Malcolm, now that he shared a room with Miriam, made no attempt to sleep in her bed. He would be guided by her in that business as well.

Queenie remained bewildered by all these new circ.u.mstances. But she stayed busy-there was so little time, and so much to be done-and gave herself little time for reflection. Nevertheless, when she sat still for a few moments, she could scarcely credit her son's engagement. He wasn't marrying Miriam for her money, of that Queenie was certain. Queenie herself was rich now, and she had a.s.sured Malcolm that her will provided amply for him. She could not bring herself to believe, however, that Malcolm really loved his bride-to-be. Yet perhaps he did, and perhaps she even loved him. Queenie would sigh. All this was beyond her, and it was much easier to worry about getting the napkins printed in time.

On the Sat.u.r.day after Thanksgiving, Lucille and Grace hosted a shower for Miriam, and every woman of any social standing in Perdido was pleased to attend. Lucille and Grace had always been reclusive outside the family, and many in Perdido had never visited Gavin Pond Farm before. The place was changed out of all recognition from what it once had been. The little farm house that pregnant Lucille had entered with such misgiving fourteen years before had been spruced up and added onto in so many different directions that it looked like a different 30.place altogether. A blacktop lane lead to it from the main road, there was a huge brick patio and a large swimming pool. Two acres of woods had been cleared for a camellia garden, and Lucille was busily establishing some of the rarest species known. An enormous herd of cows grazed in the pecan orchard, and the place boasted three cars, two trucks, two tractors, and five different boats. At night, the sky south of Gavin Pond Farm was orange with the light of the burn-off flares of the oil wells in the swamp.

Grace was forty-six, thinner than any Caskey had ever been-gaunt, actually. She was burned by the sun, and made happy by Lucille. Lucille was thirty-eight, fatter than Queenie, and made happy by Grace. Lucille's boy, Tommy Lee Burgess, was now fourteen. Shy, good-natured, and b.u.mbling, he was an odd member of the family; not paid much attention to when he was about, and altogether forgotten when he was not. Tommy Lee loved to fish, hunt, drive cars, and be by himself. Grace once asked him if he maybe wanted to be sent to military school, where he'd be around some men for a change, but Tommy Lee shook his head in horror, and said he didn't want to go anywhere or do anything else than what he was doing.

Grace and Lucille had built Luvadia the biggest kitchen anybody in those parts had ever seen, and Zaddie and Melva came out to help with the food for the shower. The ladies of Perdido showed up half an hour early in hopes that they would be shown around the place. Lucille was proud of her house, and happy to comply. The ladies were impressed, and playfully chastised Grace and Lucille for keeping this wonderful place such a secret.

In the midst of the festivities Grace said to Miriam, "This place started out a secret, what with Lucille coming out here when she was pregnant. And then when we found oil, we wanted to keep that secret for a while. So Lucille and I just got in the habit of living here all by ourselves, and never hav- 31.ing anybody but family. Maybe we ought to start entertaining a little more."

"Wouldn't catch me doing for this pack," said Miriam in a low voice, gazing around at the crowd of women bent over the food on the dining room table.

The charade played out by Miriam when she sat down and opened her gifts far outdid any of the performances the ladies put on during a real game of charades later. Miriam looked with excitement on a new adding machine, but she didn't see much good in pink underwear and fuzzy bathroom slippers. She was, however, as gracious as she was capable of being, and afterward even Elinor went so far as to say, "You could have made things very unpleasant, but you didn't."

"There was no point," said Miriam. "They were being nice to me."

"Sometimes," said Elinor, "I think you may be growing up."

"The question is," sighed Miriam, "how the h.e.l.l am I gone get rid of all that d.a.m.ned junk1?"

Sister could not be reconciled to the wedding. She would have nothing to do with it, and she wouldn't hear it spoken of in her presence. She refused even to admit aloud that Miriam was marrying Malcolm. Queenie had been forced to desert her in this busy time, so the whole thing rankled even more. Ivey sat with Sister every day, in the straight chair beside the radio, but Ivey wasn't one for gossip, and Sister was bored and restless and stared out the window through binoculars at Elinor's house. But she never saw more than Zaddie or Elinor occasionally pa.s.sing a window.

