TWENTY-THREE
I don’t ask you to love me always like this, but I ask you to remember. Somewhere inside me there’ll always be the person I am to-night.
• F. SCOTT FITZGERALD, Tender Is the Night
A near circus atmosphere descended on Baileyville, the kind of commotion that made Tex Lafayette’s appearance look like a Sunday School reunion. As news of the start date had broken across the town the mood seemed to shift, and not necessarily in Margery’s favor. The extended McCullough clan began to arrive from out of town—distant cousins from Tennessee, from Michigan and North Carolina, some of whom had barely seen McCullough in decades but who now found themselves highly invested in the idea of retribution for their beloved relative, and swiftly took to congregating outside either the jailhouse or the library, to shout abuse and threaten vengeance.
Fred had come down twice from his house to try to calm things, and when that failed, to reveal his gun and announce that the women must be allowed to get on with their work. The town seemed split in two with their arrival, dividing between those who were disposed to see all the wrong in Margery’s family as evidence of her own bad blood, and those who preferred to go on their own experience, and thanked her for bringing books and a little pleasantry into their lives.
Twice Beth got into fist-fights on the back of Margery’s reputation, once in the store and once on the steps outside the library, and had taken to walking around with her hands bunched, as if permanently braced to throw a punch. Izzy wept frequently and silently, and would shake her head mutely if anyone spoke to her of it, as if the act of talking were too much. Kathleen and Sophia said little, but their somber faces told of which way they thought this would go. Alice could no longer visit the jail, in accordance with Margery’s wishes, but felt her presence in the little concrete building as if they were connected by threads. She was eating a little, Deputy Dulles said, when she stopped by. Didn’t speak much, though. Seemed to spend a lot of time sleeping.
Sven left town. He bought a small wagon and a young horse, packed up what remained of his belongings and moved out of Fred’s to a one-room cabin a short distance from the wet-nurse on the eastern side of the Cumberland Gap. He could not stay in Baileyville, not with people saying what they were. Not with the prospect of seeing the woman he loved brought even lower, and the crying baby in earshot of her mother. His eyes were red with exhaustion, and new deep grooves ran down each side of his mouth that had nothing to do with the baby. Fred promised him at the first word of anything he would drive right over.
“I’ll tell her—I’ll tell her . . .” Fred began, then realized he had no idea what he would tell Margery. They exchanged a look, then slapped each other on the shoulder, in the way near silent men have of conveying emotion, and Sven drove off with his hat pulled low over his brow and his mouth set in a grim line.
Alice also began to pack up. In the quiet of the little cabin she began to separate her clothes into those she might find some use for in England, in her future life, and those she could not imagine wearing again. She would hold up the fine silk blouses, the elegantly cut skirts, gossamer slips and nightwear and frown. Had she ever been this person? In the emerald floral tea-dresses and lace collars? Had she really required all these hair rollers, setting lotions and pearl brooches? She felt as if such ephemera belonged to someone she no longer knew.
She waited until she had completed this task before she told the girls. By this stage they had all, by some unspoken agreement, taken to staying at the library together until way beyond their finishing time. It was as if this was the only place they could bear to be. Two nights before the trial was due to start she waited until Kathleen began gathering her bags, then said, “So—I have some news. I’m leaving. If anyone wants any of my things I’ll be leaving a trunk of clothes in the library for you all to go through. You’re welcome to any of it.”
“Leaving where?”
“Here.” She swallowed. “I have to go back to England.”
There was a heavy silence. Izzy’s hands flew to her mouth. “You can’t leave!”
“Well, I can’t stay, unless I go back to Bennett. Van Cleve will come after me once he’s got Margery safely locked up.”
“Don’t say that,” said Beth.
There was a lengthy silence. Alice tried to ignore the looks passing between the other women.
“Is Bennett so bad?” said Izzy. “I mean, if you could persuade him to move out from his daddy’s shadow, maybe you two would have a chance. Then you could stay.”
