Miss Julia Paints the Town

by Ann B. Ross

  But we both pulled chairs up close to the bed and sat down, waiting for Mildred like a queen’s attendants. Mildred plumped the pillows behind her back and scooted farther up in the bed. She seemed to be her old self, except for her hair which was mashed down in the back and standing out from the sides. But her face now had some color in it, and her eyes had gained some sparkle.

  “I want to know where he is,” she said. “Believe me, the longer he’s gone, the worse trouble he’s going to be in.”

  “Now, Mildred,” I said, concerned at her sudden mood swing, “you have to keep your spirits up until you hear something definite. He could still be wandering around up in the mountains, hurt or maimed, maybe with amnesia or something. People get lost up there all the time, even without a car accident.”

  “I know that, Julia,” she said, flapping her hand. “But that doesn’t answer the question of what he was doing up there in the first place.”

  LuAnne leaned forward. “How long has he been gone?”

  “I don’t know!” And Mildred slung her head back and wailed. Exactly the way I’d been expecting. But then, she seemed to gather herself, took a deep breath and continued in a normal voice. “We have separate bedrooms,” she said, cutting her eyes at LuAnne, then at me. “I don’t expect either of you to understand, knowing how your marriages are.” I heard LuAnne make a mewing noise at the reference to her marriage.

  Mildred didn’t notice, just went right on. “A lot of people have separate bedrooms, you know. They just don’t advertise the fact. So,” she said, reaching for a Kleenex, “I assumed he went to bed last night same as always, but apparently he didn’t.” Tears flowed down her face. “So I don’t know how long he’s been gone, and that stern-faced lieutenant acted like he didn’t believe me.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he did, Mildred,” I said, reaching over and patting her hand. “He can’t believe you had anything to do with it. I wouldn’t worry about that at all.”

  LuAnne sat beside me, her mouth twisting to one side and her eyes narrowing. “You don’t sleep together? How do you keep your marriage going?”

  “My marriage is just fine,” Mildred said, pursing her mouth at her. “And just because we don’t find it necessary to be up against each other all the time doesn’t mean we don’t on occasion.” Mildred threw up her hands. “Our sleeping arrangements are beside the point and nobody’s business. Besides, Horace snores.”

  “I think we should try to figure out what has happened,” I said, wanting to turn the conversation away from the tender subject of marriage. “When was the last time you saw him, Mildred?”

  “That’s what the lieutenant asked, and it was yesterday at lunch. Horace wanted an advance on his allowance, and I gave it to him, although not as much as he wanted. All right, don’t look at me like that.” Mildred glared at us. “You both know that Horace has never made a nickel in his life, but he hasn’t needed to. We have our own arrangements which have worked for us all our married life, and if it’s not what most people are accustomed to, it doesn’t matter. I married Horace because he was such a gentleman, cosmopolitan and, well, worldly. He has always been available to me and devoted to me. That’s what I wanted and I was willing to support him to get it. So if that doesn’t meet your middle-class ideas, then I’m sorry.”

  Mildred tightened her mouth and stared us down. Of course, I’d known pretty much all of what she’d just told us, simply from observing the two of them over the years. Mildred had been raised with unlimited wealth, and it’s a settled fact that people like that are different from you and me, whether in their money management or their sleeping arrangements. None of it mattered to me, but I knew Hazel Marie would be fascinated and I couldn’t wait to tell her.

  “Well, I just think it’s strange,” LuAnne said. LuAnne only liked it when people did exactly what they were supposed to do with no variation from what she considered normal.

  “LuAnne,” I said, in an attempt to get us back on track, “none of that has anything to do with the current problem, which is where Horace is now. Mildred,” I went on, turning to her, “didn’t Horace have a cell phone with him? Looks to me like he’d call somebody if he was lost.”

  “Well, I know he would’ve,” Mildred said, “if he’d been able to or if it survived the wreck. It just goes to show that something’s not right with any of this.” She suddenly rose from the bed, flinging back the covers to reveal more than I wanted to see. “I’m getting up from here and getting dressed. Julia, you and LuAnne go on downstairs and ask Ida Lee to come help me. That doorbell has about rung off the hook, and I need to be down there.”

