Unfinished Desires (23 page)

CHAPTER 21
Realignments

Saturday evening, January 19, 1952
The Stratton household
Mountain City, North Carolina

THE STRATTON FAMILY
at dinner, minus Cornelia, who had at last found time in her busy schedule to succumb to the flu, had finished Flavia’s vegetable soup and was anticipating the next course: her meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and the big yellow butter beans put away from last summer.

Tildy, whose every gesture had become more theatrical since she had been appointed director of
The Red Nun
, dabbed at the sides of her mouth with her napkin, replaced it primly in her lap, and took a thoughtful quaff from her water goblet. “I was wondering, Daddy, do you and John have any urgent plans for
Monday?”

“This coming Monday? What’s up, honey?”

“Maud’s grandmother’s funeral’s at eleven, at First Methodist Church, and I feel I ought to be there. So I was thinking that if Madeline would drop me at school that morning, then you would have John until ten-fifteen or so, and then he could come and take me and any of the other girls who want to go to the funeral and the cemetery and then drive us back to school afterward. I really think I owe Maud that.”

“Poor little Maudie. Finding old Mrs. Roberts like that. It was the first shock of my young life when my granny passed on, though she had been bedridden for a long time.”

“I’ll be glad to take Tildy to school,” said Madeline. “I would offer myself and my little roadster for the funeral, but you can fit more girls into the Packard, and Tildy would obviously prefer it.”

“John driving the Packard is more seemly for the occasion,” said Tildy. “If Daddy can spare him.”

“Oh, I can always borrow your mother’s car while she’s laid up,” Tildy’s father said. “If I can remember how to drive an automatic shift.” He winked at his girls and included Flavia, entering with the platters.

After supper, Flavia prepared Cornelia’s teapot while Madeline simmered a perfect poached egg in a small skillet and slid her handiwork onto lightly buttered toast points. She tucked some slices of peeled orange at the edge of the plate, rolled the silverware into a linen napkin, and arranged it all on a bed tray. “There, Flavia, how does that look?”

“She going to want her salt,” suggested Flavia, nodding toward the omitted shaker. “I can take that up to her, Miss Madeline.”

“I know you can, Flavia, but it’s not every day I get Mama trapped in bed.”

Sunk deep into her bedcovers, Cornelia Stratton had the canny look of an invalid anticipating her treat but not wanting to appear eager.

“Now, Mama, I poached this egg for you myself and Flavia hovered like a hawk and reminded me you liked your salt. Are you feeling up to having a bite?”

Cornelia hoisted herself up and inspected the tray. “What’s going on in the world, Maddy? If you can spare a moment.”

“Well,” said Madeline happily, pulling up a chair, “you already know about poor Mrs. Roberts.”

“Yes, Daddy told me she popped off during one of her radio programs. Maud was in the room with her, but didn’t know until the lights came on. Daddy said Tildy was the first one Maud told about it at school.”

“Tildy’s behaving very loyally. She asked Daddy for John and the Packard on Monday to take classmates to the funeral.”

“Frankly, I’m glad Maud and Tildy aren’t in each other’s pockets anymore. A gesture of loyalty for a nice dead friendship is one thing, but I can remember when Tildy was always after us to adopt Maud. I wouldn’t want that to start up again.”

“Here, let me pour your tea. Why should it start up again?”

“Ouch! Too hot. Whip into the bathroom, sweetie, and splash in some cold water from the faucet.”

Madeline obliged. “Try it now.”

The invalid warily tested. “Exactly right. You’re too good to me, Maddy. You remind me more of Antonia every day. Wouldn’t it be odd if you turned out to have a vocation.”

“I don’t think so, Mama. Even if I could look as beautiful as Mother Malloy.”

“You’d look more beautiful; she’s pale as chalk. But if it meant you’d have to knuckle under to that archfiend Ravenel, I think I’d take a leaf from Medea and slay you first.”

Madeline suppressed a shudder as her mother deftly disemboweled the poached egg. She spread it over the toast points, then salted everything heavily, including the orange slices.

“What I meant was, now that Mrs. Roberts is out of the way, Lily Norton, if that was ever her name, will undoubtedly take up openly with that fancy-foods salesman.”

“Do you think they’ll try to run the Pine Cone Lodge, Mama?”

“What’s to run? Nobody stays in boardinghouses anymore. Except salesmen with something else on their minds. No, I wouldn’t put it past Lily Norton to have the house on the market the day after the funeral.”

“But where would they live?”

“My guess is that they’ll move somewhere else so they can start fresh and put on airs. They might even get married. Lily will have herself a dowry. Your father says she could get as much as ten thousand for that old pile. Enough to give them an uppity start in a new place. Daddy says that street is in zoning limbo and it’s in walking distance from town, which will attract the entrepreneurs.”

“Oh, dear,” said Madeline. “Then what happens to poor Maudie?”

Cornelia snorted. “Beginning to get the picture, eh? Either she goes with them, they drag her out of Mount St. Gabriel’s, or they allow her to stay on as a boarder—Lily would have to fork over some of the dowry for that. Whereas if Maud still had Tildy wrapped around her little finger, we would be badgered by Tildy to take her in. What’s one more at the table? And even if she did board at Mount St. Gabriel’s, where does she go in summer? The whole thing would start up again. Swimming every day at the club. Maud sleeping in Tildy’s room, and those simpering, nervous manners at our table. Thank the Lord Tildy has little Chloe now. An altogether more manageable person. Though Chloe’s got her problems, too. She told Tildy that her stepfather, who’s unfortunately her legal father, is threatening to haul poor Henry into court for custody. What a mess. Be glad you have your original father and mother, at least till death do us part. And by then, with any luck, you girls will be old enough so if you get dragged anywhere it will be by a loving husband.”

