The Puzzleheaded Girl

by Christina Stead

  The days passed; nature thickened around them. “The grass and the weeds need a-cuttin’,” said Mr. Thornton, one fine summer morning. “I’ll come down later with the scythe, or send Johnson.” “Oh, leave them: we’re not making a garden; we like things wild,” said Sam. The weeds, white, yellow, purple, wild flowers and plants were so high that Sam could walk into them and be hidden. Here the birds clung and hunted. Plenty of small things ran about the ground in the shade. There were several woodchuck families in various parts of the Dilley creek banks, especially in the long strip of wild land along the Sobieski fields. The creek still was hidden there and there boys fished and swam all hidden, and the mocking birds had their nests. There were large and small burrows opening around the Dilley house, right at the porch and farther out. There were skunks; a weasel like a big swift worm dived and doubled into his hole by the steps. The birds reared full families and started again. Under the separated planks of the bridge was a black spider so large that it could be seen from three hundred yards away. It also was far sighted. It spied the Parsons coming at a distance and it ducked under the bridge, looked out, ducked in. The creek was full of life. Along the sunny track in the fresh mornings, little green snakes took the sun on the low green branches. A dozen little rabbits, or more, played on the track. Sam Parsons walked there talking to himself and switching the dust. Up and down he tramped. It was so silent, so fertile, so safe. No vehicle passed there, but the mailman at about nine, the Tanner boys on their bikes, or children after school. Sam Parsons thought over his past business relations, books he might write, about the Spanish Inquisition, the Forty-Five, the Commune; he looked at the flowers, remembering that he ought to learn about outward things too—this was a chicory, this a goldenrod, “our national flower, I should know it.” That was poison oak and this poison ivy and that poison sumach. Clare had taught him those first. “Don’t touch them.” He was a big city boy. He was very proud the first time a bird answered his whistle. Sometimes a friendly but puzzled bird followed him along the track. “It was talking to me, we had quite a conversation,” he would report.

  At night they went to bed early and sometimes slept badly. They barred the house downstairs but the second storey was lower than the hill. They could hear animals passing above them on the hill, birds lower than they were, in a tree. At times the loose-plank bridge solemnly plonked; the owls howled; and there was the restlessness of the magnificent corn nights, the very sensible restlessness of the fast springing harvest, heads weighed down; and the lowing cattle. The house must have been full of field mice. Each night a skunk and its family passed under their window. The woman was awakened each night by the pungent smell and the knowledge that animals were moving around them; she loved animals. It was a lake, a deep pool of animals, a deep pool filled to the top with air and in it animals, not fish. When the skunk smell came, all the mice within the walls scampered in a multitudinous rout down or up the walls. And often in the night now there were footfalls. These footfalls came from the landing outside their door and went down the stairs, one by one, to the bottom, thoughtfully, clumsily, almost reluctantly; and later would return one by one to the top, crossing the landing. But the door at the bottom of the stair they kept locked. It led to the kitchen.

  She heard these footfalls several times without waking the man; but once when she heard his waking breathing, she said, “Listen to the footfalls. Of course, it is the mice! Or rats, do you think?”

  “Yes, it is like footfalls; it must be mice, mustn’t it? What else could it be?”

  They listened for several nights. Downstairs the doors to both stairways, all the outside doors and windows were locked. The knives and axes were put away. They had no fear at all of intruders or assassins coming to them through the woods and fields, the lonely roads; they were happy and safe. But they always, at night, felt agitated, though not lonely. And there were the dreadful doves, driving Sam in before sunset, out of the damp, into the house to light the lamp; and so the nights began too early.

  The days were perfect summer and still. The tiger lilies sprang all along the creek and in patches around the house. Sam walked to town every day to shop, talk to Thornton and “the boys”—acquaintances he had made in town; they heard the farmers and their lads at work behind the thick curtains of trees. Clare at home, did her work, tried the piano with the broken keys, heard the Strassers a few feet away on the ridge, noticed the many small birds rearing broods in the porches, woodpiles, weeds and trees. The house was a shed, a roof in which they ate and slept and into which the air and sun poured. They knew the house, the deep cellar under the stone house and the stone house’s high attic, full of sun and dust, with old trunks—whose?—bikewheels, rubbish, a blameless place, looking out on the Sobieski pastures. At night the skunks, the cataracts of mice, the plonking plank and the footfalls.

