Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger

by Lee Smith

  “Alice,” she said dramatically as we sat staring out at the shining water, the green trees at its edge, the wheeling gulls, “I will die if we don’t move, I will die here,” Rose said, though Bud Ned and I laughed at her.

  But Rose meant it. As she grew older, she had to go here, go there, do this, do that — have this, have that — she hated being poor and living in the boardinghouse and could not wait to grow up and go away.

  We both developed a serious taste for distance when our older brother, Clyde, and his wife took us motoring across the country. I was sixteen. I loved that trip, from the first stage of planning our route on the map to finally viewing the great mountains, which sprang straight up from the desert like apparitions. Of course we had never seen such mountains; they took my breath away. I remember how Rose flung her arms out wide to the world as we stood in the cold wind on Pikes Peak. I believe we would have gone on driving and driving forever. But of course we had to return, and I had to resume my duties, letting go the girl Clyde had hired so Mama would permit my absence. Clyde was our sweetest brother, but they are all dead now, all my brothers, and Rose too.

  I have outlived everyone.

  Yet it seems like only yesterday that Rose and I were little girls playing that game we loved so well, a game that strikes me now as terribly dangerous. This memory is more vivid than any other in my life.

  It is late night, summertime. Rose and I have sneaked out of the boardinghouse, down the tiny dark back stair, past the gently sighing widows’ rooms; past Mama’s room, door open, moonlight ghostly on the mosquito netting draped from the canopy over her bed; past the snoring salesmen’s rooms, stepping tiptoe across the wide-plank kitchen floor, wincing at each squeak. Then out the door into moonlight so bright that it leaves shadows. Darting from tree to tree, we cross the yard and attain the sidewalk, moving rapidly past the big sleeping houses with their shutters yawning open to the cool night air, down the sidewalk to the edge of town where the sidewalk ends and the road goes on forever through miles and miles of peanut fields and other towns and other fields, toward Baltimore.

  Rose and I lie down flat in the middle of the road, which still retains the heat of the day, and let it warm us head to toe as we dream aloud of what the future holds. At different times Rose planned to be an aviator, a doctor, and a film actress living in California, with an orange tree in her yard. Even her domestic dreams were grand. “I’ll have a big house and lots of servants and a husband who loves me so much,” Rose would say, “and a yellow convertible touring car and six children, and we will be rich and they will never have to work, and I will put a silk scarf on my head and we will all go out riding on Sunday.”

  Even then I said I would be a teacher, for I was always good in school, but I would be a missionary teacher, enlightening natives in some far-off corner of the world. Even as I said it, though, I believe I knew it would not come to pass, for I was bound to stay at home, as Rose was bound to go.

  But we’d lie there looking up at the sky, and dream our dreams, and wait for the thrill of an oncoming vehicle, which we could hear coming a long time away and could feel throughout the length of our bodies as it neared us. We would roll off the pavement and into the peanut field just as the car approached, our hearts pounding. Sometimes we nearly dozed on that warm road — and once we were almost killed by a potato truck.

  Gradually, as Mama retreated to her room, I took over the running of the boardinghouse, and Mama’s care as well. At eighteen, Rose ran away with a fast-talking furniture salesman who had been boarding with us. They settled finally in Ohio and had three children, and her life was not glamorous in the least, though better than some, and we wrote to each other every week until her death of lung cancer at thirty-nine.

  This was as far as I’d gotten.

  I quit reading aloud and looked around the room. Joy Richter was ashen, Miss Elena Grier was mumbling to herself, Shirley Lassiter was breathing heavily and fluttering her fingers at her throat. Vern Hofstetter stared fixedly at me with the oddest expression on his face, and Frances Weinberg wept openly, shaking with sobs.

  “Alice! Now just look what you’ve done!” Martha Louise said to me severely. “Meeting adjourned!”

