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Authors: William Klaber

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I liked having a handsome young man pay me attention. But as George’s attentions increased, I liked it less. One day he declared his love and said he wanted to marry me. It wasn’t a real proposal, more an expression of regard, but even so, I told him I wasn’t ready, and that was true. And I wasn’t sure if I really loved George—loved him enough to marry him. You shouldn’t wonder about a thing like that.

Father had no good opinion of George, but he didn’t forbid my seeing him. He just said that it might be best if I went to live with my aunt and attend the academy in Coxsackie. Anxious to escape, I agreed. And in truth, while at school, I didn’t think about George all that much. I had other friends there, mostly young women, for the young men at the academy were, with few exceptions, kept in their own classes and let out a half-hour after we were sent home.

In my final year at school, Father wrote that he was selling our farm. He had purchased a cabin and two hundred acres near the Delaware River,
a beautiful wilderness
he called it. When I arrived some months later, I found our new land as Father had said. We built a sawmill that first year and lived the life of pioneers. It was hard work, and I didn’t mind the privations.

The next year, the railroad came up the river, and suddenly we could sell at a good price any amount of lumber that we could mill or any amount of bluestone that we could chisel out of the hill behind our house. Most of what was grown in the valley stayed in the valley to feed us or the livestock, but just about everything else—honey, maple syrup, hemlock bark, milled wood, and stone—was well worth the effort if you could get it down to the station at Long Eddy. And we weren’t pioneers anymore; nobody in the valley was, because now anything you’d ever want could arrive by train. It even brought George Washington Slater, who one day knocked on our door wearing a store-bought shirt and a bow tie. We went for a walk along the creek, and he proposed for real. He said he had always known that I was meant for him. He said that he had heard me call in the night—heard me call so many times that he had to come find me.

This was all like out of a story, and I couldn’t remember the hesitations I had felt before. My family was beginning a new life, and I thought that God probably meant for me to begin one too. And I didn’t just have God on my mind. I would see Clarence and Katie Sykes walking arm in arm, laughing and leaning against each other, and a warmth would spread over me. I imagined them going home together and what would happen there. I imagined this so often I thought I might be sinful. But sinful or not, I wanted what Katie had. I wanted a man who would kiss me and touch me and lie with me and talk to me in the dark of night. And then suddenly there was, right in front of me, a handsome man—I will not lie—a man who had come all this way just to do those very things with me. I said yes.

I told Father the news when we were in the barn. He was limping by then from the pain in his swollen legs. That pain seemed to spread to his face as he set aside the bag of feed. “Lucy, dearest,” he said still breathing hard, “the man you marry is your choice. But if you want my blessing, you will wait.” Father then offered to hire George for six months so I might better learn his character.

I didn’t see the generosity of Father’s offer. My head was filled with things that I wanted, and I didn’t want to wait. I resented him for opposing us. And when I told George, he acted as though Father had offered him not a job but an insult. This anger echoed my own feelings and made me more certain of George’s love. We told Father we would marry, with or without his consent, and so forced him to give it.

The wedding took place at the church in Long Eddy. George wore the shirt and bow tie he had proposed in. I was in my pretty yellow Sunday dress. Reverend Hale presided, though I wished it were someone else.

To me, Reverend Hale was just a crabby old man, and that would have been fine if that was all there was to it. But I think to Reverend Hale I was something wicked, or at least that’s how he acted. I never knew why. Was it because I didn’t go around frowning like he did? Was I somehow bathed in sin by my God-given nature? Was every young woman? I didn’t know what he thought, but as I walked down the aisle on Father’s arm, I saw a look in Reverend Hale’s eye that made me shiver. And, surely, it can’t be a good thing to be led in your sacred vows by someone who thinks you’re evil. I wonder now if he didn’t insert some secret curse—that would explain a lot. But living where we did, there really wasn’t a choice. If you wanted to marry, it would be Reverend Hale.

