Fiddler's Green, Or a Wedding, a Ball, and the Singular Adventures of Sundry Moss

by Van Reid

  “It sure does appear, doesn’t it,” he said.

  “Wasn’t his name Robin?”

  “Where did you find it?”

  “On the mantel, big as life.”

  Clarence held it to his ear. “It ticks nicely.”

  “Do you suppose he left it?”

  “Who else?”

  “But did he mean to? Why would he leave a gold watch?”

  Clarence held the timepiece to his ear again and shook his head. “I couldn’t say. I’d better harness up the rig and go after him.”

  “In this weather?”

  “What else?”

  “I’ll get your slicks. Your boots are in the pantry closet.”

  Evie was a little worried when Clarence didn’t show before evening. She had liked their unexpected guest, though she thought him odd, but as the hours passed she began to wonder if odd wasn’t somehow sinister. Several times she thought she heard something and went to the door, and finally she tried to keep her mind occupied and her hands busy by baking that peach pie.

  Clarence came in when she wasn’t looking or listening for him, and her heart jumped.

  “Goodness’ sakes, Clarence!” she shouted from the kitchen. “Where have you been?”

  “Everywhere and all about,” he called from the hall.

  She met him in the pantry and didn’t know whether to “get after him” or give him a kiss. “Did you find him?”

  Clarence looked the smallest bit distressed. He shook his head and produced the gold watch from his pocket. She could hear it tick against the small noises of their house and the sound of rain upon the windows. “He wasn’t so long ahead of me, I didn’t think, but he wasn’t on the road to Dennistown. I went back the other way and talked to some of the fellows down the mill. They got up a little search party and went out in all directions, but not a bit of him.”

  “Where did he get to?” she wondered.

  “I couldn’t say. It’s troublesome to lose a fellow that size. Earl Capp and Beanie McKeevy even went to the swamp over to Moose River.”

  “And nothing.”

  “Nothing.” Clarence shook his head. He held the watch to his ear.

  “What’ll you do with that?”

  “Put it back on the mantel, I guess, and keep it wound against the day he comes back for it.”

  “Odd, it having your initials.”

  “It is odd. It gives me a queer feeling carrying it.” She nodded, but he didn’t think she understood. “It is odd,” he said again. He shook his head and went into the parlor, dripping. He gave a couple of turns to the stem of the watch and set it back on the mantel. He checked his back end, and when he decided that he wasn’t too wet, he settled himself onto the settee. “Fiddler’s Green,” said Clarence to himself. “I hope he finds it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’ll have some pie when it comes out of the oven.”

  57. Men with Little Motive (June 15, 1897)

  Mr. Christopher Eagleton had not intended to walk Spruce Street on his way to the residences of his two long-standing friends Mr. Matthew Ephram and Mr. Joseph Thump, but his feet had (seemingly of their own will) veered in the direction of Mister Walton’s home and the scene of that recent event so famous in the annals of the Grand Society. Eagleton was in fact thinking about the day of the wedding and the ceremony itself, the letter that he had received that morning like a dowsing rod pulling him toward the habitation of its writer.

  Eagleton was tall, and his legs were long; he walked at an admirable pace, his hands clasped behind him, his elbows out, his head erect. He walked with such a brisk step that whenever something warranted more leisurely attention, he usually found that he had walked past the object of his interest and must back up, as it were, to look at it more closely, and so it was that morning when he passed a thoughtful-looking, darkly mustached fellow in an elegant gray suit. The man stood with his back to the street, perusing a letter, which he held out nearly at arm’s length.

  It was the distance between the paper and the man’s nose that first struck Eagleton as familiar; countless times he had seen Ephram reading the Eastern Argus at that exact remove. The gray suit and the handsome gray hat, worn at the most proper angle, also put Eagleton in mind of his friend, and the dark mustaches finished the resemblance so uncannily that Eagleton turned his head, keeping to his excellent velocity, as he passed this fellow and forthwith ran into something broad and solid.

