Waiting for Harvey (The Spirits of Maine) (17 page)

*

A few months later, in January 1919, the wind blew powdery snow in drifts across the road.  I drove my prized 1915 Model T along Bangor Road.  The wiper blades streaked back and forth across the windscreen, offering little improvement in the visibility.  Ice was building up around the edges of the glass and I started to reconsider my plan.  I contemplated a quick departure and a long ride south.

Reluctantly, I rolled to a stop in front of the fine house on Court Street.  I circled the home where Cordelia had resided with her family for the nineteen years of her privileged life.  In the mudroom, back behind the kitchen, she stood bundled in her warmest coat.  Leon stood near her, uncomfortably offering another handkerchief to wipe her tears with.  He helped me carry her suitcases out to my automobile.  I shook his hand and promised to return again in the summer.  Still it would be hard to leave him behind.

As I drove through the night, the weather worsened.  The modest snowstorm had developed into blizzard conditions by the time we reached Bangor.  I rented a room at a small hotel and snuck Cordelia in the back way.  Early the next morning we slipped out the back door again and went out to find a minister.

I was feeling bitter and angry.  Cordelia had made the mistake.  She was in the family way and it was left to me to correct her mess.  She took her news to Mildred and Mildred went to Leon.  Fearing a scandal that could unravel the lives we were living, Leon pressed me to marry her.  He assured me that she would be a good wife to me. 

Cordelia was agreeable enough.  Marriage with her would be tolerable.  My greatest worry was that she would give me a houseful of children.  I didn’t want the dreadful life that my father had lived.  On our wedding day, I warned her.  If she meant to plague me with a horde of babies, I would return her to her family in Houlton, and I would leave her there alone.

We were married in a small, dark chapel with witnesses provided by the minister.  Cordelia cried and asked me to take her home again.  She no longer feared that her family would find out about the child that was coming.  She was legally married and they would put the rest of it aside.  But I couldn’t go back.  If she had made the decision a few hours earlier, I would have taken her home. 

She sat beside me on the bench seat, as I drove south to Searsport.  The snow was milder along the coast.  Cordelia slept as we passed through Rockland and Thomaston.  She woke and started crying again when I stopped for gasoline in Newcastle.  She had quieted again by the time we reached Wiscasset.  When the snow changed over to freezing rain, I stopped in Woolwich and rented a room for the night.  She slept alone in the bed and I settled in the chair near the window.

In the morning, we arrived in Portland.  If felt good to be home again.  I found a cheap apartment not far from the old neighborhood on Munjoy Hill.  It needed to be cleaned and that would give Cordelia something to keep her head and hands busy.  She had expected a fine house where she would entertain.  That life was in her past. 

Daily, I left Cordelia behind as I struck out to earn my money.  She believed that I had secured a good job with a reputable business.  She never suspected that I was conning people and picking pockets.  It was the life I knew best and I had missed it.  I wasn’t willing to live a lie for Cordelia Burnes Godwin.  I let her keep the illusion of being married to Harry Godwin.  She shouldn’t ask any more of me than that.

I soon discovered that the deaths of Abel and the cop had never been connected by the police.  Abel was an orphaned boy of sixteen, living on the streets.  His death was not a priority worthy of a murder investigation.  The cops were only looking for us to ask if we knew of any distant relatives who could be notified.  Or maybe there was someone who would be willing to pay the bill for a pine casket and a grave.  Leon and I fled the city for no reason.  They didn’t even suspect that I had killed the cop.  If we hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t be saddled with Cordelia.

It was good news and I wrote to tell Leon about it.  I encouraged him to return to Portland.  The life we had lived in Houlton was a sham.  We were con-men and grifters not businessmen.  I told him to leave Mildred behind and I would send Cordelia back to live with her.  Their families would provide for them and their children.  We could travel south to Boston or even New York City until their families forgot about us.  It would all be done and we would be Leon Tripaldi and Harvey Cloutier again.

