On my wedding day, my mother—in a vague attempt to prepare me for the indignities of the marriage bed—told me to cleave to Henry no matter what. “It will hurt at first,” she said, as she fastened her pearls around my neck. “But it will get easier in time.”
Mother was only half-right.
I was a thirty-one-year-old virgin when I met Henry McAllan in the spring of 1939, a spinster well on my way to petrifaction. My world was small, and everything in it was known. I lived with my parents in the house where I’d been born. I slept in the room that had once been mine and my sisters’ and was now mine alone. I taught English at a private school for boys, sang in the Calvary Episcopal Church choir, babysat my nieces and nephews. Monday nights I played bridge with my married friends.
I was never beautiful like my sisters. Fanny and Etta have the delicate blonde good looks of the Fairbairns, my mother’s people, but I’m all Chappell: small and dark, with strong Gallic features and a full figure that was ill-suited to the flapper dresses and slim silhouettes of my youth. When my mother’s friends came to visit, they remarked on the loveliness of my hands, the curliness of my hair, the cheerfulness of my disposition; I was that sort of young woman. And then one day—quite suddenly, it seemed to me—I was no longer young. Mother wept the night of my thirtieth birthday, after the dishes from the family party had been cleaned and put away and my brothers and sisters and their spouses and children had kissed me and gone home to their beds. The sound of her crying, muffled by a pillow or my father’s shoulder perhaps, drifted down the hallway to my room, where I lay awake listening to the whippoorwills, cicadas and peepers speak to one another. I am! I am! they seemed to say.
“I am,” I whispered. The words sounded hollow to my ears, as pointless as the frantic rubbings of a cricket in a matchbox. It was hours before I slept.
But when I woke the next morning I felt a kind of relief. I was no longer just unmarried; I was officially unmarriageable. Everyone could stop hoping and shift the weight of their attention elsewhere, to some other, worthier project, leaving me to get on with my life. I was a respected teacher, a beloved daughter, sister, niece and aunt. I would be content with that.
Would I have been, I wonder? Would I have found happiness there in the narrow, blank margins of the page, habitat of maiden aunts and childless schoolteachers? I can’t say, because a little over a year later, Henry came into my life and pulled me squarely into the ink-filled center.
My brother Teddy brought him to dinner at our house one Sunday. Teddy worked as a civilian land appraiser for the Army Corps of Engineers, and Henry was his new boss. He was that rare and marvelous creature, a forty-one-year-old bachelor. He looked his age, mostly because of his hair, which was stark white. He wasn’t an especially large man, but he had density. He walked with a noticeable limp which I later learned he’d gotten in the war, but it didn’t detract from his air of confidence. His movements were slow and deliberate, as if his limbs were weighted, and it was a matter of great consequence where he placed them. His hands were strong-looking and finely made, and the nails wanted cutting. I was struck by their stillness, by the way they remained folded calmly in his lap or planted on either side of his plate, even when he talked politics. He spoke with the lovely garble of the Delta—like he had a mouthful of some rich, luscious dessert. He addressed most of his remarks to Teddy and my parents, but I felt his gray eyes on my face all through dinner, lighting there briefly, moving away and then returning again. I remember my skin prickling with heat and damp beneath my clothes, my hand trembling slightly when I reached for my water glass.
My mother, whose nose was ever attuned to the scent of male admiration, began wedging my feminine virtues into the conversation with excruciating frequency: “Oh, so you’re a college graduate, Mr. McAllan? Laura went to college, you know. She got her teaching certificate from West Tennessee State. Yes, Mr. McAllan, we all play the piano, but Laura is by far the best musician in the family. She sings beautifully too, doesn’t she Teddy? And you should taste her peach chess pie.” And so on. I spent most of dinner staring at my plate. Every time I tried to retreat to the kitchen on some errand or another, Mother insisted on going herself or sending Teddy’s wife, Eliza, who shot me sympathetic glances as she obeyed. Teddy’s eyes were dancing; by the end of the meal he was choking back laughter, and I was ready to strangle him and my mother both.
