it’s always good to see you. What brings you our way this morning?” she asked the wan, wrinkled figure.
“Ginny,” he addressed her. “I cain’t sleep well no more. Don’t seem rightly fitting just to stare at the walls. Since Eula’s death, life’s been awfully lonely. I need a new woman,” he uttered, as his eyes followed Pearl about the kitchen. “Some’n young with lots of vim, vigor, and vitality left in ’em. An’ pretty, too. Like Pearl here.” He smiled, as he wiped a driblet of coffee off his beard. His fingers were long and sallow, blue with bruises and brown with age spots. “Pearl, would ya mind thinkin’ about it? I’d give ya a good home, and that baby of yo’rns a-comin’ would have a place to grow up, all his own.”
My grandmother’s forearms shivered with goosebumps. Suddenly, she eyed him with a devilish hauteur and twitch of her thin eyebrows. “My, my! Ambrose! How romantic for a Civil War Veteran.You old dog! Why not ask me?”
“Ginny, I ain’t no veteran. You know that. I ain’t that old, neither,” he objected. “I was born in ’sixty-four, not ’thirty-four, like your pa and mine. Sides, you’re too refined and educated for me. I ain’t nothin’ but a mountaineer. What could I offer you? But Pearl, here, I kin offer her a home and food for herself and baby. What’s wrong with that?”
“Well, Ambrose, you might succumb before the baby’s born. And what would that leave Pearl? What if your own children resented her presence, or denied her inheriting the house?”
“Ginny, they’re long gone and left here years ago. They don’t even write me no more, or come to see me. I need a wife, Ginny, a woman to cook and care for me.”
“Ah! The truth comes out. ‘To cook and care’ for you! Get one of Albert’s sisters to do that. He’s got three spinster old maid sisters who’d leap at the opportunity to be your bride. To marry a man of your substance! Especially, Elsie.” She smiled at the sound of Elsie’s name and folded her hands across her lap with a coy hint of conquest.
“Well, I wanna hear it from Pearl first. Pearl, I’m awaitin’.”
Pearl had been mixing flour and milk for fresh biscuits and had been listening attentively as well. Her hair flopped against her back in a long, single, black braid. White flour streaked her apron. Her hairy legs had not been shaven, and the small wart on her right cheek glistened with a smear of lard from her fingers. “Mr. Stone, I’m much obliged and honored,” she said, with a tear in her eye. “But I ain’t ready to make no decisions like that right yet. I believe Mama Edmonds’ idea about Elsie is the place to start. She don’t like livin’ with Uncle Albert and his people, nohow. And she can cook.”
“Well, I kin still raise a garden and turn a plow,” Mr. Stone averred. “I reckon, Ginny, you’ve done me a favor. Yes, ma’am, I thank you and am likewise obliged.”
Both women breathed a sigh of relief when the old man left.
“Lord! Miz. Edmonds! I cain’t thank you enough!” Pearl wiped her hands in her apron. Then she cut out the biscuits and placed them on a pan. “You always know the right words to say.”
My grandmother beamed with confidence, thrilled with the compliment and no doubt in agreement with its veracity.
In less than two weeks, Ambrose had proposed to Elsie.
“Miz. Edmonds, do you mind if we have the weddin’ in your front yard? The view from the fence there down to the springhouse is plumb beautiful,” Mr. Stone reckoned.
“Of course, Ambrose. I’ll provide the cider and some ham. The rest is up to you and Elsie.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
They wed on a Saturday afternoon in late October. Albert and Jessie played for the wedding. Jessie’s fiddle entertained every one with a lively repertoire of mountain music. Albert accompanied him on a banjo, while Earl thumped a taut cord, strung to a tobacco stick, nailed to an upside down washtub.
A country preacher, with gray hair in a long black coat, officiated. “If there be any reason,” he intoned, dragging out his words, “why Ambrose and Elsie ought not be married, then let him speak up right now, or forever hold his peace!” He glanced about the crowd of tenants and other guests, as if he actually expected some one to object. “Well, the Lord be honored. Ambrose, you ain’t no spring chicken no more, so you take care of Elsie, and don’t you lay no lash to her. She’s doin’ you a favor. And Elsie, you be proud of Ambrose and don’t you go foolin’ around with other men. You done had plenty of chances to do that earlier.”
A general laughter rose from those gathered around. After they exchanged vows, the preacher announced: “I proclaim you man and wife. May the Lord bless you and keep you, and make his face to shine upon you. And may you give him thanks for that, everyday. Amen!”
The three brothers provided music, while their relatives danced. Mr. Stone slapped his thighs and surprised everybody by performing a fast-moving, foot-tapping jig. Soon, the jugs of cider and plates of ham were depleted and the crowd moved on. We could hear their merriment long into the night, along with blasts from a shotgun.
Uncle Everett, my mother, and Marion had attended the wedding, in addition to Grandmother, Pearl, and me. Sadness had enveloped Pearl when the wedding party first left the yard, but her demeanor perked up afterwards.
“Pearl, I don’t mean to offend you, but who got you pregnant?” asked Uncle Everett. “If you love him and he respects you, we need to find him and bring him back.”
“Please don’t do that! He’s married, Mr. Everett, and done run off on his own wife. It was trifling of me to do what I done. I just got to bear it the best way I can.”
“Well, you can still come and live out at my place, if Mama mistreats you, or you become frightened here.”
“Why say a thing like that?” my grandmother challenged him. “Of course, I’ll not mistreat her. And I need her more than you. I could not forbear her loss, or live here alone. Not any more.”
“Mama, we understand that,” said my mother. “Nobody’s abandoning you. Nor ever will.”
“Of course not,” added Marion. “You’re like a mother to me, Mrs. Edmonds, ‘Virginia,’ if I may call you that? You’re welcome to live in town with us, if you feel lonely here.”
“Oh! I could never leave Quilly Hall! Holman would never forgive me, nor could I forgive myself. This is the family’s inheritance, the family’s estate. Not just mine. I could never leave it. I could never bear to think of it empty, or without someone to remember its history and care for its rooms!”
Chapter Seven
Just prior to Halloween, my grandmother and Pearl rode into town with Uncle Everett. I had just returned from school, when they drove up in his truck. Grandmother preferred to ride in his car, but there the three of them were, crowded into his pickup. Grandmother owned a 1939 Ford Coupe, but she rarely drove it. She housed it in a shed near the old slave quarters. Their unexpected arrival, however, signaled something amiss, if not worse.
As Uncle Everett assisted, first, Pearl and then my grandmother out of the truck, my mother came out into the yard. “Well! What a welcome sight. Come on in! I’ll make some tea.”
“Please, do!” my grandmother urged. “I’m feeling a little peaked
