Light in August, Page 2

  The wagon is halted again. The woman is preparing to descend. “Even if you get to Varner’s store before sundown, you’ll still be twelve miles from Jefferson,” Armstid says.

  She holds the shoes, the bundle, the fan awkwardly in one hand, the other free to help her down. “I reckon I better get on,” she says.

  Armstid does not touch her. “You come on and stay the night at my house,” he says; “where womenfolks—where a woman can ... if you—You come on, now. I’ll take you on to Varner’s first thing in the morning, and you can get a ride into town. There will be somebody going, on a Saturday. He ain’t going to get away on you overnight. If he is in Jefferson at all, he will still be there tomorrow.”

  She sits quite still, her possessions gathered into her hand for dismounting. She is looking ahead, to where the road curves on and away, crossslanted with shadows. “I reckon I got a few days left.”

  “Sho. You got plenty of time yet. Only you are liable to have some company at any time now that can’t walk. You come on home with me.” He puts the mules into motion without waiting for a reply. The wagon enters the lane, the dim road. The woman sits back, though she still holds the fan, the bundle, the shoes.

  “I wouldn’t be beholden,” she says. “I wouldn’t trouble.”

  “Sho,” Armstid says. “You come on with me.” For the first time the mules move swiftly of their own accord. “Smelling corn,” Armstid says, thinking, ‘But that’s the woman of it. Her own self one of the first ones to cut the ground from under a sister woman, she’ll walk the public country herself without shame because she knows that folks, menfolks, will take care of her. She don’t care nothing about womenfolks. It wasn’t any woman that got her into what she don’t even call trouble. Yes, sir. You just let one of them get married or get into trouble without being married, and right then and there is where she secedes from the woman race and species and spends the balance of her life trying to get joined up with the man race. That’s why they dip snuff and smoke and want to vote.’

  When the wagon passes the house and goes on toward the barnlot, his wife is watching it from the front door. He does not look in that direction; he does not need to look to know that she will be there, is there. ‘Yes,’ he thinks with sardonic ruefulness, turning the mules into the open gate, ‘I know exactly what she is going to say. I reckon I know exactly.’ He halts the wagon, he does not need to look to know that his wife is now in the kitchen, not watching now; just waiting. He halts the wagon. “You go on to the house,” he says; he has already descended and the woman is now climbing slowly down, with that inward listening deliberation. “When you meet somebody, it will be Martha. I’ll be in when I feed the stock.” He does not watch her cross the lot and go on toward the kitchen. He does not need to. Step by step with her he enters the kitchen door also and comes upon the woman who now watches the kitchen door exactly as she had watched the wagon pass from the front one. ‘I reckon I know exactly what she will say,’ he thinks.

  He takes the team out and waters and stalls and feeds them, and lets the cows in from the pasture. Then he goes to the kitchen. She is still there, the gray woman with a cold, harsh, irascible face, who bore five children in six years and raised them to man—and womanhood. She is not idle. He does not look at her. He goes to the sink and fills a pan from the pail and turns his sleeves back. “Her name is Burch,” he says. “At least that’s what she says the fellow’s name is that she is hunting for. Lucas Burch. Somebody told her back down the road a ways that he is in Jefferson now.” He begins to wash, his back to her. “She come all the way from Alabama, alone and afoot, she says.”

  Mrs. Armstid does not look around. She is busy at the table. “She’s going to quit being alone a good while before she sees Alabama again,” she says.

  “Or that fellow Burch either, I reckon.” He is quite busy at the sink, with the soap and water. And he can feel her looking at him, at the back of his head, his shoulders in the shirt of sweatfaded blue. “She says that somebody down at Samson’s told her there is a fellow named Burch or something working at the planing mill in Jefferson.”

  “And she expects to find him there. Waiting. With the house all furnished and all.”

