Authors: Suzette Haden Elgin
And she could not afford to have them think any differently. Not the Grannys. Not and keep this planet stable, and all the Magicians of Rank in order, while she waited for what she knew to come to
mean
more to her. She had to make a show of strength for these two.
“If there’s anything wrong with me,” she said to them crisply, drawing on a source of energy she’d have to pay back in a painful coin later, “it’s the potion I was given twenty-four hours ago. Wonder you didn’t kill me with it, Granny Hazelbide!”
And she stood up and walked straight out of the room, steady as the stones of the Castle walls, and left them looking after her in comfortable silence.
All the way back on the ship, Gilead worried about her father. Jacob Donahue Wommack sat through the days, staring out over the water; at the ship’s table he made little pretense of eating, picking absently at his food. And in the night she often heard him in the next cabin, pacing, hour after hour; when he slept, which was not often nor for long, he moaned like a creature wounded to the heart. Gilead herself grew thin from the nights she spent listening to him, catching only a few minutes of exhausted sleep toward morning, and the Grannys fussed at her incessantly. Did she think, they wanted to know, that she could help her father by wasting away to a stick and wandering around with two eyes like burnt holes in her face?
“I can’t sleep, while he’s like that,” she told them.
“You do him no service, listening to him and brooding over “
“I cannot
help
it,” she insisted.
“Then shame on you,” Granny Copperdell rebuked her, “for if there’s something serious wrong with your daddy he’ll need your strength later, and precious little you’ll have to offer him! You’ll have young Jewel with that on her back as well as the minding of her brother-and that’s unfair, Gilead of Wommack. Just
un
fair!”
Gilead turned her head away, and the tears burned in her eyes. “It’s just that I love him,” she said, almost choking on the words. “Aren’t I supposed to love him?”
“Fine kind of love that is,” the Granny went on, grimly. “You do your duty, we’d have a sight more respect for your `love.”‘
“It’s my duty to
sleep,
while my daddy suffers?”
Granny Copperdell turned her back on Gilead, a gesture as eloquent in its contempt as a slap would have been, and harder to bear; when the young woman pulled at her elbow she would not even look at her.
“What is it you’re after me for now?” she said, rigid as a rail. “Granny, I don’t blame you for what you’re thinking, I know I’m not much of a woman.”
“That you’re not. I’m ashamed to have had the raising of you.”
“Say whatever you care to-but can’t you potion Daddy?”
“He won’t have it.”
“You’ve tried, then-you’ve already tried?”
“I have tried, for sure,” said Granny Copperdell. “Granny
Goodweather
has tried. We know our business, Gilead, we’ve been at it more years than you’ve been on this world. And your daddy has sent us both packing, as is his privilege. He’s neither a tadling to have his nose held and the potion poured down him, nor yet an addled old one gone child again. He is a strong man in the flower of his manhood, and if he doesn’t choose to be potioned he doesn’t have to be.”
“I can’t bear it,” lamented Gilead of Wommack, “I can’t! Daddy like he is, and both of you Grannys ice and steel to me, and Lewis Motley behaving like a lunatic and driving Jewel distracted, and all the children upset-”
The Granny gave her a look, shook off her hand, and walked off and left her standing there, muttering about worthless females, and for the rest of the trip both Grannys made a point of avoiding her. When they reached Castle Wommack, they shunned her still.
“Don’t pay them any mind,” Lewis Motley told her once, seeing them pass her as if she’d gone invisible in the night. “What do you care for the opinions of a pair of creaking old women like that?”
“They’re
Gran
nys,” said Gilead. “You don’t understand.”
“No, I don’t. Jewel has told me a mess of nonsense that’s supposed to explain it, but I don’t understand that either. You have a right to be worried about Jacob Donahue-I’m worried about him myself. I see no reason why you should be treated like they’re doing you, just for that.”
There is no harsher judgment in all this world, thought Gilead, than that of an Ozark woman for a female that can’t cope. But she didn’t say it aloud, it wasn’t the kind of thing you said to a man; and Lewis Motley went off shrugging his shoulders.
