“If I tell Mrs. Saxon what I know, she’ll believe me and move against you, with me the sworn witness. Ben Davis won’t deny it. To do so would mean giving up any claim he might have on the baby he knows is his, and Beulah Land has always loved its bastards. Who understands that better than I? Mrs. Saxon will take the mill from you and she’ll run you out of town. Then she’ll sell me the mill at my price for helping her. Do you want to be poor again? I’ve seen your family in Savannah. You were the lily of the turnip patch, no better than I am. Marry me and you’re safe forever, for we’ll each hold a secret against the other.”
Frankie was not a woman given to hysteria, although she had sometimes affected it when she saw it was to her advantage. But now she screamed furiously and with complete sincerity. The sound was, however, drowned in the singing of the saws outdoors as they cut through the wood that could keep her rich.
Arriving at home, Sarah sent Mabella to ask Nancy to come to her in the office. “Nancy,” she said without preamble, “I want you to run the house from now on, for I’m no longer able to do it and no one else knows me and Beulah Land. It must be you.”
PART THREE
1895
1
For a long time there had been only one grave at Beulah Land, that of the slave Ezra, but now there were those of his wife Lovey, his son Floyd, Floyd’s wife Lotus, and Selma, daughter of the earliest master of Beulah Land anyone alive could remember. Sarah had erected an iron fence around the graveyard to keep wandering animals away. There were flower borders, which Jane tended, one tree, and a stone bench nobody used. Visitors simply walked back and forth and in and out reading names and dates in a dutiful way; and those who loved the place enough to linger favored the friendliness of sitting on the gravestones. Sarah and Roman often sat on Lovey’s.
“Do you think there really is a heaven?” Roman asked.
Sarah nodded and shrugged at the same time. “Somewhere for those we love. Those we hate go to hell, of course. There is certainly a heaven for these, and for Casey and Leon and my dear Edna.”
“Proctor.”
She touched his hand. “And Rachel.”
“Poor Rachel!” he said. “Was she ever happy?”
“With James,” Sarah answered after considering it, “and as a child. I remember her and Leon one time in particular, though it must have happened many. There used to be a pomegranate bush over there, and you and she had been taking a pod apart—”
“I remember.”
“Leon swooped her up and threw her into the air. I can hear both of them squealing and laughing.”
“Oh, the ache of love,” he said quietly but with a hint of mockery. “Do you think Leon will call me son and love me in that place you say there is? For I shall certainly be there!”
“Yes, certainly,” she said to both question and statement.
Roman laughed. “Aunt Nell will eat sweet potato biscuits every day for breakfast.”
“And a little squirrel gruel,” Sarah said.
He gently mimicked Nell’s voice. “I was ever partial to a gruel made from squirrel. What about Lauretta?”
“So long since I’ve heard from her. I can’t think she’s dead, though. Someone would have written. I don’t think Lauretta would leave without a curtain call.”
“I can’t think of her dying at all,” Roman said.
“Well, she promised us she was going to immediately, when the good colonel soldiered off to paradise. June—six years ago? 1889.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me if somebody came and told us they’d seen her dancing the cancan in Paris.”
“Roman, she’s eighty-six.”
“I expect by now she’s pared fifteen years off that and takes care how she mentions things that happened long ago. Besides, they are said to admire old things in Paris.”
“Then we must all pack our satchels and hasten there.”
“What of Annabel? Heaven or hell?”
As if answering roll call, Annabel leaned over the fence to peer at them. “How can you sit there on that cold tombstone? Don’t you know it’s January?”
“We’re warmly dressed,” Sarah said.
Annabel surveyed the old woolen frock and red shawl worn by Sarah and sniffed. “Fashion is not your folly. You’ve never minded what you wear.”
“I’m glad at least the bustle is gone. You all looked ridiculous.”
“You’re the one who looked a freak without one.”
“Casey was content with my behind the way it is, and I saw no reason to alter it by putting a cart behind me like a pony.”
“Don’t be so country-coarse, Auntie. You wore hoopskirts; for I distinctly remember you in them.”
“Everyone did.”
“Except me,” Roman said.
“Good morning, Roman. Why aren’t you at school? Is it some holiday?”