  “Good heavens!”

  “I do beg your pardon!”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Gentlemen!”

  “How careless of me!”

  “Are you injured?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Let me help you up!”

  “Eagleton!”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Thump!”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Ephram! Thump!”

  “How extraordinary!”

  “Once again our paths coincide with uncommon exactness!”

  “My word! I couldn’t have said it better!”

  “Oh, I’m sure you could!”

  “Not at all!”

  “Good heavens, Thump! Let me help you up!”

  “Oh, yes! My letter. No. This is addressed to you, Eagleton.”

  “Thank you, Thump. I must have dropped it.”

  “I couldn’t help but see that it was from our chairman himself.”

  “It is indeed,” said Eagleton. Truthfully, he felt the smallest bit guilty in having received a letter from Mister Walton, as if that honor might have been better bestowed upon one of the other charter members. “I believe it was intended for all of us, certainly,” he added.

  “I was going to say the same about the letter he sent to me,” admitted Ephram, who had been feeling a mix of emotions quite similar to those of Eagleton.

  They engaged in this dialogue, all the while helping Thump to his feet and dusting him off, and did not observe the man who walked toward them on Spruce Street with two horses in tow.

  “I have had similar communication from Mister Walton,” Thump was saying, “similarly communicating to us all.”

  “How very communicative of him!” declared Eagleton.

  “A more thoughtful and gracious chairman could not be had!” intoned Ephram.

  “That’s very good, Ephram.”

  “Thank you, Eagleton.”

  “They had extraordinary weather on their voyage.”

  “Did they?”

  “Not unlike what we were experiencing, in fact.”

  “Extraordinary!”

  Eagleton nodded. “Three very sunny days in a row.”

  “Mister Walton was quite precise as to the moment of their arrival,” said Ephram. He referred to his letter, once he had separated it from Eagleton’s. “And also the times of several salient events as they sailed.”

  “It will not surprise you to hear me say that it doesn’t surprise me.”

  “It won’t surprise you, then, that it doesn’t.”

  “Not at all.”

  Thump made a sound that seemed to indicate some penetrating thought. It was a slight variation from his typical “hmmm,” and Ephram and Eagleton were interested in its motive. Thump appeared to be considering his beard, and his fellow Moosepathians also peered into that remarkable brush, thinking that he had perhaps discovered something unusual there, when he looked up and said in his deep tones, “I, too, am not surprised. But I think I speak for us all when I say that a lack of astonishment in no way indicates that his perpetually gracious behavior is in any way or manner taken for granted.”

  “Bravo, Thump!”

  “Ever in the fore!”

  “It doesn’t surprise me!”

  “Not at all!”

  By this critical juncture in their colloquy they had continued not to observe the man with the two horses, though he stood on the street but a few paces away from their earnest and enthusiastic group.

  “The tides in Halifax are quite extreme
,” said Thump. “According to our chairman.”

  As one, and without any apparent destination in mind, the gentlemen of the club advanced west on Spruce Street, and the man with the two horses fell in just behind them. To the people they met, this fourth man appeared a member of their little group, as much for the pleasure he manifestly took in their company as for his physical proximity. When the party slowed before the Walton home on Spruce Street, the larger horse in the fourth man’s keeping nudged Thump’s shoulder with her muzzle.

  “I beg your pardon,” said Thump.

  “I’m sure it was nothing,” said Eagleton.

  The fishmonger came down the street, his own lazy mare plodding the hard-packed way in half a doze. The horses greeted one another with small, friendly sounds and the monger touched his hat to the man holding the reins of the dark mare and the gelding. The three well-dressed gentlemen in top hats were very taken with the Federal style brick house behind the wrought-iron gate and up the walk. The fishmonger knew that no one had been at home there the last few days, and he rattled his little dray past and continued down the street.

  He was a little way down a knoll in the street when he heard a voice come up from behind him.

