The Legacy of Beulah Land

by Lonnie Coleman

  “Why are you up?” She told him.

  “I don’t mind the heat,” he said. “Come back to bed.”

  “After a while.”

  “Now.”

  “I am too hot.”

  “You must do as I say, Frankie.” She made no reply and stayed where she was. Presently James said, “Are you thinking of him?”

  “Who?”

  “Whoever it is.”

  She sighed. “I think sometimes you are mad.”

  “The one who got to you before I did.”

  “I feel as if no one had ever touched me before you.”

  “That is how it must be from now on.”

  “You’re suggesting the child is not your own?”

  “You’re so big so soon. I can feel you, and Annabel has spoken of it any number of times.”

  “She would accuse me of rutting with the devil if she thought it would turn you against me. You play into her hands, though you pretend to know her.”

  “Come here.”

  “Soon. Now go to sleep.”

  “I’m not sleepy.”

  “You need to sleep,” she said. “You say yourself the heat does not keep you awake. Well, it does me. I must get cool, or I shall not close my eyes the rest of the night.”

  “Come to bed, Frankie. I want you.”

  “I am not well. Truly.”

  “Then you will not be any the worse for it, will you?” he said. “Lately you have complained much.”

  “I’ve had much to complain of. It is a difficult pregnancy. When it is over—”

  “You complain overmuch.”

  “Only of your excesses.”

  “Do not make me come after you.”

  She left her chair and went to the bed, sitting down on the side of it. He took her by the wrist, but lightly, not as if he meant to hurt her. “Have you been unfaithful?”

  “How could I be when we are never apart?”

  “You were unfaithful to Bonard before me. I have thought so for some time. I’m no fool, though you may think so. It came to me after we married that you had contrived the thing because you had to. That’s why I’ve never let you beyond my reach. I should have known it when you let me have you the first time; but I wanted you more than I was willing to doubt you. You don’t love me, do you?”

  “What does love signify?” she said tiredly. “You believe what others tell you or what you tell yourself. You have always been jealous; and jealousy such as yours requires little imagination to build an edifice of lies and false accusation. What is love to you but a license for fornication?”

  “I warn you, girl, not to trifle with me. Take off the gown so that I may feel you properly.” She continued sitting as she was. After waiting briefly for her to do as he’d said, he grabbed the gown at the neck and tore it down the back. It fell from her, and he raised himself, the more easily to pass his hands over her moist body. He then pushed her down so that she lay on her back, and stretching himself beside her, threw a leg across her thighs and moved to mount her.

  “I don’t know which of us has the bigger belly,” she said. “You have grown fat on all the wine you drink.”

  “It gives me strength.”

  “That is what Bonard used to say, but it only made him disgusting.”

  He slid off her without achieving entry. “You must straddle me.”

  “No,” she said.

  “You have done so before. You say it’s easier the way you are now.”

  “I shan’t do it tonight.”

  “Yes, you will, my girl.” He caught her again by both wrists. She tried to rise; he would not let her up.

  “You are right to charge me,” she said, struggling to twist away, spilling her held-in spite. “I have been unfaithful, but not to you, as you well know I could not have been. You watch me with everything but eyes, and at the mill Eugene watches me with his. Do you pay him to do it for you, as you must pay everyone for everything?”

  “Are you telling me it’s Gene you’ve been the whore with?”

  “My unfaithfulness was never to you but to Bonard—if you call it that. Bonard had long ceased being husband to me when I found another.”

  “Who?”

  “Your son Benjamin—now he is a man!”

  His ears first, then his whole face went dark with a rush of blood and fever. “He is not my son! His mother was a whore like you! Now climb astride, madam, and jog, or I’ll make you sorry!”

  “I will not—”

  He rolled her over roughly and fell upon her, entering her from behind. When she cried out, he used a hand to close and hold her mouth. Heaving and thrusting brutally, he worked quickly to ejaculation, and when he slid off her sweating backside, panted himself to sleep. The sound of his snores increasing in volume and assuming a regular pattern at last freed her to move. She edged to the side of the bed; her feet touched the floor.

  Pulling the rags of her discarded nightgown about her, she went to sit again at the window. It was no cooler; it would not rain. Eventually she fell a-doze sitting upright. Waking, she moved cautiously toward the bed. James was no longer snoring. She wondered if he was awake and would reach for her once more if she placed herself beside him. Finding a wrapper in the wardrobe, she left the room quickly and went into the hallway and to the room where Fanny was sleeping. Fanny did not stir when Frankie lay down beside her on top of the sheet that partially covered the child.

  Exhaustion still held her oblivious when Fanny shook her awake. “Mama, it’s nearly eight o’clock. Nobody got up, so Molly made Blair go in your room to see why. He says he can’t wake Uncle James.”

