Blackwater - The Levee Part 6

"She's friends with Queenie now?" said Sister.

Mary-Love nodded. "I've heard tell..."

Sister nodded thoughtfully, suddenly understanding more about Mary-Love's motives for these invitations than Mary-Love would have liked.

Later that afternoon James went over to Elinor's and invited her and Oscar to Christmas Day at Mary-Love's. He mentioned Queenie's invitation but said nothing of Early Haskew's presence, or the fact that Early was just finis.h.i.+ng up his plans for the levee. Elinor calmly accepted the invitation, merely remarking that she had already planned to go to Mobile to buy everyone presents. At about the same time Sister went over to Queenie's, taking with her a plate of hard candy, and extended the same invitation. Queenie desperately tried to think of a way to discuss with Elinor whether she ought to accept, but it was imperative that she say yea or nay immediately. She could not plead a prior engagement, for Sister would know that was a lie. She said yea and prayed G.o.d that she had not offended Elinor in doing so.

That evening Queenie walked over to Elinor's and conferred with her new friend upon the matter at hand. "I could say I had to go back to Nashville for something or other, and then stay locked up in the house all day," suggested Queenie with some enthusiasm, confident that the idea was so ridiculous that Elinor would never encourage her to go through with 107.

it. It had been for Elinor's sake alone that Queenie had declared an aversion to Mary-Love.

"No," said Elinor, "Oscar and I are going, and we're taking Frances, so there's no reason why you shouldn't go too, Queenie."

"I'm glad you said that," said Queenie. '"Cause it makes everything a whole lot easier for everybody."

"I want to go," said Elinor. "I haven't been in that house for a long while, and I think it's time that I saw what Miss Mary-Love has been up to."

In the first part of November, a draftsman from Pensacola had taken up residence in the Osceola Hotel, and worked day and night for three weeks, producing final drawings, on blueprint paper, of all Early's plans for the levee. On the day that he finished, Sister and Early took the plans home and spread them out one by one on Sister's bed, and admired them. The next day the blueprints were taken to the records office at the town hall and photographed for safety's sake. Then the following Tuesday, Early took them before the town council, along with his revised estimates of costs and a timetable for completion of various stages of the work. To the council's satisfaction, the cost was lower than originally predicted, and if all went well, Perdido would be completely protected by an impervious, indestructible levee by the winter of 1924.

Tom DeBordenave reported what everyone on the council already knew-that the state legislature had authorized a bond issue for the construction and that the sales of these bonds would be handled through the First National Bank of Mobile. Each of the millowners had already deposited twenty-five thousand dollars in the Perdido bank, and nothing now stood in the way of the work's immediate commencement.

By unanimous consent of the council, Early Has- 108.

kew was appointed princ.i.p.al engineer for the project, and was directed to go down to Pensacola and Mobile and up to Montgomery immediately, and to begin speaking to contractors and asking for sealed bids. The meeting closed with a prayer. With bowed head, James Caskey asked G.o.d to send no more high water before Early Haskew was finished with his work.

Early set forth immediately on his mission, and was sorely missed by Sister. But she and Mary-Love were busy with preparations for the Christmas party, the event having added to the usual amount of activity before the holiday.

There was now increased traffic between Mary-Love's and Elinor's houses. Elinor sent over a jar of strawberry preserves; this favor was returned in the form of two pounds of sh.e.l.led pecans; which offering came back as a fruitcake soaked in pre-Prohibition Havana rum. Such tokens continued to be pa.s.sed back and forth between Ivey's kitchen and Roxie's kitchen, growing more valuable in each journey across the yard in Zaddie's arms.

Still, Mary-Love and Sister saw no more of Elinor than they had in previous months. In fact, neither of them set eyes upon Elinor until one day about a week before Christmas. Sister had gone over to Elinor's with a great box of infant clothing, things outgrown by Miriam but which might, she thought, be of some use for Frances. Elinor thanked Sister for her thoughtfulness, asked her inside, served her Russian tea, allowed her to hold Frances and coo over her, and gave her an armful of wrapped gifts to take home and place under the tree.

Early had hoped to be away no more than a week, but twice he sent telegrams to say he had been forced to go farther afield than he had hoped would be necessary. "I don't imagine he's gone make it for Christmas," said Mary-Love to disappointed Sister. "That's 109.

all right with me. It means- we'll just be plain family."

