LEGACY
He brought her flowers every day. There was a patch halfway between his house and hers that belonged to no one he knew of, and there was always something there. Nice ones in the spring—daffodils and jonquils, magnolia blossoms from the lone tree near the edge of the road. But even in the cold months there were small blossoms to be had, and he always stopped and picked some of whatever was there. It was the least he could do. If things continued as they were, it was all he could do.
She met him at the door and took his gift for the thousandth time with the appearance of as much gratitude as she had the first time. He did not know after so long if appearance and reality were the same. He supposed it really didn’t matter.
He carefully removed his hat as he crossed the threshold of her home. Rather than waiting for his hostess to take it, he hung it himself on the dark maple coat rack that stood by the door. She allowed him that familiarity. He followed her into the parlor and paused as she placed the flowers in a waiting vase on a table beneath a picture of her grandparents—not the ones who were the source of all the troubles, but her mother’s parents. They stared rigidly from the wall, the man’s forehead just to the edge of baldness beneath his white hair and above his crooked tie, the woman’s mouth drooping at the corners, the left side of her head obscured by a diagonal white cloth. Two years after he first started calling on her, she had told him that the cloth was there to hide a tumor that her grandmother never had removed. God had placed that mark on her, her grandmother said, and no man was going to cut it away.
They’re lovely, Franklin, she said. You shouldn’t trouble yourself so.
It’s my pleasure, Constance, he replied. Always.
They sat side by side on the divan and talked pleasantly, neutrally before going in to the supper she had prepared. Her students were undergoing their first encounter with a complete play of Shakespeare; one of the girls, her favorite of the term, had asked if Juliet wasn’t going to get a beating from her father for being so disobedient. The demand for auto supplies was increasing so much Franklin had determined to double his orders for the month and set up a display in the store. There was talk of war in the papers, but President Wilson promised not to shed American blood over European complaints, and the state house in Montgomery seemed more concerned with how, or if, to pay for flood control along the Tombigbee river. Her hands rested comfortably in her lap and her skirt brushed the floor. Franklin had seen pictures in the catalogs that came into the store of newer fashions, skirts that hung only to the tops of the ladies’ high-button shoes, but Constance had not changed yet. He sometimes dreamed of her ankles.
After a decent interval, they went into the dining room, where he sat at one corner of the dining table. The table was absurdly long. Her parents had been known for their dinner parties, but after their passing Constance had not kept up the tradition. She served the meal—green salad with fresh garden tomatoes, cream of spinach soup, pork chops with gravy, new potatoes and sweet corn, peach cobbler for dessert—and then sat across from him. She did not have a maid, although with what her parents had left her, she could easily have afforded one. She did not really need to earn a living teaching. But she preferred to do these things. They ate heartily. Constance was a wonderful cook.
You’ve outdone yourself, he said. A man couldn’t ask for a better meal.
Thank you, she said. Here, have some more potatoes.
After dinner he helped her clear the table and stack the dishes in the kitchen sink. He always offered to wash them, and she always declined. She was so precise about some things, less so about others—in sharp contrast to his own mother, she had no objection to letting the dishes wait until bedtime, or even until the next day. It was one of many things he loved about her.
They returned to the parlor. He reclaimed his spot on the divan, and she sat at the piano and played for him. Some of the old songs—“Flow Gently, Sweet Afton,” with the perfect air of melancholy that had brought tears to the eyes of the old men and women at the Burns Society fundraiser last winter. Some of the new songs—she had just acquired the music for the latest from Mr. Berlin, and she played it with total, uncalculated delight. He tapped time gently with his foot and felt himself smiling. When the sun finally set, he turned up the lamps and she sat back down beside him. It was March and the days were getting longer.
At this point it was all right to take her hand, to hold it and relax into the divan and look into her eyes, so deeply blue in the day, turned slightly green in the lamplight. She laid her head carefully on his shoulder and stroked the top of his hand with her own.
I could stay like this forever, she said.
You can.
No, we have to work tomorrow. And the day after, and the day after that.
