He raised his hand in farewell, turned his horse and went into the darkness behind the dunes.
I ran.
When I got to the ramp leading up to the comforting peaks and gables of Illyria, my steps faltered, slowed. I sat down and put on my shoes and stockings, breathing slowly, carefully, to get my wind back. To my relief nobody was on the veranda, so I was able to walk around its corners and angles to the back of the house and go directly into the kitchen, to Honoria and Clive.
When I told them about the Black Riders they were very still. Finally Honoria said, “Best if you don’t walk down the beach again, Miss Stella. Better you walk up towards the twins.”
“Who were they,” I asked, “the Riders?”
“Darkness,” Honoria said. “Darkness and hate. Stay away from them, Miss Stella.”
“And the Riders with the white robes?”
“The darkness and hate, too. Darkness is not a color. It is a choking of the soul.”
I looked at Honoria and Clive, at the blackness of their skin, and saw only light. If I understood not more than a little of what Honoria said, at least I understood that little. “The Black Riders—were they Zenumins?”
“Not only,” Clive said. “Zenumins ain’t the only darkness round Illyria.”
“The Riders, then—are they all the same people? Do they sometimes wear black hoods, and sometimes white?”
“No,” Honoria said. “They different people. Yet you might say they the same, because hate be always the same.”
“You ever seen hate before, Miss Stella?” Clive asked. “It don’t always come riding a horse, and with a mask over its face.”
“No,” I whispered, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen hate before, Clive. I don’t think I ever have.”
Clive clasped his hands behind his back and looked up at the ceiling. “Then I said, O my Lord, what are these? And the angel that talked with me said unto me, I will shew thee what these be. And the man that stood among the myrtle trees answered and said, I be he whom the Lord hath sent to walk to and fro through the earth.”
“That’s from the Book of the Prophet Zachariah,” came Aunt Des’s voice from behind us. She stood, a frumpy brown shadow, in the doorway. “I never understood that bit, about the man on the red horse coming out of the myrtles. What are you doing, playing our game, Clive?”
Clive said gently, “You like to share your game, don’t you, Miss Des?”
“As long as it’s you and Honoria and Stella. And Hoadley, of course. My sister needs some hot herb tea for her joints, please, Honoria.”
“I have it just ready, Miss Desby. And some for you and Miss Stella, too, to give you a good night’s sleep and pleasant dreams.”
I sat in Aunt Olivia’s room to drink my posset, while Honoria gently rubbed the old lady’s back and limbs. I noticed that she would rub her strong hand over Aunt Olivia’s tender flesh, and then rub it against the heavy post of the bed, and I asked her why.
“I rubs Miss Olivia, and I takes her pain into my fingers, and then I has to put it somewhere it do nobody no harm. Don’t hurt the wood. Miss Olivia’s bed be old and strong, can take the pain.”
Aunt Olivia spoke drowsily; she had just taken one of Ron’s pills, and the combination of the pill, the posset, and Honoria’s rubbing had put her half to sleep. “It’s a peculiar thing about pain. We can help each other bear it. Not just by caring, by making it bearable because we care—though that helps—but actually.”
“Like Honoria now?”
“Yes. But more than that. Mado did it by prayer. She took people’s pain and she bore some of it for them. I don’t understand this, but I’ve seen it happen. And not only with people close to her. At Nyssa during the war for instance, with a wounded soldier. It wasn’t just imagination. Theron saw it, too. He saw a wounded man who should have been in agony resting quietly because Mado was bearing part of his pain. He had to warn her not to take on too much. We learned a lot during the war, all of us. I learned how to use a gun. James taught me. I’m a good shot. Though I never had to kill a man, thank God. But if I’d had to, I could. I still could. I’m not good about prayers, though, plain prayers. Did Mado teach you, Honoria, or did you already know?” Her voice was slightly slurred from the pill. Honoria did not answer. “It was Honoria and Mado who helped bear it for Jimmy, and I couldn’t do anything, not anything at all.”
At the mention of Jimmy, Honoria pulled Aunt Olivia’s nightgown down, rearranged the pillows. “Pain like that don’t go away Never. It not like pain can be rubbed into the strong wood of a bed. It stay. I cannot do it again, I cannot—” Then she controlled herself, settled Aunt Olivia comfortably in the big bed.
