The Beguiled

by Thomas Cullinan

  “Yes,” say Miss Harriet. “Isn’t it a pity that they couldn’t have all been this nice?”

  “They will be in the future, ma’am, I promise you,” say the Yankee. “I don’t plan to stay here much longer, but while I am here, I’ll try my best to make it up to you for all the unfortunate things that happened in the past. I won’t try to apologize to each one of you personally right now, but take my word for it, I am very sorry for everything bad I did here.”

  Then they all left the dining room and went upstairs to their own rooms, ’cept the Yankee. He went in the parlor, walkin pretty good on his crutches, and closed the door.

  Well I was startin to pick up the dishes from the table when I noticed somethin by the Yankee’s plate. It was Miss Martha’s key ring. I guess he musta left it there. Anyway I took it upstairs and gave it to her.

  She was sittin there by her mirror, starin at herself, when I walked in. “The Yankee left somethin for you,” I say.

  She picked up the keys and looked at them and then tossed them on her bed. “It doesn’t mean anything now,” she said, “anyway the keys are the least part of it.”

  “You and I both know the gun don’t work ’cause the trigger spring is busted,” I say, “and I don’t think the Yankee got the money.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she say to me, not lookin at me. “You go to bed, Mattie.”

  So I went out and closed her door and while I was startin down the stairs I heard her call out, “Thank you, Mattie, for a very nice dinner.” That’s the only time in her life she ever thanked me for anything.

  Well it took me quite a while to get the work done in the kitchen, longer than she expected maybe, because long about an hour later I heard her come softly down the stairs and then she stopped for a minute in the hall. Then I heard her lock the door to the parlor. After that she went out to the garden through the hall and came back again in a few minutes.

  I guessed what she did out there but I wasn’t sure until the next morning. I figgered she went around to the parlor garden and locked them doors too. See old Master had em fix special locks on the outside of them doors to keep Miss Martha and Miss Harriet’s Mama from runnin off when she began to get a little weak in the mind the way she did a few years before she died. Anyway most of our garden doors here are only bolted from the inside, but them parlor garden doors can be locked with a key from either the inside or the outside. Leastways they could be before the Yankee busted them.

  I found him in the morning. Well I wasn’t the first to find him because Miss Amelia was with him when I got there. He was lyin in the garden, stretched out on the grass near the arbor like he was asleep, and Miss Amelia was sittin there beside him.

  “You gonna catch cold sittin there,” I told Miss Amelia.

  “I’m all right,” she say. “Will you help me take him back to the woods, Mattie?”

  “Just you and me, child?”

  “Well I guess Marie could help but I’d rather that the others didn’t touch him.”

  “He’d be too heavy for just the three of us, Miss Amelia.”

  “Oh I think we could manage it if we went slowly and rested. You see I think he’d want to go back there, Mattie. I think that’s where he was headed for when he came out here last night.”

  “Maybe so,” I say. “I guess there isn’t nothin wrong with takin him back to the woods but it’s too far and I’m too old to do it alone with just two little girls. We better get the others to help us.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” she finally admitted. “I guess they can’t do anything to hurt him now.”

  “We all hurt him, Miss Amelia,” I say. “Ain’t none of us can get away from that.”

  Well she didn’t believe me, o’ course, and none of the others woulda believed me either if I’da said it to them, so I didn’t waste time sayin it. Fact is, nobody said much of anythin that morning. They all just came downstairs and out into the garden and stood around him there on the lawn. They didn’t weep or nothin like that, just stood there very serious and looked at him.

  Finally Miss Harriet say, “He doesn’t really seem to have suffered.”

  “That’s true, he doesn’t,” Miss Martha say.

  “It could have been his heart, couldn’t it?” ask Miss Alice. “He never was very strong, you know.”

  “That’s right,” say Miss Emily. “He was always rather frail. Perhaps all that excitement last night was too much for him.”

  “I’m sure his weakened condition must have contributed to it,” say Miss Edwina, “even if it wasn’t the primary cause.”

  “But we don’t know what the primary cause was, dear,” say Miss Harriet, “and I’m afraid we never will know.”

  “Considering his religious faith, it certainly would be nice if we could have a funeral Mass with a choir and everything for him,” say Miss Marie.