  16

  Although the faces they presented to Frankie were solemn enough, the townspeople responded to James Davis’s death with more levity than they might have another’s. The wink was common, accompanied by an earnest warning of the terrible risks to old dogs of behaving like pups. Wives took relish in nudging their husbands to mark a lesson in the event. If all were surprised, including those who claimed never to be, astonishment was reserved for Eugene Betchley. When the earth trembles twice under a man’s feet, he must wonder if a fateful finger is not pointed at him. First, Bonard Saxon had died decades before due time, and now James Davis, who might have expected another twenty years of life—the two men to whom he owed such prominence as he had achieved. Eugene was given to think more furiously than ever. By natural rights, should not the sawmill now be his? It should be but was not, for there in her pew between son and daughter sat the twice-widowed woman who held his future, in billowing black that did not hide the new life she carried.

  He knew who was responsible for that life. There was the man across the aisle with his granddam, son, and daughter in the pew that had been their family’s as long as the church stood. The church itself was their creation, for they needed it to bear witness to the fortunes of Beulah Land. Eugene knew so much they did not think he knew. He had not yet decided how to use his knowledge, but the will to do so was behind the looks of speculation that had puzzled Frankie during her hours at the mill. He did not know how far he dared go, but there would be a way; of that he was certain. Otherwise, events had no meaning, and the examination of a single leaf showed form and order, not chaos, to be the laws of life.

  Eugene let his eyes pick out two others from those present. Annabel Saxon and Priscilla Davis sat a few rows apart, the one flanked by husband and surviving son, the other shoulder to shoulder with her old scold of a mother. One hated Frankie Davis; the other hated Benjamin Davis—another thing he knew. Might they become his allies? But then he remembered one not present, his own wife. She was no ally, or one no longer. The chance of being caught poaching by Benjamin Davis had set him running to the farm of Bessie Marsh, which he saw on that morning for the first time as his opportunity to leave traps and seines behind him. In the midst of life we are in the midst of death—and truer words were never said, amen.

  Waiting for the service to end, Eugene examined the backs of other heads before h
im. He had chosen to sit well to the rear, as suited his station. Why, he wondered, was Doreen Davis crying so? He’d not thought a dry old maid had so many tears to shed. She was only a sister of the dead man, yet she behaved like widow-mother-sister-daughter in one, while those who might more properly employ themselves in weeping sat like very statues of mourning. (Poor Doreen! She wept for lost love and innocence, for the days when she and James were children, before he began to need women, and she was the only one who loved and was good to him. Her heart cried, “James, James—turn time around and let us be boy and girl again! You have just come in from the field Papa gave you to plant as your own. Your hands are black with earth as you take the glass of tea I pour for you, and you laugh to thank me. I was never happy till then; I have never been happy since. Lost, lost and gone!”)

  Ben Davis and his sister Jane were calm enough, Eugene judged, and back of them sat the dull daughters of the old man’s second marriage, surrounded by their heavy husbands and pasty, restless children. It was well, Eugene mused, that a man never knew what his children would be, lest knowledge spoil his pleasure in the making of them. Finally it was over. The organ played; they rose together. He could not be the first to leave, though he itched to gallop out into the open air.

  The hour James was discovered by his stepson dead, Frankie became the happiest woman in Highboro. She made no endeavor to disguise the truth from herself. Let her tears of relief be read by those around her as grief. When Annabel arrived to confirm the news that had been sent her, Frankie was better composed, but she almost laughed at her not bothering to condole. “Well, ma’am, what have you done this time?”

  Ignoring the accusation in the grim greeting, Frankie answered, “It is true, sister. We have suffered a great loss and must comfort one another. I, you; you, me; for the kindest of brothers and the most loving husband.”

  “I know he’s dead,” said Annabel, “but what of?”

  Frankie tried a sigh. “Doctor Platt says his poor heart gave way.”

  “That may be said of anyone who stops breathing. For such a diagnosis he will charge five dollars you can ill afford. You realize you will be poor again.”

  “No, ma’am, I shall not.” How could she keep her voice low when she wanted to sing hosannas? Few people learn from experience. Frankie did. “James made a new will the day after we married and went to Savannah. He was much moved by my plight as a widow and determined that I should never be left so again. Neither of us saw reason to burden you with our confidence. There seemed so much time. Now, alas, none, which is why you’ll forgive me for breaking the news so starkly. The son and daughter of his first marriage have provided for themselves, standing as they do to gain all of Beulah Land one day for their children. The daughters of the second marriage, Cora, Beatrice, and dear Rebecca, are themselves married and in the care of their worthy husbands. His sister Doreen requires nothing, having given herself to God and Miss Kilmer. All of us rejoice that his other sister, and mine by marriage, is the first lady of the town, being the wife of its banker. Everything James died possessed of is mine.”

  Annabel eyed her coldly. “It will be a hot day in December before I let you pocket a penny.”

  Frankie, who had anticipated the course of the interview, took a copy of the will from her reticule and handed it to Annabel, who knew exactly what to skip, and where to skim, and how to weigh each of the important words. The facts were hers in a minute. Noisily rolling the stiff legal paper into a tube, she twisted it and tossed it back to Frankie, who caught it triumphantly with one hand.

  “We shall challenge it.”

  “I don’t think so.” Frankie smoothed out the will.

  “It will be easy to prove your instability and unfitness. I’ll claim a review of the estate for the sake of the children. Even you cannot deny that two sudden marriages indicate a predilection for shifting sands.”