You can stay with me forever. I can stay with you. I don’t have to leave. If you’ll just—
Franklin, she said. It was a self-contained statement, not a prelude to anything. In the early days of their courtship, five years gone, even a hint of the topic would cause her to stiffen and pull away. Now, after such a long time, she offered no resistance. And no acquiescence.
We could be married, he said. It was the first time he had uttered the word in months.
No. You know we can’t.
Surely if nothing has happened by now—
Franklin. She sat up straight beside him, rose from the divan, walked over to the piano, and rested her hand near the picture on top. Her great-grandparents on her father’s side. The source of all the troubles. An old man and woman, plainly dressed, surrounded by two younger couples and a young woman, Constance’s grandmother Alice, centered in the frame, looking neutrally at something far beyond the photographer. She stared at the faded portrait in silence.
Franklin waited for her to speak, but knew there was nothing to say that had not already been said a thousand times before. Great-grandfather Henson. Peg Donovan. A dispute over slaves. The old woman’s lawsuit. Her rage at the verdict. The disturbances that followed: I am Peg Donovan’s witch, and Ethan Henson shall know no peace. The inexplicable torment of the grandmother: pins stuck in flesh, hair pulled out by the roots, obscene voices in the empty air. The family become a public spectacle for four years until the great-grandfather finally died and the grandmother’s engagement to Franklin’s grandfather was broken off. I am Peg Donovan’s witch, and they shall never marry. Only then had the sticking and pulling and voices stopped. Years later a New York paper said the grandmother was a liar, a ventriloquist, a fraud like those Fox girls up north. She had sued the paper for libel, and won. Sometimes Franklin thought that, more than anything, was what kept Constance convinced.
And we shall throw away our own happiness, Franklin said, the bitterness he thought was past creeping back into his voice. The sins of the grandparents shall be visited upon the grandchildren?
Apparently so, she said, still staring at the picture. You know what our families have been through since then.
All families have misfortunes, he said. Everyone dies sooner or later. It’s not preordained. It’s not a curse.
We can’t take that chance, Constance said, and then, more softly, I can’t.
He wanted to say: It didn’t want your grandfather to marry my grandmother, and what has that to do with us? It said it would come back, but it said it was an Indian, then a Spanish monk, then the ghost of another of Henson’s dupes. Why should we believe it now? Peg Donovan was said to be in league with the devil, but Peg Donovan is dead. You will be thirty this year.
But all he said was, again, We could be married.
No.
It’s the twentieth century. We are adults who can read and write. I can speak into that box hanging in the hallway and be heard a hundred miles away. In a few years, you’ll probably even be able to vote. We have no room for witches and spells and curses.
There is still plenty of room for death and suffering, Constance said. Look at Europe. Read the newspaper.
And you are more afraid of a supposed curse than modern warfare? Our witch is more powerful than artillery shells and mustard gas?
Slaves, she said, as if he had said nothing.
Constance—
I wish we had left Africa alone, she said. I wish we had never heard of Africa.
He looked down at his empty hands. There was no use continuing. All right, Constance. All right. Come and sit back down with me.
She did, and they talked of other things. The lights shone through the scrolled globes of the lamps and cast familiar patterns on the wall. When they heard the grandfather clock in the living room strike nine, he stood automatically and she walked him to the door.
He kissed her in the open doorway before she turned on the porch light. She tasted of peach cobbler and her own skin. He looked at her until he was satisfied she was not angry or upset with him, and then he went home.
As he walked the half mile back to his own house, New Orleans came to him unbidden, as it sometimes did. Once, before his courtship of Constance had begun, when he was first taking the reins of his business, he went to New Orleans on a buying trip. He was a good man and had tried to be what his father had always called a True Gentleman. His father had warned him about the sins of the flesh, warned him how such activity was not only disreputable but debilitating, draining a man of much-needed vital energy. After Franklin had attained his majority, his father had even confided that he had marital relations with Franklin’s mother no more than once a month for that very reason.
