A Northern Light(27)

Aunt Josie said all this with barely a breath. Pa says Uncle Vernon should rent her out to the forge; they could use her for a bellows. As soon as my teacher had turned a corner and Aunt Josie couldn't see her anymore, she stopped disparaging Miss Wilcox and changed the topic. To me.

"I heard you were out gallivanting with Royal Loomis the other day," she said.

I groaned, wondering if the entire county knew. I still hadn't heard the end of it, especially from Weaver, who'd no said, "Gee, Matt, I always knew you liked dumb animals, but Royal Loomis?"

Lou teased me, then told everyone she knew, and they teased me, too. I tried hard to be good-natured about it, but I couldn't. Anyone with eyes could see that Royal was handsome and I was plain. And them going on and on about me being sweet on him was mean. Like asking a lame girl what she's wearing to the dance.

"I wasn't 'gallivanting,'" I told my aunt. "Royal and I happened to be at the pickle boat at the same time and he gave me a ride home, that's all."

But a simple ride home was not good gossip and Aunt Josie was having none of it.

"Now, Mattie, I know when a girl's sweet on a boy..."

I didn't say a word, just kept on dusting.

"I have a present for you, dear," she wheedled. "Did you see that nice tablecloth I left on the kitchen table? That's for you."

I'd seen it. It was old and yellowed and frayed. I thought she'd meant for me to wash it, or mend it, or throw it out. I knew I'd better thank her lavishly, though, because that's what she expected. And what Mamma would have wanted me to do. So I did.

"You're welcome, Mathilda. Perhaps I can help you out with your trousseau. After you're engaged, that is. Perhaps your uncle Vernon and I could help you with your china and cutlery..."

I turned around to face her, determined to nip her engagement talk in the bud before it got to Alma Mclntyre and all over Inlet and back to Eagle Bay and Royal Loomis himself. "Don't you think you're rushing things a bit, Aunt Josie? It was just a ride home."

"Now, Mattie, I understand your reluctance to make too much of this, honestly I do. You're very levelheaded and you're probably thinking that attention from a boy like Royal Loomis is a bit more than a plain girl like you should expect. But it doesn't do to be too shy. If he's showing interest, you'd do well to pursue it. You might not get another chance with a boy like Royal."

I felt my face turn red. I know I have too many freckles and lank brown hair. Mamma used to call it chestnut, but it's not; it's just plain brown like my eyes. I know that my hands are rough and knobby and my body is small and sturdy. I know I do not look like Belinda Becker or Martha Miller—all blond and pale and airy, with ribbons in their hair. I know all this and I do not need my aunt to remind me.

"Oh, Mattie, dear, I didn't mean to make you blush! This has been bothering you, hasn't it? I could tell something was. You needn't be so modest! I know this must all be very new to you, and I know it must be hard—having lost your dear mother. But please don't fret, dear. I understand a mother's duty toward her daughter, and since your own mamma is gone, I will fulfill it for her. Is there anything you want to know, dear? Anything you need to ask me?"

I clutched the figurine I was polishing. "Yes, Aunt Josie, there is."

"Go ahead, dear."

I meant to be slow and sensible in my speech, but my words came out of me in a big, desperate gush. "Aunt Josie, can you ... would you ... I want to go to college, Aunt Josie. If you were going to give me money for china and silver, would you give it to me for books and train fare instead? I've been accepted. To Barnard College. In New York City. I applied over the winter and I got in. I want to study literature, but I haven't the money to go and Pa won't let me work at the Glenmore like I want to, and I thought that maybe if you ... if Uncle Vernon..."

Everything changed as I spoke. Aunt Josie's smile slid off her face like ice off a tin roof.

"...you wouldn't have to give it to me if you didn't ... if you didn't want to. You could loan it to me. I'd pay it all back ... every penny of it. Please, Aunt Josie?" I spoke those last words in a whisper.

My aunt didn't reply right away; she just looked at me in such a way that I suddenly knew just how Hester Prynne felt when she had to stand on that scaffold.

"You are just as bad as your no-account brother," she finally said. "Selfish and thoughtless. It must come from the Gokey side, because it doesn't come from the Robertsons. What on earth can you be thinking? Leaving your sisters when they need you? And for a terrible place like New York!" She nodded at the figurine I was clutching. "Pride. That's very fitting. Pride goeth before a fall. You're on a very high horse, Mathilda. I don't know who put you there, but you'd best get down off it. And fast."

The lecture would have gone on, but there was a sudden smell of smoke. It had my aunt up and out of her chair in no time, waddling off to the kitchen to check on the pie she had baking. For an invalid, she moves faster than a water snake when she has a mind to.

I remained on the ladder, looking at the figurine in my hand. You're wrong, Aunt Josie, I thought. It's not pride I'm feeling. It's another sin. Worse than all the other ones, which are immediate, violent, and hot. This one sits inside you quietly and eats you from the inside out like the trichina worms the pigs get. It's the Eighth Deadly Sin. The one God left out.