“Yes,” Mrs. Lampley would drawl, as the girl stood smiling vacantly at her side. “She’s growed up here on me before I knowed it, an’ I got to watch her all the time now to keep some son-of-a-bitch from knockin’ her up an’ ruinin’ her. Here only a month or two ago two of these fellers down here at the livery stable—you know who I mean,” she said carelessly, and in a soft, contemptuous voice—“that dirty, good-fer-nothin’ Pegram feller an’ that other low-down bastard he runs around with—what’s his name, Grace?” she said impatiently, turning to the girl.
“That’s Jack Cashman, mama,” the girl answered in a soft and gentle tone, without changing for a second the tender, vacant smile upon her face.
“Yeah, that’s him!” said Mrs. Lampley. “That low-down Cashman—if I ever ketch him foolin’ around here again I’ll break his neck, an’ I reckon he knows it, too,” she said grimly. “Why, I let her out, you know, one night along this Spring, to mail some letters,” she went on in an explanatory tone, “an’ told her not to be gone more’n half an hour—an’ these two fellers picked her up in a buggy they was drivin’ an’ took her fer a ride way up the mountain side. Well, I waited an’ waited till ten o’clock had struck, an’ still she didn’t come. An’ I walked the floor, an’ walked the floor, an’ waited—an’ by that time I was almost out of my head! I’ll swear, I thought I would go crazy,” she said slowly and virtuously. “I didn’t know what to do. An’ finally, when I couldn’t stand it no longer, I went upstairs an’ waked Lampley up. Of course, you know Lampley,” she chuckled. “He goes to bed early. He’s in bed every night by nine o’clock, and he ain’t goin’ to lose sleep over nobody. Well, I waked him up,” she said slowly. “Lampley,’ I says, ‘Grace’s been gone from here two hours, an I’m goin’ to find her if I have to spend the rest of the night lookin’ for her.’—‘Well how you goin’ to find her,’ he says, ‘if you don’t know where she’s gone?’—‘I don’t know,’ I says, ‘but I’ll find her if I’ve got to walk every street an’ break into every house in town—an’ if I find some son-of-a-bitch has taken advantage of her, I’ll kill him with my bare hands,’” said Mrs. Lampley. “I’ll kill the two of them together—for I’d rather see her layin’ dead than know she’s turned out to be a whore’—that’s what I said to him,” said Mrs. Lampley.
During all this time, the girl stood obediently beside the chair in which her mother sat, smiling her tender, vacant smile, and with no other sign of emotion whatever.
“Well,” said Mrs. Lampley slowly, “then I heard her. I heard her while I was talkin’ to Lampley, openin’ the door easylike an’ creepin’ up the stairs. Well, I didn’t say nothin’—I just waited until I heard her tiptoe in along the hall past Lampley’s door—an’ then I opened it an’ called to her. ‘Grace,’ I said, ‘where’ve you been?’—Well,” said Mrs. Lampley with an air of admission, “she told me. She never tried to lie to me. I’ll say that fer her, she’s never lied to me yet. If she did,” she added grimly, “I reckon she knows I’d break her neck.”
And the girl stood there passively, smiling all the time.
“Well, then.” said Mrs. Lampley, “she told me who she’d been with and where they’d been. Well—I thought I’d go crazy!” the woman said slowly and deliberately. “I took her by the arms an’ looked at her. ‘Grace,’ I said, ‘you look me in the eye an’ tell me the truth—did those two fellers do anything to you?’—‘No,’ she says.—‘Well, you come with me,’ I says, ‘I’ll find out if you’re telling me the truth, if I’ve got to kill you to git it out of you.’”
And for a moment the huge creature was silent, staring grimly ahead, while her daughter stood beside her and smiled her gentle and imperturbably sensual smile.
“Well,” said Mrs. Lampley slowly, as she stared ahead, “I took her down into the cellar—and,” she said with virtuous accents of slight regret, “I don’t suppose I should have done it to her, but I was so worried—so worried,” she cried strangely, “to think that after all the bringin’ up she’d had, an’ all the trouble me an’ Lampley had taken tryin’ to keep her straight—that I reckon I went almost crazy…. I reached down an’ tore loose a board in an old packin’ case we had down there,” she said slowly, “an’ I beat her! I beat her,” she cried powerfully, “until the blood soaked through her dress an’ run down on the floor…. I beat her till she couldn’t stand,” cried Mrs. Lampley, with an accent of strange maternal virtue in her voice, “I beat her till she got down on her knees an’ begged for mercy—now that was how hard I beat her,” she said proudly. “An’ you know it takes a lot to make Grace cry—she won’t cry fer nothin’—so you may know I beat her mighty hard,” said Mrs. Lampley, in a tone of strong satisfaction.