"Is that your boat?" cried Laura.
"It's as much mine as anybody's. I'll take you for a row if you get in," said Roy, stepping in himself.
The boat was in a willow shadow, floating parallel to the bank—dark, unpainted, the color of the water. She would have to step deep. A fishing bucket was in it, and also one oar where a dark line of water went like a snake along the bottom.
"Here's the other oar," she said; it was resting on a dogwood tree. She stepped down in, and he instructed her to sit at the other end of the boat and be quiet. "I know how," said Laura. On her lap the turtle looked out. Roy pushed off, his old tennis shoes splashed water which ran under her sandals, and he sat down and looked nowhere, frowning in the sun. The boat was cut loose but almost still, for as a current urges a boat on, the lack of current seems to pull it back, not let go. Laura could not see beyond a willow branch that hung in her face. Then with a gruff noise the oars went into the water, with the unwilling-looking, casual movement of Roy's arm. The water was quieter than the land anywhere.
"Let me row," said Laura.
"Be quiet," said Roy. He took his tennis shoes slowly off and put them on the little seat between them. He hooked his toes. At the stroke of his oars a shudder would interrupt the smoothness of their motion.
The bayou was narrow and low and soon the water's edge was full of cypress trees. They went in heavy shade. There were now and then muscadines hanging in the air like little juicy balls strung over the trees beside the water, and they rode staring up, Roy with his mouth open, hoping that grapes might fall. Then leaves cut out like stars and the early red color of pomegranates lay all over the water, and imperceptibly they came out into the river. The water looked like the floor of the woods that could be walked on.
"Are we going down the river?" asked Laura.
"Sure. And the Yazoo River runs into the Mississippi River."
"And it runs into the sea," said Laura, but he would say no more.
As they went down the Yazoo, a long flight of ducks went over, going the way they were going, the V very high in the sky, very long and thin like a ribbon drawn by a finger through the air, but neither child said anything, and after a long time the ducks were a little wrinkle deep down in the sky and then out of sight.
On the other side of the river from where they had come, facing them, Laura saw what they were getting to, a wonderful house in the woods. It was twice as big as Shellmound. It was all quiet, and unlived in, surely; the dark water was going in front of it, not a road.
"Look," she said.
Roy glanced over his shoulder and nodded.
"Let's go in!"
There was a dark waterlogged landing, and Roy got the boat to it neatly and ran the chain around a post. He jumped out of the boat and Laura climbed out after him. "Bring my turtle, remember," he said. She brought it, like a hot covered dish. They were in a wood level with the water, dark cedar trees planted in some pattern, some of them white with clematis. It looked like moonlight.
"Why, here's Aunt Studney, way over here!" cried Roy. "Hi, Aunt Studney!"
Laura remembered Aunt Studney, coal-black, old as the hills, with her foot always in the road; on her back she carried a big sack that nearly weighted her down. There at a little distance, near the house, she was walking along, laboring and saying something.
"Ain't studyin' you."
"That's what she says to everybody—even Papa," said Roy. "Nobody knows what she's got in the sack."
"Nobody in the world?"
"I said nobody."
"Where does she live?" asked Laura a little fearfully.
"Oh, back on our place somewhere. Back of the Deadening. You'll see her walking the railroad track anywhere between Greenwood and Clarksdale, Aunt Studney and her sack."
"Are you scared of Aunt Studney?" asked Laura.
"No. Yes, I am."
"I despise Aunt Studney, don't you?"
"Papa's scared of her too. Me, I think that's where Mama gets all her babies."
"Aunt Studney's sack?"
"Sure."
"Do you think Ranny came out of that sack?"
"Sure....I don't know if I came out of it, though." Roy gave her a hard glance, and looked as if he might put his fist to her nose.
"I wonder if she'd let me look in—Aunt Studney," said Laura demurely.
"Of course not! If she won't let any of us look in, even Papa, you know she won't let you walk up and look in."
"Do you dare me to ask her?"
"All right, I dare you."
"Double-dog-dare me."
"I just dare you."