  “I’d be willing to have a military ceremony, if it comes to that, since he was a soldier—even though an enemy,” say Miss Emily.

  “Nothing of the sort is feasible here,” say Miss Martha. “With all due respect for Mister McBurney, he will have to be content with the simple prayers of those of us here.”

  “Shall we take him back into the house for a while?” ask Miss Alice.

  “I don’t see any point in doing that,” say Miss Martha.

  “I have a place in the woods I want to take him,” say Miss Amelia. “I found him in the woods and I want to take him back there.”

  “If anybody was to ask me,” I say, “I’d tell em you better do somethin with him fore the sun gets any higher.”

  “All right, Mattie, get his blankets from the settee,” say Miss Martha.

  “Wait,” say Miss Edwina. “Use mine.” And she ran off to fetch them.

  Then the rest of the young ladies decided that they wanted him to have their blankets so they all went back to the house to get them while Miss Harriet and I went to fetch some needles and some stout thread.

  When we got back it looked like every blanket and sheet in the house was layin out there on the lawn. Miss Martha didn’t complain none about it. I expected her to raise a fuss but she didn’t.

  Well we fixed him up a bit first before we put him in the blankets. Miss Edwina took her handkerchief and wiped the dirt off his cheeks and forehead. Miss Harriet combed his hair and Miss Alice buttoned his jacket and all the girls took a hand in brushin the grass and weeds off him.

  “There’s some papers in his pocket,” Miss Marie say.

  “Leave them there,” Miss Harriet say.

  But Miss Alice had to go and take them out. It was just two letters and a part of an old torn magazine.

  “This letter was sent to Private Soldier John P. McBurney, Company C, The Twenty Fourth New York Infantry Regiment, The Army of the Potomac River, USA,” say Miss Alice. “Shall I read it aloud?”

  “No,” say Miss Edwina.

  “There might be an address of a relative in it,” say Miss Harriet.

  “Go ahead then, if you must,” say Miss Martha.

  And so Miss Alice read out, “Dear Son John . . . I hope everything is well with you. Things are much the same here. The potatoes were very poor this year. I do not know how I will manage unless you can send something, son John. Is it a good position you have with the American Army? Is the pay good? I hope it is safe and not too hard on you. I would have thought you might have found steady employment in the City of New York. You have always been a shy boy, John. You must learn to speak up. That is the only way to get ahead. Your sister Bridget’s cough has been worse this winter. Maybe when the spring comes she will improve. Did you go to Mass on Christmas Day? Have you made your Confession lately? I will close now, John. I know you are a good boy and will come home to your mother some day a rich and successful man. Your mother, Mary Anne McBurney.”

  “Is there a sender’s address?�
�� ask Miss Harriet.

  “No, that’s all there is,” say Miss Alice. “Now this second letter has no address of any kind and it seems to be written in the same kind of blackberry ink we have here. Shall I read it?”

  “You might as well,” say Miss Marie.

  And Miss Martha didn’t argue so Miss Alice read out, “Dear Mum . . . I came to this place a few days ago and am being treated fine here. This place has some nice young girls in it and two ladies who are also very nice. My leg was hurt bad when I came but it is getting better now. These ladies are wonderful, Mum. It is just like home. The youngest girl here tells me to put this in. She says to tell you that she has the true faith like us and will look out for me and see that no harm comes to me from the others here who don’t have it. Ha ha. Well they are all nice people here, Mum, no matter what they believe in.”

  “Is that all?” ask Miss Martha.

  “Yes, that’s all,” say Miss Alice. “Now this old Harper’s Weekly doesn’t seem to be of any value at all. I don’t know why he was keeping it.”

  “I believe I know why,” say Miss Marie takin the magazine. “Look here on the back page,” she say. “Do you see where this notice is circled with our same berry ink? The notice says, ‘Genuine French Dolls, Imported From Paris. Just The Thing To Delight The Little Girl.’ And do you also see what is written underneath? ‘July eighteen, Marie’s birthday.’

  “Did you write it or did he?” ask Miss Alice.

  “What difference does that make?” say Miss Marie. “He was preserving it wasn’t he. He promised to get that doll for me when he went back to New York.”

