Harvest Home

16

One afternoon the following week I could hear the church clock striking five as I cleaned my brushes and palette and put my paints away. Then I rode my bike into the village to send off to my New York gallery some Polaroid prints of the bridge painting. I went into the post office, where Myrtil Clapp, the postmistress’s assistant, sold me a stamp. Attaching it, I saw the postmistress herself, making tea from a singing kettle on a hot plate set on some file cabinets at the rear. Beyond, in the back room, I could see Constable Zalmon, feet propped up on his desk, smoking his corncob pipe and thumbing through a copy of Field and Stream.

Tamar Penrose glanced up from her tea things and gave me one of her smoky looks. I lifted a hand in a brief salute, dropped the envelope into the slot, and went out.

I checked my watch against the steeple clock, noting the spasmodic activity around the Common as I crossed it. Mrs. Green went into the library with an armload of books. Jim Minerva loaded groceries into the back seat of his Volkswagen and drove off, heading south along Main Street. A farm wagon creaked by, Will Jones seated in it with the reins drooping between his hands. He pulled up outside the Rocking Horse and went in. With tinkling bells, the sheep baaed and moved from my path as I headed for the church on the opposite side.

Some of the younger village girls were going up the steps, and through the open vestibule doors I could hear the soft lilt of organ music from inside. Coming up onto the sidewalk, I saw Mrs. Buxley hurrying from the beauty parlor; Margie Perkin had been at her hair. She dithered her fingers as she hastened to greet me.

“Lovely day,” she said, as though she herself had fashioned it. And how was I, how were Beth and Kate, and how were my lovely paintings? Inside, choir practice began, and the bell-like sounds of the girls’ sopranos and altos floated out through the doors.

“Lovely sound, isn’t it? Our young girls are rehearsing for Tithing Day. You’ll be coming, surely.”

I said I hadn’t heard about Tithing Day, and she explained that next Sunday would be a special service when the village offered their token corn tithes to the church. An impressive ceremony; we were certain to find it rewarding.

“See you in church.” She dithered her fingers again and went into the vestibule. Amys Penrose came along, pushing his broom at the edge of the roadway, stopping when he got abreast of me to touch a finger to his hat brim. I waved to the Widow, whose buggy went creaking by on the far side of the Common. I had not seen her to talk to since the “experience,” the weekend before, and I was anxious to hear what she would have to say about the epiphany of the Harvest Lord and the unknown lady. With rattling wheels and rusty springs, the mare clip-clopping along the dusty roadway, she, too, headed south. In a moment, Kate came riding her horse out of the north end of Main Street; she went flying onto the Common where the terrified sheep moved from her path in a huddled, woolly mass. I called to her not to disturb them; she waved and rode on.

“What’s this Tithing Day Mrs. Buxley’s been telling me of?” I asked Amys.

“More nonsense,” came the succinct reply. He spat, his customary mark of disapproval. He wiped his mouth on his faded sleeve. “Could use a beer. I’m spittin’ cotton.”

I could take a hint. I offered to join him at the Rocking Horse for a drink, and, leaving the pile of leaves he had swept up in the roadway, he shouldered his broom and we went along to the tavern. The room was crowded, smoke layered the air, and there was the agreeable hum of voices as the locals gathered in groups and exchanged the end-of-the-day news; behind the bar, Bert was busy filling orders. We pushed our way through to find a place in the corner at the end of the bar. I let Amys order his beer, then asked for my usual Scotch-and-soda.

Will Jones leaned against the center of the bar, talking to Fred Minerva, Ferris Ott, and several others. They nodded at me when I lifted my glass to them. As Harvest Home drew nearer, there was a feeling of camaraderie among the farmers, and from all sides news was furnished, items for discussion. Item: Old Mrs. Mayberry had died. Item: Mrs. Oates, the undertaker’s wife, had given birth to a boy. The village population was thus rebalanced. Item: What was Worthy Pettinger acting so all-fired cranky for these days: didn’t he know when he was well-off? Fred Minerva just wished his Jim could’ve got a crack at being Harvest Lord. Item: Justin Hooke’s rooster. Item: The weather. If it snowed before the second Wednesday in November, it would be a hard winter. Item: The hard winter of fourteen years ago. Item: The bad one. Item: The last Great Waste.

These topics variously reached our ears as I downed my drink and Amys his beer. When we had finished, I asked Bert for two more, then signaled him to pour a round for Fred, Will, Ferris, and the rest. They all thanked me, and when they had emptied their glasses they trooped out, Ferris Ott discussing with Fred Minerva the bad luck he’d had all year.

I turned back to Amys and contemplated him for a minute, then leaned toward him, adopting a careless tone but choosing my words carefully. “Tell me, Amys, how long have you been ringing the bell?”

“Eight ropes, maybe nine. That’s the length of time it’ll take to wear a rope out. Maybe six, seven years a rope, dependin’ on how many’s born, how many dies.”

“When you ring, is there a difference-I mean for a man and a woman?”

“Sure. For a man you got to ring three times two, for a woman it’s three times three.” He took a long swig of beer, savoring it as it went down. “Hey, Bert, gimme some o’ them nuts you got back there.”

“Three times three?” I leaned closer. “Is that the way you rang for Gracie Everdeen?”

“Hell, no,” he replied in a hoarse whisper. “No bell was never rung for her. I’d’ve done it if they’d let me, but they wouldn’t. Not them. No bell tolled for Gracie. Not thrice times thrice, not thrice times nothin’. I rang her into the world, but there was none to ring her out.” He rolled a cigarette and lighted it. “Oh, Gracie Everdeen.” He blew out a raspy stream of smoke, then, dirge-like, returned to the topic of the lost Gracie.

“The Coombe never bred a finer beauty than Grace was. Nor a sweeter one. Sweet and delicate she was, a reg’lar pony. There wasn’t a fellow in the village didn’t hanker for her. She grew up tall, but slim, and pretty as a man could hope to see.” He pressed my arm to convince me of the truth of his words. “I mean, she was pretty. It was nip and tuck who was gonter win her.”

“Roger Penrose?”

“Ayuh. ‘Twas the end of nip and tuck then. Roger’d been goin’ with Tamar Penrose, who was one of them blamed Penrose cousins. Durin’ that time, the ladies voted and the honor come to Roger-he was poor enough, but they balloted and chose him for Harvest Lord. Tamar was mighty proud, thinkin’ Roger was bound to ask her for the Corn Lady. But he didn’t. One year went by, then two, and still hadn’t asked her. Hadn’t asked any girl. Now Gracie’s bloomin’ like a flower, and-did I say was pretty? — I did and she was. Lemme think a minute. Roger’s Harvest Lord, and there’s pretty Gracie. He takes her for a ride in the Widow Fortune’s buggy, and when they come back, Gracie’s been asked. Everyone thought that was fine, ‘ceptin’ for Tamar, who’s got her nose out of joint, bein’ left out-Tamar’s a sulky creature. But there’s Gracie, just-just radiatin’. Now-where was I? Yes. Roger’s Harvest Lord, Gracie’s Corn Maiden. Roger’s got two years or so to go. The Widow’s educatin’ Gracie in her duties. Anyone who talks about her’s got only the best things to say. Oh, wasn’t she lovely, light and delicate as air-yes, she was. Well, sir, next thing you know, Roger’s give her a ring.”

“Engagement?”

“So to speak. He couldn’t afford no fancy job. Then the banns was posted and read out. It’s not often a Harvest Lord’ll marry his Corn Lady-’ceptin’ like Justin and Sophie, which come as somethin’ of a shock. But Roger’s decided on little Gracie. Then Mrs. Everdeen puts her foot down, and revokes the banns. Says Gracie’s got to give Roger back his ring. Then, after a while, Gracie starts actin’ funny. Long about the time she quit the fields and put on shoes, she just seemed to go haywire. Did all sorts of crazy things.”

I motioned Bert for another beer. “Like what?”

Amys blew his nose and wiped his eyes. “Well, she stopped combin’ her hair, for one thing. Took to wearin’ the same dress day in day out. Sassed the Widow. Hitched her fanny at the pastor. At Midsummer’s Eve, she slipped a whole pie under Mrs. Buxley’s rear end just afore Mrs. Buxley sat down. Rolled her eyes at one of them Soakes boys. Roger was plenty mad. Everyone was. ‘Cept me; I just felt sorry for her. None of this happened right off, mind you-’twas more gradual-like. One Spring Festival, she fought with the boys in the street. Right out there where you put down them Soakeses, she took on Ferris Ott and laid him in the dust. Then when Roger bought his horse-”

“The one he broke his neck on?”

“Ayuh. She challenged Roger to a race, and she won. Now, nobody could beat Roger’s horse-but Grace did. Folks said she stole some of the Widow’s herbs and put it in the horse’s oats. Roger was so mad he says to Gracie to give his ring back. Then she disgraced the whole village-or so they think.”

“How so?” I sipped my drink. Amys dragged on his cigarette, blew out the smoke, swigged his beer.

“Well, sir, you can see it, surely. She’d become a terror. Barefooted, wild hair, screamin’ and yellin’, puttin’ her nose up, swearin’. Folks were angry. She was the Corn Maiden. Roger’d given her the honor and she didn’t seem to care. There wasn’t nothin’ she wouldn’t do to shock folks or make them think ill of her. Then come Agnes Fair, and that was the end. Roger was bound to win the pole-shinny, but Grace denied him the pleasure. She loses him the wrestlin’, too. Next, she has words with Ewan Demin’, and then she’s gone.”

“She left.”

“Ayuh.”

“Where’d she go?”

He shook his head, drank, wiped his chin. “Nobody knows. Left on Agnes Fair day and didn’t come back until almost two years later. But it was too late. Roger said if Grace was goin’ to act that way, Tamar could be Corn Maiden, and come the play, Tamar was crowned in her place. But what most folks didn’t know, Gracie’d returned the spring before. It was like she couldn’t stay away. The winter after she left was a hard one. Snow on the Common five feet deep, people tunneling out to feed the livestock. I lost four of my sheep that year. There was a thaw, then a flood, then spring was behind the barn. And with it come Gracie Everdeen. And, wherever she’d been, she come back sad and sorrowful, and you can bet me, the heart in her poor bosom was cleave in two.”

