Bellefleur (62 page)

And then—and then, at the top of the grassy knoll, he found himself staring down in astonishment at a group of children. They were playing in a meadow. The grass was short, and extremely green; it was close-cropped enough to be pastureland, but Gideon was certain that this land wasn’t used for grazing. The children were playing rowdily, shouting at one another, emitting high-pitched squeaking laughter. They were bowling—lawn
bowling
—it must have been a schoolhouse picnic—but why were they trespassing on Bellefleur land, and who were they?—and where was their teacher? The sound of the wooden balls (which were about the size of croquet balls) striking the clubs was disproportionately loud, as if the noise echoed in a small room, ricocheting off a low ceiling. Gideon flinched. The children’s high-pitched laughter was also extremely loud. Though ordinarily Gideon liked children and even the idea of children it struck him suddenly that he didn’t like
these
children and would take pleasure in running them off his land. . . .

So he descended the slope, shouting at them. They turned in amazement, their faces screwed up in angry, belligerent expressions, and he saw that they weren’t children—they were midgets—some fifteen or twenty midgets—or were they (since their heads were oversized and their bodies misshapen, some of them quite grotesquely, with humps between their shoulders and crooked, caved-in chests) dwarves?—but why were they trespassing on
his
property—and where had they come from—

Gideon recklessly approached them, and though he saw, to his mild alarm, that they weren’t backing away, that they were staring at him, in fact, with queer frozen expressions—grimaces so contorted they appeared to be involuntary, as if facial muscles had locked in spasms—eyes half-shut or screwed up in malevolent mocking winks—ugly little grins in which the preternaturally wide mouths were held shut and the thin, pale lips were stretched tight against the teeth—still he continued down the hill, slipping and sliding, though the safety lock wasn’t on his gun and what he was doing was extremely unwise.

The force of the first wooden ball, striking him on the shoulder, was enough to nearly fell him; and in his pain and surprise he actually dropped the shotgun—but in another instant, acting before he had time to think, he snatched it up again. By then, however, the dwarves were upon him. Shouting and jabbering and squeaking, obviously furious despite their frozen screwed-up faces, they swarmed up the hill, like a pack of wild dogs, exactly like a pack of wild dogs, and one seized Gideon by the thigh and another climbed up him and seized his hair, knocking him over by the sheer weight of his body (which, though stunted and undersized, was remarkably heavy), and before Gideon had time to cry out he felt teeth sink in the fleshy part of his hand, and there was a terrible paralyzing kick to his groin, so that he nearly lost consciousness, and the high-pitched squeaking was exactly like that of shrews devouring prey—even other shrews—and even in the midst of his wild desperate struggling (for he
wanted,
ah, how he
wanted
to live) Gideon knew that they were going to kill him: these ugly misshapen creatures were going to kill
him,
Gideon Bellefleur—!

But of course it was not to be, for Garth had come up behind Gideon, and, at that unearthly sight, simply fired into the air; and the little men, terrified, scrambled off Gideon. Even in his consternation Garth was a cautious enough hunter to aim away from his uncle—he had time for only one more shot, so he turned to fire at a dwarf who had been jumping about at the edge of the commotion, tearing at his dark coarse hair with both hands, in a paroxysm of excitement. The buckshot tore into the hideous little creature’s right arm and shoulder, and brought him down at once.

