Thoreau at Devil's Perch (10 page)

“I know you come back here to help out the old doc, and that's to your credit,” she finally said. “But how soon do you plan on leaving?” Her tone implied the sooner the better.

“When Grandfather is well enough to do without my assistance, I shall return to New York.”

Granny regarded me with that squint of hers. “How do you manage there on your own?”

“At present I board with a respectable family and earn my keep by instructing young ladies to draw. But I have greater ambitions.”

“Well, sure as a gun you can't pursue 'em in this little town. No, Plumford ain't the place fer the likes of you, Julia Bell. Best you go off and live your life elsewhere. You and Adam are better off apart.”

“Our grandfather has already convinced me of that,” I told her. “And I do not care to hear again the tragic tales regarding Walker cousins who marry. So if that was what you were intending to recount to me, ma'am, you may save your breath to cool your porridge.”

“Do not be so pert with me, missy,” she said. “I had no sich intention as that. The Walkers' dire family history ain't none of my business. But my grandson's happiness is. And I know for a certainty that Adam would be most happy settled right here on the farm where he belongs. Tuttles have always been farmers. They cleared this land over two hundred years ago.”

“But Adam has Walker blood too,” I said.“He has inherited his Grandfather Walker's doctoring skills, has he not?”

“He is a Tuttle through and through!” Granny stubbornly insisted. “But I got nothin' against his being a doctor. Why, I would sign over the land to him right off if he decided to keep on doctorin' in Plumford instead of Boston. He could manage both the farm and his practice if he has the right helpmate.”

I ventured a guess as to whom she had in mind. “Would that be Harriet?”

Granny's face softened. “She is as dear to me as Adam is. And like the Bible says, I have trained her up in the way she should go. Unlike you, Julia, she would be content to be a wife and mother and wish for nothing more. She has no fancy notions sich as you do.” A smile suddenly tilted up her thin lips as she looked over my shoulder.

I turned and saw Adam and Harriet approaching, each grasping the handle of the bucket between them. I imagined instead that they were grasping the hands of a child. A perfect, healthy child.

Friday, August 14th

 

W
hat has just transpired between Julia and myself leaves me most unsettled. Perhaps I should not have sought her out so late in the evening, but I missed her company. After we returned from Tuttle Farm this afternoon, she retired to her chamber and did not even come down for supper. I suppose this was understandable, considering the mountain of edibles Gran had supplied for our picknick, but neither did she sit with me in the parlor after tucking in the old doc. So when I heard her moving about her makeshift studio, I went there and told her I was at her disposal if she still wished to make a plaster cast of my undeserving countenance. Much to my surprise, she put me off, which rather irked me. Had she not requested to make a life-mask of me more than once? I confess I became rather insistent, informing her that it was now or perhaps never. In truth, I craved her attention, which she has withdrawn from me of late.

She finally relented, sat me down in a straight-backed chair, and went about her preparations, stirring a large bowl of plaster mixture until she thought it a perfect consistency to form a mold. She added bluing to it, and, when I asked why, she explained that coloring the mold plaster would distinguish it from the white plaster she would later pour into it to form the cast, thus enabling her to see one from the other when the time came to chisel the two apart. She said very little after that. She seemed preoccupied, hardly responding to my attempts at conversation, but I did not mind. I am that way myself when caught up in the preparations of my profession.

She asked me to remove my coat and vest and spread open my collar. She then draped an apron over me. When she tied the back strings her fingers brushed again my bared neck and a shudder ran down my spine. “Gran would say a rabbit just ran over my grave,” I said with a laugh.

She did not laugh with me. Instead, she silently raked her fingernails through my hair like a comb, pushing it back from my forehead and making my scalp tingle. She proceeded to spread a soapy paste along my hairline.

“Good thing I do not sport a mustache,” said I.

She made no response. I am not accustomed to her being so reserved with me and did not like it. Still, I found the manner in which she rubbed a thin layer of linseed oil over the surface of my face most pleasing. Her touch seemed quite affectionate, and she gazed down into my eyes so steadily and for so long that she seemed about to speak something of serious import. All she told me, however, was to breathe shallowly when she applied the plaster so as not to draw it up too far into my nostrils. She then directed me to shut my eyes and keep them shut, along with my mouth, and cease facial movement altogether.

