“You look lovely,” Dora Browning said from the door of the bedroom.
Alice turned toward her happily, “Do you think so, Mama?”
“I do,” Dora said, coming into the room, “and you may wear my garnet set tonight.”
“Oh, Mama, thank you!” Alice said, accepting the earrings and necklace her mother held out to her, turning back toward the mirror.
“Let me,” Dora said, reaching to fasten the necklace, which lay perfectly within the line of the gown’s neck.
Alice clipped the earrings in place and smiled at herself in the glass. “They’re perfect. Now I’m ready when George gets here. We have to go out to the Rocking L and get Langston.”
Dora’s mouth quirked disapprovingly at the corners. “I still say it is unseemly that you are going to this dance with both of them.”
“Please don’t start, Mama,” Alice said. “I told you I’ve chosen George, but this has been planned for weeks. I can’t ruin it for Langston. I’ll tell him after Christmas is over.”
“You’ve let this go on too long, Alice,” Dora scolded. “That poor Lockwood boy has been infatuated with you for years. You’ve led him on shamelessly. It isn’t right to give people like him hope that they will rise above their station.”
“Mama, I wasn’t leading him on,” Alice said. “We’ve all been friends since we were kids. I didn’t fall in love with George until . . . just this year.”
Dora, noting the slight hesitation in her daughter’s reply, stared at Alice appraisingly. “Very well. George Fisk is by far the better choice. I like Langston, but George has a real future. His people are much more socially acceptable than the Lockwoods.”
“Mama, really? You talk like it’s still the Civil War or something. All this business about someone’s ‘people.’ The Lockwoods own one of the biggest ranches in the county.”
“And Milton Lockwood is a foul-mouthed, crude man,” Dora replied. “His lack of manners is deplorable.”
“Langston’s not like his father,” Alice said loyally. “He has beautiful manners. Granddaddy thought Langston had an excellent mind and wanted to help him go to college.”
“Your grandfather had all sorts of ridiculous notions about helping people,” her mother said dismissively. “Besides, I did not question the quality of the young man’s mind. I simply said he is not of our class. I’m sure he’ll do quite well running the Rocking L someday.”
The sound of a brisk knock on the front door floated up the stairs. “Oh! That’s George!” Alice said, snatching up a black satin evening cape from the foot of the bed. “I have to go.”
“So do we,” Dora said. “As chaperones, we should have been there already, but your father assures me we’ll make it in time.”
From the foyer Alice heard her father lecturing George about the weather. “It’s starting to ice up, son,” he said. “Drive slowly, especially on the curves.”
“Yes, sir,” George answered briskly. “I promise I’ll take good care of your daughter.”
“Good boy,” Cecil Browning said, approvingly. “I know you’re very responsible. It’s an admirable trait in a young man.”
I hope Daddy still thinks that when we tell him the truth, Alice thought to herself nervously. But that was a worry for another day. Tonight she had on a pretty dress and she was going dancing with two handsome boys. What more could a girl want?
“So your parents didn’t know you were pregnant?” Jenny asked, interrupting Elizabeth’s narrative.
“Heavens no,” Elizabeth said, “and I wasn’t anxious to tell them. I just wanted Christmas to be a happy time for us all. I knew that Langston’s heart would be broken when I told him that I intended to marry George. I was a little coward. I didn’t want to face the consequences of my behavior. I loved your father dearly as a friend, but I was never in love with him. He couldn’t see that.”
“He never saw it,” Kate said quietly. “He loved you until the day he died.”
Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears. “By the time I knew what that night did to your father, Kate, it was too late.”
“What happened that night?” Jenny said. “What caused the accident?”
“I caused the accident,” Elizabeth said sadly. “We left my house and went to the Rocking L to pick up Langston just as we planned. Everything was perfectly normal. We were listening to the radio, talking, and laughing. George was driving. I was in the front passenger seat and Langston was in back. I don’t even remember now exactly what I said, but Langston suddenly froze. I can still see his face in the rearview mirror. He was white with shock. He asked me outright if I intended to marry George.”
