“I’m not going to marry J.C.; I never intended to marry J.C.,” she said, though she would not turn to look at him. “That’s what my father wants, not me—and I never asked him to say anything to you.”
There was silence behind her—she wished he would just go if that was what he intended to do. Wished he would—
“You didn’t ask your pa t’ talk t’ me?”
“No, I didn’t,” she said quietly, but did not turn to look at him.
“You didn’t have him tell me t’ stay away from you?”
She turned to bring her eyes to him, surprised that he had said—
“My father said that I wanted you to stay away from me?”
He nodded, his eyes never leaving her own. “He said you were afraid I was feelin’ things for you that I shouldn’t be feelin’; that you were afraid people’d start t’ talk.”
“I never asked him to say anything like that; I never asked him to say anything to you at all.” For a moment she could only stare at him. “That’s why you were leaving, because you thought I wanted you to?”
“I couldn’t stay aroun’ here, knowin’ how you felt, how your pa said you felt.”
“That’s not how I feel.”
He stared at her for a long moment. “How do you feel?” he asked, and for a long time she could only look up at him.
“I thought you knew,” she said, but he only stared at her. “After last night—” Her words trailed off. How could she tell him? How could she, when every time she tried—“How do you feel, about me?”
For a long moment he only stared at her. Some part of her was afraid that he would not speak, that he would not say what she needed to hear him say—but then she realized he did not need to. He reached out to briefly touch her cheek, wiping away the tears still there, then he drew her into his arms—she knew she should feel happy. She knew she should—
But all she could remember were his words—her father would see them dead before they would ever be together. Her father would see them dead.
Phyllis Ann Bennett sat on the front veranda of her home, rocking slowly back and forth, staring out into the yard—it was over. The sheriff had come and gone, as had the men with their somber faces who had taken her father away, and the neighbors with their curiosity and condolences—it was over. There would be no more hurt, no more hate; it was over. And she would never have to be afraid again.
She smiled. “Just defending myself,” she said to the silence around her. Her father would have appreciated that; it was the same excuse he had given when he had killed Alfred Whitley. It had worked for him, and it had worked just as well for her. “Just defending myself—” Oh, yes, he would have appreciated that.
She rocked slowly back and forth, not yet willing to go back into the house, not wanting to face the pain and mourning and grief on her mother’s face. Her mother had loved him—that had come as a surprise; no matter what he had done to her, to them both, Paula Bennett had loved him. She now looked at her daughter with that same mixture of fear and dread she had always looked at him with—I wonder if she loves me, too? Phyllis Ann mused. I wonder if—
J.C. loved her. He had been one of the first to arrive last night, just as soon as he had been told. He had been so pathetic, fluttering about her with his sympathy and his inane condolences. His concern had been genuine, unlike that of the mass of others who had come to do nothing more than satisfy their morbid curiosity. She could act the grieving daughter before them, but not before J.C.. The sad sympathy in his eyes had made her nervous, and so she had sent him away—but he would be back. He would always be back. He loved her, just as her mother had loved her father. No matter how many times she might send him away, he would always be back—poor, pathetic little J.C.; he was her only hope now. She smiled at the irony of that—J.C. Cooper, who she had laughed at and tormented all his life, was all that she had left. And she had gone after him only to get back at Elise.
Elise—her hands clenched into fists in her lap. Elise had it all—a spotless reputation, her family’s name, respect in the community, her virgin whiteness—she had always had it all. She had never once in her life known trouble or pain. Never once—but she would.
Oh, how she would.
16
“What are we going to do?” Elise asked a short time later as they sat beneath a tree at the edge of the clearing, the same clearing he had come to those hours ago when he had thought her gone to him forever. That seemed a lifetime ago now.
She sat with her legs curled beneath her, her short skirt fanned out about her knees on the grassy slope—Janson sat only a short distance away, but he could not touch her. The feelings stood now between them like a stone wall. He had never loved anyone as he loved her, and he had never loved her more completely than he did in this moment—but what could he offer her? She had faced so much in the past two days, had seen so much of her protected, little-girl world shattered—it had been there in her eyes as he had led her away from the open roadway and into the shelter of the trees. She knew her father would never let them be together, and she knew something of what he might be capable of doing in order to keep them apart. Now she was afraid, afraid perhaps for the first time in her life; afraid for both of them, and afraid of losing what it was they had at last found.
“Janson, you know you can’t stay here, not after—” Her words trailed off and she sat staring at him for a time from that unbreachable, short distance away.
“I’m not gonna leave you.”
“That’s not what I meant. I thought—” She stared at him a moment longer, and then turned her eyes away, her cheeks coloring slightly—but Janson understood. He knew now that she would leave with him if he asked her to, but he could not ask her, at least not yet. He had nothing to give her to compare to the life she would give up to become his wife. He knew they could never be together here, for her father had made that more than clear with the lies he had told this day—William Whitley would kill him first, had threatened to kill them both, before he would allow a half-breed dirt farmer to pay court to, or marry, his daughter. Janson could not really believe Whitley would hurt his own daughter—but he could not know that for certain, and he knew, with the look in her eyes, that Elise likely feared for them both now.
