A Northern Light (34 page)

Now, dear, when I get there I will go at once to the hotel and I don't think I will see any of the people. If I do and they ask me to come to the house, I will say something so they won't mistrust anything. Tell them I have a friend coming from Cortland; that we are to meet there to go to a funeral or a wedding in some town further along ... Maybe that won't be just what I will say but don't worry about anything for I shall manage somehow...

I have been bidding good-by to some places today. There are so many nooks, dear, and all of them so dear to me. I have lived here nearly all my life. First I said good-by to the spring house with its great masses of green moss, then the apple tree where we had our playhouse; then the "beehive," a cute little house in the orchard, and of course all of the neighbors that have mended my dresses from a little tot up, to save me a threshing I really deserved.

Oh, dear, you don't realize what all of this is to me. I know I shall never see any of them again, and mamma! great heavens how I love mamma! I don't know what I shall do without her. She is never cross and she always helps me so much. Sometimes I think
if I could tell mamma, but I can't. She has trouble enough as it is, and I couldn't break her heart like that. If I come back dead, perhaps if she does know, she won't be angry with me. I will never be happy again, dear. I wish I could die. You will never know what you have made me suffer, dear. I miss you and I want to see you but I wish I could die. I am going to bed now, dear, please come and don't let me wait there. It is for both of us to be there...

She knew. Somehow Grace Brown knew that she wasn't ever coming back. She hoped that Chester would take her away and do the right thing by her, but deep down inside, a part of her knew. It's why she wrote about never seeing the things and places and people she loved again. And why she imagined coming back dead. And why she wanted her letters burned.

I slide the letter back into its envelope. I gather all the letters together, slip the ribbon around them, and carefully retie it. I can hear Grace's voice. I can hear the grief and desperation and sorrow. Not in my ears, in my heart.

Voice, according to Miss Wilcox, is not just the sound that comes from your throat but the feeling that comes from your words. I hadn't understood that at first. "But Miss Wilcox, you use words to write a story, not your voice," I'd said.

"No, you use what's inside of you," she said. "That's your voice. Your real voice. It's what makes Austen sound like Austen and no one else. What makes Yeats sound like Yeats and Shelley like Shelley. It's what makes Mattie Gokey sound like Mattie Gokey. You have a wonderful voice, Mattie. I know you do, I've heard it. Use it."

"Just look where your voice got you, Miss Wilcox," I whisper. "And look where Grace Brown's got her."

I sit perfectly still for a long time, just holding the letters and looking out the window. In another hour or so, the sun will rise and Cook will barge in and wake us. We'll go downstairs and begin readying the dining room for breakfast. My pa will arrive with his milk and butter, and then Royal, with eggs and berries. I'll feed Hamlet and walk him. The guests will come down for breakfast. And then the men from Herkimer will arrive. Cook will badger and yell, and somehow, in all the commotion, I will try again to get down the cellar stairs to the furnace.

I look down at the bundle in my hands. At the pale blue ribbon. At the loopy handwriting, so like my own.

If I burn these letters, who will hear Grace Brown's voice? Who will read her story?

"Would you like a cup of tea, Mattie? How about you, Weaver?" Emmie Hubbard asked. Her eyes were calm and smiling and not the least bit crazy looking.

"Yes, all right. Thank you," I said, putting the chocolate cream pie I was holding down on the table.

"Yes, please," Weaver said.

Emmie took a tin of tea and some cups and saucers down from a shelf. As she turned, I saw a flash of white. It was the nape of her neck, pale as milk above her collar. Her hair was coiled neatly at the back of her head. Usually it was down or caught in a loose messy braid. I realized I'd never seen the back of Emmie Hubbard's neck before. Her faded cotton dress hung crisply from her narrow shoulders. It had been pressed. Maybe even starched.

Weaver and I glanced at each other. I could tell from the expression on his face that he couldn't believe what we were seeing, either.

Emmie's house was tidy. The floor had been swept and the bed made. Her kids were clean—mostly. Myrton's nose still dripped, Billy's ears needed attention, and Lucius had sticky hands, but their faces were scrubbed and their clothes had been washed.

"Mattie, please tell Mrs. Hennessey thank you for the pie," Emmie said.

"I ... I will," I said, embarrassed to find myself gawking.

