They walked deeper into the woods. Their fingertips touched from time to time, but that was all that they allowed themselves, for both of them knew what intensity of feeling they had stirred up within themselves, and what its consequences might be.
Doris asked, ‘Have you ever loved anyone before? Truly loved them?’
‘Never like this,’ said Henry. He thought of Hilary Beckett (now Mrs Walter Grinsale, of Danby Corners) and of the kisses they had shared, four years ago was it, already? He thought of the long afternoons they had shared together on her narrow brass bed, under the picture of St Philip, and her small red-nippled breasts, as soft as vanilla blancmanges. Her profile against the pillow. He had loved Hilary, yes. He really had. But not like this; not both carnally and romantically; not as a young and unaffected sorceress, as Doris was.
After a while they sat against the trunk of a tall scarlet oak, and held hands, and kissed with deliberate self-control.
‘It’s perfect,’ said Doris.
‘What is?’ Henry asked her, although he knew.
‘The day, the fair, everything. You. You’re perfect.’
‘I wish I was.’
‘Oh, you are, my love. You are.’
Henry sat for a while with his head back against the tree, and his eyes closed. When he opened them again he saw that Doris had been watching him, and that she looked more beautiful than ever. Her face was outlined by sunshine, the curve around her lower lip shone like a tiny bow of gold.
‘We’d better be getting back,’ he said. ‘Cissy and Eleanor will be missing us; and I did promise your father that I’d look after them, too.’
‘That fortune-teller,’ Doris began.
‘What about her?’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ she replied. She frowned, and turned her head away. ‘She made me feel cold, can you believe that? She actually made me shiver.’
There was a very distant grumble of thunder, from the direction of West Mountain. Henry said, ‘It’s bunkum, that’s all.’
‘Even what she said to you? About marrying a girl whose name begins with “D”?’
Henry kissed her, quickly, on the tip of her nose. ‘Maybe not that bit.’
‘Well, then?’ she said.
He stood up, and brushed down his smart Saturday pants, and then held out his hand to help her up. ‘Marry me,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she replied.
They walked a little way back towards the fairground; and then Henry suddenly took her in his arms again and kissed her until his head spun around, and all he could taste and smell and feel was Doris; and Doris’s perfume; and the young disturbing softness of her. My God, he thought, I really do love her that much. I really do want to marry her; and make her mine; and give her children.
When they emerged out of the woods at last the sky behind the fairground was growing black; and lightning was fingering the distant peak of Bald Mountain.
‘I think we’ve just got time for the Whirler,’ said Henry. ‘Let’s go find Cissy and Eleanor; then I think we’d better get back home. It’s going to rain like all Isaiah in a while.’
They found Cissy and Eleanor at the candy stall with the Davies brothers and a leering young man called Carl Bukowski whose father owned the local livery stables. Henry collected both girls, and together they walked across to the Colossal Whirler, where the line had dwindled to only four or five, while the fair-goers ate their luncheon and refreshed themselves with lemonade and beer. There was very little that could keep the people of Carmington away from their food, not even a Colossal Whirler.
‘Come on now, ladies and gentlemen!’ the barker was calling out. ‘Not for the faint of heart! Not for the lily-livered! Genuine terror here and now!’ Behind him, the steam-engine chugged and whirred, and the leather drive-belt clapped in spasmodic applause.
‘I’m terrified!’ giggled Cissy, and stepped up on to the Whirler’s platform. The barker helped her to climb into her dangling seat, and fastened the safety-chain in front of her. Then he released the brake and allowed the wheel to nudge up a little way, suspending Cissy ten feet in the air. She screamed, and kicked her heels in glee.
One by one, they all climbed aboard. Henry went last, after Doris, and paid the 40 cents fare for all of them. He found himself dangling on a small wooden seat, turning this way and that, while the Colossal Whirler lifted him higher and higher above the fairground. He looked up and called to Doris, ‘How are you feeling?’ and she called back, ‘Scared! How are you?’
Gradually, as each seat was filled, they rose higher and higher on the wheel until Henry could look around him and see the tops of the trees, and beyond, to Harman Hill and Prospect Mountain, the green sunlit peaks of Vermont, shadowed by rising clouds. He could even see the rooftops of Carmington itself; the church spire, and part of the roof of his own house, Roberts & Son, Monumental Masons.
