Family Linen (19 page)

She was never more elated than that moment when, near Christmastime, the enormous hoary barrel of oysters in the shell, ice-packed, arrived by train. This was Father's special Gift for his Eastern bride. And then we had oyster Stew, and oyster Fritters, and Fried oysters, inviting all the neighbors in to taste these delicacies.

Mother was famous also for her baking. I recall how she tested the oven, Suse in attendance, with a piece of fine white stationery. The oven was ready for a cake when the stationery browned evenly in just one minute. Then, in the Cakes would go! Lady Baltimore, a white cake with raisins and nut custard between the layers and a boiled white icing on top, was my favorite. No wonder Father grew so huge!

At Christmas, the whole house smelled of Pine, with garlands up and down the staircase, and on the mantels. Father's men had brought the fragrant greenery from the mill. Nettie went out with Father, to Shoot down the mistletoe which then hung from the rose-glass lamp in the hall. On Christmas morning, we were always awakened by the Shots which rang out all across these snowy mountains, an old custom. At breakfast, we ate the fresh Oranges which arrived each year from Mother's parents, and after the opening of the Presents came the huge Christmas dinner, with turkey and roast and ham, sometimes venison, where we often had sixteen or more at table, and three or four women in the kitchen, helping out. In the afternoon, we all took Naps. Later, my uncles would play their Banjos, and often there would be Dancing, far into the night. Often I fell asleep to the banjo's breezy twang and the rhythmic patter of Dancing feet.

These days did not last. In retrospect, I see Harbingers of our decline, although, in a sense, I doubt their validity:—One always knows that the lovely Rose of summer will brown about the edges, will lose its Petals and will fall, does one not? After the fall, moments of prescience may be easily imagined. But I do recall two such moments particularly.

I was about eleven. We had a pony named Old Joe, as phlegmatic a pony as one would ever hope to see. My father judged him Safe for us to ride. One windy afternoon, I believe it was in late March, I had Johnny to saddle Old Joe for me and I rode down the long hill between the murmuring pines, through the town, and out the valley road to Father's Mill. I intended to Surprise him. I also intended to gather up the little scraps of wood which I used to fashion furniture for my Dolls. My sidebags held a paper sack filled with ham Biscuits and apple fritters, which provender Mother had urged me to share with my Father when I arrived. This Lunch did not transpire.

I tramped through the sawdust in the yard, speaking to Father's men, I bolted through the outer office with its desk and leather chair, calling “Father! Father!” carrying my saddlebags. Receiving no reply, I barged right through the inner door, shouting, “Hello!” For the first time, he did not come to me. He did not rush over to sweep me up in a Hug. Instead, he and two of my Uncles were deep in conversation with two large—very large, as large as my father—Men in black suits, Men I had never seen before. They sat around the big Table which our Uncle Lewis had made for the Office when he left it to move to Roanoke and open his Carpentry shop. They were smoking cigars. My father looked up at me as if he were unsure of who I might be, his broad face creased into unfamiliar lines of concern. “Run along now, Elizabeth,” he said.

That was all. He was not Rude. These men were Money men, I learned that later. The family lumber business had fallen, already, upon Hard Times. Father had extended Credit where none should have been extended; he and his brother James had disagreed. His brother Sam, on the other hand, presented another sort of problem; he had become uninterested in the business, inattentive. He was not Pulling his Weight. I recall that I ate no lunch on that particular day, the day of my unlucky Visit to the mill, angrily slapping the long reins against Old Joe's neck, trying to urge him past the gentle Trot which was his fastest gait. I did not mention Father's conduct to anyone.

The second premonition was occasioned by my Mother, who always spent a great deal of time in her Garden. She had the prettiest Flowers in town, and if she was a vain woman in any sense, it was in her flowers that her vanity resided, and justly so. Of course we had a vegetable garden too, up on the hillside near the well, but it was worked by Suse and Johnny under Mother's supervision. The Flower beds were a different story. Here, Mother wielded Trowel and Rake herself, planting, separating, weeding, edging:—there were tasks enough to keep her busy all Spring and Summer long. The Moment which I now recall occurred in that same Year as my noontime visit to the mill, but later, when the Spring was more advanced.

