Possession (Roche, February 1923)/Part 1/Chapter 9
September was waning; the thimbleberries had been picked, Vale scarcely knew how. Mrs. Orde and the other village women and boys had been faithful, and Jammery and Fawnie picked from dawn to dark, but there had been times when they could not keep up to the bountiful crop, and over-ripe shipments had been sent down at the railway station that had oozed juice in a purple stream straight across the platform.
Now mellow pears hung in proud fruition. Every now and again one would drop with a soft thump on the golden stubble beneath the pear trees to be instantly pierced by the voracious beak of some attentive fowl. Mounds of red and green and yellow apples were piled beneath the orchard trees. The men worked all day packing barrels for shipping. A large portion were to be stored in the apple-house for winter use, and to sell as prices rose. The defective were stored in the barn for the stock, and, last of all, the pigs would be turned into the orchard to clean up the ground for themselves.
It was a happy time at Grimstone; rough jokes were shouted from tree to tree, Old Country songs were sung as the tops were hammered into barrels, even Mrs. Machin relaxed and carried a brimming jug of cider to the thirsty men, Phœbe's blue dress gleamed bright as a bit of the sky among the branches of a Greasy Pippin tree.
Grace Jerrold had been home for a month. The tennis court was in fairly good condition and, almost every day, she came over for a game. Mr. Jerrold was too heavy to play, but sometimes Mr. Ramsey accompanied her, and when Vale was busy, the Vicar and she would play together.
This morning she and Vale were opponents. It was a calm, fair day of perfect peace. The gulls sailed idly above the lake, bright, angelic creatures sporting for pleasure in the lustrous ether. A large, white yacht lay becalmed with sails collapsed; they could see the figures of people aboard her moving about her deck. In the distance a steamer with scarlet funnels was heading towards Niagara.
It was delightful on such a morning to run and leap after the ball over the closely shaven lawn. The delicate foliage of the walnut trees cast a light shade on the court; sometimes a walnut in its smooth, green burr, smelling like bergamot, would fall noiselessly on the grass.
"Oh, I don't think I have ever enjoyed a game so much!" cried Grace Jerrold, as they rested after a hard-fought contest.
"And yet you were beaten," said Derek.
"Still, I almost won, and, after all, it's the good fight that counts."
He looked into her fair, flushed face, curiously. "Are you that way about the big things—in life I mean?"
"Yes, I think I am. Father is like that, too. He has often played a losing game, but his spirits are always good."
"I believe if things went very wrong with me I should turn sulky and give up trying."
Miss Jerrold laughed, and then looked seriously into his candid, greenish-blue eyes. "I don't see you being unhappy," she said. "Your eyes seem to me to be looking straight into a golden future."
"They're looking straight at you."
"Oh, I'm afraid I cannot do much towards your happiness."
"You do a great deal simply by coming over to play tennis with me."
"Then we had better begin another game and not lose any time." She picked up a walnut on her racquet and tossed it to him.
He caught it on his and then took it in his hand. "It smells sweet and yet sharp," he said, sniffing it. "Is it like bergamot, or what?" He held it to her nose—a beautiful little nose, he thought, with its slender nostrils and delicate aquilinity—made for sweet smells, and the expression of slightly amused scorn. "It is like lemons, and verbena, and a half-a-dozen elusive odors," she declared. He dropped it on his jacket that lay on the grass. "I'm going to keep it," he said.
"But you have thousands of them." She looked up into the trees.
"None like this."
"Because I sniffed it?"
"Yes."
"If you are so silly I shall spend my morning sniffling walnuts all over the place. Then you'll have to save them all."
"I certainly shall. I'll throw the apples out of the apple-house and store all the nuts you have sniffed in there. Then I shall spend my winter in the middle of them like a luxurious squirrel."
She crossed the court laughing, but as she raised her arm to serve, the smile left her face and she stared with a puzzled look at the road. Derek's eyes followed hers. "There is something wrong with that old man on the waggon," she said. "Look. The other man is holding him up."
"Why, it is Solomon Sharroe," exclaimed Vale. "He must be sick. I shall go and investigate."
Grace Jerrold followed him, and the two were filled with pity by the plight of the old man. He was sitting on the narrow, uncomfortable seat of a light fruit-waggon, his head resting weakly on the shoulder of the sullen youth who held the reins. His hollow eyes stared blankly before him; his dark hands were clasped resignedly between his bony knees.
"What is wrong with him?" Derek asked of the boy.
"I dunno. He ain't been much good fer a week, but he got took worse last night and Muster McNeil waount have him dyin' on him, so I've brung him back to Chard's where he come from."
"Where is his family?"