“And you told him yes,” Jenny said.
“I did,” Elizabeth nodded. “Lying to him would have made it worse. He flew into a rage. George and I both tried to reason with him. We were coming down the long hill into town and Langston suddenly threw a punch from the back seat. He hit George hard on the side of the head. George jerked the wheel to the left and we started to skid. He panicked and pulled back hard to the right and threw us into the end of the bridge.”
She stopped to take a breath. When she went on, the force of the memory caused her voice to shake. “I . . . I saw the end of the bridge coming right into my window. I remember the screeching of the metal and the horrible force of the impact as my face went into the glass. Then it was as if I was plunged down a long, black tunnel. I don’t remember anything until I came to in Dr. Kitterell’s office. The pain was excruciating. I could only see out of one eye. Mother was there. She could barely look at me, so I knew my injuries must have been horrible. As you can see for yourself, they were.”
“Is that why she decided to hide you away?” Kate asked. “Because of what happened to your face?”
“My mother was a very . . . tidy woman,” Elizabeth said, her words taking on a brittle edge. “She did not like things that were broken or stained. I was both.”
“I don’t understand,” Kate said. “What do you mean stained?”
“When I came to, I looked up at Dr. Kitterell and asked him if my baby would live,” Elizabeth said. “I can still hear Mother’s gasp and the anguished look on my father’s face. They were more concerned that I was carrying a child out of wedlock than they were by the fact that I was lying there with broken bones and gaping lacerations. Their love of propriety and social position took them to that place. I needed love and comfort, and what I got was disapproval and moral judgment.”
Jenny heard a sound from the couch. Lenore Ferguson sobbed quietly, tears streaming down her face. Jenny studied her for a moment, looking quickly back and forth between the crying woman and Elizabeth Jones.
“Lenore is your daughter, isn’t she?” Jenny asked.
“Yes, I am,” Lenore answered, as Mae Ella put a comforting arm around her friend’s shoulder. The older woman pulled a tissue out of the sleeve of her sweater and handed it to Lenore, who accepted the offering with a watery smile. “I’m sorry for crying, Mama,” she said. “I just hate what they did to you.”
“Did to us, Lenore,” Elizabeth said lovingly. “Your life was as deeply affected as my own. I’m terribly sorry for that.”
“Does George Fisk know about any of this?” Kate asked.
Elizabeth shook her head. “No, but we intend to tell him. He’s dying, and I think both he and Lenore deserve at least some time with one another.”
Jenny cleared her throat. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I don’t mean to be insensitive, but what happened that night after you asked about your baby?”
Elizabeth sighed. “Please bear with me,” she said. “Wilma will be able to tell you more about that shortly. I tire easily, and I’d like to tell you everything that I remember before the others speak, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course not,” Kate said. “Please, take your time.”
Elizabeth passed a tired hand over her eyes and said, “I think they gave me something to knock me out; isn’t that right Wilma?”
; “Yes,” the older woman said. “Against my objections. You were hurt far too badly to be sedated, but Dr. Kitterell overruled me. In those days, a nurse did not talk back to a physician.”
“When I came to consciousness again, I was in a private hospital in San Antonio,” Elizabeth went on. “My mother was beside the bed and began to explain my new existence to me immediately. I had been registered under the name Elizabeth Jones.”
“Excuse me for interrupting,” Kate said, “but Langston insisted that Mandy’s middle name be Elizabeth. Is that your middle name?”
“No, my middle name is Marie,” she said. “My grandmother was named Elizabeth. Langston loved my grandparents deeply and always told me that when we had a daughter together we would name her Elizabeth. When Mandy was born, Langston believed she looked like me, according to your mother. He insisted on using the name Elizabeth, at least in part.”
“Do you know why Mama chose the name Amanda?” Jenny asked.
