by Van Reid
When Eagleton peered into the hall again, he thought someone might be downstairs or that the fire in the parlor hearth had caught again, for there was a flickering glow ascending the stairs. On tiptoes he crept past the landing to Ephram’s room and spoke his friend’s name into the darkness beyond.
It is a lullaby, he thought before he was hardly aware of hearing the voice again, like his mother’s voice-a woman’s voice surely, lovely and sweet. It drifted over his shoulder like a word of endearment, and he was more fascinated than afraid. “Ephram?” he called, stepping further into the room. The moon was yet on that side of the house, and the faint slivers of light that fell across Ephram’s bed revealed the lack of an occupant.
Good heavens! he thought. Thump! I must rouse Thump.
But to do so, he must pass the room of the late Nell Linnett, and he hesitated near the head of the stairs till he saw that Thump’s door was open. What could it mean? He pointedly did not look toward the empty chamber as he hurried to Thump’s room, which also proved to be without its guest.
Eagleton blinked at the empty bed for some moments before he could be convinced that both his friends had gone somewhere without him. The voice, the melody, so strange and sublime, seemed to be coming from below now, and even as he became aware of this, he was touched by a new perception, that of an added (and unexpected) space in which a voice or song might echo.
My word! thought Eagleton. Someone is going about opening all the doors!
Indeed, the door to Nell Linnett’s room, which he had not looked at before, was open as well, and when he bravely approached this third threshold, he was cognizant of a new sound, like the intermittent hum of machinery from a distance or the buzz of a bee.
Eagleton stepped into Nell Linnett’s room with as much a tremor of impropriety as of fear. He hadn’t been in a woman’s boudoir since he was a child, and he was both curious and apprehensive about the accoutrements within. After a terrific start, however, he was more curious and apprehensive (and astonished) to see Thump sitting in a chair by the door.
“Thump?” he said in another whisper. His heart was racing, and it was a moment before he had his breath again. He leaned close to the man and spoke his name again but without response.
What time is it? wondered Eagleton. What has been happening while I was asleep? He was sure that he had been asleep, though it seemed as if they had all just retired. He leaned close to the man, ears straining, and when Thump let out a short snore, Eagleton gasped and nearly fell over backward. a secondary sort of snore followed from Thump’s bearded visage, and Eagleton leaned close to examine the sleeping man.
Why was he sleeping here? How had he got there?
What has been happening? Should I wake him? he wondered again. And where is Ephram?
There was another bone-rattling snore from Thump, and Eagleton didn’t have the heart to wake him, he seemed so pleasantly unconscious. It was all very peculiar. “Mister Walton,” said Eagleton to himself, “and Mr. Moss, and Mr. Plainway.” With these names on his lips and in his head he decided to look for the men themselves but thought that the narrow hall leading into the ell looked awfully dim. From the doorway he peered into the pitch black.
The faint light from below indicated to Eagleton a more prudent direction, and he was encouraged, as he crept down the stairs, by the sense (rather than the sound) of people conversing in the parlor. The lullaby was coming to the end of a cycle, and he could hear, as he approached the door to the parlor, a voice saying, “What is that tune?”
Eagleton couldn’t understand how the light had appeared so faint from the hall, for when he stepped into the parlor, he was dazzled by the myriad candles upon an enormous evergreen. The entire room sparkled with garlands, silver and gold, and greenery covered the lintels and the mantel. The tree was heavy with bright wooden figures and shiny glass ornaments. The air itself seemed to shine, and Eagleton had the impression that he was looking at a brilliant, if hazy, photograph. The tree swam before him, and the people about the room appeared to be at separate distances (some very far away, in fact), though they might be conversing with one another.
He was entirely in the room now, and all fear left him in his confusion, and all his confusion left him in his amazement, and even that emotion retreated before the power of absolute delight.
Then he saw her walking toward him, eyes shining with hope, and she moved slowly as if the light between them were water. He gasped as her face fell into focus; there was a breath of cold wind and bright, warm light, the light of fir boughs, and the thought of a hand reaching silently. The young woman took Eagleton’s shaking hands in hers and by some act of tacit will made him lift his eyes so that he was looking into the portrait of Nell Linnett.
“If only my boy were here,” she said, and Eagleton found it suddenly difficult to breathe.
“Your son,” he said, barely hearing himself above the pulse in his ears.
“If only I could see him once more,” she said. “If only I could know that he was kept safe.”
“Oh, ma’am,” said Eagleton.
“What have you done for him?” she said, a smile glistening through her tears. It was not an accusation, but a discovery of Eagleton’s kindness to her little Bird.
“Not what others have done, I am sorry,” he said. Where were his friends? Where were Ephram and Thump? They could explain. They were much better at this sort of thing, and“Do they love him very much?”
Eagleton was thinking of Wyckford O’Hearn and what he had suffered for the little boy, he was thinking of Mollie Peer leaping into the dark waters of the Sheepscott River to save him, he was thinking of Mister Walton and Sundry Moss, he had a glimpse of Ephram standing beside four-year-old Bertram Linnett on the grounds of Cliff Cottage, and he could hear Thump saying a prayer at the side of the child’s bed.
