Child of the River Page 14

  Calmly, as if nothing whatsoever had happened, Benjamin took the preacher’s Bible he picked up off the floor and walked behind the pulpit. The preacher had already taken a seat on the front row, wishing he hadn’t even showed up for services. “I believe most of you people came to church this fine morning to hear a biblical message,” Benjamin said in a tranquil, clear voice. “Open your Bibles to St. John, Chapter 8, verse 2. “Jesus came again into the temple, and the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery. They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses and the law commanded us, that such should be stoned; but what sayest thou? But Jesus stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone”.

  Benjamin closed the book and surveyed the crowd. “You know the rest of the story. Not a man among them was able to throw stones, for they, too, were sinners.”

  Suddenly, Brother James found some courage and hastily added a postscript. “You will recall, Mr. Farrington, the Master said, ‘go and sin no more’.” Miss O’Malley continues in sin as she cohabits with you at Larkspur Plantation.”

  Ignoring the minister as if he said nothing, Benjamin scanned individual faces. “Ladies and gentlemen, let us do some real soul-searching. Let’s examine our own consciences and the purity of our own hearts.” He pointed an accusing finger at the man who accused Dayme. “Mr. McPugh, you are a married man, and yet just last week, you were the first man I encountered descending the stairs at Macy’s pleasure parlor. How dare you accuse Miss O’Malley! You, sir, are a liar and a pompous hypocrite.”

  McPugh lowered his head at the public exposure while his enraged wife hit him a resounding blow with her songbook. “We’ll discuss this when we get home!” Mrs. McPugh said bitterly. Her thin lips set in a hard, white line.

  “And you, Mrs. Peters,” Benjamin pointed to the dried-up, quenched face of the storekeeper’s wife while his intense blue eyes drilled into her. “You, Madam, are going to HELL!”

  “Oh, please don’t say that, Mr. Farrington,” the woman whimpered.

  “It’s true. That’s where you’re headed unless you change your wicked ways. Your twaddling tongue has caused heartache and suffering since I can remember. Let’s have some participation, Mrs. Peters. Will you please stand and read Leviticus 19:16 aloud.”

  “I…I can’t find the place,” Mrs. Peters said nervously as she peered over pinch-nose glasses and her trembling hand flipped pages.

  Stepping down from the podium, Benjamin handed the woman the preacher’s Bible, pointing out the verse.

  “Thou…thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people,” she whispered. A broad smile swept across the face of silver-haired Mr. Peters who was well aware that his wife practiced malicious gossip and that she didn’t let her dress tail touch her until she spread the word about the blue calico dress.

  “Louder! Repeat that louder, Mrs. Peters. People can’t hear you.”

  Again the woman read the passage. It was audible only to those in the next few rows.

  “I’d like for you to remember that passage, Madam,” Benjamin snapped. “Why don’t you shout it to the top of your lungs?”

  Interceding at that point, Mr. Peters stood up in defense of his wife, and although his twinkling eyes betrayed secret glee, his voice had a somber tone. “Enough. No more.” Several people snickered at the woman’s obvious discomfort.

  “Well,” Mrs. Peters spoke up defensively. “You did buy that dress for the young woman. You can’t deny it. It’s the very dress she’s wearing today. I didn’t lie about it.” She glanced around, hoping for approval.

  “I bought the dress but you didn’t have to juice up the reason. Do you know why I bought the dress?”

  “Why…why…no.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Martin Lewis was ecstatic, having more fun than he had at the Larkspur party a couple of weeks back. “Clara Lee,” he whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me church could be this much fun. I’d never miss a Sunday.” His wife frowned and nudged him to hush.

  The stunned audience listened attentively as Benjamin continued. “On separating sheep from goats, the scripture is explicit. In effect, it says….”

  It was enough…too much. Dayme could stand it no longer. She rose from her seat, trembling with indignation. “Stop this fiasco. Take me home.”

  But Farrington shook his head. “It must be discussed here and now to get it over with.” Reluctantly, the girl sat back down, feeling miserable. She just wanted to get away.

