II. Faust's Cabinet
Sleep was hard to come by for Mary that night. Lying in bed flat on her back, she resisted temptation to spy on the newcomers through the bedroom window. Their camp wasn't far off and if she stole a glance outside she would be able to see their tents and campfire. Envisioning that their human disguises were shed in privacy, she pored intently in their direction for want of catching them when they did. She was curious to see what real angels looked like in their true form. Removal of their earthly raiment would unveil gossamer robes and iridescent wings, their eyes burning with the fiery wrath of the Lord while they devised combat strategies. Faintheartedness got the better of her and she did not dare peek should they catch her, a notion that helped her defy the curiosity and remain in bed, ultimately falling into peacefull sleep for the first time in her life.
Being earliest to rise come morning was another first in a long period of time for her. Taking advantage of the opportunity, she stood at the window and longingly surveyed the Plainview encampment. The remnant of a fire was a black eye on the face of the taupe desert and the steepled tent housing Daniel and his son stood tranquil. The angels Plainview were nowhere in sight, either still asleep in the tent or already smartly pursuing quail while the temperatures were cool.
Interest in their name stoked her mesmerised creativity. Plainview was a surname too simple for a grand angel. Yes, that was it! Grandview was more apt a name than Plainview! One such as Daniel was the least plain thing in existence. But perhaps it was given to him to keep him humble. Arrogance was a recorded sin among the heavenly host; just ask Lucifer. Her musings were interrupted by a startling shout from father to come for their morning meal.
After an unusually bustling breakfast, Eli joined her in the pasture for the day. Only this time she deemed it a positive thing since he had delivered firewood and provisions to the Plainviews last night and spent a short time alone with them. It was the ideal opportunity for her to learn more about their visitors, if the self-righteous preacher would co-operate. Skittish as a fawn, she approached his form lazing beneath the tree, his shabby Bible, a family heirloom for generations before, opened in his lap as he laid the groundwork for the night's boring sermon.
"Eli?" she addressed, her voice not enough to bring his nose out of the ancient book. "Did you talk to that man last night?"
"What man?" Eli furrowed his brow in deeper concentration, blatantly attempting to block her words from his ears.
"That man Plainview." Mention of the name seized his devout attention. "Did you talk to him?"
"Of course I spoke with him," Eli retorted, quietly incensed. "What makes you ask?"
"Just curious. He seems nice."
Hardened eyes demonstrated that he thought otherwise.
"If you like that sort of man," he rejoined, his voice stilted and dismissive of her interest in the stranger. Damning hellfire lay underneath his collected deportment, generating her further interest in why he would give a negative subconscious reaction to a man he had met only a few hours before.
Treading where she knew she should not have, she announced in a casual tone: "I like him. I like him a lot."
"You don't know him, Mary."
"You don't either."
"No, but I know of men like him."
"What do you mean?"
There was no need to probe and she instantly wished she hadn't. The Bible was snapped shut and Eli glared at her with undisguised sedition.
"Isn't it obvious?" he asked, forcing his patience with the looming threat of eternal damnation should his factual emotions be unleashed. "Why would a man and his son come from out of the desert to hunt quail?"
She shrugged and quipped, "We have a lot of quail here."
"But no-one has ever asked permission to camp here and hunt for them before. His appearance isn't an arbitrary coincidence. There is something about him that is deceptive. I fear he may have a more sinister purpose about him."
"Maybe he's my angel," she gambled to say, "sent here to make things better."
Eli's smile was condescending.
"Your angel? Don't be stupid, Mary. You don't know him. You've never even met him. All you did was give him a bottle of milk."
Testing the situation further despite knowing better, she blurted out rapidly: "He could be the father I never had."
Set off by the remark, he laughed then definitively snarled:
"He wouldn't want to be your father. He wouldn't want to be anything to you. Where's your real father, Mary? Who is your real father?"
