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Title: Wickford Point
Author: Marquand, John P. [John Phillips] (1893-1960)
Date of first publication: March 1939
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, March 1939
   [second reprint, i.e. third printing]
Date first posted: 1 December 2012
Date last updated: 1 December 2012
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1017

This ebook was produced by
Barbara Watson, Mary Meehan, Mark Akrigg
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net






                          WICKFORD POINT

                        BY JOHN P. MARQUAND


    BOSTON
    LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY
    1939

    COPYRIGHT 1939, BY JOHN P. MARQUAND

    ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE RIGHT
    TO REPRODUCE THIS BOOK OR PORTIONS
    THEREOF IN ANY FORM

    _Published March 1939
    Reprinted March 1939 (twice)_

    PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

    All the incidents and characters in this novel are entirely
    fictitious, and no reference is intended to any actual person,
    living or dead.




WICKFORD POINT




I

_Sid Sucks the Gasoline_


At the top of Allen Southby's letter was engraved MARTIN HOUSE STUDY,
and to the left in smaller type DR. SOUTHBY. This reminded everyone who
had known him long enough that Allen had assumed this title as soon as
he achieved his Ph.D. degree for studies in English and American
literature. He first used it tentatively, among groups of
undergraduates; later the women's clubs where he lectured had employed
the prefix also; and finally, when the University Press published his
volume _The Transcendent Curve_, his place in the scholastic world was
irrevocably established.

That this work should have had a sale which pushed it in less than a
year to well over a hundred thousand copies is a commentary on the
priggishness of the book-buying public. The mass of information which
Southby had gathered concerning early American literary figures was
admittedly enormous, but not much of it was calculated to interest a
layman. The style was difficult and turgid; even after considerable
cutting the final draft ran over seven hundred and fifty pages in good
solid type. Publishers have said that the bulk was what gave it its
final success. When one saw it upon the parlor table in its heavy maroon
binding, one could feel that here was a house of leisure and refinement,
whose owner and whose family partook of The Finer Things of Life. There
was, authorities explained, a "snob value" to the book, such as was once
an attribute of Will Durant's _Story of Philosophy_ and of Mr. Wells's
_Outline of History_.

It possessed the same "plus quality," gave forth the mystic promise of
doing good and of conveying--simply, it would seem, through its
appearance--the belief that you too might hold your employer, the girl
of your choice, and a dinner table spellbound, provided you took a few
pleasant moments off each day to dip into the pages. You, too, might
achieve that rare distinction of being the man who is just a little
different, which comes from reading a thoroughly good book.

The reviewers took it up with an enthusiasm symptomatic of group
hysteria, but I should like to wager that not one of them read all the
way through it. Southby sometimes would quote their best remarks with a
deprecating sort of humor designed to show that he knew very well that
the critics had been too kind.

     A glamorous panorama of the history of American thought, moving in
     a scintillating progress.... We defy the reader to put down Dr.
     Southby's book once he has picked it up.

     There is a magic in the style which defies analysis; it flows in a
     trenchant stream; it is a Thames of style, moving with a deceptive
     tranquility past the spires of a modern Oxford.

     It costs five dollars, but it's worth five hundred. This means that
     you and I can read it. [This came from one of the lower, less
     literary journals, which reached the great half-tapped reservoir of
     the partially enlightened.]

It would be interesting, I repeat, to know just how many actually did
read it. I know I never finished it, and consequently have no real right
to discuss it, except in so far as _The Transcendent Curve_ influenced
the Doctor as an individual. It was an achievement such as that which
Dr. Lowes very nearly brought off in _The Road to Xanadu_: it was a book
for scholars, read by laymen. There could be no doubt about its
scholarship, since it very nearly got its author the presidency of one
of the larger Western universities--very nearly, but not quite.

"My life is at Harvard," Allen told us once. "I am a Harvard man."

_The Transcendent Curve_ did, however, get him nearly everywhere else he
wanted to go, because he knew how to use that book, and its immense
success in no wise turned his head from what he wanted: he wanted to be
a man of letters, a figure more austere and just a trifle more formal
than Professor Phelps of Yale. Yes, it got him where he wanted to go. He
became a figure almost by saying nothing, but by developing instead what
might be termed "an accessive inaccessibility." He never said much in
public, which was just as well, but he had a way of phrasing what little
he did say. He had a timing to his speech, as effective as the timing of
an athlete. No idea of his was lost through haste or carelessness,
nothing became pedantic through deliberation. In time his words began to
possess an indefinable, adhesive, jamlike quality which gave them an
importance not wholly susceptible of analysis. Allen Southby had known
what he wanted, had always known what he wanted; he had that patient
deliberateness of purpose which can make indifferent material travel
far. Perhaps in the end the material ceases to be indifferent, but that
is a debatable matter.

In time Allen even generated a sort of charm; and besides he was an
eligible bachelor, the sort you think of as a bright young man, even
when he has reached the age of forty. There was once a piece of gossip,
for there are always those who hate success, that he practised before a
mirror. At any rate he achieved his charm. He developed a way of holding
a book and of marking the place with his long forefinger, carelessly but
lovingly, at the same time resting his elbow upon the table and
gesticulating gently with that book. It was a pose suitable for a
portrait, which may have been Southby's intention originally. He also
took pains with his dress. When he came to Harvard from Minnesota he
brought his trunk with him, but Allen was quick to see that the garments
within it were not correct; right from the beginning he had an unfailing
instinct for doing what was suitable. He ended by wearing Harris tweeds
and flannel trousers and by smoking an English pipe with a special
mixture--although he did not like tobacco.

He also took to drinking beer out of a pewter mug. By the time he was
taken into the Berkley Club he had developed a way of banging the mug
softly upon the table, informally, and without ostentation. He used to
say that there was nothing like good pewter; in fact he had a fair
collection of it in a Colonial pine dresser--but he never did like beer.
Nevertheless he sometimes had beer nights for the undergraduates. It was
something of an accolade for an adolescent to be asked to Southby's to
drink beer. It was more of an honor for one of his contemporaries, and
one which I regret to say I never attained, to be asked up to his rooms
to give the "lads" a talk on this or that, just anything. By aloofness
rather than by assiduity he cultivated excellent social contacts. He
attended only small dinners where there might be general conversation,
but he knew when to listen. When an interest developed in wine-tasting,
after the repeal of prohibition, Allen Southby was in the pioneering
group, although he always said that his old love was ale or beer. He had
a pretty turn at rhyme and you could always get him to dash off the
right poem for any occasion, although he published only one slender
volume of verse. He had the gift of knowing when to stop. What was more,
he still kept young in appearance and in enthusiasm. He was amusing when
he joined the ladies after dinner, and he was the sort of bachelor who
never made himself troublesome with liquor or in taxis.

There is no particular reason to set this down unless it illustrates a
reaction of my own narrow and embittered mind toward a very able man,
toward a contemporary who was turning, through his own efforts, into a
personage. Certainly it was all to his credit, and it can only put me in
an unfavorable light to mention it--but, frankly, there were those of us
who, because of our own inadequacies and sloth, jested coarsely about
Allen. However, such was my own inconsistency that I was flattered when
I received his letter. In fact I came close to forgetting that I
actively resented the attitude he took toward me and toward my own
efforts in the field of fiction.

"Just for a handful of silver he left us," Allen said the last time I
saw him, "just for a riband to stick in his coat."

He was referring gracefully to my occupation as a writer for money. A
week before he had made a pronouncement on the subject in the pages of a
literary magazine. It concerned the danger of the first large check, of
the giving-away of something fine, of the striving after commercial
position, of superficial brilliance and brittleness. In spite of it all,
I was pleased to hear from Allen.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Dear Jim," he wrote. "What have you been doing with yourself? If you
happen to be in the vicinity of Cambridge any night next week, how about
coming to Martin House and having a chat about books over a mug of beer?
I still read _Collier's_ and _Liberty_ and the _Saturday Evening Post_.
I must, you know."

My Cousin Clothilde was in the dining room just then, and I was
finishing breakfast, a meal which lasted almost indefinitely at Wickford
Point.

"I've had a letter from Allen Southby," I said.

"Have you?" she answered. "Who is Allen Southby?"

"A critic," I answered. "He wrote _The Transcendent Curve_."

"What is _The Transcendent Curve_?" she asked. "Is it a book on sex?"

"No," I told her, "not exactly."

She sighed and handed me a paper. "I wish you'd read this," she said. "I
don't understand it. It's a letter from the bank."

"It says you've overdrawn your account again," I told her, "for the
second time this month."

"Give me a match, please," she said. "Not that box, it only has burnt
matches in it. The other box, just there." She reached for a package of
cigarettes beside her plate and shook it. "We never have any cigarettes
in the house," she said. "Someone always takes them." I gave her one of
mine and she lighted it. "The bank is wrong," she said. "I sent them a
hundred dollars last week. It's stupid of them to be so annoying, but it
doesn't make much difference, they always let me overdraw."

I folded Allen Southby's letter and put it in my pocket.

"Well, I'm going down to see him tonight," I said.

Cousin Clothilde sighed again. "You're always going somewhere, aren't
you?" she said. "If you aren't going somewhere, you're always reading
something. Why can't you stay here, now you're here? I'll send somebody
downtown to get some cigarettes."

There was another letter beside me on the table, and now I reached for
it with the idea of putting it unobtrusively into my pocket. It was in a
heavy square Bermuda blue envelope, addressed to me in a handwriting
which was boldly and carelessly feminine. It was a letter which I
particularly wanted to read alone. For someone as vague as she was,
Cousin Clothilde sometimes displayed an amazingly acute observation. She
could nearly always see something which you did not wish her to see.

"Jim dear," she said, "whom's that other letter from? It looks so
interesting. She writes the same way I do. I always did have such
trouble with my writing until I just stopped trying."

I felt a momentary awkwardness for no good reason. It was as though she
had surprised me in some furtive and discreditable action.

"It isn't from anyone in particular," I said, but I knew she would not
believe me from the moment that I answered.

"Why, dear," she said, "it must be--from the way you put it in your
pocket."

"Well," I said, "it's from a girl I know in New York. Her name's
Patricia Leighton. I don't think you know her."

"Why, darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "I've never even heard you
mention her."

"No," I answered, "I don't believe you have."

Her forehead wrinkled as she watched me.

"I don't think it's kind of you not to talk to me about things," she
said. "I love to know whom you know and what you're doing. Sometimes
you're so secretive, dear, just as though you were shy, or afraid of
me."

"Well," I said, "perhaps I am."

"That's so silly, isn't it," she said, "when I always tell you
everything?"

"I suppose it is, but then you don't really care much, except about what
happens here."

"No," she said, "that isn't true. I always care about the children. I
think about them all the time; and you're one of the children, dear."

I still do not know why it embarrassed me that she had seen Pat
Leighton's letter. She would be writing me as she often did, asking me
what I was doing and when I would be coming to New York. It would
probably be nothing that I could not leave around, and everyone left
letters everywhere at Wickford Point.

"Do you know her well, dear?" Cousin Clothilde asked.

"Pretty well," I answered.

"Well," said Cousin Clothilde, "she writes the same way I do."

And then she dropped the subject.

Tranquil, soul-satisfying apathy settled over the dining room. The sound
of droning insects came through the window like the soft breath of
sleep; an oriole sang a few throaty, liquid notes and stopped exhausted;
the leafy shadows of elm branches scarcely moved upon the lawn. A house
fly buzzed and beat its head against the window screen. The collision
made a metallic sound which was followed by silence. The fly rubbed its
wings with its hind legs, but did not try again. As Cousin Clothilde
gazed at the smoke from her cigarette I noticed a lack of customary
sound. The tall clock in the corner had stopped.

"I stopped it last night," Cousin Clothilde said. "You can hear it
upstairs right through the ceiling. It sounds something like an insect.
Besides I'd rather not know what time it is. Everything goes on just as
well. Clocks only make you later. They're not happy things."

Inertia held me for a while. I tried to think of what to do, but there
was nothing much to do down there. It became an effort to do anything,
but I struggled against surrender out of habit.

"I might as well go and see Southby," I said. "I may as well go now.
There are some things I want to do in Boston."

"Why don't you ask him down here?" Cousin Clothilde said. "It's easier.
He can spend the week end."

"The house is always full over the week end," I said. "There won't be
any room for him."

"There must be somewhere. It's a big house," said Cousin Clothilde. "The
girls can sleep together, and we can send someone downtown before then
to get some gin."

"No," I said. "You wouldn't like him."

"Don't be ridiculous," said Cousin Clothilde. "I like nearly everyone
except queer foreigners." She paused and flipped her cigarette ashes
into her empty coffee cup. "And after all," she added, "I like a great
many foreigners. I've always loved Mirabel Steiner. She'll be dropping
in before long, just for a day or two."

"When she does," I said, "you'd better send me my food upstairs on a
tray."

"You shouldn't be so intolerant," she said. "You know that Mirabel has
always been devoted to you. She admires you. Just last winter she wanted
to borrow one of your books. There weren't any in the apartment. Has Mr.
Northby got something queer about him?"

"Southby," I said. "No, he hasn't."

"Then why don't we have him come Saturday night?"

"No," I said. "He wouldn't understand it here."

"Nonsense," she said. "Everybody always likes it here."

There is a phrase used by certain fiction writers which had always
puzzled me. Mr. E. Phillips Oppenheim, for example, ends an interview by
the curt sentence: "He rose to his feet." It had seemed difficult to
understand what else a character could rise to, but in the dining room,
while Cousin Clothilde watched me, that expression acquired a definite
meaning. Halfway out of my chair, I had a desire to relapse again; it
was an effort to rise to my feet, and when I was on them, they moved
dreamily. I leaned over and kissed her. She was my father's cousin, but
she looked amazingly young.

"I wish you wouldn't go away and leave me," she said. "I won't have
anyone to talk to until someone else wakes up. If you're going upstairs,
wake someone up. I can't sit here all alone. You're not really going
away now, are you?"

"Yes," I said, "I may as well."

"I wish that people would look after me," she said. "No one ever seems
to take care of me, and I take care of everyone, and I get tired of it
sometimes."

       *       *       *       *       *

My car was in a shed beside the barn. A heat wave shimmered from the
twisted shingles of the barn roof and the building needed a coat of
paint. A pair of swallows darted from the shed with low, resentful
squeaks. They must have felt that the car would be there all day,
presumably for their personal use. When I pressed the starter the engine
turned, but nothing happened. A glance at the gasoline gauge told me
why.

Out on the lawn near the garden a faint breeze, which passed through the
trees, did not dispel the sultriness. Everything was very
green--monotonously, luxuriantly green; everything stood in a gentle,
reminiscent silence that rebuked me when I raised my voice and called
for the boy who worked around the house in summer.

"Earle," I shouted, "Earle!"

The gangling form of Earle Caraway appeared. Earle was using part of his
high school vacation to mow the lawns. The rest of his time was spent in
studying dramatics from a correspondence course.

"What's happened to the gas in my car?" I asked. "It was half-full last
night."

"Mr. Brill borrowed it," Earle said. "Say, Mr. Calder--"

"What?" I said. "The gas?"

"If you're going uptown, could you get me a copy of _True Romances_, Mr.
Calder, and a chocolate nut bar?"

"How the hell can I get you a nut bar," I said, "when there isn't any
gas?"

"Ain't there _any_ gas?" said Earle. "Ain't there any gas at all? Mr.
Sidney said he was leaving a little. He had a rubber tube in his car. He
sucked it out. He got up early. He said he was going to lay on the
beach."

"Oh, was he?" I said. "Well, how am I going to get out of here?"

"I guess you got to wait till Mr. Sidney gets back," said Earle. "I
can't think of any way unless you want to walk two miles up to Kennedy's
stand. Say, Mr. Calder--"

"What?" I said.

"Nobody's paid me yet."

"You ask Mrs. Wright about it," I said. Sometimes I almost forgot that
Cousin Clothilde's second husband was Archie Wright, and that she was
not still Mrs. Brill. Although she had married Archie Wright twenty
years before, three years after Hugh Brill's death, it still did not
seem like a definite marriage.

"I asked her," Earle said. "She just says to wait."

Josie was in the kitchen peeling potatoes. Josie and her daughter were
our domestic staff. A large tortoise-shell cat, that looked as though a
squash pie had splashed upon her, was nursing six kittens under the
stove. An old setter was searching himself for fleas under the kitchen
table.

"That poor boy, Mr. Calder!" Josie said. "He's been asking and asking
for his money. He wants to go with Frieda to the beach. He asked Frieda
last night to go to the beach. I know he's been wanting to for weeks and
weeks, Mr. Calder--and the Caraways are the nicest people. Earle's
mother is a lovely lady. She's a member of the Woman's Club. Now I know
dear Mrs. Wright has so many troubles, what with all the children here
and everything, that she just doesn't think. I told Earle that he
shouldn't pester dear Mrs. Wright. I'd be glad to give Earle something
myself, but I spent it at the grocer's when we went downtown yesterday.
Miss Brill--that is, Miss Bella--forgot her pocketbook."

Cousin Clothilde had moved to the back parlor. She was seated looking at
a bunch of laurel leaves in the empty fireplace.

"So you're back," she said.

"Sid sucked all the gas out of my car," I said. "Why can't anybody buy
gas except me?"

"He must have meant to leave _some_," Cousin Clothilde said. "Don't
worry about it, dear. Sidney will be back with lots of gas. He asked me
for my pocketbook before he went."

"Earle wants some money," I said. "He says he hasn't been paid for two
weeks."

"I wish Earle wouldn't be a nuisance," Cousin Clothilde said. "Besides
he doesn't do anything to deserve his wages. He just stands around
looking at Josie's daughter, and he isn't very attractive. Do you think
so?"

"I hadn't thought," I said.

"Darling," Cousin Clothilde said, "I'm so glad you don't have to go for
a little while. Sit down and let me have a cigarette. Sidney will be
back for lunch unless someone asks him to stay, and I depend on you so
much. You're so much more reliable than all the others. Everybody seems
to think that I have nothing to do but look after them. You're the only
one who's ever looked after me. Have you a cigarette?"

"All right," I said, "I'll wait awhile, but I'm going to see Southby."




II

"_Fair Harvard, Thy Sons ..._"


The family had always gone to Harvard. Once when Sidney's older brother
Harry was on the verge of being fired on account of his low marks, he
wrote a letter to the Dean which began: "As one of the fifth generation
of my family to have attended Harvard ..." It was his conviction, shared
by his mother, my Cousin Clothilde, that this reminder was all that had
been necessary to permit him to remain. There was a definite belief in
the Brill family that this accumulation of generations at Harvard had an
automatic scholastic merit. It was as though the conscience-ridden
shades of their ancestors could prod them onward without their own added
effort, and this engendered a comfortable feeling that some ancestor
would always do something around midyears to provide a flash of
intuition in the purgatory of the examination room. That accumulation of
scholastic forebears had been useful in later life, in that it gave them
a sense of intellectual competence. With their attitude, and the help of
conversation, they developed an atmosphere of erudition and of inherited
intellectual gift.

There was our great-aunt Georgianna, who learned Greek at eighty and
milked cows in the socialistic experiment at Brook Farm. The Brills' own
great-grandfather had written a volume of reflections on his travels
through Europe, which no one had ever read. And then of course there was
their grandfather, the poet known as "the Wickford Sage." Other members
of the family also had been friends of intellectual figures in their
different generations. In the suspicious environs of a town like
Boston, where everyone is anxious to check on antecedents, it was
commonly said that the Brills were interesting, that it was no wonder
that they were brilliant. It made matters sensibly easier, even for me,
although I was not a Brill. At any rate the family had gone to Harvard
for five generations, and some of my own ancestors were in that company.

In spite of common sense, I leaned upon this thought, while I motored
toward the residence of the Head of Martin House. Five generations of
Southbys had not gone to Harvard and I am certain that Allen was aware
of it.

When I was at Harvard it had been the fashion to live in ugly frame
houses which lined the streets off Massachusetts Avenue, unless one had
the money to live in a dormitory like Claverly. Some of us in our
freshman year ate at Memorial Hall. We used to bang our glasses when
visitors came to look at us from the balcony, and sometimes we had bread
fights. Others preferred to eat in small cubbyholes in cellars that
stayed open until all hours, like Butler's, and Jimmy's, and John's
under the Lampoon building. It had not been healthy or desirable, but
now that the entire academic scene had changed I did not feel at home.
In the heat of the early summer evening the new buildings along the
Charles were neither familiar nor sentimental objects. I had never
understood why they were jammed so closely together, or why they had so
many chimneys. The entries were like passages to a rabbit warren, but
except for them everything was on a large scale. There was an effort to
give the dignity of age to the woodwork. By a skillful treatment of the
floors and walls clever decorators had simulated the imprint of
centuries, but the illusion was incomplete. Somehow nothing is quite
right when one suddenly spends ten million dollars.

The hallway of the Master's house looked to me so like something on the
stage that I should not have been surprised if a maid in a mobcap had
let me in. In the study, where I saw Allen Southby, everything was pine,
fine old pine which had come from all sorts of walls and attics, fixed
with hand-wrought nails. The trestle table had a top of fine old pine,
but the legs were palpable fakes. The mantelpiece was fine old pine from
Maine, scraped and oiled--"from the fine old Custer house at Wiscasset,"
Southby said.

The walls of that perfectly proportioned study were lined with books,
old leather volumes, carefully oiled. In a corner was the dresser
containing Allen's pewter. It displayed nearly all the implements of an
antique household, except those of a more intimate nature. There was
even a pewter candle-mold by the fireplace. I wondered how many times
some caller had asked what it might be for, and I could hear Southby
begging him to guess.

Allen Southby was in slacks and a silk shirt. He had discarded a
greenish Harris tweed coat, because the weather was hot, but that
informal attire gave an added impression of industry. His graying hair
was just sufficiently rumpled; his tanned face had just the proper lines
of frowning concentration. It was a fine face that went exactly with the
room.

"You haven't seen it, have you, Jim?" Southby asked.

"Seen what?" I inquired.

"The room," Allen Southby said. "I think it's amusing, don't you? It's
given me a lot of fun." He added that the superintendent of buildings
and his sister Martha, who had come from Minnesota to keep house for
him, had let him fix it up exactly as he wanted.

"You ought to have a spinning wheel," I said, "just over by the fire, so
the flickering from the backlog would strike its spokes on a long winter
evening."

"You really mean," said Allen, "that I ought to have a spinning wheel?
Or are you simply trying to be funny?"

"What do you think?" I asked.

"Oh," said Allen, "you're trying to be funny. But honestly don't you
like it?"

"There's one thing else you might have," I said. "You haven't got a pair
of ox-bows."

"Jim," he asked, "don't you really like it?"

"Do you care whether I do or not?" I asked.

"Well," said Allen Southby, "you haven't changed much, Jim."

"Haven't I?" I said. "It's kind of you to remember what I used to be."
Then when he looked hurt, I added: "Not that you had any reason to, not
the slightest reason."

"Now don't say that," said Allen, "please. You have no idea the number
of times I've wanted to get you in here. But it's like old times, isn't
it?"

"Yes," I said, "just like old times."

"How about some beer?" Allen asked.

"Have you any whisky?" I said.

He said that he had, and left the bottle near me on the table.

"Thanks," I said. "You give me an inferiority complex. That's why I said
what I did, in case you don't know it."

"That's plain rot," said Allen kindly, "just plain rot, or else you're
laughing at me."

I took a swallow of my whisky. I wished I knew whether I was laughing at
him or not. It is so hard to judge whether a man one has known for a
long while is really first-rate or not. It is so hard to get away from
personal pique and from one's own peculiar disappointments. I certainly
had never made the reputation which Allen Southby had, and certainly I
never would, although I had been industrious and did possess a broader
background of experience.

Allen lighted a straight-grain pipe and exhaled the sweet smooth smoke
of an expensive mixture. He began talking charmingly about his meeting
with Joyce in Paris. He had always maintained that _Ulysses_ was the one
great work of an era. Portions of it had to be chanted, he said, for
Joyce drew his inspiration directly from the medieval choirs. When one
heard Joyce himself read, from _Work in Progress_, the dialogue of the
old washerwomen, thumping wearily at their soiled Gaelic linen, then one
understood his mystic word-music. Everything that Allen said made
sense; everything he said awakened an intellectual curiosity. He was
speaking of a world of ideas, of that lonely, rather grotesque world
where anyone who writes must live. Yet I still wondered if something
inside me were not laughing in a polite sardonic undertone.

He was a better man than I, one who had made the most of his gifts. He
was a scholar and he may have been the only adequate apology for leisure
and social injustice, but he had shut himself into an ivory tower. He
had no first-hand knowledge of what the rest of us might think, for he
was removed from contemporary care by a comfortable income and by a
succession of easy, uneventful years, until his ideas were as
unconnected with reality as the furnishings of his study. In spite of
all his research I could not help suspecting that he was incapable of
understanding the spirit of his own or any historical epoch, because he
had not lived in his own generation.

"Now you and I," he said, "you and I who write ..."

He meant it in the kindliest way, pointedly including me with himself in
a high brotherhood, but I found myself resenting it. He had been
permitted by good fortune, or by faulty economics, to have the leisure
in which to accumulate a number of facts. He had collated his notes on
those facts and put them into a book. He was like one of those experts,
whom any amateur could have knocked flat in twenty seconds, busy
criticizing a fighter's technique from a safe seat at the press bench.
He was speaking of creative writing, intimating that he, too, was a
creative writer.

"Now you and I who write," he said, and he had no reason to bracket
himself with me except that we both used pen and ink.

There was certainly nothing in my own professional career that should
have made me scorn his company. I had followed the usual path of one who
makes a living by writing fiction. First I had been a correspondent on a
newspaper; then I had contributed stories full of action and of local
color to that type of magazine known in the trade as the "pulps." I had
graduated with others from the "pulps" into that more desirable field
of periodicals the "smooths," called so, presumably, because their pages
had a glossy finish that could hold photographs and half-tone
illustrations. The "smooths" required an added ability in that they
demanded less plot and greater skill in character delineation. I had
also written several novels, none of which had been successful, although
the critics called them "competent." I had always wanted to do something
better, but never had, and probably never would. All I could say for
myself at best was that I could keep my place in my field as a technical
craftsman if not as an artist, and, as a craftsman, that I could meet
its competition.

I finished my whisky and soda and poured out another. Allen was on his
favorite subject, the great past age of New England. He was speaking of
Hawthorne and of the literary background. I imagine that he had
forgotten himself in his discourse, if such a feat were possible. His
voice with its perfectly timed emphasis was as vital and tireless as an
actor's at rehearsal.

"The brittle, mechanized short fiction, the perfunctory, meaningless
novel of today," he said--"we should do something about it. We all
should try."

I resented that remark, because he was speaking of the art of fiction
when he had never attempted to write a story, or certainly had never
ventured to exhibit the result. He had never attempted to make something
out of nothing, because he was too cautious, like most critics. It may
have been that the rest of us had the blissfulness of ignorance, but at
least we were able to manufacture character and incident, however bad,
out of nothing but our thoughts and observations. We had a sense, poor
perhaps, of detail and of dramatic unity. At any rate my kind had been
bold enough to try.

"You see where I am leading?" Allen Southby said, and then I knew that I
had been woolgathering again as I had at other Harvard lectures.

"What are you driving at?" I asked.

"At just that," he said, "at just that very thing. I am making a
confession. All my preparation has led just to that."

"Just to what?" I asked.

Allen Southby smiled pensively, and then turned to me defiantly.

"I am going to come out in the open," he said. "I am going to write a
novel."

"So that's why you got me here," I said.

"Well, not exactly," said Allen, "but in one way, yes. Of course, the
thing I'd write wouldn't be like yours."

"No," I said, "it would be real, it wouldn't be perfunctory."

"Don't be bitter, Jim," said Allen. "I know the difficulties of
commercial writing. I know them very well. You wouldn't mind looking at
the first two chapters, would you, old man? You always have a lot of
ideas. You see everybody has a good novel under his belt when he gets to
be about forty. I've had rather an interesting life. You wouldn't mind
glancing through the first two chapters? It's an autobiographical novel
in a sense."

"Hand them over," I said, "I'll read them now."

It was amusing to observe that Allen became hesitant, now that he
reached the point, and I knew the way he felt. He was no longer Dr.
Southby, but a tyro who desired a favorable judgment or none at all. He
was like a young writer in an editor's office, explaining the inner
meaning of what he had written so that one could understand it before
one read it.

"If it isn't good enough to show me without talking, don't show it," I
said. "I've got to be getting home, I can't sit here all night."

"I want you to understand that it's a very rough draft," Allen
explained, "not the finished thing, but just the bare skeleton of the
idea. I don't want you to think it's the finished thing."

"All right," I said, and reached for the papers, but Allen did not let
them go.

"Perhaps you'd better not read the first page," he said. "That's a
little turgid. I didn't really get started until page two, and perhaps
the first page isn't actually necessary. It's simply setting the scene."

"That's necessary," I said. "You have to set the scene."

Allen's fingers still gripped one edge of the manuscript.

"Jim," he said, "wouldn't you rather wait until some other time? You've
drunk half a bottle of whisky."

"Whisky helps," I said. "I can read it quicker, and perhaps it will make
me cry."

Allen's body squirmed in his barrel armchair.

"Now wait a minute," he said, "just a minute. I want you to give this
your serious attention, Jim. You mustn't look at it as though it were
going into a popular magazine, because it isn't popular."

"As far as I'm concerned it's the first draft of _Vanity Fair_," I said.
"You're William Makepeace Thackeray, and I'm Ticknor and Fields."

"Now wait a minute," said Allen, "please go about it in the right way.
Please don't say some damned devastating thing without thinking. This is
real to me, Jim, horribly real. It isn't one of these things that one
dashes off for money. I don't want you to look at it as though it were.
Of course I want your honest opinion. God knows that I'm not afraid of
adverse criticism as long as it's constructive. I just don't want you to
rip it up the back for no good reason, but I do really want your honest,
considered opinion."

In other words that was exactly what he did not want, but I refrained
from pointing it out to him.

"Hand it over," I said, "and don't be coy. If it's good, it's good; if
it's lousy, it's lousy."

"But you will remember what I said, won't you?" Allen asked.

"I haven't forgotten a word," I told him, "and that's the truth. Go out
and get me a little ice while I read it. I'll need another drink."

"Haven't you had enough?" said Allen.

"Are you afraid to leave me alone in the room with this thing?" I asked
him, and I picked up the first page.

"Go on out and get some ice," I said.

Its appearance showed that it was not a first draft, but a manuscript
which had been through the hands of a commercial typist, and I knew that
I was on the threshold of what has always been a delightful
experience--I was reading one of those novels written by the English
Department at Harvard. Allen Southby had overreached himself at last.

I had finished the first paragraph by the time Allen returned with a
pewter bowl of ice cubes, and the first paragraph had interested me,
though not for the reasons its author had intended.

     The silence and peace [I read] which always come over the Wickford
     Valley at sundown settled benignly upon the farm of Jacob Sears.
     The heady smell of dung from the new-plowed fields mingled with the
     milky odors of the dairy. The incoming tide of the Wickford River
     lapped gently against the gray shale of the point. Ripple, ripple,
     ripple. Would the sound never cease? Ripple, ripple, ripple. It
     gave Jacob Sears an odd feeling in his belly.

     "Jacob!" It was a voice from the house calling.

     Jacob Sears belched.

Allen put the ice bowl gently on the table beside me.

"How's it going so far?" he asked.

"It's going fine," I said. "What was the matter with Jacob Sears's
belly?"

Allen Southby winced. "I really didn't mean you to read that first
page," he said. "The first page is simply the groping for a simple
style."

"That's all right," I said. "It arouses my curiosity."

"Look here," said Allen, "are you sure you feel up to reading this
tonight, Jim? I don't want you to play horse with it. I've read a lot
worse paragraphs of yours."

"The first thing for you to learn," I said, "is not to be thin-skinned.
I thought you were writing about yourself. I ought to be writing this
story. My family has lived in the Wickford Valley always. My father's
cousin was married to a descendant of the Wickford Sage."

"Good God," said Allen Southby, "you never told me that."

"But I thought you were going to write about yourself," I said again.

"I have put myself into the scene," he explained. "I have translated a
good many of my experiences into that scene. As a matter of fact I know
everything about every character in the Wickford Farm group from the
Brill papers in the library."

"Did you ever know my great-aunt Sarah?" I asked.

Allen shook his head.

"Then you don't know anything about the Wickford group," I told him.

"Then why don't you write about it yourself," said Allen tartly, "if you
know so much? I'd like to see the first two chapters of your novel."

"I might write about it if I had time," I said, "but no one would belch
in my novel. No one at Wickford ever belched."

There was a faint pink flush under Allen's healthy tan. We were both
being infantile, but the fiction which one writes is so essentially a
part of one's ego that disparagement of it is worse than physical pain.
Even after years of training one sometimes loses one's self-control.

"I'd like to see you try to write a novel about Wickford," Allen
repeated. "Everything you write is based upon formula. You couldn't
write anything else now. You couldn't write anything that wasn't
commercial."

"Oh, I couldn't, couldn't I?" I said. "If I did, I wouldn't act like a
prima donna when you read it."

Allen sat down stiffly and jammed some tobacco into his pipe.

"If you mean I can't stand honest criticism," he said, "you're very much
mistaken. I gave you credit for a real sense of appreciation. I hope I'm
not wrong."

The atmosphere was icy in spite of the summer evening.

"If you can sit still, I'd like to read the rest of it," I said. "I'm
really interested."

"I don't mind what anyone says about my work," said Allen, "as long as
it's intelligent."

"It can't always be what you want to hear," I said, "or it wouldn't be
intelligent."

Allen lighted his pipe and began weaving his way about the room, now
fingering a book, now looking out the window where the lights of the
cars moved along Memorial Drive in endless progress, now picking up a
piece of pewter and examining the marks. Occasionally I saw him from the
corner of my eye, and I knew he was cursing the impulse which had made
him put his pride into my keeping. While I turned the pages, Allen's
self-confidence was leaving him; he was suffering the tortures of the
damned.

"How's it going?" he said again.

"It's going fine," I said. In a sense that manuscript showed care, but
from a practical aspect it was an egregious exhibition.

       *       *       *       *       *

Not so many years ago a teacher of the art of writing began the
advertisement of his services with the announcement that millions of
people can write fiction without knowing it. He would have been safer
had he said that millions of people are certain that they can write
fiction a great deal better than those engaged in the profession. Even
so, it is my belief that the consistent craftsman of fiction is very
rare. His talent, which is in no sense admirable, is intuitive. In spite
of the dictum of Stevenson on playing the sedulous ape to the great
masters, it has never been my observation that education helps this
talent. On the contrary, undue familiarity with other writers is too
apt to sap the courage and to destroy essential self-belief, through the
realization of personal inadequacy. It encourages a care and a style
that confuse the subject, and the net result is nothing.

Instead, a writer of fiction is usually the happier for his ignorance,
and better for having played ducks and drakes with his cultural
opportunities. All that he really requires is a dramatic sense and a
peculiar eye for detail which he can distort convincingly. He must be an
untrustworthy mendacious fellow who can tell a good falsehood and make
it stick. It is safer for him to be a self-centered egotist than to have
a broad interest in life. He must take in more than he gives out. He
must never be complacent, he must never be at peace; in other words, he
is a difficult individual and the divorce rate among contemporary
literati tells as much.

It was patent that Allen Southby did not possess these attributes. Or if
they had been his once, scholarship had made them sterile. The trouble
was that he had set out to write a masterpiece. He had tensed his
intellectual muscles and had sweated in his earnestness in order to make
each word a jewel, each sentence a concise gem of thought, and the whole
a symphony of words; and what was worse, you could tell that he had been
thinking of what the critics would say.

     A veritable galaxy of beauty.... Here at last is a novel of America
     with the mysticism of _A Blithedale Romance_ and the rustic humor
     of a Hardy.

     Utterly breath-taking.... One need look no further for this year's
     best seller.

"How's it going?" Allen asked. "Do you like it? Do you like it really?"

Then I knew that the time had come to be kind, that everyone has some
quality of mercy. The time had come to say something that would not
wound him.

"You've given everything you have," I said.

Allen stood up very straight.

"Thanks, Jim," he said. "You really see that, do you? You really feel
that? You're not laughing?"

"No," I said, "I'm not laughing."

"Then I guess everything's all right," Allen said. "Jim, I can't begin
to thank you. But go ahead and finish it."

It would have been unkind to laugh. He was trying like other outlanders
to write a novel of New England, and unfortunately he had come from
Minnesota. He was trying to be a fearless modern Hawthorne, bringing to
his work the physical aspects of existence which he had gathered from
the modern school. His theme dealt with that transient intellectual
blooming in the Wickford Valley, which had once boasted a tenuous
connection with the life of transcendental Concord. Even in its
unnaturalness it was a scene with which I was partially familiar,
because our whole family was a product of the blooming, although I had
not thought of it just that way. It was the narration of a scholar,
decorated and redecorated by stray sprigs of knowledge, gleaned from his
research into the lives of the Thoreaus, Alcotts, and the rest of the
New England intelligentsia. When he left fact behind to rely upon his
imagination, the result was very bad. The attempts at humor were
elephantine; the attempts at naturalness genuinely embarrassing. Yet in
spite of clumsiness the pages had the arresting quality which sometimes
makes bad work more provocative than good. I might have told him a
number of ways to fix up those pages, but he would not have listened.
What piqued me was my previous discovery, which grew the more bizarre
when I thought of it, that I was a part of what he was trying to say,
and that I could say it better.

"Allen," I said to him again, "you've given it everything you have."




III

_After All, It's Just Putting Words on Paper_


I drove slowly out of Harvard Square and very carefully along the
turnpike, anxious to make no mistake which might lead me into
controversy with the state police. Though I assumed that I was not under
the influence of liquor, the authorities might have given themselves the
benefit of a reasonable doubt. At any rate there was not much necessity
for caution, for the road, stretching uncompromisingly in its straight
line over the low hills, was very nearly deserted. Now and then I passed
a heavy truck moving on some nameless errand, but that was all which
occurred to interrupt my thoughts. Allen Southby, though not in the way
he had intended, had given me a stimulating evening. I had not thought
before that anything about me or about the family might be interesting,
and now I realized that my generation had lived through a span of
change. Everything was fascinating and very vivid, like all ideas before
you set them down on paper.

It was a cloudy night. When I drove down the hill, under the elm trees,
everything at Wickford Point was foggy and as black as pitch where the
headlights did not strike. In an exaggerated effort to be careful I ran
into the rear wall of the shed before I shut off the engine and the
lights.

       *       *       *       *       *

Cousin Clothilde was sitting in the long parlor and Sid was sitting with
her, looking at his thumbs as he revolved one about the other, and Sid's
sister, my second cousin, Bella Brill, was putting red polish on her
nails.

"For God's sake," I said to Sid, "don't do that."

"It's more than you can do," said Sid. "I can move one thumb clockwise
and the other counterclockwise, both at the same time. I've been working
at it all evening."

"Well, don't do it now," I said.

"I bet you five dollars you can't do it," said Sid.

"As soon as I get to this place," I remarked, "everyone says I can't do
anything, and what's more no one does anything. It doesn't stand to
reason, it isn't true, that you've been practising with your thumbs all
night."

"Darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "you should be careful not to drink
too much. It always makes you cross. Please let's not have everybody
cross. Everybody keeps quarreling. Sid and Bella have been quarreling."

"Sid's just been talking," Bella said. "He's been giving us a lecture."
She was looking at me, frowning. "What's the matter with you tonight?"

"There's nothing the matter with me," I answered.

Bella looked at me mysteriously from the corners of her eyes.

"Darling," she said, "that friend of yours, Patricia Leighton,
telephoned you from New York tonight."

Cousin Clothilde was listening and Sid had stopped rotating his thumbs.

"All right," I said. "Did she say why?"

"I'm sure I don't know what she wanted," Bella said, "and she wouldn't
tell me. I think it was rather fresh of her."

"It must be that she didn't want you to know, honey bee," I said.

"Oh, shut up," said Bella.

"Shut up yourself," I said.

"Darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "that isn't being kind to Bella. She
went way into the other part of the house to answer your telephone
call."

Bella looked at me again and everything about her became sweetly but
innocently seductive.

"He isn't cross," Bella said. "I know when he's cross and when he isn't.
He's just thinking about something. There's something on his mind and he
doesn't want us or Pat Leighton to interrupt him."

"I wish you wouldn't think about something, darling," said Cousin
Clothilde. "It always makes me nervous when you think. Your mind keeps
jumping around and you can't sit still."

"Let him think if he wants to," said Bella.

"Where are you going?" said Cousin Clothilde. "Why don't you sit down?"

"I'm going out for a walk," I said.

"Why do you want to go for a walk, darling?" she said. "Sid, do you
think he should go for a walk?"

"How should I know?" said Sid.

"Bella," said Cousin Clothilde, "you go out with him."

"All right," said Bella, "I'll go with you."

"I don't want anybody," I said. "I want to be alone."

Bella took my arm and walked beside me on the lawn. Everything was a
different degree of blackness, beginning with the sky and river and
ending with the house and trees. The bullfrogs were croaking in the pond
in a strange, mournful chorus.

"I wish those frogs would shut up," I said. "I want to think."

Bella gave my arm a shake.

"You can't think here," she said, "any more than you can be alone.
There's always something else."

She was right: there was always something else.

"Has it ever occurred to you," I asked her, "that we are all very
interesting people?"

"Yes," said Bella, "it occurs to somebody nearly every day."

"And you take it for granted, don't you?"

"Yes," she said. "Everybody takes it for granted."

"I wonder why," I said. "There isn't any reason. Somebody must have been
fascinating once. It may have been our great-aunt Sarah. She used to
hook rugs and pick up pine cones. I wonder if our great-grandfather was
fascinating. Somebody must have been."

"What's the matter with you?" Bella asked.

"I'm trying to get things into some sort of order," I said. "I'm trying
to find out what the matter is with all of us."

Bella gave my arm another shake.

"Somehow we don't work right," I said; "no one except Clothilde. She's
the only one who seems to go."

Bella's voice grew sharp. I could see her intent white face turn toward
me in a startled profile.

"What have you been doing with yourself?" she said. "What are you
thinking about?"

"Thinking I won't be able to sleep," I said. But I did not tell her why.
She would not have understood the preoccupation which comes of balancing
this against that before you set it down on paper.

       *       *       *       *       *

If you try to get back to the beginning of your existence, you find that
all subsequent action has been built upon the shifting sands of
unsupported fact. You start with a lot of erroneous impressions supplied
by your own untrained observation or foisted upon you by your elders.
Then years later you discover that you never knew those elders at all,
no matter how long you were thrown with them during the formative years
of childhood; and finally the day comes when it is too late even to try
to know them, when the blank faade of the generations stands before you
to demonstrate the tragic impossibility of passing on experience. All
that is left for me at present is to guess about the shady forms I used
to see at Wickford Point, whose portraits and daguerreotypes are now in
the little parlor, and whose carpet bags and boots and parasols used to
be up in the attic until my Cousin Sue in one of her spells of economy
sold them to an itinerant antique dealer.

When I was a child it took a long while to get anywhere, if you started
from Wickford Point. When Charles, the black mustachioed French
Canadian coachman, used to hitch my grandfather's bay pair to the light
phaeton, it took an hour and a half of good smart trotting to get to
town. That innovation, the trolley car, was just appearing, and
occasionally as a treat we were taken on it for a ride. To reach the
carline, it was necessary to take a walk of nearly half an hour, first
through the east orchard, then through the lower pasture, then through
the white pine grove, then through the swamp wood lot, and thence across
Bowles's field, where the bull was, and through the Teach farm. You
waited by the Teach stone wall for the trolley car, because it would
stop at a white post across the main road. It was generally necessary to
wait for quite a while. You could hear the car a mile away on the hill
by the Newell farm; then the sound would die away as it stopped at
Hoskins turnout; then there would be a hissing of the wires, and it
would finally appear, reeling drunkenly on its uneven rails. That memory
now is almost archological, for those country trolley lines, which were
once considered such a prime investment, are now as extinct as the
bustle. Yet Professor Edward Channing once said in a school history of
the United States that the trolley car was the most useful of all
inventions, since it brought so much pleasure and freedom to so many
people. What is the use in trying, if the history books are wrong?

In those days at Wickford Point we were living on the comfortable
tail-end of the Victorian era; but Wickford Point was so far removed
from contemporary contacts that much of it was still early Victorian.
Life still proceeded in the grooves worn by things which had happened
before my parents were born, and those grooves are what I am trying to
remember. My great-aunt Sarah never allowed the two huge brass kettles,
used formerly for making soap, to be taken out of the kitchen closet.
There was a tinder box on the table in the small parlor with which Aunt
Sarah sometimes started the fire, because, she said, the sulphur matches
smelled badly and the noise they made was startling. One was always
sparing of the matches because they had once been novelties, and when
the fires were going we always used paper spills to light the candles.
One of the branches of the great elm by the front door was twisted
because Aunt Sarah's mother used to have a pig hung from it in the
winter. In the winter, as long as she was able, Aunt Sarah always put a
few embers in the warming pan before she went to bed, and made tea from
a kettle hung from a crane in the fireplace in the back parlor. She also
had a collection of herbs in the long parlor cupboard.

At the age of eighty Aunt Sarah was a good hand with an ax. As a little
boy I have watched her go into the woodshed, take off her shawl and poke
bonnet and mittens, and cut short sticks for the parlor fireplace. At
such times she used to regale me with an anecdote. Years ago when she
was there in the woodshed splitting logs, the ax slipped and cut a deep
gash just above her knee. She walked to the house, got out her oval
sewing basket, threaded a needle with her best white silk thread, and
sewed up the wound herself.

"Yes, yes," said Aunt Sarah, "it was the only thing to do. Who else was
there to do it?"

A great many adults seem to forget how easily they accepted things when
they were young, when, from the distance of their maturer years, they
pity small children who must face a series of adjustments. Usually they
are entirely wrong, at least according to my experience, for childhood
seems capable of adapting itself to nearly any situation that does not
entail fear or physical suffering. Thus when my parents died and when I
was sent to Wickford Point to live with my great-aunt Sarah and her
niece, my cousin Sue, it all seemed natural by the time a year was over.

I must have accepted Wickford Point in the same way that philosophers
accept the universe, and I adjusted myself without a thought to the
local peculiarities, including those of my great-aunt Sarah. My cousin
Sue informed me later that Aunt Sarah was not what she used to be even
before I was born; and it may have been, when Aunt Sarah and I became
acquainted, that her mind was failing, but I was in no position to
judge.

When it came to more practical matters I was obviously incapable of
understanding them, nor should I have cared to analyze such ties as
family relationships. Those are facts which dawn upon one gradually, and
I suppose a great many of us never get them straight. For instance it
was a long while before I came to realize that a gentleman named Samuel
Seabrooke, who was my great-aunt Sarah's father, and whom I looked upon
as her special property, was my own great-grandfather. It was later
still before I got it clearly in my mind that my own grandmother was
Samuel Seabrooke's daughter and just as much Aunt Sarah's sister as my
great-aunt Georgianna, who died before I was born. Later still I
discovered almost by accident that Aunt Sarah was a spinster, and that
Cousin Clothilde and Cousin Sue were my Aunt Georgianna's surviving
daughters and my father's first cousins. I never really understood how
the Brills entered into our common picture until I was fourteen. Then I
knew, only by fitting facts together, that John Brill, who in later
years became the poet and the Wickford Sage, used to row frequently
across the river to pay his respects to Samuel Seabrooke's three
daughters, but that nothing had ever happened until John Brill's son
Hugh, following his example, rowed across the same river a generation
later and met my cousin Clothilde; and that was the beginning of all the
Brills. When Hugh Brill died, Cousin Clothilde married Archie Wright and
naturally she took his name, but as I said before it always seemed to me
that she was still a Brill.

It all appears simple enough now, once it is in black and white, but
when I was a boy I accepted these people, living and dead, as inevitable
figures in a legend of creation that was not unlike the Grecian myths.
Sometimes it seemed to me that I knew as much about the dead as the
living, for I heard about them all from Aunt Sarah when I came to
Wickford Point. Her mind may have been failing, but I still am not sure.
It was not dotage which had assailed her so much as a natural
alteration of her mental processes. When she was an old lady she had
simply developed an ingrowing preoccupation with affairs that were not
contemporary, and also an increasing predilection not to look at the
present. She may have been a difficult liaison with the past, but she
was the only one I had. A stray word of hers, a dreamily acid allusion,
are now all the means I have for explaining the ancient vigor of
Wickford Valley, and for explaining the actions of those who descended
from it. Nevertheless five minutes with Aunt Sarah were worth a hundred
pages of Allen Southby's novel; and what was more, even if Allen Southby
had seen her, he would not have understood her, for she was not words
but the past itself, and all of Wickford Point had meaning when Aunt
Sarah was alive.

When Aunt Sarah was seventeen she was a liberal with dangerous radical
tendencies, and, like most of the liberals in her day, she exercised her
trouble-making qualities in the abolitionist movement. The town, being
made up principally of merchants, many of whom were interested in
cotton, was on the whole pro-slavery, but the cultural environment of
Wickford Valley had become different from the town. Wickford Valley
inveighed against mercantile crassness, purely out of self-defense
perhaps, and resorted to self-righteousness. Thus Aunt Sarah in her
lifetime never would allow liquor or cards in the house, although her
brother, Horace, used them both. Incidentally, her brother Horace came
to an unpleasant end in an altercation with a gambler in the San
Francisco Gold Rush. It is odd how easily one gets off the subject,
speaking of the family.

During those days of the early 1850's, when the Fugitive Slave Act was
enforced, it seems, from what Aunt Sarah told me, that Wickford Point
was a station of the Underground Railroad, and that fugitive Negroes had
a way of appearing there suddenly at night in boats or in the back of
covered wagons. They were customarily kept down cellar for a day or so
in what had once been a wine closet under the brick arch which
supported the front parlor chimney. At the proper time Aunt Sarah or her
sister Georgianna or my grandmother, aided often by some sympathetic
house guest, placed these visitors in a boat and rowed them across the
river to the cow stable of the Brill farm. After this they continued
their way north by way of Exeter, and sometimes wrote back
bread-and-butter notes telling of their safe arrival in the province of
Quebec. Aunt Sarah used to keep a package of these letters in the
Moorish cabinet which her father had brought from Spain when he was an
agent for the Bosworth firm in Boston. Until her last years, she never
threw anything away.

It seems that one evening when Aunt Sarah and my cousin Clothilde's
mother, Georgianna, were alone at Wickford Point, the Kennedys' hay
wagon came down with a packing case that had been left on the main road
by a carter from Boston. Mr. Moses Kennedy, who was a Quaker with
correct sympathies, helped the girls unload the box in the south hay
barn. Aunt Sarah went to the shop for tools and Aunt Georgianna hurried
to the kitchen to boil some cracked cocoa. When Aunt Sarah and Moses
Kennedy opened up the packing case they found a Negro man inside, just
as they had expected, but the case had come from Boston wrong-side-up;
the Negro was quite dead.

Under the circumstances there was only one thing to do. The body must be
buried at once without publicity. They discussed the idea of getting Mr.
Wade, the Congregational clergyman, but decided against it because Mr.
Wade might talk. Instead Aunt Sarah called to Georgianna to bring from
shelves in the back parlor library their father's copy of _The Ship
Master's Assistant_, which contained a service for burials at sea. Moses
got a shovel and a mattock out of the tool shed and dug a deep grave in
the new orchard. There was some dispute about reading the burial
service, which had the Popish taint of the Church of England, but all
three of them agreed upon it eventually. It was dark by then. Aunt Sarah
got a ship's lantern and held it while Moses read the words. Then they
laid the sods back carefully. Of course it was important not to mark the
grave.

A long time later the incident became transiently famous when an account
of it appeared in the collected verses of John Brill, the Wickford Sage.
I remember two lines of the poem, not very good ones either.

    They laid him away with a prayer and a tear.
    The valley earth was his only bier.

Aunt Sarah always said it was a very beautiful poem, but then in her
opinion the Wickford Sage took his rank with the greater Victorians.
Years later there was some talk of putting a stone at the head of the
grave.

"But can you imagine," Aunt Sarah said, "when they asked me where he
was, I couldn't remember? The exact location had completely skipped my
mind. Well, well, it probably doesn't signify."

It probably did not matter to her, but it did to me when she told me
about it. I gained the distinct impression that there was a ghost in the
new orchard, not a hostile ghost but a definite presence which was near
me when I went to cut sticks for throwing green apples.

It is curious to reflect that most of the dogs that died on the place
had their tombstones, but not Aunt Sarah's fugitive. Aunt Sarah's father
was the one who started the dog cemetery near the south rock by the
river. When a water spaniel, which a business acquaintance had sent him
from London, died in 1822, he had a stone cut with an appropriate Greek
quotation:--

    To Perseus, gallant but gun shy.

Following Perseus were the dogs of that lost generation, somehow more
real to me than many of the human beings they had followed. Their names
reflected the romantic, scholarly instinct of the period--Lycidas,
Byron, Portia, Werther, Giovanni, Unity and Keats. Some of the rougher
stones had been cut by hand in the toolshed when there was no money at
Wickford Point.

Once I told Cousin Clothilde that we should do something about the only
human being buried on the place.

"I really don't see what there is to do," Cousin Clothilde said. "You
don't know what his name was or when he died. After all he was an
absolute stranger; besides I doubt very much if the story is true. Aunt
Sarah was a little queer in the head when you knew her. Besides I never
did get on well with her. She was always moving about, always doing
something."

No one with the exception of myself ever seemed to be interested in what
Aunt Sarah must have been once. It was only taken for granted that
everything about her was peculiar.




IV

_It's All in the Family_


It was hard to imagine that Aunt Sarah had once been young. My usual
assumption was that she had always been exactly as I saw her first,
since she had then reached the stage, peculiar to old women, when
physical change is nearly imperceptible. She wore long gray gingham
dresses which were made for her downtown, according to a pattern of the
late seventies. Her thin iron-gray hair was coiled in a tight
uncompromising braid. Her eyes were a watery blue and her lips were thin
and wrinkled, particularly when she removed her teeth. In the summer she
covered her head with a sunbonnet when she went to walk, and replaced it
by a moth-eaten beaver cap in the winter. In cool weather she always
wore a Paisley shawl pinned with a cameo brooch that a Mr. Brindley had
brought her from Rome when she was twenty-one. She took with her
out-of-doors her father's ivory-headed stick and a small basket from
Nantucket in which she carried chips or pine cones or food for the pigs.
I remember that she referred to the pigs as her "hairy doves." She also
kept a clasp knife in her pocket when she walked.

Aunt Sarah slept in the southwest room by the twisting staircase in a
bed upon which, she said nearly every day, she was born and on which she
hoped to die. She arose every morning, summer or winter, at five o'clock
and for two hours she read in German and Italian, which she had taught
herself. After breakfast she walked for an hour to the point, around the
south orchard and through the pine woods, and then in the open months
worked for another hour in her garden. She took particular pains with
her tomato plants, which she always placed in the same bed with her
flowers. Her reason was that tomatoes were front lawn ornaments when she
was a girl--"love apples," she used to call them, "each one like a
valentine." She was back in the house by the time the postman came, in
order to read her mail, which was generally from distant connections of
the family. Then she did cross-stitch embroidery for an hour. After
lunch she rested for fifteen minutes exactly, and then sewed her gingham
ironing-holders or worked upon a hooked rug. After this she walked up
the hill to see the view, and was back in time to read Homer in the
original and to write in her diary before supper. After the evening meal
she was in a relaxed and social mood. The lamp was lighted on the round
table in the front parlor; every window was closed and the wooden
shutters were drawn tight. The only thing of which I knew her to be
afraid was the idea that some unseen face or some unseen thing might be
staring at her from the dark. By eight or nine in the evening the air in
that hermetically closed room was difficult to breathe, particularly in
cold weather when an anthracite fire was burning in the grate. Cousin
Clothilde's sister Sue would always be there with her after supper, and
Aunt Sarah would read aloud tirelessly for hours to her or anyone who
might care to listen. Her favorite book was Pepys' _Diary_, which she
finished at least once a year, but when I was sent to Wickford Point as
a boy, she went to considerable pains to read what she thought might
amuse or interest me. She read me all the Waverley novels, and once she
told me that she had first been obliged to peruse _Ivanhoe_ behind the
lid of her desk at the Northville Female Academy because it was
considered a trashy novel. She also read me the complete works of
Dickens, although in her opinion Dickens was not a gentleman. Sometimes
she would take up Thoreau--"Dear Henry" she used to call him--and
sometimes she would read the essays that "Waldo" had written--she was
referring to Ralph Waldo Emerson. She had known all the intellectuals
of that period and spoke of some affectionately and of some acidly,
giving details that I wish I might remember. By half-past ten o'clock it
was Aunt Sarah's opinion that the day's work was over.

"Get the backgammon board," she said then, and she would usually add:
"My father brought it home from Lisbon the third time he sailed back
from Canton, and I wish he were here to play on it now, so I wouldn't
have to play with Sue."

I have often wondered how Cousin Sue stood it with the air in that small
parlor growing closer all the while, but unflinchingly she rattled the
dice and shifted the counters evening after evening. Toward the end she
played Aunt Sarah's board and her own too, very quickly for an hour. At
half-past eleven Aunt Sarah drank a half-pint of milk from her
great-grandfather's silver ale can, and afterwards went to the side
entry and took down her presentation copy of one of the works of John
Brill, the Wickford Sage.

"It is time for a treat now," she used to say. "We can't go to bed
without hearing from dear John." She always called him "dear John," and
when she closed the book she always said:--

"I don't know what ever induced him to marry that woman. I told him he
was a fool."

_To my Wickford Nymph_, was written in rusty ink on the fly-leaf, _from
her Shepherd across the Valley_.

"Of course," Cousin Clothilde told me once, "Aunt Sarah must have had
some sort of affair with John Brill. It wouldn't have been natural if
she hadn't. People were dreadfully queer about those things in those
days, and they made such a tremendous point of them. He was a dreadful
old man with tobacco stain on his beard, and what's more I don't think
he ever washed."

When the tall clock in the dining room struck midnight, Aunt Sarah would
rise.

"I shall get my candle now," she always said, "the one that has a fish
on it. My father brought it from Peru, the time he was nearly arrested
by the Inquisition." Once she said to me, and I remember it because it
was almost the only thing Aunt Sarah ever said to me that was not
impersonal, "I wish you might have seen my father. He was red-haired and
very handsome, vastly handsomer than you will ever be. You would have
admired to see him."

Such small details as that sometimes possess a poignant sort of
significance. Once, for instance, I knew a man whose grandfather at an
early age had seen the elderly General Washington when he had made a
triumphal tour through our neighborhood. The little boy distinctly
recalled that the general had asked for a tumbler of water, had taken a
paper of powders from his pocket and poured the contents into the
tumbler. I have always understood General Washington a good deal better
since hearing that account, although I do not know just why, except that
it showed the presence of human frailty.

       *       *       *       *       *

Aunt Sarah's father, Samuel Seabrooke, seems to have possessed no
weakness whatsoever except a desire to stray away from home. He had
impressed her completely with his perfection, until her recollection of
him was as coolly symmetrical and as stilted as the copperplate
calligraphy in the diary which he kept of his travels, and as impersonal
as many of his statements in it concerning the wind velocity and the
weather. Considering the chances he had of seeing interesting places,
his observations have recently seemed to me surprisingly obvious.

"It is difficult and not infrequently painful," he wrote once, "to make
headway against the westerly gales in the vicinity of Cape Horn."

"The yellow fever," he observed again, "carries off many in Havana every
year."

"The native population of the city of Canton," he also recorded, "is
very dense."

Aunt Sarah never explained, and certainly no one else can, what induced
her father to take over Wickford Point in the early eighteen hundreds
and to settle his son, his wife and his three daughters on the farm,
unless he may have enjoyed contemplating the peace of Wickford Point
when he was away from it. Like some of his descendants, he was away from
it a great deal. Aunt Sarah often intimated that he was a "great
gentleman," and various legal papers such as title deeds confirm her
estimate.

"An agreement," they read, "between Mark Kennedy, yeoman, and Samuel
Seabrooke, gentleman."

His picture in the small parlor also answered this description. Our
great-grandfather was always young and endowed with the spare Federalist
beauty which is somehow reminiscent of the architecture of his time. His
reddish weather-beaten face with its high cheeks, its complacent mouth,
and its chin stiffened by a white cravat, did not show the slightest
sign of self-indulgence or the enervating effect of humor. It was the
countenance of a determined, active man with an adequate supply of
physical courage. Aunt Sarah once told me that he defended a French
plantation against the Negro revolutionists in Haiti, leading a charge
himself, and he may very well have done so. When he was at home, Aunt
Sarah said, he was at great pains to drink the water sparingly which
came from the red pump under the elm tree across the road. His reason
was that his travels often took him to dry countries where it was
important to do with as little water as possible. This strict regimen
perhaps resulted in the physical disabilities which were a prelude to
his premature decease.

Besides Aunt Sarah's stray remarks he left other mementoes of his stay
at Wickford Point. He used to teach Sarah and Georgianna the classics
every morning before breakfast, and his collection of books remained
behind him in the back parlor now that he was permanently away. These
small leather-bound volumes of his gave the room an intellectual beauty.
They stood beside the set of Molire from which his wife, when she was
conducting a female seminary, had snipped the naughty words with a pair
of scissors, giving no consideration to the context on the back of the
page.

"Well, well," Aunt Sarah used to say, "Mother was always sweet and
charming and quite the most broad-minded woman I have ever known. She
smoked a pipe when she was eighty, a most unpleasant habit, but times
were hard after my father's death."

It is easy to touch upon trivial details such as these that come upon
one out of nowhere in the middle of a wakeful night. All I know of my
great-grandmother is that she smoked. She had acquired the taste from an
old Negress who came as a fugitive slave in the Underground Railroad.
The old slave's name, Aunt Sarah told me once, was Granny Cadwalader,
and she stayed in the house for six whole weeks and helped on the hooked
rug which is in the north chamber. My great-uncle Joel, who married Aunt
Georgianna after the Brook Farm experiment in West Roxbury, was another
ancestral smoker. He said it helped the misery in his joints, although
Aunt Sarah always maintained that no one ever suffered from rheumatism
who drank from the red pump, because there was iron in the water. My own
grandfather, I remembered, often suffered from severe indigestion when
he came to Wickford Point from New York City, and once I heard him say:
"It's that God-damned water from the red pump."

The library of Samuel Seabrooke, as I have said, stood beside the set of
Molire. It contained the works of Fielding and of Smollett and of
Sterne, and several volumes of Defoe, a good deal of Voltaire, of
Racine; Dryden, Caldern, Petrarch and Boccaccio; Pope's _Essay on Man_;
_Paradise Lost_; Dr. Johnson's _Shakespeare_, and also the Doctor's
_Dictionary_, the Portuguese poets, Cervantes, and _Gil Blas_, all mixed
together in exactly the same order that he left them. Probably he had
always meant, as most of us do, to read them and arrange them once he
had the time. On the shelf below were the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_,
Xenophon and Thucydides. "He always admired to read Greek at sea," Aunt
Sarah said. Then there was his Latin--Horace, Tacitus, Suetonius and
Plautus, and two volumes of Plutarch's _Lives_. Beneath the classics was
the shelf of books that I believe he read more frequently, a Bowditch,
a _Coast Pilot_, a set of charts, _The Ship Master's Assistant_, Cook's
_Voyages_, and some guidebooks of Mexico, Peru and Brazil, in Spanish
and Portuguese.

There were other books in the house left by older and more completely
forgotten individuals, such as local books of sermons and Cotton
Mather's _Magnalia_. But my great-grandfather had left something more
poignant than his books. He was evidently the type of person who always
brings things back and who enjoys being surrounded by objects from
distant places because of their reminiscent value. There used to stand
upon the mantelpiece in the little parlor an unobtrusive piece of black
rock, which Aunt Sarah said had been chipped from the topmost peak of
the Andes. Beside it was an Inca tobacco-pestle made in the shape of a
llama. Until Cousin Sue lost them in some unaccountable way, there were
also two pearls which it was said had been given him by a chief of the
Sandwich Islands. Cousin Sue was convinced that one of the Irish maids
had taken them in later years from the little drawer beneath the shaving
mirror on her bureau, but in a house always full of possessions, where
nothing was ever thrown away, things were apt to be mislaid. Once Cousin
Sue looked for three weeks for her great-grandmother's silver ring box,
only to find it in the cracker jar in the closet off the dining room. On
another occasion she kindled the fire in the long parlor by mistake with
a packet of her grandmother's letters containing some stray locks of
Samuel Seabrooke's reddish hair. It was too late when she tried to reach
them.

He also had brought back a number of pictures on religious subjects,
which used to hang in the narrow hall upstairs, and downstairs were two
pictures painted on copper, which he had found somewhere near Granada.
Aunt Sarah was always careful to explain that all his more priceless
possessions had been lost or sold. As it was, we used to eat off his
Canton china every night until the cat chased a mouse around the second
shelf of the china closet, and even after that stray eggcups and saucers
would appear mingled with the Wedgwood that my grandfather had sent
from New York.

For the rest, everything about him is silence, although I seem to know
more than most people know of their great-grandfathers. He died leaving
the shades of the Federalist period in the house and a young wife and
family to make their way as best they could on the farm at Wickford
Point. Aunt Sarah used to return, particularly when her mind was
failing, to the great days, those magnificent moments when her father
was coming back from the sea, and once near the very end I heard her
say:

"Father is coming back tonight. He is bringing me a Chinese puzzle."

Perhaps he brought it; perhaps Aunt Sarah was a little girl once,
although it seems impossible, and now Samuel Seabrooke is the only
Chinese puzzle that is left.




V

_He Wouldn't Know the Old Place Now_


Samuel Seabrooke had received the farm at Wickford Point in part payment
of a debt, and when he moved there with his family the general outlines
of the place and most of the buildings must have been established. The
main farmhouse was close to the Wickford River. It had been built in the
late seventeen hundreds by one of the Macey family in Boston as a
hunting lodge. The front of the house was square and handsome, painted
an even white. Toward the rear a subsequent owner had added to the
summer kitchen ell on different levels, so that in moving from one room
to another you walked up and down steps through narrow passageways. A
later owner had built a cattle barn not far from the house, and also two
hay barns nearer the river. These were used to store salt hay, which
once was brought from the marshes near the coast on flat scows. Beyond
the buildings was a strip of pine and birch wood, and there was a cattle
lane just behind the trees, which led past the south hay barn through
the south orchard to the upper pastures. The entire holding was not more
than a hundred acres and the farm was never, in its best days,
first-rate land either for grazing or for tillage, but the situation on
the point where the tidal river flowed, the formal garden, which had
been planned at the same time as the house, and the old elms and oaks
upon the lawn, made it picturesque. A number of visitors have commented
upon the trees and the garden, including Bronson Alcott, Thoreau, and
Hawthorne, at the time when he was working in the Salem Customs, and, of
course, John Brill. Their references to the place may be found among
the pages of various brown cloth-bound books published by Ticknor and
Fields in the sixties. Even Cousin Clothilde could quote a number of
them, entirely from hearsay because she seldom read a book.

"Bowery, wind-embraced Wickford Point."

"The lilac-bedecked Elysium, where the Seabrooke nymphs weave garlands."

"The white-walled Acropolis of Wickford Point, where there is good tea
and better talk."

"When the sunset gilds the roses of Wickford Point."

"Wickford Point has always been, and may it always be, the home of noble
thoughts and gentle laughter."

The place had a way of growing on one. Even when I was a small child my
thoughts dwelt a great deal on Wickford Point, although we did not live
there much. It was a definite solace to me even then to feel that I was
somehow connected with an estate that was a little finer than anyone
else's, more beautiful, less vulgar.

When I was eight years old this interest in Wickford Point caused me to
learn something about it from my grandfather. We were living, that
summer, outside of New York on a beach near Sandy Hook, and my
grandfather customarily took the morning boat, a white boat with paddle
wheels and a walking beam, to his office on Pine Street in New York. One
morning very early my mother got out my blue sailor suit which buttoned
sideways like a real sailor's.

"What do you think?" she said. "Your grandfather wants you to go with
him to his office in New York to spend the day."

I did not say what I actually thought, which was that the prospect
seemed formidable, because I knew that it would not have helped. After
breakfast my grandfather led me down to the wharf. In spite of the warm
weather he was dressed for business in a silk hat and a Prince Albert
coat. We sat in his stateroom and drank lemonade, and looked out the
window at the tugs and at the sails of the pilot boats. When other men
in tall hats and Prince Alberts came in to see my grandfather he told
them that I was his grandson and they made complimentary remarks.

I accepted the city as one accepts everything at the age of eight. I
still remember the clatter of the carts on the cobblestones; I still
remember the men working in cages at the office, and I remember the stir
occasioned when my grandfather walked past. He took me into his own room
and sat down at his roll-top desk.

"Would you like to cut some coupons?" he asked me. "George will help
you."

George must have been a clerk. He brought some bonds and a pair of
scissors and did most of the work himself.

"So you're going to be a banker too, Jimmy?" he inquired.

"No," I told him. "I'm going to be a farmer and live on Wickford Point."
My grandfather heard me and turned his swivel chair.

"That's enough of that nonsense," he said. "Wickford Point isn't a
farm--it's a white elephant. It eats up money faster than I can make it.
You get those ideas out of your head, Jim. They were all going barefoot
when I came to Wickford Point. You like to wear shoes, don't you? And
don't tell me you want to be a poet. Do you want to be a poet and grow a
beard and look for huckleberries? You're going to learn something about
money if I can arrange it. Somebody's got to know about money besides
me, and I'm not going to leave you much either. I can't support the
whole damn family."

It was not a new idea to me that my grandfather supported the family.
Frequently in the evening when the market had gone sour, he remarked
that he was supporting the whole damn family, all his nieces and
nephews, all his cousins, everybody. There was not one of them, he
stated on such evenings, that was capable of raising a finger. I don't
know why he should have thought that I was capable, but I believe he
did. I had heard all this before, but I had never realized that there
was anyone in the world who did not approve highly of Wickford Point.

"You can go to college," he said, "but you've got to do something
afterward. I support the whole damn family, and they don't even know I'm
supporting them. By God, they take it for granted that I should support
them. Your grandmother was a beauty. I remember the first day I came to
Wickford Point."

"What were they doing?" I asked.

"They were sitting under an apple tree," my grandfather said, "playing
'Quotations.' Clethra was painting a picture and they asked me to stay
to supper and then they found there wasn't any supper. I took Clethra
downtown in the carryall and bought some. That was forty years ago. I've
been buying everybody's supper ever since, the whole damn family's
supper. I'd be worth two million dollars now if I hadn't stopped that
day at Wickford Point. When I die I'll still be paying for that supper,
if there's any money left."

My grandfather smiled suddenly and I realized that he was not being
unkind.

"They were amazing," he said. "Common sense was just left out of them.
Clethra never understood where money came from, but she was worth it.
She was the most beautiful woman I've ever seen." He paused because a
clerk had come in from the outer office.

"Mrs. Brill is here, sir," he said.

It was my cousin Clothilde with billowing white sleeves and long white
gloves. She kissed my grandfather and she kissed me too.

"Uncle Jim," she said, "I've just been to the bank. There must be some
mistake somewhere. They say I've overdrawn my account."

"What the devil, Clothilde?" my grandfather said. "You had your check
the first of the month."

"I know," said Cousin Clothilde. "There must be some mistake somewhere.
I wish you'd speak to them at the bank, Uncle Jim. They shouldn't be
careless."

"Where's Hugh?" my grandfather said. "Why can't Hugh look out for you?"

"Hugh is down at the boat races in New London," Cousin Clothilde said.
"He wanted me to go, but I never know what they do at those Harvard
races except drink with each other. I came down here instead to do some
shopping, and when I stepped over to the bank to draw enough money for
my ticket back to Boston, they told me that there was no money. Uncle
Jim, I really wish you'd go to the bank and speak to them."

My grandfather opened his office door. "George," he said, "make out a
check of three hundred dollars for Mrs. Brill."

Cousin Clothilde sighed.

"You're always so sweet," she said. "You're the only one who looks out
for me. I have to have someone to look out for me. Jim will look out for
me when he grows up, won't you, Jimmy?"

"Yes," I said, and Cousin Clothilde smiled.

"There's a pony and a new carriage at Wickford Point," she said. "Your
cousin Hugh bought them, and I'm going to have you come up to play with
Sidney and Harry next week. You'll be up soon, won't you, Uncle Jim?
You're the only one who can manage Aunt Sarah."

"Now run along," said my grandfather, "and buy yourself some dresses,
and don't let me see Hugh if you can help it. God knows why you married
him when you had a dozen other chances. Is old Brill still around?"

"Yes," said Cousin Clothilde. "He's such a darling. He's so beautiful
with his long, white beard. He was asking for you last week. He wants to
see you, Uncle Jim."

"Does he?" said my grandfather. "Well, I know why. It's near the end of
the month."

"He's a darling," Cousin Clothilde said again. "He rowed across the
river last week. He brought me some white gentians. He's written a new
poem about the river."

"Did he have on shoes?" my grandfather asked.

"Yes," said Cousin Clothilde, "of course he did. He's a darling."

"He's a humbug," my grandfather said, "and he isn't reliable."

Although the word "humbug" was new to me, it was obviously a term of
derision. An inherited sense of fitness told me that it was an improper
description of a great man. I remembered how old John Brill had placed
his hand upon my head when I had been led to meet him. There had been a
malodorous aura about his clothes, of apples, wood smoke, pine shavings
and chewing tobacco.

"Another little pilgrim," he had said. "Intimations of immortality--you
can see it in his eyes. Yes, Sarah my dear, I could manage with another
cup of tea and two more buns."

My grandfather smiled again, and again I realized that he was not being
unkind.

It was always hard to think of my forebears as people with thoughts and
desires like my own. Even the pictures in the family albums--and there
were a number of those albums, fastened with heavy brass catches, placed
upon the third shelf of the whatnot in the small parlor at Wickford
Point--even those pictures were unreal. The subjects sat in constricted
positions, staring at nothing with cold grimaces that did not indicate
either ease or pleasure. Some of the likenesses were tintypes and others
were the faded brown of my father's well-colored meerschaum pipe.

My father and my cousin Hugh used to smoke those pipes very carefully in
the harness room in the barn; Aunt Sarah, who had been sensitive about
her mother's smoking, disliked the odor of tobacco in the house. My
grandfather was the only one who was allowed to smoke without protest.
He smoked three cigars a day from a private stock which had been given
him by Mr. Vanderbilt in New York, and after each cigar Aunt Sarah
opened all the windows and dusted off the curtains.

"He smokes," Aunt Sarah told me once, "because he went to sea."

To her mind allowances had to be made for anyone who went to sea, and
she seemed familiar with the human weaknesses which were developed in
that profession. The sea seems far enough away in these days, but to
Aunt Sarah the ships were still coming in. She was living as she had as
a young girl, through the days of the Gold Rush and the China trade.
Every vice was understandable to her if a man had been to
sea,--gambling, foul language, liquor and tobacco,--yet she was
broad-minded enough to admit that the sea was necessary to a proper and
self-respecting life.

She made this remark about my grandfather on a number of occasions and
it always surprised me because he was in no sense a seafaring man,
although he had sailed for China as a cabin boy at the age of fourteen.
On his return he must have realized that the great days of shipping were
over, for he never took another voyage; instead he became an errand boy
in downtown New York.

My grandfather appeared there in the years before the Civil War at just
the time that Horatio Alger's characters began to make their way. He was
a Yankee who must have rubbed shoulders with Tom the bootblack and Jerry
the street boy. He was a figure of the wicked days--one of the ogres who
now darken the pages of liberal economic primers--but he was the one who
kept Wickford Point from vanishing, and he was the one who enabled all
its archaic complications to live into the present. I have sometimes
wondered whether, if he could return to it, he might not repent having
left a trust fund for the upkeep of the place. Curiously enough Mr.
Caldicott, our trustee, whom I had always considered unimaginative, said
the same thing once when I saw him in Boston.

"Well, Mr. Caldicott," I told him, "if he could come back, he wouldn't
know the old place now."

Sometimes, however, I am not so sure that he did not come back, and that
all the people who have ever lived at Wickford Point are not somewhere
near it.

       *       *       *       *       *

These matters are of no importance except for the light which they may
throw upon strange vanished days which no one living can understand.
Nevertheless those days were at the root of all our difficulties. All
those stiff-necked figures in the picture album, with their heads
supported by invisible brackets--all their likes and dislikes--all the
endless anecdotes about them which have died into a strange hushed
silence--have given Wickford Point its quality. As one tries to piece
them all together, the responsibility becomes enormous, for one is
speculating about history and toying rudely with the springs of change.
We can interpret, but we can never know. All that is certain--and this
is as sure as fate--is that these vanished people made things what they
are.




VI

_The Front Door Sticks_


I always enjoyed the informality of a summer morning at Wickford Point.
What I enjoyed most was a unique lack of stimulus combined with the
absence of a personal responsibility. Every summer morning at Wickford
Point was like every other morning, bringing the consoling message that
it would be wise to attempt nothing all day long. There was no tang to
the morning air; but instead, the heavy lassitude of too many trees and
of too much summer combined with a drowsy sound of enervated birds and a
muddy murky odor from the river.

I had occupied the same room in the house at odd moments for most of my
life. It was one of the least desirable rooms, but I had never cared to
move out of it. When I awoke, a good many days after that evening when I
had read the beginning of Allen Southby's novel, I could see the grooves
which a tame squirrel of mine had once gnawed on the post of my bed.
Looking at the ceiling I could see the same cracks, the directions of
which I had learned by heart when I had lain there sick with scarlet
fever. It had been predicted for the last twenty years that the ceiling
was due to fall, but the cracks seemed no larger and no different. The
ceiling was like the balance of power in Europe or like the tottering
economic fabric of the nation and all of Wickford Point, ready to fall
but never falling. In the meanwhile the cracks meandered toward the wall
in the irrational outlines of rivers and continents, giving a good
imitation of a slightly demented page in a geography. The whitewash had
flaked off into deserts and mountain ranges. The corpses of occasional
mosquitoes were like other geographic symbols. While lying in bed it was
possible to embark on a voyage across that cracked ceiling. It got you
nowhere, but the same might be said of other journeys.

I could see the mark where I had spilled acid on the claw-and-ball foot
mahogany table. I could see the broken knobs of the empire bureau, and
the rack where I kept my shotgun, and the hole in the Oriental carpet
which my Irish water spaniel puppy had chewed twenty years before. I
could see my perfunctory and undistinguished Harvard diploma, and a
photograph, which was growing yellow, of the officers and men of Battery
C of the Three Hundred and Something Artillery, Bay State Division,
taken at Camp de Souge in France. There had been a time when I could
name everyone of those hundred-odd men from left to right without
hesitation. Once it would have seemed impossible that I could ever
forget those faces, but now I was not sure which figure among the
officers was my own. I could see the hole in the wall made by a revolver
bullet from a boyhood weapon which I had not known was loaded--the putty
still there, put in by Mr. Morrissey, who was the hired man then, so
that Cousin Sue might not find out about it. I had been pretending that
I was a cowboy or Daniel Boone or someone, and it was lucky that I had
not shot off a finger. I had pretended that I was a lot of things in
that room--a soldier, a fireman, a philosopher, a trapper, a poet and a
great lover. No doubt I was still pretending.

