Blackwater - Rain Part 5

CHAPTER 77.

The Song of the Shepherdess

Lilah moved into one of the guest bedrooms of Miriam's house later that Christmas day, '^just for a few weeks." Only Lilah herself-of all the Caskeys and most of Perdido-was deceived into thinking that she would soon return to her grandmother and her father.

Those few weeks pa.s.sed, and Lilah said to her grandmother, "Miriam and Malcolm said they cain't do without me. May I stay for just a little while longer?"

"I'll send your things over," said Elinor.

Lilah's clothes went next door, and soon there was no thought whatsoever-even in Lilah's mind-of her returning. She belonged to Miriam and Malcolm now, and though all the Caskeys atetlinner together at Elinor's every evening, and Lilah saw almost as much of Billy as she had before, she was quite a different child. Miriam pampered her niece, oddly, by neglecting her. Elinor had always kept a tight rein on her granddaughter, for Lilah tended to be forward and precocious, protective of her prerogatives as a Caskey and the richest little girl in the entire county; she was apt to be imperious toward the servants. Elinor had kept these tendencies in check. Miriam did not even try to do so. In her niece, Miriam saw the child she had herself been. She trusted Lilah as she trusted herself. What Lilah wanted was what Lilah needed; what Lilah did was exactly what was required by the situation in question. Lilah, in short, grew unbearable. Yet Miriam 1 73 saw nothing of this, or perhaps she chose to see nothing. For all the child's arrogance, she was still dear to Miriam, and perhaps dearer to Miriam as she became less and less pleasant to others.

Oscar saw all this, and remonstrated with his wife and son-in-law. Elinor and Billy, he said, ought to step in before the child was completely ruined. Elinor and Billy, however, would do nothing. Lilah now belonged to Miriam , and Miriam was raising her as she saw fit.

"It's none of my business anymore," said Billy. "It might be if Lilah still lived here, but she doesn't."

"Oscar," Elinor pointed out, "Miriam is treating Lilah exactly the way Mary-Love treated Miriam. Lilah will be a carbon copy of Miriam. Everybody in town sees that. It probably would have happened anyway. There's nothing that I can do about it-and even if there were, I probably wouldn't do it."

If Lilah was worse off from the move, then Miriam, at all events, was better. She now had someone besides herself to take care of. Malcolm didn't count, for Miriam had managed him for a number of years already, and anyway Malcolm didn't require much managing. Despite Miriam's full days at the mill, she drove Lilah to school every morning, and picked her up after school every afternoon. The two of them shopped together in Pensacola for clothes-and sometimes for jewelry. Miriam took Lilah out of school for five days in February and, dragging Malcolm along for the express purpose of carrying packages, they went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, and then in Lilah's words, "bought the town out." Miriam, as if she had in truth at last forgiven Elinor for having given her away as a baby nearly forty years before, now regularly called Elinor "Mama" and Oscar "Daddy." Miriam allowed somewhat more familiarity among the households, for it was only she, now, of all the Caskeys, who had the perfect American family-father, mother, and child. Elinor's house, Queenie's house, and Lucille and Grace's farm were 74.all perverted and incomplete reflections of that perfect image. Elinor did not fight her, and Miriam gradually came to look upon herself as the pivot of the family. It was time, in her opinion, that Elinor abdicated.

This a.s.sumption of ultimate power in the family tended to make Miriam a bit easier in her manner. A usurper must maintain a cold and unyielding demeanor; a sovereign can afford to be gracious.

About this time, there was another significant change in the Caskeys' way of life, and that had to do with servants. For decades, each of the households had got along with one woman apiece. Because of the sterility of the sandy yards that surrounded the Caskey houses, a single gardener had sufficed for all three. Once again, Miriam was the instrument for the change. When Ivey retired after Sister's death, her niece Melva took her place. Melva was a fine cook, but an indifferent housekeeper. And rather than let Melva go just because she didn't know how to clean rugs properly, Malcolm simply went around to the various Sapps and inquired if there was a girl who did. He found one readily, and hired her to do cleaning in the house. Now Miriam had two servants, and that was thought sufficient in a house of only three persons, especially when Miriam was away so much and when so many of the family's meals were taken next door anyway.

Queenie had hired one girl to cook breakfast for Tommy Lee, but this girl went to school directly afterward, and did not return until the late afternoon. Since Tommy Lee also was away in the middle of the day, Queenie hired another girl-a Sapp, of course-who wasn't much good at anything, but who kept her excellent company, and that was really all that Queenie needed. She didn't like to be in the house alone even in the daytime.

