Home from the Hill (39 page)

“—of Water and of the Holy Ghost; I beseech you to call upon God the Father—”

“What was the name?” It was a whisper meant to be heard, and was followed by a general snicker that even Fred heard. Tears sprang to Libby's eyes, and at the same moment she felt the grip of her father's hand on her arm. Fred, however, had not heard the words but only the commotion.

“—through our Lord Jesus Christ, that of his bounteous mercy he will grant to this Child that which by nature he cannot have—”

“Aaaaa-men!” It was a chorus this time. And this time Fred's face did darken and he looked around with a scowl, causing Libby to tremble. But what annoyed Fred was having the christening of his son in the very best church in town spoiled by the attendance of any revivalists of the mourners' bench sort that he had all too good a memory of.

“—that he may be baptized with Water and the Holy Ghost, and received into Christ's holy Church, and be made a living member of the same.”

Reverend Mead had felt a bit like a concert performer being applauded in inappropriate places, and so he was glad to be able now to intone, “Let us pray.” He heard a noise at the same instant, looked up, and was even gladder. The invocation would halt at the door the new and even larger flock of visitors.

But the prayer was delayed by a scream. It was the baby. Libby had unconsciously hugged him tighter and tighter, and at last had hurt him.

She eased her grasp instantly and rocked him, patting his back and rubbing his cheek with her own. And for a moment then she ceased to care about everything else. She felt her child's soft warmth and heard his cries abate and change to a contented coo through her attentions, and for a moment felt she could endure anything.

Then the Minister went on with the prayer, and her uneasiness returned. She thought then to take advantage of these moments when all heads would be bowed and eyes closed to exchange a look of mutual comfort with her father. She turned, and found the eyes of the entire congregation upon her, her and the baby. Her father's was the only head bowed, though not in prayer, she saw even in her fright, but in weariness, defeat. In an impulse of terror and loneliness, she clutched the baby again to her breast, and again it wailed. Her father did look up then, but by then Libby had had to turn back, quailed by all those hard, sly, knowing stares.

She turned back, terrified, and found another trial awaiting her. Fred, too, had thought to avail himself of the moments of prayer and now gave her arm a tender pinch and gave her a proud private matrimonial smile. She smiled sickly in reply.

She did not heat the Gospel according to St. Mark, in which Christ is reported to have said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God,” and she was spared by her distraction the congregation's loudly whispered gloss upon the text of “O merciful God, grant that the old Adam in this child may be buried, and that a new man may rise up in him.” She was so distraught that when the Minister reached to take the baby from her, she recoiled from him, stared at him. The Minister managed to cover over his astonishment, and in another moment Libby's senses returned to her. Then the Minister took the baby in his arms and said to the Godparents:

“Name this child.”

The Benningfields, husband and wife, teamed to elect Willie spokesman. Willie, unwilling, and flustered by the gravity of the preacher's commanding tone and by the solemnity of the entire rite, stammered, whereupon the ribaldry abandoned all pretense. There was a titter at this hitch in the proceedings which caused even mild Mr. Mead to glower in admonishment over the rims of his spectacles.

But Fred thought merely that everybody was amused over Willie's stage-fright. He smiled sociably at the crowd, and he smiled encouragingly at Willie.

“Albert Terence,” said the Godfather at last. Now, poor Willie was just himself confused; he was one of the few in town harboring no suspicions in the matter. When, then, after a very distinct pause, he prompted himself to add “—Shumway,” he meant to suggest nothing at all. He grew quite red with anger over the muffled hilarity brought on by his backwardness.

Then the Minister began untying the ribbons of the baby's bonnet, and then for the first time there was a proper church atmosphere. A hush fell upon the entire assembly. Libby felt it, and in another instant understood it and her heart stopped cold. It seemed to her that the Minister held her baby up to satisfy the public gaze. She could feel that gaze upon the back of her neck and she could feel the short hairs on her nape rise up.

