Warning Hill (8 page)

“Cowards aren't always afraid,” his father said. “Sometimes they're tired. You'll see some day what I mean, but that isn't the point. The point is that you've got to be a man.”

“I will be,” said Tommy, “just like you.”

“No, you won't,” his father spoke very quickly. “Listen, Tom. Put that chain in your pocket and listen, like a good boy. You've got to be a man who gets on in the world, who can understand it and—not struggle like a poor spoiled child. You'll see what I mean some day. You'll have to put away the long, long thoughts and be like most men who've never had them. Be a hard man, Tom, but a good one. Do you see what I mean? And be an educated man. I want you to go to college, and you'll find that the hardest thing of all. Nothing shows life in a worse light than knowledge, but you'll be better if you're strong enough to stand it, and you'll be strong enough. You'll have to be. I'm not so sure that everything doesn't depend on necessity. I wonder, if anything had ever seemed halfway necessary to me, I suppose I might—but never mind—”

“Daddy,” said Tommy, “what's necessity?”

“God bless me!” cried Alfred Michael. “That's exactly what you're going to find out. Tom, you don't look badly with that eye. I guess that's all.”

“All of what?” said Tommy, because he could not understand.

“All of everything,” said Alfred Michael. “There isn't much to everything and that's all,” and Alfred Michael slapped him on the back hard, as if he were a man. “You know,” he looked Tommy in the eye and smiled very cheerfully. “I'm not so sure it all isn't going to be the best thing for you. I tried like every other idiot of a parent to build you an umbrella and to put packing around you. I'm not so sorry now I didn't. Don't ask me why. You'll see what I mean. You're going to go in and lick 'em, Tom. Remember I told you so. Remember I never said you couldn't. Remember some things stay bright, Tom, no matter how the rest of them weather. And now there's a good job over. Go up to Aunt Sarah for your reading. You're late already. And now shake hands. I'm proud to have met you, sir. Good night.”

“Daddy,” said Tommy, “won't you come up later and hear me say my prayers?”

His father's shoulders gave the queerest sort of jerk, exactly as though a door had slammed unexpectedly behind him, and yet the whole house was very quiet.

“Now there's an idea,” said Tommy's father. “I'll do my very best to be somewhere around, Tom. Good night.”

His father turned away and strode across the hall to the room where the books were, and closed the door; and as Tommy stood there, looking after him, he felt very lonely. Everything seemed to have gone, leaving him in a strange and barren place. Tommy was old enough to know it was absurd. He was in his own house. The lamp was burning in the center of the dining table. As long as he had known anything he had known the walls of yellow oak and the built-in sideboard of yellow oak with two candlesticks upon it. There was the same slightly musty smell which he had always known. Outside the dining room was the hall. He had always known the hall, dark, to be sure, but a friendly dark till then. Now the hall seemed an enormous passage filled with veiled shapes leading into loneliness as vast as cloudy mountains in the sky. The lamp from the dining room cut a rectangle of light out of the darkness, which only made the hall the blacker. As Tommy walked into the light, instinctively he trod upon his toes, for fear of a shadowy something which was everywhere. There was not a sound except for the ticking of the clock far up the stairs, coming through the darkness like the whispering of the green-necked ducks upon the Welcome River shore. His foot met the worn strip of carpet which ran from the front door to the back. Beneath it a board creaked horribly, and then again there was silence except for the ticking of the clock, and he was all alone, a very little boy, all alone except for something still and black always just behind him, which had never been in that hall before. Only later did Tommy know what that black silence was, that walked always just behind him. It was fear. It was gripping at Tommy Michael, sending his heart leaping to his throat, giving him a desire to shriek and robbing him of the power. Tommy Michael could not walk toward the stairs. If he did, he knew that blackness would fall and crush him, as surely as a wave of green salt water.

Beneath the door of the room where the books were was a crack of light. Tommy ran to it as fast as he possibly could, not daring to look behind. His fingers fumbled with the latch and then the door was open and Tommy was safe in the light.

“Daddy!” he said, “Daddy!”

All along the wall in the dim light were the books of Thomas Michael. A lamp on his father's writing table was turned very low. His father was by the fireplace with a felt hat pulled over his eyes. A cupboard door by the mantelpiece was open, and his father held a shotgun in his hand.

