by Anya Seton
“Nice of you to ask me—” he said. “I hardly expected a welcome home from Portermans. Father sends his respects.”
Hesper’s heart sank. A sharp edge under the polite manner, and a resentful question—"Now what is it you people want of me ? Let’s get it over with.”
She silently led the way into the great kitchen. She stepped aside and Tony, frowning, glanced around the low fire-lit room. Then he saw Carla, sitting on the settle.
“Hello—” she said in a husky, carefully casual voice. She leaned forward a little. “Hello, Tony.”
Hesper could not see the boy’s face. She saw the stiffening of his back, the almost imperceptible quiver that seemed to run through all his muscles like an electric shock. He stood without moving, staring at Carla.
Hesper held her breath. The room seemed to gather itself into a listening stillness beneath the purring of the fire and the ticking of the banjo clock.
She saw the change in Carla’s face that must have answered his. The set smile vanished from her mouth. She gave a little sigh and rose slowly from the settle, moving toward him, her hands outstretched. For one more moment he hesitated, then he said “Hello, Baby” in a harsh, breaking voice and gathered her into his arms.
Hesper stole away from them, and from the old kitchen lit now not only by hearth fire but by the eternal radiance. Tears stood in her eyes, and she walked blindly through to the parlor and gazed out at the sea.
For the next days the force of Carla’s love propelled them all. On the night of their reunion the two young people had talked until past midnight in the old kitchen, and they had decided many things. The next morning Carla phoned her father at his office, and Henry came down to Marblehead by the afternoon train.
They had a conference, the three of them—Carla, Hesper, and Henry, and he had listened gravely to his child. When Carla had finished he turned to Hesper.
“What do you think, Mother?”
“I think that they love each other, and as they’re not suggesting marriage right away, I think you and Eleanor better be reasonable too, and get to know Tony.”
Henry nodded, unsmiling, though his eyes softened as they rested on his daughter’s glowing face. “But it’ll be a bitter blow to Eleanor,” he said.
“I don’t see why!” cried Carla passionately. “Tony’s done awfully well at college. When he gets his degree next year, he’ll be able to get an engineering job most any place. And as for being a Marbleheader, why you were a townie yourself, Father!”
Henry’s heavy face did crease then into a faint smile. “I was, but I doubt your mother’ll think of that. Well, let me talk to this young man. I’m sorry we all got off on the wrong foot two years ago, and after I’ve seen him ... don’t worry, Carla. I’ll break the news to your mother. But maybe you better stay down here a while till she calms down.”
Carla laughed and kissed him. The music of her happy laughter echoed through the old rooms and even affected Walt. He stopped drinking, bathed and shaved, came home to meals, and spared his niece the bawdy cynicisms with which the spectacle of young love usually inspired him. Carla went up to Brookline for a couple of days then returned, reporting that Eleanor was still non-committal, but coming around gradually. Tony was to spend part of the Christmas vacation in Brookline, a prospect he endured for Carla’s sake. At present he was commuting from Marblehead to Boston and his studies at M.I.T., but he saw Carla evenings in the parlor—the proper place for courting, since the weather had grown too cold for the traditional outdoor trysting places. And soon Carla’s joy bubbled into a natural youthful expression. She wanted a party. An early Christmas party. “Marnie—yes. The house hasn’t been gay for a long time. It’ll love it. I’ll do everything. I don’t want you to get tired or worry about it.”
Hesper was tired; the dull pain in her left arm and breast had lately become more persistent. It was perhaps this oppression and tiredness that gave her a curious reluctance to granting Carla’s very natural wish. Perhaps too it was because Carla wanted a costume party, costumes of the periods that the house had seen. Yet that was natural too, in view of the trunks full of old clothes in the attic. And Carla was efficient and eager to handle everything. There were no valid objections, and Hesper of course consented, ignoring a quiver of foreboding which persisted.
The party was set for December 18, and the guests invited. Not many, for Carla knew few of the Marblehead youngsters, and the only Neckers would be young people from two families who had heated houses and opened them for Christmas.
But the people did not matter to Carla as long as Tony was there. She was possessed to fill the house with gaiety and light and music, and to re-create for it the days of its greatest glories.
