The Shorn Lamb/Chapter 6
Chapter 6
IN AUNT PEACHY'S REALM
The Hedges was a perfect specimen of colonial architecture, red brick with pillared portico and deep cornice of beautiful proportion and workmanship. Every detail had been carefully considered by the builder. The windows and doors were not mere holes in the walls but decorative spaces whose size, shape and position were of paramount importance to the architectural effect. The finished whole had been beautiful, but that beauty had largely disappeared through the vandalism of paint that generations of Bollings had imposed upon their ancestral home. The mellow pink of the old brick had been spared, but wherever there was wood, as in the cornice, blinds and pillars of the portico, paint had been applied recklessly. The crenelations of the cornice from successive coats had lost the clear cut decision that had made for beauty and were but indistinct rounded lumps. The indentations of the fluted columns of the portico had gradually been filled in.
The present owner of The Hedges had outdone all of his predecessors in the choice of paint. The last coat that had been applied was a green that warred with the pink of the old brick and refused to be reconciled with any of the greens of Nature. In many places the paint had peeled off, disclosing the taste of former possessors, here a patch of dismal brown, there a bit of faded tan. In several places a splotch of gleaming white cried out as from the grave of better days.
The grounds, which had been as well laid out as any in the Old Dominion, had suffered from neglect and ill treatment even more than the mansion. The yard of ten acres was enclosed by a mock-orange hedge which had not been clipped within the memory of the oldest inhabitant of the county, and had in consequence grown into a row of straggling trees, thorny and uncouth, but held in high favor by the birds, who could build there with impunity, the spiky branches offering protection against marauding cats and snakes. The rolling lawn had been ploughed and planted in potatoes. A small grass plot had been left around the house, not for beauty's sake but because it gave turning room for the plough horses.
The western part of the lawn was traversed by a gurgling brook which had been the delight of the founder of The Hedges branch of the Bolling family, since it had established the site for the sunken garden, giving an opportunity for a fountain in the lower part of the yard. This sunken garden was about two hundred feet square, enclosed by a box hedge and with box bushes set formally at the corners. Tradition asserted that this garden had been the wonder of the countryside. It had been planned by an English landscape gardener and the owner had spent a fortune on its making and upkeep.
If the charming Bolling who had taken such pleasure in his garden, with its ever-changing riot of color as the seasons advanced, could have seen the sad havoc time and neglect and stupidity had played with his treasure, no doubt he would have turned over in the grave where he was lying so peacefully in the little burying ground under the great chestnut tree on the hill beyond.
The box hedge around the sunken garden had shared a like fate with the one of mock-orange that enclosed the yard. It had grown to a great height and was thick with dead wood. Rolfe Bolling had declared it was "horse high and hog strong" and had finally turned the garden into a pigpen. There was no trace now of the pretty gravel walks. Perhaps never again would the purple and white of the iris and violet succeed the daffodil, only to give way to the red and gold of the tulip and those in turn to the blue of love-in-the-mist, cornflower and ageratum. For almost four years hogs had rooted where had bloomed snowdrop and crocus. The rose of England and the lily of France were dead. The hogs had succeeded in uprooting almost everything. One sturdy seven-sister rose had been benefited by much digging around its roots and had grown to goodly size. Clusters of tiny pink buds covered the bush as though to flaunt in the face of the porkers the superiority of seven-sisters over them.
The marble basin of the fountain had proven an ideal hog wallow. The little bronze boy who for so many years had tirelessly held aloft the shell in which to catch the pearly drops that sprayed from the simply contrived fountain had toppled over and was so covered with mud that even the hogs had lost sight of him. The sun-dial, whose fluted column had been such an excellent scratching post for razor-backs, was also prone and seemed to be awaiting burial.
To the rear of the mansion buildings that had in early days been placed out of sight and far away from the house had gradually crept closer as rebuilding had from time to time become necessary, and now the smokehouse, corn crib, and henhouse were cheek by jowl with the great house. The cow stable and barn were close enough to give olfactory evidence of their proximity and a huge manure pile had thrust itself into the foreground of the landscape.
