Go Set a Watchman (14 page)

He went to the table and picked up a football magazine, opened it, thumbed through it, and was thumbing through it again when he said: “Scout, if there’s ever anything that happens to you or something—you know—something you might not want to tell Atticus about—”

“Huh?”

“You know, if you get in trouble at school or anything—you just let me know. I’ll take care of you.”

Jem sauntered from the livingroom, leaving Jean Louise wide-eyed and wondering if she were fully awake.

12

SUNLIGHT ROUSED HER
. She looked at her watch. Five o’clock. Someone had covered her up during the night. She threw off the spread, put her feet to the floor, and sat gazing at her long legs, startled to find them twenty-six years old. Her loafers were standing at attention where she had stepped out of them twelve hours ago. One sock was lying beside her shoes and she discovered its mate on her foot. She removed the sock and padded softly to the dressing table, where she caught sight of herself in the mirror.

She looked ruefully at her reflection. You have had what Mr. Burgess would call “The ’Orrors,” she told it. Golly, I haven’t waked up like this for fifteen years. Today is Monday, I’ve been home since Saturday, I have eleven days of my vacation left, and I wake up with the screamin’ meemies. She laughed at herself: well, it
was
the longest on record—longer than elephants and nothing to show for it.

She picked up a package of cigarettes and three kitchen matches, stuffed the matches behind the cellophane wrapper, and walked quietly into the hall. She opened the wooden door, then the screen door.

On any other day she would have stood barefoot on the wet grass listening to the mockingbirds’ early service; she would have pondered over the meaninglessness of silent, austere beauty renewing itself with every sunrise and going ungazed at by half the world. She would have walked beneath yellow-ringed pines rising to a brilliant eastern sky, and her senses would have succumbed to the joy of the morning.

It was waiting to receive her, but she neither looked nor listened. She had two minutes of peace before yesterday returned: nothing can kill the pleasure of one’s first cigarette on a new morning. Jean Louise blew smoke carefully into the still air.

She touched yesterday cautiously, then withdrew. I don’t dare think about it now, until it goes far enough away. It is weird, she thought, this must be like physical pain. They say when you can’t stand it your body is its own defense, you black out and you don’t feel any more. The Lord never sends you more than you can bear—

That was an ancient Maycomb phrase employed by its fragile ladies who sat up with corpses, supposed to be profoundly comforting to the bereaved. Very well, she would be comforted. She would sit out her two weeks home in polite detachment, saying nothing, asking nothing, blaming not. She would do as well as could be expected under the circumstances.

She put her arms on her knees and her head in her arms. I wish to God I had caught you both at a jook with two sleazy women—the lawn needs mowing.

Jean Louise walked to the garage and raised the sliding door. She rolled out the gasoline motor, unscrewed the fuel cap, and inspected the tank. She replaced the cap, flicked a tiny lever, placed one foot on the mower, braced the other firmly in the grass, and yanked the cord quickly. The motor choked twice and died.

Damn it to hell, I’ve flooded it.

She wheeled the mower into the sun and returned to the garage where she armed herself with heavy hedge clippers. She went to the culvert at the entrance to the driveway and snipped the sturdier grass growing at its two mouths. Something moved at her feet, and she closed her cupped left hand over a cricket. She edged her right hand beneath the creature and scooped it up. The cricket beat frantically against her palms and she let it down again. “You were out too late,” she said. “Go home to your mamma.”

A truck drove up the hill and stopped in front of her. A Negro boy jumped from the running-board and handed her three quarts of milk. She carried the milk to the front steps, and on her way back to the culvert she gave the mower another tug. This time it started.

She glanced with satisfaction at the neat swath behind her. The grass lay crisply cut and smelled like a creek bank. The course of English Literature would have been decidedly different had Mr. Wordsworth owned a power mower, she thought.

Something invaded her line of vision and she looked up. Alexandra was standing at the front door making come-here-this-minute gestures. I believe she’s got on a corset. I wonder if she ever turns over in bed at night.

Alexandra showed little evidence of such activity as she stood waiting for her niece: her thick gray hair was neatly arranged, as usual; she had on no makeup and it made no difference. I wonder if she has ever really felt anything in her life. Francis probably hurt her when he appeared, but I wonder if anything has ever touched her.

