Fair and Tender Ladies

by Lee Smith

  And now, a funny incidence about Geneva before I close. You know how Geneva has her red automobile which is the joy of her hart, and keeps it locked up in the garage? And sometimes she takes it out to go riding and sometimes she takes us too? Johnny just loves to go out riding. Well Saturday last she got it out and put on a fascinator and took Momma for a spin, out the old Poorbottom Road towards Rich Valley, and had a head-on colision! There was not but one other car on the road and they run smack into each other, it was Marcus Rope who Curtis might know as he is a big company man. So Genevas fender is busted but her and Momma is fine and Geneva has made it a famous story now which brings a good lagh every time. And also Beulah, I belive that Sam Russell Sage has become her sweetie! But I will save this news for next time when I am sure.

  And one other thing which will intrest Curtis I know, is what is going on right now, it has just started, in the bottom at the river bend. Do you rember Louis Judd? He is the son of Mrs. Rose Judd who lives in the yellow house but he has been gone for years, he is a mover and shaker as Geneva says, he will put you in mind of our uncle Revel. In fact he used to be a frend of Revels, it makes me very sad to write his name, REVEL. Anyway some say that Louis Judd has been to prison, some say not. In any case he has come back to town in a uniform, he is gathering up a regiment for the Army in the river bottom, this very minute! He has got him a whole Army camp over there with tents and guns and more men coming every day. To which Judge Brack says, Poppycock! But Louis Judd is doing it anyway. He is raising a company.

  I wish I could join! For I think to myself, somebody has got to fight the Germans, they are cutting off babys hands. Well I hope you are happy about your new baby, Beulah. I relly do. I hope you and Curtis and little John Arthur take to it over there at Diamond but for now I miss you and remane your loving sister in Majestic,

  IVY ROWE.

  Oh Silvaney,

  I feel I am bursting with news but I can not tell it to a sole, I have no one to talk to. It is so hard to say. But I feel that things are happening two times allways, there is the thing that is happening, which you can say, and see, and there is another thing happening too inside it, and this is the most important thing but its so hard to say. For an instance, I have just written a letter to Beulah, and every word I said was true, but there is so much I dare not say. Oh Silvaney my love and my hart, I can talk to you for you do not understand, I can write you this letter too and tell you all the deep things, the things in my hart. For sometimes, as Geneva says, a girl has just got to let down her hair! And it is like you are part of me Silvaney, in some way. So I can tell you things I would not tell another sole.

  For I am bad, Silvaney. I am bad, bad, rotten clear throgh. I will tell you how bad I am. I have been knowing it ever since I went to the big meeting last August with Miss Torrington. A hand of fire clutched me in the stomach then Silvaney, it was the hand of God almighty, and it put me in mind at the time of something which has only now come clear to me.

  It is, Mister Rochester in Jane Eyre.

  When Mister Rochester kissed Jane Eyre she felt a firey hand in her vitals, this is her stomach I reckon. Well I know what she means. I think it is a warning that you are bad. For Jane would of given in and run away with Mister Rochester if it was not for God, but I have not been saved so I do not have him to turn to.

  And I will tell you something else, if Sam Russell Sage is who God has sent, then I dont know if I even want to be saved ether, in spite of the firey hand! For I think Sam Russell Sage is awful. He is Genevas sweetie these days whenever he comes to town, and stays up in the room with her out of wedlock, and drinks whisky out of bottles which he brings, and cuts his mustache so messy that he leaves little black hairs all over the bathroom for me or Ludie to clean up. He does not even care what a mess he makes.

  I have growed to hate the sight of those little black hairs all over the sink, and to hate the sight of Sam Russell Sage himself and that yellow touring car he comes in.

  Judge Brack says he is a sharlatan and even Momma has said, Geneva, you ought to have better sense. To which Geneva just laghs and says, I would reccomend a dose of the same medicine for you, Maude.

