It is these latter women who have guided her through her most recent trials in her care of Mr. Suggs. When they came to tell her that they were waiving bail and releasing her brother-in-law Lem because all the jails were full, she replied that she was very happy to hear it for she wishes to have him near to care for his needs, hoping only that his time in prison has tempered his violent nature, which he has used so often against her in times past. “Once when he got drunk,” she told them matter-of-factly, “he tried to press hisself on me and I had to fight him off with a skillet, and he said he’d cut me up and have me for dinner. Of course he probably didn’t mean it and things like that don’t happen all the time.” She said that, though he promised to shoot the fire chief and others at the fire station as soon as they let him out of jail, they shouldn’t worry because she has taken the caution to hide his guns and she won’t tell him where they are even if he beats her or tries to strangle her as he has done in the past, so where are the papers, she’ll be glad to sign them. They apologized and said they had decided to delay his release while they looked into his case more closely, and just to make sure she went to see the old sinner and told him she’d done all she could to try to get him set free, even told a few white lies, but there is somebody in the jail who doesn’t like him and is badmouthing him to the authorities and he should find out who it is and stand up for his rights, and she could tell by the expression on his face and the cusswords he used that he would not be coming home for a good while yet. Warrior types are easy pickings for the likes of Jael, Judith, and Bernice.
Mr. Thornton is smarter and wilier than Lem or those police people, so a different approach was necessary when the lawyer presented her with the trust documents. She knows that Mr. Suggs is a very rich man and that there is probably a way to get all that money herself, but she’s not smart enough, and the law is like a secret code she’ll never be able to cipher. So she needed the smooth tongue of a Rebecca or an Esther. She looked up a lot of words and memorized them as best she could, and when he came, she told him that Mr. Suggs could not accept such words as “unlimited” and “esclusive” and “perpintuity” and she took Mr. Thornton into the bedroom to show him that this was so, Mr. Suggs behaving admirably, especially the vigorous way he wagged his finger, though what he was saying was not exactly like her translation. Then they sat down in her front room for a frank discussion. She had dressed that morning like Queen Esther, in a fancy white blouse and a long dark satiny dress laced up the front like boots, with her hair braided and pinned up tightly and parted down the middle, drawing her eyebrows with a very slight frown to suggest a certain royal gravity and a troubled affection, and she could see that she had Mr. Thornton’s respect. She said she understood that, as Mr. Suggs had no known heirs, his wealth was being absorbed into Mr. Thornton’s law company so as not to let the bankers have it all. Maybe that’s the best thing, maybe it isn’t, but it was what was happening and she could accept it. If they wanted her help, however, she had two requests. One was that the trust provide a substantious gift to the Brunist church in the name of Mrs. Clara Collins-Wosznik, as this was probably Mr. Suggs’ own intention and it should be honored. Besides, it will help her persuade Mr. Suggs to give his approval. The other is that to care for Mr. Suggs and in such a way as to be useful to Mr. Thornton’s law company is a very difficult thing and she will need to be properly reinpursed. “I got a mortgage on this house. It’s not very big, you will laugh when I tell you, but with the garage burnt down and Lem in jail I am in rears and I may not be able to pay it. You know how cruel Mr. Cavanaugh is and how he is ruining this town and taking people’s houses away where they have lived all their lives. I don’t speak of myself, but if he took my house, where would Mr. Suggs go then? If Mr. Suggs can pay off that mortgage and cover my expenses as long as he lives, I am sure he will find it in his heart to agree to the trust.” “Is this Mr. Suggs’ request, Mrs. Filbert?” “It is my request, Mr. Thornton.” Mr. Thornton gave her a respectful look as though to acknowledge her wisdom and her courage and her acumen and after a moment he smiled. “Your needs will be met, Mrs. Filbert. The trust will continue to provide you a monthly stipend with enough extra to cover your mortgage payments, and when Mr. Suggs passes away, you will receive a lump sum payment of ten times the amount of the remaining mortgage due. My partners and I are very grateful for your kind and valuable assistance.” This was much more than she expected and she had to clench her jaws not to show her excitement. If Judith had shown her emotions, it would have been she who got her head chopped off, not Holofernes. When Mr. Thornton stood to go, he took her bony hand in his plump one and thanked her again; then he glanced tenderly toward Mr. Suggs’ bedroom and sighed. “The poor dear man. It is a terrible agony he is going through. And for what? It would almost be a mercy if he could peacefully pass on.”
By the time the lights come on again and the phones finally work, Bernice’s account of recent history has taken a more nightmarish turn. For one thing, she has blamed the need for candles on the Baxters’ use of Leviathan to drink up all the power, putting the whole world, and certainly West Condon, at their mercy, and as she is rather proud of this development, she continues to use candles long after it is necessary. The candles, moreover, cast wavery shadows around the bedroom which she characterizes as demonical spirits, pointing them out to Mr. Suggs in a harsh frightened whisper—“Over there! in that corner!”— knowing he can’t bend his neck to look, can only glimpse the flickering light and dark. Sometimes she even frightens herself. She has introduced into the motorcycle gang the oldest Baxter boy, the one with the Mark of the Beast on his forehead whom everybody astigmatizes, and, remembering something that blond boy once said about the Horsemen of the Acropalypse. she has given them all individual motorcycle colors and specific woes and plagues to distribute. What they all did to Clara’s poor daughter has now become a legend of horrific proportions that continues to happen night after night, as if it were some eternal punishment in Hell. She has even brought back the middle Baxter boy, the one who got blown up: “They took his head off but now he’s riding round with that gruesome thing tucked under his arm, still yelping curses out its bloody lips and demanding everbody what to do! I wouldn’t of believed it myself if I hadn’t seen him with my own eyes!” She told how Sheriff Puller was seducted into his car by the naked Baxter girl and handcuffed to the steering wheel and how the biker boys set his car afire, and how they stuffed an innocent boy in the trunk as extra fuel. Mr. Suggs seemed very upset by this story, so when he asked the pointed question if Sheriff Puller was alive or dead, she said he was alive but he was so melted down to his blackened bones you wouldn’t hardly recognize him. She looks into Mr. Suggs’ heavy-lidded eyes, and sometimes she sees seething anger there and sometimes confusion and sometimes even fear. As Holofernes in his drunken stupor might have felt looking up at sober sword-bearing Judith, or Sisera foggily seeing Jael enter with her hammer and tent stakes.