The Hired Girl (4 page)

But Father was too quick for me. His arm lashed out, making a barrier between Miss Chandler’s books and my hands. She flinched and stepped back, clutching the books to her breast. Father’s arm is as hard as iron, and she was as frightened as if he’d struck her. The way he moved, so fast and strong and angry — it wasn’t proper to treat a lady caller like that.

“She don’t need books to
pass the time.
” His voice was thick with scorn. “She can waste time without you helping her, I guess. She reads too much as it is.”

“I don’t,” I began indignantly. “I only read at night — mostly.”

“Joan has a great thirst for knowledge,” Miss Chandler said. Her voice was shaky, but she was taking up for me. My heart swelled with love. But at the same time, I wished she would stop. It never does any good to speak against Father. “I’ve never had a brighter student, or one who works harder. I’m not saying she must return to school, but a girl can better herself if she has books. I’d like to help Joan.” She was trembling, but she spoke with such fineness and dignity — I’ve never seen anyone so brave and so ladylike at the same time. “I know that some people think that a girl becomes less womanly if her intellect is overdeveloped, but it is my belief that a girl is better fitted for marriage and motherhood —”

Father laughed. It wasn’t a natural sound, or a happy one. When most people laugh, it’s like water splashing over the lip of a pitcher. The thing happens easily, and it wants to go on. Father’s laugh was like coughing up something from the back of his throat.

“Marriage and motherhood!” he said. He jerked his head toward me. “Who’s going to marry
her
? No one’s going to take her off my hands. She don’t need books to fit her for marriage and motherhood.”

Miss Chandler glanced at me. It was a quick look, but I saw that she was sorry for me, and I was ashamed. Sometimes I’m glad when people are sorry for me, but this was different. Father never said before that no one would want to marry me. I didn’t know he’d thought it through.

“If Joan does not marry,” Miss Chandler said tremulously, “she will need an education more than ever. I understand that her mother —”

Father’s face darkened. “Her ma filled her head with nonsense,” he said. “She wanted Joan to be a schoolteacher. Well, she can’t be a schoolteacher, because she’s needed at home. She’s got work to do here, work she’s fit for.” He fixed his eyes on the trousers, then looked hard at Miss Chandler. “You needn’t come back,” he said, and went up the path to the house.

I stood dumbstruck. I couldn’t believe that he’d spoken to Miss Chandler that way — to
Miss Chandler.
I heard her take in her breath, and the way she did it, I didn’t have to look to know she was almost crying. I understood. There’s something about Father that weakens you. It’s the choked-down anger inside him. It’s like stagnant water, heavy and murky and sickening. Whenever I have words with Father, I feel poisoned, even two or three days after.

And of course, Miss Chandler isn’t used to being treated like that. Everyone in these parts knows she’s a good teacher and a real lady. I put out my hand to touch her sleeve. “Please —” I didn’t rightly know what I was saying
please
for.
Please don’t cry,
maybe. Or:
Please don’t let him keep you from coming again.
But she said under her breath, “I’d better leave,” and her hands were shaking as she jammed the books back in her satchel.

I followed her down the hill. I found myself jabbering, saying that Father hadn’t meant what he said, that it was just one of his humors. I told her she
must
come again and told her the times when Father is usually out. But she wasn’t listening. She wanted to get away so bad. She hadn’t even fastened the satchel properly, and through the open part I saw the gold letters on the green book.
The Mill on the Floss.
Miss Chandler had told me about that one, and I’d
so
wanted to read it. I felt the sting of that loss, and shame swept over me, because I was thinking about myself, instead of Miss Chandler. It isn’t that I don’t love Miss Chandler. I do — I do — with all my heart! It’s just that I couldn’t help seeing the title on the book.

I gave up pursuing her when we reached the spot where the hill leveled out. She wasn’t answering me, or even listening, because she was too busy pretending she wasn’t crying. I ought to have thanked her for all her kindness, but I didn’t think of it.
Thank you
goes with
good-bye,
and I wasn’t ready to say good-bye. But at last I blurted out that I would never forget her. And then we separated, and both of us were weeping.

