Peter Taylor

by Peter Taylor

  “I’m Ellen Louise Watkins,” the tiny lady said. “I believe you’re Miss Bean, from Thornton.”

  Miss Patty gave a formal little bow—a Watkins from Brownsville, a daughter of the late Judge Davy Watkins. They were kin to the Crocketts. Davy Crockett’s blood had come to this end: a whispering old maid in a Pullman car.

  “How is your aunt this morning?” Miss Ellen whispered, leaning forward.

  But Miss Patty had turned her back. She put her head and shoulders inside the curtains of her berth, and as Miss Ellen waited for an answer, all to be seen of Miss Patty was the dark watered silk of her dressing gown, drawn tightly about her narrow hips and falling straight to a hemline just above her very white and very thin and bony ankles.

  When Miss Patty pushed herself into the aisle again and faced Miss Ellen, she held, thrown over her arms, a navy-blue dress, various white and pink particulars of underwear, and a pair of extremely long and rumpled silk stockings, and in her hands she had bunched together her black pumps, an ivory comb and brush, and other articles she would need in the dressing room. The train began to move as she spoke. “I believe,” she said, as though she were taking an oath, “that there has been no change in my aunt’s condition during the night.”

  Miss Ellen nodded. The display of clothing over Miss Patty’s arms brought a smile to her lips, and she was plainly making an effort to keep her eyes off the clothing and on Miss Patty’s face. This uninhibited and even unladylike display reminded her of what she had always heard about the Bean family at Thornton. They were eccentric people, and bigoted. But quickly she reproached herself for retaining such gossip in her mind. Some of the Beans used to be in politics, and unfair things are always said about people in public life. Further, Miss Ellen reminded herself, the first instant she had set eyes on Miss Patty, she had known the sort of person she was. Even if the porter had not been able to tell her the name, she could almost have guessed it. She knew how Miss Patty would look when she had got into those garments—as though she had dressed in the dark and were proud of it. And there would be a hat—a sort of brown fedora—that she would pull on at the last minute before she got off the train. She had known many a Miss Patty Bean in her time, and their gruffness and their mannish ways didn’t frighten her. Indeed, she felt sorry for such women. “Are you going to have breakfast in the diner?” she asked.

  “I am,” Miss Patty replied.

  “Then I’ll save you a seat. I’ll go ahead and get a table. There’s not too much time, Miss Bean.”

  “As you will, Miss Watkins.” Miss Patty turned toward the narrow passage that led to the ladies’ dressing room. Suddenly she stopped and backed into Miss Ellen’s section. She was making way for the conductor and a passenger who had evidently come aboard at Grand Junction. A porter followed, carrying a large piece of airplane luggage. The Pullman conductor came first, and the passenger, a lady, was addressing him over his shoulder. “But why could not they stop the Pullman at the platform, instead of the coaches?” It was a remarkably loud voice, and it paused after every word, obviously trying for a humorous effect.

  The conductor was smiling grimly. “Here you are, ma’am,” he said. “You can sit here till I find space for you—if this lady don’t mind. She has the whole section.” He indicated Miss Ellen’s section and continued down the aisle, followed by the porter, without once looking back.

  “But suppose she does mind?” the new passenger called after him, and she laughed heartily. Some of the other passengers looked up briefly and smiled. The lady turned to Miss Patty, who was still there holding her possessions. “Do you mind?” And then, “Why, Patty Bean! How very nice!”

  “It is not my section.” Miss Patty thrust herself into the aisle, “It is not my section, Cornelia.”

  “Then it must be— Why, will wonders never cease? Ellen Louise Watkins!”

  Miss Ellen and Miss Patty exchanged surprised glances. “Why, of course you shall sit here with me,” Miss Ellen said. “How good to see you, Cornelia!”

  Cornelia Weatherby Werner had already seated herself, facing Miss Ellen. She was a large woman in all her dimensions, but a good-looking woman still. She wore a smart three-cornered hat, which drew attention to her handsome profile, and a cloth coat trimmed with Persian lamb. “I declare it’s like old times,” she said breathlessly. “Riding the Southern from Grand Junction to Memphis and seeing everybody you know! Nowadays it’s mostly that sort you see on the Southern.” She gestured openly toward the other passengers. “I’ll bet you two have been gadding off to Washington. Are you traveling together?”

