Tree by Leaf

by Cynthia Voigt

  She hadn’t meant to hurt the Twoheys. She hadn’t even meant to hurt Mr. Small. She’d meant only to make things better, and that was about the opposite of what had happened. She’d thought it would be so simple, she’d thought things were so simple, and she was wrong. She couldn’t even trust herself.

  Chapter 12

  Empty-handed, Clothilde entered the empty church. Nobody would be in there on a Wednesday afternoon. She hadn’t come to pray. It was only habit that made her sit down at the end of the row of wooden seats, and it wasn’t praying when she bowed her head. After the night’s regret and a morning’s thought, she had come to stop the Voice before it did any more terrible things.

  She no longer felt huddled away somewhere deep inside her body. She felt as if her body itself had shrunk up, over the night and the long morning, to fit close around her huddled self. She felt like one of the drowned worms that lay at the road’s edges after a long rain—a bloated twisted brown thing. An ugly thing.

  Clothilde bent her head lower and put her arms up beside her head, twining her fingers together behind her neck. She made herself sick to her stomach.

  She hadn’t slept much—maybe that was it, what made her feel so very bad; she hadn’t eaten much because her stomach seemed to close up at the thought of food. She had gotten out of bed early, prepared breakfast for her mother and sister, washed the kitchen floor and then, under her mother’s orders, she had baked a coffeecake. “You should pay a condolence call on Lou and her family,” Mother had said.

  “Why not you?”

  “That wouldn’t be appropriate. I will send in the cake, and a message of sympathy. Don’t fidget so, Clothilde, I can’t get these braids done properly if you fidget. And don’t always be quarreling and fussing at me—it would only embarrass the poor woman if I were to go calling on her.”

  Clothilde didn’t know about that; she didn’t know about anything. She had mixed and kneaded the sweet dough; before the second rising, she had scattered sugar and currants over the top of it. She had baked it, let it cool, set it out on a good platter—“But not the best, Clothilde, that would embarrass the poor woman.” She had the cake covered with a clean cloth and walked through the warm summer noonday into the village. The sun, pouring down from a clear sky, hadn’t warmed her. The walk hadn’t tired her. She hadn’t come into the church to rest in its shady coolness. And she certainly hadn’t come to pray, at least not until the Voice had explained itself.

  That thought raised her head. Worm or not, there were some questions she wanted to ask, and some answers she thought she was owed. This whole thing should be stopped, to start with.

  Silence filled the church.Come on, Clothilde thought.Come out. The church was a single room. It wasn’t large enough for a center aisle, but the high vaulted ceiling gave it a sense of space. I’m here, I’m waiting.

  The floors were made of broad pine planks, the walls of narrow pine planks, the seats and altar and pulpit too, all were made from the same pine. The wood had aged to a deep golden color, the wood floor, the wood walls, and the wood ceiling overhead. Even the narrow arches that floated between wall and ceiling glowed woody gold. It was like being inside of a tree, being in that church.

  Light entered through long stained-glass windows, filling the air with the echoes of colors like the echoes of voices. Clothilde looked at the newest window, installed less than a year ago. The whole congregation, which was everyone in the village, had contributed to its costs, and Mr. Dethier had made up whatever more money was needed. They had wanted their own war-memorial window. They had ordered it from a Boston company that specialized in war memorials. On the window, a tall woman in a white robe held out a sword in one hand and a wreath in the other. She was the Republic. Under her feet were a list of names, in two columns, names of men in the village who had fought in the war. The list was not long; it was a small village. Clothilde knew all of those men, knew who they were. Tom Hatch, Alexander Hatch, Jeb Twohey, Robert Dethier, Benjamin F. Speer II, Thomas Henderson, John Henderson. Of the seven, two had never returned, and three—the Henderson boys and Tom Hatch—had come back without a scratch on them.

  The names were painted onto a scroll that unrolled under the bare feet of the Republic. The Twoheys had refused to make any contribution to the window. This made people angry, but Clothilde felt a secret sympathy for the Twoheys. She had given in the few pennies she had, but if they asked her now … she’d probably give pennies if she had them, she guessed, but she wouldn’twant to donate anything, and she might be brave enough to refuse.