My minister was not the only chilly wind blowing that afternoon. What I didn’t know in those headstrong moments when I forced my marriage on my father and my family was that when the day came, I would have to be happy for all of them, for they were not going to be any more than polite. And so, with the crinoline holding out my dress, I went like a hummingbird, flower to flower, hoping to receive love, warmth and approval. But I didn’t find that precious nectar, except, of course, from Mary, without whom I mightn’t have finished the day. And George Slater was no help. For all his ardor and impatience, he now acted put upon, as though getting married was just my idea. So while I was trying to cheer those around me, I also had to keep him merry—no small feat with George, even on the best of days, as I would find out.

After the wedding, we had a celebration with food and dancing in the hall behind the church. Many friends and neighbors were there, and they, at least, seemed perfectly happy to have me wed. Later, without the crinoline, I played the fiddle at my own wedding, and those moments were the happiest I remember of that night. The next day I went into Long Eddy expecting people to treat me special, as they had the night before. No one did. I was now just plain married folk.

George and I rented a cabin about a mile from my father’s house, and George went to work at Mr. LaValley’s mill. I was glad to have a house of our own, small as it was. I expected to be happy, but once we moved in, all of George’s tenderness fell away. I will not bother with a full list of his mean doings, much of it served with foul words. Briefly put, his complaints might have to do with the meal I had made. Or that I was not sufficiently pleased to see him when he got home after work, stinking of drink, whatever hour that might be. He wanted me to be loving no matter what growl he gave as he came through the door or what insults followed, as though a loving mood were like feed for hens to be put out whatever the weather and not something that two people made with each other. Soon enough, I came to understand that none of it had to do with whatever he said it was about. When a person is drunk and mean, he will find something wrong. I stopped worrying about the meal or about being loving. Things were just the same, no matter what I did.

One evening, when he had come home drunk and I had complained about it, he struck me across the face and threw me out of the house, my mouth bleeding. I waited till he fell asleep and then crept back inside. I vowed to leave him, but the next day he cried like a baby and told me that God should strike him dead if he ever did it again. I stayed, thinking that he was truly sorry and would keep away from the drink.

He did—for five or six days. Then he came home from the mill with another man and ordered me to set a place for him at our table; he would be staying with us until his own cabin was finished. I didn’t want someone else sharing our tiny house, but I got out another knife and fork. A week later, George came home drunk and accused me of things I could scarce believe, suggesting I had spent time with our boarder in a personal way, giving our guest the love I was withholding from him. And by that time I
was
withholding the love from George, the drunken imposter, staying true to the man I had once loved, waiting for him to return.

George didn’t actually come out and say it. He just kept asking with a leer if I had
enjoyed
my time with our boarder the night before. I said that if he had come home when he should have, he wouldn’t have to make up stupid stories. I don’t think George believed that I had been unfaithful, but the idea seemed to excite him in some way. “Deny it?” he shouted. “Well then show me that you love me.” I knew what he wanted, but it made no sense. Had I been unfaithful, would an act of love between us undo the wrong? I wouldn’t let him near me.

When our boarder came in that night, I told him he had to go. I didn’t say why, and George was perfectly pleasant to the man, which I thought strange considering all that had been said. And when George came down with a fever the following day, I was glad—it made sense of things.

My George stayed in bed for three days. I brought him tea and soup. At first he seemed like a sick little boy. But then he told me he was going to die and wanted me to promise that I’d never remarry. I told him he wasn’t going to die, and I wouldn’t make so selfish a promise. I thought it was the fever talking, but a couple of days later, when he was better, George started ranting and calling me a whore for wanting to lie with another when he was in his grave. That night I dreamed that he stabbed me with a knife.

The next morning he again abused me with foul words. As soon as he was gone to work, I put some things in a bag and walked down the creek to my father’s house. I spoke of an argument, ashamed to give an account of George’s behavior. It didn’t matter. A few days after that, George Slater sold our cow and just up and disappeared.

5

 

I
CROSSED THE bridge to the upper village and took the road north. Nearly a week had passed since my arrival in Honesdale, and I had yet to find a room for my school. Now I was following Mr. Blandin’s directions to a glass factory in a stone building that was to be found on the flats below the village of Bethany. It all seemed rather unlikely, but I walked on till I came to the described building, covered with the veins of creeper vine. A man in a leather apron was waiting by the door.