Zaddie Sapp was past fifty, but still very capable of keeping Elinor's entire house going; she had done 75.so for thirty years, and always completely to Elinor's satisfaction. However, Elinor now considered that Zaddie had no need to work as hard as she did, so she sent Malcolm back around to the Sapps. Malcolm returned with a girl to help with the cooking, another girl who did nothing but clean, and a boy to run errands.

After Bray's death, Oscar had borrowed various men from the mill to act as his chauffeur, but this was an unsatisfactory arrangement. Oscar declared that he just didn't feel right unless there was a Sapp behind the wheel. Sammy Sapp had his driver's license, but he was still in the eleventh grade over in Babylon. Oscar convinced Sammy that he had no need of graduating from high school, which wasn't a very good school anyway, and promised to pay him more than he would ever get working at the mill. Sammy, already very attached to Mr. Oscar, didn't need much convincing. Oscar got Sammy a uniform, and bought a new Lincoln Continental in Sammy's honor. Oscar, whose eyes were growing dimmer all the time because of cataracts, had Sammy drive him out to San Antonio, where he consulted an esteemed eye specialist; he was told that an operation was dangerous, and might result in permanent blindness. Of this Oscar said nothing to his family. Sammy drove Oscar all over the countryside, through a dozen states, always on the lookout for new and untried golf courses. Sammy acted as Oscar's caddy. The young black man grew adept at description, for Oscar, slouched in the back seat of the Continental, eyes shaded against the sun, now did not even bother to look out the windows.

Out at Gavin Pond Farm, Grace and Lucille still claimed that they got along with just Luvadia and Escue, but the fact was that Luvadia had three teenage children besides Sammy, and those three were in permanent requisition. Moreover, there were field workers who came to the farm every day, and men who maintained the heavy machinery, repaired the 76.fences, filled the oil tanks, and doctored the livestock. Workers on the oil rigs south of the farm sometimes wandered up on some excuse or other, and rarely fewer than a dozen persons sat down to the midday meal at Gavin Pond Farm.

After so many years of appearing only a little above the other inhabitants of Perdido, the Caskeys had gradually put away their conservative coa.r.s.e linen, and now appeared recklessly resplendent. They bought new cars every year; they flew on airplanes in the first-cla.s.s compartments. When traveling they put up at the best hotels, and shopped in the most expensive stores. Elinor sent Malcolm down to New Orleans once a month and had him bring up a trunk-load of the finest wines and liquors. Elinor entertained businessmen and politicians by the score in the course of a year, and grew so adept at hospitality that she was thought a perfect hostess, because everything was accomplished so effortlessly and with such unconscious grace. Perdido was a small pond indeed, but the Caskeys would have made a very decent showing in a body of water of substantially greater dimensions.

The town might have grown resentful if these changes had not been so unconscious on the part of the Caskeys, if the family's sphere had not enlarged itself so naturally and without their seeming aggressively to seek this upward climb. No change was perceived in their demeanor around the town, and they treated no individual differently from before. If the Caskeys gave a party-and they now did entertain more frequently than before-then the same people were invited this year that had been invited five years before. Only now Perdido was very likely to meet one, or even both, Alabama senators, not to mention a man from Texas who owned seventeen thousand head of cattle, and a woman who called the First Lady of the United States by her Christian name.

77.Tommy Lee, of all the family, was least affected by all these changes. He remained shy and retiring. When looked for, Tommy Lee was always found in a corner, as far out of the way as possible. His favorite corners were the river, on which he loved to fish; the woods, in which he loved to hunt; and Queenie's bedroom, where he sat and talked to his grandmother for many hours on end. He wasn't looked down upon, by any means, by most of the family, for his function in keeping Queenie occupied and happy was a n.o.ble one. Queenie had kept Sister company for many, many years; now Queenie was being repaid for that loyalty through the agency of her grandson. And G.o.d knew that Tommy Lee was not good for much else.

