The Hearth and Eagle (45 page)

The group welcomed him as a distraction. They were all weighed down by post-prandial torpor. Amos and George Hay-Botts had no more to say to each other for the present. They were going to tour the factory tomorrow morning, and their thoughts were compounded of the hope of mutual benefits, but they had run out of conversation. Eben Dorch was struggling against a gnawing pain beneath his breast bone, which had been plaguing him lately after meals. Susan and Roger were both afflicted by the sudden overwhelming sleepiness of age, and Roger succumbed, his head fell forward on his chest and he drowsed. Emmeline sat withdrawn from the group, her eyes once more fixed on the Spanish galleon with an expression of stony endurance.

They all listened to Charity, who was never troubled by physical discomforts, or averse from talking. She slid imperceptibly from general remarks on Divine Healing, and her own miraculous demonstrations of it, into the lecture she had prepared for the Thursday meeting of her disciples.

Her audience had been listening and waiting with varying intensity for the hour of release.

Henry paused a moment by Hesper’s knee, smiled at his grandmother, whom he rather liked, particularly since she never tried to kiss him, saw at once that his grandfather was sleeping and not to be disturbed, said “How do you do” to everybody else, walked to the center of the carpet, and folded his hands behind his back. He began at once in his clear, precise treble.

What does little birdie say, In her nest at peep of day?
Let me fly, says little birdie, Mother, let me fly away.
Birdie rest a little longer, Till the little wings are stronger.
So she rests a little longer, Then she flies away.
What does little baby say in her bed at peep of day?...

Hesper, watching him with loving pride, nevertheless was seized with revulsion. Why did I teach him that thing? she thought—it’s so silly. There’s so many other things—what things? She thought of the sea chanteys and ballads of her own childhood. “Blow the man down, blast you—Blow the man down—” Impossible to imagine Henry reciting that, nor would I want him to. It’s vulgar.

Henry reached the end of the poem and stopped. He received the applauding murmurs with composure. Even Emmeline unbent, for she was fond of children, and said “Well done, little man,” in the practiced tone she reserved for the small cottagers in the village at home.

Henry said good night and disappeared upstairs. He put himself to bed, and usually fell asleep before Hesper came up for the goodnight kiss.

Relief rippled through the company. They all rose. They’re glad to go, thought Hesper and I’m glad to have them go. The thing is, I’ve nothing in common with Marbleheaders. Just because I happened to be born here. And of course Amos isn’t one. We must get away. I’ll make him sell the factory and this house.

She said good-bye to her father. Poor old darling, maundering about the past. Her good-bye to her mother was tinged with resentment. “Wax flowers under glass—” what did Ma know anyway? Never been out of Marblehead, but always acted like she had the wisdom of Solomon.

She said good night to Eben Dorch, and Charity, who was driving him home. To think I ever envied Charity. Old maid, no matter how she sugarcoats it with her Divine Love and her independence.

She shut the door behind them, and with a sudden rush of tenderness smiled up at Amos who stood beside her. Safe and protected, of course. What happier role for a woman?

“Well, Hes—” he said, smiling back. “Went pretty well, don’t you think?”

“Oh yes, dear,” she whispered fervently. “Fine.” And in saying it her spirits rose. The earlier guilt and forebodings and disquiet now seemed ridiculous. They had had a good dinner and Hay-Botts would invest in the factory tomorrow. Emmeline’s thoughts, whatever they were, did not matter. She walked back to the English couple in the drawing room, and said cordially—“Wouldn’t you like something to drink before we retire?”

Hay-Botts nodded, Emmeline said nothing.

“I’ll ring for Annie—” Hesper moved to the carpet bell pull. Her fingers touched the strip of carpeting and then closed on it convulsively, her breath expelled itself from her opened mouth in a smothered cry.

She swung around, staring toward the curtained window. The noise she had heard from outside grew louder, a succession of disjointed sounds—soft yet penetrating, like sobbing laughter.

“My God, Porterman—what’s that!” cried Hay-Botts jumping to his feet.

“I don’t know,” said Amos. He moistened his lips and moved protectively towards Hesper. The four of them stood staring toward the window.

The sounds began again, a little further off—a crescendo of soft soulless laughter.

“It don’t sound human—” whispered Hay-Botts. “You got animals
'
make a noise like that?”

