“I am sorry about her brother.”
“First battle and Paul gets a bullet in the eye. How’s that for luck?” He drops the glass to the table with a clatter. “Bull Run was supposed to have been it. Remember? People took picnic baskets and sat on the hill. Had beer and sausage while the fifers played.”
I lean forward, press my hand to his arm. “You were good friends.”
“Until he called me a coward. And other things.” He pulls his arm away. Clears his throat and leans his head against the chairback. “Wagon Hill wasn’t steep enough to sled.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No. Too close to the brook. Too short a slide. You’re thinking Tilton Hill. Remember? There was that one birch Bremmer wouldn’t cut down. Right in the middle of the path. If you went too fast—remember when Alice went too fast? God, she went flying off that sled. Straight in the air and thumped to the drift. Just one shoe showing.”
“That couldn’t have been her.”
“Why not?”
“She wasn’t allowed to ride alone. She rode with me.”
“Then I must have taken her myself. Let her go wild once.” He lets loose a laugh, his eyes following the arc of her flight, the candlelight gleaming on his glasses. “That was the last winter Mother . . . I didn’t get supper. Father locked up the sleds. Remember?”
“Where are her things?” I ask.
“What?”
“Alice’s things. Her clothes. Those wooden birds she loved. Her locket. All those journals and sketches. Her things, Lionel?” I set my glass on the table between us. “There’s nothing here of hers.”
“Don’t blame me for her.”
“I don’t blame—”
“You’re the one who left me with her. You and your Union.”
“I wanted more than mending socks and sewing uniforms.”
“And look what it got you.” He slugs his drink. “Now she’s dead. Maybe it’s better. I think it’s better. For everyone.”
I flatten my hand to my thigh and stand. “You’re drunk. I’m going to bed.”
His attention slips, then he shakes his head. “You agreed to the committal.”
“I shouldn’t have.”
“The last time Cathy found her, she was holding Toby out the upstairs window by his wrists.”
“There must have been—”
“Stop making excuses for her.” He lurches up, cradling his drink to his chest with one hand and pulling on his lower lip with the other. “I won’t be made guilty for this.”
“She was covered in bruises, she—”
“I don’t care.”
“Lionel.” I shake my head. “You don’t mean that.”
He drops back to the chair, his head bowed, the glass pinched between his thumb and fingers. “I told her she was going to visit you. To pack her trunk. Bring a coat because it’s cold in Maryland.” His voice rasps and chokes on itself. “I said I hired her a cab. She waited on the porch all that morning and—”
“I can’t hear this.”
I lurch back to my room. It is stifling hot. Stagnant and sour. “My fault.” Three paces to the fireplace. There’s Benjamin, under glass, in his uniform and sporting a grand swoop of beard. “My fault.” A turn to the window. The moon has risen, a dust of gray on the tips of silver birch, on the roof of the boathouse, across the skin of water.
I touch my hand to the pane—the window’s been latched tight. This one over the pond. That one over the garden. I don’t remember closing them. I press the heels of my hands to my forehead, rub at the sweat.
Why would Alice hold the boy out the window? But there wasn’t a why with Alice. The beautiful girl with the jangled brain answered only to herself.
I promised her I’d always be there. I promised.
“My fault.”
Chapter Four
Cathy serves breakfast on the back porch. “To spare us all from the heat,” she says.
To spare us from the dining room and the mirror still festooned in black crepe, I think. To spare us all from grief.
The porch is approached through the narrow ell of the kitchen and down a short flight of steps. It hugs the back of the house, the floorboards and ceilings a patina of blue milk paint and graying wood.
She doles out chicory coffee in measured pours, three quarters of a cup each, and then the milk server is held up. Her left eyebrow raises in question, as if today I will tell her I am fully tired of milk.
“Just a drop,” I say.
“Surely more,” she answers. But there’s a look of relief when I refuse more.
Lionel flips through yesterday’s Statesman, rolling a corner between his thumb and forefinger. Cathy waits, tilting slightly forward, the server tip clinking the rim of his cup.
