Soldiers Pay Part 14

"I can't tell. But if you want to, you can wait here for me and I'll come back if I have time. If you want to, you know."

"All right. I'll wait here for you. Please come, Cecily."

"I can't promise. Good-bye."

He was forced to watch her retreating from him, mincing and graceful, diminis.h.i.+ng. h.e.l.l, she won't come, he told himself. But he daren't leave for fear she might. He watched her as long as he could see her, watching her head among other heads, sometimes seeing her whole body delicate and unmistakable. He lit a cigarette and lounged into the drug store.

After a while the clock on the courthouse struck twelve and he threw away his fifth cigarette. G.o.d d.a.m.n her, she won't have another chance to stand me up, he swore. Cursing her he felt better and pushed open the screen door.

He sprang suddenly back into the store and stepped swiftly out of sight and the soda clerk, gla.s.sy-haired and white-jacketed, said "Whatcher dodging?" with interest. She pa.s.sed, walking and talking gaily with a young married man who clerked in a department store. She looked in as they pa.s.sed, without seeing him.

He waited, wrung and bitter with anger and jealousy, until he knew she had turned the corner. Then he swung the door outward furiously. He cursed her again, blindly, and someone behind him saying, "Mist' George, Mist' George," monotonously drew up beside him. He whirled upon a negro boy.

"What in h.e.l.l you want?" he snapped.

"Letter fer you," replied the negro equably, shaming him with better breeding. He took it and gave the boy a coin. It was written on a sc.r.a.p of wrapping paper and it read: "Come tonight after they have gone to bed. I may not get out. But come-if you want to."

He read and re-read it, he stared at her spidery, nervous script until the words themselves ceased to mean anything to his mind. He was sick with relief. Everything, the ancient, slumbering courthouse, the elms, the hitched somnolent horses and mules, the stolid coagulation of negroes and the slow unemphasis of their talk and laughter, all seemed some way different, lovely and beautiful under the indolent moon.

He drew a long breath.

Chapter IV.

Mr. George Farr considered himself quite a man. I wonder if it shows in my face? he thought, keenly examining the faces of men whom he pa.s.sed, trying to fancy that he did see something in some faces that other faces had not. But he had to admit that he could see nothing, and he knew a slight depression, a disappointment. Strange. If that didn't show in your face what could you do for things to show in your face? It would be fine if (George Farr was a gentleman), if without talking men who had women could somehow know each other on sight-some sort of involuntary sign: an automatic masonry. Of course women were no new thing to him. But not like this. Then the pleasing thought occurred to him that he was unique in the world, that nothing like this had happened to any other man that no one else had ever thought of such a thing. Anyway I know it. He gloated over a secret thought like a pleasant taste in the mouth.

When he remembered (remember? had he thought of anything else?) how she had run into the dark house in her nightgown, weeping, he felt quite masculine and superior and gentle. She's all right now though, I guess they all do that.

His Jove-like calm was slightly shaken, however, after he had tried twice unsuccessfully to get her over the 'phone and it was completely shattered when late in the afternoon she drove serenely by him in a car with a girl friend, utterly ignoring him. She didn't see me. (You know she did.) She didn't see me! (You know d.a.m.n well she did.) By nightfall he was on the verge of his possible, mild unemphatic insanity. Then this cooled away as the sun cooled from the sky. He felt nothing, yet like an unattached ghost he felt compelled to linger around the corner which she would pa.s.s if she did come downtown. Suddenly he knew terror. What if I were to see her with another man? It would be worse than death he knew, trying to make himself leave, to hide somewhere like a wounded beast. But his body would not go.

He saw her time after time and when it turned out to be someone else he did not know what he felt. And so when she did turn the corner he did not believe his eyes at first. It was her brother that he first recognized, then he saw her and all his life went into his eyes leaving his body but an awkward, ugly gesture in unquicked clay. He could not have said how long it was that he was unconscious of the stone base of the monument on which he sat while she and her brother moved slowly and implacably across his vision, then his life flowed completely, emptying his eyes and filling his body again, giving him dominion over his arms and legs, and temporarily sightless he sprang after her.

