Part 9 (2/2)
Elinor went into the kitchen and said to Zaddie, ”You go upstairs and see if Miss Mary-Love needs any help. She's going to want to undo everything I've already done. I'm going to fix her some nectar.” She took out the ice pick and began to chop ice.
”I wish Frances had some prettier things,” said Mary-Love. She had gone through Frances's luggage, clucking disapproval of what had been packed, how Elinor had packed it, and even of the two small suitcases themselves. Now she was seated on the glider on the sleeping-porch and sipping her blackberry nectar. Elinor rocked gently in the swing and was thoughtfully stirring the overpoweringly sweet nectar that had been diluted with water and ice. ”I wish you and Oscar would let me buy Frances some things,” Mary-Love continued. ”You two don't even let me see my grandchild anymore.”
”Miss Mary-Love,” said Elinor calmly, ”that's just not so. Frances loves you to death-Frances loves everybody-but you won't let that child near you.”
”Elinor! How could you say such a thing!”
”I can say it because it's perfectly true. Oscar and I don't spend much time at your house and you don't spend much time over here either, but we have never tried to discourage Frances from going over to see you. You're her grandmother, but you don't ever want to have anything to do with her. You and Miriam treat Frances as if she were dirt under your feet. She lay in that room sick as she could be for three years, and not once did you visit her. I was embarra.s.sed to mention it when anybody asked me about it. It's hard for me to believe that you could be so deliberately cruel to your own granddaughter.”
There was no rancor in Elinor's voice. She spoke 119.
as if she stated obvious truths. The very baldness of Elinor's a.s.sertions wounded Mary-Love, who never looked at a thing directly, and now had no idea how to confront her daughter-in-law's unexpected forth-rightness.
”Elinor! I am shocked. Aren't we taking Frances with us to Chicago tomorrow? Won't she and Miriam have the time of their lives?”
”Maybe,” said Elinor. ”That is, if Miriam will speak to Frances-and I'm not convinced that she will.”
Mary-Love was growing even less certain how to respond to her daughter-in-law. Elinor's remarks had the substance but not the feel of an attack. Mary-Love temporized by glancing around the porch and commenting idly, ”It's been so long since I've been here.”
”That's your fault, Miss Mary-Love,” said Elinor, cannily returning to the subject. ”Oscar and I would never have turned you away if you had knocked on the door.”
”I didn't feel welcome,” said Mary-Love, abashed that her innocent-sounding tactic of delay had so quickly been turned against her. ”This isn't my house anymore, you know.”
Elinor didn't reply. Her smile was vague.
”You know,” Mary-Love went on, ”one day I sent Luvadia Sapp over here with the deed to this house. I signed it over to you and Oscar. Did that girl bring it, or did she lose it somewhere on the way?”
”Oh, she brought it. We've got the deed inside somewhere.”
”I was expecting a thank you, I must say.”
”Miss Mary-Love, Oscar and I bought this house.”
”I gave it to you!”
”No, you're wrong,” Elinor said with ostensible amiability. ”It was supposed to have been our wedding present. But then we had to pay for it. We had to give you Miriam for it. Miriam was eight years 120.
old before you finally turned over the deed. That kind of delay doesn't deserve a thank you.”
Elinor's voice and tone continued soft and conversational, but Mary-Love was certain now that this attack had been long in the planning. She was little prepared to do battle when all her thought for months had been devoted to tomorrow's journey!
”I don't know why I'm sitting here listening to this,” Mary-Love cried. ”You're so hard! No wonder Frances is the way she is! No wonder Miriam doesn't want to play with her!”
”Frances, in case you hadn't noticed, is a thoroughly sweet child. She loves everybody, and everybody loves her. I wish I could sa^ the same for Miriam. The way that child acts, I'm glad she lives with you and not with me.”
”Miriam is worth ten of Frances!”
”You may think that, but it's still no excuse for you to treat Frances the way you do,” said Elinor, remaining aggravatingly cool.
Mary-Love, in danger of becoming agitated, sought to turn the attack. ”Elinor, why do you treat me the way you do?”
Elinor appeared to consider for a moment, and then replied: ”Because of the way you treat Oscar. The way you treat your whole family, the way you've always treated them.”
”I love every one of them! I love them to death! All I want in the world is for my family to love me.”
”I know,” said Elinor. ”And you don't want them to love anyone else. You want to provide everybody with everything. You didn't want Oscar to marry me because you didn't want him to divide his love. The same with poor old Sister. You took Miriam away from us-”
”You let her go!”
”-and you raised her so that she loved you, and didn't give a single solitary thought to her own par- 121.
ents. I remember back when Grace was little and was close to Zaddie, you tried to break that up, too.”
”I don't remember anything of the sort!”
”You did it, though. Miss Mary-Love, it's the kind of thing you do without thinking. It comes natural to you. If you had had your way, James would have thrown Queenie Strickland and her children out of town the day they showed up.”
”Queenie was no good-”
”You told James he was making a big mistake in taking in Danjo, but Danjo has made James very happy.”
”One day that boy is going to turn-”
Elinor again paid no attention to Mary-Love. ”And when the bank called in Oscar's loan, you wouldn't lend him the money to save him from bankruptcy. You wanted to see Oscar and me go under. You wanted us poor so that we would have to come begging-”
”Oscar didn't go under. James lent him the money,” Mary-Love protested.
”Oscar has never forgiven you. I don't imagine he ever will.”
”You haven't either, have you, Elinor?”
”Miss Mary-Love, you don't like me because I took Oscar away from you. You haven't liked me since the day I showed up in Perdido. It can't make a whole lot of difference to you whether I forgive you or not.”
”You're right,” said Mary-Love, suddenly frank, almost without knowing it, letting her anger show and speaking her mind, ”it doesn't. I've never expected anything from you except bitterness and reproach, Elinor. And it's all I've ever gotten. And this, I suppose, is your fond farewell with everybody about to go off to Chicago for a good time.”
”Yes,” replied Elinor, unperturbed. ”Though you're not there yet.”
”You've been biding your time, haven't you? You've been treasuring up your hostility, isn't that right?
122.
You've been storing it up for five years, ever since Oscar asked me to lend him money he didn't even need!”
”I have been waiting...” Elinor admitted.
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