“I’ve stopped teaching,” he reminded her, “and come home to live.”
She remembered with a cluck. “You see how distracted I am? Come along, Auntie Sarah, where I can talk to you, for I certainly will not sit out here and say what I have to.” She walked briskly toward the house and into it, continuing to talk, taking for granted that she was followed. Past the drawing room she marched, as if she considered it too frivolous a setting for what was on her mind, and into Sarah’s office. Roman whispered to Sarah that he would go, but she shook her head and pulled him along until he followed of his own accord. She never saw Annabel alone if she could help it.
“Oh, you’ve come too,” Annabel said as Roman took a chair beside Sarah’s. “It’s all right, I suppose, for you were the first scandal at Beulah Land.” Sarah and Roman burst out laughing. “I don’t know why you’re amused, I’m sure.”
“Annabel,” Sarah said, “being sixty-five does not allow you every rudeness.”
Annabel rolled her eyes. “It should; there are few enough advantages. Now I’m here, I don’t know why I’ve come, except you’re the oldest in the family, Auntie Sarah, and everyone comes to you, though I’ve never known you to say anything remotely Delphic.”
“I don’t give advice,” Sarah said. “I listen, however reluctantly.”
“It’s about Blair Three. He’s not going back to Charlottesville.”
“I thought he was simply prolonging his Christmas visit.”
“We’ve got to decide what he’s going to do.”
Sarah looked at her, puzzled. “What does he want to do?”
“Nothing,” Annabel said.
“I see your difficulty.” Sarah had learned not to ask questions of such as Annabel, knowing they made explanations more labyrinthian, trusting that she would pick up essential information as the speaker went along. “The bank perhaps?”
“No head for figures.”
“Why doesn’t Frankie make a place for him at the sawmill?”
Annabel wheezed with exasperation. “Can you see Blair at the sawmill?”
The three thought of the fashionable young man. “No,” Sarah agreed. “Still, he wouldn’t have to fell trees and order the men about. Mightn’t he learn to think about orders and shipments? Something perhaps in the Savannah office.”
“Gene won’t hear of it. He will not have Blair in any of his business concerns and has ordered him to leave the house. Blair came to me, naturally. He dotes on me, as everyone knows. Even his mother has turned against him.”
“Frankie loves the boy,” Sarah protested.
“She may, but she’s afraid of Gene and won’t go against him. When I think of them owning that business, having stolen it from me! Surely a sister’s claim is stronger than a trifling silly wife’s—”
“You must tell us what happened.”
Annabel fidgeted the drawstrong of her reticule. “Gene always hated the boy.”
“Blair isn’t fond of Eugene either.”
“That’s neither here nor there.”
Sarah said, “Surely Blair is entitled to live in his mother’s house until he has his own.”
<
br /> “Gene is furious.”
“Why?”
“He’s even threatened to kill him; he’s an absolute, utter brute.”
“I shan’t argue that with you.”
“There was a misunderstanding. Gene went into Theodore’s room yesterday—I don’t know what he was doing at home the middle of the afternoon; Blair says he never is. I can’t believe it; the man is demented. Blair denies it, but Theodore says Blair forced it on him.”
“Theodore is a big fifteen to be forced to do anything.”
“Exactly, but Gene will have it that our boy was holding his boy and kissing him! You see? He’s insane. Males do not kiss other males unless they are father and son, or dying, or something like that.” When Sarah and Roman exchanged a look, Annabel shifted her eyes to Roman. “I can see that you’re just as astonished as I was. Men may have friendships sometimes like yours with that—what was his name—tutor who came to teach Adam and James and sort of adopted you. Advise me. Or at least say you agree with me. Shall I instruct Mr. Saxon to tell Gene we won’t stand for it?”
“I don’t think you had better do that,” Sarah said cautiously.
Annabel subsided in her chair with an unhappy sigh. “Well, I’ve told you. Frankie won’t even talk about it, only agrees that he must now live with me. I’ve always wanted him, and she wouldn’t let me have him, and now she’s willing to throw him away.”
“Perhaps another school,” Roman suggested.
