On Agate Hill

by Lee Smith

  I will start at the beginning.

  We had all been working for days, so that everything looked lovely that night, our old school transformed into a brilliant fairyland, for candles and sconces stood every place—at the gate, on the porch, in the entrance hall. The wrought iron porch rails were roped with running cedar. Garlands of flowers ringed the stone posts, while all of Mrs. Snow’s precious plants bloomed profusely in their pots as if they too knew it was commencement. The perfume of jasmine and honeysuckle filled the night air. (Now, you see how fine this description is, you know I deserved that composition prize!)

  Six large chandeliers hung from hooks in the great hall, making a blaze of light that reflected off all the little gleaming window panes (which I had polished and polished, my arms are still sore from it) and off the rich gilt frames of the paintings that covered the walls, all of them created by our faculty or students. There hung Eliza’s “Madonna and Child,” along with her conception of Daphne turning into a tree, and a pastel portrait of Mrs. Valiant gathering roses in her walled garden in Charleston, her mother’s sweet face and those old pink bricks as true to life as the finest photograph. I knew, for I had been there. There was her pencil drawing of me sitting out in the orchard with apples in my lap, and a sketch of Eliza’s horse galloping along a road beside a swamp with black stumps and feathery trees in the background. I could tell it was South Carolina.

  Promptly at seven they started arriving, all the families and friends grandly dressed for the occasion, even dowdy Miss Newberry, even the Old Hoot Owl herself in a huge black satin dress with a kind of bustle, Eliza’s three smallest brothers adorable in their matching blue suits, fathers and mothers and suitors and grandparents all alike, but none for me. I did not care! For many of these were my friends too and I peeped out of our upstairs window as excited as any to see them arrive. “Oh, look, there he is!” Eliza squeezed my hand when Danny Butterworth walked through the gate.

  Once the crowd was assembled in the great hall (with a good number forced to stand at the back and on the sides!) we all gathered silently in the front yard while Laura Vest sang “Whispering Hope” accompanied by Mister Lucius Bonnard on the piano and Professor Fogle on the violin. How beautifully they sounded together as a great hush filled the hall. Out in the front yard, Eliza and Emma and I held hands. I started to cry though I knew not why, for commencement ought to be a happy occasion, should it not? When I looked at the school through the blur of my tears, it appeared as a blaze of light, the porch and every window aglow in the soft sweet air. Mime was sobbing openly. I could not help but wonder if she was thinking of M. Bienvenu. But then the song was over, the last quivering notes died into silence, and Lucius Bonnard pounded out the opening bars of “God Bless the Southern Land.” It was our cue. Led by Phoebe, the class marshal, in the door we came, through the entryway and into the grand hall, marching down the center aisle between all the people who rose as one, clapping and cheering until we had attained the platform where we stood before our chairs on the rostrum in front of the faculty. When the march was over, we all took our seats.

  We wore plain white swiss dresses with natural flowers in our hair, Mrs. Snow permitting no other adornment. Anyone who had received a token of jewelry as a commencement gift had to wait for another day to display it. For this grand occasion, Agnes had fastened my hair up with a white rose and her own mother-of-pearl barrette. I felt very grown up—I am very grown up now, I suppose. It was the strangest sensation to look out upon that sea of upturned faces, many of them familiar but all utterly transformed by the light and the dark and the drama of the evening. Though I craned my neck, I did not see anyone who resembled my long-ago image of Mister Black.

  Then began the exercises, the music, reading the winning composition (which was perfectly stupid, it being “The Influence of the Bible,” and Josie stumbled over her own words, maybe she didn’t even write it!), conferring other honors, after which each one of us advanced in turn to receive our diplomas, printed in fancy script featuring Dr. Snow’s indecipherable signature. We had all practiced crossing the rostrum to take the diploma in our left hand, shaking Dr. Snow’s hand with our right, then curtsying— as low as possible! Luckily I was among the first to receive my diploma. Dr. Snow gave my hand an extra squeeze which made me furious because I could neither acknowledge nor protest it, under the circumstances. He pressed his sweaty fingers into my palm. But then it was done, leaving me free to watch the others and look out over the hall.