She spent an energetic day in Salem, buying dozens of bayberry candles, red streamers, and provisions. She sent to Boston for holly wreaths and mistletoe. She went to the Abbot Hall library and looked up books on the American past. She reluctantly gave up the idea of having syllabubs, and port flips, but she bought a huge turkey which must be stuffed with chestnuts and oysters, and cooked on the spit in the old way, and the brick oven long disused must be fired again to bake the beans. She unearthed Zilpah Honeywood’s recipes for Christmas cake and brandied mincemeat and mixed them herself, though the prescribed aging must be omitted.
Several days before the party, Carla and Hesper went up to the attic to look at costumes—which were not costumes but real clothing worn by Honeywoods.
It was fairly warm in the attic, heated by the great stone chimney, and a startled wasp buzzed feebly amongst the rafters. The great hand-hewn rafters were furry with dust and giant cobwebs quivered between forgotten dangling bunches of dried rosemary and dill.
“Mercy on us—” said Hesper, smiling, and attacking the nearest cobweb with an old twig besom she picked from a corner. “Ma’d have had a fit if she saw this. I’m afraid I never have been a good Yankee housekeeper.”
“You are too,” said Carla, laughing. “And you’re a wonderful cook.”
“Oh, that’s nothing. A dash of this and a grummet of that. It’s a knack; besides, you will be too.”
“Do you remember—” said Carla, twirling a creaking spinning wheel, “how we used to tour the house when I was little? You told me stories about the Honeywoods—made everything seem so real. Of course it was real. About my own ancestors. That made me very proud.”
She walked to the east corner and touched the hood on the long, outsized cradle. “Gran’s cradle,” she said with amusement. “Did you really rock her in it when you were small?”
Hesper nodded, leaning on the broom handle. The pain ran through her chest and down her arm. I must be more careful, she thought, waiting for it to pass. Once the child’s party’s over...
“Yes, I did,” she said. “It kind of scared me then. Seemed so crazy. But now I don’t know. You get old, Carlie, and all you want are the old things you’ve always known—and rest.”
“Well, I can understand that,” said the girl. “I’ve always felt so safe here. Really home.” She threw open a trunk lid, said “Whew” to the wave of camphor, and began to rummage through piles of quilted bodices and homespun petticoats. It was not the trunk she wanted. She was looking for the rich brocaded and panniered clothes from Moses Honeywood’s time. These homespuns were from an older day, maybe even Phebe’s. As she dropped the lid she spoke reflectively.
“I sometimes think of Phebe. It seems so strange to have her things—when she’s been dead for hundreds of years. Where’s Arbella’s letter about her, Marnie?”
Hesper thought a moment. “Why I guess it’s in that wooden chest with the iron hinges over there by the warming pan. I’ve not looked at it in ages. I always meant to put it someplace safer in case of fire, but I don’t know where would be safer—is it there?”
Carla had lifted the stiff, heavy lid, after dragging the whole chest over by the window. She nodded, pulling out a long, yellowed envelope, inscribed in Roger’s cramped hand. “Portion of letter written in 1630
by the Lady Arbella Johnson to her sister Lady Susan Humphrey, concerning my fourth greatgrandmother, Mistress Phebe Honeywood. The letter is apparently written from Salem.”
“Well, read it aloud, if you can make it out,” said Hesper sitting down on a trunk. It was good to rest; she leaned her head against the wall.
The girl crouched over the letter, frowning at the faded brownish ink, the unfamiliar spellings and's’s. She read slowly, guessing at some of the words.
“No word yet from home, so I write thee again ... by the Master of the ‘Lion.’ I try to keep my thoughts from harking back, but ... I can not, this is my shame for there be many here who are braver.
“There is great sickness, and I pray for the babe I carry. I ... endeavour to strengthen my spirit in the Lord God who led us here. He ... hath vouch—vouchsafed to me a friend. This, one Phebe Honeywood, wedded to one of the adventurers, a simple yeoman’s daughter and a most brave and gentle lass ... a fine delicate spirit, and God is closer to her than she knows. She hath been an inspiration to me, having a most sturdy courage to follow her man anywhere, and found a lasting home.
“O my dear sister, it is such as she who will endure in my stead, to fulfill our dream of the new free land, such as she whose babes will be brought forth here to found a new nation ... while I—too feeble and faint-hearted...”
