The Hearth and Eagle (51 page)

There had been only one puzzling little incident to mar the pleasure of this final inspection. Amos had been standing in the making room on the third floor near the new buttonhole cutter which had just been installed. The buttonhole cutter was set up by the back southwest windows, and Amos had happened to glance out. “Hello—” he said, “there seems to be someone in that old shed down there. I thought it was kept locked up.”

Johnson joined him at the window. Below them there lay a small muddy lot cluttered with tin cans and cast-off leather shavings. It was bordered on two sides with the backs of buildings which fronted on Pleasant and School Streets—a feed and grain shop, the Marblehead Hotel, the Rechabite building which contained a small shoe factory as well as the Rechabite Assembly rooms, and, largest of all, Amos’ factory.

The lot was bounded on the north by the railroad tracks, and on the west by the General Glover firehouse and a small reservoir called the Brick Pond. Besides mud and refuse, the lot contained the ramshackle shed which stood within twelve feet of Amos’ building and was a great annoyance to him, since it partially blocked access to the back entrance of the factory, and hindered loadings and deliveries. Amos had, of course, tried to buy the shed, but its owner, who also owned the feed and grain store, was obdurate. He kept supplies in the shed, and had no interest in obliging Amos.

“I don’t see nobody—” said Johnson.

“Looked to me like a man darted in carrying something,” Amos explained, frowning. From where they stood they could not see the shed door.

“Well, what if he did? Prob’ly someone wanted an extra pail of oats in a hurry. Jesus, Chief, it ain’t like you to be jumpy.”

“Hate to have anyone break in and get those fine hides,” said Amos, half joking. “I wouldn’t put it beyond some of those fly-by-night shoemen down the street.”

Johnson received this with a sardonic chuckle. “You want me to stay here nights and sleep on them precious hides? Or maybe we should hire a troop o’ watchmen?”

“You haven’t replaced Dan yet, I suppose?” said Amos smiling.

“Hardly, in two days. But he’s all right, sir. And so are our locks and bolts.” Johnson permitted himself an amused and paternal grin. “You go home to the missis. I’ll have another look around afore I leave, and speak to old Dan special.”

So Amos rode contentedly home through the late afternoon sunlight.

At six, he and Hesper and Henry sat down to family supper. While Hesper ladled the split-pea soup out of the silver-plated tureen, she noticed a film of grease around the rim of a soup plate. She frowned and wiped it with her napkin, and now she saw that the silverware was dingy and the tablecloth spotted. There were dust-pussies clustered behind the bulbous feet of the mahogany-veneer sideboard, and a filmy cobweb drifted from the fretwork cornice of the mantelpiece.

“Annie—” she said, when that young woman clumped back from the pantry bearing a platter of fried steak, “the cloth and silver aren’t clean, and when did you dust the dining room?”

Annie twitched and tossed her head with a scarcely veiled impertinence. “I didn’t know you was cornin’ down to supper—” she answered. “I’ve too much to do as it is. Me and Bridget we need a kitchenmaid, and a chambermaid too—come to that.”

Hesper opened her mouth to answer that the care of three people was not much work, and that in any case the situation had not changed in the four years Annie had been there, but she did not feel equal to a scene. She was baffled by the girl’s new hostility and she thought weakly—all my trays and perhaps there would be too much work while the monthly nurse was here, and the confusion of the lying-in period. When Annie had flounced back to the pantry, she said to Amos, “Perhaps we
should
get another maid? I’d hate trouble with Annie and Bridget just now.”

Amos cut another strip of fried steak, and poured catsup over it before answering. He knew the secret of Annie’s insolence was that he hadn’t yet paid her May wages. He settled all the household bills directly from his office, leaving to Hesper only the disbursement of her generous dress allowance.

“We’ll see—” he said pleasantly. “Maybe next time I run up to Boston. Don’t worry your head about it, Hessie, I’ll see that the servants behave.”

“Annie spends a lot of time in the stable with Tim,” remarked Henry suddenly, as one who offers a helpful sidelight. “They hug and kiss.”

“That’ll do!” cried both his parents in a stern chorus.

Henry subsided. They finished their supper with a Queen pudding of bread, custard, and jam, then repaired as usual to the library.

