by Van Reid
Yet she had heard these past few nights some strange sounds that were difficult to pass off as the voice of an owl or the wind in the limb of a tree, and she began to wonder what Bird had brought with him or, rather, what had followed him here.
Or was it simply her own sense of motherly love and sadness? She had lost two children herself and could well imagine that had she gone first, some part of her might have hung about to see that her babies were well cared for. She had little use for superstition, but somehow she was utterly convinced that Bird’s mother was dead and half convinced that some aspect of her, like a sleeping memory, was searching for him but had not yet quite found him.
Lydia could see the little fellow from the parlor where she was knitting, this being Sunday and a certain amount of reflective activity on the Sabbath being part of her upbringing. She was just considering if she should call him in when she saw Bird turn about on the porch and step inside.
At first she was startled, sure that something had happened to Wyck, but then the a blow came again, and she was simply puzzled. Bird appeared at the parlor door, and she told him to come in with a warm note in her voice. He looked out the parlor windows as he passed them, still watching for Wyck.
“When the snow goes,” she said, “we are making more effort to get to church.” She fell to counting stitches and only caught the boy’s quiet reaction to her announcement by the comer of her eye.
He stood in the middle of the parlor floor for some time before speaking. “Are you Wyck’s mother?” he asked. This made her look up. “Yes, of course,” she said. “You know that.”
The reply was not a reprimand, but Bird sat on the edge of a chair and looked down, an unconscious sort of expression she had seen in her own children when they feared another’s displeasure.
“Bird,” she said, “there’s no fault in asking questions.” The retreat inward, so clear upon his face, had struck her fiercely.
“Are you my mother?” he asked.
Now she felt the wind had been rushed from her. There was the space for two or three long breaths. He was looking down at his knees, his feet dangling a few inches from the floor. “Oh, dear,” she said under that third breath. “Do you know Mister Walton sent you something a few days ago?” she asked. “I’ve only been waiting for the right moment to give it to you.”
He looked interested, but vaguely, as if he could not offer more until he knew more, and here was an indication to his character or what had been formed of his character by living in cellar holes with madmen and criminals.
She didn’t know why she hadn’t shown him the picture when it had arrived-ore than a few days ago, to be truthful. The portrait had existed with him in Eustace Pembleton’s strange den beneath Fort Edgecomb, and she suspected that it was a sign of that furtive life, which must have been of equal portions dullness and fear. Partly she worried that it was an object of morbid interest; partly (she must admit to herself) she was somewhat jealous, even of this image that might steal his thoughts from herself and her son.
“You stay here and watch for Wyck,” she said, and she set her knitting aside and went to the front hall closet. The picture was wrapped in brown paper, but she could see Bird’s interest increase severalfold when she returned with it. It was not the original portrait; Mister Walton had that in his own keeping, as he was the person coordinating the search for the woman it represented. The picture Lydia unwrapped was a photograph of the portrait, which Mister Walton had gone so far as to have tinted after the original.
The woman’s face came to the dim light of the parlor, and Bird left his chair to gaze at it closely, his features almost without expression.
Her hair was darker than Bird’s, but they shared the large brown eyes and the full lower lip, which was curved in the portrait into a gentle smile. She looked a little downward and to one side, her hands resting in her lap. The pale green of her dress seemed to melt into the atmosphere of the picture. There was more than the cast of a cheek or the color of an eye, however, that joined Bird with this lovely woman; there was a quality of sweet introspection in both their faces, a natural disposition to smile, however mildly.
“Is she my mother?” asked Bird very plainly.
“We do think so,” said Lydia. She turned her head to one side as she studied him. “Do you?”
He thought about this, then said, “She’s very pretty.”
“Yes, she is,” Lydia agreed, and surprisingly, she had the sudden wish to have the young woman in the room with them.
“Do you know where she is?” asked Bird. In some ways this was more conversation than she had ever had with him.