When Henry took his leave of us, Mother invited him back the following Sunday. He looked at me before he agreed, a measuring look I did my best to meet with a polite smile.
In the week that followed, my mother could talk of little else but that charming Mr. McAllan: how soft-spoken he was, how gentlemanly and—highest praise of all from her—how he did not take wine with dinner. Daddy liked him too, but that was hardly a surprise given that Henry was a College Man. For my father, a retired history professor, there was no greater proof of a person’s worth than a college education. The Son of God Himself, come again in glory but lacking a diploma, would not have found favor with Daddy.
My parents’ hopefulness grated on me. It threatened to kindle my own, and that, I couldn’t allow. I told myself that Henry McAllan and his gentlemanly, scholarly ways had nothing to do with me. He was newly arrived in Memphis and had no other society; that was why he’d accepted Mother’s invitation.
How pathetic my defenses were, and how paper-thin! They shredded easily enough the following Sunday, when Henry showed up with lilies for me as well as for my mother. After dinner he suggested we go for a walk. I took him to Overton Park. The dogwoods were blooming, and as we strolled beneath them the wind blew flurries of white petals down on our heads. It was like a scene out of the movies, with me as the unlikely heroine. Henry plucked a petal from my hair, his fingers lightly grazing my cheek.
“Pretty, aren’t they?” he said.
“Yes, but sad.”
“Why sad?”
“Because they remind us of Christ’s suffering.”
Henry’s brows drew together, forming a deep vertical furrow between them. I could tell how much it bothered him, not knowing something, and I liked him for admitting his ignorance rather than pretending to know as so many men would have done. I showed him the marks like bloody nail holes on each of the four petals.
“Ah,” he said, and took my hand.
He held it all the way back to my house, and when we got there he asked me to a performance of The Chocolate Soldier at the Memphis Open Air Theatre the following Saturday. The female members of my family mobilized to beautify me for the occasion. Mother took me to Lowenstein’s department store and bought me a new dress with a frothy white collar and puffed sleeves. On Saturday morning my sisters came to the house with pots of color for my cheeks and eyes, and lipsticks in every shade of red and pink, testing them out on me with the swift, high-handed authority of master chefs choosing seasonings for the sauce. When I was plucked, painted and powdered to their satisfaction, they held a mirror to my face, presenting me with my own reflection like a gift. I looked strange to myself and told them so.
“Just wait till Henry sees you,” laughed Fanny.
When he came to pick me up, Henry merely told me that I looked nice. But later that day he kissed me for the first time, taking my face in his hands as naturally and familiarly as if it were a favorite hat or a shaving bowl he’d owned for years. Never before had a man kissed me with that degree of possession, either of himself or of me, and it thrilled me.
Henry had all the self-confidence that I lacked. He was certain of an astonishing number of things: Packards are the best-made American cars. Meat ought not to be eaten rare. Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” should be the national anthem instead of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which is too difficult to sing. The Yankees will win the World Series. There will be another Great War in Europe, and the United States would do well to stay out of it. Blue is your color, Laura.
I wore blue. Gradually, over the course of the next several months, I unspooled my lif
e for him. I told him about my favorite students, my summer jobs as a camp counselor in Myrtle Beach and my family, down to the second and third cousins. I spoke of my two years at college, how I’d loved Dickens and the Brontës and hated Melville and mathematics. Henry listened with grave attention to everything I chose to share with him, nodding from time to time to indicate his approval. I soon found myself looking for those nods, making mental notes on when they were bestowed and withheld, and inevitably, presenting him with the version of myself that seemed most likely to elicit them. This wasn’t a deliberate exercise of feminine wiles on my part. I was unused to male admiration and knew only that I wanted more of it, and all that came with it.
And there was so much that came with it. Having a beau—my mother’s word, which she used at every possible opportunity—gave me cachet among my friends and relations that I’d never before enjoyed. I became prettier and more interesting, worthier somehow of every good thing.
How lovely you look today, my dear, they would say. And, I declare, you’re positively glowing! And, Come and sit by me, Laura, and tell me all about this Mr. McAllan of yours.
