So Mother would sit at the end of the table where Grandmother used to sit, and Grandfather opposite at the other end, and Father on one side and Uncle Gavin and Gowan (I wasn’t born then and even if I had been I would have been eating in the kitchen with Aleck Sander yet) on the other and, Gowan said, Uncle Gavin not even pretending anymore to eat: just sitting there talking about Snopeses like he had been doing now through every meal for the last two weeks.
It was almost like he was talking to himself, like something wound up that couldn’t even run down, let alone stop, like there wasn’t anybody or anything that wished he would stop more than he did. It wasn’t snarling. Gowan didn’t know what it was. It was like something Uncle Gavin had to tell, but it was so funny that his main job in telling it was to keep it from being as funny as it really was, because if he ever let it be as funny as it really was, everybody and himself too would be laughing so hard they couldn’t hear him.
And Mother not eating either now: just sitting there perfectly still, watching Uncle Gavin, until at last Grandfather took his napkin out of his collar and stood up and Father and Uncle Gavin and Gowan stood up too and Grandfather said to Mother like he did every time:
“Thank you for the meal, Margaret,” and put the napkin on the table and Gowan went and stood by the door while he went out like I was going to have to do after I got born and got big enough.
And Gowan would have stood there while Mother and Father and Uncle Gavin went out too. But not this time. Mother hadn’t even moved, still sitting there and watching Uncle Gavin; she was still watching Uncle Gavin when she said to Father:
“Dont you and Gowan want to be excused too?”
“Nome,” Gowan said. Because he had been in the office that day when Ratliff came in and said,
“Evening, Lawyer. I just dropped in to hear the latest Snopes news,” and Uncle Gavin said:
“What news?” and Ratliff said:
“Or do you jest mean what Snopes?” and sat there too looking at Uncle Gavin, until at last he said, “Why dont you go on and say it?” and Uncle Gavin said,
“Say what?” and Ratliff said,
“Git out of my office, Ratliff.” So Gowan said,
“Nome.”
“Then maybe you’ll excuse me,” Uncle Gavin said, putting his napkin down. But still Mother didn’t move.
“Would you like me to call on her?” she said.
“Call on who?” Uncle Gavin said. And even to Gowan he said it too quick. Because even Father caught on then. Though I dont know about that. Even if I had been there and no older than Gowan was, I would have known that if I had been about twenty-one or maybe even less when Mrs Snopes first walked through the Square, I not only would have known what was going on, I might even have been Uncle Gavin myself. But Gowan said Father sounded like he had just caught on. He said to Uncle Gavin:
“I’ll be damned. So that’s what’s been eating you for the past two weeks.” Then he said to Mother: “No, by Jupiter. My wife call on that — —”
“That what?” Uncle Gavin said, hard and quick. And still Mother hadn’t moved: just sitting there between them while they stood over her.
“ ‘Sir’,” she said.
“What?” Uncle Gavin said.
“ ‘That what, sir?’ “ she said. “Or maybe just ‘sir’ with an inflection.”
“You name it then,” Father said to Uncle Gavin. “You know what. What this whole town is calling her. What this whole town knows about her and Manfred de Spain.”
“What whole town?” Uncle Gavin said. “Besides you? You and who else? the same ones that probably rake Maggie here over the coals too without knowing any more than you do?”
“Are you talking about my wife?” Father said.
“No,” Uncle Gavin said. “I’m talking about my sister and Mrs Snopes.”
“Boys, boys, boys,” Mother said. “At least spare my nephew.” She said to Gowan: “Gowan, dont you really want to be excused?”
“Nome,” Gowan said.
“Damn your nephew,” Father said. “I’m not going to have his aunt — —”
“Are you still talking about your wife?” Uncle Gavin said. This time Mother stood up too, between them while they both leaned a little forward, glaring at each other across the table.
“That really will be all now,” Mother said. “Both of you apologise to me.” They did. “Now apologise to Gowan.” Gowan said they did that too.
“But I’ll still be damned if I’m going to let—” Father said.
