Through a Glass, Darkly Read online

  Through A Glass, Darkly

  Charlotte Miller

  NewSouth Books

  Montgomery

  Also by Charlotte Miller

  Behold, This Dreamer

  There Is a River

  NewSouth Books

  P.O. Box 1588

  Montgomery, AL 36104

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 2001 by Charlotte Miller. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by NewSouth Books, a division of NewSouth, Inc., Montgomery, Alabama.

  ISBN: 978-1-58838-054-8

  ebook ISBN: 978-1-60306-265-7

  LCCN: 2001044109

  Visit www.newsouthbooks.com.

  To Justin

  When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

  1 Corinthians 13: 11-12 (KJV)

  Contents

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  PART TWO

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  PART THREE

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  About the Author

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  “Imagine him bringin’ her here.”

  “Two more mouths t’ feed, ’stead ’a just one.”

  “An’ look at her, with her bobbed-off hair an’ her skirt right up t’ her knees—ain’t nothin’ but trash, I tell you.”

  Elise Sanders fled into the small bedroom that opened off the kitchen in the little sharecropped house, but the voices of the two old women followed her into the room, as she knew they had intended.

  “Trash, I tell you—an’ for us t’ be throwed out ’a our room for them two, t’ give ’em ‘privacy,’ I bet she’s done with child, married only a few days or not; she’s just th’ type—”

  Elise’s face burned with embarrassment as she leaned her cheek against the cool wood of the door. She did not know how she would ever face the two old women again, even though she knew she would have to, for they were Janson’s aunts, her new husband’s aunts, and they lived here in the same house where she was now forced to live. It made it only worse that they were right—she was with child, a child Janson did not yet know that she carried. She could only imagine the smug looks the two old women would wear when her condition became obvious.

  She made herself turn away from the door, her eyes moving around this room she and Janson had been given here in his grandparents’ house, finding herself suddenly filled with a sense of homesickness she had not expected, but that had stayed with her from the moment she had left her home in Endicott County, Georgia. She moved further into the room, looking first at the hand-pieced quilts drawn up over the narrow bed, then at the whitewashed walls and the sagging cane-bottomed straight chairs, and at the washstand topped by its chipped pitcher and basin. This room was nothing like the one she had known through the sixteen years of her life, that room with its papered walls and the drapes and counterpane that had been a gift from her mother on her last birthday, its lovely mahogany furniture, its colors of pink and rose and white. She knew she would never see that room again, just as she would never see her family, or the home that had sheltered Whitleys for generations, even long before the war with the North that had ended six decades before. She had given up that room, just as she had given up her home and so much else in her life, so that she could be with Janson—he was all that she needed, she kept telling herself.

  She hugged her arms for warmth as she moved about the room, the fire burning in the fireplace set into the far wall doing little to alleviate the chill in the air. There seemed to be dark shadows everywhere she looked, cast by the light of the fireplace and the single kerosene lamp sitting on the table beside the bed, moving against the far wall near the chifforobe, and even reflecting in the fading mirror over the dresser. She felt for a moment as if she had gone back in time as she stared around this room, back to a time and a place before electricity and running water, for the little sharecropped house had neither, to a time of superstitions and old-fashioned folk ways, a time and a lifestyle made worse by the knowledge that Janson’s family was Holiness and did not believe even in jewelry or makeup. She felt as if her very presence here in this house was offensive to these people, for her hair was bobbed short in the style most girls were wearing now in the 1920s; her dress, though the most conservative she owned, low-waisted and coming well to her knees, was far shorter than those worn by any of Janson’s female relatives she had met today. She even felt that more than one of those relatives had stared at her simple wedding ring—none of these people seemed to belong here in the last months of 1927, for they all seemed part of that other time, and, worse still, Janson seemed a part of it as well. He fit in here, as he never had during the months he had worked as a farmhand for her father.

  She made herself move toward the bed to take up the white cotton nightgown she had left there earlier when she unpacked their things and put them away in the chifforobe, not wanting to change for bed, even though she knew Janson would be in shortly. Changing from her traveling clothes seemed too easy an acceptance of this new life.

  She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror over the dresser and she stopped for a moment to stare at herself, somehow surprised to see that she looked no different, though she was a married woman now and a mother-to-be. She was not Elise Whitley anymore—she was Elise Sanders now. She lifted her hand and stared at her wedding ring, then forced herself to turn away and begin to change for bed.

  She quickly removed her dress and slipped into the nightgown, rushing more than she needed to, but she could not stop herself. She felt exposed, vulnerable here in this house that belonged to someone else, fearing that someone might take the notion to check on her before she was fully dressed. She lifted the quilts and got into bed, then moved to the far side, pulling the covers up over her breasts and hugging them tightly to herself as she stared at the dark shadows moving over the whitewashed ceiling. She felt so very alone and homesick, even as she told herself that she now had what she had wanted most in the world. She was Janson’s wife; no one could hurt him anymore or try to keep them apart. She was Janson’s wife—but she wanted her mother now. She wanted to be home, in a place that would be familiar to her. She wanted to feel safe—but she should feel safe, she kept telling herself. Janson would take care of her.

