Blackwater: The Complete Caskey Family Saga

  In the middle of November, by the chance of the draw, the Tuesday meetings were held on successive weeks first in Elinor’s house and then in Queenie’s. Though accidental, this exchange of visits assumed the dimensions of a public embrace, and thereafter Queenie and Elinor were considered to be friends. This was a willful—perhaps even mischievous—misinterpretation of the circumstances on the part of Florida Benquith and her circle, but it was a misinterpretation that stuck, perhaps because neither Queenie nor Elinor did anything to deny it.

  Somehow, Mary-Love heard of this, or divined it by miraculous clairvoyance, and was disturbed. Mary-Love had no liking for Queenie, either in her person or in her position as Genevieve’s sister. She particularly did not like to see Queenie rollicking behind the enemy lines. She began to fear that Elinor and Queenie would join forces and launch a concerted attack against her.

  Consequently, at dinner after church a few weeks later, Mary-Love said to James, “It is time to mend our fences.”

  James looked up from his plate, surprised. “Have you and I been arguing, Mary-Love? I sure didn’t know it, if we were.”

  “We have not, James, but in case you haven’t noticed, most of our family is not speaking.”

  James—and everyone else at the table—shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  “It is getting close to Christmas,” Mary-Love continued, quite as if she bore no responsibility for the estrangements and divisions within the family, “and I think it would be nice if we all spent it together.” She paused, perhaps waiting for someone to second this motion. Finding only silence, she went on unperturbed: “We ought to do it for the children, if not for ourselves. There’s Grace, of course,” said Mary-Love, glancing toward her niece across the table, “she’s been with us for a while, but now there’s Miriam and Frances. And, Lord, they’re sisters, and they hardly get the chance to look in each other’s faces! And now we’ve got Malcolm and Lucille, they ought to be here—”

  “You’re inviting Queenie Strickland!” cried Sister in amazement. James just sat with his mouth open.

  “I’m inviting the whole family,” said Mary-Love, rather enjoying the consternation she had caused. That she was able to surprise them so completely and to such effect was proof of her continuing power.

  “And Oscar and Elinor, too?” asked James, shaking his head in wonder.

  “Everybody.”

  “Do you think they’ll come?” wondered Sister. “Queenie will, of course,” Sister went on, answering her own question, “and she’ll be bound to bring along those two hellions.”

  “Sister!” cried Mary-Love in reproach, having never heard her daughter speak any word that even approached a curse.

  “That’s exactly what they are,” Sister went on. “But, Mama, you really think you can get Elinor over here, and get her to bring Frances with her?”

  “I see no reason why Elinor should not come,” said Mary-Love stiffly. “I see no reason why she should not bring her daughter with her. Of course, there is another reason why we are having a party on Christmas.”

  “What is it?” asked James.

  “Early says he is gone have the levee plans done next week. And I think we ought to celebrate his finishing.”

  “It’s taken me a lot longer than I reckoned,” explained Early apologetically.

  “But he wanted to do it right,” said Sister quickly. “And, James, your old council got its money’s worth when it hired on Early to do the job. Once he’s ready to start, that levee’ll go up like nobody’s business.”

  “Well,” said James cautiously, “I’m real glad to hear it, but, Mary-Love, I don’t think you better say anything about this to Elinor. Don’t tell her she’s coming over here to a party for the building of the levee—or I can guarantee you she won’t step foot in this house.”

  “You are probably right, James. Maybe if you invited her she’d come. Maybe if you told her I’m gone set up a big tree—the biggest tree we’ve ever had—and she can bring all her packages over here, and tell her we’ll fill the whole front parlor with presents for the children, maybe then she’d be convinced. Maybe if you could explain to her that the family ought to be together at Christmas, and maybe if you told her that Queenie’s gone be invited too it’d all make a big difference.”

  “She’s friends with Queenie now?” said Sister.

  Mary-Love nodded. “I’ve heard tell ...”

  Sister nodded thoughtfully, suddenly understanding more about Mary-Love’s motives for these invitations than Mary-Love would have liked.

