Family Linen (18 page)

Lacy removes her mother's earrings and the brooch, and stands up. She walks to the dresser and pulls out a drawer at random and finds to her surprise a lavender beaded purse, lovely, which Kate will want. She sighs. It's like a puzzle, all this going through the house. It's like those search-and-find pictures they gave you in school, the forest with the animals hidden in the trees. Can you find (1) the elephant, (2) the boa constrictor, (3) the monkey? Can you go through this house and find the family that lived here once? Can you ever know how it worked, or what it was really like? Lacy concentrates, remembering, listening to the voices below, on the first floor, Candy and Sybill and Myrtle, the kids, Dr. Don and Arthur in the guest room, and this new sound, the racket of the bulldozer out on the hill where Dr. Don is going to put in the swimming pool. Can you find the secret here, at the heart of the house?

Lacy concentrates, remembering Sunday dinner and her mother in flowered voile at the head of the table, wearing these pearl earrings, this brooch: it seems to be summer then, too, it's so hot, but not one of the men has removed his coat and tie. There's molded Jell-O salad, a ham, fried chicken. Arthur does something bad and is sent from the room, he pulls Lacy's hair on the way out. Lacy has long curly hair. “Arthur!” she cries. “Hush, dear,” her mother says. Everyone listens to the Episcopal rector who's come for Sunday lunch, who talks about visiting England. Lacy thinks she'll die, and imagines her death in great detail, exactly what will happen, who will cry. For dessert they eat ambrosia and angel food cake. As soon as he can, Daddy escapes out the back where he smokes Camels—she won't let him smoke in the house—and takes a nip or two of bourbon. This is the time when the children come to him, one by one, with problems, while Mother sleeps, fully dressed and perfectly rigid, flat on her back on the lacy white spread on this very bed.

But you took your problems to Verner Hess, who dealt with them one by one and often by saying nothing, just listening until you were finished talking. Sometimes he gave you money, or talked to a man on the phone. Often he said, “If I were you, I wouldn't bother your mother with that,” or, “Don't tell your mother, it's no sense bothering her,” and they didn't, either, so that eventually they all had isolated, or insulated, Miss Elizabeth from whole sides of their lives. Daddy's aim seemed to be to keep her completely pure, unsullied by any consideration of reality. He worshiped her. Even now, Lacy can't quite understand it, although she knows there doesn't really have to be a reason, you worship what you worship, you love what you love, and can't help it . . . but it seems to Lacy that this is the secret, the hidden beast in the forest, around which that household revolved: Verner Hess's total, obsessive worship of his wife. How odd that such a small red-headed man should be the possessor of such a love! How different from Lacy's own marriage to Jack, all that good will and the mutual interests and ideals that seemed to be so important, and seem to her now to be inconsequential. Better a blind obsession, better a fascination with the nape of somebody's neck.

Lacy takes out all the dresser drawers and arranges them one by one on the bed, so that everybody can get at their contents. As she does this, she glances out the window at the yellow bulldozer, backing up and pushing dirt into a huge, pointless pile which Sean keeps riding up and down on his bike. Don says they're going to extend the driveway all the way around the house, and put in a pool, a patio, and a gazebo. In some way, Lacy realizes, her mother knew what she was doing when she left Myrtle and Don the house, assuming—as Lacy assumes—that she wanted the house to stay in the family. Despite Miss Elizabeth's dreamy distance from the world, despite her regal austerity, she knew what she was doing, she always knew what she was doing; and for this reason, Lacy believes, she could never have killed Jewell Rife. Sybill's having a nervous breakdown, that's all. It's not uncommon. In fact, Lacy may choose to have one, too. She places all the drawers neatly on the white lace spread and rifles through the fragrant sacheted contents idly with her hand, surprised to feel, at the bottom of the last drawer, something hard—a book? She pulls it out. It's a composition book in the old style, with a mottled black-and-white cover, the little white space for the title, which reads, in her mother's elegant, spidery handwriting:
Days of Light and Darkness:—Memoirs by Elizabeth Bird, 1928
. Heart thumping wildly, a strange lightness in her head, Lacy clutches the composition book to her and opens the door and starts rapidly down the stairs.

