The Hearth and Eagle

by Anya Seton

  So Marblehead after its brief and fruitless compromise with industrialism had reverted to making a living from the sea again. Not the way it used to be, though, not like the fishing fleet, with Marbleheaders working for themselves. This was the sea at one remove, purveying for and tending other people’s pleasure craft. But there was no use resenting it, or despising the yachtsmen who had pulled them out of economic distress, as once she had despised the shoemen who had saved them all from starvation when the fishing declined. “Face up to things” and accept them, as Ma had always said. And the town itself had not changed, not intrinsically. My house hasn’t changed, she thought. Whatdeep comfort that growing realization had given her through the years. There were minor changes, of course, the new kitchen and the two bathrooms upstairs, but its structure and its essence had not changed. And it seemed incredible to her that she had during so much of her youth been deaf to the beauty of its sustaining voice.

  The banjo clock coughed and finally struck once. Hesper glanced at it absently. Five-thirty. They’d not be here yet awhile unless Henry had a sight better luck than usual with the automobile. Tires forever popping and the road was muddy out of Swampscott.

  She went to the woodbox, picked out a large log, and threw it on the fire. Praise be, I’m near as strong as I ever was. Not run to fat like Ma’s people. When she sat down again she was conscious of the leanness and vitality of her erect body under the black watered silk. Her hair was still abundant and just as hard to manage. It had turned very quickly after Amos’s death to the translucent pearl-white peculiar to auburn hair, but her eyebrows had not turned, and the heavy dark brows gave an impression of youth, which occasionally astonished her when she remembered to look in the mirror.

  She had looked this afternoon, coiling her hair into a loose bun against a little jet comb, and putting on a high-boned embroidered net collar that made angry little welts on her throat, because Carla liked to see her dressed in Sunday best. Bless the child, she thought, how I wish Amos could have seen her. Though he’d never said so, she knew how much he too had wanted a daughter. He would have adored this grandchild—if Eleanor would have let him.

  She shook her head and smiled. Trust Henry to get himself a wife like that; exactly what he must have had in mind since he was old enough to wear long pants.

  Eleanor’s father was Carl Willoughby Norton, Third, and he was one of the first to build himself a summer palace on the Neck. That was in ’81, the year they opened the Eastern Yacht Club, and Mr. Norton was as zealous a sailor as anyone, thanks to a two-hundred-foot steam yacht, an English captain, and a crew of eight. Mr. Norton and his elegant Eleanor never actually did anything on board but sit in wicker chairs on the after deck under a striped awning, and chat with privileged guests.

  “Lord, Henry—” Hesper had burst out once while he was courting Eleanor. “How can you stand mudgeting around all day on your backside in that floating teakettle—and you a Marbleheader! Why don’t you take that girl out in an honest sloop or even a dory—give her a real taste of the sea?”

  Henry had looked patient. “Eleanor wouldn’t care for it, Mother. Nor do I consider myself a typical Marbleheader. At least I don’t intend to get stuck in this backwater all my life. Look at poor Father.” He hadn’t meant to be unkind; he simply stated facts, and of course he was right. After Amos’s bankruptcy Henry had lived at the Hearth and Eagle, because he’d had to. But he never joined any of the boys’ gangs. She’d never had to wash his mouth out with soap for saying “Whip” and other dirty words as she had Walt’s. He’d never filched cod splits off the flakes, and there still were a few flakes when he was little. He’d never played hooky, like Walt. No, he’d forged quietly ahead in his studies, top of his class at the Academy, got himself a scholarship to Harvard and graduated summa cum laude. After that he had had no trouble in finding an excellent financial job in Boston. And then in ’95 he had married Eleanor.

  The memory of that wedding tickled Hesper now, though she’d been mad as fire at the time. As you got older it took a mighty bad thing to seem tragic, or even exasperating; more and more you learned you couldn’t run life or even people, just sit back and be amused.

  Eleanor had had herself a regular tidderi-i of a wedding. No mother to guide her, but her father had imported some sort of aunt, and anyway Eleanor did all right by herself. “Braeburn,” the thirty-room turreted mansion on the Neck, had been swaddled in flowers sent up from Boston. Even the yacht had had white streamers on her, and Japanese lanterns. She steamed in from Boston the day before stuffed with wedding guests up to her plate glass and engraved brass port holes.

