Maggie—Her Marriage Read online

  Peter was strong; he became a blacksmith. The twenty acres, with the exception of five cultivated by Margot, fell into decay. Melinda bore ten children; five survived, four girls and a boy. Margot loved only Margaret, the eldest daughter.

  She taught Margaret to read; out of her old ironbound box, she had taken her few books. Ignorant of the world growing about her, Margaret could quote Hamlet’s soliloquy faultlessly and with understanding; the tragedy of Macbeth was real to her; the tender beauty of Romeo and Juliet moved her deeply. Peter, shamefully proud of his eldest daughter, had newspapers brought to her, though he himself could neither read nor write, and boasted of it. Nevertheless, like her great-grandmother, she loved the earth. She was tall and strong and slender, brown of skin and black of eye. She was also very beautiful, and her features were delicately made.

  Now, old Margot Hamilton was nearly ninety; her great-granddaughter, Margaret, or Margot, as the old woman insisted upon calling her, was nearly nineteen, a wild impulsive girl, barefooted half the year, wearing her long black hair in two swinging braids between her proud, straight shoulders. The Blodgetts and the Kings and the MacKensies sniffed at her, called her “that young savage with no refinement.” The neighbors had long since dismissed the Hamilton family; they were pagans, ostracized from decent God-fearing society. Only the Blodgetts remembering their daughter Melinda was the wife of Peter, kept up a stiff and distant communication, tried to induce Peter to send his children to school. But Peter had driven them all away. The Hamilton family lived rudely and boisterously, except for Melinda, who had retreated from the unequal conflict into whining invalidism.

  With stupefaction and dismay, the country folk heard of John Hobart’s infatuation with Margaret Hamilton. John Hobart, the richest man in ten counties, the arbiter of the whole countryside! He could have had the finest girl in Whitmore, even in Williamsburg, the state capital. And it was now an established fact that he wished to marry Margaret Hamilton. The country folk were dumfounded.

  Why, the girl ran unchecked about the countryside, her hair down around her shoulders, her dress revealing her long legs, her hands stained brown by the sun, as nobody’s should be. She had never been to school, could not sew a stitch; John Hobart’s infatuation was bewildering.

  But it was not bewildering to old Margot Hamilton as she watched Margaret stroke the head of her dog and look off to the brazen hills beneath the pale amber of the evening sky.

  For a long time Margaret stared at the hills and scratched the head of her dog, and Margot, squatting on a tree stump in her garden, watched her. She liked to see the figure of the girl outlined darkly against the pale sky. It was strong and slender, the glistening black braids hanging between her shoulders, her vital profile lifted, the dark crimson lips parted. Margot smiled, rubbed her dry old hands together. The smile was at once compassionate and bitter.

  “Margot,” she called, “what are you thinking about, girl?”

  Margaret started a little, turned her head. She smiled, but her eyes were vague.

  “Oh, I wasn’t really thinking, Granny.” She began to walk toward her grandmother, the dog at her heels, her flimsy dress outlining every curve of her splendid young body. She stopped to smell a late rose, touched it with a tender finger. She stood at last before old Margot.

  “I think I’d better be going along home. It’s late. Want me to milk Bossy before I go, Granny?”

  “No. Leave her be. I’ll tend to her in a minute.” She looked at the girl sharply. “You’re a great lass, Margot. Well, girl, made up your mind to marry Johnny Hobart yet?”

  Margot shook her head dubiously. Over her dark face a darker shadow settled. “I almost think I won’t, after all, Granny. Johnny ain’t got, I mean, hasn’t, any real feelings.”

  Margot snorted contemptuously. “Sounds for all the world like that Ralph Blodgett! Thought you had better sense, Margot.”

  “Oh, Granny, but it’s true. John hardly ever reads even a newspaper, and he just laughs at poetry. Sometimes I almost hate him when he makes fun of the things I love. He can’t talk about anything but crops and cattle and building a new house, and—”

  “Well, what else is there in life, you stupid child? Those are real things. The things that Blodgett boy talks about ain’t living. What do you want, anyways?”

