Diary of a Wildflower

by Ruth White

  “I envisioned all of us being sacked,” I say, “and it would be my fault.”

  “Mother wouldn’t sack all her maids if you were operating a still in the bathroom,” he says. “She couldn’t survive without you.”

  “But she wouldn’t like it a bit if she knew, would she?” I ask.

  “No. She would fuss, but she wouldn’t do anything about it. Drinking alcohol on the premises is not a good idea because it’s illegal, and she wouldn’t want her employees to get pinched. But here’s the truth of the matter: everybody is breaking the law these days. Roman and I go to a speakeasy in Charlottesville. Mother has dozens of bottles of Romano wine smuggled in from Italy for her parties. Dad brings home Scotch and bourbon and vodka from his trips to New York. The boys at the university get it only god knows where, and keep it in the dorms. Law enforcement has completely lost control. Simply put, prohibition is a bad law. It hurts more than it helps.”

  I breathe a sigh of relief. “So you won’t tell on me?”

  “I think we made a deal, didn’t we?” he says.

  We have come to the end of the driveway, where we stop and face each other again.

  “The letter was from my little sister,” I say.

  We smile at each other and start walking back toward the house.

  “How old is she?” he asks.

  “She’ll be fourteen in August.”

  “I lost my little sister in the flu epidemic of 1919,” Brody says. “Had she lived, she would be fourteen now. Her name was Carmela, the same as Mother’s.”

  “That must have been hard. How did your mother survive it?”

  “We didn’t think she would. I’m not sure she’ll ever get over it completely. She had visions of grooming Carmela to be a debutante and a fine lady, but it wasn’t to be.”

  I think of Roxie. I hear an owl somewhere close by. He sounds very lonely.

  “I dreamed it,” he says.

  “You dreamed it?”

  “Yes, I dreamed that Carmela was going to die. Sometimes I feel guilty because I didn’t tell Mother. Maybe….well, anyway, I dreamed it and kept it to myself.”

  We lapse into silence for a moment. I don’t know what to say.

  “Her death changed Mother,” Brody finally goes on. “She used to be consistently happy and upbeat. Nothing troubled her for more than an hour, but these days the smallest disappointment can send her to bed in a deep depression for a long time.”

  We listen to the night sounds, pet Dixie, kick small stones off the brick.

  “Have you always had precognitive dreams?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he says. “I don’t always know what they mean, but yes, I’ve always had them, even as a kid.” He grins at me. “Do you think I’m weird?”

  “No. I’m not a skeptic.”

  We have reached the house.

  “Thanks, Lorelei,” he says. “You make me feel peaceful.”

  “That’s nice to hear.”

  “Do you mind if I bring up the subject of your hair again?” he says.

  “My hair? What about it?”

  “How do you get it to sparkle like that?”

  “Sparkle?”

  “Yes, in the light, especially sunlight, you can see streaks of gold in it.”

  “It’s the prettiest color for hair there is in the world. You can see splashes of gold where the sunlight hits it.”

  “Rainwater, I guess,” I say.

  “Rainwater?”

  “Yes, I haven’t caught any rainwater since I’ve been here, but that’s what I do. I wash my hair in it, then I dry it in the sunshine. I’ve always done that.”

  “Rainwater and sunshine,” he muses. “The stuff that makes wildflowers grow.”

  ********************

  Later, when I step out of the bathroom in my robe, I find Dixie waiting for me again, so I take her into my room to sleep on a rug beside my bed. Then I set my wash pan out on the porch to catch the rain that I think will fall tonight. I turn out the light, and put my hand on Dixie’s head.

  “He didn’t mention her name even once,” I whisper, “and he called me sweetheart.”

  Dixie sighs contentedly.

  “I forgot to call him Mister Brody, but he didn’t correct me,” I say.

  Dixie rolls over and puts all her legs in the air.

  “Goodnight, sweet Dixie girl. You will share my secrets. You’re my dog now.”

  Eighteen

  June 9th – 12th, 1929

  I walk up and down the driveway for the next two nights, hoping to run into Brody again, but with no luck.

