The Hearth and Eagle (34 page)

He felt her tremble and looked down at the radiant head against his faded blue shirt. Her hair shone like tiny copper wires, and it smelled of the sea mist.

“Why are you discontented, Hesper?” he said.

She stirred uneasily. That was not what she hoped to hear. “I hate Marblehead,” she said. “Hate it.” Though until that moment she had not realized this.

“But why? You’re part of it and it of you. That old house of yours and the sea and the rocks, you’re woven into them. You belong to them.”

“I don’t,” she snapped. “Just because Phebe and Mark Honeywood happened to settle here two hundred and whatever years ago. What's that got to do with me?”

“It makes a quite beautiful pattern,” he said after a moment.

“Well I don’t think it makes any pattern at all. And I don’t see why you think so. You left your own birthplace.”

“True. But I wasn’t rooted there. Mother came from New Bedford, and my father from Pennsylvania. Besides, I’m cut out to be a wanderer.”

She felt the warning in his stress on the last word, and she straightened her shoulders, drawing away from him.

“Like all men—” she said coldly. “Marbleheaders wander as much as anybody. Not only to the Banks and further, but let anyone blow a bugle or wave a flag and off they rush to war.” She moved still further from him, thinking of Johnnie, and the dull old pain merged to this present aching.

Evan laughed. “You’re hard on the men. It takes both to make full life. The rushing out, and the coming back to something steady and warm and sure that’s been waiting.”

She turned her head and looked up at him. “Is that what you want, Evan?”

Her soft question startled him, and the sudden clear beauty of her upturned face white against the fronds of her burning hair.

“Sometimes,” he said below his breath. She lifted her open hands to him in a small submissive gesture. It moved him to compunction and pierced his guard. He pulled her to him again and kissed her. Soon he was astonished to feel the depths of passion which her response began to stir in him. The thick cream whiteness of her skin through the loosened bodice, the pulsing hollows at the base of her neck intoxicated him, yet even as he kissed her and savored the faint aromatic perfume of her skin, the watcher within made note. The shadows of her flesh were not violet as he had thought, they were bistre, and in her eyes upraised to his in half-frightened appeal, the moss-green irises were speckled with brown.

“Ah, Evan I love you—” she whispered and at her own words, breath strangled in her throat. She shook her head and pushed him away, not clumsily as she had the first day, but with a decision that surprised him. She got up off the log and looked down at him.

“What is it, Hesper?” He stood up at once.

“When you’ve finished the pictures of me—” she said, “what then?”

His face darkened. He reached an impatient hand to an overhanging pine branch and snapped it off. He ran his fingers down the sharp needles.

“When I’ve done what I want in Marblehead, I’ll leave, no doubt.”

She swallowed, gazing at his shut, averted face. The thin jutting nose, the long chin, the full lips curved in now on themselves.

She picked up the wicker basket and started silently down the path. After a moment in which he watched her retreating figure, he loaded himself with his paraphernalia and followed her.

When he reached the boat, she was already seated on the center thwart, her hands on the oars. Neither of them spoke as she rowed across the harbor.

She landed them in Lovis Cove by Thatcher’s Sail Loft, and as they walked down the wharf one behind the other she was vaguely aware of two men standing in the doorway of Thatcher’s building. As she passed one of them stepped forward and said, “ ’Evening, Miss Honeywood.”

Hesper started and blinked, collecting herself. Amos Porterman, gravely bowing, his keen blue eyes startled and disapproving as they glanced at Evan and back to Hesper.

“ ’Evening, Mr. Porterman,” she said, and would have passed on, but Amos did not step aside. He continued to stand, large and immovable in the path. Hesper was forced to introduce Evan.

“This is Mr. Redlake, boarding at the Inn. He’s an artist.”

Amos bowed again, drawing his bushy blond eyebrows together in a frown. “I’ve heard you were in town, sir,” he said to Evan. “Is the painting good on the Neck?”

Hesper felt herself grow hot. Mr. Porterman and his polite question had managed to convey the fact that it was well after sunset, and that he did not like Evan’s looks.

“Why, tolerably good,” said Evan pleasantly.

Amos stared again at Hesper’s vivid indignant face. He drew in his breath, and stepped back in the doorway. The two went past him and he watched them turn down Front Street. After a moment he resumed negotiation with Mr. Thatcher for the purchase of the sail loft, but found that he had lost interest in the transaction. He made another appointment, and walked off, leaving a startled Mr. Thatcher behind him.

