The Long Secret

by Louise Fitzhugh

  “What are you laughing at, Beth Ellen? It seems to me that I’ve been awfully funny today, a regular barrel of laughs. I don’t see …” Beth Ellen was laughing on and on, when suddenly a deep voice like a cello boomed over their shoulders.

  “And what, might I ask, is so amusing to two very rich little summer residents?”

  They turned, stricken, to realize they were looking into the long brown horseface of The Preacher.

  They looked up at him open-mouthed. He was a very long tall man. His face was almost as long as his vest. He looked like a chocolate-covered basset hound.

  “Do you not have tongues?” he intoned mirthlessly. There was, however, a shine in his yellow eyes, and his cheeks looked less forlorn for a moment.

  “Well,” said Harriet, “what?” Which wasn’t very clever, but understandable under the circumstances.

  “What makes you merry, little rich critters? Will you enter the kingdom of heaven?”

  “Certainly,” said Harriet without a pause.

  Beth Ellen felt a certain terror. The Preacher and Harriet were looking at each other as though they might enter into hand-to-hand combat.

  “You are sure of yourself.” He spoke slowly, thoughtfully, as though gauging Harriet.

  Harriet seemed a little taken aback by this but stood her ground and did not blink an eyelash.

  “Do you know the perils of undue curiosity?” He spoke fiercely.

  Beth Ellen felt frightened again, but only for a moment, because she heard Harriet yell in that way that only Harriet could yell.

  “LISTEN HERE, YOU! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” Harriet was so angry she looked like a red lollipop. Beth Ellen whirled quickly to look at The Preacher.

  He smiled a very slow, very mysterious smile, then he turned. He twirled his walking stick and with a quick step, almost a vaudeville turn, he sashayed into the road. He looked back once as he walked on his jaunty way, smiled again, then began to whistle. It sounded to Beth Ellen like the kind of tune one would hear in an Italian movie.

  She looked at Harriet, but Harriet, for once, was speechless. She was staring in the same way Beth Ellen had been staring. They watched the strange, almost but not quite comic figure that walked, almost but not quite danced, down the road.

  When they turned to look at each other it was as though the world were suddenly quiet, very quiet. It was as though there had been an unearthly visitation.

  “Well,” said Harriet. Beth Ellen said nothing but looked at Harriet in an effort to get some clue as to how to behave. Harriet didn’t have a clue. She stood with one foot on her bike, then looked down as though she would push off, then stopped and looked again up the road. The Preacher was a small black shadow-figure now, a doll in the flat landscape.

  Beth Ellen got on her bike and began to wobble off down the road. When she remembered what she was going back to, dinner with her grandmother and more discussions of Zeeney, she felt a sudden fall in her stomach. The feeling made her lose her footing and she had to put her foot out so she wouldn’t fall over. She stood with one foot on the ground and looked back at Harriet. Harriet stood still, hypnotized, looking after the dot of a man.

  “Let’s go,” said Beth Ellen, beginning to feel uneasy in the darkening air.

  Harriet rolled her bike over. “You know,” she said, never taking her eyes off The Preacher, “he knows too much. I don’t like this one bit.” She leaned her bike against her stomach and there, in the middle of the road, she took out her notebook and made a few notes.

  With all her spying, thought Beth Ellen, she hates it if someone spies on her. How odd she is, anyway. What possible fun could it be to write everything down all the time? So tiresome.

  Harriet slammed her book closed and put it away. She got on her bike and pushed ahead. Beth Ellen followed. Actually, she thought, considering what I’m going home to, this spying around isn’t bad at all. She looked at Harriet pumping away ahead of her and felt affectionate.

  he next day Beth Ellen woke up feeling terrible. As she lay there she thought to herself that she had been feeling bad for two days. She had felt like just sitting around. She had also felt fat. Maybe I rode too far on the bike yesterday, she thought. No, I feel worse than that. I feel awful. She said aloud to herself, “I feel bad.”

  She sat up. She moved aside and looked at the bed sheet. She felt frightened. I’m sick, she thought. She looked around the room as though for help. She got up and went into the bathroom.

