Howard was the happiest of Agnes’s children. Even by the time he was three years old he had unwittingly become the family conciliator. He was not as handsome a child as the twins had been at his age, but he had a rakish look, with one eyelid that was slightly “lazy.” There wasn’t a person in Washburn who wasn’t glad to see Howard as he was taken around town on errands with his mother or with Evie McCauliff, who planned to work for Mr. and Mrs. Scofield until she had children of her own. Sometimes Dwight or Claytor would pull Howard along with them in their wagon, and usually Betts would be just behind them, sometimes with Trudy Butler tagging along as well.
As time went on, Agnes Claytor Scofield began to feel that she had managed to do the very thing that she had been sure would elude her. She had been sure of her failure to obtain it since she was a little girl. But she went about her days beginning to believe that she had managed to create a happy family. And she even believed that it would go on forever and ever.
She remained dedicated to the schedule of her days, mustering her forces against any ambush of chaos. It never crossed her mind to consider the possible untrustworthiness of the love of any of the four children of the household. And she was certain that each of those children knew that he or she was unreservedly beloved by at least one other person in the world— that not one of them could outlive her absolute devotion.
This serene elation was a constant in her life during the children’s younger years. Whatever arguments or squabbles the children were involved in during any one day seemed vastly unimportant to Agnes by evening, when in the summer, for instance, she and Warren sat out on the porch after the baby was in bed. The other children were generally back at Lily’s after supper, where they found a thousand things to do under Lily’s guidance.
Warren always sat in the rocking chair with his long legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, and Agnes generally settled on the swing and pulled her legs up, sitting sideways to the yard. All along the ridge beyond the verge of trees that marked the end of the property, lights began coming on in the windows of the houses in the new section of town that had gradually grown up to the north of Scofields.
Warren and Agnes sat together during that first wave of summer evening quiet that Agnes always thought of as dogs’ hour. The light still sifted palely through the tops of the trees, and each household dog settled down within the boundaries of his own property and spoke across the yards in short bursts of two or three barks delivered perfunctorily, proprietarily, settling the question of territory for this night.
Agnes sat catty-cornered on the swing, swaying now and then by pushing off with her foot. But as the dogs settled in and quieted while their families ate supper, Agnes drew her feet up and lay her cheek down on her arm stretched across the back of the swing. The hour passed from dogs’ hour to bird call—the day falling silent with only the chittering, cooing, and chirrups of the settling nuthatches, mourning doves, chickadees, and the occasional jarring, primeval cawing of the crows. Now and then she and Warren would talk about one thing or another, but all the urgency went out of whatever they might discuss just then.
Agnes would sit and look out at the darkening yard, thinking each moment that she ought to call the children home from Lily’s, or check on the baby. But usually she stayed on, waiting for the dark to fall. And then she and Warren often sat on still, watching as the lightning bugs drifted up from the grasses, through the dark green of the trees like sparks. Eventually the fireflies no longer flickered, and the sky showed a few stars, and the night turned a pale orchid color against all the variations of green and brown vegetation and the gray white houses of Scofields. And always there was a moment when it seemed to Agnes that it wasn’t the case that darkness fell; it was really that the light, all the voices, any complaints—the doings of any particular day—slowly evaporated, leaching upward into the wide, absorbent sky.
The Evidence Against Her Page 30