And today, he thought, as he swung in his little seat; today I asked Doris to marry me, and she accepted. As simple, and as happy, as that.
Gradually, the Colossal Whirler began to pick up speed. The steam-engine chugged, and the drive-belt slapped, and the huge wooden wheel turned faster and faster. At first, the suspended chairs had hung vertically, but under the influence of centrifugal force they began to swing outwards, like the spokes of a wheel; until the first scream of horror told Henry that someone at the top of the wheel had turned upside-down. The next time the wheel went up, he heard Doris scream; and then suddenly he was pitched over himself, and the fairground spun underneath him, and he yelled out, ‘Aaaaahhh!’ in a hoarse voice that didn’t even sound like his own. Then he was plunging down towards the ground again, and the people behind him were screaming.
After the third spin over the top of the wheel, he was clutching the chains so tight that his hands hurt, and he was beginning very much to wish that he hadn’t eaten so much bratwurst. All he could think of was bratwurst and clinging on and trying to calculate how many spins of the wheel they gave you before they allowed you to get off. Then he was up and over again, and the fairground was underneath him, ninety feet below, a blur of people and tents and flags.
Up and over they went again. ‘Doris!’ he shouted; and she tried to turn and look at him as the wheel descended again; and then right in front of his eyes it happened.
Her seat swung to the side as she turned, and the link holding the left-hand chain parted like a string of molasses toffee, and with terrible abruptness Doris was flung from her seat straight into the drive-belt, straight into the cogs and the flying machinery and she didn’t even scream that time.
‘Oh God almighty!’ Henry roared, and tried desperately to unfasten his safety-chain; but then the wheel rose again and he had to cling on, screaming, ‘Stop it! Stop it! For God’s sake stop it!’ while he was flung upside-down again.
The Colossal Whirler came to a shuddering, groaning halt. Passengers screamed as they were thrown violently from side to side; some of them had been upside-down and fell through the spokes of the wheel as violently as if they had been dropped through a hangman’s trap; to dangle and swing and collide with the wheel, and shout out in fright.
Henry’s chair was left ten feet above the ground; but he tugged aside his safety-chain and dropped straight to the boards below. A crowd had already gathered around the Colossal Whirler’s drive-gear, and he forced his way hysterically through them, shouldering them aside, screeching, ‘Let me through! Let me through! She’s my wife!’
The spectators stood aside in frightened respect; and then gathered around again to stare at him in horror and pity. Doris had been thrown legs-first between the leather drive-belt and the gears, and the massive inertia of the Colossal Whirler had snatched her even further into the machinery, between the huge black intermeshing cogs. She had been crushed and mangled all the way up her legs, right up to her hips, and she was splattered in blood and oil. A man with a thick brown beard was supporting her back, and another man was already trying to force the cogs of the Colossal Whirler�
��s machinery into reverse with a crowbar, in order to pry Doris free. But her face was as ghastly white as the newspaper on which the story of her accident would be printed; and there was so much blood drenching her cream and burgundy dress that nobody could give out any hope at all that she would live.
Henry knelt down beside her, and lifted her hand. It was rigid, and very cold, an alabaster parody of the hand he had held such a short time before in the woods. Doris stared at him, but the expression in her eyes was peculiar and shocked, and he wasn’t at all sure that she understood that it was him. The man with the brown beard said quietly, ‘If you have something to say, sir, best say it now.’
‘Please, get her free,’ said Henry. ‘Please, get her out of there.’
‘We’re trying our best, sir. The gears are jammed fast.’ Henry stared at him, and screamed, ‘Then smash this whole damned infernal machine to pieces! For God’s sake! It’s killed her!’ The man laid his hand on Henry’s shoulder. ‘Be calm, sir. We’re trying our best.’
Doris said blurrily, ‘Henry?’
Henry leaned over her. ‘Doris, it’s me. Doris, it’s Henry. I love you.’
‘Henry?’ she repeated, as if she were speaking from another room. Her eyes were still clear bright blue, but they didn’t seem to see him at all. ‘Henry, what happened? Where are you?’
