Читать книгу The Stone Field - Martha Ostenso - Страница 18

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Others might speculate about the future now that Ashbrooke Hilyard was dead, but Jo herself had no need to ask what change the old man’s passing had brought to her. She was aware in her own way that something rich and generous and full had gone from the world and would never return. Not only that. The Stately Mansion would never be the same—even from the top of the Norway pine. She resolved never to climb the tree again for as much as a glimpse of the great white house on the other side of the lake. In some strange way the place would have changed now. It would look different—not like the Stately Mansion at all.

So, at least, she thought as she sat at the breakfast table the next morning, her eyes upon the kitchen window which framed a view of the lake and Spite Island lying sullen under a gray sky. For minutes she had been staring unseeingly, her fingernail making squares in the yellow oilcloth that covered the table. The men had gone to the fields and Jo’s mother was busy setting the living room in order again after yesterday’s visit from the neighbors. She had been too tired to do anything about it last night.

“What in the world are you dreaming about, Jobina?” Jo looked up, startled, and saw her mother standing in the doorway to the living room. “If you don’t feel right you’d better go back to bed. You didn’t catch cold yesterday, did you?”

Jo got up from the table. “No—I feel all right.”

Her mother came into the kitchen and began to pile the breakfast dishes noisily. “If you’re feeling all right I wish you’d put the rest of the doughnuts into a basket and take them across to old man Baggott. Leave a few out for Ned’s lunch—he likes them—but take the rest. I made far too many and they’ll only dry up. I’m sure old Baggott’ll find use for them. I don’t know how the man lives. Run along now and I’ll clear the table. The walk’ll do you good if you’re not ailing.”

It was some months now since Jo had last gone to see old Phineas Baggott. If she had had her own way about it she would never have gone, even for the fun she always got from telling Goldy Matthews about it afterwards and watching her shiver from fright. Jo had never gone past the old man’s door. Her approach to the stone house in the hollow had always been heralded by the vicious barking of his pack of dogs, and Phineas would be waiting outside, seated on a bench in a clump of white birches that stood a few feet from his doorstep. But Jo’s fancy had gone beyond the birches and the doorstep and had filled the house with frightening things that made Goldy squirm to hear about them.

Less than a mile along the road from the Porte place two rough posts and a bar between them marked the entrance to Phineas Baggott’s. He had lived there a long time, even before old Ashbrooke Hilyard came north from Nebraska. He had owned land in those days, two whole sections of it that bordered the lake and reached westward into a stand of pine and oak as sturdy as any in the district. No one seemed to know exactly what happened between Phineas and Ashbrooke, but there had been loans and mortgages and finally disputes about deeds—and Phineas Baggott was left with forty acres, away from the lake, and the stone house in the hollow. Ashbrooke Hilyard had the rest. It was understood that the forty acres and the stone house were his as well, but he had been pleased to let Phineas remain. That was all Jo had ever known about the business involving the two men. Years ago she had heard her father mention Baggott’s name in the presence of old Mr. Hilyard. It was at harvest time, and Phineas Baggott had reaped nothing because he had sowed nothing. Ashbrooke Hilyard had said something about an unfaithful steward and had gone on at once to talk of something else. One thing, however, was known to everyone. The two men had not exchanged words in more than fifteen years. Of late, in fact, Phineas Baggott had exchanged few words with anyone. He was rarely seen anywhere off the forty acres where his house stood, and the few who made it their business to call on him now and then went always in the expectation of finding the old man dead when they got there.

Jo set her basket on the ground and slipped under the bar. The way before her now lay under a clifflike bank that reared itself abruptly above her and darkened the narrow roadway that led to the stone house. Even in midsummer the ground was always damp here. Now Jo had to pick her way carefully about the pools of water that had come down from the higher ground with the melting of the snow. When the road finally left the bank and dipped down into Baggott’s Hollow, she halted a moment as the old man’s dogs set up their unearthly clamor. But there was Phineas sitting on his bench among the birches. He rose and came toward Jo.

“Down, Freda! Down, Stormy!” he said in a gentle tone to the dogs, and the brutes sank to their bellies, fawning and thumping their tails. “They just like to put on a show. Wouldn’t hurt a fly unless I told them to. Folks around are scared of them when they’re running, but they wouldn’t stop to look at a person. Not them!” He regarded them with a fond black eye from beneath a ragged fringe of white eyebrow.

Jo had always wanted to know what it was they ran after, and this was a good time to ask. In response the old man gave her a mysterious and somehow chilling wink.

“There isn’t a soul on earth knows that,” said he, and Jo felt a thrill of delicious fear, of awesome respect for some eerie dreadfulness.

She looked at the small, dainty white beard that so surprisingly finished Baggott’s seamed brown face. It was said that although he never bathed he devoted hours of attention to his goatee, and Jo could well believe it. She held her basket toward him. “Ma sent you some doughnuts. She made too many and they didn’t eat them all.”

He took the basket and moved aside the clean napkin. Then he stroked his beard. “That was nice of your ma. I always know when she has folks to see her—she sends me something afterwards. She’s a good woman.”

“People came in yesterday after the funeral,” Jo explained.

The old man’s heavy brows drew together. “You’ve had a burying, eh?”