  I HAD TO MISS the third meeting of the writing group because Dr. Culbertson stuck me into the Health Center for treatment and further tests (euphemisms both). In fact, Dr. Culbertson then went so far as to consult with my son, Steven, a doctor as well, about what to do with me next. Dr. Culbertson was of the opinion that I ought to move to the Health Center for “better care.” Of course I called Steven immediately and gave him a piece of my mind.

  That was yesterday.

  I know they are discussing me by telephone — Robert, Alex, Steven, and Carl. Lines are buzzing up and down the East Coast.

  I came here when I had to, because I did not want any of their wives to get stuck with me, as I had gotten stuck with Norman’s mother and father. Now I expect some common decency and respect. It is a time when I wish for daughters, who often, I feel, have more compassion and understanding than sons.

  Even Carl, the child of my heart, says I had “better listen to the doctor.”

  Instead, I have been listening to this voice too long silent inside me, the voice of myself, as I write page after page propped up in bed at the Health Center.

  It is Wednesday. I have skipped certain of my afternoon medications. At two fifteen I buzz for Sheila, my favorite, a tall young nurses’ aide with the grace of a gazelle. “Sheila,” I say, “I need for you to help me dress, dear, and then roll my chair over here, if you will. My own chair, I mean. I have to go to a meeting.”

  Sheila looks at my chart and then back at me, her eyes wide. “It doesn’t say,” she begins.

  “Dr. Culbertson said it would be perfectly all right,” I assure her. I pull a twenty-dollar bill from my purse, which I keep right beside me in bed, and hand it to her. “I know it’s a lot of trouble, but it’s very important,” I say. “I think I’ll just slip on the red sweater and the black wraparound skirt — that’s so easy to get on. They’re both in the drawer, dear.”

  “Okay, honey,” Sheila says, and she gets me dressed and sets me in my chair. I put on lipstick and have Sheila fluff up my hair in the back, where it’s gotten so flat from lying in bed. Sheila hands me my purse and my notebook and then I’m off, waving at the girls at the nurses’ station as I purr past them. They wave back. I feel fine now. I take the elevator down to the first floor and then motor through the lobby, speaking to acquaintances. I pass the gift shop, the newspaper stand, and all the waiting rooms.

  It’s chilly outside. I head up the walkway past the par 3 golf course, where I spy Parker Howard, ludicrous in those bright green pants they sell to old men, putting on the third hole. “Hi, Parker!” I cry.

  “Hello, Alice,” he calls. “Nice to see you out!” He sinks the putt.

  I enter the multipurpose building and head for the library, where the writers’ group is already in progress. It has taken me longer to drive over from the Health Center than I’d supposed.

  Miss Elena is reading, but she stops and looks up when I come in, her mouth a perfect O. Everybody looks at Martha Louise.

  “Why, Alice,” Martha Louise says. She raises her eyebrows. “We didn’t expect that you would be joining us today. We heard that you were in the Health Center.”

  “I was,” I say. “But I’m out now.”

  “Evidently,” Martha Louise says.

  I ride up to the circular table, set my brake, get out my notebook, and ask Miss Elena for a copy of whatever she’s reading. Wordlessly, she slides one over. But still she does not resume. They’re all looking at me.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Well, Alice, last week when you were absent, we laid out some ground rules for this writing group.” Martha Louise gains composure as she goes along. “We are all in agreement here, Alice, that if this is to be a pleasant and meaningful club for all of us, we need to restrict our subjec
t matter to what everyone enjoys.”

  “So?” I don’t get it.

  “We’ve also adopted an official name for the group.” Now Martha Louise is cheerful as a robin.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s the Happy Memories Club,” she announces, and they all nod.

  I am beginning to get it.

  “You mean to tell me — “ I start.

  “I mean to tell you that if you wish to be a part of this group, Alice Scully, you will have to calm yourself down and keep your subject matter in check. We don’t come here to be upset,” Martha Louise says serenely.

  They are all watching me closely now, Vern Hofstetter in particular. I think they expect an outburst.

  But I won’t give them the satisfaction.

  “Fine,” I say. This is a lie. “That sounds just fine to me. Good idea!” I smile at everybody.

