A Northern Light (14 page)

I crawl out from under the table and see that it is the rotten ice-cream churn that tripped me. I run the rest of the way to the cellar door, twist the knob, and ... its locked.

Now what?
Grace Brown is gone and her letters should be, too. They're her love letters, they must be. They're private and no one should ever see them. I think about lighting the big gas range and holding them over a burner. I know if Cook caught me doing it, she would fire me on the spot, for the range is temperamental and the Glenmore is built of wood. There's always the lake, and for a moment I consider sneaking out to it and pitching the letters off the dock as I'd planned to do earlier, but it's not decent to run around outside in your nightclothes, and the search parry could come back at any time. I'll have to wait until tomorrow when it will be busy and Cook will be distracted.

I leave the kitchen and head back to the attic. I tell my feet to keep going, to take me directly upstairs, but they have their own ideas. They take me into the parlor instead, and then to the little bedroom off of it. The bruises on Grace Brown's lips look darker in the lamplight, and the cut on her forehead looks meaner.

She probably hit her head on the gunwale as the boat tipped, I tell myself. Or maybe she came up under the boat after she fell into the water and banged her head against it. Yes, that would explain it. That explain it. I do not want to ponder this question any longer, for it brings too many others with it. I neaten Grace's skirt instead.

Her clothes are still damp. Her hair is, too. She had left a small valise in the foyer. Someone has placed it on the floor next to the bed. Along with a black silk jacket that Mr. Morrison found floating near the overturned boat. Carl Grahm's things are not here. He took them with him. I'd wondered, as I saw him and Grace walk across the lawn to the boathouse,
What kind of fool takes a suitcase and a tennis racket rowing?

I am very sorry for Grace Brown, here amongst strangers. She should be in her mother's house, with her own things around and her family to sit up through the night with her. I decide it's only proper that I keep her company for a spell. I sit down in a wicker chair, wincing as it creaks, and stare at the picture on the wall and try to think of good things about the deceased, like you do at a wake. Grace Brown had a sweet face, that's a start. Sweet and gentle. She was a brunette. Small boned, with a pretty figure. I remember her eyes. They were gentle, too. And kind ... and ... and it's no good. All I can think about, though I am trying so hard not to, is that cut, livid and ugly, on her forehead.

I look at it—I can't help myself—and the questions I've kept penned up all day rush at me thumping and squealing like my pa's pigs at feeding time.

Why did Grace Brown give me her letters to burn? Why had she looked so sad? And Carl Grahm—was he Carl or was he Chester? Why did he write "Carl Grahm, Albany" in the register if Grace called him Chester and addressed her letters to "Chester Gillette, 17½ Main Street, Cortland, New York"?

I pull the letters from my pocket. I shouldn't do this; I know it's wrong, but so is that wound on Grace Brown's forehead. I slide the top letter out from under the ribbon, open it, and start to read. My eyes winnow out lines about friends and neighbors, travel plans and dresses, searching for my answers.

South Otselic, N.Y.
June 19, 1906
My Dear—

I have often heard the saying, 'it never rains but it pours,' but I never knew what it meant until today ... When I got in Cincinnatus and just as we are starting for home I heard my sister was very ill. When I reached her home I sent my trunks and the carriage home and here I am. The house was full of friends and relatives crying and talking in little groups. I have a new niece, but the doctor has given up all hopes of my sister being up and strong for a year at least...

I lean back in the chair and feel relief flooding through me. Grace Brown was sad because her sister was ill. And she and Chester had had a spat about the chapel and maybe she was still miffed at him and she wanted to burn the letters out of spite. And I don't know why he put a fake name in the register, but I don't care because none of this is any of my business. And then a line a bit lower down catches my eye and I'm reading again, when all I meant to do was fold the letter up and be done with it.

...Chester, I have done nothing but cry since I got here. If you were only here I would not feel so badly ... I can't help thinking you will never come for me ... Everything worries me and I am so frightened, dear ... I will have my dresses made if I can and I will try and be very brave, dear ... Chester, do you miss me and have you thought about everything to-day?...I get so lonesome, dear. You won't miss me as much on account of your work, but, oh dear—please write and tell me you will come for me ... Please write often, dear, and tell me you will come for me before papa makes me tell the whole affair, or they will find it out for themselves. I can't just rest one single minute until I hear from you

I look out the open window. I can smell the pines and the roses and the lake on the night air, but even these sweet, familiar smells can't comfort me. Why did Grace want him to come for her? And why was she so frightened that he wouldn't? He had, hadn't he? He'd brought her to the Glenmore. And why do I care? Why?

