Tammy out of Time Read online

  Miss Renie straightened up, showing a tragic face. She stood with dignity, took a lacy handkerchief from her bosom and wiped her eyes. “I’m not a fool,” she said. “Why pretend? I know they’re no good—my paintings. Now Fernan——”

  “Has he come already?”

  “Last night, but he went off early this morning. I saw him going, not stopping to look at my paintings as he passed. But he will, and oh, they’re horrible botches——” She turned her dark eyes on Tammy. “Did you want something?” she asked with gentleness.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Renie.” She felt weighted and leaden from seeing the inner layers of people. Oh, when she first came to Brenton Hall she had thought them all diverse and devious enough, but she had just been walking on the surface then. Now she began to know so much that it filled her with a sadness and a pity for human beings everywhere. Then she remembered what she had come for. “I don’t know what to say to people, Miss Renie, when they come to drink the ice water.”

  “Invent.” She turned to the mirror and began to powder her nose before the looking glass. “That’s what they’re doing in there, with only a grain of truth to go on. So why can’t you? Take Grandmother Cratcher’s story and add on to it.”

  “You mean I could make up things, or tell one of Grandpa’s old stories?”

  “By all means. Just the thought of hearing one of your grandfather’s tales restores my sanity. Now run back to your place. They’ll be swarming out in a minute.”

  “Thank you, Miss Renie,” Tammy cried, excitement sweeping through her. “I think your paintings are beautiful.” She ran back quickly to the still empty gallery, down the steps.

  Then Ernie came out. “Hi, honey child—whew!” He whistled. “Say, you—jeepers!” He stood speechless, staring down at her.

  “You like me? I’m costumed.”

  “And how! You’re a slick chick if I ever saw one. Who’d have thought—jeepers! I’m knocked for a loop.” He came down the steps, and Tammy, imitating Barbara, made him a curtsy and then filled a cup with ice water for him. “You know what, sugar?” he said.

  “What?”

  “I’d like to see you all diked out in glad rags as of the current season. I tell you what. If—” he bent down and rapped on the table leg—“if this one very special ship of mine comes in, we’ll go to town and I’ll rig you out in the latest. How about it?”

  “You mean—buy me some clothes?”

  “Exactly, little one.”

  “That would be wonderful, Ernie.”

  He set his empty cup down. “Too bad it’s only water, and I’ve got to beat it. Just dashed out to look the scene over. So long.”

  “So long, Ernie,” she said and watched him hurry away toward his car. Maybe if she had fine clothes, like Barbara——Then, turning, she saw the pilgrims coming through the back hall door and Miss Renie there, leading them down the passageway to see the batiks on the wall and her room with the big bed and the harp-shaped mirror and everything.

  Tammy could not keep still because of the excitement that filled her. She walked back and forth and then moved to the foot of the steps, just looking. My, but there was a sight of people coming, all dressed up in hats and flowered dresses, the men with coats and ties and carrying their hats in their hands! They put her in mind of the Pilgrimage boat she saw long ago on the river, when the people looked down and called her quaint. She was quaint, for a fact, now.

  It was a funny thing, she thought all at once, how she was seeing Pilgrimage people again after so long. It made a kind of pattern out of living, as if happenings came back in a loop or a curve to where they’d been before, like the earth going round the sun and the circle of the year. The old grandmother Cratcher had come like this, walking in with her fresh eggs to sell, and she’d married the son of the big house and lived her life like a lady. And now here she was, Tambrey Tyree, come off the river—would that happening be like to happen again? She didn’t know, how could she tell? Especially when there was Barbara in the dining room with a rose-colored dress showing her fair white arms, and cut so low across the front she’d pop out if she wasn’t careful. She likely thought that would entice a man, and likely it would.

  Miss Renie was drawing the crowd after her down the ell porch now, speaking with majesty and elegance, as was fitting. “The timbers here are chestnut, hand-hewn,” she was saying, “and there’s not a nail in the building. These are some of my later paintings. Those down by the kitchen door were done by a little Negro boy on the place, a pupil of mine, whose people have been in the family for generations. His grandmother is there in the kitchen doorway with the red bandanna on her head...the sixth generation to serve as cook. His paintings are most original.”