  Miss Ellen and Miss Patty shook their heads.

  “Ellen and I are old schoolmates, too, Patty,” Cornelia continued. “We were at Ward’s together after I was dismissed from Belmont. By the way,” she said, smiling roguishly and digging into her purse for cigarettes, “I still have that infernal habit. It’s old-fashioned now, but I still call them my coffin nails. Which reminds me—” She hesitated, a package of cigarettes in one hand, a silver lighter in the other. “Oh, do either of you smoke? Well, not before breakfast anyhow. And not on a Pullman, even when the conductor isn’t looking, I’ll bet. I was saying it reminds me I have just been to Grand Junction to put my old mother to her last rest.” As she lit her cigarette, she watched their faces, eager for the signs of shock.

  Miss Ellen gave a sympathetic “Oh.” Miss Patty stared.

  “You mustn’t look so lugubrious,” Cornelia went on. “The old dear hadn’t spoken to me in thirty-one years—not since I got married and went to Memphis. I married a Jew, you know. You’ve both met Jake? He’s a bank examiner and a good husband. Let’s see, Patty, when was it I came down to Thornton with Jake? During the Depression sometime—but we saw Ellen only last May.”

  Miss Ellen leaned forward and stopped her, resting a tiny hand on her knee. “Cornelia, dear,” she whispered, “we’re all making sad trips these days. I’m taking Mother to Brownsville for burial. She died while we were visiting her invalid cousin at Sweetwater.”

  Cornelia said nothing. Presently she raised her eyes questioningly to Miss Patty.

  “My aged aunt,” Miss Patty said. “She is not dead. She is in the drawing room with an Irish nurse. I’m bringing her from Washington to spend her last days at Thornton, where she is greatly loved.”

  Miss Ellen looked up at Miss Patty and said, “I’m sure she is.”

  “She is,” Miss Patty affirmed. There was a civility in her tone that had not been there when she had last addressed Miss Ellen, and the two exchanged a rather long glance.

  Cornelia gazed out the window at the passing fields. Her features in repose looked tired. It was with obvious effort that she faced her two friends again. Miss Patty was still standing there, with her lips slightly parted, and Miss Ellen still rested a hand on Cornelia’s knee. Cornelia shuddered visibly. She blushed and said, “A rabbit ran over my grave, I guess.” Then she blushed again, but now she had regained her spirit. “Oh, just listen to me.” She smiled. “I’ve never said the right thing once in my life. Is there a diner? Can we get any breakfast? You used to get the best breakfast on the Southern.”

  At the word “breakfast,” Miss Patty did an about-face and disappeared down the passage to the ladies’ room. Miss Ellen seized her purse and gloves. “Of course, my dear,” she said. “Come along. We’ll all have breakfast together.”

  There were no other passengers in the diner when Cornelia and Miss Ellen went in. The steward was eating at a small table at the rear of the car. Two Negro waiters were standing by the table talking to him, but he jumped to his feet and came toward the ladies. He stopped at the third table on the right, as though all the others might be reserved, and after wiping his mouth with a large white napkin, he asked if there would be anyone else in their party.

  “Why, yes, as a matter of fact,” Miss Ellen answered politely, “there will be one other.”

  “Do you think you can squeeze one more in?” Cornelia asked, narrowing her eyes
and laughing. The steward did not reply. He helped them into chairs opposite each other and by the broad window, and darted away to get menus from his desk at the front of the car. A smiling Negro waiter set three goblets upright, filled them with water, and removed a fourth goblet and a setting of silver. “Sometime during the past thirty years,” Cornelia remarked when the waiter had gone, “conductors and stewards lost their sense of humor. It makes you thank God for porters and waiters, doesn’t it? Next thing you know— Why, merciful heavens, here’s Patty already!”

