Lily Cigar

by Tom Murphy

  As if on purpose to make this smiling picture of Lily’s world complete, Kate came running, whooping, laughing into the yard, pursued by seven-year-old Neddy, who was running even faster, yelling even louder. Lily smiled as Kate let herself be caught, then caught her captor, picking Neddy up by the arms and swinging him round and round until he squealed for mercy. They were both brown as walnuts and most undignified. As she wished them to be, innocent of the world and its whalebone-and-pulpit standards.

  Katie! It was really for Katie, more than for herself, and long before Brooks had come to California, that Lily had bought the ranch and made it into a separate world where the real world couldn’t harm them. Lily knew that with every passing month, with every inch the child grew, the time was drawing closer when Kate must go out into that world, for better or for worse. She was already, at eighteen, taller than her mother, and ripe with the promise of beauty. Kate’s hair had the same shimmering copper glints as did Lily’s, but her eyes were Jack’s eyes, dark and sometimes distant, now merry, now impenetrable. Lily had never told the girl about her past, much less her true parentage. Kate knew that Lily was her blood mother, that her father was dead—and for all Lily knew, he might be.

  Now, in just two weeks’ time, Kate would be off. They’d escort her to Sacramento and put her on the train, there to go all the way across this wild country to enroll at the Mount Holyoke Seminary for Young Ladies in Massachusetts. This had been Kate’s own idea, and Brooks was in agreement. Lily buried her own doubts, for she could see the thirst for learning glow bright in the girl’s eyes, and the little school at Tiburon, to which all the children rode their horses every day, was surely less than adequate at Katie’s age. But to see Kate go and be gone for at least half a year, unless Lily went chasing after her, which Lily well knew would be impossible, for that would surely be the worst of all the partings, if she were to leave Brooks and Neddy and little Jon…

  Still, Lily smiled and watched her children for a moment before she called to them.

  “Kate! Neddy! Where’s your brother?”

  They came running across the courtyard. Neddy spoke first, grinning his father’s grin. “He’s making an Indian raid on Gloria’s pantry.”

  “And you, Edward Hudner Chaffee,” said Lily, scooping the boy up in her arms and holding him high, which she could do for only a moment, so fine and fast was he growing, “are a blackguard, to be informing on him.”

  She kissed Neddy and set him down. “Now,” said Lily, “why don’t we all go and join Jon in his raid? I happen to know where some of Gloria’s lace cookies are hidden, and I’ll bet I could eat three of ’em right now.”

  This scheme met with the expected reaction, and they all joined hands and headed back across the courtyard toward the kitchen.

  It was Neddy, born with the ears of a prowling fox, who first heard his father’s approach. “There,” he piped, “comes Black Prince.”

  “Pish,” said Kate, “you hear the mules stamping. Father never comes home this early.”

  “Bet a cookie?”

  “You’re on.”

  But the bet was no sooner made than Kate lost it, for Brooks Chaffee came cantering smartly into the courtyard on the echo of her words. He slid gracefully out of the saddle, hitched the black stallion to the new wrought-iron hitching bar, and walked across to his family, kissing them each in turn, beginning with Lily.

  How very handsome he looks in his city clothes, she thought, as though she were seeing him for the first time. Forty-one years old, and stronger than he ever was, the limp’s almost gone now, it only hurts on the coldest, wettest days, and some of the hurt inside him is less now, too, for surely it’s been a year and more since he woke me up in the night screaming for his dead brother. And the other one, his first wife, there is no knowing how often he thinks of her, and surely he’ll never forget her, any more than I’ll forget the Fleur de Lis, yet it is a gentler kind of pain by now, there have been so many happy things in the meantime to fill the empty fearful space inside him.

  Lily looked up at her husband with a discoverer’s eyes and thought that there must be many a female heart broken every time Brooks Chaffee turned his back on San Francisco and headed home for the ranch.

  “You look,” she said, “like the sourdough miner who just won a no-good claim in a poker game and struck gold on it.”

  Brooks laughed. There was a special look about him this afternoon, hinting at some happy secret, some new triumph.

  “I would love,” he said, “some tea. Then I’ll tell you all some good news.”

  They trooped into the great kitchen and sat around the big round oak table. Lily made tea for Brooks and herself, and got milk and cookies for the children.

  Kate spoke first. “I know. You’ve been nominated for governor.”

  Lily smiled at this and shivered in her heart, for it was not impossible: Brooks now had many friends in San Francisco, and of such prominence that politics was ever in the background of their lives, and often it played a role more prominent than that.

  But he only laughed and denied it.

  Neddy spoke next. “You’re a general in the army and they want you to lead the war on Mexico and I’m your lieutenant.”

  Lily could see a flickering of pain come onto her husband’s face and go again in a flash, for the child was only being like all boys, in love with the dash and the trumpet calls of anything to do with the military, knowing not at all how hideous it could be and how his father still carried the scars of Antietam both on his body and in his heart. She knew it would be her turn to guess now, and the fear of it almost choked her, for whatever his news was, it probably meant change, and Lily’s world was perfect right now, as it was, so small and tight and happy that it was hard to imagine a change that might improve it.