  When Harriet Stokes went down in her curtsy, we all held our breaths to see if she would come back up, for she has gotten so heavy. But she did. And did I say that Mime Peeler took the music prize of course, and Eliza the art award which she does not give a fig for now that she is engaged to be married? Eliza could not stop smiling for even one minute during Dr. Snow’s closing prayer, for there sat Danny right at the front of the hall, his long legs stretched out on the floor in a way that I found insolent, feet crossed at the ankles, hair tousled as usual, staring up at Eliza. He is very handsome, open and sweet, yet there is something in his bearing which I do not trust. It is like he owns the world. Certainly he owns Eliza. Four rows behind sat her parents and with them, her brother Ben, whose pale yellow hair was plastered down unnaturally on his head, making him look so funny I had to smile. He saw me and smiled back, all toothy and shy. I dared not glance at him again. Louis Tutwiler had not come, nor had Mister Black.

  I stared straight ahead as we sang the parting song, and did not cry though Eliza and Emma Page were sobbing on either side of me. Dr. Snow gave the closing prayer, followed by the benediction. Commencement had ended. Then what a roar of voices, what a great confusion as friend rushed to friend and families overran the rostrum.

  Suddenly I felt I could not breathe. I pushed through the crowd though I heard several people calling my name behind me. But I did not care who was calling for me, as I had to be out of doors! I ran through the closet back of the hall into the back yard past the Rose of Sharon bush and through the garden on the damp slippery stones and out into the orchard where the fireflies were rising up from the wet grass like stars. It had rained earlier that afternoon. Far away I could hear the happy hubbub of the commencement, though all I could see of the school itself was a gentle glow at the end of the orchard through the increasing mist. It looked like a fairy tale school, or like an imaginary city, or like Camelot. I threw myself face down in the grass, suddenly I did not care who was looking for me or what happened to my white swiss dress or anything.

  A whippoorwill was singing in my ear. The wet grass was scratchy and cold on my face. I dug my hands into it, squeezing great wet clumps as hard as I could. I felt like a fool, or like a person just awakening from a long, long dream. No one had come to commencement for me, no one was missing me now. All the girls and all their families, all the life that I have known here at Gatewood Academy will be gone in the twinkling of an eye, as in the Bible. No matter how much I have tried to fool myself, in that instant I knew the truth. I am still an orphan girl, loose in the world, and do you know what, Mary White? I like it that way!

  It seemed to me then like a terrible mistake to stay on here when they will all be gone—all, that is, save Agnes, whom I love . . . yet still it seems like a dreadful mistake, and when they rang the old bell to signal the end of commencement, it was like the end of everything, ringing in my head.

  I lay in the grass until its last vibrating tone had gone entirely from the cool night air and then I got up finally and walked back through the dark gardens to the yard, furious to find the back doors already locked. I would have to go around to the front where I would undoubtedly be seen. There was no other way. I crept round the corner. People tarried here and there in the spacious front yard still conversing, though the candles guttered, all but gone. Louis Tutwiler stood by the gate with his hat in his hands. He raised it in a kind of wave when he saw me and opened his mouth to speak. But a slight dark form detached itself from the stone steps and jumped up t
o hug me. “Oh, thank goodness! At last!” It was Agnes, of course. “Why Molly, whatever has happened to you?” She pulled back to stare up at me just as Mrs. Snow appeared as a silhouette in the doorway. Then there was Dr. Snow himself advancing from the far corner of the porch holding a lantern so that all his features were lit from below, making him look monstrous, especially the huge red nose with its black hairs protruding. “Aha! The lady of the hour, at last,” he said in a voice of strained humor. Another man followed close behind, but I could not see his face.

  You know who it was.

  I will write more later. And I will always be

  Your friend forever,

  Molly

  FOR NO ONE’S EYES

  June 11, 1877

  Five a.m. It is still dark outside, no one is stirring, & no birds sing. I have left Dr. Snow lying like a lump in the bed, & the little boys fast in their trundles.

  I rise to write after a Night of Torment.

