by Van Reid
Daniel nodded, his chest feeling heavy and constricted. “It was my pleasure,” he said finally, and he could not have spoken more truthfully. When she was gone, he was at a loss for words; he stood before his chair, finding it difficult to stay in the moment when it was suddenly without her elegant presence.
“I like her,” said Sundry bluntly.
“She is a very fine person, I think,” said Mister Walton.
The lawyer was adrift with emotion. He had never told the Linnetts’story before, from beginning to end, and though it had exhausted him to do so, it had also purged him of some of its sadness. “I think I too must retire,” he said.
“You have had some adventures the last day or so,” said Mister Walton.
“And I am not so used to them as you,” said Daniel with a smile.
Wh“You’ll build up to it,” said Sundry wryly. en Daniel was gone, Mister Walton gave out a sigh.
“What do you think?” wondered Sundry.
“I think that two pair of shoulders would bear such burdens better.”
Sundry chuckled softly. It was remarkable how obvious people could be in their affection for one another, most especially when they were reticent about displaying it. It was remarkable, too, how very accurately Mister Walton’s observation might have been applied to himself.
“But I do think,” continued Mister Walton, “that I may have a solution to his problem regarding Bird’s estate.”
“Do you?”
“Or should we call him Bertram now? At any rate, I must confer with the Moosepath League. My goodness! There is a good deal to think about!”
“I should say,” pronounced Sundry, who was reclining once more in his chair, his feet stretched out before him, his hands folded behind his head. “The portrait identified, new people to be considered, the O’Hearns to be informed.”
“I have yet to digest the events at Council Hill,” said Mister Walton. “Your ability to take quick action, by the way, continues to amaze me, and I believe we are all in your debt for it.”
Sundry insisted, as ever, that it was Moxie who had saved them and no one else.
“I wonder if our friends have risen from their naps,” said Mister Walton. He was clearly in need of an errand. Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump would have been invited to hear Daniel’s tale if they hadn’t fallen asleep after dinner, exhausted by their exploits; perhaps they had renewed themselves by now.
“They are probably up and reliving the day’s battle,” said Sundry. “They made great friends with the fellow with the duck.” He thought he might go down to the hotel parlor and hear the details of the Battle of the Smoking Pine (as he later dubbed it). First, however, he must send Mister Walton off to where he knew the bespectacled fellow’s thoughts were roaming. With this in mind, Sundry said, “And speaking of things-and people-to think about, there is always Phileda McCannon.”
Mister Walton chuckled. Miss McCannon had in truth been crowding his mental facilities somewhat. “There is no harm, I suppose, in being easily read by a good friend,” he said. “I only wish she were at home.”
“But in her absence,” said Sundry, “you should stroll by her place and see that all is as it should be.” He understood only too well the romantic inclination of a heart like Mister Walton’s.
“I did promise to look in,” said the bespectacled fellow with a smile.
“I will report to Miss McCannon that you have been as good as your word.”
41. Two More
Phileda McCannon was a compact sort of person, in body and in the manner in which she conducted her affairs. She was a brisk walker and direct in her speech and her meaning. Her father had thought she had an excess of wit, but it was always to the point and never cruel-wry, even ironic at times, but never scornful. She was a busy person and as alert as a bird. She was by no means without sadness in her life, yet she kept sadness at bay, for the most part, by outstripping it. Just the day before, she had seen to the final services over her aunt, who had died of a lingering illness. She had taken the train to Hallowell only this evening, outstripping sadness, but with the persistent understanding that it would catch her up once she had returned to the home where she was the sole occupant.
She was never sure if it was by accident that she met Charleston Thistlecoat outside the Hallowell station, but she wasn’t entirely sorry to see him; she quite naturally accepted his offer to carry her bags and allowed him to drive her in his sleigh to her home.
