Love and Lament (6 page)

Susan Elizabeth came back carrying the basin with some difficulty, because it was large enough to bathe a small child in, and she poured the water over her husband’s head. He wiped the water from his face and said something the girls couldn’t hear, and his wife helped him to his feet. They stood there holding each other like clasped hands, their faces not visible.

“Let’s go sit with Ila,” Myrtle Emma insisted.

Mary Bet didn’t want to go back in the dead room, but she didn’t want to be alone either, so she went in with her sisters. They all took
another glance at Ila, who looked only as if she were asleep, and then Mary Bet went over and kissed her on the cheek, half hoping she would wake up. Her sisters did the same.

They sat on the floor, Mary Bet feeling proud of doing something that her sisters wanted to copy. But she was worried about what her father had just said. She wanted to tell them what she had seen that time—how he had yelled at himself in the mirror and thrown the glass—but she thought she’d best keep it to herself. “Do you think Daddy’s going to hell?”

“No,” Myrtle Emma said quickly. “He didn’t mean it. He knows there’s a God. Ila’s with him now.”

“What’s heaven like?” she said.

Both her sisters were quiet for a moment. Then Myrtle Emma said, “Oh, it’s beautiful. I’ve seen it in a dream.”

“You can’t see heaven in any dream,” O’Nora corrected her older sister. “You can’t see the real heaven until you get there.”

“And when we get there we’ll see Ila,” Mary Bet said, “and Willie and Annie. And Siler.”

“But not for a long time,” Myrtle Emma said. She smiled in a sad way that made Mary Bet feel suddenly cold; she huddled next to her sister and with her other hand tried to pull O’Nora closer, as though her sisters were covers. She wanted to stay like this, between her sisters, and never have to go to any more funerals. She closed her eyes. “I promise to be an old maid all my life,” she prayed to herself, “and read the whole Bible, if you don’t take any more of us.”

Later, when she was alone, she squatted down in front of the little fireplace in the bedroom so that she could see her guardian angels, embossed on the iron fireback. Just the barest outlines of a face and halo and wings, but they were her secret angels. “Did you hear what I prayed?” she whispered. She nodded, knowing they’d heard and would protect her.

That night she dreamed of rabbits leaping over each other in a strange dance and beating their strong hind legs on the ground and baring their teeth. She woke up afraid and called out for Myrtle Emma. But everything was quiet, and she would be brave and go back to sleep and try not to think about her dream.

CHAPTER 4

1895–1897

B
Y LATE SPRING
Captain Billie’s speculations had made him rich in paper certificates and so poor in real money that he was two months behind on his property taxes. A county tax collector paid a visit to the Murchison house to see what could be done. He found that the owner, William Murchison, contrary to what he had been told, was not at all a drink-besotted, short-tempered, untucked, unshaven old man. He was in fact a jolly, portly, bespectacled gentleman, who greeted him at the door wearing a tie and suspenders, and invited him into the parlor for coffee. After a few polite words, during which Captain Billie assured the short, bald man from Durham that, yes, his family was fine and, no, he needn’t worry about the taxes, Captain Billie asked, “Aren’t there enough people up in Durham delinquent on their taxes to bother?”

“Yessir, there are plenty,” the man said, “but I cover six counties.” Sitting on the edge of the brown plush sofa, he opened up a new-looking leather briefcase and pulled out some papers and began to speak.

“Before you begin,” Billie interrupted, “I need to ask you an important question.” The man raised his eyebrows. “Have you read this book?” Holding up his Bible.

The tax collector nodded slowly, confused at first. Something of the old fire returned to the Captain’s eyes, as though he were about to burst into a tirade. He checked himself and smiled, gripping the arms of his wingback chair and leaning forward so that his tie dangled. “It’s not a hard question, Mr. Throckmorton,” he said. “Do you know Matthew six?”

“I’m not sure—”

“No man can serve two masters,” Captain Billie recited, “for he will hate the one, and love the other. Therefore take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on.”

“I understand, Mr. Murchison. But to get back for a moment to the unpaid balance on your bill.” He looked sadly at the piece of paper in his hand, as if there might be some script there he could follow in such a case as this. “The county would hate to have to assess a penalty, and unless we can get a guarantee from your bank—”

“Mr. Throckmorton, I don’t think you’re following me here. I ask you to consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin. Isn’t that a beautiful sentiment?”

“Yes, sir, it is,” Throckmorton said, leaning back with a sigh. He took another sip of coffee and hunched his shoulders.

“I can see I’ve got your attention now, and I’m almost to the end: Therefore take no thought of what you shall eat or drink, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, Mr. Throckmorton. Take no thought for the morrow, for sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Which I take to mean worldly things, like that paper you’re holding there. I can’t very well serve two masters. That’s why I gave up drinking and cards and such. You might say, Well, Captain Billie, you’re an old man, about to meet your maker.
That’s easy for you, but not so easy for a younger man. Huh?” He stared hard at Throckmorton.

The agent shook his head and tried to smile. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Judge not, that ye be not judged, Mr. Throckmorton. Those aren’t my words. I’m just telling you what’s in the Bible, right out of Jesus’s mouth.”

“So are you going to work with me on this, Mr. Murchison? Because, if not, there will be a penalty.” Throckmorton sat up, an idea illuminating his dull features. “And you know what comes after that. A man like you doesn’t want to have to go to court.”

“I would urge you, son, with everything in my soul, to go home right now. Just drop everything you’re doing, and pick up your Bible. Do you have one?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, go on now and do what I say. Start in reading anywhere, and pray, and go to church. And for godsakes, don’t slouch.”

