Love and Lament Page 26

  She’d shake her head, trying to keep from touching up her hair. “Mr. Thomas, you do carry on so. I don’t have any intention of raiding another poor soul and destroying his property. Even if his property is illegal and sinful.”

  “You’ll leave that to the men, will you, Miss Mary Bet?”

  “Yes, I believe I will.”

  “I expect that’s the right thing to do.”

  “Right or not—” She thought it best not to speak her mind too forcefully if she wanted to make a good impression on him, then she thought it was foolish of her to worry about what impression she made. And yet, she couldn’t help thinking that he liked her, that he responded to her more adroitly than he did to other women, as though he enjoyed showing her his cleverness and kindness, both, and that he wanted to make a good impression on her.

  “And how is your father doing?” he asked, because he would not let her sit there with an awkward half-finished sentence hanging in the air.

  “Tolerably, thank you. The weather’s been good out there.” She liked that he asked about her father; so many people acted as though he were dead.

  “I need to get myself up here more often. There’s not much exciting going on down in Elisha Springs.”

  She smiled in a tolerant way and said, “Well, there’s nothing exciting here in Williamsboro either, unless you count Flossie Pinkley getting married next month, and Mrs. Pendergrass’s daughter Ella Jay having a fifth baby.” Then she blushed because she didn’t want him to think she was only interested in weddings and babies.

  “That’s a lot right there,” he said. And the way he looked into her eyes made her think he wanted to say something more personal. “You always brighten my day, Miss Mary Bet.”

  When he was gone it was as if he’d taken the air out of the room with him. She looked at the writ in her typewriter and the handwritten version beside her, trying to figure out what she was supposed to be doing. In a few minutes she was back at work.

  The weeks went on, and Leon was busy running his school. And though the thought had not bothered her for some time, Mary Bet wondered anew if she was to be a sheriff’s clerk indefinitely, a person whom Leon Thomas and other men stopped by to chat with but never took seriously as a woman to court. But if they felt that way about a working woman, then she didn’t want their courtship.

  And then one day she heard that Leon was courting a young woman from Cotten named Ann Murchison. The news of his attachment to a woman she’d never heard of from a place she hardly knew—and the woman having the same name as her grandparents—came as such a surprise that Mary Bet felt physically ill. She went home early, sick to her stomach, and stayed in bed for two days feeling so anxious and blue she thought she must have some terrible ailment. Flora made her chicken soup.

  “I hate to see you like this,” Flora said, feeling her forehead. “You don’t feel hot. Of course, that doesn’t mean anything. My cousin’s husband, Joe Funch, went to bed one night complaining of bowel trouble, no fever or anything, and woke up the next morning … well, he didn’t wake up, because he’d passed away. He’d just come home from Washington, where he was working in a fancy restaurant, and he had to wait on a black couple. I think the shock is what killed him.” She laughed.

  Mary Bet said, “It must be the poor ventilation. I can’t believe there’s no sewerage system, and we’ve had pipes in town for—what has it been? And the plaster’s falling down in the sheriff’s office, and those beat-up old cork mats. It’s a wonder everybody in there isn’t sick all the time.”

  Flora studied her face as she lay in bed, the covers pulled up to her chin. “You’re not sick that way, are you?” Mary Bet shook her head. “It’s not even your time of month, is it?”

  “It’s that Leon Thomas,” Mary Bet said. “I don’t care for him atall. Well, I kind of like him, and I hate to see him tangled up with a rich woman who just thinks he’s a good catch.”

  Flora smiled tightly and perched on the edge of the bed. She stared at the wall in a disappointed kind of way that did not help her looks any, Mary Bet thought. “I should’ve known it was some man you were pining for.”

  “He’s not just some man, Flora. He’s a good man, and I’m not pining for him. He’s my friend, and I want what’s best for him.”

  Flora sighed. She patted Mary Bet’s covered legs, then rose. “Well, other men are available.”

  “Anyway, I’m not getting married. I like it here just fine.”

  “I know you do, Mary Bet. But you’re different from me.” She stood in the doorway, hands on her narrow hips. “I didn’t think you’d always want to live here with me.”