Annabel shook her head. “They’d want to know why he left Virginia. You see, there was some misunderstanding—pure spite, of course. Blair belonged to a club with other sensitive young men who read Pater and Wilde and such, and the rowdies hated them and spread stories about them. They can be terribly silly at the University, you know.”
They were quiet until Roman said, “Why not have him read for the law?”
The women looked at him and then at each other.
Sarah said tentatively, “Might Roscoe be able to help him? He read law.”
“I’m sure he’d do what he could,” Roman said. “The Institute is much in your debt, Miss Annabel, for your past patronage.”
“That is so,” she agreed, happy to be reminded of a debt anyone owed her. “Of course, Mr. Saxon and I don’t lack for connections among the fraternity of the law—”
“Are you thinking of Philadelphia?” Sarah said to Roman, who nodded.
“No,” Annabel said firmly. “It shall be here where he will have the support of those who love him. I will not have it look like he’s being banished.” She clapped her hands and rose. “You have hit on it, Roman. I was right to ask you to stay and listen, while you, Auntie Sarah, haven’t been at all helpful.” She nodded. “The law. I can see him in a courtroom with that fine figure and noble brow, telling the judge and jury in his thrilling voice exactly what to do. Oh yes, it is the very thing. A gentleman’s profession, and who knows where it may lead? Why not one day governor of the state of Georgia—or higher? I shall go with him all the way, and his mother and Gene can go to the devil. Auntie Sarah, does it never occur to you to offer tea? Must I always beg? The law! Respectable ever since Moses.”
2
“Don’t grieve, dear, any more.”
Doreen Davis kissed Eloise Kilmer’s wrinkled cheek, and Miss Kilmer wiped her eyes resolutely with a handkerchief already damp. “I cannot forget the cruel things Miss Annabel used to say. He ate the bachelor’s buttons only because he loved them.”
“It was a nice funeral,” Leon said.
“He was fond of you,” Miss Kilmer said. “I remember the first time you came to see us, he sat in your lap. I knew then you were a good boy. Toby was an infallible judge of character. The one time he saw Miss Annabel, she rocked her chair on his tail and he bit her ankle. She said I should have him destroyed because he was vicious! I’d sooner have had her destroyed. After that, whenever she came, he went to the attic.”
“He must have been the oldest cat in Highboro,” Benjamin offered in comfort.
“I believe he was,” Doreen said helpfully. “Seventeen and delighted us every day of his life. We may say that about few others.”
“None,” was Miss Kilmer’s opinion. “I love them all, but Toby was the best I ever saw. Having made Toby, our dear Lord broke the mold.”
Seeing that tears threatened again, Doreen rose hastily from her chair to offer the gentlemen more tea, which they declined, Benjamin saying they must go.
After protests and affirmations, Miss Kilmer rose to attend to her duty as hostess. “It was good of you to come. Toby would have been proud.” She went to the box at the side of the fireplace and picked out a kitten from the drowsing litter of five, whose mother had already grown restless enough to leave them for an hour at a time. She looked at the all-black creature, who looked back at her with alert green eyes until she set him on Leon’s knee. “He’s yours if you will have him.”
Leon offered a finger to the kitten, who grabbed the tip with soft forepaws and fought his palm with his hind feet. “Thank you, Miss Eloise; he’s a beauty, and I need a cat.” The kitten stopped his game and observed the young man’s face with interest and calculation.
Benjamin said, “Thank you, ladies, for tea and, if I may say so in the circumstances, a most pleasant hour.” He kissed his Aunt Doreen and her friend Miss Kilmer. Then his son, who was as tall and nearly as broad as he, kissed them too. The kitten mewed and held on to Leon’s jacket with every claw.
“What will you call him?” Doreen said. “We’ve only called him Blackie for convenience, but it wasn’t meant as his name.”
Leon cupped a supporting hand under the kitten. “They say hell is black but look at his eyes. I think I’ll call him Hellfire.”
Miss Kilmer was delighted, and they parted on the friendliest terms. Getting into Leon’s gig at the front gate, they rode into the main section of town. Benjamin said, “I was thinking of that cold morning I found you and your ma in front of Sullivan’s store and gave you a kitten. I’d been to the gin, and old Isaac, God rest his soul, made me take him. Whatever happened to him; do you remember?”