  At Tuesday lunch, a small group of dashing college men and their pretty girlfriends are gathered on the terrace. They are all dressed in riding clothes, as Brody has invited them to go horseback riding in the afternoon. The girls’ jodhpurs look very smart and expensive. They use clever slang in making witty comments to one another. They drink mint juleps, without the kick, of course – or so I’m told.

  Tootsie is helping me keep their glasses filled. Marie and Jenny bring out trays full of sandwiches and petite salads, which are set on a sideboard so the guests may serve themselves. The sandwiches are made of ham and chicken and cut into triangles without any crusts. The salads are small mounds of exotic combinations, nestled in beds of spring lettuce on fancy little plates.

  When the guests have settled down to their food, I hear Angel’s childish voice. By now I’m used to it. “Lor…eee.”

  I notice that she has not served herself.

  “Yes, Miss Angel, can I get something for you?” I ask.

  The other guests observe this exchange quietly as they eat, and it occurs to me that Angel is going to make me serve her to show off the fact that she has a personal maid.

  “Bring me one of those petite Waldorf salads, Lorie, darling, plee…ze?”

  “Of course.”

  I go to the sideboard and look at the petite salads. There are four different kinds left on the tray. Which one is a Waldorf? I have not the faintest idea.

  “Isn’t my Lorie nifty?” I hear Angel say to the guests. “Mrs. Myles just insisted that I have her.”

  “She’s your personal maid?” someone says, with no small degree of awe.

  “Yes, for as long as I’m here. Isn’t it ritzy? I think it’s so..oo ritzy.”

  Oh, god, after that spiel she’ll be mortified if I take her the wrong salad.

  “What else would you expect from such a ritzy family?” one of the men says.

  Someone is behind me whispering. “It’s the one with apples and nuts.”

  Brody, of course. He opens a drawer in the sideboard and fumbles around inside it, pretending he has a reason to be here beside me.

  I whisper, “Thanks,” and take the petite Waldorf salad to Angel.

  ********************

  As Tootsie, Marie, Jenny and I are clearing away lunch, the guests begin talking about books. The Mill on the Floss. The Mayor of Casterbridge. Return of the Native.

  “Adam Bede,” Roman says. “I couldn’t get through it.”

  “I loved it,” Angel says. My eyes follow her hand as it lights on Brody’s arm.

  He turns to her and says, “You had to read a book at that fancy girls’ academy? I’m surprised.”

  “Oh, you!” Angel says, and gives him a wee swat on the wrist. “Of course we read Adam Bede.”

  “I think it’s the most tedious thing Thomas Hardy wrote,” Roman says.

  “George Eliot,” I say.

  Everybody looks at me. Oh, Lord, here I am blurting again.

  “Did you say something, Lorie?” Angel asks.

  I just shake my head.

  “I think she said George Eliot,” one of the girls says. “And I believe she’s right.”

  “It was George Eliot who wrote Adam Bede,” Brody says.

  “Yes indeed, it was,” Angel says with a laugh. “Didn’t I tell you my Lorie is the bee’s knees!”

  “So you read, do you, Lorie?” Roman asks.
r />   Do I read? Now, he sounds like his mother.

  “Yes,” I say. “I’ve been reading since I was six.”

  Everyone chuckles.

  “Besides Adam Bede, what have you read?” Roman asks.

  I think about rattling off the titles of books I have read and dearly loved, but I feel once again like that proverbial bug under a microscope.

  Flustered, I turn to Angel, “Do you need anything before I go to lunch, Miss Angel?”

  “No, darling, go eat,” she says sweetly. “You’ve earned it.”

  I flee to the servants’ hall to eat left-over sandwichs and petite salads.

  ********************

  On my day off Tootsie volunteers to look after Angel for me. I am walking into Charlottesville all by myself. The girls have told me how to get there by the shortest route. I wear my yellow dress, and a yellow barrette in my hair. First I collect my pay for five days – six dollars and twenty-five cents! I am going to buy myself a nightgown, something I have never owned. For some reason they were not included in the charity bags. Trula theorized that people wear their nightgowns until they are even too ratty for charity.

