Galveston Page 15

  “I’ve decided to do it,” he said simply. “Not, perhaps, for the reasons some may think. Certainly my main platform will be the Wharf Company question, but my own thrust will be quite different.”

  I was too elated to ask him what he meant, and he took a sip of tea before continuing. “I’ve worked on the fire department for the past few months, and I’m convinced the difficulties with it are as complex as those with the wharves. We haven’t got sufficient water supply here to meet the demand and we must go to the mainland to supplement it. It’s radical, and highly expensive, I know, but there it is.”

  I started to interrupt—I could not contain my joy any longer—but he went right on as if he didn’t notice.

  “I think people just might be able to see the importance of this problem … perhaps even more than they can the evils of the Wharf Company. After all, fire is a matter of life or death for everyone. Of course, I assume Fuller will take full credit for any success the newly organized fire department will have over the next two years. But from what I’ve been able to learn, he and others feel we can solve the water supply problem by digging artesian wells here. And that’s preposterous!

  “I may just be able to pull off the election if I can convince the people of the need to go elsewhere for water. Oh well … it’s two years away. Perhaps nothing will come of it after all. What do you think?”

  “Think? You’ve never made me so happy. I’ll do anything to help you get elected—hang posters, talk to people—anything within my power. Oh, I can’t eat another bite. Let’s go and tell Rubin and Janet—I’ve just got to tell somebody!”

  “Claire, please. I keep getting the feeling you have no idea how serious this is. It isn’t as though I were competing in a spelling bee. If we show our cards too soon, it will only give my opponents an advantage over me. I don’t want you telling anyone just yet. I’ve told Pete and Lucien, and that’s it.”

  “But isn’t Lucien going to talk to his business friends to try and raise money for the campaign?”

  “Not yet. Just now I’m going to begin studying the platform, do some preliminary research. The candidacy will be announced probably in the summer of ’85. Right now Lucien will begin a little indoctrination work, that’s all.”

  “But it’s a long time till next summer.”

  “I know. A lot can happen between now and then.”

  “Can I write to Ruth?”

  “All right, all right. And you can go tell Rubin and Janet if you’re bursting to talk about it. But remember, that is as far as it goes.”

  By the time fall first blew its chilly breath across the island in 1884, our social life had wound down considerably because Charles was using more and more time to study the questions which would arise during the campaign of ’86. I was constantly amazed that so much work must be put forth to run for the office of mayor. Charles brought home engineers’ surveys on various ports around the country; books on artesian wells and water depletion; statistics on the trade done by Galveston harbor and also by the Houston harbor; drawings of possible water supply plans. Before long, his already crowded study was bulging with papers and reports on aspects of city life I had never dreamed existed.

  As the project of running for public office began to look more and more like the preparation for writing a history book, my enthusiasm began to wane, and the length of time which must pass before the exciting part could begin seemed to grow longer rather than shorter.

  And yet those were peaceful days nonetheless. When I looked upon the well-kept garden and grounds at St. Christopher’s and saw before me the result of the many hours of work put into making them a credit to the church, it gave me a true feeling of belonging in the community. The process of leaving one place and beginning anew in another was difficult to be sure, but by staying and involving oneself in things to be done, the transition would eventually be complete. I seldom thought of Grady as home any more. With Betsey gone and Ruth married, there was little left to go back to. And Ruth, busy herself, I was sure, never invited us for a visit.

  Home was here among the tall palms and the oleanders with their splash of bright color rustling in the same ocean breeze that stroked your face as you walked along the street or sat at night on the big verandah.

  Near the end of summer, a communicant from St. Christopher’s donated six good crepe myrtles to be planted around the church school building. I gathered four or five of my committee girls, and we went to work planting them. This task took us several days, and after it was done I continued to come alone for several days more, piddling here and there, pulling up weeds, trimming a hedge or two, scrubbing the birdbath in the courtyard, content to busy my hands in surroundings I’d come to love. I hardly noticed the comings and goings of others during this time, allowing my thoughts to dwell on pleasant things here and there … to speculate on how Ruth might be doing up in Grady, and whether or not to invest in some new lavender silk I’d seen lately at the Emporium, and what to cook for the Marlowes when they came to dinner the next week … then I looked up, toward the church office, and happened to see a very odd thing.

  Rubin Garret stood at the window, looking out at me, and when he noticed I’d seen him he didn’t wave, but instead drew the curtains closed. Well, maybe he hadn’t seen me after all, I thought; perhaps the sunlight was causing a glare on his desk and he closed the curtains to shut it out. I bent down again and pushed my hands into the dark, fecund soil, my heart beating just a shade faster than before.

  Now, I knew better than to let my mind dwell on this obviously innocent occurrence. There was nothing between Rubin Garret and me any more than there had been long before, when I’d let my wishful thinking get the best of me. I kept working until I was too tired to work any more, and walked back home. Rubin always kept his horse and rig in the shed behind the church, so I didn’t know whether or not he was still around when I left.

