I could have told her something about fading faces, but instead leaned across the table and said softly, “Janet, sometimes you really worry me … how maudlin you get!”
“Oh, you sound like Rubin,” she said, and shifted in her chair. “Why is it so gruesome to … to believe you won’t live a long life? Doesn’t the Church preach that life after death is so much better? Well, doesn’t it?”
Just then Rubin appeared at the edge of the yard, hurrying toward us. “Good day, ladies. I hear the Mueller boy is missing.”
Janet rushed down the stairs and into his arms. She spoke to him rapidly and pointed toward the beach. He gave her his coat and hat, and took off running down Avenue L.
She walked back up to the porch, and gathered her things. “Think I’ll be going home now,” she said. “Thanks for the lemonade.”
I watched her svelte movements as she walked back home, a queer sense of doom overtaking me. I leaned over the verandah railing and looked around. No one was to be seen except Tom Driscoll, the undertaker, who’d walked out under the cupola at the edge of his verandah and peered out around the street. Seeing me, he lowered his eyes and walked back into his house.
Much later on that Monday, when evening had fallen and the houses on the street glowed with light, the search party returned. I was sitting on the verandah when I heard them coming up the street, a slow shuffling of feet without spirit which told me even before they came within sight that Jeremy Mueller was doomed.
Charles dropped off from the group at our gate and came into the yard, “No luck then?” I asked him.
“None.” He walked up the stairs and sat down on the edge of the porch, resting his head on his knees. “Chances are slim by now, and it’s too dark to look further.”
“Where’s Rubin?”
“He stayed down there with the Muellers. They won’t leave, they say, until he is found … Agatha seems to be in a state of shock.”
“You look done in. Come on and have a bath and some supper.”
“I’m not hungry. I just wish something else could be done to find the boy. Imagine what it would be like never to find him, never to know, to be able to say, ‘Well, he is gone. He drowned in the sea, and we found him and buried him in the earth. We know, because we saw him.’”
“Charles, you’re talking nonsense. Come on.”
He didn’t seem to hear me, just kept sitting there. I sat down beside him. “Was he swimming with a big group of boys? Where were they?”
“Not far from the end of L, really. There were three of them, and it seems the other boys just looked around and he was gone. We went as far down as the end of the island, where the old brush jetties used to be, in case he was sucked under down there. But we found nothing. Likely he went into a sucker hole.”
“What’s that?”
“Something like a whirlpool, a hole anywhere from, say, ten to twenty feet deep—with an undertow that’ll suck you down before you know what hit you. The water in that area where they were swimming isn’t more than five feet deep at most. They weren’t very far out.”
“Do you think they’ll ever find him?”
“Tide changes, he ought to turn up. Tomorrow, day after.…”
On Wednesday the Gulf offered up the body of Jeremy Mueller and laid it gently on the shore, within a few yards of the point where he and his friends had waded carefree into the water on Monday for a swim. Doc Monroe took his flatbed wagon down and brought the body back up Avenue L.
Like the other neighbors, we watched from the porch as the wagon made its way up the street, Jeb Mueller seated beside the doctor and Agatha in the back of the wagon, above her son’s head. The body was covered with a faded bedspread. This we could not see until the wagon was past, and my eyes traveled up from it to the face of Agatha. There was neither pain nor sorrow in the face; only utter disbelief.
Tom Driscoll offered his services as undertaker, and the funeral ceremony was held in the Muellers’ living room on a fine, sunny afternoon. A curious custom, that: the people most awfully affected by the death of a loved one are expected to open their home to stage the most grotesque part of the letting go.
Having no particular religious affiliation, the Muellers asked Rubin to officiate. He’d been with Jeb and Agatha almost constantly since their son had been swallowed up by the Gulf, and had opened his wide arms and offered his prayers for them.
Charles attended the funeral ceremony and followed the throng of people out to the City Cemetery. It seemed the Muellers had quite a number of friends from around the neighborhood, and the Ludtke Iron Foundry, where Jeb worked, closed for a half day so that his friends could be present.
My fear of funerals had long been professed, so there was no explaining necessary when I stayed home and cooked a cake and a pot of chicken and dumplings that afternoon. Later in the evening, Charles helped me carry the food down to the Muellers’, six houses away, and everyone but a handful of relatives was gone by then. An ancient woman, wizened and snowy-haired, sat in a corner of the living room in a rocking chair, her knobby hands closed around a dog-eared Bible. The other two Mueller children, both young girls, sat together at the foot of the stairs, quietly playing jackstones.
Jeb and Agatha sat huddled together on the sofa, and we first took our offering of food to the kitchen, placing it among the other foods hardly touched, then went to pay our respects to them.
Agatha took my hand and searched my face with her swollen eyes, then said, “You didn’t come to services. Tom had him fixed so pretty, right over there in front of the window.”
“I, too, have lost a son.”
She nodded in apparent understanding, then added, “He was goin’ to be a doctor, you know.”
