Delta Wedding (20 page)

Why couldn't she think of the death of her mother? When the Fairchilds spoke so easily of Annie Laurie, it shattered her thoughts like a stone in the bayou. How could this be? When people were at Shellmound it was as if they had never been anywhere else. It must be that she herself was the only one to struggle against this.

She tried to see her father coming home from the office, first his body hidden by leaves, then his face hidden behind his paper. If she could not think of that, she was doomed; and she was doomed, for the memory was only a flicker, gone now. Shelley and Dabney never spoke of school and the wintertime. Uncle George never spoke of Memphis or his wife (Aunt Robbie, where was she?), about being a lawyer or an aeronaut in the war. Aunt Ellen never talked about Virginia or when she was a little girl or a lady without children. The most she ever said was, "Of course, I married young." Uncle Battle did talk about high water of some year, but was that the worst thing he remembered?

And it was as if they had considered her mother all the time as belonging, in her life and in her death (for they took Laura and
let
her see the grave), as belonging here; they considered Shellmound the important part of life and death too. All they remembered and told her about was likely to be before Laura was born, and they could say so easily, "Before—or after—Annie Laurie died...," to count the time of a dress being made or a fruit tree planted.

At that moment a tall man with a bouquet of Memphis roses and fern in green paper strode by. He tipped his hat to Shelley, and then puckering his handsome, pale lips, looked down at the Fairchild graves. "How many more of you are there?" he said suddenly.

"More of us? Seven—eight—no—I forgot—I forgot the old people—" Shelley gripped Laura's hand again. "Dr. Murdoch, this is my cousin—"

"You'll have to consider your own progeny too," said Dr. Murdoch, rubbing his chin with a delicate touch of his thumb. "Look. Dabney and that fellow she's marrying will have three or four at the least. That will give them room, over against the Hunters—have to take up your rose bush." He wheeled about. "Primrose and Jim Allen naturally go here, in line with Rowena and What's-his-name that was killed, and his wife. An easy two here. George and the Reid girl probably won't have children—he doesn't strike me as a family man."

"He is so!" flashed Shelley.

"Nope, no more than Denis. I grew up with Denis and knew him like a book, and George's a second edition. Of course, grant you, he's got that spirited little filly the Reid girl trotting with him. You—what are you going to do, let your little sisters get ahead of you? You ought to get married and stop that God-forsaken mooning. Who is it, Dickie Boy Featherstone? I don't like the white of your eye," and all at once he was pulling down Shelley's lower eyelid with his delicate thumb. "You're mooning. All of you stay up too late, dancing and what not, you all eat enough rich food to kill a regiment, but I won't try to stop the unpreventable."

He turned abruptly and stepped off a number of steps. "You'll marry in a year and probably start a houseful like your mother. Got the bones, though. Tell your mother to call a halt. She'll go here, and Battle here, that's all right—pretty crowded, though. You and your outfit can go here below Dabney and hers. I know how it could be done. How many more of you are there? I've lost track. Who's this?" and he stopped his stepping off in front of Laura and glared down at her.

"Aunt Annie Laurie's daughter," said Shelley and with a trembling finger pointed at the new shaft.

"Ah!" He made a wry face as if he would prefer they hadn't mentioned Annie Laurie. "Jackson's a very unhealthy place, she talked herself into marrying a business man, moving to Jackson. Danced too much as a girl to start with, danced away every chance she had of dying an old lady, and I told her so, though she
looked
good. It's God's wonder she ever had
you,
and kept you
alive!
" He gave Laura a slight push on the shoulder. "Of course you were born
here.
I brought you into this world and slapped you to ticking, Buster." He flicked her collarbone with his knuckle. "Stay away from Jackson. Hills and valleys collect moisture, that's my dogma and creed."

"We have to go now, Dr. Murdoch, we're so busy at our house. We've got all the company in the world," said Shelley.

"What are you going to do about Virgie Lee, let her in? She'd go in. Be a good thing if Maureen would up and die—that aunt of yours, too, Aunt Shannon—both of 'em, Mac's a thousand years old."

"Will you excuse us, Dr. Murdoch?"