  “Good,” I said, glad to see Mildred stirring herself. “Come on, LuAnne, let’s go see if the coffee’s made.”

  She and I closed the door behind us as Mildred lumbered toward the bathroom. We lingered a minute in the upstairs hall, still slightly in shock at all that had happened that morning.

  “Julia,” LuAnne said, so quietly I could barely hear her. “If things were fair, that should’ve been me.”

  I stared at her. “You mean, married to Horace?”

  “No! I mean, it should’ve been me grieving for Leonard after he’d been thrown out of a car wreck with his body nowhere to be found.”

  “Now, LuAnne, you don’t mean that.”

  “I certainly do. Everybody will sympathize with Mildred, but they’ll all laugh at me. It would be so much easier if Leonard had died instead of leaving me.”

  Having no adequate response to that, I just rolled my eyes and took her arm as we proceeded down the stairs. “I think you’re jumping the gun, LuAnne. We have to remember to keep reminding Mildred that Horace is not dead until his body is found. There’s no need to envy her, LuAnne, because you’re both in the same situation. Both of your husbands are gone, and nobody knows where they are.”

  Chapter 8

  Like Mildred, I had heard the doorbell ring off and on during our stay in her bedroom, and upon reaching the foyer, I saw several people sitting in the living room and others trolling the table in the dining room.

  There was a low rumble of voices rising from the visitors, expressing shock and curiosity over what had happened to Horace. They had come with the best of intentions, wanting to offer help and condolences to Mildred, as well as to hear the latest news as it happened.

  “People do show up when there’s a tragedy, don’t they?” LuAnne commented, her eyes narrowing as they swept the gathering. I detected a trace of sarcasm in her voice, but didn’t comment on it. I was still stunned at her wishing Horace’s fate upon Leonard.

  “Julia! LuAnne!” Emma Sue Ledbetter, our pastor’s wife, said in a loud whisper as soon as she saw us. She put down a tray of sliced ham and cheese on the table and hurried over to us. Leaning close, she asked, “How is she?”

  “Better, I think,” I said, keeping my voice low since others were looking toward us, anxious for the latest word of how Mildred was taking it. “She’ll be down in a few minutes. How are you, Emma Sue?”

  “Oh,” she said, pushing back the hair that had fallen on her forehead. “Just frazzled. I had a full morning already planned, then when I heard about Horace, I had to drop everything and make my dump cake. It’s on the sideboard, so do have some.”

  LuAnne began to edge toward the dining room. “I love your dump cake.”

  I didn’t, so I stayed where I was.

  As soon as LuAnne moved away, Emma Sue clamped a hand on my arm and edged closer. “How is Mildred really? I heard they haven’t found Horace yet, is that true?”

  I nodded. “That’s what they told her. She doesn’t know any more than we do. Is the pastor here? She’ll need him if they ever find Horace.” I paused. “Or if they don’t.”

  Emma Sue glanced toward the front door. “He’s on his way. He had some business to take care of, so I just came on. Listen, Julia.” She took my arm again and eased us under the curve of the staircase, out of the way of people headed for the table. “I need to talk to you. I’m so w
orried and upset, and I have to talk to somebody. When can we get together?”

  “What about now?”

  “No, I don’t want anybody to get an inkling of this. It has to stay a secret until…well, until it’s announced. If it’s announced.”

  “About Horace?”

  “Julia, I don’t know a thing about Horace. Why would I? No, it’s about something else entirely. How long are you going to be here?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll stay as long as Mildred needs me, I guess.”

  “That won’t be long. Just look around, she has all the help she needs. We could leave now and she’d never miss us.”

  “I don’t know, Emma Sue. She doesn’t even know you’re here, although she would expect it, I’m sure. I’d like to stay until we get some word on Horace, wouldn’t you?”

  “I guess,” she sighed. “Well, then don’t forget. When you decide to leave, let me know. In fact,” she said, her eyes lighting up, “I’ll leave as soon as Larry gets here and Hazel Marie can stay in your place. Then I’ll follow you to your house and we can talk there.”