On the morning of the second day of their return, Jacob Donahue was dead. The Attendant who took his coffee up came back swiftly, looking white and stunned, and had the Grannys go back up with him to be sure. He was down again, fast as he’d gone up, and off to the stables like he was in a hurry to get to them. The Grannys were upstairs a considerable time, doing what was necessary, and would let nobody in until they were through. Even then, it was only for long enough to see the dead man laid neatly on a fresh counterpane with his eyes closed and his hands folded and a single candle lit beside his bed, and they shooed all the others away, scolding. “Leave him in peace now, get on with you!”
The staff were satisfied, saying, “All’s been done proper; trust the Grannys,” and they went back to their work, taking just time to tie a band of black cloth on their sleeves from a supply the Grannys kept handy. And then the Family went to the meetingroom and took their places round the table, leaving the Master’s chair empty.
“He left a letter,” said Granny Copperdell, without preamble. She reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out a sheet of heavy paper folded in thirds, and slapped it down before Gilead. “With Gilead’s name on its outside.”
“Oh, no, Granny,” breathed Gilead, “I can’t-”
“Say you can’t bear it one more time,” Granny Copperdell cut in, “just one more time, and I’ll send you from this meeting like you weren’t yet weaned, you hear me? Now that’s your
father’s
letter, the last words he wrote, and they are addressed to you. I’ll thank you-we’ll
all
thank you-to read them in a dignified manner, as is suitable to his memory.”
Gilead picked up the sheet and unfolded it, staring at the Grannys, and she asked, in a voice that nobody recognized: “Does this mean that Daddy killed himself? Does it?”
“You know anything else it could mean?” snapped Granny Goodweather. “Now will you leave off, and read what’s written?”
My dearest family and my beloved friends,
I write these last few words to you, not because I mean to excuse what I am about to do, but because I would like to try to explain. Perhaps then you will find you can forgive me.
My life has never been a hard one; excepting the loss of my dear wife, everything has been made easy and smooth for me, now that I look back on it. My memories are good ones, and for all that you have done to make that true, I leave you my thanks.
But I’ve come now to a place where I find myself too much a coward to go on-and that surprises me; I never knew I was a coward. I always thought I was a brave man-but I can’t face what life will be like now, nor bear the shame of my part in making it so. Of all the delegates to that doomed Jubilee, only one was of my generation in both years
and
mind. Only that fanatic, Jeremiah Thomas Traveller, who so well lives up to his name. We are told, you know, that Jeremiah was a prophet of doom, and that Thomas was a doubterthat’s Jeremiah, and I have known him many a long year. For the younger men and for the foolish ones there is maybe some excuse; there is none for either Jeremiah or for me. I leave it to the Holy One to punish him for the wickedness that rots his soul; no doubt I will be punished, too, for dying a coward’s death, and a death of shame. It is a bitter legacy I leave you-never think I didn’t know that.
One question will come up now, and perhaps be a source of discord. I can do at least this much for you; I can settle that question. My sons will be fine men, but they are very young; my daughter Gilead is dear to me, but she is not a strong woman. I therefore direct that the title of Master of Castle Wommack be passed on not to any one of my children, but to my brother Lewis Motley Wommack the 33rd. I make this choice without any hesitation; I know my brother. He is called a wild young man-I leave the conduct of this Kingdom and its people in his hands, knowing he will lay aside that wildness as easily as he would lay aside a cloak. Let there be no dispute on this matter, as you respect my memory. Help him, as you have helped me; support him, as you have supported me; honor him, as you have honored me.
As I look back over what I have written, I see that I have failed in this as well-I have
not
explained. And I cannot, I have no more strength than I have courage. Forgive me then, my dear ones, for love of me alone.
I bid you farewell.
Jacob Donahue Wommack the 23
rd
“There! I read the awful thing!” Gilead threw the sheet of paper from her, white-lipped and shuddering.
“Thank you, Gilead of Wommack,” said Granny Goodweather. She reached out and set the letter in order again, and laid it down in the center of the table. And she looked round at all the children with a pitying eye. Gilead, the eldest. The two young boys, Thomas Lincoln the 9th, and the father’s namesake, Jacob Donahue the 24th. Gilead’s sisters, and their husbands, and the grandchildren with their eyes like saucers. Jewel of Wommack, crying openly but without a sound, the tears pouring in rivers down her face. All these people, and the 14,000 souls-give or take a dozen -who were the people, all in the hands of Lewis Motley Wommack the 33rd.
