Harvest Home (36 page)

“News?” I had turned, but the door was already closing. The last thing I saw was the twinkle of her spectacles in the light.

I drove away feeling better.
News t’home that’ll take care of all
. Wondering what this mysterious disclosure might be, I scarcely saw the other car as it swept by. It was coming from the direction of the Common, traveling fast. I glimpsed Constable Zalmon at the wheel, an unidentified man beside him in the front seat. I waited until the car had reached the country end of Main Street and turned onto the Old Sallow Road, then I continued on my way home.

Kate was upstairs in bed; having eaten, she was resting for the husking bee the following night. It would be her first time out since the attack. Beth had decided that evening to have dinner in the dining room, which lately we seldom used. The table had a festive look to it: there were linen place mats on the dark, polished table top, and linen napkins; a small bowl of chrysanthemums; candles. Usually when we ate there, we sat at either end, with Kate between, but tonight Beth had placed herself at my left, and I wondered if this new proximity indicated a change in her attitude. Still, as we ate and talked of inconsequential things, I found her preoccupied and distant.

“I bought the Widow a sewing machine.”

“Did you?”

“From us both. A little present.”

“Did she like it?”

“She seemed pleased. She wants you to show her how to use the automatic bobbin.”

“Of course.” A silence.

I said, “Good soup.”

“Black bean. I put some sherry in it.”

“I can taste it.”

I looked at her over the ironstone tureen between us. “It needs a little salt, I think,” she said. I passed her the silver cellar and she added a shake to her cup.

“I was at the Hookes’ today,” I said.

“How are they?”

“Fine.”

She was staring at the monogram on the napkin, an elegantly scrolled “E” in thick embroidery. “Elizabeth,” she said.

“Hm?”

“It was my mother’s name.”

“I know.”

She traced the figure of the letter with her nail. “I can remember her.”

“Your mother?”

She nodded; a little smile. “I can remember the smell of her soap—Pears’ it was—and I can remember her talking to me. She and Father had separate rooms, and in her bedroom there was a blue wicker chaise with a pocket in the arm for magazines or whatever. I can remember the chaise made a sound—the wicker, I suppose.”

“But, Beth, you were only two—”

“I know. But I can remember. She had a tea gown—it was rose-colored pongee, I think, or some kind of silk, and it had lace cuffs.”

I was astonished. I was certain it was impossible for people to have such early memories. “And she sang to me, naturally” —a little half-laugh. “It was a song about a bird. Something about Jenny Wren. Then Father would come in and I would be taken to the nursery.”

“By the nurse?”

“No. Mother. She carried me. There was lace on her collar, too.”

“And then?”

“Then she was dead. She just wasn’t there any more. Only the nurse, and Father. Don’t let your soup get cold.”

“I’m not.”

She was crying. I was aghast. Big tears shone in the candlelight and rolled down her cheeks. I reached for her hand; she put it in her lap with the napkin.

“Beth—I’m sorry.” She bit her lip, ran her fingers through her hair, laughed, a small inconclusive laugh. She looked around the room, at the walls above the wainscoting.

“I love that paper.”

It was a copy of an antique paper showing ships in a Chinese harbor, with men in coolie hats loading tea aboard. We called it the Shanghai Tea Party. “It’s a handsome room, don’t you think?”

“Yes.” I waited until she got control of herself again. “You’re not sorry?”

“About what?”

“That we came.”

“No. I’m not sorry. I’m very glad we came.” She gave this last an emphasis that had a touch of defiance about it, as though she were determined to make it work at all costs.

“More soup?” I picked up the ladle, heavy monogrammed silver. Another curly “E.”

“Yes, please.”

I filled her plate, then mine. She was quiet a moment, then said, “Look how the leaves are falling. I hate to see them go. It seems so final, somehow.”

“There’s always the spring.”

“The Eternal Return.”

“What?”

“Just a phrase.”

It was; still, I had the feeling she hadn’t coined it, but had heard it somewhere. She started crying again. I put down my spoon. “Oh, Beth—”

“I’m going to have a baby.”

“Huh?”

“A baby. I missed my period. It must have been that night we drank the mead. I’m going to have a baby.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

The Widow had said news, news to home. I couldn’t speak, but reached for Beth’s hand, which now she let me hold.

“How long have you known?”