A
MOS SPENT
a troubled night tossing on his knobby bed at the Marblehead Hotel. At six o’clock he leaned out of the window and watched the swelling procession of shoe workers turn off onto School Street, bound for his factory in back of the hotel. This sight gave him none of the pleasure it usually did.

Nor did the hitherto interesting appointments he had scheduled for the day. Final negotiations with the Boston firm of engineers for the conversion to steam. Introduction of compo work in a corner of the Making room; an experiment, but they were doing well with it in Lynn. Dinner at the Hotel with Macullar’s buyer, talk him into doubling his order. Ticklish interview with Josh Harris, find out if possible exactly what volume Harris & Sons were actually doing.

Amos went through his day, fighting a black depression that ruined his appetite and even spoiled the taste of cigars. By four o’clock he decided to pay the Hearth and Eagle a call and found several reasons for doing so. It was only natural that he should take a friendly interest in the Inn and commend Mrs. Honeywood for the promptness with which she was paying back his loan. And then it was only friendly to warn her that there might be talk about Hesper and that long-legged painter. Girl had no business to be traipsing off alone to the Neck with a fellow like that. It shocked him to find that sensible Mrs. Honeywood permitted it. Very likely she’ll thank me for pointing it out.

Amos left the factory and strolled down Pleasant Street, and his depression lifted. Action was always the answer to discomfort. He hastened his steps, and found himself caught by the charm of his adopted town, seeing it with an indulgent eye.

The spell of fair June weather still held. As he walked beneath the maples and the wine-glass elms, the sun flickered from a vibrant blue sky, and he sniffed the scent of ocean salt and flowers. There were rosesand petunias in the rocky back yards, geraniums and heliotrope in the window boxes. He approved fresh coats of dazzling yellow paint on scattered houses in Franklin Street. He approved too the majestic horse chestnut which shadowed the Hearth and Eagle yard, its white blossoms shining proud as candles amongst the glossy green leaves.

But there as he viewed the old house itself his approval ceased. He shook his head, staring at it with a pitying exasperation.

The silver-gray clapboards were as innocent of paint as on the day they were cut. The steep ridgepole on the original ell, and the gambrel roof on Moses Honeywood’s larger addition, showed a rakish irregularity of line that offended him. And why in time couldn’t they have placed the windows fair and square to begin with? Must have had level and plumbline even in those days. He stood for a moment, his hands on the crumbling picket gate, and modernized the house. Raise the roof on the oldest part, cut new windows, top it off with a nice fretwork cupola, run a verandah across the front, with rocking chairs where the guests could sit and enjoy the view across the harbor. Put in a couple of bathrooms, attract the best class of people instead of riff-raff. Like that painter fellow.

He tightened his lips, walked up the path, and entered by the taproom door. The low smoky room held four customers who looked up as the bell jangled. At the table below the casement window old Pinney Coit played checkers with his brother. At the center table, Cap’n Brown, master of an antiquated “heel-tapper,” sat morosely drinking grog and listening to a spate of political conjecture from “Gabby” Woodfin, who was as expert at cod-splitting and salting as he was a tedious talker.

They knew Amos by sight, and greeted him with perfunctory grunts. The checker players continued their game. None of these men felt for him any particular animosity. They were all seamen and had remained so, stubbornly clinging to the dwindling trade into which they had been born, and they were entirely indifferent to a shoeman who was also a foreigner.

Amos, quite accustomed to this attitude by now, nevertheless saw a good opportunity to ingratiate himself. He still cherished political ambitions—town selectman at least, even the legislature. He was well aware that so far he had made no progress, but it might be helpful to show these old Marbleheaders that he understood their interests.

Mrs. Honeywood was not in sight, her place behind the counter being filled by a frowsy girl in a spotted apron. Amos decided to postpone the object of his visit for a few minutes, sat down at the center table between “Gabby” and Cap’n Brown, ordered drinks and plunged into appropriate questions.

Was it true the fleet’d soon be in from the Banks, and that they’d caught full fare? That a big mackerel spirt had headed right into them? What a damn shame it was the government had voted to rescind the fisherman’s bounty. Times were bad enough without that, and you’d think even that parcel of fools in Congress’d have more sense. And how was Cap’n Brown’s old “heel-tapper?” Still laid up on the ways for repairs? Was there hope she’d sail again soon?

