The Virtuous Woman

by Gilbert, Morris

  When she arrived home, she found Francis sitting at the kitchen table staring at a blank sheet of paper. She looked over his shoulder. “What’s the matter, Francis?”

  “What’s the matter! I can’t write. That’s what’s the matter!”

  Taken aback by his sharp answer, she said, “Don’t worry. It’ll come to you.” She looked around and saw that he had not prepared dinner yet. “You want me to cook?”

  “I don’t care,” he snapped.

  “Look, I work hard at that bar. It’s not too much to ask you to make sandwiches or something.”

  Miriam was out of her cage, and she fluttered to Key’s shoulder, crying hoarsely, “My Francis! My Francis!”

  “He’s all yours, you crazy bird!” Grace said and stomped out of the kitchen.

  Francis got up and began slapping supper together. He jerked a pan out of the cabinet, opened a can of soup, and poured it in. When Grace came back from washing up, he had a sandwich and soup on the table and was sitting back at the typewriter staring at the blank sheet of paper.

  Grace had never seen him like this and knew that the book was really getting to him. She ate the soup and sandwich, then said, “I guess I’ll take a nap.”

  “All right.”

  She went to her bedroom to lie down and quickly fell asleep. She had been working double shifts lately, and she slept like a rock. It was late in the afternoon when she awoke, and she went to the kitchen to find Kevin coming in.

  “Hi, sis,” he said, giving her a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

  She squeezed him in return. “How did the great flyer do today?”

  “Fine, sis. Hey, Francis, why don’t you let me take you up? It’s against the rules, but I’m sure Babe would look the other way for you.”

  Key gave him a skeptical look, then griped, “I don’t have time for that.”

  “My, we are touchy today, aren’t we?” Kevin said. “What’s for supper?”

  Francis glared at him. “Bread and water. If you don’t like that, fix something yourself.”

  “Wait a minute,” Grace said testily. “That’s not what the deal was. You stay home and write and do the meals, and we go to work. You ain’t holdin’ up your end of the bargain.”

  “I didn’t want to come down to this lousy place to begin with.”

  “Well, nobody is asking you to stay!” Grace yelled.

  A shouting match ensued, and finally Francis said, “I don’t care what you do. If you want to be a barmaid, go to it. If you want to kill yourself flying, Kevin, that’s fine with me.” He yanked the paper out of his typewriter, wadded it up, and threw it on the floor. He glared at them both and walked out the door, slamming it so hard the windows rattled.

  “He’s got some nerve!” Grace exclaimed. “What’sa matter with him? Who elected him king?”

  “He’s worried about that book,” Kevin said. “You know how writers are. We’ll just have to be patient with him.”

  “Patient! I don’t have to put up with any of his touchy artistic stuff. He can go on back to New York right now for all I care.”

  ****

  By eleven o’clock that night Grace’s feet ached, and she had given up trying to smile at the customers. The restaurant had been packed all evening, and she had had to handle all the tables herself. Between taking orders and dodging hands that reached out for her, she was ready to consign the Green Lantern to the infernal regions.

  Wiping off a table, she looked up to see Francis enter. He caught her eye and came over to her. “I need to talk to you,” he said.

  “I can’t talk. I’m working.”

  She turned around and pushed her cart of dirty dishes into the kitchen. When she emerged again, she found Francis sitting at a table waiting for her. “You got a hearing problem?” she snapped. “I said I can’t talk to you now.”

  She ignored him for a while and continued working, then finally went over and asked, “You want somethin’ to eat or drink?”

  “No, I just want to talk to you,” Francis said calmly, “but I’ll wait until you get off.”

  “How’d you get here?”

  “I walked.”

  She stared at him. She was still angry over the way he had acted, but she said, “Well, what is it?”

  “I’m sorry for the way I acted.”

  She could tell by his expression that he was miserable. She sat down across the table from him. “Well, I wasn’t too nice myself,” she admitted.

