The Village by the Sea

by Paula Fox

But we in it shall be remembered—

  We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

  For he today that sheds his blood with me

  Shall be my brother.…”

  Emma was startled. He seemed for a moment to have become another person, his voice booming, one hand gesturing at the windshield. But when he spoke again, it was in the mild, slightly apologetic voice she was getting used to.

  “We’ve exchanged rhymes,” he said, smiling, “so we shall be friends.”

  “What does martyred mean?” asked Emma, rather hoping he wouldn’t burst into poetry again.

  “To die for your faith,” he replied.

  They had left the gasoline stations and shopping malls behind them. Sparse woods of stunted pine trees grew beside the road.

  “See how the sky has grown so vast,” he said. “It’s because we’re close to the sea.”

  She had noticed the light changing, touching the dark green pines with a white gleam. In the bright blue sky, she saw the white spark of an airplane’s wing.

  “Nearly there,” Uncle Crispin said after a while. A few minutes later, he turned off the blacktop onto a sand road that led through thick strands of pine and oak, many of the trees not much taller than Emma.

  Uncle Crispin stopped the car.

  “Emma, I want you to know how welcome you are. We’re so glad to have this chance to know you—even in this circumstance.” He fell silent.

  Emma wondered if she should thank him. He was fiddling with the loose patch on his jacket again. His hand fell back to the steering wheel as he turned directly to her. “Your Aunt Bea is a changeable creature,” he said. “She’s harder on herself, really, than on anyone else. But sometimes she can be a little sharp. You’ll learn, though, that her bark is really much worse than her bite. And, you see, we haven’t had children stay with us. She tires easily. I do hope you will understand.…” He smiled at her, his eyes like two golden fish in his lined face. But there was worry there, too. This last year she had learned to recognize that look on the faces of grown-ups.

  He peered through the windshield. “See,” he said, “there’s our chimney. We have lovely fires in winter when the wind blows cold off the water.”

  He gave a deep sigh and started the car. Had he said all he’d meant to about Aunt Bea? She was afraid, sitting in the warm sunlight that poured into the car as though it were a pitcher to be filled up. She longed to be home. There had been something hidden in Uncle Crispin’s words. They don’t want me here, Emma thought, and I don’t want to be here either.

  She imagined her mother calling them, saying, “Please take our little hippopotamus. She only weighs a thousand pounds and won’t be a bit of trouble.” She grinned. What would Uncle Crispin say if she told him what she was thinking? They went over a bump. “Here we are,” he said.

  When her father had told her Aunt Bea and Uncle Crispin lived in a log cabin, Emma had thought their house would look like the set of Lincoln Logs someone had given her for Christmas a few years ago. But as Uncle Crispin drove out from among the trees onto a large circular clearing covered with broken white shells, she saw that the house was not at all like the small cabin in the woods she had had in mind.

  It was built of logs, but it was huge. In the brilliant light, it looked like a fort, dark against the sky, the shades pulled down on most of its many windows, and thick tangled shrubbery crowding up against its foundation. Two cement steps led to a broad door, the bolt across it rusty and ancient-looking.

  “Your grandfather built it for his first wife, Bea’s mother, in the days when such a place was called a bungalow,” Uncle Crispin said. “After she died, he kept adding on rooms. Then he married your father’s mother and they moved to Connecticut. He left the house to Bea in his will. It looks overwhelming, doesn’t it? We use only a few of the rooms. We never use that back door. The entrance faces the bay.”

  They got out and walked around to the front of the house. A blaze of blue water stretched as far as Emma could see. In the far distance, small islands appeared to float above the bay, moored in their own shadows.

  She ran across the hummocky grass to the railing of a wooden staircase that led down a steep cliff to a beach below. A gull swam through the air with strong strokes of its wings then drifted slowly downward like a feather, coming to rest on a post in the water.

  “That post is all that’s left of the dock your grandfather built for his boats,” Uncle Crispin said. “Aren’t gulls comical? The way they find the only roosting spot for miles around?”

