“I never thought about it that way.”
“I know you didn’t. But I don’t want him thinkin’ about it that way, either. Now, this afternoon, when you children was having the waterfight—I saw him with his arm around your neck.”
“We were just playing!”
“I know you were. But I don’t know about him. Mama wants you to be awful careful, now, not to let him get a-hold of you like that again or get too close to you. Boys get funny notions. And I wouldn’t want him to get any notions about you.” Jessica hung her head, grateful for the darkness in the room. “Tom’s a nice boy, but he’s just a hired hand, a kind of a tramp, I reckon. And Mama wants you to have somebody fine. Somebody from a good family, that can take care of you and treat you good.”
“But Mama, who said anything about—”
“I know you don’t think anything about Tom, but I want you to be careful. You shouldn’t get too familiar. When boys and girls get too familiar, bad things can happen. You have to watch out about things like that now. You’re at the age.”
Callie went to the window and tied the curtain in a loose knot to let in more air. Jessica thought she was going to be sick. “Can I go now, Mama? It’s awful hot in here.”
“Yes, you can go now,” she said.
Jessica ran down the stairs and out to the yard where it was dark. She would have liked to run to the woods and hide and never be seen again. Folded into the shadows by the smokehouse, she put her head on her knees and distorted her face for crying. But no tears came. She was too mortified. What made her do it, she asked herself. What in the world made her sit there last night with the hired hand! How could she be so dumb? And what made her get into that waterfight—and chase after him—and let him touch her? That was the thing she could not forgive. The hired hand had put his arm around her and held her head on his shoulder and she liked it! She dug her nails into the ground, furious with herself.
But then—why shouldn’t she like it? Why did everyone look down on Tom? He was nice. If he was born common, was that his fault? She was suddenly so sorry for him, and that brought the tears.
7
In the first place, Tom was not bad-looking. He was clean and good-humored and as mannerly as he knew how to be. Though unschooled, he was bright. But above all else, he was there. Proximity is often the greatest virtue. By the time Jessica fell asleep that night, she was head over heels in love. Ashamed or not, she had to admit it. She had loved him since that first afternoon when she saw him walking up the road.
She woke up next morning with an aching head and stayed upstairs till Matthew and Tom left the house. All day she went about quietly, enduring her shame. Constantly, without a moment’s peace, she thought of him. She looked at him from her mother’s vantage and from Leonie’s, and thought, what if her friends in town should see him! He was poor and shabby, a hayseed with bad grammar and crooked teeth. A nobody. Then she saw him through her own eyes—a laughing, blue-eyed boy with white teeth and a sweet way about him—and she loved the very barn and the water trough, the pump and the parlor couch, because of him.
But Tom had a girl back home whom he was going to marry. Remembering this, Jessica’s heart sank. There was nothing she could do. To Tom, she was only a little girl, a plain gawky girl with a big nose. She couldn’t even play the piano. She bit her knuckles, vowing to practice every day. But even if she did, what good would it do? Even if Tom should see her—even if he did begin to notice—Mama and Papa wouldn’t allow it. Not for one minute. And anyway, he was shabby and common and couldn’t talk right and what did she care! Except that she did.
She ran upstairs and looked at herself in the mirror. A thin face with a nose that stuck out like a beak, light brown eyes with a scared look, straight brown hair. He said he liked her hair—he couldn’t have meant it. He was teasing. She began to cry, and seeing her distorted mouth and red eyes in the mirror, buried her face in her hands. “You’re so ugly!” she said. “You’re so dumb.”
A week later they were sitting at the table when her mother said, “What’s the matter with you, Jessica? You’ve been just pickin’ at your food. You got no color at all. Don’t you feel good?”
“I feel all right. I’m just not hungry.”
“Oh foot, not hungry!”
“It’s so hot.”
“Well, yes, it is awful hot and sticky.” Callie pulled out the front of her dress and fanned down her bosom. “And it’s going to get worse. Awful hot day to be gettin’ ready for company.”
