by Ruth White
Twenty
Wednesday, June 19th, 1929
“Louise needs you upstairs,” Ellie says to me mid-morning. “It’s linen day. We have to change all the sheets.”
On the second floor Louise tells me she has stripped the beds, and now she needs me to go up to the third floor with Marie to put on the clean sheets.
“I’ll take Roman’s and you take Brody’s,” Marie says when we reach the third floor. She points to a door. “That one.”
So this is Brody’s room. It’s very large, clean and sparsely decorated. His bed is brass and at the moment stripped of all linens down to the feather tick. There is a cream sofa in one corner, a burgundy easy chair in another, a radio in a mahogany cabinet, a chest of drawers, a desk, a dresser, and a night stand. There is not one picture of Angel, nor of anybody else.
There is a stack of textbooks on his desk. I glance through them. Law. Literature. Sociology. More literature. I go to the window and look out. He has a clear view of the back of the slave quarters. One, two, three, there is my window.
I spread the clean bottom sheet across Brody’s bed. I lovingly smooth out the wrinkles and tuck in the edges until it is taut. I spread the top sheet and encase the pillows. No yellow ducks on these pillow cases. They are elegantly monogrammed BLM.
I could go through his closet and all his drawers. I could see what he squirrels away, what he treasures and hides from the world. But I won’t do that. Not I.
Maybe just his nightstand drawer? What does he keep by his bedside to look at before he goes to sleep? A Bible? No. A picture of a naked woman? A picture of Angel? Or a letter from her? I would have to be very quick, because Marie could walk in at any moment.
I glance at the door, then furtively open the drawer beside Brody’s bed. Cream-colored stationery with the BLM embossment. A fountain pen. A pair of nail clippers. A tin of aspirin. A pack of gum. A book – The Bridge of San Luis Rey. I pick it up. Thornton Wilder. He has almost finished it. His place is marked with a pocket calendar. June, 1929. University of Virginia. A date is checked, then another one. One, two, three, four, five, check. One, two, three, four, five, check – my days off? Yes! He has checked my days off!
Carefully, I place the calendar back inside the book on the right page. Then I replace the book, and continue making the bed. My cheeks feel like they will burst into flame. I have to look again. I have to make sure. I pull the drawer open and take out the calendar. Yes, I am sure of it. He has checked my days off for the month of June. I put it all back and close the drawer.
I spread out the coverlet on top of the clean sheets, and smooth it into place. What a beauty. Burgundy and cream – so tasteful, so Myles. I take another look around the room and leave, feeling strangely buoyant, as if I might levitate at any moment.
Sunday, June 23rd, 1929
I am awakened deep in the night by muffled voices. I lift my head to listen. Dixie stirs. The noise is coming from number two – Tootsie’s room. It sounds like an argument. A man’s raised voice, then a woman’s. I can’t hear the words. Her secret lover must be in her room. God, Tootsie, this is not a good idea. Then all is quiet.
For the first time I find myself curious about Tootsie’s beau. Would he be somebody here on the premises? Chris? But why would they keep it a secret? Not Jeff or Brett. They are too old. And Zack is married to Louise. It must be somebody from outside. I am almost asleep again when a thought jolts me awake.
“No, Dixie,” I whisper. “No, it couldn’t be Brody. He’s in Richmond. Roman? Maybe. But not Brody.”
Monday, June 24th, 1929
It’s my day off, and I get up at eight and go to breakfast. As I am about to enter the servants’ hall, I overhear voices again, this time from the rose garden which is right around the corner. I stop and listen. I hear Mrs. Myles…then…is it Brody? Yes! I know it’s Brody. He has come back four days early.
His mother is saying, “So did you have a row with Angel or what?”
“No, Mother,” he answers. “I just wanted to get back. I have things to do.”
“What do you have to do that’s more important than Angel?”
Brody doesn’t answer.
“You came in like a thief in the night,” she goes on. “It frightened me.”
He arrived in the night? No! It was not Brody in Tootsie’s room.
“I’m sorry, Mother,” he says. “I’ll call next time.”
“I just don’t understand you at all,” she complains. “Sometimes I think you don’t really want to marry that lovely girl.”
Her words hang in the air like a bad odor.
“Did you look for an engagement ring in Richmond?” she inquires. “They have some ritzy jewelry stores.”
An engagement ring? This has never crossed my mind. Why doesn’t Angel have a big fat diamond on her finger to flash around?
He still says nothing.
“Well? Answer me!” Mrs. Myles demands.
“No, Mother. I did not go shopping in Richmond,” he says.
“Well, I want to know when you are going to give Angel an engagement ring.”
“When you stop pestering me about it!” he cries.
At this point I know he is in a dither, and I’m afraid he will come stomping around the corner, so I hurry into the servants’ hall. Once I have served myself breakfast and settled down to the table I find I can’t eat at all. And I can’t concentrate on what others around me are saying. Finally, I collect my pay, and leave. Outside, I don’t see or hear Brody. I hurry back to my room.
