Go Set a Watchman (8 page)

Jean Louise thought she remembered her grandmother, but was not sure. When she saw her first Rembrandt, a woman in a cap and ruff, she said, “There’s Grandma.” Atticus said no, it didn’t even look like her. But Jean Louise had an impression that somewhere in the old house she had been taken into a faintly lighted room, and in the middle of the room sat an old, old, lady dressed in black, wearing a white lace collar.

The steps to the Landing were called, of course, the Leap-Year Steps, and when Jean Louise was a child and attended the annual reunions, she and multitudes of cousins would drive their parents to the brink of the bluff worrying about them playing on the steps until the children were caught and divided into two categories, swimmers and nonswimmers. Those who could not swim were relegated to the forest side of the clearing and made to play innocuous games; swimmers had the run of the steps, supervised casually by two Negro youths.

The hunting club had kept the steps in decent repair, and used the jetty as a dock for their boats. They were lazy men; it was easier to drift downstream and row over to Winston Swamp than to thrash through underbrush and pine slashes. Farther downstream, beyond the bluff, were traces of the old cotton landing where Finch Negroes loaded bales and produce, and unloaded blocks of ice, flour and sugar, farm equipment, and ladies’ things. Finch’s Landing was used only by travelers: the steps gave the ladies an excellent excuse to swoon; their luggage was left at the cotton landing—to debark there in front of the Negroes was unthinkable.

“Think they’re safe?”

Henry said, “Sure. The club keeps ’em up. We’re trespassing, you know.”

“Trespassing, hell. I’d like to see the day when a Finch can’t walk over his own land.” She paused. “What do you mean?”

“They sold the last of it five months ago.”

Jean Louise said, “They didn’t say word one to me about it.”

The tone of her voice made Henry stop. “You don’t care, do you?”

“No, not really. I just wish they’d told me.”

Henry was not convinced. “For heaven’s sake, Jean Louise, what good was it to Mr. Finch and them?”

“None whatever, with taxes and things. I just wish they’d told me. I don’t like surprises.”

Henry laughed. He stooped down and brought up a handful of gray sand. “Going Southern on us? Want me to do a Gerald O’Hara?”

“Quit it, Hank.” Her voice was pleasant.

Henry said, “I believe you are the worst of the lot. Mr. Finch is seventy-two years young and you’re a hundred years old when it comes to something like this.”

“I just don’t like my world disturbed without some warning. Let’s go down to the landing.”

“You up to it?”

“I can beat you down any day.”

They raced to the steps. When Jean Louise started the swift descent her fingers brushed cold metal. She stopped. They had put an iron-pipe railing on the steps since last year. Hank was too far ahead to catch, but she tried.

When she reached the landing, out of breath, Henry was already sprawled out on the boards. “Careful of the tar, hon,” he said.

“I’m getting old,” she said.

They smoked in silence. Henry put his arm under her neck and occasionally turned and kissed her. She looked at the sky. “You can almost reach up and touch it, it’s so low.”

Henry said, “Were you serious a minute ago when you said you didn’t like your world disturbed?”

“Hm?” She did not know. She supposed she was. She tried to explain: “It’s just that every time I’ve come home for the past five years—before that, even. From college—something’s changed a little more …”

“—and you’re not sure you like it, eh?” Henry was grinning in the moonlight and she could see him.

She sat up. “I don’t know if I can tell you, honey. When you live in New York, you often have the feeling that New York’s not the world. I mean this: every time I come home, I feel like I’m coming back to the world, and when I leave Maycomb it’s like leaving the world. It’s silly. I can’t explain it, and what makes it sillier is that I’d go stark raving living in Maycomb.”

Henry said, “You wouldn’t, you know. I don’t mean to press you for an answer—don’t move—but you’ve got to make up your mind to one thing, Jean Louise. You’re gonna see change, you’re gonna see Maycomb change its face completely in our lifetime. Your trouble, now, you want to have your cake and eat it: you want to stop the clock, but you can’t. Sooner or later you’ll have to decide whether it’s Maycomb or New York.”

He so nearly understood. I’ll marry you, Hank, if you bring me to live here at the Landing. I’ll swap New York for this place but not for Maycomb.

