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June 24
Dear Ben,
Pursuing history of Macedonia with zeal and enterprise. Went to jail Wednesday. Nearly starved Thursday. Wore hole in shoe Saturday. Will WPA reimburse?
Layla
June 24, 1938
Darling Rose,
I beg your pardon in advance—this is going to be a short letter because my fingers are practically paralyzed from all the writing I’ve been doing. How I wish you could see me pounding away at the typewriter keys in my slip, with a pencil behind my ear. My industry (and the state of my slip) would move you to tears. It’s so steamingly hot up here that I shed my dress and hose the instant I walk through my bedroom door and work in my unders, but I live in mortal terror that I’ll forget to put my dress back on when I leave—the WPA expressly forbids its employees to engage in indecent behavior. Also to shoot or willfully incinerate one another (Ben is safe for now).
I am diligently writing Macedonia’s history, though I’ve plenty more interviews to conduct with leading Macedonians and assorted natural wonders to visit. My supervisor advised me to complete my research before commencing to write, but I simply haven’t the time, for the town fathers are demanding their book by September 24, the anniversary of the incorporation of Macedonia. It seems to me that I could solve the problem neatly by changing the date of the anniversary in the book, but the town fathers are a fussy bunch and therefore I’m working frantically to meet their deadline. I’d make better progress if I wasn’t forced to squander hours in writing letters to Mother, promising her that I’m not starving, coal mining, or coarsened by contact with low minds. How I wish that Mother had never read Tobacco Road. No matter what I say, she thinks that I’m working in the fields, bending over rows of turnips in a ripped cotton dress while lascivious farmers eye my youthful form and squirt tobacco juice between their front teeth. The truth disappoints her, which, I suppose, is why she doesn’t believe it.
I was glad to get your letter about Georgette and Nelson, but, really, honey, I couldn’t possibly care less and you don’t have to say she looked like a cow in her dress (though everyone does look like a cow in those shirred necklines). They would be a splendid couple, those two. Georgette could stop dragging herself over the dance floors of Washington and settle down to a lifetime sitting at a corner table of the Pall Mall Club, which is what she truly enjoys. And Nelson could say, “My wife—one hundred percent North Carolina thoroughbred filly, heh-heh!” Really, it’s a match made in heaven.
As for the rest of your letter, if you hate all of it so much, why do you go? Now that I have the vantage point of eighty-five miles and thirteen days, those parties seem like an awful waste of time. I feel as though I’ve spent the last seven years dancing with men I don’t like. Nelson, for example, and Louis Yards and Harry and, well, all of them. Dressing and smiling and dancing and pretending to laugh at weak jokes. Why do we do it? I know what you’ll say—that we don’t want to be old maids—but do we really want to marry Louis Yards or Nelson? I honestly believe I’d rather not marry at all. And, then, there may be other men, in other places, whom we’d like better.
In Macedonia, for example.
That’s a hint.
I know I told you I was boarding with the Romeyn family, but I believe I neglected to mention the specific existence of Mr. Romeyn—Felix, I’m to call him now. He lives here with his two daughters (he’s divorced from their mother). His sister takes care of the children and keeps house while he works. I’m not certain what he does, but he travels for his business frequently. He is certainly the kindest person I’ve met in Macedonia; just last weekend, he took me touring round to historic sites for my book. Wasn’t that sweet? We had a lovely time, too—unlike Nelson, he actually converses. On topics other than himself! And expresses interest. In me! And my ideas! He’s cultivated and gentlemanly and charming. Not precisely handsome but terribly attractive, with dark eyes and hair and a smile that made me feel faint the first time I saw it. There’s something electric about him, something slightly mysterious and very, very alluring—oh dear, I’m making him sound like the desert sheik, and that’s not it at all.
I don’t want you to get the idea that I’ve lost my heart indiscriminately. Just as Miss Telt advised us lo these many years ago, I have not submitted my affections to the buffets of superficial attraction but have withheld my esteem for that one who will prove himself worthy of my virtue(!), a friend to the downtrodden and model of humility to the great, a consolation in adversity and a companion in joy, upon whose bosom I might lay my perplexities both great and small. Darling Miss Telt! Do you think she ever met an actual man?
