The Beggar Maid

by Alice Munro

  She was the only child of one of the early lumber barons of Vancouver Island. She had been born in a vanished northern settlement. But whenever Patrick tried to get her to talk about the past, whenever he asked her for the simplest sort of information—what steamers went up the coast, what year was the settlement abandoned, what was the route of the first logging railway—she would say irritably, “I don’t know. How would I know about that?” This irritation was the strongest note that ever got into her words.

  Neither did Patrick’s father care for this concern about the past. Many things, most things, about Patrick, seemed to strike him as bad signs.

  “What do you want to know all that for?” he shouted down the table. He was a short square-shouldered man, red-faced, astonishingly belligerent. Patrick looked like his mother, who was tall, fair, and elegant in the most muted way possible, as if her clothes, her makeup, her style, were chosen with an ideal neutrality in mind.

  “Because I am interested in history,” said Patrick in an angry, pompous, but nervously breaking voice.

  “Because-I-am-interested-in-history,” said his sister Marion in an immediate parody, break and all. “History!”

  The sisters Joan and Marion were younger than Patrick, older than Rose. Unlike Patrick they showed no nervousness, no cracks in self-satisfaction. At an earlier meal they had questioned Rose.

  “Do you ride?”

  “No.”

  “Do you sail?”

  “No.”

  “Play tennis? Play golf? Play badminton?”

  No. No. No.

  “Perhaps she is an intellectual genius, like Patrick,” the father said. And Patrick, to Rose’s horror and embarrassment, began to shout at the table in general an account of her scholarships and prizes. What did he hope for? Was he so witless as to think such bragging would subdue them, would bring out anything but further scorn? Against Patrick, against his shouting boasts, his contempt for sports and television, his so-called intellectual interests, the family seemed united. But this alliance was only temporary. The father’s dislike of his daughters was minor only in comparison with his dislike of Patrick. He railed at them too, when he could spare a moment; he jeered at the amount of time they spent at their games, complained about the cost of their equipment, their boats, their horses. And they wrangled with each other, on obscure questions of scores and borrowings and damages. All complained to the mother about the food, which was plentiful and delicious. The mother spoke as little as possible to anyone and to tell the truth Rose did not blame her. She had never imagined so much true malevolence collected in one place. Billy Pope was a bigot and a grumbler, Flo was capricious, unjust, and gossipy, her father, when he was alive, had been capable of cold judgments and unremitting disapproval; but compared to Patrick’s family, all Rose’s own people seemed jovial and content.

  “Are they always like this?” she said to Patrick. “Is it me? They don’t like me.”

  “They don’t like you because I chose you,” said Patrick with some satisfaction.

  They lay on the stony beach after dark, in their raincoats, hugged and kissed and uncomfortably, unsuccessfully, attempted more. Rose got seaweed stains on Dr. Henshawe’s coat. Patrick said, “You see why I need you? I need you so much!”

  She took him to Hanratty. It was just as bad as she had thought it would be. Flo had gone to great trouble, and cooked a meal of scalloped potatoes, turnips, big country sausages which were a special present from Billy Pope, from the butcher shop. Patrick detested coarse-textured food, and made no pretense of eating it. The table was spread with a plastic cloth, they ate under the tube of fluorescent light. The centerpiece was new and especially for the occasion. A plastic swan, lime green in color, with slits in the wings, in which were stuck folded, colored paper napkins. Billy Pope, reminded to take one, grunted, refused. Otherwise he was on dismally good behavior. Word had reached him, word had reached both of them, of Rose’s triumph. It had come from their superiors in Hanratty; otherwise they could not have believed it. Customers in the butcher shop—formidable ladies, the dentist’s wife, the veterinarian’s wife—had said to Billy Pope that they heard Rose had picked herself up a millionaire. Rose knew Billy Pope would go back to work tomorrow with stories of the millionaire, or millionaire’s son, and that all these stories would focus on his—Billy Pope’s—forthright and unintimidated behavior in the situation.

  “We just set him down and give him some sausages, don’t make no difference to us what he comes from!”

  She knew Flo would have her comments too, that Patrick’s nervousness would not escape her, that she would be able to mimic his voice and his flapping hands that had knocked over the ketchup bottle. But at present they both sat hunched over the table in miserable eclipse. Rose tried to start some conversation, talking brightly, unnaturally, rather as if she was an interviewer trying to draw out a couple of simple local people. She felt ashamed on more levels than she could count. She was ashamed of the food and the swan and the plastic tablecloth; ashamed for Patrick, the gloomy snob, who made a startled grimace when Flo passed him the toothpick-holder; ashamed for Flo with her timidity and hypocrisy and pretensions; most of all ashamed for herself. She didn’t even have any way that she could talk, and sound natural. With Patrick there, she couldn’t slip back into an accent closer to Flo’s, Billy Pope’s and Hanratty’s. That accent jarred on her ears now, anyway. It seemed to involve not just a different pronunciation but a whole different approach to talking. Talking was shouting; the words were separated and emphasized so that people could bombard each other with them. And the things people said were like lines from the most hackneyed rural comedy. Wal if a feller took a notion to, they said. They really said that. Seeing them through Patrick’s eyes, hearing them through his ears, Rose too had to be amazed.

