Sherbrookes: Possession / Sherbrookes / Stillness (American Literature Series) (28 page)

“I’ll give him your message,” says Maggie. “Thursday night.”

She hangs up, heavily. Maggie is shaking; she brushes her teeth. She scrapes the bristles on her gums until they bleed. She discovers in herself such jealousy of her son’s young lover that she has to hold the sink. She studies her blear scrubbed reflection, then sticks out her tongue.

The next day Sally Conover appears at the Big House. Maggie remains in her room while Ian answers the bell. She hears laughter in the porch, then in the kitchen, then silence; then Ian returns. “What did she want?” Maggie asks.

“To borrow sugar,” Ian says, and deals the hand of rummy it is his turn to deal.

“You like her, don’t you?” Maggie asks.

He moves his head so that it seems both nod and shrug.

“You find her—attractive?”

“Enough,” he says, discarding. “Your turn. Knock with four or under.”

“Enough for what?”

“Your card.”

“Why won’t you talk about it?”

“Enough to sleep with.” He takes her discard. “If that’s what you’re asking.”

She feels her stomach tighten, then release. “Not exactly.”

“To go out to dinner with. Your turn. To give a cup of sugar to.”

She picks up a seven of hearts. Of all the cards she might have drawn, this is the least useful; she discards.

“What’s the problem?” Ian asks.

The child within is hers alone; she will not share it with her son. She picks the king of clubs. “No problem.”

“She’s just who’s here is in this town at this time. You understand.” Ian gives his sheepish, theatrical grin. He offers her the eight of diamonds: a stranger, some other woman’s man.

“Jeanne Fisk called yesterday,” she says. “I forgot to tell you. About this Thursday evening. She hopes you’ll call back.”

“All right. Your turn. We don’t have to finish.”

“We do. What was the knock card?”

“Four.”

“I’m sorry,” Maggie says. “I suppose I’d thought of you as . . .”

“Without alternative? Lonely? Gin.”

Now Maggie asks herself what was the point of her abashed insisting that the Boudreaus accept what she gave. It was as if she ratified her own existence in the gratitude of others—saw herself only in mirroring eyes. And, since Boudreau regarded her as generous and honest, she could see herself that way. He gave his gap-toothed grin at her, and she smiled warmly back. He told her stories of the Alagash, how he loved pumpkin pie with catsup on it, how he’d never say no to a good piece of pie. She baked them for him, Thursdays, according to the available fruit and left them by his lunch box if he were out in the fields. Harry wanted to be a mechanical engineer. He studied mechanical drawing in school, and she gave him Judah’s felt-cased compass set. Hattie looked askance at that, and Maggie reminded her that charity begins at home, that there was a blessing on alms. “It’s expensive,” Hattie said. “The boy won’t know what to make of it. Why don’t you buy him one at Woolworth’s; why give him one so old and good?” Maggie settled the discussion by insisting, although she was not certain, that Judah would have approved.

Thereafter she kept her small charities secret—telling Hal to rent the tractors out and keep the rental fee. She put fifty dollars monthly in the safe for Harry’s schooling, moved by his earnest self-betterment. She was shamefaced, always, in front of Mrs. Boudreau’s voluble thanks and complaint, saying Judah would have wished it, saying she was only doing what he’d asked her to. She paid them more for pasturing and tending to the horses than the horses had been worth—and watched the man and boy on the bridle path together, evenings, after chores.

Then, starting in the end of March, Hal went on a two-week drunk. She did not encounter him, but heard the clucking disapproval of Hattie and her friends. He had been found in ditches or asleep in unlocked cars; his wife locked him out of the trailer, and he walked the streets. He was harmless and incompetent, they said; he wouldn’t hurt a fly. But it was shameful anyhow, the way his clothes got muddy all over, the way he’d look at you and not say anything but start to cry, his brain so addled with the stuff he’d not known Jeanne Fisk’s name when for some crazy reason she offered him a ride. You’d have had to fumigate the car, they said; they stopped his credit at the Village Arms. But he’d gotten hold of cash and walked down to Hoosick and paid for his binges there where they didn’t know him and would not refuse a customer. There was trouble enough in this country without the men in it drinking themselves glassy-eyed or falling-down foolish and maudlin. They should refuse to serve him, Hattie said; the police should lock him up and let him sleep it off.

