The Hearth and Eagle

by Anya Seton

  “Did you?” Hesper answered indifferently. “I never could abide that man.”

  “And why not? I’d like to know.” Susan whirled and advanced on her daughter. “He’s not bad looking, he does a lot for the town an’ our soldiers, an’ he speaks real civil.”

  “Shoe man,” said Hesper with a lift of her lip. “Foreigner. Johnnie—Johnnie always said those shoe factories ruined the town, ruined the fishing.

  Susan’s green eyes snapped, but she controlled herself. “Shoemaking saved the town. We’d’ve starved without it. The Embargo, back in my pa’s time ruined the fishing. Gale of ’46 that took Tom and Willy and most of our fleet ruined the fishing. This war’s ruined the fishing—not shoes.”

  Hesper, startled not by her mother’s vehemence, but by the length of her rebuttal, tossed her head. “Well, anyhow—I don’t like Amos Porterman.”

  “That’s too bad,” said Susan turning her back again and picking up the gruel, “because he’s coming here this afternoon.”

  “Whatever for—Ma? You mean to the taproom?”

  “Taproom’s closed and not likely to open. Mr. Porterman’s coming here to tea because I asked him to.” She paused at the door of the kitchen bedroom where Roger lay temporarily. “If we want to eat, Hes, I reckon we’ll have to learn how to make shoes.” She shut the door behind her.

  Hesper collapsed on the settle, staring at the shut door. Irritation at her mother eclipsed everything else. How like Ma to spring a thing like that without warning. Bossy she was, always deciding things in herself and then telling people what they were supposed to do.

  Things couldn’t be as bad as all that. Money was tight, was for everybody. But the Inn had always brought in enough. Would still if Ma hadn’t been so persnickety about the garrison boys.

  But Hesper’s resentment, as always, was tempered by her strong sense of justice, for Ma was a good manager, and she had doubtless done the best she could. Hesper frowned and thought back. The taproom doorbell hardly ever tinkled lately, and long ago they’d stopped serving the beans and fishcakes or flapjacks customers used to ask for. Hesper hadn’t paid much attention, except for a vague recognition that here was another evidence of this hateful war. Lately nothing had seemed very important except keeping busy. She’d been out a good deal. Meetings at the Soldiers Aid, sewing with the older women at the Arbutus Club, even a little church work, because all the other girls did it. The Reverend Allen had been nice enough and welcomed her to Wednesday prayer meeting, never referring to the way she’d acted that day he came to comfort her. It made her hot now to think of it. But she didn’t want to think of it or anything about Johnnie. That seemed a long time ago, and only sometimes at night when she listened to the wind and the rhythmic crash of the waves on Front Street did the old intolerable pain rush at her.

  The bell jangled and Hesper jumped. Susan came out of the kitchen bedroom. “That’ll be Mr. Porterman. Take off your apron and let him in. I’ve laid a fire in the parlor. Mind your manners,” Susan added, seeing resistance in the girl’s face.

  Hesper compressed her lips. “You might have told me sooner. You always treat me like a child.”

  Amos Porterman was a very large man, six foot two and proportionately heavy, and in his fawn-colored greatcoat he filled the little entry. Hesper stepped back into the taproom, feeling dwarfed for all her own height and resenting this, as she was prepared to resent everything about him.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Honeywood—” he said, bowing. His gray-blue eyes expressed a courteous interest, but in his deep voice she detected a note of patronage.

  She stood stiffly by the door. “Afternoon. Ma’s expecting you. We’ll go through to the parlor.”

  In the empty taproom, she waited, unsmiling, for him to take off his outer things and place them on a chair, while she noted the ruby-eyed owl stickpin in his glossy satin cravat, the newness of his gray broadcloth suit, the massive gold watch chain which glinted across his striped waistcoat. The shoemen had plenty of money.

  She led the way to the chilly parlor, reached to the mantel for a match.