  “Mr. Moss!”

  And another: “Good heavens!”

  And a third: “Hmmm?”

  From Mister Tobias Walton

  Halifax, Nova Scotia,

  June 9, 1897

  Dear Sundry,

  The Manitoba made Halifax this morning, and Phileda and I wasted no time in reporting to the government offices for news of recent English steamers in hopes of locating Victor. No word of him has reached this city, however, though the Gawain is expected from Portsmouth (England) in the next day or so, and Phileda says with great confidence that “this is the boat.” I think I will be more surprised than she if it isn’t.

  Halifax is a wonderful place filled with a gracious and warmhearted people. It has, perhaps, a touch more of the Old World about it than our own Portland and so evokes a little mystery for an American. Phileda and I walk the wharves, waiting for Victor’s ship or word of him, listening to the jumble of languages and watching the variation of country and continent represented in the faces of sailors and merchants, and think ourselves in a good book. You will excuse my blush if I admit that it is a pretty good chapter while Phileda is on my arm.

  Though the short voyage from home to here was necessarily dotted with thoughts of my nephew and who he must be and how he might fit into our lives, the trip was not without moments when all matters except those between Phileda and myself were forgotten. We have discovered how we can soak up one another’s worries without really suffering ourselves from what we have taken on. Thus we shoulder one another’s infirmities and troubles without half knowing it. An arch is stronger by far than a free-standing column. (And an old romantic who has spent several days with his romance waxes more poetic by far than he ought to.)

  I hope you are not enjoying your independence from my company too much. Phileda and I are both convinced that your part in Victor’s adaptation to our home and ways will be invaluable, as is your continued friendship.

  Toby Walton

  P.S. Please stay well and away from that “keg” business, whatever it was about. I have had a troubled mind about it.

  Toby

  58. Passport and Verification

  “Well, God rest the man,” said Mabel. “He did ask to be remembered to you.”

  Sundry had yet to take a seat at the kitchen table of the Faithful Mermaid. Standing at the counter with his arms folded before him, he had said very little since hearing that Burne Ring had died in the night. Sundry had ridden into Portland that morning, paid a visit (quite by chance) with the members of the club, and attended to several duties at the Walton home before walking to the Faithful Mermaid, his riding side being a little sore after some days of unaccustomed miles in the saddle. He hadn’t really known the man and hadn’t really liked him for some of the time that he had known him, but he was sad to hear that Burne Ring had passed away.

  Melanie sat at the table with Tim, contemplating lunch. She had hardly left her father’s side since they returned to Portland five days ago. Burne had taken sick again as they trained into Portland, and Mr. Flyce had carried the man to a carriage and paid the driver with the money Mr. Moss had given them. Mrs. Spark had hugged Melanie and cried when the little girl appeared at the back door with her dress on backward and Tim’s old brogues on her feet. Thaddeus himself had looked uncertain about his emotions, blinking and nodding and saying, “Well, now, it’s best you’re back, isn’t it. No doubt about it. You can’t make room for someone without feeling something’s missing when they’re gone. No, it’s best you’re back, and no doubt.”

  When Burne Ring was upstairs again, looking frail and deathlike, Thaddeus stood by the bed for some time with Melanie, one large hand over her shoulders. When Mabel came in with a cloth and a bowl of cool water and a bottle of small beer, saying she would stay with the little girl, the burly taverner leaned down and kissed Melanie on the top of the head before he left the room.

  “You’re awfully good to us, Mrs. Spark,” said Melanie.

  “Hush, now,” said the woman, who was still at the high end of her feelings. “It’s what family does,” she had said with her chin up.

  For the first time in her short life Melanie Ring had a home and a family and people who would take care of her, yet, as she sat there in the kitchen of the Faithful Mermaid on the morning of Mr. Moss’s return, the only family she had ever known was gone. She had never been left alone in the sickroom; Mr. and Mrs. Spark and Davey and the girls all had taken their turns sitting with her. Bobby was too young for such a duty, and Tim—younger still—stood at the periphery of Melanie’s consciousness during those days, looking strange and confused.

