The Love of a Good Woman

by Alice Munro

  The taffeta had to be pulled out from between her legs and arranged into a bell-like skirt. Then lace fell in loops over the skirt.

  “You’re taller than I thought,” Ann said. “You could walk around in it if you just held it up a bit.”

  She took a hairbrush from the dresser and began to brush Karin’s hair down over her lace-covered shoulders.

  “Nut-brown hair,” she said. “I remember in books, girls used to be described as having nut-brown hair. And you know they did use nuts to color it. My mother remembered girls boiling walnuts to make a dye and then putting the dye on their hair. Of course if you got the stain on your hands it was a dead giveaway. It was so hard to get out.

  “Hold still,” she said, and shook the veil down over the smooth hair, then stood in front of Karin to pin it on. “The headdress to this has disappeared altogether,” she said. “I must have used it for something else or given it away to somebody to wear at their wedding. I can’t remember. Anyway it would look silly nowadays. It was a Mary Queen of Scots.”

  She looked around and picked some silk flowers—a branch of apple blossoms—out of a vase on the dresser. This new idea meant she had to take the pins out and start again, bending the apple blossom stem to make a headdress. The stem was stiff, but at last she got it bent and pinned to her satisfaction. She moved out of the way and gently pushed Karin in front of the mirror.

  Karin said, “Oh. Can I have it for when I get married?”

  She didn’t mean that. She had never thought of getting married. She said it to please Ann, after all Ann’s effort, and to cover her embarrassment when she looked into the mirror.

  “They’ll have something so different in style then,” Ann said. “This isn’t even in style now.”

  Karin looked away from the mirror and looked into it again, better prepared. She saw a saint. The shining hair and the pale blossoms, the faint shadows of the falling lace on her cheeks, the storybook dedication, the kind of beauty so in earnest about itself that there is something fated about it, and something foolish. She made a face to crack that face open, but it didn’t work—it seemed as if the bride, the girl born in the mirror, was now the one in control.

  “I wonder what Derek would say if he saw you now,” Ann said. “I wonder if he’d even know it was my wedding dress?” Her eyelids were fluttering in their shy troubled way. She stood close to take the blossoms and pins out. Karin smelled soap from under her arms, and garlic on her fingers.

  “He’d say, What kind of a stupid outfit is that?” said Karin, doing a superior Derek voice, as Ann lifted the veil away.

  They heard the car coming down the valley. “Speak of the devil,” said Ann. Now she was in such a great hurry to undo the hooks and eyes her fingers were clumsy and trembling. When she tried to pull the dress over Karin’s head something got caught.

  “Curses,” Ann said.

  “You go on,” said Karin, muffled up. “You go on and let me. I’ve got it.”

  When she emerged she saw Ann’s face twisted in what looked like grief.

  “I was just kidding about Derek,” she said.

  But perhaps Ann’s look was just one of alarm and concern about the dress.

  “What do you mean?” Ann said. “Oh. Hush. Forget it.”

  • • •

  KARIN stood still on the stairs to hear their voices in the kitchen. Ann had run down ahead of her.

  Derek said, “Is that going to be good? Whatever you’re making?”

  “I hope so,” said Ann. “It’s osso buco.”

  Derek’s voice had changed. He wasn’t mad anymore. He was eager to make friends. Ann’s voice was relieved, out of breath, trying to match up with his new mood.

  “Is there going to be enough for company?” he said.

  “What company?”

  “Just Rosemary. I hope there’s enough, because I asked her.”

  “Rosemary and Karin,” Ann said calmly. “There’s enough of this, but there isn’t any wine.”

  “There is now,” said Derek. “I got some.”

  Then there was some muttering or whispering from Derek to Ann. He must be standing very close to her and talking against her hair or her ear. He seemed to be teasing, pleading, comforting, promising to reward her, all at once. Karin was so afraid that words would surface out of this—words she would understand and never forget—that she went banging down the stairs and into the kitchen, calling, “Who’s this Rosemary? Did I hear ‘Rosemary’?”

