Up a Road Slowly (6 page)

Aunt Cordelia sighed. “Julia, that child has been in my classroom since she was five; that means she's been there almost ten years, and she has stood at my desk, learning nothing, but giving off a more unbearable stench each year. I know Agnes very well; I know that she's smelly as you say, but I also know that if you stab her, she feels pain. I can't encourage cruelty on your part.”

I shook my head. “I'd rather not have a party if I have to ask her,” I said shortly.

“That's up to you, Julia; think it over,” Aunt Cordelia answered.

I made my decision. The little pink envelopes went into the wastebasket, and I had to tell all the girls at school that there would be no party. There was general indignation directed toward Aunt Cordelia, indignation coming from my closest friends, from some of their mothers, even from Aggie, who muttered that Miss Cordelia was mean to Julie, never once suspecting that she herself was the cause of all our broken plans.

Aunt Cordelia maintained her usual calm. No one of us was fool enough to believe that she would change her mind though the whole school should rise in mutiny. Her only nod to our disappointment was a casual remark that, although the party had been cancelled, there would be birthday cake for everyone, a remark that delighted the boys, who had not been especially pained at the disappointment of the girls in the first place.

Father never interfered with Aunt Cordelia's disciplinary measures, but I think that he felt a little sorry for me at this time. He came out and took me for a long drive the night before my birthday, and he brought me a silver pen and a quire of good white paper in a leather box, material for the stories I wanted to write. Alicia sent me a gift too, a beautifully bound volume of Edna St. Vincent Millay's poems. In a little note Alicia said, “There is something about you, Julie, that reminds me of Millay's early poems; read them now and save the darker ones for later years.” She had placed her note in the book so that it opened to the lines:

And turning a few pages, I found lines that mirrored an ache and longing I had so often felt when the beauty around my woods cathedral was too intense, when the need to grasp and keep loveliness left me with a sense of desolate frustration.

When I was through, my eyes were wet and I loved not only Millay but Alicia and Laura and Aunt Cordelia—almost everyone in the world except poor little Aggie Kilpin.

Compassion was not yet aroused within me, and the better nature that loved poetry and beauty was completely overshadowed the day of my twelfth birthday. Aunt Cordelia drove her car to school that morning because she was taking the two huge angel-food cakes that she had baked and iced the night before. I was invited to cut the cakes at noon and after sliding each piece on a napkin, to place my birthday offering on each pupil's desk. It was a poor substitute for a party, and most of the girls felt as downcast and low spirited that noon as I did.

But not Aggie. She grinned in delight when I placed the cake before her, and she clambered out of her seat when she saw the rest of us preparing to go outside.

“I won't be queen today, kid,” she garbled eagerly. “I'm goin' to set by you 'cause it's your birthday. I'm goin' to be your best friend.”

And then I did it, a thing one does not forget. I turned on an innocent human being in fury, and I threw Aggie's love for me back into her simple, uncomprehending face.

“Don't you dare follow me, Aggie; don't you dare come near me,” I told her, and I didn't care in the least what measures of discipline Aunt Cordelia might think up for me. I flashed a hostile look toward Aunt Cordelia as I strode past her desk, and I noticed that she looked quite tired and a little drawn. She said nothing to me, but she held out her hand to Aggie.

“Would you like to go with the little children and me, Agnes? We're going out to the woods to get a bunch of wildflowers for Julia's birthday.”

Aggie seemed to be afraid of me after that. She would grin timidly at me and nod her head as if encouraging me to be kind. Sometimes in shame, I returned her smile, but it was always a weak thing, and Aggie was never reassured. I did not read Edna St. Vincent Millay's poems during those last few weeks of school; belatedly, I had a miserable feeling that the gentle young poet would not have liked me.

It was a hot, dry summer that year, and in early August, when the heat seemed almost unbearable, we heard that Agnes Kilpin was very ill with a fever resulting from the infection of a cut foot for which she had received no medical attention. Aunt Cordelia immediately drove up to the Kilpins', taking ice and cool fruit drinks with her. That evening she told me something of the condition in which she had found Aggie and of the futility of trying to help her.

