Candles Burning

Sixty

EXPECTING to help serve and clean up supper, I entered the house by the kitchen door.

Perdita glanced up at me from arranging portions on plates. “Miz Verlow waitin’ you on the v’randah.”

As I crossed the kitchen, Cleonie came in from the dining room with an empty tray.

She held the swinging door open for me and hummed low at me as I passed. It was a hum of warning.

The guests in the dining room were forking in enthusiastically.

I paused at the front doors to listen for Miz Verlow and heard not only her but also Mrs. Mank. They were in the little alcove where Adele Starret had read Mamadee’s will to Mama.

The two women were smoking cigarettes. The beverage of choice, I saw, was bourbon, in thick crystal glasses. The decanter sat close at hand on the little table. A candle flickered next to it, providing the only light in the alcove. The amber liquid in the decanter glowed with the reflected candlelight, as if it had a small pillar of fire at its core.

The faces of the two women were shadowed. I had to draw a chair up to face them and sit before I could see them clearly.

“What did you learn?” Mrs. Mank said, in a flat voice.

I gave up the finding that I thought least useful. “Mamadee’s maiden name was Dexter.”

Of course it was. As in Dexter Bros., on the circus poster. Her daddy the Dexter who married Cosima, the bird lady who rode the howdah.

Miz Verlow raised her glass to her lips.

Mrs. Mank said nothing for a long moment. She took a long suck on her cigarette.

“And?” she said at last.

Tests. How many tests? Was I going to let these two women run my life and why did they even want to?

“Mamadee must have been ashamed of it, and if she was, then Mama is, and that’s why Mama never told me.”

Miz Verlow relaxed.

“Deirdre’s father was nobody,” Mrs. Mank said, with great satisfaction. “Deirdre tried to make herself into somebody by marrying a Carroll, but there it is, graven in cement.”

Miz Verlow made a little chuckling noise.

“I knew Deirdre,” Mrs. Mank said. “She ruined your mama and she would have ruined you. I was very glad to learn that your mama had taken refuge with someone whom I trusted entirely.”

Mrs. Mank reached out to pat Miz Verlow on the hand. Miz Verlow smiled warmly at her.

“Perhaps,” said Mrs. Mank, “one of us should have told you these things earlier. But you were a child. You’ve grown up on us and we were not prepared.” She smiled at me quite warmly. “We must do something about your hair and you really must learn how to dress properly, Calley. You’re going to go out into the great big rest of the world very soon!”

I could not help the bloom of excitement in my guts.

“Well.” Mrs. Mank stood. “At least you were in time for supper. I’m quite hungry, Merry, and supper smells heavenly.”

I wasn’t hungry but I ate too, and then helped clean up.

I took up Mrs. Mank’s cocoa for her.

I bathed and went to bed. Though I was tired, sleep eluded me.

Mrs. Mank had known Mamadee. She held Mamadee and Mama to be no-account. She had not just chosen me out of the ether or on the say-so of Fennie or Merry Verlow. She had come close to an admission that she had made some attempt to interfere before Mama would ruin me, whatever “ruin” meant to Mrs. Mank.

When? When had she made her observations and drawn her conclusions? Before Daddy was murdered? Before Fennie Verlow sent us to Merrymeeting and her sister, Merry?

Did it matter?

And where? I did not remember Mrs. Mank from the first part of my childhood in Montgomery and Tallassee. Given how young I was, the lack of memory more than likely meant nothing. Mrs. Mank might have known Mamadee for years and years, and just not been around when I was a little girl in my daddy’s house.

Mrs. Mank had spoken of Mamadee with a distinct, personal disdain. Perhaps they had known each other in childhood, and that was how Mrs. Mank came to know that Mamadee’s father was “nobody.” What did the term “nobody” signify to Mrs. Mank? The snobbery innate to the term angered me. Grady Driver was nobody, and so was I.

If Mamadee’s daddy was nobody, did that mean that her mama, my great-grandmama, Cosima, was not?

How was I going to get to New Orleans and, once there, find my brother? And before Mama returned. Before I could plan such a trip, I had to know more about where Ford might be in New Orleans or even if he were still there. It made sense to locate Dr. Evarts. If Ford were in college somewhere, Dr. Evarts would know. Surely he would tell me if I asked. I was Ford’s sister, who had been a little girl when Dr. Evarts became Ford’s guardian. Dr. Evarts could not believe that I was Mama’s agent or that I had designs on Ford’s money. Surely not. Oh, hell—yes, Dr. Evarts might very well think just those things about me.

All I could do was find the man. There must be some chance that if I did, even if Dr. Evarts would not tell me where Ford was, some clue might come my way. Why, Ford might be on break from college, and visiting with Dr. Evarts, and open the door when I knocked at it. That was hope, not wishful thinking, and hope was good, hope was necessary. Faith in myself, and hope for a good outcome. Faith and Hope, my aunties. I needed to think about Ford.

I was putting too much into the consequences of finding him. Likely it would turn out a wild goose chase. If Ford proved to be hateful, I told myself with what I felt was adult rationality, I would be free to walk away from childhood and the wreckage of my family. That’s how young I really was.