Four of a Kind: A women's historical fiction

by Russell, Vanessa

  I had nightmares about police dragging me away in chains; Thomas dressed in white being tortured in a dingy cell, a blood patch on his shirt just like the patch Joe wore that night; Harriet’s hard brown eyes like buttons as she told me that refined ladies do not pronounce their ‘R’ harshly, like Yankees do. Say Bah-be-cue, she said. Bah-be-cue, or you’ll be cooked for dinner; Joe was a constant roar in the background, of either wind or wild bear.

  The policemen arrived two days later. What a fiasco their line of questioning was. I had worried for naught. They were only there to check off the box that said they interviewed all those involved. Since most of what I told them was true, and I didn’t know about Thomas’s demise until I was in Joe’s parlor, the answers were easy, nor were they considered suspicious. In this instance, being a woman had gone in my favor. These were southern gentlemen whose etiquette were leftovers from pre-Civil War days, with ‘yes ma’am, no ma’am, I beg your pardon ma’am’ with a tip of their hats. The only thing amiss was a kiss on the top of my hand. I was the bereaved widow now and their visit leaned more toward paying their respects to a “like-able fellow, that Tom, my Pa went to school with him”.

  Harriet played the role of the mourning sister-in-law beautifully. Granted, she was sorry Thomas had died, but her grief was more prominent when going into battle for her man and she dressed in uniform to prove it. She wore black as she had every day since his death, but this day she included black lace gloves and black netting over her hair that blended in well with a shoe-length taffeta dress. The only other color was the white handkerchief she clutched in one hand to dab at an eye occasionally. I felt blatantly disloyal to Thomas as I stood by her side to “receive our guests” in my blue summer suit.

  Harriet took it upon herself to clear my name for the sake of propriety. “You must forgive Mrs. Pickering, gentlemen. She brought few garments with her when she and Thomas came down from New York. I assure you her grief is genuine. I’ve never met a more devoted wife than she.”

  I thought my ashen complexion and shadowed eyes would make this obvious, for I hadn’t slept through the night, nor could I finish a meal, but loose clothing clearly did not compare well to black clothing. Harriet wanted my grief to be public, to somehow make up for my cold Yankee ways. But to flaunt my absolute loss was unthinkable. If they suspected I had lost my direction, that I was in the dark - for Thomas’s light had shown me the way - if they suspected such a thing, I would have been appalled. Suspicions of wrongdoing were easier to abide, than suspicions of a shaky mental state. At one point I fumbled through words but Harriet recovered quickly with a pat on my arm and a “there, there, child, it will be over soon. I must ask your forgiveness once again gentlemen, as Bess hasn’t been … well.” I simply suffered through their piteous gaze with a stiff back and short answers, smiles given selfishly until they finally tipped their hats with goodbye.

  I felt more than relieved to see their backsides for they were keeping me from going home.

  “Go home? You are home. You married into Tom’s family now. You belong here,” Joe said at the supper table that night.

  “Besides, you should never go backwards, Bess,” Harriet said. “I don’t mean to be cruel, but your own family didn’t even come down for the funeral.”

  Good point and I had put aside my concerns about it. I had given Mama’s address to Joe to telegram the news and funeral date. Instead of word from them, I received a telephone call from Victor who said Pearl had moved into the Lighthouse with Mama to keep it clean and orderly to show the home to interested buyers. He had taken the telegram over there only to find no one there, and no one knew where they were. He gave me excuses for his own absence from the funeral, saying he had no one there to look after his Walk Wright shoe store, but it was more likely that he was still miffed about not being invited to my wedding. To hear him talk, there was no one around but him in the whole world. But I had become numbed by it all, my only thought being that Mama did not need to attend a third funeral in so short a time.

  I gave Harriet a brief explanation but I divulged little, knowing they continued to think my northern family scattered and uncaring, regardless. To say more, was to make excuses. It became evident my presence could not improve their views of the north.

  Harriet turned her attention to Joe.

  “Don’t you want to know what the will says?” Joe asked.

  “Thomas had a will?” I asked.

