Losing Battles (40 page)

“Those words must still be in letters of fire on your poor brain,” said Aunt Beck.

“What did you do? Laugh or cry?” said Aunt Nanny. “Tell you what I’d done—I’d run.” As she hollered it, Lady May scampered down and ran from her.

“I argued as good as she did,” Gloria said. “I asked her if she could give me just three good reasons right quick why I couldn’t give up my teaching and marry that minute if I wanted to.”

“Was she stumped?” asked Aunt Birdie eagerly.

“She thought she had them,” said Gloria. “She told me, ‘All right, Gloria. One: you’re young and ignorant—each one of you as much as the other.’ That wasn’t so. ‘Two: sitting and hanging your heels over Banner Top in the moonlight, you don’t dream yet where strong feelings can lead you.’ That wasn’t so. ‘And three: you need to give a little mind to the
family
you’re getting tangled up with.’ ”

“For mercy’s sakes! Only one of the biggest families there is!” cried Miss Beulah. “And one of the closest!”

“And it’s exactly where they put me down with my valise,” said Gloria.

“Well! Stacey Broadwee, Ora Stovall, and Mis’ Comfort and me, we all drew straws for the teacher,” said Miss Beulah to the company. “And who do you reckon got the little one?”

“Miss Julia didn’t let up,” said Gloria. “ ‘Here’s reason four, for good measure: do you know who you are? Just who are you? You don’t know,’ she says. ‘Before you jump headlong, ask yourself a few questions.’ ”

“And as if that wasn’t our business more than hers!” said Miss Beulah. She added to Gloria with a show of sarcasm, “And I suppose she was ready with an answer for that too?”

While Uncle Noah Webster leaned toward her and picked at another chorus, Gloria was shaking her radiant head. “She said if only Mississippians had birth certificates and would be like other people! ‘It wouldn’t kill them,’ she said. ‘It’s no insult to be asked to prove who you are. It wouldn’t hurt a soul to be ready to furnish some proof of his existence at the right time. And nothing would be lost but a little fraction of the confusion.’ ”

In the disapproving quiet that came after her words, Judge Moody could be heard clearing his throat.

“There’s a good long page, ain’t there now, in everybody’s family Bible for writing ’em down?” asked Uncle Curtis.

“For writing down ours. But Gloria’s lacking in the ones to do the writing,” Aunt Beck sadly reminded him.

“You’re
here
, aren’t you?” Aunt Birdie said with a scandalized laugh at Gloria.

“Miss Julia told me there was a dark thread, a dark thread running through my story somewhere,” Gloria went on. “Or my mother wouldn’t have made a mystery out of me. And I owed it to myself to find out the worst, and the quicker the better.”

“The worst! And how did you like that?” grinned Aunt Nanny.

“I said it suited me all right kept dark the way it was. I didn’t mind being a mystery—I was used to it. And if I was born a mystery, I’d be married a mystery.”

“And die one?” prompted Aunt Beck.

“Miss Julia still wasn’t satisfied?” asked Aunt Birdie, looking into Gloria’s face. “I’d have been.”

“She said it was a piece of unwisdom.”

“Was that all?” asked several.

“No. ‘Use your head,’ she said. ‘Find out who you are. And don’t get married first,’ she said. ‘That’s putting the cart before the horse.’ ”

“But you did that very thing, didn’t you?” said Aunt Birdie sympathetically. “Don’t blame you a solitary bit.”

“She said, ‘Go back to Banner School. Give out your reports tomorrow—and make those children work harder. Then teach out your year as you promised. And meantime, get your own eyes open. You’re in the very best place to get a little light on yourself. Banner’s the side of the river you surely were born on. You were found in Medley—that’s in walking distance of Banner School. Get to work on yourself. And I’ll work on you, too.’ ”

“Ouch!” cried Aunt Nanny.

“She said where there was a dark thread running, she hated to think of it being unravelled by unknowing hands, and after it’s too late—when she couldn’t be standing there to see it done right. She said every mystery had its right answer—we just had to find it. That’s what mysteries were given to us for. And she didn’t think mine would be too hard for a good brain.”

“Poor Gloria!” murmured Aunt Beck. “I bet you wished mighty hard you hadn’t got her started on you.”

“You’re lucky it didn’t do her any good,” said Aunt Birdie. “You’re the same little question-mark as ever, ain’t you?”

“How did you discourage her, Gloria?” asked Aunt Nanny.

“I snapped the elastic band around my reports, and took the roses she gave me with ’em, and went out of her house and into the spring, and took my road,” said Gloria. “And Jack was there at the other end of the bridge, waiting for me. Whistling.”

