Part 24 (2/2)

”And so your husband had connections in the west?”

”Not really, no.”

More rabbit.

”But surely he knew someone?”

”No; I would have to say no.”

A forkful of greens.

”He didn't come from a large family, then?”

”No, not especially.”

A bite of bread.

”And yourself? You've left many behind?”

”I have sisters.”

More rabbit.

”They're all older.”

A sip of well water.

”Much older.”

”Your own father and mother?”

Another sip of water, to cool the heat of the mustard.

”They pa.s.sed on.”

As light and energetic as Papa was, I must say conversing with me was heavy work for him. Finally, Helen could stand it no longer, and she said, in an ever so low and respectful tone of voice, ”Oh, Papa, I told you of Louisa's tragedy. She's disconsolate. We should ...”

Papa ceased asking questions for now, but little looks, like little sparks of light, continued to flash across the table. After supper, I begged to be excused and went up to my room. I wasn't tired at all, but I saw that I was going to have to make the most of my ill health, so as to keep to my room and avoid Papa as much as possible.

This did not prove to be easy, as Papa was quite as cordial as Helen by nature, and there was the added spur of my mysteriousness that encouraged him to search me out and attempt to draw me. The very next morning, though I wasn't expected to take breakfast downstairs (Helen did not, either), Lorna brought me a note along with my tray, inviting me to take a look at Papa's library. Helen's door was still closed, as by Thomas's watch it was not much after seven, so there would be no protection from that quarter. Papa's handwriting was tall and narrow, but full of whorls and flourishes. It surprised me-perhaps I had expected it to be made up of a sort of pecking.

Papa was standing in a small room off the parlor, as sprucely fitted up as if he had been standing there like a diminutive statue all night long, only awaiting my coming to bring him to life. ”Ah, my dear-Louisa, is it? Louisa Bisket. Unusual name, indeed. Never heard it before in these parts. But I know you aren't from these parts by your own testimony, don't I?”

I smiled and wished him good morning. He bowed over my hand.

”There was a Bisket at college with me, a cla.s.s or two ahead. Tall fellow. Can't remember where his people were from, though.”

I hazarded a question: where had Papa gone to college?

”That was a good time of life, wasn't it? College. Only spent a year there, in fact. Princeton College, it was. Not too many men from the west in those days at that college. They thought me an odd bird indeed!” He laughed. ”Even though I had curls enough, and great mustaches, to boot!” He laughed again, and I laughed, too.

”However, the ministry was not the life for me. I was made to be a farmer, though a reading farmer. You'll see that I have a great many works on agriculture here in my library. I make it my practice to emulate the great Mr. Jefferson, who was a terrific improver and had sound ideas upon government and farming, and architecture, too! This house was designed according to Jeffersonian principles, though of course we have humbler materials to work with here in the west. Ah, well. The bank is an evil inst.i.tution, and the rush of our civilization into the arms of money, as it were, is a great corruption!

”These are my books!” He turned and swept his little arm in an arc toward the two walls of books. I would guess that they numbered five hundred or so, indeed a sizable library for a Missouri farmer, and possibly a matter, had she known it, of significant surprise to Mrs. Bush, who always held that Missourians read only a few words of the Bible and wrote only their first names.

I did as I was expected, which was to step over to the shelves and admire. I couldn't resist saying, ”My husband was a great reader.” There was plenty to admire-Mr. Shakespeare's entire works, and those of Mr. Milton, and Dr. Johnson, and Mr. Joseph Addison. The poems of Mr. Pope were bound in red calf and decorated in gold, and of course there were some volumes of Mr. Jefferson's writings, as well. There was a whole shelf of volumes in French, and ten or a dozen t.i.tles in what appeared to be German. As I perused them, Papa stood back, his hands clasped behind him and a great smile on his face. Ivanhoe, The Lady of the Lake, Rob Roy, Marmion, Quentin Durward. I touched one, and Papa said, ”I am a lover of Scott. He knows what freedom means to a man!” I put my hand down at my side. Poe. I paused to look, and he said, ”I knew the poor fellow, can you imagine? They drove him from pillar to post, but indeed, he wasn't himself sinless by any means.” I looked in vain for Emerson, Hawthorne, Mr. Th.o.r.eau, Mrs. Stowe, the books Thomas could not be without, but in Papa's library, it was as if they had never lived. The novelists and poets here were all English ones, except for Madame Sand, who reposed, in French, right beside Monsieur Hugo. I murmured, ”I am sorry I don't read French. But indeed, you have few American writers here!”