On the second Thursday Maggie found a lunch box by the sugarhouse and opened the door to find Boudreau inside, sprawled full length on the floor. He sat up, blinking in the shaft of light, focusing, and said, “Well.”

“Well.”

“I was hoping to fix these buckets,” he said. “There’s holes in them.”

“Yes.”

There were a thousand sugaring buckets, with holes worked through the base.

“Mr. Sherbrooke wouldn’t stand for that,” he said. He shook his head; she bent above him, helpless, trying to seem helpful. “He’d want them fixed by sugaring time. Them maples ought to be tapped.”

“You’d need a soldering iron.”

“Ayup.”

“He did it by himself, you know, my husband told me so. Destroyed them. He wanted to let the sap run.”

“I never . . .”

“It’s all right,” said Maggie. “You just sleep. You come on in the house and take a shower, if you’d like.”

“No,” Hal said. He shrank from her. “These clothes . . .”

“I’ll clean them. We’ve got a machine.”

“No.” He built himself up to his feet. There was a bench behind them; he sat on that. “I’m drunk,” he said. “I was. I’m so ashamed. I never . . .”

“You don’t have to tell me,” she said.

“I want to. Leastways, sit.”

She shrank from him, but he patted the wood. He did so till she sat.

“Now shut that door.”

She did his bidding once again; the sugarhouse was dark, sweet-smelling.

“There’s stories I could tell you,” he said. “Things you ought to know about.”

“All right.”

“My father died when I was ten.” He coughed. “And there were eight of us, you see, so Mother had to farm us out, this was 1936. The bottom’d fallen out, grown men were grateful for work. And I stayed with people called Baker—Germans they were, north of here. Up by Burlington. He was a good enough man—big, jolly, but
distant
, if you follow; he’d put his arm around me and there’d be no warmth to it.”

Boudreau shivered. He sucked an unlit pipe. He looked at her, but seemed to see instead the farms by Burlington; his eyes were wide.

“What was Mrs. Baker like?”

“A hard woman, mean . . . She worked me so long it’s a wonder I’ve still got the stomach for farming. Outside I was farmhand and inside the house I played maid. Scrubbed those steps for her; polished the porch. But mostly I remember how she was too cheap to even buy me boots. All winter long we’d spread manure from off a sled, you see, hitch it up to ponies and just walk along in the fields. All winter I’d be wearing ankle shoes and I remember that I used to pray for dawn; dear God, I’d say, just let the sun come up.”

He blew out ashes from his pipe bowl. Startled by this loquacity—he had never spoken to her at such length before—she put her hand on his hand. Boudreau coughed; there was a white dried crust around the edges of his eyes.

“Milking was like that way too. Except at least the cows were warm; I had to milk five cows every morning in the dark. But by the time I’d got my things and moved about a bit it was warm in the barn, sweet-smelling to me, Jesus; I’ll need a cow to milk when I’m eighty, else I won’t know I’m alive. I’d just lean my head against them, tell them my troubles, and pull . . .”

He breathed so slowly, deeply, that she doubted he was still awake, and when he clasped her, shuddering, she was not certain he knew. His body was slack and hair lank. She felt her stomach heave, and held her breath and breathed through her nose, shallowly, because he reeked. Still, Maggie whispered to him, although he did not listen, that she was there, was hoping to help, and fitted her limbs to his limbs. One year before, returning, she had clung to Judah in just such a fashion and, when her husband tried to lie with her, mastered the impulse to flee.

