The Gamble (I) (32 page)

The thought sent a bolt of dread through her. “Where would you go?”

“I don’t know.”

A coyote howled. The lonely sound seemed a proper accompaniment to their morose speculations.

“What about Waverley?”

“Waverley?” He bristled. “What do you know about Waverley?”

“Please, Scott, don’t get belligerent again. I’m your friend. Can’t you talk to me about it?”

She saw him struggle with some inner turmoil before finally admitting, “I don’t know where t’ begin.”

“Let me help you,” she suggested softly. “You lived there before the war with a wife and a daughter.”

He scowled sharply at Agatha and she sensed his surprise that she knew this much. He remained silent for so long that she thought he would refuse to talk about it. After some time he shifted on the hard step, and pressed his thumb knuckles against his chin. She waited, listening to the coyotes, supposing that whatever he held inside was as difficult for him to reveal as her own story had been. At last he let out a deep sigh, dropped his hands between his knees, and said, “My wife’s name was Delia. She was...” He paused, stared at the night sky, then finished emotionally, “all I ever wanted.”

Agatha simply waited. In time he went on.

“Her daddy was a cotton buyer who came to our plantation periodically and often brought Delia and her mama along. So I’d known her nearly all my life. They sometimes stayed the night, and we had the run o’ the place, Delia and I. And how we ran. We explored the river, and the gin, and the hen coops, played with the black children and picked wild scuppernongs, and dipped our hands in the melted wax in the dairy on cheese day and stole molasses cakes from the kitchen out back and ran wild as deer.” His recollections had brought a soft grin to his face. “Her daddy stopped all that, though, ‘long about the time she started tuckin’ up her pigtails and my voice started changin’. Seemed like from that time on I knew I wanted t’ marry Delia. Our mamas and daddies knew, too, and favored the idea.

“We were married in Waverley—she’d always loved it—in what my mama called the ‘weddin’ alcove.’ Mama insisted on havin’ it put in when the parlor was built—it was an arched alcove outlined with decorative plaster leaves where Mama declared all her children would be baptized
and married before she herself was laid out there in her casket.”

He stopped and Agatha inquired, “How many of her children
were
baptized there?”

“Three of us. All boys. But two of us never made it t’ the alcove in our caskets.”

“You had two brothers?”

“Rafael and Nash. They both died in the same battle durin’ the war. They’re buried near Vicksburg instead of at Waverley beside the others.” He mulled about it for a moment, then seemed to pull himself to a happier train of thought.

“So after we were married Delia and I lived at Waverley. Ah, it was somethin’ then. I wish you could’ve seen it.” He leaned back and gazed at the stars.

“I’ve seen the painting in your sitting room. It’s beautiful.”

“It was more than beautiful. It was...”—he paused, searching for words—“... majestic.” He sat forward eagerly. “In its prime, Waverley supported twelve hundred people and had every facility t’ make it self-sufficient. We had an ice house, a cotton gin, a tannery, a sawmill, a gristmill, a brick kiln, orchards, vineyards, stables, gardens, kennels, warehouses, a boathouse, and even a ferry.”

“All that?” Agatha was awed.

“All that. And the house... everybody called it
the mansion
...” Again she saw a ghost of a smile on his lips. “The paintin’ doesn’t do it justice. It always reminded me of a proud eagle spreadin’ its wings over its young ones with its head straight up and watchful.”

“Tell me,” she encouraged. “Tell me everything.”

“Well, you saw the picture.”

“Not very closely.”

“Next time you’re in my apartment, take a closer look. Waverley’s unique. There’s not another house like it in all the South. The eagle’s wings, those are the actual wings o’ the house, the livin’ quarters stretchin’ out on either side o’ the center rotunda—or, as Mama liked t’ call it, the cupola. And the eagle’s head, that’s the rotunda itself—a massive
entry shaped like an octagon with twin curved stairwells that climb sixty-five feet to an observatory with windows on all eight sides. I can still see my daddy strollin’ the catwalk around those windows, every mornin’, surveyin’ his holdin’s. You know, Gussie, the cotton fields stretched as far as the eye could see in all directions. We had three thousand acres in cotton, food, and grain then. Fifteen acres of formal gardens, too.”

In her imagination she could see Waverley, just as he described, proud and pillared and reigning above the lush green countryside.