  “It’s that book, Grace. I’ve wanted so badly to be a writer ... more than anything in the world.” He looked down, his shoulders slumped. “But I can’t do it. I just can’t do it!”

  Grace’s heart melted with pity for Francis. She knew what it was to want something she couldn’t have. She reached out and pushed a lock of his hair back. “It’s all right, Francis. You’ll do it. You’re just having a hard time. We all go through those. You’ll write that crazy book. I know you will.”

  He got to his feet and summoned a smile. “You really think so?”

  “Sure I do.”

  “You know, when you say it, I actually believe it,” Francis said. “But when I’m alone, I just can’t.”

  Grace got up too and hugged him. “There. You go on back and write something now. When I get home you can read it to me.”

  “All right, I’ll—” Key had no chance to finish for a hand had jerked Grace away. He turned to see Paul Ranier, who was drunk, an angry look twisting his face. “Hey, mister, leave my woman alone!”

  “I’m not your woman!” Grace hollered.

  “You hush up! I’m gonna make sure he don’t come near you no more.”

  Key had no time to answer or even think as Ranier caught him full in the face with a wicked right cross. He went down at once, and Ranier started for him. Grace grabbed Paul’s arm and screamed, “Leave him alone!” He turned around and slapped her full in the face. “You stay out of this. I’m gonna stomp him. You’re my woman!”

  Grace put everything she had into her right fist and caught him in the face, but he hardly noticed and returned her punch with a solid right that knocked her backward. She crashed into a table, and lights flashed in her head as she went down....

  ****

  “Yes, this is Kevin.”

  “Hey, Kevin, this is Gus. I’m the bartender down at the Green Lantern.”

  “Yeah, Gus?”

  “There’s trouble down here. You’d better come.”

  “What is it?”

  “You know that Ranier guy who’s been bugging your sister? He’s roughin’ up your sister and that guy that lives with you.”

  “Have you called the police?” Kevin asked.

  “We don’t wanna involve the cops. We can deal with it—but you’d better come.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Kevin slammed the phone down, ran out of the house, and jumped into the truck. He got to the Green Lantern in record time, and when he ran inside, he saw Ranier and Grace sitting at the bar, Ranier hanging on to Grace’s arm—and he also saw that the side of her face was puffy where he had struck her. Anger surged through Kevin. He was ordinarily the most gentle of men, but the sight of his sister’s bruised face caused him to lose it. He rushed over to Ranier and then saw Francis on the floor, his face bloodied. The bartender was trying to calm Ranier.

  Kevin had never been in a fight in his life, but he knew just what to do. He threw a punch that caught Ranier in the chin with a terrible force. Ranier was driven back against the bar, then bounced off toward Kevin, who kept swinging and knocked him down again.

  “Look out, he’s got a gun!” Gus called out.

  Kevin had seen the gun Ranier had pulled from his back pocket. He fell forward, grabbed the gun, and twisted it out of Ranier’s hand, thankful that the Cajun was drunk and not too coordinated. Kevin stood back at a safe distance and held the gun loosely.

  Ranier staggered to his feet. Blood was dripping from his left eyebrow, and he snarled, “You ain’t got the ner
ve to shoot me!”

  Kevin lifted the handgun and squeezed the trigger. The bullet hit Ranier’s leg, and as he went down, he cried with outraged disbelief, “You shot me!” and lay on the floor holding his thigh.

  “You’d better get to a doctor,” Kevin said calmly. The rage had left him with the shot of the gun, and he went over and helped Francis to his feet. He said to Grace, “Can you make it to the truck, sis?”

  “Sure, but I’ve got my cycle here.”

  “If you can drive the truck, I’ll take the cycle home.”

  “All right, Kev.”

  Kevin looked at the battered faces and shook his head. “I wonder if it’s against the law to shoot people in Louisiana.”

  He handed the gun to the bartender, and said, “Here, Gus. If Paul decides to press charges, you know where to find me.”

