Go Set a Watchman (To Kill a Mockingbird #2)(69)

She had not intended to say it but she could not stop herself.

“I’ve heard that before.”

“Well, I’m telling you now that if you ever want to marry”—was it she who was talking?—“you’d best start looking around. I’ve never been in love with you, but you’ve always known I’ve loved you. I thought we could make a marriage with me loving you on that basis, but—”

“But what?”

“I don’t even love you like that any more. I’ve hurt you but there it is.” Yes, it was she talking, with her customary aplomb, breaking his heart in the drugstore. Well, he’d broken hers.

Henry’s face became blank, reddened, and its scar leaped into prominence. “Jean Louise, you can’t mean what you’re saying.”

“I mean every word of it.”

Hurts, doesn’t it? You’re damn right it hurts. You know how it feels, now.

Henry reached across the table and took her hand. She pulled away. “Don’t you touch me,” she said.

“My darling, what is the matter?”

Matter? I’ll tell you what’s the matter. You won’t be pleased with some of it.

“All right, Hank. It’s simply this: I was at that meeting yesterday. I saw you and Atticus in your glory down there at that table with that—that scum, that dreadful man, and I tell you my stomach turned. Merely the man I was going to marry, merely my own father, merely made me so sick I threw up and haven’t stopped yet! How in the name of God could you? How could you?”

“We have to do a lot of things we don’t want to do, Jean Louise.”

She blazed. “What kind of answer is that? I thought Uncle Jack had finally gone off his rocker but I’m not so sure now!”

“Honey,” said Henry. He moved the sugar bowl to the center of the table and pushed it back again. “Look at it this way. All the Maycomb Citizens’ Council is in this world is—is a protest to the Court, it’s a sort of warning to the Negroes for them not to be in such a hurry, it’s a—”

“—tailor-made audience for any trash who wants to get up and holler nigger. How can you be a party to such a thing, how can you?”

Henry pushed the sugar bowl toward her and brought it back. She took it away from him and banged it down in the corner.

“Jean Louise, as I said before, we have to do—”

“—a lot of things we don’t—”

“—will you let me finish?—we don’t want to do. No, please let me talk. I’m trying to think of something that might show you what I mean … you know the Klan—?”

“Yes I know the Klan.”

“Now hush a minute. A long time ago the Klan was respectable, like the Masons. Almost every man of any prominence was a member, back when Mr. Finch was young. Did you know Mr. Finch joined?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised at anything Mr. Finch ever joined in his life. It figures—”

“Jean Louise, shut up! Mr. Finch has no more use for the Klan than anybody, and didn’t then. You know why he joined? To find out exactly what men in town were behind the masks. What men, what people. He went to one meeting, and that was enough. The Wizard happened to be the Methodist preacher—”

“That’s the kind of company Atticus likes.”

“Shut up, Jean Louise. I’m trying to make you see his motive: all the Klan was then was a political force, there wasn’t any cross-burning, but your daddy did and still does get mighty uncomfortable around folks who cover up their faces. He had to know who he’d be fighting if the time ever came to—he had to find out who they were….”

“So my esteemed father is one of the Invisible Empire.”

“Jean Louise, that was forty years ago—”

“He’s probably the Grand Dragon by now.”

Henry said evenly, “I’m only trying to make you see beyond men’s acts to their motives. A man can appear to be a part of something not-so-good on its face, but don’t take it upon yourself to judge him unless you know his motives as well. A man can be boiling inside, but he knows a mild answer works better than showing his rage. A man can condemn his enemies, but it’s wiser to know them. I said sometimes we have to do—”

Jean Louise said, “Are you saying go along with the crowd and then when the time comes—”