Now it seems, while I pour out water from the pitcher into the glass, that I am Hilda pouring out water from a wash-stand jug that has roses and a band of dark blue that looks like a painted ribbon round the top. The tooth-mug matches the pitcher. There is a soap dish with a little china plate, with holes in it, that is separate so that the water from the soap will drip through. The basin has the same roses.
The pitcher is heavy, but I do not spill the water.
The quilt has pulled off the bed where I got out.
The water seems cool enough. I put down the jug anyhow, and now I take the heavy glass up and feel the outside, and it is not so very cool, and I remember it is a hot night. Now I am not cold, and I remember it is a hot night. I could go to the pantry and get some cracked ice, but that will be a little trouble, and the others will be sure to burst in and say, “Why aren’t you in bed” and spoil everything.
I walk round the quilt that is partly spread on the floor, and I do not step on the patch that was Aunt Sabina’s moiré or old Cousin Elizabeth’s watered silk. I must remember that Mamalie is just Elizabeth, not old Cousin Elizabeth, and I get round the bed, and she is sitting there and the candle is there in the saucer and the curtain is hanging straight and there is no sort of wind. I remember there was a wind that rattled the curtain rings, but there is no wind, and if I listen, I can begin to hear footsteps and their dragging the chairs up the porch steps from the grass like they always do, in case it rains in the night. I had thought there might be a thunderstorm because Mama says on very hot nights, “It feels thunder-y.” It had been feeling thunder-y, though that is perhaps not what it was; I mean, it was what you mean when you say your hair stands on end, though it doesn’t really. But that was, maybe, the best part of it, like listening to a ghost story at a party in the dark.
It was like listening in the dark, though we had the candle, and maybe it was just a story in the dark with a candle, about something that didn’t happen at all, like the ghost story about the man who nailed his coat to a coffin and then screamed because he thought a skeleton hand had got him. Only this was something different, though I couldn’t tell just how, only that it made Mamalie shiver and then say that about Shooting Star forgiving them or something. I think maybe it was a sort of dream, maybe it did not happen. Maybe, even, I made it up alone there on the bed while Mamalie was sitting at the window; maybe, Mamalie didn’t even say anything at all; maybe it is like that time when I saw the old man on Church Street and he sent his sleigh and Mama said it never happened. Maybe it is like that thing that happened, that Mama said didn’t happen, when the young man, who at first I thought was the gardener, cut off or broke off a lily with a short stem that I held in my hand like a cup. Maybe. …
I think if I just take the glass and hand it to Mamalie and she just says, “Thank you, Helen,” or “Thank you, Hilda,” then it will be that I was asleep or half-asleep on the bed and that I dreamed all this and that maybe, I did, after all, only dream about the old man and the drive in the snow when all the streets were empty, when we drove past our house on Church Street and Mama sat opposite me with Harold and Gilbert under the fur rug and the man, who at first I thought was the gardener, sat up in front and drove the horses.
Maybe, that was just a dream, and maybe the lily with the short stem that I held in my hands like a cup, was something I dreamed, just as maybe I dreamed that Mamalie said that our church-beginnings went back to the ninth century (and that would be a thousand years ago) and that there was a branch of the church that was called Calixines that had something to do with a Greek word, she thought, for cup, like calix is a word for part of a flower that is like a cup.
There were flowers that were like flat daisies or roses, she said, on the old belt, and Ida said they were called water lilies, water roses in German, so maybe the lily I held in my hand and afterwards put on Papalie’s grave (straight up, stuck in the ground so that it looked as if it were growing there) could be a rose, too. Maybe the white rose and the black rose that Mamalie used to talk about to Aunt Laura and Mama (when they got too excited and laughed too much about nothing at all) are the shadow of the Calixines rose that I had given me by the man who I thought was the gardener, who drove the sleigh. Maybe, when Mamalie looks up and says, “Thank you, Hilda, isn’t it time you were in bed?” I will see that it was all a sort of dream that I made it up, that Mamalie never did say anything about an Indian who was at Wunden Eiland, who was named Shooting Star.
