More Than You Know (31 page)

come there because she didn’t want them to know at home she was upset, nor neither at
the store where she worked in town. Miss C flew to her side and cried, “What’s the
matter? What has happened?” for she was a tenderhearted girl.

Miss H replied, “Raoul is leaving tonight. He is never coming back, and I want
to go with him.”

Miss C thought that Miss H loved Raoul very much, and she knew that Miss

H longed to go away and have a different life from what her parents had.

“Are you going to elope?” Miss C cried, hoping that Miss H planned to be

married.

“He says I must go with him right now, or never see him again, he won’t be

back. He is tired of being called names by my father.” It was true that Mr. H often
said ugly things about Raoul. Then Miss H began to weep again, very angry. Suddenly
she seemed to take a decision. “Miss C, would you please go get my mother and bring
her here?”

“Of course, dear,” said Miss C, very upset to see this high-spirited girl so undone.

In a trice she had put on her black cloak and hurried into the rain.

She found Mrs. H at home rocking at her rag loom. Mrs. H was upset by the

wet weather, in which no clothes would dry. She came willingly back to the schoolhouse,
where there was a great scene.

“Raoul is leaving town. Father has been ugly to him and he says he doesn’t believe
I’ll ever leave home,” cried Miss H bitterly.

“There’s no need to leave home,” declared Mrs. H. “You can both live right here
in town after you’re married.”

Miss H flared and her eyes blazed. “It would be a proper mare’s nest, the way

Father behaves to Raoul. He cannot stay in this town.”

“You cannot leave,” cried the mother. “I don’t want to be left all alone here!”

“You don’t have to be!” cried the daughter. “You can go to your family, they

would be glad to have you back!”

The mother looked cold and hard as she replied, “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” asked the girl.

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“They would mock me and say, Everyone told you so.”

“They would not!” cried the daughter. In any case, Mrs. H didn’t listen to her
daughter. She believed what she had decided to believe, and could not be talked to. She
didn’t want her daughter to leave town, and that was that. The daughter was torn, for
she wanted her mother to love and esteem her. Miss C thought this was like the brindle
cat at home who never would stop sidling up to the ones who liked cats least. The more
it got kicked, the more it tried again.

After they had both gone off in the rain, Miss C was most upset. She was used

to kind and happy people and even when her brother in a fit of pique knocked her down
and sat on her and broke one of her ribs she forgave him because

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Miss C spent the night in the schoolhouse and was very uncomfortable for the

only bed there was the cot she used for pupils who felt ill during the day or came out
in spots, and there was only a thin blanket and no pillow. She had bad dreams and
wondered if Miss H was at that moment running away with her Raoul, and if so,

would they be happy? She was not at all sure that she would be since she had seen Raoul
making eyes at Miss Horton one day on the stoop of the general store.

In any case the day dawned quite bright, and with it the girl’s mood lifted. She
thought she would go home to the H’s house and wash and get some breakfast. When she
got there Mr. H was just finishing a peculiar breakfast of hot broth and boiled eggs. Mrs.

H was sitting looking out the window. There were two dirty plates on the table, and
from that Miss C guessed that Miss H and her mother had both recently breakfasted.

While Miss C went out to the hen yard to see if there were more eggs, Mr. H

apparently went into the parlor and lay down to take a nap. He often did this on
Sundays as he was an early riser and by breakfast time had already spent several hours
tending the animals and put in a stretch with his Bible. The nap in the parlor was his
Day of Rest, he would say when Mrs. H made remarks about it. Mrs. H didn’t like
him to nap in the parlor because he snored loudly and prevented her going to her loom,
and because she said men in her family went to sleep in proper bedrooms instead of
making pigs of themselves in public (this was the way they talked to each other). Miss
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C came into the kitchen with her eggs in her pockets, one daubed with straw and chicken
dirt, and set a pot of water to boil on the woodstove. The kitchen was empty, but she
could hear Mr. H beginning to snore in the parlor.

As she waited for the water to boil, and wished there were bread and butter to eat instead of eternal eggs, she became aware of someone on the stairs. Sallie, she thought. She didn’t
go to look. The door to the mudroom, the front door properly though it was almost never used,
opened and closed. No one ever went that way, except to go to the woodpile.

The water came to the boil and I put my three eggs in. I looked at the kitchen
clock to time them because I like them hard-boiled, I can’t bear that slimy gush of yellow
yolk on the plate. It was going on ten, and in town the bell was ringing for morning
worship. The front door opened again and I turned to see Mrs. H coming in. She was
carrying the ax from the woodpile.

I’d never seen the ax brought in the house. It was sharpened in the barn on

the grinding wheel. Wood was split outside. Mrs. H didn’t use it even to kill chickens,
which she did with her hands. (We had chicken for dinner once, on Easter Sunday.)
I don’t think she saw me. As usual with Mrs. H, you couldn’t tell what she saw. She
saw what she wanted to.

Mrs. H stood in the dark hall for minutes. The only sound in the house was the
snoring in the parlor and the tick of the kitchen clock. I could see her from where I stood
at the far side of the stove, not her face, but her back, stiff and straight. She was wearing
the summer dress from yesterday, I think it was Sallie’s. I didn’t know what was going
to happen.

Mrs. H walked forward, out of my sight. She was heading toward the light,

toward the parlor where you could see the bay. Her shoes made a soft tapping noise. She
2 4 0

made no effort to be quiet, she was very matter-of-fact. My egg water was bubbling on
the stove and that seemed loud.

In the parlor there was a sudden sound like the sound of a knife going into a

pumpkin, loud but not sharp. Also Mr. H made a noise, not a word but an
uuuhfff
noise, like a horse exhaling. The snoring stopped.

