Northern Light (9780547542881)

by Donnelly, Jennifer

  "A true gift, Mattie," she'd said. "A rare one."

  And ever since, because of the two of them, Weaver and Miss Wilcox both, I am wanting things I have no business wanting, and what they call a gift seems to me more like a burden.

  "Mattie...," Weaver said, still dropping fiddleheads into his bucket.

  I did not answer him. I did not bother to straighten or look at him. I tried not to think about what he'd said.

  "Mattie, what's your word of the day?"

  I flapped a hand at him.

  "Come on, what is it?"

  "Abecedarian," I said quietly.

  "What's it mean?"

  "Weaver, she don't want to talk to you. Nobody does."

  "Be quiet, Minnie."

  He walked up to me and took my bucket away. I had to look at him then. I saw that his eyes said he was sorry even if his mouth wouldn't.

  "What's it mean?"

  "As a noun, someone who's learning the alphabet. A beginner. A novice. As an adjective, rudimentary or primary."

  "Use it in a sentence."

  "Weaver Smith should abandon his abecedarian efforts at eloquence, say uncle, and admit that Mathilda Gokey is the superior word duelist."

  Weaver smiled. He put both pails down. "Draw," he said.

  Mattie, what in blazes are you doing?"

  Its Cook. She startles me so I nearly jump out of my shoes. "Nothing, ma'am," I stammer, slamming the cellar door shut. "I ... I ... was just—"

  "That ice cream done?"

  "Very nearly, ma'am."

  "Don't ma'am me to death. And don't let me see you up out of that chair again until your work's done."

  Cook is snappish. More so than usual. We all are. Help and guests alike. Snappish and sad. Except old Mrs. Ellis, who is furious and feels she's entitled to a refund because the dead body in the parlor is interfering with her enjoyment of the day.

  I walk back to the ice-cream churn and feel Grace Brown's letters hanging heavy in my skirt pocket. Why did Cook have to come back into the kitchen just then? Two more seconds and I would've been down the cellar stairs and in front of the huge coal furnace. The Glenmore is a modern hotel with gaslights in every room and a gas stove in the kitchen, but the furnace, which heats all the water the hotel uses, burns coal. The letters would have caught immediately. I could have been done with them.

  And ever since Grace Brown handed them to me, I have sorely wanted to be done with them. She gave them to me yesterday afternoon on the porch, after I'd brought her a lemonade. I'd felt sorry for her; I could tell she'd been crying. I knew why, too. She'd had a fight with her beau at dinner. It was over a chapel. She wanted to go and find a chapel, but he wanted to go boating.

  She'd refused the drink at first, saying she couldn't pay for it, but I said she didn't have to, figuring what Mrs. Morrison didn't know wouldn't hurt her. And then, just as I was turning to go back inside, she asked me to wait. She opened her gentleman friend's suitcase and pulled a bundle of letters from it. She took a few more from her purse, undid the ribbon around them, tied all the letters together, and asked me to burn them.

  I was so taken aback by her request, I wasn't able to answer. Guests wanted all sorts of strange things. Omelettes with two and a half eggs. Not two, not three—two and a half. Maple syrup for their baked potatoes. Blueberry muffins without any blueberries in them. Trout for supper as long as it didn't taste like fish. I did all that they asked of me with a smile, but no one had ever asked me to burn letters, and I couldn't imagine explaining it to Cook.

  "Miss, I can't—," I'd started to say.

  She took hold of my arm. "Burn them. Please," she whispered. "Promise me you will. No one can ever see them. Please!"

  And then she pressed them into my hands, and her eyes were so wild that they scared me, and I quickly nodded yes. "Of course I will, miss. I'll do it right away."

  And then he—Carl or Chester or whatever he called himself—shouted to her from the lawn, "Billy, you coming? I got a boat!"

  I'd put the letters in my pocket and forgot all about them until I went upstairs later in the day to change into a fresh apron. I slipped them under my mattress, figuring I would wait to burn them, just in case Grace Brown changed her mind and asked for them back. Guests could be like that. They'd get cross with you for bringing them the butterscotch pudding they'd ordered, because now they wanted chocolate. And somehow it was your fault if their shirts were too stiff after they'd asked for extra starch. I didn't want Grace Brown complaining to Mrs. Morrison that I'd burned her letters when she hadn't meant me to, but Grace hadn't changed her mind. Or complained. And now she never would.

