“I wish my husband was here to talk to you,” I said.
“The case is very simple,” Mr. James said. “If the bank can’t collect the interest due on the loan it will have to foreclose.”
“But Mr. Pendergast’s heirs don’t even know he’s dead yet, as far as I know,” I said.
“I understand that,” he said. “But the bank will have to act in any case.”
“When Hank comes back you can talk to him,” I said, feeling flustered.
“I’m sorry to bring you bad news,” Mr. James said.
“We don’t have a place to move to,” I said.
“There’s no reason you would have to leave, if the bank can collect its interest,” the lawyer said.
“You mean we could stay here?” I said.
“As long as the payment was made, I don’t see why not,” Mr. James said.
It seemed to me I owed it to the heirs not to let the bank take the house before they even knowed Mr. Pendergast was dead. It was my job to look after the place until they showed up. I just wished Hank was there to help me decide what to do.
“I can see you’ve taken very good care of the house,” Mr. James said.
“I’ve tried my best,” I said.
“I’m sorry to surprise you this way,” he said.
“You have to do your job,” I said.
Mr. James finished his coffee and put the cup down on the floor. “I would like to help you if I could,” he said.
“Would you like another cup?” I said.
“No thank you, I’ll have to be going.”
I knowed there was something I ought to do; I had to do something. “When will the bank seize the house?” I said.
“They will have to act before the end of the year,” Mr. James said. “I’m sorry it has to be that soon.”
“What if you was to get the money,” I said, “for the interest?”
“If the interest was paid the bank wouldn’t act,” Mr. James said. “Could you pay the interest?”
“We don’t have much money,” I said.
“The heirs could reimburse you later,” Mr. James said, “when they’re found.”
“What if they ain’t found?” I said.
“Then you could keep living here, as far as the bank is concerned.”
I seen it was the thing to do, to pay the interest. It was the only thing to do, to not let the bank take the house before the heirs even knowed Mr. Pendergast was gone. And if the interest was paid, Hank and me could keep living there.
“How much is the interest?” I said.
“That depends on the period you’re paying it for,” the lawyer said, “a month, a quarter, or a year.”
“How much for a year?” I said.
“I’ll have to check my papers,” Mr. James said.
“I think I might know where to get it,” I said.
“That would save us all a lot of trouble,” Mr. James said.
I got my shawl and hurried back through the kitchen. Mr. James followed me and stood on the porch as I run to the outhouse. Behind the two seats and the Sears and Roebuck catalog we kept to use as toilet paper, was the jar full of Mr. Pendergast’s pension money. Hank had put it there after Mr. Pendergast died. He said it was one place nobody would look for money.
The jar was cold as if it was full of ice. I carried it in both hands to the porch.
“That belonged to Mr. Pendergast?” Mr. James said.
“It was his pension money,” I said.
“Let’s count it and I’ll give you a receipt,” Mr. James said.
I lit the lamp in the kitchen and the lawyer poured the money out of the jar on the table. You never seen so many silver dollars and half-dollars and quarters, mixed in with dimes and dollar bills. There was even a five-dollar gold piece that sparkled in the lamplight. There was so much money I felt scared.
Me and Mr. James made separate stacks of all the different kind of coins. Some was so old and had stayed in the jar so long they felt sticky.
“Let’s make sure this is not Confederate money,” Mr. James said and laughed. When it was all counted there was forty-seven dollars and eighty-six cents.
“Is that enough for interest?” I said.
“That’s almost enough for a whole year,” Mr. James said.
I felt so relieved I almost cried, for I had found a way to save Mr. Pendergast’s house for his heirs. And Hank and me still had a place to live.
“The Bank of Greenville will remember that you helped us,” Mr. James said. “And we may just be able to help you in the future.”
Mr. James opened his case and took out a sheet of paper. With his fountain pen he wrote on the page several lines and handed it to me. “Received from Mrs. Julie Richards, $47.86, interest for the loan on Mr. Vincent Pendergast’s house on Gap Creek. Jerold James, Attorney.”
