Читать книгу Quilly Hall - Benjamin W. Farley - Страница 10

When my mother and stepfather returned, we moved to his house in town. My grandmother had tried to prepare me for the event.

“Now, when they come back, you’ll be moving to town. Think of it! You’ll be near your school. The theatre will be only a few blocks up the street. You’ll be able to attend the movies every Saturday. The drug store, grocery store, bank, post office, everything will be right there. And you can watch the trains from your back yard. And when you’re old enough, you’ll be able to ride a bicycle, all by yourself, anywhere you want. And you’ll be closer to Uncle Everett’s, the library, why, everything! And, best of all, you’ll make new friends. You’ll be able to play with them, and invite them to play with you.”

“Yes, but I’ll miss the creek, and the old cabin,” I demurred. “And who will feed Sally and Fred, the chickens, and pigs, and Jessie’s dogs, and ride the big horses down to water? And will I ever get to go back to Uncle Jim’s, or run in the road, or ride with Uncle Everett and Earl into the Knobs? And who will play with Pearl? And who will read to me? What will happen to you? Where will you keep my father’s picture at night? And who will sweep the porch and chop kindling and gather the eggs? Why can’t I just stay here and live with you and Pearl?”

“Ah, Tommy! This is harder on me than you. Yes, to be sure! Somehow, it will work out. Precious little man! Don’t fret your heart, dear boy. We Edmonds have always survived. Besides, you’ll be able to visit me every weekend. Every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, why you can come here! And we’ll read, rock on the porch, and do all those other things. And just watch! Come Sundays, you’ll be eager to rush back in town, even go to church, play ball, and show those teachers at school just how bright and smart you are. Now, I don’t want to hear another word. No more pouting or pitiful curling of the lips! No, sir! We Edmonds must be resolute and unwavering. Why, as resolute as the old Captain and as calm as Quilly! Now, run along! Time is of the essence and the bird is on the wing!”

She kissed my neck as I went outside to play.

The process of relocating to Abingdon was now immanent. I was asleep when my mother and Mr. Chappels arrived from their honeymoon, but the very next morning, Mr. Chappels hired a truck and several men to transport our clothes and any special furnishings my mother wanted, into town. She kept these to a minimum; however, she determined that our room at Quilly Hall should remain as intact as possible, and ready at a moment’s notice for us to use on weekends.

Reluctant to leave the only quarters I had ever known as home, I soon discovered that the move into Abingdon afforded numerous advantages. Marion’s house backed up to the Norfolk and Western rail line, and engines and coal cars, passenger trains and flatcars, box cars and cabooses rumbled along its tracks, night and day. A grove of cedars and a high fence, mantled in vines and honeysuckle, muffled the roar of the thundering trains that whistled along the steel rails, or that huffed heavily under the strain of a hundred coal cars trundling by. Marion helped me build a tree house, and from its “lofty heights and perilous deck,” as he dubbed it, I could sit and watch the trains pass. “Clank, clank, clank,” the wheels thumped along the tracks, as the cars rolled by. Where were the trains going? From whence had they come? Coal soot blackened the limbs of the cedars and sifted through the vines onto my perch. Tiny particles of grit and cinders accompanied billowing smoke.

There was an oil station one block down from our house. Trucks came and went, bearing loads of heating oil for half the town’s furnaces and indoor stoves. It served as a filling station as well, and one could buy soft drinks, candy, and ice cream bars inside. And farther down the street, began the first long storage sheds for the county’s tobacco harvest, which brought auctioneers and scores of buyers from miles and miles around. In the winter, especially, the mellow aroma of the tobacco barns permeated the air over the entire south end of town.

Marion’s property even boasted a barn. An elderly lady across the street kept her milk cow pinned in it and raised chickens and ducks in her own backyard. When she discovered my love for chores, she “hired” me to weed her garden, water her ducks, split kindling, and shoo stray dogs away. The dimes I earned from her purchased the coveted items I so desired at the filling station. No happier child skipped along our street. Still, I missed the farm, my grandmother, Pearl, her father, Earl, and Quilly Hall. I felt bereft without its porches, swings, elms and yard, springhouse, cabin, and, above all, the portrait of the old Captain and the serene German maiden on her pedestal.

