Goody Hall

by Natalie Babbitt

  Chapter 11

  If sleep were a willing guest you could invite as if to a party, how easy nights like that one would be. “Look here now,” said Hercules Feltwright to his spinning brain, “the thing to do is quiet down and get some rest.” But he might as well have ordered a mosquito to stop humming. And anyway, he didn’t really want to sleep. He wanted to rush into Willet’s room and wake him up and tell him everything. But how could he tell about having seen another Mott Snave in the dark? How could he possibly explain that? How could he explain how he had stood stunned on the lawn instead of rushing after the fellow, seizing him, forcing him to give himself up? There was a connection, of course, between the Cerberus in the coffin and Mott Snave on the lawn. There had to be. But how? He couldn’t puzzle it out—he was too dumfounded—and so he had crept up to his room, put away the nose and the costume, and fumbled his way into nightshirt and bed without troubling even to light a candle. And now he lay there with his eyes shut, in one of his most dependable sleeping positions, and tried to pretend that he was drowsy.

  But the moment he relaxed his grip on his thoughts, off they swooped again. Over and over he traced his own steps down into the tomb, over and over he opened the coffin and discovered the grinning heads of Cerberus, and over and over he saw before him on the shadowed lawn his twin in cape and scarf. Every swoop was a question, and every question a tangle without beginning or end. He could not even begin to guess how the statue came to be in the coffin, or how Mott Snave, if it was the real Mott Snave, came to be at Goody Hall.

  Hercules Feltwright tried to force the turmoil out of his head. He lay there and imagined that his brain was a tiny room presided over by a little man with a broom. The tiny room was cluttered with thoughts which lay about on the floor, heaving like snakes. The little man opened a door, swept the thoughts out, and slammed the door on them, leaning against it, while the thoughts, gibbering and protesting, pushed hard from the other side. But the little man was too strong for them—they couldn’t get back in. Hercules sighed with relief. This was a favorite system of his. It always worked. Then, as he lay there, he remembered Alfreida and her séance. And thinking about Alfreida, he remembered Alfresco. He sat bolt upright in bed, “Alfresco does know what happened!” he said, with sudden certainty. “I’ll ask him in the morning.” The certainty was like the blowing out of a candle. His mind emptied, his knees loosened. He fell back on the pillow and went instantly to sleep.

  To be sure, he dreamed. And in his dreams Mott Snave and Alfreida and Willet and Mrs. Tidings were all dancing a fandango, the three heads of Cerberus sang a charming trio, and he himself, draped in a lion’s skin, was cavorting with the superior-looking gentleman from the parlor table, who, though much enlarged and certainly a marble statue in a toga, was surprisingly graceful and lithe. From the sidelines his mother beamed fondly and kept saying, “Hero! Hero!” The result of all this was that he woke up in the morning very tired indeed but somehow extremely pleased with himself.

  Breakfast seemed to take forever, but when at last it was over, Hercules Feltwright seized Willet by the hand, pulled him out of the house and over to the iron stag, and sat him down in the dewy grass in such a hurry that Willet, who was still chewing on a final muffin, nearly choked with surprise.

  “What’s the matter, Hercules?” he managed through a mouthful. “What’s happened?”

  And Hercules, plumping down beside him, told him at last everything that had happened the night before. “So you see, Willet,” he said when the tale was done, “that’s the final proof. Your father is definitely not in the coffin, and instead of that solving the puzzle, or untangling any webs, it all looks more tangled than ever. But—Alfresco knows the answers. I’m sure of it. And the very next thing to do is to find him and make him tell us.”

  Willet sat breathless on the grass, his eyes wide and shining, torn between joy and confusion. “A silver statue in the coffin!” he said. “That explains the clanking noise.”

  “It clanked last night!” Hercules put in. “I leaned against the coffin and it clanked.”

