Goody Hall

by Natalie Babbitt

  Chapter 12

  Willet Goody sat beside the iron stag and chewed on the points of his collar. He had been told a hundred times that he mustn’t do this because it made the cloth soggy and gray, but he chewed anyway. Beside him, Hercules, in a similar state of distraction, was engrossed in pulling bits of fuzz off the front of his rose-and-dragon vest and stuffing them into the top of one shoe. He plucked and stuffed with the utmost care, and without the least idea he was doing it. There they sat, side by side, chewing and plucking, lost in thought.

  After a while Willet stopped chewing and said, “We’ll go and look for him.”

  Hercules stopped plucking. “It’s not quite so simple as just up and going off, Willet,” he said. “We need some time to figure things out a little. And anyway, we haven’t any idea where to look for him.”

  “That’s so,” said Willet.

  They were silent again. Willet went back to his collar, which was pretty well destroyed by now, for use as a collar, anyway, and Hercules began plucking the vest fuzz out of the first shoe top and stuffing it into the top of the other.

  And that is what they were doing when Alfreida turned in at the gate at noon and came up the path toward the house. She stopped when she saw them, and began to laugh, and it wasn’t until then that they noticed her. “Well, if that isn’t a sight!” she cackled. “I had no idea tutoring was so hard. What’s the matter? Can’t remember ten times ten?”

  Hercules tossed a bit of vest fuzz aside and glared at her. “Don’t laugh, Alfreida. I’m afraid it really isn’t very funny.”

  Alfreida strode across the grass and looked closely at Willet, and her round face sobered. “Oh ho,” she said. “So it’s like that, is it?” She sat down on Willet’s other side and rested her elbows on her knees. “What’s the matter, dearie?” she asked in a gentler voice.

  “Well,” said Willet bravely, “it’s a good kind of thing to be the matter, really. I guess there’s no harm in telling you, Alfreida. It’s about my father. He isn’t dead. He only ran away. And now I have to find him.”

  “Your father isn’t dead?” she asked softly.

  “No, he isn’t. I knew it all along, anyway, and then Hercules went down into the tomb and looked. He isn’t in the coffin.”

  Alfreida looked at Hercules over Willet’s head and her little black eyes were bright with satisfaction. “Good for you, dearie,” she said. And then she turned back to Willet. “But as for going to find him, what will your mama have to say about that?”

  “I don’t know,” said Willet, “but she isn’t here, anyway. I’m going, and Hercules is coming with me.” He stopped and looked at her. “Alfreida,” he said with a frown, “you don’t seem very surprised to hear about it.”

  Alfreida gazed across the grass at the garden. “The daffodils are nearly gone,” she said. “Too bad. They were nice this year.”

  “Look here, Alfreida,” said Hercules. “There was a big silver statue of Cerberus in Mr. Goody’s coffin, just like the one in the stories you’ve been telling Willet. Why did you tell him those stories weren’t true? There really was a thief named Mott Snave, and heaven knows the statue is real enough.”

  Alfreida stood up. “I have to go in now,” she said. She started across the grass, and then she stopped and said over her shoulder, “I said Mott Snave wasn’t a real man, dearie, and I told the truth. He isn’t.” She went on to the steps and up to the tall front door of the beautiful house and then she stopped again, looked out at them between the pillars, and laughed. “You’re sitting in the right place, anyway, if you’re looking for answers to questions,” she called, and disappeared into the house.

  They sat staring after her. “I think she knew all about it already,” said Willet.

  “Maybe,” said Hercules, remembering the séance. “Maybe so. It’s hard to tell with Alfreida. She never seems surprised at anything.”

  “What did she mean about sitting in the right place for answering questions?” Willet asked.

  “Oh well,” said his tutor, “she must be thinking about one of the Hercules stories. One of the ones that’s all mixed up with a lot of other stories. He was sent to capture a magic stag once, or a roebuck, anyway. It’s the same thing in the stories. The roebuck was sacred to the gods in those days, but he caught it just the same. There are a lot of stories about roebucks, mostly about how if you can follow one, it will lead you to a magic grove of trees, wild apple trees as I remember, where you can learn the answers to all the questions in the world.”

