Warning Hill (2 page)

And there was his mother. Tommy remembered her best in times like that. She would always be in a gingham dress as she was that morning, with her head wrapped in a towel, struggling through an eternity of dust, surrounded forever by a chaos which would never be reduced. His mother was on her knees with a duster in her hand. Her mouth was a stubborn line, combatting the weariness of her eyes, offsetting the whiteness of her face, which looked like a face of wax. She was dusting off the tops of the books and was slapping their leaves together. The sun was coming through an open window, and showers of dust particles leaped into the path of the sunlight, and danced like little living things until they dropped away.

His father, as he stood by the open door, had the queerest look, as though something had hurt him again, though of course the idea was silly.

“Good Lord!” he said. “Good Lord, Estelle!”

Tommy's mother looked up, but she did not smile.

“Won't you go out, Alfred?” she said, “you and Tommy both go out.”

“Yes,” said Alfred Michael, “yes, of course we're going, dear.”

“Then don't just stand there,” said his mother. “Alfred …
please!
”

“Of course not,” said Alfred Michael; “we're going, dear. You won't lose my papers on the table?”

“I guess the world wouldn't end if I did,” said Tommy's mother. “It wouldn't if I burned all the papers in the house!”

“We're going, dear,” said Alfred Michael; “I just came in to ask if I might take Tommy out with me.”

“Where?” Tommy's mother looked up from the books, very quickly, Tommy thought.

“To my office, dear,” said Alfred Michael. “I want to read my mail, and Tommy likes to go.”

Tommy's mother sighed. She was looking very, very tired.

“Tommy,” she said, “let me see your hands.”

“They're clean, Mother,” Tommy said.

“Take him up and wash them, Alfred,” his mother said. “Wash them clean, so he won't smear the towel.”

“Come, Tom,” said Alfred Michael. They came to the stairs leading to a landing where a tall clock was ticking. “Come, Tom,” his father said, “I'll help you up.”

He lifted Tommy right into the air. They were up the stairs in no time, and in the dark back hall.

It was the first bathroom ever known in Michael's Harbor, but even when Tommy was little, that was long ago. It was lighted by a window of orange and violet glass. The zinc-lined bathtub shone vaguely. Peeping over the edge of the wash basin Tommy could see that purple and yellow flowers were glazed upon its surface.

“Daddy,” said Tommy, “Daddy?”

“Yes,” said Alfred Michael.

“Daddy, when you come in here, it's funny sometimes, isn't it?”

Alfred Michael made a strange noise, not exactly like a laugh.

“Nearly everything's funny, Tom,” he said, “depending on how you look at it.”

“No,” said Tommy, “I don't mean funny that way. I mean it makes me think.”

“Think what, Tom?”

Tommy stared up at Alfred Michael, and his eyes were very round.

“Sad things,” Tommy said.

“The deuce!” said Alfred Michael. “You've selected a queer place to be sad in.”

“The deuce,” said Tommy when they reached the hall.

“Here now,” said his father, “only fathers speak like that. They have their reasons sometimes.”

“But Aunt Sarah's calling us,” said Tommy. “She heard us through the door.”

Aunt Sarah had that propensity. Aunt Sarah was forever stopping you when you had something else to do, and of course you had to go when Aunt Sarah called, because she was very old.

Aunt Sarah was in her room. There was a large dark bed in it and a dark wardrobe and a bureau. Aunt Sarah was sitting in a chair of the same dark wood, which had a bunch of grapes carved high upon its back. A sewing table was in front of her and her stick was propped against it.

“Hey?” said Aunt Sarah. There were funny little lines that ran right down to Aunt Sarah's lips when she spoke. “What was the boy saying in the bathroom?”

Though Aunt Sarah was deaf, sometimes she exhibited prodigies of hearing.

“He was saying,” Alfred Michael raised his voice, “that it made him think.”

“Yes,” said Aunt Sarah, “my hearing hasn't wholly gone, though you may pretend it has. Well … what does it make him think?”

“Sad things.”

“Hey?” Aunt Sarah cupped her hands behind her ear, and Tommy's father moved closer to her chair.

“Sad things.”

“Hey?” said Aunt Sarah. “Mad things?”

