The Handsome Road

by Gwen Bristow

  As soon as she could get her hands on so much money she must send ten dollars to that girl. Ann shivered as she recalled her, wondering how Corrie May, who had always seemed like a nice little thing, could possibly have descended to her association with that wretched creature Gilday, and wondering even more what she herself had ever done to merit the sneering condescension with which Corrie May had flung the money on the desk. She had given Corrie May work out of pure kindness, and she could not recall ever having spoken to her in an impatient voice, yet Corrie May had not offered that bill in the manner of one prompted by the gratitude the poor ought to feel for those who had befriended them. Her first impulse had been to throw it on the floor. Then there had swooped over her the knowledge of her own helplessness, and Gilday licking his lips at the prospect of offering the Ardeith sugar land for sale, and her children with nobody but her to care what became of them. So her hand had closed on the money, though while she heard her voice saying “Thank you” her mind was crying out, “But what did I ever do to make them hate me so?”

  Heaven only knew where she was going to get ten dollars. The tax had taken the last dollar she could scrape up, and she had no prospect of more until she could sell this fall’s cotton. But she could not have it ginned without pawning something to pay the gin-tax, unless Jerry could take it down to one of the secret gins the Ku Klux members were erecting in the swamps. Secret ginning was done at the risk of their lives, but unless they could dispose of their cotton heaven knew what they were going to live on. It was next to impossible to get any money from the pawnshops these days. Hugh Purcell had dug up some of the silver his mother had buried during the war, and he had been offered fifteen cents apiece for the spoons. Most of the Ardeith silver was still underground; it was not worth digging up.

  The carriage had reached Ardeith. Ann gave Napoleon the key to the gates and he climbed down and unlocked them, led the horse in and locked the gates again. In old times the gates of Ardeith used to stand hospitably open from one year’s end to the next, and when she first ordered them fastened after the invasion the day Virginia was born the lock was so rusty it had required oil and effort to make the key turn. But now, with the countryside swarming with marauders and half the food-crops stolen before they were ripe, Ann always kept the gates locked and carried the key on her chain. She looked around at the weedy yard. She used to be proud of the grounds, but now she simply could not do anything about them. She had nearly broken her back pulling up enough summer weeds to keep the avenue clear.

  In the smothered light under the trees little Denis was playing with Napoleon’s boy Jimmy, both of them seemingly oblivious of the heat. As she got out of the carriage Denis ran up and summoned her to see a house they were building out of sticks and some boxes. Denis was barefooted, and he wore a suit of plaid gingham she had put together from the skirt of an old dress. It did not fit him very well, for her sewing was clumsy and Denis was growing fast. But even in makeshift clothes Denis was an attractive child, prettier and sturdier than his little sister Virginia. Virginia had always been a delicate little thing, with a sober air about her as though she already knew she had been born into a stricken world. So far Denis knew nothing about the world except that he enjoyed it. He looked very much like his father, and he had the older Denis’ gift for accepting what he saw without too many questions. Ann guessed already that Denis would never think deeply about anything unless he had to, and she had found forced thinking so painful that she could not help hoping he would never have to. She admired the toy house, and then asked him, “Did you write the copy I set for you?”

  “Yes ma’am,” he assured her virtuously. “I copied it ten times and put it on your bureau like you told me.”

  “As I told you, darling.”

  “Yes ma’am.” Denis sighed. Ann brushed her hand lingeringly over his tumbled hair. Probably she corrected him too often. But there was so little she could salvage out of the ruins for her children that such economically gratuitous subjects as good English had assumed unprecedented importance in her mind.

  Nobody was in the hall as she entered. Ann stood there a moment looking at the dust on the chandelier and along the scrolls of the staircase balustrade. She and Cynthia did as much as they could, but there was so much they could not do. Napoleon and Bertha and mammy had stayed devotedly with them, but Napoleon had to spend most of his time supervising the few fieldhands she could afford to hire and mammy was too old to do much. There was no way for herself and Cynthia with only Bertha’s help to accomplish the tasks that used to occupy thirty servants. They had taken up the rugs and rolled them up with tobacco leaves in the attic, for it was easier to sweep bare floors, and the non-essential rooms they had locked up, since dust gathered more slowly if the doors were never opened. The house had the air of a neglected old man. As she went upstairs Ann ran her hand along the balustrade and looked at the dust on her fingers. “The poor can be clean!” she said bitterly under her breath.

  In her own room she locked the door and rested her head a moment against the bedpost. A basket of worn clothes stood on her bureau next to Denis’ writing-lesson, but she hardly glanced at it; after her visit to the courthouse her nerves were still twitching so that she did not feel capable of anything. But she roused herself to change her dress, for it was the only one she owned fit to wear on the street. As she took an old summer percale out of the half-empty armoire she marveled at what had become of all her things. Her racks of shoes, her piles of petticoats and chemises, dresses and shawls and bonnets, her dozens of pairs of stockings—they had simply fallen apart and disappeared, most of them, patch and remake them as she would. It had never occurred to her in the old days to buy clothes for durability. Nobody had warned her they were going to have to last forever.

