I tried to sort out her logic, then gave up. As long as she keeps her mouth shut about Mr. Smead, what do I care who she speaks of?
“He writes that he misspoke and sends his apology. It was all a misunderstanding, he says, and begs me to return to Hannibal. What would you think if I did?”
“Do as you please, but go alone.”
“Now, pet, don’t be angry with me. I only invited Mr. Smead along because I thought you would enjoy yourself. You made such a fool over him last summer. Everyone knew of it. There is much talk behind your back about it.”
“Now who has broken the bargain not to speak of a particular gentleman?” I was angry and started to go.
Mrs. Kittie took hold of my sleeve and whispered. “Well, I’ve spoke of it to nobody but you.”
“I do not hold with your promises,” I says.
Mrs. Kittie thought that over, then mutters, “Oh, the money. Well, here it is, then. I said I would pay you when I had it. Now I have it.” She opened her reticule and thrust a handful of coins at me.
It would have served her right if I had refused them, but we need money bad, and I had earned it by keeping my part of a bad bargain. I counted the money and handed her back a five-dollar gold piece, for she had overpaid.
“Now that that is settled, please to do the kindness of giving a friend some advice,” she says.
I nodded but did not reply.
“Mr. Howard writes if I will not meet him in Hannibal, he proposes joining me in Slatyfork with an idea toward matrimony. Do you think I would be an old fool to marry him?”
You know how easy it is for me to lie, and I could have done so—and should have, I suppose—but instead, I says, “Yes.”
“You are too free-spoken.”
“Forgive me. I misunderstood. I thought you asked for a truthful opinion. If you wanted to hear a good opinion of yourself, you should have asked a fool. Jennie Kate comes to mind.”
I tried to leave again, but Mrs. Kittie took my arm. “I value your good opinion, Alice, and I will consider it. And do not speak ill of the dead, or the soon-to-be dead. Have you not heard that Jennie Kate will not last the week?”
I jerked up my head, and Mrs. Kittie nodded. “Jennie Kate has been enjoying an early death for nearly a year,” I says. “I thought she was malingering.”
“She might be dead already. Last week, she took a turn for the worse. We did not send word to you, for I know Mrs. Bullock has been ailing herself. Piecake has been sent to an old aunt.” A tear rolled down Mrs. Kittie’s cheek. “Jennie Kate has always been too full of herself, lazy and self-centered and a burden to all. She has not spunk enough, like you. But it’s no cause to wish her dead.”
“I don’t. I must find Mother Bullock and tell her. I suppose we should call on Jennie Kate.” I took a step or two away, then turned back. Mrs. Kittie had been good to me, and although I disrespected Mr. Howard and thought him no great scratch as a husband, I liked her. “Mrs. Kittie, would you rather live out your days as a scandalous old fool or a dull old lady? If you want to marry Mr. Howard, then I shall dance at your wedding.”
She wrapped her sticky arms about me, and I felt as if I had fallen into the middle of a jelly cake. “You are capital, Alice,” she says. I hope she will not repent of the bargain.
I found Mother Bullock, and the two of us left Annie and Joybell to call on Jennie Kate, although I find visiting the dying to be a foolish custom. If I was about to go beyond, I would not want to entertain a string of women who didn’t like me much. But it must be done.
Jennie Kate’s house was shabby, the fence bare of paint in spots and the garden unkempt. I felt a wave of shame and thought I should have helped her in some way, but I did not know how I could. I had a farm and family of my own to care for. But we women always feel guilt, even about things that can’t be helped.
Jennie Kate was propped up in her bed, covered by quilts, and was the color of sour milk. The windows were closed, and there was a stench like sour milk in the room, too. “The smell of death,” Mother Bullock whispers to me.
We offered to stay awhile so that Mrs. Middleton, who had been sitting with her, could go home and rest. Then Mother Bullock and I sat down on chairs beside the bed. “I am sorry we have neglected you,” I tell Jennie Kate. I didn’t know what else to say to a dying person.
“I’m hot. I don’t want to be hot,” Jennie Kate tells me. “Open the window. Oh, I am hot. The heat is dreadful to me.” I wanted to tell her that complaining about it wouldn’t make her any less hot, but instead, I did as she directed, whilst she turned to Mother Bullock. “I’m glad you come, Mrs. Bullock. I got something to say.”