“I wish they weren’t coming,” said Jessica, thinking with distaste of aunts, uncles, and her Cousin Ophelia, and anybody else who wasn’t Tom.
“What do you mean? I thought you were so anxious for company.”
“I was, but—”
“I’m glad they’re coming,” said Leonie. “I can hardly wait till they get here.”
“Well, we’ve got a lot to do before they get here,” said Callie. “If you girls are going to wash your hair, hurry up and do it, so you can help with the work.”
They washed their hair in the back yard, at Tom’s washstand, using a big snowy cake of lye soap. Jessica and Leonie pinned up each other’s hair in curl papers. When they’d cleaned up their mess, Callie set Jessica to making cobbler. By the time it was ready for the oven, everyone else had gone outside. Jessica slipped off to the parlor to read Lorna Doone.
She had barely got started when Callie looked in. “You’re not watching your fire very good,” she said.
Jessica sighed and closed the book. “I’ll go see about it.”
She emptied the coal bucket into the fire, which promptly went out. Now she would have to get corncobs and start all over. Taking the bucket, she set out for the corncrib. The sun was hot and stung her scalp between the tight rolls of paper.
“You sure look funny,” said Mathy, coming in from the barn. Mathy’s hair was cut short with straight bangs, and she couldn’t be bothered with curlers.
“I don’t care,” said Jessica.
But as she reached the corner of the barn, Tom appeared, climbing over the pasture gate. “Boy, if you ain’t a perty-lookin’ sight!” Jessica walked on doggedly, blushing right up to the curlers. “You look like you’s decorated for Christmas!”
“Maybe I am. What are you doing up at the house, anyway?”
“I come back for the pitchfork. I forgot it this mornin’.”
“You forgot to lock the crib door, too.” She walked in and pulled the slatted door shut behind her.
“Did I do that agin? Shucks!”
She sat down on a pile of yellow corn. She wasn’t going out again till Tom had got whatever he came to get and gone on back to the field. Idly she dropped cobs into the coal bucket.
“Hey!”
She looked up, startled by the soft sound of his voice. He stood inside the crib, smiling at her.
“What do you want?” she said crossly.
“I didn’t mean to make fun of you.”
Jessica couldn’t think of anything to say. She went on dropping cobs in the bucket.
“But you do look some comical,” he added, grinning.
“You shut up!”
“Aw, Jessica! A gal as perty as you can look funny and it don’t hurt.”
“I’m not pretty. I’m ugly.”
“Now whatever give you that notion?”
She turned around to say something sassy, and before she knew it, he had kissed her full on the mouth. “There!” he said. “I’d a-done that a long time ago if I’d ever got you by yourself.”
She hung her head, trying to hide the smile that stretched her mouth out of shape. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not nice.”
“I thought it was.”
“Well, it’s not. Anyway, you’re engaged.”
“No, I ain’t.”
She looked up to find him smiling broadly. “What about that schoolteacher,” she said, “the one you’re going to marry
?”
“There ain’t any schoolteacher.”
“You said there was.”
“I just made that up.”
“You’re not engaged to anyone?”
“Nope.”
“Why did you say you were, then?”
“Figured your Pa would feel safer. Him with two grown-up daughters, he wouldn’t want no unattached feller around.”
Jessica pursed up her mouth the way Leonie was always doing. “I think that was deceitful!”
“Maybe it was. But I wanted to work and your Pa wanted me. So what was the harm?”
“You don’t—” She tried to say “love,” but the word wouldn’t come. “You don’t like anyone, then?”
“Yes’m. I like someone.” His fringed blue eyes smiled steadily into hers, and she felt her heart flip like a little fish.
“Jes-sica?” came a voice from outside.
Tom straightened up. “Perty gals always have little sisters. Reckon I better git on down to the field.” He stepped out of the crib. “Hi, Mathy. ’Bout time you’s comin’ to help your sis.” He climbed over the gate into the pasture.
Mathy peered into the corncrib. “Jessica? Oh. Mama was wondering where you were.”
