by Thomas Tryon
“Here, dear, let me thread up a needle,” Mrs. Zalmon said. “Mrs. Brucie, pick out a patch there, can you? See—you just pin it on, then it’s ready to be stitched.”
Beth glanced over at me with a smile, her expression clearly saying, My God, look at me—I’m in a sewing circle.
Later it cooled slightly, the shadows began to lengthen as the sun dropped, and the Common settled into somnolence. The air was still and heavy and smelled faintly sour, the odor of weeds or grass cuttings. The pennants hung limp and tired on the booths. No traffic passed, no voices called, no dogs barked. All was silence.
I went across the roadway in the direction of Penance House, where I had seen some of the men disappearing. Wondering what had taken them there, I walked past the post office, and when I heard low voices from behind the barn next door, I went to investigate. Abruptly the voices stopped. In the stillness, I could feel the same prickling at the base of my neck I had felt that morning, and a lifting of the hairs along my forearms. An uncanny feeling, telling me something was about to happen. I took several steps toward the barn, then halted, riveted by a sound I instantly recognized, climbing to a terrible pitch, a wild cry, rising upward and outward as though from the heart of a bell, to float, then to die in the air, trailing away into nothingness. A pair of swallows, alarmed, took abrupt flight from the eaves of the barn, arcing out against the sky, dipping and swooping past my vision. I rounded the corner of the barn and was confronted by a baffling semicircle of backs. No one turned. Why so still, these men and boys, why so grave, so silent?
Then I saw the child, and thought at first she must be hemorrhaging, so red were her arms. I saw Will Jones’s simple farmer’s face looking at me. In hat and overalls, he stood meekly in the center of the circle, the handle of his sickle clasped loosely in one hand, the sharp silver crescent gone red. At his feet lay the felled sheep; below the red wool its thin legs still jerked. The child knelt in the dust, busily engaged as she gazed dreamily down at the red mass of viscera she held in her palms, her arms red to the elbows.
She raised her blank face and, as though waking from a dream, peered around the circle of men stolidly looking upon her and upon the red maw of the sheep’s cleaved belly and upon the still-palpitating entrails she tenderly cupped in her hands. Dripping red, the glossy tubular glands and bulgy membranes slid about and slowly slipped through her splayed fingers and fell back into the parted red cavity beneath them. Never removing her eyes from her hands she raised them palms upward before her, toward the sky, their redness trembling against the blue. There was no sound, only the dry rattle of the watchers’ breath trapped in their throats; one man coughed, another blew his nose into a bandanna. Still the red hands remained outstretched; as if in a trance, the child rose and began a slow circuit, her eyes glazed, uttering not a word as she moved around the circle of younger men. Stiffly she walked past young Lyman Jones, past the Tatum boys, past Merle Penrose, past several others, until she stood before Jim Minerva. A faint sign of recognition appeared in her face, a perceptible widening of the eyes, a murmur in the throat. Her hands moved slightly as if to touch him; then she passed on in her dream and in her dream stopped again, reaching out her hands and laying their redness against the cheeks of Worthy Pettinger.
A sigh, a murmur; stillness. The whir of insect wings.
When she took the hands away, a replica of each palm lay upon Worthy’s flesh, and as she slowly turned, she dropped her hands almost to her sides; not quite, for in her dream something told her to hold them away from her dress. Some of the men gathered closer to Worthy—pale now around his bloody marks—and thumped him on the shoulders, congratulating him, while others dragged the sheep aside, leaving a smeared trail of red upon the brindled ground. Several men lit up their pipes, scratching blue-tip matches on the seats of their overalls, exchanging nods and low remarks. Out on the street a car backfired, jolting me into shocked reality. I looked again, saw dust and straw and blood, heard the dull buzz of flies, the dry hiss as someone took breath in through his teeth, smelled the stench of the animal. The women came running from the Common in pairs and groups, looking at the ring of men, all amazed.
“Did she choose?” they wanted to know. Who? Who was it? Was it Jim? Jim Minerva? “No,” said the men, shaking their heads, moving aside, and “Praise be!” the women cried, seeing the marked boy. They kissed him, hugged him, bore him away, the men following, until there was no one behind the barn except me.
