The Richer, the Poorer

by Dorothy West

  When she was through upstairs, she was shocked to see how dismal downstairs looked by comparison. She tried to ignore it, but with nowhere to go to escape it, the contrast grew more intolerable.

  She worked her way from kitchen to parlor, persuading herself she was only putting the rooms to rights to give herself something to do. At night she slept like a child after a long and happy day of playing house. She was having more fun than she had ever had in her life. She was living each hour for itself.

  There was only a day now before Bess would arrive. Passing her gleaming mirrors, at first with vague awareness, then with painful clarity, Lottie saw herself as others saw her, and could not stand the sight.

  She went on a spending spree from the specialty shops to beauty salon, emerging transformed into a woman who believed in miracles.

  She was in the kitchen basting a turkey when Bess rang the bell. Her heart raced, and she wondered if the heat from the oven was responsible.

  She went to the door, and Bess stood before her. Stiffly she suffered Bess’s embrace, her heart racing harder, her eyes suddenly smarting from the onrush of cold air.

  “Oh, Lottie, it’s good to see you,” Bess said, but saying nothing about Lottie’s splendid appearance. Upstairs Bess, putting down her shabby suitcase, said, “I’ll sleep like a rock tonight,” without a word of praise for her lovely room. At the lavish table, top-heavy with turkey, Bess said, “I’ll take light and dark, both,” with no marveling at the size of the bird, or that there was turkey for two elderly women, one of them too poor to buy her own bread.

  With the glow of good food in her stomach, Bess began to spin stones. They were rich with places and people, most of them lowly, all of them magnificent. Her face reflected her telling, the joys and sorrows of her remembering, and above all, the love she lived by that enhanced the poorest place, the humblest person.

  Then it was that Lottie knew why Bess had made no mention of her finery, or the shining room, or the twelve-pound turkey. She had not even seen them. Tomorrow she would see the room as it really looked, and Lottie as she really looked, and the warmed-over turkey in its second-day glory. Tonight she saw only what she had come seeking, a place in her sister’s home and heart.

  She said, “That’s enough about me. How have the years used you?”

  “It was me who didn’t use them,” said Lottie wistfully. “I saved for them. I saved for them. I forgot the best of them would go without my ever spending a day or a dollar enjoying them. That’s my life story in those few words, a life never lived.

  “Now it’s too near the end to try.”

  Bess said, “To know how much there is to know is the beginning of learning to live. Don’t count the years that are left us. At our time of life it’s the days that count. You’ve too much catching up to do to waste a minute of a waking hour feeling sorry for yourself.”

  Lottie grinned, a real wide-open grin, “Well to tell the truth, I felt sorry for you. Maybe if I had any sense I’d feel sorry for myself, after all. I know I’m too old to kick up my heels, but I’m going to let you show me how. If I land on my head, I guess it won’t matter; I feel giddy already, and I like it.”

  FUNERAL

  Judy could not feel her mother. Nowhere in the wide expanse of bed was her large, warm body. And Judy dared not peer under the bed to see if some desperado had killed and concealed her. Tremors ran up and down her small body. Her hands grew hot and damp, and her feet quite cold and clammy. She wanted to scream for one of the aunts, but could not.

  Someone was creaking up the stairs. It was probably the desperado come back to finish her off. She shut her eyes tightly and tried to think of Jesus.

  The blackness was suddenly thinned with silver. A drawer opened and shut. She heard her mother’s unmistakable sniff and opened her eyes.

  “You go back to sleep,” said the mother.

  But Judy sat up and stared solemnly. “You’re crying.”

  “You go back to sleep,” said the mother.

  There was movement in the aunts’ room. Judy could hear her father blowing his nose. A terrible fear wrenched her heart.

  “Mums, Mums, is my kitty dead?”

  The mother laughed sharply and bitterly. “The hospital phoned. Poor Uncle Eben has passed away.”

  Judy lay back on her pillow. “Has he gone somewhere?” she asked doubtfully.

  “He’s gone home to God,” said the mother with conviction.

  Judy closed her eyes to shut out the comic image of an angelic Uncle Eben. When she opened them again it was day and time to get up for school.