“That’s all,” said Carla softly. Her eyes glistened, and she folded the letter and put it back in Roger’s envelope. “Arbella did die, didn’t she?” “Yes,” said Hesper.
The girl was silent a minute; then she burst out. “But why? It doesn’t seem fair. You can see she was a wonderful person. Why couldn’t she be happy too? Why can’t we all stay happy!”
Ah, I forget how young she is, thought Hesper. Why do we all have to start with rebellion, and frantic strivings? How long it takes to get ever the sentimental delusion of “fairness.”
“I don’t know, Carlie—” she said, “but we can’t. Have you found the clothes you want?”
The girl shook her head; she stared down with troubled eyes at the rough dusty floorboards. “Marnie, Tony thinks we’re going to get into the war. He told me last night, he wants to go. He’s going to train to be an aviator.”
Hesper sank back on the trunk. So that’s it. Again and again and again. The long years melted, and sharply against the attic wall, she saw Johnnie in his blue uniform, standing at the depot platform with a hundred others, and chiding her for tears. But though he had not returned, most of the others had. And though the pattern repeated, its interwoven strands were never the same.
“Well—” she said with deliberate tartness. “If there’s a war, he doubtless will. If there’s reason to fight, men fight.”
“But we’ve just found each other again. I can’t bear—” “Fiddlesticks, Carla. You’ve got as much grit as anybody. Right here in this house there’s been plenty of people bearing things, from Phebe on down. And it helps to think about the others, because we’re never really alone, we’re part of all those that are gone, and here now, and coming. I think you’ll learn that quicker than I did, because you’ve got more sense to start with.”
“Marnie!” Carla gave a startled choking laugh. Their eyes met for a moment, in that flash communication that transcends the barrier between all human beings; then they both turned at once, and looked at the still uninvestigated boxes in the corners of the attic.
“I wonder if that pink satin dress isn’t in that cowhide thing over there,” said Carla, and knelt down to investigate.
All Saturday the house was in an uproar, as Carla and her helpers prepared for the party that night. Dilly was there from Clifton, and Dilly's sister too, and Walt was pressed into unwilling service. Carla, noting how pale and drawn her grandmother looked, had insisted that Hesper remain quietly in her room, only interrupted every few minutes by anxious consultation. Would they have had flowers around for decoration in the old days? Certainly not in December, said Hesper.... What on earth were you supposed to do with the grease and drippings off the spitted turkey ? Catch them in the tin trough that must be stacked with the other unused hearth furniture in the bottom of the oak dresser.... Uncle Walt had forgotten to build a fire under the brick oven as he’d promised. Was it too late to put in the beans now? No, said Hesper, they’d be done by nightfall.
Through her half-opened door she heard Carla relay this to Walt in the kitchen, and his sulky thick-tongued rejoinder. “What d’you want to go to all that trouble for! God-damn old oven’s got a crack in the back of it anyhow.”
“Oh please, Uncle Walt. The beans taste so much better, and I promised Tony I’d show him how it worked.”
“Tony!” repeated Walt in disgust. His few days of reform had worn off, and his fondness for his niece by no means balanced the effects of the rum he had been drinking half the night.
“Walt!” Hesper called imperatively. He slouched to the door, and stood scowling on the threshold.
“You know how to fix the bricks in the back of the oven. You used to do it for me. Then please build a fire for Carla. She’s got her heart set on having this party like the old days.”
“Oh whip!” muttered Walt. “She going to serve a stinking hagdon stew, and send her guests out to the privy like the old days too?”
“Do as I say!” said Hesper sharply. “There’s little enough I ask you to do around here.”
Walt hunched his shoulders, gave her a bleary look, and as he turned he stumbled. She gazed after him with resigned pity knowing how painful must be the contrast now between the two he had fished out of the storm seven years ago. Carla’s happiness with one must increase the bitterness of his failure with Maria. Later she saw him shambling in from the wood shed with an armful of firewood, before she shut her eyes for a few minutes’ nap. The sense of foreboding very often accompanied a weakened heart, the doctor said, and had no more sinister basis. She might live for years with rest and medication. Nothing very wrong organically. Yet no amount of reasoning entirely vanquished the persistent quiver of apprehension. I’ve got the shogs, she thought, smiling back through the years to Susan. I’ll be hearing the screechin’ woman next. She slept for a little while and awoke refreshed.