  The people began coming down the steps now, and Tammy advanced to meet them. She made a little curtsy and said, “Would you care for a drink to cool your throat, ma’am? Would you like to wet your whistle, sir?”

  “Listen to her,” they said, “all in character.”

  “Look at that dress, and the comb.”

  “That’s the real thing.”

  “And barefoot, as I live.”

  They talked her over as if she were one of Miss Renie’s pictures and didn’t have ears to hear. Then they gathered closer round the table, accepting the cups she gave, saying, How lovely the garden is, and cool; saying, Look at the size of the sweet olive trees and smell how sweet they are. Then one of them said, “Could you tell us the history of the dress you have on?”

  “It was made in Virginny,” Tammy said, her tongue loosened all at once. “My mammy sewed it for me with a needle and a fine thread. She made it for the journey acrost the land. She sewed it strong for lasting because it was a far way to come.” She turned to some newcomers and curtsied again. “Would you care for a drink to cool your throat, sir? Would you like to wet your whistle, ma’am?”

  “Tell us some more,” the people said. “Tell us about your journey from Virginia.”

  “It was a far piece.” Tammy ladled out the ice water right and left. “And full of peril. We come awalking with the wagon creaking loud under what worldly goods we had, and the oxen moving slow. We come over the mountings and down by the Trace, Mammy and Pappy and me and one crawling babe that had to be toted, and some odd-size sisters—two or three. That’s how we come.” She stopped to wave to Osia to bring more clean cups and take the used ones away.

  “She’s good, do you know it?” said a redheaded young man with a row of pencils in his left top pocket. He came edging in closer and the man that was with him said, “You might get a feature out of that, Mike. I’ll look around for Fernan while you’re here.” Then he went around toward the front of the house.

  “What happened on the way?” a lady asked, chopping her words in a way that was foreign to Tammy’s ears.

  “A sight of things happened,” Tammy said, “and some of them powerful strange. My pappy was a musical man and he had him a old board fiddle, strung with the hairs from a horse’s tail. He played it with a curving bow, likewise made of the same. It made the varmints peaceable and the wildcats purr. It drawed the birds down out of the trees; they flew along singing before and behind. That was what brought the trouble on us, that was what got us grief.” Tammy broke off as more people came down the steps. “Would you care for a drink to cool your throat, sir?”

  A murmur went roundabout. “Don’t stop. What was the trouble?” they asked. The redheaded man had a notebook out of his pocket and he looked up from what he was writing. “You can’t leave it there. Come on, sister—give.”

  Tammy’s eyes went from one face to another. “You ain’t aweary of listening?”

  “Lord, no!” the redheaded man said. “How could the birds make you trouble?”

  “This is how,” Tammy said, clasping her hands and looking round at the listening crowd. “There was a robber in that country went by a musical name. He played a harp like an angel, and they called him Little Harp. Now he noted the birds was leaving him, the mockingbi
rd and the jay. He observed the loss of the little brown thrush and even the sparrow. And then he was bereft of them all. Only thing left was the buzzards and a mean little peckerwood bird. When it lit out to leave him, he followed it through the swamps. He come to edge of the Trace where all the birds was aroosting, while my pappy slept. It were the middle of the night by then and the campfire burning low.”

  Some new people came round the corner of the house from looking through the garden. They were talking amongst themselves, but the crowd around Tammy hushed them down. “She’s telling a story,” they said. “Be still and listen,” they whispered.

  So Tammy went on, “We lay on the blanket sleeping, Mammy and Pappy and me, and a crawling babe and some odd-size sisters—two or three. Now Pappy had buried his bag of gold in a little dug hole, under his sleeping head, and his horsehair fiddle was lying beside him with a night wind blowing on it, making a ghost of a tune.”