  Out on the water, Emma saw a white sail like an angel’s wing suddenly collapse, and a small figure in the boat grabbing up armfuls of sail. “He’s probably going to turn on his motor and go through that canal over there to the right,” Uncle Crispin explained. “It leads to the ocean. In a month from now, there’ll be so many boats trying to go through, it will look like a line waiting to go into a movie.”

  “Will I be able to swim?” Emma asked.

  “Oh, yes … though the water is still quite cold. But you won’t go over your depth, will you?”

  “No. I’m not such a great swimmer,” Emma said. “Do you and Aunt Bea swim a lot?”

  “I go in but Bea doesn’t care for bathing. And the stairs would be difficult for her to manage. They’re fairly shaky. She doesn’t like crowds. By the time the water warms up in July, there’ll be dozens of people on the beach. More come every summer, and more houses are built and more shops for all the newcomers.”

  He didn’t look as sad as he sounded. “It’s no one’s fault the world is getting so crowded,” he said.

  “Uncle Crispin—I’ve been wondering about the color of your eyes. What’s it called?”

  He laughed and touched her lightly on her shoulder. “How nice to have one’s eyes noticed,” he said. “I think the word is hazel. It’s unusual, isn’t it?”

  He speaks about himself as though he were someone else, Emma thought, as though he were that gull sitting on the post or the sailor who was, she noted, now entering the canal leading to the ocean.

  “Why don’t you go and say hello to Bea? I’ll fetch your things from the car.” He waved toward the long porch that ran along the front of the house. At one end a large tangle of small pink wind-blown roses grew on a trellis. Six rocking chairs sat on the porch and scattered among them on the wide boards were several cups and saucers. As she walked slowly up the wooden steps, she saw the cups were empty but stained with tea or coffee. Behind the screen door in front of her, it was dark.

  She hesitated and looked once more at the bright bay. If only she could run down the rickety stairs to that beach! If only she could run all the way home! How could anyone related to her father be a terror? What did it mean?

  She turned to the door and opened it quickly.

  3

  Aunt Bea

  Caution made Emma put one foot behind her to ease the screen door so that it wouldn’t bang. She found herself in an entrance room of some sort. For the moment it took her eyes to adjust to the dimness, she saw only the dull gleam of a string of keys hanging from a hook on the wall before her. She put out one hand and felt the folds of an umbrella and next to it the stiff canvas of a rain hat. On a narrow shelf lay a flashlight, several pale candle stubs, and still another empty teacup. In a room on her right a grand piano stood in front of shaded windows. Emma was reminded of a large grazing animal she had seen on a television nature program, but she’d forgotten what it was called.

  She sensed movement on her left and turned at the moment a teapot held by a small, plump hand tilted in midair. She heard the steamy whisper of pouring tea. An arm covered in dark cloth descended and the teapot clanked as it hit a table where a woman sat. Her frizzy steel-colored hair was very long, caught at the nape of her neck by a thick putty-colored rubber band. Below the hem of her long black skirt, Emma glimpsed white moccasins, a design of blue, red, and white beads across the toes.

  Emma walked toward her. The woman didn’t turn her h
ead but picked up a spoon and stirred her tea languidly. The clink of spoon against china was the single sound in the shadowy room, its space largely taken up by an oval table and some chairs. A bookcase stood against one wall, most of its shelves filled with dishes among which were piled a few books.

  Emma swallowed noisily. “Hello, Aunt Bea,” she said. “I’m Emma.”

  For a moment, the woman made no sign she had heard her. Then she put her spoon down in a finicky way and let out a bray of laughter that ended abruptly. “Who else would you be?” she asked. She turned her head toward Emma. “I see you’re wearing blue denim like everyone else in the world,” she remarked.

  “I brought a dress and a skirt and two blouses,” Emma said.

  “You’ll hardly need such an impressive wardrobe here,” remarked her aunt. “Sand, sea, and sun, you know,” she added in a tone of voice that seemed to say such things were silly.

  “There wasn’t much traffic,” Uncle Crispin announced as he came in carrying Emma’s things. He, too, had closed the screen door so quietly Emma hadn’t heard it. “You’ll be glad to know, Bea, that Philip was in good spirits. I think he’s optimistic about the operation.” He turned on a small standing light near the table.