  “Ranier don’t want no trouble. He’s had enough of the police. So don’t you worry none about that.”

  Kevin and Grace helped Francis out to the car, and when they got him inside, Kevin asked, “Sis, are you sure you can drive?”

  “I’m all right, but I’m gonna have a terrible black eye tomorrow.” She grabbed his arm. “I’m glad you came, Kev.”

  “Go ahead,” Kevin said. “I’ll follow you on the cycle. Take it easy. We don’t need a speeding ticket on top of everything else!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Grace Abounding

  Grace awoke to hear voices coming from the kitchen, and for a time she lay still, unwilling to get out of bed. The violence at the Green Lantern had drained her, and she had fallen into bed and gone to sleep at once but had been troubled by bad dreams. Several times she had awakened during the night frightened. She could not help remembering the sermon she had heard about Jesus, the friend of sinners. More than once she had cried out, “God, I don’t know what you want with me. I can’t do anything for you.”

  Glancing at the alarm clock, she saw that it was after eight. Kevin usually left before this, but she heard one of the men scurrying around for at least ten minutes before she heard the front door slam and the house become silent.

  Throwing back the covers, she put on a robe and went to the bathroom, where she drew a tub of hot water and soaked for twenty minutes. When she got out and dried off, she went to the mirror and examined her puffy face and the purple bruise under her eye. She went back to her room and dressed, then went out to the kitchen.

  Francis was sitting at the table reading a book and holding a cup of coffee. His face was puffy, and he said in a subdued voice, “Sit down. I’ll fix you some bacon and eggs.”

  She got a large mug out of the cupboard and filled it with coffee, then sat down. Neither of them spoke as Francis fixed breakfast and she drank her coffee. When he put the plate in front of her and refilled her coffee cup, she said, “That was a pretty bad scene last night.”

  “Terrible. I couldn’t believe Kev actually shot that fellow.”

  “Neither could I. I didn’t know he had it in him.”

  Francis said no more, acting almost as if he were embarrassed, and as she ate slowly, he sat down across from her again. “I’m not too good in situations like that.”

  “That’s okay. There’s too much fightin’ in the world anyway.”

  “But a man should be able to fight. I tried to take lessons once in self-defense, but I was never any good at it.”

  Grace put peach jam on her toast and took a bite of it. Chewing slowly, she shook her head. “I’m not going in to work today.”

  “Good. You’ve been working too hard. I think I’ll go out and get a job and let you take care of the cooking for a change.”

  Grace looked at him with surprise. “You don’t have to do that. I really don’t mind working.”

  “It doesn’t seem right. You work too hard.”

  Grace finished her breakfast and then went outside for a walk, feeling uncomfortable around Francis. When she got back to the house, she saw that he was gone and thought he had probably left to give her some privacy. She was walking around the house aimlessly when she spotted Kevin’s Bible on the coffee table. She picked it up and sat down in the overstuffed chair to read it. She opened up the Old Testament to the book of Leviticus, but that didn’t interest her. She flipped the pages to the New Testament, hunting for some of the selections that Reverend Sanders had used in his sermon, and she found one of the stories he had used as an illustration. It concerned the woman caught in adultery whom some of the religious leaders brought to Jesus. They demanded that she be stoned according to Moses’ law. Jesus, however, did not answer them. Instead, He sat down and wrote in the dust. One by one the men left Jesus and the woman alone, and Jesus asked her, “Where are those thine accusers?” When the woman said they were gone, He said, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.”

  Grace read the final words of Jesus again—“Go and sin no more.” She closed the Bible and sat thinking. “That’s what I need,” she said. “To sin no more. God knows I’ve sinned enough in my life!”

  ****

  That afternoon Kevin came home from the flight school while Grace was enjoying the adventures of Amos and Andy on the radio. Kevin quickly cleaned up and left again, saying that he and Lucy were going out for dinner and a movie. Francis fixed a nice supper—meatloaf, green beans, and mashed potatoes. He asked the blessing, and when Grace lifted her head, she said, “Are you gonna write tonight?”

