There was a knock and Garland appeared in the doorway, remote in a severe black suit and bow tie. “You put me in mind of my mother there.” He looked at her heavily and turned, drawing the door shut with a dull sound. She stood a moment, then moved to the windows, pulling up a shade exposing the windy lean night. Yellow street lamps bloomed stark and shorn tree boughs swayed. She was weeping after a while, darkly.
Later she glided down the long staircase where the echoes lived, and into the big room. A score of people were milling in the blue mist of tobacco smoke and the vague sensuous odors of perfume. In their hands were stemmed glasses and morsels of food. The air stayed hot and unreal, the voices an undulating drone above the clicking and chinking of dishes. Garland came across the room, ruddy-faced, waving a glass at her, his breath strong. “This is my niece. The one I told you about. The little goat-girl from the Kentucky hills of home.” He took her arm. He was like somebody else; fine wrinkles were etched about his soft-skinned jaw and across his brow. He spoke loudly to a white-haired tall man. “This is Ellen.”
“Mester,” she whispered, and she said, “Lady,” when it was a woman as he took her around the room. Her head throbbed, she wished the night done. Garland left her and she stood apart, waiting. Then he found her again, urging her to sing. “This niece of mine can do the old-time songs up so prettily. Go ahead, puss. Any tune.”
Her voice was high and steady while the women’s gems glistened and the men turned murmuring to each other, puffing long black cigars.
E’er a night when the sun goes in I hang down my head and mournful cry True love, don’t weep nor mourn for me I’m going away to Marble Town
“Say, that’s good. You know any faster ones like ‘Bam, Bam, Bamy Shore,’ Miss Gaddy?” cried a modish blond young woman. “We could dance to that.”
“No.” Ellen’s voice was small. “Reckon not, lady.”
“Well, how about ‘Alabamy Bound’?” called another female voice. “That’s from the South.”
“I don’t know it,” Ellen said.
“It’s got rhythm.” The blond girl tapped her feet. “Come on, Nadine, let’s dance.”
“Vo-do-dee-o! Whoopee!” They raised their hands as though to pat-a-cake, swayed and juggled their feet, short skirts exposing slim legs.
Five feet two, eyes of blue Can she hug And can she woo
Garland was setting his glass down. He began to wail too. He shuffled, linked arm in arm with one of the bejeweled women.
She says that She’s my little baby My little jazztime baby
There was dancing, noise, laughter, squeals. Ellen, afraid of the strange faces, the clever women, conscious of her unfashionable attire, had retreated to a chair in a dim-lit corner. Mrs. Quimby opened the dining room door. The woman was austere in a white starched apron, a ruffled cap askew on her hair. “The dinner is served, sir.”
When the last guest had gone, Ellen turned to the broad staircase and put her hand on the balustrade. Her skin was transparent, a blue vein beat in the temple. She was holding herself tense. Garland looked at her a moment, his little eyes flickering. “I should have made you rest, hon.”
“No.” She shook her head.
“You sang so pretty.”
“No, Uncle. It’s no song for city folk.” She flushed, near tears. “It sounded queer, for a fact.”
He glanced, curious, at her. “Where did you pick up those songs?”
“Well, Talithie Gentry of the grammar school used to sing to us. But I learned the most from Penny Dougherty. Pa hired her two summers back when Ma took sick.” She sighed, aware of her plainness.
Garland was laughing, “Did you like the party?”
“Pa still calls Penny that roaring woman. He couldn’t abide her. Thought I’d die when she first went. It was so lonely.” And she added, “I remember ary tale Penny sung.”
“Not homesick are you?”
She went up a stair, avoiding his sharp look. “No. It’s the late hour makes me gossipy. Home we’re ne’er up this late.”
“Oh yes, want to ask you about church tomorrow. Guess you’d say I’m a pretty bad Catholic. Manage to make Christmas mass and send a big check to the cathedral and that’s about it.” He wagged his head, looking up at her. “But I know Anton brought you girls up strict. Bet he used a switch like our folks taught us.”
“He did.”
“Want to go to mass?”
“I’d liefer not.” She rubbed her forehead, reflecting. “If you think it’s not wrong to cross his will?”
“You mean Anton’s will? Chrissake, I’m all for it. I wouldn’t tell him. Now, sleep in the morning. Get a good rest. I’ve got some business so I’ll likely be gone.”
“I ne’er knew you to be such a rich man, Uncle. When you came to the farm.”
“Good night.”
As she entered her room, she heard the rasp of the doorbell and a woman’s voice that cut off when the door shut between the vestibule and the living room.
