Love and Lament Read online

  “He’s up there at Morganton, idn’t he?” Mrs. Gooch said, glancing at the others.

  “Yes, ma’am, he is. It’s a lovely place out there. You should go out there sometime.”

  “Me? I have no business out there. The very idea.” Mrs. Gooch made a little dismissive laughing noise, her chest rising and falling.

  “I meant the area,” Mary Bet explained. “It’s pretty.” But Mrs. Gooch only stared back. Dessert was a small serving of cobbler or pie; seconds were never offered, and the leftovers were locked away in a tin pie safe and the key secured in the pocket of Mrs. Gooch’s skirt. Mary Bet excused herself before the others this time, even before coffee, and said she was going to take a walk because it was such a nice evening for this late in the year. Mr. Hennesey and Amanda looked at her with confusion and envy, as if sorry they hadn’t thought of the same thing themselves, while Mrs. Gooch made a small joke about there now being more for them.

  “Amanda,” Mary Bet said, “would you like to come out with me?” Amanda glanced first at Mrs. Gooch, who was looking out the window with a frown.

  “Let me get my wrap,” Amanda said.

  Mary Bet nodded and turned away so that she wouldn’t have to see Mrs. Gooch’s expression. As she headed to the front door, she heard Amanda’s chair scraping and then the clattering rhythm of the braces and the turned feet, and she knew that Mr. Hennesey was sitting there twisting his napkin, wanting to get up and help, but forced by Amanda’s orders to sit idle. Amanda had boarded here for nearly six months, Mr. Hennesey for a year, and he still had not adjusted to her presence, let alone to Mary Bet’s.

  Mary Bet sat on the edge of the rocker, the only chair on the narrow front porch. One of the spindles was missing, and the rockers were misaligned so that the chair rocked with an unpleasant bump. Presently Amanda came along and, taking both braces in one hand and the wooden railing in the other, hobbled down the three steps to the flagstone walkway.

  They headed up the road past the last few houses north of the courthouse and turned left. Mrs. Gooch was convinced that she had one of the largest houses in town, but while she did have a full second story, there were larger houses about, and certainly fancier. She at least kept it in good repair, which could not be said for some of the houses off the Durham Road, where thick woods and vines curtained little bungalows and shacks, a few of them occupied by black folks who had bought or inherited property from former masters.

  “What do you think of Mrs. Gooch?” Mary Bet asked, feeling the tingling delight of a potential friendship.

  “I nearly froze last week,” Amanda said. “The boiler doesn’t work right, and she only keeps one chimney burning. But my room’s on the other side of the house.” They were walking so slowly Mary Bet could smell Amanda’s perspiration and the lavender from her hair; she tried slowing down even more. “I shouldn’t complain though.”

  “You have every right to complain,” Mary Bet said, and when she saw Amanda brighten she added, “You oughten pay to be cold.” She felt a stirring of something within her—her very newness to this town and this life gave her a strange power, a freedom to be whatever kind of person she wished to be. She had always wanted O’Nora’s boldness of spirit and Myrt’s gentle wisdom and poise—she didn’t want to be them exactly, but to enfold them into herself.

  “You think I should say something about it?” Amanda asked, peering briefly at Mary Bet. There was a guarded tone now, a challenge, a woman doubting a youth.

  “Yes, I think you should,” Mary Bet said firmly, for there was no sense in retreating to a more passive role until she had discovered her limits as a decisive person, at least with this one friend. Amanda nodded thoughtfully, and Mary Bet continued, “I think you should say, ‘Mrs. Gooch, it’s cold as ice in my room. If that other fireplace works, I want to light it a-nights.’ Tell her I’ll do it for you, that way she’ll know we’re together on it.”

  Amanda laughed, but it was a strange, whimpering kind of sound high up in her throat, as though she were unpracticed in laughter. “Aren’t you cold up there at all?” she asked.

  “No, I must have thick blood. But I’ll say I am.” And now Amanda grew quiet, and Mary Bet wondered if she had said something that bothered her. Amanda set her face in a determined way, her lips pressed together, as she struggled along.

  “You don’t need to say that if it’s not true,” Amanda said quietly. “I’ll manage fine.” The blotch on her face seemed to darken just a bit, though there was so little light left to the evening it was hard to tell.

