Afterward, while Beth slept, I rose again and went into the bathroom. From the window over the radiator, I could see one of the figures standing there again, where it had stood before. Not the woman; the man—a dark shape, forming the figure of straw and corn, waiting. For what? I told myself that now I was really imagining, but I have since thought differently. Was it he, truly, the Harvest Lord?
I looked a moment longer, trying to make out the figure, and then it was gone. If it had returned at all. Or if it had ever been there. Getting back into bed, settling myself under the sheet, my head on the pillow, my arm around Beth’s shoulders, I pictured again the mysterious figure of the woman. Who was she? Or, rather, who was she meant to be? I recalled the Widow’s words about the riddle of the sphinx; now I had been provided with my own riddle to solve. I remember that the last thing I thought of were the old lady’s words: A man must learn to discover what is possible.
Then I fell into a dreamless sleep.
THREE
Tithing Day
16
ONE AFTERNOON THE FOLLOWING week I could hear the church clock striking five as I cleaned my brushes and palette and put my paints away. Then I rode my bike into the village to send off to my New York gallery some Polaroid prints of the bridge painting. I went into the post office, where Myrtil Clapp, the postmistress’s assistant, sold me a stamp. Attaching it, I saw the postmistress herself, making tea from a singing kettle on a hot plate set on some file cabinets at the rear. Beyond, in the back room, I could see Constable Zalmon, feet propped up on his desk, smoking his corncob pipe and thumbing through a copy of Field and Stream.
Tamar Penrose glanced up from her tea things and gave me one of her smoky looks. I lifted a hand in a brief salute, dropped the envelope into the slot, and went out.
I checked my watch against the steeple clock, noting the spasmodic activity around the Common as I crossed it. Mrs. Green went into the library with an armload of books. Jim Minerva loaded groceries into the back seat of his Volkswagen and drove off, heading south along Main Street. A farm wagon creaked by, Will Jones seated in it with the reins drooping between his hands. He pulled up outside the Rocking Horse and went in. With tinkling bells, the sheep baaed and moved from my path as I headed for the church on the opposite side.
Some of the younger village girls were going up the steps, and through the open vestibule doors I could hear the soft lilt of organ music from inside. Coming up onto the sidewalk, I saw Mrs. Buxley hurrying from the beauty parlor; Margie Perkin had been at her hair. She dithered her fingers as she hastened to greet me.
“Lovely day,” she said, as though she herself had fashioned it. And how was I, how were Beth and Kate, and how were my lovely paintings? Inside, choir practice began, and the bell-like sounds of the girls’ sopranos and altos floated out through the doors.
“Lovely sound, isn’t it? Our young girls are rehearsing for Tithing Day. You’ll be coming, surely.”
I said I hadn’t heard about Tithing Day, and she explained that next Sunday would be a special service when the village offered their token corn tithes to the church. An impressive ceremony; we were certain to find it rewarding.
“See you in church.” She dithered her fingers again and went into the vestibule. Amys Penrose came along, pushing his broom at the edge of the roadway, stopping when he got abreast of me to touch a finger to his hat brim. I waved to the Widow, whose buggy went creaking by on the far side of the Common. I had not seen her to talk to since the “experience,” the weekend before, and I was anxious to hear what she would have to say about the epiphany of the Harvest Lord and the unknown lady. With rattling wheels and rusty springs, the mare clip-clopping along the dusty roadway, she, too, headed south. In a moment, Kate came riding her horse out of the north end of Main Street; she went flying onto the Common where the terrified sheep moved from her path in a huddled, woolly mass. I called to her not to disturb them; she waved and rode on.
“What’s this Tithing Day Mrs. Buxley’s been telling me of?” I asked Amys.
“More nonsense,” came the succinct reply. He spat, his customary mark of disapproval. He wiped his mouth on his faded sleeve. “Could use a beer. I’m spittin’ cotton.”
I could take a hint. I offered to join him at the Rocking Horse for a drink, and, leaving the pile of leaves he had swept up in the roadway, he shouldered his broom and we went along to the tavern. The room was crowded, smoke layered the air, and there was the agreeable hum of voices as the locals gathered in groups and exchanged the end-of-the-day news; behind the bar, Bert was busy filling orders. We pushed our way through to find a place in the corner at the end of the bar. I let Amys order his beer, then asked for my usual Scotch-and-soda.