But Lilah was embarra.s.sed by Tommy Lee. She wished that she had almost anybody else in the entire county for a cousin. He rendered her self-image imperfect. How sophisticated could she be when such a b.u.mbling troglodyte as Tommy Lee was her only teen-aged relative? He wasn't really her cousin, of course, but only her great-uncle's great-nephew by marriage. Whenever anyone at school referred to Tommy Lee as Lilah's cousin, she attempted to explain this rather complicated relations.h.i.+p, but it never did any good. Next day, Tommy Lee Burgess was again Lilah Bronze's cousin. It wouldn't have been so bad if he weren't already getting fat, just like the Stricklands. Queenie was fat, and Lucille was fat. Malcolm was pretty big, but Miriam kept her husband on the go so much that he didn't have time to eat as much as he wanted. Danjo had sent a photograph of himself and his wife Fred in Germany at Christmas, and he was fat, too. Danjo and Fred had two fat little boys, one of whom was already a graf.

Lilah alternated between spates of badgering Tommy Lee unmercifully and ignoring him completely. When she ignored him completely, he might as well not have existed. She wouldn't speak to him, 78.even when they sat next to each other at the dinner table; her eyes wouldn't focus on him when she turned her head in his direction. When she did take notice of him, it was only to pound him relentlessly with questions she knew he couldn't answer: "Why don't you go on a diet?" "If you won't go on a diet, why don't you try out for football?" "Why don't you ever go out on a date?" "Why don't you ask Queenie if you can drive me down to New Orleans so I can go shopping?"

When Lilah was in the ninth grade-a mere freshman in the high school-Tommy Lee was a graduating senior. He asked her to go with him to the senior prom, but she refused. She would certainly not attend her first school dance on the arm of her cousin! Tommy Lee ended up going alone. Malcolm was a chaperon, and so Tommy Lee sat with his uncle at the side of the room all evening long. Malcolm saw how unhappy Tommy Lee was, and he surrept.i.tiously poured bourbon into the boy's punch.

It was Lilah who convinced Tommy Lee to go to college. "You have got to go, Tommy Lee, and that's all there is to it."

Tommy Lee was surprised by Lilah's sudden interest in his future, and secretly suspected that her real motive was to get him out of town. He saw well enough how little Miriam liked having him around, but characteristically, he only admired her for the vehemence of her pa.s.sion against him. But Tommy Lee still couldn't see the need of college for himself.

"Look, Lilah, I'm not any good at all that business."

"All what business?"

"You know, grades and junk. Besides, Grand-mama sort of needs me around here."

"Queenie would like to keep you tied to the foot of her bed, that's what Queenie would like to do with you," snapped Lilah. "And if you let her keep you around here, I will never speak to you again."

79."Grandmama's been real good to me," Tommy Lee pointed out.

"If you went to college," said Lilah, "you could join a fraternity."

Tommy Lee glanced doubtfully at his cousin. "You sure somebody'd ask me?"

"Sure," said Lilah decisively. "You know why? 'Cause you're rich. They find out about things like that. Rich people always get asked to join fraternities, 'cause they know rich people can pay their dues and buy beer for the parties. And rich people bring their cars to school and own beach houses to give parties in and all that."

"How would people know I'm rich?" asked Tommy Lee, who never carried more than two dollars in his pocket, even when he went to Pensacola.

"They find out. They look up people's names. There's a big book and it tells if people are rich or not. A friend of mine saw one in a fraternity house one time," Lilah went on confidently. "So if you went to college, you could join a fraternity, and then you could invite me to come up to all the parties they have. There's a party every Friday night during football season, and then the rest of the year there's one every other Sat.u.r.day."

"Would you come?"

"Of course I would come!"

"Where should I go?"

"You mean where should you apply?" asked Lilah, considering the question. "Alabama's got more fraternities, but Auburn is closer."

"I don't care," said Tommy Lee. "Whichever one you say, Lilah." He understood now that his going away to college would serve a double purpose for Lilah. It would get him out of town, where he was merely an embarra.s.sment to her, and it would secure her invitations to fraternity parties. To be able, as a mere high school soph.o.m.ore, to put in an appearance at one of those much whispered-about orgies of drink and delectably loose behavior, would secure 80.Lilah instant, exalted, and unapproachable stature among her peers.

"Well, until I learn how to drive, you're gone have to come down here and pick me up on Friday afternoon and then bring me back on Sat.u.r.day. Since Auburn's closer, you better go to Auburn. After I get my driver's license, then maybe you should transfer to Alabama."

Thus it was that Tommy Lee Burgess decided to apply to Auburn; his application, though late, was accepted.

Grace and Lucille were enormously proud, of course. Tommy Lee was lost to them, that they acknowledged, so the two women took pleasure in the thought of his going away to school and making more of himself than anyone had antic.i.p.ated.

