Pinkerton's Sister

by Peter Rushforth

  Sometimes Papa’s “friend” would be waiting on the other side of the Gate. Sometimes he would come with them, meeting them on the way there, loitering somewhere so that Mama would not see him. It was the way that children made assignations with disapproved-of friends, friends – the Huckleberry Finns of Longfellow Park – made all the more attractive by that disapproval. The door would be locked behind them, and they would begin to move out into the world beyond the wall, further and further into the world of The Pilgrim’s Progress that had taken shape around them during the first winter, and continued to grow throughout the spring that followed. The Hill Called Difficulty was completed and the excavated earth from the Valley of Humiliation and the Valley of the Shadow of Death was transported nearer the lake to make the Delectable Mountains. The Valley of Humiliation and the Valley of the Shadow of Death were completed almost simultaneously, and it was on another night of a full moon that they had walked through these valleys for the first time.

  They walked through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and past the mouth of Hell, along a narrow pathway with a deep ditch on the right-hand side, and a quagmire on the left-hand side.

  They left the Valley of the Shadow of Death and went into the cleared space in the middle of a group of former stables, where Vanity Fair was being constructed. Carpenters had fitted shop frontages into the buildings, and market stalls – the wood of them still raw and unpainted – were lined up in the little cobbled square.

  As the landscape unfolded in the course of the next few weeks, the year moving on toward summer, they traveled further into it – the Plain Called Ease, Lucre Hill, the Pillar of Salt (the big wet tongue slurped yum-yummily), By-Path Meadow – until, in the very early summer, Papa and Papa’s “friend” took her and Annie inside the Celestial City for the first time, crossing the River of Death to reach it. The River of Death was the same small stream that formed the River of the Water of Life further upstream, but here it was wider, spreading out into the flatter land before it began to flow into the lake. There was a stiff evening breeze on this particular evening, and – in the nighttime quietness – they could hear the water of the lake slapping against the shore, like waves on the edge of a small sea, and the leaves of the trees rustling.

  Papa was watching Annie closely as they made their way back, sensing her apartness. When they paused, just inside the wall, before they went back through the door and onto the path opposite Verbrugge Woods, he began his catechism. There was always a catechism, unfailingly undergone. It went with the key turning in the lock, the men’s hats being placed back on their heads, the surrounding silences.

  “What will happen if you tell anyone what has happened?”

  “The wind will get me, sir.”

  Annie had been told that a silent nod was no longer sufficient. Papa needed to hear her voice now.

  “And will you ever tell anyone what has happened?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You cannot escape from the wind. You know that, don’t you? Wherever you try to go, whatever you try to do, the wind will always find you. Even a gentle wind, even a breeze, barely enough to ruffle the leaves on the trees.”

  He lowered his voice, and whispered.

  “Even a whisper.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Especially a whisper.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  14

  The Pilgrim’s Progress landscape was finally completed, one month after Alice and Annie had been taken all the way to the newly converted Celestial City for the first time by Papa and his “friend,” and the annual summer performances began. “We’re going to the Celestial City,” he had said the first time they’d gone through the Gate – back in the previous fall – but the City had not been built then, and they had moved only gradually through the pages of the book, journeying further and further as the toiling frogs labored ever closer to the edge of the lake.

  The Pinkertons were invited to the very first of the week’s performances, a gala opening, as special guests of the Goodchilds. The whole family went. Servants were also invited. It was felt to be a wholesome and educational experience, particularly suitable for the servant class, although – as the Reverend Goodchild delicately phrased it – “Our dusky brethren would, I am sure, be more comfortable within a religious experience with their own people.” They had no servants with them, however. Annie had stayed at home to care for Ben. The Finches also went – baby Linnaeus, like baby Ben, remaining at home in the care of a servant – and Alice was pleased when Charlotte came up beside her as they stood in the forefront of the crowd near the door in the wall. She’d much rather be with her than with Allegra and Edith, who – unaccountably, most annoyingly – were still there. She had really been counting on the company of Ishmeelites from Gilead to arrive with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh (she’d wanted to find out what myrrh looked like: she’d seen gold and – less easy to find, this – frankincense) to carry them away to enslavement in Egypt. They could so easily have been rolled up in carpets – feet kicking furiously – and slotted conveniently between a camel’s humps, but the merchantmen had let her down, the wicked, quaint fruit-merchant men.

