“It was those let—” she said.
“Wait,” the old woman said. “Before you begin. The jasmine. Do you smell it?”
“Yes. It was those—”
“Wait. Always about this time of day it begins. It has begun about this time of day in June for fifty-seven years this summer. I brought them from Carolina, in a basket. I remember how that first March I sat up all one night, burning newspapers about the roots. Do you smell it?”
“Yes.”
“If it’s marriage, I told you. I told you five years ago that I wouldn’t blame you. A young woman, a widow. Even though you have a child, I told you that a child would not be enough. I told you I would not blame you for not doing as I had done. Didn’t I?”
“Yes. But it’s not that bad.”
“Not? Not how bad?” The old woman sat erect, her head back a little, her thin face fading into the twilight with a profound quality. “I won’t blame you. I told you that. You are not to consider me. My life is done; I need little; nothing the Negroes can’t do. Don’t you mind me, do you hear?”
The other said nothing, motionless too, serene; their voices seemed to materialize in the dusk between them, unsourced of either mouth, either still and fading face. “You’ll have to tell me, then,” the old woman said.
“It was those letters. Thirteen years ago: don’t you remember? Before Bayard came back from France, before you even knew that we were engaged. I showed you one of them and you wanted to give it to Colonel Sartoris and let him find out who sent it and I wouldn’t do it and you said that no lady would permit herself to receive anonymous love letters, no matter how badly she wanted to.”
“Yes. I said it was better for the world to know that a lady had received a letter like that, than to have one man in secret thinking such things about her, unpunished. You told me you burned it.”
“I lied. I kept it. And I got ten more of them. I didn’t tell you because of what you said about a lady.”
“Ah,” the old woman said.
“Yes. I kept them all. I thought I had them hidden where nobody could ever find them.”
“And you read them again. You would take them out now and then and read them again.”
“I thought I had them hidden. Then you remember that night after Bayard and I were married when somebody broke into our house in town; the same night that book-keeper in Colonel Sartoris’ bank stole that money and ran away? The next morning the letters were gone, and then I knew who had sent them.”
“Yes,” the old woman said. She had not moved, her fading head like something inanimate in silver.
“So they were out in the world. They were somewhere. I was crazy for a while. I thought of people, men, reading them, seeing not only my name on them, but the marks of my eyes where I had read them again and again. I was wild. When Bayard and I were on our honeymoon, I was wild. I couldn’t even think about him alone. It was like I was having to sleep with all the men in the world at the same time.
“Then it was almost twelve years ago, and I had Bory, and I supposed I had got over it. Got used to having them out in the world. Maybe I had begun to think that they were gone, destroyed, and I was safe. Now and then I would remember them, but it was like somehow that Bory was protecting me, that they couldn’t pass him to reach me. As though if I just stayed out here and was good to Bory and you — And then, one afternoon, after twelve years, that man came out to see me, that Jew. The one who stayed to supper that night.”
“Ah,” the old woman said. “Yes.”
“He was a Federal agent. They were still trying to catch the man who had robbed the bank, and the agent had got hold of my letters. Found them where the book-keeper had lost them or thrown them away that night while he was running away, and the agent had had them twelve years, working on the case.
At last he came out to see me, trying to find out where the man had gone, thinking I must know, since the man had written me letters like that. You remember him: how you looked at him and you said, ‘Narcissa, who is this Yankee?’”
“Yes. I remember.”
“That man had my letters. He had had them for twelve years. He—”
“Had had?” the old woman said. “Had had?”
“Yes. I have them now. He hadn’t sent them to Washington yet, so nobody had read them except him. And now nobody will ever read them.” She ceased; she breathed quietly, tranquil. “You don’t understand yet, do you?
He had all the information the letters could give him, but he would have to turn them in to the Department anyway and I asked him for them but he said he would have to turn them in and I asked him if he would make his final decision in Memphis and he said why Memphis and I told him why.
I knew I couldn’t buy them from him with money, you see. That’s why I had to go to Memphis. I had that much regard for Bory and you, to go somewhere else. And that’s all.
Men are all about the same, with their ideas of good and bad. Fools.” She breathed quietly. Then she yawned, deep, with utter relaxation. Then she stopped yawning. She looked again at the rigid, fading silver head opposite her. “Don’t you understand yet?” she said. “I had to do it.
They were mine; I had to get them back. That was the only way I could do it. But I would have done more than that. So I got them. And now they are burned up. Nobody will ever see them. Because he can’t tell, you see. It would ruin him to ever tell that they even existed. They might even put him in the penitentiary. And now they are burned up.”
“Yes,” the old woman said. “And so you came back home and you took Johnny so you and he could sit together in the creek, the running water. In Jordan. Yes, Jordan at the back of a country pasture in Missippi.”
“I had to get them back. Don’t you see that?”
“Yes,” the old woman said. “Yes.” She sat bolt upright in the wheel chair. “Well, my Lord. Us poor, fool women — Johnny!” Her voice was sharp, peremptory.
“What?” the young woman said. “Do you want something?”
“No,” the other said. “Call Johnny. I want my hat.” The young woman rose. “I’ll get it.”
“No. I want Johnny to do it.”
The young woman stood looking down at the other, the old woman erect in the wheel chair beneath the fading silver crown of her hair. Then she left the room. The old woman did not move. She sat there in the dusk until the boy entered, carrying a small black bonnet of an ancient shape.
Now and then, when the old woman became upset, they would fetch her the hat and she would place it on the exact top of her head and sit there by the window. He brought the bonnet to her. His mother was with him. It was full dusk now; the old woman was invisible save for her hair. “Do you want the light now?” the young woman said.
“No,” the old woman said. She set the bonnet on the top of her head. “You all go on to supper and let me rest awhile. Go on, all of you.” They obeyed, leaving her sitting there: a slender, erect figure indicated only by the single gleam of her hair, in the wheel chair beside the window framed by the sparse and defunctive Carolina glass.
IV
Since the boy’s eighth birthday, he had had his dead grandfather’s place at the end of the table. Tonight however his mother rearranged things. “With just the two of us,” she said. “You come and sit by me.” The boy hesitated. “Please. Won’t you? I got so lonesome for you last night in Memphis. Weren’t you lonesome for me?”
“I slept with Aunt Jenny,” the boy said. “We had a good time.”
“Please.”
“All right,” he said. He took the chair beside hers.
“Closer,” she said. She drew the chair closer. “But we won’t ever again, ever. Will we?” She leaned toward him, taking his hand.
“What? Sit in the creek?”
“Not ever leave one another again.”
“I didn’t get lonesome. We had a good time.”
“Promise. Promise, Bory.” His name was Benhow, her family name.
“All right.”
Isom, in a duck jacket, served them and returned to the kitchen.
“She ain’t coming to supper?” Elnora said.
“Nome,” Isom said. “Setting yonder by the window, in the dark. She say she don’t want no supper.”
Elnora looked at Saddie. “What was they doing last time you went to the library?”
“Her and Miss Narcissa talking.”
“They was still talking when I went to ‘nounce supper,” Isom said. “I tole you that.”
“I know,” Elnora said. Her voice was not sharp. Neither was it gentle. It was just peremptory, soft, cold. “What were they talking about?”
“I don’t know’m,” Isom said. “You the one taught me not to listen to white folks.”
“What were they talking about, Isom?” Elnora said. She was looking at him,
