you
doing
there in the first place? You were on

bounds.
”

“We went clamming.”

“Let me ask you this, what exactly do you think your father is

going to say about this escapade?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t know. Edith always undertook to tell

me what he thought: Your Father and I are very angry, Your father is

very disappointed . . . I wasn’t sure I knew what he thought about any-

thing.

“Is this boy a clam digger?” Adele asked me, and I could see

Edith wanting to clap a hand over her mother’s mouth. Grandma Adele

was interfering with her technique.

“No. I mean, not only that.”

“Well, what does he do, dear? Is he a student?”

“No, he works. He does some fishing. Works for summer people.

Paints.”

“Paints pictures?”

“Houses.” I knew Edith was going to have a lot to say to my

father about that. As far as I’d ever been able to tell, she had one

measure only for judging value in a man, and it was summed up in

the term “good provider.”

Edith decided to get to her point. “Hannah, there’s one thing I

don’t understand. You were seen leaving the cove at eleven in the

morning. The wind didn’t die until six. Now you were . . .
clamming

all that time?”

“No.”

“Well? What were you doing?”

I suddenly heard in her voice exactly what she thought I’d been

doing. I was so tired of having her assume the worst about me that I

wanted to slap her.

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“Mother, may I have something to eat?” I said. She just kept

staring at me, waiting for her answer. Grandma Adele got up and

started opening cupboard doors. She found the breadbox and cut me

a thick slice of anadama bread and spread it with honey. It was very