  “Do you ever hear Mr. Hennesey singing?” Mary Bet asked.

  “Oh, Lord,” Amanda replied, this time with a laugh from deeper down. “I don’t understand why Mrs. Gooch hasn’t kicked him out for drinking, but it’s surprising what she … tolerates and doesn’t tolerate. I was going to say ‘likes,’ but I don’t think she likes anything, except for peppers and cold rooms.”

  “What about you? What do you like?”

  “Oh, in my spare time I like to read dime novels—romance and Westerns. Some people think they’re trashy, but I like them because I can be in my room and I’m miles away having a great adventure.”

  “Do you want to live an adventurous life?”

  “Me? Heavens no, I wouldn’t care for that. I don’t think I’d like chasing Indians and camping out under the stars, and I’ve had my heart broken once and that was enough for me.” Amanda stopped to pull something out of her shoe, Mary Bet waiting for her to tell about her broken heart, but the moment passed and just as Mary Bet thought of a way to ask about it, Amanda said, “What about you? I imagine you like going to dances and parties and that kind of thing, with boys draped all over you.”

  Mary Bet made an embarrassed little laugh, shaking her head; she was grateful it was too dark to see her complexion. “I don’t know why you’d think that. I didn’t know I seemed so frivolous.”

  “Who said anything about frivolous? If I was pretty I would go to dances every weekend. Or I would’ve at your age. At your age, though, I wouldn’t have said that. I would’ve said that dancing was a waste of time, that it was for foolish people who wanted to look foolish.” A dove called, somewhere off in the darkness, and Amanda paused to button her sweater. “We should be getting back,” she said. Instead of continuing around the long block, they turned and headed back the way they’d come, Mary Bet watching the ruts in the road as carefully as if she were the one dragging her feet over them. Just taking an evening stroll could be an adventure, she thought, and she was suddenly so happy and filled with hope that she told herself she would stay friends with Amanda for the rest of her life.

  Mary Bet worked in the courthouse from eight to noon in the morning, and then from one until four in the afternoon, Monday through Friday, and from eight to noon on Saturdays. Every day she walked past the Confederate Monument and through the brick arcade to the ground floor entrance, then down the hall, and to the right. At the end of this hall was the office of her cousin, Sheriff Hooper Teague. She no longer knocked timidly before she entered, for she was usually the first to arrive. She liked getting there before Toby, the errand boy, because she would be sitting regally at her desk—a pine table with one drawer—and she would tell him that when he had finished stoking the fireplaces with coal, he could see to making sure the lamps were filled with kerosene before he went and fetched the newspaper, which the sheriff liked to have on his desk every morning when he arrived. With the windows this side of the building not getting lit up good until afternoon, there was nothing worse than running out of kerosene when you were in the middle of typing up a warrant.

  She had learned some shorthand in school, and it was getting better every day. She improved so rapidly, developing her own method for transcribing the letters and notes the sheriff dictated, that within three weeks she was sitting in on meetings, and old Miss Mumpford, who had been a general courthouse secretary for as long as anyone could remember and whose hearing was no longer reliable, could relax and go fil
l the coffeepot, which she was happy to do after so many years of straining to hear every word of a meeting on tax collection policy. Mary Bet promised to relay any important gossip she overheard.

  Sometimes she was allowed to write up the minutes, summonses, and judgments in the big leather-bound docket books. She picked up enough legal jargon to know what was what, and she started sitting in on the more interesting court cases. Many of them were property disputes of some sort, or a job contract one party had reneged on, and there were assaults and lots of divorces, usually because of adultery. Black and white, rich and poor, came through the courtroom, though most were poor.

  Hooper’s standing invitation was for Sunday dinner, and though Mary Bet had graciously accepted the first two weeks, she didn’t want her cousin to feel duty-bound, and so she made up excuses. But one morning in the spring he stopped at Mary Bet’s desk and said, “Mary Bet, I have a little surprise for you. There’s someone coming I want you to meet.”

  She kept her hands poised over her typewriter and, before she had time to think of an excuse said, “Thank you, Sheriff, I’ll be there.” Then, just as her cousin was about to disappear out the door, she asked, “Who is it?”

