Since I had for some days set up my easel near the bait shack, the window of which I was still painting, I had seen the continual passage of the village dames coming at all hours with their baskets of food, and almost without fail every day at five the Widow Fortune would arrive in her buggy to tend the results of the Soakeses’ violence. The ladies washed Jack’s clothes and linens, made him broths, kept him clean and shaven, and otherwise did whatever was required to revive him. It was the Widow’s object to put him back on his cart by spring, a purpose she went about with diligence and dispatch. In the meantime, Mrs. Buxley had solicited funds from the parishioners to keep him in necessaries through the fall and winter.
I had taken the boat and rowed upriver to the Soakeses’ jetty, but had seen no sign of any of them. Rumor had it they had gone off on a hunting expedition, and it appeared Mr. Zalmon’s vigilance was in vain. Clearly, they had shut Jack Stump up as effectively as they had the revenuer whose skull screamed in the hollow tree.
The tithing line was dwindling. The Dodds went down the aisle, Maggie leading Robert slowly; he held his token ear of corn out from him as though feeling his way with it. Mr. Deming took the ear and laid it on the heap, which by this time had become considerable. The elder shook Robert’s hand warmly, accepted Maggie’s ear, and she brought Robert back to their pew.
In turn, I took my place in line, then handed Mr. Deming the three ears I had brought to church, one for myself, one for Beth, and the smallest for Kate. Mr. Deming took this last and held it up so all might see, and as I passed back up the aisle I knew I was receiving the good wishes of the villagers for Kate’s recovery. I felt the warmth of their glances, saw Asia Minerva smile as I passed her pew, caught Will Jones’s acknowledging nod as I passed his.
When the last of the children had come down from the gallery and passed before the table, the elders turned to Mr. Buxley, who rose out of his chair and, from the pulpit, held his hand above the piled ears of corn on the harvest table and offered a blessing, while the elders and the congregation bowed their heads. When the blessing had been given, Mr. Buxley readjusted his glasses and announced the closing hymn. I stood with the rest of the congregation and turned to face the choir loft over the closed doors. Mrs. Buxley lifted her gloved hand, nodded to Maggie at the organ, and we began singing.
The selection was a Thanksgiving hymn, and the strains, church truant though I was, rang familiarly in my ears. All around me, my fellow-parishioners sang with fervor, their faces uplifted to the streaming sun, mouths wide, hymnals held high, while with fierce determination Mrs. Buxley encouraged the choir:
“Come ye thankful people come,
Raise the song of Harvest Home;
All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin;
God, our Maker, doth provide, for our wants to be supplied;
Come to God’s own temple, come,
Raise the song of Harvest Home.”
The voices joined, rose, the notes clear and loud, a fervent sound that surely could be heard in Tobacco City. Ardor lighted the singers’ faces, and joy, and belief:
“First the blade and then the ear,
Then the full corn doth appear;
Grant, o harvest Lord that we
Wholesome grain and pure may be.”
I was looking not at Mrs. Buxley, or at Maggie, or the choir, but at the clock under the choir loft. Suddenly the vestibule doors flew open with a thunderous crash, a metallic sound reverberating as one of them struck the radiator. The choir exchanged startled looks. One by one their voices dwindled away, and Maggie lifted her hands from the organ keys, turning with a surprised expression, while Mrs. Buxley leaned over the railing and craned her neck to discover the cause of the disturbance.
White-faced, and with a deep scowl, Worthy Pettinger stood on the threshold, his arms outstretched to hold the doors back. As his eyes swept the pews, I saw Mrs. Pettinger start, her hand flying to her mouth to stifle a little cry. Silent, staring, the congregation stood dumfounded, waiting to see what would happen.
Worthy lifted his right hand from the door panel and made a fist of it, and the fist trembled as he raised it and spoke in a loud, angry voice: “May God damn the corn!”
Immediately a babble of sounds arose, women covering their faces with their hands, some of the men turning to one another with angry mutters.
“May God damn the corn!”