  “He didn’t tell you much, did he?”

  “It seems to be so.”

  “Our lawyer is bringing it over in a week or two.”

  My, things moved slowly around here!

  “Joe, I have a job on hold up in New York. If I don’t go back soon, I’ll lose it and I can’t afford that. Can you please send him word to come sooner?”

  “It’s my responsibility to look after my brother’s wife. That’s the way Tom would have wanted it. It’s not a woman’s place out there in the workforce.”

  “Thomas himself assigned me this job, Joe. He’s more liberal than you think.”

  “Did he give it to you before or after you were married?”

  I faltered, getting his message. “Before. But, Joe—”

  “That’s what I thought. Tom was raised better than that. No respectable wife works away from home.”

  “I’m a widow now, Joe,” I said softly. Where was his sympathy?

  “You can work here. Harriet could use another hand and she makes money at baking and sewing. She can’t keep up with all the orders for feather pillows and mattresses. She says you’ve been learning a little bit about it, helping her out at times. That’s a good girl and I appreciate that. Harriet would pay you by the hour, and you get free room and board. Now it don’t get any better than that. End of discussion.”

  He threw his napkin onto the table and walked out. This was becoming a familiar scene. He relished on getting the last word in. Words weren’t coming to me at any rate. I sat bewildered. Was he going to hold me against my will? Did Thomas recognize the power his little brother threw around? I realized then that he had manipulated Thomas and he was trying to do the same to me. He was accustomed to having his way. His slave, indeed!

  I turned to Harriet but, with her plate in hand, she trotted into the kitchen.

  I followed behind. “Harriet, he can’t be serious.”

  I couldn’t read her expression, eyes like hard brown buttons. “Joe has given you so much and you appreciate so little. He’s looked after everything for you, and paid Tom’s funeral to boot.”

  “Harriet, I do appreciate what you both have done for me and for Thomas. Thomas dearly loved this place and was happy living here. I could have been too, with Thomas. But not without him. These are Thomas’s roots, not mine. I belong with my own family.”

  She turned away and began running water into her wash pan. “If that’s the way you feel, then all I can tell you is to give him his way for awhile and then maybe he’ll let you go.”

  I could no longer stand being in her presence. I felt nauseated by their insinuations. I would have to think about this some more.

  I lay in our bed – my bed – and bitterly wept. I resented Thomas for leaving me here in such a foreign place, where I, a former suffragist who’d fought for women’s freedom, was now considered without any rights. Then I longed for him to be here and make my pain go away. I dried my eyes on his pillow.

  Where was the Duesenberg key? When I drove it back here that terrible night, what did I do with it? I parked, I jumped out in a hurry to get word from Joe – it should still be in the ignition. I would drive back to New York on my own. I had assisted Thomas in changing those flat tires and I might be able to do it alone. If it rained, I wouldn’t continue motoring through the mud and muck and get stuck. I’d pull over and wait it out. Sleep in the motor car a week if I had to. But then how would I find my way? Thomas had said that some day there would be road maps of wherever you wanted to go. I dearly wished I had one of those. All I knew to do was head
north and thank goodness Thomas had a compass on the dashboard for just this reason. I would have to get that key and start preparations. And find money.

  I slipped on my robe and outdoor shoes and tiptoed down the hall through the parlor and into the entranceway. Their bedroom was on the other side of the entrance, in the other wing, through the dining room and kitchen. They wouldn’t hear me slip out. Their dog, Kipper, was on guard by the front door and gave a low growl until I let her smell my hand. Her tail wagged and I gave her a pat on the head. She escorted me outside and for this I was grateful, not thinking before how dark it would be. I waited until the half-moon came from behind a cloud and gave me a dim light to find the motor car. I found it where I’d left it, parked in the gravel beside the laneway. I sighed a relief to see it, like sighting an old friend who’d come to rescue me. Kipper and I walked quickly to its door and I opened it as slowly as possible to minimize any creaks and clicks. I sat behind the wheel and blindly reached for the ignition key.