  And where was the Voice, anyway? It was probably laughing at her somewhere, expecting her to sit there all day.

  She got up, took a last look around her at the wooden walls and the motes floating in the air, and left. She pulled the wooden door loudly closed behind her, picking up her platter from the long table in the foyer.

  The blacksmith’s shop was across the street and, built out behind it, the two-room house Lou’s family rented. One end of the little house leaned up against the tall red side of the blacksmith’s barn and a narrow stove pipe came out of its roof. Curtains were closed over the two windows, and a black wreath hung on the door. Clothilde knocked and was told to come in.

  Mr. Grindle sat at the table, as did Mrs. Henderson and Mrs. Small. Lou stood with her back to the room, washing dishes in a pan, and noises from the next room told Clothilde where Lou’s brothers and sisters were. A big cast-iron teapot steamed on the pot-bellied stove. A red-and-white checked oilcloth had been spread out over the table.

  As soon as Clothilde was inside, Mrs. Henderson rose. “I have to be going now. Mr. Henderson is expecting me,” she said. She wore a black shawl around her shoulders, pinned together with a cameo brooch. She had kept the shawl on over her white blouse, despite the heat in the closed room.

  Mrs. Small got up to walk Mrs. Henderson the few paces to the door. “We thank you for your kindness. We also thank you for the chicken pie.”

  “Oh, I thought you wouldn’t be up to cooking, and I know that whatever happens, children have to be fed. It’s little enough to do, when a neighbor has troubles.”

  After Mrs. Henderson had left, Mrs. Small turned to Clothilde. “Good afternoon, Miss Clothilde,” she said. Mrs. Small was as pale as Lou, and as thin in her bones, but she had gone fat all around them. Her black dress made her look all the paler, but she didn’t seem gloomy, despite her black dress and solemn expression.

  “Mother asked me to tell you how sorry she is,” Clothilde began. “For your trouble,” she added.

  “Your mother is a real lady,” Mrs. Small said, then waited for what Clothilde was supposed to say next.

  Clothilde didn’t know what she was supposed to say. She felt like a worm saying anything, and being there too. She thrust the covered cake at Mrs. Small. “This is for you.”

  “How kind of your mother. Sweet cake is such a comfort. Lou? Set a clean plate for Miss Clothilde. Will you sit down, miss?”

  Clothilde sat in the chair Mrs. Henderson had left empty. She nodded hello to Mrs. Grindle, who had a plate in front of her with some kind of fruitcake half-eaten on it.

  Nobody said anything. Lou put a plate down in front of Clothilde and asked if she wanted some tea. Clothilde mumbled her refusal. Lou sliced the coffeecake onto another plate and put that out at the center of the table, removing the fruitcake. Mrs. Small took a slice of Clothilde’s cake, bit into it, and smiled at Clothilde.

  Wishing she was anywhere else but there, wondering why she had to sit at the table, Clothilde smiled back at Mrs. Small. Looking at the pale eyes, she knew—as if she could see into Mrs. Small’s head and see her secret thoughts—that the newly widowed woman wasn’t grief-stricken at all.

  “We thank you for your trouble,” Mrs. Small said at last.

  Mrs. Grindle had taken a slice of cake and eaten it. Her little mouth pursed as she chewed. “Is this hard to make?” she asked.

  Clothilde shook her head.

  �
�I’d like to have the receipt,” Mrs. Grindle said. “If your mother could spare it.”

  “I’ll ask her.” Then Clothilde, feeling as if Mrs. Small expected her to say this, said, “I’m sorry for your trouble.” But that sounded as she was speaking lightly of a man’s death. “Your loss.”

  “Life’s not been easy on me,” Mrs. Small agreed, satisfied. “His was an untimely end.”

  “Although,” Mrs. Grindle said, ignoring Clothilde, “there’s a silver lining to this, if you’re willing to look for it.” It sounded as if Mrs. Grindle was picking up a conversation Clothilde had interrupted.

