“Oh, well, he’s got to study hard on his lessons, mainly, and … uh … do chores when she says.”
“Is that all?”
“Kiss her good night and not get in trouble.”
Mrs. Gentles burst out laughing. When she was calm she asked, “Should he wander the country seeking after he knows not what? And come visiting with a smile and an outstretched hand once or twice a year?”
“He ought to come more often than that.”
“Much more often,” confirmed Mrs. Gentles. “Indeed.”
Drew could hear Yancy stirring restlessly behind him.
“And if I allow you to share my house, will you be the kind of son a son should be, or will you go your own sweet way as the notion takes you?”
“I’ll do my best,” Drew promised. “I can already read and write and figure better than most, my teacher said.”
“Then I shall give you the chance to prove her correct.”
“He was a man, ma’am.”
“Yancy will return you to your room. Good day, Drew.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you, Mrs. Gentles.”
She smiled, and looked again at Yancy. “You may call me Mother, if you wish.”
Having few possessions, he moved quickly and easily into the small house next door to Mrs. Gentles’s brothel. Yancy insisted on helping him, which meant carrying Drew’s rifle, leaving Drew empty-handed. Drew allowed this peculiar assistance, curious to see Yancy’s reaction to the house.
They ran into trouble at the door, when a handsome Negro man asked Yancy kindly not to set foot inside, as per instruction from Mrs. Gentles.
“You just step aside now, Meggs,” Yancy told him, “and go take the matter up with her yourself. Or you could just not tell her I was here, in which case she won’t shout at you for not doing what she wanted.”
Drew was dragged past mildly protesting Meggs. Once inside, Yancy released him and began prowling from room to room, as if in search of something. Drew trailed along behind, and was in turn followed by Meggs, who wore a deep frown of consternation. In the kitchen, Yancy greeted a black woman who was preparing supper. “Hello, Sukie. Long time gone.”
She looked at the rifle in his hands. “You aiming to shoot me, Mr. Yancy?”
He laughed. “No, I’m not. That’d get me in trouble, now wouldn’t it.”
“Guess you’d know ’bout that.”
Yancy laughed again. Drew heard the annoyance in it, and knew Yancy didn’t like to be spoken to that way by kitchen help. He knew also that these two black people worked for Mrs. Gentles, and so were safe. Yancy was afraid of his own mother, which struck Drew as nothing less than amazing, given the man’s behavior to date. He had killed someone for allegedly cheating at cards, without batting an eye, yet was obliged to grin while his mother’s cook sassed him.
“That the boy she told about?” Sukie asked.
“This is him. He’s my pard, so you feed him up good and be nice.”
“She already told me.”
“Which room’s his?”
“Reckon you know the one,” said Sukie, and turned to her chopping of vegetables.
Drew saw Yancy’s face harden. “This way,” Yancy said, turning and pushing past the hovering form of Meggs. He led the way to a small room at the rear of the house, flung Drew’s Winchester onto the bed and shut the door firmly in Meggs’s face. Drew didn’t like to look at Yancy, knowing as he did that this had once been Yancy’s room. He felt guilty somehow.
Yancy joined the rifle on the bed, lay back and looked at the stamped tin ceiling. “Drew boy,” he said, “you’re smart for your age, so tell me what you make of all this.”
“I don’t know.”
“A diplomat. I’m proud of your sensitivity.”
Neither spoke for a short while, then Yancy swung his feet onto the floor and looked hard into Drew’s face. “I won’t be staying here for long—Galveston, I mean. She’s not partial to long visits from me, and that’s a fact, so I’ll be paying a few calls around town and then be going.”
“I wish you wouldn’t, Yancy.”
“I wish so myself sometimes, but we take the hand that’s dealt us and play it as best we can. Don’t despair, we’ll meet up again, seeing as I can’t stay away for long, not anywhere as long as she’d have you believe. See, a woman such as her must have her little piece of the respectable, which seeing as she’s in a profession that won’t permit it, has to come from somewhere else, namely myself. Politician, state’s representative, that’s what she had planned. She’ll have it in store for you too, don’t worry, so better you make up your mind early to be respectable, or else get out like I did. There’s nothing in between, I’m telling you.”