  I'd run upstairs to get the letters right after Graces body was brought in, and I'd been waiting ever since for Cook to turn her back. It was nearly five now. We'd be serving supper in another hour, and I knew I wouldn't have the time to run down cellar even if I did get the chance.

  The door from the dining room swings open and Frannie Hill marches in, an empty tray on her shoulder. "Lord! I don't see how sitting on your backside watching an illustrated lecture about castles in France can make people so hungry," she says. "It's just boring old slides in a lantern and somebody holding forth."

  "I must have put six dozen cookies on that tray. They et 'em all?" Cook asks her.

  "And drank two pots of coffee, a jug of lemonade, and a pot of tea. And now they're clamoring for more."

  "Nerves," Cook says. "People eat too much when they're nervy."

  "Watch out for table six, Matt. He's at it again," Fran whispers as she passes by. That's our name for Mr. Maxwell, a guest who always takes table six in the dining room because it's in a dark corner. He has trouble keeping his hands, and other bits, to himself.

  The door bangs open again. It's Ada. "Man from the Boonville paper's here. Mrs. Morrison says I should bring him coffee and sandwiches."

  Weaver is on her heels. "Mr. Morrison says to tell you he canceled the campfire and sing-along tonight, so you don't need to do the refreshments for it. And he called off the hike to Dart's Lake tomorrow morning, so there's no picnic to pack. But he wants to have an ice-cream social for the children tomorrow afternoon, and he wants sandwiches for the searchers when they come in off the lake tonight."

  Cook wipes the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. She puts water on to boil and opens a metal canister on the counter next to the stove. "Weaver, I told you to bring up some coffee this morning. Doesn't anyone listen to me?" she grumbles.

  "I'll get it!" I nearly shout. The large burlap sack of coffee beans is kept in the cellar.

  Her eyes narrow. "You are just determined to go down cellar, aren't you? What are you after?"

  "Maybe she's got Royal Loomis hidden down there," Fran says, smirking.

  "Standing behind the coal bin, waiting for a kiss." Ada giggles.

  "Scratching his head wondering who turned out the lights," Weaver adds.

  My cheeks burn.

  "You stay where you are and finish that ice cream," Cook says to me. "Weaver, go get the coffee."

  I pick up the churn's lid and look inside. Not even close. I'd been cranking so long I thought my arm would fall off. Weaver had already cranked a gallon of strawberry, and Fran had done vanilla. The kitchen was busy enough with the hotel and all the cottages full, busier still in the hours since the body was recovered. Mrs. Morrison had informed us that the sheriff was coming all the way from Herkimer tomorrow. And the coroner. And there were bound to be men from the city papers, too. Cook was determined that the Glenmore not be found wanting. She'd baked enough bread and biscuits to feed every man, woman, and child in the county. Plus a dozen pies, six layer cakes, and two pans of rice pudding.

  Weaver disappears into the cellar. As he does, I hear gunshots coming from the lake, three in a row.

  Ada and Frannie draw near to me. "If he was still alive, someone would have found him by now," Fran says, voicing what we are all thinking. "Or he would have found his way back. Those gunshots carry."<
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  "I looked in the register," Ada whispers. "Their last names weren't the same. They were traveling together, but I don't think they were married."

  "I bet they were eloping," I say. "I served them at dinnertime. I heard them talk about a chapel."

  "Did you, Matt?" Ada asks.

  "Yes, I did," I say, telling myself that fighting is talking. Sort of. "Maybe Grace Brown's father didn't like Carl Grahm," I add. "Maybe he didn't have any money. Or maybe she was promised to another but loved Carl Grahm. So they ran away to the North Woods to get married..."

  "...and decided to take a romantic boat ride together first, to declare their love for each other on the lake...,"Ada adds wistfully.

  "...and maybe he reached out over the water to pick some pond lilies for her...," Frannie says.

  "...and the boat tipped and they fell out and he tried to save her, but he couldn't. She slipped from his grasp...," I say.

  "Oh, it's so sad, Mattie! So sad and romantic!" Ada cries.

  "...and then he drowned, too. He gave up struggling, because he didn't want to live when he saw that she was gone. And now they'll be together forever. Star-crossed lovers just like Romeo and Juliet," I say.

