Katherine Anne Porter (29 page)

Everything went beautifully until the party gathered downstairs to leave for the ball. Amy’s father—he must have been born a grandfather, thought Miranda—gave one glance at his daughter, her white ankles shining, bosom deeply exposed, two round spots of paint on her cheeks, and fell into a frenzy of outraged propriety. “It’s disgraceful,” he pronounced, loudly. “No daughter of mine is going go show herself in such a rig-out. It’s bawdy,” he thundered. “Bawdy!”

Amy had taken off her mask to smile at him. “Why, Papa,” she said very sweetly, “what’s wrong with it? Look on the mantelpiece. She’s been there all along, and you were never shocked before.”

“There’s all the difference in the world,” said her father, “all the difference, young lady, and you know it. You go upstairs this minute and pin up that waist in front and let down those skirts to a decent length before you leave this house.
And wash your face
!”

“I see nothing wrong with it,” said Amy’s mother, firmly, “and you shouldn’t use such language before innocent young
girls.” She and Amy sat down with several females of the household to help, and they made short work of the business. In ten minutes Amy returned, face clean, bodice filled in with lace, shepherdess skirt modestly sweeping the carpet behind her.

When Amy appeared from the dressing room for her first dance with Gabriel, the lace was gone from her bodice, her skirts were tucked up more daringly than before, and the spots on her cheeks were like pomegranates. “Now Gabriel, tell me truly, wouldn’t it have been a pity to spoil my costume?” Gabriel, delighted that she had asked his opinion, declared it was perfect. They agreed with kindly tolerance that old people were often tiresome, but one need not upset them by open disobedience: their youth was gone, what had they to live for?

Harry, dancing with Mariana who swung a heavy train around her expertly at every turn of the waltz, began to be uneasy about his sister Amy. She was entirely too popular. He saw young men make beelines across the floor, eyes fixed on those white silk ankles. Some of the young men he did not know at all, others he knew too well and could not approve of for his sister Amy. Gabriel, unhappy in his lyric satin and wig, stood about holding his ribboned crook as though it had sprouted thorns. He hardly danced at all with Amy, he did not enjoy dancing with anyone else, and he was having a thoroughly wretched time of it.

There appeared late, alone, got up as Jean Lafitte, a young Creole gentleman who had, two years before, been for a time engaged to Amy. He came straight to her, with the manner of a happy lover, and said, clearly enough for everyone near by to hear him, “I only came because I knew you were to be here. I only want to dance with you and I shall go again.” Amy, with a face of delight, cried out, “Raymond!” as if to a lover. She had danced with him four times, and had then disappeared from the floor on his arm.

Harry and Mariana, in conventional disguise of romance, irreproachably betrothed, safe in their happiness, were waltzing slowly to their favorite song, the melancholy farewell of the Moorish King on leaving Granada. They sang in whispers to each other, in their uncertain Spanish, a song of love and parting and that sword’s point of grief that makes the heart
tender towards all other lost and disinherited creatures: Oh, mansion of love, my earthly paradise. . . that I shall see no more. . . whither flies the poor swallow, weary and homeless, seeking for shelter where no shelter is? I too am far from home without the power to fly. . . . Come to my heart, sweet bird, beloved pilgrim, build your nest near my bed, let me listen to your song, and weep for my lost land of joy. . . .

Into this bliss broke Gabriel. He had thrown away his shepherd’s crook and he was carrying his wig. He wanted to speak to Harry at once, and before Mariana knew what was happening she was sitting beside her mother and the two excited young men were gone. Waiting, disturbed and displeased, she smiled at Amy who waltzed past with a young man in Devil costume, including ill-fitting scarlet cloven hoofs. Almost at once, Harry and Gabriel came back, with serious faces, and Harry darted on the dance floor, returning with Amy. The girls and the chaperones were asked to come at once, they must be taken home. It was all mysterious and sudden, and Harry said to Mariana, “I will tell you what is happening, but not now—”