"Hi, George," young Robert greeted him casually, as an equal. "Goin' to the show?"

She looked at him swiftly, delicately, with terror and something like loathing.

"Cecily--" he said.

Her eyes were dark, black, and she averted her head and hurried on.

"Cecily," he implored, touching her arm.

At his touch she shuddered, shrinking from him. "Don't, don't touch me," she said piteously. Her face was blanched, colourless, and he stood watching her frail dress flowing to the fragile articulation of her body as she and her brother pa.s.sed on, leaving him. And he, too, partook of her pain and terror, not knowing what it was.

II.

Donald Mahon's homecoming, poor fellow, was hardly a nine days' wonder even. Curious, kindly neighbours came in-men who stood or sat jovially respectable, cheerful: solid business men interested in the war only as a by-product of the rise and fall of Mr. Wilson, and interested in that only as a matter of dollars and cents, while their wives chatted about clothes to each other across Mahon's scarred, oblivious brow; a few of the rector's more casual acquaintances democratically uncravated, hus.h.i.+ng their tobacco into a bulged cheek, diffidently but firmly refusing to surrender their hats; girls that he had known, had danced with or courted of summer nights, come now to look once upon his face, and then quickly aside in hushed nausea, not coming anymore unless his face happened to be hidden on the first visit (upon which they finally found opportunity to see it); boys come to go away fretted because he wouldn't tell any war stories-all this going on about him while Gilligan, his glum major-domo, handled them all with impartial discouraging efficiency.

"Beat it, now," he repeated to young Robert Saunders, who with sundry contemporaries to whom he had promised something good in the way of damaged soldiers, had called.

"He's going to marry my sister. I'd like to know why I can't see him," young Robert protested. He was in the uncomfortable position of one who has inveigled his friends into a gold mine and then cannot produce the mine. They jeered at him and he justified his position hotly, appealing to Gilligan.

"G'wan now, beat it. Show's over. G'wan now." Gilligan shut the door on him. Mrs. Powers, descending the stairs said: "What is it, Joe?"

"That d.a.m.n Saunders h.e.l.lion brought his whole gang around to see his scar. We got to stop this," he stated with exasperation, "can't have these d.a.m.n folks in and out of here all day long, staring at him."

"Well, it is about over," she told him, "they have all called by now. Even their funny little paper has appeared. *War Hero Returns,' you know-that sort of thing."

"I hope so," he answered without hope. "G.o.d knows they've all been here once. Do you know, while I was living and eating and sleeping with men all the time I never thought much of them, but since I got civilized again and seen all these women around here saying, Ain't his face terrible, poor boy, and Will she marry him? and Did you see her downtown yesterday almost nekkid? why, I think a little better of men after all. You'll notice them soldiers don't bother him, specially the ones that was overseas. They just kind of call the whole thing off. He just had hard luck and whatcher going to do about it? is the way they figure. Some didn't and some did, the way they think of it."

They stood together looking out of the window upon the sleepy street. Women, quite palpably "dressed," went steadily beneath parasols in one direction. "Ladies' Aid," murmured Gilligan. "W.C.T.U. maybe."

"I think you are becoming misanthropic, Joe."

Gilligan glanced at her smooth contemplative profile almost on a level with his own.

"About women? When I say soldiers I don't mean me. I wasn't no soldier anymore than a man that fixes watches is a watchmaker. And when I say women I don't mean you."