“We don’t. I’m sorry. But wherever she is, here or in heaven, she loves you, I know.” Lydia considered the portrait again; its very existence seemed to indicate some gentility in its subject, yet how did the boy, who bore such a strong resemblance to this woman of class, arrive in the grimy hands of Eustace Pembleton, living a furtive life along the wharves of Portland?
Bird fairly drank in the lovely face.
“Would you like me to put it on the wall, so that you can look at it when you want?” she asked. She barely registered his nod. “I’ll do that,” she said, then noticed that Wyck stood in the parlor door.
They had not heard when he ceased chopping or when he entered the house. Usually, after his sessions with the ax, he retired to his room, hiding his sweating gray pallor. This morning he came into the room and sat in a chair opposite the picture. He leaned his forearms upon his knees, as if catching his breath, his red hair wet.
“You brought it out,” he said, and sounded, by his tone, as if he thought it should have been brought out sooner.
Lydia said nothing; she was a little angry with him suddenly. She was almost angry at Bird, though he couldn’t be held responsible for the extra burden on her heart.
“Come here,” said Wyck, and the little boy climbed into the big man’s lap. Together they considered the woman in the picture, and quite surprisingly Bird fell asleep.
“Didn’t he sleep?” asked Lydia.
Bird shared a room with Wyck, and Wyck, Lydia knew, did not sleep well, so that he would know the state of Bird’s night. “He snored half the night,” said the man.
“There’s a lot to tire him out, I suppose, poor little fellow.”
“I heard Emmy’s owl last night. At least I thought it was an owl.”
“I heard it too,” said the mother. “I woke up thinking someone had spoken to me, but it was something outside.”
“That was it,” said Wyck. “I thought it was in the room at first. It sort of startled me. Then I realized that it was too far away.”
Lydia thought that Wyck’s color was looking better. Bird looked as if he could hardly be comfortable (and Wyck with him) the way he was sprawled in the big man’s lap; but his face was devoid of worry, and his mouth gaped with the trusting sleep of childhood. It made Lydia glad to see him sleep so completely, so completely trusting. She returned to her needles, her pique gone as quickly as it had come.
34. Advanced Uses for a Hat
Doc Brine had been in an alcohol-deprived stupor for three days. He couldn’t have guessed himself what brought on this sudden determination to resist drink since he had given Lincoln N. Washington the sole coin in his pocket. He had felt remarkably strong until Friday night, and then the shakes and the cold sweats and the horrors had visited him. Last night, St. Nicholas’s Eve, had been the worst. He reeled in his bed, while at the same time he could see the water- and body-logged gully at Fredericksburg. The last part of the night he spent talking to the old saint himself, arguing with him, actually, about the snakes that had crawled into his room and praising the usefulness of St. Patrick in their eradication. St. Nick refused to be offended by the comparison, however, and Doc realized, when the first glimmers of dawn were casting shadows in his room, that he was talking to himself.
Then, as now, he considered his recently acquired hat, which hung neatly on the wall beside the do
or of his single room. He was lying on his bed with the clothes pulled over him. He wondered what day it was.
I should have looked in on that bay at the livery by now, he thought. It occurred to him that the horse might be dead from his inattention, and he sat up on the edge of the bed. The room was cold. The fire in the grate was almost down, and he wondered why it wasn’t out altogether till he remembered his landlady coming in and stoking it, presumably with her own coal.
Doc reached for the hat on the wall, which was several feet away, and would have cracked his head on the floor if his arm hadn’t been outstretched. The door to his room opened soon after, and Mrs. Plaint, his landlady, and the old salt (Doc couldn’t recall his name) who lived below him hurried in and helped him to the edge of the bed.
Doc took some deep breaths, saying, “I’m fine, I’m fine.” He thought his head was clearing, and he knew it was clearing when the irony of a mind’s thinking it was clear occurred to him. Does a mind need to be clear to think it is clear? he wondered. Or is a mind fuddled that considers the issue at all? “Thank you,” said Doc.’ I must have been walking in my sleep.”
