The Long Secret Read online

“I come from the backwoods a long way away,” said The Preacher slowly.

  “He had his own church,” said Jessie Mae with awe.

  “What happened to it?” asked Harriet.

  Jessie Mae looked shocked. “Well! I reckon that’s The Preacher’s business!”

  “It don’t matter, Jessie. The child’s got a burden of curiosity. I don’t mind trying to relieve anybody’s burden.” He settled himself in his chair and took a long sip of lemonade.

  “Did you get fired?” Harriet asked eagerly.

  “Of course he didn’t get fired,” said Jessie Mae furiously. “Listen here, you, you just like all Yankees. Not a bit of manners!”

  Harriet looked amazed. Beth Ellen felt somehow joyous. There was a large silence. Jessie Mae continued to stand ready to run Harriet over Cemetery Ridge.

  The Preacher laughed. “Well, now, Jessie, this little critter’s got hold of the truth. I did get fired, in a sense.”

  “You DIDN’T,” said Jessie Mae frantically. “You told the truth and the Elders came and told you you were replaced. They were wrong!”

  “Nobody was wrong.” The Preacher spoke so sternly that they all snapped their heads around to look at him. He held their attention one strange moment by his fierce expression, then he laughed. “God fired me, maybe, but for good reason.”

  “He did not. He wouldn’t have. You weren’t BAD!” Jessie Mae screamed.

  The Preacher laughed. “I was a bad preacher, Jessie.” He put his lemonade glass down carefully on the table. “A good preacher should be able to help. I wanted to help them …”

  Beth Ellen looked at his long teeth and suddenly liked him immensely. He’s not afraid, she thought; he’s not afraid of anyone.

  “But it’s gonna be all right,” interrupted Jessie Mae nervously. “You’re thinking it all out and when you’re ready you’ll go back. That’s what you said.” She looked strangely appealing as she stood there leaning toward him hopefully.

  “You know, Jessie,” began The Preacher, leaning back in his chair, “you from my part of the country. You know what a sharecropper’s life is like. You know how the migrant workers live—”

  “How? How?” interrupted Harriet wildly.

  She can’t bear not to know everything, thought Beth Ellen.

  The Preacher laughed. “I’ll put it to you this way, little curious Yankee. Just about the only way they can get through this world is to think there’s another one coming up.”

  Jessie Mae sat down with a bump. “You mean you don’t think there’s another one?” she gasped out.

  “Even if there is, Jessie, why does this one have to be so bad?” The Preacher asked calmly.

  There was a long silence. Beth Ellen felt the heavy air, the air before a rain, touch her face like a gloved hand. They all looked at The Preacher’s solemn face, his warm eyes. The wind rustled the old trees.

  “But…” Beth Ellen found herself talking without ever planning to. “The meek shall inherit… like you said.” She suddenly heard her own voice and fell into anguished silence.

  Harriet looked at Beth Ellen long and hard. Beth Ellen felt it and looked up. She jumped when she saw Harriet’s eyes.

  “You can tell them that for only so long,” said The Preacher quietly. “There comes a time when they’re tired of waiting.”

  I am tired, thought Beth Ellen.

  “And you can tell the rich about the eye of the needle, and they only get richer.” The Preacher looked up at the trees in disgust.

  “But the Good Book…” said Jessie Mae. Beth Ellen looked at the consternation on that freckled face and felt sad.

  The Preacher leaned forward and looked right into Jessie Mae’s eyes. “Religion is a tool, Jessie, just like a tractor or a shovel or a pitchfork. It is a tool to get through life with. And if it works, it is a good tool. And if it don’t work, it is a bad tool. Now, for my people there it don’t work.”

  “But…” began Jessie Mae.

  “There’s got to be a new tool,” said The Preacher. He settled back in his chair.

  “But it’s a good tool,” said Jessie Mae. She seemed about to cry.

  “For you … for me.” The Preacher looked gentle. “But not for everyone.”

  “But they—” began Jessie Mae determinedly.

  “They are tired of waiting,” said The Preacher flatly.

  I am tired of waiting, thought Beth Ellen.

  “But… what you gonna do?” asked Jessie Mae.