I know, I know, I’m being flippant, but I’ll admit—to you alone—that I am a little taken with Mr. Felix Romeyn. I wasn’t expecting anyone like him in Macedonia, West Virginia, which shows, I suppose, how small-minded I am. I was expecting, not lascivious turnip farmers, exactly, but something close. Bumpkins, anyway. Instead, I’ve found a small town that looks like any small town, with wide streets, old elms, white houses, and a tattered, dead-quiet town square—all seething with white-hot passion and Greek tragedy. You would faint dead away if I told you about the first Baptist minister in these parts, a saga that includes two seductions, an empty coffin, and a snake! I’ll send you a copy when I’ve finished writing it up, but you must be sure to keep it hidden from your mother and Margaret. They’re too young for such shocking fare.
I must run, darling. It’s time for supper, and I have to put my dress back on. I remembered!
Love,
Layla
June 27, 1938
Dear Layla,
WPA is glad to reimburse: sending newspaper (under separate cover) to stuff in shoe.
Ben
The twenty-two pleasant churches that today grace the streets of Macedonia betray no hint of the religious turmoil that roiled the town in the late 1820s and early 1830s, during the tenure of Reverend Caymuth Goodacre. The tribulations began in 1828, when young Reverend Goodacre arrived in town to establish a Baptist ministry, accompanied by his sister, a mute, who acted as his housekeeper. Goodacre’s rhetorical and spiritual vigor were much admired and drew many converts to his faith, but his earthly attributes evidently aroused the attention of Macedonia’s womenfolk. The favor of his presence at dinner was hotly contested, and one parishioner, Mrs. Elizabeth Shanholtzer, wrote to her cousin Glorvina that the reverend was “the most wonderfull of God’s Works.” Whatever the source of his appeal, it seems clear that by the spring of 1829, Goodacre was enjoying a successful mission: out of a total population of 785, approximately 390 souls had been confirmed in his church, proving their faith with baptism in the icy waters of the False River.
But Goodacre’s triumph proved fleeting, and it was none other than the admiring Mrs. Shanholtzer who was the rock upon which his ministry foundered. In late 1829, this lady disappeared from her home, leaving a letter announcing to her husband that she had found her “Soul’s true Helpmeet” and had decided to “travel by his Side in Life.” On March 21, 1830, Reverend Goodacre comforted the bereft Mr. Shanholtzer with a sermon on the subject of female perfidy.
In October of 1830, another young woman from Goodacre’s congregation—her name is unrecorded—disappeared during a stormy afternoon. Though her corpse was not found, she was presumed to be a victim of a rapidly rising river, and her empty coffin was the first to be buried in the cemetery behind the newly built Baptist church (N. Mentor St. at Sattlebarge Ln.). Goodacre’s eulogy on this occasion was said to be stirring.
Imagine the surprise of the congregation when, in late October, as Reverend Goodacre intoned the Declaration of Faith, the church door opened and Mrs. Shanholtzer herself stalked down the aisle, a baby at her breast, shrieking accusations as she approached the reverend: He was the helpmeet! He had spirited her away to a secret hiding place, where he fed her with promises of undying love, only to betray her, after she had borne his child, by announcing that he was tired of her and sugges
ting that she return to her husband.
The quick-thinking Reverend Goodacre was more than a match for Mrs. Shanholtzer, whose hysterical denunciations he dismissed as the ravings of a madwoman. Deploying the rhetorical force that had always served him so well, he prayed for her swift recovery from the foul hallucination that he had been her seducer and begged the Lord to reveal the identity of the true villain.
After a volley of prayer that lasted over two hours, Goodacre claimed to get his answer. Mrs. Shanholtzer had been led astray by one Jervis Offut, a middle-aged bachelor about whom little has been preserved, except for the salient fact that he was a Presbyterian deacon. Goodacre’s silver tongue ensured that this accusation was quickly adopted as truth, and a detachment of burly Baptists was dispatched to bring Mr. Offut to justice.
Mr. Offut unwisely took to his heels at their approach, which confirmed his guilt in the public mind. According to The Tattle-Tale, an early Macedonia broadside, Mr. Offut was finally captured in the tannery and brought not before the courts but before the pulpit of the Baptist church, where he met his accuser face-to-face on November 3, 1830.
