The Hearth and Eagle (54 page)

Fool, she cried to herself, letting things slide again, hiding your head in the sand.

“Ma!” she called sharply, peering through the door into the kitchen. “Ma. Come here!”

“What’s all the pother?” said Susan appearing in the doorway. “Hessie, lay down!” For her daughter was half out of bed. “What’s got into you!”

Susan pushed her daughter down against the pillows, and retucked the covers, then she sat down on the bed, and surveyed Hesper with the grim amusement her daughter sometimes inspired in her. Susan had mourned deeply for Roger, she would miss him all the rest of her life. But she was never one to wear her heart on her sleeve, and now well rested, thanks to Tamsen, she had turned her face resolutely forward.

“Ma—” said Hesper. “I’ve got to know. D’you know what’s happened to Nat? Did Amos ever find him that night?”

Her mother’s face changed. She got off the bed, walked to the pine dresser, and mechanically straightened the wash bowl and pitcher. “You worrying about Amos?”

“Yes. I’ve got to know. How could I,” she cried with rising vehemence, “have been so soppy lying here in a sort of haze just thinking about the baby, and—Pa.”

Susan came back to the bedside. “You’ve changed quite a bit, Hessie, got a lot more spunk than I thought for. Now don’t go swinging the other way feeling responsible for everything. You had a right to a few days o’ peace. Yore body needed it.”

“But what
happened,
Ma?”

“Amos he forbade me telling you,” said her mother, frowning. “Still, I can’t see it his way. We all got to face up to things. Most o’ the harm done in this life comes from not facing up to things, seems to me.”

Hesper gave a sharp sigh, but she waited.

“Amos found Nat that night,” continued her mother slowly. “He first located Henry, just as you said he would; he found the lad with Johnson well out o’ the reach o’ danger having hot malted milk in Eben Dorch’s drugstore. That’s where I found Doctor Flagg, too, filling up his medicine bag with fresh supplies. I told Johnson not to hurry with Henry on account o’ your state, and the doctor and I started back down Washington Street.” She paused, glancing at Hesper’s strained face.

“Well, when we passed State Street, you may be sure I looked down it, and saw Amos as I’d thought I might. He was turning in the gate o’ the Cubbys’ house. I run down that street like a scalded cat, the doctor tearing after me, thinking I’d lost my wits. The door was open and I wasn’t much behind Amos clambering up the stairs. I screeched to him, but he didn’t hear me, he was opening doors and searching, and I prayed then...”

“Ma—” whispered Hesper.

“Well, we found Nat,” said Susan, with a crisp matter-of-factness. “Hanging from a beam in Leah’s room under the scuttle. He’d hanged himself with a strip from her old black shawl. And now you know what happened.”

Hesper’s stiff body relaxed, she sank back on the pillows. Thank God—she thought, thank God.

“I reckon he thought Leah told him to join her, like she told him to fire the fact’ry,” said Susan dryly. “I can't help feeling a mite sorry for the two of ’em, despite what Nat did. They was always like a couple o’ cockatrices in a hen-yard, an! I don’t know as they could help it.”

“Yes,” Hesper breathed, wondering how much her mother knew. Yes, there was pity. She had felt great pity for Leah, and now that Nat was no longer dangerous, now that Amos was saved forever from any more consequences of that weak moment, when he had allowed himself to be swung into an orbit so hostile to him—

“Aye,” said Susan, watching her daughter. “It’s a relief, isn’t it! I knew Amos was wrong. You’re a sight tougher than he thinks.”

“He doesn’t quite understand...” said Hesper.

“He don’t understand Marbleheaders an’ that’s a fact. He hasn’t the sea and the wind and the rocks in his blood, an’ he hasn’t the fierce pride o’ being rooted with your own kind. But he’s a good man for all that.

“Yes,” said Hesper softly. “But, Ma—there’ll be an inquest now, won’t there—on Nat, I mean? And the papers, it’ll all have to come out, Amos testify—badgering him—”

Susan shook her head. “There’ll never be a word about it. The sheriff’ll hush it up. D’you think we’d give a lot o’ furriners the chance to gape and poke and pry into our troubles? Thing’s finished, Hes, since punishment’s now in God’s hands.”