  But where did the mice lodge, they idly asked, that went hopping downstairs every night; and what did they eat in the kitchen, where all the food was put away? Or had they some other purpose? “I believe they come out of that little locked room: they cross and recross the landing from there.”

  “Leave it alone,” said Sam; “they do us no harm.” “But listen to that thumping!” “Let’s sleep.” Plonk! “Who’s coming over the bridge so late?” “It’s not late.”

  One day when Sam was in Lambertville, Clare found a key to fit the lock of the little room. It was an engaging little room, the prettiest in the house. The roof sloped to the floor. Two small windows, set at floor-level, surveyed the sweetest part of Dilley’s acres: they looked down upon the green, the weed patch, in which birds flashed; and the clear shallow saucers of the brook surrounded by orange and white flowers could be seen; all swimming in the hollow full to the top with sun and the invisible but thick and moving damp. If you are an underwater swimmer and have visited rock-cities, floated over weedy and sandy bottoms which the fish know, looked down like a fish, that is the liquid sort of scene you see. It was scarcely twelve o’clock. It was still. The world was at work, men, beasts, plants; all was well; an unforgettable hour; the smiling heart of that ineffable house.

  After a while, Clare looked at the room. In the centre of the bare floor was an old-fashioned leather trunk with a domed lid, attached by leather hinges and straps. The leather was discoloured, worn and scaly with age. There was a hat tree behind the door, an old locked wardrobe and a kerosene lamp. She was going out again when she noticed a leather belt hanging on the hat tree. It was of soft leather, with notched edges, about two and a half inches wide, awkwardly hand-embroidered with red, green and yellow wool; and red, green and yellow glass jewels had been let in, in a simple design: a stage property. She tried it on and put it back. She locked the door again.

  There were many insects about now and in the silence their multifarious life could be heard: wasps scraping wood off the rough wooden seat on the porch, some insects singing perhaps in their nests, bees humming, the immense horseflies droning, the interminable whipping chatter of the house-wrens and other tiny sounds about the house, half invaded and possessed by wild life; they poured out of the sun copiously on the earth, richest in this man-idle dell. There was one other sound which now Clare heard very often in the daytime, in the sun, when she was upstairs or downstairs, or had come close to the house from the fields, a singing or faint twanging in one of the corners of the porch or in the kitchen corner. It was larger than a mosquito’s voice, not much more at first, but when she became accustomed to it, it became louder and more insistent; like a brass spider twanging on its brass web. The insects were so thick and noisy that the Parsons did not trouble themselves any more about them. They no longer sat on the porches, for there was, that year, a plague of flying mites, and in the evening, the mosquitoes. So they sat without lights till the light faded, and then went indoors, while up the windows crawled thick the winking fireflies. But she came to listen for the creature singing in a corner of the house, at its work or in its nest. Now she could hear it halfway from the cre
ek, her ear sharper and sharper for the world of beasts and leaves.

  In a few days, alone in the sunny silent morning, she returned to the little room upstairs. She undid the buckles and set back the heavy leather lid. The trunk was full. On top was a leather headband to match the leather belt, with stitching and glass jewels. With it were berets, headbands, short skirts, cloche hats, fashion magazines from many years before for out-of-date bridal dresses and baby clothes; and with this a pale brown cloth tunic roughly stitched. Underneath these was a white silk dress with lace and pearl beads sewn on it, a simple net veil and pearl circlet. The brown tunic was a fancy dress, unfinished. It was slashed into fringes around the opening and skirt and the skirt was decorated with the same glass jewels. Underneath these, several large feathers dyed, a man’s khaki shirt, a Sam Browne belt and other relics of war days. Clare closed the trunk and locked the room. She sat down on the porch teasing the wonderful sensitive plant that grew there. It took it but one hour to move from one side to the other, as she moved an enticing walking-stick; towards the stick its corkscrew tendrils vibrated. On one side was a skunk’s hole. The sensitive plant, after only a quarter of an hour, began a slow swoop upon the walking-stick, which she held out for it. “Yes, plants too live, the Hindus are right: this plant is thinking. But here in this hot-bed, everything lives and thinks. The house itself—” Idle, fascinating days. The catbird clucked in the bushes by the creek or sat on the bare wire of the porch trying to imitate Sam’s voice; a cat sneaked through the grass. In a storm a wolfish dog, mad with fear, rushed under the house and howled. The little insect in the porch-roof sang loudly.