“Old Mr. Hilyard died on Sunday.”

Phineas Baggott shook his head and turned toward the house. “I’ll go empty your basket,” he said, and walked away.

Jo stood and watched him until he had disappeared beyond the doorway. Did it mean so little to him, then, that Ashbrooke Hilyard was dead? She wondered, looking up at the slender twigs of birches swelling with bud. Suddenly it came to her that there used to be four powder-white boles grouped about Phineas Baggott’s bench. Now there were only three. Behind one end of the bench the ground had been freshly broken and tramped back into place.

She went and stood before the doorway. “One of your birches is gone—the big one,” she called into the house, though she could not see the old man.

“Eh?” Then he laughed. “You’ve a keen eye in your head. Yes—it’s gone. It broke off in the wind last week and I had to take it out. They’ll all go—every last one of ’em.”

Jo grew bold. It would be something to be able to tell Goldy Matthews truthfully that she had been inside Phineas Baggott’s house and had seen what was there.

“I’m coming in for a drink of water,” she announced simply, and stepped through the doorway.

One of the dogs barked savagely and she halted.

“Quiet, Juno!” the old man ordered, and the dog was still. “Come back here and get your drink,” he called to Jo, and she made her way toward the back part of the house. The place was gloomy and chill, but she found a narrow doorway beyond which there was a small kitchen lighted by a single window above a table strewn with dishes and pans. The stale smell was suffocating.

She looked rather doubtfully at the cup he gave her, then dipped it into the pail of water that stood on the table. The water was sweet and cool, and as she drank she looked up at old Baggott. He was leaning over the table, his face toward the window, his eyes half closed and all but hidden beneath the heavy brows.

“It was a long time on the way,” he muttered as if to himself, “but it came after all. He’s dead before me—and his son will go before me—and his son’s son. I’ll see them all in their graves before I go. And what help will their land be to them then? It takes little enough land to cover the best of us. How did he die?”

“He was sitting in his chair and just—just died,” Jo told him.

“Too good for him—too good for any pirate like Ash Hilyard!” Phineas exploded.

“But Mr. Hilyard wasn’t a pirate,” Jo objected at once.

The old man turned upon her. “You’re very forward, my young woman. The Hilyards are all pirates! Why did Ash Hilyard take my land from me, eh? Didn’t he have enough without that?” He brought his grizzled face close to Jo’s. “You’ve a lot to learn yet about the ways of men in the world. It takes a long time to learn it, too. But here’s something you can think about. We’ll call it the first lesson. You won’t learn it at school—and you won’t read it in the books they give you, either. Listen—man is a child of Nature. When he turns against his mother—he’s done! He may not find out about it right away, but he will. Just remember that and give it a thought now and then. You won’t know what I’m telling you—not yet, you won’t. But you can remember it, eh?”

She set the cup aside. “I’ll remember it.”

He stroked his beard thoughtfully. “And here’s the second lesson: a man can break God’s laws and be forgiven. That’s what they teach us. But when he breaks Nature’s laws, there’s no forgiveness—and there’s no escape. Sooner or later he pays the penalty, or his children pay it—or his children’s children. It doesn’t matter much. It must be paid. That isn’t hard to remember, eh?”

“No.”

“The third lesson is hardest of all to learn. It’s hard to know sometimes when we sin against Nature. Greed is a sin against Nature. And ambition to sit in a place above your fellow creatures is a sin against Nature. And wasting your substance is a sin against Nature. You may not know the meaning of what I tell you, but you’ll know it some day. The best you can do now is remember what you’ve heard—or some part of it. There’ll be more yet, but not now. If you’ll come along I’ll go as far as the road with you.”

There seemed little hope, indeed, of understanding what Phineas Baggott had told her, or what he told her as they walked side by side to where the way led under the cliff. But from there to the road his talk was of things that anyone might understand. Here he pointed to a broken swelling in the dark soil and scuffed away a little of the surface to reveal a pale bud thrusting upward toward the light. There he marked a spot where last year’s trilliums bloomed. He turned aside to show her where a bittern’s nest was building in the reeds beside a slough. And when they were within sight of the road at last, he stood in silence and counted every sound that came from the woods about them—and had a name for each.

When they reached the gate he lifted the bar and stood aside while Jo passed through.

“You’ll be back again when the season’s greener,” he said, almost as if it was to remain a secret between them, and Jo promised with a nod of her head and hurried away.

At home, when her mother heard all that Phineas Baggott had said, she turned from the stove where she had been busy preparing the midday meal and looked disapprovingly at Jo.

“Of all the rubbish! For an old man to talk like that to a child—he must be cracked!”

“But what was wrong with what he said?” Jo demanded defensively.

“You’ll have plenty to do if you learn what they give you at school,” her mother retorted. “And that reminds me that Easter vacation is almost gone, and we haven’t had your brown shoes half-soled. Remember to send them in with Ned this afternoon.”

When she named him her voice lost its sharpness. The memory came disquietingly to Jo of the afternoon this spring when the snow went so suddenly—and when her mother stood at the door looking out toward the road as if in expectation. And there came Ned Larkin, walking, his bowed legs dark against the sunlight.