In a Dark Season Read online

  Then with a prod from the devil that always lurked just beneath her inherited Southern-lady politeness, she added, “I guess you all have known each other for years and years.”

  It had been years. Almost fifty. Lavinia Holcombe explained that she had been the mentor Nola Barrett spoke of—the recent graduate who had eased Nola’s transition from poverty and rural Appalachia to an exclusive women’s college in Atlanta.

  “I always got such a kick out of Nola—a scrawny little country girl with big wide innocent eyes. She was as smart as they come—had memorized umpteen hundred poems and parts of poems. You know, English teachers used to be big on making students memorize verse—I still know a fair amount myself. Amazing, isn’t it, how some things stick with you and others…”

  Lavinia made a pretty flickering motion with her fingers. “Well, they’re just gone with the wind. Lord, I couldn’t remember a geometry theorem—or is it algebra that has theorems?—to save my life. But ask me to recite verses from ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ that I learned in grade school, and stand back to hear me volley and thunder! Of course, these days, they spend all their time teaching students how to take tests—there’s not much time for poetry.”

  “Did you teach?” Elizabeth asked, warming to this somewhat fantastical personage. Nola lay motionless, either asleep or feigning sleep, and Lavinia Holcombe seemed ready to chat.

  “Oh, I taught at the high school for a couple of years when I was first out of college. But then when I married Big Platt, he had other ideas—Platt had the old-fashioned notion that he didn’t want his wife working and he was set on starting a family right away.”

  Lavinia’s face creased into a wide smile and she gave an irrepressible wiggle of pleasure. “And, lord, how that man went at it! Platt had his office at home, right there in our house at Holcombe Hill, and when we were first married, he counted it time lost if we weren’t bouncing in the bed first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Not to mention midafternoon, often as not, if he didn’t have a client coming in.”

  The big woman settled herself more comfortably on the bed, ignoring Nola and continuing her narrative in an uninterruptible flow.

  “Well, it was no wonder when our first, that was Little Platt, came along as quick as he did—nine months and one day after our wedding. I can tell you, I would have been mortified if that child had been earlier. You know what small towns are and how people used to wear out their fingers counting the months. Of course, it’s different now; girls having babies, even announcing it in the paper without a husband in sight. I still call it trashy behavior, but with movie stars carrying on the way they do, it’s no wonder young women think it’s the ‘in’ thing to be an unwed mother.”

  The spate of words paused momentarily as Lavinia Holcombe opened her purse, drew out a package of cough drops, and began to unwrap one with a busy crinkling of cellophane.

  Taking advantage of the intermission, Elizabeth ventured, “Well, I—” but Lavinia had already popped the lozenge into her red-lipsticked mouth, lodged it in one rouged cheek, and resumed the story, with a grand disregard of her captive audience’s futile attempt at a response.

  “Lord, those were hectic years, believe you me. Little Platt was hardly walking before I was expecting again. And the babies kept coming—one every two years, till, after three girls in a row, I put my foot down. ‘Platt,’ I said, ‘I believe four’s a gracious plenty. Any more children and people will think we’re either ignorant white trash or Roman Catholics.’”

  Lavinia looked at Elizabeth, light blue eyes twinkling, and lowered her voice. “Not to mention that I was putting on weight with every baby—pounds that I could not shed no matter how many grapefruit and hard-boiled eggs I consumed. Of course, Platt didn’t care a lick about that. ‘I glory in your flesh, my dear,’ that’s what he told me. Why even there toward the end, whenever I had to give him his insulin shot, why, here’d come those fingers, grabbing at me. That man never lost interest, old and sick though he was.”

  As Lavinia ran a preening hand over one voluptuous thigh, Elizabeth remembered illustrations from a recent magazine article. The subject had been the varying standards of beauty at different times and in different cultures. She’s like one of those primitive Earth goddesses—the Venus of Willendorf or whatever. Or a Rubens—“acres of nacreous flesh,” who used that phrase?

