The Other Nineteenth Century (23 page)

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Authors: Avram Davidson

BOOK: The Other Nineteenth Century
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And what have they here? Prudence’s long-missing will they have here and she has made many dispositions and someone’s heavy hand has printed DIED INTESTATE, for her Will is not signed, impetuous death does not wait for that. Prudence is Waldo Sutter’s grandmother.
She has never married. Its presence here signifies that he has at last given up all hope of getting any of those bolts of cloth, that cherrywood furniture (is it anything like this cherrywood furniture), those cases of pewter plates, sets of best blue chinaware. A little
kerosene in a
bottle. Last time he sends sixteen Old Farmers Almanacs, 1810-1826, and a straight razor in a flaking case; the boys, amused, use it in turn.
Old John Kelly is his only tenant, a gallon of lamp oil will last Waldo a long while, and the jugs are worth a penny apiece in trade. Pork. Samp. Chickamauga does not kill Waldo Sutter. Neither do the floods drown him. Certainly not the Spring freshets. Even if the Sutter Company will not adjust its river-level to his comfort.
What else is
here?
An old pamphlet on growing pot-herbs, an old booklet on raising silkworms (the smell is soon got used to), and exactly twenty small empty envelopes from a Department of Agriculture once generous with new types of seeds. All very old. But no doubt useful. And here is a note in age-browned ink on a part of a page torn from, it might be, one of those small bound “pocketbooks” in which thrifty goodwives record sales of Best Brown Eggs in terms of shillings, for complete changeover to dollars and cents has to await the later 1850s; on it a short note:
Salatheal Sutter
old and mauger
torn a part by wolves
And a note upon the note, in somewhat darker ink, the iron nib biting deep into the page NOT WOLVES
No more.
And also just such a tiny volume and Aunt Sarah at once finds the half-torn page to match the torn-out note; in a tiny hand is neatly written,
John Q. Adams dead today.
No more.
But enough of ancient history. Lewis, Ellis, and Samuel Sutter. “Charm and rascal beauty”? Yes. Increasingly “devilish behavior”? Yes. As children they are as sprightly and nimble as goat-kids. There is, later, something fawn-like (fa
u
n-like?) about the young Sutter boys, indeed devilishly bad as their behavior is sometimes said to be,
eh? their childish presences disarm,
eh? At twenty a growing heaviness becomes apparent, not fat, nothing like that, something immensely strong seems coming; the early wildness is replaced by a more deliberate quality, quite beyond description. And now they get into fights, fights—reports go about of a brutality which is not to be explained—though sometimes it has to be explained away.
Does Helen Sutter have a palsy? Dr. Brainert says no. Then what is the reason for the frequent trembling? Dr. Brainert prescribes this and suggests that. But Helen Sutter Woodruff Sutter continues so often to tremble. Aunt Harriet proposes a trip south. South Carolina. Northern Florida. “I will go with you,” Aunt Harriet offers. “And Effie.”
“There isn’t enough money,” Aunt Sawyer (Effie) says at once.
“There is enough money for that,” her niece Lucinda insists. Cinda’s sister Amy has married, and moved away to Portland, Oregon, which is about as far as she can move away and still keep her feet dry.
“Since Abel died,” says her aunt, she means Uncle Sawyer, “there hasn’t been enough money for anything.” And, it is true that things seem shabbier in the very big house. Katie has died, and Mary, grown old, is retired. Neither has been replaced. Often there is talk of “having the carpenters in,” but so far they are not being had. “I wish that the boys would set aside the nonsense. I wish that the boys would take
hold.
”
Aunt Harriet leaves for a moment the subject of Aiken or Vero Beach. “It is The Prohibition,” she says. “The Volstead Act. It doesn’t prevent. It
encourages.”
Helen says that she hoped It would skip another generation. “I know that people blame Henry and me for marrying although we are cousins. But it had skipped two generations. And I had hoped
It would skip this one, too.” Tremble. Tremble. “If Kingston or Woodruff had lived. If Gerald …” Aunt Sarah’s mouth moves. But she remains silent.
“Does no one hear from Gerald?” asks Chester Boswell.
A universal silence. No one hears from Gerald.