Hesper nodded. She had no doubt her mother was right. Marblehead had never been one to let the outside world see it wash its dirty linen. And there was many another scandal that had been hushed up. No, the danger for Amos was past, she knew with devout gratitude, and now there remained only to reassure him and help him forget the horrible thing that had threatened. Oh, they’d have to economize, of course; the loss of the factory had been a heavy blow, but it might have been so much worse. Amos had other property, in Danvers and even in Marblehead, and he always managed. We’ll probably have to give up the carriage, she thought, and let Annie go for a while. Bridget and I can manage very well. I was getting awfully lazy.

Or maybe this would be the time to move from Marblehead; he probably wouldn’t rebuild here anyway. She thought dreamily of a little flat in Boston, or maybe some place like Worcester—anything Amos wanted.

She dozed a little until Henry came in. He was dressed very neatly in the black serge suit he had worn to his grandfather’s funeral, but all his flaxen sausage curls had been clipped off close to his head.

“Oh, Henry—” cried Hesper staring at the prickly wisps in dismay. “Your hair!”

“I cut it off,” said Henry. “Grandma said she wasn’t going to bother with all that dom-fool curling every morning, and I think she’s right. When are we going home, Mama?”

“Oh, pretty soon, I guess. When I’m up and around.” And though she too had been thinking of the return to their mansion on Pleasant Street, she felt an unpleasant pang. “Don’t you like it here, dear?”

“Oh, it’s all right,” said Henry indifferently. “Only I miss my bank game, and I was building a toy village in the stable. Tim was helping me.

“Couldn’t you build it in the barn, here?”

“Too small.”

“Why don’t you go down to the harbor, learn something about the boats while we’re here?” persisted Hesper; “that’s what most Marblehead boys like to do.”

“I did,” answered Henry. “I’ve been out twice with Ben Peach in his dory. He says I row real well. But I’d rather build the village. It’s what I set out to do. I like to finish things.”

Hesper gazed at her son with a mixture of respect and irritation. He’s certainly got character, she thought, and she looked down at the lusty dark-haired baby, wondering about him. It seemed to her that this one was far more vigorous than Henry had ever been. Certainly he cried louder and oftener and appeased his appetite with a more single-minded vehemence. For a moment she regretted the gentle little girl baby for whom she had longed, and then stifled the regret forever. For the new baby had brought with him a special kind of love, born with him in the turbulence of his birth night.

“Here—” said Henry suddenly, thrusting a squeezed and wilted bunch of pansies at his mother. “They’re for you. I forgot.” His grandmother had suggested that he pick them, but he had been quite willing. Since the night of the fire, his placid affection for Hesper had been deepened by a tinge of admiring awe. He knew that she had done a very brave thing, for Johnson had told him so. To be sure, here she was lying around in bed again, but the new baby apparently somehow explained that.

“Thank you, dear,” said Hesper, much touched, and spread the bruised pansies on the counterpane. She ran her fingers softly over the golden brown and purple faces. “They’re for thoughts,” she said. “Some people call them ‘Heart’s-ease.’ I wrote a poem about pansies once. I guess it wasn’t very good.”

She stared down at the pansies, wondering why her first pleasure at seeing them had dissolved into a dull pain. And suddenly she remembered that she had read the pansy poem to Evan one day at Castle Rock before their marriage. Read it with pride and a quivering expectancy, totally unprepared for the shock of his expression as she looked up for praise at the end. He had been looking at her with embarrassed pity, then quickly turned his head, murmuring “Charming.”

But she had pressed for an opinion, and he had finally said, “There’s nothing real in it, Hesper. It’s just a lot of flabby little words.” Nothing I did ever really pleased him, she thought.

“You’re hurting the flowers,” observed Henry, mildly disapproving. “Gramma says it’s naughty to pull them apart.”

Hesper looked down at the scattered gold and purple petals on the counterpane. “It is,” she said. “Run out and play, dear. It looks like a lovely day.”

“I guess I’ll take the ferry over to the Neck,” said Henry. “There’s some boys over there who like to trade.”

“Summer people?” she asked, surprised. “How did you ever meet them?”

“Oh, I meet lots of people when I want to,” said Henry vaguely.

“Have you money to pay the ferry?”

“Sure. Papa gives me plenty.”

Hesper smiled and held out her arms, and Henry submitted to her kiss, even hugging her in return, before he escaped.

Amos was so generous and good to them, she thought, reaching down for the baby who had awakened suddenly with an indignant demanding roar.