Weaver and I had asked Mr. Sperry if we could take Demon to visit Weaver's mamma after the dinner service. He said we could, and Cook had given us a pie to take with us.

Weaver sat down on the bed next to his mother. She'd tried to get up to help Emmie with the tea, but Emmie had waved her away. "How are you feeling, Mamma?" he asked.

"My arm pains me some, but I'm all right," she said.

"I heard you got the pig back."

"That's right. The Loomis boys found her. They fixed her pen for me, too. I'm awful glad I didn't lose her."

The kettle whistled. Emmie leaned over the stove to get it. I remembered seeing her bent over the stove another time, for another reason. I had a feeling Frank Loomis wouldn't be fixing her stove again anytime soon. Not while Weaver's mamma was around. She was a righteous and upstanding woman. If she ever saw his bare ass in here, she'd tan it for him.

Emmie served the tea and cut slices of pie for everyone. The children loved the taste of chocolate. Even Lucius. He was too little to eat the crust, but Emmie gave him some whipped cream and filling and he smiled and clapped. We chatted for a while, and Weaver's mamma told us how Emmie was making fruit pies according to her recipe and selling every one down at the train station and how she, Weaver's mamma, minded Emmie's kids while Emmie was gone, but that was all she did, because Emmie didn't let her lift a finger. Emmie smiled and flushed and said it wasn't true—why, just the day before they'd both been over picking beans out of the Smiths' garden and at least the trappers hadn't managed to destroy that. Emmie's eyes darted to Weaver's mamma constantly as she spoke. It was like she was feeling for her, making sure she was there. Weaver's mamma nodded and smiled at her.

It was nice to sit in Emmie's neat house, watching her bustle about, seeing her kids smile as they ate Cook's pie. It was pleasant and peaceable and made a change from trying to haul her out from under the bed.

But then Weaver forgot himself and asked Emmie why she didn't plant a garden herself. It wasn't too late to get beans and greens out of one, he said, and then the whole room went quiet and I could see from the look on his face that he'd suddenly remembered about the auction. Nobody wanted to talk about it, though. Least of all me, knowing, as I did, who was going to buy it.

"But Mamma, we have to talk about it...," Weaver pressed.

"Hush, Weaver," she said, her eyes darting to Emmie. "I know, son. We will."

Emmie looked at us and bit her lip. She pulled at a tendril of hair.

"Where's Tommy?" I asked, anxious to change the subject.

"Over at your place. Helping your pa," Weaver's mamma said. "They've got an arrangement now. Tom's to help with the plowing and clearing, and your pa will pay him for it in milk and butter."

"I like butter," Myrton said, sniffing a string of snot back up his nose.

"Myrton, honey, what did I tell you about using your handkerchief?" Weaver's mamma said.

"Oh yeah."

He dug a piece of calico out of his pocket, wiped his nose on it, and showed it to me. I mustered an admiring smile for him.

We stayed for a few more minutes, and then we had to get back to the Glenmore. Weaver was quiet on the drive. I was the one who spoke first. "Your mamma's one tough nut," I said.

"Don't I know it."

"I didn't think anybody could ever shape Emmie Hubbard up. God only knows how she did it. And with one arm broken, to boot."

Weaver smiled a sad smile. "You know, Matt," he said. "Sometimes I wish there really was such a thing as a happy ending."

"Sometimes there is. Depends on who's writing the story."

"I mean in real life. Not in stories."

Tergiversation,
my word of the day, means fickleness of conduct, inconstancy, turning renegade. I felt like a renegade myself just then. I didn't believe in happy endings. Not in stories or real life. I knew better. But then I thought about Emmie's shabby little house and how it was warm and welcoming now. I imagined my pa showing Tommy how to handle a plow, and Tommy all manly and important as he brought home the milk and butter he'd earned. I thought about Weaver's mamma being looked after for once in her life. And Emmie's pride in doing the looking after.

And then I thought of Mrs. Loomis crying in the barn, and Jim and Will tormenting the Hubbards every chance they got, and the set of Royal's jaw when he talked about wanting them gone.

"Me, too, Weaver," I sighed. "Me, too."

"Mattie Gokey, what's ailing you? You're slow as a mule tonight and every bit as stupid! Pick up for table eight. Pick up!" Cook yelled.