I slip into the blue kneeduster that Dad told me never to wear again. It’s the most daring of my three dresses. I study my image in the mirror. When I last wore this dress a year ago, I didn’t have the benefit of a full mirror, but I do believe I fill it out better than I did then. He will like me in this dress even more than Eddie Johns did.
I slide my feet into the white high heels. Then I brush my hair until it crackles, and clip a blue barrette onto one side. I pinch my cheeks and bite my lips to make them pink. I tuck some money into a small pocket in my dress and step outside.
He is not here yet, but Dixie is. I pet her for a few minutes, then start walking very slowly toward the stables. Dixie trots along beside me. In a few minutes I hear Brody behind us.
“Good morning! Where you headed?”
“Oh!” I exclaim, as if I’m surprised to see him. “I thought you were in Richmond.”
“Came back last night.”
As he approaches me, his eyes quickly take me in from head to toe. Yes, he does like me in this dress. As for his appearance, he looks like an illustration for a magazine article on the most stylish young men of the season. He is wearing a slate blue summer suit and a blue shirt with his tie casually loosened below an open collar. On his head sits a smart skimmer with a blue band.
He bends over to pet Dixie. Then he stands and smiles down at me. His eyes are gentle, and give no hint of the quarrel he just had with his mother. He has recently shaved, and there is one tiny nick on his chin. Otherwise his face is so smooth and brown and tight, I want to run my hand over it. His hair is damp and clings to his forehead.
I say, “I’m on my way to ask Chris to take me into town. I understand the rules have changed. Did you have anything to do with that?”
“I did. I told Mother that when our employees have to walk into town, it makes us look cheap. Mother does not like to look cheap.”
We walk together.
“I’m going to the univeristy to see one of my professors,” he says. “Can I drop you off in town?”
“Sure, if it’s not out of your way.”
“Not a bit.”
“Then I’ll ask Chris to pick me up at five,” I say.
“No, don’t do that. I’ll pick you up.”
We don’t look at each other during this exchange.
“Going shopping again?” he asks.
“Yes, I’m in the market for a pair of jodhpurs.” I say this even though I don’t expect I
will actually buy jodhpurs, unless I can find a pair for less than three dollars. “I’m going to take riding lessons.”
“Oh? Who’s teaching you?”
“Chris.”
He stops and looks down at me again. “Chris! I could teach you. I didn’t know you wanted to learn.”
“I didn’t plan to, but, well, Chris volunteered.”
“Of course he did,” Brody mutters.
We reach the automobile port, and I wait while he backs the LaSalle out. I tell Dixie to go home and wait for me. She stands there cocking her head from side to side. I promise her that I will take her for a walk when I return. At that moment Chris comes out of the stable and throws up a hand to me.
“Hello,” I say. “Will you hold on to Dixie until I’m gone? I don’t want her following us.”
“Sure thing,” Chris says, and calls Dixie. She goes to him obediently.
I climb into the car with Brody. I wave to Chris and Dixie as we drive away. I can feel both of them watching us as we leave.
As we move onto the open road, Brody asks, “Have you read Gatsby?”
“Yes, I have.”
“And what do you think of it?”
“I think I don’t like Daisy Buchanan.”
He laughs. “Nobody likes Daisy Buchanan.”
The last thing I want right now is to be dropped off in town. I would so much rather stay with Brody.
As if reading my mind, he says, “Have you ever seen the University of Virginia?”
“No, never have.”
“What about Monticello? You know, the home of Thomas Jefferson?”
“I know what Monticello is,” I say.
“Sorry. Of course you do. Have you seen it?”
“No.”
“Would you like to?”
“Yes.”
“And the university too?”
“Yes, I would love to see them both.”
“Well, can those jodhpurs wait?”
“I suppose so.”
“Good!” he says, and gives me a big grin. “Let’s go!”
As we drive past the picture show, we check the marquee to see what’s playing. It’s Ladies of the Mob starring Clara Bow.
“Have you seen that one?” Brody asks.
“No, have you?”
“No. Do you like the It girl?”
“I haven’t seen her yet.” I won’t tell him that I’ve seen only three picture shows in my life.
He looks at his watch. “We may get back in time to catch it.”
Yes!
Then we have a lively debate on The Great Gatsby.
“I’m impressed,” he says, when I score a point.
“What! You didn’t think this girl from nowhere could do critical analysis?”
“Not with such insight,” he admits. “Wanna read The Bridge of San Luis Rey next?”
“Sure. Thornton Wilder, right?”
“Yes. I finished it off when I got home last night. I’ll be curious to see what you think of it.”
Playing tour guide for me at Monticello, Brody is as excited as a boy, pointing out Jefferson’s clever inventions and giving me the history of this and that. He often touches my arm as he makes a point, or he places a hand on my back to guide me from one spot to another.
Afterwards we go to the university and I have my first glimpse of the much celebrated Rotunda. To me everything is breathtakingly beautiful. My experience with places like this has been only through pictures and descriptions in books. I can see how much Brody loves the academic environment, the history, the tradition.