The grandmother remembered of this disgraceful affair only that Gabriel brought Amy home alone and that Harry came in somewhat later. The other members of the party straggled in at various hours, and the story came out piecemeal. Amy was silent and, her mother discovered later, burning with fever. “I saw at once that something was very wrong. ‘What has happened, Amy?’ ‘Oh, Harry goes about shooting at people at a party,’ she said, sitting down as if she were exhausted. ‘It was on your account, Amy,’ said Gabriel. ‘Oh, no, it was not,’ said Amy. ‘Don’t believe him, Mammy.’ So I said, ‘Now enough of this. Tell me what happened, Amy.’ And Amy said, ‘Mammy, this is it. Raymond came in, and you know I like Raymond, and he is a good dancer. So we danced together, too much, maybe. We went on the gallery for a breath of air, and stood there. He said, “How well your hair looks. I like this new shingled style.’” She glanced at Gabriel. ‘And then another young man came out and said, “I’ve been looking everywhere. This is our dance, isn’t it?” And I went in to dance. And now it seems that Gabriel went out at once and challenged Raymond to a duel about something or other, but Harry doesn’t wait for that. Raymond had already gone out to have his horse brought,
I suppose one doesn’t duel in fancy dress,’ she said, looking at Gabriel, who fairly shriveled in his blue satin shepherd’s costume, ‘and Harry simply went out and shot at him. I don’t think that was fair,’ said Amy.”

Her mother agreed that indeed it was not fair; it was not even decent, and she could not imagine what her son Harry thought he was doing. “It isn’t much of a way to defend your sister’s honor,” she said to him afterward. “I didn’t want Gabriel to go fighting duels,” said Harry. “That wouldn’t have helped much, either.”

Gabriel had stood before Amy, leaning over, asking once more the question he had apparently been asking her all the way home. “Did he kiss you, Amy?”

Amy took off her shepherdess hat and pushed her hair back. “Maybe he did,” she answered, “and maybe I wished him to.”

“Amy, you must not say such things,” said her mother. “Answer Gabriel’s question.”

“He hasn’t the right to ask it,” said Amy, but without anger.

“Do you love him, Amy?” asked Gabriel, the sweat standing out on his forehead.

“It doesn’t matter,” answered Amy, leaning back in her chair.

“Oh, it does matter; it matters terribly,” said Gabriel. “You must answer me now.” He took both of her hands and tried to hold them. She drew her hands away firmly and steadily so that he had to let go.

“Let her alone, Gabriel,” said Amy’s mother. “You’d better go now. We are all tired. Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”

She helped Amy to undress, noticing the changed bodice and the shortened skirt. “You shouldn’t have done that, Amy. That was not wise of you. It was better the other way.”

Amy said, “Mammy, I’m sick of this world. I don’t like anything in it. It’s so
dull,”
she said, and for a moment she looked as if she might weep. She had never been tearful, even as a child, and her mother was alarmed. It was then she discovered that Amy had fever.

“Gabriel is dull, Mother—he sulks,” she said. “I could see him sulking every time I passed. It spoils things,” she said. “Oh, I want to go to sleep.”

Her mother sat looking at her and wondering how it had
happened she had brought such a beautiful child into the world. “Her face,” said her mother, “was angelic in sleep.”

Some time during that fevered night, the projected duel between Gabriel and Raymond was halted by the offices of friends on both sides. There remained the open question of Harry’s impulsive shot, which was not so easily settled. Raymond seemed vindictive about that, it was possible he might choose to make trouble. Harry, taking the advice of Gabriel, his brothers and friends, decided that the best way to avoid further scandal was for him to disappear for a while. This being decided upon, the young men returned about daybreak, saddled Harry’s best horse and helped him pack a few things; accompanied by Gabriel and Bill, Harry set out for the border, feeling rather gay and adventurous.

Amy, being wakened by the stirring in the house, found out the plan. Five minutes after they were gone, she came down in her riding dress, had her own horse saddled, and struck out after them. She rode almost every morning; before her parents had time to be uneasy over her prolonged absence, they found her note.

What had threatened to be a tragedy became a rowdy lark. Amy rode to the border, kissed her brother Harry good-by, and rode back again with Bill and Gabriel. It was a three days’ journey, and when they arrived Amy had to be lifted from the saddle. She was really ill by now, but in the gayest of humors. Her mother and father had been prepared to be severe with her, but, at sight of her, their feelings changed. They turned on Bill and Gabriel. “Why did you let her do this?” they asked.

“You know we could not stop her,” said Gabriel helplessly, “and she did enjoy herself so much!”

Amy laughed. “Mammy, it was splendid, the most delightful trip I ever had. And if I am to be the heroine of this novel, why shouldn’t I make the most of it?”

