Peter Loon

by Van Reid

  Even Nora feasted–though she only watched and listened to the game–and she did seem to grow less troubled, if not absolutely glad of her circumstances; it was difficult not to be pulled along by laughter and good feeling. There were meats and a peach pie and apples and cranberries and cider, and they made good on the most of what was pulled from the basket till they must fall asleep or work off their meal. James called out for a game and Martha declared hide-and-seek. Peter continued to be astonished, for his companions were more like children than ever and they leaped up with shouts and laughter.

  Someone would hide and everyone else would look for them, each joining the missing person in his hiding place when they found him. There were certainly places to conceal oneself, for the immediate countryside was dotted with hills and gullies, and the shore was rife with pocks and tree shaded inlets. The boundaries of the sport were laid out and James declared that he would be the first to hide. Everyone else must bury their faces and count to one hundred together. Peter felt silly, but complied with the rules and when the count was done, he looked up, his sight dazzled pale by the brilliant sunlight.

  Emily and Sussanah and Martha sprang to their feet and scattered in separate directions, leaving Peter and Nora standing by the quilt looking bewildered.

  “I’ve played this, a long time ago,” he said, as much to himself as to the young woman.

  “I am with you,” Nora said to him.

  Peter felt a mounting frustration with her, as if she were simple and had only a small measure of thoughts at her command. Already, when he looked about them, Emily and Martha had disappeared. Only Sussanah lingered in sight, and then Emily’s figure rose up from beneath the next knoll to the west and pulled her sister along. Soon they were both gone and Peter and Nora were alone in the landscape.

  “We should search for him, I guess,” said Peter simply.

  Nora had an odd look about her. She glanced around for signs of their companions, then stepped past Peter, catching his hand as she went. He was surprised, and not displeased with her touch, and he allowed himself to be jerked into movement and led along the shoreline. The young woman appeared to be looking for something below them, tugging him along in a walking, cautious hurry. Peter was reminded of their meeting on the shore of Great Bay.

  She was trembling, the vibration translating to Peter’s arm like the wing-beat of a small bird. Her breathing was short and shallow, perhaps frightened by her own purpose. Her red-brown hair fell untidily beneath her bonnet, as if disarrayed by emotion alone, and her slight figure proved uncommonly strong and compelling as she pulled him with her.

  They came to a broad pine overlooking the water, where nature had hollowed a place between the roots and a separate sort of nature had feathered the hollow with grass and fern. She made a sound, as if she had discovered what she knew would be there. She tugged at his arm and pulled him to the other side of the tree. He could read nothing in her expression, and even less in her words than before when she said again, “Parson Leach went away.”

  “Yes,” said Peter, fascinated by the sight of her shaking before him.

  She shouldered herself out of the coat she had been given and laid it in the hollow beneath the tree as carefully as Emily had laid the quilt. “I am with you,” she said, when she confronted him again with that plain expression. The breeze blew a lock of hair over her eyes and she brushed it aside.

  Peter’s heart pounded with blind anticipation, and he thought it would burst from his chest when she leaned forward and kissed him. At first the mark of affection grazed his cheek, but then it pressed his own lips and lingered.

  Nora pulled away then and considered the effect of this, her small features sweet and ethereal. She took handfuls of his coat and drew him toward her and kissed him again with an urgency that even Peter’s inexperience could consider odd. He gasped a little when she pulled away this time. She seemed as real and as potent as anything in his entire life, and her small hands and her narrow shoulders, the serious set of her mouth, were like the essence of something he had not recognized before that moment. His entire surroundings fell into the emotions she had provoked in him–the air rushing in the trees, the call of a river bird, and the sound of the river itself, the sun on his back.

  When she leaned forward a third time, he was prepared and he thought he might draw her inside of him, his heart felt so ready to be filled. His hands went up to the back of her neck and touched her hair, then swept down to hold her shoulders to him. Her knees buckled–not with weakness, but with design–and he was suddenly kneeling beside her. She continued to shake and as a result of some sympathetic energy, a cleaving together of motive and response, he found himself shaking as well. All the while, she never lost touch of him, and pulled him down atop of herself. She kissed him fervently, insinuating her hands beneath his coat, and twisting beneath him so that one knee rose up alongside his thigh.

