Absalom's Daughters (28 page)

“There ain't no glass,” said Judith. “Someone's got here 'fore us.”

“Go
in
,” Miz Eula hissed.

“I ain't goin' in without no flashlight,” said Judith. “They snakes in there. I know it.” She groped at the window, then caught her breath like she'd heard something. The three of them froze, listening in the dark for a sound from the house, bounded by the calls of night birds, frogs, and crickets.

“He's
here
,” whispered Miz Eula.

“
Who's
here?” Judith squinted at her in the dark.

“She's talkin' about the past,” whispered Cassie.

“There is no past,” moaned Miz Eula. “There's only
now
.”

“What we're askin',” said Judith, “is if you think someone's in there right
now
.”

Miz Eula trembled, hot as an ember.

Cassie heard Judith cock the horse pistol.

“Turn on the flashlight,” said Cassie. “If anybody's inside, they're bound to've heard us.”

Judith pointed the flashlight into the empty house. Cassie craned forward to see blank walls and a rotting floor. There was no furniture. No fixtures, no carpets or chandeliers. What was left of the wallpaper lay in heaps. The mantle from the fireplace was missing, with only a blank frame of bricks around a yawning hearth to show where it had been. There wasn't a single thing worth auctioning off. There was nothing left but crumbs.

“Did you ever live here, Miz Eula?” said Judith.

“Yes,” whispered Miz Eula, “and then he banished me.”

They climbed in through the glassless window. Judith went carefully ahead, checking the floor, toe-first, the pistol held out at arm's length as though it could sense intruders, aim on its own, and kill them before she had to think to pull the trigger.

“Can you see them here at Christmas?” whispered Miz Eula as they crept through what must once have been a grand sitting room. “Can you see my William, his new wife plump-cheeked and unmindful, his son and daughter, the mistletoe, the slaves, half sisters, half brothers to his legitimate heirs? The slaves, dressed for the occasion, laying the table in the next room. The slaves that were his own children.” She shuddered as though she might shake apart and all that would hold her together would be the black taffeta. “We said good night to our wedding guests from those stairs.”

Judith shone the flashlight along the tilting banister. “They don't look so safe. Ev'ry third step's missin'.”

“Can't you feel the ghosts?” said Miz Eula in a whisper. “My son, my Charles, a brave young man.”

Upstairs, something heavy fell and broke. Someone in the shadows near the top of the stairs let out a curse.

Judith aimed the gun and the flashlight up into the dark.

“It's him. It's
him
,” gasped Miz Eula.
“William!”

Judith began to shout. “You! You up there, you-all come on out where I kin see you!” She shoved the flashlight at Cassie and held the horse pistol in both hands.

Cassie stuck the flashlight out, her hand shaking, the umbrella hanging like a flightless bat. Miz Eula quivered on Cassie's other arm. And whoever was upstairs shuffled into view.

“Don't shoot,” said a man's voice, and in a moment, he appeared, heavyset, at the top of the stairs. His arms were loaded with all that he could carry. “Who the hail's down there? Don't shoot!”

“William!” cried Miz Eula.

“Eula?” said the man.

“Jesus Christ,” said Judith, not lowering the gun. “Daddy?”

They heard him take a breath at the top of the stairs. “Judith?”

“You stay right there!” Judith shouted. “Momma was right when she tol' me you was nothin' but a rat!”

“Honey, din't Momma tell you I was comin' up here for her? For
us
? Din't she tell you I was comin home jus' soon's I could?”

“You lef' us for a
hoor
!” Judith said, as firmly as she could. “You lef' us with
nothing
!” And whether she meant to or not, she fired the primordial gun.

The noise was like a cannon. The bullet left a trail of sparks, which lit the room for an instant and left a choking stink. The bullet hit something with a terrible thump. Miz Eula screamed and collapsed into Cassie's arms. Cassie dropped the flashlight. The flashlight rolled over to a hole in the floor, dropped into it, and the whole place went dark. Bill Forrest let out a sound just loud enough to let everyone know that the bullet had missed him, and the house groaned. A chunk of the ceiling fell. Bill bolted invisibly down the stairs. The ransacked booty in his arms dropped away as he descended, crashing like pottery or rolling like coins.

