The Beguiled

by Thomas Cullinan

  That’s just the way he seemed. He just wouldn’t let up foolin and teasin and tormentin. Sometimes you’d figure he didn’t ever have a serious thought about anything. And then other times, behind all that foolin, he seemed to be havin a whole lot of them. I started carryin the breakfast dishes out then, just as Miss Harriet was comin in.

  Harriet Farnsworth

  It was not until about ten o’clock on his first morning with us that I had an opportunity of conversing privately with our guest. For her first class in the mornings, my sister teaches the French language and as much of the literature of that country—some of the essays of Montaigne, a play by Racine and parts of the less atheistic writings of Voltaire and Rousseau—as our charges can assimilate. My assignment at some of these periods is to take Miss Marie Deveraux aside for private tutoring in other subjects. Marie can read and speak French like a Parisian and has devoured all the French texts we have, although with little understanding of their philosophic contents. I had set her to reviewing some pages in her English grammar and while she was thus occupied I decided to visit the living room and see how Corporal McBurney was getting on. My object was to reassure him of our interest in his welfare and to tell him that as far as I personally was concerned he was welcome to stay at Farnsworth until his health was completely restored.

  I would like to state now that in describing this and other meetings which I had with Corporal McBurney I want to be as exact as possible. When I recount something I said or, more particularly, something he said, I shall endeavor not to let subsequent events affect my memory. Indeed I want to be particularly careful in relating the way he said things because that, as I soon came to realize, was quite often more important than the actual words he used.

  Mattie may have realized this, I think, before any of the rest of us.

  “How is he?” I asked her as she was coming out of the room with the breakfast dishes.

  “He’s feverish,” said she. “You best not pay much attention to him, no matter what he says. In fact maybe you better not talk to him at all.”

  “Let me be the judge of that, please, Mattie,” I told her somewhat peevishly. As I have said, Mattie is a treasure, but she does take an irritating joy in giving me orders at times. It is a habit not easily overcome, I suppose, when you are Mattie’s age and have been in a family longer than the children, although she never seems to forget her place in her relations with my sister.

  He was reclining with his eyes closed as I entered the room, but the faint smile on his lips led me to believe he was only shamming sleep. I went to him and placed my hand on his brow. He may have been a trifle feverish but no more than that.

  “Do it again, ma’am,” he said. “It feels awful good.”

  I obliged him.

  “It makes me think of one time I was sick at home. . . . I had a winter cough or something and was kept in bed. . . .”

  “And your mother took care of you?”

  “No. Or at least not in the daytime. She couldn’t. We were only renting a small corner of a great estate, you see, and after my father died my mother went to work as a maid in the big house. It was one of the ladies at the big place who learned I was sick and came down to visit me one day. She fed me broth and said kind words to me, and put her cool hand on my brow. She was an English lady but very nice.”

  “I’m sure she was. She probably had children of her own.”

  “No, she was too young for that. She was a daughter of the family. I was about eight or nine at that time and she perhaps five or six years more. She was a striking girl, I remember . . . rather small and slender, but fine boned and with lovely dark hair and the palest, kindest face. But of course, she was not for the likes o’ me.”

  “She was too old for you anyway.”

  “Ah no, do you think so? Does a few years mean that much? I’ve never felt that way.”

  “I suppose it’s a matter of opinion. Still I’m surprised that a boy of eight or nine would be thinking of such things.”

  “Maybe we begin earlier than the lads over here.” He grinned now. “In actual fact I probably had no such thoughts on my mind at that moment. Very likely it was nothing more than being grateful for her kindness, and it was only later, probably, that the romantic part occurred to me.”

  “That seems more logical.”

  “Anyway her hand felt just like yours does now.”

  Listening to him, I had forgotten how long my hand had been resting on his head and I snatched it away—too quickly, I suppose in my confusion. He laughed. It was a soft, highly amused laugh and I cannot say even now that it was derisive.

  “I think my fever must’ve risen suddenly and burned your hand,” he said.

  “No, no . . . it wasn’t that.”

  “What then? Did I embarrass you? I’m sorry if I did, if for no other reason than the fact you might’ve soothed my forehead longer. It was very nice feeling your hand there and thinking of that young English lady. You look a great deal like her too.”

  “You shouldn’t feel obliged to pay such compliments to someone of my age.”

  “Oh I don’t feel any obligation, ma’am. And they’re not really such grand compliments. I can think of much better if I put my mind to it. And also I don’t think of you as being that old.”

  “Please, Corporal McBurney. . . .”

  “You’re not old enough to be my mother, are you? Is that what you were going to say?”

  “No, I wasn’t going to say that. And it is possible that I am not that old—at least not in civilized society.”

  “That’s the great trouble with the world, do you know it—civilized society. That’s what keeps us tied down and locked up and smothered. Haven’t you ever felt a small little uncivilized spirit in you, batterin at the walls of your heart, cryin in a tiny voice, ‘Let me out, Miss Harriet Farnsworth . . . let me out, let me breathe!’”

