The Beguiled

by Thomas Cullinan

  “Yes, certainly I understand it. And I think it’s wise. Also I’m glad you mentioned the word ‘turncoat.’ I wouldn’t care much for a turncoat either, but as you say, an honest mistake can’t be helped.”

  “Ah grand, we’re in agreement then. And just as soon as I’ve thought the whole thing out—that ought to be as soon as the pain in the leg eases and my mind is clear—I’ll send you off to your pen and ink to compose a nice letter to Dad offerin him my humble services for what they’re worth. All right, Miss?”

  “All right.”

  “Good enough. But now to get back to what we were discussing before—what about these people of mixed color? Are they accepted as white people?”

  “No!”

  “Never? I mean in cases where they might have only a little black blood. Say one quarter or one eighth or maybe even less.”

  “They are still considered black.”

  “But you don’t mistreat them.”

  “Certainly not. Those mongrel people are very highly prized as house servants—chamber maids and butlers and so forth.”

  “I see, I see.”

  “The Yankees are the only ones guilty of mistreating people, though I’m sure they’ve never told you anything about that. The way they’ve burned homes and stolen negroes and cattle and brutalized women and children right here in Virginia in their cavalry raids in Westmoreland County and in other places as well.”

  “Hanging wouldn’t be good enough for fellas that’d do a thing like that.”

  “Well I’m sure Miss Martha and Miss Harriet will be glad to know you feel that way.”

  “How do you feel about me now?”

  “Better than I did before, I guess.”

  “You know, I said to myself yesterday, when I came into this house, ‘That rosy-cheeked one is the leader here. She’s one you’ve got to sell.’”

  “Sell what?”

  “Myself.”

  “Why should you think it necessary to sell yourself?”

  “Well maybe not McBurney lock, stock and barrel, but just the fact that he didn’t mean you any harm.”

  “I didn’t think you were conscious enough yesterday to make any such assessment of us.”

  “Well I wasn’t hardly. It was only a quick guess. Lord, but you’re suspicious, Miss.”

  “My name is Emily Stevenson.”

  “Stevenson . . . is that an Irish name?”

  “English.”

  “Ah . . . but generations back, o’ course.”

  “I guess you might say that my family has been in South Carolina for a long time. My great grandfather served under General Washington.”

  “And fought the British? Well now, we do have something in common, don’t we?”

  “You haven’t served in any war against England.”

  “No, but I’d like to. That’s the war I would’ve joined, if there had been any going.”

  “The British are almost our allies now. The blockade runners bring in a lot of our supplies from England.”

  “Oh I suppose some of them are all right. The common people are the same everywhere. It’s the kings and queens and all the fancy dukes and lords that are continually causin trouble. They can’t bear to let a piece of property go, you know, once they get their claws on it. It broke their hearts to lose this country, and they’re very fearful now of losing Ireland.”

  “That’s something you’re dedicated to, isn’t it—your own country.”

  “Yes maybe so. I suppose you could say that.”

  “Well I’m glad. I think every person ought to be dedicated to something. Otherwise I don’t think that person could be of much value.”

  “The fella who becomes dedicated to you will be a lucky man.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I mean it. You’re a fine, plain-speaking, upright young lady. A great many of the women of the world, you know, are deceivers by nature. They can’t help it. They say one thing and mean another and they’ll lead a fella up the garden path for their own sport and think nothing of it. But I get the impression that would never be the case with you. You seem to me to be a very honest young lady.”

  “Well I hope I am. I’ve never had any reason to be dishonest about anything.”

  “Reason or not, I don’t think you would be. Do you know what you remind me of, Miss Emily? The girls at home. You’re so sturdy and steady-eyed . . . and neat and clean and healthy looking.”

  “Well I’ll take all those adjectives as compliments.”

  “They’re meant as such, Miss Emily. Something else I’ll tell you. I don’t know whether you trust me yet or not, but, Miss Emily, if there was one person in this house I’d put my faith in, that person would be you.”

  “Well thank you again. You haven’t met everyone in the house, have you?”

  “Most of them. And sized up the others. Oh they’re all nice people, I expect, but I get the impression there’s none of them as straightforward as you. If you said you’d stick by a fella, he’d know he could believe it.”

  “I wouldn’t say it unless I meant it.”

  “That’s my point. You’re still not ready to buy the merchandise, are you?”

  “Perhaps almost ready.”

  “You just think about it some more, Miss Emily. I can guarantee you wouldn’t be getting a bad bargain. You’d be purchasing a good friend, if that’s worth anything. You think about that, Miss Emily, and meanwhile I’ll be thinking about you writing that letter to your father.”

  Mattie entered then to clear away the dishes.

  “Miss Harriet say you to come to the French lesson in the library,” she informed me. “And Miss Martha say this Yankee’s not to be bothered by anybody for the rest of the day.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t realize I was holding up the lesson. And if I’ve bothered you, Corporal, I’m sorry about that too.”

  “You couldn’t possibly bother me, Miss Emily,” said he as gallantly as one of our own. And smiled, but didn’t wink this time.