“It was always cool in the house,” Scott continued. “Every mornin’ durin’ the hot weather, Leatrice—she was the bossy old despot who ran the place—would climb those stairs and open all those windows, and the draft like t’ tug the hair out o’ your skull. And if that wasn’t cool enough, off the end o’ the drive there was a swimmin’ pool made of brick and marble, with a roof t’ keep the sun off the ladies.”

“The one you told Willy about the first night we met him.”

“The only one in all of northern Miz’sippi. Delia loved it. She and I used t’ go down there and cool off at night sometimes when—” He suddenly halted and cleared his throat, then sat up straighter.

“I’ve never been swimming. What’s it like?”

“Never been swimmin’!”

She shook her head. “Or dancing or riding a horse.”

“Would you like to?”

She looked away, embarrassed. But she couldn’t lie. “Most of all I’d like to dance. Just once.” She faced him again, her voice brighter, and enthusiastic. “But swimming sounds grand, too.”

“I’ll have t’ take you sometime. You’ll love it. It’s the freest feelin’ in the world.”

“I’d like that,” she said softly. Then more loudly, she added, “But I interrupted you—you were telling me about Waverley.”

“Waverley—oh, yes.” He went on eagerly. “In the winter, when the fireplaces were lit, there was no place warmer.
And we had gaslights, too, fueled by our own gasworks and piped into the house.”

“Your own gasworks?”

“It burned pine lighter—that’s what made the resin gas.”

She’d never heard of such a thing and had difficulty imagining the luxury of gaslights that would flare at the touch of a finger.

“Oh, Scott, it sounds wonderful.”

“There’s a chandelier in the middle o’ the entry hall that hangs all the way from the cupola roof above.” He looked up at the stars as if they supported the chandelier. “And over seven hundred walnut spindles outlinin’ the stairway and cantilevered balconies. And Venetian glass sidelights around the front door, and plaster moldings on the ceilings, and brass cornices on all the windows and mirrors in the ballroom.”

“It has a ballroom?”

“The main floor o’ the rotunda. It’s made o’ the heart o’ virgin pine, and the twin stairs come sweepin’ down on either side. Delia and I had our weddin’ ball there, and I remember many others when I was growin’ up.”

“Tell me about Delia.”

He pondered for several seconds, then began: “Delia was like Jube. Always happy, never askin’ for more than what she had. I never quite understood what it was about me that made her so happy, but I was grateful that both of us felt the same way about each other. She had blond hair and hazel eyes and this teasin’ lilt of a laugh that could lift a man’s spirits faster than a chameleon slitherin’ up a post. And when Justine was born, she looked exactly like Delia. Except she had my black hair.” He swallowed and cleared his throat. “Justine was baptized in the weddin’ alcove, just like my mama planned. That was right about the time Lincoln was sworn into office. I saw her and Delia one time after I joined the Columbus regiment and marched north. I made it back for my daddy’s funeral in ‘64. But by the time I made it back for good, they were all gone.”

Now it was Agatha’s turn to console. She laid her hand on his arm. “Ruby told me about them shortly after she
came here. You don’t know how they died?”

“No. Robbers, probably. The South was so poor then, people were desperate. Soldiers returned to find poverty where there’d been wealth before. Who knows? It could’ve been one of our own soldiers. They said it appeared as if Delia’s wagon had been waylaid on the road.” He chuckled bitterly. “Whoever it was didn’t get much, ‘cause Delia was no richer than anybody else by that time.” He swallowed hard. “But why they had t’ kill the baby, too... What kinda person would do a thing like that?”

Agatha could only rub his arm while his grief brought bitter words he’d been holding in so long.

“Do you know what it’s like to go back and find everything changed? The people you loved, gone. The house empty, but everything inside lookin’ just like it did before, as if it were waitin’ for ghosts t’ come and inhabit it again. Everything else was there, too—the gin, the tannery, the gasworks, everything. But the slaves had scattered, some o’ them killed in the war, maybe on the same battlefield like my brothers. Others were gone to who knows where. A handful stayed, hoeing collard greens and livin’ in the old quarters.”

She searched for consoling words, but the picture he’d drawn was too bleak to be erased by mere words, so she remained silent and merely stroked his arm.