She looked out at the river. The Maycomb County side was high bluffs; Abbott County was flat. When it rained the river overflowed and one could row a boat over cotton fields. She looked upstream. The Canoe Fight was up there, she thought. Sam Dale fit the Indians and Red Eagle jumped off the bluff.

And then he thinks he knows

The hills where his life rose,

And the Sea where it goes.

“Did you say something?” said Henry.

“Nothing. Just being romantic,” she said. “By the way, Aunty doesn’t approve of you.”

“I’ve known that all my life. Do you?”

“Yep.”

“Then marry me.”

“Make me an offer.”

Henry got up and sat beside her. They dangled their feet over the edge of the landing. “Where are my shoes?” she said suddenly.

“Back by the car where you kicked ’em off. Jean Louise, I can support us both now. I can keep us well in a few years if things keep on booming. The South’s the land of opportunity now. There’s enough money right here in Maycomb County to sink a—how would you like to have a husband in the legislature?”

Jean Louise was surprised. “You running?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“Against the machine?”

“Yep. It’s about ready to fall of its own weight, and if I get in on the ground floor …”

“Decent government in Maycomb County’d be such a shock I don’t think the citizens could stand it,” she said. “What does Atticus think?”

“He thinks the time is ripe.”

“You won’t have it as easy as he did.” Her father, after making his initial campaign, served in the state legislature for as long as he wished, without opposition. He was unique in the history of the county: no machines opposed Atticus Finch, no machines supported him, and no one ran against him. After he retired, the machine gobbled up the one independent office left.

“No, but I can give ’em a run for their money. The Courthouse Crowd are pretty well asleep at the switch now, and a hard campaign might just beat ’em.”

“Baby, you won’t have a helpmate,” she said. “Politics bores me to distraction.”

“Anyway, you won’t campaign against me. That’s a relief in itself.”

“A rising young man, aren’t you? Why didn’t you tell me you were Man of the Year?”

“I was afraid you’d laugh,” Henry said.

“Laugh at you, Hank?”

“Yeah. You seem to be half laughing at me all the time.”

What could she say? How many times had she hurt his feelings? She said, “You know I’ve never been exactly tactful, but I swear to God I’ve never laughed at you, Hank. In my heart I haven’t.”

She took his head in her arms. She could feel his crew cut under her chin; it was like black velvet. Henry, kissing her, drew her down to him on the floor of the landing.

Some time later, Jean Louise broke it up: “We’d better be going, Hank.”

“Not yet.”

“Yes.”

Hank said wearily, “The thing I hate most about this place is you always have to climb back up.”

“I have a friend in New York who always runs up stairs a mile a minute. Says it keeps him from getting out of breath. Why don’t you try it?”

“He your boyfriend?”

“Don’t be silly,” she said.

“You’ve said that once today.”

“Go to hell, then,” she said.

“You’ve said that once today.”

Jean Louise put her hands on her hips. “How would you like to go swimming with your clothes on? I haven’t said that once today. Right now I’d just as soon push you in as look at you.”

“You know, I think you’d do it.”

“I’d just as soon,” she nodded.

Henry grabbed her shoulder. “If I go you go with me.”

“I’ll make one concession,” she said. “You have until five to empty your pockets.”

“This is insane, Jean Louise,” he said, pulling out money, keys, billfold, cigarettes. He stepped out of his loafers.

They eyed one another like game roosters. Henry got the jump on her, but when she was falling she snatched at his shirt and took him with her. They swam swiftly in silence to the middle of the river, turned, and swam slowly to the landing. “Give me a hand up,” she said.

Dripping, their clothes clinging to them, they made their way up the steps. “We’ll be almost dry when we get to the car,” he said.

“There was a current out there tonight,” she said.

“Too much dissipation.”

“Careful I don’t push you off this bluff. I mean that.” She giggled. “Remember how Mrs. Merriweather used to do poor old Mr. Merriweather? When we’re married I’m gonna do you the same way.”

It was hard on Mr. Merriweather if he happened to quarrel with his wife while on a public highway. Mr. Merriweather could not drive, and if their dissension reached the acrimonious, Mrs. Merriweather would stop the car and hitchhike to town. Once they disagreed in a narrow lane, and Mr. Merriweather was abandoned for seven hours. Finally he hitched a ride on a passing wagon.