“Dammit!” said Bill as he hit the main floor. He switched on his own flashlight and yanked the pistol away from Judith. “Your momma sent you with this?”

“I came on mah own!” Judith shouted. “I came to tell you I'm progeny too!”

More ceiling fell. Splinters and dust cascaded over them.

“Miz Eula?” Cassie crouched over the taffeta husk in her arms. “We got to leave!”

“What's she doin' here?” Bill demanded and shone his flashlight in the old woman's face. Miz Eula's eyelids fluttered. She looked pale as paper, limp, and bloodless. “Now looky, Judy, you done give her a heart attack!”

There was a quick movement to the left, and Bill swung his flashlight over to reveal a night watchman, who was small and old and clung to a baseball bat as though there were dangers in the old mansion no bullet could stop.

“Whoever y'all are,” he said, brandishing the bat, “you're trespassin', robbin' hoodlums, just like the rest of 'em. The police are here. Y'all just stay right where you are.”

Flashing red lights poured over them, flashed on the peeling walls, turned blinding white and then red again. Male voices came from another part of the house, speaking in commanding tones. Red light washed across Miz Eula's face, and she opened her eyes long enough to see Bill Forrest leaning over her.

“My William,” she whispered, “I've found you.”

There were two police cars outside the back of the house, where long ago the slaves would have come and gone. Now there were four policemen with guns. One grabbed Bill by the arm and yanked the still-smoking horse pistol away from him. They put him in handcuffs and shoved him into a police car. One of them crouched over Miz Eula.

“Call an ambulance!” the policeman shouted. He paid no attention to Cassie because she was, of course, Miz Eula's maid and a passive player, if a player at all.

“A little late for you to be wandering around in an old house, ain't it, missy?” one of the policemen said to Judith. “And with this old lady too. Ain't you see the
NO TRESPASSIN'
signs?”

With lights on, Cassie did see that this side of the mansion was generously covered with
NO TRESPASSING
signs.

“We came in the other side,” said Judith, without apology. “We came to get my inher'tince.”

“Your inheritance?” said one of the officers. “This place been empty for years. Hardly anything worth taking. You could've waited for the auction tomorrow instead of trying to vandalize the place.”

“
Vandalize
?” said Judith.

Cassie left it to Judith to tell either the infuriated truth or outrageous lies. She held Miz Eula's head in her lap. A floodlight showed the back half of the property. The woods had been cleared and replaced with a lawn, wide and neatly trimmed. A long, paved driveway passed a sign that said
MANSION MINIATURE GOLF
. Just down the hill from the sign lay a shadowed wonderland of windmills, castles, elephants, and ogres. Just beyond that were tables covered with white sheets, set up for the estate sale. The police were right. What was left to auction off?

“Miz Eula,” said Cassie. She took Miz Eula's hand, cool and limp. “Can you see all that?”

When the ambulance arrived, a broad-shouldered white man hurried over, pushed his fingers against Miz Eula's bird-neck, and listened to her taffetaed chest. He straightened and told the policemen that she was dead.

 

CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN

The night clerk wouldn't let them into the Veranda. He didn't believe Judith and Cassie were employees. It was two in the morning. Without their gray uniforms, they looked like vagabonds.

The desk clerk called the hotel manager at home. Fifteen minutes later, the manager arrived; his wife, her hair in curlers, waited in the idling car outside. The manager expressed terrible shock that Miz Eula had passed on and that Mr. Forrest was in lockup. Judith, dirty from poking around in the mansion, disheveled in her secondhand clothes, spoke out righteously and at length about her due as progeny and about how her father had robbed her
and
Miz Eula. She didn't mention Cassie
.
Cassie sat down in the nearest chair and waited to hear her own name come up. The clock edged closer to three. Finally, when Judith was red in the face and on the verge of genuine hysterics, the manager offered to put her in a room upstairs free of charge until the lawyers arrived in the morning.