“I stayed there three nights, but that’s all I could take. You know what, Gussie?” He shook his head slowly. “I couldn’t sleep in the bedroom Delia and I shared. I just couldn’t make myself do it. So I slept in Justine’s room, and I thought I heard her voice callin’ for help durin’ the night. Now how can that be when she’s been dead all these years?”

Her heart ached for him and she wished once again for the right words to help him. “Perhaps it was your own voice you heard, Scott.”

He shook his head as if to rid it of the memory. He drove his fingers through his hair and clasped his skull. “I couldn’t stand it there. I had t’ get out.”

“And you haven’t been back since?”

Again he shook his head.

“Do you think you should go?”

He stared straight ahead and after a long silence answered, “I don’t know.”

“Your wounds were fresh then. It might be easier now.”

“I don’t think it’ll ever be easier.”

“Perhaps not. But going back might lay your ghosts to rest. And Waverley is your heritage.”

He gave a single harsh laugh. “Some heritage. With vines growin’ up over the front porch and the fields lyin’ empty. I’d rather not see it that way.”

“Isn’t anybody there you used to know?”

“Ruby says old Leatrice is still there.”

“But the house—you said it’s just as you left it. Vines can be trimmed away and fields can be replanted. Isn’t there some way you could make it thrive again?”

“It’d take twelve hundred people t’ make Waverley what it was.”

Twelve hundred, she thought glumly. Yes, she saw his point.

They sat silent for a long time, going over all they’d shared tonight. The coyotes had given up their night chorus as dawn drew near. In the cattle pens east of town the first restless shifting and lowing could be heard. The big dipper began dimming overhead.

“Isn’t it funny?” Agatha mused. “When I first saw you, 1 looked at you and thought: There’s a man with no troubles, no conscience, no morals. You came to Proffitt wearing tailored clothes, with enough money to buy this building and open up a business that was destined to make you a rich man quickly, and I looked at your perfect, healthy body and your handsome face and thought how you had the world by the tail. And I hated you for it.”

Her summary brought him back from the past. He turned to study her as she looked up at the brightening sky, her wrists crossed on her good knee, while the other leg stretched along the steps in front of her.

He’d never before realized that she saw him as handsome or perfect in any way. To hear her say so gave his heart a tiny surge of weightlessness.

“And now?” he asked.

She shrugged, held the pose, and turned her chin onto her shoulder. It was a motion he recalled Delia making countless times, only when Agatha did it, it was thoughtful instead of coy.

“Now,” she said, meeting his gaze squarely, “I see I was wrong.”

Abruptly, she dropped the pose, breaking the momentary sense of intimacy. “You should think about going back, Scott. Whether or not the prohibition amendment is ratified you owe it to yourself. Waverley is your home. Nobody loves it as you do, and it seems to me it’s waiting there for you. So many of the mansions like Waverley were burned in the war. It’s a real treasure now. I think it deserves its rightful master back again.”

She sighed and braced herself as if to rise. “Well!” She stretched, pressing her palms against the floor of the landing. “I’ve been sitting on this step until I’m not sure my one good hip will work anymore. I think it’s time we go in and try to get some sleep before the sun comes up and catches us perched here like a pair of cats waiting for the morning cream.”

She faltered, trying to rise, and he grasped her elbow to help her. Her limp was more pronounced as she crossed the landing toward her door. She stepped inside, then turned back.

“Scott?”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you, too, for telling me all that. I know it wasn’t easy for you.”

“It wasn’t easy for you either, was it?”

“No.”

He crossed his arms and tucked his hands against his ribs, then came toward her slowly, stopping only a foot away. Even in the shadows, she sensed his distraction.

“What do you suppose that means, Gussie?”

She was struck by the realization that more and more often lately he said things like that—leading questions intimating a change in his feelings toward her. But she caught, too, the hint of confusion each time those feelings surfaced, and she realized the hopelessness of their situation. They
were nothing whatever alike. If, even for a fleeting hour, he thought he felt something more than friendship toward her, what could ever come of it? He ran a saloon and she wore a white temperance banner on her sleeve. He taught a little boy to play five-card stud on Saturday, while she took the same boy to church on Sunday. He slept with a woman to whom he wasn’t even married, while her morals could not abide such an arrangement. He was as physically flawless a man as she had ever met, while her own body left much to be desired. And he was handsome enough to land any woman to whom he gave a second look, while she had never landed even a first one.