New Mercies (7 page)

Once, Henry gave her a bottle of perfume, but she told him sternly, “Mr. Varian, you know I cannot accept anything from you of such a personal nature.” That little bit of propriety had remained a joke between them, and Henry always gave Mother perfume on their anniversary. Had my father wooed her just the way Henry had? Like David and me, they must have shared intimate looks, little jokes. Perhaps the picture of the two of them brought back intense feelings, ones that Mother had long ago put behind her. She would have put away the photograph so as not to be reminded of a happy time with Father, just as I had hidden—no, destroyed—the photographs of David and me.

When Mother returned, we spread out the other pictures that were in the bundle. They were formal portraits, five of them, about the size of playing cards. One showed an older woman, her hair parted in the center, wearing a severe dress with a high collar and long sleeves. The second was of a much younger woman. “They must be the same person,” Mother said, sitting down at the table. She picked up the photos and held them side by side. “No, they’re posing in front of the same background. And look at the dresses, Nora, especially the one on the younger woman. It’s quite fashionable. That was the style after the Civil War, and it cost a pretty penny. My guess is they are mother and daughter. They were quite the pair, weren’t they?” She handed the photos to me.

The younger woman, tall, her hair parted in the center, but with a braid across her head and the rest of her tresses gathered at the nape of her neck, wore a long, full skirt with a train. Her hand rested on an urn to show off her flowing sleeve, which was adorned with ruffles and lace. She was not girlishly pretty, but she was striking—handsome. While the older woman looked into the camera as if posing were irksome to her and she was anxious to be done with it, the younger woman appeared serene, a bit condescending, as if she was used to being admired, either by gentlemen or a camera lens. “Father’s mother and sister?”

“That would be my guess.”

The third photograph was a full-length portrait of a man, a riding crop held against one leg. He was clean-shaven but had elaborate sideburns. His hair was hidden under a top hat, and he had moved while the shutter was open, because his features were blurred. Three generations later, the face of my grandfather—because if the two women were Father’s mother and sister, then the man was surely my grandfather—was lost to posterity. I ran my fingernail over the crop. “Did Father ride?”

“Oh yes. He was quite good. He rode like a gentleman, not a cowboy. He taught me.”

“You rode?”

She blushed. “Not only rode but sat astride. You must promise not to tell Henry.”

The next photograph showed just a man’s head. About the age of Father’s sister, the man was uncommonly handsome, with deep-set, intelligent eyes and a pleasant countenance. His hair was parted just off center, and he sported a large mustache with pointed ends. “Did Father have a brother?”

“He might have. I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t know for sure. He never talked about . . .” She shrugged.

The last picture was of a child—a little boy in a wool jacket with big oyster-shell buttons and a white collar so large that he appeared to have no neck. A bow of grosgrain ribbon was tied at his throat. His head was turned to the side and he was frowning. It was not a picture of joyous boyhood, but a solemn, strangely disembodied portrait of head and shoulders surrounded by mist. “Father?” I asked, looking for a resemblance to the man whose portrait was on my dressing table.

Mother nodded.

“He looks like a perplexed and solitary child.”

“Well, he certainly did not grow up to be a perplexed and solitary man,” Mother said a bit defensively.

“Or you wouldn’t have married him.”

I turned the photographs facedown. None of the persons in the pictures was identified, but the photographer’s name and address were on the back of the first four: “A. McFarland, Photographer. Main Street, Natchez, Mississippi. Negatives preserved.” There was neither a photographer’s name nor city on the back of the baby’s picture, no guarantee that a negative remained.

Putting aside the portraits, I gathered up the remains of Father’s life and repacked it in the carton. “If this is all there is to go through, I might as well leave for Natchez tomorrow. There’s no reason to delay.”

“You must send a wire to the lawyer so he’ll know you’ll be there sooner than you’d expected. I could call him for you, if you’d like.”

“No. I’ll wire Avoca. That way, whoever’s in charge will have
a room ready for me.” But apparently the name of the house was not a sufficient address, and the telegram never got there. Or perhaps the Negroes living at Avoca could not read, because, of course, I arrived unexpected.