“Just the apology, please,” Mother said. “Even if Mrs Snopes is what you say she is, as long as I am what you and Gavin both agree I am since at least you agree on that, how can I run any risk sitting for ten minutes in her parlor? The trouble with both of you is, you know nothing about women. Women are not interested in morals. They aren’t even interested in unmorals. The ladies of Jefferson dont care what she does. What they will never forgive is the way she looks. No: the way the Jefferson gentlemen look at her.”
“Speak for your brother,” Father said. “I never looked at her in her life.”
“Then so much the worse for me,” Mother said, “with a mole for a husband. No: moles have warm blood; a Mammoth Cave fish—”
“Well, I will be damned,” Father said. “That’s what you want, is it? a husband that will spend every Saturday night in Memphis chasing back and forth between Gayoso and Mulberry street — —”
“Now I will excuse you whether you want to be or not,” Mother said. So Uncle Gavin went out and on upstairs toward his room and Mother rang the bell for Guster and Gowan stood at the door again for Mother and Father and then Mother and Gowan went out to the front gallery (it was October, still warm enough to sit outside at noon) and she took up the sewing basket again and Father came out with his hat on and said,
“Flem Snopes’s wife, riding into Jefferson society on Judge Lemuel Stevens’s daughter’s coat-tail,” and went on to town to the store; and then Uncle Gavin came out and said:
“You’ll do it, then?”
“Of course,” Mother said. “Is it that bad?”
“I intend to try to not let it be,” Uncle Gavin said. “Even if you aren’t anything but just a woman, you must have seen her. You must have.”
“Anyway, I have watched men seeing her,” Mother said.
“Yes,” Uncle Gavin said. It didn’t sound like an out-breathe, like talking. It sounded like an in-breathe: “Yes.”
“You’re going to save her,” Mother said, not looking at Uncle Gavin now: just watching the sock she was darning.
“Yes!” Uncle Gavin said, fast, quick: no in-breathe this time, so quick he almost said the rest of it before he could stop himself, so that all Mother had to do was say it for him:
“ — from Manfred de Spain.”
But Uncle Gavin had caught himself by now; his voice was just harsh now. “You too,” he said. “You and your husband too. The best people, the pure, the unimpugnable. Charles who by his own affirmation has never even looked at her; you by that same affirmation not only Judge Stevens’s daughter, but Caesar’s wife.”
“Just what—” Mother said, then Gowan said she stopped and looked at him. “Dont you really want to be excused a little while? as a personal favor?” she said.
“Nome,” Gowan said.
“You cant help it either, can you?” she said. “You’ve got to be a man too, haven’t you?” She just talked to Uncle Gavin then: “Just what is it about this that you cant stand? That Mrs Snopes may not be chaste, or that it looks like she picked Manfred de Spain out to be unchaste with?”
“Yes!” Uncle Gavin said. “I mean no! It’s all lies — gossip. It’s all — —”
“Yes,” Mother said. “You’re right. It’s probably all just that. Saturday’s not a very good afternoon to get in the barbershop, but you might think about it when you pass.”
“Thanks,” Uncle Gavin said. “But if I’m to go on this crusade with any hope of success, the least I can do is look wild and shaggy enough to be believed. You’ll do it, then?”
“Of course,” Mother said.
“Thank you,” Uncle Gavin said. Then he was gone.
“I suppose I could be excused now,” Gowan said.
“What for now?” Mother said. She was still watching Uncle Gavin, down the walk and into the street now. “He should have married Melisandre Backus,” she said. Melisandre Backus lived on a plantation about six miles from town with her father and a bottle of whiskey. I dont mean he was a drunkard. He was a good farmer. He just spent the rest of his time sitting on the gallery in summer and in the library in winter with the bottle, reading Latin poetry.
Miss Melisandre and Mother had been in school together, at high school and the Seminary both. That is, Miss Melisandre was always four years behind Mother. “At one time I thought he might; I didn’t know any better then.”
“Cousin Gavin?” Gowan said. “Him married?”
“Oh yes,” Mother said. “He’s
