was old and tired and never went out of the house and it was in May the family held up its head. The two brothers were proud of their sister because of her record in the town school. They themselves were working men and never expected to be anything else but, they thought, “that sister of ours has shown the town that an Edgley can beat them at their own game. She is smarter than any of them. See how she has forced the town to pay attention to her.”
As for Lillian—before the incident with Jerome Hadley, she continually talked of her sister. In Norwalk, Fremont, Clyde and the other towns she visited she had many friends. Men liked her because, as they often said, she was a woman to be trusted. One could talk to her, say anything, and she would keep her mouth shut and in her presence one felt comfortably free and easy. Among her secret associates were members of churches, lawyers, owners of prosperous businesses, heads of respectable families. To be sure they saw Lillian in secret but she seemed to understand and respect their desire for secrecy. “You don’t need to make no bones about it with me. I know you got to be careful,” she said.
On a summer evening, in one of the towns she was in the habit of visiting, an arrangement was made. The man with whom she was to spend the evening waited until darkness had come and then, hiring a horse at a livery stable, drove to an appointed place. Side curtains were put on the buggy and the pair set forth into the darkness and loneliness of country roads. As the evening advanced and the more ardent mood of the occasion passed, a sudden sense of freedom swept over the man. “It is better not to fool around with a young girl or with some other man’s wife. With Lillian one does not get found out and get into trouble,” he thought.
The horse went slowly, along out of the way roads—bars were let down and the couple drove into a field. For hours they sat in the buggy and talked. The men talked to Lillian as they could talk to no other woman they had ever known. She was shrewd and in her own way capable and often the men spoke of their affairs, asking her advice. “Now what do you think, Lil’—if you were me would you buy or sell?” one of them asked.
Other and more intimate things crept into the conversations. “Well, Lil’, my wife and I are all right. We get along well enough, but we ain’t what you might speak of as lovers,” Lillian’s temporary intimate said. “She jaws me a lot when I smoke too much or when I don’t want to go to church. And then, you see, we’re worried about the kids. My oldest girl is running around a lot with young Harry Garvner and I keep asking myself, ‘Is he any good?’ I can’t make up my mind. You’ve seen him around, Lil’, what do you think?”
Having taken part in many such conversations Lillian had come to depend on her sister May to furnish her with a topic of conversation. “I know how you feel. I feel that way about May,” she said. More than a hundred times she had explained that May was different from the rest of the Edgleys. “She’s smart,” she explained. “I tell you what, she’s the smartest girl that ever went to the high school in Bidwell.”
Having so often used May as an example of what an Edgley could be Lillian was shocked when she heard of the affair in the berry field. For several weeks she said nothing and then one evening in July when the two were alone in the house together she spoke. She had intended to be motherly, direct and kind—if firm, but when the words came her voice trembled and she grew angry. “I hear, May, you been fooling with a man,” she began as they sat together on the front porch of the house. It was a hot evening and dark and a thunder storm threatened and for a long time after Lillian had spoken there was silence and then May put her head into her hands and leaning forward began to cry softly. Her body rocked back and forth and occasionally a dry broken sob broke the silence. “Well,” Lillian added sharply, being determined to terminate her remarks before she also broke into tears, “well, May, you’ve made a darn fool of yourself. I didn’t think it of you. I didn’t think you’d turn out a fool.”
In the attempt to control her own unhappiness and to conceal it, Lillian became more and more angry. Her voice continued to tremble and to regain control of it she got up and went inside the house. When she came out again May still sat in the chair at the edge of the porch with her head held in her hands. Lillian was moved to pity. “Well, don’t break your heart about it, kid. I’m only an old fool after all. Don’t pay too much attention to me. I guess Kate and I haven’t set you such a good example,” she said softly.
Lillian sat on the edge of the porch and put her hand on May’s knee and when she felt the trembling of the younger woman’s body a sharp mother feeling awakened within her. “I say, kid,” she began again, “a girl gets notions into her head. I’ve had them myself. A girl thinks she’ll find a man that’s all right. She kinda dreams of a man that doesn’t exist. She wants to be good and at the same time she wants to be something else. I guess I know how you felt but, believe me, kid, it’s bunk. Take it from me, kid, I know what I’m talking about. I been with men enough. I ought to know something.”
Intent now on giving advice and having for the first time definitely accepted her sister as a comrade Lillian did not realize that what she now had to say would hurt May more than her anger. “I’ve often wondered about mother,” she said reminiscently. “She was always so glum and silent. When Kate and I went on the turf she never had nothing to say and even when I was a kid and began running around with men evenings, she kept still. I remember the first time I went over to Fremont with a man and stayed out all night. I was ashamed to come home. ‘I’ll catch hell,’ I thought but she never said nothing at all and it was the same way with Kate. She never said nothing to her. I guess Kate and I thought she was like the rest of the family—she was banking on you.”
“To Ballyhack with Dad and the boys,” Lillian added sharply. “They’re men and don’t care about anything but getting filled up with booze and when they’re tired sleeping like dogs. They’re like all the other men only not so much stuck on themselves.”
Lillian became angry again. “I was pretty proud of you, May, and now I don’t know what to think,” she said. “I’ve bragged about you a thousand times and I suppose Kate has. It makes me sore to think of it, you an Edgley and being as smart as you are, to fall for a cheap one like that Jerome Hadley. I bet he didn’t even give you any money or promise to marry you either.”
May arose from her chair, her whole body trembling as with a chill, and Lillian arose and stood beside her. The older woman got down to the kernel of what she wanted to say. “You ain’t that way are you, sis—you ain’t going to have a kid?” she asked. May stood by the door, leaning against the door jamb and the rain that had been threatening began to fall. “No, Lillian,” she said. Like a child begging for mercy she held out her hand. Her face was white and in a flash of lightning Lillian could see it plainly. It seemed to leap out of the darkness toward her. “Don’t talk about it any more, Lillian, please don’t. I won’t ever do it again,” she pleaded.
Lillian was determined. When May went indoors and up the stairway to her room above she followed to the foot of the stairs and finished what she felt she had to say. “I don’t want you to do it, May,” she said, “I don’t want you to do it. I want to see there be one Edgley that goes straight but if you intend to go crooked don’t be a fool. Don’t take up with a cheap one, like Jerome Hadley, who just give you soft talk. If you are going to do it anyway you just come to me. I’ll get you in with men who have money and I’ll fix it so you don’t have no trouble. If you’re going to go on the turf, like Kate and I did, don’t be a fool. You just come to me.”
In all her life May had never achieved a friendship with another woman, although often she had dreamed of such a possibility. When she was still a school girl she saw other girls going homeward in the evening. They loitered along, their arms linked, and how much they had to say to each other. When they came to a corner, where their ways parted, they could not bear to leave each other. “You go a piece with me tonight and tomorrow night I’ll go a piece with you,” one of them said.
May hurried homeward
