“Why didn’t you call me?” I wailed.
“I didn’t know. Your father found her when he came back around midnight.”
“But
then
, why didn’t you call me
then?”
“He weren’t ready to tell ya, Miss.”
“Where is she?”
“Mr. Riley, the undertaker’s got her.”
“Why! Surely it is my place to—” Mr. Riley butted into every family’s business. I’d seen him slithering along the wall in his plain black suit, fussing with flowers, even touching the body during the viewing, adjusting this or that so everyone would know it was his work that lay at the center of attention. There was not a man in town I found more odious or more unnecessary. Bessie had turned away, hard intent on scrubbing the skillet. Outside the snow was melting noisily, running off the roof and gurgling in the gutters.
Mama had told me of preparing her own mother for the grave, washing the body and winding it in the muslin and helping to lay it in the pine box. She said it grieved her that her Daddy had been buried where he fell at Fort Mahone, and that she had not been there to make sure he was treated tenderly. And now my tender mother was left alone to the cold hands of Mr. Riley. I sobbed and gasped.
“She’ll be back.” Bessie set a platter of biscuits on the table. “We’re going to lay her out in the dining room. You go in there and see if it’s like you want.”
Like the report of a rifle a knock came at the kitchen door. Bessie let in a tall, gangly boy who whispered something to her. She rushed to my side, her eyes shining so I thought she would tell me Mama had revived. I’d heard of such things, people put into the coffin before their time.
“Mr. Riley has had the most wonderful idea.”
“What?” I glared at her through my watery eyes. “Tell me. If it’s such a grand idea.”
Bessie glanced back at the boy, then said, “He wants to lay her out in her wedding dress.”
“No. She should wear black. The Sunday satin.”
“But just think of it, Miss Victoria, how she’ll look. Thirty-three is not so old. Her hair has not turned.”
“But, her wedding dress, surely, Bessie, something from a joyous occasion—”
“It’s done, often. I’ve heard of it, when the woman is not old and sometimes even when she is. Mr. Riley says there is nothing more romantic than the death of a beautiful woman.”
“I believe it was Mr. Edgar Allen Poe who said that.”
“And surely
he
was a great man.”
“My father would never approve.” This said I turned and left the kitchen.
I found Wendell way down at the foot of the bed so small and hidden by the blankets that anyone else looking into the room would have thought it empty. I pulled him out. He had wet the bed, and the yoke of his nightshirt was damp with tears. He kept his eyes closed, pretending to be asleep, even when I had stood him up on the floor to peel off his wet things. I dressed him and brought him down to the kitchen stove. Blue under the eyes, he looked no bigger than a three year old.
I had heard Mama bring up Wendell’s health with Father long ago. “You’ve made that boy weak,” Father had answered her in a way that made me sure this was not a new topic between them. But surely now he would rush to prevent another terrible loss to our family.
* * *
Bessie, behaving as though a Christmas tree were being decorated for my benefit, did not permit me to enter the dining room until Mr. Riley had finished his work and left. Bessie stood in front of the doors and from her apron pocket handed me a pair of scissors. “Snip a lock of her hair. You’ll wish you had.” Then she pushed back the doors. “Come and see, Miss.”
The draperies were closed, but I could see the dining table had vanished, and all the chairs stood along the walls. A stiff doll lay on the black draped cooling board, a doll in a white georgette dress, which was arranged so that the toes of white slippers showed. Three tall candlesticks burned at the head of the bier illuminating the full, dark hair which was tightly curled like a little girl’s. Trailing down with the curls onto the bodice of the dress were thin white satin ribbons. The hands, clasped on her waist, held a small bouquet of Echinacea and ferns. The cheeks and lips were rouged. I tottered and Bessie steadied me.
“Did you ever in your life see something so beautiful?” she sighed, full of gratification for her part in this. Mama herself would have shrieked. She of all people to be dolled up in this cheap fashion. I began to weep again, hot angry tears. There was nothing my mother could do to defend herself from this now. And the opinion that this gaudy exhibit was silly, ludicrous really, appeared to be mine alone. Bessie beside me sniffed.
“You did this,” I snapped, “found the dress, helped that awful man.”
“I loved her,” Bessie wailed. “She was the loneliest woman I ever knew.”