When Aunt Sarah died it was suggested that I move to the front of the
house, but I had grown used to my room by then. I liked the view from my
window of the lawn and the hay barn and the green of the oak trees by
the river. The back stairs were near it, making it possible to enter and
leave in privacy, and I liked the sounds and smells of the kitchen.

It was a quarter before ten o'clock. I knew the hour, not only from the
watch on the candle-stand by the bed but from the angle of the sunlight
through the window. It was time to get up. I could never sleep as long
as the others at Wickford Point.

Josie was in the kitchen and the flies were buzzing about some unwashed
dishes in the soapstone sink. She was feeding something out of a tin cup
to Herman, her youngest child. The contents of the cup dribbled down
Herman's chin and onto his rompers. The old setter got up and hit his
head on the kitchen table and sat down again.

"I don't know how it is, Mr. Calder," said Josie, "Herman just doesn't
seem to eat right. I've told him again and again not to slobber, but the
poor little thing, it doesn't seem to go down the right way."

"I'll have my breakfast in here," I said. "I'd like some coffee and a
boiled egg."

"Yes, Mr. Calder," Josie said. "I've got some water boiling right now.
Don't rub against Mr. Calder, Herman darling. I was just saying to
Frieda last night that I did hope you wouldn't be starting away
somewhere and leaving us. Frieda thought you might be going somewhere,
the way you do. There are only two eggs, Mr. Calder. They forgot to get
any groceries yesterday, and I have been asking and asking for some more
soap. Dear Mrs. Wright is so forgetful. She was going to send downtown
yesterday, but Miss Bella went off somewhere and then Mr. Sidney got her
pocketbook."

"What did he do with her pocketbook?" I asked.

"He took it with him to the beach," Josie said, "and then dear Mrs.
Wright was going to cash a check, but no one could find her checkbook,
and so she said it could wait until today. And Mr. Calder, Earle has
been so worried, that poor boy was crying when he was cutting the grass
this morning."

"What was he crying for?" I asked.

"That poor boy," Josie said, and wiped her hands on her dress and took
the coffeepot off the stove, "that poor boy was just crying because he
hasn't got any money. Earle is such a sensitive boy, and Frieda has so
much attention. The nicest boys have always liked Frieda, even if she
hasn't got the clothes that some of the girls have. Of course I sew and
sew and do everything I can, and then Miss Bella gave her that dress,
the one with the pink dots on it that she spilt the rum punch on last
week. The dear girl is so proud of that dress, Mr. Calder, and she
wanted to wear it but Earle has never been paid, so he just can't take
her anywheres. That dear girl is just as pretty as a picture. Why, when
she was waiting on people at the church supper, there was a man staying
with the Fewkses up the road who said that she ought to go to Hollywood.
He said she would have a great future in the movies. I said to Frieda
that Mr. Calder might know someone in Hollywood. I said that Mr. Calder
knows folks everywhere, and Mr. Sidney said you knew some folks in
Hollywood."

"What happened about Earle?" I said.

"That poor boy!" Josie said. "He was so happy when Frieda said she would
go to the beach with him. First he tried to borrow a dollar from Miss
Bella and Miss Bella hadn't any, and Mr. Sidney was gone with the
pocketbook, and dear Mrs. Wright couldn't find any money, and all I had
was fifteen cents, because the man came for the sewing machine money,
and dear Mrs. Wright still owes me for two weeks. He just can't get the
money to take Frieda to the beach."

"Tell him to come in," I said.

Earle came into the kitchen, chewing gum. The rhythmic motion of his
jaws concealed all emotion. There were pimples on his adolescent face.
His figure showed nothing that might connect him with high romance.

"You want to go down to the beach tonight?" I asked.

"Yup," said Earle. "Mrs. Wright, she hasn't paid me. She owes me
fourteen dollars."

"Well, here's a dollar," I said.

"Thanks a lot," said Earle, and left us.

"Earle is a nice boy," said Josie, "really a nice clean boy. His
father's on the WPA. It makes Earle so sensitive. His teacher says Earle
has a great future. The Caraways are such lovely people, and he's so
fond of you, Mr. Calder. He says you're a lovely man. It does seem,
doesn't it, that everybody has his troubles?"

"That's right," I said, "everybody has troubles."

"They just expect Frieda and me to do everything," Josie said. "Miss
Bella wants Frieda to wash all her underthings. They just expect to be
waited on all the time, no matter how many people they have coming, and
all the drinking and all the glasses, and they all put cigarette butts
in their coffee cups, Mr. Calder. They're so careless that they don't
seem to think of anything. If it wasn't for dear Mrs. Wright--if it
wasn't for all these dear children of mine--"

"Never mind," I said, "Frieda will get married and be off your hands."

"It was so different when I came here first," said Josie, "when Miss
Sarah was alive."

"Not much different," I said.

I leaned back in the kitchen chair and watched the flies buzzing about
the sink. The kettle on the stove simmered. Life was going on at
Wickford Point, moving slowly in the summer heat, a strange, unworldly
life. It seemed to have no end and no beginning. Nothing was ever right
and nothing was ever wrong. I did not consider speaking to Cousin
Clothilde, because it would have done no good. I had made a definite
financial arrangement and had paid her my expenses.

"Mrs. Wright will have some money on the first of the month," I said.

"Dear Mrs. Wright has so many worries," Josie said. "She's worried about
Miss Bella. That Mr. Stackton who was down here, and then that Mr.
Berg."

"Well, they've gone," I said.

"Dear Mrs. Wright," said Josie, "she keeps fretting about Miss Bella.
It does seem too bad what with all her chances. They've all had so many
chances."

"Yes," I said, "we've all had a lot of chances."

"Now it does seem to me," said Josie, "that if any of them would do any
work--there's lots of things folks could do around here, Mr. Calder.
When the armchair in the front room began to get shaky, they could have
glued it. I told Mr. Sidney myself that he ought to have got some glue,
but they just waited until it broke to pieces, Mr. Calder. And then
there's the front door. If someone was handy here, they could have fixed
it, and now it's jammed so it won't open, and they just use the side
door, Mr. Calder."

"It's the hinge on the front door, isn't it?" I asked. "Where is there a
hammer and a screw driver? I'll fix it."

As I spoke, I knew that I was not going to fix it. I was comfortably
sure that there would be some reason to prevent it.

"Earle was looking for the screw driver all day yesterday," Josie said,
"and the hammer broke last winter, and those dear children scattered all
the tools in the chest around the barn the summer before last. There
ought to be a handy man on the place, Mr. Calder. It isn't for you to do
such things. It's for a handy man." Josie rubbed her hands on her apron
and sat down.

"Now I was telling dear Mrs. Wright," she said, "that they're laying off
people in the shoe shop. I have a cousin who's a plumber."

"He couldn't fix the door," I said.

"He could try," said Josie. "He's the nicest man when he isn't drinking,
Mr. Calder. He has lots of tools in his automobile. Now I think if you
gave him a dollar he could come down and fix the door, and the toilet
too--but dear Mrs. Wright, she says it isn't necessary."

I pushed back my chair from the kitchen table and walked to the window
over the sink.

"Earle," I called. The gentle sound of the lawn mower ceased.

"Look in the back of my car," I said, "and get me a screw driver and a
hammer and meet me by the front door."

"But you might make it worse, Mr. Calder," Josie said.

I did not answer. I already had a premonition that I would make it
worse.

Outside, the heat from a blue summer sky had been partially absorbed by
the elms and the shrubbery, but the shade did not alleviate this heat;
it simply changed its quality into a heavy greenish warmth of vegetable
exhalation. The robins were chirping drowsily in the trees and the echo
of the lawn mower still seemed to linger in that warm vacancy.

Earle appeared with the hammer and the screw driver, and it came over me
that none of us had been taught to use our hands at Wickford Point. None
of us were good at driving nails and we were rather proud of it.

"It's hot, ain't it?" Earle said.

"Yes," I said, "it is hot. Now, what's the matter with this door?"

"It just don't open," Earle said. "It seems like it's sort of sagged
down."

The paint was peeling from the panels of the heavy front door. Trumpet
vines were twined over it, and bees were buzzing dully. I lifted the
latch and pushed against it, but it did not move. I examined the heavy
hand-beaten hinges which were deeply encrusted with paint. It seemed
necessary to get the door off the hinges, but there seemed no proper way
to do it, and no way to begin.

"Something must have give somewhere, don't you think?" Earle said.

I jammed the screw driver tentatively at the paint above the hinges.

"Those ain't screwed on," Earle said. "It looks like they're riveted. A
screw driver won't do any good, Mr. Calder."

I threw my weight against the door and it gave.

"There isn't anything wrong with it," I said. "Something's stuck in it."
And I was right. I walked through the side door and into the front
entry. There was a mass of paper wedged into the jamb near the
threshold. By working the door back and forth, Earle and I scraped the
paper out, and then the door opened and shut easily enough.

"Funny someone shouldn't have noticed that," said Earle. "Looks like a
letter, don't it? Someone must have dropped it."

"You can put the tools back in my car now," I said.

When Earle went away I stood in the entry smoothing the paper in my
hand. It had been crushed so that it was almost indecipherable. Judging
from the few words I could read, it had belonged to Bella, and Bella
appeared just as I was reading it. She was dressed in slacks, a striped
jersey, and sandals, and she was yawning. She had not bothered to brush
her short black hair or to put on lipstick, and she looked pale and
sleepy.

"What are you doing, darling?" Bella said.

"I've been fixing the door," I said. "One of your letters got jammed in
it."

"What letter?" Bella asked.

"It looks like a letter from your friend Berg," I said.

"You can give it to me," said Bella, and she snatched it out of my hand.

"Every time you walk across the room you drop something," I said. "If it
isn't a letter it's a compact, and if it isn't a compact it's a dollar
bill, and if it isn't a dollar bill it's a ring."

"I'm looking for a cigarette," said Bella. "Haven't you a cigarette?"

"No," I said, "I gave them to your mother."

"She's finished them all," said Bella. "I was in her room this morning,
and then I went into Sid's."

"He's not smoking," I said. "His stomach's troubling him."

"I know," said Bella. "It goes in cycles. First it's his feet, and then
it's his stomach. I didn't go there to get cigarettes. I looked through
his pockets. He's used up all the money. I'd have looked through yours,
but you always get up too early. Somebody's got to go down to the bank.
Are you going downtown?"

"I don't know what I'm going to do," I said, "but anyway I fixed the
door."

"I suppose you're going to do something," said Bella. "You always do
something. I suppose you're going to read. I've got to get away from
this, darling. It's getting on my nerves. Are you going away anywhere?"

I had never liked to discuss my plans with any of my relatives. It
always provoked argument when any of us announced too definitely what we
were going to do. It was easier to move quietly and suddenly.

"What makes you think I'm going anywhere?" I asked.

"Your bag was out in your room," Bella said. "The door was open and I
saw it when I came downstairs."

"Well," I said, "I'm going to New York tonight."

"Why, darling," said Bella, "why should you be going to New York?"

"Business," I said. "George Stanhope wants to see me about that story
I'm finishing. They want some changes."

"Oh," said Bella, "is that all?"

"Yes," I said, "of course that's all."

Bella put her head to one side in a shrewd and pretty way.

"It couldn't be that Pat Leighton has been calling you again?" she said.
"I wouldn't like to have to pay her telephone bill."

"Listen, honey bee--" I began, but I did not have a chance to finish.

The telephone in the small parlor rang. Bella's face brightened. That
sound from an outer world seemed to go through her like a healing
electric shock. Small bright lights appeared in her violet eyes. The
lazy droop left her lips. The ring of the telephone made her alert and
charming. She was Bella Brill again, that amusing gay girl who was
different, one of those remarkable talented Brills. She was the Bella
Brill who could be the life of the party. Her sandals clattered as she
darted out into the entry.

"I'll answer it," she said.

I myself could feel the stimulating effect of that ugly tinkling bell.
It was not ringing with the mechanical pulse beats of a city telephone
but with the long vicious rings translated by the frustrated finger of
some girl at the local switchboard. It was a summons from the saner,
outer world that was too busy to permit the overdevelopment of personal
eccentricity. Over the lines the world was calling Wickford Point--the
world which had exploited me in the journalistic trade, the world which
had pushed me into France and had blown me out of the front-line
trenches and had rubbed my nose in London, Paris and Berlin, and in
Beirut and Peking. The same world was calling which had nearly cleaned
me out in the crash of '29 and which was now taxing my earnings to give
me a more abundant life. Everything you learned in it turned out to be
wrong. It was as baffling and as fascinating as when I had seen it
first.

Bella, skipping to the telephone, was arranging her exterior to meet it.
She was now the intellectual, epigrammatic Bella Brill, the
granddaughter of old John Brill, the homespun sage and poet of
transcendentalist New England. I myself was changing, because the call
might be for me. I was casting aside the minutiae of Wickford Point; I
was becoming Jim Calder, who knew his way around.... It was an
out-of-town call, judging from the insistence of the bell. It might be
my agent in New York to converse about that story. It might be someone
else asking me somewhere.

The wooden shutters of the small parlor were still drawn, making the
small square room brown and dusky. I had an impression of the whatnot in
the corner with the sea shells on it, of the braided rug on the green
pine floor, of my great-grandfather's portrait, and of my
great-grandmother's portrait over the coal grate, and of the Hogarth
print which someone had found in the attic, and of the water color of
the river which Cousin Clothilde's mother had done after she came back
from Brook Farm, and of the broken Chippendale chair, and of the whole
one. I was aware of all these things without really seeing them, just as
I was sometimes aware of their presence in the dark. Bella was picking
the telephone off the little table and was slouching down into the
nearest Windsor chair.

"Hello," Bella was saying, "hello."

Her voice was no longer careless--it had a modulated allure; it gave a
gay and provocative invitation; it told of a girl who was expecting
something nice and was ready to try anything once. It was the voice
which had taken away at least two of her sister Mary's boy friends.

"Hello," Bella said, and then something made her tone grow hard and her
thin shoulders stiffen beneath her striped jersey.

"What are you doing? What do you want? Excuse _me_." She was being
elaborately polite. "But I do sometimes answer the telephone. It's my
house as much as his. Yes, he's right here in the room. For heaven's
sake stop being formal!"

Bella set down the receiver and got out of the Windsor chair. Her lips
were drawn into a thin grimace which was more of a grin than a smile.
Those bony shoulders of hers, her whole delicate body, were stiff and
taut.

"It's Joe," she said. "He wants to speak to you."

"All right," I said. "That's what you get for running to the telephone."

The grimace about Bella's lips changed to a Mona Lisa smile, an
expression with which I was familiar. It was a look of hauteur. She was
no longer a play girl, but an aristocrat.

"You might tell Joe that he needn't call up here," she said. "There's
such a thing as a sense of decency, when people are divorced."

"He didn't want you," I said, "he wanted me."

"Oh," said Bella, "you think so, do you? You might at least be loyal to
your own family."

"Go out and get your coffee," I said. "He can call me up any time he
wants."

"It's what I might expect from you," said Bella, "and you're not such a
saint either. I know plenty about you. How would you like it if Pat--"

"Shut up," I said.

Bella laughed, a thin, provoking laugh.

"Everybody knows," she began, and stopped. I turned away toward the
telephone and I could hear her running out of the room. I could hear her
footsteps on the stairs in cautious haste. Bella would be going to the
extension in the upper hall.

"Hello," I said, "hello, Joe."

Joe's voice was loud and amused.

"Hello, Jim," said Joe. "What the hell are you doing in that lunatic
asylum? Are you in the psychopathic ward?"

I was pleased with his question because Bella was undoubtedly listening
by that time. In fact I had already heard the receiver being gently
lifted off the hook.

"I'm taking a rest," I said.

"Oh," said Joe. "Just sitting on your fanny, thinking? Is Sid there? Is
he thinking too? You haven't any right to think. You're not a Brill."

Joe was bitter. I wished that he would not be so bitter, but I did not
blame him much.

"Where are you, Joe?" I asked. I hoped he wasn't far away. It did me
good, as it always did, to hear his voice. He said he was in Boston on
his way to Vermont. He was going to speak at the Hilsop Literary
Conference. He didn't know why he was going but his publishers had fixed
it. Sam Maxwell had asked him as a personal favor. Sam was in charge of
part of the program. Everything was going fine. They had sold a hundred
and fifty thousand copies of his new novel, not counting the
Book-of-the-Month Club. He couldn't very well go back on Sam. It was hot
as hell in Boston and he was stopping at the Crofton. Sam was paying the
expenses. They had given him a room full of fake Italian furniture with
a Renaissance fireplace that looked like a funnel. He had been on the
wagon for two months and he was going to stop right now. Why didn't I
come down and we could have dinner? I told him that I would. Then he
asked how Bella was, and I told him she was fine and something made him
laugh.

When I set down the telephone I had a feeling that I had been away,
although I could not define where I had been, but at any rate it was a
long way from Wickford Point. Joe had never understood the place, or if
he had he was not tied up with it. He was as sensitive as I was,
probably more sensitive, but there were no cobwebs of the past about
him.

By the time I had walked from the parlor to the dining room, Sid had
come down to breakfast. He was sitting hunched over the table in his
shirt sleeves, stirring his coffee very carefully, watching the eddies
that followed his spoon. Occasionally he would lift it up and allow
drops to fall from it very gradually, one by one, back into the cup. I
knew what he was doing; it was an exercise which he had contrived to
test the steadiness of his hand. He had prided himself on his manual
dexterity from the time he had decided to be a chemist, some years
before, and now he was in the land of make-believe, thinking of someone
like Alexis Carrel. He had not yet tied his necktie and the two ends
dangled dreamily over the front of his white shirt.

"Good morning, Jim," said Sid. His voice was resonant, almost
pontifical, a mannerism which he had developed lately. "Have you ever
noticed the varying surface tension of coffee?" It made an erudite and
interesting remark. Sid was always interesting.

"Did you ever think," said Sid, "that it would be quite possible to tell
whether coffee is properly boiled or not simply by watching it drip
from a spoon? It would not be necessary to taste it. I think this coffee
has been boiled too long."

"It's been on the back of the stove for four hours," I said.

"I can tell it," agreed Sid, "by watching it drop from the spoon."

I sat down. That Confucian contemplation of Sid's was a part of Wickford
Point, where almost any motion became significant.

"How's your stomach?" I asked.

Sid's face brightened.

"I lay in the sun on the beach all day yesterday," he said. "As long as
I am perfectly still in the sun there doesn't seem to be any gas. It's
only when I try to do some work."

"What are you working on?" I asked.

"I'm trying to gauge weights by touch," Sid said. "I've been trying for
the last two weeks, picking up small objects and then checking my guess.
I borrowed some of your socks this morning. Josie hasn't got around to
the washing. Where's Bella?"

"Upstairs," I said. "Joe called up."

"He didn't call her up, did he?"

"No," I said. "He wanted me to have dinner with him at the Crofton.
Bella went upstairs to listen on the extension." Sid bent over his
coffee spoon and uttered a single monosyllable.

"Bitch," he said, and then the dining-room door opened. Bella was with
us again.

"What's that you said?" asked Bella.

"Never mind," said Sid. Bella sat down and put her elbows on the table
and cupped her chin in the palms of her nervous hands.

"You called me a bitch," she said. "Jim's the only one on this place who
can call me that." As she turned toward me there was an almost
affectionate look in her narrow, violet eyes.

"And now," said Bella, "I'm about through with this. I've sat around
long enough seeing you dribble coffee, Sid, and hearing about your
bellyaches. You think you're a genius, don't you? Well, all it is is
you're just too damned lazy to move. What did you do with that ten
dollars you borrowed from Mary?" Sid shrugged his shoulders slightly and
looked up from his coffee cup.

"Oh hell," said Bella, "what's the use? I'm going to get out of here.
I'm going to spend the night at the Jaeckels'. Jim's driving into
Boston. You'll drop me off, won't you, darling?"

"Yes," I said, "I'll drop you off."

"In the ocean," said Sid, "with a stone around your neck."

Bella looked at Sid and looked away.

"Darling," she said to me, "Clothilde wants to see you upstairs." She
patted my hand gently. I knew why she called me "darling," because she
wanted a ride halfway to town, and then there was probably something
about Joe. She would want to ask me all about him.

A hard intentness altered Bella's glance from affection to efficiency,
and I followed the direction of those violet eyes, which could change as
rapidly as the surface of a hurrying brook. Bella was looking back
toward her brother. Sid was holding a folded ten-dollar bill between his
first and second fingers.

"So you've still got Mary's ten dollars," Bella said. "It wasn't in your
trousers this morning."

"You have a small mind," said Sid. "If you're going to the Jaeckels'
you'll need to tip the servants. Take it." Bella's face softened.

"Thanks," she said, "ever so much, Sid darling. Don't you want me to get
you some toast? Don't you want anything besides coffee?"

Then the telephone rang again.

"I'll go," said Bella, and she skipped away like a dancer--and she was a
pretty dancer.

"Waiting for someone to call her up, isn't she?" said Sid. When she
called me I knew she must have been, because I was not her darling any
longer.

"That's for you," Bella said. "Why can't you take your own telephone
calls? I have to spend all my time here doing things for everybody."

"Who is it?" I asked her.

"For God's sake," said Bella, "do you think I'm your private secretary?
I don't know who he is. He's got a pansy voice." At first I could not
imagine who it was, and then I knew that it was Allen Southby calling.
His voice was crisp and businesslike, indicating that he was having a
busy morning.

"Jim," he said, "I want to see you."

"That's fine," I said. "I'd like to see you, Allen."

"I mean right away," said Allen, "I mean tonight. I'm in a sort of jam."

His gay laugh, when I asked what sort, indicated that he was not really
in a jam, that he was simply playfully using the vernacular.

"I mean," said Allen, "a purely literary jam."

"Oh," I said, "you couldn't be, Allen."

"It's about that novel, Jim," he said. "It's just that I've come to a
point in it where I need someone who can listen. How does it happen that
you've been holding out on me?"

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

Allen's answer was playful and very, very friendly, just the gentle
chiding of a dear old friend who knows that his own dear old friend is
sometimes up to games.

"You never told me," Allen said, "that you had any important New England
connection until the other evening. Can you come down tonight?" There
was an annoying, breezy implication in his question. He was saying that
he knew that I would be flattered to come. He had that egotistical
conviction common to some people in the throes of composition, that what
he was doing was a matter of such vital importance that anybody would
drop anything to be present at the birth of his ideas.

"I can't very well," I said. "I'm seeing Joe Stowe tonight."

"Joe Stowe!" Allen called back. "Why didn't he let me know he was here,
I wonder. He always lets me know. Why, I could have put him up for the
night. Where's he stopping? You just leave it to me, I'll get in touch
with Joe."

Of all the arts I suppose that writing is the one which develops the
lowest attributes, in that its very pursuit magnifies all the human
failings. It encourages introversion, neurasthenia, insomnia,
irritability and all forms of self-indulgence. It encourages a
sensitiveness which makes one open to any sort of slight. It begets a
type of personal inflation, for it is nearly impossible to continue
without the consciousness of a definite gift of genius. It may be that
one is misunderstood by editors, perhaps because one is too far advanced
to be comprehended by the simple moron mind. It may be that this hidden
gift still lies fallow, but there must be an inner conviction of its
presence. It is what enables an author to walk airily among his
colleagues and to dispense and to receive the bitter little
condescensions of the trade. There is a jealousy in the writing
profession which is peculiarly its own. Although I knew that I was
jealous, I did not like to think that Allen Southby could get under my
skin, because, of course, I knew in my own mind that he was my
intellectual inferior. I wished to view him with detachment and the fact
that he always succeeded in shaking that detachment was peculiarly
unsettling.

"Who was it?" Bella asked.

"Allen Southby," I said. "You don't know him."

"He wrote a book, didn't he?"

"Yes," I said, "he wrote a book."

"I remember," said Bella, "it was recommended in the _Junior League
Magazine_. Is he attractive?"

"Just as nice as he can be," I said. "He's living in Cambridge with his
sister."

"Oh," said Bella. "Has he got some sort of a complex?"

"What good does it do to try to find out something about everybody?" I
asked her. "It only gets you into mischief. Never mind about Southby."

Bella smiled. A dimple deepened in her left cheek and her eyes grew
innocently wide.

"You just don't want me to meet him, because you know I'd like him," she
said, "and he must have written a really good book because you're
jealous. I'm going to read it. Clothilde wants to see you. I'll get
Frieda to wash some stockings for me and press some things. Let me know
when you're starting out."




VII

_Age Cannot Wither Her, nor Custom Stale ..._


Cousin Clothilde slept in the long room which overlooked the river. From
her window you could see where the channel curved past the point with
its white pines, and you could see the white houses far across on the
opposite bank. The river had a deep rich hue under the clear sky, and
the spar buoys were bent upstream by the incoming tide. Cousin Clothilde
was sitting up in a maple field-bed decorated by ancient, moth-eaten
curtains. The room had been swept out and all the little odds and ends
had been removed from the bureau and mantel, so that it looked white and
bare and cool. It was almost like one of those rooms with a cord across
the doorway which you might see in an old house opened to the public. It
was like the room where Lafayette had slept or Washington's mother had
died, and the furniture might have been contributed later by the
Colonial Dames of America--not very good furniture, just odds and ends
so that the room would not look entirely empty. Cousin Clothilde's brush
and comb were on a low table before a blackened pier glass. There were a
number of cigarette butts in the fireplace, three ginger ale bottles and
some glasses on the hearth, and Cousin Clothilde was in a purple kimono
which Bella's friend, Mr. Berg, had given her--it was not in good taste,
as a gift or as a kimono.

"Darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "have you a cigarette?"

"I gave you all mine last night," I said.

Cousin Clothilde sighed.

"Everybody always takes my cigarettes," she said. "I don't know why none
of my children can take the responsibility of having some in the house.
Look in my upper bureau drawer, there may be some in there."

Cousin Clothilde's upper bureau drawer was mostly filled with stockings
which did not match. There were also two broken Navajo brooches, one of
my great-aunt Sarah's knitting needles, a yellow piece of Chinese ivory,
a half-empty bottle of nail polish and a depilatory preparation, but
there were no cigarettes.

"There used to be some there," said Cousin Clothilde. "I wonder if that
girl of Josie's steals things. She might have stolen them."

This was the simplest explanation when articles were mislaid at Wickford
Point, from the days of Aunt Sarah onward. Wickford Point always seemed
to be surrounded by marauders and petty pilferers, obsessed by a
particular desire to abscond with tooth paste, bits of soap and other
toilet articles, or thimbles, needles and thread. Aunt Sarah also used
to blame disappearances on the crows, for she had known a tame crow once
that was always taking spoons out of the kitchen and hiding them under
the shingles of the woodshed roof.

"Frieda is getting above herself," Cousin Clothilde said. "Bella lets
her get too familiar. They're in the laundry too much together pressing
clothes."

I sat down on the foot of the bed and looked out of the window toward
the river. Cousin Clothilde liked to go over the general situation bit
by bit without too much interruption. She sat quietly propped up in the
four-post bed and gathered news of Wickford Point from all its diverging
radii, like a general sifting information about the enemy.

"That child of Josie's--" Cousin Clothilde said. "There always seems to
be one more. I don't think it's fair to any of the rest of us if Josie
has any more children. That little Herman came naked into the parlor
yesterday. It was all right because it amused Sid, and yesterday the cat
had kittens in the china cupboard. I suppose we shall have to drown
them, but I want to keep them long enough so we can see them frisk
about. Sid loves kittens. The front door is stuck. I think it's because
the house has begun to settle."

"I fixed it," I said. "A letter of Bella's got mixed up in it, one from
Mr. Berg."

"I wish Bella wouldn't drop everything everywhere," said Cousin
Clothilde. "Do you know I think her hair is beginning to fall out?
Everywhere I go I seem to see Bella's hair, and I stepped on her
lipstick yesterday. I thought Mr. Berg was delightful, didn't you?"

"No, I didn't," I said.

"Darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "you're always so hard on people.
You'd be so much happier if you saw the nice sides of them and not the
horrid sides. I thought Mr. Berg was charming. He's in business, you
know." Cousin Clothilde sighed. "It's nice that Bella is getting
interested in a business man for a change. What we need is some money in
the family and a little peasant blood."

"How can he be hanging around here for a week," I asked, "if he has any
business?"

"Darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "it doesn't do any good to be so
suspicious. You're able to hang around, aren't you? Then why shouldn't
Mr. Berg? And probably Mr. Roosevelt is doing something to his business.
You can't tell about those things."

"I can tell about Berg," I said. "He's just one of those people who
appear, and Bella attracts them. All she has to do is to go out on the
street and whistle and along comes a Berg." Cousin Clothilde had
partially lost interest. She glanced out the window toward the river.

"Once I made a water-color sketch of the river from here," she said.
"What are you getting up for? Do sit down and don't fidget. There are so
many things I want to talk to you about, darling. Bella doesn't whistle
to people. It isn't fair to say that about Bella."

"Then she shakes herself," I said. "She does something."

"Well, it's nice she can attract men," said Cousin Clothilde. "It's
always much nicer when there are men around. Everyone is much happier,
much less nervous. I wish Mary could attract men. It would make things
so much easier. I wish you wouldn't be so hard on President Roosevelt,
dear."

"President Roosevelt?" I said. "I haven't been hard on President
Roosevelt."

"Perhaps you haven't yet," said Cousin Clothilde, "but you were going to
be. I should have voted for him if I had remembered to register. I never
can remember to go to that place where you have to read something out
loud. I know he will look out for me. I can see it from his face."

"He'll look out for you," I said.

"Well," said Cousin Clothilde, "someone has to. I'm just about tired of
looking out for everybody. First it's Sidney and then it's Bella and
then it's Mary--they all keep getting into my pocketbook--and then Josie
is always after me for things."

"What sort of things?" I asked.

"All sorts of things," said Cousin Clothilde. She sat in her bed,
looking very young with her two heavy black braids, only faintly gray,
falling over her purple kimono. "Josie doesn't seem to keep anything in
her head. First we're out of soap and then we're out of toilet paper,
and there isn't anything to eat except a few things that Earle pulls out
of the garden, and there isn't any gin. I wonder if Frieda steals the
gin, or it might be Earle who takes it. I really thought he was quite
unsteady the other day. Or it might be that man who comes selling cakes
and cookies. I saw him in the kitchen talking to Frieda. He didn't even
have the manners to get up when I came in."

"I knew of a plumber once," I said, "who stole a quart of whisky."

Cousin Clothilde sighed.

"The point is," she said, "I simply cannot go on looking after
everyone. I'm not as young as I used to be. It isn't decent to have an
old lady looking after a lot of grown-up children who ought to be
looking after her. Now I don't mind Sid. Sid is always so restful. Do
you know what Sid is doing? He's thinking of a system of playing the
stock market, and do you know what Sid said? He said that if I had only
let him have three hundred dollars to buy some shares in a stock called
Ginsberg Chemical--"

"Ginsberg Chemical?" I said. "There isn't any such thing as Ginsberg
Chemical."

"You probably haven't seen it," said Cousin Clothilde, "and the name
really doesn't make any difference anyway. It was just some company that
made something. I think Sid said that they made it out of sawdust, but
it doesn't make a bit of difference. Sid said if I had only put three
hundred dollars into this company, it would be worth twenty thousand
dollars now or even more. Sid knows all about it, and I wish that Archie
had the sense that Sid has."

I found myself growing mildly interested. In fact it was always
interesting listening to Cousin Clothilde. Nearly every day she could
weave a pattern with words, much as the less gifted Penelope had woven
her fabrics by day to destroy them again by night.

"Where's Archie?" I asked. Cousin Clothilde reached under a pillow and
drew out two letters.

"He's in Detroit," she said. "He's motoring with the Willoughbys. The
Willoughbys know someone who knows Edsel Ford, and they think that Edsel
Ford may want a mural."

"How do they know he wants a mural?" I asked.

"People like that," said Cousin Clothilde, "always want murals. You only
have to make them feel they want them. Archie thinks that if he can only
meet Edsel Ford, he can make Edsel Ford feel that he wants a mural."

"What sort of mural?" I asked.

"Any sort of a mural that Mr. Ford wants," said Cousin Clothilde. "How
should I know what sort of a mural he wants? But he must have a great
many factory buildings. Archie can think of something."

"But Archie doesn't like machines," I said, "and the last time I saw him
he said he was a Communist. He was going out to picket somewhere."

Cousin Clothilde folded the letter and put it back in the envelope.

"It doesn't make any difference whether you're a Communist or not," she
said. "A Communist could do a perfectly good mural for Mr. Ford. Besides
there was a Mexican Communist who did a mural for Radio City--that man
who does things about soldiers stepping on nude people. What is his
name? He was really charming."

"Well, they took his mural down," I said.

"Well," said Cousin Clothilde, "suppose they did. Mr. Ford can take
Archie's mural down, can't he? Just as long as Archie does the mural."

"That's true," I said, "I hadn't thought of that." Cousin Clothilde
opened her second letter.

"Sometime," she said, "I'll have to go back to the oculist. I keep
having to squint my eyes to read, and my circulation isn't right. My
hands are cold in the morning. I never could read Harry's writing." I
was interested again. Harry Brill was my second cousin and her eldest
son.

"What does Harry say?" I asked.

"He's coming up at the end of the week," she said. "He's motoring up
from New York with Mirabel Steiner."

"What is he doing that for?" I asked. "Harry doesn't like Steiner."

"He's coming in her car," said Cousin Clothilde. "It probably is saving
him a good deal, because he hasn't asked me for any money, and Mirabel
Steiner loves it here, and she is so interested in everything. She's
dreadfully interested in you. She said she would like to analyze you."

"Now look here," I said, "I told you--"

"Darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "she won't be here long. Harry will
have to get back. He's very busy about something. And besides he's going
to Easthampton next week end. You won't really have to talk to Mirabel.
You can just sort of keep going away." Cousin Clothilde held the letter
at arm's length and squinted at it.

"I hadn't seen this part," she added. "His bridgework has broken down."

"What bridgework?" I asked.

"Harry's bridgework," said Cousin Clothilde. "Don't you remember when he
did that dance on the Yacht Club float at the Mayhews' costume party? He
was dressed as a Greek in one of those ballet dresses. He slipped and
loosened three front teeth, and now his bridgework has broken down. He
went to that dentist, you know, that good-for-nothing one that I used to
like so much. Dr. Jess had to take every bit of his inlay out of my
mouth. I don't see why you don't go to Dr. Jess, darling. His specialty
is massaging gums."

A bit of summer breeze came through the open window, hot and moist and
redolent with the smell of fresh cut grass. It was like a breath of
sanity, for I was being involved in the intricacies of Wickford Point
again, where every small thing was of importance and where the mind
wandered languidly to this and that with a strange midsummer's madness.
We had touched on nearly all the family and now we had come to the
dentists. The Brills all had trouble with their teeth. They were rather
proud of it because it was a family trait.

"I shouldn't worry about Dr. Jess," I said. Cousin Clothilde folded her
letter.

"The only point is that Harry's bridgework will have to be fixed. It's
going to cost over two hundred dollars. I suppose Harry and Mirabel
will bring up some other people too. I hope they do--the girls will like
it."

"Well," I said, "I'd better be going."

"Why do you have to be going?" said Cousin Clothilde. "I haven't even
begun to talk to you. You're always running away somewhere. Didn't I
hear the telephone ringing this morning? I suppose it was for Bella."

"That was for me," I said. "Joe Stowe rang me up--from Boston."

The delicate arch of Cousin Clothilde's eyebrows moved.

"Does Bella know it?" she asked. I nodded and the room was still for a
minute, so still that I could hear a church bell ringing across the
river. "She's going over to the Jaeckels'," I said. "I'm going to see
Joe. He's in Boston at the Crofton."

Cousin Clothilde was motionless. She was looking at me hard. In spite of
the wrinkles at the corners, her eyes were beautiful, the same violet as
Bella's but lighter, softer. I knew what Hugh Brill had seen in them
when he first rowed over from the Brill place, now a national shrine,
across the river. I knew what Archie Wright had seen in them. He had
tried to paint them often enough. I knew what Manet had seen in them at
the time she had known him in Paris.

"Give Joe my love," she said.

"It might have worked," I told her, "if you hadn't--" I paused because
there was no use going into details which she had never understood.

"Darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "I didn't do anything. I know you
loved him, but it was all a mistake. It was the war and this and that.
Give Joe my love. I wonder why it is I have so many white spots on my
fingernails. There must be something wrong with my circulation. I wish
you'd look at them, Jim."

She put her hand on mine so that I could see her fingers, and then again
her thoughts drifted away and she began to laugh.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"I was thinking about their wedding," she said. "Darling, do you
remember how Archie got tangled up with the cat and fell down the entry
stairs, right into that strange Negro who came from the bootlegger, the
one who was carrying the tray of champagne?"

"Yes," I said, and I laughed too. I nearly always laughed when she did.
"And I remember how the tailor burned the back of Harry's trousers when
he took them off to have them pressed. He was having it done in the shop
right near the church downtown. Do you remember that?"

"Yes," said Cousin Clothilde, "so he couldn't go at all. He had to
borrow a raincoat. I wonder if he ever returned it."

There was another silence and I could hear the church bell again,
ringing across the river. The sound made me think that nothing which had
ever happened at Wickford Point ever entirely left it, and that parts of
everything which had happened were always waiting--ready to move forward
out of nowhere when they were least expected. I was sitting on the edge
of Cousin Clothilde's bed but the bell had brought my thoughts away to
the abstractions of marriage and divorce. I was thinking that one could
never tell in advance, no matter with what experience, whether any two
individuals would achieve a successful or an unsuccessful marriage.
There was too much hidden in every character, too many doubts, too many
hesitations.

Then, while I was still thinking, Bella Brill's voice came to me out of
the air around me, full of all those hesitations and those doubts. I was
back for just a moment to the morning of that wedding day, suffering
from the ghost of an old headache. I remembered how Bella had come into
my room. She must have come while I was still asleep, for the first
sounds that I had heard were thumping noises in the rooms below me, made
by Mr. Morrissey arranging furniture for the wedding breakfast. When I
opened my eyes my head began to ache and I saw Bella standing looking at
me, wrapped in the Chinese robe which I had given her. It had been a
good many years ago, but I could remember exactly how she looked
then--dark-eyed and pale, half-frightened and half-elated.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Jim," she said, "you've got to get up. Where were you last night?"

"Downtown at the hotel with Joe," I said. "I've got a headache, but
don't worry about Joe. He'll be all right."

"I don't see why Joe should drink so much," Bella said, "just the night
before he's getting married."

"It's just a custom," I told her. "The whole thing is custom."

"Well, you needn't have all got yourselves drunk," Bella said. "You have
to get dressed right away, darling, and do something."

"Do what?" I asked.

"Everything," said Bella, "and I can't stand it if you ask me questions.
They've all begun to come."

"Who?" I asked.

"Cousin Harriet's just come in a taxi from the station," Bella said,
"and that bootlegger that Harry found is downstairs waiting for a check.
And Archie won't get off the sofa."

My head ached worse when I sat up.

"What sofa?" I asked.

"Down in the parlor," Bella said. "He went to sleep there last night. He
won't get up and Cousin Harriet doesn't understand it, and Sid is still
asleep and Josie hasn't finished with my dress." I reached for my
dressing gown.

"What time is it?" I asked.

"Darling," said Bella, "it's eleven o'clock, and funnily enough I'm
going to be married downtown at twelve, and do you know what they're
asking? They're asking if I'm sure I want to marry him."

"Well, why aren't you dressed?" I asked.

Bella raised her clenched hands in a hopeless gesture.

"How can I get dressed if they haven't got my dress ready?" she cried.
"And how can I tell if Joe's ready? How can I tell anything?"

"It's all right," I said. "You've got plenty of time. You do want to
marry him, don't you?"

Bella raised her hands again.

"How many times," she asked, "do I have to say I do? Of course I want to
marry him. I want to do anything to get out of here. Jim darling,
everyone is downstairs."

"All right," I said, "all right."

"Jim!" Her voice was louder.

"Yes," I said.

"I've come to say good-by."

"Now don't be silly, Belle," I said. "You're not saying good-by to me at
all."

"Well," said Bella, "it just seems that way. Everybody's making such a
damn fuss."

"Don't worry, Belle," I said. "It's going to be all right. You couldn't
find anyone better than Joe."

"Miss Bella," Josie was calling from the hall, "your dress is all ironed
now, and it's just the dearest dress, and it's all taken in on the hips.
Have you got something borrowed and something blue?"

I put my hand on her shoulder.

"Don't worry, Belle," I said again. "It's going to be all right."

       *       *       *       *       *

My mind moved over the scene, slowly and a little sadly, because I had
been sure it would be all right once she went away with Joe.

There was one good thing about the family: at the last moment we all
could pull ourselves together and behave quite well. We all got through
the wedding and everyone made that trite remark that Bella was such a
pretty bride. I could have gone on thinking about it further because
Cousin Clothilde must have been thinking about it too, while her hand
still rested on mine.

"Weddings are such queer things," she said. "It would be much better if
people didn't make such a fuss about them."

"It would have been all right," I said, "if you had left them alone. No
one would leave them alone."

Cousin Clothilde drew her hand away and Bella's wedding seemed to move
away with it. The wedding had become one of those incidents again to be
put away carefully and forgotten like old clothes which are not worn out
enough to give away and yet which are too old to continue wearing.

"No," said Cousin Clothilde, "nothing could have helped it, dear. He was
really perfectly impossible."

I began to speak but she stopped me.

"Impossible for Bella, I mean. Don't be hard on Bella when you think of
it. I do wish she would marry someone else."

We were interrupted before I could answer. There were always sudden
interruptions at Wickford Point which confused logical trains of
thought.

The door of Cousin Clothilde's room opened. It was her daughter Mary.
Mary Brill was in a gingham dress; she had a towel around her head, and
she was holding three silk stockings and a brassiere.

"What will I do with these?" Mary asked. Cousin Clothilde sat up
straighter.

"How should I know what to do with them, dear?" she said. "Do I have to
tell everyone what to do with everything? Can't I rest here quietly in
the morning without having everyone in the house come up and ask me
questions? Whose are they?"

"I don't know whose they are," Mary said. "I found them in the laundry."

"Well, why didn't you leave them in the laundry?" said Cousin Clothilde.
"What did you bring them in here for? Get them out of here, dear. I
don't want to look at them."

"No one ever wants to look at me," said Mary.

This was a remark which Mary often made in the bosom of the family, but
she must have known it was not true. A great many people enjoyed looking
at her.

"It isn't you, dear," said Cousin Clothilde patiently, "it's just that I
don't like to see a brassiere in the morning, particularly if I don't
know whose it is."

"No one ever helps me about anything," said Mary. Her face seemed to
break into triangles and circles. She began to cry and left the room.

"Now there," said Cousin Clothilde, "now what did I say that should have
made her cry? I was perfectly sweet with her, wasn't I? I don't see that
I said a single thing to disturb her. Of course I know why she's
crying--it's because she doesn't attract men. Can't you show her how to
attract men? I should think that you or Sid or Harry could show her.
Can't you do anything about it?"

"No, I can't," I said, "and besides you're not really correct. Just
don't keep turning her into a problem. When she's happy she attracts men
enough--and better ones than Bella. You make her feel inadequate."

"Well, go out and talk to her," said Cousin Clothilde. "She'll only cry
more if I do."

"It won't do any good," I said. "She only wants attention."

"Of course she wants attention," said Cousin Clothilde, "but she doesn't
want it from me. Please go out and talk to her."




VIII

_Mary, Mary_


From the head of the stairs I could see Mary running down the side entry
past the row of wooden pegs where our coats used to be hung and past the
table where they used to keep the candles ready for bedtime. Before I
could call after her she had slammed the door and was streaking across
the lawn with the stockings and brassiere billowing behind her. She ran
through the old garden, past the asparagus bed and past the ice house. I
was afraid that she was going to step into what had once been a row of
cold frames, but she avoided them and ran into the empty hay barn.

The pastureland at Wickford Point had been sold thirty years before to
Mr. Casey on the main road, who kept a milk route and sold manure. There
had been no cattle at Wickford Point since that time, but it still smelt
of cattle around the barns. There was an odor of stale hayseed, which
was combined with all those other musty odors, the sort which a
realistic writer who deals with nature and the soil loves to describe in
unpicturesque detail. The shingles were rotting badly, allowing ribbons
of dusty sunlight to come through the roof, so that the long wooden
building was not dark. Mary was standing in the center of the floor
between the empty lofts where the hay wagons had once stood and the
shafts of sunlight fell upon her thick yellow hair. She whirled about
when she heard my step.

"I wish you'd go away," she said. "Why can't anybody leave me alone?"

It was my observation, based upon a certain amount of experience, that
most women were attractive when they wept; at least there was a sense of
helplessness and an appeal to the protective instinct that made one want
to do something about it. Mary, on the contrary, was not attractive, for
when she cried, she cried without repression and without regard to the
artistic decencies. The floodgates of her soul poured from her patient
eyes and caused her cheeks to swell and redden until she looked more
like a hay fever sufferer than a damsel in distress. I hesitated to come
too near her in case she might weep upon my shoulder and infect me with
some of her sodden hopelessness, and there was not much use in saying
anything to her, although I could understand a good deal of what was
passing in her mind.

I thought of how she looked when she laughed. At such times I liked her
better than all the others. She had more of her mother's kindness than
the rest of them.

"You ought not to do that," I said. "You look like hell when you cry,
Mary."

Her answer had an irrefutable sort of logic. "Nobody cares how I look,"
she said.

She always reacted that way when she was with the family.

"Well, it doesn't do any good to pity yourself," I told her. "If you
haven't a handkerchief, wipe your face on one of those stockings. Your
mother didn't mean to hurt your feelings. You know you shouldn't jump at
her with a lot of practical questions."

Mary rubbed a stocking across her broad, blunt nose.

"It doesn't do any good not to pity myself," she said.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked.

She did not know what she meant very clearly, but she stuck to the
point. "I'm sick and tired of waiting on everybody," she said and wiped
her nose. "Somebody's got to wash Clothilde's stockings sometime.
Somebody's got to do something. Josie can't do everything."

We were repeating an age-old conversation which would lead nowhere.

"But nobody asks you to do anything," I said, as I tried to express a
logical but useless fact. "Don't you see that everyone had much rather
that you didn't _try_ to do anything? It makes people nervous and then
they get cross, and it makes you tired and then you cry. Nobody wants
anything done around here. You ought to try to adjust yourself to it."

"I can't," said Mary, "when everything's all so mixed up." She broke
into a fresh spasm of sobs. "Sid wouldn't even let me pick up his room.
Do you know what Sid does?"

"No," I said. It was better when her mind was off herself. She rubbed
another stocking, a flesh-colored one with a run in it, over her eyes.

"He doesn't use his bureau drawers," she said.

The remark was confusing and I asked her what she meant.

"He doesn't bother to put his clothes in them," she said. "He just
leaves them all over the floor, all his clean ones and all his dirty
ones, and most of his suits, all on the floor. He says it's easier to
find them. When he wants a shirt or a pair of socks, he takes one of
those old canes that were in the hall closet and he just pokes around
until he finds it. He doesn't even bother to stoop down. He just hooks
it up with the cane and puts it on. It isn't funny either."

"I didn't say it was," I said. "But why does it matter to you? You can't
do anything about it."

Mary looked at the hayseed on the old barn floor. She kicked at it with
the toe of a high-heeled slipper.

"You don't understand," she said. "Nobody understands. I just want to be
happy."

"Oh, is that all you want?" I asked.

Mary looked sullen and she looked puzzled too.

"That isn't asking much, is it?" she inquired. "I have a right to be
happy, haven't I? Hasn't everyone a right to be happy?"

There was no telling where she had gathered the idea, whether from some
boy friend or from some loose snatches of an evening's talk, but it
reminded me of a Fourth of July phrase--"the pursuit of happiness."
Everyone had a right to the pursuit of happiness, and how hard we chased
it now! My thoughts didn't make much sense.

"You can't be happy if you're thinking about it," I said. "You're only
happy when your mind is on something else, Mary. Then occasionally
happiness comes over you when you don't notice it. Even so, it only
lasts for a few moments. I shouldn't let it worry me if I were you."

"That's the way you always talk," said Mary. "If you'd ever been happy
you wouldn't talk that way."

"Well," I said, "don't let it worry you."

"But I've been trying to think of something else," Mary said. "I've been
trying to do something for other people. That's what I was doing this
morning."

"Well," I said, "it doesn't always work. I guess I'd better be going
back now."

Mary stared up at the holes in the roof.

"Sid wouldn't let me fix his room," she said, "and he borrowed ten
dollars, and now Bella's got it. Bella gets everything, and now she's
going to the Jaeckels', and you're going to New York."

"Well," I said, "you're not missing much." Mary sniffed but she was
feeling better.

"That's the way you always talk," she said. "Isn't there something I can
do about myself? Can't you ever tell me something?"

I reached in my trousers' pocket and drew out a ten-dollar bill.

"There," I said, "don't worry about yourself any more, and don't let
anybody get this away from you."

As I watched her holding the currency, the effect was amazing. The
sunlight in the barn was suddenly bright. The barnswallows darting
through the open door made joyful hurrying sounds.

The sun fell on Mary's yellow hair. The tears on her cheeks had
vanished. Her lips moved into a delicately happy curve, and she looked
the way she did when all the boys in the room wanted to dance with her.
She looked the way she did on the rare times when she made Bella
jealous.

"Don't let anyone else know you have it," I said, "until you've spent
it. And that means you'd better spend it quick." It was just as though
she had never cried.

"I wonder if there's any gas in the car," she said. "There ought to be
enough in it to get downtown. Did you hear that Harry is coming up from
New York, and Mirabel Steiner? Maybe they'll bring some boys with them.
Do you think so? Mirabel's wonderful. Don't you think she is? How long
is Bella staying with the Jaeckels? They'll probably ask her to stay for
the week end, don't you think?"

"Yes," I said, "probably."

"But you'll be back, won't you?" Mary called. "Be sure to be back. You
mustn't stay away."

I had already made up my mind not to be back if I could possibly help
it. I wanted to return to some other environment where the strange
trivialities of living did not magnify themselves into matters of vital
significance; where cigarettes and gin and groceries had a way of
appearing without undue effort; where there was something to discuss
besides peculiar personalities. In other words, the family and the place
were getting, as they always did after a brief sojourn with them,
distinctly on my nerves. I wanted to convince myself that what the
family did and thought amounted to very little.

By the time I had reached the asparagus bed, Mary caught up with me. I
was thinking that the asparagus bed had been planted a hundred and
twenty-five years ago, which was too long for a bed to bear asparagus
fit to eat. The whole thing should have been turned over and replanted,
but then nothing was ever renewed at Wickford Point--paint or shingles
or trees or flowers. The whole place was like a clock which was running
down, an amazing sort of clock, now devoid of weights or springs or
hands yet ticking on through some ancient impetus on its own momentum.
Always when you thought it was going to stop, it would continue ticking.

"You're going to see Joe, aren't you?" Mary said. "I don't think you
ought to."

"Don't you?" I asked. "Why not?"

Mary had assumed a virtuous expression and a bright sort of superiority
that was a good deal worse than tears.

"Of course I don't believe in taking sides," Mary said, "and I don't
really feel angry with Joe, but it's just a matter of the family. Of
course he's entirely lost his position now."

"What?" I said.

"His position," said Mary, "with everyone who matters. Of course
everyone understands it was all his fault. He had his chance and he lost
it. He won't get any help from the Brill name any more--and he would
come back any minute if Bella would let him. She has only to crook her
finger."

She was entirely serious about it. She was simply stating an accepted
fact.

"Do you really mean," I asked, "that you think the Brill name means
anything? Do you think that anybody remembers--"

Her laugh stopped me. It was an airy, collected laugh.

"Of course you're not a Brill," she said, "but lots of people think you
are a Brill. That's why you go everywhere; that's why you know everyone,
just the way we do. Harry says so, so does Sid. It doesn't matter
whether we have any money or anything, because we're important."

I did not continue the subject with her, because I did not want to make
her cry.

"You had better go and wash your face," I said. "Even the Brills wash
their faces sometimes."

Mary laughed again, that same light, airy laugh which implied a
favorable difference from less privileged human beings. Mary was no
longer suffering from melancholia; she was now Miss Brill, the eldest
daughter of that interesting family steeped in the best literary
tradition, the granddaughter of John Brill, whose works were now out of
print, but who in some odd manner had succeeded in elbowing himself into
a place among the gods and half-gods of the Emersonian tradition. Mary
had never seen him--but now she was Miss Brill. Mary had not read his
works, but they were the keystone in her arch, and perhaps it was better
to let it go at that.

I walked over toward the riverbank, and I realized that I had nearly
lost my temper. It did not seem possible that I should have been
disturbed by a harmless old man with a long white beard slightly stained
by tobacco juice. That beard had been so dense and luxuriant that he had
never needed a necktie, if he had ever worn one. I was angry at an old
man a long time dead, who had done nothing more hostile to me than to
pat my head when I was eight years old--as angry as though he were still
living. Actually his demise had never been wholly accepted at Wickford
Point. He was always being dished up at convenient moments; being
wheeled out at teatime; cropping up in conversation. People kept asking
if I were not in some way or other related to old Brill. It did no good
to explain very carefully that I was not, nor to explain further that
his verses were atrocious and that he was nothing but an overrated fraud
who had battened on his acquaintance with the great figures of his time.
No one in the present day had ever read or wished to read anything he
had written, and yet he was a good deal more of a figure now than he had
been while alive, when he was only an ungifted Boswell with a death grip
on the coattails of his betters.

From where I stood by the riverbank I could see on the opposite shore
the white house in which John Brill had lived. The literary shrine was
now frequented by motorists from the Middle West who paid fifty cents to
enter. A motor travel association had even published a page in their
"Tours through Old New England" entitled "A Glimpse into the Brill
Country." When you paid your fifty cents, a hostess would show you
around the house. You could see the study, furnished with very bad
Victorian furniture, exactly as Mr. Brill had left it, except that they
had removed his plug of tobacco and his cuspidor. There were a number of
framed autographed letters upon the wall from personal friends of Mr.
Brill, which had not been there in his lifetime. The old gentleman had
always kept them in an album to show to callers. Even the hostess didn't
know exactly who Mr. Brill was, nor was this entirely the point. The
point was the Spartan simplicity of those surroundings. Mr. Brill had
loved to roam the hills. He had been on many walks with Thoreau. There
was a dusty case in the hall containing birds that he had stuffed
himself. Up in the bedroom you could see his walking boots, out in the
woodshed was his ax. He had loved the dignity of manual toil, and even
when he was eighty-five years old he could be found in the wood lot up
the hill--if he knew in advance that friends were coming. He also loved
to whittle. There was a maple bowl in the dining room which he had made
himself, and out of which he ate his porridge--when there were guests at
dinner. Perhaps I might have liked him if I had been his contemporary,
but now that he was dead he was not likeable. From my point of view he
had even done a good deal to spoil the river, for things which he had
written about it lingered poisonously in my memory. Even now I could not
get some lines of his out of my mind:--

    O river, mighty river,
    How often have I rowed on thee,
    Seen the wild duck thy waters shiver,
    In thy course pellucid to the sea.
    May our souls move on as tranquil
    As thy waters past the bank,
    Like the birds of Wickford, thankful
    To the Maker they must thank.

Surely I was right in allowing these lines to fill me with a definite
and abiding horror. Certainly he had done better than that, but it was
the worst I always remembered. Sometimes at night I would lie awake,
conjuring up lines old Brill had written, and yet when I quoted them no
one would believe they were his.

The river must have been wonderful when he was young. The shad would
run up it in the spring and there was a run of salmon also. Now it had
an oily odor from the cotton mills upstream. Down by the old landing
where they used to tie the salt hay barges, the tide was going out
leaving an expanse of thick black mud. The shore was covered with
unsightly bits of driftwood. In spite of the farms along its edge the
Wickford River gave the appearance of having been entirely forgotten.
Its shores had a neglected look and our bank was no exception. Every
afternoon, in the old days, my grandmother and her sisters had walked
along a little path beneath the birches and the oaks to a grove of white
pines on our point. There they would sit and read and sew with all the
ordered industry of their generation. When my great-aunt Sarah was still
alive, she would put on her bonnet and her shawl at least once a day to
walk out there. I had used the path a good deal myself when I was young
enough to wander about the place playing games of imagination, but that
was all quite a while ago, and since then no one went there very often.
Cousin Clothilde was never much at walking. She once said the point was
a wonderful place to go when you were in love, yet as far as I could
gather neither Bella nor Mary felt that way. I don't think Bella had
gone as far as that even with Mr. Berg, and now the path was nearly
grown over and no one had bothered to clear it out. Earle started to do
it once, but it took him all morning to find something to clear it with;
and then, when he did find the ax where it had been buried in the
coalbin, the handle came off and he bruised his finger.

As far as I could tell, I was the only one now who went to the point.
The jungle was creeping over it, laying a blanket of unkempt wildness
beneath the straight trunks of the tall white pines. All the strange
growth of unused places was rising among fallen branches, which snapped
beneath one's steps, but once you were among the pines there was a
solemn, restful silence. Even the noises in their tops were discreet and
careful like repressed rustlings in church. I used to think when I was a
boy that the pines were whispering of Wickford Point, and they were at
their old game of gossip when I stood among them that morning. First
there would be a whisper and then the breeze would blow them into a
staid and melancholy sort of laughter.

"My dear," they were saying, "don't tell me you've never heard ... the
most amazing thing, I hardly venture to repeat it ... as long as you
understand that it's to be kept inside the family ... it is so
reminiscent of the others ... and will you only look who's out here
now--Jim Calder! He thinks he's changed, but he hasn't. It's hardly
polite to laugh too loud, and it's not polite to whisper. He's going
away. He's going to see Joe Stowe again. He will try to forget about us,
but he won't forget. It doesn't matter where he goes, he's out here half
the time, even when he's away. He's always here, because we caught him
as a boy. It doesn't matter where he dies, he'll be back here. Don't
laugh too loud. It's rude to laugh when they think they can get away."

The whole place was queer. I could never remember even as a child being
afraid at Wickford Point, but the whole place was queer. There had been
too many people there. It was like a crowded room when I stood beneath
the trees.




IX

_It Won't Take a Minute to Pack_


Bella was out on the lawn when I got back. She must have been working
hard on herself, because she was nearly ready to leave. She always knew
how to dress, although I had never seen her take any care of her
clothes. When her clothes were not on her back, they were usually in a
ball in her bureau drawer or somewhere in the bottom of a suitcase,
except the ones which belonged to her mother or to Mary. Still they
always had an air when she wore them, for she had the slender insolent
figure of a clothing model, and a model's careless poise. Now she was no
longer a sleepy girl in slacks, but Bella Brill, ready for the races,
ready for anything. If she got all mussed up at a cocktail party she
could give herself a shake and a pat and out would come every wrinkle so
that you could not tell whether anybody had made a pass at her or not.
Everything was very simple, but every line was right.

She had on a blue silk dress and short cape and a felt hat of the halo
type jammed tight over her short black curls. She was carrying a small
bag that matched nothing in particular, which she had picked up at one
of Willie Hewitt's parties in New York, after everybody else had gone.
Everything about her was impeccable, but she created her usual illusion
of not having much of anything on underneath. She had not got around to
her footgear yet. Her delicately tanned legs were bare and she was
wearing a pair of red mules.

"Where have you been, darling?" Bella asked.

"Out to the point," I answered.

"Now look here," she said. She was eager, brisk and businesslike.
"Suppose you snap into it, darling, and get on some other pants, and if
they're not pressed, get Josie to press 'em. She's been whining in the
kitchen all morning. Everybody's whining here and bellyaching. It's like
that wall where the Jews wail in Jerusalem. Clothilde's grousing and so
is Mary. That's why I'm waiting out here, because I can't stand it. Now
go upstairs and get on some other clothes and let me see what sort of a
tie you've got. And brush your hair in back, darling. You wouldn't have
to look the way you do if you didn't want to. Why is it that I have to
do everything for everybody?"

"Because everybody here," I said, "does everything for everybody."

Bella looked at me out of the corners of her eyes. "Don't get off any
cracks, darling," she said. "I _do_ do everything for everybody. How do
you like the ensemble?" She pivoted almost professionally.

"It's nice," I said.

"It's Mary's," Bella said. "It isn't too tight over the tail, is it?
Mary always has them too tight there, but she dresses so badly that
nobody cares when she looks immodest. It doesn't look bad on me, does
it? When I picked it out for Mary, I thought it might work in."

"What are you going to use for shoes?" I asked.

"I don't know why it is," said Bella, "that nobody can get anything
around here done. Mary's darning my stockings. You might have thought
that she was going to snap my head off when I suggested it. And Frieda's
whitening my shoes."

"Don't get so excited," I said. "You might rip something."

"Don't be so damn sour," said Bella; but she was excited. "There's some
cold lamb and potatoes for lunch. There won't be anything more until
Mary goes downtown. Come on, let's get out of here before we both go
nuts. Here's Frieda now."

Frieda came walking across the lawn, carrying two white slippers, each
in a thumb and forefinger. She swayed gracefully at the hips. Her thick
brown hair was woolly from a brand-new permanent for which Josie had
borrowed the money from me two days before, saying that she could pay me
back fifteen cents each week. Frieda was not being herself; she was
being a glamour girl, a Cinderella from Hollywood, and she was not
bad-looking. I did not blame Earle for crying when he did not have a
dollar to take her to the beach. No doubt Frieda was going to make a lot
of other boys cry before she was through.

"Hello, Frieda," I said. Frieda looked at me out of the corners of her
eyes, a trick she had learned from Bella. She was wearing the dress with
pink dots which she had inherited after Bella spilled rum punch down the
front of it. A ribbon tied in a bow over the bosom, a bit off-center,
concealed most of the damage. The stain might have come out altogether
if there had not been strawberry in the mixture. Frieda smiled, the
languid easy smile of a woman of the world.

"Hi," she said. She was not trying to be fresh or rude. She just wanted
to show--and I could sympathize with her, since she wasn't being paid
for it--that she wasn't a servant but just an old friend of the family
out here to do Bella a kindly favor.

"Thanks, Frieda," said Bella. "That's darling of you."

"That's okay," said Frieda.

"Take these slippers back, will you, Frieda?" said Bella.

"Okay," Frieda said. "So long."

       *       *       *       *       *

The house was built upon a peculiar plan, resulting largely from my
great-grandfather's additions and improvements. The main building, which
could be placed by its construction in the early post-Revolutionary
period, had consisted of four rooms, two lower and two upper, with a low
ell in back, containing the stairs to the upper chambers, and an open
fireplace for summer cooking. This ell my great-grandfather had
extensively enlarged in the early eighteen hundreds after a successful
voyage. What had been the summer kitchen now became the back parlor,
and there were rooms beyond it and a kitchen to one side and bedchambers
above it. The first stairs had been closed up and now access to the
upper floor was gained by the back stairs off the new kitchen, and by a
narrow flight in the side entry. If one entered the back parlor from the
lawn, it was necessary to cross the front parlor and the dining room to
reach the stairs, and consequently there was never much privacy. Someone
was nearly always crossing through the rooms, or bursting in through the
narrow little passages leading through the wood closet to the kitchen,
either on the way upstairs or to the bathroom out in back; and by
coincidence the intruder was nearly always the one about whom the rest
were talking. The best place for confidences was in somebody's bedroom
upstairs provided no one else came in to borrow something.

When I came in from the lawn, however, the back parlor and the front
parlor were both empty and, as Earle had not yet been able to find where
the outside blinds had been stored and as there were no shades or
curtains, the sunlight was coming through the lilacs and syringas that
were growing up before the windows. Although the paper and the woodwork
were a drab smoky sort of brown, the sun and the foliage by the small
paned windows gave an effect of gold and green.

This dim cool light made the perpetual disorder of the room less
noticeable, and gave it an appearance of agelessness. The furniture
still remained almost exactly as my great-aunt Sarah had arranged it.
There were even the same ornaments upon the mantelpiece and on top of
her desk, except for a few delicate ones, like the small blue china dog
that had held lamplighters in its mouth. It was difficult to perceive
that the place was dusty and that the upholstery was torn and that Josie
had neglected to remove last night's cigarette butts from the fireplace.
It was possible to avoid the immediate sight of white rings made by gin
and water glasses, and the burns of cigarettes upon the console table
and candle-stands. That gold sunlight which darted between the lilac and
syringa leaves made a constantly shifting pattern on the dusty leather
books that stood against the opposite wall. The sun might have been
looking over my great-grandfather's library, vacillating between some
favorite titles, now hitting upon the thick back of the _Guide to Peru_,
now shifting erratically to the poems of Addison.

I observed the presence of these books and objects only in the
half-conscious way in which one notices the friendly and the utterly
familiar. The books always seemed to me closer to humanity than the
furniture. They were more sensitive than the Chippendale end-chair with
its broken back, or the Windsors or the Boston rocker, or the Queen Anne
chair with its legs sawed off to fit Aunt Sarah's mother. I walked past
more books into the entry of the small parlor.

The family photograph album was in its place upon the second shelf of
the whatnot, between the two large snail-shells which my
great-grandfather had brought back from Pago Pago. There was no reason
for picking up the album except that Bella had told me to hurry. I was
anxious to hurry in one way and in another way I resented it, for the
small parlor was peaceful and full of nostalgic slumber. If it could
only have remained so, I should have liked to stay there always. I
seemed to have come upon it unawares, when the portraits on the wall had
not expected any living intruder. I sat down in the small upholstered
chair beside the coal grate with the album on my knees. It was the same
chair in which old Mr. Beardsley, the Unitarian minister, once sat
without noticing that Aunt Sarah's cat Prissy was there before him. I
remembered what Aunt Sarah had said to Mr. Beardsley, a scrap of
conversation which she often repeated.

"Did she claw you in the leg?" Aunt Sarah had inquired.

"No, Miss Sarah," Mr. Beardsley answered, "higher up."

They were delicate in those days, as careful in their manners as they
were in their poses when they sat for those pictures in the album. I
turned to one that I liked to look at best, a large group of the family
and friends seated upon the lawn with the old oak tree just behind them.
It had been a fine summer day in the eighties and you could almost feel
the still, moist heat. It looked as if everybody must have laughed and
worked hard over it. Old Mr. Mason, the photographer, whose son now ran
the business and did undertaking on the side and still took all the high
school class groups, must have driven all the way out from town in a
hired hack. They had dragged some chairs from the back parlor out onto
the lawn and also a lot of cushions, for it was just the beginning of
the sofa-cushion era. The older generation were in the middle and the
young people on the right and left wings, like the archers and slingers
of a Roman legion, or else they were lying in recumbent positions in the
foreground--the boys, of course, not the girls. A lot of the people in
that picture I had never seen, except at family funerals; and, indeed,
most of them by now had acted the definitive and principal rle on one
of those occasions. I could see Aunt Sarah and then my grandfather and
my grandmother seated in armchairs with children and nephews and nieces
all about them. My grandfather had an impatient look that I remembered,
as though he were about to swear, and I knew why. He was having the same
indigestion that he always had at Wickford Point when he drank that
God-damned well water. I could see my father with a handlebar mustache,
and my mother with some sort of bustle. My uncle Percy and Hugh Brill
were in striped blazers, with caps now seen only upon a baseball
diamond. The young people carried strange pear-shaped tennis racquets
and one of them had a mandolin. The girls were really very pretty
although they all looked queer.

Now, just a few minutes before, my cousin Bella had been worried about
her dress being tight over her posterior. Back in those days of bustles
they didn't have to worry. The girls' dresses flowed down to their
ankles, they had on tight little short-sleeved coats and some of them
wore small felt hats. The one I liked best of all was Cousin Clothilde
near the right-hand corner.

She was sitting sideways on a kitchen table, with her slender ankles
dangling, and, forgetful of herself, she was looking at all the rest of
them. She had that friendly, tolerant look of hers, combined with gentle
amusement. She was more beautiful then, more beautiful than Bella,
sitting surrounded by that tranquil sense of sureness which had never
left her. It was the sureness that had made her say, upstairs just an
hour ago, that Mr. Roosevelt would help her. Nothing had broken her
inner tranquillity and nothing would ever break it. I liked her in that
picture, for she was just the way I used to remember her, back in the
days when our nurses would take Harry and me to the riverbank where we
used to throw pine cones at Sid. She was just as I remembered her the
day when she had stopped Aunt Sarah from striking me with her cane
because I had picked a cardinal flower beneath the elm tree where they
once had hung a pig.

       *       *       *       *       *

I did not realize that anyone was behind me until I heard Bella's voice.

"For God's sake," said Bella, "haven't you done anything? Haven't you
changed your clothes?"

"No," I said, "I was looking at the picture."

"Well, put it up," said Bella. "You all sit around here as if you had
hookworm or something. There's no use trying to get anyone to move. We
may as well stay and eat that lamb and potatoes now, and start off at
four o'clock; but I'm going to see you into your pants first, so you'll
be ready to go. Now come on, really, darling."

"All right," I said. "It won't take a minute to pack."

"I'm coming up with you," Bella said, "or else you won't put on a decent
shirt or tie, and besides you may have a cigarette somewhere. Do you
know I have been all morning without a cigarette?"

I noticed again what had struck me outside on the lawn, that Bella was
excited. Bella could not deceive me, for I had seen her run through all
her moods ever since she was a little girl, and an adult seldom develops
a different set of reactions. In Bella's eyes and at the corners of her
lips--she had been at work with her mother's lipstick, which was of a
slightly different color tone from hers--was the bright anticipatory
look of one of our Wickford Point barn cats waiting for the wire
mouse-trap to be opened. Perhaps the simile was not quite fair, but
Bella's violet eyes had the same soft luminous qualities and her body
swayed gently as though she were going to purr.

Her eyes and lips had an expression which I had observed when she used
to be ushered upstairs in New York, scrubbed and tied up in a blue sash,
to wait for the Christmas tree. There was no doubt that something new
had appeared in Bella's life which had not been visible the day before.
She was looking forward to that ride with me, and I knew it was not on
my account; nor was it entirely because she was glad to get away from
the family. There was something waiting for her at the Jaeckels',
something that she knew about already, something which she could snatch
at, some cosmic sort of Christmas tree. I thought I could guess what it
was. It would be a man, and the most likely man would be Berg, the one
who did so well in business that he could always get away from New York.
It was not the first time that I had observed that Bella's taste in
males was catholic and unpredictable. There had probably been some who
were worse than Berg, but the time was coming when I should have to talk
to her about this, although talking never did much good.

       *       *       *       *       *

Something had happened to the cushion in the rumble seat of my car. It
was my idea that Earle had dragged it out under some tree where he could
sit with Frieda, but Earle had either forgotten about it or was afraid
to remember. At any rate it made no difference. It simply meant that
there was a lot more room for bags and things. Earle was standing near
the car wiping some places on the hood where the barnswallows had
misbehaved. Josie was at the kitchen door holding her youngest child by
the back of its rompers so that it would not crawl under the wheels.
Cousin Clothilde was at the side door in her silk wrapper, and Sid had
propped himself up against the side of the house near the bed of white
myrtle. Mary was looking out of the bathroom window. I had put my own
bag in the back. Bella appeared carrying a round black patent-leather
hatbox, which she had borrowed from one of the Clifton girls the time
they had asked her up to Seal Harbor two years ago, and which she had
forgotten so far to return. The hatbox was bulging but it was adequate.
If necessary Bella could go away from home for six months with just that
hatbox, and she would have everything in it too, from slacks to a formal
ball-dress.

Bella slid into the seat of the car with a swift nymphlike motion which
caused her light blue skirt to fly upward disclosing her sheer silk
stockings, her sister Mary's round garters in which Josie had taken a
reef, and also a generous section of brown thigh. At this sight Cousin
Clothilde, who generally seemed ageless, showed her age.

"Dear, your dress," she said.

"There's no use flying in the face of nature," Bella said. "Hasn't
everyone got legs?"

Cousin Clothilde glanced meaningly at Earle and back at Bella, an
obvious signal which Bella disregarded.

"But Bella," said Cousin Clothilde, "you haven't got any--"

"Pants?" said Bella. "Nobody wears 'em nowadays. And who would wash 'em
if I wore em?"

Mary spoke from the upper bathroom window.

"Well, I wear them," she said. "You don't look decent."

"I know you do," said Bella, "and that's one of your troubles,
sweetness."

Cousin Clothilde lapsed into the tolerant silence of one who accepts
the universe. Josie took a firmer grip on her infant's rompers. Sid
leaned more appreciatively against the wall of the house, and Earle
returned to his work on the car's hood. Bella coiled herself comfortably
on the small of her back. She conveyed the indefinable impression of one
who is used to any situation which may arise in any automobile, whether
in motion or stationary.

"For heaven's sake," she said, "why does everybody stand around? Can't
you get into the car, Jim? There's no use doing any more rubbing, Earle.
There are sea gulls where we're going."

Earle blushed and gave a high, shocked giggle. As Josie always said,
Earle had been brought up in a lovely home among lovely people. Cousin
Clothilde looked at me and frowned and smiled at the same time. That
bewildered amusement was something I loved best about her, for it showed
both her age and her perennial youth. She was asking me wordlessly if I
did not think that Bella was perfectly charming, so beautiful, so gay.
She was asking me if I did not think it was strange that some of those
people whom Bella played about with in New York, some of those important
people who are always looking for new talent in the motion picture
business, had not snapped up Bella. She knew about a thing called a
"screen test." Cousin Clothilde had been asking about screen tests often
recently.

They were all standing there--as people had always stood at Wickford
Point when someone was leaving, half-listlessly and half-wistfully, like
dwellers on an island watching a ship sail--making their last requests
now that we were going into the outer world.

"Darling," Cousin Clothilde said to me, "don't forget to bring some gin
back with you and some cartons of cigarettes, and pick up as many papers
of matches as you possibly can--we're almost out of matches."

"Jim," Sid said, "will you get me some bicarbonate of soda and some
boric acid and an eye cup?"

"Mr. Calder," Earle said, "you haven't got me that copy of _True
Romances_ yet, and will you bring a chocolate nut bar, Mr. Calder?"

Frieda moved coyly toward the car and looked at me hard with wide brown
eyes in a way she had learned after reading about charm on the woman's
page.

"Could you," she said, "do just one little errand at some drugstore?"

"You'd better ask me, hadn't you?" Bella said.

"Bella!" said Cousin Clothilde.

Frieda's shoulders writhed and she forgot about charm.

"Just a lipstick, Mr. Calder," Frieda said. "They call it Orange Kiss.
Can you remember, Orange Kiss?"

"Oh!" said Bella. "Watch yourself, Earle."

"Aw say, Miss Brill," Earle stammered, "nuts!"

I stepped on the self-starter. The trouble at Wickford Point was that
everybody developed a personality. In a patriarchal system, if you
didn't pay the help enough, they always turned into characters. I gave
the engine a little gas to warm it up, but now Josie was speaking.

"Mr. Calder," Josie called, "if you was to see some bobby pins, Mr.
Calder--"

"What?" I said.

"Bobby pins," called Josie, "those little things that hold the hair."

Bella nudged me impatiently. A roar came from Josie's youngest child.

"All right," said Josie, "all right, Herman dear. Herman wants to give
you a kiss, Mr. Calder." Bella laughed softly and collapsed against me
so that I could feel her shaking all over. Josie held Herman's face
close to mine. Herman smelled of hard-boiled eggs, sour milk and other
things.

"Pretend you're running for Congress, darling," Bella said.

Mary did not ask for anything, but then Mary had ten dollars.




X

_Speak to Me of Love_


We turned out of the yard and went up the hill beneath an arch of elm
trees. At the summit there was a glimpse of the river on the left. Then
came the shrubbery and the walls of dressed stone and the white
buildings of the Jeffries farm, which a New York man named Mr. Henry
Whitaker had bought five years before as a summer place. He had built a
tennis court, and there were some tables with colored umbrellas beside
it. The Whitakers had been there for five years but we had never spoken
to them. They might be there for twenty and still they would be dwellers
on another planet, for we resented their intrusion. We only gathered
gossip about the Whitakers, and we still called it the Jeffries farm. We
were passing the last hayfield of the Jeffries farm when Bella realized
that she had forgotten something.

"Oh Jim," she said, "I've forgotten my purse. I thought it was in this
bag. We don't want to go back, do we? Lend me ten dollars, will you?"

"All right," I said.

"Thanks," said Bella. "You're awfully sweet, darling." And she leaned
against me comfortably and contentedly. "It's nice to get out of there,
isn't it?" she said.

"Yes," I answered, because I was thinking and I did not want to talk.

"Everybody gets so damned screwy down there," Bella said. "They just sit
and sit."

"Yes," I said.

I did not want to talk to her about the family. I understood about
Wickford Point a good deal better than she did, because I had been there
more often.

Bella lapsed into silence and, as she stared straight ahead, I had a
glimpse of her profile. Her face was beautiful at any angle--but now I
saw something new in it. There was just the slightest indication, so
small that it was only a suspicion, that Bella might lose her looks some
day. In spite of her beauty and her comparative youth--she was much
younger than I was--Bella, like the rest of us, was getting on. Someday
she would realize--perhaps she had a premonition of it now--that you
can't be young forever. There would come the time, which often arrives
quite suddenly, when the face matures, when the curves about the cheek
and chin are not quite so youthful or so nave as they were once. A time
was approaching when little faults and greater ones would write their
records distinctly upon her face, and now that time was almost there.
Her features had always been sensitive, aristocratic, intelligent, and
illuminated by what the experts call "charm" or "personality."
Admittedly these attributes had not as yet departed. She was still the
girl whom any man would select in a large room, the girl whom for some
reason other women instinctively hated, except those few who were near
enough her type to cope with her in the great free-for-all arena where
no holds or bites or scratchings or tongue-lashings were barred.
Nevertheless it seemed to me now that her face was a little sharper and
a trifle thinner than I had ever remembered it. There was a new
definition to the curve of her delicate nostrils which was almost harsh.
Perhaps it was there because she did not think that I was looking. There
was a new straightness to the lips that so many men had wished to kiss,
or had kissed, and the lines of her jaw were not so completely graceful
as they had once been. Yes, Bella, like the rest of us, was getting on.

Her hand dropped on my knee for a moment in a careless caressing
gesture.

"Darling," Bella said. Her voice was comforting and sweet. It was a
comment, a soft contented ejaculation, which needed no reply. When she
touched me and when she spoke it was not difficult to understand why so
many men had loved her.

I found myself thinking about love, but not on her account. I was
thinking of it because we had passed the Jeffries farm. I was recalling
that strange diseaselike quality which is love's peculiar attribute and
which runs its course through the patient like the depredations of some
particularly vicious virus of an infiltrable nature. You got it and
there you were. It was worse when you were young, for after the first
attack there was a hope of developing a degree of unreliable immunity.

Luella Jeffries used to live at the Jeffries farm. Her father ran a milk
route and drank hard cider. Mrs. Jeffries was short and stout and used
to take charge of the suppers at the Grange. Aunt Sarah and my cousin
Sue looked upon them as uneducated farmers. I looked upon them as very
noble people once. I would have died gladly for old man Jeffries, though
I hope he never knew it. He certainly never knew that I used to lie
awake imagining ways in which I could die for him. This greatest of all
sacrifices was generally connected with Mr. Jeffries' bull, for the
neighborhood knew that the animal was fierce and had chased Mr. Jeffries
once. Frequently I imagined myself leaping over the barbed wire of Mr.
Jeffries' pasture as the maddened animal thundered after the retreating
form of that splendid man, who was courageous but slowed down by his
years. I would tell Mr. Jeffries to run while I turned the bull from his
course upon myself--to run, because Jeffries was Luella's father. Later
I would be carried on a shutter into the Jeffries' kitchen, a beautiful
place where the vinegar and grease had a heady ambrosial scent, and
Luella would weep and kiss me then. I could tell her that I loved her,
now that it was all too late.

