Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (284 page)

“I’ve read of such communities,” I said enthusiastically. “I thought they’d all disappeared fifty or sixty years ago.”

“Have you and did you?” she asked contemptuously. “You’ll be surprised to learn that Haggershaven is neither Owenite nor Fourierist. We are not fanatics nor saviors. We don’t live in phalansteries, practice group marriage or vegetarianism. Our organization is expedient, subject to revision, not doctrinaire. Contribution to the common stock is voluntary, and we are not concerned with each other’s private lives.”

“I beg your pardon, Miss Haggerwells. I didn’t mean to annoy you.”

“It’s all right. Perhaps I’m touchy; all my life I’ve seen the squinty suspiciousness of the farmers all around, sure we were up to something immoral, or at least illegal. You’ve no idea what a prickly armor you build around yourself when you know that every yokel is cackling, ‘There goes one of them; I bet they…’ whatever unconventional practice their imaginations can conceive at the moment. And the parallel distrust of the respectable schools. Detachedly, the Haven may indeed be a refuge for misfits, but is it necessarily wrong not to fit into the civilization around us?”

“I’m prejudiced. I certainly haven’t fitted in myself.”

She didn’t answer, and I felt I had gone too far in daring an impulsive identification. Awkwardness made me blurt out further, “Do you…do you think there’s any chance Haggershaven would accept me?” Whatever reserve I’d tried to maintain deserted me; my voice expressed only childish longing.

“I couldn’t say,” she answered primly. “Acceptance or rejection depends entirely on the vote of the whole fellowship. All I’m here to offer is train fare. Neither you nor the Haven is bound.”

“I’m perfectly willing to be bound,” I said fervently.

“You may not be so rash after a few weeks.”

I was about to reply when Little Aggie—so called to distinguish her from Fat Aggie, who was in much the same trade but more successful—came in. Little Aggie supplemented her nocturnal earnings around Astor Place by begging in the same neighborhood during the day.

“Sorry, Aggie,” I said. “Mr. Tyss didn’t leave anything for you.”

“Maybe the lady would help a poor working girl down on her luck,” she suggested, coming close. “My, that’s a pretty outfit you have. Looks like real silk, too.”

Barbara Haggerwells drew away with anger and loathing on her face. “No,” she refused sharply. “No, nothing!” She turned to me. “I must be going. I’ll leave you to entertain your friend.”

“Oh, I’ll go,” said Little Aggie cheerfully, “no need to get in an uproar. Bye-bye.”

I was frankly puzzled; the puritanical reaction didn’t seem consistent. I would have expected condescending amusement, disdainful tolerance, or even haughty annoyance, but not this furious aversion. “I’m sorry Little Aggie bothered you. She’s really not a wicked character, and she does have a hard time getting along.”

“I’m sure you must enjoy her company immensely. I’m sorry we can’t offer similar attractions at the Haven.”

Apparently she thought my relations with Aggie were professional. Even so her attitude was odd. I could hardly flatter myself she was interested in me as a man, yet her flare-up seemed to indicate jealousy, a strange kind of jealousy, perhaps like the sensuality I attributed to her, as though the mere presence of another woman was an affront.

“Please don’t go yet. For one thing—” I cast around for something to hold her till I could restore a more favorable impression. “—for one thing you haven’t told me how Haggershaven happened to get my application.”

She gave me a cold, angry look. “Even though we’re supposed to be cranks, orthodox educators often turn such letters over to us. After all, they may want to apply themselves someday.”

The picture this suddenly presented, of a serene academic life which was not so serene and secure after all, but prepared for a way to escape if necessary, was startling to me. I had taken it for granted that our colleges, even though they were far inferior to those of other countries, were stable and sheltered.

When I expressed something of this, she laughed. “Hardly. The colleges have not only decayed, they have decayed faster than other institutions. They are mere hollow shells, ruined ornaments of the past. Instructors spy on each other to curry favor with the trustees and assure themselves of reappointment when the faculty is out periodically. Loyalty is the touchstone, but no one knows anymore what the object of loyalty is supposed to be. Certainly it is no longer toward learning, for that is the least of their concerns.”

