The Beguiled

by Thomas Cullinan

  These measures, I guess, cause Miss Martha to wonder whether Miss Harriet does not have another supply of spirits hidden away somewhere and, naturally, this is just what Miss Harriet intends. I know that on several occasions when she has been obviously tipsy, Miss Martha has searched for such a supply in her room and elsewhere, but, of course, there is never any to be found. When Miss Harriet takes a bottle from the cellar, she consumes it immediately, as she must have done on the present occasion. Sometimes I wonder if Miss Harriet really enjoys her drinking, or if she only does it to discomfit her sister.

  Anyway Miss Martha didn’t press the subject at this time—she seldom does in front of us—but went on to ask Emily how she felt we might gain by the presence of the enemy.

  “He will be a constant reminder to us that the war is still going on,” Emily answered. “Although I personally am almost beginning to think of him as not an enemy at all, since he doesn’t seem dedicated to the Union cause. Still, he wears their uniform and every time we look at that we will be reminded of the sacrifices we must continue to make and the prayers we must offer to Heaven that the Lord will grant us a glorious victory.”

  That is not all she said, of course, but it’s all I can remember now. Sometimes I think Emily is wasting her time at this school. She ought to pack her belongings and go to Richmond and run some government office. She would make a wonderful politician because she can give you a speech instantly on any subject, and if she can’t compose one long enough to suit her, she will recite the words of someone else, until sometimes I think if she doesn’t just shut up, she will drive me right out of my mind.

  I just get so tired of it all that here lately I have taken to saying the Rosary to myself during Rhetoric class. One day recently I got through five and a half decades while Emily was reciting the Washington speeches of someone named Henry Clay.

  Well Miss Martha went on with her questioning of each of us about the value of having McBurney in the house. Amelia told her that she had found Corporal McBurney to be a student of nature like herself and that she expected to learn a great deal from him about European wildlife. Edwina said that she agreed with Alice—something of an event in itself, Edwina agreeing with anyone—that any breath of air from the outside world was welcome, and also it seemed to her that Corporal McBurney was a very sensitive person whom she thought knew her better now than all of us did with whom she had lived four years.

  This comment seemed to revive Miss Harriet a bit.

  “How do you mean he knows you better, dear?” she inquired.

  “He knows I am not considered here to be of any value,” Edwina said.

  “And he does set value by you?” Miss Harriet asked gently.

  “Yes, I believe he does.”

  Now that was the first time I had ever heard Edwina suggest that she cared what anyone thought about her. It certainly was a little crack in her character and as a matter of fact it melted a tear which ran down her cheek and dropped into her bowl of turnip soup. Then ashamed of her weakness, she got up and left the table without even asking to be excused.

  Surprisingly enough, Miss Martha did not make an issue of it, but instead decided to ignore the whole thing. She merely declared that since the subject seemed to be an upsetting one for some people, the discussion was over, and then, bowing her head, she whipped right into the dinner-ending prayer of thanksgiving without ever allowing me the opportunity to express my opinion. I was all prepared to speculate on the possibility of the Lord’s having sent McBurney to our school in order to increase the Catholic population, and I was going to state that although I certainly did not consider Corporal McBurney the best possible Catholic or even a very good Christian, I hoped to be able to improve him, but I was not able to say two words of this before everyone began leaving the room. It is really disgraceful sometimes the way I am always the last one called upon to speak at table and, contrast wise, the first one asked to recite in class. If I am ever enrolled in any other school, I intend to lie about my age in the hope of getting a little simple justice.

  As we left the dining room Mattie reported that Corporal McBurney had also finished his dinner and in response to a suggestion by Miss Harriet—to whom she was being unusually amiable, considering Miss Harriet’s condition—Miss Martha agreed that we might have our evening prayers as usual in the parlor and before the prayers a few moments of light conversation with our guest.

