Wilderness of Spring Part 62

"Of course, Ben...."

"Did my father have--have aught to say of poor Ledyard?"

"Oh, he.... Why, he prayed G.o.d deal kindly with him. And he said not a word against him when we'd entered the harbor and the men who came aboard were questioning us. True, he had little time for words, Charity, since death was on him while he spoke, and it took him, his head on my arm, before the men were ready to lower him into the boat that should have brought him ash.o.r.e.... Yesterday when I went into Boston I sought out Ledyard's widow, and told her how he aided us, and then I--a white lie, I said he was washed overboard. Your father would have approved this deception, I'm sure of it. I wish he could have lived to see you again, Charity--still it's a marvel he could even live out the homeward voyage, he was that wasted and worn out with the sickness from his wound. But he did, and his word stood like a s.h.i.+eld for me, so that when I gave mine own account they believed me. Charity, when he'd done speaking I asked him if I might not bring him something to drink. He laughed at me a little, saying he had not the craving. He said: 'Do you drink to me as well as pray for me if you're a-mind.' That was the last he spoke.... Are you dreaming, Charity?"

"She's human too, you know."

"Oh, Ben, I was remembering how it was when they brought him home to us.

Is it possible that was only three weeks ago now? And thinking of the burial, and how all the things we did--all the words spoken, ours, the minister's, our friends'--how all that was so far from--him. Am I a terrible bad heathen, that I should have felt--well, angry at it? But mark you, Ben, I did _not_ show it, I did _not_ have one of my--my Times. Did I? Did I show it, Ben?"

"Certainly not. You was a most quiet sweet mouse and opened your mouth for naught but Amen and Thine-is-the-power."

"Faith and Mama in tears all day, and the neighbors resenting my dry eyes, be sure of it, and good Mr. Hoskison so--marry, so important! As if motions of the hands and holy words spoken could make any difference to one who's died and gone away. But you don't think I'm a terrible bad heathen?"

"You are not, but if Ben and I labor with you long enough, love, perhaps we can make you one. I have hopes."

"Oh, you!"

"No, Charity, never mind the pup, you're no heathen, or if you are, then I too. I've no patience with--let's call it mummery. I saw your father die. He was a captain of men, and he died well. No words spoken over his body can add anything to that. Such words are for the living, if they wish them. No one spoke them for Daniel Shawn, and though it may be that I killed him, I loved him too."

_And having said so much, and understood it while you said it, you will never lean on me again, the which I accept because it is right._ Reuben s.h.i.+ed another pebble beyond the running line of the water's edge, aiming for a circle of hurrying foam, hitting it with a neat plop in the center. Good exercise for a steady hand. What he had said to Ben concerning storm and calm was ba.n.a.l, he reflected, but truth has a way of hiding in the blur of the commonplace and must be hunted there from time to time: no good rus.h.i.+ng upstairs or outdoors in search of a paper that lies on the table under your nose. We do pa.s.s continually from storm to calm--every one of us, even Madam Prudence Jenks. So meet them both, in the atmosphere of doubt where honesty is--whether in fog over quicksand, or on firm-appearing ground like this under a sunny sky of June. Reuben tossed another pebble, seeing Charity smile at him ruminatively, a gust of the sea breeze lifting a lock of soft hair from her broad forehead; then her homely, snub-nosed, square-jawed face turned back to Ben and was beautiful.

"I was thinking too, I wish I might have been with you both when Mr.

Kenny died. You've told me little of that, indeed nothing much about your homecoming."

"He came on foot, Charity, and no word arrived ahead of him. We are not such important people now, you know. I was upstairs in Uncle John's room, and Mr. Welland with me. It was late, Mr. Hibbs gone to bed, and we had almost persuaded Kate to go and rest too, but Mr. Welland had told me he half expected Uncle John to go out that night, so we sat up with him. There had been another stroke, as you know, a light one, but he was failing rapidly and most of the time seemed hardly to know us.

Kate went downstairs for something, a pitcher of water I think, and I heard the front door, and she cried out something, presently weeping and laughing and calling up gibberish to us. I knew it was Ben, but I--you know, Snotnose, you really should have sent a messenger to warn us you was an inch taller and fifteen pounds heavier, in fact you'll be obliged to work now to some purpose, or at thirty you'll have a gut, I swear it.