It was Queenie who was despondent, though she couldn't, in all conscience, deny her grandson permission to attend college. In fact, using all her willpower she refused even subtly to attempt to dissuade him from his plans. She could only moon over him, and buy him more clothes than he could possibly pack in the back of the car. In fact, she bought him a new car, one with a larger trunk for that very purpose. She insisted on going up to Auburn and seeing him installed in a dormitory, though Lilah begged her not to. "Look, Queenie," Lilah said, in as peremptory a tone as Miriam herself might have used, "he's only gone be there for two weeks at the most."

Queenie's heart leaped at this thought. "Do you think so?" she cried. "You mean he'll be so homesick that he'll come right back to Perdido! I never did think Tommy Lee was cut out for college."

"No," said Lilah impatiently. "I mean he'll be moving into a fraternity house. I bet he's Pi Eta. Pi Eta gets all the richest boys. They give a toga party every September. So Tommy Lee will be coming back down to pick me up. He's already promised to invite 81.me. Of course if he pledges Pi Epsilon, they have a Polynesian night. I'd rather go to a Polynesia party than a toga party, but I still bet Tommy Lee goes Pi Eta."

In the last week of August 1961, Tommy Lee and Queenie drove up to Auburn in Tommy Lee's new car. Queenie saw him installed in his dormitory room, and watched with pleasure as Tommy Lee tried, with but little success, to fit his mountain of new clothes into the slim closet and the single low chest of drawers that was allotted him. Tommy Lee's roommate showed up too, and Queenie took them both out to a catfish supper.

Queenie spent the night in the Auburn Hotel, and made Tommy Lee stay with her rather than in his room. The next day, Lucille drove up, and was offhandedly introduced to Tommy Lee's astonished roommate as "my farm mama." Late that afternoon, following a tearful farewell, Lucille drove Queenie back to Perdido, and sat with her on the front porch of James's house until midnight; "I am so lonesome," Queenie said over and over again, "that I just cain't face going inside, knowing that Tommy Lee isn't gone be there."

"You got to go inside, Mama, 'cause I am about dead, and Grace is out there at the farm waiting up for me."

Queenie sighed, rose from her chair, and allowed Lucille to lead her inside the house.

"I could kill Lilah Bronze for sending Tommy Lee away like that. And all Lilah wants is an escort to a party where n.o.body wears anything but a sheet with a gra.s.s skirt on underneath it. She could have worn that around the house here, and n.o.body in Perdido would have said a word about it. But no," Queenie sighed, "she had to send Tommy Lee away."

"Well, Mama," said Lucille, without much sympathy, "now you know about how Grace and I felt when vou took Tommy Lee away from us."

82."Did you?" said Queenie vaguely.

"We sure did," said Lucille as she turned to leave.

Queenie listened to her daughter's footsteps as Lucille left the house. She heard the front door shut, heard Lucille's tread across the front porch and down the steps. She heard Lucille move across the yard toward her car parked on the road. Lucille's car started up, and soon the noise of the engine was lost behind the screen of ligustrum to the east.

Queenie didn't even pretend to herself that she wanted to sleep. She wanted only to think of Tommy Lee-to think about the fact that he was up in Auburn, in a cramped little cinder-block room in the freshman dormitory, and not where he ought to be, lying comfortably in the big soft bed in the room adjoining hers; in that dim, safe corner of that old house, in the shadow of the Perdido levee. She lay awake for a long time, thinking of her grandson, remembering with pleasure how many times she had sat at the dining room table and watched him eat his breakfast, how many times they had walked together to Elinor's for supper, how they had played double solitaire in the evening, how they had watched television or the movies at the Starlite Drive-in together, how at least five times every evening they said good-night and kissed each other before laying themselves in their beds. She thought about how every night for three years Tommy Lee had kept Carl Strickland from coming back to that house.

Tommy Lee had protected her, and now Queenie was by herself.

Queenie lay absolutely still, thinking no more of Tommy Lee but only of the fact that she was alone.

She heard, in that stillness, the dishes rattle in the kitchen cupboard. It actually wasn't as much of a rattle as just a little vibration, but Queenie had lived too long in that house not to know when the dishes in the cupboards were disturbed. Down at the other end of the darkened hallway, beyond the dark- 83.stained swinging door, in the closed cupboards, James's best china was shaking with the surrept.i.tious footsteps of someone walking as slowly and softly as he could, up and down on the front porch.

