Frances was so excited by the idea that she pulled her husband out of bed and hurried him down to the breakfast room. She then insisted that he explain his proposal to Elinor and Oscar.
“Let me look things over,” Billy said. “We ought to be able to figure out just what everybody’s got. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to find out what kind of shape you’re all in.”
“Not a bad idea,” said Oscar, “but I don’t know where to tell you to begin, everything’s so mixed up. See, we did pretty badly in the first years of the Depression and pretty well during the war. Then everybody was dying for a while, and there were wills to contend with, and who left what to who, and people borrowing from each other, and I don’t know what all else. The way it works now is if somebody needs some money they go to Miriam, and Miriam writes a check.”
“It shouldn’t be that way,” said Billy. “That’s nothing against Miriam, but everybody should know exactly what they’ve got. That way nobody’s going to feel cheated, and—believe me—you’ll all make more money.”
Elinor appeared to like this idea, and asked: “What do you need?”
“I need to see whatever you’ve got—papers, wills, deeds, bank statements, certificates, every bit of paper any of you can lay your hands on. First I’ll have to see what belongs to each of you personally and what belongs to the mill. If it belongs to the mill, then I’ll pass it along to Miriam and let her deal with it. This’ll help her get things straightened out, too. After I know what everybody’s got, I’ll be able to see what we can do to make it a lot more.” Billy shrugged and laughed apologetically. “I’m not greedy, you know. It’s just that all this is in my blood. I see a balance sheet and all I can think is, how do I make those totals bigger?”
“When do you want to start?” asked Elinor.
“As soon as possible. But don’t you think you’d better speak to the others first?”
“Why?” asked Elinor, certain of her position in the Caskey family. “They’re going to say yes.”
So Billy went right to work on getting the monetary affairs of the Caskey family in order. Elinor rented him a little office downtown and bought him a desk and file cabinets. He employed Frances as a secretary, not because she was efficient, but rather because she so much delighted to be in his company, even when he was silent and absorbed in his work. One by one the Caskeys came to Billy with all the documents they could find and told him everything they could remember about the family’s financial dealings for as far back as they could go. Billy took notes and asked questions.
Miriam and Billy worked together. Before the real net worth of the family could be determined, all the transactions that pertained directly to the mill had to be separated from personal business. Miriam was glad to be of help in this for it would ultimately serve to clarify her own work. While her sister and husband were closeted in his office, Frances would wander about the outer room, looking at magazines and staring out the window at the kudzu-covered levee.
By April, Billy had got the family finances straightened out, and after dinner one Sunday afternoon the Caskeys all gathered on Elinor’s screened porch. Even Grace, Lucille, and Tommy Lee had come in from Gavin Pond Farm for the day.
Elinor made only a brief introduction: “Billy has been kind enough to agree to take care of us from now on. I want everybody to listen to him and do exactly what he says.”
At this, Billy stood, made a self-deprecating nod, and spoke: “Now, I don’t want anybody to think that I have jumped into all this and am trying to take over, because that’s not it at all. I’m just a son-in-law accountant, and what I’ve tried to do is get this family’s money business straight—”
“Probably for the first time ever,” interjected Sister.
“I looked over all the papers you brought me, and I tried to get everything in order. I’m taking care of everything so that nobody but me has to think about it. You have all been very patient, not getting upset because you thought maybe I was prying into your private affairs—even Grace brought me her books on Gavin Pond Farm, and I think I’ll be able to help her build up her herd out there. If y’all have any questions from now on come to me with them, because I think I know about what’s what.”
“You are doing so much!” cried Sister.
“You may think it’s a lot,” said Billy, “but it’s not. Sister, that’s the trouble. You really don’t have any idea how much money you have. You want to go to New Orleans, you go to Miriam and you get two hundred and fifty dollars in cash, and that’s what you call bookkeeping. I’m here today to tell you that you’ve all got entirely too much money to treat it like that.”
Something in Billy’s tone and manner reminded the Caskeys of the Methodist preacher’s sermon that morning. Billy was pointing out the errors of their financial ways, and exhorting them to tread paths of greater fiscal responsibility.
“How much have we got?” asked Oscar.
“Well,” said Billy, “of course the greatest portion of the family wealth is tied up in the mill and the plants. So Miriam and I have been working closely to see if we couldn’t determine exactly how much all that is worth.” He turned to Miriam, who stood up with some papers in her hand.
“I’m not gone go into details, ’cause it’s not necessary,” Miriam said with characteristic bluntness. “Most of you wouldn’t understand anyway. There are two points. First point: James had a half-interest in everything. Sister and Oscar have a quarter-interest each. That is to say, all the real money is divided up between Sister, Oscar, and James’s estate. That’s not a complaint on my part, that’s just stating the case. Second point: The mill and the Caskey lands together are worth approximately twenty-three million dollars.” Miriam again took her seat.
“Good Lord!” cried Queenie.
No one else spoke—no one had had any idea that the value was so great. None of the Caskeys had ever considered attaching a number in dollars to the operation.
“We just wanted to give you an idea of the size,” said Miriam. “See what I mean? Everybody was surprised. Oscar,” she said, turning to her father with a rare smile, “even you didn’t expect it to be so much, did you?”