“I’m just getting some cobs for the fire.”
“It went out a long time ago.”
“I know it. That’s why I came out here. Tom forgot the pitchfork—he was only here for a minute. We were just talking and—”
“Jessica?”
“What?”
“I won’t tell on you.”
They considered each other a moment in silence. “What do you mean?” said Jessica.
“I won’t tell, if you and Tom kiss each other.”
“Oh honestly, Mathy!” Jessica ducked her head, blushing and startled.
“Didn’t you kiss him?”
“Well, no! I mean I didn’t kiss him—”
“Well, why didn’t you!” Mathy looked at her impatiently. “You’re so silly, Jessica. I’d kiss Tom if I had a chance. I love Tom. But I’m not old enough and it makes me so mad! Jessica, I can’t marry him, so you’ve got to!” Her face burned with earnestness, and Jessica burst out laughing.
“Who said anything about getting married?”
“Don’t you want to marry him, Jessica?”
“Oh Mathy, I declare!”
“Well, don’t you?”
“I’m too young to get married.”
“You’re eighteen. That’s how old Mama was.”
“But I’m going to college and everything. Anyway, Tom doesn’t want to marry me.”
“Did he say so?”
“Of course not—we didn’t talk about it!”
“I’ll bet he does—I bet he’ll ask you.”
“I bet he won’t.”
“Do you want him to, Jessica?”
“Oh honestly, Mathy!”
“Do you?”
“Well, I don’t care if he asks me—”
“Let’s make him do it!”
“Mathy, I just declare! I never heard such silly talk! If you aren’t the—” Jessica stopped, looked at Mathy in exasperation, then flung her arms around her. “You’re the cutest little sister in the whole world!”
The two of them rocked together, squealing with laughter. They crept out of the corncrib feeling giddy and important. For the first time in many days, Jessica didn’t feel guilty.
That afternoon when the relatives arrived, she greeted them with open arms, loving everyone. She had never seen such a beautiful day.
From then on, Jessica lived in a state of siege. There was nothing she could do without the feeling that Tom watched her. Washing dishes she thought how she might look to him (how gracefully she lifted the pot!). When she worked in the garden she no longer stood jack-knifed between the rows with her rump in the air. She squatted, ladylike, her skirts neatly tucked under. Drying her fresh-washed hair in the sun, she let it float loosely over her shoulders, the better to feel like Lorna Doone. She had given up curl papers.
One day, bathing in the washbowl upstairs, she looked at herself in the good side of the mirror, where the image was less distorted. She had a long thin body, but it was a nice color. Creamy, without freckles. She studied the little constellation of moles on one shoulder. Would he mind them? The thought of his seeing her undressed made her redden. She looked away, and immediately looked back, emboldened by a curious joy. She thought of his naked body that day at the creek, and began to long for him in a way that frightened her. She understood it without wanting to. As she stared at herself, she saw over her shoulder the picture on the opposite wall—the girl hanging to the cross in a stormy sea—and abruptly turned away from the mirror.
In all those days, all they had of each other, she and Tom, was the one kiss and now and then the touch of their hands as they passed through the house at night. She found it almost enough. It was an exquisite taste, dangerous, not to be risked in gulps. It was the sharp, provocative, green taste of grape leaves, which one chewed but did not swallow. More than a taste was bitter.
She worried, too, that alone with Tom she would disappoint him, not knowing what to say or do. But when at last they did find themselves alone, she was neither awkward nor afraid.
Matthew had sent her one evening to shut the chickens in. The sky was barely dark, still very blue, and a new moon hung over the orchard. Jessica stopped and made a wish. Then she lifted her face and turned slowly in a full circle, feeling the lovely world spread out on all sides and herself at the very center. As she went back toward the gate, Tom stepped out of the shadows. The back of the house was dark; from the front came the sound of voices on the porch. Jessica went to him like water downhill and they clung, too greedy for each other even to kiss. It seemed all her senses opened and took him in—she felt, tasted, breathed him—his heartbeats, his throat, her mouth crushed against it. Here I am! she cried to herself. As they stood like this, grafted, a voice from behind struck them a hammer blow. They split like a rock and turned to find Matthew.