  “Permit me—” said Amos, taking the match from her. She drew back, watching him bend his bulk down to the small fireplace. There was something lumbering about him, she thought with satisfaction. Before the war a man had come to Marblehead with trained animals, little dogs in ruffs, and a bear that shuffled in time to his master’s jew’s harp. Mr. Porterman was like that bear dressed up, except his face. That was oblong, squared at the jaw, and again on the high forehead where it met his flaxen hair. He was clean-shaven, and when he raised his face, flushed from bending over, it occurred to her that he was not as old as she had thought. She had never, since the day they’d helped the slave girl and he came to inquire for rooms, had a good look at him without his hat. She had thought his hair grayish, but she saw now that it was a pale and ashy blond.

  The fire crackled and glinted off Susan’s brass andirons. “Thanks,” said Hesper dryly and sat down on one of the knobby crewel-work chairs. Amos took the other and it creaked as he settled himself. He cleared his throat but did not speak. He was astonished by the hostility he saw in the girl whom he barely remembered. She seemed unwilling to talk or even look at him; instead she held her head turned and seemed to be contemplating the story of Jonah and the whale which ran in blue and white tiles around the fireplace. The long-unused parlor was dank, it smelled of mustiness and the camphor Susan kept under the cabbage rose carpeting.

  Amos cleared his throat again and crossed his legs. “Is your mother coming soon?” He spoke with a mixture of amusement and irritation. This visit had been none of his doing. Mrs. Honeywood had shown such urgency in inviting him that he had canceled his late afternoon appointments at the factory. He respected Mrs. Honeywood, knew her to be a worthy woman, and was quite willing to help her out, since she had indicated a desire for work. But the girl made him feel like a clumsy intruder.

  Hesper stood up again in answer to his question. “I’ll go see. I guess she’s fixing the tea things.” She went out.

  Amos raised his bushy blond eyebrows, and reached in his pocket for a cigar. Couldn’t light it in a parlor, but he held it between his teeth, chewing pleasurably. Queer girl, that. Bad disposition that was supposed to go with red hair too, apparently. But he didn’t understand her being so uncordial. He had a forthright and orderly mind, and he cast about for a reason. Suddenly he remembered meeting her with that young Peach boy a couple of years ago. They’d been walking down Front Street hand in hand, and he had thought how young and happy they looked.

  Amos nodded to himself, and spat into the fire. Maybe that explained it. Young John Peach’s father had been one of the strike leaders in the trouble of 1860. He remembered the black-browed vehement little man, swinging a placard and protesting the wage cut. That had been a bad time for all the shoe manufacturers in Marblehead and the thing had spread to Lynn. But we had to cut costs, Amos thought, couldn’t help ourselves.

  After a while most of the strikers had seen reason and gone back to work in their little shoe shops, skiving and slicking the soles at home before delivering them at the factory to be fitted to the uppers.

  But Peach had held a grudge. That was the worst of those old Marbleheaders, always balky, no matter how badly they needed money.

  Amos thought again of Hesper and this time with some sympathy. Poor girl, no doubt she’d loved that tousle-headed young fisherman. Love and lose—His thoughts turned to his own loss. It had been some time since he thought of Lily Rose, and he could no longer see her face. In memory she appeared as a series of luminous concepts, white and pink and flowery like her name, pale gold and blurred at the edges. The smell of lilies on her coffin, the lavender scent of her frilly pillows, but mingled with those scents too, the thin, bitter odor of the medicine she used to take. Her smile that was piteous and appealing, brave in the midst of her suffering; yet it had often chilled him.

  She had guarded herself with that brave smile, hold
ing him away from her fragile body. He had loved her very much at first and indulged and petted her, proud of her delicacy, and willing to restrain his own grossness, and yet he had not always believed in her sufferings.

  And then, almost a year ago, she suddenly died. And he had felt sharp remorse, regretting each time he had been impatient with her, each time when he had stalked from the house and taken a train for Boston to visit a certain discreet brownstone house on lower Boylston Street.

  Well, but a man needed a woman at times, he thought, sighing, and he was only thirty-two now. Lately he’d been thinking of marrying again, when it was decent to. Maybe some lively pretty girl like Charity Trevercombe, good family, and a hot little thing by the look of her, not like poor Lily Rose. Charity had a parcel of followers, but he’d walked her home from a lecture at the Lyceum and her big eyes had been inviting; she cuddled all the way against his arm.

