The Handsome Road

by Gwen Bristow

  So they could make up as easily as that! What amiable tempers they had.

  She was having her supper on the back gallery when they came downstairs. Ann sent for her, to tell her that since Mrs. Maitland wanted the rest of the summer curtains hung early in the morning she could sleep tonight in the little room off the gallery. Corrie May almost gasped at the sight of Ann’s clothes, for she had not often seen her in evening dress. They were evidently going out; Ann had on a creamy satin gown with puffs of tulle around the skirt, and a jeweled pin in her hair and jewels on her arms. As Corrie May received her instructions and curtseyed Ann turned to look up at Denis adoringly. She held up her arm and watched the light flash on a bracelet at her wrist.

  “Denis, it’s the loveliest thing I ever saw in my life. You’re such a darling.”

  Denis chuckled. “Like me better than you did?”

  “Oh Denis, I’m so ashamed of myself. But I’ll get mad with you every day if you’ll always make up with something as beautiful as this.”

  Corrie May looked thoughtfully over her shoulder at them as she went out to the gallery again. When she had gone into the little room under the back stairs she sat on the cot, thinking. No wonder rich people could be so sweet. If Ann and Denis had lived in Rattletrap Square there wouldn’t have been anywhere for Denis to go while his temper cooled, nowhere but a saloon or a bawdy-house where he’d have spent the money they needed for food and so made things worse. And instead of resting peacefully to quiet her nerves Ann would have had to be washing clothes or cooking supper, getting herself all hot and tired and madder than before. And even if Denis was really sorry, he couldn’t have brought her a bracelet to prove it. So folks in Rattletrap Square screamed and threw things and folks at Ardeith kissed and called each other darlings.

  Money. But not entirely money. Something else too, this unconscious conviction of their own value. She observed this particularly when Ann had a baby.

  Denis and Ann spent July up North at a place called Saratoga, and when they got back Corrie May observed that Ann was expecting. You still couldn’t see it when she wore hoops, but when she idled around in her dressing-gowns it was obvious. Corrie May was not surprised, and to tell the truth she was not very much interested. For a young couple in good health to be having a child seemed to her the most ordinary of occurrences. Corrie May had always regarded having children as a disgusting necessity. She had no fondness for babies, who bawled and squalled and dirtied their diapers and made more work for everybody, and the processes of maternity were a thorough mess. Everybody she knew, men and women alike, resented the approach of a baby.

  So the way they started carrying on at Ardeith amazed her. An heir to the dynasty! How wonderful. An heir already! How proud you must be, Denis. And Ann, my dear, are you sure you’re feeling well? Let me get you a shawl—there’s a draft from that window. They brought out-of-season fruits to tempt Ann’s appetite and new books to while away her enforced leisure. They made her beautiful garments so she could watch her altering figure with as little distaste as possible, for it was important that she be easy in her mind. Corrie May could have seen some reason for such solicitude if Ann had shown any sign of not being well. But Ann flowered like a well-tilled garden, and anybody could see she was simply basking in her own importance.

  The Negroes didn’t have any more sense than the white folks. They beamed and grinned and sprang to wait on her as though she’d faint if she crossed a room unaided. On the back gallery they talked about it in happy voices. The servants in the house had all been born in its shadow, most of them of families that had belonged to Ardeith for generations. Not a slave had been sold from Ardeith in forty years. They were as integral a part of the clan as their masters. The approach of an heir was an event to be mentioned with thanksgiving to the Lord. The line was going on, and with the mistress’ health and spirits what they were the household would not dwindle as in the days of her predecessor. The servants hung ruffly curtains at the windows of the old nursery and polished up the carved rosewood cradle where Mr. Denis had slept, confident that it would not go back to the attic till it had been occupied again and again.

  The mulatto girl Bertha, Napoleon’s wife, who expected a baby about the same time as Ann, was appointed for the honor of wet-nursing the heir; she was moved from the quarters to a room in the big house and coddled with as many luxuries as the mistress. Corrie May thought if it were herself she would have felt like a milch-cow being petted for the parish fair, but Bertha, a smart young woman of elegant speech and manners, put on a multitude of airs.