At ten o’clock, however, cramped and cold and queasy, she disengaged herself and left the barn and walked back home. And when she saw him the next day, Boudreau’s manner was sober, reverted. He apologized for his behavior, sleeping in the barn and such, and said he was a burden for his wife and family to bear. “A cross to carry,” Maggie said, and Hal announced, “Yes. That’s what she calls it—misfortunate. It’s just exactly her words.”

VII
I

“Say something. I’m pregnant,” Maggie repeats.

“You’re not serious,” says Ian.

“Yes.”

“You’ve got to be joking.”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Not absolutely. But it’s a very good guess,” she says.

His horse drops its head, sidestepping.

“Might I ask . . .” Here Ian too drops his head. He raises it again, with a queer half-grin, and stares at her, assessing.

“Go right ahead . . .”

“Who’s the father?”

“You might ask that.”

“Well?”

Her horse shifts for forage, stamping. Maggie releases the reins; Maybe turns three-quarters around.

“Anyone I know?” says Ian.

“The odds are for miscarriage. You ought to know that. And I’m not certain I’ll carry the thing—be able to. It seems unlikely, doesn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been pregnant, you see.”

A rabbit bolts past them; she lets her horse walk. There are felled trees by the trailside—cut up into log lengths, but left there to dry. After some time, Maggie says, “I’m glad you find it funny.”

“Not funny, no . . .”

“Amusing, then. There’s so little humor in the world these days.”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“What
did
you mean?”

The trail is wide enough; he rides alongside. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Just tell me what you meant.”

“I was thinking,” Ian says, “how many ladies might have hauled me to the woods to tell me some such secret. But in my generation, you see, they take precautions. Pills. An I.U.D. . . .” He ducks, avoiding a branch. “And there’s no Judah left to make a shotgun marriage out of it; there’s no way I can help you, really, except to grin a little. I meant to laugh
with
you”—he finishes—“not at.”

Now Maggie hesitates. Should she fall in with his attempt at levity or tell him that she needs his help—that she’s a frightened woman with no support system in place? Birds shriek at them, departing. “My man of the world,” Maggie says.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You’re all I’ve got. You’re my only comfort, Ian, no matter what you think.”

“No.”

“Yes. Believe it. You won’t remember Seth . . .”

He puts his hand up to his shirt and buttons it.

“You can’t, of course, how could you?”

“I was two years old,” he says.

“Well, I’ve been pregnant three times in my life,” Maggie says. “Whatever the younger generation thinks; whatever precautions you take. It was as if, when Seth was taken from us—strange, I still think of it that way, ‘passed on,’ ‘passed over,’ whatever; I can hardly read the words ‘crib death,’ ” Maggie says, “much less say or think them—
crib death, crib death, crib death
—maybe I should practice. When Seth died, at any rate, it was like my body put itself on birth control. It was inconceivable, Ian. There seemed nothing left to conceive.”

He is silent. The branches that brush them are wet; the fallen wood cracks wetly under Maybe’s hooves. They follow a carpet of leaves.

“You want this child?”

“I want to talk to you about it. If I were certain, I wouldn’t be out riding; if I knew for sure, I’d spend the next five months in bed. With my feet on a pillow, understand.”

“Are you planning to marry?”

“No.”

“Does the father know?” He cannot keep levity out of his voice. “Are his intentions honorable?”

“Or maybe I’m trying to kill it, that’s what. That’s why we’re riding, after all.” She faces him and shakes her head. “You’ve been giving a pretty good imitation of Judah, my friend; you’re conducting just the sort of inquisition he’d have approved of . . .”

“Do you know the father?”

She kicks her horse, holds back and releases; it canters away from him, flinging up mud. Ian holds his own horse to a walk. Something startles in the brush; it beats off, heavily. At the hill’s crest Maggie halts. “No.”

“Well, what do you want of me?”

“Nothing.”

“Permission?”

“Not really.”