  Mary Bet lay there after Flora had gone, thinking of Leon Thomas walking arm-in-arm with some woman named Ann Murchison—from what she had gathered a beautiful blonde with charm and sophistication, who’d been to St. Mary’s and knew how to speak French and play the violin and talk about Cervantes—and she suddenly felt so down, so sick in her soul, she thought she never wanted to get out of bed again.

  She thought of her poor father festering away out in the asylum so far from home, spending his days playing checkers with lunatics and staring out at the changing seasons—would she end up like that? Here she was almost thirty, and with no prospects for any sort of life other than that of old Miss Mumpford, filing papers at the courthouse and going home to her cat and her overweight niece. Or penny-pinching Mrs. Gooch and her boarders. But she did have Flora, who seemed content to live as they did, and she wondered if she too could be happy that way.

  Her cousin Hooper seemed happy enough going through life a bachelor, but he was a man. Besides, it was rumored that there were ladies in his life, just no one special in Williamsboro. The way he looked at her eyes sometimes when they were alone, or touched her shoulder when he’d say good night, made her wonder what he thought of her. But he was her first cousin, and though you could marry your first cousin—unless he was a double first cousin—it was unheard of among people of any standing.

  IN THE FALL the local and national elections were held, and there was much talk of the war and whether America should get involved. Sheriff Teague asked Mary Bet to help with the voter registration in the week leading up to election day. He was running unopposed, as were the clerk of court, county coroner, and surveyor, but there were two open spots for commissioner and a tight race for state senator and representative. It was doubtful the Republicans could win, but it was close enough to make for many lively dinner conversations.

  Mary Bet sat at the registration table in the mornings with Miss Mumpford and the clerk of court, an old man named Mr. Witherspoon, who had brown spots on his bald head. The first day was busy with young men, eager to register so that they could vote for the first time in their lives. By the middle of the week, few people were coming by, and so Miss Mumpford went back to her corner of the office.

  Late on Thursday morning an elderly man came in leaning on a cane. He was dressed in a brown suit with suspenders, shiny black shoes, and an old gray fedora, which he removed on entering the building. His glasses reflected so much light that at first Mary Bet did not realize he was actually a light-skinned colored man. His shaven face sagged into an expression of weariness and endurance. He came without hesitation to the table and said, “My name is Rufus Rathbone from Golding. Born in June of eighteen and forty-one. I’m here to register to vote for the President.”

  “You’re not already registered?” Mr. Witherspoon asked.

  “Nawsuh.”

  Mr. Witherspoon sighed. “Have you paid your poll tax?”

  “Nawsuh, but I have it right heah.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a soiled and wrinkled one-dollar bill and placed it on the long pine table.

  “Can you read?”

  “Yassuh, my daughter taught me to read. And write. I can do both tolably, though my eyesight ain so good no moh.”

  Mr. Witherspoon shook his head and said, “Didn’t think I’d need this. But here you go. Read this here. Just this first para
graph.” He opened up a pocket version of the Constitution and pointed to Article I, Section 8, then squinted up, his mouth hanging open in anticipation and incredulity.

  Mr. Rathbone leaned over so that he could see the small print. He tried to pick the book up, but Mr. Witherspoon bound it to the table with a mottled, veiny hand. “Cain’t you see any better than that?” he complained. “You oughten to be allowed to vote for being blind.”

  The colored man now hunched and leaned so far down Mary Bet thought he might topple onto the table. She caught the odor of sweat and overdone greens, mixed with some kind of sweet soapy smell. He began reading slowly, “The Congress shall have. The Power. To lay and collect. Taxes, Duties, Imports—Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debits and provide foh the common De-fence and—”

  “All right, Mr. Roscoe. What do you expect it means?”

  “Well, suh.” Mr. Rathbone straightened himself up and looked at both Mary Bet and Mr. Witherspoon. “So far, it means de Congress can lay down taxes.”

  “Taxes for what?”

  “For de common de-fence.”

  “Meaning what, exactly, Mr. Ratbone?”

