The Beguiled

by Thomas Cullinan

  “God flog the rich—my apologies, ladies,” he said now. I am reporting his exact words. “There’s nothin like havin two fine Southern ladies playin with your leg of a warm spring mornin. Get in there won’t you, Miss Harriet dear, and give it a pat or two. Don’t be shy, dear. D’ye see how your sister works away at it? She’s had a man’s leg in her lap a time or two before—you can tell that from one glance at her. Oh carry my leg back to old Virginny! And give me a pair o’ bonnie lasses to polish it . . . and pinch it . . . and knead it a bit on the sly. Oh the bonnie lasses o’ the three B’s. Well born, well bred and well bosomed too, eh? None o’ yer tavern types or country types o’ bosoms, by any means, but the genuine, registered, first class regal kind. The real landed gentry, touch me if you dare, small but never insignificant, more for viewing than for using, dainty, lofty, lady-like, kind of perky little perty. . . .”

  “Stand erect there, sister, or move away,” I told Harriet.

  “Move away, Miss Harriet. Your dress is too low cut for the operating room.”

  “Pay no attention to it, Harriet, do you hear me?”

  “I’m not, sister, I’m not.” But she was as flushed as a ripe apple and she was even smiling faintly which, of course, only encouraged him.

  “Don’t be jealous, Miss Martha. I was referrin to both of you in my last remarks.”

  “One more word out of you, my man,” I informed him, “and you’re going to get a cold cloth to chew on. Do you understand me?”

  “Oh yes, ma’am. No offense, ma’am. How could a poor country hulk like meself ever dare to displease the lovely likes of you . . . the tall and stately, poised and perfect, seldom smilin, never laughin, mostly kind but sometimes cruel . . . always dreamin, never darin. . . .”

  “Enough!”

  “Right you are, ma’am. Bend over a bit and I’ll chew on your lips a little.”

  With that I could take no more and so I did what I had threatened to do—threw the cold cloth across his face. He continued to giggle happily underneath it, but made no move to take it away.

  “I would like to know which one of us has been dreaming but not daring,” my sister suggested softly, “and also what that dream has been.”

  “You shall not hear it,” I declared. “We will have no more of this vulgar prattle.” I tied a knot in my stitch and cut the thread, then stood there for a moment, studying my handiwork.

  “Do you want me to bandage it, Miss Martha?” said Mattie who was waiting nearby.

  “You can if you like. Frankly I don’t think it will make much difference.”

  “What do you mean, sister?” Harriet asked.

  “Whether it be kind or cruel, there is nevertheless a time for stating the truth. This man’s leg is becoming morbid. It will have to be removed.”

  Well you might have expected the giggling beneath the cloth to cease right then, but such was not the case. The sounds of merriment continued as though the listener was finding my remarks extremely comical.

  Miss Harriet was more alarmed. “You’re not serious, sister!”

  “Am I not?”

  “But you haven’t given his leg a chance to reheal.”

  “It won’t heal again. I knew it was useless to attempt anything. I only tried to keep you satisfied.”

  “Do you mean you’ll turn him over to the Yankee surgeons now after all the time you’ve spent with him this morning? Will you take him to the crossroads or let one of them come here?”

  There was a silence now beneath the cloth. It was evident that Mister McBurney was much more afraid of the consequences of being discovered by his own people than he was of anything I might do to him.

  “I will do neither,” I said. “I spent a sleepless night considering the matter against this very contingency. I have decided it wouldn’t be at all prudent to bring any more soldiers here. Also Corporal McBurney states he doesn’t want to see any of his own surgeons either. Therefore, with all other possibilities eliminated, it seems we shall have to amputate the leg ourselves.”

  At this there was a great burst of laughter from our guest. He threw the cloth aside and roared with unrestrained glee.

  “Go ahead, Miss Martha, chop away,” he cried. “You have my permission!”

  “All right,” I said quietly. “That makes it easier—although I intended to ask for it in any case.”

  “You have it and gladly,” said he. “Saw away with a will, my dear, while sweet Miss Harriet holds my hand to comfort me.”

  “It will take some time to prepare for it,” said I. “We may not get to it until later in the day. However I think it should be this afternoon, since I would hesitate to attempt it by lamplight.”

  “He thinks you’re joking, Martha,” said my sister.

  “Does he?”

  “He thinks you’re only trying to frighten him.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  “To punish me, dear heart,” McBurney grinned. “And the Lord knows I deserve it—the shameful way I’ve treated you two darlings, abusin your hospitality and all. But I’ll remedy that very soon, I promise you. Before I leave you, I’m going to give you both a great hug and a kiss for being so nice to me. I’ll do that, I will, as soon as the fumes o’ the wine is faded . . . so’s I wouldn’t be offendin you with my barroom breath. . . .” Still chuckling he lay back and closed his eyes.

  “He is very intoxicated, Martha,” my sister said.

  “Of course he is. I wonder that he can speak at all. You’ve given him enough to paralyze two men.”

  “But he doesn’t realize what you’re saying!”

  “Because he thinks you’re playing a game with him, you know that, Martha. And even if he realized you meant it, you couldn’t accept his permission anyway. You can’t rely on the judgment of a drunken man!”

