Part 7 (1/2)
CHAPTER 36.
At the River's Source
In dealing with her son's request for a loan, Mary-Love had not understood that there are some acts that are unforgivable. Oscar had been only half right in telling his mother that she wanted him to go bankrupt to spite Elinor; she also wanted to make certain that her son would always remain dependent. If Mary-Love had realized that James would lend Oscar the money-and she should have realized that-then she would not have had a moment's hesitation in helping out her son. In that way, she also realized later, she might have maintained her position as the Caskey cornucopia.
When she had refused her son, Oscar went to James, who sold off a sheaf of bonds and handed the money over to Oscar without a murmur or a reproach. Half of Oscar's outstanding debt to the bank was immediately canceled, and his monthly payments on the remainder were consequently eased. He and Elinor were left with more than they had 91.had to get along with formerly. It was true that Oscar was now heavily indebted to his uncle, as well as to the bank, but James would rather have gone bankrupt himself than inconvenience his nephew by demanding repayment of this sum.
Oscar felt that Ke had outwitted his mother. Yet his victory did not make him forgiving toward her. He had told no one of her refusal to help him, but now he barely spoke to Mary-Love. When she lay in wait for him on her front porch, and beckoned to him as he got out of his automobile, he'd only reply, in his blandest voice, ”Hey, Mama, sorry I cain't come over right now, got to go inside. Elinor wants me!” When she called him on the telephone he would politely answer any question she put to him, but would volunteer nothing more, and always rang off as quickly as possible with an unabashedly fabricated excuse. They would sit in the same pew at church- the Caskeys had always sat together-but Oscar called a halt to his attending Mary-Love's Sunday afternoon dinners. After services he and Elinor and Frances would usually drive to Pensacola for dinner at the Hotel Palafox.
Oscar's repudiation was particularly painful to Mary-Love because it wasn't public; she therefore couldn't represent herself as a martyr to Oscar's cruelty. She knew he never said a word against her. He was always polite when she spoke to him, but nothing on earth would persuade him to have anything to do with her. Mary-Love at last felt compelled to speak to Elinor. She knocked on the door of the big house next door one morning an hour or so before Oscar was expected home for the noon meal.
”I won't stay,” Mary-Love a.s.sured her daughter-in-law. ”I won't even come inside. But, Elinor, can you sit out here on the porch with me a minute?”
”Of course,” said Elinor, and the two women placed themselves in facing rockers. Across the road from the Caskey houses was a large, fenced pecan orchard, 92.with a number of Holstein heifers grazing in it. No pair of those cows appeared more phlegmatic or imperturbable than Mary-Love Caskey and her daughter-in-law, as they sat on the porch and prepared to do battle.
”Elinor, you got to talk to Oscar.”
”About what?”
”About the way he's treating me.”
Elinor looked at her mother-in-law without expression. ”I don't understand.”
”You know what I'm talking about,” Mary-Love continued, annoyed that her honesty should not be reciprocated.
”He hasn't been visiting you the way he used to,” Elinor admitted. ”I've noticed that.”
”And he's told you why, hasn't he?”
”No,” returned Elinor. ”He hasn't said a word.”
”Well, didn't you ask?”
”Whatever it is, it's between you and Oscar. I didn't think it was any of my business.”
”Elinor, I came to ask you to help me patch things up. It hurts me the way he treats me. I'm embarra.s.sed for Oscar's sake. And I think you ought to speak to him about it.”
”What do you want me to say?”
”Tell him that people see riow he treats me. And people think ill of him for it. If he doesn't watch out, people are going to turn on him for acting toward me the way he does. He should put things back the way they used to be.”
”Why should he?” Elinor asked innocently. ”I mean, what reason should I give him?”
”Because the whole town is talking, like I said!”
”You're telling me that you want Oscar to patch things up for his sake, not yours? That is, you don't care one way or the other?”
”No, that's not what I mean at all!” said Mary-Love. ”I do care! Oscar hurts me, the way he treats me. We all used to be so happy!” she sighed.
93.”Miss Mary-Love, I don't think I'd go so far as to say that! But I will speak to Oscar, I will tell him what you said, and I will tell him that he is injuring his reputation in town by his treatment of you.”
”Elinor, what do you think about it?”
”I think it's between you and Oscar and that it's none of my business. I'll speak to Oscar purely as a favor to you.”
Mary-Love Caskey loathed favors done her. She sought desperately for a device that would make Elinor see things differently and relieve her of any possible obligation to her daughter-in-law. ”Yes, but wouldn't you like to see Oscar and me on good terms again? Things would be much easier for you then, too.”
”Miss Mary-Love, it makes not one bit of difference in the world to me what goes on between you and your son. Oscar is a grown man, and Oscar can do exactly what he wants. I think that in the end that will be what Oscar does do about it: exactly what he wants.”
”Elinor,” said Mary-Love, halting the rocker and looking her daughter-in-law straight in the eye, ”you sure you don't know what any of this is about?”
”I haven't the foggiest idea.”
”Elinor, you can sit there and say that, but I'm just not so sure I can believe you.”
”I have no reason to lie to you, Miss Mary-Love. I'll speak to Oscar.” With this unsatisfactory a.s.surance, Mary-Love departed.
When Oscar came home for lunch, Elinor dutifully reported his mother's visit, pleas, and exhortations.
Oscar looked at his wife across the table, and said, ”Elinor, Mama did something to me that I don't know if I can ever forgive her for. One thing sure, I haven't forgiven her yet. And it's not that I don't want to, because I do, it's that I just cain't. And that's what you can tell her.”
94.”Oscar, I refuse to act as a go-between. I wish you'd tell your mother that yourself.”
”All right, I suppose I'll have to. Elinor, did Mama tell you what all this was about?”
”No, she didn't.”
”Aren't you curious?”
”If you want to tell me, then tell me. If you don't want to tell me, then I don't intend to ask.”
”Well, then,” said Oscar, after a pause, ”I guess I better go on and tell you.” Oscar told his wife about Mary-Love's refusal to give him any money and about their confrontation. Elinor made no comment. ”What are you thinking?” her husband asked.
”I'm thinking that it's a wonder you speak to her at all. It's one thing for her to hate me, but it's something else for her to injure herself and the entire family.”
To this, her husband made rueful agreement. ”Someday,” he said sadly, ”we are gone look out the dining room window and see the barnyard fowl lining up on Mama's rain gutter.”
”What do you mean?”
”Someday,” Oscar explained, ”Mama's chickens are gone come home to roost.”
Mary-Love intercepted her son as he left the house on his way back to work a half hour later. She had been sitting on her front porch, and she hurried over just as he was getting into his car.
”Oscar, did Elinor speak to you?”
”Yes, ma'am.”
”Well? Did she tell you how you were being talked about all over town because of your treatment of me?”