Maybe, it was just that I was dreaming something because I was afraid a shooting star might swish out of the sky and fall on the house and burn us all up. Maybe, it was because I was afraid of being burnt up that I made Mamalie, in the dream, say she wasn’t just afraid of being burnt up— though she was afraid—only she was more afraid that she might lose the papers. The papers were lost.
“Here is your glass of water, Mamalie,” I say.
But though I call her Mamalie, so that she can now be herself out-of-a-dream, she says, “Thank you, thank you, Lucy.” She says, “Yes, Lucy, you’re right...
“What was it young Brother Francis was saying yesterday? Yesterday, he said that nothing is lost; there are things, he says (like the invisible plant forms in the drops of water he studies under his new microscope), in the human soul that have not yet been discovered.
“It was cool in the room and when he finished the communion prayer for the sick, I felt that I wasn’t burning up anymore. Don’t mind, Lucy. It was the fever. I was burning up with fever. Yes, Lucy, tell Brother Francis if he calls for vespers, that I’m all right. Tell Brother Francis when he comes for vespers.”
She says “vespers” and the word “vespers” means those meetings they have sometimes, almost like love feasts, when they have coffee and sugar cake around a table.
It is sitting round a table and talking about the sand island and Christiansbrunn and the Singstunden and Liturgien and the famous water music on the river in the old days, and the tree here or the tree there that was cut down, what a pity! And remembering the time when the steel mills had not even been thought of, and now Bother Francis is taking her hand and saying that he will not speak again of these things that have troubled her unless she herself particularly wants it, and that he will tell no one of it; it must have happened, he said, he could not doubt her word nor question the reality of the experience and Henry Seidel’s concern about the matter, though poor Brother Henry had been overworking for a long time and had burnt himself up with zeal and devotion.
There had been strange forces at work, he said, in this great land from the beginning, and the Indian ritual in the early days was not understood, and after all, it was not so very many years since the massacre at Gnadenhuetten.
(Gnadenhuetten? So they had been killed at Gnadenhuetten.)
I cannot follow what Elizabeth Caroline and Brother Francis are saying; I cannot hear what they are saying, but I have a feeling that our own grandfather had heard stories— from his grandfather even—that brought fear and the terror of burning and poisonous darts (that arrow that flieth by day) very near.
It was not just a thing that had happened even in the days of Papalie’s grandfather, it was something that might still happen.
I seem to hear Brother Francis talking it out with Mamalie, very clearly and in the most understanding and sympathetic way, recalling the early missions and the work of Zeisberger and the young Count, Christian Renatus, yet seeing the other side, seeing the extravagances, the plays and processions and the strange gatherings, as a sort of parody on their saviour and the story of the gospel, which shone clear and in simple symbols for him.
The redeemer was not to be parodied (however sincere the feeling back of it) in robes and processions through the streets of this very town. Our saviour was not to be worshipped in a startling transparency which showed the wounds, wide and red and blood dripping, when a candle was pushed forward, back of the frame, in the dark.
There were actual extravagances too, practical issues, the ques
tion of church funds squandered in these elaborate meetings that were ritualistic sort of parties, really, where certain favorites of the group bore the names of the followers of our Lord.
These things, remembered, heard about, forgotten, passed through Papalie’s mind; he did not want to offend dear Sister Elizabeth Caroline, who had so recently lost her husband. He would wait. But he feared that she had been carried away by some feverish phantasy; he has loved and admired his colleague, Henry Seidel, and their families had been bound up in the interests of the Moravian Brotherhood for generations. He thought of Henry’s little daughter.
“I will look in on little Agnes, on the way home,” he said. “I met Sister Maria Bloom actually, coming here,” he said. “Rest,” he said, “I will look after your little Agnes.”
I seem to hear him say “little Agnes,” or is it Mamalie who says “Agnes?” Mamalie says “Agnes,” so whoever I am, I am not now Lucy.