Hesper had never admitted to herself how much this elegant room depressed her, even more so than the drawing room. It was papered in a purplish maroon pattern of leaves shaded in black along the edges so as to appear embossed, and the fumed-oak woodwork in here had been darkened to the shade of mahogany. The east wall was lined with sets of books, behind glass doors. A set of Scott in tooled umber, a twenty-volume set of
Little Gleanings from the Classics
in green calf and marbleized half-covers; an Encyclopedia and a Longfellow. There were three rosewood armchairs and a settee all upholstered in horsehair. The carpet was dark brown to match the woodwork, and even after all four bracket gaslights were lit, the room was gloomy, as it was meant to be. There should be no frivolity about a library.

Hesper had been very proud of it when she came to the house as a bride, and she was still proud of it, but she was not comfortable in it.

They followed the nightly custom, settling themselves in the prickly chairs while Amos read out loud. He enjoyed reading aloud, and did it well in a slow and sonorous voice. In the past he had read them
Ivanhoe
and
Quentin Durward,
but he considered Scott too melodramatic for Hesper at present, and had been reading from the placid pages of Mrs. Dinah Maria Mulock.

Henry while listening was allowed to occupy his hands by coloring pictures, which bored him, but he had no more thought of rebelling than had his mother. It was good of Papa to read to them, and this was established law for the after-supper hours.

At nine o’clock Amos looked at his gold watch and shut the book.

“Time for bed, son.”

Henry slid down from his chair and kissed his parents.

“You too, Hessie?”

She nodded and rose with difficulty. Amos steadied her arm.

“I’ll be up presently. I’ll just finish the article in the
Transcript.”

Hesper and her son started across the parquet floor toward the stairs, when the front-door bell rang. They paused in surprise, and waited, watching while Amos opened the door.

A shabby urchin stood on the mat, blinking in the sudden light.

“Well—” said Amos. “What do you want?”

Annie stuck her frowsy head around the corner of the hall in answer to the bell, but seeing her master and mistress there, disappeared again. The boy advanced into the hall, dragging his feet.

“I’ve a message for Amos Porterman—” said the boy, staring vacantly at the floor. “He said t’ big house near t’ for-rk fur Salem, an’ a stuffed deer int’ front yard.”

“Yes!” said Amos impatiently. “This is the house, I’m Mr. Porterman. What do you want?”

The boy, raising stupid eyes to Amos’s face, considered this. He took off his cap and twisted it in his fingers. “He said fur you t’ go t’ fact’ry. Immedjate. T’ hurry.”

Amos stiffened. Now what’s the trouble, he thought, his lips tightening.
“Who
told you?” he demanded, though he hadn’t a doubt it was Johnson.

“I dunno,” said the boy. “ ’Twas some man stopped me on the street. He give me two bits. Said he’d wait till you come.”

“All right—” said Amos. “I’m coming,” and he would have given him a dime but the boy, having had his say, stepped back through the door and walked away.

“It’s nothing,” said Amos hastily to Hesper who looked troubled. “I suppose Johnson wants to show me something. I guess I’ll walk. It’s a lot quicker than getting a horse hitched. Now, go to bed and don’t stay awake. I might be late and I want you to get your sleep.” She nodded, watching him take his hat from the antler hatrack, and wind his black silk muffler around his neck.

“Good-bye, dear—” she said, and the little phrase echoed in her ears. Her nerves gave a faint quiver, shrinking like the sea anemone from an invisible vibration. Then she turned briskly to Henry. “Hurry on off to bed, my lad.”

“What did the dirty boy want with Papa?”

“Oh he was just a messenger from Mr. Johnson. You know sometimes Papa does go back to the factory at night when they’re very busy.” Henry was satisfied. He trudged upstairs, and allowed his mother to tuck him in, and even sing “Rock-a-bye Baby” to him—a foolish indulgence which he usually denied her.

Hesper went into her bedroom. But she was no longer sleepy. She moved restlessly around the room. Finally she lay down on top of the covers, still dressed in her house gown. She turned up the gas jet by her bed, and began to read. For a while the story occupied the surface of her mind, and then she lost it in a growing uneasiness. This is ridiculous, she thought, nerves again. She put the book on the table, turned the gas low, and closed her eyes. After a while she dozed, and from the shadowy layer between two consciousnesses, sinister faces peered at her; they shifted like dark water, these pointed faces, watching her with yellow eyes that vanished into the blackness of rocks behind them. And then it seemed to her that from these rocks water oozed in an oily and serpentine coil. It gathered speed and size as it oozed toward her, until she heard an advancing roar and it towered above her, a wall of evil black water surging and roaring toward her flattened body.