  When she came out she was dressed. She walked down the steps through the quiet, dark house. She felt extremely odd. She walked through the living room, through the sun room, and out onto the back lawn.

  Feeling as though she might faint, she walked slowly—although she wanted to run because she wanted to hide—to the summerhouse, which was protected from view by a row of boxwood. Once inside the hedge she felt safe. She walked into the play of light and shade inside the summerhouse and curled onto a wicker chaise.

  She lay back watching the leaves above her head, the black-green curling leaves against the thin blue of the summer sky. The place smelled of summers, of Victorian afternoons, and of a gentle luxury. She sank deep into the cushions.

  She stayed there all day, past the cook’s call to lunch, past several calls to the phone, into the late afternoon.

  She didn’t think as she lay there, just let the leaves, the alternating cool of the shade and heat, as a ray of sun escaped the leaves and warmed her face, wash over her, fill her with hope. It was all a mistake. She would get up, go inside, and know it was all a dream.

  As the day began to cool, the shadows of the hedges to lengthen, the maid came across the lawn calling. Beth Ellen didn’t answer, but she knew she would be found. It was her favorite place to cry and the servants knew.

  The maid appeared around the hedge. “Why didn’t you answer?”

  “I was asleep,” said Beth Ellen, and her voice came out in a croak because she hadn’t spoken all day.

  “Your grandmother wants to see you,” said the maid.

  Beth Ellen stood up, feeling like an old woman. She followed the maid across the lawn, the shadows dark now and cold.

  Harriet called up just as Beth Ellen came out of her grandmothers room.

  “Hey!”

  “Harriet?” whispered Beth Ellen. She felt as though she’d just come out of a bomb shelter.

  “Who’d you expect—Mary Poppins?” yelled Harriet and then flooded Beth Ellen’s ear with raucous, endless laughter.

  “Mmm,” murmured Beth Ellen, feeling lost. I’m all alone, she thought.

  “Listen, Mouse,” continued Harriet, regaining her voice, “good news. Janie’s coming for the weekend!”

  “Mmm,” said Beth Ellen, hearing Janie as a remote, pleasant word.

  “Isn’t that great?” Harriet seemed to be trying to yell her way through Beth Ellen’s vagueness. “She’s coming out tonight with my dad and staying till Sunday!”

  “Mmm,” said Beth Ellen.

  “MOUSE!” Harriet gave one great agonized yelp.

  “What?” whispered Beth Ellen.

  “WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?”

  “I’m—”

  “WHAT?”

  Beth Ellen’s voice suddenly found itself and came out so loud she jumped. “I’m—menstruating!”

  “What’s that?” asked Harriet, awed.

  “It’s—”

  “I just remembered,” yelled Harriet. “How come you’re doing that and I’m not?”

  It was an unanswerable question. “I don’t know—” began Beth Ellen.

  Harriet hung up on her.

  The next day was Saturday and Beth Ellen went to Harriet’s house for the day. When she came into the bedroom, Harriet and Janie were discussing the situation.

  “I’ve been working on a cure for this thing ever since it happened to me,” Janie said, frowning and looking very serious, even though she was lying upside down on the bed in a bathing suit with her feet straight up against the
wall.

  “What kind of cure?” asked Harriet, after she had said Hello to Beth Ellen.

  “I just want to end it, that’s all,” said Janie in a furious way.

  “But… doesn’t it have something to do with babies?” asked Harriet.

  “How would you know, Harriet Welsch? You haven’t even done it,” snarled Janie, swinging her legs down to the floor and sitting up. “You wouldn’t know a Fallopian tube if you fell over one.”

  Chagrined, Harriet pointed to Beth Ellen. “She’s done it, yesterday. She told me.”

  Beth Ellen turned bright red, looked at the floor, and wanted to die. They both stared at her.

  Janie finally spoke, and softly. “What’s there to think about? It’s a nuisance, that’s all, and frankly, I think, should be done away with.”

  Beth Ellen kept looking at the floor.

  “What’s it feel like?” asked Harriet.

  “Yuuuuuchk,” said Janie. “It has absolutely nothing to recommend it.” She looked at Beth Ellen as she continued. “You don’t feel like working or playing or anything but just lying around and looking at the ceiling, right? Icky. Right, Mouse?”