“Yes. Mandy is named for your mother’s oldest sister.”
Kate and Jenny exchanged looks, both shaking their heads. “You know more about our family than we do,” Kate said. “I’m sorry, but this is just a lot for us to take in.”
“Well, get ahold of yourselves,” Clara warned. “There’s a lot more to be told before we’re done today.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Clara,” Elizabeth interjected. “As I was saying, when I awakened, I had become Elizabeth Jones. I refused to agree to give up my child. I have my father to thank that I was allowed to keep Lenore. Until she was 12 years old, we lived in San Antonio. I was in and out of physical rehabilitation programs, but I can still only walk with great difficulty because my hip and pelvis were shattered in the accident. It is a miracle that Lenore survived. She had to be delivered by cesarean section.”
“What happened when Lenore was 12?” Kate asked.
“My mother enrolled her in a girls’ boarding school and I was moved back here,” Elizabeth said. “My father died and Mother wanted me closer. She bought this house and re-modeled it to facilitate my . . . safety.”
“You mean she turned it into a prison,” Mae Ella barked.
Elizabeth smiled at her fondly. “Mae Ella and my mother were not . . . close,” she explained,
“Dora was an old bitch, and you know it,” Mae Ella grumbled.
“Mae Ella and I have been best friends since kindergarten,” Elizabeth said. “She has license to . . . speak her mind.”
“I don’t need a license,” Mae Ella retorted. “The truth is the truth.”
Jenny, who had been doing the math in her head, said, “You came back here in 1969?”
“Early 1970, actually,” Elizabeth said.
“That was six years before Langston took our mother away from George,” Jenny said. “Why didn’t you tell them you were alive? Why didn’t you try to stop what happened?”
The old woman faltered. “I was not . . . strong,” she said finally. “My mother convinced me I was monstrous, that it was my duty to hide my ugliness from the world. I believed that for a long time, until . . .”
Again, tears filled her eyes and she swallowed hard before she went on. “I believed that until your dear mother showed me that it was not true.”
63
Elizabeth took a small lace handkerchief out of the pocket of her sweater and dabbed the corner of her eye. The right side of her face sagged with pronounced fatigue, and the corner of her mouth appeared almost frozen, giving her words a slightly stilted awkwardness.
“Mama, please stop,” Lenore said. “This is too much for you.”
Elizabeth gave a dismissive wave with her hand. “I’m fine, but I do think we could all use something to drink.” She pressed a small buzzer on the table beside her chair. Hortencia appeared instantly at the door.
“Si, Señora?” she asked.
“Hortencia, may we all have some good black coffee,” Elizabeth asked.
“And bring a bottle of whiskey with it,” Clara said.
“Sister!” Mae Ella scolded. “At this time of day?”
“Hell, yes, at this time of day,” Clara said. “We’re getting down to the nut cutting and I, for one, could use a drink.”
When Hortencia returned with the coffee and the whiskey, which both Clara and Kate splashed in their coffee, Elizabeth turned to Wilma. “I think you should tell the girls the rest of what happened the night of the accident. I don’t want anything left out.”
Setting her mouth in a hard line, Wilma said, “I told Walter Kitterell I didn’t like what he was agreeing to do . . .”
Wilma Schneider fixed Dr. Kitterell with a firm glare. “Doctor,” she said in an exaggeratedly professional tone, “may I have a word with you in private?”
Walter Kitterell eyed the figure of his disapproving nurse and nodded reluctantly. Together they stepped out of the exam room and into the hall.
“Walter,” Wilma hissed, “have you lost your goddamn mind? That poor girl is too badly injured to be taken anywhere. And sedation? It could kill her and you know it. Grow a set and quit kowtowing to Dora Browning.”
“Wilma,” he whispered back, “we’re not in the Army anymore and this isn’t a MASH unit in Korea. You can’t talk to me like that.”
