Hill girl

by Charles Williams

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “What were you looking at?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  There were four dummies in the window dressed in different dresses and one was displaying a brown linen skirt and a little jacket and carrying a price tag of $35.

  “Was that it?” I asked.

  “Well, I was just looking at it.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  I took her by the arm and started toward the door. It was dim inside after the glare of the sun and it smelled of new cloth and floor-sweeping compound. A gray-haired saleswoman came toward us smilingly behind one of the glass counters.

  “Could I help you?”

  “Yes,” I said. “My wife would like to look at that brown linen thing you have in the window.”

  “Certainly,” she said, giving Angelina a quick glance, “I believe we have it in just her size.” I could see the sharp feminine appraisal in the gray eyes and the half-concealed envy of that terrific figure. “Right this way. Please.” She started back toward the rear of the store.

  Angelina’s face was hot. I guess the only thing she had seen in the clerk’s scrutiny was contempt for the clothes she had on.

  “I can’t buy that,” she whispered, embarrassed and angry. “I’ve only got about seven dollars.”

  I pulled out five twenties and stuffed them into her handbag and gave it back to her.

  “Now you’ve got a hundred and seven. I think you can just about get what you need worst with that. And, for God’s sake, when you come to stockings get some nylons and the best ones they have. It should be a crime for a girl with legs like yours to wear the stockings you’ve got on.”

  She flushed again. “I didn’t think you liked anything about me.”

  “Well, let’s don’t go into it. Just put me down as a patron of the arts. I love beauty.”

  I started for the door. “I’ll be back in about a half or three quarters of an hour. You’d better run along. The clerk’s waiting for you.”

  She looked after me with her eyes bewildered and confused and then she tried to smile but it didn’t quite come off and she turned and went rapidly down the aisle.

  I suddenly remembered when I was back out in the street again that I was trying to be married without a ring and stopped and bought one. Then I took the bags around to the hotel and registered. It looked strange on the card: Mr. And Mrs. Robert E. Crane. When I got up in the room I gave the bellboy some money and told him to hunt up a bottle and he was back with one in less than five minutes.

  I poured a big drink and sat down in an armchair by the window and looked out into the sun-blasted street and thought sourly of what a sap I was. Why did I have to give that surly little brat a hundred dollars? That was more money than I’d spent in the past four months. Sugar daddy from the cotton country, I thought, taking a big drink and shuddering at the fiery taste of it. But all the time I was calling myself a thickheaded idiot I kept seeing again that beaten look there had been in her eyes as she turned away from those things beyond the plate glass.

  What the hell, I thought defensively, a girl is entitled to get something out of a wedding. Even if she is a mule-headed little punk who doesn’t know the meaning of civility, and even if the wedding is by courtesy of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, she should have something out of it she can remember without wanting to cut her throat. That’s right, let’s have a good cry. Let’s build her up. You know what always happens whenever you start feeling sorry for Angelina. Angelina, the young bride. Nuts! I poured the rest of the drink in the basin in the bathroom and went back to the store.

  She and the saleswoman were still hard at it and the packages and opened boxes were scattered over the counter. Angelina’s back was turned toward me and she didn’t see me coming, but the clerk smiled and she turned around and it was an Angelina I’d never seen before who looked at me. She still had on the same clothes and nothing was changed except her eyes, but they were altogether different. I guess it wasn’t anything, really, except that they were happy, and I had never seen that expression in them before.

  She smiled a little hesitantly and said, “Do you like these—Bob?” It was the first time she’d ever called me by name. She was holding up a pair of very sheer nylons, holding them as caressingly as a mother might a baby.

  “They’re very nice,” I said, trying to overcome the traditional male indifference toward any stocking that doesn’t have anything in it.

  “And look at the shoes I got.” She rummaged around in the pile of merchandise and came up with a pair of slender-heeled white shoes with practically no soles to them. Each time she would dredge up something else out of the confusion of stuff she would look happily at me for some approving comment and then before I could think of something to say she would be off after another item.

  When they were all wrapped up and we were ready to go, I told the clerk to have them delivered to the hotel. Angelina’s face fell slightly. “Can’t we carry them, Bob?” she asked hopefully. “They’re not very heavy.”

  “O.K.,” I said, and we gathered them up. We went out and when we were in the street and headed for the hotel she looked up at me over the bundles she was carrying, the ones she wouldn’t trust out of her own arms, and said, simply, “Thank you. I don’t know why you did it, but it was the nicest thing anybody has ever done for me since I was born.”

  “You’re welcome, Angelina,” I said uncomfortably. Her eyes were beautiful, I thought, when she wasn’t using them as weapons.

  Thirteen

  We went up to the room so she could change into her new things before the ceremony. As soon as we were inside she threw the bundles on the bed and began unwrapping them excitedly.

  She held up a slip and admired it and turned to me. “I can’t get over it, Bob. But I’ll never know why you did it.”

  “I’m not very bright,” I said. “I was kicked on the head too much playing football.”

  “I don’t think you’re as mean as you pretend to be.”