He glances at it, eyes bloodshot and tired, then back to the paper. She pours the milk—a dram and a dab—before slipping to her own chair and setting the milk to the side.
“No milkman today?” he asks.
“We’re just a little—” She gives a quick nod and reaches her hand to me, covering my own. Her palm is clammy and sticky with sweat. “I hope you slept well.”
How could she ask that? My limbs ache from sleeplessness, from lugging the coffin, from the constant repeating image of washing Alice’s cold hands. Only when the sun rose and tipped the trees did I rest at all, awakened by the sound of Saoirse clanking pans in the kitchen.
“I slept well as could be.”
Toby flips his toast over, pressing it to the plate and smearing jam in concentric circles.
“Toby.” Cathy grabs the plate and holds it up. “There are starving people.”
“Give him the plate.” Lionel doesn’t look up. He pushes his own plate of half-eaten toast rimmed with dried egg yolk to the side.
“There are starving people, Lionel.”
“Give him the plate.”
Toby kicks his heel against the chair leg. He’s lost interest in the plate. He’s absorbed now with the pond. He points at it, then twists round so his elbows catch the top of the chair’s back.
“Nothing moves,” I say. The pond is dark and viscous, disconcerting in its blankness.
The birch leaves are already yellowing, the maples beginning to curl. Reeds and rushes strangle the curve of the east bank while the west rim is a jut of granite and exposed roots, permanently pooled in shadow and black lichen. At the far reach, the pond narrows to a pinched channel, and beyond the channel the waterway makes a sharp bend shaped like a broken finger. The Narrows.
“Toby. Sit.” Cathy’s sigh is long. “I think we should plan the fall garden, get a head start. The fresh air will do you good, Marion.”
“The garden.” I nod, then finish the chicory in a gulp and slide the cup away. Just yesterday, Alice was laid to rest. Now there’s biscuits and blackberry jam. “We can discuss the merits of planting broccoli versus squash.”
Toby lays his cheek on his palm and stares at me. Cathy keeps her head down and picks at the crumbs on her plate. She’s flushed pink. Lionel fiddles with his spoon.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “That wasn’t kind.” My throat tightens. I push the chair back to stand. I know I’ve hurt Cathy; I know Lionel disapproves. He taps his spoon to the tablecloth, tilts his head like Father did when one or the other of us had broken some rule, and purses his lips the same.
“Don’t.” I rise and catch the chairback with my hand, my vision sparking at the edges, the drone of the cicadas beating my ears.
Still he fiddles with the spoon. Tap tap tap.
“Will you join us in town today? For service?” Cathy asks.
“I prefer to stay here.” My mouth fills with an acrid taste. “I’ve some correspondence and . . .”
Lionel leans back, his arms crossed and the spoon flicking in his fingers. A dab of milk beads and then darkens the crease at his elbow. “You should make an appearance. At the very least.”
“Can I stay with Auntie?” Toby slides back to his seat and stares at his fa
ther.
“No, you may not.”
“There is solace there.” But Cathy’s gaze darts away and back as she says it.
“Perhaps for you. Not for me.”
“You should come to town with me one day. Welcome the new headmaster of St. Albans. And his wife.”
“I don’t know her.”
“You know him. Thomas Hargreaves. That student who weaseled himself around your husband. He married last year. Or was it the previous?” Cathy looks at me as if I should know this. “She’s Jenny Wright’s cousin. From Goffstown. I’m sure you know her. Ada?”
“I don’t know her.”
“You’ve been too long away. It will all feel comfortable soon. Won’t it, Lionel?”
“Meet them if you must. I won’t.” I do not add that I hate them; that I hate St. Albans Academy and its perfunctory eviction of Benjamin’s books and my possessions from the dean’s cottage, the solicitous letter that spared little apology. And Thomas Hargreaves—always at the table, uninvited, and always too late in the evening pontificating with Benjamin on Latin subjunctives and the nature of one teacher or another’s morals. “I won’t meet them.”
Breakfast is cleared. After a fuss over Toby’s jacket and Cathy not finding her kerchief, they depart for town. I stare at my bedroom door, waiting for the house to sigh and take a breath. But the building doesn’t settle to silence. It groans and pops, wheezes and moans. Alice once said it was like wood fairies having a dance and a prowl for sweets.