Leon told him, and after Benjamin brooded over it a little, he said, “Poor Bessie.”
Leon looked down at the head of the kitten he had stuffed into his jacket front. “Nobody going to drown you, Hellfire.” The animal ignored him, gazing about nonchalantly, as if being carried along the main street in an open gig was a common occurrence in his life.
“About time for the Up Train from Savannah,” Benjamin said in an offhand way.
“Mm.”
“Want to meet it? Just to be doing something?”
“Might as well, since we’re here.” Their eyes meeting, they laughed.
When they halted at the station, they found Roscoe Elk waiting in his wagon. All got down and went together past the station loungers who had come out of the warm freight office to watch for the train. On the platform Roscoe said, “If my girl hasn’t brought half of Savannah home with her and put the other half on order, I’ll be surprised.”
“Maybe Nancy and Miss Fanny checked her,” Benjamin said.
The three had gone to Savannah to buy clothes for Luck’s wedding and were returning after a week’s absence.
Though the three men paced impatiently exchanging routine comment and speculation, the train was on time; and when it stopped, Luck was the first to step down. Roscoe was ready to grab her and swing her around before letting her feet touch the platform. “Papa, Papa!” She hugged and patted him, breathing quickly with excitement. “Spent every penny you gave me and ran up debts everywhere they knew your name—didn’t I, Fanny? No, Papa, I’m only teasing you, but I bought me some mighty pretty things. Well, where is he? You mean to say he’s not here when I’ve been gone a week? All he had to do was write every day and be here to meet me!”
He was there, but he had arrived early and decided to surprise her. When she had berated him until she had to stop for breath, he stepped out of the telegra
ph office and took her from Roscoe. At first she fought him with dumbfounded delight. “You scoundrel Abraham! Did you miss me a little or miss me a lot?”
The others, meantime, accomplished their reunions. Helping her with the smaller pieces of luggage, Benjamin managed a quiet welcome for Nancy, who loved him with a smile even as she spoke the most commonplace words for people to hear. Leon at first disguised some of his pleasure in seeing Fanny by showing her the kitten. The two heaped extravagant compliments and witty comments on the head of the puzzled Hellfire until they found themselves holding hands and talking directly to each other, the animal forgotten. Only when the engine started did they miss him and set up a panicky search, finding him as the train pulled away sitting patiently between a hatbox and a crate of oranges deposited from a freight car. Scolding and praising him, they regained a fair measure of social manner by the time Luck and Abraham subsided enough in their reconciliation to think of their friends.
“Come on, honey,” Roscoe said to Luck. “I brought the wagon. Let’s take just the things you want to show me first, or most, and let them bring the others.”
“No, Papa! I must keep everything together. Fanny! There you are. Isn’t it good to be home again?”
Fanny agreed that it was. Luck saw that Leon was clutching one of her hands at his side and laughed. “You’ll be next!” she declared.
“I brought my buggy,” Abraham said. “I’ll drive you home, and Roscoe can load all your things and haul them out for you.”
“Oh, ho!” Roscoe exclaimed. “I’m to be no more than fetcher and carrier, am I? Damned if I’ll do just as I’m told like that. Would you, Ben, if you was me? Well, maybe. All right. Go ahead. See that you don’t stop and dawdle, because I want you to be there when I get home, girl, to give account of every nickel you spent of my money, you hear me?”
Luck drew Fanny aside for a whispered, giggled confidence, and then she and Abraham ran off together to his buggy, which he’d left across the tracks in front of Sullivan’s store. Benjamin and Leon lent hands and backs to help Roscoe load his wagon with Luck’s trunks, taking their directions from Fanny and Nancy to be especially careful with this one and to put that one next to the big wooden barrel, because the two items should be kept together. The thing that looked like a crated balloon was to be set on sacking, and Roscoe was to drive slowly so as not to jounce the contents. No, they might not know yet what was inside. It was for the new house Abraham had built, and they wouldn’t understand until they saw it in place. Used to obeying the dictates of women about weddings, they did as they were told.
The Legacy of Beulah Land Page 34