Aunt Harriet looks all around. Almost furtively. As though she knows she should not ask, she asks. “How much money was settled on the De Sousa family?”
Aunt Effie Sawyer is a lady, and ladies do not glare. Almost, though, she glares. “You know very well how much. One. Hundred. Thousand. Dollars. Taken out of capital.” She does gasp, however, and she rolls up her eyes: tightens, but does not clench, her fists. “Out of
capital.”
Lucinda reminds them (yet again) of the condition of Harry De Sousa’s body. Witnesses report how the red touring-car (is there another custom-painted red touring-car in all the world?) backs up and runs over Harry De Sousa again and again. “There are five small children,” Lucinda says. “If there is ever a prosecution …” Her mother trembles, trembles. Perhaps she remembers other …
incidents … .
Before.
And
since
.
And other settlements.
It is long since that a settlement can be made (thus leaving Zachary free to absquatulate for Teckshus.
Free? Zachary? free?)
by giving someone a ninety-nine year lease on an ice-house for ninety-nine dollars a year. And, anyway, there is only one ice-house, for
scarcely flows
the frozen Tanais
through a waste of snows
Talk, before that, of giving Waldo Sutter the lease? Talk.
Lucinda does not now remind them that she herself witnesses the near-death on North Main Street of the Universalist minister. She screams and screams, warnings to the Rev. Mr. Showalter, appeals to her brothers. Mr. Showalter, after stoically refusing to acknowledge
danger in the red touring-car’s furious approach, finally with a squeak of fear barely flings himself to safety; a contemporary—Dr. Nickolson the homeopath—extends shaking hands to hold the trembling cleric up; cries, “Don’t tell me those boys don’t have the witch-bump!” The Nickolsons have lived here almost as long as the Sutters: no love lost.
The red touring-car continues to tear along the street like a whirlwind, madcap yells, howls, and cries coming from the front seat: Lewis at the Wheel. Mr. Showalter has suffered such a shock that he must retire; will place charges:
duty!
—doesn’t care about himself but cares about the public safety. Uncle Sawyer speaks soothingly and speaks and speaks and gives directions for a new roof to be put on the Meetinghouse. Mr. Showalter shakes his head. And on the Manse. Mr. Showalter slackens, but feels that someone must be taught a lesson. Uncle Sawyer mentions faith and hope. Uncle Sawyer settles a ten-year endowment on the Universalist pulpit’s everfaltering income. Mr. Showalter takes a vacation in the White Mountains, returns to preach with renewed vigor the doctrines of James Relly and Hosea Ballou (
“‘No
Hell! No Hell! No
Hell!
No
Hell!’ rings
out the
Universalist bell!”
)—But even Uncle Sawyer cannot keep this up forever. And, it turns out, neither can Lewis.
If Aunt Harriet pretends to believe that her nephews’ troubles stem from drink alone, let her. Does no one point out that Samuel, for example, does not drink. He is certainly never seen in any of the local saloons, but he is certainly talked about in them. “Sam Sutter? Know what they say about what his motto is? ‘Women and children first,’ that’s what they say his motto is.” People laugh at this. But their laughs are not nice ones.
Does Samuel suffer from amnesia? Sometimes people make references to the recent past, and his expression is a blank … that is if there can be a troubled blank. Can there be?
One afternoon in the early spring the ladies of the family are in the music room listening to the victrola. All, that is, save for Aunt Sarah, who is, as usual, in her place in the library wearing her
neat house-costume; as usual, silent. Chester Boswell is, as usual, talking … perhaps in a lower tone of voice, even, than usual. “Gone upstairs to wash my hands,” he says. “Samuel’s door. Open.” Everyone knows how such things are. One has no intention of looking. At all. But there is a slight movement and it catches one’s attention, Chester’s head turns automatically. Samuel is sitting at his desk, holding his head in his hands, motionless save for a slight fidget of the fingers in the hair, slight but incessant. Aunt Sarah looks up and at her cousin Chester when he says this, and he imitates for her this slight (but steady) motion, somehow restless, somehow steady, of Samuel’s fingers as he holds his head in his hands.
“I don’t like to see this,” Chester Boswell murmurs. “That’s how it all started with Lew …” That’s how it started with Lew? And how does it end with Lew? For it does end. At the age of only twenty-three, Lewis takes up a heavy old Colt Navy revolver, once the property of Selah Sutter, Waldo’s elder brother, and shoots himself. Fatally.