No. That’s not right. I told her that. She had crawled into her wardrobe, and nothing I said lured her out. Not even when I promised that I’d caught the Fairy Queen and locked her in the birdcage.
“It’s just the house, Alice. You’ve heard it all your life.”
“I can’t hear it anymore. I can’t.”
She would scream. I knew it was coming and that Mother was just down the hall, napping, already too ill. I yanked open the wardrobe and crept in, blocking her arms as she flailed her fists in great circles.
“I won’t let them in,” I said. “I’ll keep you safe.”
Her lips tightened against her teeth. I clamped my hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t bite.
“Let me sing you a song, Alice. Let me sing a lullaby and all will be right.”
Now we lay us down to sleep
I pray dear Lord our souls to keep.
She stopped flailing, grew rigid as a board, the flats of her bare feet knocking against the other wall. I lay down beside her. Pulled her hair into ringlets round my finger. I wanted to pull it. She was too old for tantrums; thirteen, already curved like a woman and catching the cooper’s eye.
She screamed anyway, her breath hot against my hand.
I twist to the window, the memory edging away and scuttling under the bed. My skin flushes hot, unbearable under the stays in this horrible black dress that keeps the day’s heat gripped tight in its fist.
Outside is no cooler, but I can stretch my arms and take a full breath. Out back, a few loose chickens stab their beaks to the ground, clawed feet spreading and contracting with each step. Their red feathers are dulled with dust. No matter the flap of wings and the pecks between the quills, still the dust clings. They climb up and over the remains of the glass house, four posts still standing at the corners, up and over the charred boards and black soot and earth, disappearing in the cattails at the water’s edge.
Why has it all not been cleared? Surely a hazard, a strange thing for Cathy to allow to remain. All shards and sharp edges and the glint of danger that called to little boys.
It is like two separate houses: the inside a fuss of brocades and competing wallpapers, glass figurines of goats and rosy-cheeked children, settees reupholstered in damasks, and side tables of tiger maple. The exterior austere and tipping to rot.
I spy a square of fabric, pink and gay, stretched taut between a cracked globe lamp and the curved runner of an overturned rocking chair. It is a piece of quilt. I grip the corner, tugging it loose. The cloth is crusted with soot. The pattern underneath is bright still, calico and plaids, circles and squares, bits of old dresses—Alice’s, mine, a border of singed brown velvet from an old suit coat of Father’s.
I press the fabric to my chest, as if by holding it to my heart I can conjure the days Alice and I pieced it together, when her fingers were losing their childish clumsiness and gaining a young woman’s confidence. When Mother’s hands were plump and quick with the needle, and the three of us worried away the winter hours with small talk of future husbands and what to make for dessert. When Alice still spoke at all.
I crumple the cloth in my fist, shooing off a hen, and turn back to the house. But I hesitate, not wanting to sit inside in the thick heat. Instead, I stride past the vegetable garden, out to the front yard, blinking against the sudden thrust of sunlight. No elm to mitigate the glare, just a broad stump and withered grass. There’s the black crepe on the door, hanging still and limp.
It comes to me then, like a kick to the stomach. Alice is not coming back. She’s in a box in the ground with no light to give her succor. I drop to my knees, push my hands in the dirt, and can’t stop the keen that scrapes my throat.
I want my sister.
Surely there’s a coach. Even on Sunday, there must be at least one. I stumble on a deep rut in the road, glance back toward the house and beyond it the road to Harrowboro. I’ve come far. The dirt shimmers, the heat lifting and swirling. I slow at a copse, aching for shade, for a moment away from the stares of the sheep and the saw of insects.
I have no bonnet, nothing to prevent the burn of sun on my scalp. I unbutton my collar, fan my handkerchief though it’s damp with sweat.
There’s a faint clink of metal, and the clop of hooves. The Runyons must be coming back from church; they are two farms farther up and won’t deny me a ride.