  She dressed leisurely. She had the realization that it did not matter whether she was late for school. She thought, “There is death in my family,” and was proud.

  She would go and say good morning to the aunts. The frail spinster sisters of her father adored her, and she liked to be petted. She always let a lock of hair hang over one eye, so that the favorite aunt might brush it away with a caressing hand and kiss her forehead.

  The aunts sat silently by their coal fire. They were dressed in black. Their plain, dark faces were gaunt. Their hands were not steady in their laps.

  Judy felt chilled and distressed. She went awkwardly to the favorite aunt and leaned against her knee. But the somber face was alien, and the unquiet hands did not flutter to her hair.

  The elder aunt turned quietly to her sister. “Do you think the child has heard?”

  “God spare her,” said the favorite aunt, piously.

  “Do you mean,” Judy asked shrilly, “about Uncle Eben?”

  The sharpness of it knifed their pathetic silence. Their mute mouths quivered. Their stricken eyes overflowed.

  The image of Uncle Eben returned. But he was no longer amusing in robe and wings. Judy’s breast burned. Her throat ached. She knew with intense agony that she was going to cry.

  She turned and fled the room, gained her own, and flung herself prone on the bed. She burrowed her mouth in the pillow. She did not weep because Uncle Eben was dead. She wept out of a vast pity at the anguish of the living.

  When she had quieted, she rose and bathed her heated face. She got together her little pile of books, set her cap on her tousled hair, slung her thick sweater over her arm, and went down the stairs.

  The aunts had preceded her. They sat at the kitchen table drinking black coffee. The large and lovely yellow mother was eating heartily ham and eggs.

  That strengthened Judy. She sat down and smiled.

  “Don’t you be late,” said the mother.

  The familiar greeting shut the door fast on Uncle Eben. The aunts were simply in dark clothes. This was the usual Tuesday morning.

  “Can I have two pieces of cake in my lunch?” asked Judy.

  Presently she was going down the long hill to the schoolhouse. She walked in the sun and lifted her face to the intermittent calls of wooing birds. Spring was just around the nearest corner, and Judy was glad.

  She shot into her seat as the last bell rang.

  Eulalie whispered to the back of her head: “I spent two hours on this beastly history.”

  Judy’s mind raced back to the schoolroom. “I’ve not studied it!”

  “Oh, Judy! First period, too.”

  “I went and forgot! What on earth made me go and forget? I always do it first thing every morning.” She thought sharply. “It was my uncle’s dying! My Uncle Eben died, Eulalie.”

  “Oh!” said Eulalie, looking sorry.

  Nora leaned out into the aisle. Her eyes were wide with sympathy. “Is there death in your family, Judy?”

  A thrill of pride ran down Judy’s spine. Her breath quickened. Her eyes were like stars.

  “It’s my Uncle Eben who lived in a Home on account of being blind.”

  “Did he die on account of being blind?” Eulalie ventured.

  “I expect,” quoted Judy glibly, “he had another stroke.”

  “But why did you come to school?” Nora wanted to know. “Death’s very sad. My mu
mmy puts away all our toys and pulls down the shades.”

  “I think,” advised Eulalie, “you ought to tell the teacher.”

  Judy was suddenly shy. She had not thought Uncle Eben’s death quite warranted her telling Miss Doran. It was strange and thrilling to her, because she had never before known death in its immediacy. It would embarrass her acutely if Miss Doran stared coldly and questioningly. Still, Eulalie had spoken with some authority. And Judy liked to watch the transformation of people’s faces.

  She got up from her seat, flung up her small head, and went down the aisle. The class with one accord straightened and craned. Judy, under this undeviating concentration, felt that her head was waggling, and was conscious of her isolated darkness.

  Miss Doran looked up, frowned, and laid down her pen. At a glance Judy saw that she had been preparing a history quiz. She grew panicky, and this nervousness sent quick tears to her eyes. Miss Doran’s face smoothed and softened. The unexpected gentleness further confused her. She said miserably, with a catch in her voice, “My Uncle Eben’s dead.”

  Her words rang out clearly in the quiet room. There was an audible gasp. Then Judy could hear the triumphant whispering of Eulalie and Nora.