"Aunt Studney, let me look in your sack!" screamed Laura, taking one step in front of Roy and waiting with open mouth.
"Ain't studyin' you," said Aunt Studney instantly.
She stamped on, like an old wasp over the rough, waggling her burden.
"Look! She's going in Dabney's house!" cried Roy.
"Is this Dabney's house?" cried Laura.
"Cousin Laura, you don't know anything."
"All right: maybe she's gone in to open her sack."
"If she does, we'll run off with what's in it!"
"Oh, Roy. That would be perfect."
"Be quiet," said Roy. "How do you know?"
"All right: you go in front."
They went up an old drive, made of cinders, shaded by cedar and crape-myrtle trees which the clematis and the honeysuckle had taken. There were iron posts with open mouths in their heads, where a chain fence used to run. Taking the posts was a hedge that went up from the landing, higher than anybody's head, with tiny leaves nobody could count—boxwood; it was bitter-green to smell, the strong fearless fragrance of things nobody has been to see.
When they came to the house, there was a dead mockingbird on the steps. They jumped over it, Laura not looking back—dead birds lay on their sides, like people. Roy reached down and touched the bird to see how dead it was; he said it was hot. The porch was covered with leaves, like the river, and there were loose, joggling boards in it. The door was open.
Roy and Laura, Laura with the turtle against her, held in the crook of her arm now like a book, went in a vast room, the inside of a tower. Their heads fell back. Up there the roof, if there was one, seemed to fade into the light. Before them rose two stairs, wooden spirals that went up barely touching at wavery rims, little galleries on two levels, and winding into the depths of light—for Laura had a moment of dizziness and felt as if she looked into a well.
There was an accusing, panting breathing, and the thud of a big weight planted in the floor. "Look," said Laura. Aunt Studney, whom she had forgotten about, was in the middle of the room, which was quite empty of the furnishings of a house, standing over her sack and muttering.
"I know," said Roy impatiently. He was regarding the chandelier, his hands on his hips—probably wishing it would fall. Laura all at once saw what a thing it was too; it was as prominent as the stairs and came down between them. Out of the tower's round light at the top, down by a chain that looked the size of a spider's thread, hung the chandelier with its flower-shaped head covered with clusters of soft and burned-down candles, as though a great thing had sometime happened here. The whole seemed to sway, to almost start in the sight, like anything head downward, like a pendulum that would swing in a clock but no one starts it.
"Run up the stairs!" cried Roy, starting forward.
"Aunt Studney," whispered Laura.
"Well, I know!" cried Roy, as if Aunt Studney were always here on his many trips to this house.
"Did you say this was Dabney's house?" asked Laura. There were closed doors in the walls all around, and leading off the galleries—but not even an acorn tea-set anywhere.
"Sure," said Roy. "Make yourself at home. Run up the stairs. (What's in your bag, Aunt Studney?)"
Aunt Studney stood holding her sack on the floor between her feet with her hands knotted together over its mouth, and peeping at them under an old hat of Mr. Battle's. Then she threw
her hands up balefully. Laura flung out and ran around the room, around and around the round room. Roy did just what she did—surprising!—and so it was a chase. Aunt Studney did not move at all except to turn herself in place around and around, arms bent and hovering, like an old bird over her one egg.
"Is it still the Delta in here?" Laura cried, panting.
"Croesus, Laura!" said Roy, "sure it is!" And with a jump he mounted the stair and began to run up.
Laura probably would have followed him, but could not leave, after all, for a little piano had been placed at the foot of the stair, looking small as a fairy instrument. It was open. In gold it said "McClarty." How beautiful. She set the turtle down. She touched a white key, and it would hardly sink in at the pressure of her finger—as in dreams the easiest thing turns out to be the hard—but the note sounded after a pause, coming back like an answer—a little far-off sound. The key was warm. There was a shaft of sun here. The sun was on her now, warm, for—she looked up—the top of the tower was a skylight, and around it ran a third little balcony on which—she drew back her finger from the key she had touched—Roy was walking. And all at once Aunt Studney sounded too—a cry high and threatening like the first note of a song at a ceremony, a wedding or a funeral, and like the bark of a dog too, somehow.