  So that’s what we did, although no word of Horace had come before we left. I felt badly about leaving Mildred in her time of trouble, but I knew that Emma Sue wouldn’t be satisfied until I did. And, in fact, Mildred had finally come downstairs to greet the well-wishers and the curiosity-seekers, taking her place in the middle of her living room by the fireplace. By that time, the pastor had shown up and he was sitting by her side with his Bible open. I wasn’t sure how much comfort Mildred could accept from him, since she’d still not completely gotten over that sermon he’d preached on the sins of the flesh. In that sermon, he’d covered not only what we usually think of as fleshly sins, but he’d also included cigarette smoking, liquor drinking, card playing, too much clothes buying, overeating and obesity. At that point, Mildred had gotten up from her pew and sailed down the aisle and out the door, with every eye in the church on her. She was outraged, as she’d told me, that the pastor hadn’t taken into account her thyroid condition, and he’d had to practically grovel to get back into her good graces.

  As Emma Sue and I slipped out the door, I glanced back at the people flocking around Mildred’s chair, offering food and drink of various kinds, eager to be called upon to aid the assumed widow. I couldn’t help but recall the dazed state I’d been in after Wesley Lloyd Springer’s sudden demise. I had hardly known if I’d been coming or going, but at least I’d had no doubt as to Wesley Lloyd’s whereabouts—which was the Good Shepherd Funeral Home—while Mildred didn’t know whether Horace was among the living or the dead.

  I could imagine the turmoil in her mind, swinging back and forth from being a widow grieving over a dead husband to a wife angered over a missing one. But Mildred handled her inner conflict well, dabbing a handkerchief to her eyes and accepting the plates of food offered to her. She had chosen to wear a deep purple crepe in which to receive her guests. I thought it a felicitous choice, given the fact that it was close to black, but not quite, reflecting what was known of Horace’s location and condition.

  I hurried into the house after parking Hazel Marie’s car and told Lillian that Emma Sue was on her way.

  “They found Mr. Horace yet?” she asked.

  “Not yet. I declare, Lillian, it’s a mystery to everybody, including Mildred. I hated to leave until we’d heard something definite, but Emma Sue insisted on speaking to me privately. I don’t know what could be so important on a day like this.”

  As the front doorbell sounded and I started out of the kitchen, I asked, “Has Sam called?”

  “No’m, but I ’spect he be in for supper here in a minute.”

  I hurried out to answer the door, telling Lillian as I left the kitchen that I wouldn’t be long.

  “Don’t worry about serving anything,” I said. “Emma Sue’s not in the mood to be entertained. But if that carrot cake’s ready when she leaves, I’ll take it back to Mildred’s.”

  I let Emma Sue in, noting the anxiety that lined her face and the wad of Kleenex clutched in her hand. She’d been crying on her way over, which was no surprise since Emma Sue’s tears flowed at the least concern she had, and she had a lot of them.

  “Have a seat, Emma Sue,” I said, trying to ignore her red eyes and streaked face. I’d hear soon enough what her immediate problem was and hoped to put off hearing about it as long as I could. “What in the world do you think has happened to Horace?”

  “Oh, Julia, I know we’re supposed to comfort the grieving and feed the hungry and clothe the naked, and I try, you know I try. But today, I am just so nerve-racked I can’t put my heart into it.”

  “What is it, Emma Sue?” I switched on the lamp next to my Duncan Phyfe sofa and sat down beside her.

  Clasping my hand, she blinked back tears. “It’s Larry. I don’t know what I’ll do if he does it, and I know that a wife has to submit to her husband, but, Julia, I just don’t want to. And, and,” she said, a sob catching in her throat, “and Larry says that’s what submission means.”

  “What does that mean, ‘that’s what submission means’?”

  “He says it can only be submission when you do something you don’t want to because your husband wants you to. It doesn’t count when you do something you want to do.”

  “All right,” I said, frowning. “I’m not sure I agree with that, but okay.”