“Look!” she cries. “Look what I've found,” but her voice is nearly drowned out by the bulldozer's drone, louder here, and by the ringing doorbell. Sybill and Myrtle are arguing in the kitchen. Arthur, Kate, Theresa, and Mr. Constantine are watching something on TV in the parlor. Who'll get the color TV? “Look!” Lacy cries, waving the journal. Dr. Don goes to answer the door. At first it crosses Lacy's mind that this must be Jack, again, but it's not, it's somebody wearing something like white pajamas, and a kind of helmet. Who is it? Nobody knows. Dr. Don talks to this personage briefly, shaking his head, gesturing. There must be some mistake. You can't hear a thing because of the bulldozer. Dr. Don cups his hands around his mouth, finally, and calls to his wife, “Myrtle! You didn't call for an exterminator, did you?” and Myrtle looks up from the kitchen table where she's counting silver teaspoons with Sybill, and cries, “No!” Her mouth remains wide open, a perfect O. The front door shuts, the noise diminishes, and Lacy says, “Just look . . . ”

Days of Light and Darkness:

—Memoirs

by Elizabeth Bird

1928

I approach the Past as a young maiden, bearing a candle, might approach a deserted mansion deep within the Enchanted woods. The path I take is overgrown with briars. The dangling limbs of blackened trees, the thriving thistly tangle of underbrush, the slick, wet, slimy stones conspire to thwart me. Above, the Moon herself is but dimly visible, and that at intermittent intervals through the limbs of the Trees which reach like ancient fingers toward the gray, low-racing clouds. The wind, surprisingly, is warm. It carries the sickly sweet scent of decaying flowers, it whips my frail Skirt to and fro, wrapping it about my legs as if to impede my Quest. This wind is my anxiety manifest. I shield the candle with my trembling hand, and if I reach the mansion, will its paltry light be sufficient to illuminate That which lies therein?

After what seems an eternity I approach the gate, which gives inward easily with a sorrowful, groaning sound. Heartsick, I proceed. The huge old door is overgrown with hoary Lichens, crisscrossed by vines, and yet:—I see by my flickering Light—it, too, stands ajar. “Deliver me,” I pray, and setting my shoulder to it, and gathering whatever Courage the Almighty has to give, I push with all my might. An odor of must, as of the grave, assails me. The pool of Light cast by this ridiculous candle falls about my feet:—the light too weak to reach the recesses of this hall; the high imagined ceiling; the other doors to other, further rooms. And an antic wind from the open door is playing tricks:—casting monstrous shadows at the edges of this light, creating flitting shadows in the deeper dark above, shadows like wings:—

But I am here. Hand on Heart, I rest awhile. This mansion is no place for the faint of heart, no place for the unprepared. And so I have come armed with what I have:—with Honesty, with Courage, and with Love. Though the wind do its best, my candle shall not be extinguished. Though I walk these wide Halls with fear and trembling, I shall enter every room.

* * *

My Father seemed always on horseback, I know this was not So. And yet, how many evenings did we wait at the lower gate, in our pinafores, little hearts thumping wildly, to see him coming in the distance, up the long hill? First a speck we saw, and then the rising dust, and then at length, his gallant Form. When he saw us there, his girls, he would set spur to flank and gallop wildly that last stretch between the glowering pines; “Hi, Jennie!” he'd cry to his spotted horse; he knew we loved it So. Winter and Summer, he wore a wide black Hat. And oh, then how we'd squeal, and tumble from the gate, and race up that long walk to our happy home, skirting the side front porch, and running around to the side where Johnny would be waiting to take the horse, and Mama, fresh from the kitchen, all ruddy-faced, was wiping her hands on her apron and pushing back the escaping tendrils of her curly auburn hair.

Jennie was reined to a stomping halt, and dust flew in all directions. “Ladies, good evening!” my Father bellowed. Dismounting with a Flourish then, he'd sweep up my Mother in his strong arms and spin her about the yard. Faster and faster they would go, her petticoats billowing. “Lem, Lem, let me go! Stop it this instant!” she shrieked. “Put me down!”

My Father roared with laughter. “Not until you give me a Kiss,” he'd vow, and she said, “Oh not now, why here are the girls, I tell you, put me
down!
”

We jumped up and down, clinging together, Nettie and Fay and I. “A kiss! A kiss!” we shrilled. “Give him a kiss, Mama!” Invariably I was sure that something terrible would happen if she did not, that he would spin her right off this earth into the blue Empyrean and we would never see either of them again. For me, this homecoming ritual was frightening, thrilling, and deeply satisfying all at once.

For at length she gave him the kiss, and he put her down, and they stood stock still on the whirling ground for a second to get their bearings, both of them panting, out of breath, Mother shamefaced and beautifully blushing, hand to her heart, and Father grinning devilishly behind his flamboyant Moustaches. “Oh, Lem!” Mother cried. “Lem, for Heaven's sake!”