“Since—since the day of Kate’s accident.”

I saw it then. She had been waiting for me to come home to tell me the news, and when I came it was from Tamar’s house, with lipstick on my shirt and buttons off. No wonder she had got so angry. All these weeks she had been carrying the secret, had been frightened. I knew what she must have been feeling.

“Nobody knows yet. Except the Widow, of course. And Maggie.”

I felt a pang of disappointment that Maggie had been told before me, but I guessed I’d had it coming, after the Tamar business. She let me kiss the clenched knuckles of her fingers, and I told her how glad I was.

“It’ll be born in the spring. Just before Spring Festival.” She fingered the monogram again. “Perhaps Elizabeth.”

“If it’s a girl.”

“Yes. And if it’s a boy—”

“Please, not Theodore Junior.”

She smiled. “No, not Theodore Junior.”

“What, then?”

She folded her fingers under her chin and stared thoughtfully out the window. “I have to ask Missy.”

“What?”

“I have to ask Missy,” she repeated.

I was shocked. “I’m not going to have that birdbrain naming any kid of mine—”

“We must. She wants us to.”

“Who?”

“The Widow.” She caught my look. “That’s little enough, isn’t it?” The terrible picture of the child’s bloodied hands was spinning through my brain. “After what she’s done for us. I want our baby to be special.”

“Of course it’ll be special. But—”

“We’ll have to rake the lawn again.” She laid aside her napkin, rose, and went to the window, where she stood, not saying anything, but just looking out. A long moment passed, and I suddenly had the feeling she had forgotten I was there. I went behind her and put my hands on her shoulders and drew her back to me.

“I don’t know what we’ll do,” she said, “now that Worthy’s gone. All the things that need looking after.”

“We’ll get someone else. When they’ve finished harvesting.”

“Yes.” She sounded faraway. “Harvest Home will soon be here. Worthy won’t be in the play. I wonder where he went,” she added musingly.

“Dunno,” I said. I half heard a noise on the stairs as Beth turned to me. “He just said he wanted to go away and—” I broke off; she was staring at me.

“He told you he was going away?”

“Yes. That day we fixed the chimneys.”

“And you didn’t do anything to stop him?”

“How could I stop him?”

“You could have tried to talk him out of it. You could have told someone so they could have stopped him.”

“Why should he be stopped? I think it’s the best thing he could have done.”

The color had drained from her cheeks. She pulled away angrily and turned her back to me. “A young boy like that, off on his own—”

“He’s almost seventeen, almost old enough to vote, old enough to fight—” I stopped myself, remembering what Worthy said about trying to enlist.

“What’s he going to live on?”

“He’s saved some money. I gave him some more. And I’m going to buy his tractor—”

“You gave him money? That’s just abetting him—”

“God, Bethany, he’s not a criminal.”

“It seems you’re taking rather a lot on yourself, aren’t you? Advising and all. I mean, it’s really none of your business.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. We were having a fight about something that didn’t concern us. I tried to sound calm and reasonable.

“Beth, what difference can it make, if that’s what he wants to do? You’re right, it
is
none of our business.”

She wheeled on me. “Meddler. You’re meddling in things that don’t concern you. You had no right!” Her hands trembled as she picked up the tureen from the table and went swiftly through the bacchante room into the kitchen.

“Hi, sweetheart.”

“Hello, Daddy.”

“How’s tricks?”

“Fine.”

“Can I visit?”

“Sure.”

Beth had gone out. I sat in my club chair beside Kate’s bed, trying to make my voice sound more cheerful than I felt. “How’s the needlepoint coming?”

She held up the piece she was working on, a bouquet of flowers tied with a ribbon. “For Mother’s birthday.”

“Mother?”

“Yes.”

“You usually call her ‘Mom.’ ”

“I know. Did you have another fight?”

“It wasn’t a fight, Kate. It was just—a discussion.” I watched her small fingers as they threaded the thick needle and carefully worked the yarn through the canvas and drew it out again. “You’ll have that done in no time. Kate, what’s the matter, sweetheart?” I raised her chin and looked at her; tears were welling. “Hey, don’t cry. It wasn’t a fight, honestly.”

“Why did you let him go?”