He watched her for a moment, watched the light play in her red-gold hair, turning it to copper, watched the face that filled his dreams already—before he had known that she loved him, he had been prepared to leave, had wanted to go, but he could not do that now. He could never leave her behind, but he also could not ask her to go with him. There was nothing in the world he could give her, no home, no life, nothing that could make up for all that she would lose. He loved her, and he could not ask her to live the only kind of life he could give her now—a sharecropped house, a tenant shack, a rented house in a mill village; that was not the kind of life Elise Whitley should know, not the kind of life she should ever have, and it was not the kind of life he would take her to. He wanted to be with her, wanted to spend the remainder of his years as her husband, wanted to have a family with her, to live into old age at her side—but he had nothing he could give her, nothing that was worthy of someone such as Elise Whitley. He had nothing, nothing except—
“I ain’t never told you about my place back in Alabama, have I?” he asked, and her eyes came back to him. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to tell her about those red acres and that white house, about the rich cotton land, and the people who were all somehow a part of him. As he spoke, his eyes left her and settled on the pines at the edge of the clearing, and on something beyond. He told her of falling cotton prices and fire, and of the loss of the land; of his parents, and of what he had seen the night the cotton fields had burned.
“Walter Eason even had th’ nerve t’ come t’ my place not long before I left,” he said, his eyes coming back to her. “He offered me a job in th’ Mill, an’ a mill house t’ live in;
said he could use a ‘good, hardworkin’ boy’ like me—that’s when I knew I had t’ leave. I might not ’a been able t’ hold ont’ th’ land, or t’ everythin’ my folks had worked s’ hard for, but I wasn’t gonna let it be like they had never lived. My pa swore he’d never work in that Mill again, an’ he swore he’d never see me in it—I left, an’ I came here, an’ I been workin’ an’ savin’ ever since. I’m gonna go back there someday, an’ I’m gonna buy my land back an’ I’m gonna sell my cotton wherever I have t’ sell it t’ hold ont’ th’ land—”
He moved closer to her, kneeling before her now, taking both her hands in his and squeezing them almost without thought. “Elise, it’s th’ best cotton land in Alabama. It’s rich, an’ it’s red, an’ it’ll grow most anythin’ a man takes th’ time t’ plant in it. A man could make a good livin’ there; he could put a good roof over his wife’s head, raise a family, an’ send his children t’ a proper school where they could learn just as good as anybody. He could save some money, put it aside for his old age—Elise, we could be real happy there. I could get electricity brought t’ th’ house, an’ runnin’ water; you could fix it up just like you want. Elise—” But suddenly he realized what he was saying, what he was asking her. He was asking Elise Whitley, with her big, fine house and her fancy clothes and her motor cars and all the money in the world, to come and live with him in that little six-room house, to leave behind everything she had and live with him in a life such as she could never understand. He was asking Elise Whitley to—
She was smiling, tears coming to her eyes, tears she did not even try to blink away. “Are you asking me to marry you, Janson Sanders?”
For a moment Janson could only stare at her, realizing how clumsy his words had been, how awkward, how without thought. He looked down to where her hands rested in his, realizing for the first time how soft they were, how white, as they rested there in his calloused palms. He lifted his eyes back to hers. “I reckon’ I am,” he said, watching her face.
Her smile broadened even further. “Well?”
“Well—what?” he asked, unsure.
“Well, ask me.”
He released her hands, feeling more awkward in that moment than ever before in his life. He wished he had something fancy to say, something she could always remember, whether she agreed to marry him or not, but he could think of nothing. He sat back and looked at her for a moment, thinking how lovely she was, how very lovely, and how very unalike they were. “I love you. An’ I’ll always love you, no matter what you say t’ what I’m askin’ now—but there ain’t nothin’ I want more in this life than for you t’ be my wife. I cain’t give you no fancy place t’ live; I cain’t even give you that place back in Alabama yet, but I’m workin’ t’ make that real. I’d give you anythin’ in this world I had, anythin’; it won’t never be what you’re used t’; but we’ll be happy. We can have a family, an’ you can fix th’ house up anyway you want. I’ll get electricity for you, an’ runnin’ water—” He stared at her for a moment, knowing she was waiting. Then he took a deep breath, resting his world on the final words. “Elise Whitley, will you marry me?”
She was crying—but a woman ought not to be crying when a man had just asked her to marry him. Then she was in his arms, her breasts pressed to his chest, her arms about his neck, and she was kissing him, crying and saying something he was not sure if he understood. He held her at arms length away, looking at her, seeing the tear-filled eyes, not sure if he should believe—
“What’d you say?” he asked, demanded, staring at her.
“I said yes—” she said, nodding her head and crying still. “I said yes—yes, I’ll marry you—”
For a moment he could only stare at her, watching as she wiped the tears from her eyes—then she was in his arms and he held her, his cheek against the softness of her hair: she loved him. She loved him, and she would marry him. That was all that he needed.