  There was a scent to her skin and her hair, and a mysterious softness to her hard, gaunt body. Peter felt he must touch everything about her and press her entirely to him and calm her trembling with his closeness.

  Then her trembling became something else, and a strange sound rose in her throat, like a muted expression of fear. Her shivering increased beneath him, and his first instinct was to press her closer, to speak in a low hush, but she only shivered more violently. Another, strangled sound rose out of Nora, and her shaking might have seemed like an attempt to throw him off if, at that moment, she had appeared at all capable of motive.

  Frightened, Peter pushed himself away from her, and kneeling at her side he watched with helpless horror till her quaking was like a fit he had once seen taken by a rum-soaked neighbor. Her arms and legs twitched horribly. Her eyes creased shut. She let out another low cry or two, then rolled on to her side and fell into a paroxysm of grief. Her hands gripped at the roots of the broad pine and her legs convulsed, kicking without purpose at dirt and stones.

  Peter looked up the bank, suddenly aware of where he was and what the scene might seem to someone stumbling upon them. He felt guilt and fear, and then an extraordinary, tender sort of sympathy that all but overwhelmed his ability to move or speak. His eyes were filled with tears and his throat raw with emotion. His initial fear of being found in such straits was pushed aside by the belief that Nora was in a terrible danger which had nothing to do with her physical being, and that she needed immediate care that he was incompetent to offer.

  Nora’s sobs altered into something more human and answerable; she covered her mouth with one hand to quiet herself and curled her legs close to her body. Peter approached her carefully, but when he kneeled beside her and she showed no extra-violent reaction, he dared to prop her up and drape her coat over her shoulders. Then he took her into his arms, with one hand beneath her knees and the other behind her back, and stood with her. He had never been so conscious of the stark angularity of her body, not three minutes before when he was pressing her close to him, nor the day before when she appeared along the shore of the lake, drenched in her insufficient clothes.

  She actually clung to him and put her face against his shoulder. She was quivering still, but it was as a secondary reaction to what had occurred between them and not the initial tremor of fear and grief, and he had the impression that this time his physical presence had soaked up her distress rather than increased it.

  “I must get you back,” he said, wondering if he could safely carry her up the steep bank.

  “Please, don’t let them see me!” she said in a hoarse whisper.

  “No,” he said, then, “But. . .” She was trembling less and he could imagine that whatever had happened had not stricken her in a permanent way. He thought he heard voices from over the bank and he let her down onto her own feet. She shivered slightly now, but as if from a chill and she pulled the borrowed coat around her shoulders.

  There was another shout from one of the Claydens.

  “I’ll be fine,” said Nora, which seemed an astonishing pronounceme
nt to Peter. She did not look at him, but stared at her feet. A secondary sort of sob occasionally choked her voice, but she seemed to have regained herself.

  Peter wanted to reassure her that the parson would be back, that she was with the Claydens now, for a time, which was to be preferred to being with a young man who couldn’t even find his own uncle, who had never been to Newcastle before, and who hadn’t the smallest notion how many people there were in the world. An apology died in his throat.

  “Mr. Loon?” came the voice again, and he caught sight of Martha looking off in another direction. Before she could see where he sprang from, he leaped up the bank and walked several paces to his left. Then he shouted back and waved.

  Martha was startled to see him there. “My goodness, Mr. Loon, we thought you had gone hiding yourself. We’ve all found James, but you and Nora.” This last thought was followed by a small look of embarrassment, as if something unintended had been implied.

  With a simple gesture, Peter gave a surprisingly expert indication that he needed to speak quietly. “Miss Tillage was feeling weary and is resting down by the shore,” he said, when he approached her, a little dismayed at how easily he contorted the truth.