  Now I must confess that upon leaving the room I did something which ordinarily I would consider despicable, and I suppose that is exactly what it was, although I told myself I had sufficient reason for it at that time. I was still not entirely sure whether or not I could accept Corporal McBurney, and so I waited for a moment just outside the parlor door to hear if he had anything to say about me to Mattie.

  He did. “There goes a very nice young lady,” he said.

  “Uh huh,” said Mattie.

  “She’ll make some man a grand wife,” he said. “Of all the lassies in this school, I’d say she’d make the best.”

  “I don’t think Miss Emily is figurin on marryin up with no Yankee,” Mattie said.

  “Oh I didn’t mean that at all,” said he. “She’s way out of my class, I’m sure. I may have the brains and beauty, but not the wealth to enter a competition like that. All I meant was that if some suitable fella came along to examine the stock here, I believe Miss Emily would be the number one choice.”

  “It don’t seem exactly right,” Mattie replied, “to talk about Miss Emily and the other young ladies that way.”

  No, it isn’t right, thought I, but it’s very funny. Corporal McBurney, in his rather unpolished way, had paid me just about every compliment one could think of—with the exception, of course, of saying I was pretty. Of course, if he had said that, I would have known he was not being honest himself.

  I waited by the door no longer, but hurried along to the library. That was the first time in my three years at the school that I had been late for a class, and, strangely enough, I was not very concerned about it.

  Matilda Farnsworth

  He seemed mighty chipper next morning for a man who most died the night before. That was after Miss Emily had left the room and I was pickin up the breakfas
t dishes. He also seemed mighty anxious to know whether Miss Emily was out of hearin or not the way he was tryin to lean over the end of the settee to see if she might still be waitin in the hall.

  Well he said some nice things about her and then he asked a question that didn’t sound so nice. It might not have been anything comin from some people but from him—a stranger, in this house for less than a day—I didn’t care much for it.

  “Which one of these little gals got the most money?” That’s what he called them—not young ladies or young misses, but usin the colored folks’ talk.

  “None of these young ladies got any money,” I told him, “’cept what their families send them for the school. Young ladies don’t generally carry money round with them.”

  “Which family has the most?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The Stevenson family?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “That little one who brought me here—Amelia something or other—I’ll bet her people have money too.”

  I got so mad then I had to speak up. “Most all their folks got money or they wouldn’t be here! This is a quality school!”

  “All these girls aren’t quality, are they?”

  “I got no time to waste now,” I say. “I got my work to do.”

  “I’m sorry, Mattie,” he say. “I don’t mean anything by it. I’ve just got a great curiosity about the world in general and seeing all these young lassies, and confined here as I am with nothing else to think about, I only began to wonder about them. Now just between you and me, I’ll make a few guesses and you tell me if I’m right. Now I would bet that very good looking blond girl—Alice—is not quality. Am I right?”

  “I don’t know what she is. Miss Martha keeps her here out of the kindness of her heart, and what’s good enough for Miss Martha is good enough for me.”

  “I thought so. And that darlin of them all, Miss Edwina Morrow, is not quality either, I’ll bet. Right? Quick, quick, speak up.”

  “Her Daddy maybe got more money than some of the others here.”

  “I didn’t ask you that. I asked you to tell me if she is or is not quality.”

  “I ain’t sayin one word more. You ask Miss Martha or Miss Harriet anything else you want to know.”

  “They’re quality.”

  “You know they are! Don’t you ever say this family ain’t quality!”

  “I wouldn’t dare to say it, Mattie. Don’t strike a wounded man now, I beg of you. I was only foolin with you, Mattie old darlin. I don’t care who is or isn’t quality and whether or not anyone has money. I’m only grateful for being here, safe for the moment, out of the storm. I’m far from quality myself, Mattie, if you’re judging by blood lines. I’m descended from tinkers and gypsies and people of no name. I’ve no land and no fortune and doomed to sit, I am, on the very outermost edge of the fire, where you couldn’t read a prayer book with the biggest print and on a cold night your back would never be warm.”

  “You talk awful funny, Mister.”

  “I’m an awful funny fella, Mattie. But I mean no harm. I’m a wanderer and a rover and a great dreamer of wild dreams . . . and a great liar too, I suppose. I’m seldom seen when I pass and I won’t be missed when I’m gone. But believe me, Mattie, I mean no harm. Do you have a bit of tobacco, Mattie?”

  “There’s still a patch growin out there in back.”

  “Don’t you ever cut any of it? Haven’t you got any hung up and dried?”

  “You got a pipe?”

  “I lost it somewheres. I’ll use yours, Mattie.”

  “You sure ain’t quality.”

  He laughed then, fit to kill. He sure was the strangest man.

  “If Jesus Christ walked in here, Mattie, and asked you for a smoke, what would you say? I’ll bet you’d say, ‘Lawd, you ain’t quality!’”

  And then he howled again. He laughed so hard I had to laugh myself.

  “After a while you ask Miss Harriet if she got an old pipe around here,” I told him when I got my breath back. “She might give you one of them old pipes of her Daddy’s or Master Robert’s.”

