Blackwater: The Complete Caskey Family Saga (31 page)

For the first time in a long while James had dinner served at his own table instead of eating at Mary-Love’s. Roxie came back from Elinor’s for the evening to cook for them. James had no wish to inflict Queenie and Malcolm and Lucille on the rest of his family. He even took the precaution of sending Grace next door to Mary-Love’s, and Mary-Love promised Grace that she could stay for as long as those awful people remained with her father. Over the meal, James said to Queenie, “You sure you want to stay in Perdido? You really think the three of you could be happy here? Here where you don’t know anybody?”

“Well, we know you, James Caskey. Who else do we have to know? And now we have been properly introduced to the main part of your family, even though I counted more of ’em at the funeral, I’ll probably get to meet ’em all in time, so who else could I want? Lucille and Malcolm are happy as pipers.”

Lucille and Malcolm drummed their heels against the rungs of their chairs.

“All right,” said James Caskey wearily, regretting that he had ever mourned his loneliness in that house, “then tomorrow I will start looking out a place for you to live.”

“A place?” cried Queenie, swiveling her head all around, but managing to keep her eye firmly on the gravy boat that she was tilting over her rice. “What is wrong with right here? You have room—all the room in the world! We could have moved our whole entire house inside your front parlor, James Caskey—that’s how much room
you
have.”

James thought he caught the glint of another trap hidden in the fallen leaves in his path. He stopped stock-still, looked about for alternate routes, and at last said quietly, “No, Queenie.”

“James Caskey, you—”

“I will look you out a place to live. I will pay for it, and I will take care of you—within certain limits—for Genevieve’s sake. But I cannot let you stay in this house with Grace and me.”

“You are lonely!” cried Queenie. James realized, in something of a panic, that he could see a very large trap indeed, just a little farther on in the forest.

“I have Grace!”

“Your darling girl is a tiny child! She cannot keep you company the way I could! We could be a happy family. You have lost your wife—my darling Genevieve—and I have lost a husband, that heathen rapscallion Carl Strickland, I’m ashamed to bear his stinking name! I’m ashamed to have my darlings wear it through life! It’s my one comfort—”

“Queenie,” said James, interrupting, “you can stay here tonight. But tomorrow I will find someplace else for you to live.”

“James Caskey, I know why you are doing this. I know why you are turning me out of your home.”

“Why?” he asked, very much puzzled.

“Because darling Malcolm broke that itty-bitty piece of glass this afternoon, he just wanted to look at it, he thought it was so pretty—I did, too. I said, ‘Malcolm Strickland, put James’s thing back where it belongs and don’t you pick up anything in this house ever again,’ and he said, ‘Ma, I won’t ever pick up anything of Uncle James’s ever again as long as I live.’ I tried to fix it, but those pieces just wouldn’t all fit back together again.”

James Caskey didn’t have the heart to ask what had been broken, and for the next week he was reluctant even to glance at his shelves of beautiful things for fear he would discover which piece the child had destroyed.

“That’s not why,” he said to Queenie. “I didn’t even know about...the accident.”

“Ohhh! Then why did I say anything!” cried Queenie involuntarily. “James, we could be so happy!”

But James, displaying uncharacteristic fortitude, would not be persuaded, and next day he bought outright the house next to Dr. Benquith’s on the sunny side of the low hill that rose up west of the town hall. It was a merciful ten-minute walk, at the least, from there to the Caskeys’ houses, and Queenie was so round and roly-poly that everyone figured that she wouldn’t often go to the physical exertion of making that journey. Queenie and her children slept in that house that very first night on rollaway beds appropriated from Mary-Love’s storage rooms.

Mary-Love, once she was convinced that James had accepted the blame for having lured Queenie Strickland to Perdido, set out to make the situation as easy as possible for him. She saw to the furniture in one day’s shopping in Mobile, thus demonstrating, if anyone had ever doubted, the extent of her procrastination in obtaining the furnishings for Oscar and Elinor’s house.

James introduced Oscar and Elinor to Queenie and her children. Something in Elinor’s manner, or in her eyes, cowed even Malcolm and Lucille. Malcolm didn’t kick and Lucille didn’t cry, although when they got home Malcolm showed his mother a bruise on his arm, claiming that Elinor had twisted the flesh there when no one was looking.