“Thank you for helping us,” I said.
“The Bank of Greenville knows it can help itself only by serving its customers,” Mr. James said. I walked out into the front yard with him and watched him climb into the buggy. He untied the reins from the post and said giddyup. I watched him turn the buggy around and start back down the road. I stood there and watched till he was almost out of sight before it got so cold in the wind I had to run back into the house.
ALL DAY AS I worked I thought about Mr. James and how he had come out of the blue and collected Mr. Pendergast’s interest for the bank. I was proud of what I had been able to do. Even though Hank wasn’t there, I had paid the interest and saved the house from the bank. But the whole thing appeared stranger the more I thought about it. I had expected Mr. Pendergast’s heirs to show up and demand the property and the money, not some lawyer from a bank in Greenville. There was something odd about the whole business, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. What the lawyer said made sense, but I dreaded to tell Hank what had happened. The more I thought about it, the more I saw he wouldn’t be pleased that the money was gone.
I HAD RIBS and cornbread and fresh collards ready when Hank got home from the mill. I poured him a glass of sweet milk and set down myself before I told him about the lawyer and about the bank having a lien on the property.
“He said we have to leave?” Hank said.
“No, he didn’t say that,” I said. I listened to the wind outside. There was a steady roar on the ridge above the creek.
“What did he want?” Hank said.
“He said Mr. Pendergast owed interest to the bank,” I said.
Hank stopped eating and looked at me. He had grease on his chin. “You didn’t tell him Mr. Pendergast had any money?” he said.
“I paid the interest,” I said. “He said the bank would take the house if the interest wasn’t paid. But he was very nice about it.”
“I bet he was,” Hank said.
“He said we could stay if the interest was paid,” I said.
“You didn’t tell him about the jar of money?” Hank said.
“I give him the jar of money, for the interest,” I said.
Hank stood up. His mouth was full of cornbread, and he didn’t say anything for a long time. “You stupid heifer,” he finally said.
I felt ice around my heart when he said that. I felt a cold vise crush my heart in its jaws. “I had to,” I said. “He said they would seize the house. I had to pay the interest.”
Before I knowed it Hank swung back and hit me across the face. My cheek stung and my head rung, but I didn’t hardly feel it. It was Hank’s words that burned right into my heart.
“He snockered you,” Hank said. “You didn’t even know who that man was. He tricked you. He didn’t even know Pendergast had any money until you told him. You dumb heifer.”
And I seen it might be true. The “lawyer” had fished around until I went after the jar of money. And he had talked me into giving it to him. He had talked so convincing I had give it all to him. Tears squirted into my eyes and I run into the living room. I was ashamed of what I had done. And I was ashamed of w
hat Hank had done. It was a shame I’d never felt before. It was a shame that cut through my stomach like a razor. I was so ashamed for Hank. Papa had never hit me, and Mama had never hit me since I was a little girl. When I was little Mama used to switch me with a hickory when I sassed her. But that was when I was maybe five or six.
I set on the sofa and put my head down on the arm. But I didn’t sob like a little girl that’s heart was broke. There was tears in my eyes, but I couldn’t empty my grief out in sobs. I guess I was too shocked, and too angry. I buried my eyes in my arm and expected Hank to come in and say he was sorry. I thought he would take me by the shoulders and stand me up and kiss me. He would comfort me, and then maybe we could go back to like it was before, before Ma Richards come, and before Mr. Pendergast died.
But Hank never come into the living room. I was ready for him to come put his hands on my shoulders and tell me how sorry he was. I was going to resist him at first. I was going to show how disappointed in him I was. I was going to make him work to win my forgiveness; I wouldn’t be so easy to woo back.
Instead of feeling his hands on my shoulders, I heard the back door slam. I raised up and listened. There was only the sound of the fire in the fireplace and wind brushing the eaves and the roof. Hank had gone out into the dark. Instead of comforting me, he had left me to my shame. I felt weak in my knees I was so disappointed. Worse than the shame of being slapped was the shame of being left alone.