Nevertheless, on Christmas Eve, Sister sat in the window of her room for three hours watching out for Early's arrival. But since the engineer didn't own an automobile, there was little hope of his driving up in one, and there was no other means by which he could get down from the train station in Atmore. At last Mary-Love came into Sister's room and demanded that she go to bed. Sister did so, rather than admit to her mother the cause of her anxiety.

At first, everything seemed to go as well as anyone could have wished. The doors of the parlor had been shut against any early intrusions by the children. After a breakfast that seemed interminable to Grace and Malcolm and Lucille doors were opened and the presents were revealed in all their s.h.i.+ning array. Grace clapped her hands and gazed rapturously at the tiers of fancily wrapped gifts that were terraced out from the base of the tree until the whole parlor was nearly filled with them. There were gifts under chairs, lurking behind the curtains, placed on win-dowsills, stacked on the mantel, and piled on the sofa. Besides these, several large unwrapped gifts stood in the corners of the room-a rocking horse for Lucille, a red bicycle for Malcolm, and a turreted dollhouse, filled with furniture, for herself. The Gas-keys sat wherever they could find places in the crowded room, and a few of the dining room chairs were brought up to the open doorway. Zaddie and Ivey and Roxie, who had worked all morning in the kitchen, cleared the dining room and then sat together on a window seat there, from which vantage point they could watch the proceedings and receive the gifts intended for them.

It was Grace's duty to pick up each present, read the card attached, and hand it out. Malcolm de- 110.

manded that he be allowed to a.s.sist, but since he could not yet read, he had to satisfy himself with distributing the gifts as Grace called out the names." Because of the number of presents involved, this was a slow process and Grace was inclined to make it even more so, often not pa.s.sing out the next gift before the last had been opened. Everyone got plenty of presents, and soon the parlor was a sea of discarded paper and tissue and ribbon, in the midst of which were neatly stacked islands of gifts, with the cards carefully preserved. The air was thick with exclamations of surprise, grat.i.tude, admiration, and good-natured envy. Grace was certain she had never been so happy in her life.

The only gifts not distributed were those intended for Early Haskew. These, without even calling out his name, Grace simply set to one side.

The merriment continued for more than two hours. Before the end of it, Roxie and Ivey returned to the kitchen to start cooking dinner. The telephone rang once. Sister, nearest it, went to answer. Hearing the voice on the other end, she immediately turned away, and carried the telephone out of sight behind the staircase.

It was Early Haskew, calling from the train station in Atmore. He apologized for not being able to get there sooner, regretted disturbing everyone on Christmas morning, but wondered if someone might not be sent up to Atmore to fetch him. As soon as he had hung up Sister went intp the kitchen where Bray sat at the table opening the first of four gifts that had been under the tree for him. He was already wearing his best uniform, and at Sister's behest went immediately to get out the automobile.

Sister said nothing of this when she returned to the living room. Mary-Love was so deeply involved with the opening of the gifts and the delight of the 111.

children that she forgot to ask Sister who it was that had telephoned.

Early Haskew walked into the house an hour later. Grace and Lucille were in the front parlor with their toys and the tree; Malcolm was outside riding his new bicycle up and down the street; the servants were all working on dinner in the kitchen; and the adult Caskeys, with the two infants, were sitting around the dining table once again.

At the unexpected sight of Early Haskew, Mary-Love emitted a little scream of delight and Queenie began to talk at the rate of a mile a minute to no one in particular. Oscar and James rose with exclamations of surprise and delight, shook hands with him cordially and pulled a chair up to the table for him. Sister, holding Miriam, and Elinor, holding Frances, said nothing. Sister wore a fixed, almost idiotic smile, while Elinor seemed troubled and distracted.

Early sat down at the head of the table and spoke to everyone in turn in his loud, measured voice. He was glad to see James and Oscar again and he had lots of things to tell them and talk over with them. He was very happy to be back in Mary-Love's house and she couldn't have any idea how much he had missed it. He called out to Ivey Sapp in the kitchen that n.o.body in Mobile, Montgomery, Pensacola, Natchez, or New Orleans cooked anything like the way that she cooked. Yes, he remembered Miz Strickland very well and Bray had nearly run down her little boy in the street on his new red wheel. He didn't know how he got along without Sister for so long because she always told him what he should be doing and it was sure lonely in those places and he was always turning around to say something to Sister and lo and behold she just wasn't there, and- 112.

more quietly-how was Miss Elinor doing, and wasn't her baby just looking fine?