“I have something from him,” said Eagleton. He was reaching to the back of his neck, and with surprising deftness he had the delicate silver chain and the tiny silver cross. He pressed them into her hand. “It is from a son to his mother,” he said, “who has seen your face and knows how much you loved him in so brief a time.” Eagleton didn’t know where these words came from; it was as if Mister Walton were beside him, directing his thoughts.
He didn’t know, either, how he could really put it into her hand, but it was gone from his suddenly, and he looked up. Her beautiful, tear streaked face disappeared behind the mist in his own eyes.
Someone was passing a punch around. There was laughter.
They were singing another carol. They were singing the Carol. Eagleton had never heard it before, and it was gone from his head, one note after another, as they followed in beautiful succession.
Is it Christmas? he wondered.
57. What They Didn’t Know Inside
The president of the Broumnage Club had long ago lost his initial requisite for membership, but he was known for not wearing a hat, and his followers could pick him out of the night while the moon shone on his bald pate. He was wrapped in a heavy overcoat, however, and seemed to relish the cold. The young men didn’t know why he was there with them tonight but expected that more than surveillance was on the docket.
“Where is he?” asked the old man, and several blond men glanced nervously in the direction of the pond for a glimpse of their fellow who had followed the boy.
“Why do you suppose he was watching the house?” wondered one of them.
“Sir, there’s a light downstairs,” said another.
They were all surprised to see a sudden glow from a parlor window of the Linnett house, but it faded as quickly as it rose, and they were left with more questions.
“What was that?” said someone.
“Do you think it was a signal?” wondered another.
The old man was considering that very possibility, and it was troublesome that such a seemingly simple pair as this Tobias Walton and Sundry Walton and also who else among their order was having some crises of Moss might prove so de
ep. He wondered what Adam Tempest had told scruples.
But of course, they had found what they had come for, after all, at Council Hill. Nobody would withdraw now who suspected the final acquisition of their society’s goal. But what had Tempest let out?
“It’s Edgar,” came a hiss from several yards away.
A dark figure could be seen against the snow as it topped the rise. One of the men hurried to meet Edgar and direct him to the old man. Edgar arrived out of breath and gasped something about being followed. The old man didn’t wait to hear more but moved to the head of the slope, where he could look down at the gray surface of Clemons Pond. For a man of his age, the president had notoriously good eyesight, and he scanned the open slope as if his gaze might strike down anyone in its path.
“Whom do you see?” he demanded in a hushed voice.
The slope was barren of life. In the moonlight they had command of every square foot from the Linnett house to the clumps of alders near the pond.
“I was sure there were men behind me,” said Edgar apologetically.
“What was that light, do you suppose?” wondered someone again.
“Perhaps the fire flared up,” suggested another, but the old man didn’t think it likely.
“Where is Arthur?” wondered the old man. It provoked him that these men couldn’t simply keep their posts and not gravitate to him whenever there was the smallest question in the air.
Edgar sensed the old man’s pique and quickly offered to locate Arthur, who had been with two or three men along the carriage drive. He kept one eye on the imposing bulk of the Linnett house as he crossed the snowy grounds. The carriage drive was invisible till he was upon it, and the trees beyond seemed even then like a solid black wall against the sky. As he passed the hedges and entered the woods, Edgar’s eyes adjusted to the new level of night, his own shadow darting in and out of the stationary silhouettes of the surrounding trunks.
He actually passed the prostrate form before he realized that it was not simply another shadow. “Arthur?” he said, feeling a sudden clutch in his stomach. “Arthur?” Edgar knelt beside the figure and turned the man over. It was one of the other fellows, not Arthur, but where—
The man groaned.
“Did you hit your head?” wondered Edgar, and he looked up to see what object might have fulfilled this possibility. That was when he realized that several other figures had simply melted out of the woods and surrounded him.
“I think that lawyer has more friends than you suspected, Parley,” whispered Cousin George. From the cover of the woods they could make out at least a dozen men between themselves and the house.
“They’re not friends, I warrant,” said Parley, his pale eyes shining in his unshaven face.
Mathom was suddenly beside them, the flare of enmity between him and Parley forgotten in the interest and excitement of their present occupation. “What are they doing?” he asked.
“They’re watching the house,” said George.
“They’re watching for us,” said Parley. “They think we’re coming up the meadow.”
“Those fellows we took won’t tell us what they’re up to,” informed George.
“We are getting that boy,” said Parley. He watched the group of men outside the wood, his mouth half open, the tip of his tongue riding back and forth on his lower lip. Parley had what has been termed animal patience and had once taken three hours to creep up on a wild duck and throttle it. (Asked why he hadn’t shot the creature, he answered, “I couldn’t sight him in ’cause I was drunk.”) He could wait all night if he chose and hardly move a muscle more than was needed to blink.
