Tales of Alvin Maker 3 - Prentice Alvin

by Prentice Alvin (lit)

  It wasn't gratitude she wanted. It was freedom. It was a lightening of her burden. She had started bearing it too young, and they had shown her no mercy in their exploitation. Their own fears always outweighed her need for a carefree girlhood. Did any of them understand that? Did any of them know how gratefully she left them all behind?

  Now Peggy the torch was back, but they'd never know it. I did not come back for you, people of Hatrack River, nor did I come to serve your children. I came back for one pupil only, the man who stands even now at the forge, his heartfire burning so brightly that I can see it even in my sleep, even in my dreams. I came back having learned all that the world can teach, so I in turn can help that young man achieve a labor that means more than any one of us. That is my destiny, if I have one.

  Along the way I'll do what other good I can-- I'll teach Arthur Stuart, I'll try to fulfill the drearns his brave young mother died for; I'll teach all the other children as much as they're willing to learn, during those certain hours of the day that I've contracted for; I'll bring such poetry and learning into the town of Hatrack River as you're willing to receive.

  Perhaps you don't desire poetry as much as you would like to have my torchy knowledge of your possible futures, but I daresay poetry will do you far more good. For knowing the future only makes you timid and complacent by turns, while poetry can shape you into the kind of souls who can face any future with boldness and wisdom and nobility, so that you need not know the future at all, so that any future will be an opportunity for greatness, if you have greatness in you. Can I teach you to see in yourselves what Gray saw?

  Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire, Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed, Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.

  But she doubted that any of these ordinary souls in Hatrack River were really mute, inglorious Miltons. Pauley Wiseman was no secret Caesar. He might wish for it, but he lacked the wit and self-control. Whitley Physicker was no Hippocrates, however much he tried to be a healer and conciliator-- his love of luxury undid him, and like many other well-meaning physician he had come to work for what the fee could buy, and not for joy of the work itself.

  She picked up the water bucket that stood by the door. Weary as she was, she would not allow herself to seem helpless even for a moment. Father and Mother would come and find Miss Larner had already done for herself all that she could do before the tub arrived.

  Ching-ching-ching. Didn't Alvin rest? Didn't he know the sun was boiling the western sky, turning it red before sinking out of sight behind the trees? As she walked down the hill toward the smithy, she felt as if she might suddenly begin to run, to fly down the hill to the smithy as she had flown the day that Alvin was born. It was raining that day, and Alvin's mother was stuck in a wagon in the river. It was Peggy who saw them all, their heartfires off in the blackness of the rain and the flooding river. It was Peggy who gave alarm, and then Peggy who stood watch over the birthing, seeing Alvin's futures in his heartfire, the brightest heartfire she had ever seen or would ever see in all her life. It was Peggy who saved his life then by peeling the caul away from his face; and, by using bits of that caul, Peggy who had saved his life so many times over the years. She might turn her back on being torch of Hatrack River, but she'd never turn her back on him.

  But she stopped herself halfway down the hill. What was she thinking of? She could not go to him, not now, not yet. He had to come to her. Only that way could she become his teacher; only that way was there a chance of becoming anything more than that.

  She turned and walked across the face of the hill, slanting down and eastward toward the well. She, had watched, Alvin dig the well-- both wells-- and for once she was helpless to help him when the Unmaker came. Alvin's own anger and destructiveness had called his enemy, and there was nothing Peggy could do with the caul to save him that time. She could only watch as he purged the unmaking that was inside himself, and so defeated, for a time, the Unmaker who stalked him on the outside. Now this well stood as a monument both to Alvin's power and to his frailty.

  She dropped the copper bucket into the well, and the windlass clattered as the rope unwound. A muffled splash. She waited a moment for the bucket to fill, then wound it upward. It arrived brimming. She meant to pour it out into the wooden bucket she brought with her, but instead she brought the copper bucket to her lips and drank from the cold heavy load of water that it bore. So many years she had waited to taste that water, the water that Alvin tamed the night he tamed himself. She had been so afraid, watching him all night, and when at last in the morning he filled up the first vengeful hole he dug, she wept in relief. This water wasn't salty, but still it tasted to her like her own tears.