They both knew better-they al knew better-but nothing was said to contradict him.
“I have to see to that bay at Sporrin’s Livery,” he said, more to himself.
“Don’t you think you should be lying down?” wondered the old marmer.
“I’ve been lying down for three days now.” Doc flashed a smile. “I think I’m rested up. Hand me that hat, would you, please?”
He didn’t even know which of them passed him the required article, but when he placed the homburg on his head, he was sure that he could move now and attend to business. He thanked them both again and retrieved his coat. He surprised himself with his vigor as he clomped down the stairs. The old salt and Mrs. Plaint stood in the well above him and watched with concern.
He had just reached the downstairs hall when he was conscious of a child’s sob coming from the room to his left. He knew the young woman who lived there with her little boy, but barely. Her husband was at sea these past two and half years and hadn’t even met his son; her old apartment had burned a month or so ago, and she was left with hardly more than what she wore on her back. Of course finding work with a two-year-old child to care for was difficult, and she had been beholden to the kindness of strangers for their occasional meals and to the landlady for the better part of her rent.
The sobs of the child on the other side of the door seemed to paralyze his legs, and he stood for a minute or so staring at the apartment. There was a voice added to the tears, and he understood that the mother was doing her best to sing to her child. Then, as if his presence had been sensed (or perhaps the young woman had heard him coming down the stairs), the door opened, and she stepped into the cold hall with her child in her arms.
“Doctor Brine,” she said, an unreasonable sort of relief visible on her face, “could you look at Jeremy for me? His mouth is terribly sore, and he has bruises where he hasn’t even hit himself.”
“Ma’am, I daren’t take a guess what is wrong with him. I’m but a horse doctor, you know.”
“Just to take a look,” she said, and he could see that she was nearly mad with worry.
The former chief surgeon-Brevet Major Alexander Brine-of the Second Maine Regiment stepped into the woman’s room feeling the need of a long drink. The young woman laid her son down on an ancient divan, where he gazed up listlessly as Doc Brine settled himself on the edge of the seat. The boy’s eyes had the glassy look of malnutrition and pain, but he gave a small grin to the old man with the handsome hat. The smile revealed bleeding gums, and Doc Brine knew the little fellow’s teeth would be loose. He hardly needed to roll the child’s sleeves up to know what shape his bruises would take.
“Doctor,” said the mother.
“Yes, yes,” said the old man. He heaved a single sigh, turned on the edge of the divan, and realized that the old sailor and the landlady had followed them into the room. He glanced from face to face, finally settling upon the little boy, who had stopped his crying. “You wait,” he said to the child with a wink. Then he allowed something like a smile to give the mother hope. “You wait. I’ll be right back.”
Standing on the street-side steps of the old tenement house, Doc wrapped his coat about him. He needed a piece of rope now that most of his buttons were gone. “The child has secure!” he said to himself. He was a little astonished and (at whom he didn’t know) a little angry.
The day had turned bright and sunny, but the corner he reached looked lonely and cold. The streets were nearly abandoned, and snowdrifts had piled up against the southern and eastern walls. The snow was deep, and he found walking difficult till he fell in behind a small crowd of boys who were pelting the occasional carriage with snowballs. They did not harass him, however, since he had garnered respect among these rascals long ago for saving the life of an old mongrel that belonged to one of them. The boys even escorted him across the street, where he entered a grocery store and was thankful for the sudden warmth.
“Morning, Doc,” said Henry Hamblin, the proprietor.
“Well, good morning,”said the old man. He stepped up to the counter and considered the displays there before venturing forth. “Lemons, or limes, or oranges.”
Hamblin looked a little tentative. “Oranges, just come in on the Grace Bradley last week.”
“Didn’t she have a rough coming in?” said Doc. “They’re not all bruised, are they?”
Doc nodded, and after a moment’s silence, he said, “Wh“No, no. They were in crates, not bags.” at sort of credit have I got, Henry?”