I placed the photograph of Mother and Father in a silver frame that had once held a picture of David and me, then set it on my dresser, next to Father’s picture. The five tiny portraits went into an envelope in my purse. Then because it already had snowed in Denver, I packed warm clothing for the trip, along with two books to read. Reading filled my vacant hours and kept me from thinking. Books were kept beside my bed, in the living room, even in my car. Hell was being someplace without a book, someplace where my mind could wander.

In the morning, Mother drove me to the depot, but she did not go in. She gave me a searching look as she stopped the Packard, then said she had not slept well the night before, worrying about whether it was a good idea for me to go. “Sometimes it’s best not to know too much about a thing,” she said.

“What thing?”

She gave a little laugh. “Well, I don’t know.”

“Do you want to go?” I asked suddenly. “We can go back and pack your things and take a later train.”

Mother was not surprised at the invitation, which made me wonder if she already had considered accompanying me. “No. The Bondurants aren’t my business anymore. They’re yours. Besides, Henry’s feelings might be hurt. He wouldn’t approve of my going off in search of Wink’s family.” Henry approved of
everything Mother did, but if she wanted to use him as an excuse, that was all right. Going through Father’s things had loosed too many old memories. I understood that.

Instead of purchasing a Pullman ticket, I impulsively treated myself to a private compartment. Since the divorce, I hadn’t sleep well, and I was sure that the nocturnal sounds of strangers—the snoring, the whispers behind bed curtains, the hushed footsteps up and down the aisles, the murmured talk between porter and passengers—would keep me awake. Besides, talking to other passengers did not appeal to me. They would ask my destination, the reason for the trip, then offer unwanted sympathy for the death of my relative or try to satisfy their curiosity when they learned she was unknown to me. If they found out she had been murdered, they would be relentless in their prying—just as even our closest friends had tried to pry from me the reason that David and I had ended our marriage. On the train, I put off meals until a late hour, when the dining car was all but empty and I could have a table to myself. When a gentleman sitting across from me in the diner held up a flask and asked, “Girlie, are you a drinking woman?” I sent him a withering glance and fled to my compartment, got out a deck of cards, and played solitaire.

Mr. Satterfield’s building was just a block from the Eola. The elevator in his lobby was empty, the mesh cage closed, and no sign of an operator, so I climbed the stairs to the second floor.

“You are mighty prompt,” Mr. Satterfield said as I walked into his office just as his wall clock with the big pendulum finished its fourth strike. He glanced at the clock, then took out an
ancient timepiece and studied it. He looked at the clock again. Pickett Long had said a woman in Natchez was on time if she were only an hour late. Perhaps that applied to all appointments, business as well as social.

At any rate, it was clear that Mr. Satterfield had not expected me to be there at four o’clock on the dot, because he was sitting at his desk in shirtsleeves and suspenders, his necktie loosened, shelling peanuts onto a newspaper. “Would you have one?” he asked. When I declined, he shoved the peanuts to one side, then wadded up the newspaper and shells and dropped the whole business into a wastepaper basket. He stood up and put on his jacket, saying, “There now” as he sat down again and rearranged the piles of paper on top of his desk. When he had cleared a space in the center, he looked around until he found a large brown envelope, then emptied it onto the small ink blotter on his desk and began sorting through the contents. The ceiling fan ruffled the papers as he spread them out, and he picked up a revolver and placed it on top of half a dozen newspaper clippings about to blow onto the floor. Henry had showed me how to use a gun and taught me something about firearms, but this was an ancient piece, a curiosity that probably went back to the Civil War.

As Mr. Satterfield busied himself with what was in the envelope, I glanced around the room, which was on the second floor of an old stone building on Main Street. Curtainless Palladian windows looked out over the street. Law books, pamphlets, and old leather-bound novels, similar to the two in the cardboard box of Father’s things, were piled on the wide windowsill. Three caned chairs sat in front of Mr. Satterfield’s desk, and six matching
chairs, one with its seat broken through, were lined up against the wall. A walnut bookcase with glass doors held more leatherbound books as well as the flotsam that Mr. Satterfield had accumulated over the years. Much of it, like the firearm, appeared to be remnants of the Civil War—a gray forage cap, a canteen, a sword and belt, small framed portraits like the ones I had found among Father’s possessions. Perhaps they had been taken by A. McFarland and the negatives were still preserved. Above the bookcase, two crossed pistols were mounted on the wall.