Yancy stood, clapped Drew on the back and strode out. Drew considered following, then stopped himself; the front door could be heard closing in any case. Yancy had fled his past once again.
Vanda Gentles lived in two worlds, allowing Drew access to only one. He was not permitted to mention in her presence the existence of the brothel next door, nor to speak the name of Winnie, its only occupant whose name he knew. Meggs and Sukie would not discuss their mistress’s line of work with Drew, but he sometimes overheard them referring to the premises of ill fame as “over there.” Mrs. Gentles was not available for the greater part of each day and night, barring Sundays, because she was “over there,” or, as Meggs preferred to phrase it, “minding her business.”
Between the adjacent backyards of Vanda’s home and her business was a lengthy trellised walkway festooned with creeping vines. She could pass from each of her worlds to the other without effort, or the inconvenience of having to submit to neighborhood staring. Every householder on the street was aware of her profession, yet accepting of it; all Vanda Gentles was required to do was appear to live the life of a middle-aged recluse, and present herself in public as little as possible.
Provided her business caused no untoward noise or traffic, and provided she contributed generously to the local political apparatus, she would be left in peace to practice her sinful but necessary calling. Her girls were never to be seen leaving the brothel by way of the front door, and a special alleyway had been created for their few social excursions. Every window facing the street was kept shuttered at all times. The two worlds were a large and silent house, and a small and silent house, side by side, communicating nothing of their purpose.
Drew’s horse was stabled nearby, and he was free to ride every day but one. On Sundays, he was instructed to don an uncomfortably stiff suit of clothes and accompany Mrs. Gentles on a ride through Galveston and along the coast some four miles to a small beach, where it was customary, weather permitting, for them to partake of a picnic lunch. This ritual took place beneath a canvas awning erected by Meggs, who drove the carriage and performed those various small chores requiring male strength.
A young woman usually accompanied Mrs. Gentles and Drew on these pleasant excursions to nature, a slender creature named Clara, whom Vanda described as her companion and secretary. Meggs advised Drew to treat Clara with respect, because Clara was Mrs. Gentles’s “diddy woman.” He would not explain this curious term, but Drew accepted the advice and was unfailingly polite in Clara’s presence.
There were discoveries to be made in the hushed and secretive existence Drew found himself immersed in. The first of these was the realization that Clara lived in the same house as himself, although he never once saw her there. Clara’s presence was no more tangible than the sound of her voice in a distant room permitted. He expected he would have seen her at mealtimes, but there were no shared breakfasts, lunches or dinners in Vanda’s house. Drew took these meals alone, waited on by Sukie, who proved herself aggressively uncommunicative on the subject of Clara, her employer, or the big house next door. “You just eat,” she advised him, “and keep your nose clean as your plate.”
Once, gripped by curiosity too great for containment, Drew asked Vanda outright if Clara lived there with them. Vanda had stared at him for a moment be
fore replying, “That is none of your concern, Drew. You are my son, not my keeper, and you will occupy yourself with the tasks I assign you, and no others.”
This was a reference to Drew’s intense schooling each day for several hours by a mournful individual named Sheldon Babb. Vanda required from Drew a detailed account of each day’s lesson before he went to bed after a solitary snack at nine o’clock. It was obvious to Drew that the area of the house he was forbidden to enter, virtually half the lower floor and all of the upper, was the domain of his new mother and her companion/secretary. He suspected this had something to do with Meggs’s cryptic designation of Clara as a “diddy woman,” but the fullness of the mystery eluded him still.
The second discovery was the alleyway by which Vanda’s whores were permitted egress to the outside world. Drew, in the course of his daily neighborhood perambulations, had several times noticed young women entering the street behind Vanda’s home from the entrance to this alley, but thought they were simply using a shortcut from one block to the next. He realized his error when one of the young ladies was recognizable as Winnie. She was alone, and he approached her at a brisk trot, smiling in anticipation of a conversation with the one person besides Yancy who had expressed a personal interest in him since his coming to Galveston.