"But—can't do a thing about Delta people," said Dr. Murdoch. "They're the worst of all. One myself, can't do a thing about myself."

He glared at them and swung off.

Shelley stood where she was and rubbed her eye tenderly, like a bruise.

"When are you going to get married, Shelley?" asked Laura faintly.

"Never," said Shelley.

"Me neither," said Laura.

After Dr. Murdoch, how beautiful the store looked!

Any member of the Fairchild family in its widest sense, who wanted to, could go into the store, walk behind the counter, reach in and take anything on earth, without having to pay or even specify exactly what he took. It was like the pantry at Shellmound. Anything was all right, since they were all kin.

And no matter what any of them could possibly want, it would be sure to be in the store somewhere; the only requirement was that it must be looked for. There was almost absolute surety of finding it. One day on the ledge with the hunting caps, India found a perfect china doll head to fit the doll she had dropped the minute before.

At the moment nobody seemed to be keeping the store at all, except little Ranny, whom Tippy must have set down in here to wait; smelling of violets, he was bouncing a ball in a cleared space, his soft voice going, "—Twenty-three, twenty-four—last night, or the night before, twenty-four robbers at my back door—" There were some old fellows ninety years old sitting there around the cold stove, still as sleeping flies, resting over a few stalks of sugar cane.

Laura, who loved all kinds of boxes and bottles, all objects that could keep and hold things, went gazing her fill through the store, and touching where she would. At first she thought she could find anything she wanted for a wedding present for her uncle George.

Along the tops of the counters were square glass jars with gold-topped stoppers—they held the kernels and flakes of seed—and just as likely, crusted-over wine-balls, licorice sticks, or pink-covered gingerbread stage-planks. All around, at many levels, fishing boxes all packed, china pots with dusty little lids, cake stands with the weightiest of glass covers, buckets marked like a mackerel sky, dippers, churns, bins, hampers, baby baskets, popcorn poppers, cooky jars, butter molds, money safes, hair receivers, mouse traps, all these things held the purest enchantment for her; once, last year, she threw her arms around the pickle barrel, and seemed to feel then a heavy, briny response in its nature, unbudging though it was. The pickle barrel was the heart of the store in summer, as in winter it was the stove that stood on a square stage in the back, with a gold spittoon on each corner. The name of the stove was "Kankakee," written in raised iron writing across its breast which was decorated with summer-cold iron flowers.

The air was a kind of radiant haze, which disappeared into a dim blue among hanging boots above—a fragrant store dust that looked like gold dust in the light from the screen door. Cracker dust and flour dust and brown-sugar particles seemed to spangle the air the minute you stepped inside. (And she thought, in the Delta, all the air everywhere is filled with things—it's the shining dust that makes it look so bright.) All was warm and fragrant here. The cats smelled like ginger when you rubbed their blond foreheads and clasped their fat yellow sides. Every counter smelled different, from the ladylike smell of the dry-goods counter with its fussy revolving ball of string, to the manlike smell of coffee where it was ground in the back. There were areas of banana smell, medicine smell, rope and rubber and nail smell, bread smell, peppermint-oil smell, smells of feed, shot, cheese, tobacco, and chicory, and the smells of the old cane chairs creaking where the old fellows slept.

Objects stood in the aisle as high as the waist, so that you waded when you walked or twisted like a cat. Other things hung from the rafters, to be touched and to swing at the hand when you gave a jump. Once Laura's hand went out decisively and she almost chose something—a gold net of blue agates—for Uncle George. But she said, sighing, to Ranny running by, "I don't see a present for Uncle George. Nothing you have is good enough!"

"Nine, ten, a big fat hen!" Ranny cried at her, with a radiant, spitting smile.

But Shelley had stiffened the moment she entered the store. Sure enough, she could hear somebody crying, deep in the back. She went to look, her heart pounding. Robbie was sitting on the cashier's stool, filling the store with angry and shameless tears, under a festoon of rubber boots.

