Miss Julia Meets Her Match (26 page)

“You may not think so when you hear what I have to say.”

“I’ll take any excuse I can get for a chance to have you next to me.” He smiled down at me.

We settled in the large white rockers on the porch, our hands side by side on the adjoining chair arms. He reached over and took mine, and I let him, for the warmth and comfort of him soothed my troubled soul.

“What’s troubling you, sweetheart?” Sam said.

“Oh, Sam,” I said, biting my lip and turning my head from him. “It’s so embarrassing.”

“Come on now,” he said, cradling my hand in his, “if you didn’t come over because you couldn’t stand being away from me, tell me what brings you. You know you can say and do anything you want, Julia, and have no reason in the world to be embarrassed with me.”

I wasn’t too sure about that, for I am a modest woman and could think of any number of things to do with and say to Sam that would embarrass me to death.

“The fact is,” I said, taking a deep breath that almost came out a sob, “well, I’m so upset I can hardly tell you, but the fact is, Sam, you have compromised me.”

He cocked an eyebrow and viewed me with a hint of amusement. “Compromised you?” he said. “I plead innocent of all charges, though not from lack of trying.”

“Guilt or innocence doesn’t matter, as you well know. Just let one person raise the subject, and it begins to spread until it’s taken as the Gospel truth.” My voice trembled with the unfairness of it all. “I tell you, Sam, I am being accused of immodest behavior, and even though that kind of conduct requires two people to accomplish anything, it’s me who’s being held up for public scorn.”

“Hold on a minute,” Sam said, his amused expression suddenly replaced with a frown. “Who’s accusing you, and who’s holding you up for public scorn?”

“I just told you. Everybody in town, according to LuAnne. They’re saying awful things about our conduct, accusing us of all manner of illicit activities, and . . . well, of doing things we shouldn’t do,” I said, unable to control the quaver in my voice. “And they’re laughing and whispering and talking about us.”

“Hmmm,” Sam said, running his free hand over his mouth as he thought about this jolting news. “This is pretty serious, Julia. I don’t want my girl blamed for something she hasn’t done, even though I’ve been trying as hard as I can to get her to.”

I snatched my hand away. “This is no time for levity. Everybody thinks we’re practically living together, and,” I stopped, so overcome with the shame of it that I could hardly go on, “Pastor Ledbetter wants to censure me in front of the whole congregation.”

Sam’s head jerked around so he could stare at me. “Censure you? For what?”

“For seducing you and leading you into the paths of evil with my irresistible charms, which I don’t have any of in the first place.”

“Oh, good Lord,” Sam said, sounding more disgusted than I’d ever heard him. “Of all the wrongheaded, misogynist thinking, this tops them all.”

“Well, I don’t know about that, but, Sam, you’ve got to do something. You’ve got to go see the pastor and tell him that it’s all your fault. Because you know I haven’t led you on or encouraged you into any kind of mischief or immoral behavior.”

“I know you haven’t,” he said in all seriousness. Then he looked at me and smiled. “More’s the pity.”

“I’m going home,” I snapped, snatching my hand away and jumping up from my chair. “I came over here to tell you that I’m not going to take this lying down and . . . Sam! This is no laughing matter, and if you think it is, you can laugh by yourself!” I jumped up from the chair. “I’m leaving.”

“No, no, no,” he said, getting up with me. “Don’t go, Julia. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have laughed. It’s just that when this town starts something, they always get it wrong. And I’m sorry that you’re carrying the brunt of it. Would it help if I went around and told everybody that it’s my fault?”

“I wish you would, but nobody’d believe you. According to the pastor—and you know those idiots on the session believe everything he says—it’s the woman who leads the man astray so, in this case, I’m the one who’s done the leading.”

Sam lifted his eyes heavenward and said, “I only wish.”

I spun away from him. “Now I
am
going home. I came over to warn you that sooner or later your reputation is going to suffer as mine already has, but if you don’t care, I might as well leave.”