  The door opened and he entered the room, then turned to close the door quietly behind himself. He was still dressed in the dungarees and work shirt he had been wearing when they had arrived in Eason County earlier in the day, but the clothes were wrinkled now even worse than from the long train ride, the dungarees and shirt both stained heavily in places from the work he had been doing with his grandfather. His green eyes came to rest on her where she lay under the quilts on the bed, and he smiled—but she could not bring herself to do anything more than stare at him,
watching as the shadows played over his features, across the high cheekbones and the complexion darker than her own, the features that showed so clearly the mixed blood of his heritage. He began to talk as he undressed for bed, his words moving over her, but she could not listen to him. She could only stare as he removed his shirt and dungarees, and then hurriedly stripped off his long-johns in the chill room as he prepared to get into bed with her.

  He lifted the quilts as Elise stared at him, and she burst into tears, turning her face from him toward the whitewashed wall.

  Elise awoke slowly the next morning, her head hurting from having cried herself to sleep. She sat up on the straw tick of the bed, bunching the quilts in her hands as she stared around the room. She was alone, alone in the room, and alone with her thoughts.

  She was embarrassed, feeling guilty over the bout of crying the night before. Janson had left their bed unsatisfied this morning as he never had in the times they had been able to be together in the months before their marriage. She could not understand her reasons for crying so when he had only wanted to do what they had done so many times before. He had been so kind even as she cried, holding her, seeming to understand as she cried herself to sleep on his shoulder—he must think he’s married a child, she told herself, drawing her knees up to her chest to rest her crossed arms on top of them. She felt as if she’d driven him out of bed this morning, even for all his kindness the night before. He had a right to expect more than that from his wife, and he could probably not look at her now in the light of day without remembering the whimpering child who had spent the night crying her eyes out on his shoulder.

  She lay back on the straw tick and looked around the room, realizing that it did not seem so frightening now, with the sunlight streaming in the window near the foot of the bed. The room was neat and clean except for their discarded clothes that were now folded over the back of one of the straight chairs. The whitewashed walls, fire burning in the fireplace across the room, and the colorful patchwork quilts beneath which she lay, now brightened the room up in the light of day.

  She wished Janson had awakened her before he had left to do whatever work his grandfather might have for him this morning. She needed to apologize for her behavior the night before. She was not about to allow a moment’s self-pity to ruin what she had worked so hard to have. Her father’s words when he had ordered them from his land rose all too easily to haunt her—he had told her she would grow to hate Janson for her decision to marry him, and that Janson would grow to hate her as well. They had both risked so much, even Janson’s very life, just to be together. She was dead to her family now, for she had chosen to marry Janson even though her father had forbidden it. William Whitley and Elise’s oldest brother, Bill, had both been willing to kill Janson to keep them apart. They would have found murder preferable to seeing Elise marry a man who was part Cherokee, a man who was only half white, no matter how much she might love him.

  Now she had what she had wanted, what they had risked so much for, what they had given up so much to have, and she had cried herself to sleep, pitying herself for having gotten the very thing she had wanted so badly. She felt herself a fool this morning, a silly, empty-headed fool who would see devils in friendly faces and cry at dreams she thought were nightmares.

  She got up quickly, washed her face and bathed with water from the basin sitting on the washstand near the foot of the bed, brushed her hair, and dressed in a low-waisted frock that she hoped Janson’s grandmother would not find too offensive. She wanted the old woman to like her, or at least to tolerate her; she already knew there was little hope that either Janson’s Aunt Belle or Aunt Maggie would ever feel more for her than an absolute dislike. To have Janson’s grandmother feel the same would be more than she could bear.

  She sat down before the dresser and did her makeup and hair almost without thought, then she stopped for a moment and stared at her reflection in the fading mirror, smoothing a spit-curl of hair down against her cheek and thinking that she looked younger than she should. The memory of having cried herself to sleep the night before was all too fresh, and the knowledge of what Janson must think of her this morning spurred her to movement. She would have to find him, apologize, and show him that she was not a child. She had only gotten what she had wanted—she was not about to lose it now over a silly bout of homesickness.

  The kitchen was warm and filled with the smell of baking bread when Elise entered it a moment later. Deborah Sanders looked up from the bread dough she had been kneading and asked how she had slept.

  “Fine,” Elise answered, then asked, “Where’s Janson? He was gone when I woke up.”