This was only a single sample of my delirium. I never told Luella that
I loved her. I was never able to say anything to her except infrequent
monosyllables, for she was so infinitely far above me. She wore a
shirtwaist with a high collar and had a big butterfly bow at the back of
her hair. We used to meet on the trolley car going to high school. She
sat beside me twice in all the time we went to school, but I never had
the courage to take advantage of these accidents. Later she married
Louis Bedard, who ran the Sea Food Lunch downtown. I sometimes saw her
even now, behind the cashier's desk in the restaurant. Heaven alone
knows why I ever loved her.

After all, love was a biological phenomenon marked by certain
well-defined characteristics which repeated themselves almost exactly in
nearly every normal human being. I sometimes wondered why people did not
accept it as a definite and incontrovertible fact, instead of
continually harping on the subject in music and in literature without
ever getting anywhere. Even Dr. Freud's contributions, though
interesting, seemed inconclusive. They had merely called an open season
upon certain aspects of the malady not heretofore considered fit
discussion for mixed society. Now, almost anywhere, an intelligent and
liberated individual could dominate a dinner table with a thoughtful
discussion of sexual perversions or of various intimate activities. All
the really good writers of my time had explored this field at length and
with conspicuous success, but had they gone any further than Tolstoy?
Had they even said as much as Jane Austen, who said exactly nothing? I
was wondering whether it was better to love afar and in vain, as I had
loved Luella Jeffries, or to have one's love requited and then, when the
disease had run its course, to find that one had not loved at all and to
marvel at the things which one had said and done and written. Surely
love made marriage dangerous, since neither contracting party was in a
normal state.

First there had been Luella, and then there had been a little blonde
out front in a musical comedy. She also had been above me, too ethereal,
too beautiful. Then there had been the French girl whom I had picked up
in the Botanical Gardens at Bordeaux. She had not been above me, but
when my mind got to Michelle I decided it was time to stop. At any rate
I was still good at idiomatic French, although scholars had told me that
I spoke it with a provincial patois. I owed a good deal to Michelle,
and, by odd coincidence, she too had married a restaurant proprietor. I
had seen her at their little place three years before, just off the Rue
du Bac, where D'Artagnan had once walked. She, too, was sitting behind
the _caisse_, and I recognized her at once, although she weighed a good
two hundred pounds. Michelle embraced me and she had been eating garlic.
Her husband, M. Lubin, took me to the back parlor, where we drank some
_fines_. Michelle, however, did not object when I paid for the dinner.
In fact, I observed that she had jacked up the price on the table d'hte
ten francs. And then there was Madame, on the Rue du Bray--but that was
another matter, when love and death were all in the same bed together.
Perhaps the French understood about love; at any rate they treated it as
a delightful malady.

       *       *       *       *       *

Bella's violet eyes were half-closed, but her lips were just a trifle
grim. Her expression made me wonder if she had ever loved at all. She
had certainly talked enough about it. I wondered if she had been
secretly in love with her father, her brothers or her mother. Certainly
she had never given any visible sign of such undeveloped weakness. I
wondered if she was what the Freudians--or was it the Jung
school?--called ambivalent, a state which made her so unintegrated that
love was very nearly impossible. It did not seem to me that she was
unintegrated, but, after all, did it make much difference?

I drove the car almost without noticing as we came toward the main road.
I had often put myself to sleep by traveling in my mind along it.
Beyond the Jeffries farm was the lane which led to the cemetery and
beyond that were the pine woods, warm and sweet. Next at a bend was a
small white house, occupied by people whose name I had never known, and
who, as far as I could tell, were unknown to everybody else. Then there
was a tumbledown house with a great many brown hens in the front yard,
occupied by Lithuanians. The next place belonged to Jimmy Casey, an
Irishman who sometimes cut our hay and plowed our garden, when we had
one. Then we were on the main road where the trolley had run once, near
the abandoned brick schoolhouse, where a friend of mine, Pete Sickles,
had tended the hot-air stoves. On the opposite side was Sam Kennedy's
garage.

I stopped by the least expensive of his three gasoline pumps. I had
known Sam when we were boys--it seemed a million years ago. Sam used to
"go with" Luella once, and I had hated him, and since then we had never
had a thing in common, and, when I came to think of it accurately, we
had never had Luella in common either. Sam was pot-bellied now, dressed
in a one-piece suit of overalls, not unlike little Herman's rompers,
with the name of a popular brand of gasoline embroidered on his back.

"Hello, Jim," he said. "How do you do, Mrs. Stowe? Want me to fill her
up?"

I told him to fill her up. There was an interesting aspect to his
salutation; he called me by my first name, but he would not have done so
to any of the Brills. I was almost a forgotten member of an ancient
fellowship, but I was still part of the town. The Brills were from the
city, but I was still a local boy. I gave Sam a bill, and after he had
reached into his rompers for the change, he put his foot on the running
board.

"Say, Jim," he said, "there was a party down from your place who had his
valves ground and a new distributor and fifteen gallons of gas, eleven
seventy-five--a black-haired, thin young fellow. He told me to send him
the bill to New York, but he's never paid it. His name is Berg, Howard
Berg."

Bella sat up straighter, but she made no comment.

"He must have overlooked it, Sam," I said. "If he doesn't pay, you let
me know. But after this you might just as well settle for cash."

Bella sat up still straighter, but she did not speak.

"Thanks, Jim," said Sam. "How's everything? Writing lots of articles
these days?"

Bella did not speak until we were out on the road again. I saw that I
had made her angry, but I was angry too.

"That was a dirty crack," Bella said. "You can keep your mouth shut and
not talk that way--as though we don't always pay our bills."

"Well, I'm not going to stand behind any more Bergs," I said, "or any
other poor whites who come down here visiting you when they haven't got
enough money in their pockets to get home."

"Don't worry, darling," Bella said, "about your damned eleven dollars
and seventy-five cents. I know what you think of my friends, so you
don't have to say, but just in case you'd like to know--just in case it
would interest you--Howard Berg isn't any two-cent pot-boiling writer.
The money you have in the bank would be like a quarter to Howard Berg.
Don't worry, your eleven dollars and seventy-five cents will be all
right."

"That's fine," I said. "What do you know about Berg? Where did you pick
him up?"

"Just in case you want to know," Bella said, "Howard Berg is one of the
most important men in Wall Street. You could hardly be expected to know,
but I hope that satisfies you, darling."

"Who told you so?" I asked. "Berg and who else?"

"Lots of other people you don't know, darling," Bella said. "Lots of
other people you couldn't possibly know, who wouldn't care to meet
you."

"Important people?" I asked.

"Yes, darling," said Bella, "important people. It might be a help to
you, darling, if you were nicer to my friends. It's obvious you don't
like Howard Berg, do you? He spoke of it himself. You were as rude as
hell to him. If he hadn't been a gentleman, he would have beaten your
ears off. It just happens that Howard Berg moves in certain social
groups where you have never been invited, odd as it may seem, darling.
He knows a great many writers who would cut you on the street, and
playwrights and producers. Howard Berg is a very intimate friend of
Sinclair Lewis, Ernest Hemingway, Booth Tarkington, and James Branch
Cabell. How do you like that, darling?"

"Is he an intimate friend of John Galsworthy?" I asked.

"It just happens," said Bella, "that he had lunch with Mr. Galsworthy
last week, when Mr. Galsworthy was over from England. Mr. Galsworthy
always calls Howard up. Now butter that one on your dry toast, darling."

I had her there. I paused to savor the beauty of it.

"Did you happen to know, honey bee," I said, "that John Galsworthy died
five years ago?"

Bella smiled provokingly.

"It doesn't do any good to lie like that, Jim, just because no really
fine novelist, no really worth-while writer, no really worth-while
anything, has ever honored you by his acquaintance."

"All right," I said. "Let's let it go at that."

"Yes, darling," said Bella. "I think we'd better let it go at that.
Perhaps it will teach you to be civil when you see Mr. Berg again."

"What good does it do him to know writers?" I asked.

"It just happens," Bella answered, "that Howard Berg is a very
intelligent, very cultivated person, who enjoys the relaxation of
associating with his intellectual equals, darling. Some people, even
writers, realize that they are helped by a gracious, civilized
society."

"You mean," I asked, "that he keeps in touch with the finer things of
life?"

"Oh, for God's sake, shut up," said Bella suddenly. "Don't start getting
sour and pouring bile over everybody just because you can't be as
successful as Howard Berg."

"Hooey!" I said.

"And you needn't start using foul language either," Bella answered. "If
you can't behave yourself, shut up."

We did not speak for quite a while after that, although I began to feel
warm and kindly toward Bella for the pleasure she had given me. We
passed by the fountain where horses had once slaked their thirst and
went more slowly down the broad street which marked the beginning of
town. I remembered that Cousin Sue had once said that when she went
downtown her self-confidence was greatly buoyed up by remembering she
was related to the Brills. Even without this reassurance I felt no great
inadequacy. We passed the First Congregational and the Baptist Churches
and the All Saints' Episcopal Church and the Unitarian Church, and the
Acme Furniture Company with a swinging hammock in the window, and
Rolfe's Drug Store where there was a sale of hot-water bottles, an odd
sight for a summer's day, but everybody at the post office was saying
that Mr. Rolfe was getting senile. Next was the Men's Toggery, where
they were displaying tropical suits, and then Mason's Photographic
Studio and Undertaking Parlor.

"Darling," said Bella.

"What?" I said.

"Let's stop and get some cigarettes."

I parked the car down by the news store and left Bella powdering her
nose and staring disinterestedly at the sights on the brick sidewalk.
The traffic policeman craned his neck out of the oversize collar of his
baggy uniform and looked at me and looked away. He had been the town
truant officer when I was a boy. Mr. Chipping came out of the Sailors'
National Bank and walked across the street, and he didn't recognize me
either. Inside the news store was the old cool smell of papers, candy,
ice cream sodas and cigars, an aura which was kept in constant flux by
two electric fans with pink paper streamers in front of them. Some men
in straw hats and alpaca coats were at the fountain drinking soda. Two
girls who dressed like Frieda were eating sundaes in a booth. The men
rotated on their stools and looked at me. One of them slid down to a
standing position. He was fat and might have been in the American
Legion.

"Haven't seen you for a long while," he said.

I could not remember who he was. So much water had flowed under the
bridge that I often found it difficult to recall names and faces.

"How's everything, Jim?" he asked.

"Fine," I said. "How's everything with you?"

"Fine," he said. "Glad to have seen you, Jim."

Out on the sidewalk we shook hands. Bella had finished powdering her
nose.

"For heaven's sake," she said, "don't act as though you were in homespun
and try to pull the old home town stuff when you really spend all your
time snooting everybody."

I backed out the car and we started up the street past the traffic
lights and on to the open road.

"Is Berg going to be at the Jaeckels'?" I asked.

"And why should it affect you, darling," asked Bella, "if Howard Berg is
going to be at the Jaeckels' or not?"

"Well, is he or isn't he?" I asked.

"Suppose you ask when you get there, darling," Bella said.

"Thanks," I said, "I will."

Bella's voice was soft with a breathless hint of apprehension.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"Collect that garage bill, honey bee," I said. "No damned gigolo who had
a spiritual lunch with Mr. Galsworthy last week is going to take me to
town for his garage bill."

Bella's hand closed tight on my arm.

"Jim," she said, "don't do that, please, _please_."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Please," she said, "that's all. It--it isn't the kind of thing that
people _do_. You don't understand Howard. Jim, darling, please be nice.
Besides--"

"Besides what?" I asked.

"Nothing," said Bella. "But please--it means a lot."

"Does it?"

"Yes," she said, "it does."

"Bella," I said,--there were times when I could get her to tell the
truth,--"come across with it now. Has Berg asked you to marry him or
not?"

Bella bent down and lighted her cigarette. There was a tremor in her
fingers as she held the match.

"Please don't, Jim," said Bella, "please."

It was not difficult to think of her in a detached way, as though she
were something which in no sense belonged in my life. I could think
dispassionately of the beauty of her face and body, of her intuitive
quickness, and of the indolence and intellectual superficiality which
went with it. It was not hard to recognize that she was consumed by
egotism and desires. The trouble was that her desires changed so fast
that she could never be wholly sure of what she wanted--except that she
wanted everything.




XI

_Ride, Ride Together, Forever Ride_


"Jim," Bella said. She had been silent for quite a while, which was not
such a bad idea, and now I hoped that she was not going to talk about
herself. I did not want it now because I was escaping again from that
life and returning to the life which I had made for myself. Nevertheless
I suspected from her tone that it was coming. We still had a half an
hour of fast driving before we reached the Jaeckels', and I wished I
were there already.

"I can't go on like this," Bella said.

Yes, it was the old, old story. She couldn't go on like this, and Cousin
Clothilde couldn't go on like this, and neither could Harry or Sid. Each
of them had said it almost daily, and still they went on just like that.

"I don't suppose you can," I said.

"I can't," said Bella, "I just can't stand it. I can't, _I can't_."

"Then don't," I said.

"Then don't be so disagreeable," Bella said. "You know what I have to
put up with. I don't mind Clothilde. She can't help it, but the way Mary
and Sid and Harry just sit around there and talk.... Nobody does
anything about anything. I can't go on like this."

"Well, what are you going to do?" I asked.

"Well, I'll do something," said Bella. Her voice became hard. She could
rise to a crisis at odd moments. "Maybe I'll get a job."

Then she looked at me sideways to study the effect of her statement. I
had heard her make it before, and I did not answer.

"You don't think I can get a job, do you?" Bella said. "That's where
you're wrong as usual. If I want to, I can sign right up tomorrow night.
All I have to do is to call New York."

"Sign up for what?" I asked. Bella examined her nose in the mirror of
her washed-gold compact, the one that had been given her last year when
she was a bridesmaid at Jeanette Stackton's wedding. She had thought it
was all gold for nearly three months. Bella's speech became languid and
casual.

"I don't suppose," she inquired, "that you know Dr. Wilbur
Frothinghope?"

"No," I said. "Who's he, a fan dancer?"

"That's so funny," Bella said soothingly, "so very funny, darling, to
take swipes at people that you never really could know. It just
happens--you say you're intellectual, but this shows exactly how
intellectual you are--it just happens, if you ever read anything about
science, that you might know that Dr. Frothinghope is a very important
archologist. Dr. Frothinghope is a very old friend of mine."

"How old?" I asked. "Sixty-two?"

Bella smiled at me sunnily.

"It just happens that Dr. Frothinghope is younger and a good deal
better-looking than you, darling. He's leading an expedition down into
the interior of Guatemala to uncover a lost Maya city and to reconstruct
a snake goddess pyramid. Funnily enough, he asked me to join the
expedition."

"In what capacity?" I asked.

"Someday, darling," said Bella, "someone is going to wash your mouth out
with soap and water. It just happens that Dr. Frothinghope has been
interested in my drawings."

"Etchings?" I inquired.

"Oh hell," said Bella, "there's no use my wasting my time trying to be
serious with any of you. Dr. Frothinghope said I could learn the ropes
very quickly. I'm strong, a good deal stronger than you, darling, and I
guess I could stand Guatemala a good deal better than you could. At any
rate, it would get me away from all of this. I'd be _doing_ something."

There was no use answering if she wanted to go on. By this time I was
reasonably sure that Dr. Wilbur Frothinghope was either a figment of
Bella's imagination or a big name which she had heard mentioned and
which she was now adding to her collection of other important names.
Bella was revelling verbally in her world of make-believe.

"Well, I'd go if I were you," I said. But Bella was no longer
interested. She had probably tried out the idea to see how it would work
at the Jaeckels' at dinner, and she had already given it up as
unsuccessful.

"Darling," she said, "what are you going to say to Joe?"

Ever since the telephone had rung the subject was obviously bound to
come up, and now I was only thankful that it had not come up sooner. It
would take only fifteen minutes to get to the Jaeckels' if I stepped on
the gas; then I would be rid of her for a little while at any rate.
After that she could project her personality anywhere she liked. She
could throw her line about Dr. Frothinghope and Guatemala, or she could
shoot big game in Zambezi, or die of alcoholic poisoning, or get
arrested.

"How do you mean," I asked, "what I'm going to say to Joe?"

"I mean about me," said Bella.

"There probably won't be anything about you," I answered.

Bella smiled in complacent negation.

"Oh yes, there will," she said. "He'll ask about me, and you know it,
not that I care, because I can see him myself. He always talks about me
when he gets drunk at the club."

I felt a tingle of anger. There was nothing she would have liked better
than to make me angry. She was just getting herself set for a good
scene, in which we could shout at each other and tell each other plain
home truths, and which might end by her endeavoring to slap my face.

"Who told you that?" I asked.

"Oh, lots of people," Bella said. "There is such a thing as being loyal,
darling."

"Meaning me?" I asked.

Bella took her lipstick from her bag and opened her compact again.

"Yes, meaning you," she said. "You're almost bright sometimes, darling.
After the way he treated me, how do you think it looks to have you, one
of my own relatives, playing around with him, getting drunk with him,
probably talking obscenities? I ask you--how do you think it looks?"

"Well," I said, "how did he treat you?"

"You're not being either scintillating or funny, darling," Bella said.
"Everybody else knows how he treated me if you don't. How do you think
it feels to be abandoned by a man who has taken the best years of your
life? That's what he did, the best years, when I might have meant
something to somebody. If he'd only treated me halfway decently, I might
have been anything he wanted--I might have been--"

She paused and snapped her compact case shut.

"Yes," I said, "you might have."

I felt sad and angry almost at the same time, because what she said was
partially true. There was sometimes truth in her most brazen
prevarications. I believed that it had been more of a blow to her pride
than anything else, and it still hurt her pride. The little sneer at the
corner of her mouth showed it, and the extra sharpness of her
overpowdered nose.

"Oh, I've been over the jumps," Bella said. "I'm not complaining, but
there are ways of doing everything. There are ways of being a
gentleman."

The Brills had always considered themselves experts on gentility, and
judges of a court of honor. I could not sit there and take it, and
certainly she knew I couldn't.

"He's the nearest you ever came to seeing one," I said.

"Oh, is he really, darling?" said Bella. "Well, he's not, and no one
else thinks he is either. The least thing a gentleman can do is to see
that his former wife isn't starving when he's making a hundred and fifty
thousand a year."

"You've never missed a meal, honey bee," I said.

"It isn't his fault I haven't," Bella answered.

She was back on the subject of alimony; it was always a sore point with
Bella. We had been over the subject before, but we went over it again.

"You said you didn't want any," I told her. "You kept saying it to the
lawyers all the time."

"He wasn't earning anything then," said Bella, "but he would do
something now if he were a gentleman. If you had any family loyalty
you'd ask him. How could I guess that he'd be successful? And now I
haven't the price of a dress. How do you think I like it to have people
know that you see him after what he's done to me?"

I spoke slowly and carefully. We had almost reached the North Shore by
then.

"Joe's been a friend of mine for quite a while," I said, "and he's going
to keep on being one, and you're not going to stop it, honey bee. So
just forget about Joe. He took a beating when he was with you, and he's
well out of it, and he knows it."

Bella was no longer beautiful. Her mouth worked as though she were
chewing on something.

"Excuse me, darling," she said. "I forgot that you understood men better
than women. That's the trouble with you and Joe. You neither of you are
very good with women, are you? Why not confess it? When you see Joe you
tell him from me that I'm well out of it, too. Tell him he doesn't know
what love is. Tell him--"

She told me what I was to tell Joe in a harsh, parched voice. It sounded
a good deal like a page from a book which comes to you in the mail in a
plain wrapper. She told me a good many things about Joe which she had
told me before. I listened while I drove the car. The whole thing made
me sick and she would be ashamed of herself when it was all over. Her
voice went on against my silence and finally died away.

"Jim," she said at length.

"What?" I said.

"I'm sorry, Jim. I don't know what gets into me sometimes."

"That's all right," I said. "Skip it. We're getting to the Jaeckels'
now."

"Jim," she said, and I asked her what she wanted.

"Do you think Joe still loves me?"

There was an innocent enormity to the question. She was looking at me
hopefully, almost like a little girl who wishes to be reassured of an
obvious fact. All her venom had left her. She had found release in that
burst of words.

"Skip it," I said, "honey bee. Here's the Jaeckels' driveway."

She put an arm around my shoulders.

"Darling," she said, "you're awfully sweet. There's no one as sweet as
you."

The funny thing was that I believe she meant it. The fine blue gravel of
the Jaeckels' driveway was crunching beneath the tires. The white house
which the Jaeckels had rented from somebody in Boston was standing on
the cliffs. There were people on the terrace which looked out on the
little islands. There was a cool salt breath of rockweed and the sea. We
had both awakened from an unpleasant dream. She was Bella Brill again,
one of those delightful Brills who knew everybody, and I was Jim Calder,
that amusing cousin of the Brills. She was Bella Brill, ready to spend a
week end with the Jaeckels, ready for anything. She was waving to
someone on the terrace.

"Susie," she was calling, "Susie darling!"

She was going to have such a lovely time. There would be maids,
bathrooms, speedboats. A houseman was coming already to get her hatbox.
Bella was still waving. She was like the girl in the advertisements for
high-powered automobiles, one of those automobiles for which the young
couple has waited for years, having put up with countless little
privations to acquire it. My car was the only contradiction to the
picture, but Bella was doing her best.

"Susie," she called, "Susie darling!"

Bella Brill was getting off at the Jaeckels' and thank God for it! I
should be getting away from the Jaeckels' in just a minute, but it would
take a good many hours to recover from that talk with Bella. I was
wondering if one loved more or quarreled more in automobiles. The
statistics would be interesting.

It was just possible, it occurred to me, that the Jaeckels and their
whole unimaginative layout were just what Bella had always wanted. She
may have wanted all those people and the ease of it and the sense of
escape, so like the life on the _Queen Mary_ or at a resort hotel. There
were so many things you could do at the Jaeckels' that you didn't have
to worry your head for a single minute. There were boats, swimming,
badminton, croquet, and a lot of inflated ducks and seahorses which you
could try to ride upon in the swimming pool. If these didn't work there
was America's new gift to the world, the downstairs game room, equipped
with a real bar which had lots of comic signs behind it about the
"Ladies' Entrance" and "Spitting on the floor ..." and all those games
where you pushed a little ball with a plunger and watched it go into
little holes guarded by nails. A lot of people could spend their winters
doing that, and Tom and Susie Jaeckel didn't know any better; or if Tom
Jaeckel did, when he got down there he was too tired to try. Bella could
have it all if she wanted. It was certainly a long, long jump from
Wickford Point.

The Jaeckels had been working for a good many seasons to get into the
Beach Club, and they hadn't made it yet, and now Susie Jaeckel said she
liked it here because you didn't have to mix with the summer colony; you
could just see your friends without having a lot of stuffed-shirt
strangers butting in. She and Tom just lived quietly, she now explained,
and had their own friends to visit.

Almost before the car had stopped Susie Jaeckel and Bella had collided
in an attitude of extreme affection. Susie Jaeckel was in tennis shorts.
She was a type that would have done better in something else because she
was overweight. If I had been a doctor, I should have investigated her
thyroid.

"Oh, sweetness," Susie said to Bella, "sweetness!"

Then she saw me and the expression in her rather protuberant blue eyes
confirmed my suspicion that she had been after Bella to get me down
sometime. I was a feeble link, but I might conceivably lead to some of
the right people at the Beach Club.

"Sweetness," Susie Jaeckel cooed, "did you bring Mr. Calder down?"

"It's just the other way around, Mrs. Jaeckel," I said. "I brought
sweetness here on my way to Boston. I'm afraid I'll have to push right
on. Have you got everything out of the car, sweetness?"

"He's always making fun because I drop things," Bella said.

"But you'll stay for a Martini, won't you?" Mrs. Jaeckel said. "Just
something to keep you company on that long ride alone--Judson's bringing
them out right now, and we just must have somebody to help us eat all
that caviar."

I was succumbing against my will to the material charm of the place.
Bella had clamped herself firmly on my arm. Her sharp fingers dug like
savage little claws into my coat.

"Of course he will, darling," she said. "He isn't in any hurry at all."
Then just as we reached the terrace and as the voices of the Jaeckels'
other guests rose to meet us, she had time to whisper to me
poisonously:--

"Don't be so God-damned snobbish. Don't try to snoot Sue Jaeckel. She
can do a lot for you."

I wanted to ask what Sue could do, whether it was of a physical, a
mental, or a moral nature, but there was no time; we were on the terrace
and Bella had already left me. She was being very charming, exchanging
greetings and osculations with all sorts of people, both male and
female. I did not know them, but they all looked healthy and they were
very, very carefully dressed.

Tom Jaeckel had on brown doeskin trousers and a double-breasted coat of
an even richer autumnal shade, which was buttoned tight over his
barrel-like torso. His wide eyes and rather heavy lips and flattish nose
made one think of a prize fighter, and he had a quick springy walk,
which indicated that he was fast on his feet. There was no funny
business about Tom Jaeckel. He was the general manager of the eastern
division of one of the biggest motor companies in the country. He was an
executive who could handle personnel. I was glad that I was not among
the personnel he handled.

"Hello, Calder," he said. "Glad to see you aboard." The hearty phrase
didn't go so badly with him either.

"Hello, Jaeckel," I said. I rather liked him. At any rate he worked for
what he had, and he was paying for the party.

"Judson," Jaeckel called. "Gangway for Judson."

The butler in a cutaway came with a cold Martini on a silver tray. He
was a dignified man past middle age, the sort with whom you might shake
hands by mistake--and you wouldn't have minded doing it. Suddenly I
remembered Judson. I had not seen him for twenty years.

"Are you Judson who used to be at the Standishes'?" I asked.

He knew me right away and he seemed both glad and surprised to see me.

"Yes, Mr. Calder," he said. "Mr. Standish was a very fine employer,
sir."

I looked across the terrace and back at Judson. We offered each other a
wordless explanation for being at the Jaeckels'.

The man's face was as impassive and distinguished as the face of an
elder statesman. He was looking tolerantly upon the scene, untouched by
it and not amused.

The caviar rested upon cakes of ice and beside the table I saw Mr.
Howard Berg. He had finished his caviar and toast and was rubbing his
fingers carefully on a napkin. I never had paid much attention to Mr.
Berg until that moment, for it was always easier to avoid Bella's
friends as much as possible, but now he rather puzzled me. Like everyone
else he was just a little too much dressed to be quite right. He wore
white shoes, white doeskins, and a double-breasted blue serge coat with
a white handkerchief jutting out a trifle too far from his breast
pocket. The lapels of the coat were a shade too sharply pointed. His
face was dark, as I had remembered it, and his hair was as shiny as
patent leather, but he did not look like a tango dancer or a gigolo, nor
did he look like a playboy.

"Hello," I said.

His greeting showed that he was trying to be cordial and to indicate
that any relative of Bella's was a friend of his.

"Swell to see you here," he said.

It occurred to me that my previous estimate of him had been wrong. He
did not look like a man who would leave unpaid bills behind him, but
after a few amenities I took the matter up.

"I just stopped at the garage on the main road," I said. "The man there
says he made some repairs on your car. He thinks you may have forgotten
it. You know how those people are, just two jumps ahead of the sheriff."
Mr. Berg looked concerned and he looked at me carefully for a moment
before he answered.

"That bill was paid on the first of the month," he said. "If you give me
the name and address I'll send out another check tonight." He took out a
small notebook and a gold pencil and I gave him the name and address.

"Thanks for telling me," Berg said. "I don't like things like that." He
paused. His eyes, I noticed, were a yellow brown. His voice was
modulated without being well-bred. It possessed an excess smoothness
reminiscent of his pointed lapels, and of his exquisitely folded
handkerchief. "Please get this," he went on. "I pay my bills. I pay them
promptly always."

I got it--that and a good deal more. He was younger than I was. He
belonged to a group about which I knew very little, but he was stating
a definite fact, confident of my understanding and acceptance. He meant
he was not the kind who could afford to let bills go, not even little
bills.

"Then you haven't minded my bringing it up?" I said.

"No," said Berg. "I appreciate it, really."

It is hard to understand what a woman sees in a man, because she almost
always sees something that a man doesn't. What Bella saw in most of her
boy friends was even more mysterious, but I could guess what her
interest was in this one. He must have appealed to her sense of
recklessness; he must have appealed to her curiosity, for it was hard
not to wonder what he had been, what he had seen, where he had come
from. He still stood near me as if he were as interested in me as I was
in him, or else he did not want to give the impression of getting out of
the way. He simply stood there, evidently preferring that I should do
the talking.

"Bella says you work in New York," I said. I was sorry as soon as I had
spoken. It sounded as if I took, in the capacity of Bella's relation, an
interest in his prospects.

"That's right," he answered, and he gave a firm name which sounded like
a brokerage house. He even added a further explanation:--

"Business is pretty slack in summer, that's why I'm here so much. I hope
you're staying overnight."

"I'm not," I said. "I'm going on. Sorry, I'd like to see more of you."
Mr. Berg smiled pleasantly. There wasn't really anything the matter with
him except that everything was a little unfamiliar.

"Sorry too," he said. "We might have had some bridge."

"You'd be too good for me," I answered.

"Oh no," he said, "I wouldn't say just that. Swell to have seen you."

It wasn't swell to have seen him, but he was interesting, new.

When I found Bella her voice indicated that she was finishing her third
cocktail and that she was having a wonderful time. I put my hand around
her thin bare arm and drew her a step or two away from the group which
she had been entertaining.

"I'm going now, sweetness," I said. "I've just been eating caviar with
Berg."

"Jim," said Bella. "What did you say to him?" It really seemed as though
she might be frightened.

"I was wrong about him," I said. "The Bergs always pay their debts, but
I'd look out for that boy, sweetness. Watch yourself."

She wrenched her arm out of my hand, but when I was a step or two away
she ran after me.

"Jim," she said, "if I want you tomorrow or the next day, where can I
get you on the telephone?" Her voice was a little breathless; she really
wanted to know.

"Oh," I said, "afraid you're going to get into a jam?"

"No," she said, "of course not."

The complete candor of her answer told me that she was not telling the
whole truth, and it came over me that she had not been natural all day
in a good many little ways.

"Listen," I said, "are you up to something, Belle?"

"Why, no," she answered. "What a silly question!" And then she added
before I could speak: "What makes you ask?"

"Because you said," I answered, "that you couldn't go on like this."

She hesitated a moment, and then she laughed.

"But, darling," she told me, "I say that all the time."

"It wouldn't be possible that you're trying to get in touch with Joe
Stowe?" I asked her.

"You have such a funny imagination when you have a drink," she said.

"You wouldn't want to know where you could get me, unless you thought
you might want me," I said. "You'd better tell me, Belle."

"I don't see why it is," she answered, "that you keep trying to make
something out of nothing. I don't ask you any questions. You can get
away with anything."

"All right," I said. "I'll be at Stanhope's office tomorrow and the next
day and perhaps the next. I'd be careful, honey bee."

"Oh, be careful yourself," she answered. "I know why you're going to New
York."

I knew that there was no use talking to her. In her present mood it
would only be a waste of time, and besides I was glad to see the last of
Bella for a little while.

"So long," I said, "and take a little solid food before you have any
more Martinis."




XII

_Autograph, Mr. Stowe?_


When I turned left onto Beacon Street it was six-thirty in the evening,
the end of a hot and sultry day. The Common was crowded with people,
mostly men in shirt sleeves stretched out prone on newspapers. The
fountain in the Frog Pond was turned on strong, and its basin was full
of children whose cries drowned out the noise of the traffic and rose
into the air with a sound similar to the chatter of blackbirds over
Wickford Point. The marble wings attached to the red brick of the State
House presented the only incongruous note. The rest was the way it
should have been, even to the planting of the Public Garden.

I left my car and ignition key with the perspiring, gold-braided doorman
at the Crofton. I never knew what he did with cars, because there was
never any place to park them. Although the Crofton had been built for a
good many years, it still gave, for no good reason, the impression of
being garishly new. It was possible to converse with the headwaiter in
French, and dazed Continentals who found themselves in Boston made for
it at once. So did everyone in the show business, and in fact everyone
of importance from anywhere. This gave the lobby a certain distinction,
and probably for that reason Harvard boys and debutantes liked to use
the bar, and you could almost always see something striking and
unexpected in the dining room.

Joe Stowe had been given a bedroom and sitting room especially designed
for celebrities. It looked very much like the setting for that play of
Benelli's in which the Barrymore boys had once acted--"The Jest." There
was a Renaissance fireplace, a refectory table along the wall, copies of
del Sarto, and some brand-new Renaissance furniture. There were also
some upholstered chairs and a sofa, so that you did not have to use the
others. Joe Stowe was lying on the sofa in his underwear; he got up when
I came in and squared his shoulders aggressively. Even on the hottest
day he never appeared to lose his nervous energy. No matter how tired he
was, his mind was always restlessly active, and no matter where one saw
him he had a capacity for being the same.

"Take off your coat," Joe said. "What's been keeping you so long? I've
been waiting for you in this goddam museum nearly three hours. A little
squirt from the publisher's has been up here talking to me. They're
sending him with me to Vermont tomorrow."

"Who was he?" I asked.

Joe ran his stubby fingers through his sandy hair. His face was shining
with perspiration so that little highlights glanced off his forehead and
his cheekbones. I remembered what Cousin Clothilde had said about it
once--an undistinguished face. The mouth was too large and the nose was
too small and the greenish-yellow eyes were deep-set, but all the
features came together when he grinned. His expression gave no immediate
indication that he was a sensitive person.

"Who was he?" he repeated. "How should I know who he was? He's just one
of those boys that all the publishers send out--one of those parasites
who batten on you and me. They all look alike and they all dress alike
and they all feed you a free meal and introduce you to somebody else."

"Well, don't get sore at him," I said. "He has to earn his living."

Joe walked over to the refectory table, fished for an ice cube floating
in a watery bowl, weighed it between his fingers and dropped it back
again because there was not enough to it to cool a drink.

"There's one thing," said Joe. "I can tell them what I think of them
right now, and they all come back for more. By God, they ought all to be
drowned!"

He had not been drinking; he was simply experimenting with his blood
pressure. It seemed curious to me that he never lost his capacity for
excitement. He was always angry about something or crazy about
something. Sometimes he got himself so mixed up that he was both things
at once, and now he was dealing with a subject which was particularly
dear to him, because many people in the past had taken advantage of him,
and he hated all the business details of his life. He gave his shoulders
another shrug as though an unseen hand had pushed him in the face.

"If everybody would just get together and be like me," Joe said, "we
might all get along. The trouble with this country is that the producers
are being sucked dry by the nonproductive class. For everyone who does
something there are twenty who live off it. They're like the boy in the
men's room who runs a little water and gives you a towel and then wants
a dime. I say to hell with the whole lot of them. To hell with the
dramatic agents and the literary agents and the moving picture agents
and the publishers' agents. What I want is peace. How do they expect you
to do any work if they keep after you all the time?"

He didn't mean half of what he said. It was only that he liked to hear
himself talk. It gave him some sort of release, and he knew it was
perfectly safe to talk to me since I knew what he meant and what he
didn't. Something else was going on in his mind. He had a way of working
at two things at once.

"What did he do to you?" I asked. Joe was pacing barefooted up and down
the carpet.

"I'll tell you what he did," Joe said, "he damn near got me to write a
book. He got me talking and he caught me with my intellectual pants
down."

"Is that why you haven't got any on?" I asked.

"You know what they do," Joe said. "They always have some idea for a
book that they want somebody to write. It's always some piece of
non-fiction that must be done by somebody with a name. Before I knew it,
I got interested, and the next thing--do you know what he wanted me to
do?"

"No," I said.

"Well," Joe said, "those books are always about America. Their minds
don't work any further than that. It's always something about feeling
the pulse of America from another point of view. You know what I mean.
You know what they do. They take some Englishman usually, who can't get
along at home. If they can't get an Englishman, they sandbag somebody
else, and they send him across the continent on roller skates or in a
balloon or submarine, so that he will get a new and interesting
perspective and find out what the farmers in the Dust Bowl are thinking
about. How do they know that anybody thinks? This time it was about the
sharecroppers."

"That's very, very timely," I said.

I was glad to be back with Joe, not that anything he was saying made
much sense, but it was nice to talk to someone who thought the same way
you did. Writers are a very lonely lot, who generally can't get on well
with each other beyond a certain point.

"Do you know what he almost did?" said Joe. "He almost got me down there
in a trailer. He had the papers right out on the table. You've got to be
careful of those boys. Once when I woke up in the morning I found I had
to write the life of Calhoun, and once I nearly had to do a life of
Henry Clay Frick--remember?"

I told him I remembered. Then Joe thought of something else, and he
began to scowl.

"What made you tell that big poop Allen Southby that I was here?" he
asked. "Don't you know that I always try to go through town without
seeing him?"

"I thought he was a friend of yours," I said. "Besides we have to hand
it to Allen, don't we? He wrote _The Transcendent Curve_."

Joe made a coarse uncomplimentary sound.

"It doesn't pay to be jealous, Joe," I said. "He's written a great book,
a fine book. Beneath his pen the glamorous panorama of American thought
moves in a scintillating progress."

He made another vulgar sound before I had finished. A lot of people had
begun to be afraid of Joe.

"Now that you've brought up that point," Joe said, "let's admit I have
to spend a lot of time not being jealous of other people. I'm pretty
sick of being big-hearted, but just let me tell you I'm really not
jealous of Southby, so now I have to _prove_ I'm not jealous of him.
He's asked us both out there to dinner and we have to go. Actually I
pity him. I hope you understand."

"I understand. I pity him too," I said.

We both knew what we meant, for we both had the feeling that we could
have done a good deal better than Allen Southby, given his
opportunities. Yet there was no real reason for Joe to have been
exercised about Southby, for Joe had had the reviewers eating out of his
hand ever since the success of his last two books.

As I sat there looking at him in his undershirt and plum-colored shorts,
I recalled what one of our most valued critics had written of his recent
work.

"It is doubtful," he had written, "whether any living writer in English
can equal Mr. Stowe as a master of prose. One must turn back far, and
perhaps in vain, to match the sensitiveness of his ear."

You might have thought that he was ashamed of that ability of his, for
he had spent most of his life trying to hide it, except when he was
writing, just as he tried to hide his gentleness and compassion. Any
mention of his style made him mad. He said that he hated literary style
and that he wasn't one of the art boys.

"Well," Joe said, "we have to spoil a perfectly good evening to show
that we aren't jealous. You want to take a shower? I'm going to take a
shower. Well, anyway come on in and talk to me."

I followed him into a Louis Seize bedroom, where he took off his shorts
and shirt. He was puffy around the eyes, but his body was very thin,
almost emaciated, as it always had been. I saw the white welt of a scar
on his right shoulder and I remembered where he got it. He was already
in the tub behind the shower curtains before I spoke again. The cold
water had just hit him.

"Jesus!" he exclaimed.

"It won't be so bad at Allen's," I said. "Maybe Allen didn't tell you.
He's writing a novel."

Joe stepped out of the bathroom with a towel in his hand. He came into
the bedroom dripping wet and he looked worried.

"He didn't tell me that," he said. "Are you sure he's writing a novel?"

"He let me read some of it," I said, "and he's certainly going to let us
read some more of it tonight. Wait till you see it, Joe. It's terrible."

But Joe still looked worried.

"How do you know it's rotten, Jim?" he asked. "What's it about?" His
forehead was wrinkled; his eyes were anxious.

"He let me read the first chapters," I said, "about two weeks ago. It's
a New England novel, the strong, fearless kind, lusty and robust. The
hero belches on the first page."

Joe's reaction was unexpected; he still was looking serious.

"And you say it's rotten?" he inquired.

"It's worse than that, Joe," I said. "Just try to imagine Allen Southby
trying and you'll have the right idea."

Joe shook his head and began pulling clean linen out of his bag. As he
did so, his hairbrushes and some tooth paste fell on the floor, but he
did not pick them up.

"You can't tell about those things," he said. "It's just possible ...
it's just the sort of thing that might happen. It might be good."

I knew why he was serious then. I felt an actual twinge of something
that was almost fear.

"Now listen," I said, "it can't be good." My voice was almost pleading.

"You can't tell, Jim," Joe answered. "If it were a short story, it would
have to be bad because you can't make mistakes in a short story. But
with a novel you can do the most awful things and still get somewhere,
and this talk about lusty robust work frightens me. Right now, if
something is lusty and robust enough, almost anything is excused. Does
he use the word 'belly'?"

"Yes," I said. "The hero has a sensation in his belly." Joe was tying a
washable, light-colored necktie.

"It might just be that it's good," he repeated. "Think of all the good
novels that are written by people who have never written anything
before. Think of all the new talent that wins the publishers' Prize
Contests every year. Think of all the frustrated schoolteachers and the
sand-hogs and the policemen who write good novels."

"Allen isn't frustrated," I said.

"I know," said Joe. "It's a good thing that he isn't frustrated--but
still you can't be sure. He may be writing a good novel, and if he does
I don't think I can stand it. He hasn't done anything to deserve it. He
isn't even bright; but he's just the sort of person who might do it."

"You wait till you see it," I said. "Ask him to show it to you. It's
about the Wickford Valley." Joe looked startled.

"Has he done that?" he said. "I was going to write about the Wickford
Valley myself."

"As a matter of fact I was thinking about it too," I said.

It was the first time that he had alluded to Wickford Point, and even
the allusion had done something to him. Of course the subject was bound
to come up, but I did not like to talk to him about Wickford Point. It
gave me a feeling of divided loyalty.

Joe straightened his coat and looked at himself in the mirror.

Both Sidney and Harry had always given a great deal of thought to
clothes. When those two got together and there was no immediate family
crisis, they could spend hours discussing tweeds and the cut of lapels
or discoursing on overtailored coats. They sounded almost like the page
in the theater program which you read between the acts when every effort
at conversation has failed. I never could understand it, since they
never cared much what they wore themselves. I gathered that they felt
personally freed from these sartorial shackles, because they were the
Brills and because everybody knew that they were the Brills.
Nevertheless the fact remained that Sidney and Harry felt themselves
authorities upon clothes, and they had always agreed that Joe's taste in
dress was not good. More recently they enlarged on the subject and said
that his taste in dress was just what you would expect considering what
he was.

Personally I thought that Joe looked rather well that evening in his
tropical suit and Panama. It was true that his ties and his socks did
not fit into any particular color scheme, but he looked better than
anyone I had seen at the Jaeckels'.

As we descended in the elevator, which always seemed to carry, along
with its passengers, the faint perfume of a beauty parlor, Joe made a
suggestion:--

"Perhaps we ought to have a drink before we start," he said. "Then
Southby's cocktails won't taste so bad."

When Joe appeared there was a decorous stir in the neighborhood of the
hotel desk. The house detective near the elevator nodded to him.

"Everything all right, Mr. Stowe?" he asked.

"Nobody's got in there yet, Ed," Joe answered. The house detective
looked happy. A member of the managerial staff bowed and said: "Good
evening, Mr. Stowe." A boy with a pimply face, who had been sitting
under a potted palm, got up so quickly that he mingled with the palm
leaves.

"Mr. Stowe," he said.

"Yes," said Joe.

"I've been waiting to speak to you, Mr. Stowe," he said. "I'm the
literary editor of the _East Boston High School Magazine_. Could you
give me an interview, just for a minute, Mr. Stowe?"

There was no necessity to be nice, but Joe was nice to him.

"All right," he said. "They told me you were here and I forgot about
it. I'm sorry I kept you waiting. It never pays to offend the press.
What do you want? I'll give you just three minutes." They walked away
into a corner behind the palms while I stood and watched.

"What is your favorite hobby, sir?" the East Boston High School editor
was asking and I heard Joe answering similar questions without any
display of rancor.

"They told me I couldn't get an interview, sir," the boy said.

"Well, you did," said Joe, "an exclusive interview."

Behind me I heard someone else speaking.

"It's Mr. Stowe," someone was saying, and someone else said: "He looks
just like Sinclair Lewis."

I told him about it when we got to the bar, because I thought it might
amuse him, but it didn't.

"I don't look like Red Lewis at all," he said. "Do you think I look like
Red?"

The radio was going in the corner and the bar boys in white mess jackets
were passing drinks and potato chips and bowls of popcorn. I was
thinking of other Boston barrooms which had existed before it was
customary for women to frequent them--the outlets of another lustier
age, when the barkeeper always asked us if we were sure we were
twenty-one. It had been a long while since anyone had asked that
question.

Joe remembered those times too, but his mind was on the present. He was
interested in the bar attendants and their monkey jackets. They reminded
him of a recipe that D. H. Lawrence had given for making the world
better, in _Lady Chatterley's Lover_. Lawrence's hero had said that
humanity would be much improved if all men would wear short jackets and
tight breeches. Joe could not remember why this would make the world
better, but he pointed out that here we were in a laboratory where this
was being tried and that still the world seemed to be about the same.

"No," I said, "it's better than it used to be."

"No," he said, "it isn't. It's absolutely the same."

"Just ask yourself," I suggested. "Aren't you better off than you were
three years ago?"

As soon as I had spoken I was sorry, for I was bringing up again
something which I had not wanted to mention. Joe looked grim and he had
forgotten about _Lady Chatterley's Lover_.

"You're damned well right I'm better off," he answered. "It's like being
out of prison. It's like being alive again. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to
say it quite that way, but you know what I mean."

I knew exactly what he meant, and he meant a good deal more than he
said.

"All right," I said. "Go ahead and say it."

"All right," said Joe. "To hell with the Brills! I still feel that way."

Before I answered, he gave a partial explanation, not that any
explanation was really needed.

"They tried to ruin me," he said. "They tried to take out my heart and
lungs and liver and stuff me with sawdust."

"They didn't mean to do that," I said. "They couldn't help it, Joe."

It was not the place to develop the matter further, over gin cocktails
and potato chips with the radio playing swing selections. You would have
to go back to Wickford Point; you would have to go back to all sorts of
checks and balances to explain it, and at any rate Joe's answer
interrupted me.

"The hell they couldn't help it," he said.

There was no use going on with it.

"Cousin Clothilde told me to give you her love," I said.

Joe's expression changed and for the moment he did not look angry.

"Jim," he said, "I wish I didn't keep worrying about Bella every now and
then."




XIII

_Of All Sad Words ..._


There was no longer doubt that the ride to Cambridge would not be
agreeable, and I began to pity myself as I faced it. It seemed to me
that I was always finding myself, through no fault of my own, the
arbiter of other people's difficulties. First Bella had sat beside me in
the car, and no sooner was the seat vacant than there was Joe Stowe. I
had never intended my car to become the sanctum of a psychoanalyst, and
neither Joe nor Bella paid me twenty-five dollars an hour to listen to
their nave confessions.

"So you say they couldn't have helped it?" Joe said. "You know damn well
they could have helped it. I've heard you say so yourself. You said I
had a rotten deal."

"But they couldn't have," I repeated. "It was a matter of survival, Joe.
It was either you or they. They had to make you one of them or they
couldn't have existed."

"Hogwash," Joe said; but then he seemed to have regretted his outburst.

"When I think back," he said, "it seems to me that I leaned over
backwards to be considerate. I'm able to get on with people. I have a
certain amount of sense."

"Cousin Clothilde sent you her love," I said again.

"Did she?" said Joe. "She never means anything she says, unless it's
about herself. There's no relying on what any of them say. They'll talk
themselves out of anything and you know it."

"I don't agree with you," I said. "Let's skip it, Joe."

Joe's head moved toward me quickly and I knew he was looking at me to
determine how I felt.

"All right," he said. "I'm sorry, Jim."

"Then don't go sounding off to me," I said. "They're relatives of mine."

"All right," said Joe. "I'm sorry, Jim."

The sky was growing red with the sunset, which meant another hot day
tomorrow. It made me think of the old couplet: "Red sky at night,
sailor's delight." Perhaps I did not like the look of it because I was
not a sailor. For me the red sky simply reflected mugginess and mental
discontent. The traffic was very heavy on Commonwealth Avenue, and they
were doing something to the street near the offices of the National
Casket Company. I wondered if the time would come when all the faades
of Commonwealth Avenue would conceal schools and businesses and doctors'
offices. Certainly everything was changing fast. Business might be on
the rocks, but everyone had some sort of car, and everyone was trying to
get out of town as anxiously as though beating a retreat before an
invading army. We crawled along Bay State Road and neither Joe nor I
spoke, until we reached the new drive by the river, where we could see
some small boats sailing and Harvard summer students rowing single
shells. We did not speak but we might as well have been speaking; we
both were thinking the same disturbed thoughts. We were both back at
Wickford Point.

"Do you remember old Beaver?" Joe asked.

"Yes," I said. "Don't bring him up." He was referring to old John Brill,
of course.

"Well, I don't have to have him with my meals any more," Joe said.
"Thank God, I don't have to go to bed with him either."

"But you can't stop talking about him," I said. "Now go ahead and stop."

"Well," said Joe, "you never liked him. Just don't be sanctimonious,
that's all I ask."

"Don't be a goddam bore," I said. "You've done everything you could
about old Brill."

"Poopsy-woopsy," Joe said, and then was silent for a while.

"Jim," he said at length.

"What?" I answered. We were stopping at a traffic light by one of the
bridges.

"Not that I give a damn, but how's Bella?" It was needlessly elaborate.
He gave more than a damn and we both knew it.

"Bella's fine," I said. "I just left her with some people by the name of
Jaeckel. She's planning to go to Guatemala on a scientific expedition
with a man named Dr. Frothinghope."

Joe grinned.

"You must have made her sore," he said. "When she's sore she always
thinks up a scientific expedition. Once she was going with Byrd to the
South Pole. That was the night I told her she was knock-kneed."

"Well," I said, "she isn't."

"No," said Joe, "that's true, she isn't. I hope she's got some new boy
friends."

"There's one at the Jaeckels' now," I said. "His name is Berg."

"That's fine," said Joe. "I hope she's having a good time, but God help
Mr. Berg. What's he like?"

"He always pays his debts," I said.

"Jim," he said, "have you ever thought--" He paused and looked across
the river.

"Thought what?" I asked.

"Have you ever thought that Bella might kill herself?"

I jammed my foot on the accelerator by mistake, and began to laugh.

"It isn't anything to laugh at," Joe said. "What do you think's so funny
about it?"

"Don't worry, she won't kill herself," I said.

It was funny because everyone at Wickford Point occasionally discussed
doing away with himself or herself.

"She might, you know," Joe said. The remark was not worth answering. Joe
cleared his throat again.

"Is she happy, Jim?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "She's just as happy as she always was."

"Well, that doesn't mean anything," Joe said. "Has she enough money?"

I drove the car over to the curb and stopped it. We were right in front
of the Harvard Business School with a fine view of the new Houses across
the river. I turned around so that I could look at Joe.

"Say," said Joe, "what's the matter?"

"I'll tell you what's the matter," I said. "You've got away from Bella
and you'd better keep away. Now don't start getting soft. You're not to
write to Bella, you're not to telephone her or see her. You're not to
get mixed up in that again. If you do, it will only mean that she'll get
into you for something, and everything will start all over. Bella's all
right. She isn't going to kill herself, and she never gave a damn about
you really. Do you understand? Bella doesn't give a damn for anything;
she isn't made that way. She can't take time out caring for anybody
because she has too much trouble looking out for herself. You're out of
it, do you understand? All you have to do is forget about her."

"You needn't be so rough on her," Joe said. "If you won't stand up for
Bella, I will."

"Don't you worry," I told him. "There's always going to be someone who's
going to stand up for Bella. You're out of it. If she ever calls you up,
don't answer. If you ever see her, cross the street."

Joe looked at me for a while before he answered, and I was pleased to
see that his face had lost its generous expression.

"All right," he said, "I'm out of it, but is there anything I can do?
She never knew I'd make a lot of money."

"There's nothing you can do," I said. "If anybody has to look out for
Bella, I will."

"Oh hell," said Joe, "all right."

"Now that we have that straight," I said, "we are going to cross the
Larz Anderson bridge and have a nice dinner with our old friend, Dr.
Allen Southby."

Joe looked brighter. He was coping with a new idea.

"Do you really think he'll show us that novel?" he said.

"He'll certainly show it to us," I said, "because that's what we're here
for."

"I wouldn't mind if you wrote a good novel," Joe said. "You're probably
too old and you may have done magazine stuff too long, but I honestly
wouldn't mind. And I wouldn't say that to anyone else, Jim, either."

"Thanks," I said, "that's handsome of you."

Then Joe began to laugh.

"What's the matter now?" I asked.

"I was just thinking," Joe said, and he laughed again.

"Well, go ahead," I said, "if it's so funny."

"I was just thinking," Joe said, "Bella always goes for phony
intellectuals. How it would be if she got hold of Southby?"

"Don't be too hard on Allen, Joe," I answered. "Make a wax image of him
and stick needles in him, but don't be too hard."

Joe rubbed his hand over the back of his head.

"Jim," he said, "it might have been all right."

"What might have been?" I asked.

"Bella and me," he said. "If things had just been a little different
here and there--if we'd both tried harder--it might have been all
right."

I turned toward him quickly.

"Don't fool yourself," I said. "We all get exactly what's coming to us.
You ought to know by this time that there is no such thing as
'might-have-been.' It would always be the same."

I had not intended to speak so frankly, but I knew Bella well enough to
know that this was so. She did not get along with Joe. And what was
more, they would never get along, certainly not now after everything
that had happened. I had heard each of them talk about it often enough,
and each of them was entirely right according to personal standards,
just as so many others to whom I had listened had been absolutely right
when they discussed their marital disagreements through a haze of
liquor or through a mist of tears. There was a horrid similarity to all
those fallings-out, and the most shocking thing was the final fact that
people who had been together could never wholly escape from each other.
They both knew too much. Each had an understanding of the other's
weaknesses which was uncanny in its accuracy.

I was thinking of breeds of dogs reared to fight, no matter at what
odds. If you once let them off the leash, they would cheerfully face the
prospect of inevitable destruction, and Joe and Bella were like that.
They each knew how to appeal and how to hurt. They would start exactly
where they had left off in the same grim struggle. It seemed incredible
that Joe did not have the sense to realize it, because a good part of
his life had been consumed in studying human values. He was like the
psychiatrist who spends his days directing the lives of maladjusted
patients, and then runs away with his office secretary and gets a
divorce himself. Joe understood everybody except himself and Bella
Brill. I knew it would be hours now before those two would leave my mind
again. I was leaving them; I was going to New York to attend to my own
affairs, and I might even endeavor to enjoy myself; but those two would
keep coming into my consciousness, and they had no right to do it.
Individuals who pour out their troubles should be locked in
concentration camps where they cannot disturb the rest of organized
society.

Joe seemed to have forgotten Bella again: he was examining all the new
Houses along the river which formed the concrete basis of the Harvard
House Plan.

"What do you bet the students still never speak to each other?" Joe
said. "What do you bet they all go and eat at their clubs in spite of
the House Plan? What's the matter with you, Jim? You're not sore at me,
are you?"

"No," I said.

"Then don't be so sour," Joe said. "Dinner with Southby's bad enough
without your getting sour."




XIV

_Evening and the Arts_


After many years of effort Joe had learned how to adjust his personality
to circumstances. He had never liked Allen Southby much and recently had
begun actively to dislike him, yet you would not have guessed it. He
became almost charming when we reached the Master's House. Allen was out
on the steps to greet us, in white flannels and a gabardine coat. His
graying, curly hair had just the proper wind-blown look, and he was
smoking his pipe, lighted, I suspected, just when he had seen us coming.
Joe too had suddenly turned into a man of letters and they both were
very, very gracious; they exhibited pleasing manners developed from
constant contact with other literary figures and from experience on
lecture platforms.

"It's fine to see you," Allen said, "absolutely swell. Come in. I've got
some cocktails in the study."

"I wouldn't have missed coming here for anything," Joe said.

"My sister's away," said Allen. "She always says I have my best times
when she's away."

"That means you're working on something," Joe said, and he smiled at
Allen playfully. "I know you like to be alone when you're working."

"Did Jim tell you?" Allen asked. "He really shouldn't have told you."

"He didn't need to tell me," Joe said. "After _The Transcendent Curve_
everyone's been waiting. You know the way rumors get around. Everyone's
been saying it's a novel. I hope you're going to let us read it, Allen."

Allen's expression became modest but delighted.

"You really wouldn't mind looking at it, Joe?" he asked. "Of course I
wasn't going to ask you, but if you really wouldn't mind ... It's the
roughest sort of draft."

"I've just been saying to Jim that I hoped you'd let me see it," Joe
said. "That is, if it won't disturb you."

"As long as you realize it's just a simple draft," said Allen. "I should
love to know if you think I have the right feel for the thing, if you
think I have my teeth in it. Jim thinks so. Jim was a great help. I've
done quite a bit since then."

"It couldn't be as good as the beginning," I said, "it simply couldn't."

The glance that Allen gave me showed that he could swallow nearly
anything. I almost felt ashamed of myself; for after all I was his
guest.

"I'm not sure, Jim," he said. "I think perhaps that what I've done since
may be just a little better. I'm in the swing of it now, going ahead
full steam. I simply couldn't stop now if I tried. It's the first time
I've ever realized the lure of fiction."

"That's right," I said. "Don't stop. You mustn't stop."

"You needn't tell him, Jim," Joe said. "He couldn't stop, not if he
feels that way."

Allen had led us into the pine-paneled study, where a pewter cocktail
shaker and some small pewter cups stood on a tavern table before the
empty fireplace. The sight of them reminded Allen of his duties as the
host who must say something gracious about each of his guests.

"Let's not talk about my struggles now," he said. "You both know that
sort of thing so well. Joe, we ought to get Jim to write a novel,
shouldn't we? I mean something really serious. He has it in him if he'd
try."

Joe looked at me complacently and back at Allen Southby and nodded in
bland assent.

"What's more," said Allen, "I have a bone to pick with Jim. Here I am
writing about the Wickford Valley, and he never told me until the other
night that he had any connection with it. I've never seemed to associate
Jim with it, but I always associated you, Joe. Sorry, old man, I didn't
mean to bring that up."

"They have a dogs' graveyard there," said Joe. "You ought to see that
graveyard."

"A dogs' graveyard!" said Allen, and his luminous eyes assumed an added
brightness. "You don't really mean it. That's just the sort of odd bit
I'm looking for. Here I've been sitting in this study, trying to
recapture the spirit of that valley, and you two know it. Jim, you must
promise to show me that graveyard. I can come down anytime."

I did not answer, and in any case he would not have given me the
opportunity, for he had turned back again to Joe.

"I don't suppose you've seen your mail for several days," Allen said. "I
don't suppose you've heard the news, Joe."

"What news?" Joe asked.

Allen set down his pipe on the table beside the cocktail shaker.

"It's safe to tell you. It's all settled," Allen said. "Your election
has been ratified. I wish to welcome you in my position as an older but
not as a more valued member. Joe, you've made the Institute."

"What institute?" Joe asked.

"The Institute of Arts and Letters," Allen said.

Joe lost a part of his poise.

"Oh hell," he said, "am I in that?"

"You certainly are," said Allen, "and now as an older member, I want to
drink your health."

"I didn't ask to be in it, did I?" Joe said.

Allen laughed agreeably.

"No one has ever asked," he explained. "It is an honor which is thrust
upon one." He lifted up the cocktail shaker and shook his head
indulgently at his own forgetfulness.

"I clean forgot about the ice," he said. "Excuse me for just a minute,
will you?"

Joe and I stood alone in the study against the background of Allen
Southby's books. The pewter in the old pine dresser shone vaguely in the
waning light. We watched each other until we were sure that our host was
out of earshot, and then Joe made a face.

"God-damned patronizing bastard," Joe said. "How long do we have to sit
here and see him throw his weight around?"

"Wait till you see the novel," I said softly.

Joe unbuttoned his jacket. He was examining the paneling and the books.

"Don't let's speak about it," he whispered. "It's going to be good. I
know it's going to be good."

The cocktails were a credit to Allen in that they proved conclusively
that he seldom drank them. He must have been aware himself of their
deficiencies, for he came back with a pewter mug when he brought the
ice.

"As you both know, my old love has always been ale," he said. "I hope
you'll excuse me. Ale and a pipe are about as far as I've ever gone."

"You wouldn't mind if I smoked a cigarette?" Joe asked.

Allen laughed. It was a mistake to think that he was stupid or that you
could make fun of him indefinitely.

"Don't jape at me," Allen said. "You have the outside view of the
academic life, but we're really almost human here."

In a way he had put Joe in his place, and Allen was just as capable as
Joe was. I grew more alive to this when we sat down to dinner in the
Master's dining room, which had been architecturally prepared for the
reception of an occasional distinguished guest who might be visiting the
university. The food was brought in by an old Negro in a white coat. He
was old Sam, Allen explained to us, who was the steward at the Vindex
Club during term time and who came to Allen in the summer. I had nearly
forgotten the Vindex Club until Allen mentioned it. It was the
undergraduate literary club, whose membership included all nice boys
with literary pretensions. They went there to listen to the discussions
of their betters, and to strain their minds with epigrams after dinner.
Allen had been taken in when he was an undergraduate and he must have
spent a lot of time there later, sitting at the head of the long table
dispensing charm, or taking a staid part in the literary revels. He was
a good host now, with a keen intuitive interest. For a while his talk
went back, as it had the last time I had seen him, to Irish letters--the
natural result of a previous vacation spent in the neighborhood of
Dublin. There he had been received, apparently cordially, by all the
figures of a literary world with which I was unfamiliar, but Joe knew
them and Joe became interested. They talked for quite a while about the
"Anglos" and about Glendalough, and about Yeats and the Abbey, and about
the Gate. They also exchanged anecdotes concerning various characters
whose names reminded one of controversies in American municipal
politics. They talked through salmon and salad while I listened,
half-admiring Allen Southby, and very nearly grateful for his
hospitality; and I thought how peculiar it is that food and drink can
change one's estimate of character. There was ample opportunity for a
number of melancholy thoughts while I listened.

When you are young enough, I thought, all sorts of unrevealed
possibilities make you a person, but afterwards when there are no more
possibilities you become a type. Nearly every old man sitting about a
club is a type that fits into a category as readily as a butterfly or a
bee or a praying mantis. Allen Southby was turning into a type and so
was Joe Stowe. I wondered if I also were not slowly ceasing to be
myself.

Allen was really very nice--I gathered that Joe had begun to think so,
too--until he got back to the subject of New England. Then there was
something pretentious about him which definitely grated, for there he
sat like a self-invited guest assuming that he was part of a family that
was not his. He was pretending to be a native, dwelling on austerities
and eccentricities. He was particularly bad when he got back to the
dogs' graveyard, which he did when dessert came in--cold apple pie and
cream. ("A real New England dish," Allen explained. "I thought of having
doughnuts, but that would be painting the lily, wouldn't it?")

He had stored Joe's remark about the dogs' graveyard carefully in his
mind and now he wanted to hear all about it. It was rather skillfully
done, I thought, for he obviously wished to reach a point where we must
ask again to see his novel. When I told him some of the names and quoted
from the inscriptions upon the little stones he laughed and laughed. He
had a musical half-infectious laugh, and he said it was all _so_
typically New England. He was still talking of New England when he led
us back to his study for coffee. His investigations had given him a
fascinating store of reminiscence, and he had also acquired a lot of
salty stories about small hamlets in Maine, the kind that deal with ship
captains and with rustics sitting around the country store. He could
even give a very tolerable imitation of the accepted hinterland accent.
He stuffed some aromatic tobacco in his pipe and offered us cigars, but
he still went on talking while Joe encouraged him with complimentary
words.

After a while Allen's enthusiasm began to wane. He obviously wanted us
to ask about the novel; and though Joe must have known it, he never
brought the subject up until Allen began to fidget in his chair. Joe was
deliberately waiting for him to begin, and in a certain way it was not
good manners. Then when the clock struck nine, Allen gave up.

"Were you really serious," he asked, "when you said you wanted to see
this thing I'm doing?"

"Why, see here," Joe said, "I've only been waiting for you to ask me
again, and so has Jim. Haven't you, Jim?"

Allen Southby drew a deep breath and set down his pipe almost with
relief.

"I really do want both of you to see it," he said, "really. I haven't
shown it to another soul except Martha."

"What did Martha say?" I asked.

Allen drew another deep breath and walked over to the drawer of his
desk.

"She felt the same way you did about it, Jim," he said.

"Well, that couldn't have been better," I told him, "and a woman's
reaction is always more important than a man's."

Allen had produced the manuscript from the desk drawer. He held it with
a studied carelessness in his hands.

"You're sure it isn't too much trouble?" he said.

When everything was said and done, Joe might talk a lot but he was never
actively unkind.

"No trouble at all, Allen," he answered.

"You understand it's just a rough first draft," Allen said. "I know Jim
understands already. You won't be too hard on it?"

"Of course not," said Joe. "We know what first drafts are."

Allen Southby sighed. He had divided the manuscript in two parts.

"Here's the beginning, Joe," he said, "up to where Jim left off. I'll
give Jim the rest of it and you can ask him for it when you're ready."

"All right," said Joe, "let's have it." But Allen still held the
manuscript, behaving just as he had when he had shown it to me before.

"The first page is a little jerky," he said. "I was trying to get the
feel of the thing. Jim made the remark that some of the language was
crude."

"Jim ought to know better," Joe said. "You have to let yourself go,
Allen."

"You really think so?" Allen asked. "Well, I _have_ let myself go. I've
tried to be absolutely myself. Here it is, Joe. Just remember the first
page is rather rough." By this time I began to wish that Allen would be
quiet.

"Are you sure you're comfortable in that chair, Joe?" Allen asked. "Is
the light all right? Are you comfortable, Jim? I've always liked that
Windsor chair myself."

I wished for heaven's sake he would shut up. The room was refreshingly
quiet when we began to read, but Allen was still fidgeting about, first
looking at us, then looking at his books. The sound of the motors on
Memorial Drive came through the windows. Allen took down a large leather
folio from the shelves and retired to his desk. As I sat there reading I
was reminded of an examination room in the old days. Allen was behind
the desk to see that Joe and I did not cheat. He pretended not to look
at us, but I knew he was not reading. Once I stole a glance at Joe. He
was going at his work deliberately, dropping each page abstractedly upon
the floor when he had finished it. Joe was a fast and accurate reader
and he had been reading ever since I'd first known him, whether he was
drunk or sober. At the end of fifteen minutes Allen spoke.

"What do you think of it so far?" he asked.

Joe looked up as though his mind had been called back from a long
distance.

"It's amazing," he said. "Don't interrupt me, Allen."

"How far have you read?" Allen asked.

"Where he gets back from watching the cows in the stable," Joe said,
"and finds her in the kitchen after everyone has gone to bed."

"You think that's all right?" Allen asked. "I was a little afraid about
that part."

"You needn't be," said Joe. "Now let me go ahead."

"And you're really interested?" said Allen.

"It's going fine so far," said Joe. "Have you got any whisky, Allen?"

"Oh," Allen said, "I'm awfully sorry. Yes, yes, of course. I'll go and
fetch some."

We sat listening to his footsteps as he crossed the hall and the dining
room. The pantry door swung to behind him, and we heard him giving Sam
directions. Then Joe got up, tiptoed toward me and held out his hand.

"Boy," Joe whispered, "it's all right. You win. Everything's all right.
It's just perfectly lousy and his publisher will have to print it. I'm
almost sorry for him now."

Joe and I did not make a pretty picture. I was almost ashamed of my
relief and at my sense of vindication, but not wholly.

"Get back there," I whispered, "he's coming with the whisky." And then I
raised my voice.

"It's very full-bodied, Joe."

"Yes," said Joe, "full-bodied."

We could hear Allen Southby crossing the dining room on tiptoe. He had
wanted to hear what we were saying and he had heard that it was
full-bodied. There was a clink of ice and glasses.

"Give me what you've finished, Jim," Joe said. "Pour me out a drink,
Allen. It's getting better all the time."

The part of Allen's manuscript which I was reading was worse than the
beginning, and each page which I finished confirmed a number of my
opinions about practical writing. Considering the shelves of volumes
in the stacks of libraries dealing with the art, it is amazing how
little this great mass has ever contributed to any sensible
discussion--probably because nearly all those books have been written by
hangers-on at the edges of the trade. My mind strayed away from Allen
Southby's manuscript as I thought of this, for I had gone once, like so
many others, to this very type of literature in search of expert
guidance. And now no matter how I racked my brain I could scarcely
recall a single serious book on the craftsmanship of fiction written by
a successful fiction writer. It must have been that few who could write
had ever wanted to discuss it.

No one could teach anyone else to write. You could be as industrious as
you pleased; you could steep yourself in the technique of all the
Flauberts and Maupassants and Dickenses who had gone before, and out of
it would come exactly nothing. That was the trouble with Allen Southby.

There is something revealing about amateur fiction which is particularly
ghastly, for in this type of effort you can see all the machinery behind
the scene. I could tell exactly what Allen had been reading before he
had set to work. He had made a study of Hardy--it must have been a
dreary task--and then he had touched on Sherwood Anderson and Glenway
Westcott and O'Neill. He had been reading a lot of those earth-earthy
books, where the smell of dung and the scent of the virgin sod turned by
the plow runs through long paragraphs of primitive though slightly
perverted human passion; but those others could write, and Allen Southby
never would if he lived as long as Moses. Nevertheless I was finding the
thing stimulating again. I was thinking of ways in which I might have
changed it.

Allen was back at his desk, fiddling with his folio volume. He saw me
right away when I paused and reached for the whisky glass.

"There's nothing the matter with it, is there, Jim?" he asked.

"No," I said. "It's very provocative, Allen."

"That's wonderful," said Allen. "Thank you, Jim, but we mustn't disturb
Joe."

The delicate feeling of liking that I was experiencing for him, born
probably from a sense of remorse, vanished with this remark. He was an
intellectual snob and an intellectual climber. He had intimated without
much tact that any adulation of mine was inconsequential now that Joe
was there. He would never know that my remark had been completely
truthful. Southby had been provocative because he was writing about
something which I could understand far better than he could ever
understand it. It was not the plot, which was horrible, that arrested my
attention so much as his manner of writing. His pages resembled the
efforts of visiting writers, who had spent their summers in Maine and on
Cape Cod, to depict the New England scene. The effect was the same as
when some Northern writer attempted an epic of the South, and could see
nothing but nigger mammies and old plantations and colonels drinking
juleps. These others, when they faced New England, saw only white
houses, church spires, lilacs and picket hedges, gingham hypocrisy and
psychoses and intolerance. Not even Kipling, the keenest observer who
had touched our coast, could do it. There was something which they did
not see, an inexorable sort of gentleness, a vanity of effort, a sadness
of predestined failure.

I handed the rest of the pages to Joe and poured myself another drink.
There was no need for conversation since Allen Southby did not want Joe
to be disturbed. It was a quarter after ten o'clock and it was not
unpleasant sitting there, listening to the noise outside the windows.
First I wondered what was wrong with that writing, and then I began
thinking about myself in the hazy disorganized way one thinks when there
is nothing else to do. I believed that I was under no illusion about my
literary skill. I was not fool enough to attempt such a thing as Southby
was attempting. It was all well enough to think of it, but even as I
thought I knew that I should never do it. I did not have the energy nor
could I afford the gamble, and a serious novel is a very great gamble
for one who must live by writing. A five hundred dollars' cash advance
might be all that I could get for a year's work, because the thing would
never serialize. I knew that I should never do it. Allen Southby's
writing was filling my mind with all sorts of noncommercial ideas. I
would be in New York in the morning, and I would be having a talk with
my literary agent, but I could not talk with him of those ideas.

My mind kept going back, as it did when I was restless, to scenes at
Wickford Point. I was thinking of them all standing by the doorway when
we drove away after lunch. I had seen more of New England in this one
day than Allen Southby had ever seen. I remembered how Herman had
smelled when he had been held up for me to kiss. I had been aware of
strange jealousies and of odd habits and of undercurrents of inheritance
which had nothing much to do with lilacs or picket fences. Then
half-instinctively, without really meaning to, I was thinking of
situation and plot. There were so many engrossing details of which one
might write which could not decently be set down on paper. There was
Wickford Point, for instance, and Joe and Bella Brill, and all the times
we had had together, all those strange unprintable scenes which were
really worth preserving. Some of them were bizarre, some of them were
ugly, and some of them were beautiful.

"Well," Allen Southby was saying, "so you've finished it, have you,
Joe?"

Joe picked up the manuscript, straightened the pages expertly, and
handed them back to Allen, and Allen waited almost diffidently for him
to speak.

"We all understand writing," Joe said, "so we don't need to talk much,
do we, Allen?"

"No," said Allen Southby, "no, of course not, Joe. I just want a
reaction, but of course I am open to suggestions. I can stand criticism
as well as the next man, as long as it's intelligent criticism." Joe
nodded very gravely. Without saying anything he gave the impression of
being deeply moved. I had seen him do the same thing before, and I
nearly believed that he was in earnest.

"Now, Allen," Joe said, "I'm not going to say anything, although my
inclination is to talk to you all night. I haven't been so excited for a
long while."

"Were you really excited?" Allen Southby asked.

"So excited," Joe said, "that I won't sleep all night. There are
certain paragraphs and passages that keep running through my mind--that
scene in the hayfield where she comes to help him find his shirt, and
that part about the old lady hiding her money under the loose brick of
the hearth. I won't forget those for a long while, Allen, but I'm not
going to speak of them. It would be too dangerous."

"How do you mean, too dangerous?" Allen Southby asked.

Joe picked up his glass, looked at it critically and drank its contents
before he answered.

"You have it going now," Joe said, "at such a pace that I wouldn't have
the rudeness to interrupt you, Allen. I might say something inadvertent
which would break the flow of everything. That's why I'm not going to
say a word, and Jim isn't going to say a word either. We're standing on
the threshold of something which we must not destroy."

"But you like it, don't you?" Allen said.

"Do you think I'd talk this way if I didn't like it?" Joe Stowe asked.

"But don't you think you could just give me some idea," Allen suggested,
"of the way you feel?"

Joe shook his head firmly.

"No," he said, "it would be too dangerous. It would be an insolence,
Allen. That's the way I feel. You mustn't talk about it to anyone, not
even to Martha until you've finished it. You're just at the point where
a word might spoil everything."

"You really think it's as good as all that?" Allen asked.

"I certainly do," said Joe.

It was not right for anyone to look as happy as Allen Southby did. That
luminous glow in his eyes was almost too good to be true.

"Joe," he said, "I can't thank you enough, really I can't. Will you read
the rest of it when it's finished?"

"I certainly will," said Joe.

"Would it be asking too much--" Allen asked--"I don't want to be too
presuming, Joe--but would you consider writing a line or two to be put
on the jacket?"

"I certainly will," said Joe, "if my agent will let me."

I thought that Allen was going to ignore me altogether, but he did not.

"Jim," he said, "I'm ever so glad you liked it. Your interest has meant
a tremendous lot. I shouldn't have dared to show this to Joe if it
hadn't been for your encouragement."

"That's all right, Allen," I said.

He looked at me with his most beguiling smile.

"And--oh yes," he said. "When can I come down to Wickford? It would mean
a tremendous lot to have a glimpse of things down there right when I'm
in the middle of this."

"I'm going to New York," I said.

"Do you have to go to New York?" Allen asked. "When will you be back?"

"This week end perhaps," I said.

"Then let's make it this week end," said Allen Southby. "It's awfully
good of you, Jim."

Joe buttoned up his coat.

"Thank you for everything, Allen," he said. "We'll have to be going
now."

We did not speak until we reached the car, and I was the one who spoke
first.

"God damn him," I said. "I didn't ask him."

"Well," said Joe, "he's going." Then Joe began to laugh and put his hand
on my shoulder before I could answer.

"Let's forget it, Jim," he said. "Wasn't that stuff terrible?"

The trouble was that I could not forget it.




XV

_All Aboard_


"I don't blame you for being mad," Joe said. "He's a caponized
professor. Forget about it, Jim."

"All right," I said, "but I can't forget about it. I keep thinking about
how I'd write that thing myself."

"You do?" said Joe, and his voice was louder. "Well, I've been thinking
about how I'd write it too."

"Oh," I said, "you have, have you?"

"But I wouldn't steal one of your ideas," said Joe.

"They're not worth stealing," I said.

Joe put his hand on my shoulder.

"You're sorry for yourself tonight, aren't you?" he inquired. "What's
the matter? Has Southby got you down?"

"No," I said, "I'm just thinking, Joe."

I was wondering how it ever happened that Joe and I had been thrown so
much together. When one came to think of it, there was an ominous sort
of destiny in friendship, about which one could do nothing.

"Listen," Joe said, "do you really have to go to New York?"

I could tell that he had observed the bland way in which I had been
ignored and I had a momentary suspicion that he was feeling sorry for
me, and nothing from my point of view could have been worse. Such an
attitude on his part would inevitably mean that I would end by being
jealous of him also and I was doing my best not to be jealous of Joe
Stowe. I had been telling myself for a long while that I was glad of
everything that had happened to him, that I took a personal sort of
pride in his career.

"There are some things I've got to do about a serial story," I said,
"and besides I want to get away from Wickford Point."

"That's funny, isn't it?" said Joe.

"What's funny?" I asked.

"About Wickford Point," Joe said. "You all go down there and say how
lovely it is, and then none of you can stand it. Everyone starts
fighting and then everyone goes to Europe."

"You used to like it once," I said.

The cars which passed us from the opposite direction made dashes of
light against the windshield, like uneven splashes of phosphorescent
water. Joe's voice was grim when he answered.

"Yes," he agreed, "I loved it. It's all right when you're not mixed up
in it. If you're going to New York, what are you going to do with your
car?"

"Leave it in a garage," I said. "Sid always monkeys with it if I leave
it at Wickford Point."

"Oh, my God," said Joe. "Sid's there, is he? Is Harry there? Has he got
some new ideas?"

I told him that Harry was coming up for the week end.

"There will be that same muddy smell from the river," said Joe. "And the
trees will be greener than anywhere else, and the hummingbirds will keep
buzzing in the trumpet vines, and the plumbing will get out of order.
And the tortoise-shell cat will have kittens and everybody will be
unhappy in the parlor, and Sid will have indigestion and nobody will be
able to stand it any longer."

There was no use answering. Joe remembered everything.

"There will still be some delphiniums in the little garden," he said. "I
don't suppose anyone's ever got around to weeding it. I don't suppose
anyone's cleared out the path to the point."

He paused and I did not answer. We were almost back in town before he
spoke again.

"Jim," he said, "let's get out of this. It isn't good for you to hang
around that place. Maybe we could do some work if we went away. I'm sick
to death of being bothered."

"Where do you want to go?" I asked. "You don't want to be quiet. You
like to be bothered."

Joe moved uneasily.

"Well, I need a change," he said. "I can fix it so we go out to China.
What do you say, Jim? Or if you don't like China, there's Spain. How
about going to Barcelona? Or if you don't like that, there's--"

"There's what?" I asked.

"Oh, hell," said Joe, "there's anywhere."

I knew exactly what he meant. He was thinking about Wickford Point; he
was still trying to put it behind him.

"I'll think about it, Joe," I said, but I was reasonably sure that he
would forget it all by morning. We were stopping by the brightly lighted
door of his hotel by then, and you could see the shadows of the elm
trees on the Common and the lights of the advertising signs beyond,
which had once caused so much civic disturbance.

