The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell (36 page)

One day I went over to see. The hillsides were stripped and covered with skinned logs. The bark with its acid had value, the soft wood underneath not so much. It wasn’t worth the effort to haul the logs to Long Eddy. So there they lay and would lie till they rotted, which made it seem like murder. Down below were piles of scraped cow hides, and nearby, in open-sided barns, large cauldrons of boiling acids were tended by half-naked Irishmen, no better than savages. The smell was something awful, and if they had been stirring sinners into this soup instead of cowhides, it would have been the perfect picture of hell. And all of it so that men could make boots that other men could put on, so they could march to great fields where they would line up and shoot each other, fall down dead and rot like the naked logs.

So the Lord’s certain disappointment was not a new thought, but while I sat by our cave one afternoon and waited for Marie’s next visit, the thought that should have followed this revelation finally came. It occurred to me that we humans were not here on this earth to do the Lord’s work but to do the Devil’s work. If we did the Lord’s work, then everything we made wouldn’t look so ugly, and we wouldn’t hurt each other in so many ways. What we call the Lord’s work are minor efforts to undo some awful thing done before. No matter how righteous our thoughts, it’s all a costume for the Devil to walk about in—all a disguise.

Why hadn’t I seen this before? I didn’t know, but it didn’t matter—I was seeing it now. The Devil had fooled everyone, but in the end, he hadn’t fooled me. I had discovered him and not God inside myself, and now I knew how I could still serve my Lord and turn the tables on the Devil. I would take myself to the quarry and throw myself off the ledge. If each one of us did that, we could put an end to all the defilement. And at the very least, I would set Marie free, for it was now clear that I was the weight chained to her leg.

The quarry was not far, just up a hill above the Waymart road. I walked to the rutted track that led to it and began to ascend the incline, feeling calm. But then it occurred to me that perhaps the Devil
wanted
me to throw myself off the cliff. Maybe he did, because he knew that I knew the truth. He wanted me gone, so I wouldn’t tell anyone.

I turned around and in a few minutes regained the road to Waymart. I would go to town and warn people—tell them what I knew. I headed for M’Ginty’s tavern where there were sure to be people, even in the day. I wanted to tell as many as I could, as soon as I could. I knew that the Devil would try to stop me.

There were only a few people on the street in Waymart, but when I entered M’Ginty’s, sure enough, men were there. I tried to tell them. I tried several times, but no one would listen. I began to shout. “The Devil is within us!” People began to yell back at me. I didn’t know what they were saying. Then I was being grabbed and pushed. I pushed back, and a man fell over a chair and into a table. Someone hit me and I hit him back. I tried to tell them again. “The Devil is within us!” There was more pushing and yelling. Something struck me from behind.

I
AWOKE WITH a sharp pain in my head. A row of steel bars stood an arms-length away.

“Good morning,” said a voice.

“Who’s there?”

I saw something red move. It turned into the shirt of a man in a chair. “I’m Deputy Simpson. You feeling better?”

“I’m not sure. My head hurts.”

“Well, you’d do well not to drink so much.”

I didn’t want to argue. “Where am I?”

“In the Waymart lockup. You caused quite a ruckus at M’Ginty’s. If you’d just been drunk, I could let you go, but things got broke. In a few days, you’ll go to Honesdale. See Judge Tompkins.”

Honesdale? “No!” I said as clear as I could. “I don’t want to go to there.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry,” said the deputy. “Tompkins ain’t hung nobody for a few months now.”

I laughed. Moments later, I realized that I hadn’t laughed at anything in a long time. I hadn’t laughed since before I’d been locked up in Delhi. My head hurt something bad, that was true, but the squeezing feeling was gone. Deputy Simpson just seemed ordinary.

In the afternoon, Marie arrived, and behind her veil of concern I could see a slow boil. This was the final straw. She asked if I were all right, and I said that I was except for my head.

“You’re head’s been hurting for a good while,” she said, without sympathy.

“Well, that part doesn’t hurt now. To tell the truth, Marie, I feel better.”

Marie looked down at the floor.