  Later that afternoon James went over to Elinor’s and invited her and Oscar to Christmas Day at Mary-Love’s. He mentioned Queenie’s invitation but said nothing of Early Haskew’s presence, or the fact that Early was just finishing up his plans for the levee. Elinor calmly accepted the invitation, merely remarking that she had already planned to go to Mobile to buy everyone presents. At about the same time Sister went over to Queenie’s, taking with her a plate of hard candy, and extended the same invitation. Queenie desperately tried to think of a way to discuss with Elinor whether she ought to accept, but it was imperative that she say yea or nay immediately. She could not plead a prior engagement, for Sister would know that was a lie. She said yes and prayed God that she had not offended Elinor in doing so.

  That evening Queenie walked over to Elinor’s and conferred with her new friend upon the matter at hand. “I could say I had to go back to Nashville for something or other, and then stay locked up in the house all day,” suggested Queenie with some enthusiasm, confident that the idea was so ridiculous that Elinor would never encourage her to go through with it. It had been for Elinor’s sake alone that Queenie had declared an aversion to Mary-Love.

  “No,” said Elinor, “Oscar and I are going, and we’re taking Frances, so there’s no reason why you shouldn’t go too, Queenie.”

  “I’m glad you said that,” said Queenie. “’Cause it makes everything a whole lot easier for everybody.”

  “I want to go,” said Elinor. “I haven’t been in that house for a long while, and I think it’s time that I saw what Miss Mary-Love has been up to.”

  . . .

  In the first part of November, a draftsman from Pensacola had taken up residence in the Osceola Hotel, and worked day and night for three weeks, producing final drawings, on blueprint paper, of all Early’s plans for the levee. On the day that he finished, Sister and Early took the plans home and spread them out one by one on Sister’s bed, and admired them. The next day the blueprints were taken to the records office at the town hall and photographed for safety’s sake. Then the following Tuesday, Early took them before the town council, along with his revised estimates of costs and a timetable for completion of various stages of the work. To the council’s satisfaction, the cost was lower than originally predicted, and if all went well, Perdido would be completely protected by an impervious, indestructible levee by the winter of 1924.

  Tom DeBordenave reported what everyone on the council already knew—that the state legislature had authorized a bond issue for the construction and that the sales of these bonds would be handled through the First National Bank of Mobile. Each of the millowners had already deposited twenty-five thousand dollars in the Perdido bank, and nothing now stood in the way of the work’s immediate commencement.

  By unanimous consent of the council, Early Haskew was appointed principal engineer for the project, and was directed to go down to Pensacola and Mobile and up to Montgomery immediately, and to begin speaking to contractors and asking for sealed bids. The meeting closed with a prayer. With bowed head, James Caskey asked God to send no more high water before Early Haskew was finished with his work.

  Early set forth immediately on his mission, and was sorely missed by Sister. But she and Mary-Love were busy with preparations for the Christmas party, the event having added to the usual amount of activity before the holiday.

  There was now increased traffic between Mary-Love’s and Elinor’s houses. Elinor
sent over a jar of strawberry preserves; this favor was returned in the form of two pounds of shelled pecans; which offering came back as a fruitcake soaked in pre-Prohibition Havana rum. Such tokens continued to be passed back and forth between Ivey’s kitchen and Roxie’s kitchen, growing more valuable in each journey across the yard in Zaddie’s arms.

  Still, Mary-Love and Sister saw no more of Elinor than they had in previous months. In fact, neither of them set eyes upon Elinor until one day about a week before Christmas. Sister had gone over to Elinor’s with a great box of infant clothing, things outgrown by Miriam but which might, she thought, be of some use for Frances. Elinor thanked Sister for her thoughtfulness, asked her inside, served her Russian tea, allowed her to hold Frances and coo over her, and gave her an armful of wrapped gifts to take home and place under the tree.