"Roy, come down!" Laura called, with her hands cupped to her mouth.
But he called back, pleasure in his voice, "I see Troy riding Isabelle in Mound Field!"
"You do not!"
All at once a bee flew out at her—out of the piano? Out of Aunt Studney's sack? Everywhere! Why, there were bees inside everything, inside the piano, inside the walls. The place was alive. She wanted to cry out herself. She heard a hum everywhere, in everything. She stood electrified—and indignant.
"Troy! Troy! Look where I am!" Roy was crying from the top of the house. "I see Troy! I see the Grove—I see Aunt Primrose, back in her flowers! I see Papa,! I see the whole creation. Look, look at me, Papa!"
"If he saw you he'd skin you alive!" Laura called to him. The bees, Aunt Studney's sack, the turtle—where was he?—and Roy running around going to fall—all at once she could not stand Dabney's house any longer.
But Roy looked down (she knew he was smiling) from the top, peering over a shaky little rail. "Aunt Studney! Why have you let bees in my house?" he called. The echoes went flying around the walls and down the stairs like something thrown down. It so delighted Roy that he cried again, "Why have you let bees in my house? Why have you let bees in my house?" and his laughter would come breaking down over them again.
But Aunt Studney only said, as if it were for the first time, "Ain't studyin' you," and held the mouth of her sack. It occurred to Laura that Aunt Studney was not on the lookout for things to put in, but was watching to keep things from getting out.
"Come back, Roy!" she called.
"Not ready!"
But at last he came down, his face rosy. "What'll you give me for coming back?" he smiled. "Aunt Studney! What's in your sack?"
Aunt Studney watched him swagger out, both hands squeezing on her sack; she saw them out of the house.
Outdoors it was silent, a green rank world instead of a play-house.
"I'm stung," said Roy calmly. With an almost girlish bending of his neck he showed the bee sting at the nape, the still tender line of his hair. A submissive yet arrogant pleasure seemed to radiate from him, having for its source the angry little bump. Now Laura wished she had one. When they went through the deep cindery grass of the drive she saw the name Marmion cut into the stone of the carriage block.
Suddenly they cried out in one breath, "Look."
"A treasure," said Roy, calmly still. Catching the high sun in the deep grass, like a penny in the well, was a jewel. It might have been there a hundred years or a day. They looked at each other and with one accord dropped down together into the grass. Laura picked it up, for Roy, unaccountably, held back, and she washed it with spit.
Then suddenly, "Give it here," and Roy held out his hand for it. "You can't have that, it's Mama's. I'll take it back to her."
Laura gazed at it. It was a pin that looked like a rose. She knew it would be worn here—putting her forefinger to her small, bony chest. "We're where we're not supposed to be looking for anything," she said, as if something inspired her and made her clever, turning around and around with it as Roy tried to take it, holding it away and hiding it from Aunt Studney's fastening look for Aunt Studney with her sack was suddenly hovering again. "You can't have it, you can't have it, you can't have it."
Roy chased her at first, and then seemed to consider. He looked at Laura, and the pin, at Marmion, Aunt Studney, even the position of the sun. He looked back at the river and the boat he had rowed here.
"All right," he said serenely.
They walked down and got back in the boat. They moved slowly over the water, Roy working silently against the current. Yet he seemed almost to be falling asleep rowing—he could sleep anywhere. His gaze rested a thousand miles away, and now and then, pausing, he delicately touched his bee sting. Presently he rocked the boat. He never asked even a word about his turtle.
"The only place I've ever been in the water is in the Pythian Castle in Jackson with water wings," said Laura. "Tar drops on you, from the roof."
"What?"
Roy dragged in the oars, got on his feet, and threw Laura in the river as if it were all one motion.