  She fought her fear by making light of it. “You have found gold under my turnip patch.”

  They all laughed, and turned expectantly to Brooks.

  He paused a moment for dramatic effect, then began, as if telling a children’s story. “Once upon a time,” he said portentously, “there was a beautiful hilltop.”

  He’s building me my dream house, Lily thought joyously, a little cottage high on my hill, just for the two of us! They had often talked of doing just that, but somehow they had never gotten around to it.

  “This hilltop was very special,” Brooks continued, “for it was higher than the other hills, and it commanded a wonderful view down to the ocean—”

  “And all the way to China?” Neddy forgot his manners in the excitement.

  “That,” said Brooks gravely, “is quite possible, but only on a very clear day. In any event, the hilltop is so special, and the Chaffee family has been so happy in this house, that when I saw this other hilltop, I thought we could only be twice as happy in two houses. So I bought it, and just closed the deal today, and before very long we will have a fine new house in town as well as our fine old house here at the ranch. And your old father won’t have to spend so much time running back and forth, for I’ll be able to stroll down California Street to my new office.”

  His eyes were on Lily as he spoke, for Brooks knew her fears, her deep love for the ranch and the little world she had built there. He knew, too, that he could count on Lily to control herself in front of the children, that it had been just a bit sly of him to announce this new development so publicly. There was a message in his glance, and the message was: Don’t fail me now, whatever your problem is, we’ll work it out somehow, it is important to me, this move, growing, seeing more of the great world.

  Lily’s smile froze on her face as the shock sank in. So he had done the thing she dreaded most. There went her dream of a cottage on her hillside at the ranch! Instead there would be a gaudy palace on Nob Hill, probably not a few blocks from the Fleur de Lis, or where the Fleur de Lis had been, for it was gone now, torn down these last five years; a bank filled that site now, all very respectable. But you couldn’t tear down Lily’s secret shame, nor halt
the wagging tongues of scandal-loving San Francisco.

  Lily looked at Brooks, and as quickly looked away.

  Her eyes passed to Kate, lovely Kate, innocent Kate: And how do you tell your only daughter her mother was a whore? She looked at Neddy, bubbling with charm and good spirits, and thought of the parties he might not be invited to on her account, and how he’d roamed these gentle hills for years, blissfully unaware that there were such things in the world as spite, and shame, and discrimination.

  Lily sighed and thought: If I had died ten minutes ago, I would have died happy. Then she stood up and left the kitchen without a word.

  43

  Brooks found her in their bedroom, standing at one of the three tall windows, standing so straight and still she might have been part of the furniture, staring out over their hills with unfocused eyes, too shocked for tears or for rage.

  Lily heard his step, but said nothing, nor moved a muscle.

  Brooks came up behind her and gently enfolded her in his arms.

  Lily shuddered and sighed a sigh that might have come from any condemned prisoner. Finally she found her tongue. “It is done, then? It’s final?”

  He kissed her cheek. Lily moved her head away as if to elude a bothersome housefly.

  “I thought you’d be pleased, Lily.”

  She spun around in his arms, and there was no way to hide the pain in her eyes or mute the anger so suddenly unleashed in her voice. “Pleased? When you never even discussed the thing with me? Pleased! When you know what that town did to me, what it can do to me still, and our children? When you know what I’ve built here on the ranch and how much it means to me, and you throw it all away in one idle gesture, and to achieve…what? No, Brooks. Love you as I do, I am not pleased.”

  His thoughts raced, for her reaction shocked him. Brooks knew Lily disliked the town, but he had never known, for the occasion had never come up, how very deep and intense her hatred and fear of the place could be.

  “I was thinking of the children, too.”

  “The children? That’s what disturbs me the most. Have you ever seen happier children than ours, or healthier? What do they need with the crowded, smelly city and the spoiled little rich boys and girls who’d be their playmates there—assuming my children would be allowed to play with them. The town loves scandal, Brooks, and it would be a true shame to visit that on the little ones.”

  “That’s the heart of it, isn’t it? You, the bravest woman I have ever known, are afraid of some silly gossip.”

  Lily turned from him then and walked slowly across the room and sat on their big white bed. For a moment she said nothing. Then she covered her face with her hands and spoke in a voice so empty of hope it might have been the wind scrubbing gravestones. Nor could she look at him.

  “I knew…I always knew, deep in my heart, that my luck was too good to last, that sooner or later I would have to pay for my sins, and sins they surely were, Brooks. I knew that no matter how much you loved me, this moment would come, the time when for all your fine protestations that my past didn’t matter, it would come sneaking back to haunt us. Can’t you see that’s why I love the ranch so much? Can’t you see that here we are safe—I’m safe, and the children—that here there is no one who would dare to rake over the past that should be allowed to rest forever? Yes. I’m afraid. I’m more afraid than ever I have been. I am afraid of losing your respect—your love—and for the children, who are innocent. The city is a dangerous place for me, Brooks. Yet if you ask it of me, I will go there.”

