The Plot (18 page)

William Reas addressed Jamey. “Mr. Jamey, Maum Cloe want to know is there anything you set your mouth on for three-o'clock dinner tomorrow?”

“I don't think so, William Reas.”

“Maum Cloe say how about some nice brim?”

“What? No, no thank you, William Reas. Please tell Maum Cloe that in my present mood I will eschew all fish. I don't think I could bear fish without salt. Dreadful!”

William Reas bowed and trundled the food wagon out of the room. Jamey waited until the door had closed after him. “Who was that communication from, Louis?”

“From a friend of Ethel's.”

“From her friend the brute? I cannot bring myself to say that name!”

“From Budder, yes.” So Jamey had known about Budder. “Shall I help you back to your room, Jamey?”

“No. Let us read together.”

“I don't feel much like——” He was jittery. Perhaps if he had the breeze on his face, some air. Ethel. Ethel? “I tell you, Jamey, let's take your chair and go down by the river and talk. I feel like being outdoors.”

“Too much effort, dear boy.”

“It will be pleasant outside after all that rain. Come on. All you have to do is get into the chair. I can lift you into it, Jamey.”

Jamey smiled. “I know you can, dear boy, but I don't want to go down to the river. No. Now, dear boy, if what you want is to talk, let us talk here.”

“Sure thing.” Ethel? Ethel?

“We shall talk of your work. I have not spoken enough of your work, dear boy. You have allowed me to talk too much of myself.”

Louis blushed painfully.

“And perhaps, in a way, I have avoided talking of your work because I have been jealous of it.”

“Come on now, Jamey!”

“Jealous of its potential, dear boy, for you're not there, yet. No. But if you fulfill your potential, dear boy—your—let us call it your more
rounded
love of humanity——” He giggled and sketched curves in the air. “Rounded is the
mot juste, n'est ce pas?
That, plus style, descriptive power, discretionary power——But you must learn to plot. In all the time we have left, I shall attempt to teach you how to plot.”

Louis was in no mood to be a good student. “Jamey, about plots—I'm afraid I did a very stupid thing. In that first letter I wrote you, I mentioned
The Disciple
. I said the end was faked. I told you—and, incidentally, Ethel—that the man in it didn't kill himself because of his ambition. I said he died because he was in love with the master.”

“But I know that, dear boy.”

“You know?”

“Of course. If I had not been certain that you, reading
The Disciple
, would probe the soft spot, I would not have recognized what you were. The one goes with the other. Ethel, out of mistaken kindness to old Jamey, I imagine, skipped a page of your letter. I calculated, dear boy, that the page omitted was just the page where an artist would have gently inserted any criticism. I knew you from your letter. I knew Ethel, therefore …” He spread his palms.

“Jesus, Jamey!”

“Ah, Louis, that my perspicacity should so surprise you! That hurts me. Ah, Louis, before you came here, how wise you must have thought me, but then, staying with me here, you forgot.” He pointed his wavering old finger at his chest. ‘Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' Don't ever again look at me, don't ever again let this poor, vain, shrunken form deceive you, dear boy! And now to work.”

“I'm too tired to work now, Jamey.”

“Never be too tired to work at your trade, my boy. No, gaze upon me this time, an old man, Louis, far tireder than you could ever be, but keeping his old wits in trim, sharpening his wits against the best of them, keeping his old hand in by vying with Sophocles.”

“Please don't talk about Oedipus.”

“But I have been thinking about Oedipus. I have found a way to outwit the so-called inevitable, Louis. Me, old Jamey Vaughn. Can you do as well?”

“Nope. You're the great plotter.” Louis listened to a lecture on technique. He was afraid to leave the old man, or he would have gone to Charleston and seen Budder and tried to get that manuscript back. He had to have it back. Had Ethel told Budder what dynamite that manuscript could be? Had that damn fool Ethel confided in the big lout?

“You don't want to talk, and you are not listening, Louis. Very well, arrange a concert for Jamey and he will sit and close his eyes and imagine he is young again. The music will drown out the night sounds. Aren't the night sounds mournful tonight, Louis?” He tipped his head to one side. “A dirge,” he said.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

William Reas had been troubled because Jamey had not eaten any of the supper. He told Maum Cloe that Jamey hadn't touched his plate, and then Maum Cloe had to be interrupted in her enthusiastic description of good fresh brim from their own river, which she would make with tomato sauce. “I ask Mr. Jamey. Jamey don't want no brim, he say.”