Amos shook his head. He took a step towards the portieres by the window. “Don’t—” whispered Hesper and she clutched at his arm.

They waited, listening, held by an atavistic fear of the unknown terror by night.

“It’s stopped—” said Amos after a moment. “It was boys playing a prank, I guess.”

Emmeline gave a nervous titter.

Then a new disturbance reached them. Annie’s unmistakable shriek, tearing up from the basement. “Holy Mother! Come back here—you! Stop her!” and then the sound of light running footsteps on the stairs.

The group in the drawing room stood motionless. The steps ran toward them down the hall. A woman in black appeared between the double doors at the entrance to the drawing room. A shawl covered her face and shoulders and behind the sheltering folds her face floated white and shapeless—around the dilated blackness of her eyes.

They heard her quick breathing, and she swayed a little, leaning against the edge of the door. Melting snow lay in the ridges of her shawl, and her thin kid slippers were caked with snow.

“Leah—” whispered Hesper; she took a quick step toward the black figure. “You poor thing—what?...”

“Careful—” Amos’s arm shot out in front of Hesper. He shoved her behind him.

A tremor ran through the figure by the door. She straightened and stood tall. The shawl slipped from her head. A magnificent head still. The gray in her loosely bound hair seemed as fortuitous as the snow on her shawl. Her cheeks were no longer rounded, but behind the planes and hollows of her unlined face there lived a weird and ageless beauty.

When Amos spoke the huge dark eyes cleared from their bewilderment, they focused on him, and she smiled.

“There you are—love,” she said with delight. “Leah’s been searching for you so long. She saw you through the window, and she laughed—for joy.”

“She’s mad—” whispered Hay-Botts. “Get up behind her and—”

Leah turned her head slowly in his direction. Her lids fell and she seemed to contemplate him with a reflective sadness. He recoiled against the wall. “Leah has a knife,” she said in the same soft coaxing voice.

Emmeline gave a moan, and shrank further behind a chair.

Has she really a knife? thought Hesper. Leah’s hands were hidden beneath the black shawl. Hesper felt no fear. Her mind seemed to be working with a blinding clarity.

She saw Amos pulling himself together, the increased tension of his muscles. He put his hand out palm upward. “Give me the knife, Leah.” His voice was admirably calm and forceful. But why doesn’t he look straight at her ? thought Hesper.

Leah shook her head, backing off and gazing up at him earnestly. “No, love. Leah might need it. Against Nat, you know. Nat’s bad. He keeps Leah locked in so she couldn’t find you. Sometimes he ties her down with ropes.”

Amos swallowed, his hand dropped. He turned his head toward Hay-Botts, who stood ten feet away at the other side of the fireplace, trying to signal a plan.

Hesper saw this and was sickened. Leah might get violent, she might have a knife, but she wasn’t violent now. There was dignity and pathos about her. Surely there was no need to assault her physically. “And,” said a clear voice in Hesper’s brain, “why has she been searching for Amos, why does she call him ‘Love’? She’s crazy, of course, but...”

Hesper stepped out from behind her husband, eluding his quick motion to stop her. “Leah—” she said, “what do you want here? You haven’t come to do harm, have you?”

The cavernous brilliant gaze moved from Amos’s face to Hesper’s. The huge eyes clouded with the bewilderment she had shown at first. Tears came into them. “Leah wants her love—” she said. “Wants him to hold her in his arms and love her, the way he used to.”

Hesper heard a stifled gasp from the Hay-Bottses. Amos heard it too. He pushed his wife roughly aside. “For God’s sake, Hesper! The woman’s crazy. You know she doesn’t know what she’s saying. Here, you—I’ve had enough of this!” He lunged toward Leah, his great hands clenched, and she eluded him in one lithe motion. Her shawl fell off her shoulders to the floor, and in her right hand she held a long, sharp splitting knife. But she made no attempt to raise it, she held it point down, tight against her chest. The tears glistened on her cheeks and she threw her head back, looking up at Amos piteously.

“You’re angry at Leah?” she whispered. “You want to hurt?”

Amos hesitated. And suddenly Leah turned and stared at Hesper with full recognition. “Hessie?” she said in a groping voice. Her mouth twisted. “Was it you took him away from Leah? Does he love you too?” Her hand closed convulsively, but without intent, on the handle of the splitting knife. And Amos sprang, pinioning her arms. The splitting knife fell from her lax hand as he grabbed her, and she overbalanced and pitched headlong. Her head hit a glancing blow on the seat corner of one of the Gothic chairs. She gave a little sighing moan, then she lay still on the flowered carpet.