  He didn’t seem much in the mood for any kind of conversation as we all entered the parlor immediately and stood in a little circle around his settee. In fact he seemed to be pretending that we had interrupted a nap to which he would like to return without delay.

  “My, you certainly do look well-rested, Corporal McBurney,” I said in order to get the discussion going. “Doesn’t he look well rested and invigorated, Miss Alice, after the peaceful day he has spent all by himself here on the settee?”

  Alice made no answer but only scowled defiantly at me. Corporal McBurney, on the other hand, looked as though he had given everything up for lost and appeared to be thinking very rapidly of throwing himself on either Miss Martha’s mercy or mine. Unfortunately, Miss Martha, unaware of this little personal issue, interrupted it.

  “Corporal McBurney is undoubtedly more rested than he would be had you been allowed to plague him all day with your nonsense,” she remarked quite unfairly.

  “Ah, no,” he said, making his choice. “She’s been very good to me, that little lady. She’s offered me all sorts of kindnesses today, and I’m sure her little heart is full of much more of the same. I only hope I can repay her goodness some day.”

  “She quite often can be a terrible nuisance,” Emily felt obliged to put in. “But of course I suppose one must consider her age.”

  “Well, now,” McBurney said. “I never thought of her as being any younger than the other students here. She seems to be a very sensible and serious minded person, Miss Marie does.”

  “Do you really think so?” Alice asked him, evidently genuinely amazed. Now when Alice, who is not entirely stupid, was moved to question his flattery, I began to wonder if, just possibly, he might not really believe it.

  “I do indeed think so,” he said. I watched him very closely and he didn’t wink at her.

  “I agree,” Miss Harriet said. “Marie has many good qualities and it’s time we realized that.”

  I thought it would not have hurt her to go on and name a few of those qualities. Still, it was nice of her to pay me such public recognition even though I knew it was partly because she was still in her mood of disagreeing with Miss Martha on every possible issue. Nevertheless, I did feel a lot more kindly toward her for a long time after that and toward McBurney too. He was seemingly not as unintelligent as I had first thought.

  “Now I have a suggestion,” Miss Harriet put in. “Since our music lessons were suspended today in order to permit Corporal McBurney to have his rest, why can’t we have a little music now—if Corporal McBurney will not be too disturbed by it.”

  “Not at all,” said he. “It’s a grand idea. I’m very fond of music.”

  Miss Harriet went immediately to the harpsichord. In Louisiana we have been playing pianos in our homes for a hundred years or more but here in Virginia it seems that the best families must use the same old out-of-tune harpsichords which their ancestors brought to the colonies and which, in my opinion, they might better have left behind.

  We began by singing that old standby, Lorena, with which McBurney was already very familiar since it seems that the Yankees sing it all the time around their campfires. McBurney said he thought it had been written by a Northerner, but Emily said no that could not possibly have been the case. She was peeved already because she had wanted to begin the program with The Bonnie Blue Flag, but Miss Martha had overruled her, feeling that McBurney might be sensitive about such things. Frankly I don’t think he cared much one way or the other because when we fi
nally did get to The Bonnie Blue Flag after Lorena and Flow Gently Sweet Afton and Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes Corporal McBurney joined right in with, “We are a band of brothers” as loudly as the rest of us and considerably more in tune than some us.

  We were just about through the second chorus of it when there came a very loud pounding on the front door. That ended the song abruptly.

  “Yankees,” said Emily, ready to gird her loins.

  “Possibly not,” said Miss Harriet. Her voice was trembling and her hands were still poised above the keyboard. “It could very easily be some of our own.”

  “There is only one way to find out who it is,” Miss Martha said “Mattie. . . .”

  Mattie, who had been singing along with the rest of us, looked as though her eyes were just going to fly right out from fright. Visitors at any hour were an unusual occurrence and practically unheard of at night.

  “Do I have to go alone?” the poor thing asked.