I stood up and walked to the fire and held out my hands to the flames because I was cold inside. People are supposed to feel hot with shame, but I felt my bones had turned to chalk. I felt I had shrunk to joints and knobs of chalk and ice. I stood by the fire and waited for Hank to come back in. I studied what I would say to him. For I was awful sorry for what I had done with Mr. Pendergast’s money. I had give away money that was not mine, money that would belong to the heirs by rights. I had done a foolish thing. The man that pretended to be Mr. James was a true shyster. And Hank had done a worser thing, when he raised his hand against me.
The longer I stood by the fire the less I warmed up. The sound of the wind made me shudder, and the cold was deep inside me, in my bowels and in my bones. If I stood any longer and waited for Hank to come back in I was going to freeze to death. I dreaded to go back into the kitchen, where Hank had slapped me, but there was nowhere else to go, in the whirl of feelings and the twisting around of everything.
Most of the supper was still on the table, the cornbread and ribs, the collard greens and the glasses of sweet milk. Everything had got cold, except the milk, which had got warm. The plates had half-eat stuff on them, and the lamp on the table throwed a yellow light on the clutter.
I got a handful of kindling and tossed it into the stove, and took the kettle out to the back porch. In the dark of the backyard I couldn’t see Hank anywhere. I wondered if he was out in the barn or maybe beyond the woodshed. Was he standing out there watching me? I poured the kettle full of water and carried it back into the kitchen. Was my marriage over before it had hardly started?
While the water was heating up, I scraped the plates into the slop bucket for the chickens. And I put the cornbread and collards and ribs into the bread safe. I wiped the table off and throwed the crumbs out the back door. With a wet cloth I washed the table and put the dirty dishes and spoons and forks into the dishpan. When the kettle was hot I poured the pan about half full of water.
The hot soapy water felt good on my hands and wrists. I buried my arms up to the elbows in the steaming pan and put my face close to the dishpan to feel the warmth on my chin and neck. I wished I could sink my whole body into a tub of hot, soapy water. I needed to soak myself and cleanse myself. I needed to melt away the stain of shame. I scrubbed each knife and fork, each glass and dish and bowl. I rinsed them in a pan of fresh water and dried them with a clean towel. I was finished and ready to throw the dirty water out the back door when Hank appeared in the door.
“What did that lawyer look like?” he said.
I had thought of a thousand things to say to Hank. I had thought of everything from apologizing to trying to shame him for smacking me. I had thought of telling him I would get a gun and shoot him if he ever hit me again. And I had thought of getting on my knees and begging forgiveness for the stupid thing I had done. But now that Hank had finally come back into the house I couldn’t think of a thing to say. I wrung out the dishrag in the pan of dirty water.
“Can’t you remember what he looked like?” Hank said.
“He was just a man,” I said. None of the things I had thought of to say would come to my tongue.
“Is that all you can say?” Hank said.
“He was a man wearing a suit, and driving a buggy,” I said. I tried to recall what Mr. James’s face had looked like, but I couldn’t remember a single detail. What was the color of his hair? The color of his eyes? Did he have whiskers or not? It had all slipped out of my mind.
“Was he tall or short?” Hank said.
“He wasn’t as tall as you,” I said. “And he was a little stoop shouldered.”
“That don’t tell us much,” Hank said.
“He said his name was Jerrold James,” I said.
“He could be anybody,” Hank said.
“I wasn’t studying him to remember him,” I said. “I was worrying about saving Mr. Pendergast’s house.”
“You didn’t worry enough,” Hank said.
This was the first bad quarrel Hank and me had, and I didn’t know how it was going to turn out. I didn’t know if it was the end of us, or not. Mama and Papa had had tiffs, but Papa had never struck Mama as far as I knowed. Papa had never struck anybody as far as I was aware.
I didn’t say anything to Hank that I didn’t have to say. For I was still ashamed of what he had done, and what I had done. I was ashamed that I couldn’t think of what I wanted to say. So I just kept quiet while he fussed and fumed about the money.