  “It mean for fightin’ wars and such.” Mr. Rathbone held his hat close to his chest, his graven face unchanged and staring at Mr. Witherspoon as though he were just a stone in the river. But once or twice his eyes flicked over to Mary Bet, and when they did she looked down at the registration forms in front of her.

  “And how does Congress collect those taxes?”

  “The way they always do, I ’spect.”

  “Who asked you to come in here like this?”

  “Nobody but me and the Lord.”

  “The Lord, huh? You sure nobody put you up to it, nobody’s paying you? Mr.…”

  “Rathbone. Nawsuh, Mr. Witherspoon. Just me, like always.”

  “Who did you plan to vote for?”

  “I was plannin’ on votin’ for …” He paused and put a finger up to scratch the side of his thin, graying hair. “Mr. Woot-row Wilson.”

  “Were you now? You sure you weren’t here to vote for Hughes?”

  “Nawsuh, it was Mr. Woot-row Wilson fo sho.”

  Now Mr. Witherspoon seemed to be enjoying himself. “Why’d you want to vote for him?”

  “Well, suh, he kep’ us out of the war.”

  “So far he has.” Mr. Witherspoon nodded and smiled wanly, then, recollecting himself, said, “Well, despite that, your answers are inexact, to say nothing of impertinent, and as a clerk of court sworn to uphold the laws of the state I have to deny your petition. You study up that Constitution and come back again next year. Here’s your dollar.”

  Mr. Rathbone took the dollar and bowed. “I will, and I thank you.” He walked slowly out, touching his cane upon the floorboards, his hat held lightly in his hand. He turned the handle of the door and opened it, then held it while another man about his age came in.

  This man shuffled up to the desk, as though his knees were too stiff to bend. He had a grizzled beard, and his eyes were small and sunk deep into wrinkled pouches of skin. He wore dungarees and an old string tie and a slouch hat that he took off when he saw Mary Bet. “Name’s Bobby James McAllister, from over to Pastures.”

  “Can you read and write, Mr. McAllister?” Witherspoon asked.

  “Not so good.”

  “All right, since you come from folks eligible before 1867, you’re grandfathered in. Miss Hartsoe’ll fill your form in. How come you never registered before this?”

  “Never cared to vote. But now my son tells me I got to vote for Hughes.”

  “Hughes? If that don’t beat all. You folks out there ought to be for Wilson if you know what’s good for you. He’s all for the farmers. You expect Hughes’ll be giving out loans? He’s just like Taft. How do you like the income tax? Or do you not bother with it?” His laughter turned into a throat clearing.

  “I don’t know about that, but my son tells me Wilson’s not our man. He’s had enough of a chance, and things aren’t any better.”

  “If I’d known what you were up to, Mr. McAllister, I wouldn’t have let you register.” Witherspoon looked genuinely annoyed, and he glanced over at Mary Bet as if she could come up with an answer.

  “But you said I was automatically grandfathered in.”

  “Yes, but this is an abuse.”

  Mary Bet looked up and said, “What about the poll tax?”

  “He doesn’t have to pay any if he’s grandfathered in.” Mr. Witherspoon shook his head as though he could make the farmer and his petition go away. “All right, Mr. McAllister, she’ll fill your form in and you can sign it. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, sir, I can.”

  When he’d made his way out of the building, Mr. Witherspoon turned to Mary Bet and said, “How do you like that? Uppitiest damn nigger in the county comes in wanting to vote for Wilson, and a white man wants to vote for Hughes. We have to turn down the one and let the other pass through. That’s just not right. If I’d known he was voting for Hughes, I’d’ve maybe forgotten that grandfather rule.”

  “I ’spect women’ll be voting soon, Mr. Witherspoon,” Mary Bet said.

