The Beguiled

by Thomas Cullinan

  Anyway I suggested to Amelia that it might be better for all if some idiots here could manage to mind their own business. Then I went to my room to tidy myself for dinner and in the course of those preparations began to think about what had just happened to me in the parlor and about the things Johnny had said to me and before long my fears and evil mood had passed away again. By the time I returned to the dining room, I was feeling almost cheerful and before we were ten minutes at the table, I was so gay and talkative that several people remarked about it.

  “I don’t think I have ever seen you so animated, Edwina,” said Miss Martha.

  “Nor I,” said Miss Harriet, “and it is quite becoming to her, don’t you agree, Corporal McBurney?”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” he said. “In that black velvet dress and with her hair pinned up that way, and with that flush on those ivory cheeks, she’s like some great lady at the court of some old Spanish king.”

  “Yes, Edwina does look rather Castilian, doesn’t she,” Emily said. I was watching her and I decided that she meant it only as a conversational remark.

  Alice, however, was not so content with this turn in the talk and therefore felt obliged to state that she had heard there were usually a multitude of notorious ladies at the courts of the old European kings and, of course, as soon as the words were past her lips she realized that any discussion of notorious ladies could hardly prove a happy one for her. Therefore she took a new tack by making some comment about darker skinned girls always looking better by tallow candle light and then went on to declare that there were other people in the world with attractive shoulders and if gowns which exhibited shoulders were to be permitted at young ladies’ schools, then the authorities should take steps to provide such dresses to all students so that no unfair advantages could be taken.

  It was such a sad little thrust that instead of feeling angry, I felt very sorry for her. I did know that she was eager to win McBurney’s attentions—just how eager I didn’t realize—and because I thought then that there was little present chance of her succeeding—especially since at that moment he looked across the table and winked at me—I felt generous enough to say I would be glad to share my dresses with Alice or with anyone else who might be in need of one.

  “I might borrow one some evening,” said Marie causing some general tittering around the table which Marie did not appreciate.

  “You would need stilts to keep from tripping on the skirt,” Emily told her, “and a generous application of glue to hold it up on top.”

  “I cannot deny,” Marie answered irritably, “that Edwina may be a bit taller and more fully grown than I. On the other hand there are certain persons here who could not fit into Edwina’s dresses for other reasons. I am thinking specifically of a person who, in order to cram herself into one of those dresses, would have to submit to some pretty painful lacing. I am not mentioning any names, of course, but I might say that this person’s initials are A.S.”

  “Girls, girls,” said Miss Martha, rapping her glass with a spoon before Alice could reply to this. “This conversation is not a proper one for young ladies. And while on the subject of propriety I will add that I do not think Edwina’s costume is entirely suitable for a young ladies’ school. However we know that Edwina has been accustomed to town society where different views on dress sometimes prevail. We also know that she has brought several such gowns with her to Farnsworth and has worn them on many evenings and not just this one. Therefore I will say nothing more about the matter now, except to suggest that Edwina might consider drawing her shawl over her shoulders in order to prevent any further speculation on the subject.”

  I did as she suggested, my face on fire, but keeping my temper by telling myself that I had been complimented. Also Johnny winked at me again and smiled and that made me think that it might not be too long before I need no longer worry about the provincial attitudes at Farnsworth.

  The way I dress at Farnsworth is the way I dressed at Richmond where some of the very best Virginia gentlemen dined at our table. I know some Richmond people thought that such company was not the best kind for a solitary young lady but my father thought otherwise and so from my earliest days I was always invited to the table. These same Richmond people were of the opinion that my father had never permitted me to enjoy my childhood and that he had begun treating me as an adult too soon. However, after Johnny came to the school I began to see that my father had never really treated me as anything else but a child, no matter how he allowed me to dress or what company he permitted me to meet, and it was only when he realized that I could no longer be treated as a small, unhearing and uncaring toy that he sent me away to this school.

  Of course it was not entirely his fault. I never lived in a house with other women, except for servants, until I came here and as a result my father put womanhood on me—if not adulthood—when he judged me fit for it—in the only way he could judge it, by my physical appearance. In that respect I became a woman very early in life, but I was never glad of it until Johnny came.

  However I was not thinking of those things on that evening. At that time I was only thinking that I must guard my tongue in order not to make a bad impression on Johnny. I must prove to him, I thought, that I can accept correction from my elders and that I deserve to be considered a lady. And after all, I said to myself, the rebuke was mild enough and Miss Martha is certainly entitled to her own opinion about the way her students ought to dress. Perhaps, I decided after a moment, had I been in her position, I would have said the very same thing.

  This self-control amazed my fellow students who apparently expected me to make a scene—as I might well have done at another time—and were watching me covertly. However I kept my eyes on my plate and said nothing and this forbearance eventually paid off because after a moment little Amelia Dabney said, “I don’t think there is anything to argue about anyway. Edwina Morrow is the most beautiful girl in the school, no matter what she is wearing. Even if I don’t like you sometimes, I must admit that, Edwina.”

  “Thank you,” I said, embarrassed again but also very pleased this time.