  Blithely unconscious of Elizabeth’s scrutiny, the iconic figure prattled on. “But anyhow, after the fourth, I finally went and got fixed up with some birth control. I was sure my baby days were behind me—gave away the playpen and the baby clothes and all the other odds and ends that weren’t family heirlooms. Then, on my fortieth birthday, with all the children off at school, that rascal Big Platt caught me unprepared. He’d brought out a bottle of champagne at lunch and when we wound up in bed I didn’t even think about going and getting my diaphragm.

  “It was a month later and Nola and I were taking a little trip down to Atlanta for a college reunion when I started feeling sick every morning. Well, of course, that turned out to be my youngest, Vance. When I think that I almost let her talk me into…”

  The monologue ceased abruptly and Lavinia Holcombe stood, leaving the bed with two sharp little clicks of her heels on the tile floor. Stepping around Elizabeth, she moved close to the bedside where Nola Barrett lay, eyes closed, rigid and unresponsive.

  Her back to Elizabeth, Lavinia spoke again. Quiet and precise, the words were measured out. “They say the last baby is always the one to be spoiled. And it may be true. Make no mistake, Vance is my heartstring. I would do anything for him.”

  Chapter 12

  Arval and Marval

  Thursday, December 14

  The thump of heavy boots and a muttered exchange of angry masculine whispers drew Elizabeth’s attention to the door, where two hulking figures were engaged in a restrained tugging match over a potted poinsettia and a large basket filled with assorted tins and brightly wrapped packages.

  “Big Lavinia tole me to bring this stuff in. You was s’posed to wait in the car and keep the heater running.”

  “Was not.”

  “Was too. Big Lavinia’s gone kick your butt if—”

  “Boys!” Lavinia Holcombe’s peremptory tones immediately stilled the disputants who stood wedged in the doorway, each unwilling to release his hold on the offerings. “Bring those things in right now. Marval, you take the poinsettia—careful with those long stems—and Arval, you bring the basket. And you two watch your mouths; there’re ladies present.”

  Lavinia Holcombe’s tone was sharp but she smiled benignly as the two men, identically clad in the baggy camouflage pants and jackets that had replaced overalls for most of Marshall County’s good old boys, lumbered into the room, meekly carrying their designated burdens. The poinsettia was placed on the windowsill to catch what weak rays of the winter sun could make their way between the close-placed wings of the Layton Facility; the basket was set on the empty bed.

  “Marval, you open that round red tin and offer Miz Goodweather a ginger cookie. Then you and your brother may take four cookies each and go wait for me in the car. I’ll be there in a jiff.”

  Elizabeth watched as the hulking giant six and a half feet, I’ll bet, and likely over three hundred pounds pried open the lid of the cookie tin and offered it to her. As she reached for a cookie, she could see his anxious eyes on the remaining goodies, evidently trying to gauge if there would be eight left. Behind him, his equally large brother watched the tin just as avidly.

  “That was very nice, Marval. Now let Arval take his…yes, that’s right, four is plenty, Arval…and now you take yours and you boys may go.”

  The two hesitated, cookies clutched in their huge fists, identical puzzled expressions troubling their round, small-eyed faces. Arval elbowed his brother and whispered something. Marval cleared his throat and took a step toward the bed where Nola Barrett lay unmoving.

  “He wants to know is she asleep or is she dead too?
”

  Lavinia flapped both hands at him as if shooing a straying animal. “I said, go along to the car. Nola’s just resting. I swear, you boys could aggravate the life out of a saint.”

  As the two jostled obediently through the narrow doorway, Lavinia turned to Elizabeth. “I believe those boys split one brain between them. But they’re good with machinery and Big Platt managed it so they got their driving licenses even though they can hardly read a lick. Do you know, they’ve been driving for us since they were sixteen—that’s over twenty years—and neither one has ever gotten a ticket or even a warning.”

  Leaning again over the figure on the bed, Lavinia put a hand on her friend’s bony shoulder. “Nola sweetie, I brought you a nice poinsettia for your window and some Christmas cookies and a few other things. You just have a good rest and get better, you hear? I’ll be back soon as I can but you know what the holidays are like around Holcombe Hill. I declare, if I had any sense at all, I’d just lie down on this other bed and refuse to get up till the New Year.”