No note. As Samuel murmurs to Ellis at the service, “Not even a forwarding address.”
Mother Sutter (Helen) “takes it better than we would have thought.” How, better? Does she not have practice? Never mind about Zachary, she is only a child when Zachary so hastily lights out for the Territories … and for oblivion. He is her uncle …
great
uncle. Hardly counts … Uncle Zachary … though he lives on in local memory, in the minds and mouths of Sidney Coolidge and the like. Is Sid’s an august name in these days? in this place? Less. Llewellyn in Wales. Cohen in Tel Aviv. But.
Kingston, Woodruff, Gerald. She doesn’t see Kingston and Woodruff dead? She doesn’t know for sure that Gerald—? She knows for sure. In her mind she sees them each dead a hundred thousand times. Perhaps there is even some comfort about Lewis. At least she touches the coffin. At least she stands by the grave.
She
tries
to live a little while without him, likes it not, and dies.
Waldo Sutter, he whom Chickamauga cannot kill, he whom none of them have seen in years, puts on his old Union uniform and attends the funeral.
Stands apart, speaks to no one, is covertly observed by those curious to see if they can observe traces of the alleged blood of the Narragansetts … or even of a darker and more vigorous tribe. He speaks to no one; on his way home, whom Chickamauga does not kill or the wolves tear apart, collapses by the side of the road. Old John Kelly, hopefully skulking (he who should have known better than hope) to see if Waldo perhaps goes to the postfuneral feast, returning with victuals in his pocket, finds him dead.
His will: Them as gotten everthing else as ought to ben mine, let them git all I have to leave … .
And, one year later, one year and some months, Samuel at twenty-three, after something not less horrible for being less describable, Samuel rushes, roaring, naked, through the woods and dives into the water and swims outward with powerful strokes until vanishing from sight. This is shortly after Chester Boswell sees Samuel in the room with his head in his hands, motionless save for that fidget of the fingers. The rains have been heavy, the river is high, surely Samuel knows this? Surely Samuel knows that he is swimming toward the dam? They find him dead at the foot of it, drowned, and with many bones broken.
Ellis’s once-high spirits, slackened when Lewis dies, seem now suddenly and entirely checked. There are no more stories told about him. One sees him no more at meals even; Agnes brings him up a tray: reports that he sits with head in hands, fingers trembling. Chester Boswell, Cousin Chester? His bad leg? It is re-broken and it is re-set. A room on the first floor in the large house is cleared up for him: the office of Henry, lost and forgotten Henry, husband to Helen, father of Kingston, Woodruff, Gerald, Lucinda, Amy, Lewis, Samuel, Ellis. And there Chester sleeps—what formal sleep he gets—although he spends most of his time in the library with his leg in its cast up on an ottoman; Chester still suffers from the sinking of the Maine, on which he never sets eyes, sometimes murmuring to silent Aunt Sarah, sometimes dozing, to awaken abruptly with a little groan. There is perhaps a slightly warmer relation between Ellis and Chester than with the other boys, has he been more like an uncle
than a cousin? Ellis never comes down to see him, sends him no general or especial messages. His door is open only to Agnes, and, twice a day, the tray.
Down below, they wait. And wait. As each day lengthens, so the tension. Yes, even so, a dreadful shock when, one morning, a great crash. And a quite frightful human sound, part scream, and—“What the devil—” cries Chester Boswell. And now another and rather lesser crash, and the scene is as one long prepared for some set piece, for a second all gape, then a wild rush up the stairs, somehow today the carpenters have been gotten in at last, large strong men—the thud of shoulders against a shuddering door. Voices cry out in horror, there are screams and shouts and—
Silent Aunt Sarah sits silently; unmoving, her neatly trousered legs in the grey with the small black check. Trembling Chester Boswell sits, too, a prisoner of his patriot leg in its heavy cast. Turmoil, terror, tragedy. Ellis has been shaving, pauses in mid-stroke and cries out and pushes over the heavy piece of cherrywood furniture with the mirror and the basin, slashes his throat. Deeply. Doctor Brainert is summoned, can do nothing.

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