Aunt Olivia spoke through a haze of sleep. “Good night, Honoria. Thank you for taking away the pain. Good night, Stella-lamb. See you in the morning …”
“See you in the morning, Auntie.”
Honoria did not suggest that I follow her out to the kitchen. I thought that she was carrying pain with her: Jimmy’s pain?
When I went upstairs I fell asleep immediately. I slept and I dreamed, whether from Honoria’s posset or not I do not know. I was walking along the beach with a lantern of fireflies, and a wreath of fireflies in my hair. A young man came running to meet me, but before I could see who he was, sleep deepened; the fireflies went out.
3
In the morning, after Ron’s daily visit to Aunt Olivia, whose fever was beginning to abate, Clive drove Aunt Irene and me to the station to take the train to Jefferson. Both Aunt Irene and Aunt Des seemed eager for me to see the town, and I lacked the courage to say I would rather stay at the beach.
Clive helped Aunt Irene and me up the high step onto the train. Aunt Irene walked down the aisle like a pouter pigeon, stout breast pushing forward, so that her little feet seemed to follow along a beat behind. I lacked courage, then—and I also lacked charity.
She lowered herself onto the woven-cane seat. “Here, honey, this is the shady side.” The train whistle rose high into the air, thin and lonely. With a good deal of jerking we began to pull away. I wished that Aunt Irene had let me sit by the window; she was turned towards me, and I had to look past her to see anything outside. “Stella, honey, I’m hoping today’s going to give us a real chance to get acquainted. I get lonesome with nobody but old people around.”
Aunt Irene, at fifty-odd, was older than Aunt Olivia: I knew with my instinct, if not my intellect, that chronology is not the measure of age. She chattered along, and I half listened, giving her the edge of my attention because one never knew what Aunt Irene was going to come out with. I was not certain whether she was only a foolish and idle woman, like Cousin Augusta with her silly séances, or whether there were more dangers in this kind of occult meddling in Illyria than in Oxford. I looked past her pleasant, vacant face to the vast distances across the golden grasses. Clumps of palms seemed like giants conferring; massed clouds on the horizon hinted at thunder.
“… dear old Cousin Sarah and I are both on the Altar Guild at St. James. I do believe we’re the only ones in the family the church means anything to. Of course some people don’t like our dear young Mr. McLean and his English ideas; he studied under Bishop Gore at Oxford, so perhaps you’ve heard of him—not dear little Mr. McLean—Bishop Gore. Of course Hoadley does go to church, he’s on the vestry, Mr. McLean couldn’t manage without him. Hoadley has the reputation of a saint, but he’s a Renier, and I, for one, don’t know what, if anything, he believes.”
“What do you believe, Aunt Irene?”
“I believe in duty,” she said, “and in keeping promises. I’m not sure I could have kept my own promises without the church.”
I was ashamed.
But then she went on, “Being married to a Renier man is a cross in itself. There are always secrets, dark places where nobody can come to, not even their own wives. Am I wrong to want to know? Don’t you want to know what Terry’s up to?”
I gave a great sigh of exasperation and longing. “Of co
urse, Aunt Irene. But he isn’t allowed to tell me. His work is secret.”
“With the Renier men their work is always secret. Hoadley, too. He’s into something a lot more than his law practice. He’s been talking with the governor. Something’s up. Something secret. Something maybe the governor couldn’t countenance doing himself, but wants Hoadley to do for him. We haven’t had any proper protection since the Klan was broken up by the Yankee military force in 1871. That was a sorry day. Of course we have the Riders now, but still I’m scared. You never know what’s going to happen. I’ve got a few guesses about Hoadley, but the Renier men aren’t secret just about their work. It’s secrets all through their lives, ugly ones. You’ll see.”
“I looked down at my feet on the dusty train floor; even here there was a thin film of sand as well as soot. I did not want to be in this hotbox going to Jefferson with Aunt Irene. I wanted to be walking on the beach, to bend down to the tiny, living holes bubbling at my feet, and scoop up a handful of wet sea sand and feel the little donax shells and smell their fresh sea odor. I wanted to walk on the beach and let the wind blow Aunt Irene’s words out to sea.