  “Don’t sneak up on us like that, enfant,” said Derek. “Make a little noise so we hear you coming.”

  “Did I hear ‘Rosemary’?”

  “Your mother’s name,” he said. “I swear to you, your mother’s name.”

  All the tight displeasure was gone. He was full of challenges and high spirits, as he’d been sometimes last summer.

  Ann looked at the wine and said, “That’s lovely wine, Derek, that’ll go beautifully. Let’s see. Karin, you can help. We’ll set the long table on the porch. We’ll use the blue dishes and the good silver—isn’t it lucky we just cleaned the silver. We’ll put two sets of candles. The tall yellow ones in the middle, Karin, and a circle of little white ones around them.”

  “Like a daisy,” Karin said.

  “That’s right,” said Ann. “A celebration dinner. Because you’re back for the summer.”

  “What can I do?” said Derek.

  “Let me think. Oh—you can go out and get me some things for the salad. Some lettuce and some sorrel, and do you think there’s any cress in the creek?”

  “There is,” said Derek. “I saw some.”

  “Get some of that too.”

  Derek glided a hand round her shoulders. He said, “All will be well.”

  WHEN they were almost ready Derek put on a record. This was one of the records he had taken to Rosemary’s place and must have brought back here. It was called Ancient Airs and Dances for Lute, and it had a cover that showed a group of old-fashioned, exquisitely thin ladies, all wearing high-waisted dresses, with little curls down in front of their ears, and dancing in a circle. The music had often inspired Derek to do a stately and ridiculous dance, in which Karin and Rosemary would join him. Karin could match him in a dance, but Rosemary couldn’t. Rosemary tried too hard, she moved a little late, she tried to imitate what could only be spontaneous.

  Karin started dancing now, round the kitchen table where Ann was tearing salad and Derek was opening the wine. “Ancient airs and dances for the lute,” she sang raptly. “My mom is coming to supper, my mom is coming to supper”

  “I believe Karin’s mom is coming to supper,” said Derek. He held up his hand. “Quiet, quiet. Is that her car I hear?”

  “Oh, dear. I should at least wash my face,” said Ann. She dropped the greens and hurried into the hall and up the stairs.

  Derek went to stop the record. He took the needle back to the beginning. When he had it going again he went out to meet Rosemary—a thing he did not usually do. Karin had intended to run out herself. But when Derek did, she decided not to. Instead she followed Ann up the stairs. Not all the way, though. There was a small window on the landing where nobody ever halted or looked out, A net curtain over it, so that you were not likely to be seen.

  She was quick enough to see Derek stepping across the lawn, going through the gap in the hedge. Long, eager, stealthy strides. He would be in time to bend and open the car door, to open it with a flourish and help Rosemary out. Karin had never seen him do that, but she knew he meant to do it now.

  Ann was still in the bathroom—Karin could hear the shower. There would be a few minutes for her to watch undisturbed.

  And now she heard the car door shut. But she did not hear their voices. She couldn’t, with the music pouring through the house. And they hadn’t come into sight in the gap in the hedge. Not yet. And not yet. And not yet.

  ONCE after Rosemary left Ted she came back. Not to the house—she was not supposed to come to the house. Ted delivered Karin t
o a restaurant and there Rosemary was. The two of them had lunch in the restaurant. Karin had a Shirley Temple and chips. Rosemary told her that she was going to Toronto, that she had a job there with a publisher. Karin did not know what a publisher was.

  • • •

  HERE they come. Pressing together through the gap in the hedge, where they should have gone single file. Rosemary is wearing her harem pants, made of thin, soft, raspberry-colored cotton. Her shadowy legs show through. Her top is of heavier cotton covered with embroidery and some tiny, sewn-on mirrors. She seems to be concerned about her piled-up hair—her hands fly up, in a gesture of charming nervousness, to loosen some more little wisps and curls that can flutter and dangle around her face. (Something the way those ladies’ curls dangle over their ears, on the cover of Ancient Airs and Dances.) Her fingernails are painted to match her pants.