“Some sort of green light?” He is angry now; his voice goes high. “Some kind of cheery approval? Yes, Ma, go right ahead, go have a bastard and let me call it brother, sister,
Seth
. You must have been busy these months, not even to know which . . .” He stops, spits, wipes his face. There is a sudden flurry up above them, in the trees. “What did you expect—that I’d be jumping up and down, saying surely, by all means, get off that horse, let me carry you home, let me put you to bed and bring you breakfast till the baby’s term time comes? Just exactly what’s the point of this, that’s all I’m asking; do you want me to get you a doctor?”

“I’ve done that,” Maggie says.

“Then tell me,” he insists, “just what the hell you require.”

“Help. Someone to say I’m not crazy.”

“You’re crazy,” Ian says.

Now they ride in silence. They skirt a hay barn she has nearly forgotten—half collapsed and empty, its slate roof cracked into seams where the building has buckled beneath it, its foundation bellied out so that the whole east wall bows. Next they pass (this is the homeward turning, she tells him, the outer extent of the farm) the shell of a house she has truly forgotten—white clapboard, slate-roofed also, its windows target practice for the neighborhood children. The brick chimney teeters. There is a front porch with four support columns, vine-choked. Maggie jumps down lightly and tethers Maybe to a column of the porch. He follows her, stiff.

“Who lived here?” Ian asks.

“No one I ever knew. Your grandfather bought it empty, I believe.”

“I don’t remember. When?”

“Way back. When this was a separate farm.”

They sit on the porch steps. He puts his hand out gingerly; she takes and squeezes it, says: “Do you forgive me?”

“For what?” Ian asks her. “For nothing.”

“Not nothing.”

“I like this place,” he says. “Greek Revival?”

“That woman, Anne-Maria. The one whose letters you were reading in my room . . .”

“Yes.”

“This was her dower house, I think. It was built for her and Willard Sheldon. But they never lived in it.”

“Why not?”

“They stayed in Guatemala. They lived in Salt Lake City. She was never welcome back, or maybe they kept on drifting. The family sold it to spite her—then Judah’s father bought it back. Who knows . . .”

“I’d like to look inside.”

She thinks she hears a flute, a far-off intimation. She distinguishes scales, then practice runs, then only the pigeons Ian startles as he swings the entrance door open; the house is wet.

“If it’s all the same to you,” she says, “I’ll wait. It’s warm here on the stoop.”

“Okay. I won’t be long.”

The floorboards creak, complaining. She watches as he enters, letting whatever nests there scuttle off for cover. Then she too steps inside. There is a fireplace to the left, a warren of rooms to the right, and a central hall with only the studs remaining, a freestanding stairwell, no plumbing or electric lights. The banister is intricately carved. Ian paces the length of the house, his footsteps echoing. She asks herself what memory he hunts in this abandoned place, beneath the roof (she can see up to it, through it, where the lath has given way and there are only crossties and a few cracked slates) that seems never to have offered shelter to the intended occupants. Perhaps some tenant farmer or those who came to help with haying had been billeted in the small upstairs rooms; perhaps some family idiot or mistress had been consigned to this space.

Ian makes his way back down the stairwell and, three rungs from the landing, puts his foot right through the wood. She watches him draw back, then jump. He picks a long pine splinter from his leg. “Does it hurt?” she asks; he tells her, “No.” Upstairs the rooms are ten by eight, six of them—he’s counted—each giving on the hall. This is not the time to make a full inspection, they agree; the horses whinny and nicker. But the abandoned house compels him; he will make it, he tells her, his own.

Her father, too, has died. In the last year, Maggie thinks, and with the exception of Ian, the men in her life were outlasted. His death had not been peaceful; he had had a tumor of the brain. She found him raving, in the hospital at Hyannis, sure he was the captain of a whaling ship, and with a mutinous crew.

Maggie had been notified by the hospital staff that her father’s health was critical and she should come if possible. She drove to the Cape on a clear August morning and did not stop for gas until the Sagamore Bridge. Then, more slowly, reined in by traffic, she made her way to his side. When he did not greet or recognize her, she felt as if there’s no escape, there’s nothing that you ever get for free. Your husband who had shammed disease to bring you home lives on with dignity; your father finishes that. He had been a cheerful man, full of mariner’s stories; as a widower he’d moved to Wellfleet and grown a full gray beard. They put him in a single room because he shouted so.