  Miss Ellen glanced over her shoulder. There was Miss Patty, looking as though she had dressed in the dark and were proud of it. She was hatless, her hair pulled into a loose knot on the back of her neck but apparently without benefit of the ivory comb and brush. The steward was leading her toward their table. Without smiling, Cornelia said, “He didn’t have to ask her if she were the other member of this party.” Miss Ellen raised her eyebrows slightly. “Most passengers don’t eat in the diner any more,” Cornelia clarified. “They feel they’re too near to Memphis to bother.” When Miss Patty sat down beside Miss Ellen, Cornelia said, “Gosh a’might, Patty, we left you only two seconds ago and here you are dressed and in your right mind. How do you do it?”

  They received their menus, and when they had ordered, Miss Patty smiled airily. “I’m always in my right mind, Cornelia, and I don’t reckon I’ve ever been ‘dressed’ in my life.” As she said “dressed,” her eyes traveled from the three-cornered hat to the brocaded bosom of Cornelia’s rust-colored dress.

  Cornelia looked out the window, silently vowing not to speak again during the meal, or, since speaking was for her the most irresistible of all life’s temptations, at least not to let herself speak sharply to either of these crotchety old maids. She sat looking out the window, thanking her stars for the great good luck of being Mrs. Jake Werner, of Memphis, instead of an embittered old maid from Grand Junction.

  Miss Ellen was also looking out the window. “Doesn’t it look bleak?” she said, referring to the brown and gray fields under an overcast sky.

  “Oh, doesn’t it!” Cornelia agreed at once, revealing that Miss Ellen had guessed her very thoughts.

  “It is bleak,” Miss Patty said. “See how it’s washed. This land along here didn’t use to look like that.” The two others nodded agreement, each remembering how it had used to look. “This used to be fine land,” she continued, “but it seems to me that all West Tennessee is washing away. Look at those gullies! And not a piece of brush piled in them.” Miss Ellen and Cornelia shook their heads vaguely; they were not really certain why there should be brush in the gullies. Cornelia discovered that a glass of tomato juice had been set before her and she began pouring salt into it. Miss Ellen was eating her oatmeal. Miss Patty took a sip from her first cup of coffee. She had specified that it be brought in a cup instead of a pot. It was black and a little cool, the way she liked it. She peered out the window again and pursued her discourse warmly. “And the towns! Look! We’re going through Moscow. It’s a shambles. Why, half the square’s been torn away, and the rest ought to be. Mind you, we went through La Grange without even noticing it. They used to be good towns, fine towns.”

  “Lovely towns!” responded Miss Ellen. The thought of the vanishing towns touched her.

  “There was something about them,” Cornelia said, groping. “An atmosphere, I think.”

  Miss Patty cleared her throat and defined it: “The atmosphere of a prosperous and civilized existence.”

  Miss Ellen looked bewildered, and Cornelia frowned thoughtfully and pursed her lips. Presently Cornelia said profoundly, “All the business has gone to Memphis.”

  “Yes,” Miss Patty said. “Indeed it has!”

  They were being served their main course now. Cornelia looked at her trout and said to the waiter, “It looks delicious. Did you cook this, boy?”

  “No, ma’am,” the waiter said cheerfully.

  “Well, it looks delicious. The same old Southern Railway cooking.”

  Miss Patty and Miss Ellen had scrambled eggs and ham. Miss Patty eyed hers critically. “The Southern Railway didn’t use to cook eggs this way,” she said. “And it’s no improvement.”

  Miss Ellen leaned forward and bent her neck in order to look directly up into Miss Patty’s face. “Why, now, you probably like them country style, with some white showing,” she said. “These are what my niece calls Toddle House style. They cook them with milk, of course. They’re a little like an omelet.” The subject held great interest for her, and she was happy to be able to inform Miss Patty. “And you don’t break them into such a hot pan. You don’t really break them in the pan, that is.” Miss Patty was reaching across Miss Ellen’s plate for the pepper. Miss Ellen said no more about the eggs. She busied herself with a small silver box of saccharin, prying the lid open with her fingernail. She saw Cornelia looking at the box and said, “It was my grandmother’s snuffbox. For years it was just a keepsake, but now I carry my tablets in it.”