The excruciating emotional hurt that stung Mary formed a very real, very vibrant physical agony. Unlike any other, this cancerous pain of second-hand rejection from someone who spoke on the behalf of another but had no right in doing so sprawled wide through her body. The cruelty of it surprised her even though it shouldn't have, considering its source. There she stood, numb from the scathing, mortified and trying her best to sustain what dignity she had left. The blatant connotation was unbearable: why would anyone want to be bothered with her when she was nobody, an inferior speck of nothingness? Why was she unworthy or insane to want what others had but she did not? Under whose authority did Eli have the right to speak for a man he'd just met? How could he possibly know that Daniel would write her off as worthless just because he and father did? Even though she had a hunch that if the quail hunter had anything to say to anyone he would say it directly to that person, it did not heal the damage.
Callous of her ache, Eli finished off:
"If he was an angel don't you think the Lord would have notified me that He was sending one of His agents to us?" His eyes swept over the hills as if he could see through them. "Besides, we don't need an angel here. I'm enough for this town. I believe this man may be a minion of Lucifer, come to test our faith."
Out of revenge for his cruelty seconds ago, the impulsive babble of verbal diarrhoea poured from her mouth before she mulled over the repercussions:
"Well, I like him. And his son too. I want to be friends with them."
Before she had the chance to refrain, Eli lashed out with predatory speed to take an iron-gripped hold on her upper arm, a harried expression on his face.
"If you knew what was wise you would stay far away from him," warned the self-professed vessel, his tone more apodicitic than ever. "We don't know what is in their hearts. He claims he belongs to the Church of the World but I fear he is Godless, that there is a hidden evil in his soul. Take heed, Mary. 'It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.'"
"You're hurting me!" she whined.
As if he just became cognisant of the harm he was inflicting, he retracted his fingers upon her. Unapologetic, he returned to his Bible and, sulking, Mary crossed to the opposite side of the pasture in retreat from her remora brother, his unclear hatred no more logical than it had been before she had asked. Off in the distance echoed claps of gun fire and she fantasised of a rescue by Daniel who whisked her far away from the personal hell she had been born into.
Via Ruth, invitation was extended for the Plainviews to join the Sundays for supper that evening. Contrary to his behaviour on the initial night, Daniel voluntarily accepted the request, offering the fresh game from the day's hunting excursion for the main course. Mary dizzied with excitement, Eli's mean-spirited sophistry forgotten completely. The chance to experience the quail hunter for herself was finally presented; then she could make a sound judgement on whether or not he was the true angel from Signal Hill.
Her seat at the table was positioned across from H.W. who sat attentively beside his father. The Plainviews had one entire side to themselves, earning the right of extra elbow room as the guests of honour, while Mary, Ruth and mother squeezed together on the other side; as usual, father was at the head with Eli at the foot. The plentifull fresh game was a welcome change from the spare, abstemious meal she was so sick of forcing down but the topics at the table bared no interest to the girl: the earthquake, quail hunting, weather conditions, church. Boring! Boring! Boring! The tedious repetition of the word was interrupted when H.W.'s foot struck her shin beneath the table then smiled after her attention was won. Despite the cramped quarters it couldn't have been an accident; the boy appeared equally bored. Nervous because of ever vigilant Eli's proximity, she smiled back before a febrile blush painted her cheeks and her eyes dropped to the crude table surface again.
Supper finished and Mary was helping mother and Ruth clear the table when Daniel announced to the Sunday patriarch that he wanted to discuss something with him. Her spirit wilted, for this meant the women would be excused to allow the cabal of males to talk and, as expected, they were. H.W. was a child of her age and was granted the discriminate right to stay simply due to his gender. For that, she couldn't help but to mildly loathe the boy.
Men's business. The antediluvian, sexist phrase she detested. It demeaned women, plus she wanted to spend more time with Daniel, to be a part of him in any small way. What business could men have that women should not know too?
