Fiddler's Green, Or a Wedding, a Ball, and the Singular Adventures of Sundry Moss

by Van Reid

  “A great deal can occur at one of these functions,” said Miss Underwood with dissembled innocence. “Why is everyone leaving so early?”

  Several other people were lingering, for whatever intrigues, in the foyer, and a buzz went up on the heels of the Pleasances’ departure. Mr. Morrell sauntered into the hall and spoke to the three young people there. When Thistlecoat traipsed past him, Philbrook inquired of the man why he was leaving so soon. Thistlecoat stopped in his tracks, rose to his full height, and regarded the host very seriously before turning on his heels. He snatched his coat from the servant holding it out for him and made his swift leave.

  Philbrook said good night to Mr. Moss, who was also leaving, and thanked him for coming.

  “It’s been my pleasure,” said Sundry. “Thank you.”

  Miss Underwood and her fiancé said good-bye and watched him go; then Philbrook stayed in the foyer and watched them return to the dance. Another waltz was slowly revolving the many stories upon the ballroom floor, and the handsome young couple considered the transient display of bright gowns and black tails before facing one another, clasping hands and waists, and disappearing among them.

  “That was quite an exodus a moment ago,” said an old acquaintance of Philbrook’s. The man approached, his hands clasped behind him.

  “Yes,” agreed the host.

  “They weren’t all going to another party, were they?”

  “I don’t believe they were all going to the same party,” said Philbrook.

  The old acquaintance chuckled. “Another successful evening,” he said.

  “Yes.” Philbrook had rather lost interest in it now. He suspected that the ball had lost some of the best and worst in about five minutes’ time. “Ah, well,” he said, as if the man standing beside him could understand his thoughts. “I had better find my wife and dance with her, I think.”

  “I think you would be wise to do so.”

  Philbrook smiled and nodded, then wandered back to the ballroom. He was humming the tune to the waltz, trying to remember the name of it. The old acquaintance walked back to his previous station, hands clasped behind his back, and looked as if he were waiting for someone.

  It was a few minutes after that a late arrival appeared at the doorway to the ballroom and the name of Mrs. Roberto filtered through the glittering crowd.

  23. Chasing Solace

  Sundry Moss had found it increasingly difficult (or at least increasingly oppressive) to wander the rooms and halls of the Walton home on Spruce Street now that Mister Walton was out of residence. He had grown up in a large family and was used to noise and bustle; living on Spruce Street with Mister Walton had taken adjustment, as his employer was a quiet man and the house was often loud with the voiceless shadows of past inhabitants, its unused rooms affecting Sundry as a little sad. Now Mister Walton was gone to Halifax, and the house was truly empty when Sundry arrived that night to turn up the lights in the hall and sit in the near dark in the parlor by the unlit hearth. He missed the presence of his friend, and without the distraction of another person, his romantic melancholy was harder to bear.

  Contemplating the short arc of the evening, Sundry wondered what sort of fool he might have made of himself and what Miss Morningside might have meant with a smile or a kind word (beyond a smile or a kind word) and thought that he was about as despondent as he’d ever felt. It did seem a terrible contradiction that he had actually danced with her only an hour ago, that she had taken his arm, and that they had talked quietly, if cautiously, together; but now his heart was in his boots because he was no longer dancing with her, and she was no longer holding his arm, and they were no longer talking quietly together.

  How soon could he reasonably visit the Underwoods, where Miss Morningside, her mother, and her younger brother, Ethan, were staying until Cordelia’s wedding later that month? He didn’t think he could really visit them tomorrow, but even then, sitting in the Waltons’ parlor and the hall clock striking the eleventh hour, he was pretty sure that he would. For now he was sure he couldn’t abide the silent house and he went upstairs to change his clothes and pack a bag before heading back into the night.

  The clouds must have been listening to Mr. Eagleton, for they had run off from the local atmosphere and left a bit of moon hanging in the east. As he reached the nearest corner and descended Clark Street, Sundry caught glimpses of the dark bulk of Peak’s Island in the dim sheen of Casco Bay. A breeze came off the water, and he lingered at the foot of the hill to feel it in his face. A policeman ambled by, slowing his stride long enough to consider Sundry and his bag. They exchanged tentative good evenings, the policeman not sure about Sundry and Sundry not sure that he wanted company. The officer continued on his beat.