  “The Bible states ‘I was hungry and you fed me not; naked and you clothed me not’, etcetera. Isn’t it a fact, Mrs. Murray, that Miss O’Malley came to you in her gown tail, barefoot, hungry and destitute when her home burned and her father died? You encouraged her out on the street to forage for herself…an orphan, not quite fifteen.” His tone was an accusation in itself.

  “Well…I…uh…l was afraid my children wouldn’t have enough to eat,” she explained. “Times are hard. I didn’t exactly turn her away. I’d gladly have kept her if…. Really, Mr. Farrington, I fed her almost a week…more than I could afford. But surely she could have found decent work. My daughter did. It was the girl’s choice, the easy way out of a difficult situation.”

  Ignoring her feeble explanation, he turned abruptly to Morgan Edward’s mother. “And then, you refused to speak to her when somebody did help her. Isn’t that true, Mrs. Edwards.” He strode up and down like a defense attorney interrogating a witness.

  “I…I suppose so,” she muttered. “But she worked in that horrid place.” She raised her chin defiantly. “I, sir, am a respectable lady. I do not associate with saloon trash. Birds of a feather, you know.”

  “What would Jesus say about that?”

  Mrs. Edwards didn’t attempt to answer. She sat tight-lipped and self-righteous. A twelve-year-old girl volunteered, “He wouldn’t like that at all.”

  “That’s right, young lady,” Benjamin agreed. “He wouldn’t.”

  Gesturing toward Brother James, Benjamin continued. “I’ve made it a point in my lifetime never to argue with persons for whom I have absolutely no respect. From what this vermin who calls himself a man of God said, I gather it’s the impression of some in this congregation that Miss O’Malley is my mistress. Is that what you think?” He fired the question at a grossly overweight matron.

  “No, no,” the fat lady said shaking her head vigorously.

  “How about you?” He pointed to another.

  “I…I’ve heard it but I don’t believe it,” she sputtered.

  “And you?” He pointed to a gentleman.

  “Don’t know anything about it. Leave me out of this.”

  “Does anybody believe this lie? If so, speak up.”

  Nobody volunteered thoughts on the matter. “Well now, seems nobody believes this outrageous, libelous fairy tale. Miss O’Malley is not and never was my mistress. She’s the plantation schoolteacher. She was never…I repeat never a prostitute at Macy’s Tavern. She was a singer who worked for room and board. Singing is an honorable profession, most especially in such troubled times.” Like a defense attorney giving a summation to the jury, once again he stepped down and strode up and down the front row. “Miss O’Malley has been wrongly accused by gossiping sinners and is, in fact, innocent of these false charges against her character.”

  Most of the people who heard the never-to-be-forgotten sermon raised their hands when Benjamin asked how many agreed that the girl was indeed innocent. The people who had been interrogated and a few more remained sullenly silent with their hands in their laps.

  “I’m just about finished, preacher. Then you can pass the plate. I gather that’s what you’re here for,” Benjamin told him sarcastically. “In closing, let me say…from this day forward, anyone who accuses Dayme O’Malley of being anything less than a lady will answer to me in the form
of a lawsuit for slander.”

  He paused for a thoughtful moment and the people thought surely he would either leave the church with Dayme or sit down at this point, but no, he returned to the pulpit, poured a glass of the preacher’s water and drank it. He shifted his weight self-consciously and added words that seemed to surprise even him. “I know Miss O’Malley is a lady. I am a Farrington and would accept nothing less in a wife than chastity, and yet, I…even I would be willing to marry the girl were I not engaged to another.”

  Somehow, Dayme had managed to retain shocked composure throughout the embarrassing scene. However, that last statement added insult to injury. Fury flashed in her big green eyes. She stood with hands on hips as unconscious inner anger surfaced and poured from her mouth like bitter gall. “That did it! That, Mr. Benjamin Atwood Farrington, was the straw! So…you would even be willing to marry me, huh? Isn’t that big of you…you…you egotistical dunderpate! If there’s anything I can’t stand,” her seething pent-up anger spilled in its entirety, “it’s a sanctimonious, lily-white, so-called good man! I don’t want your dutiful pity, and I don’t need a keeper. I’m not one bit willing to marry you!” Tears were in her voice as she turned to the people gathered there. “The only crime I’ve committed is the crime of being born a woman. Negroes have been freed, but women haven’t. Coloreds can vote but women can’t. I’m not old enough, but one day I will be and I want to be able to vote! We have no voice, no choice. Men dictate. We’re constantly and incessantly controlled by men.”