“Hey—can’t you even wait one minute?” she said laughing down at the thrashing scrap on her lap, and she longed for Amos to come back so that they might laugh together, taking pride in the vigorous new son they had created.

But when Amos came back and entered her room in the late afternoon, she saw there would be no laughter.

“Hello, Hessie,” he said dully. “Feeling all right? How’s the little one?” But he did not look at the baby which she held in her arms. She had brushed all his abundant brownish hair into little peaks, and dressed him in some exquisitely embroidered baby clothes Susan had brought down from the attic, and she had been amused again to see how his rampant masculinity triumphed over the delicacy of his robes.

Now her gay greeting died on her lips. She saw that Amos had lost weight. There were furrows in his cheeks and lines around his eyes. His broad shoulders were slumped forward under the pearl-gray broadcloth suit, which was rumpled and spotted. She noticed with startled dismay the absence of the massive gold watch chain he always wore.

“Sit down, dear, and talk to me,” she said, carefully putting the baby in his cradle, so as not to wake him.

“We’re both fine—” she added, answering Amos’s questions. “But you don’t look very well. You’re worried, aren’t you? Tell me about it.”

She felt the resistance in him, saw that his impulse was to go out again.

“Please—” she said.

He hesitated, then looked at the rush-seated chair. “Isn’t a comfortable chair in this house.”

“On the bed,” she said quickly, moving over. “Sit here.”

He obeyed reluctantly, sat staring at the wide glossy floorboards.

There was a silence and Hesper cast around in her mind to find the best opening. Then she rushed into speech before she lost courage.

“The loss of the factory’s a heavy blow I know, and the dreadful way it happened. But it’s over now. I mean Nat. I know about that, Amos. Only thing to do is start fresh, never looking back.”

He turned his head then and looked at her, and she caught her breath, for his eyes were chill and remote as the winter sea, and he gave a bitter laugh. “Start fresh with what?”

“Why, Amos—” she faltered. “You had lots of other interests. You have property, I know, besides our house, and then the insurance on the factory. I read about that in the
Messenger,
the factories were covered by insurance. It said so.”

“Mine wasn’t.”

She stared at him blankly. “I don’t understand. You’ve never told me much about the business, but the papers said they were starting to build again right away and...”

“Then I’ll make it clear to you,” he interrupted, in the cold hard voice, “since if you’re reading the papers, it’s obvious I can’t spare you much longer. I am totally and completely bankrupt. I owe thousands of dollars I can’t pay. I let the insurance lapse because I couldn’t afford it, and took a chance until a big new order paid off. You’ll see by Monday’s papers that the bankruptcy court has taken over everything I ever owned.”

He turned his head back and once more stared down at the floor.

Hesper swallowed. The room swirled around her, spiraling down to Amos’s averted face. “Oh, my poor darling...” she whispered. No, she thought, that’s not the way.

“Well—” she spoke in an even tone. “It’s a shock, of course. But we’re still pretty young, and you
can
start fresh, Amos, after the—the bankruptcy business is finished. You made money before, you can do it again.”

I didn’t start from nothing before, he thought. I didn’t start from ruin and I wasn’t forty-five. But he was grateful to her, and the bitterness in which he had encased himself cracked a little.

“It’s for you and the boys—” he said on a softer tone. “Failing you like this—how to provide for you now. I’ve nearly gone crazy trying to think what to do.”

“But surely it’s very simple,” she said after a minute.

“What?” he asked, raising his head.

“Why, we’ll stay on here for a while until you can get on your feet. This house belongs to Ma and me now. They can’t touch that, can they?”

“No,” said Amos slowly. “They can’t. Mr. Honeywood willed it to your mother for lifetime tenure, then reversion to you. But Hes, you always hated the place. Dilapidated. Uncomfortable. I was so glad to get you out of it. To give you—”

“I don’t hate it now,” she interrupted. She looked at the baby in the old cradle and at the rush-seated chair where her father had sat beside her that night. Far more truly home than that great, glossy mansion on Pleasant Street. She had never been alive there, always a thinness and an emptiness. But this she knew she could never say to Amos. She watched the defeat in his face change to a bleak resignation, and knew that for him this house and the interwoven richness of generations of Honeywoods would never be home. His next words proved it.

“You might sell, I suppose,” he said, sighing. “If you could persuade your mother. But who’d buy it? Wrong part of town.”