  Mr. Thornton came down bringing the milk, and placidly going backwards and forwards over the tussocks with him, Parsons talked about simple ways of improving the house. “I suppose Dilley would be glad to sell, if things are the way I’ve heard. Mr. Davies told me he was in financial difficulties, that he has a sick wife and daughter and he finds it hard to meet mortgage payments.”

  “I don’t know if they’re in such a hurry to sell,” said Mr. Thornton. “The wife, Mrs. Dilley, thinks the daughter will get better and she wants to keep this place on for her. She thinks the country will improve her. She thinks it was a nervous breakdown. But old Mr. Dilley knows better.”

  “So you think he’d be prepared to sell?”

  “I could ask him. I’m always a-writin’ to him about the house. You see I manage for him.” Thornton fetched a grass-cutter from the barn, and said he would just do a bit now and then he’d send Johnson. “The place needs a-ploughin’ and a-smoothin’ down first.”

  Clare through the kitchen window looked out and said, “Yes, then I could grow my own vegetables here and have a chicken run. If you would lend Johnson to do a bit of digging.”

  Mr. Thornton was silent for a while. He smiled presently and stated, “Some I-talians, brother and sister, deaf ones, had a berry farm here; but they had bad luck, the crop failed. It’s not the place. They went bankrupt. It waited a while before the Dilleys took it. And after them, it waited a while—”

  Clare, pumping water into the sink, said, “But what is the matter with Miss Dilley?”

  “Mrs. Grace, Miss Dilley that was,” he said gently. “Well, I couldn’t say. I don’t think she’ll recover. She’s a-lingerin’, it’s a long business.”

  “Is it tuberculosis?” said Clare.

  “No; I don’t think it was that; but it might have been. Was somethin’ catchin’.”

  When Clare had left the sink, he said to Sam, “Come up by the barn. I’ll start a-cuttin’ there and I’ll tell you somethin’.” When there he stopped work, and standing strong and tall in his sixty years, his hand on a hoe, he said, “I wouldn’t like your wife to hear this. You can tell her after, if you think it’s right. I never told my wife or daughter about it; and round here with people a-comin’ and a-goin’ on this farm, they hardly remember anythin’. Perhaps Rudolf, that Strasser boy, remembers; but he wouldn’t say.”

  “Is the girl dying?”

  “She’s a-dyin’; I don’t think she’s dead. I don’t know. I saw her myself about eight months ago. I’m the only one knows all about it. I guess I know more than her poor mother. I never told Mr. Davies, for Mr. Davies was a sick man. Well, since you ask me, I think I can say the daughter isn’t dead. I think they’d tell me if she’d died. She’s right near here. And that’s what the Dilleys think; that some day soon she’ll be back here, a-waitin’ for them; or the mother thinks. She’s not far away. She’s very bad. She’s in the madhouse over in T. and she’ll never get out. The mother thinks she’s a-gettin’ better, but she’s a-gettin’ worse. I went to see her at the request of Mr. Dilley about eight months ago and she’s nothin’ like herself. She didn’t recognize me, though she always liked me; and she’s not like a woman, she’s like a sick animal or a baby, worse; and she doesn’t know who she is. They haven’t let the mother see her for three years.

