Darkwater

by V. J. Banis

  “We’re friendly folk, that’s for certain,” Martin Donally said. “Comes from being stuck out here in the back country.”

  “That fact also saved us from the fate that befell most of the South,” Helen said.

  Like his wife, Martin was friendly and blatantly curious. They seemed to Jennifer surprisingly inelegant for this family. Despite a certain roughness, Walter Dere had the unmistakable stamp of class and his mother was obviously aristocratic, but Martin and Susan were like simple country people—cheerful, rough and unpolished.

  “And the children?” Jennifer asked, indicating the three at the table who had been staring openly at her. “Surely they can’t be yours.”

  Susan gave an embarrassed little laugh and said, “Heavens, no, those are Walter’s children.”

  “That is to say,” Helen corrected her quickly, “the two young ones are Walter’s. This is Peter, and Mary. And this is Liza.”

  Jennifer noted that no one tried to explain whose child Liza was. She wondered if she should ask and decided not. The omission had been deliberate. An awkward little pause followed, which might have lengthened into an embarrassment had not Walter himself come into the dining room just then.

  He had not taken time to change his clothes. His suit still hung damply about him and he had the look of a harried man. Despite this, though, Jennifer could not help remarking to herself what an attractive man he was.

  In truth, at first glance, one might not necessarily think Walter Dere so attractive. He was ruggedly built, and his big powerful body lacked the sort of slim elegance that one expected in a Southern gentleman, but when he moved, he moved with surprising grace, quick and catlike, and with no wasted motion. His face was not conventionally handsome, either, the features were too florid. He had piercing eyes and thick dark hair, which the rain had made curly and which spilled over his forehead in wayward fashion. His nose was rather prominent, his lips thick nearly to the verge of grossness, and his chin square.

  He had an extraordinary magnetism, however, and an aura of strength that appealed at once to a woman. When he smiled, his mouth lost some of its cruel sensuality and his eyes softened. His voice was low and gentle and vaguely musical sounding. He was completely manly, without being crude, polished without being effeminate, the sort of man other men liked and to whom women were attracted, and it was perhaps his most endearing quality that he remained quite unaware of the impression he made on others.

  Now, he paused inside the dining room and said, without preamble, “Alicia is joining us.”

  A little shock wave of surprise rippled about the table. Helen was the first to recover and when she spoke, it was not to him but to the three youngsters.

  “Come along then, children,” she said, “You will eat in the kitchen. Hurry, now.”

  Without argument, as if they were glad to go, the three children jumped up, helping her to clear their places, and in a moment they were gone into the kitchen. Susan sprang into action, rearranging the places that remained, so that in hardly more than the blinking of an eye, it was as if the children had never been there and the table had always been set for six adults.

  Alicia is their mother, Jennifer thought, amazed that it should be necessary to spirit the children away. They were, after all, quiet and well-mannered and should not have been expected to disturb their mother, even if she were ill. Or was it merely the sight of them that disturbed her, so that they had to be removed from sight whenever she came around?

  Helen came back from the kitchen, where she had set the children at a wooden table there. And not a moment too soon, Jennifer reflected, for a moment later there was a sound in the hall and a gentle cough as someone approached the dining room.

  Walter went into the hall and Jennifer heard him say, “Why didn’t you call me? I’d have come and helped you.”

  “And have everyone laugh about how helpless I am?” A woman’s voice, high and reedy, said. “No, thank you, I’m not quite dead yet. More’s your regret, I suppose.”

  “Alicia,” Walter said in a tone of gentle reproach.

  They came into the dining room and it seemed to Jennifer that not only conversation but the passage of time itself was suspended for a moment or two. She saw the woman’s eyes, dark and glittering like those of a hawk, sweep the room until they found and fastened on her.

  No doubt Alicia Dere had been pretty at one time, and she had still a trace of hard beauty about her, but she was thin now to the point of gauntness and her features stood out sharp and harsh, so that she seemed to be without curves and all angles. Black shadows under her eyes suggested insomnia to Jennifer. She looked nearly as old as Walter’s mother.