The town had heard young Albert Terence described more than once in the past two weeks, but this was the first view of him for most. He had been first described by the proud father, and Fred's satisfaction in the almost nine pounds at birth of a child who yet he claimed for form's sake to be two months premature (and two months hardly stretched far enough to cover the barest necessity) seemed, if vulgar, at least to have been earned by his subsequent action in making the girl his lawful wife. Supplementary descriptions of his offspring had, however, aroused quite different, even more interesting, expectations. Now all strained forward for a look.

The Minister removed the bonnet, revealing the baby's black, hairy little head. Necks slowly and sagaciously resumed the perpendicular, and a collective breath was exhaled.

Then the Minister poured on the water, saying, “I baptize thee in the name…,” while the baby howled. And while the baby howled everyone in the crowd managed to exchange at least one satisfied long look with everyone else.

The Minister said then, “We receive this Child into the congregation of Christ's flock and do (here he made a cross upon the baby's forehead) so sign him with the sign of the Cross.”

It was precisely the conviction that her child was marked that had been growing on Libby. Now the preacher's fulfillment of the ritual, his gesture of drawing his wet forefinger in an X across the baby's forehead, gave her a start, chilled her with superstitious dread. She reached out, .and before the Minister was quite prepared to relinquish him, grabbed him and hugged him to her.

There followed then the kneeling and the Lord's Prayer and the concluding exhortation to the Godparents. Then, while Fred and her father stayed behind to receive congratulations, the walk down the aisle, and the ceremony was over.

56

“I God, he's done it again!”

These were the first words spoken and they were spoken by a dozen men at once. They were spoken time and again by each of them in a kind of refrain throughout all that followed.

“Did you-all
see
that baby?”

“Why, it was him to the life.”

“The spitting image.”

“Like two peas in a pod.”

“And just wait till his eyes turn!”

“Tell me, what color eyes does Fred have?”

“What color does a bat have?”

“Hush. Here he comes.”

“Well, well, the proud father. Congratulations, Fred.”

“Congratulations.”

“Congratulations, Fred. A mighty fine looking boy.”

“Men.”

“Mighty fine looking boy, Fred.”

“Men, thank you all. Thank you for coming.”

“A mighty fine looking boy—must take after his mama.”

This remark made about as much sense as if the baby had been said to resemble Fred, and it was greeted with appropriate mirth. To Fred—as they saw to their delight—it passed for what it seemed, the conventional ribbing. Fred enjoyed it. He liked being put through the customary initiatory humor by these old-hand married men and fathers. “Well,” said Fred, “that's all right. I don't try to claim any credit for it,” whereupon everyone nearly collapsed with laughter. “The wife (that was a phrase he loved) has the looks in the family,” he said.

“Well, we all know who has the brains.”

“Come on, you're joshing me now,” said Fred, beaming.

“Wouldn't for the world.”

“Well, men, I've got to circulate. You-all take care. And thanks again.”

“Look at him go. Happy as a pig in clover.”

“He wouldn't believe you if you told him.”

“He wouldn't do nothing if you did, that's for sure.”

“Oh, I don't know. The Captain ain't the man he was.”

“He was some nine-odd months ago.”

“Still, he ain't been the same since that argument on the street with Albert Halstead.”

And from there they went on to recall all the signs that had accumulated towards today's revelations. Something had been going on, all right, and they claimed to have known it all along. It wasn't like the Captain to take anything from any man, much less a man like Albert Halstead, not without he found himself in a pretty awkward position. And then the circumstances of Libby's return home were rehearsed, in which the phrase
by night
figured often and with deep significance. By night, and in the middle of the school term. And then that sudden marriage with Fred, a most improbable choice for such a pretty and popular girl and one whose father had set his sights so high for her. Then the baby, which even Fred acknowledged to be ahead of decent schedule, though he was pleased to think that he himself was the nigger in the woodpile. And what a baby! Nine pounds! And a boy! (For poor Fred was not allowed even that likelihood on his own.) And the looks of that boy! I God, the Captain had gone and done it again!

