The House of Dies Drear

by Virginia Hamilton

  Like Thomas, Mac Darrow wore a dark suit. It wasn’t a new suit, Thomas could tell, but it was a good suit and quite all right for Sunday.

  Darrow wore a black tie. He had on black shoes that had a hard, high gloss.

  He doesn’t look like the same boy, Thomas thought. No, not at all like that boy hanging onto the black’s tail.

  As though sensing some stir in the congregation, Mac Darrow turned away from the piano toward the vestibule. He didn’t look at Mr. and Mrs. Small nor at the twins. He looked at Thomas, and his hands never stopped moving over the piano keys. There was a playful flicker in his eyes as he recognized Thomas. Next he looked almost afraid of something, but then, that, too, was gone.

  That’s all right, Thomas thought.

  He accepted the fact that there were certain things you didn’t do in church. Even the most comic boy wouldn’t laugh or make fun of it. Even the worst boy would not set flame to it, as some white boys had done at home, when the last preacher and his son began holding night meetings. To his mind, making fun and setting flame were degrees of the same evil.

  Mac Darrow’s hands were soft and sure over the keys. He looked at Thomas and through Thomas all at the same moment. He saw Thomas, but denied him.

  I’m like that, thought Thomas. When I’m carving something from wood, I’m all by myself too. Mac Darrow could be my friend if he wanted to be, even if he is big.

  The congregation had turned around to see. Thomas had known they would do that. The church was more than two-thirds full, and folks had turned around to look at Thomas and his family standing in the vestibule. Mr. Small searched out a pew empty enough to hold them all and far enough away from the pulpit so as not to take seats from the regular members.

  Thomas waited to see if all those looks would be not unkind. He wanted to find out if the boys sitting like a rook of hawks close to the exit would lift their faces with some comment.

  Their eyes flicked innocently over at Mac Darrow, but Darrow kept his mind on the hymns at his fingertips. He would not tell them how to behave, his bowed head seemed to say.

  So they know about me, Thomas thought. They know about the house and that M. C. Darrow was fooling with me. But do they know we had a visitor last night?

  The boys couldn’t keep their curiosity hidden. They looked at Thomas with half-concealed excitement; Thomas was pleased by it. He tried standing straighter. He made himself look at them coolly, keeping his mind as empty of emotion as he could.

  The women of the congregation—those ladies in white who would forever keep faith with picnics and Sunday schools—smiled fondly on the twins. Thomas had known they would. It wouldn’t be anytime before they were asking to hold the boys or to sit with them on a Saturday. But it was those folks between age and youth that worried Thomas most.

  They’ll want to know what Papa has to offer them and what he intends to take away. They’ll wonder what he’s doing coming to their small church, because they won’t know that the Black church, large or small, is all the same to him.

  And they’ll want to know if Mama is going to be just as regular as everyday or whether she will pretend she is too good for them. Mama is so pretty besides. She always will have the trouble.

  The mothers and fathers of those boys sitting hawk-eyed and shrewd in the far corner stared at Mr. and Mrs. Small. Mr. Small nodded to them while going down the aisle. He had spied seats about halfway to the pulpit, but at an angle from it, near one of the squat, stained-glass windows. His nod was a polite greeting and a gentle probe to see if they would allow strangers among them.

  Some folks nodded slightly. Others looked long and hard. Thomas and his family passed one pew where four big men were sitting. Something about them made Thomas check them in his mind. They looked alike, that was it, and they did not wear suit jackets. They were somewhat light of skin, with the burnt look on their necks and cheekbones that spoke of country and sun.

  Farmers, Thomas thought. Maybe barn builders. Why are they here today, without their jackets?

  They didn’t look at Mr. and Mrs. Small nor at Thomas or the twins. Their faces feigned disinterest.

  Thomas gave a silent whistle through his teeth. By the time he sat down in the pew Mr. Small had found for them, his hands were sweating.