  At any rate, he thought, frowning, marriage or not, maybe he’d have to move from Leah Cubby’s. There’d been a change since Lily Rose died. It was a nuisance, because Leah’d always made him comfortable, and he didn’t want to move until he had the house built he was planning on Pleasant Street. But lately he had been much more aware of her—the graceful indolence of her movements and the slumberous, troubling lights in her huge dark eyes. Then there was that strange incident two nights ago. He moved uneasily—remembering it.

  He’d been asleep when a sound in his room startled him broad awake. In the darkness he couldn’t see, and he’d lit a candle. Leah was standing silent and motionless in the middle of the floor, wearing a thin white nightgown, and a white veil bound around her head and falling down her shoulders beneath two long black braids.

  She looked extraordinarily beautiful, and uncanny, standing there without moving, her wide-open eyes fixed to a point just above his head.

  “What d’you want, Leah!” he had cried, feeling his flesh creep, and yet he had not been able to help staring at the lovely outline of her breasts and hips through the gown, and he realized that he had never called her by her first name before.

  She had not answered. Her eyes lowered and fixed themselves on him with an expression of puzzled yearning, and her full red lips trembled. Then suddenly she turned and glided from the room, shutting the door which he jumped up and locked. She’d been sleepwalking, of course, but the whole business was disturbing. That had looked mighty like a bridal veil on her head, and one might laugh at the episode, except that there was a dignity about Leah which precluded laughter.

  The next morning she had been much as usual, quiet and selfcontained. Nat, that precious son of hers, had sat at breakfast watching his mother with the peculiar inscrutable look he often gave her. But to Amos, Nat had been unusually amiable. Had actually asked for a job in the factory, which Amos had been glad to arrange. Nat was an intelligent man for all his grouchy silences, and he couldn’t make much out of fishing, any more. So it was a natural enough request and Amos had started him right off in the stock room, where he caught on fast, the foreman said. Nat was sensible, anyway, Amos thought with approval, closing his mind to the thought of Leah. Thing to do was forget that episode, blot out the disturbing memory of her as a voluptuous woman, re-establish the old relationship when she had been merely Mrs. Cubby. My Lord, thought Amos, suddenly impatient with himself, the woman has a grown son, and the whole thing is ridiculous.

  He heard approaching footsteps, at last, and put his chewed cigar back in his pocket.

  The parlor door was flung wide and Susan bustled in carrying a tin tray loaded with the best tea set of creamy Liverpool ware. It had belonged to Roger’s mother, Mary Ellis, and since her death had been kept in the china closet and used but a dozen times.

  Hesper followed her mother, bearing Moses Honeywood’s gilded Sevres platter heaped with the flaky doughnuts Susan had been frying.

  All this fuss for Mr. Porterman! The best tea cloth, the six rat-tail silver spoons, exhumed from their plush case in the attic, the last of the India tea. And indeed Susan could not have put into words the two reasons for doing Mr. Porterman extreme honor. The first was pride, Susan had never asked a favor in her life, this tea ceremony was for advance payment, propitiation, and self-respect. The other reason was maternal and not quite recognized. Mr. Porterman was now a wealthy widower.

  As they seated themselves around the tea table, Susan darted her daughter a look of exasperation. The girl wouldn’t talk, she was clumsy about passing the cups, her hands on the cream-colored ware looked large and red. .

  Amos quite shared her opinion. He thought Hesper unattractive. Her brown cashmere dress was shabby, a wisp of that unfortunate red hair had strayed from her net, and her feet—scuffed black brogans, size six at least, not from us—Harris & Sons “Boy’s special,” probably, he thought with distaste.

  He brought his eyes quickly back to Susan. “Fine doughnuts, Mrs. Honeywood. Delicious tea.” He was not much of a one for small talk but he was sorry for Mrs. Honeywood, who looked anxious, her fat cheeks as flushed as her daughter’s were pale.

  “Maybe you’d’ve liked something stronger than tea, Mr. Porterman,” said Susan, poking the doughnuts at him again with a nervous smile, “but the truth is I’ve nothing left but some cider that’s worked too far. Seems funny for a tavern.”

  Amos accepted another doughnut which he did not want. “Yes ma’am, times’re mighty hard.”

  Hesper, who had seen Amos’ disapproving appraisal of her, suddenly turned her head. “Not for you shoemen,” she said acidly, “and those who aren’t fighting.”

