The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [203]
"Oh, Louisa! What was his name?"
I almost said Charles, but that disguise seemed a betrayal, and what would it hurt to tell the truth? I said, "Thomas."
"Were you together for many years?"
"A few months. Ten months. This time last year, I hardly knew him."
"Was he from around here, then? We know everyone down to Blue Springs, but I’ve never seen you before. But if you’re from over by Lexington, perhaps Papa knows your people."
She said this brightly, and I drew back, remembering where I was and who she was. I said, "He was from Kentuck. Round about Frankfort, I believe." Oh, Thomas! My sailmaking, oceangoing Bay State man! Perhaps it was I who would end up betraying you the most! I said, "I can’t talk about it anymore. It hurts me to talk about it."
The day passed away, and Lorna allowed me to have a bit of supper— pieces of boiled chicken and some bread with blackberry jam on it, a sliced-up peach. She said, "You color is much bettah. You done got ovah dis thang pretty quick, I mus’ say." She seemed suspicious.
"I doubt if I’ve hardly begun to get over it."
"If you a woman, you got to git ovah one thang aftah another, so you bettah start right quick."
"Helen said you had a husband."
"Still do, but I ain’ seen ’im now fa seven yeah. He done got sold to Arkinsaw dese seven yeah ago." She spoke matter-of-factly. "He send me word from time to time." She smiled in spite of herself. "But you got your reasons ’at you ain’ talkin’, an’ I got mine, and I ain’ talkin’, neider." She took up the tray and the dishes from my supper and left the room. She came back a bit later with a candle and her sewing and, while I dozed, sat beside me, turning the cuffs of someone’s white shirt. Helen came in—I heard her light, sympathetic voice in my sleep—and then she went out. Sometime later, I woke up, woke up completely, and sat up in bed. I guess that it was fairly late, as Lorna had fallen asleep in her chair without blowing out the candle, which had burnt down almost to the holder. The shirt she was sewing lay in her lap, and she still held her needle in her fingers, though her thimble had fallen to the floor and was rolling about—most likely the noise had awakened me. I got up to blow out the candle—I had a horror of candles burning when everyone was sleeping and always had; there were too many stories of inadvertent tragedy—but I paused to gaze at Lorna, partly because when she was awake she seemed to repel your gaze or turn it away, as if you had no right to peruse her; and it was with some trepidation that I perused her now, fearful that she would wake up and punish me. She was of medium height, smaller than she seemed, broad-shouldered and large-busted. The white kerchief around her head set off her dark skin like a frame. She was not beautiful—perhaps she was too old for that, being past thirty, no doubt, but her face was utterly distinctive, with a high forehead and prominent cheekbones, a strong chin. Where Helen’s visage reminded you of silk, Lorna’s reminded you of stone, of something smooth and cool and impenetrable. Only her lashes, which were long where they lay against her cheeks, had a beauty to them. And her hands, too. Her hands were as lovely as they felt, slender and strong and, even in repose, full of their long history of getting things done. I blew out the candle and returned to my bed, where I lay for a long time wondering how soon I could get away from this farm and what I would do then. Soon enough, my present feeling of enforced leisure would give way to something else. It frightened me that for the first time in many months, I had no idea what that would be.
At any rate, they would not allow me to get up the next day, either, even though my strength was returning as impatience and irritability. For one thing, I knew my case was out there across the road, thrust under the hay. Without it, I hadn’t even a dress to wear—my old brown dress that I had come to Kansas