  Thomas sat next to his papa. The twins sat between Thomas and his mother. Save for Mac Darrow playing the piano, there had been almost a hush until Thomas and his family sat down. Now people were again talking in the church; women were fanning themselves, for it was very warm. Thomas whispered nervously to his father.

  “Did you see them, Papa? Did you see the four men?”

  “Yes, I saw them,” said Mr. Small. And understanding Thomas so well, he added, “Don’t make too much of it. Don’t let your imagination play with your sense.”

  “They wouldn’t even look at us,” said Thomas. “They were pretending we weren’t even here!”

  Mr. Small looked around. Folks were still staring at them while talking quietly. “That boy at the piano,” Mr. Small said to Thomas, “he must be of the same family as the four men.”

  Thomas couldn’t believe he had heard right.

  “He’s got the same head and the same build,” continued Mr. Small. “Yes, they are of a family, five of them. One of the four is the father.”

  “But that’s Mac Darrow at the piano,” Thomas whispered. “That’s the boy with Pesty and the horse yesterday!”

  Mr. Small had been taking in and gauging the feelings of the people around him. He had expected people to be standoffish at first. You could assume that of country people in the North, he told himself. He knew about their clannish history, which gave little room to strangers. But he hadn’t expected folks to be as cold as they appeared to be today in church. When Thomas told him the boy at the piano was Mac Darrow, he at once sensed a hostility in the crowd. A moment before, he had dismissed it as a product of his own frayed nerves.

  Now the minister entered and walked to the pulpit. After him came the young people’s choir, taking their position behind and to his right.

  He was a short man, the minister. He was thin and not unpleasant-looking, Thomas thought. The choir looked nice in blue robes. They saw Thomas and his family right away and they stared with simple curiosity.

  The church grew still. There was the sound of horses’ hooves in the distance. A lazy breeze filtered through the open window to the Smalls’ pew. It hardly touched Thomas before it died. The horses’ hooves were closer, pounding forward.

  Something buzzed in Thomas’ head; he was watching the minister and the choir. The minister seemed to be waiting. Looking down at his Bible, he seemed to be listening.

  The horses came to a halt at the side of the church.

  A horse? Thomas thought. Horses? Here?

  Not more than half a minute passed, while all remained still in the church. The elderly women in the front row seemed to fan themselves harder. People looked down at their hands or their hymnals, but no one spoke.

  What’s he waiting for? Thomas wondered, staring at the minister. Why doesn’t the choir begin?

  There were noises in the vestibule. Thomas turned around, but no one else did, and he was embarrassed. The twins smiled up at him. They were settled and happy to be where they were, between Thomas and Mrs. Small. They were lulled into a pleasant frame of mind by the heat and stillness of this new place.

  Down the aisle, past the Smalls in their pew, came Pesty in her outrageous pink-and-white costume and Mr. Pluto in his black cape and high hat. They made their way to the very first pew. Even though Thomas had known they were coming, he couldn’t believe he was really seeing them.

  Pluto seemed tired. Pesty led him along; his hand rested heavily on her shoulder.

  There was a murmur, which ran from the back of the church forward. Folks around the Smalls’ pew grunted to themselves angrily. The minister looked hard at them, and they quieted. He followed the progress of Mr. Pluto easing himself slowly into that first pew—the old
ladies there had moved far over to make room for him and to avoid him at the same time.

  They don’t like him, but the minister says it’s all right, Thomas thought. The minister is going to preach to the devil, and the folks don’t like it one bit!

  Pesty did not sit down. She went around the pulpit, all daintiness, gathered a robe folded on a chair and slipped the robe on. Then she took her place in the very front of the choir in the middle.

  Why do they let her be in the choir—she’s too small, Thomas thought.

  “Two hundred eighty-five,” the minister said. His voice was a startling, deep bass.

  People stood up with opened hymnals. Thomas grabbed a hymnal from the basket attached to the seat back in front of him. He gave it to his father. Mrs. Small had taken another one for herself. They stood. The whole congregation was standing, except for the twins and old Mr. Pluto. Pluto was bent over in his seat. From the rear, he looked as though he might be sleeping. He appeared tired out, not at all the man of the night before or even this morning.

