The Devil's Dream (14 page)

Of course, had our visitor happened by Grassy Branch
before
Daddy's stroke, Daddy would not have permitted such music in the house, but after the stroke, all that righteous fire went out of him, to be replaced by a sweetness and light that would make you weep. I don't believe that Daddy lost his faculties, mind you, upon losing his speech; I believe rather that a finer, more tempered nature came to him. But in any case, R.C. was fascinated with the banjo from that time on, fashioning several and ordering others from a mail-order catalogue. I dearly loved to sing along, especially on the old ballads and lullabies, for they reminded me so of Mamma. I'd sing “Barbry Allen” and “Brown Girl,” “Down in the Valley,” and the cuckoo song. Sally especially loved “All the Pretty Little Horses.” When she was a baby, I had sung it to her every night to put her to sleep.

In more recent years, friends have remarked upon how difficult it must have been for me—just a child myself—to raise Sally. And yet, as I've answered in all honesty, it was not hard at all! For Sally was a sweet-natured, easy baby, and a docile little girl. Actually, she gave me a great deal of pleasure at a time in my life when pleasure was in scant supply. And I derived real satisfaction from the knowledge that this—taking care of Sally, I mean—was something I could do which would make a real difference in the world. For I felt
helpless
, you understand, as indeed I was helpless to control the situation which had placed her in my charge, just as so many, many children—God help them!—are helpless, trapped within the circumstances of their lives.

I think I knew, even then, that I would have no children of my own—and though events may yet prove me wrong, for Heavens! it is not too late—I suspect this will turn out to be the case. To date, I have not been able to envision combining marriage and vocation satisfactorily, or indeed, at all.

For mine is not a profession to adopt lightly, or casually, and I have felt—ever since that day in 1904, after Daddy's stroke, when Miss Covington came out to Grassy Branch—a sense of real vocation. Perhaps “mission” is the more exact word.

I shan't forget my first glimpse of Miss Covington as she rounded the bend of Grassy Branch on her little mare, wearing a gray cloak over her gray split skirt, the little white cap perched firmly atop her pale blond hair, which she wore in a careful bun at the nape of her neck. Her cap sported the little red cross, and on the snowy breast of her white blouse she wore a smaller gold pin bearing the caduceus. My schoolteacher, I knew, had sent her to us—Miss Covington had only just come to Cana at that time, the public health program being in its very infancy, and strongly resisted by most folks in our community, who swore by the granny women and the old remedies. Miss Covington came riding along by Grassy Branch looking pretty as a picture, sitting straight up. For some reason, she put me in mind of a little soldier. I went out and opened the gate.

For there was something in me, I see it now, which needed Miss Covington—which
craved
her.

Since Mamma left, I'd been doing the best I could, of course, for I always felt her departure was my fault, in a way—after all, I was the one who wanted to go to the medicine show! I can never forget this. So I have always done the very best I can, dedicated to erasing some of the
harm
done by those who run loose about the world doing just whatever pleases them at any given moment, those who are messy and heedless, prisoners of their passions, unmindful of all others save themselves.
I will not be like that
, I had told myself over and over, and so I had worked my little fingers to the bone, especially in those years before R.C. came back to us. Of course Daddy was strong then, doing the farm work of several men, yet Durwood was shiftless, Pack had gone off to work on the railroad. Sally needed my constant attention, and I was all alone, the only girl in the house, the only girl—I often felt—alive in all the world!

For we were very isolated there at Grassy Branch. And Daddy, hard as he worked, did not talk much except to pray. Durwood stayed gone for days and weeks at a time, or lay out under the apple trees in a dreamy stupor when he was home. Sally, though a good child, was of course too little for conversation. So I did what I had to—cooking, milking, feeding the animals, running after Sally, churning, patching, washing, ironing, cleaning . . . well, there is no end to it. A woman's lot is a terrible one, and I realized it early, even before the age of twelve, yet I had no alternatives, it seemed—if I wished to be good and do my duty. And this
is
what I wished, above all things.