“They’re going to notice their fellows are gone,” said Mathom. Parley shot the man a glance, and he added, “They’re down the brook a ways.” He chortled softly then. “They think we’re working for that lawyer.”
“I told you they weren’t friends of his,” said Parley to George.
“Look!” said Mathom, and the other two men barely caught what he had seen. Some twenty or thirty yards from Parley and his cousins, one of the men nearest the perimeter of woods had suddenly been jerked off his feet and disappeared without a whimper.
“I think Benjamin is enjoying this,” said Mathom.
“Let’s grab another one or two,” said George, as if encouraging Parley to go out in the boat again and fish some more.
Parley didn’t want Benjamin to get them all, that was for sure, and it looked as if two more were being sent after the fellow who had come looking for the first three.
“All right,” said Parley. “While they’re sneaking down the drive, we’ll come out behind them.” Then some centuries of strange knowledge instinctive and learned-faded into the shadows between trees as they slipped after their new quarry.
“Can’t let Ben get them all,” came George’s voice out of the dark, like a ghost.
It turned into something of a battle on the other side of the woods from the Linnett estate. The road before the carriage drive became the center of concentration, and the Willum party was not daunted when the Broumnagians proved to be armed.
Parley and his clan had captured seven of the blond men before the president of the Broumnage Club realized that a simple retreat had been cut off. He had misgivings that Mister Walton and the Moosepath League (the president had been suspicious of that appellation from the start) were after the same goal as his own society, and now he was certain of it. He couldn’t imagine that the portly fellow and his seemingly stumbling companions had tricked them into thinking they were in the house, but certainly the small force picking off his men could be no other.
The president-a veteran of the Great Campaign against the Southled his troops down the middle of the carriage drive with guns aready. Parley and his family were not interested in exchanging fire, however, and continued to snatch stragglers, and even a front-runner, from the pitchblack trail, carrying them into the woods, where it was discovered that these gentlemen were fancily decked out with gold watches and fat wallets. The original plans of the Willum party quite fell by the way.
The president himself fired the first shot, well out of hearing of the Linnett house, while its inhabitants were fast asleep. The pistol flash lit the end of the carriage drive like a bolt of lightning, and all the president got out of it was an iceball aside the head. More guns were fired, in several directions, till someone suggested that they might as likely hit one of their own who were being held out in the woods as the silent enemy.
Mathom Beasely thought it funny to let out some theatrical screams, followed by a delighted “You missed me!” Someone took a shot in the direction of the voice and was answered by deep laughter.
The carriages waiting for the Broumnage Club were useless, of course, the horses having been cut loose. Parley began to live up to his name by suggesting a means to reach peace, the burden of which lay heavily upon the blond troop.
“This is outrageous!” declared Arthur of the Broumnage Club. “We will not put up with this indignity!”
Then Parley himself took a shot and clipped Arthur’s hat. Arthur and several others nearby threw themselves to the ground. The president meanwhile wondered if the men in the woods were indeed the Moosepath League. He hadn’t expected them to be simple highwaymen. His bald head was the plainest thing in the lowering moonlight, but he refused to cower.
“Come out and we’ll parley!” he shouted in a commanding baritone.
This, for some reason, was greeted with more laughter.
Daylight was all the Broumnage Club could hope for at this point, and like the redcoats marching from Lexington, they kept close ranks on their way to the center of Hiram and the railway station. Their tormentors were not of such murderous intent as the Lexington men of 1775, however; the occasional club member, snatched from the perimeter of their formation, would return in time, a little less weighed down by worldly goods and spouting retribution, but as a gray dawn lifted its face, the Willums and the Beaselys drifted back to Clemons Pond t
o count their spoils and recount the hilarity of the engagement.
The Broumnage Club boarded the first train to Portland, where they would lick their wounds and plot vengeance-once they figured out who had attacked them and after they had gained untold riches and power in their expedition to the lost city of Norumbega.
58. More on Several Related Points
“I remember now what Granny said about owls,” said Emmy when she appeared in the kitchen.
“Do you?” Lydia had known all along and very well what her mother-in-law had said about owls.
“She used to say they were people coming back to visit.”
“She had some queer notions,” said Lydia, knowing that Emmy was thinking of her father. “I’d like to think I could come back as something other than an owl,” said the mother. Her daughter sat at the table, where Lydia had a bowl of pancake batter and a slab of bacon waiting for the skillet to heat.
Emmy looked like a child, her face filled with apprehension. “I heard it again last night,” she said. “Remember you and Wyck said you had heard it the other night?”
Lydia made a noncommittal sound.
“Was it the night after you hung the picture of Bird’s mother?” asked Emmy.
“Good Lord, Emmy!” said Lydia. She turned toward the stove with the bowl of batter in her hands. “You’re a Christian woman, not a superstitious heathen! And I heard it before I hung the picture.”
“Oh.”
“And it wasn’t singing.” Lydia didn’t say that she first heard the owl the very night before she hung the picture in the parlor, as her daughter might make something of that.