“Won’t you sit down, stay for a spell?” said Jeb.
“No, we’d best be getting home,” said Charles.
“I can’t thank you enough, for what you did. Agatha and me, we didn’t know what fine neighbors we had till this thing happened.…”
“’Twas an awful high price to pay,” said Agatha, and buried her head on his chest.
He put one long arm around her shoulders and said, “Oh, Mama, don’t go to cryin’ again,” but the tears were welled up in his own eyes, too, and I thought just then of the hopeless tears spent by Charles when the son he thought of as his own had been taken away from him.
Walking home we both stared silently ahead. Thankfully, Charles did not mention the parallel of the two tragedies, ours and the Muellers’, as I feared he might. In the early morning of the following day, he donned his old clothes again and went back to painting. Except for the hollow feeling in my stomach and the general quiet around the street, you might have thought nothing had happened to interrupt the hazy peacefulness of the summer routine.
Chapter 11
Rubin Garret had a way of drawing people to his parish. Of a Sunday morning, when the people filed from the dark church into the sunshine, he would remember to ask after Mrs. McIntyre’s aching bones, to question John Treadway about his brother’s health, to inquire of Maude Patterson whether her boy Timothy’s broken leg was healing properly, and to remember a host of other personal things about his parishioners that showed he cared. I would often think to myself as I watched him that he went about his duties with double the normal amount of zeal, to make up for Janet’s lack of participation in the activities of the church.
By early 1879, when he’d been at St. Christopher’s two years, the number of families listed as members had increased from fifty to close to one hundred and fifty, and plans were in the making for a new church school building on the far end of the three-lot tract making up the church property.
The white stone church itself was situated at the other end of the tract, and a cloistered walkway led from out its side across the grounds to a small building which had served since the beginning of the church as office and church school. Parish meetings, receptions, and other activities were held in a converted rent house on property adjacent.
&
nbsp; The new church school building, then, would replace the rent house as parish hall, the small office and Sunday school building presently standing, and thereby encompass all church activities other than services under one ample and handsome roof. Charles and Rubin were discussing this pleasant fact one Sunday while sitting around our dinner table, and I came upon an idea which was not intended to put me in a position closer to Rubin, at least not consciously, although it was true that the more time passed, the more we were thrown together by circumstances purely beyond our control, the more I watched his expressions of exasperation from time to time when Janet failed him by not being up to attending some church function or another, the harder it was for me to look into his eyes without believing there was a glimmer of wistfulness there. And Charles, despite all of Pete Marlowe’s overtures and my subtle persuasive remarks designed to make him realize his career would no doubt blossom in partnership with Pete’s firm, still showed no signs of budging from the little stuffy office he’d occupied since we came to Galveston, and moving us into a new social circle which would have helped me keep my mind off Rubin.
“It’s a pity to build a new structure on the grounds of St. Christopher’s,” I said.
Everyone looked across at me.
“I only mean the grounds are so utterly bleak, both summer and winter, why bother trying to improve the looks of the property with a new building? The building may be functional, but believe me, the appearance will not be enhanced to passersby and potential members of the parish.”
“You’re right,” said Janet. “Just a long expanse of grass that has never grown properly and that one huge, ugly palm right in the center of the yard. And those poor, forlorn-looking shrubberies along the cloisters—what are they called?”
“Croton, and they’d look all right if they were taken care of by someone who knew what they were about.”
“Claire’s an expert on flowers. We would do well to put her in charge of improving the grounds,” Janet said then, as though she knew of my design.
“Wait a minute,” said Rubin. “What about Peabody, the sexton? It’s his job to look after the grounds. I wouldn’t want to hurt his feelings by—”
“Oh, Rubin, you needn’t do that at all. You could form a committee—with Claire at the head—and Mr. Peabody could work right along with the group.”
“You know, that’s a splendid idea. You could begin next spring.”
“But what about the construction going on?” Charles asked. “Won’t it be a pretty big mess around there for several months?”
“We could leave the part at the far end till last, concentrate on the other end and the cloisters in the beginning,” I said. “I’ve envisioned many different patterns, as a matter of fact, and of course it would have to be a perpetual thing, go on from year to year.”
“Why, my dear, you sound as though you’ve been planning a gardening committee for sometime,” said Charles.
“Not at all. However, you will admit I have a talent for organizing things and making them grow. One could hardly glance at the church property without noticing it’s crying out for attention.”
“You’re so right,” said Janet. “It would make a good drawing card for the church. You know, Trinity is rather limited as to how it can be improved on, being right in the middle of town.”
“You ladies speak of God’s house as though it were a dry goods store,” said Rubin, and Charles began to laugh.
“This is serious, and I’ll thank you not to laugh, Charles,” I said. “Rubin is misinterpreting our idea, that’s all. There are always going to be churches and there are always going to be people to go to them, so what’s wrong with a little worry over catching people’s eye? If you don’t get the people into the church, you’ll hardly have an opportunity of preaching God’s word to them. Isn’t that so, Rubin?”