  “It’s not his judgment I’m relying on, it’s my own. It’s quite possible, I suppose, that sober, he’d refuse to let me do it, but I think my evaluation of the situation is more to be trusted than his own. I happen to think this admittedly drastic step is necessary to save his life.”

  “It’s his life, Martha.”

  “Not his alone. We are all responsible for each other. Each of us belong to his brethren . . . and to God.”

  I think McBurney had gone to sleep because he gave no sign of having heard these last remarks. He was still grinning slightly with his mouth agape. He didn’t stir even when I put my hand on his brow.

  “He’s got a fever all right, there’s no arguin that,” commented Mattie as she wrapped a strip of cloth around the much debated leg. The cloth—the last piece of something donated by Miss Edwina Morrow might better have been saved, in my opinion, for later use, but I kept this thought to myself. “Yes ma’am, he’s got a misery somewhere in his body that’s causin his heat to rise.”

  “You do agree with me then that the leg is infected?”

  “You askin my opinion? I think his leg is some worse than it was before, yes. It’s gettin black all right and it’s swolled up like you say. Course part of that might be due to the fact that no blood is getting down there. I think maybe you got that blood-stoppin bandage tied too tight.”

  “Couldn’t that tourniquet be removed now, sister?” Harriet asked. “Perhaps it should have been loosened before this.”

  “It was necessary to keep the lower veins pinched off to prevent his bleeding to death during the night,” I told her sharply. “If you feel you have a more expert knowledge of this business than I do, I wish you would take over here and allow me to get some rest.”

  Harriet made no answer to this but only smiled faintly in her foolish way and lowered her eyes. I turned to Mattie but she only shrugged and said nothing either. Then—rather peevishly, I suppose. I satisfied them both by taking my scissors and cutting the tourniquet. The leg jerked and McBurney frowned and moaned a bit. Mercifu
lly, however, the stitches held and the leg did not begin to bleed again.

  “He certainly felt something then,” said my obstinate sister.

  “It’s possible that it will begin to twinge him now and then,” I admitted. “I assume the presence of gangrene doesn’t necessarily mean the total absence of feeling in the affected member. Therefore I’ll assign you a task you ought to welcome. You may go down to the cellar and fetch another bottle of wine—two bottles, if you like. Then for the next few hours you may continue to dose him with it. I want him to be absolutely stupefied before we begin this thing.”

  “You won’t wait and discuss it with him when he’s rational?” Harriet persisted.

  “It wouldn’t make any difference,” I told her with great patience. “No matter what he might say. And we just don’t have that much more time.”

  “You sure he’s that sick, Miss Martha?” Mattie wanted to know.

  “Yes, I am entirely sure.”

  And I was. I went across the hall then to inform the students of my decision. My motive here was to give them enough time to consider it and become adjusted to it, since some of them had become very attached to Mister McBurney. I explained to them as briefly as possible that the step was absolutely necessary in order to preserve McBurney’s life and that the operation most certainly would have been performed long ago if he had been in the care of the medical departments of either army.

  “That’s because they wouldn’t have the time to trouble with him,” said Miss Amelia with a touch of impudence.

  “We have taken a great deal of trouble with him already, Miss,” I said, “and I can assure you I would take more if I thought it for the best.”

  “Best for who, Miss Martha?” asked Marie.

  “It needs to be done because that is best for Corporal McBurney. We will do it ourselves—and as well, I’m sure, as any army surgeons—because that is best for us.”

  Then I went upstairs to my room and prayed that I would continue to be as confident in the hours ahead. I prayed that my hand would be steady and unwavering and that I would never doubt that I had done the right thing.

  I sat on my chair by the window overlooking the arbor which the young man had restored to the state of order and beauty I remembered from my childhood. The boy had a knack for gardening, there was no doubt of that. Even the small circular plot at the far end of the garden where our little imitation temple stands had been cleared, I noticed now, although I remembered distinctly having forbade him to work in that area.

  He had cut away the underbrush around the little building and then evidently had applied a coat of whitewash to the exterior, because in the midday sun it looked as clean and new as it had that summer day long ago when my brother and I first built it. I assumed McBurney must have done all the work on the previous afternoon and it had escaped everyone’s attention because, with all the excitement, there had been no chores in the vegetable garden this morning.

  Well I would certainly speak to him about it, I thought, just as soon as he recovered. Perhaps it would be well to assign him the task of demolishing the little building before we sent him away. I had been thinking of having that done for some time anyway and it might be a good lesson for McBurney to set him doing it. Then I remembered what I was planning and that it would be a long time, if ever, before he could work at any such arduous tasks again.

  Well that wouldn’t matter. The little temple could wait, or someone else could tear it down. Or perhaps it would be just as well to leave it as it was in its shining restoration—as a monument to all those things in a lifetime that don’t turn out the way they are planned.