I stood in the corner of the kitchen listening to blow after blow falling in the
parlor. They fell in the same rocking rhythm she used at her loom, as if instead of
weaving rugs she was chopping the sofa apart. Finally footsteps came running down from
upstairs and Sallie screamed. Just once.

All the way in the kitchen I could smell the blood. I knew I was going to be sick
and didn’t want them to hear me. I was trying not to gag, picturing them in the next
room staring at each other. Finally I heard Sallie say, “Mother, it’s all over your dress,”

and then the two of them left by the door down to the side yard, where the washhouse
was.

I left the eggs on the boil and never did learn what happened to them

k

The sleek young Englishman who had once sold a story to
Scribner’s

Magazine
turned over the last of the manuscript pages to see if there was any more. Then he stretched his long legs and bounced the pages together

against his desk to square them up before handing the whole back to

Miss Turner.

“There’s a rather good sentence about a brindle cat,” he said.

Miss Turner waited to see if he wouldn’t have something more to

say about it than that. Apparently he didn’t.

“Oh, dear,” she said. “Poor Miss Chatteau.”

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WhenIwokeup,Iwascrying.Ididn’tknowwhereIwas,

but I’d had a dream. Someone was throwing pebbles at my window.

I went to it and looked out, and Connie was there outside, looking up

at me. He was smiling and calling to me, and I tried to shush him,

but he laughed and said, “I want to marry you.” His hair was wet and

dark. I said I couldn’t come out, and he said, “Then wait for me. I’ll

find you.” And then he started to go away, but I noticed as he went,

he’d hurt his foot, and was limping.

I didn’t know where I was. In the dream it was night (and Conary

was there), but when I opened my eyes it was bright, and my head

ached, and Conary wasn’t there. I tried to turn my head, but it made

me want to scream, so I moved my eyes.

White ceiling. White window shades. Sunlight. White metal

dresser. Bedclothes tucked tight around me so that I couldn’t move

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M O R E

T H A N

Y O U

K N O W

my arms. Something else hurt, besides my face and head. Almost

everything. My arm, and my whole side. And an ankle.

Somebody reached over and wiped the tears that were sliding

down my neck. What was I crying about? Oh, yes, the dream. Whose

hand? The owner of the hand stood, and I saw it was my father.

“Hello,” he said softly. He looked very glad to see me, and this

was such a change from the last time that I tried to smile.

A nurse poked her head in and, seeing my father standing by

my bed, came in to look at me. She looked into my eyes and smiled

at me and then said, “Hello, sunshine. I’ll just tell the doctor you’ve

decided to come back to us.” She hurried out. I probably went back

to sleep, because the next instant there seemed to be a convention of

large seagulls, all in white coats, gathered around my bed, bobbing

and poking.

One dug my wrist out from under the covers and held it. Another

told me to follow his finger with my eyes. I tried. Another stuck a

thermometer into my mouth.

“Do you know what day it is?” one asked me. That seemed like

a trick question. My father said to me, “It’s Tuesday, sweetheart.”

Tuesday! Tuesday . . . of what week?

“Do you know who the president of the United States is?” asked

the first doctor. I did of course but didn’t know why they wanted to

know.

“Who is it?”

I said Roosevelt. It came out
Ro-svel.
My lips were all swollen

and cracked. The first seagull turned to my father and said, “Well.

Congratulations.”

“This is it? Is this what you were waiting for?”

“Yes. There’s still plenty to be on the lookout for . . .” He went on

and on. He seemed to know why my head hurt. I went back to sleep.

When I woke up again it was still light, or light again, and I

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B E T H

G U T C H E O N

was hungry. I tried to sit up, but that was a very poor idea and I

stopped. I found out, though, that Edith and Father were both in the

room, and they crowded around.

Edith stroked my forehead and said, “I think her fever’s down.

She doesn’t look so dopey.” My father nodded. I wished my arms

weren’t all wrapped up so I could punch her. Who wants to hear not

so dopey?

My father touched my head, and I realized he was touching

bandages, not my scalp. It was like finding out you were wearing a

hat when you didn’t know it. Bandages. And my head hurt . . . so, head

injury. And . . . they must have shaved my head again. I wondered

what I looked like this time. Father must have been getting used to

the shorn look by now. At least Conary liked it.

Conary.

I suddenly understood—again—that a big section of time was

missing. I remembered Saturday morning. I remembered Mr. Britton’s

car.

Mr. Britton’s car! Please, God, don’t let us have done something

bad to Mr. Britton’s car.

I said to my father, “Conary?”

It took me a long time to get him to understand me. Finally

Edith came up behind him and said, “She’s saying ‘Conary.’ Asking

for the boy.”

“Oh, yes,” said my father. “Don’t worry.”

Don’t worry—what did that mean? Where was he?

“Is he . . .”

“Yes, he’s fine. There was an accident.”

I had worked that out for myself, in fact. So how could he be

fine? If we’d done as much damage to that car as we’d done to me,

we’d have been lucky if he didn’t wind up in Thomaston.

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M O R E

T H A N

Y O U

K N O W

“Don’t try to talk, dearie. There’s plenty of time.” I think then

a nurse came in, and we began the drama of whether I could have any

solid food. (I gather I’d been living on something they were drooling

into my arm.) The seagulls all came back, and sometime later that day

I was given ginger ale to sip through a bent glass straw.

The next day, I think, there was Jell-O. And more of the day,

the lost day, came back. Earl and Eleanor. The Ferris wheel. Our

future, free and pure in Idaho, which I pictured as just like Maine.

I asked the nurse, “Where am I?”

“Dundee Cove, dear. In the hospital.”