  The ceremony took place in Marblehead in Saint Michael’s little church on Frog Lane. The Nortons were Episcopalians, and Eleanor thought the church just too quaint and dear for words. Eleanor thought lots of things about Marblehead were quaint, including the Hearth and Eagle, and it developed at the wedding—her mother-in-law.

  Hesper had been sitting with Walt behind a rose-festooned pillar during the reception at “Braeburn” when she heard Eleanor’s high clear voice explaining things to some of her young cousins from Providence. “Daddy was quite horrified at first at the idea of my marrying—well, you know, a ‘native.’ But Henry’s such a dear, Harvard, of course, and after all they are a very old family. The Honeywoods actually came over with the Winthrop fleet. Why, that’s before the Nortons came even. They’ve got the sweetest old house over in the town. Too romantic. I’m dying to get my hands on it, but Mother Porterman—”

  Here the voice was lowered a trifle. “Well, you saw her in the receiving line. Quite a character. Honestly, I tried to get her a different hat. But you know she’s practically never been out of Marblehead. Can you imagine? Live on year after year in the same place, nothing ever happening. But my Henry’s not like that.”

  The bride broke off and blew a kiss to her husband. He smiled gravely at her across the heads of the milling guests, and Hesper’s annoyance had subsided. In their own way they were in love with each other. And she could and had forgiven much to Eleanor because she had somehow managed to produce Carla.

  I mustn’t be a fool about that child, thought Hesper. She jumped up from the rocker, went into the new kitchen, and lit the gas stove. They should be here any minute now, and Eleanor would want tea. Henry and Eleanor were tea drinkers, she and Walt were coffee drinkers, and that’s the way it was right through.

  The water was boiling, it boiled mighty quick on gas, when she heard the excited honks and roaring of gears approaching down Franklin Street.

  She turned the gas low, hung up her apron, and hurried out the kitchen door and down the path. The wind whistled through the remaining leaves on the huge chestnut tree, and instinctively she noted the crash of mounting breakers on the Front.

  The great yellow Packard touring car, liberally besplashed with mud, drew to a wheezy stop before the gate. The headlights flickered and dimmed. The chauffeur and Henry clambered down from the front seat, and opened the door for Eleanor. All three figures were shapeless in flapping dust coats, and the pink chiffon veil which anchored Eleanor’s hat streamed back in the wind and for a moment covered the small figure which followed her. But Carla had seen, and ducking under her mother’s arm she flew at Hesper, crying “Mamie—Marnie, we’ve come!” And for a moment, before Eleanor came up to them, Hesper held the child tight to her breast.

  “How d’you do, Mother Porterman,” said Eleanor, bestowing a touch of the lips on Hesper’s cheek. “We’ve had an excruciating trip, wind and mud, all the way. Henry, I do think something should be done about the roads. Can’t you speak to the senator? Carla, do be still, dear, you’ll deafen your grandmother if you squeal like that.”

  Carla, who had been trying to tell Hesper all in one breath about the two puppies they had seen in Lynn, instantly became quiet. Mama and Mademoiselle taught obedience; Marnie did too, but it was different. And Mama didn’t like her to use that baby name of Marnie, for grandma. I won’t forget again while Ma
ma’s here, she thought. Poor Mama, she had a lot to worry her. It was a dreadful bother getting off on a trip to Europe, and Granpa sick in Brookline, besides.

  Carla drew back, waiting while Papa greeted Marnie, and the chauffeur staggered up the path bearing a load of valises.

  The child’s blue eyes danced with greeting to the dear familiar place. The horse-chestnut tree—she strained her eyes through the twilight to see if the tree house was still there, way up high. She sniffed the salt wind and licked her pink lips. Surely that was spray blowing in. She looked with love at the humpbacked old house, crouching like a camel with its ears back, blown by the wind.

  She followed her elders inside. They went in the ceremonial front door and entered the parlor. Carla sniffed again voluptuously; every room here had its special smell, and all of them pleasing, though she found the parlor the least exciting smell in the house. It smelled of gas and brass polish and the lavender sprigs Marnie kept in a green speckled jar on top of the what-not. There were many old friends to be greeted here. The spinet with split yellow keys would give out a cracked tinkle when Marnie let her play on it. And there were queer things on the what-not, little carvings on pieces of bone and wood. Scrimshaw they were called. Honeywood men had made them on trips to the Grand Banks.