  The Reverend Goodchild was making a speech, but she heard little of what he was saying.

  She was looking at what she had once seen by moonlight.

  The crowds she had imagined lining beside the wall to enter the door were now there. The Hudson Valley Chronicle had given extensive publicity to the opening. The previous week’s edition had contained a long interview with the Reverend Goodchild. It was strange to see those crowds, something she had pictured in her head, happening in front of her in reality: imagination given physical shape. She had tried to make Lizzie Galliant real – she had concentrated really hard to make her appear – but had never succeeded. “No,” Lizzie would say, like the Lizzie in “Goblin Market,” “no, no, no.” “You’re Bet, You’re Betty, You’re Lillibet,” Alice would hum, “(But You’ll Always Be Lizzie to Me).” “What ails you, child?” Lizzie Galliant would ask. “Be not afeard. I am Lizzie Galliant. Strong men fall powerless before me!” The crowds were thickest in front of the door in the wall, overflowing into the spaces beneath the trees in the nearest part of Verbrugge Woods. Boys had climbed into the lower branches. Once she had expected warmth from the cool light of the moon; now she thought the summer sunshine should chill.

  Knock And It Shall Be Opened Unto You.

  Everyone was staring at the painted board above the door. There was a burst of applause as the Reverend Goodchild finished his speech. He said something to the reporter at his side, who had been scribbling furiously in his notebook throughout the speech – a long-cherished dream, sharing with our neighbors in Longfellow Park, a Goodchild heritage, spiritual, moving, should be regarded as Pilgrims, Pilgrims with a capital “P,” our journey through life, Goodchild, great tradition of the Mystery Plays in Europe, a sort of miracle, enter as in a church, Gate with a capital “G,” gentlemen’s hats should be removed, Goodchild, the Lord walking amongst us: this was more or less the gist of it – and then moved up to the door.

  A hush fell as he lifted his hand, casting a hugely magnified shadow on the surface of the door. The photographer from the newspaper arranged the legs of his camera tripod carefully, and then disappeared under the black cloth. Something always made her think of ostriches when she saw photographers doing this, particularly when they had long, lanky legs like the one in front of her. There was something of a lacuna, as the Reverend Goodchild gave muttered instructions – he seemed to have definite ideas about the photographs that he wanted taken – and the crowd waited.

  Charlotte wriggled, and stared about her, waving at people she knew. Well-behaved children, in the care of their parents, made small, constrained gestures in reply, like secret signals. The Reverend Goodchild stood motionless, smiling, each time the photographer prepared to take a picture. His smiles were always exactly the same size and shape. He was like Washington Thoroughgood in
his bakery store, who had the gift of being able to divide a cake into perfectly equal segments, like a mathematical diagram in a schoolbook, over and over. Mama sometimes threatened to bring him to the house when she and Allegra quarreled, unable to agree who had the larger portion of pie.

  When the photographer expressed himself satisfied, the Reverend Goodchild, the smile once more in position – it was one of those beneficent, glowing smiles, the sort favored by the artists who illustrated the colored pictures of saints that were distributed by Sunday-schools – gave a signal, an upward gesture with his outspread arms, like someone bestowing a blessing, and stood, waiting for something to happen. He did not have to wait long.

  Faintly, through the trees from an inner part of Verbrugge Woods, the voices of a choir could be heard. People began to turn round, to face in the direction from which the voices were coming, and those on the outer margin of the woods began to move to one side. A boy fell out of one of the trees in a shower of leaves, probably shot down. The voices became louder, the words clearer, as the choir drew near.

  “Who would true valor …”

  – valour –

  “… see

  Let him come hither;

  One here will constant be,

  Come wind, come weather.