“I wanted to bathe the poor child and put clean sheets on her bed, but Mrs. Kilpin wouldn't allow me to touch her—said she wasn't going to have her girl catch pneumonia by having a bath.” Aunt Cordelia closed her eyes briefly in exasperation. “Afraid of pneumonia, but not of filth and the agony of heat and fever. I wanted to tie that woman up outside the room and see to it that Agnes was cared for properly—for just once in her life.”

A few days later on a hot Sunday when tempers were shorter than usual, Aunt Cordelia and I had one of our not infrequent clashes. She had given my room a quick inspection after church that morning, and had found its condition unsatisfactory.

“You will put your books and clothing in their proper places, Julia, and you will dust the room, including—especially including—the windowsills, which I find absolutely white with dust. And understand this, Julia: no lady has a right to that title unless she is not only clean of body and clothing, but is equally clean in her surroundings. Never let it be said that you have grown up in my home and have been so remiss as to throw your discarded underclothing under the bed—which is exactly where I found yours just now.”

Her wrath was formidable; mine was rather intense too, for I felt that I might have been instructed to clean my room with considerably less sermonizing. Our clash was brief and bitter, and Aunt Cordelia was the victor. I spent the next hour converting the energy of rage into a zest for cleaning which resulted in an immaculate state that would have satisfied any top sergeant.

Aunt Cordelia inspected my work and nodded approvingly. “I should think now that after a shower and a brief apology for your impertinence you might feel very much better, Julia.”

“I am very sorry that I was impertinent, Aunt Cordelia,” I managed to say, and then fled for the bathroom and a shower. I wished as I stood under the cooling, cleansing flood of water that I were as fortunate as Uncle Haskell, living apart in the old carriage house, working on a magnum opus and communicating with Aunt Cordelia only infrequently.

That was the afternoon that Carlotta Berry called, asking me to go driving with her. To receive an invitation to go driving with Lottie that summer was a coveted honor. Being an only child of unusually indulgent parents, Lottie had a great deal more in the way of clothes and expensive toys than most of us, and for her birthday that year she had received a gift that was the envy of all her classmates. The gift was a pony, a snowy, dainty-hoofed little creature, a wonderful gift in itself, but this one was harnessed to a wicker and patent leather cart. Carlotta had power in the possession of that pony cart: those who pleased her might share it, but there were no rides for those who did not.

I supposed no favors would be granted me that afternoon, but Aunt Cordelia was a much fairer person than I sometimes believed her to be.

“I see no reason why you shouldn't go,” she said pleasantly. “You have fulfilled your duties and are entitled to some recreation.”

“I can go!” I told Lottie joyfully, and when she arrived, cool and pretty in blue and white organdy, Aunt Cordelia looked at me thoughtfully and suggested that I might wear the dress from Laura's wardrobe which she had altered to fit me, a fine white linen embroidered with tiny wreaths of rosy flowers and tied with a gay sash. It was plain that Aunt Cordelia wanted me to look no less well-dressed than the darling of the Berry household.

Our gladiolas were in full bloom that week and while I dressed, Aunt Cordelia cut a great armful of the bright flowers and then sat in the porch swing waiting for Carlotta and me to come downstairs.

“Since you're going to be driving all around the neighborhood, I think it would be nice of you girls to take this bouquet to Agnes. You won't mind doing that, will you?” she asked.

Aunt Cordelia was too much the voice of authority for either Carlotta or me to resist her suggestion. We didn't want to think of Aggie, much less to visit her, but a sense of decency, prodded by the determination which we knew was behind my aunt's quiet suggestion, led us to accept the errand.

“Isn't it just like her?” Carlotta sputtered when we were out of hearing. “She spoils your party on account of Aggie, and now, she spoils our afternoon by making us stop at the dirty Kilpins'. Sometimes I can't
stand
Miss Cordelia; I mean it—I just can't
stand
her.”