  “Yes,” I told him. “I have felt it.”

  “But never let the spirit out.”

  “Yes, once I did.”

  “Good for you! You must tell me all about it.”

  “I don’t think I want to tell you,” I said.

  “You’re folding your hands ever so tightly, ma’am, as though you might be afraid that one hand would get loose and burn itself again.”

  “I certainly didn’t mean to give that impression.”

  “Sure I know you didn’t, ma’am. It was only in the way of a joke. And maybe some other day you’ll tell me about the time you let the spirit loose—someday when you get to know me better.”

  “I don’t see why I should ever tell you anything as personal as that.”

  “Oh don’t look at it that way, ma’am. I’m not interested in any of your secrets. I only want to hear about a time—no matter what the place and circumstances—you can leave out all names and dates, if you like—but I only want to hear you tell me of how you hurled caution to the wind, and braved all the gods and elements and furies, and shouted out, ‘I am Miss Harriet Farnsworth and I want to do this thing and by Heaven I will do it!’ That’s all I want you to tell me. I’ve told you of how I did a similar thing myself, haven’t I?”

  “I don’t remember that you have. You’ve only said a nice young lady came to nurse you.”

  “Oh, I didn’t finish it. Well when she left, you see, I kissed her.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes. I was so grateful to her, I sat up—like this—and pulled her to me . . . and kissed her.”

  He demonstrated. I withdrew—flustered, admittedly—but not quickly enough.

  “I had to do that, ma’am, and I won’t apologize,” he said. “I wasn’t sorry the first time I did it—with the young lady—and I’m not sorry now. You may stand there and think all the things you like—that I am ungentlemanly and coarse and whatever else is customary. But I say one thing to you, Miss Farnsworth, I meant
you no dishonor. The situation was the same as that first time, when I was a child, and I felt that I must do the same as I did before. Obviously, if I had asked you, you would not have permitted it. So I didn’t ask you. Now you may do as you like. You may inform your sister, and then summon the reb soldiers outside, if you like.”

  “I could do one thing worse to you, I think.”

  “What’s that, ma’am?”

  “I could ignore it. I could pretend it never happened.”

  “By all the saints,” he said delightedly. I am still certain that was exactly his reaction. He wasn’t shamming this time, but was genuinely delighted at my words. “You’ve hit the barrel right on the bung, ma’am. You’ve found my weakness, so you have. That would flatten me indeed. That would stretch me out and paralyze me—to have you walk away from here, disregarding me completely. Can you do it, d’ye think, ma’am?”

  “No, I don’t suppose so.”

  “Ah, too bad . . . for you, but good for me. Well I could give you another go at it. I could repeat the whole performance, say at this same time tomorrow.”

  “I don’t think you’ll get the opportunity.”

  “Do you mean you’ll have your sister put me out, or that you’ll merely stay away from me.”

  “You are still our patient. And I wouldn’t be so certain, if I were you, that your fate is entirely in my sister’s hands.”

  “Now you’re angry.”

  “You are a coarse person . . . really you are.”

  “I come from coarse beginnings, Miss Farnsworth, I make no secret of that. Go away then and ignore me. It won’t happen again, I give you my word. Pretend you never came in here at all today. That’s what the young English lady did. She just smiled gently and walked out the door with her spoon and bowl and I never saw her again—except at a distance once or twice when she was riding her horse across the field, and one time when she was passing in a carriage on the road . . . with a handsome young fella in a Guard’s uniform.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Ah, you needn’t be. I wasn’t out anything, except a bit of pride. Shame is a great weapon, ma’am. It’ll do more damage to a soul than a war can ever do to a body.”

  “I know . . . I know that.”

  “It struck me that you maybe felt the same. Well go away then and we’ll both forget it. Only don’t glance in a mirror for a while yet. You look somewhat feverish yourself.”

  “You are coarse.”

  “I said I was, didn’t I? But perhaps, if you keep me company, you’ll smooth away the rougher edges. Do you know, Miss Farnsworth, I think we’re much alike. Although we’re poles apart in class, we have some things in common. Our pride, for one thing, and maybe the fact that neither one of us is much like anyone else around here.”

  “Do you sense that about me?” I asked him, somewhat surprised.

  “I do. I think you’ve a great fondness for the finer things—things that might, to plainer folks, seem useless and trivial and maybe even showy—but to you they’re more important than the ordinary facts of life we have to deal with everyday. I think you love the fragile, delicate stuff that’s so easily shattered in the hands of the clumsy world. Fine pieces of china, I’ll bet, and old lace . . . thin crystal goblets and bits of polished ivory. . . .”

  “I have some!” I told him. “I have some little religious figurines that came from China and have been in our family for many years. I’ll show them to you, if you like.”

  “I’d be greatly obliged.”

  “I have an Oriental painting on a screen too, which is centuries old, and which belonged to my mother . . . and some old Spanish lace which is supposed to have come from the court of Philip the Second. Oh it makes me very happy to know that you are interested in such things.”