Ivey wouldn't relay any news from next door, for her feud with Zaddie had kept up, and they were not speaking. No one had ever discovered the reason for this coolness between the aging black sisters, for it was a private affair, and neither Zaddie nor Ivey ever said anything about it directly.

32.In the drawer of her bedside table, Sister kept a calendar on which she marked off the days until Christmas, and every day she would count up those remaining. This ever-decreasing figure preyed on her mind to an extent that Ivey found alarming. Ivey began to ply Sister with sweet liquids poured out of unmarked blue bottles, but these nostrums did not appear to help. Sister grew weaker-but crosser- and every morning she seemed to have sunk down deeper into her bulwark of goose-down pillows.

About ten days before the wedding, Miriam went to New Orleans on an unexpected and unavoidable trip. When she returned at suppertime two days later, Ivey was waiting for her behind the screen door. "Miz Caskey sick," she said simply. "She want to talk to you."

Upstairs, Miriam was shocked by Sister's appearance. "You are sick," she said bluntly. "I don't think I've ever seen anybody look worse."

Sister seemed scarcely able to open her eyes. Her head lolled forward on her neck; her hands lay curled and helpless atop the neatly folded coverlet. She looked as if she had not moved for days, a frail puppet whose strings had all been cut.

"Put it off," she whispered. Her lips scarcely moved. Miriam moved closer to the bed.

"Put it off," Sister repeated, no more loudly than before.

"No," said Miriam, finally comprehending the cryptic command. 'Tor one thing, Elinor and Queenie have gone to a great deal of trouble. For another thing, it's too late. And last of all, I want to go through with it."

Sister's head lolled to one side. "It'll kill me," she whispered. Her head lolled to the other side, and her eyes shut with the motion.

Miriam sat on the edge of the bed. It was dark outside, and a single low lamp burned on the bedside table. Miriam took Sister's hand. "Sister," she said 33.firmly, "even if I believed that, I'd go through with it."

Sister opened her eyes slowly, and peered up at Miriam through tears. "You'd kill me, wouldn't you?"

"Sister," said Miriam, now taking her other hand, and pressing them lightly against Sister's breast, "you are turning into Grandmama."

"Noooo..." Sister's protest was no more than a slow exhalation of breath.

"You are. You want to trick me into putting this wedding off. Just the way Grandmama would have done. But you're not Grandmama, you're Sister. And I'm not you, I'm not Oscar. I'm not even me when I was younger. n.o.body's going to run roughshod over me-not about this, and not about anything else. You think you can get me to put off this wedding by pulling this business-"

"Not business..."

"Whether it is or it isn't is of no concern to me," Miriam went on. "If you're really sick, then I'm sorry, but it makes no difference. I won't let it. So you might as well get better, Sister, because next Sat.u.r.day night there are going to be four hundred and thirty-seven people tromping through this house giving me their congratulations, and I wouldn't want the noise to disturb you."

Miriam released Sister's hands, then rose and walked put the door and down the hall to her own room to unpack.

"Put it off," whispered Sister Haskew a few moments later, not realizing that Miriam was no longer in the room.

CHAPTER 74.

The Wedding Party

Sister's condition remained the same in the week before the wedding. Oscar, on his return, was shocked to find her so deplorably weak and wandering. Christmas came and after presents had been opened at Elinor's in the morning, everyone went over to give Sister her gifts, congregating in the hallway outside her room, but entering only one at a time. Sister smiled wanly, but she wasn't always able to open her eyes. Lilah sat on the edge of the bed and placed a wrapped box on Sister's upturned hand. One finger clawed briefly at the ribbon, but then Lilah had to open it herself. It was a box of Sister's favorite powder, that smelled of dead roses. "Thank you, child," Sister whispered, and her eyes, wet with tears, flickered open briefly.