  On the center table, resting on the fringed plush throw, there was the fat Bible, and fatter album with its curly silver clasp. The album wasn’t very interesting. Except for two pictures of Marnie when she was young, everybody looked alike. Marnie laughed and said that was because they were mostly Dollibers. Far more exciting was the stereopticon and its box full of faded twin views; Niagara Falls, the Great Pyramids, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Carla had seen the real leaning tower last year with Mademoiselle, on the summer trip to Europe. And she had been disappointed. It was more vivid, more magic, in Mamie’s stereopticon view.

  Mama and Papa and Marnie were all sitting by the little tea table near the fire so she couldn’t crowd in to greet the blue and white Bible story tiles that ran around the fireplace. Jonah and a funny-looking whale like a pug dog. Jael hammering a spike like a pencil into Sisera’s head, the spike dripping with blue blood. Marnie had told her all the stories, but Mama did not approve of the bloody ones. Carla had always known and accepted the knowledge that there were lots of things Mama and Papa did not approve of about the Hearth and Eagle, and Marnie. They didn’t say so, of course, but you could feel it. Like Mama’s voice now. The voice she used when she was trying to be patient.

  “Thank you for the tea, Mother Porterman. It’s most refreshing. Your—uh—guests have all gone?”

  Marnie nodded briskly. “Cleared ’em all out today. The Front Room and the Yellow Room ’re redded up and waiting for you.”

  Mama and Papa never slept in the same room.

  Papa put down his teacup, and frowned a little bit. “I do wish you wouldn’t keep boarders, Mother. You know perfectly well it isn’t necessary. If you’d only let me—”

  Marnie gave a funny little laugh and made a face almost like one Carla herself would have made. “Oh, I know, Henry, you’re both very generous. But they’re company for me, and I like to keep busy.”

  Mama’s pretty mouth tightened, she put her teacup down too. “But how you can stand a houseful of strangers—in your own home. It seems so—you’re so individualistic too, so proud of the old place—I can’t understand the psychology—”

  Mama always used long words when she was mad, they floored most people, but Marnie didn’t turn a hair.

  “Well, you know, Eleanor,” she said mildly, “this house has always been an Inn. I like to share it.”

  Mama and Papa looked at each other, and Papa shrugged his shoulders. But Mama never gave up easily. “Apart from everything else,” she said, “there are some incredibly valuable heirlooms in this house. I should think you’d have to consider damage or loss from strangers. Of course a lot of the stuff is hodgepodge, but when I get back from Europe, I wish you’d at least let me weed out the old, really good pieces and—”

  “Do what?” asked Marnie.

  Mama flushed up under her powder. Carla remembered hearing her tell Papa how well that marvelous carved Jacobean chest would look on the stair landing at Brookline. That was Phebe’s bride chest. But Mama didn’t mention the chest, she said—“Why, the Massachusetts Historical would be enchanted to display them, care for them properly.”

  “I dare say.” Marnie smiled but her eyes looked sharp and green. “Lately lots of people have come moseying around. They want to put a historical plaque on the house, and I guess that’s all right. But this is my home, it’s not a spectacle. And as for what you call the ‘valuable heirlooms,’ they weren’t built to be heirlooms, they were built for use. They belonged to real people, not a museum. Just because two, three hundred years have gone by, doesn’t change that any. Far as I’m concerned they’ll stay in use and wear out too if they’ve a mind to, right here where they belong.”

  Carla’s heart swelled with a passionate conviction. Marnie was right. There was happiness in belonging. The queer old house, and all the things in it, new and old, and the rocks and the sea and the town outside, all belonged together. And that was safe and right. Troubles never seemed so bad here. Like two years ago when she was visiting here and the kitten died. The whole house had seemed to hold her close, the way Marnie did, whispering and comforting.

  You couldn’t feel that in the Brookline house, or “Braeburn,” or in hotels or boats. They all had a hurrying feel to get somewhere else.

