Go Set a Watchman (To Kill a Mockingbird #2)(24)

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.”

“You know, I think you’d do it.”

“I’d just as soon,” she nodded.

Henry grabbed her shoulder. “If I go you go with me.”

“I’ll make one concession,” she said. “You have until five to empty your pockets.”

“This is insane, Jean Louise,” he said, pulling out money, keys, billfold, cigarettes. He stepped out of his loafers.