No one, not even Elinor, dared suggest that the wedding be postponed on account of Sister's illness. Miriam had been preternaturally good about all the wedding arrangements, acquiescing to each and every suggestion put forth by Elinor or Queenie, but who knew what might happen if Miriam were asked to put off the date of her marriage to Malcolm Strickland? She might not go through with it at all. She might cart Malcolm off to a justice of the peace, and never come home afterward. She would certainly never set foot in Sister's room again. "And I'm not sure Miriam's not right," sighed Oscar, who was much affected by his sister's increased infirmity. "I remember how I put off and put off to please Mama, and it got us into nothing but trouble."

35.Elinor did not contradict him, and the wedding remained scheduled for Sat.u.r.day.

The day after Christmas, workers from the mill came and erected open-sided tents in the yards behind all three of the Caskey houses, using the tall, narrow trunks of the water oaks as poles. The striped canvas tents stretched from the back porches of the houses all the way to the levee. A stage was erected on the edge of the forest, and here the small orchestra from Mobile would play. Malcolm was in charge of chairs and tables, and he had gathered them from churches, armories, and VFW halls all over the county. These preparations were of great interest to Perdido, and cars drove slowly up and down the road in front of the house all day long. Children sat perched on the fence around the orchard across the way, wearing their new Christmas clothes and showing off to one another their new toys as they watched the proceedings.

During all of this, Oscar felt only that he was in the way-in his own home-and the only place he might be out of the way was with Sister. So he made his way over to her house and sat at her side, talking of old times. Only occasionally would Sister respond to her brother's long stories and reminiscences, and rarely in a voice loud enough for him to make out the words. And when he did understand her, he shifted uncomfortably in his chair, for it appeared to him that Sister hadn't comprehended a word he had said to her. Yet there he continued to sit. He held Sister's hand, and he talked about the years in which he and Sister had grown up in this house with their mother Mary-Love. "And, Sister, you know what?" he said. "You're getting to look more and more like her every day."

All the Caskey cooks working for weeks together wouldn't have been able to prepare food for the crowd of people that was antic.i.p.ated, and the caterers began arriving soon after dawn on Sat.u.r.day morning.

The day was overcast and dim, though warm. The 36 caterers worried about rain, but the Caskeys had no fear. Elinor had declared, succinctly but with absolute authority, "No rain today."

At nine o'clock, Elinor and Queenie, already in their finery, converged on Miriam's house and went upstairs to help Miriam into her dress. They found her struggling into it without ceremony or sentiment. "d.a.m.n! d.a.m.n! d.a.m.n!" she cried. "Don't people know enough to take the d.a.m.ned pins out?"

She was ready in another quarter-hour, and there was nothing to do but sit and wait until ten o'clock. Miriam sat impatiently by the window, beating her bouquet in the palm of her hand and occasionally calling out greetings to one of the workmen pa.s.sing by below. Queenie went home to make certain that Malcolm got his tie on straight. Lucille and Grace came by, kissed Miriam, and said, "You are making a great mistake getting married to a man. We hope you're gone be the happiest woman in the world."

A few minutes before it was time to go next door, Elinor got up and shut the door, then strode back across the room and stood before her daughter. She and Miriam were alone.

"Well?" said Miriam impatiently. "Am I unzipped?"

"You look beautiful," said Elinor quietly. "I just wanted to ask you what you and Malcolm are doing about a ring?"

Miriam laughed, and pointed at the dresser in the corner of "the room. "Go ask Lilah if I don't have a whole d.a.m.ned case full of rings in the bottom drawer over there-and that's not to mention my safety-deposit boxes. I reached in there and pulled one out and gave it to Malcolm. No reason in putting out good money when I've got so many already."

"Miriam," said Elinor, "you know I haven't given you anything yet."

"Well, you've arranged all this," said Miriam, waving her hand inclusively toward the window. Below were the striped tents, a dozen servants and 37.hired men; the sound of rattling bottles and a murmur of directives floated up. "I couldn't have done all that."

"I have something else for you though."

"What?" asked Miriam suspiciously.