Once, when I was eight years old and it was early December, I went out on the ice of Fourth Lake, though Pa had told me not to. "It's not solid yet," he'd said. "It won't be for some weeks. Stay off'n it." But it had looked solid to me and I wanted so much to play on it. So I did. I went running and sliding across it, going farther and farther out with each slide. When I was about thirty feet from the shore, I heard a long, shivering crack, and I knew that the ice was breaking under me and that I might well drown. There was no one to help me. I had sneaked off by myself, knowing that if Lawton or Abby found out where I was going, they would tell. I could see the Eagle Bay Hotel and several other camps from where I stood, but they were boarded up for the winter. I was all alone, and what I'd thought was firm beneath my feet was not. I turned around slowly very, very slowly and slid one foot toward the shore. For several long seconds nothing happened, and then there was another crack. I gasped and stood perfectly still. Then I slid my other foot forward. Nothing, then two more cracks, as sharp and sudden as gunshots. I sobbed out loud and peed down my leg, but I kept going, one small, sliding step at a time. When I was about six feet from the shore, the ice gave way and I fell into the frigid water up to my knees. I crashed through the remaining few feet of ice and ran home as fast as I could, dreading my pa's strap, but dreading frostbite more.

I feel like that now. Like there is nothing solid beneath my feet, like the ice is breaking all around me.

"Pa! Pa, come quick! There's a monster in the manure pile!"

"Stop shouting, Beth."

"But, Pa, there's a monster! I thought he was dead, but he's not! I poked him with a stick and he growled at me!"

"Elizabeth Gokey, what did I say about telling fibs?"

"I'm not, Pa. I swear! You've got to come and kill him. Quick! So we can get his sack of gold. He's got a sack of gold with him!"

I heard all this from the milk house, a room off the cow barn. I was pouring buckets of warm, foamy milk through a length of cheesecloth to strain out flies and bits of hay. I wiped my hands, clapped Pansy and her kittens out from under my feet, and went into the barn itself to see what the commotion was all about. Pa was walking toward the door. Abby was already outside. Lou was up in the hayloft, tossing down bales.

"What's going on?" I asked her.

"Beth's telling tales again," she said. "I hope she gets a licking."

I followed my family outside and around the back of the barn and saw, to my shock, that Beth was not telling tales at all. There was a man, a very dirty man with long, wild black hair, lying facedown in our manure pile. He was wearing dungarees, suspenders, and a plaid wool shirt. There was a large sack near him and a pair of Croghan boots with their laces knotted together.

Beth still had her stick. She prodded him with it. "Mr. Monster?" she whispered. "Mr. Monster, are you dead?"

The monster groaned. He turned over on his back, opened his bloodshot eyes, and winced at the light. "Ba da holy jeez, yes. Yes, I tink so," he said.

"Uncle Fifty?" Abby whispered.

"Uncle Fifty!" Beth shouted.

"Damn it, Francis!" my father barked. "Get up out of there!"

"
B'jour, mon frère, b'jour. Tais-toi, eh? Ma tête, elk est très tendre...
"

"
C'est pas assez que tous que tu dis c'est de la merde, François? Tu veux coucher dans la merde, aussi?
"

Only my uncle Fifty, my fathers younger brother, can make him angry enough to speak French.

"
Mathilde, allez à ma chambre—,
"Pa said to me, before he caught himself. "Go to my bedroom and get him some clothes. Don't let him in the house until he washes. Make him some coffee, too. Abby, go back in and finish straining the milk." He looked at his brother one more time, spat, then returned to the cows.

"Come on, Uncle Fifty, let's get you cleaned up," I said impatiently. By the time I got water boiled for a bath and got the nits and tangles out of my uncles hair, I'd be good and late for school. And Miss Wilcox was giving the last of the Regents exams.

Lou came running out. "Uncle Fifty!" she shouted. She looked at him and her smile changed to a frown. "Uncle Fifty, why are you sitting in the manure?"

"Because da manure, she warm," he said, getting to his feet. "I come last night, very late, Louisa. I don't wake up da whole house, no? So I sleep out here."