Will Jones leaned against the center of the bar, talking to Fred Minerva, Ferris Ott, and several others. They nodded at me when I lifted my glass to them. As Harvest Home drew nearer, there was a feeling of camaraderie among the farmers, and from all sides news was furnished, items for discussion. Item: Old Mrs. Mayberry had died. Item: Mrs. Oates, the undertaker’s wife, had given birth to a boy. The village population was thus rebalanced. Item: What was Worthy Pettinger acting so all-fired cranky for these days: didn’t he know when he was well-off? Fred Minerva just wished his Jim could’ve got a crack at being Harvest Lord. Item: Justin Hooke’s rooster. Item: The weather. If it snowed before the second Wednesday in November, it would be a hard winter. Item: The hard winter of fourteen years ago. Item: The bad one. Item: The last Great Waste.
These topics variously reached our ears as I downed my drink and Amys his beer. When we had finished, I asked Bert for two more, then signaled him to pour a round for Fred, Will, Ferris, and the rest. They all thanked me, and when they had emptied their glasses they trooped out, Ferris Ott discussing with Fred Minerva the bad luck he’d had all year.
I turned back to Amys and contemplated him for a minute, then leaned toward him, adopting a careless tone but choosing my words carefully. “Tell me, Amys, how long have you been ringing the bell?”
“Eight ropes, maybe nine. That’s the length of time it’ll take to wear a rope out. Maybe six, seven years a rope, dependin’ on how many’s born, how many dies.”
“When you ring, is there a difference—I mean for a man and a woman?”
“Sure. For a man you got to ring three times two, for a woman it’s three times three.” He took a long swig of beer, savoring it as it went down. “Hey, Bert, gimme some o’ them nuts you got back there.”
“Three times three?” I leaned closer. “Is that the way you rang for Gracie Everdeen?”
“Hell, no,” he replied in a hoarse whisper. “No bell was never rung for her. I’d’ve done it if they’d let me, but they wouldn’t. Not them. No bell tolled for Gracie. Not thrice time thrice, not thrice times nothin’. I rang her into the world, but there was none to ring her out.” He rolled a cigarette and lighted it. “Oh, Gracie Everdeen.” He blew out a raspy stream of smoke, then, dirge-like, returned to the topic of the lost Gracie.
“The Coombe never bred a finer beauty than Grace was. Nor a sweeter one. Sweet and delicate she was, a reg’lar pony. There wasn’t a fellow in the village didn’t hanker for her. She grew up tall, but slim, and pretty as a man could hope to see.” He pressed my arm to convince me of the truth of his words. “I mean, she was pretty. It was nip and tuck who was gonter win her.”
“Roger Penrose?”
“Ayuh. ’Twas the end of nip and tuck then. Roger’d been goin’ with Tamar Penrose, who was one of them blamed Penrose cousins. Durin’ that time, the ladies voted and the honor come to Roger—he was poor enough, but they balloted and chose him for Harvest Lord. Tamar was mighty proud, thinkin’ Roger was bound to ask her for the Corn Lady. But he didn’t. One year went by, then two, and still hadn’t asked her. Hadn’t asked any girl. Now Gracie’s bloomin’ like a flower, and—did I say was pretty?—I did and she was. Lemme think a minute. Roger’s Harvest Lord, and there’s pretty Gracie. He takes her for a ride i
n the Widow Fortune’s buggy, and when they come back, Gracie’s been asked. Everyone thought that was fine ’ceptin’ for Tamar, who’s got her nose out of joint, bein’ left out—Tamar’s a sulky creature. But there’s Gracie, just—just radiatin’. Now—where was I? Yes. Roger’s Harvest Lord, Gracie’s Corn Maiden. Roger’s got two years or so to go. The Widow’s educatin’ Gracie in her duties. Anyone who talks about her’s got only the best things to say. Oh, wasn’t she lovely, light and delicate as air—yes, she was. Well, sir, next thing you know, Roger’s give her a ring.”
“Engagement?”
