Katie

by Michael McDowell

  When John Slape returned to Parrock Farm that Thursday evening, his good news of the sale of the timber was over­matched by Hannah’s pronouncement that Richard Parrock had determined to sign over to them his property.

  “Oh, this is good news!” said John Slape, and sat heavily at the kitchen table. He was a large-framed man, with thick black hair, a black beard, and a black moustache that looked as if it had been gnawed by rats. His principal pleasure in life was attending the theater, a habit he had formed during his first marriage to the unfortunate Mlle. Desire (whose real name had been Mary Tomp­kins). He looked forward to the death of the old man, not only for the anticipated possession of his money, but for the return to a city where he might indulge his theatrical passion. John Slape wore a large, drab surtout, with loose, drab clothes beneath, and heavy, rough boots that made his presence known from one end of the house to the other. “I’ll go up to thank him.”

  Hannah and Katie laughed, and John Slape grinned at what he thought an excellent witticism at Richard Parrock’s expense. So far as they imagined, the old man was entirely fooled by their hypocritical solicitude.

  A few minutes later, John Slape pounded up the stone stairs and entered Richard Parrock’s room without knocking. “Pa,” he said, “Hannah says you’re turning it all over.”

  Richard Parrock sat up slowly in the bed. “I’m thinking of it, John.”

  “It’s good you’ve decided, Pa, we’re—”

  “I’m thinking of it, John,” repeated Richard Parrock. “But first I have to speak to Mr. Killip. I expected him today but he has not come. When I’ve talked to him, then we shall see what’s to be done.”

  John considered this a few moments. He was not a quick-witted man, and brute strength and cunning must answer for lack of intelligence. “Hannah says—”

  Richard Parrock shook his head. “Not yet,” he said firmly. “I’ve made no decisions yet, but I’m thinking of it.” Richard Parrock prayed that the Slapes never learned to what extent he feared them. The sight of massive John Slape filling the doorway of his room always made the old man wonder on what day his neck would be broken by those brawny, soiled hands, or he be lifted and hurled through the casement.

  John Slape’s disappointment was intense. He stamped his feet on the floor, clenched his fists, and whirled about, nearly collid­ing with Katie, who appeared in the doorway bearing a tray. She deftly stepped out of the way and allowed her father free flight down the stairs, where he called out loudly for Hannah.

  Katie came into the room with a smile that made Richard Parrock every bit as uneasy as her father’s anger.

  Richard Parrock gave her nervous greeting. “Hello, Katie,” he said, attempting to ignore John Slape’s impassioned yelling below stairs. “Are you not early? Or have I lost track of the time? When do you suppose my clock will be repaired? It’s a shame not to have it on the mantel any longer.”

  “Oh, that!” said Katie. “Tossed it away. In here you’ve no need of the time, Grandpa.”

  Richard Parrock shuddered each time this young girl ad­dressed him so.

  Katie placed the tray across the old man’s lap, and seeing that the spoon was dirty, wiped it off on the scarcely cleaner hem of her skirt.

  “What’s this today?” he asked, eyeing the deep plate that had been placed on the tray before him.

  “Oh, it’s delicious,” said Katie with a grin, “go ahead. It’s rabbit stew.”

  Chapter 8

  A DOLLAR A WEEK

  Early the following morning the Slapes were at their usual meager breakfast of coffee and mashed potatoes. The morning was damp and the kitchen smelled of rotting hay. The fire in the hearth was sluggish and smoky. “Which of you took up his food?” demanded John Slape, looking first at his wife, then at his daughter.

  “I did,” said Hannah. “Old man don’t like the girl.”

  “That don’t signify,” replied John Slape. “You ask about the money? What’d he say to signing?”

  “Said he was waiting for the lawyer,” replied Hannah. “Wouldn’t say more’n that.”

  “He’s a wicked old man!” exclaimed John Slape. “To keep us waiting the way he has – there’s no forgiveness for it.”

