In his treatment of her, Shark was neither tender nor cruel. He governed her with the same gentle inflexibility he used on horses. Cruelty would have seemed to him as foolish as indulgence. He never talked to her as to human, never spoke of his hopes or thoughts or failures, of his paper wealth nor of the peach crop. Katherine would have been puzzled and worried if he had. Her life was sufficiently complicated without the added burden of another’s thoughts and problems.
The brown Wicks house was the only unbeautiful thing on the farm. The trash and litter of nature disappears into the ground with the passing of each year, but man’s litter has more permanence. The yard was strewn with old sacks, with papers, bits of broken glass and tangles of baling wire. The only place on the farm where grass and flowers would not grow was the hard-packed dirt around the house, dirt made sterile and unfriendly by emptied tubs of soapy water. Shark irrigated his orchard, but he could see no reason for wasting good water around the house.
When Alice was born, the women of the Pastures of Heaven came herding into Shark’s house prepared to exclaim that it was a pretty baby. When they saw it was a beautiful baby, they did not know what to say. Those feminine exclamations of delight designed to reassure young mothers that the horrible reptilian creatures in their arms are human and will not grow up to be monstrosities, lost their meaning. Furthermore, Katherine had looked at her child with eyes untainted by the artificial enthusiasm with which most women smother their disappointments. When Katherine had seen that the baby was beautiful, she was filled with wonder and with awe and misgiving. The fact of Alice’s beauty was too marvelous to be without retribution. Pretty babies, Katherine said to herself, usually turned out ugly men and women. By saying it, she beat off some of the misgiving as though she had apprehended Fate at its tricks and robbed it of potency by her foreknowledge.
On that first day of visiting, Shark heard one of the women say to another in a tone of unbelief, “But it really is a pretty baby. How do you suppose it could be so pretty?”
Shark went back to the bedroom and looked long at his little daughter. Out in the orchard he pondered over the matter. The baby really was beautiful. It was foolish to think that he or Katherine or any of their relatives had anything to do with it for they were all homely even as ordinary people go. Clearly a very precious thing had been given to him, and, since precious things were universally coveted, Alice must be protected. Shark believed in God when he thought of it, of course, as that shadowy being who did everything he could not understand.
Alice grew and became more and more beautiful. Her skin was as lucent and rich as poppies; her black hair had the soft crispness of fern stems, her eyes were misty skies of promise. One looked into the child’s serious eyes and started forward thinking—“Some thing is in there that I know, something I seem to remember sharply, or something I have spent all my life searching for.” Then Alice turned her head. “Why! it is only a lovely little girl.”
Shark saw this recognition take place in many people. He saw men blush when they looked at her, saw little boys fight like tigers when she was about.
He thought he read covetousness in every male face. Often when he was working in the orchard he tortured himself by imagining scenes wherein gypsies stole the little girl. A dozen times a day he cautioned her against dangerous things: the hind heels of horses, the highness of fences, the danger that lurked in gullies and the absolute suicide of crossing a road without carefully looking for approaching automobiles. Every neighbor, every peddler, and worst of all, every stranger he looked upon as a possible kidnapper. When tramps were reported in the Pastures of Heaven he never let the little girl out of his sight. Picnickers wondered at Shark’s ferocity in ordering them off his land.
As for Katherine, the constantly increasing beauty of Alice augmented her misgiving. Destiny was waiting to strike, and that could only mean that destiny was storing strength for a more violent blow. She became the slave of her daughter, hovered about and did little services such as one might accord an invalid who is soon to die.
In spite of the worship of the Wicks for their child and their fears for her safety and their miser-like gloating over her beauty, they both knew that their lovely daughter was an incredibly stupid, dull and backward little girl. In Shark, this knowledge only added to his fears, for he was convinced that she could not take care of herself and would become an easy prey to anyone who wished to make off with her. But to Katherine, Alice’s stupidity was a pleasant thing since it presented so many means by which her mother could help her. By helping, Katherine proved a superiority, and cut down to some extent the great gap between them. Katherine was glad of every weakness in her daughter since each one made her feel closer and more worthy.
When Alice turned fourteen a new responsibility was added to the many her father felt concerning her. Before that time Shark had only feared her loss or disfigurement, but after that he was terrified at the thought of her loss of chastity. Little by little, through much dwelling on the subject, this last fear absorbed the other two. He came to regard the possible defloration of his daughter as both loss and disfigurement. From that time on he was uncomfortable and suspicious when any man or boy was near the farm.
The subject became a nightmare to him. Over and over he cautioned his wife never to let Alice out of her sight. “You just can’t tell what might happen,” he repeated, his pale eyes flaring with suspicions. “You just can’t tell what might happen.” His daughter’s mental inadequateness greatly increased his fear. Anyone, he thought, might ruin her. Anyone at all who was left alone with her might misuse her. And she couldn’t protect herself, because she was so stupid. No man ever guarded his prize bitch when she was in heat more closely than Shark watched his daughter.
After a time Shark was no longer satisfied with her purity unless he had been assured of it. Each month he pestered his wife. He knew the dates better than she did. “Is she all right?” he asked wolfishly.
Katherine answered contemptuously, “Not yet.”
A few hours later—”Is she all right?”
He kept this up until at last Katherine answered, “Of course she’s all right. What did you think?”
This answer satisfied Shark for a month, but it did not decrease his watchfulness. The chastity was intact, therefore it was still to be guarded.
Shark knew that some time Alice would want to be married, but, often as the thought came to him, he put it away and tried to forget it, for he regarded her marriage with no less repugnance than her seduction. She was a precious thing, to be watched and preserved. To him it was not a moral problem, but an aesthetic one. Once she was deflorated, she would no longer be the precious thing he treasured so. He did not love her as a father loves a child. Rather he hoarded her, and gloated over the possession of a fine, unique thing. Gradually, as he asked his question—“Is she all right?”—month by month, this chastity came to symbolize her health, her preservation, her intactness.
One day when Alice was sixteen, Shark went to his wife with a worried look on his face. “You know we really can’t tell if she’s all right—that is—we couldn’t really be sure unless we took her to a doctor.”
For a moment Katherine stared at him, trying to realize what the words meant. Then she lost her temper for the first time in her life. “You’re a dirty, suspicious skunk,” she told him. You get out of here! And if you ever talk about it again, I’ll—I’ll go away.”
Shark was a little astonished, but not frightened, at her outburst. He did, however, give up the idea of a medical examination, and merely contented himself with his monthly question.
Meanwhile, Shark’s ledger fortune continued to grow. Every night, after Katherine and Alice had gone to bed, he took down the thick book and opened it under the hanging lamp. Then his pale eyes narrowed and his blunt face took on a crafty look while he planned his investments and calculated his interest. His lips moved slightly, for now he was telephoning an order of stock. A stern and yet sorrowful look crossed his face when he foreclosed a mortgage on a good farm. “I hate to do this,” he whispered. “You folks got to realize it’s just business.”