“That’s Gwendolyn,” Beth Hopkins said. It might have been an illusion created by the firelight, but I thought the glitter in Beth’s eyes might have been caused by tears. “Gwen would have been the next harpist,” she said.
Mrs. Coleridge changed the subject quickly, overlapping her words with Beth’s. “If we are to have a tour, perhaps we should begin by showing Mr. Brewster around the house.”
Arthur Hopkins stood up. “Maybe Beth and I should leave. We have some work to do.” He went to the foot of the staircase and shouted, “Gwendolyn, your mother and I are going now. Would you like to come with us?”
The harp sounds stopped, and Gwen appeared at the top of the stairs. “No, thanks. I want to play with Joanne.”
“All right, dear,” Arthur said. “We’ll see you later.”
As Arthur and Beth Hopkins got ready to go I did some wondering. Why had the just-plain-folks atmosphere suddenly become so tense? Why wouldn’t little Gwendolyn get to be the next harpist? Why did Beth have tears in her eyes? Why didn’t Gwendolyn have to leave with her parents?
After Arthur and Beth were gone, Evelyn Coleridge showed me around her house. Verity Palmer joined the tour, leaving Mrs. Coleridge to do most of the talking but keeping me aware of her presence by staying close to me and maintaining what seemed like an unnecessary amount of physical contact.
The house was actually three houses. At the back of the ground floor was part of a seventeenth-century log cabin that was used as a sort of cold-storage room adjoining the kitchen. Two other rooms on the ground floor dated from the eighteenth century, and the facade of the house and the upper floor were built in the late 1800s.
I’ve never been much interested in the niceties of architectural design; unadorned rectangular spaces seem about all that is necessary. But I do like buildings that are intended to last, and the Coleridge house was certainly in that category. I listened politely as we walked through the main floor, but I was eager to get upstairs and see Sara’s room—which turned out to be ordinary enough except for the presence of a full-sized concert harp. But there was something extraordinary about the harp. As Mrs. Coleridge talked I plucked a few of the strings—enough to be sure that the instrument was well tuned. Sara had told me how quickly a harp falls out of tune, so I could only conclude that someone had been using it. I asked Mrs. Coleridge if she ever played it, and she told me no one had used it since Sara left. Aha!
When we got back downstairs, Verity Palmer—her right breast nudging my left arm—volunteered to take me and Joanne on a tour of the village. Joanne and her new, apparently very close friend Gwendolyn had been wandering through the house, stopping in our vicinity once in a while to be sure that no one was saying anything that might interest them. I called Joanne, and she, Gwendolyn, Verity, and I left Mrs. Coleridge temporarily and set off into the town.
Verity took my arm and led me along Golightly Street toward the cemetery. We walked slowly, and Joanne, who seemed to have forgotten that she was my daughter, skittered ahead of us with Gwendolyn.
For a few minutes neither of us spoke. As soon as we stepped into the street, I began to feel some strong, ill-defined emotions. The steep walls of the valley gave an effect that was both claustrophobic and protective. The other houses along the street were as odd in their combination of elements as was Mrs. Coleridge’s. I could see fieldstones, rough-hewn logs, clapboards, slate, bricks, and planking assembled in a variety that seemed sometimes admirably individualistic and at other times unpleasantly eccentric. The thing that all the houses seemed to have in common was a strength and character that must inevitably have affected the personalities of the people who lived in them. The buildings were meant to contain and inspire strong emotions. I couldn’t tell whether or not those emotions were likely to be constructive, but it seemed unlikely that there would be much triviality in the lives lived in these houses. I suddenly remembered Sara having said that there were places where I would have been considered a frivolous person. I was certain that Childgrave was the place she had in mind.
There was really only one street in the town. Some gravel lanes led from the street to the houses that were set back on higher ground, but these lanes were not much more than footpaths. Trees obscured parts of every building, and I could see only one or two small lawns.
Childgrave gave the effect of wilderness—a wilderness that the residents had subdued but had not overcome. This aspect of the town, like every other aspect, puzzled and unsettled me a bit. But I was becoming convinced that I wanted to learn more about it.
My little reverie had made me miss the beginning of Verity Palmer’s tour-guide remarks. As I tuned in I got the impression that her monologue was overrehearsed. She was definitely being more cynical than necessary, but she glanced about the town fondly as she spoke, and I got the feeling that she was proud of its history and that she wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. It also seemed to me that her efforts to keep me aware of her body, even though they were effective, were not important to her. It was one of the few times I had ever met anyone who had a good body and a good mind, but who didn’t seem especially interested in either. What did that leave to be interested in? There was always the soul. But that was something I didn’t know much about. Maybe Verity would tell me about it. But she began by telling me about Childgrave.
“Our village was founded in 1636 by Josiah Golightly. Josiah made the mistake of getting into an argument with the Puritans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was one of the first to notice that the government was less tolerant of religious diversity than the Church of England had been. Josiah was an individualist in his belief but was basically a Quaker. He and his wife and infant daughter were—on pain of death, and during an exceptionally severe winter—banished from the colony in the same year as Roger Williams. Roger had the foresight to head south along the coast. Josiah moved inland. He apparently wanted to get as far as he could from the colony. Either that, or he was looking for a sign of some kind.”