There was something in the simple country way he put his words together that painted a picture for me. I could see the fallow fields, the drab sky, the melting snow, and the tempestuous, strange creature that was Gracie Everdeen, victim of unbridled passions, spurning the mother who broke her heart, the lover who betrayed her.

“But she didn’t come back to the village that spring, did she?” I was remembering Mrs. O’Byrne’s part of the story.

“No, sir, she didn’t. She was stayin’ over t’ Saxony, but she wouldn’t cross the river. Wouldn’t come over the Lost Whistle for hide nor hair.”

“Why not?”

He ducked his head briefly, and faltered in his story. Then, regaining himself, “Who knows? Womenfolk do peculiar things sometimes. Roger Penrose heard she was over there, and he rode out and begged her to come home. Time after time, but she wouldn’t.”

“Why wouldn’t Roger cross the bridge?”

“Wasn’t supposed to. It’s the rule. In the seventh year the Harvest Lord’s not to go beyond the village boundaries. Same for the Corn Maiden. But Grace, on her side, she’d never set foot to the bridge. And Roger’d never go to her.”

“But he did, finally.” I told him what I had learned from Mrs. O’Byrne about the night Roger had galloped across the river and carried her to the Cornwall side, and that Mrs. O’Byrne had wanted to fire Gracie for immorality.

Amys stared at me, speechless, then spat again. “‘Tain’t true! Roger never touched her that night!”

“How do you know?”

“I-” He stopped uncertainly, glanced quickly at Bert, the bartender, then hollered for more nuts. When Bert had gone to the far end of the bar, Amys continued in a hoarse whisper, “Roger never laid a finger to her. The Harvest Lord can’t have relations with no girl before Harvest Home. It’s against the ways. Anyhow, Roger met her just before the Corn Play. That was poor Gracie’s last chance. He rode back and Tamar was crowned in her place. Next day, the day before Kindlin’ Night, when they burn the scarecrows, the Widow Fortune buggies over to talk to Gracie. She come back without her, too. So Tamar goes to Harvest Home.”

“To do what?”

“Hell, son, don’t ask me all these questions. I’m tryin’ to tell you. Roger goes to Harvest Home as the Lord, and Tamar goes as his Maiden.”

“Goes where?”

“To the woods. To Soakes’s Lonesome.”

“Harvest Home is celebrated in the woods?”

“The seventh one is, always. But then, Gracie comes too.”

“And was a disruptive influence.”

“Who says?”

“The ladies. Mrs. Green, Mrs. Zalmon-”

“Damn old biddies. If she was, the Lord God he knows.”

“Then what happened?”

“Two days later, Irene Tatum finds her poor body in the river. Thrown herself off the Lost Whistle. I heard, and I went to toll thrice times thrice. But Mr. Deming comes and says I can’t. He tells me to dig a hole.”

“Outside the cemetery.”

“Mr. Buxley-he says he can’t read service for a suicide, and here come all the elders carryin’ a pine box, with Gracie inside, and they set it in the hole; then Mr. Deming in his black suit tells me to fill it in, and they go away. Not a soul there for the funeral. Mrs. Everdeen packs up and leaves town for the shame, and there’s the end of it.”

“You buried her?”

He turned his head quickly and used the spittoon again. After a moment he said, “Buried her beyond the fence, where you see her stone. Where she lies without, in disgrace, and Roger lies within, in honor. And herself runs the post office and makes fast and loose with anything in pants.” He clutched my sleeve and spoke fiercely. “Don’t you listen to folks. Gracie was a fine girl. And a beauty, don’t you forget. Pretty as spring, a reg’lar fairy, that was Grace.”

Bert came and collected the glasses, obliterating with his rag the wet rings left on the bar.

Amys tottered off his stool, a sad, forlorn look on his wrinkled face. “Listen to me, sir. I loved Grace, and I never forgot her, even though they’d like to. Sometimes when I ring thrice times thrice, like when Mrs. Mayberry died, I tell Gracie that’s for her.”

He touched his hat brim, thanked me for letting him wet his whistle, and took up his broom and left.

I finished my drink, trying to piece together the threads of his story of the unfortunate Gracie Everdeen, and chalked it up to a case of unrequited love.

When I approached the church again, Amys was tolling six o’clock. Above the bronzy notes of the bell, the voices of the choir sounded, floating out through the vestibule door and hanging soft in the air. The sun was dropping behind the post office, and long shadows had crept across the Common, making the circles on the grass more pronounced.

I took a few moments to step into the church and sit in one of the pews, looking up at the choir loft over the doors, where the girls held their sheets of music in pairs and sang the lovely melody. Maggie was at the organ, watching in the little mirror over the keyboard as Mrs. Buxley conducted the voices, while, in the upper corner of the loft, the Widow Fortune sat leaning her head on her hand, lost in some private reverie.

The song ended, and the church was perfectly still for a moment. Then the girls moved from their places, gathering around the old lady as she spoke to them, praising them for their singing. When I went up the aisle, I glimpsed Mr. Buxley seated at a table in the vestry, writing in a ledger. I stopped for a word, and he explained he was entering the date of old Mrs. Mayberry’s death. He brought down another, showing me the entry of her birth sixty-seven years before; then he returned both ledgers to the shelf. Each volume was dated by year, a whole history of village births and marriages and deaths, the three important events of a man’s life, no matter where he may live.

I complimented him on the music I had heard; he said yes, it would pass very nicely for Tithing Day.

I walked along Main Street, looking at the houses with their neat gardens and fences, their windows, some with as many as eighteen panes of glass apiece, the handsome Colonial doorways. The kinds of houses I had never known in the city.

Passing Tamar Penrose’s place, I saw the child Missy perched on the limb of an apple tree, playing with her doll while some chickens pecked in the dirt below. She lifted her head and stared at me as I walked by. Suddenly I thought of the other doll, the one from the cornfield, and was shocked to realize I didn’t know what had become of it. As I tried to recollect the circumstances, I heard her give a little cry. She had caught her dress getting out of the tree, and when she tried to free it she lost her hold and tumbled to the ground. I ran back and opened the gate. She lay at the base of the tree looking stunned. I knelt and lifted her head and asked if she was all right. She stared at me; then her two hands came up and pressed her temples, as though to relieve the pain.

She was wearing a strange-looking cap of knitted wool, pulled down around her ears as though it were the dead of winter. Her dress had grass stains on it, her shoes were muddy.

“Hello,” I said.

She regarded me emptily; then a look of recognition floated into her washed-out eyes.

“Missy, do you remember me?”

“Mnmm-mean, um-paint-”

“That’s right. I’m a painter. Do you remember at Agnes Fair, what happened with the sheep?”

She shook her head.

“You pointed at me, remember?”

Another shake. She was staring at a chicken that was scratching in the dirt around the tree.

“Did someone tell you to point at me?”

A shrug.

“Did someone tell you to pick the Harvest Lord? Or did you pick him because you like Worthy Pettinger?”

Another shrug. She was watching the chicken’s bright little eyes with her dim ones.

I tried again. “When people ask you questions and you tell them things, are they just things you make up?”

She giggled, then spoke. “Sometimes.” Still she eyed the chicken. “Mnmm-um-sometimes not,” she added thickly, sucking air through her mouth.

“When they’re not, who makes them up? Where do they come from?”

“I don’t know.”

“You hear things? Things that someone says to you? Like a voice?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes I don’t hear, I just see.” Still staring at the chicken, she got up and started across the lawn to the porch. She stopped and gave me a quick look. I stepped toward her. She took another step. She seemed to be luring me to her. When I moved, she moved; when I stopped, she stopped, waiting until I moved again. She got to the steps and ran up, then spun around on the porch. When she saw I was coming up the steps, she threw herself in the porch swing and dug a loop of string from her pocket. She looked first at the place beside her, then at me. I sat on the faded canvas cushion and she set the swing in motion.

The rusty chains creaked. She looped the string over each hand, made a cat’s cradle pattern, and held it up for me to take. I inserted my fingertips and lifted it, producing a new pattern. She gave me a sly look, took the string, and made another. Her look challenged me as she waited for me to make the next move. I dipped my fingers into the maze and lifted it. The pattern slid, altered, held.

“Mnm-” she murmured, staring at it.

Again I tried. “Is it a game you play? Like cat’s cradle?”

“No game.”

“What kind of things do you see?”

“Mnm-it’s like looking through glasses,” she said, suddenly speaking distinctly. “Sometimes red, sometimes blue, or maybe black, and then everything’s colored black, and that’s the way it looks… When I see it like it’s supposed to look, that’s when they tell me what to say. Sometimes there’s fire and lightning. Um-and music.”

“Music?”

She thought a moment, a faint burrish humming issuing from her lips. “Like at the play. You know.” She made a flute-like sound and played her fingers on invisible stops; then she made drum sounds and pantomimed rat-tat-tat. “That kind,” she said. Without looking at me, she took my hands and laced the fingers, then began winding the loop of string through them. “Mnmm,” she murmured, her brows drawn together in a scowl of concentration.

“There.” She placed my hands in her lap and stared at me. I pulled at my fingers and discovered they were bound fast. As I tugged, she broke into a fit of laughter, hiking back against the cushion and waiting for me to free myself.

“Missy, untie the man.” Tamar Penrose stood on the step. She took the girl by the hand and opened the door and sent her inside. I got up, trying to loosen the intricate webbing that bound my fingers. Tamar came and examined my hands. “That’s a trick of hers.”

“I can get it.” I struggled to slide out of the knotted web.

“I’ll have to cut it. Come on in.” She stepped inside and waited for me. Out on the street dusk was falling; the occasional passing cars had turned their headlights on. I heard the familiar sound of a vehicle, then the more familiar clip-clop.

“Your little girl’s a good rider,” Tamar said, holding the door. “Missy, make a light.” She closed the door and led me to the kitchen, where the child had turned on the light; then she looked for a knife in a drawer. A large cat blinked on the sill over the sink. “Missy, hon, run out and rustle us up a chicken for dinner.” Missy went out through the screened-in porch. I heard her chasing around the yard, trying to catch a chicken.

“I didn’t know it was little girls you liked,” Tamar said in an insinuating tone, a smile playing at the corners of her red mouth as she sat me down and cut the string. “Isn’t there a law about that sort of thing? Maybe I should just leave you trussed up and call the Constable. Child-molesting and all that?” She laughed and I caught the scent of her perfume. “There,” she said when she had finally freed my fingers. “She’s a dickens, that one. What’s she been telling you?”