"Comin' by tram."
"Mr. McNeil has a comfortable buggy," cried Grace. "Why did he send him in this wretched waggon?"
The youth grinned. "He thought it was good enough fer an Injun, I s'pose."
"Oh, the brute! I shall have my father write him a letter. We must get a doctor at once."
"Where do you feel the worst, Solomon?" asked Derek, raising his voice.
"My spirit," he answered, in a surprisingly strong voice. "My spirit . . . is broke. . . . You are a gentleman and I am a chief . . . you understand. Now about that five dollars . . . I have done very badly at McNeil's. He treated me like a dog . . . "
"Never mind about the money. I am going to send for a doctor for you. Have you any special pain? Would you take a little brandy?"
"Yes, I would. You get me a little in a bottle and my old woman will fix me a dose when I need it. McNeil he give me just one mouthful before I left."
Derek ran to the house and brought a flask. When he had taken a drink Solomon put the flask carefully in his pocket and turned his eyes, filled with a sombre brightness, on Derek and Miss Jerrold. He said solemnly:
"You are a gentleman, Mr. Vale, and you know what becomes a chief. When I get better I will tell you tales of the old days—not so long ago, either—when my people owned all this—" he extended his arm in a noble gesture over lake and land. "That was before you drove us back as the waves wash away those dark red cliffs. I will tell you tales my grandfather taught me—yes, and you, too, young lady—that will make your hair rise." He showed his yellow teeth in a ghastly smile. "We didn't go picking berries then, by God! . . . No, we didn't go picking berries. Ho, ho, ho!"
He laughed deeply, and would have fallen from his seat but that the boy clutched him and, at a nod from Derek, drove on.
"What he says is true," said Grace, soberly. "We have taken their land, and civilization demoralizes them."
"Yes, but we have made a better land of it, and I think they are better employed picking berries than scalping each other."
"I should like to hear some of his tales."
"I'm afraid he won't live to tell them. I shall send for a doctor right away, and have Mrs. Machin pack a basket of groceries for his family."
"Our men have killed a calf today. I shall send them some veal and some eggs."
"Never mind the eggs," said Derek. "They can steal them from Chard."
The butter had just come after a long churning. Beads of perspiration glistened on Phœbe's rosy face and little strands of hair curled damply on her forehead. Derek had come to the kitchen for a drink of buttermilk. She got a glass from the dresser and filled it to the brim.
"Look at the bits of yellow butter floatin' about," she said, "that's what I call good buttermilk."
"Splendid," said Derek, taking a draught. "You're a fine butter-maker, Phœbe."
"If I wasn't, Mrs. Machin'd take my head off. She's an old terror, she is. This'ud be a pretty hard place for a gal if it wasn't for the lads."
"Come now, Phœbe, you have an easy time of it. I see you playing about by the hour."
She tossed her head. "Aye, but think of the work I've done before I play! I wouldn't think you'd be so hard on me, Mr. Vale."
"Hard on you, Phœbe? No . . . I like you too well. You're a good girl."
She came close to him, and tilted her chin. "Will you untie the knot in my sunbonnet? It's fallen down my back, and the knot's fair chokin' me." He set down his empty glass and fumbled with the knot against her milk-white, softly throbbing throat. "Oh, I couldn't deny you anything, Mr. Vale," she panted, "not if it was ever so."
"Well," he said, cheerfully, loosening the knot, "give me another glass of buttermilk, then, unless you're saving it for Hughie."
"Hughie!" Scornfully. "What do I care about Hughie, when you're by?" She turned the tap of the churn and refilled his glass. There was a soft knocking on the screen door. Beulah's round face was pressed against the netting.
"Say, Phœbe," she said, solemnly, "the ole man's dead."
"What, Solomon?"
"Yes. My paw. He died a little while ago. We're goin' to have a funerl."
"I'm sorry," said Derek. "The doctor told me yesterday he might get better."
"Well, he ain't. He couldn't be worse. He's as dead as the blackbird Mr. Chard nailed to his barndoor. We're goin' to have a funerl with a minister. Paw's other wife's comin' too."
"Good Lord! Has he got another wife?"
Beulah grinned. "He had her before he had Maw, but she was no good so he fired her. But she's comin' to his funerl. . . . Miss Jerrold sent a lot of things. Phœbe, kin I have a point of milk?"
"Buttermilk?"
"No. Real milk."
"Where's your money?"
"I'll pay you after the funerl, Phœbe."
"Give her the milk," said Vale, curtly. He was shocked by the child's callousness. "Aren't you sorry he is dead, Beulah?"
