Warning Hill (14 page)

“Hey?” Aunt Sarah would say occasionally, and Tommy would repeat politely the sentence he had said before, always with that suspicion that Aunt Sarah had heard him the first time well enough.

His mother had sat with her head bent forward, very thin and pale in her rusty alpaca dress, with her hands, reddened and chapped, folded tightly in her lap. Only once she interrupted.

“You are as good as any of them. Don't forget it, Tom.”

When Tommy had finished Aunt Sarah spoke.

“Tell him the whole of it, Estelle. Only don't, for goodness' sake, be bitter, the way you always get. Ho—ho—ho—you're always bitter.”

And Estelle Michael, her lips tight, her eyes flashing, told about the beach and how his father died.

“It was an accident,” his mother had said, looking at Aunt Sarah hard.

“Hey?” said Aunt Sarah. “Yes—of course it was an accident.” And then she added a remark which others might have thought surprising. “You keep away from those Jelletts, Tom. They're a bad lot, and not the same as you. Now, Estelle, why will you always be getting bitter?”

Tommy was thinking strange thoughts, when Mr. Cooper came up the drive that Sunday afternoon, which seemed to scud across his mind like clouds across the sun. They were unpleasant and half-formed, those thoughts, exactly like clouds mounting in the west before a heavy storm. When Tommy saw Mr. Cooper he put down his ax by the woodpile where he had been splitting stove wood, and came towards him.

Mr. Cooper was growing stouter, and his head and face had changed little from earlier times. The skin was slightly looser, especially around the jaws, making the beginning of curious little wrinkles. Mr. Cooper had a large handkerchief in his hand which he occasionally passed over his forehead.

“Tom,” said Mr. Cooper, “why did you sling that piece of mud at Mr. Jellett?”

“I didn't sling it,” answered Tommy.

“Then who did?” asked Mr. Cooper. “Of course I said you didn't—understand.”

“So you've come about that?” said Tommy. “Well, I won't say.”

“None of your sass, Tom,” said Mr. Cooper. “Is your mother in?”

Already his mother had opened the old front door, and once they were in the hall, Mr. Cooper took her hand.

“Estelle,” he said, “you're looking dreadful ill.”

Tommy looked quickly at his mother. But she seemed exactly as he always remembered her, her face thin and transparently white, and her hands very slender.

“I'm well enough, I guess, Joe,” his mother said.

Tommy had never seen Mr. Cooper look as oddly as he did in their dim front hall. His face had puckered in the strangest way, and he kept looking at his mother.

“Estelle,” he said, “why will you keep on with this when I—I—?”

It surprised Tommy to see his mother smile. She looked up at Mr. Cooper and her hand was still in his.

“Now don't begin talking nonsense, Joe,” she said, “it won't do a bit of good—for me.”

Mr. Cooper rubbed his handkerchief across his forehead. He seemed very much disturbed. He still seemed disturbed when he entered the parlor and gazed at its tarnished lace curtains and at its rug worn full of holes. The parlor had been looking very badly lately, even Tommy could see. The water had leaked through die frames of one of the tall windows, causing a great piece of heavy wall paper to peel. The bottoms of several of the chairs were broken and the upholstery was badly frayed.

“My goodness,” said Mr. Cooper, “I used to think this room was the grandest sort of place. Good afternoon, Miss Michael!”

“Didn't expect to see me about, did you, Joe?” inquired Aunt Sarah. “Well, well, I'm not dead yet. I get up and downstairs every day.”

Aunt Sarah gave you the most creepy sort of feeling now and then. To Tommy, who had known her always, she was like the Michael house, devoid of any other personality, except what lay beneath the leaking roof. She was a part of the house, speaking for everything else, telling when it all was new, even to the ornaments upon the mantel and the pictures of the Roman Forum on the wall.

“Yes, yes, I can recall you, Joe, playing in the garden with our Alfred. You used to stuff with cookies. You were a greedy boy.”

Mr. Cooper endeavored to laugh. He sat down cautiously upon a wicker chair, which groaned protestingly beneath his weight.

“So I was,” said Mr. Cooper, and when he began to speak he did it so rapidly that you might have thought he had learned everything he had to say exactly like a piece in school. The wrinkles on his face, Tommy saw, tightened, and relaxed with every word.