"That's fine," Joe said. "I'll get hold of you as soon as I finish this
lecture business. I mean it, Jim. Didn't we have a hell of an evening?"

"Yes," I said, "terrible. So long, Joe."

"So long," he said, and we shook hands. He was just turning away when I
called him back.

"Joe," I said, "there's just one thing. You keep away from Bella, do you
understand? It won't do any good."

The lights above the door were full on his face when he turned back to
me, and I remembered again what Cousin Clothilde had said--that it was
an undistinguished face. You could see all the freckles and the
oversized mouth and the deep-set yellowish green eyes. I had not been
sure until that last moment that he was having a rotten time. He could
do anything he wanted. There were plenty of other women in the world,
and I happened to know he knew it,--offhand I could name three of them
in New York,--but he was still not having a happy time. Divorce is like
a major operation. You think you are all right and then you have a
sinking spell. He was standing there under the lights, and there was
nothing much that anyone could do about it. It was like the ending of a
story which no editor would want to buy. A while ago he had nearly been
sorry for me, and now I was sorry for him, and I was the one who had
started it. I was the one who had first taken him to Wickford Point....

"... She ought to meet some older men," Cousin Clothilde had said. "I
mean some interesting men. What ever happened to that nice friend of
yours, Mr. Lowe? The one you brought to Wickford Point? He's just the
sort of man I mean--someone to take her mind off that Avery Gifford. I
don't see what she sees in Avery. Can't you call up Mr. Stowe and ask
him to dinner?..."

Joe Stowe put his foot on the running-board for a moment.

"You damned fool," he said, "I want to keep away from Bella. That's why
I'm going somewhere."

"What about Elsie Cash?" I asked.

It was hardly the time or the place to bring that matter up. Joe held
out his hand again.

"Oh," he said, "oh, that ... Well, so long, Jim."

The South Station had changed. It was as new and shiny and as
streamlined as modern diplomacy. It made you think of five-point
programs, of candid cameras, of leftists and rightists and of the
People's Front; in fact, of all those elements that had cropped up to
change the life one used to know. Down the center of the station were
all sorts of gaily-lighted booths displaying books and periodicals--I
saw Joe Stowe's last book out in front--and toys for the kiddies, which
could be purchased by a conscience-stricken parent before it was too
late, and giant orange drinks and liquor and flowers and nationally
advertised confectionery. Yes, the station was changed, but it had the
old allure.

There were the same porters and the same whiffs of smoke bringing the
same electrifying message. The message was that you were getting away
from it and going to New York, and after that you might go anywhere. You
were getting away from what was static; you were off to have a good time
beyond correction and reproof. All the other times when I had left from
that station returned to me, and the memories of nearly all of them were
merry. There was the time when Cousin Sue had given the porter a dollar
to see that I got back safely to my parents, and when we were driven
across the city in a four-wheel cab. Then there were the times when
Harry and I used to leave college for our vacations in New York. Cousin
Clothilde always put me up in those days, in one of the brownstone
houses which she and Archie Wright had rented. You could never tell from
year to year just where their house would be. Some years it was in the
East Seventies, and once in the Murray Hill district,--one of their
nicest houses was turned into a speakeasy later on,--or again it might
be down in Washington Square. And once I remember that the whole front
of the house they had rented was being torn off and everybody lived in
back, and you got mixed up with carpenters and contractors on your way
to breakfast. It made no difference though; it was always a lot of fun
wherever Cousin Clothilde and Archie Wright were living.

Harry and I used to come down together, always in upper berths, and when
we arrived in the morning Cousin Clothilde was always up and glad to see
us, and usually Archie Wright came down in his pajamas. As one looks
back on it, Archie was very forbearing. It must have been hard on him,
being married to a whole houseful of Brills, with me frequently thrown
in. We were always getting into his bureau drawers to borrow his shirts
and neckties. Occasionally around dinnertime he would be depressed, and
once he said he did not know that he had married an orphan asylum, but
generally he was affable, and he made Harry and me feel that we were his
contemporaries.

No matter where they were living the house always had a certain style,
and there was always something funny happening. Once in the old days,
when there was more money, they had a French manservant who used to
hoist himself up from the kitchen in the dumbwaiter, and who ended at
last by coming into the dining room brandishing a carving knife. There
were usually some interesting people around, artistic contemporaries, or
else callers who might conceivably buy murals. One man who used to come
there was named Algernon Weir, and he always would hold his left arm in
front of him and pretend that he had an imaginary bird sitting on his
wrist. Sometimes it made Cousin Clothilde nervous when he caressed the
imaginary bird, but finally he went away somewhere. Lots of the people
who came there one season would vanish, but in their places were always
new and fascinating faces. There was another man, named Theodore Rudy,
who took a great liking to me and sent me a bunch of roses. One winter
there was a faith healer and the next there was a theosophist and the
next there was a Turk. As I have said, there was always something funny
happening, and it was refreshingly different from Harvard. Back in those
days Archie Wright had met a man at Jack's, who had commissioned him to
do a mural for a municipal court building in Iowa, and it really seemed
as though Archie might finally get started. All this was before he
became interested in capital and labor and allowed ideology to interfere
with work.

There was a good deal of distinction about Archie's and Cousin
Clothilde's lives then, because they knew everybody. There was something
about the Brill connection which gave them a peculiar cachet in New
York. All the schools were anxious to have the little girls go to them,
because they were Brills. Sidney was away at St. Swithin's, and Mary and
Bella went to Miss Lacey's. They had a French governess too, and every
afternoon they were put into white starched dresses and allowed to come
down to tea. That was almost the only time Harry and I would see them.
Of course everything was different at Wickford Point. Archie Wright only
went there twice in his life. He said he couldn't stand it.

A porter carried my bag and we walked over to Track Fifteen, where the
tickets were examined by the conductor behind the desk.

"Lower nine," the man said. "Car one seven eight. You wouldn't care to
change it to a section, would you?"

"No, thanks," I said, and he gave me back the stub of my ticket.

"Lower nine," I said to the porter. "Car one seven eight." And we walked
into the cool smoky dark of the train shed. I had that old happy feeling
of going somewhere, and at the same time I was living over a good deal
of my life in that strange manner which occurs now and then when one is
performing the conventional acts of the present.

"Car one seven eight," the porter said. It was all very much as it had
always been, the same hushed narrow aisle of green curtains, the Negro
in his white coat asking in a whisper when I wished to be awakened. It
was like some scene in the play called "Outward Bound." No one ever knew
who lay behind those curtains and no one ever cared. The dimly lighted
aisle was a timeless place, so that the thing that happened next was not
surprising.

I heard a voice behind me, a careful voice which was rather flat. A
youngish man was speaking to me and I did not know him from Adam.

"Hello, Jim," he said. "Aren't you Jim Calder?"

"Why, hello," I said, but I didn't recognize him and he saw that I
didn't.

"I'm Avery Gifford," he said.

"Of course," I said. "Hello, Avery." And after that there did not seem
to be much to say.

"Are you going to New York?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "I suppose you're going to New York too. Let's go into
the washroom and smoke a cigarette."

"I don't mind watching you," said Avery, "but I've given up cigarettes."

"Have you? Why?" I asked.

"It's bad for my wind," he said, "and maybe you've read the statistics.
Heavy smokers die sooner."

"And you want to live?" I said. He looked a little puzzled, but I had
remembered everything about Avery Gifford by this time.

"Yes," he said, "of course I want to live."

"That's fine," I said. "You didn't the last time I saw you."

"Oh," he said, and his tanned face grew redder. "Oh yes, that."

We sat together on the long seat in the washroom. A heavy man in his
undershirt and trousers was brushing his teeth. We watched him without
speaking until he finished. While we sat there silently Avery Gifford
looked as though he distrusted the impulse which had made him speak to
me, and that last remark of mine must have told him that I remembered a
great many things which he would not care to discuss. We sat there
mutely examining the metal wash-basins and the cuspidors.

"Well," I said, "how have you been?"

"Very well, thank you," said Avery. "How have you been?"

"About the same as you," I said. "Where are you this summer?"

"Where we've always been," said Avery, "at Nahant."

"Still at Nahant?" I asked.

"Yes," Avery answered. "We always spend the summers there." He shuffled
his feet uneasily on the linoleum. "I'm married you know," he added.

"Yes," I said, "I know. You married one of the Bosworth girls, Betty
Bosworth, didn't you? You sent me an announcement."

"Oh yes," said Avery. "We have three children now, a boy and two girls.
I wish you'd stop in to see us sometime. I'd like you to meet Betty."

"Thanks," I said, "I'd like to, Avery."

We both must have known that I would not stop in, and I also knew that
he did not really wish I would, but it was nice of him just the same. He
sat with his forearms resting on his knees, clasping his hands together
and unclasping them. He was dressed in gray flannels that were a good
deal the worse for wear; there was nothing in his appearance to show
that he had inherited ten million dollars, and I rather liked him for
it. While he sat there, thinking of something else to say, not wishing
to speak of what was on his mind, the thought came back to me again that
love as viewed objectively is nothing but a disease and that Avery, when
he fell in love with Bella Brill, had contracted that disease just as
inadvertently as one contracts a head cold from riding in the subway. Or
had it been like that? It was possible that there might have been some
wild and unfulfilled streak in Avery's nature and some latent revolt
against the environment which now held him. If so, he had lived it down.
Yet even now he wanted to speak of Bella.

"I read some of the things you write sometimes," Avery said. "I have
half an hour to kill every evening on the train. Have you been out to
see the tennis?"

"No," I said. "Have you?"

"Yes," Avery answered. "The tennis was very good this year."

I could not help but wonder about him and about his life. That life of
Avery Gifford's was so far apart from anything I knew, so completely
ordered in its security, so undeviating and so admirable; nor was it
entirely sterile if he had produced three children.

"Why are you going to New York, Avery?" I asked.

"Well," he said, "someone had to go. It's about the income tax. I always
try to keep away from New York as much as possible, but someone in the
family had to go." He clasped his hands together and unclasped them
again, observing his fingers intently, and then he cleared his throat.
"I was sorry to hear about Bella," he added.

He had come to it at last, and no doubt he felt better now that it was
over.

"What about Bella?" I inquired.

Avery lowered his voice and still looked at his hands.

"The divorce," he said. "Perhaps I shouldn't have spoken of it."

"There's no reason why you shouldn't," I replied. "A lot of people
have."

"I don't like gossip," Avery said. "It must have been hard on Bella.
She's so highly strung, so delicate."

"It's just as well it's over with," I said.

It was the best reply to make, but his remark about her being delicate
surprised me. It meant that he had never known what Bella was at all. He
was one of those pedestal-putters, like many of the rest of us. So there
was Bella enshrined still in the mind of Avery Gifford, forever beyond
him, forever virginal and pure. It was better to leave it just that way.

"How is Bella?" he asked.

"She's pretty well," I answered.

"She would have been fine about it all," Avery said. "I kept wishing
there was something I could do about it."

"There was nothing you could do, Avery."

"I don't suppose there was," said Avery. "That's what Betty said, but I
wish there had been. When you see Bella will you give her my--" He
paused as if he had checked himself, "--my kindest regards?"

"Of course I will," I told him; "but Betty is absolutely right."

Avery got up and very nearly stumbled on a cuspidor.

"Yes," he said, "of course she is. Betty's wonderful." He seemed to have
forgotten that I had never met Betty. "Betty always has just the right
reaction. She's the one who made me go down to New York on this thing.
Well, I suppose I'd better go to bed. I don't suppose we'll meet in the
morning. I'm staying at the Cosgrave, but I'm afraid I'll be busy all
the time. It's nice to have seen you again. Be sure to give Bella my
regards."

"Good night, Avery," I said.

The green curtain closed behind him and I was left alone. It was an odd
coincidence to have seen him there that night, for he fitted in with all
my other thoughts and took his place among the imponderables. Suppose
she had married Avery Gifford, she could not have stood it for more than
a year or two. Once she had told me that herself, but even so she might
have married him. There would never be another chance like that for
Bella Brill, and I was the one who had spoiled it. Bella and even Cousin
Clothilde had been careful to remind me that Joe Stowe was my friend.

"Aboard," someone was calling, "all aboard." She would have met Joe in
any case, but I was the one who had brought him to Wickford Point.




XVI

_You Dear Delightful Women_


I had often wondered why Bella had not married Avery Gifford. Aside from
love, if love had ever bothered her, it must have been a struggle for
Bella to turn him down; for Bella always had her wits about her, even
when she did not use them. She must have seen security staring her in
the face, generous and unbounded, hers forever. And Avery Gifford had
been a nice boy too. The Brills, who always studied social desirability,
had conceded that the Gifford family connection had been quite as good
as theirs, except that the Giffords might have too much money. It might
have been a very brilliant match, though I happened to know that old
Colebrook Gifford had been harassed by the prospect and that Mrs.
Gifford--the one who had sent a young man from her house because she had
seen him sweeten his ginger ale from a pocket flask--had been obliged to
consult a psychiatrist. As I sat solitary in the train, I suddenly knew
exactly why Bella had not gone through with it. The unexpected
apparition of Avery Gifford had explained everything, for I had seen him
as Bella must have seen him long ago. He had not represented security;
instead he had represented the unknown. He had signified continuity, and
Bella had been afraid. He would have taken her away from Wickford Point
and Bella had been afraid. There was no security at Wickford Point, but
there was something else--the ghost of a vanished security, which had
developed into something necessary--and all of Bella's seeming boldness
must have been make-believe. It is difficult to realize that all sorts
of irrational, indefinable fears are deep inside of all of us ready to
spring up when we least expect them, and the worst of it is we do not
know of what we are afraid.

I could remember when there had been security at Wickford Point, when
the house had a clean, soapy smell, when there were plenty of people in
the kitchen to do the work, and two outside men to tend the garden and
the grounds. That was when my grandfather was alive and before my
great-aunt Sarah's mind was failing. The subsequent change was gradual,
like the decline of the Roman Empire, and children do not often notice
such essentials, although they observe most of the things that grown-ups
forget or take for granted.

When I came to live at Wickford Point Aunt Sarah had already grown very
forgetful. She had given up fine embroidery and her work on hooked rugs
was somewhat ragged. When she read aloud she would sometimes repeat a
page because she forgot to turn it. There were no longer any pilot
biscuits in the cracker jar in the closet off the dining room, and there
was only one woman in the kitchen. There was also a succession of
housekeeper companions who helped out with the work and with Aunt Sarah
and who sat with us at table. I never minded any of this, because I was
allowed to wear old clothes and to walk into the house with rubber boots
if I had been shooting ducks or rails down the river.

Aunt Sarah often used to think that I was my father or someone else, but
she was always very kind to me, for she always said that it was nice to
have the boys around. She was not as kind to Cousin Sue. Sometimes at
supper, which usually consisted of pale scrambled eggs and toast and
cracked cocoa, Cousin Sue would be taken with a violent fit of sneezing.
This always exasperated Aunt Sarah. After Cousin Sue had sneezed twice,
Aunt Sarah would hit the table with the handle of her knife.

"Leave the room, Sue," she would say, "until you have stopped
sneezing."

Both Aunt Sarah and Cousin Sue were interested in Unitarianism and
homeopathic medicine, but their absorption in the Brills transcended
these. Cousin Sue was enormously proud that the family was connected
with the Brills. She was always looking for signs of genius in the Brill
children, although she never deposited money for them in the savings
bank until they were two years old, so that she could be sure they were
not idiots. She got this from Aunt Sarah, who was always afraid that
there might be an idiot in the family, but once this barrier was
crossed, Cousin Sue was sure they were geniuses. Cousin Sue was always
wishing that they could be with us more frequently. Harry was my
contemporary, and Cousin Sue was particularly interested in him.

"If Harry were only here now," she would say, "he would so appreciate
the beauty of it all."

From my acquaintance with Harry I did not think he had much eye for
beauty. He was much more interested in electricity and in jigsaw
puzzles. However, I agreed with Cousin Sue in that I always wished the
Brills were there.

Cousin Clothilde used to bring the children up every summer quite early,
and then a little later generally go abroad with Archie Wright.

Cousin Sue was delighted about Archie Wright. It was so nice, she said,
for Clothilde to marry again, and natural that she should marry such a
brilliant person. Cousin Sue was always anxious to see him and always
hoped that he might come up to Wickford Point. She never could
understand that Archie did not want to see her. She never knew that he
had hidden in the pantry once when she came to New York, and then
escaped through the back door and stayed at the club until Cousin Sue
had returned to Wickford Point. She always wanted until the last day of
her life to have a good long talk with Archie Wright.

When the Brills came down to Wickford Point the whole place changed.
There would be Harry and Sid and the two girls and quite often two maids
to look after them. These maids usually gave notice at the end of two
weeks, but afterwards we always got along. Of course Bella was very
young at that time, and Mary was not much older; nevertheless Cousin Sue
could see what Bella would become eventually.

"Bella is turning into a very beautiful young woman," she used to say.
"She is going to be just like her mother. I do wish the children
wouldn't make such a noise. I cannot hear myself think."

I could understand what Cousin Sue meant. Of course Bella was too young
for me, and I was secretly in love with Mr. Jeffries' daughter up the
road, but when I could remove my mind from this amatory problem, I used
to think that I was Henry Esmond and that Bella was Beatrix Castlewood.
Bella was usually a little cold to me at first because she had been to
Miss Lacey's School and she did not know exactly where I belonged, but
she always got over it in a day or two. She was the one who always
wanted to be doing things. Mary was like Sid and preferred to sit in the
house. Bella used to wander around the place, and after a while her
dresses would get so dirty that no one could do anything with them. She
would keep teasing me to take her for walks or downriver in the canoe
where we could go fishing off the jetty. If it wasn't that, she wanted
me to read poetry to her. She had an astonishingly good memory for
poetry.

"She is certainly going to be a poet like her grandfather," Cousin Sue
said. I never agreed with Cousin Sue, that Bella was as pretty as her
mother. In fact Cousin Clothilde seemed so beautiful that I was almost
afraid of her. She used to stay in bed smoking cigarettes until just
before luncheon, and as she smoked I knew it could not be immoral. She
would send for various members of the family to come to see her while
she lay there.

"You'll have to entertain me, Jim," she said. "I can't be expected to
stay by myself all morning." It never occurred to me to wonder why she
did not get up like the rest of us.

"Tell me what they are doing downstairs," Cousin Clothilde would say.
"What's Aunt Sarah doing? She's vaguer this year than she's ever been
before. I never did like Aunt Sarah. She is really a disagreeable old
woman, and if Sue wants to see me, will you tell her I have a bad
headache, please? She keeps talking and talking until it makes me dizzy.
I don't see how you stand it, Jim dear. I've always said you shouldn't
be left down here. I hope Bella isn't in the cow barn again. When you go
down I want you to get Mary to sort out the stockings in the upper
bureau drawer for me, and I wish you could get Sid to go for a walk with
you and Bella. You're such a comfort, darling. I wish you'd tell me
about Mr. Morrissey. I know he drinks and I do hope he isn't getting
into trouble with any of the maids. You don't think he will, do you?"

"Who? Mr. Morrissey?" I said. "He's married and has two children."

"Darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "that doesn't make a bit of
difference. I wish you could ask them to get me some safety matches and
not these matches that scratch on anything. I really don't see how you
stand it, dear."

"I like it," I said.

"It's all very well to like it," Cousin Clothilde said, "but that's
different from living here all the time. It will be better when you get
to college."

"I suppose so, but I don't mind it here," I said.

"But you mustn't get to like it too much, Jim dear," said Cousin
Clothilde. "I like it too much myself, and it isn't good for anybody."

She treated me exactly as she might have treated someone who was her own
age--which is a very difficult feat for an adult to achieve, for it has
to be spontaneous.

Everyone, with the possible exception of my great-aunt Sarah, took it
for granted that Cousin Clothilde needed a great deal of rest and
personal attention. Consequently Cousin Clothilde arranged things with
no effort on her part so that all the life of Wickford Point revolved
around her whenever she was there. Whether she was in bed or sitting
beneath the oak tree on the bank, she did not like it if anyone else was
busy; yet Cousin Clothilde was not tyrannical like other women I have
known who have dominated their environment. We were never afraid that
she might fly into a temper or that her feelings might be hurt. She
never stooped to any such wiles either consciously or unconsciously. We
all waited upon Cousin Clothilde, and we all came when she called us
because we liked to do so. She had that useful power of making everyone
pleased and anxious to do things for her. Indeed the only person at
Wickford Point who avoided her was my great-aunt Sarah. Aunt Sarah was
too old to say much, and moreover she always seemed to be busy. She kept
working in her garden or walking to the point with her basket for chips,
or up the hill to the pigsty to feed the pigs, moving through a world in
which she could perceive only dimly the shapes of Cousin Clothilde and
the little Brills. Her mind was occupied with vanished personalities,
and ghosts were always walking with her. I can recall only one time when
she sat and talked with Cousin Clothilde as the rest of us did, and that
occasion was rather unsettling.

I think she usually looked upon Cousin Clothilde with disapproval,
because she never had liked people who were not industrious. One
afternoon, however, she came upon Cousin Clothilde sitting on the lawn
under the big oak tree, looking at the river. Cousin Clothilde was in a
light lavender dress and she was looking very pretty, and Aunt Sarah sat
down on the bench beside her.

"Clethra," she said to Cousin Clothilde, "have you finished already with
the washing?" Cousin Clothilde must have been startled, and not without
justice, for Aunt Sarah had mistaken her for my grandmother.

"I am not Aunt Clethra, Aunt Sarah," she said.

"Well, well," said Aunt Sarah, "if you're not Clethra, I'm sure I don't
know who you are. If you want to play a guessing game, I'm sure you may
do so, if you've a mind to, Clethra, but it would be nice to know if
you've done the washing first. Georgianna is getting back this
afternoon."

"But I'm not Aunt Clethra, Aunt Sarah," Cousin Clothilde said. "I'm
Clothilde, Aunt Sarah dear, Georgianna's daughter."

"Well, well," said Aunt Sarah, "it doesn't really signify. Georgianna is
coming back from that farm this evening and it may be that Mr. Hawthorne
is coming too. I should admire it if you put the spare-room bed in
order."

"But my own children are sleeping in the spare room, Aunt Sarah dear,"
Aunt Clothilde said.

"Well," said Aunt Sarah, "I don't see how that signifies, Clethra, if
Mr. Hawthorne is coming. I've watched you this afternoon. You're forever
sitting still and letting me do all the work, and I will not have it. Do
you hear, Clethra? Mr. Brill is rowing across the river this afternoon,
and I shall be sitting here myself."

"Oh," said Cousin Clothilde, "my God! Sue! Where are you, Sue?"

Cousin Sue hurried as fast as she could across the lawn, stumbling
occasionally because she had mislaid her spectacles.

"What is it, Clothilde?" Cousin Sue asked. "Oh goodness gracious, what
is it?"

There were a good many things which Cousin Clothilde did not like, but
there were not many of which she was afraid. In this instance she was
probably more puzzled and exasperated than afraid. It could not have
been mentally comfortable to have been wandering with Aunt Sarah in the
land of shadows.

"She insists that I'm Aunt Clethra," Cousin Clothilde said.

"Oh good gracious," said Cousin Sue. "She isn't Clethra, Aunt Sarah.
She's Clothilde. You remember Clothilde."

"Clothilde isn't grown-up," Aunt Sarah said. "I saw her in the garden
only a few minutes ago."

"Aunt Sarah,"--Cousin Sue sounded as if she were about to
cry,--"Clothilde's grown-up. She married Hugh Brill, don't you
remember? You must have seen one of her children in the garden. It's
time to come into the house now to get your medicine, Aunt Sarah."

"Well," said Aunt Sarah, "it doesn't signify if I get confused
sometimes, does it? If you get to be my age, Sue, as I hope very much
you won't, for your sake, you may grow somewhat confused yourself. Well,
well, I'm sure there's no use upsetting yourself either. It really does
not signify at all, for everything that I have said remains absolutely
true."

She may have been very nearly right that it did not signify at all, for
there had been so many people at Wickford Point that their personalities
did become entangled. Cousin Sue was certainly growing more and more
confused herself.

She was having a very difficult time paying the bills, for instance, and
Cousin Clothilde could never be bothered with them. The children were
always running through the house and Mary was generally having a crying
spell just when it came time to pay the bills; and then Cousin Sue would
keep spilling ink on her checkbook and the balance was never correct;
and besides, the bills were always getting into the wrong cubbyhole in
the block-front desk. Also, more than once Aunt Sarah burned them all up
because she thought that they were some of her old love letters.
Everything else was always being mixed up in Cousin Sue's desk too,
because Bella kept getting into it and fingering all its appurtenances
such as the petrified shark's tooth which our great-grandfather had
brought back from the Galapagos Islands, and the delicate little balance
for weighing letters, and Bella spoiled all the pens because she was
busy writing a story about a girl who lived with a gnome in a castle.
Everything possible was done, of course, to allow Bella to write it,
since she was showing the literary instincts of the Brills, but it was
no help to Cousin Sue.

"There isn't anyone to look after anything," Cousin Clothilde said to me
once. "There ought to be a man to take care of things. Your cousin Hugh
was never interested and Archie has so much else on his mind, and
besides Archie doesn't like it here. There should be some man to do the
bills. I wish that one of the family's old friends would adopt me. It
would be such a beautiful thing to do, and so many of them have so much
money. I'm tired of doing everything for everybody. It's high time that
someone else did."

This idea of adoption was something which Cousin Clothilde brought up
very often, and certainly it might have solved a great many problems.
Her ideas were often logical--but though she wanted things done she did
not want to see anyone do them.

       *       *       *       *       *

I have a different impression of Wickford Point today from any I had
then. Just now, I can see that Wickford Point was like a floating island
that once had been solidly attached to the mainland. I can see it being
severed from realities when I was still very young, and drifting off, a
self-contained entity, into a misty sea. It was a land almost entirely
sufficient unto itself, and governed by the untutored thoughts of
women--although this does not mean that others did not assert
themselves.

The right of self-determination was not even confined to human beings.
When Aphrodite, the tortoise-shell cat, wanted to have her kittens in
the lower bureau drawer in the bedroom above the back parlor, it was
necessary to move a good many things, and as the time for the
accouchement approached, chairs were placed in the upper hall in a sort
of barricade so that Aphrodite would not be disturbed. When Clara, the
old setter bitch given to Cousin Sue by a man whom she had met fishing
for pickerel through the ice in the north pond--when Clara began to get
ugly in about her twelfth year, she would take up a position on the
landing of the front stairs and she was very much upset when anyone came
near her. So we all had to use the back stairs until Clara finally died.
Then there was the trouble with the two cows that were still kept at
Wickford Point. They only gave enough milk to feed Aunt Sarah's two
pigs, so they were not much use to us, and their main desire was to eat
the white phlox in the small garden where the sundial stood. Cousin Sue
told Mr. Morrissey that it would be kinder to let them in. Finally, the
cows were allowed everywhere, until Mr. Morrissey's rheumatism got so
bad that we gave up keeping them. When Hector, the last of the trotting
horses, reached the age of twenty he began kicking out the side of his
box stall, until Mr. Morrissey decided it was better to fix a place for
him in the back shed. It was easier, Mr. Morrissey said, in the cold
weather, to tend Hector there instead of tracking away out to the barn,
and Hector liked it better too. I always remember him sticking his head
out of the back shed by the kitchen door, and he had what was left of
the deep apple pie after Sunday luncheon.

"And why," said Mr. Morrissey, "should not the poor beast have a little
comfort in his old age who has wanted it all his life? He was always
after wishing to be a house dog and not a horse."

Something definite is conveyed by that idea of Wickford Point turning
into a floating island and drifting imperceptibly away from the mainland
of integrated values. It is the same thing that was happening in other
families and social groups cut off from the humdrum discipline of life.
There were no real breadwinners left on the place to convey a healthy
impression of economic necessity, and the nearest thing to economics was
the appearance of dividend checks from two small trust estates which
arrived each month as regularly as the changing of the moon. Thus there
was not much necessity for timekeeping. Mr. Morrissey, whose work with
the two cows had demanded a certain punctuality, never owned a watch. He
had instead a highly developed faculty for telling the hour, both summer
and winter, by the slant of the sun; he was assisted by the whistle of
the blanket mill across the river, which blew at seven o'clock each
morning, and Mr. Morrissey always said that the management of the
blanket mill would not permit the boys to sleep one minute overtime.
However, he was not so sure about the closing whistle.

"Them limbs," Mr. Morrissey used to say,--he always referred to
industrial employers by this uncomplimentary term,--"would be only too
likely to keep the boys and girls inside for five to fifteen minutes
extra."

At one period a man named Mr. Pennybacker came on the trolley car every
Sunday morning, except in very snowy weather, and wound and regulated
all our clocks. This I believe had been my grandfather's idea. These
timepieces used to go reasonably well under Mr. Pennybacker's care until
he had a shock one night in the poolroom over the barbershop downtown.
He appeared at Wickford Point several times after that, but on each
occasion he had forgotten to bring his own watch, so that his visits
were of less and less use. He finally disappeared forever and then the
morale of the clocks began to break. The French clock in the back parlor
became filled with smoke from the fireplace, as Mr. Pennybacker had
always said it would, and then the spring in the kitchen mantel clock
broke; nobody ever could remember to wind the banjo clock upstairs; and
finally the tall clock in the dining room, made on London Bridge in
1682, was the only one which went, but, like Aunt Sarah, its age had
made it eccentric. Its striking mechanism grew disordered and then its
hour and minute hands kept coming loose. Thus it might be nine o'clock
in the morning and the chimes would ring for two and the hands would
point to half-past six. We always kept this clock wound, however,
because Aunt Sarah grew fidgety and nervous when it stopped.

Finally no one ever consulted a clock at all, since it was easier to ask
Mr. Morrissey what time he guessed it was, and, as Cousin Clothilde
said, it didn't really matter. Nothing had ever irked her so much as
punctuality when she was young, and now there was no real reason to be
punctual.

More and more we exercised that marvelous adaptability of the human
race, now that Wickford Point was drifting. As time went on, what was
left of useful frugalities and industries began to assume perverted
forms. Cousin Sue inherited from Aunt Sarah a serious attitude about
string, which grew gradually more pronounced. You never could tell,
according to Cousin Sue, when a piece of string might be a very valuable
necessity, and to illustrate this point she would read us a story from
Maria Edgeworth's _Parents' Assistant_ called "Waste Not, Want Not," in
which the little hero met a dangerous crisis in his life successfully
because he had a piece of string in his pocket. I was so impressed by
this that I carried string in my pocket for several months without ever
finding occasion to use it. There was an Indian jar, placed in a lamp
bracket on the wall of the little parlor, where all string from bundles
was customarily stored. When this became full, string was put in an
Indian basket given to Cousin Sue by some relative unknown to me, who
had been in New Mexico. When this was filled also, string was left
everywhere, and once Cousin Sue dislocated her shoulder by becoming
entangled with some that she had left on the back stairs.

This attitude toward saving things was an instinctive trait in Cousin
Sue. You never could tell, she said, when you might need wrapping paper
or newspaper or copies of the _Atlantic Monthly_, and so all printed
matter was bundled up and placed in the attic. Once a traveling
junk-dealer, who had somehow lost his way from the main road, purchased
an attic full of newsprint for fifty-three cents, and he would have paid
more, too, if the rats and squirrels had not found their way into most
of it. Cousin Sue never wearied of recalling this instance, for it went
to show that there was really a profit in saving. Each year such small
matters assumed an increasing importance at Wickford Point.

Of course, most of us thought that these aspects were intensely amusing,
and they and the personalities at Wickford Point furnished endless hours
of aimless conversation. When I sat in the little parlor and tried to
read, Cousin Sue would often sit there with me and try to read too, but
usually her mind would keep leaving the pages at a tangent. She was
devoted to Aunt Sarah, whom she considered a very important figure,
every one of whose ideas was logical and right, but didn't I think that
Aunt Sarah was getting increasingly difficult? Then there was Maggie,
who worked in the kitchen. Maggie, in Cousin Sue's opinion, was a
thoroughly good woman, much better than that young Josie who had helped
her, and who was always thinking about her husband and her children up
the river. Maggie would be perfectly all right if Clothilde didn't keep
asking her to do so many things that all the food on the stove kept
burning up. Did I know that Maggie believed that the sun danced for joy
on Easter morning, and that she had written to her father in the old
country to send over a blackthorn stick? When did I think that there
were going to be any more kittens, and did I notice that Mr. Morrissey
was unsteady on his feet last Monday? Of course Clothilde had great
responsibilities with all the children, but did I not think that
Clothilde seemed worried about something?

Later in the day Cousin Clothilde would be in the long parlor.

"Thank heavens," she would say, "that Sue is upstairs resting. Close the
door gently, so it won't disturb her. Isn't there some way that Sue
could keep resting all afternoon? Have you seen Bella give the imitation
of her looking for her glasses? I don't know why Sue puts up with Mr.
Morrissey. He's growing lazier every year."

Mr. Morrissey admitted that he was growing lazier. Every dom'd thing,
Mr. Morrissey said, was getting itself broken. Now the hoe was broken
and Miss Sue said she couldn't afford the money to get him a new hoe,
and how could you keep the weeds out of the driveway if you didn't have
a hoe, or hoe the garden either? Nobody ever appreciated what he did
with all the dom'd kids getting into the tool box and losing everything.
And did I know the latest? Mrs. Wright had told him that after this he
was to call us Master Jim and Master Harry and Master Sid. Would you
believe that he could call me Master Jim in a free country after he had
known me all my life? And when he had gone downtown to get the meat the
butcher was worrying about the bill, as though Miss Sue did not have
plenty of money. It was lucky for me that I was going to school and
getting an education. He would not be working here, and that was the
Lord's own truth, if he had an education. His son was learning how to
play a trombone and his daughter was learning French. They were calling
him "lace-curtain Irish" down the street, but this was a free country,
was it not? Had I ever heard, he wanted to know, about the last troubles
in Ireland, and would I like to sit down and hear of them?

It is hard to convey the charm of these random discourses, but they were
of great importance at Wickford Point. The Brills were wonderful at
describing this life. When they returned to the city after the summer
was over, all that they had experienced assumed a social value. The
Brills were always so delightful; such extraordinary things were always
happening to the Brills, things which would never happen to other
people.

I too have dined out on Wickford Point anecdotes quite often, but never
just that way. Somehow I succeeded in leaving that island of
make-believe as it drifted from the shore, and somehow the Brills stayed
with it. No doubt the psychologists have varied names for their
condition, connected in the inartistic way of science with characters in
the mythology of ancient Greece. Still I prefer to think of Wickford
Point as I have started--breaking from the land most of us know, and
floating off into miasmic haze. It was not a bad island either, as such
places go, but dangerous for strangers if they chose to stay too long.

I reached the mainland just in time when I was going on eighteen. It
happened, as the politicians are fond of saying now, because it was
planned that way. I received a letter from Mr. Caldicott, who attended
to the family affairs, saying that he wished to see me in Boston on a
certain day at a certain hour. I had never laid eyes on our trustee, and
Cousin Sue was very much excited. She said that Mr. Caldicott was a
thoroughly nice man and an old friend of my grandfather's, and that Mr.
Morrissey would drive me to the station to take the eight-ten train. Mr.
Morrissey himself was quite excited because no one had been to Boston
for several months. He hitched Hector to the buggy and I put on a suit
of blue serge clothes and a green necktie.

It was necessary to allow a long time to get down to the station because
Hector was growing stiff in the forelegs. I remember the drive
especially because Mr. Morrissey was unusually silent.

"I'll be back tonight," I said. "I'll take the car and walk back through
the woods."

I could see the white smoke of the train already, and when the engine
appeared, moving gingerly up to the river bridge, Mr. Morrissey's manner
struck me as somewhat strange. I have sometimes wondered what he had
heard through that grapevine of intelligence that surrounded Wickford
Point.

"I'm thinking you won't be back for some time, Jim," he said.

"You're crazy, Mr. Morrissey," I said. "Good-by." But Mr. Morrissey was
not crazy. It was a long while before I came back again to Wickford
Point, not perhaps in the space of measured time, but in the important
measure of experience. It was the last time that I was to see Mr.
Morrissey on the basis of the cordial and homely familiarity which had
developed between us. Mr. Morrissey and I would seldom again sit
together drinking hard cider while he regaled me with bawdy stories, and
with gossip about the local girls of easy virtue. I might see Wickford
Point and I might love it still, but I would never be the part of it
which I had been once. Wickford Point could work no magic for me out
where I was going. It was no shield to my sense of inferiority, because
I did not possess the imagination to romanticize it. I felt that I was
different, but unlike the Brills this knowledge gave me no sense of
careless ease, and I was never able to use it as an adequate excuse for
failure.




XVII

_Ante-Bellum Boys_


It might be possible to write another _David Copperfield_, starting at
the ending of that era just before the war, when there was a happy
feeling of certainty about nearly everything. Mr. Caldicott, more than
anyone I have ever known, possessed that sense of certainty. It was
connected somehow with rather dingy marble-tiled office hallways, and
with procrastinating elevators that climbed like spiders through a web
of steel cables. His office was a part of it, with its green baize
tables and black walnut bookcases. Begonias grew in sunny windows
overlooking the gray stones of cemeteries that marked the resting place
of Revolutionary soldiers. Four per cent. meant safety and there was no
income tax on money invested in the securities of Massachusetts
corporations. There were Sunday dinners with roast beef and Yorkshire
pudding, ending with vanilla ice cream and followed by a baseball game
out on the lawn, or by some indoor game of intellect if it were rainy. I
can't remember everything very clearly and I am glad of this, because I
do not think the clumsy uncertainties of adolescent years and their
hideous mistakes and embarrassments are happy recollections.

Mr. Caldicott once said that it was a pity the income from my
grandfather's estate had not permitted me to go to a good preparatory
school before going to Harvard, but that we should have to make the best
of it under the circumstances, and later I found out what he meant.
There was a sort of snobbishness back in those days which seems almost
unbelievable, although perhaps youth is still conventional when it has
turned eighteen. It was necessary then to attach oneself to something
and to be a certain type of person. Harry Brill did not have any trouble
because he came to Harvard from St. Swithin's, where he had learned a
good many of the amenities. I could never have afforded to go, but the
Brill name always seemed to take the place of money. He used to
introduce me to his friends sometimes and he used to tell me what I
should do, and I have always appreciated his generosity. I can
understand now that it was necessary to see the right people and to wear
the proper sort of clothes. It was not surprising under the
circumstances that I barely nodded to Joe Stowe for quite a while,
although we were in a good many courses together. They say that
everything is much better now, beginning with the freshman dormitories
and ending with the Houses, and that all the students know each other
and exchange ideas in a perfect spirit of democracy--but personally I
can hardly believe it.

I did not wish to be on familiar terms with Joe Stowe, because being
seen in his company was not a social asset. During his first two years
at Harvard he did not dress well, and he came from the Woburn High
School. We both went out for the _Crimson_ in our freshman year and we
both were dropped. In the middle of our junior year we were both allowed
to enter an advanced course in English composition, and this was the
first time that we became friendly. It was necessary for us to speak to
each other, because we had to criticize each other's work, and besides
Joe Stowe had begun to learn a good deal about dress and deportment.
Also he had been taken on the _Harvard Advocate_, not that this mattered
very much, but it was something. First we began to talk to each other
after class, and then we went in town to the theater. On one of these
occasions Harry Brill saw us drinking beer in the Holland bar and he
spoke to me the next day.

"You don't want to play around too much with that bird Stowe," he said.
"It won't do you any good."

"I'll play around with anyone I want," I answered.

"All right," said Harry, "but it won't get you anywhere."

It is only necessary to refer to a picture of Joe Stowe taken at that
time to realize what Harry meant. Even the kindly art of a portrait
photographer could not conceal the freckled blotches on his cadaverous
callow face. He was hollow-chested; one of those high stiff collars then
in fashion accentuated the thinness of his neck and made his head with
its reddish hair assume an appearance that was almost botanical. It was
hard to think that Joe Stowe could have looked that way until I examined
similar pictures of myself.

Harry was not referring entirely to Joe's looks either. The last
elections for the Vindex Club were coming off, and as I had not been
able to get into anything else, Harry was doing his best for me. He had
arranged that I should see a good deal of people like Nat Frisbie and
Arthur Wills and Allen Southby, and Harry was telling all his friends
that here was their chance to do something. My attitude, which was
purely defensive, was of no great help. Being reasonably sure that I was
not going to get into the Vindex Club, I had taken a lofty position. I
said to hell with it, that I would join it if they asked me, but I
didn't mind if they didn't, and that I didn't think much of the people
who were in it anyway. I said I didn't think much of Nat Frisbie when it
came to that, but Harry understood me. He knew that I wanted to get into
the Vindex Club; I only hope he never knew how much. It seemed like a
matter of life and death in those days, as though I could not face the
world if I did not make it. That was why I said that I did not give one
solitary whoop in hell and that I probably wouldn't go around there much
anyway.

This point of view alarmed Harry, because he really thought a good deal
of me.

"It's just because they don't know you, Jim," he said, "and it doesn't
do any good to talk like that. If you'll just try to be nice to them
when I bring them around ..."

There is no use going into my social failings; I only bring the matter
up at all because it made me friendly with Joe Stowe. It had never
occurred to me that Joe Stowe also wished to get into the Vindex Club,
having some nave idea that membership was based upon literary merit.

He told me all about it afterwards when he told me about everything. Joe
Stowe used to say that he had had a bad time at Harvard. The Stowes were
a perfectly good family in Woburn and Joe's father owned a small mill
there and had six children. His mother was in the Daughters of the
Revolution and president of the Woman's Alliance. Joe's father was
hard-working, and later became president of the Rotary Club. Joe was
never bitter about Harvard; he simply said he had had a rotten time
because he had expected something different. This expectation was due
largely to his having read too many of the works of Ralph Henry Barbour.
He had thought that one made friends at Harvard by shaking hands with
people, and he did not know that there was anything like a club system.
He did find, though, that he never seemed to meet anybody whom he really
wanted to know, until his junior year. I was surprised to learn from him
that he had harbored an especial aversion to me. He did not like my
accent and he thought I was a snob. He said that he had gone out of his
way on several occasions to be markedly rude, and the worst of it was
that I had never noticed. Later it seemed to him that when he was
cordial and really wanted to be agreeable, his classmates became
suspicious that he was trying to get something out of them. He never
cared for anyone in his class very much. It used to make him
particularly angry when the class secretary in later years wrote him
letters which began "Dear Joe." He could not forget that Nat Frisbie,
who was secretary, had never spoken to him.

If it had not been for the English course, he might never have known me
either, and that course in itself would not have helped if it had not
been for the Vindex Club. He told me once, a long time later, that when
he heard I had not been taken into the Vindex Club he stayed awake a
good part of the night wondering whether or not to speak to me about it.
And he finally did one day. I remember the instance very well, because
it ran completely counter to accepted convention. We were crossing the
Yard over one of those boardwalks between banks of melting snow with our
unbuckled overshoes rattling with every step.

"Say," Joe Stowe said, "I hear you didn't get into the Vindex Club."

It made me turn beet red to have my shame publicly commented on by a
person like Stowe. Even Harry Brill had not ventured to speak of it, and
no one with a proper sense of reticence would have mentioned it aloud.

"What's that to you?" I asked.

Joe Stowe stammered and looked so ashamed of himself that I understood
he had not meant to be unduly familiar.

"I just wanted to tell you I'm sorry," he said, "and they'll be sorry
someday. You and I are the only people anywhere round who can write, and
they didn't take us in. Yes, they'll be sorry someday."

"Well, I don't give a damn," I said.

"That's fine," said Joe. "I was rather afraid you would. Well, that's
all I wanted to tell you."

I felt much better after he had finished, and I was grateful to Joe
Stowe. It seemed as though he were the only person who understood me and
that he and I were apart, watching cynically a misguided mob. It was not
a healthy attitude, but it had its compensations.

The odd thing is that I can still feel a twinge of that old bitterness;
for the hardest thing to live down is some ancient affront to vanity. It
did no good to realize that Joe Stowe and I were much less agreeable
than some of our more precocious classmates, like Harry Brill for
instance, who was able to cover his inadequacies with all sorts of noisy
and eccentric tricks. Joe Stowe and I were slower in developing.

All this may show why Joe and I finally came to know each other so well
and why I brought him to Wickford Point. Cousin Sue kept asking and
asking if Harry and I did not want to bring down some of our friends,
which was the last thing that Harry and I wished, for we were absolutely
certain that no one would understand Aunt Sarah or Cousin Sue at all. It
was not the usual sense of shame that one has for one's parents and
relatives either. We simply knew that Wickford Point was unusually
peculiar. I used to talk with Joe about it--I don't know what ever
started me but I continued because he was interested--and finally he was
always asking about Wickford Point, and he laughed in exactly the right
way about the things I told him. We went down there once in the spring
of our junior year.

"You mustn't mind if it's queer," I said, and Joe said he didn't mind.

It was the middle of April and the frost coming from the ground made
everything wringing wet, giving the woods and fields that sodden,
hopeless look so peculiar to New England in the early spring. While we
waited for the trolley car near the railroad station I began wishing
that I had not brought Joe along, for I was sure that he was not going
to like it. It was already late afternoon and a clammy mist was
beginning to rise over everything now that the sun was going down. The
trolley car was so crowded that there was hardly room for our bags on
the rear platform. It was just the time when the shoe-shop workers, who
lived in the country by the upper bridge, were going home, and Mr.
Riordan, the conductor, was very busy. He kept pushing himself back and
forth sideways in the crowded aisle. When he was ringing up the change,
his mouth was so full of stubs and transfers that he looked like a
retriever, but he had time to get in a word with everyone.

"Spruce Street," Mr. Riordan would call, "Monroe, Buchanan, Elm." I knew
all the names by heart, and Joe said that all the streets in every town
had just about the same names.

Mr. Morrissey came to meet us in the two-seated wagon at Hoskins
Turnout, and Hector, still shaggy in his winter's coat, was unusually
stiff and slow. The road was so thick and muddy that several times we
had to get out and walk in order to help Hector, but Joe did not mind.
It was growing dusk when we started going downhill toward Wickford
Point, and all the trees along the road had the distinguishing features
of old friends, because they were our trees. Joe Stowe had not spoken
for a while, and I began to be afraid again that he would not like it
and that he was growing tired of Mr. Morrissey's retailing all the news.
Josie had two of her children staying on the third floor, and Nauna was
getting feeble in the hind legs. Henry Green, who lived up the road, had
said that he would give me a new Llewellyn bitch, and he had been asking
why I had not been out shooting last autumn. Miss Sarah was getting to
be more of a handful than ever, and they had a new one of those
practical nurses looking after her, named Miss Jellicoe. Then he asked
me if I knew that Miss Bella was down there.

"Miss Bella?" I said. "Why isn't she in school?"

"It seems like there was a little trouble," Mr. Morrissey said, "but it
wouldn't be for me to say at all."

"Who's Miss Bella?" Joe asked.

Hector was holding back against the breeching. The misty dampness by the
river had made us turn up our coat collars. Over in the west by the
hills across the river there was a pink glow in the sky, cold, but not
the cold pink that was there in winter.

"She's a kid," I explained. "She's my second cousin--Harry Brill's
sister. I don't know why she's here. All the Brills are in New York."

"Oh," said Joe, and he did not speak again. I was feeling the old sort
of anticipation which came over me every time I went down that hill,
although nothing had ever come of it. I was feeling that old choking
sense of loyalty for the place and a pleasure so intense in the idea
that I was coming back that any obtuse remark of Joe's would have set
my nerves on edge. I was waiting, just as I always waited, for the first
sight of the house around the turn, and I could see the roofs of the hay
barns already. Then I saw the great elm with the bent limb, bare and
plumelike against the pink of the sky, and then the house with lamplight
in the dining room and parlor windows.

"You see," said Mr. Morrissey, "the crocuses are up."

The twilight silence was broken only by the soft slop of Hector's hoofs
and the turning of the wheels, and there was that first faint scent of
spring which came partly from the earth and partly from the snowdrops
and the yellow and purple crocuses which had seeded themselves upon the
lawn, and partly from the damp bark of the trees and shrubs. There was
no longer the sharpness of winter in the air, and a whiff of wood smoke
went with all of it, showing that someone had put fresh logs on the back
parlor fireplace on hearing the sound of the carriage.

"It's just the way it ought to be," Joe Stowe said. "It's just the way
everything ought to be when anyone comes home."

When we pulled up by the side door, Mr. Morrissey addressed me
confidentially.

"I'll bring a pitcher of hard cider up to your bedchamber," he said,
"after I've put away the horse. Only don't you tell Miss Sue."

The door was opened before we had time to climb down. Cousin Sue was
standing on the threshold, leaning backward on her heels and fumbling
nervously for her spectacles in the pocket of her skirt, and of course
her spectacles were not there.

"How do you do," Cousin Sue was saying, "how do you do." And she nodded
her head vigorously.

"This is Mr. Stowe, Cousin Sue," I said.

"How do you do," said Cousin Sue. "It's so nice of you to come with
everything so soggy underfoot. You must be related to Harriet Beecher
Stowe. I quite see the resemblance."

"Not Harriet Beecher Stowe," Joe answered, and he shook hands.

We were in the side-entry by then.

"Just hang your coat on any peg," said Cousin Sue, "any peg at all." She
was very nervous, as she always was with strangers, and she was now
talking animatedly to Joe.

"I always think of the Stowes as being related to the Hildreths," she
said, "not the Lexington Hildreths, because, of course, he was the one
who kept the two wives and the two families, one at each end of the
town. Of course it isn't nice to refer to, but I suppose you know all
about him. It isn't the Lexington Hildreths but the Duxbury Hildreths,
the ones who were so interested in molasses in the sixties."

That faraway, eerie quality was coming back with the comfortable, musty
smell of the warm side-entry, and I could see all the bedroom candles
safe on their shelf beside the stairs. First I felt the embarrassment
which Cousin Sue always caused me, until I saw that Joe Stowe was not
confused, and what was more he appeared to appreciate her.

"I don't know the Hildreths in Duxbury," he said, "but I wish I did."

Then Bella came running downstairs, jumping down the steps two at a
time. She was all legs and black pigtails, and in the Miss Lacey plaid
school uniform. She stood up on tiptoes and threw her arms around me.

"Jim," she said, "did you bring me any candy?"

"No," I said, "I didn't know you were here."

"Didn't you know?" Her voice was loud with rapture. "Didn't you know I
got suspended, Jim? What do you think of that? It's really true. Isn't
that just too wonderful? I got suspended."

"Bella," said Cousin Sue, "don't do so. Don't talk so. Don't make such a
noise; it will disturb Aunt Sarah. Don't do so. I can't hear myself
think. And this is Mr. Stowe, Bella."

"Oh," said Bella, and she made a curtsy the way her governess had taught
her. "You're sleeping across the hall, Mr. Stowe, and I'm in the big
room where Mother usually sleeps; and Jim, you're in your room in back,
and we all of us use the back bathroom, and I'm coming to talk to you
this evening, Jim, and you needn't try to lock me out, because the lock
on the door doesn't work. So there."

"Bella," said Cousin Sue, "don't talk so. You shouldn't go into Jim's
room, Bella."

"Oh fluff," said Bella. "I always go into Jim's room. If I haven't got
enough on my bed, I'm going in to sleep with him."

"Bella," said Cousin Sue, "don't talk so. Please don't talk so."

Bella was young enough so that it was funny, and even Cousin Sue was
mildly amused, although she was careful of the proprieties.

After we had left our bags upstairs, we came down to the front parlor
where Aunt Sarah was seated in the upholstered chair near the coal
grate, busy making lamplighters from strips of newspaper. When she saw
us, she took off her glasses and blinked and smiled, and Miss Jellicoe
made a series of gentle cooing sounds.

"We've been waiting for them, haven't we, Miss Sarah?" Miss Jellicoe
said.

"Yes, indeed," said Aunt Sarah. "Come here and kiss me, Henry."

"It isn't Henry, Aunt Sarah," Cousin Sue said. "It's Henry's son. It's
Jim. And he's brought a friend from college."

"It doesn't signify, Sue," said Aunt Sarah. "I know Henry when I see
him, but I did not know he was bringing Robert with him. I had thought
that Robert was in Canton."

"It isn't Robert, Aunt Sarah," said Cousin Sue. "It's a friend of Jim's.
It's Mr. Stowe."

In the meanwhile I could hear Miss Jellicoe talking to Cousin Sue in a
hasty undertone.

"I have tried," Miss Jellicoe said, "I have just tried and tried. I've
been over it twice, Miss Sue, but Miss Sarah doesn't seem to understand,
poor darling. It's just as though she didn't want to understand."

"Well, well," said Aunt Sarah, "I guess I know Robert when I see him
without my being told. We must have a good talk later, Robert. How is
the new comprador?"

"He's doing very well," Joe said.

"And I do hope Mr. Lawson Sturgis is not drinking too much."

"No," said Joe. "When I left him, Mr. Sturgis was very well."

"What is she talking about?" Cousin Sue was whispering. "I don't know
what she's talking about." And for that matter neither did anyone else,
but one could not help being interested. For a moment a veil was lifted
from a mysterious past, and Joe was neither puzzled nor alarmed. He was
perfectly polite as he wandered with Aunt Sarah in that past.

"I suppose the Merediths were there?" Aunt Sarah said. "How were matters
on the islands?"

"Much the same as usual," Joe answered.

"You gave the packet to Mr. Thurston, I hope," Aunt Sarah said. "I do
hope the queen is learning her alphabet."

"Yes," said Joe, "the queen can almost read by now."

"Dear me," said Aunt Sarah. "And I suppose you put in at the Ivory
Coast?"

"Yes," Joe said, "we touched there."

"Well," said Aunt Sarah, "the owners must be very pleased."

"Aunt Sarah," said Cousin Sue, "it's just Jim's friend from college.
It's time for you to go now with Miss Jellicoe."

"Well, well," said Aunt Sarah, "it does not signify. I should admire not
to have you continually interrupt me, Sue. It does not signify. He's
made the voyage."

My respect for Joe Stowe had grown enormously and Cousin Sue had also
begun to like him very much. She confided in me that Mr. Stowe was able
to appreciate the beauty of things.

When I poured him a glass of cider upstairs in my room before supper, I
apologized for Aunt Sarah, but he stopped me.

"You mustn't talk like that," he said. "I wouldn't have missed it for
the world."

"But how did you know what she was talking about?" I asked.

"I just guessed it," Joe said. "I had a grandfather who had been to sea
and I used to hear him talk. You mustn't apologize. You ought to be
proud of it."

Everybody liked him and he fitted into Wickford Point as though he
belonged there. Later when we were in our pajamas talking in front of
the fire in my room, he did not seem surprised when Bella appeared with
a bedquilt wrapped around her nightgown.

Bella wanted to tell all about the family, about Cousin Clothilde and
the picture which Archie Wright was painting, and the funny things which
had happened, and about how she had been suspended from school. It
seemed that she had smoked a cigarette at recess on a dare and that Miss
Lacey had found her, and she gave an imitation of just what Miss Lacey
had said.

"It doesn't really amount to anything," Bella explained, "and Clothilde
doesn't really mind. Of course she was annoyed when Archie began to
laugh, but you know the way they all are. Mary cried about it, but
Mary's always crying, and so now I'm down here. I don't like it so much
down here without anyone, and Aunt Sue just talks and talks. You know
how she is. And this new one, this Miss Jellicoe, is perfectly horrid,
really, Jim. She keeps correcting me and doing mean things. Of course
Miss Lacey will have to take me back. Clothilde says she can't afford
not to, considering my name and family, and besides I'm doing awfully
well in English. I'm going to be a writer. What do you think of that?"

It was amusing to hear her but I don't think either Joe or I felt quite
at ease having Bella sitting cross-legged on my bed with her two black
braids hanging in front of her and looking something like one of the
Italian pictures in the Art Museum. We were more prudish in those days.

"Aren't you going to give me some cider?" Bella asked. "Mr. Morrissey
always does. You needn't look that way, Jim."

"All right," I said, "here's some cider. Suppose you keep quiet now, we
want to talk."

"All right," said Bella. "Tell him about Wickford Point. Let's sit up
and talk all night. Nobody will know."

Joe and I had been talking about sex before Bella came in, and now the
subject was barred. As I look back upon it, we talked a good deal about
sex in those days, with very little personal experience. We never should
have thought of carrying on with nice girls as one did in the postwar
decades, although of course we all knew or had heard of girls who would
co-operate in a certain amount of mild experimentation. It was a
strait-laced age, when nearly everyone was amazingly pure. We sat there
for a long time, while I told stories about Wickford Point and then
Bella suggested more stories, and finally what with the cider and the
smoke in the room her head began to nod.

"You'd better go to bed," I said.

"Oh fluff," said Bella, "I'm not sleepy. Please Jim, we're having such a
good time."

"We're all going to bed," I said. "We're all sleepy."

"All right," said Bella. "Kiss me good night." And I kissed her. Then
she did a surprising thing, and perhaps it may have been a fatal thing,
although she was scarcely eleven years old, and it should have made no
difference. She walked over to Joe and kissed him too.

"Good night, Joe," she said. "At first I thought you were perfectly
horrid, but now I think you're awfully nice. You'll come down and stay
here for a long while in the summer, won't you?"

"Well now," Joe said, "would you really like to have me?"

"Everybody would," said Bella. "Well, good night."

It was cloudy over the river, but the clouds were not thick enough to
blot out a faint light of the moon, and so everything outside was either
black or misty white. The lines of everything were like the work in a
Chinese landscape. I had never seen Joe look so happy. You might have
thought it was the first time he had ever fitted in anywhere, and his
mind was all full of ideas. He did not want to go to sleep.

"We might go to Canton, you know," Joe said. "We might get a job in the
Standard Oil."

"Yes, we might," I said. And then his mind returned to Bella.

"She isn't like Harry," he remarked.

"No, she isn't," I said, "but all of them are pretty queer."

"Now don't talk like that," Joe answered, and he looked indignant.
"That's a stuffy way of putting it. I don't believe they are."

I have often thought of that scene since, and I have often had the
futile wish that everything might have remained as it had been in my
warm smoky room that night, with Bella just a little girl with long
black pigtails and violet eyes and red lips; and that was how Joe Stowe
felt about it later. Already he was beginning to like Wickford Point and
Cousin Sue and Aunt Sarah, and he was never able to forget the time that
he had first seen them on that day when the frost was coming out and
when the air was cool and damp with spring.

I was so nearly asleep that I was only conscious of the sound of the
wind in the pines by the point, when another sound disturbed me.

"Who's that?" I asked. "What is it?" And Bella's voice answered from the
dark.

"It's me, Jim," she said. "I'm just opening the door between our rooms.
You don't mind, do you?"

"No," I answered. "What's the matter? Are you afraid of the dark?"

"It's lonely in there," she said. I could not see her, and her voice
came out of nowhere, like a spirit's trying plaintively to make itself
understood. "I'm lonely and I get to thinking that no one is just like
me. Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes," I said, "I know, but you'd better not think that way." We forget
so often that personality is almost completely developed around the age
of four.

"I can't help it," Bella said. "I just keep thinking that I'm different
from everybody else and it makes me lonely when I try to be like other
people."

"Well, don't let it worry you," I said.

"I wish there were some people who were like us," Bella said. "I wish
that Mr. Stowe was like us."

"How do you know he isn't?" I asked.

"I just know," she answered. "He isn't like us."

"Well, it's a fine thing that everybody isn't," I said.

There was a silence before she spoke again, as though she were thinking.

"I think I'll go to China, Jim," she said.

"Leave the door open and go back to sleep," I told her. "I'm tired."

There was one thing about her which was a comfort: she was still young
enough to do what you told her....

"You must come again, Mr. Stowe," Cousin Sue said. "Come again when it
is not soggy underfoot."

But things moved so quickly then. He always talked of coming, but he did
not come again until Aunt Sarah died.




XVIII

_The Service Will Be Held_


Students have a very tiresome way of analyzing fiction. When I was at
Harvard all the types of narrative were labeled and classified like
beetles in a case, and of them all there was one variety that I felt was
peculiarly awkward. It was called the "peep-hole method," in which the
story is told by someone who keeps seeing the main characters at odd
moments. I still think it is dangerous, but I do not know any other way
to tell about Bella and Joe Stowe.

       *       *       *       *       *

The war started before Aunt Sarah died. Cousin Sue used to tell me that
she had shown a real interest when they read to her about the German
atrocities in Belgium, although I did not entirely believe it. Her death
was not hard for anyone except Cousin Sue, who had been devoted to Aunt
Sarah so long that she was suddenly entirely without occupation.
Identical telegrams were sent to Harry and me at Cambridge in October,
1916, our last year there.

"Aunt Sarah passed away quietly and suddenly," they read. "Funeral the
day after tomorrow."

I was talking to Joe Stowe when mine arrived, and Harry came in shortly
afterward. Our paths had grown so divergent that I had not seen Harry
for quite a long while. He was engaged in a great many activities that
kept him out of his room most of the time--which was just as well, as
he was having a great deal of trouble with his bills. He had owed a
clothing bill for two years, and then there was a set of Balzac's _Human
Comedy_ and a special edition of the unabridged _Arabian Nights_ and
some other similar items purchased from a book agent, and a typewriter
and a camera. The installments on all these were overdue, and the
representatives who kept coming in to see him so disturbed his work that
he was better off somewhere else.

"Well," Harry said, "that's that. I suppose everybody's got to go down
there." He showed no great interest in the event; not that he was
hard-hearted, he was simply very busy and absorbed in his own affairs.

"I wonder if Archie will come," he said. "I suppose someone will bring
the girls. It's a nuisance, isn't it?"

"Well," I said, "we'd better go down on Friday morning."

Death was so far from us in those days as to be an impossible personal
contingency. We could only consider the details and hope that everything
would be done properly.

"It's really going to make things a whole lot easier," Harry said. "We
ought to be able to bring some friends down now sometimes. I suppose
we'd better take the nine o'clock train. I'll sleep on the couch here if
you don't mind, and then those bill collectors won't get me."

He kept looking at Joe Stowe while he was speaking, obviously annoyed by
his gaucheness in not leaving. I wondered myself why he kept on staying.

"Do you think it would be all right," Joe asked, "if I went down too?"

Harry raised his eyebrows, a trick he had learned recently and one that
I knew annoyed Joe.

"I did not know that you'd ever seen her, Joe," he said.

"I took him down last spring," I answered.

"I liked her," Joe said. "I'd like to go, if you don't mind."

"Of course we don't mind," said Harry. "Come ahead. I don't see why you
liked her. I never did." But Harry was displeased, and he said so after
Joe left.

"Now that goes to show you," Harry said.

"Show me what?" I asked him.

"It goes to show," Harry said, "what happens, Jim, when you play around
with anyone like that. What made you take him down there? Now he's
trying to suck up to everyone. He knows you can't refuse when he asks to
go to a funeral."

"He never had any such idea," I said.

"Oh," said Harry, "didn't he?" And he raised his eyebrows again. "Now
I've told you and I've told you that you have to be careful about the
people you are seen with. You've been seen with Stowe so much that
you've ruined yourself. A lot of people have told me that, Jim. A lot of
people were beginning to like you before you started playing around with
Stowe."

"You go to hell," I said. "He's a friend of mine."

"All right, all right," Harry said, "but it doesn't help you to play
around with someone who hasn't your background, and it's bad for Stowe
too, Jim. You ought to think of that. It's the sort of thing that gives
a man like Stowe ideas. The next you know he'll be trying to marry Mary,
and how would you like that? You've got to think of those things, Jim."

"Don't worry," I said. "He wouldn't look at Mary."

"Well, why wouldn't he look at Mary I want to know?" Harry said. "Mary's
all right, isn't she? He's just the sort of person who might marry her
on account of her name."

"What about her name?" I asked. Harry looked pleasant and raised his
eyebrows again.

"It's time you faced facts, Jim," he said. "If your name's Brill you can
meet all the right sort of people. Look at the people in New York. Look
at the people in Boston who know the Brills. Personally I don't care,
but Stowe's just the kind who would think of that. He could go anywhere
he wanted if he were married to a Brill."

I began to laugh.

"You know damned well," said Harry, "that the only way you've ever
gotten anywhere is because you're connected with the Brills."

"But you were just telling me," I said, "that I haven't gotten
anywhere."

"Well, it's your own fault if you haven't," Harry said. "I've done
everything I could--every single thing. It isn't my fault if you haven't
taken advantage of it. It isn't my fault if you don't see the right
people."

"Well, never mind," I said.

"All right," said Harry, "I won't. I don't want to make you mad, Jim."

Harry was generally worried about seeing the Right People. It was his
opinion that if you just met the Right People everything else would
happen automatically. They would ask you to parties and for long visits
in the summer. When you were through with college, the Right People
would give you a job and the Right People would see that you met the
Right Sort of Girl. Harry knew lots of the Right Sort of Girls, and he
used to go to call on them every Sunday. Harry was always trying to
reduce life to a simple formula. He never could get it out of his head
that there was an easy way to learn everything and an easy way to do
everything.

There is an irony in this philosophy which struck me as we grew older.
Without trying to meet the Right People, I managed to get along as well
as Harry. I do not mean that Harry was unpleasant in his efforts. He had
that complete confidence of all the Brills that he was always wanted
everywhere. Later, when we came back from the war, I have known him to
go to a great many dances where he was not asked, and even once or twice
to Long Island for the week end when he was not asked either, simply
because he honestly believed that there had been some mistake about the
invitation.

Aunt Sarah's was the first funeral in the family which I can remember
clearly, but almost instinctively I knew what it would be like. Everyone
was there whom one expected. Cousin Clothilde and Archie, and Sid, who
was wearing one of his first pairs of long trousers, and Mary and Bella
had arrived the night before. They were all at the door to meet us when
Mr. Morrissey drove us from the turnout, and this time Wickford Point
was beautiful, not gray as it had been in spring, but brilliant clear
and cool in the October sun, and as motionless as though it stood
reflected in still water. The poplars on the hill had turned to a
flashing gold. The elms were the yellow of imperial China and the ferns
on the riverbank were orange, and the leaves of the great oaks along the
bank had begun to turn into a dull garnet-red. Thus everything at
Wickford Point, and all the distant bank across the river except for the
stands of pine trees, was yellow-red or orange, or else dull brown, and
above it all was the October sky, as benign as a sky in the tropics, and
the river below made a path of deeper blue.

Archie Wright said that the whole color scheme arranged by nature was in
excruciatingly bad taste, and that he never had liked railroad posters.
I accepted this, because it was exactly what Archie Wright would say;
one had to remember also that Archie Wright was having a disagreeable
time. It had not occurred to him that he would be the eldest male in the
family, and when he discovered it, he left the house for a long walk.

Cousin Clothilde did not look happy; she had always made it clear that
anything to do with death disturbed her very much. First she kissed
Harry and then she kissed me, and then, when I had kissed Mary and
Bella, I introduced Joe Stowe.

"This is Mr. Stowe," I said. "He knew Aunt Sarah." Although Cousin
Clothilde looked puzzled, she was very polite, because she always did
like men.

"It's so nice of you to come, Mr. Lowe," she said. Then Cousin Sue was
shaking hands with him and she began talking quickly while we were still
there on the driveway.

"Mr. Stowe is so familiar with such things," she said, "you don't happen
to remember when Aunt Sarah was born, do you, Mr. Stowe?"

"My dear," said Cousin Clothilde, "how should Mr. Lowe know when Aunt
Sarah was born? I'm sure I've never heard."

"Well, there's no harm in asking, is there?" said Cousin Sue. "It was
all in the family Bible, the large one, the Breeches Bible. It isn't my
fault if I can't remember where it was put, Clothilde. It always used to
be in the cupboard by the back parlor fireplace."

"Perhaps I can help you find it," Joe said. "I'd really like to help."

"How nice of you, Mr. Lowe," said Cousin Clothilde. "Mary, will you
please go with Cousin Sue and Mr. Lowe, and Harry, will you walk to the
point and see if you can find Archie? Jim darling, I want you to come
upstairs with me. You're always such a help, darling; and Bella, I want
you to see that no one knocks on the door, no one, I don't care who it
is. Oh my God, there's that undertaker again. Will you speak to him,
please, Jim?"

Mr. Mason, perspiring freely in a heavy Prince Albert coat, appeared
around a corner of the house, carrying a heavy camera on a tripod.

"Hello, Jim," he said.

"Hello," I said. "What's the camera for, Mr. Mason?"

"I just brought it along in the hearse," Mr. Mason said, "in case
someone wanted a picture. Lots of people like pictures."

"I'd put it back if I were you, Mr. Mason," I said. "I don't think
anyone wants a picture."

"Well, you never can tell," said Mr. Mason. "I'm just trying to do
everything I can. Listen, Jim. Now they say they don't want the hearse.
They're taking her up there in a farm wagon. Now that's no way to carry
Miss Sarah."

"You'd better do what they say," I said.

"Listen, Jim," said Mr. Mason, "do they want the coffin open, or do they
want it closed?"

"How should I know?" I asked. "It isn't up to me."

"Well, it's got to be up to somebody, Jim," said Mr. Mason. "Miss Sue
wants it open and Mrs. Wright, she wants to arrange the flowers and she
won't go into the room unless it's closed. Now which is it I'm going to
do, Jim?"

"I don't know," I said. "I'll tell you later."

"I'm just trying to oblige, you understand," said Mr. Mason. "I've
buried nearly everybody downtown and most of them like the coffin open."

"Jim," Cousin Clothilde called, "Jim. What are you talking to him for?
Will you please send that man away?"

It suddenly occurred to me that I was the one who must do everything.
Harry had gone to find Archie Wright and I knew he would not come back
for as long a time as possible. I had to do something about which I knew
nothing, and the only possible one who might be of assistance would be
Joe Stowe.

"Jim," said Cousin Clothilde, "come upstairs and bring some cigarettes
if you have any, and Bella, no one is to knock on the door."

Cousin Clothilde, once she was up in her room, seated herself upon an
ancient chaise-lounge which had been my grandmother's, and leaned back
upon the faded upholstery and closed her eyes.

"Darling," she said, "give me a cigarette and see if you can find
something to put over my feet. My feet have been as cold as ice ever
since I came into this house last night. There always has been something
wrong with my circulation when I'm nervous. I can't do everything, can
I, Jim? I never _have_ liked funerals. And what do you think happened
last night? Just as soon as I got into the house, Josie and that Miss
Jellicoe wanted me to come--wanted me to come to see how Aunt Sarah
looked--when she was laid out."

"Laid out?" I repeated.

"It's something they do to dead people," Cousin Clothilde went on. "I'm
not quite sure what it is, but I nearly got in there before I
understood. And then Sue's feelings were hurt because I didn't want to
see Aunt Sarah, and then her feelings were more hurt when I wouldn't let
Bella and Mary see her. These things they do about dead people are so
terrible. That frightful undertaker you were speaking to--he really
seems to act as though he liked it, and I can't do everything, can I,
Jim?"

"No," I said, "of course you can't."

"And no one has been here to help me at all," said Cousin Clothilde. "I
don't know where Archie is. You might think he would have stayed in the
house now that everyone will be coming in just a little while. Your
cousin Harriet isn't here yet, and she's the one who always manages
funerals. It isn't really as though you or I or Archie or someone had
died, dear, and Sue is so unstrung. She's been up here talking to me and
talking and you know what her voice is like when she's excited. It goes
right through my ears as though I had an abscess. I don't know why Harry
can't ever do anything. He has just gone away somewhere. I wish you'd
hold my hand. No one has paid any attention to me all morning."

I held her hand and it was very cold. Her last words gave me a strange
suspicion that she was jealous of Aunt Sarah.

"It really isn't as though it were you or I or Archie," she said again.
"She was so dreadfully old."

"What do you want me to do?" I asked.

"I have to arrange the flowers," Cousin Clothilde said, "down there in
the back parlor. She's in the back parlor now, and no one else can make
the flowers look well. I certainly don't want Sue to try to do it, and I
certainly don't want that man to touch them. The whole place is full of
flowers and they keep coming and coming. I can't go in there, Jim, with
the coffin open. I want you to go down there first and close it."

Cousin Clothilde got up from the chaise-longue.

"I don't suppose it would be right to bring the cigarettes down," she
added.

"No," I said, "I don't suppose it would."

"I always can arrange flowers better if I stop and smoke a cigarette and
look at them," Cousin Clothilde said. "I shouldn't mind, but someone
might come in, that man or someone, and Aunt Sarah never did like to see
me smoke. Do you think my dress is all right, dear? It's one that
Archie's fond of."

Her dress was dark blue, very long, and it fell in folds like a Grecian
drapery--not mourning, for the family did not believe in mourning. We
walked downstairs together into the dining room first, where Josie, with
two girls to help her, was arranging plates on the table. One of the
girls was Luella Jeffries, whom I had loved once, but that was all as
irrevocable now as what had happened to Aunt Sarah.

"Good morning, Luella," I said, and I didn't even feel a twinge when I
said it. Josie came up to me and whispered, because it was a time to
speak in whispers:--

"We have the nicest piece of ham, Mr. Calder. Cold ham and cold roast
beef and hot potatoes. That was dear Miss Sue's idea and we wanted to do
everything for dear Miss Sue. Mr. Calder--have you seen her yet?"

"Who?" I asked.

"Dear Miss Sarah," Josie whispered. "She's in the back parlor now in
that black silk dress, the one that dear Miss Sarah was so fond of."

"I'm going in to see her now," I said.

Cousin Clothilde and I walked through the front entry and into the front
parlor and there we found Cousin Sue sitting with Joe Stowe. Cousin Sue
got up hastily when we entered and dropped her handkerchief and her
spectacle case upon the floor.

"Oh good gracious," she whispered, and Joe picked them up.

"Jim," Cousin Sue whispered, "I wish to speak to you privately for a
minute. No, I'd rather that you didn't hear, Clothilde. Will you come
into the front entry?"

As she walked into the front entry I noticed that Cousin Sue kept
fumbling in the pocket of her skirt.

"Are you going in to see her now?" Cousin Sue whispered.

"Yes," I said.

"She's very beautiful," Cousin Sue whispered. "Here's her knife."

"Her what?" I said.

"Her knife," whispered Cousin Sue. "You remember her knife, of course,
that she always carried in her pocket when she went walking? You
remember how she said she wished to be buried with it? If I go in they
would ask me what I was doing, and then they would take the knife away
from her. You know what I mean."

I took the heavy worn clasp knife, and for the first time I realized
that all of Wickford Point was close to tears.

"All right," I said, "but I'd better close the lid of the coffin so that
no one else will see it."

"Thank you," whispered Cousin Sue. "She will appreciate it so."

I put the knife in my side pocket and I heard the tall clock in the
dining room striking nine, although the hour was eleven-thirty. I wanted
to tell Cousin Sue that I was sorry, but instead I opened the door of
the back parlor and closed it behind me carefully, so that the latch
hardly clicked.

I could see the sun on the lawn outside, and the yellow leaves of some
birch trees by the river, but they seemed a very long distance off now
that I was alone. The coffin was at the far end of the room, beneath two
pictures of Wampoa harbor that showed the Mandarin barges and foreign
ships at anchor. The air was heavy and sickly sweet with the scent of
flowers, and the chairs and sofas had been arranged--first the
Chippendales and the Queen Annes, and then the banister-backs and the
ladder-backs--ready for the family. Those empty chairs gave an air of
hushed expectancy as they waited for the end of something which was
already ended. I walked between them, trying not to hit them, and looked
down at my great-aunt's face. The features were unfamiliar, hardly
bearing the family resemblance, for she belonged already to the greater
family of the dead. I laid the knife beside her and closed the lid of
the coffin. Then I opened the door of the small parlor and told Cousin
Clothilde to come in.

Mr. Beardsley, the Unitarian minister, arrived at twelve, while Cousin
Clothilde was still busy with the flowers. Harry and Archie Wright were
both in the parlor by then, and Archie seemed delighted to see me. He
wanted me to go outside with him, but Mr. Beardsley wished to review the
selections he was to read. He outlined them carefully, sitting in the
very chair in which he had once sat upon Aunt Sarah's cat.

"But you have forgotten one thing," said Cousin Sue. "There is no poem
of Mr. Brill's."

"That's true," said Harry. "People will be expecting a poem of
Grandfather's."

"Why?" asked Archie Wright. "She wasn't married to a Brill."

Cousin Sue's spectacle case slid from her lap and she stooped to pick it
up.

"Aunt Sarah always read a poem of his," she said, "every evening, just
before bedtime."

Mr. Beardsley looked at Harry.

"Can you suggest any particular poem?" he asked.

"Well, no," said Harry, "not at this instant."

There was a moment's silence. "Isn't there a poem called 'Wickford
Elegy'?" Joe asked.

"That's just the one I was trying to remember," Harry said. "Do you
think you can find it, Joe?"

Archie Wright put his hand on my shoulder.

"Jim," he whispered, "let's get out into the fresh air." I walked with
him down the little path to the drive.

"There they go," he said, "bringing in the Brills. There's something
about New England that's always terrible. Look at the faces, look at the
house, look at the trees, look at the sky. No wonder Clothilde gets
nervous when she's here. What's she doing now?"

"Arranging the flowers," I said.

"There wouldn't be anything to drink in the house, would there?"

"Mr. Morrissey keeps some hard cider up in the barn," I said.

"Well, let me be a hypocrite and drink some hard cider up in the barn,"
said Archie. "Please help me just as soon as possible to be a
hypocrite."

"Why don't you like it here?" I asked him.

"Because there's nothing natural," said Archie, "not even the trees. Not
even the vegetation has ever obeyed a human impulse. Are you sure
Clothilde is busy with the flowers?"

Archie Wright did not need to tell me he was agitated. It may have been
that he was like Cousin Clothilde, used to receiving a certain amount of
attention.

"I don't want any of this when I die," said he. "My God, here comes the
minister."

It was true; Mr. Beardsley was walking up the drive to join us, a small
stoutish man with beetling brows and iron-gray hair.

"A beautiful day," said Mr. Beardsley, "a perfect day."

"Yes," said Archie. "It is a perfect day."

"I hope," said Mr. Beardsley, "that the day is some consolation for the
sadness that brings us all together. It is true justice that another
artist should be here. This has been the gathering place of many writers
and artists, Mr. Wright. I have heard Miss Sarah say that Hunt was here
often in his youth."

"I hope you don't consider Hunt an artist," said Archie.

"Fashions change, I suppose," Mr. Beardsley said. "This is a day of
change. It is so hard to keep up with the alterations of the world,
although I always try. It seems only yesterday that Jim was a little
boy. Jim, can you tell me what they have decided? Will the casket be
open or will it be closed?"

Everyone was beginning to arrive--all the friends and all the family. A
great many must have come up on the eleven o'clock train from Boston,
and they were driven out by the new taxi service. Mr. Caldicott came in
the first cab with Mr. and Mrs. Bissell, who had been friends of Mr.
Hugh Brill and old friends of the family. Mr. Caldicott nodded to Archie
Wright without bothering to shake hands, and asked me to take him into
the house where he said he would sit and wait because he did not wish to
meet anyone. Then came Cousin Harriet and Cousin Tom Wills and their son
Roger. In three minutes Cousin Harriet had her husband and Roger and Mr.
Mason working out the seating arrangements, placing the family in one
room and all the neighbors in the small back parlor; and she had Archie
Wright collecting the cards that had come with flowers. She found time
also to kiss Harry and me moistly.

"Darling boys," she said to us, "darling, darling boys. You are such a
comfort to everyone, I know. And darling Sue and darling Clothilde.
Where is Godfrey Caldicott? I must see Godfrey Caldicott."