He was bewildered when she looked up, saw him approaching her and turned abruptly around. It almost seemed that she was consciously avoiding him, but Drew knew he must be mistaken; no one who had placed a hand intimately on his person would spurn him so, even all these months after their original encounter.
“Winnie!”
She hurried away from him at a faster pace. Drew broke into a run and caught up with her while Winnie was still several yards from the alley entrance, which she clearly was attempting to escape into. He blocked her path, his confusion laced now with anger.
“What’s wrong with you! Didn’t you see it’s me?”
Winnie looked around them to be sure they were unobserved. It was a little past midday, and the street was empty of everything but a mongrel dog, but it was possible they were being eyed from behind any of several sets of curtains closed against the heat.
“You’ll get me in trouble,” she said.
“With who?”
“Her. She’ll get me. I’m not supposed to talk to you or even look at you. None of us are.”
“Why?”
“Because of her, stupid. Go away and let me alone.”
Drew took Winnie by the arm and began steering her from the alley entrance. She resisted at first, making small sounds of exasperation, then fell into step with him, knowing that a peaceful young couple would attract less attention. She planned on breaking suddenly away from him before they reached any of the more populous streets, a block or two distant.
“She wouldn’t hurt you,” Drew assured Winnie. “That’s just silly. She’s very nice, really.”
Winnie snorted undaintily to express her disbelief.
“I live in her house,” Drew insisted, “so I know.”
“You don’t know your cock from a door handle.”
“I do too!”
“Oh, excuse me, the door handle would be bigger, wouldn’t it. If you get me in trouble with her, I’ll kill you, little boy. She most likely knows already. She’s got spies and lookouts everywhere.”
“She hasn’t,” he protested.
“What would you know, little mister stupid.”
“Stop calling me little.”
“Big mister stupid. I’m not taking another step. If you try and make me, I’ll kick you.”
Drew fell back a few feet, still keeping pace with Winnie’s furiously swishing skirts. “I’ll stay back here, then no one’ll think we’re together.”
Winnie abandoned her plans for a long walk alone, one of her few genuine pleasures in life. She led the way to a small public park a short distance from the waterfront. Its only occupants were several drunks arguing among themselves. She sat on a bench and allowed Drew to seat himself at its furthest end. She would not turn to face him, and instructed him to do the same for her. Drew watched the drunks instead. One of them was wrestling weakly with another for control of a bottle.
“Why won’t you please leave me alone?” asked Winnie.
Drew thought hard. “I love you,” he said. He wondered briefly if he meant it, then decided he’d better; Winnie didn’t strike him as the kind to take such a declaration lightly. The least display of insincerity on his part and she’d very likely kick him hard. She seemed to be taking quite a while in responding.
“I do,” he insisted, ignoring Winnie’s instruction not to face her. He was not sure what expression to anticipate upon her face, probably something wry or contemptuous. What he saw instead, as Winnie broke her own rule and turned toward him, was a peculiar blend of pity and regret.
“Poor little boy,” she said, not unkindly. “You really don’t know anything at all, do you?”
Drew defended himself. “I know plenty,” he said, sounding feeble even to himself.
“Listen, you: I’m a whore, and whores don’t have anyone fall in love with them, just fall on top of them, which you haven’t even done either, and I wouldn’t let you anyway because you’re a silly little boy that doesn’t know anything! Don’t you know you’re her little doggie? She did the same with Yancy—did he tell you? She doesn’t like boys, or men either, so she makes them into dogs to follow her around and do whatever she wants, even if they don’t know they’re doing it. We all know about her. Us, we know, so you can believe me. Even Clara’s her little dog. Did you meet her yet?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know something at least.”