“Nobody
let
him go. Worthy went because he
wanted
to.” The stair tread: she had been listening. “He’s a man, he has to do what he thinks is right for himself. We’d only be selfish if we tried to keep him simply because we wished it for ourselves.” I bent closer and took her work from her hands. “Worthy’s got a lot of growing up to do. Like all boys. There are lots of things he wants to find out about, and when he does, one day he’ll come back, and by then you’ll be grown up, too.”

“Then what’ll happen?”

“I guess that’ll be up to you and Worthy.”

She shook her head, the stubborn shake that was her mother’s. “He’ll be different and I’ll be different, and we’ll both have met someone else, and it won’t matter any more.”

“There are other boys. Corny Penrose is a nice fellow.”

“He’s a clod. And anyway he sent a cob to Elsie.”

“Do you want to come downstairs and watch television?”

“No, thanks.” She took back her needlepoint and began working again. “You go ahead. I’ll be all right.”

“O.K. I’ll see you before you go to sleep.”

I kissed her and went downstairs. I opened the door of the Victorian cupboard and switched on the T.V. I watched until Beth came home. She put her sewing basket on the floor, then came and kissed the top of my head. “I’m sorry, darling. Forgive me?”

I pulled her onto my lap. “Of course.”

“I guess I’m jumpy—the throes of motherhood are looming. I suppose we’ll have to go bassinet shopping and all those things again. Can you still remember how to mix formula?”

“I can take a refresher course.”

She went up to see to Kate and I started around the house turning off the lights and locking the doors, a habit I still could not get out of.

Coming back into the bacchante room, I saw my sketching case where I had left it on the piecrust table. I remembered the mail I had picked up at the post office, slipped the envelopes out, and glanced through them: a circular from a swimming pool company, a letter for Beth from Mary Abbott, a bill from Bonwit’s, a letter for me from the insurance man, and another.

This was addressed to me in pencil. Turning it over, I read the return address: Mr. John Smith, 245 Franklin Street, Hartford, Connecticut. I slipped the single page out, put down the envelope, and read the lines from Worthy Pettinger. He was fine; he would be sending me another address shortly; next week he was going to New York. I could send him the money for the tractor there. I read the letter twice, then threw it on the fire. The white page burst into bright flame and immediately turned black, curling but preserving something of its original shape as it fluttered on the log. I took the poker and pulled the fire apart, and reset the screen. Then I picked up the envelope, and stood staring at its back, thinking that something was odd. Not that it had been written in pencil, or that Worthy had written it, but odd that the edges of the flap were puckered, and that it had parted so easily from the envelope as I lifted it.

Someone had steamed the letter open.

I had been right: Worthy Pettinger had left Cornwall Coombe because he was frightened. He had pledged me to secrecy concerning his whereabouts, inventing the mythical John Smith to protect himself. But someone had found out. Now Worthy was in danger. But what kind? I decided that I would go to Hartford and talk to him, tell him his letter had been intercepted, and try to learn the reason behind his danger. I would go tomorrow, after the husking bee.

For it had begun at last, what everyone had been looking forward to—the four-day celebration of Harvest Home. It was initiated by a grand and enormous feast at the Grange hall, and the husking bee, a prelude to the presentation of the Corn Play. I never got to Hartford, however, never met Worthy there, for it was this fateful night that saw my fall from favor among the villagers of Cornwall Coombe, and the beginning not only of my great disgrace but of the terrible things that followed.

The evening began well enough, certainly. Whatever words the Widow had had with Beth seemed to have brought about the desired effect: she was sweet and warm and loving, and with the news of the baby coming, I felt sure the Tamar issue was a closed book. We arrived at the Grange shortly after seven o’clock—Beth, Kate, and I, in company with the Dodds. The lights of the large building cast warm beams through the tall windows and streamed through the wide-flung doors onto the street, bidding all of Cornwall Coombe to enter and be welcome. On either side of the entrance, close to the kitchen, women were laying cloths on long tables while Mrs. Green and Mrs. Zalmon and others accepted the wealth of covered dishes prepared for the evening’s festivities. At the far end of the hall, the stage was festooned with garlands, giant corn shocks and pyramided pumpkins flanking each side, the curtain painted with harvest symbols. In the middle of the floor was an immense pile of corn ears ready for husking, and in one corner a country orchestra was tuning up, five musicians whose notes competed with the tumult of voices while children ran everywhere, crying, “When do we start?”