  It’s a beautiful day, and I am on the road by ten o’clock. There isn’t much traffic, and the few people driving by are friendly. They wave or tip their hats.

  As I get closer to town I cut through side streets to get to Three Notch’d Road, the main street in town. At the picture show I am disappointed to see that Wings is no longer playing. The Divine Woman starring Greta Garbo is now on the marquee. I look at the show times. Yes, I will have time to see it before I go home today.

  I stroll along gazing in the windows for awhile. I pass two women’s clothing stores before I decide to go into the third one. The dresses here are so fancy, I’m almost afraid to touch them. Hats of all shapes and sizes. Women’s trousers and shirts. Jodhpurs – three dollars a pair! That means I probably will not take riding lessons. Petticoats that are called slips. Other very feminine underwear. Nightgowns for a dollar each. I pick one up and inspect it. Cotton. Very practical and cool for summer. All white. Yes, I will buy this. Then I see the other ones – the ones that feel like silk. Maybe they are silk. And here it is – a very pale green, about knee length, with a low neckline and a tiny satin ribbon through the waist like a drawstring. Two and a half dollars! Yes, two-fifty for this little piece of fluff.

  And so soft it would almost melt in his hands.

  “May I help you, dear?”

  “Yes, I want to buy this green one,” I hear someone saying – and it’s me!

  “In a small size?” the lady asks with a friendly smile. Then she holds the gown up to me. “Yes, this one looks right.”

  I buy the nightgown, feeling a strange euphoria as I pay two-fifty and watch the clerk place it inside a white paper bag on which are printed the words Francie’s Fashions.

  I go out of the store in a bit of a trance. Where now? I think I will have a bite to eat at a luncheonette counter. Afterwards I buy chewing gum, enough for all the maids to have a pack apiece.

  I see The Divine Woman, which is pretty good, but I’m sorry I didn’t get to see Clara Bow. Then I start the walk back, clutching the bag with the nightgown and the gum inside. I have gone into town alone, seen a picture show, had lunch, and purchased an expensive item of clothing, all with my own money that I earned. I practically skip along the side streets, then find myself on the open road leading toward the place I now call home, where – I remind myself – I have my own room.

  I’m not far along the road when the first big crystal drop of rain splashes on my hand. I look into the heavens. How can you up there be this mean when my day has been so perfect thus far? A clap of thunder answers me. Okay, okay. I begin to hurry. It is not quite five o’clock, but the sky is growing dark.

  I step onto the paved road so I can walk faster. The rain comes down harder. When this happened on Gospel Road I always stopped for shelter at somebody’s house, even if they were not at home. But here? I look at the big strange faces of the houses. No, not here.

  Suddenly a car is moving along on the road beside me. It’s a shiny, black LaSalle. Thank God, it’s Chris. He stops the car.

  “Come on, get in!”

  Only it’s not Chris. It’s Brody. I run around the front of the car and climb in. He’s alone. Why isn’t he with Angel this afternoon?

  I am so wet and chilled my teeth are chattering. He pulls a clean white handkerchief from his shirt pocket and hands it to me. I wipe the rain from my face.

  “Why are you out here walking in a thunder storm?” he inquires.

  “I didn’t know it was going to storm!” I sputter.

  He grins. “A better question – why are you out here walking on a country road by yourself?”

  “It’s my day off,” I say. “Can’t I walk into town on my day off? The other girls do it.”

  “You don’t have to walk anywhere, Lorelei. We have automobiles.”

  “You have automobiles,” I say. “I don’t have one myself.”

  “Chris will take you wherever you need to go,” Brody says. “All you have to do is ask.”

  “Not so,” I say. “He is not allowed to take the maids into town on our day off unless he’s going there anyway.”

  “Says who?” Brody comes back.

  “Says your mother.”

  That shuts him up for a moment.

  “You’re shivering,” he says.

