The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell (8 page)

One night in June the good reverend appeared particularly ill at ease. He stumbled while reading Leviticus and made a mess of the benediction. Later, on the street, I asked if anything were wrong. He took a dozen steps and then said he needed to be married. I came to a stop.

“Malcolm, is this a want of yours or an expectation that you feel from others?”

The moths fluttered around a nearby streetlamp, while Reverend Albright looked at me like a martyr seeing his fate. “I don’t think they will accept me until I am,” he said. “It has to happen sometime.”

My minister might have been buying spools of thread for all the emotion he showed. I felt like wagging my finger but instead asked further. “Is there someone in the church you are drawn to?”

“Abigail Jenkins,” he said, looking down, “but she gives me no encouragement.”

So this is what it was about. I took a breath. “Malcolm, if you were a young lady, what fears would you have concerning marriage to a minister?”

Reverend Albright cast a glance at his Bible, knowing the answer wasn’t there. “She might fear that our life would be—,” he paused for a moment, “would be … well … dreary.”

I was surprised. He had found the point and spoken it plainly. I wanted to help. “Show her it doesn’t have to be.”

“How?”

“Make her laugh, Malcolm. Believe me on this. Tell her a funny story.”

“Joseph,” he said, almost pleading, “I don’t know any funny stories.”

“Of course you do. They’re all around us. Tell her about the lady and her ugly bonnet. Have you confessed attraction to her?”

“No,” he said, looking dismayed. “I assured her that my feelings were only the most proper.”

I lifted my eyes to the heavens. “Malcolm, don’t assure her about so many things. Let her know that you’re made of flesh and blood.”

My friend gave a look of warning. “The flesh, Joseph, is the province of the Devil.”

That made me laugh. “Malcolm, you give food to that flesh every day, do you not? Are you doing the Devil’s work each time you put a piece of bread in your mouth?”

Reverend Albright wrinkled his brow as though he wanted to quote scripture. Nothing came. “There’s really not much to it,” he said, finally. “When it comes to the ladies, Joseph, I’m just a bumbler.”

* * *

I saw Burton at the next Society meeting, and we agreed to have dinner later that week. On the chosen night, I walked to the Wayne,
Vanity Fair
in hand. I entered the dining room, and the head waiter nodded as though I were a longtime customer. Burton saw my approach and stood. I paused and, for the briefest unthinking moment, waited for him to pull my chair. He looked at me, and I came to my senses, giving my head a quick shake. “I got a little lost in my thoughts.”

“About what?”

“Mr. Thackeray’s book.” It was the easiest thing to say and nearly true.

“Indeed! And what did you think of our Miss Sharp?”

That was a question. Just how approving should a man be about a woman who did as she pleased? And, of course, I loved Becky Sharp. Without family or dowry, she raced through the book, living by her wits and running circles around men. I took my seat and thought to mute my opinion. “She was a most engaging character.”

“
Engaging
,” said Burton, tasting the word.

I didn’t like this—I wanted him to chew on something else. “So who did you favor?”

A smile settled at the corner of Burton’s eye. “I was rather fond of Lord Steyne,” he said.

“You could not have been,” I protested. “He was a monster!”

“Well, well,” said my friend. “Weren’t they all?”

Kenneth Burton was nothing more than a naughty child. I would have scolded him but didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. He held court at the Hotel Wayne as though everything could be seen from his chair. For all I knew, his work for the bank was done there as well.

He liked to observe, that much I knew, and he saw things in unusual ways. His manner, his pleasure in watching the world pass by, suggested to me that life for him was a masquerade in which any particular costume was as good as any other, which might explain why he seemed to enjoy my company—and why I enjoyed his. But would the pleasure remain if I were in a dress? Somehow I didn’t think so. I was drawn to him—found him intriguing and handsome. But he would want a genteel woman, grown up in lace and practiced manners, and not a backwoods girl who hunted weasels. Even so, sitting across from him, I tried to imagine it—tried to imagine me as Mrs. Kenneth Burton.

