The Red House Read online

  “There was later times,” continued Pete, “when along of Lottie we’d race through the woods, stopping to gather chinquapins or trade stares with a six-prong buck. Where be them deer now? Gone from all the Barrens. Gone along of that other lass. Elspeth—Elspeth Drake.”

  “Pete,” breathed Ellen, her eyes wandering anxiously toward Lottie in the shadows. “Please, Pete.”

  “Like a doe, Elspeth would come with the dawn,” continued Pete, unheeding, “and she’d leave only with the setting of the sun. No other lass ever stepped so light or carried a heart more vast. Laughter was of her web and woof, scorning sound to make itself heard. Her face was a loveliness, needing no pattern of mouth or eye or jaw to tell its beauty to the world.”

  “Elspeth!” sobbed Ellen softly. “Oh, Elspeth!”

  “Aye to that,” said Pete. His voice took on a sharper edge. “Nath, Meg, I call on ye to look upon Ellen—not this slab of woe before you now, but a girl with hair like trailing smoke and the smoothness and strength of a hickory sprout. Elspeth, Lottie and me, we growed too tame for the Ellen of that day. In her pride, she would roam alone, farther, wider and fartherer yet, an itch inside her to meet the devil face to face and make him knuckle down.” Pete’s voice cracked to a high flat note. “Did he come? What form had he? Shall I tell?”

  “No, no!” cried Ellen.

  She sprang to her feet and looked wildly from Nath to Lottie and back again. Pete was swaying in his chair and seemed to swell. His eyes flattened into an unseeing gaze, and purple flooded dark through his white beard. A shout came out of him; loud and sudden it drowned the clatter of his falling stick as he raised the quivering snowballs of his doubled fists.

  “Black were his brows as the cedar on the hill, and blacker the heart within. Bring me his throat! Who brought me his throat? Who?”

  Lottie swept out of the shadows and fell on her knees before him. Nath stood up, staring eyes above hanging jaw. Ellen saw him rise, flew at him, seized his shoulders and rushed him toward the lean-to. A blurred flurry dashed ahead of him—Meg on the run. Ellen propelled him through the door, slammed and bolted it. In the kitchen behind him rose an incredible bedlam—Lottie praying, Pete pouring out a torrent of asseveration and Ellen’s voice rising higher and higher to throw up an impenetrable screen of sound against sound.

  Nath found himself outside under the grape arbor with Meg cowering against him. His arm held her tight to his side, and again he felt the pounding of her heart; only this time his own was pounding harder still. They didn’t speak; they listened as if their bodies had become welded together into a single monstrous ear. There was method in the din of battle inside the house, each voice at war with the others, but Ellen’s keeping ahead by a desperately narrow margin. Then silence, followed by rustling footsteps accompanying the measured stab of Pete’s cane. It was over. Meg crept against Nath, her hands groping for his shoulders.

  “Nath,” she whispered, “I’m afraid.”

  He had a feeling he couldn’t describe—something between the pride of being put in command of a rescue squad and the ignominy of having a baby pushed into his arms to hold. He led Meg away from the black shadows of the house and the blacker tarn, out into the moonlight. They stood side by side, their hands lightly clasped. They weren’t thinking of each other as boy and girl or any other way; it just happened that they had been caught in the same trap. From here they could measure its limits, letting their eyes encircle the barrier that had no break. They saw Lottie pass from the house into the plank cabin.

  “Has that sort of shindig happened before?” asked Nath.

  “Yes, every so often,” said Meg.

  “Ever ask Lottie what it’s all about?”

  “No, never.”

  “Let’s,” said Nath.

  VI

  INSIDE the plank house, Lottie urged them to sit and fussed around, lighting the lamp and stirring the fire into flame. She sat down in the low rocker and took the big Bible in her lap. “Want I should read?” she asked.

  “No,” said Nath. “We came in here because we’re crazy to know what it’s all about—that racket, with you praying, Pete shouting and Miss Ellen yelling her head off.”

  Lottie was silent, merely fixing him with her pale blue gaze. “For one who has come here so lately,” she said deliberately, “you got a bold tongue.”

  “‘Ask, and it shall be given you,’” said Nath, giving her stare for stare; “‘seek, and ye shall find.’”

  Trouble struck across Lottie’s face, and she began to sway backward and forward. “Take the Word in vain,” she said, “and vengeance will surely follow. But even so be you speak from the heart, it’s not for you to strike water from the rock. No more for me.”

