Behold, This Dreamer

by Charlotte Miller

  The soft folds of the cotton nightgown fell about Elise’s shoulders and to her feet. She brushed her hair back from her eyes, staring at the closed door, wishing that she would not have to—

  The door creaked open and Janson entered the room, closing the door again quietly behind himself. He turned to look at her, and she felt her cheeks redden—she had heard every word, every thing her father had said. He had called her a slut—he had not known that it had been her to share Janson’s bed last night, but that did not matter. He had still called her a slut. And now she was embarrassed, embarrassed before Janson’s eyes, when yesterday, and all last night—

  Her face flushed hot and she turned her eyes away. “You’d better go; he said ten minutes.”

  “I know—”

  Her eyes touched on him again briefly, and then moved away. He stayed where he was near the door, not crossing the narrow room to come to her and take her in his arms, and that somehow made what she was feeling all the worse.

  “You’d better go—”

  “I will in a minute.”

  “But, he said—”

  “I don’t give a damn what he said.”

  Her eyes rose to meet his and she stared at him for a moment. He finally crossed the room to her, but when he touched her she pulled away and stood with her back turned toward him, her face burning. “You’d better—”

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice concerned as he stood just behind her.

  “Nothing’s wrong, except that he could come back and—”

  “He ain’t gonna come back.”

  “He could, and—” She turned to look at him and her words fell silent. She stared at him for a long moment, not speaking—what was he thinking? So many times in the past months she had wondered what was on his mind, but never more than she did in this moment—what did he think of her now? Did he think the same thing her father had said? He loved her; she knew that, but—“Janson, after what we—” Again she fell silent. “Janson, do you think I’m a—that I’m—”

  He stared at her, a look of surprise and understanding coming to his face even though she could not finish the words. “You know I wouldn’t never think nothin’ like that about you!”

  “But, after what we—”

  “Especially not after what we did.”

  “But my father—”

  “He didn’t have no idea it was you in here.”

  “But, he knew that you had been with a woman, and he said—”

  “It don’t matter what he said—”

  “But, do you think that I’m a—”

  “You know I don’t!” he said quickly, cutting off her words. Again she stared at him, trying to see what he was thinking, what he was feeling.

  “We’re not married,” she said quietly.

  “That don’t matter.”

  “But everyone says that a man won’t marry a girl who’ll do that with him before they’re married.”

  “I’m gonna marry you; you know that.”

  “But—” She stared at him for a long moment, then turned her face away—she knew she had ruined it. She knew she had ruined everything. “You’d better go on. He’ll be waiting for you,” she said quietly.

  “I ain’t goin’ nowhere, not ’til you understand somethin’,” he said, and she lifted her eyes to his for a moment. When she tried to turn away again, he would not allow it, gently drawing her into his arms and holding her even as she tried to struggle away—she would not cry in front of him, and she knew she was going to. She knew—“I love you,” he said, staring down at her as she felt the tears flood her eyes. “I love you, an’ you ought t’ know that you’re my wife already; right here an’ now you’re my wife. I don’t need no preacher to make that be, ’cause it’s somethin’ that’s inside ’a me, part ’a me. You’re more my wife right now than any weddin’ could ever make you—but we’re gonna have that weddin’, an’ we’re gonna have it in a church, with a preacher, just like it’s suppose t’ be.”

  “But—”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “There ain’t no ‘buts’ to it. You’re gonna be Elise Sanders—”

  “I won’t be able to wear white,” she said, feeling stupid and silly the moment she had said it.

  He smiled, his face relaxing as he reached up to touch her damp cheek. “You can wear white if you want t’.”

  “But now I’m not a—” Suddenly she blushed, unable to finish, and he laughed. She looked up at him, a hurt expression coming to her face, and he smiled.

  “Marryin’ in white ain’t just for a girl who ain’t never been with a man. Just ’cause you an’ me have laid t’gether don’t mean you cain’t get married in a white dress.”

  “It wouldn’t seem silly?”

  “No, it wouldn’t seem silly.”

  She found herself smiling slowly and he bent to kiss her, holding her tightly to him for a moment as she pressed her face against his bare shoulder beside where one of the galluses of his overalls went up over it—she knew she had been a fool. He loved her; that was all that mattered. He loved her. “You’d better go,” she said, looking up at him after a moment, still not wanting to leave his arms. “Daddy said ten minutes. It’s already been longer than that.”

  “Yeah—” but he held her for a moment longer before releasing her. She watched as he pulled on a workshirt and then re-hooked his galluses. “You’d better stay here for a little while after I leave, an’ then head back t’ th’ house just as soon as it’s quiet out.”

  “I will.” She walked him to the door, remembering the tone in her father’s voice. “You’d better be careful around him,” she warned, looking up into his green eyes as he turned toward her.

  “I will be.” He kissed her again, and then looked down at her for a moment, his eyes moving over her face. He gave her a gentle hug, and then he was gone.