“Nothing. We were just playing cat’s cradle and-” I stopped, realizing how silly it sounded. I got up. “Well, thanks for the girl-scout job.”

“What’s your hurry? Now that you’re here, stay and have a drink.”

“Thanks, I’d better be on my way.”

“Come on.” She was getting glasses from a shelf and setting them on the table, her dress stretching provocatively over her full figure. “Roy Soakes brought me a jug of his pa’s corn whiskey. Ever tried moonshine? It’s just behind the door there; bring it-I’ll get the ice.”

She stepped into the back area where the refrigerator was, then went out to peer through the broken porch screening. Missy had caught a chicken, which was making a terrible squawking while she tried to control it. The screen door clattered as Tamar took a hatchet from a nail and went down the steps. I watched her seize the chicken, lay its neck on a box, and decapitate it; then she released the body, which ran in crazed circles, dripping blood onto the dry earth. When it had keeled over and lay kicking on its side, she picked it up by the feet and carried it to a pan near the steps. She tied the legs together and hung the still-flapping body on a nail where the blood drained into the pan below.

She came back in and washed her hands, then got out ice, and presently we were seated opposite each other at the table. The cat on the sill wafted its tail as we clinked glasses for luck. The child must have gone off somewhere, for she did not come in, nor did I hear her out in the yard.

“So.” Tamar hitched her chair closer to the edge of the table. “You’re a painter, is that it? What kind of pictures do you paint?”

I explained about the sort of things I was trying to get down on canvas. “Are you interested in art?”

“I know what I like.” She looked at me under lowered lashes, her eyes narrowing slightly. I had never been close enough to see that they were green. “That’s what they say, isn’t it?” she continued. “‘I don’t know about art but I know what I like’? I like pictures, all kinds, long as they’re pretty.” She stretched lazily. “It’s a pretty village, I guess.”

“Have you always lived here?”

She laughed. “Sure, what else? Where d’you go if you’re born in the Coombe? That was our house, where you live.”

“I know. We appreciated your selling.”

She shrugged and held her fingers up and stared at her nails. “Wasn’t my idea. We needed the cash, anyway.” She went on, speaking of her father, who had lost his money through corn speculations during the last drought year. They’d had to move, then move again, always to a smaller place. This had all happened after the last Great Waste; the year Missy was born. Then Tamar’s father had died, and her mother, and the elders awarded her the position as postmistress. “I haven’t always worked at the P.O.” Her eye had fallen on my hand resting on the table top. She was staring at it. I picked up the glass and drank.

“Pretty strong, this.”

“Knock the eyes out of Justin’s rooster. Folks say it’s rare. Smoky flavor. They call it the old stuff.” She lifted the bottle again; I declined and she splashed some in her own glass and rose to add water from the tap. I watched the lines of her body move, the easy sway of her hips and breasts, the arch of the neck while she turned the faucet. “I always figured I’d get married at least five times. Have a gang of kids. Shows you how things work out, don’t it?” She looked up at the ceiling. “Well, I got one, anyhow. She’s like her father, got the same nature when she’s calm.” She studied her reflection in the mirror between the windows. “Same nature when she takes fire, too. I guess she favors him in her coloring. Most girls would’ve tried to hide it-not having a husband, I mean-but what the heck. Nobody around here cares.”

“She’s an unusual child.” I wondered who the father had been.

“Yeah. She is. She don’t make much trouble for me. We get on fine. It’s hard tryin’ to talk to her sometimes. I mean it’d be nice to have someone who understands what you’re saying.” She sat again. From the sink came the slow drip of water. “Darn that leak,” she said.

“Needs a washer.”

“Lots of things around here need lots of things.”

“You knew Gracie Everdeen?”

Her brow shifted slightly. There was a pause. Then: “You’re full of questions, aren’t you? You interested in Gracie Everdeen?”

“Just trying to get the village history straight.”

“I’ll get it straight for you. Sure I knew Gracie. If it wasn’t for her, we’d still be living where you’re living. It was her who brought the Waste, her who ruined my father, ruined so many around here. She was a sly one, Gracie. Thought she had it all. And she did, for a time. Had Roger, got to be Corn Maiden; she was queen of the May, all right. But things didn’t work out for poor Gracie. I got Roger, I got to be Corn Maiden, and there’s Gracie pushing up daisies in the churchyard. If you want to know what I think about her, I hope she burns in everlasting hell. She ought to have killed herself, or if she hadn’t, someone-” She broke off, controlling her anger. She leaned on her elbows; the scoop of her blouse slackened; I could see the deep firm line between her breasts.

“If you want to know the truth, Gracie was dippy. Pure dippy.”

“You mean crazy?”

“I mean crazy. Crazy with love for Roger, and crazy she couldn’t marry him. That’s what sent her off the deep end.”

“What happened?”

“She was supposed to marry Roger. Then Mrs. Everdeen revoked the banns. That’s what drove Gracie crazy, because her mother wouldn’t let her marry Roger.”

“Why didn’t she want her to marry him? Wasn’t he good enough for her?”

“He was a Penrose! Lived just off the Common. Roger was poor, but the Everdeens never were any great account in the Coombe. People think the Penroses are-” She touched her temple. “But in this case it was the other way around. Gracie’s brains went to pudding.”

“How?”

“Lord, Roger’d picked her for Corn Maiden. That was an honor. What did she do? She tossed the honor back in all our faces, the little fool. Nothing she wouldn’t do to shock people or make them think ill of her, she who had everything, Roger included. Know what she did on Agnes Fair? Roger was shinnying up the pole on the Common, and there goes Gracie up the flagpole in front of the post office in about the same time. They wasn’t watching the Harvest Lord then, let me tell you; they were watching her. Then, when Roger was wrestling, out comes Gracie from the platform and throws a hammer lock on him and tosses him to the ground in front of the whole village. The Corn Maiden putting down the Harvest Lord? She was crazy, I tell you. Then she marches up to old man Deming and curses him out, swearing like a trooper. It wasn’t any wonder she ran off, after that.”

“And you were Corn Maiden in her place.”

“Yes. I was. And I’d be again, if I could. Sophie Hooke, for heaven’s sakes. Why, she and Justin are married. That’s not right. I don’t think that’s right. Nobody does.” She reached for my glass. I did not release it immediately and I could feel the light tracery of her nail against the back of my hand.

“What’re we talking about Gracie for? People’d like to stop thinking about her, if they ever could. You’re got good hands. Nice fingers. Long. I guess that means you’re an artist.” She was rubbing her fingertips over the dark hairs. “Nice,” she said in a husky voice.

“Nice?” I let go the glass. She took it to the sink and put some ice cubes in.

“Nice. I mean, sitting around my kitchen. It’s not often I have gentry sitting at my house.” The cat stirred again as she poured two stiff fingers from the stone jug and brought the glass back, bending over my shoulder to place it on the table. I could smell her scent, not just the perfume but the whole womanly, feminine scent of her. I looked up, felt her hair brush across my eyes. I started to turn away; she leaned insistently and the red mouth came closer, the lips moist, parted. She kissed me. I slid an arm around her neck and held her mouth to mine. I released her in confusion, and she shuddered, burying her lips in my shirt collar, then stepping away. “I knew,” she murmured, and her head nodded as though in private conversation. “I knew.”

It had grown dark outside. I rose. “Sorry. I guess that was starting things that shouldn’t have gotten started.”

She leaned back against the sink, her breasts straining against her blouse. “Shouldn’t have? I’ve been waiting these months for you to start something.” She was running cold water in the sink; her red-nailed fingers sparkled under the gushing faucet. She turned the tap, shook her fingers, and came to me; her arms were around my neck, her face tilted to mine. “I’ve been waiting, and now it’s happened. I knew it would.”

There was a light in her eyes that was not mere lust, but a gleam of triumph. I could feel the drops rolling from her fingertips onto the nape of my neck. I reached up and unclasped her hands. She took them away and placed them on my chest.

“I can feel your heart.” A smile grew from the corners of her mouth. I felt unsteady on my feet, locked my knees so I wouldn’t stagger. “The old stuff getting to you?” She laughed lightly. “You can have a high time on the old stuff.” The invitation was now not only in her eyes but on her lips, in the caress of her fingers as they toyed with the fabric of my shirt under my jacket.

I returned her look with the same level gaze, trying to keep my balance. “Sorry, lady-you have the wrong guy.”

“Don’t want to play?”

“In my own back yard.”

“Do you?” The curve of her brow rose, a mocking curve, questioning the truth of my statement. “Lots of play in your back yard? Sandbox and everything? Tin pail, shovel-playmate?”

“Why not? I’m married-remember?”

Her laugh became hoarse, unattractive. “Still waters don’t run very deep in your case, do they?” she said, half choking, half laughing. “I thought at least you’d like to go wading.” She looked at me another moment, then threw her arms about me, smothering me in her embrace. “I want you.” I could feel the warm throb of her against my thighs. Her mouth was all over my face, then across my lips, my cheeks, kissing my eyes, my brow, the tip of her tongue drawing a wet path to my ear, down the side of my neck.

I grasped her forearms and forced her away from me. Her arms bent, her hands came up, wilted in my grasp. Then they took on a tension, resisting my force. Her eyes flashed, and she ran her tongue over her lips.

“You bastard!” she whispered. The fingers convulsed, became claws, as they sought my shirt and tore at the buttons. I stepped backward, struck by her fury, keeping myself steady only by grasping the back of a chair. “You son of a bitch! Get out of here! Go on, get out.” As she came at me, I retreated to the doorway. She snatched up the glass from the table and dashed the liquor and ice at me. Her face had gone white, contorted in rage. She used words I had never heard a woman speak before. Now she flung the glass at me; I threw up an arm as it grazed my head, and it splintered against the door-jamb. The cat sat up. Tamar stood there looking at me, her fury ebbing. I held my hands up, palms outward, a gesture of futility.

“Sorry, lady,” I said. Turning, I saw her hand come up to her mouth and cover it, the long red nails taking sheen from the light. “Sorry,” I repeated dully. The cat meowed, and I turned to the back-porch doorway and stared in horror.

The child stood on the threshold, the front of her dress smeared with blood. In one hand she held the kitchen knife; in the other was the chicken, split down the middle, its insides hanging out in bloody riot. Bits of feathers were caught at the corners of her mouth, sticky with flecks of blood, and I could see her jaws working, trying to swallow something. Her eyes were glazed with some manic dream, while around whatever it was she had in her mouth, she spoke an unintelligible gibberish. I backed away from the disgusting sight as she advanced into the room. Her mother had not moved.