  "Together forever...," Frannie echoes.

  "...at the bottom of Big Moose Lake. Just as dead as two doornails," Cook says. She has ears on her like a jack-rabbit and is always listening when you don't think she is. "You let that be a lesson to you, Frances Hill," she adds. "Girls who sneak off with boys end badly. You hear me?"

  Fran blinks. "Why, Mrs. Hennessey, I'm sure I don't know what you mean," she says. She is such a good actress, she should be onstage.

  "And I'm sure you do. Where were you two nights ago? Round midnight?"

  "Right here, of course. In bed asleep."

  "Not sneaking off to the Waldheim to meet Ed Compeau, by any chance?"

  Frannie's caught. She turns as red as a cherry. I expect Cook to scold her soundly. Instead, she takes Fran's chin in her hand and says, "A boy wants to go somewhere with you, you tell him to call on you proper or not at all. You hear?"

  "Yes, ma'am," Fran mumbles, and from the look on her face, and Ada's, I know they are as unsettled as I am at seeing signs of softness from Cook. I feel even worse when she brushes at her eyes on her way to the cellar stairs. "Weaver!" she bellows down them. "You fetching that coffee or growing it? Hurry up!"

  I look at the thin gold ring with a chipped opal and two dull garnets on my left hand. I've never thought it pretty, but I'm suddenly glad, very glad, that Royal gave it to me. Glad, too, that he always calls for me at the Glenmore's kitchen door, where everyone can see him.

  I go back to cranking the ice cream and embellishing my romantic and tragic story, writing it all out in my mind. Carl Grahm and Grace Brown were in love. That's why they were here. They were eloping, not sneaking, no matter what Cook says. I see Carl Grahm smiling as he reaches for the pond lilies, then I see the boat capsize and him struggle valiantly to save the woman he loves. I don't see Grace's tearstained face anymore or the tremble in her hands as she gives me her letters. I don't wonder what's in them or why they're addressed to Chester Gillette, not Carl Grahm. I start to think that maybe I never heard Grace Brown call Carl Grahm Chester at all, that I only imagined it.

  I end my story with Grace and Carl being buried next to each other in a fancy cemetery in Albany and their parents being so sad they ever stood in the young lovers' way. I decide that I like it. It's a new kind of story for me—the kind that stitches things up nicely and leaves no ends dangling and makes me feel placid instead of all stirred up. The kind that has a happy ending—or at least as happy an ending as is possible with the heroine dead and the hero presumed so. The kind of story I once told Miss Wilcox was a lie. The kind I said I would never ever write.

  mis • no • mer

  Nothing on our entire farm—not the balky hay wagon, not the stumps in the north field, not even the rocks in the lower meadow—was as unyielding, as immovable, as adamant and uncompromising as Pleasant the mule. I was in our cornfield trying to get him to pull the plow. "Giddyap, Pleasant! Giddyap!" I shouted, snapping the reins against his haunches. He didn't move.

  "Come on, Pleasant ... come on, mule," Beth wheedled, holding a lump of maple sugar out to him.

  "Here boy, here mule," Tommy Hubbard called, waving an old straw hat. Pleasant liked to eat them.

  "Move your fat ass, you jackass," Lou swore, tugging on his bridle.

  But Pleasant would not be budged. He stood firm, dipping his head occasionally to try and bite Lou.

  "Go, Pleasant. Please, Pleasant," I begged.

  It was dry and remarkably warm for the start of April, and I was tired and dirty and dripping with sweat. The muscles in my arms ached and my hands were raw from guiding the plow and I was just as mad as a hornet. Pa had kept me home from school again, and I'd wanted to go so badly. I was waiting on a letter, one that was going to come care of Miss Wilcox if it came at all, and it was all I could think about. I told him I had to go. I said my exams were coming up. I said I needed to study my algebra. I told him Miss Wilcox was making us read Paradise Lost and that it was hard going and that I would fall behind if I missed a day. Didn't make a bit of difference. He'd been reading the signs—no fog in February, no thunder in March, a south wind on Good Friday—and was convinced the mild weather would hold.

