Ozark Trilogy 2: The Grand Jubilee
Read Ozark Trilogy 2: The Grand Jubilee Online
Authors: Suzette Haden Elgin
THE GRAND JUBILEE
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127
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341
Chapter 1
“Oh, Great Gates,” said Jewel of Wommack. “I’ll never manage it.”
Her brother looked down at her and grinned.
“Afraid you’ll fall in the water, are you?” he teased. “Tell you what, dear heart, I’ll carry you down the landing ramp.”
“You touch me, Lewis Motley Wommack,” she said between her teeth, “and I’ll scream you a scream they’ll hear all the way to Castle Brightwater.”
He leaned one elbow on the gunwale, set his chin in his hand, and looked at her sideways, considering. She had a scream that was deservedly famous, did Jewel, and the potential scene had a certain appeal for him. There they’d be, pulling up to the mooring, the great ship easy in the calm water of the harbor, and all the passengers crowding politely onto the ramp three abreast. And there’d be all the elegant citizens waiting on the landing in their Sundy
best-Jubilee
best!-standing under the ancient trees that shaded them and watching the delegations and their households disembark. And there
he’d
be, carrying his screaming squalling sister through all the decorous lines of pleasant people . .
“Don’t you think it,” she said firmly. “Don’t you even
think
it! You’ll rue it, I swear you will.”
“Will you set a Spell on me, little sister?” he asked, mock-terrified before her prowess, and then he gathered her against him and held her close to his side. It was a good deal like holding a sapling whipping in the wind, if you’ll allow a sapling the skill to curse without ceasing; but she was no more trouble to him than the buttons on his cloak. He could have held half a dozen more like her, all screaming and spitting, and not begun to exert himself.
Jewel was fighting him only for the principle of the thing, hav
ing
learned in the course
of
her twelve and a half years that it was a useless activity for any other purpose. She had seen her brother lift a full-grown man over his head and throw him into a tree, and he hadn’t even been angry at the time, just slightly fussed. And then she had an idea.
The wicked point of the broochpin that she’d had at her throat took him right in the armpit, where there was little clothing and less muscle. The group behind them stepped back hastily at his roar of pain, and Jewel braced herself to be flung over the side. It would spoil her gown and her cloak and her fine new shoes, and she would lose her hat and her travelbag in the process. It would mean being hauled in dripping wet before the grave watching eyes of Silverweb of McDaniels, that she could see standing among those waiting on the Landing, and somebody near enough her age that she’d half hoped to have her for a friend. But it would be worth it all. She’d happily have swum ten miles before all the Grannys of Ozark assembled, in a full set of winter clothes and wrapped in a quilt to top it off, if it would of gained her one point against Lewis Motley Wommack the 33rd. For all that she worshipped the ground he walked on and the air he breathed.
“Well?”
“Well what, Jewel of Wommack?”
“Well, aren’t you going to pitch me overboard?” She braced herself again, and then felt her cheeks flood crimson as he patted her on the bottom like a Mule colt; right in front of all those people.
“No, Little Wickedness, I’m not going to do any such thing,” he said. “Smile pretty now, there comes the land-and I expect you to walk that ramp like a highborn lady, which you are, and if you do fall in and shame us all I’ll put you over my knee right there under those trees soon as you’re fished out. Provided I don’t let you drown, that is.”
The men had tied the lines, and the First Officer secured the gleaming ironwood steps that would allow the passengers to walk up to where the ramp met the gunwales instead of scrambling over on a rope ladder like the crew was used to doing. There were a few cheers from the younger children, hastily hushed by their elders, and Jewel heard the resounding smack of a sturdy hand against someone’s backside. That, she thought, would be a Purdy female, and a Purdy child; neither Wommack nor Traveller would of laid hand to one of their offspring in public-or needed to. “Why?” she demanded softly, still clutched to her brother’s side -and then she realized that in the noise of the landing, everyone talking quietly but everyone talking at once,
she
didn’t have to be quiet, and she shouted it at
him. “Why?”
“Why what?”
She wiggled violently, and he set her aside with a courtly smile, not scrupling to tickle her ribs as he did so.
“Why aren’t you going to throw me overboard?”