  “I’m just a campfire girl at heart,” I said absently, pouring another drink and pushing some of the stuff off one end of the bed so I could lie down across it. I lay there glumly, propped on one elbow, sipping the whisky and water and watching her. Nobody will ever understand them, I thought. They’re in a class by themselves. You get one catalogued and classified and tagged and before you can tie the tag on she’s changed into something else. The sullen little brat who was in a jam from rolling back on her round heels once too often and getting caught is now the starry-eyed young girl going to her first prom and trying to decide which of her new dresses to wear. She didn’t look angry or defiant now. I tried to analyze just how she did look and watched her curiously. She was eager, and happy, and her eyes shone as she unwrapped her parcels, and I wondered if she had forgotten what we were here for.

  She ran into the bathroom and turned on the water in the tub. “Oh, it’s such a beautiful bathroom,” she said eagerly. “Do you think I have time for a bath?”

  “Sure,” I said. I went to the phone and ordered some soda and ice and when it came up I mixed a good drink.

  It was hot, even with the overhead fan running. I took off my coat and swished the ice around in the glass. I could hear Angelina splashing around in the bathroom and wondered sourly what was keeping her so long. I cursed the heat and the waiting and Shreveport. And then I cursed Angelina and Sam Harley and Lee and then the heat again.

  What do you suppose is keeping the young bride? Let’s get the hell out of here and get this thing over with so I can get going. Get going to New Orleans or somewhere. This is going to be a good one. I’d been living out there a long time alone, too long when you’re twenty-two, with that ache you get, and those dreams. Living in the country and farming is fun, but you have to take time off to relax. And you have to have the ashes hauled once in a while or you’ll go crazy. You’re overtrained. You get sour. You get so you wa
nt to fight everybody. No, not everybody, you phony bastard. You didn’t want to fight Sam Harley, did you? Not while he was carrying that gun. It didn’t take any six or seven men to hold you back then, did it? Now, don’t start that. You didn’t get into this stinking mess because you were afraid of Sam Harley. You got into it because you didn’t want Mary to find out about Lee and this Angelina and because you didn’t want Lee to find out what it’s like to be shot full of .38-caliber holes. At least, it sounds better that way. And a lot of good it’ll do. What about the next one? And the one after that? Are you going to marry them all? Lee is your brother and you love him and he’s a wonderful guy, but he’s not a husband. He’s a stallion.

  I thought some more about New Orleans. It was going to take one hell of a good binge to get the taste of this business out of my mouth. Oh, well, I thought, I’ve got that money I’ve hardly even touched, and the time, and nothing stopping me. Except a wife, of course. Don’t forget the young bride.

  I heard a padding of bare feet behind me. The young bride was out of the tub.

  A voice said happily, “Well, aren’t you going to turn around? I want to show you the rest of my new clothes.”

  I turned around and she was standing near where my feet extended over the side of the bed. I dropped the cigarette I had in my hand and it fell on the bedspread and started to burn it and I picked it up and ground out the coal between my fingers without feeling it.

  I saw the rest of her new clothes, which weren’t extensive. She had on a pair of very brief pants and a thin robe of some sort and her hair was down around her shoulders. She smiled gently at me and said, “I think they’re awful nice, don’t you?”

  I turned back to the window and said, “They’re very nice.”; I must have said it, for there wasn’t anybody else in the room, but it didn’t sound like my voice. It sounded like someone being strangled.

  Remember, that’s Angelina. She’s a snotty little brat and you don’t like her and you’re just over here to marry her to untangle a messy situation that you don’t want to get any worse. You can’t stand the sight of her. You can bet your life on that, brother. You can’t stand many more sights of her like that.

  “Go put your damn clothes on,” I said. I wondered how my voice sounded to her. It didn’t sound so promising to me.

  She reached down and took hold of my ankle and shook it. “You turn around, Bob, and tell me what you think of them. You didn’t say a word, and you bought them for me, and I want you to like them.”

  I turned around and she was smiling teasingly. I tried to put the drink on the window sill but I dropped it and the glass broke and the ice skidded across the rug. I got off the bed and caught her, roughly, as you would any old bag, not half knowing what I was doing and not caring much, heedless of anything but the wildness of having to get my hands on her. She took the first kiss without much more than a gasp, but the next time she hit me and she hit me hard, with her fist doubled up, and then she was pounding on my face with both hands and struggling. I let go of her and she ran back and picked up a glass off the dresser and threw it at me. It bounced off my neck and hit the wall but it didn’t break.

  Her eyes were hot as she glared at me like a female wildcat. “I’ll teach you,” she said. “I’ll teach you how to grab me like that, like a crazy man.”

  “O.K.,” I said. “Keep your shirt on. I ought to break your damn little neck.” I went back and lay down across the bed and lit another cigarette and looked out the window.

  There was a long silence, as though she hadn’t moved, and I began to wonder what she was doing back there, but I was so angry I didn’t care. To hell with her.

  Suddenly she was there beside me on the bed, facing me with her head cradled across her folded arm and looking at me contritely.