At that point, I began to feel a little better about Josiah. I could understand the need for a sign. I hadn’t been able to understand someone who would support his beliefs by taking to the wilderness in the winter. The strongest belief I had ever had was my belief in my love for Sara. I looked at the landscape around Childgrave. Even on a comparatively pleasant late-autumn afternoon, I wouldn’t have wanted to be out there. Would I spend even one night there for Sara? I didn’t know. But Verity’s story of the rest of Josiah’s problems made me certain that his love—or belief, or whatever—was definitely beyond my comprehension.
“Josiah got to the vicinity of this valley, when a series of blizzards engulfed him. He had no food. His wife and child died. He was near death himself, when a Mohegan Indian rescued him. Josiah Golightly settled here, and ever since then his descendants and others who shared his beliefs have lived here.”
I wasn’t going to ask Verity what those beliefs might be—at least, I wasn’t going to ask about it on a chilly street corner. But there was one thing I had to find out. “The sign on the hill says you’re a community of saints,” I said. “Is that true?”
“No. We’re a community of people who are trying to find out what it means to be saints.”
“Are you having much success?”
“Personally, do you mean?”
“I meant generally, but personal is always better. How does your sanctity rate on a scale of ten?”
“Nine.”
I managed to hold back a laugh, but a big smile got through.
“I thought you’d be amused,” Verity said. “I suppose you think a saint has to be modest and ascetic.”
“Right.”
“You’re wrong, Jonathan.”
I nodded and then realized it was a nod of irritation. Her holier-than-thou attitude was hard to take. Apparently my irritation was obvious. Verity said, “I’m sorry. You did
ask.”
“Yes. I guess what I should have asked was whether saints can marry nonsaints.”
“Saints like Sara Coleridge, you mean? Certainly. In fact, she’s already done it once.”
I’d pushed that fact out of my mind. I pushed it out again. But there was a point that I had to pursue. “Is Sara a saint?” I asked.
Verity looked at me as if I had asked whether Joan of Arc had been patriotic. “Yes, Jonathan,” she said. “Hadn’t you noticed?”
“I’d noticed several things, but not that. I guess I didn’t know where to look for it.”
“You’re a photographer. You might be too involved in exteriors.” We had stopped walking. “And speaking of exteriors, behold Childgrave’s most impressive architectural exterior.” She nodded at the building across the street from us. It was labeled The New Meeting Hall—a structure that was so immaculately maintained that its construction might have been completed only a few months ago. But the date 1651 was carved above the double front doors. It was made of rough-hewn logs, but not in the traditional log-cabin design. It resembled a cathedral more than a cabin. The front of the building was a two-story boxlike affair that was joined to a larger section, which had an extremely high, sharp-pitched roof that gave the effect of a steeple. The side walls of the larger section were buttressed with some of the fattest logs I had ever seen.
Verity invited me to look at the inside of the building, which was dark and deserted. I couldn’t decide whether the atmosphere was restful or frightening, and I began to feel some of the uneasiness I had felt on my first visit to the village. The main hall was undecorated and unheated, and it looked even bigger than it had from the outside. The room was filled with straight-backed wooden chairs that were arranged in what seemed like a random pattern. But they all faced the building’s side walls.
Verity had her arm around my waist—something that didn’t seem like a very saintly thing to do. I disengaged myself from her and said, “I gather this is where the meetings are held. What I don’t gather is what kind of meetings they are.”
“Religious meetings. Silent gatherings, in the Quaker style. Except that no one is allowed to speak.”
“No preaching or ceremonies?”
“Never any preaching. But we do have two ceremonies a year—one at Christmas and another at Easter.”
“Do you get big turnouts at the meetings?”
“Everyone turns out, Jonathan.”
“They don’t seem to turn out for anything else,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s a sunny Saturday afternoon, and we’re the only people out and about. I’d expected at least to see some joggers or shoppers.”
“I suppose we do seem quiet to someone from New York City. But then, it’s true that we’re devoted to the pleasures of the hearthside.”
I didn’t know what that meant, but Verity’s hand had joined mine in the pocket of my jacket—an experience my hand hadn’t had since its teenage days. I thought it might be safer to avoid the hearthside while in the company of the saintly Miss Palmer, so I steered her back toward the doorway. As we left the Meeting Hall, I noticed that there was a glass display case mounted on the wall. The case displayed a knife that would have been completely unremarkable except that its highly polished blade had been worn to a strange, narrow shape from years of constant honing. I paused to look at it more closely.
“That belonged to Josiah,” Verity said.
I waited for a little elaboration, but that was all my guide wanted to tell me. It bothered me a little that a knife would be displayed in a house of worship. But it was even more disturbing that the knife was obviously ready for use. I wasn’t going to ask what kind of use.
