by Packer, Vin
She ran blindly on down St. Stephen’s hall, and Martha found herself looking straight at Rush.
“Is this a Christmas call?” Rush said.
“Not exactly, no. I’m reporting to you. You’re Senior in charge?”
“Yes,” Rush said, “Come on in.”
Martha followed her into the small, compact room like all Seniors’, one of the cherished Senior Singles. In the window was a saint’s head, a prop left over from one of the miracle plays. At Chillam it was part of the Christmas tradition to hang them in the window.
“Sit down,” Rush said, “and make yourself comfortable. Would you like some Christmas cakes?”
She reached for a box in her bureau and passed it to Martha. She said, “Every year at Christmas my mother sends them to me, for the faculty and any of the girls who can’t go to their families for the holidays. I’m very fond of them myself. I have a hard time not eating them all up before I’ve passed them on.”
Martha reached for one gingerly, trying to figure Rush’s mood. But the handsome face, with the twist of hair across the forehead and the winning smile, gave no clue. But for some reason, Martha did not feel afraid. Rush seemed all right — pleasant, impersonal.
“Now what did you want to report to me about?”
Martha told her then, straight-forwardly, and Rush propped herself on the side of the desk with her arms folded, just listening. When Martha was finished, Rush sighed. “Those candy statues,” she said, “they are rather irresistible.” She gave a little chuckle. “Miss Nicky’s a quick one.”
“I never thought two missing would make so much difference,” Martha offered.
“Oh, you know Miss Nicky. She’s so hipped on Chillam tradition.”
“Yes,” said Martha, knowing no one really loved Chillam more than Rush, “I know.”
“I am too, rather.” She pointed at the window. “Do you like St. Thomas?”
“Oh, yes. He’s — very good!”
“I’m fond of Chillam and Christmas both. Where I come from, in Northern England, there’s a thing we do at Christmas.” From behind her on the desk, Rush reached for a piece of holly. “We put a sprig of this under our pillows, and then we say this (she looked closely at Martha Kent): “We say,
Good St. Thomas, serve me right,
And send me my true love tonight,
That I may gaze upon that face,
Then into my fond arms embrace.”
She set the holly back and looked again at Martha. “Have you ever been in love?”
Martha didn’t answer right away and Rush said, “Oh, I don’t mean a crush, or anything like that. You know. I mean, in love.”
She didn’t wait for Martha to answer but stood then, making her hands into fists in the side pockets of her black sports pants and said, “Oh, I know, Martha, we haven’t done well together, you and I. Silly things, these intrigues and misunderstandings. At Christmas, I feel the intrigues — all these silly things — should be passed by. Christmas is time to be close — in a friendly sense…. You don’t have to answer me, but I wonder. Have you?”
Martha said, “Have you?” She was thinking as she listened to Rush how she would tell Mary Drew what an utter fool she was; and she was glad that it was Christmas, to bring out all this awful sentimentality in Rush.
“Yes, I have. I’ve been with a man, you know,” Rush said.
“You’re an idiot,” Martha thought! “Who’d want to be with a man?” Then for the smallest part of a second, she found herself wondering: “Has Mary Drew ever done that?”
Martha said, “Did you love him then?”
Rush with a man! Oh, what a preposterous image to conjure up!
“He loved me,” Rush said, “but love is a silly word to use between a man and a woman…. No, it was simply that he wanted to tame me. He was a great horseman, actually excellent. He could ride a very spirited horse the first time, and return from the ride with the horse wholly submissive. He could dominate an animal like no one I ever knew, and I rather suppose that’s what he intended for me.” She gave a short grunt of a laugh. “The curious thing was I had no intention of putting up any fight. I’d always wondered about men and I wanted to see. He was like a military parade, with perfect precision, marching and countermarching in the exact way the performance is to be carried out. The only thing was he didn’t have an appreciative audience. I thought he was quite a fool. He began by kissing me, and then — just as though there could be no variation or it wouldn’t be right — he put his hand here for awhile, then here, then here, then here — and finally, the coup de grace!” She shook with laughter. “Men!” she said. “At seventeen I know all I want to know about them, and probably a great deal more than I need to know to be the perfect wife and mother.”
