Galveston (5 page)

Then he paused before adding, “Poor Janet was out of sorts this morning and couldn't come. I'm anxious to get home and see about her.”

Chapter 5

In late September of that year a storm approached stealthily by night and crept upon us as we slept. I was dreaming that my child, locked in a room with Charles, was crying out for me, and whenever I'd try to go in Charles would laugh and slam the door in my face. This nightmare repeated itself until finally I awoke screaming, my clenched fists beating the air, then opened my eyes and realized a shutter come loose, banging against the house, had worked itself into my dream.

The darkness was punctuated by sudden brightenings and the cooling breeze was damp and more persistent. Charles was not in the bed. I lay back and thought of my Charlie but could not envision his face.

Soon the banging stopped and Charles returned. “Hinge was rusted through, but I tied it back,” he said of the shutter. “Sorry it woke you.”

“We're in for a bad one, aren't we?”

“I doubt it. The wind's up, and we'll probably have a lot of rain, but the bad storms don't come too often.”

“How often is that?”

“Oh, every fifteen, twenty years, maybe. I've pulled the windows down except in here. If it doesn't improve by morning I'll close all the shutters before I go to work.”

“You'd leave me here alone?”

“For heaven's sake, Claire, I can always come home if the weather gets too bad. Get some sleep, now. Tomorrow will tell.”

I settled down then and tried again to think of Charlie's face, but it wouldn't come and after a while Charles moved closer to me and began to kiss me gently on the neck. I pretended to be asleep and presently he turned away.

In the morning the storm went on teasing us, and sent only a slight, steady rainfall, which is always good for filling a low cistern and soaking a thirsty ground.

“It's only a precaution,” Charles said, “but before I leave I'll close the shutters, though probably by tonight we'll be laughing at the whole thing. You never know this time of year, though.”

“Just leave one kitchen window unshuttered. That won't hurt, will it, at the back of the house? Then I can see out. I hate the thought of not being able to see out—like being locked alive in a casket.”

“All right.”

“You'll come home, if it turns mean.”

“Yes. I'll be down at the courthouse this morning, and I should be finished there by ten or so. Then I'll go to the office. You stay busy and try not to worry.”

He left at eight-thirty, and I sat down with another cup of coffee and tried to concentrate on the newspaper as the rainfall grew steadily more intense. I read three times the story of some foreign monarchy sending its king and queen for a visit to Washington, but it was no use trying to absorb any news that day for I could hear the low rumble of thunder and the singing wind as it grew steadily louder.

I polished all the silverware, and the tea service that had belonged to my mother, and went again to look out the kitchen window. It was then about half-past ten and growing darker. The rain hammered against the house and ground like the feet of angry Indians during a war dance.

Charles might think it bad enough now to come home, I thought, but more likely he'd make a stop at the office to check on the mail, so I went to the parlor and picked up my sewing basket, realizing just then this should have been washing day and growing irritated the weather could so foul up my routine.

I learned then there is not another feeling quite like that of being closed up in a house during a Galveston storm. All you can do is pray the house won't collapse with you in it, or fill with rising water that will send you backing up the stairs to the second floor, holding up your skirt as it laps at your feet. You may, if you are so minded, go outside and test the water with your finger. If it tastes clean, it is merely the rain; if it tastes salty then you are in far more trouble, for the Gulf has begun to spread itself over the island and it's only a matter of very little time before all is lost. A neighbor—Andrew Jeffcoat, I think—told me that once at a rain-spoiled cookout.

It struck me that day as I sat with my needlework that I would far rather be in Grady during a cyclone than to be in Galveston during a storm. At least in Grady everyone had a storm cellar and when freakish weather threatened, one could go down into safety. Anyone who hadn't the sense to go downstairs deserved whatever harm came to him.

Suddenly I laughed aloud at the thought of a storm cellar in Galveston, and my laugh had that high-pitched quality that isn't like my regular laugh at all. If Helga were here she would have admonished me not to get hysterical, but of course Helga was not here, thanks to Charles's refusal to bring her with us, and I had not the benefit of her level-headedness to calm me.

