Uncle John hadn't mentioned that the Jenks family was secluded, afflicted, or simple. The drowned gaze of Madam Jenks suggested she had risen from a rest of ages under water, for the purpose (imposed on her by others) of viewing Benjamin Cory; if he proved not too detestably in need of correction, she might submerge. Ben mumbled how happy he was to meet her. For all their damp opacity, her prominent eyes were not at all blind.
Faith's gold-brown hair lay in soft spirals above her ears; on the coils rested a cap, no such cap as Puritan custom approved but a trifle of frivolous lace—the Mathers would have hated it as one of the stigmata of popery. Her dress today was dead-leaf brown. To Ben it looked uncomplicated and demure, its very plainness encouraging the eye to rejoice in what it held. Surely she could never become gross and overblown, the damask fading to an underwater bleach, dugs swollen to down pillows!
"How charmingly you've done your hair, Mistress Faith!"
"Oh, la, thank you, sir—I merely toss it together so to have it out of the way." (And thank you, Charity!) Hands chastely folded, Faith watched him with unmistakable radiance; as Ben dared to meet her eyes she blinked both of them. Ben's heart floated over shining fields. He must have said the right thing. In fact, as matters looked now he could perfectly well sit down; it might even be expected of him.
With larger sternness Madam Jenks repeated: "Most kind of you to call, Mr. Carey, seeing we have not been much about since our loss, the which one must suffer with fortitude required of us by the Lord in his infinite mercy, very kind of you." A parchment contraption appeared magically in her hand; she fanned the pallid orb of her face in a motion grave and hypnotic.
Faith patted her mother's arm where folds of baby-creases narrowed to a tiny wrist. "Mama, I think Mr. Cory never met Uncle James." Faith's charming double wink instructed Ben not to be even slightly dismayed by sudden Uncle James: she would see him through.
A red enameled comb projected from Madam Jenks' tight-bound hair like the comb of a hen, bobbing so unstably that Ben's anxiety climbed notch after notch. "He did not know James?" Madam Jenks shook her head, but nothing happened. "A pity, seeing he was ever a worthy influence to young and old and would have profited much by knowing him, but God disposes." Pronouns, Ben noted, counted for no more than ripples, to be brushed aside by the lady under full sail. Solidly abeam of him, cutting his wind and threatening to broach him just when he was trying to claw off to windward, she seemed to be conveying a message: that Benjamin Cory or Carey must have found it extraordinary difficult to maintain the Christian virtues with no assistance from Uncle James.
"My father's brother-in-law," Faith interpreted. "He died last year, Mr. Cory. Mamma thought you might have met him."
"Hadn't the honor, ma'am. I'm sorry to learn of your affliction."
"He resteth in the Lord," said the fat woman, and beamed. "Lived in Cambridge. I trust your grandfather is well?"