For a moment, all three of them stood speechless, Matthew’s rage radiating through the darkness. Finding his voice again, he spat out a stream of bullets. There were words like “sneaking” and “rotten,” like “insolent,” like “betrayal of trust.” At the end of it, Tom said quietly, “I’m sorry, Mr. Soames. I didn’t mean to cause no trouble.”
Another volley followed, directed at both of them, and Matthew ordered Jessica into the house. She went, unprotesting. The last thing she heard was “…and see no more of you!”
In the morning Tom was gone. His name was not mentioned.
8
Though Leonie was sorry for Jessica, she found the whole affair hard to understand. “He was so common,” she kept saying, by way of consolation. “You wouldn’t want to marry him. You ought to marry a teacher or somebody like that.”
But to Mathy, as to Jessica, the loss of Tom was disaster. They grieved in secret, wondering endlessly where he had gone. Jessica felt sure he had taken the first freight west. “He was always talking about Kansas,” she said, “going to wheat harvest.”
Mathy believed he was still close by. “He’ll come back and get you,” she promised. Jessica cherished the words, but without hope. Tom didn’t love her very much, or he wouldn’t have left without her in the first place.
However, on Saturday night they saw him in town. They were walking into the Mercantile just as Tom came out. Jessica thought she would die of joy—as well as of fright. Her father’s mouth froze solid. He could barely eject a chilly “Good evening” to Tom’s casual “Howdy.” She prayed that he hadn’t seen the look that passed between her and Tom.
“You stay here with me,” Callie murmured to the girls—as if Jessica had the nerve to go chasing after him!
She did not see him again all evening. Ordinarily, she and Leonie walked around the square with their friends and had soda pop at the drugstore. Tonight they couldn’t get two feet away without a sharp look from th
eir mother. Mathy managed to slip out once before Callie missed her, but Jessica and Leonie never got out of the Mercantile. As soon as the groceries were bought and the eggs sold, they had to go home. They made the trip in silence, their father sulky and scowling, mad at Tom, no doubt, just for being alive. Jessica didn’t mind. As long as Tom was still close by, nothing else mattered.
She could hardly wait to get home so she and Mathy could exult. They were still spending the nights outside on the spring cot. They had scarcely hit the bed when Mathy pulled the sheet over their heads and hissed into Jessica’s ear, “He sent you a message!”
Jessica gasped with joy. “What did he say?”
“He wants you to meet him down in the orchard.”
“When?”
“Tonight at midnight!”
Jessica smothered a squeal in her pillow. “Does he really? How do you know—what all did he say?”
“He just said to meet him down there at midnight. I saw him on the street when I was walking around the square.”
They whispered excitedly under the sheet, Jessica terrified, Mathy trying to give her courage.
“What if Papa finds out?” said Jessica.
“We’ll wait till he goes to sleep.”
“How will we know?”
“He snores.”
“But Mama! She’ll wake up and look out the window and find out I’m gone!”
“No she won’t,” said Mathy.
“Why not?”
“She never knows it when I go away.”
“Mathy Soames! You’ve been walking around again in the dark!”
“Just once in a while.”
“That’s dangerous. Mama and Papa told you not to!”
“They don’t know it. You didn’t even know it and you were right here.”
“You better not do it any more. If Mama ever looks down here and finds you gone, she’ll spank you and me both.”
“She won’t know even if she looks. I got a system.” Mathy rose quietly—not a spring creaked—and ran across the yard to the smokehouse. She came back with a small round crock. With a quick and practiced hand she laid it on the pillow, pulled the sheet over it, and made the quilt lumpy. In the darkness it looked reasonably enough like a figure under the covers. She laughed softly. “I do this every time I wake up and want to go for a walk.”
The Moonflower Vine Page 10
