Tree By Leaf (8 page)

“The design is mine; the embellishments are yours. I do not make wars; men do.”

“I’m sorry,” Clothilde said. She sat down again, even though she hadn’t been told to. She kept her eyes closed, for fear of what she might see if she opened them. All she wanted now was to be left alone. “I’m sorry. Really. Really, sorry.”

The Voice knew sorrow too, and when it next spoke it sounded like a foghorn, warning through the shrouded night to ships that it could not see and that could not see it, warning of the deadly rocks waiting invisible under the dark water. “What would you have?” the Voice asked.

Clothilde, eyes squeezed shut and covered by her hands, shook her head. If her mind had given way—poor Jeb Twohey, his mind caught in that black wave that wouldn’t ever let go of him. Oh, she could understand what had happened to Jeb Twohey.

The Voice asked, “What would you mend?”

“The man in the boathouse.” Clothilde mumbled the words into her own hands, not wanting to answer the question, answering with the first thing that came into her mind, not knowing until she answered how that was the first thing. Even if she’d taken her hands away from her face she couldn’t have opened her eyes. “I’d make him better.”

The Voice didn’t know who she meant.

“Benjamin Speer,” Clothilde named him, and the Voice recognized the name.

“Yes,” the Voice agreed.

“And Nate shouldn’t go on that cruise, he shouldn’t, I wouldn’t let him,” Clothilde said, the words rushing out now, “and Lou—” But if she thought about Lou, it was just selfishness to say that she’d let Lou stay and work for them. What Lou really needed, to make her life better, was to be kept safe from her father. “Mr. Small shouldn’t be able to hurt her.”

“Yes,” the Voice agreed. “Yes.”

Clothilde thought, in the darkness of her hands over her closed eyes. She didn’t want to be greedy and she didn’t want to be silly. She wanted to ask if she couldn’t be prettier than Polly Dethier, and strong enough to fight off the boys’ teasing at school. She didn’t let herself ask for that. What if, like a fairy tale, she only had three wishes? She would have already used them up. “And my peninsula, Speer Point,” she added hastily. “Speer Point is
mine
.”

“No,” the Voice said. Then it was gone.

Clothilde had opened her mouth to argue, to ask why not. She took her hands away from her eyes and looked around. The air filled with noises, and she knew she was alone again. She heard the waves, as the
tide rose and a breeze rose, she heard gulls, birds in the woods behind her, and the buzzing of insects.

The craziness had passed, like a fit of laughter or tears. She was almost sorry, then. She was almost glad. She was entirely confused, except for the solid rock underneath her. She turned around, putting her hand down on the sharp rock, looking all around her.

It was more than any eye could take in all at once. The pines growing straight up, each one pointing into the sky. The trees, thick trunks spreading out strong branches, each green leaf held firm as it sprang out toward the sun, each, every, leaf entirely itself. Blind with seeing, Clothilde looked back to the water, where waves moved and the great tides swung underneath. Her hand spread out on the rock, and she looked at it, seeing its bones with the muscles spread over, and the skin encasing it. She lifted her hand and turned it over, moving her fingers slowly closed, and then open. The gray corrugated surface of the rock she sat on was dusted with gray-green lichen growing slowly outward to spread over the surface of the stone, and the gray stone itself almost grew outward from the earth, as if the earth sent forth stones into the light. Clothilde lifted her eyes in time to see the sleek body of a seal gather itself together and slip underwater,
where silver fish swam, and hard-shelled clams back down into the thick sandy mud, and the water rested heavy on the strong floor of the earth. Her skirt, she saw, was woven of hundreds of threads, each going on its own dark fabric that lay over her crossed legs. Clothilde stretched out on the rock, lying on her stomach, seeing.

When she woke up, she was not sure for a second where she was. The air had grown chilly and waves slapped up against the rocks. Clouds approached from the east. She stood up and looked at the woods. The trees had become only that again—they weren’t each so crowdingly distinct. Except, maybe—she peered into the woods with the wind blowing at her back and her skirt moving around her legs—the birches. She could see the swaying of the birches, and their delicate leaves scattered high along their branches, almost as she had seen them before she fell asleep, like the memory of a song.

Of course it hadn’t happened. Clothilde knew that. It was a dream, or some temporary craziness that she should hope would never return.