"This," said Elinor, reaching into her purse and drawing out a simple diamond ring. The solitaire was cloudy but large, nearly three karats; the setting a four-p.r.o.nged gold band. Miriam took it from her mother slowly, fingered the facets of the jewel, and then glaced back up at Elinor.

"This was Grandmama's," said Miriam slowly. "You took it off her when she was lying in the coffin. Before I got there."

"That's right," said Elinor.

"I have never forgiven you for that."

"I know," said Elinor.

"It didn't matter that you were the one who told me where the oil was down below Gavin Pond Farm, it didn't matter that you never tried to interfere with me in the running of the mill, it didn't matter that you kept this family together and made everybody pretty much happy-I have never forgiven you for taking this ring."

Elinor said nothing.

"I suppose," said Miriam, "that you want me to forgive you now."

"I don't expect that," said Elinor. "But it was right that you should have the ring, now that you're getting married."

Miriam glanced out of the window. "It's getting time," she said. "I'm going to have to go speak to Sister." She slipped the ring on her finger, rose and went out of the room, leaving her mother alone.

Miriam stood at the side of Sister's bed, holding her bouquet in her hands before her. It was the fragrance of those fresh flowers, so pervasive in the room that for so many years had smelled of only dead blossoms, that caused Sister's eyes to open.

38."Sister," said Miriam, "I'm going over to Elinor's now, and Malcolm and I are gone get married."

Sister tried to turn away her head, but hadn't the strength. Her eyes fell shut again.

"We'll spend the afternoon getting ready for the reception this evening, and then after that Malcolm and I are taking off for New Orleans for our honeymoon. We were gone go to New York, but there's some business I need to get done in New Orleans, so we changed our plans. Malcolm says we'll go anywhere I want to go, and if I don't want to go anywhere we can stay right here. Queenie's gone stay with you while I'm gone, the way she always does. And when we get back, I'm moving Malcolm in over here. I haven't decided yet whether he's gone stay in my room, or whether I'm gone put him across the hall. But that doesn't matter to you, I guess, since you never get out of this room anyway. You don't have to worry about Malcolm, because I've already told him to leave you alone, and not come near you unless you call him. And he's already bought three new pairs of shoes with soft soles, so he won't be stomping through the house the way he usually does."

By no movement or other sign did Sister indicate she had heard a thing Miriam had said to her.

"Elinor just gave me Mama's ring, Sister. I thought that ring was gone forever. It's bigger than I remembered it, but the stone is flawed."

Sister still did not move. Her hands lay lifeless atop the coverlet.

Miriam suddenly turned and dragged a chair up to the bed. She tossed her bouquet aside. She sat in the chair, reached forward, and grasped both Sister's hands and squeezed them.

"Your blessing!" she hissed. "Give me your blessing, Sister!"

Sister slowly opened her eyes, arid even more slowly, she shook her head no. * * * 39 The wedding ceremony was quiet and hurried. Ruthie Driver officiated. Ruthie, as everyone had predicted, had grown up to be just like her mother, Annie Bell. When Annie Bell Driver died, Ruthie took over the pastorship for the Zion Grace Baptist Church. Now she was married herself, but most people were hard put to remember her husband's name. Neither Miriam nor Malcolm attended Ruthie's church, but Miriam said she felt more comfortable being married by a woman. Billy Bronze was Malcolm's best man, and Lilah was the single bridesmaid. Oscar and Elinor held hands, as did Grace and Lucille. Tommy Lee put his arm around Queenie's heaving shoulders. The only music was that of a carpenter's last-minute hammering outside.

"All right," said Miriam, as soon as Ruthie had cried Amen to her prayer, "let's get this show on the road."