I complied, and she began to apply the plaster with a blunt palette knife from the hairline downward, lightly coating even the outer area of my ears but taking care not to fill the auditory canals. After telling me it would take about ten minutes for the plaster to set, she fell silent again. Without the sound of her voice or her touch I suddenly felt rudderless in the stifling, all-encompassing darkness. I flexed my fingers, signaling her to take hold of my hand.

She did so, and I was content for a few moments. But soon I grew restive. I often admonish my patients to remain immobile during certain medical procedures, but I now understand how difficult that can be. I began shifting my legs about, and one of them brushed against hers. She moved slightly so that our lower limbs were no longer in contact.

“Pray still yourself, Adam,” she said softly.

But I could not. I fidgeted with the restlessness of a colt until she began to stroke my hand. That quieted me. Indeed, it produced within me the blissful sensation that she and I were floating in eternity, free from all the cares in this world. Free of all its inhibitions too. Impulsively I grabbed her by the waist with my free hand and pulled her into my lap. She did not try to right herself. Perhaps she feared any sort of struggle might cause me to breathe so deeply I would inhale the plaster. For whatever reason, she stayed seated upon my knee, light and still as a fawn, as the minutes ticked by and my heart pounded in my eardrums. I longed to be free of my inhibiting mask and was at the point of ripping it off when, to my great relief, she gently tugged it away from my face.

When I opened my eyes I was so overcome by the sight of her dear face that I cupped it in my hands and pressed my lips to hers. I shall never forget how thrilling it was to kiss her on the mouth. Even more exciting was that she returned my kiss full measure.Yet as extraordinary and new as the sensation was, it was also remarkably familiar. How long our mouths and bodies melded I know not, but before my arousal made me forget prudence altogether, she drew away from me. I released her, and she rose to her feet. She stared down at me, her eyes wide and the pupils dilated. I must have looked quite a comical sight, my face mottled with bits of blue plaster and slick with oil, but she did not so much as smile. Instead, she began to weep.

Dismayed by her sudden melancholy, I stood up so quickly the chair fell over. I tried to take her back in my arms to comfort her, but she vehemently turned away from me, clutching the crushed mask to her breast.

“We have ruined it!” she said.

“I will gladly sit through the process again,” I offered in a soothing tone, “and you can make another mask of me.”

“I am not crying over the ruined mask, but over our ruined friendship, Adam. We can never trust ourselves to be alone together again.”

And with that she left the room. I did not follow, for I did not know how to proceed with her. I still do not know. Just recalling her ardent response to my kiss makes me long to repeat the experience.Yet I know we should not indulge in such passion. No good can come of it.

 

I
have only myself to fault for what occurred last evening. Is it not always the woman's fault when passion overcomes prudence? Men are expected to have an ardent, impetuous nature, thus Adam was only acting in accordance with his sex. But what excuse have I? If I had immediately pulled away from him, we might have made light of his lapse in good judgment and carried forth from there. Instead, I lingered in his warm embrace, aroused by sensations far too pleasing to resist. I cannot allow such dangerous intimacy between us again! Indeed, I shall do my best to avoid being alone with Adam henceforward.

So far this forenoon I have managed to steer clear of him. I did get a brief glimpse of him, however, as he drove past me in the gig, presumably off to see a patient. He was accompanied by a stranger on horseback. And I, at the time, was accompanied by Mr. Upson. If Adam saw us walking on the Green path, he gave no sign of it.

Wherever I go in the village it seems Mr. Upson goes too. This morn he came upon me just as I was leaving Daggett's store and insisted on carrying my basket of provisions home for me. Apparently he has forgiven me for not attending his sermon Sunday last. When we stopped at the front gate he even offered to give me the latest religious tract he has written.

“I do not have a copy of it on my person,” he said, “but I would be most happy to come by and read it aloud to you some evening, Miss Bell. It concerns the Doctrine of Total Depravity.”

My heart sank. 'Twas the last thing I wanted to hear about. And I thought it best to be frank with him. “I would be a very poor audience, Mr. Upson,” I told him, “for I do not hold to the doctrine that we are all born depraved. It simply does not ring true in my heart.”