Queenie was suddenly smitten with doubt as to whether or not Lucille had locked the front door on her way out. Queenie got out of bed and crept slowly and softly to the door of her room. She peered out into the hallway toward the front of the house. All was dark, still, and silent.

She stepped out into the hallway, and the crystals on the candelabra on the dining room table chimed softly together. Queenie wasn't afraid of that, though, for her own footsteps had caused it.

She now stepped quickly toward the front door. She could see it plainly, its white frame glowing in the dimness of that dark house, the white sheers over its gla.s.s inserts shaking almost imperceptibly from her footsteps. She could even see the key in the lock. She could even see the key in the lock turning.

Suddenly the whole house was shaking. Just on the other side of the door someone stood turning the key in the lock and stamping up and down on the porch as hard as he could, first one booted foot and then the other, again and again. The key spun around and around in the lock in a way that keys never turn; it spun quickly and then more quickly, while all the gla.s.s and china in the house rattled and chimed in the darkness. One booted foot and then the other continued to stamp up and down on the porch, so that the whole house shook and only Queenie, standing in the open double doors of the dining room, remained still and rooted. That darkened house was filled with music, music of rattling, cracking gla.s.s, a shrill tumultuous accompaniment to the tympany of those booted feet on the loosening boards of the front porch. The key still spun around and around, catching light that didn't seem to be anywhere else in the room, and das.h.i.+ng it into Queenie's staring eyes. She dizzily grabbed hold of 84.the doorframe for support. Then Queenie saw the key pop out of the lock, and though it fell on the bare wood floor, Queenie couldn't hear it land for the music was so loud in the house, beating in her ears. All was underlaid with the sound of the Perdido rus.h.i.+ng along as the Perdido had never rushed before, or maybe that was only the blood in her head, rus.h.i.+ng in pulses to the same beat the boots were making on the porch, and the quaking noise of a thousand pieces of china, and crystal, and porcelain in that darkened house.

A Meissen shepherdess on one end of the dining room mantel and her paramour at the other end bounced up and down to the time of that wild music, and as Queenie stared at the shepherdess with her docile ribboned lamb and at the shepherd with his crook and his pipes, she heard their thin piping music. The shepherd played his pipes and the sheperd-ess sang a song to the rhythm of the boots on the porch. Queenie listened to that song, and seemed to understand the words, and would have caught them for sure had not the Meissen shepherdess and the Meissen shepherd suddenly leaped into the air and fallen down, down past the edge of the mantel, down past the tiles with the painted Holland flowers, down past the polished cold grate, down past the cold ashes, down onto the hard smooth bricks of the hearth. His piping stopped and her song ended; the shepherdess and her paramour were only a little heap of colored porcelain, past song and past repair.

The Sapp girl who had always fixed Tommy Lee's breakfast arrived the next morning out of habit, even though she knew she wouldn't be wanted. She wished she had stayed home. She found Queenie, cold and dead, on the floor in the open doorway of the dining room. Two quarters, each bearing the date 1929, were pressed over her eyes, and the key to the house was stuck in her mouth.

CHAPTER 78.

College

Queenie Strickland's will divided her fortune between her daughter, Lucille, her son, Malcolm, and her grandson, Tommy Lee Burgess. The acquisition of all that money, stock, land, and returns in the way of royalties and dividends, made no difference to the three legatees. Lucille had so long rested content with Grace, who had come into riches through her father's will many years before, that she didn't care to do anything at all with her new-gotten wealth. Malcolm merely said, "Miriam, you got anything you want done with this money?" When Miriam said no, Malcolm allowed Billy Bronze to continue to invest it as he saw fit. Malcolm was astonished by the monthly reports he always received from Billy, detailing his own fortune, but in the end it had no meaning for him. Money meant even less to Tommy Lee, who was unhappy at Auburn. He did not like his college courses, he still did not make friends easily, he missed Perdido dreadfully, and he mourned his grandmother sincerely. His roommate found it difficult to believe that Tommy Lee's family had any money at all, since Tommy Lee always seemed to be broke. A glance at one of Billy Bronze's reports, however, convinced the roommate of his error. He had never even heard of anyone who was as rich as Tommy Lee Burgess. He gave Tommy Lee a piece of good advice: "Open a checking account here at Auburn, so you don't have to drive back down to Perdido every time you need a five-dollar bill."

