Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy

  Conniving?

  "The situation might lead some of us here to think for a moment—just for a moment, of course—that you had foreseen this very possibility, and so sent young Buckminster here to Mrs. Cobb to create this—we'll call it a situation."

  Turner could see that his father was feeling his own situation moving away from him. He adjusted his robes, then his glasses. "Mr. Stonecrop," he said, "you have me at a loss. What situation do you mean?"

  "I shall speak it plainly and bluntly, Reverend. This house, which might have been left to the town to fund a coming prosperity, was left instead"—and here he focused accusing eyes on Turner—"to your son."

  A general murmur of disappointment and dismay. A general sense that the parishioners of First Congregational had been cheated out of something that was due them.

  "Mrs. Cobb has left her house to Turner?"

  "Yes."

  "My son, Turner?"

  "Now you have a grasp of the situation. What do you intend to do about this?"

  The Reverend Buckminster looked at Turner, and Turner suddenly had the impression that his father was seeing him for the first time as someone more than his son. It almost frightened him.

  Reverend Buckminster looked back to Mr. Stonecrop. "I suppose we'll have to see about the legalities," he said.

  "Legalities!" Mr. Stonecrop almost shouted. "It is a mighty poor parson who hides behind legalities, sir. Your son made his way into Mrs. Cobb's household and so ingratiated himself that he has inherited a great deal of money that ought properly to belong to the people of this town."

  Turner saw his father draw up. "Your implication, Mr. Stonecrop, that I have done this purposefully—" But Mr. Stonecrop shook him off.

  "Implications mean nothing. Legalities mean nothing. The only thing that means anything is what you do with the house. And I suspect that your congregation—indeed, every soul in Phippsburg—will be watching what you do with it."

  Reverend Buckminster looked down at Turner again, and Turner wondered if he was expected to speak. The silence was sharp enough that it seemed almost to wedge its point against his throat.

  But silent or not, Turner did know what he would do with the house. He had known from the moment Mr. Stonecrop had announced that he had inherited it.

  Still, the disapproval of First Congregational stifled him like the silence a fog brings upon the ocean. And when his father spoke again, he sounded like an invisible buoy. "We will do what is good and honorable in the Lord's eyes."

  "Don't neglect," suggested Mr. Stonecrop, "to do what is good and honorable in the town's eyes as well. I think you may find, Reverend, that they are the very same thing." Mr. Stonecrop moved off into the foggy silence, and the rest of the congregation passed quietly, most hands extended, some not. Only when they were finally all gone, and the fog with them, did Turner feel the old familiar sea breeze coming in at the doors and pulling him outside.

  It had snowed during the service and was snowing still—a crisp and cold snow that didn't melt as soon as it struck. Already Parker Head was covered, and the ground was frozen enough that where the congregation had walked and driven carriages, the road showed through but the snow hadn't changed to slush. Turner felt the cold air deep down when he breathed it in, and the snow that fell on his lashes and into his hair stayed there, gleefully stubborn.

  The snow fell on the maples, on the aspens all along Parker Head. It gathered on the oak leaves and drooped even those sturdy branches down. It clotted the cedars. All three Buckminsters stood on the steps of the First Congregational and watched it come down, clean, tasting of the salt air, whirling about in a joyous jig—swinging partners and do-si-doing and promenading as if it were a whitened barn dance.

  '"A gust, shrieking from the north, strides full on his sail and lifts the waves to heaven,'" said Turner, trying to smile.

  "Not a bad translation," said his father. "But Franguntur remi, 'The oars snap.'" He crossed Parker Head and slowly climbed the steps of the parsonage.

  Turner's mother wiped off the snow collecting on Turner's hair. "The house is yours," she said. "Don't listen to what anyone says. She gave it to you because she wanted you to have it."

  Turner nodded. "And I know what she wanted me to do with it."

  "Then you had better do that."

  "And if Mr. Stonecrop doesn't like what I want to do with it?"