We all knew she wanted to see Mr. Caldicott about the will, and of
course the will was the only reason why Mr. Caldicott was there at all.
Then all the neighbors began to arrive, most of them old people from the
river farms who had known Aunt Sarah once. They came driving up in
buggies, and Mr. Morrissey helped to tie the animals around the barn.
They all came crowding into the house silently, and I took my place with
the family in the back parlor.

"Where is Mr. Lowe?" Cousin Clothilde whispered.

I shook my head because I did not know where he was; and there was no
time to find him, for Mr. Beardsley had risen with his book. He was
beginning to speak in a thin solemn voice, and I wondered if anyone
really listened to him or whether his words moved only half-heeded
through the thoughts of others as they did through mine. I could hear
the cadence of his voice and that was all, nothing but the measured rise
and fall of syllables.

I was not thinking that Aunt Sarah was dead, because that was an
accepted fact; I was thinking rather of her absence. She had gone, and
she had taken Wickford Point with her. The house, the parlor, and the
books had their familiar appearance; but now everything about them that
mattered was going, moving into space like the echoes of Mr. Beardsley's
psalm.

It was a shocking sort of illusion, and I wondered if other people also
had it. There was no way of telling from the polite attention of their
faces, but everything about me felt as empty as Mr. Beardsley's words
and as devoid of any definite meaning....

"Easy, boys," said Mr. Mason. "Up a little higher in front. That's it.
Take it easy. Norman, get the flowers now, and hurry."

We were out of the house again in the sunlight, and Aunt Sarah was in
the farm wagon, and we were following behind, up the hill to the
cemetery. I did not notice who was walking beside me until I heard Joe
Stowe speak.

"Jim," he said, "isn't Mrs. Wright wonderful?"

"Yes," I said, "she is."

It was not that I loved Aunt Sarah, because she was too old to love. I
had not believed it possible that she could take everything away. When
it was over, I saw that no one felt as I did, except possibly Cousin
Sue.

There was relief in the sound of the clattering dishes and the voices
when we all returned to the house for lunch.

"Jim darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "will you see if you can get me a
glass of water? And then I wish you would find your friend, Mr. Lowe."

"Stowe," I said.

"Why didn't you tell me before, darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "that I
wasn't calling him by his right name? I think your friend is charming.
Why haven't you ever spoken of him? You're so queer about things, Jim.
And Archie thinks he's charming too. He's the first Harvard man Archie's
ever liked."

"I'll find him," I said. "Do you think it would be all right if I went
out for a while after lunch?"

She looked up at me quickly.

"Why, of course, dear," she answered. "We feel the same way about
things, don't we? Isn't the family dreadful? Everyone is always dreadful
at a funeral. Harriet will be wanting Mr. Caldicott to read the will,
but there's no reason for you to be there. Mr. Stowe can stay and play
with the little girls. He's such a help."

Upstairs in my bedroom closet my clothes were in exactly the same
disorder as when I had last left them. I put on rubber boots and a
canvas shooting coat. My shotgun, a Purdy which had belonged to my
grandfather, was in its case on the closet shelf with a box of shells
beside it. I walked down the back stairs carefully and found Nauna, my
setter bitch, under the tubs in the laundry. She was growing very slow
and stiff, but when she saw the gun and coat, she scrambled out, whining
and wagging her tail. The paddles were where I had left them in the old
barn harness room, and the canoe was under scrub birch on the point. I
shoved the canoe through the brown grass into water and lifted Nauna
aboard. As I did so, I could hear the pine trees whispering above the
scrape of the canvas against the grass, and for the first time that day
I felt a sense of deep relief. The gun and the canoe and the ooze of the
mud beneath my feet were things which Aunt Sarah had not taken.

My hand was on the stern and I was just about to get in, when I heard
someone calling me and saw Bella standing on the bank.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"Upriver," I answered, and I knew what she would be asking next.

"I don't care if I get dirty," she said. "I want to go."

"All right," I said. "Come here." I waded back, picked her up, and set
her beside Nauna in the canoe.

"You're going up the creek after woodcock," she said, "aren't you? I
guessed you were as soon as I saw you going out of the barn. I was
afraid you were going to take Mr. Stowe. I'm glad you didn't. He
wouldn't understand as well as me."

"Sit in the middle and don't move around," I said.

We were out of the grass by then and just on the edge of the channel. A
light breeze sprang up, heavy with the muddy smell of water and with the
cool faint odor of withered pickerel weed and wild rice.

"You know what I mean," she said. "He wouldn't understand."

"Don't talk so much," I told her. I could hear the waves slap against
the bow, not loud, but gentle and definite.

"All right," she answered, "I won't talk."

It took half an hour to reach the creek. It would have been easier to
walk if Nauna had been up to it. I wanted to get her to the covert
fresh, because she was still a good worker for short periods and not as
flighty and wild as she had been once. I had bought her from Nathan
Stoddard down at the old Stoddard farm near the river bend, and Nathan
Stoddard had trained her himself. We passed his house just before we
turned into the creek, and there he was, a heavy man with a drooping
gray mustache, seated under an elm tree near the bridge. He said he
wasn't feeling so well what with the rheumatism and the water in his
leg, or else he would have been down to the funeral, except that maybe
Miss Sue would not have wanted to see him. This was true, for it had
always been Cousin Sue's and Aunt Sarah's conviction, fortified by
general gossip in the neighborhood, that Nate Stoddard was immoral. When
he saw Bella, he looked more cheerful, for he still had an eye for the
girls.

"Ain't she grown?" he said. "My, my, ain't she pretty! Just like
Clothilde. Are you going up to the Nason covert? There ought to be a
bird in there." He groaned and pulled himself up from the log where he
was sitting.

"I never thought it would git to this," he said. "Have you got the
Purdy?"

I pointed to the gun where it lay against the thwart.

"Now shoot quick," he said. "If you can't see, shoot at the sound, and
keep the bitch in. I wish I was going."

"Come ahead," I said, but I hoped he wouldn't. I wished that everyone
were not growing so old. I wondered if he would take away something when
he died.

"I guess I ain't up to it, Jim," he said. "The water keeps gitting into
my leg. The doctor says it's a sight. When the water gits into it, it
swells like a balloon. Mind you shoot quick ..."

The tide was running out, but it was still high enough so that I had to
duck my head when I pushed the canoe under the wooden bridge. Just as I
did so, he called to me again.

"What?" I called back.

"Who did Miss Sarah leave her part at Wickford to?" he called, and I
said I didn't know.

There was plenty of water in the creek, and there was a chill autumnal
feeling above the water now that the afternoon sun was getting low--just
a touch of that congealing dampness which would turn into thick white
ribbons of mist at sunset. The trees close to the bank cast shadows over
the brown surface, and little puffs of breeze rattled through the marsh
grasses, which were already sere and frostbitten.

"Are we almost there?" Bella asked. She never could sit still in a canoe
for long. I told her we were nearly there.

"Harry wouldn't do this, would he?" she asked.

I landed the canoe by the stone wall at the place we called Nason's
Landing, and pulled it up on shore. Then I helped Bella and Nauna out
and tied a bell on Nauna's collar. I had to help them both over the
wall and through the barbed-wire fence, where, just as I thought, Bella
tore her dress; but she said she didn't mind. She walked behind me
exactly as I told her, to the place where the maples grew above the
alder thickets. It was beautiful covert, heavy over low damp ground,
just the place where a woodcock flight would stop. There were birds.
They must have dropped in, the night before. I could tell as soon as I
sent Nauna in, and she knew her business too. While I stood at the edge
I could hear the bell, and I could see her quartering back and forth
through the alders and the grass. She was out of sight when the bell
stopped tinkling.

"Stand still," I said to Bella, and then I spoke to Nauna. "Hold it,
girl," I said, "hold still." I saw her motionless, half-crouching, her
tail out straight, and I can remember every second of it--the smell of
the dying leaves and the moist earth, and the way the sun glinted on the
red and gold of the maple. I was glad that I was not dead. There are
some things that stay with you always, more powerful than love or hate.
I knew that nothing that had happened to me was worth a candle to a time
like this.

"Go on," I said, "go on."

The bird came out, a flash of brown, as though someone had hurled it up
from the bushes. For just a second it was outlined against the sky, more
like an abstract problem in marksmanship than a living thing. I fired
and the Purdy jarred against my shoulder. At the same instant that ball
of feathers paused suspended and then dropped down straight.

"Go get her," I called.

"Did you kill it?" Bella asked.

"Yes," I said, but I did not think of it that way. It had been a problem
of ballistics. It was always just like that. Nauna came trotting up,
wagging her tail.

"Drop it, girl," I said, and she dropped the woodcock at my feet and sat
looking up at me while her tongue lolled from the corner of her mouth. I
picked up the bird and smoothed the feathers and examined the awkward
hammer-shaped head and the long bill.

"Let me see," said Bella, and I let her hold it before I slipped it into
my pocket.

"I won't marry anyone," Bella said, "unless he's someone who goes
gunning."

We were having a fine time. I don't remember when I had a better time,
and I wish that Bella could have stayed like that. It might have been
possible if everybody, as she said, had not always sat and talked. We
were away from the talking then. Nothing anywhere around us was
inconsequential, nothing confusing, and we were good companions without
ulterior desires and ignorant of all those strange unknown complexities
developing within us.

I remember what she said when I told her it was time to go. A child has
a strange unclouded understanding. Her dress was torn and her hair was
coming out of its braids where the alder twigs had pulled it. She had
forgotten that she was Bella Brill, and I had forgotten a good many
things about myself, such as Harry and the Vindex Club, and why I did
not get on with people like Allen Southby, and that I was not a success
at college. I had forgotten about the war and the _Lusitania_ and the
troubles on the Texas border, and about what was going to happen to me,
and how I was going to earn my living.

"I wish we didn't have to go back," she said, "not ever."

And I often wish, not so much for myself as for Bella Brill, that we
never had gone back.

We had the tide with us when we were out on the river again so that the
current took us down, and the light was growing golden in the west.

"We can talk now, can't we?" Bella said. It was really the first time
that we seemed to be on an equal footing. She told me a great deal, for
example, of how Archie and Clothilde kept fighting. She said they would
probably be fighting now. And she told me just why she hated Miss
Lacey's School and how she never got on with the other girls, because it
always seemed that she was jealous of them or they were jealous of her.
Miss Lacey thought she had peeked over Nancy Bronson's shoulder during
an examination, and of course she had never peeked, but you couldn't
stop seeing things, could you, if a girl like Nancy Bronson was such a
fool as to leave a paper right under your nose? There were all sorts of
things that she wanted to do, and no one understood her except
Archie--sometimes. She wanted to go out to the war and drive an
ambulance, or perhaps to go on an exploring expedition. There must be
all sorts of places where you could go. Archie wanted to take her to
Italy, but now there was a war you couldn't do that exactly. Archie
always wanted to go to war, and I told her I did, too.

We were back at Wickford Point before I realized that we should not have
gone away. I was just pulling the canoe up and turning it over when
Harry came out to meet us.

"Where have you been?" Harry asked. "This is a hell of a time to go away
and leave me doing everything. It doesn't look right, Jim, with
everybody here, and Caldicott's sore about it too. He wants to talk to
you and he's missed two trains waiting."

"What does he want?" I asked.

"Don't you know what he wants?" Harry answered. "Aunt Sarah's left you
her share of the place."

"She couldn't have," I said. "There must be something wrong."

"Well, she did," Harry said. "There isn't anything wrong about it. As a
matter of fact, everybody's glad. But you should have been here, Jim.
The only one who's mad is Cousin Harriet, and Archie and Clothilde have
been having a fight. What did you get? Anything?"

"Six woodcock," I said.

"Did you?" said Harry. "We could get the steward at the Club to cook
them, if you were only in the Club."

"Well, I'm not," I said.

Harry put his arm around my shoulders. "I wish you were," he said. "You
know I did my best for you, don't you, Jim? If they only knew you the
way I do."

"Never mind," I said, "I don't care." And I did not care at the moment.
Nothing Harry had said was of any importance. I was only sorry, very
sorry, I was back.

"How's Joe Stowe?" I asked.

"He's fine," said Harry. "I don't know what I'd have done without him.
He's been talking to Aunt Sue, and Clothilde likes him, everybody likes
him. He's going to spend the night. My God, look at Bella."

"Oh," said Bella, "for goodness' sake, shut up, you and your old clubs!
Who cares about you and your old clubs? I've heard people talking about
you. I know a lot of things about you, Harry Brill."

"Is that what they teach you at Miss Lacey's?" Harry asked.

"You never mind about Miss Lacey's," Bella said. "If I were just to tell
you what the girls think about you at Miss Lacey's! You tried to kiss
Nancy Bronson, didn't you, and she slapped your face. Did you know he
tried to kiss Nancy Bronson, Jim? He tries to kiss everybody; he doesn't
care how young they are. It's just kiss, kiss, kiss."

"Suppose you go up the back way, Bella," I told her, "and change your
clothes before anybody sees you."

"All right, Jim," said Bella, "but just you ask Harry about Nancy
Bronson. He tried to do it right behind the door at Christmas-time. It's
just kiss, kiss, kiss."

"Don't be such a liar," Harry said. "No one's going to kiss you, Bella."

"Oh," said Bella, "aren't they? That shows how much you know about it."

"Go ahead," I said to Bella, "quick, and change your clothes."

"All right, Jim," she said. "Joe Stowe tried to kiss me. What do you
think of that?"

Harry walked with me more slowly to the house.

"Little liar," Harry said. "She just says anything that comes into her
mind."

It was something I had never imagined, and I did not believe it either.

"God help anyone who marries her," Harry said.




XIX

_Little Mr. Make-Believe_


"All aboard," they were shouting, "all aboard." The train moved slowly
and then it gave a jerk, the way the midnight always did, as if the
train crew resented sleeping passengers. I was lying in my berth going
through another of those nights that had nothing much to do with sleep.
The memories of Joe Stowe and Wickford Point mingled with everything
else so that there was no definite demarcation between sleep and
consciousness. It was like one of those nights in France when you knew
that you would be awakened in the darkness before dawn, and when you
were not sure whether you would live through the next day. It was like
those nights when we lay in blankets in the open air on hard uneven
ground. It was like the times on shipboard in a storm, or like the
blackness in a Chinese inn or Eastern caravan-serai. Those were the
times for dreams. You might be at the other end of the earth, but you
were never far from home. Every minute that you had lived was with you.

Now and then the train would stop, only to jerk forward and start again,
and every jolt would set my mind in a new direction, until I finally
fell asleep. It was seven o'clock when the porter jerked at my
bedclothes and told me that the cars would be moved out into the yard in
half an hour. Although it was still early in the morning, the buildings
on Forty-Second Street and the asphalt of the pavements seemed to have
retained the heat of the day before. It was that sodden, treeless heat
peculiar to New York. It was the beginning of another sweltering day,
plus all that accumulated heat.

I recognized the landmarks within a short radius of my dwelling place.
They had been washing down the streets, and there was the fishstore on
the corner and the stationer's shop and the taxicab stand and the
tailor's. They all were there, entirely unchanged, and this always gave
me a sort of surprise. My apartment, up two flights of stairs, with its
living room, bedroom, bath and kitchenette, showed signs of long disuse.
Mrs. Flanagan, who lived in the basement, had not been any more careful
about dusting it than ever. She had rolled up the carpet and put some
cloth over the pictures, and newspapers over the books on the shelves,
and some more cloth over the couch and chairs. I was glad to see that
she had not moved the papers on my desk, although she had undoubtedly
read them. The water in the bathroom ran rusty at first, as it always
did when it had not been used for some time, but all the things in the
medicine chest were just as I had left them. It all gave a sense of
restfulness, but no impression of permanence. I could leave the place
for a year or for good when the lease was up, and no one would care;
this knowledge pleased me sometimes, but not that morning.

There is nothing more dangerous than a sense of loneliness in New York,
because once the realization is strong enough you stop being lonely
right away, and then all sorts of things begin to happen.

I told myself as I was bathing that I had come to New York entirely for
business reasons, but when I was dressed again my mood changed. The
place was too bare and there was too much of myself in it. I picked up
the telephone on the desk and listened to the buzzing in the receiver. I
had been away so long that I dialed the first three letters of the
exchange according to Boston regulations. Then when I found what I had
done, I re-dialed. I told myself that Patricia Leighton might not be in
town, although it was a weekday. As I listened to the automatic ringing
of the bell, I was afraid that she might be away, and then I heard her
voice.

"Hello, Pat," I said. "Did I wake you up?"

"Yes, you did," she said. "When did you get in?"

"Just now, on the midnight."

"Oh," she answered, "well--"

"Nothing," I said, and I heard her laugh. "I just thought I'd call you
up. That's all."

"Where are you now?"

"Up here," I said. "Flanagan hasn't dusted anything."

"Have you had breakfast?"

"Yes," I said.

"What did you have for breakfast?"

"Orange juice and a boiled egg."

"Have you been having a good time?"

"No," I said. "Have you?"

"Yes," she said. "I've done fine without you."

"Well, that's good," I said.

"Did you buy a new suit?"

"No," I said.

"Do you want to marry me?" she asked.

"No," I answered, "not particularly."

I heard her laugh again.

"What are you doing today?" she asked.

"I'm going to see Stanhope," I said. "What are you doing tonight?"

"I'm going out," she answered.

"Where are you going?"

"How should I know?" she said. "Just out. Do you want to come here for
dinner? Marie will cook it for you. You'd better or else you'll get into
trouble."

"I've got to see Stanhope," I said.

"You'll have enough of him by then," she said. "I'll be back early."

"How early?" I asked. "I don't want to sit around there alone."

"Early enough," she said. "You'll wait for me, won't you?"

"All right," I said, "I'll wait."

"Well," she said, "good-by, Jim."

She might as well have been with me in the room. Her telephone was
beside her bed and I knew exactly how she must look. I told myself that
it wouldn't do either of us any good. It was one of those things that
happen, like going outdoors and getting more cold when you think you are
over the cold you have.

The great thing about Pat Leighton was that she made me feel that I
amounted to something. She had been taught, presumably by her mother,
that it was wise to encourage men to talk about themselves, but her
encouragement was not perfunctory. I had talked about myself to a good
many people without any satisfactory results, for I could always see
what they wanted. Pat, on the other hand, never wanted anything. I had
never thought much of men who tell all their troubles to women. It had
always seemed to me a juvenile habit, and I had never told Pat my
troubles, but I could tell her a lot of other things. She would be
amused about Allen Southby and about Joe Stowe and Bella. I felt better
after hearing her voice, but that feeling vanished slowly when I reached
the Stanhope office.

Even in the small reception hall entirely furnished in American pine,
where people no one wished to see customarily waited, there was a sound
of typewriters and of perspiring efficiency. It was ten o'clock in the
morning when I arrived, but already a good many undesirable callers were
seated on early Colonial settles. Two of them were young men, one with a
beard in a blue shirt and one without a beard in a pink shirt. There
were also five or six women of various ages, and all of them thought
that they could write. They would probably go on thinking so for a long
long time, perhaps forever, just as I thought that I could write. We
glared at each other with a sort of hauteur peculiar to our trade, until
Miss Everest, a pretty girl who was addressing envelopes behind the
desk, looked up. For a moment I was afraid that she would ask me to wait
there with all the others, since we were all equally sure that Mr.
Stanhope was most anxious to see us, but she did not.

"Oh, Mr. Calder," she said, "won't you please go right into Mr.
Stanhope's office? Mr. Briggs is there."

I walked down a hall of partitioned offices where the typewriters were
clicking, past the dramatic department and the motion picture department
and the accounting department, to the corner office where George
Stanhope worked.

He was behind a big table upon which were two telephones and a pile of
manuscripts, a box of cigarettes and a picture of a police dog. I never
knew what the police dog had to do with it, because Stanhope did not own
one. He was talking to John Briggs, one of those contact editors who
make the rounds of agents' offices once or twice a week.

"Hello, George," I said, "hello, John. How are you?"

"Hello, Jim," John Briggs answered. "Do you want to come out to lunch?"

"He can't," George Stanhope said, "not today."

"Do you know the difference between a New Deal Democrat and a toe
dancer?" John Briggs asked.

"No," George said, "he hasn't heard it. Go ahead and tell him, John."

"Well, stop me if you've heard it," John said.

"That's all right," George Stanhope said, "he hasn't heard it."

"That's right, John," I said. "I haven't heard anything. I've been
away."

"Well, it's a good deal like the one about Roosevelt and Jim Farley,"
John Briggs said. "Stop me if you've heard it."

I didn't stop him. I listened and laughed, not altogether mechanically,
but all the while I was thinking that I had been afraid of John Briggs
once. When he had told me long ago that his magazine was buying a story
of mine about a sing-song girl, I felt I had achieved the ultimate by
being in contact with him; but now I knew that he had his troubles too.

He took a manuscript from his briefcase.

"Here's the Sylvia Lane," he said. "We couldn't keep it, George. We
don't any of us know what the matter with it is. It just somehow doesn't
seem to go."

"Sylvia's going to feel badly," George said.

"Well," John Briggs answered, "it just doesn't seem to go. It's just
another boy and girl in the moonlight who misunderstand each other."

"All right," said George. "They'll buy it up the street."

"All right," said John, "let them buy it up the street. We've got too
much about young love. Have you got anything else for me today, George?"

"We've got one of Jerry's dog stories," George said.

"Oh," said John, "it's about time we had a dog story. The customers
always go for dogs. Why don't you write a dog story, Jim?"

"About the dog being misunderstood?" I asked. We were old enough friends
for John Briggs to indulge himself in out-of-hours humor.

"The dog is always misunderstood in a dog story," he said. "They think
he wet the rug, and he didn't do it, and then he is beaten and the
Master is going to have him chloroformed until the dog finds a Prowler
in the cellar, but the Mistress understood him all the time."

"And here's a Stickney," George said. "It's called 'High Death.'"

"My God," said John, "another Stickney?"

"He's right back in his stride," George said. "He's over his nervous
breakdown and he's in Provincetown."

"Aviation?" John asked. "We're rather short on aviation."

"That's it," George said. "I picked it up last night, and I couldn't put
it down."

"Is there a hostess in it?" John asked. "We're low on aviation. The
Chief was asking for one yesterday."

"Yes," George said, "there's a hostess. It's a good story. I couldn't
put it down."

We both knew this was true. George Stanhope's enthusiasm was invincible,
and everything he read was new.

"And the hostess misunderstands the pilot," I suggested.

"Of course the hostess misunderstands the pilot," John Briggs said. "How
else can you have an aviation story?"

"The pilot might misunderstand the hostess," I said. "That would be
new."

"Don't mind Jim," said George Stanhope. "You'll like it, John."

"Well," said John, "I've got to be going. Tell Jim the verdict, will
you, George? That serial of yours, Jim, it's going fine, but the Chief
says there ought to be more boy and girl."

"More boy and girl?" I repeated. "Why, it's all boy and girl."

"It won't take any changing," John said, "just one or two inserts will
do it. The boy and girl don't quite build up. You can do it this
afternoon; it won't take any time. I've told George the idea for it, and
George will tell you."

"You mean they don't misunderstand each other?" I asked.

"That's it," George said. "There isn't enough conflict between the boy
and girl. Jim will fix it, John. Tell the Old Man that Jim will start
working on it right away."

"I wish you'd come out to lunch," John said.

"He'd better stay here and fix it," George said. "Tell the Old Man he'll
fix it. When they meet for the first time at the houseparty, they'll
hate each other."

John Briggs put his briefcase under his arm, waved his hat at us, and
closed the door.

"Jesus Christ," I said.

George Stanhope stood up, mopped his face with a handkerchief and
lighted a cigarette. He was used to dealing with temperament. He had
the soothing quality of a physician, and though I did not want to do
what he suggested, I knew that I was going to do it.

"It's as good as sold, Jim," he said. "I just took the responsibility of
saying you would do it. Now we can block it out right here." He picked
up the telephone. "Muriel dear," he said, "I'm talking to Jim Calder. I
don't want to be disturbed unless it's important--only an important
call. Sit down, Jim. Take off your coat. All you and I need is half an
hour to fix it up. I told the Old Man you would. You have a valuable
personal relationship with the Old Man. Personally, I think there's
enough conflict, but he wants a little more. It's just a matter of mood.
There has to be something, that intangible sort of something that you're
so good at."

"Damn it," I said, "I'm sick of it." I sounded like a child quarreling
with its nurse. The telephone rang before he could answer.

"Yes, Julie," he said. "Well, what did Robert say about it? Well, what's
Robert's idea of price? We wanted seven hundred and fifty. It will hurt
Mabel's feelings if we don't get it. All right, this one stays at the
old rate." He put down the telephone and pressed a button.

"I'm awfully sorry, Jim," he said when his secretary came in. "This
won't take a minute. Just take this telegram, Kay. 'To Mabel Winkler.
The _Purple Book_ has gone crazy about "The Moon is There." Isn't that
swell? Congratulations. George.'"

"Ten per cent.," I said.

"Yes," said George Stanhope. "Where was I? There has to be something, a
subconscious sort of dislike between them, and then they come together.
Now when Chloe meets Geoffrey at the houseparty just before the pearls
are stolen--and that's grand about the pearls, there's music in it--all
you have to do is to show that unconscious antipathy. She doesn't
understand him. There is liking, of course there is liking, but beneath
that liking is distrust. That's all you have to do--inject the element
of conflict. Just as she touches his hand, she wants to hold it but
something makes her pull away, and he wonders why and she cannot tell
him and she says something nasty to him, some remark that she is sorry
for when she is thinking in the night."

"And then he tries to get into her room," I suggested.

"No," said George, "no, no, no. You know what I mean, Jim. It's just
something that has to be there, just that subtle something, and no one
can do it better than you can. She doesn't trust him but she loves him.
She wants to believe, but she can't believe. Of course he can't get into
her room, not when there are a million readers." The telephone rang and
he picked it up.

"Yes," he said; "yes, Cyril." And he picked up a pencil too, and began
drawing circles and cubes upon a piece of paper. "It's just swell,
Cyril. That new ending is simply swell. It's just what we wanted--where
they forget everything and fall into each other's arms--but you've got
to cut the beginning, boy, you really have to. I know it's a shame to
let any of it go, but you can save it and use it in something else
sometime. All right, I'll send the boy over with it this afternoon." He
put the telephone down.

"Now, where was I, Jim? Yes, when Chloe meets Geoffrey, just at that
first contact, she hates him, although she is physically drawn toward
him from the very first--"

I sat there listening, looking now and then at the masses of office
buildings outside his window, and watching occasional clouds of steam
rise above the roofs, although only heaven knew why anyone needed steam
on a day like that. I sat there wondering how he did it, how he could
remember everything he had read, how he could always play so expertly
with that land of make-believe, with all the futile, brittle thoughts of
others. I knew what he wanted. I hardly had to listen to what he told me
because I understood the trade. We were engaged in depicting life as
someone else wished it, and there had to be conflict in that life.
Perhaps it was truer than I thought, perhaps there was always conflict.

That enthusiasm of George Stanhope's was what kept us all going. It even
filled the Early American room outside. Those of us whose spirits were
faint were buoyed up by that perpetual optimism. He was in the business
and he knew exactly what he wanted, but he had a sense of fitness and of
creative understanding--admitted that the work he handled was very
seldom art. This escapist literature for a hopeless but always hopeful
people possessed a quality of artisanship that demanded high technique.
We both took a pride in our product, not the wild free pride of an
artist, but the solid pride of a craftsman. George Stanhope was
awakening my interest, as he always did, while he moved among the
characters in that half-world of the imagination governed by editorial
fact. Those rather bloodless people we created were all compelled to
fall into a formulated pattern. Their manners and appetites were curbed
by the prejudices of uneducated minds. They could not use bad language.
It was very, very dangerous for them to practice adultery or seduction.
After their moment of conflict, they must receive a definite and
just reward, a reward to be ratified by the hopes of tired
subway-and-commuting juries. When one was weary, one thought of this
artisanship of popular fiction as slight, a somewhat ghastly parody on
life. But then again, perhaps it was not, for was not all human
intercourse governed by arbitrary laws of its own? All life was a story,
uglier and less perfect than the ones we wrote, but with its own grim
scheme.

George Stanhope was perspiring, laboring with excitement in that land of
make-believe.

"Definitely she doesn't trust him," George Stanhope said. He always used
the word which was fashionable at the moment. Just now everybody was
using "definitely."

"Why?" I asked. "She's a nice girl. Why in hell shouldn't she trust
him?"

"Because if she trusts him you haven't got any story," George Stanhope
said. "Definitely, Jim, she _can't_ trust him."

"But why can't she trust him?" I asked.

"It doesn't matter why," George said, "as long as she doesn't. Wait a
minute, don't interrupt me. I'll tell you why. Here's a good one, Jim,
and it fits into everything you've done. She doesn't trust him because
she is afraid that he will destroy her."

"Oh," I said.

"That's it," said George. "We want to get this straight before our minds
start going around too much. She definitely doesn't trust him because
she's definitely afraid that he will destroy something that's inside
her."

"What's inside her?" I asked.

"I've got it," said George. "Wait a minute, don't interrupt me, Jim. Her
own beliefs are inside her. Her beliefs may be cock-eyed, but she is
destroyed if she loses her beliefs. The beliefs rise from her
background. Her childhood has put the ideas inside her."

"My God," I said.

"What's the matter?" asked George Stanhope. "Don't you like it, Jim?
Doesn't it hold water?"

"Yes," I said, "I guess so. I was thinking of something else."

"Well," he said, "we won't talk about it much longer or else our minds
will start going around in circles. But now we have something definite,
not complicated but definite."

Now when Joe Stowe met Bella Brill, I wondered, had they always
mistrusted each other? I tried to get them out of my mind and to listen
to what George was saying, but I could not. Bella had been afraid; I
remembered that once she had confessed it to me. She told me that she
always harbored a strange exotic fear that someone would destroy her
individuality. This may have been why she spoke so often of Sympathetic
People and of People who Understood.

"Are you listening to me, Jim?" George Stanhope asked. "Now get this.
This is important, Jim."

There was that continual feeling of inadequacy in Bella Brill. You had
to know her well before you guessed it, and perhaps I was the only one
who guessed, for I had struggled with that same sense once. It is so
easy to excuse oneself on the grounds that "no one understands" and on
the basis that one is "different." Perhaps Clothilde and Harry and Sid
and Bella and Mary were all afraid. They had lived in a world of their
own so long that they could not face another world. Theirs was a land of
fiction as delicate and artificial as the efforts of George Stanhope's
clients. It was the land of Wickford Point and the land of a great
belief that they were Brills, unlike other people, and very, very
remarkable.

"You see what I mean?" George Stanhope asked.

"Yes," I said, "I see what you mean. More conflict."

"And you can do it, can't you?"

"Yes," I said, "I can do it. I hoped that they wouldn't have to
misunderstand each other for once, but I can do it."

"Well," George said, "that's that. How've you been, Jim? Did you see Joe
Stowe in Boston? I wish he could settle down and do some work. I think
he's better, don't you?"

"Yes," I said, "he's better all the time."

"You aren't worried about what I told you?" he asked.

"No," I said, "of course not. I can fix it."

"Just a little more conflict," said George, "between the boy and girl."

"That's what Joe had," I said, "but it wasn't a happy ending."

George Stanhope leaned his elbows upon his writing table.

"Joe didn't say anything silly?" he asked. "He didn't say anything about
your going away with him somewhere?"

"He suggested it," I said. "I'd rather like to go."

"Now listen!" said George. "You can't and he can't, Jim. You're saving
some money now. You can't give that up. Where do you want to go?"

"East," I said.

"Now, Jim," said George, "we'll have to talk about this some more.
Let's have some lunch. You'll feel better after lunch. What do you
suppose Joe ever married her for, Jim?"

"He was in love with her," I said.

"No sooner I get one writer over a divorce," George Stanhope said, "than
right off another gets into trouble or else someone falls in love. Let's
go out and get some lunch."

That was the way it always was, lunch and talk about ideas, but things
were changed now that Joe's name had been mentioned. Both of them were
with us, Joe Stowe and Bella Brill.




XX

_You Can't Get Away from It, Darling_


Marie gave me my coffee on the terrace of Pat Leighton's apartment. Pat
had taken a penthouse the winter before, after she had been put in
charge of the advertising of one of the large department stores; and she
could afford it, since her salary had been raised to twenty thousand a
year. She had to work hard for that salary. She had to spend most of her
time thinking of full pages in newspapers with smart lines about
lingerie or furniture or whatever it was they were featuring, but she
could afford a five-room penthouse.

"Does Monsieur desire some _fine_?" Marie inquired.

"Thank you, yes," I said.

It occurred to me that Marie knew a good deal, in fact too much, about
me, but it may have been only fair since I knew a lot about Marie. She
still spoke her native tongue with a Breton accent and she had been
working for Pat for five years. She had been brought up on a farm near
the ancient town of Dol, had been in service in New York City for
twenty-five years, ever since she was a very young girl, and she weighed
two hundred and fifty pounds. She had been married for most of that time
to an unknown character named Pierre, who was the second salad chef at
the Waldorf, and between them they were saving enough money to retire
before long to France. Marie, in spite of her long absence from home,
had absorbed nothing from America except her wages. In fact, she often
said frankly that she despised America as a place inhabited by
barbarians and Indians and fit simply for the accumulation of a
comfortable competence. Marie was agreeable to me because I was not as
barbarous as other Americans, having taken part in a war in which she
had lost two brothers. Also I had prevented her once from buying stock
in a dry oil well.

"It is a very warm evening," said Marie. "Why does not Monsieur be
informal and divest himself of his coat?"

"If you will permit," I said. "Thank you. You are most gracious."

Marie's strong white teeth glittered in the dusk.

"Monsieur loves to amuse himself," she said, "but there, that is more
comfortable."

She stood beside my chair in the half-light, still holding the bottle of
brandy. We were by ourselves in space, looking down upon a carpet of
electric street lights. There were lights above the streets also,
puncturing the black shadows of the buildings that stood out against the
fading glow in the sky. It was cooler than on the ground, but it was
very hot. Marie was waiting to ask me something. It was comforting to
know that her question probably would not be personal, and certainly
would not refer to any relationship between Mademoiselle and me, for
Marie was always discreet.

"Might I ask Monsieur a question?" Marie inquired.

"But yes," I said. "Why should there be harm in asking a question?"

"Would Monsieur advise an investment in the General Motors Corporation?"
Marie inquired. "Mademoiselle has suggested it for my savings."

"No," I answered, "keep it in the bank."

"Monsieur confirms my own judgment," said Marie. "Monsieur is very
kind."

A sound inside the penthouse interrupted her.

"It is Mademoiselle," Marie said, and she moved away quickly and
adroitly, in spite of her great bulk. "Good night, Monsieur, and many
thanks."

It was true that she knew a good deal about me, but then she did not
care. I could hear her speaking to Mademoiselle inside, something about
plans for tomorrow, and then a minute or two later Patricia came out on
the terrace.

"Hello, Pat," I said.

"Hello," she answered. "Aren't you going to kiss me, Jim?"

"Marie hasn't gone home yet," I said.

Patricia laughed. There was always something about me which amused her.

"She can stand it if I can," she said. "I'm awfully glad to see you."
She drew away from me, but her hands were still on my shoulders.

"Pat," I said, "we ought to cut this out."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because you're a nice girl," I told her, "and it doesn't look well,
Pat. I don't want you to be talked about."

"You're a nice boy too," she said. "That is, as nice as any boy can be
when he gets to be your age. I can stand it if you can, Jim."

"I don't want you to stand it," I said.

"Darling," said Pat, "you can move in here any time. You need me to look
after you."

"I don't want you to look after me," I said.

"Give me another kiss," she said, "and sit down and finish your brandy.
I'm going to put on something loose."

"You're loose enough already," I said, and she laughed at me again.
Everything was always all right when she was there. There was never any
furtiveness or sin, and yet I could not understand why it was all right.
She came back again in the green taffeta deacon's robe I had brought her
from Moscow and asked me for a cigarette, and I asked her what she had
been doing.

"Dining with business acquaintances," she said. "Never mind. Tell me
about Wickford Point."

I told her a good deal about Wickford Point and it usually made her
laugh, but now she did not laugh.

"That's why you're so queer about things," she said. "New England must
be awfully queer. What did George Stanhope say?"

"There must be conflict," I said. "The hero and heroine must
misunderstand each other. She must be afraid of him, afraid he will
destroy her."

"That's rot of course," she said. "Look at you and me. We don't
misunderstand each other. We understand each other very well, and I'm
not afraid you're going to destroy me, because I know you couldn't, and
we're both reasonably happy, and there isn't any conflict either."

"Some people are afraid," I said. "Now there's my cousin, Bella Brill."

"Oh," she said, "that little--Excuse me, Jim."

"That isn't fair," I said. "You don't know her well."

"I'm just speaking in generalities, darling," she answered. "Bitches are
always afraid. You ought to be old enough to realize that every bitch is
a coward."

"Perhaps that's why they're bitches," I said. "I'd never thought of
that."

"Darling," she said, "it always feels so nice when I give you a new
idea. Would you take me down to Wickford Point, or would you be
embarrassed?"

"I'm going down on Friday night," I answered. "You'd better come along."

"It would be fun, wouldn't it?" she said. "I might you know, just to see
you squirm. Who's going to be there?"

I did not think it would be fun in the least, when I thought of her with
all those other people.

"A man named Southby is coming," I said, "Allen Southby."

"The one who wrote _The Transcendent Curve_?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. "He's pretty terrible; he's writing a novel now."

She was looking at me through the dark, and even if she could barely
see me, I knew she could judge my expression by the tone of my voice.

"That's more than you're doing, Jim," she said.

There was no need for her to tell me that, and it was not kind.

"I can't afford the time," I said.

"That's nonsense, isn't it?" she answered. "I don't like what I'm doing
and you don't like what you're doing, but we don't both have to do it."

I was under no illusions about myself, and I told her so.

"But I've never been kept yet," I said.

"That's because you're afraid, too," she said, and she put her hand over
mine and held it tight before I could answer. "You're afraid, but you're
not a coward, darling. I know what you're thinking about. You're
thinking of packing up and going away somewhere."

"How did you guess that?" I asked.

"Because I've seen you do it before," she answered. "I'm going with you
this time."

"Oh," I said, "are you?" She did not answer, and I did not speak for a
long while either.

"Jim," she asked at length, "what are you thinking about?"

"All sorts of things," I said. "The war. All sorts of things."

"All right," she told me, "go ahead and think. But just remember you
can't get away from anything by thinking."

She was right about that too. There were so many people who could never
finish what they started. For example, Harry Brill could never finish
anything, nor Sid nor Bella nor Mary. They were always starting
something and then dropping it because they had eyestrain or neuritis or
because there was something more attractive just around the corner. But
war was something you had to finish once you started. I always
remembered that.




XXI

_... Parlez-vous_


The nice thing about a war is that when one comes, you can drop
everything and go to it, and everyone will say that you were exactly
right. I suppose if there were another war, I should hurry to it right
away, provided I could pass the doctors, and I should be just as anxious
as before to slough off everything. We were all caught in an inescapable
wave of mass hysteria, which suddenly swamped the country. Definitely,
as George Stanhope would have said, it was something over which one had
no control. If all your friends were going, it was only common sense to
go along. The wave broke over us almost overnight, sending us in all
directions, and when it receded we were never quite the same again; but
it was common sense to go along, although it was difficult to know
exactly why we were going, and oddly enough, this seemed unimportant.
Even at the time, however, the reasons for going to France seemed
peculiar. Most of them were based on a generally accepted fact that if
we did not go over there, the Germans would certainly come over here. It
was difficult to work out how the Germans would get here, and it might
have been better to have waited until they came.

Harry Brill knew somebody who had an uncle somewhere who could get him
into aviation, but I went to Plattsburg and Joe Stowe went too. We
waited in the rain for three hours outside a Boston office to get our
names down, so as to be sure to be among the first. It was unthinkable
that we might be left behind when everyone was going. Even so, we lived
in hourly fear that we might have applied too late.

As I look back, such fears were a continuous obsession. First we were
afraid that we would not get there, and when we did, we were afraid of
being dropped as of unfit caliber for officers and gentlemen. This was a
thought that stalked behind us in the wooden barracks and outside the
barracks too, where regular army officers appeared at odd moments with
notebooks and pencils, putting down black marks. If you did not listen
attentively to the lectures, if you were low in the weekly examinations,
if you were found improperly buttoned or if you were caught in the
latrine with a cigarette, you might not become an officer and gentleman.
The training period at Plattsburg was a curious sort of nightmare.

After all, the details do not matter much, for most of them are lost in
larger parts of a bad dream, of which most of us hated to speak for
quite a long while afterwards. You lost sight of friends and enemies in
the mazes of that dream. There were always new contacts and new faces
that disappeared as soon as they became familiar--faces of enlisted men,
and of bad officers, and of good officers; unrelated snatches of
conversation in the sun and in the rain.

Captain H. L. Wyre commanded that officers' training company. I remember
him largely because he was the first of his kind I had ever seen. The
perfection of the flare of his breeches and the angle of his shoulders
extended to the impassive lines of his deeply tanned face. He made it
very clear to us that it was impossible to turn out a soldier in three
months, and he often expressed a wonder that we wanted to be officers
when the life of an enlisted man was considerably easier. I had no
conversation with the Captain until a week before the whole thing ended,
except for the times when he asked my name and put a black mark in his
book. One evening however after retreat, when the first sergeant, a
Yale halfback named Stevens, told us to fall out.

"Calder," Captain Wyre called, "Calder."

The sound of my name was so unusual that he had to call again before I
understood that I was wanted. Then, of course, I hurried toward him and
saluted just as I had been taught, while I tried to think what it was
that I had done wrong.

"Well," said Captain Wyre, "what's the matter, Calder?"

"Sir," I said.

"I asked you what the matter is," Captain Wyre said. "Why do you look
surprised?"

There was something about the conversation that was wrong, for I had
never considered Captain Wyre as a human being.

"I was surprised that the Captain knew me," I said.

The Captain took out his notebook, turned the pages deliberately and
made a mark with his pencil.

"That's all," he said. I saluted and turned away.

"Come back," the Captain said, "and try that again, Calder. That 'about
face' was very badly done."

In those curious days such a conversation had a nerve-shaking
importance. When I walked down the aisle of double-deck bunks, a dozen
people were gathered about mine already to discover at first hand just
what the Captain had said, and to balance every word.

"He wanted to know why I looked surprised," I said.

Although everyone tried not to show it, I could read the general opinion
that I was through. Joe Stowe was the only one who thought differently.

"He wanted to talk to you, that's all," he said. "It's just a funny way
they have. He did the same thing to me yesterday. He probably was
lonely."

"Why should he be lonely?" I asked.

"Why shouldn't he be?" said Joe. "I'd be lonely in his shoes. Or maybe
he was full of fun." I did not agree with him about the last. When I
saw him Captain Wyre was never full of fun, but I saw him only once
again--for three minutes the next evening.

"Calder and Stowe," the first sergeant said, "will report to the orderly
room after this formation."

Captain Wyre was seated at a bare pine table, examining some papers
under an unshaded electric light.

"Candidate Stowe reporting, sir," Joe said.

"Candidate Calder reporting, sir," I said.

Captain Wyre set down his papers.

"At ease, gentlemen," he said.

I remember how my heart beat in my throat, and my feeling of suffocating
dizziness, simply because a West Point captain had referred to us as
"gentlemen."

"Headquarters has asked for two first lieutenants," Captain Wyre said,
"to report at Hoboken at once, for duty overseas. You two gentlemen will
leave on the train tonight. There will be no time for going home. You
will have an opportunity to buy your equipment in New York. There will
be time to get officers' braid and pins in town."

I cleared my throat, but even then I found it hard to speak.

"Does the Captain mean that we are first lieutenants?" I asked.

"Commissioned before the expiration of the training period," Captain
Wyre replied. "Calder has seniority and will take the orders. Any other
questions?"

"Jesus," said Joe Stowe, "I thought you were going to fire us, Captain."

Captain Wyre's lips twitched faintly. It was as near as I had ever seen
him come to smiling. He pushed back his chair and his voice changed.

"You don't know what you're getting into. You ought to be trained for
three years more, and then you mightn't amount to anything, judging by
your language. Good night and good luck, gentlemen." We shook hands and
saluted.

"Jesus," Joe said when we were outside. "General Pershing must be having
trouble."

That was the way it always was; you either couldn't wait or else you
were always waiting. You were always being moved without knowing exactly
why. The suddenness of the change left a cold sensation in my spine. A
minute before, France had seemed a long way off, and now that it was
near, now that I was thinking of the casualties, I had a sudden desire
to see Wickford Point again, and no desire at all to go to France.

"How are you feeling?" Joe asked.

"All right," I said.

There were always new faces and new voices. We were assigned to a
four-berth stateroom with two other lieutenants in what had been the
second class of a former German liner and we were under orders not to
come on deck until we were told. One of the boys was named Hofstadt, and
he came from Kansas, and the name of the other was Yancey, and he came
from Alabama. Joe and I had the upper berths and they the lower ones,
because they had arrived first. Yancey did most of the talking. He
hadn't had time even to find a girl because he didn't know his way
around, but there would be lots of girls in France. He wanted to know
where we all came from. He thought this was a hell of a room for
officers and he wondered when we ate. It would be a hell of a place with
all these stairs if the ship should sink. I can remember his words going
on in a long tiresome drawl. Like Captain Wyre, I never saw him again
but once, and that was in the woods near Cuisy. He was not talking then
because the side of his face had been blown off. He must have gone over
with the first lot of the infantry from Hill 302.

It was late when we were finally allowed on deck. The lifeboats had been
slung over the sides, and out in the bow some sailors were lounging
around a six-inch gun. Down on the same deck near the forehatch, a
Y.M.C.A. secretary was handing out postcards, and pamphlets on venereal
diseases, to some enlisted men. It was hard to tell just why anyone
should want a postcard at the moment. Ahead of us, upon a lead-colored
sea, six other transports with their sides painted in stripes were being
led toward the curve of the horizon by a gray battle cruiser, and we
were all standing on the passenger deck listening to an address by a
reserve lieutenant from the Navy. He was telling about the watches that
must be kept aboard ship and how we must report anything we saw,
anything at all, even a bird or a piece of driftwood.

"Now remember," he said, "you are sharing the responsibility with the
Navy. When you are on watch, the safety of everyone on board may rest
with you. That's all."

"Nigger-loving bastard," Mr. Yancey said.

"How do you know he loves niggers?" Joe asked.

"Well," said Mr. Yancey, "because he talks that way."

No one paid much attention to him, because you could tell that Mr.
Yancey was endeavoring to show off, and talking to keep his spirits up.
Astern of us the sun was going down, sinking through a murk of clouds,
straight into the sea. There was nothing behind us except the sun and
the water, absolutely nothing. It was as if everything we had left, the
homes and the faces we had known, had never existed, or as if they had
all been rubbed out as an eraser rubs the sentences and geometric
figures off the board at school.

"Well," Joe said, "there's nothing left, is there?"

The war does not afford a very profitable subject for discussion,
although the period explains what is the matter with a good many of us
who were in it. Now when you hear it discussed at the war dinners and
reunions, you wonder what it was all about. There are always the same
songs about the caissons rolling and about the French they are a funny
race, parley-vous, and about the peculiar sexual habits of Mademoiselle
from Armentires, and about how General Pershing won the war back in
Chaumont, the Y.M.C.A. and the M.P.'s. Then along come the stories, all
of which sound about the same: the one about the German prisoner, and
about how someone got a medal for not doing anything, and about some
conversation with a general. And after that you begin to argue about
just where C Company of the 78th was at noon on the thirteenth, and you
know it wasn't where someone said it was because you were there yourself
at noon on the thirteenth, and C Company wasn't, and then somebody says
that wasn't so at all. Then someone who has had a little more to drink
bangs upon the table and tells how the military police raided a cat
house in Bordeaux, and finally someone else tells how he won the war
single-handed. It was all an accident, of course, and anyone else would
have done the same thing in his place because it was the only thing to
do. Those have never seemed to me very merry evenings, for there is
always a sadness in the background. It is all so far away that you
cannot believe that you were there at all. It is like a broken plate,
the pieces of which can never be put together.

There is no doubt, though, that all the noise and all the uniforms made
it hard to settle down. When I met Joe Stowe in Paris after the
Armistice, I had not seen him for six months, and we sat in the Caf de
la Paix drinking brandy and asking what had happened to people we had
known.

"Do you want to go home?" Joe Stowe asked.

"No," I said, "not particularly."

He grinned at me across the table.

"That's fine," he said. "I'm going to get a job on a newspaper someday,
but not just yet. There's a way of getting mustered out here, if you
know how to do it."

"There's a way of doing everything," I said.

"There's a man I want you to meet," Joe Stowe said, "a Britisher. You'd
better come along."

"Why?" I asked. "What for?"

"Because you don't want to go home," Joe said. "You'd better come
along."

You were always going to strange places in Paris then, where somebody
knew a girl, or somewhere else. The man Joe knew was a Major Mosby, who
was living in an apartment on the Rue Jacob, three flights up. I can
still remember the yellowness of the street lights and the smell of
garlic in the kitchen of the concierge--a stout woman with a face not
unlike Pat Leighton's Marie.

"Mademoiselle Annette has visitors," she said. "The officers are too
late."

"It is not Mademoiselle we are seeking," Joe told her, and his French
was much better than mine. "It is the British officer, Major Mosby."

"Oh," said Madame, "that is different. I had not understood that
Messieurs the officers were serious."

It is strange to remember such trivial bits of conversation when you
have forgotten so much that is important. Major Mosby was in a shabby
dressing gown, drinking whisky by himself and smoking Macedonia
cigarettes.

"Ah, Stowe," he said, "good evening."

"This is a friend of mine," Joe said, "Captain Calder."

The major nodded without shaking hands. His hair was growing grizzled,
but his age was uncertain. His face was leathery and hard, as nearly
everyone's face was then.

"Are you familiar with the use of the machine gun, Captain Calder?" he
asked.

"Yes," I answered. "Why?"

"The Chinese," he said, "are looking for machine-gun officers. Three
hundred dollars gold a month, and all expenses paid."

"You're going out to China?" I asked.

"Quite," said Major Mosby. "Commissioned by my old friend, General Feng,
to pick up a few likely officers. No trouble about the money. Stowe's
joining up and three or four others. Jolly if you should come along."

"Three hundred dollars a month," I repeated.

"And all found," Major Mosby said. "No trouble about the money. Not the
slightest trouble."

I looked at Joe and he nodded at me.

"I know a way you can get your discharge here," he said. "It's all
right. How about it, Jim?"

"All right," I said, "I'll go."

       *       *       *       *       *

There are disadvantages in doing such a thing as that; but there are
compensations later on, for later you have a good deal to think about.
In the space of a split second you can look back on the sort of person
you once were, with a cool objective wonder.

It surprised me that I was so quiet and careful now, trying for some
reason to save money. I was sitting there beside Patricia Leighton on
the terrace of her penthouse and in the short silence that had fallen
between us I had been to places which she had never seen. I might take
her back with me sometime to every place I had known, but she could
never see what I had, for all of it had vanished.

"Jim," she said, "what are you thinking about?"

"About the time I got back home," I said, "November 2, 1925."

"Why are you thinking of that?" she asked.

"I don't know," I said. "There isn't any explanation."

"Don't worry," she said. "I like to have you think. What happened when
you got back home?"

"That's the funny thing," I answered, "the most curious thing about it.
Nothing happened. Nobody really seemed to understand that I'd been away.
It just seemed to everyone that I had been around the corner. They just
asked what I was doing--that was all."

And that was true. Life means so very little, most of it--particularly
someone else's life.

"There wasn't anybody to talk to," I said. "That was the funny part
about it."

"November 2, 1925," she said. "I was in college then. You might have
talked to me. Where did you go on November 2, 1925?"

"To Cousin Clothilde's, of course," I said, "as soon as I got off the
dock."

"I suppose you would," she said. "What happened when you got there? What
did you think of them when you got back?"

"That's the funny thing about it," I said.

"You told me that before," Patricia said.

"Well," I repeated, "that's the funny thing about it. They hadn't
changed at all. She had overdrawn her bank account. They hadn't changed
at all."

I hesitated for a moment, considering whether or not it would be better
to thrust all those thoughts back where they had come from, since they
had nothing to do with Patricia Leighton. I hesitated also because of my
disapproval of men who pour out their souls to women, although a woman
can stand physical pain and conversational boredom much better than a
man.

"Of course," I said, "Sid and the little girls had grown up, but it
didn't really make much difference because they were just what I had
expected them to be. They had grown up, but they hadn't changed at all.
Now that was funny, wasn't it?"

"No," she said, "not so very funny."

"Well," I replied, and I wanted her to understand what I meant, for I
had never exactly expressed the idea to anyone, "it struck me as
remarkable, when everything else was so different from the way I had
expected it. There was Cousin Clothilde hardly any older, with her
account overdrawn at the bank, and Archie was away somewhere to see
someone important about a mural. There was someone who knew somebody who
was doing something about something down in Washington, and it really
did seem as though Archie would get a chance to paint the wall, and Sid
was getting ready to be a biologist that year, and Harry was out of a
job. He had been doing something with marine insurance but it hadn't
given him an opportunity to develop, and he knew someone who was going
to introduce him to the president of something else. You could always
get along if you knew the right people."

I had expected her to laugh, but she did not, and her silence made me
feel that there was something wrong with my narration. I wished that I
had not told her any of it, now that she was not amused.

"It must have been curious," she said.

"It was a little," I answered, "because I wasn't used to it."

"Jim," she asked, "do you mind if I ask you a question? I know you're
very loyal. You won't be angry, will you?"

"No," I said, "go ahead. Ask anything you like."

"I don't like the way you say it," she said. "But never mind.... Didn't
it strike you as a little ugly?"

Something inside me gave me an odd, convulsive start, as though I had
betrayed some secret that no one should have known except myself. It was
something that had been in the back of my mind for a long while,
although I would not have admitted it, certainly not to her.

"Exactly how do you mean 'ugly'?" I repeated.

"Ugly," she answered, "because they hadn't changed."

"That's true," I said. "I had never thought of it in quite that way."

"It always makes me so happy," she said, "when I give you a new idea. I
love you because you're not afraid of a new idea. It was ugly because
she wouldn't let them change."

"Who?" I asked. "Who wouldn't let them change?" But I knew exactly what
she meant, although I would not have admitted it to anyone alive.

"Your Cousin Clothilde," she said. "It must have hurt you, Jim, because
it hurts you now."

"That isn't fair," I said. "You've never even seen her."

"Don't you see," she said, "that's exactly how I know, because I've
never seen her? And you wouldn't know because you love her so much.
You're always so loyal. You'd be happier if you weren't so loyal--but
then I wouldn't like you. There's no reason why you shouldn't love her.
She couldn't help it. There are lots of things that I can't help either.
I can't help you, for instance, or this. She didn't want them to change.
It doesn't mean I blame her."

"How do you mean?" I asked. "She loves them all. Why shouldn't she want
them to change?"

"You're so clever sometimes," she replied, "and it's so simple. Perhaps
a man can't understand it, but any woman would. If they changed, don't
you see, she'd lose them? She couldn't do things for them any
more--nice, generous things, I mean. Any woman wants to do nice,
generous things. She wants to manage someone. She'd like to manage
everyone because it means that she's doing something. That's why I want
to manage you."

She paused but I did not answer.

"That's why she put them all in a little house," she said, "not a real
house, but an imaginary house."

"Don't you think you're growing rather complicated?" I asked.

"No, not at all," she said. "Part of every woman wants just that. It's
somewhere in everyone. She put them in a little house, and then she made
them afraid to get away, because it was different outside."

"Afraid?" I repeated.

"Yes," she said, "of course. It's so easy to make anyone afraid. I wish
I could make you afraid to get away--but then I wouldn't like you. I'm
glad you got away."

"Away from what?" I asked.

"From all that," she said. "From her, from all of them. Didn't she try
to get you back?"

"That's hardly accurate," I said.

"Didn't she?" she asked.

"The way you set it down on a scientific chart, life's quite a mess," I
said. She laughed at me, and it made me feel better, less uncertain,
less uncomfortable. There are so many things that it is better not to
think about.

"It isn't scientific," she said; "that's why it is such a mess; but just
the same I rather like it. I'm glad we're both alive."

"You're quite a girl, aren't you?" I said. "You can take it all apart
and put it back again."

"Well," she answered, "that's what we're here for, isn't it? Everybody
has to do it. Everybody has to try."

"Not necessarily," I answered. "Why not let it go?"

"No," she said, "it's better if you try. That's what we're made for,
darling. So on November 2, 1925, you went right there, of course."

"Of course I did," I said, "and you'd have done it too. I came back
there because they were a part of me, because I loved them. I still love
them."

My words sounded hardly decent when I spoke them aloud, yet I felt that
surge of old loyalty coming back from the past just as it had on
November 2, 1925, though heaven knows why I should have been so accurate
about the date.

"Suppose," I suggested, "that you stop taking me apart."

"I don't have to," she answered. "You're all apart already, darling. But
just the same you seem to go, and I like the way you go. New England
must be awfully queer."

"You're quite a girl," I said again. "You must have read a lot of useful
books. But just the same you're not entirely right. Ugly is not the word
for it, and I'll tell you why: because nothing is ever ugly when Cousin
Clothilde's around."

"Well," she said, "perhaps that makes it worse, doesn't it? Tell me
about it. I love to hear you talk."




XXII

_November 2, 1925_


I finished with the customs at three o'clock in the afternoon. The
Brills were living on Twelfth Street then; they were always moving from
one to another of those houses which were in partial repair and
obtainable at a very low rental, if you took them from month to month
until they were turned over to the wreckers to be finally torn down. I
said good-by to all those people whom you meet on a ship, and whom you
always think you will look up again sometime, but never do. I said
good-by to Mrs. Frelinghaus from Chicago and to the German I played
chess with and to a girl named Dorothy Padmore, who used to have
cocktails in my cabin. She was really a nice girl and probably should
have known better, and now that the bond salesman, whom she had said she
really didn't want to marry at all, had come to meet her at the dock,
she seemed relieved to see the last of me and rather surprised about
everything.

"Good-by, Jim," she said. "I think I must have been crazy."

"Don't let it worry you at all," I said. "But it might be just as well
not to tell Mr. Staunton. I wouldn't if I were you."

"Don't you think I ought to tell him?" she said.

"No," I said, "absolutely not. Just consider it as an interlude.
Good-by, Dot."

I gave the porter fifty cents to have my steamer trunk and pig-skin kit
bag carried out to a line of taxicabs that waited at the end of the
pier. The driver was not cordial when he discovered that I was going
only as far as West Twelfth Street. He was a red-headed, flat-faced
Jew, and he began to behave like a child who has lost a toy, until I
asked him what was the matter. It appeared that he had been down there
waiting for the boat, in order to maintain his place in line, since ten
o'clock that morning, and now he was going to receive a fare that
amounted only to sixty cents and something more for the trunk.

"Never mind," I said, "you can take me up Fifth Avenue first, and
through the Park. I haven't been here for quite a while."

He was cordial after that, and he was telling me of his domestic
difficulties by the time we reached Fifth Avenue; moreover he revealed a
store of useful information. He thought at first that I was jesting when
I said that I had never seen a traffic light or any of the fleets of
taxicabs painted in different colors. He was interested in a protective
sort of way when he understood that I really did not know how to cope
with prohibition.

"You must have been off somewhere, mister," he said.

"Yes," I said, "I've been away for quite a while."

I had thought that everything would be the way I had left it, as might
be true in Paris or Berlin or Rome or London. I had forgotten how New
York could burst out every year into a new rash of novelty. Everything
was being torn down and built up again. The number of automobiles was
unbelievable. Of course I got used to it in a day or two, and I know now
that what I saw was only the beginning of the boom days; but, on coming
suddenly out of an older world, it was hard to adjust myself.

"Well," I said, "let's go back to Twelfth Street."

It was quieter there, although lower Fifth Avenue had been turned over
to the garment trade. At Twelfth Street there were a great many of the
old brick and brownstone houses, with basement entrances under the front
stoops, and with double doorways and vestibules. When the driver stopped
at the number I gave him, I felt for the first time that I was really
back, even before I rang the bell.

Sid was the one who opened the door and he was entirely grown-up, a
frailer edition of Harry with the same distinguished Brill nose and the
rather small Brill mouth. I recognized him at once by the limp way that
his hands hung out of his sleeves. I remember the momentary blankness on
his face, and the slight supercilious watchfulness that the Brills
always assumed when they were confronting strangers. They did not know
that I was coming or where in the world I was, but Sid recognized me
almost at once. It was one of the few times I had ever known him to
express deep and earnest enthusiasm.

"Jim," he shouted, "Jim!" and without bothering to look at me again, he
actually ran across the black-and-white marble of the hall and opened
the parlor door.

"It's Jim," he shouted, "Jim's come back!"

They were all there in the parlor, and it looked just the way parlors in
the Brill houses in New York always had, for no matter where the Brills
were the furniture went with them. I saw the piano, and the sofa that
was bursting through its upholstery, and the tapestry of a man in armor
ogling a shepherdess, which was intended to represent a Biblical scene.
These all came from Archie Wright's studio, when he used to have a
studio. Clothilde was lying upon the sofa and there was tea in front of
the fireplace where cannel coal was burning.

There was just a moment in which I saw it all before Cousin Clothilde
kissed me; Mary, who was all grown-up, tall and straight, with blue eyes
and very bright red cheeks, and with her heavy yellow hair coiled in a
loose knot, kissed me and began to cry, and then I saw Bella, and she
was grown-up too. I had never realized that she would be so beautiful or
that her beauty would give me a sense of shock. She had been sitting on
a low stool near the fire, talking to a man I did not know, and she got
up with a quick impatient flourish of her hips and shoulders, so that
her dress swung away from her slender legs as if it were hardly a dress
at all. Her dark hair had not yet been cut short and her violet eyes
were wider than I had ever seen them. I had that single glimpse of her
before she threw herself at me, and for once she did not stop to think
whether she was effective or not.

"Jim," she called, "darling, darling." And she began to cry too, just
for a moment, with her head on my shoulder, saying: "Aren't you going to
kiss me, Jim?"

I kissed her, longer than was necessary perhaps, and then I kissed Mary
again and then I kissed Cousin Clothilde again, and then I shook hands
with Harry. Harry had grown stoutish and his hair was getting thin. He
had on a blue suit with pencil stripes.

"Jim," he said, "I'm awfully glad to see you. The Somerbys said they saw
you in Berlin when you came down from Moscow."

"What Somerbys?" I asked.

"The Talcott Somerbys," Harry said.

"Oh," said Bella, "to hell with the Talcott Somerbys. Jim doesn't care
about the Talcott Somerbys. Can't you get Jim a cup of tea? Or maybe
he'd like some gin. Get him some gin, Harry. Oh, and Jim, I
forgot--you'll excuse us, won't you, Avery? Jim's just got back."

I saw what she had forgotten. It was the man who had been sitting close
to Bella by the fire. He was standing up now, evidently ready to go
away, and he looked half-confused.

"This is Avery Gifford," Bella said, "a friend of mine."

It was the first time I had ever seen him, but there was no need for
that added explanation. I knew from the way he shook hands with me and
from his desire to please that he was in love with Bella. He would have
been a fool if he hadn't been, I remember thinking. He was a nice boy,
who looked as if he had just come out of a shower bath, his yellow hair
carefully brushed, his eyes conscientious and kindly.

"I'm awfully glad to meet you, sir," he said. "Bella has talked so much
about you. My brother Tom said he met you in the war."

"Oh, yes," I said, but I couldn't remember him at all.

"It's awfully good to have seen you, sir," Avery Gifford said. "I must
be going now. I guess I'm in the way. You'll come up for the game on
Saturday, won't you, Bella?"

"Are you going to Harvard?" I asked.

He said, Yes sir, that he was a senior; and then Bella went out with him
into the hall.

"Well," said Cousin Clothilde, "thank God, he's gone. He's awfully
stupid, Harry, don't you think? I wish Bella wouldn't stay out in the
hall with him. Mary, see what Bella's doing out in the hall. And Jim,
you haven't brought your bags in, have you? Harry, go out and see about
Jim's bags. Just call down the cellar stairs to Frank. Tell him to bring
them up to the room next yours."

"Who's Frank?" I asked.

"He was in the house when we rented it," Cousin Clothilde said. "He was
living down in the cellar. He just keeps on living there. He's very
useful carrying things, and sometimes he brings in boxes and things for
kindling. He's having trouble with his wife, and his teeth are very bad.
I don't like to look at him because I always see his teeth."

Then I knew that nothing had changed and I began to laugh and Cousin
Clothilde began to laugh.

"Oh Jim," she said, "I'm so glad you're back. You're the only one who
understands everything. Bella, I wish you wouldn't slam the door--it
goes right through my head." Bella was back again. She sat down on the
sofa beside me and leaned against my shoulder.

"Jim," she said, "darling, why you're just the same!" It was true in a
way.

"Where's Jim going to sleep?" she asked. "Isn't he going to have the
room next mine?" And she got up and went out into the hall again.

"Frank," I heard her calling, "take that trunk into the room next mine."

Cousin Clothilde looked at me and glanced meaningly toward the hall.

"Isn't she beautiful?" she said. "I always knew she would be. There are
so many people who are mad about her, Jim, and just yesterday there was
the nicest man here, a friend of Archie's who has something to do with
placing people in Hollywood. He couldn't take his eyes off her.
Everybody wants to paint her picture. You must help me, Jim dear. Harry
just won't help at all. He knows everybody, but he just won't help."

"What do you want me to do?" I asked.

"Someone must bring some friends around," said Cousin Clothilde. "She
ought to meet some older men."

"That Gifford boy looked all right," I said.

Cousin Clothilde sighed.

"I mean some interesting men. Whatever happened to that nice friend of
yours, Mr. Lowe, the one you brought to Wickford Point?"

"Stowe?" I asked. "Do you mean Joe Stowe?"

"Oh yes," she said. "He was so interesting. Couldn't you call him up and
have him over? He's just the sort of man I mean--someone to take her
mind off that Avery Gifford. I don't see what she sees in Avery. Can't
you call up Mr. Stowe and ask him to dinner?"

"He was in Rome the last I heard of him," I said. "He was doing some
work for the News Alliance."

"In Rome?" said Cousin Clothilde. "Why, Archie's taking Bella to Rome
next month."

"Why?" I asked.

"Will you fix that pillow in back of my head, dear?" Cousin Clothilde
said. "I keep getting a pain in the back of my neck. The osteopath
doesn't understand it. Archie's always been talking about taking her
over to Italy, and it may get her over Mr. Gifford. She doesn't really
like him, Jim. I know she doesn't like him."

"Are you going too?" I asked.

"Darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "just sit down. It makes me feel so
tired when everyone walks around. The children are so perfectly
useless, darling. Someone has to do something for Mary, and Sid is
taking a course in biology. I don't know how long he can stand it
because it makes him sick cutting up frogs. I really don't see why they
should cut up frogs. I always think of the noise they make at Wickford
Point. And Harry is out of a job. I couldn't go away. I don't know why
it is that no one can do anything. You must talk to Bella, darling."

"All right," I said.

"And you must tell me what you're going to do, and everything you've
been doing."

"All right," I said. I knew that she was not really interested in what I
had done, but somehow I did not mind, because I knew that she was glad
to see me, as glad as I was to see her, and that nothing else mattered.
I looked about the room. Sid had come in and was sitting near the fire.
Mary was standing by the window and Bella was in the hall, quarreling
with Harry.

"I know where you were last night," Bella was saying, "and that's why
there isn't any money left. How did it help you get a job, taking her to
Pierre's to dinner?"

"Nothing's changed at all," I said.

"No," said Cousin Clothilde. "Nothing's changed at all. They don't any
of them do anything. Mary, will you go upstairs and get my purse and
give Harry some money to go out and get something for us to eat, a steak
or something? You and Bella can cook it if Sally doesn't come."

"Who's Sally?" I asked.

"The maid," said Cousin Clothilde. "She comes from Harlem. She reads
horoscopes in the afternoon, and sometimes she's late, but Mary and
Bella can start with the dinner."

"Bella never helps," said Mary.

"Well," said Cousin Clothilde, "don't argue, dear. I'll help or someone
will help. My purse is upstairs in the upper bureau drawer."

"There isn't any money in it," Mary said. "I looked."

I was right; it hadn't changed at all. Cousin Clothilde looked at me,
and we began to laugh. I thought at first that I might take them out
somewhere, but it was more fun staying there; it was the first time in a
long while that I had felt at home.

"I'll go out with Mary," I said. "We'll go and get some dinner."

Mary put her arm through mine. "There's a rabbi on the corner," she
said, "who sells sacrificial wine."

"She means sacramental wine," Sid said. Mary pulled at my arm.

"It doesn't make any difference," she answered. "Jim knows what I mean.
Sacrificial wine or sacramental wine, what difference does it make?"

Mary held tight to my arm just as she had when she was a little girl.
She wanted to talk about herself and about all the family, because I had
been away so long, she said, that I ought to know about everything. She
had finished with Miss Lacey's School and had been chosen the best-liked
girl in the class, most resembling the Lacey School ideal, but Bella had
been fired. Perhaps no one would tell me that Bella had been fired, and
it really made no difference, since Bella went everywhere. Mary had
thought a little of coming out, and Clothilde had given her a tea at the
Caryatid Club. Bella had said there wasn't much sense in coming out when
everyone knew you anyway. Besides Mary couldn't get on with boys unless
she knew them very well. Avery Gifford had been her friend before he met
Bella.

"But I can't do anything about it," she said. "Why should anyone look at
me when Bella's here?"

I realized that this would always be Mary's problem as long as Bella
stayed at home. It was her character--too mild, too sweet. She would
always be Bella's foil. She would always feel conscious of her
deficiencies when Bella was there. The sooner Mary Brill got away from
home the better.

"If Bella would only get married, it would be all right," she said. "It
must be funny coming back and finding everyone grown-up."

"Yes," I said, "it's funny."

"I might get along better," she said, "if I didn't have to do all the
work. There just isn't time. I'm going to unpack your clothes as soon as
I get back. I guess we're a queer family. Do you think we're crazy?"

"Well," I answered, "every family is. That's the trouble with a family."

"But other families do something," Mary said. "There's always someone
doing something. Well, here's where we get the sacrificial wine. It's
better in the summer when we're back at Wickford Point."

"Why?" I asked.

Mary Brill looked up at me and smiled.

"Because we belong there," she said. "No one is expected to do anything
at Wickford Point."

       *       *       *       *       *

You always had a good time in the evening at the Brills'. A friend of
Cousin Clothilde's, a Mrs. Wetherbee who had just had a henna rinse,
came in when dinner was nearly ready and talked about sex. Before dinner
was on the table several other people came in also. A man named Oswald
Fisher, who sometimes wrote something for the newspapers, helped Harry
mix the gin. Cousin Clothilde hoped that Mr. Fisher would not get drunk,
but Mr. Fisher did. There was also an artist named Jonas, who did work
in gesso for an interior decorator, and a girl named Florentine Gaspard,
whom Mary had met in a speakeasy once, who wanted me to go somewhere
with her, anywhere, and when she said anywhere she meant anywhere. After
a while she wanted me to go upstairs with her because Clothilde wouldn't
mind at all.

Cousin Clothilde sat watching them all, while the steaks were broiling,
and she was the best person in the room, entirely untouched by the
company.

"I have the nicest friends," she said. "Wherever I go they always come
around me. I knew that Florentine would like you. She's so
distinguished. I hope you see a great deal of Florentine."

"There doesn't seem to be very much in the way of seeing all there is,"
I said.

Cousin Clothilde frowned.

"It's just a way she has," she said. "You mustn't be so hard on people,
darling. I thought she was peculiar too until I found out what a
dreadful time she'd had. It's so much happier to be tolerant. Here comes
Mirabel Steiner. I want you particularly to know Mirabel Steiner."

"Does everyone drop in for dinner?" I asked.

"Yes," said Cousin Clothilde, "usually at dinnertime. That's the
pleasant thing about having dinner, isn't it?"

Mirabel Steiner wore Navajo jewelry and she smelled of musk. She was
studying psychology at Columbia and she had been analyzed by Dr. Freud.

"You," she said, "I've been waiting for you."

"That goes for me too," I answered. "I've been waiting for you all my
life."

"That's true," Miss Steiner said. "You didn't know it, but you know it
now."

"That's just the way she is, darling," Cousin Clothilde told me. "She's
been such a help to me. She knows everything about everybody."

Harry was passing the cocktails and everyone was talking. By the time
dinner was ready, everyone was talking louder. Everyone knew a good deal
more about China and Russia than I did, so there was no need for me to
speak. Harry knew about everything because he had seen so many people
who knew.

"Don't be so hard on people, Jim," he said. "These are all damned
interesting people. I'm sorry Fisher's so drunk. You'd be crazy about
him. You've got to be easy on people. You never know when they can help
you."

"Does Florentine help you?" I asked.

"Well," said Harry, "she knows a lot of people. Sooner or later
everybody comes here, Jim, and you ought to see it in summer at Wickford
Point."

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," I said.

They were still talking downstairs when I went up to my room. I unlocked
my trunk and took a few clothes out and laid them on a chair, and then
there was a knock on my door. It was Bella.

"Jim," she said, "do you mind if I come in?" She had changed before
dinner into a violet dress that matched her eyes, although its color was
not so deep. I have never been able to understand much about women's
clothes, but I remember that the lines of that dress were very simple,
giving an air of innocence which was not innocent at all. I remember
that it was a beautiful dress which looked incongruous in the dusty room
with its single bed and broken bureau. The Brills never minded much
where anybody slept. Bella was like her mother, entirely untouched by
all the smoke and noise downstairs. Her lips were childishly solemn and
her eyes were demurely steady.

"Jim," she said, "darling."

"Yes," I said.

"You're going to stay, aren't you? You're not going to leave us, are
you?"

"No, not for a while," I said.

"I was afraid you might. You see how everything is, don't you?"

"Yes, I see how it is," I said.

"Well," said Bella, "God damn them all!"

For some reason I felt no sense of shock at the words, for they seemed
as natural as though I had spoken them, and I knew exactly what she
meant because I felt that way myself.

"Jim," she said, "kiss me. I'll feel better if you kiss me, dear. Those
bitches...." Propriety told me that she was too young to use the word,
and yet I did not mind it. It was not difficult to kiss her. She sat
beside me on the bed and I held her in my arms.

"Jim," she said, "someone's got to help me. You're the only one."

"All right," I said, "I'll help you, Belle."

She was silent for a moment and then she put her arms around my neck. I
could feel her close against me, as though she were wearing no dress at
all.

"I'm so afraid," she said.

"Don't be afraid," I told her. "You're too damn beautiful to be afraid."

"Jim," she said, "I have to get out of this. I can't stand it, Jim!
They ... God damn them all--except Clothilde!"

"Yes," I said, because I knew exactly what she meant.

"Or else I'll go to hell," she said. "Please help me, won't you, Jim?"

Of course she was exaggerating, but exaggeration is useful if it
illustrates a point of view. Everybody sometime or other revolts against
environment, but she meant more than that.

"You'd better talk to me, Bella," I said, "and then we'll get this
straight. How do you mean you're going to hell?"

It occurred to me that I was not such a bad person for her to talk to
either, for I had seen a good deal--more than she would ever see.

"I mean I'll be getting like them," she answered. "I'm getting more like
them all the time."

"How do you mean?" I asked. "You have to be like them in a way because
you're one of them. You can't get away from that." But she could not
tell me what she meant. She could only deal with nonessentials in a
torrent of words, and she pushed herself away from me, sitting up very
straight.

"You know," she said. "What do you ask me for? It isn't kind to ask me.
It's getting worse and worse--everybody sitting and complaining,
everybody taking things from Clothilde. You don't know what it's like,
Jim, you just don't know. Look at Harry, he's your age. Look at Sid.
There isn't anybody. I don't want to be like that. They're so--" She
stopped and beat her fist against her knee. "I'll have to get out of
it, that's all, Jim." And she began to cry.

She never had cried easily like Mary, and she was ashamed of herself for
crying.

"You mean you want to be a part of the everyday world," I said. "I know,
Belle. Don't cry."

"Yes," she said, "that's what I mean exactly."

"And you're worried about something?"

"Yes," she said, "I'm worried." And then I made a practical suggestion
that sounded very flat when I made it.

"The best thing for you to do," I said, "would be to work. If you feel
this way, go out and get a job."

Bella looked at me and stopped crying.

"They wouldn't let me, Jim," she said. "Can't you see them"--Bella
wrinkled up her nose--"if I tried to get a job? Darling, that isn't what
I meant. I want to get away."

"Well, Archie's taking you to Italy," I said.

Bella's voice grew sharp.

"Darling," she said, "please don't say that. You don't call that getting
away, do you? Oh, don't. I'm so worried, Jim."

I knew her so well that it did not seem as if I had been away at all,
and I realized that I had been almost dull.

"That boy who was here, the one who called me 'sir,'" I said, "is that
it, Belle?" But she did not answer.

"Do you love him, Belle?" She looked at me out of the corners of her
eyes and clasped her knees with her delicate white hands.

"I don't know," she said. "Sometimes I do; sometimes I don't. Jim, I
wish I knew."

"If you did, you would," I said. "He looks like a nice boy. Does he want
to marry you?"

She nodded without speaking, looking at her hands clasped tight about
her knees. She did not love him, but she wanted to love him.

"He's everything I ought to want," she said. "Jim, I'm so afraid."

"Of him?" I asked. She shook her head.

"It's what he sees in me," she answered. "He wants me to marry him right
away."

I tried to think that there were a good many other attributes to a
marriage besides love, and I selected the most obvious one for the
first.

"Has he any money?" I asked.

Her eyes were wide, almost incredulous, when she answered.

"He's one of the Giffords," she said, "_the_ Giffords."

"What?" I said. "Those Giffords?" Bella nodded and I knew better why she
wanted to love Avery Gifford then.

"I've been to see his family," Bella said. "I was there last summer lots
of times."

"How does it feel when he kisses you?" I asked.

Bella looked at me sideways and smiled.

"It feels just fine," she said. "He's so gentle; he's so darling, Jim."

"Well," I said, "that's something."

Bella did not answer at once.

"Jim," she said, "I'm so mixed up. Sometimes I think I'm not fit for
him, and then, when he's away, I miss him. And then I want to marry him,
and then I don't. I don't want to marry him if I don't want to, Jim."

It seemed to me that I had heard the same speech before, but I could not
tell where, until I remembered that girl, Dorothy Padmore, on the boat.

"Lots of girls have a hard time making up their minds," I said.

"But if I don't what will happen to me?" Bella asked. "What _will_
happen, Jim?"

"It doesn't matter," I said. "There'll be someone else. Just get that in
your head, Belle, because I know. There's always someone else."

Bella shook her head.

"Don't be silly," she answered. "There won't be anyone else like Avery
Gifford, Jim. If I go up to that football game, will you come up too? I
want to take him up to Wickford Point."

"All right," I said.

"Except I don't want to exactly. I'd much rather go up to Wickford Point
just alone with you. Do you remember when you took me shooting, Jim?"

I told her yes, that I remembered.

"Jim," she said, "if I don't want to marry him, will you take me away
somewhere--not Italy, but some place where people have queer clothes? If
I don't want to marry him, you'll help me get away?"