  “Well, hello,” Alicia greeted Jennifer with a bright smile that was so artificial it was ghastly. “And you are Walter’s friend, the young woman he brought back from town with him.”

  “I am Jennifer Hale,” Jennifer replied, careful not to show that she had found the description offensive. “I came about the job.”

  “About the job?” Alicia feigned surprise. “But that is quite ridiculous. They were sending an older woman. That’s what they promised us. I insisted on an older woman.”

  Before Jennifer could speak, Walter said, “The agency made a mistake, but it was too late for Miss Hale to return tonight. She is spending the evening and will be leaving in the morning. We could hardly allow her to spend the night in the station.”

  “No, of course not,” Alicia murmured.

  Jennifer felt disappointment rising like gall in her throat. She swallowed hard. It would be all the more difficult to press her case after so definite a statement on Mr. Dere’s part, and particularly in view of Mrs. Dere’s obvious resentment of her. She must think of something to do or say—but what?

  “Shall we sit down?” Helen said, stepping into the breach.

  They took their places about the table. Jennifer noted that Helen, and not Walter, sat at the head of the table. Walter sat beside his wife, even pulling his chair closer to hers. As the meal began, with the food brought in by a vast colored woman who eyed Jennifer with blunt curiosity, Walter began to spoon feed his wife as if she were a baby. To Jennifer’s further amazement, the others apparently took this for granted.

  “Come on, now, try a little of this,” Walter coaxed, holding a spoon to Alicia’s lips. She made him wait for a few seconds before she parted her lips and reluctantly accepted a morsel of food.

  “Everyone knows that I don’t care for yams,” she said, rudely spitting the food back out.

  “What would you like, then?” Walter asked patiently.

  “I would like some of that gooseberry jelly,” she said, pointing at a green tinted jar in the center of the table. “And a biscuit.”

  Susan Donally made an effort to start conversation. “You look very young to be out on your own,” she said, looking down the table at Jennifer. “Don’t your parents worry about you?”

  Jennifer lowered her eyes and said softly, “My parents are dead. My father was killed in the war, fighting for the Confederacy. My mother had been ill for some time and the shock was too great for her. She took to her bed and never really left it.”

  “I am sorry,” Susan said, but she looked not at all sorry to have satisfied her curiosity.

  Helen said, “That is where you got your nursing experience, then?”

  “Yes, although I was trained to be a teacher, and I worked at that job until the last two years, when my mother’s health deteriorated to the point where I had no choice but to be with her constantly.”

  “A teacher?” Susan said. “That’s interesting. The children here at Darkwater could certainly use a teacher. Their education has been pretty haphazard.”

  Martin, her husband, who had been eating with gusto, said, “I suppose you taught girl children.”

  “Why, yes, I did. I taught at a private school for girls. But why do you say so?”

  “Well,” he said, grinning, “I know what boys are like. A little slip of a thing like y
ou would have a hard time keeping a bunch of rowdy boys in line, I would say.”

  Jennifer had no intention of being dragged into an argument with a man of his frame of mind, which was, she was certain, that woman was inadequate for any job outside the home. She wondered what he would think if he knew she was in sympathy with the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher and the American Woman Suffrage Association.

  Martin was going on and on about the difficulties of managing boys. Jennifer let her glance move around the table.

  Walter’s wife puzzled her. This was the invalid, and she’d had experience with invalids who were really sick. Alicia was indeed very thin and her color was terrible, a gray, claylike pallor, but she did not look sick. Certainly she had a voracious appetite, for although she still insisted that Walter spoon feed her, and picked and chose what she wanted, she was managing nonetheless to put away a healthy quantity of food.