“Confound it!” Alfred Michael drew in his breath. “No, Aunt Sarah,
sad
things!”

“Ho-ho!” said Aunt Sarah. “Sad things, does he? Well, I should admire to know, all in all, why he shouldn't be sad.”

“We're going now,” said Alfred Michael. “Come, Tom.”

“Have you ever done anything not to make him sad?” said Aunt Sarah. “Where's Estelle?”

“Dusting the books,” said Alfred Michael.

“Hooks?” said Aunt Sarah. “What hooks, I want to know?”

“Books, Aunt Sarah! I said books.”

“Well, what if you did?” said Aunt Sarah. “You needn't take on so about it, Alfred. Not that it makes any difference to me what she does. She comes of working people. She must be used to work.”

Alfred Michael's face grew red again, very red, and for a second he did not answer.

“I wonder,” he said at length, “exactly how you think it helps things to say that. Can't you ever be fair to her? Can't you ever?”

Aunt Sarah seemed very much pleased. She hummed softly and gave the strings of her lace cap a little tug.

“Ho-ho!” said Aunt Sarah. “All I can say is that if I had married … and I had my chances, though I suppose you won't believe it …
my
husband wouldn't have been ashamed to have me meet people.”

“You don't understand, Aunt Sarah,” Alfred Michael moved toward the door as he spoke. “No one wants to know us now.”

Aunt Sarah sat up straighter in her chair, and looked as though she did not understand.

“Not want to know us?” she said. “Alfred, are you crazy?”

It all was very strange to Tommy. For no reason he could see, his father began to laugh.

“It isn't your fault if I'm sane. I'll be up again for tea.”

Of course his father was very brave. Tommy's heart was warm. Standing right in Aunt Sarah's room, his father had spoken back to her and had looked her in the eye.

“That proves it,” said Aunt Sarah. “There's a curse upon the house.”

Alfred Michael was at the door, and gently propelled Tommy through it, but as Tommy went, he had a final glimpse of Aunt Sarah, seemingly cheered by the interview, reaching for her sewing.

“Yes,” said Aunt Sarah, “there's a curse upon the house. Alfred, haven't you forgotten something? Come back and kiss me, Alfred.”

Once outside Aunt Sarah's door, it almost seemed to Tommy that his father had forgotten him.

“Confound the women!” Something must have been hurting his father from the way he spoke. “I wish there was a man. Lord! I wish there was a man.”

“Daddy,” said Tommy, “there's me.”

Suddenly Alfred Michael was on his knees beside him, holding him very tight.

“God bless my soul! Of course there is,” he said.

II

Now why Tommy felt it he could not tell, but he knew it was a time of change. There was a restiveness in the very air about him, and the noises of the trees. It set him to thinking of strange things, of sad things. As they walked past the granite posts of the drive, past which the white macadam road went by to town, his father drew his pipe from his pocket, a grimy curved pipe carved in the shape of a Negro's head. He drew a deep breath, and puffed a heavy cloud of his tobacco smoke which went racing into nothing.

“Ah,” he said, “upon my word, look at all the carriages. They must be coming from the city train. Now there's a fine turn-out for you, though personally I wouldn't check the horses quite so high.”

It always seemed to Tommy that the road past their house led to an unknown land. Even as early as that, Michael's Harbor was becoming fashionable, not the town itself, but points beyond.

“Look out, Tom!” Tommy's father drew him to the side of the road as he spoke. “By Jove! those horses are drunk on oats!”

A carriage was coming towards them, a marvellous carriage. It was a four-in-hand, though Tommy did not know its name till later. It stood high up from the road. Its body was yellow with red panelling upon it, and the spokes of the wheels made a shining blur. Four bay horses were drawing it, and the harness upon their shining coats shimmered and glittered with silver mountings. Out of the white dust cloud eddying about them they lifted their forefeet as though they heard music. On the seat in front a small gentleman in a mouse-gray suit was driving. The reins he had gathered in a hand which seemed too small to grasp them all, and he was reaching forward to flick the nigh leader with his whip. Yet all the while, despite the rattling of the wheels and the pounding of the hoofs, he had an air of not being interested. You would have thought that he might have done a dozen things besides drive those four horses. Beside him sat a lady dressed in clouds of white, with a filmy veil tied about her hat and streaming cloudily. On the seat behind these sat another lady in black with a child on either side of her. One was a boy of Tommy's age in a blue sailor suit with red anchors sewn upon the sleeves. The other, near enough for Tommy to see more plainly, was a little girl. Behind them were two men, stiff as soldiers, in high shining boots and perfectly brushed silk hats.