  “I don’t know. If anything comes to me, I will.”

  Neither of them seemed to have much of an appetite. Their faces were still puffy and sore from the fight with Ranier, but neither of them mentioned the incident at the Green Lantern.

  “I’ll wash the dishes,” Grace offered after they had eaten as much as they were going to.

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “You do it all the time. You go in and listen to the radio.”

  Grace washed the dishes, cleaned up the kitchen, and then sat down in the living room. Miriam flew down and perched on Francis’s shoulder, cooing and muttering “My Francis!”

  “That bird is downright possessive,” Grace remarked. “But you take such good care of her, I guess I don’t blame her.” The radio was on but Grace’s mind was elsewhere. After a time she noticed that the news broadcast seemed to be disturbing Francis.

  “What’sa matter? You look worried,” she said.

  “It’s all this trouble over in Europe. That fellow Hitler is a madman!”

  “Europe is way across the ocean. It don’t have nothin’ to do with us,” she said, surprised that he would be concerned about something so far away.

  “It’s not as far as you think, Grace. If there’s a war over there, America could wind up involved in it. I think it’s likely to happen.”

  Grace listened while he explained the problems in Europe. She could not understand much about it, for she had never been very interested in politics or foreign affairs. When he stopped to listen to the radio again, she said, “I guess I’ll go sit on the porch for a while. It’s awfully hot in here.”

  She went out and sat on the porch swing, and after a time Francis came out and sat beside her. They spoke little, but finally Grace blurted out, “I don’t know what’s the matter with me, Francis. I’m miserable.”

  “Why? You’re not sick, are you?”

  “No, it’s that sermon we heard at the tent meeting. I’ve been worried ever since then.”

  Her words touched Francis deeply, and he held her eyes with his own. “I think,” he said quietly, “that God is speaking to you.”

  “I don’t know what that means. Tell me how you found God.”

  She listened as he related the story of his conversion. “I just called on Jesus,” he concluded, “and He saved me.”

  “It’s not that easy for me. You’d probably never done anything wrong.” She dropped her head and stared at her hands. Night was falling now, and murky blackness was gathering about the house and filling the streets. “I’ve been so bad, Fr
ancis,” she whispered. “You don’t know what I’ve done—and I couldn’t tell you. I wouldn’t want you to hear it.”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” he said quickly. “God knows everything you’ve done.”

  “He must hate me, then.”

  “Hate you! No, He loves you! Didn’t you hear what the evangelist said? Jesus loves sinners. If He didn’t, we wouldn’t have anywhere to turn for help. He loves you, Grace. Believe that.”

  The silence seemed to surround them, and Grace felt utterly miserable. Tears welled up in her eyes. “Look at me. I’m squallin’ like a kid, and I don’t even know why.”

  “You’re lonesome. That’s why. We’re all lonesome without God.”

  Francis began to quote Scripture verses—verses of hope and of man’s need for God. “You don’t have to be unhappy, Grace. That’s not God’s will. You need to give your heart to Him.”

  “I can’t do it, Francis.”

  “Yes you can. Look,” he said, “the hardest thing for any human being to do is to give up his own will. But that’s what God asks of us. You’ve tried living your own way for quite a few years, and it hasn’t worked very well, has it?”

  “No, it sure hasn’t.”

  “If you’ll just call on God and confess your sins, He’s waiting to make you His child. Don’t you see?”

  “It ... it all sounds too easy.”

  “It is easy. If it were hard, we couldn’t do it.”

  He said no more, and Grace held her hands together to stop them from trembling. She wanted to get up and run away, but somehow she knew that this was the moment God had been waiting for. She felt a sense of His presence just as she had during the invitation at the revival. It made her feel frightened and helpless and alone. “Help me!” she finally cried out to Francis.