The Bollings were true F. F. V.'s. Not only were they among the first settlers in the new world, but the founder of the Virginia family was of noble birth. This particular branch of Bollings had settled at The Hedges in the eighteenth century. The first house had been of logs, two rooms and a loft, with an open passage dividing the rooms and huge stone chimneys on both sides of the house. Later on this house had been abandoned for the great brick mansion and the old home turned over to the slaves. It was still occupied by the numerous descendants of Aunt Peachy.
The son of that early Bolling who had taken such delight and pride in his garden had married the daughter of his father's overseer. That was in Revolutionary times, and since then it had become a habit of the sons of the house to mate beneath them socially. There had been a gradual sinking of standards through the generations until at the present time the owner of The Hedges had reached the lowest rung of the ladder. No one could have believed that Rolfe Bolling had in his veins a drop of the aristocratic blood of the Cavaliers. He was illiterate, untidy, miserly, pugnacious. He could write with difficulty and often varied in spelling his own name. His father, who was a weak, dull man, had tried to have his son educated, but Rolfe had refused with the stubbornness which characterized him.
"Book larnin' ain't nothin' but foolishness," he had asserted in the vernacular learned from Aunt Peachy, his old colored mammy. "Readin' an' writin' don't git rid er no tater bugs, an' spellin' don't grow no craps. Th'ain't no man in this here county what kin do me out'n a nickel that he owes me, an' it don't take much 'rithmetic fer me ter know that a dollar saved is a dollar an' six cents in a year an' a dollar spent is mo'n apt ter drag some mo' along with it."
Why Elizabeth Wheeler had married Rolfe Bolling had been the wonder of the neighborhood. She was a handsome, upstanding girl who might have done better for herself. Twenty-five years had elapsed since she had come as a bride to The Hedges, and hard, bitter years they had been. At first she had tried to reform her husband's untidy habits and to correct his English, but he only laughed at her attempts and became more slovenly in his habits and careless in his speech.
Aunt Peachy had resented bitterly and vindictively the marriage of Rolfe Bolling. She had been sole mistress of The Hedges since the death of Rolfe's mother forty years before, and she had no idea of handing over the keys to any "po' white pusson," as she designated her masser's young wife. She had cared for Rolfe since he was a baby and had taken delight in spoiling the little white boy. She had encouraged him to be sly and untruthful, and had applauded his gluttony and had made him feel that he was superior to all others and that good behavior was not incumbent upon him.
Elizabeth had been reared in a clean and decent home, although it had been small and poor, and the untidy condition of The Hedges was more than she could bear, but any change was accomplished only after bitter revilings from Aunt Peachy, who was in fact still mistress of the place. Her appetite had rebelled at the coarse, greasy food, and before Philip was born Dr. Price had insisted that she be allowed to do her own cooking. Once this privilege was accorded her she held to it, although Aunt Peachy continued to cater to her master until she became so feeble she was forced to give up active ministrations, but her place was in a corner of the kitchen behind the stove, where she sat from morning until night doing what she called "the haid work" of the household.
"Put mo' cracklin' in that there cawn pone!" she commanded Elizabeth, who was busily engaged in preparing dinner for her husband. "You's mo'n willin' ter starve my baby ter skin-an'-bone." Aunt Peachy always called Rolfe Bolling her baby, although he was a man almost seventy years old. "He wouldn't git 'nough suption in his victuals ter keep body an* soul together if it wa'n't fer his ol' mammy. You's sech a han' ter scrimpin' the grease."
Elizabeth said nothing, but put another spoonful of hog cracklings in the batter. She had long ago determined that there was no use in contending with either her husband or the old negress where small matters were concerned, but saved her energy for what she considered fundamentals, such as the rearing and educating of her children.
Aunt Peachy did not hesitate to twit her mistress with the fact that she belonged to the poor white class, and such was the old woman's influence over Rolfe Bolling that he had been known to sit by and laugh while his wife was being insulted by the evil-tongued old negress.