He remained frozen in the open doorway, his clenched fist held aloft. “And may God damn the Mother!” Bringing his arm down in a swift gesture of denunciation, he wheeled and raced out the door. Behind him, the church was in pandemonium, the women crying out and sinking into their seats, the men struggling from their pews and up the aisle, while Amys Penrose appeared in the vestibule and, clutching the rope, began to yank it furiously. Listening to the wild peal of the bells, I thought the old man rang them with the sound of an “Amen.”
FOUR
The Corn Play
21
THE GRAIN GREW FRUITFUL and the corn was ready in the husk, the fields seeming almost to groan under the weight they bore; then, when the Days of the Seasoning were over, and when the moon had attained its promised phase, it was time, and the harvest began. The villagers gathered at the Hooke farm, where custom decreed they were to commence the reaping; spreading out along the rows, they plundered the golden, opulent land, plucking the ears from the stalks and tossing them in baskets, which were then lifted and emptied into the horse-drawn wagons passing along the rows.
When Justin Hooke’s south field had been picked clean and the corn taken to the Grange for the husking bee, the stalks were then cut with sickles and gathered into giant shocks, which were tied and set at intervals between the furrows, and soon the field was bare. As in the other harvested fields, all that remained were the shocks and stubble and the scarecrow the Widow Fortune had made, and now the villagers moved to the next field, and the next, and the one after that, and so the days of reaping went by in Cornwall Coombe. Everyone knew that Harvest Home was soon at hand.
Since the incident of my assumed profligacy with Tamar Penrose the night of Kate’s asthma attack, I had seen changes in Beth which, naturally enough, I thought stemmed from her wounded pride. And yet they were puzzling. Much of the time she seemed merely preoccupied, as though trying to remember something. Seated in the bacchante room after dinner, I would catch her as her needle paused in midair while she stared off into space. I would hear a murmured word or phrase, as if she were trying by repetition to stamp it indelibly upon her memory. Or she would make a sign, absently; then when I looked up, she’d smile as if she herself knew she was addled. Her smile, once so quick and bright, had become bland, almost irritating in its complacency.
And in my own complacency I understood, or thought I did, her secret. Thought I understood the precise urgings that were prompting this change, those stirrings that lie at the very core of womanhood.
She was waiting for something.
So I waited with her.
She developed a habit of crossing her arms over her chest and hugging her waist and making little rocking movements, as though in an effort to stave off the wound she imagined I had dealt her.
She gave up reading the paper, seemingly taking no interest in what was going on in the world. I would find the telephone off the hook, and when I asked why, she would say it must have gotten knocked off, or, more truthfully, that she just didn’t feel like talking to anyone that day. She never watched her favorite television programs any more, preferring instead to be with Kate through her slow stages of recovery. She seemed indifferent to whatever suggestions I made for amusing her.
“How about dinner over on the turnpike tonight?” I might say.
She would look blankly at me and reply, “Turnpike?”
“At the Yankee Clipper.”
“Ohh. All right. If you’d like to.”
“I thought you might like to.”
She would shrug as if dinner at the Yankee Clipper were the fur
thest thing from her mind, then go and call the Widow Fortune to see if she minded coming to stay with Kate.
Though I was certain she had gone off into some impenetrable woman’s haven to lick her wounds, I was equally sure that if I was patient and bided my time, she would return to me and all would be as before.
Sometimes I would reach for her hand and squeeze it and try to express what I was feeling. She would untangle her fingers, and give my cheek a pat.
“But I want you to believe me,” I would say. “I want to know that you believe me.”
“Of course I believe you, Ned.”
But, I thought, extraordinary as she was, she did not.
Though she continued each day going about the village to gather up the newly produced handicrafts—the quilts and bedspreads, the carved figures, the woven things—the ruling passion of her existence, her obsession, had again become Kate. I saw the warning signals, but made no move to interfere. I told myself it was natural enough—a mother’s response when her child has been taken from her, then through some miracle restored. I think if Kate at that time had asked for the moon Beth would have discovered some way to get it for her.