I was Lucy or old Aunt Lucia when I went over to the washstand, when I thought, “If she looks up and says, ‘Why aren’t you in bed, Helen’ or ‘What are you doing here in my room at this hour, Hilda,’ ” then I will know that all that about Shooting Star was a dream or a sort of waking dream or just thoughts while I was sitting there in her bed, picking out the patches of the old dresses they wore and the pervanche blue, she called it, that one of the old-girls from New Orleans sent Mamalie in a letter once, to show her the color of her bridesmaid’s dress when her sister was married.
That was that other patch, very blue but not very bright blue, like some of the pansy petals when they are two colors of blue. We didn’t talk about that patch, but I can say I was thinking of asking her about that patch—it’s not a very large patch—if she asks me what I was thinking, or even what I was saying.
Really, I am Agnes now, so I suppose I ought to call her Mimmie again. “Here is your water,” I say, “Mimmie.”
“I remembered that the leaves were for the healing of the nations and I drank the water in the goblet … what was I saying, what was I saying, Hilda?”
I said, “You were saying you were thirsty, Mamalie, and I got you some water from the pitcher on the washstand, it isn’t very cold; I was thinking, would you want me to run down and get some cracked ice? I could run down and get some cracked ice from the refrigerator. You were saying…”
Mamalie, Mamalie, Mamalie, what were you saying? Wait, Mamalie, there are a thousand questions that I want to ask you.
Mamalie, Mamalie, you have told me nothing at all, really did they ever find the papers that were lost? Mamalie, this is all frightful, I could cry with sorrow and grief that you won’t tell me more, because now you are holding the common kitchen tumbler in your hand, and it’s only a kitchen tumbler. I remember Mama saying, before you came, “We really must look out for an odd glass or a pretty cup for the washstand in the spare bedroom, before your grandmother comes.”
Why, Mamalie, I could die of grief when I think we had just such a common kitchen tumbler instead of a crystal goblet, and Mamalie, don’t you want the cracked ice; it’s really only water from the washstand pitcher, and I could have run down and got some cracked ice, but you understand, I was so excited, I couldn’t wait a minute, I wanted to hear more about Wunden Eiland and Gnadenhuetten and they were killed—they were killed, the little huts of the blessed in the habitation of Grace are burning, and the leaves on the young dogwood trees are withered, and Paxnous is far away because he was trying to keep the tribes from fighting.
Oh, Mamalie, there is such a lot I want to know; I want to know what Paxnous’ wife looked like, she was a sort of Princess and Oh, there is Anna von Pahlen, my dear, dear Anna who was Morning Star like the Princess with the nine brothers in the story that was lost, and she had lilies too, like I had a lily, only it was a short stem like a white cup, like a goblet, not like the branch of lilies the Madonna has on Easter cards or Jesus has on Easter cards when He comes out of the tomb, passe le tombeau.
Mamalie, Mamalie, don’t go away, Mamalie; I told you I’d get you some cracked ice because you were burning with a terrible sort of fever, which was when you remembered how you were burnt; but you weren’t burnt at Gnadenhuetten when the Indiana massacred the Inhabitants of Grace, but it was the other Indians who did it; Oh Mamalie, say it wasn’t Paxnous who gave his wife, the Princess Morning Star, to the Moravians.
Mamalie, don’t go away. Because the thing that will happen, will happen to me this winter after Christmas or before Christmas begins, about November, but I won’t remember. I will forget, like you forgot all about Wunden Eiland and the papers that were lost and I will be afraid too. Mamalie, there will be savages, and they will have ugly symbols like some of the bad Indians, to bring ugly and horrible things back to the world and the Storm of Death is storming in my ears now; Mamalie wait, there is so much I want to ask you.
Mamalie, Mamalie, you say you don’t want any cracked ice, though I could run down to the refrigerator and get you some cracked ice that Ida always has, in a bowl for ice water in the refrigerator. Mamalie, you said rivers of crystal and that is like the ice storms that we have, when the trees glisten like glass in a fairy tale of a glass mountain, and there is always the moment in the woods when you remember a path (that you couldn’t remember) that will run to an old ford across a stream or a river, that will run to a spring that is called Christiansbrunn because it was Christian Renatus who helped find out the secret, though hardly anyone knows now that there even was a secret.