  Beth Ellen nodded but still couldn’t look up for some reason.

  Janie looked at her a minute, then said, “It happens to everybody, though, every woman in the world, even Madame Curie. It’s very normal. And I guess, since it means you’re grown up and can have babies, that it’s a good thing. I, for one, just don’t happen to want babies. I also have a sneaking suspicion that there’re too many babies in the world already. So I’m working on this cure for people that don’t want babies, so they won’t have to do this.”

  Beth Ellen looked up at Janie and asked tentatively, “Do those rocks hurt you too?”

  “Rocks?” Janie yelled.

  “Those rocks inside that come down,” said Beth Ellen timidly.

  “WHAT?” screamed Harriet. “Oh, well, if they think I’m gonna do anything like that, they’re crazy.”

  “There aren’t any rocks. Who told you that?” Janie was so mad she stood up. “Who told you there were rocks? There aren’t any rocks. I’ll kill ’em. Who told you that about any rocks?”

  Beth Ellen looked scared. “My grandmother,” she said faintly. “Isn’t that right? Aren’t there little rocks that come down and make you bleed and hurt you?”

  “Right? It couldn’t be more wrong.” Janie stood over her. “There aren’t any rocks. You got that? There aren’t any rocks at all!”

  “WOW!” said Harriet. “ROCKS!”

  “Now, wait a minute,” said Janie, holding up her hand like a lecturer, “let’s get something straight here before you two get terrified.”

  They both looked up at her. Beth Ellen was frightened and confused. Harriet was angry and confused.

  “Now, you must understand,” said Janie, looking very earnest, “that the generation that Beth Ellen’s grandmother is was very Victorian. They never talked about things like this, and her grandmother thought that telling her this was better than telling her the truth.”

  “What’s the truth?” asked Harriet avidly.

  Beth Ellen didn’t care about the truth. The rocks were bad enough to think about. What could the truth be?

  “That just goes to show you,” said Janie, looking like a stuffy teacher, “that people should learn to live with fact! It’s never as bad as the fantasies they make up.”

  “Oh, Janie, get on with it,” said Harriet. “What is the truth?”

  “Ah, what a question,” said Janie.

  “JANIE!” said Harriet in disgust. Janie could be very corny and exasperating when she turned philosophical.

  “Okay, okay,” said Janie as though they were too dumb to appreciate her, “it’s very simple. I’ll explain it.” She sat down as though it would take a long time.

  “Now, you know the baby grows inside a woman, in her womb, in the uterus?”

  They nodded.

  “Well. What do you think it lives on when it’s growing?”

  They both looked blank.

  “The lining, dopes!” she yelled at them.

  They blinked.

  “So, it’s very simple. If you have a baby started in there, the baby lives on the lining; but if you don’t have a baby, like we don’t, then the body very sensibly disposes of the lining that it’s made for the baby. It just comes out.”

  “Falls right out of you?” screamed Harriet.

  Oh, thought Beth Ellen, why me?

  “No, no, no. You always exaggerate, Harriet. You would make a terrible scientist. You must be precise. It doesn’t fall out like you say; it comes out a tiny bit at a time over a period of from, well, say four to six days, depending on the woman. It’s very little at a time, and it doesn’t hurt or anything. You just feel tired.”

  “I hurt,” said Beth Ellen.

  “Well…” said Janie, “sometimes there’s a little pain, but it really isn’t much. I just, frankly, don’t care for it,” she said as though she’d been asked if she liked a certain book.

  “Well,” said Harriet.

  “Another thing I don’t like is people making up these silly stories about it, like those rocks. Why can’t people just take life as it is?”

  Beth Ellen thought of her grandmother taking life as it is. She couldn’t imagine her grandmother talking to her about babies, linings, Fallopian tubes, and so forth. She felt a little sorry for her grandmother. She supposed that she had been trying to make it nicer for her, but it had been wrong because the rock story had scared her.

  “The thing is,” said Harriet, “does your grandmother really believe there are rocks? Maybe we should tell her.”

  “Of course she doesn’t,” said Beth Ellen, “and you won’t tell her anything.”