‘My darling, I’m here. I’m right beside you. It’s all right, my darling. There was an accident, that’s all. They’ll soon have you free. Please try to be brave. My darling, I love you. I love you, Doris. Oh God, my darling, I love you. Oh, Doris. Oh, God.’
Henry knelt beside her with tears streaming down his face. He raised both hands to wipe them away but then all he could do was to lower his head and sob, deeply and painfully; while the barker in the fancy waistcoat and the fancy beaver hat came up behind him and held his shoulders firmly simply to reassure him that he was not alone.
At last, three men were able to force the cogs open; and Doris’s crushed body was gently lifted out, and laid on a blanket on the boards. Her eyes were closed now and she was scarcely breathing. Henry knelt next to her, staring at her in shock and grief. He was past tears now. He knelt beside her and shuddered and that was all that he could do. Someone had leaned over him and told him quietly that Cissy and Eleanor were being taken home by Mr Harman, of Harman Dry Goods; and that he wasn’t to worry.
Doris said nothing else. As she was being carefully examined by Dr Bendick, who had been at the fair with his family of nine children, she silently died. Dr Bendick took off his spectacles and turned to Henry and said, ‘She’s left you, I’m sorry to say.’
‘Left me?’ asked Henry, dully.
Dr Bendick glanced upwards, towards the thundery sky. The gesture struck a responsive chord in Henry’s memory; some inscription he had once chiselled on a white marble gravestone. ‘Gone Beyond The Clouds, And Dearly Missed.’ He understood then, all the way through his consciousness, that Doris was truly dead.
He stood up. The barker tried to help him, but Henry pushed him away. He walked rigidly down the steps of the Colossal Whirler, and across the rough grass of the fairground. People parted in front of him, allowing him all the room that his grief required. He wanted to cry but his eyes refused to produce any tears. That was why he was so relieved when it suddenly started to rain; a few heavy spots at first; and then a thick hissing downpour that scattered fair-goers in all directions, paper bags held over their heads, and drummed on the tops of the tents.
Henry stumbled on between the sideshows, his hair streaming wet, the shoulders of his jacket dark with rain. A bellowing burst of thunder broke just above his head; and people ran past him with their coat-collars turned up, screaming because they were getting wet.
He was halfway down the meadow when he saw Augusta standing beside the refreshment awning, which was crowded right to its dripping gutters with sheltering townsfolk. Augusta had put up her bright green parasol to protect herself from the worst of the downpour, but her skirts were still soaked, and there were beads of rain on her spectacles.
‘Henry!’ she called, as he approached.
He walked mechanically past her, as if he hadn’t heard. ‘Henry!’ she called again, hurrying after him.
He staggered his way down towards the treeline, while the thunder banged above him again and again, and lightning jumped and danced and flickered across the fields.
‘Henry!’ cried Augusta, running after him with her wet parasol bobbing. ‘Henry!’
Two
At eleven o’clock, when his father came up to see him, he was still sitting by the window, staring sightlessly out over the rows of pale unfinished tombstones that shone below him in the moonlight. The storm had passed now, and the skies were clear. There was a smell of wet earth and crushed grass in the air; and over by the town square a locked-up dog was howling.
His father came and stood behind him, not touching him. He half-turned his head to acknowledge his father’s appearance, and smiled wryly. ‘Hallo, Dad.’
‘Hallo, son. How are you feeling?’
Henry shrugged. ‘Tired, I think. Sad.’
‘Is there anything you want?’
Henry shook his head.
Fenchurch Roberts sat down on the edge of his son’s bed and watched him with all the quietness of a man who understands through his own bereavement the need for grief, the terrible importance of tears. He was a big-shouldered man, not as handsome as Henry, nor as tall; but with a rugged, open, attractive face, and curly grey hair that Henry’s mother had always loved to tug, and a heavy pair of grey whiskers. He was a plain man in many ways. While Henry invariably wore fancy waistcoats to work, Fenchurch wore red flannel shirts, and baggy denim pants. But Henry respected him all the same: for his eclectic knowledge of science and philosophy, for his thoughtfulness, and above all for his unshakeable patience. Fenchurch could quote Plato; he knew what Newton had discovered about gravity; but he could hug you, too.
