Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (12 page)

"I heard you playing the organ across the way," Mrs. Hurd called.

"Yes, ma'am. Over to Mrs. Cobb's."

"You're much better than that wretched Lillian Woodward. She hasn't played anything faster than a dirge since the Civil War."

"I didn't see you at church."

She smiled and winked at him. "I went every Sunday until my hair turned white, and in all that time I never heard a sermon worth that"—and she snapped her fingers in front of him, a dry, sort of soft snap. "So one day I up and decided I wouldn't go anymore. Imagine that, Turner III. After all, why should Sundays be so dreary?"

Turner wondered if his hair would have to be white before he didn't have to put up with dreary Sundays.

"Not that I think your father is dreary," Mrs. Hurd said quickly. "It's just that I've gotten into the habit of keeping the Sabbath here at home." She balled her hand into a fist and pounded—sort of—her chest. "Here is where God speaks. Here is where I listen."

A sudden gust of warm wind came up and swirled a moment around them both. But watching Mrs. Hurd's old white hand, watching that surprising fist, Turner shivered. He wondered what his father would say to Mrs. Hurd. He wondered if his father would believe—really believe—the things he might say to Mrs. Hurd.

"Do you think I'm wicked?" she asked.

"I don't think you could be wicked if you tried, Mrs. Hurd."

"Oh, it's not that difficult. You hardly have to practice at all."

"Mrs. Hurd, whenever I play over to Mrs. Cobb's, that's for you, too."

She smiled at him. "Turner, that is one of the nicest things you could ever give to me," she said. "You might play 'I Have Some Friends Before Me Gone."'

"I'm trying not to give Mrs. Cobb hymns about dying."

"Good Lord, Turner III, she's almost as old as I am. Every second thought is about dying. And she doesn't have any friends before her gone anyway."

"But I'd rather she didn't think of dying while I'm playing."

Mrs. Hurd considered this. "No," she finally agreed, "you wouldn't want her to die while you're playing. That wouldn't be polite. But if she does die while you're working on 'I Have Some Friends Before Me Gone,' be sure you finish the chorus before you cover her up."

"Mrs. Hurd! That is wicked!"

"Well, I suppose you might stop to cover her up. But be sure to go back and finish the chorus."

Turner figured the likelihood was remote enough that he could promise to finish the chorus, and so he did.

"You see, Turner III, you're as wicked as I am. You hardly have to practice at all." He smiled, and felt then that some part of the dreary afternoon of the dreary Sunday had been saved.

He was almost whistling when he climbed the steps to his front porch. He was whistling for sure when he opened the door and went in. But he wasn't whistling when he saw his father, who took two quick strides toward him, opened his hand, and slapped it flat and hard against Turner's face.

Turner stood stunned. He felt his entire body grow taut and then begin to quiver with surprise and humiliation and ... anger.

"That's how it feels," said his father. "That's how it feels every time you humiliate me. Do you know what
forbidden
means, Turner? Do you understand the word
forbidden?
You
were forbidden
to go to Malaga Island. Absolutely forbidden. I could not have been more clear about that. Yet here comes Willis Hurd to ask me to tell you that when you come back from the island, you'd be welcome to join him and the others down on the docks.'Oh no,' I say,'Turner couldn't be down to the island.' But Willis tells me that he saw you heading down Parker Head. He tells me that Parker Head leads to Malaga, and he figured that's where you were heading."

Turner hoped wildly that Willis's nose was pushed so far to the right he couldn't even pick it.

"Is it true, Turner? Did you go to the island?"

"To the shore," answered Turner. "I couldn't get across to the island."

"You disobeyed me."

Turner thought this should be pretty clear. "Yes."

"May I ask why? Or is this something else that wasn't intended to embarrass the new minister?"

"Because I wanted to know if it was true."

"If what was true?"

"If Lizzie was lying to me. If all she wanted to do was to get me on her side so she wouldn't have to leave the island."

Reverend Buckminster sighed. "It doesn't matter if it's true. It matters what people think. It matters that my congregation can tell me what to think when my son goes out to visit a Negro girl on Malaga Island. It doesn't matter at all how she got you out there."

