"Robin McKinley - Water" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinley Robin)

of his hand against his lips and making a fierce sideways gesture with his other handтАФsoтАФthen pointed
at her, still as angry-seeming as when she had first seen him. She put her palms crosswise over her
mouth, sealing it shut, trying to say to him: Yes, I will keep silent. She had already known she must. She
did not know if any of the People were left alive after the storm, but they were the only folk she knew,
and who of them would believe her, and not think she was either mad or else talking profane
wickedness? Then she bowed low before him, and when she looked up, he was gone.
тАЬShe took off the slip she had worn in the sea and left it at the waterтАЩs edge, as though the tide had
washed it there. Then she dressed herself in her own clothes, dank and mildewy though they were, and
walked up the shore. Inland was all dense woods, so she walked along beside them, past Watch Point to
Huxholme Bay, where three men met her, coming to look for clams at the low tide.
тАЬSo. That is the story of Charity Goodrich. Tomorrow you shall tell it to me, leaving nothing out, so
that I can be sure you know it to tell it truly to your own daughters when they are old enough to
understand.тАЭ
Probity sat by MercyтАЩs bed throughout the night she died, holding both her hands in his. They prayed
together, and from time to time they spoke of other things, but in voices too soft for Pitiable, in her cot at
the top of the ladder, to hear. In the end she slept, and when she came down before dawn to remake the
fire, she found Probity still in his clothes, sitting by the fire with his head between his hands, and Mercy
stretched out cold on her cot with her Bible on her chest. For two days Probity would not eat or dress or
undress or go to bed. He let the Church Elders make the arrangements for the funeral, simply grunting
assent to anything that was said to him, but for the ceremony itself he pulled himself together and shaved
carefully and polished his belt and boots and dressed in his Sunday suit and stood erect and stern by the
graveside with his hand upon PitiableтАЩs shoulder, and then waited with her at the churchyard gate to
receive the condolences of the People.
Mercy in her last hours must have spoken to him about their granddaughter, and told him to take
comfort in her and give her comfort in return, and this he tried to do. He read the Bible with her in the
evenings, and sometimes noticed if she seemed tired and told her to rest. And around Christmas, when all
the children of the townspeople were given toys, he whittled a tiny horse and cart for her to set upon the
mantelshelf. By day he worked as he always had to see that the two of them were warm and fed, fetching
in the stacked logs for the stove, and bringing in more from the frozen woods to make next seasonтАЩs
stack, and digging turnips and other roots from the mounds where they were stored, and fetching out
grain from the bins and salted meat from the barrels, and mending the tools he would need for next
summerтАЩs toil, while Pitiable cooked and stitched and cleaned as best she could, the way Mercy had
shown her. She was young for such work, and he did not often scold her for her mistakes. So the
neighbours, who at first had felt that in Christian duty they must keep an eye upon the pair, decided that
all was well and left them alone.
Spring came with the usual mud and mess, followed by the urgent seed-time when the ground dried
to a fine soft tilth and had not yet begun to parch. It was then that Probity, after brooding for a while,
went to the Elders of the People and asked for their permission to bring his daughterтАЩs body up from the
town cemetery and bury it beside Mercy s in the graveyard of the People. The Elders did not debate the
question long. They were all of one grim mind. Obedience Hooke had cut herself off from the People by
marrying the out-warder, Simon Nasmith. When the Lord came again in Glory, he would raise the bodies
of His faithful People from their graveyard to eternal life, but Obedience Hooke had by her own act cast
herself into damnation and would not be among them.
Probity sowed his crops as usual, but then, as June hardened into its steady, dreary heat, he seemed
to lose heart. The leafy summer crops came quick and easy, and there was always a glut of them, but the
slow-grown roots and pulses that would be harvested later, and then dried or salted or earthed into
clamps, were another matter. He did not hoe them enough, and watered irregularly, so that the plants had
no root-depth and half of them wilted or wasted. He neglected, too, to do the rounds of his fences, so
that the sheep broke out and he had to search the hills for them, and lost three good ewes.
Pitiable was aware that the stores were barely half-filled, but said nothing. Probity was her