Hers the Kingdom (6 page)

     We gathered in the music room after the evening meal. Val started with a comedy skit he had written. As usual, my puppet was to do a dance . . . in my brothers' productions, I was always cast as a dancer. I took my position behind the stage, and realized that I would have a good view of Owen and Willa, who sat side by side in the front row of chairs, their shoulders almost, but not quite, touching. The closeness sent a shiver down my spine.

     Owen would be the only permanent member of the audience, since the rest of us would, for one skit or another, have to take part. From the first moment, Owen laughed and cheered and clapped. The Little Boys were easily infected with his good humor, and joined him. Then we all caught it and gave what must have been the most exuberant Family Puppet Show in history, making fun of the personal foibles of each of us—and making Owen Reade a party to it all.

     Val, handling the puppet that was Willa, said in a high falsetto, "Oh Gib, you must not kill the nice falcon, not even if it has eaten four hundred and thirteen of our doves. Falcons are too beautiful, too wonderful, too glorious." And one of the Little Boys, trying to imitate Gib, said in a pretend growl, "Hawks are varmints, Willa. Time you learned that hawks are just plain varmints." Everybody laughed at this charade, recognizing the ongoing argument between Willa and Gib. Between Willa and anyone who believed that hawks were to be killed.

     When it became too dark to see, we lit the sconces and pulled out the chandelier to throw more light on the stage. Pa and the Big Boys had been working in the fields all day, but the play seemed to revive them. Or, I think, Owen Reade's appreciation revived us all.

     "Your puppet family is remarkable," he would say, clapping and laughing; I think that evening was the first time we realized it was so.

     Mama, perhaps, most of all. She came to sit next to Owen while Willa and the Little Boys did their skit, and I heard her say, "Willa is the one who started the family theater. I don't know what
we would do without Willa." It might have been the kind of polite, meaningless remark any mother would make. But it wasn't. It was a plea, and Owen understood.

     At that moment, I understood, too, Mama's ambivalence about Willa and Owen. Willa was the spark, the organizer, the one who could move us to action. Willa had given the farm a kind of life, and Mama was worried about how we would manage without her.

That night I came into the room I shared with Willa to find her standing, altogether naked, in front of the long oval mirror, her body illuminated by the oil lamp on the washstand. She was studying herself, concentrating on the line of her hips. She was as slender as a boy; her breasts were small, compact. She was frowning.

     I waited.

     She put both hands on her hips and said, "I'm not sure."

     "Not sure of what?" I asked.

     "How I will perform in childbearing," she answered.

     "Perform?" I repeated, my tone suggesting it was a strange word.

     "Yes. Perform—that is part of what this is all about. Having heirs. Producing children. Like a good mare."

     My chin jerked up. "Willa," I said, surprised at the anger in my voice, "that really is crude."

     She looked at me and said, without the slightest rancor, "Yes it is, and we shouldn't forget it. There is something very coarse, very raw, about mating. And very practical. Men need women to give them heirs."

     I looked at her a long moment, and then I said, "Or women need men. Mama used Pa to sustain her dynasty."

     She arched her eyebrows. "Dynasty?" We both laughed then. With a flannel wrapper pulled about her, she perched on the foot of the bed as she often did. She was determined not to let
herself be romantic about Owen Reade, determined to discuss his interest in her in economic terms, as a business transaction. Her determination now was gaining momentum.

     "Have you thought about the way Owen learned of me?" she asked.

     Before I could admit I hadn't, she rushed on, "Mama's letters to Aunt Emma. Think! That was all he could know about me before he came here. Now, what would Mama have said about me?"

     I thought for a while. "Well," I hesitated, "whatever she said, it was in great detail." We had seen Mama write page after page to Aunt Emma.

     "Did you notice how Owen looked at you when I introduced you?" Willa went on, "as if he already knew you?"

     She was right about that. I had felt that while he was a stranger to me I was no stranger to him.

     "He would have been seeing us through Mama's eyes, but with his own interpretations. We knew that Mama would have told Aunt Emma about what she considers my strange fascination with hawks, how I track and study them. And she would have talked about other things she chides me for—the running, my interest in accounting and mathematics, the fact that I chose to teach mathematics at the Academy."

     On the farm, Willa invariably wore a brown corduroy skirt, divided so she could ride astride, and a blue shirtwaist. It was, she always said, her "uniform"—affected so she didn't have to consider what to wear from one day to another.

