The Whale (11 page)

“Yes,” said Herman gloomily. “She told me about her headaches.”

“Headaches were the least of it. Many days she could not even get out of bed; but after we met, she wrote to me, often, sometimes twice a day, and she sent me little drawings and paintings by her own hand—she is quite a fine artist, and I was charmed by the strange concoction of innocence and sophistication in her drawings, and in her letters, and in herself. It soon became apparent that she was truly the hallowed heart of the Peabody house, revered by all who knew her, and I returned there again and again. And as I returned and sat with her, her health improved.”

Herman thought of the fetid depths of the lake, the dismal shadows
beneath the brilliant surface. Far underneath, below the bullfrogs hiding in the roots of the swaying brown cattails; below the fish suspended in the murky water, devouring one another in an endless cycle of savage death; below the deepest dives of the ducks and herons; below the grubby floor where snails laid eggs, and poisonous snakes cruised among slimy rocks; in those depths, his body might provide a few final meals for the sightless worms churning life through their tiny ravenous gullets. As many close encounters with watery death as he had had in his career as a lowly whaleman on the high seas, he had never before thought of willfully drowning himself—an ironic thought, to drown within easy reach of so much homely land—but now he thought how easy it might be to tie some blocks to his feet and walk slowly down to the gates of Neptune's palace. He had just mortgaged his entire future so that he could spend afternoons like these with Hawthorne, and Hawthorne was talking about scarlet A's and his wife.

Hawthorne continued, “When I met Sophia, she and her entire family thought she would remain bedridden forever, unable to marry or bear children, unable to experience love; and I, too, when I met her, was unable to experience the joy of companionship, living in the miasmic thrall of my mother's grief—a grief from which she never truly recovered—living in the grip of my sister's iron-fisted control of our daily lives. We changed each other, Sophia and I: we each owe the other a great debt.

“This was many years ago, Herman, and the changes I am describing occurred slowly, over time, and with enormous effort and dedication—but Sophia is vigorous now, despite her occasional setbacks, and she enjoys her life and our children, and it is through Sophia's love and support that I have become a true romancer. She believed in me so much that I became the man you see before you, for whatever he is worth. So you may say that what men do privately among themselves does not affect marital relations, but if Sophia
ever found out what is between you and me, her belief in me might be destroyed, and that would in turn destroy me and devastate her. To say nothing of Una and Julian.”

“But what is between you and me but the utmost regard and admiration?”

“You should not be coy, Herman.”

“But how could such great admiration be wrong? How could it be a sin to wander the halls of each other's imaginations together, discovering and building new rooms there? Could you not enjoy my praise and respect?”

Hawthorne stood up and turned away. “I don't know which you intend, Herman—to deceive me or yourself—but I know that you attempt to deceive me in vain. You may call it admiration or respect, but I know what letter the Puritans would assign your friendship.”

“What do Puritans and their ancient mad letters have to do with a regard as rare and noble as ours?”

Hawthorne turned back and looked at him with something like hatred. “You think you are the only one who feels!”

The venom in his voice paralyzed Herman. “But why do you not acknowledge the truth of your feelings then? Why must you deny them with ancient codes?”

“I do not deny them. That is why I must deny
you
.” He momentarily assumed a fighter's stance, and Herman turned his palms outward in peace.

Hawthorne continued, “Sophia is my salvation, and I am hers. Do you know how rare salvation is? So rare that the sacrifice of a single person for the cause of salvation can build a whole religion, a civilization! And I must honor my own salvation by maintaining my place as Sophia's husband, which has saved us both from a lifetime of suffering—I cannot deny her that. And for that I will sacrifice
your bosom friendship.” He started walking back toward the path they had cleared through the underbrush.

Herman chased him and grabbed him by the elbow. “May I say nothing else?”

“Please understand! You are a rare and remarkable friend, but I cannot wear the A that comes with your friendship. Now let me go. I want to walk back to my cottage in peace.”

“But—did you bring me here just to leave me?”

“You know that I'm right.”

“I do not.”

“Nevertheless, I
am
right. Let me go.”