I wasn’t at all sure that he was my Mr. McAllan, but as spring turned to summer and Henry’s attentions showed no sign of slacking, I began to allow myself to hope that he might be. He took me to restaurants and the picture show, for walks along the Mississippi and day trips to the surrounding countryside, where he pointed out features of the land and the farms we passed. He was very knowledgeable about crops, livestock and such. When I remarked on it, he told me he’d grown up on a farm.
“Do your parents still live there?” I asked.
“No. They sold the place after the ’27 flood.”
I heard the wistfulness in his voice but put it down to nostalgia. I didn’t think to ask if he was interested in farming his own land someday. Henry was a College Man, a successful engineer with a job that allowed him to live in Memphis—the center of civilization. Why in the world would he want to scratch out a living as a farmer?
“MY BROTHER’S COMING UP from Oxford this weekend,” Henry announced one day in July. “I’d like for him to meet you.”
For him to meet me. My heart fluttered. Jamie was Henry’s favorite sibling. Henry spoke of him often, with a mixture of fondness and exasperation that made me smile. Jamie was at Ole Miss studying fine arts (“a subject of no practical use whatever”) and modeling men’s clothing on the side (“an undignified occupation for a man”). He wanted to be an actor (“that’s no way to support a family”) and spent all his spare time doing thespian productions (“he just likes the attention”). Yet despite these criticisms, it was obvious that Henry adored his little brother. Something quickened in his eyes whenever he talked about Jamie, and his hands, normally so impassive, rose from his sides to make large, swooping shapes in the air. That he wanted Jamie to meet me surely meant that he was considering a more permanent attachment between us. Out of long habit, I tried to stifle the thought, but it stayed stubbornly alive in my mind. That night, as I peeled the potatoes for supper, I imagined Henry’s proposal, pictured him kneeling before me in the parlor, his face earnest and slightly worried—what if I didn’t accept him? As I made my narrow bed the next morning, I envisioned myself smoothing the covers of a double bed with a white, candlewick-patterned spread and two pillows bearing the imprints of two heads. In class the next day, as I quizzed my boys on prepositional phrases, I pictured a child with Henry’s gray eyes staring up at me from a wicker bassinet. These visions bloomed in my mind like exotic flowers, opulent and jewel-toned, undoing years of strict pruning of my desires.
The Saturday I was to meet Jamie I dressed with extra care, wearing the navy linen suit I knew Henry liked and sitting patiently while my mother tortured my unruly hair into an upswept do worthy of a magazine advertisement. Henry picked me up and we drove to the station to meet his brother’s train. As we stood in the flow of disembarking passengers, I scanned the crowd for a younger copy of Henry. But the young man who came bounding up to us looked nothing like him. I studied the two of them as they embraced: one weathered and solid, the other tall, fair and lanky, with hair the color of a newly minted penny. After a time they clapped each other on the back, as men will do to break the intimacy of such a moment, then pulled apart and searched each other’s face.
“You look good, brother,” said Jamie. “The Tennessee air seems to agree with you. Or is it something else?”
He turned to me then, grinning widely. He was beautiful; there was no other word for him. He had fine, sharp features and skin so translucent I could see the small veins in his temples. His eyes were the pale green of beryl stones and seemed lit from the inside. He was just twenty-two then, nine years younger than myself and nineteen years younger than Henry.
“This is Miss Chappell,” said Henry. “My brother, Jamie.”
“Pleased to meet you,” I managed.
“The pleasure’s mine,” he said, taking my offered hand and kissing the back of it with exaggerated gallantry.
Henry rolled his eyes. “My brother thinks he’s a character in one of his plays.”
“Ah, but which one?” Jamie said, raising a forefinger in the air. “Hamlet? Faust? Prince Hal? What do you think, Miss Chappell?”
I blurted out the first thing that came into my head. “Actually, I think you’re more of a Puck.”
I was rewarded with a dazzling smile. “Dear lady, thou speakest aright, I am that merry wanderer of the night.”
“Who’s Puck?” asked Henry.