One of the sons-in-law opened his mouth, and the Granny knew what he was about to say. At twenty-four, it wouldn’t be easy for him to accept the younger man as Master of this Castle.
“There will be
no dispute!”
she said. “He lies dead, sudden, taken in the prime of his life and by his own despairing hand; you’ll not dishonor him more by moving against him now, when he cannot compel you to obedience. You put any such ideas right out of your mind, for I won’t countenance them, nor will Granny Copperdell, nor will the Magicians of this Kingdom.”
“That’s well put,” added Granny Copperdell. “Anybody as cares to question it, they’ll rue it. Mark my words.”
The son-in-law closed his mouth and settled back with a look of resignation, if not acceptance, and the silence went on and on.
“Why?” Gilead ventured finally. “I don’t understand why.”
“He told you,” snapped Granny Copperdell.
“No! It was riddles!”
Her sister Sophia agreed, and the concord ran round the table along with the questions.
“What’s any of this got to do with the Travellers?”
“What’d he mean, he was ashamed?”
“What’d he mean, he couldn’t face what life’s going to be now? What’s going to happen?”
In the middle of the questions and the complaints, Lewis Motley Wommack silenced them all. He got up from his chair, far to the foot of the table beside Jewel’s, and he walked right to the head and took the Master’s chair.
“Law!” breathed Gilead in the sudden hush. “Law, that does look
strange!”
“Makes no nevermind how it looks,” said Granny Goodweather. “It’s as your daddy ordered it, and no doubt he had his reasons. You got a few words to say to us, Lewis Motley, before we leave this room and turn properly to mourning your brother?”
“First,” said Lewis Motley, “I’ll settle the riddles for you-those as seem fit for settling, in my own judgment.”
“You’d do that, would you?”
“Yes, Granny, I would and I will. Jacob Donahue Wommack saw that the end of the Confederation meant the beginning of chaos, and he couldn’t face that. He’s had order all his life-and there’ll be no more order. That’s one riddle answered. As for the shame, he knew it was his place to stand against that foolish ending set in motion by the Travellers and carried to its fruit and harvest by the Smiths. He was no young man to be carried away with the excitement of the moment, nor any fool like the Brightwater that was Chair and let the meeting be run away with and said not one word to stop it-he was a man in the wisdom of years, and a man that saw clear. He knew what it would be like, and he knew he should speak, and he said nary a word, just for fear of the fuss it would make. That’s the shame he writes of, and a shame I share.”
“You tried to speak up!” Jewel protested. “I saw you, from the balcony. You were hollering for them to let you speak.”
“So I was,” said Lewis Motley bitterly. “I stood there, and I hollered. The proper thing to do, once I saw nobody else was going to, would of been to snatch the crown off Delldon Mallard’s fool head, take away his scepter, and use it to beat some sense into as many idiots as I could get to-starting with the Chair. I did
not
do that, you notice; as my sister tells you, I stood there hollering for somebody to listen to me, like a nanny goat. The only person at that meeting as did anything honorable-the one and only person-was Troublesome of Brightwater. A
woman!
We deserved every word she said, we deserved to be driven from Confederation Hall and have it locked against us, and we deserved the look of her back as she rode out of town.”
“Accurate,” said the Grannys together.
And Granny Goodweather checked her pocket. She’d taken the tall glass that sat on the table by Jacob Donahue’s bed, rinsed it carefully to be sure certain every last dreg of the poison he’d used was gone, and smashed it to bits at the back of his fireplace. But she’d kept one shard for herself, a good-sized one with a trace of a berry vine etched on it, and given another like it to Granny Copperdell. It wouldn’t do to lose that shard. Such things were very useful, and not often come by; and she had a feeling they might be needed more often in the days to come than they’d been in the past. The sharp bit was still where she’d put it, lying between a shammybag of herbs and her long scissors.