After a time he moved to lean back against the tree, her head resting on his shoulder, and he marveled at how she seemed content to just be in his arms—a year or more would not really be so long, he told himself, a year or more until they could leave here, a year or more until he would have the money to buy his land back, a year or more before he could with good conscience make her his wife. He could offer her no kind of life until then, and he would take her to nothing less than the best he could offer. Until then they could be together, see each other, keep her father from finding out, plan and dream and save; he would work harder than he had ever worked in his life, put more money aside, moonshine and haul liquor and do whatever else he had to do to make their leaving a reality. He held her, thinking of all the years that lay ahead of them, of all the living they would have together. He was content, happy as he had not been in many years, simply enjoying the feel of her in his arms, the feel of her against his body—but that made a year or more seem like a very long time. “It won’t be that long—” he said, as much to himself as to her.
But she was saying something altogether different. “I wish there would be time to buy a new dress, a white one of course,” she said, smiling up at him, her cheeks coloring lightly. “I really wish Mama could be at the wedding, and Stan, but I know that—” then she seemed to note the look on his face as she looked up at him, and the expression in her blue eyes changed. “What’s wrong?”
“Elise, we’re not gonna be able t’ leave anytime soon.”
“But—”
“I thought you understood,” he said, watching as she sat up to look at him. “It’ll be at least a year, or even more, before I’ve got th’ money for us t’ be able t’ leave.”
“But, you can’t stay here for a year or longer. Daddy knows how we feel about each other; there’s no other reason he would have told you the things he told you today. He has no intention of—” She let her words trail off, but Janson understood.
“Of lettin’ you marry no half-Indian dirt farmer—”
“That’s not what I said.”
“But, that’s how he feels.”
“That’s not how I feel,” she said, staring at him. His heritage was a subject they had never discussed. “It doesn’t matter to me that—” but her words trailed off again.
“That I’m half Indian? That I’m only half white?” he asked, his eyes never leaving her. “That your children will be mixed blood?”
“I love you, and I want your children. That’s what matters.”
“But that’s not what matters t’ him—”
“And that’s why you can’t stay here—Janson, he said he’d kill you before he’d see us together. You can’t stay here, not for a year, not for any time. We have to leave now, today or tomorrow at the latest. We can be married and go to Alabama, and we can live there where he can’t—”
“Elise, we cain’t do that, at least not yet.”
“But, why not? Why—”
“I ain’t got th’ money yet. I’ve got a good bit saved, but it ain’t enough t’ buy my place back. I cain’t take you t’ no tenant house or no sharecropped land, that wouldn’t be no kind ’a life for—”
“But that doesn’t matter, not so long as we could be together.”
“No, Elise.”
“But—”
“No.” He reached to gently touch a finger to her lips, silencing her words before they could come. “It’ll only be ’til we can get th’ money t’ leave. We can see each other ’til then, slip aroun’ t’ keep your pa from finding out. I wouldn’t take no chance on lettin’ him hurt you, you know that—an’ it may not even take a year; I’ll be workin’ hard as I can, savin’ everythin’ I can, an’ we’ll leave as soon as it’s possible for us t’ go. We’ll be t’gether for th’ rest ’a our lives; a year or a little more ain’t gonna be s’ long t’ wait.”
She took his hand and drew it to her heart, holding it tightly. Her blue eyes were worried, frightened. “Daddy wo
uldn’t hurt me, I know that—but, Janson, he said he’ll kill you before he lets us be together. He’ll—” For a moment it seemed she could only stare at him, then she moved into his arms and he held her, feeling her press her cheek to the roughness of his workshirt where it covered his shoulder, a moment later feeling the warmth of her tears soak through the fabric there.
“Don’t worry,” he told her quietly, his lips against the softness of her hair. “Ain’t nothin’ gonna happen t’ either one ’a us. Ain’t nothin’—” But he could hear her father’s words, somewhere in his mind—I’d see her dead as well before I’d see her with the likes of you.
I’d see her dead—
Elise crossed the wide yard a few hours later that afternoon, going toward the front of the great house. Behind her, just out of sight at the edge of the woods, Janson stood watching—she knew he was there, knew that he would stay there until she left his sight, and long after. The knowledge of his presence made her feel only more secure, only more protected—not that she had any reason to fear, no matter what her father had said, for she knew that it was Janson, and not she herself, who was in danger. But his watching only confirmed his love, and it made her love him only more—Janson loved her; how she had longed to hear him say those words. But that love had only put him in danger. If her father were ever to find out—
But she could not let that happen. She would keep Janson safe, no matter the lies she had to tell. Her father had to believe, everyone had to believe, that anything they might have felt for each other had died forever this day. She could never let her feelings show, never her love or caring, for she knew it could cost Janson dearly. Her mind was still spinning from all she had learned in the past two days, all she now knew her father could be capable of—how could she have lived so blindly all her life to never have seen, to never have known, that her father could hurt someone so terribly if it suited his aims. It was still so hard to believe, to know that her father could hurt Janson, that he could even—
Behold, This Dreamer Page 35