Love and Lament Page 23

  Twice Mr. Jenkins invited her to church socials, the invitations coming in elegantly penned letters a week before his scheduled monthly preaching engagements in Williamsboro. Amanda was angry with her for turning down the first invitation, so she didn’t mention the second.

  After church following that second invitation, she tried to hurry around him in the vestibule while he was shaking hands with a garrulous old veteran named Hiram Hill. But Amanda wanted to wait and shake his hand and say how much the sermon had meant to her. So Mary Bet had to stand there and watch while Mr. Jenkins, seeming to understand that she was stuck, kept holding Hiram Hill’s hand and giving him his full attention, leaning down to catch every word. Lord, the time you could spend in delicate situations.

  “Ah, Miss Tomkins,” he said at last, reaching out to squeeze Amanda’s upper arm. He seemed now to stretch time like a rubber band, as though punishing Mary Bet and, at the same time, savoring the moment of anticipation when he would at last take her hand in his. She knew enough of lust and denial and Mr. Jenkins to understand that. When he finally did grasp her hand and speak to her, it was as though he had not known she was in line behind Amanda, yet his watery blue eyes tried to pry deep into hers, accusing her and demanding satisfaction.

  “That was a right nice sermon,” she said, her eyes skidding off his.

  His thin eyebrows lifted; his straw-colored hair—perfectly oiled, combed, and parted—fit him like a baseball cap, and his nose was pinched and thin—he was not bad looking, just a little too girlish. And his hand was soft and clammy as he held hers, like damp laundry. “What part did you like, Miss Hartsoe?” he asked, putting his other hand atop their clasped hands.

  “Well, I think that part about not judging a man by his appearance was right important,” she said, her face warming.

  He looked closely at her, but didn’t seem to notice the blush. “Yes, I have you to thank for that. Your comment about the Devil in disguise made me go back to that passage in Matthew. I’m glad you found some comfort in it.” Just as she was pulling away, he added casually, “I hope the prayer meeting this evening is fulfilling and not too onerous.” She had been expecting this, so she nodded—a little fib to a preacher couldn’t be any worse than a fib to a regular person, could it?

  Amanda overheard and, on the steps outside the church, asked Mary Bet what he’d meant. “I didn’t know you had a prayer meeting this evening.”

  “I don’t,” Mary Bet said, quietly, so no one would overhear. They moved slowly down the walkway toward the street where Amanda’s buggy was parked.

  “You mean you lied to a preacher, and used a made-up prayer meeting for an excuse? Honestly, Mary Bet, I’m shocked.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re just a little disappointed. I don’t intend going out with him.”

  “Well, neither do I,” Amanda said, lifting her face with an arch little smile and squinting in the sunlight. “In fact, I’m going for a buggy ride this very evening.” Mary Bet was not sure how to respond, so she said nothing. “Don’t you want to know who with?”

  “Of course I do,” Mary Bet said. “I was just waiting for you to say.”

  “Mr. Hennesey. He said he was a good driver and he’d like to take me in my buggy out to look at the old farm he grew up on. He’s very nice and old-fashioned, and when he dresses up he looks ten years younger. I don’t mind if he drinks a little—all men do.”

  “I didn’t say anything against him.”

  “But I can tell you don’t approve.” Amanda pulled herself up into the buggy and got herself situated on the box and took the reins. Quiet and self-effacing around people she did not know well, she managed fine on her own. She clicked her tongue, and the white-tailed sorrel leaned into its traces and the buggy rolled forward.

  “I’m very happy for you, Amanda.”

  Now Amanda smiled faintly and her complexion lightened. “We’re just going riding out in the country. It doesn’t mean anything.” A minute or two later she said, “I guess I have you to thank. I don’t think he’d said two words to me before you came. Sometimes having another person around—having you around—livens things up. I just can’t wait to see Mrs. Gooch’s face when she finds out. Oh my, I just thought of something.”

  “What?”

  “She’ll think it’s improper, she won’t let us live under the same roof.” Mary Bet started to say that she doubted Mrs. Gooch would throw out a good, reliable boarder, but she wasn’t so sure, and, anyway, Amanda seemed a little thrilled with the prospect.

  Mary Bet’s own prospects seemed less than thrilling, at least in the romantic field, but she finally did accept an invitation from Mr. Jenkins.

  It was a beautiful early summer Sunday, the soft air sweetened by lilacs and jasmine and birdsong. Since she never bought herself a new hat—she could afford it, but she thought it a waste—she decorated her black brimmed hat with a piece of light blue ribbon. She wore her navy faille dress and best black shoes, and after church she walked by herself to her cousin’s house.

  It was just Hooper, Mr. Jenkins, and herself, and, as though by prearrangement, her cousin excused himself immediately after the pie to go down to the courthouse. “What, working on a Sunday?” Mary Bet asked, half hoping he’d ask her to come along.

  “I can’t help it,” he said. “I’m married to my job—it’s a good thing I like it.” He put on his slouch hat at the door, winked at Mary Bet and nodded to the preacher.