He rapidly retraced their steps. Herman stood amazed, watching the tall grasses and laurel branches swallow up Hawthorne's figure. He listened to the receding footsteps and the slapping and swishing of branches, which continued long after Hawthorne had disappeared from sight.

He could not quite arrange the puzzle pieces of what had just happened into a picture. All Herman knew for certain was that Hawthorne had just ended their “affair” before it had even started. After a while, even the echoes of Hawthorne's departure faded, and he was left alone with the quiet lapping of water against the stones along the shore.

Beautifully dying, dusky yellow oak leaves spun in the gentle breeze, catching the soft afternoon sunlight. As Jeanie Field's buggy approached Arrowhead, the gaudy rubies of sumac trees beckoned her gaze up toward the blond and crimson crowns of maples and ashes and finally to the tips of the fading yellow oaks, which glowed in the full light far above. The whole landscape fluttered and changed with every breath of air, as if the Berkshires were nothing more than Jeanie's own giant kaleidoscope of brilliantly lit autumn colors.

The cool breeze caressed her neck and cheeks. Her mare strained up the last hill out of Pittsfield, and she guided the horse off the road and onto the cart track that led into the Melvilles' farm.

As her buggy came to a stop at the house, the front door swung open, and Jeanie heard loud female grunting from inside, and then the heavy scuffling of feet. She sat for a moment, waiting for someone to appear and greet her, but no one did, and the doorway remained dark. She grabbed her handbag and stepped down out of the buggy.

A woman in a maid's uniform emerged, walking backward out of the house onto the porch, stooped and struggling with a heavy load. Jeanie soon saw that the woman was carrying one end of an immense, rolled Persian rug; on the other end, another woman, dressed more for luncheon than labor, struggled with its weight. The middle of the rug dragged against the ground. Jeanie ran across the lawn, leapt onto the porch, and cradled her arms under the sagging carpet, and the
three together trundled it out to the edge of the porch and dropped it with a thump.

The maid stood with her chest heaving and sweat beading on her forehead. “Thank you very much,” she said. She spoke with a thick Irish brogue. “Where did you come from, miss, and I'm glad you did.”

“From heaven.” Jeanie smiled kindly.

“I'm not sure I take your meaning, miss.”

“I'm your angel of mercy.”

The other woman frowned and said sternly, “Angels don't drive buggies, Miss . . . ?”

“Jeanie Field.” She held out her hand. “I'm Dudley Field's sister. Perhaps Mr. Melville has mentioned us? From Stockbridge. I've come to give Mr. Melville a book.” She opened her handbag and produced a slender, leather-bound volume.

“I'm Mr. Melville's sister Augusta, and this is Mary, our maid. You'll have to excuse us, Miss Field, my sister Helen and I have only just moved into the house, and we are still somewhat in disarray.”

“God created the earth as a formless void and then arranged the furnishings later, so we can hardly be blamed for following His example.”

Augusta folded her arms and took a good, hard look at Jeanie, who was wearing a dark cherry-red cotton dress with a décolletage that was rather more revealing than the current fashion and decorative black cordwork down the front. Her red hair swirled up into a bird's nest, wildly chaotic compared with the severely combed hair that every other girl in New England favored that autumn. She looked vaguely piratical.

“Your brother lets you drive a buggy by yourself and pay social calls unaccompanied?” Augusta asked.

“Well, what am I to do, if I have a book to give a friend and no males wish to take a buggy ride with me? Must we submit eternally to male tyranny?”

“My brother insists on driving all the ladies of our household wherever they wish to go,” said Augusta. “We think of it as consideration rather than tyranny. But do come in. Mary, would you let the others know that we have a guest and then put on the kettle for tea?”

Mary hurried toward the dining room, and Augusta ushered Jeanie into the parlor, where they sat down in high-backed chairs near the fireplace. A great oaken sideboard held china cups and crystal glasses, and an étagère in the corner displayed porcelain figurines. A dozen family portraits adorned the walls—severe, patrician faces surveying each other with a frostiness that chilled the air.

“My brother is writing at the moment. We usually summon him for lunch at two.”

“But it's almost four.”

“If his writing is going well, he will remain in his study.”

“Until when?”

They heard footsteps simultaneously on the stairs and from the next room, and Lizzie and Maria appeared in the parlor at the same time, from opposite directions. Jeanie stood up and introduced herself.