Sometimes Elizabeth would stop in her work and look at the wretched old creature huddled up in the corner of the kitchen which was sacred to her and the thought would come: "Oh, Lord, how long? How long?" It would be so easy to kill her, and there were moments when she felt that the killing of the hateful old woman would be no more of a crime than putting a gnawing rat out of existence.
Aunt Peachy had a strange scuttling glide and could slip herself through an inconceivably small crack. The old woman was feeble, her energy was almost gone, but at moments she would pull herself together and suddenly dart from her chair to investigate something that was going on in another part of the house. Curiosity was her ruling passion and very little happened at The Hedges without her knowledge. By some seemingly occult power she usually managed to know what was going on in the neighborhood, too. No colored person dared come on the place without bringing her some bit of gossip. She was a power with the lower class of her own people and held them in subjection by imposing on their superstitious fears. She was supposed to work charms, and a choice morsel of news, the more scandalous the better, insured the bearer from bad luck, if not actually bringing him good luck. Elizabeth wondered sometimes if her husband's complete subjection to his old nurse was not in a measure due to his superstitious fear of her.
Philip, the first born, had as a child been afraid of Aunt Peachy and the mother had gloried in the fact. As he grew beyond fear he had hated her as one might hate a rat or a snake. The other two children, Betsy and little Jo, had no fear of the old woman. They seemed to feel she was a huge joke, a person at whom one laughed and on whom children played tricks. Strange to say, the old woman rather enjoyed the role into which she was forced by the two younger children, who even made game of their father.
"Philip is coming home! My Philip!" kept singing in Elizabeth's heart as she prepared dinner for her husband on that morning in June. What difference did it make if Aunt Peachy did tell her to put more cracklings in the corn bread? What difference did anything make that was not connected with her Philip?
She longed for the return of her son, her first born, and she dreaded it, too—dreaded it for his sake. Life was not to be what she would have had it be for the boy. Not only did hard manual labor await him, but gibes and bickerings. His father never let an opportunity pass to find fault with him and oppose him, not from any actual dislike he had for his son, but from a kind of jealous envy. Philip was all he had not been and in spite of the flattery of Aunt Peachy, Rolfe Bolling had sense enough to know that he had not made the best of his opportunities.
"When you 'spectin' of that there Phup?" queried Aunt Peachy, almost as though divining the thoughts of her mistress. "You cyarn't keep back from me that you is 'lowin' he'll be along soon. All this here scrubbin' an' cleanin'! It's a wonder my baby don't ketch his death with all the flo's wet with suds. I ain't nebber hearn tell er a lady bawn a gittin' down on her knees fer nothin' but prayer. Po' whites is funny folk! Ketch me a scrubbin' on my knees. I ain't nebber done it. Ol' marster ain't nebber required it er me an' as fer my baby, he'd a bit out his tongue befo' he'd arsk me ter do sich a thing. I've been known ter tie a rag roun' my foots an' wop up a flo', but I's too high bawn ter git on my knees fer man or beas'. My gret-gran'pap wa' a Afgan king what hel' hisse'f way above po' whites."
All of this in a high cackle, with never a word from Elizabeth, who went quietly on with her cooking.
"When you say he comin'?"
"I didn't say. I don't know."
"You been a stirrin' furnisher 'roun' mighty brisk upstars lately. I 'low you's fixin' up young marster's room," putting an unmistakable sneering emphasis on "young marster."
"Yes, I have been arranging Mr. Philip's room, thinking he might arrive in the next few days."
"Mr. Phup! Yi, Yi, Yi!" she cackled. "Is you a thinkin' I's a gonter call Phup, mister? I ain't called his pap befo' him mister, an' I ain't a gonter call him mister. You can't say he's any better'n his pappy, kin you?"
Elizabeth was silent as to what she might say concerning her son's superiority to his father.
"I say, kin you?" repeated the old woman, venomously. She took extreme delight in trying to make Elizabeth criticize her husband. A soft padding noise in the passage warned her her master was approaching and she raised her voice to a querulous whine.