  There is a perceptible relaxation then, an audible settling back into chairs, as Miss Elena resumes her reading. It’s a travelogue piece entitled, “Shakespeare and His Haunts,” about a tour she made in England several years ago. But I find myself unable to listen. I simply can’t hear Elena, or Joy, who reads next, or even Vern.

  “Well, is that it for today? Anybody else?” Martha Louise raps her knuckles against the table.

  “I brought something,” I say, “but I don’t have copies.”

  I look at Vern, who shrugs and smiles and says I should go ahead anyway. Everybody else looks at Martha Louise.

  “Well, go on then,” she directs tartly, and I begin.

  After Rose’s disappearance, my mother took to her bed and turned her face to the wall, leaving me in charge of everything. Oh, how I worked! I worked like a dog, long hours, a cruelly unnatural life for a spirited young woman. Yet I persevered. People in the town, including our minister, complimented me; I was discussed and admired. Our boardinghouse stayed full, and somehow I managed, with Ocie’s help, to get the meals on the table. I smiled and chattered at mealtime. Yet inside I was starving, starving for love and life.

  Thus it is not surprising, I suppose, that I should fall for the first man who showed any interest in me. He was a schoolteacher who had been educated at the University in Charlottesville, a thin, dreamy young man from one of the finest families in Virginia. His grandfather had been the governor. He used to sit out by the sound every day after supper, reading, and one day I joined him there. It was a lovely June evening; the sound was full of sailboats, and the sky above us was as round and blue as a bowl.

  “I was reading a poem about a girl with beautiful yellow hair,” he said, “and then I look up and what do I see? A real girl with beautiful yellow hair.”

  For some reason I started to cry, not even caring what my other boarders thought as they sat up on the porch looking out over this landscape in which we figured.

  “Come here,” he said, and he took my hand and led me behind the old rose-covered boathouse, where he pulled me to him and kissed me curiously, as if it were an experiment.

  His name was Carl Redding Armistead. He had the reedy look of the poet, but all the assurance of the privileged class. I was older than he, but he was more experienced. He was well educated and had been to Europe several times.

  “You pretty thing,” he said, and kissed me again. The scent of the roses was everywhere.

  I went that night to his room, and before the summer was out, we had lain together in nearly every room at the boardinghouse. We were crazy for each other by then, and I didn’t care what might happen, or who knew. On Saturday evenings I’d leave a cold supper for the rest, and Carl and I would take the skiff and row out to Sand Island, where the wild ponies were, and take off all our clothes and make love. Sometimes my back would be red and bleeding from the rough black sand and the broken shells on the beach.

  “Just a minute! Just a minute here!” Martha Louise is pounding on the table, and Frances Weinberg is crying as usual. Vern Hofstetter is staring at me in a manner that indicates he has heard every word I’ve said.

  “Well, I think that’s terrific!” Shirley Lassiter giggles and bats her painted blue eyelids at us all.

  Of course our romance did not last. Nothing that intense can be sustained, although the loss of such intensity can scarcely be borne. Quite simply, Carl and I foundered upon the prospect of the future. He had to go on to that world that awaited him; I could not leave Mama. Our final parting was bitter — we were spent, exhausted by the force of what had passed between us. He did not even look back as he sped away in his red sports car, nor did I cry.

  Nor did I ever tell him about the existence of Carl, my son, whom I bore defiantly out of wedlock eight months later, telling no one who the father was. Oh, those were hard, black days! I was ostracized by the very people who had formerly praised me, and ogled by the men in the boardinghouse, who now considered me a fallen woman. I wore myself down to a frazzle taking care of Mama and the baby at the same time.

  One night, I was so tired I felt that I would actually die, yet little Carl would not stop crying. Nothing would quiet him — not rocking, not the breast, not walking the room. He had an unpleasant cry, like a cat mewing. I remember looking out my window at the quiet town, where everyone slept — everyone on this earth, I felt, except for me. I held Carl out at arm’s length and looked at him good in the streetlight, at his red, twisted little face. I had an awful urge to throw him out the window —

  “That’s enough!” several of them say at once. Martha Louise was standing.