  While she was buttoning her dress her free hand reached toward the top shelf of the armoire. She hesitated, moved her hand down and reached up again to take the bottle of Bourbon standing there. A dozen times she had resolved to stop keeping whiskey in her room. The temptation to drink it was too strong when it was there under her hand and the door was locked. But what, in God’s name, she asked herself angrily as she half filled the glass on her washstand, were you to do when your body and soul were screaming for relief? The liquor supply of Ardeith seemed inexhaustible, and in these despairing days she had often wondered how she would have gone on without it. Whatever they preached about liquor, these moralists who had never been made to face what she was facing, it did give you a strange courage and it did provide release on nights when you were too tired to sleep.

  The sun was gone, but though the room was smoky with twilight the heat was still oppressive. The whiskey seemed to flow just under her skin and create a furnace within her to meet the heat outside, and it began to bring also the sense of peace she wanted. But not for long. There was a knock on the door.

  She did not answer and the knock was repeated. She heard Cynthia’s voice calling her. Ann roused herself, irritated. Cynthia was eighteen. Everything about her was sharp. She had a cutting voice and irregular features and a figure that was all angles—except for her clear skin there was nothing pretty about her—and she moved fast and had no delicacy of manner whatever. Sometimes Ann did not like her, though she always admired her.

  “Ann!” Cynthia called again.

  Slowly Ann got to her feet. “Yes? What is it?”

  “Open the door.”

  Replacing the whiskey bottle in the armoire Ann reluctantly obeyed her. If Cynthia observed that she had been drinking, she did not say so; she had a rare talent for minding her own business. She simply said, “I’m sorry to bother you. But Virginia’s sick again.”

  “Again?” Ann sighed. That poor darling was so frail, and the summers were hard on her. “What is it now?”

  Cynthia’s face was graver than usual. “It’s not just a little attack, Ann. She’s awfully sick. I came to call you as soon as Denis told me you’d come in.”
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br />   “I’ll go to her.” Ann hurried to the nursery. As she went in mammy sprang up from where she was sitting by Virginia’s bed.

  “Oh, Miss Ann, I’m sho glad you’s come. De baby been so low!”

  Ann bent over the bed. Virginia would be four years old in October, but she was small for her age. Her face was flushed and she was whimpering. At a glance Ann saw that Cynthia had not been mistaken; Virginia was very ill indeed. With a start of fright she put her hand on the child’s burning forehead, murmuring, “Here I am, darling. Mother’ll take care of you.” She looked up at Cynthia, who had followed her in and stood at the foot of the bed. “When did it start, Cynthia?”

  “Not long after you went out. She started screaming and grabbing her stomach. She’s been dreadfully nauseated. It must be something she got at dinner.”

  “It’s the milk.” As she spoke Ann thought her voice sounded rough as sandpaper. When this heat-wave struck several days ago she had thought yearningly of ice. But she had not seen a piece of ice in so long she had almost forgot there had been a time when she had found it necessary, and there was that land-tax in front of her. Buying ice would have seemed as foolish as buying diamonds. She held Virginia up in her arms and laid her cheek against the flaming cheek of the little girl.

  Cynthia went on. “She can’t keep anything down, not even a drink of water. I did everything I knew, but—” her voice lowered. “Ann, I never did see a child in such torment! I’m so glad you came!”

  “Stale milk is like arsenic,” Ann said tersely. She let go the child and got up, turning to mammy. “Don’t give her anything to eat. Water in a teaspoon if she can take it. Make a cold compress for her forehead. That might reduce the fever.”

  “Miss Ann,” mammy said sadly, “dat water in de pitcher is wawm as my hand.”

  “Tell Napoleon to draw some fresh from the well. It will be cooler.” She bent over the bed again. “Virginia, sugar, try to be a good girl. I’ll get something to make you well.” Drawing Cynthia with her she went out into the hall, asking, “Do you suppose there’s any ice in town?”

  “Ice?” Cynthia frowned. “Why, I don’t know. I think the ice-boats have been running since the war. But have you got any money?”

  Ann shook her head. Twenty-five cents a pound, and the pitchers of lemonade she used to drink on hot days! “I paid the last cent I had to those vultures in the courthouse. But we’ve got to get ice somehow. That child’s poisoned. I wouldn’t give her anything out of the kitchen safe now for a thousand dollars.”

  Cynthia held out her hands helplessly. “I never heard a child scream the way she did. Is there anything you want me to do?”

  “Take care of Denis. If I don’t get down to supper don’t let him eat anything but vegetables. No milk or meat. And tell Napoleon I want to see him right away.”

  She hurried into her own room for her keys and went down the stairs, through the liquor-closet and down into the vault. The big safe at the side stood like an armored sentinel, its dark sides blinking in the light of her candle. Ann unlocked it and turned over the trinkets she still had left. They were not many; she had pawned more than she cared to remember until the pawnbrokers began allowing so little for jewelry it was hardly worth offering. There was the medallion with little Denis’ daguerreotype and baby hair. She had held on to that grimly, but now she picked it up, wondering what it would bring. Not much in these times, but perhaps enough to provide ice-packs for Virginia’s forehead and keep her food fresh until this heatwave passed. Ann slipped out the picture and lock of hair, and leaving them in the safe she locked the doors behind her and ran back upstairs. Napoleon was waiting for her in the hall.