It wasn’t an accident that the lights in her house were blazing when they drew up to the rambling granite steps that led up the bank, past the great red maple and the stone cherubs. She had sent a telegram to her friend Mrs. Miriam Nowell but was gratified (not to mention a little relieved, with Mr. Thistlecoat at her side) to find that the Nowells were waiting for her with lamps lit and a fire crackling at the parlor hearth. She quite naturally allowed Charleston to carry her things in for her.
“Welcome home,” said Miriam when Phileda stepped inside. “We were so sorry to hear of your aunt.”
“Thank you,” said Phileda, and the requisite expressions were exchanged between them. Phileda took her hat off; her hair was in rather a pleasing disarray, her spectacles a little fogged by the change in temperature. “You can’t know how good it is to see you!” she declared. “Stuart, how are you,” she said as Miriam’s husband entered the hall.
“Mr. Thistlecoat, how are you,” said Miriam as that man entered by way of the front door, Phileda’s bags in hand.
Charleston Thistlecoat indicated that he was well. brow at Miriam, but her friend appeared genuinely surprised to see the “We met outside the station,” said Phileda. She flashed a raised eyeman.
Phileda had first met Charleston Thistlecoat on the night of the Hallowell Harvest Ball, the previous October, and though Mister Tobias Walton had been her escort, Thistlecoat managed to occupy a substantial bit of both Phileda’s evening and her dance card. He was a man who had been denied very little and accustomed to deny himself less. He was a tall, slender man, with silver hair, black, expressive eyebrows, and a large, not altogether unattractive nose. He had a sense of humor when it did not apply to himself and more than a passing interest in Phileda McCannon that had manifested itself in unannounced visits and numerous invitations.
Phileda had successfully put off his visits on the strong of her being a woman alone; his invitations had been more difficult to treat, and she had managed some of them-those of a less intimate nature-by accepting. She did not dislike the man, though he was never as entertaining as he thought he was; but her thoughts were generally with Toby (as she thought of Mister Walton), and she was beginning to think that a firm word, not to say a fair word, on this matter was quickly becoming a necessity.
“Come in, Charleston,” she said as she did her best to tame her hair. “You must warm yourself before you leave.” She shed her coat as she entered the parlor, which was cozy. She smelled something simmering in the kitchen. “Ah!” she said, and rubbed her hands before the hearth. “Do I smell soup on the stove?” Charleston stood a few feet away, hands behind his back.
Phileda was in her middle age, perhaps forty-one or -two, but had kept-or perhaps attained-the slim figure of a girl by constant movement, and had adorned a nearly plain countenance with smile lines and bright blue eyes behind round spectacles. Her chestnut hair glowed in the firelight, which did not pick out the few strands of gray but tinged them with its auburn warmth. She was radiant without an ounce of realization. Charleston could at least lay claim to true discernment, for he was not unmoved.
The Nowells filled the air of the parlor with news of the town and a funny story about Miriam’s dog, Nasturtium, that had an unfortunate tetea-tete with a sleepy skunk.
Charleston did his best to look amused by the chatter; but he clearly had other things on his mind, and Phileda thought that this was one evening she was not prepared to discover them. I must write Toby in the morning, she thought, and wondered if he had gotten her letter of
several days ago. She felt tired of a sudden and let out a sigh, which was not like her. The heat of the fire was warming her but sapping her will to move much further.
“I have been away myself recently,” said Charleston.
“Were you?” said Miriam, affecting great interest but somehow demonstrating, by her near astonishment, how ver much she hadn’t realized he was gone.
“Difficulties with the line,” he explained, meaning a particular railroad line of which he purportedly owned controlling stock. “But we have put them to rest.”
“The difficulties?” said Miriam.
Charleston was not quite sharp enough to know if Mrs. Nowell was having fun with him, and he answered her with a long, drawled yes.
The stealthy badinage reminded Phileda of another day, when Toby had crossed swords, successfully, if not too happily, with Charleston Thistlecoat at an afternoon tea. The affair had been a little strained and, in retrospect, as it was the last time she had seen Mister Walton, more than a little melancholy. Thinking on it, she wondered that she wasn’t angry with the tall man before her.