Tuesday, June the twentieth, 1911

It’s past midnight and I can’t sleep. I can’t lie still. My face aches and I can’t stop hating Father. These past two hours, I’ve done nothing but toss and turn. I’ve been plumping and folding my pillow, trying to make it cradle my head, but it won’t. My hatred has crawled into the pillow slip and made a lump.

So I’ve left my bed and lit a candle to write in this book —
dear
Miss Chandler’s book. I remember how when she gave it to me, I had a notion that I might one day write something very eloquent and beautiful in it, something I could show her. Now I know I’ll never see her again.

I am heartbroken about Miss Chandler. It strikes me that I haven’t any other friends — Miss Chandler was the only, only one — and suddenly I’m so hot with rage that I want to pace and stalk the room and beat my fists against the wall. I think of everything that Father’s taken away — first my education, and now my last friend. And I want to shriek at him — but I only write in my book. I don’t want Father to hear me and come into my room. He’d take my candle — candles cost money, and he’d say I was wasting. He’d take my book. Only he doesn’t know about my book. I must be careful to hide it, always.

I
hate
Father, and that makes me feel wicked. I’m sure the Blessed Mother wouldn’t hold with me hating him so much. It’s unnatural to hate my own father. But why isn’t
he
more natural? Why doesn’t he care one bit for my happiness? When I think of him telling Miss Chandler not to come again — ! — and I recall the contemptuous sound in his voice when he said no one would marry me — ! — it
chokes
me with hatred.

I wouldn’t have thought the not-marrying part would hurt so much. Even when I was a little girl, I never planned on getting married. I never liked any of the boys at school. They’re all so
crude.
Alice Marsh has a crush on Cy Watkins, and he carries her books from school, but I never cared for any boy like that. The only man I was ever really interested in was Mr. Rochester in
Jane Eyre.
He’s depraved but he isn’t crude. He speaks so beautifully and asks such interesting questions. And he never minded that Jane was plain, because he was capable of
true love.
If I were ever going to marry, it would only be if I found
true love.
But I don’t expect to find it. Nobody around here is the least bit like Mr. Rochester. I guess Father’s right — if I did want to get married, I’d have to marry someone around here, and the girls outnumber the boys, so it’s likely I wouldn’t be asked. But the way he said it — as if I’d
have
to be one of the girls that nobody wanted — gnaws at my vitals. I felt so humiliated. And in front of Miss Chandler, too!

I stopped writing just now so that I could look in the mirror and judge how pretty I am. Sometimes I look better by moonlight or candlelight — the darker it is, the prettier I look. But of course, I’d forgotten my face. When I looked into the glass I saw the madwoman in
Jane Eyre
— a countenance fearful and ghastly, savage and discolored. Of course I couldn’t see exactly
how
discolored I was, because the light was dim. But I look frightful. I think of Father saying, “Who’s going to marry her?” and it seems true. Not that I want to get married. I’d rather be a schoolteacher. That was Ma’s plan for me.

But I can’t be a schoolteacher, because I haven’t enough education. And if I can’t get married, there’s nothing for me in the future. I’ll be stuck here my whole life long. Now I see that’s the worst of what happened with Father today. He crushed my last hope. That sounds like something someone in a novel might say, but it’s true: I have no future. He won’t allow me an education; I haven’t any friends; I’m not even allowed to borrow books. My life stretches ahead of me, empty save for drudgery, farm work and housework, day after day, season after season. That’s what Father’s life is like — mean and narrow, with the whole world wrapped up in
this farm.

Only he doesn’t mind it. He wants me to be like him, yoked to the plow, toiling away, counting every penny, hating every kind of weather that falls from the sky. He never reads, he barely thinks, he has no God but Mammon, and he loves nobody.

I wonder if he ever loved Ma. I don’t think he could have — not much, anyway, because if he’d loved her, she wouldn’t have been so unhappy. I once asked Ma why she chose to marry Father, and she smiled in a way that was like wincing. She said it wasn’t a question of picking and choosing. There was never anyone else. By the time Father came along, she was twenty-six and an old maid.

I believe she wished she’d stayed an old maid. It wouldn’t have been easy for her, because she lived with Great-Aunt Alma, and Great-Aunt Alma is a horrible old woman. But I think life with Father was worse. Ma always warned me against getting married. She wanted something different for me.

