Candles Burning

Forty-eight

MIZ Verlow was waiting for me on my return. She put her finger to her lips as I slipped past her, at the door into her room.

“He pointed out stars to Mama,” I reported breathlessly, “not that Mama could see them but she pretended to.”

Miz Verlow indicated a coffee thermos and a pair of cups on a side table, between her rocking chair and a straight chair. I took the straight chair and she settled into the rocker.

“He thinks Mama is innocent and was done out of Daddy’s money.”

Miz Verlow sighed.

“She believes him,” I said.

“But you don’t,” Miz Verlow said.

“Mama believes what she wants to believe. I don’t believe him, exactly. I believe that she is innocent or she wouldn’t need to believe him.”

Miz Verlow started and sat back, grasping the arms of the rocker.

“Well, well,” she muttered.

“He hasn’t got any proof,” I continued, scornfully, so Miz Verlow would not think that I was disappointed.

She let go of the arms of the rocker and rocked back very slightly.

“Can’t prove a negative,” she said vaguely.

It was an interesting way to put it but I would have to wait until later to think about it.

“Mama asked him if he knew anything about Ford. He ducked it. I think he does.”

“What does he want, exactly?” Miz Verlow asked.

“He says he wants to restore her good name and get Ford back for her and see her as happy as she should be.”

Miz Verlow chuckled. “A perfect gentle knight.”

I heard it as “night.”

She picked up on my confusion at once. “Knight with a K,” she clarified for me. “He wants to carry her away on a white horse, like a fairy-tale princess.”

I guessed that was a way of saying that Mr. O’Hare had fallen for Mama.

Miz Verlow dismissed him. “He’s a fool.”

She poured me half a cup of coffee and we sat together in contemplative silence.

Finally she said, “I never want to catch you eavesdropping on me.”

I put my cup down. “Sometimes I caint help it, Miz Verlow.”

She nodded. “Let me put it this way. I never want to discover that you have overheard me and then repeated it to someone else.”

Immediately I wondered why and if I did, what she might do about it.

“Don’t try me, Calley,” she said, as if she could read my mind. “Go on to bed now.”

Mama was not in the room we shared. I found her in the small parlor, with Mr. O’Hare. They each had a glass of bourbon on the rocks, and a glow about them. I pretended that I had come to kiss Mama good night.

I was in my pajamas, ready to do Mama’s feet, when she came up to bed. She kicked off her shoes and sat down on her vanity stool to unbutton her garters, freeing her stockings so that I could roll them carefully off her feet.

“Gus O’Hare,” she said, as if the name made her feel warm. “What a terribly nice man. Of course, I knew it already—never mind, I don’t want to think about that horrible time.”

In the morning I was on the beach before the sun rose, along with the Llewelyns and Mr. O’Hare and two other guests who wanted to watch birds.

Mrs. Llewelyn had given me one of her old bird guides, and that morning I carried it in a pocket of my overalls. She knew that I had had an even older Audubon guide, once upon a time, but no longer carried it about. Wrongly deducing that I had lost it, she waited until she thought I was old enough to do a better job holding on to one, and then gave me her hand-me-down. I was glad to have it. I had others, left by other guests, but would not make her feel stupid by telling her so. In fact, I still had that older one, but I had conceived the idea that it was so old, that touching it, never mind opening it, would cause it to fall apart.

As we moved slowly and quietly through the tall grass to the crest of the first dune, I fell into step with Mr. O’Hare.

“Mama likes you,” I told him, as softly as I could.

He glanced at me, pleasure lighting his face.

“I like her. I like you, Calley.”

“You don’t know me,” I replied. “Maybe you won’t like me so much if you get to know me better.”

He paused to give me a questioning look.

“Where’s my brother, Ford, Mr. O’Hare? What’s he doing?” Mr. O’Hare grasped the binoculars that hung around his neck and looked away at the sky, scanning it.

“He’s gone to school. A very good school.”

“Doesn’t he care anything about Mama?”

Mr. O’Hare looked down at me. His face was grave. “Your brother has come to believe that your mama was responsible not only for your daddy’s death but the death of your grand-mother, Mrs. Carroll. I am not sure that he will ever forgive your mama.”

Then he raised his binoculars to his eyes.

I did not tell Miz Verlow that Mr. O’Hare knew anything about my brother, Ford. I had too many questions of my own that I hoped to have answered.

Why did Ford blame Mama for Mamadee’s death? Even if Mama had killed Mamadee, I doubted Ford would have considered it unforgivable. He never had any more love for Mamadee than I did. It was Mamadee who doted on him, and all he ever did for her was yank her strings for what he wanted.

Of course if Mama had something to do with Daddy’s murder, that was unforgivable, but in order to believe it, Ford must have some knowledge that I did not. I supposed it was possible. On the other hand, Ford was a Carroll and therefore profoundly untrustworthy.

Mr. O’Hare stayed two weeks at Merrymeeting, courting Mama. He took her to dinner at Martine’s and the Driftwood, and to the dog-track and to the movies. Mama wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about including me, but Mr. O’Hare also took both of us to Goofy Golf and the Famous Diner. That was all it took to make me think Gus O’Hare was Jesus Right Christ on a Popsicle stick. Mama would have slapped me if I’d ever used that expression. Having heard it on the playground at school, I was entranced with it, and anxious to find an application for it. Gus O’Hare fit it fine.