The Mirk and Midnight Hour

by Jane Nickerson

  “You catch that girl, Jubal?” Miss Ruby Jewel screeched from inside.

  “He caught me,” I said, entering the room, which was close with tobacco smoke, humidity, the stench of the old woman and her many cats, and a crowded jumble of musty, dusty furniture, knickknacks, and odds and ends. Jubal tried to tidy up, but it was more than one tired old man could possibly triumph over. I had forgotten to take a lungful of clean air while I still could. From the smell there might even be a dead kitten among the drifts.

  A mottled tom sidled up. Some skin disease left his fur patchy, with splotched bits of flesh between. I twitched my gown away. The beast somehow managed to get under my skirt, and I shuddered as he purred loudly and rubbed against my legs. I shooed him out and gave him a subtle little nudge to send him on his way. Another feline leaped down from the mantel, and in the corner of my eye slinky shadows crept constantly, making the room seethe. All cats in the world were beloved by me except Miss Ruby Jewel’s. These made my skin crawl.

  Miss Ruby Jewel took a puff of her pipe and said in a voice like twigs scraping against a glass pane, “Make room for yourself on that there settee.” Huddled and sunken into a low chair wreathed by bluish smoke, she resembled a bag of bones in her rusty black dress. The old lady’s back was humped, her hands twisted with arthritis, and her legs too short to reach the floor. With her miniature stature Miss Ruby Jewel looked like a very ugly doll. The sort of doll to give a little girl nightmares.

  Hesitantly I shoved aside clothing and papers to carve out a place to sit.

  “Been losing weight, ain’t you?” Miss Ruby Jewel commented while my back was turned. “Your hiney don’t spread out wide like it used to. You still favor your daddy’s cousin Winnie, though. The one who come out here to settle her own place and ended up marrying a Choctaw Indian and living in a tepee behind his saloon.”

  Why was it that whenever people said I resembled anyone, it was always someone I didn’t want to resemble?

  I perched gingerly at the edge of the sofa. “How are you, Miss Ruby Jewel?” A stream of perspiration trickled down my back.

  “Tolerable,” she said. “Just tolerable. Jubal! You, Jubal! Fetch this young lady a cold drink right quick and grab me up some gingersnaps.”

  The old man sighed and shook his head. “Now, Miss Ruby Jewel, ma’am, you know Dr. Hale doesn’t want you eating sweeties. They make you sick. He says one of these days they’ll be the death of you.”

  “But what a way to go, eh? Hale’s an old fusspot. Now, no more impudence, you, Jubal. Take your raggedy black tail out of here and bring back what I done told you. Lots of them. Lots of gingersnaps.”

  “Yes’m.” Jubal shuffled from the room.

  “Now,” the old woman said, “I ain’t talked to you in a month of Sundays, but I did want to tell you I was right sorry to hear about your brother. He wasn’t a bad young’un.”

  I thanked her and looked down at my hands, wriggled, and removed from beneath me a brass swan. It had been lodged between the sofa cushions, with its beak digging into my less-spread-out posterior. Then, because I didn’t want her to say anything more about Rush, I asked, “Ma’am, how long has Mr. Jubal been with you? Years and years, isn’t it?”

  “ ‘Mister,’ is it?” Her beady black eyes sparkled. “Don’t let him hear you call him that. Don’t need to give that one no more uppity ideas. Yep, he sure ’nough has been with me nigh sixty years.”

  “And how did he come to you?”

  She gave a screech of laughter so sudden and shrill that I jumped. “You been conjecturing on that forever, ain’t you? You been pondering how someone like Ruby Jewel Clewett come to own a fancy-pants Negro like Jubal. Well, I guess ’twon’t hurt none to satisfy your curiosity, even though curiosity done killed the cat. Didn’t it, my precious?” She nuzzled the neck of the mangy marmalade feline that had leaped momentarily on the arm of her chair. With her head nodding she looked more than ever like a grotesque doll—this time the kind that wags its head on a spring. “It happened like this: back when I was a beautiful young gal—ho-ho, I see your eyes pop. You don’t believe I could ever have been pretty, do you?” She cackled again. “Well, you’re right. I done told you a story. I always been so homely I’d run a dog off a meat wagon and that’s a fact, but Billy Dean liked me well enough when I married him at the ripe old age of thirteen. At the time he was already older than the mountains and had twice as many skunks.