The knife fell from the child’s hand, clattering noisily. Her neck stretched like a serpent’s, the head angled forward, the eyes blank, unseeing. Cassandra, speaking with the tongue of the god.

“Mn-mm-mean, um-” She muttered on in a dead, hollow tone. I stiffened, waiting.

“Mean-um-mnm-” She seemed to be groping to see something that she alone could see, to hear what she alone could hear. There was still some unchewable matter in her mouth, and the parched syllables came with difficulty.

“Be-ware-” She was fumbling with the dead chicken, working her fingers inside the slit cavity.

“The-night-”

I looked down at the dripping entrails, and back as Tamar spoke anxiously. “When, Missy? Which night?”

“When-it comes-the night-beware-”

“When?”

A garbled response.

“Which night, Missy?”

Though she faced me, I was sure she did not see me. Yet, pillaging the insides from the chicken, yanking them onto the linoleum, she was speaking to me. “For you-the-”

“What, Missy?” Tamar strained forward anxiously to hear.

The cat dropped to the sinkboard and eyed the slimy guts on the floor. Missy bent, feeling with her hands but never removing her glazed eyes from my direction. She scrabbled at the feathers in the corner of her mouth and then, scooping up the loathsome mess from around her feet, she began hurling it at me, bit by bit, her arms windmilling, the gobbets flying in a spate of red before I could move.

“Which night?” Tamar demanded again.

Ugly blotches had appeared on the child’s pale skin. Wet breathing sounds issued from her gaping mouth. “Mean-um — mnm-” Gently she fondled the last remaining pieces in her palms, then paused as though listening. She struggled to articulate, then gasped out the words.

“The-all-pre-vail-ing-night-’’

Her hand flew up, she crammed the stuff into her mouth, choked, and fainted. As I backed through the doorway, the cat sprang to the floor with a thud and began greedily devouring the chicken’s heart.

17

At first when I turned in to Penrose Lane, I did not hear the horse. Then, absorbed in thinking of what had happened at Tamar’s house, I thought that Kate was just giving the mare too much head. At last I realized Tremmy was running away with her. They were coming at a fast clip, and I could see the look of terror on Kate’s face. I ran into the middle of the road and lunged for the rein. “Dig your knees in!” I shouted, grabbing hold and letting the horse drag my weight. At the same time, Kate pulled back on the reins and the horse reared and plunged, whinnying wildly and thrashing with its head. Still Kate kept her seat, grasping the mane with both hands as she tried to control the animal. Its head came up and knocked me sidewise, and again it reared, its hoofs just missing me as they came down. I rolled out of the way and shouted for Kate to kick free of her stirrups, then jumped and snatched the reins in one hand and an ear of the horse in the other. Twisting, I exerted all the force I could to quiet the animal, and as it moved past me, I let go, reached for Kate, and grabbed her from the saddle. The horse skipped away as I held her in my arms, then set her down.

“Gosh.” She leaned against me for a moment, pressing her head to my chest with relief.

“Are you O.K.?”

“Sure. I’m fine.” She looked up at me, rose on tiptoe, and kissed my cheek. I heard her laugh as I went back to the corner, where the horse had stopped to chew some grass. I came quietly up beside it, talking to it until I had got the reins, and gently led it around. Kate was still laughing.

The laugh stopped. She caught at her chest. Yanking the horse behind, I started to run. Her hands came up around her throat, she staggered slightly, and I let go of the horse and caught her just as her knees buckled. I laid her down in the roadway for a moment, watching as her eyes bulged, the veins appeared, and she fought for air. Frantically I felt in the pockets of her jeans for her Medihaler. It was not there. I picked her up in my arms and, running, carried her down the lane.

I brought her in through the door of the kitchen, where Beth and Maggie Dodd were sitting at the table having coffee. Beth jumped up, white-faced, and I told her to get the emergency Medihaler from the drawer, then took Kate into the bacchante room and laid her on the sofa. When Beth brought the breathing device, I forced it between Kate’s lips and pumped the aluminum valve. In the other room I could hear Maggie on the telephone, calling Dr. Bonfils. Then she dialed another number, apparently failed to get a response, and a moment later hurried out the door.

The Medihaler seemed to be having no effect. As Kate lay gasping for breath, I could feel her pulse getting weaker. Hastily I forced her mouth open and began applying mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. I was still working over her when the doctor arrived.

He administered massive doses of adrenalin; I swabbed the arm for him when he injected the needle. Kate lay in a comatose state, her position unchanged. Behind me, Beth watched horror-stricken. The doctor rolled back the lids and looked at the turned-up eyes. I heard a truck in the driveway, and shortly Merle Penrose, Harry Gill, and another from the fire department rushed in with the respirator. The doctor supervised the application of the machine, taking his stethoscope from his bag and holding it to Kate’s chest. I stepped back out of the way, groped blindly for Beth’s hand, but failed to find it.

Kneeling, the doctor listened. I could see that the collar of his shirt was frayed; I remember thinking he probably got paid so little for his services in these parts that he couldn’t afford a new one. Mrs. O’Byrne’s Tiffany clock on the shelf chimed the half-hour, and I became acutely aware of the ticking. Merle and the fire department boys had moved to the corner, waiting. I could hear the sound of raspy breathing, but I knew it was Dr. Bonfils, who, with his shoulders sagging, crouched by the sofa and listened for the heartbeat. He motioned to Merle; the apparatus was detached. Merle and the others did not look at me as they took it and went out. The truck backed out of the driveway and went along the lane.

Dr. Bonfils stood looking down at the small figure on the sofa; he did not turn immediately. Unable to wait longer, I stepped to his side, put a hand on his shoulder, forced him to look at me. It is still possible to hope when hope is gone; he read the hope in my expression, and I could see it pained him to be able to offer me none. I watched him lay the stethoscope in the bag, heard the snap of the latches. Then he picked up his bag and, without looking again at the figure on the sofa, left the room. I heard the front door open and close.

In the space between the coffee table and the sofa, I knelt and laid the side of my head along the cushion, my lips touching the shoulder of my dead daughter. There was the odor of the stable on her jacket. I took her hand and held it. What did one do now? In the movies they always draw a sheet over the-

Body.

Again I heard the ratcheting sound of a motor; a car pulled into the drive, doors slammed. I remained where I was, thinking I must call Ed Oates and let him do what must be done. Amys Penrose would be tolling thrice times thrice; wasn’t that the way you did it for a girl? Thrice times-

I heard them coming in, felt the floorboards give as someone came up behind me. A hand touched my shoulder, and I looked down and recognized it as the Widow Fortune’s. Maggie Dodd was standing behind her.

Without speaking, she motioned me aside, and I rose and gave her my place beside the sofa. She lowered herself, the little black valise beside her. I looked at Beth, who stood in the doorway, shaken but dry-eyed, her hands at her breast, clutching a handkerchief.

“Open my bag,” the Widow told Maggie.

It was useless, of course. For all her healing powers, for all her pharmacopoeia, for all her wisdom, there was nothing to be done. I had seen it in the doctor’s eyes. I went to Beth and took the handkerchief from her clasped hands and used it myself, wiping my eyes and blowing my nose. She returned my look briefly-and angrily, I thought, as though Kate’s death had been my fault. How mine? For the horse that I had bought her? For moving to the country where she could have a horse? For-what?

I put my arms around her and drew her against me. She held her body stiffly, and her hands at her breast kept us apart. Behind me I could hear noises, the rustle of the Widow’s black dress, a few muttered words to Maggie. I turned to see the old woman bending, her ear to Kate’s unmoving chest. She listened intently, then straightened; slowly she raised her hand, closing her fingers into a massive fist, which she held motionless for the space of three or four seconds, then brought it down with a firm blow. Quickly she moved her head to the listening position. She grunted; then, putting one palm over the back of the other hand and placing both on the chest, she began applying a steady pressure. When she had worked thus for perhaps a minute, she changed her position slightly, moving to the head, where she repeated the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

I could see it was no use. The girl had not stirred; there were no signs of breathing. As she applied her mouth, the Widow lifted her eyes and let her gaze wander the room. She pointed at the jar of bamboo pens on the piecrust table. Maggie handed them to her; she examined them, selected one, and flung the rest away. She sent Maggie for clean towels; then, pulling her bag nearer and beckoning me to her, she reached up to dig in my pocket. I knew immediately what she wanted: my penknife.

Maggie brought the towels, and relieved her of the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The Widow opened the knife and, without wasting a second, bent over Kate. She plunged the point in at the base of the throat, making a small, quick incision. Then she inserted the blunt end of the hollow bamboo pen into the aperture and began sucking. I held a towel for her as she spat out the fluids she was draining from the throat, a thick, yellowish-white substance, mixed with blood.

I glanced at Beth; she had not moved from where she stood. I looked down at the two women, both working stolidly, determinedly, Maggie with her mouth to Kate’s, the Widow drawing out the deadly secretions that had caused the arrest. As she sucked at the hollow of bamboo, her broad, liver-spotted hand spread across Kate’s chest, exerting the rhythmical pressure initiated earlier, pushing down as Maggie pulled the air out, releasing as it was replaced with fresh.

Still I knew it was impossible. I watched the collar of blood ooze from around the inserted pen, saw it flow down the collarbone onto the green velvet upholstery. I gave the Widow a fresh towel and took the soiled one, holding it in my hands. Kate’s blood. Beth moved, came to stand beside me at the end of the sofa, and together we looked down at our daughter in this grotesque attitude of death. It seemed ignominious, and I wanted to tell them to stop, to leave her alone, let her be; don’t do this dreadful thing to our child-the cut throat, the running blood, the streaming nostrils-

I must have made a sound, for Maggie stopped, then shook her head once, a firm shake, never taking her eyes from the Widow. I was struck by the horrible thought that the old woman had gone insane, was trying to suck the last bit of blood from the unmoving body, and again I thought, Christ, let them stop.

And then, before our eyes, the miracle took place. The chest heaved convulsively; the Widow quickly raised her head, and I heard the rush of air through the bronchial tubes. Never ceasing the rhythmical pressure on the chest, she shifted her position slightly, turning the head so that more liquid drained, while Beth reached for a towel and knelt to wipe up the excess.

