On Agate Hill (30 page)

First imagine a huge white house with columns across the front all hung in greenery and Spanish moss, then a grand Christmas tree which reaches to the ceiling hung with wax lights and all manner of gilt things and presents
underneath for the little children, and a midnight supper on Christmas Eve with crab cakes and candles and mistletoe under which Eliza’s brother Ben snuck up behind me and kissed me or that is, he kissed the air near my head, he is so shy. I liked it too. Eliza says he is sweet on me, and she is sweet on her cousin Daniel Butterworth. They will become engaged after her commencement. Danny is a dark haired boy with a big grin, he is very good looking.

“But Eliza,” I said, “don’t you want to do anything else, before you marry?” For Eliza is very good at art, she has won all the prizes. You should see her pen sketch, “Vine Gatherer’s Daughter.”

“Why, heavens no,” she said. “What would I do? All I want is Danny,” which seems to be true. All the girls want to get married except me. Oh Mary White, I want
so much,
this has always been the trouble with me, and it is still true. I don’t even know what I want. But I will not fall in love yet for then it is all over. Sometimes I think of it as a big lake, like Moon Lake, that I might fall into, and you know I cannot swim. So I will not give all my heart to anybody.

Early on Christmas morning we were awakened by a negro fiddler named Prince who went upstairs and all through the house playing and singing, soon followed by the little boys who ran outside with their negro playmates and shot off firecrackers. We dressed as fast as we could and went down to find Eliza’s father in an apron making the eggnog in the pantry, great bowls of it, which we all drank for breakfast! We had hot coffee and raisin cake too. I got tipsy, I swear it, I started laughing and could not stop. Then there was the opening of the presents with a wild commotion throughout the house. The children rode tricycles over the carpets. I received a beautiful moonstone necklace from Eliza and a silver letter opener from her parents and a cunning little glass globe with a snow scene in it from her brother Ben. If you turn the globe upside down then right it, snow falls softly upon an entire tiny village.

Ben is tall and fair like Eliza, he could be her twin though he is not, being three years older. His eyes in their gold spectacles follow me everywhere and I have to say, I like this. It gives me a pins and needles feeling throughout
my body, like when your foot has gone to sleep and is waking back up. Ben has finished school but still lives at home and works at the Cotton Exchange. He has asked if he can write to me and I have said
Yes.
He has also said he will see me at our commencement!

I am trying to tell you, Mary White. I am trying to do what you said.

The negros danced upon the piazza all day long. There were two fiddlers and a man who played the sticks and another who played the bones, and then the following day,
horse-racing!
Which all the Valiants are passionately devoted to. I sat with Eliza’s mother and her grandmother wearing hats and veils to keep out the dust. Ben won a third place ribbon and rode by our bench and tossed it to me, I shall keep it forever.

Eliza won the next race, riding like a man, beating Ben and her father too. “When I am married,” she told me later, “I can not do this any more.” Though frankly it seems to me Mary White that when you are very rich like the Valiants, you can do anything. Finally there was a dance at their cousins’ house on the Battery and I was so thankful for all those times we had whirled about the room at Gymnasium doing the Andalusian in a huge circle, and the schottische, and the polka. Mrs. Tuttle used to call out, “Heel, toe, and away we go!” Professor Fogle was induced to waltz with us, though usually we waltzed with each other. But dancing with boys is different, especially the waltz, when they have to touch you and are embarrassed. Eliza’s cousin Martha says to each one, “Can I tell you a secret?” and whispers something, she says it does not matter what, in his ear. All the boys are in love with her, they rush to sign up on her dance card. She says it is the breath in their ears that does it! Eliza thinks this is terrible but I think it is funny. It is fun to flirt and feel powerful. I thought of Victoria, and wondered where she is now, and wished I could see her or even be her, just for a minute. Remember when we wanted a demon lover, Mary White? But Ben Valiant will never be one.

“Oh, I hate to go back to school, don’t you?” Eliza said once we were in the coach, but though I said “Yes,” it was not really true. I am glad to get back here to our busy attic room and the echoing halls and the classrooms with their long wavy windows and Mrs. Snow’s greenhouse where
I love to work and the big hall with its lemony early light when I go in to neaten up and wipe the slate before the school day commences. Everything happens at a certain time here, it is the very opposite of Agate Hill. I love this school in spite of Mrs. Snow who does not like me, I have never known why. Even Agnes admits it but says she does not know why either. I don’t care.