Everyone ran home and changed out of their stiff clothes, and reappeared a few minutes later, ready to help with the final preparations for the reception that evening. Oscar took himself up to Sister's room, and listened to a football game on the radio. Elinor and Queenie seemed to be everywhere at once, and there was so much to do and see to, that for the first time in more than ten years Ivey and Zaddie found themselves speaking to each other. Grace and Lucille systematically set tasks for themselves, and calmly carried them out one by one; they set up the punch tables, found the right tablecloths, unwrapped and washed all of James's hundreds and hundreds of cut-gla.s.s punch cups. Even Lilah was busy, ordering about men who were three times her age, and feeling very important about it all. Miriam roamed about with Malcolm more or less in tow, saying a word here and there to the caterers, the servants, and the mill workers, not bothering to help with anything herself, but evidently enjoying herself greatly. "It just feels so good to be out of that d.a.m.ned dress," she said several times. She wore Mary-Love's 40.diamond ring on her finger, but she avoided speaking to her mother.

By four o'clock, everything was ready. Lilah ran upstairs at Sister's and said to Oscar, "Granddaddy, Grandmama says it's time to go home and get dressed. People are gone be coming up any time now."

Oscar rose, went to Sister's side, and said, "Sister, is all this gone bother you? Are you gone be disturbed having so many people about?"

Sister didn't respond, but Oscar felt the slightest pressure of her fingers against the palm of his hand. He hadn't any idea how to interpret that.

The first guests arrived half an hour early, which was only to be expected. It wats impossible for those coming from long distances to time arrivals exactly. Queenie's entire house had been set up as a kind of retiring room for gentlemen, while Miriam's was given over to the ladies. Elinor and Oscar and Queenie, as parents of the wedded couple, received in the formal rooms of Elinor's house. Miriam was dressed in green silk, and wore no other jewelry than Mary-Love's solitaire, her simple wedding-band, and a single bracelet of emeralds. Malcolm, who had grown accustomed to wearing a suit, appeared serene in his new character as husband of the heiress. The guests agreed that Malcolm wasn't the brightest man in the world, that he wasn't the husband for every woman, and that he doubtless would be led a merry dance by his wife, but they also agreed that, on the whole, he was exactly suited to the position to which Miriam had raised him. No one was surprised when she sent him off to refill her punch cup, to get her three pet.i.t fours of the type she liked best, to ask Elinor if the man from Texas National Oil had arrived yet. This was exactly her treatment of him before their marriage, and everyone had a.s.sumed that this was the way things would continue.

Dinner was served outside. The striped canvas tents billowed and peaked in the breeze and underneath, the trunks of the water oaks were like slim, 41.grotequesly curved columns. Sand got into everyone's shoes, but the hundreds of yellow lights provided warm, flattering illumination, and for once the smell of the Perdido, flowing closely at hand behind the levee, was sweet, as if specially perfumed for the occasion.

Perdido was beside itself with pleasure at this grand party. Miriam had not made many demands concerning the preparations, but she had decreed that every mill worker receive an invitation. And so every mill worker-and every mill worker's wife- was there; most had bought new clothes for the occasion. There wasn't a one of them that Miriam didn't know by name. Oscar, in the receiving line, was shocked by the number he either had forgotten or had never known at all. Guests came from all over south Alabama and western Florida, arriving in caravans of cars from Mobile, Montgomery, and Pen-sacola. Oil and lumber men flew in from New York, Atlanta, New Orleans, and Houston. There was even an auxiliary tent set up behind Queenie's house for the black population of Perdido.

After the dinner was served, the mill workers took off their jackets, and quickly cleared away all the tables and chairs. The orchestra meanwhile tuned its instruments and began to play. Sammy Sapp and an army of black girls and boys raked the sand once again in preparation for the dancing. That was at nine o'clock, and Miriam declared that the music would play until the last couple dropped on their feet.

Miriam and Malcolm had the first dance, and were applauded and cheered for their expertise. Elinor and Queenie exchanged proud but slightly puzzled glances-neither of them had imagined that those two would have performed so creditably.

Oscar cut in, and danced off with Miriam. Malcolm bowed to Elinor, and brought her out onto the sand. Shortly thereafter, the dancing was general, 42.and more than a thousand people waltzed in the sand among the water oaks.

