The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell (11 page)

“Oh, aren’t you the serious one,” I said. “I rather think the human spirit is on an upward course.”

Lydia turned. “Well, you might feel differently if you’d been here last year when they hanged Harris Bell.”

“Was that not for a murder?”

“Surely, but my goodness, the fascination!” Lydia picked up her shawl and draped it over her arm. “People started gathering in the early morning, Joseph, just to see the man as he was marched up the street. There was a fence to hide the gallows, but ladders were brought, and people paid money to climb them. And when it was done, our good citizens took the rope and cut it into pieces, so each could have a memento of the occasion. Imagine.” Lydia’s eyes burned, and had they been turned on a pile of leaves, it might have burst into flames. She was beautiful.

I
GOT BACK to Blandin’s to find the tavern oddly crowded for the late afternoon—merchants and bargemen sharing tables, of all things, many of them with soot-darkened faces. I soon found out why. There had been a fire south of town. The men had gone out to fight it, but the fire kept advancing, driven by a wind that was pushing it toward the coal yards, which, had they begun to burn, would have been the hellish end to everything that had ever called itself Honesdale. Then the wind died, and the town was saved—all of this while I was teaching girls to dance. That night I played many a merry tune.

But that Sunday, Reverend Albright saw no cause for celebration. In its place he read the story of Lot. He spoke with such passion that I started to think that he would have liked to see the town burn. But it didn’t burn, and Reverend Albright knew why. God had spared Honesdale the fate of Gomorrah as He had spared the city of Zoar. We should fall to our knees and give thanks—we should be grateful for this warning to turn from our wicked ways. Our sins piled together had called forth the fire. God’s mercy had stopped it. I saw heads nod in agreement.

After service, Reverend Albright and I walked to the square. I intended to challenge his sermon, for I didn’t believe that God burned cities, despite those Bible stories. Maybe those cities burned because someone knocked over a lamp. And why was Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt? What did she do?

But Reverend Albright and I didn’t talk about the sermon. His troubled thoughts were elsewhere. “Have things not gone well with Miss Jenkins?” I asked.

“They have not,” he said, fussing with his parson’s cap. He didn’t say more, so I could only imagine. Had he tried to tell a joke? Confess his desire? Why had I even suggested it?

“Malcolm,” I said, wishing to change the subject. “I’d like to tell you about a story. By Mr. Hawthorne. About a village pastor. One day he comes to church wearing a veil—”

Reverend Albright waved his hand. “I’ve read only one work by Mr. Hawthorne. I’ll not hear of another. His Reverend Dimmesdale was an insult to men of the cloth.”

“Insult? Don’t men of the cloth wrestle with sin like the rest of us?”

“Of course, but that’s not the problem.”

I took a breath. “What
is
the problem?”

My minister looked up as if to search the clouds. “Books should be morally uplifting. Unfortunately, that appears to be beyond your friend Mr. Hawthorne.”

My friend Mr. Hawthorne? I was losing patience. “And just what is my new friend’s great sin, if you care to tell me?”

“Mr. Hawthorne was a founder of Brook Farm,” he said, folding the crooked sticks he had for arms. “You may know that their grand building—they had some fancy name for it—that unholy building burned to the ground. Burned by the hand of God, of that I am certain.”

Brook Farm, again. Had the place still existed, I would have gone there just to see it for myself. Burton thought it misguided. Reverend Albright saw it as outright sinful—so much so that God had burned the place down. I didn’t believe it. And I was getting tired of my minister’s small-minded lessons.

“Malcolm,” I said, “if God weeded the wicked by fire, I think we would smell smoke every day of the week.”

Albright stood there gaping like an old hen, no doubt searching for scripture in his old hen head. I walked away.

* * *

The girls stared dreamily out the window as they waited for class to begin. I had done the same in school. Back then, I might have imagined myself out with my father and the farmer’s militia. In those dreams I would be on a pinto, carrying some secret message past the sheriff’s patrol. But I was old-fashioned, even as a youngster. My students, I was sure, were not thinking of daring deeds on horses.