I would have slapped Bessie had Mama not been right there. Dear Mama whom I never, ever allowed for one moment to be lonely. Bessie rushed toward the kitchen. I put the scissors away. Mrs. Moody came and took Wendell to her house where she promised to keep him warm until after the funeral tomorrow.
From that point on the day rushed forward at a pace I was never able to overtake, much less gain any control over. Around three in the afternoon a Mr. Frederick, a photographer from Raleigh, appeared and began to set up his paraphernalia, commandeering Bessie to hold up his flares. I didn’t know which way to turn. We certainly could not spare Bessie as there were meat tarts, and pies and cookies to be baked and sherry wine and punch and whiskey to be laid out. I did the best I could until some ladies from the church shooed me back into the dining room where I was expected to stand near the door and receive the guests since Father had positioned himself in a chair at Mama’s side.
Father’s focus after its long absence had returned to Mama, and he propped his elbow on his knee and leaned his head on his hand to gaze at her. At times, his head bowed, his hand covering his eyes. So engrossed was he in her still form, he did not turn when guests arrived to pay their respects but remained part of the candle-lit tableau, shifting only at the prompting of the photographer.
* * *
By eight o’clock the parlor and the dining room were full. Everyone we knew, including girls who used to be my playmates before Mama got sick, as well as many gaping strangers had come, and no one had the decency to go. The air grew quite close and reeked with the perfume Mr. Riley had doused onto the black draperies. The most unwelcome in the crowd was, of course, Mrs. St. Pierre who moved from guest to guest assuring each of her uninterrupted attentions to our family throughout our ordeal. “Such a struggle!” She sobbed. “Everyday my heart was ripped from my bosoms as I witnessed her slipping, slipping—” and then she would dissolve into another round of tears.
The other guests were too overawed by the spectacle of the doll in the wedding dress to pay attention to their role as mourners. “So dramatic,” a woman sighed. “Glorious, a real artist,” another murmured. But I knew there were many other thoughts abounding but unspoken in the room:
If her spirit is looking down on this spectacle, Margaret Jenkins, who loved things to be plain and natural, will turn over in her grave!
These thoughts sparkled in the air, and their purport was telegraphed to me in long looks and raised eyebrows. I overheard one woman to say, “Oh well, she is too thick to wear it.” With this I knew it was believed that the wedding dress had been the silly daughter’s idea.
It seemed heart breaking to me that all the thoughts in this room whether complimentary or critical were about the work of Mr. Riley. But when Mrs. Blanchmore, the minister’s wife, arrived about half past eight, this changed. In her severe black serge dress, she moved slowly from one guest to the next, putting her arm around a shoulder or waist and murmuring sweet remembrances and pitiful observations about my mother’s suffering and courage until tears had been coaxed down the cheeks of her subjects and the faces reddened with grief. “God gathers the tenderest flowers.” Then Mrs. Blanchmore moved on like a toy maker turning the key in the back of each guest until she had the whole room wound up and wailing. And when someone asserted their dignity and composed themselves, she returned to give them another twist.
The dark gushings of my mind about my responsibility in taking her out of doors had to stop. So enormous was my own pain, I knew I must exert all my will power to prevent one tear from falling in front of this company, else I should burst into a frenzy that would not do my mother proud. I would be a calm lady and a support to my father.
Although I felt an almost overwhelming resistance to doing so, I went to stand behind my father and look down upon my sleeping mother. By force of habit I watched for the uneven rise and fall of her chest as I had so often when sitting beside her bed. What wretched regrets must haunt my father who had left her alone so much. The muffled weeping, sniffing, clucking, and moaning of the guests behind us swelled as I raised my hand to lay it on Father’s shoulder. He turned with a smile, but, seeing it was I, his face fell and for a moment I wondered who he had expected to touch him.
“We must take good care of Wendell,” I whispered. “And move him down to the second floor.”
Father stood and, taking me by the arm, ushered me into the back hall.
“Victoria, this is not an appropriate time to discuss domestic arrangements. Nor is it your place to make such a suggestion.”
“I promised Mama.”
“Your mother would want you to hold your tongue.”