Elinor, with the aid of Roxie and Zaddie, ran up curtains for all the windows in Queenie’s house, took them over, hung them up, and then went away again without accepting so much as a cup of coffee or a piece of cake for their effort.

Queenie didn’t have to worry about money, for James Caskey set up small accounts for her in certain stores, and she was allowed to take away what she needed. Once, however, in Berta Hamilton’s dress shop, when Queenie pointed out a long coat with a fur collar and wide fur sleeves, Berta Hamilton said pointedly, “Oh, Miz Strickland, I think that’s probably not gone fit you too well...”

Queenie insisted on trying it on anyway and, contrary to the prediction, it fit perfectly, and Berta Hamilton was forced to say outright what she had only discreetly hinted at before: “I am not gone put a hundred-and-fifty-dollar coat on Mr. James’s bill when you have already spent three hundred and sixty-two dollars in here this month, Miz Strickland.”

Queenie fumed, and Queenie fretted, but Queenie went away without the coat. She began to understand what James had meant by “certain limits.”

Queenie Strickland found that Perdido was a tough nut to crack. There was no question but that she was better off than she had been in Nashville; she was being taken care of in a more agreeable way, she had a nicer house, and most importantly she had got rid of her husband, Carl. But other things weren’t so quick in coming; for instance, friends and acquaintances. No woman who talked as much as Queenie Strickland could get along for any length of time without people, and she was the sort, moreover, who rather wore friends down. She needed a number of them so that she could bear down upon them one by one a little at a time; that way the abrasions she inflicted had time to heal and be forgotten. She wasted no time in building a new circle.

To Florida Benquith next door, Queenie—sweet as sweet could be—sent over a pie for the doctor and scraps for the dog. The next day she asked Florida if she wouldn’t mind setting a hem for her with pins, it would only take three seconds. Florida, envious of the social power wielded by the Caskeys in the town, craftily acquiesced to become Queenie’s friend. This, she calculated, would either provide a way of becoming closer with the Caskeys if Queenie ultimately proved herself acceptable to Mary-Love and the rest, or else specifically to annoy them in case Queenie turned out to be an outcast. Thus, Queenie gained a foothold, and from it began deliberately to enlarge her circle of acquaintances. For one thing, she joined the bridge group that met every Tuesday afternoon.

There were two bridge clubs in Perdido, the more fashionable convening on Monday afternoons, the other on the following day; at the second, the principal topic of conversation was what had been said, worn, and served at bridge the day before. The first group centered around Mary-Love; the second revolved around Florida Benquith. Elinor Caskey, when she left Mary-Love’s house, and would no longer have anything to do with her mother-in-law, had dropped into the second group. She was rather resented there, first because she carried the greatest social weight, and second because she was a member actually by default. But through these Tuesday afternoon gatherings, Elinor and Queenie became acquainted with each other.

In the middle of November, by the chance of the draw, the Tuesday meetings were held on successive weeks first in Elinor’s house and then in Queenie’s. Though accidental, this exchange of visits assumed the dimensions of a public embrace, and thereafter Queenie and Elinor were considered to be friends. This was a willful—perhaps even mischievous—misinterpretation of the circumstances on the part of Florida Benquith and her circle, but it was a misinterpretation that stuck, perhaps because neither Queenie nor Elinor did anything to deny it.

Somehow, Mary-Love heard of this, or divined it by miraculous clairvoyance, and was disturbed. Mary-Love had no liking for Queenie, either in her person or in her position as Genevieve’s sister. She particularly did not like to see Queenie rollicking behind the enemy lines. She began to fear that Elinor and Queenie would join forces and launch a concerted attack against her.

Consequently, at dinner after church a few weeks later, Mary-Love said to James, “It is time to mend our fences.”

James looked up from his plate, surprised. “Have you and I been arguing, Mary-Love? I sure didn’t know it, if we were.”

“We
have not, James, but in case you haven’t noticed, most of our family is not speaking.”

