And she wanted nothing more to do with him.
He looked around at this place he knew so well, remembering the girl he had known, had loved, for months—how could he have been so wrong. How had he spent so much time with her, loved her so completely, and yet never known her at all. He had been her friend, had allowed her closer to him than he had allowed anyone since his parents had died—and now she thought she was too good for him, so much better than he was. She was afraid that people might talk, afraid that he felt things for her that she could never feel—when she could never know how he had felt, how he had loved her. Last night she had let him kiss her, had let him hold her in his arms, had let him believe—
But today she wanted nothing more to do with him. Today she felt sorry for him. And lacked even the courage to tell him so herself. She was no lady. She was nothing at all.
There was no reason to stay here now. No reason. He did not want to see her, could never see her, look at her, knowing what it was she felt. Knowing—
Suddenly he found himself longing for the red hills of Alabama as he had not for many months, longing to see his grandparents again, longing to see the small white house where he had grown up, and to visit his parents’ graves where they rested now side-by-side in the little Holiness cemetery in Eason County. But he could not go home. Not yet. He had sworn never to go back; never—not until he had the money to buy back his land, the money to buy back his parents’ dream, and his own. Something so small would mean nothing to someone like Elise Whitley—but it was all he had left now.
He got to his feet and took one last look around at the tall pines, the red earth, the blue Southern sky—so like home, and yet—
But he could never stay here. Never, not knowing now how it was she really felt. He would go some other place, somewhere where he could earn the money it would take to buy his land back. He had a strong back, two strong hands; he knew how to farm, how to run a whiskey still, and the tricks of hauling corn liquor—he would find work. It might never pay as well as running corn liquor for Whitley had, but he would at least be where he could be a man again. And he would never have to see Elise Whitley for the remainder of his life.
He cut through the woods, toward the fields thick with rows of green cotton plants, and the red clay road beyond. As he broke free of the trees he stopped for a moment to stare back at the tall, imposing structure of the Whitley house where it sat on its slight rise of ground, its wide verandas, white columns, and broad steps shining in the sunlight—rich people deserved each other, he told himself; may they all burn in hell together.
He walked across the yard to the road, going toward the barn and his small room. He tried to comfort himself with the thought of the money he would be taking with him—but it no longer seemed to matter so much. There were no dreams left inside of him for it to buy. There was nothing left, nothing but anger, nothing but a sense of betrayal, nothing but humiliation. Something within him had died that morning, and even the dream he had held for so long, had worked for, sweated for, seen his parents die for, seemed to matter little now. There seemed no reason for dreams now.
There seemed no reason for anything.
The short trip from Goodwin seemed to Elise to take forever that afternoon. She sat in the rear of the big Studebaker, staring out through the side window glass, eager for the sight of home. It had been a wasted morning, spent in town with her mother, Titus, and her brother Stan. She had not wanted to go in the first place, for there were too many other more important matters on her mind to allow her to enjoy shopping, or even trying on the latest styles—but her father had insisted. There was an important package coming in for him on the 11:40 train from Atlanta, and he wanted it picked up immediately. They could go in early, spend the morning in town, do some shopping, and have dinner at the drugstore before returning home. Elise had known that it was little like her father to insist that she and her mother go shopping, for he was usually much too tight with his money to do that—but he had said the package was important; and, besides, she had told herself, he was just trying to buy his way back into her good graces, considering what she had seen the day before, and what she had learned.
But now she was worried.
The train had come and gone. There had been no package on the 11:40 from Atlanta—and her father did not make mistakes like that.
She sat on the edge of the seat, willing Titus to drive faster. The morning was wasted, the boxes of new dresses and shoes and underthings too little payment for the time she had lost. She might have been able to see Janson already this morning if she had not gone into town, might even have been able to spend the day with him—but it was not too late now. As soon as she reached home and got her new things up to her room, she would go find him—and she would say at last the words he had stopped her from speaking the night before. She would tell him that she loved him.
Nervous butterflies were flitting about in her stomach—what would he say when she told him? What if he laughed at her—he was little more than three years her senior in age, but he seemed so much older, seemed to know so much more about life and the world and—could he really love her? She was months past her sixteenth birthday now, but, until last night, he had never before really treated her as if she were a woman, had never tried to kiss her or—but he had to know she was no child. The memory of his arms around her, the way he had kissed her, the way his body had felt against hers, had told her that he knew she was a woman. That he—
But had she been too forward? He could be so damnably old fashioned about so many things—could she have ruined everything by being too pushy, by having been the one to have done the luring out into the darkness behind Town Hall, by having been too easy to let him kiss and hold her. Her mother had always said that men really cared little for bold, flirtatious women, except for what they could get from them—for once in all her life, should she have listened to her mother? The modern thing to do nowadays was to be audacious and bold, flirtatious and daring, like Clara Bow and Zelda Fitzgerald and so many others. Women drank now days, even though liquor was illegal; they smoked and went to speakeasies and got arrested just as men did. They wore one-piece bathing suits, even if it did mean the police would get them. They wore rouge and face powder and lipstick; they danced to jazz music and wore short dresses; they bobbed their hair and drove cars and had a good time—but, damn it, Janson often seemed as if he were from another time. He probably did not even think women should have the vote, as they had since 1920, seven years before. Did he now think she was easy, just because she had let him hold her and kiss her—several times. Men never married girls who they thought were easy; her mother had said that as well. Had she managed to lose him even before she had him, by being too bold—damn it, why did he have to be so unlike anyone she had ever known, so impossible to figure out, or understand.