  Aunt Bea showed no sign of gladness. She had begun to scratch one hand with the fingernails of the other. She appeared entirely absorbed by what she was doing. She smoothed the hand and plucked away at her thumb, her fingers moving like small gears in an intricate machine, her head at a slight angle. She’s like a parrot, Emma thought, cracking open seeds.

  “One hopes he’ll come through the hands of those doctors without more complications,” Aunt Bea said at last, her hands at rest in her lap. “Crispin, did you remember to get my Ceylon tea?”

  “Yes, I bought plenty in the city,” he answered.

  “One would think the idiots who run the markets out here would know enough to stock decent tea,” she said. She looked into her teacup, frowned, and lifted the brown teapot again.

  “Philip sent his love,” said Uncle Crispin.

  “His love …” Aunt Bea repeated thoughtfully. “What a peculiar usage. How can one send love?” She didn’t appear to expect an answer, for she went on to speak of something entirely different. “Did you know, Emma, that the English upper classes pour milk into their cups before the tea, and the lower classes add milk after they’ve poured?”

  There was no milk pitcher on the table. Emma didn’t understand what Aunt Bea was talking about. Although she struggled to think of something to say, nothing came to her.

  “It hardly makes a difference, Bea, what people do with their tea,” Uncle Crispin said.

  “It makes every difference,” Aunt Bea said, smiling to herself as though she knew a secret that pleased her.

  “I’ll take Emma to her room. I’m sure she’d like to unpack and settle in,” Uncle Crispin said.

  Aunt Bea nodded, then asked, “What’s in that shopping bag?”

  “Some books,” Emma replied. “Jigsaw puzzles, a diary.”

  She didn’t mention the present at the bottom of the bag for Aunt Bea. Her mother had wrapped it hastily in newspaper at the last moment this morning, and tied it with knotted laundry string.

  “Jigsaw puzzles at your age!” Aunt Bea exclaimed. “I thought only old ladies passed the time with such things.…”

  “Well—I’m practicing,” Emma said. She wished she hadn’t. Had she meant to be so fresh? The words had burst out of her. But to her surprise, Aunt Bea seemed amused and emitted her braying laugh again.

  “Come along, Emma,” Uncle Crispin said, picking up her bag and suitcase. She followed him into a large living room crowded with furniture, most of it wicker and all of it dusty. Only the big television set looked new. In front of it was a small sofa strewn with tired-looking pillows and several articles of clothing, scarves, a sweater the color of laundry soap, and a long, soiled lilac bathrobe. On the floor, around the sofa’s carved wooden feet, stood empty glasses and dirty teacups. Rusty pine boughs filled the hearth of a large stone fireplace.

  “I must clean up around here,” muttered Uncle Crispin.

  The room was gloomy and dark like the other rooms except for a deep straw basket overflowing with knitted things, small blankets and shawls in luminous shades of mauve and rose.

  They went up wide uncarpeted stairs to a hall along which were seven or eight closed doors. A narrow, tall window at the end of the hall framed the tops of pine trees and the sky.

  Uncle Crispin opened one of the doors. “We thought you’d like to be able to see the bay,” he said. Sunlight streamed through unshaded windows onto gray floorboards and an oval braided rug. He put her things next to a bed. On its wooden headboard was painted a large, lily-like blue flower with curling leaves; an afghan throw in shades of green lay across the foot of the bed. “Your Aunt Bea made that,” Uncle Crispin said, pointing to the throw. “She’s a marvel with wool. She painted the flower, too. There’s a table you can use for a desk. The top drawer in the bureau sticks, but if you yank hard, it will come out. Do you need more than one chair? There are dozens more in rooms we don’t use. Too many chairs for the likes of us.”

  One chair was enough, Emma told him.

  “When you’ve put away your things, come down and we’ll have lunch,” he said. “You must be very hungry.”

  “It’s a nice room,” Emma said. She wished he wouldn’t leave her alone in it though. He seemed to guess what she was feeling. He took her hand and led her to the windows. “The water is beautiful at this time of the year,” he said. “It’s beginning to be a summer sea. I find it comforting though I don’t know why.”