I dab the kerchief to my neck and lips. Smooth my hair. Watch the chestnut nag and cart approach, Mr. Runyon’s blond hair like webbing, the long-stemmed pipe chewed between his teeth. Mrs. Runyon seated behind, just the top of her blue bonnet bobbing.
Mr. Runyon slows the cart and peers down at me. “Where you to?”
Mrs. Runyon settles her new babe to her breast and tilts her head. The bonnet is the only thing soft about her. “Are you well?”
“I was waiting for the coach.”
“Hmph.” Mr. Runyon glances at his wife, then the road behind. He pushes the pipe stem from the one side of his mouth to the other. “There’s no coach of a Sunday.”
“I need the coach.” I raise my hands, then let them fall. There’s a sharp taste of salt on my lip. I’m crying. I’m standing on the Post Road in dust-stained clothes, the handkerchief I hold stinking of soot and charred at the edges.
“Come up back with Essa now. We’ll see you to home, and tomorrow there will be a coach. You can rest assured on that.”
Essa pats the edge of the cart. “Climb on up and meet the new one.”
“I need the coach.”
“Climb on in. Can’t stay out here too long, lest you’re courting sunstroke.” Her voice sways and murmurs, like she’s talking to her babe. “Climb on in.”
She takes my hand as I clamber over the back, pulls me close so our shoulders bump when Mr. Runyon turns us around and the wheels thump and drop.
The babe has a thatch of black hair. Bubbles foam and pop along his pursed lips. He grabs her shawl and lets it go.
“What’s his name?”
“Frederick Hiram.” She gives the boy three pecks on the head and leaves her chin to rest there. “Your brother told us the news.”
“Sorry thing, that.” Mr. Runyon gives a hard clamp on his pipe. “She was a good girl.”
“Better this way, though,” Essa says. “Better for her.”
Frederick Hiram gurgles and squeals.
“Shush, love.”
I squeeze shut my eyes, but there’s Alice, falling from the roof. I open them and stare out at the roll of fields dotted white wit
h sheep. A dark shape slips in the grass. A fox.
I wave the quilt piece. “Leave them be!”
The fox startles and slinks under the bramble, but not without a callow glance at me, yellow eyes near translucent.
The nag huffs a breath and shakes her head, flinging saliva and sodden hay.
The boy’s gurgles turn into a high wail. His skin turns a shade of purple, and Mrs. Runyon lifts him up and plops him down. “He’s got a voice on him, he has.”
“That he has,” Mr. Runyon avers. “That he has.”
Frederick Hiram stops all of a sudden, the sway of the cart lulling him to quiet. His lids droop heavy. Mrs. Runyon pats his back and cuts a quick glance to me, then squints at the dust from the road. Her face is wide and flat, too big under the flap of bonnet, and she bites a loose bit of dry skin on her lower lip, muddling whether to ask why I was wandering the road of a Sunday.
I swallow back a laugh. Maybe I should tell her. I’m off to Brawders House, I’d say. I’m off to the asylum. See if she’ll just nod and pat Frederick Hiram’s back. Maybe she’ll give me a queer look, the one reserved in the past for Alice, now turned toward me.
Or perhaps the boy will choose to scream again, so I keep quiet and watch the pastures until we reach the drive and Mr. Runyon stops and sets the brake.
“Will you not come in?” I ask. “I’m sure Cathy—”
But the words catch in my mouth, like cracked stone. I grip the cart edge. Alice stands at the side of the road, barefoot and clad in a thin cotton chemise. Hands clasped in front of her, red hair parted in the middle, hanging straight to her hips. Rose lips, a spray of freckles, eyes the color of moss.
“Alice.”
Mr. Runyon clambers down from his seat, blocking my view as he walks to the back of the conveyance and unlatches the gate. He reaches a rough-worn hand to help me down.
Still Alice stands there, the skirt of her dress stained black, half-moons of earth under her nails, a swipe of mud on her neck. She stares at her bare feet, then watches as I descend from the cart, my legs tangling in my skirts. My body shakes. I step toward her.
“Give our condolences,” Mrs. Runyon says. She covers Frederick Hiram’s head with her shawl to protect his scalp from the high sun.
After Alice Fell: A Novel Page 4