  "Then," said Mrs. Buckminster, standing tall and straight, and the blood reddening her cheeks, "then the profound Mr. Stonecrop will be profoundly disappointed." She shook her head, and together they laughed out loud in the falling snow of Parker Head on the steps of First Congregational, risking the disapproval of any parishioners who might have seen them just then.

  "Go on," she finally told Turner. "Go on and disappoint him." And Turner went to do just that.

  So it was not very long until Turner, having slid and sprinted, sprinted and slid, stood at the granite ledges and began climbing down, kicking the snow off the footholds, and finally jumping onto the dark gray mudflats that wouldn't abide a single snowflake to freeze on them, no matter now much cold the sea breeze brought in. The snow wasn't so thick that Turner couldn't see across to Malaga, but it was thick enough that probably no one would be out on the water. He looked above the tip of the island, hoping he might at least see the smoke rising from Lizzie's house, but he couldn't make it out at all. Probably because of the snow.

  It seemed to him that he might do best to just go on home and wait for a better day when there might be a dory or two out. He would have to be a dang fool to stand on a mudflat that was doing its best not to freeze, in a snowstorm, waiting for a friendly boat to take him across. But then again, maybe it wasn't such a terrible thing to be a dang fool sometimes. Maybe, he thought, it was just what you were supposed to be. So he wrapped his arms around himself and stood back against the ledges, waiting.

  He waited for a long time, walking up and down the beach, stamping his feet to keep the blood moving, until it got so cold that the mud really did start to freeze, and he thought that maybe being a frozen dang fool might not be a good idea. He might have left then and there if he hadn't seen the Easons' dory butting its prow against the waves as it came down the New Meadows, trying to find its place somewhere between the white water and the white air. Turner ran to the edge of the tide and waved his arms, hollering as loudly as he could, though his voice seemed to be drawn up in the snowy wind.

  Whether he was heard or seen, the dory turned to him and began taking some of the waves just a bit broadside until it came square to Turner, then let itself be swept to the shore.

  "It's one awful day to be digging clams," called Mr. Eason.

  "I'm hoping that you could take me across."

  Mr. Eason looked at him a long time. "You know, boy, sometimes it's best to leave things be."

  "This isn't something to be left, Mr. Eason. I've got some news for Lizzie. The best news."

  Another long stare. "Well," he said, "it's not my place." He motioned for Turner to step in, then used an oar to shove the dory back into the New Meadows, flat against the waves but steady enough.

  Turner felt that he was hovering in some unearthly place. With the snow and the spray from the waves wafting against the boat, they seemed to be in neither air nor water, or maybe in both, and the queasy, uneasy feeling came upon him that he didn't know where he belonged—and wasn't sure he could find his way.

  Mr. Eason, rowing hard against the waves, said nothing, not even when the waves turned and he began following them in to Malaga. Turner stepped out first and dragged the boat up on shore, and Mr. Eason jumped out to haul beside him. Once the boat was past the high-tide mark, he pointed down across the shore. "You'll find her at my house," he said, and turned back to the boat.

  Then Turner knew why he hadn't been able to make out the smoke. And he didn't want to know why.

  He walked slowly, brushing the snow off and shaking it from his shoes now and again. Although he was cold, the tips of
his fingers hurting and his eyes watering some, he didn't hurry. Maybe there wasn't even a need to hurry. He smelled woodsmoke and passed a stack of old lobster traps, blown over and the staves broken in, then a heap of firewood guarded pitifully by some old barrels, also broken. The woodsmoke grew stronger, and he passed a stand of thick pines and was there. He stood and stared at the house as if wondering how it was holding itself together, layered as it was with patches and odd boards. He kicked the snow off his shoes once more, brushed it from his hair, and thought he probably looked like a dang fool standing there in the snow.

  The door opened, and there was Lizzie, just wrapping a red shawl around herself-—a shawl that needed about as many patches as the house had. She walked to him and stood by him. "Do you want to see?" she asked, quietly, so quietly in the snow.