“Don’t you think a wife has a right to know?” she persisted.
I answered flatly, “I don’t know, Aunt Irene. Perhaps I haven’t been a wife long enough.”
“Maybe if Hoadley and I had had children—though that didn’t help poor Kitty. Terry wasn’t—of course I love Terry, but he wasn’t my very own baby, he was Kitty’s, and then Mado’s and Honoria’s, more than ever he was mine. I hope you’ll have children of your own, honey.”
I tried to keep my smile of hope to myself. “I hope so, too.”
“Granddam Zenumin has herbs—if I’d known about them I might—”
“I don’t want Granddam Zenumin’s herbs, thank you.”
Aunt Irene laughed her social whinny. “Don’t be silly, honey. She didn’t really scare you yesterday, did she?”
“Perhaps she did.”
“It was only because you were so standoffish with her. She’s very touchy. If you butter her up she’ll do all kinds of things for you. She—” Aunt Irene flushed, then, “I used to half die at my time of the moon. She gave me a tea to drink that makes all the difference. When I feel it coming, Belle gives me a little packet of the tea to brew, enough for a couple of days, and it keeps me from all doubling up with pain. I wonder if Ronnie could do half as well? I doubt it. And Honoria, with all her teas and possets—”
“Did you ask Honoria for help?”
“Haven’t you seen Honoria doesn’t want me? All she does is run to God. Honoria’s still half savage. It’s not civilized to try to use God for a fortune teller and medicine man. It’s not Christian. God helps those who help themselves. That’s what I believe.”
“But you ask Granddam Zenumin for help.”
“It’s not the same thing. I’m not going to argue with you, honey. We’re almost in Jefferson.”
The train was moving more slowly now. We were chugging through scrubby pines; hither and thither in little clearings were unpainted cabins up on legs, with chickens and babies playing around, very much like the Zenumin cabins. The sunlight struck through open doors, and I could see that the walls were papered with pictures from newspapers. Some of these were hanging loosely where the paste had not stuck, and gave a further air of untidiness and poverty. Gradually the cabins became closer and closer together, and then they were joined one onto another, a ramshackle row, with one long porch sagging across the front. Then we began to pass what looked like warehouses, and beyond these I caught glimpses of the river, and ships. The heat bore down. It seemed trapped in the confines of the train like a live and sluggish beast.
The train lurched to a stop.
Aunt Irene rose, and I lifted down our two large empty marketing baskets from the rack.
“When we take the afternoon train back,” Aunt Irene said, “we’ll have to put them on the floor. They’ll be much too heavy to lift up,” She smiled and nodded at some of the other passengers, introducing me, but pushing me along without pausing to chat.
Under a long shed a number of carriages waited in the shade, but the horses’ heads were dropping with heat, their flanks glistening with sweat and flies. One of the coachmen came forward to greet us, took the baskets, and helped us into the carriage. “Let’s not be cross with each other, honey,” Aunt Irene said as the carriage started along the cypress block street.
“I’m not cross, Aunt Irene. It’s just that everything is so strange and different to me, and I think going back into the scrub and seeing the Granddam was one difference too many.”
She reached out and patted my hand. “I should have thought of that. We shouldn’t try to make you do too much too soon. All I want is to help you, to make things easier for you. I was just as much out of things as you are when I married Hoadley, no, more, because I was looked down on because my father came from Illinois and made a fortune salting meat. My mother was as much a Southerner as any Renier. They forget that, that my mother was a Paget. I married Hoadley, and instead of putting me on the inside, all that happened was that people said he’d married me for my money. If money was what he was looking for there were others. I was beautiful, and popular with young men. I could have had my pick.”
“I’m sure you could.” I did not add, “And you’re still beautiful,” though I knew that this would have pleased her.
Then all words froze in my throat.