  He cannot tell from her voice if she is watching him or not now. He towels himself with a split floursack. “Maybe she will. If it’s running away from her he’s after, I reckon he’s going to find out he made a bad mistake when he stopped before he put the Mississippi River between them.” And now he knows that she is watching him: the gray woman not plump and not thin, manhard, workhard, in a serviceable gray garment worn savage and brusque, her hands on her hips, her face like those of generals who have been defeated in battle.

  “You men,” she says.

  “What do you want to do about it? Turn her out? Let her sleep in the barn maybe?”

  “You men,” she says. “You durn men.”

  They enter the kitchen together, though Mrs. Armstid is in front. She goes straight to the stove. Lena stands just within the door. Her head is uncovered now, her hair combed smooth. Even the blue garment looks freshened and rested. She looks on while Mrs. Armstid at the stove clashes the metal lids and handles the sticks of wood with the abrupt savageness of a man. “I would like to help,” Lena says.

  Mrs. Armstid does not look around. She clashes the stove savagely. “You stay where you are. You keep off your feet now, and you’ll keep off your back a while longer maybe.”

  “It would be a beholden kindness to let me help.”

  “You stay where you are. I been doing this three times a day for thirty years now. The time when I needed help with it is done passed.” She is busy at the stove, not backlooking. “Armstid says your name is Burch.”

  “Yes,” the other says. Her voice is quite grave now, quite quiet. She sits quite still, her hands motionless upon her lap. And Mrs. Armstid does not look around either. She is still busy at the stove. It appears to require an amount of attention out of all proportion to the savage finality with which she built the fire. It appears to engage as much of her attention as if it were an expensive watch.

  “Is your name Burch yet?” Mrs. Armstid says.

  The young woman does not answer at once. Mrs. Armstid does not rattle the stove now, though her back is still toward the younger woman. Then she turns. They look at one another, suddenly naked, watching one another: the young woman in the chair, with her neat hair and her inert hands upon her lap, and the older one beside the stove, turning, motionless too, with a savage screw of gray hair at the base of her skull and a face that might have been carved in sandstone. Then the younger one speaks.

  “I told you false. My name is not Burch yet. It’s Lena Grove.”

  They look at one another. Mrs. Armstid’s voice is neither cold nor warm. It is not anything at all. “And so you want to catch up with him so your name will be Burch in time. Is that it?”

  Lena is looking down now, as though watching her hands upon her lap. Her voice is quiet, dogged. Yet it is serene. “I don’t reckon I need any promise from Lucas. It just happened unfortunate so, that he had to go away. His plans just never worked out right for him to come back for me like he aimed to. I reckon me and him didn’t need to make word promises. When he found out that night that he would have to go, he—”

  “Found out what night? The night you told him about that chap?”

  The other does not answer for a moment. Her face is calm as stone, but not hard. Its doggedness has a soft quality, an inwardlighted quality of tranquil and calm unreason and detachment. Mrs. Armstid watches her. Lena is not looking at the other woman while she speaks. “He had done got the word about how he might have to leave a long time before that. He just never told me sooner because he didn’t want to worry me with it. When he first heard about how he might have to leave, he knowed then it would be best to go, that he could get along faster somewhere where the foreman wouldn’t be down on him. But he kept on putting it off. But when this here happened, we couldn’t put it off
no longer then. The foreman was down on Lucas because he didn’t like him because Lucas was young and full of life all the time and the foreman wanted Lucas’ job to give it to a cousin of his. But he hadn’t aimed to tell me because it would just worry me. But when this here happened, we couldn’t wait any longer. I was the one that said for him to go. He said he would stay if I said so, whether the foreman treated him right or not. But I said for him to go. He never wanted to go, even then. But I said for him to. To just send me word when he was ready for me to come. And then his plans just never worked out for him to send for me in time, like he aimed. Going away among strangers like that, a young fellow needs time to get settled down. He never knowed that when he left, that he would need more time to get settled down in than he figured on. Especially a young fellow full of life like Lucas, that likes folks and jollifying, and liked by folks in turn. He didn’t know it would take longer than he planned, being young, and folks always after him because he is a hand for laughing and joking, interfering with his work unbeknownst to him because he never wanted to hurt folks’ feelings. And I wanted him to have his last enjoyment, because marriage is different with a young fellow, a lively young fellow, and a woman. It lasts so long with a lively young fellow. Don’t you think so?”