  “Oh, the poor dear!” said Martha. “Have we exhausted her so?” and she would have gone looking for Nora, but Peter impressed upon her that Miss Tillage was sensitive about her fragile condition, and while he spoke, a renewed sense of guilt and confusion swept over him. “Ah, well,” said Martha sweetly. “We’ll let her rest, then, away from Emily and James. You’re kind to continue helping her.”

  Peter never looked at Martha, but took a sudden, if not heartfelt interest in knowing where James had hidden. He glanced back to the shore before he followed her over the knoll.

  They did not play hide-and-seek anymore, but returned to the place where they had eaten and spoke quietly about unimportant things till Nora reappeared without explanation or apology. Her expression may have been difficult for the others to read, but Peter saw in it the mirror of his own humiliation and regret.

  They were a decidedly quieter group on their way back to the Clayden house. Peter caught only a single glance from Nora, and he suffered for what she thought he thought about her.

  15

  Concerning New Visitors to Captain Clayden and Their Opinions

  SOME EXCITEMENT GREETED THE YOUNG CLAYDENS AND THEIR guests upon their return, for as they neared the house, half a dozen horsemen entered the yard at a near gallop, to the accompaniment of the family’s dogs, which bayed and barked. The riders were all well-dressed men in fine clothes and broad capes and polished boots, and one wore a sword at his side. Four of them wore wigs beneath their hats, and the others–younger men–wore their hair pulled back in a simple queue.

  One of these younger men–a tall, broad shouldered Hector–broke away from his fellows to greet the Clayden ladies and James. He bowed over the young women’s hands as they received him, and even the practical Emily appeared pleased by his attention. Martha, however, he saved for last, and he lingered with her, and affected such a degree of tenderness over this particular greeting that it could not be missed if a man had only his ears to serve him. Her round pretty face blushed to see him, and she fairly glowed to have him lean close to her as he asked after her health and that of her family in Falmouth.

  “We’re all quite well, thank you for asking, Mr. Kavanagh,” she beamed. She was not a short woman, but she appeared dainty beside him.

  Mr. Kavanagh flashed a look of slight interest in the direction of Peter, and another of slightly more interest toward the slender figure of Nora Tillage.

  “Sir,” said Martha, with smooth formality, “may I introduce Mr. Peter Loon. Mr. Loon, may I introduce Mr. Edward Kavanagh.”

  “I am pleased to know any friend of the Claydens, Mr. Loon,” said Mr. Kavanagh. He put his broad hand out and gripped Peter’s firmly.

  Peter felt great physical power in the grip. “Yes,” he said, daunted by the man’s presence and energy, and still shaken by his recent experience with Nora by the shore. “Thank you. I too.”

  When Nora was introduced to the man, he greeted her with more formality, though with all his charm and gallantry at full tilt; the result was that she could hardly speak to him. Charm or no charm, Emily must have thought this enough, for she stepped up to rescue Nora, asking Mr. Kavanagh when she could expect to ride his horse Malborough. The man laughed and declared it would be worth his life if the Captain caught him letting her ride such an animal. Emily pretended a comic disgust with him, but the thing was neatly done and Kavanagh turned his bright light from Nora back to Martha, who was quite prepared for it.

  During all this courtliness, the gentlemen with whom Kavanagh arrived were instructing Ebulon Magnamous how to tend their animals, and Ebulon, who may have known more about horses than all of them put together, dutifully nodded his head and accepted these mandates with grace.

  “Edward,” called one of these men–an older fellow, whose florid complexion contrasted unflatteringly with the snow white of his wig.

  “I will see you before we leave,” said Mr. Kavanagh in the direction of the younger Claydens, but he was plainly speaking to Martha.

  “You might escort a lady to the door,” suggested Emily, and she gestured in such a way that Mr. Kavanagh was constrained to take her arm and obey. The effect of this was that both groups tromped into the kitchen together. The wigged gentlemen did not balk at this entrance as, even then, it had been a long-standing tradition in the district, taken from old Anglia, that strangers and peddlers come to the front door, and that besides these, only the ostentatious and the crude insist on greeting people at the main entrance.

