“I calculate Buck Lemmon seen Sophie a sight before that husking bee,” Stacey said flatly.
“Whate’er you mean?” Lily was giggling.
“I ain’t saying,” Stacey smiled. “But you e’er see such a funny-looking girl as Sophie? I marvel at her catching a fine fellow like Buck. I can see she’s wearing stays and binding herself so it won’t show. Guess she allows she’ll fool somebody that way. Buck told me himself she’s been to see Doc Trumbo. Lazy old sow.”
“There’s the milk truck.” Ellen turned to flee. Lily was kissing her extravagantly at the door while Stacey waved a hand and renewed her wad of snuff. Ellen hailed the truck. “Can I hitch a ride to New Hope, Mester Durley?”
“Sure thing, Miss Gaddy.” Those were his last words until they reached the New Hope station.
“I’m beholden, Mester Durley,” she said as she was taking her bag.
“Sure thing.”
In her valise was the plaster of Paris image of the Virgin Mary, and Ellen was somewhat fortified by its presence.
7
The whistle was shrieking as the train coursed into the suburbs late in the night. The cars slunk past small sharp-angled houses, massive factories belching fire, streets of lighted stores and cafes, slow-moving people and streetcars, trucks, wagons and horses or mules, buggies, automobiles. The coach cars were strung with yellow window links that curved on the track ahead into a tunnel. Ellen saw muffled groups of people under bright station lamps. Her journey was done. She reached the cold cement of a pillared runway, stood impotent, bewildered, jostled by passengers on their separate ways. She was clutching her bag in one hand, the other in her coat pocket held her handkerchief in which the money was knotted. A familiar voice spoke in her ear, “Well, here’s the little country wench.”
It was Garland, suave in a tight-fitting suit and spotted tie, a derby on his head. He carried a fur coat, his face seemed old and yellowed in the glare of the platform. He kissed her mouth and she felt the mustache, clung to him. “I thought I got lost, Uncle.”
“Porter.” Yellow taxicabs were waiting in a line. They got in one and drove a long time. She was asleep, her head limp against the hard leather. Garland was waking her. “This is it, sweet.”
She stumbled after him up granite stairs. He stooped over to unlock a door, pushed it open and they went into an unlighted hall where a staircase reared. “How about something to eat? Some hot milk?” He flashed on a light overhead.
“I reckon I’d better just sleep, Uncle. I’m beat.”
“Your room’s up here.” He was climbing ahead on the broad uncarpeted steps, carrying her valise. A musty odor lingered about them.
“My, you’ve got a big house, Uncle.” Her voice was loud in the echoing vestibule.
“It’s big all right.” He preceded her down the hall and opened a door, stepped in and snapped the button of a wall lamp. An orange bulb glowed faintly. “If you want more light, there’s one by the bed.” It was a high-ceilinged room with a dark red rug. The wide ornate bed was covered with a heavy magenta spread and on the wall was a round mirror in a gold-scrolled frame. Through the mesh curtains hanging in front of the windows Ellen saw lamps in the street underneath and tree branches twining still and soundless. The doorbell grated below. “Goodnight, hon. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.” He was gone.
Ellen attempted to draw the heavy drapes that hung at the sides of the windows, but discovered they were fastened there. She was fumbling at window shades, drawing them down. She heard voices raised below, stiffened to listen. Through the floor boards came a woman’s faint thin laughter. Then all was still. She pulled the chain of the bulb over the bed; in the sudden whiteness dust balls in the corners were exposed, and stained paper on the walls. She put the light out. Below all remained quiet. She folded her dress on an armchair. Cautious, she left the room, found the bathroom around an angle in the hallway. When she turned the spigot, water spurted and roared. Shy of disturbing the household, she washed meagerly, then hurried back and turned off the orange wall light. She crept into the cold foreign sheets. And when she slept it was as if her fears backed off. In dreaming Christian Ay was taking her hand in his. In his way he was laughing as if there was an old joke between the two of them.