  Mrs. Armstid does not answer. She looks at the other sitting in the chair with her smooth hair and her still hands lying upon her lap and her soft and musing face. “Like as not, he already sent me the word and it got lost on the way. It’s a right far piece from here to Alabama even, and I ain’t to Jefferson yet. I told him I would not expect him to write, being as he ain’t any hand for letters. ‘You just send me your mouthword when you are ready for me,’ I told him. ‘I’ll be waiting.’ It worried me a little at first, after he left, because my name wasn’t Burch yet and my brother and his folks not knowing Lucas as well as I knew him. How could they?” Into her face there comes slowly an expression of soft and bright surprise, as if she had just thought of something which she had not even been aware that she did not know. “How could they be expected to, you see. But he had to get settled down first; it was him would have all the trouble of being among strangers, and me with nothing to bother about except to just wait while he had all the bother and trouble. But after a while I reckon I just got too busy getting this chap up to his time to worry about what my name was or what folks thought. But me and Lucas don’t need no word promises between us. It was something unexpected come up, or he even sent the word and it got lost. So one day I just decided to up and not wait any longer.”

  “How did you know which way to go when you started?”

  Lena is watching her hands. They are moving now, plaiting with rapt bemusement a fold of her skirt. It is not diffidence, shyness. It is apparently some musing reflex of the hand alone. “I just kept asking. With Lucas a lively young fellow that got to know folks easy and quick, I knew that wherever he had been, folks would remember him. So I kept asking. And folks was right kind. And sure enough, I heard two days back on the road that he is in Jefferson, working for the planing mill.”

  Mrs. Armstid watches the lowered face. Her hands are on her hips and she watches the younger woman with an expression of cold and impersonal contempt. “And you believe that he will be there when you get there. Granted that he ever was there at all. That he will hear you are in the same town with him, and still be there when the sun sets.

  Lena’s lowered face is grave, quiet. Her hand has ceased now. It lies quite still on her lap, as if it had died there. Her voice is quiet, tranquil, stubborn. “I reckon a family ought to all be together when a chap comes. Specially the first one. I reckon the Lord will see to that.”

  “And I reckon He will have to,” Mrs. Armstid says, savagely, harshly. Armstid is in bed, his head propped up a little, watching her across the footboard as, still dressed, she stoops into the light of the lamp upon the dresser, hunting violently in a drawer. She produces a metal box and unlocks it with a key suspended about her neck and takes out a cloth sack which she opens and produces a small china effigy of a rooster with a slot in its back. It jingles with coins as she moves it and upends it and shakes it violently above the top of the dresser, shaking from the slot coins in a meagre dribbling. Armstid in the bed watches her.

  “What are you fixing to do with your eggmoney this time of night?” he says.

  “I reckon it’s mine to do with what I like.” She stoops into the lamp, her face harsh, bitter. “God knows it was me sweated over them and nursed them. You never lifted no hand.”

  “Sho,” he says. “I reckon it ain’t any human in this country is going to dispute them hens with you, lessen it’s the possums and the snakes. That rooster bank, neither,” he says. Because, stooping suddenly, she jerks off one shoe and strikes the china bank a single shattering blow. From the bed, reclining, Armstid watches her gather the remaining coins from among the china fragments and drop them with the others into the sack and knot it and reknot it three or four times with savage finality.

  “You give that to her,” she says. “And come sunup you hitch up the team and take her away from here. Take her all the way to Jefferson, if you want.”

  “I reckon she can get a ride in from Varner’s store,” he says.

  Mrs. Armstid rose before day and cooked breakfast. It was on the table when Armstid came in from milking. “Go tell her to come and eat,” Mrs. Armstid said. When he and Lena returned to the kitchen, Mrs. Armstid was not there. Lena looked about the room once, pausing at the door with less than a pause, her face already fixed in an expression immanent with smiling, with speech, prepared speech, Armstid knew. But she said nothing; the pause was less than a pause.

