CHAPTER FORTY
It's been long enough now since I dropped those seven tears that any expectation I might've held for them has faded. It's not that the feeling for him itself has faded, or that the first face to appear in my dreams isn't his, or that I don't listen to his voice in my mind as I walk through the forest. It's not that I don't think of him throughout every mundane hour of my life. It's only that I have let go of the idea that he might return. It's better now. I've accepted what I have done. I want only happiness for him. He did not find it here. A spell to recover what I have lost is pointless, if I am unable to care for that which I have.
Such as my own life. These past months have brought me the realization that the world offers worse pains than a silver bullet. Some of those pains I've self-inflicted. How can I care for another if I don't first manage to care for myself? I can almost hear him chiding me, now, as I drag myself up out of the mire of abasement. My life, should I still want it, requires my immediate attention.
First in that attention is the matter of the letter I am holding in my hand. The loss it caused me overwhelmed me to the point I nearly forgot the genesis. But the letter waited for me on my desk, small and poisonous, surprising me when I picked up the book that had been lying atop it.
On first glance it is much less forbidding than I remembered. The handwriting, especially, is ludicrous. REMOVE YOURSELF. I snort. As though I could shoo myself from the cellar with a broom.
It's in this moment, and for the first time, that I see the letter for what it is, what Seamus instantly recognized it to be: a banal thing, a grotesque anonymous snivel, its stilted, imperious phrasing the complaint of an inadequate man. Which brings me, of course, to the obvious question, a question I hadn't before bothered to ask myself: Which bleating sheep sent this?
My first thought: the rector. But I doubt he could've restrained himself from using the word abomination, or writing anything less than three paragraphs, or signing it with God's name at the end. I recall his thin smug smile. His habit of slicking his hand over his hair after the sermons like a cat licking itself after a meal. How his handshake came with a thin layer of Morgan's Pomade. I frown at the letter. Not the rector.
Who did write it, then? Of course. I'm an idiot. The quickest solution is also the simplest. I bring it to my nose and breathe in deeply.
I have my answer. I sigh, and frown at the letter, and make a decision. It has to be done, if I'm to have any peace.
I put on my old boots. It's going to be a long walk.
.
He opens the door himself and when he sees who his caller is, nearly shuts it again before he recovers himself. His pupils are enormous, and that's how I know I'm right.
"Good morning. Glad I've caught you at home," I say, and take the letter out of my pocket. He looks down at it and away, quickly, involuntarily, as though I've shown him something indecent.
He means to say Good morning in return, but his lips part and nothing happens.
I put on a stage frown and a comic plaint into my tone, and wave the letter gently. "I've come to settle this up with you. We've known one another for years. Were we never friends?" We weren't, of course, it was merely that I was fond of him. His mouth drops open and a shaven crescent of fat puffs out under his chin. I am a full head taller than he, and at this angle I can see inside his mouth to the row of brownish nubby bottom-teeth, and wish I couldn't.
He uses the open mouth to laugh, unconvincingly. "What are you saying! Harthome, of course we are. What- a strange thing to say!"
I move to hand him the letter, and he recoils. "What's that now, a bill? What do I owe you? What's with you, old boy?"
Leaning forward, I tuck the letter in his pocket. "Better you keep it. This way, later, we can both pretend you've not sent it."
"What!" he splutters, "Sent what, now?" and it would nearly be a credible performance but for two things: one, the pale knuckles of the hand gripping the doorknob behind him, preparing his escape, and two, the pissy stink of fear rising up from his body. I find myself stepping toward him.
"You don't recall sending it? Read it, see if that helps."
The letter shakes in his hand and I notice that while he looks at it his eyes don't move to read it, because they don't need to. "This is- I never- "
"I know you never, and that's mostly why I've come," I say conversationally, leaning against the doorframe. His hall is dark and cool, filled with flowers and the beeswax-and-lemon scent of domesticity. Of security. Of country wealth. Silver sconces glint between the oil portraits. It's certainly a nice home; I've never been invited in; I am not invited now.
"You never meant that letter. It was a mistake. I can see that, now we're face to face."
We aren't, hardly. He can't look at me, let alone in the eye; his gaze is fixed past my left elbow, out through the open doorway.
"A mistake. Yes. I say, I don't know what this is about, Harthome, and I don't, I just can't account for it."