Wishing to uncover that very illicit secret, she trudged away against her will but lingered near the door, left ajar, to listen and reeled in disbelief at what she heard. Daniel offered to purchase the ranch! As sudden as lightning, a thought struck her directly after. Why would anyone, especially a man like Daniel, take such a powerfull interest in a barren wasteland where grain was unable to grow? The unforeseen proposition was justified by H.W. having a supposed illness. Perhaps influenced by Eli, she was smart enough to prevaricate that there was more to the story, only she disagreed about an ulterior reason. Father, on the other hand, soaked up whatever the stranger said on the pretext that he was "like the prophet Daniel". Her waifish body trembled joyously as father paused in shocked reaction after Daniel's sincerity was validated with a request for the fair asking price. Eli aggressed with an impudent bid for $6 an acre, catching the guest off guard. Father attempted his own calculation but was thwarted when Daniel made a solid offer of $3,700. Mary nearly fainted.
Nothing was that valuable on the barren, penurious family goat ranch! Unless he really was the angel, wanting to secure a place near her. Conflict of whether or not Daniel was her heavenly guardian confused her to no end as she flipped back and forth between belief and disbelief. This time she believed with all of her heart. Her throat constricted at what she considered the sure-fire evidence that Daniel Plainview was the revered angel, come to liberate her from poverty and abuse.
But of course greedy Eli stonewalled the deal with a rejection of the money, hoping to squeeze out a larger profit, whipping father into a frenzy and bearing his procrustean motives. She wished sensible Paul was around to moderate and get a fair price. Paul would know how best to handle this.
"The Lord has sent this man here, Eli!" the old man argued.
"Yes," agreed Daniel as his scathing eyes directed at Eli. "I believe He has." Then turning back to father: "My offer to you is $3,700."
The problem was Eli's quick-sightedness matched Daniel's. The men had seen straight through each other and did not approve of what they saw.
"What is it that brought you here, sir?" Eli contested in redoubt, voice rigid and singular in pursuit for legitimacy.
"The Good Lord's guidance," deflected Daniel testily.
Mary could not stifle a shaken gasp. This was as good as a confession to her sentient ears. He was an angel! He admitted it himself! The Good Lord's guidance indeed! Paul hadn't left her to fend for herself after all! His promise was good and now nothing would be the same ever again!
The men bartered price, that devil Eli divagating the gentleman's offer into a spinous aspersion regarding the true reason he suspected brought Daniel to the property: oil. Tension accrued heavily among the men and it was evident that Eli had met an indurate adversary in Daniel who matched him word for word in dispute. Neither one backed down from the other: two alpha males battling for the upper hand, one the lord of the land, the other the lord of enterprise. The girl gulped at the prospect this scenario implicated. One need not be of the male gender to see that if the foolish Eli continued to obstruct Daniel's plans the older man had the faculties to plough over the younger one.
"Mary!" mother called, aghast when she finally noticed her daughter eavesdropping on the lively business transaction. "Come here! Get away from that door! Mind your own affairs, young lady!"
But it is my affairs! It's everyone's affairs, it affects us all, you included!
Rather than speaking her mind, she complied.
"Yes, mother," she mumbled because it was what was expected of her, scuffling away from the bidding war about oil and church to join mother and Ruth in mending frayed clothing. Because mending clothes was women's business, she thought sullenly.
White-hot resentment nagged her even after she retired to bed an hour later, borne by desperation to overhear Eli's futile war with the crafty Daniel. Far more was at stake than assets of property and oil but mother did not make the connection, nor did she appear to want to make one. Mary didn't care if Daniel was after oil or not. What mattered was that he was there and he would protect her now. Oil was secondary, only the means for him to be with her. What did fate have in store after this night? She was only allowed to wait passively to find out from the men.
God was mercifull, as the wait to learn details of the transaction was not long. Over breakfast, father and Eli relayed the fine points of the deal to the Sunday women in layman's terms that insulted their intelligence. The land now belonged to Daniel but the Sundays would maintain residency on it, paying a monthly rental fee for the privilege. Complacent with his personal transaction with the newcomer, Eli forgot his raving homily that Daniel was a malefactor there to wangle the townsfolk out of their most valuable possession. Rather than condemning his intentions as seedy, he instantly became Daniel's biggest proponent, sitting him on a pedestal and agreeing that he was an angel after all. If his deal with the interloper was profitable, Eli was satisfied. Increasingly, his myopic outlook on the interaction amplified her quiet loathsomeness of him.
