Family Linen

by Lee Smith

  What a Horrible:—what a frightening Beauty there was in that Awful scene:—Mother returning to the Earth, her coffin lowered into the wet black ground, while all around, the gay brilliant leaves of autumn swirled. My Father would have jumped into her Grave. Indeed he tried to do so, and had to be forcibly restrained; our Uncles took him away then, and did not bring him back for three days. He returned somewhat chastened, and happily, more subdued.

  Miss Grace Harrison stayed with us during this time. Of her, a few Words will be necessary. The oldest daughter of the Harrisons, who had taken an interest in my parents ever since old Dr. Harrison bought Father the Suit of clothes at Lake Junaluska during their Courtship, she was a Maiden lady who, though well-educated, chose to reside at home. We could not precisely tell her age. Although older than Mother or Father, she was not yet really Old; she had the sort of pale, Artistic visage which does not fall prey to Time. She was wan, ethereal, elongated:—what a strange turn of phrase I here employ! and yet it springs to mind—willowy, and graceful in all her movements. Although she possessed a Degree from a College in the North, she preferred not to teach at the little Methodist School which we and all the other children in town attended until it closed and a fee was got up and Another school begun.

  At any rate, Grace Harrison preferred a life of leisure:—the state of her Nerves, it was whispered, precluding any more active existence. She rose at Noon, she walked through the town, shopping sometimes for her aging Mother, her Father having passed to his Reward, she read book after book, seated in the wicker swing on their front porch. Her Dresses were gauzy, wispy, pastel. I had never seen such Dresses in my life. She spent hours and hours lying on a chaise longue in the Parlor, all this because she had been, as Mother explained to us, “disappointed in a Married Man.”

  Grace Harrison loved my mother, who was her only true friend in town, and whose vitality, I presume, enlivened her Days, and because of this friendship, Miss Grace early undertook the task of supplementing the simple Education offered us at the Methodist School. Miss Grace was to talk to us about Ideas and Literature, Mother was to instruct us in French, but she died before these lessons were yet begun, so busy had she been with the Cares of our household. And as for the Literature and Ideas, I was the only One, among the three of us, who gave a fig for Such. But ah, through all the golden days of my childhood, until that Catastrophe which struck us when I was twelve:—ah, how we read together, Grace Harrison and I, often in the Harrisons’ parlor with Grace stretched out full length upon the chaise, a pillow beneath her feet and another beneath her head, her Book illuminated by the shell lamp on its stand, with its pink translucent shade. We read Lord Byron. We read Shelley and Keats and Dickens and Tennyson, and William Shakespeare. We read novels, such as The Castle of Otranto. I did not understand three-quarters of what we read. I would give anything to have this Chance again, to read with Grace Harrison. But alas she is Gone, estranged from me by a gulf as wide as all the Oceans of the world. The gifts she left with me are invaluable, a love of language, of Nature and its Beauty, of the Finer Things of Life. She did not much care, I should hazard to guess now, after the passing of so many years, for People. Most people she found, as she had found the married man, Disappointing. To my regret, this harsh Category came to include, at length, my Father.

  For he was suffering, and suffering also a Change in his manner and bearing and habits, a change which was grievous for him and us. Without the softening influence of my Mother, and due perhaps in part to the Business problems which we at that time knew Nothing of, he was reverting to the harsh ways of his youth. His delightful ebulliency turned to brashness. He grew loud, abrupt. His dress became imperceptibly more sloven, more like those about him. He was often silent, moody, and short with us, except for Nettie, who was his Favorite. More and more often, he was not at Home; he hunted; he gambled, I think; he spent more time in the company of men, he had become again a “man’s man,” and our fine House and all the appurtenances of his life occasioned by our Mother began to assume the guise of encumbrances.

