The Hearth and Eagle (27 page)

But Peach had held a grudge. That was the worst of those old Marbleheaders, always balky, no matter how badly they needed money.

Amos thought again of Hesper and this time with some sympathy. Poor girl, no doubt she’d loved that tousle-headed young fisherman. Love and lose—His thoughts turned to his own loss. It had been some time since he thought of Lily Rose, and he could no longer see her face. In memory she appeared as a series of luminous concepts, white and pink and flowery like her name, pale gold and blurred at the edges. The smell of lilies on her coffin, the lavender scent of her frilly pillows, but mingled with those scents too, the thin, bitter odor of the medicine she used to take. Her smile that was piteous and appealing, brave in the midst of her suffering; yet it had often chilled him.

She had guarded herself with that brave smile, holding him away from her fragile body. He had loved her very much at first and indulged and petted her, proud of her delicacy, and willing to restrain his own grossness, and yet he had not always believed in her sufferings.

And then, almost a year ago, she suddenly died. And he had felt sharp remorse, regretting each time he had been impatient with her, each time when he had stalked from the house and taken a train for Boston to visit a certain discreet brownstone house on lower Boylston Street.

Well, but a man needed a woman at times, he thought, sighing, and he was only thirty-two now. Lately he’d been thinking of marrying again, when it was decent to. Maybe some lively pretty girl like Charity Trevercombe, good family, and a hot little thing by the look of her, not like poor Lily Rose. Charity had a parcel of followers, but he’d walked her home from a lecture at the Lyceum and her big eyes had been inviting; she cuddled all the way against his arm.

At any rate, he thought, frowning, marriage or not, maybe he’d have to move from Leah Cubby’s. There’d been a change since Lily Rose died. It was a nuisance, because Leah’d always made him comfortable, and he didn’t want to move until he had the house built he was planning on Pleasant Street. But lately he had been much more aware of her—the graceful indolence of her movements and the slumberous, troubling lights in her huge dark eyes. Then there was that strange incident two nights ago. He moved uneasily—remembering it.

He’d been asleep when a sound in his room startled him broad awake. In the darkness he couldn’t see, and he’d lit a candle. Leah was standing silent and motionless in the middle of the floor, wearing a thin white nightgown, and a white veil bound around her head and falling down her shoulders beneath two long black braids.

She looked extraordinarily beautiful, and uncanny, standing there without moving, her wide-open eyes fixed to a point just above his head.

“What d’you want, Leah!” he had cried, feeling his flesh creep, and yet he had not been able to help staring at the lovely outline of her breasts and hips through the gown, and he realized that he had never called her by her first name before.

She had not answered. Her eyes lowered and fixed themselves on him with an expression of puzzled yearning, and her full red lips trembled. Then suddenly she turned and glided from the room, shutting the door which he jumped up and locked. She’d been sleepwalking, of course, but the whole business was disturbing. That had looked mighty like a bridal veil on her head, and one might laugh at the episode, except that there was a dignity about Leah which precluded laughter.

The next morning she had been much as usual, quiet and selfcontained. Nat, that precious son of hers, had sat at breakfast watching his mother with the peculiar inscrutable look he often gave her. But to Amos, Nat had been unusually amiable. Had actually asked for a job in the factory, which Amos had been glad to arrange. Nat was an intelligent man for all his grouchy silences, and he couldn’t make much out of fishing, any more. So it was a natural enough request and Amos had started him right off in the stock room, where he caught on fast, the foreman said. Nat was sensible, anyway, Amos thought with approval, closing his mind to the thought of Leah. Thing to do was forget that episode, blot out the disturbing memory of her as a voluptuous woman, re-establish the old relationship when she had been merely Mrs. Cubby. My Lord, thought Amos, suddenly impatient with himself, the woman has a grown son, and the whole thing is ridiculous.

He heard approaching footsteps, at last, and put his chewed cigar back in his pocket.

The parlor door was flung wide and Susan bustled in carrying a tin tray loaded with the best tea set of creamy Liverpool ware. It had belonged to Roger’s mother, Mary Ellis, and since her death had been kept in the china closet and used but a dozen times.

Hesper followed her mother, bearing Moses Honeywood’s gilded Sevres platter heaped with the flaky doughnuts Susan had been frying.