Mother Bullock leaned forward, her arms on the bed. “Don’t tax yourself, Jennie Kate.”
“No, it weighs on me, and it’s got to be told.” She gathered a little strength. “Tell Charlie I love him.”
“Harve,” Mother Bullock says. “Your husband is Harve. You’re tired, and you have got them mixed up.”
“No, it’s Charlie I always loved. Tell him I made a mistake. I should’ve married him.”
She drifted off to sleep after that, and Mother Bullock and I sat there the afternoon and into the evening without talking. Others stopped by, including Nealie, but they did not want us to waken Jennie Kate, and I did not blame them. I have not seen much of Nealie lately, and it is clear she is in the family way, but as she did not mention her state, neither did I. She said she had tried to call on me but had taken an old Indian trail across the field and was too tired to go the distance. “I cannot ride these days and must come to you by shank’s mare, after all,” she says. After Nealie left and Mrs. Middleton returned, me and Mother Bullock went into the garden to cut roses for the sickroom. The roses were dying, too, but their smell was better than Jennie Kate’s. “She is out of her head. There is no call to mention her prattle,” Mother Bullock says as she cut through a rose stem with a knife. “She doesn’t mean it.”
“She does,” I reply, taking a spray of roses from her and jabbing a thorn into my finger.
“Charlie had too much sense to marry her.”
The town square was dark and the fireworks nearly over when we found Annie sitting on the grass. Joybell’s head was in Annie’s lap, and she was muttering asleep. Annie said the noise of the fireworks frightened her. I went for our hamper, which was a little away, and as I lifted it, there was a boom that made me look up quickly. A shower of red, white, and blue flashed across the sky, sending out eerie streaks of bright light. And as I watched the lights break apart, I glanced at the people in the square, their faces raised to the display. In the far corner of the grass stood Mr. Samuel Smead. Or I thought he did. The pinpoints of light fell like stars and went out; the fireworks were done, and it was dark. So I could not be sure.
Farewell. It is late.
Alice Keeler Bullock
July 8, 1864
Dear Lizzie,
We buried Jennie Kate yesterday. She died only the day before, but the heat is bad, and the smell in the house already foul; the women who laid her out had to cover their faces with handkerchiefs. The doctor said the cause of death was complication of childbirth, from which she had never recovered. But as he is a quack, we will never know for sure.
I wore black and shed a few tears and called her friend, and I said I was sorry she had died. And I surely am, but, Lizzie, not for the reason one might think. Jennie Kate left her affairs a muddle, and I am in the midst of it.
Immediately the clods hit the coffin, Jennie Kate’s aunt, who had been caring for Piecake the last few weeks, handed me the baby and says, “Here. She is yours. Jennie Kate wants you to have her.”
Jennie Kate had said as much, although in truth, I did not think she would serve me such a shabby trick, and my heart sank to my boots. “But you are her family. You should have the care of her until Harve comes back,” I wail.
“Harve is too dumb to dodge a Rebel ball, and he ain’t coming back. We’ll take the house and lot, an
d the farm on the river. It’s only right, since they come to her from her mother, who was sister to me. You get the orphan girl.”
“Where will the money come from to care for her?” I asks.
“Jennie Kate didn’t say nothing about that.”
I was about to refuse when Mother Bullock says, “That’s right, Alice. You had agreed to it. Both you and Jennie Kate told me so.”
“But I wouldn’t have promised if I’d known she would die,” I says, hating Jennie Kate as much as I ever did anybody in my life. Wasn’t it enough that I had responsibility for a farm, an ailing old lady, a Kentucky refugee, and a blind girl?
“What’s this?” asks Mrs. Kittie, who does not let someone else’s business get past her. I was glad for her meddling this time, because I hoped she would shame the relatives into taking Piecake. But she didn’t. “The property belongs rightly to Harve. That’s the law. He ain’t dead yet, and if he’s taken, why, then it goes to this baby.”
Jennie Kate’s relatives gathered around Mrs. Kittie and glared at her. Then an old uncle stepped up and announced he would take charge of Jennie Kate’s estate. “As I am the oldest of her kin, it is proper I make the decisions.” Jennie Kate’s relatives nodded whilst Mrs. Kittie sputtered. Mother Bullock whispered to me that she knew the man for a miser and a cheat, and that no good would come to us or to Piecake. The baby made a gurgling sound, and the man peered down his long nose at her. “I’ll shut up the house and wait for Harve to come home, then. And I’ll run the farm myself,” he says.