  And yet, of course, he Loved us. He did not abandon us, far from it, and these difficult days of change were made easier by the ministrations of Grace Harrison, who arose from her bed to become the softening Spirit of our household, urged forth by feelings of Duty, of Loyalty for our sainted Mother, of concern for us, and by some vague motive as yet unclear even to her. Grace Harrison came to us nearly every day for a year, and supervised the reassembling of our distraught household. It would never be, again, as it had Been. Mother’s joyful energy, which had seemed effortless, could not be replaced. But Suse was at length induced to return to us, and to live in the room above the kitchen, assuring us at least of regular if simple Meals, and a second girl was found, Suse being old by this time, to come and clean. Boys from the mill appeared to do the heavier chores.

  Grace Harrison continued to Read with us as she often had; from time to time she appeared to supervise our lessons after supper. She came to our house then, and sat with us while my Father, glass in hand, stared moodily into the fire, and after these Occasions, he donned his black hat and frock-coat, and walked her home. Aside from the fact that she was admittedly more ambulatory than in former days, her Behavior was much the same. She was ever calm, quiet, and gentle to the point of listlessness. A spot of Rose had come to either cheek, though, perhaps the result of the unwonted exercise, and her pale fine hair appeared to spring up even more angelically around her face, floating, it seemed, as she moved. She was quite Lovely; I say that now, after the passage of so many Years. “Lovely” would not have occurred to me then. I do believe it occurred to my Father.

  I never knew, nor Wished to know, exactly what transpired between them. Suffice it to relate that these events caused me yet another irreparable Loss, following close upon the heels of the first. There came a summer evening when Grace had been with us at dinner, my Uncle Sam was there also, and upon his departure, Grace Harrison rose to take her leave as well.

  “I’ll walk with you, Grace,” my father said abruptly.

  “That shan’t be necessary, Lemuel,” she said, as she always said, but he insisted, and gallantly returned to the parlor to fetch her shawl. This was a lovely fringed and printed shawl from India, which I admired.

  “Now here,” he said in the deep voice which was less hearty than before. “The wind is chill.” He insisted upon placing the shawl about her shoulders, and was it my Imagination, or did his great hands linger there? At any rate they departed, the two of them, down the long front path along the paving-stones, between the boxwoods. He did not return before our bedtime.

  Grace Harrison never appeared in our house again. At first I inquired, as the oldest and closest to her, where she might be. Was she ill?

  “She does not concern you,” Father said abruptly, in a deep and Final tone. That was all.

  After a week had passed, I went alone to the Harrison home, where I had whiled away so many delightful hours in her company, under her tutelage, to inquire for myself into the State of affairs. I was then fourteen. I found Grace Harrison upon the familiar chaise, her cheeks flaming, eyes hollow and sunken. Upon my approach, she stiffened and clutched the delicate Afghan more tightly to her.

  “Leave me,” she said.

  “Oh, let me stay!” I implored. “Let me do something for you. We did not realize that you were ill.”

  “Ill,” she mused, as if to herself, in that way she had of turning Inward even while addressing her conversation to one directly. “Ah yes, I am quite ill. I have never been quite well, you know. And now I’m afraid my illness is such that it may necessitate a rest cure. I shall miss you, Elizabeth,” she said with sudden Emotion. She reached forth her pale, trembling hand.

  I grasped it. I was weeping.

  “Do not cry,” she said quite forcefully, so that I ceased, and took in each Word she uttered. I have never forgot her message. She lay ethereal there in the rosy g
low of the shell-shaded lamp, beneath the scalloped afghan. “You are the Lady of your house now, Elizabeth,” she said. “Remember your Mother. Remember me.”

  I kissed her hand. It was indeed quite warm, she was feverish. She closed her eyes.

  “Perhaps it would be best if you left now, my dear,” came the quavering suggestion of her mother, a lady so small and ancient that all of us actually feared her. I had not noticed her in the parlor. Now I perceived her dark shrunken form by the door, in shadow.

  “Yes,” I said. I departed abruptly.

  Grace Harrison spent the next year and a half in a sanitarium in Baltimore. When she returned, she was quite Different. Even her Appearance had changed, she had grown stouter, more stolid, her pale complexion appearing pasty, like dough rather than like French porcelain, the image which had ever sprung to mind as I considered her visage.