  Early had hoped to be away no more than a week, but twice he sent telegrams to say he had been forced to go farther afield than he had hoped would be necessary. “I don’t imagine he’s gone make it for Christmas,” said Mary-Love to disappointed Sister. “That’s all right with me. It means we’ll just be plain family.”

  Nevertheless, on Christmas Eve, Sister sat in the window of her room for three hours watching out for Early’s arrival. But since the engineer didn’t own an automobile, there was little hope of his driving up in one, and there was no other means by which he could get down from the train station in Atmore. At last Mary-Love came into Sister’s room and demanded that she go to bed. Sister did so, rather than admit to her mother the cause of her anxiety.

  . . .

  At first, everything seemed to go as well as anyone could have wished. The doors of the parlor had been shut against any early intrusions by the children. After a breakfast that seemed interminable to Grace and Malcolm and Lucille doors were opened and the presents were revealed in all their shining array. Grace clapped her hands and gazed rapturously at the tiers of fancily wrapped gifts that were terraced out from the base of the tree until the whole parlor was nearly filled with them. There were gifts under chairs, lurking behind the curtains, placed on windowsills, stacked on the mantel, and piled on the sofa. Besides these, several large unwrapped gifts stood in the corners of the room—a rocking horse for Lucille, a red bicycle for Malcolm, and a turreted dollhouse, filled with furniture, for herself. The Caskeys sat wherever they could find places in the crowded room, and a few of the dining room chairs were brought up to the open doorway. Zaddie and Ivey and Roxie, who had worked all morning in the kitchen, cleared the dining room and then sat together on a window seat there, from which vantage point they could watch the proceedings and receive the gifts intended for them.

  It was Grace’s duty to pick up each present, read the card attached, and hand it out. Malcolm demanded that he be allowed to assist, but since he could not yet read, he had to satisfy himself with distributing the gifts as Grace called out the names. Because of the number of presents involved, this was a slow process and Grace was inclined to make it even more so, often not passing out the next gift before the last had been opened. Everyone got plenty of presents, and soon the parlor was a sea of discarded paper and tissue and ribbon, in the midst of which were neatly stacked islands of gifts, with the cards carefully preserved. The air was thick with exclamations of surprise, gratitude, admiration, and good-natured envy. Grace was certain she had never been so happy in her life.

  The only gifts not distributed were those intended for Early Haskew. These, without even calling out his name, Grace simply set to one side.

  The merriment continued for more than two hours. Before the end of it, Roxie and Ivey returned to the kitchen to start cooking dinner. The telephone rang once. Sister, nearest it, went to answer. Hearing the voice on the other end, she immediately turned away, and carried the telephone out of sight behind the staircase.

  It was Early Haskew, calling from the train station in Atmore. He apologized for not being able to get there sooner, regretted disturbing everyone on Christmas morning, but wondered if someone might not be sent up to Atmore to fetch him. As soon as he had hung up Sister went into the kitchen where Bray sat at the table opening the first of four gifts that had been under the tree for him. He was already wearing his best uniform, and at Sister’s behest went immediately to get out the automobile.

  Sister said nothing of this when she returned to the living room. Mary-Love was so deeply involved with the opening of the gifts and the delight of the children that she forgot to ask Sister who it was that had telephoned.

  . . .

  Early Haskew walked into the house an hour later. Grace and Lucille were in the front parlor with their toys and the tree; Malcolm was outside riding his new bicycle up and down the street; the servants were all working on dinner in the kitchen; and the adult Caskeys, with the two infants, were sitting around the dining table once again.

  At the unexpected sight of Early Haskew, Mary-Love emitted a little scream of delight and Queenie began to talk at the rate of a mile a minute to no one in particular. Oscar and James rose with exclamations of surprise and delight, shook hands with him cordially and pulled a chair up to the table for him. Sister, holding Miriam, and Elinor, holding Frances, said nothing. Sister wore a fixed, almost idiotic smile, while Elinor seemed troubled and distracted.

