Читать книгу Warning Hill - John P. Marquand - Страница 5

Table of Contents

As Alfred Michael walked home, with Tommy trotting at his side, no one could have guessed that anything was wrong. The sun glanced from his shoes and twinkled from his watch chain. His heels clicked upon the brick walks sharply, and like a period between each click, his stick descended to the ground. He even contrived to hum a tune, as they neared the bridge by Welcome River. Tommy stumbled now and then, because his eyes were not in the direction of his toes. Across the bridge of Welcome River, soft in the haze of the morning, like an arm guarding the harbor mouth, Tommy could see Warning Hill, somehow larger and more beautiful than it had ever been before; and nearer, much nearer, he could see the weathered cupola of his own house, rising solitary above the fields around it.

Before they reached the bridge, however, Alfred Michael paused, still humming that same tune over and over, and turned down a narrow walk toward the river, where the houses were no longer neat. At the end of the path he came to another stop before a battered frame house with a broken chimney. There was a pile of wood beside the house, over which a lank brown-skinned man was bending. Walking past him was a dignified row of dark-colored ducks, led by a drake with a magnificent green head and neck, who exhorted his flock in a monotonous singing whisper. “Whisper, whisper,” went the drake, “whisper, whisper.” Two corpulent water spaniels sprang barking from behind a stack of eelpots.

As the man with the ax looked up, Tommy knew who he was. It was Jim Street who sometimes appeared at the house in the gunning season, clad in high rubber boots.

There had been a cloud about Mr. Street as long as Tommy could recollect. Mr. Street was a carpenter when he chose to work, but Tommy had heard his Aunt Sarah say that Mr. Street never chose. Mr. Street was handsome then, bright-eyed with straight dark hair—too handsome for his own good, or anybody else’s, Aunt Sarah often said; and what that girl had seen in Jim, his Aunt Sarah never could see, nor Tommy’s mother, nor anybody else. She could have married any one. She probably wished she had before she died. She must have seen that you could get nowhere by flying in the face of things. What the face of things meant, Tommy could not tell, but he sometimes could think of her flying on soft whispering wings toward those banks of clouds that looked like faces now and then, when the sun went down.

“Hi, Alf!” said Jim Street. “You, Spot, you, Spy, lay off that noise before I bust a lath acrost you.”

“Come over to the barn, Jim,” said Alfred Michael, “I want to talk.”

They left Tommy standing near the woodpile. For a minute or two he watched them as they stood by the door of a rickety building, whose opened door revealed lofts filled deep with hay. Mr. Street was so tall that Tommy’s father was obliged to look up at him as he talked. Mr. Street was dressed in a pair of black trousers and a blue shirt opened at the neck. Now and then he would raise his hand and scratch his head. From where Tommy stood, he could hear what they were saying in snatches carried on the wind—strange, unrelated strings of words. First it would be like the green-headed drake, who was walking slowly toward the river—whisper, whisper—and then a string of words.

“Whisper, whisper,” went Jim Street; “whisper, if you say so, Alf.”

“Whisper, whisper,” replied his father, flicking at a hay wisp with his stick. “Whisper—and damn the consequences.”

He pulled some money from his pocket, for of course he was very rich, and handed it to Mr. Street.

“Put the jot on Jessica’s nose,” Tommy’s father said.

“Whisper,” said Mr. Street. “You don’t want to—whisper—the whole pile?”

“Daddy,” called Tommy, “who is Jessica?”

His father raised a hand to his hat, to which the wind had given an unexpected tilt.

“Go down to the river, Tom,” his father said, “and watch the ducks. I’m talking business with Mr. Street, that’s not meant for little boys.”

“You bet it ain’t,” Mr. Street said. “Alf, ain’t you got no sense? Go and see Jellett. Ain’t he still after you to buy that gun shack and the acre? Hell, Alf, see him before he hears you’re strapped and shake him down. Go and see Jellett! Go and see him!”

“Tom, did you hear me?” his father said. “Nonsense—Joe Cooper’s let him know by this time. I’m bottoms up. You don’t know the world, Jim, because you’re much too near Arcadia.”