  “Well, it looks as if the Mott Snave stories are true after all,” said Willet grudgingly. “You were right, Hercules. But what was he doing here? Maybe he put the statue in the coffin himself. Do you suppose that’s it?”

  “I haven’t the least idea,” said Hercules. “It’s a real poser. And…there’s another thing. Mrs. Tidings told me yesterday that the night your father was killed, supposedly killed, some people brought the body back here to Goody Hall. She saw it. She didn’t look closely at it, but she saw it. Somebody died that night, Willet, and the question is—who?” They stared at each other and then Hercules said, “Well, we’re going to find out, that’s what we’re going to do. And we’re going to find out now. Come on. We’ll look for Alfresco. He must be somewhere about.”

  Behind the beautiful house, and masked somewhat by a thick curtain of wisteria, stood a small shed, and inside the shed, laying out his tools for the day from the rakes and clippers and other implements that lined its walls, they did indeed find Alfresco Rom. “Well?” he barked when he saw them. “What do you want?” His wrinkled brown face scowled and he turned an angry eye on Hercules. “It’s a sour day brought you to Goody Hall,” he grumbled. “Like a cook in a kitchen, the way you stir things up.”

  But Hercules was full of heroic zeal. He could almost feel the lion skin across his back. “Never mind that,” he answered sharply. “The time has come, Mr. Rom, for you to tell what you know. You see, I went down into Midas Goody’s tomb last night. He isn’t in the coffin. And you’re going to tell us about it.”

  The effect of this speech on Alfresco Rom was remarkable to see. He goggled at Hercules and dropped the trowel he had been holding. His shoulders sagged. And then he turned to Willet and his old black eyes filled with tears. “I’m glad,” he said huskily. “I’m very glad. It’s been a long time to keep a secret.” He reached deep into a pocket of his trousers, pulled up something, and held it out to Willet. “I promised for the sake of this,” he said. On his calloused palm, like a drop of dew that sparkled in the sun-dappled doorway of the shed, lay a large diamond. “Now you’ve found out, you can have this back. I don’t want it any more. It’s been burning me through that pocket for five years.” He closed his fist sharply over the diamond and then his fingers opened again. The diamond winked. “I thought I could buy a peaceful old age with it,” he said. “I’m a fool. There’s no peace down that road.”

  There was a long moment of silence then. Willet took the diamond and looked at it and put it into his own pocket. “My mother gave you that diamond, didn’t she?” he asked sadly.

  “That she did,” said Alfresco in a gentle voice. “That she did. Come, sit down out here and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  There was an old wooden bench against the outside wall of the shed. The wisteria grew up and around it, full and fragrant, from sturdy, twisted roots, a thousand purple blossoms that stirred in the soft breeze. Alfresco sank down on this bench and Willet went to sit cross-legged at his feet. Hercules leaned in the doorway of the shed. He felt that now, somehow, he should stay out of the way.

  No one spoke for a while. Alfresco seemed lost in memories. His eyes were vague, as they’d been on the night of the séance, and he gazed out over the lawn to where a large mossy rock lay on the grass wanning in the sun. A robin was perched on the rock and it caroled out a string of notes. From the wood at their right, another bird answered cheerily. And then at last Alfresco began to speak.

  “It was the garden, mostly, that brought me into it,” he said. “Midas Goody came down from the city, ten years ago it is now, and he asked around in the village for land to buy. Settled on this piece here, finally, and wanted it cleared for building. He was a fine man, dressed fine, with plenty of money in his pockets, but he was a shy man, in a way, and his hands were used to work. I saw that right away and I liked him for it. Well, he hired me to clear the land and I did that for him, and then
when the house was building, he asked me to stay on to make a garden and care for the lawn. He said he wanted the best garden in the county, and the best house, too. It couldn’t be grand enough, he said. A year later, when the house was finished, he came back and brought Mrs. Goody and you, lad. You were only a bit of a baby then. And the garden, my garden, was just coming to life, too. I loved it. I love it still.”