"You smell terrible!" Lou said, pinching her nose.

He did, too. Manure and whiskey fumes made an unholy combination.

"What? I smell sweet as da rose! You give your uncle Francois a beeg keese!" He put out his arms and staggered toward her, and she ran away squealing and laughing.

"Uncle Fifty ... what's in that bag?" Beth asked, eyeing his satchel hopefully.

"In dere? Oh, noting. Just dirty clothes," he said. Beth's face fell.

"Uncle Fifty, you come on," I said. "I haven't got time for this. I've got important tests to take today."

"Test? What kine of test?"

"For my high school diploma. The last exams are today. I've been studying for months."

"Ba da holy jeez, Mathilde Gauthier! You wan smart girl for to take dese test. You go on to school. Your mamma will help me wid da bath."

"Oh, Uncle Fifty, where have you been? You haven't heard, have you?"

"Heard what? I been on da Saint Lawrence for wan year and den da Ausable and da Saint Regis, too."

I sighed. "Come on. Lets get the kerosene. There's lots to tell you. And none of it good."

I had Lou to help me, so I was able to get my uncle seen to quicker than I'd thought. I had to sit with him and hold his hand for a while, though, after I told him about my mother and brother. Uncle Fifty doesn't hold much back. When he's happy he laughs, and when he is heartbroken—as he was to hear my mamma had died—he cries like a child. Pa says that's because he is one.

I got to school two hours late. Classes were over for the rest of the students; it was just Weaver and myself going then. Miss Wilcox was standing outside the schoolhouse looking for me when I arrived. "I thought you weren't coming, Mattie! What happened?" she asked. "Weaver's on his second exam already."

I explained everything, settled myself, and started my tests. Each one was two hours long. We'd taken two yesterday and were taking three more today. When we finished, I felt pretty confident that I'd passed them. They were my best subjects, though—composition, literature, and history. Yesterday's—mathematics and science—had been harder. On the walk home Weaver told me he thought he'd done quite well on mathematics and history and fairly well on literature and science, but he was worried about composition. It would be another week until we found out our grades. I wondered again, as we walked, why I even bothered. I still had no way of getting myself to New York.

By the time I got home, it was nearly six o'clock. I had been so wrapped up in my exams, and in rehashing them with Weaver, that I'd forgotten all about my uncle. Until I smelled cooking. And heard music from a harmonica, and laughter. And saw lights blazing in the kitchen. It didn't smell, nor sound, nor even look like my house. Not at all.

"Ba cripes!" my uncle bellowed when I came in the door. He was clean, his hair was shorter, and his beard had been trimmed. He was wearing a fresh shirt and trousers and my mother's apron. "Where you been? Da supper, she ready since two weeks!"

"I'm sorry, Uncle Fifty," I said. "I had a lot of exams."

"You pass all your test?"

"I don't know. I hope so. I think so."

"Good! We make a drink to you den..." He poured a short glass of whiskey, handed it to me, then lifted his glass. My pa was sitting by the fire with his own glass of whiskey. I looked at him uncertainly, but he nodded at me. "To Mademoiselle Mathilde Gauthier ... da first wan of all les Gauthiers to get a deeploma!" my uncle said, then knocked back the contents of his glass in one go. My pa did, too. I took one swallow and coughed myself breathless. It burned like the dickens. Poor man's vacation, Pa calls it. I'd never had a vacation, but if that's what one was like, I'd just as soon stay home. My sisters laughed at me and cheered. Beth blew on Uncle Fifty's harmonica. Uncle Fifty whooped. I felt my cheeks burn with whiskey and pride.

"Come on, Mattie, wash up, would you? We're starving!" Beth said. Only then did I notice the mess—the pots and pans on the stove, the sink full of bowls and dishes, the flour all over the floor, and Barney in his bed, gnawing on a big greasy bone.

Uncle Fifty had cooked a feast for us—a real lumberjack supper. He made us all sit down at the table, then he started pulling dishes out of the warming oven one after another. We could barely believe our eyes. There was fried pork and milk gravy speckled with bits of crackling, potatoes hashed with onions, baked beans flavored with smoky bacon, maple syrup, and mustard, hot biscuits, and a towering stack of pancakes stuck together with butter and maple sugar. There was not one green vegetable. Lumberjacks are not fond of them.