  “Let’s eat and get on,” Armstid said. “You still got a right good piece to go.” He watched her eat, again with the tranquil and hearty decorum of last night’s supper, though there was now corrupting it a quality of polite and almost finicking restraint. Then he gave her the knotted cloth sack. She took it, her face pleased, warm, though not very much surprised.

  “Why, it’s right kind of her,” she said. “But I won’t need it. I’m so nigh there now.”

  “I reckon you better keep it. I reckon you done noticed how Martha ain’t much on being crossed in what she aims to do.”

  “It’s right kind,” Lena said. She tied the money up in the bandanna bundle and put on the sunbonnet. The wagon was waiting. When they drove down the lane, past the house, she looked back at it. “It was right kind of you all,” she said.

  “She done it,” Armstid said. “I reckon I can’t claim no credit.”

  “It was right kind, anyway. You’ll have to say goodbye to her for me. I had hopened to see her myself, but …”

  “Sho,” Armstid said. “I reckon she was busy or something. I’ll tell her.”

  They drove up to the store in the early sunlight, with the squatting men already spitting across the heelgnawed porch, watching her descend slowly and carefully from the wagon seat, carrying the bundle and the fan. Again Armstid did not move to assist her. He said from the seat: “This here is Miz Burch. She wants to go to Jefferson. If anybody is going in today, she will take it kind to ride with them.”

  She reached the earth, in the heavy, dusty shoes. She looked up at him, serene, peaceful. “It’s been right kind,” she said.

  “Sho,” Armstid said. “I reckon you can get to town now.” He looked down at her. Then it seemed an interminable while that he watched his tongue seek words, thinking quiet and swift, thought fleeing A man. All men. He will pass up a hundred chances to do good for one chance to meddle where meddling is not wanted. He will overlook and fail to see chances, opportunities, for riches and fame and well-doing, and even sometimes for evil. But he won’t fail to see a chance to meddle. Then his tongue found words, he listening, perhaps with the same astonishment that she did: “Only I wouldn’t set too much store by ... store in ...” thinking She is not listening. If she could hear words like that she would not be getting down from this wagon, with that belly a
nd that fan and that little bundle, alone, bound for a place she never saw before and hunting for a man she ain’t going to ever see again and that she has already seen one time too many as it is. “—any time you are passing back this way, tomorrow or even tonight …”

  “I reckon I’ll be all right now,” she said. “They told me he is there.”

  He turned the wagon and drove back home, sitting hunched, bleacheyed, on the sagging seat, thinking, ‘It wouldn’t have done any good. She would not have believed the telling and hearing it any more than she will believe the thinking that’s been going on all around her for ... It’s four weeks now, she said. No more than she will feel it and believe it now. Setting there on that top step, with her hands in her lap and them fellows squatting there and spitting past her into the road. And not even waiting for them to ask her about it before she begins to tell. Telling them of her own accord about that durn fellow like she never had nothing particular to either hide or tell, even when Jody Varner or some of them will tell her that that fellow in Jefferson at the planing mill is named Bunch and not Burch; and that not worrying her either. I reckon she knows more than even Martha does, like when she told Martha last night about how the Lord will see that what is right will get done.’

  It required only one or two questions. Then, sitting on the top step, the fan and the bundle upon her lap, Lena tells her story again, with that patient and transparent recapitulation of a lying child, the squatting overalled men listening quietly.

  “That fellow’s name is Bunch,” Varner says. “He’s been working there at the mill about seven years. How do you know that Burch is there too?”

  She is looking away up the road, in the direction of Jefferson. Her face is calm, waiting, a little detached without being bemused. “I reckon he’ll be there. At that planing mill and all. Lucas always did like excitement. He never did like to live quiet. That’s why it never suited him back at Doane’s Mill. Why he—we decided to make a change: for money and excitement.”