  There was more waking life on view as Sundry neared the waterfront: A carriage trundled by, and a group of men further down the hill seemed to be arguing about something. Sundry worked his way east, carefully skirting the potential melee, then south until he strode the sidewalk of Brackett Street and found himself beneath the sign of the Faithful Mermaid. He had not known the Spark family very long, but he enjoyed their company and thought the tavern’s business would prove diverting. Thaddeus Spark hailed Sundry the moment he stepped inside the front door, and the regulars greeted him with friendly nods or a wave of a tankard. The smell of ale and beer was strong and the air was blue with smoke.

  “Davey,” Thaddeus called when he took note of the bag in Sundry’s hand. Then, with a wink, he said, “The air get a little thick over on Spruce Street? I can’t stand a quiet house myself. Davey!” The oldest Spark boy hurried in from the kitchen and Thaddeus told him to open the west room on the third floor. “Sit down, and we’ll feed you, boy,” said Thaddeus.

  Sundry nodded to several people he had seen the time or two he’d been in the tavern room before. He was surprised that the thought of food appealed to him. He thought he could do justice to a pretty big meal and wondered why. It was while looking for a place to test his appetite that he caught sight of Horace McQuinn’s half grin and sharp steel blue eyes and the exclamation point of Maven Flyce’s hair rising from the dimness and smoke of the nearest corner.

  “Well, old boy,” drawled Horace, “sit down and tell us all about it.”

  “Gory, Hod,” said Maven. “It’s Mr. Moss!”

  “I thought it might be,” said Horace.

  Sundry struggled between the need for solitude—contrary to the impulse that had brought him to the Faithful Mermaid—and society, which was his natural inclination. It was a desire not to offend that tipped the scales; he pulled a chair up and sat with the two professional idlers. “What do you want to know?” he asked.

  “What do you have?” replied Horace after a profound shrug.

  “About a day more than I had yesterday,” said Sundry, which nonsensical remark could be taken for what it was or for profound philosophy.

  Horace gave a wheezing laugh, but Maven said, “I can’t imagine it,” and looked astonished. Horace could, however, and he put a ditty into the air:

  Upon which assertion he raised the mug of ale in his hand and toasted all. There were those who heard him and raised their glasses in salute to the fellow’s wisdom, and those who hadn’t heard and raised their glasses anyway.

  “Honestly, Hod, where do you get it!” said Maven.

  “The well isn’t very deep, Maven,” informed Horace McQuinn, tapping his head, “but it’s close to hand.”

  “Are you gentlemen frequent callers here?” wondered Sundry.

  “We like to spread it around a bit,” said Horace. “Don’t we, Maven?”

  Maven looked as if it were news to him.

  “We’ve been over the Weary Sailor lately and the Crooked Cat a time or two,” said Horace. “But seeing Mrs. Spark the other day reminded me where I might get a decent meal.” Horace nodded slowly, pulling a long face to indicate how serious he was.

  “Mr. Moss,” said Mabel Spark, who might have heard her name spoken as she came through
the swinging doors from the kitchen. “I thought you were going to the ball tonight.” Betty Spark poked her comely head through the doorway, then followed her mother to the table.

  “Well, I did,” said Sundry.

  “You’re out early,” said the mother.

  “Was it very grand?” asked Betty. She raised her shoulders like a child who expects sweets, her hands at her sides and her eyes wide and pretty with the sight of grand things beyond the tavern room. Put her in a fancy gown, thought Sundry, and she would have given the celebrated belles of Portland a potent challenge. It was a pleasure just to watch her think about it.

  “It was very crowded,” said Sundry, wavering between an urge to fulfill her wistful imagination and the concern that he might sadden her with grand descriptions of something she had missed.

  “It must have been wonderful,” she said, lost in her thoughts.

  “I think it’s who you’re with, not where you are,” he said, sounding like an old man reminiscing on younger days.

  Betty thought about this, but not very much.

  “Have you ever been to a ball, Horace?” asked Maven Flyce.