And along with that silliness, I began to wonder if editor Beardslee wasn’t right. Perhaps the Literary Society really was a cabal, but one made up entirely of those who were pretending to be someone they were not. And Burton was there, just as he said, to bring in new members. Seen that way,
Vanity Fair
, with all its lies, was the perfect initiation.

I handed him the book with a thank-you. Burton gave me another in return:
The Scarlet Letter
by a Mr. Hawthorne.

“More secrets and deceits?”

“You can be sure,” he said with a wink.

This pronouncement, of course, made me eager to read the book, but rather than inquire more about it, I asked my friend if he had always loved to read. The words were barely out when I realized the question had a feminine tone. My eyes searched Burton’s face for any trace of suspicion. His brown eyes met mine.

“When I was little,” he said, “my mother read to me every night. First, stories that would interest a boy. Then poems and plays. We would read whole chapters while Father was out. Later, I would hear them argue.” Burton looked past me to the far corner of the room, as though the echoes of those angry words were yet to be heard there. I stayed still, surprised to hear him say something that did not have an edge or a double meaning. “She was beautiful, Joseph. Long, dark hair, dark eyes. I, unfortunately, resemble my father. I was afraid that because I looked like him she would stop loving me too, but that’s not how it happened.” Burton paused. “She died when I was sixteen.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said. “But then, not everyone feels such a bond with his mother. I envy you that.”

I thought Burton would continue on about his childhood, but for a reason I could not detect, the spell broke. “Joseph,” he said as though waking from a nap, “we need someone to call dances at the evening jubilee on the Fourth. Abram Stryker has done it for years, but he can hardly stand now. Would you? I’d be grateful.”

Had I heard him right? Perform before the whole town? No. I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t.

Burton sat back with a contented smile, as though he could hear the shouts in my head. And, of course, there was no saying no. Not to Burton. Seeing how things were, I mustered what cheer I could and said I’d be happy to help. Burton nodded and thanked me politely on behalf of the celebration committee. Now I was the one to smile.

“Forgive me,” I said by way of explanation, “it’s just that I wouldn’t have thought you so involved in the festivities.”

“Oh, I won’t set foot outside my door that day,” Burton said quickly. “But I have served on the committee for seven years. I’m in charge of
arrangements.
”

“Meaning what?”

“I make sure that everything ends up where it’s supposed to, which means I mostly settle disputes.”

“Burton, it’s a picnic. What disputes?”

My friend appeared amused. “Well, let us say that a certain Bible society held a favorable position in the square last year, the northeast corner, to pick a place. Should that be reason for them to have it again? Some people think so. Others think it should be the very reason they don’t get to have it.”

“Why bring it to you?”

“Because I don’t care.”

I didn’t understand and it must have shown.

“Joseph, I’m not from here. I don’t know whose grandmother was mean to someone else’s grandmother twenty years ago. I could probably run for judge, though the temptation for mischief might be more than I could bear. I’m safer with the celebration committee.”

I didn’t think about Burton’s use of the word
safer
just then. But on my way back to Blandin’s, it struck me as an odd choice. Safe from what? It wasn’t a big question, because I was more concerned with my new plight, which definitely would not make me safer. In ten days I would stand on a stage in Honesdale’s public square and call dances. As I walked down Main Street, I rehearsed calamities that might save me—a flood or a broken leg.

* * *

An hour after discussing
Vanity Fair
at the Hotel Wayne, I was seated at Blandin’s Tavern playing “Arkansas Traveler.” Jimmy Lawson, the large-bellied coal loader who liked to poke fun at me, came over and, in front of the others, asked me to go with him and some friends to the Rusty Buckle, a saloon on the canal. There a man could enter the back room, pay two bits, and a curtain would be drawn aside to reveal a woman, naked. I was assured that for some small additional money, she would bend and pose.

“Come with us,” he said. “A little hair peeking out from a lady’s arse might grow some on your face.”

“And then what?” I spat back. “I could look like you?”

There were a few chuckles at this, and Jimmy gave a snort. “You ain’t probably never even seen a woman.”

“Oh, don’t lay your money on that,” I said, unable to keep the grin off my face.

