Lady (33 page)

"But we shook hands," I told her fiercely. "He forgave me -- I know he did."

"It's easy for the dead to forgive," she replied, equally fierce, "but it's the living you've got to ask it of!" I stared at the scuffed toes of my shoes, not telling her how Lady had ignored my hand, had in fact shown exactly what her sentiments were regarding me. And the more Ag argued, the more I found it impossible.

I tried. Time and again I tried to force myself to march up that front walk, an oft-rehearsed apology in my brain if not on my lips. I could not do it. I could not face Lady Harleigh. I hurt for her, was sorry for her, sorrier for myself, but nothing could make me go to her. In my peevishness I had thought only of how I had been tricked, in my jealousy I realized that I was scarcely the figure of importance I imagined myself to have been, and in my despair I was unable to make the necessary amends.

I reasoned that I had been made a goat of, victimized in the first instance, excluded in the second. It was a shabby business, those three over there, and I their dupe. What I failed to realize was that it was none of my affair. I was a child among adults who were involved in the very real business of living their lives, while I had scarcely begun mine. I could not see that the relationship served to illustrate the endless variety of human congress, and that kindred spirits sought each other out in many guises. Nor did it occur to me that far from being the lonely widow we had thought her to be, Lady Harleigh had until Jesse's death been living a full, domestic existence, for all that it took a less conventional form, and that what she seemed to be most of the time she truly was: that rarest of creatures, a happy woman.

It did not matter that she had been open and honest with me, had in fact already declared her intention, had prepared the ground for my eventual understanding of the matter, or that she had treated me as a rational person, capable of understanding; that is to say, mature. Nor could I then see that in her intelligent way she trusted me to understand, was in fact counting on it, and that in this regard I did mean something to her, and in the same regard I was letting her down.

But in my selfishness I did not consider Lady herself, or how she was suffering. I would not think of the sudden, intolerable loss of both her closest companions, that she had returned to live in the house across the Green with the ghost of the dead Edward. I refused to picture her bearing her grief, not in solitude, but in loneliness, which she had always feared: mornings at the kitchen table with the newspaper, cigarette, and coffee cup, but alone; evenings stitching in the wing chair, but alone; nights in the fourposter, but alone. What did I care for her real agony when, to me, mine was realer? Or her tears or pain?
Someday
, I thought, she would come out and smile and wave, and
then
I would run across, and
then
I would say I was sorry, and
then
everything would be all right; but not now. Now I was a coward.

And yet, staring from my window past the Great Elm, I thought of the house that had once been our Ark, keeping us safe and dry while the floods rose around us. I thought of the living room where we had found consideration and grace and good will, where we had eaten bounty, where we had been together in a chain of love that Lady herself had forged, that room of my youth, with the friend of my youth, for hadn't we been boom compenions when we had drunk to "present company and absent friends," where she, in her velvet gown and diamond clips, had played and sung a German love song to me -- to me -- in a time of friendliness and warmth and cheer; and, Yes, we had said, we will do this every year, an anniversary to be remembered, even as weddings and birthdays, till she herself was white-haired and we had children and they would be brought to see and hear, with Jesse silent in his slippers to and from the room.

No more; never anymore.

I thought of that mostly, that it was somehow Nevermore. But the future lay ahead; who cared for bygones? I cleaned out my childhood, putting into cartons to be consigned to the attic all the things I felt reminded me of the past, for I was a grown boy now, and the past would never be again. Secretly I planned on tacking up banners and school insignia and rah-rah pictures of track and crew teams as I packed away the Roxy Radio Junior magic lantern, the postcards of Paris France and Venice Italy, the books from my shelves,
Robin Hood
and
King Arthur
and
Treasure Island
, illustrated, to make room for
The Way of a Transgressor
and
Knight Without Armor
.