  Early sat down at the head of the table and spoke to everyone in turn in his loud, measured voice. He was glad to see James and Oscar again and he had lots of things to tell them and talk over with them. He was very happy to be back in Mary-Love’s house and she couldn’t have any idea how much he had missed it. He called out to Ivey Sapp in the kitchen that nobody in Mobile, Montgomery, Pensacola, Natchez, or New Orleans cooked anything like the way that she cooked. Yes, he remembered Miz Strickland very well and Bray had nearly run down her little boy in the street on his new red wheel. He didn’t know how he got along without Sister for so long because she always told him what he should be doing and it was sure lonely in those places and he was always turning around to say something to Sister and lo and behold she just wasn’t there, and—more quietly—how was Miss Elinor doing, and wasn’t her baby just looking fine?

  Elinor nodded briefly, but did not say a word.

  After Early’s greetings, Oscar wanted to know what Early had managed to accomplish. Out of deference to his wife, he did not say the words “on the levee,” but it was evident, from a tightening of Elinor’s mouth, that those words needn’t be spoken aloud for her to know perfectly well to what her husband referred.

  “Well,” said Early, “I tell you, I think I found somebody. I looked all over, I talked to two thousand people—or almost—and I found a man in Natchez who is willing to come here and submit a bid. What I would do if I was the town council is accept his bid even if it’s not the lowest. This man—whose name is Avant, Morris Avant—is gone do you the best job. When you’ve got a job as big as this levee, then you gone want...”

  Seeing Oscar cringe as he spoke, Early paused. Oscar had turned and looked at his wife at the other end of the table. Everyone else did too. Elinor’s head was lowered, and she was buttoning Frances’s little chemise. If she had a telling expression upon her face, no one could see it to read it.

  “...a job like this levee,” Early went on cautiously, “then you gone want to have it done right.”

  “I’m going to take Frances upstairs for a nap,” said Elinor suddenly. “She can hardly keep her eyes open. Miss Mary-Love, where should I put her?”

  “Put her in Miriam’s bed, Elinor. Wait, I’ll come up with you.”

  “Oh no, you stay down here. I’ll be back down in a bit.” Elinor rose and silently walked out of the dining room, into the hallway, and up the stairs to the second floor.

  Everyone at the table knew that Elinor had left because of Early Haskew’s presence and his talk of the building of the levee. The curious thing was, however, that Elinor had not done more. She had not taken Frances home, she had only gone upstairs with her. She had not said I will not allow myself to b
e in the same room with that man, she had said I’ll be back down in a bit. She had hidden her anger behind a mask of polite impassivity. Mary-Love and Sister took deep breaths together and exhaled slowly.

  “Will wonders never cease?” asked Sister softly.

  “I thought it was gone be up with us,” said Mary-Love.

  Queenie, for once, sat still and quiet—like one watching a battle from a protected place, anxious to learn which army would win, to which general she would soon swear allegiance.

  Elinor did not reappear for the next hour, and for the next hour Early talked of his trip. In the meantime, Roxie came in and began to set the table for dinner. By the time that Early was finished with his chronicle, it was time to call the children in. Miriam had already been fed, and was taken upstairs by Mary-Love and placed in a little fortress of pillows on Sister’s bed. Mary-Love then knocked on the door of Miriam’s nursery, softly opened the door and told Elinor, who was seated in a chair by the window looking out at the muddy Perdido, that dinner was ready downstairs if she was ready too. Elinor declared that she had been thinking of her family and the place she had come from and had forgot the time. On the way out, Mary-Love peered over into the crib, and exclaimed, “Frances is the prettiest baby I ever did see—except for Miriam of course!”

  . . .

  Christmas dinner was more formal than breakfast. The infants were sleeping upstairs and the three other children had been banished to a small square red deal table set up in the kitchen, where all three acutely felt the disgrace of their tender ages. Thus the adults had the dining room to themselves, and when they were all milling about the table unsure of where to sit, Mary-Love pointed out places for them all, taking care that Early and Elinor sat as far apart as possible. Having engineered the insult of bringing them together at all, she could afford to be charitable on this small point.