  There’s no discouragement,

  Shall make him once relent,

  His first avowed intent,

  To be a pilgrim …”

  (A problem with accuracy belatedly occurred to Alice. Would the spelling be “valor,” when the words were spoken, with an American accent? Spelling and punctuation were set about with hazards to trip up the unwary. She was never quite sure when to use “as if it was” or “as if it were” – that sort of construction – and this niggled away, somewhere at the back of her mind. She felt much happier when things were right and wrong with a mathematical purity, to know that she had written something that was precisely right, as if she was – as if she were – a singer knowing that her voice was singing perfectly in tune. As if she was … As if she were … Sometimes, what ought to be the right alternative seemed wrong. The spelling of “minuscule” had long bothered her.)

  Charlotte leaned forward, peering through the trees, and then squealed, tugging at Alice’s sleeve.

  “Sobriety Goodchild! Sobriety Goodchild!”

  Mama frowned a little, looking down at her, but Alice and Charlotte stood like girls transfixed, staring as the massed ranks of the Goodchilds and Griswolds advanced through the trees, like an army of frogs into Egypt, singing “To Be a Pilgrim.” They were ready for anything that Satan might throw at them, braced to repulse diabolical attack.

  Having heard rumors that the vast majority of the Goodchild family would be taking part in the performance, they had been on the alert for any sign of Sobriety, but had not expected to be rewarded quite so soon. They had come hoping to be amused by the sight of Sobriety looking unaccustomedly bashful and self-conscious, forced into a public display by his ambitious parents, like a shy child (though Sobriety Goodchild was anything but this) made to recite a comic monologue in front of assembled guests. What they saw was even funnier, far better than they had hoped for, something to hold onto and treasure the next time he hurt them or made them cry. He was one of the big boys at school – lumpish, grunting – and preserved a ruthless hierarchy. Henry Collis, the supposed bad boy of the school, protected them from him with a courtly, gentlemanly grace.

  The choir, as it emerged from between the trees, was composed entirely of Goodchilds and Griswolds dressed as angels, and Sobriety Goodchild was one of the angels. It was the worst sight they’d seen (they realized, with delight) since Stephanotis Fassenden – Henry Collis always said that her first name sounded like a disease caught by cattle – recited “I’m a Little Wittle Girlie, and the World’s a Big, Big Place” (to great acclaim) in front of the assembled parents at school whilst dressed as a baby. (Given half a chance, Alice would have brained the Little Wittle Girlie with a Biggy Wiggy Boulder, smashing it down on her Little Heady Weddy until it was a Bloody Pulpy Wulpy. She got really annoyed sometimes.) The memory of the Little Wittle Girlie had darkened Sobriety’s mind, lingering there jealously for all those years until he had launched Serenity upon an aghast world, not so Little, not so Wittle, but gruesome in her Girliness. Now, however, it was he who was Little, he who was Wittle, he who was an angel choiring angel sounds. He was wearing a long white gown, holding a golden harp, and a halo, the rim of a straw hat painted gold, was placed at a rakish angle upon his head.

  Sobriety was attempting to cultivate an expression of pious innocence, large-eyed and limpid, like a homeless puppy on a sentimental calendar, or one of Mrs. Alexander Diddecott’s soulful waifs. His hands were clasped prayerfully against his chest, his fingers daintily tucked in, and his head was slightly lowered, like that of a modest pupil pretending to ignore the exclamations of wonder at his precocious brilliance. His eyes were shifting about, looking for old ladies to send into ecstasies. When he caught sight of Alice and Charlotte his expression briefly altered to the one they recognized from the schoolyard – his lower lip protruding with sulky belligerence – but he (unlike Henry Collis) would be entering Otsego Lake Academy at the end of the summer, and would not be lying in wait behind the chestnut trees anymore.

  “What an adorable child!” Charlotte remarked to no one in particular.

  Charlotte!

  Miss Ericsson pressed her pocket-handkerchief against her lips.

