She approached her father's side and whispered, "What is it, Papa?"
"It was a gift... " he replied...... from Mr. Buddenbaum."
One of the women, Marsha Winthrop, who was one of the few who had ever shown anything approaching kindness to Maeve, now stepped from the knot of spectators to take a closer look at Goodhue's find. She was a large woman with a sharp tongue, and when she spoke, the throng ceased muttering a moment.
"Looks like a piece of jewelry to me," she said, turning to Harmon. "was it your wife's?"
Maeve would often wonder in times to come what had possessed her father at that moment; whether it was stubbornness or perversity that kept him from telling a painless lie. Whichever it was, he refused the ease of deception. "No," he said. "It did not belong to my wife."
"What is it then?" Goodhue wanted to know.
The answer came not from Harmon's lips but from the crowd.
"One of the Devil's signs," said a strident voice.
Heads turned, and smiles disappeared as Enoch Whitney emerged from the back of the crowd. He was not a man of the cloth, but he was by his own description the most Godfearing among them; a soul commanded by the Lord to watch over his fellows and remind them constantly of how the Enemy moved and worked his works in their midst. It was a painful task, and he seldom let an opportunity slip by to remind his charges how much he suffered for their impurities. But the responsibility lay with him to castigate in public forum any who strayed from the commandments in deed, word, or intention-the lecher, of course, the adulterer, the cheat. And tonight, the worshipper of godless things. He strode in front of the erring father and daughter now, bristling with denunciations. He was a tall, narrow man, with eyes too busy about their duty ever to settle on anything for more than a moment.
"You have always carried yourself like a guilty man, O'Connell," he said, his gaze going from the accused, to Maeve, to the object in Goodhue's fingers. "But I could never get to the root of your guilt. Now I see it." He extended, his hand. Goodhue dropped the cross into it, and retreated. "I'm guilty of nothing," Hannon said.
"This is nothing?" Whitney said, his volume rising. He had a powerful voice, which he never tired of exercising.
"This is nothing?"
"I said I was guilty of-"
"Tell me, O'Connell, what service did you do the Devil, that he rewarded you with this unholy thing?" There were gasps among the assembly. to speak of the Evil One so openly was rare; they kept such talk to whispers, for fear that it drew the attention of its subject. Whitney had no such anxieties. He spoke of the Devil with something close to appetite.
:'I did no service," Harmon replied.
"Then it was a gift."
"Yes." More gasps. "But not from the Devil."
"This is Satan's work!" Whitney bellowed.
"It is not!" Harmon yelled back at him. "I have no dealings with the Devil. It's you who talk about Hell all the time, Whitney! It's you who sees the Devil in every corner! I don't believe the Devil cares much about us. I think he's off somewhere fancy@'
"The Devil's everywhere!" Whitney replied. "Waiting for us to make a mistake and fall." This was not directed at Harmon, but at the assembly, which had thinned somewhat since Whitney's appearance.
"There's no place, even to the wildernesses of the world, where his eyes are not upon us."
"You speak of the Devil the way true Christians speak of God Almighty," Harmon observed. "I wonder sometimes where your allegiances lie!"
The response threw Whitney into a frenzy. "How dare you question my righteousness," he foamed, "when I have proof, proof here in my hand, of your unholy dealings!" He turned to address the crowd. "We must not suffer this man in our midst!" he said. "He'll bring disaster upon us, as a service to his internal masters!" He proffered the medallion, passing before his congregation. "What more proof do you need than this? It carries a parody of our Lord upon the cross!" He turned back upon Harmon, stabbing his finger at the accused. "I ask you again: What service did you do for this?"
"And I'll tell you, one last time, that until you stop finding the Devil's hand in our lives, you will be his greatest ally." He spoke softly now, as to a frightened child. "Your ignorance is the Devil's bliss, Whitney. Every time you scorn what confounds you, he smiles. Every time you sow the fear of him where there was none, he laughs. It's you he loves, Whitney, not me. It's you he thanks in his evening prayers." The tables had- been turned so simply and so eloquently that for a moment Whitney did not fully comprehend his defeat. He stared at his opponent with a frown upon his face, while Harmon turned and addressed the crowd. "If you don't wish me and my daughter to travel with you any further," he said, "if you believe the slanders you've heard, then say so now, and we'll go another way. But be certain, all of you be certain, there is nothing in my heart or head but that the Lord God put it there...."
There were tears in his voice as he came to the end of his speech, and Maeve slipped her hand into his to comfort him. Side by side they stood in front of the company, awaiting judgment. There was a short silence. It was broken not by Whitney but by Marsha Winthrop.
"I don't see no good reason to make you go your own way," she said. "We all started this journey together. Seems to me we should end it that way."
The plain good sense of this came as a relief to the crowd after all that talk of God and the Devil. There were murmurs of approval here and there, and several people began to depart. The drama was over. they had work to do: wheels to fix, stew to stir. But the righteous Whitney was not about to lose his congregation without one last warning.
"This is a dangerous man!" he growled. He threw the medallion to the din, and ground his heel upon it. "He'll drag us down into Hell with him."
"He ain't going' to drag us anyplace, Enoch," Marsha said. "Now ya just go cool off, huh?"
Whitney cast a sour glance in Harmon's direction. "I'll be watchin'
you," he said.
"I'm comforted," Harmon replied, which won a little laugh from Marsha. As if the sound of laughter appalled him, Whitney hurried away, pushing through the crowd, muttering as he went.
"You'd better be careful," Marsha said to Hannon as she too departed.
"You've got a tongue could do you harm one of these days."
"You did us a great kindness tonight," he replied. "Thank you."
"Did it for the child," Marsha replied. "Don't want her thinkin' the whole world's crazy."
Then she went away, leaving Hannon to gather up the scattered papers and return them to the chest. With her father's back turned, Maeve went in search of the medallion, picking it up and examining it closely. All of the descriptions she'd heard in the last few minutes seemed to her plausible. It was a pretty thing, no doubt of that. Shining like silver, but with flecks of color-scarlet and sky blue-in its luster. Any lady, wife or no, would be happy to wear it. But it was clearly more than a piece of decoration. There was a figure in the middle of it, outspread like Jesus on the cross, except that this savior was quite naked, and had something of both man and woman in its attributes. It was surely not a representation of the Devil. There was nothing fearsome in its aspect: no cloven hooves, no horns. Shapes flowed from its hands and head, and down between its legs, some of which she recognized (a monkey; lightning; two eyes, one above, one below), some of which were beyond her. But none were vile or unholy.
"Best not to look at it too long," she heard her father say.
"Why not?" she asked, staring still. "Will it bewitch me?"
"I don't know what it'll do, to tell the truth," her father said.