  “Let’s be honest, ma’am. I didn’t say I was interested. I said I’d guessed that you were. I was born under a thatched roof, ma’am, and lived there most of my life. I know very little about quality, but I’ll admit I’d like to know more.”

  “Then I shall teach you,” I declared. How he could have provoked such enthusiasm on my part by means of a very simple and I suppose not at all difficult assessment of my personality—especially after what had happened only moments before—is completely beyond me now. Of course it did seem that he was eager to elevate himself and that kind of desire on the part of anyone has always been most appealing to me. And perhaps he was eager to improve himself. Perhaps that was not a sham either.

  “Is that a book of poems over there on the table?” he asked now.

  It was the collected poems of John Keats and was so labeled in large letters on the cover.

  “Do you like poetry?” I asked bringing the volume over to him.

  “I know very little of it,” he said. “What I know I like.”

  “Can you recite a poem that you know?”

  “Well there’s one by Mister Shakespeare. Let’s see . . . how does it go?

  Let me not to the marriage of true minds

  Admit impediments. Love’s not love

  Which alters when it alterations finds,

  Or bends with the remover to remove:

  Ah, no! It is an ever fixed mark,

  That looks on tempests and is never shaken.

  It is the star to every wandering bark,

  Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

  Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

  Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

  Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

  But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

  Now if this be error and upon me proved,

  I never writ, nor no man loved.”

  “That’s very good . . . very, very good, Mister McBurney.”

  “John.”

  “It was a perfect recitation, John.”

  “Well we had this old book of Shakespeare at home, you know. It was the only book we had, in fact, besides the prayer book. I read that old Shakespeare a thousand times, I’ll bet.”

  “Did you really? You must recite some more to me . . . something from a play perhaps.”

  “I’d like to do that. Maybe in a day or two I’ll be more up to it. Thank you for your interest, ma’am. That does sound elderly, doesn’t it. I’ll call you Miss Harriet as the girls do. Read me something out of that Keats book, will you, Miss Harriet?”

  He reclined again and closed his eyes. I leafed through the volume and selected the “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” perhaps my favorite of all the author’s works—which I read quietly aloud and then waited. There was a long pause during which I began to think that this time he might really be asleep.

  But then. “Beauty is truth, and truth beauty . . . that’s true, that’s very true. Though some people would deny it. In fact, I’ll bet most people would say that truth is that sound you hear outside there in the woods. Truth is thunder and fire and death, they’d say, and anyone who thinks that’s beauty must be mad. But I agree with the poet. I think that truth is this peaceful room . . . and a kind lady . . . and that butterfly in the sunlight out there in the garden.”

  “You have a nice soul, John McBurney,” I said impulsively. “You may have rough edges, as you say, but I think your soul is as nice as it can be.” Those were my exact words then, and if we could take one or two days from the calendar and obliterate one or two incidents, I believe it would still be possible to say those words about Corporal McBurney now.

  “Fine thoughts are easy,” he answered. “They come easy to the likes of me. Fine poems will bring them on . . . or fine wine. Now there’s something else I’ll bet you appreciate . . . a good glass of rare wine.”

  “I do enjoy a small amount of it on occasion,” I admitted.

  “Your sister said she was going to fetch me a glass or two to
ease my leg,” said he, “but I guess she forgot about it. Perhaps when you see her, you could mention it.”

  “She did promise it to you?”

  “Oh yes. Ask her if you like.”

  “There’s no need to do that. I’m quite satisfied to take your word for it. However it might be difficult to get the wine right now. You see, when we turned our home into a young ladies’ school, we felt it would be better to keep the wine cellar locked. We have kept it locked ever since and my sister has the key.”

  “She carries the key with her, does she?”

  “Always. It is on a ring with all her other keys.”

  “And she’s giving lessons now, isn’t she. I guess she’d hate to be disturbed.”

  “Yes, I suppose she would. It’s a pity. There is some very old Madeira down there which I know you would enjoy.”

  “I wouldn’t care so much about enjoying it, as long as it eased the ache in my leg.”

  “I’m sure it would. I sprained my wrist one time many years ago, playing at some game or other, and do you know, that wrist is still very painful sometimes—especially at night and in damp weather. And a small glass of wine always eases it.”

  “There’s nothing better for any kind of bone ache than good wine. My mother, God bless her, always said that. It’s too bad you don’t have another key to that place.”

  “When the war is over perhaps we can have a second key made. Perhaps I will suggest that to my sister.”

  “Maybe I could make one for you right now, if I had a file and a small bit of iron. I’m fairly handy at that sort of thing. A barn nail might do if it was long enough. What does that key look like anyway?”

  “It’s just an ordinary key. Very much like all the other keys.”

  “If I could see the lock, I might not even need a key to open it. I might be able to fix it with a knife blade. There was a fella in our company had been a turnkey in a jail and he showed me a trick or two he’d learned from the prisoners.”