  Tammy stopped and looked around to see how they all were taking it. They were taking it all right. One man was sitting in Grandma’s chair, but not rocking, with his eyes half closed, but not sleeping—the way Miss Renie looked at a picture, his head cocked to one side.

  “Get on with the story, sister,” the redheaded man said.

  Tammy got on with it. “So Little Harp knowed then that the peckerwood had led him aright. He raised his hatchet and brought it down and slew my pappy sleeping, by splitting his head in two. The hatchet went down into the ground and clinked on the bag of gold. That’s how Little Harp stole our treasure, how he stole the fiddle away and left us all aweeping because our pappy was dead. Mammy cut off a lock of my pappy’s hair and she wove it for a keepsake. She made three tears of his fine black hair, all bound with a silver cord, and she worked a year for a Natchez silversmith for fashioning this breastpin I wear. Now ain’t that enough to tell you?”

  She looked round at them, and thought it was a wonder they listened so hard to one of Grandpa’s old tales he was always telling about the old days.

  A talking went through the crowd and a little girl said in a high thin voice, “Is she true? Is she a ghost come back?”

  Everyone laughed, and the white-haired lady in the prim black hat said, “How did you get along when you came to this country?”

  “By the hardest,” Tammy said. “But a rich man up the road a piece, he lent us a cabin made of logs, dirt-floored, and he lent us a scrap of stumpy land, so Mammy made out by nipping and tucking and selling eggs when she had them to spare.”

  “But how did you ever come to live in this fine house?” a young girl in a blue-flowered dress wanted to know.

  “That was the best of all,” Tammy said. “It was nigh on to being a miracle for sure.” She stepped back from the table, her hands clasped together as she saw herself, set back into other years. “I come up the driveway out yonder, with the fresh eggs stowed in my bonnet and my bonnet hanging over my arm. I come singing up the driveway with the live oaks on either hand.”

  “What were you singing?” the little girl asked.

  “I was singing, ‘Black Is the Color of My Truelove’s Hair.’ When I got to the gallery yonder——”

  “Sing it,” somebody said and the other cried, “Sing it—go on, let’s hear how it goes.”

  Tammy moved away, down the walk, to give herself room, then she came toward the ell steps slowly, swinging her bonnet and singing as she came. The people fell back to let her pass. When she came to the iron steps, she mounted them halfway and turned at the close of a line. “That’s how I come asinging up to the great house door. ‘Will you buy fresh eggs this morning?’ I asked of the young man there. He took me by the hand and said, ‘I’ll take the eggs and the bonnet. I’ll take the gown and what’s in it,’ and he kissed me then and there. So he made me into a fine lady and carved this comb for my hair.”

  Of a sudden Tammy stopped short. She saw Pete standing in the garden beside the sweet shrub bush. He must have been hearing her foolishment and her pretending. She felt the color come into her cheeks, thinking how she might have put a notion in his head. But all the folks were still waiting, so she had to make a finish to her talking. “That’s how I come to the great house, and how I lived here till I died.”

  There was a great clapping of hands and talking as she came back to her table and took up the gourd. Then the main body of the crowd moved on through the garden and Pete came and stood by her side.

  “That was like a song. Every word of it,” he said, with wonder in his tone.

  “It’s just an old story Grandpa told me, added onto what Miss Renie said.”

  “Will you do it each day for the pilgrims?”

  “If you want, Pete.” She looked up at him smiling because he seemed so proud and pleased.

  “So your truelove’s hair is black, is it?”

  “Yes.”

  His eyes smiled, but all he said was “I’ve got to get back to the front door now. There’s another bunch coming.”

  Tammy watched him out of sight, then she helped Osia with the cups. Osia said, “I heerd you, Miss Tammy. You got a gift.”

  “Have I, Osia?” She was still in a daze because of the look on Pete’s face. Then she saw the redheaded man coming toward her from the drive.

  “That was a sharp skit all right. How about answering a few questions for me?” he said.