“Now, who're you?” the manager said to Cassie.

“Oh,” said Cassie. “I'm progeny too.”

The manager let out a laugh that indicated he was glad someone in the room was willing to acknowledge how ridiculous this business was, with this crazy dirt-poor white girl and her midnight rant about lost riches.

“It's true,” said Cassie. “I'm her sister. And I want a room upstairs too.”

The manager, his wife still waiting in the car, handed Cassie a key with a number on it. “It's on the fourth floor,” he said. “Just keep quiet.”

The room upstairs was clean and quiet. The bed was soft under crisp sheets. Cassie lay down on the softness, but she couldn't sleep. She was too angry at Judith to do anything but get up again and sit by the window, watching the lights run around and around on the movie marquis on the other side of the hotel's parking lot. At five o'clock, she straightened the bed she hadn't slept in, replaced the towel she'd used to dry her face, and took the dirty towel down to the laundry.

At about nine thirty Eden Pomeroy came over to where Cassie was ironing and told her that a couple of lawyers up in the salon were looking for her. Iris and Bethesda stopped midfold and midgossip. As far as Cassie could tell, no one knew that Bill Forrest had been arrested or knew what had happened to Miz Eula. Judith was no doubt still sound asleep, too sure of what was coming to her to get up and be a maid.

When Eden Pomeroy told Cassie about the lawyers, Iris made her eyes big and her mouth round. “Don't you go up there,” Iris said. “Them'll send you t'
jail
.”

“Don't be a fool,” said Eden Pomeroy. “They ain't that kinda lawyers. They prob'ly think you know where that white girl's hidin'.” Cassie seemed reluctant to leave, and Eden Pomeroy said, “Git up there, gal,” the way someone would speak to a carthorse.

*   *   *

There were two lawyers, both white men with cigars and ties. One was fat and wore glasses. The other was fatter. Judith was already with them, and so was Bill Forrest. Bill Forrest looked like a man who'd spent the night in jail. Judith had taken time to clean herself. She was wearing the second best of all her secondhand dresses. The dress was blue, and she had done her hair up in a bow, also blue. Cassie had never ever seen Judith's hair in a bow. The color of the ribbon matched the dress so perfectly, she suspected Judith had cut it out of the hem.

Judith motioned Cassie over. Despite the dress, the bow, and all, she looked furious and pale in contrast to last night when she'd been furious and red-faced. “Now we kin start,” she said to the lawyers.

“Who the hail is
she
?” said Bill Forrest.

“She's your other chile.” Judith actually shook with anger.

“I ain't never seen her before in my life!”

“What's your name, gal?” asked the fat lawyer, and Cassie told him.

“I don't see the connection,” said the fatter lawyer. “What makes you think he's your father?”

“My mama told me,” Cassie realized how thin that sounded. “Ever'body in town knows it.”

“I
knows it,” said Judith, “and
he
knows it.”

“You got documentation?” said the fat lawyer to Cassie. “We really can't do anything without documentation.”

“You got a birth certificate?” asked the fatter lawyer.

“
I
ain't got no birth certificate,” said Judith, “and he
married
my momma.”

“Well then,” said the fatter lawyer, “I see we're going to have a problem.”

The lawyers began to talk to each other in what seemed to be a language not quite English. There were words Cassie recognized:
inheritance
,
birthright
,
descendants
. And those she didn't:
assertion
,
bequest
,
allegation
. And those she could guess at:
legacy
,
entitlement
,
testimonial
. But there was nothing she heard that translated into Judith's rendition of
progeny
, and as the conversation went on, Cassie could see Judith's fury fading into worried hope
.
After some time, the lawyers, their thick necks folding and unfolding, turned to Bill Forrest and to Judith.

“Concerning your claims to be heirs to the Forrest estate,” said the fat lawyer.

Bill Forrest drew himself up, unshaven and unwashed. “Yes.”

“Other than the late Eula Bonhomme, who seems to have been divorced from the original William Forrest, the Forrest line is too disparate for any single person to be considered an heir.”