And the gutted sheep.
And Missy Penrose.
Breathing through her mouth, she was making strange, incomprehensible sounds as she stared at the open cavity. “Mnn—mean—um—nmm—” Where all had been red before, now a black liverish-looking bile was running from the rent tissue. She stopped, put her fingers into it, brought them out bloodier, darker, held them against the sky, her body going rigid and beginning a tremulous shaking.
“Mean—um—nmm—mean—”
Her eyes rolled upward in their sockets; a slight spittle appeared at the corners of her mouth, became a froth. She twitched, jerked, then a stiff arm rose, a red finger pointed at me. A rising breeze caught her hair, lifted it across her eyes; she brushed it away; red appeared on her forehead like a stigma.
I stared back, feeling the same chill again, the same cold sweat. Wind was whipping the grass at her feet. I said nothing. She said nothing. Her eyes were glassy, blank; I knew she could not see me. Yet she saw—something. Then, still pointing, red, she began screaming. I stood frozen in terror. From the Common came the tumult of celebration. No one had seen, no one saw. She was screaming louder than I thought it possible for a child to scream, and screaming, she pointed.
She stopped. Her arm fell and hung limp, her eyes came into a kind of focus; she stared briefly at the dead sheep, then turned and walked away.
The air began to freshen, the wind to change, and the sky by slight but perceptible degrees to darken, and out on the Common I could see the men standing back as the women rushed to engulf the child, touching and petting her, a murmur sweeping through them, becoming chatter, then acclaim; then, as the child fainted, their voices were suddenly stilled, like birds before a storm.
I went behind the barn and vomited into the grass.
TWO
The Days of the Seasoning
9
THE DAYS OF THE Seasoning began, that lax period before harvest when the sun did its final drying of the corn, and the farmers readied themselves for the winter. And as the Days of the Seasoning went by, little by little I cleared my mind, and stopped thinking about the red pointing finger. At least I tried to tell myself I had. I convinced myself it had been nothing, a child having a joke on an outsider. During those early September weeks, I went about the village, sketching, doing water-color studies, and telling myself the incident had had no meaning. Sometimes I would see her—behind her gate, on the Common, along the road—but it was as if nothing had happened. So I told myself nothing had.
Though my perceptions might have sharpened since then, it is perhaps because I have learned the art of substituting one thing for another: it is the law of compensation put into sober practice. Later I was required by force of circumstance to negotiate a painful series of readjustments, but in that early autumn my only concern was the business of painting that small but particular corner of New England called Cornwall Coombe. It was all bright then, illuminated by the light I saw it with, and the brightness gladdened my painter’s eye. The light in cities is flatter, grayer, less defined. In the country it was quite different, an evocation of all the glowing light I had ever wanted to record, like some rare golden elixir that had been poured over the hills and fields. There were few grays in my palette, but an abundance of yellows and ochers and deep umbers with which I slopped and spattered the gessoed panels I painted on, working in a fury of haste to capture what I was seeing.
I felt I was becoming a fixture in the village, accepted not because I was the same as they, but because I was different, because
I could “draw” things. I was respected because of my work, and because they sensed I wanted nothing more than to be able to put onto a board with brush and color the life I saw around me. And on my part I offered them ungrudging admiration. If I have presented them as picturesque and quaint, I have erred. Countryfolk they were, but a bunch of tough nuts. Dawn-to-dusk, fourteen-hour-a-day workers, unshirking and unstinting, stylish in their own New England right, whose plainest, homeliest task became a kind of ritualistic act: the quartering of an apple, the whittling of a stick, the laying of a brick. I appreciated them for their country wisdom, their humility, their hardiness. The sturdy sons of sturdy fathers. I found them people of simple but profound convictions, and I admired them for their love of the soil, their esteem for their village, their reverence for the past, and their determination to hold on to it at all costs. I liked their forthrightness, their modest know-how, their reticence; if they were worried and wearied by debt, or fearful of natural disaster, they alone knew it, for they never confided such things, except perhaps among themselves. It was the freemasonry of those who live close to the earth, with its harsh, often bitter realities.