But if, she thought, half believing, if it was true?

Then the peninsula wasn’t hers, she remembered. The Voice had said no to that. So she didn’t want it to
be true. Not if the man in the boathouse could sell the peninsula now, so she wouldn’t have it for when she needed it. Not if she couldn’t go to college and be able to earn her own living so she could have her own life. Besides, it was hers, whatever the Voice said. It had been left to her in a will, and that was the law. Even if the law also said a father could take it away, the law said it was hers.

She’d have to just wait and see, Clothilde thought, running through the trees along her own path to the beach. She didn’t believe it for a minute; but it would be something, if it were true. If she could have taken care of all those things. She wished she
had
asked to be prettier than Polly Dethier. It was all a dream, anyway, she decided. The nap had filled her with energy. It was all a dream, especially that strange way of seeing everything so clearly, the way everything had crowded itself into her eyes. Things were back to normal now. She’d rather have it be a dream, anyway, rather than craziness, if she could choose. If she could choose, she’d rather have it be true, she admitted, stumbling over a stone. But it couldn’t be true. But if it were, time would tell. “Only time will tell,” she laughed to herself.

If the things she asked for came about, she
calculated, then she would know. And if they didn’t? Well, it had been a wonderful dream, anyway. The nap and the dream had lifted her spirits. If that was all it was, she was still glad. There might be a way to keep the man in the boathouse from selling Speer Point, if she tried to think of it; she might be able to stop him, if she tried.

Clothilde woke the very next morning, Monday, with sunrise in her heart, despite the fog that had come in overnight and wrapped itself around the house, crowding at her window. What if, Clothilde awoke thinking. What if it wasn’t all a dream, what if—

She went into the bathroom, her mind full of possibilities. Her great-aunt hadn’t pinched pennies on this farmhouse. Even for her tenants she had provided a thoroughly modern home. The bathroom was a big, tiled room, with a porcelain toilet and sink and tub, with deep shelves for storing towels. Clothilde wondered, scrubbing at her teeth and looking at the room reflected in the mirror, what the bathrooms in the cottage had been like, if this one in the farmhouse was so comfortable. Then she wondered what the cottage had looked like, and what it would have been like to live in, if it hadn’t burned down. And what if Father were to come walking out of the fog this morning,
Father healed, handsome and lighthearted. What if he were to walk up through the swirling fog, and come home again; and she, Clothilde, would have made it happen. Clothilde smiled at her square face in the mirror, meeting her own eyes. Her eyes danced, like waves under sunlight.

She dressed quickly in her chilly bedroom, where wisps of fog brushed by the window. Downstairs, the kitchen was empty and cold. They didn’t run the big coal furnace from late May to mid-September, to save money and to save the work, so the house was cold in the mornings, until the stoves were lit. Clothilde found her mother in the parlor, a shawl around her shoulders, sorting embroidery threads. Mother’s fingers spread out the different colors onto the table beside her. The gas lamp gave out a warm light but that was only warmth in the room; the wood stove sat in its corner like a cold black pumpkin.

Dierdre sat at Mother’s feet, beside the deep bag in which Mother stored her fine needlework supplies. Clothilde hadn’t seen that bag for four years. Mother hadn’t time for fancywork, in the last four years.

“I’m hungry,” Dierdre greeted Clothilde.

“It’s cold,” Clothilde said. She took the fuel starter out of its container of kerosene and opened the door
of the stove to lay the starter on the ashes. She built up a little pile of kindling on top of it, and added some medium-sized logs. When she stuck the long match in under the kindling, the kerosene-soaked starter caught fire immediately. Flames sprang up, as if they had just been waiting to be asked. Clothilde closed and latched the heavy metal door. She opened the vents wide, so the fire would burn hot, to warm up the heavy metal of the stove. Then she stood up to face her mother.

“I’m hungry,” Dierdre insisted. “I want my breakfast.”

Dierdre hadn’t been given breakfast, the stove hadn’t been lighted, and Mother was just sitting there sorting colored threads.

“Do you feel all right?” Clothilde asked her mother.

“It’s my hair,” Mother answered. “I didn’t have time to dress it properly,” she said, as if that explained everything. “I’m a little hungry myself.”