She put her arm over his shoulder. It was firm, latent in strength, comforting. He knew that he could embrace her in the same way, that if he wished she would kiss him, frankly and firmly, that her eyelids would never veil her eyes at the touch of his mouth. What man is for her? he wondered, knowing that after all no man was for her, knowing that she would go through with all physical intimacies, that she would undress to a lover (?) with this same impersonal efficiency. (He should be a-a-he should be a gladiator or a statesman or a victorious general: someone hard and ruthless who would expect nothing from her, of whom she would expect nothing. Like two G.o.ds exchanging golden baubles. And I, I am no gladiator nor statesman nor general: I am nothing. Perhaps that's why I want so much from her.) He put his arm over her shoulders.

n.i.g.g.e.rs and mules. Afternoon lay in a coma in the street, like a woman recently loved. Quiet and warm: nothing now that the lover has gone away. Leaves were like a green liquid arrested in mid-flow, flattened and spread; leaves were as though cut with scissors from green paper and pasted flat on the afternoon: someone dreamed them and then forgot his dream. n.i.g.g.e.rs and mules.

Monotonous wagons drawn by long-eared beasts crawled past. Negroes humped with sleep, portentous upon each wagon and in the wagon bed itself sat other negroes upon chairs: a pagan catafalque under the afternoon. Rigid, as though carved in Egypt ten thousand years ago. Slow dust rising veiled their pa.s.sing, like Time; the necks of mules limber as rubber hose swayed their heads from side to side, looking behind them always. But the mules were asleep also. "Ketch me sleep, he kill me. But I got mule blood in me: when he sleep, I sleep; when he wake, I wake."

In the study where Donald sat, his father wrote steadily on tomorrow's sermon. The afternoon slept without.

The Town: War Hero Returns. . . .

His face . . . the way that girl goes on with that Farr boy. . . .

Young Robert Saunders: I just want to see his scar. . . .

Cecily: And now I'm not a good woman anymore. Oh, well, it had to be sometime, I guess. . . .

George Farr: Yes! Yes! She was a virgin! But if she won't see me. it means somebody else. Her body in another's arms. . . . Why must you? Why must you? What do you want? Tell me: I will do anything, anything. . . .

Margaret Powers: Can nothing at all move me again? Nothing to desire? Nothing to stir me, to move me, save pity? . . .

Gilligan: Margaret, tell me what you want. I will do it. Tell me, Margaret. . . .

The rector wrote, "The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want."

Donald Mahon knowing Time as only something which was taking from him a world he did not particularly mind losing, stared out a window into green and motionless leaves: a motionless blur.

The afternoon dreamed on toward sunset. n.i.g.g.e.rs and mules. . . . At last Gilligan broke the silence.

"That old fat one is going to send her car to take him riding."

Mrs. Powers made no reply.

III.

San Francisco, Cal.

April 5, 1919.

Dear Margaret- Well I am at home again I got here this afternoon. As soon as I got away from mother I am sitting down to write to you. Home seems pretty good after you have been doing a pretty risky thing like lots of them cracked up at. It's boreing all these girls how they go on over a flying man if you ever experienced it isn't it. There was a couple of janes on the train I met. Well anyway they saw my hat band and they gave me the eye they were society girls they said but I am not so dumb any way they were nice kids and they might of been society girls. Anyway I got there phone numbers and I am going to give them a call. Just kidding them see there is only one woman for me Margaret you know it. Well we rode on into San Francisco talking and laughing in there stateroom so I am going to take the best looking of them out this week I made a date with her except she wants me to bring a fellow for her friend so I guess I will poor kids they probably haven't had much fun dureing the war like a man can have dureing the war. But I am just kidding them Margaret you mustn't be jealous like I am not jealous over Lieut Mahon. Well mother is dragging me out to tea I had rather I had to be shot than go except she insists. Give my reguards to Joe.

With love julian.

Mrs. Powers and Gilligan met the specialist from Atlanta at the station. In the cab he listened to her attentively.

"But, my dear madam," he objected when she had finished, "you are asking me to commit an ethical violation."

"But, surely, Doctor, it isn't a violation of professional ethics to let his father believe as he wishes to believe, is it?"

"No, it is a violation of my personal ethics."

"Then, you tell me and let me tell his father."