Tommy Lee might have benefited further from his 86 roommate's advice on other points, but things happened as Lilah had predicted. Tommy was asked to pledge the Auburn chapter of Pi Eta. For Lilah's sake, certainly not for his own, he accepted and moved from the dormitory into the fraternity house. On initiation weekend he was stripped naked, bound hand-to-foot, tossed into the trunk of his own car, and deposited on a sandbar in the Chattahoochee River.

The following Friday, he drove down to Perdido and picked up Lilah. Toga parties were a thing of the past for Pi Eta, and the fraternity's first party had an ante-bellum theme. This was even more to Lilah's liking, for it allowed her to wear some of the jewelry she had ama.s.sed.

Lilah went to all the Pi Eta parties that spring, and the following autumn she attended all the Auburn football games, whether at home or away, through the courtesy of Tommy Lee. Perdido thought this all a little forward in only a high school soph.o.m.ore, but Tommy Lee was her cousin, after all, and Miriam merely said, "I wish I had had Lilah's opportunities when I was her age. I am certainly not gone try to interfere with Lilah's pleasure."

In the summer of 1963 Lilah got her driver's license, and the following fall she simply drove up to Auburn to all the Pi Eta parties. She would not let Tommy Lee come home at all until Thanksgiving, for she did not want to miss anv of her weekends away from Perdido. She was furious that the death of President Kennedy caused the biggest of the Pi Eta parties to be canceled.

It came time, in the spring of 1964, for Lilah herself to apply to college. Tommy Lee a.s.sumed that she would want to come to Auburn since she seemed to like the place so much. The rest of the Caskeys, however, knew better than to make any such a.s.sumption. It wasn't forgotten that Miriam had not announced her intention of going to school anywhere until the very day that she left Perdido. They ex- 87.pected no better treatment from Lilah. And they were right to do so. If Lilah had applied anywhere, she had told no one. Miriam suspected, and even confided to Elinor, "Mama, I think Miriam's planning something." She evidently was, for she extracted promises from Miriam and Malcolm not even to look at return addresses on the letters that arrived for her in the mail.

Elinor and Miriam would both have denied that they were growing close, but they were mature women, well-settled into their routines and their ident.i.ties. Miriam was in her early forties, and Elinor, by anyone's accounting, must have been at least twenty years older. Miriam loved coffee, in fact was almost addicted to it. She would remain at the dinner table long after everyone else had wandered off. Usually Elinor remained with her, with a cup filled with cooling coffee set before her as a pretense that she remained only for that.

"You're going to be lonely when Lilah goes away," Elinor warned her daughter. "You're going to be as lonely as I was when you took her away from me."

"You've gotten over it," Miriam said with a shrug.

"Not entirely," said Elinor. "I still miss her."

Miriam smiled. "Do you want her back?"

"The way she is now?" asked Elinor rhetorically, shaking her head and frowning.

"What do you mean, 'the way she is now'?"

"She used to be a sweet child," said Elinor.

"Lilah was never sweet," said Miriam.

"Neither were you. But at least I could keep Lilah in check when she lived over here. I didn't always let her have her own way."

"And I do?" asked Miriam.

"You give her anything she wants. You give her much more than she needs."

"I like giving Lilah things," said Miriam. "I wish Grandmama and Sister had given me things when I was her age. Everything I've ever gotten, I've had 88.to get for myself. I've worked hard and I've earned everything I have."

"And Lilah hasn't worked two minutes in her entire life. She's never earned anything."

"Lilah graduated valedictorian of her cla.s.s. I never saw a girl as smart as Lilah. She could have gone to college two years ago if they would have let her in."

"Lilah never had to work for those grades," said Elinor. "I'll say it again. Lilah never had to work for anything. And I think you've neglected to point something out to her."

"What is that, Mama?" asked Miriam.

Elinor didn't answer right away, but fingered her black pearls with a smile, and seemed to savor the word Mama.

"Lilah is the only member of this family who doesn't have anything in her own right."

"What does that mean?" said Miriam.

"That means," explained Elinor, "that everybody else has been left money-and left a lot of money- by somebody or other. Everybody else, even Malcolm and Tommy Lee. They've all got money, and a great deal of it. I've seen Billy's reports every month. And Lilah's the only one of us who doesn't get one."

"Aren't you leaving her anything in your will?" asked Miriam. "She's your granddaughter."