“So to speak. He couldn’t afford no fancy job. Then the banns was posted and read out. It’s not often a Harvest Lord’ll marry his Corn Lady—’ceptin’ like Justin and Sophie, which come as somethin’ of a shock. But Roger’s decided on little Gracie. Then Mrs. Everdeen puts her foot down, and revokes the banns. Says Gracie’s got to give Roger back his ring. Then, after a while, Gracie starts actin’ funny. Long about the time she quit the fields and put on shoes, she just seemed to go haywire. Did all sorts of crazy things.”
I motioned Bert for another beer. “Like what?”
Amys blew his nose and wiped his eyes. “Well, she stopped combin’ her hair, for one thing. Took to wearin’ the same dress day in day out. Sassed the Widow. Hitched her fanny at the pastor. At Midsummer’s Eve, she slipped a whole pie under Mrs. Buxley’s rear end just afore Mrs. Buxley sat down. Rolled her eyes at one of them Soakes boys. Roger was plenty mad. Everyone was. ’Cept me; I just felt sorry for her. None of this happened right off, mind you—’twas more gradual-like. One Spring Festival, she fought with the boys in the street. Right out there where you put down them Soakeses, she took on Ferris Ott and laid him in the dust. Then when Roger bought his horse—”
“The one he broke his neck on?”
“Ayuh. She challenged Roger to a race, and she won. Now, nobody could beat Roger’s horse—but Grace did. Folks said she stole some of the Widow’s herbs and put it in the horse’s oats. Roger was so mad he says to Gracie to give his ring back. Then she disgraced the whole village—or so they think.”
“How so?” I sipped my drink. Amys dragged on his cigarette, blew out the smoke, swigged his beer.
“Well, sir, you can see it, surely. She’d become a terror. Barefooted, wild hair, screamin’ and yellin’, puttin’ her nose up, swearin’. Folks were angry. She was the Corn Maiden. Roger’d given her the honor and she didn’t seem to care. There wasn’t nothin’ she wouldn’t do to shock folks or make them think ill of her. Then come Agnes Fair, and that was the end. Roger was bound to win the pole-shinny, but Grace denied him the pleasure. She loses him the wrestlin’, too. Next, she has words with Ewan Demin’, and then she’s gone.”
“She left.”
“Ayuh.”
“Where’d she go?”
He shook his head, drank, wiped his chin. “Nobody knows. Left on Agnes Fair day and didn’t come back until almost two years later. But it was too late. Roger said if Grace was goin’ to act that way, Tamar could be Corn Maiden, and come the play, Tamar was crowned in her place. But what most folks didn’t know, Gracie’d returned the spring before. It was like she couldn’t stay away. The winter after she left was a hard one. Snow on the Common five feet deep, people tunneling out to feed the livestock. I lost four of my sheep that year. There was a thaw, then a flood, then spring was behind the barn. And with it come Gracie Everdeen. And, wherever she’d been, she come back sad and sorrowful, and you can bet me, the heart in her poor bosom was cleave in two.”
There was something in the simple country way he put his words together that painted a picture for me. I could see the fallow fields, the drab sky, the melting snow, and the tempestuous, strange creature that was Gracie Everdeen, victim of unbridled passions, spurning the mother who broke her heart, the lover who betrayed her. “But she didn’t come back to the village that spring, did she?” I was remembering Mrs. O’Byrne’s part of the story.
“No, sir, she didn’t. She was stayin’ over t’ Saxony, but she wouldn’t cross the river. Wouldn’t come over the Lost Whistle for hide nor hair.”
“Why not?”
He ducked his head briefly, and faltered in his story. Then, regaining himself, “Who knows? Womenfolk do peculiar things sometimes. Roger Penrose heard she was over there, and he rode out and begged her to come home. Time after time, but she wouldn’t.”
“Why wouldn’t Roger cross the bridge?”
“Wasn’t supposed to. It’s the rule. In the seventh year the Harvest Lord’s not to go beyond the village boundaries. Same for the Corn Maiden. But Grace, on her side, she’d never set foot to the bridge. And Roger’d never go to her.”
“But he did, finally.” I told him what I had learned from Mrs. O’Byrne about the night Roger had galloped across the river and carried her to the Cornwall side, and that Mrs. O’Byrne had wanted to fire Gracie for immorality.
Amys stared at me, speechless, then spat again. “’Tain’t true! Roger never touched her that night!”
“How do you know?”