  “Well, we don’t have to agree with it,” she said, somewhat forcefully. Emma Sue thought of herself as a student of the Bible and a teacher thereof to anybody who would listen and to some who wouldn’t. “We just have to follow it, but, oh, it’s so hard.”

  “What are we talking about, Emma Sue? What does he want you to submit to?”

  “Well, see,” she said, as she blew her nose into a Kleenex that could hardly take any more. “There’s this group of people over in Raleigh? And they’ve pulled out of their church. I hate to call it a split, but that’s what it is.” She looked up at me to be sure I was following. “You know how bad some of our Presbyterian churches have gotten—so liberal and all, so I don’t blame them. Anyway, this group is forming a new church, kind of based on the Presbyterian order but they won’t be affiliated with any denomination. They’ll be independent, see, and they’ve already bought property to build on and everything. Larry says he doesn’t know what will happen to their old church, because its most generous contributors are the ones who have left. But he thinks they’re doing the right thing.” She began shredding the Kleenex, strewing bits of tissue on her lap. “Well, of course he would, since he can get so exercised over some of the things the General Assembly does.”

  “Yes, I know,” I murmured. I wasn’t surprised that our pastor would sympathize with the church splitters, since he’d tried off and on for years to get our members to do the same thing.

  “Well, anyway,” Emma Sue went on, as she blinked back another gathering of tears. “They contacted him, this group, I mean, and asked him to recommend a sound, Bible-based man to pastor them. They know Larry’s as conservative as they come and is in touch with other ministers who’re of the same mind, and they thought he could help them find the right man to call.”

  “He’d be a good one to ask,” I said, nodding. “He must know any number of ministers who’d jump at the chance to start a new church, especially a well-financed one.”

  “That’s just it! He’s jumping at the chance, or at least thinking of it.” Emma Sue’s face crumpled and tears spurted out again.

  “Thinking of what?”

  “Accepting their call, Julia. That’s what I’m talking about. He said,” she hicupped, “he said that it was in-incumbent on him to recommend the right one, and he thinks he’s it.”

  A jolt of joy shot through me. Pastor Ledbetter was leaving—something I’d hoped for and occasionally prayed for more times than I cared to admit. Visions of a new pastor danced in my head, someone who would lead us along a middle way, somewhere in between the wild-eyed radicals on the right and the fuz
zy-minded do-gooders on the left. I couldn’t wait to see a pastor-seeking committee formed. I would tell them exactly the kind of preacher we wanted.

  But for Emma Sue’s sake, I had to stifle my hopes for better things to come.

  “They may not want him,” I said, trying to offer a little encouragement. “They didn’t specifically call him, did they?”

  “No, but they asked him to find the best man for the job, and…” Emma Sue could hardly speak for the sobs in her throat, “and he’s going to recommend himself, Julia.”

  “Oh, dear,” I said, taken aback by such overweening self-confidence. Or was it arrogance? “Well, Emma Sue, if he does, they may surprise you and not take him.”

  “Oh, they will, I know they will when they find out he’s interested. Everybody knows he’s a leader in the conservative movement, so they’d take him in a minute.”

  “Then I guess you have to look on the bright side. Maybe it would be a good thing. Of course, we’d hate to lose him, but nobody would stand in the way of a better opportunity for both of you.”

  “But I don’t want to move! He promised me that we’d stay in Abbotsville until he retired, and this is my home now. It’s not fair for him to suddenly pull up stakes and move all the way across the state and start something new. Why, Julia, do you know what starting a new church involves?”

  “Well, no. Our church has been here for over a hundred years, so we’re pretty well settled in.”

  “Well, just listen to this. In their letter, they told Larry they want to call someone with a wife who’ll work right by his side, organizing the Sunday school and the Women of the Church and vacation Bible school and helping out in the office until they can afford a secretary. And do they offer a salary for all that? No, they don’t. And Larry thinks that’s perfectly all right. He says most churches figure they’ll get two for the price of one anytime they call a pastor. That’s why congregations always want a married man.” Emma Sue straightened her back and made one last swipe at her eyes. “And I’m tired of it. I’ve done my part right here in Abbotsville, and I don’t want to start over in another place. But don’t tell anybody I said that.”