Fair and Tender Ladies (21 page)

A baby, I said. Are you sure?

She hugged me then, I could smell her fancy perfume so strong I like to of got sick again.

Oh Ivy, Ivy, she said. I am pretty sure. You cant just rush into things the way you do honey, without them catching up with you sometimes. You have got to slow down, and not put yourself out so much, or you will frazzle your nerves before you are twenty.

I smelled Genevas strong perfume. Upstairs I heard people moving around, getting up. I heard Ludies baby going LA-LA-LA real loud. That was Little Geneva. Big Geneva drew back and smiled.

Well Ivy, she said, Let me think on this awhile. You go on now, and get cleaned up and dressed, and dont you tell a soul what we have said. You hear me? Not any one.

And I said, Yes.

I will talk to you after supper then, Geneva said. She kissed me on the hair and stood up and I stood up too and left. I went back up to my room and got dressed and went back down and served at breakfast and then slipped out. I walked by the river awhile, the bottom looked so funny all trampled down and muddy and trashy, and Louis Judds Army gone. It was funny how a place so bustling could be so empty now I thought, and I thought of the world of light. Then I went over to Stoney Branhams store to see Ethel who said I looked sick.
I am,
I said to Ethel.
I am real sick.
And then I went back to the boardinghouse and upstairs to my room and laid down in my bed and starred up at the ladies marching hand in hand along my walls, and kind of lost track of the time.

I felt of my stomach which still feels just as flat as ever beneath my skirt. At first I could not immagine the baby inside and then I could, you know I do have a good immagination. And I could see that baby as clear as day, tiny and pink and all curled up, and then it started beating with its little fists against my stomach, trying to escape. It hurt me. And then, I cannot explain it Silvaney, I
was
that little baby caught inside of my own self and dying to escape. But I could not. I could never ever get out, I was caught for ever and ever inside myself.

And then I felt I was all caught up in a cloud or a fog, like the fog that hangs on the top of Hell Mountain of a morning, you know we used to could see it from Sugar Fork. Then that changed and I felt I was riding a log raft down to Catlettsburg but the river got wilder, and Silvaney you were on the raft with me too in this dream but you fell off, and Granny Rowe was there holding out her hand but she was too far away and then she was gone too and I fell off, I went down and down in the muddy water and could not see. It was so dark. Then a beam of light came in the dark and crossed my bed and I sat up with my eyes itching. I guess I had been asleep. I guess I had slept all day long. I was real hungry. It was Geneva and old Doc Trout.

Geneva lit my lamp.

Ivy, she said, Doctor Trout is going to examine you now and then we will decide what to do.

I sat up. Is it night? I said, and Geneva said, Yes. Then Doc Trout came over and told me to lay out straight and put up my knees and hike up my skirt and I did so, but I could not stand to think of what he was doing so I looked at my ladies all in a row and thought about the play-parties we used to have and the flowers in our red hair. Beulah said we look good in green, with our red hair. Then he was done and I could put my knees down.

Well Geneva, Doc Trout said. You are right of course but she is not so far along that we cant take care of it.

Oh thank god, Geneva said.

Bring her over to the office tomorrow after supper, Doc Trout said. Then he leaned way down and pinched my cheek. Ivy honey, wheres your spunk? Where is that redheaded hellion I am so fond of?

I started crying. I dont know, I said.

Well you find her, he said. You get up with her and bring her on over to my office tomorrow night, you hear me? I will fix her up.

No you will not,
another voice said from the door and we all looked up, and it was Momma. She stood there shaking all over like a leaf in the wind, in a long white gown with her long gray hair floating out around her.

For gods sake, said Doc Trout.

Now Maude, Geneva said.

Momma took one step closer. She looked real little.
Ivy, you listen to me,
she said.
I am your mother.

But she looked more like the ghost of our mother. And the way she looked put me in mind of how she used to look up on Sugar Fork, how she went up on Pilgrim Knob and stood out in the snow and said, I am a fool for love.

She turned to Doc Trout. We will not be needing your services, she said. Thank you anyway. She said it real formal. Her face was pinched and white. She turned back to me.

Momma I am not going to get maried, I dont care what you say, I told her. I am not going to mary Lonnie Rash.

Well then we will raise this baby ourselves, Momma said. We will keep this child.

And though Geneva pitched a fit and Doc Trout talked till he was blue in the face, she would not change her mind and I could not go against her, Silvaney, Momma has been through so much.

You dont have to say for sure right now anyway, Doc Trout said. Theres plenty of time yet. But he is wrong. For I know already, the time is gone. Its gone. But Silvaney even though I am going to have a baby I will still remain your devoted sister,

 

IVY ROWE.

Dear Beulah,

 

It is all I can do to write this sad letter.

Momma died in her sleep last Friday. When she did not come down for breakfast I started to go up there and get her but Geneva said No, wait a minute, Ivy, let me go. You stay here. And so I served at breakfast thinking no more of it until Geneva came back to the top of the stairs and called for Ludie and Mrs. Crouse. Then in a minute Ludie went running out the front door and everybody knew something was wrong. I believe I knew what it was right away. A great heavyness came over me, I had to sit down, I was so heavy that I couldnt even raise my head to nod to Doc Trout when he came back with Ludie. Johnny knew too. He came over to me and said, Is it Momma? and I said yes, and hugged him. It is a funny thing to me how you can know things without knowing them.