In fact, I dread commencement as much as I anticipate it, in part because Mister Simon Black is coming. It has been four years, I can scarcely remember him, and yet I owe him everything, Mrs. Snow tells me this constantly. It makes me feel
very odd.
Please write me back if you can but I will write to you anyway.

Your
best friend forever,
sealed in blood,

Molly

January 9, 1877

A Love Story for Mary White

Now before the others arrive I will tell you the story of Mime Peeler. For we are all convinced that she loved our former music teacher, M. Bienvenu, though she swears there was nothing between them. His first name was Jacques (you do not pronounce the “s”). He had a high wide forehead with very pale skin and huge dark liquid eyes that were always glistening, and went everywhere carrying a palmetto fan. We all thought he was so silly, but Mime liked him. He told her that she could be a concert pianist (he said “peeyaneest”) if she would “practeece, practeece, practeece,” which she did, faithfully, and went around with her head in the clouds and a look of purest exaltation on her face. As for him, he seemed always as if he would burst into tears, fanning himself with his fan, which we made terrible fun of, but Mime would not laugh at him, ever. She
practeeced
and
practeeced
.

Once I came into a practice room bringing a freshly trimmed lamp to find her practeecing and M. Bienvenu very close behind her shoulder turning
the pages. Red spots flamed on Mime’s china cheeks. They were both so solemn and intent that I came and went without either one of them even noticing I was there. Mime was sixteen then, I know he was thirty-five at least. They had a special tutorial session together three afternoons a week, to prepare her for the concert stage.

That term, Mime was a prefect of the second study hall. M. Bienvenu used to pop in often, tiptoeing down the aisle in an exaggerated fashion which made all the girls laugh behind their hands, bringing Mime’s sheet music so she could look it over and be ready for their sessions together.

But one morning Mrs. Snow chanced to appear in the doorway just after M. Bienvenu made his grand entrance, crossed over to Mime’s high desk, and deposited his folder. Mrs. Snow followed him right down the aisle and pounced like a cat upon the sheaf of papers, startling M. Bienvenu so much that he had to grasp the prefects’ desk for support. Deathly pale, Mime looked as if she wished she could sink through the floor.

“Aha! Mendelssohn! ‘The Songs without Words’!” she announced in a loud hissing stage whisper. “Just what I was looking for! I shall return this to you in a second, Mime dear—”

She swept the folder up, causing five or six thin pieces of paper (“
French
paper!” Eliza would later claim) to flutter down upon the floor. M. Bienvenu bowed from the waist and quickly raced away. Poor Mime ran around the desk and attempted to grab up the papers, but she was too late, all of this drama being enacted in front of the entire study hall.

Mime is such a shy and private girl, she has never been quite the same since. M. Bienvenu was dismissed of course but she was forced to stay on at Gatewood by her parents who wished her to live down this scandal.

Though Mime has repeatedly claimed it was nothing, and said she doesn’t care, sometimes she still gets up in the middle of the night and goes down into the great hall and plays the grand piano softly while we are all asleep, I have heard her, and once recently I snuck down to find her playing “Spring Song” with the moonlight from the tall windows falling across the keys. I am sure she was thinking of M. Bienvenu and his silly palmetto fan.

But here comes the hack from town, I see it out our attic window, it is filled with girls, waving.

I think of you all the time.

Your friend,

Molly

F
OR
N
O
O
NE’S
E
YES

February 27, 1877

Today I have been out all day in the cold, seeing to putting up three tremendous Hogs. The three weighed nearly eight hundred & I had no one to help Primus cut them up but little Billy Strudwick & he had only one hand he could use—then when I went into the wash-house to see about the Lard I found Mahala so tipsy that she was too foolish for me to put up with so I ordered her to her own kitchen or out of my sight & as Delia was here washing, I got her to help & now at nine o’clock have just washed off the grease & put on my dressing gown—

Mariah Rutherford Snow
Headmistress, Gatewood Academy
Hopewell, Virginia

F
OR
N
O
O
NE’S
E
YES

March 23, 1877

Gave birth.

Mariah Rutherford Snow
Headmistress, Gatewood Academy
Hopewell, Virginia