  “It’s not what I’m gonna do,” said The Preacher, smiling. “It’s what you all are gonna do. It’s you all inheriting this old world in the mess it’s in. What you gonna do?”

  Jessie Mae’s mouth dropped open. Beth Ellen looked at The Preacher, then back at Jessie Mae.

  “Well… we’ll FIX it,” said Harriet.

  The Preacher laughed a long time. “That’s the ticket,” he said finally. “I’d like to see the world you three make.” He laughed again, as though he were happy.

  Harriet was looking at Beth Ellen again. “HEY!” she said suddenly, and turned to The Preacher. “Who got that note about the mice?”

  “I did,” said The Preacher smiling. “And whoever sent it…”—he looked around and his eye fell on Beth Ellen—“whoever sent it was right. There’s a lot of mouse in me.”

  Beth Ellen dropped her glass. It fell on her sneaker and sloshed lemonade up her leg. She turned red and leaned over to pick it up.

  “That’s all right. It didn’t break,” said Jessie Mae.

  Beth Ellen put the empty glass back on the table. When she looked up, she met Harriet’s eyes. Harriet was leaning forward staring at her with intense concentration.

  “Well, chickens, I’ve enjoyed this,” said The Preacher, and without another word, he got up and loped toward his house.

  I like that, thought Beth Ellen. He doesn’t waste a lot of time on foolishness. When he wants to go, he just leaves.

  “Very interesting” said Harriet, looking at Beth Ellen.

  “What’s the matter with you?” asked Beth Ellen, feeling irritated.

  “Nice to meet y’all,” yelled The Preacher from his porch.

  “Nice to meet you,” called Harriet and Beth Ellen in unison. They looked at Jessie Mae, who was quiet.

  “Let’s go,” said Harriet.

  Jessie Mae stood up, ran down the hill, jumped on her bike, and was away before anyone could say a word. They watched her, then got up and walked slowly down the hill.

  Beth Ellen climbed into the basket. She could feel Harriet’s eyes boring into the back of her neck all the way home.

  arly the next morning Beth Ellen sat in bed reading her favorite book. She had awakened with a feeling of excitement the cause of which she was at first unable to determine. Then she remembered that today was the day Zeeney and Wallace were supposed to find out about their tickets. Today they would set their day of departure. She had determined to give them another chance before they left.

  She hopped out of bed, hid her book away, and pulled on a pair of shorts and an old blue sweater. She could always wear what she wanted until noon these days, but after that she was told. The obscure places that Zeeney and Wallace insisted upon taking her always demanded some bizarre costume. Why anyone would want to go to those places was a mystery to her, like the fashion show poolside at the Bath and Tennis. Beth Ellen always sat stiffly in mummified boredom, afraid to move, to speak, to spill.

  She ran down the hall to the back steps. She would never take the front steps on a dark morning. The frights along that route were too many to be endured, from the great brown varnished painting of the nymphs and satyr to the white sculpture whose arms extended unexpectedly from the niche like the grasping arms of a ghost. She ran past the wide steps and reached the narrow back stairs quite out of breath.

  She bolted into the warmth of the kitchen, almost sighing with relief at the ordinary postures of the maid, the cook at the stove, the slouching chauffeur reading his paper. She said nothi
ng but went up and stood next to the cook, Sarah.

  “There you are,” said Sarah cheerfully. “Ready for your breakfast?”

  Beth Ellen nodded. She walked through the kitchen into the breakfast room. She sat down and unfolded her napkin. I am all alone, she thought.

  She looked out the window toward the summer-house. Zeeney and Wallace were having breakfast there. Zeeney wore a long yellow peignoir and Wallace had on white flannels and an orange jacket. They were posed like a Victorian greeting card.

  Zeeney’s lips were moving constantly as she slit open the mail savagely with a long silver letter-opener. Beth Ellen watched her lips move and was grateful she couldn’t hear.

  Her breakfast was brought in. She ate it slowly, never taking her eyes away from the window. I may run away, she thought in a lazy way, and remembered the time she had run away. She had been four years old and it had been out here because it was summer. They had found her a mile down the road carrying a suitcase full of washrags. Everyone had laughed and asked, Why washrags? She hadn’t had the faintest idea. She had simply gone to the linen closet and packed what fit best. It had been a very small suitcase.