  Yet the sight of him standing there at the window, just before he drew the curtains, stayed with me into the evening and occupied my thoughts after all the lights were out and I lay in bed. Small forgotten incidents began to sift back into my memory, unusual shows of attentiveness from time to time such as the night we held a dinner party at our house not so long before, with Rubin and Janet and several other couples from the vestry of St. Christopher’s attending. He had followed me into the kitchen to get the beverages ready, and said, “Now, let’s see, it was tea for Norman and Alice, right? Here, let me pour it … and a glass of milk for Henry … fruit juice for Stella McKenzie, wasn’t it?” And when we were through he insisted upon taking the tray from my hands and carrying it into the dining room. The little event seemed meaningless at the time, except that it was unlike Rubin to be helpful at kitchen chores; he was more often mingling with the guests, telling stories to get everyone laughing, or discussing parish business in his own diplomatic way that always won him his point.

  Then there was a day, several weeks earlier, when he came out to the church garden at noontime—it was a terrifically hot and humid day—and offered to go down to a little cafe by the shore that made box lunches to order and bring back one for each of the garden workers. I knew him to be especially busy that day, working on a talk he had to make at a diocesan meeting in Houston over the weekend, and was surprised first by his offer to get lunch, and even more surprised that he seemed to be enjoying eating along with us, lingering so long that even our own work got behind, and pausing before he went back to his own work to say just to me, “You’ll never know how grateful I’ve been for your dedication to St. Christopher’s. You’re every bit as responsible for its place of importance in this community as I am.”

  “Oh bosh, get on with you,” I’d said, embarrassed at his unusual candor.

  Then there had been the afternoon just the week before, when he’d stopped by my porch as I sipped lemonade alone, writing a letter to Helga Reinschmidt about Charles’s bid for mayor of Galveston. “Having a bit of refreshment in this heat, eh?” he’d said.

&
nbsp; “You want to join me in a glass?”

  “No, no, I haven’t time,” he answered, but came up on the porch and sat down anyway, on the top step, looking away from me. “Charles tells me how much his running for mayor has occupied his time lately—all the studying and so on.”

  “Yes, it seems endless.”

  “Well, if there’s anything I can do to help you out, I mean, if you need help moving furniture or rearranging pictures or something like that, you know where I am.”

  “That’s kind of you, Rubin.”

  “Well, good day, then,” he’d said, and left, and I had sat there for a while looking after him. How queer he was, I’d thought. One never knew just what to expect from him.

  Yet every bit of his behavior could have been looked upon as neighborliness. I closed my eyes and went to sleep. Later I awoke with a start. It was not Rubin’s actions of late that were so odd to witness. It was Janet’s changed way of looking at me, her expression a little wary from time to time, almost as if she suspected something between us.

  Next day I came back to the garden again and went about my work as usual, and nothing seemed to have changed; yet I had a curious sensation of being watched and several times looked up and around, shading my eyes from the sun. Nothing. I worked on into the afternoon, becoming more and more involved in what I was about, when all at once I became aware someone was standing behind me, and I looked up with a start. It was Rubin.

  “It’s getting late,” he said.

  “Oh, is it? I’ve lost track of the time.”

  “Can I give you a ride home?”

  “Well, it’s nice of you but I can walk … that is, unless you happen to be leaving now anyway.”

  He nodded. How strange his manner seemed. “The rig’s out back, in the shed. I could bring it round—”

  “All right.”

  “That is, unless you’d want to walk back with me.”

  “Well, all right.” I stood up, uncomfortable under his gaze, and conscious of the cloak which had covered my feelings for him for such a long time slowly easing away, as a heavy blanket is pulled from off the top of a bed.

  We walked side by side across the wide lawn (surely the lawn had never been so wide as it was that day), and entered the shed, the thin layer of hay crunching beneath our feet.

  His new rig, a gift from the church he’d made so prosperous, stood awesomely big inside the shed, the horse hitched up and hanging his head low as though he knew what was about to take place and did not want to see.

  Rubin held out a steadying hand as I climbed aboard, and my skirt hem caught on a rough edge of wood. “Wait a moment,” he said in a voice unusually soft. “Perhaps I can dislodge it without tearing it.” Gently he freed the fabric as I watched, then walked around and boarded the rig on his side.

  He made no movement toward hustling the horse to ride from the shed. He seemed to have something to say, yet feared to say it, and my own throat might have had a fist in it for all I was able to speak.

  “Claire?” he said finally. We both looked straight ahead, out into the afternoon sunshine.

  “Yes, Rubin.”

  “I’ve been … been watching you out there.”

  “Yes, I know, Rubin.”

  “I love having you here, watching you do your work.”

  “I’m glad that it gives you pleasure.”

  “You told me that once before, long ago.”

  “Did I?”

  “I’ve seen you bending over the flower beds for hours on end, working them with your hands … I’ve seen you straighten up and rest your hands on your hips, and lean back for a moment to rest. I’ve watched you wipe the sweat from your brow and look around at what you’ve done, and I’ve felt the pride you must have known … I’ve almost believed I shared it with you. And I’ve often thought how empty this place would be without you … if I didn’t see you in the morning when I come, know you were here during the day, live impatiently through the winter, waiting for the spring because it would always bring you again, I’d feel a part of me was missing.