“I beg your pardon?” she said. Charleston had been speaking to her.
“Mrs. Nowell was telling me about your aunt, Miss McCannon,” he said. “May I express my deepest sympathies.” He bowed, rather like an eighteenth-century courtier.
“Thank you, Charleston.”
He straightened to his considerable height. “I should perhaps leave you to your study then,” he said. It was an old phrase, and not unpleasing, as he was able to carry it off.
“Good night,” she said. “I shall see you out.” He allowed her to do this, and Phileda shot a look of some apprehension to Miriam, who rounded her husband up with a crook of the arm and followed them.
“If there is anything I can do for you, Miss McCannon,” Charleston was saying, “in these difficult hours, please do not hesitate to let me know.”
“You are very kind,” she said, and as he was opening the door while offering his services, she reflexively offered him her hand, which he leaned over briefly. She was startled, thinking for a moment that he was going to kiss it. He did not, quite. She stood in the well-lit doorway and waved to him as he descended the steps; Miriam and Stuart Nowell formed a friendly chorus behind her.
Then she hesitated in the doorway, thinking that she saw someone moving swiftly up the hill on the other side of the street. She leaned from the door, her heart taking the smallest sort of jump; she had had the impression that to by was passing by. But she laughed to herself for the fancy, turned inside, and shut the door.
Standing above Phileda McCannon’s house on the opposite side of the street, Mister Walton turned his face away as Charleston Thistlecoat sleighed past. The bespectacled man felt foolish, hiding himself in this fashion, even ashamed. He had been so surprised to see lights burning at Phileda’s home that he had waited for some minutes, feeling almost disoriented and wondering if he had the right house or even the right street.
But there were the stone cherubs and the two switchback flights of steps; the great crown of the red maple, which he had last seen in its autumnal glory, was a thicket of narrow fingers, tangled with the stars. The door to the house opened unexpectedly, and Phileda appeared there with a man. It was Charleston Thistlecoat, whose attentions toward Phileda had been obvious during Mister Walton’s last sojourn in Hallowell the previous October.
He was startled to see the man, and more startled when Phileda appeared to give Thistlecoat her hand so that he might kiss it. Mister Walton was terrified that he would be seen before he could hurry across the street and up the hill, and in one backward glance he was almost sure that Phileda had seen him. There didn’t seem any way that she could tell who he was, standing in a well-lit doorway and looking out into the night, but he kept his face turned away and again looked off when Thistlecoat drove by.
“Good heavens!” he said to himself. He felt as if he’d run a mile and hardly knew how he would make it back home. “Oh, dear!” he said. He had rather flattered himself that Phileda harbored some interest in him beyond friendship and was shattered by what he thought he had seen.
He turned down the hill again, hardly sensing his own movement through the cold air. It had been such a beautiful starlit night, and now his thoughts were cluttered with the Linnetts of Hiram. I had no shoes and complained, he mused, until I met a man with no feet.
He stopped himself in the middle of the hill and thought about Nell Linnett’s dark tomb, on some lonely hillside. She was with God, it was true, but this did not eradicate the sadness of her lost young life and for the child she had missed and who would miss her.
He considered other dark monuments: the cold face of carved stone upon Council Hill, dreaming as it had for a thousand years perhaps since those runes had been placed there; the long, gaunt face of Adam Tempest, waiting to die from who knew what (the vengeance of the Broumnage Club?) in his berth on the Caleb Brown.
Mister Walton tried to think of everything but his own sudden sorrow, and his mind fell again upon little Bird and upon Wyckford O’Hearn and-“Phileda’s aunt!” he said aloud. He turned back to the house; he had walked further than he had realized. Either her aunt has recovered—
The cold had made his eyes water; he dabbed at them with a handkerchief. Nervously, he ascended the hill once more. The steps leading to the house, past the stone cherubs and the red maple, had been carefully cleaned, but the granite felt slick with snowmelt and ice.