  The old box, which Miss Patty was now examining admiringly, somehow made Cornelia return to the subject they had left off. “In my grandmother’s day, there was a lot of life in this section—entertainment and social life. My own mother used to say, ‘In Mama’s day, there were people in the country; in my day, there were people in town; now there’s nobody.’ ”

  Miss Patty gazed at Cornelia with astonishment. “Your mother was a very wise woman, Cornelia,” she said.

  “That’s a moot question,” Cornelia answered. Now they were on a subject that she was sure she knew something about, and she threw caution to the wind. She spoke excitedly and seemed to begin every sentence without knowing how it would end. “My mother is dead now, and I don’t mean to ever say another word against her, but just because she is dead, I don’t intend to start deceiving myself. The fact remains that she was opinionated and narrow and mentally cruel to her children and her husband and was tied to things that were over and done with before she was born. She’s dead now, but I shall make no pretense of mourning someone I did not love. We don’t mourn people we don’t love. It’s not honest.”

  “No, we don’t, do we?” Miss Ellen said sympathetically.

  “I beg to differ with you,” Miss Patty said with the merest suggestion of a smile. She, too, felt on firm ground. She had already mourned the deaths of all her immediate family and of most of her near kin. She addressed her remarks to Miss Ellen. “Mourning is an obligation. We only mourn those with whom we have some real connection, people who have represented something important and fundamental in our lives.”

  Miss Ellen was determined to find agreement. “Of course, of course—you are speaking of wearing black.”

  “I am not speaking of the symbol. I am speaking of the mourning itself. I shall mourn the loss of my aunt when she goes, because she is my aunt, because she is the last of my aunts, and particularly because she is an aunt who has maintained a worthwhile position in the world.”

  Miss Ellen gasped. “Oh, no, Miss Bean! Not because of her position in the world!”

  “Don’t mistake me, Miss Watkins.”

  “I beg you to reconsider. Why, why—” She fumbled, and Miss Patty waited. “Now that Mother’s gone, I’ve lost nearly everybody, and it has always been my part and my privilege to look after the sick in our family. My two older brothers never married; they were quiet, simple, home-loving men, who made little stir in the world, content to live there in the house with Mother and Nora and me after Father was gone. And Nora, my only sister, developed melancholia. One morning, she could just not finish lacing her high shoes, and after that she seldom left the house or saw anybody. What I want to say is that we also had a younger brother, who was a distinguished professor at Knoxville, with four beautiful children. You see, I’ve lost them all, one by one, and it’s been no different whether they were distinguished or not. I can’t conceive—” She stopped suddenly, in real confusion.

  “Don’t mistake me,” Miss Patty said calmly. �
��I am speaking of my aunt’s moral position in the world.”

  “Why, of course you are,” said Miss Ellen, still out of breath.

  “My aunt has been an indomitable character,” Miss Patty continued. “Her husband died during his first term in Congress, forty years ago, and she has felt it her duty to remain in Washington ever since. With very slight means, she has maintained herself there in the right manner through all the years, returning to Thornton every summer, enduring the heat and the inconvenience, with no definite place of abode, visiting the kin, subjecting herself to the role of the indigent relation, so that she could afford to return to Washington in the fall. Her passing will be a loss to us all, for through her wit and charm she was an influence on Capitol Hill. In a sense, she represented our district in Washington as none of our elected officials has done since the days of”—bowing her head deferentially toward Miss Ellen—“of David Crockett.”

  “What a marvelous woman!” exclaimed Miss Ellen.

  Cornelia looked at Miss Ellen to see whether she meant Miss Patty’s aunt or Miss Patty. She had been marveling privately at Miss Patty’s flow of speech, and reflected that she could already see it in print in the county paper’s obituary column. “If my mother had been a person of such wit and charm,” she said, “I would mourn her, too.”

  “I never knew your mother,” Miss Patty replied, “but from what you say I can easily guess the sort of woman she was. I would mourn her passing if I were in your shoes, Cornelia. She wanted to retain the standards of a past era, a better era for all of us. A person can’t do that and be a pleasant, charming personality and the darling of a family.”