It was while I was carrying up just such a box of books that we learned about Blue Ferguson. His mother had received word that he had been killed in Spain, and was to be buried there. It was a bitter blow to her -- she was frantic, wanting him to be brought home to our own churchyard -- a bitter blow for all of us who had been his friends. No one now remembered about Mrs. Pierson or the reason for his leaving; we thought only of the Blue Ferguson we had known, Blue of Hermitage Island. As we had lost Jesse, so we had lost Blue, though I suppose there was none to draw the parallel. Both I had loved, both I had felt betrayed by, both were dead. I put my
Hindenburg
model on the table, set a match to it, and watched it blaze, smoke, crumble, become ashes, and long after Lew and Harry were asleep, I stared across the Green where until late, and later, a solitary lamp burned behind the drawn downstairs shade.

And so the days wound down, until shortly before I was to leave, and still I had not gone across the Green. And still Ag watched and waited, and was disappointed in me, and I hated her for it, but could do nothing. And then the storm came, and it did for me what nothing else could do: it drove me back where I should have gone of my own accord.

There'd been a wind brewing for days, with small-craft warnings posted along the Sound. As the wind continued, the rain came in squalls; the frequent radio bulletins kept us informed of the progress of the storm, calling it a hurricane as it thrashed its way up from the Caribbean to Florida, then into the Carolinas. It approached the town in a gradually consuming fury, as if by coming slowly upon us it could rob us the quicker and to greater profit.

As usual, Ma had gone to the laundry, and the schools, as usual, were open, and as usual Nancy was ironing under the cellar stairs. She emerged in time to make lunch, then, frightened by the storm, retreated to her ironing board and radio programs; she didn't want to see or hear none of that nonsense.

Back at my worktable, with the broad panorama of the Green below, I watched Miss Berry make her way from her door, crossing the Green and heading for Lady's house. This was a strange thing, for to my knowledge she had never paid a visit across the Green in all the time we'd lived there.

Her umbrella unfurled, defying the storm to turn it inside out, clutching the collar of an old black coat, and trying to keep the red bird from flying off with her hat, she made her way up the walk. I thought the wind would blow her away, but she got to the door and was admitted.

Later, I persuaded Nancy to come up and watch the storm with me, which she did only with reluctance, wringing her hands, her dark lips taking on an ashen hue as she offered admonishment to the phenomenon.

"Oh, Lord, you's bad, you's a bad thing, lookit what you's doin' to Missus Sparrow's snowball bushes" -- Mrs. Sparrow's snowball bushes were scudding across the lawn like tumbleweed. "Here, now, you ain't got no call to blow like that, Lord, that streetcar's goan' pop offa that track" -- and so it appeared, the trolley having come up the track listing like a foundered ship, until debris blocked its path and the motorman fled to a nearby house for safety. "Done broke that glass!" -- the butt end of a branch drove through a passenger window. "Lord help us, this whole house is gone to shakin' " -- it had; we could feel the timbers quake in the walls and flooring.

"Lord God bless us, what's she doing out in that?" Nancy exclaimed as Miss Berry closed Lady's door behind her and marched back across the Green.

"She's coming here"; I had a feeling of dread as I got up and went down to open the door. Rage and contempt were on Miss Berry's windblown face as she confronted me, thrusting her black-gloved finger at my chest. "You
told
!"

"Told?" What was she talking about? The wind tore at the red bird, making it bob ridiculously. I tried to take her hand and bring her in, but she pulled away as if I were contemptible.

"You told about Lady and Jesse."

I felt amazement and then outrage. "No, I didn't. I never said a word."

"You did
not
tell?" She put her face close to mine, peering through her spectacles. "No one?"

"No . . ." My voice rose in a disconsolate wail on the wind.

Miss Berry darted me another look, then pulled the door to, leaving me behind it, trembling in anger. How could Lady have said it? Why was I blamed? I had never mentioned a word, not to anyone. Was she trying to get back at me? Would she put the blame on me for spite? It was the dirtiest trick I could think of, and instantly my feelings hardened toward her again.