  And Garnie runs around after Sam Russell Sage like a little lap dog. He loves to polish his shoes. And I clean the room, and serve at table, and I see this. I see all of it. I see Ludie too who will go in the shed in the afternoons with any man at all when she thinks theres nobody watching. But I am watching. And from my bedroom window I can see fine. I can see the men come out zipping ther pants, looking to right and left.

  This is not all ether. For there is a boy here named Lonnie Rash that I cannot stop starring at, nor him me. He is a young boy come to town to find work in the lumber business which he has done, but now he says he thinks he will go on over in the river bottom and join up with Louis Judds Army, but so far, he aint.

  I know it is because of me. I know he has not gone yet because of me. I think he loves me. He stars at me all the time it is like he is touching me under my cloths, his eyes will follow me wherever I go. Whenever he is in the same room with me, I feel that firey hand again and cant hardly breth. I feel I have got to pee.

  Lonnie Rash has got nice brown hair and kind of sand colored eyes with some green in them, and a broad strong face. Miss Torrington who hates him says he looks like a slavick boy. But I love Lonnies hands Silvaney, which are square and brown and strong, and the mussles in his arms are very hard. If you are curios how I know this, Silvaney, I have kissed him! I have run my hands down his back and his arms and let him put his tonge way down in my mouth and the firey hand grabbed me then for good. Me and Lonnie go walking out together after I am throgh with the supper dishes, and three times he has took me to the picture show to see western movies. This is the only kind of movie Lonnie likes. In the picture show he held my hand and rubbed it, I thoght I would up and die.

  LONNIE RASH, LONNIE RASH, I write his name over and over on everything. I draw flowers around the capitle letters and make a morning glory vine that climbs up the L and the R. He can make me laugh so hard. Everthing I say, he says, Yes? and Oh yes? and Is that so? untill he gets me laughing to hard to quit. So then he will tickle me some and then feel of my titty. I let him feel up under my skirt too and stick his finger in there, and two times he has took out his cock for me to see but so far we have not done anything else with it. Me and Lonnie do all this out in the shed back of the bordinghouse which is an idea I got from Ludie, I am scarred to death she will come in there with a man and catch us at it. Oh Silvaney, I know this is bad but it feels so good. We used to walk out in the woods by the river, but now it is too cold.

  Lonnie wants me to sneak him up in my room but so far I have not, instead I have made some excuse. I dont know why but I dont want him up there, I dont want him to see in my room and see all my things or be there. LONNIE RASH LONNIE RASH I write it on everthing and I think of his strong brown hands and the way they feel. LONNIE RASH I write, but Lonnie Rash can not write, nor read ether one, nor will he learn. LONNIE RASH, I write in the ice on my window come morning, I think I am going crazy, now this is the truth! You know I am probly not too young to have a complete nervous breakdown like Jane Eyre when she got shut up in the Red Room.

  A week ago Miss Torrington asked me to stay after school and I did, she was waiting for me in the big recitation hall with all the little panes of glass frosted over by the cold and the new steam radiators hissing. Oh Silvaney, I love this room! It is the room I love bestest in the whole world next to mine! The cielings are very high here, and the woodwork is old and curly around the big windows and the cieling and the door. I love the big slates on the wall and the way the eraser dust hangs in the air, and the oak table with the globe on it, and the pictures of Jesus Blessing the Little Children and Jesus Asending in Light. I love the way the schoolroom smells, the dusty somehow holy air. It seems as if the lessons quiver in the air, the sums and poems and conjugations we have learned by hart are all still there.

  So I m
et Miss Torrington in the schoolroom Tuesday last, after school.

  She was very stern. Her face seemed carved in pure white marble, she wore a black dress. Now Ivy, she said. Christmastime approaches as you know.

  Yessum, I said.

  Say, Yes Miss Torrington, when will you learn to drop these backward customs? Miss Torrington said. For you are fast becoming a lady.

  Yes Miss Torrington, I said.

  She smiled. Her smile looked like a carved smile on a marble angel. And all of a sudden Silvaney I recalled the Christmas before Daddy died and how me and Ethel made angels in the snow. It seems so long ago! It seems almost like other people! For I am a town girl, a smart girl, and almost a lady.

