Blackwater - The House Part 10

"I wondered when you were going to show your hand," snapped Mary-Love. "Since you showed up in this town during the flood, lounging in the Osceola and waiting for my boy to come along and rescue you and court you and marry you. Lying in wait for him like a lizard waiting for a green-bottle fly! And you got him. I couldn't stop you. But I did stop you from getting anything else, didn't I? For all your running-around, and all your little schemes and plans and biting, you've ended up with nothing at all."

"Nothing?" echoed Elinor.

"Nothing. What have you got? You've got this house, because I gave it to you. You've got a draw-erful of promissory notes to James, and he's the only man in the world who would lend money to Oscar, who never had anything I didn't give him and never will. You've got a deed to a little land that's scattered around here and there, but it's all flood land and there aren't any roads on any of it and Tom De-Bordenave when he owned it never made a crying dime off it. And you've got a little girl, but she's a puny thing, and nothing at all compared to the one you gave away fifteen years ago. You've got a few friends in town, but they're the ones you stole from me. They're the ones I didn't want anymore. And you've got a husband who will insist on living next door to his mother forever. That's what you've got, Elinor, and let me tell you, it isn't much. Not by my standards."

"It seems to me," said Elinor, "that you've showed your hand too."

"No! I'm not the one who's fighting. I'm not the one who's always playing games. Because I'm on top. You try to blame me for beating you out of what's rightfully yours, but n.o.body beat you out, Elinor.

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You just didn't have the courage to go out and get what you wanted."

"I've held back," Elinor returned.

Mary-Love laughed derisively. "I'd like to see you try to do something, Elinor. Just what do you think you could do, to get back at me for all the things you think I've done? What paltry little thing will you do now?"

"Miss Mary-Love, despite you and despite everything you've tried to do to keep Oscar down, I intend to make him rich. I intend to make him richer than you ever dreamed of being-that's what I intend to do."

Again Mary-Love laughed. "And how do you intend to do that? The last time you convinced him to do something, all he did was get himself in debt, and he's never gotten out of it. Are you gone persuade him to buy more land?"

"Yes. Henry Turk is going to sell his land-that's all that poor man's got left. He's got a tract of about fifty thousand acres in Escambia County. He came to see Oscar about it the other day."

"How much does he want for it?"

"Twenty dollars an acre."

"That's a hundred thousand dollars! Where's Oscar gone get that money?"

Elinor smiled. "I thought I'd take this opportunity to ask you to lend it to him."

Mary-Love's jaw dropped in her amazement. "Elinor, you are asking me to lend you one hundred thousand dollars so Oscar can buy a lot of worthless land?"

"It's not worthless. It's covered with pine."

"Lord G.o.d, what do we need more pine for? There's n.o.body buying it, Elinor. Or hadn't you heard there's a Depression going on?"

"We ought to have that land, Miss Mary-Love. Will you lend us the money?"

"No! Of course I'm not gone lend you the money!

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You'd like to drive me to the poor house, is what you'd like to do, Elinor. Well, I'm not gone be driven anywhere, I'm not lending Oscar one penny. What has he been able to do with that land he bought from Tom DeBordenave? He hasn't even been able to keep up bank payments on it."

"Then your answer is no?"

"Of course it's no! Did you actually expect me to say yes?"

"No," admitted Elinor. "I just wanted to give you one more chance."

"One more chance for what?"

To this Elinor made no reply. She drank off the last of her nectar and put the gla.s.s on the table at the side of the swing.

"Miss Mary-Love," she replied, still unmoved, "think whatever you like about me. All I've said today is that I know what you're up to. I've always known. And when the time comes when you have the leisure to think things over, just remember that I gave you one last chance."

Mary-Love stood up from the glider and straightened her dress. "I'll tell you another thing, Elinor..."

"What?"

"You make the worst nectar I've ever had in my life. It tastes like you made it with water straight out of that stinking old river. The only reason I drank more than one sip was out of pure politeness."