When I got back upstairs, Miss Berry was heading up the Green, the wind buffeting her from behind, a frail craft abroad in rough waves; she looked hardly seaworthy. Colonel Blatchley, long since returned from his summer in England, came out and spoke to her, but Miss Berry shook her head and continued on. I watched her disappear, wondering what errand took her about in such weather. Leaves flurried across the grass in manic torrent, whirling, twisting, flying up in leaf-geysers, while water flowed in the streets as if the hydrants had been turned on. The radio said the hurricane was now ripping through New Bedford and heading for Boston. Again we had been declared a disaster area; the National Guard, the WPA, and other agencies had been called out. When Lew and Harry got home, Lew called Ma and asked her what she was doing: ironing shirts! In the middle of Connecticut's second-greatest disaster, our mother was back on the mangle! Lew told her not to try to come home. Where was Agnes, she fretted on the other end of the line. She agreed to remain at the laundry, but Ag must call when she got home safe.

We were all worried. The other schoolchildren had gone by, but no Ag, who always came home before going to the library to rebind books for Miss Shedd. Our worry increased as the storm did, and the real havoc began. The smaller, suppler trees were able to bend with the wind and still maintain themselves, but because of the wet spring the ground had been loosened, and one by one the larger trunks were literally uprooted before our eyes. A sixty-foot maple leaned, tottered, and crashed to the earth, taking with it a great cake of dirt and revealing its naked root system, which in no time was washed clean by the driving rain. Another tree went, then another, with great gaping holes appearing in the ground. "Look!" Harry exclaimed, and down went another; I watched it, then returned my eyes to the Great Elm, which I was sure would go at any time. Leaves flew like dark rain from the branches which tossed in thick green waves as the wind tore at them from every direction. Limbs broke off and were borne away, but still the thick trunk held.

By degrees the fury died, and though the rain continued all seemed eerie silence. The sky changed color, a sickly yellow, a Biblical signal of disaster or pestilence.

"Lord, I believe it's over," Nancy breathed gratefully, and I let her go down to the kitchen in her innocence, for I realized that we were now in the eye of the storm, that calm center around which the hurricane spiraled.

We waited, watched, talked among ourselves, worrying about Aggie, and as the rain slackened I looked across the Green to Lady's house. I wondered what she was doing. All was quiet; there were no signs of any activity. Like the others, her lawn was leaf-strewn, the blossoms of her plants had been torn off, leaving only the bare stalks, and the sheets of her afternoon paper were scattered over the grass.

Then into this calm chaos came Agnes, our sister, with Miss Berry. Her umbrella still intact, Miss Berry marched, rather than walked, straight down the Green, avoiding the carnage with careful steps until, arm in arm with Ag, she crossed the roadway in front of our house. Up the walk, up the steps, through the hall, upstairs, and into the room she came. Pulling out the long pin anchoring her hat, she threw the hat on the bed and sat down, looking straight at me.

I glanced at Ag, who'd come in behind her, then said, "Yes, Miss Berry?"

She composed herself by removing her gloves, then began. She had come, she said, directly from the parlor of Mrs. de Sales-Sprague, whom she, Miss Berry, had encouraged in no uncertain terms to surrender the truth concerning the poison-pen letters. It was indeed Mrs. de Sales-Sprague who had circulated them; the stationery had come from Miss Jocelyn-Marie's Gift and Novelty Shoppe, had been stamped and mailed in the post office, and had been delivered by Mr. Marachek. And how had Mrs. de Sales-Sprague come by this information?

Through Dumb Dora.

Spying from the carriage-house loft, Dora had observed certain things, which accounted for her frequent visits during the time we were painting the summerhouse a year ago last spring. From the loft she could see into Lady's bedroom window, where unnoticed she had witnessed demonstrations of affection between Lady and Jesse which even Dora's opaque mind could hardly construe otherwise. Had seen Lady kiss Jesse as she tucked a comforter around his knees. Had seen her sit on the chaise foot, holding his hand as she talked to him. Had seen her, while Jesse dozed in the sun, disrobe and change her clothes before going shopping.

So much for Dumb Dora. But how had Mrs. Sprague found out? By dint of one of her "What-have-we-been-doing-today-Dora-dear"s. Mrs. Sprague had coaxed, and Dora had obliged her by telling. Mrs. Sprague went to Miss Jocelyn-Marie's for the purchase of writing paper of the cheapest sort, and to the post office for stamps. The unwitting Mr. Marachek had done the rest.

Her recital finished, Miss Berry rose. "Lady said you were the one," she said, facing me with her direct look, "but I told her you weren't. Go, now -- hurry."