Mamalie, you are holding the glass of water, and you are looking at the glass of water, and you saw a picture in the crystal goblet, that was Papalie and Aunt Lucia who were standing at a window, and I think there was a white curtain blowing in the wind, but you didn’t tell me. Mamalie, don’t get lost; I must go on, I must go on into the darkness that was my own darkness and the face that was my own terrible inheritance, but it was Papa, it was my own Papa’s face, it wasn’t the face of the wounded one at Wunden Eiland, though I got them all mixed up, but I will get them separated again and I will hold the cup in my hand that is a lily, that is a rose, that is …
WHAT IT WAS
What it was, was not appreciable at the moment. What happened did not take long to happen.
We were sitting round the round table in the sitting room; there was a painting book and a glass for paint water and Ida had gone upstairs and the baby was asleep and Eric and Mr. Evans were at the observatory or the transit house, or in their rooms in the wing of the house.
Mama and Papa had gone to Philadelphia, the way they did if it was raining or if there were clouds so Papa could not work. Papa would leave the party, or what they called a reception, if he thought it was going to clear up, and Mama would have to come home alone afterwards, if she wanted to stay on after he left.
We did not ourselves go in to Philadelphia very often; it was a long trip with a sort of streetcar with an engine that ran the two miles to Cobbs Creek that was the city limit and then another half-hour in the ordinary trolley, to Wanamaker’s to see the Christmas things or to go with Mama to see Cousin Laura and Cousin Emily Bell on Spruce Street. This was our house. We had moved here after Christmas, one winter.
I had come first, alone with Papa and Mama, and we had stayed at Fetters’ Farm, which was the nearest house except the farmhouse and the cowsheds which belonged to the Flower Farm. An old man had left his farm to the university for an observatory and this was it; it was Flower Observatory and Papa was the astronomer and Eric and Mr. Evans helped him with his work.
We had a big Thanksgiving dinner, and the uncles and the aunts came, and Mama gave an Easter party, like we always had, and the university ladies helped hunt the eggs with their children that they brought. Mama drew bunnies in ink on top of the invitation, or a nest with a duck or a chick with its eggshell, and some of the letters they wrote back to say they were coming had ducks or bunnies drawn on, too.
Everybody liked the little baskets Mama bought, and Harold and I helped with the smaller ch
ildren, but it was a long way to Philadelphia and we did not have little parties, only sometimes one big party like that, or when they all came. Thanksgiving Day. People did not run in and Mama did not run out across the garden to Mamalie or up Church Street to Aunt Jennie’s, and Uncle Fred did not go past the house and wave his music at us (when we shouted at him to come in) and say, “I’m late for choir practice.”
Eric took us for walks. There was not the river and the boats and the summerhouse on the island. Dr. Snively lived two miles down the road and the Snivelys came sometimes with their pony to take us out; they were de Forest and Margaret and Ethelwyn and Muriel. They lent me their books and I lent them mine. They had a Red Fairy Book and there were some of my old stories in it, but with different pictures. The mailman did not pass the house, but we had to go for the mail to Upper Darby which was a little town, Mama said, a village. It was just below the school where we went. We did not like the school, but we never said anything about it. Maybe, Gilbert did like it; he played baseball with the older boys. Sometimes Harold and I went off on the path in the woods, but they would not let us go beyond the first fence through the woods, because there were gypsies camping there sometimes. It was the Sellers’ woods. The Sellers had a big old house that we went to sometimes. The Sellers were Quakers or Friends, they called them. The best house was the Ashursts, that was about two miles away or nearer, if you went across the fields, or maybe it wasn’t much more than a mile. The Ashursts only lived there in the summer, the house was called the Grange because that was what they said the Marquis de Lafayette had called it or they named it for his house; anyhow he and George Washington had walked along a road through the woods that they called Lafayette’s Walk. There were box hedges and a big round bed of heliotrope in the summer in front of the house.
The Gift: Novel Page 10