But New Orleans—its deep exotic layers, its sights and smells and very texture—was like nothing Franklin had ever experienced. One night at dinner in the French Quarter with some other young businessmen, he let himself get drunk, which hardly ever happened, and the others swore they could go over to Storyville and get whatever women they wanted, and it was perfectly legal. His mind told him it was wrong; his body and spirit followed the others over to Basin Street and a large house with a red lamp by the door.
He found himself in a cluttered but clean room with a woman whose auburn hair fell to her waist. She sat patiently in an overstuffed chair and crossed her black-stockinged legs so that her robe fell back from them. There were small signs on the wall with odd phrases: Oh! Dearie, I give U much pleasure; Dearie, U ask for Marguerite. An embroidered pillow balanced on the back of the chair announced, Daisies won’t tell. From beneath the floor came the muffled clatter of a piano playing a song he had never heard before. He stood swaying in front of the woman as she opened her robe. She wore nothing underneath. He fell on top of her; she pushed him off, made him take off his pants, and guided him to the bed. She lay on her back and stroked her own nipples and said things he barely understood. He fell on top of her again. It was over too quickly and he wanted to stay, but he didn’t have enough money. On his way out he noticed for the first time the pictures on the wall of men and women doing what he had just finished doing, and on the vanity by the overstuffed chair, a lone photograph of a little girl feeding ducks by a pond.
In the corridor he passed by one of the other young businessmen, who clapped him on the shoulder, gave him a wink, and walked on.
He burned with shame at such thoughts, especially after spending the evening with Constance. And he was not always so preoccupied after his visits. But he sometimes was. Of late, more often than not. He had to remind himself of what he truly loved in Constance, what the Storyville whore could not possibly have. The whore could not cook. The whore could not play the piano. The whore could not recite Shakespeare from memory. The sun did not rise and set in the whore’s blue eyes.
By the time he reached his bedroom he was filled to bursting with his love for Constance and his memories of Basin Street. He took care of the matter, bathed, and went to sleep. He dreamed of marrying Constance and taking her to New Orleans for their honeymoon.
He did not see Constance for several nights after that. There was nothing unusual about it; as close as they were, it would have been an imposition to spend every evening with her. He did go by her house and leave her flowers every day. His father, who approved of both Constance and her family’s money, had learned not to question him too closely. Instead, when the new and larger order of auto parts came in, he complimented Franklin on the resulting storefront display.
And then one day she called him at the store and asked him to come over that night. There was something wrong in her voice, but she refused to elaborate. He said of course he would.
She met him at the door but immediately turned and went into the parlor and sat down, ignoring the flowers in his hand. She had never done that before; he had no points of reference for such behavior. After a moment, he hung his hat and laid the flowers carefully on the table by the vase which still held yesterday’s assortment. She sat on the divan with her hands clenched tightly together. He stood mute, uncertain what to do.
Do you know Aaron Huckabee? she asked.
Jake Huckabee’s brother? He has a farm over near Andalusia.
Yes.
He’s two months behind on his account at the store.
She looked at him the way his mother used to if he ate his salad with the wrong fork. His daughter Ruthann is one of my tenth-graders.
Yes.
She was not at school today. Or rather she was there long enough to leave a sealed note on my desk. Constance rose, went to the table with the flowers, took a piece of paper out of a drawer, and sat back down on the divan.
Dear Miss Baldwin, she read. I am so sorry but I will not be in class ever again. My daddy has gone too far this time and I cannot stay any longer. I am sorry not to tell you face to face but I tried once or twice and I just couldn’t. He has beat me more and more and done other things too. It hurts all the time and I can’t look in a mirror I hate so what I see. Please don’t be mad. I have learned a lot from you. My mother has people down in Mobile and I will go to them. Please don’t tell my father. I love you Miss Baldwin you have been very good to me. Please don’t tell. Love Ruthann.
She set the letter on the end table and held her head in her hands.
He sat by her and put his arm around her, removed it, put it back. Constance. I am so very sorry this happened.
She tried to tell me and couldn’t? Or was I just not listening?
The Huckabees are a bad lot, Franklin said. Aaron’s mother’s family was the worst sort of trash, always fighting and cutting. My mother said when she was a child they could hear them clear across the creek. I’m not surprised this happened.
