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.”
Along the figure on the floor there ran a shiver. She lifted her head, then let it sink back on the carpet.
“No, you won’t,” said Nat. He stood up, his hands in the pockets of his greasy workman’s jacket. “She’ll stay with me, as she always has.” His head thrust forward from his shoulders, seeming to flatten into a serpentine weaving. “You know why she seeks for you in the bad times—” he said through his teeth.
“Indeed I don’t, Nat—unless she’s somehow confused me with her drowned husband.”
Relief flooded over Hesper. Of course, that was the explanation, and she saw a flicker of uncertainty in Nat’s face. It touched a memory of nineteen years ago. The night they hid the slaves. Nat had stood like this filled with malevolence that nobody understood, poised for harm, and then when Johnnie had spoken there had been the same uncertainty, and he had done nothing after all but slip away into the darkness.
“You walked down State Street to the wharves last week, and she saw you from the window. That’s what set her off again—” said Nat slowly, and it was almost as though he begged for reassurance.
“Why, good lord, man. I can’t help that. She has delusions, I suppose. Really—” said Amos on a note of exasperated patience, “I don’t know what you mean by these ridiculous—After all, Nat. You know very well she’s nothing but a crazy old woman.”
“Oh hush...” whispered Hesper, for Leah had pulled herself up onto one elbow; her movements were slow and thick as though she dragged herself through water. Hesper and Nat bent quickly together to help Leah rise, and beneath her own hand Hesper felt the thin body in sharp recoil away from Nat.
Leah stood alone, her head bowed. No beauty or light now in her down-bent face. The muscles of her mouth sagged, the skin that covered the sharp bones had grown limp at chin and throat.
“I heard you—” she whispered in a voice that came from bleak distance. “I heard what you
said.” She did not look at Amos; the haggard eyes stared down at the flowered carpet by his feet.
Amos’s lips tightened, but he did not move.
She’s sane now, thought Hesper; she says “I,” not “Leah.”
But Nat put his hand on his mother’s arm. “Come home now,” he muttered.
Leah moved her arm so that Nat’s hand dropped from it. She raised her head and looked into Amos’s face. He met the long gaze of the sunken eyes without flinching. His blond eyebrows drawn together, his mouth firm. Hesper watching could see no emotion but the exasperated patience. “For your own sake, Mrs. Cubby,” he said reasonably, “you should have professional care.”
Her eyelids lowered and she turned her head aside.
“Come now—” said Nat again, putting his arm around her and pulling her shawl over her hair. “Pay no heed to the stupid bostard. I’ll give you the care you need.”
Hesper heard the sharp indrawn breath, and Leah’s eyes sought her face. For an instant they held an agonized appeal.
But what can I do? thought Hesper. “You’d best go with Nat now—” she said gently.
Leah pulled herself up to her full height. “Aye.” Her voice was like a bitter wind. “Him and me as it ever was. There’s naught else, is there?” She walked from the room ahead of her son.
They heard the front door open and close. The drawing room returned to quivering silence.
Then Amos cleared his throat. His injured hand was swelling rapidly and turning bluish. He looked down at it, then thrusting it in his pocket, advanced on the English guests who were by the fireplace. “I’msorry, folks—” he said heartily, with a nearly natural laugh. “Dreadful scene. Wouldn’t’ve had it happen for the world, but you get some queer characters in these old seacoast towns, you know. Now how about a nightcap before we go to bed?”
Emmeline stirred at last. After Nat had run into the room, she had collapsed on a chair, and had watched from then on in a rigid and horrified silence. She now rose and spoke through stiff lips.
“Nothing whatsoever would induce me to spend another minute under this roof. Kindly order your coachman to bring up the carriage.”
Amos swallowed. “But, ma’am. There’s nothing to be afraid of now—you can’t leave at this hour—there’s no train ... and...”
“Then we will spend the night at a hotel in Salem. Never in all my life have I been subjected to such a—” Her lips quivered, and there were frightened tears in her eyes.
“B-but surely—” stammered Amos, turning to Hay-Botts. “Tell her it was just an unfortunate happening, we regret it deeply, but there’s no danger, you know.”
George Hay-Botts shrugged his chunky shoulders. Suspicion and a cold distaste had hardened his ruddy face. “I quite agree with me wife,” he said. “We’ll leave at once.”
Oh dear, thought Hesper. She saw that it was hopeless, but she knew that she must make the effort. “You’ve had a shock—we all have—” she said, trying to smile into the two tight faces, “but please don’t leave like this. It isn’t anybody’s fault.”
“As to that—” said Hay-Botts, “I wouldn’t know. Wot I do know is, this isn’t the kind of a ’ousehold I care to have me wife stop in, nor me neither. And as for our little deal—” he said turning to Amos, “it’s off. Where there’s muddle in personal life, there’ll be muddle in business, I say. And that’s the sum of it.”
And within half an hour, the Hay-Bottses left.
Hesper and Amos undressed silently, except that when she tried to treat his wounded hand with arnica and bandages, he turned away from her muttering “Let me alone.” He clambered into his side of the bed, and she heard his uneven breathing and felt the restless motions which he tried to control.
“Please don’t fret, dear—” she ventured at last, into the darkness. “You can make money without Hay-Botts. You always have.”
Amos said nothing, but presently he slid his arm around her, and drew her head down to his shoulder. In this accustomed position she felt immediate warmth and comfort. The fears and ugliness and disappointment of the evening dwindled to unimportance. Forget it all, shethought drowsily. The Hay-Bottses don’t really matter. And as for the scene with Leah, that was just what Amos said—an unfortunate happening. She turned her head a little on his shoulder and fell asleep.