  She returned to nurse first her Aunt, and then her Mother, through the last Ravages of old age, and to Bury them next to her Father, in the Methodist church-yard. Then she lived alone in her house for many years, a determined Recluse. When Visitors came, as they often did, as people in a small town feel it their duty to “look in” upon one another, she entertained them nicely, serving iced Tea with mint on the side porch in summer, coffee in winter, in the parlor. She answered their questions, but asked none in return. She was perfectly pleasant, yet unfailingly Distant, seeming neither glad nor sorry when her visitor or visitors departed. Sometimes I went in those years, with a question about a poem or a novel or a play. She would answer that question, if she knew the answer, and volunteer no More. Books still lined the walls of her parlor, and of her Father’s library. I have no notion that she ever read them.

  As far as I know, Grace Harrison and my father never spoke to each other again. I continued to visit her infrequently, but all our true communication had ceased upon that fateful Day in my fourteenth year. Perhaps it was just as well. For I took her Words to Heart, and have endeavored since to model my Life upon the precepts she suggested. “Remember your Mother, remember me!” Ah, Fateful words! Words which form the hinge of this last, yet this most rusty and difficult Door to open in the deserted mansion of my heart. I push. I shove, yet not with the full weight of all my Being, for I dread the Pain which must accompany my perusal of this dark chamber.

  And yet, I know that God resides here also, for in the years which followed Mother’s death and then Grace Harrison’s departure from my life, I came to know the stern joys which the proper exercise of Duty brings to those who are Duty’s handmaidens.

  “Remember your Mother”:—I endeavored to manage our Household as she would have done. It became my task therefore to beat out the rugs if they needed beating, to see that the cut Glass shone with crystal fire through due application of water and vinegar, to have the mahogany rubbed with lemon and oil, the silver polished, to sew buttons where buttons were needed. Despite the time taken up with these chores, I continued my schooling, as I was uncommonly Bright. I finished with it in my sixteenth year, having lost a year during our severest time of Crisis. Dr. Harker, who was the Principal then, paid a call upon my Father at this time, offering me a partial Position then at the new town school, helping with the youngest students, which I declined, or alternatively, suggesting that I should be sent to the Normal School for Girls, at Radford, to continue my Education in the following Fall.

  All knew that this was what my Mother would have wished. Father acceded, but by the knitting of his brows, I knew he did so with a Heavy heart. And I was torn. How I wished to go, to pursue that Learning which has brought me all the Joy of my Days! And yet, I could not, I felt, leave Father to manage alone. We compromised in the end, deciding that I should leave in my eighteenth year, by which time Nettie should be able to take over for a time the tasks which I had mastered:—alas, too Well!

  For that Day never dawned. Several events conspired to push it off into a distant future which became, at length, Oblivion. Father’s affairs did not prosper, although I am not sure, to this day, of the particulars of it. I know that the lumber Business had declined everywhere in this section, the best timber having long since been harvested. And without Mother’s calming Influence, I suspect, Father’s decisions were often hasty, rash, unwise. He quarreled seriously, over these and other matters, with Uncle James. Another personal Tragedy befell our family also at this time, when Uncle Sam, whose affairs of the Heart had ever been dubious, was murdered, shot in the back on the Long Valley road under cover of Night. No one seemed to know why he was out on horseback at such an Hour, but rumors flew. I remember curious Nettie asking question after question, to no Avail.

  But in some way, this horrendous Event appeared to trigger a final, tragic Quarrel between Father and Uncle James. It was the evening of the funeral, with Uncle Sam not even cold in the grave, when tempers flared to such a Point that Uncle James declared his intention of leaving the firm, and Father in his anger was driven to brandish a Poker at him. Then Father dropped the poker, sank down by the Fire, and sobbed heartily into his hands. “Go, then,” he told his younger Brother. “I’ll buy you out fair and square.” He did so, and James, newly Rich, left for St. Louis, where he married well and has resided ever since. Father, short of ready cash, was forced to borrow, and borrow again, paying exorbitant rates of interest, he was too proud a man ever to ask for help from James or from Mother’s people who had become, at any rate, strangers to us since her death. Father and I were quite close during this Period, although I could not approve of his gaming nor of some of his Questionable companions, yet he confided in me some of the details of his Business and I attempted to economize at Home as best I could. Father depended upon me, I had become indeed the Lady of the House. We both knew, although we did not discuss it, that Normal School was out of the question, at that precarious time.

