AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Then came the broad green fields on the outskirts of Winnerrow; neat farms with fields of summer crops that soon would be harvested. After the farms came the houses of the poorest in the valley, those not much better off than true hillbillies. Beyond them, higher up, were the shacks of the coal miners dotting the hills along with the moonshiners' cabins.
The deepest part of the valley was reserved for the affluent, where all the richest mountain silt was driven downward by the heavy spring rains, to end up eventually in the gardens of Winnerrow families, providing fertile soil for those who needed it least, producing lavish flowers and gardens, so the rich grand houses of Winnerrow could grow the best tulips, daffodils, irises, roses, and every other flower to flatter their beautifully painted Victorian homes. No wonder they called it Winnerrow. All the winners in this area lived on Main Street, and all the losers in the hills. On Main Street, long ago, the owners of the coal mines had constructed their lavish homes, and the owners of the long-ago gold mines that had stopped producing. Now those homes were owned by the cotton-factory owners or their superintendents.
Down Main Street Cal drove carefully, past all the pastel homes of the richest, backed by the lesser homes of the middle class, the ones who worked in the mines, holding down some overseer or manager position. Winnerrow was also blessed, or cursed, with cotton gins that made the fabric for bed and table linens, fancy knobby bedspreads, carpets and rugs. Cotton mills with all their invisible airborne lint breathed into many a worker's lungs, so they coughed up their lungs sooner or later (as did the coal miners), and no one ever sued the mill owners or the mine owners. Couldn't be helped. A living had to be made. Was just the way things were. Ya took yer chances.
All this was in my mind as I stared at the fine homes that had commanded my childhood admiration, and in some ways, I had to admit, they still did. See all the porches, the remembered voice of Sarah was saying in my head. Count the floors by the windows, the first, second, and third. See all the cupolas, some houses with two, three, four. Houses pretty as picture postcards.
I turned again to check on Kitty. This time her eyes were open. "Kitty, are you all right? Do you need anything?"
Her pale seawater eyes moved my way. "Wanna go home."
"You're almost there, Kitty . . . almost there."
"Wanna go home," she repeated, like a parrot speaking the only phrase she knew. Uneasily I turned away. Why was I still afraid of her?
Cal slowed, then pulled into a curving driveway leading to a fine home painted soft yellow and trimmed with white. Three levels of gingerbread grandeur, perhaps built around the turn of the century, with porches on the ground and second level, and a small balcony on the third that must be the attic. The porches went around the house on four sides, Cal explained as he drew the car to a slow stop, got out, and opened the back door so he could lift Kitty from the backseat and carry her toward the high porch where her family stood motionless and waiting.
Why didn't her family come running to welcome Kitty home? Why did they just stand up there, bunched together, watching Cal with Kitty in his arms? Kitty had told me they'd rejoiced when she ran off and married at the age of thirteen. "Neva did love me, none of em," I could remember Kitty saying more than once. And apparently from their lack of enthusiasm, they were not glad to see her again, especially sick and helpless--but could I blame them, could I? If she could do what she had to me . . . what had she done to them? They were very generous to agree to take her back, more than generous.
Hesitatingly, I just sat there, reluctant to leave the cool isolation and safety of the car.
Up the five broad steps of the porch Cal carried Kitty, to stop at the top between the white balustrades. That family stared at Kitty as I finally made up my mind that Cal needed some support, and it seemed I was the only one he was going to get it from.
'It was like the story Granny used to tell of how she and Grandpa had just waited when Pa brought home the bride he called his angel, and they hadn't wanted her .. . not at first. Oh, Mother, how painful it must have been for you. How painful it could be for Kitty.
I ran to catch up, seeing the way they flicked their eyes at me. They weren't friendly eyes, nor were they hostile; all four stood staring as if Cal carried some unwanted alien in his arms. It was clear they didn't really want her, but still they had agreed to take her in and do their best . . . "until it's all over, one way or nother . . ."
The large, formidable-looking woman whom Kitty resembled had to be her mother, Reva Setterton, dressed in tissue-thin bright green silk, with huge gold buttons parading single file down to her hem. Her shoes were also green, and of course, foolishly, that impressed stupid me.
"Where can I put her?" Cal asked, shifting Kitty's weight, as Kitty stared at her mother with a blank expression.
"Her old room is ready an waitin," said the woman, who quirked her thin lips in an imitation smile, then thrust forth her strong, reddened hand and briefly shook mine in a limp halfhearted way. Her auburn hair had wide streaks of white, making it appear that a peppermint stick had melted and formed a fat blob on her head. The short, portly man at her side had a horseshoe ring of gray hair around his pinkish bald pate. Cal introduced him as Porter Setterton, "Kitty's father, Heaven."
"I'm going to take her right up to her room," said Cal. "It's been a long trip. Kitty had to be uncomfortable and cramped in the backseat. I hope I sent enough money to rent all she'll need."
"We kin take kerr of our own," said Kitty's mother, giving her daughter another hard look of contempt. "She don't look sick--not wid all that gook on her face."
"We'll talk about that later," informed Cal, heading for the house while I was eyed up and down by Kitty's sister, Maisie, a pale, insipid imitation of what Kitty must have been when she was seventeen. The pimply-faced, sandy-haired young man named Danny couldn't take his eyes off of me. I guessed his age to be about twenty.
"Ya must have seen us lots of time," said Maisie, stepping up and trying to act friendly. "We sure did see ya an yer family. Everybody always stared at t'hill--I mean t'Casteels."
I stared at Maisie, at Danny, trying to remember, and couldn't place them anywhere. Whom had I ever seen in church but the Reverend, his wife, and the prettiest girls and best-looking boys? Miss Deale . . . and that was about it. The best-dressed had also drawn my eyes, coveting what they wore for myself. Now I was wearing clothes much better than any I'd ever seen in Winnerrow's one and only church.
So far Danny hadn't said one word. "I've got to go and help Kitty," I said, glancing back at the car. "We have our things in the trunk of
the car . . . and we'll be needing them to take care of her."
"I'll bring em up," offered Danny, finally moving, as I turned to follow Reva Setterton into the house, closely followed by Maisie, as Mr. Setterton followed Danny to Cal's car.
"Ya sure got some dilly of a name," Maisie said as she trailed up the stairs behind me. "Heaven Leigh. Sure is pretty. Ma, why'd ya go an name me somethin so dumb as Maisie? Ain't ya got no imagination?"
"Shut yer mouth, an be grateful I didn't name ya Stupid."
Squelched, Maisie blushed and hung her head. Perhaps Kitty's tales of a nightmare childhood, told long ago to Cal, had been true after all.
What I could see of the house seemed spacious, neat, and rather pretty, and I was soon led to a bedroom where Kitty had already been put on a hospital bed and was stretched out in her modest pink nightgown. As Cal pulled up-the sheet he glanced at me, smiled, then addressed Kitty's mother. "Reva, I truly appreciate your offer to take Kitty in and do what you can for her. I've been paying nurses around the clock. But if you can manage with one night nurse, I'll send you a weekly check to pay for her services, and the expenses of Kitty's medical needs."
"We ain't poor," stated Reva. "Done already said we kin take kerr of our own." She glanced around the pretty room. "You kin call me Reva, girl," she said to me. "This used t'be Kitty's room--ain't so bad, is it? Kitty always made it seem we had her in a pigsty. A jail, she used t'call it. Couldn't wait t'grow up an run off with some man . . . first one who'd take her . . . an now look at her. That's what comes of sinnin, an neva doin what she should of . . ."