Maggie blamed herself. She thought, maybe what she’d taken as his harmless eccentricity had been the death-dealing tumor. Had she tried to question him (not listening nodding, subservient, unable to say Dad, you’ve never been to Hatteras, you never did use flensing tools), had she taken his headaches as actual, perhaps they might have caught the swelling in his brain. He howled “Avast, me hearties” and knotted the bedsheets like rope. He called his pillowcase a gag and swore he’d make his way by compass and main force through the Barrier Reef.

She shared his last three days. It was more time than she’d spent with him for years. But he had been unreachable—a shrunken, dapper person with water in his eyes. When he died she half believed that he was only resting, and she told the nurse who came to check just not to bother or wake him, please. When the doctor certified his death and signed for it, Maggie thought she saw a stormy petrel fly past the hospital window. She scattered his ashes secretively, later, behind the Harbormaster’s Office of the Wellfleet Dock.

There were Pekin ducks on the back pond behind the garden wall. She’d left them out that winter, not bothering to coop them, but only setting up a windbreak and leaving them cracked corn or crumbs. They could fly, she’d said to Hattie; they could deal with the foxes this winter by themselves. “Sleep, shit, and screw, that’s all they ever do,” was Judah’s barnyard rhyme. So she helped them with cracked corn, but not protection; they could keep the pond from icing over and deploy to the safety of water if there were a fox.

Therefore she’d made her way, every second morning, to the pond. It is behind what used to be the icehouse, maybe forty feet across. The house had been built out of brick, with a slate roof. There is a small stream feeding the pond, granite ledging on three sides, and a mud patch where the pond had silted in. She’d feed the ducks. They yawped and scurried from her and swam to the water’s far edge. She’d check for fox tracks every morning and find none.

Then there was a cold snap, and the pond iced over. Maggie took a walking stick—Judah’s heavy locust cane—and went and found, as she rounded the icehouse, fox tracks. Six duck carcasses lay by the windbreak. There was webbing left, and everything above the neck, and feathers and feet. The frozen blood looked brown.

She could not help admiring the precision of such slaughter—how the one night when the ducks could find no refuge was the night the fox had struck. She supposed the animal had reconnoitered while the ducks eluded it in the center of the pond. They’d huddle fifteen feet away, in water, and wait out his visit. On ice, however, there’d be no escape, and the fox prepared for that.

There was a riddle about pilgrims with a fox, a rooster, and grain. There was one small conveyance only, and the pilgrim had to cross a river with only one of the three as his cargo; otherwise he’d sink. The problem was to choose his route and companions—since if he left the rooster with the grain, the rooster would consume the grain, and if he left the fox and rooster, the rooster would be eaten in its turn. This was true on either side, though salvation waited on the farther bank.

There was a solution, she knew. She tried to remember the riddle. You take the rooster first, leaving behind the fox and the grain. Then you come back and bring the fox with you, but take the rooster back. Then you ferry the grain across and come back empty-handed and return with the rooster and take up the journey again.

Just so, and just as carefully, she has tried to organize cargo. She has done double journeys and kept things separate and attempted to keep slaughter down. But the solution argued wakefulness; it meant she had to stay with one while loading up the other, meant the rooster would not dare to eat in the pilgrim’s supervisory presence. And Maggie feels herself, these days, unable to furnish protection. Let them eat each other or die of starvation, she thinks; what happens happens anyhow; it’s only a question of time.

Judah’s death, for instance, had come in the fullness of time. This was Hattie’s phrase, and then the minister’s, though Maggie knows that Hattie thinks his death was premature. The doctors talked of surgery; they had talked of implanting a pacemaker; they warned him off too much to eat, and exertion and smoking, but he said a shot of whiskey drove the angina away. They said, “With luck, you’ll live a good long time, and with any luck at all at least a dozen years.”