The Whale (8 page)

“Yes,” said Herman. “Please forgive me for my callousness.” He felt like an unlit jack-o'-lantern.

“Well, I suppose I don't understand the importance of a mentor to a writer such as yourself.”

Tears continued to roll down Herman's face. In spite of Robert's bewilderment, he gave Herman a tremendous bear hug, and Herman leaned heavily into him. Robert said, “There, there. It will be
all right,” and he patted his cousin on the back and made little circles between his shoulder blades.

“On a whaleship, I was beset by danger and made to suffer daily indignities, which I weathered like a stoic; now, on dry land, I brim constantly with tears.”

Herman stood upright again on his own two feet. He wished he could extinguish the monotonous moon.

“Do you remember when we used to go down to the pond behind old man Cooper's farm and catch tadpoles?” Robert asked.

“Of course.”

“Do you want to walk there now?”

“Yes.” He wiped his nose on his sleeve. “But we should tell our wives first. I've been inconsiderate enough for one evening. For one lifetime, perhaps.”

“All right.”

“Thank you, Robert.” They walked back toward Broad Hall, their arms around each other's shoulders. “Please don't mention this to anyone. They would laugh at me.”

“Because you cried? Or because you need a mentor?”

“Because I am not made of sterner stuff.”

“But tell me, Herman, why must you take such drastic action, if it brings you such heartache? Why could you not mail your manuscripts back and forth to your new mentor from New York?”

“That is not the kind of help I need.”

Herman could see his cousin mentally adjudicating their long history together, deciding how he would fit this episode into Herman's many “outlandish” outbursts in the past. Will Robert ever admit to himself what he must always have known about me? Herman thought. He searched Robert's eyes for a glimmer of true sympathy but found only a resigned capitulation to life as a Melville—a family of eccentrics, outcasts, and bankrupts.

“Tell no one,” said Herman. “I beg of you.”

“Very well. I promise I won't.”

“I truly am sorry.”

Herman continued to apologize for another minute until Robert finally insisted that he stop, and then Herman apologized for continuing to apologize. As they crested a little knoll and the yellow lamplight of Broad Hall's wide porch appeared below them, Herman stopped. The whole family was still outside, enjoying the evening, his mother knitting and rocking and saying something just at the edge of hearing. He would apologize to Robert's wife, and Lizzie, and his mother; he would apologize to everyone, as he always did eventually, but he longed for a time when he could stop being sorry—when he could be understood plainly. He stared past Broad Hall, into the dark night, toward Lenox.

The sky thundered and billowed all morning, but its promised rain still had not fallen by nine thirty, so Lizzie, Herman, and Maria set off to meet Dr. Brewster. Herman had been telling Lizzie stories of his childhood adventures on Brewster's farm all night and morning. As they walked, she pulled Herman aside, out of earshot of his mother, and reminded him that they had only three thousand dollars, and that Robert had said the farm might be worth two thousand. She further reminded him that it would be better if they spent something like one thousand or fifteen hundred on a house, so they would have a little extra money to live on, at least until his next book was published, and that the last house they had seen in town, a very modest home behind the dry goods store that needed only a few minor repairs, cost exactly fifteen hundred and might be better suited to their needs.

“Let us keep our budget in the forefront of our minds and not be carried away by grand notions or nostalgia,” Lizzie said.

“Of course, of course,” said Herman.

“There is no urgency to our move,” she reminded Herman. “We have plenty of time to find a new home, one that is right and that we can afford. We are just visiting today.”

“You are right, my dear. You must remember, though, that my mother and I have known Dr. Brewster for many years, and I am sure he has our mutual interests at heart.”

Maria said, “Herman, you'll remember that Dr. Brewster once
whipped your cousin for stealing a rooster, and the rooster turned up the next minute in his own barn.”

“We all make mistakes. And he did apologize.”

“Remember, too, that Robert warned you to be wary of him,” said Lizzie. “And Robert has lived next door to the man for decades. You've only ever seen him on holiday.”

“I only mean to say that you are right, dear Lizzie, that we should not let ourselves be carried away by anything we see today. I simply dislike the idea of erecting defenses against a man who is proposing something of benefit to us, out of regard for our family. We should at least be open and hear what he proposes.”

“Why is it that even when you agree with me, it feels as if we are quarreling?” Lizzie said.

Herman kissed his wife on the cheek. “Please forgive me, my dear. You are right.”

They rounded the bend in the road above Brewster's farm at just before ten o'clock. As they approached, they saw a solid, unpretentious, pleasant two-story house right on the road, with a covered workshop, a Shaker-style barn, and animal pens standing behind it, all painted bright yellow with red trim. This little cluster of buildings stood atop a hill that sloped steeply away to the north: below their feet, as they looked out over the estate, bean fields almost glowed green in the storm-tempered morning light, and beyond the beans, at the very bottom of the slope, a line of chestnuts and maple trees marked the path of a stream.