“One, it would give you far too much satisfaction,” he said promptly. “Two, I’ve already told you-a dozen times, if I’ve told you once-I intend to be careful of the Wommack reputation at this Jubilee. I’m tired to death of being only one cut above the Purdys-they’re stupid and we’re cursed, that’s a fine bedamned arrangement! And I’ll not risk a scandal before ever we set foot to Brightwater land, Jewel of Wommack. Not if you run a sword through my armpit instead of a pin.”
She would of liked to say she was sorry, but she didn’t dare. If there was one thing that made her brother furiouser than somebody doing something outrageous, it was that somebody saying they were sorry, afterwards. She stood shaking in her finery and trying to get her breath back, and she held her tongue.
“All right now,” he said, and gave her a gentle push toward the steps. “Here we are, and this is the famous Brightwater Landing, and I’m right behind you. No simpering, no giggling, no lollygagging, sister mine. Move!”
She moved. The press of people behind her would have moved her in any case. Up the nine shining steps; and then, with a hand from the First Mate to steady her against the gentle rocking of the ship, across the narrow space and her foot on the landing ramp that stretched out into the harbor. And down the ramp between the rows of flags brilliant in the May breeze, in front of all those staring people-not that they stared openly, but she knew they watched her, all the same. She turned an ankle once, but no one would of guessed; Lewis Motley was at her elbow and he steadied her instantly.
“It’s miles long, this ramp!” she fretted. “Suppose that’s to give the Brightwaters ample time to look everybody over as they land!”
“No,” he told her, “it’s so the ramp will reach out into the harbor far enough to let people land from an oceangoing ship with a deep draft. You have a mind, Jewel, and known to be spectacular; use it. Nobody’s looking at you.”
“They are!” she insisted.
She knew they were, in her bones. She was not quite sure when it had begun; one day she was a child, fresh out of Granny School and not caring if the whole world looked at her nor even thinking they might care to. And the next she knew herself the center of everyone’s attention, at all times. For the women at Castle Wommack to tell her that this carne of being twelve and would disappear with turning thirteen, approximately, was no help to her. Thirteen might as well of been ten years away as four months, for every day stretched out long and lanky before her full of ordeals. They had told her who knew how many times. Her nose was not too pointed; her freckles were not ugly; the copper-colored hair that fought its way instantly out of any attempt she made at bringing it to order was not untidy; her breasts and hips were not too big; her legs were not too long. It didn’t help any. Her days were a misery and she endured them, that being a woman’s place in this world; but she defied anyone to expect her to enjoy them,
“Jewel, sister Jewel,” he said as they stepped off the ramp onto the stones of the Landing-sure enough, each one was a good four feet square, and blinding white, just as she’d been told!-”I am counting on you.”
She would have clung to him in despair and hidden her face against his chest; but he knew that, of course, and he was gone in an instant. He disappeared into the clusters of talking people like thread into a needle’s eye, and was out of her sight.
“Jewel.” The voice at her elbow was like a blessing pronounced twice; she turned joyfully to greet it. There stood Gilead of Wommack, Jewel’s niece despite her seventeen years; and Jacob Donahue Wommack the 23rd, Gilead’s father and the Master of Castle Wommack; and there stood Grannys Copperdell and Goodweather, both bristling with impatience to get on with it, whatever it might he; and all the rest of her homefolks.
“Oh, I am so glad to see you!” she declared, doing her best to disappear into the middle of the group, and she meant it most fervently. Whatever it was that her beloved brother was “counting on” her for, she intended to postpone it as long as possible.
“Lewis Motley’s upset her,” said Gilead to the others. “I knew he would.”
“She’s no business letting him,” snapped Granny Copperdell.
“Granny,” objected Jacob Donahue, “the child’s only twelve!”
“When I was twelve I had a babe at my breast,” said the old lady, “and it would of been a cold day in a warm place before any nineteen-year-old lout such as that one would of upset me.”
Jewel had no doubt that was true. Indomitable twelve-year-olds such as that make good Grannys, and Granny Copperdell was one of the finest,
“If I had a babe at
my
breast,” said Jewel staunchly, “I’d have it hind-end to, and youall know it.”
“Jewel of Wommack!” Gilead was shocked, and the Dozens only knew what the Attendant and the servingmaid bringing up the rear with the smaller children thought. But both Grannys cackled with appreciation, and Jewel saw that as a good sign and took up her position between. them. She could think of few safer places to be than flanked an either side by a Granny in a good mood.