She had bruises sometimes, Constance said. I didn’t think anything of it. She lived out on a farm. They all had hard labor to do.
This is not your fault.
Ruthann had a strange tone in her voice when she was asking about Romeo and Juliet. I realize that now. I should have realized that then.
This is not your fault. He tightened his arm around her and she leaned into him.
Other things, Franklin? What sort of man could do that?
His head suddenly filled with the room in Storyville and the photograph of the little girl on the vanity. He shuddered and held Constance even tighter. Don’t think of it, he whispered. Don’t think of such things. Her people in Mobile will see after her.
And who will I see after? She pulled away and walked quickly over to the piano. She stared at the photograph on top. And who will see after me?
I will.
I have been so careful. So very careful. I have preserved myself, preserved us. I wanted to make a difference with the children. She lowered her head. I wanted you to be proud of me.
Oh, Constance, I am. He rose and went to her. He wanted to embrace her fully but simply touched her cheek. I am so very proud. No man could ask for a better woman. You are everything I’ve ever wanted.
It doesn’t matter, does it?
It doesn’t matter that I love you?
It doesn’t matter how careful we are. Terrible things happen for no reason. We can take all the precautions in the world. We can never leave our own back yard, and a tree will fall. We can confine ourselves to one room, and the lamps will turn over and burn us.
He had never heard her talk like this. It frightened him and made him hold her closer.
Constance—
We can’t do anything to stop it, she said.
He turned her face to his and kissed her mouth. In the light from the window her blue eyes seemed nearly back. She kissed him back, wrapped her arms around him. He buried his face in her neck and almost fainted from the pressure and the scent and the warmth.
They returned to the divan and remained for a very long time. Then, without speaking, he rose and took her hand, and they walked side by side into her bedroom.
He had not known she kept a picture of him on her vanity. She took down her hair; it fell almost to her waist. At her request he helped her with the back of her dress, but when he tried to push it off her shoulders she gently stopped him and disrobed herself. The dress rustled noisily to the floor. He helped her again with her corset. To his astonishment, his hands were steady. She stepped away from him and removed her undergarments. She stood with her arms over her breasts; her face looked like her grandmother in the picture on the piano. He took her arms and pulled them gently toward him, kissed her hands, placed them on her breasts, and moved them in slow circles. She lay back on the bed and waited for him to undress. Her hands moved over her breasts, around and around. He came to her as gently as he had kissed her hands. She cried out in pain, once, and he thought his heart would stop, but she wrapped herself more tightly around him and it lasted a long time after that. He had never felt such things. He had never been to New Orleans.
And then when they were finished and lay side by side, Constance cried out in pain again, sat up and grabbed her shoulder. Franklin! It hurts!
My God, Constance, what is it—
It’s sticking in me! It’s on fire! She rose naked from her bed and clawed frantically at her side, then both her arms. A swath of her hair rose from the left side of her head, stood straight perpendicular to her body, and pulled itself loose. She screamed and fell to the floor, but before he could get to her a voice said: Couldn’t wait any longer, eh?
No! Constance shouted. No!
I knew it was only a matter of time. I knew in the end you wouldn’t disappoint me. The voice was harsh, distant, metallic, as if it were coming through a telephone from a distant place.
Leave her alone! Franklin shouted. This is not her fault!
Oh, come now. Do you really think I care if you fuck her? Your grandparents fucked like dogs. The words were horrible but flat, without inflection. But they never married each other, and neither will you.
We haven’t done anything to you! Franklin was on the floor and held Constance as she sobbed. We haven’t done anything—
Of course you have. You in particular, Franklin. You did that whore on Basin Street, didn’t you? If you call that doing anything. You did better this time, boy. In Storyville you almost came in your pants before that whore got them off you.
Constance’s sobs were uninterrupted; mercifully, she did not seem to take in what the voice was saying. Shut up! he shouted. Stop this!
I will stop when I’m ready to stop, prick. His picture rose from the vanity and smashed against the opposite wall. The corner of the frame scraped the top of his head as it flew by. Constance screamed again. No! Go away, please go away!