  Most people planted corn around Decoration Day, at the end of May, but Pa wanted to plant midmonth, at the latest, and he wanted to start working the soil early, too. There are only about a hundred frost-free days in the North Woods, and corn takes time to ripen. Pa was trying to build our dairy herd. He wanted to keep the calves if he could, rather than sell them, but we couldn't keep them if we couldn't feed them and we couldn't feed them unless we grew enough corn. I was to have two acres turned over that day, and I'd only gotten a third of the way through before Pleasant decided it was quitting time. If I didn't finish, Pa would want to know why. Plowing was Lawton's job, but Lawton wasn't around to do it. Pa would've done it if he could, but he was with Daisy, who was calving. So it fell to me.

  I bent down and picked up a stone. I was just winding up to throw it at Pleasant's behind when I heard a voice behind me say, "Peg him with that and you'll scare him. He's like to run. Take himself, that plow, and you across the field and through the fence."

  I turned around. A tall blond boy was standing at the edge of the field, watching me. He was taller than I remembered. Broad-shouldered. And handsome. Handsomest one out of all the Loomis boys. He had the rim of a wagon wheel resting on his shoulder. His arm poked through the spokes.

  "Hey, Royal," I said, trying to keep my eyes from roosting on any one part of him for too long. Not his wheat-colored hair, or his eyes that Minnie said were hazel but that I thought were the exact color of buckwheat honey, or the small freckle just above his lip.

  "Hey."

  The Loomis farm bordered ours. It was much bigger. Ninety acres. They had more bog than we did, but Mr. Loomis and his boys had managed to clear forty acres. Wed only got about twenty-five cleared. The best land, where we pulled stumps and rocks, we used for crops. Hay and corn for our animals, plus potatoes—some to keep and some to sell. Places where the stumps were still charred and rotting, or where it was rocky or boggy, Pa used to pasture the cows. The worst patches were planted with buckwheat, as it is not particular and will grow most anywhere. Pa had hoped to clear another five acres over the summer. But he couldn't without Lawton.

  Royal looked from me to Pleasant and back again. He let the wagon wheel slide to the ground. "Let me have him," he said, taking the reins. "Giddyap, you!" he shouted, snapping them smartly against Pleasant's rump. Much harder than I had. Pleasant budged. Boy, did he. Tommy, Beth, and Lou cheered, and I felt as dumb as a bag of hammers.

  Royal was the second-eldest boy in his family. There were two younger ones. Daniel, the eldest, had just gotten engaged to Belinda Becker from the Farm and Feed Beckers in Old Forge. Belind
a is a pretty name. It feels like meringue in your mouth or a curl of sugar on snow. Not like Matt. Matt is the sound of knots in a dog's coat or something you wipe your feet on.

  Dan and Belinda's engagement was big news. It was a good match, what with Dan so capable and Belinda sure of a nice dowry. My aunt Josephine said there was supposed to have been a second engagement. She said Royal had been sweet on Martha Miller, whose father is the minister in Inlet, but he broke it off. Nobody knew why, but Aunt Josie said it was because Martha's people were Herkimer diamonds—which aren't diamonds at all, only look-alike crystals that aren't worth a darn. Mr. Miller has a nice pair of grays and Martha wears pretty dresses, but they don't pay their bills. I didn't see what that had to do with engagements, but if anyone would know, it was my aunt. She is an invalid and has nothing to entertain herself with other than gossip. She is on every scrap of hearsay like a bear on a brook trout.

  Dan and Royal were only a year apart, nineteen and eighteen, and they were forever in competition. Whether it was a baseball game or who could pick the most berries or chop the most wood, one was always trying to outdo the other. I hadn't seen much of them over the last year. I used to visit with them when they came to fetch Lawton for fishing trips, and we all used to walk to school together, but Dan and Royal left school early. Neither one was much for book learning.

  I watched him as he plowed a row, turned at the end of the field and came back. "Thanks, Royal," I mumbled. "I'll take him now."

  "That's all right. I'll finish it. Whyn't you follow along behind and pull the stones?"

  I did as he said, traipsing after him, picking up stones and roots, carrying them in a bucket until I could dump them at the end of a row.

  "How are you doing back there?" he called after a few rows, turning to look at me.

  "Fine," I said. And then I tripped and dropped my bucket. He stopped, waited for me to right myself, then started off again. He moved fast and it was hard to keep up with him. His furrows were straight and deep. Much better than the ones I'd done. He made me feel clumsy in comparison. And flustered. Flumsy.