The other dwarves fled. Though panicked, they had prudence enough to snatch up their bowling balls and clubs, and not one was to be found afterward; but the meadow was so badly chewed up, it was not difficult to ascertain that a peculiar game of some kind had been played there. . . . By the time Albert, Dave, and Benjamin arrived, out of breath, the other dwarves had disappeared, and only the one Garth had shot remained. He was groaning and writhing about, bleeding from innumerable little wounds, his great misshapen head flailing from side to side, his clawlike fingers plucking at the grass. In silence the men gazed down upon him. They had never seen anything
quite
like him. . . . Not only was the creature hunchbacked, but his spine had curved so brutally that his jaw was mashed against his chest; he looked (the image flew into Gideon’s mind, though he was staggering with pain and exhaustion) like a young April fern, coiled up, so tightly coiled up you would never think it might grow straight and flare out into its extraordinary beauty. . . . But, this creature, how ugly!—how repulsive! His shoulders appeared to be muscle-bound, and his neck was as thick as a man’s thigh; his hair was coarse and shaggy and without luster as a horse’s mane; there was an indentation on his forehead, a mark deep in the bone itself, and the skull had grown about it asymmetrically. As he whimpered and groaned and begged for mercy (for his queer gibberish, which sounded part Indian, part German, part English, was quite intelligible) he opened his mouth wide, as if grinning, and it is not an exaggeration to say that the mouth extended almost fully across his broad face, traversing the muscular cheeks. He flopped over onto his belly and began to crawl, dragging himself, toward a patch of higher grass and weeds, like a wounded turtle. The sight of his oily blood on the ground went to Albert’s head; he drew out his long hunter’s knife and begged permission from Gideon to cut the thing’s throat. Just to put him out of his misery! Just to shut up that babbling! But Gideon said no, no, better not. . . . But didn’t he lay
hands
on you, Albert said, didn’t he
touch
you! And he ran over, fairly dancing with excitement, to the patch of weeds in which the dwarf lay, clutching frantically at the soil and grass, and seized hold of the dwarf’s hair, and lifted his head in triumph. Gideon, please, he begged. Gideon. Gideon. Just this once. Ah,
Gideon .
. .

No, better not, Gideon said, adjusting his clothing, sucking at his wounded hand, after all the thing is
human.

THEY CALLED HIM
Nightshade because it was a patch of purple nightshade he had dragged himself into, and they noted with what desperation, and what remarkable skill, he was crushing leaves and berries and mashing them against his wound. Within a few minutes the worst of the bleeding had stopped. And so efficacious was the nightshade juice that the creature did not afterward suffer any infection, and within a few weeks appeared to have totally forgotten his injury.

Long afterward Gideon was to regret not having allowed his nephew to slit Nightshade’s throat: but, after all, how could he have foreseen the future, and how, in any case, could he take it upon himself to condemn even so repulsive a creature to death? Killing in the heat of a fight was merely killing, but killing in such a manner was murder. . . . No Bellefleur has ever committed murder, Gideon said.

So they brought the dwarf home, carrying him for five torturous miles from a maple limb held at either end by Garth and Albert (his ankles and wrists bound, he was unceremoniously slung from the pole, like a carcass), and then laying him in the back of the pick-up truck. He had long since lost consciousness: but each time they checked his feeble heartbeat (for, if he had died, it would be wisest just to dump him into a gully) they saw that he
was
alive, and would probably remain so. . . . What a
heavy
little bastard he is, they exclaimed.

Because Gideon had saved his life Nightshade was always craven before him, and would possibly have adored him—as he adored Leah—had he not sensed Gideon’s nature, and prudently shied away from him whenever they happened to see each other. But at the very sight of Leah—Leah striding into the room—though her hair was disheveled and she looked somewhat drawn—not
quite
herself—a moan escaped from Nightshade’s lips, and he flung himself to the floor, and kissed it, in honor of the woman he took to be mistress of Bellefleur Manor.

Leah stared at the hunchback, stepping back from his desperate furious kissing; she stared, her lips parted, and it was a long moment before she looked up to her husband, who was watching her with a small calm malicious smile. “What—what is this,” Leah whispered, clearly frightened. “Who is—”

Gideon gave the dwarf a little shove with his foot, pressing the heel of his boot against the hump. “Can’t you see? Can’t you guess?” he said. The color had flooded back into his face and he looked quite triumphant. “He’s come a long distance to serve you.”

“But who is— I don’t understand—” Leah said, drawing back.

“Why, it’s another lover, can’t you see!”

“Another lover . . .”

Leah looked at Gideon, her face furrowed and her lips puckered as if she were tasting something vile.

“Another—!”
she whispered. “But I have none now—”

IN TIME—IN A
very short time—Leah came to find Nightshade delightful, and took him on as a special servant,
her
servant, since he was so clearly infatuated with her. With his immense shaggy head and his small eyes and the ugly hump between his shoulders he was, as she said, a piteous sight—a pitiable sight—and it would be cruel for them to turn him away. And then he was remarkably strong. He could lift things, force things, unscrew caps, scramble with enviable agility up a stepladder to make a difficult repair; he could carry, single-handedly, a guest’s entire luggage into the house, showing no indication of strain except the minute trembling of his legs. Leah outfitted him in livery, and from somewhere he acquired straps, belts, buckles, and little leather pouches, and wooden boxes, which gave to his costume a quaint, gnomish look. (Though he was certainly not a troll, as Leah said repeatedly, often in amused anger: Bromwell’s official definition was
dwarf,
and
dwarf
it must be.)