  Derek is not putting his hands on Rosemary anywhere but looks as if he is always just about to do so.

  “YES, but will you live there?” said Karin in the restaurant.

  TALL Derek bends close to Rosemary’s wild pretty hair, as if that is a nest he is all but ready to drop into. He is so intent. Whether he touches her or not, whether he speaks to her or not. He is pulling her to him, studiously attending to the job. But being pulled himself, being tempted to delight. Karin can just recognize that lovely flirting feeling when you’re saying, No, I’m not sleepy, no, I’m still awake—

  Rosemary at this moment doesn’t know what to do, but thinks she doesn’t yet have to do anything. Look at her spinning around in her cage of rosy colors. Her cage of spun sugar. Look at Rosemary twittering and beguiling.

  Rich as stink, he said.

  Ann comes out of the bathroom, her gray hair dark and damp, pushed flat to her head, her face glowing from the shower. “Karin. What are you doing here?”

  “Watching.”

  “Watching what?”

  “A pair of lover-dovers.”

  “Oh now Karin,” says Ann, going on down the stairs.

  And soon come happy cries from the front door (special occasion) and from the hallway, “What is that marvellous smell?” (Rosemary). “Just some old bones Ann’s simmering” (Derek).

  “And that—it’s beautiful,” says Rosemary as the sociable flurry moves into the living room. Speaking of the bunch of green leaves and June grass and early orange lilies Ann has stuck in the cream jug by the living-room door.

  “Just some old weeds Ann hauled in,” says Derek, and Ann says, “Oh well, I thought they looked nice,” and Rosemary says again, “Beautiful.”

  ROSEMARY said after lunch that she wanted to get Karin a present. Not for a birthday and not for Christmas—just a wonderful present.

  They went to a department store. Every time Karin slowed down to look at something, Rosemary showed immediate enthusiasm and willingness to buy it. She would have bought a velvet coat with a fur collar and cuffs, an antique-style painted rocking horse, a pink plush elephant that looked about a quarter life-size. To put an end to this miserable wandering, Karin picked out a cheap ornament—the figure of a ballerina poised on a mirror. The ballerina did not twirl around, there was no music played for her—nothing that could justify the choice. You would think that Rosemary would understand that. She should have understood what such a choice said—that Karin was not to be made happy, amends were not possible, forgiveness was out of the question. But she didn’t see that. Or she chose not to. She said, “Yes. I like that. She’s so graceful. She’ll look pretty on your dresser. Oh, yes.”

  Karin put the ballerina away in a drawer. When Grace found it, she explained that a friend at school had given it to her and that she couldn’t hurt the friend’s feelings by saying it wasn’t the kind of thing she liked.

  Grace wasn’t so used to children then, or she might have questioned such a story.

  “I can understand that,” she said. “I’ll just give it to the hospital sale—it’s not likely she’ll ever see it there. Anyway they must have made hundreds like it.”

  ICE cubes cracked downstairs, as Derek dropped them into the drinks. Ann said, “Karin’s around somewhere, I’m sure she’ll pop up in a minute.”

  Karin went softly, softly up the remaining stairs and into Ann’s room. There were the tumbled clothes on the bed, and the wedding dress, again wrapped up in its sheet, lying on top of them. She took off her shorts and her shirt and her shoes and began the desperate, difficult process of getting into this dress. Instead of trying to put it on over her head, she wriggled her way up into it, through the crackling skirt and lace bodice. She got her arms into the sleeves, being careful not to snag the lace with a fingernail. Her fingernails were mostly too short to be a problem, but she was careful anyway. She pulled the lace points over her hands. Then she did up all the hooks at the waist. The hardest thing was to do the hooks at the back of the neck. She bent her head and hunched her shoulders, trying to make those hooks easier to get at. Even so, she had a disaster—the lace ripping a little under one arm. That shocked her and even made her stop for a second. But it seemed she had gone too far to give up now, and she got the rest of the hooks fastened without mishap. She could sew up that tear when she got the dress off. Or she could lie, and claim she had noticed it before she had put the dress on. Ann might not see it anyway.