  The girls in the sewing-room cut and stitched such piles of tiny garments as no baby could possibly wear out before he outgrew them. They embroidered nightgowns and pillow-cases for Ann’s confinement, and fashioned her caps of lace and ribbon. There were new bed-curtains provided, crimson satin lined with white, for she would be confined in November and there must be no drafts across her bed. Seamstresses were imported from New Orleans to be consulted about the newest fashion in christening-robes and to design a particularly lovely gown for Ann to wear when she stood up at the font. And how Denis walked around! You’d have thought from the looks of him he had been elected President, instead of having done something so entirely commonplace as beget a baby.

  Nobody found it ridiculous or even surprising, except Corrie May. To save her life she could not see that the coming of Ann’s child was a circumstance of such tremendous moment. Black and white, the clan felt blessed, but when she watched them she became more acutely aware than ever that she had no share in that mighty unit. She stood outside, saying nothing of her thoughts, for she had no wish to endanger her livelihood by a hint of sacrilege, but the whole business, though sometimes it made her want to laugh, oftener choked her with fury.

  Corrie May thought how the women she knew took maternity. They went about their work as usual, cooking and scrubbing no matter how they felt, sometimes leaving a washtub of clothes when the pains started. If the babies were born in the summer they didn’t wear anything but a diaper; in the winter they were wrapped in a shawl or an old blanket. This costly nonsense at Ardeith appalled her. Corrie May rode the cotton-wagon to Rattletrap Square and sat on the stoop of her lodgings. She saw it as though it were new to her, this region below the wharfs where women were old at thirty-five and decrepit at forty, and where half the babies born did not live a year. She watched the children lying in the mud-puddles for coolness, their taut bellies swarming with flies. She thought of the slave-women at Ardeith, carefully tended during their pregnancies because a little Negro was worth a hundred dollars the day it was born. Her hands clenched on her knees, and her thoughts made rhythm like a drumbeat. Poor white trash. Poor white trash. Nigger never walk up the handsome road, but I’d rather be a nigger than poor white trash.

  She hated them all at Ardeith. She even hated the unborn baby, destined in his mother’s womb to hold her and her people in the limbo where it would suit him for them to belong. Secretly she rattled her money-box. There was not much in it, but hearing the coins clink gave her a sense of delight. She rarely earned more than a dollar and a half a week, and the rent was a dollar and a half a month, but she could still save pennies, for besides her wages she got lagniappe. Ann gave her cast-off clothes, and the meals they served her were so plentiful she could nearly always put aside some food to take home.

  One damp morning in November she arrived at Ardeith to find the house hushed like a church. At the back door Mrs. Maitland told her in an undertone the baby had been born in the night, and the mistress was asleep. There would be no work done today; they were halting everything that she might have complete repose. Corrie May could come back the day after tomorrow.

  Botheration, thought Corrie May. All that long ride for nothing. And in such dismal weather. It was a heavy, colorless day, blurred with fog. As she walked around to the front of the house she shivered and wrapped her hands in the end of her shawl.

 
Dr. Purcell’s buggy stood by the steps, and he was saying goodby to Denis. As Denis turned around to go back into the house he saw Corrie May.

  “Why, good morning,” he said.

  She curtseyed. “Good morning, Mr. Larne.”

  He was grinning unconsciously. “Did they tell you our son was born, Corrie May?”

  “Yes sir, I done heard about it,” she answered politely. “Tell Miss Ann I sho hopes she gets on.”

  “Thanks,” said Denis. He ran up the steps, whistling softly.

  All of a sudden Corrie May felt like laughing, not in derision, but with a curious sympathy that surprised her. He was just like a little boy. In spite of their pompous carryings-on about the baby, Mr. Denis was really so young—queer, she thought abruptly. She was herself only fifteen, and he must be ten or twelve years older, yet he seemed so young. He and Ann both. They didn’t know anything. She started, remembering her sensation of wrath a few minutes back. It made her feel guilty. Here she worked in the house, and she hadn’t done a thing to express felicitations about the baby. Until this minute she had not thought of doing so. Hurrying out to the gate, she waited till a cotton-wagon came by and rode to town.