  “You mean there is something, but you won’t tell?” said Nath. “Is that what you mean?”

  “Last night I befriended you,” flared Lottie, “so it gives you the right to beat me down in my own home!”

  “Shucks,” said Nath. “Somebody gets me to come to Yocum’s, and I find three grown people old enough to of helped float the Ark scaring the living lights out of a girl since she was five years old. Perhaps it ain’t my business, then again perhaps a thing like that is somebody else’s business.”

  “Oh, Nath,” cried Meg, more frightened than Lottie by his threat, “please don’t talk that way to Lottie or anybody else! If you do, if you ever do, I’ll be sorry you ever came here. I love Yocum Farm. I love Ellen and Lottie and Pete too. They’ve been good to me, always.”

  “I’ll be dadgummed,” said Nath. He smiled, his eyelids almost closing. “You get me in here to ask something, and now it’s you tells me to shut up!”

  “I didn’t! It was you wanted to come in.”

  “Hush, now,” said Lottie soothingly. A loud snore sounded from above. “That’s Lot,” she explained.

  “Perhaps we ought to go,” said Meg. “He worked awful hard today; we might wake him up.”

  “Pshaw, you couldn’t,” said Lottie. “Lot ain’t so bright,” she continued sadly. “He can’t only not read, he can’t learn. Happen it ain’t his fault, the way he was conceived afar off in the year of tribulation.”

  “When was that?” asked Nath.

  “Forty-eight year ago come winter,” muttered Lottie, then her head went up and she gave Nath a quick, searching look.

  “Where’s his father?” asked Meg. “Did he—”

  “No,” said Lottie, finishing for her, “he didn’t die, not so far as a body knows.”

  “What was his name?” said Meg, glad of the safe turn the talk had taken.

  A blankness dawned and spread in Lottie’s face. “I don’t remember,” she murmured. “Land o’ me, think of that! Happen it rises from the way men is made. Some of ’em you see but once, and they stays in your mind forever. But another you can marry, and first his face and then his name fades away to nothing, and all you got left is Lot and the wonder of where he comes from.”

  “What was the tribulation?” asked Nath. “Perhaps that’s what put Lot’s pappy’s name out of your mind so quick.”

  Again Lottie slanted a quick glance at him. Her eye-lids fluttered and fell, and with her eyes closed, she became all colored. The folds of a black scarf, wound around her head like a turban, added to the impression, as did her voluminous cotton gown, belted high under her breast. On the surface she seemed somebody meant to be ordered around, but the longer you stared the surer you knew you were seeing only a hard shell with lips sealed as tight as a clam. No telling how long she would have taken to speak if she hadn’t heard Ellen calling.

  “You’d better run along,” she said to Meg, then swung wide-open eyes on Nath. “You too.”

  Outside, he waited until he heard the house door close behind Meg. Under the apple tree he found an old ax handle, tucked it under his arm and went to pet Rumble. He fiddled with the strong harness snap on his collar and whispered, “Promise you’ll come back?” The dog squirmed like a great worm, his tail thrashing eagerly. Nath undid the snap and went down the ramp with Rumble close at heel. He took no care to go silently, and perhaps because he was ready and asking for trouble, nothing happened. They came to the leap, dimly defined in the moonlight. He tossed the ax handle across, jumped and misjudged. Because he tripped on the farther edge and went headlong, the blow of a club that was meant for his head merely caught him across the shoulders. The next instant a snarling thunderbolt thudded into action beside him and a tangle of bodies went rolling into the brush.

  The unseen battle that followed held the terror of mortal combat. A growling snuffle and the rasp of a man’s grunts formed an undertone to the crackle of breaking branches. There was a terrific thrashing, and abruptly a grotesque specter swept into outline against a patch of sky. It was Rumble with legs sprawled. Two hands, locked in his collar, whirled him like an athlete throwing the hammer and let him fly. He crashed into the gap, crawled up the farther side and stoop whimpering. Nath heard footsteps rushing toward the great beech and a plunge into deep water where any good swimmer is more than a match for a dog. He picked up the ax handle and waved it at Rumble.

  “Go home!” he called hoarsely. “Go home!”