The guests arrived at six, and the old house, all its rooms opened and cleansed and garnished, gave them a glowing welcome. A welcome of candlelight, and hearth fire. All the doors were decorated with holly wreaths and, inside, all the rooms were fragrant with pine boughs. Carla had hung mistletoe bunches from the center beams in the taproom and kitchen and from the chandelier in the parlor. Though her historical researches and Hesper’s memory had disclosed that Christmas trees were never part of the traditional ceremonies until after the Civil War, she had not been willing to forego one, and a seven-foot spruce stood near the spinet in the parlor, its dark branches sparkling with gold and silver filigree balls, festooned with ruby strings of cranberries, and the fluffy white of popcorn. Each branch was tipped with tiny candles.
The whole house was lit with candles, and the perfume of bayberry mingled with burning cedar on the hearths, the smell of the browning beans, and of the mammoth turkey. Golden brown and luscious, it still rotated on the spit, run by the old clockwork pulley Carla had several days ago persuaded Walt to set up. And the house greeted its guests with soft Christmas music, not from a squeaky fiddle or the cracked old spinet—Carla’s respect for the past had not gone that far. She had rented a small piano and hired a pianist from Lynn, establishing them in the taproom which was cleared now of tables for the dancing later.
The dozen or so young people from the Neck arrived first with their house guests. Carla had lent the girls some clothes from the attic, and they had enthusiastically adorned themselves in a medley of quilted skirts, brocade bodices, earrings, and poinsettias in the hair, for a picturesque if hardly authentic result. Of the young people invited from the town, Cloutmans and Bowens and Peaches, the girls had ransacked attic trunks as Carla had, and most of them wore their mothers’ or grandmothers’ we
dding gowns. The young men were mostly Tony’s school friends, and he had rallied them for Carla’s sake into overcoming the normal male objection to dressing up, by a simple compromise. The result was a shock to Hesper.
She sat on the mohair sofa in the parlor next to Charity Trevercombe, and together they watched the arrival of the young people. As the Marblehead boys came up to pay their respects, Hesper gave a stifled exclamation. She did not see the polite young faces, bowing in front of her, she saw only the heavy leather pants, the red flannel shirts, black scarfs, and knitted “Gansey” jackets—the Sunday best clothes of the old Marblehead fishing fleet.
“Charity—do you remember?” she whispered.
Charity nodded. “Yes—it takes one back a long time!” And she put her puffy beringed hand for a second on Hesper’s. An unusual gesture and admission from Charity, whose philosophy permitted no mention of age. She had grown very fat, and still dressed as she pleased in youthful styles. She used rouge on her cheeks, and she tinted her white hair to a faint straw color. For all that, she had achieved a true serenity, born of the years’ determined practice of it. The warmth of shared memory helped Hesper to smile a little over the unexpected stab of nostalgia—for that other party the night the slave-catcher came, the night before Johnnie and the other young seamen sailed off for the spring fare. Only those young men had not been in costume.
“Fifty-eight years ago, Charity—” she said. “We were sixteen.”
But Charity was not prepared to go that far. “There is no age in eternal life, Hesper,” she said severely. “We’re no older than our thoughts.”
Hesper smiled, watching the young folks. Carla looked lovely in Zilpah Honeywood’s imported London gown of brocaded rose satin trimmed with lace ruffles. She had powdered her hair and the two little curls that hung down her neck. So delicate and porcelain-like did Carla look in the Watteau style of 1750, that it was astonishing that she could eat so much turkey and beans, thought Hesper with amusement. Astonishing too that later when she danced with Tony, the clumsy fisherman’s clothes did not seem incongruous next to the brocade. But the clothes suited the boy, or rather Tony’s personality would always eclipse his surroundings. Now that love had banished the truculence he had shown earlier, his intelligent face was extremely attractive. He was a doer, not a dreamer, but his sense of humor would always counterbalance the streak of rashness and stubborn pride. She watched him maneuver Carla under the mistletoe as they waltzed together, and saw the tenderness of the quick kiss they gave each other, and she felt in her own heart a warmth and gladness.