Duet for Three Hands (12 page)

N
athaniel

N
athaniel reclined
on a cushioned chaise in Frank’s study, staring at the faces of his wife’s family. They were all here except for Whitmore. “Clare, where’s Whitmore?” he asked. “Is he all right?”

“I asked him to stay upstairs. I was afraid all this would frighten the children.” Clare leaned over him. “Doctor Miller’s going to examine you.”

Frank gave Nathaniel a tumbler of whiskey. “Drink this.”

“I don’t drink.”

“You need it,” Frank said. “Will help with the pain.”

Nathaniel took a timid sip. It burned his throat; he coughed. Why did anyone drink this?

“More,” said Frank.

Frances wrung her hands like she wanted to shake something sticky from the ends of her fingertips. The skirt of her dress had a rip up one side. Strands of her hair were fixed to the red lipstick smeared around her mouth.

Clare looked at her steadily, with an expression that Nathaniel could not interpret. Was it distrust or sympathy? Regardless, Clare moved to her daughter and drew her down onto the window seat. “Shush darlin’, you’re safe now.”

“Frances, the man who did this, had you seen him before?” asked Nathaniel.

Frances’s voice matched the trembling of her lips. “I’m not sure. I can’t remember a thing.”

Clare stood and moved about the study. “He’s most likely one of the vagabonds that loiter around looking for summer work.” Back at the window, she turned toward Frances, her eyes sharp. “What were you doing up there?”

Frances shrugged like a child, staring at the floor. “Taking a walk.”

Clare’s next words hit the air like shards of ice. “Why would you do that?”

“I don’t know.” With the same tremor in her voice, Frances’s face crumpled as she began to sob.

Frank set down his drink and sat beside his daughter. “Stop it now.” He tapped her forearm with the tips of his fingers, once, twice as if he were checking the temperature on a stove.

“I’m telling you it wasn’t my fault,” Frances whispered. She looked over at Nathaniel. “Nate, tell her.”

Clare’s voice dipped low into her register, resigned. “He doesn’t need to tell me anything.”

Frances raised her head. The tears were gone as quickly as they’d come. “Do you think I care what you think of me?” Her tone matched her mother’s. In the next second, she turned her gaze toward the door. Her eyes darted to and fro, manic. “No one can know what almost happened to me. Even though it wasn’t my fault, people will talk.”

“Well, of course,” said Frank. “No one needs to know anything about this.”

Before anyone could speak, Dr. Miller came in, carrying a black medical bag. He knelt, examining the wound. “Son, can you move your fingers?”

“No.”

“The knife sliced through a tendon, I’m afraid.” Dr. Miller reached into his bag and pulled out two bandages.

“What do you think, Doc? It’ll heal, right?” Frank stood, lurking near the window, his usual authoritative manner replaced with an uncertain tone.

“I don’t know. Needs surgery.” The doctor began to wrap Nathaniel’s arm, applying pressure to the wound.

Nathaniel searched the doctor’s face. “Will I be able to play Carnegie Hall next month?”

The doctor rolled the unused bandage into a ball, not meeting Nathaniel’s gaze. “Son, not for me to say.” He shifted his gaze to Clare, his voice and eyes grave. “Y’all need to get Nathaniel to a hospital tonight. A surgeon needs to take a look at this arm. I’m just a family physician, and this kind of thing’s beyond my expertise.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll go to the kitchen to use your phone and call ahead to a hospital in Atlanta. I have a surgeon friend there.”

Dr. Miller gathered his bag and left the room. Frank came to Nathaniel and patted his shoulder. “Now, Nate, everything’s going to be fine.” He swallowed the last of his drink and moved to the bar, where he poured himself another.

“Clare, we need to call the sheriff. Someone needs to know there’s a dead body up there.” Nathaniel’s voice sounded tinny and unfamiliar inside his own head. Had he spoken this out loud? Had the lights dimmed? Everything seemed to have a gray film over it.

They all stared at him as if he’d said something odd or incomprehensible. “A man is dead. Do you understand?”

“It was an accident,” said Frances, small now on the bench. Had she shrunk? Would she disappear altogether?

Finally Frank waved his hand like he was swatting a mosquito. “Don’t you worry ’bout that, Son. We’ll take care of everything.”