The scandal, Maria and Miranda gathered, had been pretty terrible. Amy simply took to bed and stayed there, and Harry had skipped out blithely to wait until the little affair blew over. The rest of the family had to receive visitors, write letters, go to church, return calls, and bear the whole brunt, as they
expressed it. They sat in the twilight of scandal in their little world, holding themselves very rigidly, in a shared tension as if all their nerves began at a common center. This center had received a blow, and family nerves shuddered, even into the farthest reaches of Kentucky. From whence in due time great-great-aunt Sally Rhea addressed a letter to
Mifs Amy Rhea
. In deep brown ink like dried blood, in a spidery hand adept at archaic symbols and abbreviations, great-great-aunt Sally informed Amy that she was fairly convinced that this calamity was only the forerunner of a series shortly to be visited by the Almighty God upon a race already condemned through its own wickedness, a warning that man’s time was short, and that they must all prepare for the end of the world. For herself, she had long expected it, she was entirely resigned to the prospect of meeting her Maker; and Amy, no less than her wicked brother Harry, must likewise place herself in God’s hands and prepare for the worst. “
Oh, my dear unfortunate young relative
,” twittered great-great-aunt Sally, “
we must in our Extremty join hands and appr before ye Dread Throne of Jdgmnt a United Fmly, if One is Mssg from ye Flock, what will Jesus say?
”

Great-great-aunt Sally’s religious career had become comic legend. She had forsaken her Catholic rearing for a young man whose family were Cumberland Presbyterians. Unable to accept their opinions, however, she was converted to the Hard-Shell Baptists, a sect as loathsome to her husband’s family as the Catholic could possibly be. She had spent a life of vicious self-indulgent martyrdom to her faith; as Harry commented: “Religion put claws on Aunt Sally and gave her a post to whet them on.” She had out-argued, out-fought, and out-lived her entire generation, but she did not miss them. She bedeviled the second generation without ceasing, and was beginning hungrily on the third.

Amy, reading this letter, broke into her gay full laugh that always caused everyone around her to laugh too, even before they knew why, and her small green lovebirds in their cage turned and eyed her solemnly. “Imagine drawing a pew in heaven beside Aunt Sally,” she said. “What a prospect.”

“Don’t laugh too soon,” said her father. “Heaven was made to order for Aunt Sally. She’ll be on her own territory there.”

“For my sins,” said Amy, “I must go to heaven with Aunt Sally.”

During the uncomfortable time of Harry’s absence, Amy went on refusing to marry Gabriel. Her mother could hear their voices going on in their endless colloquy, during many long days. One afternoon Gabriel came out, looking very sober and discouraged. He stood looking down at Amy’s mother as she sat sewing, and said, “I think it is all over, I believe now that Amy will never have me.” The grandmother always said afterward, “Never have I pitied anyone as I did poor Gabriel at that moment. But I told him, very firmly, ‘Let her alone, then, she is ill.’” So Gabriel left, and Amy had no word from him for more than a month.

The day after Gabriel was gone, Amy rose looking extremely well, went hunting with her brothers Bill and Stephen, bought a velvet wrap, had her hair shingled and curled again, and wrote long letters to Harry, who was having a most enjoyable exile in Mexico City.

After dancing all night three times in one week, she woke one morning in a hemorrhage. She seemed frightened and asked for the doctor, promising to do whatever he advised. She was quiet for a few days, reading. She asked for Gabriel. No one knew where he was. “You should write him a letter; his mother will send it on.” “Oh, no,” she said. “I miss him coming in with his sour face. Letters are no good.”

Gabriel did come in, only a few days later, with a very sour face and unpleasant news. His grandfather had died, after a day’s illness. On his death bed, in the name of God, being of a sound and disposing mind, he had cut off his favorite grandchild Gabriel with one dollar. “In the name of God, Amy,” said Gabriel, “the old devil has ruined me in one sentence.”

It was the conduct of his immediate family in the matter that had embittered him, he said. They could hardly conceal their satisfaction. They had known and envied Gabriel’s quite just, well-founded expectations. Not one of them offered to make any private settlement. No one even thought of repairing this last-minute act of senile vengeance. Privately they blessed their luck. “I have been cut off with a dollar,” said Gabriel, “and they are all glad of it. I think they feel somehow that this
justifies every criticism they ever made against me. They were right about me all along. I am a worthless poor relation,” said Gabriel. “My God, I wish you could see them.”