  “Yes,” said Miss Martha, “but I will be in the hallway behind you. Whoever it is, you will ask them to wait on the porch while you inform your mistress. It is not polite, I know, but these are not polite times. Harriet, you will remain in here with the girls. If it is Yankees or unruly soldiers of our own army, I will rap three times on this door. Then you will take the girls out through the garden to the woods and stay there until I come for you. Do you understand now, all of you?”

  “What about Corporal McBurney?” Amelia wanted to know.

  Corporal McBurney, sitting up on his settee, looked as terrified as any of the rest of us including Mattie. He certainly was considerably paler than he had been even on the previous day.

  “Corporal McBurney may remain where he is, since he is in no condition to leave anyway without assistance. I’m going upstairs now to get Father’s pistol. You can pretend some difficulty with the bolt on the front door, Mattie, to give me time to return to the hallway. Be quiet in here, all of you. Mattie, come along.”

  She went out with Mattie trailing unwillingly behind her. The pounding on the door continued. It was undoubtedly several fists pounding now.

  “Even if you must remain here, Johnny,” said Amelia quite calmly, “you needn’t be all that conspicuous. May we cover him with the rug, Miss Harriet?”

  “Yes, certainly,” said Miss Harriet, glad of something to do. “All of you may help with this.”

  We took up the Persian rug and threw it over the settee and Corporal McBurney, leaving him only a small opening for air at one end.

  “Don’t make any noise in there now, Johnny,” Alice told him.

  “I don’t think you need to remind him of that,” I said. “I don’t think he’s going to make any voluntary noise, but he should do something about the way his teeth are chattering.”

  Then we waited quietly watching the door until after a few minutes Miss Martha returned from the hallway. She was very white but triumphant and she was carrying her father’s old Mexican War pistol which at that time she was keeping in the bedside chest in her room.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “There are just two of them, a captain and a sergeant . . . two cavalry men of our own. Mattie is giving them something to eat in the kitchen.”

  “Why did they come?” Miss Harriet asked.

  “To offer their assistance before the army leaves this vicinity. It’s thought that General Grant may break off the fight in this area tomorrow and start South again. This captain says our army will have to get to Spotsylvania Court House before the Yankees in order to protect the road to Richmond. Therefore by tomorrow we may be behind the Yankee lines.”

  “How did those cavalry men find out about us here?” Amelia wanted to know.

  “Someone at Potter’s store told them about the school. Their troop is scouting along the turnpike tonight so these two men decided to ride up here and see if they could be of any help to us.”

  Then Miss Martha noticed the rug covering the settee and guessed what we had done. She paused for a moment and thought about it while we watched her.

  “I haven’t as yet mentioned anything to them about Corporal McBurney,” she said finally. “It occurred to me to do so and then I thought I might speak with all of you first. However what I see here leads me to believe you have already decided what you would like me to do.”

  “And you will do it, sister?” asked Miss Harriet gently.

  “Not necessarily. But let me remind you of the possibilities. First, we could ask them to take Corporal McBurney away with them.”

  “But he couldn’t ride a horse without hurting his leg,” Amelia said, “even if they had a spare horse which they very likely don’t.”

  “He could ride behind one of them,” Miss Martha said, “but it’s true it might cause his wound to reopen. That brings us to the second possibility. We might tell them about Corporal McBurney’s being here, but suggest that, since he is wounded, they come back for him at a later time.”

  “I thought you said our boys were going to retreat,” Alice put in.

  “So they are, but this captain feels they’ll be back this way before long.”

  “That’s wishful thinking,” said Miss Harriet. “It might be weeks or even months before they come back again, if they ever manage to do it.”

  “Why, Miss Harriet, I’m sure you don’t mean that,” Emily declared. “However I do agree that it might take some time to mount a counter attack and it might be a few weeks before we see them around here again.”

  “And so if you tell them, they’ll very likely insist on taking Johnny along with them right now, and he’ll probably die before they ever get him to a hospital,” said Alice. “They won’t have any time to ’fend to him and so they just won’t care what happens to him.”