  “He wasn’t an easy husband,” Mrs. Small agreed.

  Mrs. Grindle’s mouth made an impatient, pffting noise. “You can’t pretend it’s not a blessing. He was dragging you all down with him. Your children will be better off without him. And look what he did to Joseph Twohey.”

  “You can’t lay that at Mr. Small’s doorstep,” Mrs. Small argued. “Mr. Small had his weakness—I’ve never denied that and I never will. But Joseph Twohey went to perdition of his own free will.”

  They talked as if Clothilde wasn’t there, or as if it didn’t matter what she heard. She wished they wouldn’t talk so.

  “There’s free will,” Mrs. Grindle said. “And there’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back. When Jeb came home, the way he is, what was there for Joseph to work for? I was grateful, I’ll admit to you, that our sons were too old and our grandsons too young for this war. I always said that, no matter how people might look sideways at me.”

  Clothilde hadn’t known Mrs. Grindle felt that way about the war. The woman across the table noticed her attention and said, “You needn’t bother thinking ill of me, Miss High and Mighty. When you’re older you’ll understand.”

  But Clothilde already understood.

  Mrs. Grindle went on talking, scolding at Clothilde. “There’s a package for your mother. From some Boston store. Some fancy Boston store, for all I’ve never heard the name. She must have written away for it because it’s addressed to Mr. B. F. Speer. You might as well pick it up on your way home—it might be something she’s expecting.”

  Mrs. Grindle waited, but Clothilde couldn’t make any guess about what the package might be, so she couldn’t satisfy the woman’s curiosity.

  “And you might tell your mother, as well, that her account’s due to be paid up.”If she’s fine enough to be ordering things from Boston, she can pay what she owes here in the village was what Mrs. Grindle didn’t say.

  Clothilde had to bite the insides of her cheeks to keep from smiling. “Yes, ma’am,” she said. This was no place for smiling, and it surely wasn’t the time either. She didn’t know why she felt like it anyway, except it was either that or burst out and tell them what had really happened, whose fault it really was, even if it wasn’t what she’d meant to happen. And anyway, watching Mrs. Grindle’s mind, which was as pursed up in disapproval as her lips, made Clothilde feel like laughing.

  “You can stop by and pick it up before you go out home,” Mrs. Grindle told her. “It’s not as if we’re a storehouse, it’s not as if we have extra space to store people’s packages from Boston emporiums.”

  “No, ma’am,” Clothilde said. “I’ll fetch Mother’s package.”

  That, however, turned out to be unnecessary, because the next person to arrive was Mr. Grindle, and along with his sympathy for the new widow, he brought the wrapped package for Clothilde. He took the seat Clothilde vacated and handed her the package. “I saw you go past the store,” he said to her. “You didn’t come straight here.”

  Clothilde took the long, flat package. It was heavy for its size. She didn’t know what her mother had sent away for. She went over to stand beside Lou, to help her if possible, because she didn’t know if she had stayed long enough yet. Mr. Grindle’s voice told the two women how he had closed the store, “in honor,” for the next two hours. He accepted the offer of cake and asked could Lou make a pot of coffee, saying he never could get used to drinking tea, saying it was a sad day for the village. Then he asked, “What is this my wife tells me—you’re going to pack up and move back south? To Fall River?”

  Clothilde was beside Lou, their backs to the room as Lou poured water from a bucket into the steel coffeepot. “You’re leaving the village?” she asked, her voice low. “Don’t do that. You don’t have to do that. Why would you do that?” That wasn’t what she wanted. That wasn’t what she’d asked for. She should have asked for money, that’s what; money solved everything. Nate would have known to ask for money, but she was too stupid to even think of it.

  “Yuh, we’ll go to my aunt. There’s a bed for us, until we can save up for our own rooms,” Lou answered. “There’s always work at the mills.”

  “Oh no,” Clothilde said. The mills were terrible places—Lou shouldn’t have to go back there.

  “My mother will be pleased to return. Our own church is there, and her sister, her blood kin.”

