Lady (27 page)

"Then you are most fortunate," Miss Berry replied, "to have someone to remember always. She will stay with you. But as you are the friend of her youth, so you must be the friend of her age, too. She has needed friends."

"She's got lots of friends."

"I venture to say she has. And deservedly so."

"But if you're friends," I said, "how come you never --" I bumped my head toward Lady's house. Miss Berry smiled.

"She lives on her side of the Green, and I live on mine. It is not always necessary to exchange visits to be a party to another person's life. We are both private people, she and I, and I respect her privacy as she does mine. I am here if I can help her; she knows that." She began gathering the stunned worms which had wriggled up, and putting them in a coffee can.

"What do you do with them?" I asked.

"Feed them to the birdies -- or save them for Jesse -- he uses them fishing." She wiped her hands on the grass and resumed her seat on the stoop. "You walk with Lady often, there, around our Green, don't you? I see you from my sun porch. Adelaide has sometimes been sad, and not without reason, but with you she has been gay, and that's nice to see. It was always good to hear her laugh." She gave me a quizzical glance. "I heard you, Christmas Eve, singing to her."

"'Good Night, Lady.'"

"'Good Night, Lady,' yes."

"What was Mr. Harleigh like? Her husband?"

"Edward?" She considered for a moment, looking over to the Green where Elthea and Jesse had appeared in the roadway, with Honey on her leash. "Edward was like any man who has too much of one thing and not enough of another. He expended himself very quickly. He was a prodigal, Edward Harleigh. Jesse must be some better, eh? Heard he'd been feeling poorly."

True; it was the first time I'd seen Jesse outdoors since he'd taken to bed after his return. Elthea, her arm through his, was leaning to his ear and confiding something in a private way, and he laughed, then unsnapped the leash, and Honey ran in circles around the Great Elm.

"I never thought to see Adelaide Harleigh with another dog," Miss Berry observed thoughtfully.

"Why?"

"Oh --" She became suddenly aware, and gave a half-hearted shrug. "I just didn't. That poor, voiceless animal -- I suppose Adelaide was determined to give it a home. They're the best couple, Elthea and Jesse," she continued, "though I'm not sure he ought to be frolicking so." Jesse had gone chasing after Honey, and Elthea called for him to come back.

"How come they never got to New York?"

"Eh? How's that?" Miss Berry was always a little hard of hearing.

"Edward. He took her on the
City of Springfield
, to New York. But they only got halfway there."

"Ayuh." She nodded in recollection, as if discussing something that had taken place only yesterday. "Got off at Saybrook, come back't'other way."

"How come?"

"Bless you, you're full of questions this evening. I expect you'd better ask the person most nearly concerned about that. As I recall, it was a part of their romance. Lady was ever a romantic, and Edward was the apple --"

"What apple?"

"Of her
eye
, dear. But she was German as well, stubborn as her mother, if it came to that, and I suppose she got balky somewhere down about Essex. They got as far as Saybrook and come back. Lovers' spat, nothing more."

"Why does she see his ghost?"

"Pshaw, ghosts are just the workings of a vivid imagination. What she ought to do is clear all those things out and put them away; such reminders aren't healthy for a person."

"That's what Mrs. Sparrow says --"

"Good for Ruthie Sparrow."

"And she did. I guess Colonel Blatchley got her to put the photographs away for the party -- and the medal, all of it."

"Why, good for Colonel Blatchley, then. Lady's mind is elaborate, I can say that. Like most thinking folks. Trouble is, hers won't let her rest. Won't let Edward rest, neither."

"But why is she so sad sometimes?"

"We all have hurts. Some are harder't'heal, some never do. A dog licks its wounds in the thicket. Adelaide Harleigh was never one to show her sorrow. We will be her friends and let her come to us if she chooses, or chooses not, however. But what we must do, most simply, is to remember that she is there, and that we are the friends of her youth. Let me include myself, for I am always her friend. And another thing" -- here she peered at me most gravely from behind her spectacles -- "it is not good to expect too much from people. They give what they can. Sometimes it is all they can give. Ayuh." She confirmed her words with a precise nod, patted my shoulder, and rose. "We all ask too much of one another anyway, I think. But," she concluded before going to collect the last of the worms, "it's good when one feels the affections of the past. They are among the lasting things -- they will never leave us."

