“Oh,” he said, “you’re going to be surprised, but pleased, about this.” He paused again for effect, then announced, “I have asked the widow Sluder to marry me.”
I gaped. My mouth went cotton-dry and my head reeled as if I’d been kicked by the hind legs of Gus-the-mule.
“The wedding will take place in a few weeks,” he continued. “Just before I leave.”
“Why?” I said when I could speak. There had been no warning. Not a clue. “Why now, when you’re going away?” My voice was unnaturally high.
“That’s precisely the reason. So you won’t be left alone.”
“I have Michael and Laney.”
“You need family. With this marriage you’ll not only have a mother, you’ll have a sister.”
I slid my hand from his. “I don’t want a mother or sister.”
“I’m telling you this for your information, not approval.” His tone turned cold. “But I did think you’d be delighted. You and Anna Bess Sluder were great friends at school.”
“Sunny.”
“Pardon me?”
“Sunny Sluder. Because supposedly she’s so bright and breezy. No one calls her Anna Bess. Not even the teachers.”
“Her mama refers to her as Anna Bess and so shall I. Sunny, indeed.”
How could I explain that I had followed Sunny around at school simply because somehow that was my assigned social position and that she allowed it because she needed stodgy, plainer companions to act as foils for her beauty? “It only seemed as if we liked each other. She was—she was one of those friends one doesn’t really like.”
“I don’t understand.” Colder still.
Of course he wouldn’t. “She always calls me Violet.”
“That’s your name.”
“It’s the way she says it: Vi-let. Making it sound ugly. And everyone fusses over her constantly, even though she says such terrible things about people behind their backs, smiling all the while. I often wonder what she’s saying about me when I’m not around.” It was against my nature to talk so to my father, but my desperation was rising. My stomach twisted inside, which was the effect Sunny Sluder always had on me.
He stared for a moment as if he didn’t know what to say, then turned awkwardly playful and patted my shoulder. “Silly goose. You and your fancies. I thought you would outgrow them. Well, it might take some getting used to, but you’ll thank me eventually. Elsa Sluder is gentle, ladylike, and agreeable. You’ll learn to love her. And you and Anna Bess will amuse each other—late-night giggling over beaus and fashions. That sort of thing.”
“How will we support these people?” This was the only valid argument I could come up with off the top of my head. “We’ll have three extra mouths to feed. More if they bring servants. Sunny eats like a horse.”
“That slender girl? When I’ve been around at mealtimes, she’s picked at her food more like a bird.”
Now that I’d begun whining about Sunny, I couldn’t stop. “Oh, Pa,” I said impatiently, “that’s part of her façade. In public she starves herself; in private she gobbles everything she can lay her hands on. And her tiny waist is one of the most annoying things about her. I can tell she’s thinking about it every single minute of her life. She’s thinking, My waist is so much smaller than hers, and hers, and hers.”
He looked partly mystified, partly horrified at this unwanted glimpse into the workings of young female society. His mouth grew thin. “She’s a delightful little lady, and you would do well to copy her manners.”
So my father was about to trade me in for another daughter. One of finer quality. Pretty, petted, spoiled, stupid Sunny Sluder, who always got anything she wanted—and anything anyone else wanted, for that matter—was to be my stepsister. No one had ever spoiled me. I should have liked at least a little spoiling in my life. And my waist was nearly as small as hers now—the problem was that my bosom had also shrunk away to nothing, along with every other curve, and bony chests were not the fashion.
“As for supporting everyone,” he continued, “we have the money from the sale of the store, and there’ll be my army pay. Mrs. Sluder is used to the best of everything since she’s lived with her wealthy brother for so long, but she assures me she will find our simple lifestyle refreshing.”
“Of course she will,” I said, very low. “She’ll be the mistress instead of the poor relation.”
My father’s face reddened. He stood and shoved his chair in so hard the dishes shook on the table. “The wedding is to be April twenty-fifth.” He strode from the room.