How could she explain now how impossible it would be to return to Bennett, feeling as she did about Fred? She would rather be a million miles from Fred than have to walk past him every day and know she had to go back to another man. Fred had barely touched her yet she felt they understood each other better than she and Bennett ever had.
“I can’t. And you know Van Cleve won’t rest until he’s got rid of the Packhorse Library, too. Which will put us all out of a job. Fred saw him with the sheriff and Kathleen saw him twice last week with the governor. He’s working away to undermine us.”
“But if we don’t have Margery and we don’t have you . . .” Izzy’s voice trailed away.
“Does Fred know?” said Sophia.
Alice nodded.
Sophia’s eyes held hers, as if confirming something.
“When are you going?” said Izzy.
“Soon as the trial is done.” Fred had barely spoken the whole drive home. She had wanted to reach out, to touch his hand and tell him she was sorry, that this was so far from what she wanted, but she was so frozen with grief at her possession of the paper ticket that she couldn’t move.
Izzy rubbed at her eyes and sniffed. “Feels like everything’s falling apart. Everything we worked for. Our friendship. This place. Everything is just falling apart.”
Normally when one of the women expressed such dramatic sentiments the others would leap on her, telling her to stop being ridiculous, that she was crazy, that she simply needed a good night’s sleep, or some food, or to get a hold of herself; it was her monthlies talking. It was a measure of how low they all felt that this time nobody said a word.
Sophia broke the silence. She took an audible breath and placed both hands palm down on the table. “Well, for now we keep going. Beth, I don’t believe you’ve entered your books from this afternoon. If you’d be kind enough to bring them over here, I’ll do them for you. And, Alice, if you can give me the exact day you’re planning on leaving, I’ll adjust the payroll.”
Overnight two trailer homes arrived on the road by the courthouse. Extra state policemen were visible around town, and a crowd began to build outside the jailhouse by teatime on Monday, fueled by a newspaper report in the Lexington Courier headlined: Moonshiner’s Daughter Killed Man With Library Book In Blood Feud.
“This is trash,” Kathleen said, when Mrs. Beidecker handed her a copy at the school. But that didn’t stop the people gathering, a few starting to catcall out back so that the sound would reach through the open window of Margery’s cell. Deputy Dulles came out twice, his palms up, trying to calm them, but a tall mustachioed man in an ill-fitting suit, whom nobody had seen before and claimed to be Clem McCullough’s cousin, said they were just exercising their God-given right to free speech. And if he wanted to talk about what a murdering bitch that O’Hare girl was then it was nobody else’s damn business. They jostled each other, fueling their bold claims with alcohol, and by dusk the yard outside the jailhouse was thick with people, some drunk, some shouting insults at Margery, others yelling back at them that they were not from round here and why didn’t they keep their troublemaking ways to themselves? The older ladies of the town withdrew behind their doors, muttering, and some of the younger men, emboldened by the chaos, started a bonfire by the garage. It felt, briefly, as if the orderly little town had become a place where almost anything could happen. And none of it good.
Word got to the librarians as they returned from their routes, and each put away her horse and sat in silence with the door open for a while, listening to the distant sounds of protest.
Murdering bitch!
You gonna get yours, you whore!
Now, now, gentlemen. There are ladies in this crowd. Let’s keep things reasonable.
“I swear I’m glad Sven isn’t here to see it,” said Beth. “You know he wouldn’t stand to hear Marge talked about that way.”
“I can’t bear it,” said Izzy, who was watching through the door. “Imagine how she must be feeling having to listen to all that.”
“She’ll be so sad without the baby too.”
It was all Alice could think about. To be the recipient of such hate, without the prospect of a word of comfort from those who loved you. The way Margery had isolated herself made Alice want to weep. It was like an animal that deliberately takes itself off somewhere solitary before it dies.
“Lord help our girl,” Sophia said quietly.
And then Mrs. Brady walked through the door, glancing behind her, her cheeks ruddy and her hair electric with fury. “I swear I thought this town knew better. I am ashamed of my neighbors, I really am. I can only imagine what Mrs. Nofcier would say if she happened to catch wind of this.”