  Mr. and Mrs. Spark both had been there when Burne Ring’s too-short candle had blown out. Melanie rose from her chair and leaned over her father, listening, and when Thaddeus suspected and then knew that Burne had died, he took the little girl’s hand. Mrs. Spark breathed as if something heavy were on her chest, but no one cried, just then. There was something that Melanie almost said to them, but she held it back.

  Standing in the kitchen that morning, Sundry Moss knew none of these details, but he could imagine most of them. “Horace and Maven aren’t in the tavern, are they?” he asked Davey Spark when the taverner’s son came into the kitchen with some empty mugs.

  “Haven’t seen them,” said Davey.

  “When you do,” said Sundry, “would you tell Maven that his horse is over on Spruce Street?”

  This intelligence merited an explanation, which explanation merited the whole tale of Dutten Pond as Sundry had lived it. The Sparks came in and out (mostly in) and caught what they could of the narrative in the course of their duties, and Mrs. Spark let a pie burn. They might have been an entire clan of Flyces for their honest amazement. Tim let out several exclamations, one or two of which his mother would have objected to under the spell of less intense curiosity.

  “I could hardly credit it when Melanie told us,” said Mabel.

  “Maven didn’t say a word,” said Thaddeus.

  “I’m not sure as he quite took it in,” said Sundry.

  “Ben Gun should hear it!” said Thaddeus.

  Sundry almost laughed. He had yet to feel wary about the old penny dreadful writer. Mabel laid an overflowing plate on the table and ordered him to sit and eat. Thaddeus heard a call from the tavern, and he and Davey went out to tend the custom. The Spark girls were herded back to their chores, and Mabel turned her back on the table to see to tomorrow’s stew.

  Timothy had fallen to, but Melanie had yet to address her lunch. She was in one of Annabelle’s old dresses, her lengthening hair in a blue bow. Sundry tried to see Mailon in the little girl’s face and realized that she was returning his gaze.

  “I don’t think he had a very happy life,” she said quietly. The thought was meant fo
r his ears only, and if anyone else did hear, he or she did not respond.

  Sundry held his gaze, a fork poised above his plate for some moments before he thought to set it down. “I think,” he said, and he thought a little more before saying, “I think that everything he was ever happy about was rolled up and folded away in you.” He picked up his fork again and considered his plate. He was still thinking.

  Tim glanced from Sundry to Melanie and back again before his mother gave him a look signifying that he should tend to his own business. Her own ears were probably not shut, however.

  “Some people do have trouble being happy, it seems,” said Sundry, almost as if he were thinking out loud. “The rest of us had better be thankful. And it seems to me that you owe it to your father to be just as happy as you can.” He punctuated this opinion with a squinted eye and a shake of his fork.

  Sitting in the kitchen of the Faithful Mermaid with the Spark family about her and with the sturdy presence of Mr. Moss before her, Melanie Ring was not unhappy and perhaps had felt guilty for it. Something in Mr. Moss’s injunction lifted the burden of self-censure from her small shoulders, and the lightening of that weight prompted a lightening in her expression. She would say to someone else, years later and in troubled circumstance, “We owe it to one another to be happy when we can.”

  Or, as Mister Walton would once append to a similar thought, “Why else face trouble?”

  Sundry himself felt a little lighter, and for some reason (and for the first time) he was able to recall dancing with Priscilla Morningside without also knowing a pang of overriding sadness.

  “Your friends from the Moosepath League were by the other day,” said Mabel, and she began to tell of Messrs. Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump’s latest visit.

  Sundry listened happily as he turned his attention to his meal.

  “Do you want to go over to the Oaks?” asked Timothy. He and Melanie were out in front of the Faithful Mermaid, kicking a can back and forth on the sidewalk and stepping aside when anyone came walking by.