“Nice fresh brim, with tomato sauce,” she continued imperturbably. That would tempt Mr. Jamey, if anything would, nice fresh brim from their own river! She knew best. She always knew best; they would get some nice brim.

Early the next morning, Maum Cloe gave William Reas and Joseph Reas a hearty breakfast. She was all ready for the fishing expedition, dressed in many layers, with a big, black cape over all, for it was damp, this early, and rather chilly. The two men tried to persuade the old woman not to go, but she was stubborn. She knew where the brim bit good, she said. With her son and grandson following her, she hobbled down the path that led to the river; her head was high, and her lips mumbled as she moved. When they came to the punt, Joseph Reas steadied it, and William Reas gave his mother his arm, to help her in. Then Joseph Reas got the fishing tackle out of the chest in which the gear was kept.

Maum Cloe sat upright, her eyes glinting. The punt moved smoothly into the stream and, on Maum Cloe's orders, headed down river. The two men followed her instructions, for she was reputed to know about fish, as she was reputed to know everything else.

William Reas, who was watching for fish signs, did not see Ethel at first, so he did not lose his hearty breakfast. Joseph Reas did.

With Joseph Reas retching over the side of the boat, as far away from it as possible, William Reas pulled Ethel in. He said, swallowing hard, “'Gators.”

First the punt came back to shore, jerking with the men's impatience to be away from the thing in the boat. Maum Cloe handed William Reas her big black cape and he wrapped it around the corpse so that, lifting it, he would not have to touch it. He laid it on the ground and stood behind it, facing his mother. She did not look very formidable just then because she felt that she had called down the lightning once too often and it had struck. She was terribly frightened, for, until now, she had used her pretense of psychic powers to get her way, and now she felt she had let the genie out of the bottle. Now she felt that the genie, like her son, who also seemed to have grown taller, was bigger and more powerful than she had ever conceived. Her son wavered in front of her eyes like a genie, her power over him wavered in front of her.

She knew before he spoke what William Reas was going to say: Miss Ethel was dead. Someone had killed Miss Ethel and had let the 'gators get her. She had been alive yesterday afternoon, when there had been, besides old Mr. Jamey, no one around the plantation but the three of them. Miss Ethel was white and they were Negroes. William Reas said bitterly, “You got to go fishing. You got to get brim. Mr. Jamey don't want brim, but you got to get brim.” He referred to Ethel as “Miss” Ethel in a pathetic attempt to keep to the servant-mistress relation that, in a way, seemed to assure their safety, but he omitted his mother's honorary title, and that showed that their relationship hung in the balance of the moment.

Maum Cloe nodded gravely. “I got to fish for brim, yes. I got to.”

William Reas, staring at her over Ethel's body, understood that she was asking him if this were not another evidence of her power. Would it be better, she was asking, if someone else had found Miss Ethel's body, someone who would blame them? Wasn't it best for them, she was asking, to get in first?

Joseph Reas had emptied his stomach. He dipped his hand cautiously into the river and wiped his trembling and sour lips. He glanced around furtively, and then spoke quietly, reminding the other two of what he had already told them, that Louis and Ethel had quarreled the day before, that Louis, in Joseph Reas' presence, had threatened to kill Ethel. “I'll break your neck,” Joseph Reas repeated, aloud this time.

Maum Cloe said, “That's it.”

William Reas and Joseph Reas were not Maum Cloe; they hadn't her passionate overestimation of Alex and the Wilcoxens; they wouldn't have cared if Alex had married Louis—that was nothing to them. They had nothing against Louis; he was nothing to them. They were, what Louis had never seen them to be, perfectly ordinary men, weakened by the mother's domination and by superstition and ignorance, but frightened cruelly now out of normal decency by the racial knowledge of what a dead white woman and three Negroes in uncomfortable proximity could do. Ethel was a white and Louis was a white. Louis had threatened Ethel. Louis, being white, could take care of himself; his danger would be a simple one of police and trial by jury, not a thing of hysteria and rope and flame.