“Fred reckons they’ll be out there all night.”
“I simply do not know what this town is coming to. Why Sheriff Archer doesn’t take a bullwhip to them I have no idea. I swear we’re becoming worse than Harlan.”
It was then that they heard Van Cleve’s voice rising above the swell of the crowd: “You can’t say I didn’t warn you, people! She’s a danger to men and to this town. The court is going to hear what kind of malign influence the O’Hare girl is, you mark my words. Only one place for her!”
“Oh, hell, now he’s fixing to stir things up,” said Beth.
“Folks, you will hear how much of an abomination the girl is. Against the laws of nature! Nothing she says can be trusted!”
“That does it,” said Izzy, her jaw clenched.
Mrs. Brady turned to look at her daughter, as Izzy climbed to her feet. She grabbed her stick and walked to the door. “Mother? Will you come with me?”
They moved as one, pulling on boots and hats in silence. And then, without discussion, they stood together at the top of the steps: Kathleen and Beth, Izzy and Mrs. Brady and, after a moment’s hesitation, Sophia, who rose from behind her desk, her face tense but determined, reaching for her purse. The others stopped to look at her. Then Alice, her heart in her throat, held out her arm and Sophia slid her own through it. And the six women walked out of the library and, in a tight group, along the shimmering road toward the jailhouse in silence, their faces set and their pace determined.
The crowd broke as they arrived, partly through the sheer force of Mrs. Brady, whose elbows were out and whose expression was thunderous, but partly in shock at the colored woman who stood between them, her arms linked with those of Bennett Van Cleve’s wife and the Bligh widow.
Mrs. Brady reached the front of the crowd and pushed her way through so that she was standing with her back to the jail and turned to face them. “Are you not ashamed of yourselves?” she bellowed at them. “What kind of men are you?”
“She’s a murderer!”
“In this country we believe in the presumption of innocence unless proven otherwise. So you can take your disgusting words and your slogans and you can darn well leave that girl alone until the law says you have good reason!”
She pointed at the mustachioed man. “What business do you have in our town anyway? I swear some of you are here just to cause trouble. Because you’re sure as anything not from Baileyville.”
“I’m Clem’s second cousin. Got a right to be here as much as anyone. I cared about my cousin.”
“Caring cousin my backside,” said Mrs. Brady. “Where were you when his daughters were starving, their hair full of cooties? When they were stealing food from people’s gardens because he was too drunk to bother feeding them? Where were you then, huh? You have no genuine feeling for that family.”
“You’re just sticking up for your own. We all know what them librarians have been up to.”
“You know nothing!” retorted Mrs. Brady. “And you, Henry Porteous, why, I thought you were old enough to know better. As for this fool—” she pointed at Van Cleve “—I honestly believed our neighbors would have more sense than to trust a man who has built an entire fortune on the back of misery and destruction, mostly at this town’s cost. How many of you lost your homes to his slurry dam, huh? How many of you were given warning to save yourselves by Miss O’Hare there? And yet, given baseless rumor and gossip, you would rather castigate a woman than look at the true criminal around here.”
“Those are slanderous words, Patricia!”
“So sue me, Geoffrey.”
Van Cleve’s skin flushed florid purple. “I’ve warned y’all! She’s a malign influence!”
“You’re the only malign influence around here! Why do you think your daughter-in-law would rather live in a cowshed than share one more night in your house? What kind of man beats up on his son’s wife? And you stand there presenting yourself as some kind of moral arbiter. Why, the way we judge the behavior of men against women in this town is genuinely shocking.”
The crowd began to murmur.
“What kind of woman kills a decent man with no provocation?”
“This has nothing to do with McCullough and you know it. This is about getting back at a woman who showed you up for what you are!”
“See, ladies and gentlemen? This is the true face of that so-called library. A coarsening of female discourse, behavior contrary to what’s proper. Why, do you think it’s right that Mrs. Brady should speak in such a way?”