“When I’m in the legislature we can’t take midnight plunges,” said Henry.

“Then don’t run.”

The car hummed on. Gradually, the cool air receded and it was stifling again. Jean Louise saw the reflection of headlights behind them in the windshield, and a car passed. Soon another came by, and another. Maycomb was near.

With her head on his shoulder, Jean Louise was content. It might work after all, she thought. But I am not domestic. I don’t even know how to run a cook. What do ladies say to each other when they go visiting? I’d have to wear a hat. I’d drop the babies and kill ’em.

Something that looked like a giant black bee whooshed by them and careened around the curve ahead. She sat up, startled. “What was that?”

“Carload of Negroes.”

“Mercy, what do they think they’re doing?”

“That’s the way they assert themselves these days,” Henry said. “They’ve got enough money to buy used cars, and they get out on the highway like ninety-to-nothing. They’re a public menace.”

“Driver’s licenses?”

“Not many. No insurance, either.”

“Golly, what if something happens?”

“It’s just too sad.”

AT THE DOOR
, Henry kissed her gently and let her go. “Tomorrow night?” he said.

She nodded. “Goodnight, sweet.”

Shoes in hand, she tiptoed into the front bedroom and turned on the light. She undressed, put on her pajama tops, and sneaked quietly into the livingroom. She turned on a lamp and went to the bookshelves. Oh murder, she thought. She ran her finger along the volumes of military history, lingered at
The Second Punic War
, and stopped at
The Reason Why
. Might as well bone up for Uncle Jack, she thought. She returned to her bedroom, snapped off the ceiling light, groped for the lamp, and switched it on. She climbed into the bed she was born in, read three pages, and fell asleep with the light on.

PART III

6

“
JEAN LOUISE, JEAN
Louise, wake up!”

Alexandra’s voice penetrated her unconsciousness, and she struggled to meet the morning. She opened her eyes and saw Alexandra standing over her. “Wh—” she said.

“Jean Louise, what do you mean—what do you and Henry Clinton
mean
—by going swimming last night naked?”

Jean Louise sat up in bed. “Hnh?”

“I said, what do you and Henry Clinton mean by going swimming in the river last night naked? It’s all over Maycomb this morning.”

Jean Louise put her head on her knees and tried to wake up. “Who told you that, Aunty?”

“Mary Webster called at the crack of dawn. Said you two were seen stark in the middle of the river last night at one o’clock!”

“Anybody with eyes that good was up to no good.” Jean Louise shrugged her shoulders. “Well, Aunty, I suppose I’ve got to marry Hank now, haven’t I?”

“I—I don’t know what to think of you, Jean Louise. Your father will die, simply die, when he finds out. You’d better tell him before he finds out on the street corner.”

Atticus was standing in the door with his hands in his pockets. “Good morning,” he said. “What’ll kill me?”

Alexandra said, “I’m not going to tell him, Jean Louise. It’s up to you.”

Jean Louise silently signaled her father; her message was received and understood. Atticus looked grave. “What’s the matter?” he said.

“Mary Webster was on the blower. Her advance agents saw Hank and me swimming in the middle of the river last night with no clothes on.”

“H’rm,” said Atticus. He touched his glasses. “I hope you weren’t doing the backstroke.”

“Atticus!” said Alexandra.

“Sorry, Zandra,” said Atticus. “Is that true, Jean Louise?”

“Partly. Have I disgraced us beyond repair?”

“We might survive it.”

Alexandra sat down on the bed. “Then it is true,” she said. “Jean Louise, I don’t know what you were doing at the Landing last night in the first place—”

“—but you do know. Mary Webster told you everything, Aunty. Didn’t she tell you what happened afterwards? Throw me my negligee, please sir.”

Atticus threw her pajama bottoms at her. She put them on beneath the sheet, kicked the sheet back, and stretched her legs.

“Jean Louise—” said Alexandra, and stopped. Atticus was holding up a rough-dried cotton dress. He put it on the bed and went to the chair. He picked up a rough-dried half slip, held it up, and dropped it on top of the dress.

“Quit tormenting your aunt, Jean Louise. These your swimming togs?”

“Yes sir. Reckon we ought to take ’em through town on a pole?”