Papa flared up at once. ”Who is there? Only those who spout treason and nonsense! Oh, my dear, you will be sorry you said such a thing, because you will find me unstoppable on the subject! Our nation is a rose-bud, blighted at its very opening by money and industry and all of what I call the iron ways! Boilers! Railroads! Steamboats! Armories! Coal dust, coal smoke, coal stink! We are being hammered w.i.l.l.y-nilly into iron bonds! Where are you from?” His eyebrows shot upward, and without resisting, but quick enough to lie, I said, ”Palmyra.”

”You are fortunate! Vow never to go to Chicago or Cincinnati or New York's inferno! Such places destroy your faith in the future!”

”I've never been to any of those cities. I've never been to a city.”

”And you are better for it, young lady! Come with me!” Papa now grasped me by the elbow and hurried me out of the library, first into the hall and then out a door that turned out to open onto a rear veranda that was at ground level. The kitchen wing of the house enclosed us to the right. To the left, there was a prospect of two fields divided by a rail fence, one a pasture with cows and horses in it and the other a field of hemp, tall, leafy, and ready to be harvested. Several oaks dotted the pasture, and the animals grazed peacefully in their shade. To the right, partially hidden by the kitchen wing, was the stables and, behind them, a barn. Both were built of brick, like the house, but they were not whitewashed, as the house was. It was a pleasant prospect, and I was thinking I would like to get a better look at the horses sometime, when Papa seemed to leap into the air with excitement. He shouted, ”Look at this-is this not the most divine vision you've ever seen?” He raised both arms, threw back his head, and spun around. ”The fit and proper stewards.h.i.+p of the land! The useful verdure consecrated to our improvement by the Lord Himself on one side and the devoted beasts on the other, whose very contentment and low intelligence recommend them to our service! Who made that pasture? I did! Who built that fence? I did! Who planted that crop? I did, yes! But it wasn't I! All I did was enter into a great preexistent circle and divide the plants from the beasts by a little fence, so that the beasts wouldn't trample the tender shoots. Everything is perfection here! The rain falls from the sky, and beasts partake of the fruits of the soil and then themselves create the soil! There is a great flowering, beauty announcing itself, and then G.o.d's messengers, the bees, go among the blossoms! All is given to us for our education and enjoyment, our nourishment and our contemplation! We hold out our hands, and what we need is placed in them!”

Papa took a few deep breaths, then came right up to me and looked up into my face. His bald head shone brightly in the morning sunlight. ”To look at this, you wouldn't know that we live in a fallen world, would you?” I didn't have to respond, but I did think that his experience must have been considerably different from mine, if he supposed that I ever forgot that we lived in a fallen world. ”Money!” he shouted. ”Money, gold, cash, dollars! How does it get in everywhere, I ask you? How can it be that money has come between the land and its workers? Between a man and his dependents?” (Here one of the slaves happened to lead two horses, a mare and her half-grown colt, out of the stable area and toward the pasture.) ”How can it be, this crime and this tragedy, that a man should have to pay money to purchase a fellowman to work his fields? That is the tragedy of our inst.i.tution, not that we have these relations.h.i.+ps of superiority and inferiority, as some wrongheaded northerners think, but that money has entered in and corrupted everything like a disease! You know why the slave is unhappy in his work? Not because he is a slave, but because he knows he represents a certain amount of money, a thousand dollars, say. He thinks that because he costs a thousand dollars, he is a thousand dollars, walking around. He feels himself rich! He's distracted from his G.o.d-given purpose on this earth, which is to serve, not the master and the mistress, but the beasts and the plants and the round of rain and drought and growth and harvest! The so-called master and mistress serve the selfsame thing! We are all servants! The land is the master!” I wondered what Thomas would say to this, whether he would maintain his composure.

The man leading the horses now opened the gate and led the pair through. Other horses in the field lifted their heads, and one of them whinnied. When the man had removed its halter, the colt frolicked away. A moment later, the mare trotted after him. One of the cows mooed. I said, ”You have lovely horses here,” but Papa could not be turned from his flow of eloquence.