The next morning a caravan of automobiles, filled with people and luggage, headed for the train station in Atmore. Florida Benquith drove Queenie, Queen-ie's children, and Ivey; Bray drove Mary-Love, Sister, and Miriam; and Oscar drove James, Danjo, and Frances. Everyone was jammed together and anxious to be off. Sister carried sheaves of tickets in her pocketbook. She had taken the responsibility of managing all the logistics of the excursion.

At the train station the Caskeys and all their lug- 125.

gage were lined up on the platform, waiting for the Hummingbird, which would take them as far as Montgomery. There they would change trains and be on their way directly to Chicago.

Mary-Love attempted to wheedle out of her son some small expression of affection: "Are you gone miss us?"

"You're taking away half the town, Mama."

"Say goodbye to me, Oscar!"

"Have a good time, Mama," said Oscar, perfunctorily kissing her on the cheek. She had not dared hope for more. She turned to thank Florida Benquith for her a.s.sistance, when she suddenly grew dizzy and grasped the back of a bench to keep from falling.

"Are you all right, Mary-Love?" asked Queenie.

Mary-Love looked up with an expression of pained surprise. "Suddenly I think I have got the worst headache I've ever had in all my life."

"Are you sick?" asked Miriam apprehensively. She had been looking forward to this trip, and wanted nothing to interfere with her pleasure in it.

"No, I've just got a headache. Sister, is everybody ready to go?"

"Yes, ma'am-"

Before Sister could continue, Mary-Love sank onto the bench and raised her hand to her rapidly paling face.

"I don't know what's wrong with me," she gasped.

The adults gathered around her. Malcolm and Lucille stood to one side and drew on sullen faces in preparation for some great disappointment. Frances and Miriam looked toward their grandmother with some misgiving. She looked very ill.

Ivey moved forward and felt Mary-Love's forehead. Already her hair lay in damp waves over her p.r.i.c.kled scalp.

"Miss Mary-Love, you hot?"

"Ivey," she whispered, "I'm just burning up!"

Ivey turned to the others and said, "She got a bad 126.

fever. She ought to be at home in bed right this very minute. Y'all back off some." She took a kerchief from her pocketbook and handed it to Miriam. "Go get this wet."

Miriam hurried off to the ladies' room. The rest of them talked in low voices, glancing at Mary-Love. Her head lolled on her shoulders as Ivey sat beside her, unb.u.t.toning her blouse, and wiping the perspiration from her forehead.

"She's real sick," said Florida. As the wife of a doctor, her opinion carried some weight.

"I know," said James, "but will she be all right?"

"Once she gets home, probably," replied Florida. "Leo ought to look at her. I never saw anybody get so sick so fast."

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, then Sister's teeth went clack-clack and she said, "All right, then, I'll say it."

"Say what?" asked James weakly.

"What are we gone do? Are we gone go back to Perdido and sit around for five more years before we ever get out of town again?"

"Mary-Love looks so bad!" said James.

"Florida and I will take care of Mama," said Oscar. "The rest of y'all ought to get on that train. We got to think of the children. They'll be so disappointed if y'all turned around now."

"I know," sighed James. "But it just doesn't seem right to leave like this."

"Probably she would want you all to go on and have a good time," suggested Florida. "I don't think she would want to ruin everything for everybody."

Sister laughed. "Florida, don't you know Mama better than that? Nothing would make her well sooner than to know that we had canceled the entire trip because of her."

"Sister!" cried James.

"Well, I'm sorry, but that's the truth," said Sister, "but we have been planning this for months, and it's 127.

the first real chance I've had to go anywhere or do anything since I got married. I don't intend to give it all up just because Mama comes down with a summer cold."

"It looks worse than that," Queenie said. "But I agree with Sister, James. The children are excited- we're all excited. The tickets are paid for, the hotel reservations have all been made. And what would we say in Perdido, that all ten of us turned right around and came back when we weren't fifty miles out of town, just because Mary-Love came down with a little headache and temperature?"

"I suppose you're right," said James.

"Of course they're right," said Oscar energetically. "We'll put Mama in the back seat of the Packard and have her home in bed before y'all get to Greenville. As soon as she's well, we'll pack her up and send her on to meet you."