  “It all happened because of a Nevada man. Dilley was a shoe-maker and sold leather goods; and durin’ the war he got enough together to retire. They bought this place, which was a-goin’ beggin’, part paid for and part on mortgage; and thought they’d keep it for their only child Hilda for when she was married. Lambertville was better then than now, Lambertville’s a half-ruined town. These factories along the Delaware closed down and the place never came back. At that time it was full of life; and the Dilleys often went in in their old car. There was a big army camp near here where they put the young men who were a-waitin’ to be demobilized. This young Hilda was about twenty-two and she was full of life. She used to talk to that Strasser boy, a-callin’ across the creek; but the parents on both sides didn’t like it. There was this Nevada man there, a big tall fellow in a uniform who talked a lot and sang a lot and had this gui-tar.

  “Well, he got her to fall in love with him at once; and she wanted to marry him. The parents always gave in to her in the end; so they married and the Nevada man thought, I guess, that he was a-goin’ to live soft. He moved in here with the Dilleys and never offered to go to work. He sat round the whole livelong day, a-talkin’ and a-eatin’ and a-singin’ to the tunes on that gui-tar. Well, he was an ignorant man and he had a disease and he gave it to Hilda. She had a baby which died and that began to turn her mind; she used to cry for it. The Nevada man wasn’t cruel; he just was lazy. He’d sit up there in my kitchen many a time, a-playin’ his gui-tar and a-talkin’ to my wife. She liked him and he liked her; she was in the house then with our baby girl, my only daughter. He’d amuse the baby! That he liked right well; and he liked to amuse visitors; and he’d go to church and talk to the men. But he reared at work like a crazy horse. I said to him, Come on, come out with me and I’ll show you how to plough; and he’d go out to the field with me; but he’d laugh and watch me plough; and he’d sit down and begin to strum and sing. The poor girl began to cry and act strange and to amuse her they took her to the movies and to the the-ayter that they had at the church hall. Well, it’s a funny thing. One of those shows was about Pocahontas and Captain John Smith. Now that Nevadan said he was a captain; I don’t know if he was. He said he didn’t wear his ribbons because he was a-doin’ of some work. I don’t know if he was. But this seemed to stick in her mind; and she began to say she was Pocahontas and she was a-goin’ to marry Captain John Smith. She forgot she was married sometimes. She forgot about the baby. So they bought her a doll and she seemed to think sometimes it was a baby. It’s hard to say just what she thought. Well, they didn’t say anythin’ to that Nevada man, because they were afraid to hurt her feelin’s and he was better round the place than away. Then he went away. I don’t know where. He wrote one letter and they never heard from him again. The parents hadn’t thought much of him, but they set a detective after him; they wrote letters to people they knew; but he was never heard of again.

  “After this Hilda was in a bad way. Her mother, who loved her, sewed her a kind of Indian dress. I’ve seen it myself; and she’d walk with her ever
y day along the track, a-lettin’ her wear this fancy dress and a-listenin’ to her talk, which was very proud and boastful. I’d meet them very early in the mornin’ sometimes when I was a-comin’ back from Lambertville; and I’ve heard her a-talkin’ high because she thought she was this Indian princess. I told Mrs. Dilley I didn’t think it wise to encourage her; but the poor mother would not oppose her. She said her mind was turned with so much trouble and only kindness would bring her back. Well, there had been talk about this Nevada captain, if he was; and I myself wondered—if somethin’ had gone wrong. My wife and the others too saw her, a-singin’ and a-talkin’ and sometimes she wore flowers and had a tomahawk or a knife and a rope. Once I was frightened to see her costume there a-lyin’ on the road and I thought somethin’ had happened; but I saw her a-runnin’ naked along the track and a-slippin’ down into the creek and she had some leaves round her neck. I thought that was no sight for the young men up at Strassers’ to see, or my young men either; so I brought the girl her clothes and told her to get dressed like a good girl. I was shocked at her, I told her; and wouldn’t be her friend if she misbehaved like that. I said to her like I always said, even when her mother was there, But you’re not Pocahontas, my girl. It’s just a joke; you’re Hilda, you know. But she wouldn’t have that: and I thought, maybe her mother was right.