J
eselle

J
eselle and Whitmore
, forbidden by Mrs. Bellmont to come downstairs, watched the front of the house from Mrs. Bellmont’s study. The guests left, one by one, either on foot or in cars that lurched and weaved down the dirt road. After they were all gone, Nate, cradling his arm against his chest and followed closely by Dr. Miller, got into the Rolls Royce, where Martin was waiting behind the wheel. “Something’s happened to his arm, Whit,” she said.

“Has he broken it?” asked Whit.

She didn’t answer. The Bellmonts’ car disappeared into the darkness just as another car sped up the driveway, parking in the spot just vacated. Jeselle leaned closer to the window, then gasped. It was the sheriff. The car’s engine went quiet, and a second later the sheriff got out as Mr. Bellmont approached.

Shaking, Jeselle reached for Whit’s hand. His palms were sweaty. Why wouldn’t anyone tell them what had happened?

The sheriff was a tall, skinny man with a handlebar mustache. A wide-brimmed hat drooped low on his forehead. Mr. Bellmont shook the sheriff’s hand. They spoke for a moment, heads together, until Mr. Bellmont pointed toward the lake. The sheriff nodded and took off his hat, holding it near his chest and gazing toward the ground as if listening intently. Mr. Bellmont looked around, to each side of him and behind him, like Jeselle and Whit when they stole an extra cookie from the jar, and pulled out a wad of bills from his jacket pocket. He handed them to the sheriff, who stuffed the money in his pocket like it was hot and put his hat back on before getting in his car and driving away.

“Why did Father give the sheriff money?” asked Whit.

“To get him to hide something?”

“What did Frances do?” asked Whit. “It has to be Frances.”

“I’m going to sneak downstairs. Maybe I can figure out what’s happening.”

Whitmore turned back to the window. “I’ll wait here. I want to be sure to be here when Nate gets back. In case he needs me.”

Jeselle had a feeling he wouldn’t be back tonight but didn’t want to say that. She walked down the hall, passing by the bedrooms. Frances’s door was open an inch. She stopped, watching for a moment. Frances sat at her dressing table combing her hair and looking at herself, making pouty lips and examining herself from all different angles.

Downstairs were the remnants of a party: empty glasses, a forgotten sweater on the railing, a dropped earring by the coat closet. The extra servants hired for the occasion collected glasses, emptied ashtrays, and mopped the floors. Nathaniel’s piano was still in the middle of the room, the bench askew and the cover propped open like it was waiting for her master to return at any moment.

She found Mama and Mrs. Bellmont huddled together near the kitchen sink, speaking in low voices, with their backs to the doorway. Mrs. Bellmont clung to the edge of the sink as if she might fall over otherwise. Jeselle made herself invisible, hiding behind the open door and watching through the crack.

Clare spoke in a halting voice, explaining everything to Mama. Frances was attacked on one of the trails. Just in time, Nathaniel had come upon them, but the man stabbed him, injuring his arm.

Jeselle held her breath, thinking of Nathaniel cradling his arm. She began to pray silently.
Please, God, let his hand be all right
. But then, Mrs. Bellmont said the most terrifying thing of all—something unimaginable.

“While they were struggling, the man fell and split his head open on a rock. He’s dead.”

Mama’s hands were at her mouth. “Dead?”

“Yes, and Cassie, the worst part is, Frank and Doc Miller went up there, to…to see about the body.” She let out a long, shaky breath. “It’s Fred Wilder.”

“That worthless gardener? He was here this morning, lazy as ever.” Mama looked toward the garden, as if she could see Fred Wilder there, pulling weeds. “Lawd have mercy.”

Jeselle’s breath caught. That very afternoon she had been in Mr. Bellmont’s bedroom, tidying and making the bed up with fresh linens, while the rest of the house took a rest. Using the footstool, she dusted above the window frame and along the curtain rod. Like Whit’s room, Mr. Bellmont’s faced the back of the house, and from up there she could see almost the entire garden. It was then that Jeselle noticed Frances talking with someone behind the large magnolia bush. Jeselle squinted, curious, and was surprised to see it was Fred Wilder. Seeing him always brought a shiver. Now Frances was waving her hand in the air, gesturing at something. Probably giving him instructions on the flowers, as if she knew anything about them, Jeselle thought. They were the perfect pair. He’s stupid, and she’s mean.