Elinor nodded briefly, but did not say a word.

After Early's greetings, Oscar wanted to know what Early had managed to accomplish. Out of deference to his wife, he did not say the words "on the levee," but it was evident, from a tightening of Elinor's mouth, that those words needn't be spoken aloud for her to know perfectly well to what her husband referred.

"Well," said Early, "I tell you, I think I found somebody. I looked all over, I talked to two thousand people-or almost-and I found a man in Natchez who is willing to come here and submit a bid. What I would do if I was the town council is accept his bid even if it's not the lowest. This man-whose name is Avant, Morris Avant-is gone do you the best job. When you've got a job as big as this levee, then you gone want..."

Seeing Oscar cringe as he spoke, Early paused. Oscar had turned and looked at his wife at the other end of the table. Everyone else did too. Elinor's head was lowered, and she was b.u.t.toning Frances's little chemise. If she had a telling expression upon her face, no one could see it to read it.

"... a job like this levee," Early went on cautiously, "then you gone want to have it done right."

"I'm going to take Frances upstairs for a nap," said Elinor suddenly. "She can hardly keep her eyes open. Miss Mary-Love, where should I put her?"

"Put her in Miriam's bed, Elinor. Wait, I'll come up with you."

"Oh no, you stay down here. I'll be back down in a bit." Elinor rose and silently walked out of the dining room, into the hallway, and up the stairs to the second floor.

Everyone at the table knew that Elinor had left because of Early Haskew's presence and his talk of 113.

the building of the levee. The curious thing was, however, that Elinor had not done more. She had not taken Frances home, she had only gone upstairs with her. She had not said / will not allow myself to be in the same room with that man, she had said /'// be back down in a bit. She had hidden her anger behind a mask of polite impa.s.sivity. Mary-Love and Sister took deep breaths together and exhaled slowly.

"Will wonders never cease?" asked Sister softly.

"I thought it was gone be up with us," said Mary-Love.

Queenie, for once, sat still and quiet-like one watching a battle from a protected place, anxious to learn which army would win, to which general she would soon swear allegiance.

Elinor did not reappear for the next hour, and for the next hour Early talked of his trip. In the meantime, Roxie came in and began to set the table for dinner. By the time that Early was finished with his chronicle, it was time to call the children in. Miriam had already been fed, and was taken upstairs by Mary-Love and placed in a little fortress of pillows on Sister's bed. Mary-Love then knocked on the door of Miriam's nursery, softly opened the door and told Elinor, who was seated in a chair by the window looking out at the muddy Perdido, that dinner was ready downstairs if she was ready too. Elinor declared that she had been thinking of her family and the place she had come from and had forgot the time. On the way out, Mary-Love peered over into the crib, and exclaimed, "Frances is the prettiest baby I ever did see-except for Miriam of courser'

Christmas dinner was more formal than breakfast. The infants were sleeping upstairs and the three other children had been banished to a small square red deal table set up in the kitchen, where all three acutely felt the disgrace of their tender 114.

ages. Thus the adults had the dining room to themselves, and when they v/ere all milling about the table unsure of where to sit, Mary-Love pointed out places for them all, taking care that Early and Elinor sat as far apart as possible. Having engineered the insult of bringing them together at all, she could afford to be charitable on this small point.

After the blessing, recited by James sitting between Elinor and Queenie, Sister turned to Early, seated beside her, and said, "So, so far as you're concerned, everything is pretty much set?"

"Well, yes," said Early. "Why do you ask?"

"Because then I have something to say," said Sister.

But just at that moment Ivey and Roxie brought in a turkey, half of which had already been carved in the kitchen, a pheasant shot by Oscar on Caskey land in Monroe County, a plate of fried mullet, a small ham, a sweet potato ca.s.serole, bowls of little green peas, creamed corn, stuffing, black-eyed peas and ham hocks, boiled okra, pickle relish, a plate of Parker House rolls, a plate of biscuits, a mold of ice-cold b.u.t.ter with a design of a Christmas tree on top, and a pitcher of iced tea. James was given the ham to carve and Oscar the pheasant.