“Oh, I bet you skipped!” said Aunt Nanny.

“And never went back,” said Miss Lexie, looking at her.

“And never give another thought to who you were,” said Aunt Birdie stoutly. “And how would you have had the time, anyway, after that?”

“I didn’t see how she could be right about the best place to look—about my beginnings being anywhere around here. I’d already seen all there was to Banner, the first day.”

“Not grand enough for Miss Gloria?” Miss Lexie rocked back on her heels, giving her silent laugh.

“In my heart of hearts, I thought higher of myself than that.” Gloria lifted her chin and opened her eyes wide upon them. “I still do.”

Granny’s tiny voice spoke.

Uncle Noah Webster stopped his tune at once, everybody hushed talking and laughing, and Miss Beulah said, “What is it, what’s that, Granny?”

She said, “Sojourner.”

Miss Beulah went hurrying toward her chair. “Are you telling us something, Granny?”

“Prick up your ears. Once is all I’m going to tell it,” Granny said. “Sojourner. That’s your mother.” She flicked her fan at Gloria. “Fox-headed Rachel.”

All eyes travelled back to Gloria. She stood staring.

“Granny, Granny, wait a minute—I can’t put my finger right quick on who Rachel Sojourner is!” cried Miss Beulah. “There’s no Sojourners I know of!”

“Sure you know! Sure you remember!” said Aunt Nanny. “I do.”

“Where’d they live?” asked Aunt Cleo. “In Banner, sure-enough?”

“Yes’m, clear to the bottom of the hill,” Aunt Nanny said. “Lower than Aycock. They did! Nobody with the name left now.” She slapped herself on her lap. “And Rachel is the one Miss Julia Mortimer taught sewing to—the little girl on the end of the recitation bench. Yes’m. Rachel couldn’t learn to do mental arithmetic, so while the rest of us was firing off to beat the band, she sat like Puss—just pointing the tip of her little tongue out, and putting in a seam.”

“Taught her to sew right here.” Granny’s voice came again. “Saw she’s starving. Called her into my own house. ‘You can help me with this brood, mending their stockings. At least you’ll get fed.’ ”

“You’re bringing her back to me,” said Miss Beulah, in wary tones. “I don’t see her face yet, but I’m beginning to hear just a little—hear the laughing. Yes, in this house, I’d hear the boys tease her, circling around her at the quilting frame, or the loom, maybe, tease her while she treadled. I can hear her laugh floating through the breezeway—and I can see her weak eyes now. She worked—or she laughed—till the coming tears would put her eyes right out. I’ll remember two or three other failings about her too, in a minute,” she
added, her eyes moving to Gloria. “Yes, I’m about to see her pretty well.”

“Tossing her mane,” said Granny. “Fiery mane.”

As Gloria let out a gasp of protest, Miss Beulah kept on. “And it was Nathan knew best how to make her cry.”

“But was as still about her as that hunk of firewood going to waste down there in the yard,” Granny said, looking around her and then up into Nathan’s face.

“Couldn’t help teasing Miss Rachel, Granny!” said Uncle Noah Webster. “I remember her for the very reason.”

“But we had one she could count on. Sam Dale would never tease her,” said Uncle Curtis, and instantly the tears stood in Miss Beulah’s eyes.

Granny’s head drove back against her chair as if it had started on its rockers to run off with her, like a buggy. “Mr. Vaughn put a stop to her foolishness, sent her on,” she said. “Well, that’s who you are. You’re Rachel’s.”

“It’s just because Granny is so old that you believe her,” Gloria said in a rush to the company. “If she wasn’t your granny, celebrating her birthday, you’d think she could be as wrong as anybody else.”

“All I hope is Granny didn’t hear that,” Miss Beulah whispered.

“And you all believe her because
you’re
old!”

“Gloria, you’re showing yourself to be a handful today, whoever you got it from!” said Aunt Nanny, laughing.

“I’m not hers. I’m not Rachel’s. I’m not one bit of hers,” said Gloria.

“Well, where did she come from?” asked Aunt Cleo. “Gloria right here, I mean.”

“Oh, that little story’s fairly well known, as far as it goes,” said Miss Beulah.

Aunt Nanny, shooing at a game of “Fox in the Morning, Geese in the Evening” which just then swept over the yard like a gust of wind, was already telling it. “The home demonstration agent of Boone County come out and found her new-born on her front porch one evening. In her swing. Tucked in a clean shoe box.”

“You was tiny,” Aunt Cleo told Gloria.

