The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [202]
She stood and picked up the tray, then walked out of the room.
Things went on like this for another day, as the men turned out to be delayed. Helen confided to me that she was very glad to see me, as she had had no one to talk to in weeks—her two friends who lived but a short ride away were gone to Saint Louis for the summer and wouldn’t be back until the middle of September. Her sister Minna was up in Booneville at her aunt and uncle’s farm, preparing for her October wedding to the mysterious Mr. Oates, said to be from Virginia. Mr. Oates had purchased a farm between Booneville and Lexington, and wanted to be married from there, and her older sister Bella had moved to Saint Louis two years before, after her own wedding. She, Helen, was the last one left unmarried, and though she had two local suitors, neither one interested her, but she supposed she was going to have to take one or the other in the end, unless the influx of real cavaliers, who were coming in to "deal with those abolitionists," should supply the area with superior possibilities.
From time to time, Lorna came in, and it was she who tended to me. She was utterly strict in her nursing. She gave me strengthening broths and teas, changed the bed linen, changed my nightdress, bathed me, especially my feet, which after two days out of my boots were considerably swollen and covered with blisters. She pricked each blister with a needle and squeezed out the water, then swabbed my feet with an infusion of witch hazel. After that she dusted them with fine cornmeal. The degree of refreshment afforded me by this procedure cannot be described. She and Helen washed my hair. I lay on my back across the bed (the sheets and the counterpane pulled back), with Lorna supporting me under the neck and Helen pouring warm water through my short hair, then rubbing my scalp with a fragrant soft soap, then more water to rinse. It had been maybe a year since I had bathed in warm water. Lorna carried it up, pitcher after pitcher, an endless supply. Then Helen brought in towels and gently, oh so gently, patted and kneaded the strands dry, commenting all the time on my hair’s thickness and weight and color.
I said, "I suppose it came six or eight inches past my waist before I cut it off."
"I know it was splendid," exclaimed Helen. "I don’t see how you brought yourself to give it up!"
"It was a great deal of trouble. I haven’t missed it."
"But to do away with one’s beauty like that!" She looked at me. "I mean..."
"When my husband was killed, that did away with my beauty, because he was the only man who ever found me beautiful." Saying this gave me a pang, but it was a delicious pang—I had been avoiding thoughts of Thomas since first awakening in this room.
"My goodness," said Helen. "That is the saddest thing I ever heard any woman say!"
"Is it?" I said. I thought "They shot my husband" was sadder.
And Helen said, "Lorna told me some men shot your husband." She was sitting behind me, lifting the short strands of hair off my neck and fluffing them. Then she ran her fingers from the back of my neck upward, lifting. Well, it was as sad to hear it as to say it. She said, "Was it ... ? What was it ... ?"
"It was as if they took everything inside me and gave it a cruel half twist and then left it that way. I just felt it from head to toe."
"Oh, my goodness!"
"My husband was a great reader. Often, he read aloud to me, and I loved his voice; it was so thoughtful and deep, and it filled our little place right up. But even more than that, I loved to watch him read silently. He was terribly absorbed. I never got over the pleasure of seeing him absorbed in something he loved to do." As I said these things, which I had never said before about Thomas, I realized how true they were. "Many things amused him. He had a little smile, which was almost not a smile but