An Acquaintance with Darkness - Ann Rinaldi [7]
"Horse racing on E Street!" he said. "Within a stone's throw from the Congressional cemetery! Have people no respect?"
"Whose funeral were you attending?" Mama asked.
"Nobody's funeral." He stepped into the parlor. "Haven't I a right to go to the cemetery and visit the grave of an old friend?"
"What old friend?" Mama asked.
"Does it matter?" He handed me a package. "For the flower of H Street," he said. Then he kissed me. "Hello, Emily, how are you, dear? How is school?"
"Fine." He liked me. I was not a coquette, he said, like most Southern girls. I did not bat my eyelashes and pretend helplessness. Who did I have to bat my eyelashes at? How could I pretend helplessness? I'd been Mama's mainstay.
Before we moved to Washington I didn't really know him. Since moving here I knew him only from his visits to Mama, which always had undercurrents of arguments. It came out in one of those discussions that it was through him that I'd been accepted into the fancy Miss Winefred Martin's. You had to have family connections to get into the school. Uncle Valentine knew the headmistress, Miss Martin herself, from when he'd been young. And had cleared the way for my acceptance.
Many times he wanted to take me somewhere: to the opera, to the Baptist church on Tenth Street to hear Adeline Patti make her Washington debut, to the National Theater, to Harvey's for oysters. Mama would never let me go. "He wants to steal you away from me," she'd say. "He has no children of his own. He has always envied me you."
"Are you keeping up with your lessons?" Uncle Valentine asked.
"Yes, sir." He had made arrangements with my school so that I could study at home for a few days, since Mama was failing. He'd spoken to Miss Martin about it. "But I'm no flower, Uncle Valentine," I said.
"You're a flower about to bloom. You're just waiting for the right time."
My daddy would have said that. I missed my daddy. That was part of why I liked Uncle Valentine. I needed to hear things like this from a man I could look up to. But I liked him, too, because he kept coming to see Mama, in spite of her insults. And because he was debonair. He had a flair about him that bespoke a man of the world. He was an important surgeon in Washington. He had led the fight to get the offal cleaned from the streets to prevent disease. He knew influential people. Young medical students considered themselves lucky to get into his classes. Everyone respected him. Everyone but Mama.
He loved baseball almost as much as he loved Abraham Lincoln.
"They're the same," he'd say. "In baseball, three strikes and you're out. Lincoln's had his two strikes already, his crazy wife and his bad generals. All he needs is one more and he's out."
He would not conjecture what the one more was.
"How are you, Mary Louise?" He stood in front of Mama, bowed, took her hand, and kissed it. Then he held on to the hand.
"Don't take my pulse, Valentine," Mama said. "I have my own doctor."
He released her hand and sat down. I brought him his usual glass of wine. He sipped it and regarded Mama. "Has Dr. Dent been around?"
"Last week."
"Does he have you on the same medicine?"
"Yes."
"It's not doing you much good, Mary Louise."
"I'm much better," Mama insisted. "I'm up and around today and feeling much better."
"Your eyes are too bright. Your face is feverish."
"She's run out of medicine," I blurted out.
"Emily!" Mama chided.
But I didn't care. "I've sent a note around to Thompson's for more," I said. "A man is bringing it this afternoon."
Uncle Valentine slipped a hand into his pocket, withdrew his billfold, and put some money on a small table.
"We don't need that," Mama said quickly.
"Don't be foolish, Mary Louise."
"We have money, Uncle Valentine," I said. We didn't; I did. But neither Mama nor he knew it. Mama's pride wouldn't let her deny it, of course. "And anyway," I added, "Thompson's won't charge us."
"Not charge you?" He scoffed. "Thompson's charges everybody