  “If we can’t agree with that,” said Miss Martha tactfully, “I think we can admit that it would be a very close competition between Miss Edwina and one or two others here, although beauty of form or feature does not necessarily indicate perfection of mind or soul. However I can say with no equivocation that Miss Edwina could be the brightest person here, if she applied herself with a bit more diligence.”

  “Thank you, Miss Martha,” I said. “I will try to follow your advice.” And felt my face go hot again because the last compliment meant much more to me than any of the others.

  “My goodness,” said Marie. “Is this Edwina Morrow at our table or some imposter?”

  “I don’t think that Edwina is showing us anything but her true nature this evening,” said Miss Martha. “It is unfortunate that she has kept it hidden in the past, but perhaps now we can see more of it. On the other hand I do think that Miss Marie Deveraux must be represented by an imposter at our table because I believe the real Marie Deveraux has been confined to her room.”

  This remark caused a great deal of merriment at the table. Everyone, including Alice—who had been mollified by Miss Martha’s allusion to competitive beauties—went into gales of laughter which only ended when Miss Martha rapped her glass again.

  “It is obvious that you have a tonic effect on us, Mister McBurney,” she said, “even when you do not enter directly into the conversation. We have not had such jollity at dinner for a long time. Now perhaps we can all be serious for a moment. Mister McBurney was reading from the works of Shakespeare this afternoon. I wonder if he will tell us whether he enjoyed what he read?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I did . . . very much,” said Johnny. It was obviously not a subject he was eager to discuss.

  “Corporal McBurney is very familiar with the plays of Shakespeare,” Mis
s Harriet put in. “He used to read them constantly at home.”

  “Then perhaps he could recite something for us,” Emily suggested. “What is your favorite scene in the plays, Johnny?”

  “Well o’ course there are so many,” he said. “It’s hard to pick out any one favorite. For instance I was going over that old play today . . . the one about the fella . . . what was his name again . . . I think it began like mine.”

  “King John?” inquired Miss Harriet.

  “No, his family name. Mack something or other.”

  “Macbeth,” we all cried.

  “That’s the one. Well I was reviewing that old thing again, you know. But I’m sure you’ve all read it a hundred times.”

  “I haven’t read it once,” said Marie. “There’s too much English poetry in it for me.”

  “And I began it but never finished it,” Alice said. “The printing is too small in that old book.”

  “I’ve never read it either,” said Amelia. “Why don’t you tell us about it, Johnny?”

  “By all means,” said Miss Martha. “Even those of us who are familiar with the play can benefit, I’m sure, from hearing your interpretation of it, Corporal McBurney.”

  “That’s possible,” Johnny admitted. I’ll try to tell it now as he did.

  “Perhaps, being a man, I might look on the thing a bit differently than you. Well then to begin with, there’s this young fella Macbeth who’s an up-and-coming officer in the army of the old King of Scotland. The fella’s rank isn’t mentioned, as I recall, but I’d judge him in the beginning to be of junior field grade. A major, I’d say he was, or at the most a light colonel and that’s about as high as he ever would’ve gone, except for a very queer set of circumstances that happened to him one day on a heath. You see that army was engaged in stamping out a combination invasion and rebellion—excuse the word, ladies—and the King had sent Macbeth with a small party of skirmishers to round up a few of these wayward lords. Well Macbeth and his chum Banquo were scouting along this heath when they came upon a very unusual thing indeed. Here was these three fierce old biddies stirring a foul-smelling broth in a pot and singing all the while they were in high, cracked voices, the way the Scotchmen knew at once the old girls were far from being mortal.

  “‘Hail there to ye, Macbeth,’ says one. ‘We’ve been waiting here for ye.’ ‘What on earth for?’ says he. ‘You’re no friends of mine.’ ‘Well,’ says another, ‘we only wanted to salute ye. It might interest you to know that you’re very shortly going to become King of Scotland.’ ‘You’re mad,’ says he. ‘Are we?’ says they. ‘Here’s proof that we know our business. Within the hour you’ll be one step nearer the throne and before the day is out you’ll be another, the way the old King’ll be hurling the promotions at ye for your fine work in the battle.’ ‘Well I’ve my share I will admit,’ says Macbeth, for he wasn’t the most modest fella in the world. ‘But I still say the old King is pretty healthy yet.’ ‘Have a peek in our pot then, Macbeth,’ they told him. ‘What’s in the pot can’t be denied.’

  “Well he had a look in their dirty old pot but he could see nothing at all but a mess of boiled bats and toads and other such delicacies as witches are used to having for their dinner, for that’s what these three old ladies were, no less, and as further proof of it they gave a horrible shriek and flew off on their broomsticks without another word.

  “Well after a minute or two Macbeth and his friend weren’t sure they had seen anything at all. They thought maybe the whole thing was caused by a touch o’ the sun or maybe it was one jar too many on the night before. However they had no sooner got back to the main camp when the old King informed Macbeth that for his gallantry in action he was being promoted to a lord, and it wasn’t more than an hour later the King decided a lord wasn’t high enough so made Macbeth a thane, which I believe is even higher than a duke.