“Does everybody in Natchez decorate with weapons?” I asked.

“Ma’m?” He glanced up at me. But he had heard what I said, and replied, “You never can tell when we’ll be invaded by the Yankees again. Best to be prepared.”

Mr. Satterfield continued to sort through the items on his desk while I returned to my inspection of the room. Mr. Satterfield’s desk, what was called a partners desk, was made for two men to sit facing each other. The flat top of the desk was inlaid with leather, which was scratched and worn and cut through, as if it had been sliced with a knife.

Mr. Satterfield glanced up at me again, surprised to see me standing. He half-rose. “Sit, sit. Pick you a chair.” He gestured at the three chairs. I sat down in the center one and pulled it forward, so that my knees fit inside the kneehole on my side of the desk. I folded my gloved hands in my lap.

“So, you didn’t know Miss Amalia?” he asked, still arranging the papers.

He knew perfectly well that I did not, and the question was tiresome. “No, so I can hardly be blamed for not getting in touch with her. As she knew about me, perhaps the fault for the
estrangement was hers.” I hoped my remark didn’t sound quite as pompous to Mr. Satterfield as it did to me.

Mr. Satterfield looked up, amused. “Oh, you don’t know Natchez women. They do not unduly care to contact outsiders. But you got that right when you said she knew about you. She surely did. Knew you got a divorce. But she didn’t know why. She had me to look into it, but I never got around to it.” He gave me a questioning look.

“It’s too late now, isn’t it?” I stared the man down.

“Miss Amalia did used to think it was her business, but it’s not mine. No, it ain’t. I don’t care a continental about other folks’s private affairs.”

That did not strike me as the truth, but I said nothing, waiting for Mr. Satterfield to find what he was looking for. Finally, he held up several legal-size pages of paper in a blue wrapper. “Miss Amalia’s will. It is an imperfect document, but it will suffice.”

He studied me for a reaction, but there was none, so he handed the will to me. I smoothed it out and looked at the last page, the signature. “Amalia Bondurant” was written in a faint hand, in purple. “She signed in pencil?”

“Indelible pencil. My fountain pen ran dry. I took the papers to her at Avoca. She didn’t have but one pencil, and it was a stub. Had to sharpen it myself with a penknife before it showed enough lead to write with. I guess it’s not lead when it’s purple.”

I chuckled, liking Mr. Satterfield.

“It’s perfectly legal, no matter what she used. Why, it’s legal even if you sign it in blood. Thank the Lord, that wasn’t necessary.” He cleared his throat. “I expect you’d like to know what it says.”

“I would like to know about Amalia Bondurant.” That caught him off guard, for he had expected me to ask first about what was coming to me. “Why did she die, and will there be a service? I’ll pay for it, of course.”

Mr. Satterfield waved his hand. “Done it already, two days ago. You can’t wait too long in this heat, and you telegraphed you wouldn’t be here for a while.” He looked at me reproachfully. “There was a likely crowd in attendance, worthy of a Bondurant. Of course, some came out of curiosity. That’s not worth denying. Folks were mighty nosy about Miss Amalia, always had been, ’cause nobody but me and Ezra and Aunt Polly had been inside Avoca for twenty, thirty years. Us and maybe Maggie Lott. Bayard Lott, too. Who’s to say? After all, he was there at the end. Anybody else come calling, Miss Amalia’d turn them away, tell them she was in the middle of spring housecleaning. Didn’t matter if it was spring, summer, fall, or winter. She wouldn’t accept invitations, either. Miss Amalia had her reasons. People said she was too proud. Myself, I think she didn’t need other folks. No, you do not know Natchez women.”

“And she made her living selling goat’s milk?”

Mr. Satterfield leaned back in his swivel chair and folded his hands under his chin. “That’s what people think, and yes indeed, she sold milk. But Miss Amalia had a tidy little sum in the bank. She did not unduly care to have Natchezians know about it.”

“Then why—”

Mr. Satterfield waved off the question. He seemed about to tell me a third time about not understanding Natchez women, so I interrupted. “Tell me about her murder. It was in the newspaper, but there weren’t many details.”