“You take good care of your daddy and your little sister, now,” Preacher Johnson had said to me. I tried my best. But I was a mere child, a slip of a girl, and oftentimes I grew so exhausted I felt I might die, and oftentimes I wished I
would
die! And yet, still other times, my soul would rise up like a bird and beat its wings, flying high into the blue sky above Cemetery Mountain, wild, wild with longing—for what, I knew not. I'd be seized with emotion then, and often I'd fall weeping on the ground.

I'd been quite a fine student, yet when Mamma left and I had to stay at home with Sally, all my “book learning” seemed to fly right out of my head. My studies, which I had loved, struck me then as useless, wasted. I imagined all the books I'd read as lined up on a huge bookshelf suspended somehow in the air, separate from me, separate from my life as it was then on Grassy Branch. I yearned so for
something
, yet I could not even name my yearning—until, as I say, that day in 1904 when Miss Covington rode around the bend of Grassy Branch.

She seemed so—how shall I put it? So
all of a piece
. For when I thought of Mamma, I thought of her as falling apart, somehow—the combs flying out of her hair, her hair curling down around her face in an untidy mass; her petticoat hanging; her bodice unbuttoned as she went singing about the house, the milky-white curve of her breast showing. I thought of our household as falling apart, too, especially now in her absence—goods scattered, dishes broken, chores undone, the laundry left out in the rain—for of course I could not keep up with anything but Sally after Daddy's stroke.

And as for myself, I felt, I was not only falling apart—why, I was literally
flying
apart, with great velocity, little bits of me spinning off to every known corner of the universe.

Then Miss Covington came out to Grassy Branch, and bandaged Daddy's arm.

The day before, not understanding at first the limitations which the stroke had delivered to him, Daddy had tried to go out to the woodshed—or I
suppose
this was where he had intended to go, Heaven knows what he had actually had in mind—and he'd slipped and cut his arm on the ax blade, not deeply, but it was a jagged, messy cut.

First Miss Covington tethered her mare. Then she took her nurse's kit out of her saddlebag, set Daddy down in a chair, and proceeded to clean out his wound and bind it, wrapping the white bandage round and round his arm while Sally and I watched. I admired Miss Covington's kindness, her gentleness, her quick efficiency.

“There now,” she said when she was done. “I will leave some of these bandages with you, and every day you must wash the arm with soap and water just as I have done, and wrap a new bandage around it just so. It should heal up nicely in two weeks' time. But if it does not, if any redness or puffiness or red streaking develops around the cut, you must have him come in to see Dr. Potter immediately.
Immediately
. Do you understand?”

“Yes ma'am,” I said. She looked at me steadily for a moment with her soft gray eyes.

“Why, yes, I believe you do,” she said. “I believe you will make a splendid little nurse. Now how old are you, dear?” she asked further.

“Fourteen,” I said.

“And the little one?”

“This is Sally,” I said. “She is five now.”

“And how are you getting along out here?” she asked, looking all around and into the messy house, which embarrassed me.

“Just fine,” I said, and then I burst into tears.

Miss Covington held me while I cried for what seemed hours, until Sally started crying, too, just to keep me company. Daddy sat right there in his chair in the midst of all this crying, his face as blank and expectant as ever, registering
nothing
. Once I thought I was finally through with crying, but then I looked over at him and started up again. At length I was done. Miss Covington made me blow my nose and sniff some smelling salts, and said that on second thought she would come back the following week herself, to check on Daddy's progress.

Thus it began, the friendship which was to change my life, as faithfully she visited us during the next several years, through Sally's measles, Daddy's cough, R.C.'s stomach troubles (
Ulcer, quit drinking
, Miss Covington said), and the birth of R.C. and Lucie's first child, the one they call “Pancake” now.

I see I am getting ahead of myself—I am always getting ahead of myself, it seems!

R.C. met Lucie Queen when he was off on one of his numerous money-making schemes, selling furniture to farmers around Oak Hill. He had bought a wagonload of furniture on the cheap, from a man in Bluefield who needed some cash money fast to pay off a debt.