  “It’s a good garden,” said Willet.

  Alfresco nodded. “Much obliged. It should be. The roses will be out soon. That’s when it’s at its best…Well, he was kind to me, Midas Goody was, and she was kind to me, too. Your mama. And they took Alfreida to help inside. Everything was fine for a while. And then he took to following me around, after a year or so. ‘Here, let me do that, Mr. Rom,’ he’d say—he never did call me Alfresco—and he’d get down and pull weeds, happy as a crow. One day I asked him, ‘How’d you learn to do that, a gentleman like you?’ and he said never mind, he just enjoyed it. Well, he seemed to get more and more restless, Midas Goody did, and he took to riding off on his horse, galloping away as if the world was after him.”

  “What happened to the stable?” asked Hercules. “There must have been a stable.”

  “She had it tore down. After the accident,” said Alfresco. “But wait a bit. I’m coming to that. Then, after about three or four years, he seemed to get very discouraged. The house seemed to bother him. He was hardly ever in it except for meals and sleeping. ‘Mr. Rom,’ he said to me once, ‘that house is a bad thing. I wish I’d never built it.’ And that was when he told me how—” Alfresco stopped suddenly and looked down at Willet. “Well, never mind that,” he said at last, snapping his old teeth together with a click. “He was hardly ever in that house, as I say, but she, your mama, she loved the house so much she hardly ever went out of it.” He sighed and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. “It was along about then he had the tomb built. ‘Mr. Rom,’ he says to me, ‘when Midas Goody dies, he’s going to stay right here forever.’ He had the tomb built and everything got ready, and that seemed to make him feel better somehow. But not for long. That last year, when you were five, lad, he took to riding off more than ever. And then it happened. It was the day after Pooley’s barn burned down. I’d been up to the next village getting some rose cuttings for the garden. I was coming home, nearing evening it was, when I saw him sitting under a tree way down the road. He was just sitting there and the horse was grazing beside him, when all of a sudden, out of the bushes jumps a chor.”

  “What’s a chor?” asked Willet and Hercules both at once.

  “Why, a robber,” Alfresco explained. “A thief. Well, this chor knocks your father over and grabs the horse, climbs on and goes riding hell for leather down the road before I’m close enough to do a thing to help. But the horse, he doesn’t like it much. He knows it’s not his master. So all of a sudden he just stops running. Bang. Like that. And the chor goes flying off and whams head first into a tree stump.”

  “Good lord!” exclaimed Hercules. “What happened then?”

  “Well, I was coming along the road as fast as I could but I had those rose cuttings and couldn’t go too well. Midas Goody got up and ran down the road to see if the chor was all right, but of course he wasn’t. He was dead as a doornail. I could see that, even from where I was, by the funny way he was lying there. Well, Mr. Goody, he stood thinking and then he did such a strange thing that it stopped me in my tracks and sent me into the bushes for cover.”

  “What did he do?” gasped Willet.

  “What he did was he got down and he changed clothes with that chor. Every stitch right down to the shoes and stockings. And then he gets on the horse and rides off across a field and I’ve never seen him since to this day.”

  Willet sat with his mouth hanging open in dismay. Hercules, after a moment of stunned silence, said, “Well, go on. What happened then?”

  “Well,” said Alfresco, “I figured he wanted it that way, or he wouldn’t have done it, so I didn’t call out or anything. I came out of the bushes and I went down the road and looked at the chor all dressed up in Midas Goody’s clothes, and along about then, it was nearly dark, a coach comes along and pulls up beside me and a fellow climbs out and says, ‘What’s the trouble here?’ and I says, ‘It looks like a horse threw him,’ which was nothing but the honest truth. And he says, ‘I’m a doctor—let me take a look at him,’ and he gets down and thumps the chor and pokes at him and then says, ‘He’s dead. Looks like a broken neck. Do you know where he lives?’ And I says, ‘Try back down the road there, that big place,’ because I figured that’s what Midas Goody would have wanted me to say. So the doctor fellow hauls the chor into the coach and they turn around and go back to Goody Hall. By the time I get there, it’s all over. The doctor has written out the death notice and the chor is in Midas Goody’s coffin in the parlor. With the lid closed. And everyone is saying, ‘What a shame—poor Mr. Goody’s dead.’”