Mother’s hair looked fine. She had it pulled back into a thick knot at the back of her head. Big tortoiseshell pins held the twisted mass of hair in place. If Mother was hungry, and Dierdre was hungry, why hadn’t she made anything to eat?

“Would you like me to make some oatmeal?” Clothilde offered.

“No,” Dierdre said. “Pancakes.”

“That would be fine, Clothilde,” Mother answered. “I’ve often thought Lou shouldn’t be allowed to sleep out Sunday nights. It’s bad management to let servants do that. They don’t get back in time for the morning meal.” She turned her attention back to the threads. Clothild went across to the cold kitchen.

Clothilde started a fire in the stove, opening the vents wide so it would burn hot. She put a pan of water on the stove, to heat. When it came to a boil, she added salt, butter, and a measure of oatmeal. The water foamed up and she stirred at the mass until it had reached the thick, slow boil at which the cereal would cook. Then she turned down the flame, covered the pan, and set bowls and spoons out on the table. From the cool cellar she brought up a pitcher of milk. From the cupboard she brought down the bowl of brown sugar.

It would be several minutes before the oatmeal had cooked, and Dierdre got cranky when she was kept waiting for her food, so Clothilde went back down to the cellar for an apple. She cut it into quarters
and removed the core from each quarter before peeling off the skin. She set the four pieces in a bowl. She was wiping her hands on her apron as she went into the parlor. “I’ve got an apple for you, Dierdre,” she said. “To keep the wolf away.”

Dierdre jumped up, giggling at the wolf. Mother didn’t even look up. One thing about Dierdre—if you gave her what she wanted she cheered up right away.

Clothilde kept an eye on her sister, to see that she didn’t cram too much apple into her mouth at once, while she kept an eye on the oatmeal, where it bubbled away on the stove. When Dierdre climbed down from the table, Clothilde brushed her tangled hair, and braided it the way Mother liked. French braids had two small braids beginning at the top of your head; each smaller braid was then braided into the bigger pigtails. Clothilde couldn’t do French braids for herself, but she could do it for Dierdre. “Pretty,” she said, giving the little girl a hug.

“I’m pretty,” Dierdre answered satisfied.

“Pretty enough to go tell Mother that breakfast is ready?”

Dierdre considered this. “Yes,” she decided.

Clothilde spooned oatmeal into bowls and sat down with Dierdre to wait for Mother. “Clothilde,
dear, you musn’t sit down to table with your apron still on,” Mother said. Clothilde obeyed without asking any questions, even though she would just have to put the apron back on again for the washing up. It was the fog that made Lou late, she thought.

Mother said the grace: “Bless this food to our use, and us to Thy service.” They ate without talking. When Dierdre spilled cereal over the edge of her bowl, Mother ignored it, so it was left to Clothilde to warn her sister to eat more carefully, and to mop up the spill. Clothilde finally asked her mother, “When did Nate leave?”

Mother looked at the clock. Clothilde also looked at the clock. It was well after eight. Lou was usually back by half-past seven. She wondered how thick the fog was, in the village.

“I think it was just after six,” Mother said. “He wanted an early start, and with the fog … it’s only a short sail across the bay to town, so he’ll have arrived in good time. They wanted to catch the midday tide.”

But the tide wasn’t high at midday, and Nate knew that as well as Clothilde. By midday, the tide would be well out. Maybe Mother had misunderstood. She was paying so little attention to things that she might well have mistaken what Nate told her.

“Young men are so eager for things to happen,” Mother said. She had only eaten half of her oatmeal, but she put her spoon down to show she was finished. “Always set out plates under bowls, dear,” she reminded Clothilde, and then went back to the subject. “Nate was so excited. Young men like going off together, to have adventures.” That made Clothilde think of all the young men going off to war. She thought Mother must be thinking the same thing, but her mother just looked gently amused, the way she did when Dierdre played house with Dolly Molly.

“Lou is really late,” Clothilde said.

“You said you’d teach me to stitch,” Dierdre told Mother.

“Servants are always as late as they can be. They’re not reliable,” Mother answered Clothilde. Then she turned to Dierdre. “Not this morning, dear. Mother’s busy.”

“But you said,” Dierdre insisted.

“Don’t talk back.” Mother rose from the table. Dierdre tagged along behind her into the parlor.