Читать книгу Quilly Hall - Benjamin W. Farley - Страница 9

One afternoon in early May, while I was playing in the loft of the old slave quarters, I thought I saw a movement near the apple house. I peered out the side window of the log building for a better view. The apple house was constructed of the same stone as Quilly Hall. It had a deep basement, walled with wooden racks for storing apples and pears. Shelves lined its walls, each laden with heavy blue gallon-sized jars, stuffed with sausages, pork loin, corn, beans, tomatoes, squash, and whole berries, including cherries, blackberries and strawberries. As late as the 1940s, my grandmother’s farm was still a subsistence operation, although it turned a profit in terms of wheat, corn, hams, wool, and tobacco. No farmhands went hungry, but all bordered on poverty.

As I peered out the window, a man appeared briefly at its door. A cigarette glowed in his hands. Suddenly, he slipped away and disappeared under the limbs of a weeping willow, near the creek that flowed from the cold spring that gushed from under our springhouse. Later he crossed a fence, before dropping out of sight. Just then, Pearl emerged from the building. Disheveled hair hung in her face. She brushed off the front of her dress and wrapped her apron about her waist. She adjusted her hair, in an effort to restore her pigtail, and headed back for the house. My curiosity drifted toward other attractions in the loft.

A large, cast iron safe rested against the cabin’s wall, near the loft’s rock chimney. Neither a fireplace, nor a hearth, existed in the loft, although a mantle ran part way across the chimney. The absence of a fireplace made it frigid in the winter, but cool and damp in the spring and oppressively hot in the summer. The safe set on four, squat, rusting claw feet, with its heavy door open and two shelves visible. Its only content consisted of a broken cigar box, loose at one end, with its lid missing.

“Money, sweetheart. Money! It used to be lined with money. Big bills. Wads of them. All Confederate,” Grandmother said. “Your great-grandfather,” she’d nod toward the hallway, “the venerable Capt. Nathan, never got over the loss. He converted close to a half million dollars of silver certificates into Confederate currency. We would be millionaires, if that War hadn’t occurred.”

“Where’s all that money now?” I asked.

“In a box at your Uncle Everett’s. Your grandfather willed it to him before he died.”

But now the safe belonged to me. I used it to store my secret valuables: a shiny rock from under the bridge near the springhouse, a flattened dime I had picked up beside the railroad tracks in town, and a rusted nail I found near the horse barn. The nail had oxidized to the point that it had turned into a long, flaky, dark red spine. I had heard tales of De Soto’s expedition into Tennessee, and I visualized the nail as a relic of his armor. I was De Soto, Senior Hernando! Conquistador extraordinaire! I spotted some cattail plumes in a clay urn, pulled one out, and brandished it, as I marched in the loft. I stole to the window to make certain no one was spying. I pretended to be Great-Grandfather Howard, then Samson straining against the pillars, next Daniel Boone, and lastly the stern, commanding figure of Capt. Nathan Edmonds, boots and all. “Where’s the son-of-a bitch hiding?” I demanded of the walls. I strutted around like Uncle Everett.

When not in the loft, I would sneak down to the creek and pretend I was my father. I would rush into the cold water, clutching a tobacco stick, firing at the hidden enemy, only to fall riddled by bullets and shrapnel. If I survived that initial assault, I’d crawl up the opposite bank and search for my father among the reeds. When I came in, wet and muddy, my overalls clogged with clay and tiny granules of grit, my mother would bend down and hug me, for she knew what I had been doing. My “wounds” were nothing in comparison with hers. “Tommy! O God, Tommy! Let’s get you cleaned up, before supper.”

As spring blended into summer, one seasonal demand followed another: from the setting out of the young tobacco plants, to the first hay mowings, to the building of haystacks, to the harvesting of wheat, with its throngs of tenant farmers from our own and Uncle Everett’s farm, joining in with their muscle and toil to thresh and bag sack after sack. And the meals that accompanied those hot sweaty days! Plates heaped with fried chicken, mounds of mashed potatoes, bowls of gravy, beans, corn, sliced tomatoes, deviled eggs, biscuits, fresh pies, and endless rounds of tea. It required all the labor force of the two farms to sponsor these events. Then a second and, if lucky, a third hay mowing followed, with days spent suckering and pulling fat green worms off the tall tobacco crop. Finally, came the cutting and spearing of the long tobacco stalks to haul and hang them in their respective sheds, where the crop would season until late fall to mellow and transform into aromatic shafts of fine, golden leaves.

These hot days of summer permitted little respite for the men who labored from before the rising of the sun until long after its setting. Earl alone would take breaks and come down to the house for a nap in the old slave cabin. While he slept on a pile of burlap sacks on the ground floor, I’d engage in my escapades and imaginary sorties in the loft. My grandmother, however, coveted my afternoon playtime for designs of her own.

“Tommy, get in here! An idle mind is the devil’s workshop. You’ll be going to school this fall. There’s reading and writing to do. Now take your nap, and then we’ll work a little, after it grows cooler.”

