Galveston (63 page)

“The summer of 1899. It was the last time for any of us, as far as I knew. I thought her dead … had every reason to believe she was dead.”

“But what can you tell me of her? How did it happen, accident, illness?”

He sat and stared at me for a few minutes, one eyebrow raised as though he tripped across a memory yet wouldn't let it come to surface, and I realized he was reluctant to talk about my mother. I thought of Susan Baxter's word for her … “Look, if we could just begin from the first time you met her. I know nothing. I was adopted by parents, who lived in Ohio in 1900, or at least that's what I've always been made to believe. They've never told me anything about my beginnings. I discovered the bag by accident several nights ago. Naturally, I had to look for my real mother.”

He grimaced. “If that diary were just there. She could have told you in her own words all about that summer. She used to record in it faithfully.”

“But you could tell me if you would. Mr. Byron, I've come such a long way. If you know anything about my mother, please tell me. I've got to know the truth, whatever it is.”

“But it's very hard for me to talk about … I was responsible, in a way, for what I assumed to be her death.”

“But it's obvious she didn't die, so you needn't feel guilty about anything, unless you were trying to do her harm.”

“Oh no, I wouldn't have lifted a finger to harm her … would have died to save her.”

“Well, then—”

“But you see, she trusted me and I let her down. If I hadn't—don't you see?—she wouldn't have been lost from both of us all these years; everything would have been different. She might be with me even now.”

“So you believe she may still be alive?”

“Now? Oh, I suppose it's possible, but I doubt it. I think she'd have eventually contacted me, and I know she'd never have deserted you above all. She risked her life for you, before you were born. No, she's bound to be dead.”

“Still, you couldn't be sure of that.”

“I've no proof, if that's what you mean.”

“Then please, tell me what you know. Perhaps between the two of us we can locate her, if she's alive. I've never really believed her dead.

“Look, it will be simple. Just begin by telling me her name.”

“All right, all right. Please don't misunderstand my reluctance. It's only that I—”

“Please, her name?”

“Her name was Serena Garret. She was a parson's daughter.”

“And my father?”

“A traveling musician. See, here is his name in the program—Roman Cruz.”

Chapter 9

An hour had passed.

James Byron had begun to unravel the tale of a summer long ago, when he'd come to Galveston on the heels of tragedy that took the lives of both his parents, and my mother had become almost like a loving sister toward him. He, in turn, had looked upon her as a goddess and her lover as a god, and even had assigned himself the role of Argus, giant of a hundred eyes, and taken on the task of directing his watchful gaze upon them, following them, sometimes, to their meeting place.

The people he'd spoken of were important to me because they were my history, the source of my beginnings … my grandmother Janet Garret, an invalid who sat in a chair and stared at nothing and wrote reams of poetry with a single theme that no one could understand. My mother, Serena, had seen fit to keep her picture, yet not, apparently, her poetry. Was it her way of keeping intact what she wanted to believe about Janet?

My grandfather, a shepherd of God's kingdom strayed from his flock like a wayward sheep, finding some consolation in a whisky bottle because an event which happened years earlier had eaten away at the parish in his charge as a pillworm eats at a plant. And was James correct about his keeping company with Cousin Claire? Could he have been blamed for doing so, with his life's work crumbling in his hands and his wife able to lend him nothing in the way of moral support?

And Claire herself, constantly prying into Serena's life, meddling where she had no right. Did she look upon Serena and Roman fondly, hoping to help them in some way because their love had been forbidden, or was she contriving something else for them? If so, was her housekeeper, Helga Reinschmidt, in on it too? Was Helga's trip to San Antonio that summer only a cover for something which lay ahead?

And the others … Professor King of the traveling band, who bore a striking resemblance to Rubin Garret; Mrs. McCambridge, who stayed with Janet and kept a proprietary eye on Serena …

And of course Nick Weaver, everyone's idea of a fine Christian fellow, a little self-righteous as he pored over his organ music, Serena Garret's “intended” in everyone's mind except her own.

And Porky, her boon companion and James's friend, who made me wish I'd had the experience of owning a dog. And of course Charles Becker, Claire's dead husband, about whom James had so far said so little, yet hinted so much …

It was almost too much to be taken in at once, all the faceless people with private motives that somehow came together like the center of a spider web by the summer's end. But how? James had a way of organized, point-by-point storytelling, that threatened to put an end to my sanity once and for all. Why couldn't he just stop and say right out what happened that day he thought she was killed? Was he taking his time, still reluctant to come to that part?

His face had clouded up as he neared the end of the tale. Then suddenly it brightened. He'd remembered a picture he owned of my mother that he'd taken himself.

“My gosh, I can't believe I just thought of it! You can even see a little of her house in it,” he'd said, and darted out to his quarters in Tannery Hall to get it, leaving me so stunned at the sudden prospect of seeing my mother for the first time that all I could do was give him a gaping stare.

He'd been gone for a few minutes when, impatient suddenly at all the loose ends of the story still dangling before me, I stretched and took a stroll around the room to pass the time. Books lined almost all the wall space, floor to ceiling, and there were three full shelves of
The Literary Digest
, each volume placed in order with the next. Two filing cabinets in one corner, James's desk and leather swivel chair, and two wooden armchairs made up the rest of the simple furnishings. There were no pictures on the desk, no family articles that one always found in the principal's office at school while nervously awaiting a dressing down. There was, however, a small oil painting on one wall, which I'd only then noticed.

A young girl with light, flowing hair and small features. Something about her brown eyes was enchanting. I gazed at it, almost mesmerized by the face, which was turned not quite straight ahead, the unusual angle adding to its coyness. I was still gazing at the painting when James returned.

“She's beautiful, is she not? My mother, Ruth.”

“Enchanting.”