  While Jennifer was studying the so-called invalid, Alicia, as if Jennifer’s thoughts had intruded upon her own, suddenly looked in Jennifer’s direction. She stared directly at Jennifer and the incident sent a cold chill up Jennifer’s spine. This was a woman capable of extreme malice, Jennifer thought as she lowered her eyes to her plate.

  “No,” Martin was concluding some lengthy monologue, “I think teaching is still a man’s field. Excepting, perhaps, teaching in a girl’s school. And a woman’s place is in the home.”

  Jennifer turned her luminous eyes on him and said frankly, “But that presupposes that only boys cause trouble, and that girls do not, but that is simply not the truth. Boys make a great to-do, but girls can be subtle and it sometimes takes wit to see what they are about.”

  Alicia pushed aside the spoon Walter had raised to her lips, and she seemed on the verge of saying something, but Jennifer did not notice her and went on.

  “The truth is, force alone is not the answer. A teacher must earn the student’s respect, or punishment won’t have any effect. But I should add, if corporal punishment is called for, I think myself capable of administering it.”

  “Even to a girl?” Alicia asked in that thin, wasted voice of hers.

  Jennifer was startled by that question from Alicia, who had not spoken since sitting down except to whine to Walter about her food.

  “To a boy or a girl if either needs it,” Jennifer said. “And I do think girls sometimes need it as well as boys.”

  To Jennifer’s further surprise, Alicia said, “I think Susan is right, the children here need a teacher, a woman teacher. Someone like Miss Hale.”

  The statement was as much a surprise to the others around the table as it had been to Jennifer. Certainly Alicia was the last person present that Jennifer would have expected to say anything in her favor.

  “The men we’ve hired, all they ever do is whip Peter to look like they are earning their salaries. Why is it I never heard of a girl being whipped?”

  Still no one made a comment. The people around the table stared at Alicia as if she had perhaps just blasphemed. Jennifer held her breath, fearful that anything she said might cause Alicia to turn against her as abruptly as she had sided with her.

  Alicia’s claw-like fingers suddenly gripped her husband’s wrist, causing him to spill a spoonful of jelly.

  “Say that Miss Hale can stay to teach the children,” Alicia pleaded, looking up at her husband with wide, feverish eyes. “And to be my companion,” she added in a firmer voice. She suddenly turned her gaze on Jennifer again, but this time it was a friendly look.

  “That won’t be too much work for you, will it?” she asked. “Acting as both teacher and companion?”

  “I...I don’t know, of course,” Jennifer said. “That is, I’ve no idea how much schooling the children will need, nor of how much attention you require in your...condition. But I would think I could manage it easily enough, if I am given the opportunity to try.”

  “Do say she can have the opportunity, Walter, darling,” Alicia insisted.

  Jennifer let her eyes go to Walter’s face. Just then he looked at her too, and she had an odd sensation, as if she were suddenly falling, so that she actually gripped the edge of the table to support herself. She had never felt such a reaction to a man before, not even with Johnny, whom she had certainly loved, and it frightened her and embarrassed her. She felt her face growing warm and wondered what the others would think.

  But he is married, something within her cried, and she answered herself angrily, I know that.

  “If it will make you happy, and if it pleases Miss Hale, of course she can stay,” he said, but there was no pleasure in his voice and Jennifer wondered if his thoughts were like her own.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Although it seemed to Jennifer that it was very early when she rose and came downstairs, she was surprised to discover that the family had already breakfasted and were about their chores. The children could be seen playing in the yard. The dining room was empty and in the kitchen Helen was going over the inventory of food supplies with the large black woman who had served dinner the night before.

  “I’m afraid we breakfast early,” Helen said. “We all have to do more of the work now, and that means early rising. The men are already in the fields.”

  “I must seem like a frightful laggard,” Jennifer said apologetically.

  “You had a long journey yesterday,” Helen replied. Her tone implied that while Jennifer need not apologize for sleeping late this morning, she would be expected to adopt the family’s schedule in the future. Jennifer did not mind. Usually she was an early riser herself.