The group that gathered on the church lawn by the north corner buttress included Harvey Brannon. And Harvey knew what he knew. He listened for a while without making his contribution, for the memory of Albert Halstead's face was troublesome. But at last Harvey was unable to resist any longer the opportunity to be for the first time in his life the center of attention, listened to by everybody. Besides, the more he heard, the more burdensome that memory became, the more Harvey wished to share some of the weight of it.

What Harvey had to add clinched it.

It clinched it for Harvey's good friend Albert Halstead too. For Mr. Halstead was still there, receiving congratulations on becoming a grandfather, braving it out for Libby's sake, though he knew now that all was up, and he had stood all he could of it for a while and sought out a secluded spot to lean his back against something and gather strength to face the rest. He found a niche on the north side sheltered by the flying buttress. After a moment he heard men's voices around the corner. In another moment he heard his name.

57

It is by the shadows things lay down that they appear tied to earth, to have substance and weight, obedient to gravity. Now in this noonday sun the shadows of things fell directly under them, so that they seemed to have no shadows. It gave to the landscape a lunar quality. People, rocks, buildings, trees, all seemed weightless, disconnected from the ground, about to levitate.

So it seemed to Mr. Halstead. The world hardly seemed real. He shook his head. It wasn't. For it was not day but night, not May but November. The sun might pretend to shine and the church bell peal overhead and the voices talk on around the corner, but it was all unreal. He was not out-of-doors, but in a room—an unusual room with heads of stags and boars growing out of the walls and guns gleaming in a row behind a gleaming glass door in a cabinet—and only one man was talking.

“We're not buying any damaged goods,” was what he was saying—for he was a man of wide experience in the matter Mr. Halstead was there to see him on.

Even had it not come certified as the common knowledge of the town, the discovery he had just made would have endorsed itself to Mr. Halstead. It lent itself to his temperament, early and late, to his abiding fatalism and his new sense of being life's laughingstock. He was not credulous. He was one to submit good news to as much skeptical examination as the next man. This wore the smirk of truth.

“No thanks. We're not buying any damaged goods.” He had known at once, and he was not the kind to take anything from any man, especially a man like Albert Halstead. And though this one was especially sharp in such matters, would not all men be nearly as quick guessing why a beautiful girl should come back suddenly—by night—in the middle of the school term?

But now it appeared that he had not been himself for some time, or else he found himself in an awkward position. “I'm sorry I said that,” he said.

“That's all right,” Mr. Halstead replied—for without knowing it, the man had shown him how dear, damaged, his daughter was to him. “I deserve it,” he said. It made him feel a little less ashamed of the errand on which he had come, to be able to forgive the other a little something.

He had come to say, “My daughter's home, did you hear?” The other had feigned interest. He had listened carefully. He was a man of wide experience.

“Well of course you wouldn't. But you know how us fathers are: expect everybody to know all the very latest about our offspring.” He had shuddered to think, what if his listener had known the latest about his offspring. He was trying to be casual; he knew his chance lay in not appearing the least bit troubled, for he was dealing with a man practiced in the very matter he had to meet him on.

And he was dangerous, too. Mr. Halstead did not know that for some time he had not been the man he was. To Mr. Halstead's admission that he was never more mistaken in his life than about his son, “Mistaken,” he said, “in thinking he's anything like his father?” Mr. Halstead saw those heads, guns. He felt a tremor in his lips and that mucous which appeared upon them whenever he was nervous and upset. He knew his chance lay in not appearing the least bit troubled, but she had been such a pretty and popular girl, and he had set his sights so high for her.

Now she was damaged goods and they were not buying any. He had known it really. Only his desperate hope had made him hide it from himself. He was no match for a man of wide experience. It was what the world would soon say. He deserved it. She didn't, but he did. It had been his idea to come. She hadn't known he was coming there.