  “Fine,” he said. “I’d even vote for a woman. But I’ve seen what happens when the coloreds get in office. Now there’s lots of good, smart colored folks. I’ll be the first to admit. But if we’re not careful, this county’ll be run by and for the niggers. And it won’t be pretty. I’ve seen it in a dream and it was so terrible I woke up hollering and pawing at the sheets. My wife asked me what was the matter, and I said, ‘The end of the world. A black man with a badge was riding down the street on a white horse, and a posse of pickaninnies tagging right along behind.’ ”

  It was change that Mr. Witherspoon worried about, but not Mary Bet—she was much more afraid of growing old and never changing.

  THEY WERE LAYING the water pipes to the courthouse in early spring when Leon was appointed superintendent of the public schools. He would share an office in the courthouse with the county tax assessor, and on the morning when the water was turned on in the lavatory, he came by Mary Bet’s office and hollered for her and Miss Mumpford to come watch. “It’s a historic event for Haw County,” he said, his bulky frame filling the doorway, “you wouldn’t want to miss it, would you?”

  Mary Bet looked up from her typewriter and over her glasses. Her jaw went slack, because she could not think of one smart thing to say to him. It was his first week in the building and here he was acting as if he’d been superintendent all along. There was a rumor that he and the Murchison girl had broken off, though she didn’t know if it was true and was too proud to make inquiries.

  And then he was gone and Miss Mumpford said, “What did he want?”

  “He says they’re about to test the water lines and we should come watch. I’ve seen water run out of a pipe before. I don’t know what he’s all excited about.”

  “It’s the first public building in the county on public water,” Miss Mumpford said, “so they say.”

  “I know that.” Mary Bet stood up, and when she could see that Miss Mumpford was not going to join her she said, “I’ll just go see what the fuss is.” Miss Mumpford glanced up as Mary Bet was turning away. “I’ll be right back,” Mary Bet added.

  When she got to the washroom, she could see Leon half in and half out, concealing the entrance. She peered around his wide shoulders. Inside the little room was the mayor, the editor of the weekly newspaper, the clerk of court, and a worker in overalls—four and a half people in a room barely big enough for one. “You missed it,” Leon said.

  “Then it wasn’t much to see,” she replied, and was pleased and surprised when he seemed amused.

  “There’ll be more, just wait.”

  The worker reached up and pulled a chain dangling from a metal cistern, and there came a clunk-clunking sound and then the rush of water running through the vertical pipe and down into a ceramic commode that had been installed just that morning. “Flushes fine,” the man sa
id.

  “I do know,” Leon said. “Our very own water closet.” He backed out, and Mary Bet had to move quickly to get out of his way. “How did you like that, Miss Mary Bet? Isn’t that something?”

  “Well, it’s an improvement, I reckon,” she said. And when he laughed at this, she was a little put out with him—maybe he didn’t take her seriously, that or he would laugh at anything.

  He walked back down the hall with her a ways, and she listened to him holding forth on the coming of electric current in Haw and how the automobile was more than a novelty. “We’re gonna get trucks to bring the country children in to the schools. More trucks, fewer and bigger schools. We’ll save money and educate more children, Miss Mary Bet.” He glanced at her, one eye looking slightly away.

  “That’ll be another improvement, Mr. Thomas.”

  “Yes, it will,” and this time he didn’t laugh, because he was really thinking out loud instead of talking to her. But Mary Bet was thinking about automobiles and trucks running all over the streets, scaring the horses into turning over their carriages. She didn’t like the picture and she said, “I expect some day we’ll be traveling to the sun and the moon.”

  “Yes, I expect some day we will,” he said, and nodded to her and disappeared down the corridor, lost in some thought of his own. He reminded her a little of her father, when he was deep into one of his books. He had a funny, duckfooted way of walking that was more of a strut, with his blocky middle pushed forward like a penguin or a circus bear. But she thought he was right handsome in his way, and he had strong shoulders and arms and a confident shine in his gray-green eyes.

  A few days later, Mary Bet discovered that Leon had in fact broken off with Ann Murchison of Cotten.

  “Does that come as good news to you?” Hooper asked. He was sitting at his desk, reading a report on the movement of state agents to close down a still in the western part of the county. His long legs, crossed at the ankles, were stretched out beneath the desk, creating a gradual, inclined plank up to his rolling chair. He didn’t look up.