“Marie, please listen,” I said, taking her hands through the bars. “I think I’m better.” I wanted to show her that the darkness had lifted, so I let go of her hands and danced a little jig and sang. “
I’m Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, I feed my horse on rice and beans, and often live beyond my means
.…”

If anyone else had heard me, they’d have thought I was crazy for sure, but Marie saw this silliness as part of my old self and smiled. “I’ll tell you who’s full of beans,” she said. Then a sad look crossed her face. “The deputy says that you are to go to Honesdale.”

“I can’t go there, Marie.”

My wife heard the fear—she knew my story and knew that if I went to Honesdale, my old self might never come back. She didn’t have to think about it. “I’ll go tomorrow,” she said, “and see if I can talk to the judge.”

* * *

Marie was gone for four days. On the morning of the fifth, I saw her enter the sheriff’s office and hand Deputy Simpson a letter. The deputy led her back to the cell.

“You’re to be let go,” she said with a tired smile. “It’s done.”

“What did you do?”

“I wrote a letter. To the judge. I said I was your wife and we were Christian people, and if you were released, I’d see to your conduct. It took two days to get to see him, but he agreed.”

This was happy news, but I felt a rush of sadness as I began to think about what might come next. “I’ve ruined everything,” I said, wanting to free her.

Marie didn’t agree. “We have another chance, Joseph.”

“I’ve wasted them all,” I said. “We’ve nowhere to go.”

Marie shook her head. “You’re wrong.” She then said that she had been to see the pastor of a local church. He knew of someone who would take us in and give us work, at least for a time.

We left Waymart and took the road east, our new home four or five miles outside of town. Along the way, we stopped by a stream. Marie took a knife to a small loaf of bread and then brought out a piece of cheese she had been keeping as a surprise. She put a thick piece of it on the bread and held it out to me. Her hand shook. Then her lip began to quiver. “I have something to tell you, Joseph.”

I knew that she was about to announce that the house and work we were walking toward were for me only, and that she was going to return to her family. I looked at her bravely and vowed not to try to change her mind.

“Yesterday, as I left the courthouse,” she said, “I was approached by a woman. She asked if I was your wife.” Marie paused as though to gain courage while I looked for somewhere to hide. “When I told her that I was, she said that her name was Lydia Montrose, but that you had known her as Lydia Watson.”

I stood there mute, unable to breathe.

“She asked if I knew who she was. I told her that I did and that you had always spoken well of her. I felt afraid, but her eyes were kind. She said that she wished to meet with you and asked if I would consent. I told her that I had no reason to prevent it. She said that she would be at the Rolling Marble, the inn at the crossroads in Walton, one week from today at noon. She wants you to be there.”

Meet with Lydia? I couldn’t think of it. I didn’t want to. “Look at me, Marie,” I said. “I’m like a savage brought in from the mountains.”

“Then we shall have to do something about that.” Marie put the rest of the bread into her bag. “We have a week. You can make your decision as the days go by, but in the meantime, I will set about to get you ready. I think you should go.” And there was Marie, ready to help me meet a woman I had known, under a lie, twenty years before. My dear wife was kind and resolute. No comments with sharp edges.

She opened a sack she had been carrying. Inside there was a plaid shirt, canvas britches, and a pair of boots—used clothes that she had been given at the church in Waymart. The shirt was clean and bright and the britches were a little worn, but in better condition than my own. We went to the stream and Marie scrubbed me down with soap and a rough cloth. Then she sat me on a rock and cut my hair.

* * *

I reached the Rolling Marble sometime after the noon hour. Once inside, I was approached by a man who asked if I were Joseph Lobdell. We went down a short hallway, and he gestured toward a door. I passed through and into a large room with a polished oak floor. A woman was standing by a window, her back to me.

“Joseph?”

“Yes, Lydia.”

She turned, and I walked to her, stopping on the near side of the window, its width between us. We stood facing each other. There was an attempt at a smile, but she did not offer her hand. She was more round than when I had known her, but a very handsome woman, as Marie had told me she was. Her eyes shone like wet stones, but her smile looked weary.