To refresh their interest, I began to teach the mazurka. At first, there was much stamping of feet and ragged jumping about, the imagined music not helping. After several attempts, I retired to play the violin, and we imagined, instead, our eighth dancer.

Lydia stayed for her lesson, but it didn’t last long. Once we were done, I told her of my quarrel with Reverend Albright. She laughed.

“Joseph, he’s a prune. When are you going to see this?” And then, as if to help me, she pinched her face and spoke through her nose. “
Make a mournful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with sadness, come before his presence with frowning
.”

I took a step back.

“Oh, goodness,” said Lydia, “the psalm will survive.” She tried to make light of it, but my face must have said more than I wanted it to, for suddenly she turned away as though to hide. A moment passed. And another. Finally she spoke, her voice low and pleading. “Joseph, I’m not sure there even is a God. There would be some evidence, don’t you think?”

“Evidence?” I said, dismayed. “Dear Lydia, the signs are all around us. God is everywhere—in the forests and the fields, the trees and the rivers.”

Lydia ran her fingers along the sill. “Joseph, if you tell me that God has a seat on the Board of Merchants, then I agree He is all powerful. But the trees and the fields? We cut them down.”

“Have you not
ever
felt His presence?” I asked, hoping for something we might share.

A vacant look settled on Lydia’s face, as though she had opened a gift and found nothing in the box. “When I was a girl,” she said, “I used to pray. I would beg God to come to me, to touch my head, to show me some sign He was there. Sometimes I would tell myself that He had touched me, but it never happened.” She got up and began to gather her things.

I didn’t want her to leave. I reached out to stop her. “Dance with me.”

Lydia seemed surprised, perhaps imagining that I was angry. After a moment, she nodded that she would. Without a note on the violin or another word, we arranged ourselves and danced without smiles or laughter. I felt wooden and foolish. The waltz didn’t bring us closer but only showed the distance between us.

When we finished, Lydia didn’t move. We stood holding each other. Then, like a flower folding itself for the evening, she nestled gently against me. I put my arms full around her, and we rocked slowly, her head on my shoulder, my lips brushing her neck. I could feel her breathe.

Then she pushed away, looking out from under her lashes and speaking in a whisper. “What you must think of me.”

If I had been braver, I would have told her the truth about everything. But all my instinct was to protect what had just happened. Protect it so that it might happen again. But the moment still called for truth, so I gave it, in half measure. “I love you, Lydia. That is what I think of you.”

“Oh, Joseph,” she sighed as she looked away. Then, as though not to wake us, she left.

* * *

That night I wrestled with large thoughts. Now that the words had been spoken, it was plain—I was in love with Lydia. Was such a thing possible? Could a woman love another woman? I had never heard of it, though when I was young, I would sometimes hear things whispered about two spinsters who lived together. People would laugh and say they were married. I thought it was just something funny to say. When I was older, I heard a preacher speak out against the sin of unnatural unions. I didn’t know what these unions were, but a woman loving another woman might surely be one.

This troubled me some, but not as much as you might suppose. And before I am judged from the far off comfort of a chair, please remember that everything had changed for me. Up was down, red was blue, and some part of me had come to see myself as a man. And as such, my feelings toward Lydia were as natural as the morning mist. Of course, Lydia didn’t know the truth, and there was nothing natural about that. It was all such a tangle.

But there was a place where it wasn’t a tangle—a special, quiet place, beyond the reasons and the thoughts. There, in a room of its own, in an attic with sloped ceilings, a part of me just loved Lydia and didn’t care about the rest. I went there that night, hugging my pillow and remembering over and over the smell of her hair and the pulse of her neck until those thoughts brought me into a generous sleep.

* * *

My retelling of Reverend Albright’s street lessons brought a smile to Burton’s face. “Morally uplifting?” he said, raising his eyes. “Please, I’d rather a cold bath.”

“No you wouldn’t,” I said. “But what does he have to fear from Mr. Hawthorne?”

“Oh, he has everything to fear,” said Burton. “Mr. Hawthorne has, I’d say, a sympathy for our darker nature.” For Burton, of course, that was a compliment, but, even so, it turned out he didn’t really like
The Scarlet Letter
. Prynne was too good, or something like that.