  She heard Charlotte’s voice from what seemed like long ago, indicating a faded green-painted door, and saying, “That’s where Sobriety Goodchild lives. Uuurgh!” His voice, very loud, and very flat, was audible above all the others, bellowing, “Nooo liiion caaan him friiight!” He showed far more expression, far more enthusiasm, but – sadly – little more tunefulness, when he sang – as he often sang – about the premature death of a mother. His inadequately anchored wings – slightly grubby – wobbled noticeably on the higher notes, and dipped to one side. He passed quite close to them – “Coochi, coochi, coo!” from Charlotte – and aimed a surreptitious blow with his harp, but missed.

  “He looks …”

  Charlotte stopped, and began to giggle, overcome by the daring of her imagination.

  “He looks … He looks like …”

  She struggled vainly for a while, and then managed to complete her sentence, ending with a shriek, and then collapsing into quivering, whimpering laughter.

  “He looks like a constipated sheep!” “Constipated” – really, Charlotte, and just before The Pilgrim’s Progress! – was a decidedly risqué choice of word.

  Charlotte shook helplessly beside her, uttering stifled choking sounds, tears coursing down her cheeks. She could be – at unpredictable moments – a terrible giggler, and – several times in church – had received glares from Dr. Vaniah Odom that would have felled a lesser being, that would – in fact – have poleaxed a constipated sheep. When this happened Alice felt sure that Lizzie Galliant did walk on earth after all, in the shape of Charlotte Finch.

  “A constipated sheep!” Charlotte wailed, barely able to speak.

  The angels were now gathered in front of the Reverend Goodchild, like carol singers informally greeting a householder. There was a memory from the previous year, of three little girls standing at the bottom of a flight of steps, as a door swung silently open, and a shadow reached down toward them to the sound of the wind in the branches of the trees. In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god. The Reverend Goodchild paused, savoring the moment, a man posing to be photographed again, and the photographer took the hint. Once more a hush fell upon the crowd. An infant was crying somewhere at the back of the crowd, and the Reverend Goodchild frowned a little, fearing the photographer might record the sound, and spoil the effect at which he aimed. Alice could feel Charlotte far-gone in giggles.

  As he had done before, the Reverend Goodchild raised his hand. As he had done before, he cast a huge shadow on the su
rface of the door. He knocked three times, each knock carefully spaced out and weighted with authority, and Mrs. Albert Comstock, Looking Delighted, boinged out like a gigantic jack-in-the-box – some of those springs were really strong – and opened the Gate Unto him. “Looking Delighted” was the phrase that the Hudson Valley Chronicle – the editor, by a remarkable coincidence, was her brother-in-law – always employed to describe her reaction on one of the many occasions when she was being presented with a bouquet at some church festivity (this was before she had transferred her allegiance to a more fashionable Fifth Avenue church), or just lending the radiance of her presence to an otherwise unremarkable event.

  Mrs. Albert Comstock, looking delighted, presented the prizes.

  Mrs. Albert Comstock, looking delighted, listened to the choir.

  With that same expression she would, if asked – had Longfellow Park offered such opportunities to shine – have launched ships, welcomed visiting heads of state, or (Looking Particularly Delighted on this occasion) declared war. No one seemed surprised that it should be Mrs. Albert Comstock presiding at the first performance of The Pilgrim’s Progress. (“How unexpected,” Mr. Brittain muttered behind them, dryly, in the voice of a man whose worst fears were being realized.) There was a burst of applause, loudest from those who were nearest to the Goodchilds and Griswolds. Mrs. Goodchild, Looking Not Quite So Delighted, appeared behind her and attempted to thrust her face into any part of the gateway – or Gateway – that was not blocked by Mrs. Albert Comstock. This did not leave her with much space, and she was driven to jumping up and down, and appearing intermittently in the top left-hand corner, a woman demonstrating the bounciness of a newly purchased springboard, her hair gradually falling loose. There he was again, that little boy with the iron pen aiming for St. Cassian of Imola. If his target had been the size of Mrs. Albert Comstock the poor, deprived lad would have been in with a chance of a decent stab. The pen nib would have made quite a squelch.