“John Stevenson,” he said, offering a scarred hand.

I took the hand and looked into his weathered face. “Joseph Lobdell.”

Mr. Stevenson had talked to Daniel Blandin and knew I was there to see his upstairs hall. Without another word, we passed through the door and into a large room that looked like Satan’s kitchen. Teams of sweating, shirtless men were working a row of furnaces. We stopped before one and watched as the headman dipped a pipe into a cauldron and gathered a molten ball. This he shaped by turning and blowing while his assistant fed the fire. The two exchanged only looks as they passed each other with red-hot irons and glowing glass, the ball slowly taking the shape of a heavy mug, like those used every night at Blandin’s. I had always seen men as clumsy to the bone, but standing there I marveled at how graceful they can be when there’s a purpose to it.

At the end of the room, a hall held a set of stairs. I asked Mr. Stevenson if there was another route in—the way we had come wouldn’t be suitable for young students. Mr. Stevenson laughed and pointed to the clutter at the hall’s end behind which I could now see a door. “Somewhere in my office there’s a key.”

I had been told that the second floor had once been a meeting room, so its condition surprised me. There was debris everywhere—broken crates, an odd assortment of chairs, and some sort of workbench. Dirt and sawdust covered the floor, and the windows were so grimy that one would have to guess at the weather. I knelt down and pushed aside the dust. The planks were smooth and tightly fit.

“Maple,” said Mr. Stevenson proudly.

I gave a nod. “So I see.”

I asked about the rent, and Mr. Stevenson replied with a modest sum. I tried not to act like I thought it low, but he saw my face. “I’m glad to do what I can,” he said, “for any friend of Daniel Blandin.” We shook hands again, and I left quite pleased. I had, it seemed, stumbled upon a great secret society—a world in which everything is accomplished by a wink and a nod.

I walked back to town and went to the offices of the
Honesdale Democrat,
where I placed a small advertisement that would appear the following Tuesday.

Joseph I. Lobdell, Professor of Dance, announces the formation of classes in dance, voice, and violin for Students of all ages. Those interested should come at four in the afternoon on Thursday to the meeting room at the Dyberry Glass Factory.

I was back at the glass factory the next day. I had given myself only a week, so I had no time to burn. Instead, I burned rubbish. After that, I swept the floor and cleaned the windows. On Monday, I borrowed a mop from the tavern and washed the floor three times. The next two days I spent on my hands and knees, putting wax on the maple. The wood glowed yellow, and the wax put a civilized smell into the room. It also put dirt under my fingernails. I thought about leaving some to roughen my appearance as it would aid in my deception at the tavern, but I didn’t, because it wouldn’t help me as a music teacher. I was looking over one shoulder, then the other.

I had, of course, started my journey with a greater fear of men—that I would do or say the wrong thing. So far that hadn’t happened, but men are not known for noticing things. Women, on the other hand, notice near everything. My fear began to grow that one of them might catch some detail that a man would never see—a book held to the breast, a button unfastened with two fingers, an eyebrow lifted in doubt. But in spite of that fear, I stopped along Dyberry Creek on the advertised day and picked a bouquet of purple phlox that ended up on the table by the door.

At the appointed hour, eight or nine mothers arrived, coming in twos and threes. There were children of various ages. I was formal with the mothers but did my best to make them feel at ease, speaking with humor and not condescension. I think I charmed a few.

Some older girls arrived. They put their names on the list but did not engage me in conversation. Instead, they stood off in a corner, whispering and casting glances in my direction. I wondered if they thought me handsome.

 

* * *

My room upstairs at Blandin’s was adequate but not more than that—just a place to sleep. I might on occasion sit there and read the
Democrat
, but usually I would do that downstairs. And there was little to see out the window except for the piles of coal and the privies in the alley. From my bed I could hear their doors creak at all hours. I didn’t feel any danger when I went there. Aside from the drunks who piss into the canal, men and women do their business in private, and visitors don’t come calling. And it’s not a comfortable seat whoever you are, what with the cold drafts and smells that ain’t lilacs.

BOOK: The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell
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