I had been thinking of how to repay the Widow Fortune for what she had done. Money was out of the question—she would never accept it—so I turned my mind to some token of our thanks that she could not refuse, some extravagance she would never indulge herself in. One day, an idea occurred to me.
To fill in some of Kate’s time, the Widow had brought her a needlepoint canvas, which she had taught her how to work, and Beth moved her sewing things from the bacchante room to Kate’s bedroom, where they would talk and stitch together, Kate on her needlepoint, Beth on her quilt. When the Widow came, I could hear the three of them up there, laughing and talking, and suddenly it came to me: the perfect gift for the Widow Fortune.
That night, after the old lady had gone and Kate was asleep, I found Beth seated by our bedroom window staring out at the night sky, at the waxing moon and the bright frosty stars. I thought of the night I had found her sitting in the same chair, after the “experience.”
I pulled up the dressing-table bench and sat beside her in silence. Her head rested comfortably against the chair back, and I saw how beautifully the moonlight caressed the most prominent features of her face, her cheekbones, the line of her upper lip, her brow.
I reached for her hand. “What is it?”
Her look was distant, and the complacent smile played at her mouth. “I was just remembering.”
“That night?”
“Yes. That lovely music. So—different from what we’re used to hearing.”
“But you never saw anything?”
“No. I told you.”
I described again the two people, the corn figure I was sure must have been Justin, and the veiled female figure.
“Sophie naked?” She laughed lightly. “I don’t think so. More likely Tamar—if you saw anybody.”
If I saw anybody…Perhaps she was right; perhaps, with the magic of the moment and the cask of honey mead, I had confused reality and fantasy. Maybe I had been hallucinating. I had read about fly agaric, the mushroom that the Widow Fortune had hunted in Soakes’s Lonesome. Taken internally, its properties were capable of producing singular hallucinogenic effects; it was also capable of making one see and comprehend things with stunning clarity.
After a while, Beth, who had got up and was doing something with her hair, spoke again. “And if you did see her, but she wasn’t supposed to be the Corn Maiden, who was she?”
Who, indeed…
And I felt then that it was not a hallucination, but real; I saw that she was the sphinx and that it had been given to me to attempt to comprehend her identity.
Then, with the harvest almost in, it seemed that summer was gone altogether. While in the fields the farmers hurried to bring in the last of the corn, the trees turned, as if they had been left outdoors too long and had rusted. The maples were the color of flame, the locusts the deep red shades of cordovan, the beeches spread their tops like golden umbrellas, and all of them were shedding their leaves rapidly. Pumpkins were brought in from the fields and set out by roadside stands where apple cider was sold, and the village began preparing for winter. Then, as quickly, the frost disappeared, the weather warmed again, and with Harvest Home approaching the valley enjoyed a magnificent Indian Summer.
On the morning before the husking bee, which would precede the Corn Play, I drove to an appliance store over on the turnpike. When I came out half an hour later, I had purchased a Singer sewing machine, a little pink beauty with about a hundred different attachments only a genius would know how to use. It would be a far cry from the Widow Fortune’s old Fairy Belle with the footworn treadle; and it had an automatic bobbin.
On my way home, I passed Dr. Bonfil’s car, and again my thoughts turned to Gracie Everdeen. I had for some time now been brooding on the fact that suicides often left notes, usually written in a fury of desperation, but sometimes shedding light on the motives behind their actions. I decided to pay a call on Mrs. O’Byrne in Saxony.
I found her hanging a wash on the line. “I thought they did that on Mondays in the country,” I called, getting out. When she had pinned her pillowcase I told her the few additional obscure details I had gleaned about Grace’s death and that it had been suicide. The shock of the news set her down on the kitchen steps. I hastened to add I did not think it likely that her anger at the girl had in any way driven her to such extreme measures; it must have had something to do with Roger Penrose. Was there possibly—
“A letter!” She got up and hung her clothespin bag on the line, then led me up the steps. “She did write a letter. I found it on her bureau after she’d gone. It was all addressed, and I supposed she’d forgotten to mail it, being upset the way she was. I put a stamp on it and sent it.”