  “You have no need of dolls in these times, child,” say Miss Martha. “Now put those papers back where you found them.”

  “Do you want to look in his other pockets, sister?” ask Miss Harriet.

  “No,” say Miss Martha.

  “The money you are missing might be in one of his other pockets.”

  “If it is,” say Miss Martha, “we’ll leave it there.”

  So Miss Alice put the papers back and straightened his jacket a little bit again. Then we rolled him on to a blanket.

  There was a little bother there for a minute or two over which blankets to use, but Miss Martha finally decided to pick two of the least worn ones. Then I got my needle and carpet thread and Miss Harriet took hers and we sewed him up in there.

  Before we put the last stitches in, Miss Harriet took off her Spanish lace shawl and covered his face with it. Then I folded up the top and bottom blankets and sewed them up tight. Last we rolled the whole bundle on to that old stretcher we made for him at the time Miss Martha cut his leg off.

  “Now we will do as Miss Amelia has suggested,” say Miss Martha, “and take Mister McBurney back to the woods.”

  So Miss Harriet and Miss Emily took the front poles and Miss Martha and I took the back poles and with Miss Amelia aleadin us and the other three young ladies followin and carryin the diggin tools we set off for the woods.

  Well I’ll tell you it wasn’t easy gettin there. Miss Amelia musta took us through the deepest mud holes and through the thickest brambles and creeper vines and over the highest rocks and logs and up the steepest hills and down the slickest banks in the whole state of Virginia. Miss Alice and Miss Emily spelled off on the two front poles every now and then but Miss Martha and me on the back poles went the whole way ourselves.

  The worst part of it was the last part when we had to crawl through what looked like a solid wall of thorns and brambles, pullin and pushin that stretcher along the ground. Then we came out into a little clearin and after we catched our breaths we started in to diggin.

  The ground was soft and everybody helped so it didn’t take too long, When it was deep enough to satisfy both Miss Martha and Amelia, we put the Yankee in. Then we busted the poles off the stretcher and put that in too cause Miss Martha say we wouldn’t have no more use for it. Finally before we started fillin in the dirt Miss Martha said a prayer.

  I didn’t hear much of what she said cause right then I went off a little ways and had myself a good cry. I don’t know if I was the only one who did it but I just couldn’t help myself. It wasn’t only that the whole thing needn’t have happened at all. It was the fact that buryin that boy that way made me think of my own Ben who had to go off and die in a place that was strange to him.

  See right then I wasn’t blamin anybody for what had happened, and I’m not even sure I’m blamin anybody now, cept myself. I take the blame for whatever part I had in it, but the thing is I ain’t sure how much that means. I had a reason for what I did at the time and I ain’t sure but what I’d find another reason if the boy was to come back here right now and the whole thing was to happen over again.

  Anyway what little of the prayer I did hear had the word “forgiveness” in it, but whether it meant that Miss Martha was sayin she was sorry for what had happened and what she’d done or whether she was just askin the Lord in a general way to have mercy on us all poor sinners, the way you generally do in prayers, I just don’t know. After that Miss Marie said a little prayer she said was more suitable for dead Catholics and then Miss Harriet and some of the others threw clods of dirt in and then I dried my eyes and went back to help shovel in the dirt along with the rest.

  One more thing. Before we got started shovelin, Miss Amelia bent down and laid an old jewel box in on the blankets.

  “What are you putting in there, child?” ask Miss Martha. “What’s in that box?”

  “It’s her turtle,” Miss Marie say. “That turtle and Johnny were the two dearest things in the world to her and she wants to bury them together.”

  “All right,” Miss Martha say. “Go head, Mattie.”

  So we filled it in and then Miss Amelia showed the young ladies where to get some pine branches and we put them on top of the dirt and then on top of that we put some wild flowers that Miss Harriet and Miss Edwina picked.

  Then we went back to the house. It was maybe ten o’clock, I judge, and it was startin in to be a warm day.

  On the way back Miss Marie ask Miss Martha if lessons were goin to be given and Miss Martha says she don’t know why not. “You young ladies are at Farnsworth to learn,” she say, “and Miss Harriet and I are here to teach you. That is our duty and we must get on with it.”

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