New Mercies (31 page)

“In the war?” I asked.

“Heavens no. The Hollands would have been better off if it had. That might have forced the lot of them to move sooner. These old places just catch fire—lightning, tramps, naughty boys sneaking a smoke. Have you insurance?”

“You’ve not seen Avoca.” I’d assumed that everybody in Natchez knew all about Avoca.

“I haven’t had the pleasure. My condolences on your aunt’s death, by the way. Mr. Sam said she passed under mysterious circumstances.”

“Thank you. She didn’t die under mysterious circumstances. She was murdered. After he shot her, the killer committed suicide. That’s it.”

“Oh, I
have
missed a plain-spoken Yankee woman since coming down here.” Holland grinned at me, showing teeth that were very white but a little uneven. He was a large man, not fat, but powerfully built, with big features. His hand on the steering wheel was large. Holland was not especially handsome, but there was a wholesome look to him. David had had delicate features, and he’d been trim—sleek almost—with fine hair that he’d had carefully trimmed each Friday morning. Holland Brown had
curly hair that appeared to have a mind of its own, the kind of hair a woman might like to comb into place with her fingers. I was not that sort of woman, however. I would keep my hands to myself.

Holland seemed to be waiting for a reply, so I said, “They do have a way of talking, don’t they, as if they sprinkle their words with sugar.”

“They sprinkle everything else with sugar. I’ve never been offered so much treacle in my life.”

“What doesn’t have sugar has salt. Have you tasted the ham? And I don’t believe I have to say anything to you about beaten biscuits.”

“My sentiments exactly,” Holland said. “And grits! What sane person could grind up a perfectly good cornstalk and turn it into sand?”

“Perhaps it’s their punishment for losing the Civil War.”

“You mean the Lost Cause.”

I leaned back against the woolen seat of the Packard and relaxed. Holland Brown seemed like a boy from home, his words clipped, instead of melting into one another. But unlike the boys in Denver, he did not know me, did not know about David, so he was not looking for hidden meaning in what I said. I felt more comfortable with him than I had with a man in a long time.

He stopped in front of the Eola. “I’ll carry that box to your room for you, unless you think people will talk. They do have a way of minding each other’s business here.”

“They have a way of doing that everywhere. We’ll just tell them to get lost.”

“Why, Miss Nora!” Holland said in mock shock.

“It’s just plain Nora. Do you think they’ll talk even more if I offer you a drink up there? The bellman sold me a bottle of something called ‘white mule.’ ”

“I know it well—the devil’s poison.”

“It’s not nearly as good as sugar moon from home. Colorado makes the best bootleg in the country.”

“I’m partial to Chicago whiskey. It’s as nice as you please.”

“Either one’s bound to be better than white mule.”

“You’ve got my number.”

My room was too stuffy for comfort. So after locking the jewelry boxes inside my suitcase—while Holland discreetly stared out the window, pretending he was not interested in what I’d taken from Avoca—I stuck the bottle into my purse, and we walked to the river, where the water was the same lead color as the sky. We watched as the night came on, taking nips from the bottle like a couple of bums, and I told him about the drunk who had approached me the night before. Sharing the story with him made me feel good. Then we walked down to Natchez Under-the-Hill and had dinner in a little dive. People ignored us, and for the first time since arriving in Natchez, I felt invisible.

As we ate fried catfish and hush puppies, Holland told me that he had come to Mississippi after his divorce but was not yet sure he would stay for good. He did not talk about his marriage, but instead spoke about Natchez. “The people are fine, and despite what you’d think, there is plenty of legal work here, even though these are drowsing years and some folks don’t hit on all six, but . . .” He shrugged. “It’s still an alien place to me. I ain’t a southerner, not yet, at any rate.”

“Me, neither.” I told him that I was divorced, too.

“Love dies, doesn’t it?”

“If it ever existed at all.” I added quickly, “I intend to be here only long enough to settle my aunt’s estate”

“Well, that’s a shame.”

“There is a little building on Avoca that I could turn into a house, but the idea seems awfully far-fetched.”