Beulah, I can not write too much of this. Momma looked so small in death, like a little child. All the lines in her face disappeared. Ethel and Geneva did her hair up so neat that she looked pretty too, and then you could see how she used to be a beutiful girl and how she had had such a big romance. Early Cook made her the prettiest white pine coffin, you know I think he was sweet on Momma always, and Geneva laid her out in the front parlor of the boardinghouse which upset Miss Maynard so much that she has had a sick headache for three days running. I dont care, as I hate her. But Beulah, people came from all over town even though we did not send for a one since you are so big now and it is so hard to get word to Tenessee and Granny. But the word got out someway to the folks from Home Creek and they all come, and men that Daddy used to know, and friends of Geneva who has so many friends. Sad as I am I was still glad to see Delphi Rolette and Mister and Mrs. Fox and all of them, and kissed them, I am not showing bad yet so they could not tell. Every one had something good to say about Momma the way you do when somebody dies but I wonder, Now how does anybody ever know relly what a person is like? Nobody ever did know Momma I think except Daddy, and that so many years ago before she was burdened by all her cares. You know I used to think all the time about love and it seems to me now that this was a great love Beulah, great and strange. I did not tell Ethel this as she would say, Poppycock. But there laid Momma with Daddy in death at last, surrounded by strangers. I think we were all of us strangers. I believe she went to join Daddy not God. She never cared for God. I said as much to Sam Russell Sage who came in trying to run things.
Dont preach,
I said,
and dont pray,
but then I got sick and I had to lay down and he did it anyway, I guess it does not matter much as she is gone.

I guess it does not matter how she looked, either. But Geneva and Ethel had dressed her up in a lacy blue dress that Ethel had bought at Sharps—Stoney Branham paid, and wasnt that nice?—and she looked real pretty, I have to say. But she would never of worn that dress in life. She did not look a thing like herself. She looked like a real lady, like somebody elses momma laying there. She did not look one bit desperate which she was dont you remember, all those years. But she looked like she died at peace. She died in her bed dreaming of Daddy and Sugar Fork, this is what I believe.

And we had all agreed that she would be berried on Blue Star Mountain with Daddy, and the men from Home Creek were going to carry her back up there directly but I was not to go Geneva said, it is true I cant hardly stand to ride anyplace it makes me so sick. Beulah, I do not see how you have stood it once already. I know I am not suppose to say this, but I do not.

Anyway there come a big rainstorm that next afternoon when they were fixing to leave, and so they all walked down the hill to Hazels Entertainment to wait for it to pass over, and I sat in the corner by myself, in the red wing chair by Mommas coffin, and thought about Lonnie Rash. Do you think this is awful Beulah? It is true. I could not get my mind off of him right then and I wondered,
Where is he now?
and,
What is he up to?
And I was thinking so hard that I failed to hear the knock at the door and I jumped when Ludie came running down the steps to let the old man in.

He stomped past Ludie real mean-acting and stomped across the parlor rug dripping water and mud everywhere and went straight to the coffin and raised up the lid which they had not nailed down yet. Oh my God, he said in a terrible voice. He wore a big black hat and his long white hair stood out in a wild way from under neath it. I stood up and tried to speak. He was dripping water on Mommas face. He looked at her for a minute and then let the top of the coffin drop and then he covered his face in his hands and made the awfullest sound I have ever heard.
Lord Lord,
Ludie was in the hall screaming. Garnie came running too but the rest of them had all gone down the hill to Hazels.

Who are you,
I said finally, but then all of a sudden I knew.

It was our grandfather Mister Castle from Rich Valley that we have always heard tell of. His yellow face was old and mean and cut through by wrinkles as deep as the ruts in the road down Sugar Fork. His nose stuck out like Pilgrim Knob. One of his eyes was bleary and white, the other keen. He looked at me with that keen good eye.

She is mine now, he said. She will go with me.

He had three of his men along and one of them held me back while the other two carried her out to the truck in the rain. They carried her right past Ludie having a fit in the hall.

Beulah, I have been real sick with my baby as you know and I cant recall or tell the next part too good. It was thundering and lightning by then, this was the first big thunderstorm of the spring, and it thundered so loud right when they drove off that I couldnt hear the truck. It was raining cats and dogs too. I seem to forget what happened then for a while but soon they all came running back up the hill and milled around here hollering and deciding what to do next, and the upshot of this was that they got the sheriff and went over there to Rich Valley and got there just in time to find that he had berried her already in the family berrying ground over there with a wrought iron fence around it, right behind his big white house. Geneva said he stood out in the pouring rain with a gun and dared them to come any closer. But he was enjoined to put the gun down finally, by the law and common sense, and then he agreed to speak with Sam Russell Sage who went in the house and stayed for forty minutes while the rest of them stayed outside. And some several of Mister Castles men stayed out by the berrying ground in their truck which they had driven right across the yard. Geneva said Mister Castles house is beautiful but falling down.

Anyway Sam Russell Sage came out after while, by then it was getting dark and the rain had stopped, and addressed the crowd. He said that as Maude Castle Rowe was properly berried next to her own mother after all, he could find no fault with the arrangement although it had been wrongfully executed by the understandably distraught father. He said he thought it would cause more grief than good to dig her up again right then, especially in view of the circumstances, and said that everyone should get back in their vehicles and leave this sad spot immediately. He said that her soul was in Heaven anyway, and these earthly considerations meant nothing to God.

Beulah, you can immagine what I thought when I heard that!
What about her berrying quilt?
I asked,
Laying in that chest up on Sugar Fork?
But it is done. And now even Ethel has said,
Oh Ivy, it is done.

But Judge Brack agrees with me, he says it is the worst thing he has ever heard of, and he said right to Genevas face, Your fancy man is nothing but a sharlatan my dear, and I will wager that a considerable amount of money changed hands that afternoon in the old mans house. Geneva has denied this of course, she was furious. But you know Geneva who has got so much good sense, does not have any sense at all when it comes to a man. She can run a boardinghouse like a genius but she cant see through Sam Russell Sage.