*

More than two weeks passed before I received a response from Leon.  When I read his letter, I was flabbergasted!  He was content with his new life.  Mildred was a good wife, and he was determined to remain in Houlton with her.  She was expecting their first child, and he hoped for a strong, healthy son.  He encouraged me to return with Cordelia and support her as she reconciled with her family.  I sat on the bench in the park, reading the letter repeatedly and contemplating the various options.

From our first day in Portland, Cordelia had nagged me.  She wanted a proper home where she could entertain.  She wanted new dresses to show off during evening strolls on the Eastern Promenade.  She missed her family and wanted to go home to visit.  More than anything she was waiting for me to introduce her to my family.  Not my family in the textile mills of Biddeford, Maine.  She wanted to meet the wealthy family in my imagination. 

In the early days as I courted her, I spun wild tales of a family I would have been proud of.  They were an astonishingly rich family, living in a mansion on the Eastern Promenade in Portland.  In my imaginary family, I was the only child of devoted parents who cherished me.  It was quite a story, and I was proud of it.  I was greatly pleased that she believed it all so easily.

Cordelia was eager to meet the family that didn’t exist.  Some might think it was wrong of me to lie to her the way I did.  Yet she was as guilty as I was.  She sought a marriage to a man who would provide immense wealth and social standing in the largest City in the State.  She had bragged to Mildred that she looked forward to showing off an exceedingly handsome husband.  It left me wondering whether she had any feelings for me at all. 

She was unhappy in the apartment that I provided for her.  It was far less than the grand home she was born and raised in.  Her head swam with visions of a lavish home, servants, and unlimited money to spend on her whims.  She asked me to open accounts for her at local shops.  She wanted new clothes, goods for the baby, and finery to decorate the apartment.  Greedy Cordelia.

“When are you taking me to meet your parents?” she asked, trying a new approach to the topic.  She’d been hammering at it for weeks and was determined to break my resolve.

“I told you, they are away,” I told her and put on my shoes.  Another day of her badgering might end with me striking her out of frustration.  I was growing weary of the constant needling and was running out of plausible lies to quiet her.

“Surely they are reachable by telegram,” she continued the argument.

“Cordelia, you have become a nagging fishwife!” I shouted and left the apartment, slamming the door behind me.

I heard her crying as I ran down the steps.  Mrs. Stanley was sweeping the hall outside her apartment door below.  I suppressed a smile, sparked by Cordelia’s misery.  With a nod to the old woman, I displayed a somber look and left the building. 

“Mr. Godwin!” she shouted in her shrill voice as she hurried out after me.

My feet hit the sidewalk before I realized that Mrs. Stanley was calling to me.  It was easy to forget that I had become Harry Godwin.  I hadn’t yet thought of a way to restore the name of Harvey Cloutier again.  If it weren’t for Cordelia, it would have been simple.  She had become nothing more than an unpleasant complication in my life.

“Yes, Mrs. Stanley?” I asked, as I stood waiting on the sidewalk.

“I don’t mean to pry but your poor wife seems dreadfully unhappy.”

“Moving away from her family has been difficult for her.”

“Young women struggle so at times like these,” she nodded sadly.

“Her family is up in Houlton.  We will return for a visit in a few months and she will be happy again.”

“Mr. Godwin, you can’t think to take her travelling so soon after the birth of a child.  You really must be more understanding of a woman’s fragile state.”

Mrs. Stanley’s words bounced around in my head.  I worked to muster what might appear to be concern or sympathy.  I was the ninth of my mother’s fourteen children.  My father required that my mother and sisters keep the birthing of babies and other women’s issues away from his sons.  Such mysterious creatures, I knew nothing of the strange workings of a woman’s body.  I hoped that Mrs. Stanley would be there for Cordelia when her baby arrived, because I certainly would not be.

“As a new husband I am striving to find my way,” I told her, trying to sound sincere.  “I would be grateful to you for any aid and comfort you might provide for my dear wife.”