"Yes. He was a great chief. Mrs. Chard she's makin' a purty thing out of flowers for his grave. Gates of Jar, she calls it. Are you comin' to the funerl?" . . .
All the next day there was a feeling of excitement in the air. Phœbe spent most of the morning peering through the picket fence that separated the yards. She reported stirring events. Indians were arriving from all directions. A large table was being laid for a feast under the apple trees. She had squeezed through a gap in the fence, and seen with her own eyes The Gates of Jar . . . It was unaccountably lovely. She had not seen Solomon himself, but one of the Chard boys had told her that he was all got up in war paint and feathers. Phœbe scarcely knew whether to believe this but, if it were true, he must be terrible. . . . They said he died hard.
Mrs. Machin thought it would be only the respectable thing for herself, attended by one of the men, to go to the funeral. Windmill accompanied her, carrying his bowler hat in his hand, and trying to conceal his amusement by a frown.
The funeral was at three o'clock. It was a hazy, languid day of yellow sunshine and smoky horizon. As the hour drew near the three Scots and Phœbe gathered in the cherry orchard behind the kitchen garden from whence they could view the ceremony. Derek did not know whether to join them or not. As he was standing undecidedly in the porch Mr. Jerrold, his daughter, and Mr. Ramsey came down the road. They turned in at the gate followed by their dogs.
"Are we too late to see the ceremony?" asked Mr. Jerrold. "Gay has never seen an Indian funeral and she's determined not to miss the opportunity."
"From what I hear," said Derek, "it is to be very civilized. No savage rites for Chard. He has a minister from Mistwell who is to bring an autoharp."
"I think that's a splendid idea," said Mr. Ramsey. "I must get one."
"Oh, we shouldn't make fun of the Chards," said Grace Jerrold. "Mrs. Chard is a very good woman and very sincere in her religion."
"Lead on, Vale," interrupted her father. "I want to see the show."
They found an open space near Phœbe and the men, from which they could watch the proceedings almost unobserved. The body of Solomon in its cheap coffin had been carried from the cottage and placed on a pair of trestles near the table spread for the feast. About fifty Indians were seated in a half-circle on the ground, except a few of the older ones for whom chairs had been placed. Chief among these was the former wife, an enormously fat squaw in a bright green skirt and red shawl. Her brown hands were crossed complacently on her stomach, and there was about her an air of stoical triumph. Two elderly Indians in check shirts and black trousers sat on either side of her. Near by, wearing a clean white apron over her torn skirt, sat Solomon's present wife. She wiped her face continually with a red and white handkerchief and gazed with sorrowful eyes at the floral Gates Ajar that Mrs. Chard had placed upon the coffin. Around her were grouped her family—the little girls and idiot boy at her feet, her daughters and their husbands holding moon-faced babies behind her. A little aloof stood Fawnie and her nineteen-year-old brother Charles, the young fellow dapper in city clothes with a straw sailor, a bow tie, and polished shoes with broad ribbon laces. Bobby, the boy whom Derek had first seen bathing with his sisters, had refused to join the mourners and had mounted a large swing beneath an elm tree, and there swung lazily to and fro, his handsome, inscrutable face turned towards the officiating minister.
"I like the boy in the swing," whispered Grace Jerrold to Derek. "He strikes a really barbaric note."
"To me," said Derek, "the minister is the one barbaric thing present."
He was a lank man with a damp black lock pendant over his forehead. He wore a black frock coat, a turn-down collar, and striped trousers. On a small table before him lay his autoharp; he held a Bible in one hand, while the index finger of the other stabbed dramatically at its open pages as he spoke. Behind him were ranged the Chard family, large-bosomed Mrs. Chard in respectable black, grasping a tow-headed child in either hand. With them stood Mrs. Machin and Windmill, her hand resting on his arm, he jauntily holding his bowler hat. Overhead the inquisitive gulls swept with glistening wings, peering down at the mysterious conclave.
When the minister had finished his discourse he announced the number of a hymn. Vale then perceived that all present had been supplied with small red hymn books. Solomon's former wife was so heavy that she had to be raised to her feet by the united strength of the elderly men in check shirts. As she rose a lunch that she had been holding in her lap rolled to the ground, the red handkerchief in which it was wrapped fell open, and the idiot boy seeing the food, like manna, at his very hand, snatched a cold sausage and a piece of cheese, and scuttled to the shelter of his mother's skirt with them. None of the Indians could read, but they stared at their books with solemn attention. The minister struck a few tinkling notes on the autoharp and raised his nasal tenor voice. The Chards and Windmill supported him so sturdily that the air swelled to a considerable volumn. Like a metallic thread the voice of the autoharp persisted thinly from first to last. The spectators in the cherry orchard could distinguish some words of the refrain:
"I'll stand by until the morrow.