  At home she took her box from its hiding-place and felt the weight of it in her hands. Never had she shaken a penny out of it. Even now, tearing down part of her little wall of defense was so difficult that once she put the box back on the shelf, then gathered her courage sternly and took it out again. There was no unsaying Ann had given her work when she felt desperate, and now she was going to prove her gratitude by getting a present for Ann’s baby.

  Setting her teeth hard, she turned the box upside down and shook it. A nickel and a penny fell out. Corrie May took a long stern breath and kept on shaking. A dime fell out, and four more pennies, then another nickel, then a penny. Every coin as it dropped gave her a feeling that was almost pain. She shook the box resolutely. Six more pennies clinked into her lap. Her hand faltered and she stopped. She simply could not make herself deplete her hoard any further. For thirty-two cents one could get something.

  Her money in her pocket, she made her way to the square around the park, and walked along till she found a shop that sold dry-goods. She went in timidly. Though she had on a newly ironed dress and a woollen shawl and a pair of Congress gaiters, only slightly scuffed, she felt out of place. The clerk was busy with a young lady at the counter. He glanced at Corrie May, and said, “Just a minute,” as though he saw that she was not going to be a valuable customer anyway. Corrie May recognized the young lady because she had seen her often at Ardeith; she was Ann’s friend Sarah Purcell, a soft-voiced little thing, attractive in an odd way, with a freckle-peppered face and a cloud of glorious red hair. When Sarah Purcell finished matching some ribbon to a piece of silk she had brought with her, the clerk saw her to the door and came back to Corrie May. “Something for you?”

  She got up from where she had been sitting by the counter. “I want to see some flannel. Some nice flannel like for a baby’s shirt.”

  He showed it to her. Enough to make a shirt was twenty-three cents, and for eight cents she got a skein of embroidery floss. That left a penny over. Corrie May put the penny back into her pocket to be returned to her savings-box. She had an odd feeling of pleasure.

  When she reached home she washed her hands carefully and spread a towel on the bed so as to keep the flannel perfectly clean while she cut the shirt. Telling her mother to get dinner, she sat by the fire, not even willing to add a stick of wood lest she drop some dust on her sewing. She worked hard, joining the seams with tiny stitches that could hardly be seen. With her thimble for a guide she drew little scallops around the edges. The embroidery for these had to be very smooth with never a knot, or it would scratch the baby’s skin. She worked all day, straining her eyes as the light faded, till at last her head began to ache and she was afraid if she stitched any longer by firelight the embroidery would get uneven in spite of her.

  The next morning she got up early and set to work again. She had to be so careful that the sewing went slowly, but by dark the shirt was done. It was really beautiful, better than some of those made by the sewing-girls at Ardeith. Ann couldn’t help liking it.

  When she went out to the plantation the next day Mrs. Maitland gave her a peignoir of Ann’s, the sleeves of which were tearing loose from the shoulders. Corrie May sat down in the little boudoir next to the bedroom to mend it. Ann’s room was full of friends and relatives, and Corrie May waited until Denis had taken the visitors down to dinner. Then, taking her parcel in her hand, she knocked on the door opening into the bedroom. Ann’s mammy opened the door.

  “Could I please see Miss Ann a minute?” Corrie May inquired.

  Mammy hesitated dubiously. “She’s powerful tired.”

  “Please ask her,” begged Corrie May. “Tell her I done brought a little somp’n for the baby.”

  Mammy still hesitated, but Ann called. “She can come in, mammy.”

  Holding her package in both hands, Corrie May came into the bedroom and curtseyed. The room was so bright with flowers and firelight you’d never have thought the day outside was heavy with rain, and the crimson hangings made the bed look like what Corrie May imagined a throne would be. At the head of the bed mammy stood like a bodyguard. Ann lay against the pillows in a nightgown crusted with lace, and over her shoulders was a shawl of white wool. Her hair was down in curls that must have cost an hour’s siege with the irons. As Corrie May came in Ann glanced at her and smiled. “Hello,” she said.