I remember when I was seven years old and first went off to school. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to go, because the boys hated school. But Ma made me a new dress out of her old blue calico, and that tipped the scales in the other direction. I headed off to school in my new dress, determined to behave myself, because sometimes Luke was whipped in school and then Father whipped him again when he came home.

My teacher was Miss Lang. She set the oldest girl in charge of the other students and took the whole primary class outside and had us sit under a tree. She sat in a chair and read to us from a book of fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen. She read “Thumbelina.” I’d never heard such a story in my life. I could see it before my eyes, painted in the brightest, most delicate hues — that tiny little fairy child, rowing her flower-petal canoe. Oh, how I longed to be that fairy and row that tiny canoe! And then, how terrible it was that poor Thumbelina was carried off by a toad! Luke used to put toads down my back, and I’ve always hated them. And then, after Thumbelina got free of the toad, she was carried off by the horrid june bug!

And
then
— when she was shut of
him
— Thumbelina found the poor dead swallow, resting in its tomb below the ground! I knew it would be shameful to cry in school, and I didn’t want the teacher to think I was a baby, so I bent my head to hide my tears. But I couldn’t bear the sorrow of the dead swallow. And the joy I felt, when Thumbelina nursed him and he turned out not to be dead after all! The joy and the wonder and the rightness of it!

Only, after that, the stuck-up mole with the black velvet coat wanted to marry Thumbelina. She had nothing but trouble with the men, poor thing! Luckily the swallow rescued her, flying her away to a land of orange trees and butterflies and freedom. Oh, that story! I never, never could have thought of anything so beautiful. When it was over — I couldn’t help myself — I forgot to raise my hand, and I cried out, “Oh, please, teacher, read it over, read it over!”

Then I was aghast because I had called out, and I thought Miss Lang would punish me. But she gave me a lovely smile and said, “When you learn to read, you will be able to read that story all by yourself.”

I became a scholar that day. I hung on Miss Lang’s words and did whatever she told me to do. Miss Lang said that learning the letters was the beginning of reading. So when I lay in bed at night, I stroked my ABCs on my pillowcase and made consonant sounds under my breath. I learned to read — quickly, quickly. So quickly that Miss Lang came to visit Ma.

I was peeling potatoes for supper. Ma told me to take them outside, so that she could talk to Miss Lang alone. I went out, wondering if I’d done something bad and what it might be. Ma told me nothing until later, when she put me to bed.

Ma was different that night. She had a fierce look on her face that frightened me a little because Ma was usually so meek. But I sensed that she was happy in some way I couldn’t understand. She stroked my cheek and said in a low, proud voice, “Miss Lang says you have a keen intelligence.”

I didn’t know what that was. Ma saw the question in my eyes. “She means you’re right smart,” she whispered, “real smart. She never had a child learn to read so quick. And she says you work hard, and have”— she paused to recollect the phrase —“real intellectual curiosity.”

“What does that mean?” I whispered.

“It means you needn’t marry a farmer,” Ma said, and her eyes were far away. “You needn’t marry anyone, unless you’ve a mind to it.” She brought her hand down and squeezed my chin harder than was comfortable. “You could be a schoolteacher, like Miss Lang.”

I considered this. I admired Miss Lang, with her crisp white shirtwaists, and her dark hair, and her silver-rimmed glasses. I liked the way she could rap her ruler three times on the desk and make everyone fall silent. I tried to nod my head to say that I was willing to be like Miss Lang, but Ma’s hand was still on my chin.

“That’s settled, then,” she said. She bent down and kissed me. From that day on, she had a vision of my future life, and she made sure I lived up to it. I loved reading and arithmetic, and history gave me no trouble, but I disliked spelling and didn’t care about geography. Ma made me spell words, and she pestered me with questions about cities and countries and capitals. She didn’t know the answers and I knew she didn’t, so sometimes I made them up. But that made me feel bad inside, so the next day in school I’d find the true answers in the big dictionary or Miss Lang’s atlas. When I was eight, I won the primary grades’ spelling bee. By the time I was nine, I’d come to love geography; it was the igloos and the whale blubber that caught me. I could draw any continent in the world, freehand, and label the countries and the capital cities.