”When you are in a city, young lady, the real master is hidden from you by paving stones and building blocks and iron rails, and you begin to think that the false master, money, is the real master. Did you know that when my father was a boy, before this present century, there was no objection to our inst.i.tution? Of course not! The true master wasn't hidden from our sight then! Men lived on farms or in villages, they saw the green world every day, the right way of things was apparent to them. But now this misapprehension has gained sway in the north, in the land of cities, and here we are, fallen low and falling lower fast, and, my dear, they are so hostile to the right way of things that they've resolved to destroy the last vestiges of it! That is money for you! There can't be just a little of money, but everything has to be money, money, money! Soon we'll be buying and selling our own children, and some will say the problem is that there are children and parents, not that money has come between them!”

I couldn't resist saying, ”I've known one or two northerners,” but Papa was now red in the face and red in the pate, and this last speech was accompanied by considerable agitation. Had he been a large or heavy man, I would have been in some uncertainty for him, but he worked off his excitement by hopping and jumping around on the gra.s.s below the veranda. Soon enough a smile returned to his countenance, and he said, ”Well, my dear, if there are any volumes you care to peruse, make yourself free! Bella was something of a reader, but Minna and Helen don't open a book from one year to the next.”

I thanked him and requested a book I had noticed, a novel called Pride and Prejudice, by Miss Austen, which Thomas had mentioned but I had never read.

”Ah!” said Papa with a delighted smile. ”Miss Austen! Few people know Miss Austen these days, but she is quite a stylist for a woman, quite a splendid stylist!” He took me back inside and placed the first volume of the novel in my hand. He had hold of my elbow, and he didn't let go until he had said one more thing, which was, ”Young lady, preserve yourself from money!”

I nodded, reflecting that, at the moment, I was almost entirely preserved from money and I hadn't before thought to be thankful for it.

It was lovely to have a book, such a treasure, all to myself, and I went out on the veranda, where I had seen some chairs. Morning shade still spread from this side of the house, which faced west. Soon I was deep into the story.

The weather was, of course, extremely hot, as this was Missouri and it was August. Perhaps, then, my la.s.situde in those days was heat-induced. Certainly, the custom of the house was for everyone, even the slaves, to retire in the middle of the day for a nap. Breakfast came early-at six. Supper came late-after eight. The two hours of napping in the afternoon produced in me a sense of helplessness; even after I had clothes to wear and could have departed, I looked to Helen to tell me what to do. Helen said, ”Oh! Well, it's August! No one does much of anything in August. It's just so hot! I can't bear even to ride or to drive. The horses look so forlorn, all lathered up with the heat. It's better to leave the poor things alone!”

Papa did indeed have horses. One day, I explored the stables and saw that Papa was a real Missourian when it came to horseflesh, that is, an avid collector and a good judge. For the carriage, there was the matched pair of blacks, long-legged trotters with white stars and white hind fetlocks. For the farmwork there was a pair of heavy sorrel mares, in addition to four of their offspring, sorrel mules that Papa said were twice as tough as the mares and equally docile. Helen had a bay mare to ride and a gray pony to draw her in her cart, and Papa had several horses to choose from and to offer guests. All these were in addition to the breeding stock; along with music and literature, one of Papa's avocations was breeding racing horses. ”Only in a small way,” said Papa. ”I can't claim to be able to afford the best stock, by any means. Racing is a rich man's sport. But we have some good Kentucky bloodlines here; yes, indeed.” And I saw that he was one of those hors.e.m.e.n you frequently see, who pride themselves on their judgment rather than their pocketbook. In the early mornings before Helen came out of her room, I truly enjoyed strolling down to the stable area and watching the horses. And it wouldn't have been shameful, by any means, to see Jeremiah among these animals, switching his tail and making his way from clover patch to clover patch. The pony was Papa's only gray.