"Yes," I said, "I'll help you get away." When I was in my twenties and
even in my thirties, it seemed so desirable and so simple to help people
get away; and perhaps I might have helped her, if it hadn't been for
Avery Gifford and Joe Stowe.




XXIII

_Up and Out_


Cousin Clothilde always had one great complaint, which was to be
expected since everyone in the family had some individual grievance.
Cousin Clothilde used to say--I had heard her say it often long ago, and
now she was still repeating it--that nobody in the house ever got up and
out, particularly the men. Archie, for example, always took a hot bath
in the morning. He would lock himself in and then lie in the tub and
read _Das Kapital_ for such extended periods that often Cousin Clothilde
was afraid that he had died in there, especially as Archie never
answered when she knocked upon the door. In fact once Cousin Clothilde
called the police, thinking that there was a burglar in the bathroom,
because she was sure that Archie was up and out, but she was wrong. When
the plain-clothes man broke the lock, Archie was in the tub.

When I got up the next morning, I already felt perfectly at home. The
house was somewhat dingier than any of the Brill houses I remembered.
There was no couple in the kitchen, but only the colored maid who read
horoscopes. Nevertheless I was experiencing the customary sense of
lassitude and the old lack of desire to see what was going on in the
streets outside. It was already ten o'clock, but no one was up except
Harry, who was still in his wrapper and pajamas sorting the morning
mail, drinking his coffee with one hand and dividing the letters into
piles with the other.

"I thought you might be up early," Harry said, "that's why I came down.
There's no use getting out until lunchtime; that's about the first
minute you can hope to see anyone."

He set down his cup and used both hands on the letters.

"Look at those bills," he said, "look at them. They're going to worry
Clothilde. She's always thinking about money. You haven't noticed that
yet, have you?"

"Is there any trouble about money?" I asked.

Harry made a rotary gesture with his hand and wrist.

"Certainly not," he said, "absolutely not. It's only Clothilde. All she
has to do is to go on a budget. There would be plenty of money, if she
only started on a budget. If I could just handle it for her, why
everything would be all right."

"What good would a budget do?" I asked.

Harry patted the top of his head where his hair was growing thin.

"It would take a certain amount of firmness to run the budget," he said.
"It would have to be absolutely iron-clad. Now my idea is this--" Harry
began counting off points on his fingers. "One: so much for light, heat,
rent and service, computed from a monthly average which could easily be
arrived at. Two: a contingency fund."

"What sort of contingencies?" I asked.

"All the usual contingencies," Harry said. "Two: a contingency
fund--well, for dentistry and medicine. Three: an allotment for
recreation. Four: a miscellaneous fund for unexpected incidentals, and
five: an iron-clad fixed allowance for every member of the family, over
which they must not run under any circumstances. Now I could manage
that. It's lucid, isn't it? Simple, plain common sense. What is more,
it's business sense. Wouldn't you think that would be completely
comprehensible? Now on the one hand there's efficiency and order. Let's
try not to let our emotions run away with us. What is there on the other
hand?"

"Go ahead," I said, "you're being lucid. Have you ever tried living on a
budget?"

Harry moved his hand again in a rotary gesture and ended by pointing at
me.

"The same question might apply to you," he said. "It might apply to
anybody, and the answer is that your question is completely immaterial.
Either you or I could live on a budget if we had to. We are not speaking
about ourselves--we are speaking about Clothilde. We are trying
unemotionally to straighten out a tangled situation. There is no need
for personalities to enter in. The trouble with everyone"--Harry waved
his hand in a spiral gesture, upward--"down here in the winter, or up
there in the summer at Wickford Point, is that everyone deals in
exhibitionist emotionalism and mutual recriminations whenever the
subject of money is mentioned. Suppose we place ourselves above it. What
is there on the other hand?"

"All right," I said, "what is there?" It was the Harry Brill I had
always known.

"On the other hand"--Harry shrugged his shoulders elaborately--"there is
inefficiency. Clothilde's check comes on the first of the month. She
received it the day before yesterday, and then it's a question of who
gets to her first. There is no idea of a budget. Personally, I got to
her first this month for clothes, but I was just two minutes ahead of
Bella. You may have noticed that Bella was a little out of sorts last
evening, but I'm not dealing in personalities. We're dealing in facts
and figures. If it isn't Bella it's Archie. Or if it isn't Archie, it's
Sid. I'm not blaming anyone. It's simply because of inefficiency, and
it's a damn humiliating situation. The logical result of it is that when
the bills come in, they can't be paid. It's plain that something has to
be done, isn't it?"

"Have you taken it up with Cousin Clothilde?" I asked.

Harry shrugged his shoulders again and sank back into his chair, a weary
and defeated man.

"Again and again," he said, "again and again and again. She doesn't
understand it at all; and when I try to explain it to the others, my
perfectly logical suggestion is greeted with laughter. I have to go
outside this house to have my ideas taken seriously. Emotion keeps
creeping in. It is impossible to talk here without emotion."

"What does Cousin Clothilde say?" I asked.

"What would she say?" Harry answered. "You know Clothilde. She simply
doesn't understand. She seems to feel that I am trying to seize
financial control, when I simply say that there's money enough for
everyone. Her mind invariably goes back over a familiar trace. She only
asks why the men in the family don't support her, and why she should
support the men. Now that's a logical question, but she will not see
that it has nothing to do with the present situation. Do you know what I
think sometimes? I think that she likes to see everyone coming to her
for money. It gives her a sense of power. Yet, on the other hand, she
sympathizes with my point of view."

"What point of view?" I asked.

"That there's enough money for everybody," Harry said. "She understands
this perfectly. Up to a certain point she is absolutely consistent, but
she doesn't seem to be able to go beyond that point. She begins by
saying that she wants someone to look after her. She wonders why we
never do, and she wants someone to adopt her."

"Adopt her?" I repeated. "Has she been talking about that, again?"

"Naturally it's just a pose," Harry said. "She likes to talk about
adoption in front of Archie and Sid and me, but when we try to do
anything to try and help her, she won't have anything to do with it. It
makes an unlovely situation."

It sounded outrageous to me at the moment, but only because I had been
away for such a long while. In a day or two or in a week or two I should
be used to all the Brills again. Just then, however, I regarded Harry
Brill very curiously. He had grown older, but there was no change
whatsoever in his mental processes. It seemed to have done him no good
to live. I thought of Bella the night before, and I could understand her
better when Harry began to talk.

"Why don't you get out and do something?" I asked.

Harry leaned back in his chair and looked at me over the edge of his
long thin nose.

"Now that's a boring thing to say," he said, "very, very boring. Do
something? I'm trying to do something."

"That isn't what I meant," I said. "I'd rather be out digging ditches."

Harry's face reddened slightly.

"That's an obvious remark," he said, "and a very silly one. It just
happens that none of us is obliged to dig ditches. And why in God's name
does everybody use that simile about digging ditches? If you imply that
I'm not willing to work, you are very much mistaken. It just happens
that I am in a position to wait until I can strike upon something which
is worth while. Even Clothilde sees that. She doesn't begrudge me that
chance. Everything I've done leads to something. I've served an
apprenticeship in a number of jobs, and now I know what I'm worth."

"All right," I said. I had not the slightest desire to quarrel with him.
"You're old enough to do something--that's all."

"My God," Harry said, "why can't you drop that phrase about 'doing
something'? What have you been doing except running around the world,
amusing yourself? And now you come back here and talk to me about 'doing
something.' I suppose you've been listening to the girls. You don't even
know what I have been doing. I've been in banking and real estate and
insurance. Accidentally you've found me when I'm out of work, and when
I'm out of work the whole damn family jump on me. Why in hell should I
do something when no one else does? And now they're after Sid to do
something."

"All right," I said.

Harry's face had assumed a strange expression.

"Suppose you mind your own business," Harry said.

"All right," I said. I must have had some intuitive realization that
they were beyond any useful criticism, as they moved according to some
system entirely their own. That morning was the nearest I ever came to
criticizing, but Harry must have known how I felt. He dropped his
cigarette into the bottom of his coffee cup and pushed back his chair.

"Don't get sore," he said.

"I'm not sore," I answered. "I don't give a damn."

"Well, don't get sore," Harry said. "I don't blame you. You don't
understand it, Jim. I'd better go upstairs and get dressed. Clothilde's
coming down now." He picked the bills up from the table and put them in
his dressing-gown pocket. "Don't tell her about those bills, I'm going
to burn them up. They'll only annoy her."

Cousin Clothilde had on a dark blue broadcloth dress. When she stood by
the tall window and looked out over the back yard, her profile was much
the same as Bella's, and she seemed almost as young.

"There isn't any letter from Archie," she said. "He's so careless about
writing. You're not going out yet, are you? Sit with me while I have my
coffee. Have you a cigarette, darling? You mustn't hurry to go out."

"All right," I said, "I won't hurry."

"I never have hurried," said Cousin Clothilde. "It never does any good.
What's Harry been talking about?"

"About bills," I said. Cousin Clothilde sighed and flicked the ash from
her cigarette.

"Harry's always talking about bills," she said. "I wish he'd help me
with them, but he never helps at all. All of the men in the family just
think I'm here to feed them. I have to sit and worry about them all the
time. Nobody worries about me."

"Oh yes, they do," I said. "You don't notice it, that's all."

"No, they don't," said Cousin Clothilde. "I sit and worry about
everybody. First I worry about whether Archie is happy, and then I worry
about Mary's different attitudes, and then I worry because too many men
like Bella. There's something strange about Bella. She doesn't seem
happy, Jim. Then I worry about Sid. I think he works too hard. It isn't
good to use your mind too much, and then I worry about Harry. He knows
everyone; he has every opportunity to do something."

"He's lazy," I said. "He always was and he still is. You've made them
all lazy, you're making me lazy now."

Cousin Clothilde laughed.

"Darling," she said, "I'm so glad you're back. Now they're all so big,
so grown-up, that I need someone to help me, but it isn't true about
being lazy. Harry isn't lazy. He's always up and out, trying to see
someone. So many people say that he ought to do something. I think
perhaps he's done too much."

"Done too much?" I repeated.

"Yes, that's what I really think," Cousin Clothilde said. "It seems to
me that he may be overtired. If he didn't move about so much he might
find something to do that interested him--but then why should he do
anything?"

"I don't exactly follow you," I said.

"Well," said Cousin Clothilde, "why should anyone do anything if he
doesn't have to? After all, I love to have them here. I don't like it
when they're away, but I do wish there was a little more money. I don't
see what that old Mr. Caldicott is doing, looking after the estate, and
Mirabel Steiner and Mr. Fisher don't see what he's doing either. All the
stocks are going up everywhere and yet he doesn't make any more money
for us. I wish you'd go up to Boston and see Mr. Caldicott. Harry's been
to see him, but it doesn't do any good."

"I'm going up this week end," I said. "Bella wants me to go with her to
Wickford Point."

"But, darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "why do you have to go out this
morning?"

"I have to see a literary agent," I said. "I thought I might try to do
some writing."

"Harry always talks about it too," said Cousin Clothilde. "I think it
would be very nice if he did some writing, but you don't have to go
right now, do you? Be sure to be back for dinner, won't you? Archie may
be here."

"All right," I answered. "I'll be back."

Outside in the street I was in a world I knew again, and it was as
though I had been out of it for quite a while. I was back where there
was an actual struggle; but then, I thought, the Brills were different
from other people, and I was glad that they were different. Until I had
seen them I had forgotten that most of life was dull.

The Stanhope offices were uptown in a new building on the fifteenth
floor. The hall outside was done in early American furniture and the
girl at the desk said that Mr. Stanhope would see me in just a minute. I
waited for an hour and a half before I saw him. Finally I sat in an
upholstered chair, looking at him across his table while I tried to
explain to him why I had come. He was dressed in a russet brown suit
with a russet brown tie, and even then he had that picture of the police
dog in front of him, and I watched him, while I talked, draw squares
upon a piece of yellow paper.

"You've been around quite a lot," Mr. Stanhope said. "Did you ever run
into a man named Stowe, Joe Stowe?"

"Yes," I said. "We went out to China after the war. Joe's a friend of
mine. He's in Rome now."

"He sent me some things," Mr. Stanhope said. "If he only had his feet on
the ground he might be good. I wish I had him over here. I'd like to
talk to Stowe. If I could talk to him, I think he would sell. What makes
you think that you can write?"

"I've been a correspondent for four years," I said.

Mr. Stanhope looked out of the window.

"That doesn't mean a thing," he said. "Does Stowe think you can write?"

"Yes," I said. The telephone beside him rang and Mr. Stanhope picked it
up.

"No, Mabel darling," he said, "it won't do any good for you to come in
to see me. It's just a matter of the ending. The boy and girl have to
come together in each other's arms--otherwise it's splendid. No darling,
that isn't much of a change. It's just as logical for them to fall into
each other's arms as not. That's all they want down there--just an
indication of love." Mr. Stanhope set down the telephone.

"It doesn't do any good to talk," he said. "Write me a piece of fiction
and bring it in. Then we'll know where we are. If you write Stowe, tell
him I spoke about him, will you?"

"I thought I might try to write a book," I said. "I was out with Feng
for three years in China."

"No," said Mr. Stanhope, "no, no. Nobody's ever heard of these Chinamen.
Do you know anything about sing-song girls?"

"Yes," I answered, "quite a lot." Mr. Stanhope drummed his fingers on
the table.

"Now that's something," he said. "They were asking up the street for a
story about a sing-song girl to go with their new four-color process.
I've got it--Shanghai. Do you know Shanghai?"

"Yes," I said. Mr. Stanhope stopped drumming on the table.

"Now wait," he said, "just a minute. I want to get this straight. Of
course, I can't write it for you ... but something like this ... the boy
and girl are in Shanghai. She's come out there to marry him, and the
sing-song girl gives him up. How about doing something like that?"

"I might," I said.

"All right," said Mr. Stanhope. "It's just an idea, you understand.
Write it and I may be able to tell you whether you can get anywhere.
What did you say your name was?"

"Calder," I said.

"Be sure to tell Joe Stowe I was speaking about him," Mr. Stanhope said.

I had been given a guest card to the Cosgrave Club, east of Fifth
Avenue, and when I had finished with Mr. Stanhope I walked over to it,
across Forty-Second Street, past all the new shops. It was nearly
lunchtime and the Club was crowded. First there was a room decorated
with the heads of African animals, bearing names which were beginning to
be used in crossword puzzles, and off it was a bar, where the barkeeper
mixed gin cocktails from private bottles and flasks supplied by the
members; and beyond was a long, dark hall with writing tables. I was
moving toward one of the tables when someone called me. At first I could
not remember who he was, but finally I recollected that he was a man
named Henry Follen in the class below me at Harvard.

"Hello, Jim," Henry said. "You haven't been around here much, have you?"

"No," I said, "not much. I've been abroad."

"Oh," said Henry. "Well, we must get together sometime. You wouldn't be
interested in some life insurance, would you?"

"Not right now," I said.

"Well," said Henry, "we must get together sometime. A lot of people we
know have passed out of the picture already. Funny, isn't it, how
suddenly people pass out of the picture?"

"Well," I said, "it all depends on what the picture is. You can pass out
of some pictures rather quickly, Henry."

"Well," said Henry, "I'll see you around here sometime. We must get
together."

As I sat down at the writing table, my mind was still occupied by the
phrase he had used. It was really more applicable to life than it was to
death. In life one was always passing in and out of pictures,
particularly when one was young--good pictures or bad pictures, it did
not matter which. I had been in the Brill picture that morning and then
in the Stanhope picture and now I was in the picture of all the Henry
Follens I had known, who were engaged in selling bonds and life
insurance and in trying, in the conventional ways permitted our class,
to justify their existence. I selected a piece of notepaper and looked
at it for a while before I began to write. Joe Stowe and I had been in
and out of a good many pictures and it had been a long while since we
had communicated with each other. Yet I knew that things would be just
the same when we met again. There would be none of that barrier that
stood between people like Henry Follen and me, making me feel lonely and
out of place.

"Dear Joe," I wrote, "I have just been to see Stanhope. He was asking
about you and he thinks you're good. He wants me to write a story about
a sing-song girl. He doesn't know what one is but he has heard about
them. You'd better come on back home just to keep me company, or else
I'll be wanting to get moving again. It's pretty terrible because I
don't believe there is anyone here to talk to who knows anything about
anything, but I am not sure yet. I am going to Boston the day after
tomorrow and then up to Wickford Point. It's queer getting back. It's
consoling to know I've saved enough money to keep me for a while. By the
way, Bella is going over to Rome very soon with Archie Wright. You
remember Bella, don't you? Be sure to look her up, and give my best to
the old crowd at the Russie if any of them are left. You'd better come
on home or you'll forget just what it's like...."




XXIV

_They Say It Loves a Lover_


The Giffords lived in one of those tall brick houses on the water side
of Beacon Street, and I called there to take Bella and Avery Gifford to
Wickford Point. I drove up from New York in a second-hand Dodge which I
had just bought. The body was shabby, but it had one of those engines
which never wear out, and it rattled and creaked through the November
dusk. I climbed up a flight of heavy brownstone steps, and rang a bell
which was answered by a white-haired maid who looked at me suspiciously.
It was one of the houses built shortly after the Back Bay was filled in,
and its interior was much the same as all the others--a dark hall
finished in walnut with a small parlor on the left, a somber dining room
in back, overlooking the river, and a broad, carpeted staircase leading
to the second floor.

"Master Avery and the young lady are not back yet," the maid said, "but
Mr. Gifford would like to see you upstairs in the library."

It was plain that Mr. Gifford wanted to see me but that he did not like
to see me. He was standing by a window which looked across the Charles
River Basin, in a room with portraits and a black marble mantel and
heavy sets of books. I knew what he would be like because I had seen a
good many people like him in my youth. He was a tall, thin-faced,
stoop-shouldered man in a baggy gray suit with a heavy gold watch-chain.
His hair was gray and his mustache was a reddish gray, and he was
smoking a thin and very cheap cigar.

"Oh," said Mr. Gifford. "You're Miss Brill's cousin, aren't you? How do
you do?"

We stood looking at each other for a moment and I saw that he was
embarrassed. He did not know me and he did not know where to place me.

"Won't you sit down?" he said. Somehow I did not like being there much,
because he was worried; he was not only wondering who I was, but what I
was.

"I've heard Mr. Caldicott speak of you often, sir," I said.

"Oh," said Mr. Gifford, "Godfrey, you know Godfrey Caldicott?" His tone
was slightly incredulous, but shaded at the same time with a note of
hope.

"He looks after our family affairs," I said. "I haven't seen him for
quite a while, because I've been abroad."

"Oh," said Mr. Gifford, "you're in business, are you?"

"Not exactly, sir," I said. "I came back. I thought I might write."

Mr. Gifford sat down heavily in an overstuffed brown velvet armchair.

"Then you must have an income," Mr. Gifford said more cheerfully. "No
one can live from writing."

"Not enough to live on, sir," I said, "but I've saved a little money."

Mr. Gifford stared hard at the end of his cigar. I knew what he was
driving at, and I knew the way he must have felt as he sat there coping
with an unknown and dangerous quantity which had entered his life. He
did not like me and I did not like him much, but at the same time I felt
sorry for him.

"My wife has a very severe headache," Mr. Gifford said. "She has been
ill in bed for the last two days. I'm sorry she can't see you, Mr.--"

"Calder," I said.

"Oh yes," he answered. "Excuse me. Mr. Calder--Calder--it seems to me
when I was a young man there were some people in Nahant by the name of
Calder. That couldn't be your family, could it?"

I told him it was not, and Mr. Gifford looked again at the end of his
cigar.

"My wife wanted to talk to you," he said. "Let me see. The Brills wrote
something, didn't they?"

"Bella's grandfather was the poet," I said, "the famous poet."

"Oh," said Mr. Gifford, "yes, I understand. I wish my wife were here. I
suppose you know--" He paused and I did not answer, although it was
clear what was coming. Mr. Gifford coughed.

"I suppose you know," Mr. Gifford said, "that Avery wants to marry Miss
Brill. We never suspected such a thing. It's been a shock to both of us,
a very great shock. I don't know if I can explain to you what I mean."

As I looked across the room at Mr. Gifford I knew that he intended no
rudeness. He had not been aware of his own frankness, that was all, and
I felt no resentment towards him.

"You mean that you want Avery to be happy," I said.

I think he liked me after that; at any rate his manner changed.

"It's kind of you to put it that way," Mr. Gifford said. "I mean he
isn't her sort of person. I don't mean anything against her. I've no
doubt she's very charming, but she isn't his kind of person."

"No," I said, "she isn't."

Mr. Gifford moved uneasily in his chair.

"Of course Avery will be very comfortably off," he said, "but I don't
refer to material considerations. I mean that when people marry, they
should marry the same sort of person. They should not be too excited
about it, if you understand me, Mr. Calder. There should be a community
of friends and interests. Marriage is a damnably serious thing."

"I suppose it is," I said.

"I know it is," said Mr. Gifford. "Now when Mrs. Gifford and I were
married we knew what we were doing. After all, we lived next door. The
war's changed everything. By the way, would you care for a glass of
whisky?"

"No thank you, sir," I said.

"Since the war," said Mr. Gifford, "everyone has been meeting too many
different sorts of people. Avery has been meeting too many. All I'm
saying is that I want Avery to be happy."

"I understand you," I said, "perfectly."

"It's good of you to say so," Mr. Gifford answered. "This has been very
hard on us, particularly on my wife. There isn't anything you could do
about it, is there, Mr. Calder?"

"How do you mean?" I asked.

Mr. Gifford spoke abruptly.

"You couldn't stop it, could you?" he inquired.

"No," I said, "of course I couldn't."

Mr. Gifford sighed and fumbled in his pocket for a match.

"I didn't mean to ask you exactly that," he said. "Avery's so damnably
excited. I can't do anything with Avery." He stopped and relighted his
cigar. I wondered why I was not angry with him, for instead of being
angry I was finding him sympathetic. He was only trying to say that he
and his kind were different from ours, and he was too worried to say it
properly.

"I don't think," I said, "that Bella is so anxious to marry Avery."

Mr. Gifford dropped his match upon the Oriental rug.

"Not anxious to marry Avery? Good gracious," he said, "why not?"

"She feels a little the same way about it that you do," I said.

"Good gracious," said Mr. Gifford, "I don't see why."

"Well, she does," I answered.

"Now come," said Mr. Gifford, "any girl would want to marry Avery.
What's the matter with Avery?"

"I don't know," I said, "because I don't want to marry him."

"Well, you like him, don't you?" Mr. Gifford asked. "Everyone likes
Avery."

"Yes," I said. "Bella likes him too."

"You're not offended with me, are you?" Mr. Gifford said. "I haven't
meant to be blunt--but Avery's my son."

"I'm not offended at all," I said. Then Mr. Gifford sat up straighter.
The front door had opened and we heard the voices of Avery and Bella in
the hall downstairs.

"Avery," Bella was saying, "don't be silly. _Avery!_"

Mr. Gifford and I both must have felt the same sort of chill
embarrassment.

"I don't suppose," said Mr. Gifford, "that there's a damn thing that
anyone can do."

"Except let them alone," I said.

Mr. Gifford sighed.

"I hope Eleanor didn't hear," he said. "It will only make things worse."

They were running up the stairs and then they were in the library. Avery
Gifford looked very nice and Bella looked very nice. The only trouble
was that she looked a little too proper, a trifle too neat, and Avery
was too full of conversation.

"Hello, Father," Avery said, and he shook hands with me. "I didn't see
you at the game, sir," he said to me. "Where were you? We were near the
cheering section. We'll be ready to go to Wickford in just a minute,
sir, just as soon as Bella and I say good-by to Mother."

"How are you going to go?" Mr. Gifford asked.

"Jim, that is Mr. Calder, is going to drive us down," Avery said.
"That's your Dodge outside, isn't it, sir? There's no engine like a
Dodge engine."

"You and Bella can sit behind," I said.

"No, we won't," said Bella. "We'll all sit in the front seat." She
turned toward me and held out her arms.

"Darling," she said. "How are you, darling? We won't be a minute. I'll
just go and get my bag."

"We'll just say good-by to Mother," Avery said. "She'll be hurt if she
doesn't see you, Bella."

Then Mr. Gifford and I were alone again. Mr. Gifford was staring at the
door, but he collected himself.

"Mr. Calder," he said, "you must come to dine with us sometime. Would
you care for a cigar to smoke on the way?"

His words meant nothing, but I understood them. They expressed a
father's hopelessness, a weary sort of surrender. Mr. Gifford was
realizing all over again that there was not a thing he could do.

"Avery!" We could hear Bella's voice from the floor above. "Not right
here in the hall! Don't be silly, Avery!"

When Cousin Sue saw Avery Gifford, she said that he was just as nice as
he knew how to be, which was nearer to the truth than she may have
intended. On all that ride from Boston down to Wickford Point, Avery
Gifford was just as nice as he knew how to be. Conceivably he had never
been so happy in his life as when he sat in the front seat with Bella
and me on the way to Wickford Point. Avery was a lover and in love and
Bella seemed rather to enjoy it.

I don't remember what Avery said, but I do remember that he was trying
to be pleasant to me; and I did not blame him, for I knew the way he
felt. He knew at the moment that I was one of the finest fellows in the
world and he wanted me to like him. I could understand that it was
dreadfully important to him for me to like him and I tried. The trouble
was that he kept calling me "sir," and I became tired of that
deferential monosyllable which put me on a pedestal, away from struggle,
away from appetite and passion. I was barely thirty at the time and I
felt no physical incapacity.

As I drove the car and tried to like him, I felt toward him exactly the
way the world feels when they say it loves a lover. Actually I don't
believe that the world loves a lover at all; it only tolerates him as a
person afflicted by a certain stage of a common biological disease. It
tolerates him, because most of the world has had that disease at one
time or another and will probably have it again. You love a lover
because you want to be loved if you should ever again turn into a lover;
there is no other reason. Actually all lovers are consummate bores, and
almost the only good thing about them is that they are often generous,
and may be easily fooled. I remember thinking that Avery Gifford would
be amazed at some later day if he could see himself as he was then. He
was talking too much, he was laughing too much, and he never should have
tried to be so funny. Bella was laughing too, but I saw her glance at me
out of the corner of her eye just once, and I guessed that she agreed
with me.

Cousin Sue and I sat in the little parlor that evening. The lamp on the
round table was lighted and the shutters were drawn and all the doors
were closed. Cousin Sue was sitting in the small upholstered chair which
my great-aunt Sarah had always used, and she held a handkerchief between
her fingers, twisting it nervously back and forth, as she often did when
she had difficulty keeping her mind on anything.

"Where do you suppose they are now?" Cousin Sue asked. "It's time they
should come in, don't you think?"

"They're all right," I said. "It isn't cold outside."

Even with the shutters closed I could hear the wind from the river in
the trees. The warm yellow glow of the table lamp only accentuated the
outer darkness, that heavy autumn darkness that always made Wickford
Point remote. I had not been there for eight years and now the room
seemed smaller, and Cousin Sue seemed smaller and much older, but that
sense of unworldly remoteness was unchanged and it was not unpleasant.
Actually it brought me peace, a feeling for the first time that I was
safe at home, and all the things that I had brought back in my mind
fitted in with our solitude. I could hear the sound of the sea, and of
railroad trains, and of voices speaking in strange tongues, all the
while that Cousin Sue was talking. Although her mind kept darting here
and there, without apparent reason, it required no great effort to
follow her.

"You spoke to Josie, didn't you?" said Cousin Sue.

"Yes," I said. "Josie's looking fine."

"She's a thoroughly good woman," said Cousin Sue. "Did you see her
child?"

"Yes," I answered.

"Her little girl is very charming," said Cousin Sue. "I deposited five
dollars for her in the bank. Her name is Frieda. Do you think the bank
is safe? Have you been to see Mr. Caldicott?"

"Yes," I said. "Everything's all right."

"Mr. Morrissey's rheumatism is very bad," she said. "Did you know the
doctor gives him bitter, allopathic medicine? Did it seem to you that
Mr. Morrissey had been drinking?"

"Just a little cider," I said.

"Jim," said Cousin Sue.

"Yes," I said.

"Did I tell you that Nauna had to be put out of the way?"

"Yes," I said, "you told me."

"Jim," said Cousin Sue, "did anyone in China remember your
great-grandfather?"

"No," I said. "No one seemed to remember."

"I thought they might," said Cousin Sue. "He was so interested in
Canton. Jim, that Chinese general, was he an interesting man?"

"Yes," I said, "General Feng was very interesting."

And she wanted to know more about him. Of all my friends and family
Cousin Sue was the only one who really wanted to hear about the traits
of General Feng.

"He used to do conjuring tricks," I said, "in the evening, after dinner.
He enjoyed that best of all. You see he was sold to a conjurer when he
was five years old, and he used to travel to all the fairs."

"Yes," said Cousin Sue, "yes, of course."

"He used to do tricks with mice," I said. "He was very fond of mice, and
sometimes he would take a whole bowl of goldfish out from under his
robe."

"Yes," said Cousin Sue, "yes, of course. What did he used to say when he
took out the goldfish?"

"He used to say 'Dooey,'" I said, "'Dooey, dooey dooey,' and then he
would pull the goldfish out from under his robe."

"Yes," said Cousin Sue, "yes, of course. The Chinese are always such
industrious people, don't you think? Jim, what do you think is coming
out of Russia?"

"You asked me that," I said. "It's hard to tell."

"Mr. Morrissey doesn't know either," said Cousin Sue. "Jim, where do you
think they are now?"

"Who?" I asked.

"Bella and Mr. Gifford," said Cousin Sue. "Jim, what do you think of Mr.
Gifford?"

"He's all right," I said. "He's very nice."

Cousin Sue nodded and twisted her handkerchief quickly.

"Yes," she said, "he's just as nice as he knows how to be. Do you think
he means to marry Bella?"

"Yes," I said, "I think he'd like to."

"I hope the Giffords are nice people," said Cousin Sue. "Bella is
turning into such an interesting young woman, don't you think? Here they
come now. I hear them in the entry."

When I listened I could hear them too, and then I could hear them
walking through the dining room and banging against a chair, which meant
that the dining room lamp had gone out. They both had that look of
having been out where the wind was blowing. Bella had on an old cape
which she must have picked up in the side entry, and she took it off and
handed it to him, casually as though she had always been handing things
to him. When she looked at me her eyes were bright.

"Jim," she said, "have you been sitting here all the time? Why didn't
you come out on the point with us? It's beautiful out there. The moon's
up on the river. Well, I'm going to bed."

I looked at them both, but I could gather nothing definite from their
faces. I knew that she had taken him there to see what he would be like
and I wondered what he had been like, but I could not tell. Nevertheless
something had made Avery Gifford quietly happy.

"Bella's tired," he said. "We've had a long hard day."

"Well," said Cousin Sue, "I think I shall go to bed myself. Are you
going, Jim?"

"Not yet," I said.

"I guess I'll stay and talk with Jim--that is, with Mr. Calder--that is,
if you don't mind, sir," Avery said.

"Of course I don't," I said, "and for goodness' sake call me Jim."

"Yes sir," Avery said, "that is, if you don't mind." Bella began to
laugh.

"Oh fluff," she said, "of course he doesn't mind. I'll see you upstairs,
Jim. I'll come in and kiss you good night."

"I thought you were going to sleep, Bella," Avery said.

"Well, I am," said Bella, "but I always kiss Jim good night. I've always
done it and I always will."

"Good night, Mr. Gifford," Cousin Sue said. "Jim, will you give Mr.
Gifford the candle in the entry with the fish on it. And don't forget to
blow the lamps out. Good night."

Cousin Sue felt strongly about cards and liquor, but now that she had
gone to bed I brought the bottle of whisky from my suitcase and glasses
and water from the kitchen.

"Here's looking at you, Avery," I said. "I hope you come down often."

"Thank you, sir," said Avery, "thank you very much."

"Sit down," I said, "and for God's sake don't call me 'sir.' Call me
'Jim.' Now try it."

"Yes, Jim," Avery said.

"Well," I said, "now you're here, how do you like it? You have to come
here, Avery, to know the family."

"I like it very much, Jim," Avery said. "I only hope you like me."

I filled up my glass again and pushed the bottle toward him.

"Yes," I said, "I like you fine. You're a nice boy, Avery."

I meant what I said. He was a nice boy, and he looked very pleased, so
pleased that he stammered. Now that I had told him not to call me "sir,"
he kept calling me "Jim" just as often.

"Jim," he said, "I hope you like me well enough--I suppose you know I
want to marry Bella, Jim."

"Well," I said, "what does Bella say? You'd better pour yourself another
drink." He took a swallow from his glass without answering and I spoke
again. "I can't think of anything better," I said, "if Bella wants it,
Avery."

Avery looked across the table and the lamplight fell on his thick blond
hair. He had a good mouth; his face looked amazingly young, although I
could not understand why his youth should impress me, unless because he
was the sort of person who would always remain young.

"She wants to think it over, Jim," he said. "She says we can be engaged
when she gets back from Italy. That means we're as good as engaged now,
don't you think? She just doesn't want to tell anybody until she gets
back."

"Well," I said, "that's fine."

Then, as Avery continued speaking, I realized that he was telling me
everything he had been wanting to say. He was telling me so much that I
felt half-ashamed to listen. He was explaining in detail just how he
loved her and why he loved her. Of course, there had been other
girls--after all he was twenty-one--and he had petted occasionally with
other girls. He didn't suppose they used to do this, but now everybody
did. He had thought that he had loved other girls, but this was
different. This was real love. You could only love the way he did once
in your life. Bella was so delicate, so spiritual, so different from
other girls. There was something holy about her; it made him really
believe in God, although of course he had already been confirmed. He
didn't believe that many people could ever have felt as he did--that God
had meant him to love her--but now he knew that this conviction was what
real love meant. There she was and there he was, and God had meant it.
He kept thinking of her all the time, whether she was there or not. No
one understood her the way he understood her. Even when she did not
speak, he understood, and now he was so happy that he could not think,
so absolutely happy.

It was hardly proper to sit there and hear him. I had felt the same way
two or three times myself, except that I had never been as nice as that
boy was. Bella had told him that I also understood her, he said, so that
I could sympathize with his belief that she was a rare person and that
none of her family appreciated her, in spite of her always being so
sweet and gentle to them all.

"They have made her afraid," he said, "and she's so gentle and so
delicate. I want to make her happy. I want to take her away from it,
Jim. I have never spoken to anyone like this in my life."

"That's all right, go ahead," I said.

"What I mean," said Avery, "I don't mean to be rude--but they don't
understand her. She doesn't like it with her family, Jim. She's unhappy
all the time. I know she is and I want to take her away."

I set down my glass and looked at the portrait above the writing desk of
a middle-aged lady in a lace cap with a reddish nose, Bella's
great-great-grandmother. No doubt someone had wanted to take her away
too, though I could not see why.

"Away where?" I asked.

"Away from everything," Avery said, "where she can be happy, Jim, always
happy. You see I understand her. I know that I can make her happy."

I was able to appreciate his mood. He was the only one who understood
her. He wanted to take her away where she would be with him always,
always, where he could bring out the best in her and make her always
happy.

"You see what I mean, don't you?" Avery asked.

"Yes," I said, "I see what you mean. What about your family, Avery?"

He looked at me and his glance was less luminous.

"When they really know her, they can't help loving her," he said.
"Everyone who knows her, loves her. You love her, don't you, Jim?"

I pushed my glass away from me. I understood what he meant, but I
wondered exactly what it was that I felt, because while he was talking I
had been thinking of taking Bella away from it all myself.

"Yes," I said, "with limitations."

Avery blushed.

"Yes," he said. "Of course I didn't mean you really loved her."

That reply of his made me feel very old, and burdened by the weight of
my experience. The time had come for me to say something to him, and I
could never again reach the heights where Avery was poised.

"Well, Avery," I said, "that's fine--" and I paused to pick up my glass,
aware that I was speaking wearily. "It's a good idea to think these
things over, Avery. She says she wants to get away. Perhaps she does,
but it all depends where, doesn't it? There are things you don't notice
that you get accustomed to, Avery, but you miss them when you lose them.
Well, that's fine, but you'd better think it over."

"If I thought all my life, I'd think the same thing," Avery Gifford
said. "I know what you mean, but I don't have to think this time. I
know."

"Well," I said again, "that's fine. But don't do anything until Bella
gets back from Italy. Then you'll be absolutely sure. Well, Avery, good
night."

"Good night, sir," Avery said, and he shook hands.

Then when he went up to bed I opened the front door. The breeze from the
river was growing cool and sharp and I was glad to feel it. That
intensity of Avery Gifford's had made me very tired. It had the violence
of inexperience, the awkwardness of youth, and yet there had been
something in it which had been honest. I was wondering how a woman could
do such a thing to a man. I was wondering if women really liked doing
it. They did if they loved also. I was wondering if Bella really loved
him. If she didn't, it would not be fair. I wondered if she knew that it
would not be fair, and if she knew, I doubted if she cared.

       *       *       *       *       *

My room upstairs was almost exactly as I had left it on the day I had
packed to go to training camp eight years before. Josie told me that
Cousin Sue had ordered the door closed as soon as I left, and that she
had not allowed it to be opened until she heard that I was back. Then
Josie had come in and dusted it. Sometime, she said, she meant to give
it a good cleaning. As long as I could remember someone had always been
proposing to give my room a good cleaning and no one had ever done it.
That gesture of Cousin Sue's touched me a great deal, and I have always
been sorry that I never thanked her for it, at least as much as I should
have. Everyone at Wickford Point took Cousin Sue so much for granted
that she never got what she deserved.

The field-bed was right beside the wall, and the writing table with some
of my old textbooks was over against the window. I set my candle down,
lighted the kerosene lamp and opened the table drawer. The things inside
it, all those useless things one throws into drawers, brought a good
many memories back. It was as though my life had been snapped off
suddenly, as though I had returned from the dead. It was curious to
think that if I had been killed somewhere, all those odds and ends
would still have been in the table, waiting there for nothing, and most
of them had been waiting too long already. There were two spoon hooks
for pickerel and a letter from a girl named Daisy Royce asking me to
come to her house to dinner before a dance. I recalled that I had gone
and that I had been stuck with Daisy at that dance for a good two hours,
but there was the letter as though time had ended when it had first been
written. There were half a dozen number eight shells, the brass ends of
which were turning green. A mouse had made a nest out of some receipted
bills. There were also some pencils and a lot of yellow scratch-paper
and a broken dollar-watch and a shirt button and some collar studs. I
took the paper and a pencil out and laid them on the table, then I took
off my coat.

It was as good a time as any other to start writing that story about the
sing-song girl. Until I actually faced it, I believed that it would not
be difficult to write a short story, but now I recognized the complete
loneliness of the trade as I stared at my blank paper. I was no longer
dealing with facts. My mind was groping in the lamplight in an effort to
draw the illusion of living people out of thin air. It had never
occurred to me until that moment that the effort would be fatiguing or
unpleasant; it had never occurred to me that it would be worse than
manual labor. And when I sat down before the table on a creaking bedroom
chair, I did not realize that I should be doing this sort of thing for
years. I did not realize that writing would almost always be a
disagreeable task, and that nothing which one sets down on paper ever
wholly approximates the conception of the mind. As soon as I faced it, I
did not want to write. Instead my intelligence presented a number of
excuses for stopping before I started. The light was bad, the chair was
uncomfortable; I felt tired; I wanted to read a book. I would always be
seeking for excuses, ever after, not to write; and I have often wondered
why I began at all.

"She lived," I wrote, "like a doll, near the edge of the French
Concession. When she appeared upon the street, her _amah_ followed her,
carrying a square bundle wrapped in silk, and behind the _amah_ came her
strong man. When she sang, her high falsetto voice was shocking to
occidental eardrums, but the Chinese said her voice was beautiful. Her
name, when translated into English, was First Spring Mountain Plum
Blossom. She came, of course, from Soochow, that city where all the
women have a celestial beauty, and where the canal boats seem to sail
across the fields whenever the wind is fair."

I stopped, for nothing I was setting down was what I wished to say. I
paused, searching for some better combination of ideas, and instead I
began thinking of the wind bells on the Soochow Pagoda that rose above
an artificial pool. It was not a good pagoda; it was decadent when one
compared it with the ruinous classic beauty of the pagoda which stood in
the fields near Ting Jo. I had climbed to the top of it once with
General Feng and his staff to adjust artillery fire upon the troops of
the Christian general.

It had all become so real that a sound behind me made me jump. I had
forgotten where I was. The sound was only the gentle opening of my door,
but it made me turn almost guiltily. It was Bella, and I had nearly
forgotten about Bella Brill.

"Good God," I said, "aren't you asleep?"

She was in her nightdress, which was covered by the ice-blue Chinese
robe I had given her, and she was wearing the little embroidered
slippers I had bought her in Shanghai. Nothing about them was right, in
the Chinese sense, but they were becoming to Bella Brill. Her black hair
fell in two braids over her shoulders just as she had worn it when she
was a little girl, and the straight, decorous lines of the robe gave her
the same sort of childish purity.

"Jim darling," said Bella, "I can't button this damn thing right."

I had never felt that it was wrong for her to be in my room before.

"What's the matter, Belle?" I said. "Can't you go to sleep?"

"Jim," she said, "button it up the right way for me, won't you, darling?
Of course I got to sleep and then I woke up and remembered that I hadn't
said good night to you at all. Button the damn thing up, please
darling."

I walked toward her, not sure that I wanted to button the damn thing up.

"Oh," said Bella, "so that's the way it goes," and I tried not to be
disturbed by her being so near me.

"Well," I said, "there you are. Good night, Belle."

"Darling," said Bella, "I thought you'd like to know--I'm so happy.
Everything's all right when he's with me."

"Oh," I said, "that's fine. So you love him, do you, Belle?"

"Yes," she said, "I love him when he's with me. I've been so silly,
haven't I? I'm not going to be silly any more. If I can just keep
thinking this way, that's all there is to it. There's only one thing
that frightens me--it's when I don't think this way."

"How do you mean?" I asked.

"He's so darling," Bella said. "Jim, what did his father say?"

"Never mind," I said. "It doesn't matter, Belle."

Bella smiled faintly.

"Well," she said, "_they_ can't stop me. I'm going to marry him just as
soon as I get back from Italy. No one's going to stop me. Clothilde
isn't or Archie or anyone."

"Why should they want to?" I asked.

Bella sat down on the edge of my bed.

"Well, they do," she said. "I just feel it. Everybody's trying to stop
me. You're trying to stop me."

"No, I'm not," I said. "Go ahead and marry him. Don't talk so much about
it. Go ahead."

"Well," said Bella, "you are trying to stop me, and you can't--so
there."

"Why should I?" I asked.

She crossed her bare white ankles and leaned backwards on her hands,
looking up at me.

"You are," she repeated, "aren't you, darling? Just as soon as you saw
Avery."

"No," I said. "For heaven's sake, stop thinking about yourself. Good
night, Belle."

"Darling," said Bella, "please don't be so cross with me. I don't know
what I'm saying. I don't mean half of what I say. Aren't you going to
kiss me good night?"

I thought of Avery Gifford, who believed that God had meant him to love
my second cousin, Bella Brill. She was leaning back, looking up at me,
and the smile had left her lips, and somehow I was thinking of other
women I had kissed and what she had said to Harry long ago.

"It's just kiss, kiss, kiss," she had said.

I didn't know whether I liked her or not at the moment, because I could
see right through her, and I understood why she wanted to marry Avery
Gifford as clearly as if she had told me. She desired security, and yet
again she did not desire it. I bent over and kissed her forehead close
by the part of her soft black hair.

"You want everything, don't you, Belle?" I asked.

I was right about it too. Just as my lips touched her forehead, she
threw her arms around me. I saw her eyes half-closed looking into mine,
and then I kissed her because she wanted everything, and I forgot to be
ashamed of myself, or to be ashamed of her.

"Belle," I said, "you'd better get out of here."

Her arms were still around me and her lips moved softly against my
cheek.

"Darling," she said, "you'll stand by me, won't you? That's all I want,
no matter what happens."

"Yes," I said. "You God-damned little bitch," I said.

She must have understood the way I meant it because she smiled.

"You're always so sweet," she said. "You're the only one who understands
me."

"Belle," I said, "don't marry him till you get back. Think it over,
that's all, Belle."

"All right," she said, "but I'm still going to marry him, darling."




XXV

_Dreadfully, Dreadfully Happy_


I was very busy that autumn and winter, although I cannot recollect much
of what I did. With the exception of Cousin Clothilde, everyone I knew
was busy through the winter season, always seeing someone, always moving
from one place to another, always looking for shirt studs and a clean
collar and usually being behind-time. When the record was balanced after
those winters were over, I wonder, sometimes, if others were like me,
rather bewildered. There were the speakeasies and the rounds of the
night clubs and the dinner parties on Park Avenue. There was the awning
on the sidewalk and the doorman and his buttons and the reception hall
with its Jacobean furniture--or else there was no doorman but instead a
bell to push and a flight of stairs to climb, over by Third Avenue or
down by Washington Square, but the whole framework was the same. There
would be all the cocktails and then everybody would be talking louder
and a little louder as more drinks went down. Then there would be the
dinner table where you would see how far you could get with the lady on
the left or right when you talked about Theodore Dreiser or "What Price
Glory?" Then all the men would go somewhere to drink bootleg Scotch and
talk about the stock market or about what someone had said who knew
Calvin Coolidge; and then they would join the ladies. There were a lot
of amusing details besides, but when it was all over, the details were
hard to remember.

I was occupied a good deal with writing and I recall more clearly than
anything what Mr. Stanhope said about the sing-song story and how I took
it apart and put it together again. Down on Twelfth Street they were all
mildly amused that I was trying to write, because they had all been
thinking of doing the same thing themselves, and Cousin Clothilde went
to sleep when I read the story to her.

"It seemed a little confused," she said when she awoke. "I don't like
those stories that make me think, and I never did like foreign people. I
wouldn't show it to Archie, darling. It would make him very nervous, and
I wish you wouldn't worry about it so. You're not attractive when you
worry."

I also remember very well the day we saw Bella and Archie off on the
boat, a cold afternoon early in December. There were a great many
people--Sid and Harry and Mary and Cousin Clothilde, and Avery Gifford,
of course, and Bella was wearing the orchids he had sent her. There were
a lot of others also whose names I don't remember, who were intimate
friends of everybody, and also there were three Communists who were
admirers of Archie Wright's. Everybody kept wandering through the social
halls and up and down the stairs, and the stewards looked very bored and
tired, waiting at their stations, ready to tell where B deck was and
that no liquor could be served while the ship was at the pier. On B
deck, where Bella and Archie had their rooms, a number of people were
already singing "Auld Lang Syne." Avery Gifford was away somewhere with
Bella, but everyone else seemed to be in Archie's cabin, sitting on his
bed and drinking rye, and there was not much room because Archie weighed
nearly three hundred pounds by then and looked a good deal like G. K.
Chesterton. Archie was very glad that he was going somewhere. The one
thing he wanted everyone to know was how much he loved Cousin Clothilde.
She was bourgeois but he loved her just the same, and he wished that
Cousin Clothilde would go over too; he wanted her to change her mind
right now and go.

"Archie's always so cunning," Cousin Clothilde said, "when he's going
away. Look at him, he's just like a little boy, he's going to have such
a lovely time."

Archie did not look like a little boy, but I had no doubt that he was
going to have a lovely time. Pretty soon he began to sing "Funiculi,
Funicula"--and then he could not remember what he had done with his
passport and everybody began hunting for it.

"Now wait a minute," Archie shouted. "Jim can find it!"

"Jim," said Cousin Clothilde, "please help him."

"Don't keep beating your pockets," I told Archie. "Look. Look slowly."

"God Almighty," Archie shouted, "that's what everybody says. I tell you
I know God-damned well it isn't in my pockets. It's the Government. The
Government doesn't want me to leave."

"Now listen," I said, "the Government would be glad to get rid of you.
Just get it into your head that everyone wants to get rid of you."

"That isn't so," Archie answered. "Clothilde doesn't want to get rid of
me. Do you, Clo?"

"Isn't he cunning?" said Cousin Clothilde. "Archie's always so cunning
when he's going away. He's only got one extra pair of trousers. He was
so cunning when he was packing."

"Where's the steward?" called Archie. "Which button do I push? I want
some more ice and I want to get away from America."

"Never mind the steward," I said. "Did you give your passport to the
purser when you came aboard?"

"Absolutely," said Archie, "I gave it to the purser. Now everybody stop
looking in my pockets."

Then I found myself next to one of Archie's friends who had been a
conscientious objector in the war, and who wore his hair in a black
marceled pompadour. He leaned against the cabin wall, looking
unsmilingly at the scene.

"All this will be over in a little while," he said.

"The sooner the better," I answered.

"I am afraid," the man said, "that you don't catch my meaning. I'm
referring to the capitalistic structure."

"Any change," I said, "will probably be for the better."

I had the wish one always has at such a time, that the parting might be
over and done with, and that all inconsequences and incoherencies might
cease. They were beginning to beat on gongs for visitors to go ashore.

"Well," said Harry, "I must say good-by to the Percivals. They're on A
deck."

"Good-by Archie," I said. "Look up Joe Stowe when you get to Rome."

"Absolutely," said Archie.

Then I walked over to Bella's cabin opposite. The door was half-opened
and Bella was in Avery Gifford's arms. I was wondering what had happened
to her orchids until I saw them safe on the washstand.

"Excuse me," I said, "I'm sorry."

I was sorry because Avery looked upset and pale.

"She'll come back, Avery," I said. "Good-by, Belle. Be sure to look up
Joe Stowe. He can show you a lot of things."

"Who's that, sir?" Avery asked. "Who's Stowe?"

"Don't worry about him," I said. It seemed absurd that anyone should
worry about Joe. "Good-by, Belle. Have a good time."

"Keep Avery on ice for me," said Bella, "won't you?" And then she
whispered to me: "Be kind to him, darling, please. He's so damn
serious."

"All right," I said. "Good-by, Belle."

I saw her when the gangplank was up, standing by the rail, waving, and
Avery Gifford was beside me, white-faced and silent.

"It's all right, Avery," I said. "She's coming back."

       *       *       *       *       *

Cousin Clothilde always hated to have anyone read at Twelfth Street in
the afternoon. She was sitting on the sofa when I came in and Sid was
putting some wood and lumps of coal on the fire. It was late afternoon,
but it was light outside, which showed that winter would eventually be
over.

"Jim," said Cousin Clothilde, "please talk to me. Please don't read.
Nobody has been in all day. I don't know where Harry is. Have you seen
Harry?"

"I saw him at lunch," I said. "He was having lunch with some
vice-president."

"That must have been very stupid for him," Cousin Clothilde said. "Harry
must be at his club now. Sid is going out to dinner and I don't know
where Mary is at all."

"Do you mind if I borrow one of your shirts?" Sid asked.

"There was a letter from Archie this morning," said Cousin Clothilde.
"They're sailing next week. Archie never says anything in his letters.
He says they're sailing, but he doesn't tell the boat."

"I don't suppose you've heard from Bella," I said.

"No," said Cousin Clothilde, "Bella never writes. Sid, will you see if
there are any cigarettes? Harry took them all, and now Mary's started
smoking. Jim, please don't read. You and I will be here for dinner
alone. I wish everyone wouldn't keep going out. I suppose you've been
talking to that Mr. Stanhope again? I don't see what you see in him, I
don't think he's attractive. I don't know where Mary is at all. I wish
people would let me know where they are going. I don't like to be
wondering about them. I don't see why anyone bought that story of yours,
Jim. It was such a stupid story."

"The only time you heard it, you went to sleep," I said.

"That's exactly what I mean," said Cousin Clothilde--"It was such a
stupid story.... Didn't you think it was stupid, Sid?"

"No," said Sid, "it was all well enough. It had form. I've been giving a
good deal of thought to form lately. I'm thinking of writing myself."

"Are you?" I said. "That's good." Since I had sold that story everyone
else had been thinking more than ever about writing.

"I wonder if I couldn't write," said Cousin Clothilde. "I think about a
great many things. Both Mr. Fisher and Mirabel Steiner say I could. I
never was good at spelling, but someone could help me. It's just a
matter of ideas."

"Not entirely," said Sid. "Jim, did you ever hear of a man named
Frizzelhart?"

"Who?" I asked.

"Frizzelhart," said Sid, "Anthony J. Frizzelhart."

"That's a funny name," said Cousin Clothilde. "I wonder if it's Jewish.
Jews always do such funny things with their names."

"Just who is Mr. Frizzelhart?" I asked.

"I just thought you might have known him," said Sid. "He's a Consulting
Counselor on the Short Story. I've been in to see him and he thinks that
I can write. He charges five dollars for every consultation, in advance.
He says success is a matter of fluency and form. I'm thinking of going
ahead with Mr. Frizzelhart. Last week he placed one of his pupils in the
_Saturday Evening Post_. He doesn't believe in formula but he believes
in form."

"Well, I wouldn't have anything to do with him," I said. "He's probably
a fake."

"Darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "you mustn't be so hard on other
people. Sid makes a very careful study of everything and Mr. Frizzelhart
must be very intelligent to place someone in the _Saturday Evening
Post_.... Is that the doorbell ringing? Someone must be coming in to
tea. Sid, see who it is." Cousin Clothilde lowered her voice as Sid
walked into the hall. "I don't think many people Sid's age would go into
things so thoroughly," she said. "I wondered why he wanted five dollars
yesterday. It must have been for Mr. Frizzelhart."

Sid came back holding a blue and white envelope.

"It's a cablegram," he said.

Cousin Clothilde had been reclining on the sofa. Now she sat up
straight. She always hated telegrams and cables and I did not blame her
much. She reached toward me and took my hand.

"Jim," she said, "I know it."

"What?" I asked.

"It's Archie--Archie's dead."

"Now listen," I said. She was frightened and I did not like to see her
frightened. "It probably _is_ from Archie. Perhaps he's sailing
earlier."

Sid still held the cablegram limply in his fingers, and I felt a little
of Cousin Clothilde's own dread.

"No," said Cousin Clothilde, "no. Archie wouldn't send a cable. He knows
exactly how I feel about them. Something's happened to Archie. Jim,
please keep holding my hand."

"You'd better open it," I said.

"No," said Cousin Clothilde, "let Sid open it, and Sid can tell us if
it's terrible."

Sid always moved slowly and it seemed to me now that he moved more
deliberately than I had ever seen him. He walked over to the lamp on the
long table. He was astigmatic and he squinted his eyes as he read.

"Go ahead," I said. "What is it?"

"Is it about Archie?" Cousin Clothilde asked.

"No," said Sid, "not Archie: Bella."

I dropped Cousin Clothilde's hand. I found myself standing up.

"Go ahead. What's the matter? Is she sick?" I said.

"No," said Sid, "not sick. She's dreadfully happy, that's what she
says--dreadfully happy. She's engaged."

"You mean she's announcing it about Avery?" I asked.

"No," said Sid, "not that. She's just got engaged to a man named Stowe.
He's a friend of yours, isn't he? Joe Stowe?"

I walked over to the table where Sid was standing and snatched the paper
from his fingers.

"Dreadfully, dreadfully happy," I read. "Going to marry Joe Stowe.
Caracalla's Baths did it."

"Whose baths?" said Cousin Clothilde. Her voice was sharp. "What was she
doing in a bath?" I stood looking at the cable.

"It's a ruin," I said. "It isn't a real bath. That's right--she's going
to marry Joe Stowe!" And then I found that my voice was different,
stronger.

"You remember Joe Stowe. It's the best news I've heard since the
Armistice."

Cousin Clothilde was looking at me hard from across the room.

"Sid," she said, "will you get me a glass of water from the pantry? I
think it's perfectly dreadful. He'll take her away somewhere."

"You used to like him," I said. "I don't see why you think it's
dreadful."

"Did I?" said Cousin Clothilde. "Well, I never thought he was
distinguished."

"I don't see why you think it's dreadful," I heard myself saying again.
"It's a surprise, but after all--"

I stopped without finishing my sentence. Something was stirring Cousin
Clothilde; something was stirring both of us, which perhaps neither of
us wished to understand or to acknowledge.

"Sid," she said, "go upstairs and telephone Harry. He must be at his
club. Tell him he must give up any engagement he has and come home right
away."

When Sid had closed the door, Cousin Clothilde walked over to the
fireplace and back to the sofa and that restlessness of hers was
disconcerting because she was so seldom restless.

"You don't understand it," she said, "because you're not a woman, dear."

"What's that got to do with it?" I answered. I was experiencing that
repressed calm which comes over one after something has been smashed,
and now I was piecing it together again, first dully, then more
cleverly.

Cousin Clothilde sighed, sat down on the sofa and wrinkled her forehead.

"A woman understands things that a man doesn't, dear," she said. "I'm
trying to think and I can't seem to think. Bella has so many
possibilities and now to see her throw herself away on someone without
her background, without any of her traditions--"

"How can you say that?" I asked. "You haven't seen him for years and
years."

"I can feel things like that," said Cousin Clothilde. "I know he hasn't
the same traditions. He'll take her away from everything she has."

"Suppose he does," I said. "That's exactly why she's marrying him,
because she wants to get away from everything she has."

Cousin Clothilde frowned at me a moment before she answered.

"Yes, dear," she said, "perhaps she does. I know what Bella thinks. I
used to think myself that I could get away from home simply by marrying.
Then when I was married I wanted everything to be like home. Bella
wouldn't be anyone without her own traditions."

"But what do you mean," I asked, "by traditions?"

Cousin Clothilde made a hopeless gesture with her delicate ringless
hands.

"I wish you wouldn't be so tiresome, dear," she said. "I know what I
mean but I can't explain it. Tradition is what we're taught to live for.
Bella's tradition is what she's been taught to live for. All of us have
tradition."

Although the conversation was growing nebulous and peculiar, she was
evidently referring to an attitude toward life, and to the strange,
unworldly existence of all the Brills, to a world which she had built up
to keep out another world, and the futility of our argument was a part
of it.

"Will you please give me a cigarette, dear," Cousin Clothilde said.

We sat there without speaking for a while, and I wondered what it was
that Bella had been taught to live for. Whatever it was, Bella Brill
didn't want it.

You can tell when people are happy, and I was thinking that in spite of
everything Cousin Clothilde was a happy person. She must have been over
fifty if she was a day, but she looked agelessly beautiful. Her face,
even when it was worn and tired, had a composed sort of sweetness. It
had the content and the understanding of someone who has resolved all
questions, but as far as I knew she had never resolved anything.

"Well, I wonder what you live for," I said.

Curiously, my remark did not disturb her in the least.

"Now, that's easy to answer," Cousin Clothilde said. "I live for Archie
and the children and for other people, dear. I don't do it very well.
I'm a very careless manager, because no one could ever teach me to add
or subtract in school. Nearly all my teachers were very disagreeable
people, but I try all the time to make Archie and the children and other
people happy. That's what I live for, dear, and I think that's what
every woman wants to live for. You would understand if you were a woman.
I suppose it may be different with men."

"No," I said, "I don't believe so. What do you get out of it?"

"How should I know, darling?" Cousin Clothilde asked. "It just makes me
happy, that's all. I love to have them ask things of me. I love to have
you ask. It makes me feel that there's a reason for me."

She reached out her hand and I bent down and kissed it, a thing I very
rarely did.

"Now that," she said, "a thing like that makes me very happy, dear."

But I was still thinking of Bella and Joe Stowe.

"Well, how about Bella?" I said. "Perhaps she wants to do something for
someone too, if that's what every woman wants; and she hasn't a chance
to do it here. You do too much for everybody, and now they all expect
it. You've never weaned one of them. Even Archie isn't weaned. Perhaps
that's what she means when she says she wants to get away. Perhaps she
wants to do something for Joe Stowe."

A cloud came across Cousin Clothilde's face.

"Well, I'd like to know," she said, "what Mr. Stowe is going to do for
her. They haven't the same tradition. He isn't going to fit in. He's
going--"

"He's going to what?" I asked.

"Darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "I wish you'd get me an aspirin and
another glass of water. He's going to try to take Bella away, and he
can't. Don't ask me what I mean."

       *       *       *       *       *

There was a sitting room upstairs on the second floor where Harry found
me after he had seen his mother. Harry closed the door behind him and
began pacing up and down, rubbing his hand over the thin spot in his
hair. I was surprised that he should be so concerned, because most
things did not ruffle him, and after all he had always quarreled with
Bella.

"Jim," said Harry, "this is all your fault. I don't suppose it means
anything to you, but I happen to be the head of the family."

"Oh, go hoist up your pants," I said.

"I don't suppose it means anything to you," said Harry, "because you
always take this sophisticated attitude that nothing means anything. I
am the head of the family and I have to think of my sister's
reputation."

"Sit down and take the weight off your feet," I said. "What's the matter
with her reputation?"

Harry did not sit down; instead he squared his shoulders and looked at
me speculatively down the bridge of his long nose.

"It isn't up to you," he said, "to defend my sister's reputation. It
just happens that you don't move around with anyone who matters. Now the
question is just this." Harry leveled his finger at me and shook it
gently. "The question is, what are we going to say? That's what I've
been trying to take up with Clothilde, calmly and without emotion, and
she hasn't been any help at all. And now you're not being any help. What
explanation are we going to give to people? The papers probably know
about it already."

"I don't understand a single thing you're saying," I said. "What is it
to you? You're not going to marry Joe Stowe."

Harry looked at me and patted the thin spot on his head.

"Gifford," he said, "Gifford, Gifford, Gifford. Does that mean anything
to you--Gifford? It just happens that everyone knows that my sister was
going to marry Avery Gifford."

"Oh," I said, "you've been telling people, have you?"

Harry's thin and rather handsome face assumed a pinkish glow.

"Leaving that point for the moment," he said, "as having no bearing upon
the present situation, there is such a thing as rumor. People talk, and
everyone who amounts to anything knows that Bella was to marry Avery
Gifford. It's the one decent thing she could have done, the one thing
that would get the family anywhere. I took the trouble to point that out
to Bella myself, patiently and diagrammatically. And now what happens?
She drops him. Why did she drop him? She must be crazy."

"Maybe she likes Stowe better," I said.

"My God," said Harry, "she can't like him better. Try to face the thing
with detachment, Jim. _Who_ is Stowe? _What_ has he ever amounted to?"

"He's a friend of mine," I said.

"Jim," said Harry, "I don't see why you can't face this thing
rationally. Does his being a friend of yours recommend him to other
people? Now Jim, you know damn well it doesn't. He has no money and he
has no position. In all sanity you don't drop someone like Avery
Gifford for a man like Stowe. It just happens that I've grown very fond
of Avery Gifford."

I knew what Harry meant. He had been telling people one thing
confidentially and now he had to tell them something else. He pointed
his finger at me again and moved his arm in a gentle, rotary motion.

"Think of it without bias," he said. "Let us try to consider this
objectively. It all boils down to a simple and very ugly fact. There's
only one reason why a girl like Bella should drop a Gifford and marry a
Stowe. It's because she has to, that's why."

"Look here," I said, "you know damned well that Bella hadn't made up her
mind."

Harry made a gesture of weary impatience. "Don't raise your voice," he
said. "Let's try to view this dispassionately. It just happens that
everyone knows that Bella has been petting her head off for the last two
years. Didn't you know that?"

"Not particularly," I said.

"Well," said Harry, "if you don't, everybody else does, and that's what
everyone will say. She has to marry Stowe."

I got up and walked over to him.

"That's a God-damned lie," I said. "Joe's a friend of mine, and he
doesn't have to borrow money from his mother either. You'd better take
that back about Joe Stowe."

Harry raised his eyebrows.

"Now wait a minute," he said, "wait a minute."

"And while you're about it," I continued, "you'd better take that back
about your sister too."

Harry shrugged his shoulders and waved his hands in a helpless, tolerant
gesture.

"That," he said, "is exactly what happens in this family when I try to
treat things sanely. Try if you can to make an honest effort at least to
reconsider what I've said. Then, if you control your temper, you will
perceive that I imputed nothing against Joe Stowe or Bella."

"Then what did you do?" I said.

Harry shrugged his shoulders and waved his hands in another broad and
expansive gesture.

"I simply pointed out what people would say, Jim," he said. "I don't
like it any better than you, but unfortunately someone has to be
constructive about it. Why should you be so upset?"

"I'm not upset," I said. "You are. You're upset because she isn't going
to marry Gifford."

"Then why are you upset?" said Harry. "Because she is going to marry
Stowe?"

"Suppose we both shut up," I said, "and go downstairs and have a drink."

Harry put his hands on my shoulders. After all, Harry and I had known
each other for quite a while, longer in fact than we had known anybody
else.

"Why do you suppose it did happen, Jim?" he asked.

I had been asking myself the same thing, but I did not tell him.

"You don't know Joe," I said. "You haven't seen him for years and years.
You'll like him when you see him. He's one of the best foreign men in
the newspaper business. Joe is quite a boy."

"But what's he going to do?" asked Harry.

"Don't worry," I said. "He'll look out for Bella. He's coming home this
spring." But Harry's face wore a bewildered look.

"But listen, Jim," he said, "why the _hell_ do you suppose she did it?"

"Perhaps she loves him," I suggested.

Harry shook his head.

"No," he answered, "no. That doesn't sound like Bella."

"Well," I said, "perhaps he loves her."

Harry looked at me for a moment before he answered.

"Well," he said, "God help him if he does."




XXVI

_Stowe Proposes--Sid Disposes_


"I felt right away that I knew Bella better than anyone else," Joe Stowe
wrote me in one of his long, rambling letters. "It's the desperation in
her that I'm talking about now, and I'm going to change all that. I knew
right away she wasn't happy. Well, I'm going to make her happy.... We
both have the same sort of tastes. We laugh at the same statues. You
know how the Romans are about statuary. She says that Harry and Sid are
like Romulus and Remus on the Capitoline, and that Clothilde is like
Niobe, and that Archie is like one of the Bernini Tritons, always
blowing his horn, and that Gifford's like the Dying Gaul.

"I'm only telling you this to show you that the Gifford thing was never
serious and to show you what a good time we're having. When we're alone
together everything is fine. I know that Bella's a genius in a way. She
has an intuitive sense about everything she sees, and that enthusiasm of
hers makes everything wonderful; but I don't like that desperation in
her. She's told me a lot--more about the family than you've ever told
me--so much that I seem to have known them always. Of course the whole
result is that I must give her a new point of view. I'd take her out to
the East right now if I had money enough. Well, I'm going to make it for
her. A lot of people are going to hear from me before I'm through. I'd
marry Bella right now and get it all over with, but I suppose all women
are queer that way, even Bella. For anyone so unconventional she has an
unexpected admiration for conventions. She wants to go home and get
married at home like other people. Maybe it's just as well because I've
got to get back myself. I've been writing to Stanhope. Home's the only
place where you can make money. Bella's going on ahead and I'll be
washed up here in about two months, and then I'll come right over. I'll
bring some short stories and the beginning of a novel, and besides they
want some syndicated articles on Europe. We'll get married just as soon
as I get back, and then I want to take her away somewhere where I can
have a typewriter and where I can be quiet.

"Now what I want you to do is to look after her until I get back. Don't
let anybody get her frightened. Keep letting her know that I mean what I
say and everything's all right. Everything is always going to be all
right. Just let her know I mean it."

I have the letter somewhere still with a good many others of his,
hastily scrawled and obviously not intended to go into any posthumous
collection. Now and then I have looked them over and my reaction toward
them has never changed. I have always recaptured that feeling of his
that everything was going to be all right. Perhaps it might have been,
if circumstances could have been a little different. There is such a
similarity always in the phenomena of the unhappy marriage. I could see
the right in him and the wrong in him; I could see what Bella saw and
what she did not see; and I could see why the family did not like him,
because after all I was in the family.

Even then I was disturbed by that feeling of his that he knew everything
about us, and that he knew everything about Bella.

       *       *       *       *       *

Bella brought a lot of things from Italy--the ring and the green jade
necklace that Joe had given her, and in addition all those odds and ends
that one always brings back, the white Pliny doves around the yellow
marble basin, the marble columns of the temple in the Forum, the leather
Florentine boxes, the gold-framed madonnas, the Della Robbia babies, and
the little bowls of colored pottery fruits; and also a picture of Joe
Stowe in a blue Florentine leather frame. Joe was in his shirt sleeves
in very brilliant sunlight, standing on a terrace.

"Darling," Bella called, "come in. Why are you always in a hurry? I
never see you any more."

"I'm going uptown," I said.

Bella had been looking at herself in the mirror above her bureau, and
that was how she must have seen me passing down the hall.

"Well, you don't have to go right away," she said. "What's the matter,
darling?"

"Nothing," I said. "What do you mean?"

"You've been so peculiar," Bella said, "ever since I've come back home."

"I haven't meant to be," I answered, "but then maybe things are
different, Belle. After all, you're going to be married next month."

She looked at me and smiled. The smile was in her eyes too, and she knew
what I meant.

"But that's what I've been trying to tell you in every way I know,"
Bella said. "It doesn't change things with you and me, darling. What's
the matter with me? What have I done?"

"You haven't done anything," I said.

"But you act as though I had done something," said Bella. "Everyone is
so cross with me. No one ever seems to want to talk to me any more. My
God, I only want to get married, darling."

"Belle," I said, "are you sure you want to get married?"

Bella gave her shoulders a petulant jerk.

"Absolutely sure," Bella said, "this time. Why should you even ask?"

"I was just wondering," I said.

"Well, you needn't wonder any more," said Bella. "Why should everybody
be wondering? Everybody keeps getting me in a corner and asking me if
I'm sure. Why shouldn't I be? Why shouldn't I want to get married and
get out of this house and go somewhere where--"

"Go ahead," I said.

"Where someone's nice to me," Bella said, "where there's some order
about something, where someone's sweet--"

"Well, you haven't been so sweet yourself," I said.

Bella bit her lip.

"If that's all you have to say," she said, "get out."

"All right," I said. "I've always heard there's nothing worse than being
engaged."

"Jim," she called after me, "please don't, _please_. Don't be so silly,
darling. I was just asking why you seem so strange. I'm so lonely, and
nothing's the way it used to be."

She wanted everything to be the same, when common sense should have told
her that it could not be. I looked at the picture of Joe on the bureau,
grinning at us out of the frame.

"Bella," I said, "if you don't want to marry him, now's the time to say
so. Of course it's going to be different. No one can help that."

Bella closed her lips tightly, raised her hands up to her thick black
hair, pressed her palms against her ears, and looked at me and let her
hands drop back.

"Honestly," she said, "I think I'm going to have a nervous breakdown. I
really think I'd better go and see a doctor or something. Why does
everybody keep telling me that if I don't want to marry Joe, I don't
have to? There isn't anything wrong about me, is there? Joe isn't insane
or a pervert, is he? I tell you I want to marry Joe, do you hear me? I
don't care if he's a nigger, I want to marry Joe."

"Bella," I said, "there's no use yelling at me."

She lowered her voice a trifle and the strained look left her face.

"I have to yell," she said, "to get it through your damned thick skull
that I want to marry Joe. Just because I didn't want to marry Avery
Gifford doesn't mean that I don't want to marry Joe. And everybody seems
to act as though there were something really sinister about Joe.
Everybody's trying to break it up. That's what it is. Everybody's trying
to give me a nervous breakdown. You'd all like it if I got sick. First
Clothilde's nasty about Joe, and then Harry's nasty, and now you're
nasty about him--and you say he's your best friend. You wait till I tell
Joe about you, just you wait."

"See here," I told her, "I never said anything against Joe."

"Then why do you say I don't have to marry him if I don't want to?"
Bella asked. "That's saying something against Joe, isn't it? I just wish
Joe were here."

"Well," I said, "he's coming back tomorrow."

It occurred to me that the sooner he came the better it would be for
everybody.

"Jim," said Bella, "don't be angry."

"I'm not angry," I said.

"Then don't get disgusted either," Bella said. "I know what you're
thinking. You're thinking I'm not right for Joe. Maybe that's true.
Maybe I'm not fit to marry anyone."

"What do you mean by that?" I asked.

"Darling," said Bella, "you know what I mean. He's so nice that
sometimes I think I'm not, even when I try to be. There's only one thing
I'm afraid of."

I had known that she was afraid of something. I had seen it in her all
the time.

"I'm just afraid," she said, "that he'll destroy the thing that's my
personality, the thing that's me. I want to be me, no matter what I do.
And he's so strong. He has such strong ideas. You don't think he'd do
that, do you, Jim?"

"Get this into your head," I said. "No one can do that. The only one who
can destroy you is you."

"You really think so?" Bella asked.

"Yes," I said, "I know so."

"You always stand by me," she said, "always. You see I don't want Joe to
change me, I want to change Joe. That's really why I want to marry him.
Now there wasn't anything I could do for Avery Gifford, and I can do so
much for Joe. That's why I love him, Jim."

And I knew why he loved her: because he could do so much for her. And
something else came over me when I left her, the way a voice appears to
speak sometimes in one's dreams. She did not want to change the little
things about him, the ties he wore or the way he ate his soup or the way
he brushed his hair. She wanted to change the very innate quality in
him, the part of him that she did not wish altered in herself. It was
not love, it was something else, and it was not her fault either; it was
something she could not help at all.

Sid called to me just when I was looking for my hat in the front hall.
He was alone in the big room. It was spring outside and the street was
bright with sunlight and a man by a wagon-load of potted flowers was
calling out his wares, just as his father must have called them in the
flower market of Naples. The parlor, however, was as dusky as if winter
had not left it yet--which was not surprising, for the windows had not
been washed for a long while. That big room was always a place to avoid
in the daylight. Sid was reclining on the sofa where his mother usually
sat.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Nothing," said Sid, "except thinking. I've stayed away from my course
today because I have rather severe cramps, high-up--here. How is your
stomach, Jim?"

"Why don't you go outside in the sun?" I asked.

"Frankly," said Sid, "I don't like the sun except when I can lie on the
beach. I've been having these spasms in my stomach and sometimes a touch
of nausea before breakfast ever since Bella got back. Have you noticed
that the whole psychological aspect of the place has changed since
Bella's back?"

"Maybe you're pregnant," I said.

Sid was not amused. He took his fingers from his knees and laced them
together and unlaced them.

"Please don't do that with your fingers," I said.

"It's an exercise," said Sid. "If I am to be a scientist, it's very
important to have dextrous, supple hands."

"I thought you were going to be a writer," I said. "I thought you were
doing some consulting work with Dr. Anthony Frizzelhart."

"Oh yes," said Sid, "yes, that. That was very interesting. Experiences
like that are a very real help in finding out what I am finally going to
do."

"Well," I said, "I'm in a hurry. I'm going out."

Sid laced his fingers together again and unlaced them with a soft
cracking of his knuckle joints.

"I suppose you've been talking with Bella," he said. "She's so intense
she gives me nervous indigestion. There's an atmosphere of frustration,
everywhere frustration."

I looked at him with a new interest. Usually he was self-effacing, but
now and then he said something succinct.

"Everyone here is thwarted," Sid said, "except Clothilde and me. Did you
ever think of that? Probably it's all sex. There's too much love, too
much thwarted love."

His words sounded suspiciously like the printed page.

"You've been reading a book, have you?" I asked. "Did you get it by
clipping a coupon?"

"No," said Sid, "I borrowed it. It's never worth while to buy books.
Most people you borrow them from don't really want them back. If you're
interested, it's a book called _Love, Life and Sex_."

"Well," I said, "for God's sake, don't do that to your fingers."

"It's a difficult exercise," said Sid, "and besides it stops me from
smoking. Jim, when Joe Stowe comes I think you ought to tell him.
Someone ought to tell him."

"Tell him what?" I asked.

Sid looked up at me, squinting.

"I've given it a good deal of thought," he said. "Really someone ought
to tell him that he shouldn't marry Bella. Jim, it absolutely isn't
going to work."

"You know a hell of a lot about it, don't you?" I said.

"Listen," said Sid, and he passed his hand wearily over his eyes, as
though he had been doing too much reading. "They don't like him, Jim.
None of us like him. In fact, we all hate him. It's going to be
impossible if we all hate him. Clothilde hates him, and you've heard
Harry going on about it, and Mary hates him. And I don't like to say it,
but so do I." He made me both angry and uneasy.

"You're crazy," I said. "Why don't you get off the seat of your pants
and stop your bellyaching? You've hardly ever seen Joe Stowe. None of
you know him."

Sid shook his head and twisted his hands together.

"It isn't attractive," he said. "I know it isn't attractive. It isn't
anything that any of us can help. Have you ever seen a lot of dogs
together?"

The weary detachment of his voice grated on my nerves.

"If anybody starts making trouble," I said, "I'll know who started it.
What have dogs got to do with it?"

Sidney was unruffled. When I came to think of it, I had never seen him
angry.

"Look at it this way," he said. "We're all a very funny breed of dogs,
inbred and overbred. I don't know what we're good for. Probably we're
good for nothing."

"Now you're talking sense," I said.

"But then," said Sidney gently, "lots of dogs are good for nothing. I
never did like dogs, and I haven't much respect for human beings
either."

"Get on with what you're trying to say," I said.

"When a new dog comes," said Sid, "the others hate him, don't they?
Particularly when they're abnormal dogs. Well, Stowe's a new dog and
we're abnormal. We don't like him and we'll never like him. We won't
like him because he's abler than we are. You can't help it, Jim, we're
going to hate him."

"All right," I said, "go ahead and hate him. Why should he care? Joe and
Bella won't be around here."

Sidney nodded and rubbed his eyes again.

"I don't know why we don't hate you, Jim," he said, "or why you don't
hate us either. I've thought about that quite a little. It won't make
any difference where he and Bella are."

"You know everything, don't you?" I said. "Why won't it?"

"I'm glad we've had this talk," Sid said. "My stomach really feels a
good deal better now. The point is that Bella doesn't really like him
either."

I reached forward and grasped Sidney by the coat collar and jerked him
to his feet. He made no resistance; he simply looked at me.

"Suppose you get up," I said, "and get your circulation going." But
Sidney still spoke mildly.

"I'm right," he said. "She's attracted to him, fascinated by him, if you
want, but I'm right. Really, Jim, it isn't going to work."

Sid stood there, quiescent beneath my hands. He had spoken about
frustration and I could feel it. There was inertia over everything.

"You listen to me," I said. "It's just the way you get from sitting
around. You're going to be nice to him. Do you understand?"

"Of course," Sid answered, "we're going to be nice. We're always nice,
and we're tolerant and moderately intelligent. I hope I'm wrong, but I
don't think so. I've given it a lot of thought. I think you ought to
tell him, Jim, when he comes tomorrow."

       *       *       *       *       *

By the time four o'clock came next afternoon Cousin Clothilde had grown
very nervous, and the contagion of her nervousness communicated itself
to Harry and to Sid and to Mary and to me.

"Harry," Cousin Clothilde said, "you know sometimes you don't get things
right over the telephone, dear, or perhaps they didn't really know about
it. You can't always trust people. I think you'd better call up again."

Harry sighed gustily and his voice was honey-sweet with patience. He
pulled out his watch and consulted it. It was a watch that had been
presented to him when he went to college, and during his college course
it had usually been in a Boston pawnshop.

"Precisely three-and-three-quarters minutes ago," Harry said, "I
telephoned. Oddly enough, the man who answered me was in complete
possession of his faculties. Why should there be any reason for
mendacity? He said the God-damned boat had docked. It costs exactly
three-and-a-half cents to have him repeat this information. I suggest
that we save that three-and-a-half cents and buy a portable house with
it. You say that you want a portable house so that you can get away from
people at Wickford Point. Saving is the only way to start.
Three-and-a-half cents at compound interest--"

"I'm not asking about compound interest," said Cousin Clothilde, "and
I'm not asking about portable houses. I simply want to know if the boat
has docked. I don't like to think of Bella standing there waiting in the
cold."