"It matters to me,"Turner whispered.

"Speak up!"

"It matters to me."

The grim silence circled the room like an eager tiger. It flicked its tail greedily at them, circling, circling, circling. Turner felt that it was about to pounce, claws fully out.

And then it did.

"
Forbidden
is
forbidden.
You will stay in the house for the next two weeks, Turner. If I cannot trust you not to go to the island, then I will have to keep you under my eye. You may not leave here except for church services. And this means that you may not go down to the docks today."

"They're not down on the docks."

"Speak up, Turner. Good Lord, don't mumble like a little whipped boy."

"They're not down on the damn docks."

Another circling silence. "I think I can trust Willis Hurd to be telling the truth over a boy who can't even keep his own mouth clean," said Reverend Buckminster, and took his presence out of the room.

That Sunday turned out to be the dreariest one on record. And it had to go some to pass a handful of others Turner could recall.

***

It seemed to Turner less and less likely that he would be lighting out for the Territories anytime soon. But as the days went by and he settled into his imprisonment, he was comforted by one thing: who knew how, but he was more and more sure that Lizzie had not lied to him, and that Malaga was as real as real.

And there was one other comfort, and it came from a surprising source. After three days of his absence, Mrs. Cobb appeared at the parsonage to ask if he had been sick. When she found out he wasn't, she asked if Turner might come to her house to play the organ for her. His mother agreed. Turner was not told how Reverend Buckminster came to agree to this, too, and he did not ask.

Turner dawdled on his way down to her house each afternoon. Not that there was much to see. But there was the sea breeze, and the trees were starting to yellow and blush. So he dawdled until he came to the picket fence, and every day Mrs. Cobb was standing at the door waiting for him, scowling and sour. And she stayed scowling and sour through the first hymn or two, and then she started to hum a little, and eventually, by "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," she was singing—"Glory, glory, hallelujah!"—and her voice trembled and then grew stronger—"Glory, glory, hallelujah! His truth is marching on."

And sometime after the glory, glory, hallelujahs were over, Turner glanced at her to assess her general state of health, and if she seemed hale and hearty enough, he meandered into "I Have Some Friends Before Me Gone," and played more loudly than it ought to be played so that Mrs. Hurd could hear it across the street.

And when he finished each afternoon, Mrs. Cobb leaned back in her chair and smiled, not a scowl anywhere on her face. "I've made it through another day," she said.

"No last words yet," Turner agreed.

"You're not such a bad sort after all, Turner Buckminster. I'd be pleased to have you be the one to hear them."

And Turner nodded, strangely glad with the honor—though not so eager to fulfill it—and headed on home. He would wave at Mrs. Hurd, who was sometimes rocking on the porch with her shawl around her shoulders, or sometimes sitting by a window watching for him. And he dawdled as the clouds turned their mackerel undersides to him and the cool of the late afternoon started to settle in over the town.

One afternoon, after another dreary Sunday, he walked home from Mrs. Cobb's with the sea breeze determined to shove him to Malaga Island. It scooted around him and pulled at his ears. It threw up the dust of the road into his face to turn him around, and when he leaned into it, it suddenly let go and pushed at him from behind, laughing. But with the iron word
forbidden
tolling like a heavy bell by his ears, Turner would not let himself be brought to Malaga. And so with a last abrupt kick, the sea breeze twisted around and left him. Turner watched it rushing pell-mell down Parker Head and toward the shore. "Go find Lizzie," he whispered.

And it heard him.

That night, after a quiet and still supper, Turner sat by his window watching the late dusk turn purple, and suddenly there was the sea breeze again, chuckling and rolling down Parker Head, whipping three times around First Congregational and then rollicking across the street, up the clapboards of the parsonage, and to him, rustling his hair and scooting down the back of his shirt so that he shivered and laughed.

"Is that you up there, laughing like a loon?"

Lizzie. Lizzie Bright.

He put his head out the window. "What are you doing here?" he called down.

"Well, I've missed you, too. I'm stealing chickens."

"We don't have any chickens."

"Your dog, then."

"We don't have a dog."

"I figured you didn't have a dog—or he was deaf as a post. What does a minister have to steal?"