I was in the house, Reading voraciously as was my wont. She was in the garden. “Elizabeth!” she called. I know she called; I know I heard her. I laid down my Book and went. She sat there by her pansy bed, on the brilliant emerald grass, the gardening gloves cast down beside her, staring down the hill at the double row of tiny new Boxwoods which Johnny had just planted along the walk. “Mother?” I said, coming to stand beside her. She did not reply, except to brush her hand across her breast, and place it at her thickening waist. She was With Child at this time. Had the Pain started then, already? Butterflies fluttered everywhere. “Mother?” I asked. But I could not understand her reply; she had responded in French! “What, Mother?” I inquired. She blushed, and smiled, and drew me to her, and gave me a squeeze. “I'm sorry,” she said simply. “I have forgot why I called.” I laughed merrily, thinking it funny to see an Adult so befuddled, but yet I felt an inward Shudder, what it is called when someone Walks across your Grave.

She died in October of a ruptured Appendix. In the morning she was quite well, by afternoon she was Deathly Ill; that evening, being carried in a wagon toward the closest Hospital, in Roanoke, old Dr. Greer having diagnosed the complaint but refusing to perform Surgery due to her delicate Condition, she died. My father was with her, holding her hand. He said later that she seemed to be staring beyond him, and that a Shadow fell across her face, followed by a light as if of Love, or recognition. She did not Speak. How much better it might have been for him had she bade him a final Farewell, had she not thus left him so mysteriously!

For oh, how he Mourned! We all thought that he would die, too. He was Heartbroken. He roared and moaned and beat his breast, he kicked in the barn door, he wandered the house all night sobbing. He shot her horse. He drank continuously, Suse fled. Our Uncles had to come, and Stay in the house with us. We were terrified. I was twelve then, Nettie seven, and Fay, five. We cried too, for our sweet Mother who had gone to be with God, and Women from the town came, and comforted us. Especially our Mother's Friend, Miss Grace Harrison, was attentive to us in these Dark days. But he raged! And would not be comforted. Our Grief paled, appeared so puny as to be insignificant beside his magnificent mourning. Now I see, as I look back, that this time so Difficult for us all may perhaps have taken its Toll most drastically upon Fay. I remember searching for her all one Evening, and finding her at last in the bottom of Mama's Wardrobe, all hunched into a ball, sucking her thumb. She alone did not cry, not then, nor Later, I believe, unless her little tears were shed in private. Mother was buried in the graveyard of the Methodist Church which she had Loved. We sang “Shall We Gather at the River,” I recall, yet almost no one sang, as all were weeping So.

It was the last time Father ever set foot in a house of Worship, so far as I know, for the rest of his life. He lost his Faith that October, when he lost her. Or perhaps he never had it, the True Faith, perhaps he only believed in her, and accompanied her to Church because she wished it. Certainly, our Uncles were not noted church-goers! And yet my own Faith is ever strong, growing through all Adversity, and ever Strengthening me. God has given me the Courage to bear the considerable disappointments which have come my way, and to lead a good life, and to appreciate Beauty in all her guises.

What a Horrible:—what a frightening Beauty there was in that Awful scene:—Mother returning to the Earth, her coffin lowered into the wet black ground, while all around, the gay brilliant leaves of autumn swirled. My Father would have jumped into her Grave. Indeed he tried to do so, and had to be forcibly restrained; our Uncles took him away then, and did not bring him back for three days. He returned somewhat chastened, and happily, more subdued.

Miss Grace Harrison stayed with us during this time. Of her, a few Words will be necessary. The oldest daughter of the Harrisons, who had taken an interest in my parents ever since old Dr. Harrison bought Father the Suit of clothes at Lake Junaluska during their Courtship, she was a Maiden lady who, though well-educated, chose to reside at home. We could not precisely tell her age. Although older than Mother or Father, she was not yet really Old; she had the sort of pale, Artistic visage which does not fall prey to Time. She was wan, ethereal, elongated:—what a strange turn of phrase I here employ! and yet it springs to mind—willowy, and graceful in all her movements. Although she possessed a Degree from a College in the North, she preferred not to teach at the little Methodist School which we and all the other children in town attended until it closed and a fee was got up and Another school begun.