“Times have changed a lot since then. I wonder if you know how much they've changed—gas lighting everywhere downtown and an electric car line, and trains that only take an hour and a quarter to get you to New York. We used to be a sleepy sort of village. And now we're a suburb and—” Mr. Cooper nodded his head very slowly, “we can't stop it—none of us. I'm going to talk business. Do you want Tommy here?”

“Hey?” said Aunt Sarah.

“Move nearer and speak louder,” said Estelle Michael. “Yes, Tommy's old enough to stay. You've been kind to Tom, Joe. I don't know what we'd do if you hadn't given Tommy work.”

Evidently Mr. Cooper felt averse to speaking louder. He drew out his handkerchief and mopped his head.

“I wish,” he said, and his voice was different. “I wish you could see Mr. Jellett in a generous way, like you ought to.”

“Hey?” Aunt Sarah set down her knitting. “Jellett? So that's why you've come. I thought that was why.”

“Now listen,” Mr. Cooper spoke louder. “I've been friends, haven't I? I've done my best—because—because—it hurts to see good folks going down hill. Look at this house—look at the grounds. You can't go on like this—I don't know how you do it, anyway—honestly I don't, when I know what you have to live on. Now, Estelle, I've come here as a friend to-day. You've got to believe I've come here as a friend.”

“Yes,” said Estelle Michael; “of course, I know you do.”

“Hey?” said Aunt Sarah suddenly. “I guess you'd be out talking to Estelle in the kitchen, if it wasn't something else.”

Tommy could only understand half of what they were saying, although he was fourteen. The changing tones made more impression on him than the words.

“It's about that beach land up to Warning Hill. You can't keep it, when Mr. Jellett's bound he'll have it.”

Tommy had noticed Mr. Cooper was prone to speak incorrectly when he became excited. As Mr. Cooper spoke, he saw his mother's lips close tight. All around the room invisible strings seemed to tighten.

“Well,” Aunt Sarah said, “you talk to me. I own that land.”

Tommy was looking at his mother. A sharp little sigh slipped from her as if she had been hurt.

“Aunt Sarah,” she said, “now won't you listen? Joe's doing his best.”

“I'm listening,” said Aunt Sarah. “You be quiet, Estelle!”

Aunt Sarah spoke as though his mother were a little girl, and just as though she was a little girl, she was quiet. She was afraid of Aunt Sarah, it seemed to Tommy, just as he was afraid; and Mr. Cooper, too, did not seem wholly at his best. Perhaps, as Tommy sometimes thought, he already knew that nothing could shake Aunt Sarah. When Mr. Cooper sat in his favorite room in the bank he was large and calm and cool, but now he did not seem to know exactly what to say.

“No, Miss Michael,” Mr. Cooper cleared his throat as if something impeded his speech. “I know the way you look at it but Mr. Jellett does not feel the same. He may not understand the way I do. He has too many other affairs to think about but he means to do right. He came to see me yesterday and he sent me to say he'll give six thousand dollars for those two acres of beach. Now think of it, Miss Michael, six thousand dollars, and he says it is his last offer. Now think of it Miss Michael. Alfred was ready to take five.”

At the sound of such an enormous sum there was a silence in the Michael parlor. The old velvet hangings on the wall seemed to shake, and Tommy saw his mother's hand was trembling, as she sat looking at him. He heard Mr. Cooper breathe deeply. There was a creaking in the hall outside, as old houses will sometimes creak, which sounded exactly like a footstep. You could almost think that some one had strode across the hall and was standing by the parlor door.

“Hey?” said Aunt Sarah at length. “Six thousand dollars?”

“Now, Miss Michael,” Mr. Cooper spoke hastily, “it's more than it is worth. You can't go wrong to take it. Think of Estelle, think of your grandnephew! Can't you forget a piece of spite, Miss Michael—or sentiment, if you want to call it that?”

Then his mother spoke suddenly—the first and only time that Tommy had ever known her to beseech.

“Can't you do it? Can't you? I'm so tired—and can't you think of Tom?”

“You be quiet, Estelle,” Aunt Sarah's head tossed back. “You never cared for Alfred and that shows it! Don't it matter to you to have pride?”

She was not an old woman for a moment; her face was like old Thomas Michael's in the portrait by the stairs.