Shelley stood beside her, not speaking, but waiting—it was almost as if she had made Robbie cry and was standing there to see that she kept on crying. Her heart pounded on. Robbie's tears shocked her for being un-hesitant—for being plain, assertive weeping for a man—weeping out loud in the heart of Fairchilds, in the wide-open store that was more public than the middle of the road. Nothing covered up the sound, except the skipping of Laura up and down, the little kissing sound of Ranny's bouncing ball, and the snore of an old man. Shelley stood listening to that conceited fervor, and then Robbie raised her head and looked at her with the tears running down, and then made an even worse face, deliberately—an awful face. Shelley fell back and flew out with the children. An old mother bird dog lay right in the aisle, her worn teats flapping up and down as she panted—that was how public it was.

Robbie bared her little white teeth after Shelley Fairchild and whatever other Fairchilds she had with her. The flat in Memphis had heavy face-brick pillars and poured-cement ornamental fern boxes across a red tile porch. It was right in town! The furniture was all bought in Memphis, shiny mahogany and rich velvet upholstery, blue with gold stripes, up and down which she would run her fingers, as she would in the bright water in a boat with George. There were soft pillows with golden tassels, and she would bite the tassels! Two of the chairs were rockers to match the davenport and there were two tables—matching. The lamps matched, being of turned mahogany, and there were two tall ones and two short ones, all with shades of mauve gorgette over rose China silk. On the mantel, which was large and handsome made of red brick, was a mahogany clock, very expensive and ticking very slowly. The candles in heavy wrought-iron holders on each side had gilt trimming and were too pretty to be lighted. There were several Chinese ash trays about. (Oh, George's pipe!) The rugs were both very fine, and he and she went barefooted. The black wrought-iron fire-screen, andirons, and poker set were the finest in Memphis. Every door was a French door, the floors were hardwood, highly waxed, and yellow.

His books had never a speck of dust on them, such as the Shellmound books were covered with if you touched them. His law books weighed a lot and she carried them in her arms one by one when she moved them from table to chair to see all was perfect, all dusted. She was a perfect housekeeper with only one Negro, and one more to wash. How fresh her curtains were! Even in the dirtiest place in the world: Memphis.

Only the bedroom was still not the way she wanted it. She really wanted a Moorish couch such as Agnes Ayres had lain on in the picture show, but a mahogany bed would come in a set with matching things and she knew that would please George, new and shiny and expensive. Just yet they had an old iron bed with a lot of thin rods head and foot, and she had painted it. There were unnoticeable places where the paint had run down those hard rods, that had never quite got dry, and when George went away on a case or was late coming home she would lie there indenting these little rivers of paint with her thumbnail very gently, to kill time, the way she would once hold rose petals on her tongue and gently bite them, waiting here in the store, the days when he courted.

They lived on the second floor of a nice, two-story flat, and nobody bothered them. The living room faced the river with two windows. In front of those she had the couch so they could lie there listening to the busy river life and watching the lighted boats on summer nights. As long as they stayed without going to bed they could hear colored bands playing from here and there, never far away. The little hairs on her arm would rise, to think where she was. Then they would dance barefooted and drink champagne, and sometimes in the middle of the day they would meet by appointment in the New Peabody by the indoor fountain with live, pure Mallard ducks in it!

"Are you waiting on people?" asked a slow-talking man in front of her. It was Troy Flavin, the Fairchild overseer, his red hair on end.

"I'm not waiting on people, I'm just waiting. Looking for somebody," she said, opening her own eyes wide, expecting him to see who she was.

"Oh, I beg your pardon." Suddenly he swept his straw hat upwards from his side and fanned her face with it, vigorously. When she bent away he held her straight on the stool and fanned her as firmly as if he were giving her medicine. "Is it the heat? Who're you looking for?" He did not recognize her at all—maybe the heat had him.

"None of your business! Well, all right, stop fanning and I'll tell you. For George Fairchild."

He looked down and put his head on one side as if he talked to some knee-high child. "Why didn't you ask me somebody hard, from the way you're about to cry about it?"

"I'm not! Where is he?"

"Could put my finger on George Fairchild this minute, I'm marrying
into
that family, come eight o'clock tomorrow night."

"Not Shelley! Oh—Dabney!"

She began to laugh, and he said, "You look familiar."

"Don't you know me? I'm Robbie Fairchild. I'm George's wife."