At any rate, Grace Harrison preferred a life of leisure:—the state of her Nerves, it was whispered, precluding any more active existence. She rose at Noon, she walked through the town, shopping sometimes for her aging Mother, her Father having passed to his Reward, she read book after book, seated in the wicker swing on their front porch. Her Dresses were gauzy, wispy, pastel. I had never seen such Dresses in my life. She spent hours and hours lying on a chaise longue in the Parlor, all this because she had been, as Mother explained to us, “disappointed in a Married Man.”

Grace Harrison loved my mother, who was her only true friend in town, and whose vitality, I presume, enlivened her Days, and because of this friendship, Miss Grace early undertook the task of supplementing the simple Education offered us at the Methodist School. Miss Grace was to talk to us about Ideas and Literature, Mother was to instruct us in French, but she died before these lessons were yet begun, so busy had she been with the Cares of our household. And as for the Literature and Ideas, I was the only One, among the three of us, who gave a fig for Such. But ah, through all the golden days of my childhood, until that Catastrophe which struck us when I was twelve:—ah, how we read together, Grace Harrison and I, often in the Harrisons' parlor with Grace stretched out full length upon the chaise, a pillow beneath her feet and another beneath her head, her Book illuminated by the shell lamp on its stand, with its pink translucent shade. We read Lord Byron. We read Shelley and Keats and Dickens and Tennyson, and William Shakespeare. We read novels, such as
The Castle of Otranto
. I did not understand three-quarters of what we read. I would give anything to have this Chance again, to read with Grace Harrison. But alas she is Gone, estranged from me by a gulf as wide as all the Oceans of the world. The gifts she left with me are invaluable, a love of language, of Nature and its Beauty, of the Finer Things of Life. She did not much care, I should hazard to guess now, after the passing of so many years, for People. Most people she found, as she had found the married man, Disappointing. To my regret, this harsh Category came to include, at length, my Father.

For he was suffering, and suffering also a Change in his manner and bearing and habits, a change which was grievous for him and us. Without the softening influence of my Mother, and due perhaps in part to the Business problems which we at that time knew Nothing of, he was reverting to the harsh ways of his youth. His delightful ebulliency turned to brashness. He grew loud, abrupt. His dress became imperceptibly more sloven, more like those about him. He was often silent, moody, and short with us, except for Nettie, who was his Favorite. More and more often, he was not at Home; he hunted; he gambled, I think; he spent more time in the company of men, he had become again a “man's man,” and our fine House and all the appurtenances of his life occasioned by our Mother began to assume the guise of encumbrances.

And yet, of course, he Loved us. He did not abandon us, far from it, and these difficult days of change were made easier by the ministrations of Grace Harrison, who arose from her bed to become the softening Spirit of our household, urged forth by feelings of Duty, of Loyalty for our sainted Mother, of concern for us, and by some vague motive as yet unclear even to her. Grace Harrison came to us nearly every day for a year, and supervised the reassembling of our distraught household. It would never be, again, as it had Been. Mother's joyful energy, which had seemed effortless, could not be replaced. But Suse was at length induced to return to us, and to live in the room above the kitchen, assuring us at least of regular if simple Meals, and a second girl was found, Suse being old by this time, to come and clean. Boys from the mill appeared to do the heavier chores.

Grace Harrison continued to Read with us as she often had; from time to time she appeared to supervise our lessons after supper. She came to our house then, and sat with us while my Father, glass in hand, stared moodily into the fire, and after these Occasions, he donned his black hat and frock-coat, and walked her home. Aside from the fact that she was admittedly more ambulatory than in former days, her Behavior was much the same. She was ever calm, quiet, and gentle to the point of listlessness. A spot of Rose had come to either cheek, though, perhaps the result of the unwonted exercise, and her pale fine hair appeared to spring up even more angelically around her face, floating, it seemed, as she moved. She was quite Lovely; I say that now, after the passage of so many Years. “Lovely” would not have occurred to me then. I do believe it occurred to my Father.

I never knew, nor Wished to know, exactly what transpired between them. Suffice it to relate that these events caused me yet another irreparable Loss, following close upon the heels of the first. There came a summer evening when Grace had been with us at dinner, my Uncle Sam was there also, and upon his departure, Grace Harrison rose to take her leave as well.