glanced at my page. “Nice tree. You’re a good artist.” He was holding out his hand. I rose and took it. “Goodbye, Ned,” he said simply. I watched him walk to the truck, get in, and drive out around the other side of the house.
I moved my stool closer to the tree, making a few detail notes of the bark and tips. Then I heard something behind me and turned to find Sophie looking over my shoulder.
“Hi, Sophie.”
“Hello, Ned. That’s a beautiful drawing. How is the painting?”
I said the tree was the last thing to go in, and I would have it finished by tomorrow noontime. “If you and Justin are coming in, you can pick it up, if you like.”
“Yes. Noon.” She nodded absently, and I could see she was thinking of something else. She went to the tree and put out her hand, running her fingertips along one of the branches. “They never bear fruit, you know.”
“Don’t they?”
“No. Just leaves and flowers. I suppose that’s why God gave them to us, just to be beautiful.” She was silent for a moment, and when she spoke again it was with a forced control. “Ned, could you do something for me?”
“Sure, Sophie.”
“Could you make it spring?”
“Spring?”
“Yes. Paint the tree in spring. Not with the bare branches, but with flowers. Make the tree all white and flowery. With little green leaves?”
“Well-” It had been part of the design of the picture that the branches be bare, the simple straight lines meant to play off the simple straight figure of Justin. I did not like the idea of putting in the flowers, particularly white ones; they would make the picture too pretty.
She saw my hesitation and smiled. “That’s all right. It was just an idea.” She turned away quickly and her hand came up and furtively brushed at one eye. I observed her as she stepped away to the tree and stood looking at the bare branches.
“Sophie, did you know Grace Everdeen?”
There was a quick, quivering motion about her shoulders as though a cold wind had touched her. “No.”
“But you’d heard of her.”
Still, head lowered, she looked at the lower trunk of the tree. “Yes.” Her face was turned from me; I got up and approached her, saw her hand break off a dead twig from a branch. Her shoulders stiffened, her chin lifted. “She was bad. Grace Everdeen was bad. The baddest anyone could be. Bad — brought bad to the village-” Speaking by rote, as if hypnotized.
“How?”
Her eyes snapped, the color rose in her cheeks. “She came back for Harvest Home. She shouldn’t have. She was
“What had blighted her?”
“She was
Diseased. Not pregnant, but diseased. Amys had said she was a fairy creature, Mrs. O’Byrne had said a horse.
“No one wants a Corn Maiden who’s sick.” Sophie’s hands trembled at her breast. “Grace Everdeen was cursed by God. As I am cursed.” She covered her face to hide the tears. “Jesus help me.” She tore her hands away from her wet cheeks and looked at me, crying, “Help me!”
“How, Sophie? Tell me. I’ll help you.”
She stared a moment longer, as if she thought I might truly help. Then, “No-you can’t. No one can.” With a wild, despairing look, she spun and ran across the strip of lawn into the field, stumbling along between the gathered corn shocks, her pale hair streaming behind.
When I had gathered my things together, I went into the kitchen and telephoned Dr. Bonfils in Saxony.
Strangely, he seemed to be expecting my call.
When I came out again, Sophie was a small figure in the distance, crossing the field toward the road as the Widow Fortune’s mare appeared around the bend. The buggy slowed, then stopped, and the old lady got down from the seat, and when Sophie came to her she put her arms around her, the blond head resting against the black dress, and I saw the Widow’s large hand as it made comforting gestures about Sophie’s shoulders.
I started up the drive to my car, then turned back, looking again at the pear tree. I decided that when I painted it I would make it bloom for Sophie Hooke. As it would in the springtime.
The Eternal Return…
Dr. Bonfils had agreed to see me if I could come to his office during his lunch hour; I had said it was important. When the nurse showed me in, he was having a “takeout” hamburger and chocolate milkshake at his desk. “Well, Ned,” he began quickly, “I’m sorry. As I told your wife, as right as the old lady is most of the time, unfortunately even she makes mistakes. I’m sure it’s a disappointment but surely one you can bear up under, eh?” He opened a little foil packet and squirted ketchup on top of the hamburger. I stared at him.
“I’m sorry, Doctor, I’m confused-what are you talking about?”
“Your wife. She came to see me yesterday. I’m afraid there’s been a mistake. She’s not going to have a baby.”
“Not?”
“No. I’m sorry, but the examination was negative.” He took a bite of his hamburger, allowing me time to absorb the shock of his news. “She didn’t tell you?”
Beth passing me yesterday on the Old Sallow Road. Maggie telling me she had an appointment. Worried that I had been right; which I was.
“She was disappointed, naturally,” the doctor went on. “All the signs were there. She’s not the first case, of course. A woman wanting a baby, showing all the symptoms of conception. It’s a form of physical hysteria.”
“Doctor, can you do a test on me? To find out if I’m sterile?”
“Of course: Do you think you might be?”
I told him of Beth’s obstetrical problems, but that I had always thought it might be the mumps I had caught from ‘Cita Gonzalez when I baby-sat for her.
While we waited for the results of the test, I told the doctor my real reasons for having come to see him. “I wanted to ask if you remember a girl named Grace Everdeen.”
“I remember her well. What do you want to know about her?”
“During the summer of 1958, while she was living over at Mrs. O’Byrne’s, you were treating her, isn’t that so?”
“I was treating her a good while before that.”
I looked at him, surprised. “You were? Was she pregnant?”
It was his turn to show surprise. “Pregnant? No, nothing of the sort. As a matter of fact, as far as I know, Grace was still a virgin when she-ah, died.”
“You knew she killed herself.”
“Certainly.”
“Do you know why?”
“I believe I do.”
“Was it because of Roger Penrose?”
“Indirectly, I suppose-” He broke off. “Mr. Constantine, what exactly is your interest in the case?”
I said I was a friend of Mrs. O’Byrne’s, and that through her I had taken an interest in the tragic story, and was trying to substantiate for her and for myself the facts of Grace’s death. The doctor listened, and then, wiping his mouth and fingers, he said, “Grace Everdeen killed herself because she had contracted an incurable disease.”
I leaned forward. “Which was-?”
“Acromegaly. It’s a not uncommon condition. Did you know Grace was Swedish?”
“No.”
“On her mother’s side. For some reason, acromegaly seems to have a high incidence among Swedes. It is a condition arising from a hypersecretion of the growth hormone. A pituitary disorder.”
“Is it fatal?”