From the earliest days of his marriage to my mother, “Marion,” as he encouraged me to call him, won my heart more and more each day. Large of frame, but physically fit, with a receding hair line and groomed goatee, his unaffected manner and genteel winsomeness made him a beacon of stability, amidst a family of sometimes emotional turbulence. He loved my mother, tolerated my Aunt Rachel, respected my grandmother, bonded with Uncle Everett, and devoted hours of attention to me. His death in 1952, at age fifty-seven, fell upon us with all the irony and bitter trappings of a Greek tragedy. While visiting the wards of the mental state hospital in Marion, a crazed kinsman of Olan Crawford’s family stabbed him with a piece of glass. It severed his jugular vein. He bled to death before anyone could attend to his wound. Hundreds of county residents and members of both the Virginia Senate and House of Delegates stood in the snow for his burial.

He taught me how to shoot birds on the wing, how to lead them and care for the dogs. He took me hiking and camping, fishing and canoeing, and taught me how to drive a car. The hunting we did with Uncle Everett, at both his and my grandmother’s farm. The camping, fishing and hiking were products of adventures around Whitetop Mountain and nearby Mt. Rogers. Its rocky ridges and alpine meadows proved no match for Marion’s steady stride and muscular frame. He carried the tent and food packs, while I panted and huffed to keep up, laden with my backpack of underwear, socks, and bedding.

We had not resided long in Abingdon before my seventh birthday came around. My grandmother insisted that she bake my favorite cake—devil’s food with white foamy icing—and we eat that the coming Sunday with her.

Uncle Everett attended, along with Pearl and Earl, and Uncle Jim and Aunt Viola. Uncle Jim appeared very feeble at the table and had to lie down after dinner. The couple had walked all that morning to my grandmother’s and had intended to walk back. “Absolutely not!” my grandmother squelched any such idea. “Everett, will your truck make the journey? The road is harder now. They can’t go back on foot! I forbid it!” she addressed her remonstrance to her brother and sister-in-law.

“I doubt it, Mama,” replied Uncle Everett. “But we can take them in the wagon. Marion, why don’t you and Tommy come with me?”

“Capitol! We’ll both enjoy it, won’t we, Tommy?”

Thus the decision was made.

We had not quite reached the ridge above the river, when Uncle Jim signaled for us to be silent. Uncle Everett slowed Sally and we sat still and listened. “Somethin’ or someone’s following us in the woods. Cain’t you hear it?” Uncle Jim said in a low voice.

Uncle Everett brought the wagon to a halt. In the stillness of that languorous afternoon, we sat motionless on the buckboard’s seats and strained our ears for the slightest noise or movement he must have heard. The hazy mist of drying leaves hung in the treetops above the narrow lane. “Shhhh! There it is again!” he whispered. The faint snap of a fallen branch caught our ears. The woods plunged into silence. Sally’s tail swished from side to side and the flesh on her hindquarters quivered. Then it happened. The shadows in the underbrush on the bank above us burst with a crackling sound. Out of the silent darkness lunged a huge opaque form. It landed on the opposite bank without making the faintest sound. Sally neighed and pawed the ground. The big cat hissed and bared its teeth. It’s eyes burned with yellow-green fire. It hissed a second time, turned slowly away, slipped into the bramble and vines, and disappeared.

“Damn!” Uncle Everett blurted. “He must be nine feet long!”

I looked about. Uncle Jim was smiling. “I knowed he was up here. He’s been spookin’ deer for weeks. Must have been waitin’ for us to come back from Ginny’s.”

Neither Uncle Everett nor Marion said a word, but Aunt Viola’s face twitched with worry. “We’d better get home, Jim,” she urged. “The livestock’s not pinned up and Lord only knows where the chickens are.”

“Was that a panther?” I asked.

“Yes,” Uncle Everett answered softly. “I’m afraid so.” He raised the reins and flicked them for Sally to move forward.

“I’m seven, now,” I ventured.

“I know,” he intoned. “I’ll keep my promise.”

Two Saturdays later, he came by the house in his pickup truck with his big hounds. Marion was attending a rally in Bristol and had left earlier that morning.

“Why did you ever promise such a ridiculous thing?” my mother reproached him. “That’s all this crazy boy has been blabbering about for two whole weeks!”

“Don’t get so all fired up!” he rejoined. “He can’t hide under your petticoat all his life. And Marion’s got obligations all his own. I know what I’m doing. And I know where to go. I’ve been following that cat since you all moved to town. I know where its lair is. And I promised Tommy I’d take him with me, and, by jingles, I’m here to cash in on my word.”

“And my word is ‘No!’”

“Mama! Mama!” I cried with tears in my eyes. “Uncle Everett promised! I know how to hold on to the saddle. I ain’t afraid. Please, Mama! Please!”

“Don’t say ‘ain’t!’ Besides, your stepfather wouldn’t approve either. Even he’s got more sense than that.”