  “I was at the Governor’s Ball, once,” admitted Horace.

  “Good heavens!” said Maven.

  “Horace McQuinn!” declared Mabel Spark as if it hurt to hear something so preposterous. Thaddeus had circled back, and Davey, too, stopped on his way to serving another table, so a small crowd managed to assemble in that corner to marvel or scoff at the thought of Horace attending a Governor’s Ball.

  The old man’s blue-gray eyes sparkled happily, and he raised his mug again. “Horace has been a place or two, I can promise,” he said.

  Sundry believed him and felt better just imagining the old rascal at such a function. He was going to inquire after further details when Mabel spoke up on a subject more current and less amusing.

  “Mr. Ring is a little recovered,” she said.

  “Is he?” said Sundry.

  “He hasn’t told Melanie, but he has some idea about taking her up-country to live with cousins of his.”

  Thaddeus had yet to change subjects. “Whoever you were with must have left early, too,” he said to Sundry.

  Sundry was noncommittal.

  “Did you dance?” asked Betty.

  Sundry nodded, and there was a brief and telltale expression upon his face before he turned to Mrs. Spark again and said, “Where are his cousins?”

  “Up Brownville, I guess.”

  “We dance, sometimes, here in the tavern room,” said Thaddeus, who wasn’t to be shaken from his theme.

  “Oh, Daddy, it’s not the same thing!” insisted Betty.

  “I don’t know. We have a good time.”

  “Tell him it’s not the same thing, Mr. Moss,” said Betty.

  “I wouldn’t presume,” said Sundry. He was thinking that if Miss Morningside were on his arm, almost any time or place would suffice.

  “Go get Mr. Moss a plate of stew,” Mabel said to her daughter, and Betty reluctandy hurried into the kitchen. “And a loaf of bread,” the mother called after. Then she returned to her previous concern and said to Sundry, “I don’t like the idea of Burne Ring traipsing off with a six-year-old girl. He’s not in enough shape to cross the street.”

  “Why are you telling Mr. Moss?” asked Thaddeus.

  “He’s not planning to leave tonight, is he?” asked Sundry.

  “I was just telling him,” said Mabel to her husband, and to Sundry she said, “He says he’s leaving tomorrow.”

  “Oh.”

  “He thinks his cousins will take the girl in, though he hasn’t seen them for years.”

  “Wouldn’t a telegram or a letter work?” wondered Sundry.

  “I guess he doesn’t know exactly where they are—just up Brownville way, and he figures he’s going to look for them.” Betty almost stumbled, hurrying back into the tavern room with a steaming plate and a loaf of bread on a tray. Mabel took the serving from her daughter and set it down before Sundry, saying with half a smile, “It’s a bit of a climb down the ladder, coming from the Morrells’ ballroom to the Faithful Mermaid.”

  “Not at all,” said Sundry. “You notice I didn’t waste any time coming back for something good to eat.”

  She smiled at the flattery but was flattered nonetheless.

  “And the company is not to be faulted,” said Sundry, taking in Horace and Maven and the several Sparks by way of a gesture with his spoon.

  “We’re not too bad,” agreed Thaddeus.

  “Better than my mother expected for me,” said Horace sagely.

  “My goodness!” said Maven.

  Betty took after her father in her allegiance to a favored topic. “It must have been lovely,” she said.

  Mabel put a sympathetic arm around her daughter. Thaddeus stood and nodded. Horace produced a pipe from a pocket and considered it like a previously unknown specimen. Maven gaped.

  “On to the next thing,” said Sundry.

  24. Tending Teacup

  Priscilla lay in the dark, listening to the occasional traffic on the street and the steady snores of Teacup, her family’s fox terrier, who slept at the foot of the bed. She never heard the carriage pull up to the gate, or did not separate it from the other night sounds, but she sensed (as much as heard) movement in the house below. After a while there came the rustle of skirts on the stairs. A quiet voice called from down the hall, and Cordelia must have stood for a while at her parents’ door, talking to them.

  Priscilla closed her eyes, then realized that her cousin was in the room, quietly readying herself for bed. “I’m awake,” said Priscilla.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, I was awake.”