“Miss Field,” Lizzie said. “What a surprise. Is your brother not coming in?”

“I've come alone.”

Lizzie's eyes narrowed. “I see. Have you met my mother-in-law?” Jeanie made a perfunctory curtsy and then shook Maria's hand. They all took chairs and sat for a moment in awkward silence.

Jeanie said, “Your home is lovely, and it's a pleasure meeting you all, but I don't wish to interrupt your afternoon. Really, I just brought a book for Mr. Melville.”

“Welcoming guests is never an interruption,” said Maria, in a throaty rattle of indignation. “The more established Dutch families here often pay us visits—though, of course, they notify us in advance—but it makes us feel most at home. Perhaps you already know that my
family is Dutch, and my father, Peter Gansevoort, figured prominently in the Revolution?”

“I didn't know, but it's good that our families share that in common,” Jeanie said.

“Your family is Dutch, Miss Field?”

“No, I meant that my family also had a prominent role in the Revolution. My grandfather powdered General Washington's wigs.”

The Melville ladies squinted quizzically at Jeanie. In the next room, Mary clattered teacups.

“Miss Augusta says that Mr. Melville is hard at work writing,” Jeanie said to Lizzie. “And that it's possible he'll ignore us.”

“I don't believe ‘ignore' is the right word. Sometimes he becomes so involved in his work that he forgets himself. It is perfectly understandable in an artist of his stature.”

“Is he a-whaling, then?” said Jeanie.

Lizzie glanced at Augusta in alarm. “Did Mr. Melville tell you about his book?”

“Hasn't he told everyone? It sounds quite grand and unpleasant, a romance about slaughtering monstrous fish far out at sea. Have you read it?”

Augusta said, “Lizzie and my sister Helen and I collaborate on the fair copies—we copy out everything he writes, by hand, so of course we read it.”

“Why do you do that?”

“Because penmanship matters more to the publisher than it does to my brother.”

“I see. He writes in hieroglyphs, and you three have the Rosetta stone.”

Maria said, “Penmanship is no laughing matter, Miss Field.”

“No, I suppose not.” Jeanie sighed. She detested small talk. “And how do you like Herman's new romance?”

Lizzie gasped and sat rigidly upright in her seat.

“Pardon me!” said Jeanie. “I mean,
Mr. Melville's
new romance. His descriptions made it sound quite ghastly and wonderful.”

“Indeed,” Augusta sniffed.

Mary reappeared, carrying a tray of shortbread and tea settings.

“Mrs. Melville, Miss Melville, Mrs. Melville,” said Jeanie, addressing each of the ladies in turn. “I appreciate your kindness, but I do see that I have come at an unpropitious moment. If you could call Mr. Melville, I will give him the book I've brought and be on my way; or, if he can't be disturbed, I will leave it with you. It is a matter of no great importance.”

Augusta told Mary to go up to Mr. Melville's study and announce their visitor. Mary set her tray down on the sideboard, and Augusta began pouring out cups of tea. Jeanie and Lizzie and Maria sat and stared at one another, while they listened to Mary climb the stairs and knock. After a brief silence, she knocked again, waited, and then knocked a third time. Finally, she yelled the news of Jeanie's arrival, and they heard Herman's voice shout indistinctly in response. The maid marched back downstairs and into the parlor.

“Mr. Melville would like to see Miss Field in his study,” said Mary. “He asked me to send her up alone.”

The Melville women's mouths all dropped open at the same time. Without hesitating, Jeanie stood up and strode out of the room. She held up her book, said, “I'll only be a moment,” and practically ran up the stairs.

She found Herman waiting in the doorway of his study—the room Dr. Brewster had used for his own study, with the window facing Mount Greylock. He looked dazed, his hair standing straight out from his head in all directions. He was sweating generously, his collar soaked through despite the chill in the room, and he clutched his quill pen with white knuckles. He took Jeanie's hand and bowed,
then stood aside so that she could enter. In a final affront to etiquette, he closed the door behind her, and they were alone.