“I hate to tell you, my dearest,” Uncle Everett smirked, “but Marion and I have already talked about this. He’d be pleased for Tommy to go. Don’t naysay a child’s excitement. You know I’ll be careful.”

My mother turned and stared at me. She shook her head with disapproval, yet with an acquiescence that only a mother’s torn heart can grant. “Go! Go, then! But bring him back tomorrow at the latest.”

By noon, Uncle Everett and I had saddled Fred and were ascending a trail that deer had made from the Knobs into the orchard. Half-chewed apples, scattered piles of dark pellets, and flattened patches of grass revealed where the deer had foraged. Their trail led up through a stretch of locusts, maples, and poplars, and finally into stands of tall hickories, oaks, and graceful hemlocks. The dogs had displayed little enthusiasm until we came to a rocky ledge that overlooked my grandmother’s farm. They began to whine and sniff the base of a gnarled Virginia pine that leaned half-dead over a steep precipice on the opposite side of the ledge. From its open heights, a boulder-strewn ravine dropped off into a thicket of laurel and grove of beech trees below.

“One of its lair’s is right down there,” Uncle Everett pointed from the saddle. “But the dogs don’t seem that interested.”

Slowly, Uncle Everett guided Fred down a fresh game trail where the deer had scattered fallen leaves. Toward the bottom of the ravine, a dry creek bed’s tiny gravel indicated where spring rains had once gushed as a brook. Several paths branched off, all upslope. Roy picked up a scent of some magnitude and began to weave back and forth. Dixie whined and imitated him. Suddenly, the dogs bolted off in the direction of a huge boulder. The incline was too steep for Fred, so Uncle Everett dismounted and held the reins behind his back as he walked in front of the horse. With tremendous difficulty, we finally made our way parallel with the boulder, where the dogs had stopped to sniff again. While I clung to the saddle horn, Uncle Everett inspected the big rock and its lichen-dappled surface. He looked about the woods to his left, then right, and up the steep slope. He returned and we continued a steady but slow climb to the top of the ridge. The dogs appeared uninterested and, pausing in a grassy gap, we rested Fred before proceeding farther. From knob to knob and ridge to ridge, we followed what trails and scents the dogs seemed to favor. Toward dusk we ascended a rugged stretch of slippery shale and on the leeward side of the descent made camp under a stand of hemlock near a spring. Uncle Everett tied Fred to a nearby limb where the horse could feed on grass blades that poked up between humps of outcroppings. Uncle Everett had said very little all day, and I could sense that he was concealing his disappointment from me.

“No luck, yet!” he smiled, as he spread out a tarp and some blankets for us. He reached in one of the pockets of the saddlebag and handed me a bacon biscuit and fed several to the dogs. “Yes, sir, I thought we’d a treed him by now. But we’re near a second lair of his. It’s about a half-mile from here. He’ll come out tonight to hunt. Might already be around us. So we need to sleep light. If you hear anything in the dark, anything at all, the slightest sound, nudge me. The dogs’ll hear it first. Or smell him first. But sometimes even they can fall asleep.” He placed his rifle beside his blanket. “I’m going to build a small fire, because it’s going to get cold. But, you’ll stay warm.”

I helped him gather a pile of hemlock boughs, leaves, and dry wood and light the fire. It felt reassuring to hunch beside the bright blaze and rub the big dogs’ ears. Gradually, I grew sleepy and curled up close to my uncle’s side and stared at the low orange flames. A huge part of me was too terrified to look, even into the woods. Yet, a deeper sphere felt perfectly at home, knowing that nothing bad could ever happen to me, so long as Uncle Everett was alive. That he might get hurt or killed lay beyond my capacity to imagine.

Darkness settled ever so stealthily about us. A pale moon climbed rusty yellow over the Knobs, then disappeared behind clouds. Tree frogs squeaked their nightly vespers with throbbing annoyance; then grew silent. A whippoorwill repeated its cry over and over. I felt warm, snug, excited, but exhausted, and drifted into sleep.

Sometime around midnight or 1:00 a.m., I awakened with a startle. Uncle Everett lay asleep. Roy was licking my face and whining softly. Fred was snorting quietly, shifting his weight from leg to leg, and pawing the ground. I could hear him pulling on the rope where Uncle Everett had tied him to the limb. All else was deathly still. Roy continued to whine, ever so imperceptively. Only a few low flames flickered amid the red embers.

“Uncle Everett! Uncle Everett,” I shook him with trembling fingers. “Uncle Everett! Please, wake up!” My throat felt dry, my lips stuck to my mouth. No words were coming out.