  First, the Exigencies of Commencement, always such a Deal of Work, yet always unappreciated, as the girls & their families have eyes & thoughts only for one another . . . Alas, the poor Puppet-Mistress behind the scenes is all but ignored, totally unappreciated, & by Dr. Snow as well as the rest. What would it cost him to say, for instance, “Mariah, the flowers in the hall looked lovely?” Yet I shall never hear such praise from him. After all this time I should be resigned to it, & yet am Not.

  Second, the late arrival of Simon Black, followed closely by the disappearance of Molly Petree, which did not surprise me in the least as she has been the bane of my existence for years. Small wonder I could not sleep, then suffered such Dreams . . . but in the words of Eve, “God is also in sleep, & dreams advise” (Book XII, line 615).

  I have awakened trembling yet filled with Resolve.

  It has been far too easy for me to get caught up in the duty & detail of life, the minutiae, the dross (the laundry, the hogs, the children, the marital duties, the money, the mud). Here I have been Praying Without Cease for acceptance of my Lot, yet to no avail, my headaches grown worse & worse, my Vision all but gone, my Sufferings immense. Yet as they say, it is never Too Late; for now it has come to me in a dream what I must do.

  I must kick over the traces altogether.

  I must follow wherever He leads, & damn the consequences!

  For there is a scale, an empyrean Grandeur, which has been lost to Human Life. I was meant to dwell always upon such a scale; indeed if I may say so, I was born for it, & am particularly suited to it in terms both of Person (including Stature and physical characteristics, I dare not go further here), Intellect, Ability, Sensitivity, & Cast of Mind.

  Imagine, then, my reaction upon being presented with an Entity so far above the rabble of average life on earth, & yet “from what height fallen” (Book I), & through “what dire event?” (Book I, line 155) The War, I suppose, & Circumstance, or Fate.

  I refer, of course, to Simon Black. There, it is out!

  Yet I must say, I recognized Him immediately, in my deep heart’s core, & I tremble to say that He recognized me (Yes! upon his very first visit to Gatewood Academy) though He wisely chose to make no sign at the time, instead securing the means (Molly Petree) by which He might remain in contact & continue to see me.

  I see Him now.

  I know Him.

  I simply cannot resist Him.

  After all these years of effort, God hath sent me finally his Arch-Fiend . . . “So stretched out huge in length the Arch-Fiend lay chained on the burning lake . . .” He tempts me. Lord, yes, He tempts me.

  Indeed, this morning I am prepared to say “Farewell, happy fields, where joy forever dwells! Hail horrors! Hail, infernal world!”

  I am ready to go with Him,

  What matter where, if I still be the same,

  And what should I be, all but less than He.

  Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at last

  We shall be free …

  Here we may reign secure, and in my choice,

  To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:

  Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.

  Especially if one must serve the cruel & demanding Cincinnatus Snow, as cold as his name implies. Nothing can justify the ways of Cincinnatus Snow to me!

  If I succumb to sin again (as once I did, famously) I shall lose Eden—all these plants & flowers which I have so carefully tended, both actual & metaphorical—yet what is that? What loss is that, to me?

  I am prepared to look Him in the eye & swear that

  … Thou to me

  Art all things under Heaven, all places thou,

  Who for my wilful crime art banished hence.

  Better to Fall, to say with Eve “… but now lead on; In me is no delay; with thee to go is to stay … in Paradise” (Book XII, line 615) For Gate-wood Academy is not Paradise, but rather Hell for me, despite my Hard Work, Prayers, & Good Intentions. It seems that these qualities should be enough, does it not? Yet it is not so. They are not enough. They have never been enough. There is in my soul an immense Hunger which gnaws at the edges of my mind like a ravenous wolf.

  I shall see Him again in a mere seven hours, as He has arranged to take Sunday dinner with us after Church (which He will not attend). Dear God, can I contain myself? Can I bear to pass this time? I am both overtired & overstimulated. Perhaps I should go back to Bed, feigning sleep, claiming headache, though for once I have none! & it seems quite possible that I shall never sleep again, as I have a Fire running through my veins like a precursor of Hell itself.