He spoke rarely, and always with a fussy show of deference. Leah was
Miss Leah,
uttered in a half-swooning murmur, as he bowed before her, bent nearly double, a comical and somehow—or so Leah thought—a touching sight. He could play the mouth organ, and did simple magic tricks with buttons and coins, and even, when he was especially inspired, with kittens: making them disappear and reappear out of his sleeves or the shadowy interior of his jacket. (Sometimes, the children saw to their half-frightened astonishment, he made things—even kittens—appear when other things, unmistakably
other
things, had disappeared!—and it alarmed them, and kept them awake at night, worrying about the fate of the things that
had
disappeared.) Though he was so silent as to appear nearly mute, Leah had the idea that he was uncommonly intelligent, and that she could rely upon his judgment. His subservience was of course embarrassing—silly and annoying and
distracting
—but, in a way, flattering—and if he became too profuse in his adoration she had only to give him a playful kick, and he sobered at once. Despite his freakish appearance he was a remarkably
dignified
little man. . . . Leah liked him, she couldn’t help herself. She pitied him, and was amused by him, and gratified by his loyalty to her, and she liked him very much, no matter how the other Bellefleurs—and even the children, and the servants—disapproved.

How odd it was, how annoying, how selfish, Leah thought, that they didn’t care for poor Nightshade. Surely they must pity him?—surely they must be impressed by his indefatigable energy and good nature, and by his willingness (and his eagerness) to work at the castle for no salary, only for room and board? She could understand Gideon’s contempt, for Gideon, she had always thought, was a severely limited person, as crippled imaginatively as Nightshade was crippled physically, and the sight of something
wrong
frightened him (she recalled what a whimpering coward he had been, at Germaine’s birth, and how she had had to baby them both); but it was strange that the others disliked Nightshade too. Germaine shied away from him, and the older children, and grandmother Cornelia avoided looking at him, and it was said that the servants (led by the silly superstitious Edna, who would have to be replaced before long) whispered that he was a
troll. .
. . A troll, imagine, at Bellefleur, in these modern times! But it was unmistakable, the others’ dislike of him, and Leah resolved not to give in to it: not to Germaine’s silly fears, not to her sister-in-law’s vague mumbled objections (for Lily didn’t dare speak aloud in opposition to Leah: she was
such
a coward), not even to Gideon’s disdain. In time, Leah thought, they will like him well enough, they’ll like him as much as
I
do.

The first night great-aunt Veronica saw him, however, Leah couldn’t help but be struck by something not only peculiar but, it seemed,
irrevocable
in the older woman’s attitude. When Veronica descended the wide circular stairs, one beringed hand on the railing, the other grasping her heavy dark skirts in order to lift them slightly, to keep from tripping, she happened to see Nightshade (it was his first evening as Leah’s “manservant,” he was wearing his handsome little livery uniform) drawing a chair close to the fire for his mistress; and in that instant she froze, froze with one high-buttoned shoe uplifted, and her hand grasping the railing tightly. How very
queerly
aunt
Veronica
stared at Nightshade who, on account of his stooped-over posture, did not at first see her. It was only as he withdrew, backing out of the room, bowing, that he happened to lift his eyes to her . . . and, for a fraction of a moment, he too froze . . . and Leah, who would ordinarily have found all this amusing, caught a sense, a near-indefinable sense, of Veronica’s and Nightshade’s mutual alarm: not as if they knew each other, for it wasn’t that simple, but that, instead (and this is very difficult to explain), what they were was kin; what each
was
called out to, and drew back from, what the
other
was. (And afterward Veronica sat leadenly at her place at dinner, pretending to sip her consommé, pushing food around on her plate as if the very sight of it nauseated her (for there was the pretense, with Veronica, that she was—despite her generous heft—a finicky eater), swallowing a few mouthfuls of claret before excusing herself and hurrying back upstairs to “retire” early.)