Lucy Pate Houston

An orphan raised by a distant kinswoman, Lucy Pate is a "plain girl, almost homely," but possesses "the domestic skill of her country heritage and blood" and "an infinite capacity for constancy and devotion" (227). Jack Houston falls obsessively in love with her from an early age, but he refuses to accept the taunts of their schoolmates, who tease him about the academic help Lucy gives him. Houston's decision to run off may be connected to Eula Varner's pregnancy, but he is also desperate to get away from Lucy. When he returns to Yoknapatawpha, he "was not fearful; the beast, prime solitary and sufficient out of the wild fields, drawn to the trap and knowing it to be a trap, not comprehending why it was doomed but knowing it was, and not afraid now - and not quite wild. They were married in January" (246). Six months later, Houston's prize stallion killed Lucy because she believed she was safe because "I've married him now" (247).