The next day large flakes were floating soundless beyond the cold bay window. Ellen heard a crash in the kitchen, knew another dish had slipped. Over the trill of the canaries came a loud grumbling. The swinging door was opening. “I can tell you a secret, miss.”
“I’ve ne’er a wish to hear it.” Ellen stood up from her chair.
“Don’t put on airs, miss. Your family’s not much account.”
“I reckon I don’t know what you mean.”
“Mr. Gaddy’s the one amounted to something in your family. You’re a poor relation.” Mrs. Quimby smiled slyly. “You know Mr. Gaddy keeps a woman? A bad woman. On the east side. You know what they are, miss? He keeps her for his pleasure.”
“You’re a liar.”
“Ain’t you the fool. Where you think he goes nights, looking like Douglas Fairbanks? Think that’s on business?”
“Hit’s proper to have a lady friend.”
“And not make her his missus? Keep rooms for her. Pay her to wait for him. Give her gold. All these years he’s kept one. Different ones. I tell you he’s lucky to find a respectable woman like me to run his house.”
“I won’t listen. I won’t listen,” Ellen was repeating to herself, running through the house, over the green carpet, away from the voice. She turned the key in her door, threw herself on the magenta coverlet, her hands over her ears. “He doesn’t want me or need me any more than Pa. I’m like some contrary varmint that no one’ll have any truck with.” Her self-pity was like wind to a fire. She got up, sat in one of the stiff-backed chairs, trembling in wrath.
“I put a curse on Christian Ay who did this to me. Forever, take away his joy, Mary Virgin. For what’s been wreaked on me. Make him suffer.”
Suddenly she was rising. She had seen it in an instant. “It just came o’er me. I’ll go there.” She was lifting down the traveling bag, opening it on the bed. She packed her few possessions. “I lay a curse on him. Virgin my witness.” She counted her money, folded it in the handkerchief. The feverish tenor of the past days was sliding away and she was cooled again. She rested, and in the night as she was going out, she stood a letter on the highboy.
Uncle, I’m beholden for all your kindness. I am going to St. Louis to see someone. If Pa asks after me will you tell him I will try to be home in summer. Please don’t try to find me.
niece Ellen
At the station she purchased a ticket, sat for a few tired hours on a bench, her shoes and satin hat wet from the falling snow. Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Her hand rested on the valise. She boarded the train and found a seat. Through the window she watched the red coal of sun lift itself. The landscape was evolving into farm lands, far-stretched, and sleeping villages. The snow began to melt as they rumbled southward into Illinois.
She was dozing. Out of memory sprang an incident involving Anton. It stirred no warring of anger in her, only the same wonderment she had experienced at the time. The way of women had come on Frankie, catching her unaware one night when she was eleven, frightening her, so she whimpered to Ellen, “I’m dying. Ellie, don’t let me die.” Maria had kept a pristine silence on all matters pertaining to the body, as her own mam had done with her. It was a secret, never articulated. Ellen had whispered to Frankie and they planned. All the while in their whispers lay a thrill of dread, for it was a field of unknowns. The morning was Sunday and the girls were dressing for mass. Anton opened the loft door upon them. “What’s going on here? We’ll be late again. Now move, you two.” Frankie was nude and gazed, naive, at him. Ellen plucked a garment from the bed and laid it before her sister. The man ripped it from Frankie’s hands, threw it at her feet. He turned on Ellen, “Not so froward, girl,” and stalked out while the two stared. They had dressed swiftly, mute. But nightly, for many years, Frankie would have an urgent compulsion to look under her bed before she went to sleep. And Ellen developed a fear of something skulking and concealed when she was sent to the cellar on an errand.
She was unburying this, mulling it, half asleep. By noon she became wakeful and light-headed, bought a sandwich from a vendor who came shouting through the stuffy car. The train was halting before a gray clapboard station house bearing the flecked inscription WEEMS CROSSROADS. Bag in hand she walked the deserted streets. The air was less chill, the sky a high blue. She was questioning a storekeeper, then turning down a muddy road leading into the country. She passed farms and came to woods where black trees dripped. Brash crows were cawing somewhere out of sight and neglected clouds floated in fresh winds. By a fenced-in burial ground, melting snow outlined gravestones. A Mason jar full of sticks tipped on its side and a withered wreath lay on a plot enclosed with a black iron paling. Gray granite markers were graven with dead names and dates. A cow leaned over the cemetery fence in the distance to crop grass inside; it was bearing heavily with its soft neck on the sagging wire.