  I won’t run away, she thought, chewing bacon. I had better find a profession; then I can be independent and not like Zeeney She finished her breakfast and slid off the chair. With a certain mad look in her eye she ran through the sunroom, through the small garden, out onto the lawn, and to the summerhouse.

  “Good MORN-ING, dar-ling!” Zeeney’s voice swept over her like a broom. Wallace looked up, gave her a bored look, and went back to his paper. Beth Ellen sat down.

  “Mother,” she said loudly.

  Zeeney looked behind her, then realized Beth Ellen must mean her. “Oh!” she said brightly, “YES, dear.” She hates the very word, thought Beth Ellen.

  “Mother, what profession should I be?” Beth Ellen’s voice, for some reason, was getting louder and louder.

  “PRO-FES-SION?” Zeeney screamed as though she’d been pinched.

  “Yes.” For the first time in her life Beth Ellen felt absolutely triumphant.

  Zeeney looked at her aghast. Even Wallace twisted around in his chair and gave her a red-eyed stare. They looked, then, at each other.

  They started to laugh. They burst into gales of rocking guffaws. They shook and quivered and screeched and howled and grabbed each other across the table.

  That does it, thought Beth Ellen; that is the answer. When they had subsided somewhat, Zeeney squeaked out, laughing into each word, “Well, dear, what about weight lifting?”

  Very funny, thought Beth Ellen.

  “Or”—and Wallace broke himself right up—“you could apply to the Sleeping Car Porters’ Union. There must be openings.” They grabbed each other and rocked back and forth. “If you don’t mind the travel,” he finished, flinging Zeeney into a gasping hysteria.

  You are two very funny people, thought Beth Ellen. You are so funny that I am going out and get a job as a plumber.

  She sat stoically through their outburst. She sat on, unmoved, through suggestions that she get a seat on the stock exchange; be the first woman to climb Mount Everest; take up log rolling, sewer cleaning; be a sailor; get to be mayor of New York, and of course the first woman President. The last threatened to give them both apoplexy.

  She sat quite still. Her stillness finally reached them. They dried their eyes and looked at her. Wallace went “Heh, heh, heh” and returned to his paper. I could choke him to death, thought Beth Ellen. Zeeney looked at her a long time, then sat up briskly as though she had made a decision.

  “You will, of course, finish your schooling, take a year in Europe, return to New York, make your debut, and marry.” She looked at Beth Ellen with absolute certainty. There was more, in fact, than certainty in those eyes. There was an unspoken command which, if flouted, would cause whole generations to come down out of the paintings on the walls and lead her by the hand to some secret dungeon.

  “I thought I might be an artist,” said Beth Ellen staunchly.

  “Preposterous,” said Zeeney.

  “I can draw,” said Beth Ellen.

  “So what?” said Zeeney.

  “I draw the best in my class.”

  “You have no talent. Believe me, we would have heard by now if you had. At your age Michelangelo had painted the Sistine Chapel.”

  “That’s not true!” said Beth Ellen, incensed.

  “Well, it will serve to prove my point.”

  “But I want to.”

  “Ridiculous. Forget it.”

  “I might be good.”

  “FORGET it. Pretend you never thought of it.”

  “Harriet is going to be a writer.”

  “Who is Harriet? Don’t bother me with your petty little friends and their aspirations. I know what you will be.”

  “How?”

  “Because I will decide, how else?”

  Oh, no, you won’t, thought Beth Ellen. One more try.

  “Harriet M. Welsch. You met her the other night.”

  “You don’t mean Rodger Welsch’s child? Be a writer? What an extremely tacky thing to say. It must be the child’s mother, because Rodger was never that way. You must learn, dear girl, that it’s tacky to say you’re going to be anything, except, of course, rich, which you will be. Now let’s hear no more about it.”

  “I’m going to college and get a Ph.D.” Beth Ellen felt a desperation come into her voice.

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort. You will attend a suitable school, for two years at the most. A school that I shall pick.”

  “Then I’ll leave and be an artist.” Beth Ellen stood up.