James—and everyone else at the table—shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

“It is getting close to Christmas,” Mary-Love continued, quite as if she bore no responsibility for the estrangements and divisions within the family, “and I think it would be nice if we all spent it together.” She paused, perhaps waiting for someone to second this motion. Finding only silence, she went on unperturbed: “We ought to do it for the children, if not for ourselves. There’s Grace, of course,” said Mary-Love, glancing toward her niece across the table, “she’s been with us for a while, but now there’s Miriam and Frances. And, Lord, they’re
sisters
, and they hardly get the chance to look in each other’s faces! And now we’ve got Malcolm and Lucille, they ought to be here—”

“You’re inviting Queenie Strickland!” cried Sister in amazement. James just sat with his mouth open.

“I’m inviting the whole
family
,” said Mary-Love, rather enjoying the consternation she had caused. That she was able to surprise them so completely and to such effect was proof of her continuing power.

“And Oscar and Elinor, too?” asked James, shaking his head in wonder.

“Everybody.”

“Do you think they’ll come?” wondered Sister. “Queenie will, of course,” Sister went on, answering her own question, “and she’ll be bound to bring along those two hellions.”

“Sister!” cried Mary-Love in reproach, having never heard her daughter speak any word that even approached a curse.

“That’s exactly what they are,” Sister went on. “But, Mama, you really think you can get Elinor over here, and get her to bring Frances with her?”

“I see no reason why Elinor should not come,” said Mary-Love stiffly. “I see no reason why she should not bring her daughter with her. Of course, there is another reason why we are having a party on Christmas.”

“What is it?” asked James.

“Early says he is gone have the levee plans done next week. And I think we ought to celebrate his finishing.”

“It’s taken me a lot longer than I reckoned,” explained Early apologetically.

“But he wanted to do it right,” said Sister quickly. “And, James, your old council got its money’s worth when it hired on Early to do the job. Once he’s ready to start, that levee’ll go up like nobody’s business.”

“Well,” said James cautiously, “I’m real glad to hear it, but, Mary-Love, I don’t think you better say anything about this to Elinor. Don’t tell her she’s coming over here to a party for the building of the levee—or I can guarantee you she won’t step foot in this house.”

“You are probably right, James. Maybe if
you
invited her she’d come. Maybe if you told her I’m gone set up a big tree—the biggest tree we’ve ever had—and she can bring all her packages over here, and tell her we’ll fill the whole front parlor with presents for the children, maybe then she’d be convinced. Maybe if you could explain to her that the family ought to be together at Christmas, and maybe if you told her that Queenie’s gone be invited too it’d all make a big difference.”

“She’s friends with Queenie now?” said Sister.

Mary-Love nodded. “I’ve heard tell ...”

Sister nodded thoughtfully, suddenly understanding more about Mary-Love’s motives for these invitations than Mary-Love would have liked.

Later that afternoon James went over to Elinor’s and invited her and Oscar to Christmas Day at Mary-Love’s. He mentioned Queenie’s invitation but said nothing of Early Haskew’s presence, or the fact that Early was just finishing up his plans for the levee. Elinor calmly accepted the invitation, merely remarking that she had already planned to go to Mobile to buy everyone presents. At about the same time Sister went over to Queenie’s, taking with her a plate of hard candy, and extended the same invitation. Queenie desperately tried to think of a way to discuss with Elinor whether she ought to accept, but it was imperative that she say yea or nay immediately. She could not plead a prior engagement, for Sister would know that was a lie. She said yes and prayed God that she had not offended Elinor in doing so.

That evening Queenie walked over to Elinor’s and conferred with her new friend upon the matter at hand. “I could say I had to go back to Nashville for something or other, and then stay locked up in the house all day,” suggested Queenie with some enthusiasm, confident that the idea was so ridiculous that Elinor would never encourage her to go through with it. It had been for Elinor’s sake alone that Queenie had declared an aversion to Mary-Love.

“No,” said Elinor, “Oscar and I are going, and we’re taking Frances, so there’s no reason why you shouldn’t go too, Queenie.”

“I’m glad you said that,” said Queenie. “’Cause it makes everything a whole lot easier for everybody.”

“I
want
to go,” said Elinor. “I haven’t been in that house for a long while, and I think it’s time that I saw what Miss Mary-Love has been up to.”