It was evening, right in the middle of the supper service. The dining room was full to bursting and Cook was in one of her tempers. I ran one order out and came right back in with a new one. John Denio was sitting at Cook's worktable as I called the order out, eating his supper.

"Henry?" I heard him say. He was staring at the bite of food on his fork.

"Vat?"

"You make your biscuits with pepper in 'em?"

Henry had cooked the help stew and biscuits for supper. We'd all finished eating an hour ago, but John had missed supper as he had to go meet an evening train. Henry had kept the leftovers warm for him.

"Vat pepper?"

"You know, black pepper. From peppercorns."

"I don't know vat you talk. I don't put any pepper in any biscuit."

John put his fork down. He covered his supper with his napkin. "Then do me a favor, will you, Henry? Keep the damned mice out of the damned flour bin!"

Weaver laughed his head off. So did I.

"Don't know what you're laughing at. You et 'em, too," John growled.

We stopped laughing. I felt a little green. I didn't have long to dwell on it, though.

"Mattie, pick up for table seven. Pick up!" Cook barked.

I carried four bowls of soup to my table, sloshing them as I walked. I craned my neck trying to see the boathouse from the dining room windows. The boars were all in for the evening. The dock was empty.

"They must've gotten back," I said under my breath. "They must have. So where are they?"

There was cream of celery soup all around the rims of the bowls and down the sides, too, as I served them. The croutons had sunk. The guests at table seven did not look pleased.

"You got lead blocks for feet tonight?" Cook asked me, when I returned to the kitchen.

"No, ma'am."

"Look alive, then!'"

The kitchen doors flew open. "I need a pot of tea for room twelve, Mrs. Hennessey," Mrs. Morrison said, whirling by. "And a dish of milk toast. One of the Peterson boys is poorly."

"Am I running a dispensary now as well as a kitchen? Mattie, cut two slices of white bread—"

"Mrs. Peterson asked especially for you to make it, Mrs. Hennessey. She said your milk roast cured her little Teddy of his spastic bowel last summer."

"Give little Teddy some of Henry's mouse-shit biscuits. That'll cure him," John grumbled.

"Anything else I can do? Fluff Teddy's pillow? Sing him a lullaby?" Cook groused, pulling lamb chops from under the broiler. "Mattie, fix a pot of tea, will you? Or does Lady Peterson require that I boil the water, too?" she grumbled at Mrs. Morrison's back. "Eighty-five for supper, fifty of them in all at once, a special birthday meal for twelve, and now I'm a nursemaid as well..."

We were supposed to have eighty-seven for supper. Eighty-
seven
, not eighty-five. Two guests hadn't showed—rooms forty-two and forty-four. Carl Grahm and Grace Brown. They had table nine. I'd set it for them, but it was already eight o'clock and they still hadn't come in off the lake.

I'd waited on them earlier at dinner. They'd ordered soup and sandwiches, and they'd argued throughout the meal. I'd overheard them as I brought their food.

"...and there was a church right by the hotel in Utica," Grace Brown said. "We could have gone in and done it there."

"We can do it up here, Billy. We'll ask if there's a chapel," Carl Grahm said.

"Today, Chester. Please. You said you would. You promised me. I can't wait any longer. You mustn't expect me to."

"All right, don't get so upset. Let's take a boat ride first, why don't we? It's a beautiful day We'll ask about a chapel right after."

"Chester, no! I don't want to go boating!"

I passed by a few more times to make sure that there was nothing they wanted. The man ate all of his lunch, then the girl's untouched soup, then he asked for dessert. He told me to charge the meal to his room. "Grahm," he said. "Carl Grahm. Room forty-two." I'd heard the name earlier from Mrs. Morrison. She'd told me a couple on vacation, a Mr. Grahm and Miss Brown, had come without any reservations and that she was putting them on the top floor and that I was to turn down their beds that night.

I cleared their plates when they were done. And then, later, I'd seen Grace on the porch and she'd given me her letters and I'd stuffed them under my mattress and forgotten about them, and about her and Carl Grahm, because Cook kept me busy all afternoon peeling potatoes.

I hadn't thought about them at all until the supper service started and I'd seen that their table was empty. Then I couldn't stop thinking about them.