  But the venture this afternoon would be successful, I was certain. McBurney would recover from it quickly and go away and then order would return to the school as it had to the garden. McBurney could go anywhere he liked. To expedite his leaving I might even provide him with some money for the railroad fare to Richmond or Charleston or wherever he chose. It was obvious he had no desire to go back North, and incapacitated, as he would now become for military service, the Northern authorities would very likely have no further interest in him. In that sense we might even be doing him a favor. He would see that, I was sure, as soon as the thing was over. He would realize the necessity for it and adapt to it and make the best of it. As we all must do, all our days.

  He would know we had done nothing which wasn’t necessary to save his life. We weren’t deliberately punishing him or crippling him in order to restrict his movements, but only trying to help him. He was—if nothing else—a clever boy, I thought, and he would not fail to apprehend that the whole business had been no pleasure for any of us here, and certainly not for me who would have to bear the burden of not only the physical task itself but the responsibility for it as well.

  I slept then for about an hour and awakened when Mattie entered bringing me a cup of mint tea. That is one thing we do not lack in this house. We are well supplied with mint leaves and herbs of all kinds by our little Amelia Dabney who brings back a supply—most of them, I fear, indigestible—whenever she is permitted to go to the woods.

  “The young ladies have had their noon meal,” Mattie reported now, “and Miss Harriet says the Yankee is as stupefied as he’s ever gonna be. What you want us to do now?”

  “A number of things,” I said, “and each of them must be done carefully but without wasting any time. First you must collect all our sharp kitchen knives. I’m not sure which ones I’ll need so you had better prepare them all. Hone them to a fine edge and then boil them in hot water.”

  I went to the large chest of drawers where I keep some of the personal belonging of my brother and my father and brought out two ivory handled razors of the finest Sheffield steel which my father had bought in England many years ago.

  “I think these are clean,” I told Mattie, “but boil them in the pot with the rest. You might also get the large meat saw from the smoke house and clean that up as best you can. Then take up the dining room carpet and scrub the table well.”

  “You want to ruin that good wood?”

  “It can’t be helped,” I said. “It’s the only large table we have. And even if it isn’t scrubbed now we would have to do it afterwards anyway. Perhaps it can be varnished again someday, but we have no time to discuss that now. Next you must gather a good supply of all the clean cloth you can find. Bed sheets, table cloths, excess pillow cases. . . .”

  “We ain’t had any excess pillow cases since the first year of the war,” Mattie informed him. “And there ain’t no sheets now on your bed or Miss Harriet’s. There ain’t but four or five sheets in this whole house.”

  “Take those and we’ll use what we need. Take all the pillow cases too. The girls will be glad to donate them, I’m sure. And you might also ask them if they are willing to follow Miss Edwina’s example and give us any shifts or night dresses they don’t need—linen, preferably, if they can spare them. I want a good supply of it in readiness and then we’ll tear it to suit our purposes as we need it. Now you may tell any of the students you wish to help you. Inform them that I have given you permission.”

  “Only one that’s any good at all is my poor little Miss Amelia and she’s too broke up about the whole thing to help anybody. Miss Amelia’s the only one round here that’s good for anything. Miss Emily’s too bossy and Miss Marie is too devilish and Miss Alice is good for nothin but standin in front of a mirror to see if she growed any in the chest overnight. Then that other one who’s shut up in her room . . . I don’t know what a body could say about her. She ain’t good for one solitary thing at all includin herself.”

  “I agree that Miss Edwina is a very difficult young woman. She has never shown any signs of fitting in at all. Perhaps when this business of Corporal McBurney is over I may write to her father and ask him to take her away from here.”

  “I’ll bet you all my meals for a month her Daddy never answers your l
etter. I’ll bet he don’t want her any more than you do.”

  “She may have to leave us anyway. We may have to send her home whether her father wishes it or not.”

  “You figure her money is all gone?”

  “Enough of that!”

  “I was just wonderin why you hadn’t sent her home a long time ago.”

  “Because I thought possibly I could do something for her. Because in a way she’s been a challenge to me. I’ve never yet admitted failure in the case of a student, but perhaps there has to be a first time. And perhaps, while I’m at it, it would be well to admit two failures. Yes, I think at the end of this summer Miss Edwina, and Miss Alice too, may have to be sent away. The war should be over by that time—no matter who wins it—and the school will soon be crowded once again with more worthy students.”

  “I feel sorry for those two,” said Mattie. “They can’t help what they are. Miss Alice can’t help what her Mama made her. And the same for the other one.”

  “I feel sorry for them too,” I replied, “but you can’t operate an institution like this on pity—or any other emotional feelings for that matter. Just as I can’t let my emotions interfere with my decision to amputate Corporal McBurney’s leg.”

  “You sure you ain’t doin exactly that?”

  I repeat this exactly as it was said. If I am ever accused of having unworthy motives in this affair or if it is ever stated that I was warned against performing an unnecessary operation, it can be affirmed that Miss Martha Farnsworth has never refused to discuss the matter freely and openly and completely and has never attempted to conceal any part of it. She certainly doesn’t feel guilty about anything now and she didn’t then, unless it might have been the fact that she was penalizing her students by spending the entire day on the trouble of an outsider.

  And this was Miss Martha’s reply to her servant. “You are a presumptuous and uncivil wretch and you are becoming more sinfully vexatious with each passing day. Sometimes I think I offend the Lord myself by keeping you here to plague me!”