  At the bedstep Corrie May curtseyed again, tongue-tied with embarrassment, for the bureau and tables were piled with packages not yet opened. But Ann was still smiling in a friendly fashion. “It was sweet of you to think of me,” she prompted.

  “It ain’t nothing really, Miss Ann,” Corrie May apologized haltingly, though she still had a headache from eyestrain. “I just thought as how—well, I mean I thought I’d make the little master somp’n to help keep him warm, him being born in the foggy time.”

  “You’re very thoughtful.” Ann took the package and undid the covers. “Why Corrie May, this is lovely. Thank you so much.”

  “Oh—you like it honest, Miss Ann?”

  “Why of course I do. All this beautiful work!”

  Corrie May blushed proudly. But mammy, evidently thinking the interview had lasted long enough for the strength of her darling, interposed.

  “You better take yo’sef some rest, Miss Ann honey.”

  “I will, mammy. And thank you again, Corrie May.”

  “Well ma’am, it ain’t nothing to brag of, but I sho do appreciate your liking it.”

  “You better get ’bout yo’ work,” mammy said to her. “De missis been havin’ company all mawnin’.”

  “I’m going,” said Corrie May. She curtseyed again and moved toward the door.

  “Goodby,” Ann said kindly.

  “Goodby, Miss Ann.”

  Withdrawing into the sitting-room, Corrie May sat down again to finish sewing the seams of the peignoir. She felt pleased at how much Ann liked the shirt. Miss Ann was really so nice, Corrie May told herself reproachfully, it wasn’t Christian or even decent to feel hateful toward her just because she was lying under a satin curtain. She had not quite closed the door, and from beyond it she could hear voices. Ann said,

  “You know, mammy, I’m really awfully tired. Don’t let anybody else come in for awhile.”

  “I sho won’t, honey lamb,” mammy promised soothingly. “You better get yo’sef a nap right after you eat yo’ dinner.”

  “Let me see little Denis before I go to sleep, will you?”

  “Sho, Miss Ann, sho. I’ll go get him soon as I brush off de hearth. But ’fo’ I do nothin’, lemme get dat thing offn yo’ bed.”

  In the sitting-room, Corrie May started and her work slid off her knees to the floor. She listened.

 
Ann was protesting. “The shirt? But what do you want with it? It’s so pretty.”

  “Yassum. But you give it right straight to me. He got plenty shirts made right here in de house.”

  “But he can wear this one too,” Ann exclaimed. “See how even the scallops are.”

  Corrie May heard mammy give a deep sigh. “Miss Ann, you ain’t got no mo’ sense dan if you was just now born like de li’l massa. Miss Ann, she made dis at her house, and you ain’t never seen de places where dem people live. Dem folkses stay in nothin’ but holes. Dey got bugs crawlin’ all over. You ain’t gon’ put nothin’ from dat Rattletrap place on yo’ li’l lamb.”

  Corrie May stood up. Damn that nigger. Damn her. Living like a lady in the soft clean luxury of her white folks, what did she know of the sweat and dirt of the poor? How could you help it if bugs got in from the swarming alleys? Corrie May remembered her mother on her knees, scrubbing the corners to clear them out. She could hear Ann’s voice, suddenly high.

  “Oh my soul, mammy, I never thought of that! Take it. Throw it away.”

  “Yassum, I’ll put it right in de fire.”

  “Oh no you won’t either. Wool smells to heaven burning. Put it in the wastebasket.” There was a knock at the hall door. “Is that Napoleon?” Ann asked. “If they’ve sent me chicken soup again I’m going to be furious.”

  Corrie May could hear the rattle of dishes. She was trembling with rage. One more minute and she’d go tell those two what she thought of them, just as soon as she could stop shaking. She heard Ann say,

  “I don’t see why people can’t live tidily. The poor can be clean.”

  The poor can be clean, Corrie May echoed in her mind. I wish you had to try it sometime.

  Mammy said, “Yassum dey can, but dey mighty nigh always ain’t. Miss Ann, I sho wish you’d send dat girl ’bout her business. It ain’t right, her sewin’ on yo’ clothes.”