Our next stop was the cemetery, which, oddly enough, was showing more signs of life than any part of town except Mrs. Coleridge’s house. Specifically, Joanne and Gwendolyn were on the portico steps of Josiah Golightly’s enormous mausoleum. The girls were dancing and chanting. Unfortunately, they were chanting Joanne’s favorite nursery rhyme:
My mother has killed me,
My father is eating me,
My brothers and sisters sit under the table
Picking my bones,
And they bury them under the cold marble stones.
I wasn’t amused. I called out, “Joanne. Maybe we’d better start back home now.”
As I expected, I was answered with some whining: “Oh, Daddy. I’m having a good time.”
But Gwendolyn ran toward me, and Joanne followed her. When Gwendolyn got to me, she took my right hand. She looked up at me with smiling self-assurance that stopped just short of insolence. “Do you like our angel, Mr. Brewster?” she asked.
I looked up at the stone carving that stood on top of the mausoleum. I wondered who had carved it and when. Probably even a person who knew a lot more about the history of art than I did would have had trouble answering that question. The figure—much larger than life size, with wings extended upward—seemed to have been cut from a single block of smooth-grained marble. That meant that the original block had been massive. The style of the carving was a blend of sophistication and either imperfect technique or craziness. The sculptor had obviously known about ancient Rome and Renaissance Europe, but he (or she?) had also known about colonial American skull-and-wing headstones. In any case, the angel was a satisfyingly inexplicable object. As I stared at it I began to feel that something about it was familiar. Then I remembered the vague image of the angel in my Spectral Portraits. There was a definite resemblance.
Gwendolyn tugged at my hand. “Do you like our angel?”
I had forgotten about her. “Yes, dear,” I said. But my answer was only half true. I liked the angel as a piece of sculpture, but as I looked up at it I began to think of what it might represent. I remembered that when Joanne was feverish she had talked about an angel; I remembered the angel in the portraits of Joanne and Sara; and most vividly I recalled the girl dancing in the snow and singing about the Angel of Death.
I couldn’t really like the angel, no matter how beautiful it might be, when I was faced with rows of small headstones and was crouching between two young girls who were just about the right size to lie under one of the headstones. I had begun to shiver.
Joanne was gripping my arm and making a sort of Oooh-ee sound that meant her excitement had passed the point of moderation. I squatted next to Joanne and whispered in her ear: “Maybe if you go back to Mrs. Coleridge’s house, she’ll have something nice for you. And you can tell her I’ll be back soon.”
Gwendolyn leaned forward and whispered in my ear: “You should come back and take my picture. You should come back soon.” Then she took Joanne’s arm, and the two girls ran off together.
I clasped my hands behind my back and looked at Verity to see what was next on the itinerary.
“Do you want to go through the cemetery?” she asked.
I tried to hide my lack of enthusiasm. “Is there anything to see that I can’t see from here?”
“Only the inscriptions on the headstones, and they’re not especially imaginative. Names and dates.”
“Then I’ll pass,” I said, eager to get back to less disturbing ground, both literally and figuratively. I asked Verity if she knew who carved the angel and when.
“It was one of my ancestors, actually: William Palmer. He studied sculpture in Europe for a time. Then he came back to do the angel for our centennial in 1736.”
“You’ve produced some talented people: sculptors, harpists. Were any of them famous outside of Childgrave?”
“No. We’re not interested in fame.”
“Tell me again, what are you interested in? I still haven’t got that straight.”
Verity didn’t answer. We started walking back toward Mrs. Coleridge’s house.
But I still wanted to know how the people in Childgrave spent their time. I tried again. “Chief Rudd says you’re interested in grace.”
“That’s as good a way as any to describe it.”
“Does grace pay the rent?”
“We’re in a low-rent district.”
“And grace takes the place of TV sets and automobiles and schools?”
“Yes. Although we have a school. And two automobiles: Chief Rudd’s and a community van that we use to get supplies.”
“So, is Childgrave a utopia?”
“No. We do our share of suffering. But we suffer—just as we exalt—on our own terms.”
“You don’t seem much interested in the twentieth century.”
“We aren’t uninterested. But we don’t see history as a pyramid with the twentieth century at the tip. I think it’s better to see history as an expanding circle. We’re in the center of the circle, seated on a swiveling chair. Each century occupies an equal amount of space on the circumference of the circle. We are able to swivel around and select our beliefs from among those of all the centuries.”
I was sorry I had brought the subject up—if I had brought it up. I wasn’t sure I knew what Verity meant, and I didn’t feel like finding out. The day began to seem colder and darker than it had a few minutes earlier. I wanted to sit in front of Mrs. Coleridge’s fireplace for a few minutes and then get back to Manhattan and think about what I had seen and heard. Apparently my befuddlement and waning interest was fairly obvious. Verity waved her hand in front of my eyes. “I didn’t mean to bore you, Jonathan,” she said. We walked the rest of the way in silence.
When we got to the Coleridge house, Verity didn’t bother to use the knocker but opened the door and led me into the dark foyer.
Childgrave Page 21
