You’ve been a good girl’ he says.
She was sitting on the cot beside him, holding the baby, and he took her chin in his hand and shook her head a little.”
“It’s a good thing Narcissa aint going to be on that jury,” Miss Jenny said.
“Yes.
But the fool wont even let me mention that that gorilla was ever on the place.
He said
‘They cant prove anything on me.
I’ve been in a jam before.
Everybody that knows anything about me knows that I wouldn’t hurt a feeb.’
But that wasn’t the reason he doesn’t want it told about that thug.
And he knew I knew it wasn’t, because he kept on talking, sitting there in his overalls, rolling his cigarettes with the sack hanging in his teeth.
‘I’ll just stay here until it blows over.
I’ll be better off here; cant do anything outside, anyway.
And this will keep her, with maybe something over for you until you’re better paid.’
“But I knew what he was thinking.
‘I didn’t know you were a coward’ I said.
“ ‘You do like I say’ he said.
‘I’ll be all right here’.
But he doesn’t.……” He sat forward, rubbing his hands slowly.
“He doesn’t realise.…… Dammit, say what you want to, but there’s a corruption about even looking upon evil, even by accident; you cannot haggle, traffic, with putrefaction—You’ve seen how Narcissa, just hearing about it, how it’s made her restless and suspicious.
I thought I had come back here of my own accord, but now I see that—Do you suppose she thought I was bringing that woman into the house at night, or something like that?”
“I did too, at first,” Miss Jenny said.
“But I reckon now she’s learned that you’ll work harder for whatever reason you think you have, than for anything anybody could offer you or give you.”
“You mean, she’d let me think they never had any money, when she—”
“Why not?
Aint you doing all right without it?”
Narcissa entered.
“We were just talking about murder and crime,” Miss Jenny said.
“I hope you’re through, then,” Narcissa said.
She did not sit down.
“Narcissa has her sorrows too,” Miss Jenny said.
“Dont you, Narcissa?”
“What now?” Horace said.
“She hasn’t caught Bory with alcohol on his breath, has she?”
“She’s been jilted.
Her beau’s gone and left her.”
“You’re such a fool,” Narcissa said.
“Yes, sir,” Miss Jenny said,
“Gowan Stevens has thrown her down.
He didn’t even come back from that Oxford dance to say goodbye.
He just wrote her a letter.”
She began to search about her in the chair.
“And now I flinch everytime the doorbell rings, thinking that his mother—”
“Miss Jenny,” Narcissa said, “you give me my letter.”
“Wait,” Miss Jenny said, “here it is. Now, what do you think of that for a delicate operation on the human heart without anaesthetic?
I’m beginning to believe all this I hear, about how young folks learn all the things in order to get married, that we had to get married in order to learn.”
Horace took the single sheet.
Narcissa my dear
This has no heading.
I wish it could have no date.