  He came and sat beside her and put his arm around her. His voice was gentle as his touch, but for the first time that touch did not warm her, and the comfort in his words rang hollow.

  “Lily, Lily, my Lily. When did I ever say a thing to you that wasn’t true? Well, on the basis of that, my darling, I must ask you to trust me now. You have kept yourself so close out here at the ranch, you really haven’t seen San Francisco in years. ‘Tis a glorious place now, Lily, magnificent! Great things are happening. And, like it or not, we are part of it, a bigger part than you probably suspect. And the time has come to take our place there, not just for our own sakes, but also for the children. Kate and Neddy and Jon are going to be leaders in this part of the world, Lily, if they choose to take what will be available to them. And we must prepare them for that. It is all very well to have them running about the ranch like so many farmers’ children, but they must learn to deal as equals in the world they will inherit.”

  “They’ll inherit the ranch too, I hope?”

  “And much more, and if they’re to know what to do with it, we must prepare them. That’s why Mount Holyoke is such a good idea for Kate. It’ll turn her into a fine young lady.”

  “That’s exactly what I fear the most.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “In my experience, small as it is, the fine young ladies—and gentlemen—of this world are a very mixed lot, at best.”

  “You married one.”

  “Shall I remind you, my darling, that once you did, too? Let us not fight, Brooks. I have seen this coming for some time, and as with too many other unpleasant things in my life, I simply refused to admit it. Aside from everything else, the life of a rich woman in the city appeals to me not at all. They are such idle creatures, Brooks, far more idle than you guess. They spend their time in trembling delight over the cut of a sleeve or the tilt of a bonnet, they gather in buzzing swarms to try with a kind of sad desperate energy to outdo each other in the splendor of their dress, their houses, the distinction of their guest lists. I was not a maid in the Wallingford house for nothing. It is shallow, hypocritical, and extravagant. It creates nothing useful. It is boring and demeaning. And I would think these things even if I didn’t feel that there is a grave risk of the gossips of the town hurting you and our children through my reputation.”

  “You are Mrs. Brooks Chaffee of Chaffee Produce, and you could buy and sell the lot of them.”

  “I am Lily Cigar.”

  She stood quickly, as if stung. Lily walked to the middle of the room and turned in her tracks with a panther’s grace. Her voice when she spoke was low, but there was an unmistakable ripple of menace in it.

  “You can’t know what that means, Brooks. No man could know. Your name and our money may impress the climbers. It is never a trick to fill a room with people if you’re serving fine food and good liquor and plenty of it. But for those who have already climbed, those who play the game of who is highest upon the greased pole at any given moment, they are another matter altogether. I was born too close to the gutter to ever lose sight of it entirely, Brooks. When I took up whoring, it was for one reason only, to free myself from ever again being dependent upon anyone, or on any system of society. I hated it, but it was a game I played to win, and win I did, handsomely. And as soon as I could, I came out here and made myself a world of my own, and it works, my little world. Is it so bad, what we have here, that you must flee?”

  Brooks looked at the woman he loved more than anyone or anything in the world and tried, as though his life hung in the balance, to feel what she felt. That Lily was in deep pain was obvious. But he had seen her overcome too many problems with an easy-seeming, offhand grace and courage to credit her fear. Women are silly sometimes, all of them, and this must be one of those times for Lily. And she’s wrong, and I’ll prove it to her! For haven’t I seen the best San Francisco has to offer, its finest women and richest houses, and is there one of those women who could come within miles of Lily for beauty, outside or in, for wit and brains and decency? Not one. Lily will shine there, she’ll have the town eating out of her hand, and she’ll be happier for it.

  “There’s more in the world than our ranch, Lily.”

  “If you hadn’t come, I’d have stayed here always.”

  “Then I’m glad I came, for you are too fine and lovely to stay bottled up on a farm, however big and thriving.”

  For the first time, then, she smiled, a thin and fleeting smile. “If yo
u were going into the darkest jungle, or off to some bloody war, Brooks darling, I would follow you unquestioningly, no matter what the cost. And I’ll follow you even to San Francisco, for even on the ranch I love I’d be miserable without you.”

  Brooks came to her then and took her in his arms. She felt all the warmth of him flowing into her with the strong steady glow of a well-made fire. And when she shuddered now, it was with pleasure. Her anger quieted, and for the moment her fears crept away. This was his magic, the blessing of his love, and she knew it was magic and that magic spells could be taken as quickly as they came, out of nowhere, and to nowhere return.

  In her mind’s eye San Francisco loomed tall and dark and glowering like some cruel enemy’s fortress, a citadel strongly defended, that she must attack alone and unarmed.

  “I’m afraid,” she said softly, as much to herself as to him.

  “What was that?”

  Lily sighed. “Nothing, my darling. Nothing at all.”