  Turner nodded. She took him by the elbow, and together they walked back across the island to the graveyard, where there was one new mound, piled higher than the others but still covered by scudding snow like the rest of them. And they stood in the quiet of the snow as it settled all around them.

  "We'll plant violets here in the spring," said Turner, but Lizzie did not answer.

  Afterward, they walked together, silent, around to the tip of the island and into the deserted house that had been Lizzie's home. Already it seemed as if no one had lived there for a very long time. None of the furniture remained. The house had been emptied and even swept out neatly; the only thing on the floor now was the snow, in soft piles that had drifted in through the cracks. It was as cold as cold can be, the cold almost like a presence.

  "No one lives here anymore," said Lizzie simply.

  They went outside and stood by the door, facing the gray and white sea that was so very silent, rolling into the shallows, its spume blown off into the wind.

  "He died while he was asleep," said Lizzie. "Mr. Eason came by and called in the morning, and I told him not to call too loud since Granddaddy might be just asleep, after all. But then he came in, and I knew Granddaddy wasn't just asleep. So Mr. Eason, he brought me up to his home, and came back here and took care of him. And then he went up and dug the ... dug the hole and carried Granddaddy to the coffin he'd already built, and we stood there, me and the Easons, and not one of us knew what to say, because Granddaddy had always done the words."

  Turner stood next to her as her words broke the snow, and he felt again as he had in the boat, somewhere between two worlds and drowning because he couldn't find his way in either one. And just when he thought he might be lost entirely, the snow stopped, Lizzie said, "Oh," and the waves began to sound again with their frothy roars. The sea breeze bent the pines behind them, blew across their backs, and sped out over the water, tearing the whitecaps back even as they came to shore. With a ripping groan, one of the snow-laden pines wrenched itself free from the rocks and toppled, slowly at first, then faster and faster, until it swept onto the ledges beneath it, its branches thrusting a boiling cloud of snow into the air.

  Together they stood.

  "Nothing stays the same, does it?" said Lizzie. And Turner, who found himself breathing hard, nodded.

  CHAPTER 10

  ON top of the fallen pine—both of them still quivering from the crash of the thing—they walked where no one had ever walked before, shaking the wet snow from the branches, balancing against the trunk, which gave beneath their feet, until they came close to the very point. "We can't go any further," Lizzie called back to him.

  "Lizzie," said Turner, "I've got a house."

  "Of course you've got a house."

  "No, no. Mrs. Cobb left me her house. In her will. It's mine."

  "She gave you her house? Why did she give you her house?"

  "Because she figured you might need one."

  Lizzie played with the branches that spread up between them, pulling at the needles. "Thank you, Turner Ernest Buckminster," she said quietly.

  "We'll be neighbors," he said. "The house is big enough for the Easons, too. Then they can build a hundred hotels and it won't matter."

  "Turner," said Lizzie, tightening the red shawl around her. "Turner, it will matter. The Easons won't be able to live in that house. Not me, either." She jumped down, and the tree bobbed up against Turner's weight.

  "What do you mean, you won't be able to live in that house?"

  "They won't let me."

  Turner stepped off the trunk. "It's my house. It's my house to do what I want with."

  "Turner..."

  "No, Lizzie. You listen for once. They're already taking away your house. They're taking away the entire island. But they can't take away Mrs. Cobb's house, too, because it isn't theirs to take, It's mine.

  "Turner, you never can look at things straight. Look at me. No, look at me. Look at my skin. It's black, Turner. No one in Phippsburg is going to let someone with skin as black as mine live with them. They're not."

  "It won't make a bit of difference," he said.

  "It won't make a bit of difference," he said, waving to her on the shore.

  "It won't make a bit of difference," he said to Mr. Eason, rowing across in the dory.

  It won't make a bit of difference, he said to himself on the road back to Phippsburg.

  But each time he said it, he believed it less.

  By the time he reached Parker Head, the sun had come out dully and shone on the brassy undersides of the high clouds. They looked heavy enough to fall into the sea, maybe to fall on top of Phippsburg itself, crushing the steeple of First Congregational and all the fine houses on Quality Ridge.

