The Wapshot Chronicle - John Cheever [34]
She answered him in a little while and he saw the outlines of the Tern and told her what line to throw him, and lifted her, in his arms, off the bow. She was laughing and he had been so anxious that her cheerfulness seemed to him like a kind of goodness that he had not suspected her to have. Then they picked up the skiff and headed for shore and when the Tern was moored they went into the old clubhouse that looked as if it had been put together by old ladies and mice and had, in fact, been floated down the river from St. Botolphs. Moses built a fire and they dried themselves here and would have remained if old Mr. Sturgis hadn’t come into the billiard room to practice shots.
Honora finished her hooked rug that afternoon—a field of red roses—and this and the gloomy sea-turn decided her to go to West Farm at last and be introduced to the stranger. She cut across the fields in the rain from Boat Street to River Street and let herself in the side door calling, “Hello. Hello. Is anyone home?” There was no answer. The house was empty. She was not nosy, but she climbed the stairs to the spare room to see if the girl might be there. The hastily made bed, the clothes scattered on chairs, and the full ash tray made her feel unfriendly and suspicious and she opened the closet door. She was in the closet when she heard Moses and Rosalie coming up the stairs, Moses saying, “What harm can there be in something that would make us both feel so good?” Honora closed the closet door as they came into the room.
What else Honora heard—and she heard plenty—does not concern us here. This is not a clinical account. We will only consider the dilemma of an old lady—born in Polynesia, educated at Miss Wilbur’s, a philanthropist and Samaritan—led by no more than her search for the truth into a narrow closet on a rainy afternoon.
CHAPTER TEN
No one saw Honora leave the house that day and if they had they wouldn’t have been able to tell whether or not she was crying with the rain streaming over her face as she stamped across Waylands’ pasture to Boat Street. The violence of her emotion may have stemmed from her memories of Mr. de Sastago, whose titles and castles turned out to be air. Her life had been virtuous, her dedication to innocence had been unswerving and she had been rewarded with a vision of life that seemed as unsubstantial as a paper match in a fairly windy place. She did not understand. She did not, as you might expect, take out her bewilderment on Maggie. She changed into dry clothes, drank her port and after supper she read the Bible.
At ten o’clock Honora said her prayers, turned out the light and got into bed. As soon as she turned out the light she felt wakeful and alert. It was the dark that made her wakeful. She was afraid of it. She looked boldly into the dark to assure herself that there was nothing to be afraid of but there seemed, in the dark, to be a stir, an increase of movement as if figures or spirits were arriving and gathering. She cleared her throat. She tried shutting her eyes, but this only heightened the illusion that the dark was populated. She opened her eyes again, determined to look squarely at the fantasy since she could not escape it.
The figures, although she couldn’t see them clearly, were not numerous. There seemed to be twelve or fourteen—enough to circle her bed. They seemed to dance. Their movements were ugly and obscene and by looking narrowly into the dark she was able to recognize their forms. There were pumpkin heads cut with a dog-tooth smile; there were the buckram masks of cats and pirates that are sold to children at Halloween; there were skeletons, masked executioners, the top-heavy headdresses of witch doctors that she had seen photographed in the National Geographic magazine; there was everything that had ever seemed to her strange and unnatural. I am Honora Wapshot! she said aloud. I am a Wapshot. We have always been a hardy family.
She got out of bed, turned on a light and lighted the fire in her hearth, holding out her arms to the warmth. The light and the fire seemed to scatter the grotesques. I am a Wapshot, she said again. I am Honora Wapshot. She sat by the fire until midnight and then she went to bed and fell asleep.