  Several of the younger women, including Clara Lee Lewis cheered and shouted, “Suffrage for women NOW!”

  “Back to you,” the girl whirled to point at Benjamin who was so stunned by the sudden outburst that he didn’t know what to say or do. “How gracious of you to even suggest the possibility of marrying me, the little poor girl from Market Street. And you a Farrington.” Her voice was sarcastic and bitter. “I’m touched at your generosity. You and your high and mighty honor, you condescend to me like you’re so high above. Always correcting me, trying to mold me into somebody else. I don’t want to be anybody else. I want to be just plain old me. You’ve demanded perfection, and I’m not perfect. I’m human…a human human. No thanks. The man I marry will have to love me, and he’ll have to court me proper.”

  To the delight of Mrs. Peters, Benjamin stammered, “I…I’m sorry. Please, let’s talk about this in private.”

  “No!” The girl blazed, her irate eyes welling with tears. “You started it. I’ll finish it. This is not a court of law. It’s supposed to be a church. But I’ve been accused and degraded and suffered the indignity of standing trial. You only defended me for the law practice, to keep your promise to a dead man and to…yes…to soothe your own conscience. It’s the biggest insult of all.”

  Furious and trembling, her heels clicked on the hardwood floor as she hurried to the back of the building. Suddenly, she whirled around to finish the oration. “I’ve known many of you people all my life,” she said brokenly as a sob caught in her throat. “Bro. Mills baptized me in this church when I was twelve years old. I…I can’t believe you’ve all condemned me.”

  “Not me,” Clara Lee yelled as she pushed her way to the aisle. “Not me!” Others began to follow her lead.

  “Brother James,” Dayme called over the heads of people gathered with her, “you don’t have my Lord locked up in this church. My Savior can’t be contained in any building. And, yes, sometimes Jesus even visits Macy’s Tavern. I found kindness there. Mr. Macy took me in like I was his own daughter. The upstairs girls clothed me, hid me and protected me from invading enemy soldiers.” The distraught girl smothered a sob and managed to get her voice under control. “Speaking of prostitution, preacher, you are prostituting the word of God.”

  “How…how dare you, young woman!” The minister righteously embraced the Bible Benjamin had tossed into his lap. He stood with it clasped to his chest.

  “It’s true,” Dayme jeered. “Instead of preaching the gospel of faith in Jesus Christ who died on the cross for my sins…and yours, you used this precious time to quote poetry, judge and condemn me!”

  Silver haired Aaron Yates yelled, “Amen, little lady. Amen.” He applauded her spunk and was joined by others in the crowd. A friend of her father’s, Yates was a downtown merchant who watched Dayme grow up.

  “Go!” Bro. James demanded in a shrill, angry voice as he pointed to the door. “Get out and don’t come back!”

  Grandma Embry, one of the pillars and largest supporter of the church, leaned shakily on a walking cane. She started crippling to the rear of the building. She stopped in the aisle long enough to shame the preacher. “May God forgive you for what you’ve done. If she isn’t welcome in church, for heaven’s sake, where do you expect her to go?”

  Trying desperately to calm the scattering flock, Bro. James replied in a pleading tone, “Mother Embry, don’t you see? The church can’t condone her kind. Other young women will be following.”

  Lillian Avery tugged at her husband’s coat. “Sit down, Kenneth. Don’t you dare embarrass me!”

  “Turn me loose, woman,” Avery drawled. “By damn, if Dayme O’Malley isn’t welcome here, I reckon I’m not either.” The lady sitting next to them swooned at the sound of a swear word in church, but when nobody paid her any attention, her eyelids fluttered, and she straightened up to listen.

  In an attempt to salvage as many members as possible (after all, the collection plate hadn’t been passed), the preacher placed his folded hands under his chin and looked upward, “Father forgive them. Please, brothers and sisters, return to your seats.”