"Books. Preaching books."

She paused. "I guess you can keep those. I'll try somewhere else."

"No. Wait a minute—right there." Turner figured that sneaking through a minister's house wasn't exactly something fit for a minister's son, but the scriptures never said,"Thou shalt not sneak," and that was good enough. He went down the front steps, hoping his father would be in the back study—he was—and his mother wouldn't be in the front parlor—she wasn't—and so on he went out the front door that would squeak no matter how much he comforted it. But then he was outside and the sea breeze found him again and chucked him lightly under the chin.

He followed the sea breeze around to the back of the house, and there, away from the light thrown out the study windows, stood Lizzie, one hand on her hip, her foot tapping impatiently.

"Why don't you have a dog?" she asked.

"We've never had a dog."

"That's no reason not to have a dog. If I had a big fine house like this, I'd have a dog. Even a mangy dog. And I'd run him all day, and then we'd come back here and throw balls back and forth till I couldn't throw one more ball."

"Then I'll get a dog," said Turner, "and we'll see how long it takes that arm of yours to give out."

"Longer than it would take yours."

"Probably so."

"You know it's so." She grinned and Turner grinned back. Lord, it was good to see her.

"How'd you know how to find me?"

"There's only this one church in Phippsburg, Turner. Doesn't take a whole lot to figure out where you'd be. You know why I came?"

"So I could row you back up the New Meadows."

She put her other hand on her other hip and stared at him. "Boy, you won't find me in a boat with you rowing anytime soon. I came to tell you I just don't believe it."

"You just don't believe what?"

"What Sheriff Elwell said."

"What did he say?"

"You always answer with a question, Turner."

"What did the sheriff say?"

"See?"

"Lizzie, what did—"

"That Willis Hurd dared you to come out to talk to a Negro. That he dared you to come out to the island. That you didn't care a penny's worth about me or my granddaddy. And that you can't hardly wait till we clear out—-just like all the rest of the town."

"That's what the sheriff said?"

She glared at him.

"Lizzie, I swear to you, as sure as I'm standing right here—that's a lie. Every bit of it. Every single bit."

"My granddaddy said it was a lie, too." She leaned her head to one side and looked at him steadily. "So why haven't you been down to the island?"

"So only you get to ask questions now?"

"Yes." She waited.

"I haven't been down to the island because my father believes that you were using me to help you stay on Malaga Island."

"Well," she said slowly. "Well."

"I didn't believe it, either."The sea breeze lay at their feet panting, hoping they would play with it again.

"My granddaddy's been on that island since he was a baby," said Lizzie, as quiet as the dark. "He won't leave. He'd never leave my grandmama. And he'd never leave my mama."

"You won't have to leave. You can't have to leave."

"That's what Mr. Tripp says. He's got this shotgun he waves around like Ulysses S. Grant, saying how he'll fight to protect our homes and such. He's about ready to declare independency."

They stood together quietly, in the dark, in the growing cool of the night, and the sea breeze gave up on them and played in the dark leaves above, and the sound of the waves came in with the quiet. The stars popped in the night sky like distant firecrackers, and beyond them the great streak of the Milky Way came down out of heaven and draped a swathe into the ocean beyond. Turner could almost feel the globe sliding under his feet. Lizzie felt it, too and she reached out and took his hand for a moment—as if for balance—and then dropped it.

"My granddaddy said I shouldn't be out here long."

"Lizzie, you been clamming?" borne. "Batting?"

"Some."

"Flying with the Tripps?"

"More than some. And you?"

"Mostly I stay in the house. I go to services. I read and play the organ for Mrs. Cobb in the afternoons."

"You play the organ? You do? Turner Buckminster, you play the organ?"

"Better than I bat."

"Oh," she said, smiling, "I thought for a minute you might be good."

"Come hear me."

"Sure. 'Please, Mrs. Cobb, may I come in and set a while and listen to Turner play your organ? Oh yes, thank you, I'll sit in your best chair. Of course, I'd love some tea. No, thank you, no cake just now. Thank you, yes, I am having a lovely time, Mrs. Cobb. He does play like all get out.'"