“She’s alive,” I said aloud. The old woman shot me the quickest of looks, an unreadable one; then, cradling Kate’s head with her free arm, she shifted her back to a supine position, still using the other hand as a bellows. The breathing continued for some seconds, then stopped. I felt my body sag. Again the Widow used her mouth. The breathing resumed. Erratically, but it resumed.

She would live, she would live, I kept telling myself. She would live because of this old woman who was bending over her, forcing her to live, pushing the breath back into her body, giving her air to breathe. Beth had laid aside the soaking towel and was leaning on the arm of the sofa, her hands before her face in an attitude of prayer. The rate of respiration quickened, slowed, and quickened. After several minutes, the Widow took her hands away. The chest seemed to rise and fall of its own accord. The uneven breaths wheezed in Kate’s throat and chest, but they were breaths.

She would live.

Now the Widow was working at the hole in the throat, holding it closed with her fingers to stanch the blood flow. I came around her to a position between her and Beth, reaching for Kate’s wrist that hung limply to the floor, feeling the vein for a pulse. It was there; faint, but it was there. Silently I kept thanking God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God.

Again I heard the Widow mutter something, and she motioned for Maggie to hand her Beth’s work basket. She threaded up a needle, and as if she were quilting she calmly sutured the muscle and tissue together with a series of neat stitches.

I marveled at the way the ancient fingers worked, how deft and nimble they were, even in age, how carefully and gently they manipulated. When the stitches had been placed and the knot tied, she dug her fists into her back to ease the strain, but kept her kneeling position at Kate’s side, her eyes taking in every slightest movement.

I continued holding the frail wrist, as if trying to draw from it a stronger pulse beat. Beth remained where she was; Maggie was poised at the other arm of the couch. I could hear the low sound of the Widow’s voice; I thought she must be speaking to Maggie, perhaps to herself, perhaps making a prayer; I do not know what I thought. Crouched beside her, I began to feel the strength emanating from her body, a life force flowing out of her into the child. She bent close to Kate’s ear, speaking into it, willing her, commanding her to live. The words made no sense to me, but the fervor with which she spoke them engendered in me the utmost feelings of trust. I glanced at Beth. Her eyes shone; there was a small, rigid smile of hope on her tightly compressed lips.

I felt the pulse flutter again. I jumped to my feet and ran into the kitchen. I had picked up the receiver and started to dial when I felt Beth’s hand on mine.

“What are you doing?”

“Calling the firehouse. For the pulmotor-”

“No.” Her fingers pushed the button, breaking the connection. “I don’t want them back here.”

“Christ, Beth-”

“No. I don’t want them.” She looked toward the bacchante-room door. “She’s doing it. Leave her alone. If she can’t do it, no one can. Leave her alone. Leave her alone.” Her voice rose to an anguished pitch, the cry of agony of a mother for her daughter. I replaced the receiver and reached to take her in my arms. She pulled away.

“Beth-”

She spun on me, her eyes flashing fire. “I know where you’ve been.”

Been? Where had I been?

I had forgotten. With Tamar Penrose. Even in my innocence, I felt a flood of guilt. Beth was clutching my shirt. I looked down at it: lipstick, two buttons gone, spatters of chicken blood. I opened my mouth to say something, but she went into the other room-past Maggie, who stood in the doorway.

Maggie took a glass from the cupboard, found the Scotch on the shelf, poured a stiff shot, got ice and soda, then set it on the table. She pulled out the chair and gestured for me to sit. I did as she indicated, taking the glass she handed me. Absently I stirred the cubes with my index finger. Maggie pressed my shoulder, then took another chair, and sat across from me, offering me silent comfort. I could hear the faint, insistent effervescence of the soda in my drink. We waited. I could hear the low voice of the Widow Fortune.

Then, after a little while, I could hear Kate’s voice, too.

18

I completed a painting of Fred Minerva’s barn in less than four days, working at the site during the day, nights in the studio. When Beth’s village activities required her elsewhere, I interrupted my work to stay by Kate’s bedside, sitting in the club chair, which I had moved up from the bacchante room. We would talk, or play games, and sometimes I would sketch her, or objects in the room, or views from the window. Some noontimes the Widow would come in her buggy and fix lunch for me, thus relieving Beth of the extra duty. While I ate in the kitchen, I could hear the creaking of the club chair as she sat beside Kate’s bed, and the low intense tones of her voice as she talked. Sometimes Kate would laugh, and that made me feel good. Sometimes the Widow would stay the entire afternoon, and then I could devote more time to my easel. She would often cook dinner for us, and through my open studio window I could hear her bustling among the pots and pans while tantalizing cooking smells drifted out to me. I decided she must be cooking for herself as well, for I would see her packing part of the meal in her wicker basket, first wrapping it in foil to keep it warm, and covering it with a linen napkin. Then, promptly at five, she would hurry off to where other important things demanded her attention.

Worthy Pettinger did not leave, as I had expected him to, and when he heard of Kate’s illness, he came regularly after school, scheduling his visits to coincide with the Widow’s departure, when he would go up and visit with Kate until Beth came home.

When the barn painting was done, I sent it off to the gallery in New York. Some days later, I got a call saying it had been sold and a suitable check would be forthcoming. Before beginning the portrait of Justin Hooke, I immediately set to work planning another for the gallery-Jack Stump’s bait shack by the river. The peddler’s latest trip must have taken him up into Vermont somewhere, for we had seen nothing of him for weeks, and I had still had no opportunity to talk with him about my discovery of the screaming skull in Soakes’s Lonesome.

On the Friday following Kate’s attack, I came into the kitchen shortly after five to find the Widow Fortune still at the sink, washing up the pans and bowls she had used to prepare dinner. Through the glass window of the oven I saw a leg of lamb on the rack, several slices cut away from the joint, which she had doubtless wrapped and put into her basket. She was filling a thermos with hot soup from a pot that simmered on the stove.

“Now, that’s what I call soup,” I said when she had let me taste from the ladle. “What is it?”

She laughed. “I don’t think you’ve yet come to trust my cooking. That’s nothing but mushroom broth.”

“Ah,” I said.

“With a little borage thrown in. And some purslane. And a bit of chervil.”

“Ah,” I said, tasting again. “That’s it, is it?”

“Of course it’s not. Think I’d tell a fellow-even a good-lookin’ one-everything I put in my soup?”

“Or in your mead?”

“Here, go wash your hands-you got smudges all over ‘em.”

I cleaned up the sink, while she sat down heavily in a chair. She looked tired tonight, and I knew her care for us was taking its toll of her strength. She smiled, a small smile of gratitude, which seemed to say, Well, haven’t we come through it all nicely?

Suddenly I was on my knees beside her, my arms around her waist, my head in her lap.

“Here, now-here, now,” she said. “Come, don’t do that.”

“Thank you,” I murmured into the folds of her long apron. She patted the top of my head, then down my cheek, then pushed at my shoulder, half pleased, half embarrassed by my display.

“Nothin’ wrong with sentiment, if it’s what you truly feel. That’s the trouble with folks, they’re too afraid to show what’s inside ‘em.” As I rose, she gave my hand a solid squeeze, then looked toward the door behind me. “Evenin’, Worthy. Late, en’t you?”

Worthy Pettinger stood in the doorway, looking disconcerted at having come upon us at such an intimate moment.

The Widow rose and went to him, brushed his hair from his eyes. He submitted to her careful scrutiny, squirming as she took his chin in her hand. “Thinner you are, and peaked. No, don’t move.” She opened the black valise. “Spoon,” she said to me. I fished one from the drawer and handed it to her. She took a bottle, unscrewed the cap, and poured. Worthy’s eyes rolled as she put the spoonful of liquid to his lips and made him swallow. “Another.” She dosed him again, pushing the spoon at him while he bent back against the sinkboard. Then she capped the bottle, returned it to her valise, and rinsed the spoon.

“Don’t take on so, boy,” she told him shortly. “Go and bring the buggy for me-the mare’s hitched to the garage doors.”

When he had gone to do her bidding, she set the valise beside the splint basket and went up to tell Kate goodbye. In a moment I heard the station wagon pull up, and I opened the front door for Beth. Our greeting was constrained as she laid her things down on the hall table and took off her coat.

“How’s Kate?” It was always her first question.

“O.K. Want a martini?”

“Afterward.” She hurried up the stairs. Kate’s bedroom door opened, then closed. I could hear the exchange of greetings and the drone of the women’s voices. The kitchen door slammed and in a minute I saw Worthy hunching in the shadows at the opposite end of the hallway.

“You all right?” I asked before stepping past him into the kitchen.

Silently he followed me in, watched while I got ice from the automatic dispenser, the glass martini pitcher, the gin, and the vermouth. Soon I heard the Widow’s footstep on the stair. I mixed the drink, poured it into a stem glass the way Beth liked it, and put it on the refrigerator shelf.

The Widow came in tying up the strings of her bonnet. As she smoothed her skirts, I noted her shears were not in their accustomed place at her side. She turned to Worthy, who stood behind the table yanking his finger joints, which cracked loudly. “Why such a long face, boy? You look like you was off to Armageddon for the final battle.” She picked up the black valise.

Again I felt compelled to express myself. “Thank you for your prayers.”

“Try some of your own. Sunday’s Corn Tithing Day. Worthy, don’t shirk your duty to your Lord. You want things, come to church and ask for ‘em.” He looked down, still cracking his knuckles. “Leave off them anatomical detonations and hand me my basket, I’m late.”

He came around the table and gave her the splint basket. She folded the linen napkin over its contents and went to the doorway, then turned.

“Sunday. Church. Tithing Day. Don’t forget.”

“I won’t forget!”

I whirled, shocked at Worthy’s tone. He stood with his shoulders hunched, the lock of hair falling down over his brow. He made no move to push it aside; his hands hung limp at his sides, and I could see the muscles in his jaw working as he glared angrily at the Widow.

“Very well,” she replied evenly, and went out. The buggy springs creaked as she mounted; she clucked up the mare and the wheels ground along the drive. Worthy went to the sink tap, filled a glass, and drank.

“Bad taste,” I remarked, meaning the two herbal doses he had swallowed. He nodded, wiped his mouth.

“Are you still planning to leave?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“I can’t go till-” He broke off. “Soon. I’ll go soon.” His eyes narrowed as he stared into the sink. “I’ve got something to do. One last thing, then I’ll get out and never come back.”