She had kissed plenty of boys before, a fact she would never let her mother know, or Janson—but no one else had ever made her feel as Janson had when he had kissed her. She had felt it through to her soul—that told her he did feel something for her, that he did love her, just as she had always known that he did—but had she been too forward? He had done the kissing, but she had made it obvious that she wanted to be kissed—what was he thinking this morning? Could he really love her as much as she loved him—if so, she could be married in a few months time. Mrs. Janson Sanders—oh, it would all be so wonderful. If only—
At least she would know soon. Nothing could be worse than not knowing, she told herself—but she could be so wrong; she knew that it would be so much worse if she knew that he did not love her. So much worse—but she could not think about that. She would never have the courage to tell him what she had to tell him if she did.
She sat on the edge of the seat, her hands twisting in her lap—almost home. Almost to Janson. The nervous butterflies flitted about in her stomach. Soon she would know. For better or worse, at least she would know.
&nb
sp; There was only silence to greet Elise as she entered the tiny room off the barn half an hour later. There had been no answer to her knock at the splintery door, nothing but the overwhelming, lonely silence as a response, drawing her into the room as no greeting ever could.
The aged door hinges screeched in protest as she swung the door inward, and she stood for a moment, looking around, seeing the room clearly for the first time, as she had not those months ago when she had run here on the night her brother, Alfred, had died. Light filtering in through the small, single window, the open door behind her, and the spaces in the ill-fitting walls, threw the room’s sparse furnishings into a canvas of light and shadows—such a small, shabby little room; with its rough, unpainted walls; its tin roof showing rust stains where it leaked in places; its bare dirt floor; its cheap furnishings; was where Janson lived. As her eyes moved about the room, her heart went out to him in pity—how horrible it must be to live in one small, dark little room such as this. How cold it must be in winter, with the wind whistling in through the spaces between the rough boards in the walls, the black stove so far inadequate to heat even the small space on bitter winter nights.
Her heart suddenly ached for him, for all the things he must have had to live without all his life. She had so much, and he so little—it was so unfair. No one should have to live like this. No one should have to do without the things that made life pleasant, or even bearable. For the first time in her life, Elise Whitley had a slight vision of what it was to live without—and she did not like it. No one should have to live this way. No one. Especially not the man she loved.
Her eyes moved about the room, and a sudden, inexplicable chill moved up her spine. There was a feeling of something more than loneliness, something more than poverty, here. There was nothing lying about to tell anything of the man who lived here, no family photographs or Bible, nor even cast-off clothing waiting to be washed in the tin wash tub in the corner; nothing lying about to even show the room had an occupant. It had an air of emptiness instead. Of near desertion.
Suddenly her heart leapt within her—she knew, even before she crossed the narrow room and yanked open the drawers of the chifforobe. He was gone.
Her mind screamed out in protest—it could not be! He would not have left her, not after last night. He would not have—but the chifforobe was empty. There was nothing of his left here. Nothing. She turned and looked about the room, willing it to not be true—but it was true. Everything was gone. Janson was gone.
Her eyes fell on a small book lying in the center of the sagging cot. She moved to pick it up, and then sank down to sit on the straw tick, her knees going weak beneath her. The book—it spoke more clearly than any words ever could. He was gone. And he was never coming back.
She stared at the slender volume, the familiar binding, seeing it, and yet not seeing it. It told her clearly what he thought of her, as he himself had not been able to—Mrs. Browning’s Sonnets From the Portuguese, the book Elise had given him, the book he had kept even when he had felt she had deliberately insulted him, now lay in her hands. He had left it. He had left the one thing she had ever given him. And he had left her.
She wanted to cry, but the tears would not come, the hurt too deep, too new—he’s gone, some part of her mind kept repeating the words to her, over and over again, as if she did not know them already. He’s gone, and he’s never coming back.
She stared at the book in her hands, unable to grasp anything beyond that one thought—for beyond that thought was emptiness and pain. Beyond that thought was tomorrow, and next week, and next year, in a life she now knew she would have to live without Janson.
She stayed there in his room for a long time, unable to make herself leave, for to leave would be to somehow accept that he was gone, that he was never coming back. At last she left the small room and made her way across the cotton fields, toward the woods, and the road that led across her father’s land. There she stopped, staring down the red clay expanse to where it twisted between the pines—she knew she would never be able to find him, not even if she followed the road all the way to Goodwin, and even beyond. There was nothing she could do. Nothing. She had caused this; she knew she had. She had caused this—and she would never see him again.