“And now I'm hungry!” he shouted then:—oh, we knew it was coming; already we'd begun to scatter. “I want a tasty bite of a little girl!” How we squealed, how we ran, even Fay who could barely toddle—all in vain, to be caught at last, tossed high in the summer air, and feel Father catch us and hold us close and “bite” the back of our necks, beneath the ribbons. “Yum, yum,” he'd roar, licking his Lips, setting us back on our feet at last.

“These girls are not quite sufficient—too small and bony!” he announced. “Miss Mary, what's for dinner?” To which question, my Mother made a murmuring reply, still disconcerted, attempting to pin up her unruly hair, and then Father gallantly offered her his Arm, and she took it; they entered the house.

Although we were busy from dawn to dusk, Nettie and Fay and I, nothing else that happened could quite compare to Father's returning home Thus, at the dinner hour.

Thomas Lemuel Bird, our Father—to grant him his proper appellation—was an imposing red-faced Giant of a man with riotous hair that sprang into curly black ringlets when he entered the house and removed the ubiquitous black hat. And when he shed the black frock-coat, I was ever thrilled to see the pearl-handled Revolver in his shoulder holster, to watch him remove this too, and place it in the hidden drawer in the breakfront in the dining room, the breakfront which his brother, a master craftsman, had made for their marriage in 1906. He needed the gun, Father said, “at the mill,” where we were given to understand that rough men worked, and terrible things might happen at any time. Fistfights and dismemberments were rumored. I likened this distant World of men with the way my father smelled when he swept us up to “bite” us, or when he leaned down, as he did each night, to kiss us into sleep:—a mingled scent of tobacco and fresh-cut wood. In fact I never smell fresh pine that I do not still think of these days. (It saddens me to think thus: my candle flame wavers and dims. It will not Do. For I intend to go ahead here, through all the perilous chambers of my Heart.)

My Father in his prime weighed well over 250 pounds. Large of Frame and Feature, he moved always with an air of authority, of command. He was a man of his word. He was feared, among men, for his temper. He was known to carry a grudge, and even then, upon occasion, to drink intemperately. As a child, I was not aware of these traits. It's possible that my mother was not aware of them either, or that her awareness of them was slight. For oh, how Father loved his Ladies! Every roughness of manner, every masculine Vice, was left at the foot of the hill.

He never tired of watching Mother, of asking her details about her Day, nor of praising her handiwork. I remember when she was making the needlepoint cushions which yet adorn the dining room chairs, how pleased he was, how astonished each day by the appearance of still another rose, another vine, created with her tiny, perfect stitches.

But he adored us all. Nothing made him happier, it seemed, than the time he Spent with us, questioning Fay endlessly about her imaginary playmates, roaring with laughter at her droll answers; reading aloud with me the books which Mother had brought from the Eastern Shore or which we borrowed from Grace Harrison; or Exploring with Nettie in the woods on the mountain behind the garden. If men came to our house to see him on Business, he met with them outside where they stood solemnly on the side lawn by the hitching rail, smoking, and squinting off at the Horizon.

Obviously, he adored Mother. The fact that he had won her hand only after great difficulty seemed to make him prize her all the more. The story went that he had been hired to drive old Mr. Harrison, a retired minister, to a retreat at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina, a Methodist Summer Encampment. He was to spend the night, rest the Horses, and then return. But there he had encountered Mary Davenport and all her family from the Eastern Shore of Virginia, who had come to escape the unhealthy Vapors which summer brought to the low-lying swampy area where they resided. This whole family was in mourning for a beloved Brother, who had recently succumbed to Influenza. Mother, with her flaming hair, her simple black linen shift, and her air of pious grief, made quite an impression upon the uncouth young giant from the mountains. One of four rough-and-tumble Boys orphaned early on, Father was a “wild young buck” at that time, uncertain of which Path in Life to take. Although he had learned to read and write, his early schooling had been sketchy. Mother and her sisters had had a Governness, they knew French. Deeply smitten, Father did not return with the Horses as planned. He courted Mary for two weeks by the deep, still waters of Lake Junaluska, among the solemn Mountains, between the inevitable lectures, prayers, and meetings. Dr. Harrison, abetting the Young Lovers, bought him a Suit of new clothes so that he could properly attend these functions. How difficult it is for me to imagine Father, rosy-cheeked above his stiff white collar, sitting in a straightbacked chair absorbing Culture:—surely it must have seemed to him that he had entered a different world, as indeed he had. Mother, as she later reported, was Charmed. What a complexity of emotion must be encompassed in this simple description of their feelings! He was Smitten; she was Charmed. At length Father was “run off” upon the arrival of Mother's father, a prosperous oysterman, and told to present himself when he had some Prospects.