  Now the veil. She had to be very careful with the veil. Any tear would show. She shook it all out and tried to secure it with the branch of apple blossoms, just as Ann had done. But she couldn’t get the branch to bend properly or the slippery pins to hold it. She thought it might be better to tie the whole thing on with a ribbon or a sash. She went to Ann’s closet to see if she could find something. And there hung a man’s tie rack, a man’s ties. Derek’s ties, though she had never seen him wearing a tie.

  She pulled a striped tie off the rack and tied it around her forehead, tying it at the back of her head, holding the veil firmly in place. She did this in front of the mirror and when it was done she saw that she had created a gypsy effect, a flaunting comic effect. An idea came to her which forced her to undo with strenuous effort all those hooks and eyes, then pad the front of the dress with tightly wadded-up clothing from Ann’s bed. She filled and overfilled the lace that had hung limp, being fashioned for Ann’s breasts. Better this way, better to make them laugh. She could not then get all the hooks done up afterwards, but she got enough to hold the clownish cloth bosom in place. She got the neck band fastened as well. She was sweating all over when she finished.

  Ann didn’t wear lipstick or eye makeup, but on the top of the dresser there was, surprisingly, a pot of hardened rouge. Karin spat in it and rubbed round splotches on her cheeks.

  THE front door led into the hall at the bottom of the stairs, and from this hall a side door led into the sunporch, and another door (on the same side) led into the living room. You could also go directly from the porch into the living room, through a door at the far end. The house was oddly planned or not planned at all, Ann said. Things had been altered or added on just as people thought of them. The long narrow glassed-in porch was no good for catching the sun, since it was on the east side of the house and shaded, in any case, by a stand of poplar saplings that had got out of hand and grown up quickly, as poplars do. In Ann’s childhood the porch’s main use was for storing apples, though she and her sister had loved the roundabout route provided by the three doors. And she liked the room now, for serving supper in during the summertime. When the table was pulled out there was hardly room to walk between the chairs and the inner wall. But if you seated people along one side, facing the windows, and at either end—that was the way the table was set tonight—there was room for a thin person, and certainly for Karin, to pass.

  Karin came downstairs barefoot. Nobody could see her from the living room. And she chose not to go into that room by the usual door, but to enter the porch and go alongside the table and then appear, or burst in on them, from the porch where they would never have expected her to be.

  Th
e porch was already shadowy. Ann had lit the two tall yellow candles, though not the little white ones that were clustered round them. The yellow ones had a scent of lemons, which she was probably counting on to dispel any stuffiness in the room. Also she had opened the window at one end of the table. On the stillest evening you could always get a breeze from the poplars.

  Karin used both hands to hold her skirt as she went past the table. She had to hold it up slightly so that she could walk. And she did not want the taffeta to make a noise. She meant to start singing “Here comes the bride” just as she appeared in the doorway.

  Here comes the bride

  Fair, fat, and wide.

  See how she wobbles

  From side to side—

  The breeze came towards her with a little gust of energy and pulled her veil. But it was held to her head so tightly that she had no worries about losing it.

  As she turned to go into the living room the whole veil rose and drifted through the flames of the candles. The people in the room no sooner saw her than they saw the fire that was chasing her. She herself had just time to smell the lace as it crumbled—a queer poisonous edge on the smell of the marrow bones cooking for dinner. Then a rush of nonsensical heat and screams, a brutal pitching into darkness.

  Rosemary got to her first, pounding her head with a cushion. Ann ran for the crock in the hallway and threw water, lilies, grass, and all onto her fiery veil and hair. Derek tore the rug up off the floor, sending stools and tables and drinks crashing, and was able to wrap Karin tightly and suffocate the last flames. Some bits of lace stayed smoldering in her soaked hair, and Rosemary got her fingers burned, tearing them out.