The High Tide Club Page 9

  “Well, I think I’m just going to sneak you downstairs and into the ballroom for a few minutes so that Papa and Gardiner can see how nice you look,” Josephine said.

  “Oh no,” Varina said quickly.

  “Varina’s right, Jo,” Ruth said. “We don’t want to get her in trouble.”

  Millie gave the girl a quick hug. “Go on back downstairs, then, Cinderella. Before your coach turns into a pumpkin.”

  “Huh?” Varina gave her a puzzled look.

  “Don’t tell me you never read the fairy tale about Cinderella and her wicked stepsisters,” Ruth said. “With the pumpkin that turned into a coach?”

  “And the rats that turned into coachmen, or were they footmen?” Millie asked.

  Varina looked from one of the girls to the other. “Are y’all my wicked stepsisters?”

  The girls all laughed.

  “No, silly girl,” Josephine said. “We’re more like your fairy godmothers.”

  “Okay,” Varina said. “I’d better go back now, before Mrs. Dorris comes looking for me.”

  “Wait just a minute, Varina,” Millie said. She darted into the bedroom and came back a moment later.

  “Josephine gave you this dress, and Ruth gave you the shoes. Now I want you to have something from me. Mama gave me this pearl pin for my sixteenth birthday. You’re almost sixteen, aren’t you?”

  “Not for another year and a half,” Varina said. “But I can’t take this, Miss Millie. This must’ve cost a lot of money.”

  “It really didn’t,” Millie said, fastening the pin to the collar of Varina’s dress. “Anyway, it’s a gift. And it’s bad manners not to accept a gift from a friend, isn’t it, girls?”

  “It certainly is,” Ruth said solemnly.

  * * *

  It was ten o’clock before she’d worked her way through the mountains of dirty glasses and plates. Finally, Mrs. Dorris took the dishtowel from Varina’s hand.

  “Go on home now, girl. Those fancy waiters can finish up in here once the party’s over.” She fished in the pocket of her apron and handed Varina two crisp dollar bills. “Miss Josephine said this was to be your pay for tonight. I told her that’s way too much, but she insisted.”

  Varina stared down at the dollars. “You sure?”

  “I’m sure,” Mrs. Dorris said. She peered out the back door. “It’s mighty dark out there. Is one of your brothers coming over to walk you home?”

  “No, ma’am,” Varina said, untying her apron. “It’s not that dark. There’s a full moon tonight, and anyway, I could walk to Oyster Bluff with my eyes closed.” She headed for the broom closet, where she changed out of the ugly housedress and back into her own beautiful dress.

  “Girl!” Mrs. Dorris was laughing at her. “You are bound and determined to wear that dress tonight, aren’t you?”

  “It’s the prettiest thing I ever owned,” Varina said.

  “Well, I can’t say I blame you. If I were as young and skinny as you, I guess I’d do the same thing. Just be careful and don’t get nothin’ on it. That’s real silk, you know.”

  * * *

  Varina knew she should have gone right home, but she just wanted to get one more peek at the party before it was all over. She cut around the side of the house and positioned herself at the edge of the veranda behind a tall camellia bush. The french doors were open, and when she poked her head around the camellia, she caught glimpses of ladies in their beautiful party dresses and the men in their stylish white dinner jackets. She closed her eyes and hummed a little of the song the orchestra was playing. Josephine brought a record of the song when she came down from Boston, and she said it was called “Moonlight Serenade.” She and the girls played it all the time in the days before the party, and they’d even shown Varina how to do a dance called the foxtrot.

  At one point, she thought she saw Josephine dance past the doors with a short, stout man with a shock of gray hair, who looked like Mr. Bettendorf. She saw Ruth too, beautiful in a seafoam-green dress with white flowers tucked into her shining red hair.

  Suddenly, a huge man in a white dinner jacket burst through the french doors. He had a woman by the arm, dragging her along like a puppy on a short rope.

  It was Millie! She recognized the dress, and then a moment later, Millie’s voice.

  “Russell, stop. Let go. You’re hurting me.”