  He watched the dog limp away, turned and started for the store. What man could hurl sixty pounds twenty feet? Not Teller. He hurried along, paying no attention to what forks he took, yet burst into the pike not far from home. In the morning, after a bath, he packed a bag with all the clothes he owned. He couldn’t have said at what moment he had decided to return to Yocum Farm to stay; somehow, during the last few hours, he had become transformed into a sober somebody with whom he hadn’t had time to get acquainted. A little after sunup, arrived at the top of the ramp, he turned and looked back across Oxhead Woods. He had crossed it three times in a
s many days, yet on this Sunday morning it seemed more than ever to wear an impenetrable mask. Rumble came to him on three legs; he examined the other and decided it was only bruised. He tied the dog, tended the chores and went inside to breakfast.

  “Howdy, everybody; I’ve moved into Alec’s room.”

  “Good,” said Pete. “I seen how you was carrying a bag.”

  Where and how had he seen, wondered Nath. Could the old puffball look through walls? Lottie wasn’t around, and Ellen and Meg seemed odd in their Sunday clothes, Meg especially. After breakfast Lot came in and sat in a far corner. Presently he was followed by Lottie, carrying her Bible. She went straight to the head of the table, read a chapter, then sank on her knees and proceeded to pray. Everybody knelt except Pete, including Nath. He felt queer, braced on his elbows and staring at the back of his chair when he knew he ought to have his eyes closed. But soon he was welcoming the chance to think, to add up all the extraordinary happenings that had ended by tying him into a mess that was none of his business as tight as a fly in a spider web.

  The prayer was long. It thanked God for a variety of blessings and exhorted Him to give proper attention to sinners in general. But when it took a turn toward particular cases, Ellen broke in with a sharp “Amen.” She got up as if everything was over, and it was. Lot went out, and his mother after him. Pete was snoring as regularly as a dripping faucet; he had been asleep for the last five minutes. Nath wasn’t the only one who had seized the chance to think things out; as soon as Meg got to her feet, she faced him.

  “Say, Nath, let’s go fetch Tibby.” She turned to Ellen anxiously. “Couldn’t we? Wouldn’t it be all right to bring Tibby Rinton for Sunday dinner?”

  “Of course,” said Ellen. “Bring anybody you’re a mind to.”

  “How?” said Nath, frowning.

  “With Blackie in the surrey,” said Meg eagerly. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

  Blackie was so fat they could hardly get him between the shafts of a high-wheeled contraption reminiscent of the Dark Ages. They went down the lane, but before they reached the County Road, Meg gave a tug on the right rein and they turned into a grass-grown way Nath had never followed. It crossed a run, meandered through high trees for all of two miles and then climbed a crest. He stared down unbelievingly. Below was a swale he knew well, a low bridge, and beyond it the bars to the Rinton back pasture. Minutes later he was taking them down while Meg drove through.

  Tibby hadn’t gone to church, and when she heard the rumble of the bridge she stepped out to watch the strange approach. The hutch on wheels bordered the orchard and came to a stop at the barnyard gate. Meg jumped down, pushed through, and the two girls measured each other as Meg drew nearer. She felt awkward in her stiff best dress when Tibby looked so comfortable in a square-yoked play suit, socks and sneakers. But Tibby’s lovely face was marred by a sulky look and her eyes were narrowed with wondering what on earth Meg wanted.

  “Say, Tibby,” said Meg a little breathlessly, “I’m awfully glad you’re home. Won’t you come over to Yocum’s for Sunday dinner? Please do.”

  Tibby was taken by surprise, but the veiled fame of Yocum Farm had the same allure for her that it had had for Nath. “I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “How would I get back?”

  “I’ll bring you,” said Meg, “or if you stay till Nath is through with his chores, he could do it.”

  “All right,” drawled Tibby. “But what would we do, all that time? Could we go swimming?”

  “I guess so,” said Meg; “only the water in our pond is awful cold.”

  “Anyway, we could lie in the sun,” said Tibby. “I’ll get my suit and leave a note.”

  Nath had turned the surrey around, quite a job for anybody accustomed to a car, and Meg made Tibby sit in the middle. The countryside was at its loveliest. Pear trees, at the end of their blooming, were sending out shoots of bronze; while apple blossoms blinked pink and red amid a blur of green. When they reached the woods, the sunlight, filtered through the tender foliage of spring, became an opalescent mist. They rode through it in silence, weighted down with the burden of life’s confusion. The fat horse knew exactly where he was going—he was headed for home; out the best each one of them could do was to stare ahead and wonder. Nath: Perhaps the war will last long enough to grab me, and I won’t have to worry. Tibby: What is Meg Yarrow up to anyway? Meg: Why are they both so quiet? Can’t they see I only don’t want to be alone?