  Miss Torrington clasped her hands behind her back and walked across the schoolroom, her skirts went swish swish, swish swish, and the radiators went hiss, hiss.

  Now Ivy, she said, I have some things to say to you and I want you to listen carefully and hear me out. In all my years of teaching in bording schools and colleges and churches, I confess that I have never come across a girl so remarkably tallented, so extrordinarily gifted in language. I feel it is a sin, Ivy, a great sin, if we do not use our tallents that God has given us, if we do not live up to our potenshal. In some ways it may be the greatest sin of all.

  Miss Torrington quivered all over when she said, Sin.

  Then she went on, And I confess to you I feel that God has sent me here to save you Ivy, to offer you a life which will enable you to use your gifts to his glory.

  Amen, I said all of a sudden, without meaning to, it just came out, and Miss Torrington narrowed her eyes.

  Laugh if you will then, she said, and I said, Oh no Miss Torrington, I was not making fun, I did not even mean to speak and please excuse me. I dont know what come over me, I said.

  Miss Torrington stood up then very straight. This is precisely the point, Ivy Rowe! she said. Her voice was shaking. You need guidance, a firm hand. You do not know what comes over you, truer words were never spoken. You are buffeted about by evry wind that blows my dear, I can not stand by and see this happen.

  See what happen? I asked then, for I did not understand what she meant.

  Ah Ivy, Miss Torrington said. Do you think I am blind as well? I see you engaged in a flirtation which might very well end in disaster, for he is not suitable, your Lonnie Rash, nor is he your equal in any way. Deny this if you can.

  And I had to hang my head and bite my lip then Silvaney, for what she said was so, and even Ethel has advised me aginst making eyes at Lonnie Rash. And yet the thought of his warm brown cheek came to me even then, even there in the schoolroom, I confess it. I walked to the window and stared at the snow. I could not look at Miss Torrington.

  She said, Your mother has abdicated her duty it seems, and the less said about that paragon of virtue Miss Hunt, the better.

  I opened my mouth and closed it agian. I could not say a thing. Snow blew into the windowpanes, no two flakes alike. But she went on.

  I feel that you have been given to me by God as a sacred responsibillity, Miss Torrington said behind me. I am perhaps espeshally suited to help you fulfill your destiny, Ivy. I can educate you, I can dress you, I can take you to Europe. For there is everything, everything, to learn! I am a woman of some means, Ivy. I can give you the world.

  A shock run all through me then Silvaney, at her words. It had grown nearly dark.

  Miss Torrington continued, I could feel her breth soft as a whisper on my neck. And it would give me such enormous pleasure, she said. For it appears certain by now that I will never mary, nor bear a child, and yet I have so much to give a child, espeshally a young lady. Oh Ivy, do say yes!

  I watched the snow.

  When Miss Torrington spoke again, her voice was light. Just keep this in mind dear, she said. I depart for Boston in three days, my trunk has gone now, as you know. My report is finished.

  I know, I said. I will think about it.

  Together we went to the cloakroom and got our coats and our hats, and Miss Torrington got her lether gloves. I waited in the snow while she locked the door behind us. Now, she said and put the key in her purse and took my arm and we walked the short way back to the bordinghouse. My mind whirled around and around like the snowflakes around the gaslights. I thought of sliding on the frozen river in the snow, and of the lady sisters skimming home across the snow after they had told their stories, I thought of the story of White bear Whittington, and then I thought of all the stories I dont know yet, of books and books full of stories in Boston. I immagined their lether bindings and their deep rich covers and the pretty swirling paper inside the covers, like the snow. But to think of the lady sisters put me in mind of Granny Rowe and Tenessee, which made me feel bad.

  For Granny Rowe came to town a day or so ago to sell sang which she does every winter, and Tenessee with her, and after they sold it to Mister Branham and said hello to Ethel, they came over to the school to see me. I was standing at the door, talking to Miss Maynard.

