A Stranger in the Kingdom (28 page)

Charlie frowned. “Maybe it's time we asked ourselves that question.”

“But what's the answer?”

For once my brother seemed to be stymied. “I don't know,” he said seriously. “Time will tell, I guess.”

 

“Oh, no. Oh,
no.
There's trouble ahead at the pass!”

Every light was on inside Charlie's trailer, and in the bright headlights of the woody, Claire LaRiviere was sitting in her dress of many colors in the dooryard on an enormous pile of bedding and chairs and clothes, tents and sleeping bags, fishing and hunting gear, beer bottles and broken china, and magazines and books. Off to the side sat Judge Allen's black Lincoln Continental.

Charlie didn't even bother to shut off his headlights before leaping out of the woody.

“WHAT IN THE HELL—”

Claire scrambled down off the pile and rashed headlong into my brother's arms. “Monsieur Kin'son!” she yelped. “Oh, Monsieur Kin'son, I am so glad you arrive at last. A crazy woman is destroy your house!”

At that exact moment a kitchen chair flew through the trailer's screen door. It was followed immediately by Athena Allen, dressed in the sheerest and briefest lavender-colored nightgown. In her arms was a stack of outdoor and girlie magazines, which she flung in Charlie's direction.

“Athena!” Charlie yelled. “What's going—”

Athena vanished inside the trailer again. Claire gave another shriek and clung to Charlie's neck like a frightened puppet. He couldn't shake her off to save his life. Athena reappeared, staggering under the weight of a cardboard box containing Charlie's country and western albums, which she slammed down on top of the pile of household furnishings.

Athena smiled at my brother, who was still trying to disengage himself from Claire. “Hello, Charlie,” she said. “How'd you guys do tonight? Did you win?”

Athena did not appear to be especially upset. She didn't raise her voice at all, but went briskly back inside, reemerging seconds later with Charlie's two-foot-high MVP trophy from last winter's basketball playoffs, which she casually hurled over the top of the trailer and out into the dark river.

“Monsieur Kin'son wants a cute little housekeeper, Jimmy, so we'll give him one,” my ex-grammar teacher said with another sweet smile. She was quite calm, quite serene as she stepped back inside, administering en route a kick to the screen door and knocking it completely off its hinges into the bull thistles beside the stoop.

Charlie finally managed to disentangle Claire's arms from around his neck and was holding her off by the wrists when Athena next appeared in the trailer doorway. This time she was carrying a volume of considerable size and weight. I realized with horror that it was Charlie's treasured scrapbook chronicling his athletic accomplishments from his most recent town team exploits all the way back through his glory years at Dartmouth to his heyday as a three-sport star at the Academy.

“
KINGDOM COMMON TAKES THIRD CONSECUTIVE STATE HARDBALL TITLE: KINNESON WALLOPS WINNING HOME RUN
,” Athena read in her most pleasant school-marm style, and hurled the scrapbook galley west.

Precious, irreplaceable clippings and photographs dating back more than a decade rained down all over the dooryard. Claire shrieked.

“Jim, get this girl the hell out of here,” Charlie roared. “Take her home. Take her anyplace—but
get her out of here.
”

I grabbed Claire's hand and we took off together, out of the dooryard and back down the county road toward the red iron bridge. The last thing I heard from the trailer was shattering glass and then Athena's voice, quite calm and reasonable, saying, “. . . and two leftover pork chops in a number-ten hying pan, fried crisp just the way Monsieur Kin'son prefers them. We're through, you two-timing son-of-a-bitch!”

 

When the misunderstanding was finally straightened out, to the degree that it ever was straightened out that summer, this is what we discovered had happened. While Charlie and I were in Memphremagog Claire had run into an unexpected problem at Resolvèd's, which she explained to me after we sought temporary refuge under the red iron bridge downriver from Charlie's trailer.

Claire said that soon after supper Resolvèd had actually proposed to her. When she recovered from her astonishment and told him that marriage was definitely out of the question for her, citing her plan to go to Hollywood and try for a part in the movies, he had flown into a towering rage.

“You are familiar with the great red he-chicken, James?”

“Ethan Allen? Sure.”

