Miss Rose would not attend the girl’s funeral, because she was too upset thinking about that girl’s mama crying over her child. She told Belle it was important to keep her wits about her, sure enough, but if Belle ever slipped up with a boy, don’t be sticking nothing up her. And if the home remedies didn’t work, Belle had people. She could come home, and Miss Rose would help her raise her baby. Anything was better than what that poor dead girl had suffered.
*
The night Belle told Geoff she was pregnant, she asked if they could drive to their spot. She felt badly for him. He’d be receiving sober tidings, instead of the loving she knew he was expecting. In the field, he reached for her eagerly, but she pushed at his chest.
“I’ve got some bad news, Geoff.”
He leaned back. “Please don’t tell me you don’t want me anymore, Belle.”
She touched his face. “It’s not that. You’re a nice guy. Real nice—”
“This sounds like you’re about to break up with me—”
“Will you let me say what I need to, honey? Just wait. Just hold on.”
When Belle told him that she was pregnant and he began to weep, she knew that she was on her own. She hadn’t expected chivalry, but at least some offer of support. A monthly stipend for the baby. Something. She was nauseated by the odor of his Old Spice, which only a few weeks ago had driven her crazy with lust, so that she’d wanted to rub herself all over him. While Geoff had been inside her, he’d told her that he loved her. But along with the package of wild carrot seeds and the dried ginger that Miss Rose had given her—her daughter was too forgetful about one and too frightened of the other to use—Miss Rose had told Belle, men would say anything to get underneath somebody’s dress. And God had made men that way, in order to keep the world full.
Geoff wiped his face and told her he was sorry. He hadn’t meant to break down. But he was just so happy. They were going to have a baby, and then he asked her to marry him. She thought it was a joke, but he grabbed her, kissing her and rubbing her stomach. They should get married right away, he said. Tomorrow, even, and Belle lay against the seat. She should have felt relieved, but she was frightened. It was one thing to hug up and kiss with a boy you didn’t know, but marriage was a lifelong pact. Her family didn’t play, when it came to matrimony. Once she and Geoff married, something seriously bad would have to happen for them to accept Belle leaving him.
In a few days, she walked to the faculty building to see her great-uncle. She shut the office door but didn’t sit down.
“Uncle Root, I’m going to tell you something. Please don’t be mad.”
In the roller chair, he twisted his knees back and forth. “Beloved, I could never be angry with you.”
“I’m expecting a baby, and I won’t be going to Columbia. I’m so sorry.”
“All right, but who might be responsible? And is this situation voluntary?” He extended a surprisingly strong hand. His manner was refined, but his relatives knew the truth. If pushed, he could be a very dangerous man: Roscoe hadn’t been the only one with a temper.
“The boy I went to the formal with, and no, sir, he didn’t force me.”
“That is very good, Maybelle Lee. Anything else?”
“Can you go with us to tell the folks? Geoff wants to get married.”
“At least he’s honorable. I’m sure you’re happy about that.”
“No, I’m not, but I made my bed.”
He snorted. “I guess you did, but I won’t ask where you made it.”
“Uncle Root!”
He told her, don’t be shocked. He’d once been young. He’d enjoyed that time thoroughly, and she should do the same. Old age was coming faster than she knew, and that weekend, he drove the young couple to Chicasetta and stood beside them in her parents’ front room. At the house, Belle told her brother Norman, go somewhere. Leave, because she didn’t want any trouble. It would be bad enough with their parents and the grandmother.
She had made sure her fiancé had gone to the bathroom before they left—twice—and she forbade him to drink anything before the drive. She didn’t want him to have to visit her parents’ outhouse, not before they got married, because he might change his mind. She had counseled her fiancé not to beat around the blackberry bush, either. Just come on out with the news. Belle made like it was a tradition, a man asking for her hand, but she was scared of her parents, grandmother, and even Pauline, though she was the same age as Belle. If need be, Belle would put the blame on her fiancé, that he had cajoled her to leave her morality aside. She wasn’t above saving herself.