  She was trying to get them to talk about local history, some things she thought Patrick might be interested in. Presently Flo did begin to talk, she could only be held in so long, whatever her misgivings. The conversation took another line from anything Rose had intended.

  “The line I lived on when I was just young,” Flo said, “it was the worst place ever created for suiciding.”

  “A line is a concession road. In the township,” Rose said to Patrick. She had doubts about what was coming, and rightly so, for then Patrick got to hear about a man who cut his own throat, his own throat, from ear to ear, a man who shot himself the first time and didn’t do enough damage, so he loaded up and fired again and managed it, another man who hanged himself using a chain, the kind of chain you hook on a tractor with, so it was a wonder his head was not torn off.

  Tore off, Flo said.

  She went on to a woman who, though not a suicide, had been dead in her house a week before she was found, and that was in the summer. She asked Patrick to imagine it. All this happened, said Flo, within five miles of where she herself was born. She was presenting credentials, not trying to horrify Patrick, at least not more than was acceptable, in a social way; she did not mean to disconcert him. How could he understand that?

  “You were right,” said Patrick, as they left Hanratty on the bus. “It is a dump. You must be glad to get away.”

  Rose felt immediately that he should not have said that.

  “Of course that’s not your real mother,” Patrick said. “Your real parents can’t have been like that.” Rose did not like his saying that either, though it was what she believed, herself. She saw that he was trying to provide for her a more genteel background, perhaps something like the homes of his poor friends: a few books about, a tea tray, and mended linen, worn good taste; proud, tired, educated people. What a coward he was, she thought angrily, but she knew that she herself was the coward, not knowing any way to be comfortable with her own people or the kitchen or any of it. Years later she would learn how to use it, she would be able to amuse or intimidate right-thinking people at dinner parties with glimpses of her early home. At the moment she felt confusion, misery.

  Ne
vertheless her loyalty was starting. Now that she was sure of getting away, a layer of loyalty and protectiveness was hardening around every memory she had, around the store and the town, the flat, somewhat scrubby, unremarkable countryside. She would oppose this secretly to Patrick’s views of mountains and ocean, his stone and timbered mansion. Her allegiances were far more proud and stubborn than his.

  But it turned out he was not leaving anything behind.

  Patrick gave her a diamond ring and announced that he was giving up being a historian for her sake. He was going into his father’s business.

  She said she thought he hated his father’s business. He said that he could not afford to take such an attitude now that he would have a wife to support.

  It seemed that Patrick’s desire to marry, even to marry Rose, had been taken by his father as a sign of sanity. Great streaks of bounty were mixed in with all the ill will in that family. His father at once offered a job in one of the stores, offered to buy them a house. Patrick was as incapable of turning down this offer as Rose was of turning down Patrick’s, and his reasons were as little mercenary as hers.

  “Will we have a house like your parents?” Rose said. She really thought it might be necessary to start off in that style.

  “Well, maybe not at first. Not quite so—”

  “I don’t want a house like that! I don’t want to live like that!”

  “We’ll live however you like. We’ll have whatever kind of house you like.”

  Provided it’s not a dump, she thought nastily.

  Girls she hardly knew stopped and asked to see her ring, admired it, wished her happiness. When she went back to Hanratty for a weekend, alone this time, thank God, she met the dentist’s wife on the main street.

  “Oh, Rose, isn’t it wonderful! When are you coming back again? We’re going to give a tea for you, the ladies in town all want to give a tea for you!”

  This woman had never spoken to Rose, never given any sign before of knowing who she was. Paths were opening now, barriers were softening. And Rose—oh, this was the worst, this was the shame of it—Rose, instead of cutting the dentist’s wife, was blushing and skittishly flashing her diamond and saying yes, that would be a lovely idea. When people said how happy she must be she did think herself happy. It was as simple as that. She dimpled and sparkled and turned herself into a fiancée with no trouble at all. Where will you live, people said and she said, Oh, in British Columbia! That added more magic to the tale. Is it really beautiful there, they said, is it never winter?

  “Oh, yes!” cried Rose. “Oh, no!”

  She woke up early, got up and dressed and let herself out of the side door of Dr. Henshawe’s garage. It was too early for the buses to be running. She walked through the city to Patrick’s apartment. She walked across the park. Around the South African War Memorial a pair of greyhounds were leaping and playing, an old woman standing by, holding their leashes. The sun was just up, shining on their pale hides. The grass was wet. Daffodils and narcissus in bloom.

  Patrick came to the door, tousled, frowning sleepily, in his gray and maroon striped pajamas.

  “Rose! What’s the matter?”

  She couldn’t say anything. He pulled her into the apartment. She put her arms around him and hid her face against his chest and in a stagey voice said, “Please Patrick. Please let me not marry you.”