She jumped up and awoke. She was trembling and the palms of her hands were wet.

The nightmare terror passed slowly, though she brought to bear on it all the arguments of common sense. It was too warm in the room, her supper had disagreed with her. She should have gone properly to bed as Amos had told her. He’d be cross when he came back to find her awake and still dressed.

There was no clock in the bedroom, and she lay a few more minutes without moving, profoundly reluctant to know the time. At last she got up and, walking to her dresser, turned over the little enamel watch which she had placed earlier in the pin tray. It was one o’clock.

“But there’s nothing in that,” she said aloud. “A dozen things may have delayed him.”

She went into the bathroom and washed her face with cold water, and while in there she heard through the wall Henry muttering in his sleep. She went into his room, lit the night light, and pulled the blanket over him. He stirred and half opened his eyes. His room faced the east and was cooler than hers, for a breeze blew in from off the sea. She walked over to the window, intending to close it a little, but as she put her hand to the sash, she stopped with a stiffled exclamation, shoved it up, and leaned out.

A ruddy glare illumined a section of the eastern sky. Her straining eyes saw a high darting tongue of flame, and faint on the breeze she smelled the acrid odor of smoke. She leaned on the windowsill to ease the sudden panic of her heart, and she heard the distant jangle of alarm bells from the South Church steeple.

“What’s the matter, Mama?” called Henry from behind her. He always awakened alert, and in full possession of himself. He pattered out of bed and edged in beside her.

“Fire—” she said beneath her breath, scarcely conscious of him. “In the business section.”

Henry peered through the window with lively interest. “Near Papa’s factory?”

“It looks near—” she said in the same hurried voice. She still leaned on the sill in a paralysis of indecision. Something not clear, something more than fire...

“Marblehead has lots of fires,” said Henry with satisfaction. “I like to see the engines. Did Papa go down-town on account of the fire?”

“No,” she said. “No.” And the deadlock broke in her mind. There had been no fire when Amos left, she would have seen it when she opened Henry’s window, nor would Johnson have sent a summons like that had there been fire.

But that boy’s message didn’t come from Johnson. It came from Nat!

“Oh my God—” she whispered—“you fool, you fool. Nat’s trapped him. I know it.”

And in that second of anguish, she saw herself for a coward and a weakling. How deaf she had been to the inner voice, how many warnings had she evaded, how many compromises accepted for the sake of ease. If I had gone with Leah that night, or kept her here....If I hadn’t let myself be lulled again and again, if I’d gone in to see Nat Friday—when I know I saw him at the window—if I’d stopped Amos tonight—

“Mama—what are you doing?” Henry shrilled, running after her, for she had left his room and already reached the landing.

“Go back—” she said. “Stay in your room.” But he saw she had no awareness of him; he darted into his room for his slippers, put them on, and clad only in his nightshirt, scurried after her down the stairs. He was a little frightened by her face, chalk-white and her eyes fixed and angry, looking like the picture of the terrible Egyptian queen in his Bible, but he had also an impulse to be near her, and he wanted to see the fire.

He slid out the front door behind her, and down the drive to Pleasant Street where she turned toward the town. On the street’s firmer surface her steps accelerated almost to a run, and Henry, panting, finally tugged at her arm. “I didn’t know you could walk so fast—” he said plaintively. “I didn’t know you could walk much at all. You’re always in bed.”

By the light of the half-moon overhead, he saw her lips move in a bitter smile. She stopped a moment. “Henry—you shouldn’t have come. Go back!”

He shook his head. “I want to stay with you.”

She made an impatient sound, and began to run again. “All right, but I can’t look out for you. Papa’s in danger. You’ll have to rely on yourself.” He accepted this as fair, and was silent.

They crossed the railroad tracks near the little Devereux depot and now they were joined on the road by other hurrying figures. Hesper’s breath came harshly through her nostrils, her heart hammered against her ribs, but she did not feel her body. Her feet moved of themselves, sure and fast.