With the arrival of the food, no one showed any great curiosity to know what Sister had to say; in any case she was used to her concerns being accorded precious little worth. When at last everyone had filled his plate and the platters had been removed to the sideboard and Zaddie had taken away the biscuits and replaced the cooled rolls with hot, Mary-Love said, "So what is it you are dying to say, Sister? I never saw a grown woman twitch so!"

"Has everybody been served now?" asked Sister sarcastically.

"Yes," said Mary-Love, apparently unaware of the 115.

tone in her daughter's voice. "So will you please get on with it?"

"Well," said Sister, gazing around the table and disregarding the fact that every head was bowed over a plate and not even bothering to glance up at her, "now that everything is set on the levee, so far as Early is concerned, he and I are gone get married."

Everyone looked up. Everyone put down his fork and stared at Sister. Everyone then turned and looked at Early. Everyone in fact half-suspected that Sister had made it up and that Early would appear as amazed as anybody.

But Early was grinning, and he said loudly, "Sister doesn't care how loud I snore!"

Mary-Love pushed her plate away, saying tartly, "Sister, I do wish you and Oscar wouldn't tell me things like this during dinner. I tell you, it takes my appet.i.te right away and there's nothing I can do to get it back. Roxie!" she called. Roxie appeared in the doorway. "Roxie, take away my plate. I am not gone be able to eat another bite." Roxie came and took the plate. "Early," said Mary-Love, turning to the engineer who sat at her right hand, "is this true, are you gone marry my little girl?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Early proudly.

"I don't believe it," returned Mary-Love. "Did she ask you, or did you ask her?"

"I asked her, she-"

By this time, the others at the table had regained their composure, and Early's reply to Mary-Love was lost beneath a welter of congratulations. James spoke for all, perhaps, when he remarked, with no thought of unkindness, "Sister, I never thought I'd see the day!"

"When is the day?" asked Mary-Love suddenly.

Early's eyebrows shot up. He had no idea. He turned to Sister. Sister said: "Thursday week. The third of January."

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"Oh, you cain't, Sister!" cried Mary-Love. "You got to put it off, you got-"

"Thursday week," repeated Sister, quite as loudly as her fiance might have spoken. She turned to her mother, smiled her bland smile and said, "Mama, you tricked Oscar into putting off, and all it got you was trouble. You're not gone have a word to say about it this time."

"I am asharned," said Mary-Love vehemently, "to have people sit at my table and listen to my child talk to her mother that way."

"They can leave if they want to," said Sister indifferently. "Or, Mama, you can leave. Or I can leave and take Early with me. Or we can all just sit here and finish our dinner. Merry Christmas, y'all."

The a.s.sembled table thought they had never seen __such a hardness in Sister. They looked at her and at Early, and wondered if the engineer knew what kind of bargain he had made.

Sister called to Roxie and told her to bring Mary-Love's plate back. "Mama," said Sister grimly, "this is a happy day for me, and you are not gone spoil it by sending back your plate to the kitchen. You are gone sit still in your place and be happy for me, you hear?"

Mary-Love spent the next half hour gnawing at a wing of the pheasant. Sister, meanwhile, gave a little account of her wooing by Early, and remarked that everything had been settled between them for more than a month and had only waited the completion of his plans for the levee to be announced properly.

Mary-Love didn't say another word, but once or twice she glanced at Elinor. Elinor always caught those glances and returned them with a little satisfied half-smile. Mary-Love had been bested by the very weapon she had attempted to employ against Elinor-Early Haskew. Elinor asked what Mary- 117.

Love dared not ask: "Sister," Elinor said, "where are you going to be living after you and Mr. Haskew get married? Are you going to stay on here, or are you planning to pack up and move out and leave Miss Mary-Love all by herself?"

CHAPTER 22.

The Spy

Sister would not be put off, Sister would not be persuaded. Mary-Love begged that she be allowed to have a half-decent wedding for at least one of her children, but Sister said briskly, "Will it take more than a month to arrange?"

"Anything half-decent would take at least three months, Sister, you know that! We would have to-"

"Then Early and I are getting married next week," said Sister.

