Fair and Tender Ladies Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  PART ONE - Letters from Sugar Fork

  PART TWO - Letters from Majestic

  PART THREE - Letters from Diamond

  PART FOUR - Letters from Sugar Fork

  PART FIVE - Letters from Sugar Fork

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Praise for

  Fair and Tender Ladies

  “A tour de force.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “Reading Lee Smith’s work is like coming home again, to find everything just as you remembered: worn quilts on the brass bed, cat dozing in the most comfortable chair by the fire, peach cobbler in the oven. And Ivy Rowe, the heroine of Fair and Tender Ladies, is just the sort of friend we want to find waiting for us.”

  —The Washington Post

  “Because of Ivy’s narrative ability and her zest for living, Fair and Tender Ladies opens for us like a flower with a gloriously unexpected center. There are unforgettable characters. . . . Few readers will be dry-eyed as they watch this extraordinary woman disappear around that last bend in the road.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “In this book, Smith reins in her humor to listen to one voice, the joltingly clear sound of Ivy Rowe, whose passion for letter writing yields a poignant chronicle of enduring pride.”

  —People

  “Lee Smith’s fast-moving, tender folk tale about an endearing mountain beauty may be her best book yet; certainly warmhearted, willful Ivy Rowe is her deepest, best-developed character. Woven into her story are many of the fabled things of Smith’s native Appalachia—mysterious, seductive strangers, independent, hardworking people whose pride transcends poverty, foolishness for love, and the everlasting pull of the Virginia hills themselves.”

  —The Virginian-Pilot/Ledger-Star

  “There is only one voice covering four generations in a typical backwoods family. But the voice of Ivy Rowe is positive, joyful, and irrepressible even in the face of hardship, disappointment, and family tragedy.”

  —The Seattle Times

  “The story of Ivy Rowe, born near the turn of the century in the Virginia mountain enclave of Sugar Fork, is told completely through letters that Ivy is forever writing family and friends. . . . Lee Smith exhibits her own understanding and affection for the traditions of the Appalachians. She is at home with the down-home speech and ways of her characters. They come vividly to life, and none more so than Ivy, whose voice and heart and humor sustain Fair and Tender Ladies.”

  —The Philadelphia Inquirer

  Berkley titles by Lee Smith

  THE DEVIL’S DREAM

  FAIR AND TENDER LADIES

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

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  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 1988 by Lee Smith.

  The author gratefully acknowledges permission to quote the following: Excerpt from lyrics of “Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning” by Irving Berlin, at pages 143–144. © Copyright 1918 Irving Berlin. © Copyright renewed 1945 Irving Berlin. © Copyright assigned to Ruth H. (Mrs. Ralph J.) Bunche, Joe DiMaggio, and Theodore R. Jackson as Trustees, God Bless America Fund.

  Lyrics from “Heartbreak Hotel” by Mae Boren Axton, Tommy Durden, and Elvis Presley, at pages 328–329. Copyright © 1956 Tree Publishing Co., Inc. Copyright renewed. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission of the publisher.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  BERKLEY ® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-51648-5

  Smith, Lee, date.

  Fair and tender ladies/Lee Smith.

  p. cm.

  ISBN : 978-1-101-51648-5

  I. Title.

  PS3569.M5376F28 1988

  88-10915 CIP

  813’.54—dc19

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For Amity

  Weep-Willow

  At night she watched the road

  and sang. I’d sigh and settle on the

  floor

  beside her. One song led

  to one more song. Some unquiet grave.

  A bed of stone. The ship that spun

  round

  three times ere it sank,

  near ninety verses full of grief.

  She sang sad all night long

  and smiled, as if she dared me

  shed a tear. Sweet Lizzie Creek

  swung low

  along the rocks, and dried beans

  rattled

  in the wind. Sometimes her black dog

  howled

  at fox or bear, but she’d not stop,

  no, not for God Himself, not even if

  he rode

  astride a fine white horse and bore the

  Crown

  of Glory in his hands. The dark was all

  she had. And sometimes moonlight

  on the ceaseless water. “Fill my cup,”

  she’d say, and sip May moonshine

  till her voice came back as strong as

  bullfrogs

  in the sally grass. You whippoorwills

  keep silent, and you lonesome owls

  go haunt

  another woman’s darkest hours. Clear,

  clear back I hear her singing me to

  sleep.

  “Come down,” she trolls,

  “Come down among the willow

  shade and weep, you fair

  and tender ladies left to lie alone,

  the sheets so cold,

  the nights so long.”