  “You should stay here,” Clothilde insisted. “I’m sorry, Lou.”

  Lou didn’t say anything. Thinking of the room Lou had made for herself at the farmhouse, and how contented she had seemed there with them, Clothilde asked, “Maybe you’ll come back.” She looked at Lou’s pale face. Lou looked right back at her: Lou grieved, alone, inside herself, Clothilde could feel that, grieved for what she would be leaving behind, places and people, silences and light; Lou’s future pressed down hard on her like a huge rock, always pressing harder, with a perpetual clattering grinding noise like the mills working. Clothilde didn’t know how any one person could stand being pressed down by that weight. Just imagining it made her feel as if she couldn’t breathe in enough air to live. “You have to come back,” she said.

  “I don’t think so,” Lou said. “But I don’t mind thinking mebbe. I’d like it fine, yuh.”

  Clothilde couldn’t do anything more, except be helpful. She dried the plates Lou had washed, and stacked them up. More people arrived, the Grindles left to call on Mrs. Twohey, who was, Mrs. Grindle said, “devastated by this blow,” and Clothilde pumped up water into the bucket from the well outside, heated it on the stove, went back outside to empty the dirty dishwater, and did what she could. People brought food and company. They offered help for the move. Mr. Dethier offered his wagon to transport the family to the train station in Ellsworth, Tom Hatch said he would drive them there, and the blacksmith’s wife told Mrs. Small not to worry about cleaning out the rooms because she would take care of that little chore. The afternoon wore on, wore away.

  It seemed that people went from one bereaved house to the other, because many brought news of the Twohey household, which was a sadder place than this small room. “You have your children,” they said to Mrs. Small. “Many hands help bear the burdens.”

  Tom Hatch stayed the afternoon too, standing back from the talk but lending a hand wherever it was needed, with all the company. It was hot and dim in that little room, and Clothilde, whenever she had cause to step outside, was surprised to find that it was still daylight.

  The sun had set before Clothilde left the little house. Tom Hatch had borrowed Mr. Dethier’s wagon, so he could take her home. They sat side by side on the wooden seat; the horse, with blinders to keep his eyes fixed on the roadway, pulled them along at a steady pace, through the village and along the fork by the schoolhouse. A lantern, hung at the brace beside Tom Hatch, gave them light.

  Clothilde had her mother’s package heavy across her knees and guilt heavy across her shoulders. All the windows at the Twoheys’ were dark, except for one on the ground floor. The house was a mute, black shape with only that one dim window, where a light burned behind the drawn shades. The lantern cast flickering shadows. The air grew chilly. Clothilde didn’t have anything to say as they went along, past the dark meadows and farmlands and over the causeway where the sound of waves on rocks could be heard, punctuated by the horse’s steady footsteps.

  The wagon moved along the rutted driveway
. Overhead, the leafy branches closed in over them, emerging from the darkness ahead, then fading into the darkness behind as the wagon passed. It was like moving through a tunnel. But whether the leafy ceiling overhead was there to keep them safe or to shut them in, Clothilde couldn’t tell. Finally, she roused herself to say, “It’s kind of you to bring me home, Mr. Hatch.”

  “I couldn’t let you walk the way alone, and in the dark,” he said. “Now, could I?”

  Yes, she thought, he could have. But he didn’t.

  “I wish someone could persuade Lou not to go away. Could you?” she asked him.

  “She’s a girl yet, and she has to stay with her family besides.”

  “Her family needs her,” Clothilde agreed. “But still—it’s not right. She hates the mills. She told me, she hates it there.”

  “Yuh,” he said. “She would.”

  “Even if she had been going to stay on with us,” Clothilde realized, “now she wouldn’t be able to anyway.”

  “Yuh,” he agreed, with such hopelessness in his voice she turned to look at him. She wished she hadn’t done that, because he had turned to look at her, at the same time, in the wavery yellow lantern light. His eyes were shadowed, but she could still see them, and she turned away. The horse’s hooves sounded muffled on the dirt. The wagon bounced along. They moved in an arched doorway of light, under the trees.