He raised an eyebrow but said nothing, and after that, like countrymen who have found each other in a foreign land, we amused ourselves with stories about what Holland called “the natives.” “A client of mine came in wearing the oddest-looking pair of shoes, which he said were made during the war,” Holland told me. “The family couldn’t get leather, you see, so when their dog died, they skinned it and sent the skin to the tanner, and the shoes lasted into the third generation. They were so grateful, they damn near held a wake for that dog.” He paused only a moment. “Have you heard about their wakes? They serve a drink made of bourbon, cooked oatmeal, and cream. Fortunately, with the heat, the laying out is brief.”

“It’s a good thing I arrived too late for my aunt’s funeral,” I said. Then I related Parthena’s story about a Natchez woman who had been told by a Union officer during the war that if all the women in Mississippi were as pretty as she, he had no desire to conquer the South. “You know what she replied?” I asked, then told him. “ ‘If all the Union men are as ugly as you, we have no desire to conquer you, either.’ ”

After dinner, Holland walked me back to the hotel. For a moment, I thought he would kiss my cheek, and I wanted him to. But we were in the lobby, and so we shook hands. “I would
like to see you again before you leave,” Holland told me.

I said that would be nice, and I thought, That would be very nice indeed.

As if in punishment for the pleasant evening with Holland, I awoke with the shivers. I turned off the fan and covered myself with a blanket, although the air was still and hot. I lay in bed, my toes and fingertips cold, thinking about David, about his last minutes in the aeroplane as he maneuvered it toward Lookout Mountain, wondering if his final thoughts were not of me but of Arthur. I took a sleeping powder and did not awake until nine o’clock, the hour I’d agreed to meet Pickett and Mr. Sam at Avoca. Seeing the time on the clock ticking on the bedside table, I jumped up and threw on my work clothes, brushed my teeth, and dusted my face with a puff I took from my compact. It might be all right for me to be late in Natchez, but it would certainly be improper to arrive with a shiny nose.

By the time my cab reached Avoca, Amalia’s bed was being disassembled in the driveway and Pickett was waving her arms at a workman carrying a small table. “Over here,” she said, and he set it down. A tiny man dressed in a white shirt and pants and carrying a walking stick, examined the table, his fingers tapping his chest.

“It’s sure a beaut,” Pickett said, beckoning me.

He squatted and looked underneath the table. “It’s fabulous.” He pronounced the word “fabalas.”

“I told you so.” She indicated me. “Nora Bondurant, may I present Philip St. Vrain, the New Orleans antiquities dealer.
Some people would say he knows more about American antiques than anyone else in the South.”

“And they would be right.” Philip stood and dusted off his palms, then took my hands between his. “Miss Nora, you pretty thing, it is such a pleasure. When I heard last night what was inside this house, I could not sleep. My driver and I left New Orleans before the sun was up.”

“I hope you don’t mind,” Pickett said. “I didn’t encourage him. I simply telephoned to ask about prices. Watch him. He’ll try to honey up to you.”

“She embroiders. You understand, of course, that with the economy in such a muddle, what I can afford to pay . . . But there it is.” He held out his hands, palms up. Then he said he would make a more pleasing arrangement if I would consign the furniture to him.

“Philip, if you push her like that, you can just go on home.” Pickett turned to me. “Mind you, you aren’t obliged. I told Philip what was inside, and he insisted on seeing for himself. If you’d rather not make a decision about selling just now, we’ll tote the lot over to the Buzzard’s Nest. You can store it there till it rots.”

“Cher!
You are an unbalanced woman!” Philip protested. “Now run along and powder your nose like a good girl, and leave me with Miss Nora.”

Pickett ignored him. “Your things are going in the driveway for now, Nora, and we’ll haul them to the shipper’s this afternoon. Tilly’s taking apart Miss Amalia’s bed for you.” She looked at Philip. “Prudent Mallard, Philip, and she’s keeping it.”

Philip pouted until Pickett said there was a second Prudent Mallard bed upstairs.

“The things you’ve offered me”—she dipped her head in appreciation—“go onto the big truck. The rest will stay in the yard, where Philip can haggle over them.” She waved to a man carrying a chair and indicated the lawn. “Philip can tell you what he wants, and the prices are up to you. Don’t accept his first offer, of course. He adores to steal things.”

Pickett smiled at Philip, who huffed and said, “I believe you’d skin a gnat for hide and tallow.”

“Stuff and nonsense. The Mallard’s not anything for you to sell it, and you know that’s right.” Pickett dismissed him with a flip of her hand, and when he had gone off to examine another piece of furniture, she whispered, “That little twelve-ounce man is a dear, but he’s so touchy. Of course, those Oscar Wildes are. You can always tell, can’t you?”