Mary-Love would have liked to put up a fight, but Sister made it clear that she would take no part in such an altercation. She intended to marry Early Haskew, and her mother's objection to any part of such a proceeding would only serve to drive Sister away.

Mary-Love was bewildered. She had intended 119.

Christmas to be the first step in a major campaign mounted against Elinor and Elinor's ally Queenie. Instead she had found herself attacked by an army- Sister's-she had not even known was in the field. Caught by surprise, she could do nothing but perform a strategic surrender. Her consolation had to be that she was inducting into her family a soldier-Early Haskew-who was inimical to her enemy.

The ceremony was held in Mary-Love's front parlor, where there were still needles in the carpet from the Christmas tree. The Methodist minister officiated, and Grace was a combination bridesmaid and flower girl. Sister had debated about whether to ask Elinor to be her matron of honor, but knowing with what disgust Elinor viewed her fiance-or at least her fiance's purpose in the town-Sister decided not to risk the embarra.s.sment of a refusal.

For a wedding gift James and Mary-Love went in together and bought Early an automobile-just such a one as James had heard him admire on the street one day. In this new automobile, directly after the ceremony, Sister and Early took off for Charleston, South Carolina, a city Sister had never visited but had always wanted to see. After they were gone, Mary-Love sighed her biggest sigh, then sat down at a corner of the dining room table and tilted her head until it came to rest horizontally on the upraised palm of her hand.

"What's wrong with you, Mary-Love?" said Queenie, who, for the ceremony, had got permission from James to purchase a sea green silk dress at Berta Hamilton's. "Don't you know you have now got one of the finest son-in-laws in all the state of Alabama south of Montgomery?"

"I do know it, Queenie," sighed Mary-Love loudly, as if she intended those still in the front parlor to 120.

hear her words. "What I just cain't understand is the way I am treated by my children."

"You have fine children. Your children could squeeze you to death with their love."

"Well, that's how I feel about them. They don't care much for me, though."

"Of course we do, Mama," said Oscar, who had heard his mother from the parlor and had come in to p.r.o.nounce his undiminished affection.

"If you really loved me," said Mary-Love, still loudly for Elinor and James remained in the next room, "would you have gotten married in James's living room one afternoon when I was down in Mobile shopping? Would Elinor have stood up in front of a female preacher wearing a dress that was only basted together? Would you two have driven away on a honeymoon before I had the chance to kiss you on the mouth and say how happy I was?" Mary-Love had raised her head to the vertical again, and now was speaking these words savagely. "If Sister had loved me, would she have contracted an engagement and kept it secret until she could spring it on me at the dinner table on Christmas Day? Would she have gotten married one week later, when she could just as easily have waited a couple of months and made me happy by it? Would she have invited n.o.body but the family, when we could have sent out invitations and gotten three hundred people to travel by automobile from Montgomery and by train from Mobile, and filled the church?"

"Mama," said Oscar, unmoved by either the loving reproach of her words or the angry reproach of her voice, "you didn't want Elinor and me to get married at all. You put off and put off, until we had to do it behind your back. That's what Sister was thinking of. She didn't want you to start with her, that's all. She thought you had an ulterior motive in wanting a church wedding three months from now."

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Mary-Love sighed again and said, "Go away, Oscar. You don't love me."

"I do, Mama," said Oscar softly, and he walked out of the room.

Sister had never said where she and Early intended to live when they returned from their honeymoon. Mary-Love was in a perfect agony to know, but she had never dared put that question to her daughter. Just asking would have given Sister a tremendous advantage in any subsequent bargaining in the matter. Mary-Love was by no means a stupid woman, and she understood perfectly that for all their rebelliousness-exhibited princ.i.p.ally in the manner of their marriages-Oscar and Sister loved her. Their high-handedness was a tactic they had learned from Mary-Love herself. Oscar, being a man, had learned it only imperfectly, and had needed Elinor to prod him. Sister had swallowed the lessons whole, and had dragged Early Haskew will-he nill-he to the altar. Though she would never have admitted it, Mary-Love was actually proud of her daughter for doing What she had done. By her sudden marriage Sister had attained adulthood in Mary-Love's eyes; she was within striking distance of equality. And now more than ever before, Mary-Love dreaded losing her, dreaded to be alone in the house; she even declared to herself that she would miss Early Haskew's loud voice and terrible snoring.