She slowly allowed herself to be coaxed back into her previous mood, and again we talked of books. And now I thought there was a new warmth in her voice and glance, as though she had won some kind of victory, but how or over whom there was no indication.

When she left I hoped she was not too prejudiced against me. For myself I readily admitted it would be easy enough to want her—if one were not afraid of the humiliations it was in her nature to inflict.

X.

THE HOLDUP

This time I didn’t offer Tyss two weeks’ notice. “Well Hodgins, I made all the appropriate valedictory remarks on a previous occasion, so I’ll not repeat them, except to say the precision of the script is extraordinary.”

It seemed to me he was saying in a roundabout way that everything was for the best. For the first time I saw Tyss as slightly pathetic rather than sinister; extreme pessimism and vulgar optimism evidently met, like his circular time. I smiled indulgently and thanked him sincerely for all his kindness.

In 1944 almost a hundred years had passed since New York and eastern Pennsylvania were first linked in a railroad network, yet I don’t suppose my journey differed much in speed or comfort from one which might have been taken by Granpa Hodgins’s father. The steam ferry carried me across the Hudson to Jersey. I had heard there were only financial, not technical, obstacles to a bridge or tunnel. If the English and French could burrow under the Channel, as they had early in the century, and the Japanese complete their great tube beneath the Korea Strait, it was hard to see why a lesser work here was dismissed as the impractical suggestion of dreamers who believed the cost would be saved in a few years by running trains directly to Manhattan.

Nor was the ferry the only antique survival on the trip. The cars were all ancient, obvious discards from Confederate or British American lines. Flat wheels were common; the worn-out locomotives dragged them protestingly over the wobbly rails and uneven roadbed. First-class passengers sat on napless plush or grease-glazed straw seats; second-class passengers stood in the aisles or on the platforms; third-class rode the roofs—safe enough at the low speed except for sudden jerks or jolts.

There were so many different lines, each jealous of exclusive rights of way, that the traveler hardly got used to his particular car before he had to snatch up his baggage and hustle for the connecting train, which might be on the same track or at the same sooty depot, but was more likely to be a mile away. Even the adjective “connecting” was often ironical for it was not unusual to find timetables arranged so a departure preceded an arrival by minutes, necessitating a stopover of anywhere from one hour to twelve.

If anything could have quieted my excitement on the trip it was the view through the dirt-sprayed windows. “Fruitless” and “unfulfilled” were the words coming oftenest to my mind. I had forgotten during the past six years just how desolate villages and towns could look when their jerry-built structures were sunk in apathetic age without even the false rejuvenation of newer jerry-building. I had forgotten the mildewed appearance of tenant farmhouses, the unconvincing attempt to appear businesslike of false-fronted stores with clutters of hopeless merchandise in their dim windows, or the inadequate bluff of factories too small for any satisfactory production.

Once away from New York it was clear how atypical the city was in its air of activity and usefulness. The countryside through which the tracks ran, between fields and pastures or down the center of main streets, should have been the industrial heart of a country bustling and vigorous. Instead one saw potentialities denied, projects withered, poverty, and dilapidation.

We crossed the Susquehanna on an old, old stone bridge that made one think of Meade’s valiant men, bloodily bandaged many of them, somnambulistically marching northward, helpless and hopeless after the Confederate triumph at Gettysburg, their only thought to escape Jeb Stuart’s pursuing cavalry. Indeed, every square mile now carried on its surface an almost visible weight of historical memories.

York seemed old, gray, and crabbed in the afternoon, but when I got off the train there I was too agitated with the prospect of being soon at Haggershaven to take any strong impression of the town. I inquired the way, and the surly response confirmed Barbara Haggerwells’s statement of local animosity. The distance, if my informant was accurate, was a matter of some ten miles.