Harry pulled out his watch again.

"Four-and-a-quarter minutes ago exactly," Harry said, "it was officially
confirmed that the boat had docked thirty-eight-and-three-quarters
minutes ago."

"Oh hell! Shut up!" I said.

"Darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "it isn't pretty when you swear. I
don't know what there is about me that makes people think that I don't
mind swearing, but I do mind it. Are you sure there are enough things to
drink? It will be so much better if we all have enough."

Mary turned her face from the window.

"There are four gallons of sacrificial wine," she said. "Half of it is
red and half of it is yellow. And then there's Archie's alcohol. He can
make it into gin right away."

"Mary," said Sidney softly, "sacramental wine, sacramental wine."

Mary burst into tears.

"I don't see why everybody picks on me," she said. "Whose fault is it,
if I haven't got an education?"

"Mary," said Cousin Clothilde, "would you mind going upstairs, dear, and
seeing what has happened to Archie? If he's still in the bathroom, tell
him to get out of the tub. I want him to be here when Mr. Stowe comes. I
don't want to do everything myself." She glanced eloquently after Mary
and listened while her feet stamped loudly on the stairs. "I don't know
what gets into her," she said.

"She's frustrated," Sidney answered, "that's all."

"Why don't you think of another word?" I suggested.

"Just a moment," said Harry. "It does not mean that you're a purist
because you've sold a couple of stories. Sid is saying exactly what he
means. Why not admit it candidly? Mary is frustrated."

"What does frustrated mean?" Mary's voice from the hall made her mother
start.

"What did Archie say, dear?" Cousin Clothilde asked.

"He says he's seen a lot of Joe Stowe," Mary answered, "and now someone
else can see him."

"Well, sit down, dear," said Cousin Clothilde. "Don't just stand there
in the door. I don't see why they don't come. Bella will catch cold. I
don't think it's very considerate of Mr. Stowe to keep us all here
waiting."

"They're coming," said Sid. "Here's a taxi now."

Cousin Clothilde stood up. I had never known her to stand so straight,
and I remember wondering if she were feeling ill.

"Sid," she said, "go out to the door. Mary, don't pull away if he tries
to kiss you, and for heaven's sake powder your nose. Jim, come here and
hold my hand."

"What's the matter?" I asked. Her hand was cold as ice.

"Jim," she said, "why did you ever know him? Poor, darling Bella."

"Don't," I said. "Joe's all right."

Then Bella came into the room with Joe Stowe just behind her, and we all
stood observing him. Sometimes when you see a person in a new place he
does not look at all the way you think he is going to, or perhaps I was
too solicitous, because I wanted him to look his best. As it was, I
thought he was overdressed. He was wearing a plum-colored suit, and
those Italian tailors always do something unnecessary around the waist.
The plum color went very badly with his reddish hair, and the purple
silk handkerchief in his breast pocket did not help, and his face had a
strained look, even when he smiled. His greenish-yellow eyes met mine
for a moment before they darted about the room, seeing everything. Then
he walked over to Cousin Clothilde, clicked the heels of his yellow low
shoes together and bent over her hand.

"Madame," he said.

It was a trick which he had learned and one which I was able to repeat
myself, with the proper person, but I could not help observing, then,
that it was a silly gesture. It was impossible to forget that Joe Stowe
came from Woburn, Massachusetts. Harry was looking at him in a way I did
not like, and I saw Mary's mouth fall slightly open.

"Joe," said Bella, and she gave a meaningless little giggle. "Joe!"

"I'm so glad to see you, Joe," Cousin Clothilde said. "This is Mary. Do
you remember Mary?"

"I've always remembered Mary," Joe Stowe said, "and I always will
remember Mary."

"Joe," said Bella quickly, "kiss her, don't kiss her hand." Then
everyone was talking, and Harry was shaking hands with him.

"Hello Joe," Harry said, "I haven't seen you for a long while."

"No," said Joe, "that's so. You haven't." And then he raised his voice
in a shout.

"Jim," he called, "God damn you, Jim." And he threw an arm over my
shoulders and punched me in the chest like a boxer in a clinch. I could
see Harry looking at us, and I understood his look.

"Harry," I heard Cousin Clothilde say, "I think we had all better have
something to drink."

"Joe," I said, "who let you out in that suit?"

"Isn't it terrible?" said Bella. "I told him it was terrible."

"Now listen, sweetness," Joe said to her, "it isn't terrible at all."

Then everyone began talking and Joe looked around the room again the way
he always did when he came to a place entirely new to him. I remembered
how it had been when I had come into that room not so long ago. I had
fitted into it as though there had been no lapse of time, but Joe Stowe
could not. He had only seen the Brills at Wickford Point.

"I'm awfully sorry we were so late," Joe said. "The boys got hold of me.
They wouldn't let me go."

"He means the reporters," Bella said. "They were asking him about
everything. And then they wanted our pictures. They wanted a picture of
Joe kissing me."

"Oh," said Harry, "you didn't do that, did you?"

"Why not?" said Joe. "It's news. I'm not ashamed of kissing Bella
anywhere." And then he looked at Harry and began to laugh. "I remember
now," he said. "You don't mean to tell me you're still worrying about
what people say."

"It just happens--" began Harry, but Cousin Clothilde interrupted him.

"Harry dear," said Cousin Clothilde, "I think we all would feel better
if we had a little more to drink. It must have been a very pretty
picture."

"All right," said Joe, "let's have another drink. _Gambei._"

"What does that mean?" Mary asked.

"It means 'bottoms up' in Chinese," Joe said.

"Bottoms up?" said Mary vaguely.

Bella began to laugh.

"Mary," said Bella, "don't be so silly, Mary."

"In Chinese," Joe Stowe repeated. "Jim knows what it means."

Cousin Clothilde started slightly.

"Something wet struck me on the head," she said.

Joe Stowe looked up quickly.

"It's water," he said. "It's coming through the ceiling."

"Oh dear," said Cousin Clothilde, "it's Archie. He's gone to sleep again
and he's left the water running. My husband goes to sleep in the bathtub
quite often."

"Oh," said Joe Stowe, "that's it, is it?"

"Sidney," said Cousin Clothilde, "hurry and wake him up."

I thought that someone would laugh, as we should have at any other time,
but no one did. Instead everyone seemed embarrassed, and Joe went on
talking.

"First the boys got hold of me, and then there were the customs," he
said. "They went over the baggage pretty carefully, but they didn't get
this off me." He plunged his hand into his vest pocket and pulled out a
string of pearls.

"China," said Joe looking at me. "You remember?"

"Yes," I answered, "I remember."

"Well," said Joe, "here you are, Bella."

"Why, Joe," said Bella, "_darling_!"

"I meant to keep them until we got married," Joe said, "but it doesn't
matter. When are we going to get married, Bella?"

There was a silence, only momentary but long enough to make Joe's
expression change.

"Why," said Cousin Clothilde, "we haven't really thought--"

Then Bella struck an attitude.

"I want to be married at Wickford Point," she said, "when the apple
trees are out. I want a big reception on the lawn."

"A big reception?" Joe repeated.

"Yes," said Bella.

I saw Harry rubbing the thin spot on his head.

"All right," said Joe, "all right. Well, I'd better be going now."

"Going?" said Bella. "You can't do that. Why, Joe, you've just come."

"I have to go up to the News Club," said Joe. "Some of the boys are up
there--I've told you. It's business, Bella."

"Business?" said Bella. "You want to talk about business? You can't go
away and leave me now."

"I thought I'd explained it to you," Joe said. "It won't be long. Isn't
there somewhere we can go and talk about it?"

"Yes," said Bella, "we can go upstairs. But Joe--just when you've come?"

"All right," said Joe. "Excuse us just a minute, will you?"

"Why yes," said Cousin Clothilde, "of course. Harry dear, I think I'd
like another drink."

Through the silence beyond the half-closed door I heard Bella speaking
to Joe as they walked upstairs. Her voice was low and intense, but it
carried down to us.

"Not even gracious," she was saying, "not even decently polite." Then
Joe was answering more loudly.

"I _told_ you, Bella," he said.

"It's you," said Bella, "it's always you. What about me? How do you
think I feel?"

"I have friends of my own," Joe said. "If you won't come with me, I'll
have to go alone."

"Oh dear," said Cousin Clothilde, "what on earth is the matter with
them?"

"He wants her to go with him somewhere," I said. "Someone may want to
talk to him about a job. Joe has a lot of friends. I don't see why she
shouldn't go."

"Well, he needn't be in such a hurry," Harry said.

"He's always in a hurry," I answered. "That's just the way he is."

Harry shrugged his shoulders with elaborate eloquence and sat down and
looked at the floor. Cousin Clothilde looked across the room at Sid, and
no one spoke until Mary made a remark. Mary never seemed to know when it
was better to be quiet.

"I think he's very conceited," Mary said. "I don't like him."

"That's just too bad, isn't it?" I said. "Well, you don't have to like
him."

"I think he's very conceited," Mary repeated, "and he doesn't know how
to dress."

"What do you know about it?" I said.

"He doesn't know how to dress," Mary repeated, "and I don't think he's a
gentleman."

"He may hear you," said Cousin Clothilde, "if you speak so distinctly,
darling. I think he may be very nice in time, if he just gets over
hurrying. He's so in love with Bella, that it makes him rather charming.
I love it when someone is in love."

Harry glanced upwards toward the wet spot in the ceiling.

"Small-town," he said.

"I love it," Cousin Clothilde remarked; "but I wish they wouldn't stay
up there so long."

Harry rose and pointed his finger at me.

"Speak to him," he said, "at once about those clothes. Those lapels,
that waist--he must not show himself in them. Small-town."

Sid looked up.

"Not small-town," he said; "race-track--pari-mutuel."

"It's exactly what I said," Harry said, and he pointed at me again.
"Everyone will say exactly what I said, if they see him in those
clothes."

"Darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "it doesn't make any difference."

"Not essentially perhaps," said Harry. "The hair will be there and the
face, but clothes will make a superficial difference. He never dressed
like that in college, Jim. Small-town."

"That isn't at all what I meant," Cousin Clothilde answered. "I meant
that nothing can be done about it really, because they're so much in
love. Did you see them even when they were quarreling? They couldn't
keep their hands off each other. I thought it was rather cunning."

"I thought it was very disgusting," Mary said.

"No," said Cousin Clothilde, "it's only because you don't understand."

"If you mean that nobody's kissed me, you're wrong," Mary said. "I've
been kissed a great many times."

"Perhaps they won't be married," said Cousin Clothilde. "Perhaps they
will only have an affair."

Harry stood up straight.

"What are they doing?" he asked. "Why don't they come down?"

"You always fuss about Bella so," said Cousin Clothilde. "Don't worry
about her. They're coming down."

They both looked happier when they came into the room again.

"Well," said Bella, "what have you all been doing? We don't have to go
out. Joe says it doesn't matter."

"No," said Joe, "it doesn't matter."

Joe looked at me, and then he turned to Cousin Clothilde and smiled.
"I've been running around loose for quite a while," he said, "but I hope
you'll get to like me, because I love Bella, Mrs. Wright."

Cousin Clothilde wrinkled her forehead, and at the same time she
laughed.

"Sit down beside me, Joe," she said. "Why doesn't everyone sit down?
Everyone loves Bella. But don't love her too much, Joe."

Joe sat down beside her and looked surprised.

"I didn't remember you said things like that," he said. She reached her
hand toward him as she would have toward someone who might be hurt, and
placed her hand over his where it rested on his knee.

"I know now," Joe said, "you were always kind."

"Yes," said Cousin Clothilde, "I try to be. I just say what I think and
I don't always know what I mean. Don't love Bella too much, Joe. It
isn't good for anyone to love Bella too much."

He glanced across the room at Bella. It was a strange, puzzled look, and
Bella laughed back at him. She evidently thought it was very funny.

"She's warning you, Joe," she said. "She always warns everyone against
me."

Joe looked back at Cousin Clothilde. Even then he may have known it was
a warning.

"The worst of it is," he said, "I can't help it, Mrs. Wright."

"Don't call me that," said Cousin Clothilde. "You're one of the family
now."

"Joe," said Bella, "come over here. Why don't we all do something?
What's the use of everyone sitting here?"

But Joe did not move. I had never seen him sit so still, and Cousin
Clothilde's hand still rested over his.

"Don't be so active, Bella," said Cousin Clothilde. "It's much better to
sit and do nothing almost always, and then something usually happens.
Someone will be coming in or something. Just sit here beside me, Joe
dear, and try not to love her too much."




XXVII

_When You Call Him That--Smile_


A nice thing about Pat Leighton was that she did not talk all the time,
and that she never became an intellectual effort. There was nothing
about her which disturbed me in the least; instead I was being harassed
by my own ideas. The coolness on the roof-top, which had been agreeable
earlier in the evening, was changing to a sort of humid warmth. The
darkness was like a curtain that seemed to stop the lights and city
sounds from traveling upward. My thoughts were always influenced by the
weather, and I was restless with a sense that something not pleasant was
impending.

I began wondering if anyone knew where I was. It was possible that
George Stanhope might know, for he had seen Pat Leighton and me together
a good deal. It was quite possible that we were being talked about,
although I had received no intimation of it. No matter who you are,
someone is always curious about your private life; there is always
someone who can put the worst construction upon anything. I liked to
think that I was not concerned for myself but for Pat Leighton. It
seemed to amuse her when I was worried. I realized Bella might have
guessed. Not so long ago she was continually asking me questions about
whom I was seeing and what I was doing, but lately she had stopped
asking.

Everything up on the roof where we were sitting had grown breathless.
When I turned my head, there was no hint of breeze.

"We're going to have a thunderstorm," Patricia said.

"Yes," I said, "I wish it would get over with. Thunderstorms always act
as though they were so damned important."

"Nature is never right in the city," Patricia said. "There should never
be any nature in New York, not even Central Park. Let's stay right where
we are until it starts--and keep on telling me some more. It isn't often
that you talk so much. What was it you were talking about?"

"Weren't you listening?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, "I was listening, but I was thinking about you, and you
weren't talking about yourself."

"I was talking about love," I said.

"Oh," she said, "yes. I remember now."

"I was saying that it was just love, love, love. Did Bella love him? Did
he love Bella? And if so, exactly how did they love each other? That's
all I was saying."

"You never talk about love to me," Pat said.

"No," I said, "that's true."

"Well," she said, "I'm glad you don't. It means it doesn't bother you at
all. It isn't right to fuss about things like that."

"Isn't it?" I asked.

Her voice was near me, but it was so dark that I could hardly see her.
It seemed almost as though I were carrying on a conversation with myself
out there on the roof alone.

"No," she said, "it isn't. If you _worry_, there's always something
wrong. Does anyone know you're here?"

"What makes you ask that?" I asked her.

"Because I knew you were thinking of it," she said. "You always get so
proper when you think of things like that. What would Bella Brill do if
she knew you were here?"

"She would use it," I said. "She would wait until just the wrong time
and bring it up. Or else she would get me to do something for her so she
wouldn't mention it."

Pat's voice, tinged with a note of amusement, came to me through the
dark again.

"Why do you care?" she asked.

"On account of you," I said. "She's dangerous sometimes."

She laughed, but I could not tell why she was amused.

"Well," she said, "I rather wish she knew."

"That isn't funny," I said.

"I wouldn't mind," she said. "It doesn't matter as long as I don't. I
wish you didn't."

"You'd mind," I said, "if you'd ever done anything like this before."

She did not answer and her thoughts must have moved away, for next she
mentioned two words pulled out of nowhere.

"Harris Harbor," she said.

"Exactly why," I asked her, "did you think of that?"

I remembered that Joe Stowe had thought that it would be all right when
he and Bella moved to Harris Harbor for the summer in 1932. He had
thought that it would be all right because she would not be at Wickford
Point. There were no Brills at Harris Harbor, at least not until Harry
and Sid found that they could commute there quite comfortably from New
York, and not until Mary found that it was a good place to go to get
over the time she had had with the minister's son. Yes, Joe Stowe had
thought, when he rented that place on the Sound, that everything would
start going smoothly, and he had borrowed a thousand dollars from the
bank to do it.

"Harris Harbor," Pat Leighton repeated through the dark. "I came over
with the Hopewells for a drink. Bella was always asking people over, and
they had that Japanese who made _canaps_ and little baskets out of
carrots."

"Igawa," I said; "and he used to have little flags on toothpicks. He
went crazy." This did not seem peculiar to me, because everyone went
crazy after working for a Brill. "That's true--he was always making
little baskets out of vegetables."

"Harris Harbor," she said. "That was where I met you, dear. You and Joe
Stowe were drinking whisky."

"Well, everyone has to meet somewhere," I answered.

"And you didn't pay any attention to me at all," she said. "We might
just as well have been on the subway. It's funny, isn't it?"

"Depending on how you look at it," I said.

"And do you know what Bella wanted? She'd been reading that Mrs.
Bertrand Russell book, _The Right to Be Happy_, do you remember?"

I doubted if Bella had been reading it, because I knew that Bella was
too lazy to read much of anything. She had the desire for erudition, but
not the will to work for it. She had an especial gift for taking things
from other people's minds and making them appear her own contributions,
so that she really seemed very clever. She gave the impression of
knowing all about the stock market and all about the National Socialist
party in Germany and about ideology and psychoanalysis and about Philip
Guedalla. Sometimes she would carry books around from room to room,
intending perhaps to read them, but never doing so. Also she was usually
talking about writing, really good writing, not the sort of thing you
did for money. It was quite a joke to her that she was married to
someone who wrote for money.

"Do you know what she wanted?" Patricia asked. "She wanted me to have an
affair with Joe."

"What?" I said. "You never told me that." She had been there at Harris
Harbor, and I had never noticed her. I could scarcely remember what she
looked like at Harris Harbor, and yet now here we were.

"No," she said, "I never told you. It wasn't particularly important
because she hoped that almost anyone would have an affair with Joe."

"Why?" I asked.

"Why?" she repeated. "I suppose she wondered how she would feel. Hasn't
she always wanted to know how she would feel about things?"

"Perhaps," I answered. "I don't know." But I knew well enough. She
always wanted to experience everything without ever being touched
herself.

"But she was beautiful," I said, and that seemed to explain everything,
for somehow her beauty excused a good deal when I thought of Bella
Brill. It had always been something on which she could rely....

       *       *       *       *       *

Harris Harbor was one of those places which you recognize even if you
have never been there--the station with its shrubbery, the open space by
the platform, and the row of taxicabs.

"I want to go to Mr. Stowe's house," I said to the driver who took my
bag. "He rented it for the summer." The man scratched his chin,
evidently reviewing all the personalities he had recently encountered,
and then he grinned.

"Oh yes," he said, "I know him, the guy with the sandy hair."

They lived in a brown frame house with a big veranda, set on a square of
lawn fronting a road called Seashore Drive, although there was nothing
but a distant view of Long Island Sound.

"But there are lots of lovely people here," the driver said.

I walked across the porch, into the hall, without knocking; and then I
heard low voices from a room on the left.

"Norman," I heard Bella say, "please don't, Norman."

"Belle," I called, "where are you?"

She was in a long room furnished in the nondescript fashion of houses
that rent for the summer. She had been sitting on the sofa beside a
blond young man with horn-rimmed glasses, who got up so awkwardly that
he nearly tipped over a little table with ice and bottles on it. Bella
had on a violet jersey and a violet tweed skirt. Her legs, and somehow
one always saw her legs, were bare and beautifully brown, and she was
wearing sandals.

"Darling!" said Bella, "Jim! Why didn't you let me know the train you
were coming on, and I would have met you? How did you ever find this
funny little place?"

"It wasn't hard," I said. "I didn't mean to disturb you, Belle."

"You didn't disturb me at all," said Bella. "Joe always picks out the
stuffiest places to live in. This is Mr. Epps, Norman Epps."

"How do you do," I said.

"I think perhaps I'd better be going now," said Mr. Epps.

"No," said Bella, "don't go, Norman. You and Jim will have so much to
talk about. Jim writes too, you know."

Mr. Epps and I examined each other critically. There may be a certain
amount of brotherhood in other arts, although I doubt it, but certainly
not in the writing profession.

"Oh yes," said Mr. Epps, "I know. I think really I'd better be going."
And he went.

"Mr. Epps and I are going to collaborate," said Bella.

"Collaborate on what?" I asked.

"Darling," said Bella, "some people think I have brains--not my family,
of course. But Mr. Epps happens to think so, funnily enough. I'm helping
Mr. Epps with his book. He comes over every afternoon."

"Who is he anyway?" I asked. "I have never heard of Mr. Norman Epps."

Bella smiled at me condescendingly, and there was a constraint between
us as if we were strangers, except that the constraint was worse because
we were not. We knew each other perfectly well; and even when I told
myself with a certain surprise that Bella Brill had changed, something
deeper in me contradicted. She was the same person I had always known.
It was only that certain tendencies that were latent in her had
developed.

"Well," said Bella, "he didn't know you either, darling. And if you
don't know Norman Epps, it simply means that you don't keep in touch
with book reviews and critical comment, darling. It simply means that
you're just like Joe, stewing in your own juice. It just happens that
Norman Epps is very worth-while and interesting."

"You mean you're interested in him?" I asked.

Bella shrugged her shoulders.

"Don't be so old-fashioned," she said. "That isn't what I mean at all. I
can't sit here all by myself all the time, can I? There's a poky little
bathing beach down the road, and I'll watch you go for a swim if you
want one."

"No thanks," I said. "Where's Joe?"

Bella pointed toward the ceiling with an elaborate, wearied gesture.

"Upstairs working," she said. "At least he calls it working. Any time I
look at him he's usually reading a magazine. The whole house has to be
kept quiet. He can't be disturbed about anything, and there he sits
reading the _Saturday Evening Post_. Or else he goes down to the beach
and sits in the sun, but he can't be disturbed on the beach either, and
when he is disturbed, all he talks about is money. He'll be down after a
while. Don't you want a drink, darling?"

I bent over the little table and poured myself a drink, and sat down and
shook the ice gently back and forth in the glass. I began to think that
Bella had grown hard. I did not like the way she was behaving.

"Where have you been?" she said. "You always keep going away, abroad and
places for months and years, and we always just sit here. Joe never
takes me anywhere. He says he hasn't the money. I tell him he could save
all the money he wants if he would only go to Wickford Point."

Bella sat down heavily on the sofa and curled her legs under her.

"Darling," she said, "will you give me a cigarette? Sometimes I think
I'm simply going to scream."

"All right," I told her, "go ahead and scream."

She looked very pretty sitting on the sofa, but it was the disturbing
beauty of discontent. It was dangerous for anyone to look the way she
did.

"Darling," she said, "I always feel better when I see you. I just mean
that I wish someone would take me away somewhere when everything is
dull."

"Most of life is pretty dull," I told her.

"Well," said Bella, "it shouldn't be."

"You can't help it, Belle," I said.

"Well," said Bella, "then someone ought to help it. Everyone should have
a chance to develop."

"Why don't you have a baby, Belle?" I said.

Bella looked at me and laughed.

"You do think of the damnedest things," she answered, "don't you,
darling? Of all the obvious damn things! What good would a baby do me?
It simply means that you don't think I'm interesting. You used to think
so--everybody did, and I was interesting too. I want to see people. I
want to do real things."

"Well," I said, "Joe is interesting. Look here, what's happened? What's
the matter with you, Belle?"

"Sometimes," Bella answered, "I simply think I'm going to scream."

I asked again, "What's the matter with you, Belle?"

It was a stupid question. I had seen other people like her. She was only
demonstrating that marriage is a difficult institution--too difficult
for her, at any rate. There was no use asking her, because everything
was the matter.

"Oh God," said Bella, "I don't know. Why do you make me sit here and
make everything turn around in my mind? Maybe no one is interesting if
you see too much of him. Maybe it isn't Joe's fault, darling. It's
probably just the way people are. I thought--"

"What did you think?" I asked.

"Oh hell," said Bella, "I don't know what I thought. Let's forget about
it. We're having some people over for dinner, lots of people. Joe
doesn't know it yet. Here's Joe now."

Joe was in his shirt sleeves and he looked hot and rather tired.

"Jim," he said, "why didn't someone tell me you were here?"

"You said you didn't want to be disturbed, darling," Bella answered.
"Don't you remember? You were very emphatic about it at lunch."

"I didn't mean Jim," Joe answered. "Jim doesn't disturb me."

"How did everything go?" Bella asked. "Did the boy meet the girl?"

Joe looked at her and started to speak and checked himself.

"Listen Bella," he said, "please don't do that." It was more of an
appeal than a request, but both of us must have understood him.

"All right, dear," Bella said, "but don't complain that I don't speak to
you about your work, because when I do speak to you, you don't want to
talk about it."

"I know," said Joe, "I guess I'm pretty difficult. Excuse me, Bella."

"And now you'd better go and get on some other clothes," Bella said.
"Harry and Sid are coming on the six-fifteen."

"Oh," said Joe, "they are, are they?"

"But I'll drive down to meet them, dear," Bella said, "and then some
people are coming over for dinner, and we're all going to eat on the
porch."

"Who?" said Joe. "What people? I didn't know that anyone was coming."

"It won't be any trouble, dear," Bella said. "We have to have people
over sometimes."

"Sometimes," Joe said. "How often is sometimes? I wanted to see Jim."

"Joe, dear," said Bella, "you'd better take Jim upstairs and show him
his room, and I have to go and see Igawa. He's making things for
cocktails, and Joe--"

"Yes," Joe said.

"Igawa has a friend helping him, and I have to give him five dollars,
and when you're upstairs will you write out a check of fifty-five
dollars for Mr. Pitsky? He's coming with some more liquor."

"Now look here--" Joe began, but Bella interrupted him reproachfully.

"Darling," she said, "Jim's here. We have to do something for Jim, don't
we?"

"I just hoped we were going to be quiet, that's all," said Joe. "I
wanted to have a talk with Jim."

"But Joe," said Bella, "we're always quiet. You'll have plenty of time
to talk with Jim. Don't be so cross. You act--"

"I'm not being cross, Bella," Joe said. "Come on, Jim, let's go
upstairs. If Bella wants to have a party, Bella's going to have a
party."

"Be sure to put on a clean shirt, darling," said Bella, "not the one you
wore last night. And you'd better let Jim look at you before you come
downstairs."

"What for?" I asked.

"Well," said Bella, "you know the way Joe dresses, dear."

Joe walked ahead of me carrying my bag.

"Jesus," he said, "I didn't know anyone was coming."

"Bella's looking fine," I said.

"Isn't she," said Joe. "Bella's wonderful. Here's your room."

The room was done in faded chintz, with white wicker furniture, and a
white iron bed. Joe put my bags on a chair and explained the details of
the plumbing, which Harry and Sid would use also.

"You're looking tired," I said.

Joe shook his head and grinned at me.

"I've been working all day," he said. "You know the way it gets you when
nothing's coming out just right."

He must have read some expression on my face because he went on more
quickly: "The thing I'm doing, I mean. You know the way it is. It's sort
of hard on Bella, but she's been wonderful. She doesn't know much about
money, that's all."

"If you're hard up, Joe ..." I said.

"No," said Joe, "that's all right. I'm going to have them all licked
yet. Someday Bella isn't going to have to worry at all."

"Well," I said, "that's fine."

He looked at me, and he did not have to speak. He was telling me quite
definitely in that single glance that there were matters which he did
not want discussed. He wanted me to feel that it was fine as far as he
was concerned.

"Thanks ever so much for having me, Joe," I said.

"It's swell having you," he answered. "I guess we'd better get dressed
now, if everybody's coming."

I was left alone faced with the impersonality of their guest room. I had
the uncomfortable sensation of listening to things which were not meant
for me to hear or see, of spying upon what Joe Stowe wished to hide. And
he was a friend of mine. Bella had been hard, but Joe looked worn and
defeated.

I had been away a good deal since Bella and Joe were married. Perhaps
the length of my absences and my other preoccupations may have added to
this sense of uneasiness. Very few individuals of my acquaintance were
the same after they married. The matters one had in common with them no
longer were of much importance; yet I had not expected that silence from
Joe, and Bella's attitude was disconcerting. I had seen marriage make
plain girls pretty and cross girls jovial. Indeed marriage was a remedy
commonly suggested, by persons who knew no better, for almost any case
of anti-sociability.

"What she needs is to get married," they used to say. "She would be
perfectly all right if only she were married."

No doubt the same authorities had said that Bella would be all right
when she was married; but marriage had not helped Bella Brill. It had
made her, in my estimation, selfish and disagreeable. It had brought a
lot out in her, but not the right things....

Bella had acquired the power--more common in women than in men--of
changing personality under a given stimulus. In fact I heard someone
say that night--I don't know who it was, and at any rate you can hear
almost anything if you listen long enough:--

"Isn't Mrs. Stowe charming? It did her so much good to get married."

She had changed her mood with her dress--and the dress was remarkably
successful--purchased, she explained to me, from an acquaintance, a
model at Madame Mumford's, who was having trouble with one of her boy
friends so that she simply had to sell something. It had the severity of
a very expensive garment; now that Bella was wearing it, she was
self-possessed and gay.

"All the women will be interested in Joe," she said, "if Joe will pay
any attention to them. I do wish he would look at someone else sometime.
Now I want you to meet everyone, darling."

She put her arm through mine and led me around to the men in dinner
coats and women in summer prints. There were men who were drinking too
much and girls who were drinking too much, some who were bored and some
who were happy.

"Those are the Hopewells over there," said Bella, "and that's a girl
staying with them. She went to college with Elsie Hopewell. I don't like
college girls, do you?"

"No," I said, "they show off as a rule. What's her name?"

"Leighton," said Bella, "Patricia Leighton. It's a rather common name.
This is Jim, Patricia, my cousin Mr. Calder."

That was how I met her, and it meant nothing at all. Igawa's Japanese
friend, in a white coat that was too large for him, handed me a cocktail
which was warm and which contained too much French vermouth.

"You haven't been around here much, have you?" Miss Leighton said.

"No," I said, "I've been abroad."

"You're related to Bella, aren't you?" she asked. "You don't look like
any of the Brills." And that was all I can remember.

Then there were other names and faces. I heard Harry talking very
cordially to some people in a corner and I heard Sidney discoursing on
art. I saw Joe Stowe mixing a highball and I walked over to him.

"You'd better have some whisky, Jim," he said. "It does better than
those cocktails. Did you ever see so many people?"

"They're very nice," I said.

"Yes," said Joe, "they're very nice. I guess they think I'm queer."

"Why should they?" I asked him.

"Why shouldn't they?" said Joe. "Maybe I am queer. Look at Bella. Isn't
she beautiful?"

"Bella's all right," I said.

"Did I say she wasn't?" Joe asked me, and then I saw that Joe had
finished nearly half the bottle of whisky.

"Now," I said, "take it easy, Joe. You haven't had anything to eat."

"All right," said Joe. "I'm all right. Do you remember things? Let's
remember things. I don't see you any more. I don't get a chance to see
anyone any more."

Harry tapped me on the shoulder and looked meaningly at Joe.

"We're all going to eat out on the porch," he said. "We'll have to pass
things, Joe." And then he whispered to me: "He's drunk, isn't he?"

"Not noticeably," I said. "Joe can drink a lot without showing it."

"Well, it doesn't look well," said Harry, "standing in the corner
drinking whisky."

As a matter of fact the whisky did Joe more good than harm. It did as
much for him as the new dress had done for Bella. It polished all the
half-concealed facets of his character. Now that he was making an
effort, he was head and shoulders above everyone in the room from the
point of view of intellect or ability or experience. He had been dull
before; but now his face, which had been uncouth and tired, became
animated. By the time supper was over nearly everyone was listening to
him. There are so many people who can travel and yet return home with
almost nothing, but Joe's mind was full of neglected details--the way
the straw fires snapped in the mud stoves, the way iron-shod wheels
jolted over rocks, the way the camels' bells sounded.

"Jim," he called to me, "do you remember?" And I began to remember, too,
all sorts of anecdotes about this and that. We were having a good time.

Quite a long while afterwards, while Joe was still talking, Harry
touched me on the shoulder again.

"Come out on the lawn," he said. "It makes my head tired listening to
him."

I followed Harry down the creaking steps of the piazza, out to a dark
square on the small lawn, and from it we could see the lighted windows
and hear that background of voices. I was feeling better, a good deal
better then.

"Quite a party," I said.

"Oh," Harry said, "you think so, do you?" He laughed lightly. "You think
it's nice for Bella to be here, do you?"

"Yes," I answered. "What do you think?"

Harry gazed at the house and made an eloquent, careless gesture. His
tone was elaborately patient.

"The neighborhood," he said, "the plumbing."

"It looks all right to me," I said.

"You have taste," said Harry; "why not try without prejudice to use your
taste? What do you see? Nothing that isn't second-class. My sister is
being dragged down into humdrum second-class."

"I'd like to see you pay the bills to run this place," I said.

"Your remark," said Harry, "has nothing whatever to do with the
situation. The point is that my sister, my own sister, is being made to
live the life of the second-class. I sit here night after night and see
it."

"Well, why don't you go somewhere else?" I said.

"Your question," said Harry, "has nothing to do with the point. We are
not second-class people, Jim. Call it background, call it anything you
like. We have never been humdrum, we have never been second-class. You
don't know what it does to me just to sit here and watch it, and to
watch Bella being dragged--" He paused and shrugged his shoulders, still
staring at the house.

I was tempted to laugh, but I knew that he was serious according to his
lights, and I appreciated the peculiar composition of his mind which had
led him so far from reality. I knew him well enough to see that he was
deeply moved.

"Perhaps I am not making myself clear," he said. "I simply mean that
Bella needs something else. None of this is Bella; none of this is us.
It makes us all very worried."

"What are you driving at?" I asked. "You're his guest, aren't you? He's
paying for it, isn't he?"

"I supposed that would be coming," said Harry, "some obvious thought
like that. What is money? Do you think we care about money? Do you mean
money influences an attitude toward life? I'm discussing attitude, not
money. I'm discussing background, tradition. I happen to be very
broad-minded. I can stand starvation if it isn't second-class, and so
can Bella, but not second-class--oh no."

It never did any good to tell him what I thought of him, but I tried
again. It was one of the last times that I tried.

"Has it ever occurred to you," I asked, "that you're getting more
preposterous, and more ridiculous every year you live?"

Harry gave no sign of being angry.

"Hardly that," he answered, "hardly. Not preposterous, not ridiculous,
no, no. I am only growing more realistic, while you allow yourself to
move away from realism. I know what I live for and I know what Bella
lives for, and it isn't for any of this."

"Suppose you talk sense," I suggested. "What do you mean by 'this'?"

"Why not be frank," said Harry, "and admit you understand me? I mean
Stowe, of course. Obviously he's not making Bella happy. Suppose one
looks at it fearlessly. He is not making Bella happy because he does not
give her what she wants or what she is used to or what she must have for
any suitable development. He cannot do it because he is second-class."

A sense of futility came over me which was greater than any particular
sensation of anger.

"Look at it logically," Harry continued, "and without emotion. Joe is
obviously not first-class. He won't get any further. He's trying, I
admit he's trying, but Bella can't stay this way always. Face the facts;
he'll never make more than ten thousand a year."

"Suppose he doesn't," I said. "Why should he?"

"I'm not supposing," Harry answered, "I know. He's a typical
ten-thousand-dollar-a-year man, or less. I'm not speaking of the sum as
money."

"Oh, you aren't, aren't you?" I asked. "When did you ever make ten
thousand dollars?"

"I'm not speaking of the sum," Harry replied patiently. "I'm speaking of
the point of view. There is nothing in this country worse than the
ten-thousand-dollar point of view--the ten-thousand-dollar attitude. It
gets nowhere at all except to mediocrity."

"That's interesting," I said. "If you feel this way, you ought to get
out of his house."

I was thinking of the basic laws of hospitality, but they did not
trouble Harry Brill.

"Has Bella ever spoken to you about a man named Norman Epps?" he asked.

"I saw him," I said. "What of it?"

"He illustrates the point," said Harry. "Norman Epps is first-class. I
think that Bella should marry Norman Epps."

I gave an incredulous start.

"Now exactly why," said Harry, "should that remark surprise you? Why
not face the obvious? Bella can't go on this way. She ought to marry
Norman Epps."

I moved nearer Harry and looked carefully into his face where the lights
from the house fell on it. I examined his high nose and his high
forehead.

"You God-damned son of a bitch," I said.

Harry's face and his whole body swung toward me. I saw him open his lips
and close them.

"Coming here," I said, "to someone else's house, being his guest,
sponging off him--"

Harry found his voice before I finished.

"Jim," he said, "try to be a gentleman. Try not to lose your temper.
Listen to me carefully while I repeat what I said. Bella should get a
divorce, of course. I'm speaking for the whole family. Clothilde thinks
she should marry Norman Epps. Everybody thinks so."

I was so intent on my own feelings that I did not know anyone was near
us until I saw Harry's expression change.

"Why hello, Joe," he said. "Come on over here." And then I saw Joe Stowe
walking toward us across the lawn, not ten feet away.

"Hello boys," Joe said. "Having a little argument?"

"Oh no," said Harry, "not an argument at all. Quite a party, Joe. I've
been meaning to ask you something. Bella wanted me to ask you. I told
her you wouldn't mind."

"Mind what?" Joe asked.

Harry smiled.

"I don't know whether you know the Jaeckels," he said, "some friends of
ours living on the shore up beyond Boston? They asked me up for the week
end."

"You mean the day after tomorrow?" Joe said. "Well, that couldn't be
better. Is Sid going too?"

"Yes," said Harry, "Sid's going too, and Bella was wondering if she
couldn't go along, just for the change. She said you wouldn't mind if we
all took your car."

"What?" Joe asked. "Does Bella want to go? I thought she was having a
good time here."

"Just for a change," Harry's voice sounded casual and smooth. "You know
how Bella is. She likes to move about--just a day or two at the Jaeckels
and then a day or two at Wickford Point."

"Oh," said Joe, "she wants to go to Wickford Point?"

"Just to see the family," Harry said, "just for a day or two. You
wouldn't mind if we used your car, would you, Joe?"

"No," said Joe. "I gave Bella that car. I'll talk to Bella about it
later. Maybe I've been rather busy lately. Of course if she wants to
go--Are you going too, Jim?"

"Not by a damn sight," I said. "I never heard of this before." Harry put
his hands in his pockets and smiled as he did when he had done something
clever. He was beyond all reason and beyond all pain, moving in an
intellectual sphere which was entirely his property.

"That's awfully nice of you, Joe," he said. "I'll tell Bella. We're
awfully much obliged." He turned and strolled back toward the house
while Joe and I stood watching him.

       *       *       *       *       *

"I heard what you called him, Jim," Joe said. "You're mad about
something, aren't you?"

"Yes," I said, "I'm pretty mad."

"Well," Joe said, "I've often wanted to call him that myself, but he
isn't that, not really. He's really a collector's item."

"Oh," I said, "you think so?"

Joe still stood watching Harry's back as Harry moved languidly away.

"He's what you called him, all right," he said; "but he ought to be in a
bottle. It's the way he excuses himself for living. We all have to
excuse ourselves some way. Sid does the same thing, but he's better
because he doesn't excuse himself so much, and what's more they do
something to you simply by existing. They're very, very interesting."

"To hell with the whole lot of them," I said, and I meant it then. I had
a feeling of revulsion against the whole _galre_ such as I had never
felt before. I wanted to say what I thought of them, but I was
struggling with repressions and with queer unhappy jealousies which were
too much a part of my own life for me to get them straight.

"I wouldn't say that," Joe answered.

"You're too easy on them, Joe," I said. "It doesn't pay." Joe still
stood there, and he did not answer for quite a while.

"Not really easy," he said finally. "As a matter of fact I hate their
guts, but I wonder--" His voice trailed off into silence, and then he
must have caught his mind back from some other thought. "I wonder what's
going to happen to them."

I had often wondered the same thing, but I knew the answer.

"Nothing," I said, "absolutely nothing."

He simply stood there, and he made no reply.

"You mustn't let her go," I said. "Do you hear me, Joe?"

I asked the last question because he was so long in answering that I was
not at all sure that he had heard me. That silence of his showed me that
I was interfering in something which was entirely his business.

"If she wants to go, she can," he said. "Never mind it, Jim."

Somehow I was absolutely certain that this was an ending, that if she
went away she would not come back, ever. I have often wondered if he
realized it, too.

"Let her go if she wants to," he repeated. "She's always restless. I'll
be waiting for her when she gets back. I'm pretty damn tired."

He did look very tired. His love of life was no longer there, and again
I had that uncomfortable sensation--I was seeing and listening
indecently to things that were not meant for me. I seemed to be prying
into all that was private between Joe Stowe and Bella Brill. I seemed to
be hearing conversations in their bedroom and to be examining all the
furtive thoughts they had covered up.

I started to answer but he put his hand on my arm and stopped me.

"Let's skip it," Joe said. "I don't want to talk about it now."

"All right," I said, "I'm not talking."

His fingers gripped my arm more tightly and perhaps he was glad that I
was there. For a moment I thought he was going to say something more,
and it might have been better if he had, but perhaps he knew me too well
for unconsidered confidences.

"Let's go on back to the house," he said, "they'll be wondering where we
are."

Bella saw us when we reached the porch. She came up to me and put her
arm through mine and pressed it close to her side.

"Jim," she said, "aren't you going to talk to me?" And then she
whispered so that no one else could hear: "I've missed you so much,
darling." But I knew that it would do no good to talk. There was nothing
for me to say.




XXVIII

_Thunder on the Left_


It was getting darker, and in the direction of the Hudson River there
was a flash of lightning, and a sound like a distant gun.

"We'd better be going in," I said.

"No," Pat Leighton answered. "Let's wait till it begins to rain."

That distant thunder and flash of light reminded me of the way things
come out of the past and strike you. You think that everything is over
and then it all comes back out of nowhere. I had the same feeling of
revulsion and the same dull, hopeless sort of anger, although that night
at Harris Harbor was quite a while ago.

"And you didn't look at me at all," Pat said. "I remember when you came
up on the porch. I thought you were in love with her. Were you in love
with her, Jim?"

It was the first time she had ever asked me that.

"No," I answered, "I don't think so."

"Of course you didn't think so," she said. "You wouldn't because you are
so unanalytical about those things."

"Am I?" I asked. "Anyway, it doesn't matter."

"Of course," she said, "it doesn't matter. There was nothing you could
have done, nothing anyone could have done."

I sat there silently, still thinking of Harris Harbor. I was thinking
that Joe was fortunate to have recovered from that marriage. By the time
it had broken up it was almost too late. Patricia Leighton's thoughts
must have been moving in the same direction.

"What year was it," she asked, "when you were in Harris Harbor?"

For a moment I had difficulty in recollecting. Time has a curious way of
contracting or of extending itself, so that years occasionally lose
their meaning.

"That was 1932," I said. "I remember because I had come back from
abroad." I paused and looked out over the city. It was growing darker
all the time.

"Then they had been married for six years," Pat Leighton said. "I hadn't
realized it was as long as that."

"There was another year," I answered, "before she finally went to Reno.
They should have broken off years before. They must have known it
wouldn't work."

"It's hard to stop when you've started," she answered, and then she
repeated what she had said before: "There was nothing you could have
done, nothing anyone could have done."

"To hell with the whole lot of them," I said again.

"And you called Harry a name," she said. "I think it was rather sensible
of you."

"That's a silly remark," I said.

"No," she said, "it isn't silly.... Jim," she asked me, "will you really
take me to Wickford Point? I'd like to see them there."

"They'll all be there this week end," I said, and then something made me
laugh. "They'll all be just the same. I'll meet you on Saturday if you
take the midnight to Boston."

"That's fine," she said. "I can leave Friday night."

Everything always seemed to end at Wickford Point. I had just left it
and now actually I wanted to return, although I would surely be planning
to get away from it as soon as I arrived.

"Cousin Sue's dead," I said, "and Mr. Morrissey is dead. She used to
read him Tacitus when he had rheumatism--but everyone else is just the
same. Why do you want to go there?"

"I don't exactly know," she said, "but I'd really like to. When did you
see Bella last?"

"It's funny," I said, "I've been thinking of it all day. I saw Bella
yesterday. She was going to stay with the Jaeckels. Then I saw Joe, and
then Avery Gifford was on the train. Just like cards in a poker
hand--they might have been dealt out. It's funny how faces keep turning
up, just like cards."

Rain fell on my hand, a single, heavy, cool drop out of the dark sky.
Its contact was like a period to everything I had been thinking. It
brought me back to the present and reminded me that I was living and
that all the things I had recalled were much better forgotten.

"It's beginning to rain," I said. Pat's voice came through the dark more
clearly.

"No," she said, "it isn't raining yet. When did she get here?"

"Who?" I asked. "I'm sorry ..."

"Bella Brill," Pat said, "when did she get here?"

I was as startled as if Bella had suddenly appeared right beside us at
that moment.

"Let's talk sense," I said. "I don't see what you mean. Bella isn't
here. I left her back there with the Jaeckels."

Pat Leighton began to laugh.

"My dear," she said, "she isn't there, because she's here. I saw her
this afternoon on Forty-Second Street with one man, and I saw her this
evening out at dinner with another."

"Oh," I said, "you did?"

It was so like Bella that I was not particularly surprised. No matter
where she was, she was always trying to go somewhere else. Then I
remembered the last thing she had said to me.

"What's the matter, Jim?" Pat asked.

"Nothing," I answered, "nothing much. I just remember--she wanted to
know where she could reach me if she needed me."

There was a moment's silence and then her voice was sharper.

"They're always after you, aren't they?" she said.

Neither Pat nor I were happy any longer. There was an awkwardness
between us just as though someone else had come in. "And if Bella
needed you," she said, slowly, "you'd leave me, wouldn't you?"

I thought for a little while before I answered.

"No," I said, "not exactly."

"You would," she asked me again, "wouldn't you?"

Bella Brill would have enjoyed listening to that question. It was just
the sort of situation that appealed to her. I wanted to explain exactly
how I felt about Bella Brill, but I could not explain even to myself.

"I wouldn't know," I said. And I was right. "I'd help her," I added.
"I'd help her out of anything."

"There's one thing about you," she said, "you always tell the truth. I
don't care much what happens as long as you tell the truth. I wonder why
you'd help her. Do you know?"

"Yes," I said, "that's easy." And I was not uncomfortable any more. No
one had ever asked me such questions and I felt better now that I was
answering them. "I'd help her because I always have. That's the only
reason."

"That's true, of course," Pat said. "Everybody always does things
because they always have. You're worried about her, aren't you? Well go
ahead, it doesn't make me mad, particularly."

"Something's going on," I said. "Those men she was with, do you remember
what they looked like? I just have a feeling that something's happened.
I've been thinking about her and then we've been talking about her, and
now you say she's here."

"Jim," she said, "don't think so much. I didn't pay much attention to
them. The first one was tall and dark, rather handsome, with a hard
face, the sort of man you'd see at a night club dancing--shiny hair."

"A snappy dresser?" I inquired.

"Yes," she said, "a very snappy dresser." And I knew who it must have
been. It was Mr. Howard Berg, and she had traveled down to New York with
him. On the whole I thought it better not to ask myself why.

"Did you ever hear of a Mr. Howard Berg?" I asked, "a big power in Wall
Street? That's what Bella says he is."

"No," Pat Leighton said. "Did you?"

"Well," I said, "that was certainly Mr. Howard Berg. What did the other
one look like?"

"Pleasant," said Patricia. "Blond, rather large. He didn't look like one
of Bella's friends at all." I had a suspicion at that instant that made
me catch my breath.

"You mean he was respectable," I said, "and not a snappy dresser?"

"Yes," she answered. "He was in a gray flannel suit, a rather baggy
suit. He might have been someone from out of town. You know the way they
look--not used to things."

I knew who it was then. I was just as sure as if I had seen them both.

"What's the matter, Jim?" she asked.

"Good God," I said, "it's Avery Gifford, Pat. She's got hold of him
again. It's starting all over again. Nothing ever stops."

There was another clap of thunder. I started up from where I was sitting
because the rain was coming down. It had arrived suddenly as those
summer downpours do, and now the whole roof was wet.

"Hurry," I said, "let's go inside. Nothing ever stops."

I slammed the French door behind us, and there we stood side by side in
the dimly lighted living room. There were flowers on the piano and
chintz covers over the chairs and sofa, and I saw the landscape I had
bought for her above the fireplace. We had seen it in a window once when
we were walking together and she had said she liked it. We stood there
and the wind had risen so that the rain came splashing against the
windows as though a hand were throwing it. She looked up at me and
smiled.

"You can't get away now," she said.

I had never been so glad to be with her. Everything in the room seemed
safe.

"Pat," I said, "I don't want to get away."

It was as though I had arrived at a place where I had always wanted to
go; it had something to do with that rain and something to do with Avery
Gifford. It was a silly enough thought but it made everything seem all
right.

"You'll have to stay here," Pat said. "You can't help it, now it's
raining."

The rain had shut out everything--all the Brills and Wickford Point. It
was like a mathematical equation that left us only with ourselves.
"You're not thinking about anything else?" she asked me.

"No," I answered, "not a thing."

"That's fine," she said. "Forget about all the rest of them."

"You know the answer to everything, don't you?" I said. And she smiled.

"Yes," she answered, "everything, as long as it's just you and me. But
please forget about the rest of them."

       *       *       *       *       *

The air was cleaner after the rain but the streets were growing hot
again already. It was as hot that morning as it might be in Singapore.
Pat Leighton and I walked part way downtown together. Then we stood on
the street corner talking for a while, and I don't believe either of us
wanted to say good-by. I knew that when I left her all sorts of
uncomfortable odds and ends of life would reappear again.

"Tell me where you'll be today," she said.

"I'll be seeing Stanhope," I answered, "and then I'll take the one
o'clock or the three o'clock or the five o'clock to Boston. I'll be back
at Wickford Point tonight."

When I said it, I felt that I was going a very long distance away from
her.

"I'll think of you there tonight," she said. "But I'll see you on
Saturday. It's only a day or two, isn't it?"

"I'll be there," I said. "Be sure you remember to come." I began to be
afraid that she might not come. So often when you said good-by to
someone, everything was over.

"Don't worry, I'll be there," she said, "and Jim--"

"Yes," I said.

"You're thinking of going away somewhere. You really are, aren't you?"

"I've been considering it," I said. "That's what always happens when I
stay up there too long."

"All right," she said. "But just remember this--maybe I'll go with you."

"You'd be an awful fool," I told her.

"That's up to me," she answered. "You'd better kiss me now. We can't
stay here all morning."

"Not out on the street," I said, and she began to laugh.

"Hurry up," she said, "and get it over with. You're awfully funny
sometimes."




XXIX

_Nothing Ever Stops_


The girl behind the early American pine table at the Stanhope office was
twisting her mouth to one side and working on it with a lipstick, but
when she saw me she straightened it and smiled.

"Good morning, Mr. Calder," she said. "Mr. Stanhope isn't busy, and
someone has been trying to get in touch with you. We said you were
expected. That's all right I hope."

"Did they leave a number?" I asked.

"No," she answered, "they didn't leave anything. They said they'd call
again."

George Stanhope was speaking over the telephone. He was in his shirt
sleeves bending over his table and he waved his hand at me in a gesture
which indicated that he wanted me to sit down and be quiet. Then he
continued drawing squares and circles on a piece of paper in front of
him.

"Definitely," he was saying, "yes, definitely. She will do two more of
the Mr. Blumpey stories, but there will have to be a raise in rate if
she is going to stay happy. She'd be happy the way it is, but the
Midtown people want to put Mr. Blumpey on the radio. Definitely, it's
just what they were looking for. We can't give you all rights without a
raise in rate. No, definitely, John. All right. Are you buying the
Baxter? Yes, Jim's right here in the office now. I'll see you at
lunchtime, John."

George Stanhope set down the telephone and pressed a button.

"Just a minute, Jim," he said. "We're cleaning up the Blumpey thing. All
right, Ella darling, come in and take this telegram to Mrs. Marietta
Fosdick. 'Dear Etta, they are simply nuts about the Blumpey thing and
they are raising one hundred dollars. Isn't that perfectly swell?
Congratulations.'" George tapped the desk with his pencil.

"What's the Blumpey thing?" I asked. "Is it a series of stories about a
lovable character?"

"It really looks as though Marietta had gotten somewhere this time," he
said. "It's about an old crossing tender who befriends anyone whose car
stops at the crossing. He's just what they wanted down the street."

"And then the car gets stalled right out in the middle of the tracks," I
said, "when the Chicago Flyer is going by, and there he has a problem."

"As a matter of fact," George Stanhope said, "the young people are
quarreling and the car does get stalled. But those Blumpey stories are
going to go. Have you got those revisions?"

"Yes," I said. "I did them yesterday afternoon. The boy misunderstands
the girl. They hate each other, but they love each other."

"That's exactly right," said George. "You'd better let me see it. They
want it down the street. The Old Man was asking for it this morning.
I've got plenty of time to read it. Ella darling, I don't want to be
disturbed for fifteen minutes."

George picked up the manuscript I gave him and arranged the papers
neatly. He had already forgotten about the lovable crossing tender, and
now he would be able to remember everything I had ever written, and I
wondered how he could do it.

"Where were you last night?" he asked. "I tried to get hold of you."

"I must have been out," I said.

He picked up his pencil and drew a square on his yellow paper.

"You aren't in any trouble, are you?" he asked.

"No," I answered. "Why?"

"It just crossed my mind," said George. "Someone's been trying to get
you on the telephone, a woman. I tried to talk to her myself. She
wouldn't give a name."

"Well," I said, "I don't know who it is, definitely, George. Do you see
where those revisions go in the manuscript?"

George Stanhope nodded and lighted a cigarette, and he began to read
while I sat looking out the window watching a spot where the sun struck
on the East River. I was thinking of all the times I had sat there while
George Stanhope was reading, and of all the fictitious destinies he had
handled.

"Jim," he said, "that's swell."

I knew it was not swell, but I knew it was what they wanted, and I was
pleased to hear him say so, for it gave me a sense of pride in my
craftsmanship. None of the characters we were dealing with were real,
but after all they worked. They were better than human beings in their
way because they worked, and came out properly in the end.

"Of course," I said, "in real life the boy and girl don't always
misunderstand each other."

George shook his head.

"Definitely," he said, "they have to, Jim. Now all of this is swell.
That minute where she hates him, but has to touch him--"

"All right," I said, "all right."

"It is all right," he answered. "What's the matter with you, Jim? Have
you got something on your mind?"

"No," I said, "I was just thinking about actuality, where there aren't
any lovable crossing tenders and where the boy and girl don't always
misunderstand each other."

George Stanhope was distressed.

"Now don't get your tongue in your cheek," he said. "I don't mean that
we don't know better, but, even so, everything in life has a pattern. We
may be working here on an arbitrary pattern, but everything in life fits
together. No matter where it is."

"You're wrong," I said. "Sometimes it doesn't fit at all."

"But just the same," said George, "it's a pattern. Everything you do
sets up a force which affects the thread of a plot. You think that all
the stuff that goes over this table is unreal because it fits a
standard. Now I've read more of it than you have, and I'm not sure that
it isn't real. Now just this morning someone wants to get you on the
telephone. Even that is part of a pattern."

"Someone's always trying to get me on the telephone," I said. "You have
too much imagination, George. I'd like to try to write something that
doesn't have this pattern you speak about. You have it on the brain."

"You couldn't do it," said George, "and if you did, it would be
definitely bad. I'm not defending the standard of the popular magazines,
but just the same the public that reads them believes what they read.
Now why do they?"

"I'll tell you why," I said, "because they have the intellectual
equipment of a child of twelve."

"A child of twelve is pretty bright," said George. "Maybe he's brighter
than you or me. I know the way you feel. Sometimes I'm that way myself,
but when I am, I put it out of my mind."

"You'd better, George," I said, and then his telephone rang. This meant
that someone had been watching the time in the outer office and that our
fifteen minutes was up. In another moment he would be coping with a
fresh problem, with life in the South Seas or with a college story, or
with a wild animal story, but George Stanhope was ready for it because
it would have a pattern.

"Excuse me, Jim," he said, and he picked up the telephone. "Hello," he
said and paused and looked at me. "Yes, he's here." He beckoned toward
me and picked up his pencil.

"It's for you, Jim," he said, "the same call."

I leaned over his table and put the receiver to my ear.

"Hello," I said. "What is it?"

"Hello," a voice answered, and I knew at once who was speaking. It was
my second cousin, Bella Brill.

"Jim," she was saying, "Jim."

I could hear her catch her breath as though she had been running.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"Jim," she said, "you've got to come up here. I'm telephoning from the
bedroom. They can't hear me."

"Who can't?" I said. "Tell me what's the matter."

"I can't tell you over the telephone," she said. "You have to come up
here right away. Howard Berg is here."

"Where?" I asked.

"Here," she said, "here, here, here."

"Don't yell at me," I said. "Suppose he is. Where are you?"

"I told you," she said, "in the bedroom in my apartment. Where else
would I be? Jim, you've got to come. I don't know what they'll do. Do
you hear, Jim?"

"All right," I said. "Can't you tell me what's the matter?"

"No," she said, "I can't tell you. Please hurry."

I put down the telephone and picked up my hat. George was standing up.

"Anything wrong?" he asked. "Anything I can do?"

"No," I answered, "I guess not, George."

"Is it something," he asked, "where you'd like to have a friend along?"

"No," I answered, "I guess not, George. That was Bella Brill. She was
telephoning from the bedroom in her apartment so no one could hear her,
whatever that means."

"Good God," George said, "has it got anything to do with Joe?"

I put my hat on and pulled the brim over my eyes.

"I don't know what she's after," I said. "She's always after everybody.
Maybe you'd better get three hundred dollars in cash, George, and have
it waiting in the office. I don't know what's the matter."

But I knew from her voice that she was frightened. George Stanhope had
been speaking of a pattern. Perhaps for once in her life she was facing
some sort of artistic retribution.

"I don't know what's the matter, George," I said, "but it looks as
though the boy and girl misunderstand each other."

Being used to the vagaries of writers, a literary agent is disturbed by
nothing. In fact there was hardly a day that George Stanhope was not
involved in some acute domestic, financial or moral crisis, confronting
one of his clients. He was constantly negotiating to get them out of
jail or to Reno or in touch with legal talent capable of handling the
embarrassments of seduction or breach of promise, and he was
broad-minded about these matters. In fact they only annoyed George
because they cut into the earning capacity of his clients.

"Keep her away from Stowe," he said. "You know what happened the last
time he saw her. It can't help cutting down his production. He'll go and
get drunk. He won't be good for anything for a month."

"It's all right, George," I said. "Stowe isn't around here. I told you
yesterday he's somewhere up in Vermont."

George Stanhope looked grim and competent.

"You can't ever tell where he is. You know him, Jim. He was talking
about her the last time he was in here. I've got to get him here where I
can watch him."

"This isn't about Joe," I told him, "it's about a man named Berg."

George pressed a button on his desk.

"Ella darling," he said, "get out the private book and look up Stowe. I
want to speak to him right away. First try the Vermont number. Then go
over all the places he may be; then call up his friends. Drop everything
and work on it till you get him. Never mind about the Max Fargo thing
and never mind about the Blumpey thing. Drop everything until you get
him."

       *       *       *       *       *

For several years Bella Brill had found it difficult to live with the
family. She used to say, and I imagine she was right, that whatever room
she slept in was the very place that Archie needed for his canvases and
paints. He generally left them all over her bed and all her dresses
usually smelled of linseed oil. Besides Bella wanted some place where
she could see her friends quietly; that was why she had an apartment,
but she never used it much, because she hated doing housework. Sometimes
she would invite another girl to share her quarters with her, but this
never turned out well, because she had never been able to find another
girl who would do all the housework indefinitely, single-handed, and
when it came to paying a maid, Bella had always spent the money for
something else. Thus though Bella had her own apartment, she was
generally with the family.

Sometimes, though, she gave cocktail parties, and sometimes she would
sublet it to Harry or Sidney, so I had seen the place often enough. It
was between Third and Second Avenues in a tall yellow building which had
been constructed hastily in a period when realtors felt that the whole
region of brownstone houses would turn into a veritable garden spot.
Perhaps the owners still had some such hope, for there was an awning
across the street and a doorman, and even a nose and throat specialist
on the ground floor. Because of the doctor I had always associated the
place with a cleanly, antiseptic smell, an odor, however, which did not
extend beyond the entrance hall. There was a time when Bella thought the
doctor was delightful, and he could stop a cold right away if you went
to him. She even used to have him up occasionally for a drink until
there was some trouble about his bill, and after that the doctor stayed
where he belonged, a common, vulgar man who had never attended a proper
medical institution, and whom you could not trust once he got you in his
office.

There had been the doctor, and there had been lots of others of both
sexes around the apartment at odd times, for Bella had developed an
amazing faculty for sudden friendships. They made a sprightly little
company, which changed whenever there were quarrels. At the small
parties, which Bella sometimes gave, the faces of the guests on nearly
every occasion were different, and yet all those changing faces had a
striking similarity. I had once thought, when I was there, that it was
as though Bella looked into the restive surface of a wind-rippled pool
that gave back her own reflection in a score of different distorted
ways. Certainly there is something of one's self in every person whom
one knows and likes. Once there had been Winty Hollingshead, who used to
make flowers out of wax, and Marcia Titmarsh, who wanted to do book
reviews and who spoke with a Southern accent, although she came from
Michigan. Marcia had been one of Bella's very dearest friends, and their
friendship had reached the point where they used each other's clothes
almost indiscriminately. Then one of them said something unpardonable
about the other, and Marcia disappeared, not that it made much
difference. Just around the corner someone new was waiting who would
understand Bella Brill, who would really understand this time, and
everything would be all right this next time and everything else had
been a hideous mistake. It was not entirely amusing to conjure up the
kaleidoscopic friends of Bella Brill. It meant that she was looking for
something desperately which she might never find, and yet she had never
lost the hope of finding it.

I thought of all the other people, most of them unhappy like herself,
who must have stood as I was standing, waiting to be carried up to
apartment C on the twelfth floor. I took off my hat and mopped my
forehead. The elevator boy did not remember me--Bella Brill had too many
friends--and the look he gave me seemed more searching than was
necessary; it reminded me that elevator boys know almost everything.

"Is Miss Brill expecting you?" he asked.

"Yes," I told him, "absolutely."

He was a dark, olive-skinned boy, probably of Italian extraction, and he
still stood looking at me.

"Call her up if you want to," I said. "Tell her her cousin is waiting
downstairs."

"Oh," he said, "that's all right--as long as she's expecting you."

It seemed to me that he wanted to add something more. I wondered if the
night man might have told him something, but he volunteered nothing
further. The elevator moved upwards in an uneasy sort of silence.

Bella's doorbell made a hollow, buzzing sound, and a dog in an apartment
across the way began to bark. I could hear the creature scratching and
snuffing at the crack. Then I heard footsteps and Howard Berg opened the
green metal door. He was dressed in a tan linen suit and wore a
salmon-colored necktie.

"Well," he said, "hello."

I did not like the way he said it.

"Hello, Berg," I said. "What's the matter?"

Mr. Berg shook his head and he ended his headshake with a little upward
nod.

"Not a thing," he said. "What makes you think there is?"

I followed him into a narrow hallway where a lamp was burning on a red
lacquer table. The hall ran into the living room and there were two
doors off it, one to a coat closet and one to the bedroom.

"Bella called me up," I said. "Where is she?"

"In the living room," Mr. Berg said. "So she called you up, did she? So,
that's what she was doing. Well, she can get in the whole damned fire
department and life-net too ..."

His voice trailed off into silence as I followed him down the hall to
the living room. The sun was shining through the windows upon that
disorderly room, which I had always thought was so much like Bella's
mind. There were some rather nice pieces of furniture, which had come
from Wickford Point--a small kneehole desk covered with a heap of bills
and letters, a claw-and-ball-foot mahogany table littered with magazines
and empty glasses, two Chippendale end-chairs and then some comfortable
chairs, and a divan sofa with pillows, and a built-in bookcase with
volumes still in their wrappers. One of the volumes caught my eye the
way such things do now and then; it was called _The Sex Life of the
Apes_. Bella was standing by the window in a slate-gray dress, and Avery
Gifford was standing near her.

His appearance surprised me more than the fact of his being there. That
seaside coloring of his was gone. His forehead glistened with
perspiration and his jaw was set.

"Hello, Belle, hello, Avery," I said.

Avery swallowed and cleared his throat. Berg walked over to the table
and picked up a magazine. I could hear him turn the pages while I stood
waiting for someone to speak.

"How did you get here?" Avery asked. "This is all damn nonsense. We've
all got to be reasonable."

Bella shook her head as though that simple, physical action could drive
something repugnant from her mind.

"For God's sake," she said, "don't talk any more about being reasonable.
I called Jim up. Jim darling, in the first place I want you to
understand that nothing anyone says is true. It's all preposterous."

She was trying once again to escape from a situation which she did not
like by reducing it to an absurdity.

"What have you been doing this time, Belle?" I asked.

Bella glanced across the little living room at Howard Berg and smiled
tolerantly.

"It's Howard, darling," she said. "Howard is being perfectly
preposterous."

I looked at Berg again. He had set down the magazine and was leaning
against the table. I began wishing that he would do something or say
something more, but he did nothing. Avery Gifford was the one who spoke.

"Now here," Avery said, "just understand I'm willing to pay for this."

Berg straightened himself up from the table, not quickly but almost
wearily.

"You said that before," he said, "and you've said it enough. I'm not
interested in money."

Bella glanced at me and shook her head again.

"You see, darling," she said, and she looked very pretty standing there,
very patient and very sweet. "They don't know what they're talking
about. I can explain everything perfectly easily. It's what I say--it's
all perfectly preposterous."

I did not answer her.

"Suppose you try to tell me," I said to Berg.




XXX

_Howard Writes the Ticket_


Berg hesitated.

"I can handle this myself and I'll settle it with Bella. Your being here
won't change anything."

"Go ahead and tell him," said Bella. "That's why Jim's here. You thought
I couldn't get anyone to help me, didn't you? You can tell any lies you
want. I always knew you had a dirty mind."

Howard Berg looked at her; the corners of his lips twitched but he
straightened them.

"Go ahead," I told him.

"All right," he said. "Here's the way it is. I've been good enough to
dance with Bella and to take her places, as long as I paid enough; but I
wasn't good enough for anything else--not quite nice. Now I find that
Gifford was here last night, all night. He was here when I came this
morning."

"Avery!" Bella cried.

Until I heard her call to him I had nearly forgotten Avery.

"Get away, Jim," Avery said, "I'll take care of this."

"What are you going to do," I asked him, "knock him down?"

It was the only thing he could do, considering everything, but my
question checked him momentarily.

"He isn't going to say any more," Avery said. "I'll take the blame for
everything, but he isn't going--Why do you stand there and listen to
him, Jim?"

"Because it looks as though it's time to listen," I said.

I was beginning to fill in the gaps of this disjointed conversation and
I realized that Avery was not important; that Berg was the one who
mattered.

"Just how did you get in here, Berg?" I asked him. I was surprised that
Bella had not been more careful.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"That's easy," he answered, "the superintendent. It cost me fifty
dollars."

"Do you think that was scrupulous?" I asked. He stared at me coldly, and
I knew that Bella was right to be afraid of him.

"No," he said, "it wasn't. I just wanted to find out who was here."

Then Bella spoke quickly, easily, with a hint of laughter in her voice.

"Darling," she said, "if you will just let me explain. If anyone will
please only let me get in a word. It's all so perfectly grotesque.
Howard and I had a quarrel. It wasn't anything much, except he kept
trying to pin me down. I just thought we were having a good time
together, and then last night I met Avery, entirely by accident."

Bella shook her head and laughed.

"It's so preposterous," she said. "I hadn't seen Avery for such a long
time, and we had such a lot to talk about, and then it was raining, and
it was so late, he--" She paused. "Why, he just stayed and slept on the
couch, darling," Bella said. "You can understand that, can't you? And
then Howard came in here, and Howard has a dirty mind. He's so vicious
about it."

Avery Gifford rubbed the back of his hand across his forehead and his
expression was bewildered and incredulous.

"I just didn't think," he said. "I just didn't."

"Avery," said Bella quickly, "won't you please be quiet?" And then they
both were quiet while Mr. Berg stood looking at them.

"Suppose Gifford was here," I told him. "I don't quite gather what you
think you can do about it, or why it's any of your business, Berg."

His face reddened slightly, but his answer was quiet enough.

"I don't mind telling you why," he said. "Because I gave her a lot of my
time, and now I find I was just a meal ticket for her."

"A good many people have been," I said. "I still don't see what you're
going to do about it."

Mr. Berg studied me carefully.

"She isn't going to get away with that with me," he answered.

"Go ahead," I said, "why isn't she?"

His glance moved to Avery and back to me.

"Because she isn't," said Howard Berg, "for once in her life--unless she
and Mr. Gifford want this public."

"Oh," I said, "so that's it."

"Yes," he answered, "that's it. Just as a matter of personal
satisfaction, Bella's going with me to Bermuda. The boat leaves at two
o'clock. For once in her life she's going to pay for something."

"You know," I said, "that is rather an unusual idea. You'll still be a
meal ticket, Berg."

"That's my business," he answered.

"Now, darling," said Bella quickly, "of course I don't want any trouble
on Avery's account. Of course I don't want any scandal, but you must
make Howard see--"

"Look here," Avery began, "I said I'd do anything, anything--" and then
he stopped.

We must have all known what he meant--that he would give all his money,
anything, to turn the clock back.

"It won't do any good to get mad, Calder," said Mr. Berg. "I mean it."

"Darling," said Bella, "I really think I'm dreaming. He wants to take me
to Bermuda just because Avery was sleeping on the couch. Why, it's
almost blackmail or something, darling."

I made no reply. The whole situation was absurd, but Howard Berg was
not.

"Darling," Bella said. "Don't you see you'll have to do something about
it?"

"Suppose," I said, "you just stop calling me 'darling.' You've got
yourself into this mess. Why should I get you out of it?"

The worst of it was that she knew I would help her; I would do it out of
habit. She had taken it for granted as soon as she had heard my voice,
and that assurance made me unexpectedly weary. I looked at my watch and
saw that it was half-past eleven.

"Well," I said, "you'd better go to your room and pack your bags."

"Jim," said Bella, "are you crazy? You haven't been drinking, have you,
Jim?"

"It's half-past eleven," I said, "and you'll want to look attractive on
the boat. Avery had better help you. Now both of you get out of here."

"Look here," Avery began and then he stopped. I walked down the hall and
opened the bedroom door.

"Go on," I said, "both of you. Don't you see Mr. Berg means what he
says?"

"I won't," Bella began, and then she flounced past me to her room.
"Well," she said, "of course if you're crazy--" And I closed the door
behind them.

"Be quiet, Avery," I heard her say. "He wants to be alone with him."

It was inconceivable to Bella that anything untoward could happen to
her. There had always been some way out of everything. It was
inconceivable that she might be an object of scandal, like those
unfortunate people who, she used to say, had "made fools of themselves."
She was probably thinking already that Berg did not mean it.

Berg had selected a chair and he was waiting--a rather bizarre figure.
He did not mind in the least that he was not behaving like a gentleman.
I was thinking that there was a great advantage in being able not to
mind. Women, at any rate the ones who are termed nice women, were
forever expecting you to behave according to an arbitrary and possibly
an outmoded standard.

He was leaning forward with his hands clasped, staring at his heavy
fingers.

"I know what you think of me," he said. "You needn't bother to tell me."

"Oh, that's all right," I said. "Don't have it on your mind."

I sat down opposite him and reached in my pocket for a cigarette. The
only feeling which I seemed to harbor toward him was one of stiff
formality, and I wondered if I were getting old. I should have been
melodramatic just a year or so ago. I should have told him that he was a
cad and a coward. I should have acted according to a code that would
have called for physical collision, but now it did not seem to matter.

"She'll go with you if she's sensible," I said. "You can do what you
like about it. Frankly, I don't care." I could not get over my
astonishment that I did not care.

He looked up at me and down at his hands before he answered.

"I'm rather surprised you take it this way," he said.

"So am I," I answered.

"Well," he said, "it doesn't make much difference. I'm sorry she got you
here."

"Why?" I asked.

"Frankly," he said, "the whole thing doesn't give me much satisfaction."

"You're pretty mad, aren't you?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, "I have a right to be. I was under the impression until
last night that Bella was going to marry me, and then because I asked
her exactly when, she threw me over."

"So you really wanted to marry her?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, "I was that much of a fool."

Everything was clear enough without his telling me. She had been
something rare and beautiful to him, and he had reached for her and she
had let him reach.

"If I were you I wouldn't fall in love with her again," I said.

He looked at me without answering and scowled.

"She'll try to make you again, some time or other," I said. "You see she
just wants everything at once. It isn't worth anyone's trouble,
actually."

"Are you trying to give me some good sound advice?" said Mr. Berg.

"No," I said, "I'm just telling you it isn't worth while. It's all a
waste of time because you don't get anything back."

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because she hasn't got anything to give," I said. "You think she has,
but she hasn't. It isn't her fault."

I had not meant to say anything of the sort when I had started, but now
it seemed perfectly natural. Howard Berg straightened his tie and looked
at me.

"I wish I could see you on the boat," I said. "She's hit you and
naturally you want to hit her back in some way, and you can do it, but
it won't pay."

He stood up suddenly and scowled again.

"I suppose you think you've talked me out of it?" he said.

"I told you I didn't care," I replied, "and I don't care. She had it
coming to her."

"Well," said Howard Berg, "to hell with it. I'll be going now."

"Where?" I asked.

"Just checking out," he answered, "getting on my way. I guess you're
right. It isn't worth my time."

He smoothed out his linen coat and walked to the table to pick up his
hat, a handsome Panama.

"You're really going?" I said.

"Yes," said Howard Berg, "absolutely. Let's not analyze it. Let's forget
it, shall we?"

"Yes," I answered, "let's forget it." We shook hands and I went down the
hall with him.

"Well," he said, "so long."

The door slammed and I mopped my forehead, for the room had grown
oppressive. I had the same desire which had overcome him--to get away
from there.

"Bella," I called, "you can come out now. Mr. Berg is gone."




XXXI

_Good-by, Girls_


I had often thought that women did not mind emotional excitement as much
as men, and I was sure of it when I saw Bella. She had that resiliency
of her sex which could turn in a second from fear and fury back to
laughter. I wondered whether she were totally unaware of the
consequences she had just escaped, for she had the ability to deceive
herself about such things. I wondered, until I examined her more
carefully by the unflattering north light of the living-room windows.

Then I saw again what I had noticed on that ride with her from Wickford
Point to the Jaeckels', that indefinable look that told me she would not
always be young. It was nothing more than a sharpness about her nostrils
and a thinness about the molding of her cheeks which was far from
unattractive, for it actually added to that patrician sort of beauty,
that untouchable, challenging aloofness of hers which so many men
admired. In spite of it she had that look, which I remembered, of a
little girl waiting for the Christmas tree just before the parlor door
was open--a look indicating that the waiting had been hard and
disagreeable, but that everything would at last be delightful for
always. Christmas trees were gone, but there were substitutes for
Christmas trees every day she lived, and now the absence of Mr. Berg was
just like that--a gift that had come to her because she had been good,
because she was Bella Brill.

It was all over now--in an hour or so she might entirely forget it--and
she was turning it efficiently out of her thoughts already. Nevertheless
I knew that for the first time in her life she had been frightened, not
of something in her thoughts--she was afraid of her thoughts often
enough--but of something much more devastating, because it was real and
tangible. I remembered when I had been first afraid of something real,
and I could still recall my reaction when it was over. I could recall
that feeling of relief, mingled with my sense of shame that I had been
frightened; and I could recall that time-worn mental promise that I
would never, never do anything like that again. Yet one avoided such
matters quickly, once they were finished, and one forgot them as one
forgot a dangerous illness. I had never seen Bella look any happier or
more engaging.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Darling," she said, "are you sure he's gone?"

"Yes," I said, "I'm sure he's gone."

"Well, you needn't have frightened me so," said Bella, "pushing Avery
and me out of the room like that. Did you ever hear of anything so
ridiculous? Did you ever really? All this trouble about nothing,
absolutely nothing. I never knew that anyone could be so common, so
absolutely ..." She shook her head and wrinkled up her nose. "Tell us
what you said to him, darling."

"Never mind about it now," I said.

"Well, don't be so cross, Jim," she said. "It's all over now. I never
really did like him. I should have known what he was by the people he's
played around with."

"I remember, Belle," I said. "You told me he had lunch with Mr.
Galsworthy just last week."

"That's exactly what I mean, darling," Bella answered. "He was always
telling lies like that, such preposterous lies, just as though everybody
didn't know that Galsworthy was dead. And the idea of his wanting me to
go with him to Bermuda after everything. Avery, wasn't it all
ridiculous?"

The corners of her eyes narrowed when she smiled at Avery. She seemed to
be expecting him to laugh.

"No," he said, "it wasn't ridiculous. I'll take the blame for
everything."

"Avery," I said, "the best thing for you to do is to forget it." But I
knew that he would never forget as long as he lived.

"Avery," said Bella, "don't take it so seriously, for heaven's sake. You
act as though something really had happened."

Avery Gifford did not answer; he did not even look at her. Some men
would have passed it all off easily enough, but not Avery. He should
have shaken hands with Bella and he should have gone away, but instead
he lingered.

"The worst thing is what you must think of me," he said.

"What do you mean, what we'll think of you?" I asked. "Don't have
yourself so much on your mind."

"There's Betty," said Avery, "Betty and the children--"

"Why Avery," Bella cried, "you don't mean you're going to tell her. You
haven't got anything to tell."

"I've got to tell her," Avery said. "I can't--"

Bella's voice grew sharp.

"You always were a perfect fool," she said. "That's why I never married
you. You act as though I'd made you come up here."

"Don't," I said to Bella. "Be quiet, honey bee."

"I won't be quiet," Bella said. "I can guess where you were last night,
Jim. And I don't need three guesses either. You were--"

"Be quiet," I told her, "be quiet, honey bee. I'm talking to Avery now."

"You want to change the subject, don't you?" Bella said.

And then she stopped. She glanced at me and smiled, but she stopped.

"Avery," I said, "I wouldn't tell anyone if I were you, because there
are some things which you just don't tell."

"Avery," Bella said, "I wish you'd please go away now, if you don't
mind. If you keep standing here I think I'm going to scream."

"Jim," said Avery, "you're sure there isn't anything I ought to do?"

"No," I said. "You'd better go. Bella's going to scream."

"Well," Avery said, "good-by. I'm awfully sorry, Bella."

Suddenly Bella began to laugh. She put her hand over her mouth, but she
could not stop laughing. I took Avery Gifford by the arm.

"Avery," I said, "it's time you were going home. I haven't seen you
here, remember; I haven't seen you for years." As I spoke I pushed him
down the hall, and all the way I could hear the peals of Bella's
laughter, but she had stopped when I got back. She was sitting on the
couch and wiping her eyes.

"Jim," she said, "I'm all right now. It's just when he said that he was
sorry."

"Do you want some ammonia?" I asked her.

"No," she said. "I'm all right now. I'm sorry I did that. He was worse
than Howard Berg, wasn't he, darling? How could anyone be like that?"

"Because he couldn't help it," I said. "He was trying to do his best."

"Jim," said Bella, "you're laughing at him too, and you're laughing at
me. You always laugh at all of us."