  Mariah Rutherford Snow

  Headmistress, Gatewood Academy

  Hopewell, Virginia

  Perhaps it is the last time I shall ever pen these words!

  FOR NO ONE’S EYES

  June 12, 1877

  Dear Lord,

  Thus am I tested, thus have I fallen, thus am I debased, yet now See. Though I have walked through the Valley of Evil, Thou hast set my feet upon Thy righteous Path again, Thou hast restored my Soul. Thus I say with renewed fervor, Thy Will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven, Amen.

  Under the clear blue sky of this Sabbath day that Thou hast made, oh Lord, I cannot even imagine what I was thinking of.

  The cold fact is that Simon Black never cared for me. He used me. He continues to use us, & our Academy. Simon Black has no thought for anyone save Molly Petree, this was made manifest in our conversation with him yesterday following Sunday lunch which was excellent if I do say so myself, including a Charlotte Russe prepared by our new Mrs. Matney. But Mr. Black did not mention the dessert, nor the lunch, nor the beauty of the Commencement ceremony itself. He ate his food methodically, one serving after another without comment, until he was done. It was quite strange. He is quite strange. I have been quite deluded. It is as if Mr. Black has no time nor thought for the niceties. He is a driven man. Yet undeniably he does have charm of a sort, a kind of gravitas …

  Dr. Snow had placed Molly across the table from him, along with Agnes, who blushed & made the silliest Remarks throughout the meal, she seemed quite lacking in Social Skills herself. Yet of course Simon Black ignored her as well, reserving all his attention for Molly Petree who appeared almost to scorn it, answering his questions as briefly as possible, fidgeting in her chair, flipping her hair back out of her eyes in that way she has, casting a beseeching eye toward Eliza Valiant when her family left their table.

  At length Dr. Snow placed his napkin upon the tablecloth. “Girls, you may be Excused, though I daresay, Molly, that Mr. Black will wish to speak to you again before his departure.”

  “Yes Sir.” Molly bobbed a curtsy, edging toward the door. “I shall be in the yard with Eliza & the little boys, Sir,” she said, & he nodded.

  Simon Black’s eyes followed her out of the doorframe into the sunshine. He turned to me. “What relationship does Molly have with that young man, the brother?”

  His question surprised me. “Why, none at all, that I know of,” I said. “She visited the fa
mily at Christmastime, as you know.”

  He continued to stare out the door at her, now kneeling to talk to one of Eliza’s little brothers. “And who was that student, that cadet, waiting for her last night after commencement?”

  I did not know what he was talking about, & said so.

  “You had better find out then,” he said to me darkly, “for I am paying a good deal of money to have this girl chaperoned.”

  Here I took Umbrage. “I can assure you, Sir,” I said, “that the utmost attention has been paid to the whereabouts & occupations of Molly Petree. Many of our girls have beaus, & some are engaged to be married, but despite her proclivities, Molly has shown no interest in any young man to date, isn’t that right?” I queried Agnes who nodded, blushing.

  “You may go now, Agnes,” I said to her, & she scuttled out.

  “What do you mean by Molly’s proclivities, Mrs. Snow?” Simon Black turned to look at me. “What proclivities might those be?”

  Now it was my turn to redden; I found myself biting my lip. “I suppose that her—er—History has made me particularly watchful concerning her Virtue,” I admitted, after a pause.

  “Though there has been absolutely no cause for concern,” Dr. Snow said, stepping upon my foot so hard as to crush the bones, I was wearing my peau de soie slippers, no doubt I deserved it. “Molly has done extremely well here at Gatewood Academy.”

  “Indeed,” Simon Black said, watching her now out the window as she held hands & danced round & round in a circle with two of the little boys. “She is not to be courted. She is too young for boys,” he announced abruptly. “I shall appreciate your keeping them away from her in general. Keep her busy. I should like for her to continue her studies as well as teach. When she is old enough for courting, we shall discuss these matters further.”

  I could tell that the turn of the conversation surprised Dr. Snow. It did not surprise me. I know Him, as I said. I recognize Him. For me, it was as though a heavy iron door had swung to with a resounding clang that will echo in my mind forever. Of course, I realized.