They found Dr. Brewster waiting for them on a broad front porch made of fresh blond planks, which ran the entire length of the house. By way of a greeting, he said, “In summer, we like to sit here of a morning and say hello to people passing on the road, and you have a beautiful view of October Mountain.” Without letting them even say good morning, the doctor launched into a history of the
house, while he shook Herman's hand and bowed to the ladies. The main house, he said, had been built in the 1780s as a pub, and he walked off the porch and around the corner of the building, still talking. They followed.

“I built that workshop last autumn,” he said, “and I added the loft window up there in the barn this summer. A Shaker gentleman from Hancock built the porch out front just a few weeks ago.”

“It seems that you have been industriously renovating, Doctor,” Maria said. “Almost as if you'd had an idea to sell the property already.”

“On the contrary, Mrs. Melville, it's better to keep one's home in good repair, wouldn't you agree? Especially if one intends to live there a long while.” The doctor's flinty tone made his remark seem angry, though he delivered it with a smile. “You see that bramble patch just beyond the meadow, on the other side of the stream?” asked Brewster. Herman strained his eyes to see. “Those are blackberries, and just beyond that is a marshy bit of cattails and spike grass, where ducks breed in the spring. See there? That's the edge of the property.”

Lizzie looked up at the giant oaks and elms along the north side of the house. The trees would limit the natural lighting in the lower rooms all winter. The house was much smaller than Broad Hall, but it was still large enough to need more than one fireplace—yet only one chimney pierced the roof.

Dr. Brewster followed Lizzie's gaze up. “It's a central chimney, which opens out onto fireplaces in every room, on each floor.” Then he pointed across the bean fields. “Normally you see Mount Greylock more clearly in that direction, but he's hiding his head in the storm clouds today.”

They followed Brewster through an enclosed back porch and into the house. It was sturdily built and spotlessly clean, a no-nonsense
colonial, with, as Brewster had promised, a grand central fireplace dominating the narrow dining room into which they now walked. A bright fire was burning. “We still use this hearth for cooking,” Dr. Brewster said. “Though we've been meaning to install a stove in that corner.” Lizzie looked skeptically at Herman: no stove. No proper kitchen.

Brewster led them into a well-appointed parlor, where family portraits hung on every wall, and beyond that into a more spacious sitting room. He pointed out the window to a loamy herb garden with parsley, rosemary, sage, and mint, bordered by yellow and white feverfew flowers.

They ascended the steps. The large upstairs bedrooms had ceilings nearly as high as the common rooms below and featured unusually wide windows. Herman was especially enamored of the bedroom with the view to the north: a writing desk was positioned below a large window gazing out toward Mount Greylock, and the desk held a copy of Herman's own last novel,
White-Jacket
. Herman picked up the book and thumbed through it meditatively, while Maria and Lizzie exchanged incredulous looks. “I sensed that you would like this room,” Dr. Brewster said. “In fact, it's my own study now and would make a capital library, where you could read and write in peace.” To the left of Brewster's desk was, to Herman's mind, the most curious feature of the whole house: a long, wide closet with a round window set in the wall, like a porthole. He remarked that the closet was wide enough to put a bed in, and the round window made it seem almost like a ship's captain's quarters.

They descended the stairs and went out into the south yard, an expanse of mown grass bordered by a hedge. Near the hedge was a low, lean-to woodshed, in front of which a rabbit was lazily loping along; when it spied them, it darted into the shrubs and disappeared.
Herman strode briskly across the lawn, picked up an axe, and split a log with one mighty swing.

Dr. Brewster pointed at the flat top of a little hill, where half a dozen white ash trees had grown in a circle. “The Mohicans used to bury their chiefs atop that hill. Captain Bush's son told me so when he sold me the property, and you can't turn a shovel in this whole area without digging up arrowheads.” Herman's imagination mounted up and rode out across the estate: The vanquished Mohicans? Burbling streams? Bean fields and blackberry brambles? A two-story house with a Shaker-built barn? Brewster led them around the side of the barn to the pens, where a hog, a sow, and half a dozen piglets snorfed in a muddy cavity enclosed by a slatted fence.

Heavy raindrops began to fall, and the sky belched a thunderous rumble. Dr. Brewster suggested that the ladies adjourn to the parlor for a cup of tea, while he and Herman walked the western edge of the property, down the hill in the direction of Broad Hall.

“And where are your wife and family just now, Dr. Brewster?” asked Lizzie. “Are you alone on the farm?”

“They are visiting my mother in Boston. Mrs. Brewster and I spend more and more time there, you see, as my mother grows older and needs more help.”