“Would you marry, then?” Martha said.
“Doesn’t every woman eventually?” Rush reached for a slice of cake, stuffing it into her mouth. “But I won’t ever take it seriously. I won’t ever love a man.”
“Then what?”
“You mean who,” Rush said, “Don’t you?” “Well — ”
“Ah, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves, Martha. You were to report to me for points off. Hmm?” “Yes.”
“And I shan’t give you any, if you answer my question: Were you ever in love?”
“I think men are disgusting and silly,” Martha said, picturing Roddy in her mind’s eye.
Rush sauntered across to the straight-back wooden chair, slumped into it, and put one leg up on the bed, still munching on the cake. She answered, “Of course, but you didn’t answer my question.”
“I don’t think I could love anyone who was disgusting or silly,” said Martha.
“And Mary Drew isn’t either one of those things, is she?”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, you could be in love with Mary Drew, couldn’t you?”
Martha gave a guffaw. “She’s a woman.”
“Are you that naive, Martha?” Rush looked up at her with her lips tipping to that sly grin of hers. “Come now, confess. Aren’t you in love with Mary Drew?”
“You’re the one who’s silly now.”
“Am I? And am I silly to imagine that Beth Drag-more’s in love with me?”
“You are conceited! And silly!”
Rush’s face reddened. She was actually angry. “Do you know that Beth told me she would kill herself if I didn’t go back with her?”
Martha laughed, thinking how preposterous Rush’s ego was; how silly it was, all of this … this crush of Rush’s and Beth’s.
“Hold on,” Rush said, sitting up straight. “You are naive.” She got up and went to her bureau, opened a small leather box and rummaged through it. From it she picked out a piece of paper, worn thin with age and handling and folded double. She unfolded it and faced Martha. “Do you know who saw you steal the candies?”
“Miss Nicky.”
“No, Martha, I saw you steal them, and immediately after, I asked to replace Anna Swanson. I also reported you, and had you sent here by Miss Nicky. You may as well read this too.”
She passed the paper to Martha, and Martha took it, then read this:
“Dearest Eyes-of-Darkness,
Oh no, Rush, I do not blame you for what is impossible for us any longer. I am less a person without you, but more for having known those eyes of darkness to flash in answer to my words, spilling out my heart. What we had was beautiful. Now we can not have it, not so long as we love Chillam. And neither, Rush, darling, do I blame others — D., or any like her — for succumbing to you. I only meant to say they rob a part of me each time. But you have made me too rich not to be easy prey to thieves.
So fondly!
N.”
Martha put the paper down on the desk, and Rush took it from there, stuffing it back in the box. As she did so, she said, “Do you know who wrote it?”
“Miss Nicky, I suppose.”
“And wouldn’t you call it a love letter, Martha?”
<
br /> “It’s years old. The paper’s ready to crumble.”
“But it is a love letter, Martha, written to me when I was new here like yourself. Miss Nicky was in love with me. She would be still, if her position had allowed it. Now she’s in love with Miss Fragland, the dietician.”
Martha said, “It all disgusts me!”
“Oh, does it?” Rush said. She walked up to where Martha stood, and looked down at her, the shock of black hair across her forehead, her dark brows raised above the flashing dark eyes. “Does it? There were others too, plenty of others. My trophies, Beth calls them, and Beth should know, because she’s one of them.” She touched Martha’s arm. “What about you? Are you going to be one, too?”
“No,” Martha said.
“You don’t pull away from my touch, Martha.”
But Martha did then, and turned her back on Rush. “You’re crazy. I still don’t believe any of it either! These crushes!”
“You’re right, they’re worthless. And silly! Don’t you think I know that!”
“Then why do you talk about them?”
Rush said, “To make my point. I’ve never been like them — never. I’ve never been in love with them. Do you know, I’ve actually made fun of them with their silly drooling? Do you believe that?”