He went upstairs, and when Beth came down a few moments later I carried her martini and my Scotch into the bacchante room. The sofa had been taken away to be recovered, and we sat on either side of the fireplace, she in the Salem rocker, I in a Windsor ladder-back.

“The Widow says Kate can come down for a little while tomorrow,” she said, rubbing her finger around the edge of the glass.

“That’s good.”

“But only for an hour or so.”

“Fine.”

The Tiffany clock ticked, filling the silence between us.

“Beth.”

“Mm?”

“Why are you acting this way?”

“I’m not acting any way. I just-”

“Just what?”

“I just didn’t think it was possible.”

“Possible for what?”

“Possible for you-” She took a sip of her drink. “Please, Ned, I don’t want to fight-”

“I don’t want to either. There’s nothing to fight about.”

“Then can’t we leave it at that? Kate’s going to be all right and-”

“Yes. Kate’s going to be all right. But are we?”

“Yes. I guess so. I don’t know.”

“Look at me.” She raised her head and returned my gaze. “I went to Tamar Penrose’s, yes. But nothing happened. I promise you that nothing happened.”

“Then it must have been a wasted visit.” She drank again, and asked, “Why did you go?”

“I didn’t go with her, I went with the kid-Missy. I-” I broke off. How could I explain to her why I had gone with Missy that afternoon? Or what it was I was trying to find out from her. Or my fears, which I considered foolish ones but which, nonetheless, I had failed to rid myself of. “It’s true,” I maintained stolidly. I felt hot and confused, hating the distance between us, wishing we could put down our glasses and hold each other. “It’s true,” I said again.

“You went home with a little girl at six o’clock in the evening? For what possible reason?”

“To find out something.”

“From a thirteen-year-old child?” Her smile was the one she used when she wanted me to feel like a fool. And I did. How could I tell her about the red pointing finger, the mad child prophesying in her mother’s kitchen, the bloody chicken, guts spilled all over the floor?

“She fell out of a tree-I went to see if she was all right-I followed her-we were sitting on the porch, in the swing. We were playing cat’s cradle-”

“Ned.”

“It’s true. She tied my hands. Tamar came home.”

“Tamar…”

“What should I call her-Miss Penrose?”

“That’s what you used to call her. Until things got on a different-footing.”

I rose angrily. “Look, I’m trying to tell you the truth. I’m trying to tell you what happened.”

“You said nothing did.”

“It didn’t.”

“I didn’t bother saving your shirt. I threw it out.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t feel required to sew back the buttons some other woman had ripped off my husband’s clothing in her eagerness to avail herself of his body.”

“I kissed her.”

“Once.”

“No-”

“More than once.”

“Yes-”

“And you had a few drinks and got a little stinko, and she was there and she was so inviting you couldn’t help yourself-isn’t that the way it went?”

“I__”

“You couldn’t help yourself. The male instinct. Loin lust. What did you do about the child?”

“She wasn’t there. She went out.”

“Nice. The mother sends the child out to play while she-”

I crashed my glass into the fireplace to silence her. “You can believe me or not, however you choose, but I’ll say it once more. Nothing happened beyond a couple of drinks and a kiss.”

“I’d better get a broom,” she said.

I watched her go into the kitchen, and above the ticking of the clock I heard Kate coughing upstairs. I took my car keys from the hook and left the house.

When I got home, it was after three o’clock in the morning. I tiptoed into the kitchen and put two quart cartons into the refrigerator, turned off the light Beth had left for me, and moved up the stairway. Outside Kate’s door, I stopped and listened. I could hear the sound of her easy breathing. I went across the hall and opened the door to our bedroom. Beth was asleep in the four-poster bed. The light on the bureau was still burning. I undressed, and laid my things on the chair. For some reason I was thinking of Cassandra, the prophetess of Troy. Having spurned the love of Apollo, it had been given to her to speak with his tongue, but, speaking, it had been her fate that no one should believe her. But the hollow horse came, and the walls of Ilium were tumbled.

And the walls of Cornwall Coombe? It was Missy Penrose’s fate that everyone should believe her, every last villager. I switched off the light. Outside, there was no moon. All was still and dark. A quiet night. I wondered what and who could make it “all-prevailing.”

19

Even after I had had only four hours’ sleep, the yellow bird managed to wake me the following morning at my accustomed hour. I could hear Beth in the shower, and when she emerged from the bathroom, pink and flushed, I wanted to pull her back into bed. She put on her robe, removed the towel she had wrapped around her, and sat at the dressing table brushing her hair.

“Morning,” I said.

“Good morning.” From her tone, I felt it was not. I yawned widely.

“You’d better roll over and have another six hours.”

“Why?”

“You didn’t get very much last night.”

“No.”

She brushed crisply for ten or so strokes. “I suppose the urge was irresistible.”

“No.”

“What, then?”

“I went for a drive.”

“Oh?” She gave me a look in the mirror. “Till three in the morning?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a long drive, over to Main Street. They say the murderer always returns to the scene of the crime.”

“I drove to New York.”

She swiveled on the bench, brush poised at the downstroke. “You what?”

“I said I drove to New York.”

“What on earth for?”

I threw the covers off and headed for the bathroom. “To buy Kate some proper chili.”

When I got downstairs, my breakfast was cooked and in the warmer. There was a note saying Beth had gone to Mrs. Brucie’s to pick up some quilts. When I opened the refrigerator door to get the cream for my coffee, I found another note pinned to one of the paper cartons from Pepe’s Chili Palor. It read:

Not for breakfast!!!

(and watch for the man with the sofa)

The recovered sofa was returned about midmorning, and was ready for Kate when I carried her downstairs at noon. I laid her on it, with pillows and a blanket, then pulled the rocker up and sat beside her.

“Want the T.V. on?” I asked.

“In a bit. Not just now. Doesn’t that bird know winter’s coming?”

“He waited till you got better.”

She nodded an absent affirmative to my remark, scrunching up her nose like a rabbit. Then she sniffed, and turned to me wide-eyed. “That smells like chili!”

I went into the kitchen, dished up a bowl, and brought it back on a tray with a glass of milk. “Pepe sends love.”

“Oh, Daddy-” I settled the tray on the table and held the bowl and spoon.

“I can do it.”

“You just lie there and let me spoon-feed you. You’ve been a sick girl.”

“How many’d you get?”

“Two. We can freeze what you don’t eat and you can have it another time. But not for-”

“Breakfast. I know.” She swallowed the spoonful I held for her and waited for the next. “Did you and Mom make up?” she asked, blowing.

“You heard us, huh?”

“Mm. It sounded as if you were doing toasts, like in War and Peace.”

“I think it was more war than peace.”

She let the subject drop then, and ate in silence, blowing on each spoonful as I held it for her. “Want some milk?”

“Mm.”

I handed her the glass, she took a few sips, then lay back against the pillows while I used the napkin on her mouth.

“Anything else?”

“Could you open the window? It’s sort of stuffy.”

I raised the window behind the sofa. From the other side of the hedge came the Invisible Voice. We listened together, trying to determine what it was today. Neither of us recognized the work. I lowered the window slightly and turned on the television, handing Kate the remote control so she could choose her channel; then I carried the tray to the kitchen. When I came back, Kate was watching June Allyson struggle valiantly with a bull fiddle on the television screen.

I made sure she had what she needed, then went back to the studio to continue preparing a gesso board for my new painting. While it dried, I straightened up my paint taboret, sharpened my pencils, threw out a bunch of old sketches, and packed my drawing kit. From Robert’s open window, the Invisible Voice continued reading, though I still had not yet caught enough of it to identify the work. When I came out the studio door, I found the buggy in the drive, the tethered mare contentedly chewing the grass along the hedge. The kitchen door popped open and the Widow appeared on the back stoop, fists on her hips, glowering.

“Chili!” The way she spat the word I decided it had a bad taste for her.

“Chili?” I replied mildly.

“Don’t you go giving that child none o’ that foreign muck. You want to upset her stomach? You feed her, you feed her what I leave to feed her, hear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She gave me another look, then retired. Passing the hedge, I heard the Invisible Voice:

“‘I am Charles Hexam’s friend,’ said Bradley; ‘I am Charles Hexam’s schoolmaster.’

“‘My good sir, you should teach your pupils better manners,’ replied Eugene.’”

I called over to Robert. “You’ve got me, Robert. What’s the book?”

“Try Our Mutual Friend.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Dickens.”

By spring, I decided, Robert would have read his way through the entire works. I climbed on my bicycle, and pedaled out into the lane.

I stopped at the post office to mail the letter I had written to the gallery in New York. As I dropped it into the box outside, I could see the postmistress behind the counter, weighing a package. Her head was down, her face obscured by her hair. Suddenly she looked up, as if she knew I was watching. She stared back at me, her face a mask, then she picked up a rubber stamp and stamped the top of the package. I walked back to the bicycle.

Coming along the roadway in front of the church on the far side of the Common was the pink Oldsmobile. I got back on my bike and rode south along Main Street; I could hear the car behind gaining on me. When I got to the intersection of Main and the River Road, I made a sharp left, and the pink car went roaring past. Glancing back, I saw Old Man Soakes behind the wheel, while two other faces peered at me through the back window. I heard their hoots and jeers as the car disappeared beyond the end of a cornfield, and a plume of blue exhaust dissolved in the air.

Ten minutes later, I was seated on a box at the corner of the small plot where Jack Stump’s bait shack stood. I spent an hour sketching the structure, then, dissatisfied with the results, concentrated on some of the details. There was a particular window I liked, with a piece of tattered shade, and a mud-dauber’s nest in the corner by a broken pane of glass. I contented myself with this small particular for the better part of the afternoon, until the sun caught the broken pane, reflecting in my eye so that it became difficult to work. I made one or two brief erasures on my page, then reversed the sketch against the light to check for errors. Turning it again, I held it up and compared it with the original. Suddenly something odd about the sketch caught my eye. Or, rather, something odd about the window itself. In the drawing, as I had completed it, the window shade hung down only four or five inches, but now, in the shack, the shade was drawn to the sill.

Sliding the pad into the case, I zipped it up and approached the door and listened. From the other side I could hear a faint scraping sound. I knocked.

“Jack? You in there?”

There was no reply. I backed away, studying the house-front. Inside I heard a slight cough, and another shuffling noise. I tried the door. It was locked.