  It won't make a bit of difference, he said to himself as he climbed the porch steps. Not one bit, he said as he opened the door.

  But now he hardly believed it at all.

  "Turner, is that you?" called his father.

  Turner took off his boots and left them outside. Then he went to his father's study, where Mr. Stonecrop was filling the room. Turner's mother sat in a chair by the window, her hands discreetly clasped in her lap; Reverend Buckminster sat behind his desk, his sermon notes discreetly covering Darwin.

  Turner wondered what Darwin would think of being covered by sermon notes.

  He began to burn again.

  Reverend Buckminster glanced at the grandfather clock. "Mr. Stonecrop and I were discussing what might be done with Mrs. Cobb's house. He has brought the keys over."

  Turner saw that they were still in his hand.

  "I believe we have come up with a fine, equitable solution to the situation," said Mr. Stonecrop. "The house will be sold for the benefit of the town. And since Mrs. Cobb obviously intended you to benefit from such a sale, young Buckminster, we shall put aside a percentage of the proceeds to be held in trust for your ministerial education." Mr. Stonecrop pocketed one of the keys.

  "My ministerial education?"Turner looked at his mother.

  "So that you might follow your father, as he followed his," said Mr. Stonecrop.

  "To be a minister?"

  "That is what a ministerial education would be for, certainly."

  Turner felt the Territories moving farther west. He looked at the pile of sermon notes and felt the bulk of a ministerial education covering him. He took a breath.

  He had almost touched a whale.

  "Well, Reverend Buckminster," said Mr. Stonecrop, "I think everything is most satisfactorily concluded."

  "No, sir," said Turner.

  Mr. Stonecrop looked hard at him.

  "No, sir," said Turner again.

  Mr. Stonecrop looked harder still. "It is not the place of a young boy to question," he said slowly.

  "I wonder," said Turner's mother, "if Turner hasn't already made plans for the house."

  "Plans for the house?" Mr. Stonecrop now looked more than irritated. "What plans could you have made so quickly?"

  "I've decided to give the house to Lizzie Griffin and the Easons."

  "Jake Eason?" Mr. Stonecrop stood.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Jake Eason from Malaga Island?"


  "Yes, sir."

  "And Lizzie Griffin, that Jonah's daughter?"

  "Yes, sir."

  Mr. Stonecrop leaned over the desk. "You realize, Buckminster, that she is as black as the ace of spades!"

  Reverend Buckminster sat silent.

  Mr. Stonecrop took two steps across the room, two steps back. He glared at Reverend Buckminster and then at Mrs. Buckminster. He glared especially long at Turner, who saw the word homicide spring into his mind. Turner wondered if the tendency toward homicide might be one of the multiform individual differences or slight variations that were introduced into a species by moments just such as this.

  "By God, Buckminster, this is the result of your lackadaisical handling of your son—this after all the warnings we have given. Do you see how those people have brought him to this? But I won't have it. I won't have a Negro living in Phippsburg. What do you think we've been about these past months? Do you imagine there would be a single soul come up from Boston to summer in a town populated by them? A single soul? We brought you—all three of you—here to be a part of the new Phippsburg, but I can see now that you have no such interest."

  "Mr. Stonecrop," said Reverend Buckminster, "nothing is decided yet."

  "Lizzie doesn't have a house," said Turner. "And the Easons might not have one soon. What are they supposed to do? Float down the New Meadows and hope to tie up somewhere?"

  "Let them head wherever they see fit to go. It's none of my affair, and nor, by the way, is it yours."

  "I'm giving the house to Lizzie," said Turner.

  He looked at Reverend Buckminster, expecting the disappointment he knew his father must feel. But his father's eyes were upon him, and they were not disappointed.

  "Buckminster, this is your son. Have you nothing to say as the minister of this town, if not as his father?"

  Then Turner saw his father stand like Aeneas with his two spears, pausing beside burning Troy and putting it all behind him, his face to an open world.