  Mac Darrow played beautifully. Thomas recognized the hymn at once and smiled. He didn’t have to look at the words. Neither did Mr. Small. They closed the hymnal, and then they knew why Pesty was in the choir.

  It seemed to Thomas that Pesty’s voice slid down from the ceiling, down the hot walls and into Mac Darrow’s hands. It seemed to him that Mac Darrow’s hands were inside the sound of the choir, holding on to Pesty’s voice and then letting go of it when it became too strong for them. Her voice was like no other Thomas could remember hearing. It was pure and strong, not like a child’s, and it was sweet and good, like a girl’s.

  “Over my head, I hear music in the air

  Up above my head, I see trouble in the air.”

  The congregation joined Pesty and the choir in a surge of new strength:

  “There must be a God somewhere!”

  The hymn went on and on. The minister sang part of it alone, with the choir and congregation humming softly. It was enough to cause chills to run down Thomas’ spine. The minister had a voice finer than Pesty’s, better than any voice outside of the stage.

  Mama is sure to come every Sunday, Thomas thought. She will say Preacher has a voice good enough to speak with the Lord.

  Through it all, Mr. Pluto sat hunched over as though not listening. He didn’t move the whole time.

  Thomas only half realized when the song ended, there was so much to watch and remember. He found himself sitting down and shushing the twins. They wanted more music. He promised them if they’d be still, there might be more in a few minutes. The choir had sat down. Pesty looked like a big doll in her long robe. Her bonnet looked pretty and not out of place. She was serious and sweet, sitting there in the midst of the older boys and girls.

  The minister spoke solemnly of a God somewhere. Thomas listened for awhile. He talked about the Christian need to search out an invisible God in all things.

  “Go to the rock,” the minister said. “Tell the sinner who hides his face on the rock that he need not. No, he need not! Tell him that he is God. Say to him that the rock is God. Tell him to love himself and the rock and you, for God is with you. I say, inside of you there is God. Inside all of us, in all things, you will find God.”

  Thomas stared at the still form of Mr. Pluto. Mr. Pluto’s head nodded, and his high hat rolled from his lap into the aisle. The minister paused. A man got up and gingerly returned the hat to Pluto. He did not smile at the still form nor touch it. The still form did not react as if anything out of the ordinary had occurred.

  Is he sleeping there? Thomas wondered. Does Preacher mean to find God in old Pluto?

  The minister droned on. Thomas stopped listening. He glanced out of the window. He could hear children playing somewhere down the street. They would be noisy until the church service was over, at which time they’d go home for dinner and more play.

  Is that all they know how to do?

  Thomas felt a little tired. The excitement of the new church, the new minister, was wearing off. Somehow it was becoming confused with past Sundays in church. Irresistibly his eyes were starting to close.

  “Four hundred seventy-one.”

  Thomas woke up with a start. He couldn’t tell how much time had passed, but automatically he stood up.

  Why is church always the same? Awhile ago, I was glad it was the same.

  Sleepily he tried to appear interested.

  But why must it be so slow and boring!

  Preacher walk, Preacher talk

  Preacher eat with a knife and a fork.

  The rhyme came to Thomas out of some mean memory of a long morning.

  I got a ticket to raffle

  I got two tickets to sell

  I got three pastors a-waiting

  To preach down in hell.

  Let the devil get ready

  Tell the devil his fate

  I got three pastors a-coming

  To pass him the plate.

  Pesty’s voice quivered high above the choir,

  “King Jesus lit the candle by the water side

  So all the little children could be truly baptized …”

  Mr. Pluto got on his knees in the aisle beside his pew. Thomas nearly choked. One of the ladies in the front row stared at Pluto with sheer malice. Mr. Small watched him with grave concern. There was an angry stirring in the congregation.