  “Anyways, we’d been together a year or two and Billy Dean went to work on one of them riverboats. One day he come home leading a strapping young buck of a Jubal. My old man says, ‘You come up in the world, girl. I brung you a Negro of your very own.’ He won him with the cards off some highfalutin Virginian.” She reached for a fuzzy horehound drop that was stuck to the table beside her but couldn’t pull it free. I was wondering if I should offer to pry it loose, but she shrugged and continued, “Later the gentleman brought a passel of money and begged my old man to take it instead—way more’n Jubal was worth—but my old man says, no, he’d always wanted to own property and Jubal suited him just fine.”

  “Well, I did wonder. You never had any children, did you?” I said this last hopefully. The image of young Miss Ruby Jewels popping up everywhere like toadstools was a terrifying one.

  “Shoot, no. Billy Dean stayed gone most of the rest of his years, and even when he come home, the fat old coot didn’t hardly bestir hisself to put me in the family way. But I never cared none for chillen underfoot noways. Liked my kitties better. Jubal done always took care of me. When I needed more money than my old man sent—never did know what would come or when—I’d hire Jubal out. He been with me through thick and thin.” She paused and puffed again on her pipe long enough to make me think she’d forgotten I was there. Then her lips stretched into an evil grin, showing black gums. “When I was younger, I used to think I’d have my way with Jubal, and I’ll be bound both Billy Dean and yonder old cotton head was afeared of that too, but I never did, and now it’s too late. Or is it? What you think, sugar? You think we still got what it takes?”

  Such a foul old woman. I carefully smoothed out my skirt as if I hadn’t heard. “What did you want to talk to me about, ma’am? I need to be getting home.”

  She gave a ghastly, exaggerated pout. “Oh, all right. Be that way. I won’t make you answer that question if you’ll answer my others.”

  Jubal entered, his trembling hands bearing a tray of clinking, chipped glasses, a pitcher of a grayish-looking liquid with slices of shriveled lemon agitating madly in it, and a plate of gingersnaps.

  “You be careful, you, Jubal,” Miss Ruby Jewel snapped. “That’s my good crystal you’re fixing to drop, shaking like a dad gum earthquake.”

  “I’ll be careful, ma’am.” Slowly Jubal offered me a glass, and because he had poured it with such effort, I would drink it if it killed me.

  Miss Ruby Jewel guzzled hers down, dribbling all over the front of her dress. Jubal, who had been standing to the side, unfurled a napkin and patiently dabbed at her chin and the stringy cords of her neck.

  The old woman clutched at his wrist. “Take notice, you, girl, how this feller can’t hardly keep his hands off my bosom.” She cocked an eyebrow at her manservant. “What you think, Mister Jubal, sugar? You believe it’s too late for a charming little illicit romance between the two of us? Some scrumptious smacking behind closed doors?”

  Jubal shook his head, and his lips twitched in an odd way. He said firmly, “Don’t you talk that way in front of Miss Violet, ma’am. You know it’s not fitting.”

  I quickly swallowed the rest of my lemonade so Jubal could escape with the dishes. What had his life been like, day in and day out, for sixty years with the old witch? Did he lie awake at night plotting revenge?

  Miss Ruby Jewel grinned. “Shoot, be that way, then. I reckon we both just gonna have to keep on pining for what might’ve been.”

  To my surprise, the twitching lips slowly turned into a smile, and Jubal gave a rust
y chuckle as he shuffled out the door. “You’re a caution, Miss Ruby Jewel. That’s what you are. A caution.”

  The old lady grinned at Jubal’s back before her shrewd little eyes burrowed into me. “Now,” she said, “what I want to know is who’s the young gentleman come recently to your place?”

  An easy question, thank goodness. “The very young gentleman is my cousin Seeley Rushton. The older one is my cousin Dorian. He’s visited us before, years ago, back when Seeley was born. You hollered at us once for losing our ball in your hydrangeas.” Rush and I had been so petrified by Miss Ruby Jewel that we couldn’t move, but Dorian had thrown back his head and laughed, made a sweeping bow, and retrieved the ball. I had been awestruck by his courage.