  She told him to take anything he could get for the medallion, and buy ice. He shook his head sadly and went off. Ann told Bertha to scrub out the old refrigerator. She went back to Virginia.

  The child’s fever was rising. Ann tried to cool her forehead with wet cloths. It was all she could do, and it seemed to be of little use. She thought of a doctor, but she had nobody to send for one, and even if she had, she doubted if he could tell her anything but that food ought to be kept on ice in this weather. The night hung hot and smothering over the house, the sort of night when well people with untroubled minds tossed and mumbled in their sleep. It was murderous weather for a sick child. Ann sat by the bed, or sometimes to ease her own restlessness she walked up and down the room, wiping rivulets of perspiration off her own face with her sleeve.

  It was an hour past midnight when she heard Napoleon unlocking the front door. She rushed downstairs to meet him.

  But his errand had been fruitless. He gave her back the medallion.

  “I got one pawnbroker out of bed,” he told her. “He says he’s shut up indefinitely—he can’t advance any cash on anything. Then I found the man who keeps the icehouse and got him up. I thought maybe he’d take the jewels and hold them for the ice until you could redeem them. But he hasn’t any ice for sale; it was all bought and paid for by a woman who’s giving a party next week.”

  Ann dropped into a chair, feeling as if her bones had gone limp.

  “Napoleon,” she said at last, “I know you’re tired but you’ve got to help me. Go over to Silverwood and get my brother. He’ll think of something I can do.”

  Napoleon went off wearily, and Ann remounted the stairs. Virginia was tossing and mumbling incoherently. Ann had never seen a child in such fever. So there was ice in town, plenty of ice. But some woman was giving a party!

  Toward morning Virginia sank into a sleep that was like a stupor of exhaustion. It was after sunrise when Napoleon came back with Jerry. Ann hurried out into the hall.

  “Have you got any money?” she asked Jerry breathlessly.

  He put his hand into his pocket. “Three dollars.”

  “Go look at her,” Ann said.

  Jerry said nothing as he looked down at the bed, but turned abruptly on his heel and came back to her. Jerry was thirty-one years old, but he might have passed for fifty; scurvy had grizzled his hair, and Reconstruction was leaving deep tracks down his face. He wore a suit of butternut homespun and an old frilled shirt he had worn before the war to go calling on Sarah Purcell. He closed the door behind him and spoke in a low voice.

  “Yes, Ann, she’s very ill,” he agreed.

  “Can’t you do something?” she cried.

  “I don’t know,” he returned frankly. It was not Jerry’s nature to hold out false encouragement. “If I had enough money I might be able to bribe the workers at the icehouse. Napoleon told me all they expected to get in from now till Tuesday was bought and paid for in advance. Some woman named Upjohn.”

  “Upjohn!” She twisted her hands together, blazing with rage. “And because that wretched little harlot wants to give a party I’m to stand here and watch my child die?”

  Jerry took her clenched hands in his and made her sit down in a chair by the wall. “I’ll go to town and see her. Do you know her?”

  “She used to work here. You must have seen her around.” Ann reached into her pocket and took out the medallion. “Find her, Jerry, and tell her she can have it if she’ll let me be supplied with ice for a week.”

  He nodded understandings. She heard him rattling down the spiral staircase. Ann went back to Virginia’s room and lay down by her on the bed, spent with weariness. The sky had clouded over and the air was like steam.

  2

  Jerry’s horse was tired, and he was tired too, and hungry, for he had stopped only for a cup of coffee and a piece of yesterday’s cornbread when Napoleon brought him Ann’s message. It took a dozen inquiries to discover where this Upjohn woman lived; he knew the Durhams had had to rent their home to a carpetbagger, but he had no idea of the names of the persons who had taken it. At last he was ringing the doorbell.

  No, said the colored girl who answered the door, Miss Corrie May wasn’t home. She might be at the dr
essmaker’s or the baker’s or almost anywhere. She was getting ready for a big party and was mighty busy. Mr. Gilday wasn’t home either. He’d most likely be at the courthouse this time of day.

  Jerry went to the ice-house. The man in charge was mannerly enough, but stubborn. He didn’t want no jewelry. How’d he know if it was real or just glass? That lady that had bought the ice, that Miss Upjohn, she’d paid in real sure enough money, and real sure enough money was what folks wanted these days.

  Looking at the man’s lean body and hungry eyes, Jerry could not blame him. Since the war too many wretched people had tried to sell glass ornaments as jewelry, and persons unused to jewelry couldn’t tell the difference. They were tired of being taken in.

  Tying his horse to a hitching-post to rest, he walked to the courthouse. After an hour’s waiting he managed to see Gilday. Behind his desk, Gilday leaned back and surveyed him, his thumbs in the side pockets of his vest. “Seems like old times, I swear it does, seeing all you Sheramys. Don’t tell me you want something, now.”