“Can you?”

Pickett was directing a workman with a chair in his arms. “What?”

“Ezra says Miss Amalia wanted the statue thrown into the Mississippi.”

“I hope you’re not sob-hearted woman enough to do it.”

“He also said the thing is supported from the cellar and that the house will fall down if it’s moved.” Then I added, “But the house will fall down anyway.”

“Tell me something I don’t know. But perhaps we’d better leave it there for now.” She called to a workman who was carrying out the petticoat mirror, “Oh, my cake, Mobile! Be taking care with that looking glass.”

While she went to see if the mirror had been chipped, I wandered onto the driveway to look at the chair Tilly had set there,
a Belter. I picked it up, but Philip took it from me. “I was hoping you’d sell that.” A goat had wandered over to him and now began nibbling on his shoe. Philip pushed it away with both hands, then brushed his hands together.

“It’s a Belter,” I told him. “I
love
Belter. There are two more chairs, a sofa, and a table that match. They’re in awfully good condition.”

“People these days prefer those horrible davenports.”

“I know. That’s why I think I’ll keep the set.”

Philip sized me up while I looked at him stupidly. “You stinker. You are every bit as cagey as Miss Pickett—and as tight. When she opens up her pocketbook, moths fly out.” He sat down in the chair. “I’m sure we can work something out,
cher
”.

After he left, Pickett said, “That poor fish doesn’t stand a chance. You told me you don’t like Belter. Why, you can fib as fast as a horse can run.”

“Or at least as good as you can.”

As I went into the house, Pickett yelled at Tilly that she’d step on his corns if he dropped the marble bust he was carrying. From the back of the house, a man’s voice said, “She cackles so much, she’d give a hen the blues.”

I went into the dining room, where a man with moles all over his face and rolls of fat under his chin, which gave him a screw-neck look, sat at a table. He was watching a woman use newspaper to wrap the Old Paris china. When I thanked her, she said, “You got a gracious plenty here—enough for you here, enough for you there. Your family wouldn’t want nothing better.” The table was covered with china, and as she finished filling a box, she looked for someplace to set it. “Gimme that chair you
setting in, Pretty. I rather have your space than your company.” She turned to me. “We call him Pretty ‘cause he’s so ugly.”

“You ain’t no Miss Bessie Smith yourself, sugar.”

Impulsively, I asked the woman to set aside place settings for eight, for I’d begun to wonder about restoring the billiard house. It was an absurd idea, of course, but I could always ship the china later.

I wandered into the great hall and went upstairs, where the shutters were open and the rooms flooded with light. The tent and Ezra’s bed were gone, along with his quilt. The other quilts were still in the cupboard of one of the bedrooms, so I shook out a dust cloth, set an armload of quilts on the clean side, and wrapped them up. I carried the bundle down the stairs and out to the driveway, where Pickett had set my things, then returned for a second load, and a third.

As I set down the last bundle, Philip took out a pair of round gold glasses and put them on, commenting, “I wear eyeglasses for show and for seeing close.” He leaned over for a better look at the quilts.

“My aunt made them. I’m keeping them.”

With his walking stick, Philip flipped through the quilts. “Oh yes, do. I thought they might be Baltimore Albums, but they’re just primitives.” I straightened the quilts before returning to the house, where I asked two workmen to haul Amalia’s desk to the quarters. Ezra and Aunt Polly might want it.

At noon, Aunt Polly, wearing a starched apron, her hair tied up in a crimson bandanna, brought biscuits and vegetable stew, pickles and stewed apples, and sweet-potato pie for Pickett, Philip, and me. We three whites sat on the porch, eating off
china, while the black workers gathered in the yard with tin plates.

I hadn’t thought about lunch, and I asked Pickett if she had given Aunt Polly the makings. “And insult her? Why, she used to cook for dozens of people at a time.”

“Today reminds me of such good times as that, Miss Pickett, and I happy as a dog in the smokehouse to wrassle up that somethin’ good to eat,” Aunt Polly said, coming up behind us. “This morning, we don’t have enough to make a fly a snack, but I tell Ezra to go in the garden and fotch the takin’s, be they small or big, and he come back with enough to fill the cook pot. I expect this the last party I make for Miss Amalia.”