He felt his chest tighten with the thought of Phileda and Charleston Thistlecoat; but Mister Walton was her friend, and that must come first. He took another deep breath before knocking on the door and waited. There was the shadow of someone passing by a window, and then the door was flung open and Stuart Nowell greeted him with a look of surprise.
“Come in, come in,” Stuart said quietly.
“Who is it?” came a voice from the kitchen, and Phileda appeared at the other end of the hall. Her hand went to her mouth, her head tilted slightly, and Mister Walton thought she looked as if tears would spring from her eyes. “Toby!” she said, but still there was enough of her face covered by her hand that he could not tell if she was happy or upset to see him.
“I happened-” he began, faltered, then began again. “I happened to be coming by-”
When she dropped her hand, he could see that she was crying and that her mouth, contrarily, was turned up in a soft, grateful smile. Then she astonished him by hurrying down the hall and throwing her arms about his neck.
BOOK FIVE
December 7, 1896
42. Between Tales
“Sundry,” said Mister Walton, “last night I very nearly committed one of the gravest errors of my life.”
“I can’t imagine it,” said Sundry.
“The heighth of presumption,” said Mister Walton.
“Really?” front steps of the Worster House, glorying in the day, which was clear and “I promise you,” assured the portly fellow. They were standing atop the brilliant. Sundry’s eyes, in particular, were hardly more than slits as he squinted over the dazzling white of the snow; he looked to his friend for further explanation about this near disaster, but as none seemed pending, he laughed.
Mister Walton appeared more content than Sundry had seen him for some days, weeks perhaps. The portly fellow smiled, so lost in his own thoughts that he did not understand his friend’s humor. “Oh, well, it has something to do with Phileda,” he said.
“I thought it might.”
Mister Walton told Sundry of how he had seen Charleston Thistlecoat taking his leave of Miss McCannon and how Mister Walton had very nearly allowed that to keep him away. “But then I realized there must have been some change in her aunt’s situation before she would come back home.”
“She must have been very glad to see you,” said Sundry, thinking (but not knowing just how much) he practiced an understatement.
“She did seem,” said Mister Walton.
Phileda’s hug ha
d surprised him greatly and perhaps herself as well. “Your aunt?” was all he had found to say, and she had explained that her aunt had died and that services had been only the day before.
She had taken his arm possessively and tugged him into the parlor, where she and he and then owells could exchange news. He was made bold, in the course of things, to wonder aloud if they might contrive to spend some part of the Christmas season together.
“That was a good idea,” said Sundry when Mister Walton mentioned this.
“Won’t you come with me?” said the bespectacled fellow. “Phileda will be disappointed not to see you.”
Sundry liked Miss McCannon very much, but he couldn’t imagine she would be dismayed if he didn’t join her and Mister Walton on their appointed walk. “I think I will go see if Mr. Tolly is still at his cousin’s,” said Sundry.
“Very good,” said Mister Walton. With his face beaming, he touched his hat and proceeded down the steps. They parted company on the sidewalk, Mister Walton hiking up the hill and Sundry turning downhill toward the water.
As the temperature had dropped considerably the night before, and as the day dawned bright and frosty, it seemed safe for Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump to venture onto the streets of Hallowell. Firstly, the cold had stiffened the surface snow into a hard crust, so that the hour of the snowball was expired for now, and secondly, all the young boys in town would be in the day before, but it did not seem wise to push a good thing too far, so it school. The Moosepathians had been greatly exhilarated by the events of wasn’t till midmorning that they discussed an excursion into the brisk winter air.
They were readying themselves for this very thing when they were briefly joined by Durwood, Waverley, and Brink. “What, ho!” said Waverley amiably, and as the Moosepathians were not sure of a response, he added, “Read it in a book, I think.”
“What, ho!” said Eagleton. He rather liked it.