  Miss Doran’s arms went around her. “Judy, dear child. I’m sorry. Do you want to return home, darling, or did your mother think it best to get you away from it all this morning?”

  Judy was ashamed. She did not know how to tell Miss Doran that the momentous Thing was not lying importantly in her mother’s parlor, but was somewhere in a vast hospital whose name she could not remember. She dreaded Miss Doran’s jerking away from her in scorn. After all, families were huge affairs. Perhaps, to an experienced woman like Miss Doran, only death in the house really mattered.

  Judy could not lie. “No’m,” she said unhappily.

  Miss Doran did not understand. “Then, of course. I excuse you, Judy. I cannot expect you to have your mind on your studies. Stay out in the open as much as you can. You need not return until after the funeral.”

  With a gentle pat she sent the child out. The class stared after her as one might stare after a favorite heroine.

  Judy went racing down the corridor, her mind caught away to adventure. She knew that tomorrow her mother would pack her off to school again. But today was hers. And she had a quarter in her pocket. For the first time in her ten years, she was out on her own. She would poke her nose down various streets and browse in the library. She would eat her lunch on a park bench and buy a bag of candy. She would ride to the end of the car line and back. If she cared, she would even venture into an inexpensive movie. Death in the family was a holiday.

  • • •

  The exciting morning passed.

  Father continually flipped out an enormous black-bordered handkerchief. He had on a black tie and an uncomfortable collar. He also had on Uncle Eben’s shoes and hat and overcoat. Mother had said that with Uncle Eben’s closetful of good, black clothes simply hanging in the Home, it was foolish of Father to buy a funeral outfit. Father had called a cab. Judy had begged the ride. They had come back fairly sitting on top of Uncle Eben’s belongings.

  The aunts were shrouded in long, black veils. Only the whites of their eyes glimmered, and their sparse teeth when they talked.

  The lovely, flushed mother had flung back her becoming short veil. Judy thought her mother was beautiful. They smiled at each other.

  Judy had on the dark dress that she wore on rainy days. The favorite aunt had bought her a pair of black silk stockings. When she passed the hall mirror, she slyly admired them.

  Somebody rang the bell. The father said meaningly: “It’s the automobile, I guess.” The mother, with an apologetic look, pulled down her veil.

  Judy did not want to get out of the car. She wished that she were a baby and could kick and scream, or that she were nearer the mother and could wheedle. But then she remembered that she meant to be a great writer and must welcome every experience. She got out bravely.

  A light-skinned lady in a crumpled frock led them into a parlor. She made little noises in her throat and told them she was sorry. Judy caught the terrifying word body, and went and cowered against the window. The father and the mother and the aunts disappeared.

  But in a moment the favorite aunt was back and beckoning her.

  “You must come and look at him, Judy. He’s beautiful.”

  Judy prayed, “God, don’t let his teeth click,” and crossed the threshold.

  A dozen familiar and unfamiliar people sat in a small room on insecure chairs. A pretty woman peered into an open box and made the sign of the cross. About the box were unattractive bunches of fresh and wilted flowers. Judy knew suddenly that this was a coffin and that Uncle Eben was in it. She trailed after the favorite aunt like a young lamb to the slaughter.

  “Smile down at him, Judy.”

  A curious Thing made in the image of an unhappy man lay in a satin-lined casket. If Judy dared touch the smooth, dark cheek, she would find it brown clay in her hand. She wished she could ask her mother, who alone might understand, whether Uncle Eben was somewhere else and this was a plaster cast.

  “Go sit by your mother,” whispered the favorite aunt.

  Judy tiptoed to the uncertain seat in the front row and sat quietly, her hands folded in her lap and her ankles crossed.

  Slowly she became aware that the dim blob protruding above the rim of the casket was the tip of a nose. She was bewitched and held and gradually horrified.

  But her horror was caught away by the violent sound of the father’s sobs. She jerked up her head and stared at him.

  In all of her life she had never seen a man cry. To her tears were the weakness of children and women, who had not the courage of men. She was fascinated and appalled. The father’s head wobbled weakly. He made strangled snorts in his throat. Tears streamed down his cheeks and ran into the corners of his mouth. His nose dripped.