  It was gone. My hand groped around the dials, the dashboard, and the floorboard. I stepped out and checked the seats. In my panic, it hadn’t registered that Kipper was barking. I leaned around the door to see that she was over by a tree barking at something rustling through the grasses.

  “Come here, girl!” I whispered harshly. But she couldn’t hear through her own warnings. I would have to make haste back to my room.

  “What’s going on out here?”

  I closed the door too hard. Joe lit a lantern and held it up. There was a long pause as I stood frozen, hoping I had dissolved into the darkness. The gravel crunched as he walked closer.

  “Is that you, Bess?”

  I squeezed my hands together hard. “Yes it is, Joe. Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  He held the lantern up to my face, causing me to shade my eyes. “Why. Are. You. Out. Here?” he asked, so deliberate a question that I shrunk back a little.

  Only his face was visible, as if floating above the lantern, needing a shave, deep creases around bloodshot eyes, his breath smelling of liquor, very much alert and sensing a menace. Lizzie came to mind and what she must have felt in being caught as a runaway slave, knowing a beating was coming. She was a strong woman and I could be too.

  I shielded my eyes and smiled. “Put that lantern down some, will you Joe? You’re blinding me.”

  He didn’t move. Opening the door, I slid behind it using it like a shield. I spoke with obvious irritation. “I couldn’t sleep, Joe. I miss Thomas. Plain and simple. I haven’t been sleeping since – well, you know. I came out here to sit in Thomas’s motor car. He loved this thing as much as a child. To sit here where he sat, to relive our last memories on our drive down here.” I sat down hard on the driver’s seat. I had spoken some truth and to hear how I missed him out loud was more than I could bear. I could conjure up the sound of his laughter as he steered here.

  Joe let out a long breath and lowered the lantern. “Come on out of that automobile, girl. Get on back to bed before Kipper wakes up every chicken and goose I own. Don’t do this again; it’s not proper to be out here in your night clothes.”

  I stepped out and he pulled me close to him. “You’re just a lonely woman who needs a man.” He lightly smacked my buttocks. “Now get on back in there before I whip you like a child.”

  I kept my head down and nodded, thankful the veil of darkness hid my burning cheeks and smoldering eyes.

  For the next week I worked without thinking, letting my mind race only at night without sleeping. Harriet said little, accustomed to working alone. I was given more and more of the house cleaning to do, while she concentrated on baking breads to sell, preparing meals, and sewing. Our work rarely required us to be in the same room and Joe stayed outside most of the day, and gone many evenings. I could only assume bootlegging took him away, but of course neither Harriet nor I spoke of this. Much of her time was spent in the kitchen, taking away opportunities to look for the key where it would most likely be. A large board hung on the kitchen wall dotted with half-exposed nails and here Joe hung keys for the various vehicles. A quick glance told me Thomas’ recognizable pocketknife key chain wasn’t with the others, so whether Joe believed me or not, he had hidden the key just in case.

  In the night, I rummaged through clothes and pockets looking for money or another set of keys, anything to give me hope, only to discover Thomas’s sweet musky scent stirred and rising, blurring my vision with more tears. Any money Thomas had carried on his person, must have been handed over to Joe at the hospital.

  On the eighth night, my ideas for escape became more desperate. I’d telephone the police. But then what would I tell them - who would believe that I was trapped here? This town was politically incestuous and Joe one of their good ol’ boys. He’d likely explain in that tired I’m-just-doing-my-best-by-Tom tone that I was bereaved beyond the ability to look after myself and he was just doing his duty, or I’d hurt myself. He’d already found me outside in the middle of the night in my night clothes “pining for her husband”, I heard him say on the telephone. Harriet had previously made it clear to the policemen that I was not well. So whether I called them, or just took off running down the lane one night, I’d eventually be brought back to “where I belonged” to face judgment alone with Joe and Harriet as the ungrateful wench in a shaky mental state.