  She moved to kneel on the narrow cot, watching him through the warped panes of the small window until he left her sight. She sighed and sat back—just let him be safe, she prayed silently, over and over again. Please, just let him be safe.

  She waited there until she thought it was safe out, and then left, making her way through the edge of the fields and the woods toward the house. All the while there was that one fear crowding her mind—what if someone should see her about in her nightgown at this hour; what if her father caught her, or her mother saw her as she entered the house. She finally made it to her room and closed the door behind herself, turning to lean against it for support—but still the worry was there. Janson was with her father now; if William Whitley should ever even suspect—but she could not allow that to happen. If it did, then she knew she would lose the one thing that meant the most to her—but Janson would pay the dearest price of all. He would pay with his very life.

  “Come on,” Elise urged one Sunday morning a few weeks later as she led him across the white-columned veranda and in through the front doors of the big house. The place was deserted, her family gone for the day, first to church, and then to visit relatives in the next County, with Bill in Atlanta for the weekend. She had managed to beg off the family plans, pretending a headache, and now she and Janson had the day to themselves, and the house to themselves, and Janson knew she intended to make the most of it.

  She smiled up at him, holding tightly to his hand as she drew him into the hallway and closed the door behind them. “Everyone’s gone. Don’t worry; it’s safe—”

  Janson looked around, filled with caution in spite all her assurances. It did not feel right to be here in the big house with her, after all the weeks and months of hiding they had been through. He knew that it did not do to play with fire—but Elise was so insistent. She had planned for days how they would have this time together; and he knew that she wanted to lie with him in her own bed for once, instead of in the old house, or on his own sagging cot, or in the b
arn loft, or some other such place they could find to be together—she had not had to say a word; he had known, just as he had always known. Just as he knew her.

  His eyes moved from the twin crystal chandeliers of electric lights that hung there in the wide entry hallway, to the flowered paper on the walls, to the grand descent of the staircase—he was uncomfortable, ill-at-ease, here in this grand house. He knew they should not be here, and that knowledge came from more than the fact that this was her parents’ home, more than the fact that Whitley’s catching them together here, more than anywhere else, would probably mean his own death. It was—

  “You haven’t seen the entire house, have you?” she asked, watching him as he brought his eyes back to her.

  “No.”

  “Come on, then; I’ll give you the grand tour—”

  She led him through the rooms, through those he had been in before, and through uncountable ones he had not, from the company parlors at the front of the house, to the dining room, and even the kitchen where Mattie Ruth had fed him that first night he had come here, that night he had tried to steal food from Elise’s family—Elise did not know about that night, and he saw no reason to tell her now; that was a long time ago, a long time, and many dreams.

  She smiled at his amazement over the water closets, watching him as his eyes moved over the gleaming fixtures, the white-enameled facilities and claw-footed bathtubs. There were huge bedrooms with enormous beds all for one person, and high, shadowy ceilings in every room from which hung electric lights—and everywhere there were books, shelves of them in the bedrooms and in the parlors, and even in the dining room, as well as in the library itself.

  The feeling of being out of place only increased with each room she led him through. His own home back in Eason County had not even had running water or electricity, and the privy had been in the back yard a good distance from the house where it had belonged. He had never grown up in a world where homes such as this one existed—the houses he had played in as a child had more often than not had gaps in the floors and walls, and holes in the rusting tin roofs that leaked in even the slightest rains. He had known kin where eight children had slept in one bed, and where mothers had carried water from wells several hundred yards from the house. He had seen families where twelve had lived in the cramped two rooms of a sharecropper’s shack, where children shivered in the cold that seeped in around doors and blew in through cracks in walls, children who went to school hungry, who had no coats, and only the most ragged clothes to wear, for the simple reason that their parents could do no better. And he wondered how such a world could exist in the same land as this one.

  He looked around with amazement as Elise led him through the door and into her own bedroom. His eyes moved from the huge, white-counterpaned bed, to the walls papered with tiny pink and red rosebuds, to the tall windows hung with heavy lace curtains. The furniture was a rich mahogany, with chairs and a settee upholstered in deep rose velvet; there was a wide shelf of books against one wall, and a tall chiffonier against another, and the wooden floor was waxed and shining, then covered almost entirely by a rose-colored rug—why would anyone tend a floor so carefully, he wondered to himself as he stared down at the rug at his feet, only just to cover it up.

  He looked at Elise and wished they had never come here. Never before had he seen so clearly the differences between them. The Whitleys were rich folks, the same kind of people who drank in the speakeasies he delivered liquor to, who drove motor cars at speeds beyond all safety and reason, and who had parties to all hours of the night—while his own people lived in sharecropped shacks, barely scratching out a living from another man’s land year after year, and going into debt to the nearby country stores just to survive. He looked at Elise as she stood there in her expensive dress and her high-heeled shoes and her silk stockings with the seams so straight in back—how very different they were; he in his overalls and workshirt and bare feet, and the woman who would be his wife. He was so out of place in this pretty room with its high shadowy ceiling, its electric light fixtures, its papered walls and huge feather bed. He did not belong in a place such as this, would never belong in a place such as this—but Elise Whitley did.