"I see." My tone is soothing. "You must have been upset. You must have seen something out your window and had a panic of fear. The fear was so great, and so confusing, that it emptied your mind, and that's why you don't recall the letter." I say it gently, vaguely, and he seizes onto it like a rope.
"Yes," he says, in a rush of breath, "yes, that could explain it. You must be right. I don't recall it, perhaps I had a fit." His face relaxes and suddenly the inadequacy of the man and the enormity of what he's cost me wells up in my chest.
I take another step into the hall. He steps back.
"Jocelyn," I say softly, "you keep all those dogs."
"Of course," he says, brows knitted, confused. "For the hunt."
"Do you kick them while they sleep?"
For the first time he is truly surprised. His reaction to the letter was fairly well-played but now that he's actually mystified I see the difference.
"Kick them?" he repeats, mouth slack again.
"When you come across a wasps' nest, do you throw rocks at it?"
He doesn't reply. His eyes are wide. I take another step. He backs up, hands clenched at his sides.
"Why do you think you hold the upper hand, Jocelyn? Why do you dare to taunt Nature at all?" My voice is casual. "You've been here a long while, but not long as we have. If what you imply in that letter is true... what do you think you've just done, by threatening me?" I smile, a big smile, the one that my youngest brother is afraid of.
His mouth closes and I watch his face smooth in sheer, unbreathing panic.
"Mistake," he croaks. "A mistake."
"Remember," I say, my voice soft, "we were here first. Don't you understand that there is an agreement?" There is not, until the words fall out of my mouth. I've planned none of this but it's coming from me just the same. And now that I'm speaking it the truth is vivid- this forest, a contained and protected sphere, this forest an ecosystem with its own laws; then men coming to tear into it, subdue it and replenish what they deem worthy of replenishment. Parasites. I am speaking, I realize, on behalf of something else. If the wilderness outside his door had a voice, it echoes through me now.
"There is an agreement and you would threaten me? An agreement and you- you- would break it? You would threaten me? Are you strong enough for that?"
He is most certainly not. The stink is getting unbearable. His mouth is wobbling like a fish's. "Please," he whispers, "Please. Oh, God. What can I do?"
The answer is waiting behind my teeth. I don't even have to make it up. "Give me a gift."
"A- a gift? What?"
A staked lamb at midnight, like the old days, says the second voice, inside of my head. "A lock of your hair," I say instead, aloud.
He winces.
"After the gift I could forget the letter, I think. I would need a gift to remember that we are have regard for one another. I would never want to come to someone's door at night..." I trail off, as though I am deep in consideration, "...if I had regard for them."
There was no chance of peace for me before, but I suspect there will be, now. Because he's bending his head towards me, without any hesitation, any question, exposing the wet nape of his neck. A submission. A sacrifice. A dark vee of sweat stains the back his shirt from the collar down. For a moment I don't know what to do. I lick my teeth. A lock of hair? Is this how myths are made? Do they create themselves, out of instinct?
The sound of my pocketknife opening makes him tense and I don't think he breathes throughout as I saw out a sizable fistful of sandy-grey hair. As I'm rolling it together in my palms he straightens and, for the first time, almost looks me in the eye.
"Rowlande never asked for a gift." My hands stop. It had never occurred to me that Row might have also received a letter. That this might have been part of the compromise he did not believe could exist. Between my palms the lump of hair is wet. I should be angrier. Instead I just feel enlightened.
"Rowlande didn't trust himself," I reply, and it very well might have been true. It's the right answer. Jocelyn blanches. Then he screws up his courage for the question I suppose has been bothering him these past twenty-seven years.
"What became of him?"
"I was born," I answer. Jocelyn nods, and swallows, and the blanched sheen of fear spreads across his face again. The wad of hair goes into my pocket along with the knife.
"Now," I say, "you prefer peace, don't you?"
His white face. He nods once, then again, fast, panicked.
"Of course you do. You've never had anything else," I murmur. "Smart of you, Jocelyn. You've always been canny." I grin at him. "Hunting's rather fun, isn't it? When you're careful to keep behind the dogs, that is. I'll see you in the fall." I extend my hand. I watch his eyes gloss, I watch him making his big decision. And then the wet, shaking palm clamps fast to mine. He's done. It's over. He's lost his bluff.
We don't say goodbye. I turn and wave over my shoulder. The door closes softly behind me. From far across the manicured lawn, mournful barking rises up from the kennels.