All this fuss for Mr. Porterman! The best tea cloth, the six rat-tail silver spoons, exhumed from their plush case in the attic, the last of the India tea. And indeed Susan could not have put into words the two reasons for doing Mr. Porterman extreme honor. The first was pride, Susan had never asked a favor in her life, this tea ceremony was for advance payment, propitiation, and self-respect. The other reason was maternal and not quite recognized. Mr. Porterman was now a wealthy widower.

As they seated themselves around the tea table, Susan darted her daughter a look of exasperation. The girl wouldn’t talk, she was clumsy about passing the cups, her hands on the cream-colored ware looked large and red.    .

Amos quite shared her opinion. He thought Hesper unattractive. Her brown cashmere dress was shabby, a wisp of that unfortunate red hair had strayed from her net, and her feet—scuffed black brogans, size six at least, not from us—Harris & Sons “Boy’s special,” probably, he thought with distaste.

He brought his eyes quickly back to Susan. “Fine doughnuts, Mrs. Honeywood. Delicious tea.” He was not much of a one for small talk but he was sorry for Mrs. Honeywood, who looked anxious, her fat cheeks as flushed as her daughter’s were pale.

“Maybe you’d’ve liked something stronger than tea, Mr. Porterman,” said Susan, poking the doughnuts at him again with a nervous smile, “but the truth is I’ve nothing left but some cider that’s worked too far. Seems funny for a tavern.”

Amos accepted another doughnut which he did not want. “Yes ma’am, times’re mighty hard.”

Hesper, who had seen Amos’ disapproving appraisal of her, suddenly turned her head. “Not for you shoemen,” she said acidly, “and those who aren’t fighting.”

Her mother’s nostrils flared, and she dropped the lid of the sugar bowl on the carpet. “Hesper!”

Amos flushed, he leaned over and picked up the lid. This was a completely unfair attack. He had responded lavishly to every patriotic appeal for funds, and none of the other shoe manufacturers had enlisted, nor were they desired to. “I have many government contracts to fulfill, Miss Honeywood. Our army needs shoes,” he said with restrained anger.

Hesper murmured an apology and subsided, ashamed of herself. Ma wouldn’t be catering to this man if she didn’t have to. Lord, I wish
I
was a man, she thought. A dull misery weighted her stomach. She put the half-eaten doughnut on her plate. Ma and Mr. Porterman were talking.

Her eyes wandered to the east window of the parlor; through the looped lace curtains she could just catch a glimpse of the lighthouse and the ocean beyond. If I was a man I’d. be out there, war or no war—I’d own my own schooner and skipper her myself. I’d wrest a living from the sea, the way Marbleheaders always used to, the way they were meant to from the beginning. Pa knew that though he hadn’t practiced it. That was the way his “Memorabilia” began:

Marblehead denizens ever must be
Nurtured and soothed by their Mother, the Sea.

But I’m not a man, and I’m too old for foolish daydreams. Twenty-two. Day by day goes by and nothing changes, nothing but we get poorer—and the war. I guess I should read the Bible more. Get more comfort out of religion. If you really find God they say you don’t hanker for anything else.

“Stop wool-gathering, Hes! Listen to Mr. Porterman.”

Hesper came back with a jump. “Sorry, what did you say?”

Amos looked grimly patient. He had forgiven the girl’s rudeness, for while he had been talking with the mother, he had glanced at Hesper’s averted face and caught on it an unguarded expression of wistful unhappiness. But his mouth was set and his blue eyes were grave. For this was business, and of no great advantage to him either. To be sure, the war had taken the best factory hands, and he needed more, but unskilled women were a dubious asset.

“I was explaining to your mother that I’m putting in the new McKay machines, so we’ve mighty little work to give out at home any more. I might find some special orders for Mrs. Honeywood to hand-finish, but if you want a job, you’d best work in the factory. In the stitching room.”

Certainly he had caught Hesper’s attention at last, and she stared at him with horrified dismay.

She had never imagined factory work. That was only for foreign women who’d moved to Marblehead and settled in the new cottages the shoemen had built way up town on Reed’s Hill.

Marblehead women who worked on shoes had always done it at home, stitching and binding the uppers while the men gathered sociably in the little backyard shoe shops to last and finish.

But the factory! She thought of the Porterman building on School Street, past the depot in the new part of town. A dingy four-story frame building. She’d passed it the other day and looked in the windows. It was dark inside except for the smoky flare of a few kerosene oil lamps. There was a rasping clatter and whir of machinery, and she had seen a couple of pasty-faced girls listlessly stepping on treadles. She had felt for them a pitying contempt, caged in there over twelve hours every day but Sunday. No air, no sun, and no freedom.

