Delta Ridge

by Frances Downing Hunter

  I’m told that in her youth Victoria was seen as a big, plain girl. As long as I can remember, I have called her Mother to her face, and Victoria when she is not present. Always there has been between us a certain formal distance that doesn’t exist with my other family members. Only in eavesdropping have I overheard her let down the great wall. She and Aunt Elizabeth are opposites in personality. Outgoing, warm, gracious, always optimistic despite adversity, that’s how others see my aunt. She laughs a lot, teases often, and flirts, even with women.

  Victoria can be boisterous, over the top with her stories and dry humor, but she’s tentative and distrustful at the same time. I think of her as assuming an aristocratic persona, like one of the Redgrave sisters, (actually, she’s a cross between Vanessa and Maggie Smith in bearing and appearance), but I always thought she was playing a part she never completely understood. Am I saying she’s not a good actress? Probably, but I never wanted to glimpse what was behind the mask either.

  I REMEMBER a horrid conversation I overheard one time between her and Ham a few years after my father died, and everyone had gathered at the Hall for Christmas Eve. I walked down the stairs headed to the kitchen for a midnight slice of Charlotte’s fresh coconut cake and a glass of milk thinking it would help me sleep. I heard voices from the library.

  “There’s only one promise of long life in the Bible, and girl, if you don’t change your ways, you’re not getting it.”

  “What the hell do you know about the Bible, old man?”

  “A lot more than you know about human beings. If you don’t get off the sauce and get yourself some help...”

  “I should have had help at home. I should have had a father who loved his family. Hell, all I got from you is your damn drinking gene! That’s served me well. I don’t listen to advice from people who don’t follow it themselves. In my world, that’s called hypocrisy.”

  “In my world, honey, it’s called being a bitch, and that’s what you are. Talk about loving. What about your child? Did you forget you had one? What about your husband? Why’d you drive that man to kill himself? Living with you must not have been that much fun for your family, huh? You’ve got a daughter who hates you, did you know that?”

  “No, and you don’t know it either because it’s a damn lie. Your whole life, you’ve spoiled everything you’ve touched. That’s what’s wrong with me. It’s what happened to Garland. It’s what drove Elizabeth through four marriages and into psychology. All of us, looking for the father who’s not out there. He left the building a long time before any of us got there. And it’s what’s happened to Holly, too. She misses her father so badly. And all she’s got is you. God help us all, old man. You better read that Bible and pray a lot because there’s nothing but the devil in your soul.”

  “The drama queen is preaching me a sermon now. Who’s the hypocrite in this mess? I think you know.”

  “I take it all back. I don’t think God can help us all. Only the devil’s children live here. I’m toting Mother and myself back to the farm at first light so I can breathe fresh air. The place is a mausoleum, and you’re the undertaker.”

  “My dear girl, if I were you, I’d sleep it off before I went anywhere, or your next breath’s going to be into a breathalyzer if you don’t kill yourself and Charlotte first.”

  “Would you care if I did? With all my supposed killing, I neglected to attend to the one who really needed it.”

  “I have every confidence that your aim will improve with time. Don’t you hunt and fish with the red neck reprobates and river rats around Hardy?”

  “You know damn well I haven’t touched a gun since.”

  I was instantly sick as I raced up the stairs and into my bathroom wanting to puke up all the family secrets that spewed forth out of their cesspool of guilty shame.

  FOR CHARLOTTE’S SAKE, we all stayed until the day after Christmas, avoiding each other except at the dining table. I noticed that both Ham and Victoria drank iced tea with their meals, the only way, I imagined, to guarantee that their lips remained entirely sealed. The eaves dropper, that would be me, of course, pretended to know nothing, but I took every word back to Little Rock with me, and sealed it in the vault in my head that never forgot nor forgave.