When she came downstairs in the morning, her footsteps resounded in the vestibule, at the end of which was a door. It opened into a large green-carpeted room. Somber-colored chairs and sofas were flanked by trivial tables bearing bric-a-brac and crystal and cloisonné ash trays. On a corner table, in a ponderous silver frame, was a daguerreotype of Nell Gaddy, garbed in a ruffled shirtwaist and a wide straw hat tipped with an egret’s wing. Beyond she could see the dining room and her uncle at an oval table, his breakfast and a newspaper spread before him. He waved his hand, called out. He was shaking a little silver bell. She crossed the expanse of the green carpet to sit at the table by him. She sensed the odd odor of his house. It was the strangeness of another lair.
“Mrs. Quimby.” Garland was speaking to an aproned bulky woman at the swinging door. “This is my niece, Ellen. She’ll be visiting here.”
“Pleased, be sure,” said Ellen.
The woman turned away, grim, reappeared with a plate of bacon and eggs and a cup. Gray-black hair wisped about her face, a formless dress was belted on her full hips and buttoned down the front under the apron. Her eyes were colorless. She set the food before Ellen and withdrew.
“Don’t let her ways bother you, puss. You’ll get used to her. She’s a gem. Been with me years.” He was pouring her coffee. While Ellen ate he spoke rapidly, “Sleep well? You do what pleases you. The house is yours. I’ll tell Mrs. Quimby you’re mistress. Like that?” He was tapping the chair arm with his finger. “Want to go for a walk? That’s Redding Street out front. Pretty district here. Old. Want me to invite some friends for a party?” He drank the last of his coffee in haste, jingled the bell again. The housekeeper instantly opened the door, her mouth a penciled line. “Make my niece at home, Mrs. Quimby. Fix her a good lunch. Don’t know what time I’ll be back.” He hurried to the vestibule, returning in a raccoon coat and black spats. He was holding a cane and a black felt derby together in one hand. He looked down at her. “Not much to say, puss. You like my house?”
“I do, Uncle.” Ellen couched her words with care, “Be my speech queer like you told Pa my sister’s was?”
“Well, of course you talk the same as her, hon. But I don’t want you to change. Frankie’ll be living here in Chicago. So that’s different, see?”
“I’d fain live in Millville all my days.”
He kissed her and she smelled the perfumed lotion. He eyed her quizzically. “Such a little innocent. Don’t ever change, sweet.” The outer door was slamming after him.
The hours passed, the first ever spent away from home, away from the ritual of farm work. Ellen saw how mealtimes were varied to suit the whim of Mrs. Quimby, how Garland was blind to the management of his house. He was gone for many hours in a day, often returning after she was in bed. He had little time for her. She would wander through the house to sit in the sun-bright bay window in the dining room, to tune in the cumbersome radio set on the marble table in the other large shaded room. Her plight and its urgent solution lay untamed, twisting in the back of her mind. She went upstairs, past the closed doors of the hallway to the blue-and-white statuette she had placed on the highboy beside the bed. “Deliver me,” she prayed.
On her third day in the house she came to the kitchen, seeking companionship, and pushed the door. Sarah Quimby stared from where she sat reading a paper booklet. In her hands was a steaming mug that she set on the galvanized table top with a sharp click. Behind the dour-faced woman was a double-doored wood icebox trimmed in bronze, and above it swung three or four canary cages. The pale yellow birds were silent, heads cocked, alert. On the sink was a disarray of food and newspapers and opened cans. The hard-wood floor was littered with crumbs and dust. “There’s many a fine secret Sarah Quimby knows, miss.” The housekeeper’s voice was high-pitched and her finger wagged. Ellen let the door swing shut. “I know goings-on,” the woman was shrilling behind it.
Confused, Ellen went to sit in the bay window. “Old witch,” she murmured, laying her hand on her cheek. Frown lines were drawing across her forehead.
Don’t place your affections On the green sycamore tree For the leaves they will welter And the balls they will fall If you can’t love arightly Don’t love none at all
In the round mirror in her room, Ellen was deliberately examining her figure clad in a flannel chemise. It was evening, the wall lamp burned. She placed the strip of cloth about her waist, making it firm. Then she put on the dark dress she had made for this visit. To the figure in the glass she breathed, “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mester Ay.” The hurt eyes looked back from the white oval face. The breasts even now were swelling so in five months’ time they would grow hard and full, the pink nipples brown. She touched her girdled waist, bitter. “I’ll bind it tighter and maybe it’ll strangle.”