     "Don't you see?" Willa asked, "he came here believing me to be an eccentric. The picture he had was of a willful, independent, and physically strong woman. He knew us to be related to one of the old American families in the East, so my lineage was assured. Yet lineage must not be a priority with him, because there must be countless women back East with better connections. I think he knows what he wants, and what he wants is a strong woman who can bear children, and who will
fit into both of his worlds—the one in the East, and the new one out West."

     I stared at her.

     "Has he spoken to you of the West?" I finally said.

     "Yes," she answered, "he plans to make his life there, in the southern part of California."

     California. He was going to live in California.
Ultima thule. The farthest point.

     "It is what you want," I said feebly, for the first time realizing that she could go, that like Mama I could be left behind, alone. And then I felt ashamed, because it was happening for Willa, it was all coming true, and I had to be—I was determined to be—happy for her.

     "Oh, yes," she said, her eyes reflecting the lamplight, "oh, yes, it is what I want. I'll give Owen Reade his babies, I'll run his ranch for him and take care of him when he is ill. I'll be strong, and I'll go West. I will."

     She was too caught up in her own thoughts to notice my tears. When she felt them, finally, against her cheek she said, "Hush, hush now, Lena. Don't cry. Did you think I'd leave you behind?"

     I pulled back from her as if she had lost her mind.

     "She'll never let me go," I whispered, adding, "but has he asked you? Is it certain?"

     Instantly I was sorry, sorry I had asked, because I was not ready to hear the answer, not yet. But Willa only said, "Almost," and left it at that.

We went on long rides, the three of us, across the prairie with its blowing grasses. Willa and Owen with me along as chaperone. I took my sketch pads as an excuse to wander away from them.

     We had been born into the long, lulling sameness of the prairie. Our lives had been as much without contour as the land,
with few rises and few depressions, and until that spring it had seemed that the future was as flat a vista as the land that reached to the horizon.

     One afternoon the clouds began to gather, moving ominously from the south. We were caught in a sudden thunderstorm. I quickly moved into a shed Pa used to store farm equipment, but the rain began to come down in solid sheets before Willa and Owen could join me. The day was warm, but the noise of the wind and the rain made me shiver. Willa and Owen would have taken shelter someplace else. They were alone, and I was glad. The storm lasted for better than an hour. We rode home in silence that day, a warm and comfortable silence that suited the fresh, wet newness that surrounded us.

     That evening, Owen and Willa took a walk down the lane with a few of the Little Boys ranging about them. I could see the children chasing fireflies, their squeals carried back up to the porch where Ma and Pa and some of the boys were sitting, watching. The katydids began their vibrant humming, the music rising and falling in the dimming light. When Willa and Owen returned, Pa rose as if on signal and asked Mama and Willa and Owen to join him in the front parlor. The katydids grew louder . . . or perhaps it was simply my perception of the noise, for it seemed to grow and grow until it reached a crescendo and I felt faint. Then all I was aware of was a silence, and the low voices of my brothers, asking if I knew what this was all about.

     At that moment, Mama was learning what it was all about. "Willa has accepted my proposal of marriage," Owen was explaining, "and Mr. Kerr has very kindly heard me out, and has said that with your consent, Willa and I can be married."

     Mama looked as if she had been slapped. She stared at Pa, then at Willa. Owen said, in a low and gentle voice, "I know how difficult it must be, the idea of one's daughter leaving, and so suddenly . . ."

     "Suddenly?" Mama said, "What do you mean, suddenly? You've only just met her!"

     Willa took over then. In a voice that was firm and controlled, she said, "Owen and I want to be married on Saturday. We will leave the same day for Boston, and then we will go to California to settle. We would like your blessing, Mama." Willa did not say "consent," as Owen had. Willa said "blessing."

     Mama looked at Pa, then at Willa, and understood at once that she had no choice. So she gave her blessing. She gave it because there was nothing else she could think to do. But she said in tones of quiet resignation, "You'll never come back, I know you'll never be back again." Willa had wanted to touch her then, to put her hand on Mama's cheek, but she had not. It had been too long since they had touched, and now it was too late.

     "I will be back, Mama," Willa had promised, knowing even then that it was an empty promise.

"Why so soon?" I asked angrily. "Two more days and you are gone. Why?"

     "Because Owen has a schedule," Willa answered.

     "And he can't write ahead? He can't delay his business?" I demanded.

     "It's not that kind of schedule," Willa said softly. "What is important now is to be married, to get on with the beginning of a family, a home. Owen is in a hurry. Once something is decided, he must do it quickly. Owen Reade is racing time."