“I sure didn’t!”
“Your private fortunes are much smaller,” said Billy. “For many years most of the personal profits have been reinvested, and not always in the strictest manner.”
Oscar blushed. “Billy, let me say—”
“Nobody’s blaming you, Oscar,” said Sister. “You’re the one who built the mill up, and if twenty-three million dollars is not enough to keep us all off the streets, then we all might as well lay down right now and give up the ghost.”
“No,” said Billy, “it’s not so much that things were unfair, they were just confused. Money was borrowed and never paid back. Money that should have gone to Sister was used to buy new machinery, and so forth. Nobody’s accusing anybody of anything, and the fact is—and you all know it—that the mill could very well have folded up without Oscar doing what he did. All I’ve been trying to do is separate things out again, so you all know where you stand. That’s what I’ve done. Oscar Caskey is worth, in personal holdings and entitlements exclusive of the mill, approximately one million one hundred thousand dollars.”
Oscar whistled, and Elinor’s smile was well satisfied.
“Sister Haskew is worth approximately one million three hundred thousand dollars.”
“Y’all,” cried Sister, staring around the room with an astonished eye, “I’m gone buy me a new car tomorrow!”
“James Caskey,” said Billy, “was worth approximately two million seven hundred thousand dollars, exclusive of his half-interest in the mill. And that fortune, as you know, will be divided three ways—equally—when the will is probated.”
“Lord,” cried Queenie, sitting on the glider with her grandchild in her lap, “James has gone and made me rich as Croesus.”
“Now,” continued Billy Bronze, “there is no reason why this family can’t be a whole lot richer
. You’ve got money now, and once you’ve got money, it’s the easiest thing in the world to make more.”
“What for?” asked Grace. “Who needs millions and millions of dollars? Why do we need any more money than we’ve already got?”
Miriam turned to her cousin with a sour face. “So you can run out and buy your four hundred old heifers, that’s why.”
“I don’t want four hundred,” said Grace, unperturbed. “My pasture’s not that big. I could use about eighty—unless I cleared more land...”
“I’m not against making more money,” said Oscar. “I think we should, in fact. I just don’t know how to go about it. Billy, do you?”
“Yes,” said Billy. “I think I do.”
Miriam nodded. “Billy knows what he’s talking about. If it were my decision, everybody in this room would sign over power of attorney to Billy and let him do what he wants.”
“You don’t have to do that,” said Billy, a bit nervously. “All I would like to do is make recommendations, and if you like them, then you can go through with them. That’s all. Here’s what I’m suggesting: Miriam and I will work together. Miriam will take care of the mill, like she’s been doing—just fine—all along. And I’ll take care of your personal money. If you need some cash you don’t go to Miriam anymore, you come to me instead.”
“It sure would save me some bother,” said Miriam, “not to have to write those damned checks all the time.”
. . .
The Caskeys all acquiesced to Billy’s proposal, and after that Sunday afternoon on the screened porch, they never saw themselves in the same light again. They possessed far more money than any of them had suspected. Elinor was proud, as if she considered that her advice and support of Oscar during the hard years had made the fortunes possible. Sister was elated, for how could her husband touch her when so much money would have kept at bay someone far more dangerous and insistent than Early Haskew? Grace and Lucille were lost in dreams of pastures and herds and newly cleared land. The possibilities for the family seemed endless, but at the same time things seemed a bit vague. For the next few days, they looked about feverishly for things to spend money on. Sister bought a new car for herself, and another for Miriam. What’s more, she bought Billy Bronze one, too. In her new car Sister drove Roxie, Ivey, Zaddie, and Luvadia down to Pensacola and turned them loose in one of the nicest dress shops in town, saying, “We’re not leaving this place until I have squandered five hundred dollars, and I mean it.”
On the whole, however, the Caskeys didn’t spend much more than they had before. They simply became conscious of their wealth. Billy was very busy, in his office downtown. He took over the running of Queenie’s household, so that she would not be embarrassed for funds while James’s will was still in probate. He conferred with Grace about the building up of Gavin Pond Farm. Sister came twice a week to find out how quickly and by how much her net worth was increasing. Oscar and Miriam visited him frequently, and Billy was often closeted in deep financial discussions, particularly with his sister-in-law. Frances was enormously proud of what her husband had done—and was doing—for the family. The Caskeys urged Billy to accept a salary for his work, and he did so without demur.
This son-in-law had ushered the Caskeys into an entirely new stage of their history.
Chapter 59
What Billy Did
During the months when the war was obviously winding down, the Caskeys changed gears. Miriam and her father decided that they should begin a reconversion to their prewar type of operation as soon as possible. Soon the military would be building no more bases, no more barracks. The Caskey mill, in the latter months of 1945, had still been filling back orders, but few new ones were coming in. Miriam had realized, from what she saw in Perdido, that things would be different after the war. Returning veterans would want new housing, for instance. Factories would have to be rebuilt or remodeled to permit new industries and establish employment for these former soldiers. The country would have to learn to deal with prosperity as it had learned to deal with impoverishment. By the beginning of 1946, the Caskey mill was running at full tilt, in all its divisions, even when there weren’t orders for the lumber, poles, sashes, and boxes. Oscar had his carpenters throw up new warehouses on the property that had once been the Turk mill. When the civilian orders began to come in, as Miriam was convinced they would, the Caskeys would be ready.