“Hey, Jack, it’s me, Ned Constantine.” I waited for a few moments, then walked around to the back where a small door was cut into the crude siding of the shack. I turned the broken porcelain handle and stepped in.

It was a small, dark room, with little more than a dripping faucet over a sink and a disreputable two-burner stove marking it as a kitchen. A kerosene lantern sat on a rickety table; beside it was a sack of groceries. On the window sill was a shaving mug and an ivory-handled razor which I thought I had seen before. I went around the table and pushed open a door, beyond which was a small hallway. I crossed the hall and opened the other door.

With the shade drawn I could discern only vague shapes — a table, some chairs, a bed with rumpled covers against the wall. Making my way to the window, I raised the shade; it flew up on the roller with a clatter. I heard a sort of whimpering sound behind me and turned to see the bedcovers moving. A hand emerged from under the blanket to pull it up. I stepped past a pile of magazines and looked down.

“Jack?”

Again there was movement, and I reached to turn down the blanket. The hand reappeared, fiercely gripping a corner.

“Hey, old-timer, it’s me, Ned Constantine.”

The whimpering sound continued, and I bent closer. “Hey, Jack-what’s the matter?” As I pulled the blanket back, the peddler seemed literally to be shaking with fright. Cowering, he threw his head to one side and covered it with his arm. His skin felt hot and feverish, and the effort to restrain his tremors brought on greater ones, the shudders racking his frame.

I drew the blanket down farther, and knelt. He kept his head turned away, and it was only by my gentle insistence that he eventually turned it toward me, sliding the tattered sleeve of his shirt over the lower half of his face and gazing at me with red-rimmed eyes. The stubble on his face was shorter than usual, no more than a night’s growth.

“Are you sick?” I asked. He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Did you just get back? You’ve been gone a long time.” He nodded wearily. As I was used to doing with Kate, I reached for his wrist to feel his pulse. Instinctively he snatched his arm away, revealing his face.

“Oh, no. Oh, no.” I stared in horror. “Jesus, Jack, what’s happened to you?” Even in the dim light, I saw the pitiful wound that passed for a mouth, the scabbed-over scars not fully healed. He huddled against the wall in fear, and I reassured him that I wasn’t going to harm him. Little by little, his hand slid down to the blanket, his fingers plucking at the worn fabric. I patted the hand, bending forward trying to see in the dim light.

“Nobody’s going to hurt you, Jack.” Clearly, he was terrified of something. I carefully took the face between my hands and stared at the scars. They were set half an inch apart, top and bottom, with more random ones at the corners. As though in protest against my seeing such obscene work, he made a gurgling noise in his throat. He tried to stop it, couldn’t, coughed, choked; the mouth opened and I stared into the dark maw. My stomach heaved at what I saw and I released the pained face.

I leaned across him and held him by both shoulders, shaking him slightly. “Jack? Jack, listen to me. I’m going to get a doctor. Can you hear me? I’m going to get help.”

I heard a step behind me, then a voice. “Leave him be- he’s been molested enough.”

The Widow came in, set her valise on the table, and came to the cot. I looked from her to the huddled shape under the blanket, then back to her again. She took a flashlight from her valise and pulled a chair close to the cot.

“What’s happened to him?” I asked.

Paying no attention to me, she switched on the light and held the lens against her skirt as she put her hand on his brow and felt it.

“Well, Jack, how is it this evening? Better?” The head turned slightly, nodded. As I had, she took his wrist and felt his pulse, then laid it back across his chest. “Yes, better, I’d say. Comin’ along nicely.” Then to me, “Wants a cup of tea, I expect. Maybe you’ll put the kettle on?”

I started the gas burner, filled the kettle under the tap, and put it on the fire. When I came back, the Widow was holding the flashlight over his open mouth and gently urging him to open it. “Come now-you devil, you-don’t be coy with an old lady. Open up and let me see how things are.” At last he opened his mouth and permitted the examination. She looked for a moment or two, moving the beam around inside, then nodded for me to bring her valise.

I fetched it, and she gave me the light to hold while she took a bottle and dipped a cotton swab in it, then inserted the swab and ran it carefully around inside.

“There, now, that’s good. Close now, Jack.” She returned the bottle to the valise and took out a tin of ointment, which she applied to the scars around the lips. “Last time I used this was when they took to you with their fists. But they had worse than fists about them, didn’t they?”

I stared at her. “The Soakeses?”

“Hush,” she told me. “Now then, Jack, what you want is some tea, en’t that it?”

He nodded; she gave his hand a pat and rose. I followed her back into the kitchen, where she took a box from the shelf and a teapot which she rinsed at the sink. I sagged against the doorway and must have made some sort of sound, for she spoke impatiently. “None o’ that, now. There’s trouble enough around here.”

“They cut off his tongue?”

“Appears they did.” She spooned some leaves into the pot, wet her finger, and touched the outside of the kettle. “Another moment.” While the water continued to boil, she removed the linen napkin from the top of her splint basket and began laying out things on the table-several foil-wrapped packets, and the thermos jug. “Didn’t know you was feedin’ the unfortunate, did you?”

She had been taking the food from our house not for herself, as I had thought, but for Jack. She filled the teapot from the kettle, then took up a rolled parcel from a chair and unwrapped it. It contained some shirts and a pair of pajamas, freshly washed and ironed.

“How?” I asked.

“Simple. They caught him. They hid in the woods-their woods, damn their eyes-and they caught him. They caught him and they savaged him. Old Man Soakes and his boys. A nice, well-mannered bunch. I always said Jack’s nose would get him in trouble one day.”

Unconsciously I touched the end of my tongue, thinking how close I had come to a similar fate. Old Man Soakes with his sharp knife, the boys with their-

“Canvas needles.” I voiced my thought.

“Aye, canvas needles. They cut and stitched him up for fair.”

“How did he keep from bleeding to death?”

“We stopped him.” She took a cup and saucer from the shelf and set it on the table. I recognized the box of One-B Weber’s tea.

“It’s steamin’, Jack,” she called to him, “so we’ll let it cool a bit before you try it.” In the other room, she resumed her chair and held the cup and saucer on her lap, testing the rising vapors with the palm of her hand.

“But almost bled to death he did, didn’t you, Jack? Here, try a sip.” She held the cup up, waiting for him to drink.

“Now, then, no recalcitrance today,” she told him. “One-B Weber’s is a restorative, if ever there was. And when you’re done I’ve got soup and some good roast meat, courtesy of our friend here.” Though he did not seem to want the tea, she waited, cup poised, until he sipped. She watched him carefully, her eye never wavering as she made him drink, and while he drank she related what she knew of the tragedy.

She and Asia Minerva, along with Mrs. Zalmon and Mrs. Green, and Tamar Penrose as well, had been quilting at Irene Tatum’s house on the Sunday evening, when they heard a ruckus across the road in Soakes’s Lonesome. There were gunshots and they had trooped out on the porch to investigate. Then out of the woods Jack had appeared, crazed with pain and hardly knowing who he was or where he was going. He saw the light and came to them, blood pouring through his sewn-up lips. They had cut the stitches and discovered the severed tongue. The Widow herself had put the poker in the stove and cauterized the wound; then they had laid him on the davenport in the living room and kept watch until he came out of shock.

“Ashes there were everywhere, en’t that so, Jack?” she continued. The peddler nodded dazed agreement.

“Ashes?” I asked.

“Ashes. When they’d done with their fishing knife and canvas needles, they dunked him in water, then poured ashes from their still over him. En’t that so, Jack?”

I saw him nod. Ashes. White ashes. Then it dawned on me. The phantom in the windstorm. Not the Ghost of Soakes’s Lonesome, but the mutilated Jack Stump, his mouth stitched up into the grim red smile, the face ash-smeared. I remembered seeing the Soakeses as I was driving to Saxony to visit Mrs. O’Byrne, recalled the decoy-making implements, saw again the skiff on the water.

Patiently the Widow waited until the cup was empty, and when he wiped his mouth she gently took Jack’s hand away. “Don’t do that; you’re wipin’ off all the salve. Now you just content yourself until I get you shaved; then I’ll fix your supper.” Motioning me to lead the way with the lamp, she brought the cup and saucer into the kitchen and set it on the table.

“Only way to do is to joke with him, else he’ll sink into a fit o’ apathy and he won’t recover. If we don’t make too much of a thing of it, he’ll be back on his tin-pan contraption come spring. Won’t you, Jack?”-raising her voice again-”I say, Jack’ll be back on his contraption, pedalin’ up to my door fit as a fiddle come spring.”

“What’s being done about them?” I said.

“The Soakeses? Faugh, what’s to be done? The Constable knows, but there en’t a witness. Poor Jack can’t speak for himself. Can’t even write the tale.”

I shook my head. “Jesus, to go through life like that.”

“No need to take the name in vain. And no help for what can’t be helped. Jack don’t need syrup; he needs vinegar, or he’ll never get up.” All was being done that could be managed, she said. The village ladies were taking turns nursing him, and he was never alone for long. The mouth would heal; the main thing was to keep his spirits up. “There’s a lot worse ways to go through life. Plenty of people who can’t talk or hear, both. Some who can’t talk, hear, or see. Look at Robert Dodd. A sorely afflicted man, but he’s made a life, him and Maggie. Thing is to survive. You, now, you’re a painter, you don’t need to talk nor hear, but you got to see-ain’t that so? But if you couldn’t you’d survive, now, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t let a pack o’ Soakeses put you under.”

She rinsed out the cup and set it in its place on the shelf. I marveled at her. She not only ministered to the sufferings of the body, but she dealt with the psychology of the matter, refusing to let the bodily ailment fall prey to the sickness of the mind. She had no time for feeling sorry, or for despair, or for weakness.

“Life at its worst is better than no life at all, en’t that so?” Briskly she whipped up a lather in Clem Fortune’s shaving mug, took the ivory-handled razor, and went in to shave Jack.

20

Beth went to New York overnight, driving the car filled with village handicrafts for Mary Abbott. That night, after Kate had gone to sleep, I brought the little wooden cask down from the cupboard shelf and, sitting in the bacchante room, drank from it again. I went out and stood staring at the empty cornfield. There was no music; no figures appeared. I put the cask away and went to bed.