  As Lavinia made her stately departure, seeming to swirl, Loretta Young fashion, out the door, Nola’s lips worked soundlessly for a few moments, then she whispered into the air, where the heavy fragrance of her recent visitor’s expensive perfume still hung, magnificently routing the institutional aroma of Lysol and badly cooked food.

  Elizabeth came closer to the bed, in time to hear the precisely enunciated phrase “The devil damn thee black, thou cream-fac’d loon!”

  “The devil damn thee black, thou cream-fac’d loon.” Why would Nola say that? According to Miz Holcombe, they were old friends.

  The words had run through Elizabeth’s head in a bizarre counterpoint to the saccharine Christmas carols that infested the grocery store. At last she had her cart heaped with the necessities for the coming weekend, including popping corn and cranberries for the traditional chain as well as a bag of oranges and tangerines for Miss Birdie. Waiting in line at the checkout, she leafed through the copy of the Marshall County Guardian that she’d picked up on her way into the store.

  The Tuesday night meeting at the high school hadn’t made it into the weekly paper, which went to press Tuesday afternoon. “SANTA COMES TO TOWN,” shouted the four-inch headline, and the front page was devoted to the Christmas parade of the previous weekend. Elizabeth noted with displeasure the prominent photo of a lavish self-propelled commercial float labeled “Ransom Properties and Investments” in the midst of the usual small homemade entries, all pulled by tractors or, in one case, a riding lawn mower.

  On an inner page she found a brief article titled “Gudger’s Stand Development at a Stand?” The inconspicuous and poorly written piece seemed to say that the county commissioners were suspending further discussion of the proposed development at Gudger’s Stand till the New Year. Well, thanks heavens for that—considering Nola ought to have some say in this if she recovers. And, anyway, nothing’s been determined yet about who owns the place.

  “You doin’ all right today?” Mysti, one of the ever-changing series of high school girls who manned the registers while carrying on violent flirtations with the bag boys, began to scan the items with languid disinterest. Elizabeth moved quickly to begin bagging the groceries in her heavy canvas carriers before the gawky youth who had just wheeled out the previous order could return to work his special magic, dumping in the fragile produce first, then topping off with cans of dog food or bags of flour.

  “Miss Birdie, I brought you some oranges.” Elizabeth knocked at the glass-and-aluminum storm door, trying to make herself heard over the sounds of a game show’s bells, buzzers, applause, and laughter. At last Birdie emerged from the back of the house and hurried to open the door.

  “Lizzie Beth honey, come right in and git you a chair. I heared your vehicle and I was just gittin’ that tape of the Goforth young uns fer you to borry.” The little woman thrust out a small rectangle, wrapped in a well-used paper bag. “And there ain’t no hurry bout gittin’ it back to me—Peggy said hit was mine to keep. Ay law, look at them oranges…and tangerines too! Now what do I owe you fer these?”

  Birdie’s ritual question was met by Elizabeth’s ritual answer. “Not a thing, Birdie. Merry Christmas.”

  Birdie pulled out a glowing tangerine from the bag and held it on her outstretched palm. “Seems like old Santy’s come.” She beamed at Elizabeth, her wrinkled face radiating a childlike joy. “You know, back when I was little, we didn’t never see no oranges ’cept at Christmastime. Oh, we was proud if we could just each one git us a big old orange and a stick of peppermint candy.”

  She brought the tangerine to her nose and sniffed deeply. “If that’s not the finest smell! I thank you, Lizzie Beth.”

  Handing Elizabeth the tangerine and pulling a second one from the bag, she motioned toward her kitchen. “Let’s eat us one right now.”

  As they sat at the big Formica-topped table, luxuriously savoring the juicy, sweet-tart segments, Miss Birdie carefully put all the pieces of peel to one side, keeping them separate from the seeds and stringy white fibers.

  “I always dry my tangerine peel, don’t you?” Don’t you? It was a standard rhetorical question that Elizabeth had come to understand was followed by an unspoken And if you don’t, why not?

  “What do you use it for, Miss Birdie? When the girls were little, I’d bake it into raisin bread—they loved it for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

  “Now, I never thought of that. I generally grind it up fine to flavor my butter frosting for spice cake. I’m not much of a hand at makin’ light bread—I allus buy it at the store. Biscuits and cornbread is more to my likin’. Didn’t Luther nor Cletus neither one eat enough light bread to keep a bug alive. They just weren’t partial to hit, someway.” Birdie bit off half of one segment of fruit and stared closely at the remainder. “Hit beats all, how these things is put together.”