Jamie shook his head in mock despair. “Lord, what fools these mortals be,” he said.
I saw Henry’s lips tighten. I suddenly felt sorry for him, standing there in his brother’s shadow. “Puck’s a kind of mischievous sprite,” I said. “A troublemaker.”
“A hobgoblin,” Jamie said contritely. “Forgive me, brother, I’m only trying to impress her.”
Henry put his arm around me. “Laura’s not the impressionable type.”
“Good for her!” Jamie said. “Now why don’t you two show me this fine city of yours?”
We took him to the Peabody Hotel, which had the best restaurant in Memphis and a swing band on weekends. At Jamie’s insistence we ordered a bottle of champagne. I’d had it only once before, at my brother Pearce’s wedding, and I was light-headed after one glass. When the band started up, Jamie asked Henry if he could have a dance with me (Henry didn’t dance, that night or any other, because of his limp). We whirled round and round to Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey, music I’d heard on the radio and danced to in the parlor with my brothers and young nephews. How different this was, and how exhilarating! I was aware of Henry’s eyes following us, and others’ too—women’s eyes, watching me enviously. It was a novel sensation for me, and I couldn’t help but revel in it. After several numbers, Jamie escorted me back to our table and excused himself. I sat down, flushed and out of breath.
“You look especially pretty tonight,” Henry said.
“Thank you.”
“Jamie has that effect on girls. They sparkle for him.” His expression was bland, his tone matter-of-fact. If he was jealous of his brother, I couldn’t detect it. “He likes you, I can tell,” he added.
“I’m sure he doesn’t dislike anyone.”
“Well, at least not anyone in a skirt,” Henry said, with a wry smile. “Look.” He gestured toward the dance floor, and I saw Jamie with a willowy brunette in his arms. She was wearing a satin dress with a low-cut back, and Jamie’s hand rested on her bare skin. As she followed him effortlessly through a series of complicated turns and dips, I realized what a clumsy partner I must have been. I wanted to cover my face with my hands; I knew everything I felt was there for Henry to see. My envy and embarrassment. My foolish yearning.
I stood up. I don’t know what I would have said to him, because at that moment he rose and took my hand. “It’s late,” he said, “and I know you have church in the morning. Come on, I’ll take you hom
e.”
He was so gentle, so kind. I felt a rush of shame. But later, as I lay sleepless in my bed, it occurred to me that what I’d shown Henry so nakedly wasn’t new to him. He must have seen it before, must have felt it himself a hundred times in Jamie’s presence: a longing for a brightness that would never be his.
JAMIE RETURNED TO Oxford, and I put him out of my thoughts. I was no fool; I knew a man like him could never desire a woman like me. It was marvel enough that Henry desired me. I can’t say whether I was truly in love with him then; I was so grateful to him that it dwarfed everything else. He was my rescuer from life in the margins, from the pity, scorn and crabbed kindness that are the portion of old maids. I should say, he was my potential rescuer. I was by no means sure of him, and for good reason.
One night at choir practice, I looked up from my hymnal and saw him watching me from one of the rear pews, his face solemn with intent. This is it, I thought. He’s going to propose. Somehow I got through the rest of the practice, though the director had to chide me twice for missing my entrance. In the choir room afterward, as I unbuttoned my robe with clumsy fingers, I had a sudden vision of Henry’s hands undoing the buttons of my nightgown on our wedding night. I wondered what it would be like to lie with him, to have him touch my body as intimately as though it were his own flesh. My sister Etta, who was a registered nurse, had told me about the sexual act when I turned twenty-one. Her explanation was strictly factual; she never once referred to her own relations with her husband, Jack, but I gathered from her private smile that the marriage bed was not an altogether unpleasant place.
Henry was waiting for me outside the church, leaning against his car in his familiar white shirt, gray pants and gray fedora. That was all he ever wore. Clothes didn’t matter to him, and his were often ill-fitting—pants drooping at the waist, hems dragging in the dirt, sleeves too long or too short. I laugh now when I think of the feelings his wardrobe aroused in me. I practically throbbed with the desire to sew for him.
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