  “So Macbeth went home and very foolishly told his wife the whole story. Now I think the man would’ve been satisfied then to take his winnings and drop out of the game, but his wife wouldn’t hear of it. Oh the greatest old shrew in Scotland she was, with a block of ice where her heart should’ve been and a tongue on her that would’ve split an oak board. ‘Now you’ve come this far,’ she told Macbeth, ‘why not try for the whole pot? The old King is our guest tonight. It needs only a sharp knife and a steady hand and the throne will be yours in the morning.’ ‘Oh God save us, I could never do that,’ says Macbeth. ‘Why not?’ says the Missus. ‘You’ve certainly thought of it.’

  “It was true, o’ course, but then all of us have terrible thoughts at times that we might never put into action if we didn’t have people like Missus Macbeth behind us. And so with her urging him on Macbeth murdered the old King and won the throne for himself. It was a terrible thing to do and eventually Macbeth paid for it. The one crime led to more of the same, as they say very often happens when lads get hardened to the bad life. The old King was hardly cold before Macbeth and his Missus found they had to get rid of several other people, including his old chum, Banquo, in order to protect what they’d won.

  “All the while o’ course Macbeth was running off to the heath to see if the old crones could give him any consolation. They’d promised him the top prize in the land, now he wanted to know how long he was going to be able to keep it. ‘Til all the trees in the woods move to the city,’ the old hag said. Well Macbeth didn’t see how that could happen but all the same he didn’t feel too easy about it and it didn’t help matters any when his wife decided that she still had some of the old King’s blood on her hands and that no soap in Scotland would wash it off. Now whether she was really still stained with that blood or not or whether she was merely going daft, I can’t honestly tell you. Whatever way it was, it only proved once again what my own mother always told me—no matter how fast you run, you can never get away from your past. It’s like your shadow, she used to say. Some people like to think their shadows disappear with the darkness but my mother always claimed that’s just the time the devil sets to work and your shadow catches up with you. ‘If you’ve been good, Johnny,’ she used to say, ‘you’ve nothing to fear. But if you’ve been bad, watch out. All your evil deeds are strung out behind you wrapped in the folds of your shadow and some night the devil may creep up to your bed and snare you with it.’

  “Well that’s just about what happened to Macbeth and his wife. Their bad deeds caught up with them. Missus Macbeth went completely off her head eventually and finally died in a mad fit, I guess, and it wasn’t long before her husband followed her. The woods did move on his castle and hiding behind each tree was an enemy soldier and they set upon poor Macbeth and cut his head off. And that’s the end of the story.”

  “Does it have a moral, do you think, Mister McBurney?” Miss Harriet asked him.

  “Certainly,” said he with a grin. “The moral is—beware of women—especially if you’re a weak mortal man. Like I said before, Macbeth could have lived his life out—with no great gain or fortune in it maybe, but very likely with no great evil in it either. Macbeth might’ve lived ’til his hair was white and with nothing worse on his conscience than a missed Mass on Sunday once or twice a year or so, and maybe a pint or so too many now and again on a Saturday night, and that only causing him to give the Missus an occasional crack on the gob to quiet her. And God knows she’d’ve deserved it the way she always went on. Yes, ladies—begging your pardon—it was women that did for poor old Macbeth—his own wife and three old biddies.”

  “Well I can see where Macbeth’s wife had some motive for what she did, but I fail to see where the old witches had anything to gain,” remarked Marie. “Why did they ever bother with Macbeth in the first place?”

  “Witches don’t have to have reasons for doing bad things,” said Johnny. “Maybe it was only for the sport of it.”

  “Or maybe it was because they didn’t realize that things would turn out as badly as they
did,” Amelia suggested. “It’s possible, isn’t it, that they could have foreseen that Macbeth was destined to become King without being aware of exactly how it would happen.”

  “But they put temptation in his path and that was very wrong,” said Miss Harriet.

  “Still if it was a definite fact that Macbeth was destined to become King,” said Alice, “then it seems to me that whether he had advance information or not would have made very little difference.”

  “It might have made a difference in the way he conducted himself,” Emily argued. “It might only have been necessary for Macbeth to wait a short while until King Duncan had died a natural death and then the people might have elected Macbeth King without any effort on his part at all. After all I believe he was a very popular military leader.”

  “It never does anyone any good to know the future,” said old Mattie as she came in with more acorn coffee. “That’s why the good Lord shields it from us. If we knew what was waitin for us just around the corner half the days of our lives, it seems to me we’d be too scared to get out of bed.”

  “I agree completely,” I said. “I have no wish to ever know the future. It would be terrible if you were always certain of tomorrow, if you always knew that it could never be any better than you imagine it will be.”

  “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,” said Miss Harriet. “Do you remember that passage, Mister McBurney? Life itself is but a walking shadow . . . a momentary record of some wasted days.”

  “Do you speak from experience, sister?” Miss Martha asked her. “No day is wasted on which a lesson is taught and learned. As Corporal McBurney is wise enough to see in the play, most of the terrible things that happen to us are the results of our own bad conduct.”

  “Terrible things can happen as the result of mistakes, too, can’t they Miss Martha?” Marie inquired innocently. “Sometimes people are punished when they never meant anyone any harm.”