  Lord God, how ye doing honey, Granny said, and I confess that for a minute I drew back, for here was Granny smoking her pipe and wearing her old mans hat, and Tenessee behind her giggling and clutching that filthy dirty crazy bead purse. I drew back. For all of a sudden they seemed to me strange people out of another time, I could not breth.

  Excuse me, Miss Maynard said, and left.

  And then I hugged them both and walked them back to the bordinghouse to see Momma and Geneva and have some coffee and vinegar pie, and did not think twice about it. But I was thinking now, walking with Miss Torrington. And I was ashamed of myself. And I thought, If I go to Boston, I will not see them, nor Beulahs new baby, nor Ethel grinning behind that big cash register in Stoney Branhams store, nor see my little momma any more, and I pictured her there in her rocking chair. Nor will I see Silvaney agian I thought, who is dearest to my hart, the one that I cannot picture at all having never been there to the Elizabeth Masters Home. Oh Silvaney! sometimes I think I made you up to suit me!

  Me and Miss Torrington walked arm and arm through the snow, and then we were at the bordinghouse, where light spilled out the windows and shaddows moved behind the curtians in the sitting room. And one of the curtians moved and I thought it must be Lonnie Rash, looking for me. It was nearly suppertime.

  The front door opened with a pop, and Geneva stuck her head out.

  Ivy, is that you? she hollered.

  Yessum, I said.

  Well, where the hell have you been, get your ass right on in the kitchen this minute, we have got some extra company here that is stuck in the snow, Geneva yelled and slammed the door.

  Miss Torrington and I paused by the foot of the stairs.

  From someplace upstairs came a womans high pitched giggle and then a slamming door.

  In her long dark coat, Miss Torrington looked very tall. Her thin pale face beneath the fur brim of her hat seemed pinched and white. Yet she was pretty. Oh yes, I thought then, oh yes the Ice Queen, and I remembered Mrs. Brown and all her books from long ago. Miss Torringtons hat was dusted with snow. She smiled.

  I will come, I said all of sudden. My answer is YES, I said, and then we walked together up the stairs and crossed the porch and went inside.

  I served dinner and dared not look at Lonnie Rash who starred at me. Tomorrow I will tell him, I said to myself. Tomorrow.

  But oh Silvaney, I did not, for you will not belive what happened next!

  We had extra places set at dinner for all the people who had got stranded in the snow, and it was a jolly table, everybody laughing. This was Miss Torrington, Miss Maynard, glummy little Mister Sledge, Geneva and Momma, Lonnie Rash and three other young men who are bording here now, Judge Brack, Miss Hazel Ridge who has come here from Roanoke to settle a estate, Mister Wiley a lawyer from out of town, and a man and a wife and his grown son from Lynchburg originally, who were motoring to Kentucky.

  That is what the wife said when Judge Brack asked her where they were from, she said From Lyn
chburg originally. She was very fancy and I kept looking at her and thinking, Now is she a lady? And will I be like that? But finely Silvaney I decided she is not a lady, instead she is only rich. She ate in very little bites and acted too good for everybody else, but after while her husband and Judge Brack got to saying limmericks, and she had to laugh. For there is something about being inside around a table with good food on it and other people, while the wind is blowing outside and the snow is falling down, that will bring everbody together in spite of theirselves.

  Only Miss Torrington did not relly join in, this is normal for her though, but even she looked happy with her white cheeks flushed pink from walking through the cold outside or else from Genevas hot potato soup. The pink spots on Miss Torringtons cheeks looked like they had been painted there. She said scarcely a word, but bunched up her lips from time to time as if to keep back a smile, and I could tell that she was pleased as punch that I had said yes and that I would be going back up to Boston with her.

  I guess I will have to get used to the snow, I thought. They will be plenty of snow in Boston all right. I tried to immagine the State House or the Old North Church in snow, and to think that I would go there. Immagine, I thought, me Ivy Rowe in Boston!

  Ivy are you feeling well? Geneva asked me and I said Yesm, just fine thanks, and she said Well then for gods sake pay a little more attention to what your doing, and I said Yesm. I could not immagine telling Momma or Geneva or Lonnie Rash.