"I've come to save you do not fe-ar;
"I'll stand by until the mor-row,
"I've come to save you do not fear."
The minister's voice rose with a swoop of indescribable anguish on the first "fear." A guffaw burst from the three Scots, silenced only by a frown from Derek. The boy in the swing, wrought upon by the sensuousness of the scene, bent and straightened his body vigourously so that he swung in great semicircles under the elm, now up among its branches, now skimming above the ground.
When the hymn was finished the little red books were collected by the eldest Chard boy, and returned to the minister, who stood mopping his brow with a white handkerchief. The Indians arranged themselves in single file and began slowly to pass the coffin to take their last look on the face of Solomon, upturned, with sunken eyes and cheeks, and a smile of bitter composure. His wife came last, and bent for a moment to press her round wet face against his cold one. Then a loud wail broke from her and she clutched him by the shoulders and tried to drag him from the coffin. Moans of sympathy came from the other squaws, excepting Solomon's other wife, who stared at her successor with the ponderous contempt of a mountain for a brawling stream.
The coffin was hidden by a surging crowd. The minister carefully laid his autoharp in its case. Chard was very busy giving orders; then the coffin reappeared borne on the shoulders of six men. A wavering procession was formed, brightened by the gay colours of the women's shawls and the flowery hats of the girls. Jammery carried the Gates Ajar. They were now bound for the little graveyard.
A cry of anger burst from Phœbe. "Let loose, now, Hughie—this minute," she was saying.
"What are you up to, Hugh?" asked Derek, reproachfully, with a glance towards Mr. Ramsey.
"He's been and took my spectacles," cried Phœbe, "and I couldn't see the percession at all. He's an unnatural lover, if ever there was one."
"Give them back to her," ordered Derek, and Hugh sheepishly handed them over.
"Rose-coloured spectacles, I am sure," said Mr. Ramsey, airily.
"I'm watching that young boy," said Mr. Jerrold. "He has never left his swing. What do you suppose he is thinking?"
The procession had disappeared, but the boy hung motionless as a snake on the ropes of the swing which barely stirred beneath him.
"Mischief, I'll be bound," said the Vicar.
They strolled through the apple-orchard, examining the quality of the fruit. Grace Jerrold paused before a mound of Tolman Sweets. "Oh, may I have a few of these to take home? There is nothing I like so well, and we haven't one."
"I shall send a basket to you," said Vale. He selected one of the finest and handed it to her. As she bit into it their eyes met; they smiled. Suddenly they seemed to be alone in the orchard. "With that golden apple at your lips, and the golden light on your hair, you are exactly like Eve," whispered Derek.
She laughed and he could see the white bit of apple in her mouth.
"This Spy is delicious," said her father, crunching it like a schoolboy.
"I am hungry," said Mr. Ramsey, "but it seems to be tea I want."
"Look here," said Derek, "you must all stay and have tea with me. I'll go and tell Mrs. Machin." He felt a little nervous as he hurried towards the house. He had not entertained guests at Grimstone before and he was afraid Mrs. Machin's way of doing things might seem a little rough.
Mrs. Machin did not take the announcement amiss. Excitement was in the air; half the day was wasted; one might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. She would make little sweet muffins and butter them well while hot. "Make plenty of tea," said Derek. "Mr. Ramsey can drink a potful."
"He's got a thirst for more than tea from what I hear," said Mrs. Machin. "They say he can swig down beer with the best of 'em at The Duke of York."
"Oh, Mrs. Machin!" cried Phœbe, shocked.
"You get busy and cut some bread," ordered Mrs. Machin.
"And for heaven's sake, cut it thin!" said Vale. . . .
Tea was a distinct success. The Vicar found the muffins excellent. He sent a message of praise by Phœbe to Mrs. Machin. Phœbe, pink-cheeked and white-aproned, bore herself admirably. Grace Jerrold admired the homely dignity of the old-fashioned room. As she poured tea into his grandmother's dark blue cups, Derek thought, "How thoroughly at home she looks . . . as if she belonged here . . . and the turn of her wrist above the tea-pot . . ." He asked for another cup of tea just for the pleasure of seeing her pour it.
"Some of those young Indian girls are lovely," Mr. Jerrold was saying. "Hobbs caught one of them in my woods the other day with a rabbit she had just killed. She'd set a trap for it. He brought her to me, rabbit and all, for a lecture, but she was so confoundedly pretty I couldn't be cross to her. She said her name was Fawnie—Fawnie Sharroe. Have you noticed her, Vale?"
"Yes," answered Derek, stirring his tea. "I've noticed her."