“I care, Julia,” he said, his face filled now with enough concern to gratify me. “Now listen to me.” He put both hands on my shoulders and squared me up to face him. “There’s not much we can do about gossip, but Ledbetter’s another matter. First off, there has to be a trial, a questioning of some sort, before a censure can be pronounced. Censuring is the last resort, not the first. So either Leonard or LuAnne got it wrong, or Ledbetter’s thrown over the Book of Church Order.” He stopped and thought about it. “Something’s going on, Julia. No way in the world would Ledbetter risk offending you and cutting off your contributions to the church unless he had somebody to take up the slack.”

“Curtis Maxwell!” I cried, the whole picture suddenly becoming clear. “Sam, if that man joins the church, Pastor Ledbetter won’t need my pledge envelopes anymore. And I guess the pastor is so sure of him that he’s not worried about losing my tithes and offerings and over-and-above gifts.”

“You may be right,” Sam said thoughtfully. “But the idea of Ledbetter taking a step like this, well, it’s pretty risky, considering what he might be engaged in himself.”

“That’s exactly what I told LuAnne.”

He sobered at that. “You told LuAnne about him and Norma? Oh, Julia, I’m not sure that was a good idea. We don’t know for sure who Norma was with.”

“Don’t remind me. I could’ve bitten my tongue off as soon as I said it, knowing how bad LuAnne is to talk. But, Sam, he’s accusing me of something I haven’t done, so why shouldn’t he bear the brunt of something he might’ve done? Besides, his own wife thought he was playing fast and loose with Norma.” And I went on to tell him about accompanying Emma Sue on a night raid that had proved nothing, but hadn’t deterred Emma Sue from suspecting the worst at the time. “But now, after putting us both in such peril, she’s convinced herself of his, if not Norma’s, innocence.

“We could’ve been put in jail, Sam,” I said, summing up the story, “if we’d been caught. The pastor would really have a reason to censure me then. Of course, he’d have to do the same to his wife, which I hope would’ve given him pause.”

Sam put his arm around my shoulders and drew me close. If I hadn’t been so perturbed by his quickness to laugh at our circumstances, I would’ve responded in a warmer manner. But I kept myself stiff as a board, although it was all I could do to stay that way. I just wanted to melt against him and hide my face from the world.

“Let me tell you something,” Sam said, as he smoothed my back with his hand. “First off, you’re not in jail and you’re not going to jail. Second off, no one, not Ledbetter, not the session, not the General Assembly itself, is going to hold you up for any kind of censure, either public or private. Put your mind at rest, Julia, it is not going to happen, and you can count on that.”

I could feel his chest and arms tighten up as he went on. “The more I think about it,” he said, “the more determined I am to take Ledbetter down a peg or two. And you can believe I’m the man to do it.”

A warm shiver ran through me at the thought of Sam as my defender and protector—something I’d never had before. Wesley Lloyd would no more have taken a stand for me against the pastor and the session than he would’ve flown.

I was so overcome with Sam’s commanding tone that all I could do was croak, “What’re you going to do?”

“You just leave it to me,” Sam said with considerable firmness. “Go on about your business, and let me take care of it.”

“Well, but LuAnne said that everybody’s talking about us. Can we do something about that, too?”

“Sure, we can. We get married, and that’ll stop it once and for all.”

I shook my head. “No, it won’t. You know how this town is, Sam. First thing you know, they’ll be saying we had to get married.”

Lord, the man laughed so hard, I thought he was going to have a stroke.

“I mean,” I protested, “they’ll say we had to because the pastor made us. Now stop laughing.”

But I had to smile with him, although the thought of all the wasted years without him—years when the possibility of having to marry wouldn’t have been a laughing matter—stabbed at my heart.

But you can’t cry over spilt milk, as Lillian says, so I let the dark cloud pass on by and felt my spirits lift at having a share, late though it had come, in his great good nature.

Then he put both arms around me and rested his chin on the top of my head, and we stood pressed together right there on his front porch for all the world to see. And I didn’t care at all.

“I’ll tell you what,” Sam said, his breath stirring my hair, “let’s forget about the talk. Don’t let it bother you, Julia. They’re just jealous, and when they see how I cut Ledbetter off at the knees, they’ll think twice about what they say.”

I nodded against his chest, just so enveloped in the smell and feel of him that I would’ve agreed to almost anything he proposed.

“How’re you going to do that?” I asked, picturing Pastor Ledbetter having to climb up on a stool to see over the podium.