The walls were completely bare except for a harpoon hanging on iron hooks above the fireplace. A large oaken desk sat in the middle of the room, facing the window. Manuscript pages were strewn across the desk, and Jeanie lingered for a moment over one. A single bookcase, stuffed full of leather-bound volumes, completed the room's furnishings.

“You brought me a book,” Herman said quietly, from the distance of a faraway thought.

“I believe you'll find it of incidental interest compared with the person who sent it. Nathaniel Hawthorne.”

Herman's heart skipped. He had neither seen nor heard from the man for more than a month, since their confrontation by Lake Mahkeenac, and he had tormented himself nearly every waking second of that time, repeating their conversation word by word in his mind, rereading Hawthorne's letters, fretting about how he might approach him again. Now, Hawthorne had come to him! Jeanie held the book up so that he could read the gold-embossed title: Samuel Taylor Coleridge's
The Friend
. He put down his pen and accepted it.

“My brother and I visited his family in Lenox last week, and Mr. Hawthorne took me aside and charged me with this special errand.”

Herman opened
The Friend
as if Hawthorne's own voice might speak from its pages. “And is there a message?”

“No.”

Herman read the table of contents and then flipped quickly through the pages. He held the book by its spine and butterflied it open, shaking it to encourage any letter that might be stuck between its pages to flutter out; but none did.

“Do you know why I accepted this errand, Herman?” She stepped closer to him. “May I call you Herman?”

“Of course,” he said distractedly.

Jeanie smelled the sperm-oil pomade in Herman's beard. “I came because it is hardly a secret that you and Mr. Hawthorne have become close since you arrived in the Berkshires, and I'm concerned for you.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Tappan have noticed you coming and going at Hawthorne's cottage.” The Tappans owned the little cottage and lived in a house nearby. “I had lunch with Mrs. Tappan recently, and she told me that her husband does not think very highly of you and disapproves of your visits to their property.”

“I have not been there in more than a month, and I have barely said two words to Tappan.”

“He thinks you are unchristian and dangerous—I think on account of
Typee
. Fortunately for you, most people fail to understand completely what you wrote in
Typee
, because they don't want to know or can't recognize it, but the Tappans have eyes to see that those dissolute escapades you describe with naked women—and men—must have included the author.”

“Why should this concern you?”

“Because I have eyes to see, as well, and if you continue to carry on so brazenly, others will be forced out of their blindness. You will end up tarred and feathered, or worse.”

Melville was taken aback. “How have I behaved brazenly?”

“Everyone has learned that you are the Virginian so fond of Hawthorne—could you have declared yourself any more boldly? And in print, for all the world to see! And my friend Eliza Fields told me that her husband—Hawthorne's publisher—told her that Hawthorne himself has confessed that you have beguiled him.” Herman's heart raced in earnest now. “And here is this secret message from Hawthorne that I've just delivered. It's obvious that you two admire one another rather ardently.”

“A book is not a secret message.”

“Some books are.”

“But I've not even seen Hawthorne for weeks. And who in his right mind would construe a few innocent visits and a book review in a magazine as ardent? What conclusions could you possibly draw from such scant evidence?”

“I
know
what's going on, Herman.”

“There is nothing to know!” Herman said. He flung
The Friend
violently onto his desk. It bounced once, scattering papers in a great flurry, and smacked into the wainscoting near Jeanie's feet. She looked at the book in surprise, as Herman's manuscript pages fluttered to the floor; and then she looked at Herman with fear in her eyes. She picked the book up and set it gently on his desk, and made a great show of gathering up the scattered papers, shuffling them into a neat stack and handing them to him.

“I did not mean to throw the book,” he said. “I would not have hit you with it. I apologize.” He realized that he was ravenously hungry, and that the emptiness in his stomach had burbled up to his mind. He tossed the manuscript pages carelessly onto his desk and sat down, feeling dazed and defeated; but he considered the Coleridge book, now crumpled somewhat at the top of its spine, and a little thrill of hope surfaced in the otherwise unpleasant stew of confusion and irritation he felt.

Jeanie slid between Herman and his desk and half sat on the desktop, facing him; her petticoats brushed his pantlegs. She placed her hand on top of his. “I have been telling everyone that you and I are smitten with one another.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I love you, Herman. I want to protect you.”