  Ham always paid, both from guilt and from ownership, and usually in cash. Victoria got a new Ford truck that year, and I returned to my therapy lessons. I felt like I had earned a Ph.D. in psychology. It only takes about seven years, right? My Little Rock counselor had a master’s degree in social work. She was a nice bespectacled lady in her sixties who usually dozed off midway into our session, and awoke to say, “Well, I think we made some progress today, dear. It looks like our time is up until next week. We’ll hold on to these thoughts.” She was always especially cheerful after her naps.

  I couldn’t bring myself to discharge her because I knew I could never tell her the truth because hating my mother was my private business. Her going to jail for killing my father would not improve my family’s well-being, and Ham would punish me by making me visit her there. Ironically, my therapist’s inattention somehow caused me to see my problems as less important than I might otherwise have, had she been riveted by my disclosures of my mother’s neglect. I was embarrassed to mention much about the drinking. Victoria never physically abused me when she drank.

  MY THOUGHTS RETURNED to the two women in my grandmother’s kitchen. I continued to study them both. How long it had been since I had seen either one? How ironic, I thought, Victoria looks as if she could manage a pig farm singlehandedly, and Grandmother like she spends her days in a bustle chair doing needlepoint. But while Victoria had verged on catatonia, Charlotte was simple and sane, like her philosophy. Her soft gray hair swirled into a loose up do softened her face, and enhanced her penetrating blue eyes and fair, fair skin. Unlike Aunt Elizabeth, Charlotte had freckles, not on her face but on the arms, that betrayed days spent in the unrelenting sun directing Chek, the Polish immigrant who spoke little English and performed all the heavy farm chores and fed the animals.

  In the warm family kitchen, the roaring fire cast shadows on the Shaker pine furniture and glossy oak floor. In familiar territory, Jigger settled down and found his spot before the fire. I carried my glass and the bottle of Charlotte’s homemade blackberry wine to the table. A platter of large, fried chicken breasts and tiny, crisp biscuits complemented the canning cellar’s array of last summer’s harvest of stewed tomatoes, yellow squash, crisp green beans and pan fried okra which covered the large oak table. In my Delta family, plates are served. In the hill, one’s plates are filled from the dishes on the table—no side board here. Heaping large portions on my sturdy Blue Willow plate, I dug in. I know the drill. Eat and repent. Two helpings of everything followed by two hours of after-meal misery when those who had partaken feel like a gluttonous stuffed turkey and swear repentance. Seeming to sense that his training of me required both repetition and patience, Jigger abated his notions of policing the back yard, and enticed by the smell of fried chicken, scratched on the back door so he could come inside to sit expectantly under the table at my feet. When I forgot to slip him a bite of crispy chicken skin, he would butt my leg with his cold nose. Victoria, grandmother, and Aunt Elizabeth all talked at once, as they had always done, as Binky sat as a bemused observer of the chattering women who somehow managed to hear every word the others were saying. It was my hope that my feeding frenzy would go undetected.

  “How’s your granddaddy?” My grandmother waited until my mouth wasn’t full.

  “You know Ham; he’s the same. Told me everything that had happened in the last ten years—like it had been that long since I had seen him. He capped it off with his usual proud heritage and family responsibility routine.”

  Charlotte laughed but Victoria watched me silently. I knew how he singled her out, his prodigal daughter, the one most like himself, the one he loved and loathed the most. I didn’t know what their relationship was now. Aunt Elizabeth’s temperament was more like Charlo
tte’s. It’s ironic that the two daughters lived near the parents they are most unlike: Victoria shielded in Charlotte’s house so she and Ham wouldn’t kill each other, Aunt Elizabeth treating patients in Ham’s office building.

  “He’s not very happy about his new diet,” Aunt Elizabeth reflected.

  “He’s lucky to be alive,” Charlotte said flatly.

  “Aunt Elizabeth told me your book had been published, Mother.”

  “Yes, but now they want me to do a tour to sell it. The good news always comes first.”

  “You can do that. You’d love it.”

  “We’ll see. But in the spring there’s a lot to do here.”