“The heart of a woman often misleads her,” he responded. “Do not forget that it was a woman who caused the fall of mankind into sin.”

“Ah, yes, let us blame poor Eve for every wicked deed done on earth, past, present, and future.” I smiled and reached for my basket.

He kept fast hold of it. “Original Sin is nothing to smile about, Miss Bell. Because of the transgression Eve instigated in the Garden of Eden, most humans are damned to the eternal torments of hell. Only a select few have been foreordained to heaven instead. God decided who was to be saved long ago. Eons before we were born.”

“But surely God takes our behavior here on earth into consideration.”

“It matters not what deeds, good or bad, any of us do in this earthly realm, my dear. We are either God's chosen or we are not. And those He has chosen are His instruments, part of His unchangeable plan.”

“What about our own free will?”

“For women, free will is nothing more than willfulness.”

“You do not think very highly of my sex, do you, Mr. Upson?”

“On the contrary, dear Miss Bell. To earn my highest regard a woman need only possess the four cardinal virtues. Do you know what they are?”

“Well, I should think loving-kindness is the most essential one. And then intelligence. Along with integrity and good humor. Those are four virtues that have
my
highest regard in either sex.”

Mr. Upson shook his head. “The cardinal virtues of true womanhood are piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity. Were you not taught that in school?”

I shrugged. “If so, it apparently did not make a great impression upon me.”

“Perhaps you just need a better instructor.” Mr. Upson gave me a rare smile.

“My days of such schooling are well behind me,” I told him and made another attempt to retrieve my basket.

But he would not let go of it or the point he was trying to make. “You are still young enough to be properly trained to take on wifely duties, my dear.”

“I'd sooner be trained to jump through hoops.”

His smile vanished. “Such a pert remark as that is an insult to Womanhood,” he admonished me.

“As a woman I do not think it is. But I do not wish to argue further with you.” I was eager to go inside and read the letter from Papa that Mr. Daggett, in his role as town postmaster, had delivered into my hands at the store. It had been forwarded to Plumford from my New York address.

“Nor do I wish to argue with
you
of all people!” Mr. Upson proclaimed most fervently. “Indeed, I was hoping to find a degree of solace in your company, Miss Bell. I have been most distressed.”

I gave him a closer look. There were deep shadows beneath his light gray eyes, and his fair complexion looked waxen. “What troubles you? Are you ill?”

“I pray that I am not!”

“It does not appear that you have been sleeping well, Mr. Upson.”

“No, I did not sleep well at all last night. My mind was seized by thoughts of my departed wife.”

I ventured to guess why. “Is the anniversary of her death nearing?”

He nodded. I waited, but he said nothing more. Knowing not what to say myself, I plucked the last blooming rose on the vine climbing along the picket fence and tucked it in the buttonhole of his black frock coat. Small as the gesture was, he seemed comforted by it. He silently handed me back my basket, shook my hand most warmly, and departed without another word spoken between us. I own that I was relieved to see him go.Yet I do so want to be kind to him. It is unkindness that is our greatest sin, I believe, and I know I am as guilty of it as anyone else. How I would like to reach a stage in my life where I am
always
loving and kind to everyone. But I fear I would have to live my life over and over again to reach such perfection.

At any rate, on to Papa's letter. He claims he has sorely missed me and begs me to return. Apparently he has been unable to find an assistant who can stretch and prime canvases, grind pigment, temper colors, or make pastel chalks as well as his drudge of a daughter. And I surmise he has fallen behind in his work again and needs me to complete a good number of his portrait commissions. Well, gone are the days when I felt honored to forge his brushstrokes. I want to sign my work with my own name. Yet I do feel a certain obligation toward him. Although he may not have been the best of fathers, when he finally took an interest in me he was the best of teachers. I have him to thank for my painting techniques and even for my innate talent, which he insists I inherited from him alone. He reminded me of all this in his letter.

Perhaps it would be best for me to go back to Paris. I cannot very well stay in Plumford after what occurred between Adam and me last night. Oh, how I regret it! No, that is a lie. For if I regret that kiss, why do I relive it over and over in my mind with such pleasure?