  Her mother’s nostrils flared, and she dropped the lid of the sugar bowl on the carpet. “Hesper!”

  Amos flushed, he leaned over and picked up the lid. This was a completely unfair attack. He had responded lavishly to every patriotic appeal for funds, and none of the other shoe manufacturers had enlisted, nor were they desired to. “I have many government contracts to fulfill, Miss Honeywood. Our army needs shoes,” he said with restrained anger.

  Hesper murmured an apology and subsided, ashamed of herself. Ma wouldn’t be catering to this man if she didn’t have to. Lord, I wish I was a man, she thought. A dull misery weighted her stomach. She put the half-eaten doughnut on her plate. Ma and Mr. Porterman were talking.

  Her eyes wandered to the east window of the parlor; through the looped lace curtains she could just catch a glimpse of the lighthouse and the ocean beyond. If I was a man I’d. be out there, war or no war—I’d own my own schooner and skipper her myself. I’d wrest a living from the sea, the way Marbleheaders always used to, the way they were meant to from the beginning. Pa knew that though he hadn’t practiced it. That was the way his “Memorabilia” began:

  Marblehead denizens ever must be

  Nurtured and soothed by their Mother, the Sea.

  But I’m not a man, and I’m too old for foolish daydreams. Twenty-two. Day by day goes by and nothing changes, nothing but we get poorer—and the war. I guess I should read the Bible more. Get more comfort out of religion. If you really find God they say you don’t hanker for anything else.

  “Stop wool-gathering, Hes! Listen to Mr. Porterman.”

  Hesper came back with a jump. “Sorry, what did you say?”

  Amos looked grimly patient. He had forgiven the girl’s rudeness, for while he had been talking with the mother, he had glanced at Hesper’s averted face and caught on it an unguarded expression of wistful unhappiness. But his mouth was set and his blue eyes were grave. For this was business, and of no great advantage to him either. To be sure, the war had taken the best factory hands, and he needed more, but unskilled women were a dubious asset.

  “I was explaining to your mother that I’m putting in the new McKay machines, so we’ve mighty little work to give out at home any more. I might find some special orders for Mrs. Honeywood to hand-finish, but if you want a job, you’d best work in the factory. In the stitching room.”

  Certainly he had caught Hesper’s attention at last, and she s
tared at him with horrified dismay.

  She had never imagined factory work. That was only for foreign women who’d moved to Marblehead and settled in the new cottages the shoemen had built way up town on Reed’s Hill.

  Marblehead women who worked on shoes had always done it at home, stitching and binding the uppers while the men gathered sociably in the little backyard shoe shops to last and finish.

  But the factory! She thought of the Porterman building on School Street, past the depot in the new part of town. A dingy four-story frame building. She’d passed it the other day and looked in the windows. It was dark inside except for the smoky flare of a few kerosene oil lamps. There was a rasping clatter and whir of machinery, and she had seen a couple of pasty-faced girls listlessly stepping on treadles. She had felt for them a pitying contempt, caged in there over twelve hours every day but Sunday. No air, no sun, and no freedom.

  “I couldn't work in the factory, Mr. Porterman,” she said very low, adding in a choked voice, “Ma—please. I didn’t know we were as bad off as all that, I’ll do anything else.”

  Amos was dumbfounded to see that the hazel eyes shimmered with tears, and that the strong, clear-boned face had crumpled into frightened appeal. Dammit, he thought, what is the matter with the girl? I can’t stand tears. They all know that, damn ’em.

  He rose hastily. “My dear young lady, don’t distress yourself. I guess I can find work for you both to do at home. Report to my foreman Monday morning. Thanks for the tea, Mrs. Honeywood.”

  He got out as fast as possible and swung down Franklin Street in great exasperated strides. That girl acted as though working in his factory was tantamount to a jail sentence. If I hadn’t been sorry for the mother I’d have washed my hands of them then and there. Snob, that’s what that Hesper is, thinks she’s too good to be a factory hand. Lot more aristocratic to run an Inn, I suppose—starving in a tumbledown old shack. “Shoemen,” she said, the way you’d say “cockroaches.” He gave an angry laugh. Of course that’s a very lowly occupation compared to rolling around in the bilges with a lot of dead fish.