“I
couldn't
work in the factory, Mr. Porterman,” she said very low, adding in a choked voice, “Ma—please. I didn’t know we were as bad off as all that, I’ll do anything else.”

Amos was dumbfounded to see that the hazel eyes shimmered with tears, and that the strong, clear-boned face had crumpled into frightened appeal. Dammit, he thought, what
is
the matter with the girl? I can’t stand tears. They all know that, damn ’em.

He rose hastily. “My dear young lady, don’t distress yourself. I guess I can find work for you both to do at home. Report to my foreman Monday morning. Thanks for the tea, Mrs. Honeywood.”

He got out as fast as possible and swung down Franklin Street in great exasperated strides. That girl acted as though working in his factory was tantamount to a jail sentence. If I hadn’t been sorry for the mother I’d have washed my hands of them then and there. Snob, that’s what that Hesper is, thinks she’s too good to be a factory hand. Lot more aristocratic to run an Inn, I suppose—starving in a tumbledown old shack. “Shoemen,” she said, the way you’d say “cockroaches.” He gave an angry laugh. Of course that’s a very lowly occupation compared to rolling around in the bilges with a lot of dead fish.

He plunged on up Washington Street and his annoyance cooled. Well, he’d give her a chance, never get any thanks for it, of course, but she’d see even a shoeman from Danvers could be generous.

Too bad about that Lem Peach, he thought. I didn’t know he was dying of consumption. I’d’ve been generous to him too, if he’d given me the chance. Cantankerous old loon. But you can’t run a business like a Ladies’ Aid picnic. I’ll do what I can for those Honeywoods, but I’ll not inflict my presence on that girl again.

As he passed the yellow clapboard Town House, Steve Hathaway, one of the selectmen, came down the steps, and bowed quite cordially. That had the effect of restoring Amos’ equanimity. I’ll lick this town yet, he thought, expand the factory, buy that ropewalk over by the shipyard. Be a selectman myself some day. You’ll see. I’ll make ’em accept me.

He started up Pleasant Street, intending to stop at the factory and then walk a couple of miles out the Salem road to inspect the house site he had bought for himself. But he changed his mind, and reversing his steps continued on Washington Street up to the Common, which the natives called Training Field Hill. On the grass in the center, several children rolled hoops, while others clustered around an old peddler who had spread a few cheap toys on a bandanna, and was hawking them in a hoarse, urgent voice. Amos paused to watch the children, his intent eyes softening. He noted one dirty little boy who gazed with yearning at a painted yellow monkey on a stick. Amos bought the monkey and presented it to the small boy, whose face lit with a cherubic smile.

Yes, thought Amos, pinching the small cheek, and turning towards a large house across the common, I want a youngster like that. I want someone to love.

He hesitated a moment on the sidewalk, then mounted three wooden steps to a white-painted and fan-lighted door. He rang the Trevercombe bell.

Charity herself opened the door in a flutter of ribbons and curls. “Oh, Mr. Porterman—this is a delightful surprise—” her little fingers curled around his big hand and clung.

She’s
glad to see me, at any rate, he thought, allowing himself to be led into the parlor. He accepted a second tea, since Charity insisted so prettily, and he leaned back comfortably watching her. Admiring her tiny red shoes and exquisite ankles, the rose-pink of her round cheeks; listening to her tinkling chatter about the Bazaar at the Rechabite Hall next week, for our poor darling soldiers—“And, Mr. Porterman, I’ve crocheted some antimacassars and daisy tea cosies—you’ll buy them, won’t you? I’ll be
so
provoked if you don’t.”

“What would a poor lone widower do with tea cosies?” said Amos smiling and accepting the opening. Yes, pretty soon maybe I’ll ask her, he thought. Too soon yet—wouldn’t look right.

He allowed Charity to flirt with him and enjoyed it, untroubled by callow doubts over her exact reactions. He knew himself to be attractive to women but if the girl was making up to him more on account of his possessions than himself, that was all right too. He’d had one love match and a dismal failure it had turned out. He longed for someone to cherish, but he no longer believed in the reality of romantic love. He looked now for a pretty, healthy woman to grace his home and give him children. Charity would probably do.