Now what made Mr. Cooper angry Tommy did not guess, until, long afterwards, he knew that Joe Cooper had known his mother years before. Perhaps he never rightly guessed the strain under which Mr. Cooper was laboring, or he might have forgiven Mr. Cooper for what he said out of charity, instead of remembering always, with bitterness fresh distilled, that it was Joe Cooper with his fat red face who rent the veil of illusion and tarnished everything Tommy thought was bright.

“Pride?” said Mr. Cooper. “Pride, is it?” Mr. Cooper was a coarse man whose life had made him coarser. “What you see to be proud of in Alfred Michael's more than I can guess. Why should you hang on to anything out of sentiment for him? What has he ever done for you except lose your money? What's he ever done?”

Aunt Sarah pulled herself forward in her chair.

“You be quiet,” she said. “We all knew Alfred, Joe—and Tommy's here.”

Oh, the way that children learn! You cannot hide a truth from children without its appearing noiseless as a shadow at some unexpected time, and striking with a careless angry word. Perhaps Joe Cooper would never have said it except for an old woman's stubbornness, but Tommy was bound to learn. Mr. Cooper was speaking of his father, yet nothing struck him down, and no one said a word in his defense. That was the worst of it. No one said a word. His mother sat white-faced and silent. Aunt Sarah's thin blue-veined hands lay motionless on the arms of her chair.

“And what if Tommy is here?” Mr. Cooper cleared his throat again, and Tommy stood quietly on the torn old carpet, and his eyes were very wide. “Ain't it time he knew what his father was? I want to know why any one should suffer out of sentiment for a man who never did a decent thing by anybody. Now, Miss Michael, I've been doing what I could. Mr. Jellett's offered you six thousand, and he's bound to have that beach. Won't you take it, ma'am? If Mr. Jellett wants something, you can't stop him.”

“Hey?” said Aunt Sarah. “What'll he do if I don't sell?”

“If you don't sell, ma'am,” Mr. Cooper had difficulty in keeping his voice pitched high, “he's going to make the town put it on sale. He knows there's five years back taxes on it.”

“Ho—ho!” said Aunt Sarah. “Does he? I guess I know where he found that out. Well, he won't get it while I'm above the ground. I'll pay up the taxes. We can manage, with what Tommy makes, I wouldn't wonder.”

Mr. Cooper shifted his weight on his chair so that it creaked; and drew out his handkerchief to mop his forehead.

“Miss Michael,” he said, “I guess I can't keep Tommy any more.”

“You can't?” Suddenly Tommy's mother spoke with that strange energy of hers whenever Tommy's name was mentioned. “What's wrong with Tom?”

When Mr. Cooper turned to face her he was very red indeed.

“He took the Jellett girl across in a boat, and he chucked a piece of mud right square at Mr. Jellett's neck—and Jellett found he was working in the bank. I couldn't keep him after that.”

“You can't!” A bright spot stood out on his mother's cheeks. “And he put you up to getting rid of Tom? Haven't you spine enough to say you won't?”

There was nothing tired about Tommy's mother then. That flame of energy in her which was never quenched was so real to Tommy that he could feel the force of it; and a strength, infinitely greater than his own, seemed to hold him up. Estelle Michael was the one who gave Tommy his streak of hardness and his flash of fire.

“Now there,” Mr. Cooper wriggled in his chair. “Don't you see, Estelle? I've done what I could. I even paid him more than he was worth, and Jellett was mad enough, too, when he found it out. I can't go against Jellett. He controls the bank stock. You ought to know that Jellett'll fix it so no one'll dare have Tom work for them, even if they want. He owns half the town or
can
own it. You can't go against Jellett; Miss Michael, won't you listen to sense and sell that beach?”

Now there was a picture for you, blatant in its melodrama, and ringing yet with a faint, far laughter of absurdity, for every one was struggling with an oddly different thought. There was old Aunt Sarah Michael, standing for some sort of pride or tradition, or heaven knows what, as though the Michaels had anything really to be proud of. There was Tommy, facing something that was gone forever, knowing that all he had thought had been as nothing, and that all he had believed was a misty sort of fancy. And there was Estelle Michael and the corpulent Joe Cooper face to face with something else; and perhaps, though Tommy could only guess in later days, another hero was falling in the dust. Aunt Sarah regarded Joe Cooper evenly through her spectacles and spoke in a level voice.