The agent smiled tolerantly as he stood, folded the bill and shoved it back in his pocket; he then let Captain Billie usher him out to the front porch. After he put his hat on, he stood a moment as though he wanted to say something else. “Doesn’t Jesus say,” he began, “that you should render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s? So if there’s money belonging to the government, he says it’s all right to pay it.”

“You’re very wise, Mr. Throckmorton, for somebody who’s spent so much time studying on commerce. And you might have a point, but for one thing.” And now Billie locked eyes with Throckmorton. “I don’t have the money. So Caesar must already have it. Look around and ask yourself if you’re in the home of a rich man who ought to pay money to the government, when that same government saw fit to run a train up yonder and leave me high and dry. And now the state is paying veteran’s benefits, but not a nickel have
I seen of that. Why? I’ll tell you why. Because I was too old to get out and fight, though I did my share of training up a whole regiment’s worth of young men to fight, and I kept law and order here when they were gone off. Now I ask you, isn’t that worth a few coins?”

Throckmorton started to speak again, then, thinking better of it, he shook Captain Billie’s hand and said an impassive, “Good-bye, Mr. Murchison.”

“I’ll see what I can do about rendering unto Caesar,” Billie told him. “We’ve hit a rough patch, but with God’s help we’ll weather it.” Throckmorton was already on the walkway when Billie called after him that he would find the money and pay, sell off his last horse if he had to, but first he had to have a sign. Then he told Margaret he was unwell and he went upstairs to his bed.

Mary Bet learned of her grandfather’s newfound religion during an extended stay there that summer, this time because her mother had become gravely ill with typhoid. “Your mama will not beat me to the grave,” Captain Billie told her. The words gave her no comfort, coming from a man whose eyes drooped like teardrops and who walked now with a cane, when he walked at all. She spent a good part of the summer memorizing long passages from the Bible. When she wanted relief from this work, she went out to help Aunt Scilla, the cook, make chocolate layer cakes, which Captain Billie ate every day. She did not question why O’Nora and Myrtle Emma were allowed to stay at home and wait on their mother. Two girls were enough, she reasoned, and at eight years old she was more susceptible, though she would have preferred waking up in bed with O’Nora.

Death had become as much a part of Mary Bet’s life as going to church and school, or feeding her grandparents’ fowl, or sweeping their back stoop, or helping Uncle Crabtree milk the cow. Death was an unwelcome cousin from another state who had taken up
residence. And death was a secret between herself and her imaginary friend, Netty, and Netty knew far more about death than anybody—she knew what lay beyond the sundown world of the forest west of town. She would take Mary Bet’s hand as they lay in bed and offer to fly her there, but Mary Bet would find excuses. Not this time, she would say—I can’t go out in the night air in my nightie. Not just yet, I didn’t finish my prayers. No, I’m not ready.

In the mornings she would pretend not to notice Netty; she would dress in a hurry and rush downstairs to help Mama Margaret turn the bacon. Aunt Scilla came only three days a week now, and it was very quiet in the mornings in her grandparents’ house. Her uncle got up early to go down to the livery; her grandfather woke only to eat breakfast with his son, then went back to bed and slept until nearly noon. He spent the rest of the day reading his Bible, moving his lips and sometimes whispering the words. Mama Margaret had made him quit reading aloud, saying it was bad for his blood pressure, but she confided to Mary Bet that it was too much like being in church all day.

Mary Bet thought she was too old for Netty, so she didn’t tell anybody about her. Not even her little cousins, who sometimes came over. Mary Bet didn’t care much for these cousins—they only wanted to go dig worms and make mud pies down in the creek—but she would tend them for a nickel, sometimes pulling them around in a red wagon all afternoon.

Best of all was when she and Mama Margaret would sit in the parlor sewing—mending tears, hemming dresses, making clothes for her two dolls. Sometimes her grandmother would hide her thimble in plain sight, and Mary Bet would have to find it; then she would beg her grandmother to hide it again while she closed her eyes.

Her mother died on a Sunday morning in late July, and she knew it as soon as she opened her eyes. She would not get out of bed,
though Netty told her it was time to get up. “Sshhh!” Mary Bet scolded, “you leave me alone now.”

After church, her grandmother came in and sat beside her and put an arm around her. “It’s all right, honey, it’s all right. Your mother’s in heaven and she loves you.”

Mary Bet thought way back to one of her earliest memories, of standing at the edge of Annie’s grave, holding Ila’s hand. Then Ila herself had died, because life was fragile, a gift, not something you could ever take for granted—the Lord could redeem it back, suddenly, suddenly. And she recalled how after Ila died her mother had less love to give away, and how she had scolded Cicero and wouldn’t speak to him for days after he broke her grandmother’s milk pitcher; and Mary Bet had thought, “I will never be like that.” Her mother would sit stiff and stern in church, hands folded in her lap, tolerating no whispering or movement of any kind. She used to kneel beside Mary Bet at her nightly prayers, listening as Mary Bet prayed aloud. And on Saturday night, she let Mary Bet rinse out her long black hair as she knelt over the washbasin, her eyes closed, her large bosom wrapped in towels. She was kind to the animals, making sure they were fed before anyone else, and nursing the sick ones with more care and devotion, Mary Bet had sometimes thought, than she gave her own children. Still, Mary Bet had never felt any cruelty from her mother, and though her mother’s love was not as abundant and generous as her father’s, it was yet love.