  Lifting her plate closer to her mouth in order to shovel in the last shreds of potato, Katie grinned. That grin promised no happiness for Richard Parrock when at last he did endorse the railway shares and the government bonds.

  There was a knock at the kitchen door. From where they sat the Slapes could not see who called. They were in general chary of visitors, fearing that someone should find how closely mewed up they kept Richard Parrock.

  “Maybe it’s Killip the lawyer,” said John Slape, making no move to rise.

  “Who’s there?” called Hannah loudly. “What’s wanted?”

  The knock was repeated, and, casting her plate aside, Katie rose precipitously and jerked open the door. Without, and be­gin­ning to sink in the mire of the dooryard, stood a young woman of Katie’s own age carrying a carpetbag. Whether she was actually prettier than Katie would have been a matter of in­di­vidual judgment, but there could be no doubt that the physiognomy of the young woman in the doorway was expressive of self-reliance, honesty, and intelligence. Her dress was plain but wholesome, and she peered curiously beyond Katie into the kitchen. Her mouth tightened a little, evidently in disapproval of the uncleanliness she noted there.

  “What’s wanted, girl?” demanded Hannah. “Never seen you before.”

  “I was told you had a place open here.”

  Hannah regarded her closely; the young woman’s eye was unflinching and this surprised Hannah, for most were afraid of her.

  “Maybe. Willing to work?”

  “I am.”

  “Are you willing to work hard? Are you willing to do what you’re told to do?” cackled Katie, who had taken an instant dis­like to the young woman seeking employment.

  “I am willing to do what’s required of me,” the girl replied with perfect self-possession. She came boldly into the room and looked about. “It appears that you’ve not had anyone in some time.”

  “Hard to get girls that are honest,” sneered Hannah. “You honest, girl?”

  “I hope so. I have never had complaint on that score.”

  “Then you have papers? You have letters?”

  Philo – to make no mystery of her identity – took two folded letters from the pocket of her skirt and held them out to Hannah. Katie snatched them away and roughly opened them. She stared at them a few moments but in such a way to make Philo think that she did not know how to read, then handed them to her stepmother. Hannah began to look over the letters, but the effort was almost as great for her as it had been for Katie, and she soon gave it over. Philo realized that she need not have been so careful in preparing these false recommendations, the writing of which had caused her some pangs of conscience as being the first deliberate deceptions she had ever perpetrated.

  “You’ll do, I suppose,” said Hannah. “What are you called?”

  “My name is Mary Dracut,” replied Philo, who thought it im­prudent to give her real name, which might not be unknown to the Slapes. Then, to maintain her assumed character as a servant seeking employment, she asked, “What are the wages?”

  “Dollar a week,” replied Hannah. Here John Slape took up his shotgun, which was propped beside the door, and made his departure without a word or a second glance at Philo. The hiring of servants was woman’s domain, and he took no part in it.

  “That’s very low,” said Philo, who would have taken the position if only a quarter of that sum had been offered, so anxious was she to see her grandfather.

  “You’ve nothing to spend it on,” laughed Katie. “Not here. We’ll keep you busy enough.”

  “Sweep out chambers,” said Hannah. “Have the care of the poultry yard. And cook – you cook?”

  “Does someone else live here?” asked Philo.

  “What made you think that, girl?” demanded
Hannah sharply.

  “I was told in Goshen that four persons lived at Parrock House. I’ve seen only three.”

  “There’s only the old man upstairs,” laughed Katie. “But he won’t be troubling you long.”

  A cloud passed over Philo’s brow, which did not go unnoticed by Hannah and Katie.

  “Is he ill?” asked Philo anxiously.

  “Took sick last night,” replied Katie with a smile. “Turned out his stomach five times over.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Philo with an effort to appear indifferent. To betray too great an interest in her grandfather might raise suspicions in the minds of the Slapes.

  “Oh, it’s nothing to us,” Katie assured her.

  Hannah regarded Philo closely. “Where you from, girl?”

  “Woodbine,” replied Philo readily, naming a town about fifteen miles distant at which the cars had stopped the previous day.