“Jean Louise!” hissed Alexandra. “You’re waking up this whole side of town with that thing! You’ve already waked your father, and he didn’t get two winks last night. Stop it right now!”

Jean Louise kicked off the motor, and the sudden silence broke her truce with them.

“You ought to know better than to run that thing barefooted. Fink Sewell got three toes chopped off that way, and Atticus killed a snake three feet long in the back yard just last fall. Honestly, the way you behave sometimes, anybody’d think you were behind the pale!”

In spite of herself, Jean Louise grinned. Alexandra could be relied upon to produce a malapropism on occasions, the most notable being her comment on the gulosity displayed by the youngest member of a Mobile Jewish family upon completing his thirteenth year: Alexandra declared that Aaron Stein was the greediest boy she had ever seen, that he ate fourteen ears of corn at his Menopause.

“Why didn’t you bring in the milk? It’s probably clabber by now.”

“I didn’t want to wake you all up, Aunty.”

“Well, we are up,” she said grimly. “Do you want any breakfast?”

“Just coffee, please.”

“I want you to get dressed and go to town for me this morning. You’ll have to drive Atticus. He’s pretty crippled today.”

She wished she had stayed in bed until he had left the house, but he would have waked her anyway to drive him to town.

She went into the house, went to the kitchen, and sat down at the table. She looked at the grotesque eating equipment Alexandra had put by his plate. Atticus drew the line at having someone feed him, and Dr. Finch solved the problem by jamming the handles of a fork, knife, and spoon into the ends of big wooden spools.

“Good morning.”

Jean Louise heard her father enter the room. She looked at her plate. “Good morning, sir.”

“I heard you weren’t feeling good. I looked in on you when I got home and you were sound asleep. All right this morning?”

“Yes sir.”

“Don’t sound it.”

Atticus asked the Lord to give them grateful hearts for these and all their blessings, picked up his glass, and spilled its contents over the table. The milk ran into his lap.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It takes me a while to get going some mornings.”

“Don’t move, I’ll fix it.” Jean Louise jumped up and went to the sink. She threw two dishtowels over the milk, got a fresh one from a drawer of the cabinet, and blotted the milk from her father’s trousers and shirt front.

“I have a whopping cleaning bill these days,” he said.

“Yes sir.”

Alexandra served Atticus bacon and eggs and toast. His attention upon his breakfast, Jean Louise thought it would be safe to have a look at him.

He had not changed. His face was the same as always. I don’t know why I expected him to be looking like Dorian Gray or somebody.

She jumped when the telephone rang.

Jean Louise was unable to readjust herself to calls at six in the morning, Mary Webster’s Hour. Alexandra answered it and returned to the kitchen.

“It’s for you, Atticus. It’s the sheriff.”

“Ask him what he wants, please, Zandra.”

Alexandra reappeared saying, “Something about somebody asked him to call you—”

“Tell him to call Hank, Zandra. He can tell Hank whatever he wants to tell me.” He turned to Jean Louise. “I’m glad I have a junior partner as well as a sister. What one misses the other doesn’t. Wonder what the sheriff wants at this hour?”

“So do I,” she said flatly.

“Sweet, I think you ought to let Allen have a look at you today. You’re offish.”

“Yes sir.”

Secretly, she watched her father eat his breakfast. He managed the cumbersome tableware as if it were its normal size and shape. She stole a glance at his face and saw it covered with white stubble. If he had a beard it would be white, but his hair’s just turning and his eyebrows are still jet. Uncle Jack’s already white to his forehead, and Aunty’s gray all over. When I begin to go, where will I start? Why am I thinking these things?

She said, “Excuse me,” and took her coffee to the livingroom. She put her cup on a lamp table and was opening the blinds when she saw Henry’s car turn into the driveway. He found her standing by the window.

“Good morning. You look like pale blue sin,” he said.

“Thank you. Atticus is in the kitchen.”

Henry looked the same as ever. After a night’s sleep, his scar was less vivid. “You in a snit about something?” he said. “I waved at you in the balcony yesterday but you didn’t see me.”

“You saw me?”

“Yeah. I was hoping you’d be waiting outside for us, but you weren’t. Feeling better today?”