“I—” He stopped uncertainly, glanced quickly at Bert, the bartender, then hollered for more nuts. When Bert had gone to the far end of the bar, Amys continued in a hoarse whisper, “Roger never laid a finger to her. The Harvest Lord can’t have relations with no girl before Harvest Home. It’s against the ways. Anyhow, Roger met her just before the Corn Play. That was poor Gracie’s last chance. He rode back and Tamar was crowned in her place. Next day, the day before Kindlin’ Night, when they burn the scarecrows, the Widow Fortune buggies over to talk to Gracie. She come back without her, too. So Tamar goes to Harvest Home.”
“To do what?”
“Hell, son, don’t ask me all these questions. I’m tryin’ to tell you. Roger goes to Harvest Home as the Lord, and Tamar goes as his Maiden.”
“Goes where?”
“To the woods. To Soakes’s Lonesome.”
“Harvest Home is celebrated in the woods?”
“The seventh one is, always. But then, Gracie comes too.”
“And was a disruptive influence.”
“Who says?”
“The ladies. Mrs. Green, Mrs. Zalmon—”
“Damn old biddies. If she was, the Lord God he knows.”
“Then what happened?”
Two days later, Irene Tatum finds her poor body in the river. Thrown herself off the Lost Whistle. I heard, and I went to toll thrice times thrice. But Mr. Deming comes and says I can’t. He tells me to dig a hole.”
“Outside the cemetery.”
“Mr. Buxley—he says he can’t read service for a suicide, and here come all the elders carryin’ a pine box, with Gracie inside, and they set it in the hole; then Mr. Deming in his black suit tells me to fill it in, and they go away. Not a soul there for the funeral. Mrs. Everdeen packs up and leaves town for the shame, and there’s the end of it.”
“You buried her?”
He turned his head quickly and used the spittoon again. After a moment he said, “Buried her beyond the fence, where you see her stone. Where she lies without, in disgrace, and Roger lies within, in honor. And herself runs the post office and makes fast and loose with anything in pants.” He clutched my sleeve and spoke fiercely. “Don’t you listen to folks. Gracie was a fine girl. And a beauty, don’t you forget. Pretty as spring, a reg’lar fairy, that was Grace.”
Bert came and collected the glasses, obliterating with his rag the wet rings left on the bar.
Amys tottered off his stool, a sad, forlorn look on his wrinkled face. “Listen to me, sir. I loved Grace, and I never forgot her, even though they’d like to. Sometimes when I ring thrice times thrice, like when Mrs. Mayberry died, I tell Gracie that’s for her.”
He touched his hat brim, thanked me for letting him wet his whistle, and took up his broom and left.
I finished my drink, trying to piece together the threads of his story of the unfortunate Gracie Everdeen, and chalked it up to a case of unreq
uited love.
When I approached the church again, Amys was tolling six o’clock. Above the bronzy notes of the bell, the voices of the choir sounded, floating out through the vestibule door and hanging soft in the air. The sun was dropping behind the post office, and long shadows had crept across the Common, making the circles on the grass more pronounced.
I took a few moments to step into the church and sit in one of the pews, looking up at the choir loft over the doors, where the girls held their sheets of music in pairs and sang the lovely melody. Maggie was at the organ, watching in the little mirror over the keyboard as Mrs. Buxley conducted the voices, while, in the upper corner of the loft, the Widow Fortune sat leaning her head on her hand, lost in some private reverie.
The song ended, and the church was perfectly still for a moment. Then the girls moved from their places, gathering around the old lady as she spoke to them, praising them for their singing. When I went up the aisle, I glimpsed Mr. Buxley seated at a table in the vestry, writing in a ledger. I stopped for a word, and he explained he was entering the date of old Mrs. Mayberry’s death. He brought down another, showing me the entry of her birth sixty-seven years before; then he returned both ledgers to the shelf. Each volume was dated by year, a whole history of village births and marriages and deaths, the three important events of a man’s life, no matter where he may live.
I complimented him on the music I had heard; he said yes, it would pass very nicely for Tithing Day.
I walked along Main Street, looking at the houses with their neat gardens and fences, their windows, some with as many as eighteen panes of glass apiece, the handsome Colonial doorways. The kinds of houses I had never known in the city.