Reverend Goodacre shook the very rafters with his rage as he charged Mr. Offut with seduction, adultery, and fornication, and called upon the constable, a Mr. Sayle, handily present, to arrest him. Goodacre’s fiery speech brought the congregation, now swelled to twice the usual number, to its feet, crying for more immediate vengeance. Mr. Offut would have been tarred and feathered within the hour had it not been for an unlikely intervention. At the peak of the frenzy, mute Miss Goodacre stepped forward to place herself between Mr. Offut and his foes. Disconcerted, the vigilantes drew back and looked to the reverend for guidance. But he, too, appeared shaken by the sight of his sister, and when Miss Goodacre put a letter in the hands of the constable, the reverend grew pale. As well he might, for the letter provided evidence that Mrs. Shanholtzer had spoken truth and moreover offered to take Constable Sayle and any other interested parties to the reverend’s new retreat, where his second mistress, the supposed victim of the storm, would be discovered.
Thus it was that Goodacre found himself in short order receiving the very punishment he had called down upon Mr. Offut. Constable Sayle—assisted, one hopes, by the outraged Mrs. Shanholtzer—clapped Goodacre behind bars in the Macedonia jail, where he languished, with no recorded repentance, for two weeks, before he was transported to Richmond to stand before the Court of Virginia the following spring.
A grateful Jervis Offut quickly married Miss Goodacre, and the pair lived to a ripe old age. Their later lives were, alas, touched by tragedy: Their only son died at the age of fourteen from the bite of a copperhead, which Mrs. Offut insisted was an incarnation of her brother.
Word of the reverend’s infamy spread like wildfire through the region. Churches of various denominations saw clearly that Macedonia was a fertile ground for spiritual sowing, and within weeks, Methodist circuit preachers, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and legitimate Baptists descended through the mountain passes to fill the religious void.
Miss Betts glanced over the rim of the paper at Layla, who sat at a table, leafing through a collection of clippings on the American Everlasting Hosiery Company. Miss Betts pushed back her chair and clicked across the library floor.
“Well?” asked Layla, at once eager and anxious.
Miss Betts smiled. “Miss Beck, I don’t believe I’ve ever read a more interesting account of Goodacre’s ministry.” Layla blushed with pleasure. “But,” Miss Betts continued, her mouth wary, “your claims are…provocative. There is another side of the story, of course, and many Macedonians will object to finding that this is to be the official version.”
Layla frowned. “What other side of the story?”
“Well.” Miss Betts drew out a chair and sat, smoothing her neat skirt. “There are some who believe that Goodacre was, well—wronged.”
“Wronged?” repeated Layla.
“That Mrs. Shanholtzer was indeed a lunatic and her accusations were false.” Miss Betts laid her hands on the table. “And that Reverend Goodacre was innocent of wrongdoing.”
“But he was arrested!” exclaimed Layla.
Miss Betts gave Layla a sharp look. “Surely you don’t believe that imprisonment is identical to guilt?”
“No,” admitted Layla. “But Mrs. Shanholtzer—she did leave her home and come back with a baby.”
“No doubt about that.”
“And the other girl did disappear.”
“There is no record that she ever reappeared.”
“But—his own sister said he did it,” Layla protested.
“Yes. But there could be reasons a sister would say such a thing even if it were untrue. She did receive a proposal of marriage from the man she defended.”
“Jottie said that everyone in Macedonia knows about Goodacre’s philandering.”
Miss Betts nodded. “True. And most of them enjoy the story a great deal. However, the Baptists—understandably—deny it, and there are a number of others who dismiss the tale as lurid sensationalism.”
Who? Who dismisses it? Layla thought resentfully. Dullards. People who want everything to be as bland and boring as possible. People like Parker Davies. She looked up at the shaft of dusty sunlight that flowed from the windows above her and thought, I don’t care. I’m not going to change it. If I change it, it’ll be ruined. It’ll be dull, and no one wants a dull history. He probably did it, too, the goat. And nobody knows for sure. Why shouldn’t I choose the version I think is the most interesting? “I think,” she said to Miss Betts, “that if history were defined as only those stories that could be absolutely verified, we’d have no history at all.”