  For a while they sat in Hooper’s parlor, she listening as Mr. Jenkins explained his sermon in greater detail—after all, she had asked. Now, listening to his strong deep voice, so confident and reassuring, even if what he said seemed less than satisfying, she thought he was not a bad man at all. She smiled encouragement as he shifted in his chair, gathering his thoughts, the fingers of his right hand like tentacles feeling the air.

  “A young woman of beauty, such as yourself,” he said, staring ahead at the mantelpiece, “can cause a man even of Solomon’s greatness to falter. Or she can be a foundation for a man’s life and work.”

  She watched him as he talked, his erect back and thrust-out chin giving him the look of a man who does not know himself; yet his large blue eyes and delicate mouth put her in mind of a boy forced against his will to become a man. She thought: Today I won’t be judgmental. “That’s nice of you to say,” she told him. “But I don’t put myself alongside the concubines of Solomon.”

  “Oh, no no, you misunderstand my meaning entirely,” he said. He looked both indignant and flustered, his red face brightening a shade or two, and she was ashamed for upsetting him, and disappointed as well, for she knew that now he would feel the need to explain himself in a long-winded, didactic way, as though he had to hear the sound of the elegant sentences forming in his mind as it explored every possible ramification and counterargument and parenthetical digression along the way.

  Before he got too far into his response, she said, “I thought we could take a walk about town.” This met with an enthusiastic comment about the value of exercise and the companionship of a bright young woman being a great boon to the weary mind of a circuit preacher.

  They walked up the Durham Road, and then down around the courthouse and out a ways on the Hartsoe City Road, but the dust from passing buggies made them decide to turn off. Mr. Jenkins said hello to everyone they passed but didn’t feel inclined to stop and talk, which suited Mary Bet just fine. She didn’t mind that he seemed to be showing her off as a walking companion, or the possibility that a walk seemed better to him than a ride because of the impropriety of riding alone with a young lady. In both cases there was an assumption that they were courting, and she decided she didn’t mind that either.

  They took the apple-tree lane down past the shanties of colored town, and Mr. Jenkins said, “Whenever I can, I like to see how the Nigras are living. It gives me an appreciation for everything we have, even in the hardest of times. My father taught me that.”

  “My father believed that the Negroes
wouldn’t get anywhere without better schools.”

  “Ah, but where do we want them to get, Miss Hartsoe? If we’re not careful, we’ll be working for the black race. I do not exaggerate. I have terrible visions and dreams, let me tell you. You see that pickaninny right there, playing in the dirt with no pants on? He could be the boss of your very own son someday.”

  The child in question paused in his mud-pie-making to look up at them with wide-open eyes. Mary Bet waved, and the boy waved back. “That’s Elvira Green’s boy. They’re good people. Her husband, Roscoe, works at the train station.”

  “Yes, but don’t doubt for a minute that the boy, if given a chance, could be the sheriff.”

  Mary Bet laughed. “I don’t see how, unless white people voted for him. He could be a teacher, though, or even a principal, if he had the proper schooling. And that’s a good thing, don’t you think so?”

  “As long as he’s principal of the colored school, then it’s a fine thing. But what if he was principal of the white school?”

  She laughed again and shook her head. “Now you’re just pulling my leg. How can a black man be principal of a white school?”

  “There’s talk about that very sort of thing. The Nigras up north are organizing, and if we’re not careful it’ll happen right here. I believe in self-improvement for the colored race, but my question is, where does it end? The colored people of Haw County are docile enough now, but I often pray that, for their own good, they will not try to rise above their God-given station.”

  As they headed back up toward the courthouse, Mary Bet could feel the perspiration pooling at the base of her neck and under her arms, and she thought that it was not just the heat but the closeness of this man, who seemed very unlike a preacher when he was not in church. There was some kind of perfume he wore that she had not noticed earlier. It made him seem dandified in a way that was unattractive to her, and the way he worried about colored people—she wanted to like him, but he seemed so cautious, so worried about the future that she thought he would make a stern and unforgiving father, afraid of his children making a misstep and reflecting poorly upon himself. It was silly to have such thoughts, she told herself. They were just taking a walk.

  The correspondence they kept up over the next few weeks was friendly on her part, courtly and mannered on his. Nothing in his letters had but the faintest whiff of romantic interest in her, and she could only conclude that he was either not interested or was showing such caution as he felt necessary to protect his own reputation and feelings; of course, it was possible he was only thinking of her feelings and was afraid of scaring her off.

  He came again the following month, on Presbyterian Sunday, and Mary Bet decided she would hold back when the service was over so that he would have a chance to talk with her if he wanted to. He’d said he looked forward to seeing her and that “perhaps we could visit some.” When she offered her gloved hand, he squeezed it in both of his and gave her such a warm look she felt a tingle run through her body. Was it the warmth of the Holy Ghost, so lately voiced in this man’s sermon? Or was Mr. Jenkins genuinely in love with her? She decided to tell him the truth. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing you all week long,” she said.

  He nodded and glanced about, as though to see if anyone were listening. “As have I,” he replied. “Will you be dining at your cousin’s?”

