If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him…

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ON THE FIRST morning of her husband’s lingering death, Lucy Todhunter came down to breakfast alone. She explained to the houseguests-Mr. Norville from the railroad and her North Carolina cousins, the Compsons-that her husband was not feeling well, and that she would take some nourishment up to him on a tray.

“He’s such an old bear when he’s sick,” she said, with a little laugh, as she sat down to a bowl of porridge and cream. “I can’t think how he made it through the inconvenience of the war.” This unfortunate reference to Philip Todhunter’s military infamy (i.e., serving in the Union Army during the Late Unpleasantness) brought furrowed frowns to the faces of the Compson cousins. Lucy blushed and said, “I do beg y’all’s pardon. My mind is on my husband, not my manners.”

Still, her appetite and the gaiety of her table talk suggested that she was not unduly concerned about Philip Todhunter’s illness. Lucy’s long hair was artfully arranged into a chignon, with not a single hairpin showing, and her cheeks were smooth with rice powder. She wore a morning dress of faded green silk, carefully darned here and there on the long skirt, but still serviceable. Lucy’s attire favorably impressed Cousin Mary Hadley Compson of Maysville, North Carolina, who was later to say grudgingly: “Even though Lucy married a carpetbagging Yankee so soon after the war, she didn’t put on airs with their new money.” Of course, the imported Spanish mahogany dining-room table with seven extra leaves and a dozen matching chairs upholstered in crimson Moroccan leather might be considered showy. The drawing room, shining with a green satin suite and matching portieres, boasted a semigrand pianoforte in walnut by Collard & Collard of England that had cost a pretty penny.

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