  “Yup, I do recall. From up Richmond way, wasn’t he?” She tamped out her pipe.

  I nodded.

  “He’s the one had the disappointment—thought he’d be his uncle’s heir, and then along come a surprise?”

  I stared, mystified for a moment, before realizing her implications. “Oh! You mean Seeley being born. It really didn’t alter anything for Dorian. He was only sixteen then, so I don’t guess he’d thought much about the future. For one thing, my aunt and uncle weren’t that old.”

  “Oh, they was old enough no one thought they’d have young’uns of their own. I know. My friend Sissy Hinds lives yonder that way and she done told me all about it.”

  “Not that much changed for Dorian.” I resented her making me speak about my family’s private affairs, but I couldn’t leave her insinuations unanswered. “My aunt and uncle loved him and raised him as their son since he was a baby. He thinks of himself as Seeley’s brother.”

  “If he really was the older brother, he’d inherit.”

  “Oh, he’s busy making money on his own, and he knows he’ll always have a home at Panola. Till the war he managed the place. He’s fine.”

  “I reckon he’s been managing things all right.” She gave me a sly, sidelong look. “You fixing to set your cap for that fellow? Cousins right often marry each other in these parts, you know.”

  I drew in my breath. “Certainly not.”

  Her lips stretched placidly. “He wouldn’t care for your type noways, not with that minx of a stepsister prancing round. Thinks all the fellers in hollering distance belong to her. Thinks she’s better’n snuff and not half as dusty, don’t she?”

  Which Sunny did. But still. The people Miss Ruby Jewel was maligning were my people. The old woman’s mind pounced about like Goblin in the field of moths, and she wore me out with the pouncing. I fingered the reassuring bulge of my amulet and said quietly, “Sunny is a good person and I won’t listen to such things about my family.” I stood.

  She snorted. “My, aren’t we hoity-toity? Now, what’s that you’re hiding under your blouse? What you got round your neck?”

  I drew myself up stiffly and managed to squeeze out, “Good day, ma’am,” as I started for the door.

  “Don’t want to show me, eh? Well, be that way, but don’t go running off.” She turned cunning. “Stay one more minute and I’ll tell what I heard about them VanZeldts from downriver.”

  I absolutely could not help sinking down to the sofa once again. “What have you heard?”

  “Interested now, are you? Well, I’ll blab if you show me what you’re wearing. Tit for tat. A necklace, isn’t it? What kind of necklace?”

  I had to break the habit of fiddling with the amulet. Once again I rose.

  “No,” she said. “No, no, no. Sit down. I’ll tell you.” She paused, then waggled her eyebrows. “I heard tell they dance around a bonfire at dead of night in the middle of the woods. Outrageous, heathen dancing. With drums.” She realized I was unimpressed and added, “Stark naked.” A cat jumped on her lap and she stroked its lumpy, crusted tail. “With snakes. Don’t you wonder what nasty, carnal things they do with them serpents? And the good doctor prances right along with them.” She grinned with malicious glee. “You’re picturing it, ain’t you?”

  I stopped myself short because I had indeed been trying to visualize the dapper little man leaping wildly and nakedly; luckily it was far beyond my imagination. “No,” I said, “and I don’t want to. But who told you this? Who’s been skulking out in the forest at nighttime?”

  “Now, that’s something,” Miss Ruby Jewel said, shaking a crooked finger, “I’ll never reveal.”

  It really was time to leave. I jumped up, planning to race out before she could stop me again. “Thank you so much for the lemonade.”

  “Stay,” she whined. “You just got here.”

  “I really have to go,” I said, but her expression was so unhappy that I grinned and said, “I need to get busy if I’m going to ensnare Dorian.”

  She hooted. “Be that way, then, but give me some sugar first.”

  I braced myself and gingerly kissed her age-splotched cheek.

  As I came out, Jubal stood up from the cane-bottomed chair on the porch where he had been sitting, clutching a book. I tilted my head sideways to read the title.

  “Robinson Crusoe,” I said. “That’s a good one.”

  “Yes, Miss Violet, it is. Right exciting. I’ve been reading it to Miss Ruby Jewel in the afternoons before her nap. She says it gives her interesting dreams about cannibals and such.”