“For oranges?” Henry frowned. “They’re not cheap this time of year. I don’t know, Doc, that last bill took you six months to make good on.”
It was the answer the old man had expected, and he gave a fatalistic shrug of the shoulders. “I know, Henry.” He considered pleading the little boy’s case, but then thought, This is my problem. Henry hasn’t taken the kid on. He looked up at the ceiling as if for inspiration and caught sight of the brim of the homburg.
He was embarrassed at first that he hadn’t taken it off when he came inside, but then a thought came to him. With the hat in his hand, he said, “Henry, this hat is all but new. I acquired it last Thursday, to be exact, and it is a handsome one, as you can see.”
Gemma Pool, Jeremy’s mother, was waiting at the door with her son in her arms when Doc Brine knocked. The old man thought she would pull him off his feet she tugged on the door so hard.
“Oranges?” she said when he placed the bag of a dozen bright balls on her little table.
“Now you give him one of these a day. Chop them up if you have to. He might have some trouble chewing them at first. And his gums might sting a bit. See if you can’t get two into him before tonight. I bet in three days you’ll see him better.” Doc was feeling more in control of himself than he had in years. “Open your mouth, in fact,” he told the young woman, and she obeyed him without thinking. “Share a piece or two with him yourself,” he said with a nod.
“Thank you,” she said in a choked whisper, and he continued to nod as he left the room.
His head felt cold. “I’ll look in,” was all he said.
Henry Hamblin considered his newly acquired hat. It was just a tad small for him, but he didn’t like a hat that rode his ears, and there was something particularly well made and handsome about this homburg. He thought his girl would find it bound to shine!
He hadn’t really needed a new topper, and under the circumstances hala dozen oranges would have sufficed to pay the price for a hat you hadn’t requested. But he knew Doc, and he knew those oranges had been for somebody else, and when-several days later-word got around why the old fellow had wanted the fruit, Henry sent several cans of lime juice down. to Gemma Pool’s.
And when he went to his girl’s that night, he left his old brown derby at the store and proudly strolled the snowy sidewalks with his new hat.
&nb
sp; Daniel’s Story (November 1891–April 1892)
There were other concerns in Daniel Plainway’s life besides the Linnetts: The events of town and church occupied much of his time, as well as his practice; his sister came to live with him after the death of her husband. But the Linnetts had been like family to him here in Hiram, and when news of Nell’s marriage to Jeram Willum startled its way through town, he knew that he had to see the girl herself to accept it.
When Daniel braved the Willums’ place again, however, Nell only appeared at their front door, with one of the little Willum girls standing in front of her like a shield. He didn’t really know what to say or how to ask the questions he wished to have answered, most especially with Willums glowering from every window, and Parley himself standing in the very place where the dog had been chained (Daniel wondered what had become of the poor creature); Parley Willum spat tobacco juice as a punctuation to his silent pleasure in Daniel’s discomfort.
It amazed Daniel how much Nell looked like the people about her-he had never seen her hair in disarray; her clothes were her own but not recently washedand yet she was still Eleanor Linnett, and he remembered his first impression of Elizabeth Willum (who even now hovered near) as a comely woman trapped (and won over) by harsh circumstances.
“How are you, Nell?” was all he could say at first.
“Uncle Daniel,” she said, looking stricken, “I am so sorry.”
“Sorry!” came Elizabeth Willums sharp voice. “If you’re so sorry, you can find some other place to take up space!”
“No, no,” Nell was saying. “Oh, please, Mrs. Willum!” The young woman looked desperate to speak with Daniel alone but couldn’t seem to let go of the child who stood in front of her and whose shoulders she held in a grip. “I’ll be fine, Uncle Daniel. Jerams looking after me. He’s gone to town for things.”
Daniel was rooted where he stood, an awkward distance from the door, so that he almost had to shout to be heard. “You can come and stay with Martha and me anytime,” he said. “There’s a room for you there now.”