  “Why don’t you bide at home then?” demanded Katie rudely.

  “My family are poor,” replied Philo with dignity. “And out on my own, I am less a burden to them.”

  Hannah was apparently satisfied with this explanation and opened the door to the tiny room beside the pantry in which Philo was to sleep. “Hearth wall,” said Hannah, laying her hand against the stones, “warm enough in here.” She left the girl alone.

  Philo sat on the edge of the little cot, which with a rickety table was the only furnishing of the room. She was unhappy with the necessity of disguise and prevarication, but reflected that all was done for the sake of her grandfather, who lay ill, crippled, and practically imprisoned in one of the rooms somewhere above. It was sobering to think that if he had not been able to send the letter which had arrived in New Egypt only two days before, Philo and her mother would never have known of his plight. Since Philo had never met her grandfather and knew him only by his name and the fact that he had rejected his daughter twenty-three years before, it was impossible to think of the old man without thinking of his fortune. Implicit in his letter, Philo considered, had been his intention of settling money on the Draxes. This excited Philo, and the prospect of being raised to Jewel Varley’s position in the society of New Egypt was a happy thought indeed. As she opened the carpetbag and set out her meager wardrobe on the rickety table, Philo vowed that the Slapes, having already secured the farm, should not have another penny that belonged rightfully to her and her mother. Even upon so slight an acquaintance, they had impressed Philo unfavorably, and she would not be sorry to thwart their plans.

  Philo spent all that morning cleaning the kitchen, and even with so much work she only managed to make it presentable. The Slapes disgusted her with their disregard for cleanliness and order. Hannah and Katie took their leisure sitting at the table, crack­ing nuts left over from the previous winter’s harvest and directing Philo sharply about. Philo would happily have fore­gone their company, but she forced herself to be polite and sub­servient.

  She attended to the conversation of the mother and daughter, which was coarse and vulgar in the extreme. Hannah and Katie spoke without reserve of the money they imagined they would come into soon, and the dark hints that related to the old man’s death were not lost on Philo as she scrubbed the hearthstones and lugged out pail after pail of ashes from the fireplace. When she realized the contempt in which the Slapes held her grandfather and the complacency with which they looked forward to his demise, Philo became ever more anxious to see him.

  Toward noon Hannah remarked, “Time to take him a little more rabbit stew,” and to this perfectly reasonable speech, Katie replied with a gale of laughter that mystified Philo.

  “Oh, let me take it up to him,” said Philo, unable to disguise her eagerness.

  Katie and Hannah did not remark on Philo’s plea for more tasks, but merely signified that she should fill a plate with the stew that had simmered all morning in a thick black pot at the back of the hearth.

  Philo hastily ladled out a plate of the stew, set it on a tray with a spoon and a napkin – this last a luxury she had no way of knowing her grandfather had been many many months without – and carried it upstairs. She paused a moment before the door of Richard Parrock’s chamber, and when she knocked it was with a slight hesitancy born of the reflection that she was about to see her grandfather for the first time in her life.

  “Walk in,” cried a feeble voice.

  Philo lifted the latch and pushed the door open with her foot. She entered into a large, spare chamber with whitewashed walls, dark wainscoating, and simple, old-fashioned furniture. The chamber windows however made up for the deficiency of de­cor­ation by presenting a fine vista of Delaware Bay and the edge of the great cedar swamp to the south. The noon sun had burned away the morning’s dampness.

  In the great four-poster bed against the wall, Philo made out the enfeebled form of an old man. His eyes had been closed, and when he opened them they were filmed. His face was pale and blotched, his white beard discolored with illness. As she neared the bed she was struck with the unpleasant odor of invalidism, so nearly akin to the odor of death.

  The man was startled to see her. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “I’m the new girl,” Philo replied, and glanced behind her to make certain that she had not been followed up the stairs. She placed the tray on the edge of the bed, put her finger to her lips, and hurried to the door, shutting it softly.

  “Are you Philomela?” the old man cried in wonder, and the tears sprang to his rheumy eyes.

