"Blackwater - 06 - Rain" - читать интересную книгу автора (McDowell Michael)

Billy glanced at Oscar, then at Miriam, and said, "Ask me, sure. I won't get mad."
"I'll ask both of you, then," said Oscar, then hesitated. Zaddie stood in the doorway, stacks of dishes piled high in both hands.
"Get on, Mr. Oscar," Zaddie said, " 'fore I break every one of these plates."
"We've been wondering..."
"Who's been wondering?" asked Miriam.
"All of us," blurted Malcolm, and blushed.
"Wondering what?" said Billy. Х
"Wondering if the two of you were planning on running off and getting married."
Billy and Miriam looked at each other in amazement.
"Y'all have been sitting around the house thinking about that?" said Miriam after a few moments of stunned silence.
"Miriam and me?" croaked Billy.
"Sister said it," cried Queenie.
"Sister," said Miriam sharply, "has forgotten that 20
there is another world down at the other end of that hallway."
"Then you're not?" asked Lilah.
"Of course not," said Miriam. "That's the biggest piece of foolishness I have ever heard. Why on earth would I want to marry Billy?"
"Well, you're together all the time," said Queenie. "And Billy's lonely and sad without Frances. You're always making trips together anyway, so you might as well be married. Billy wouldn't marry anybody except a Caskey, and you wouldn't take the trouble to go after some man that was a stranger to you."
"Those are Sister's ideas," said Elinor.
"Well, they are completely wrong," said Miriam. "I cain't speak for BillyЧ"
"Yes, you can," said Billy quickly.
"Чbut we have never even thought of getting married, and we're not about to get married now."
"I miss Frances," said Billy, "but I've got Lilah here to keep me company. I don't need another wife. And I wouldn't think of bringing some woman here y'all didn't know anything about."
"Wouldn't have her anyway," snapped Elinor.
"I know that," said Billy, "and I'm not about to give y'all up just to have somebody to keep my feet warm at night."
So yet another of Sister's analyses was shattered, and the family was relieved. They weren't even quite sure why they were relieved, but they were. Zaddie took the dishes out, brought coffee, more plates, more forks, and then came in with a blackberry pie that was hot out of the oven; there was peach ice cream on the side.
Elinor poured coffee and passed it around. They talked of other things now, but Miriam was still and silent. She turned her cup around and around in its saucer and looked moodily about the room. Finally, when the conversation flagged for a moment, she glanced up and remarked, "Besides, you know, Billy and I couldn't get married."
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"Why not?" said Queenie, whose most fervent purpose in life was to keep conversations going. "Because Frances hasn't been declared legally dead yet?"
"No," said Miriam. "Because I'm already engaged."
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CHAPTER 73
Put It Off
Miriam looked around the table. "Well," she said after a moment, "isn't anybody going to bother to ask me who it is? I don't go off and get married every day, you know."
Everyone at the table was dumbfounded. If it wasn't Billy, then who on earth was Miriam going to wed?
"Who?" said Queenie at last. "Miriam, we are so happy for you, whoever it is, but..."
"But what?" said Miriam.
"But we had no idea," said Oscar.
Miriam shrugged. "Neither did I. I just decided. This minute. Y'all want me to get married so bad, guess I'll have to get married."
"Have you told the man?" asked Elinor.
"Not yet," said Miriam. "Maybe I ought to do that right now." She looked directly across the table at Malcolm, who had been silent and wide-eyed through all this, and said, "Malcolm, I accept your proposal." Then she turned her gaze first to Queenie on one side of Malcolm, and then to Elinor at the head of the table. "Which one of y'all wants to arrange the wedding?"
Queenie grabbed her son's arm beneath the tablecloth. "Malcolm!" she hissed. "What in the world do you mean by asking Miriam to marry you?"
"He is marrying me for my money, Queenie," said Miriam, unperturbed. "And because I tell him what to do. And 'cause he loves me, I guess. Malcolm needs
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somebody to keep him in line, and you're not always gone be around. You're an old woman, Queenie."
"I know that," returned Queenie. "But why are you accepting?"
"Because I probably should get married," said Miriam. "And because Malcolm is right here asking, and because y'all know that I am not about to put up with somebody who's gone cause me one ounce of trouble. And Malcolm," Miriam went on, eyeing her new fiance across the table, "you are gone continue to do just what I tell you to, aren't you?"
"Yes, ma'am," said Malcolm with a somewhat overenthusiastic grin. "Mama, you are pinching me!"
Queenie let go of her son's arm.
"Queenie and I will take care of the wedding together," Elinor announced gravely. "Miriam, I think you've made a wise choice. We don't need any outsiders in this family." As she said this, she placed her hand gently over Billy Bronze's at her side, as if to reassure him that she did not think of him in that light.
Lilah, who sat next to her father on the other side, looked up at him and whispered, "Daddy, are you disappointed?" She didn't mean for anyone else at the table to hear her question, but they all did.