It was the Sabbath and after breakfast the family fulfilled their obligation to attend Eli's service at the rickety church. During the garrulous sermon, Mary made a point to look for Daniel like a puppy searches for its mother but he was notably absent. Disappointment sickened the young girl. She supposed it logical that he would be too busy making business preparations but she hoped he would have graced them with an angelic appearance.
Angels don't need to go to church! she reasoned. They're already holy beings!
Impatiently waiting out Eli's lecture was comparable to the thumb screw torture and she fidgeted on the hard pine bench, doing her best to simultaneously relieve the bored ache in her bottom and ignore Rose Monahan, a girl one year her senior who incessantly but vainly tried to gain Eli's attention. Too engaged with his preaching, Eli never paid her mind, and hence Mary was the unlucky recipient of a note and the expectation that it was to be handed to her brother on Rose's behalf. Rose heckled her with questions and nonstop chatter about him all the time so that the youngest Sunday went out of her way to avoid her, wondering why a girl would have a crush on that particular brother when there was another one who was more deserving. Paul's intellect and authentic kindness made him an ideal interest for any sensible female while Eli's perverse religious beliefs just reduced him to ugliness. Then again, Rose didn't live with Eli to know better. When the torment of sermon and imploring was at last over she was free to do as she pleased because no work was enforced on the Sabbath, the only other good thing besides the angel Daniel that religion added to her life.
Bolting from the church, away from her family and Rose with reckless abandon, she ripped through the hills, searching for her new infatuation but he was couldn't be found anywhere. Addled with disgruntlement, she headed home, seeking amusement there. When she reached the house, she believed herself alone untill she collided with H.W. at the single moment she wasn't paying attention.
"Excuse me," she said in the demure manner mandatory of her sex.
"I came to see if you were back from church yet," the boy explained. "Your brother can talk for a really long time."
"Yes, he can."
The boy wandered and she fell into step alongside him if for nothing more than curiosity's sake. A secret hope that he would lead her back to his father lurked just below her surface.
"How come you weren't in church?" she digressed.
H.W. shrugged but Mary believed he preferred to keep quiet on the subject of his own religion.
"My father would beat me if I didn't go to church," she confided with frankness, interesting the boy greatly.
"How come?" he questioned her.
"He said that it's for our own good. If we want to get into Heaven then we have to do whatever he says. He hits us if we don't pray. And we always pray for everything."
"You should tell someone. Maybe they can make him stop."
"No, I would just get hit worse. Doesn't your father hit you if you don't obey him?"
"No. He's never raised a hand to me. Ever."
To Mary this was a foreign concept. The horrors of abuse were all she had ever known and she couldn't conceive of the idea of a child not being struck by the parent.
"Doesn't he hit you for not praying?" she prodded, hoping to find common ground in commiserated friendship.
"Nope. He doesn't believe in that stuff. In hitting, I mean."
"Oh."
They marched through a group of goats and Mary looked beyond the brush at the men hard at work on the blistering plains.
"What are those men doing?" she asked, expressing scholarly interest in the business because equal footing was an instilled necessity for her.
"They're just guys that are working for us. They're just looking around."
But Mary was not as feeble minded as father and Eli led others to believe. Lessons from Paul taught her plenty and hardship created within her a child precocious in ways uncanny to others her age. Everyone insulted her intelligence for one reason or another: either she was too young or too poor or she was female. To hell with men's business! She wanted to show this boy that she was no dummy for whatever reason he chose to discriminate.
"How much money can we make?" she questioned dreamily.
Again H.W. shrugged, feigning his own ignorance, she suspected.