We were clopping placidly along a wide street, warehouses and various places of business, mostly connected with shipping, to our right, docks and the river to our left. I could see the high masts of ships. Sailors were busily running about the deck of one of the schooners, calling, pulling ropes; sails were being unfurled; all was in preparation for a voyage. Just past this ship another had just docked, and Negroes were unloading bales. There was hurry and activity and I, wilting in my light dress, wondered how men could work in this weather without getting sunstroke, and stopped wondering anything because I saw Tron and Belle.
They were in the shadow of a warehouse, and the darkness of their skins helped further to obscure them. In their arms they carried what looked like bundles of laundry, but it was black laundry, and I was positive, with one of those flashes of absolute certainty which one occasionally has, that the bundles were black, hooded robes.
Tron and Belle disappeared around the corner of a warehouse.
“Aunt Irene,” I asked, “the Riders—who are they?”
“Like I was telling you, honey, they’re the men who’re trying to carry on what the Klan did for us right after the war. Carpetbaggers ran our towns, hungry people became looters, our own men were powerless by day, so by night they had to get some order back into life. Even this long after the war there are a lot of greedy, lawless people loose. And of course all the niggers who used to be slaves—it just isn’t safe for a woman out on the streets any more. So we look to the Riders to protect us, and bring decency back to our land.”
“Are there any Negroes among the Riders?”
Aunt Irene looked horrified. “Good Lord, no! What an idea! The Riders exist to protect us against the nigg—wherever did you get such an idea?”
“I don’t know. Remember, I’d never even seen a Negro before I came to Illyria.” I had learned enough, however, not to mention the Black Riders.
We pulled up in front of a great, open market, and Aunt Irene was diverted. “We’ll just do our shopping, honey, and then we’ll have lunch with Cousin Sarah and the girls—her sisters—they live right on the corner by St. James, and I do want you to see the church. They’re expecting us for lunch, and though they aren’t very exciting, they’re kin, and they’d be hurt if we didn’t come. They’ve lived there forever; they’ve never married, and likely never will, though they’re only about my age. Renier women are too choosy for their own good. Then after lunch we’ll drive around Jefferson a spell till time for our train.”
It was a long, unbearable hot day.
>
I tagged along after Aunt Irene while she dickered and bickered over vegetables and chickens and cuts of smoked ham. Sweat trickled down the backs of my legs, caught in every crease of my body. Now I had no trouble in believing that it was ten degrees hotter in Jefferson than in Illyria. No wonder Dr. Theron was kept busy with malarias and yellow fevers and typhoids, and who knows what else might not be brought on by the unrelenting sun. In Oxford we used to look forward to the days when the sun shone and the chill damp lifted briefly from the stones. In Jefferson, as Illyria, the sun did not dry but made everything steam; we moved through a tangible miasma. “Of course,” Aunt Irene said, “it’s cooler in Jefferson than lots of places because we get the river breeze. You should feel the difference just a mile or so inland.”
I did not like Cousin Sarah Renier and her three unmarried sisters, though they were welcoming and hospitable. They lived in an enormous dark house, dark not for shadow and cool and conserving the night breezes, as in Illyria, but dark because of the moss-smothered live oak trees pressing about it, dark because it was pretentious, dark because the four women who lived in it were acid and bitter. They did not have a kind word to say for anybody, though they veiled their barbs with good manners. “Eben’s going to turn on dear Cousin Lucille if she keeps on overworking him the way she does. And she’s not always kind. I don’t know where Cousin Lucille gets her coarseness; perhaps it’s all the years she and Cousin William lived abroad. We were brought up never to refer to the Negroes as niggers. Of course they call themselves niggers, but a well-bred white person would never dream of doing such a thing. I would never say anything but nigra. How you managing to keep your servants while you’re at Illyria, Irene? I suppose you have to pay them something? It’s highway robbery, the way they expect to be paid nowadays, and tote half the larder home with them every night, too. If they keep on getting uppity this way it’s going to lead to violence, mark my words …”
They chittered on and on. I could not tell one from another. Their dresses were elegant, but it was an elegance of a generation earlier; the cloth was shiny and threadbare. They were thin and angular and looked as though they did not get enough to eat; perhaps they didn’t; the lunch they served was skimpy. It didn’t matter. I was too hot to eat. I was glad to leave.
The Other Side of the Sun Page 25