“Daddy!” said Tommy. “Daddy!”

His father stood motionless. Then he made a queer coughing sound, deep in his throat.

“What is it, Tom?” he said. “Why haven't you gone upstairs?”

“Because something made me afraid,” said Tommy.

“What made you afraid?” And curiously enough, his father seemed afraid too, and stared toward the half-open door.

“Something,” Tommy caught his breath, “something in the hall.”

Alfred Michael dropped the barrel of his gun into the crook of his left arm, his heavy duck gun, which carried ten-gauge shells, and strode gingerly to the door.

“Nonsense,” he said, “there's nothing. Go upstairs, Tom, and I'll wait right here till you get to the top. Remember, I'll be right here—and don't be afraid.”

“Daddy,” said Tommy, “where are you going?”

“Out,” said Alfred Michael.

“But, Daddy,” said Tommy, “why have you got your duck gun?”

“For company,” his father said. “Hurry, Tom, and go upstairs. Don't keep Aunt Sarah waiting—and Tom—”

A change in his voice made Tommy turn. His father was standing there, nursing his gun in the crook of his arm. “Good night, Tom,” Alfred Michael said.

As Tommy climbed the dusky stairs, he heard his father step down the hallway, and heard the boards creak smartly beneath his tread. A creaking noise and a gust of air—the front door was open.

“All right, Tom?” His father's voice was hushed into a whisper.

“All right,” said Tommy, and then a rumbling slam told him that the front door was closed, and once again Tommy was all alone in a strange place, but not really alone.

Even in Aunt Sarah's room something was just behind him. Tommy knew it. He did not dare to look around, and Aunt Sarah glanced at him over the top of her spectacles.

“What ails you?” said Aunt Sarah. “Are you frightened of the dark?”

Never in the world would Tommy have told her that he was afraid, for he knew that Aunt Sarah would never have forgotten it. For weeks she would have sharpened her wits on a boy afraid of the dark.

“Ho,” said Aunt Sarah, “hand me down the Bible. What's the psalm we're at?”

“The Ninetieth Psalm,” said Tommy, “but Aunt Sarah—”

It had been Aunt Sarah's idea that Tommy should read the Bible to her every night. Every night Tommy climbed the stairs, despite his contrary inclinations, like one of the Athenian boys in the book his father sometimes read to him, who was sent to entertain the Minoan Bull upon the Isle of Crete. Every night it was his duty to seat himself on a small stiff chair directly opposite Aunt Sarah's dark one with the grapes upon it, with a heavy leather Bible perched upon his knees, and then to read in a voice sufficiently loud and clear, passages which she selected during the day. At the same time it was his duty to sit up straight, to hold his head at a proper angle and not to allow his gaze to wander from the page or to sniffle. It was remarkable how acute Aunt Sarah's hearing was for noises of the small, annoying kind. During this hour also it was his duty to listen to Aunt Sarah, while she retailed certain reminiscences of her youth such as a ride by coach to New York, where she attended a song recital, and of dancing parties at a defunct academy for ladies. But above all, it was his duty to listen to the exploits of her brothers and his grandfather, Thomas Michael, strangely uninteresting exploits they always seemed to Tommy, dealing principally with early morning risings and cold plunges and abstinence from the excessive use of sweets.

“The Ninetieth Psalm?” said Aunt Sarah. “Well, hand me the Book, since you can't read. Your grandfather got a blackened eye once, I recollect. Mother put a piece of meat on it. Ho—ho … well, the Ninetieth Psalm—Why do you wriggle and look over your shoulder?”

“Aunt Sarah,” said Tommy, “Daddy's gone out.”

“Hey?” said Aunt Sarah.

“Daddy's gone out,” said Tommy, “and he took his gun with him.”

“His what?”

Aunt Sarah stopped turning the pages, and Tommy knew from the way she looked that she had heard him the first time.

“His gun,” said Tommy.

Aunt Sarah gave a smart tug to her shawl. “That's like him, I declare,” said she, “always playing about with weapons. Like as not he'll shoot himself. What are you wriggling for?”

Aunt Sarah began to read; she was a tireless and accurate reader. Her voice never faltered, and those solemn words passed through Tommy's thoughts, stilling them by their somber magic.