  “Is Mrs. Dere still abed?” Jennifer asked. “I mean, that is, the other Mrs. Dere.”

  “We have dispensed with a great deal of formality here,” Helen said with a smile. “And I think you will find it less confusing if you did likewise. I would suggest you call me Helen. As for Alicia, I expect she will want you to call her by her first name, but you had better wait until she suggests it herself.”

  “I will. I wonder if perhaps, as Alicia—Mrs. Dere—is still sleeping, I should begin with the children this morning. What do you think?”

  “I think there’s no particular hurry. There will be plenty of time to get acquainted with the children today and you can start lessons tomorrow, if you like.”

  Jennifer started to ask something else and hesitated, not sure exactly how open she could be with the mother of her new employer. It was Helen, after all, who functioned as the mistress of the house. Despite Helen’s charm, the sort of charm natural to the old South, Jennifer could not help thinking that the older woman disapproved of Walter’s decision to hire her, her youth notwithstanding. Jennifer knew that she had been hired only because of Alicia’s mysterious support. She had the impression that Helen would have preferred to see her on her way this morning, never mind Darkwater’s tradition of hospitality.

  “I’m not sure I should ask this,” Jennifer said after a moment’s consideration, “but I’m not clear on one point and I wonder if you could help me. Am I to...that is, should I teach all three of the children or only...only Mr. Dere’s?”

  Helen stiffened visibly, as if this subject were taboo. “Liza is treated as a member of the family,” she said. “At least insofar as we can treat her. She will have her lessons with the other children.”

  “I see. Is there a schoolroom here?”

  “No, not a schoolroom exactly, but there is the library. I think that will do nicely. Perhaps you will look it over and see if you don’t agree. It’s just along the central hallway.”

  Jennifer went along the hall as directed and found the library with its book lined walls. At once she loved the room. Thanks to all those books, here more than anyplace else in the house she had a sense of belonging. She could not see a wall of books without feeling something almost sensuous stir within her. She went quickly to a shelf and studied the titles. She found Plato at once, and Marcus Aurelius, but she could see that there was a good sampling of the moderns, like Mark Twain and Henry James. It was not only
an extensive collect but an up-to-date one as well.

  Someone had been reading and had left a book open upon a table. Curious, she went to it and picked it up. It was a volume of Shakespeare’s plays, open to Macbeth. Whoever had been reading that tragedy had read it more than once, judging from the book’s well-worn condition.

  She was startled when a masculine voice behind her said, “You are a lover of Shakespeare, then?”

  She turned to find Walter Dere at the library door.

  “I am sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean to startle you. I was just coming along the hall and saw you there, with my book.”

  “Is it your book?” she said, embarrassed. She quickly returned the book to its place on the table. “I did not mean to overstep the bounds of propriety.”

  “Be assured you did not, and please, make use of any book here. I treasure them, but even more do I treasure sharing them with a fellow book lover.”

  She felt a bond established between them. Two people who loved good books and fine literature and who were surrounded by Philistines.

  “I would not have guessed you for a man who cherished books, and certainly not Shakespeare.”

  “Odd, I would have said no one could love books without feeling something special for Shakespeare. Did you teach him in that school you were employed at—the one with all the wily girls?”

  “Some. When I could keep their attention on him long enough.”

  He remained standing half in half out the door, so that he would be visible to anyone passing in the hall, while she was across the entire room from him. Even so, Jennifer was aware of a certain impropriety in this lengthy interview alone with him. But if he was aware, he gave no sign of it.

  “Then you must understand him pretty well,” he said.

  “Pretty well, I think.”

  “Good. There are some points I’ve often wondered about. Perhaps we can talk about them sometimes and you can help me clear up my thinking.”

  She doubted that his thinking was ever anything but clear. Her little warning voice was telling her that this conversation had gone on long enough now and that she ought to excuse herself before someone saw them and got the wrong impression.