I started off down the highway, building and demolishing daydreams, thinking of Tyss and Tirzah, Enfandin and Miss Haggerwells, trying to picture her father and the fellows of the Haven and for the thousandth time marshaling arguments for my acceptance in the face of scornful scrutiny. The early October sun was setting on the rich red and yellow leaves of the maples and oaks; I knew the air would become chilly before long, but exertion kept me warm. I counted on arriving at the Haven in plenty of time to introduce myself before bedtime.

Less than a mile out of town the highway assumed the familiar aspect of the roads around Wappinger Falls and Poughkeepsie: rutted, wavering, with deep, unexpected holes. The stone or rail fences on either side enclosed harvested cornfields, the broken stalks a dull brass with copper-colored pumpkins scattered through them. But the fences were in poor repair, and the oft-mended wooden covered bridges over the creeks all had signs, DANGEROUS, TRAVEL AT YOUR OWN RISK.

There were few to share the highway with me: a farmer with an empty wagon, urging his team on and giving me a churlish glance instead of an invitation to ride; a horseman on an elegant chestnut picking his course carefully among the chuckholes; and a few tramps, each bent on his solitary way, at once defensive and aggressive. The condition of the bridges accounted for the absence of minibiles. However, just about twilight a closed carriage, complete with coachman and footman on the box, rolled haughtily by, stood for a moment outlined atop the slope up which I was trudging, and then disappeared down the other side.

I paid little attention except—remembering my boyhood and my father’s smithy—to visualize automatically the coachman pulling back on the reins and the footman thrusting forward with the brake as they eased the horses downward. So when I heard first a shout and then feminine screams my instant conclusion was that the carriage had overturned on the treacherous downgrade, broken an axle, or otherwise suffered calamity.

My responsive burst of speed had almost carried me to the top when I heard the shots. First one, like the barking of an uncertain dog, followed by a volley, as though the pack were unleashed.

I ran to the side of the road, close to the field, where I could see with less chance of being seen. Already the dusk was playing tricks, distorting the shape of some objects and momentarily hiding others. It could not, however, falsify the scene in the gully below. Four men on horseback covered the carriage with drawn revolvers; a fifth, pistols also in hand, had dismounted. His horse, reins hanging down, was peacefully investigating the roadside weeds.

None of them attempted to stop the terrified rearing of the carriage team. Only their position, strung across the road, prevented a runaway. I could not see the footman, but the coachman, one hand still clutching the reins, was sprawled backward with his foot caught against the dashboard and his head hanging down over the wheel.

The door on the far side was swung open. I thought for a moment the passengers had managed to escape. However, as the unmounted highwayman advanced, waving his pistol, the other door opened and a man and two women descended into the roadway. Slowly edging forward I could now plainly hear the gang’s obscene whistles at sight of the women.

“Well boys, here’s something to warm up a cold night. Hang on to them while I see what the mister has in his pockets.”

The gentleman stepped in front, and with a slight accent said, “Take the girl by all means. She is but a peasant, a servant, and may afford you amusement. But the lady is my wife; I will pay you a good ransom for her and myself. I am Don Jaime Escobar y Gallegos, attached to the Spanish legation.”

One of the men on horseback said, “Well now, that’s real kind of you, Don High-me. We might have taken you up on that, was you an American. But we can’t afford no company of Spanish marines coming looking for us, so I guess we’ll have to pass up the ransom and settle for whatever you’ve got handy. And Missus Don and the hired girl. Don’t worry about her being a peasant; we’ll treat her and the madam exactly the same.”

“Madre de Dios,” screamed the lady. “Mercy!”

“It will be a good ransom,” said the Spaniard, “and I give you my word my government will not bother you.”

“Sorry, chum,” returned the gangster. “You foreigners have a nasty habit of interfering with our domestic institutions and hanging men who make a living this way. Just can’t trust you.”

The man on foot took a step forward. The nearest rider swung the maid up before him, and another horseman reached for her mistress. Again she screamed; her husband brushed the hand aside and put his wife behind him. At that the gangster raised his pistol and shot twice. The man and woman dropped to the ground. The maid shrieked till her captor covered her mouth.