  Miss Ruby Jewel hollered through the open door, “Jubal’s my ‘man Friday.’ ”

  Jubal’s eyes began to twinkle and his lips began the twitching until they slowly stretched into a smile. He bobbed his head. “And I call Miss Ruby Jewel my ‘woman Friday.’ ”

  Her cackle sounded delighted.

  “Have you shared other books together?” I asked as I stepped down from the porch, with Jubal at my side.

  “Yes, indeed. Poor Miss Ruby Jewel doesn’t know her alphabet, but she relishes a good story. My former master taught me to read at the same time he was learning. I’ve probably read my mistress a hundred books through the years, and that’s not counting the serial stories from periodicals. We like the lively ones. The ones written for boys.”

  I smiled as I realized that perhaps Jubal didn’t mind working here so very much. Perhaps the two old people were friends in their own way. Folks who had been together for sixty years had to have figured out how to make their relationship work.

  I had started on down the path when Jubal cleared his throat, and I realized he was shuffling after me. I waited.

  He glanced toward the house. “Just wanted you to know ’twas me who saw the VanZeldts carrying on in the woods.” His voice was low, so I had to strain to hear. “I heard Miss Ruby Jewel telling you about it.”

  “Oh.” I nodded. “What on earth took you out there in the dark?”

  “The mistress likes her black-and-yellow mushrooms, and so do I. I go out hunting for them with a lantern in the night because these days she doesn’t like to be left alone when she’s awake. She gets lonesome and I worry about her. There’s a nice patch of mushrooms that grows near the clearing where I saw them carrying on. You don’t guess they’re cannibals, do you?” He made a sort of amiable grimace, so I knew he was making a little joke.

  I gave an exaggerated shudder. “I hope not,” I said, “for the sake of the county.”

  “I thought you might not believe Miss Ruby Jewel, seeing how she is sometimes, so I just wanted you to know she told the gospel truth about the VanZeldts.”

  “Thank you, Jubal,” I said. “Coming from you, I know it must be.”

  He nodded, satisfied, and turned to trudge back up to the house, and to share Robinson Crusoe with Miss Ruby Jewel.

  Back at Scuppernong, Michael met me before I could go inside. “Miss Violet.”

  I looked up from stroking Goblin. “Yes?”

  “I reckoned I’d best ask you before I followed Miss Elsa’s orders.”

  My stepmother so seldom bestirred herself to request anything that I was surprised. I straightened. “What does she want?”

  “Poppies. She says I’m to plant r
ows of them big poppies rig ht quick.”

  I sighed. “I wish she hadn’t asked, but I guess you’ll have to do as she says.”

  Michael nodded. “That medicine ain’t a good thing, but I know lots of folks use it.”

  “Besides, I’ve heard it’s bad if people are cut off too abruptly. There’s almost no laudanum left in town now. I will speak to her, though.”

  We looked at each other in silent, concerned understanding. These new people at Scuppernong certainly complicated life.

  That night I knocked on Miss Elsa’s bedchamber door.

  “Come in,” she called.

  A candle still burned near the bed. My stepmother lay propped against several pillows, her eyes shining, remote, but without the wistful look they held so often. Instead they were filled with a distant delight. As I neared her, I was met by a slightly sweetish odor from the open bottle on the bedside table.

  She smiled faintly and held out her hand. I took it. It was thin and hot and dry.

  “Dear Violet,” she said. “My new, darling daughter.”

  “I need—” I said, and then was unsure what to say next. What I needed was for her to be an adult. I hoped for reassurance.

  “No one needs anything,” Miss Elsa murmured. “All is perfect … if I have my pint or more a week.…” Her voice trailed off, her gaze shifted, her fingers loosened from mine, and she dropped her hand. She was asleep.

  Plantation bells no longer pealed, and neither did the chimes in church towers. Back in April, General Beauregard had called for all the bells in the South to be melted down and molded into cannon, and we answered his call. Many other changes were occurring at Scuppernong Farm.

  In these first sultry, glowing, green and golden summer days, Seeley flourished in his new life, once his shoulder was healed, like a busy, skinny weed. His thin face grew brown from forgetting his hat, his countenance became open and trusting, and his big eyes were now lively. His clothing needed constant cleaning and mending.