Are You Haunted (part twenty-seven)

Are You Haunted

(part twenty-seven)

Facing the ruin, he saw only the barbed upper tier of the fence, and a tin-hatted silo patchy with rust, the water tower.

“He was Lettie’s nephew, born the year she died. His father was Davis as well. Papa Drybrook died just after Lettie, haunted to it.” Isobel gave a wry look. “I am not foisting a ghost upon you, Powell. My own wish is all, when I say haunted. Davis built the business up, won a tenting contract for the army, bought the New London mill. The Mrs. Drybrook you’ve met was his wife. She had got Papa to make an endowment in Lettie’s name, for the training of poor girls. Emmaline Tovey was a poor girl. And she was given a seat in Davis Senior’s office, alone with him, taking his letters. Emmaline was Dennis’s mother.”

Isobel took two strides uphill, catching Powel’s hand on the way. “Oh, but wait. We can’t go without bringing a load. I’ll get the ice chest.”

“You can’t carry it.”

She shook her head, not bothering to answer. At the car she said, “It’s a chore for me. I was asking myself why say a word? I’d rather not, by far.”

The chest was at her feet, blocked behind her knees. She worked bobby pins loose and looked inside her hat. “I might have had a cig for Dennis. I can’t smoke anymore, can’t live my life needing money that way. You’ve seen how he’s always cadging.”

Powell made a second grab for the chest. Something disgusted her; he was sorry if he did.

“What else about these horrid people? Young Davis joined a Student Workers’ Party, married a girl, a Portuguese girl, a mass wedding ceremony for citizenship. Later…he was at Princeton…they expelled him for burning Capitalism in effigy in front of the president’s house. He was twenty-two, had been home months, and his parents had got rid of the girl. I don’t know when Emmaline came into it. She was nothing to the Drybrooks, they would not have invited her to meet their son. Their son would not have gone to the mill on any pretext.”

“Alone taking letters,” Powell ventured.

“It was not the first pregnancy. The abortion didn’t even ruin her, inside, so she could never have more. Davis Senior and his son found mutual terms. God, what else?”

“I don’t need it.”

“You do. Davis spent ten years doing jobs for the Communists in Chicago. In 1930, at the wheel of a new car…” She patted the Whippet’s fender. “He brought his wife and Dennis back. Davis Senior was driven by a mill hand when he’d wanted to come and go…it was another winter storm that killed the driver and left Davis in his chair. Mrs. Drybrook leant on Emmaline to take up the nursing. She was not at all ignorant, she thought it would matter to Emmaline what the town thought, or that Emmaline would be grateful for the largess. If you’re not going to be in school, Mrs. Drybrook said to Dennis one day, you may sit with your grandfather and read to him. And Dennis emptied Mrs. Drybrook’s purse, and walked off. At fifteen.”

27

Haunted
Are You Haunted (part twenty-eight)

(2019, Stephanie Foster)