  Willet sighed. “That would be nice,” he said. “Knowing all the answers. I wish our stag could tell us where to look for my father.”

  “There are a few other questions, you know,” said Hercules. “What about the statue in the coffin? Aren’t you curious about that? I know I am. And what about the man on the lawn?”

  “Well,” said Willet, “here’s the way I look at it, Hercules. It is a funny place to hide a statue…”

  “It certainly is!” said Hercules.

  “But,” Willet went on, “I don’t really care about that. If Mott Snave wants to hide things in my father’s tomb, it’s all right with me. I don’t care. He can hide things down there all day if he wants to. He’s probably been looking for years for a good place to put things where that nosy fanner, John Constant, won’t find them.” Willet stuck out his chin. “Mott Snave can have the whole place, for all I care.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out Alfresco’s diamond. It lay on his palm, glittering in the sunlight. Willet stared at it for a moment. “He can have this, too,” he said, and then he put it back into his pocket again. “No,” he said, “I think I’ll save it and leave it for my mother. When she comes back and sees it, she’ll know we know the whole story and maybe she’ll understand why I had to go away.” He paused. “You know what I wish, Hercules?”

  “What?”

  “I wish I could have talked her into coming with us. That would have been so nice, when we find him, to be all together again, wouldn’t it?”

  The tender heart of Hercules Feltwright gave a wrench and he had to swallow a time or two before he could answer. “Willet,” he said at last, “maybe it’s not too late. Maybe if you told your mother how you feel, and how you’ve been worrying all these years—maybe she would come along.”

  Willet Goody glanced across his tutor at the beautiful house and Hercules saw that his eyes were wet. “No,” he said in a low voice, “it’s no use. I hate that house, but I guess it’s pretty important to her somehow. She’ll never leave it.”

  “But Willet, you ought to give her a chance at least,” Hercules entreated. “Maybe you’re wrong. After all, she probably has no idea you’re so unhappy.”

  “Well,” said Willet stoutly, “I didn’t want her to know. I didn’t want her to feel bad.”

  “But that’s just it!” said Hercules. “You tell me how she’s been fooling you, about your father and all, but don’t you see, Willet—you’ve been fooling her, too. Everybody’s been fooling everybody all along. Maybe it’s time to stop doing that. Maybe you should wait until she comes home and tell her right out how you really feel. Maybe she’s unhappy, too. Did you ever think of that? Maybe she will come with us and we can find your father together.”

  “Do you really think so, Hercules?”

  “I really think you need to try.”

  Willet rubbed his nose savagely. “All right!” he said. “I will. It’s going to be awfully hard, but if you think I should, I will.”

  Just then a window was thrown open upstairs and the head of a mop was thrust out, flapping and flopping violently. A small cloud of dust motes floated down, silver and shiny in the morning sunlight. They looked up and saw Alfreida’s face framed in the window. She smiled down at them. “Just cobwebs, dearies,” she called. “The place was full of them.”

  And then, just before lunchtime, Mrs. Goody came home from the city.

  Chapter 13

  “Well,” said Mrs. Tidings, “she’s back.”
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  “Ah!” said the blacksmith, moving aside an old horse collar so that his sister could sit down on her customary nail keg. “She’s back from the city, is she?”

  “That’s it,” said Mrs. Tidings. She lowered herself onto the keg with a grunt of relief. “She’s back, not two hours ago, and Henry, I swear to you, things in that house get queerer by the minute.”

  The blacksmith took out his pipe and filled and lit it happily. “You don’t say so!” he said, between puffs. He clamped his teeth around the pipe stem, pulled up his own nail keg, and sat, leaning toward her.

  These preliminaries having been completed, Mrs. Tidings folded her arms under her large bosom and began on the main business. “Yes, she’s back, and not a package on her anywhere. As usual.”

  The blacksmith, picking up his cue, nodded and echoed, “As usual.”

  “But—” said Mrs. Tidings, “never mind that. We expected that. What we didn’t expect was this: I told her about that strange visitor of Mr. Feltwright’s and about Mr. Feltwright’s inheritance and all, and that didn’t seem to interest her at all.”