Drew was not so sure. Winnie’s words seemed to be directed at someone else. He admitted that it was possible he really didn’t know very much at all. Winnie seemed so much older, almost as old as Yancy, who Drew suddenly wanted back in Galveston so he could discuss with him this harsh talk against their mutual mother.
Winnie stood up. “Don’t you follow me. Don’t you ever come near me again,” she said, and walked away. Drew watched her leaving. The drunk who had lost the bottle yelled incoherently as Winnie passed from the park to the sidewalk and was gone.
Drew felt like a fool. He’d gone and made Winnie, whom he felt a genuine fondness for, despise him for being a son, or dog or some such, in the house of Vanda Gentles. He was unsure why his circumstances, which were not of Drew’s doing, should prejudice her against him. Could Vanda truly be as awful a woman as Winnie indicated? Drew sensed the worst had not been revealed, out of fear.
Two days later, when he was told to prepare for the usual Sunday picnic at the beach, Drew informed Vanda he would prefer not to attend.
“And why not?”
“I just don’t want to.”
“That is not a reason. You will come.”
To his own chagrin, Drew did. He was determined, as he rode beside Vanda in the carriage, to assert himself more forcefully on the sands. The exact nature of his rebellion was unclear, even to himself, but he had to do something that would reach Winnie’s ears, something to convince her he was no house pet. As witness to his protest he would have to rely on Meggs, since Clara had inexplicably been left behind in town, her first such absence from the beach picnics.
When Meggs completed setting up the awning and chairs, Vanda took her seat facing the Gulf of Mexico, as usual, then became aware that Drew had not placed himself in the chair beside her. She saw him some distance off, and sent Meggs to fetch him. Meggs returned with Drew’s regrets; Drew would prefer to be alone.
“Tell him to stop this nonsense and come here directly.”
Meggs delivered Vanda’s message. Drew ambled back to the awning in his wake, deliberately dragging his boots through the sand. He sat in his accustomed chair, but refused to look at Vanda. He had obeyed only because he didn’t want to be responsible for Meggs’s tramping back and forth under the hot sun, relaying commands and refusals.
�
�Must I ask for an explanation?”
“For what?”
“Your ridiculous behavior.”
Drew set his mouth in a line to match the horizon.
“You have nothing to say?”
“No.”
“Perhaps I should ask Winifred for an answer.”
He managed to stifle a reaction, knowing she watched him from the corner of her eye.
“Yes,” she continued, “a short conversation with Winifred should clear up the matter. I have had occasion to chastise her before, so this will be nothing new.”
“You leave her alone.”
Vanda’s head swiveled atop the stiff lace collar of her blouse. “Repeat those words if you dare.”
“It was me. I went up to her. She told me to go away, but I didn’t. It’s not her fault.”
He was appalled at the cringing tone in his voice. Winnie had been right; Vanda had spies everywhere. What kind of resistance could he muster against a woman like that? He felt his body packed tightly inside his Sunday clothes, like meat crammed into a sausage skin. It was intolerable that he should have to sit beside this woman he suddenly realized he hated, and hear someone he was fond of threatened with nameless punishment. “It wasn’t her fault,” he said again, knowing it was probably too late to alter whatever course Vanda had set her mind to.
“So she said,” murmured Vanda, and Drew understood the interview had already taken place. She had been playing with him, deceiving him, waiting to see if he would step into some trap she doubtless had laid.
“What did you do?” he asked. It was inconceivable that she had done nothing.
“Winifred has departed our fair town.”
“Where did she go?”
“Is that important? I hardly think so. You are well advised to learn a lesson from this. You are a part of my household, and for as long as you remain, you will abide by my wishes, my rules. I am not a cruel person, but I will not have my rules denied. You were told, were you not, that there should be no communication whatsoever between yourself and any of my employees. You did not do as I asked. Even Winifred could not dissuade you from wrongdoing, and now look what has happened. This girl you sought to attach yourself to has gone away as a direct result of your foolishness. You have only yourself to blame. Do you accept your role in this? Do you?”
Power in the Blood Page 18