Galore - Michael Crummey [104]
There was an acrid undertone to the air at Mary Tryphena’s that suggested Judah was listening in from the pantry or the upstairs hall. Bride said, Does Jude know what’s happening at all?
Mary Tryphena glanced toward the stairs. —How would you tell?
He came down to them then, as if the mention of his name was a signal. Mary Tryphena said, I told you to stay in out of it, Jude.
Bride nodded up at him. —Hello Judah, she said. His strangeness was so familiar to her as a child that it barely registered, the smell of the man and his chalky skin, his fish eyes, his mute good nature that made him seem harmlessly retarded. But there was a strangely purposeful look about his face now, fear and resolve and an incongruous peacefulness. He stepped to the table to look down on the work the children were doing, moving the slate and shifting the lamp close. He turned Martha’s slip of verses facedown and reached for the pen, dipping it into the inkpot. He glanced at the women sitting across the table and began writing.
Mary Tryphena stared at Judah as he worked. —Have Patrick been teaching this one his letters?
—He never mentioned any such thing, Druce said.
Judah blotted the ink with sand, shaking the excess onto the floor before extending the page toward the women. The letters were so ornate it took Bride a moment to recognize the verse. —Let the enemy persecute my soul, and take it; yea, let him tread down my life upon the earth, and lay mine honor in the dust.
—Gentle Redeemer God, Mary Tryphena said.
—It’s from Psalms, Martha said.
—We know where it’s from, maid.
Druce said, Where ever did he learn his letters, I wonder.
Mary Tryphena was staring at her husband who had retreated from the table to the center of the room. —He’ve always known his letters, she said. —Haven’t you, Jude?
But he refused to look at her.
—There’s more, Bride said. —They that trust in their wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches, none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him.
Mary Tryphena was still watching Judah. —Are you sure this is what you wants, Jude?
He glanced at her and nodded.
She said, Do you think the doctor would bring a message to Levi for us, Bride?
—I’m sure he would.
—He’s to tell Levi that Jude will give himself up if Levi lets the others go. Is that right? Mary Tryphena asked him. —Is that what you wants?
Bride looked down at the paper, reading over the verses a second and then a third time. —That’s a lot to say from what he got wrote here, Mrs. Devine, she said. —Are you certain?
Judah was already out the door when she looked up and Mary Tryphena reached to take the paper she held, her hand shaking. —You see the message gets passed on, she told Bride and she left them all at the table then, walking up the stairs without another word.
Mary Tryphena went to her bed where she lay awake the full of the night, the Bible verses in her hands. That delicately belled cursive, those spiraling letters tilted at an acute angle. She thought of Judah following her to Jabez Trim’s when she was a girl, standing by the door while she refused the hand of the one she thought had written the letter. She couldn’t have imagined a second suitor on the margins of her life. It seemed a ridiculous joke, a mute competing with a helpless stutterer for her affections.
My sister, my bride.
Judah keeping his counsel as she turned down one proposal after another, through the decades of their marriage. For fear or spite, out of reticence or doubt or some murkier impulse, he chose to hide the fact she had married into love. As if it was her job to guess the truth. By the time the first hint of morning appeared at the window Mary Tryphena was angry enough to spit nails. She thought she’d never manage to wash the cold taste of metal from her mouth in all the years that were left her.
——
Patrick Devine was only three years married to Druce Trock when an English vessel bound for the Arctic wrecked on shoal ground off the Rump. Salvagers out