  She was in his arms, her mouth pressing his, before he could speak—he closed his eyes, trying to give in to the desire in her, the feeling of her body pressing against his. She wanted him; she wanted him here on this big feather bed. She wanted him here in this room that was a part of her life he could never know.

  They sank down into the feather tick, her hands touching him in places she now knew so well—but still his mind would not stop working. What could he ever give her that would make up for all she would lose the day she left here to become his wife? They were so different, too different—what kind of life could they ever know together? He was the son of a man who had been a sharecropper and a mill hand and a small farmer burned out and killed for refusing to be something less than he was; and she was William Whitley’s daughter, a girl who had everything she had wanted all her life, a girl who could never hope to understand the world he had come from, the world he would be asking her to live in with him—what kind of life could they ever know together?

  Less than a hundred years before, the Whitleys had been a wealthy, slave-owning family, one of the largest cotton planters in the area, and were even now one of the wealthiest families in all of Endicott County—while his own people, his mother’s people, had lived in the wilderness of north Georgia at that same time, content in their lives and in their own ways, until men very much like the Whitleys, men with a greed for land and money, and an insatiable appetite for both, had driven them out. Nell Sanders’s people had been driven toward the west at gunpoint, herded like cattle through weather such as they had never known before, barefoot, poorly clothed, sick, dying—all so that men like the Whitleys could take the land that had been a home to them, and to so many others like them, for centuries.

  Now Elise’s family, and other families like them, had the money, and the land had grown up in cotton fields and towns and cities and mill villages, and his mother’s people would never be the same—for there where four thousand silent, unmarked graves along the path of that forced march, more than four thousand graves of the men, women, and children of Cherokee blood who had died along what had become known as the Trail of Tears, and they would never be forgotten.

  Janson’s own great-great grandmother lay somewhere along that Trail, alongside children who had never lived to see adulthood—how many nights he had sat at his mother’s feet as a boy, hearing stories that had come from her father, and her father’s father before him, of that time when Janson’s great-grandfather had seen so many marched away, and of the way of life that had existed before it. Nell Sanders’s people had been left with nothing, as had his father’s people when they had come from Ireland in the time of the Potato Famine. Theirs was a people accustomed to struggle and to fight, his mother’s people and his father’s both, and the hard way of life was a life they well knew, a life they had always known.

  But Elise’s people knew nothing of a life such as that. They had money; they had land that no one could ever take from them; they had fine ways and fancy manners and book learning—he had none of that. He was nothing like the man Elise had been raised to marry. He did not have a big fine house with electric lights and running water and enameled bathtubs; he did not have the money and fine learning, the motor cars and fancy ways—he was a dirt farmer, a hired hand, and even a moonshiner. He had skin dark from his ancestry, and darkened even further still by years of hard work in the sun. He wore patched overalls and a faded workshirt; his hands were rough and calloused, and there was dirt underneath his fingernails that it seemed no amount of cleaning could ever remove—these were not the hands meant to touch a fine, educated lady who read books and wore expensive clothes and who had a telephone right in her own house. And perhaps these were not the hands meant to touch Elise Whitley.

&n
bsp; He rolled away from her on the bed and sat up, his back to her. He ran the fingers of one hand through his hair and sighed, not turning to look at her.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, her fingers reaching to touch his back through his overalls and workshirt.

  “I shouldn’t ’a come here. I don’t b’long in a place like this.” He got up from the bed and crossed the room, stopping to stare out one of the windows at the smooth lawn, the road, and the cotton fields and pine woods beyond. “I jus’ don’t b’long here—”

  “Why not?”

  “I jus’ don’t. This ain’t no place for somebody like me. I shouldn’t never ’a come here in th’ first place.”

  “You came because I asked you to.”

  “Why?” He turned to look at her. “Why’d you want me t’ come up here with you? Ain’t th’ old house or th’ cot in my room good enough anymore?”

  “You know they are.” She propped up on an elbow to stare at him. “We’ve been together in both those places lots of times.”

  “Then why not t’day? Why’d we have t’ come up here?”

  “Why can’t we be together here as well; there’s no one else in the house.”

  He looked at her for a moment—she could never understand. She belonged anywhere she wished to be, and, no matter how grand the surroundings, she would never be out of place. “I jus’ don’t b’long in a place like this.”

  “Why not?”

  “I jus’ don’t!” He raised his voice, then was immediately sorry. He turned away, toward the window. “I jus’ don’t b’long here,” he said more quietly—damn her, she could never understand; and damn her for being so lovely and so caring. He stared out the window, wishing that he had never stepped foot into this house today.