In the parlor, Brewster hung a pot of water from a rod above the fire and shook tea from a cloth sack into a teapot. He set out porcelain cups and a glass sugar bowl on a sideboard, and he told them to make themselves at home, while he and Herman “got their britches dirty in the thickets. Please indulge your curiosity about the house. We have no secrets here.” Herman could not tell by the looks on their faces whether his mother and wife would continue their usual bickering while he was gone or establish a new amity inspired by Dr. Brewster's farm, but he was already beginning to feel at home
here; and as he and Brewster walked back outside, he peeped around the corner of the house at the pigs, and he imagined planting corn and wheat and squash in the fields below. Not only would it be a pleasant place to write, but he might also feed his family by the sweat of his brow instead of the toil of his pen. He felt the raindrops plonking refreshingly down onto his head, and he asked Brewster what sort of income he had from the farm.

“None to speak of. We dry the beans for our own use through the winter, and we may slaughter a pig at Christmas, but my practice in Boston keeps me too busy to farm the place the way it deserves. I imagine you might improve it a great deal, if you were living here all the year round.”

Brewster led Herman past the well and several hundred yards down the road to a skinny, white dirt path edged by a tiny rivulet, which they followed through hemlock trees and red oaks, down a little hill and through a thicket of woody undergrowth. The doctor occasionally related some little historical trivia as they glimpsed the meadows through the trees; but Herman was swept up in his own boyhood memories of wandering this land, carefree and inquisitive, and he barely heard a word the doctor said anymore. He remembered the long family vacation he had taken at Broad Hall when his father and older brother, Gansevoort, were both still young and sane, unbowed by the worldly woes that would chase them into their graves: exploring the hollows and bluffs in these very hills; hunting and fishing with his father, the whole world as fresh and new as he had been himself back then. He breathed deep the storm-riven air, fragrant with the sweet, bright smell of pine, and he imagined, as he had in his youth, that Mohicans and Iroquois lurked behind every tree. The heavy raindrops falling now seemed like exclamation points on the happy shouts that he heard from his childhood. He imagined leading Hawthorne on a walk down this very trail, and the
woods became spangled with the possibilities of a new life, in which the past and future swirled together into a timeless present filled with the unwearied freshness of love. How impressed Hawthorne would be! His tiny cottage in Lenox would make little more than an outbuilding on this farm. Hawthorne might even have his own room here when he visited, Herman thought: he could stay in the north room upstairs, in the closet with the porthole window just off the study, and they could talk privately there over brandy and cigars, while gazing out at Mount Greylock.

By the time Herman and Dr. Brewster had returned to the house, Herman had agreed to terms for the purchase of the estate; and in his mind, he was already living in the tall, grand, eighteenth-century home into which he now strode confidently to meet his wife and mother. Lizzie and Maria had moved from the kitchen into the parlor and were sitting at a table, staring silently into their teacups.

“Have you had a chance to explore the house any further, ladies?”

“We would have to bring our own hutches, I believe,” said Maria. “Owing to the absolute want of closets and storage space.”

Herman said, “Perhaps we could devote one of the upstairs bedrooms to wardrobes.”

“We cannot simply stuff all of our clothes away out of sight,” Lizzie said. “As if we were aboard a ship. And we could not afford to convert an entire room to storage in any event—the house barely has enough living space for our own family, let alone your sisters, to say nothing of my parents when they retire, to say nothing of everyone's belongings. It's completely unacceptable.”

The doctor said that he was sure a solution could be found to the problem of storage. “The barn, for example, is too large for the number of animals we have, and it's well insulated. It could easily be partitioned.”

“The barn?” Lizzie said, aghast.

Brewster said that he would be willing to leave behind his wife's chiffoniers for their clothing, to help ease the transition. Then he said that he would ride into town that afternoon to discuss the deed with his lawyer. “After that,” he said, “it will simply be a matter of signing the deed over to you when you deposit the money in my bank.”

“But, Doctor,” Lizzie said, “we have not yet agreed to buy the property. We haven't even learned your terms.”

“The doctor and I discussed everything on our walk,” said Herman. “I will tell you all about it on the way back to Broad Hall.”

“What on earth do you mean? Have you agreed to buy the farm, then? Without consulting me? Have you completely forgotten our conversation this morning? Have you forgotten that you said that the house we buy would be
mine
, and it would have room for my father and stepmother, which this house clearly does not?”

Herman looked an apology at the doctor. “Of course I haven't forgotten, my dear.”

“This is
my
money, Herman. This is
my
money, Dr. Brewster!”

Herman cleared his throat and refused to meet Lizzie's eyes.

Brewster said, “We had not discussed where the money for the purchase would come from, Mrs. Melville. I would not want to sell you this property without a proper discussion and understanding, of course. I am happy to discuss all the terms with everyone involved.”

“Of course, of course,” said Herman, eager to get his wife and mother away from Dr. Brewster in order to avoid just such a discussion. He took Lizzie's hand and practically pulled her out of her seat. She banged her knee, toppling her cup and splashing the dregs of her tea across the table. “I will tell you everything, Lizzie, everything, when we can talk by ourselves. Anything we decide must be decided as a family!” Herman pounded his fist on the table, knocking over Maria's cup, as well.