  “But what about Mama?” cried Willet. “She must have known it wasn’t my father!”

  “She knew,” said Alfresco. “Of course she knew. And anyway, I went and told her what I’d seen. But she said to me, ‘Alfresco,’ she says, ‘my husband wanted to leave this house. Well, now he’s gone and done it. He wanted us all to leave. He never could understand. But this house is Willet’s only way to have a good life,’ she says, ‘and I’m not ever going to leave it. For all anybody’ll ever know, Midas Goody’s dead.’ I said to her, ‘How can you tell the boy his father’s dead when he isn’t?’ And she said, ‘It’s better that Willet should believe his father’s dead than—’ But then she changed her mind about what she was going to say, and she finished up with ‘It’s better this way.’ So she gave me the diamond and she said, ‘It’s a secret between us.’ And I took it. I’ve always been sorry.”

  “But see here,” said Hercules. “There’s no body in the coffin!”

  Alfresco nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “The very next night, before the funeral, she comes to me and she says, ‘Alfresco, we can’t put that man in my husband’s tomb. I’ve got so I can’t bear the idea. Take him out and bury him somewhere else. I’ll put something heavy in the coffin and no one’ll ever know the difference.’ So that’s what I did.”

  “You buried him somewhere else?” asked Hercules.

  “That’s right.”

  “Where?”

  “Out there,” said Alfresco, pointing to the back of the lawn. “I put him out there where you see that big rock. It was better than he deserved, at that. Nothing but a chor.” They all stared out at the rock. The robin who had been perched there earlier was gone now. “It’s got R.I.P. scratched on it somewhere, and a sign of the cross,” said Alfresco. “That was the way she wanted it. ‘We can’t just leave the poor fellow out there with no marker or anything,’ she says to me. ‘There’s worse things than stealing.’ She’s a good woman in her way.” Alfresco sighed heavily. “So that’s the way it was, lad. I’m sorry about it all. But at least you know your father’s still alive. And it was never you he wanted to leave. Never you, for he loved you dearly.” Alfresco stood up and stretched and went to the corner of the shed. He peered around it at the beautiful house, and Willet and Hercules came and stood beside him, looking too. In the sunshine the tiled roofs shone and the windows stared back at them lazily.

  “It was that house he wanted to leave,” murmured Alfresco. “He didn’t like it, never mind he built it himself. And in the end, somehow or other, it drove him away.”

  Willet started slowly across the lawn, and Hercules followed, and then stopped and came back. “What did Mrs. Goody put into the coffin instead of the…the chor?” he asked.

  Alfresco shrugged. “I never saw,” he answered. “A stone, I suppose.”

  “It wasn’t a statue?” Hercules probed. “A big silver statue of a dog with three heads?”

  “A dog with three heads?” said Alfresco. And then, for the first time, he smiled. Like his daughter, Alfreida, he had a gold t
ooth tucked into a space between his other worn old stumps. The gold tooth winked. “What would she be doing with a dog with three heads?” he said. “No, I never saw anything like that around the place.”

  “Well, then,” said Hercules, “did you ever hear of a man, a thief, named Mott Snave?”

  Alfresco smiled again. “Mott Snave? No, I never did. Are you thinking that was the chor’s name, maybe?”

  “No, I didn’t think of that,” said Hercules, “although I suppose…no, that’s very unlikely because…well, never mind.” He gave it up and went to join Willet. Halfway across the lawn he looked back over his shoulder. Alfresco was watching them still, and still smiling, and the gold tooth winked in the sunlight.