“My.” Miss Betts slid back in her chair, seemingly nonplussed by this resistance to judiciousness. After a moment, she said, “Perhaps you are right. But—be prepared.” Her eyes strayed to the yellowing scraps of newspaper on the table. “Are you finding what you need here?”
“I don’t really need anything special, I guess,” said Layla. “I’ve got an interview with Mr. Shank next Thursday, so I’m studying up on American Everlasting.” She pointed to a clipping. “I had no idea that Mr. Romeyn was the first president of the company.”
“There have been two presidents. Mr. Shank is the second.”
“So he must have known Mr. Romeyn.”
“Oh, of course. Mr. Shank was a sort of protégé of Mr. Romeyn’s.”
“I see. I wonder why Jottie didn’t say she knew him? I had her go over my list, you see—the list of interviews I’m to do—for introductions, you know? She must know Mr. Shank, but she didn’t mark him.”
Miss Betts inhaled and her glasses slipped down her nose. “An introduction from Jottie would not be likely to endear you to Mr. Shank.”
“Whyever not?” Layla asked, surprised.
“Mr. Romeyn was…much beloved. Mr. Shank tends to suffer from comparisons.”
Layla chuckled. “Very diplomatic, Miss Betts.” She paused. “Tell me about Mr. Romeyn.”
“He was a very kind man. Very benevolent,” Miss Betts said. “Generous to a fault. His employees worshipped him.”
Layla smiled politely. Miss Betts’s description was insipid: A benevolent man was anything and nothing. An empty coat. Not like Jottie’s Goodacre. Not like the Joe Dolly that Felix had summoned up. She tried again. “Do you remember him yourself?”
“Me?” said Miss Betts, startled out of grammar.
“Yes. Did you know him?”
“Well. Yes. I suppose I did.” Miss Betts pushed her glasses up her nose. “My father—Anderson Betts was his name—had the greatest admiration for Mr. Romeyn. My father ran a funeral parlor, and Mr. Romeyn on several occasions paid the funeral expenses for workers whose families couldn’t afford them. It was very generous of him.” Miss Betts gazed into the dusty sunlight. “And, too, I remember a time he came to our home—above the parlor. He gave me a penny for candy.” She smiled with long-ago pleasure. “I treasured i
t for weeks before I spent it. Because Mr. Romeyn had given it to me.”
“He came for a worker’s funeral?” Layla asked. No wonder they liked him.
Miss Betts’s smile faded. “No. No. He came because one night Felix and—and a friend of his slipped into the funeral parlor, climbed into two satin-lined coffins, and fell asleep. My mother found them the next morning and was quite…undone by the sight.” Layla laughed, and, after a moment, Miss Betts managed a weak smile. “I suppose it is funny. My mother did not find any humor in it.”
“I can see why she wouldn’t,” giggled Layla. “Did she think they were dead?”
“Yes,” said Miss Betts. She looked down at the papers in her hand. “And there in a nutshell is the problem of history, Miss Beck. Two boys sleeping in coffins. To you—and to Felix, I suppose—it’s an entertaining episode. To my mother, it was an outrage. To me, it was held up as an example of youthful depravity, and I considered it a very grave offense. I have never, until this moment, found it amusing. Which proves my point with regard to Goodacre. All of us see a story according to our own lights. None of us is capable of objectivity. You must beware your sources.”
Layla frowned. “If none of us can be objective, then the problem is intractable, and all history is suspect.”
Miss Betts regarded her carefully. “You are a very astute young woman,” she said. “But consider: Perhaps it is only the claim of objectivity that is suspect. In that case, the question becomes what do you want The History of Macedonia to be?”
“Me?” said Layla. “Why, I have no stake in the matter. There’s nothing particular I want it to be.” The moment the words left her mouth, she realized they were false. She wanted The History of Macedonia to spurn the dull and to amuse the witty, to advance the Romeyns and to trounce the Parker Davieses, and to announce that she, Layla Beck, had perceived all that they had been blind to.
The Truth According to Us Page 18