They were saying something which Tommy could not understand about the man in the carriage, who drove four horses with the silver-trimmed harness. Tommy could still seem to see the way he jerked his head.

“But the boy,” said Jim Street. “You gotta give a try, Alf!”

“Whisper,” said Tommy’s father. “Whisper, whisper.”

From the rear of the house the land fell away into tufts of marsh grass, and a leaden expanse of tidal mud, toward which the ducks were moving. Nevertheless, it was pleasant behind the house, because there were so many things to see—a skiff anchored in the mud where the tide had left it, its mast and sail spread on the shore where mats of dead eel grass showed the tidal mark. Farther up the shore lay a pile of wooden decoy ducks, just like children’s toys, and not far away were two small canvas-covered boats lying bottom upward. They were sneak floats, used for sculling in among the duck flocks in the autumn. All these, Tommy knew, were the tools of Mr. Street’s other trade, for Mr. Street, besides being a carpenter, was a professional gunner in season. He knew the coast in any weather, and knew—it was only much later that Tommy knew how little or how much.

The two spaniels sat on their haunches, looking at Tommy and lolling their tongues, like two old gentlemen who knew the world. Four Canada geese with clipped wings came out of the marsh grass to stare at Tommy and to crane their necks. Tommy watched them. They lowered their necks and bent them, like snakes almost, into the summer breeze.

“Hello, geese,” Tommy said; “do you want to fly away?”

In those days it almost seemed that animals understood. The geese eyed Tommy unhappily and craned their necks again. Then Tommy heard steps behind him, and turned to see two other children, a boy and a girl, on the shore beside him. They were very dirty children with smeared faces and muddy bare toes, not at all like that other boy and girl in the high seat with the lady in black between them. Surely those had never gone with bare feet into the mud. Their hair had never been untidy, or their clothes in rags. This girl’s hair was black and fell in snarls over her brown face, so that now and then she had to brush it aside quickly with her grubby little hand. The sharpness of her nose and the brightness of her eyes made her look like another wild thing wanting to fly away. The boy had the same thin face, the same dark restless eyes. Indeed, it would have been hard to tell one from the other, except that his hair was clipped short above his ears, evidently made even by a mixing bowl held inverted on his head.

“Who’re you talkin’ to?” inquired the boy.

“The geese,” said Tommy.

“Hey, Mary!” said the boy. “He’s talkin’ to the geese! Gee! He’s talkin’ to ’em!”

“That’s nothing, Mal.” The voice of the little girl whose name was Mary seemed far away. “I talk to ’em myself—a whole lot some days.”

“Then he’s a sissy,” said the boy named Mal. “Hey—ain’t you a sissy?”

“What’s a sissy?” inquired Tommy. You might have thought the boy named Mal would answer, but instead he scowled.

“Cripes! Don’t you know nothin’? Don’t you never play with kids?”

“Not often,” said Tommy. “I’d like to, though.”

“Well, you’re a sissy all right. Say—do you wanna fight?”

“No,” said Tommy.

“Well, you gotta, anyways. When a new kid meets a new kid, they always gotta fight, ain’t they?”

“Why?” said Tommy. “I don’t see.”

As Tommy spoke there was a sinking feeling deep down in his stomach; he did not want to fight; he never had before.

“Well, you’re gonna see.” Mal edged closer to him and spat on a grimy fist. Then the little girl spoke in that same far-away voice.

“You leave him be, Mal. You’re bigger.”

“You shut up!” said Mal, and moved nearer Tommy. “My pa’s better’n your pa.”

“He’s not!” Tommy’s voice was sharp. He was angry then, and his slim little body began to tremble; he wanted very much to cry. Tommy Michael felt very small and very far from everything he knew. He looked wildly about him, but his father was not in sight. Only the two water spaniels were there, looking at him with their wide brown eyes, and the very place where Tommy stood seemed changed into an unkind world. The wind, which had been so friendly that morning, as it rustled through the bushes of the Michael shore, was harsh upon his face. The sunlight, which not so long ago had made patterns through the trees, was pitilessly bright. And Tommy was all alone out in that sun and wind, without even a make-believe companion to stand by his right hand, facing something ugly, which he had never known.