  Belatedly, Elizabeth brushed the seeds and wisps of white fibers from her peels and stacked them neatly beside Miss Birdie’s pile.

  “I was visiting Nola Barrett again today and a woman named Lavinia Holcombe came in,” she said. “I remember you and Luther always had good things to say about the Holcombes. Didn’t they help Luther out somehow?”

  “Oh, that was way back of this, back when some fool government woman wanted to take Cletus up and put him in some training school somewheres. She come to the house time and again and talked and talked to us and waved all these papers around and said what a fine thing hit would be and how iffen we didn’t sign them papers, why the law could just step in and take my boy anyhow. You know what Cletus meant to me, Lizzie Beth, and how much help he was to us.

  “Well, I was in a fine commotion of spirits about the whole thing and my Luther, you know how quiet he was, he just set there a-listenin’ to me carry on one evenin’ and then he says, ‘Miss Birdie, don’t you fret none. When I carried the corn to the mill this mornin’, me and Cletus paid a call on Mr. Platt Holcombe up to his place. I told him how things was and he asked me some questions about our boy. Atter a while he told me not to worry none, he’d see to it that woman didn’t come round no more.’ And Lizzie Beth, she never did.”

  Miss Birdie beamed with smug satisfaction then turned a puzzled face to Elizabeth. “This Lavinia you was namin’—was she a big woman, fixed up all fancy and with a good bit of age on her?”

  When Elizabeth agreed that this was, indeed, Lavinia, Birdie’s perplexity seemed to grow. “Now that would be Mr. Platt Holcombe’s widow, if I don’t mistake. But seemed to me I heared—”

  The telephone bleated and she started to pull herself up.

  “Stay put, Miss Birdie; let me get it for you.” Elizabeth was on her feet and moving toward the living room, where the cordless phone sat in its dock next to Birdie’s recliner. Snatching it up, she carried it, still ringing, and handed it to the old woman.

  “Hello?…Why, Bernice! I was just now thinkin’ I hadn’t heard from you yet today…yeah, boy, I’m right pert…me an
d Lizzie Beth are just a-settin’ here, feastin’ on some tangerines she brung me…Heared what?”

  As Elizabeth watched, her friend’s face passed through a series of strong emotions—from incredulity to revulsion and, at last, deep sadness. Birdie began to shake her head slowly, all the delight that had illumined her face a few minutes before erased entirely. At length, she ended the call with a solemn “I’ll pray fer his family, Bernice, and fer him too. Ay law.”

  Clicking off the phone, Birdie laid it on the table. For a long moment she sat staring silently at the neat little piles of orange and white peel. When at last she spoke, her voice was weary and bewildered.

  “Lizzie Beth, I’ve lived a long time and seed many a troublesome sight, but they’s some things just beyond my understandin’. That was Bernice on the phone. Her boy was listenin’ on his po-lice scanner like he always does and he heared that someone had found Payne Morton—you know, that young feller who pastors up to Dewell Hill? He’s preached at our church back of this, durin’ revivals. Anyway, Bernice’s boy said they found him in his daddy’s barn, cold as ice and dead as a hammer, a dreadful great pistol by his side and all his brains blowed out. Bernice’s boy said they was callin’ it a suicide.”

  The Drovers’ Road IV

  Luellen

  Hit shames me to say it but I took to Lydy Goforth right off. Hit seemed a miracle to me, him risin up out of the morning mist there by the river, the prettiest young man I had ever seen with his black hair and blue eyes and his ways so pleasing and all.

  When I went down the river that spring morning, the heart in my bosom was heavier than the load I was totin. The feller I had thought to marry had gone off without a word of farewell. To any that could hear me, I had said Good Riddance and let on that I didn’t care none. But hit had left me all cold and swiveled up inside. Alls I could think to do was to work so hard every day that I wouldn’t have time for rememberin that I had let a low-built, squint-eyed snake like Mabry Ramsey have his way with me.