Actually, I welcomed these reprieves, because the afternoon heat often climbed into the nineties, and the fields provided no recess from the sun. After a brief nap, she would wake me and bring me a glass of watered-down tea. Sometimes I would have sweated so much I could smell my own sour body. Her remedy for that was a cold wet washcloth that often reeked as badly as my body odor.

“Now, go into the parlor, and I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

I’d obey and pull from one of the shelves a favorite storybook or a volume of The Encyclopedia of Knowledge. By now, with her help, and sometimes unassisted, I could pick my way through a paragraph and read it aloud to her satisfaction. She had to help with all of the long words, but she exulted in doing so.

Afterwards, she’d play records from her collection of classical music. The huge player would only accommodate one record at a time, but she was intent on my acquiring a taste for refined music, as well as deriving pleasure from it herself. Those were arduous times for a six-year old, especially if the recordings were one of Rossini’s Concertos for flutes and violins, or something equally effete and sissified. Not that I disliked her selections, but I preferred the French horns of a Wagner or Beethoven symphony, or even a sad Mozart piece, or lively Brahm’s medley of folk dances, to the lethargic or bouncy melodies that brought her peace.

Then came release! And out into the hallway I would run, passed the ever-so elegant Quelle and her quiescent pigeons, passed the scornful gaze of the Captain and his father in turn, and out the door and across the porch and into the cool lush grass under the enormous elms that shaded the front yard. Time to play again, or race toward the barn in hopes of riding the weary draft horses down to the creek.

And so passed the summer. Until mid-August. And Aunt Rachel’s return, in time for my mother’s wedding to Mr. Chappels. Only something equally momentous occurred, simultaneous with her arrival.

Pearl came out to the cab to greet her, along with my mother and grandmother and Uncle Everett, who had dropped by. Before Pearl could say a word, she suddenly grew greenish-pale, turned away toward the house, and vomited in a ditch along its dank foundation. Everyone stared in disbelief.

“Are you all right?” my mother asked.

Pearl hugged her sides. She couldn’t stop the retching. A pasty gray cast slipped across her face. Her lips turned blue. She wiped her mouth and hurried toward the back porch.

“Pearl!” my grandmother called in a loud voice. “Is that what I think it is? Tell me! Don’t you dare run off like that!” Grandmother’s face burned with splotches of red; her dark eyes had hardened, and sweat beads glistened on her forehead and about her thin eyebrows.

“Mama, for heaven’s sake!” exclaimed my mother. “What’s gotten in to you? Can’t you see, Pearl’s sick.”

“Sick? Or pregnant? I’ve been watching her. I say she’s heavy with child!”

A frightened Pearl covered her face with her hands and began to weep.

“Oh, Pearl!” my mother said. “Mama, don’t scold her like that! Can’t you see she’s frightened?”

Aunt Rachel paid Ralph, who glanced uneasily toward Uncle Everett and drove away.

“Who’s the one?” my grandmother demanded. “Don’t you lie to me, you . . . sneaking . . . little . . . hussy!”

“Mama!” objected Uncle Everett. “My God, leave her alone. She needs our help. Pearl, go on to your room. We’ll talk about this later.”

“No! We’ll talk about it now!” huffed my grandmother. “Look at her stomach! It’s already beginning to show. I’ve kept my lips tight long enough. Oh, the ruin of it! Answer me! Who did it? I want to know right now!”

“It was Jessie’s friend, from Meadowview. It happened the night they come over here to help search for Ouida,” sobbed Pearl.

“‘Happened?’ And how many more times after that?”

“Only onced more. I’ve been afraid to say anything.”

“And where is this friend now? Huh? Tell me that! Or can you?”

“Mama, stop it! Stop acting like a shrew. Control yourself,” Uncle Everett contested. “Pearl, we’ll see a doctor first thing in the morning. Don’t worry. You can stay at my place, if you have to. And that’s a promise!”

“Yes, sir!” she snuffled back her tears with gratitude.

“Mama, you should be ashamed of yourself! Ashamed!” he reiterated.

He glanced toward my mother and then down at his feet. “Come on, Rachel. Let’s help these people in their house, before they start wallowing in more pity and blame.” All that he said with an angry glare toward his mother and with embarrassment toward my own. With a heaviness of spirit, all six of us entered the house by way of the front porch. Even Pearl. Aunt Rachel held her arm, while Uncle Everett carried Aunt Rachel’s two suitcases in and set them down in the hallway. As we entered, I looked up toward the old Captain. Even his countenance seemed a bit downcast. He was a man for all seasons. I sometimes felt that he actually watched over us at night and guarded the perimeter of the farm. Quelle stood stately beside her fountain, demur and quiet, watering the pigeons. At least we were home. We were all home. And that was something to regale, however dysfunctional the family might be.

In spite of my grandmother’s outbursts, she had no intentions of relinquishing Pearl. She personally rode into town with Pearl and Uncle Everett to see the doctor. When they returned, she evinced a calmness that betrayed her earlier invective and churlish remarks. “Yes, we will do it!” she chirped. “We will raise the child as one of our own, or at least until Pearl can marry and settle down. It’s all settled. There’ll be no more dissent, no discussion or debate! I’ve made up my mind. Yes. As the Bible says: ‘You meant it for evil, but the Lord meant it for good.’ Who knows what this child might become? But God pity it! Poor little darling! What a start in life!”