When Billy Bronze took over the personal finances of the Caskeys, he took a portion of their fortunes and began to invest it in stocks that he and Miriam considered would soon rise considerably. To diversify, he bought apartment houses in Mobile for Sister, and Gulf-front property on Santa Rosa Island for Oscar, and poured Queenie and Grace’s money into the development of Gavin Pond Farm. Danjo knew from his mother of James’s death, and he learned from Billy of his substantial inheritance. The young man asked Billy to invest the money in America, and send him only the income. To Billy Danjo wrote: “Really the only reason I was going to come back to Perdido at all was because I knew James was so lonesome. Now that he’s dead, I’m going to stay over here. Fred doesn’t want to leave, and I don’t mind staying. Come see us in our castle.” Billy went along with Danjo’s cover story to his mother that his not returning was a matter of problems with immigration.
The general comment among the Caskeys was that they didn’t know what they had ever done without Billy.
Late in 1946, when Frances had been married to Billy for somewhat more than a year, she discovered that she was pregnant. Or, rather, Elinor found it out through a careful series of questions regarding her daughter’s times and seasons. The diagnosis was confirmed by Leo Benquith. The doctor was an old man now and had greatly curtailed his practice. He tended to the Caskeys and a few other families, but most of his patients had passed to two young new doctors in town.
“Billy will be so happy,” said Elinor as she drove her daughter home from the doctor’s office.
Frances was silent.
“Aren’t you happy, darling?”
“I don’t know, Mama. Should I be?”
“Of course,” Elinor replied with a bland smile. “Every young married woman wants to have children.”
“Not if the children are going to be deformed,” returned Frances quietly.
Elinor shot a glance at her daughter, but said nothing until they had drawn up in front of the house. Frances started to get out of the automobile, but Elinor caught her by the arm and said fiercely, “Deformed? Is that what you think? Is that what you call yourself? Is that what you call me?”
“Mama—”
“Is Zaddie Sapp deformed because she was born with black skin?”
“Of course not—”
“Are Grace and Lucille deformed because they have given up men and live out at Gavin Pond Farm together?”
“No, Mama, that’s not—”
“That’s how they were born, darling! Zaddie was born with black skin and Grace Caskey was born to dote on girls, and just because they’re different, do you think Creola Sapp should have said, ‘I’m not going to give birth to this child’? Do you think Genevieve and James should have said, ‘We don’t want a little baby if she’s not going to grow up to be just like everybody else in this town’?”
At first Frances didn’t answer, knowing her mother would interrupt her again. But Elinor was silent, looking straight ahead, her hands convulsively grasping the steering wheel.
“Mama,” said Frances softly, “I wasn’t thinking of me, I was thinking of the baby. I was thinking, ‘What if the baby’s not happy?’ That’s all. I’d love it, I know I would.”
“You said ‘deformed,’” said Elinor.
“I guess that’s not what I meant. I meant…different. I meant, is the baby going to be like you and me?”
Elinor glanced at her daughter once again, and now the glance was softer. “Are you that unhappy?”
“No!” cried Frances, rocking forward. “Mama, I’m not unhappy! How could I be unhappy, being married to
Billy and still being able to live with you and Daddy? There’s not a single thing wrong with my life. Mama, we didn’t even lose anybody in the war! And so many people did.”
“All right then,” said Elinor. “Let’s say you had a baby that was just like you, just like me—it would be different. And that’s all. But Zaddie is different, Zaddie is black. Grace is different, Grace is never going to get married and have children of her own. But they’re happy. And you’re happy. Why do you think your own baby couldn’t grow up happy, too?”
Frances thought about this for a moment. “I guess it could,” she concluded. “I guess what I really wanted to know was, is the baby gone be like us, Mama?”
“There’s no way of telling until it’s born,” said Elinor slowly. “Then we’ll know.” Elinor reached down and began to open the door of the car.
“Wait,” said Frances, impulsively placing a hand on her mother’s shoulder. “Mama,” she whispered, “I was just worried…I was just thinking of the baby. I didn’t mean…”
“I know you didn’t, darling.”
When they got inside the house, Billy said, “Why’d you sit out there in the car so long? Y’all must have been freezing!”
Frances smiled. “We were just talking over the good news.”
“What good news?”
“I’m gone have a baby,” Frances announced.
Billy’s surprise and happiness were evidenced in a grin that looked as if it might split his face, and a string of scarcely articulate protestations that this couldn’t be true. Frances assured him that it was.
“Are you sure you’re gone want a little baby who does nothing but cry all the time?” Frances asked.
“Our little baby can cry all she wants, so far as I’m concerned. When is it due?”
“July,” put in Elinor quickly.
“Are you going to take care of Frances?” Billy asked his mother-in-law.
Elinor nodded. Billy always said the right thing. “Zaddie and I are. We’re going to make sure that baby’s healthy.”