Unconsciously I had been rubbing the fabric of my dyed muslin skirt between my fingers, and the stain had come off on my skin. I stared at my darkened hands, mesmerized. After the battle of Fort Donelson, where my brother and so many others from our town had perished, mourning clothes had been needed quickly. All of Chicataw had reeked of the dye pots in the yards as women stirred their garments. I had dyed my own dresses and underwear.
Slowly I rose and wrapped my untouched slice of peach pie in a napkin. After fastening on my cloak in the hall, I carried the pie with me as I stepped outside into wild weather. The sun, peeking now and then from glowering clouds, was sinking low in the west.
Cold wind nearly buffeted me off my feet. My cloak sailed out behind as I descended the porch steps, black skirt flapping about my legs like great crows’ wings. The sunny, gentle spring of earlier had vanished. Now it was tornado weather. Wind-ripped petals pelted from dogwood trees, and one of the rockers on the porch bang-bang-banged against the wall, making a jarring musical counterpoint to the roaring drone of wind.
Across the lawn and toward the woods I stalked, onto a little slope that led down to the bee gums. The gums were chunks of tree trunks cut from the forest that housed swarms of insects. Several bees buzzed nervously around the logs, as disturbed by the coming storm as I was by my father’s news.
I placed the piece of pie on the ground beside the gums as a gift to the bees. I was about to lower myself to the grass when movement deep within the trees caught my eye. A lithe, lean figure sprinted along parallel to the edge of the forest—a man, although his movements were so effortless he made me think of a loping panther. As he drew closer, he seemed to notice me and drew up short, confronting me straight on.
He was magnificent. It was the younger VanZeldt, shirtless. Dim, mottled leaf light rippled across the muscles that swelled his chest. In his hand was a rifle; he must have stayed behind the others to hunt. We stared at one another. His eyes shone bright and his gaze was penetrating. Neither of us smiled; neither of us nodded. My pulse throbbed madly in my neck.
He was the first to break away, turning and melting into the woods.
For a moment I stood frozen, wind whipping my hair and clothes, and watched where the trees had swallowed him whole. That a VanZeldt was here on our property, so close to our house …
The insects’ frantic droning grew louder. I shook myself. Forget the man.
I murmured softly:
“Tell the bees of births and deaths
Tell them all that’s true,
And when in need do summon them,
They’ll surely come to you.”
It was a bit childish—the rhyme and all—but we had been children when we first used it, and it still worked. We had probably been about nine years old when Rush found me crying my eyes out beneath the old magnolia tree. Pa had harshly reprimanded me for being noisy around Mama. Rush hadn’t mentioned my tears or the scolding. He had merely said, “Want to try something amazing? I read about it in an old book I found in the bookcase. It tells all about bees. It’s a secret, though. Just for us twins. Don’t even tell Laney.” Then he put his arm across my shoulders in the casual, protective way he had and led me to the gums. He told me about the waxen city of the bees inside the hives, complete with a royal court, just like in a fairy tale. He taught me the rhyme and showed me how to talk to the bees and, in times of necessity, how to call them.
Strips of black
cloth, pinned to the gums, now flapped in the gusts. When the news about Rush reached us, I had gone immediately to Laney, while Pa locked himself in his room. Laney had put her apron over both our heads as we sobbed together. From there I ran to the hives to tell the bees and to attach the streamers. Our Rush is gone. The insects swarmed up and mourned with me.
My brother had already been dead for two weeks when we received the news. That was part of the agony—that we’d been going about our daily business, not knowing his body lay buried in a common trench. Why hadn’t I sensed it the instant his life was cut short? If only the awareness had struck me at that moment, a piece of me would have been with Rush. He would not have died so alone amid the noise and terror and horror. But I didn’t know.