  Margaret looked at the ground. Under her tanned skin there crept a crimson stain. “I want to live,” she said, almost inaudibly.

  “To live? What do you mean by that, Margot?” The old woman’s smile was still derisive, but there was something close to pain in her eyes.

  Margaret lifted her head, her manner confused.

  “Why, I mean—beauty, Granny. Not just getting up at daybreak and doing the chores and working all day until you’re so tired you just fall into bed at night. There must be something more than that in living. There must be men and women somewhere who think about, well—poetry—and softer things, things that last after you’re dead. I want to be like them. I guess I can’t explain it very clearly.”

  The old woman slowly got to her feet, her stiff knees creaking. She grasped her gnarled stick with one hand, with the other she touched Margot’s elbow imperatively. “Come with me,” she said. She began to hobble out of the flower garden, and Margaret, frowning, followed her. They progressed slowly over the broken ground to the edge of a clump of old trees on the other side of the cabin and sat down on a fallen trunk. For a long time old Margot stared before her. Six paces away, there were four slightly sunken places in the earth. She pointed to them with her stick.

  “There lie my husband and my three children,” she said. Margaret stared and shivered a little.

  “You remember what we read in Macbeth, Margot? ‘Life is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sounds and fury, signifying nothing?’ Remember that. Look at them graves. They prove it, Margot. What do you and that soft boy cousin of yours talk about? I know. You told me once. Souls and hereafters and meaning of life, and whether there is a God, or something, and how mystifying and hopeless things are, in general. I ’spect, at times, he even talks about life not being worth the living. Perhaps it is. Perhaps it ain’t. I don’t know anything, Margot, and I’ve lived a good sight of years. Only fools and very young folks think they know what life’s all about. But now that I’m old, there’s only one real thing to me, lass. This.”

  She stooped, bending her head between her ancient knees, and scooped up a clod of earth. She held it before Margaret’s eyes.

  “This, lass. Earth. That’s the only real thing. Earth.” She touched the girl’s forehead with a broken fingertip. “And there’s the enemy, lass. In there. Full of sickness and self-deceit. Oh, it’s a grand thing when that enemy talks, and puts God in his place, and the world and men! Makes the owner think he’s a sort of little god himself, proud of his misery. Nothing seems to have substance to him. And after a while, he comes to believe the enemy in his head, his brain, and life retreats from him, lass. Then he dies. After that, what? This. This piece of earth, at last. The only reality gets him when the enemy’s mouth is closed with death.”

  Margaret still said nothing. She averted her head.

  “I’ve lived ninety years, lass. And I still don’t know any more about it than that dog there. Yet young fools like Ralph Blodgett always know, talking about the final reality.”

  Margaret looked at her sullenly. “But, Shakespeare talked so, and so did Milton and Voltaire—”

  “Yes, they did. But they had health in them. There’s no health in that Ralph Blodgett. Not yet, anyway. I ain’t saying a man can’t look for God and wonder about everything, so long as he keeps his feet firm in the earth. These men did. They were men of the earth, strong and steady, and they could afford to listen to the enemy in their heads occasionally. But this Blodgett boy; he has no feeling for the land, no strength. He thinks to work until you sweat is vulgar. Thinks his boredom sets him apart, makes him better than real folks. But his boredom, if it is real, is only proof of a blank spirit.”
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  “You mean you want me to marry John Hobart, is that it, Granny?”

  Margot slowly let the clod of earth fall.

  “You’ve got to decide that yourself, Margot. But with Johnny Hobart, rascal that he is, you’ll be safe. Safe from Ralph’s things that will destroy you, make you sick, and in the end make you wish you’d never set eyes on him. He—”

  “Oh, Granny, you make me tired! He’s a poet, a real poet! And someday the world will recognize that—”

  “I shouldn’t wonder,” said the old woman with a shrug. “The world always recognizes fools, especially fools that despise it.”