“Yes.”
“Martha,” Rush said. Martha Kent could feel the girl’s long fingers on her shoulder. “You confuse me. I swear you do. Even today, before you came here, when I knew you would come, I wondered how I would talk to you. Oh, I’ve made a mess of it. I know that. I’m not a braggart. I just wanted some way to tell you how I feel.” She slipped her hands down to Martha’s arms, and Martha whirled away from her grasp. “Stop it!”
Rush’s eyes had a pained expression, “I’m sorry.”
“I have an appointment.”
“Don’t go — not yet. I won’t touch you.”
Martha felt slightly ill by it all; more bewildered than physically sick. “I have to go,” she said.
“To see Mary Drew?”
“No!” Martha snapped.
“You are fond of her, aren’t you? You’ve lied to hide it, but you needn’t have. I know it.”
“Know what? You disgust me!” Martha’s hand reached for the door, when suddenly Rush caught her by the arm and flung her back to the center of the room.
“Know,” Rush said, “That’s all! I know!” She gave Martha a push to the bed. Then she fell across her, pinning her arms back. “Won’t you let me talk? Are you afraid to let me?”
“You’ve gone crazy!”
“Yes,” Rush said. “You’ve made me a little crazy. Since I first set eyes on you, sitting on the bench at gym that day. Yes.” Then Rush set her mouth firmly across Martha Kent’s. Martha squirmed beneath her, pulling away. “Now who’s like a military parade!” she said. But when she raised her angry eyes to Rush’s she saw bright tears there, stared at them incredulously.
“My God, your face,” Rush mumbled, “your hair, and your skin. If I could love you now, before vacation. If I could have you, Martha.”
Martha lay there, and above them, in the window, St. Thomas looked down at them. Then for the first time, Martha was frightened. And oddly, for the first time, Martha was aware of what Rush had been talking about; of what Miss Nicky’s note had meant; of some uncertain, strange variety of love that Beth Dragmore felt — that gave all of it a dimension that had been, up until this moment, beyond Martha Kent’s grasp.
“I’m in love with you, Martha,” Rush said.
Martha said something which in her most preposterous imaginings she would never have taken recourse to: “If you don’t let me go, I’ll tell Miss Pierce-Morgan!”
Instantly, Rush got up.
“Get out of here!” she shouted. She had her face toward the wall; her voice was choked. “Get out of here, and don’t think I don’t know about you and Mary Drew! Don’t think I’m not going to blister some ears telling what I know about the two of you!”
Martha began to run toward the door.
“Get out, get out!” Rush roared after her.
The woods near Chillam were The Weer Woods, the woods of Weerdale; but Chillamites had long ago dubbed them “Werewolf Woods.” The new girls were told of the werewolves who lived among the oaks and firs in that dense darkness; and it was off limits to all Chillamites, though Chillam owned the property. Handymen cut wood for the fires in there, gathered leaves and flowers for decoration; and took an occasional shot at rabbits, rats, or squirrels. Their well-worn path was cut through the center of the woods, and where it began, Mary Drew Edlin stood waiting for Martha that afternoon at five.
After she had finished making the Christmas wreaths, Mary Drew had taken the bus home to get the red jacket. It was Tony’s prize jacket, bright red wool, too crass for the University, so he wore it only on vacation. It was far too big for Mary Drew, but she loved it and did not care. Wrapped warmly in it against the bracing dusk winds, she stood waiting for Martha, glancing nervously now and then at her watch. Five, and then five-ten, with no sign of her.
Another thing Mary Drew had done since finishing the wreaths and going home for the coat was to cut her hair. It would kill her mother! But Mary Drew liked it. She had more or less bobbed it; but really, it was an Italian-style cut — not too short, but almost gamine style. It gave her face all the more a Puckish look, and with Tony’s black wool scarf wrapped around her neck, it made her feel romantic, slightly daring, and good-looking. Besides, she planned to use the scarf for a hood during the Druid ritual. Both she and Martha had read up on the Druid rites in the encyclopedia, and it had explained that the Arch-Druid always wore a black hood for the ceremony of cutting the mistletoe. Between them they had planned everything.