  The hammer was silent. As always, she found Alvin's heartfire at once, without even trying. He was leaving the smithy, coming outside. Did he know she was there? No. He always came for water when he finished his work for the day. Of course she could not turn to him, not yet, not until she actually heard his step. Yet, though she knew he was coming and listened for him, she couldn't hear him; he moved as silently as a squirrel on a limb. Not until he spoke did he make a sound.

  "Pretty good water, ain't it?"

  She turned around to face him. Turned too quickly, too eagerly--the rope still held the bucket, so it lurched out of her hands, splashed her with water, and clattered back down into the well.

  "I'm Alvin, you remember? Didn't mean to frighten you, Ma'am. Miss Larner."

  "I foolishly forgot the bucket was tied," she said. "I'm used to pumps and taps, I'm afraid. Open wells are not common in Philadelphia."

  She turned back to the well to draw the bucket up again.

  "Here, let me," he said.

  "There's no need, I can wind it well enough--"

  "But why should you, Miss Larner, when I'm glad to do it for you?"

  She stepped aside and watched as he cranked the windlass with one hand, as easily as a child might swing a rope. The bucket fairly flew to the top of the well. She looked into his heartfire, just dipped in, to see if he was showing off for ber. He was not. He could not see how massive his own shoulders were, how his muscles danced under the skin as his arm moved. He could not even see the peacefulness of his own face, the same quiet repose that one might see in the face of a fearless stag. There was no watchfulness in him. Some people had darting eyes, as if they had to be alert for danger, or perhaps for prey. Others looked intently at the task at hand, concentrating on what they were doing. But Alvin had a quiet distance, as if he had no particular concern about what anyone else or he himself might be doing, but instead dwelt on inward thoughts that no one else could hear. Again the words of Gray's Elegy played out in her mind.

  Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,

  Their sober wishes never learned to stray; Along the cool, sequestered vale of life, They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

  Poor Alvin. When I'm done with you, there'll be no cool sequestered vale. You'll look back on your prenticeship as the last peaceful days of your life.

  He gripped the full, heavy bucket with one hand on the rim, and easily tipped it to pour it out into the bucket she had brought, which he held in his other hand; he did it as lightly and easily as a housewife pours cream from one cup into another. What if those hands as lightly and easily hold my arms? Would he break me without meaning to, being so strong? Would I feel manacled in his irresistible grasp? Or would he burn me up in the white heat of his heartfire?

  She reached out for her bucket.

  "Please let me carry it, Ma'am. Miss Larner."

  "There's no need."

  "I know I'm dirtied up, Miss Larner, but I can carry it to your door and set it inside without messing anything."

  Is my disguise so monstrously aloof that you think I refuse your help out of excessive cleanliness? "I only meant that I didn't want to make you work anymore today. You've helped me enough already for one day."

  He looked straight into her eyes, and now he lost that peaceful express
ion. There was even a bit of anger in his eyes. "If you're afraid I'll want you to pay me, you needn't have no fear of that. If this is your dollar, you can have it back. I never wanted it." He held out to her the coin that Whitley Physicker had tossed him from the carriage.

  "I reproved Dr. Physicker at the time. I thought it insulting that he should presume to pay you for the service you did me out of pure gallantry. It cheapened both of us, I thought, for him to. act as if the events of this morning were worth exactly one dollar."

  His eyes had softened now.

  Peggy went on in her Miss Larner voice. "But you must forgive Dr. Physicker. He is uncomfortable with wealth, and looks for opportunities to share it with others. He has not yet learned how to do it with perfect tact."

  "Oh, it's no never mind now, Miss Larner, seeing how it didn't come from you." He put the coin back in his pocket and started to carry the full bucket up the hill toward the house.