The next morning, the milkman brought news when he made his routine trip from town to the Porterman mansion. Hesper was called down to the kitchen by a wildly excited Annie. “That woman—mum, that woman what forced her way in here last night...” Annie became incoherent, but the milkman repeated his story with grim relish.
Leah Cubby had stabbed herself with a splitting knife. She had done this on top of her house in the scuttle or widow’s walk. Tom Gawden, the apprentice blacksmith, had been going down State Street on his way to work, when he happened to look up and see the body. All dressed in black it was, hanging half over the railing. And even from the street you could see the blood dripping down onto the roof. Tom had rushed into the house and found Nat Cubby still asleep. It seemed his mother’d made him think she’d gone to bed. She’d locked her door from the inside, they had to break it down to get in. Then she had climbed up the ladder to the scuttle.
It was an awful thing. Tom had had to yell for help in quieting Nat. He seemed to go right out of his head for a while, but you couldn’t hardly blame him.
Hesper sank down on a kitchen chair. Her face was as white and shocked as even the excited servants could wish. “That’s terrible—” she whispered. “Terrible. But the poor woman wasn’t right, you know—never was.”
“What was she doin’ here last night, mum?” asked Annie eagerly, her eyes glittering. “Me and Bridget was that skeered we dassn’t move for our lives!”
The milkman crowded forward too, waiting for the answer.
“Why, Mrs. Cubby’s coming here had nothing really to do with us—” said Hesper. “Her mind was clouded and she happened to wander this way—oh, I suppose she remembered that Nat works for Mr. Porterman, it must have been something like that she had in mind. Nothing to do with what—what happened later.” She spoke with growing firmness, and she saw that, disappointed as the servants were, she had convinced them, and the milkman, who would carry no new lurid story back to town.
She rose and walked steadily from the kitchen and up two flights of stairs to the bathroom where she suffered a violent and prolonged attack of nausea. When it at last abated, she crouched on the shiny, checkered oilcloth floor, and leaned her head against the mahogany rim of the tub. Her eyes fixed themselves on the gleaming brass faucet. Instead of the faucet she saw Leah’s limp black-covered body, hanging across the scuttle rail and the blood dripping down onto the roof as the milkman had described it, and superimposed on that she saw Leah as she had stood last night in the drawing room, her head thrown proudly back, her great brilliant tear-filled eyes fixed on Amos in entreaty, in an agony of bewildered longing.
“Yes,” said Hesper, aloud. “It was true.” She shut her eyes, and the sickness heaved again in her stomach. Ugly. Ugly. How could he—how could he pretend last night ... lying and without pity.... Oh, Amos, how could you....I can’t stand it....
When Amos came home to midday lunch, he burst into the bathroom crying, “Hesper, for heaven’s sake, I’ve been looking everywhere for you. What is it, dear—are you sick?” He picked her up off the floor and laid her on the bed.
She lay very still, looking up into his worried face. “Amos,” she said, “do you know about Leah?”
“Yes, I know. It’s a terrible thing. But don’t let it upset you like this. I’m afraid it was what I said about the asylum.”
“No,” she said, sitting up and regarding him steadily. “It wasn’t what you said about the asylum. She knew Nat would never let her go. It was what you said about a crazy old woman. It was knowing at last that you’d never loved her, in spite of—of what had been between you.”
“Hesper—” He glared at her in an
ger, in blind unbelief. “Have you gone crazy too? How can you believe that clap-trap, that balderdash the poor woman was babbling!”
“Amos! Listen to me.” He had never heard that note in her voice. “I’m not a toy. I’m not a child. I’m not a wax flower under glass to be protected from the slightest jar. I guess I’ve let you treat me like that, because it was easy and pleasant for both of us. But in this thing with Leah, I won’t be put aside with evasions, I won’t let it slide by until I’ve forgotten it. I know you were—were Leah’s lover. But I want to hear the truth from you.”
Amos stood up so abruptly that she fell back against the pillows. He stared down at her and his face was as set and hard as her own.
“Why?” he said with cold fury. “What difference does it make?”
She felt a pain like a dull blow on her heart. In all their marriage she had never suspected that he could look at her like this. An enemy. They had never quarreled, never had there been a locking of wills. A good marriage, Ma had said, and it was, it had been. And now she saw the danger of disturbing his image of her. And yet she could not turn back.
“It’s because of our love—” she said, groping for words. “It’s because, though you lied last night—and maybe you had to then, I can’t bear it if you lie to me.”
“Very well,” he said in the same furious and bitter tone. “I was with Leah once, twelve years ago. I don’t expect you to understand how it happened, nor do I feel any need to explain. It was the trifling sort of thing that happens to most men.”
“Not trifling for Leah—” she said faintly. “She thought you loved her. She’s killed herself because of it.”
She heard the sharp rasp of breath through his nostrils. She saw the sharp clench of his right, uninjured hand. “Leah was mad—you little fool! By God, Hesper. I never thought you’d act like this.”
There was no sound in the room but Amos’ angry breathing. Suddenly the strength that had buoyed her ebbed away leaving her flat and vanquished. Her desire to force admission from him now seemed to her ignoble. The moral issues were clouded and uncertain. For was there not deeper evil in Leah’s pathetic life, than her deluded love for Amos? What of that other alliance, the sinister bond from which her soul had struggled frantically, in fantasy, in violence to escape? Oh I don’t know what’s right, she thought.