  “God, forgive me my human frailties … I need you, Claire.”

  I could have told him I’d been waiting for him all along, but instead I took his hand and put it to my face and kissed it, then moved it to my breast. And then his big powerful arms were around me, almost crushing me, and he was kissing me with a hunger that seemed to have been waiting for years to find release. I was hardly aware of our descent from the rig and of being laid down against a bed of hay soft as autumn leaves; and as Rubin entered into me, every part of me so long dead was made alive, every nerve responding with joy and rhythm so long suppressed that at the end I was left without strength, exhausted and spent and dazedly happy. He clutched me tightly for a prolonged moment, then raised himself up.

  His eyes were full of dismay.

  He helped me to my feet and into the rig, then went around to the other side and pulled himself in beside me. “Oh, my God,” he said.

  I reached for his hand. “Rubin, I love you,” I said. He pulled it away before I touched it and took in hand the reins, and just then, in the wink of an eye, came the pleasant voice of Mr. Peabody the sexton, and we both looked out to see his husky frame in the shed opening, blotting out the sunlight.

  “Aft’noon, Father Garret, Miz Becker,” he said. “Someone left a hoe out to the garden there. I’ll just leave it here in the shed so’s it won’t get rained on and rust out.”

  “Yes,” said Rubin. “I was just taking Mrs. Becker home. Thank you.”

  “Anythin’ else I can do for you today, sir?”

  “No, nothing. Give my best to Mrs. Peabody. Good day.”

  “G’day, sir,” he said, and walked out of the shed.

  Rubin let out a breath, and without looking at me again said, “Do you think he saw?”

  “No, of course not. Rubin—”

  “No, Claire, not now, please,” he said, and guided the horse out into the daylight. Later, on the way home, he said, “You know, we’ve put so much work into the church. Nothing must ever come to light that would ruin what we’ve accomplished.”

  He was speaking in riddles. What did he mean? Didn’t he know what I’d give if only he’d ask it? Charles, the church, the mayor’s race—all of it be damned if he wanted me?

  It is a very short way from the church to where we live on Avenue L. Before I could gather my thoughts to speak we were home. Serena was out in the yard. Her face dirty, her clothes soiled, and her hair flying, she ran across the yard and waved and called to us. Rubin waved back, then turned to me silently for a moment. What his expression held I can only guess for I kept staring straight ahead.

  I allowed him to help me from the rig, walked through our gate and up to the house. When I got inside I bathed my face and fixed tea, and wondered as I sat there sipping it, was this to be a beginning or another dead end?

  Chapter 3

  Three months, four, and nothing more happened. Rubin kept away from me most of the time, and when he was near, kept his eyes averted. I was going out of my mind with frustration, as a person for many years imprisoned in an institution, then by some error let out just long enough to get a taste of freedom, before being recaptured again when the error was discovered, and thrown back into a dark, windowless cell.

  And all through this I had to pretend there had been no change in my lively interest in Charles’s political career. I was possessed of a sharp, uncomfortable feeling all the time, like rubbing my tongue over my teeth after eating a peach.

  Early into the new year we received a letter from Ruth. “We’re expecting a child around the end of August,” she wrote. “Naturally, Edward is overjoyed and expects nothing short of a boy. I’m feeling fine; of course we have no sophisticated specialist up here as you have in Galveston, but Doctor Lanahan assures me I am fit and not aiming for any problems he knows of. Will keep you posted.…”

  “Does it hurt anymore?” Charles asked me after reading it.

  “Y
ou mean, do I still miss Ruth?”

  “No, I mean, do you still think of our little son?”

  “Charlie!” I blurted out, his reference especially maddening in view of my current state of mind. “I mean, no, not too often,” I added quickly. “One gets over those things after such a long time, I guess.”

  “Yes, it has been that … a long time.”

  Not long enough, I thought, that it did not still give me a desolate feeling when I tried but was unable to conjure up his little face in my memory. “How I wish we’d had a picture made of him. It would be something to keep,” I said.

  “I thought of that, too, but it doesn’t seem so important now. I’m only sorry we never had more children … guess it’s too late now.”

  “Yes, I suppose it is.” In truth I didn’t think it was impossible I might conceive again. My spells had subsided just lately and Dr. Hutchisson had never said there was dead certainty I might not conceive another child before the inevitable surgery. Of course I had never told this to Charles, and never would.

  “Well, life goes on. We find other consolations.”

  “Indeed.”

  “It won’t be long, you know, before announcing.”

  “Yes. Where are you going to do it?”

  “At Pete’s. We’re making a list of people to invite. The public announcement will come fairly quick after, but this will be for known supporters. I’m going to present my platform, of course.”

  “You’ve worked so hard on it. It must be good.”

  “I hope so. Claire, are you all right?”

  “Of course. What makes you ask?”

  “Nothing you could name. It’s just that you seem to be walking around in a daze half the time these past few months, and I’ve noticed you’re losing weight.”

  “Am I? Well, I’m not sick. Nothing wrong with me. When is your speech going to be ready? I expect you to read it to me first, you know.”