The crowd surged forward, and was stopped abruptly by two gunshots in the air. There was a scream. People ducked, glancing around nervously. Sheriff Archer appeared in the back doorway to the jailhouse. He surveyed the crowd. “Now. I’ve been a patient man, but I do not want to hear one more word out here. The court will decide this case from tomorrow and due process will be followed. And if one more of you steps out of line you’ll be finding yourself in the jailhouse alongside Miss O’Hare. That goes for you too, Geoffrey, and you, Patricia. I’ll put any one of youse away. You hear me?”
“We got a right to free speech!” a man shouted.
“You do. And I got a right to make sure you’re speaking it from one of my cells down there.”
The crowd began to yell again, the words ugly, the voices harsh and clamorous. Alice looked around her and began to tremble, chilled by the venom, the hate etched on faces she had previously waved a cheery good morning to. How could they turn on Margery like this? She felt something fearful and panicky rise in her chest, the energy of the crowd charging the air around her. And then she felt Kathleen nudge her, and saw that Izzy had stepped forward. As the protesters railed and chanted around her, pushing and jostling, she limped her way out in front of them, a little unsteady and resting on her stick, until she was underneath the cell window. And as everyone watched, Izzy Brady, who struggled to stand in front of an audience of five, turned to face the shifting crowd, looked around her, and took a deep breath.
And she began to sing.
Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.
She paused, took a breath, her eyes flickering around her.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.
The crowd quieted, unsure at first what was going on, those at the back straining on tiptoe to see. A man catcalled and someone cursed him. Izzy stood, her hands clasped in front of her, shaking slightly, and sang out, her voice growing in strength and intensity.
Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.
Mrs. Brady, her back straightening, took two, three strides, pushed through the crowd and placed herself beside her daughter, her back against the outside of the jailhouse wall, and her chin lifted. As they sang together, Kathleen, then Beth and, finally, Sophia and Alice, their arms still linked, moved to stand beside them and lifted their voices, too, their heads up and their gaze steady, facing down the crowd. As the men shouted insults, their six voices grew in volume, drowning them out, determined and unafraid.
Come not in terrors, as the King of kings,
But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings,
Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea—
Come, Friend of sinners, and thus abide with me.
They sang until the crowd was silent, watched by Sheriff Archer. They sang, pressed shoulder to shoulder, hands reaching blindly for hands, their hearts beating fast but their voices steady. A handful of townspeople stepped forward and joined them—Mrs. Beidecker, the gentleman from the feed shop, Jim Horner and his girls, their hands clasped together and their voices lifting, drowning the sounds of hate, feeling the resonance of each word, sending comfort, while trying to offer a little of that elusive substance to themselves.
A few inches away, on the other side of the wall, Margery O’Hare lay motionless on the bunk, her hair stuck to her face in damp tendrils, her skin pale and hot. She had lain there for almost four days now, her breasts aching, her arms empty in a way that made her feel as if someone had reached inside her and simply ripped out whatever kept her upright. What was there to stand up for now? To hope for, even? She was unnaturally still, her eyes closed, the rough hessian against her skin, listening only dimly to the crowd hurling abuse outside. Someone had managed to throw a stone through the window earlier and it had caught her leg, where a long scratch remained, livid with blood.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes,
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
She opened her eyes at a sound that was both familiar and strange, blinking as she focused, and it gradually registered that the sound was Izzy, her unforgettable sweet voice rising into the air outside the high window, so close she could almost touch it. It told of a world far beyond this cell, of goodness, and kindness, of a wide, unending sky into which a voice could soar. She pushed herself up onto her elbow, listening. And then another voice joined hers, deeper and more resonant, and then, as she straightened, there they were, separate voices she could just distinguish from the others: Kathleen, Sophia, Beth, Alice.
Heaven’s morning breaks and earth’s vain shadows flee.
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.
She heard them and realized then that it was to her they were singing, heard Alice’s shout as the hymn drew to a close, her voice still clear as crystal.
“You stay strong, Margery! We’re with you! We’re right here with you!”
Margery O’Hare lowered her head to her knees, her hands covering her face and, at last, she sobbed.