“Yes.”

“Well, don’t bite my head off.”

She drank her coffee, told herself she wanted another cup, and followed Henry into the kitchen. He leaned against the sink, twirling his car keys on his forefinger. He is nearly as tall as the cabinets, she thought. I shall never be able to speak one lucid sentence to him again.

“—happened all right,” Henry was saying. “It was bound to sooner or later.”

“Was he drinking?” asked Atticus.

“Not drinking, drunk. He was coming in from an all-night boozing down at that jook they have.”

“What’s the matter?” said Jean Louise.

“Zeebo’s boy,” said Henry. “Sheriff said he has him in jail—he’d asked him to call Mr. Finch to come get him out—huh.”

“Why?”

“Honey, Zeebo’s boy was coming out of the Quarters at daybreak this morning splittin’ the wind, and he ran over old Mr. Healy crossing the road and killed him dead.”

“Oh no—”

“Whose car was it?” asked Atticus.

“Zeebo’s, I reckon.”

“What’d you tell the sheriff?” asked Atticus.

“Told him to tell Zeebo’s boy you wouldn’t touch the case.”

Atticus leaned his elbows against the table and pushed himself back.

“You shouldn’t’ve done that, Hank,” he said mildly. “Of course we’ll take it.”

Thank you, God
. Jean Louise sighed softly and rubbed her eyes. Zeebo’s boy was Calpurnia’s grandson. Atticus may forget a lot of things, but he would never forget them. Yesterday was fast dissolving into a bad night. Poor Mr. Healy, he was probably so loaded he never knew what hit him.

“But Mr. Finch,” Henry said. “I thought none of the—”

Atticus eased his arm on the corner of the chair. When concentrating it was his practice to finger his watch-chain and rummage abstractedly in his watchpocket. Today his hands were still.

“Hank, I suspect when we know all the facts in the case the best that can be done for the boy is for him to plead guilty. Now, isn’t it better for us to stand up with him in court than to have him fall into the wrong hands?”

A smile spread slowly across Henry’s face. “I see what you mean, Mr. Finch.”

“Well, I don’t,” said Jean Louise. “What wrong hands?”

Atticus turned to her. “Scout, you probably don’t know it, but the NAACP-paid lawyers are standing around like buzzards down here waiting for things like this to happen—”

“You mean colored lawyers?”

Atticus nodded. “Yep. We’ve got three or four in the state now. They’re mostly in Birmingham and places like that, but circuit by circuit they watch and wait, just for some felony committed by a Negro against a white person—you’d be surprised how quick they find out—in they come and … well, in terms you can understand, they demand Negroes on the juries in such cases. They subpoena the jury commissioners, they ask the judge to step down, they raise every legal trick in their books—and they have ’em aplenty—they try to force the judge into error. Above all else, they try to get the case into a Federal court where they know the cards are stacked in their favor. It’s already happened in our next-door-neighbor circuit, and there’s nothing in the books that says it won’t happen here.”

Atticus turned to Henry. “So that’s why I say we’ll take his case if he wants us.”

“I thought the NAACP was forbidden to do business in Alabama,” said Jean Louise.

Atticus and Henry looked at her and laughed.

“Honey,” said Henry, “you don’t know what went on in Abbott County when something just like this happened. This spring we thought there’d be real trouble for a while. People across the river here even, bought up all the ammunition they could find—”

Jean Louise left the room.

In the livingroom, she heard Atticus’s even voice:

“… stem the tide a little bit this way … good thing he asked for one of the Maycomb lawyers….”

She would keep her coffee down come hell or high water. Who were the people Calpurnia’s tribe turned to first and always? How many divorces had Atticus gotten for Zeebo? Five, at least. Which boy was this one? He was in real dutch this time, he needed real help and what do they do but sit in the kitchen and talk NAACP … not long ago, Atticus would have done it simply from his goodness, he would have done it for Cal. I must go to see her this morning without fail….

What was this blight that had come down over the people she loved? Did she see it in stark relief because she had been away from it? Had it percolated gradually through the years until now? Had it always been under her nose for her to see if she had only looked? No, not the last. What turned ordinary men into screaming dirt at the top of their voices, what made her kind of people harden and say “nigger” when the word had never crossed their lips before?