Sleeping, this is the kind of darkness I saw: a visible, tangible thing; a fathoms-deep ocean, with a thousand improbable shapes colliding, merging, separating; bright sea anemones folding and unfolding; and more intricate organisms, each geometrically perfect, blossoming scarlet, orange, turquoise, gold. It was as though I could reach out and dip my hand into the dark sea they swam. The dark had texture-soft, pliant, furry-like the pelt of an animal; it had dimension, seeming so high and so wide and so much across; immersed in it, my body displaced its own volume. Its flesh yielded, was weighted, ballasted. A breathing dark. A living thing, pulsing like a heart, throbbing with secret incomprehensible emanations, contracting, expanding.

And hidden in the dark, the eyes; the eyes of Missy Penrose. In dream blackness they stared at me. I leaned to the right, they followed; to the left, they followed still. The dark orb, oval, curved, unblinking. Upon its gelid surface I saw my own reflection, Bluebeard distorted. The eye became a solid sphere, an onyx globe, whose depths foretold events unborn, whose mysteries remained obscure. Saw in the eye great black birds hovering; saw cornfields in ruin; a scarecrow figure. The birds were crows, became harpies with human heads and women’s breasts, and in hideous chorus they railed at me. And their eyes again became the child’s eyes, and the eyes pursued me and I was running-and I was not running from, but to, for I had found the answer. In my dream I knew, the secret lay bared, and with the answer came realization, came-

Daylight, and I sat in our church pew, feeling the sweat running from my armpits down my sides, soaking my shirt. Surreptitiously I loosened my tie, felt in my pocket for a handkerchief, blotted my brow.

The windows of the church were open, bringing the outdoors in, and the breeze, and the beautiful fall. Outside I could see the knoll with its tombstones beneath the spreading branches of the red-gold trees. Gazing out, I was only half hearing Mr. Buxley’s sermon, the text of which this morning was taken from the Book of Ruth: “… whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.”

Ruth, who had left her own land to follow Naomi into hers, where she had gleaned the fields of Boaz. Ruth in tears amid the alien corn.

Turning my head to the gallery where the girls sat, I saw the child, neither listening to the minister nor looking at him, her blank half-wit look instead directed toward me. I had the feeling that she had not taken her eyes off me since the beginning of the service.

As I had done each day, again I worked the riddle over in my mind. Beware the night. Which? The all-prevailing night. How would it come? When?

I flicked my eye up to her, once, twice, again. I tried to analyze my feelings about her, and I could not. Except the realization that I felt, in some mysterious way, akin to her. She confused me, and my dreams. I had told myself she was only a thirteen-year-old child. She was playing some sort of game with me, a child’s game, nothing more; she was nothing but the village idiot.

Wasn’t she?

Yet her staring eyes filled me with a feeling of dread, as though they foretold a terrible event yet to come.

Portent. Omen. Missy Penrose.

Tamar Penrose.

The mother sat below, listening attentively to Mr. Buxley, and I felt, or perhaps imagined, that she was aware I might be looking at her, might be giving thought to her. As the daughter confused me, the mother angered me. There was something about her that seemed not merely predatory but demanding. Hers were not just the requirements of the town doxy from the local turnip-heads behind a haystack. There was something else in her, a deeply ingrained sense of something primitive, of the Woman Eternal, who demanded to be served — not just between the legs but to make man utterly subservient. Tamar the castrator. Moth to flame, I had come close and had my wings singed if not burned. I would not hover near again. I would avoid her as I would contagion. There would be no more episodes in that lady’s kitchen, no matter how the invitation was delivered.

And, torn shirt aside, how had Beth known I had been at Tamar’s house rather than at the Rocking Horse, or at the covered bridge, or any other place I might have been? Though I told myself women know these things by instinct, still I did not entirely believe it.

From the pulpit, Mr. Buxley droned on interminably, as was his habit. I looked around once more and realized that Worthy Pettinger had changed his mind. He had not come to church, as he had promised the Widow. His seat in the boys’ gallery was occupied by another, and there seemed no need for Amys Penrose’s rod, though I thought the bell ringer looked unusually attentive as he lounged against the rear wall.

Mr. Buxley concluded his sermon with a stentorian list of begats, ending with Ruth’s conceiving Obed, who became the father of Jesse, who became the father of David. He adjusted his glasses, coughed once, and left the pulpit to sit in a chair behind it. Now, from the pews, the village elders arose to station themselves behind a long harvest table below the pulpit. Mr. Deming nodded, and Justin Hooke stood up from his cushioned pew. He smiled as he put out his hand and drew Sophie to her feet; heads nodded and murmurs of approval were heard. Long after, I remembered the picture they made that day, Justin and Sophie, as they paused in their places. The sun streaming through the window caught their hair, turning it golden, surrounding it with a shining aureole. They looked at each other with tenderness and feeling, and I thought how blessed they were. Each bringing an ear of corn, they approached the harvest table below the pulpit, renewing the ancient and respected custom of the corn tithes.

When their symbolic gifts had been offered, the rest of the congregation rose to do likewise. I watched the faces of the farmers, their wives, and children as they filed past, tendering their corn ears to Mr. Deming, who then laid them on the harvest table. I saw the Widow’s white cap and black dress as she joined the line, and when she came opposite Mr. Deming, she handed him not one but two ears. He took her hands and pressed them, then leaned to kiss her cheek as he thanked her. She was the great lady of the town, and there was not a villager who didn’t know it. She was equal to the respect and duty paid her, and I thought how much they owed her, and how much I owed her, including the life of my only child. As she paid over her corn tribute to the church, I silently paid her my own tribute.

Constable Zalmon and his wife, at the head of their pew, joined the line as it wound ceremoniously down to the pulpit. Apart from the antiquated badge of office pinned to his weekday vest, Mr. Zalmon had never looked to me much like a constable, and I supposed very little had occurred during his tenure to occasion his use of force or imprisonment. An ancient village law of durance vile, which could be at any time invoked to restrain drunks or disturbers of the peace, provided that- since the stocks had been dismantled from the Common- the alleged guilty party should be incarcerated in the back room at the post office until a town meeting determined innocence or guilt, and the penalty to accompany the latter. This was called being given a “ticket-of-leave,” and the prisoner a “ticket-of-leaver.”

Though the villagers had by a concerted effort kept the attack on Jack Stump private, it was generally concluded that it remained for Mr. Zalmon to press charges against the Soakes family, and he spent much of his time outside the post office, keeping a sharp lookout for the pink Oldsmobile.

Since I had for some days set up my easel near the bait shack, the window of which I was still painting, I had seen the continual passage of the village dames coming at all hours with their baskets of food, and almost without fail every day at five the Widow Fortune would arrive in her buggy to tend the results of the Soakeses’ violence. The ladies washed Jack’s clothes and linens, made him broths, kept him clean and shaven, and otherwise did whatever was required to revive him. It was the Widow’s object to put him back on his cart by spring, a purpose she went about with diligence and dispatch. In the meantime, Mrs. Buxley had solicited funds from the parishioners to keep him in necessaries through the fall and winter.

I had taken the boat and rowed upriver to the Soakeses’ jetty, but had seen no sign of any of them. Rumor had it they had gone off on a hunting expedition, and it appeared Mr. Zalmon’s vigilance was in vain. Clearly, they had shut Jack Stump up as effectively as they had the revenuer whose skull screamed in the hollow tree.

The tithing line was dwindling. The Dodds went down the aisle, Maggie leading Robert slowly; he held his token ear of corn out from him as though feeling his way with it. Mr. Deming took the ear and laid it on the heap, which by this time had become considerable. The elder shook Robert’s hand warmly, accepted Maggie’s ear, and she brought Robert back to their pew.

In turn, I took my place in line, then handed Mr. Deming the three ears I had brought to church, one for myself, one for Beth, and the smallest for Kate. Mr. Deming took this last and held it up so all might see, and as I passed back up the aisle I knew I was receiving the good wishes of the villagers for Kate’s recovery. I felt the warmth of their glances, saw Asia Minerva smile as I passed her pew, caught Will Jones’s acknowledging nod as I passed his.

When the last of the children had come down from the gallery and passed before the table, the elders turned to Mr. Buxley, who rose out of his chair and, from the pulpit, held his hand above the piled ears of corn on the harvest table and offered a blessing, while the elders and the congregation bowed their heads. When the blessing had been given, Mr. Buxley readjusted his glasses and announced the closing hymn. I stood with the rest of the congregation and turned to face the choir loft over the closed doors. Mrs. Buxley lifted her gloved hand, nodded to Maggie at the organ, and we began singing.

The selection was a Thanksgiving hymn, and the strains, church truant though I was, rang familiarly in my ears. All around me, my fellow-parishioners sang with fervor, their faces uplifted to the streaming sun, mouths wide, hymnals held high, while with fierce determination Mrs. Buxley encouraged the choir:

The voices joined, rose, the notes clear and loud, a fervent sound that surely could be heard in Tobacco City. Ardor lighted the singers’ faces, and joy, and belief:

I was looking not at Mrs. Buxley, or at Maggie, or the choir, but at the clock under the choir loft. Suddenly the vestibule doors flew open with a thunderous crash, a metallic sound reverberating as one of them struck the radiator. The choir exchanged startled looks. One by one their voices dwindled away, and Maggie lifted her hands from the organ keys, turning with a surprised expression, while Mrs. Buxley leaned over the railing and craned her neck to discover the cause of the disturbance.

White-faced, and with a deep scowl, Worthy Pettinger stood on the threshold, his arms outstretched to hold the doors back. As his eyes swept the pews, I saw Mrs. Pettinger start, her hand flying to her mouth to stifle a little cry. Silent, staring, the congregation stood dumfounded, waiting to see what would happen.

Worthy lifted his right hand from the door panel and made a fist of it, and the fist trembled as he raised it and spoke in a loud, angry voice: “May God damn the corn!”

Immediately a babble of sounds arose, women covering their faces with their hands, some of the men turning to one another with angry mutters.

“May God damn the corn!”

He remained frozen in the open doorway, his clenched fist held aloft. “And may God damn the Mother!” Bringing his arm down in a swift gesture of denunciation, he wheeled and raced out the door. Behind him, the church was in pandemonium, the women crying out and sinking into their seats, the men struggling from their pews and up the aisle, while Amys Penrose appeared in the vestibule and, clutching the rope, began to yank it furiously. Listening to the wild peal of the bells, I thought the old man rang them with the sound of an “Amen.”