  “Like Charlotte can’t handle it,” I spoke affectionately of my grandmother, the perfect woman, and I was being lulled by Victoria’s present sanity into believing in its permanence. I know from experience that when the shoe drops, I will least expect it. But in the meantime—life is lived in the meantime—I will trust. Victoria and Charlotte. Good Anglo-Saxon stock. English and Scotch Irish. Living here at the Spring River farm as Charlotte’s parents and grandparents had done since before the Civil War.

  “I’m not talking about feeding calves or milking their mothers, Holly. Your grandmother’s gone into business.”

  “Doing what? It hasn’t been that long since she retired. Anyway, neither one of you knows anything about cows. You’ve never owned a cow.”

  “Holly, Honey, you’re getting confused. Nobody is talking about cows. We’re opening a shop in Hardy.” Victoria was amused.

  “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “No, we’re serious. The building on Main Street where Charlotte had her flower shop has never sold, and we’ve had a heck of a time keeping it rented.”

  “You are serious.”

  “We’ve got all this stuff, Holly. All those weavings my doctor had me do when I was crazy. Mother has been making quilts for the family for years even though nobody in the family ever wanted one.”

  “I’ll take one.”

  “Holly, you’re missing the point. That shed out back is full of old furniture. Every time I had a manic attack, I’d buy all the pine and oak I could find in six counties. We need to rid ourselves of some of this stuff. Your grandmother has painted more barns than Grandma Moses. Since the news got out about the shop, I’ve had a dozen people contact me about consignment items. An artist in Delta Ridge wants us to stock her pots, another, her paintings.

  Victoria paused as if to wait for my permission.

  “What about your writing?”

  “I can still write, Holly. Neither your grandmother nor I plan to work in the shop. Binky found us this lovely lady from Batesville who used to own an antique shop there; she’s very knowledgeable. Her husband died last year, and she wants to supplement her social security income and fill her spare time. Now when I have a manic attack, I can go on a buying trip and sell it the next day in the shop.”

  “You two are dangerous.” I relished my new role as parent here and hesitated to relinquish my authority. “It would tie you down,” I argued, knowing that even though I always started with reason, logic and sense on my side, no one can ever win with crazy people; and that was all I’d ever known. My mother would do what she wished, as she always had. Thank God, whatever money she lost in her next misadventure wasn’t coming out of children’s mouths. Ham could afford her.

  “Holly, life ties us all down, but tell me about the Tices’ murder. All we know is what we read in the Delta Ridge Sentinel. Did the grandson really kill them?”

  “Ham and Michael seem to think so. His fingerprints were found in the house, but not on the murder weapon. It was a carving knife in the kitchen which had been wiped clean. The luminal test revealed traces of blood but no prints.”

  “How awful that such a brutal murder could happen in Delta Ridge and to such a good man. It’s unthinkable. Dr. Tice was the last of the family doctors. Now it’s a specialist for everything. I really didn’t know his wife, but I loved him.”

  Because the farm house was not large and sleeping accommodations not ample for five adults of both sexes, I was secretly glad when Victoria announced that she and Aunt Elizabeth would share the upstairs guest room with its two comfortable twin beds while Binky would be relegated to the kitchen.

  On the west side of the living room, a long screened sun room, used in summer as a sleeping porch, connected to the kitchen that formed the base of a “T.” As a child I had loved to sleep on the porch and listen to the mysterious night sounds: the screech owl’s hoot, the katydids who repeated their names by rubbing their shrieking legs, the bobcat’s cry that conjured images of a baby’s last scream before being eaten alive. But because the porch was not habitable in the February cold, a sleeper sofa had been added in the kitchen. A large rock fireplace, which also opened into the living room and could be used for cooking, anchored the long kitchen wall and provided warmth. Charlotte’s claw foot oak table and the sofa sat on opposite sides of the fire. A bathroom, added later to the original house built in 1865, was accessible from a hallway leading to the dining porch on the house’s east side. As I studied the room I had not seen in so long, I watched Victoria make Binky’s bed on the sofa with two soft cotton flannel sheets and two of Charlotte’s pastel Dutch girl quilts.