  Russell. That was the man Millie was fixing to marry. Josephine said he was richer than King Midas. It looked to Varina like they were fighting.

  They stopped for a moment, just a few feet away. Varina shrank back behind the bush and held her breath, certain they would see her there.

  They were talking now, but their voices were lower, and she couldn’t make out what they were saying. She heard Millie’s soft laugh and relaxed a little.

  Now the man was on the move again, and he was dragging Millie after him. They went a little ways down the walkway, out of sight and earshot. Curious, Varina slipped out from the bush and tiptoed down the walkway, being sure to stay in the shadows.

  The moon was so bright that night, she was afraid she’d be seen, but she darted across the cobblestone walk and crept closer.

  Millie was crying! Varina tensed. She ducked behind a huge ball-shaped bush and craned her neck to try to see.

  The crying was coming from beneath the deep shade of the big old magnolia tree that towered over that part of the garden. Varina could see the white of Russell’s dinner jacket, but not much more.

  “No! Stop it!” Millie cried. It sounded like he was hurting her. Varina took a deep breath. She had to do something to stop that man. She took a step sideways but then heard footsteps coming from the direction of the veranda, and she slunk back to her hiding place.

  Gardiner Bettendorf, Josephine’s big brother, hurried past. Mr. Gardiner had just about quit coming to Talisa, ever since Mrs. Bettendorf died. Josephine said her brother hated to come here because it reminded him of his dead mama, and anyway, he’d been in college and started law school, but now, Josephine said, he had dropped out of that and was getting ready to go to Canada to sign up to be a pilot and bomb the hell out of the Germans.

  “Millie?” Gardiner called.

  Russell said something that Varina couldn’t quite make out, and the next thing she knew, he was right there, standing under the magnolia tree, and things were starting to get ugly.

  Then Millie screamed, and Varina heard bone meeting flesh. Millie screamed again.

  And then it was over. Millie rushed past Varina’s hiding place. Her dress was torn at the bodice, and she was crying so hard she never even saw Varina standing there, wondering what to do.

  Varina knew she should go too, but she just had to see what would happen next. She darted across the walkway and into the shadows on the other side of the walk. As she crept closer, she could hear the familiar sounds of two men fighting, which she knew well, having older brothers who regularly “tussled,” as her daddy called it, sometimes in fun, but mostly out of anger.

  “Uuunhhh,” would be followed by a low groan, then another blow.

  Their voices echoed in the night air, cursing—she knew those words too from her brothers, who mostly did it only when their preacher daddy was not within earshot.

  Finally, Gardiner staggered onto the walkway. In the moonlight, she could see one of his eyes was swollen, his lip and nose bloodied, his white dinner jacket spotted with more blood.

  “Enough!” he shouted. “We’re through here. In the morning, if you’re not on the first boat off this island, my father and I will contact the sheriff, and I’ll tell him exactly what you did to Millie.”

  Russell stepped into the moonlight too. A gash above his eye leaked blood, as did one on his jaw. “Charges? What kind of charges? Millie is my fiancée, and what I do to her or with her is none of your goddamn business.”

  “She’s not your property yet,” Gardiner said, his voice low. “Now, get out of my sight. And I warn you, if you lay hands on her or try to force
yourself on her again that way, I’ll leave the law out of it and take care of you the way people down here handle things.”

  “You don’t have the balls,” Russell taunted.

  Gardiner turned and walked away. Varina shrank back into the shrubbery and watched as he skirted the house and the veranda. She glanced up at the sky. Clouds rolled past and obscured the moon. The temperature had dropped, and the wind had picked up. Rain was coming. She needed to hurry home or her dress and shoes would be ruined. She would have to leave the way Gardiner had gone. But quietly.

  She took a step in that direction, and her shoe landed squarely on a dried twig that snapped loudly.

  “Who’s there?” Russell called.

  Varina scurried back into the boxwood hedge and stepped on another twig.