  The girl stood up as though she could endure hearing no more. She started to speak, and then with a fierce gesture she strode off, her dog following her with more spirit now that they were homeward bound. Margot watched her tall strong figure striding over the meadow until the evening dimness made it unreal. The hills were quite dark now, gloomy and colorless. Distant cattle were lowing; in the barn behind the cabin old Bossy stamped, demanding.

  ‘I’ll go milk you soon, drat you!” muttered the old woman.

  She leaned back against the trunk of the tree, looked over the land, lifted her eyes to the sky.

  “I don’t know,” she muttered again. “I don’t know.” She felt very tired. She closed her eyes. Her shapeless garments, her powerful old figure, were absorbed in the dimness that overtook the woods. Soon she was not distinguishable from the other shadows about her.

  At the other side of the valley, a pale moon drifted over the crest of the hills behind which the sun had so recently sunk. It began to outline the dark hulk of the mountains in ghostly light. Margot still sat, leaning against the trunk of the tree. Her eyes were closed, her great old arms on her knees, part of the clod of earth still between her fingers.

  All night long the distant farmers heard the distressed lowing and crying of old Bossy. Once or twice a dog howled, and some superstitious farm woman shivered in her warm bed and murmured that there would be death that night.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Margaret, striding rapidly over the fields as though, running from something, was also muttering to herself, “I don’t know. My God, I don’t know!”

  She circled a clump of whispering trees, whose shadow was beginning to be faintly outlined on the brown earth. She came in sight of the three-room shack where she lived. Margaret suddenly thought of Ralph’s cold derision when he mentioned her home. She was filled with mingled resentment against him, and also a sadness.

  She remembered what old Margot had said once: “We strong ones are always drawn to weaker men. I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s because nature intended us to breed them out. But seems as like they destroy us before we can do much about it. They eat us up.”

  She was near the house now. It stood, stark and alone, as though a group of maples nearby had withdrawn from it fastidiously. It leaned, its clapboards gray and broken under the moon. The windows were uncurtained. Behind the house loomed the outbuildings, dark and untidy.

  She pushed open the kitchen door and her ears were assaulted by familiar quarreling voices. The wooden floor was stained with dirt and grease, and uncovered. The walls were of knotted pine; on one wall was an iron bracket in which smoldered a dirty oil lamp. On the table stood another lamp, reeking of coal oil. In one corner of the room fumed an ancient wood stove, littered with scraps of burned food. In a woodbox near the stove, the wood was covered with eggshells, scraps, and the scrapings of Peter’s pipe.

  It was hot in the kitchen, and very noisy. The children, as usual, were squabbling among themselves. At intervals Peter would reach across the littered table and smite one of his ragged offspring, who would scream. Beyond the table, in a corner, stood a “pallet,” on which Margaret and Linda slept, the fraying quilts sweeping the dust of the floor. Behind the table stood Bobbie, six years old; it was his turn tonight to wave a “branch” over the heads of the family to keep off the flies.

  Melinda Hamilton sat across the table, with its litter salt pork and beans and jugs of molasses, opposite her husband. She was a thin woman with gray hair, pale blue eyes, and a long horselike face. She had once been pretty, but there was no sign of it now.

  Peter ate like a wolf, his powerful shoulders hunched forward over the table; he shoveled food into his great mouth with a fork or a knife or anything handy. His dark blue shirt was splotched with sweat.

  The family did not look up, with the exception of Peter, when Margaret entered slowly, the lamplight shining on her black braids. Peter frowned at her but could not be entirely displeased. The sloping neckline of her dress revealed the strong brown neck.

  “Where you been?” he barked. “Traipsin’ around with the ole woman, I bet. Gassin’ for hours, doin’ nothin’. And all the pertatoes not in yet, and the grapes—”

  “Leave me be,” snapped Margaret. Unconsciously she reverted to his own manner of speech. “I worked every blessed hour from sunup to sundown, like I always do, and then you raise the devil if I run off a minute.” She pushed a chair between her father’s and Linda’s, and, snatching a tin plate, she filled it with food.