  “Hmmm!” said the blacksmith.

  “That is to say,” said Mrs. Tidings, building suspense carefully, “that is to say, Henry, it didn’t interest her until I told her the name of Mr. Feltwright’s visitor—you remember, Mott Snave it was. When I told her that, Henry, she turned white as a sheet. ‘You must have made a mistake,’ she said, and I said, ‘No mistake about it, that was the fellow’s name.’ And she said, ‘How was he dressed?’ and when I told her, you know, about the cloak and the scarf, and how he’d even been seen here, in the village, she sat down, all of a sudden like, as if her knees had given out.”

  “Bless my soul!” said the blacksmith. “Then she’s heard of him before, that’s clear enough.”

  “Well, of course she has!” said Mrs. Tidings triumphantly. “Have you seen him at all since that first time?”

  “No,” said the blacksmith with obvious disappointment. “Not hide nor hair.”

  “Hmmm,” said Mrs. Tidings. She was silent for a moment. The blacksmith puffed away on his pipe and waited. “Henry,” she said at last, “I have this feeling—it’s just a feeling, mind you—I have this definite feeling that something’s going to happen.”

  The blacksmith took his pipe out of his mouth and nodded vigorously. “I’ve had the same feeling, Dora,” he said excitedly. “I’ve felt that way for days.”

  “Well, whatever it is that happens,” said Mrs. Tidings, “if anything does happen, I hope I’m there to see it. I’ve known all along, right from the very beginning, that there was something wrong out to Goody Hall, and I guess I’ve said as much to you a time or two.” She looked at her brother with smug expectancy.

  He didn’t disappoint her. “Indeed you have, Dora,” he nodded. “Time and again you’ve said so, and who’s to disagree?”

  “Exactly,” said Mrs. Tidings. And then she repeated, “I hope I’m there to see it. If anything does happen.”

  “You’ve earned that much anyway, Dora, it seems to me,” said the blacksmith. “It’s strange, all right. I’ve had that same feeling for days. Something’s going to happen.”

  Chapter 14

  Mrs. Goody stayed in her room all afternoon—“She’s resting,” Alfreida explained—and then came down to dinner in a rich dress of yellow silk with a wide lace collar. Her hair was piled high on her head and there was a small feather fastened into the intricate loops and curls. But her face was pale and she kept plucking nervously at the collar. Alfreida, who was serving the meal, moved in and out of the dining room silently, and Hercules remembered how Willet had said she was always silent when his mother was at home. But he watched her face and thought to himself that her eyes, when she glanced at Mrs. Goody, were sympathetic.

  Unlike Alfreida, Mrs. Goody seemed anxious to talk. “Well, my love,” she said a little breathlessly to Willet, “how did you get along while I was gone?”

  “Fine, Mama, just fine,” said Willet guardedly.

  “Did you start your lessons with Mr. Feltwright?”

  “Well, pretty much,” said Willet.

  “We spent some time on nature,” said Hercules hastily, hoping she wouldn’t think he had been entirely idle. “Birds and flowers. And we worked on spelling, too.”

  Mrs. Goody nodded. “That sounds like a good beginning.”

  Silence.

  “It rained the night before last,” Hercules offered.

  “Yes, it rained in the city, too,” said Mrs. Goody.

  “But no thunder and lightning,” said Hercules.

  “No, that’s true. Just rain.”

  The conversation lagged again. All three searched their minds for something to say. Hercules Feltwright felt the press of his own knowledge weighting his tongue, and knew that Willet was feeling the same way. And it was clear that Mrs. Goody was agitated by some knowledge of her own. She kept glancing at Hercules and then glancing quickly away. Then, they all spoke at once.

  “How were things in the…”

  “Those lilacs outside my…”

  “I understand, Mr. Feltwright, that…”

  All three paused. At last Mrs. Goody smiled faintly and took up the thread of her own remark. “I understand, Mr. Feltwright, that you were once an actor.”