  FROM WILDWOOD FLOWER,

  BY KATHRYN STRIPLING BYER

  Fair and Tender Ladies

  “Oh Ivy, sing ivory, rosebud and thorn . . .”

  PART ONE

  Letters from Sugar Fork

  My dear Hanneke,

  Your name is not much common here, I think it is so pretty too. I say it now and agin it tastes sweet in my mouth like h
oney or cane or how I picture the fotched-on candy from Mrs. Browns book about France, candy wich mimicks roses. Have you seed any such as this? I have not. I have seed them in her red book that is all. My teacher is called Mrs. Brown. She is from far away also, she has lived in the city of St. Louis oncet with buggies and streetligts, I know all about it now. And I know all how you live too, we have seed the pictures, I cannot feature it all so flat ther with flat water so brigtly blue and never a mountain nor nary a cloud in the sky. You are lower than the sea so that oncet a boy has had to stick his finger in the wall to hold back the water, this is scary to me. I have nare seed the ocean nor has anyone I know seed it althogh Daddy has been to the city too, he did not like it with bad water and no air and no mountains like Bethel Mountain yonder, Daddy says he needs a mountain to rest his eyes aginst. But in the book I have seed those fields of flowers, tulips, we think you have wooden shoes. Momma makes all of our clothes we have storeboghten shoes thogh they are black, they have copper on the toes so as not to wear out very fast. I disgust them and wish for wooden shoes and a lace cap like yourn and such pretty long white stockings, you look like a little Queen.

  I know it is not you in the book but I think it is you. I hope you will be my Pen Friend.

  My momma had also a white dress with lace as a girl, I have seed the picture. She stands by the door it is a fancy door of a house in a town I know is Rich Valley where she has growed up and ther is her big father smiling holding her hand but now a hardness has come up between them. He has a black suit and a black mustashe and a gold watch chain hanging down in the picture, he is rich, his name is Mister Castle and we do not know him atall. He is smiling but he is mean. My momma Maude was then fifteen, her momma had died of her lungs in the year 1886 so that Maude was the ligt of her daddys life, and the only joy of his hart.

  Then my daddy come to Rich Valley and she took up with him, and her and him set to walking out together of an evening like you do.

  Mister Castle said NO I forbid it, he has no prospects, and said he wuld send my momma to her mothers sister in Memphis Tenessee where my momma never had been or even heard tell of, to learn her some sense and how to act like a lady at last. Instead my momma packed up her own mommas silver brush and comb which was all she took, and lit out in the dead of nigt for Sugar Fork with my daddy John Arthur Rowe. He is a redheaded man he had been over ther in Rich Valley with his brother trading mules. My momma and him rode double astride on daddys horse Lightning. She was glad to leave, she said, and never looked back nor cared for a thing but my daddy.

  They carried a pine knot that burned in the nigt to show them the way. They passed throgh Squeeze Betsy in the Pound Gap it is so black at nigt the rocky-clifts is so high they nearabout black out the moon. And then you come up on Bethel Mountain wich is high and lonesome and a hoot owl screeched out in the nigt it like to have scarred my momma to death she was a town girl she like to have plum lost hart then and ther, Daddy says. He says the pine knot was burning yaller and you culd see little critters eyes all shining yaller in the ligt from the edge of the woods. They is still bears and catamounts up on Bethel Mountain, to this day.

  Well Momma and Daddy come on to Slate Creek and follered it down to Home Creek where they forded it at the grist mill and Momma got down in the dark and wetted her face with the water, she said her face was burning as hot as fire she was all atremble from what she had done and they never knowed at that time if Mister Castle wuld of sent a posse out after them or not. My daddy a Batcheler was considerable older than her. Momma said she seed her face in the still black pool by the pine knots yaller ligt and she looked so wild, she culd not of said who she was, she culd not of called her own name. But she said that the water in Home Creek was so cool, and tasted the sweetest of any she ever had. And Daddy kissed her, and they got up agin on Lightning thogh Momma was so sore by then that she like to have died, she said she was down in the back atterwards for days and days.

  So they rode on alongside Home Creek and by then it was getting ligt, on the prettest path you have ever seed, it is still rigt here, it runs throgh sprucey-pines and he-balsams and past three little old waterfalls. When you get to that third one you start looking out for them two big cedar trees and you leave Home Creek rigt ther where Sugar Fork comes into it and foller Sugar Fork up and up, you will ford it twicet, its the loudest and singingest little old creek you ever dreamed of, and direckly when you cant go no further youl be here, here in my daddys house which was his daddys house afore him way up here on Blue Star Mountain.

  And it aint nobody up here but usuns.