“Let’s sit here for a moment,” he says when we come to a low wall on The Lawn. “And just look at it.”
As we sit and “just look at it”, he gives me tidbits of information about famous people who have attended the school – Edgar Allan Poe, Walter Reed, Woodrow Wilson. He tells me about his favorite professors, his least favorite professors, his friends. He talks a little about his courses of study, the classes he has loved and the classes he has hated.
Then out of the blue he says, “I finally told Mother and Father.”
“Told them what?”
“That I am going to study to become a literature professor instead of finishing law school.”
I won’t tell him that his tiff with his mother is the talk of the slave quarters. Instead I say, “Good for you, Brody. How did they take it?”
“Father is indifferent because he thinks I won’t last. He says I will hate having to get up every morning to be somewhere, and sticking to a routine, and doing what the average man has to do all his life.”
“What about your mother?”
“She said she simply will not stand for it.”
“And how did you respond to that?”
“I repeated what a very wise person said to me once.”
“And what was that?”
“This is my life. I’m the one who has to live it.”
“What a remarkable thing to say.”
We smile at each other.
I am curious about how Angel will feel about being married to a professor, but Brody has not brought up her name, so neither will I.
As we walk around the campus, I see a group of young women with books in their arms. I ask Brody if they are students.
“Yes, I think so.”
“I was under the impression this club is for boys only,” I say.
“There’s a summer program for girls. It’s for training teachers.”
I linger to watch them. I am envious. Brody suggests we drive back to town, and I remind him that he came to see one of his professors.
“It can wait,” he says.
We find we have missed the matinee of Ladies of the Mob, but there’s another showing at five. I am disappointed because I think Brody will be on his way before five. But I am wrong.
“We didn’t have lunch,” he says. “I know a good place where we can get a late lunch or an early dinner, whatever you want to call it. Hungry?”
I nod happily. He takes me to a private country club. It’s very fancy, and at the moment almost empty of diners. The staff greets us cordially, and they address Brody as Mr. Myles. We are given a small square table in front of a window overlooking a golf course. At first we sit across from each other, but Brody soon moves over to sit caddy-corner from me.
I ask him to pick something from the menu for me, and he orders filet mignon for us both. We sip tea as we wait, and we talk about anything and everything. In fact, the words spill out of us as if they have been waiting forever to be spoken.
“You really love dogs, don’t you?” Brody says.
“I like all dogs, but I love Dixie.”
“You mean Trixie,” he says.
“No, I mean Dixie,” I say, and I tell him the story of my Dixie.
“You were a little girl all alone in a cold, dark barn in the middle of the night?”
“Dixie was with me,” I say, “at least for a while. Then I felt her spirit slip out of her. One minute she was there, a warm living little being, the next minute she was gone, and I was holding an empty thing.”
“And what happened to that spirit?” he asks.
“Nobody knows.”
“Do you have a theory?” he goes on.
“I have a lot of theories, none of which come from theology.”
Brody looks out the window, and in his brown eyes I can see a reflection of the sky. “Me too. Someday I’ll tell you about my grandfather who owned Dixie. We were very close.”
“Why not now?” I probe.
“It’s too sad,” he says, “so…maybe…I don’t know…well, okay, I’ll make it brief. One night I had this very emotional dream that Grandfather was wrongfully imprisoned. He was desperate to escape, and I was trying to help him, but we were not successful. I woke up in a panic.
“Not long after that, Grandfather was devastated by a stroke that took everything away from him, except his mind. He couldn’t walk or talk or even move normally. He became a p
risoner inside his own body. At night, when I sat with him, his windows rattled, and I knew it was his spirit trying to escape. Finally, I went to the window and flung it wide open. Then I held his hand and told him he was free to go. He looked at me with love in his eyes, and died shortly thereafter. The windows never rattled again.”
Silence falls between us for the first time today.
“I’ve never told anybody else the part about the windows rattling,” he finally speaks. “I felt kinda goofy talking about it – until now.” He glances at me sideways, and I can see that he is anxious to know my opinion. “You must think I have bats in my belfry.”
“Not at all,” I say. “Sometimes unexplainable things happen.”
I tell him about Jewel’s mystical Randal, Doris and Willa, and he listens intently to every word. Then our food arrives, and the afternoon slips away. I’m surprised when Brody tells me it’s almost five, and we don’t want to miss the next showing of Ladies of the Mob. He pays our food bill with his signature, and we leave to go to the picture show.
At first Brody and I chuckle a bit at the antics of Laurel and Hardy, who are starring in a short segment before the real show begins. Then we laugh out loud. After a while we can’t stop. During the main feature we find ourselves choking with smothered laughter even when the story is not funny. Brody slides low in his seat trying to be invisible, and in this position our upper arms fit snugly together.
The memory of Trula and Mack holding hands at the show in Skylark crosses my mind. I would love to have Brody clasp my hand inside his like that, but I know in my heart that we are playing charades, and holding hands would violate the rules of the game.
When the movie is over, we walk out into the street where I’m sad to see that darkness has come. The day is almost gone.
Twenty-One