‘Mind if I help myself to a drink?’ he asked, nodding towards the half-empty bottle of whiskey on the windowsill.
‘Of course,’ said Henry. ‘Here, let me get you a glass.’
‘Unh-hunh. I’ll drink it out of yours.’
Fenchurch poured himself a medicine-measure of whiskey, and sipped it, and then rolled the glass slowly backwards and forwards between his strong, stubby fingers.
‘You’ll blame yourself for a long time to come,’ he said. ‘I know that I did, when your mother died. I still do, in a way. I still ask myself, on some warm summer evening, when the sun’s going down, and the sky’s all lit up with colours, I still ask myself, what right do I have to be here when Margaret’s gone?’
‘But Dad,’ said Henry, ‘it was my fault. The whole thing was my fault. I shouted out Doris! I don’t know why, for no reason at all; and she twisted around and that’s when the chain broke.’
Fenchurch swallowed more whiskey, and coughed. ‘No good telling you that the chain would probably have broken anyway?’
‘Maybe it would have done, but not right then; not when Doris was sitting in it. She twisted around and that’s what did it; and she twisted around only because I called her. I called her, and I killed her.’
Fenchurch was silent for a long time, rolling the glass, watching his son with steady and sympathetic eyes. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘you blame yourself. At least that’s a step towards understanding how you feel.’
‘I feel like a murderer,’ said Henry, bitterly. ‘God, I feel worse than that even.’
‘Do you think it’s going to do you any good, blaming yourself? I mean, does it make you feel any better to think that you were responsible for killing her?’
Henry looked at his father, and then lowered his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, hoarsely. ‘I really don’t know. All I can feel is a pain, as sharp as a hatchet. All I can think about is Doris.’
Fenchurch sat back, and poured some more whiskey. ‘Want some?’ he asked Henry. Henry nodded, and took the glas
s, and drank a whole mouthful at once. He shuddered as it burned fiercely down his throat. It was Mad River Sour; distilled up at Montpelier on the Mad River; and usually he never touched it. Fenchurch had always said it was the best thing there was for cleaning egg-spoons.
‘Augusta came around earlier,’ Fenchurch remarked.
‘Yes,’ Henry nodded. ‘I saw her at the fair; after the accident.’
‘She asked how you were. She said you looked pretty upset when she saw you; she was worried.’
‘You told her I was all right?’
‘I told her you were understandably upset.’
Henry sipped a little more whiskey. ‘She’s a kind girl, Augusta. She’s going to make somebody a very fine wife.’
Fenchurch said, ‘She asked you round to her parents’ house for Sunday lunch tomorrow. She said it might help to take your mind off Doris.’
‘I don’t want to have my mind taken off Doris.’
‘I know. Well, believe me, you won’t be able to think about anything else but Doris for quite a few weeks, whether you want to or not.’ He paused, and reached into his top waistcoat pocket for two cheroots, and then said, ‘Still, it might be good for you to go. Better than sitting here, staring at monuments.’
They both lit up, and smoke curled around the bedroom. The Roberts family had lived in this house since Henry was eight; a fine four-cornered white-painted colonial with black-painted railings along the front verandah and black-painted shutters. At the front, there was a neat enclosed yard with two mature maple trees; at the back, there was a low wooden workshop, with a shingled roof, a stable, and then, covering over half an acre, a small city of tombstones, memorials, and grave-markers; hundreds of them, crowded together side by side; in dark Barre granite and blue Vermont marble, polished tablets and hammered monuments, some with angels and some with sleeping lambs; from the simplest $2.15 block, weighing in at 951bs, to the greatest polished and engraved sarcophagus, almost immoveable at nearly two tons. It was a sombre sight; some of the Roberts’ relatives found it too chilling even to visit them for tea; for every monument would one day mark the end of a human life. But in spite of the fact that the only garden he had ever known was a corpseless cemetery; and in spite of the fact that his father’s livelihood was the commemoration of death, Henry had been brought up in a family atmosphere of cheerfulness and contentment, for the Roberts were good-natured people doing proud and conscientious work, and not beyond having some fun, too.
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