“I ain’t talking about yer mum or yer sis.”

“Nor am I, sir,” I said, as though insulted. “For I am able to pleasure my eye from time to time, and the money gets paid to me.”

Jimmy blinked. “Well, how do you work that?”

“Nothing to it,” I said. “Why, just last month I was playing the fiddle at a wedding not far from here. The bride got up to dance a jig, and I played ‘The Devil’s Britches.’ Faster and faster I played and faster she danced till soon she was standing in just the clothes God gave her. I’d do the same right now, but from the look of you, I’d guess the result wouldn’t be so appealing.”

There was a brief silence before those around us burst into laughter. Jimmy looked confused but then laughed with the others. A short time later, he and his friends left for the Rusty Buckle and its delights. I played a few more songs before going to my room. It had been a full evening. I had talked books with Kenneth Burton at the Wayne and traded barbs with Jimmy Lawson at Blandin’s—talk and nonsense I would have never known had I been in a petticoat. I felt pleased with myself.

But as I got into bed, the good feelings abandoned me. I had to wrestle with darker thoughts—those I often had when there was no one to distract me. What, I wondered, was being said about me in my house or along Basket Creek? But then how could anyone there know even the smallest part of my sins? My trespass was not that I had left my daughter to look for a better life for us both but that I had come to so enjoy my new life without her. The Music School, the Literary Society, the tavern, Malcolm, Burton, and Blandin—never had my life been so full. But alone in the dark, it all felt like some bargain made with the Devil. And trying to sort that out—the good and bad of it—was like trying to untie a knot left out for the winter.

It had always seemed to me that when you travel, the surroundings change but you remain more or less the same. But now I began to think that if you come to a fork in the road and take one turn instead of another, you not only end up in some other place, you become some other person—not very changed in many instances, but perhaps greatly changed in others. And I had taken a road that had led me to somewhere and someone entirely new. I had left home seeking a place for myself and for Helen, but in leaving her and starting a new life, I had invented a me who was, in many ways, not her mother.

I still wanted to make a home for the two of us, but that dream seemed distant. When I tried to think about it, I would imagine renting a cottage outside of town where Helen could come live with me. I’d have to invent a story. But, then again, Helen would have to be old enough to understand the deception, and at what age would that be? In truth, I didn’t know how it would work. I hadn’t so much as chosen a fork in the road as I had set out on a river in a tiny boat—a boat that was going wherever the water went, my best efforts doing no more than keeping it upright.

F
ROM MY CLASSROOM on the second floor of the glass factory, I could look north and see the fairgrounds. Tents and wagons appeared on its fields, more each day as July drew near. The coming celebration was much the talk at Blandin’s—loggers and firemen spoke loudly of the coming events while I quietly prayed for rain. I had never performed on a stage and wondered what I would look like. How would I sound? I talked from my throat every day to sound manly, but if I tried to shout that way, I might end up squawking like a catbird. And why all the plans and fuss?

When I was a girl, Independence Day was a simple occasion, taking place in a meadow by a lake south of Westerlo. All morning wagons arrived with friends and cousins jumping out like young birds from a nest. The women presided over the food in the shade of a large elm. The men gathered some distance away, smoking cigars and throwing horseshoes.

An old sycamore stood by the lake with a thick strand of hemp hanging from its limb. The boys in just their britches would take it and swing out over the water. We girls went off by ourselves and skipped rope, pretending not to notice the boys and the fun they were having. The summer I was nine, I went into the bushes and stripped down to my shift. Then I ran to the tree, swung out, and let go, hearing laughter and cheers as I hit the water. When I got out, I got a good scolding from my mother.

Later that afternoon, as he did each year, Father took us out on the lake, the boat pushing forward with each groan of the oars. We all begged for our turn rowing, and here my brother John had no more rights than my sisters and I. Mary and Sarah, of course, did little more than splash everyone. On the far side was a cove, so thick with lilies you might think you could walk on the water. We always came upon an egret or heron, and in those moments, it seemed that there would never come a summer when we would not take that ride.