  “I'm sorry,” she said. “I’m awful sorry, Bob. Will you forgive me?”

  “O.K.,” I said. “Forget it.”

  “Not until you say you forgive me.” Her eyes looked at me pleadingly and her hair was spread out across her arm within inches of my face. It was beautiful hair, a little darker than golden, and I was thinking it was just the color of wild honey.

  “It wasn’t anything,” I said. “And it was my fault.”

  “No. It was mine. But you scared me and made me mad, the wild way you acted. You were so rough.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  She regarded me a moment, wide-eyed, and then went on softly, “You don’t have to be that rough, do you?”

  She didn’t hit me this time. She put her arms up around my neck and pulled my head down like a swimmer who was drowning.

  We lay side by side on the bed for a long time afterward, not saying anything and just being quiet under the cool breeze from the overhead fan. She sighed after a while and murmured something.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I said it’s nice here, Bob. Don’t you like it?”

  “It’s nice anywhere,” I said.

  She ignored it. “You know what I mean. Our room is nice.”

  “Why did you do it?” I asked. I was beginning to think that Angelina was something I wouldn’t ever understand. There were too many of her.

  “Do what?” she asked quietly.

  “You didn’t do anything?”

  “I just wanted you to see my new clothes. Because you were so nice and bought them for me.”

  “Yes, I know,” I said. “And then the strangest thing happened. You just can’t account for it.”

  She turned her face and smiled lazily.

  “If you’re really interested in an unbiased and analytical criticism of those tag ends of clothes,” I said, “let me give you a little advice. Display them unoccupied. When you get in there you only confuse the issue.”

  “I didn’t think you liked me.” She always got back to that.

  “It isn’t a question of liking you, any more than of liking being hit between the eyes with a sledge hammer. It has the same effect.”

  “You know something?” she said suddenly, raising up and resting her elbows on my chest and looking at me with little devils of mirth in her eyes. “Someday you’re going to slip and say something nice about me.”

  “No doubt.”

  “We’re getting to be better friends, aren’t we?”

  “Sure, sure,” I said. “If we just keep on breaking the ice with these friendly little gestures. May I call you by your first name, now that we’re sleeping together? I somehow feel as if I knew you.”

  I could have kicked myself after I’d said it. Why did I have to keep on riding her? But she didn’t flare up as I expected she would.

  “You think I’m pretty rotten, don’t you?” She wasn’t angry that I could see. She was just quiet and her eyes were a little moody. I hated the thing I had said for the way it had driven the laughter out of her eyes, and I hated myself for saying it.

  “No,” I said. “And I apologize for that last crack. It was just from habit, I guess. But I didn’t mean it.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “We don’t have to pretend anything, do we?”

  We were quiet for a long time and finally I said, “How do you feel about getting married? Have you ever thought about it before?”

  “What girl hasn’t?”

  “Anybody in particular?”

  “No-o,” she said thoughtfully. “But then, I don’t know many men. Papa would never let me go anywhere or have dates. The only way I could go out with boys or even meet ‘em was to sneak out. And you know what they expect right away if you do that.”

  “What could he have done if you’d just told him you were going to a dance or something in spite of his orders?”

  “He would have whipped me with a leather strap.”

  “You mean, when you were little?”

  “No. I mean in the past two months.” She said it quietly, but with an unforgiving bitterness.

  “Doesn’t he know you can’t raise a girl that way? You can’t even treat a dog like that.” />
  “I know. But he understands dogs. He says you mustn’t break a dog’s spirit if it’s going to be a good hunting dog.”

  “I don’t think he ever broke your spirit.”

  “No. He never would have. I guess I’m just as tough as he is. I sneaked out and I’m not ashamed of it. I guess I’m no good, the way you think, but I’d rather be that than the way he wanted me to be. I’m away from him now and I’ll never go back.”

  “But what about your mother? She’s never been like that to you, has she? And you didn’t even say good-by to her when we left.”

  “I feel sorry for her. She hasn’t got any mind of her own any more. And I didn’t say good-by to her because I was afraid I’d cry. I hated you and I hated him and I would have died before I would have let either one of you see me cry.”

  “But you don’t hate me so much now?”

  “No. Because you were nice to me. And because you bought me those clothes. Maybe it wasn’t just the clothes themselves, but the idea of anybody doing anything that nice for me. I know I’m letting you believe you just bought me with them, but I guess you’ll just have to think that, and maybe it’s true.”

  “Did they really mean that much to you?”

  “Yes, Bob. There isn’t any way I can make you understand just how much they do mean. You’d have to be a girl to understand.”

  “Are you in love with Lee?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Weren’t you? Not at all?”

  “No. I like him, and he can be awfully sweet to you, but that’s all it was.”

  “Did you think he was in love with you?”

  “He said he was going to divorce his wife and marry me.

  “He would,” I said. “And you believed him?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Not at all?”

  “You don’t think I’ve got much sense, do you, Bob? Of course I didn’t believe him. I knew what he wanted, and that was all he wanted.”