  It was plain he was unaccustomed to walking with a lady. His strides were far too long, his pace too quick for her to keep up with him. She couldn't even walk the same route he took-- he seemed oblivious to the degree of slope. He was like a child, not an adult, taking the most direct route even if it meant unnecessary clambering over obstacles.

  And yet I'm barely five years older than he is. Have I come to believe my own disguise? At twenty-three, am I already thinking and acting and living like a woman of twice that age? Didn't I once love to walk just as he does, over the most difficult ground, for the sheer love of the exertion and accomplishment?

  Nevertheless, she walked the easier path, skirting the hill and then climbing up where the slope was longer and gender. He was already there, waiting at the door.

  "Why didn't you open the door and set the bucket inside? The door isn't locked," she said.

  "Begging your pardon, Miss Larner, but this is a door that asks not to be opened, whither it's locked or not."

  So, she thought, he wants to make sure I know about the hidden hexes he put in the locks. Not many people could see a hidden hex-- nor could she, for that matter. She wouldn't have known about them if she hadn't watched him put the hexes in the lock. But of course she couldn't very well tell him that. So she asked, "Oh, is there some protection here that I can't see?"

  "I just put a couple of hexes into the lock. Nothing much, but it should make it fairly safe here. And there's a hex in the top of the stove, so I don't think you have to worry much about sparks getting free."

  "You have a great deal of confidence in your hexery, Alvin."

  "I do them pretty good. Most folks knows a few hexes, anyway, Miss Larner. But not many smiths can put them into the iron. I just wanted you to know."

  He wanted her to know more than that, of course. So she gave him the response he hoped for. "I take it, then, that you did some of the work on this springhouse."

  "I done the windows, Miss Larner. They glide up and down sweet as you please, and there's pegs to hold them in place. And the stove, and the locks, and all the iron fittings. And my helper, Arthur Stuart, he scraped down the walls."

  For a young man who seemed artless, he was steering the conversation rather well. For a moment she thought of toying with him, of pretending not to make the connections he was counting on, just to see how he handled it. But no-- he was only planning to ask her to do what she came here to do. There was no reason to make it hard for him. The teaching itself would be hard enough. "Arthur Stuart," she said. "He must be the same boy that Goody Guester asked me to teach privately."

  "Oh, did she already ask you? Or shouldn't I ask?"

  "I have no intention of keeping it a secret, Alvin. Yes, I'll be teaching Arthur Stuart."

  "I'm glad of that, Miss Larner. He's the smartest boy you ever knew. And a mimic! Why, he can hear anything once and say it back to you in your own voice. You'll hardly believe it even when he's a-doing it."

  "I only hope he doesn't choose to play such a game when I'm teaching him.

  Alvin frowned. "Well, it isn't rightly a game, Miss Larner. It's just something he does without meaning to in particular. I mean to say, if he starts talking back to you in your own voice, he isn't making fun or nothing. It's just that when he hears something he remembers it voice and all, if you know what I mean. He can't split them up and remember the words without the voice that gave them."

  "I'll keep that in mind."

  In the distance,, Peggy heard a door slam closed. She cast out and looked, finding Father's and Mother's heartfires coming toward her. They were quarreling, of course, but if Alvin was to ask her, he'd have to do it quickly.

  "Was there something else you wanted to say to me, Alvin?"

  This was the moment he'd been leading up to, but now he was turning shy on her. "Well, I had some idea of asking you-- but you got to understand, I didn't carry the water for you so you'd feel obliged or nothing. I would've done that anyway, for anybody, and as for what happened today, I didn't rightly know that you were the teacher. I mean maybe I might've guessed, but I just didn't think of it. So what I done was just itself, and you don't owe me nothing."

  "I think I'll decide how much gratitude I owe, Alvin. What did you want to ask me?"

  "Of course you'll be busy with Arthur Stuart, so I can't expect you to have much time free, maybe just one day a week, just an hour even. It could be on Saturdays, and you could charge whatever you want, my master's been giving me ftee time and I've saved up some of my own earnings, and--"

  "Are you asking me to tutor you, Alvin?"

  Alvin didn't know what the word meant.