  Teacup made a drowsy sound.

  “I thought you were asleep.”

  “I might have dosed after you came in. But I was waiting for you.”

  Cordelia sat on the bed, half dressed, her hair still up. She reached out and found Priscilla’s hand. Teacup made another, more articulate noise and raised his small head from his paws.

  “I hope you had a good time after we left,” said Priscilla.

  “I’m sorry to say, just a little.” Cordelia looked regretful. She stroked the dog’s head, and Teacup clambered into her lap.

  “Don’t be. I was sure Mom’s headache would ruin everyone’s evening.”

  “I daresay it ruined Mr. Moss’s,” said Cordelia blithely.

  The veneer of Priscilla’s response was matter-of-fact. “I daresay he found other girls to dance with.”

  “I don’t think so. He left as soon as you were gone.”

  Priscilla sat up in bed and considered what this meant. Cordelia was smiling softly. A chip of moon afforded a dim light through the window to the east, and by this Priscilla could see her cousin’s pretty face. “I shouldn’t be glad of that, should I,” said Priscilla.

  “I would be,” said Cordelia without hesitation.

  “I’ll probably never see him again.”

  “That’s what you said the last time.” Cordelia set Teacup aside and rose from the bed so that she could change into her nightclothes. “I wouldn’t have been surprised if Mother asked him to come and visit.”

  “She did. Twice.”

  “Count on him knocking at the door tomorrow then.”

  “But we’re leaving first thing in the morning,” said Priscilla.

  This news occasioned a brief silence. “Leaving?” said Cordelia. “You can’t be leaving. What about my wedding?”

  “Oh, we’ll be back for that, of course. But Mom says we’ve been gone too long and should be home for a while.”

  “Do my parents know this?”

  “I thought your mother would turn ten shades of red, but she didn’t say very much. Your father, bless his heart, tried to talk Mom out of it, but she was set.”

  “Then let her go,” said Cordelia, her pique barely sounding through. “Ethan can go with her. There’s not much for him here, following P
apa around.”

  “No, I can’t,” said Priscilla softly, almost as if she were speaking to herself. She scooped the little dog into her arms and snuggled him like a babe. “I can’t stay behind yet, Cord. Mother is still so angry about Daddy and still so lonely, and to be truthful... I understand her all too well.” She took another breath before speaking again. “I know she seems stiff and prudish, Cord, and I know how tiresome you must think her—”

  “I love your mother! You know I do!”

  The night’s mix of emotions seemed too much for Priscilla. It surfaced in her voice and weighed her head toward the dog in her lap. “There are days when she’s in the parlor playing the piano, or when she is up in her room sewing, and Ethan and I are both in the house, and I can almost feel that she’s content, that she’s not so lonely, if only for an instant.” Priscilla was weeping, now, but softly, and Cordelia sat on the edge of the bed again and hugged her. Teacup let out a little noise, as if he were afraid of being smothered between them. “Do I seem an awful martyr?” asked Priscilla.

  “I’ve never thought that.”

  “Did I seem one tonight when I left with her?”

  “To Mr. Moss? I don’t think it would have occurred to him.” Cordelia held Priscilla at arm’s length and tried to read her cousin’s sweet features in the half-light. “You just seemed every bit as kind as you always do.” Cordelia reached for her dress on the chair by the bed and pulled a lace handkerchief from the sleeve. “He’s quite smitten, you know.”

  Priscilla dabbed at her eyes, shrugged, and shook her head.

  “Dresden thinks so, too.”

  “I bet you told Dresden that he didn’t know a thing about it,” said Priscilla with just the hint of admonishment.

  “I didn’t, this time.” Cordelia made a face that would have been hard to read, even in the daylight. Priscilla, without her glasses, squinted at her cousin. “I do love to tease him,” said Cordelia.

  “He does love to be teased by you,” said Priscilla.

  “He’s good for it,” said Cordelia. She always acted so nonchalant about her fiancé, but Priscilla understood what depths of feeling lurked beneath the surface of her cousin’s playful humor. Cordelia was in her nightgown now, and she stretched out on the bed, propped herself up on her elbows, and said, “I do like him very much, Priscilla.”