Beside the bee gums I now dropped down on my back in the spiky grass of the hollow, protected from high winds. Preserved warmth from the earlier bright sun still spread upward from the ground. This gift of mine and Rush’s was uncanny; it frightened me a little. “My lady queen and noble bees, I summon thee,” I whispered. My fingers spread and I sensed the life and deepness and richness of the earth with my open hands, with all my body, head to toe. I willed myself to lie perfectly still. Still as a stone buried in a mountain. Even my hair I willed not to ruffle in the gusts. Images of flowers grew detailed in my mind, each intricate petal of clover and redbud and wisteria. Scents enveloped me. There was the perfume of honeysuckle and blossoms in distant gardens.
The hum of the bees drowned out the mourning wind. Closer, closer.
And then it began to happen.
First one bee lit on my hand, its delicate wings whirring and brushing frantically, then another on my cheek, then more on my hair, arms, and clothing. Hundreds of sun-yellow-and-black-velvet bodies caressed and soothed. In my mind I related the havoc my father was bringing upon us, all my worries. Gradually every aching hollow within me filled with honey-gold light. With their wings they carried my essence far, far away to some elusive, glorious place, a place I was always homesick for but never could quite recall. Perhaps it was where Rush lived now.
It didn’t last long; eventually the bees floated off. But that they still came at my summons delighted and relieved me in an indescribable way.
I rose and went to the house, moving in a daze of wonder.
Once I was up in my little bedroom, the torrent let loose from the sky and beat passionately against the roof. I lay on my narrow bed and sank down, down into the comforter filled with pulled wool.
A knock sounded and Laney entered. “You didn’t come down for your nightly honey milk, so I brought it up. There’s even a heap of thick cream on top.”
I sat up and took the milk, warmed as much by her consideration as by the cup. “Thank you.”
“Mr. Dancey told us what’s going on, and I’m sorry,” Laney said, lowering herself to the bed beside me. She gave a rueful grin and nudged me with her elbow. “Of course, I’m the one you should feel sorry for if I’m expected to tend to that boy and wait on the women too.”
I pulled myself together enough to reassure her. “Don’t you worry about that. I’ll be in charge of Cousin Seeley, and there’s no way we’ll let you turn into those Sluders’ handmaiden. They’ll have to shift their own weight.”
Laney gave a low chuckle. “The way you said Sluders made it sound like you were calling them a dirty name.”
My lips curved into a reluctant smile. “What will I do with a little boy, though? I’ll have no idea how to handle him.”
“Do the things we used to do with Rush. Let him run wild in the woods. Any child would love that. If we help each other,” Laney said, rising, “it won’t be nearly as bad as we fear.”
After she left, I began sipping the sweet, pale gold honey milk.
Eventually I rose and lit a candle. From under my pillow I drew a fat volume covered with crimson cloth—my journal. To it I took every extra agonizing or extra beautiful thought or occurrence, writing them out until the intensity ebbed. If any of my descendants were to read it, they would think me a creature of great extremes of emotion, because that was when I wrote.
I dipped my pen in the inkstand on my rickety bedside table and wrote and wrote and wrote. After I had exhausted myself, I pried up the loose floorboard and stashed my journal with the soldier’s items; if the Sluders really were coming to live here, I must be extra careful with my privacy.
I closed my eyes and tried to forget about my father’s news. I tried to forget about the expression in the VanZeldt’s eyes as he had looked at me, and the fact that he must be out there somewhere still, half naked and dripping wet.
Maybe I can’t go to the wedding tomorrow because I have diphtheria.
Scratchy throat, aching head, sneezing constantly—could be, but probably no such luck. It was most likely just a nasty, oozing, forever-lasting cold.
I was sitting on Rush’s bed, rubbing my forehead, when Sunny poked her nose in the doorway.
“Oh. This is where you got to,” she said in her sweet, tinkling voice, which immediately brought on my stomach-clenching reaction. “We wondered.”
Years ago, back when we were small together at Miss Reed’s little school, Johnny Croft had described Sunny’s nose as being arrowhead-shaped. He had been an observant child. It still stabbed out sharp as ever.