Amos stared down at her, breathing hard, his powerful hands still clenching. His ruddy complexion had gone gray.

Hesper knelt beside the unconscious woman. Her brain continued to work with precision. She felt the blue-veined pulse in the limp wrist. She pushed aside the lustrous silver-black hair, and examined the small wound made by the chair corner. Then she got up. “She’s only stunned, I think,” Hesper said not looking at any of them. “Let her rest there awhile.”

“But Good God—” cried Hay-Botts, emerging from the paralysis of disbelief, outrage and shock. “Get some rope, or sheets, and bind ’er whilst you can. She was going for you with that knife, Mrs. Porterman, wasn’t she?”

“I don’t think so,” said Hesper dully. She picked up the splitting knife and looked down at it. One of the long sharp knives used to split cod or mackerel. Leah must have found it amongst Nat’s old gear from his sea-going days. Hesper put it out of sight behind a blizzard paperweight on the what-not.

“Amos, take your handkerchief and bind her ankles,” said Hesper. “That’ll be enough.” She did not look at him, but she felt his revulsion. He doesn’t want to touch her, she thought.

“Well, get on with it!” shouted Hay-Botts, nudging Amos. “What’s the matter with you people! Or maybe the woman isn’t so mad—is that it? Maybe she was speaking the truth about all that loving.” His little gray eyes had narrowed to slits.

“Don’t be a fool!” Amos jerked a large evening handkerchief from his tail pocket, bent over, and wound it around Leah’s ankles. Slender ankles in black stockings soaked with snow water.

The front door burst open in a blast of frigid air. Amos, still tying the knot, raised his head and turned with the others. Nat ran into the midst ' of them, his head outstretched from his hunched shoulders. He paused a second staring at the group. “What are you doing to her, you bostard!” He raised his foot, and with one powerful jerk of his heavy boot kicked Amos’s hands from his mother’s ankles.

Amos straightened and got up; his face turned purple. His left hand, which had received the full force of Nat’s kick, tingled and then throbbed with a violent pain. “Nat—” he said, “Nat—” in a dazed voice.

Hesper stepped between them, speaking fast. “Nat, your poor mother came here and acted very strange—she had a knife with her, and she fell down hitting her head. But I’m sure she’s all right.”

Amos turned on his heel and walked out to the front door which he shut. He stayed in the hall a few minutes.

Nat gave Hesper a long inscrutable look, his nostrils flaring above the scar on his lip. Then he knelt down beside Leah. He touched her cheek and she stirred and sighed, softly, like a girl. Her quiet face seemed luminous, the low forehead, straight nose, pale lips, and round chin purged now of all passions. Only Hesper saw Nat’s expression as he bent over his mother. The corners of his mouth drew down in a grin of anguish, and behind his yellow eyes there was fierce yearning.

Hesper had felt no fear before. All during the scene with Leah there had been impersonal clarity, but now she knew a moment of terror as naked as the look in Nat’s eyes.

He’s mad too, she thought; more than madness. Why does he never call her Mother—And then it was as though a wall sprang ready-built across her mind which shrank behind it. The poor woman’s mind is clouded sometimes, everybody in Marblehead knows that. It’s dreadful and unfortunate but no deeper than that. And of course that wasn’t true about Amos.

“Come, Nat,” she said briskly. “Leah’s coming to. I know you can manage her. We better carry her upstairs to bed. You can’t go home on a night like this.”

Nat unwound the handkerchief from his mother’s ankles and threw it on the floor. “We’ll go home,” he said. “I’ve a sleigh outside. I’ve been hunting for her all day. She slipped out this morning. I knew she’d come here. This is one of her bad times.”

See, thought Hesper, how reasonable he is. His face showed no more than it’s usual sullenness. His speech was clipped and controlled.

Leah sighed again and opened her eyes. Their gaze wandered, then rested vaguely on the ceiling.

“She must go to an asylum, Nat,” said Amos suddenly. He had returned to the drawing room and stood by the center table. He held up his injured hand cupped by the other, but except for that he was his normal self. Forceful and kindly. A man of authority. “The new state asylum at Danvers. They’ll treat her well. I’ll make all arrangements for you.”