They were to greet each other in silence, walk hand-in-hand into the center of the forest, then place the mistletoe on the ground. Mary Drew was to say, “Oh, hail, we come as servants to the black,” place the hood over her head and kneel. Then Martha would kneel and say, “We two are dedicated to the Druid’s egg.” Then both would hiss, while Mary Drew cut the mistletoe with the knife she had wrapped in cloth in her pocket — the long, carving knife she had sneaked from the kitchen.
After cutting the mistletoe, they would kiss solemnly and pronounce together the words: “So be it; promised in the heart, pledged with the lips. Oh, hail, we two are dedicated.”
It was going to be exciting, and Mary Drew was eager to start. Again she looked at her watch; again, down the road for a sign of Martha. How she loved Martha and the way they were alike — the way they both adored ritual and ceremony and secrets shared together! Everyone else seemed so dull; duller than ever now that she’d met dear Martha. Dear Moly. Last night she had written in her diary:
“Moly is my life. Moly could ask me to do anything even to die for her — and I would, only too gladly. Moly and I are incomparable!”
Then she saw Martha. She watched her come, unable to control the smile that came to her lips, though this was to be very solemn. Her brown eyes sparkled as she looked at Martha Kent’s beautiful face, and she made her smile go when she saw that Martha’s face was grave, very nearly sad. Dear Martha! She was so shockingly perfect at everything they undertook.
When she reached for Martha Kent’s hand, Martha said, “Hello.” But she did not give her hand. She looked back over her shoulder, as though she were afraid someone was watching them.
In keeping with the occasion, Mary Drew whispered her words: “Moly, what if we do go into the woods. We’re day girls. The out-of-bounds rule doesn’t apply to us. Come on.” She reached down and took Martha’s hand. “Remember, we can’t talk until we reach the center of the forest.”
The pair walked slowly past the large trees with the darkness growing, the wind rising. It would be hard to keep the candle lit, but that would make the whole affair even more mysterious. Marv Drew held hard to Martha’s hand, which seemed somehow limp. Martha wouldn’t be scared, though!
When
they had reached a clearing midway in the forest, Mary Drew stopped. In the semidarkness, she could see Martha’s face, still very solemn. Sad too? No, Martha was a screamingly amusing actress! Mary Drew placed the mistletoe on the ground, pulling the scarf up over her head. From her left pocket she took the candle and handed it to Martha, with matches. From her right pocket, she took the knife, unwrapped it, and then nodded to Martha. Martha pretended to look terribly grave. It almost made Mary Drew laugh. But she didn’t.
She said, “Oh hail, we come as servants to the black.”
She knelt on the cold earth, feeling her knees above the red knee-socks scrape the twigs and hard dirt.
Then Martha knelt. Martha stammered, “W-w-we two are de-de-dedicated to the Dru-Druid’s egg.”
Probably Martha forgot that she was to hiss at that point, because there was only Mary Drew hissing as she cut the mistletoe. Her hands were chilled, but the blade was sharp and cut well. She left the knife there and turning, stood with the mistletoe. Martha stood too. She walked toward her, placed the mistletoe in her hand, looking deeply into her eyes, and then leaning forward was about to kiss her when suddenly Martha Kent threw the mistletoe to the ground.
“Oh, no, Druid! No!”
Mary Drew stared at her. “What?”
“Nothing!” A long sigh. “Nothing, I’m sorry!”
“But what’s wrong? Are you ill?”
“No.” Sighing again. “Just not up to it.”
The candle flickered, and looking down at it Martha Kent shook its light out with her hand. “I’m sorry, Druid,” she said again. “Let’s not stay here.”
“But I don’t understand!”
“I know you don’t. I don’t expect you to.”
“Moly, you’re angry with me.”
“Not with you, particularly.”
“What happened?” Mary Drew said. “I’ve never seen you behave this way.” “I’d like to get out of the woods, if you don’t mind.” “You mean, go now?”