Young Mal Street, lean-faced and bright of eye, with his inverted bowl of black hair, twisted his upper lip.

“Say that again, and I’ll smash you in the eye. My pa’s better’n your pa.”

Yes, Tommy was all alone. For the first time he felt the chill of that knowledge that help lay only within himself, a chill which he would often feel again. He wanted to turn and run, but he did not. Instead he felt his lips stiffen. They were thin lips like his mother’s. “Whisper, whisper,” he could hear the old drake somewhere behind him. “Whisper, whisper.”

“He’s not,” said Tommy. “My father’s a—gentleman.”

The exact definition of that term Tommy did not know, but he knew it was worthy of respect. None the less it did not help Tommy Michael the day he met Mal Street on the dead eel grass of Welcome River. Tommy Michael’s nose was a smear of red. His face was wet with tears and he was sobbing.

“Hi, there!” Jim Street was hastening from the barn, jumping awkwardly but surely over a pile of wood. Alfred Michael was approaching also, swinging his walking stick.

“Didn’t I tell you?” It was Mal to whom Jim Street spoke. Mal turned to run for it, but Mr. Street caught the collar of his shirt, and then Mal’s shoulder as the collar ripped. “Didn’t I tell you next time I caught you fighting, I’d wear your pants right off? Mary break a lath off that hencoop!”

That was like Jim Street, always tearing pieces off of things for other purposes, but Tommy’s father was speaking.

“Leave the lath on,” he said. “Jim, set down the boy.”

“Well, now, what’s bitin’ you, Alf?” Mr. Street, as one remembers, was never fast in shifting a mental process. There were wrinkles on Alfred Michael’s forehead and about the corners of his eyes.

“They’ve started, haven’t they? Tommy wouldn’t want it stopped like this, would you, Tom?” He leaned over Tommy. His walking stick trembled beneath his hand. “Would you, Tom?”

Of course Tommy had to say he wouldn’t—of course, because his father was asking.

“Alf Michael,” said Jim Street, “are you crazy?”

“Tommy,” Alfred Michael did not appear to hear, “what’s the fight about? Tommy, stop that blubbering!”

“I—I’m not!” Even in those days Tommy had his pride.

“Good!” said Alfred Michael. “Speak up then and tell me.”

“He said,” Tommy found it hard to speak, “his father was better than—you.”

“God bless my soul!” said Alfred Michael. “Well, I can’t help you now. Send in your boy, Jim, and I’ll lay you two to one. Now go on and hit him, Tom! Hit him for all you’re worth!”

That was how Tommy took his first licking, with his father standing white-faced, watching.

“Tom,” his father had dropped on his knees beside him, so that their faces were nearly level, and even then Tommy was surprised at the way his father’s hand shook while wiping at his cheek, “Tom—please don’t cry!”

“I—” Tommy choked before he could finish, “I’m not.”

“There,” said Alfred Michael, “there—that’s better, because there’s nothing to be ashamed of. You did the best you could, Tom, and you’ve got to learn. God help you, you’ve got to learn, even—”

There was something about Alfred Michael, even when the checked suit became a travesty, which made him somehow bright, and above the world which had brought him low.

“Even if Jessica’s nose holds out better than yours, Tom, and I suppose it won’t.”

Little did Tommy Michael realize that the mills of the gods were grinding in a process all their own, a process which was pitiful and slow. The mills of the gods already had left their trace on Tommy’s tear-smeared cheeks, and somewhere within him was a bitter jagged scar. Never again would Tommy’s eyes be as wide and guileless, quite. Beneath those invisible, inexorable stones, Tommy Michael had been cast, where all illusion and all make-believe must finally turn to dust, and where magic falters to vanish in a breath. And already it was going. The wind of Michael’s Harbor was singing a different tune, and his father too had changed. Never would he be quite as fine again; as marvellous in his wisdom, as glowing in his strength. His father must have known it too, Tommy sometimes thought, because he threw his arm over Tommy’s narrow shoulders, holding him very tightly, as though he knew, just as surely as anything, that something was leaving both of them, something beautiful which would never again come back.

“Gad!” he said, “I could make a better world without half trying. Give me a drink, Jim, and we’ll be starting home.”