  “His name is Stuart Jenkins. He’s the new Presbyterian circuit preacher. It doesn’t matter that you’re Baptist. He’s a nice young man. He’s living in Silkton, but he’ll be preaching in town this Sunday—you know it’s Presbyterian week.”

  “All right,” she said. She wasn’t thrilled, though she couldn’t have said why.

  “He doesn’t know many people around, and neither do you. It would do you good to get out and meet some nice people, and who better than a preacher? I know his folks—they run one of the silk mills. They’re very good people …” He paused and winked. “And they have some money. Quite a bit from what I hear.”

  And then, just as Mary Bet was thinking how much Hooper sometimes resembled his mother, she remembered the circuit rider from long ago. She’d thought he was the Devil, with his black boots and his red-eyed horse, coming to take her—he’d said he was coming back for her someday. Of course it was foolish, what she was thinking—he was on a different circuit, and he’d be old now. Still, she could not help but see him clearly, with his long black coat and his slouch hat, and had there not been a crow on his shoulder, or was that something she had added from one of the many times she had seen him in her dreams and imaginings? She was not afraid of him, only curious—she wanted to see his face and talk to him.

  “Would it be all right,” Mary Bet hazarded, “if I brought a friend along? Amanda Tomkins?”

  “Of course, of course. I’m glad you’ve made friends with her. You know her father made off with money from the railroad safe? They never said how much. He just disappeared and never came back. I think he ran off with a Nigra woman that used to work down there, because she disappeared right around the same time.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Mary Bet said. She thought that if Cattie Jordan had told her the same story it would only have been to prove that she knew things, that she had the upper hand around this town because she knew everybody’s business. But coming from Hooper, it didn’t even seem like gossip—it was just something he knew and had confided to her as a friend and newcomer.

  The Sunday dinner was a welcome relief from the tedium and stinginess of Mrs. Gooch’s table. She and Amanda took places opposite each other, while Hooper and Mr. Jenkins sat at the heads. Hooper served tremendous plates piled with succulent roast, and told everybody to speak up when they needed more. Working away, his dark brows knit in concentration and his bushy sideburns oozing sweat, he told them that, since the blessing had already been said, they should sail in as soon as their plates were served, because there was no point in letting the food get cold. She asked Mr. Jenkins if the blessing he’d said was a Presbyterian blessing.

  “No, ma’am,” he replied. “Far be it from me to accept the generosity of a Methodist household and proselytize for my own brand of the faith.” It was meant as a light joke, but only Amanda laughed, in what seemed to Mary Bet a sarcastic way.

  “I liked what you said this morning about sinners learning how to swim … what was it?” Mary Bet asked.

  “Ah, swimming downstream toward the lake of fire. I don’t like scaring folks, but sometimes you have to paint a vivid picture to get ’em to pay attention.”

  “Well, I paid right close attention. Didn’t you, Amanda?”

  Amanda glanced up. “Yes, I did,” she said. “I thought it was interesting how you said to watch out for the smooth talker, because it might be the Devil in disguise.”

  “I thought I saw the Devil when I was a little girl,” Mary Bet interjected, surprised that Amanda had said so much, and surprised at herself for cutting her off. She started to laugh and say he was a Presbyterian minister; instead, she took another bite, feeling a little wicked.

  “Did you?” he asked, smiling patiently.

  “Oh, children are always thinking the most absurd things,” Amanda said. “You wouldn’t believe some of the things I used to think. But isn’t it nice that we’re all grown up now?”

  “You said we oughten to fear death,” Mary Bet said, because she really did want this young preacher’s opinion, and something about the way Amanda stared at her made her unable to stop herself. “But I am afraid of it, and I don’t know if that makes me a bad person.”

  “No, Miss Hartsoe,” he said, his fingers going to the black cravat at his neck, “allow me to explain what I meant. What I said was that we must be prepared for the Lord’s imminent arrival, because we don’t know when that might be. It could be today, or next year. All we know is that he will come, and that his heavenly kingdom awaits—for those who have faith.”

  “It’s just that some nights I lie awake worrying about things—I’m not scared exactly, but it feels all black and … empty. And there’s nobody to talk to. Daddy’s gone away now, and …” She glanced over to Amanda, who smiled at her now, and to her cousin and boss, the sheriff, who was quietly eating. His elongated, handsome features and gentle manners were pleasingly familiar. Yet none of these people had known even a single untimely death in their families. How could they understand? “I just worry about things I may’ve said and done.”