  Once I got to sleep, I slept well, snug under one of my grandmother’s quilts. I dreamed of quilts, old quilts piled neatly on the beds, on the wall above the beds, and on the cedar chest in the corner. A chest full of quilts. Piles of quilts. Counting them like sheep, I started to doze. Old quilts. Old guilts. Quilts and guilts. Confused, I fell asleep.

  SATURDAY MORNING AFTER a late breakfast, the group of us drove into Hardy to tour the new antique shop already stuffed to the rafters. Victoria explained where the pottery and art glass would go and her plans for an art gallery in the yet-to-be-constructed loft. Mrs. Baldridge, the soon-to-be shop manager, was busily unpacking boxes of creamy old linens and dark cobalt dishes. Primitive pieces of oak and pine filled the back-storage room.

  “This place is architecturally interesting,” I announced, trying to keep the surprise out of my voice. I remembered the hammered tin ceiling from its flower shop days. The wide stained glass window, filtering rays of reds, blues, and golds into the room, had evidently replaced the warehouse windows that cantilevered out from the west side of the building near the ceiling in the front. “Will the loft go across the back over the storage room?”

  “Yes, and we’ve found an old soda fountain to go across the west wall.” Victoria was excited “We’ll serve ice cream and coffee and soft drinks. Maybe some sandwiches and pastries later.”

  A soda fountain? Had they lost their minds? Old Mrs. Baldridge as soda jerk? The food business. Hadn’t the flower shop been hard enough? Maybe Victoria has had another manic attack. I knew, if she followed her pattern, that she’d dig in as deeply as she could, commit herself totally, then lose interest, and move in another direction when something happened to sour her or when boredom set in. She’s like Ham, manic as hell. They can stand anything but the predictable. How had Mother been able to stay in these hills for ten years? I remembered that she had bred horses until her fourth mare died giving birth to a tawny colt. She gave me the colt, after nursing it on a baby bottle, and sold her other three horses at a loss to her neighbors. Then she bred cocker spaniels until the crotchety, blonde female with the long blood line killed all her puppies and perhaps ate the litter’s vanished runt. Victoria put an ad in the Batesville paper and sold the remaining dogs the next week. Now she was back in the horse business again with two new fifteen-hundred dollar mares and the stallion I never took possession of.

  Victoria had written me about the weaving classes in Mountain View which were followed rapidly by the dulcimer lessons. I remembered one Thanksgiving, when I was home from Little Rock, Victoria invited her musician friends from Mountain View down to play at the farm on a Saturday night. I could still see the look on Grandmother’s face when the fiddl
e player propped his mud-caked boot on her piano bench covered in delft blue needlepoint.

  That mahogany bench had accompanied Charlotte’s mother’s own piano on a barge up the Mississippi from New Orleans before the turn of the century. Charlotte had bit her lower lip until it bled but she never said a word to the fiddler. Victoria probably heard about it later. The band never returned, and Victoria moved on to collecting coins and trading them in the backs of musty drug stores in the larger towns and in feed and general stores at crossroads where nothing else existed, except an occasional run down gas station or a post office.

  For two years my mother taught English part-time at the college in Mountain Home until she retired to write a book. And now that the book was finally published, she didn’t need to do that again either. Besides, “It was just a children’s book,” she had said, denigrating her achievement. Whatever Victoria did, once she had done it, she didn’t need to do it again; and besides, if she could do it, it wouldn’t be worth bothering with. Victoria is the world’s best self- starter, pulling projects like silken scarves from mid-air, and then surrendering over and over again to hopelessness. I determined that I never would. My determination carried over into going to exercise classes when I had fever or finishing a book that I knew was too dull to read by the time I reached the third page.

  Lost in my thoughts, I discovered that everyone else had moved to the front window to watch giant snowflakes descend on the cars slowly trudging their way along Main Street.