Sanctuary

Horace went up to Miss Jenny’s room. His sister had not appeared. “He wont talk,” Horace said. “He just says they will have to prove he did it. He said they had nothing on him, no more than on the child. He wouldn’t even consider bond, if he could have got it. He says he is better off in the jail. And I suppose he is. His business out there is finished now, even if the sheriff hadn’t found his kettles and destroyed—”

“Kettles?”

“His still. After he surrendered, they hunted around until they found the still. They knew what he was doing, but they waited until he was down. Then they all jumped on him. The good customers, that had been buying whiskey from him and drinking all that he would give them free and maybe trying to make love to his wife behind his back. You should hear them down town. This morning the Baptist minister took him for a text. Not only as a murderer, but as an adulterer; a polluter of the free Democratico-Protestant atmosphere of Yoknapatawpha county. I gathered that his idea was that Goodwin and the woman should both be burned as a sole example to that child; the child to be reared and taught the English language for the sole end of being taught that it was begot in sin by two people who suffered by fire for having begot it. Good God, can a man, a civilized man, seriously.……”

“They’re just Baptists,” Miss Jenny said. “What about the money?”

“He had a little, almost a hundred and sixty dollars. It was buried in a can in the barn. They let him dig that up. ‘That’ll keep her’ he says ‘until it’s over. Then we’ll clear out. We’ve been intending to for a good while. If I’d listened to her, we’d have been gone already. You’ve been a good girl’ he says. She was sitting on the cot beside him, holding the baby, and he took her chin in his hand and shook her head a little.”

“It’s a good thing Narcissa aint going to be on that jury,” Miss Jenny said.

“Yes. But the fool wont even let me mention that that gorilla was ever on the place. He said ‘They cant prove anything on me. I’ve been in a jam before. Everybody that knows anything about me knows that I wouldn’t hurt a feeb.’ But that wasn’t the reason he doesn’t want it told about that thug. And he knew I knew it wasn’t, because he kept on talking, sitting there in his overalls, rolling his cigarettes with the sack hanging in his teeth. ‘I’ll just stay here until it blows over. I’ll be better off here; cant do anything outside, anyway. And this will keep her, with maybe something over for you until you’re better paid.’

“But I knew what he was thinking. ‘I didn’t know you were a coward’ I said.

“ ‘You do like I say’ he said. ‘I’ll be all right here’. But he doesn’t.……” He sat forward, rubbing his hands slowly. “He doesn’t realise.…… Dammit, say what you want to, but there’s a corruption about even looking upon evil, even by accident; you cannot haggle, traffic, with putrefaction—You’ve seen how Narcissa, just hearing about it, how it’s made her restless and suspicious. I thought I had come back here of my own accord, but now I see that—Do you suppose she thought I was bringing that woman into the house at night, or something like that?”

“I did too, at first,” Miss Jenny said. “But I reckon now she’s learned that you’ll work harder for whatever reason you think you have, than for anything anybody could offer you or give you.”

“You mean, she’d let me think they never had any money, when she—”

“Why not? Aint you doing all right without it?”

Narcissa entered.

“We were just talking about murder and crime,” Miss Jenny said.

“I hope you’re through, then,” Narcissa said. She did not sit down.

“Narcissa has her sorrows too,” Miss Jenny said. “Dont you, Narcissa?”

“What now?” Horace said. “She hasn’t caught Bory with alcohol on his breath, has she?”

“She’s been jilted. Her beau’s gone and left her.”

“You’re such a fool,” Narcissa said.

“Yes, sir,” Miss Jenny said, “Gowan Stevens has thrown her down. He didn’t even come back from that Oxford dance to say goodbye. He just wrote her a letter.” She began to search about her in the chair. “And now I flinch everytime the doorbell rings, thinking that his mother—”

“Miss Jenny,” Narcissa said, “you give me my letter.”

“Wait,” Miss Jenny said, “here it is. Now, what do you think of that for a delicate operation on the human heart without anaesthetic? I’m beginning to believe all this I hear, about how young folks learn all the things in order to get married, that we had to get married in order to learn.”

Horace took the single sheet.

Narcissa my dear

This has no heading. I wish it could have no date. But if my heart were as blank as this page, this would not be necessary at all. I will not see you again. I cannot write it, for I have gone through with an experience which I cannot face. I have but one rift in the darkness, that is that I have injured no one save myself by my folly, and that the extent of that folly you will never learn. I need not say that the hope that you never learn it is the sole reason why I will not see you again. Think as well of me as you can. I wish I had the right to say, if you learn of my folly think not the less of me.

G.

Horace read the note, the single sheet. He held it between his hands. He did not say anything for a while.

“Good Lord,” Horace said. “Someone mistook him for a Mississippi man on the dance floor.”

“I think, if I were you—” Narcissa said. After a moment she said: “How much longer is this going to last, Horace?”

“Not any longer than I can help. If you know of any way in which I can get him out of that jail by tomorrow. …”

“There’s only one way,” she said. She looked at him a moment. Then she turned toward the door. “Which way did Bory go? Dinner’ll be ready soon.” She went out.

“And you know what that way is,” Miss Jenny said. “If you aint got any backbone.”