“Very well. As you know, this Ethan dwells in the house with the Resolvèd and the brother. Tonight when the Resolvèd becomes angry with me because I will not agree to marry him, he gets out his shotgun, Betsy, and tells me he will show me something very entertaining. He goes out and a moment later he returns. Under his arm he is holding a wild brown bird. I have heard my father's mother from the Laurentian Mountains call this bird ‘chicken of the woods.' I do not know what you call it here in Ver-mont.”

“A partridge,” I said.

“Yes? Well, I am thinking he will want me to kill this part-ridge and cook it. Fine, I am willing. But no, he closes the door of the room. He shows the part-ridge to the great red he-chicken, Ethan, on the table. Then he releases her and she begins to fly like mad with the red chicken pursuing. All the while the brother is reading his flying-platter magazine and paying no attention.

“I duck! The part-ridge, she is hit the wall, the roof, the window. Once she knocks off the reading brother's black hat. Twice the he-chicken catches her. Both times she escapes. Blood! There is blood over everything.

“At last I can endure no more. I run to the door and open it. The brown bird flies for the opening. BANC! Before I know it, the Resolvèd has shoot the poor bird dead. Next he points his Betsy at me. His mouth is going, he is very angry, but I have no idea what he is saying because my ears are singing so.”

Claire paused. “This is when I make up my mind, James.”

“You mean to leave?”

She shook her head. “No. This is when I make up my mind that the farm of the Resolvèd does not much resemble the farm of Ma and Pa Kettle.”

“You could safely say so,” I said. “What happened next?”

“The Resolvèd continues to drink until his friend Old Duke is gone. Then he begins to clean Betsy again, and look at me, sideways from under his cap and say by and by we will see who is boss of his house and who opens doors without his consent and who does not. But at last he goes to sleep with his head in a dish of chicken feed on the table.

“As soon as the Resolvèd is sleeping, the brother gets five dollars out of his purse and hands it to me and tells me to go home to Canady. He says be sure to write him a letter if I see any flying platters or green mens. Very good! I take the money and thank him and walk here to the village, already with my mind made up to work as the housekeeper of your brother, the true Monsieur Kin'son of the picture. After all, he has help me once, perhaps he will help again. And I do not think the Resolvèd will dare harm me there.”

Arriving at the trailer about nine o'clock and finding the place dark and empty, Claire had gone inside and decided to make herself immediately useful, while awaiting my brother's return, by cleaning up the kitchen.

In the meantime, as I would learn later, Athena Allen was waiting up at home for her father the judge, who had been off with my father on an all-day fishing trip to the Upper Connecticut River. Judge Allen arrived around nine and remarked that when he and Dad had passed Charlie's trailer, the kitchen light had been on but Charlie's woody was gone. This gave Athena an inspiration.

After the trout had been put away and the judge had drunk his bourbon nightcap and gone to bed, Athena slipped into the lavender baby-doll nightie Charlie had bought her in Montreal a year ago, threw the judge's red wool hunting jacket over her shoulders, and drove over to Charlie's trailer in her father's Continental, intending to treat my brother to an intimate little two-person surprise party when he returned from his ballgame.

When she arrived, she discovered to her amazement a good-looking young woman washing my brother's breakfast dishes. Apparently Claire was equally surprised by the sight of a beautiful woman whom she had never laid eyes on before, clad only in the filmiest and most provocative nightwear, standing open-mouthed in the trailer door.

“Who are you?” they'd said simultaneously.

Athena never did identify herself. But finally Claire had said, “I am Claire LaRiviere. Monsieur Kin'son's new housekeeper. From Quebec City, in Canada.”

Athena nodded slowly. After a pretty long pause, she said, “So you're the young woman from the fair?”

Claire had said yes and had begun to try to explain everything, but by then Athena had started her acts of destruction. She was in the first flush of her outrage, not hurrying, but smiling and saying “I see” and hurling clothes and fishing gear and guns and magazines out the door. Working unhurriedly and thoroughly, telling Claire to sit down and take a break while at the same time, picking up the nearest kitchen chair and tossing it through the screen door. Telling Claire if she wanted to be useful she could warm up the two leftover pork chops in the pan on the stove, only to be sure to get them crisp. And all the time Claire was wanting to explain but she was too frightened to think of the English words. Finally Athena tried to pick up Charlie's squat old refrigerator but she couldn't budge it, so she opened it up and began methodically throwing beer and meat and vegetables and eggs and other perishables out the door. At this point Claire fled to the dooryard because she'd made up her mind that the woman in the lavender lace nightie was as crazy as Resolvèd.