  The big man was at her side in an instant, reaching through the tangle of underbrush, grabbing her by the arm. Thorns snagged on her silk dress, scratching the bare skin on her arms and legs. Varina clung helplessly to a branch of the shrub, but it broke off in her hand, and a moment later, he’d hauled her onto the walkway.

  “Who are you? Were you spying on us just now?”

  She was so terrified she was unable to speak. He slapped her face so hard she felt her ears ringing.

  “Damn it, girl, who are you?”

  “N-n-nobody,” she stammered. “I didn’t see anything. I was just walking home.”

  “What are you doing up here?” he demanded.

  “I was working at the party,” Varina whispered. “In the kitchen. Mrs. Dorris, she said I could go home, so that’s what I was doing.”

  His eyes narrowed as he looked her over, up and down, the way you’d look at a horse or a mule you were sizing up to buy.

  “Where’d a servant girl get an expensive dress like this?” He ran his hand down her shoulder and over her chest, right over her breast. He flicked the pearl pin with one finger.

  “I know this pin. It belongs to my fiancée. Did you sneak upstairs in the house and steal this pin? And that dress? What else did you steal, girl?”

  At first, Varina was too terrified to speak.

  “Nothin’,” she finally managed. “I didn’t steal nothin’, I swear. Miss Josephine gave me this dress as a present. And Miss Millie gave me the pin.”

  “Liar,” he spat. He pinched her nipple so hard she screamed, and he clamped his hand over her mouth.

  “Millie never gave jewelry to a colored girl. You stole these things. I know you did. That’s why you were hiding out here. Like a thief.”

  Varina couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t speak. Finally, he moved his hand. She exhaled and began sobbing.

  “I’m not a thief. You can ask Miss Josephine. I’m not. I was just going home. I got to get home now. My daddy will be looking for me.”

  “Your daddy will just have to wait,” Russell said. He jerked her arm so hard she thought it would pull from its socket. “You’re coming with me. I think the two of us will have our own private party.”

  15

  Felicia Shaddix leaned in close to Varina. “Now, Auntie, you knew that old lady had cancer. Louette told you. I told you.”

  Varina nodded and dabbed at her eyes with a crochet-edged handkerchief. “Cancer, yes. But nobody said nothin’ about dying.” She looked over at Brooke. “You sure you got that right?”

  “Josephine told me herself.”

  “I should go see her. Take her some of my soup. She always loved my beef consommé. Mrs. Dorris showed me how to make it so that it was clear as could be. You could see the bottom of the bowl,” Varina said. She turned to Felicia. “I used to make that consommé for all you children when you were sick. Remember?”

  “We were your family,” Felicia said coldly. “You took care of all of us, Auntie. And now I’m taking care of you. But Josephine Warrick is not your family. What did she ever give you besides some old clothes she didn’t want anymore?”

  “Josephine is my friend,” Varina said. “She’s got her ways, that’s true. But she is my friend. I told you she would do right by us, didn’t I? And that’s what this lady lawyer is going to see about.” She gave Brooke a warm smile. “Isn’t that right?”

  “Yes,” Brooke said.

  “We’ll see.” Felicia looked around the office at the stained, fraying carpet, secondhand furniture, and single bank of file cabinets. She stared at Brooke’s framed college degrees.

  “Emory Law, huh?”

  “That’s right,” Brooke said.

  “Felicia went to Emory University too,” Varina said proudly. “They gave her a full scholarship. And she graduated first in her class.”

  “Undergrad,” Felicia said. She turned back to Brooke, crossed and recrossed her slender legs. “You know, my aunt asked Josephine, only a few months ago, if she would consider deeding over the land at Oyster Bluff to our family. And Josephine refused. Threw us out. It was really ugly.”

  “So I heard,” Brooke said. “If it’s any consolation, I think she now regrets the way that meeting ended. And that’s why I wanted to talk to your aunt. Josephine has authorized me to start the process of returning the property at Oyster Bluff to the people who live there.”

  “See there?” Varina said. “I knew she’d make things right. Didn’t I tell you?”