Roy rose in a crouched position and burst into wild yelps. A pair of horrendous eyes glowed against the blackness of night. Suddenly, Uncle Everett sat up, swung his body about, and fumbled for his rifle. The snarling cat was almost in his face. He fired his rifle point-blank into the cat’s chest. The animal leaped straight up, emitted a muffled cough, and fell silently beside the coals. Both dogs began to rave and claw at the cat. But it was over. It was all over, and when I stood up, I realized my pants were wet, and I was shaking with shock. Uncle Everett produced a flashlight from his saddlebag and shined it on the big cat. The dying animal looked enormous in the fire’s glow. Uncle Everett had to pull the dogs off and chain them for the remainder of the night. Blood dripped from the cat’s mouth and nose. Uncle Everett dragged it out of sight while my eyes followed his every move. Finally, I rolled up in the tarp again and sank into a deep and marvelous sleep.

The following noon, when we returned to the meadow above the orchard, Jessie, his brother, Albert, and scores of farm people had gathered in the road, awaiting our return. Someone had heard the gun’s report in the night and was confident that “Mr. Edmonds had kilt that cat.” Marion and my mother were rocking on the front porch when we came out onto the road. We were dragging the big cat behind us, to the happy howling of the tail-wagging dogs. My grandmother came across the road to hug me, as Uncle Everett helped me down. Marion came behind her and carried me into the house. “Whew, Master Thomas!” he teased, as he got a whiff of my pants. “I won’t tell anybody, if you don’t.”

“No, sir!” I beamed, as I clasped his neck.

“What a boy!” he laughed as he mounted the steps and carried me into the hall, passed the stern, silent Captain’s gaze and the serene, Fraulein Quelle.

Jessie skinned and nailed the panther’s hide to the front of the tobacco barn. The cat measured eight feet in length, from the tip of its nose to the end of its tail. It weighed one-hundred and twenty pounds, dead. Passers-by stopped to gawk at it for the entire next year, until its skin rotted and all the fur sloughed off. What the chickens didn’t eat, a fox or some other scavenger finished. Such was the fate of little Ouida’s killer. “Just a cryin’ shame,” Earl would say from time to time.

While visiting my grandmother one weekend not long after that, an elderly widower by the name of Ambrose Stone stopped by the house for coffee. It was early Saturday morning, and Pearl’s body had begun to show definite signs of her pregnancy. Mr. Stone noticed but refrained from any direct comments. He wore a clean pair of overalls, a gray flannel shirt, a black, coffee-stained woolen jacket, white socks and brogans. Long hair flowed down the back of his neck and his cropped beard bore the tell-tales signs of tobacco juice. We were seated in the kitchen. It was obvious that my grandmother was hoping that he wouldn’t stay long. But, there he was, and her sense of being the grand dame of the Edmonds clan and principal keeper of her father’s legacy forbade her from acting in any way other than patient and gracious.

“Ambrose, it’s always good to see you. What brings you our way this morning?” she asked the wan, wrinkled figure.

“Ginny,” he addressed her. “I cain’t sleep well no more. Don’t seem rightly fitting just to stare at the walls. Since Eula’s death, life’s been awfully lonely. I need a new woman,” he uttered, as his eyes followed Pearl about the kitchen. “Some’n young with lots of vim, vigor, and vitality left in ’em. An’ pretty, too. Like Pearl here.” He smiled, as he wiped a driblet of coffee off his beard. His fingers were long and sallow, blue with bruises and brown with age spots. “Pearl, would ya mind thinkin’ about it? I’d give ya a good home, and that baby of yo’rns a-comin’ would have a place to grow up, all his own.”

My grandmother’s forearms shivered with goosebumps. Suddenly, she eyed him with a devilish hauteur and twitch of her thin eyebrows. “My, my! Ambrose! How romantic for a Civil War Veteran.You old dog! Why not ask me?”

“Ginny, I ain’t no veteran. You know that. I ain’t that old, neither,” he objected. “I was born in ’sixty-four, not ’thirty-four, like your pa and mine. Sides, you’re too refined and educated for me. I ain’t nothin’ but a mountaineer. What could I offer you? But Pearl, here, I kin offer her a home and food for herself and baby. What’s wrong with that?”

“Well, Ambrose, you might succumb before the baby’s born. And what would that leave Pearl? What if your own children resented her presence, or denied her inheriting the house?”

“Ginny, they’re long gone and left here years ago. They don’t even write me no more, or come to see me. I need a wife, Ginny, a woman to cook and care for me.”