“She told me—”
“Your mother died of consumption. Wendell has nothing but a bad cold which he will get over if he isn’t coddled and treated like a baby girl all the time.”
The flood surged. “Father please, I will do anything—” At that moment he drew me to him and began to gently pat my back.
“Ahh,” Mrs. Blanchmore cooed from behind me. She was standing in the doorway. “There is no comfort like Daddy’s shoulder.” I pulled away and ran up the back stairway. I paused at the top, my head about to explode. I didn’t move until the pressure and roaring subsided, and I could hear the ladies from the church in the kitchen washing the punch cups. I went into the big bedroom and splashed water on my face.
As soon as I was composed, I took the back stairs down and was surprised to see Mrs. St. Pierre and Bessie standing silently at the bottom as though my approach had interrupted their conversation. I passed coolly between them, but as soon as I was out of their sight, I stopped and listened, not at all surprised to hear angry voices rise up. They had had words several times before. Bessie had once said to me, “Mrs. St. Pierre is nothing but a farm girl like meself.”
Now I heard Mrs. St. Pierre rasp, “You might lose your position very soon.”
“Don’t get your hopes up, Miss Crow. Mr. Jenkins has promised Mrs. Barringer a honeymoon Caribbean cruise.”
I heard the pop and knew that Bessie’s cheek was stinging. Mrs. St. Pierre, a wild, lost look on her face, burst from the back hallway toward the dining room almost running into me. She rushed past my father who gave her puffing exit no notice, and I realized at that moment that he knew little of the dramatic effects he had on the lives of others nor did he care.
I followed Mrs. St. Pierre into the parlor where her eyes cast about at all its fine things and all its fine company. Her mouth open, she turned, round and round, like a leaf riding into the gully. I strode past her to open the front door for her though I’m sure she believed it was a spiteful act. I understood her shock. I too felt myself winded.
Mrs. Barringer, a honeymoon Caribbean cruise!
Bessie would not have made that up. It was too extravagant, too horrid a story to be concocted by the likes of Bessie who craved the details of the true world.
I returned to the upstairs room and looked down into the yard where I had let my mother lie on the damp ground, the very worst thing for her. And just as I realized I would have to carry this heavy knowledge locked inside me for the rest of my life, my heart sagged further under thoughts of the plans my father had clearly made before my mother’s death. I bowed my head against the cool window glass, as the dark suspicion ran through my veins, something more I could never speak of.
Setting the lantern on the floor in front of the empty fireplace, I pulled out the bottom bureau drawer and removed the wedding photograph. I sat a long time staring at the strong, handsome man and the girl trying to say something. After awhile I began to feel happy for her, this bride. Her only daughter had grown old enough just in time to understand what she had said:
… find a husband who will talk with you.
I got to my feet, took a pair of scissors from the table and cut the picture in half. Then holding a corner to the lamp’s fire, I set my father’s photograph ablaze and threw it in the fireplace. As I watched the edges curl and his face darken, I was drawn to a distant pounding outside. I looked through the moist pane which gave a view of the ginkgo tree now mostly bare and black against the sky. Its arms framed the moonlit horizon where a girl rode astride over the meadow, flowing with the freedom of rushing water, moving as one with her pony.
THE END
THE DRESS
1970
Since Margaret’s wedding in North Carolina in 1870 the pounding hearts of all the brides who faced the mirror standing on the little embroidered footstool resided in the heart of Patricia, the newest bride to step up and look and wonder what she has gotten herself into.
My best friend, Sandy Zotikos, and I deplaned at Will Rogers Air Field in Oklahoma City on August 6, 1970, the day after Congress adjourned. My parents met us at the airport and we drove south to Chisholm and the house where I grew up, a nice old place, built by my great grandfather, James Eliot Hale, to which my parents had through the years made improvements—enclosing the old back porch to make a laundry room, adding a bathroom upstairs, replacing the rickety old garage with a car port.
As we headed for Creek Street, Sandy, my wiry-haired, big-voiced friend from the Bronx, kept asking questions—What’s the payroll around here? Is this a union town? Her questions and my parents’ bewildered attempts to answer continued until we drove into the driveway. My father opened the trunk, set our bags in the shade of the carport, and jerked his head toward the back of the house. “I’ve got something to show you,” he said.