  “I don’t know much,” Tammy said, “but I’ll answer what I can. What manner of thing do you want to know?”

  “Where’d you pick up your material?”

  Tammy shook her head. “I didn’t pick up anything.”

  “Aw, please. Where’d you get your story?”

  “Oh, that. From Grandpa mostly, and what Miss Renie told me about her grandmother.”

  “And the technique?”

  Tammy shook her head.

  “Not talking, eh?” He gave her a curious look. “Are you telling your name? I’ll find out, but if you don’t want me to use it——”

  “Do you mean my real name or——”

  He grinned. “I’d like your stage name, too.”

  “I haven’t but one name. It’s Tambrey Tyree.”

  He looked puzzled so she spelled it for him. “Thanks,” he said. “You a relative of the Brents?”

  “No. Oh, no.”

  “Visiting, for the Pilgrimage?”

  “No. That is, I’m just staying here.”

  “Oh, I see. One of the Pilgrimage roomers, like Fernan.”

  “No. I’m just staying while Grandpa’s in jail.”

  “Jail! Say, what are you giving me, the run-around?”

  “I’m not giving you anything.”

  “Are you telling me! But would you please just answer a few questions for me? After all, I got to make a living.” He grinned at her. “Now, where do you live?”

  “On the Ellen B.”

  His friend came up and stood listening. He helped himself to ice water and watched Tammy over the rim of his cup.

  “What’s the Ellen B.?”

  “It’s a boat.”

  The redheaded man ran his fingers through his hair. “Is this straight?”

  “No,” Tammy said, “you’ve rumpled it all up.”

  He turned to his friend. “Am I baffled! She says she’s staying here while her grandfather’s in jail.” He turned back to Tammy. “Would you mind telling me who your grandfather is?”

  “No.”

  “See—she won’t talk.”

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t talk. I said I wouldn’t mind telling you. My grandfather is John Dinwoodie. Brother Dinwoodie. But some folks call him Old Deadwood on account of his getting the bodies out of the river.”

  The two men looked at each other. “Say, that rings a bell. Was he the man that rescued Pete Brent after the plane crash?”

  “Yes, we done it together. Got him off the log in the night.” Tammy drew a breath of relief because now their questions began to make sense. She told them all about it, and how Grandpa came to be in jail. They
were real interested, she thought, and they thanked her several times.

  “Now if we could just get a few shots——”

  But the other man interrupted. “I got some beauts while the show was on.” Then they thanked her again and went away.

  Tammy thought she would sit and get her breath while waiting for the next group of people to come. She started for Grandma’s rocking chair and saw it was occupied. The same man she had seen earlier was still sitting there. Then Mr. Bissle came down the steps.

  “Congratulations,” he said, beaming. “You ought to go to Hollywood.”

  “Where might that be?”

  “Good Lord, you’re joking! You mean you don’t know?”

  “There’s a sight of things I don’t know, Mr. Bissle.”

  “It’s where they make the movies. All the big actors are out there. It...it’s——” He gave up.

  “Grandpa doesn’t hold with play acting.”

  “Lord!” Mr. Bissle said again. He hiked up his pants and went along the garden path, shaking his head.

  Tammy went to the steps and sat down. For a little while she and the man in Grandma’s rocking chair were the only people in the garden. He sat without moving, his feet on the footrest, a pencil and a small book in his hand. He wore no coat, his shirt was open at the neck and his gray hair was uncombed.

  “Tammy—is that your name?” He called it Tam-mee.

  “Tammy is my name,” she said.

  “Do you mind that I made the sketches?” He tapped the little book in his hand.

  “Sketches?”

  “The small pictures. You permit?”

  “Me? Of me?”

  “Yes.” His small dark eyes watched her, unblinking.

  “Pictures, like Miss Renie makes pictures?”

  “Do you mean those on the wall?”

  “Yes.”

  “Heaven forbid!” A lock of gray hair fell across his forehead as he shook his head.

  Tammy studied him gravely. “You don’t like her pictures?”