"One thousand dollars?" she guessed, giving a high number on purpose to bait him into surrendering his information.
But H.W.'s father educated him well on the art of tergiversation'stightly sealed lip, meaning Mary got nothing else out of him. The children hushed as the girl followed the boy not back to where he and Daniel were camped but instead to a derelict cottage officially off but near the Sunday property. Local legend pegged the cottage as haunted and it scared Mary when it came into sight. More men were there, divided into two teams: one occupied with repairing the cracks and holes of the dilapidated abode, the other simultaneously bringing in amenities that provided living comforts. Mary was impressed. The industrious Plainviews wasted no time in getting things started.
Ten feet from the porch she stopped short, not because she thought she saw a ghost but because Daniel emerged from the cottage, stepping out to review the labours. A cigarette hung from his lips and when he noticed the children he plucked it from his mouth, squinted in the sun to better see them and delivered a ceremonious greeting.
"Look who's come to say hello!" he said, gesturing toward Mary. "Mary Sunday! How was your morning?"
Whereas she had not been in H.W.'s presence, Mary transformed into a taciturn lamb around her friend's father. Intimidated by Daniel's tall, patrician stature, she averted her gaze and kicked the ground, the heat of a thousand suns rising up within her as she woefully expected it habitually would whenever he was near. The compelling urge to flee enveloped her but the last thing she wanted was for either Plainview to think her a coward. What father believed meant nothing. She was worthy to stand among men and she would prove it to herself if nobody else.
"Fine," she instead lied, striving to not make eye contact with the older man.
"It's good to see that H.W. has company his own age out here." Stepping off the porch, he ruffled the boy's hair with paternal adoration. "He's going to be a strong, smart man some day but having a good time with other young people is an important necessity for him now."
The girl's unease shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
"Yes, sir," she agreed quietly.
"A lot of work still needs to be done around here so run along, the both of you, and get out of the way."
Reprieved, she happily romped off with H.W., conscious of Daniel's protective gaze upon them untill they disappeared through the tall grass and bushes.
"You're going to live there?" she asked her companion.
"Yeah. But not untill late tomorrow. Stuff still needs to be fixed first."
Mary nodded, turned to relieved putty in knowing Daniel would be within sight of her bedroom window for one more night. Belief that he was posted there on exclusive, ostensible watch over her provided great comfort. His vigilance appeased her with demulcent thoughts that they would be around longer, just not right outside. For a desperate little girl begging for solace it was enough.
Just before sunrise Mary again made a point to awaken before everyone else, earning private time to stand listlessly at the window and watch for signs of life at the Plainview camp. Fortune granted her the covert right. Framed by the dappled grey of morning, Daniel was seated near the fire, smoking a cigarette and sipping from a tin cup. Not expecting to see him despite her intent to do so, she staggered backwards with a gasp, stumbling over her forgotten shoes on the floor at the side of her bed.
"Mary?" Ruth called, groggy from being jarred out of sleep. "What are you doing?"
The instant the young girl heard the whooshing sough of her sister's sheets she retreated back to bed, pretending she had been there all along.
"Nothing," she fibbed.
"Lying is a sin." Ruth rose from her bed and glanced out the window, finding a glimpse of Daniel, oblivious to their spying. "Oh, I see. Looking for your boyfriend."
Mary's heart stung as she took defence: "I don't have a boyfriend!"
Her face flushed robin's breast scarlet, accenting her flaxen hair when she at first mistakenly thought her sister was referencing Daniel. A second later she realised Ruth meant H.W. but her brief humiliation made the elder sibling more adamant on the boy.
"You have a boyfriend!" teased Ruth with an older sister's persistence.
"Nuh uh!"
"Uh huh! Look at you! You're blushing!" Then more staid: "You'd better not tell Eli. He doesn't like Daniel. He warned he was plotting something and look what happened. He up and bought the ranch. Heard he's buying up land all around Little Boston too. A town hall meeting is scheduled tonight. He's supposed to speak there about it. Think your little boyfriend will go?"