  “Folks’re usually up an’ workin’ around here about sunrise.” She glanced up from her work again, leaving Elise feeling properly chastised for having slept so late. “Th’ men had work t’ do out back ’a th’ barn. I ’spect Janson’s out there with th’ rest of ’em—now, you set down an’ eat you some breakfast; we’re gonna have t’ put some meat on them bones ’a yours.” She wiped her floury hands on the apron tied around her waist, then brushed a strand of gray hair away from her forehead with one hand and toward the heavy bun at the back of her neck. She put her hands on her hips and leveled a look at Elise, making Elise feel as if there was nothing the woman saw within her in that moment that she liked in the least.

  Elise looked toward the pots boiling on the back of the woodstove, then away quickly. She was feeling queasy this morning, and the thought of food was almost more than she could bear. “I’m not really hungry. I think I’ll just go find Janson. I wanted to—”

  “Now, we’ll have none of that,” the old woman said, taking her by the arm and ushering her to one of the benches beside the kitchen table, making her sit down, then going to take a plate down from the warming oven over the stove, a plate piled high with biscuits, sausage, eggs, and grits. She set it down before Elise. “Now, you eat,” she said. “Cain’t go skippin’ breakfast. It ain’t good for a body t’ start th’ day without somethin’ in their stomach.” She turned back to her bread dough, glancing back up at Elise one last time.

  Elise looked at the mountain of food before her, her stomach churning. She obediently picked up the fork the old woman had placed beside her plate and tried to do what she could with it. “You said Janson’s working out behind the barn?”

  “Yeah, but you don’t want t’ be goin’ out there. Th’ men’re workin’, my Tom, Wayne, an’ Janson—”

  “I won’t bother them. I just wanted to talk to him for a second.”

  “Not out there. You leave him alone until he comes in for dinner, an’ you can talk t’ him then.”

  Elise looked up at her, thinking that the woman might make her eat, but she could not stop her from going to see her own husband.

  “Olive an’ her husban’, Cyrus, an’ their Daniel and ’Nita’ll be here for dinner t’ meet you,” Janson’s grandmother said, and Elise had an awful, sinking feeling at the idea of meeting any more relatives. She had had her fill of them already, but it could not be avoided. They all came along with marrying Janson, even though Elise could not quite make herself happy about any she had met thus far. Within an hour of their having arrived the evening before, she had already been introduced not only to Janson’s grandparents, his cousin, Sissy, who lived with them and who was only a few years younger than Elise, but also the two old biddies who had gone out of their way to make her feel unwelcome, and Janson’s Uncle Wayne, his wife, Rachel, and their brood of sons. Now it would be the snooty Aunt Olive that Janson had told her about, and her family. She could only imagine who might show up next, her mind going over all the people Janson had told her about.

  She was making some headway on the breakfast that had been set before her. She had only picked at her supper the night before, and the morning sickness was easing off. At least the woman made good biscuits, Elise told herself, even if she did think she could tell everyone what to do.

 
; “Janson’s done got you with child, ain’t he?” Deborah Sanders asked and Elise choked, her fork stopping midway between the plate and her mouth. She looked up at the woman, feeling her face grow hot with the blushes that answered the question as well as any words ever could. Elise looked away, certain at any moment that this woman—this extremely religious woman—would damn her to hell in a sermon within a few moments. Her face, down to her neckline, felt hot, her hands clammy, as she set her fork down, preparing herself for what she knew was to come.

  After a moment she felt a gentle hand come to rest on her own, a kind, understanding pat, and she looked up into Deborah Sanders’s eyes. “Don’t be afraid, child. What’s done is done, an’ cain’t nobody change what is. I’m your gran’ma too, now—you’re with child, ain’t you?”

  Elise nodded, feeling the blushes still cover her face, and she cleared her throat. “Yes, but—but, how—”

  “Child, there’s many a baby in this county that I midwifed int’ this world, an’ I had enough ’a my own as well. I can pretty much tell when a woman’s with child.”

  Elise nodded and looked away again. It did not help her embarrassment that this woman seemed so understanding. She was proud that she carried Janson’s child, but she could not help but be embarrassed that this woman—Janson’s grandmother of all people—knew that she had been pregnant when Janson had married her.

  She heard a soft chuckle from the older woman, and she looked up, surprised to find Deborah Sanders smiling at her, even more surprised when the woman reached to pat her cheek before lowering her large frame to sit on the bench beside Elise. “My boy’s gonna be a father,” the old woman smiled and shook her head almost incredulously. “It don’t seem like Janson ought t’ be old enough, but I know he is. I must be gettin’ old; seems like it was only yesterday that Nell told me that she was in th’ family way. Her an’ Henry’d wanted a baby for s’ long that it was just like a miracle that they was finally ’spectin’. I’d been prayin’ for them for s’ long, an’ then I prayed even harder that it would be a boy, for Henry’s sake. Janson was all there was in th’ world t’ them two, ’cause he was th’ onliest one they had; an’ oh, but how they loved each other—can it be three years now that Henry’s been gone?” the old woman said, almost to herself, her tone becoming quieter. “An’ more’n two years since Nell—”