  “Honor, honor, unto the dying day …”

  One of those big men who must have been a brother to Mac Darrow came forward and tried, without touching him, to get old Pluto to get up.

  “Darrow, sit down!” the preacher commanded.

  “This isn’t no Baptist place! Carrying on in the aisle,” Darrow said. “We’re Methodist here!”

  “I said sit down! Mr. Pluto wants to kneel, let him kneel!” the minister said.

  “So come along children and be

  baptized,

  All the little children will be truly

  baptized,

  Honor, honor, unto the dying day!”

  When the hymn ended, the choir filed out. Pesty came forward and helped Mr. Pluto back into his seat. She squeezed in beside him and then watched the minister.

  The minister was clearly upset. Thomas hoped he would forget his lecture and maybe preach around what had just happened. He didn’t much care for old Mr. Pluto, but he decided he liked that Darrow man even less. Somehow he wanted the preacher to put the Darrow man in his place.

  Instead, the minister turned to his Bible again. He grew calm and he read for a long time, hardly noticing the people looking out the windows.

  Thomas looked up at his father. Mr. Small’s face was bemused. Becoming aware of Thomas staring, he gently patted Thomas’ knee.

  All at once, Thomas felt totally let down. Everything had come to a standstill for some reason, he felt. All the hope of a new place—a new beginning and a new happiness—went out of him.

  Nobody will come home with us. No one will laugh and talk with Papa. I won’t have anyone to show my carvings to.

  The church service was coming to an end. The collection plate was being passed around. They all stood to say the words that meant a parting.

  “May the Lord watch between me and

  thee

  While we are absent, one from another,

  Amen!”

  Mac Darrow disappeared through a rear door, the way the choir had gone, before Thomas had a chance to catch his eye. All those boys in the corner milled around their parents before they all filed out.

  Thomas held one of the twins, while Mrs. Small held the other. The minister had not even welcomed them from the pulpit. Perhaps he had forgotten, Thomas thought.

  But the minister did come forward to shake hands with Mr. Small. He was Reverend Breckenridge he told them, and he was pleased to have them come.

  “You are a historian, I hear,” he said to Mr. Small.

  “Yes, I’ll be working here for a time,” said Mr. Small.

  Folks were
coming over to say a few words to their minister. In doing so, they were introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Small and Thomas. There were Henrys and Davises; there were Harrises and Browns. But that was all. If any of them had the least curiosity about Mr. Small leasing the house of Dies Drear, he said nothing about it. The four big men, those Darrows, filed silently out without a word even to the minister.

  “You have yourself a good slice of history in that big house,” the minister was saying to Mr. Small. “I’ve always admired it. I don’t have a family, however, and I can’t say I would care to live in it alone.” He smiled pleasantly.

  A warning? Thomas wondered.

  “We had a good turnout this Sunday,” the minister went on. “I haven’t seen some folks who were here today in quite awhile. Mr. Darrow and his sons I haven’t seen in a few months, although the one son, McDonald, plays piano for me each Sunday. It always surprises me how good weather will bring folks out more than anything I have to say.” He laughed, amused at himself.

  Mr. Small watched him closely. “I don’t believe I’ve met the Darrows you speak of… .”

  “Oh, you will meet them. You will get to know everyone—we are a small community here. Folks are a little shy at first, but they are good-hearted people. Awfully glad to have you among us.”

  “Thank you so much,” said Mr. Small.

  “Good luck to you all, and I do hope to see you next Sunday,” the minister said.

  Mr. Small told him he would surely see them.

  Outside some of the congregation were still gathered, talking with one another. As the Smalls emerged from the church, folks looked down at their feet or away to the street, as people will do when they are shy and cannot think of what to say. Mr. Pluto was just climbing into his buggy. He favored his lame leg considerably and fell heavily into his seat. Beside him was Pesty, and she smiled at Thomas. On seeing Mr. Small, Pluto touched his fingers to his high hat. His mind seemed to be on something other than passing the time of day with strangers. He went off the way he had come, with Pesty in the crook of his arms.