  “Oh, yes!” he answered with relief. Here was a safe subject. “Not so long ago. We toured the countryside with all sorts of plays.”

  “I used to go to plays from time to time when I was a girl,” said Mrs. Goody. “It was always such a pleasure.”

  “How come you never took me to see one?” asked Willet accusingly.

  “But, Willet!” she said. “There wasn’t any you when I was a girl, you know, and after we came here, no troupes ever came by. I would have had to take you off somewhere else and I just didn’t want—that is, I didn’t think it would…” Her voice trailed off and she glanced at Hercules again. Not such a safe subject after all, he thought to himself, feeling puzzled and curious.

  Then, when dinner was nearly over, and after a good many more stops and starts in the conversation, Mrs. Goody put down her fork suddenly and looked hard at Hercules. “Where is your home, Mr. Feltwright?” she asked him.

  “Why, north of here,” he answered, a little surprised. “About a hundred miles north.”

  “A hundred miles north,” Mrs. Goody echoed. Her shoulders sagged. She stared at him and then looked away and added, in a more normal tone, “Mrs. Tidings tells me you stand to inherit a fortune from an old aunt.”

  Hercules Feltwright blushed. “Look here, Mrs. Goody,” he said, putting down his own fork. “That was a misunderstanding that’s gotten out of hand. I do have an aunt, but she’s not rich by any means, quite the opposite, and I don’t expect to inherit anything but a box of broken pennies. I’m glad you brought it up because I’ve been feeling bad about the whole business. If there’s anything in the world I don’t want, it’s to have people think I’m anything but what I really am.”

  Mrs. Goody’s face went pink. “You needn’t have said that!” she cried. “It wasn’t really like that.”

  Now it was Hercules Feltwright’s turn to stare. “W-why, I only meant,” he stammered, “that it’s important to me to be…uh…well, not to pretend, you know. That is to say…”

  “Never mind,” said Mrs. Goody flatly. “I take your meaning.” Her eyes were anguished as she looked at him. “You’re very young, Mr. Feltwright. You have no right to judge, even if he did send you here. Sometimes people have to pretend in order to get what they want.”

  “But, Mrs. Goody!” Hercules protested. “I don’t understand! I wasn’t trying to say—I mean, I didn’t have in mind anything to do with…”

  “Never mind,” she said again. “Tell me—what was the name of the town where you lived, a hundred miles north?”

  “Why, Hackston Fen,” he answered, more baffled than ever.

  “I see,” said Mrs. Goody. “Of course. Hackston Fen.�
� She put down her napkin, looked at Willet, plucked again at her collar, and then, all at once, she pressed her palms against her cheeks and smiled, but only for an instant. The smile faded as quickly as it had come, and when she spoke again, her voice was sober. “Well,” she said. “It seems we’d better have a little talk, the three of us. Something’s going to happen soon. Mrs. Tidings told me that someone…well, something may happen, and before it does there are a lot of things I want to explain, because…Well, come along. We’ll go upstairs now.” She stood and went quickly around the table to Willet’s chair. “Come, my love,” she said to him. “You’re the one it’s really all about.” And she bent and gave him a swift hug.

  “That’s all right, Mama,” said Willet.

  In Willet’s room the evening light was gold and blue. On their shelves, the rows and rows of elegant toys stood silent. Mrs. Goody, sitting near them in a wicker rocker, reached out and picked up a big stuffed dog made of white plush. “You know,” she said suddenly, stroking it, “I had a real dog when I was a girl.”

  “You did?” said Willet incredulously. “I didn’t know that. Didn’t your mother mind about the hairs on the furniture and digging up the flowers?”

  “No,” said Mrs. Goody with a little smile. “She didn’t mind.”

  “I had a dog, too,” said Hercules, suddenly misty-eyed. “A little dog with brown spots that used to bite peddlers.”

  But Mrs. Goody didn’t seem to hear him. Still holding the plush dog, she got up from the rocker and went to the window and peered out. After a moment she straightened, sighed, and came back to sit down again. “You have to understand, Willet,” she said at last, “that I was never rich in those days.”

  “You weren’t? I didn’t know that,” said Willet again.