“But what about Maud’s father and his new wife? Maybe they’ll want her.”

“Oh, I don’t care if she goes or stays. I’m just saying Tildy is much better off without that friendship. Look how much she’s improved on her own steam. A B plus on her Uriah Heep paper! Of course, we both got behind her on that. You read with her every night, and I made a few suggestions to make Uriah more odious. But she wrote the whole thing herself. I only went through at the end and corrected some spelling.”

“Mother Malloy’s tutoring sessions helped her a lot. And you know, Mama, even Mother Ravenel deserves
some
credit, for putting Tildy in charge of the
Red Nun
production. It’s done a world of good for Tildy’s self-esteem, and she’s thrown herself into it.”

“My child has never lacked for self-esteem. And don’t be fooled: everything that woman does has an ulterior motive. I just wish I knew what she has up her black sleeve to inflict on our family now.”

“I have a feeling the play’s going to be a huge success. Tildy’s got all these ideas for putting new life into it. She’s even asked Daddy to record John’s voice for God’s lines.”

Cornelia giggled. “Not such a far-fetched idea. John’s voice has a spooky kind of authority. It always puts me in mind of ‘The Shadow knows.’”

“Why don’t I bring you another pot of tea, Mama?”

“No, thank you, dear. All this gossip has made me a little tired. That’s the thing with the flu. Even after the worst is over, you’ve still got to recover your strength. I suppose there’s a horrid pile of unanswered messages for me down at the studio.”

“No, Mama, we’re completely caught up. Your new secretary is very organized, and I double-check with her every afternoon that all the calls have been answered.”

“You do so much for me, Maddy. I don’t know when you have time for your young life.”

“Oh, my young life. Mama, when you were my age, did you ever go through a phase where you wished for some bigger assignment? I don’t mean the school kind, but something that would make a larger demand on you?”

Cornelia pushed her tray away. “Lord, child, don’t you have enough demands on you?”

“But they’re just family and school stuff. Sometimes I wish I could have been, oh, I don’t know, an ambulance driver in World War One.”

“That would make you about fifty now. I would be years younger than you. I sometimes feel that I
am
years younger. Right now I feel like a pampered little girl with the flu who’s had a nice poached egg on toast and is ready for sleepy time.”

Trying to hide her disappointment, Madeline removed the tray. “You didn’t eat your orange slices, Mama.”

“You eat them for me,” murmured Cornelia, burrowing deep into the bedclothes, eyes already shut.

Monday, January 21, 1952
First Methodist Church
Mountain City, North Carolina

Tildy seldom set foot in Protestant churches, but each time she was obliged to do so she thanked her lucky stars she was Catholic. Everything was so dour and colorless and
kept down
in Protestant churches. There were no statues or candles, no sanctuary lamp, no vestments, no Latin, no incense, no rituals—in other words, no mystery; no
theater
. But she owed this to Maud, who sat, looking stricken and inconsequential, in the front pew, between Lily Norton and the traveling salesman. There were few people here, and most of them were old and dreary. Tildy was proud of her Mount St. Gabriel’s contingent; they were young and looked nice and the five of them took up a whole pew. The Packard could seat four in the back, with Tildy riding in front with John. Chloe, of course, was a given, and then since it was the class president’s grandmother’s funeral, Tildy had thought it would be appropriate to invite the other ninth-grade officers: Rebecca Meyer, vice president; Kay Lee Jones, secretary; and Josie Galvin, treasurer. And here they all were, in their smart hats and coats and gloves, giving the occasion a cachet it would have otherwise lacked.

The minister, in his plain black gown, met the coffin at the door, and four old men and two representatives from the funeral home wheeled it up the aisle on its trolley while the congregation sang, “Love’s redeeming work is done, fought the fight, the battle won …” Then the minister said some prayers in English, facing the people, and an old man crept up the stairs to the lectern and read from the Bible. The minister and congregation then recited “The Lord is my shepherd,” after which the old man read from the Bible again and almost fell coming down the stairs. Then the minister, who was called Dr. Clark, went up into the pulpit and talked about the importance of hospitality in a community. He said that was what Cleona Roberts had practiced for thirty years, opening her house to strangers passing through, and he read some parts from the Bible about different people who opened their homes to strangers and by doing so found themselves entertaining angels unaware. Abraham and Sarah had some angels to dinner, and because of their hospitality Sarah was rewarded by bearing a son in her ninetieth year.

Tildy was glad her mother was not here, because Cornelia’s lips would have twitched with cruel mirth and Tildy might have lost control. Mama would have been thinking
loudly
one of her uncharitable thoughts about possible “rewards” to be visited on Lily Norton by that gourmet “angel,” Mr. Foley. However, Tildy couldn’t wait to get home and make Mama smile: “When Dr. Clark was talking about people entertaining angels, I read your mind, Mama, though you weren’t even there.”

A lady with a trembly chin sang a trembly solo, “O for the wings, for the wings of a dove,” and then Dr. Clark stood over the coffin and said a long prayer, with lots of “thy servant Cleona”s sprinkled throughout, and everybody stood and sang a closing hymn, “Love divine, all loves excelling,” which sounded too perky for a funeral, during which the coffin was wheeled out again.