  Next thing I know he has brought the car to a stop, squirmed out of his suit jacket and is placing it around my shoulders. It’s dry, and warm from his body. I reach for the lapels to pull it closer to me. In so doing, my hands brush his. He eases away from my touch, and moves his right hand slowly across my hair where it lies on my shoulders. Then he slides to his side of the seat again. The jacket has his smell. It’s some sort of men’s cologne with a tough masculine scent, like leather or fresh wood chips.

  The darkest cloud passes and daylight returns. The hard rain has let up, and comes now in softer, kinder drops.

  “I see you went shopping,” Brody says, gesturing toward the bag on my lap.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Francie’s Fashions,” he says. “Nice store. Mother shops there sometimes.”

  “Yes, I like it,” I say.

  “A new dress?”

  “No.” He can see the bag is not big enough to hold a dress.

  “Okay,” he says, and smiles at me. “I’m not going to be a nosy old lady today.”

  I smile back.

  “So…,” he says, “how many books have you read since you were six?”

  “Lots.”

  “You went to highschool?”

  “I did.”

  “What was your favorite subject?”

  “Literature.”

  “What have you read?”

  I name some of the authors I studied.

  “That’s impressive,” he says. “I didn’t read some of those until I went to the university.”

  “I had a very good teacher,” I say.

  “Obviously. Who are your favorite authors?”

  “Jane Austen, then Dickens.”

  “Dickens is my favorite,” he says. “What about American contemporary writers? Have you read Thornton Wilder, Willa Cather?”

  “No, but I’d like to.”

  “What about Fitzgerald, Hemingway?”

  “No,” I say. “I haven’t had the opportunity.”

  “We have a library, Lorelei. You’ve seen it.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t think…”

  “What? You didn’t think you could borrow books from me?”

  “From you? Are they your books?”

  “They’re mine as much as anybody’s. The whole place will be mine someday.”

  “So I’ve heard,” I say.

  “Oh, hey, I didn’t mean to….,” he says. “Did that sound like bragging?”

  “No, Brody. You’re not a braggart.”

  The car comes to a stop
, and I find we are sitting in front of the slave quarters. The rain has quit.

  “Let’s go to the library,” he says.

  “Now?”

  “Sure. Why not now? I want to lend you some books.”

  “Okay!”

  “I’ll put the car away and meet you there in ten minutes,” he says.

  I leave his jacket on the seat then go to my room and take his handkerchief out of my sleeve where I tucked it earlier. It’s a soft brushed cream linen with a fancy silk burgundy monogram stitched into one corner – BLM. It also has his smell. I place the nightgown into a drawer, and fold the handkerchief inside it.

  I dry off a bit, then go to the main house and enter through the servants’ hall. No one there. I go through the kitchen where I find Bridget and three of the maids up to their elbows in dinner preparations. From there I go through the dining room, and slip into the hallway that leads to the library. Inside Brody is waiting for me. He has apparently come through the front of the house. When I enter the room, he begins pulling volumes from the shelves.

  “This one.” He calls out the titles as he tosses the books onto the couch. “Oh, you’ve gotta read this one. And this. Definitely this one.”

  I chuckle. “Brody, I can’t even carry all those books.”

  He chuckles too. “Okay, which ones do you want?”

  “The Great Gatsby, I think. I’ve heard a lot about it.”

  “Good choice. And what else?”

  “Only one at a time to start.”

  “Okay. Read Gatsby first, then we’ll talk about it.”

  “Talk about it?”

  “Yes. I’ve been dying for somebody to talk to about Gatsby and other books too, but… god, I miss school.”

  He places the other books back on the shelf, then sinks to the couch. For a fleeting moment I think of sitting beside him. It would seem like a natural thing to do. But I don’t. I

  choose the chair at his mother’s desk instead.

  “Yeah, I miss it too,” I say. “I’m glad I’m through with highschool, but I would love to go further.”

  “You mean college? Would you go if you could?”

  “Sure. I would go to school forever if I could.”

  “Me too,” he says. “I love the academic environment more than anything. In fact, since I attended my first lit class at the university, I have fantasized about becoming a professor of literature.”