  “No,” she nodded toward Amanda, who was leaning on her braces down on the flagstone walkway, looking miserably hot with the sun beating upon her hat. “We’ll be going back to Mrs. Gooch’s. But I have no plans for afterwards.”

  “I’m having dinner with the Fred Fikes,” he said. “But then I could stop by and we might ride out to Hackett’s Mill, if you’d like.”

  He said it casually, as if he were only offering out of kindness. She couldn’t help being just a little sassy. “I’d be honored to accompany you,” she said, mimicking his formal tone—he’d told her he had studied in England.

  At the appointed hour she was ready and sitting on Mrs. Gooch’s narrow front porch, rocking nervously and fanning her face with her navy-blue sun hat. He was only a few minutes late and she was gratified to find that he was apologetic, and even a little flustered. He helped her into the buggy, and then pulled himself up in one graceful motion and stirred the horse into movement. When she asked him questions, he seemed preoccupied, uncharacteristically quiet, until she began to think she was imposing on his time—that, or he was just being rude. Finally, she said, “I hope you didn’t have something more important this afternoon, Mr. Jenkins.”

  “Please call me Stuart,” he told her. He cleared his throat, but did not look at her.

  “All right, then,” she said. “Did you have something else to do today, Stuart?”

  “No,” he said. He glanced at her, his face so dark red it reminded her of Amanda’s birth stain.

  At a grove of pines before the pond at Hackett’s, he stopped the horse and alighted. He helped her down briskly, as if he wanted to get the job over with, and began walking toward the pond. He turned briefly to see if she were following. “Stuart,” she said, “what is the matter? You seem worried about something.”

  He nodded and came forward so suddenly she pulled away. His eyes were large and fearful, empty blue orbs that seemed to reflect more than they saw, and his breath was heavy and shaggy. He put his arms about her and drew her tight to himself, his body shuddering. He kissed the hair that lay flat against her neck and then her cheek, and as he tried to kiss her mouth she found herself pushing him away. She couldn’t see or breathe, he was such an unknown weight on her. She just wanted space between their bodies.

  He suddenly pulled back and dropped his arms. “I thought—” he stopped and put the back of his hand to his lips. “I thought you—”

  “Mr. Jenkins,” she said. “Stuart. I wasn’t expecting you to be so, so bold like that. You caught me by surprise is all.” She could see now he was deeply embarrassed and ashamed and angry; he stood looking out at the pond, his arms hanging stiffly by his sides. A bullfrog roared somewhere off in the cattails at the pond’s edge, and mating dragonflies flitted about the lily pads. The dance of life seemed so simple, and yet it was so impossibly complex for people it was a wonder, she thought, that children ever came into the world.

  “It’s all right, Stuart,” she said. “I do like you.”

  “Just not in that way, apparently.”

  She hesitated, because she wanted to get her words just right, but she could see he was reading doubt in her hesitation. He said, “I’ve made a fool of myself, and you must think that I’m a cad. I must tell you that I’m not only a man of God, but a man with feelings, just like every man. There’s never been a man—except Jesus—without such feelings.”

  “Yes,” she said, and because she felt pity for his misguided attempts and gratitude for how he had recoiled at himself rather than her, she said, “I think you’re a wonderful man and preacher, both.”

  “You don’t want to see me again, though, do you? And I suppose my reputation has lost some of its shine around these parts?”

  “I wouldn’t breathe a word about this. And I do want to see you again.” But as soon as she said this she pictured saying it to Hooper Teague, her own cousin.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. She nodded. He suddenly seemed like such a comical man, with his neat cravat and gray jacket still intact on a warm day. She didn’t mind his attentions, and though she didn’t want to lead him on she offered her bare hand for him to hold.

  They stood there hand in hand staring out at the pond. Finally he ventured, “I can call on you again, then?”

  “Of course you can. But I don’t want to marry anybody, at least not for a long time, so I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

  He nodded. “Mary Bet. May I call you that?”

  “Yes, you may,” she said.

  “You are a very independent young woman, and I admire that, just as I admire your candor. I don’t know many people, mal
e or female, and certainly not any your age, with such forthrightness and perception. If I could venture a guess, I’d say that the difficulties of your youth have made you wiser than most.”

  “Well I don’t know about that,” she replied. “I think everybody has his cross to bear, even the people who seem to have every blessing you can imagine.”

  They went and sat on a wide sycamore stump and Mr. Jenkins spoke to her of his ambition to become a writer of inspirational books, filled with true stories of the wonders of God’s eternal plan. He told her one such story at length, and after some time Mary Bet said that she had best be getting on home. And so they rode back together, the strain gone from Mr. Jenkins and a new understanding between him and Mary Bet, and a new uncertainty as well. For a while he told stories, and then together they sang hymns. But she was picturing Siler on the tracks again, now holding his arms up as if trying to warn her against something, as if to keep her from going where he had gone.

  Mary Bet refused Mr. Jenkins’s further invitations, yet she was surprised when, six months later, an invitation to his wedding arrived in the mail. He married a distant cousin, a fat, phlegmatic young woman named Helena George from Elizabethtown, and he moved to the southeastern part of the state.