At eleven I put on the teakettle and stood by until it made the friendly, whistling sound, then poured a cup and sat down at the table to drink. But it was only half gone before a clap of thunder sent the teacup clattering in its saucer and I took it hurriedly to the sink and poured it out. I was trying to keep my head, and I told myself it didn't matter for the cup was half empty anyway.

I looked out the window again and tried to gauge the darkness. Was it darker than last time I looked, or only my imagination? And where was Charles? Surely he'd had time to get back here by now. Having robbed me of Helga's quiet strength, he might have been generous enough to provide me with his own at this point, and I strained my eyes to see if the rig would appear through the veil of rain.

When it finally did, around noon, pulled by Gypsy as though the trip from the drive into the barn were a steep uphill journey, I heaved my first sigh of relief, for I was glad all at once to see Charles and ashamed that my fears of the morning hadn't included the fear something might have happened to him. I hugged him, wet mackintosh and all, when he got into the kitchen, and scolded him for not staying in the safety of the office instead of making the trip all the way home.

“I never got to the office, because I was late leaving the courthouse,” he said. “I was worried about you here alone, so I came straight home. You can't see your hand in front of you, and Gypsy was scared senseless every time a clap of thunder came. Lord, I'm exhausted!” He shed the wet mackintosh, muddying the floor with his boots.

“Go upstairs and change into something comfortable. I'll fix you a hot rum toddy.”

“Wonder if Rubin's home today. He might be stuck down at the church.”

“He's in Houston for that conference, don't you remember? Took the early train, if he went.”

“That's right! I'd forgotten that. I'd better go over and get Janet. She'll be scared out of her wits.”

“She isn't the only one,” I said, tired of hearing about the delicate state of Janet's mind.

He was gone quite a time, and I took up watch at the kitchen window so I could have the door open when they reached the porch. I'd never before seen such a rain. The wind drove it sideways across the yard, and by now the clothesline was down and the flowers planted along the back fence, I knew, were leveled. I wondered whether everything we were ever to build in life would be destroyed before we'd had a chance to get used to it, and thought about moving the downstairs furniture to the second floor.

She was hanging onto him like a child to its father when they got on the porch. He'd wrapped her in a quilt so that only her face and feet were visible: a mummy with wrappings not yet complete. “We started across under Rubin's big umbrella,” Charles said as he carefully peeled the quilt away and sat her down at the kitchen table like a doll, “but the thing turned inside out halfway here. Claire, get her some tea, will you?”

I had already thought of that, and had the kettle boiling. Janet sat silently while I poured all three of us a cup. Her hair had come loose from its coil and stuck out in all directions; her whole body was shivering as I handed her the tea. Only then did I look into her face, and her expression was very queer: her eyes were like those of an animal who has been beaten before and sees the whip.

“Look, dear, you've got to get hold of yourself. This will all be over before long,” I told her, and was steadied, to a degree, by my own utterance of the words. She looked up at me trustingly and nodded. “Would you rather go upstairs and lie down, instead of sitting here?”

“Oh no, please don't make me go to sleep. I want to stay awake—I'm afraid—I want to stay awake.” There were beads of perspiration on her forehead and along the ridge above her lips.

“All right,” Charles said. “We'll drink our tea, and try to think of pleasanter things.”

There came, then, a new offering from the storm: a crackling sound that commanded our attention to the window. Charles took a closer view, and reported it was hailing. “I guess before the day's over we'll have some snow and ice. We've had just about everything else.” He sat down again and lit his pipe.

Janet was now calmed somewhat. “Listen to that sound,” she said, “it's like pearls falling from the broken thread of a lady's necklace and bouncing along a wooden floor.”

“Those are very nice words,” Charles said. “Rubin told us once you write poetry.”