  But it is Miss Elena who speaks, “I cannot believe,” she says severely, “that out of your entire life, Alice Scully, this is all you can find to write about. What of your long marriage to Mr. Scully? Your seven grandchildren? Those of us who have not been blessed with grandchildren would give — “

  Of course I loved Norman Scully. Of course I love my grandchildren. I love Solomon too. I love them all. Miss Elena is like my sons, too terrified to admit to herself how many people we can love, how various we are. She does not want to hear it, any more than they do, any more than you do. You all want us to never change, never change.

  I did not throw my baby out the window, after all, and my mother finally died, and I sold the boardinghouse then and was able, at last, to go to school.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see Dr. Culbertson appear at the library door, accompanied by a man I do not know. Martha Louise says, “I simply cannot believe that a former English teacher — “

  This strikes me as very funny. My mind is filled with enormous sentences as I back up my chair and then start forward, out the other door and down the hall and outside into the sweet spring day, where the sunshine falls on my face as it did in those days on the beach, my whole body hot and aching and sticky with sweat and salt and blood, the wild ponies paying us no mind as they ate the tall grass that grew at the edge of the dunes. Sometimes the ponies came so close that we could reach out and touch them. Their coats were shaggy and rough and full of burrs, I remember.

  Oh I remember everything as I cruise forward on the sidewalk that neatly separates the rock garden from the golf course. I turn right at the corner, instead of left toward the Health Center. “Fore!” shouts Parker Howard, waving at me. A former English teacher, Martha Louise said. These sidewalks are like diagrams, parallel lines and dividers: oh, I could diagram anything. The semicolon, I used to say, is like a scale; it must separate items of equal rank, I’d warn them. Do not use a semicolon between a clause and a phrase or between a main clause and a subordinate clause. Do not write, I loved Carl Redding Armistead; a rich man’s son. Do not write, If I had really loved Carl Armistead; I would have left with him despite all obstacles. Do not write, I still feel his touch; which has thrilled me throughout my life.

  I turn at the top of the hill and motor along the sidewalk toward the Residence Center, hoping to see Solomon. The sun is in my eyes. Do not carelessly link two sentences with only a comma. Do not write, I want to see Solomon again, he has meant so much to me. To correct thi
s problem, subordinate one of the parts. I want to see Solomon, because he has meant so much to me. Because he has meant. So much. To me. Fragments. Fragments all. I push the button to open the door into the Residence Center, and sure enough, they’ve brought him out. They’ve dressed him in his madras plaid shirt and wheeled him in front of the television, which he hates. I cruise right over.

  “Solomon,” I say, but at first he doesn’t respond when he looks at me. I come even closer. “Solomon!” I say sharply, bumping his wheelchair. He notices me then, and a little light comes into his eyes.

  I cup my hands. “Solomon,” I say. “I’ll give you a kiss if you can guess what I’ve got in my hands.”

  He looks at me for a while longer.

  “Now Mrs. Scully,” his nurse starts.

  “Come on,” I say. “What have I got in here?”

  “An elephant,” Solomon finally says.

  “Close enough!” I cry, and lean right over to kiss his sweet old cheek, being unable to reach his mouth.

  “Mrs. Scully,” his nurse starts again, but I’m gone, I’m history, I’m out the front door and around the parking circle and up the long entrance drive to the highway. It all connects. Everything connects. The sun is bright, the dogwoods are blooming, the state flower of Virginia is the dogwood, I can still see the sun on the Chickahominy River and my own little sons as they sail their own little boats in a tidal pool by the Chesapeake Bay, they were all blond boys once, though their hair would darken later, Annapolis is the capital of Maryland, the first historic words ever transmitted by telegraph came to Maryland: “What hath God wrought?” The sun is still shining. It glares off the snow on Pikes Peak, it gleams through the milky blue glass of the old apothecary jar in the window of Norman Scully’s shop, it warms the asphalt on that road where Rose and I lie waiting, waiting, waiting.