“Ah! The truth comes out. ‘To cook and care’ for you! Get one of Albert’s sisters to do that. He’s got three spinster old maid sisters who’d leap at the opportunity to be your bride. To marry a man of your substance! Especially, Elsie.” She smiled at the sound of Elsie’s name and folded her hands across her lap with a coy hint of conquest.

“Well, I wanna hear it from Pearl first. Pearl, I’m awaitin’.”

Pearl had been mixing flour and milk for fresh biscuits and had been listening attentively as well. Her hair flopped against her back in a long, single, black braid. White flour streaked her apron. Her hairy legs had not been shaven, and the small wart on her right cheek glistened with a smear of lard from her fingers. “Mr. Stone, I’m much obliged and honored,” she said, with a tear in her eye. “But I ain’t ready to make no decisions like that right yet. I believe Mama Edmonds’ idea about Elsie is the place to start. She don’t like livin’ with Uncle Albert and his people, nohow. And she can cook.”

“Well, I kin still raise a garden and turn a plow,” Mr. Stone averred. “I reckon, Ginny, you’ve done me a favor. Yes, ma’am, I thank you and am likewise obliged.”

Both women breathed a sigh of relief when the old man left.

“Lord! Miz. Edmonds! I cain’t thank you enough!” Pearl wiped her hands in her apron. Then she cut out the biscuits and placed them on a pan. “You always know the right words to say.”

My grandmother beamed with confidence, thrilled with the compliment and no doubt in agreement with its veracity.

In less than two weeks, Ambrose had proposed to Elsie.

“Miz. Edmonds, do you mind if we have the weddin’ in your front yard? The view from the fence there down to the springhouse is plumb beautiful,” Mr. Stone reckoned.

“Of course, Ambrose. I’ll provide the cider and some ham. The rest is up to you and Elsie.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

They wed on a Saturday afternoon in late October. Albert and Jessie played for the wedding. Jessie’s fiddle entertained every one with a lively repertoire of mountain music. Albert accompanied him on a banjo, while Earl thumped a taut cord, strung to a tobacco stick, nailed to an upside down washtub.

A country preacher, with gray hair in a long black coat, officiated. “If there be any reason,” he intoned, dragging out his words, “why Ambrose and Elsie ought not be married, then let him speak up right now, or forever hold his peace!” He glanced about the crowd of tenants and other guests, as if he actually expected some one to object. “Well, the Lord be honored. Ambrose, you ain’t no spring chicken no more, so you take care of Elsie, and don’t you lay no lash to her. She’s doin’ you a favor. And Elsie, you be proud of Ambrose and don’t you go foolin’ around with other men. You done had plenty of chances to do that earlier.”

A general laughter rose from those gathered around. After they exchanged vows, the preacher announced: “I proclaim you man and wife. May the Lord bless you and keep you, and make his face to shine upon you. And may you give him thanks for that, everyday. Amen!”

The three brothers provided music, while their relatives danced. Mr. Stone slapped his thighs and surprised everybody by performing a fast-moving, foot-tapping jig. Soon, the jugs of cider and plates of ham were depleted and the crowd moved on. We could hear their merriment long into the night, along with blasts from a shotgun.

Uncle Everett, my mother, and Marion had attended the wedding, in addition to Grandmother, Pearl, and me. Sadness had enveloped Pearl when the wedding party first left the yard, but her demeanor perked up afterwards.

“Pearl, I don’t mean to offend you, but who got you pregnant?” asked Uncle Everett. “If you love him and he respects you, we need to find him and bring him back.”

“Please don’t do that! He’s married, Mr. Everett, and done run off on his own wife. It was trifling of me to do what I done. I just got to bear it the best way I can.”

“Well, you can still come and live out at my place, if Mama mistreats you, or you become frightened here.”

“Why say a thing like that?” my grandmother challenged him. “Of course, I’ll not mistreat her. And I need her more than you. I could not forbear her loss, or live here alone. Not any more.”

“Mama, we understand that,” said my mother. “Nobody’s abandoning you. Nor ever will.”

“Of course not,” added Marion. “You’re like a mother to me, Mrs. Edmonds, ‘Virginia,’ if I may call you that? You’re welcome to live in town with us, if you feel lonely here.”

“Oh! I could never leave Quilly Hall! Holman would never forgive me, nor could I forgive myself. This is the family’s inheritance, the family’s estate. Not just mine. I could never leave it. I could never bear to think of it empty, or without someone to remember its history and care for its rooms!”