Mind it, Charity--he was ever too fond of cracklin's." _Quiet, Ru Cory!

This is how it was, and you can't tell it_: Ben Cory appeared in the candlelight, and Ru Cory stood like a cold image and could not move, and Amadeus Welland came to him--to Reuben because he was the one in need--and then Ben came to him also--_but you can't tell it, seeing that for all your and-so-forth intellect you cannot bring love into the compa.s.s of a few well-chosen words, so be quiet and live a while_.

"Well, Charity, Uncle John knew him at once, even before he knelt by the bed and said, 'I've come back.' His right hand came up and touched the scar, and he said very plainly--we all heard it: Kate, and Mr. Hibbs who'd come in rubbing his eyes and doubting, it may be, that anything so good as Ben's return could actually happen at the borders of philosophy--Uncle John said very plainly: 'Thou art my son.'"

"And he died then?"

"No, love, somehow nature seldom accommodates our itch for the appropriate, I don't know why. That was later in the night. Ben was exhausted, and I made him go to bed and save the story of his life for the following morning. Uncle John didn't die then, but seemed to have fallen into a heavy sleep. We stayed with him of course. I was watching his hand, Charity"--_and Amadeus' arm over my shoulder, and his voice speaking to me now and then_--"and at some time toward morning there was a kind of disturbance in his sleep, his hand closing as if it would hold fast to certain things for a while yet. Then it opened and gave it all away."

_He needs no help except what Mr. Welland can give, still I'll do what I may._ Ben could see also the next voyage of the ketch _Artemis_. He would not be aboard--as Sam Tench had made clear, there was much to do, and Ben Cory the one to do it. A possible partners.h.i.+p with Riggs of Salem, for instance--it must be considered at least. Captain Heath would take _Artemis_ to New York, and some good man must be found to take Heath's place on the sloop _Hebe_. But next year, Ben thought, maybe he could go again on _Artemis_--maybe to Norfolk--maybe.... Then at some time, much later, maybe three or four good vessels fit for the pa.s.sage around the Horn, even a charter from the Queen--not at all impossible, some years from now, if done in the right way. In the meanwhile----

"Now you are dreaming, Ben. I used to know that look, in Deerfield. But now when your mind's under sail I suppose it goes into places you've seen with your true eyes. And when you'd hear the sea you needn't bury an ear in the pillow and cover the other with the flat of your paw--well, Charity, what a fool he used to look that way! And how often was I tempted to shove the paw aside and blow in his ear--give him a real storm--you know? Never did, and can't now because he's grown big enough to give me a hiding, or he thinks he has."

"It's true I was thinking a little of the seaways, but how a devil's name did you know it?"

"He's much too wise a fox, Ben--it's those little pointed ears."

"Charity, I meant to ask before now: Faith--is she--content?"

"I believe so. Mr. Hoskison is a worthy man, and has been most kind to us."

"What of that girl who--I mean--her name was Clarissa, was it not?"

"My mother was obliged--that is, she...."

"Without Charity's knowledge, Ben, Clarissa was sold to New York because there was no place for her at Dorchester."

"Oh, as for _my_ knowledge--what difference--_d.a.m.n_ it--oh, forgive me!

I meant----"

"Darling wench, in the presence of two scholars of the humanities you needn't alway be deferring to your Mama's judgment, and if you do, I will overlook your attainment of the years of decorum and paddle you.

Clarissa should have been manumitted--you know it, would have done it had it been in your power, I know it, Ben knows it, and I dare say now and then your Mama knows it--this being a mad world, and it seems we live in it. Now I do prophesy: in a few years my little brother will be a man of affairs, and I myself intend to become filthy rich. As soon as we may, sweetheart, Ben or I will go to New York and Clarissa shall be bought free, so stop crying--Ben don't like it...."

"Better so in my arm, Charity? Are you comfortable?"

"Yes."

"And I must be going, seeing I promised Mr. Welland I'd be back in Roxbury by the end of the afternoon. Medicines to be compounded, a visit he's to make this evening and wishes me to go with him, and more of the study that endeth never."

"We can't keep you?"

"No, dear."

"If you must go, Ru, maybe I----"

"Oh no! Do you stay here in the sun. I pray you both, be happy, and love me sometimes. I must get on with my work."