"Yes, I will do that. But pardon me, may I ask what exactly is your relation to him?"

"We are to be married," she answered, looking at him steadily.

"Oho. Then that is quite all right. I will promise not to say anything before his father that can disturb him."

He kept his promise. After lunch he joined her where she sat on the shaded quiet veranda. She put aside her embroidery frame and he took a chair, puffing furiously at his cigar until it burned evenly.

"What is he waiting for?" he asked suddenly.

"Waiting for?" she repeated.

He flashed her a keen grey glance. "There is no ultimate hope for him, you know."

"For his sight, you mean?"

"That's practically gone now. I mean for him."

"I know. That's what Mr. Gilligan said two weeks ago."

"M'm. Is Mr. Gilligan a doctor?"

"No. But it doesn't take a doctor to see that, does it?"

"Not necessarily. But I think Mr. Gilligan rather overshot himself, making a public statement like that."

She rocked gently. He veiled his head in smoke, watching the evenly burning ash at the cigar tip. She said: "You think that there is no hope for him, then?"

"Frankly, I do." He tilted the ash carefully over the bal.u.s.trade. "He is practically a dead man now. More than that, he should have been dead these three months were it not for the fact that he seems to be waiting for something. Something he has begun, but has not completed, something he has carried from his former life that he does not remember consciously. That is his only hold on life that I can see." He gave her another keen glance. "How does he regard you now? He remembers nothing of his life before he was injured."

She met his sharp, kind gaze a moment, then she suddenly decided to tell him the truth. He watched her intently until she had finished.

"So you are meddling with Providence, are you?"

"Wouldn't you have done the same?" she defended herself.

"I never speculate on what I would have done," he answered shortly. "There can be no If in my profession. I work in tissue and bone, not in circ.u.mstance."

"Well, it's done now. I am in it too far to withdraw. So you think he may go at any time?"

"You are asking me to speculate again. What I said was that he will go whenever that final spark somewhere in him is no longer fed. His body is already dead. Further than that I cannot say."

"An operation?" she suggested.

"He would not survive it. And in the second place, the human machine can only be patched and parts replaced up to a certain point. And all that has been done for him, or he would have never been released from any hospital."

Afternoon drew on. They sat quietly talking while sunlight becoming lateral, broke through the screening leaves and sprinkled the porch with flecks of yellow, like mica in a stream. The same negro in the same unders.h.i.+rt droned up and down the lawn with his mower, an occasional vehicle pa.s.sed slumbrous and creaking behind twitching mules, or moving more swiftly, leaving a fretful odour of gasoline to die beneath the afternoon.

The rector joined them after a while.

"Then there's nothing to do except let him build himself up, eh, Doctor?" he asked.

"Yes, that is my advice. Attention, rest and quiet, let him resume old habits. About his sight, though--"

The rector looked up slowly. "Yes, I realize his sight must go. But there are compensations. He is engaged to be married to a very charming lady. Don't you think that will give him incentive to help himself?"

"Yes, that should, if anything can."

"What do you think? Shall we hurry the marriage along?"

"We-ll-" the doctor hesitated: he was not exactly accustomed to giving advice on this subject.

Mrs. Powers came to his rescue. "I think we had better not hurry him at all," she said quickly. "Let him accustom himself leisurely, you see. Don't you think so, Doctor Baird?"

"Yes, Reverend, you let Mrs. Powers here advise you about that. I have every confidence in her judgment. You let her take charge of this thing. Women are always more capable than we are, you know."

"That's quite true. We are already under measureless obligations to Mrs. Powers."

"Nonsense. I have almost adopted Donald myself."

The cab came at last and Gilligan appeared with the doctor's things. They rose and Mrs. Powers slipped her arm through the rector's. She squeezed his arm and released him. As she and Gilligan, flanking the doctor, descended the steps the rector said again, timidly: "You are sure, Doctor, that there is nothing to be done immediately? We are naturally anxious, you know," he ended apologetically.