  “If you try such a thing, I’ll see you ridiculed before the whole town, and that’s the truth. But I don’t believe Mr. Saxon would allow you to be so foolish. He has the reputation of the bank to consider, however careless you might be of your own.”

  “My reputation is without stain, whereas you have more than once invited gossip, not least now.”

  “What can you mean?”

  “I saw Bonard every day of his illness the month before he died. He cannot be the father of the child you’ll bear.”

  “I don’t say he was.”

  “You made great haste to marry again. I’ve asked myself why. It will be interesting to see when the child is born.”

  “Your wagging tongue cannot keep it from being legitimately that of James Davis.”

  Annabel waved a hand dismissingly. “The law may say so, but we may all be forgiven for wondering where your solitary buggy rides have taken you.”

  Frankie rose. “You are in my house, madam. I ask you to remember that now and in the future, should the future bring you back here to admire your grandchildren. Or is it your intention to put them on trial with their mother?”

  Frankie saw her blink and noted the moment’s hesitation. “You can’t bribe me with the children.”

  Frankie moved confidently to the door. “Will you again handle the details of the funeral? You have much skill at it because you are older than I. It is something we all learn along the way, I daresay.”

  Eugene Betchley was another early caller when word of James’s death circulated through town; but on that occasion exchanges were brief and formal, Frankie asking him to return to her after the funeral so that they might discuss the operation of the sawmill.

  Fresh rolls were traditionally the one hot item of food in the cold supper enjoyed by the family of the deceased after a funeral. The yeasty smell of them from Molly’s kitchen filled the house when Eugene arrived to receive his orders. Seated together in her private parlor, Frankie opened the interview by begging Eugene to assure the men that work at the mill would continue. She hoped they would do their best for her as they had done for her husband, and she thanked him for his own loyalty, adding that she expected things to go on much as they had done.

  “Ah, ma’am, but that cannot be.”

  She had sat with eyes fixed on her hands in her lap in the widow’s attitude decreed by decorum. She now looked directly at him for the first time, remembering their interview after Bonard’s death. He had been nervous and awkward then. He was not so now. A new confidence replaced old uncertainty. He sat his chair solidly, legs firmly apart, hands easy on the arms of the chair. “How do you mean?”

  “Mr. Davis is not here to guide us, making decisions and giving orders.”

  “It has long been clear to me, Mr. Betchley, that it is you who give most of the orders at the mill. As to larger decisions, I shall make them myself.” She smiled slowly and flatteringly. It was such a smile as had put men at her service before.

  But Eugene was not, apparently, schooled to respond as they had. “I am a quarter owner of the mill, Mrs. Davis, with years of experience of its men and machinery and markets.”

  “I am lucky to have so capable a partner. You have my perfect confidence.”

  He frowned. “I shall have to have more than that.”

  She looked troubled. “You are—bold.”

  “In business I find it best to be so.”

  “I can’t think you are much different in personal affairs either.” She smiled again and waited for him to blush or smile with her, but he did neither. She reminded herself that a man of his class would not understand the kind of innocent chaff that was part of a lady’s social manner. She would have to teach him.

  “There must be a new arrangement, Mrs. Davis.”

  “I believe you have thought about all this,” she said as if bewildered.

  “I have.”

  “What is it you propose?”

  “A different sharing of the profits.”

  She appeared to be confused, saying slowly, “If you own a quarter of the mill, you are surely entitled to a quarter of t
he profits as before. I shan’t hear of your having anything less because my circumstances are changed.”

  Eugene coughed and crossed his legs. “You’re in no condition to attend the mill. To come with your husband was one thing, but you must come no more until after your child is born.”

  “I do not require lessons in deportment, Mr. Betchley.”

  “Leave everything to me. I’ll take the responsibility of the mill and the marketing. No one else is able to do that, and don’t think they are, not the bank, nor anyone, I tell you. So you see, we are not talking about things going on as they were, but as they will be.”

  Frankie took her time before answering, and he waited with no sign of impatience. Finally she smiled weakly. “I am, as you observe, to be presently without the capacity to direct the business my two husbands commanded and owned. It is true that much will depend upon you.” Her face brightened as her voice gathered strength and decision. “I have not thought it through, as you have; but now that I do, I grant the justice of what you say, Mr. Betchley. I shall, for the time being, rely on you entirely, and we must come to an arrangement. I am, I declare, grateful to you for bringing the matter up without any regard for the niceties of feeling a time of mourning generally involves. I shall see that you are rewarded. Now, is that all?” She smiled upon him bravely.

  “Well, no, ma’am. I have to know what the arrangement is to be.”

  “Good heavens!” she exclaimed good-naturedly. “You are in a hurry to settle things! Are you afraid I shall try to cheat you?”

  “Best to know where we stand,” he insisted.

  “Well, let me think.” She clapped her hands together playfully. “A manager’s salary, that is the thing. In addition to your normal share of profits. That is perfectly fair, you’ll agree?”

  Eugene shook his head. “It’s not the way, Mrs. Davis. As part owner, I don’t fancy working for a salary.”

  “I am certain you will earn it,” she allowed graciously.