The old woman nodded and offered a kindly smile.  She reached to touch my hand and I permitted the gesture of familiarity that made me feel a prickly discomfort.  A few words and a feigned look of warmth had redeemed me in her eyes.  Inwardly I was beaming.  I was exceedingly proud of my ability to deceive trusting people.

*

Hours passed as I wandered through the streets of Portland.  I fleeced a businessman on Congress Street.  It was a large sum of money and I guessed that he was likely walking to the nearest bank to make a deposit.  He failed to notice me behind him.  In effect, it was partially his fault that he was beset. 

I could have returned to the apartment with the money.  There was no need to seek any more easy marks that day.  Yet I couldn’t bear more of Cordelia’s pestering.  She was determined to meet the family that I described to her.  She meant to live in one of the grand homes on the Eastern Promenade.  I was certain that she dreamed of being granted limitless accounts from the local merchants.  It was unreasonable for her to think it, and she was beginning to wear on me. 

Leon would not be coming to Portland.  He was content to be a family man, toiling daily what he could honestly provide.  His grandparents would have been proud if they knew.  But they would never know.  Leon had become Leonard Bowen, and he risked losing everything he had gained if he acknowledged who he had been. 

I was alone in the city without Leon or Abel.  I missed them greatly and Cordelia provided no comfort.  The only pleasure I found in her company was between the bed sheets.  She was a beautiful woman, but I felt no love for her.  I regretted every day after I paid the minister and made her my wife.  I should have fled like a thief in the night and left her with her troubles.

Spring passed and the first hot summer days baked the rooftops throughout the city.  Cordelia’s belly was swollen and she moved with slow, jerky, duck-like movements.  She worried about delivering her child without her mother and other women from her family with her.  She wanted to go home and I was thinking about making the trip.  My only concern was that her child might come before we reached Houlton.  I would not be subjected to the horror of her childbirth just to appease her.  She could wait until the baby had come.

The sky dulled gradually as dusk settled over the city.  I was perched on the barrel of the cannon at Fort Allen, overlooking the Portland Harbor as the sun melted behind me.  She would be asleep early.  She claimed that the heat stole all of her energy.  I would wait until I was sure that she was asleep before I wandered home.  The lights in the apartment would be out and I would be able to creep in unnoticed.   

It was dark when I strolled down the hill at Fore Street again.  I passed the connecting street that would take me home, and I walked faster.  Cordelia would be asleep.  There would be no nagging and haranguing for a change.  I expected to see dark windows on the second floor, but the lamps were burning brightly.  Through the open window, I heard Cordelia shriek.  The voices of at least two women could be heard and I guessed that the child was coming.

I turned swiftly and my feet carried me to Shea’s Tavern.  I drank until I forgot Cordelia and the troubles she brought into my life.  Then I ordered another tankard of ale.  I bought short swigs for young Ethel McNiven.  She soon became wobbly and I lured her down into the basement of an apartment house not far away.  I knew the man who lived there.  With the coins I’d given him at the tavern, he wouldn’t intervene.

In the morning, I woke with the sun on my face.  I had reclined in the doorway of St. Peter’s Church and fallen asleep sometime in the early morning hours.  I had no memory of leaving the basement of the apartment house and only a vague recollection of my time with Ethel McNiven.  Seeking a meal and a hot bath, I stretched and marched up Munjoy Hill.

Mrs. Stanley met me at the door.  Her mouth was filled to overflowing with complaints.  She chastised me for disappointing my poor wife.  I tried to play the innocent one and told her that Cordelia’s cries frightened me.  I told her that I’d only gone for a nip at the tavern but had overindulged.  She accepted my excuse and walked me to the cradle.  The infant was a girl and she slept soundly. 

I tore a piece of bread from the loaf and spread apple butter on it.  Staring out the window I tried to ignore the chatter of the women.  Cordelia lay in our bed, propped on pillows.  I felt increasingly more uncomfortable in my own home and fought the urge to leave again.  I didn’t want them to think of me as a cad and worse they couldn’t believe that she was married to a poor husband.  There was a reputation of sorts to be upheld.