As for me, I liked it, but I didn’t tell Burton why. I felt a kinship with Miss Prynne. She wore a damning letter across her breast, while my breasts themselves, bound under my shirt, were my transgression. I might have been a character in the story. Why not? My every day was a fabrication. And with our embrace, my conduct toward Lydia had become a moral failing. Every time I thought about it, I resolved to tell her the truth. But how? The truth would be so shocking that Lydia would have to tell another, and then I would be ruined and have to give up everything and flee. So, I’d have to replace one lie with another—a story, say, of my hand already promised in marriage. But that would be no simple tale to tell. Lydia would ask questions, and there would have to be more lies—lots of them. My head ached with it all, and I began to dread seeing her.

Thursday came and with it the dance class. When the others left, Lydia asked if we could spend our time outside. We walked to the creek and chose the path that went upstream. I thought about telling her my new story, the one about my betrothed back in Westerlo. But I hadn’t worked it all out, and the day was so beautiful I couldn’t bring myself to spoil it.

We walked farther and soon found ourselves in a small, overgrown meadow. We sat where the grass was soft and watched the clouds scud down the valley. A warm breeze lightly rippled the field. Then it fell away, bringing a silence that was challenged only by the occasional bee.

Lydia took a stalk of grass and traced loops in the air. “When I was young,” she said, “I used to think that if one was a girl, one stayed a girl, in the same way if one were born a pony, one stayed a pony.”

“Not me,” I said, turning to her, “I always wanted to grow up.”

Lydia kept looking at the sky. “It wasn’t that. I just thought grown-ups were a different breed. But, yes, now that I’m about to become one, I don’t want to.”

“Does it really seem that awful to you?”

Lydia brought her eyes back to mine. “Yes, Joseph, it does. And do you know where it frightens me most? In church.”

The silence spoke my confusion. Lydia seemed annoyed.

“Have you really not noticed, Joseph? Would not Sunday be the day and church the place to see joy if there were joy to be seen? But you don’t see it. The women and the men—they have looks on their faces like they’re so very tired of it all.”

Lydia turned away, and a wood thrush began its afternoon song. I lay back and closed my eyes. A minute later I opened them and saw her above me. Her face was surrounded by blue sky and clouds, as though detached from her body—something one might see in a dream. Her fingers touched my cheek, and her eyes searched mine. She kissed me on the mouth, gently at first, then fiercely—my hands finding her soft places.

T
HE NEXT MORNING, in bed, I relived our moments by the Dyberry, remembering the pleasure of Lydia’s kiss. But those warm thoughts were soon pushed aside by the question—would my touch bring her the same delight if she knew my true nature? I didn’t know and couldn’t bring myself to think more about it. I got up and went downstairs.

Over breakfast, I saw a notice in the
Democrat
—a Mrs. R. Parsons had a room to let in her carriage barn. I very much needed a new place to live, a room where men would not pass my door at all hours, a room where I could heat my own water and bathe. I finished my bowl of oats and set off for the upper village.

It might have been home to a large family, it was surely big enough, but no sound came from the house as I stepped onto the porch and knocked. Then I heard footsteps, and the door opened to reveal a gray-haired woman in a baking cap. I asked if the missus were home, and she laughed and said she was the only Rebecca Parsons there that day. When I told her why I had come, she took off her apron and put on a shawl.

We walked to the barn, and Mrs. Parsons asked if I were new in town. I told her about the music school. She said she had heard of it. When I told her I was staying in a room upstairs at Blandin’s, she smiled and said she could see why I might be looking for another place to sleep.

Once in the barn, we went up a dark stairway that led to a long, bright room. At the near end was a bed with a feather mattress and at the far end, a small iron cook stove. In the middle, a table and chair sat before a window that looked out onto wild roses grown high on a trellis. I made no effort to hide my pleasant surprise.

The rent was modest but came with duties to the main house and to the grounds, these to begin in a month when the present boarder was to leave. I had time enough in the morning to do the work, but I did say that I would not be home a great deal later in the day if she were counting upon my presence. Mrs. Parsons frowned.