A letter, but it had gone.
“Do you remember who it was addressed to?”
“To her beau, to Roger Penrose. But he never got it. Come along I’ll show you.” She took me through the kitchen and down into the cellar, where she attacked a pile of cardboard cartons, each of which was crayoned with some identifying legend: “Christmas Ornaments,” “Dick’s Winter Things,” “Grandma’s Kitchenware.” One bore the single name “Grace,” and this she pulled around into the light. She undid the twine that bound it, and pulled back the flaps. I bent and looked. There were some dresses and sweaters, shoes, gloves, a small box with bits of costume jewelry, and a pocketbook. Mrs. O’Byrne took out the pocketbook and unclasped it. There was a letter inside.
I couldn’t make out the cancellation mark, but the envelope was addressed to Roger Penrose, in Cornwall Coombe, and a faded rubber-stamp mark read, “Deceased—Return to Sender.” The letter was sealed.
“May I open it?” Mrs. O’Byrne paused, then said that after fourteen years, and with Gracie gone, it wasn’t like prying into a person’s things. I took out my penknife, slit the envelope, and drew out the single sheet of paper. Holding it close to the light, I read the handwriting, wild, infirm, distraught:
My Darling,
Forgive me. I did not mean for it to happen that way. Which was why I did not want you to see me. But you know now why it is all impossible. What has happened isn’t my fault. It doesn’t matter, it will die when I die. What no man may know nor woman tell—how I hate the words! I wanted to be there to make the corn with you. I must be there! Oh, I am driven to madness! I will come! No one can stop me. Forgive me.
There was no signature. I read the lines again, then gave the page to Mrs. O’Byrne, and bent to examine the other contents of the carton. When Mrs. O’Byrne had done reading, she refolded the letter and slipped it in the envelope.
“Well, there’s the answer—wouldn’t you say? He’d gotten her pregnant. She was going to have a baby—wasn’t that it? And after bein’ engaged to her, he decided he wanted the other one. A ring he gave her, too.”
I was examining the shoes. “Sh
e still wore his ring?”
“Not on her finger—around her neck, on a little chain, like a locket.”
“Why not on her finger?”
“She couldn’t. It wouldn’t fit.”
I returned the shoes to the box—large, heavy shoes. “Gracie must have been a big girl.”
“Like a horse. But not strong like a horse is.”
“Would you say she was delicate?”
She glanced at the shoes in the box. “Not with feet like them. But delicate in her constitution, yes. She was weak as all getout. She did the housework, but she’d get awful tired. I felt so sorry for her, the way she lagged. Just docile and quiet, and wanting to sleep all the time. Not an ounce of energy. I expect it was the morning sickness.”
I remembered how tired Beth had been before Kate’s birth. Still, Gracie had not long before been shinnying flagpoles and wrestling Roger Penrose to the ground. I picked up one of the gloves, looked at it, and asked her to put it on. She slipped her hand in and held it up; the glove fingers drooped over the ends of her own. I returned it to the box along with the pocketbook and letter, then put the carton back and went upstairs.
I thanked her and left, mulling over the contents of the letter. I did not mean for it to happen that way. It will die when I die. What no man may know nor woman tell…Very possibly, as Mrs. O’Byrne had pointed out, the frantic thoughts of an unwed mother. But when had he gotten her pregnant? Surely not the night he met her at the bridge.
Driving back over the Lost Whistle, I pulled up on the Cornwall side, got out, and walked back under the portal, peering through the open latticework. Twelve or so feet below, the placid river ran under the bridge in a slowly moving current, and I could see a school of brown-colored fish gliding in the depths. On both sides, the bank eased down to the water in a gently sloping, sandy stretch. I wondered from which point along the bridge Gracie Everdeen had thrown herself, and indeed how she had managed to kill herself at all, the drop being, to my eye, insignificant.