“Oh, Daddy!” cried Tommy. “Look!” His father was already looking. His father had lifted his Derby hat. The gentleman in gray nodded jerkily, and gave his whip another flick. Then Tommy saw the little girl watching him. Her hair was down her back like Alice's in Wonderland. She had a tiny hat with ruffles on it. Suddenly she leaned forward, touching the lady on the seat before her.

“Mamma,” Tommy heard her above the slapping hoof beats and the rattling of the wheels. “Look, Mamma, is he a common little boy!”

The lady in black snatched quickly at her hand.

“Marianne!” she said. “Why, Marianne!”

Then they were gone. The horses, the carriage, everything was only a cloud of dust.

“Daddy,” said Tommy, “what did she mean, calling me a common little boy?”

His father had evidently heard, for he stared after the carriage very strangely.

“The young lady was mistaken, Tom,” he said, “very much mistaken, but she probably meant the old order is changing. Well, so it is.”

There was something in the way he spoke that made Tommy look at him quickly. “You know them?” said Tommy. “You know them, don't you, Daddy?”

“Yes,” said Alfred Michael, “yes, of course.”

“I guess everybody doesn't know them. Do you even know their name?”

“Yes,” His father seemed to be thinking of something else. “Their name's Jellett—and it isn't such a fine name, either.”

“Daddy, where do they live? Daddy, aren't you listening?” Tommy's mind still was full of the glory of that carriage.

“Don't be a toady, Tom,” his father said. “They live on Warning Hill.”

Tommy turned and looked, as he had often looked before. Before you reached the ocean from Michael's Harbor, there jutted out a rocky piece of land, guarding the harbor mouth like a sheltering arm. Tommy could see it, looming in the distance, soft in the haze of that summer morning, mysterious and high with houses upon it, like the palaces in books. It was strange how great distances seemed then. Warning Hill was as far away as the rainbow's end.

“Daddy,” said Tommy, “every one who lives there is rich, aren't they—very rich?”

“Yes,” said Alfred Michael.

“Richer than we are?”

“Yes—”

They crossed the bridge of Welcome River, where you could see the tide playing with the eel grass beneath, and then they were in the town, upon its brick sidewalk. Here and there a horse was tied at a hitching post, stamping and whisking his tail to keep away the flies. Some men were on the steps by the post office, waiting for the mail. Tommy's father knew them all, and spoke to them, every one.

“Hello, Jim! Hello, Moses! Good morning, Leon.” They liked to have him speak to them. You could see they liked it, every one.

“Mornin', Alfred!” they said. “Mornin', Alfred!” And one of them, a very old and shrivelled man with a short white beard that was golden-brown near his mouth, used an expression which Tommy had never heard.

“Mornin', Squire!” he said.

A thin man with a brown face walked slowly down the post office steps.

“Going to take the boy gunning in the fall?” he asked. Tommy's father laughed.

“If he held a gun,” he said, “you know it would kick him into the water.”

“He could watch you, though,” the thin man said, “and that'd teach him something. Now I want to know … what's that coming down the street?”

Every one had turned. All along the main street of Michael's Harbor every one was staring. The horses at the hitching posts were pulling backward, snorting in sudden fright at an unfamiliar noise. Down the street of Michael's Harbor a buggy was moving without a horse at all. Its driver was seated stiffly upon its single seat, staring over the dashboard into an empty road. He was holding a rod in his hand, not unlike the tiller of a sailboat. Beneath him, some hidden mechanism was panting mysteriously and exploding.

Tommy's father turned with the rest, though not so quickly. “Mark it well, gentlemen,” he said, “there's the period which marks the ending of an epoch.” He gave his walking stick a little swirl. “The quiet days are over.”