  “Ain’t been nobody here a minute today to give a body a drink of water,” her mother complained. “Lands sakes, a body might as well be dead as a burden on her folks. Seems like, though, with a pack of young uns, and one of ’em a great girl like you, Maggie, I oughtn’t be left alone to git along best I can.”

  “Can’t be two places at once,” Margaret said sullenly. “Can’t be a plow horse and a hired gal, too.”

  “You work turrible hard, don’t you?” said Peter sarcastically. “Worn to the bone, poor critter. How’s the ole woman? Ain’t seen her in a month or more.”

  “She’s all right,” said Margaret briefly. She ate steadily.

  Her father’s sharp eye saw the somberness of her face. He frowned.

  “The ole woman ain’t been settin’ you agin John Hobart, be she?”

  Margaret snorted. “All she been talking about today was telling me I should marry him.”

  Peter cocked a busy eyebrow. “Must be changin’ her tune,” he ruminated. “Last time she mentioned him, she said he was nothin’ but a stud horse. Hated his guts, she did. Funny.”

  Margaret did not reply. Suddenly the group around the table became intolerable to her, ugly and dirty beyond endurance.

  “Ought to run over and see the old girl,” Peter continued thoughtfully. “Thought she looked a mite poorly the last time I seen her. Ninety years old. Well, the old uns lived longer than we’ll live. Good stock in ’em. I’ll amble over there tomorrow.”

  Margaret shrugged. She stood up and began to stack the dirty dishes.

  “Here, Mag, forgot to tell you John’s comin’ over to see you tonight. Better hurry up.”

  Margaret paused a moment. “Got to go out a minute or two,” she muttered. Her dark face had colored painfully. “I’ll be back.”

  Peter ceased stuffing his pipe and glowered.

  “Runnin’ out to chase over the country with that good-for-nothin’ Ralph again, eh?” he roared. “No, you ain’t, my gal. That’s got to stop, and its stoppin’ right now! Even Johnny Hobart’s heard about it. It ain’t decent, and you’re big enough now to know it.”

  Margaret faced him. Her fists clenched themselves fiercely.

  “Leave Ralph Blodgett be!” she shouted. “I’ll tend to him. I don’t need no help from anyone. He—he ain’t what you think he is, Pa. He’s a genius!”

  Peter narrowed his eyes.

  “Now, what may a genius be?” he drawled. “Does it chop wood and shoe horses and bring home the bacon for the woman to cook? Or does it just sit and star gaze, bein’ soulful and too good for ord’nry folks? If that’s what it is, I don’t want no hide nor hair of it around here,” he added in a suddenly harsh tone. “Now, git to work, and be ready to see John when he comes. And mind what you say to him, my gal, or it’ll be the worse for you.”

  Margaret faced him without fea
r, though her lips whitened. “I’m agoin’ to see Ralph for a minute,” she said quietly. “If you don’t let me go, I won’t see John tonight, and I won’t say to him what I ’tended to say.”

  For a moment the eyes of father and daughter locked. Then Peter softened. So, the gal was goin’ to be sensible, prob’ly goin’ to tell that young squirt that she was agoin’ to marry John Hobart. He grinned.

  “Well, go on, then. But, mind you,” he added warningly, “you be back right quick, or I’ll come after you with a stick.”

  In a moment Margaret had vanished through the door into the darkness beyond. In the kitchen, flies settled thickly over the remnants of the meal. Melinda rubbed her nose. She was secretly gratified. If Maggie’d come to her senses, then there’d allus be enough vittles in the larder. She hated her daughter, wanted her out of the house, and wanted to profit by her going. She secretly hoped John would beat her frequently.

  Margaret ran swiftly over the dark earth. Her shawl floated about her shoulders, her braids streamed behind her. Soon the house, with its rawly lit windows, was far behind. In the distance she saw a clump of dark trees, their crests whitened by the moon, their shadows thick on the ground. As she came up to them, a tall slender young man emerged from the gloom, spoke her name. She caught at his hand, pulled him along.