  Perhaps it was partly because of the sympathizers who stood beside her that caused the girl to become completely overwhelmed with emotion. She sobbed uncontrollably, and her voice came in husky, spurts. “I appreciate those who stand with me. As for the rest of you sanctimonious, back-biting, narrow-minded, Bible-beating, Psalm-singing hypocrites, I don’t care what you think!”

  Awestruck by her explosive outburst, Benjamin pushed his way through the throng to chase after her. Once outside the church, he broke into a trot. The expression on his face was one of bewilderment. “Wait,” he called. “Please wait. Don’t go back in there. It’ll make things worse. I was only trying to prove to the people…. I was trying to make them understand.”

  Jerking away, she retorted icily. “I don’t care if they ever’ understand. Let me go! You told me once to’find my pride’. Well, I found it, Mister. Go find your precious, untainted Molly Allison and leave me alone! She pushed through the swinging doors of the tavern into the welcoming arms of Tom Macy, sobbing her heart out.

  Chapter 14

  When one door closes, it seems another invariably opens. Things went from bad to worse in Dayme’s life. She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life waiting tables and singing in Macy’s Tavern but it was the only livelihood she had at the moment. She refused to see Benjamin. Obviously, he cares more about himself and what society has to say than about my feelings, she concluded. Surely, he didn’t think I would take that spur of the moment, empty, almost proposal as a compliment. I saw through the whole thing. It wasn’t the so-called blot on my reputation that bothered him so much. It was his standing in the community and his political future. The man is obsessed with forcing on me his mother’s values that are so deeply instilled in his subconscious mind. Regardless how hard I tried to fit the pattern, in the end I always failed. The man I marry, she decided, must accept me for myself, just the way I am. He mustn’t care that I didn’t come from old-moneyed, socialite roots. And he must be more concerned with what I think, not what others might think. I wish I could just turn off these feelings for him, but how? He isn’t the man for me and I know it. Dayme pondered. I gave him my love, and even now I feel no regrets. Unfortunately, Benjamin’s feelings for me go no deeper than desire. It isn’t enough. A woman wants more. What hurts most, he’s ashamed of me. He didn’t approve of anything I did. It wasn’t good enough.
Perhaps, he just enjoys putting me down. Not once has he mentioned the word love. I will settle for nothing less. How can I love him and hate him at the same time? I don’t like him one bit. Dayme always wore a smile as she wiped tables and joked with customers, yet these troubling thoughts kept running through her mind.

  The situation in Vicksburg was awful with the government threatening martial law over ratification of the 13th and 14th amendments. But the humiliation she suffered in church that day was the deciding factor. Going back to her old job was a step back down the ladder, but she had to get on with her life without Benjamin. The letter from Uncle John came at the most opportune time.

  Dayme laid the letter aside to answer a gentle knock on her door. “It’s that Mr. Farrington again,” the chambermaid told her. “He’s downstairs asking for you again.”

  “Tell Mr. Farrington that I have enough problems and I don’t need him complicating my life. Tell him I said to leave me alone.”

  The letter was addressed to Dayme’s late father. Her Uncle wrote about the remote ranch where they lived on the extreme edge of the Texas frontier and the constant danger of Comanche attacks. Most Indians, he wrote, were not after scalps. This land the Indians called Summerland was a favorite hunting ground. Buffalo herds were in abundance at one time, he wrote, but the buffalo skinners had changed all that. Now the Indians were after cattle. Their raids through the country had become so regular that ranchers referred to them as Comanche Moon, he wrote.

  Uncle John told about the friendliness of the close-knit community, the house parties and Fort McKavett, a modern fortress under construction. Its purpose, he said, was to protect settlers and travelers who ventured into the “no-man’s land” of the Comanche Nation on their westward journey to California.

  He wrote about running into Morgan Edwards in the village. Dayme’s best friend was prospecting for silver. He also pearled in the San Saba River’s abundant mussel beds and sold fish to village wives. Morgan, with the help of friends, captured some wild mustangs that he trained, traded and raced, as well.