By the time he reappeared, at the end of the Summer, to fetch old Dr. Harrison, he had made a start. He and his brothers had leased some land; Sam, the next-oldest, had won a band-saw in a poker game; the lumber Business was in its infancy. Father had given up his gambling and drinking, or swore he had, and had indeed put his Shoulder to the wheel. He bade Mary another Farewell, and brought Dr. Harrison home. They were separated by all the distance of Virginia for eighteen months.

The lumber Business was thriving when he appeared in Accomac to claim her; his Prospects seemed handsome indeed. He visited with her family for three weeks. At the time of his departure, they were officially affianced. But the Marriage was to take place, her father had stipulated, only after Father had arranged a proper Home for his bride. Perhaps her father hoped in this way to forestall the union, giving his daughter time to come to her Senses. Perhaps he simply felt that a further test of Father's good intentions was necessary. At any rate, the land was purchased. Only the prettiest spot would do, this hill, at that time just outside the tiny town. Plans were drawn up, and the Work was begun. It was to be a House as large, as stately, as pretty as any in town, a home fit for a Lady. Dr. Harrison corresponded with Mother's father, to assure him that all would be as promised, that Father's accounts were not mere mountain Tomfoolery. At last, Father and Mother were married in the First Methodist Church at Accomac in June 1906. Following a Wedding Trip to Old Point Comfort, he brought her all across Virginia, “home.” This wedding trip must have occasioned, for her, a heady mixture of emotion, of joy in her handsome young Husband combined with the sadness of leaving her own Family and the Landscape of her youth. She must have felt as if she were moving to Madagascar.

What she found was a teeming Lumber camp, a raw boom Town, and her fiery young Husband deeply engaged in a brilliant career, with his lively brothers:—our Uncles:—trooping in and out of the house. Draperies and furniture were ordered from Richmond. Her mother sent flower seeds. One by one, we were born:—myself, Catherine Elizabeth Bird, in 1908; Nettie Davenport Bird in 1913; and Constance Fay Bird in 1915. I was then seven. I recall Fay's difficult Birth all too well. Mother labored for two days, and many months had passed after this Birth before she regained her sprightliness. Father for his part lavished her with attention and sweet solicitous Care. He bore well the disappointing fact that their union had failed to produce, once again, a Son. The busy Time passed. There were Dancing Parties. Oh, we lived well, in those days! Johnny worked about the place, Aunt Suse kept up the house. And yet, although she was as busy and happy as a young Wife could be, a certain sadness seemed at times to overtake our Mother. Letters flew back and forth between the mountains and the Eastern Shore, but visits were seldom. Although I am told that I visited the Davenports when I was small, at perhaps two or three years of age, I do not recall this trip. When Mother's own father died, she was prevented from making the arduous Journey due to the confinement necessitated by Nettie's imminent birth.

How often, in later years, I came upon Mother unawares, gazing at her father's photograph:—an immense man looking at a great gold watch, standing just to the left of a tremendous pile of Oyster shells, before a wide expanse of water. The Chesapeake Bay? I never fully comprehended the import of this Picture. Why did he thus regard his watch? Was it a Gift, perhaps, or the token of some Recognition? For me, in recent years, this photograph has come to possess the symbolic overtones of “Ozymandias,” with its solemn theme. For how soon indeed does glory fade and how little our material Possessions—that great pile of Oyster shells at his feet which tell of countless ships, and men, and voyages into the briny deep—how little such things can withstand the silent, stately feet of tramping Time! Mother's Sisters and the one remaining Brother married, and produced families of their own, babies were born and died, life was too complicated to allow for much Visiting. But ah yes, she missed them. Sometimes there was a sadness in her.

At other times, these memories brought her Joy, as when she'd tell us how to go clamming. One wore a bathing costume, she said, and old, worn-out shoes, and a Hat against the sun, and waded into waist-high water with a certain kind of Rake. A raft, attached to one's waist by a rope, floated along beside. One waded carefully, feeling along the slimy bottom for the hard, round Shells. And then the raking, the scooping up, and flinging mud and shell and all upon the raft until, piled high with bounty, it was guided into shore. Mother described the ensuing Clambakes on the lawn, she told us how to make Clam Fritters.