Oh, no. I’m just getting started. You’re just getting started, too. But you have a lot to get used to, Franklin. The blood for starters. Didn’t you smell it, that awful coppery stench when you came in here! Every month, boy, no amount of flowers or perfume can get rid of it—
Shut up!
Welcome to her body, Franklin. There was a rattling sound under the bed. The chamber pot slid out from beneath the dust ruffle, slid across the floor, leaped in the air, and shattered against the wall over the bed. The voiced laughed, an explosive, emotionless sound that frightened Franklin almost more than the rest of it. My bowels moved for thee.
God damn you, stop this!
Constance shits as much as you do.
Stop!
She does other things, too. She takes that picture of you and holds it in one hand and puts the other between her legs. You should hear what she whispers to herself—
Go away! Constance pulled away from him and rose unsteadily to her feet. She whirled in circles, seeking the voice. I don’t care! Do what you want! I don’t care anymore!
Of course you do.
I don’t! I love him!
Of course you do.
I shall marry him!
No, you won’t. The room shook as if in an earthquake. Franklin jumped up and grabbed Constance, tried to soothe her as the room rattled around them. He felt something on her back, cried out as he saw huge welts rise and run down to her buttocks. Entertain yourselves, children, but expect my visits often.
Merciful God, Franklin said. Our father which art in heaven—
Oh, please, the voice said. There was almost a hint of feeling. What did He ever do for you? Your families? Ruthann Huckabee?
—hallowed be Thy name, Thy Kingdom come—
You are bags of shit and piss and blood and you will die. With or without me.
And then the room was still.
When he finally stopped shaking, when Constance was finally still, he pulled on his pants, ran to the parlor, and drew all the drapes. He came back and picked up her clothes and took her with them to the parlor and left her to dress. He returned to her bedroom and put his clothes back on. He tried to pick up some of the shattered things but his hands started shaking again and he went back into the parlor.
Constance sat on the piano bench and did not acknowledge his presence. He sat on the divan and waited.
Finally she said, Take me out of here.
Of course. Come home with me. Or to my father’s. There’s room.
No, please walk me over to the hotel.
But Constance—
I do not want your father or anyone else to know of this.
What will you tell the clerk?
Something. Please take me there now.
He forced himself to stand. Then he walked her the half-mile to the town’s only hotel. At her insistence he left her at the front entrance. As she walked through the doorway he felt his life fading away like the pattern on a much-trampled rug. Then he went home.
He returned to the hotel the next morning, but the clerk said she had left at first light. He endured two agonizing days and sleepless nights, and then he received a telegram from her saying she had gone to stay with her aunt in Tuscaloosa until the repairs on her house were complete. She was gone for over a month.
When she returned she looked well, if a bit thin. She asked him over the second night, and for many nights thereafter. They talked as they had always talked. Her cooking skills were undiminished. She played the piano for him, and he always brought her flowers.
A week after her return, he tried, tentatively, carefully, to talk with her about what had happened. He was afraid she would break down, be overwhelmed by the cold dead terror that had come and the desire that would not leave. But she simply put a finger to his lips and said, Hush, Franklin. It’s all right. We are safe.
But Constance, I—
It will not come back, she said. Don’t worry, Franklin. It will never come back.
Oh, my darling, my love, please—
Don’t worry, Franklin. Dear Franklin. It will never ever come back.
As the weeks turned into months, he came by less frequently. The following year, Constance went back to Tuscaloosa and spent the entire summer with her aunt. When she returned in the fall she was engaged to a medical student. They married the following spring and he returned with her to set up his practice in her town. Franklin left her flowers the night before her wedding but did not attend. She and her husband lived in her house and were never disturbed.
Two years after Constance’s wedding, Franklin married a second cousin who had admired him since they were children. By then he had opened more stores in nearby towns. Before his father died, he declared how proud he was of his only son.
Constance quit teaching soon after her marriage but occasionally gave music lessons. She had her husband and her home. Franklin had his family and his business. He found a whore in Mobile once, but he never went back.