A subtle look passed between father and son, a shameful but human look, and then a blankness, a servile, subhuman stupidity settled on their faces, which had been, until then, intelligent. They picked up the body wrapped in the old cape. They did not need to settle between the three of them that Joseph Reas, with the body in the back of the car, was going to Charleston to the police station, then, hat in hand, the servile stupid look on his bent face, was going to report on the finding of Ethel's body and was going to tell the boss men of the quarrel he had heard, of the twice-repeated threat.

They walked rather quickly. Maum Cloe followed behind majestically. They said nothing to her as she paused in the door of the big house, but went on obediently to the car. They laid the body on the floor in the back, and Joseph Reas guarded it while William Reas went to the new house to tell Jamey.

Maum Cloe closed the big door behind her and went into the kitchen. She warmed her trembling hands over the fire in which she had intended to bake the nice brim. She had saved her position as head of the family, but she was frightened. She had seen the genie come winding out of the bottle and was not at all sure that what Joseph Reas and William Reas were about to do would stuff it back again. She did not look like a witch any more; this was a kitchen in Charleston and not a moor; she was a shining-faced, shivering, old woman. Her false teeth chattered in her head, but she was silenced.

Jamey was in his room and Louis in his. Louis, who came to his door when William Reas entered the little house, was informed by William Reas how they had found Ethel dead in the river. He said that they had better tell Mr. Jamey right off.

“But his heart——The shock——”

William Reas waited impassively.

“I guess we had better. Break it gently—nuts, how can you tell someone gently that someone is dead? There's a joke about that, William Reas.”

William Reas would not respond. Louis believed he had shocked William Reas by mentioning a joke at this solemn moment, but, except about the possible effect on Jamey, Louis didn't feel solemn.

Jamey took a slow, deep breath. “In the river? And Maum Cloe found her?”

William Reas nodded. “Yes, Mr. Jamey. Maum Cloe went fishing for some brim to make you eat good.”

“But I told Maum Cloe I didn't want fish.” He shrugged. “As I have had occasion often to repeat, ‘Where such things are, what mortal shall boast any more that he can ward the arrows of the gods from his life.' Remember Oedipus, Louis! I suppose Joseph Reas had better go——”

“Yes, Mr. Jamey. Joseph Reas he all ready.”

“Just a minute, William Reas.” As far as Louis could tell, Jamey was taking it in his stride, lying on the chaise longue, smoking a cigarette, pulling in the smoke, letting it out slowly, savoring the odor of the smoke, his pinched nostrils quivering. With Jamey all right, Louis wanted to move; he felt he had better move, better get to Budder quickly. “You're O.K., Jamey?”

“Yes, dear boy. I suppose after Joseph Reas brings this to them, the police will be trotting out here, all sweat and earnest endeavor?”

“I suppose so.” That manuscript.

“Oh, dear! I shall have to answer their questions. Poor, dear Ethel, when Jamey dismissed her, it would seem there was nothing for her but the river. I do feel guilty, Louis!”

“Don't feel guilty, Jamey. Take it easy, will you? Now, look, if you don't mind, I think I will go into Charleston with Joseph Reas.” He could safely leave Jamey now; Ethel couldn't hurt Jamey now. Ethel was going to hurt him, though, if he didn't get to Budder in a hurry. If Budder found that Ethel wasn't going to keep their date, that he wasn't going to be paid for the manuscript, he would certainly figure out that it had some connection with Jamey and that, with Ethel gone, Jamey was his best bet to collect.

“Must you go?”

“Yes.”

“William Reas, I think I shall have tonight's highball now. I need it right now, don't you think, dear boy? This is a shocking thing, yes, this is a shocking thing! Louis, Louis, before you run off, fetch me some reading matter. Fetch me—it is on the fourth shelf there, to the right—a light-green flowered book,
Two Hundred Years of Charleston Cookery
.”

Just the thing to fuss about right now. Cookery. “O.K., Jamey.” Senile, poor, old Jamey.

“That's the one. Thank you, dear boy. No, I am all right, just a teensy twinge of pain. I am all right.”

“Then, so long, Jamey.”