She flicked her eyes over Rush’s playthings spread out on the bed, waiting to be packed away—the lead horses and soldiers that had carried out so many adventures for Laney and Rush and me. She made a face and said, “Is that all you’re going to do this afternoon? I’d help, of course, except I won’t handle dead people’s things. Why on earth did your brother still have toys around? Wasn’t he our age?”
Of course she knew he was my twin. I didn’t try to explain that Rush was loyal to his old friends and would never have gotten rid of these belongings. “He left them under his bed,” was all I said.
She raised her eyebrows and withdrew. I sneezed and finished packing up.
Rush’s bedroom felt bare and empty of his possessions, but the bed was comfortable, everything was clean, and it was good enough for an eight-year-old boy. Except … I snatched off the bright, beautiful Eye of Heaven quilt. It was what Rush always used to wrap himself in when he came down to breakfast, even when it was ninety degrees out. I draped it tightly around me and sank to the floor. Dust motes floated about in the light streaming from the windows. I exhaled a long breath to send the close ones frantically dancing, and closed my eyes.
Rush, Laney, and I have done a terrible thing. We found a great horned owl caught in a trap. He was such a glorious creature, we couldn’t bear to turn him loose just yet. Rush declared his name to be Judge Solomon. We fed him bits of chicken, and Rush tied the owl’s leg to the end of a rope attached to a pole in the barn. During the night, Solomon struggled so to escape that in the morning we found him hanging, strangled by the rope.
The burden of our grief and guilt is immense. We paint a crate with the most beautiful designs we can conceive. It is autumn and we line Solomon’s coffin with crimson sweet gum leaves. Each of us, in penance, lays a precious possession beside him. Laney gives a stone, naturally heart-shaped and polished smooth by the river, I provide a single, cherished Venetian bead, and Rush sets in one of his beloved lead soldiers. We strew more leaves on and around Solomon so that only his noble face shows. We find a lovely, sunny spot in a meadow and dig a deep hole. Before lowering the coffin, we hold a moving funeral.
“What have y’all got there?”
It is Sunny Sluder. Her mother has come to pay her respects to my mother, although they are not friends. It is only because it is rumored that Mama has not long for this world that people come calling.
We do not answer Sunny, only stare at her solemnly. She peers into the open crate—
And giggles.
A burst of shrill laughter from downstairs jerked me back to the present.
“Oh, Rush, how could you have left me alone with these Sluders?” I whispered.
I couldn’t understand why my father wanted to marry her, although she was handsome enough for an older woman. She resembled Sunny—in a faded, softened, slightly shriveled way. She had the same sleek chestnut hair (although Sunny kept hers in ringlets, partly her own and partly pinned-in false tresses), the same arched eyebrows and jewel-green, slanted eyes, the same full, pouty lips, the same long neck and fashionable figure—tiny waist with swelling bosom and hips. However, where the daughter’s eyes snapped and sparkled, the mother’s dreamed. Where Sunny had a high color and moved with an exhausting vivaciousness, Miss Elsa was pale and drifted about with chilly grace. While the impression Sunny gave was of being sharp, snippy, and pretty, there was a remoteness about Miss Elsa. A sweetness as well, so perhaps that had been the attraction for my father.
“Vi-let!” Sunny hollered. “Come see these!”
Reluctantly I went down to the sitting room, where Miss Elsa drooped languidly on the sofa. Standing before her, Sunny dangled a pair of brilliantly striped cambric pantalets between her fingers and made them do a ridiculous dance ending with a kick. “Aren’t they delicious? They were in the attic among the old things Papa William said we might make over for the wedding.”
“Those belonged to my mother,” I said. “They were in style when Pa was courting her.”
“Obviously,” Sunny said. “So countrified and old-fashioned. Like you, young lady, calling your father Pa.”
“True,” Miss Elsa said. “Just as my mother would have done. I had meant to speak to you about it, my dear. Mr. Dancey has asked me to help him if he slips and uses rustic language, and he wants me to give you little hints now and then.…” Her soft voice trailed off, as it so often did.
The Mirk and Midnight Hour Page 3