A Northern Light(80)

"Wondering what?"

"Wondering if there's a word in your dictionary for when people know the truth but pretend they don't."





Mattie."

"Mmmm."

It's very late. Or very early I'm not sure which. Either way, I'm asleep. Finally asleep. And I want to stay that way. But I hear the sound of boot heels on the floorboards. They're coming toward my bed. It's Ada or Fran, must be, come to get me up. I don't want to get up. I want to sleep.

"Mattie."

"Go away," I murmur.

I hear something strange then. Water. I hear the sound of water dripping.

"Mattie."

I open my eyes. Grace Brown is standing by my bed. She's holding my dictionary in her hands. Her eyes are as black and bottomless as the lake.

"Tell me, Mattie," she says. "Why does gravid sound like graver?"





non ? pa ? reil


"Did Hamlet go?" Fran asked me.

"He sure did."

"Big one?"

"Big as an elephant's."

"How do I look?"

"Sweller than Lillian Russell," I said, tucking a rose behind her ear.

"Hold on," Ada said, pinching her cheeks. "Now bite your lips." She did.

"All right, then," Fran said. "You two know what to do. Hide in the trees and wait. If it all goes off, I'll see you in the lake. If not, for god's sake, come and rescue me."

"Go get him, Frannie," I said.

Fran straightened the skirt on her swimming costume, pulled the fabric taut over her bosoms, gave us a wink, and trotted off toward the guest cottages. Ada and I, also in our costumes, waited until she was out of sight, then headed into the woods.

Table six had gone too far.

Poor little Ada had walked down to the boathouse the evening before to collect the plates and glasses after the weekly fly-casting demonstration. She'd thought the place was empty. The guides had already left. The guests, too. That is, all but one—table six. She'd managed to get away from him before he could show her what she didn't want to see, but not before he'd told her to crank his handle, and various other dirty things that don't bear repeating.

Fran wanted to tell Cook or Mr. Sperry. She said he'd cornered Jane Miley when she was cleaning his room the other day, and that enough was enough. Ada wouldn't let her, though. She said if it ever got back to her pa, he'd be angry with her. Fathers had a way of making that sort of thing your fault. Ada said her pa would make her give up her position and come home and she didn't want to.

We were all burning mad about table six and his shenanigans, but we didn't know what to do about him. By the time we got Ada's story out of her, I had to give Hamlet his nightly walk. Ada and Fran came with me. Ada was hiccuping and Fran thought a bit of air would do her good. They followed me across the lawn and through the woods to Hamlet's very favorite spot—a huge patch of ferns in an out-of-the-way place, about fifty or so yards from the lake.

The smell was so bad it stopped Ada's hiccups. She pinched her nose and made a face. I did, too. Fran didn't. Instead, she parted the ferns, looked at what was on the ground beneath them, and smiled. "We're going to fix table six," she said. "And how."

"Us?" Ada asked.

"And him," Fran said, pointing at Hamlet. "Here's what we'll do. Now, listen..."

Fran told us her plan. It was clever but risky, too. Things could easily go wrong. But if they went right, we'd never be troubled by table six again.

That night we assembled our weapons. Fran asked Cook for permission for the three of us to take a swim the next morning after the breakfast service. She said we could. None of us owned a swimming costume, but there were a few old ones kicking about that Mrs. Morrison let the help use. Fran borrowed three and stashed them under our pillows. Ada returned to the boathouse on the pretense of having left a tray there, and came back with a length of rope stuffed in her drawers. I ran upstairs, pulled my fountain pen and composition book out from under my bed, and composed a note. "Flirty, but demure," Fran had instructed. "You know ... a come-hither note." I didn't know. But I gave it my best.

Before we went to bed, Fran gave us our final orders. "Ada, get that rope out to the woods first thing tomorrow before anyone's around to see you do it. Mattie, make sure you feed that dog well," she said.

I told her I would, and I did. I stuffed him to the gills. I gave him his usual breakfast, plus two biscuits, four slices of bacon, and a fried egg left over from the help's meal. Afterward, he nearly pulled my arm off trying to get to his fern patch, and once there he did himself proud.

When breakfast was over, the three of us raced upstairs and changed. The woolen swimming costumes were awful things. They were baggy and scratchy, with sleeves that went down past our elbows and leggings that covered our ankles and skirts that came down past our knees. As soon as we got them fastened, we tied our hair up in scarves, then ran down the back stairs and out the kitchen door before Mike Bouchard or Weaver could see us and laugh.

"Do you think he'll come?" Ada asked me breathlessly as we ran through the woods.

"He's bound to. Fran made eyes at him at breakfast and she left him that note."