  "Tutor you. Teach you privately."

  "Yes, Miss Larner."

  "The charge is fifty cents a week, Alvin. And I wish you to come at the same time as Arthur Stuart. Arrive when he does, and leave when he does."

  "But how can you teach us both at once?"

  "I daresay you could benefit from some of the lessons I'll be giving him, Alvin. And when I have him writing or ciphering, I can converse with you."

  "I just don't want to cheat him out of his lesson time."

  "Think clearly, Alvin. It would not be proper for you to take lessons with me alone. I may be somewhat older than you, but there are those who will search for fault in me, and giving private instruction to a young bachelor would certainly give cause for tongues to wag. Arthur Stuart will be present at all your lessons, and the door of the springhouse will stand open."

  "We could go up and you could teach me at the roadhouse."

  "Alvin, I have told you the terms. Do you wish to engage me as your tutor?"

  "Yes, Miss Larner." He dug into his pocket and pulled out a coin. "Here's a dollar for the first two weeks."

  Peggy looked at the coin. "I thought you meant to give this dollar back to Dr. Physicker."

  "I wouldn't want to make him uncomfortable about having so much money, Miss Larner." He grinned.

  Shy he may be, but he can't stay serious for long. There'll always be a tease in him, just below the surface, and eventually, it will always come out.

  "No, I imagine not," said Miss Larner. "Lessons will begin next week. Thank you for your help."

  At that moment, Father and Mother came up the path. Father carried a large tub over his head, and he staggered under the weight. Alvin immediately ran to help-- or, rather, to simply take the tub and carry it himself.

  That was how Peggy saw her father's face for the first time in more than six years-- red, sweating, as he puffed from the labor of carrying the tub. And angry, too, or at least sullen. Even though Mother had no doubt assured him that the teacher lady wasn't half so arrogant as she seemed at first, still Father was resentful of this stranger living in the springhouse, a place that belonged only to his long-lost daughter.

  Peggy longed to call out to him, call him Father, and assure him that it was his daughter who dwelt here now, that all his labor to make a home of this old place was really a gift of love to her. How it comforted her to know how much he loved her, that he had not forgotten her af
ter all these years; yet it also made her heart break for him, that she couldn't name herself to him truly, not yet, not if she was to accomplish all she needed to. She would have to do with him what she was already trying to do with Alvin and with Mother-- not reclaim old loves and debts, but win new love and friendship.

  She could not come home as a daughter of this place, not even to Father, who alone would purely rejoice at her coming. She had to come home as a stranger. For surely that's what she was, even if she had no disguise, for after three years of one kind of learning in Dekane and another three of schooling and study, she was no longer Little Peggy, the quiet, sharp-tongued torch; she had long since become something else. She had learned many graces under the tutelage of Mistress Modesty; she had learned many other things from books and teachers. She was not who she had been. It would be as much a lie to say, Father, I am your daughter Little Peggy, as it was to say what she said now: "Mr. Guester, I am your new tenant, Miss Larner. I'm very glad to meet you."

  He huffed up to her and put out his hand. Despite his misgivings, despite the way he had avoided meeting her when first she arrived at the roadhouse an hour or so past, he was too much the consummate innkeeper to refuse to greet her with courtesy-- or at least the rough country manners that passed for courtesy in this frontier town.

  "Pleased to meet you, Miss Larner. I trust your accommodation is satisfactory?"

  It made her a little sad, to hear him trying fancy language on her, the way he talked to those customers he thought of as dignitaries, meaning that he believed their station in life to be above his. I've learned much, Father, and this above all: that no station in life is above any other, if it's occupied by someone with a good heart.

  As to whether Father's heart was good, Peggy believed it but refused to look. She had known his heartfire far too well in years past. If she looked too closely now, she might find things a daughter had no right to see. She'd been too young to control herself when she explored his heartfire all those years ago; in the innocence of childhood she had learned things that made both innocence and childhood impossible. Now, though, with her knack better tamed, she could at last give him privacy in his own heart. She owed him and Mother that.