  Amid surrounding trees the tarn opened a funnel to the sky, and through it poured the sun. Half the platform at the base of the ramp was hot as a griddle, but a roll would take you into the shade of the big silver maple.

  It was easy to tell why Tibby had been keen on pretending to go swimming. Green suit and greener eyes. The flame of her hair piled on her head, ready for the helmet she wouldn’t put on. But above all else, her body—its sweep of line and precision of adolescent curve. In addition, after one look at Meg, she was at ease. Meg’s skimpy skirt and halter were homemade, and there was a golden-brownish tinge to her arms and legs that made her look half tanned already; in no time you wouldn’t be able to tell her from a tree or the brown earth. Nath looked funny in his trunks, because all of his neck and half his arms had a deep tan while the rest of him was almost as white as Tibby. When he went to crouch to test the water, both girls gave a gasp.

  “Nath!” cried Tibby. “What on earth happened?”

  “Why?” said Nath, turning in surprise. “What’s the matter?”

  “There’s a black-and-blue streak across your back as big as a baseball bat. How’d you get it?”

  “Oh, that,” said Nath coloring. “I don’t know.”

  “Of course you know.” Tibby turned on Meg, who hadn’t said a word. “And you do, too. How’d he get it?”

  “I can’t guess any better than you,” said Meg.

  “That’s not true,” said Tibby, ready to sob with rage. “Both of you know.”

  “I think you’re horrid,” said Meg, the brown blaze of her eyes transforming her face. “If it wasn’t I had asked you to Sunday dinner, in about two minutes there’d be a new baldhead around here just about your size.”

  “Try it!” gulped Tibby, rising to her knees. “Just try it!”

  “Aw, shut up, both of you,” said Nath, seizing Tibby by an ankle. “Give me a chance and I’ll tell you what happened. When I was going home last night somebody socked me across the back with a club.”

  “Home?” breathed Meg. “Did you go home?”

  “Who? Where?” asked Tibby.

  “Halfway across Oxhead Woods,” said Nath, “but I don’t know who.”

  “Was it Teller?” asked Meg.

  “No, because Teller couldn’t of done what this guy did. He slung Rumble all of twenty feet.”

  “Oh,” said Meg, “so that’s why he’s holding up one foot and looking like he wanted to cry.”

  “He’s not hurt bad,” said Nath, rising. “Nothing’s broke in him or me. Watch!”

  He dived, and Meg followed him in, but the haste with which they scrambled out kept Tibby on shore. She loafed in the shade while they rolled in the sun, warming themselves. The three of them made a fancy picture, taking life so easy, but to somebody watching from across the water, only two of them counted. Teller Truman, crouched against the trunk of the sour gum, knew he was safe from sight, yet he could see out as well as through a telescope. Ever since the girls had first come down from the house, his bloodshot eyes had held them in such close focus that Nath’s arrival had scarcely registered. Now Nath jumped up and seized Meg above the elbows, thinking to push her over the brink.

  “In you go!”

  “No!”

  She anchored her feet and stood firm as a post, letting her weight sag backward. He laughed and pushed harder. Presently he was straining, his face red from exertion and the feel of Tibby’s mocking eyes. Without warning, Meg threw back her hands, locked them around his neck and ducked. Leverage and timing were perfect. He described an arc through the air and fell on his back in the water with a great splash.

  Tibby laughed, swaying from side to side from her hips up. Her anger at Meg passed as quickly as it had flared, and she was glad when Lottie called down that it was time to eat. What food! But Tibby was so entranced by Pete that twice her fork missed its way to her mouth. As for Pete, he wasn’t at all himself. The first sight of Tibby had struck him dumb, not only silencing his tongue but anchoring his senses in a stillness as dead as wax. Only his eyes had life without movement, holding her image within their flood while deep inside his bulk his heart echoed the name of Elspeth Drake. He kept so still that he seemed to be absent, and after dinner the three young folk, ignoring him, went out under the apple tree to make a fuss over Rumble. That didn’t last long, and a nervous silence fell on them. Hands in his pockets, Nath started scuffling the ground with his toe.