“Can’t you remember nothing?” he said.
I shook my head.
“Could you recognize him again?” Hank said.
“I might.”
“And you might not,” he said. Hank was worried and he was nervous. It confused him and consternated him that I didn’t say much. He was used to a woman carrying on like Ma Richards. He was used to tongue-lashing and insults. By keeping quiet I was throwing him off balance. It was the first time I seen what power I had over his blustering bad temper. If I just waited, he would get worked up and keep butting his head against my quietness. I seen I didn’t have to say much at all, could just let him fret and worry. He would use his rage against hisself.
“Would you recognize his horse?” Hank said.
“I might,” I said.
He talked that way in the kitchen, and then followed me into the living room, thinking up one question after another. But I didn’t tell him much. I couldn’t tell him nothing that would help. I let him fuss and fret and wear hisself out. When it was time to go to bed I didn’t say nothing. I took the combs out of my hair and put them on the mantel, and then I got a lamp from the bureau to carry up the stairs.
I DON’T KNOW what it is about a quarrel that stirs a body so. But when I got under the covers in the cold bedroom it felt like my flesh was going wild and glowing. The work had burned the chill away, and as I listened to Hank rage I had got warmer and warmer. The fuss and the shame had spirited something inside me. As I got in bed by myself I could feel the heat give off by my skin warming up the covers and mattress under my back. I listened to the wind in the eaves and in the chimney and waited for Hank to climb the stairs and come into the room.
I guess waiting stirs the flesh also. There is nothing like waiting to whip up the pulse and make the blood sing in your ears. I could feel the blood in my neck and chest, and even in my arms, so warm it was purring. I laid in the dark feeling the covers touch the tips of my breasts and my belly and my knees. You was a fool, I said to myself. You are nothing but an idiot. But the thought was not entirely painful.
For if I knowed I was a fool and admitted it, at least I was standing on firm ground and could see clear where I was going. If I knowed I was a fool I might learn to be better and to do better.
Wind brushed against the roof and I shivered, not because I was cold but because I was so warm sparks flashed off my body. There was electric currents in the covers and in the air, and every bit of my body had a charge and sting, like soda water on a tongue. You are a pure fool, I said to myself.
BUT HANK DIDN’T come on up to bed. I laid in the dark waiting minute after minute. After maybe an hour I heard the front door slam, like he had gone out. And after that I must have dropped off to sleep, for I never did hear him come in. But in the wee hours I was woke by the sound of steps on the stairs.
Hank climbed up the stairs and opened the door. He was carrying another lamp and he set the light on the little bureau. He had to stoop a little under the slope of the ceiling. He’d left his shoes downstairs by the fireplace like he usually did, and he padded around in his socks. First he unbuckled one gallus of his overalls, and then he unbuckled the other. To take off overalls you have to unbutton the sides at the waist, but before he done that he blowed out the lamp. I listened to him slide off his overalls and hang them on the bedpost. I heard something rattle in the corner and couldn’t think what it was. And then I remembered the tin can where Hank sometimes spit out his tobacco. Next I heard something creak and felt a draft of cold air. He had cracked the window just a hair, as he always did before going to bed.
When Hank set down on the bed to take off his socks, it shook the mattress and springs like they was jelly. I quivered with the bed and tilted as he laid down and pulled the covers over him. He was so much heavier than me that the bed shifted and I felt I was laying on a hillside. I had to prop myself with one hand and elbow to keep from sliding over.
Would Hank touch me? Would he get over his anger enough to forgive me? Had the quarrel stirred him up and spirited him up the way it had me? Would he roll over and put his hand on my breast the way he did when he felt loving? Would he whisper something in the dark that would send sparks through me down to my groin? He shifted his shoulders and pushed up against the pillow. His weight made the bed sway. Every inch of my skin stung with the itch to be touched and the need to be touched. Every place on my body itched.
Gap Creek Page 13
