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Of Vanity & ScarsFeb 12 '07 (Updated Feb 13 '07) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line At the heart of every woman is a flaw with fangs; walk softly lest you wake it up.
Up and down the main thoroughfare of Stillson they’d strut, stifling in the sultry heat of summer, with their top-dollar suits soaking up the sweat and hands using hats to fan their faces, a seaside community alive with hordes of handsome suitors all competing for the prize of Jessica Treadwater. While the shy ones kept to the safety of the sidewalk and spent their chances on a bashful grin, the braver souls among them would stroll confidently up to the edge of the verandah and request that the beautiful redhead join them for a glass of sweet tea or lemonade in the shade of yonder live oak. She’d almost always agree, believing deep down that a man ought to be rewarded for showing more gumption than the rest of the pack. But hidden beneath that veil of simple Southern courtesy was a disinterest in any of the two-legged lap dogs that lay down at her feet, holding hope in their hearts that she’d turn her lilywhite body, lovely face, and hundred year old antebellum home over to their designs- innocent, nefarious, or otherwise. Abraham Treadwater, that bastard Confederate sea captain who pushed her mother to her death down a flight of stairs and left a four inch scar up the left side of Jessica’s face so that Stillson’s lusty brood of boys would avoid his daughter during his long and frequent absences, taught her that life is all about hanging on to what is yours while trying to separate others from what is theirs. The difference, of course, was merely one of method; whereas her father had succeeded on the back of brute force, Jessica manipulated her army of flatterers into doing just about everything other women had to pay for nightly by embracing the enemy. She saved a fortune in servants’ wages by keeping the slavering masses around, since an eager handyman was as easy to find as a nigger with a hankerin’ for a handful of long blonde hair. Some around Stillson accused her of exploiting them wistful young souls, but Jessica always viewed it as more of an exchange, since anyone with the fortitude to approach her porch was granted the enviable pleasure of enjoying her company for awhile. Besides, Jessica never misled a single suitor, not even the most helpful among them, into believing that betrothal would be the end result. Two people remained constant fixtures throughout it all, the first being a deaf-mute doer of odd-jobs named Errol and the second being Mr. Frederick Honeycutt, the most tenacious and inveterate of Jessica’s pursuers, but also the least likely to ever see his efforts amount to anything. While some came seeking a pretty face to add to their inventory, others could hardly conceal their interest in Treadwater’s valuable property, and Honeycutt ranked foremost among the latter category. If true love for Jessica had ever blazed in Frederick’s eyes, its light had long since paled beside his burning desire for the most coveted piece of real estate in Stillson. As for Errol, she never doubted that his loyalty was only to her. Realizing that honest efforts to obtain the property and love of Miss Jessica were taking him nowhere, Frederick decided upon a deceit-based strategy, one designed to gain possession of the Treadwater realm by introducing a heretofore unknown relative to the heirless bachelorette, in the hope that she’d accept the stranger as someone fit and worthy to inherit her estate. Disregarding the obvious flaws in his plan, Honeycutt swept the land from South Carolina to the Mississippi delta for a woman who both looked the part and was a good enough actress but bad enough person to play along. He finally settled on a redhead from the Florida panhandle named Adana Day, whose physical resemblance to Jessica was downright startling, with the obvious exception of the scar. Using forged papers that claimed Adana as the bastard child of Abraham Treadwater, sired and left behind by that notorious ladies’ man during one of his many travels, Honeycutt intended to present her to Jessica as a long-lost sister he’d discovered on a business trip to Tallahassee. Once the girl had been accepted as a sibling by Jessica and a rightful heir to the Treadwater lands and mansion, the second and darker phase of Honeycutt’s scheme would spring into action, with Frederick taking Adana as his wife upon the “accidental death” of the woman he used to court. While suspicious of Honeycutt’s intentions, Jessica agreed to at least meet with the girl who claimed to be her half-sister, with the stipulation that the encounter take place at the mansion. Much to Honeycutt’s supreme annoyance, Jessica made it quite clear that he was to send Adana Day to the front door with no other escort than the documents showing a familial link between the two. Frederick, who so desperately yearned to be present at that first meeting lest Adana break under interrogation, had little choice but to comply with the lady’s conditions; that is, until he came up with another plan. Adana was sent to the mansion with the wrong set of papers, giving Honeycutt an excuse to later put in an appearance. Granting them a full hour alone to neutralize any suspicions, Honeycutt set out in his finest white suit in a wagon drawn by his strongest mule, only to find himself mired down in a muddy road along the way. Angry at the delay and by the prospect of dirtying up his immaculate threads, he pulled the pant legs above his knees (while forgetting to remove his shoes) and leapt from the wagon, landing up to his ankles in the muck. Swearing violently and determined to reach the Treadwater residence at all costs, he started off on foot, holding in his right hand a pocketknife with which to scrape the mud from his shoes once he found a nice dry place to sit. Just as he was stomping his way around a bend in the road, he was spotted by Errol, who immediately assumed that a knife-wielding and obviously enraged Frederick Honeycutt heading in the general direction of Treadwater Manor could only mean danger for the woman he loved. In a fraction of the time it would normally take him to do so, Errol retrieved his shotgun from the shack Miss Jessica let him occupy at the back of her property and waited for Frederick behind some palmetto bushes. Honeycutt never even knew what hit him as the deaf-mute opened fire with both barrels and buried his body in a thickly-wooded part of that land he had wanted so very badly. At about the same time that buckshot was ruining Frederick Honeycutt’s suit and taking off the top half of his head, Jessica was beginning to grow weary of her visitor. She never even asked to see the documents, having decided right away that Adana’s resemblance to herself could only mean that Honeycutt’s claims were true. The impostor played her part with consummate skill but failed to realize how much better of an actress was Jessica, whose fear of losing her status as most sought-after woman in town to a younger unscarred beauty who never suffered at the hands of Abraham Treadwater the way she had, was quietly turning to murderous rage as she smiled and listened to what she’d never learn were lies designed to trick her out of the only thing her wicked father ever left her. Excusing herself for a moment, she returned with two glasses of sherry, having applied a lethal dose of strychnine to Adana’s, which reduced the poor woman to a convulsing mass of agony within minutes. After dropping to her knees and offering up a prayer for the soul of that which she thought was her sister, Jessica gently closed the corpse’s eyes and awaited the one man in Stillson she knew would never tell another of the terrible thing she’d done. For the remainder of her days, Jessica Treadwater lived the reclusive life of a melancholy spinster, no longer entertaining suitors or any other visitors for that matter, except for her silent accomplice, who moved from the shack he’d long called home to take up residence in one of Treadwater’s many rooms. Pneumonia carried him off not long thereafter, and by the end of the following year, Miss Jessica herself was dead, her legendary looks having quickly faded away to lines and blemishes in the wake of Adana Day’s murder. According to the instructions left in her will, the lands were auctioned off, but the house itself was razed to the ground, leading many to wonder what kinds of secrets buried inside the walls were forever destined to remain unrevealed. Not a single one of Stillson’s residents heard a word about the body that washed ashore about that time in Sumner, some twenty-five miles to the south. The Jenson boys who found it in the sand to this very day still rave about how well-preserved and beautiful the body was, despite having been in the water for quite some time. Her hair, they say, was even prettier than the sun setting down over the Okefenokee, while the single scar that lined the right side of her face looked like it’d been put there with loving care by some madwoman a day or two before. 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