  “That’s silly,” said Janie to Harriet. “You don’t take into account how different each generation is.”

  “Well!” said Harriet, considerably miffed. “Instead of just lying there talking, why don’t you make a cure?”

  “I’m going to cure this one way or the other if it’s the last thing I do.” Janie looked determinedly out the window as though there were a cure sitting in the backyard.

  “I just can’t wait to not do this,” said Harriet.

  “Well,” said Janie, “you might as well, since everyone else is. You’d feel pretty silly if you didn’t. Besides, you get to skip gym when you have it.”

  “Yeah?” said Harriet and Beth Ellen in unison. They both hated gym.

  “Yeah,” said Janie with one of her fierce smiles.

  “Well!” said Harriet.

  That, thought Beth Ellen, is a decided advantage.

  hey were having a discussion about where to go.

  “Let’s go back and see Mama Jenkins. She said come back one day before they work and get lemonade, remember?” said Harriet, looking at Beth Ellen.

  That seems a thousand years ago, thought Beth Ellen, but all she said was, “Let’s go to the hotel.”

  “‘Let’s go to the hotel, let’s go to the hotel’—that’s all you ever say,” said Harriet.

  “What hotel?” asked Janie. “Anyway, I thought people went to the beach out here. Isn’t that what you come out here for?”

  Harriet looked at Janie. Beth Ellen knew what was going through Harriet’s mind: Janie was a guest and whatever she wanted they would have to do. She watched Harriet and her inner struggle.

  “Yes. Let’s go to the beach,” said Harriet in a limp but friendly way.

  “I couldn’t care less,” said Janie. “The sun gives you skin cancer anyway.”

  “Why don’t we do all three?” said Harriet as though a light bulb had gone on in her head.

  “Smashing,” said Janie.

  Beth Ellen felt a secret smile that she wouldn’t let crawl out onto her face. She would see Bunny. Somehow her feelings about seeing Bunny had diminished in the light of her mother’s intended visit and the discovery of her own maturity. Now the thought of Bunny came back a
s a warm childhood pleasure, as though he were a real bunny and she were starting out to find colored eggs on an Easter morning.

  Janie and Harriet already had on their bathing suits, having gotten up in the morning and put them on immediately, so they pulled on some shorts while Beth Ellen waited.

  “I refuse to wear this,” said Janie loudly. They looked at her and she appeared to be talking to a shirt—a large, flowered shirt. “My mother put that in the bag, I know it. I’ve never seen it before in my life.”

  “I wish I’d never seen it,” said Harriet rudely.

  “Perhaps I could bury it somewhere,” said Janie.

  “I’ll take it home to the cook,” said Beth Ellen. “She has a lot of children and grandchildren.”

  “Excellent,” said Janie and threw it to her. Beth Ellen folded it neatly and planned to put it in her bike basket. When they were all ready, they went downstairs.

  Mrs. Welsch was sunbathing on the deck. “Your lunches are on the kitchen table,” she called to Harriet. “I gave Janie something different, but if she wants tomato she can have some of yours.”

  “Thank you, no,” said Janie. “I am not as mesmerized by tomatoes as your daughter seems to be.”

  Mrs. Welsch laughed. “I’m glad to hear it. I was beginning to think it was a disease she got at school.”

  They grabbed the paper bags and ran across the deck to jump on their bikes.

  “Don’t be too late,” said Mrs. Welsch. “Your daddy’s in Montauk buying lobsters. We’re going to have a clambake tonight.”

  Harriet and Janie gave a great shout, “Hooray!” Beth Ellen looked uncertainly at the basket on her bike.

  “Do you think you could come too, Beth Ellen?” asked Mrs. Welsch. Beth Ellen nodded.

  “I tell you what. I’ll call your grandmother while you’re gone. I’m sure she won’t mind.” Mrs. Welsch had a nice smile. Beth Ellen smiled back, a big smile. How nice it would be not to have to think about Zeeney for one night.

  They waved to Mrs. Welsch and pushed off down the driveway.

  “Where first?” asked Harriet without turning around.

  “What’s this hotel?” asked Janie.