The seamen drank Amos’ grog and thawed a trifle. Cap’n Brown delivered himself of monosyllables, but “Gabby” brightened into response as Amos complimented him on his loaded fish flakes. “I was over to Dolliber’s Cove yesterday—” said Amos, “and noted your cod was curing faster than anybody’s.”

Gabby nodded complacently, running his scarred fingers through his lank gray hair. “Aye, Oi’ve the best dun-fish. They’ll be brown as a nut, fetch high in Par-rtygal. Oi tend them splits loike they was babies, keep headin’ ’em into the sun, swaddle ’em at night, an’ afore they ever reach the flakes, Oi press ’em in the foinest oaken kenches to pint up the flavor. Oi send clear to Provinceto’n fur me salt; was a toime Oi reckoned Beverley salt’d do, but it’s a queer thing about thot salt, don’t seem to give out brine as quick. Now you wouldn’t think there’d be difference twixt salts, nor difference twixt cod, neither, yet it’s well known that a fish cotched Newfoundland side o’ the Gr-rond Banks tastes different to them as is cotched eastwor-rd. Oncet when Oi was a leetle lod, cut-tail Oi was, on the
Hannah,
she was Chebacco-built at Ipswich, twenty tons burden, an’ as seawar-rthy a croft as you’d find from Nahant to Newbury, the skipper was a Tom Cheever an’ Oi remember—”

Like a turgid brook burbling over stones, Gabby’s flow continued. The checker players had resumed their game. Cap’n Brown hunched himself over his mug, his bleary eyes glazed by interior mediation.

Amos sighed, got up and paid the frowsy barmaid. Nobody noticed. Gabby’s monologue continued unchecked. Amos went in search of Mrs. Honeywood.

He found her in the buttery off the kitchen skimming milk, and much disconcerted at the sight of him.

“Why, Mr. Porterman!” she cried, throwing down the tin skimmer. “You’re heartily welcome, but I’m flustered to receive you like this. I’d no idea—Come through to the parlor, do.” She rolled down her sleeves, and untied her calico apron.

“Please don’t trouble, ma’am—” said Amos, “I just came to see how you were, can’t stay long. Can’t we sit here?”

He glanced around the kitchen, and upon Susan’s reluctantly seating herself on the settle, he wedged himself into the only armchair, the Windsor comb-back. It had been made in Boston two hundred years ago for Isaac Honeywood and Amos, surprised to find that it did not even creak beneath his weight, nevertheless thought that it should have been chopped for kindling long ago, like most things in this house. Look at those worm-eaten beams, and that rough-hewn lintel over the fireplace. Not even a decent mantelpiece.

“With your head for business, ma’am,” he said to Susan, “I’m sure you’ll soon be making enough to refurbish the place a bit.”

Susan nodded, agreeing with the implication. “Nothing I’d like better, but Roger he won’t hear of it. Wouldn’t even let me cover them old planks with some of that new oilcloth, would’ve brightened us up here. I had a fight to get the little cookstove, then I wanted to board up the fireplace summers. Roger, he jawed at me something fierce, till I had to let be. He likes to look at those old black fire-dogs. You’d think them made of gold.”

Amos glanced at the andirons, and he made a sympathetic noise. He crossed his legs and cleared his throat, “Does Miss-uh-Hesper share her father’s views?”

Susan snorted. “That girl, she’s no views of any kind, right now, excepting on that painter feller. I wish I’d never been so addle-pated as to give him house room.”

“I thought as much—” said Amos under his breath, relieved to have the subject well launched, and to find that Mrs. Honeywood’s good sense had not failed her.

“What’s he doing in Marblehead, anyway?” asked Amos.

“Painting pictures.” Susan got up and went to the dresser. “Have a sup of my blackberry cordial,” she said over her shoulder, “unless you’d rather have something from the tap-room?”

“No, thanks—” said Amos, “the cordial’d be fine,” and he waited, for Susan was clashing the decanter with a simmering vehemence. She put a pewter plate and glass beside Amos and sat down again. “Hesper’s in love with him,” she said starkly. “She’s daft about him, the poor buffleheaded girl.”

Amos gulped a mouthful of fiery purple liquid. “He’s not suited to her!” he cried. He added more quietly, “Do you know anything about him?”