  “Are you sick? What’s the matter?”

  “Please let me not marry you,” she said again, with even less conviction.

  “You’re crazy.”

  She didn’t blame him for thinking so. Her voice sounded so unnatural, wheedling, silly. As soon as he opened the door and she faced the fact of him, his sleepy eyes, his pajamas, she saw that what she had come to do was enormous, impossible. She would have to explain everything to him, and of course she could not do it. She could not make him see her necessity. She could not find any tone of voice, any expression of the face, that would serve her.

  “Are you upset?” said Patrick. “What’s happened?”

  “Nothing.”

  “How did you get here anyway?”

  “Walked.”

  She had been fighting back a need to go to the bathroom. It seemed that if she went to the bathroom she would destroy some of the strength of her case. But she had to. She freed herself. She said, “Wait a minute, I’m going to the john.”

  When she came out Patrick had the electric kettle going, was measuring out instant coffee. He looked decent and bewildered.

  “I’m not really awake,” he said. “Now. Sit down. First of all, are you premenstrual?”

  “No.” But she realized with dismay that she was, and that he might be able to figure it out, because they had been worried last month.

  “Well, if you’re not premenstrual, and nothing’s happened to upset you, then what is all this about?”

  “I don’t want to get married,” she said, backing away from the cruelty of I don’t want to marry you.

  “When did you come to this decision?”

  “Long ago. This morning.”

  They were talking in whispers. Rose looked at the clock. It was a little after seven.

  “When do the others get up?”

  “About eight.”

  “Is there milk for the coffee?” She went to the refrigerator.

  “Quiet with the door,” said Patrick, too late.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, in her strange silly voice.

  “We went for a walk last night and everything was fine. You come this morning and tell me you don’t want to get married. Why don’t you want to get married?”

  “I just don’t. I don’t want to be married.”

  “What else do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Patrick kept staring at her sternly, drinking his coffee. He who used to plead with her do you love me, do you really, did not bring the subject up now.

  “Well I know.”

  “What?”

  “I know who’s been talking to you.”

  “Nobody has been talking to me.”

  “Oh, no. Well, I bet. Dr. Henshawe has.”

  “No.”

  “Some people don’t have a very high opinion of her. They think she has an influence on girls. She doesn’t like the girls who live with her to have boyfriends. Does she? You even told me that. She doesn’t like them to be normal.”

  “That’s not it.”

  “What did she say to you, Rose?”

  “She didn’t say anything.” Rose began to cry.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Oh, Patrick, listen, please, I can’t marry you, please, I don’t know why, I can’t, please, I’m sorry, believe me, I can’t,” Rose babbled at him, weeping, and Patrick saying, “Ssh! You’ll wake them up!” lifted or dragged her out of the kitchen chair and took her to his room, where she sat on the bed. He shut the door. She held her arms across her stomach, and rocked back and forth.

  “What is it, Rose? What’s the matter? Are you sick!”

  “It’s just so hard to tell you!”

  “Tell me what?”

  “What I just did tell you!”

  “I mean have you found out you have T.B. or something?”

  “No!”

  “Is there something in your family you haven’t told me about? Insanity?” said Patrick encouragingly.

  “No!” Rose rocked and wept.

  “So what is it?”

  “I don’t love you!” she said. “I don’t love you. I don’t love you.” She fell on the bed and put her head in the pillow. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I can’t help it.”

  After a moment or two Patrick said, “Well. If you don’t love me you don’t love me. I’m not forcing you to.” His voice sounded strained and spiteful, against the reasonableness of what he was saying. “I just wonder,” he said, “if you know what you do want. I don’t think you do. I don’t think you have any idea what you want. You’re just in a state.”

  “I don’t
have to know what I want to know what I don’t want!” Rose said, turning over. This released her. “I never loved you.”

  “Ssh. You’ll wake them. We have to stop.”

  “I never loved you. I never wanted to. It was a mistake.”

  “All right. All right. You made your point.”

  “Why am I supposed to love you? Why do you act as if there was something wrong with me if I didn’t? You despise me. You despise my family and my background and you think you are doing me a great favor—”

  “I fell in love with you,” Patrick said. “I don’t despise you. Oh, Rose. I worship you.”

  “You’re a sissy,” Rose said. “You’re a prude.” She jumped off the bed with great pleasure as she said this. She felt full of energy. More was coming. Terrible things were coming.

  “You don’t even know how to make love right. I always wanted to get out of this from the very first. I felt sorry for you. You won’t look where you’re going, you’re always knocking things over, just because you can’t be bothered, you can’t be bothered noticing anything, you’re wrapped up in yourself, and you’re always bragging, it’s so stupid, you don’t even know how to brag right, if you really want to impress people you’ll never do it, the way you do it all they do is laugh at you!”

  Patrick sat on the bed and looked up at her, his face open to whatever she would say. She wanted to beat and beat him, to say worse and worse, uglier and crueller, things. She took a breath, drew in air, to stop the things she felt rising in her from getting out.