“Of course, Claire, and don’t believe for a moment I take your concern lightly. It’s just that I’d never really thought of the big old palm as being ugly, and never thought how much nicer the property might look with some special talent used on it. I can see we’ve been wasting you.”
“You’ll never know how much.”
“Very good, then. Tell you what. I’ll approach the vestry about it at the next meeting. If they’re attuned to the idea, I’ll mention it from the pulpit and ask for volunteers to help you.”
The vestry officially named my committee the St. Christopher’s Garden Guild (although most often it was referred to as “the garden committee,” and as time went on and my name remained synonymous with its accomplishments, it would be called simply, “Claire’s garden”), and gave the full responsibility for planning and carrying out the project to me. The vestry allocated thirty-five dollars for expenses, and suggested people might donate cuttings and shrubs, and Rubin promised to bring up the proposition from the pulpit one Sunday shortly after the new year began. “I want you to plan it out,” he told me privately. “If I just suggest to the congregation we need flowers and shrubs, no telling what they’ll come up with, and we could hardly refuse someone like Mrs. Travesty, for instance, if she were to offer a bunch of things totally out of line with what you’re trying to accomplish. You know how she is. She’d probably leave the church and never come back again. And others might be hurt if they donated plants and never found them blooming in the garden.
“So give me a list of what you want, and the thirty-five dollars can go for the things you aren’t able to get donated.”
“A birdbath.”
“How’s that?”
“For the courtyard, behind the cloisters. I’ve already picked it out. It’s going to have sweet peas around it—I’ll donate them myself if need be—and bougainvillaea climbing up the walls either side.”
“Sounds good.”
“Oh, Rubin, you have no idea how much it means to me for you to be proud of it. I’m going to work very hard.”
“What we want of course is for all the congregation to be pleased,” he said, and shifted his eyes from mine.
“Of course.”
And so they were, from the start. Rubin can be very winning, and after the service, when he’d mentioned the list of things needed and asked for volunteer workers, a total of fifteen women enthusiastically offered help. Some weeks later with a crew made up of five of them a day, and the helping hand of Mr. Peabody, I started my garden to grow, and the course of all our lives to change.
Chapter 12
Janet announced, shortly after digging began, that she was bound for a trip home to Virginia. “I want to see my parents,” she told us one night. “They’re getting old, and somehow I’ve had the feeling lately I ought to pay them a visit.”
“When are you planning to leave?” I asked.
“Early in April. I’ll stay a week or two, no more.”
“Well then, Rubin, you must count on having your evening meals with us. We’ll try to fill in for Janet so she won’t worry about your growing thin and unhealthy while she’s away.”
“I do appreciate that,” he said, and laughed. “I can’t impose myself on you every night, however.”
“Very well then, we’ll leave it an open invitation,” Charles said. “We always have plenty, so come over any night you’ve got nothing else planned.”
“Or any day,” I said. “For lunch.”
“I’d better not stay away too long,” said Janet, raising an eyebrow. “You might spoil my husband so he won’t want to have me for a wife anymore.”
It surely would not take much doing, I thought.
There came a sudden rain shower one day shortly after.
I had dismissed the other ladies working in the garden, and stayed long after to finish one plot in the far left corner of the courtyard. There were rocks in the soil, and pieces of wood and chunks of cement which had been covered over and left when the church building was put up.
Rubin was working at his desk, which had been moved temporarily into the rent house when his little office building was razed t
o make room for the new structure. I hadn’t known he was still around, but apparently he’d seen me from the window, for when the rain began he hurried toward me with a big umbrella and hustled me inside the rent house for the duration of the shower. He put a protective arm around my shoulders and held me surely closer than necessary to shield us both with the umbrella, and the sound of my heart thumping inside my breast was louder in my ears than our steps across the soaking grass.
After we were safe inside, Rubin poured us both cups of coffee, and said, “Lucky for me making good coffee isn’t a qualification for entering the priesthood.” He handed me mine. I wanted to make some witty reply to his remark, but could think of none.
“What made you become a priest?” I asked instead, for it was a question I had long puzzled over. He sat down behind his desk, lit up his pipe, and looked thoughtful for a moment.
“Made me?” he said finally. “Well, if you mean, was I the recipient of a holy visitation, or did a bolt of heavenly lightning strike me in my bed one night, I guess I’d have to say that nothing ‘made’ me become a priest, that is, nothing so dramatic.”
“People sometimes say a life of religion is a ‘calling.’ Was it so for you?”
“Only in the sense that I’d journeyed so far away from God—as you well know—that when he did get my attention, he got it good and made excellent use of it … at least, I hope he feels he did.” He was smiling now, looking across indulgently into my face.
“You think it a childish question.”
“Certainly not.”
“Has Charles told you much about his brother Damon?”
“Not really. Why?”
“Because you remind me—and Charles, too—so much of Damon, and it would have been thoroughly unlike him to have given up his freedom and become harnessed by a life of subjugation.”
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