Those who had lived in Perdido a long time marveled not at the splendor of the proceedings, for the Caskeys were very rich indeed, and could well afford this and much more besides, but rather that there was any party at all. No one could remember when any Caskey had been married off with any celebration whatsoever. Caskey weddings had always been simple if somewhat hugger-mugger affairs, and that Miriam of all people should have wanted-or even allowed-such an outlay as this was as astonishing a thing as Perdido was likely to see in a long while.

Because Miriam's house had been set aside for the ladies, there was throughout the evening a constant traipsing in and out the front door, in and out the back door, up and down the stairs, into and out of Miriam's room, the two guest rooms, and the two bathrooms. Before the party really got under way, Queenie had gone up and sat with Sister for a few minutes, thinking that she was paler and less responsive than ever. Queenie had also installed Lu-vadia's ten-year-old daughter, Versie, as a sort of guard for Sister, giving the child strict instructions to keep the door closed against all visitors. But Versie was a little country colored girl and no match for the ladies of Perdido, who knew Sister's room to be at the end of the hall. The ladies of Perdido were not slow in taking advantage of this unprecedented opportunity of peeking in and speaking to Sister Has-kew, who hadn't been seen on the streets of Perdido in over ten years. They came singly at first, brushing aside Versie and sitting at the side of the bed for a few moments, speaking volubly to Sister, lamenting her ill health, and finally growing constrained when it became apparent that Sister was not going to respond in any way. Soon it seemed impossible to shut the door, and the ladies of Perdido swarmed into the room and surrounded Sister's bed. That room, visited 43.so rarely in the past decade, became a welter of silks and wools, powders, and perfumes, gabble and laughter. Sister lay immobile, propped up against her wall of goose-down pillows, her hands upturned and curled on the neatly turned coverlet.

Versie grew so demoralized by her inability to keep out these women that at last she gave up the fight altogether, and sneaked away, down the stairs, out the back door, and into the tent reserved for the colored people. She hid in a shadowed corner, drank punch, and ate chicken until she couldn't eat or drink any more. She wasn't discovered until an hour later, by Oscar, whose dimming eyesight caused him to trip over her on his way to the bathroom in Queenie's house.

"Who is that?" he asked.

"It's Versie, Mr. Oscar," the child replied, frightened.

"Is that Luvadia's Versie?"

"Yes, sir."

"What are you doing here? Queenie told me she had put you upstairs with Sister."

"She did, Mr. Oscar," Versie replied, terrified at being discovered in the neglect of her duty, "but they was so many ladies in there, they "bout drove me out!"

"What!" exclaimed Oscar. "You mean to say you let people get into that room?"

"I couldn't keep 'em out!"

"Versie, you go find Queenie and you get her up there and you get those women out of there, you hear me? Right now!"

Oscar went on to the bathroom, but when he was finished he went next door to Miriam's and went inside. The ladies screamed and laughed at a man in their midst, but Oscar paid no attention to them. He marched up the stairs and down the hall to Sister's room. Versie evidently hadn't found Queenie yet-or perhaps Versie was so afraid of Queenie's finding out what she had done that she had not sought 44.her at all-for the room was still crowded with women. They sat in the chairs, they leaned against the furniture, they perched on the windowsill and the edge of the bed. There in their midst lay Sister, silent and unmoving.

"Out!" cried Oscar loudly. "Everybody out!"

There was an excited protest, for Oscar's tone was rude and peremptory. Yet Oscar said nothing else. He simply took hold of the arm of the woman nearest him-the wife of one of the new doctors in town- and shoved her none too gently out the door, "Well!" she cried, and turned around to object, but by then Oscar had grabbed a second woman, the mill accountant's wife, and shoved both women out into the hallway.

Now Oscar had his hands on a third; he kept repeating over and over again, "Out! Out! All of you out!" Seeing that he meant business, there was a general retreat to the door, and in only a few seconds more, the room was cleared. Oscar slammed the door shut, whipped the curtains closed, and he and his sister were alone. Oscar pulled a chair up close to the bed.

"Sister," he said in a low voice, "have you got your eyes open? It's so dark in here, I cain't hardly see."