I had been annoyed too, but at that speech I turned loyal niece and remarked that if Lottie didn't like my aunt, she might well have invited someone other than a relative of Aunt Cordelia's to go riding with her, and Lottie replied that since the pony and cart were hers, she might rescind her invitation.

I wanted the ride enough to tolerate Carlotta's airs. Both of us were conscious that we made a pretty picture on the country road, our gay dresses and the bright flowers filling the little cart with color, Lottie's blonde hair and my black shining as brightly as the pony's silver coat. Uncle Haskell took off his hat and made us a sweeping bow when we met him driving home from town, and a mile or so farther on, Danny Trevort and Jimmy Ferris chased us on their bicycles, scorning our elegance although we were pretty sure that they secretly envied us.

“O, ki-tinka, ka-tonka,” they shrilled in pained mockery. Then, riding close to the cart and holding on to the sides, they gave us the benefit of their supreme contempt. “Slurp, slurp,” they added as if the sight of us was a little more than either of them could bear.

Their behavior bothered me a little. Danny was still as close to me as in the days when he and Chris and I rode and swam and skated together. Danny was often at Aunt Cordelia's, and I was just as often at his home where gentle Mrs. Trevort always made me welcome. Now, in the presence of Carlotta and Jimmy, he was scornful of me, and I found myself acting as haughtily toward him as if we were foes of long standing.

There is something wrong with this world, I thought. And then, a few minutes later, I found a world in which there was a greater wrong than I had ever known.

Carlotta refused to go inside when we reached the Kilpin house.

“I don't have to mind Miss Cordelia while it's summer vacation, Julie,” she said, and I had to respect her point of view. “I guess you'll just have to take the flowers in yourself—since you can't help being her niece.” She glanced back down the road, obviously hoping the boys would soon appear again.

I climbed out of the elegant cart and crossed the road in some trepidation. I had heard stories of the Kilpins; they were trash, and vicious trash at that. The cluttered dooryard and the sagging front steps added to the ominous look of the place; I rather hoped that no one would hear my light knock on the half-open screen door.

But Mrs. Kilpin had seen my approach, and she came to the door as soon as I knocked. She was a withered, bent woman with a narrow strip of forehead wrinkling above close-set, sullen eyes. She motioned me to come in, but she didn't speak; when I offered her the flowers and told her they were for Aggie, she nodded toward a table where I laid them, pretty sure that they wouldn't be touched until they were thrown away.

Aggie was lying on a bed in the corner of the room. It was a filthy bed, sheetless and sagging in the middle, and Aggie rolled restlessly upon it, her mouth parched with fever and her eyes glazed and unseeing. The heat, the stench, and the closeness of death made the place so unbearable that I wanted nothing so much as to break away and run from it. Somehow, however, I managed to walk closer to the bed and speak to the girl who lay there.

I really think that I half expected to see Aggie grin again, to hear her call me “Kid” and declare that we were friends. But Aggie was another person that day; she was a part of the dignity of a solemn drama, no longer the phony “queen” seated in the center of a mocking circle of her subjects. Aggie was as indifferent to my presence as if I'd been one of the houseflies crawling along the edge of a spoon that lay on the table beside a bottle of medicine.

I was awed and unsure of what I should do. “Is she going to get well?” I finally whispered to the shadowy woman who stood beside me.

“No, she ain't a-goin' to git well. She's a-goin' to die,” the woman said without emotion.

“I'm sorry,” I said, and Mrs. Kilpin answered in the same dead voice.

“No, you ain't. You ain't sorry. Nobody's sorry that my girl's a-goin' to die. Not even her pa's sorry. Nobody.”

I couldn't answer that. “I guess I must go, Mrs. Kilpin,” I said miserably. “I guess I'll have to go.”

“Yes, you go,” she said, and I saw her eyes studying me from head to foot. “Them clothes is too fine for this place. You go 'long.”