“With the profit going to little Piecake,” Mrs. Kittie tells him, all smiles now.
“Ain’t no profit. That’s a humbug. Jennie Kate lived on charity,” he says. I knew that to be a lie. Jennie Kate had told me her relatives robbed her.
Mrs. Kittie thought a moment. “I know someone who’ll rent the house—five dollars a month.”
The old man agreed, saying, “It’ll go to the upkeep.”
Mrs. Kittie nodded. “I have a business acquaintance who will live there, a Mr. Howard.” After Jennie Kate’s relatives left, Mrs. Kittie says to me, “I would have give twelve dollars for rent, so you shall have the extra seven for the baby.”
Mother Bullock and I went to Jennie Kate’s house to gather up Piecake’s things, and since neither one of us could recollect having heard Piecake’s real name, we looked for Jennie Kate’s Bible to see what was wrote down. “Here,” Mother Bullock says, picking up the Bible and opening it to the family page. The Bible was old, and as I looked over Mother Bullock’s shoulder, I could scarcely read some of the faded names. Mother Bullock ran her finger down them, then stopped, and she frowned. After a few seconds, she tore out the page, balled it up, and put it into her pocket.
“Jennie Kate was a silly girl who wished to cause trouble,” she says.
“I saw it,” I says.
“Then you saw she named the baby Harviette—for Harve, the baby’s father.” Mother Bullock’s look dared me to say otherwise.
So I didn’t. “No wonder she’s called Piecake,” I says at last. “Who would give a little girl a name such as Harviette?” Not Jennie Kate, that’s for sure, because that wasn’t the name she wrote down in her Bible. The baby’s true name was Charlie Kate Stout.
“Maybe Harviette isn’t such a bad name after all,” Mother Bullock says, peering into Piecake’s face, for we had brought the baby with us. “She’s the spitting image of her father. Why anyone can see she’s got Harve’s little fox eyes.”
Now Piecake sleeps in the room with me, in a trundle bed that Mother Bullock found in a shed. She’s a sweet little baby with a pleasing disposition, and you would not know she was Jennie Kate’s, except that she is squashy and fat. Mother Bullock and Joybell care for her during the day and are much taken with her, and I like her finely. She is asleep now. I should be, too, but have taken up the pen to write you. I already wrote Charlie about Jennie Kate’s death and said we are glad to have the baby with us. It does no good to let him know we are almost busted. It’s best that Harve learns about his wife’s death from a friend, not from a letter. I will write Harve in a week with the particulars. I begged Charlie to keep a watch over Harve to make sure he comes back.
Yours as ever before,
“Mother” (Alice) Bullock
August 2, 1864
Dear Lizzie,
Mother Bullock had talked about the red and white currants that once grew on an old trail not far from the shack where Annie and Joybell lived, so thinking to surprise her, I left off chopping underbrush to gather them for a pie. Mother Bullock’s appetite is not good and she has got thin, although she seems a little more content now that Piecake is with us. We have all got as fond as can be of Piecake, especially Joybell, who plays with her the day long. You would not think a blind girl could have charge of a baby, but Joybell follows Piecake about as a seeing girl would an organ-grinder and a monkey.
It being late of an afternoon, I did not go to the house for a basket to put the currants in, but decided to use my sunbonnet. I was not sure where they grew, since I had not been along the trail before. Nor had anyone else, it appeared, because there was much overgrowth, and I was glad I had brought the hatchet. I dawdled a bit in the leafy shade of the path, picking daisies for my hair and listening to the songs of birds and the pretty sounds of the creek nearby. Then I lined my sunbonnet with oak leaves to keep the currants from staining it, and filled it most near to the brim.
“I hope you are not going to put that on your head when you are done. It wouldn’t be a pretty sight,” says a voice.
I gasped and clutched the bonnet to me, as if it were protection. Then I turned to face Mr. Samuel Smead. My desire was to flee or to order him off our property, but each seemed a more dangerous course than the other, so I decided to try a woman’s way. “A hatful of berries might be an improvement to this tired old face,” I reply in my most pleasant voice.