  She was ashamed. Her own eyes filled with tears. Her body burned. She thought in extremest torture, “My father is weak, and I am the child of my father….”

  The mother bent to her. “Judy, comfort your father.”

  She swayed as if she had been struck.

  “He mustn’t cry like that, Judy.”

  She raised her sick eyes to her mother’s face. “Mummy, what do I do?”

  “Just slip your hand into his. He loves you, Judy.”

  That did not move her. A stranger wept beside her. She felt her stomach collapse. With a great effort she kept herself steady. Had the father’s life depended upon it, she could not have stretched out a soothing hand.

  “Mummy,” she cried, “I can’t!” and burrowed against her.

  An oily yellow man in a night frock coat leaned down to the mother. “Are you pleased with the body?”

  “He’s beautiful,” said the mother.

  “For much or little I turn ’em out the same. I’d appreciate your coming to me whenever—God forbid!—you have to.”

  He swung out a heavy watch and said humorously, “Our kind of people.”

  “Yes. Service was set for three,” said the mother primly.

  “Our kind of people,” he repeated. “That cullud preacher is probably somewheres chewing the rag with Sister Fullbosom.”

  The mother and the undertaker laughed softly.

  There was a small stir in the back of the room. Somebody importantly rushed down the length of it. The undertaker bustled to the newcomer’s side and led him to the small pulpit. With a careless glance at the body, the young preacher shifted out of his coat, glanced at his watch, cleared his throat, and plunged into a wailing spiritual that grew in volume and poignancy as the rest of the mourners joined in.

  The aunts, too, swayed and moaned in unison. Presently the father lifted his head and keened. But Judy did not want the mother to sing. She did not want to feel the swell of song from stomach to bosom to throat. She held her head tight against the mother to stem the rise of it.

  The song hushe
d at the last stanza. The chorus whimpered out in a muted medley of unmusical voices. The preacher fumbled in his pocket, took out several soiled bits of paper, extracted and unfolded a rumpled sheet, and clamped on his glasses.

  He stared at the illegible name of the deceased and slurred over it. He read automatically: “Born March 2, 1868, in Charleston, South Carolina. Died April 3, 1919, in this city. He rounded fifty-one years. Professed religion at age of eighteen. Married wife, Mary, who died in childbirth in 1894. Came North, entered Pullman service, and was a faithful servitor for twenty years. Was retired and pensioned, after total blindness, in 1914. He was never known to touch liquor or cards. He lived humble, and served his God, and died in the arms of Jesus at 2 A.M. Tuesday morning. He leaves a sorrowing brother and his wife, and two sorrowing sisters, and a sorrowing niece to mourn their loss.”

  Judy pulled at her mother. “Mums, why did he read that? What did he say it for? What did he mean about our sorrowing?”

  The mother shrugged impatiently, thought a bit, and yielded kindly: “It’s an obituary, Judy, and God knows we are sorry.”

  Suddenly to Judy this word that she had never heard before became a monstrous symbol, not of life but of one’s living. She drew away from her mother. Her mind strained toward the understanding of this new discovery. She must think it through like a woman.

  She thought with shame: I have not really cried for Uncle Eben. I am not really a sorrowing niece…. She shut her eyes against the unreality of the casket. And then she was a little girl again, just five, and had on Uncle Eben’s glasses, and was bouncing on his knee. But she found herself sliding to the floor. The ludicrous glasses fell from her nose and shattered. She pricked her finger, blood spurted, and she screamed. Above her scream rose Uncle Eben’s tortured wail: “God in heaven, I’m blind!” Then the blood did not matter. She tried to piece together Uncle Eben’s glasses, in panic that she would be blamed for his blindness.

  Later there was the strange Uncle Eben with bandages over his eyes, and pain on his mouth, and hot, trembling hands that went ceaselessly over her face. And there was the sightless Uncle Eben, very old and shriveled and shaky, going uncertainly on a cane that tapped and tapped and tapped. Then there was the mother with a pursed mouth, and the father gesturing angrily, and the mother’s unforgettable words: “I married you, not your whole helpless family.” Then Uncle Eben went off to a Home on a cane that tapped and tapped.