“‘Thou turnest man to destruction,'” Aunt Sarah read, “‘And sayest, Return, ye children of men. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.'”

Aunt Sarah paused and adjusted her glasses.

“Ho, ho,” she remarked, “I don't know why that's so consoling. Well—well, they'll read it over me, I have no doubt. Tommy, what makes you jump so? Can't you ever sit still?”

“Aunt Sarah,” said Tommy, “I heard a gun.”

“And why should you jump,” said Aunt Sarah, “when you hear a gun, I should admire to know? It's your father wasting time shooting bottles—always wasting time.… Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep; in the morning they are like grass which groweth up—'”

Dimly Tommy heard the words. They were like solemn music in an enormous vaulted place. Aunt Sarah was nothing but a faint shadow. Her voice was like a stranger's voice, speaking from a vast distance, and awful in the certainty of knowledge. As he thought of it afterwards, he knew he could not have been afraid any longer. He was a little boy in a dream, so immense that fear itself was gone.

“Aunt Sarah!” cried Tommy. She could have had no difficulty hearing him, for his voice had risen almost to a scream. “There's something coming up the stairs!”

“Nonsense!” said Aunt Sarah, “‘… For all our days are passed away in thy wrath; we spend our years as a tale that is told.'”

But Tommy was right. There was some one on the stairs. There were hasty stumbling footsteps.

“Mrs. Michael!” Tommy knew the voice as that of Elmer, the hired man. “Mrs. Michael, Ma'am!”

Aunt Sarah walked to her door surprisingly fast.

“Mrs. Michael's in her room,” she said. “What is it?”

Elmer was in the doorway. His face was white as paper; his hands were shaking like his voice.

“Speak up!” said Aunt Sarah sharply. “What is it? Have you lost your tongue?”

“It's Mr. Michael, Ma'am!” began Elmer. “Oh, Lord, Ma'am—Mr. Michael's killed himself.”

For just a moment in the dull silence that followed, Tommy did not think. He seemed to have heard only vaguely what Elmer said, and his eyes were on his Great-aunt Sarah, a grim old woman in a black dress with her hand cupped behind her ear, a dead old tree, he thought long afterwards, which stood unbending before a gale.

“Killed himself?” Aunt Sarah repeated. “Killed himself, you said?”

“Oh, Lord, Ma'am,” Elmer's voice broke, “I was down to the stables, Ma'am, and I heard a shot out back by the shore, and I ran there, because it didn't seem right shooting, and there he was, his head all—”

“That will do,” Aunt Sarah said. She swayed slightly and her shoulders shook as though at last the wind had struck her. “It was an accident, of course. Mr. Michael stumbled and fell. Do you understand me? Stumbled and fell. Now make for town and get the doctor.”

“It won't do no good, Ma'am,” said Elmer. “His head—Jim Street helped me lift him up—”

Aunt Sarah's voice checked him as surely as a hand across his mouth.

“Run for the doctor,” she said. “It was an accident—remember to say that.”

It was a night of faces. That was what always stayed fast in Tommy's memory, faces lighted by something strange to Tommy Michael, partly of wonder, partly of awe and fear. Jim Street's was the next face. It appeared at Aunt Sarah's door a second after Elmer's had left. Mr. Street was crying as a boy might cry, except without a sound.

“He's right,” said Jim Street. “It's no good to get the doc, Miss Michael. I was waiting by the gate to have a word with him and—you better set down, Ma'am.”

Aunt Sarah sat down and folded her hands on her lap.

“It was an accident,” she repeated. “Of course it was an accident.”

“No, Ma'am.” Jim Street shook his head. “Alf killed himself; there wasn't nothing else to do. He lost his pile, and you know Alf. He was a dead game sport.”

“Hey?” said Aunt Sarah. “A what?”

“A dead game sport, Ma'am, and it wasn't as though it mightn't have been all right. It was Jellett did it as sure as if he'd drawn a bead—damn his soul, he—”

Jim Street's voice checked in a sob. Aunt Sarah leaned forward, and looked at him above her glasses. Her lower lip was trembling.

“Don't be a fool, Jim Street,” said Aunt Sarah. “It was an accident. Alfred couldn't—of course it was an accident.”