Jacob Have I Loved

She gave me her look which indicated that once again I had lost all sense of proportion. “Oh, Wheeze” was all she said.

It was up to Call to stop her. He would, I was sure—he and his tight little sense of propriety. But once she’d explained to him what a marriage “in name only” consisted of, he blushed and said, “Why not?”

Why not? I followed them to Auntie Braxton’s house like a beaten hunting pup. Why not? Because, I yearned to say, people aren’t animals. Because it is none of our business. Because, oh, my blessed, I love him and cannot bear the thought of losing him to a crazy old woman, even in name only.

The Captain was making tea and cooking potatoes for his supper when we arrived. He was uncommonly cheerful for a man who was about to be cast out on his ear for the second time straight. He offered to share his supper, but there was hardly enough for one person, so we all politely refused, insisting that he go ahead—at least, Caroline and Call were insisting. I was sitting tight-lipped on the other side of the room, but when Caroline and Call started to sit down at the kitchen table with him I dragged myself across the living room and dumped myself into the empty chair. As little as I wanted to be a part of the coming scene, I didn’t want to be left out of it either.

Caroline waited until he had generously salted and peppered his potatoes, then she laid her elbows on the table and propelled herself a bit closer to it and thus to him. “We heard that Auntie Braxton is going to be back in a couple of days,” she said.

“That’s right,” he said, taking a large bite of potato.

“We’ve been worried about where you’re going to live.”

He raised his hand to stop her talking and held it there until he had chewed and swallowed the bite. “I know what you’re going to say, and I thank you, but I just can’t.”

See? See? I was smiling inside and out.

Caroline was not. “How do you know what I’m going to say?”

“You’re going to ask me back to your house—and I’m grateful, but you know I can’t come in on you again.”

Caroline laughed. “Oh, I’ve got a much better idea than that.”

All my smiles had dried up.

“Have you now, Miss Caroline?” He was spearing another piece of potato with his fork.

“I sure do.” She leaned toward him with the kind of smile you see a woman give a man when she’s got something more than politeness on her mind. “I’m proposing that you marry Miss Trudy Braxton.”

“Marry?” he asked, putting down his fork and staring wide-eyed into her face. “You’re suggesting that Trudy and I get married?”

“Don’t worry,” Call began earnestly, “you wouldn’t have to—” at which point my bare heel slammed down on his bare toes. He stopped talking to give me a look of hurt surprise.

Caroline ignored us both. “Think of it this way,” she said in her most sophisticated tone of voice. “She needs someone to take care of her and her house, and you need a house to live in. It would be a marriage of convenience.” I noticed she didn’t say “in name only.” At least she had a whiff of delicacy.

“I be damned,” he said under his breath, looking from one face to another. I pretended to study a torn cuticle to miss his scrutiny. “You kids do beat the limit. Who would have ever thought?”

“Once you get used to the idea, it’ll make a lot of sense to you,” Caroline said. “It’s not,” she added quickly, “that you couldn’t find someplace else. Plenty of folks would take you in. But no one else needs you. Not like Auntie Braxton.” She turned to me, then to Call for support.

By now I was biting away at the offending cuticle, but out of the corner of my eye I could see Call nodding his head vigorously, pumping up for a big affirmative statement. “It’ll make sense,” he repeated Caroline’s theme. “It’ll make plenty of sense, once you get used to it.”

“It will, will it?” The Captain was shaking his head and grinning. “You sound like my poor old mother.” Eventually he picked up his fork and, using one side of it, thoughtfully scraped the pepper off one of the potatoes. “People,” he said at last, no shadow of a grin remaining, “people would say I did it for the money.”

“What money?” Caroline asked.

“Nobody but you ever heard tell of no money,” Call said. “Me and Wheeze are the only ones you told. And now Caroline.”

“I wouldn’t take a cent of her money, you know.”

“Of course you wouldn’t,” Caroline said. What did she know?

“There probably isn’t any,” I said huffily. “We cleaned good and we never saw any.”

He smiled appreciatively at me as though I had helped him. “Well,” he said grinning. “It’s a crazy idea.” Something about the way he said it made me feel cold all over.

“You’re going to think about it,” Caroline said, rather than asked.

He shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “No harm thinking crazy.”