  The kitchen was a madhouse, with the younger Claydens shouting for their grandfather and the gentlemen greeting Mrs. Magnamous in loud voices to be heard over the young folk and Mrs. Magnamous complaining more loudly still that the bread would fall with all the noise. A dog had got in with the crowd and was racing about, his tail whipping things from the kitchen table, till the door was opened and one of the older men booted him down the steps.

  “What! are the British returned?” came a new voice above the rabble, and Captain Clayden stood in the doorway, shouting half in delight, half in astonishment. “Good gracious! What actions!”

  One of the wigged gentlemen stepped through the press and greeted the Captain with a handshake and a “Pleased to see you again, sir.”

  “Come in, come in!” declared the elderly fellow. “Get out of Mrs. Magnamous’s kitchen before she puts you in a pie!”

  “The bread will fall!” she said again.

  As the group of men followed Captain Clayden from the kitchen to his den, Mr. Kavanagh turned to Peter and said, cordially, “Come with us, Mr. Loon. This may interest you.” The handsome man glanced from Peter to Martha, and it was clear that Mr. Kavanagh himself was interested in finding more about this young man who was spending time in the company of the Clayden cousin.

  “What?” said the older ruddy-faced newcomer, and he looked Peter up and down as he would a horse for sale. “I dare say,” he ventured, though he sounded unconvinced.

  They continued to empty from the kitchen, when one wigged fellow tripped suddenly and fell face forward. James, whose foot had been in the wrong place, helped the man up and apologized profusely, but he told Peter later that he felt avenged upon the fellow for kicking his dog.

  There were not chairs enough for everyone in the den, but the Captain and the two eldest (or at least the grandest fellows) took seats and a fourth chair was brought in from the hall. The others stood about the hearth, which barely glowed, or before the book-lined shelves. Mr. Kavanagh pulled a volume from one of these and thumbed it with the look of serious curiosity, but before the conversation had very much gotten under way, he closed the book and put it back in its place. Peter, standing next to Mr. Kavanagh, envied the man his ease and carelessness.

  The den was a sanctuary of immaculate comfort. Elm trees shaded t
he house, and the sun touched the windows with a fitful radiance. Lamplight set a golden tone to the dark furniture, and ensconced in his lair of books, Captain Clayden was the gracious host. “I would offer you wine, gentlemen,” he said, “but a tumbler of ale would seem fit for an afternoon visit and a spirited ride.”

  “That would answer the humors, splendidly,” said one of the seated men.

  “James!” called the Captain, but his grandson was at the doorway and he simply shouted, “I’ll get them,” and was gone.

  The old man noticed Peter, then, and twisted up his mouth in an expression of inner debate. Peter felt out of place, and thought it perhaps impolitic for him to be there, however boldly Mr. Kavanagh had invited him. But Captain Clayden simply nodded seriously and said, “Have you met Mr. Loon, gentlemen,” as courteously as could be, and indicated the young man with a respectful gesture.

  The five pairs of eyes that had not yet had the pleasure turned to Peter with varying degrees of doubt and inquisitiveness. Mr. Kavanagh nodded and made a sound to signify that he had already observed the niceties.

  “Mr. Loon,” said Captain Clayden, and he indicated the other gentlemen in a counterclockwise manner. “Mr. Ethan Flye, Mr. Benjamin Shortwell, Mr. Harold Whitehouse, Mr. Morrison Marston, and Captain Elihu McQuigg. Gentlemen, Mr. Peter Loon. He is looking for a lost uncle, it seems, so if any of you know of an Obed Winslow, you could do the lad a favor.”

  The men nearest Peter offered their hands, and two of those seated half-rose and nodded. Someone mumbled that the name Obed Winslow had a familiar ring to it, but the others shook their heads. Captain McQuigg–he with the florid expression and the sword at his side–simply grunted and waved a negligent hand.

  “My pleasure,” said Peter, after hearing this nicety from several of the men.