  Daddy had lived up here farming all by hisself since his own daddy died of his hart and his momma died of the bloody flux and his sister had maried and gone off and his brother Revel had took to helling around so. Sometimes Daddy wuld go down the mountain somewhere and holp Revel with his buisness, which is mules. But then he wuld come back up here direckly, Daddy wuld, he dont love noplace in the world he says like he loves Sugar Fork.

  Well it was getting on for daybreak when my daddy and my momma come riding up there plum wore out, and Lightning so puny he is going on dead, he never was the same horse after that nigt Daddy said, you can see for why. Uncle Revel wanted to trade him after he got so puny but Momma said NO and she fed him out of her own hand and wuld not let nobody ride him but her until the day he died, wich was not long in coming. That ride had used him teetotally up.

  The sun come peeping up then over the top of Hell Mountain like a white hot firy ball rising up from the fog that always hangs on the mountaintop of an evening. It will burn off in the day.

  Momma looked around.

  She saw Sugar Fork sparkle in the sun like a ladys dimond necklace.

  She saw Pilgrim Knob rise up direckly behind the house, and Blue Star Mountain beyond. They call it that because of how blue it looks from down below, along Home Creek and Daves Branch, why you can see Blue Star Mountain clear from Majestic on a pretty day. And you can see the Conaways and the Rolettes and the Foxes cabins, coming up Home Creek from the schoolhouse like her and daddy had done that morning, now you can see all them neghbor peoples houses fine but you cant see ourn, nor get to it nether, without wanting to. You are not going to happen upon us, is what I mean. And Blue Star Mountain dont seem so blue nether, when your up here. But it is the prettest place in the world.

  And so my momma looked all around, and she seed all of that.

  She seed the shining waters of Sugar Fork go leaping off down the mountain into the laurel slick. And she seed that this is a good big double cabin here with a breezeway in between where it is fine to set and look out and do your piecework. And she seed the snowball bush in the yard and the rosybush here by the porch all covered with pink-pink flowers. It was June. And Momma looked up in the sky she said and she seed a hawk gliding circles around and around without never flapping his wings, agin that big blue sky. She said that hawk made three circles in the sky, and then Daddy turned to her real formal-like and cleared his throat and said Maude, it is what I have to give you. It is all I have. But she knowed this, she had knowed it all along. It will do, John, is what she said. Then she busted out laghing and my daddy picked her up and carried her in the house wich is where I live today, in Virginia, in the United States of America. But you must put Majestic, Virginia, U.S.A. and many stamps on the outside of your letter Mrs. Brown said or it will not come here.

  Now I am glad I have set this all down for I can see my Momma and Daddy as young, and laghing. This is not how they are today. For I have to say they did not live haply ever after as in Mrs. Browns book. I reckon that migt even of been the lastest time my Daddy ever lifted her up, or lifted ary thing else heavy. Because before long a weakness was to come upon him, from the hart.

  Now this is Daddys bad hart, wich he has to this day, he is the disablest one up here rigt now. You can hear his bad hart for yourself iffen you come over and put your ear up agin his chest, it goes dum-DUM dum-DUM like our banty rooster that goes coo-COO coo-CO
O of a morning on Pilgrim Knob. You can hear Daddys bad hart just thumping away irreglar in his chest. He is little now too, hardly no meat atall on his bones, but his hair is still thick and red and his eyes are so blue and just as lively as Sugar Fork. He will still tell a story. He is little thogh like a brownie in Mrs. Browns McGuffey Reader.

  Do you have a reader? Do you like to read? I love it bettern anything and mostly poems such as Thanatopses and the little toy soldier is covered with dust but sturdy and stanch he stands and the highwayman came riding riding up to the old inn door. I love that one the bestest.

  Mister Brown is a forren preacher from the North but does not preach he is the husband of Mrs. Brown my teacher. He says to her, what is your substance whereof are you made? and other poems. He carries bunches of flowers up from the creek for her and one time it was about a month ago he brung them rigt into the schoolhouse and give them to her with a funny little bow like a Prince you ougt to of seed him, we was all rigt ther when he done it. Her cheeks turned as red as a apple, I wuld of had a fit if it was me.

  For I take a intrest in her and Mister Brown and in what I have told you, the story of my Momma and Daddy. I take a intrest in Love because I want to be in Love one day and write poems about it, do you? But I do not want to have a lot of babys thogh and get tittys as big as the moon. So it is hard to think what to do. My momma was young and so pretty when she come riding up Sugar Fork, but she does not look pretty now, she looks awful, like her face is hanted, she has had too much on her. Too much to contend with she says.