“She was red as a pomegranate, and mad. Waving her little fists, the story goes,” said Aunt Nanny fondly. “So the home demonstration agent—that was Miss Pet Hanks’s mother, and while she lived she’s in the same house in Medley where Miss Pet’s still answering
the phone—Mis’ Hanks, the minute she saw what she had, and even though it was her busy day, she planked that baby in her old tin Lizzie and bounced all the way to Ludlow. And it was dewberry time, ditches full of ’em, bushes just loaded, begging to be picked on both sides of the road all the way. Made her wish she had time to stop and enjoy ’em, while she could.”

“Must have been shortly before our Easter Snap,” said Aunt Beck.

“It was.”

“What day do you call your birthday?” Aunt Cleo pointed at Gloria.

“April the first!” she said with defiance.

“I wish I’d known you was going begging!” Aunt Nanny cried to her through the others’ laughter. “I’d opened both arms so fast! I always prayed for me a girl—though I’d have taken a boy either, if answer had ever been sent.” She puffed on. “Mis’ Hanks carried you straight to the orphan asylum and handed you in. ‘Here’s a treat for you,’ she says to ’em. ‘It’s a girl. I even brought her named.’ She named you after her trip to Ludlow. It was a glorious day and she was sorry she had to cut her visit so short. Gloria Short.”

“It wasn’t bad for a name for you either, Gloria—you was born with a glorious head of hair and you was short a father and a mother,” said Aunt Birdie.

“It might be a sweeter name than you’d gotten from either one of them, for all you know, Gloria,” said Aunt Beck.

“I would have named myself something different,” said Gloria. “And not as common. There were three other Glorias all eating at my table.”

“Considering who found you, be thankful you wasn’t named Pet Hanks and been all by yourself,” said Uncle Noah Webster.

“That’s right. Now
they
know how to inflict you!” said Aunt Birdie. “The papas and mamas. Mama and Papa named me Virgil Homer, after the two doctors that succeeded in bringing me into the world. It wasn’t till I tried saying it myself and it came out ‘Birdie’ that I ever got it any different.”

“I named all mine a pretty name, every one of ’em,” said Miss Beulah. “Give ’em a pretty name, say I, for it may be the only thing you
can
give ’em. I named all mine myself, including little Beulah, that didn’t live but a day.”

“I’m Renfro now,” said Gloria.

“And in just no time!” said Miss Beulah. She studied Gloria with her head on one side. “Sojourner. That makes you kin to Aycock. And Captain Billy Bangs is stumping back there somewhere behind you. Reckon you’ll be as long-lived as him?”

“I don’t believe I’m Rachel’s!” Gloria cried.

“It fits perfect,” Miss Beulah said. “Only too perfect if you knew Rachel.”

“But I was a secret,” Gloria protested. “Whosoever I was, I was her secret.” She jumped up, her head like a house afire.

“You might have been Rachel’s
secret
, all right—but Rachel’s story is a mighty old story around Banner, and now it comes crowding back in on me, the whole thing, coming like we’d called it,” said Miss Beulah. “I reckon everybody and his brother heard that story once upon a time, and lived just about the right length of time to forget it.”

“What about Rachel? Have you got
her
somewhere where you could corner her and ask her?” asked Aunt Cleo.

“You’ll have to wait till you meet her in Heaven if you want to get it from Rachel,” said Miss Beulah.

“Then how can you-all be so sure beforehand?” cried Gloria. “How do you know I’m Rachel’s secret?”

“If Mis’ Hanks was the only soul in Medley that Rachel Sojourner knew well enough to speak to, that’s the one she’d give her baby to. Wouldn’t she?” Aunt Birdie asked her.

“But Mis’ Hanks might have known others going unmarried besides Rachel who had babies to give. She was the home demonstration agent, after all. Went countywide, pushed in everywhere,” argued Aunt Beck for Gloria.

“But Rachel’s baby has to be
somewhere,”
said Miss Beulah. “And I think with Granny that somewhere is right here.”

“I’m not Rachel’s,” said Gloria. “The more you tell it, the less I believe it.”

Aunt Nanny said, grinning, “Well, listen—mothers come different, Mama had two, and gave away both of ’em, me and my sister, when we was squallers, and she didn’t need to at all—it just suited her better. She’s up the road with Papa now, busy living to a ripe old age.”

“But she was a Broadwee,” Miss Beulah reminded her. “Tough as an old walnut.”

“Old Man Sojourner, after Rachel had been laid in the ground,
he reached in the chink of the chimney-piece and pulled all the money out that was being saved to bury he and his wife, and sold the cow to boot, all to put up a stone to Rachel’s memory. It’s still there—a lamb, and not very snowy,” said Aunt Nanny. She reached out and gave Gloria a spank.