  “We all have things we’re not proud of,” Mr. Jenkins said. “He that is without sin among you, you know. But without faith in our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, we can be blameless and still be denied the kingdom of heaven.”

  Hooper interrupted, “I think we ought to let Mr. Jenkins rest. He’s had a long, busy morning and I’m sure he’d prefer to relax.”

  The preacher smiled in a way that said he was giving in to the host. After the pecan pie with ice cream, Hooper invited them into the parlor for coffee. Amanda, clearly eager to be up and moving, struggled to her feet and, by putting her plate between two fingers, was able to manage the handles of her braces and hurl herself toward the kitchen.

  “I do this all the time,” Amanda said to Mary Bet in the kitchen. “Really.” Her birthmark was a cold purple lichen, her crossed eyes large and angry in the watery depths of her glasses. She let the dish down onto the kitchen table with a little clatter, then grabbed the table’s edge to steady herself. “I don’t see why you monopolize his time like that,” she hissed, “and then say you have no friends.”

  Mary Bet shook her head in bafflement; she had never seen Amanda act this way. “What in the world? I didn’t say—”

  “I wanted to talk to him, but I couldn’t say a word. And he was so nice to me. He has a warm handshake and a nice smile.”

  “I thought his hands were too soft.” Mary Bet could see Amanda relaxing a bit; from the dining room came the drone of the preacher’s even-keeled voice. “And moist.” Mary Bet wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like that in a man’s hand.”

  Now Amanda laughed a little. “Oh, you just don’t know anything,” she said. “He’s not a farmer. I like him.”

  “Well, you can have him then
.” On seeing Amanda’s stain darken, she added, “Why don’t I finish clearing, and you go on in.”

  “I couldn’t sit there with him, and your cousin. He has to be five years younger than me. I don’t know what I’d say to him.”

  “Talk about the weather and the daffodils and how fast you can type. Or just listen. He likes to talk.”

  “No, it’s no use. I don’t know what the matter is with me today. I don’t—I haven’t acted like this in … I’m sorry, Mary Bet. Just let’s go home, can’t we? I’m tired, I need to lie down.”

  They went back into the dining room and Amanda sat silently and dully, waiting until Mary Bet had finished. Then they joined the men in the parlor and listened to them talk about politics and the weather, and after twenty minutes, Mary Bet said she and Amanda had to get on home. Mr. Jenkins glanced at them both, as though just remembering their presence. Hooper jumped up and apologized for being such a bore, and said that the next time maybe he’d have some people over to play music. “We’ll have us a great time,” he said.

  On the way home in Mary Bet’s top-buggy, Amanda told her that her reputation was ruined after an insurance salesman made love to her and promised to marry her and then left town. “There,” Amanda said, “now I’ve gone and told you everything. Except one more thing. I was gone for a month after that to visit cousins in Virginia, and there was a rumor that I went away much heavier than I came home.” She paused to wipe her brow with her scarf. “But it wasn’t true, and if it was it wouldn’t have been anybody’s business.”

  Mary Bet regarded her friend, hidden behind her deformities and her suffering, and decided there was something noble about her.

  CHAPTER 19

  1907–1916

  OVER THE NEXT few months Mary Bet fell into the routine of her new life, turning twenty in June and wondering whether she would become a permanent boarder in Mrs. Gooch’s house. She and Clara continued visiting back and forth, but there was always something on the weekends to keep her from going out to see her father. At last she admitted to herself that she found the trips depressed her in a strange way akin to grief for a dead loved one, except that the grief was stunted and could never fully flower into a thing that would drop from the vine. Some nights lying in bed she would talk to him in whispers, begging him to forgive her. “I failed you,” she would say, tears flowing, purging the guilt and fear of eternal punishment. “I lied to you. I told you I wouldn’t leave you there, and I did, and I knew I would.” She tried to hear his voice, and sometimes he would say, “It’s all right,” though she wondered if it was only her willing him to say it. She would try to keep herself awake to prolong the suffering in her heart, but she would always fall asleep. And in the morning she would forget her lonely vigil as she readied herself for the day ahead.