  I had taken no part in the conversation up ’til then and I felt as if I should offer some comment. “If he proves to be too much of a nuisance for them,” I said, “they’ll likely just shoot him and leave him along the road.” I said this very distinctly and I noticed it caused some obvious shivering under the rug.

  “The third possibility is that we allow Corporal McBurney to stay here until he is recovered and then send him on his way alone.” Miss Martha paused again and studied us. “Probably I should not even be discussing this with you. As head of the school and the one responsible for your welfare I should decide for myself what ought to be done.”

  “Then do it, sister,” Miss Harriet told her. “Make up your own mind to do it. Whatever your decision is, we will not hold it against you.”

  “Of course I know I am not infallible,” Miss Martha continued as though she had not heard Miss Harriet. “And there is the question of Christian charity to be considered. That weighed against the risk.”

  “You keep talking about Corporal McBurney as though he were some old piece of baggage,” said Amelia close to tears, “and not a good and kind person who is present in this very room. Anyway there is one more thing that ought to be considered. He’s not really your prisoner and therefore it’s not right for any of you to be even thinking about handing him over to the soldiers. None of you captured him and he didn’t come here of his own accord. I found him and brought him to this school without even asking him if he wanted to come.”

  “Also,” said Alice, “I believe Miss Emily mentioned having some doubts as to whether he could even be considered our enemy.”

  “That is correct,” Emily agreed although somewhat doubtfully. “In many ways he does seem to be in sympathy with us.”

  “There isn’t much more time,” Miss Martha said. “It won’t take those boys long to eat the little food we can spare. All right then, if you all think Corporal McBurney should be permitted to remain here until his leg is healed, I will be guided by your wishes. However if any one of you thinks otherwise, let her raise her hand. If any one person is opposed to his staying, I will tell the soldiers and let them
decide whether to take him now or later.”

  No hands were raised. I thought briefly of raising mine just to see if Miss Martha would consider my opinions of any consequence, but then I decided against it. I wasn’t really opposed to Corporal McBurney at that time and, after all, only a few moments before that he had promised to repay my goodness.

  Miss Martha waited for a moment longer, then smiled as though she was considerably relieved and started out. It was only then she realized that she was still carrying the old pistol.

  “When the soldiers saw me with this,” she said, “I believe they were more frightened than either Mattie or I. In fact one of them remarked, ‘I’ve faced thousands of Yankees in my day, ma’am, but I don’t think all of them together would be as dangerous as one nervous lady holdin a cocked pistol in her two hands.’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘if you prove to have legitimate business with me, I will permit you to lower the hammer on this contraption. I managed with great effort to raise it, but I’m afraid I could never get it down again without pulling the trigger.’”

  We all just screeched with laughter at that, Miss Martha included. I had never seen her enjoy herself so much before.

  “And did they uncock it for you, Miss Martha?” Alice asked.

  “You can see they did. If they hadn’t I’m afraid we might have been faced with the problem of another wounded soldier, or, at the least, a great hole in the hallway ceiling.”

  That set us off again and I think we would have been laughing yet if Corporal McBurney had not begun to cough and choke and make all kinds of sputtering noises underneath the rug. We removed it hastily and thumped him on the back and it wasn’t long before he was breathing more normally. As a matter of fact he may have been only pretending to be choking in order to insure our sympathy. He had it at that time, of course, but he also had no way of knowing how long it would continue.

  Alice suggested that she wouldn’t mind accompanying Miss Martha back to the hallway in order to say a word of cheer to our brave soldiers and Emily said that she’d be glad to go along with Alice on that kind of mission. This prompted me to mention that I’d like to have a look at the two cavalrymen myself but all three of us were rejected quickly and firmly by Miss Martha who said that, although the captain and the sergeant were nice young men and members of fine Mississippi families—something she had certainly found out in a hurry—at the same time there was no need of putting temptations and longings in their way.