A Northern Light(56)

"But you said—"

"Never mind what I said! Just come on!"

Beth whined and rubbed her arm all the way home. And I tried to tell myself that I had not just seen what I had seen, for it had looked so ugly and rude and seemed more like barnyard animals than a man and woman. It didn't look like making love; it looked like all the filthy words I'd ever heard it called. I wondered if that was how Minnie got her babies. If it was how my mamma got us. I wondered if that's how it would be between Royal and myself when we were married. If it was, I'd tell him to keep himself to himself, for I wanted no part of it.

Poor Tommy. His brothers and sisters hadn't seemed to know what was happening, but he did. I hoped Mrs. Loomis would never find out. Or Royal or his brothers. It would hurt them terribly. Beth hadn't seen anything and surely Tommy was much too ashamed to tell. It would stay a secret. No one else would ever know.

As we finally turned in to our own drive, our shoes sodden and our skirts muddied, I realized I had figured out a way to use my word of the day after all. Mr. Loomis's shirrtails had not quite covered his bare behind, and I had seen, though I truly wished I hadn't, that it was pale, flabby, and horribly hispidulous.





Put the letters away, Mattie, I say to myself. No, myself answers.

You're no better than your aunt Josie. Reading other people's letters is something she would do. You're a snoop.

I don't care.

Stop this. Go to sleep. You know all you need to know.

But I don't. I know that Grace was pregnant. And I know she got that way because of Chester Gillette. And I think that they came to the Glenmore to elope. There's just one thing I don't know, and if I can find it out, I will put the letters away and go to sleep: I don't know why Chester Gillette wrote Carl Grahm in the guest book, and until I find that out, I'm going to keep reading.





South Otselic

June 25, '06

Dear Chester,



I am much too tired to write a decent letter or even follow the lines, but I have been uneasy all day and can't go to sleep because I am sorry I sent you such a hateful letter this morning. So I am going to write and ask your forgiveness, dear. I was cross and wrote things I ought not to have written. I am very sorry, dear. I shall never feel quite right until you write and say you forgive me ... I am very tired tonight, dear, I have been helping mamma sew today ... I never liked to have dresses fitted and now it is ten times worse. Oh Chester, you have no idea how glad I shall be when this worry is all over ... I am afraid the time will seem awfully long until I see you, Chester ... Oh! dear, I do get so blue. Chester, please don't wait until the Last of the week before you come. Can't you come the first of the week? Chester, I need you than you think I do...





I keep reading, but there's nothing in the letter about Carl Grahm. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place. I put Grace's letter down and shuffle through the bundle until I find what I'm after—a few letters written by Chester. I open the first one.





June 21

Dear Grace,



Please excuse paper and pencil, as lam not writing this at home and have nothing else here. I received your letter last night and was just a little surprised although I thought you would be discouraged. Don't worry so much and think less about how you feel and have a good time...





There is more in the letter about a trip some of his friends are taking and that he cannot leave Cortland before the seventh of July, but nothing about Carl Grahm. I open the next one.





July 2, 1906

Dear Kid—



I certainly felt good when I got your letter although I also felt mean as I hadn't written all week. Wednesday and Thursday I had to work on the payroll and Friday a friend came and stayed all night. Saturday I went up to the lake and am so burned tonight I cannot wear a collar or coat. We went out in the canoe and to two other lakes, and, although the canoe was heavy to carry, we had a good time ... As for my plans for the Fourth I have made none as the only two girls I could get to go with me have made other arrangements because I didn't ask them until Saturday...





Now I see why Grace sounded so worried in all her letters. There were other girls. She wasn't the only one. There were girls that maybe he wanted to be with more than he wanted to be with her. Lord, what a mess of trouble she was in. Chester had put her in the family way and she needed him to marry her, but he didn't seem to want to. Not if she had to plead with him to come for her, not if he barely wrote to her, and when he did, told her about other girls he was taking around.

Not if he fought with her at dinner about trying to find a chapel.

I can't imagine how frightened Grace must have been, alone with her terrible secret, waiting and waiting for Chester to come. I remember all Pas warnings about men and the one thing they want, and I shudder to think what would happen to me if I ever found myself a baby before I found myself a husband. But then I comfort myself with the knowledge that Chester did do right by her in the end. He came and got her and brought her to the North Woods to elope, didn't he? Even if they did fight about the chapel. Why else would he have brought her here if it wasn't to elope?

I am so confused. I don't know what to think. I feel like the little feather shuttlecock in the badminton games the guests play, batted about from one side to the other.