It took me a while, but eventually I managed to explain to Claire that Athena Allen wasn't crazy, only jealous over Charlie. She had undoubtedly gotten the wrong impression when she'd walked into the trailer and discovered a pretty girl who announced out of the blue that she was Charlie's new housekeeper.

“Oh!” Claire said, putting her hand to her mouth. “This woman, this Athena. She and your brother, they are lovers?”

“You could say that,” I said, thinking of the night I'd stayed over at Charlie's after my fight with Frenchy. “Some of the time, anyway.”

“Then I understand. The Athena is very passionate, very jealous! Oh, James! I believe I am fortunate she does not take a knife and slit my throat. You did not inform me your brother had a lover! Now surely I must leave Vermont. I would rather ran the risk of meeting the Resolvèd again than this fierce lover of your brother's. Did you see her eyes? Never have I seen such a fine anger. Will she kill him now?”

I laughed and told Claire not to worry, that Charlie and Athena had had fights before, plenty of them, and everything could be explained. In the meantime, we desperately needed to find somewhere for her to stay. Once again I suggested my folks' place. But she wouldn't hear of it.

“Look, Claire, if you won't stay with us, why not stay with—” With whom? Who would help this engaging girl I had half-fallen in love with myself?

Suddenly I had an inspiration. Ministers were supposed to help people. And Reverend Andrews had lots of room at the parsonage. What's more, he needed a housekeeper, if only to get Hefty Hefner off his back. And when and if Resolvèd did find out where Claire was, he wouldn't dare go near the parsonage after what Reverend Andrews had done to Bumper Stevens on the day of the cockfight. Also, I could see her there as often as I wanted.

It seemed like the perfect solution.

“I've got it!” I said excitedly. “There's this minister in the village. He's really nice, and his son's my best friend. I'm about positive you can stay there.”

Claire thought for a moment. Then she reached out and grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “Good! The matter is settled. You will tell me how to get there.”

“I'll do better than that, Claire. I'll take you there myself.”

I was quite sure that Resolvèd would never harm Claire when he was sober, but it occurred to me that even now my outlaw cousin might be out hunting for her with his bosom friends and fellow troublemakers Old Duke and Betsy. Moreover, as we approached the village I began to have misgivings about my proposal. Despite my earlier assurances to Claire, I didn't really know Reverend Andrews well enough to be sure he'd take her in.

As we started up the knoll on the east end of town, another doubt crossed my mind. “Claire? There's something I forgot to tell you. The minister we're going to see? He's a Negro.”

“A Negro? You mean a colored man?”

“Yes. Like I said, he's a really nice man. Everybody likes him a lot. Well, the cattle auctioneer doesn't, but he doesn't count, he's just an old drunk. Everybody else does. Nobody even thinks of him as being a Negro, actually. I just wanted you to know ahead of time so you wouldn't be surprised.”

“I do not care about that, James. I see many black mens, black womens, too, in Quebec. Just so I can remain there a little.”

We walked faster. Moving lights appeared, illuminating the mist ahead like a will-o'-the-wisp. We dodged into the ditch and the local milk truck rumbled by. Sheepishly, my heart still pounding, I helped Claire back onto the shoulder.

At the top of the knoll, across the road from the parsonage, Elijah Kinneson's cottage squatted darkly in the fog. For all I knew the sour old sexton might be out navigating around in the nearby cemetery. It was a well-known fact, at least to us local boys, that my weird cousin often went walking about the village and surrounding countryside alone at night, for heaven knew what strange, private purposes.

I wasn't surprised to see a light in Reverend Andrews' study window. I knew that the minister habitually stayed up until all hours reading or writing his sermons or doing research for the upcoming Old Home Day celebration. Nathan's room above the study was dark.