Eudora Welty - The Optimists Daughter

1

A NURSE held the door open for them. Judge McKelva going first, then his daughter Laurel, then his wife Fay, they walked into the windowless room where the doctor would make his examination. Judge McKelva was a tall, heavy man of seventy-one who customarily wore his glasses on a ribbon. Holding them in his hand now, he sat on the raised, thronelike chair above the doctors stool, flanked by Laurel on one side and Fay on the other.

Laurel McKelva Hand was a slender, quiet-faced woman in her middle forties, her hair still dark. She wore clothes of an interesting cut and texture, although her suit was wintry for New Orleans and had a wrinkle down the skirt. Her dark blue eyes looked sleepless.

Fay, small and pale in her dress with the gold buttons, was tapping her sandaled foot.

It was a Monday morning of early March. New Orleans was out-of-town for all of them.

Dr. Courtland, on the dot, crossed the room in long steps and shook hands with Judge McKelva and Laurel. He had to be introduced to Fay, who had been married to Judge McKelva for only a year and a half. Then the doctor was on the stool, with his heels hung over the rung. He lifted his face in appreciative attention: as though it were he who had waited in New Orleans for Judge McKelvain order to give the Judge a present, or for the Judge to bring him one.

Nate, Laurels father was saying, the trouble may be Im not as young as I used to be. But Im ready to believe its something wrong with my eyes.

As though he had all the time in the world, Dr. Courtland, the well-known eye specialist, folded his big country hands with the fingers that had always looked, to Laurel, as if their mere touch on the crystal of a watch would convey to their skin exactly what time it was.

I date this little disturbance from George Washingtons Birthday, Judge McKelva said.

Dr. Courtland nodded, as though that were a good day for it. Tell me about the little disturbance, he said.

Id come in. Id done a little rose pruningIve retired, you know. And I stood at the end of my front porch there, with an eye on the streetFay had slipped out somewhere, said Judge McKelva, and bent on her his benign smile that looked so much like a scowl.

I was only uptown in the beauty parlor, letting Myrtis roll up my hair, said Fay.

And I saw the fig tree, said Judge McKelva. The fig tree! Giving off flashes from those old bird-frighteners Becky saw fit to tie on it years back!

Both men smiled. They were of two generations but the same place. Becky was Laurels mother. Those little homemade reflectors, rounds of tin, did not halfway keep the birds from the figs in July.

Nate, you remember as well as I do, that tree stands between my backyard and where your mother used to keep her cowshed. But it flashed at me when I was peering off in the direction of the Courthouse, Judge McKelva went on. So I was forced into the conclusion Id started seeing behind me.

Fay laugheda single, high note, as derisive as a jays.

Yes, thats disturbing. Dr. Courtland rolled forward on his stool. Lets just have a good look.

I looked. I couldnt see anything had got in it, said Fay. One of those briars might have given you a scratch, hon, but it didnt leave a thorn.

Of course, my memory had slipped. Becky would say it served me right. Before blooming is the wrong time to prune a climber, Judge McKelva went on in the same confidential way; the doctors face was very near to his. But Beckys Climber Ive found will hardly take a setback.

Hardly, the doctor murmured. I believe my sister still grows one now from a cutting of Miss Beckys Climber. His face, however, went very still as he leaned over to put out the lights.

Its dark! Fay gave a little cry. Why did he have to go back there anyway and get mixed up in those brambles? Because I was out of the house a minute?

Because George Washingtons Birthday is the time-honored day to prune roses back home, said the Doctors amicable voice. You shouldve asked Adele to step over and prune em for you.

Oh, she offered, said Judge McKelva, and dismissed her case with the slightest move of the hand. I think by this point I ought to be about able to get the hang of it.

Laurel had watched him prune. Holding the shears in both hands, he performed a sort of weighty saraband, with a lop for this side, then a lop for the other side, as though he were bowing to his partner, and left the bush looking like a puzzle.

Youve had further disturbances since, Judge Mac?

Oh, a dimness. Nothing to call my attention to it like that first disturbance.

So why not leave it to Nature? Fay said. Thats what I keep on telling him.

Laurel had only just now got here from the airport; she had come on a night flight from Chicago. The meeting had been unexpected, arranged over longdistance yesterday evening. Her father, in the old home in Mount Salus, Mississippi, took pleasure in telephoning instead of writing, but this had been a curiously reticent conversation on his side. At the very last, hed said, By the way, Laurel, Ive been getting a little interference with my seeing, lately. I just might give Nate Courtland a chance to see what he can find. Hed added, Fay says shell come along and do some shopping.

His admission of self-concern was as new as anything wrong with his health, and Laurel had come flying.

The excruciatingly small, brilliant eye of the instrument hung still between Judge McKelvas set face and the Doctors hidden one.

Eventually the ceiling lights blazed on again, and Dr. Courtland stood, studying Judge McKelva, who studied him back.

I thought I was bringing you a little something to keep you busy, Judge McKelva said in the cooperating voice in which, before he retired from the bench, he used to hand down a sentence.

Your right retinas slipped, Judge Mac, Dr. Courtland said.

All right, you can fix that, said Laurels father.