  “Shhhhh!” cried Philo with a smile, and came to the old man’s side. “It is I, Grandfather. But you must call me Mary. I am known to the Slapes as Mary Dracut. I thought it would be easier for you to remember if I assumed Mother’s given name.” She took Richard Parrock’s hand. “I have come to take you away.”

  “You have seen them downstairs?”

  “They have hired me,” replied Philo, “for a dollar a week.”

  “Philomela,” said the old man, “I will give you thousands!”

  “I am Mary,” said Philo sternly. “If the Slapes discover I am your granddaughter—”

  Richard Parrock shuddered. “They must not,” he said in a whisper.

  “We haven’t long,” said Philo. “They will wonder what keeps me.”

  “Your mother, how is she?” asked Richard Parrock with some diffidence.

  “She sends her love, and urges you to come to New Egypt. We are not wealthy by any means, but we mean to take care of you there.”

  “Oh . . .” He paused. “. . . Mary, you have come in the very nick of time, for they have almost got me to promise that I will turn over to them my property. But now nothing will induce me—”

  Philo heard steps upon the stairs without the room. “Hush, grandfather!” she cried in a low voice, then stepped back from the bed. As she heard the door open behind her, she said in a normal voice, “You seem very weak, Mr. Parrock. Please eat the stew; it is sure to make you stronger.”

  Richard Parrock smiled at Hannah Slape, who stood in the doorway of the room regarding Philo suspiciously. “I have just made the acquaintance of the new girl,” he said in a weak voice. “I am certain that she will work out.” And with that he took up his spoon and began to eat of Katie’s stew.

  Chapter 9

  PHILO’S FORTUNE

  More work awaited Philo downstairs. The Slapes’ chambers wanted sweeping out, and after that she was to take the plumpest chicken the poultry yard afforded, wring its neck, pluck it, and fricassee it for the Slapes’ dinner. It was fortunate that Philo’s poverty had prepared her well for this masquerade as a hired girl. By six o’clock all was done, however, and the chicken was sitting in a pan of cold water to draw out its toughness before it was cut up. Weary and troubled, Philo stood at the casement window of the kitchen, alternately slicing winter beetroot and staring at the sinking sun. Her grandfather was almost directly above her, but she dared not return to him. She felt that, despite her precautions, Hannah Slape suspected that she was more than sh
e seemed. Philo was determined to give the woman no cause to doubt her simple identity as a meek and impoverished servant.

  Presently Philo heard steps on the stairs. She paused in her task and nodded briefly to Katie. This was a girl whom Philo in her turn mistrusted; she hadn’t intelligence but cunning in abundance. And perhaps there was something the girl possessed which was more than either.

  “Hey, girl!” said Katie loudly.

  “My name is Mary,” replied Philo quietly. “I’d prefer you to address me by my name.”

  “Well, girl,” said Katie with a sneer, “so you’ve come to Par­rock Farm to make your fortune.”

  The knife in Philo’s hand sliced awry. “What do you mean?” she asked evenly, fearful that Katie had guessed her secret.

  “I mean that on your wages – a dollar a week – you’ll be the Queen of Sweden before you can count to twenty-five.”

  Philo was relieved. Katie had meant something else altogether. “Wages of a dollar a week are better than no wages at all,” re­marked Philo philosophically – and she could afford to speak so, with the prospect of Richard Parrock’s wealth before her.

  “Come sit by me,” said Katie, placing herself in her father’s chair at the head of the kitchen table.

  “Why?” asked Philo. “I’ve work still to do.”

  “Sit beside me,” said Katie, whose smile – unpleasant and un­set­tling as it was – seemed never to desert her. “I’ll tell your for­tune.”

  Philo turned and looked closely at the young woman, who beckoned her with a wink and a crooked finger. She put down her knife. “I don’t believe in such things. I don’t believe it’s pos­sible to read the future.”

  “No more do I,” replied Katie, unabashed. “I merely tell what I see, what I’ve already seen – no more’n that.”