"You's afeerd ter say. Yo' keepin' so dumb is a sho' sign you thinks Phup is better'n what his pap is. Ain't nobody gonter say a word against my baby 'thout gittin' me riled."
"Who's sayin' a word against yo' baby?" asked Rolfe Bolling, filling the doorway with his great hulk. He looked in reality like a huge fat baby except for the grizzled fringe of a two weeks growth of beard. Nature had given him handsome features with which to begin life, but overindulgence had succeeded in taking from him any claim to good looks that might have been his.
"This white ooman's a sayin' yo' own son is better'n what you is," declared Aunt Peachy.
Elizabeth had made no such statement, but she scorned to contradict the old woman, especially since she was quite sure her son was a hundred times better than his father.
"How you know he's so much better'n what I is?" demanded Rolfe, blustering like a conceited boy. "You ain't seen him for mos' fo' years. Thar ain't no tellin' what a boy will come to in that time. He sho' is spent a power of money an' I ain't a doubt that women an' drink is whar it's gone."
"Much money!" exclaimed Elizabeth scornfully. "He has had barely sufficient to keep body and soul together and has had to work very hard to make enough to buy clothes and the necessary books."
"That ain't a makin' him better'n his pappy," insisted Aunt Peachy. "My baby ain't nebber had ter 'pend on clothes ter make him the king bee, an' he wa'n't nebber no han' ter set aroun' showin' off with a book. 'Tain't nothin' but showin' off. It stands ter reason that all them things you folks pertends ter read out'n a book ain't thar. You air jes' a makin' up lies."
"Ain't it the truth?" laughed Rolfe Bolling. "You've hit the nail on the head that time, Mam' Peachy. What do you say to a drap o' somethin'?"
"I say, praise the Lawd!"
"Do you want yo' baby to mix up a toddy?"
"No sirree! I don't want nothin' mixed in mine. Time was when I didn't min' a lil' sugar an' water 'longside er my dram, but my ol' gullet craves jes' plain juice now. If'n you put anything in it put a dash er red pepper."
The old woman leered greedily while her master padded around the kitchen getting tin cups from the shelves and unlocking a corner cupboard, taking therefrom a brown jug which, holding to his ear, he shook tentatively.
"Gittin' powerful low! Is you been a suckin' my bottle?" he asked suspiciously.
"Laws-a-mussy, honey chil', how could ol' Peachy git in yo' closet? I ain't mo'n crawled from my room ter my cheer an' back fer over a month now, come Sunday. P'raps some er them thar Wheelers is been a callin'."
Rolfe grunted his disapproval of whomever had been meddling with his precious jug and poured out a generous drink for Aunt Peachy and one for himself. It was well known that Elizabeth's one brother, who occasionally came to see his sister, was a strict church member and a teetotaler, but Aunt Peachy always intimated that he was responsible for any diminution in the Bolling supply of liquor. No lock was proof against her clever old fingers, and the jug of whisky might just as well have been left on the kitchen table for safety as locked in the cupboard. With a bent hairpin or a crooked nail the old woman could have picked any lock. Rolfe Bolling always locked up his jug and Aunt Peachy always stole from him what liquor she wanted.
"Liquor's harder an' harder to git," said Rolfe, as he took a great gulp from the tin cup.
Elizabeth sniffed disdainfully. The smell of the whisky was sickening to her. There had been moments in those twenty-five years of her life at The Hedges when she had felt that she would go mad and smash the brown jug. She had even had the courage to remonstrate with her husband and the old negress, trying to them to be more abstemious, but that was in the early days. She had long since ceased to try to change their habits, but the odor still sickened her. Sometimes the thought came to her that it would be wise to encourage them and they might drink themselves to death, but the alcohol only seemed to preserve Aunt Peachy and as far as she could see did no harm to Rolfe. Certainly they were much pleasanter when they had had their dram, and it was easier to get along with both the old negress and the master when they were slightly under the influence of liquor. Elizabeth hated to have Betsy and Jo present while the jug was being passed around, and she shrank pitifully from the thought of Philip having to come in contact with it, as he surely would as soon as he came home.