The first time he saw Lucie Queen, R.C. always said, she was sitting in her aunt and uncle's kitchen playing the autoharp and singing. She had long red hair, freckles, a deep strong voice, and an easy laugh. And R.C., who had “sworn off women for good,” or so he said, was so smitten with Lucie Queen that he failed to sell her aunt and uncle a single chair—and instead bought a whole set of china dishes that
she
was selling, for Lucie Queen was every bit as enterprising as R.C. Bailey!

I imagine they are using those dishes still, up on Grassy Branch—thick white china with a bouquet of purple violets in the center and a ring of violets around the edge. I imagine they've seen some rough use, with all the children up there now—I lose track! But those dishes were made to last, and so was Lucie Queen. I loved her from the minute I set eyes on her. She was just my age, sixteen.

I loved her, but I did not want her to marry R.C., though that would mean I'd have a friend at last. I did not even want her to love him, because the very notion of love terrified me, bringing to mind all the old ballads, which show love as a kind of sickness, or a temptation unto death, a temptation which destroys women, even as it destroyed Mamma. To me, “falling in love” was like falling in death—and one time, when R.C. had brought Lucie Queen over to Grassy Branch for a visit, I tried to talk to her about this.

R.C. had gone off to town to pick up something or other, which was unusual—mostly, he wouldn't leave Lucie's side when she came over to visit, since she never stayed long. Her aunt and uncle wouldn't let her spend the night, so she and R.C. would have to leave at sunset to get her back across Cemetery Mountain before midnight, and it would be near dawn when R.C.'d come dragging home again, grinning the silliest grin.

It was hot as blazes that July day, as I recall. Lucie had hiked up her skirts and wrapped her strong legs around little Sally, who stood still for once and let Lucie braid her pigtails. We sat out on the porch. Sally was just as crazy about Lucie as the rest of us were.

“Listen here, Lucie,” I said all of a sudden, “are you going to marry R.C.?”

Lucie laughed her merry, musical laugh. “I reckon so,” she said, “whenever I take a final mind to, which I reckon I will before long. It don't do to say yes too quick. They'll think they've got more if it's a little bit harder to get.”

As I said, it was very hot and still that day—dog days, it was—and the heat made my head hurt and my dress stick to my back while I sat in the rocker mending. Her answer infuriated me.

“Lucie,”
I said, though in truth it was none of my business and I knew it. “Lucie, it is not a game. It is not a play-party,” I said between my teeth. “You are fooling with fire,” I said. I felt so angry.

Lucie just threw back her head and laughed and laughed. “Why, it
is
a game, too!” she said. “Don't you know a thing?” I fell silent then, for I sensed that I knew too many things altogether. I felt far, far older than she.

Then it began to thunder, and lightning shot through the heavy clouds. The air smelled the way it always does right before a storm. The wind picked up and the leaves on the trees turned inside out, showing their silvery undersides.

“Oh, where
is
he?” Lucie wailed, peering down the darkening road, but just then R.C. came galloping right up to the porch and thrust a big box at her. “Here, honey!” he hollered, then wheeled his horse and headed for the barn just as the drops began to fall in earnest.

Lucie opened the box. It was a brand-new little Gibson guitar that he'd sent off for—she'd told R.C. she'd always wanted a guitar. As it turned out, this would be Lucie's wedding present—no ring, but a new guitar, and it would be just fine with her, too. That's how she was.

“Oh!” gasped Lucie then. She jumped off the porch and ran out toward the barn in the pouring rain, calling his name.

“Come on, Sally,” I said, and we went inside, for the rain came down so hard and fast that we were getting splattered even on the porch. I picked up the guitar and took it inside with me. Sally went to play with the paper dolls Lucie had brought her.

But something made me walk through the front room and into the dark kitchen, and stand at the open door looking out through the rain, where I could see my brother pushing Lucie Queen against the side of the barn and kissing her, putting his hands all over her body, finally pulling up her skirts behind and putting his hands there, too. I felt hot and terrible, watching this, yet I could not stop watching. I could hear Daddy snoring in the other room, and Sally making her paper dolls talk to each other. Then lightning flashed so bright it looked like day outside, and I could clearly see Lucie Queen down on her knees in the barnyard mud. Thunder crashed, followed by a deluge, and when the lightning came again, they were gone, inside the barn I supposed. I felt sick. I went and finished the mending.