  “I’ll believe it when I see it,” Felicia said. “Louette told me the state wants to make Josephine sell them all the rest of Talisa, for the state park. How’s she going to give twenty acres to our people with the state breathing down her neck? How would that work?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Brooke admitted. “I was just hired last week, and I haven’t had time to start my research. I can tell you that Josephine intends to fight the state to prevent them from taking her land. And in the meantime, she’d like to immediately begin the process of deeding over Oyster Bluff to the families who still live there.”

  “About time,” Felicia said. “You know what she paid for my folks’ house over there? Did she tell you? If not, I will. She paid my widowed mother $1,500. For the house and more than an acre of land. I think Louette’s daddy got even less than that when he sold to her.”

  “Now, Felicia, honey,” Varina said gently. “You know as well as I do those houses was in bad shape. Josephine fixed your mama’s house up real nice for her after your daddy passed. And Louette’s daddy, well, he was my cousin, and I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but Gerald was bad to drink and didn’t care nothin’ about patching a leaky roof or painting a porch. That house of his wasn’t fit for chickens by the time he died.”

  Felicia rolled her eyes but didn’t argue with her great-aunt.

  Brooke sighed. “I can’t speak to the fairness of the real estate transactions. It’s my job, now, to get a list of the surviving Oyster Bluff families who sold their land to Josephine. My assistant can do some of that research in the courthouse, but it would be great if you and your aunt could give me names and addresses.”

  “We can do that,” Felicia said. “Right, Auntie?”

  “She’s really gonna give back Oyster Bluff?” Varina said. “All of it? The church too? The graveyard where my mama and daddy and brothers are buried?”

  “Yes,” Brooke said. “All of it.”

  “Praise Jesus,” Varina said. She dabbed at her eyes again and sniffed. “I guess we can go on home now, Felicia.”

  Felicia stood up and helped the old woman from her chair. She looked around the room again. “Auntie, would you like to visit the bathroom before we get on the road back to Jacksonville?”

  “That would be real nice.”

  After she’d helped her aunt into the bathroom and closed the door, Felicia turned back to Brooke with a stern expression.

  “I didn’t want to say anything more in front of my aunt, Ms. Trappnell, because she doesn’t like to ‘fuss,’ as she calls it, but I think it’s best you know who you’re dealing with here. My aunt is an amazing woman. First in her family to finish high school, and then to leave the island to take busines
s classes and work for the railroad. You have no idea what an accomplishment that was in the forties, and in the Jim Crow South. She is the matriarch of this family, and she has been doing for others her whole life. But she still very much suffers from a plantation mentality. She’s grateful for whatever stale crumbs Josephine Warrick throws her way.”

  Felicia crossed her arms over her chest. “But that’s not me. In case you’re interested, after I finished Emory, I got a master’s in American history and a PhD in African American studies at Northwestern, but I’m currently my aunt’s caregiver.”

  “That’s very admirable of you, giving up a career for your great-aunt,” Brooke said.

  “Please don’t patronize me,” Felicia said. “Auntie Vee is the one who did without to buy me a secondhand car to take to college. A month didn’t go by that I didn’t get a card with a little check in it from her. I didn’t give up my career. I’m teaching online classes through the University of North Florida and working on a book proposal. All of this is just to let you know—I don’t intend to let Josephine continue exploiting my aunt or the rest of my family.”

  Brooke was startled by Felicia’s intensity. “I know it’s late in the day, but I honestly do believe Josephine wants to make things right by your aunt and by the others living at Oyster Bluff.”

  “Do you know anything at all about my people? About the Geechee and how long we’ve lived on these coastal islands?” Felicia asked.

  “Only a little,” Brooke admitted. “I know there was a plantation where Shellhaven now stands and that your ancestors were slaves who worked there.”

  “Typical,” Felicia snapped.

  They heard the toilet flush through the thin Sheetrock walls, and a moment later, Varina slowly emerged from the bathroom.

  “All set?” she asked, smiling at her niece.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Felicia said, taking her arm. She looked over at Brooke. “Do you have a business card or something? I’ll make some phone calls after I get her home, and then I’ll email you the names and addresses of the Oyster Bluff folks.”