And we were being offered a share in it. We were finding ourselves accepted as in the natural order of things, and were treated accordingly. Several Sundays after the Agnes Fair, we went to church. Mr. Deming and the elders were by tradition awarded the choice seats—up front, with cushions. Also included in this preferential treatment were, I discovered, the Hookes, Justin and Sophie. The remainder of the worshipers were ranged, also traditionally, in accordance with their social position and wealth, wives and husbands together—their offspring suffering time-honored banishment to the galleries, boys on one side, girls on the other—while the choir was seated in the loft behind, with Mrs. Buxley to conduct and Maggie Dodd at the organ.
When the last bell peal had died away, we all rose, and while the minister entered from the vestibule in his black gown, Amys drew the doors shut, their closing timed to coincide precisely with Mr. Buxley’s arrival in the pulpit. Soon thereafter the bell ringer stationed himself at the rear of the boys’ gallery, where he maintained a long wooden rod, ready to tap to consciousness any dozing young fry.
Our family sat toward the rear, in the straight-backed, unpadded, and decidedly uncomfortable pew one of the elders had assigned us, and we joined with the others while Mr. Buxley led the opening prayer. We sang the Doxology to Maggie’s accompaniment. After that came the pastor’s church notes and items of general interest; next was a hymn, followed by another prayer, and then, at the indicated moment, amid clearing of throats, rustling of programs, creaking of pews, and dropping of hymnals into racks, the congregation settled itself for the ritual Sunday sermon.
Harken, the village of Cornwall Coombe. Meek and humble lamb though he might be Monday through Saturday, the Reverend Mr. Buxley on the Sabbath was a lion. This was his church, this his pulpit, this his flock. For his text he had selected Second Kings, Chapter 18, Verse 32: “Until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of oil olive and of honey, that ye may live and not die…” Having read from the scripture, Mr. Buxley closed the Book, removed his glasses, placed his hands on either side of the pulpit as though for moral support, and launched into a lengthy peroration. His broad ministerial gestures described the bounty of the promised harvest and the warranted thankfulness for a full grain elevator, fuller pocketbooks, still fuller stomachs. But then, alas—arms falling in despair—with such bounty, what else was there in this land of plenty?
Sin.
Here it comes, I thought, hellfire and brimstone; shades of Henry Ward Beecher.
“…sinning in this land of corn and wine,” deplored Mr. Buxley, and though he spoke of Israel, who was there gathered before him who knew not he alluded to Cornwall Coombe? Sin lay in the hearts of those who, like Jezebel, were greedy beyond their just portion. But—finger directed heavenward—the great Lord Jehovah, nothing loath, had prophesied that Jezebel, unfortunate creature, should have her worldly flesh eaten of by dogs at the wall of Jezreel.
I reached for Beth’s hand, lying on the hymnal in her lap. She smiled at me under her lashes and I gave her a silent I love you. On this glorious Sunday in Cornwall Coombe, where was there to be found a luckier man than I? She nudged me, directing my attention to the boys’ gallery where Amys Penrose, leaning over the back pew, administered a smart rap on the head with the tip of his rod. Blinking, Worthy Pettinger sat up abruptly, awakening in time to learn of Jezebel getting her just deserts: having painted her face and done up her hair, the hussy was leaning out a window, whereupon three eunuchs were induced to throw her down. “‘Go see now this cursed woman,’” the minister quoted, “‘and bury her: for she is a king’s daughter…’”
My eyes lingered on Worthy’s saturnine features as he lent appropriate attention to Mr. Buxley. In the several weeks since the Agnes Fair, the boy had been in our employ, helping complete the terrace wall, setting in the skylight, plus seeing to the myriad other chores Beth found in unending succession. Day by day, we were becoming more dependent on his help and, in consequence, day by day fonder of him. He had proved to be bright, able, quick to learn, and willing to please. Still, observing him as he worked, I could see he was somehow troubled, but when I tried to draw him out, I discovered nothing to solve the mystery of the boy’s melancholy. In the back of my mind always was the memory of the fair:
The red hands of Missy Penrose printed on his cheeks; from sheep’s entrails, like an ancient seeress the half-wit child had chosen the boy. Her pale face staring in triumph at Worthy’s paler one: plainly he had not wished it. Children and sheep’s blood and oracular vision: the startling ways of Cornwall Coombe.