“Janet painted it in 1879, some years before her accident, and Serena gave it to me when I visited Galveston twenty years later. But here's the picture you've been waiting for.”

I took it hungrily and stared at it, trying to take it all in.

My mother leans on pointed toe in a ballerina pose, her arms upraised and arched inward, forming a frame around her head. Behind her stretches the wide verandah of her house on Avenue L. To her right two great windows yawn. A Gulf breeze, ever so slight, has blown a wisp of hair across her forehead. The expression on her young face is one of rapture.

I went on looking at it, trying to comprehend this was really my mother and I'd found her at last, and suddenly I realized tears were streaming down my cheeks. I replaced the picture on the desk and James continued, handing me a tissue as though I were a student he was consoling over some mishap. “She would have made such a lovely dancer,” he said.

“Would have?”

“Yes, within a couple of days after I shot that photo, it came to light Father Garret was frightfully in arrears about paying for her dance lessons, and she was forced to give them up. This, of course, made her even more determined to run away with Roman Cruz, once he'd promised to take her. You can imagine how pent up she must have felt … on the one hand, expected to marry Nick Weaver; on the other, expected to look after Janet; and worrying constantly over her father. Lord, it would have been enough to make me steal away on a merchant ship, I can tell you.”

“Yet she, being a woman, found it more difficult to get away …”

“Yes, indeed, but determination always plays a big role in success. Well, to get on … Many mornings when I was thought to be crabbing with Tommy Driscoll, I would be following Serena at safe distance, watching to be sure she met with Roman. If one day he failed to be waiting for her, I'd be close by to comfort her.

“You see, I never felt I could trust him completely, not till the end. If you'd known the kind of mystic quality about him, you would have understood. And I was so fond of Serena, would have done anything in the world to save her being hurt. It was the reason I gave her my addresses—in case anything should happen to her and she have need of me.

“It never happened, of course, that he stood her up. I know now he was as much in love with her as she with him, yet it bothered me, this romance between them. The mythology book never paired Apollo with Aphrodite. It made me think he might be stringing her along for the summer, a typical Apolline tactic. I never dreamed I could have been correct in believing the romance wasn't to be, but to be so wrong about the reasons. My father was right in his conviction one can always find truth in books, but sometimes the truth is clothed in deception.”

He went to get more coffee for us.

I picked up my mother's picture again. This time she seemed almost to come to life, as though the verandah she posed on were instead a stage with splendid footlights. Soon, she would move her arms and body to an etude, and after perfect execution of the dance, would be given cheers by the audience, and dozens of roses sent by admirers. She'd be perspiring some, the hair around her face damp, forming little ringlets … Was this what Roman promised her, a career in front of the footlights? Did he tell her, “Stick with me, baby; we'll go to New York together, and I'll make you a star”?

This is what I asked James when he returned to the office.

“You're remarkably perceptive, Willa. Yes, I think he did intend helping her get into a school that he knew of in New York. Of course he didn't know you were on the way till the end. She might have been frightened to tell him, afraid he'd be put off by her clumsiness or lack of caution, and would leave her stranded. I wish you could have known Roman. Of course, most of my acquaintance with him has been in retrospect. You understand, I've had years to put these things together, to remember small items here and there, little things said and done.” He placed the coffee between us.

“Sorry I took so long. I ran into Perkins, one of the teachers staying on for the holidays. He couldn't decide where to put up the tree for our little party.”

“Oh, am I interrupting anything? I never thought—”

“Not at all. We plan to do our quiet celebrating on Christmas Day. You know, this is the first year since my tenure as administrator began, that all the students have had a place to go for the holidays. Only people left here are bachelor teachers—five of us—who've nowhere else to go particularly.

“You may not appreciate that, unless you've ever gone to boarding school. The holidays are dreadfully lonely for the kids who have no place to go. I learned that as I was shifted about, year after year. I went to a total of five boarding schools before finishing, and only a couple of times was I able to spend a holiday away from school. In summer I was sent to camp …”

“But your grandfather—”

“He was ninety when Mother and Father were killed. He died in the fall of 1900. I was truly alone after that. Lucky some distant relatives of my father's looked after my estate. The money from it kept me out of their hair and in schools.

“At any rate, this year we went on a campaign to see all the students had a place to go. Some went home with fellow students, if they had no place else to go. It gave me a good feeling, sending them off happy.”

“You take your job seriously, that's obvious. How long have you been here?”

“Five years. Began as a history instructor. It wasn't really what I wanted most of all, but because I was taken away from this area before I was ready, I always hungered to get back, under any condition.”

“Do you still teach, or just supervise?”

“I have several classes a week—history, English, geography. Depends on how our staff is running from year to year. You know, we have both boys and girls here now, whereas in the old days before I took over, it was a school for girls. We've changed the name to the Tannery Institute of Learning—you may have noticed the sign at the edge of the grounds—in honor of the original owner. My mother and even Claire and Betsey went here when it was the Pedagoguery.

“Well, something else occurred to me as I poured the coffee just now … Porky was poisoned toward the end of that summer. We didn't know who'd done it then, of course, but we soon found out. In fact, it might have been because of Porky's death that Serena confided in me her plans to leave Galveston with Roman Cruz.

“I was heartbroken about Porky. I wasn't a strong child at all, and after he was buried I went back to Claire's and vomited up everything in my stomach. I'd even fainted a few times in my life … once in Galveston, early in the summer after I was stung by a man-of-war in the Gulf, and was being carried home by Roman and Serena. They never knew, though, and I'd have been mortified if they'd guessed.

“Anyway, back to Porky, I did have some of my savings left which I kept hidden in my closet at Claire's. That, plus my earnings from the sale of crabs, came to something like twenty dollars, I think. There was a pet shop in downtown Galveston, and I went to Serena's house that night to offer to buy her another dog there.