The thought of him dead made her dizzy and weepy and anxious all at once.

Mrs. Bellmont looked out the window too, inching closer to Mama. “I thought it was a vagabond or one of those drifters that come through here. But Mr. Wilder, well, that’s a different thing altogether. Have you noticed how handsome he is…was?”

“I suppose, if you think lazy is handsome.”

“Frances did, I can tell you that.”

“Oh, Miz Bellmont, no. You think it’s the same as two years ago? At the Waller girl’s party?” Mama, who rarely sounded shocked, did so now. What had Frances done, thought Jeselle? But even as she asked the question, despite her age, Jeselle knew. Nate cradling his arm. Fred Wilder dead. Frances. It all led back to her.

Neither of the women spoke for a moment. In the distance, an owl’s lonesome hoot caused Jeselle to shiver as she let out her breath, realizing she’d been holding it for God only knew how long. Finally, Mrs. Bellmont broke the silence.

“I thought we were past all that, what with Nate.” Jeselle heard the tears in her voice. “I thought we’d have a baby this summer and it would stop all her foolishness. Nate’s a good man, Cassie. As good as they come.”

“Yes, I know, Miz Bellmont.”

“Doc Miller says he might not play again.”

“No, no, it can’t be,” said Mama. Again, with the tone Jeselle had never heard before.

What was to become of any of them, she wondered.

F
rom Jeselle Thorton’s journal
.

A
ugust 20
, 1933

I
woke from a dream
, one that comes again and again, of men in white hoods and fire. I listen between cracks. My dreams are haunted.

Years ago voices came from the study. I moved behind the door, eavesdropping. Mr. Bellmont sat in his chair by the fire, surrounded by a half-dozen men.

The men were discussing business and the threat of unions. Mr. Bellmont ranted that they were all Communists threatening the very existence of America. He then mentioned something about Catholics, which caused an eruption from one of his friends. “Damned Catholics should be run out of the country.”

They talked of this for a moment and then went back to unions. Mr. Bellmont said the unions were targeting Negroes to join, knowing they were vulnerable. Someone began to talk about the Klan, saying that all good southern white men should take the pledge if they wanted to make this country what it should be. Mr. Bellmont balked at that. “Idiots, farmers, and ignorant trash all of them. They helped the damned prohibitionists outlaw whiskey.” Then, everyone talked at once, each man defending his own particular position. A few came out against the Klan, others for it. There was talk of lynching and burned crosses used as warnings. All for the name of Jesus, one said, to defend the righteous Christians of the earth.

We sing and worship that same Jesus every Sunday in our black church across town. Can he really think God only loves white people?

I thought about poor white men being more attracted to the Klan than rich ones. I believe it has something to do with the bitter quality of poverty. It seeps into a person’s soul, all that worry about where your next meal might come from or how you’ll keep the roof over your head. That scratching and suffering makes you see all that others have that you do not and twists around inside your gut like poisoned stew until it spews out as hatred.

Mrs. Bellmont came from poor white people over in Mississippi. Her daddy died before she was born and her poor worn-out mama was dead by the time Mrs. Bellmont turned three, so her grandmother brought her up. They were poor and hungry a lot of the time, but Mrs. Bellmont went to school every day, no matter what. So I guess that even though her skin is a different color than mine, she knows that to be poor is the same all over and that only education can release you. One day when Whit was drawing one of those red-bellied woodpeckers in the margins of his paper instead of writing his spelling words, Mrs. Bellmont told us that her grandmother insisted she go to school instead of going to work taking in laundry or sewing to help out the family. Her grandmother knew Mrs. Bellmont was smart and that the best way for her to get out of her situation was to study hard and pass the teacher examination.

But it’s not only education that can change a person’s circumstance. One person’s kindness can change your life, too. Look what Mrs. Bellmont’s done for me.

I wish I could ask Mrs. Bellmont how it feels to be rich after being hungry for so long. I wonder if you still feel like the same person if your circumstances change? Does your character remain the same no matter what kind of house you live in or food you eat? Does all that money make you feel better, stronger, more important than you used to be? Or are you always the same poor waif, thief, slob, or angel you once were, even as your fortunes change? Are you the same to God?