On the road I had practiced my apology. Now the time had come, but the words got sticky. “I … have thought of this moment for many years … or rather what I mean is that I prayed that someday I … might …” I took a breath and started again. “I never wished to deceive or…”

Lydia cut me short with a laugh. “Oh, that. It was only a small inconvenience on my part. How was it for you?”

“I never wished to deceive you, Lydia,” I said, pushing forward. “I lied to you, because I loved you.”

The woman before me was not moved by these words. “Could we not say that about every lie we tell? And why didn’t I see it?”

“You never thought it?”

Lydia shook her head. “No. But as soon as I heard, I knew it must be true. I was in pieces. I felt as though everyone was talking about me, and for a while, they were.”

“How did they find out?”

“Father ran into a man who knew you. I heard them planning some awful thing.”

“Thank you for warning me,” I said, as though it had all happened days ago. I was not entirely sure if I were in an actual room or having a dream. But Lydia seemed very real and strangely at ease with it all.

“You know, Joseph, I might have gone with you—I so wanted to get away. But I have found happiness in a place I hadn’t expected. In any case, not in Minnesota.”

“I went there, Lydia,” I said, interrupting her. “I went to Minnesota.”

Her eyes grew with surprise. “Did you really?”

“Yes. I claimed our land. It was beautiful. I would be there still, but they found me out. I was ruined and sent home. Then my family drove me off.”

I told Lydia about living in the woods, the almshouse in Delhi, and meeting Marie. I didn’t say a thing about Helen. It would have taken a good while to tell about her, and I was ashamed.

“And you love Marie?” Lydia asked, inviting me to speak of her.

“Yes,” I said. “I love her and owe her my life. She had money and a family in Boston, but she chose to go with me.”

“She probably proposed to you as well,” said Lydia, a slight smile in her eyes.

“She did,” I said. “Or rather, she is the one that said we should go off together.” I paused for a moment. “But then, unlike you, she knew the truth.” Suddenly, the past came rushing in. I bit my lip. “I’m so sorry, Lydia … I was going to—”

“It’s all right, Joseph,” she said. “That was a long time ago. And maybe for the best. Sure settled things with David Horton. Remember him?”

“Of course,” I said. “Every girl remembers David. What happened?”

Lydia smiled. “He married Dorothy. And I was
not
the maid of honor.”

“But you found someone else?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, as though the thought amused her. “Well, if you remember, I was quite certain about what I did and didn’t want. So the joke on me is that my three children inhabit my heart in such a way that I could not imagine a world without them. Howard, my husband, is a good man. He is married to his commerce, but I have come to see that there are illnesses far worse. He lost his first wife, so he carries a sadness inside that I cannot touch, and in an odd way, that makes us equals. He is not threatened by my moods or opinions.”

“I never knew you to have any,” I said, trying to keep the smile off my face. For a blessed moment, we were back in the glass factory, laughing and making fun of everyday things.

Lydia seemed to lose herself in thought. Then she spoke. “I have begun attending meetings, Joseph. Meetings to extend the vote to women. Last year, I went to Saratoga Springs. Alex, my oldest daughter, came with me. And I organized a meeting here in Honesdale this past summer. Mrs. Stanton spoke. I spend my days raising my children and working for the vote. And you, Joseph, you’ve been in trouble?”

I didn’t know how much she had heard. “Yes,” I said. “Mostly of my own making. I have spells when I am not myself.”

“We all do.”

“Not like these. I do bad things and say bad things and, most of the time, I don’t remember. My mother had a similar affliction. Marie usually gets me out of trouble, but I’m afraid I’m drowning and will pull her down.”

“Then don’t,” Lydia ordered. “Marie has given you her life. You must protect her.”

There was a silence. Then a pained look crossed Lydia’s face. “Joseph, I am grateful that we have been able to see each other, but this will be the last time me meet.”

“I will do whatever you say, Lydia.”

She nodded. “Good. Then one week from today I want you to come back here, to this room. Someone will be here and give you a letter from the bank. With it, you and Marie can purchase a small house with a garden where you can care for each other. I will do this with the consent of my husband, but to everyone else, this must remain a secret.”

I was amazed. How had I deserved this? “I can think of nothing,” I said, “that would bring more joy to Marie than for us to have a place to live. But there is no way I can return the kindness.”