  “My dear child, you haven’t the faintest idea how revolting you’re being. Now if you’ll leave us in peace, I’ll be charitable and forget you ever ran off at the mouth like this.” She waved Beth Ellen away.

  Beth Ellen walked across the lawn. That settles it, she thought. Anything that Zeeney dislikes that much has got to be good.

  She sat down on the little bench in the garden and leaned her head back. Zeeney was looking curiously at her across the long lawn. Beth Ellen didn’t care now that she was being looked at. Besides, she knew that Zeeney was blind as a bat and refused to wear glasses because she was vain. That’s it, thought Beth Ellen: Never be afraid to wear glasses.

  She luxuriated in the sun. I am going someplace, she thought. One day I will be somebody and nobody will laugh at me. Nobody will ever laugh at me again.

  he next morning Beth Ellen presented herself at the summerhouse for breakfast.

  “What’s this?” asked Zeeney, looking her over.

  “I’m going to eat breakfast with you,” said Beth Ellen.

  “Oh,” said Zeeney in a false voice, “how very nice.” She turned back to her mail, which sat on a small silver plate. “I hope you don’t spill or chew loudly, because it would upset Wallace.”

  Beth Ellen tried to look like someone who chewed softly. When she had gotten up that morning, she had wanted to come to breakfast because for some reason she had felt free, as though they couldn’t touch her, as though nothing they said could unnerve her in any way. Her thought had been that it would be fun just to watch them and know they couldn’t do anything to her.

  Wallace came across the lawn and up the steps to sit down. He noticed Beth Ellen. “Good morning,” he said politely. The maid came and set another place at the table.

  “What’s in the mail, dear? Hup?” asked Wallace as he unfolded his paper.

  “Cartier’s.”

  “Oh?”

  “A bill.”

  “Oh,” said Wallace softly.

  “What’s this?” Zeeney asked herself, and Beth Ellen craned her neck to see what Zeeney had found.

  Breakfast arrived as Zeeney slit the long envelope.

  She looked at what was inside.

  “Well!” she screamed. “Agatha has gone too far!”

  Wallace jumped, then said, “What? What? What is it?”

 
Beth Ellen tried to see but couldn’t.

  “What? Hup? What?” Wallace was choking a little.

  “Here! See for yourself,” said Zeeney furiously and passed the paper to Wallace. It went by Beth Ellen an inch from her nose, so she couldn’t see anything.

  “HUP!” said Wallace angrily.

  “Indecent!” said Zeeney. “How can she talk with both her children in the nut house? Typical!”

  “Hup.”

  “I’d like to go over there and smash her wax face in. She’s had so many face lifts that if you set a match to her she’d melt. Paraffin witch.”

  “Wouldn’t go smash her, dear,” said Wallace and laughed as though he’d made a witticism.

  “May I see it?” asked Beth Ellen politely.

  “Absolutely not. Not for children,” said Zeeney crossly.

  “I don’t see why not,” said Wallace. “It’s just silliness.” He handed it to Beth Ellen.

  She looked at the red printing:

  HOW SHARPER THAN A SERPENT’S TOOTH

  IS A ROTTEN PARENT

  She laughed.

  “WALLACE!” screamed Zeeney. “A child should not be exposed to such things.”

  “Hup! King Lear.”

  “I couldn’t care less. Sometimes you have absolutely no sense.” Zeeney snatched the paper from Beth Ellen, balled it up, and threw it out onto the middle of the lawn, where it lay, a wounded paper bird.

  Zeeney went back to her mail. She crossed and uncrossed her legs a number of times and lit a cigarette. Wallace went back to his paper.

  Beth Ellen ate her breakfast. I must call Harriet, she thought, and tell her about this.

  “AHA!” said Zeeney. Beth Ellen looked up. Zeeney looked like a witch who had finished her cauldron soup.

  “Here, DAR-LING,” she said pointedly and passed him an envelope. It was long with red printing on the front.

  “What?” said Wallace and absently took the note. He opened it while still reading the newspaper. He pulled out a small piece of paper.

  “Well!” he said when he had read it. “I can’t see why she should send that to me!”

  He handed it to Zeeney. Zeeney read it and laughed like a maniac. Wallace looked furious and red. Zeeney laughed harder.