  “Well—” said Papa, smiling a little. “I guess that’s that. You can’t change the Marblehead mind, Eleanor. Mother, isn’t Walt back yet? I thought we’d all go up to the Rockmere for dinner. Save you the trouble of cooking, since you seem to be servantless as usual.”

  Marnie sighed and began to stack the tea things on the tray. “I let Dilly go home to Clifton for a holiday. I had fixed supper for us, but it’ll keep. I don’t know when Wait’ll be in. He went out in his boat over to Chapel Ledge to look at the traps. But it’s blowing up pretty bad. He should be back.”

  “And doubtless smelling most charmingly of fish and alcohol,” said Mama, laughing. She didn’t like Uncle Walt at all, and she sometimes told Papa about it. “Henry, really my worst enemy couldn’t call me a snob; it isn’t that your brother is a lobster fisherman, but he looks so uncouth, his clothes—and he swears so. I was terribly mortified when the servants told me he’d turned up drunk at the back door of ‘Braeburn’ peddling his lobsters in a wheelbarrow.”

  Papa had been cross too, but Carla knew very well Uncle Walt had done that for a kind of joke. He was very shaggy and big, and unless he was mad he didn’t say much, but sometimes he did funny things and chuckled to himself.

  “Help your grandmother with the tea things, dear,” said Mama, folding up her pink veil and picking up her gloves and pocketbook. “Papa and I are going upstairs to freshen up for dinner.”

  Carla asked nothing better. She followed Hesper through the back passage to the old kitchen, and here it smelled as it always did of burning pine logs, and baking beans and gingerbread. “Oh, Marnie—” she cried with delight. “You’re using the old brick oven!”

  Hesper smiled, a trifle rueful. “I guess it’s silly, when the gas is so quick, but beans are no good at all with gas, and—it’s a lot of work, but sometimes I like to cook in here still.”

  “I love it—” said the child, “and you didn’t forget the candles! Can I light ’em?” This was a private and recurrent ceremony on first nights of Carla’s visits. Hesper had placed beeswax candles in the pewter wall sconces and the branched Sheffield candelabra that stood on the oak dresser.

  She turned off the gas jet, while the child, chewing her lips with concentration, lit the candles. “Now—” she said with a happy sigh. “Isn’t that the way it was when you were little?”

  “Not always. Candles cost a lot and were awful tiresome to make. Mostly we had an oil lamp right there on the t
able, or just the firelight.”

  Carla looked at the table and nodded. She sat down on the threelegged stool just within the great fireplace. Carla’s stool, but once it had been Hesper’s stool, and before that Roger’s.

  The child looked up, her gentian eyes expectant under the wings of soft brown curls held back by blue butterfly bows. “Tell again the stories your father told you—about the pirate’s cutlass mark on that table, and Phebe’s andirons.”

  “Not now, dear. We’ll have plenty of time for that. Wash these.cups for me, and mind the handles, they break easy.”

  Lord, how many times Ma said that to me, thought Hesper. But I didn’t care then, the way this child does. A violent gust of wind shook the house, and whistled down the chimney scattering fine ash on the hearth. I wish Walt would get back, it’s the line storm for sure. Suddenly fear touched her, and she leaned against the sink, chiding herself.

  Walt was an expert boatsman, he’d been out in dozens of storms. His broad-beamed catboat was staunchly seaworthy and the auxiliary engine brand new. There was no excuse for this foreboding.

  “What is it, Marnie?” asked the child, watching. “You look sort of scared.”

  “Nonsense!” Hesper snapped, turning sharply. She saw Carla’s face fall in hurt bewilderment. Why, that snappishness was like Ma, too. She put her hand under Carla’s chin and kissed her. “I didn’t mean to be grouty, dear. Somehow this night makes me remember one long, long ago when I was half your age. There was a great storm, a hurricane I think it must have been. My mother was terribly worried.” “What happened?” The child looked up at her, big-eyed, as little Hesper had on that far past night, quick to grasp the communicated fear.

  “Oh, nothing much happened here at all,” said Hesper briskly. “It was fun in a way, the waves came over Front Street right to the house.”

  “Would they again?” Carla tried to picture the harbor waters escaped from their proper place, rioting and tossing outside the door.