"I don't have a boyfriend!" Mary argued through clenched teeth.
"If you say so. Well, let's start our day before we get in trouble."
Ruth departed from the room but Mary hesitated, stealing more time to study Daniel. The covert moment of attachment to him warmed and strengthened her. He rose with a grimace, having trouble standing as he clutched his knee. Once steadied, he poured what was left in the cup out in the fire, dousing the flames. As he limped on stiff legs into the tent, the girl turned away after he ducked inside.
Rather than inviting the Plainviews inside for breakfast again, mother fixed two plates for the oil man and his young protégé then instructed Mary to deliver it to them. If she refused or balked then punishment by The Lord's hand, that being a swat from father, was inevitable. Luckily, it was a task she looked forward to doing. Determined to have her presence undeclared as a ghost in a cellar would, she carried the food to the campsite, anticipation shaking her small frame. The plan was to sneak in, drop breakfast at the opening of the tent then charge off before anyone saw her. However, it didn't work out quite that way. By the time she reached the tent Daniel had returned outside and, seeing her, chivalrously freed her of the burden.
"Good morning, my sweet Mary," he exclaimed with a big smile that painted her red again.
"Morning," she returned nervously, trying to hide her face from his sight.
"H.W. will be out in a moment."
"I have to go back home to help clean up."
She whirled around to escape but he stopped her.
"Wait, Mary. Come here. I won't keep you long."
Mary's toes squirmed inside her shoes as she turned on her heels and faced her angel, her appointed boyfriend, and in doing so hoped that her face wasn't as crimson as it felt.
"I wanted to ask you something," he told her. "It'll only take a moment."
She nodded consent.
"Are you happy here?"
She shrugged.
"Don't be afraid. You can tell me."
"Sometimes."
"Only sometimes?"
Jittery, she glanced over her shoulder at the house.
"Look at me when I speak to you, Mary," Daniel was adamant but gentle. "You should always look someone in the eye when you speak to him."
"Yes, sir."
As he encouraged her to do, she peered at him directly in the disarming, otherworldly eye and saw the odd incendiary affect noticed before. It was like the core of his existence was afire inside him.
"Are you telling the truth?" pressed Daniel.
"Yes, sir. Sometimes I'm happy. And that's no lie because if I lie, my father w—"
She stopped abruptly and Daniel's eyes narrowed with a gleaming unspoken rage that alarmed her.
"That's good, Mary," he guaranteed, his authoritative voice a combination of firm and gentle for her benefit. "You've told me enough. Run along, now."
Permission given, Mary retreated back home as if God Himself wanted her to deliver a message. The safety of the porch's distance away from the tent afforded her the nerve to glance back at the man with whom she was immensely fascinated. Without being told, he understood her plight and left her awestruck. Why wouldn't he, if he was her guardian angel? Regretfully, she realised that she had divulged way too much and now somebody had Hell to pay. That somebody would be her.
A yawning H.W. popped out of the tent and Daniel turned to greet him. Terrible sorrow tore her apart as the father kissed the son's forehead then gave him a gentle, ludic shove. The boy staggered but gained his bearings then retaliated with a big two-handed push that didn't just unbalance his father but sent him into a fit of hearty laughter.
Bittersweet was the sight for the crestfallen girl to witness. A bond of that sort with her own father was her greatest dream but his superannuated religious beliefs derided her subservient to men. Abel Sunday's gospel ruled it unwholesome and improper for a young woman to play in such a manner, especially if it was with a person of the opposite sex, even if he was a male relative. That was probably one added reason for his disdain toward Paul. The ache in her was akin to someone reaching into her chest and wringing out all her heart's bloodied emotions. Almost weeping, she longed to be a part of that parent/child scenario, for Daniel to play with her, to protect her, to love her. What was very real to H.W. was outright unattainable for her and it devastated her. The oppression she experienced was suffocating and should Daniel Plainview ever adopt her as his own she wondered if she was too damaged for the change to be any better for her.