We had noticed that though Jesse was a devout Catholic, he had not recently been attending Mass. Had not, in fact, since the previous autumn around Halloween time, when Mr. Ott had last appeared. But Elthea was a regular churchgoer, and on a Sunday morning I saw her coming down the front walk in her last-Easter's hat and spike heels, but wearing only a modicum of her usual array of jewelry. I was dressed for our own services, and when to my surprise she suggested that I might want to go along with her instead, I quickly agreed; I had never been to the Catholic church, and I looked on it as a sort of adventure, having often wondered what "they" did there.

I still recall the peculiar sensation I had as we went in, as though I were venturing into sinister terrain. I remember that I saw a host of Marinis, taking up the better part of two pews, and a look of surprise on Teresa Marini's face as I followed Elthea in. I watched with awe as she dipped her fingers in the holy water and made the sign of the Cross. I wanted to do likewise, but thought perhaps Protestants weren't allowed to use the Catholics' water. Why didn't we have our own, at our church? I stared at the gilded plaster figures placed in niches along the walls, and the little altar-like affair near the door, with rows of flickering candles in red glass cups. I waited while Elthea dropped a coin in a box, took a taper and lighted a candle, then extinguished the taper in a trough of sand, and knelt to pray. People were always saying that the Catholics were money-minded; I wondered at buying candles, and if I might do the same. I had some change in my pocket.

Then the priest, Father Huegenay, walked in with Gerald Morrisey on one side and another boy on the other, all wearing ankle-length black robes with shorter white garments over them. I had never seen a surplice and I marveled at the elaborateness of their design. Leave it to Gerald Morrisey to be wearing a satin tie like Little Lord Fauntleroy. I stifled a giggle, and the congregation rose while the priest moved up some steps to the altar and the Mass began. It was a strange experience, the hollow-voiced Father chanting in Latin, the congregation repeatedly sitting, kneeling, standing, sitting, then kneeling again -- a tedious procedure, I thought -- and all by some signal I could not recognize, the ringing of little bells, the smoking censers, the costume and ritual, the small panoply and pomp. I did not trust it. It seemed to me exotic, foreign, even barbaric. I was too young to realize that what "they" were doing was little different from what we in our own church did; different only in the way the service was performed, the worship of God. I became bored and restless by turns, then even irked, thinking that if I must go to church I'd have done better at my own. Didn't they have flowers? Hymnals? Elthea was fully preoccupied with the service, making the ritual response in her soft voice, her head almost continually bowed, her eyes reverently closed, a rosary clutched in her dark fingers.

No wonder Lady had switched to First Church, I thought, scarcely able to imagine her in these pagan surroundings. Again I let my eyes wander, following in the footsteps of my mind. Father Huegenay was a fairly young man -- there must have been another priest when Lady used to come here, probably the one who had visited with her after Edward's death; Father O'Brien, Mrs. Sparrow had said his name was. Father Huegenay was in the pulpit -- Catholic sermons, I now learned, were every bit as long and boring as Protestant ones -- while Gerald Morrisey and the other boy sat on a bench to one side. Gerald had another pimple -- he should have splatted it before getting all dressed up in that silly-looking outfit. I felt Elthea's glance as I suppressed a small mirthful noise inside.

I lowered my eyes dutifully until the prayer was concluded; then when Communion began, I watched with interest as people rose and began going to the railing, where the priest offered the Host and Gerald Morrisey followed him along the row of communicants, holding a little gold salver under the wafer as it was given. When a place fell vacant at the railing, Elthea rose and took it.

"
Domine, non sum dignus
," droned Father Huegenay, while Gerald Morrisey showed off in his Sunday costume and Sunday calling, with that same condescending look he always had while clapping the erasers at school.

When church let out, Elthea and I shook hands with the priest, then went to say hello to Papa and Mama Marini, while Teresa stood in the background, watching me with her great dark eyes but saying nothing. I had the feeling she regarded me as an intruder in her church, and then I thought that if she'd come to ours, I would have wondered what she was doing there. Congregationalists, I decided, ought to go to their church, and Catholics to theirs.