Uncle Everett just looked at his mother and shook his head. “Jesus!” he hissed under his breath. He tussled my hair with his left hand, hugged his mother, Pearl, Aunt Rachel, and, lastly, my mother. “Try getting along, huh! You women will be the death of me yet!” He smiled and retuned to his car—a black Buick with rusting running boards—and prepared to drive off. “Call me, if you need me,” he said to my mother. We stood back and watched him drive away.

“You know, Mr. Biggety?” my mother addressed me with a smile. “I think he was serious about taking Pearl home with him. He gets awfully lonely, you know.”

“Didn’t he ever get married?” I queried. “Didn’t he want a wife?”

“Oh, yes-siree! You bet your bottom dollar! He was married, honey. Married to a beautiful town girl, from Johnson City. But they quarreled all the time, and your uncle was different then. Moody, a hothead, drank a lot, always had to have his way. She left him after two years. You were just a little boy.”

I stared down the road after him, where he had turned passed the springhouse, before heading back to town. I waved, but the big willow tree and the roof of the apple house blocked his view.

Preparations for the wedding began almost the following day. Dresses were brought from town by taxi, tried on, rejected, returned, and new ones delivered, all within the same day. Mr. Chappels would come in the evenings, dine with us, steal off for an hour or so with my mother; then he would drive back to his house in town. Menus were discussed, cakes baked, cured hams sliced and placed in the refrigerator and some even stored in an old icebox on the porch. Still, the day of the wedding came like a thief in the night. “Get up,” whispered my mother. “Time to get up, sleepy head.” An air of buoyancy trilled in her voice. “We have to be at the church by noon. The wedding’s at two o’clock. You’re going to be the ring bearer. Yes. All you have to do is walk in front of Uncle Everett. I’ll be holding his arm. He’s going to give me away. Now get some breakfast. Then we’ll wash up and get you dressed.”

Unbeknown to me, my Aunt Rachel and mother had purchased a boy’s long gray Prince Albert jacket, striped pants, black shoes, stiff white shirt, and black tie for me to wear. I must have gone into shock. I winced and wiggled and ground my teeth the entire time my grandmother and Aunt Rachel forced me into the clothes. “Now here’s the pillow. Get out there in the hallway and practice marching slowly in here,” Grandmother coaxed me from the living room. “But where’s the ring?” I objected. “Never you mind,” she replied. “Marion will provide it before the wedding.”

Uncle Everett came for us and drove us into town in his Buick. People I had never seen before were queuing up at the church door. I was dragged along and placed in line, after everyone had been seated. Colorful flowers filled the sanctuary and bright candles glowed from glass globes placed along the right aisle. From out of somewhere, the organist struck up a flamboyant march. Mr. Chappels and the minister stepped out of a side door near the pulpit. Suddenly, I was pushed forward, and Uncle Everett and my mother guided me toward the minister. I don’t remember what was said, or how long the service lasted, but Uncle Everett kissed my mother before he placed her gloved fingers in Mr. Chappels’ hands. She dropped her bouquet, to a dither of light laughter. Uncle Everett retrieved it for her.

The reception at home was tumultuous. I strutted around in my stiff costume, enamoring myself to everyone, while the guests filed by to hug my mother and shake Mr. Chappels’ hand. Everywhere, everyone balanced ham biscuits on a dainty plate in one hand and clasped a glass of champagne in the other. Aunt Rachel watched these glasses of bubbly essence with an envious twitch on her lips. Nevertheless, she retained a gracious smile and helped Pearl and my grandmother replenish the guests’ plates. Three tall white layer cakes were required to satisfy the crowd’s demand. The Presbyterian minister appeared to be a little tipsy, but he smiled each time I walked by. His wife had a huge pink orchid in her dress’s lapel and chatted familiarly with people. “You will soon be coming to my class,” she said.

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“To learn the Children’s Catechism! Hasn’t your mother told you?”

“No ma’am,” I replied. “What’s a catechism?”

“Oh, you’ll learn!” she beamed. “It’s a beautiful little book, just for children like you.”

I must admit I was stunned and not impressed with her sincerity. If it were a book, maybe we had it in our library.

“Yes, you’ll love it,” she assured me.

If ever a child was shocked, I was totally unprepared for what happened next. Suddenly, people began to congregate in the yard. My mother had disappeared and now came down the stairs with a valise in one hand and her flowers in the other. Outside on the porch, she turned her back and flung the flowers to a group of shrieking women, then raced to Mr. Chappels’ car, waved, ran back to kiss me good-bye, then got in the vehicle with him, and drove off. Cans bounced behind the car, and red and white streamers fluttered in the air. I ran across the lawn toward the springhouse. My mother was leaving, and I hadn’t the slightest idea where she was going, or if and when she’d come back. “Mama! Mama!” I called to the guests’ delight.

I stopped and fought back a well of hot tears that begged for release.

I felt a strong hand on my right shoulder. “It’s all right, Tommy,” said Uncle Everett. “She’ll be back.” He rubbed his left hand through my hair. When I glanced up, there were tears in his eyes, too.