Still, though I had said nothing, I felt glad that no one had witnessed the scene behind the barn at Penance House, the black guts of the sheep, the red pointing finger.
I turned my head, looking up at the gallery where the village girls sat. Missy Penrose’s expression darkened as she saw my apprehensive glance, and her brow lifted in slight acknowledgment, as though between us we shared some unspoken and forbidden secret.
What bond could possibly connect us—me, Ned Constantine, and her, the village idiot? Why had I been singled out for her notice? And, having attracted it, why had I experienced that strange mixture of awe and dread? Why, in dreams, did I now see that accusing finger?
Was there some unplumbed depth in her make-up? Not a chance, I told myself. Missy Penrose wasn’t deep—she didn’t have the brains God gave a chicken. She made up crazy things from her own addled sense of specialness, and the superstitious villagers, eager to believe her, treated her accordingly.
On the far side of the church, in the pews for the unmarried women, I accidently caught the postmistress’s eye. Tamar Penrose’s lazy stare caused me to look immediately away. Had she winked? In church? With Beth beside me? I glanced back: prim and proper, the postmistress was dutifully attending her pastor.
When at length the sermon was concluded, the minister cleared his throat and announced the closing hymn. We sang again, the benediction was offered, the service ended.
As I walked into the vestibule, Amys Penrose was again tolling the bell rope, announcing that church was over. “Nice music,” I complimented Maggie Dodd as she descended the stairs from the loft.
“Why, thank you,” sang Mrs. Buxley, following her. “Success, James,” she called to her husband, greeting his parishioners at the door. “Our truants have entered the fold at last. Lovely day, isn’t it? Where are Mrs. Constantine and your little one?” Like a large, damp mollusk, Mrs. Buxley attached herself to my side and we passed through the vestibule doors to stand on the top step. “Ring loud,” she called gaily to the bell ringer. “Good morning, Robert. Didn’t Maggie play beautifully? That Bach! Worthy, dear, did you get all the hymnals put away? Close the cupboard door? That’s a good boy.”
I stopped to remind Worthy about
a patch of broken slates that needed replacement on the studio roof. He said he would investigate, then ducked through the crowd gathered at the foot of the steps for after-church greetings. While Robert took one of Maggie’s elbows, I offered him mine on the other side to guide him to the sidewalk.
“Fallish day, Robert.” Wearing her best Sunday black, with carved bone brooch at her breast, the Widow turned away from Beth and Kate, with whom she had been speaking, to acknowledge the Dodds and myself. “’Pears autumn’s goin’ to take us by stealth ’stead of by storm this year. Mornin’, Asia. Where’s Fred today?”
Mrs. Minerva stopped to pay her respects. “Fred’s feelin’ sort of achy—and just before Harvest Home, too. Hate to think of what it’ll be with a change of weather.”
“Fred’s had the worst luck. You just come along to me, Asia, and let me give you something for him.”
“Some sermon today,” Mrs. Zalmon said, greeting the Reverend, who was once again meek, as though this very day he might inherit the earth. Divested of his robes but maintaining his circular white collar, Mr. Buxley accepted congratulations on his preaching while his wife basked in reflected glory.
“You can’t tell me he didn’t mean Gracie Everdeen,” someone said.
“Oh, dear, now, really, we mustn’t—I mean, it’s such a lovely day, we oughtn’t—now, Sally Pounder—” It was Mrs. Buxley’s habit not only to mince words but to make hash of them as well. “We mustn’t sully a Sunday with such talk—I’m sure James didn’t mean—did you, James?” Tucking her husband’s arm under hers, she took him off as though he were a parcel.
While the Widow continued talking quilts with Beth, Jack Stump’s cart was heard approaching, the clatter of his pans and kettles fracturing the churchtide quiet.
“Whatcha say, ladies, bounteeful day, ain’t it? Whatcha say, Widow?”
“Come ’round later, Jack,” she said, and he tipped his hat to her. Pedaling up to Sally Pounder and Betsey Cox, the bank teller, he yanked open a drawer and flourished a piece of beadwork.