  It might have been Thus, at any rate, for I had my hands Full in those years, as I still have, attempting to deal with Nettie and Fay. For my Sisters have ever been sources of Care and frustration for me, I pray Constantly in their behalf. During this Time, as Always, they disobeyed my commands, and preoccupied with the Business, Father gave them None. He refused entirely to set his foot down, and to Control them as he ought.

  Fay, for her part, was merely silly, and refused to pay attention to me or to anyone else, and refused to do her Lessons. I saw to it that she should attend Church, but often as not she’d slip away, to be found an hour after the Service, happily wandering by the stream that runs by the Methodist Church. I saw to it that she attended School too, as she would not learn her Lessons with me, but at length I received a visit from the new Headmaster, a Mr. Peterson, who stated in the gentlest possible Terms that he felt Fay could not benefit from further education. “But she can read!” I cried, quite taken aback. “Ah, but she will not,” he enjoined.

  I should mention that Fay, always a hearty child, had grown almost overnight, it seemed, into a very large girl indeed with burgeoning womanly attributes. Mr. Peterson further hinted that her wandering about the town should be curbed, and I assured him that I should attempt to do so. To that end, I assigned Fay more little tasks about the house, tasks which she performed willingly, and even with Delight. Though she spoke seldom, she seemed Happy, and I trust, she was So. Her sweet presence thus became a clear delight to my Father, and also to me. It was not the case with Nettie:—alas, that Bitterness can grow, all unawares, between two Sisters! For I could not condone her conduct.

  Always the tomboy, Nettie careered about the countryside on horseback and refused entirely to become the Lady she was born to be. Father gave in to her every whim, having bought for her, before our severest financial reverses, several Spirited Riding Horses which she entered in Horse Shows, actually riding them herself! It was a great expense, was Folly in fact, and yet Father seemed truly proud of the silly Ribbons she carried home. She traveled alone about the county, about the state. It was unheard of. And yet, he would not intercede
in my behalf. Nettie also had friends from town of whom I could not Approve, both male and female, with whom she went dancing at Roadhouses, and Fishing, I know not what Else, as freely as if she were a Boy. I attempted to reason with her. I prayed aloud for her, in her Presence, but all for naught. The differences between us were a source of vast sorrow for me. So I was concerned about Fay, and about Nettie, and about our Father’s fortunes, and spent my teen years Thus.

  * * *

  And yet, in this back room, I find something Lovely as well:—or Lovely at least in initiation, though Dreadful in aftermath. For it was at precisely this time that I was courted and won by Ransom McClain. Ransom McClain and I could not have been more alike had we been poured from the selfsame mold! The son of Hudson McClain, our Commonwealth’s Attorney, Ransom had been delicate as a Boy, and had been sent away to Boarding School at an early age. So I had never known him, growing up. We met for the first time at the Episcopal Church, which I was attending one Sunday in early June of my Nineteenth year, as the guest of my former school-friend, Rosalie Gates.

  He sat two rows before us. I noticed him right away. With his lofty brow, his springing pale hair, he seemed the masculine counterpart of Grace Harrison, this initial Impression proved to be so true in many ways. We were saying the Lord’s Prayer. I confess I could not help but lift my eyes, stealing glances in his direction. At the conclusion of the services, I eagerly questioned Rosalie about him.

  “Oh, that’s Ransom McClain,” she said idly, fingers playing with the satin ribbons at her waist. “I’ll introduce you if you like.” Her Attitude conveyed indifference. Rosalie could not be bothered much, as she was engaged that summer, and would be married the following Fall. Encouraged by her, and by my other Friends, I, too, from time to time had attended Dances and Concerts and Church Suppers, when the press of Duty allowed it, but I confess I had found none among the town lads to interest me. My Sensibilities were too refined, perhaps, or their Merits too few. But now I said, “If you will, please, Rosalie,” holding my breath.