“I’ll talk to you any damn way I want to when it’s just the two of us,” she snapped. “You can run around and play Dr. Kildare in front of people all you want, but this is bullshit. You’re going to kill that girl.”
“Do you want a hospital in this town?” he asked her earnestly. “Do you want to stop burying people who die before they make it to Kerrville or San Antonio? Dora Browning will top off the building fund if we do this. It’s taken us five years to get half the money we need. Half! She’s willing to pay the rest. We could start building in a matter of weeks.”
“Which means the self-centered old bitch could have paid it any time,” Wilma said. “She just wants Alice hidden away because she’s pregnant and her face is cut up. You know as well as I do what the scars are going to look like, and Dora knows it, too. Never mind throwing an illegitimate child into the mix and staining the precious Browning name.”
Kitterell glanced over his shoulder nervously at the closed door of the exam room. “Lower your voice,” he pleaded. “I don’t like it either, but maybe getting Alice out of this town is the best thing we can do for her. The gossips will destroy her and she’ll be nothing but an object of pity. I’ll use the lightest sedation possible. She just has to be quiet until we can get her out of here, then I’ll need you to drive her to San Antonio in your station wagon.”
“And what about you?”
“Honey,” he said, “I have to go home. A dead girl doesn’t need a doctor. It has to look like I pronounced her dead and went back to the house just like with anyone else.”
“And just how in the hell are we going to get her out of here?” Wilma demanded.
“We’re going to call the funeral home. In this weather Bill Simmons will send Harold instead of coming himself,” Kitterell said. “Once Harold gets here, we’re going to explain to him how this will work. If he doesn’t cooperate and keep his mouth shut, we’ll tell Bill exactly how many times we’ve treated his young apprentice for various and sundry venereal diseases and, good Baptist deacon that he is, he’ll fire Insall on the spot.”
“And ruin all Insall’s schemes for being a partner in the business,” Wilma said, running through the plan in her mind before saying, reluctantly, “I have to admit, that could work. But I still don’t like it.”
“Wilma,” he said, taking her hand, “you followed me to this town even though I can’t leave my wife. You’ve trusted me since the war. Please believe me. If we do this, we may get Alice away from the worst of Dora’s control and we can have our hospital. Please.”
“And what about those boys sitting out there in that waiting room?” she said. “The whole town knows they’re both in love with her. One of them is the father. What is this little plan go
ing to do to their lives?”
Kitterell took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I can’t play God for them all, Wilma,” he said. “Those boys are young. They have their whole lives ahead of them. They’ll get over it.”
“Somehow, Walter,” she said, “I think you’re very wrong about that.”
Kate started at Wilma, plainly aghast. “You and Doc Kitterell were having an affair?” she said.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Katie, grow up,” Wilma said. “We were all young once. Walter and I fell in love during the war. You know his oldest boy, Jimmy, was mentally retarded. He idealized his father. Walter just couldn’t break up his family. What we had was ours. What they had was theirs. I was content with the arrangement.”
“So you agreed to help Dora get Alice out of town in exchange for the money to finish the hospital,” Jenny said. “You made a deal with the devil and threw three young kids straight under the bus.”
Wilma glared at her. “Keep your judgments to yourself. You weren’t there. We made the best deal we could because Dora was going to have her way no matter what. We went back in that room and I pretended to follow Walter’s orders. What we didn’t tell Dora is that we picked where Alice would be sent because one of our old Army buddies was director of surgery there.”
“He saved my life,” Elizabeth said, “and Lenore’s. My scars were far worse in the beginning. Dr. Lawrence did what he could to improve my appearance. Over the next few years, I endured numerous surgeries. He was a kind and gentle man who did everything he could to help me. Wilma and Dr. Kitterell did the right thing, Jenny, and my mother paid for the construction of the hospital as promised. That fact was a comfort to me.”
“And when you told Langston and George that she was dead?” Kate said. “What happened then?”
The Lockwood Legacy - Books 1-6: Plus Bonus Short Stories Page 38