As though Aunt Studney's sack had opened after all, like a whale's mouth, Laura opening her eyes head down saw its insides all around her—dark water and fearful fishes. A face flanked by receding arms looked at her under water—Roy's, a face strangely indignant and withdrawing. Then Roy's legs drove about her—she saw Roy's tied-up toe, knew his foot, and seized hold. He kicked her, then his unfamiliar face again met hers, wide-eyed and small-mouthed and its hair streaming upwards, and his hands took her by her hair and pulled her up like a turnip. On top of the water he looked at her intently, his eyelashes thorny and dripping at her. Then he pulled her out, arm by arm and leg by leg, and set her up in the boat.
"Well, you've been in the Yazoo River now," he said. He helped her wring out her skirt, and then rowed on, while she sat biting her lip. "I think that's where Aunt Studney lives," he said politely once, pointing out for her through the screen of trees a dot of cabin; it was exactly like the rest, away out in a field, where there was a solitary sunflower against the sky, many-branched and taller than a chimney, all going to seed, like an old Christmas tree in the yard. Then, "I couldn't believe you wouldn't come right up," said Roy suddenly. "I thought girls floated."
"You sure don't know much. But I never have been in the water anywhere except in the Pythian Castle in Jackson with water wings," she said all over again.
They went from the river back into the bayou. Roy, asking her pardon, wrung out his pockets. At the right place, willow branches came to meet them overhead and touched their foreheads where they sat transfixed in their two ends of the boat. The boat knocked against the shore. They jumped out and ran separately forward. Laura paused and lifted up her hair, and turned on her heels in the leaves, sighing. But Roy ran up the bank, shaking the yucca bells, and disappeared in a cloud of dust.
India walked down to meet Laura and they walked up through the pecan grove toward the shady back road, with arms entwined. India was more startling than she because she was covered with transfer pictures; on her arms and legs were flags, sunsets, and baskets of red roses.
Dabney was at the gate.
"Where have you been?" asked Dabney, frowning into the sunset, in a beautiful floating dress.
"Where have you been?" said India. They passed in.
"It's nearly time for rehearsal. She's waiting for Troy," India said, as if her sister could not hear. On the gatepost itself sat Maureen, all dressed in another new dress (she had the most!) but already barefoot, and looking down at all of them, her fists gripped around her two big toes.
"I'm dripping wet," Laura murmured.
They walked on twined together into the house. "Do you want to know why?" Mary Lamar was playing the wedding song. Laura's hand stole down to her pocket where the garnet pin had lain. For a moment she ached to her bones—it was indeed gone. It was in the Yazoo River now. How fleetingly she had held to her treasure. It seemed to her that the flight of the ducks going over had lasted longer than the time she kept the pin.
Roxie with a cry of sorrow had fallen on her knees behind Laura to take up the water that ran from her heels.
"Shelley did this," India remarked contentedly to the bent black head, and pulled up her skirt and stuck out her stomach, where the word Constantinople was stamped in curlicue letters.
"Lord God," said Roxie. "Whatever you reads it's a scandal to the jaybirds."
India, softly smiling, swayed to Laura and embraced and kissed her.
"Hold still both of you," said Battle over their heads. "No explanations either one of you." He switched them equally, his white sleeve giving out a starch smell as strong as daisies, and went up and down their four dancing legs. "A man's daughters!" He told them to go wash their separate disgraces off and be back dressed for decent company before he had to wring both their necks at one time.
"Laura!" India cried ecstatically in the middle of it. "Lady Clare's got chicken pox!"
Then she won't be the flower girl! and I can! Laura thought, and never felt the pain now, though it was renewed.
VIII
"Your flower girl," Aunt Tempe announced a little later at the door of the parlor, where the family were gathering for the rehearsal supper party—the clock was striking one, which meant seven—"has the chicken pox—unmistakably. She is confined to my room." She turned on her heel and marched off, but came right back again.
"Lady Clare's brought it from Memphis!" Ellen gasped. She reclined, partly, there on the horsehair love seat. Battle had told her to deck herself out and lie there, move at her peril.
"I have to take her to Memphis to get those Buchanan teeth straightened," Tempe said shortly. "All life is a risk, as far as that goes."