“He shouldn't have said that,” she replied testily. “It was just a childhood dream, becoming a poetess … most of what I write now goes into the wastebasket.”

Janet took a sip of tea and looked at us, her face softening. “Please forgive my rudeness today … I suppose I owe you an explanation as to why I'm so undone by a storm.”

“Not at all,” Charles said, but she continued anyway.

“I want to tell you a story I've never told anyone except Rubin,” she began haltingly, and her eyes took on a dimension of emptiness, as though to blot out the story from her mind, even as she unfolded it. Her voice became a mere whisper as she talked. “I was thirteen years old, back on my father's farm.…

“One day when the weather was much like it is here now—only not a tenth as bad—I was at home alone. It was harvest time and we had fifteen extra men working for us—my father never owned a slave, even before the war, for he didn't believe in it. One of the men, who had been there only three or four days, kept looking at me. I was just at the in-between stage—beginning to grow up, hoping to be as pretty as my sister Cleo—and very conscious of my looks. I was flattered that this man would notice me, because he was handsome.

“Oh, and I was so trusting of people—men and women—in those days, as any child with a good family and a happy home would be. So that was why I thought nothing of letting him come in that day, when my parents were gone. I'd left only the screen door closed. It had been so hot, and was finally cooling off as it rained. I'd been reading
David Copperfield
for the second time.

“At the door, he asked if my father was home. Foolishly, I told him I was alone, and asked whether I could do anything for him.

“He walked in and let the screen door close softly behind. ‘Well now, maybe,' he said. He had this kind of mean leer across his face. Sort of smiling and mean at the same time—I shall never forget it as long as I live.…”

Charles stopped her then, and told her she needn't go on, but she did not seem to hear him, or even to be aware either of us was in the room.

“He was very tall; his presence filled the room. He just ambled across to the chair where I'd been sitting and picked up my book. ‘Dickens,' he said. ‘Quite a big book for a young girl like you.'

“‘I'm thirteen—almost fourteen,' I told him, just as he wanted me to, I'm sure.

“‘Maybe it's time you had some learnin' that don't come from no books,' he said, then looked back from the book to me and grinned. Suddenly I was deathly afraid, but unable to move from my tracks or speak. It was thundering, hard … as though it would wrench the house apart.

“He walked over and took me into his arms. I struggled—oh, God, how I struggled! I kicked and writhed and screamed. Of course, it did no good.” She took a deep breath, and clasped one arm around her ribs. “After he finished … he left me lying on the floor and bolted from the house. We never saw him again.”

Charles's face was pale. “How horrible … how horrible,” he said.

“Awful,” I agreed, and looked down dazedly at my tea.

“But if you'd told your parents, couldn't they have tried to track the scoundrel down?” Charles asked.

“No. I was too embarrassed to tell them, and afraid the scolding I'd get for having let him into the house would just worsen a situation that was already bad enough … I tried once or twice to tell Cleo, but couldn't bring myself. For nights after that I had terrible dreams, and I'd wake up screaming. In the dream I would be running from a grinning face, and always just a few yards ahead and out of reach would be my father. I would open my mouth to scream for help, yet not a sound would come forth. That's the point where I would awaken screaming.

“My parents worried over me for a long time, but I never told them the truth about the dream, only that I was running to Daddy for help but couldn't reach him. For a long time afterward, too, I looked for the man everywhere I went, afraid of finding him watching me. Of course, that finally passed and I haven't had the dream about him for years.

“Then one day a couple of months before we came here to Galveston, I was in the dry goods store, digging through fabric remnants. I felt someone watching me, and looked up.

“He looked so much like the man—probably wasn't him at all—but I got out of that store and ran all the way home, leaving our horse and buggy tied up in front. I was in such a state when Rubin got home that … anyway, we decided to accept his offer from St. Christopher's.”

The kitchen lay in stillness; outside the rain had stopped and the wind died down. While Janet unraveled her story the storm had gone from the island like an unwelcome guest, and the sunlight now poured through the window.