“Don’t you give it another thought. By the time I get through, he’s going to know he’s been to the woodshed.” Sam laughed. “I may mention the legal consequences of slander and false accusations. I expect I’ll get his attention.” Sam ran his hand down my back and went on. “Should’ve done it a long time ago, but he’s gone too far this time. Can’t let anybody upset my girl.”

He made my knees weak, holding me so close and calling me his girl. Lord knows, my girlish days were over, although there was a place deep down where I was still a lost and lonely child. And Sam knew where it was.

That night, after the children were in bed, Hazel Marie and Lillian and I sat at the kitchen table, enjoying another slice of German chocolate cake before going up ourselves.

In spite of Sam’s reassurances, I’d been brooding all afternoon on the tales running rampant throughout the town, and making myself miserable wondering why Mr. Pickens hadn’t called. My nerves were so on edge that I’d not even been able to get the nap I’d promised myself.

I put down my fork and said, “I need to ask both of you something, and I want you to tell me the truth.”

They looked at me, Lillian frowning and Hazel Marie nodding, as they waited to hear what I had to say.

I took a deep breath. “I want to know if you’ve heard any gossip about Sam and me.”

Lillian asked, “What kinda gossip?”

“If you have to ask,” I said with some relief, “I guess you haven’t.”

“Oh,” she laughed. “You mean
that
kinda gossip. Law, no, Miss Julia, don’t nobody say nothin’ to me ’bout you nor Mr. Sam. They know better.”

Noticing Hazel Marie’s silence, I peered at her. “What about you? Have you heard anything?”

“Well,” she sighed, laying her napkin by her plate, “a little, but it’s been going around for so long, I thought it’d about wore itself out.”

“
How
long?” I was stunned. Here I’d been holding my head up high, confident of my spotless reputation, and now to find that people had been whispering and giggling behind my back for who knew how long, well, it just mortified me.

“I’ve not paid much attention, to tell the truth,” Hazel Marie said, but her face belied her words. “And nobody’s ever come right out and actually said anything. Just a comment here and there.”

“What kind of comment?”

“Well, like ‘I guess Sam’s about moved in, hasn’t he?’ or ‘Maybe Julia’ll have better luck this time around,’ things like that.”

“And what do you say back?”

“Nothing. Just something like ‘You’ll have to ask them,’ or ‘That’s Miss Julia’s business.’ Nobody’s said anything to me lately. That’s why I thought it’d died down.”

“Well, for goodness sakes, Hazel Marie, I wish you’d told me, because it hasn’t died down. It’s spreading all over the place, even being discussed in the session, which LuAnne just had to tell me about. And now Pastor Ledbetter intends to make a public example out of me in front of the whole congregation, unless Sam can stop him.”

“Oh, my word,” Hazel Marie said, a shocked look on her face. “He can’t do that. I’ve never heard of such a thing. Well, yes I have, but it was in a backwoods church where one of the deacons was caught feeling up a woman in a Holy Ghost trance. They whipped him right there in front of everybody. Scared me so bad, I never went back.”

“Lord, Hazel Marie,” I said when I got my breath back, “that’s awful. I don’t think the Book of Church Order provides for public whippings, but don’t go telling that story around. I wouldn’t want the pastor to get any more ideas.”

Lillian stood up and began gathering our plates. She looked at me and said, “I tell you somethin’ right now. I ain’t never thought what mens and ladies do in they own house be bad as what folkses do when they start messin’ in other folks’s business. Nobody, not yo’ preacher nor nobody, got no call to say you an’ Mr. Sam be nothin’ but pure as the driven snow.”

Hazel Marie nodded emphatically. “As the driven snow. Amen to that.”

Well, I wouldn’t have gone quite that far, since I’d been known to harbor a few unseemly thoughts in the dark of the night, but their trust in my moral purity went a long way in easing my anxious mind.

“One good thing,” Lillian said, as she walked over to the sink. “If all them folks so busy talkin’ ’bout you an’ Mr. Sam, they got no time for talkin’ ’bout anybody else.” A stricken look crossed her face as she realized she’d almost spilled the beans about Wesley Lloyd’s double- or triple-dealing, right in front of Hazel Marie. Dishes clattered in her hands before she could get them in the sink. “I mean, folks skip around a lot when they get to talkin’.”