The tears came at last, moving down her cheeks as she tried to wipe them away. She moved from the sunshine and to the shade at the side of the road, stopping to lean against the rough bark of a pine tree there, losing herself to the ache inside. The quiet in the shadow of the woods was almost overwhelming, only increasing the loneliness—so this was alone. She had been alone before Janson had come, but this was somehow different, this awful emptiness inside.
There was a sound in the distance, a car coming along the road, and she turned away, wiping at her tears, not wanting anyone to see her like this. After a moment she turned back, watching as the car moved past her and down the road, watching as it slowed just before leaving her sight to avoid a man walking along the roadside from the direction of Mattie Ruth and Titus Coates’ house, coming in her direction—Janson.
For a moment she could only stare, not believing—Janson, not gone from here forever, at least not yet. He walked alongside the clay roadbed, his shoes slung over one shoulder, a leather-sided portmanteau in one hand. He was still here, and there was still time—
Suddenly movement came to her. She burst from the shade and cover of the trees and ran toward him—there was still time, and there was still a chance. She could make him stay; she could—
He stopped where he was, surprise, confusion, hurt, and anger all passing across his features in an instant. Her running steps slowed, and she stopped a few feet short of him, looking at him—what could she say? She had pushed herself at him and had caused this—what else could it have been? Oh, what a fool she had been last night! He had accused her before of not acting like a lady, when she had done nothing more at the time than flirt with him—she had been so stupid! So very stupid!
“You want somethin’?” he asked a last, staring at her. His words were short, angry, and for a moment she could do nothing but look at him, trying to think of something to say.
“You’re leaving?” she asked, surprised that her voice sounded so calm, so natural, betraying nothing of what was going on inside of her.
“Yeah, I’m leavin’.”
“Why? I mean, I—”
“Why!” The word exploded at her, filled with more anger than she had ever seen in him before. “Hell, I don’t think I have t’ explain anythin’ t’ you—”
She stared at him, feeling almost as if she had been slapped—nothing she had done could have deserved such anger, such fury as she saw now in his eyes. Nothing—
“I’ll say one thing for you, you’ve got even more nerve ’n I ever gave you credit for, comin’ here now—you couldn’t let things go like they was, could you? No, you had t’ go an’ rub my nose in it again—”
“I never—”
But he would not let her speak, silencing her words with a quick movement of his hand. He took a step toward her, causing her to shrink away. “You know, I feel sorry for J.C. Cooper; he deserves better ’n you; anybody’d deserve better ’n you. You ain’t nothin’ but a spoil’t, selfish, stuck-up brat of a girl—you ain’t no lady, an’ you ain’t never gonna be no lady.”
For a moment she could only stare at him, shocked beyond speech, beyond any defense of herself. She opened her mouth to speak—but the look in his eyes silenced her. Dear God, all this from her little flirting, from the few kisses they had shared, from—
“I wish you luck marryin’ J.C., ’cause you’re gonna need it. You’re too much of a spoil’t brat t’ be marryin’ anybody—you with your fancy ways an’ fine learnin’. You didn’t even have courage enough t’ tell me t’ my face that you think I ain’t good enough for you, did you; you had t’ send your pa t’ do it for you—”
Your pa to—Elise stared fo
r a moment, feeling as if all the breath had been taken from her body. Her father had—
“Janson, I—”
But he would not listen to her, turning away, seeming intent to leave her standing there at the side of the clay road. She took hold of his shirt sleeve, moving directly into his path, determined that he would have to listen to her.
“Janson, please, you’ve got to—”
“I ain’t got t’ do nothin’,” he said, interrupting her words, looking at her with something very near to hatred in his eyes. “You Whitleys think you’re all s’ high an’ mighty, but you ain’t no better ’n nobody else—you know your pa even said he’d see you dead before he’d see you with th’ likes of me. That ain’t no kind ’a man, threatenin’ his own flesh an’ blood over—”
“My father said—”
“Yeah, an’ that he’d kill me too before he’d see us t’gether.”
For a moment she could only stare up at him, certain in that moment that—
“That’s why you were leaving, because you were afraid my father would—”
“I ain’t afraid ’a your pa or nobody else. I’m leavin’ ’cause I don’t want nothin’ more t’ do with you, with any ’a you, for th’ rest ’a my life.”
His words hit her almost like a physical blow. “You don’t mean that.”
“Yeah, I mean it.” This time he did not turn away. He stared at her as if to make certain that she understood, and this time it was Elise who turned away. “You can go burn in hell for all I care; that’s where th’ lot ’a you are goin’ anyway,” but she could not listen to him. She felt the tears well up in her eyes and spill over, and she tried to wipe them away, refusing to allow him to see what his words had done to her. “You go on an’ marry your fancy J.C. now,” he said from behind her. “That’s all you intended t’ do in th’ first place, no matter how much you played up t’ me. He’s got money an’ a car an’ all th’ fancy things that are what’s important t’ you—”
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