It was not the right thing to say, but what was? Anything would have set him against me, I think. As Mr. Smead came toward me, I dropped the sunbonnet, and he stepped on it, smashing the berries. Lizzie, how odd it is that I would notice such a little thing as a ruined sunbonnet when my person was in danger, but it passed through my mind that I would have to make another bonnet, for there was no way to remove the stains. I took a step backward and raised my fists to protect myself, for Mr. Smead was holding a whip in his hand. But he planked it down and grabbed my wrists. He stretched my arms behind me and kissed me, his tongue forcing its way into my mouth. I turned my head aside and, Lordy, I wanted to spit at him, but I had tried that with the Carter boy and got smacked for the insult.
I looked about frantically, but Mr. Smead only laughed. “Nobody is about. That hired man you had back last year, I gave him twenty dollars to disappear, and as for the nigger, well, I don’t have to pay off a nigger. My warning worked just as well. Besides, you don’t want me to leave. You know you love me.”
“I love you like I love a snake. If you don’t let me go, I’ll tell Nealie,” I says.
Mr. Smead only laughed. “Nealie won’t cross me. Oh, no. She knows I’d tell Frank what’s happened between me and her. She’s scared more of me than you are.”
“I’m not frightened,” I says, trying to pull my wrists away, but he only tightened his grip.
Mr. Smead laughed. “So you say. Now be still or I’ll hurt you. If you fight me, how can I help it? Maybe you’re one of those women that wants a stropping. Some fight hard so’s to be hurt. I don’t want to hurt you. I only want to love you, Alice. Can’t you see that?” He let go of one wrist and plucked a daisy out of my hair, holding it up to my face. “Daisies don’t lie. Now tell me you love me.” I did not answer, and he tossed the posy aside and put his hand on my breast, caressing it.
Oh, Lizzie, how I loathed him then, but I reboubled my efforts to remain calm, and even smiled at him. At that, he loosened his grip, and I pulled away, slapping him across the face.
Mr. Smead grew as cold as a l
izard and slapped me back hard with the back of his hand, then with the palm, and the back again, and I fell to the ground. He yanked me up with one hand and wrung my arm behind me. “That’s the way you want it, then,” he says. “I don’t mind a woman that fights. It’s all the same to me.” With his free hand, he pushed up my skirt and tore at my undergarments.
“Stop, Mr. Smead,” I order. “You’ll regret it. I wrote my sister about you. If something happens, she’ll tell.”
“Who would she tell? And who would believe her? Everyone has seen you trifle with me.”
“There is a sheriff in Slatyfork. Your reputation is known, too.”
He seemed to consider that, but he did not let me go. My one hand was free, and I looked around stealthfully for a stone or stick to fling at him. Then I spied the ax, which I had set down on the path so that I could pick the berries. With a mighty wrench, I freed myself and grabbed it, swinging at Mr. Smead. But I was too timid, and he dodged. He stared at me like a rabid dog, his teeth bared, saliva dripping from his mouth. His terrible bright eyes bore into mine, and he took a step toward me, then another, and in a rush, he was upon me. I swung again with the ax, and screamed, a sound that was more like the tearing of fabric than human noise. Oh, Lizzie, the rest is so dreadful, my pen refuses to tell you. I cannot relive it, even in this letter. But it sears my soul. When it was done, I washed myself in the creek as best I could and pinned up the torn dress with thorns. Returning to the house, I said I had taken a bad fall.
Mother Bullock offered to treat the wounds, but there is no treatment for them. I went to my room and mended the dress and underthings. As I do the washing, no one will see they were tore and soaked with blood. Then I forced myself to sit through the evening with the others until it was time to put Piecake to sleep. I said that my head hurt from the fall and I would go to bed, too.
It is hot in this little room with no window. But I wear a flannel nightgown and am covered with quilts as I write this. I cannot get warm, and I shake so. I know sleep will not come, so I write to you whilst I wait for the dawn of day. The only comfort I have got the night long is from putting down the events on paper to you—and now from Piecake. She whimpered a few minutes ago, so I picked her up, and the soft, warm little body against my own battered one calmed me some. Now I have her in bed beside me, and I watch her sleeping the sleep of the innocent and unknowing. Oh, Lizzie, that I could sleep the sleep of the dead! What is to become of me, I know not.
Alice's Tulips: A Novel Page 15
