Go Set a Watchman
Page 19

“I’m getting old,” she said.
They smoked in silence. Henry put his arm under her neck and occasionally turned and kissed her. She looked at the sky. “You can almost reach up and touch it, it’s so low.”
Henry said, “Were you serious a minute ago when you said you didn’t like your world disturbed?”
“Hm?” She did not know. She supposed she was. She tried to explain: “It’s just that every time I’ve come home for the past five years—before that, even. From college—something’s changed a little more …”
“—and you’re not sure you like it, eh?” Henry was grinning in the moonlight and she could see him.
She sat up. “I don’t know if I can tell you, honey. When you live in New York, you often have the feeling that New York’s not the world. I mean this: every time I come home, I feel like I’m coming back to the world, and when I leave Maycomb it’s like leaving the world. It’s silly. I can’t explain it, and what makes it sillier is that I’d go stark raving living in Maycomb.”
Henry said, “You wouldn’t, you know. I don’t mean to press you for an answer—don’t move—but you’ve got to make up your mind to one thing, Jean Louise. You’re gonna see change, you’re gonna see Maycomb change its face completely in our lifetime. Your trouble, now, you want to have your cake and eat it: you want to stop the clock, but you can’t. Sooner or later you’ll have to decide whether it’s Maycomb or New York.”
He so nearly understood. I’ll marry you, Hank, if you bring me to live here at the Landing. I’ll swap New York for this place but not for Maycomb.
She looked out at the river. The Maycomb County side was high bluffs; Abbott County was flat. When it rained the river overflowed and one could row a boat over cotton fields. She looked upstream. The Canoe Fight was up there, she thought. Sam Dale fit the Indians and Red Eagle jumped off the bluff.
And then he thinks he knows
The hills where his life rose,
And the Sea where it goes.
“Did you say something?” said Henry.
“Nothing. Just being romantic,” she said. “By the way, Aunty doesn’t approve of you.”
“I’ve known that all my life. Do you?”
“Yep.”
“Then marry me.”
“Make me an offer.”
Henry got up and sat beside her. They dangled their feet over the edge of the landing. “Where are my shoes?” she said suddenly.
“Back by the car where you kicked ’em off. Jean Louise, I can support us both now. I can keep us well in a few years if things keep on booming. The South’s the land of opportunity now. There’s enough money right here in Maycomb County to sink a—how would you like to have a husband in the legislature?”
Jean Louise was surprised. “You running?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Against the machine?”
“Yep. It’s about ready to fall of its own weight, and if I get in on the ground floor …”
“Decent government in Maycomb County’d be such a shock I don’t think the citizens could stand it,” she said. “What does Atticus think?”
“He thinks the time is ripe.”
“You won’t have it as easy as he did.” Her father, after making his initial campaign, served in the state legislature for as long as he wished, without opposition. He was unique in the history of the county: no machines opposed Atticus Finch, no machines supported him, and no one ran against him. After he retired, the machine gobbled up the one independent office left.
“No, but I can give ’em a run for their money. The Courthouse Crowd are pretty well asleep at the switch now, and a hard campaign might just beat ’em.”
“Baby, you won’t have a helpmate,” she said. “Politics bores me to distraction.”
“Anyway, you won’t campaign against me. That’s a relief in itself.”
“A rising young man, aren’t you? Why didn’t you tell me you were Man of the Year?”
“I was afraid you’d laugh,” Henry said.
“Laugh at you, Hank?”
“Yeah. You seem to be half laughing at me all the time.”
What could she say? How many times had she hurt his feelings? She said, “You know I’ve never been exactly tactful, but I swear to God I’ve never laughed at you, Hank. In my heart I haven’t.”
She took his head in her arms. She could feel his crew cut under her chin; it was like black velvet. Henry, kissing her, drew her down to him on the floor of the landing.
Some time later, Jean Louise broke it up: “We’d better be going, Hank.”
“Not yet.”
“Yes.”
Hank said wearily, “The thing I hate most about this place is you always have to climb back up.”
“I have a friend in New York who always runs up stairs a mile a minute. Says it keeps him from getting out of breath. Why don’t you try it?”
“He your boyfriend?”
“Don’t be silly,” she said.
“You’ve said that once today.”
“Go to hell, then,” she said.
“You’ve said that once today.”
Jean Louise put her hands on her hips. “How would you like to go swimming with your clothes on? I haven’t said that once today. Right now I’d just as soon push you in as look at you.”