  I pounded my fist into the mattress with frustration. I threw off my sheet and pulled my gown up to my knees, wishing there was more of a breeze coming through the window. The heat and humidity of the southern summer had become merciless just as Thomas had warned me. I flipped my pillow over to its cool side and then stilled. Wood floorboards were creaking out in the hall. Someone stood at my door wiggling the door knob. There was a skeleton key inside the lock but I’d never had cause to use it. The door opened on a squeaky hinge and Joe’s bulk emerged into the shadowy room.

  “Where are you, lonely girl?” he said in a low sing-song voice. His body wavered as he stepped forward, like someone on a wind-tossed ship. He stumbled over my shoes and fell across my bed. He grabbed my legs. “There you are!” My struggle tightened his grip. “You’ll not get away,” he mumbled, slurred and slow. “You’re mine now. Tom gave you to me. Just dropped you off and went on, like he’s always done. Left me holding the bag, but this is one bag I’ll get something out of.” His hand slid up my leg like lightening and took hold of my panties and pulled. I clutched his wrist with both hands.

  “Joe, I’ll scream. Do you want Harriet to see you like this?” I hissed, not yet wanting to wake her, not yet wanting to believe why he was here.

  “Scream, darlin’. She won’t hear you. I gave her a night toddy that knocked her flat out. Then I stuffed cotton balls in her ears. If I can’t sell the cotton, I’ll stuff ‘em.” He chuckled at himself, letting out a burst of sour smelling liquor vapors. He suddenly jerked hard with both hands and I heard my panties rip. “Damn you woman!” he gasped. “Lay down!” He pushed me hard with his shoulder, pinning me to the bed, while he laid on top of me, partially on his side, trying to work his pants.

  “Joe, no! No!” I continued to say, first in a whisper, then in a cry. His forearm came across my neck and pressed down hard, while his hand came over my mouth. With each struggle he pressed harder, until suffocation dulled my senses. Something inside said, if you don’t lie still, you will surely die. With every bit of strength in me, I tried to calm myself, only my gasps of air and cries deep within my throat giving movement.

  I vaguely heard his pants unzip and a cry bawled in my ears like a cow going into slaughter.

  Something soft fell onto my leg and his hand moved against it over and over. “Come on, baby, come on, baby,” he whispered down to it. Lying fully on top of me, he rubbed against my pelvis, hoping for a response from his lower member, but my breathing began to calm as I realized he could not conclude his violent act.

  “Bitch!” he cried. He rolled over to the edge of the bed and sat up, his feet on the floor. He began crying,
the silhouette of his shoulders moving up and down spastically.

  “I thought it was Harriet’s fault with that scrawny body of hers, not me,” he said, his voice quivering child-like.

  I watched without moving, fearing to draw his attention back to me. Finally his forearms came up to his face, wiping away the tears. Sniffing loudly, he arose and shuffled toward the door, pulling together his trousers and suspenders. The door closed softly behind him. I leaped from the bed and turned the key in the lock, my gown scurrying back down to my ankles.

  If Thomas had come back, I would have thrown a bomb through his question of why his brother never had any children.

  I walked into an unusually quiet kitchen the next morning. As I sliced a piece of bread, Harriet hobbled in, poured a glass of water and announced that a pounding headache would keep her in bed for the day. Joe had gone into town, she said, to deliver pillows to a customer. I could read in my room if I wanted, she added as she scuffled back out. I wondered why she never went with him, why she never left the plantation, and if she realized she still had the cotton balls in her ears. I sipped my cup of tea, my mind in a haze, many nights without sleep taking its toll. The telephone ringing startled me out of my bewilderment. The telephone box was on the wall by the kitchen door, across from the keys.

  An angel spoke, “Bess, is that you?” Pearl’s timing was beautiful and so was she, in spite of her dress code.

  “Yes Pearl, it’s me!” I forced myself to lower my declaration. “Pearl, it’s so good to hear your voice.” I breathed in deeply to control the tears, but she heard the quavering nonetheless. “I’m so glad you called. I … need … help!” This was easier to say than I thought it would be.

  “Oh, Bess, I know. I’m so sorry about Thomas. He was a great guy. This might not have happened if he’d been elected mayor. This town—”