On the way home I asked Elthea why Jesse didn't go to church anymore. Though her replies came easily enough, I had the feeling that she was in some way disguising his defection, and passing it off as a mere trifle.

"Jesse doesn't like coming to Mass lest he takes Communion," she explained.

"Why doesn't he take Communion?"

"Well, hon, we can't take Communion, lest we go to confession."

"Do you go to confession?"

She threw her head back and laughed. "Oh,
yes
, every Saturday afternoon. I expected Father Huegenay's got cramps, stuck in that box, listening to me tell my sins."

"What kind of sins?" I couldn't imagine Elthea having any sort of sins to confess to anybody.

"Oh, sins aplenty, hon. Not mortal sins, mind you. It's what they call venial sins -- like --"

"Like what?"

"Oh, like lying, fibbing, things like that. You look into your heart, there's plenty enough there to confess, without too much looking."

"Has Jesse sinned?"

She clutched her purse and held it to her bosom, and her eyes rolled white. "Lord, no, Jesse hasn't sinned. He
hasn't
."

She said it with such fervor that it had an opposite effect on me. He had sinned, I was sure of it, and I knew how. And because he'd sinned he wouldn't go to church, wouldn't make confession, couldn't take Communion. For his sins he was denied churchgoing, and not the sins of lying, either. His was a mortal sin.

But whatever I thought about Jesse and sinning was soon forgotten, because when we arrived home we learned that Jesse, who had been taking down the awnings during our absence, had fallen from the ladder. Lady had found him among the rhododendrons, and had gotten him to bed. She was waiting for Dr. Brainard. Just before Sunday dinner, the doctor's car pulled up and he got out with his black valise. That afternoon we heard that Jesse had had a stroke and was confined to bed again.

Though no one would admit it, least of all Elthea or Lady, it was a serious matter. Jesse's heart had been weak for a long time, and the doctor had cautioned him against overdoing. But Jesse had never liked sitting around, dawdling, as he called it; there were too many things to do about the house, and though it was Lady's house he took it as his responsibility. Everything always had to be just right for Missus.

Two days later Jesse was taken to the hospital for tests. Released again, he was put to bed in the back spare room and told to stay there. He grumbled and carried on, but even he would now admit that his condition warranted a little care and looking after.

That year, 1936, was an election year, and nearly everybody in town that autumn was boasting a sunflower button enjoining "Vote for Landon"; if it had been up to Pequot Landing, the Kansan Alf would surely have been in the White House by January. Gert Flagler, however, swore that 1937 would see Roosevelt in for his second term, and wouldn't she have whooped if she could have foreseen that he would be elected to four terms! Mr. Roosevelt was out stumping the New England states and though he was damned in practically every house in town, we were given time off from school to line up along the Hooker Highway and see him drive by in a motorcade. Republican or Democrat, I thought he looked as a President should, and I felt proud that I was an American.

After the motorcade, I came straight home from school, since I had an appointment with Lady. Dr. Brainard was just leaving, Jesse was resting, and Elthea was too busy to talk to me. Lady had wished to visit Edward's grave, and would I go with her? We would have a nice fall walk.

Elthea said Lady was upstairs changing, and I went to round up the needed tools in the carriage house. There was a long-handled cultivator she particularly favored when gardening, and I found it up in the loft. Glancing out the dormer window, across the lawn, I could see into her bedroom. Far from dressing, she was sitting on the chaise longue, her chin resting on her hand as she stared down at the gazing-globe in the garden with a thoughtful expression. Because of the angle of the light, the room and all its contents were plain to my eye; it was almost as if I were in the room with her; I could in fact recognize the
Ladies' Home Journal
which lay on her lap, and the gold wedding band gleaming on her finger.

But what of our gardening? Had she forgotten? I rapped on the dormer pane, but she didn't hear. As she changed her position slightly, the magazine slid unnoticed from her lap. When Elthea went and got her, she was all apologies. Yes, she admitted, she'd forgotten our plan, and hurried to change.