  From the window, Emma could see the stairs leading down the cliff, and the clumps of grass she had run across. As she stared out at the bay, she remembered the little house in northern New York state which her parents had rented for several summers until her father grew too ill to leave the city and his doctor.

  He had played his violin in the mornings on the screened porch. At twilight, the three of them had taken walks along dirt roads and across meadows where grazing cows would raise their heads to stare at them curiously. There had been no soaring gulls there, no water except for a trickle in a tiny stream bed near the house.

  Uncle Crispin sighed as he let go of Emma’s hand.

  “Comforting—like playing music?” she asked.

  He laughed and said, “You will think I’m always looking for comfort.”

  She didn’t think that but of Aunt Bea in her chair in the dining room, smiling faintly to herself.

  “And then there is the comfort of lunch,” Uncle Crispin said. “It’ll be ready in a jiffy. The bathroom is two doors down on the right. There’s a yellow towel for you on a rack.”

  He left her at the window. It was not the water she was seeing but her father in a narrow hospital bed, the same sunlight that was now warming her touching an iron bar at its foot. Her mother was there, too, sitting in a low chair beside him. They must be speaking together in low voices—perhaps about her so far away from them.

  She began to unpack the shopping bag, putting her books, the two jigsaw puzzles—one for each week—and a big pad of newsprint drawing paper on the table. She opened the diary. There was only one entry, on May second:

  Daddy is sicker, it read. I have to go to school anyhow. He won’t be there in Room 103, giving music lessons. Could he die?

  She put a small alarm clock on the table next to the bed, then unwrapped the present for Aunt Bea—she might have something disagreeable to say about the newspaper and string. The present was a bowl from Italy. Would it please Aunt Bea so that she would smile at Emma and not to herself? She went to the diary and with a pencil wrote the day’s date. Under it, she wrote: I’m here. Uncle Crispin is really nice although a little peculiar. The bay and the beach are great. Aunt Bea is—but she couldn’t think of one single word to sum up her feeling about her aunt. And she felt uneasy as though one of the doors in the silent hall h
ad opened, and an unknown person had come creeping to her room to look over her shoulder and see what she had written.

  Would it help if she changed her clothes? Put on a skirt and blouse? Would Aunt Bea welcome her then? She didn’t think so. She put everything away in the bureau, avoiding the sticking drawer. Uncle Crispin’s voice called faintly from below, “Lunch, Emma …”

  Two weeks is only fourteen days, Emma told herself as she went down the stairs.

  Emma was sure Aunt Bea had not moved from her chair. She saw a glass of milk and a grilled cheese sandwich on the table near the brown teapot. She handed the Italian bowl to her aunt before she sat down to eat.

  “My mother got it for you,” she said. “It’s from Deruta, Italy.”

  “I know where it’s from,” Aunt Bea said irritably. “If there’s one thing I know about, it’s faience.”

  “How pretty,” Uncle Crispin remarked. “How thoughtful of your mother. Eat your sandwich before it gets cold, Emma.”

  “French faience is the best, of course,” Aunt Bea said, turning the bowl in her hands. “As everyone—nearly everyone—knows.”

  “Really, Bea, it’s a lovely bowl, so bright and cheerful,” Uncle Crispin said. Aunt Bea held out the bowl without looking at either of them. Uncle Crispin took it from her quickly and put it on one of the less crowded bookshelves. It was only the impression of a second, but Emma had suspected Aunt Bea had been about to drop the bowl on the floor.

  “Cheerful, I suppose that is the best word for it,” she was saying. “You will thank your mother for me, Emma.” She picked up a fat silver pen covered in intricate scrolls and began to do a crossword puzzle in a newspaper folded on the table in front of her.

  “Can’t I fix you something, Bea?” Uncle Crispin asked. He sounded as though he were asking her a favor.

  “I’ll have a bite later on,” she said. “What I want now is fresh hot water for my tea.”

  Emma sat down. She was terribly hungry. As soon as she bit into the sandwich, she felt like a noisy parade. She had meant to drink the milk in sips but she heard herself gulp. Aunt Bea didn’t look her way; she was intent on the puzzle.