"Then it's settled," said Sister quickly. This seemed the solution that would do the least damage to their original plans, and she wanted to make it firm before James, in his charity to Mary-Love, could change anyone's mind. "Somebody should go speak to the children and tell them what's been decided."

Mary-Love Caskey sat and moaned and sweated profusely on the hard wooden bench in the stifling Atmore station. She could not speak an articulate word. Beside her, Ivey Sapp mopped her brow, squeezed her hands, and whispered, "Miss Mary-Love, Miss Mary-Love, what you been eating? What you been drinking? D'you get hold of something that wasn't good for you? You been drinking down some bad water?"

CHAPTER 39.

The Closet Door Opens

Elinor was sitting on her front porch when Bray drove up. As if she had known that Mary-Love lay feverish across the back seat of the car, she stood up and walked out to the street and peered in. "Bray," she said, "I've got the front room all ready for her."

"Miss El'nor," said Bray, puzzled, "did Mr. Oscar call you on the telephone to say we was coming?"

Elinor, appearing preoccupied, did not answer.

Oscar had driven up right behind Bray and had heard what his wife had said. "Elinor," he said, "you sure you want this responsibility? I was thinking we maybe should put her in the hospital."

"Did Ivey look at her?"

Bray nodded. "Ivey say she ought to be at home in her own bed."

"That's not the hospital," Elinor pointed out. "Zad-die and I will take perfectly good care of her."

Bray lifted Mary-Love out of the car and quickly carried her into Elinor's house, up the stairs and 129.

down the corridor, placing her on the bed in the front room.

Elinor followed them in, calling Zaddie up.

"All of you go away, now," said Elinor, closing the door of the room against them. "Zaddie and I are going to change her clothes and give her a sponge bath. She'll be cooler and more comfortable then. Oscar, you better call Leo Benquith and get him over here."

Everyone did as they were told. Dr. Benquith arrived to find Mary-Love looking very weak and very ill, propped up on the pillows in the front room. She appeared now, however, to have some awareness of where she was. She was so little her old self that she did not even object to being placed in the care of her daughter-in-law. Elinor and Zaddie stood at the foot of the bed as Leo Benquith examined her.

"It's a fever," he said with a shrug. "Just what everybody said it was. And, Elinor, you did exactly the right thing. Miz Caskey," he said, addressing Mary-Love-rather loudly, as if deafness were also her infirmity, "Elinor's gone take good care of you till you get well."

Mary-Love's eyes closed and she sighed heavily.

That evening at supper, Oscar said to Elinor, "You sure we shouldn't put Mama in the hospital?"

"You heard what Leo Benquith said," replied Elinor. "I know what to do-and Leo will drop by every afternoon. Miss Mary-Love would hate the hospital-all those strangers. And, Oscar, when they start calling from Chicago, you tell them she's doing just fine, but doesn't want to talk on the telephone. If they think she's still sick, they'll all pack up and head right back. Your Mama has this family trained."

"Don't you think people should be here?"

"I do not. I think they'd only disturb her. I'm going to shoo away all her visitors until she can get well. By the time they all get back, your mama will be up 130.

and complaining how they all left her high and dry. She's never going to let them hear the end of it."

Mary-Love was nursed by her daughter-in-law. Elinor sat with her in the front room all day long. All visitors were stopped at the door downstairs by an unbribable, unmovable Zaddie. Only Leo Ben-quith was allowed inside the house, and he came once a day, right after the noontime meal. He examined Mary-Love in Elinor's presence, went downstairs, and always accepted a gla.s.s of iced tea from Zaddie who was waiting for him with it. He sat out on the front porch and told Oscar what he thought.

What he thought was not very encouraging.

"Oscar," said Leo, "I don't know what's wrong with your mama. She has some sort of fever, and she cain't seem to get rid of it. She's gone have to lie real still up there for some time to come."

"Maybe we should take her to Pensacola to Sacred Heart..." Oscar suggested tentatively.