  “Thanks, Mattie. Who is Master Robert?”

  “He was the brother of Miss Martha and Miss Harriet.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “Well, Miss Martha thinks he’s dead. She thinks he was killed at that battle in these woods last year.”

  “Chancellorsville.”

  “I don’t know what the Yankees call it. We just say the battle in the woods. Now we probably call it the first battle in the woods.”

  “Why does Miss Martha only think her brother was killed? His regiment ought to know what happened to him.”

  “I don’t know if they do or not.”

  “Even if he was reported missing at first, it’s been a whole year now. Your War Department must have some kind of records. They must have him listed dead or captured by this time.”

  “The thing is Master Robert might not have joined the army under his own name.”

  “Why would he do a thing like that?”

  “Maybe he didn’t want Miss Martha to know where he was.”

  “Then if that’s the case, maybe he isn’t dead at all. He might just have run off somewhere and no one will ever find him.”

  “Like you?”

  “How do you mean, Mattie?”

  “You ran off, didn’t you? Nobody knows you’re here but us. Maybe nobody else will ever find you either.”

  “That’s so, isn’t it. Wouldn’t that be grand? I could just spend the rest of my life here, surrounded by charming young ladies—my every need attended to, my every wish fulfilled. It would be sort of an exchange, wouldn’t it. Myself for Master Robert. I’ll have to tell Miss Martha.”

  “I wouldn’t ’vise you to mention it to her at all.”

  “What was the trouble between them, Mattie?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You mean you don’t want to tell me.”

  “Whatever way you like.”

  “Tell me this then. Why is it that two good lookin ladies like that never got married?”

  “Man, you do ask questions.”

  “It passes the day, Mattie.”

  “You like to pass right out the door when Miss Martha find out how nosy you are.”

  “Tell me, Mattie.”

  “I expect Miss Martha never wanted to get married. Miss Harriet might have wanted to once, but I guess she changed her mind.”

  “Why?”

  “How do I know. Ask her yourself. But don’t say I told you to ask. You’re worse than a three-year-old child the way you pry at a person. Well I can’t fool no more with you. Half the morning’s gone already and I got plenty of work to do.”

  “You won’t have to do anything at all after the Yankees take over down here, Mattie.”

  “I ain’t gonna live long enough to see that day. Nobody gonna live long enough.”

  “It’s comin, Mattie, it’s comin sure as you’re born. The great Day of Jubilee is what they call it. Then you’ll be ridin up North in a private railroad car that Mister Lincoln is gonna send down here for you. You’ll be wearin a silk dress and diamonds on your fingers and drinkin champagne outa gold goblets. Old Mister Lincoln will be at the station in Washington to meet you and all the other black folks and he’ll lead the big procession down the street to the White House. Only the name’ll be changed to the Black House then, Mattie. And you folks will move in there and stay there just as long as you want. Each one of you will have a fine bedroom with big soft beds and silk blankets and there’ll be white maids and butlers to take care of you. You can stay in bed all day, if you like, and have all your meals brought in to you on silver trays. You can order anything you want to eat. Even if it isn’t on the menu, they’ll cook it special for you. You can have ham
and gravy and ice cream and chicken at every meal, if you like, and cakes and pies and cherry tarts, just anything at all. And each evening there’ll be a band concert on the lawn outside your window, and all you’ll have to do is give a shout and that band will play any number you request instantly—jigs or hymns or marches, or anything you ask for. Then, before you turn in for the night, there’ll come a very polite knock on your door, and when you open it, Mister Lincoln will be standin there and he’ll say, ‘Mattie, was everything satisfactory today? You got any complaints with the way things went? We know you folks been havin a hard time for quite a spell down there in Dixie and we aim now to make it up to you. So you just be thinkin about that, and if there’s anything at all your heart desires, you just write it down on a bit of paper with that solid gold pen you’ll find over there on the desk. You’ll notice it says “compliments of Old Abe” on the pen—I had ’em made up special. Anyway you just write down on the paper whatever it is you want, and even if you can’t write, make a big X—we got a mind reader out here who can decipher it—and then slip the paper under the door and we’ll take care of your order first thing in the morning. And now, good night to you, dear Mattie. Sleep tight, don’t let the bugs bite. I can promise you that tomorrow will be even better than today.’ And you know something, Mattie? It will be. How’s that for a jubilee, Mattie?”

  “You are the craziest man.”

  “When the jubilee comes, I’m gonna tell ’em I’m colored too, so’s I can get in on the celebration with you. Now don’t you tell ’em any different, Mattie.”

  “All right,” I said. “You better lay back now and get yourself some rest. You look like your fever’s comin on again.”

  “Mattie, what was the name of Miss Harriet’s boy friend—the one she almost got married to?”

  I told him. “Howard Winslow,” I told him, and five minutes later I was sorry. But at that time it didn’t seem it could cause any trouble and I don’t know for certain that it ever did. Anyway, at that moment, there didn’t seem to be any harm in the Yankee boy. About the worst you could say about him then was that he was like some crazy puppy worryin an old rug.