What to do for Thomas, what to do that he would not have disapproved of, how to honor him, even how to think of him, was a hot little nut of a question that I turned over and over, trying to crack, day after day. Often, of course, he was simply my husband, whom I missed as a wife must. There were countless things I wanted to say to him that could be said only to him, and not just observations or questions about great issues but, more often, little jokes or amusing sentences and, more often than that, smiles, glances. Had I realized when he was still alive how many times in a day Thomas and I would exchange a look, in the full confidence that each of us knew what the other was thinking? Could this have so quickly become a feature of our marriage without a real sense between us of loving friends.h.i.+p? And so, whatever our disagreements, there had been that, hadn't there? I entered these thoughts happily for a moment, even yearned for them, but they were their own punishment: the tie was broken and never to be renewed; my only ways of enjoying it were quiet reflection within myself or unsatisfactory communication to others of subtleties that they could neither understand nor appreciate. The very pleasures of such thoughts turned into an even larger loneliness than I had felt before I allowed myself to think them. But it was often the case that living with Papa and Lorna and Helen and Delia (a big woman but deceptively quick, who said little, and nothing to me-”She's very shy, especially of white folks,” said Helen) and Malachi and Ike and all the others made me want to positively drag Thomas back from death and wring answers from him about who they were and what to think of them. Sometimes I felt myself in an argument with him, not because my views had changed but because this ease and these pleasures were so comfortable. Must I not be pleased by the graceful front of the house, which had surely been erected by slaves? Must my heart not lift at the sight of the horses-more and better horses than any Yankee would ever need or care to have? Must I not compliment Helen on the gowns that made her so pretty? Must I not eat with relish the game Malachi shot and Delia prepared? Must I not sink into the joys of a delightful novel during the day, when others were working? Must I not walk across the lawn, feeling its luxurious springiness in every step? Must I not smile in spite of myself when I opened my eyes every morning and saw the elegance of my chamber? Must I instead keep my eyes closed until I had marshaled my responses according to moral principle? Must I not look back upon our much humbler, our very unbeautiful, arrangements in K.T. with a sensation that was beginning to amount to revulsion? Thomas, perhaps, would not have felt this division at all. I yearned to ask him about it.

And how quickly did I need to flee?

For flight was certainly required. I knew and felt that I was in every way the wrong bird for this flock and that my every movement and remark revealed it. That Helen and Papa seemed to accept me was a testament more to their hospitality (or blindness) than anything else. Every morning, after I donned my gown and before I left my chamber, I made sure that my pistol and its ammunition were safe inside my case. Before my nap and at bedtime, I rea.s.sured myself that nothing had been touched or disturbed. These were not the actions of a proper guest.

Most important, I quizzed Thomas, how should I go on with pursuing his killers? How should I leave? What direction should I take? Where were money and transportation to come from? How should I disguise myself, now that Papa and all his connections knew of my existence, now that I was wearing costumes well known in the neighborhood, now that my men's clothes had been disposed of? What should I do after the deed was done, now that I was deep in enemy territory, settled territory, where the most desirable outcome, the deaths of Samson and Chaney, would certainly have ill consequences for me. In K.T., I had been planning revenge. In Missouri, I was most a.s.suredly planning a crime for which I would be captured and punished, possibly killed (on balance, the easier consequence to ponder). I quizzed Thomas, but I got nothing from him. On this subject, he turned away from me. I had always been more b.l.o.o.d.y-minded than he, less judicious, more hasty and hot. And yet how could I let it go, and creep back to Quincy? It didn't seem possible. It didn't feel possible. And it didn't seem just. To turn and walk away from his killing, in fact, seemed to both represent and partake of the very absence of justice that was K.T. from top (President Pierce) to bottom (the unknowns who died from time to time without anyones ever knowing who they were or how to get in touch with their loved ones). The hot days drifted by, and soon I had been with Helen and Papa for over a week.

It chanced, during this week, that Papa had few visitors and kept mostly to himself, though on most days he rode away to do business of some sort. His questioning of me and my refusal to answer became a more and more good-humored ritual (or, at any rate, good-humored on his side; on my side, fear gave my smiles and laughs a hollow quality). There were no parties and little news. Perhaps out of disinclination to alarm Helen, Papa said little more about Kansas than he had already. For several days after her alarm, Helen tried to take things in hand and make provision for a siege or something like it. She and Lorna and Delia bustled here and there, especially down in the cellar below the house and out in the root cellar cut into the hillside. They decided that there was an abundance of provisions for two or three months, anyway. But the sun shone and the heat held, and the danger seemed to recede as life kept on in its familiar way. To me, the idea of my friends back in K.T. attacking Day's End Plantation from either the road in front or the fields behind seemed ludicrous. Papa had all the discernible advantages.

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