"Don't start that again," I said quickly. "Go and wash your face in cold
water, honey bee, and powder your nose."

"All right," Bella said. She was meek and gentle. "I don't know what I'd
do if you weren't here."

"You'd scream," I said. "Go and wash your face."

"There's some whisky on the kitchen shelf," she said, "and there's some
soda in the icebox. I guess you'd like a drink, even if it's early. I
wish you'd kiss me, darling."

"Never mind it now," I said.

I felt better when I had the drink. Bella must have seen that she did
not look well, because she was gone for quite a while and I sat alone,
holding the half-empty glass. Although the business seemed finished, I
still could not understand exactly what had brought her there. There had
been something about that morning at Wickford Point that made me think
that she was being secretive. She had gone to the Jaeckels with her bag
packed for the night, and it might have been only an impulse which had
brought her to New York with Berg. I should have liked to think of it
that way but instead I was uneasy.

She looked better when she came back. She sat down on the couch and
curled her legs under her, and then she opened her box with its lipstick
and powder and pursed up her lips in front of the little mirror.

"Well," she said, "thank goodness that's over." And she glanced at me
sideways, trying to read what I was thinking. "You're not angry with me,
are you?"

"No," I answered, "not particularly."

"You won't tell, will you?" she asked.

"No," I said. She patted me on the knee, and I looked down at her
nervous, restless hands.

"You didn't come down here to meet Avery Gifford, did you?" I asked.

Bella began to laugh.

"You have such funny ideas," she said. "You're just like all the family.
You always think I'm up to something. I don't see why you all keep
spying on me. I just saw Avery at the Holland when I went to get my hair
set. I told you we had dinner, I told you about everything. Why do we
have to keep going over it and over it? I was at the Jaeckels'--"

"And you didn't stay," I said. "I'm just wondering if you meant to
stay."

Bella snapped her powder-box shut.

"I do wish that _someone_ would understand that I am grown-up," she
said. "It just happened that Howard Berg was going to New York
yesterday morning in the plane, and I came down with him. Now do you
understand? Don't you believe me, darling?"

"That's all right," I said, "it doesn't matter."

She looked at me and pressed her lips together.

"You don't believe me, do you?" she asked.

"No," I said, "I don't, but it doesn't matter, Belle."

Instead of making her angry my remark only brought her to a stage of
sweet martyr-like resignation, and she raised her hands in a helpless,
gentle gesture and let them fall beside her limply on the couch.

"All right," she sighed. "If you don't believe me, I can't make you, but
it does seem the strangest thing that everyone should think that I'm a
crook or something. Isn't it perfectly logical that I should want to get
away? You keep wanting to get away. I just can't stand it at Wickford
Point all the time. It gets me nearly frantic to see them sitting around
and talking." Her voice broke and she clenched her fists and beat them
on the couch. "I can't stand it and I won't."

"You've said all that before, Belle," I told her. "You can't stand
anything."

But there was a pleading note in her voice which caught my sympathy. She
was reaching for me again, asking for my help, and it was worse this
time than it had ever been before, because I could not help her.

I wonder if she understood that something in our relationship had
disappeared without either of us knowing how. Its absence gave me a
definite sense of loss, and yet when I tried to recapture that lost
sympathy, I could not do it. It had gone into nowhere with something
like the irretrievable certainty of death. Mutual liking and sympathy
and even love and antipathy are such impermanent matters, resting on a
tenuous balance of give and take. There was nothing new about her, her
conduct had been characteristic and I was no more surprised or shocked
by it than usual. I was just the same and she was just the same, but
the truth was that I did not care, I did not care a damn.

It was as if she had been my mistress and I had suddenly turned away
from her. I had never thought of her in that capacity, for she had not
been my mistress; yet I suddenly saw that there had been something
between us that resembled such a tie. Perhaps there always is in every
friendship, no matter how platonic, between a man and a woman. The room
felt hot and close and I could hear her talking, but I could not listen.
It _was_ as if she had been my mistress and as though I were getting
through. I had given a good deal to her; in fact I had always been
giving, and I thought she had given something in return. Whatever it
was, it had possessed some sort of value, but now that value was gone.
Actually she had not given me as much as a lady of the evening, and the
whole thing was suddenly unhealthy and abnormal. It would have been
better if I had taken her, but I could not even remember having
experienced such a desire. I must have always known her too well for
that, and yet there had always been something.... There had been her
gaiety, for instance, and the sense that she needed me; but now it was
gone. Instead I experienced a lonely emptiness combined with a faint
revulsion.

I heard her voice calling to me through my thoughts. It was like the
desperate voice of someone who was lost.

"Jim," she said, "aren't you feeling well? You aren't listening to me,
darling."

"Yes," I said, "I'm listening, Belle."

She put her arm around me and looked hard into my face.

"You're not shocked by anything?" she asked me.

I could feel her waiting for my reply, as though a good deal depended on
it.

"No," I said, and I touched her soft black hair. "Of course not, Belle."

She took her arm away and sighed.

"Then it's all right," she said. "I just thought so for a moment because
you looked so grim. I was just saying, darling, that life hasn't been
fair to me, and it isn't because I haven't tried. But you see it, don't
you? Nothing has come back to me. That's what makes me frightened. It's
beginning to make me desperate. That's why I did what I did last night,
darling. I don't want anyone like Howard Berg. When I understood he
thought we were engaged, it really did upset me. It just made me realize
that I didn't have anything at all. And then when I saw Avery--Well, I
haven't got anything, and Jim, I'm getting old."

I had never heard her speak exactly that way.

"Jim," she said, "you don't think I'm getting old, do you?"

"No," I said. "Don't let that worry you. You're the prettiest girl I
know."

When I heard her speak again I knew that she had been giving an
explanation for everything and that I had not heard a word of it.

"Then it's all right," she said triumphantly. "You see why I came down
here, and that all of this doesn't mean a thing? I'd just hate it so, if
you didn't believe me. I do lie to myself sometimes, but I never mean to
lie to you."

"Yes," I answered, "you do lie to yourself sometimes."

"But then everybody does," said Bella. "It's the only way that you can
get along. It's awful when you really see yourself, and I do now and
then--just lately."

She smiled and she looked like a little girl who was up to some sort of
mischief.

"I seem to be two people, and when that happens I have to lie a little."

Her explanation even had a sort of charm entirely her own. Nevertheless
I felt uneasy.

"You know the game," she was saying. "We used to play it at parties."
She gave a little laugh and stopped. "What _is_ the matter? You're not
listening, darling."

"I'm sorry, Belle. What game?" I said.

"You know," she said. "Cousin Sue used to have it when I had birthday
parties. Going to Jerusalem. All the chairs were back to back, and the
music would play and we would walk around them and then the music would
stop and we would all sit down, except one of us would be left. Well,
the music's nearly stopped."

Her voice paused as though she expected me to reply, and that little
room seemed to me as still as death.

"So it's nearly stopped?" I said.

"Yes," she answered, "you see what I mean." And her eyes were soft and
deep. "We used to run around and play and be silly, awfully silly, but
if you were too silly you didn't get a chair when the music stopped."

"Well, sweetness," I said, "a lot of nice boys have offered you chairs.
I remember another game where someone offers you a chair and asks you to
sit down and then just when you are starting to he pulls it out from
under you and you go down boom. You've never had that happen to you,
have you?"

Bella wrinkled her nose and laughed.

"That's fluff," she said. "You know what I mean. I mean I haven't
anything, not anything left." She paused and rested her hand on my knee
again. I repressed a desire to move away when I felt her touch me,
because I must have guessed what was coming.

"Except you," she added. "I'll always have you, darling."

I felt my face reddening with a sense of my own disloyalty. I wondered
whether it would be better not to speak, simply to let it go, and I had
that same unhealthy conviction that my mistress was speaking. Her voice
was gentle, but it was insistent.

"I think I care more about that than anything else in the world," she
said. "I mean, really care. We quarrel and we fight, but you tell me
what you think of me. I knew it was all I cared about when you came up
here. You're always with me. You're still with me, aren't you, Jim?"

No man likes a time like that. It goes against the grain of ordinary
chivalry. The palms of my hands felt moist and I wiped them on my coat.

"Belle," I began--but she stopped me.

"Aren't you, Jim?" she asked.

I pulled myself together--it was like something in the war--but when it
comes to breaking, it may not matter much how one does it. The result is
just the same.

"Belle," I said, "I've always told you the truth. I've never thought of
you exactly like this. You've always been a sort of habit up to now."

She smiled, and I don't think she knew what was coming. It was like
hitting someone who did not have his hands up.

"That's it," she said, "it's habit, darling."

"Well, sweetness," I said, "I don't know how it's happened. It isn't
anything that anyone can help. You'd better get ready because I'm
pulling the chair right out from under you."

Bella sat up straighter. She pressed the back of her hand to her lips
and took it away again.

"Jim," she said, "don't be silly. There isn't any chair."

"Oh, yes, there is," I said, "and there always is. I'm sorry, but I'm
through, absolutely through."

I waited, wondering what she would do, and while I waited I realized
that she would probably be like any woman in her place and that she
would follow a dreary course of action as old as the Book of Proverbs.
Then I saw that she did not believe me any more than if I had told her
that the sky was a china plate.

"I knew you were cross, darling," Bella said. "I don't blame your being
tired of me. I'm pretty tired of myself."

"I'm sorry, Belle," I answered. "I didn't say that I was tired, I said
that I was through."

"Darling," said Bella, and she moved close to me. "Just tell me what
I've done."

"There's nothing you've done that you can do anything about," I said.
"These things happen."

"But, darling," said Bella, "that's perfectly absurd. I must have done
something to hurt you. Just tell me what it is." She laughed
incredulously. "It isn't about Avery Gifford, is it? You couldn't be as
silly as that."

"It isn't anything definite," I said. "I can't help it and you can't
help it."

"Then you must have heard something about me," she said. "Tell me what
you've heard. It's only fair." Her eyes grew narrow. "Was it anything
about Joe Stowe?"

"No," I said, "it wasn't."

"Then it's Pat Leighton," Bella said. "She's told you something."

"There's no use talking about it, Belle," I said. "I'm through. I don't
care what anybody says about you. It isn't important any more."

"I knew it," she said. "It _is_ Pat Leighton."

"Give it any explanation you like," I said. "It's a fact."

"You mean you don't like me?" said Bella. "You don't like me at all?"

"It's worse than that," I said. "I feel impersonal. I can see your good
points and your bad points. I'm sorry, Belle."

She gave a sharp exasperated sigh.

"For heaven's sake," she said, "don't keep saying you're sorry, and
don't look like that and don't be so disagreeable, and don't talk about
being impersonal. You're just doing it to be nasty, and you know I hate
it."

I did not answer.

"Darling," she said more softly, "don't you know I hate it?"

I did not want to make her unhappy, I simply wanted to make her
understand.

"You can try anything you like," I said. "It won't make any difference,
Belle."

She got up and walked across the room and fingered an empty glass from
the table.

"All right," she said, "be nasty if you like. It won't make any
difference to me. Jim, what's the matter with you? Aren't you feeling
well?"

"I'm feeling fine," I said. "I'm sorry, Belle."

"Then, please," Bella said, "please tell me what's the matter."

The words kept going back and forth monotonously in a repetition like
the swinging of a pendulum, first here then there, and then I tried to
explain what I had said to Howard Berg.

"I told him it wasn't worth while," I said, "and that's what I mean. It
isn't your fault; it's just the way things are. You haven't got anything
to give to anyone that anyone wants."

I stopped, because I had not meant to go as far as that. Her white
strained face showed me that I had said an unpardonable thing.

"I didn't mean exactly that," I said. "I'm sorry, Belle."

Her hand which held the glass was shaking and her face was white. I
stood up watching her, half-ashamed, half-fascinated by what I had done,
and then she threw the glass. I swayed sideways when I saw it coming,
and it crashed against the wall behind me. Then I grabbed her wrist.

"Don't do that again, Belle," I said. I felt incompetent and clumsy,
which was probably the way she wanted me to feel, because she leaned
against me and rested her head on my shoulder.

"Jim," she sobbed, "I'm sorry, darling. You just made me so mad. It's
all right, darling. You've got me so afraid. Just tell me you didn't
mean it. I couldn't get along without you. I'm so damned afraid!"

Her arms were around me and she was sobbing on my shoulder and it might
have been kinder to have lied to her. I pushed her away from me gently.

"Let's not fight over it, Belle," I said. "I've always told you the
truth. I mean it, Belle."

She put her hand up and wiped the tears from her eyes. I remembered that
she never liked to cry.

"I don't see how you can hurt me so," she sobbed, "but you'll be all
right tomorrow, dear."

It was curious: her mind had traveled in a complete circle and we were
back exactly where we had started.

"Belle," I said, "you can't be polite about things like this. I've seen
it tried, but it never works. Just remember that there are a lot of fish
in the sea. There'll be someone else tomorrow."

I was holding her by the shoulders, but I had not been conscious of it
until she wrenched herself away.

"Then get out!" she cried at me. "Don't let me look at you. Get out!"

A sound came to us both at the same moment, although I knew somehow that
I had been hearing it for nearly half a minute without noticing. The
telephone on the little bookshelf in the hall was ringing.




XXXII

_Definitely He's Crazy_


It would be interesting for communication executives to compile
statistics with illustrative paragraphs as to how the inadvertent
ringing of the telephone has served to alleviate human tension. Surely
it has been an agent that has frequently prevented murder and mayhem.
The insistent sound of that automatic signal had the effect on both of
us which might have been exerted by the sudden appearance of an
unsuspecting third party--a meter inspector or the young man who could
put himself through college if you subscribed to his magazine. We must
have realized almost simultaneously that we were making a vulgar
exhibition of ourselves, well enough for the vicious intimacy which
existed between us but not fitting for someone else to see or hear. We
both stopped short, and as I looked at her I remembered how the
telephone had rung at Wickford Point that morning not so many hours ago,
and how it had wrought its own amazing change. She was Bella Brill
again, that delightful, intelligent Bella Brill, who was able to get all
the men around her and to hold them captivated by her ideas of whatever
it was that anyone was talking about. She was the Bella Brill whom
people wanted on the telephone, not the one I knew; and I was James
Calder again, who knew his way about and who had a life of his own. It
all was coming back to us because the telephone was ringing.

With a gesture which could hardly have been conscious, Bella raised a
hand to tidy her hair and assumed a less abandoned posture. Her voice
became silvery with an unconscious expectation.

"I'll go," she said. "I wonder who it is." And she walked with that
light quick step of hers, half on her toes so that her heels made just
the faintest tap, down the little hallway to the bedroom.

"Hello," I heard her say. "Hello. Yes, this is Miss Brill's apartment.
This is Miss Brill speaking." She spoke just as if nothing had happened
and as if the world were a fascinating place full of delightful
surprises when one was a nice girl looking for them. I stood listening
to her and looking at the pieces of the broken glass.

"Yes," she was saying, "yes, he's here. It's for you, Jim."

"How the devil can it be for me?" I asked. "No one knows I'm here."

Bella put her hands on her hips.

"Well, why the devil can't it be?" she said. "You must have told
someone."

We seemed to be dropping back again into our old friendly relationship.

"Didn't you ask who it was?" I asked her.

"Don't I know enough not to ask who calls you up?" she answered. "It
sounds like a switchboard operator."

"Mr. Stanhope wants to speak to you, Mr. Calder," a precise voice said,
and then I remembered that of course George Stanhope knew I was there.

"What does he want?" I said. "I'm busy."

"Just a minute please." The tone was inexorable and sweet. "It's
important, Mr. Calder." Then the voice that had consoled clients in
Hollywood and Honolulu and London was on the wire.

"Is that you, Jim?" said George. "Can you talk?" He spoke with a
contagious tenseness. "Is she there?"

"Who?" I asked. "Miss Brill? You just had her on the wire. Do you want
her?"

"No." George Stanhope's voice was louder. "No, no, no. Jim, can you get
her out of there?"

"What are you talking about, George?" I asked. "Has anyone frustrated
you?"

"Say anything you like," George said, "but don't be funny. I located Joe
but I couldn't hold him here. He's just left the office. He's definitely
crazy."

"What?" I said.

I was trying stupidly to put things together and my mind was working
slowly.

"Are you deaf?" I heard George ask. "Joe Stowe has left the office."

"Don't be funny yourself, George," I said. "He was up in Vermont,
delivering a lecture to some schoolmarms."

"Listen," George Stanhope called to me, "will you listen, Jim? He's just
left here. He wants to try to fix things up with Bella Brill. Do you
hear me? She sent him a wire to Boston and they forwarded it to Vermont.
He showed it to me. She asked him to come down, so that they could talk
about how to fix things up. Are you listening? Are you on the wire?"

My silence must have made him uneasy.

"Yes," I said, "of course I'm listening."

"All right," said George. "He's crazy, definitely. When he got it, he
dropped everything. He'll be there any minute. You've got to get her out
before he comes."

He began speaking with a frantic sort of patience more irritating than
his haste. I had suspected that Bella had been lying. She must have
acted on some sudden impulse back there at the Jaeckels'. And then I
remembered what she had said about the music having very nearly stopped.
George Stanhope was still talking, endeavoring to stave off the
inevitable as facilely as he might have constructed a motion-picture
plot.

"It's hysteria," he was saying. "He definitely can't go back to her.
It's taken him three years to get over it, and now he's back in
production. He definitely can't make such a mistake. Will you get that
little two-timing hussy out of there before he comes, or won't you?"

"Why, George," I said, "George!"

"Do you want him to ruin himself?" George Stanhope shouted. "You know
what she does to him. He can't get himself ruined now that he's a big
name. It's his production, Jim."

He was not thinking entirely of Joe Stowe's production; he was thinking
of his career and he was devoted to Joe Stowe. Yet I knew that there are
some things you cannot stop any more than you can stop a buzz-saw by
putting your finger in it. He was trying to deal with facts as if they
were pages of fiction, to be altered by inserts and erasures. He was
trying to change the end of actuality, as he might have juggled with the
ending of a client's story.

"George," I said, "you can't do that."

If Joe had really answered her appeal, there was nothing that I or
anyone else could do. He would never stop until he had found her and
given her whatever it was of him she wanted.

"All right," I said. "I'll do what I can. All right."

I agreed only so that I might get rid of his voice in my left ear.

"All right," I said, "but you're not God Almighty, George."

It would have done no good to tell him that I was going to do nothing. I
did not feel omnipotent or even potent, but I felt a new resentment
against Bella Brill. I had a new revulsion against her meddlings with
other people's lives with those delicate unskilled fingers that could
never sew a stitch or tie a knot.

"Jim," she said, "for heaven's sake, what is it?"

She backed away from me when I came near her.

"So you lied to me?" I said. "So you just came down here for fun?"

"Then it was someone talking about me, was it?" Bella answered.

Her thoughts were darting about swiftly in her effort to cope with this
unexpected crisis.

"And you sent a wire to Joe Stowe," I told her, "after you said you
never wanted to see him again. Well, he's on his way here now."

"Jim," she said, "don't look like that."

"Never mind how I look," I told her. "I said you were a liar. I don't
know why God lets you interfere with people who are better than you are,
Belle."

"Oh Jim," she cried, "please. I think I'm going crazy. Don't begin it
all again."

But my mind was centered on what appeared to me the only important,
irrefutable fact; and I clung to it stubbornly.

"Well, you lied," I said.

I thought that she was going to deny it, but her answer was even more
nave.

"He can't be coming here now," she said, "because I told him to come
tomorrow. Won't you please let me explain? It's just that I can't get
along without anybody. Jim, he's making a hundred and fifty thousand a
year."

She stated that last fact as though it excused everything. There was no
way to deal with a mind like hers, which darted from prevarication to
revealing, unadulterated truth.

"Go ahead, sweetness," I said, and I picked up my hat from the chair. I
had had enough of her and a good deal more than enough, but she ran to
me and held tight to my arm.

"Now really," she said, "what do you want me to do?"

I wrenched my arm away from her.

"I don't want anything," I said.

"Jim," she said, "don't act like a child of twelve."

There was no use talking about intelligence measurements then, but it
was a subject to which she often referred in times of stress.

"Do anything you like, I'm going, Belle," I said.

"Jim," she cried, "you _can't_, you can't do that to me." And then she
began to cry again. She began to cry the way Mary did, without bothering
to hide her face.

"I haven't got anybody, Jim," she sobbed, and the whole thing began
again just as if it had never stopped. Then I heard the buzzer on her
apartment door. It was too late for me to go.

"Please give me your handkerchief," she said. And I tossed it to her.

"Won't you please let him in?"

"Let him in yourself," I said, and I stood there with my hat on.

Suddenly, in the erratic way ideas sometimes come out of nowhere, I
remembered a man I had met in Persia once, who had eaten so much caviar
that he could not stand the sight of it. I was thinking that no matter
what you have of anything, whether it is sturgeon eggs or human
interest, when you have had too much you do not want any more; and I had
had too much of that relationship between Joe Stowe and Bella Brill. I
had been plagued by it, I had made efforts about it too often. As I
considered the hours in which I had discussed Joe with her and the weeks
when I had discussed her with him, it occurred to me that all that time
and energy, when it was added in a single column, represented a very
appreciable fraction of my life. Neither of those two had a right to
demand so much. They had used me for their own purposes exactly as if
they thought I liked it. I might have done a good deal better with all
that wasted time. It stretched before me in its futility, now that I had
begun to understand the truth that nearly everyone learns when it is too
late--that you actually can do almost nothing about other people. I had
wasted my time with both of them, unless I admitted that they had made a
doubtful and unsolicited contribution to my own store of human
knowledge.

"Hello Joe," I heard her saying. She had been able to put everything
behind her once more in that short walk to the apartment door. I
remembered how often she had said that she wanted to be rid of him. It
made it the more amusing when I heard her say "Hello."

"Here I am, Bella," Joe said, "I came right away."

"You're looking well," I heard Bella answer. She said it with a sort of
hurt surprise.

"So are you," said Joe, "very well. How did you know where I was, Bella?
You know I always said--"

He stopped when he saw me, and he scowled. He was wearing the same
tropical suit that he had worn the night when we had dined, but now its
knees were baggy and soiled, the sleeves and trousers were all wrinkled,
and his shirt was so wilted that some of the color of his necktie had
run upon the collar.

"Hello Jim," he said, but his greenish-yellow eyes were watching me
suspiciously. He resented my being there, because it made him look
foolish.

"Bella sent me a wire," he said.

"Yes," I answered, "so I heard. I thought you were in Vermont."

Joe gave his narrow shoulders an impatient, upward jerk. It reminded me
of those times long ago when I went with difficulty out to Brookline or
somewhere to call on some girl I liked, only to find that someone else
was there ahead of me. His sunburned, freckled face had the same
disconcerted look that mine must have worn in that distant past.

"I _was_ in Vermont," he said.

"You must have come mighty quick," I said.

"Airplane," he said. "I hired one."

"Oh," I said.

"How did you hear about that wire?" he asked, and then before I could
answer his face cleared and he grinned.

"Stanhope's been after you, has he?" he asked. "He's the damnedest
person for putting his finger in other people's pies. George thinks he's
God Almighty."

"That's what I told him," I said.

Joe grinned at me and put his hand on my shoulder.

"Listen, boy," he said, "it couldn't be that you're getting that complex
too?"

"No," I said, "I'm not."

"Because it doesn't do any good," said Joe. "No one can make himself or
anyone else behave. I never thought I'd do anything like this at my age,
but here I am." He gave my shoulder a gentle slap. "Let's forget it. Now
you run along. Bella and I have something particular to say to each
other."

"I wouldn't stop for anything," I said. "It's all too beautiful."

"Oh, shut up," Joe said, and he grinned at me. "You can talk yourself
blue in the face but it won't help."

"So all she had to do was whistle?" I said.

He looked at Bella again and nodded, and he had a singular expression,
puzzled and yet triumphant, triumphant and yet grim; but at the same
time he gave the impression of being very nearly happy. He must have
believed that this was something he had hoped for, in some way a victory
which had finished all the struggles and antagonisms between them.
Conceivably he thought that at last Bella Brill had appealed to him in
womanly surrender. It was curious to see him so wrong about her, when he
knew so much about everybody else.

"Yes," he said, "she only had to whistle. Run along now, Jim."

"You act as though I wanted to stay," I said. "Go ahead and make a fool
of yourself. Go ahead, if you want to get mixed up again with a----"

I left the last word in a silence not unlike the dashes and asterisks to
which we had been accustomed in the early days of our profession, before
Messrs. Hemingway and Faulkner had turned plain words into art; but it
was unnecessary to tell him what I thought of her or what I thought of
him, because he knew.

"That's about enough from you," Joe said. "I don't want to get mad at
you, Jim."

Sex, it seemed to me, was very odd. Joe and I had been friends for years
and now that friendship was breaking, simply because I had cast an
aspersion upon a woman of whom he happened to be fond, although he knew
that my opinion of Bella was entirely correct.

"I'm sorry," I said. "You're getting just what's coming to you. Well, go
ahead and get it. Go ahead and live it all over again. Personally, I
don't care."

"That suits me," Joe said. "If we do it all over, we can do it without
you this time."

"You're going to, Joe," I said.

I had often prided myself on my composure, but now I felt that my hands
and my voice were shaking.

"Well, to hell with you," I said.

It was an expression that I had been using very freely and its meaning
was worn thin. Nevertheless I wished it to be absolute.

Joe frowned at me for a second; then his face became expressionless, and
we both turned away from each other because Bella was speaking.

"Jim," she said, "no, no!"

I had nearly forgotten her, and I think that he had too, until her voice
came to us, cutting between our voices. She was speaking with that
exasperating ability of hers to impress herself on everybody.

"I want you to stay," she said, "really, Jim. This is all so dreadfully
silly."

Her words were familiar. There was the old lightness in her voice,
giving the customary impression that she could manage everything if you
would only let her explain; but now there was something else, a
trancelike unworldly note.

"I'm such an awful fool, you know," she was saying. "I never can do
things right. You're both of you so patient."

"Never mind it, Belle," I said, but she could not have heard my
interruption. She was speaking more quickly, almost breathlessly in her
anxiety to make us listen.

"Please," she said, "oh, please listen. Joe, you've been so darling,
coming when I wanted you, but it won't do any good."

"Now wait a minute, Bella," Joe said. "Don't get so upset, Bella."

"Darling," said Bella, "I'm so ashamed. I--Jim, where's your
handkerchief?"

"You have it in your hand," I said. She had a look of blank surprise
when she saw my handkerchief still dangling from her fingers.

"Don't you see what I'm saying, Joe?" she asked. "Can't either of you
help me, please?"

Joe Stowe had always been incompetent to manage those moods of hers. He
reached toward her, hesitatingly and clumsily, but Bella backed away.

"Don't talk," he said, "until you think. Wait just a minute, Bella." But
Bella did not wait.

"Don't you see?" she said. "Joe, it won't do any good."

"Wait a minute," Joe repeated, "wait a minute, Bella."

It was clear enough, just then, why they had never got on together.
There was something that did not mix, some lack of sympathy, which made
them like two individuals speaking in different tongues.

"I'm so ashamed," Bella said. "It all seemed so easy, Joe. I thought
that we could just go back. When I wrote that telegram I was so sorry
for everything. Do you remember Rome when we were in the Borghese, and
the way the ducks were swimming in that pond? I thought it would be like
that, darling. I forgot that there was so much else."

"There doesn't have to be," Joe answered. "You and I can make it just
the way it was, if both of us really try."

She was twisting the ends of my handkerchief into hard knots. She shook
her head.

"That's what you always kept hoping, wasn't it, dear?" she said. "We
can't. It wouldn't be fair to try, because I don't want you enough, Joe.
I thought I did, but I don't."

Those moods of hers had always hurt him and what was worse, he could
never take her seriously when it was necessary.

"Bella," he said, "you don't know what you want right now. Let's talk
about it later."

Bella rolled the handkerchief into a ball and threw it on the floor.

"Don't talk like that," she said. "You always talk like that. I do know
what I want, and I don't want you, Joe. That's what's making it so
dreadful. I don't want you, Joe, because--"

Then the compulsion, or whatever it was, that had made her speak must
have weakened, for she looked at us both almost timidly.

"What do you make me say it for?" she cried. "Why do you just look at me
and make me? I don't want you, Joe, because I want Jim. I only want
Jim--and he says he doesn't want me."

She stopped and looked at me and drew her breath in sharply and bit her
lower lip to check herself from saying any more. She put her hand over
her mouth and ran into her bedroom and slammed the door.

Joe and I stared at her closed door, and he must have felt as foolish as
I did, because Bella had managed the scene very well. In such matters
she had always possessed an abandon and a consummate sort of art.

After a moment he turned to me with a bewildered expression implying
that anything that had occurred could now be entirely discounted, that
there was no further use in quarreling over Bella.

"Jesus!" Joe Stowe said.

I shrugged my shoulders without answering, and he still looked blank.

"What do you suppose she does want, Jim?" he asked.

"Cosmos," I said.

Joe opened his mouth and closed it.

"Jesus," he said again. "And I hired an airplane." Suddenly he grinned
at me. "And I was sick in one of those paper bags."

"Hire another, Joe," I said. "It's the first break you've had in quite a
while."

He did not answer, but he looked back again at the closed door, and I
spoke to him softly.

"You're out of it, Joe," I said, "for good." And I might have been
congratulating him on a brilliant achievement. "Get that into your head,
Joe. It's the first generous thing I've ever seen her do."

His mind moved swiftly to another aspect of it, and his eyes grew
narrow.

"I guess," he said, "it's been you, Jim, all the time."

"Joe, if you think--" I began, but he put his hand on my shoulder.

"I don't think you two-timed me," he said. "It's just that way."

"You needn't wish her off on me," I said.

"Jim," he said, "that's pretty hard on her."

The amazing thing was that he felt no resentment toward her; instead in
another minute he would be defending her again.

"Maybe it's time that something was hard on her," I said.

Joe sighed and looked back at the door.

"Jim," he said, "couldn't you--?"

"No," I said, "definitely not."

"That's pretty hard on Bella," he repeated. "Do you think she's all
right in there?"

"Yes," I said. "Don't worry. I'll look out for her." We were speaking in
the tones one uses when there is illness in the house.

"Jim," Joe said, "let's go away somewhere."

"Where?" I asked.

"Anywhere," he said. "There's Spain."

"I never did like Spain," I said.

"All right," said Joe. "I don't care. There's the Chinese war. If we
were just to get to Shanghai ..." He stopped and stared at me. "What's
the matter? Are you getting soft? Don't you want to go?"

"I don't know," I said.

"Is there something you haven't told me?" he asked.

"Yes," I said, "but not about Bella, Joe."

"I knew there was something," he began. "That's a hell of a way--not to
tell your friends."

"Listen," I said, "I'll tell you about it later. Just keep your mind on
one thing at a time. You're out of this for good, and I'm staying here
to take care of Belle. Don't ask if she's all right again, and don't
worry about her. She isn't any different from what she ever was, and
what's more she never will be."

"You'll be kind to her," he said, "won't you?"

I nodded without speaking.

"Well," said Joe, "I'm going somewhere if you're not. If you change your
mind you know where to get me, Jim."

"Yes," I said, "I know." Our conversation did not mean much, but
everything was all right again.

"It's a hell of a mess, isn't it?" he said.

"Yes," I said; "but it's no worse than it's ever been."

He held out his hand and I took it.

"Well," he said, "I'll see you later."

"So long, Joe," I said. "Good luck."




XXXIII

_Even the Weariest River_


I knocked on Bella's door.

"Bella," I said. There was no answer. I knocked again and listened, but
I could not hear anything, and then I opened the door and went in. She
was lying face down, on the bed. Her gray dress was rumpled above her
knees and she was gripping one of the pillows hard.

"Belle," I said, but she did not move or answer, and I bent over her and
put my hand on her shoulder, and I felt her body shake.

"Snap out of it, sweetness," I said. Then she turned her head and looked
up at me, trying to read in my face what she wished to see there.

"Jim," she said, "I sent him away, didn't I?"

"Yes," I said, "you did." She had spoken in a gentle, stunned way, as
though she could not understand why she had done it.

"Jim," she said, "I didn't have to."

"No," I said, "that's true." I had never thought of its being deliberate
until just then, when I saw her looking up at me.

"Darling," she said, "it was what you wanted, wasn't it?"

"Belle," I said, "I didn't ask you."

"But it was what you wanted, wasn't it?" she said. "That's why I did it,
darling."

"Belle," I said, "I'm very much obliged. Maybe it makes you feel
better."

She turned around and sat up, facing me.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because you've done something decent," I said.

She smiled at me, but there was no humor in her eyes.

"You like me better, don't you?"

"Yes, honey bee," I said, "I like you a good deal better. You've been
very generous." I wondered what she would have been like if she had
always been generous.

"You didn't mean those things you said? You take them back now, don't
you, darling?" she asked.

Although I felt no response to her, I still could feel the compliment.
It was a transient moment, but for just a little while she must have
cared more about me than she had ever been able to care for anyone. As
surely as I was looking down at her, she had thrown away Joe Stowe for
me. She had thrown him over with the calculation of a card player who
deliberately loses a trick to win another. Once it would have moved me,
but it did not move me then; it only made me feel sorry for her because
she was so sure again that everything would be all right.

"Let's forget about it, Belle," I said. "It's only that we've both been
fighting." But she must have understood.

"So it didn't do any good?" she said. She must have been sure at last
that everything was over.

"You're wrong," I answered, "it's done a lot of good. You're nicer than
you've ever been right now."

She got up and smoothed her gray dress.

"Darling," she said, "it's like an operation. I feel so weak. My head
keeps going around. You'll be kind to me anyway, won't you? Anyway?"

"Yes, of course," I said.

Bella gave her head a little shake.

"I feel so damned unattractive," she said. "Let's go somewhere and have
lunch and have some champagne."

"All right," I said, "but now you'd better pack."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because you've done enough for one day, sweetness," I said. "I'm going
to take you back to Wickford Point."

Bella shook her head again.

"That's all that ever happens," she said. "No matter what we do, we
always go back to Wickford Point."

I had thought of the same thing often enough before.

"Well, what of it?" I said. "Even the weariest river flows somewhere
safe to sea."

"It's discouraging, isn't it?" Bella said. "I try to get away and I
always end up right there. Sometimes it doesn't seem to do any good to
try--but you like me better, don't you?"

"Yes," I said, "I like you better, Belle."

       *       *       *       *       *

For a good many years there had been a dispute with the town about the
condition of the side road which led to Wickford Point. Once the entire
road had been sandy, and I can remember looking down from the buggy seat
to watch the fine sand carried along the thin rims of the wheels by
centrifugal force until it dropped back perpendicularly into the dust
again. I can remember the whispering sound which it made against the
wheels, and I can remember the sweat and the dimples in the hide over
the horses' rumps as they struggled against its insistent pull. Cousin
Sue used to say that she always felt better when the carryall turned
from the gray macadam main road onto that sandy surface. She often said
that it rested her head not to hear any more bang and clatter from the
horses or the wagon. The sand, she said, was like a feather bed; but
then most of Cousin Sue's similes were inaccurate. She was very much
upset when they finally surfaced the Wickford road back in the early
twenties. She always contended that it was much rougher than before, and
for a long while she closed her window at night because, she said, the
smell of the road oil made her ill.

That was quite a while ago, and the town must have felt that it had
relieved itself of all responsibility by that single effort. At any
rate, beginning with the Jeffries farm and continuing down to our place,
the road was never repaired, and finally it became full of caverns and
pot-holes. The local authorities invariably expressed surprise when
anyone objected. They always said the road could not be as bad as that,
because it had just been surfaced; and they kept on saying it. Once, a
good many years back, when a cook named Heloise--Cousin Clothilde had
brought her up from the city for the summer because Josie was about to
have a baby--began having queer spells and throwing things, it looked as
if something might be done in the way of repairs. Cousin Clothilde had
called for the police the night that Heloise was really violent, and the
car which was to take her to the state hospital broke three springs and
twisted an axle. The police chief, whose name was Mr. Finnegan, was
definitely annoyed about it, since it was his own car; but finally the
only thing that happened was that the county bought Mr. Finnegan a new
automobile, and after that he too was averse to having the Wickford road
repaired, in fact he kept wanting to drive down it again on business.

As a result of this anyone driving to Wickford Point had to be on the
alert, and as Cousin Sue used to say, it was probably just as well,
since people only came there who really wished to come--no insurance
agents, or lightning-rod salesmen, or Armenians selling laces.

       *       *       *       *       *

"For heaven's sake," said Bella, "look out where you're going, darling."

I had forgotten about the road and without thinking I struck the bad
place at the corner just beyond the Jeffries farm. Bella bounced upward
so that her head collided with the top of the car. Not only had the pain
made her angry but she had crushed the bunch of grapes on the straw hat
which she had borrowed from a friend of hers on a houseparty at
Easthampton.

"All right," I said, "all right. Why can't you hold on?"

"You'd better let me drive," Bella said, "if you can't manage."

"Hold on and shut up, honey bee," I said.

I had forgotten about the road, but now it all came back like something
one has memorized from a book at school. I could remember the road
without watching it. There would be a series of bumps and then some
gravel, and then a big hole in the middle where one must pass to the
left, and then a bad gulley on the right near the big rock, and then the
piece bordered by the oak trees which my great-aunt Sarah had planted
when she was already an old lady, thirty years ago. Aunt Sarah was
always getting baskets of acorns from the great oak near the river and
carrying them up the hill and poking them into the soil on either side
of the road. When she used to get lost, in the days her mind was leaving
her, she almost certainly could be found somewhere up the hill, making
little holes in the ground with her ivory-headed walking stick. She used
to refer to the trees as her babies, and they were big babies now. Then
a little farther on it was necessary to go into second gear, for here
the entire surface of the road was washed out, and after this came the
first view of Wickford Point with the roofs of the hay barns and the
chimneys of the house, and the stand of white pine and the elm trees
near the river.

       *       *       *       *       *

No matter how often I came to Wickford Point there was an indefinable
excitement about the first sight of it, a sense of relief that it was
still there waiting. It did not matter whether I had been away for years
or for just a day or two, the expectation was the same. There was
nothing like it anywhere, and all the people who had lived there and all
the things that had happened were waiting for my return. There was the
same close musty smell in the air, from the river and from the trees. I
had not been away from it for many hours, but it seemed like a long
while. It always required a certain readjustment when I was coming down
the road. The unseen things that were in the air might be peculiar, but
all of them were friendly. Nevertheless there would be a moment of
uncertainty when I first saw the place, a moment when all I had learned
from the outside world still gathered about me. All the buildings that
had seemed so large when I was very young, and were now small and meager
and unimportant, made me wonder what I was expecting and what it was all
about. Now I was seeing it through the gathering dusk, which blurred all
the outlines so that the plumes of the elms, black against the faint
light in the sky, tossed clouds of darkness upon the house and lawn. I
had turned on the headlights some time before and now they picked
objects out of the darkness--the trumpet vines on the garden fence, the
glowing eyes of one of the barn cats, the broken little wagon which
Josie's Herman played with. I heard Bella sigh.

"Well," she said, "we're back. My God, he always leaves that wagon in
the road."

I did not answer because both of the remarks were trite.

"Harry's come," she said. "He must have brought someone with him."

Her deduction was not clever. She had seen, as I had, that there were
more lights than usual. The windows of the dining room and the little
parlor were glowing oblongs and there were lights upstairs.

"If Harry's here, Mirabel Steiner's here," Bella said. "He must have
come in Mirabel's car. I don't know why it is, I feel dreadfully tired."

"Perhaps you didn't have much sleep last night," I said.

"Jim," said Bella sharply, "won't you please shut up. Jim--"

"What?" I said.

"Don't say anything about it, please."

"You don't have to ask me that," I said.

She leaned her shoulder against mine. In a way she was saying good-by to
the last few days. It was what always happened when one came to Wickford
Point, for nothing anyone did outside made the slightest difference.

"Thank you for everything, dear," she said. The remark was surprising
because she very seldom thanked me. We were at the side door by then and
I blew the horn, but it really was not necessary because they must have
heard the car and the door was already open. It was the same as always.
When anyone arrived at Wickford Point, it was like a ship arriving at an
island. Sid, wearing a pair of white flannel trousers which belonged to
me and which must have just returned from the cleaners, came out first
and leaned against the wall of the house, and Cousin Clothilde followed
in a brown, billowy dress which belonged to Mary. Then the laundry door
opened and Earle and Frieda came out, and the house cat and the setter
followed them, and then Josie came carrying Herman. When the headlights
struck Herman I saw that he was eating a hard-boiled egg, the yolk of
which was smeared on his cheeks. He had also obviously been eating a
good many other things.

Bella made a gagging unladylike sound.

"Josie," Bella called, "can't you take him in and wash his face?"

"Why, Miss Bella," said Josie, "I just washed his dear little face half
an hour ago. He got into something at the sink, and I was just going to
wash it again as soon as Frieda and I had finished with the dishes, but
he wanted to give Mr. Calder a kiss."

Then everyone was speaking at once. It was just as if we had been
downtown and not away at all.

"Did you have a happy time?" Cousin Clothilde was saying. "It's so nice
you're back. I get so restless when people are away. Jim, if you've
remembered the gin and the cigarettes, Frieda had better take them.
Everyone in the parlor is drinking gin."

Frieda moved forward, swaying slightly at the hips, but her new high
heels made her imitation of Bella's walk entirely incorrect.

"Did you think," she asked in a languid voice, "to stop at the
drugstore, Mr. Calder?"

"Get out my bag, Earle," I said, "and take it to my room. Everything's
in my bag."

"Darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "Mirabel Steiner's dressing in your
room."

"What?"

"There just didn't seem to be any place to fit Mirabel Steiner," Cousin
Clothilde went on. "You don't mind Mirabel in your room, do you,
darling? She's dusted it all out for you. So many things have been
happening. I thought that if you came back you wouldn't mind sleeping
with Sid."

"Well, I do mind," I said. "Let Mirabel sleep with Sid. Let her sleep
anywhere. I want my room."

Bella began to giggle.

"Darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "you don't know how hard it's been,
getting everyone in here without getting them mixed up. You see there's
Harry, and then of course there's Mr. Northby--he has to have a room to
himself. And the roof has been leaking through the attic into it. I'm so
thankful that you've come, darling, because nobody understands about
leaks."

I still sat in the car leaning on the wheel, watching them.

"Who did you say was here? Northby?"

Cousin Clothilde frowned thoughtfully.

"That nice friend of yours. Why didn't you tell me he was so charming?
You never have brought down any of your interesting friends. Mr. Allen
Northby--he is writing such a delightful book. He has to have a place to
himself where he can write it."

I remembered something that seemed to have happened years ago. "Do you
mean to say that Southby is here right now?"

"He was so charming about it," said Cousin Clothilde. "He said you asked
him for the week end and he simply couldn't wait. He came down
yesterday."

I had completely forgotten about Allen Southby.

"He's got a nerve," I said. "It isn't the week end yet."

Days and time and space were moving erratically through the fading
light, but Cousin Clothilde was dealing with them calmly.

"Isn't it the week end yet?" she said.

"No," I said. "It's only Thursday night."

Cousin Clothilde sighed.

"I don't see why everyone worries so about time," she said. "It doesn't
really make any difference, and he's been such a help. A man always is.
He was so nice about the leak. There was a thunderstorm and it came
right down on his head and he thought of things to put under it."

"What sort of things?" I asked.

"All those things that used to be in bedrooms, dear," Cousin Clothilde
said. "He found them in the attic."

But my real worry still centered on Mirabel Steiner, who was dressing in
my room.

"Look here," I said, "Steiner is going to get out of my room. She can
sleep with Mary."

"Darling," Cousin Clothilde sighed again, "you don't understand
everything that's happened. Mary has been very difficult all day. Mr.
Northby has been so charming with her, but it seems to make her
difficult."

"Well, let Steiner sleep with her," I said.

There was a sound above my head. The back bathroom window had opened and
Mary was leaning out. She had been doing something to her hair. Its
yellow waves and her straight nose and the slight twist of her upper lip
made her look aristocratic and commanding, although she was holding a
towel in her hand.

"I don't care what anybody says," she called, "I don't see why I should
make any more sacrifices when no one makes any for me. I won't have
Mirabel in my room. She smells of musk."

Mary slammed the bathroom window shut and Cousin Clothilde looked at me
meaningly.

"You see," she said. "She's been that way all day." But I was still
thinking of the immediate question and Mary did not worry me.

"What about the north room?" I said, for the north room had not been
mentioned. Cousin Clothilde looked at Sid before she answered.

"It hasn't been swept out," she said. "Sid uses it, you know. Sid has to
go somewhere."

Bella got out of the car and gave her shoulders an impatient shrug.

"My goodness," she said, "can't anyone do anything? Of course she can't
stay in Jim's room. Put Harry in Sid's room and put her there."

"Darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "Harry seems so worn out."

"Well, I'm worn out too," said Bella. "Frieda, move the things around,
and for heaven's sake let's stop talking."

"And the north room will have to be ready by Saturday," I said. "I've
asked someone else down."

As I got out of the car I noticed that Bella and Cousin Clothilde were
staring at me, and I remembered that I had told Bella nothing about it.

"I've always hoped you'd ask people down, dear," said Cousin Clothilde.
"I only hope he's as nice as Mr. Northby."

"Southby," I said, not that it made any difference. But they all kept
looking at me. "It's a girl, as a matter of fact. Bella knows her. Her
name is Patricia Leighton." I tried to say it casually, but I knew that
I had been unnecessarily emphatic, and everyone seemed to be hanging on
my words, waiting for me to continue. Bella had said she was tired; and
now she looked it, even in that favorable half-light. Her face, when it
was turned to me, was white and strained; Sid had pushed himself away
from the wall, and Cousin Clothilde had a curious, apprehensive
expression.

"Well," I said, "what's so queer about it? Everyone else is asked down
here."

"Why, Jim," said Cousin Clothilde, and her voice sounded faint, "it's
only--it's only that you've never asked anyone before. It's the only
girl--But I think it's perfectly lovely. It's--it's just that it's so
unlike you, darling."

"Well," I said, "she's coming Saturday morning."

Bella spoke suddenly and her voice was unfamiliar.

"I'm tired," she said, "I'm going up to bed."

"Why, Bella," said Cousin Clothilde, "aren't you feeling well, dear?
Don't you want some supper?"

Bella shook her head.

"No," she said. "I don't want any supper." She walked into the house,
and I could hear her running very quickly up the entry stairs.

"Now I don't understand," said Cousin Clothilde, "why something should
always be the matter."

"Mr. Calder," Josie said, "there's some corn and there's some chicken,
and I can just heat over some after-dinner coffee in just a minute, Mr.
Calder. And Frieda can give it to you in the dining room when she
finishes moving that lady's things."

"Don't bother," I said. "I'll have it in the kitchen." Then Sid spoke to
me.

"Did you remember that eyecup and the boric acid?" he said. "The
pollination has been very heavy. It seems to affect my eyes in the
morning and the evening, but not otherwise."

"How's your digestion?" I asked.

"It troubles me a little," Sidney said. "I keep having a sharp and
burning pain right here in the pit of the stomach, not in the duodenum.
I always have it when all the family's here. They're all so--" He paused
and blinked his eyes.

"So what?" I asked.

"So much as usual," Sidney said. "You know very well that I am the only
properly adjusted person here, except Clothilde."

We were standing in the side entry where the coats were hanging. I could
hear the dishes clattering in the kitchen and voices coming from the
parlor. The sound swept above my head like water. I was like a swimmer
in a tide-rip now that I was back at Wickford Point. It occurred to me
that we all were characters, and our sportive attributes were
developing. Everyone had always been a character at Wickford Point,
obeying impulse without the proper repressions; and all the talk was
natural once one heard it there. I wondered if I were becoming a little
eccentric myself.

"How did you get adjusted?" I asked. Sidney smiled faintly.

"Just by not trying," he said. "The trouble with everyone here is that
they try, except Clothilde. It's always struggle, misdirected effort;
and frankly, I've given up."

"Oh," I said. "When did you give up?"

"A year or two ago," said Sidney, "and I've been much better ever since.
I just let things go. I sit and watch it all move. It's very, very
interesting."

"Where's it moving to?" I asked. Sometimes I had a respect for Sidney
because he had a way of seeing things.

"No one gets anywhere," he said, "except Clothilde. She's the only one
who matters. She's very wonderful."

I thought of her standing on the doorstep, half-frowning and
half-smiling, and glancing here and there to watch the effect of words,
and then I remembered her look when I said that Pat Leighton was coming.

"Suppose ... she dies," I said.

For the first time in a long while I saw Sidney Brill look concerned.

"What's wrong with her?" he asked. "Don't you think she's looking well?"

"Why yes, of course," I said.

"Then don't talk about her dying," Sidney said. "She mustn't ever die."

       *       *       *       *       *

The kitchen sink was full of dishes and glasses, and Herman and the
setter and the cat were under the table.

"The dear little thing," Josie said, "Herman's been asleep there all
evening. He just woke up when he heard you, Mr. Calder. It's been such a
day, and dear Mrs. Wright just doesn't understand. Everyone keeps asking
for everything, and poor dear Frieda, she keeps wanting to go to the
movies with Earle, but he can't ever take her. There's a movie tomorrow
night called 'Up and Down Broadway.'"

I tilted my wooden chair back comfortably and looked at the murky
ceiling. I was thinking of all the times that I had sat in that
low-studded kitchen, and, as I thought, a pleasant languor came over me.
There was even a reassuring sort of reason in its disorder. There was
the same pine dresser and the same stove with its kettle of boiling
dishwater. I thought of the early mornings when I had gone there while
it was still dark, to get bread and meat before I had started for ducks
on the river, and of how my dog had been waiting under the table, just
where Herman slept. I remembered the evenings when Mr. Morrissey and I
had sat there drinking hard cider, when he told me of ghosts in Ireland,
and I remembered how the whole place had smelled of vinegar and spice
when my great-aunt Sarah was making watermelon pickle. All those
thoughts drifted aimlessly and dreamily through my mind. I gathered that
the young people wanted to go to the movies but could not because
Earle's wages were still in arrears.

"Poor dear Mrs. Wright!" Josie said. "Ever since you went everyone has
been in her pocketbook. First Mr. Sidney had to get sun glasses, and
that fish man wouldn't leave anything unless we paid him, and then Mr.
Harry needed gin, and then there wasn't any food in the house. I don't
know what we should have done if Mr. Sidney hadn't looked in Miss Mary's
pocketbook, and there she had eight dollars and seventy-five cents. I
don't know where Miss Mary got it."

"He took it, did he?" I asked.

"Yes," Josie said; "but Miss Mary didn't mind, because that man was
here."

"What man?" I asked.

"That man who came from Harvard University," Josie said. "Dear Miss Mary
has been so happy. They went right downtown in that nice car of his--he
has a lovely green car that Earle put in the barn tonight--and that man
spent some of his own money for gin and vermouth and cigarettes; but
they're all gone now; and then we made out with the corn in the garden
and some wax beans. Earle has been working so hard on that little patch
of corn. That poor boy, he feels so badly because he hasn't been paid
for a long time. He's only had that dollar you gave him, Mr. Calder, but
I've told him not to talk to dear Mrs. Wright about it any more. It only
gets her so upset. I've told him that I haven't been paid for three
weeks either, Mr. Calder, and nearly all the soap is gone and there
isn't any Bunzo for the dishes."

"What's Bunzo?" I asked.

"That kind of powder you put on the dishes," Josie said. "I asked that
man if he could get me some this afternoon, but he forgot."

I took a ten-dollar bill from my pocket.

"Give a little of it to Earle," I said. "Mrs. Wright has overdrawn her
bank account. I'll give you a check tomorrow."

Josie wiped her hands on her apron.

"I just told Earle to wait," she said. "I told him you would fix up
everything, Mr. Calder, as soon as you came back. It's just that
everyone is after dear Mrs. Wright for money. And then there was the
roof. I always said that carpenter didn't lay the valleys right, and it
leaked so in that little bedroom where that man was sleeping. It leaked
right on his pillow. Poor dear Miss Mary felt so badly. She's been so
happy since that man came, Mr. Calder."

"You mean Mr. Southby?" I asked.

"Yes, Mr. Southby," Josie said. "He looks so young, although he has gray
hair. He looks so cute."

"That's because he's never done anything," I said, "except be at Harvard
University."

"Yes," Josie said, "I suppose it does keep them young to be at Harvard
University. Why, he's been acting just like a boy, Mr. Calder, carrying
on so with Miss Mary, and he's been so jolly out here in the kitchen. He
had his coffee here just the way you do, Mr. Calder, and he's asked so
many questions, all about the family. He wanted to know where that Negro
man and all the dogs were buried."

"Well," I said, "that's fine. I guess I'd better go and see him now.
How's Mr. Harry, Josie?"

"He's just been joking all the time," Josie said. "I think he's got some
position in some office in New York. Frieda heard him talking about it
when she was waiting on table, but I told Frieda that of course it
couldn't amount to much because Mr. Harry's always getting new
positions; but he's been so jolly with that dark young woman. I knew it
wasn't right to put her in your room. I told Frieda that you wouldn't
like it, Mr. Calder."

"Well, I'd better go and see them now," I said. "Tell Frieda to open all
the windows in my room, and dust out the north room tomorrow, will you
Josie?"

I pushed my chair back from the table, but it was never easy to leave
when Josie had started talking.

"Poor dear Miss Bella," she said. "She looked so tired. I suppose she
was kept up all hours of the night at the shore with those Jaeckels."

"She'll be all right in the morning," I said.

"Poor dear Miss Bella," Josie said, "after all she's been through. I was
telling Frieda just this afternoon--she still looks just as pretty as a
picture, after all she's been through."




XXXIV

_Wickford Lights_


Whenever anyone died at Wickford Point an easy, expansive year would
follow, because some frozen assets would be released from Mr.
Caldicott's office in Boston. When Cousin Sue died it was, moreover,
revealed to the family that she had made extensive collections of all
the things one buys at the post office in order to help an impoverished
Federal Government. At the time of the war she must have felt very
strongly that if she did not "come across the Germans would," and in
subsequent years she had wanted to help the Administration in every way.
The result was that Cousin Clothilde found in Cousin Sue's upper bureau
drawer, beneath some half-finished moth-eaten knitted articles and some
Indian basketwork, a great many books of thrift stamps and Baby Bonds. I
have often thought that Cousin Sue believed that these books of stamps
and documents represented a grateful nation's receipt for donations, and
that as such they possessed no intrinsic value; for Cousin Sue never
could understand finance. When Cousin Clothilde came upon them she did
not understand them either, and she would have thrown them all away if
Sidney had not stopped her. Actually they were cashed at the post office
for three hundred and eighty-seven dollars, and the whole thing was so
unexpected that before anyone had time to get the money Cousin Clothilde
had started to wire the house for electricity. That is, she wired the
lower floor, but before the workers could get upstairs Harry needed a
new dinner coat and Mary lost her wrist watch and Sidney began to suffer
from an impacted wisdom tooth.

As it was, it did not make much difference in the general appearance of
the house, because all the old lamps were wired also, but it is hard to
get away from habit. When I came into the back parlor with Josie's voice
still ringing through my head, I was as usual not adjusted to that new
bright light, and I thought momentarily that all the lamps had been
turned up too high and that the chimneys would be cracking if the wicks
were not turned down. The night was warm outside and the windows were
open, and all the assorted shapes of the nocturnal insect world were
beating against the screens. Even though Earle and I had patched the
screens earlier in the summer some moths had found their way inside,
with that contortionist ability peculiar to their species; and now they
were fluttering and blundering against the lamps, dropping their dusty
scales and their weary bodies upon the table.

The brightness of the light bulbs made everything stand out unnaturally,
I thought. First I saw the crack in the parlor ceiling and next I saw my
great-grandfather's books with the yellowed enlarged photograph of the
bearded Wickford Sage above them, and I noticed that his flowing white
beard was growing yellow, which was not unnatural since portions of it
had been yellow enough in life. Then there was the picture of the brig
_Alert_ upon which my great-grandfather had sailed around Cape Horn. It
had been painted by an unknown Chinese artist in the roadstead at
Wampoa. Then there were the sofas and all the old chairs, and the table
in front of the empty fireplace with its ashtrays and bottles and
glasses. Everyone was there except Bella. Sidney was sitting in a
corner, moving one thumb clockwise and the other counterclockwise.
Cousin Clothilde was reclining on one sofa, and Mirabel Steiner was
lying upon the other, looking at the ceiling and smoking a cigarette,
with her hands clasped behind her head and her knees bent upward.
Mirabel was dressed in a polo shirt and abbreviated shorts, and when I
saw her legs I was glad that she had remembered the shorts at any rate.
Mary was dressed in an embroidered peasant's gown which she had won in a
raffle at a fair, and she was wearing a pair of red bathing sandals. She
was sitting stiffly in a Jacobean chair. Her blond hair, her blue eyes
and her red cheeks gave her a vivid intensity as she watched Allen
Southby.

"Suppose," Harry was saying, "we endeavor to be impersonal. What is
indicated is a concentration camp for nonproducers."

"But they have to eat, sweetheart," Mirabel called across the room.

"Harry," said Cousin Clothilde, "I don't see why you won't listen to
Mirabel. Mirabel has a Ph.D."

"This is priceless," Allen Southby said, "all so priceless!" and I knew
that they were talking about nothing as usual.

Then they all saw me and everyone got up except Cousin Clothilde and
Mirabel.

Mary was nearest to me and she kissed me with an enthusiasm I did not
expect.

"Jim," she said, "I'm so glad you're back. Everyone has missed you so."

They all looked pleased to see me, and I remembered that they always had
been pleased. Now that Mary had spoken to me everything was the same as
it always had been. Even Mirabel Steiner upon the sofa and Allen Southby
rising from his chair were not discordant notes, because Cousin
Clothilde was always gathering extraneous and ill-assorted faces.

"Hello, boy," Harry said. "Would you like a drink perhaps?"

"Well, Jim," said Allen in a melodious, hearty voice, "well, well,
well."

He was welcoming me and putting me at my ease in a house which was not
his but partially mine, but it did not bother me particularly. He looked
just as he had the other night in his study at Martin House. His graying
hair was just sufficiently rumpled; he had on gray slacks and a silk
shirt open at the neck, and he was smoking a straight-grained pipe. His
tanned face was distinguished, and as Josie had said, he did look
surprisingly young. He appeared exactly the figure that he wanted to
appear, a literary man.

"Look," said Allen, and pointed playfully at the table. "Hebe yonder in
the shape of Mary Brill has furnished me with a pewter mug and beer."

"Well," I said, "that was thoughtful of her."

"Jim," said Cousin Clothilde, "have you a cigarette, dear? They're all
arguing about all those things that I don't understand--about Mr.
Roosevelt and about Mr. Harry Hopkins, and then Hitler's name keeps
coming into it, and then they talk about Russia and Mr. Southby has been
telling us about how self-contained the American farm used to be and
about the American Dream. You'll argue with them, won't you dear? I like
to hear about the American Dream, but I've always hated Germans. The
backs of the men's necks are always fat."

Allen Southby smiled at her gravely.

"There are no fat necks in the American Dream," he said. "The American
Dream is thin and hard-bitten. It is born from the rocky soil. In a way
this room is the American Dream."

"Phooey," said Mirabel Steiner from the sofa, and for a moment my heart
warmed toward her.

"Jim," said Cousin Clothilde, "won't you argue with them? I don't
understand about the American Dream." She wrinkled her forehead and
smiled at me at the same time, and looked sideways at Allen Southby. She
was reclining on the sofa in a dream world of her own that nothing could
disturb, not even Allen's speech. I thought he was a fantastic ass, but
she evidently did not. I was thinking that now he was at Wickford Point
he was worse than I had ever imagined him, that nothing about him was
exactly right; but Cousin Clothilde was impregnable in her peace.

"Not tonight" I said. "I'm going out to see the river."

"That's splendid," Southby said. "I'll go with you."

"Don't bother, Allen," I said.

"No trouble at all," said Allen, "I need a breath of air."

I walked across the lawn away from the lights of the house with Allen
Southby striding beside me, breathing the air lustily through his
nostrils.

"Jim," said Allen, and his voice was playfully reproachful, "why did you
keep this from me?"

The breeze was moving faintly through the pine trees. The trees were
never silent out there on the point, and now they were whispering
through the night air.

"Jim's back," they were saying. "Jim's back, but he's going away. He's
always going away."

I wanted to forget that Allen Southby was beside me. In all my life I
had never desired so much to be alone.

"Why," I heard him ask again, "why did you keep it from me?"

"Keep what?" I asked.

Though I could not see the gesture I knew that Allen was raising his
arms embracingly.

"All this," he said, "everything--but then I don't suppose it can mean
to you what it does to me."

"Probably not," I said.

"No," he said, "of course not," and there was no stopping him now that
he had started. "It's all so utterly priceless. It's what I've always
wanted and what I've known must exist somewhere. It's like returning to
a spiritual home."

"Oh," I said, "it is, is it?" Allen laughed softly.

"Don't be so literal, Jim," he said. "I have never faced such an
experience. I was so worried about that novel. There was something which
seemed to me wrong about it. You know how one gets, that feeling of
creative insecurity, actually a sort of checkmate. I simply could not
tell whether or not my conception of the picture was correct, and then I
came down here on a sort of pilgrimage of desperation, just to look;
and then I knew that the book was right, absolutely right."

While I listened to him, I wanted to laugh; and I wished that Joe Stowe
might be there to hear him ... but then, Allen was no more singular than
anyone else at Wickford Point.

"That must be a big consolation," I said. "How do you know it's right?"

"Jim," said Allen, "I felt it as soon as I came here. I don't see how I
can ever tear myself away. All the little nuances are so perfect, things
that you have probably never noticed." And he waved his arm again. "That
priceless little graveyard for the dogs, and the fugitive slave in the
orchard, and the books, and the Brilliana."

"What's the Brilliana?" I asked.

"Those letters," Allen Southby said, "and the presentation copies, and
the Brill mementoes. Mary showed them to me this afternoon."

"Oh," I said, "she did, did she?"

"Of course, Jim," he said, "you're so damnably literal that you don't
see them as I do and how they fit together in a priceless picture."

He went on talking and there was no way to stop him, but somehow it was
annoyingly grotesque because everything he said was off-key. He was
making the whole place into a museum. His mind was filling it with
curios as he had filled his study with pewter and pine at Martin House.

"Don't you think you're running away with yourself?" I said.

Allen laughed again in his most delightful, friendly way.

"You would say that," he said. "You've always lacked enthusiasms. That's
your trouble, Jim. Excuse me, old man, I haven't hurt your feelings,
have I?"

"No," I said, "but just don't talk about it, Allen."

His voice sounded hurt, but he was very bland.

"I must talk," he said. "I'm at my best when I have creative
enthusiasm, and this has been so real, a great discovery. Why, all this
place is like a novel, and all the people in it."

"Maybe you're right," I said, "but don't talk about it, Allen. I know
all about it. I've lived here."

"Lived here...." Allen Southby repeated, and his tone was amusingly
ironical. "But you don't know it as I do, Jim, who have been here for
only a day. I'm trying to paint the characters in my mind already, and
Mary is running through it like a glowing thread."

"Mary?" I repeated. "When Mary has a chance, she's fine."

"Yes," Allen said. "I suppose you've never seen it--her loneliness, her
prim, quiet beauty, her shyness, and her desire to escape. Jim, she's
like Hester Prynne."

"I don't think she's ever committed adultery," I said.

"Always the same," said Allen Southby; "always bitter, always the same
old Jim."

"Well," I said, "I guess I'd better go to bed, and you too, Allen.
You'll feel better in the morning."

"You don't mind my going on this way, do you, Jim," said Allen, "just
giving myself my head? There's so much I want to see, so much I want to
think about."

"That's all right, Allen," I said. "I'm glad you like it here, but I'm
going to bed. Good night."

"Good night, old man," he said.

I left him standing in the shadows, breathing the night air deeply, and
I walked back toward the house. His complacency had always disturbed me,
but this new enthusiasm was worse.

"Ass," I muttered, although I told myself that there was no use in
taking Allen so hard. It was simply that every word of his was
discordant and every word hurt me because he was talking of something
that I loved. I had never known until I heard him that I loved Wickford
Point so much. I wanted to throw everyone out of it; I wanted it to be
as it had been when Cousin Sue and Aunt Sarah were there.

I met Mary when I was halfway to the house. I knew it was she by the way
she walked and by the light color of her dress.

"Oh," she said, and stopped in front of me. "Where's Allen Southby,
Jim?"

"He's out near the point, thinking," I said.

"Oh," she said. "Jim, isn't he wonderful?" I tried to look at her, but
it was too dark to see her face.

"Well, if you don't think he's wonderful," Mary said, "don't say it.
I'll tell you what I think. He's the only friend of yours I've ever
liked. Don't say he isn't wonderful."

"All right," I said, "but don't be so excited, Mary." She laughed and
threw her arms around me and hugged me tight.

"Don't be such a thing," she said, "such an old disagreeable thing. Jim,
I'm so happy, so happy. I've had him to myself all day and Bella isn't
going to get him away from me either."

"All right," I said, "I hear you, Mary."

"Well, she isn't," Mary said, "and I'm going to find him now. Don't be
such a stick. Don't you see I'm happy?"

"Yes," I said, "I see."

"And Mirabel Steiner isn't going to get him either," she said. "He says
he doesn't like Mirabel Steiner. Isn't that wonderful? And what do you
think, I'm going to take him to the Brill house tomorrow. It's so lucky
that I'm a Brill. And I'm going to find him now and you can't stop me,
or Clothilde or Sid or Harry, no matter if you try. Nobody can stop me."

This was a new side of Mary Brill. She must have been thinking always,
ever since she was little, that all of us would stop her.

"Mary," I said, "wait a minute. I want to tell you something. You're
pretty, Mary, and you're quite a number, when you aren't angry. Listen
Mary--you're more attractive than Bella, and everyone likes you better.
If you really want him, there's no reason to be too anxious about him.
Just don't run after him too hard. Men don't like it, and you don't need
to." Mary laughed, a high, delighted laugh.

"Don't be so silly, dear," she said. "I'm not running after him, he's
running after me." And she ran off through the shadows and the dark
after Allen Southby.

       *       *       *       *       *

Cousin Clothilde always had trouble with her coffee. No matter what else
might happen at Wickford Point, the coffee was never right, and it often
made her feel that everyone connected with its sale and preparation had
been deliberately unkind. I was not surprised that she dealt with her
coffee first when I saw her next morning, but I knew she had asked me up
to her room for other reasons. She wanted me because there had been
something unspoken between us which had disturbed her the night before.

I had felt a tenseness in the air all that morning. It had awakened me
early and it had followed me when I walked alone through the familiar
rooms downstairs. Always before, I had been able to drive other
preoccupations out of my mind, and Wickford Point and all its details
would rise up about me restfully. Now, though I was there among familiar
things, I might as well have been a thousand miles away, just thinking
about Wickford Point. I was a thousand miles away, even when I was
standing on the lawn watching the sun dance on the muddy blue river as
its surface stirred under the southwest breeze. I was thinking of Pat
Leighton. She had been in my mind all night. The simple fact that she
did not allow me time to concentrate my attention on Wickford Point gave
me a sense of disloyalty, and there was nothing in my previous
experience to tell me what to do.

Cousin Clothilde was sitting up in bed in her purple kimono, looking at
the half-empty cup on the candle-stand beside her pillow.

"When I do everything for everyone else," she said, "I don't see why
someone can't get me a good cup of coffee." She looked at me and
frowned. "Jim, do you think it's that man downtown?"

"What man downtown?" I asked her.

"The man who sells the coffee," Cousin Clothilde said, "the fat one in
the dirty white apron with brown eyes, who has the cat. I think he's
doing something to the coffee on purpose. He might because we haven't
paid his bill. Don't you think he might?"

"No, I don't," I said.

"Well," said Cousin Clothilde, "there's something the matter with it.
It's bitter. I wish you'd taste it, and I wish you'd give me a cigarette
and then sit down. Everyone's so restless. I don't know what's the
matter."

I did not answer and she leaned back on her pillow.

"Besides," she said, "I have a queer feeling in my foot, an aching
feeling. Perhaps I'm getting old."

"No, you're not," I said. She looked surprisingly young.

"Nothing was restful last night," she said. "Everyone was moving about
so. I don't know why Mary couldn't be still. Jim, do you think Mary's in
love?"

"I don't know," I said. Cousin Clothilde sighed.

"Mary always makes such a fuss about it when she's in love," she said,
"and she runs after every man until he is frightened. I can't remember
that I ever behaved that way, and I used to be in love quite often. I
was never restless when I was in love with Archie. I wonder where Archie
is. I haven't heard from him for three days. It always makes me nervous
when I don't hear."

"Perhaps it's the coffee," I said.

"No, it's something else," she answered. "I feel nervous in different
ways. I feel nervous when I can't do things for people. Now Mary's upset
and Bella is upset. Has Bella seen Mr. Northby yet?"

"Southby," I said. "He and Mary have gone away somewhere in his car. No,
Bella hasn't seen him."

"He's so charming," Cousin Clothilde said, "so delightful."

"Personally, I think he's terrible," I said.

"Darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "you mustn't be so hard on people. He
must have some money to have such a nice tweed coat."

Her point of view was always young and it made me laugh and she laughed
back at me.

"I'm so glad you're back, dear," she said. "You always think things I
say are funny when I don't mean them to be funny. You're glad you're
back, aren't you?"

I must have been asking the same question of myself without knowing it.

"I don't exactly know," I said.

"Of course you know," she answered. "You always have been glad when you
come back to us. You're glad because you know that everyone depends on
you. It's the nicest thing there is. I know it is. If everyone didn't
depend on me I wouldn't be happy."

"Are you happy?" I asked.

"Yes," she answered, "always, when I'm helping other people. It's the
only thing that's worth while, helping other people."

"But perhaps it's hard," I suggested, "on other people."

"That strikes me as a very silly thing to say," she answered. "It can't
hurt anyone when you do something kind. I wouldn't feel comfortable if
it did."

"It stops him doing it for himself," I said. Cousin Clothilde looked
thoughtfully out of the window.

"Now that isn't fair," she said. "You only say it because you're able to
do so much. There are so many others who aren't able."

I thought of telling her that a good deal of the world was not fair, but
she would not have understood it.

"Well, it doesn't help people to be perpetually kind to them," I said,
and then I realized that it was better to let it go, because I knew that
there was no way to change her, and perhaps I did not want her changed.

"You know," she said, "they are really such good children." She was
thinking of them as children still, and that was what she wanted them to
be.

"They're so fond of you," she said. "You love them, don't you?"

"Yes," I said, "perhaps I do, but don't you ever get tired of them?"

"What a funny thing to ask!" she answered. "No, I always like to watch
them. They always come to me. They're such good children. Jim, I wonder
what's the matter with Bella."

"The matter with all of them," I said, "is that you look after them too
much."

"But Jim dear," she said, "I have to. Someone does. Now I don't know
what Bella will do when she sees Mr. Northby. Mr. Northby is so
charming, and he won't look at Mary again when he sees Bella, and then I
don't know what Mary will do. And then there's Sid. I wish you'd talk to
him about his stomach."

"I've talked to him," I said.

"He always has been so delicate," Cousin Clothilde said; "and then
there's Harry."

I sat and listened. Everything moved on nowhere.

"I've always wondered what Harry would do," Cousin Clothilde said, "and
now I really think he's going to do something. He's been given a very
satisfactory job. There's only one thing that bothers him; he has to
have a car."

"Why?" I asked.

"Well, you know the way those things are sometimes," Cousin Clothilde
said. "Harry is now in some very important position. I've forgotten what
he said it was about. I never can remember those things. I think it's a
Colony. Yes, it is about a Colony."

"What sort of a Colony?" I asked.

"It's somewhere in the woods," Cousin Clothilde said. "Some people have
bought lots of woods around a lake and they're building a big clubhouse,
and then they're building bungalows for people so that it will make a
Colony, and Harry is going to see his friends about it. That's why he
needs a car."

"Oh, he's selling real estate, is he?" I asked.

Cousin Clothilde looked puzzled and shook her head.

"No," she answered, "he distinctly said it isn't real estate. It's just
getting people, really important people, to go and live in those little
houses around the club, and it's just the thing for Harry, because he
knows so many important people; but the trouble is he has to have a car.
It has to be a car that looks well, because he will have to keep taking
those people out there."

"Where?" I asked.

"Why, out to those little bungalows in the woods," said Cousin
Clothilde. "And then he has to direct something, something to do with a
carnival. He was talking to Mirabel Steiner about it. He has to buy five
hundred lanterns and a lot of those things that they have at tables
sometimes that make noises, but the main thing is the car. Did he speak
to you about it, Jim?"

"Not yet," I said.

"Well," said Cousin Clothilde, "he was going to speak to you about your
car."

"He hasn't got up his nerve yet," I answered.

Cousin Clothilde's mind had wandered from the subject.

"I don't understand what has happened to those people at the bank.
They're being very disagreeable. They wrote me an impertinent letter
yesterday. They've been very impertinent since dear old Mr. Dolhard
died. They want me to put in some more money, and I can't because there
isn't any more money until the first of the month. Do you see why they
don't understand it?"

"If you'll give me the letter, I'll answer it," I said.

"I always throw their letters away, dear," Cousin Clothilde answered.
"If you throw them away, they always write again. And then there's the
roof. If the roof keeps on leaking we ought to have more basins to catch
the water. Darling, I'm so glad you're back."

When I did not answer she asked me that same question.

"Aren't you glad you're back?" she asked.

I shrugged my shoulders.

"Why, darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "aren't you feeling well?"

"Sometimes," I said, "I remember that I have a life of my own, that's
all."

Cousin Clothilde dropped her cigarette into her half-empty coffee cup.

"Why, of course," she answered, "everybody has."

"It's hard to remember sometimes," I said. Cousin Clothilde looked at me
hard.

"Darling," she said, "I was afraid of that last night. It's made me so
unhappy. That woman who is coming down--"

I was growing angry with her for the first time in my life. I pushed
myself out of the rocking chair and stood up, but even as I did so my
action seemed absurd.

"I'm sorry," Cousin Clothilde said quickly. "I didn't mean that, dear. I
didn't mean to say it in that way. I only hope she's nice. I know just
what you mean. Don't say it, dear. It makes everything so different that
I don't like to think about it. Are you sure it's going to make you
happy, dear?"

"Now wait a minute," I began, "I haven't said anything."

"No," she said. "You never do say anything, but everybody knows about
it. Even Josie was talking about it when she brought up the coffee; and
Harry has been in to see me about it. He says she works in a department
store."

"Well, suppose he minds his own business," I said.

"It's only that we want you to be happy, dear," Cousin Clothilde said,
"and I don't see if she works in a department store--"

"Well, never mind," I said. "I didn't say anything."

"But everybody knows, dear," Cousin Clothilde said. "It isn't that we're
selfish. We all love you so because you belong to us. Do you think she'd
like to live here?"

"No," I said, "I don't."

"Well," said Cousin Clothilde, "I should think she'd like it better here
than in a department store."

"Let's leave the department store out of it," I said.

"Bella doesn't like her nose," said Cousin Clothilde. "She told me long
ago."

"I don't know what you're talking about. I like her nose," I said.

"But she isn't good enough for you, dear," said Cousin Clothilde. "She
couldn't be, and no one thinks she's good enough. Is she the sort of
person who would understand us?"

"Frankly," I answered, "I don't know."

"I knew it," said Cousin Clothilde. "I knew it. She's going to take you
away. You don't have to tell me. We won't ever see each other any more."

"I don't know why you take everything for granted," I said.

Cousin Clothilde sighed.

"I don't see how you ever met her, dear, if she works in a department
store. Department stores have always made you nervous."

"Do you mean to say that everyone is talking about this already?" I
asked.

"You're so dreadfully stupid sometimes, dear," Cousin Clothilde said.
"Don't you see we talk about it because we love you? We only want you to
be happy. But then, perhaps she might fit in with everybody and be good
to the children. You could have the top floor or you could fix up one of
the barns."

"Let's not talk about it now," I said.

"I want her to like us," she said. "I don't see why you did it just now,
dear. It might have been some time later, when Bella wasn't upset and
Mirabel Steiner and Mr. Northby weren't here. It makes it so confusing
to have this on top of everything, because I really want her to like us,
and I know she won't. I'm perfectly sure she won't."

"Never mind," I said. "You haven't seen her yet."

There was nothing else for me to say. There was no use telling her that
Patricia Leighton would like them because I knew she would not.

"Will you give me another cigarette, dear," said Cousin Clothilde, "and
if you see Harry downstairs, won't you talk to him about those
bungalows? And if you see Bella, don't be cross with her, because she's
so upset. I don't know what we're going to do. I just can't seem to
think, now that you've been so frank about it and told me everything."

I had told her nothing, but I had confirmed a rumor, and in a measure I
was relieved, for now it was in the open and not a part of the perennial
gossip of the place.

       *       *       *       *       *

The sun was up high by then and another hot day was beginning. I could
hear the humming song of locusts in the trees and the occasional
somnolent chirp of a robin, but otherwise everything was motionless and
drowsy. The heat was beginning to find its way into the shadows of the
back parlor which was usually cool in the early part of a hot day, and
Bella and Sid and Harry were there talking in earnest, low voices. Harry
was dressed in a tennis shirt and white ducks and sneakers as if he were
about to give an exhibition on some nonexistent court. I was surprised
by his costume until I remembered about the Colony. Harry was already
rehearsing his part in the Colony, becoming a vigorous athlete and a
lover of the out-of-doors. Bella was in violet beach-pajamas with a
bandanna tied about her neck, and Sid was still in my white trousers.

"Hello," said Sid, "we were talking about Allen Southby."

I accepted the statement without for a moment believing it was true.
Harry patted the thin spot on the back of his head.

"They don't believe," he said, "that Southby has any money."

"What does he look like?" Bella asked. "Is he attractive, darling?"

"As a matter of fact," Harry said, "he doesn't dress so badly. Do you
think so, Sid? In a way, considering that he came from Minnesota, he's
almost _soign_, always within limitations. If one understands these
things it is clear that Southby dresses conservatively within his
income, and I should say his income is in the neighborhood of ten
thousand a year. He has that ten-thousand-a-year look. It's
unmistakable."

"What look have you got?" I asked. Harry stroked the thin spot on his
head again. I could see that they were ready for a round of conversation
which would last until they took naps after lunch, and then they would
talk again till midnight. Bella looked at Harry and made a face at me
behind his back. I was forgetting about New York already and so was she.
We were there listening to another morning's talk at Wickford Point,
listening to Harry deliver another academic lecture, and there was a
sympathy between us derived from our having heard him so often.

"There is one thing about all of us, thank God," Harry said, "we have no
financial look. No one can tell from our appearance whether we are worth
five million dollars or five cents, and that is an achievement. We
belong in no financial category."

They were all busy building themselves up again. It was a perpetual
consolation to them that we were interesting people.

"Now," said Harry, "let us put that aside for the moment. We belong
in no category, but most men even more than women dress according
to their incomes. I have given this a good deal of thought. It
helps me to size up people. You can tell the fifty-thousand or the
hundred-thousand-a-year man as easily as the ten-thousand. Yes, Southby
is ten-thousand. Those tweeds were made by some second-string London
tailor. He left his measurements three years ago when he was in London.
They haven't got the best fit, and the pipe goes with them, expensive
but not expensive enough."

Bella crossed her knees and laced her hands behind her head and looked
thoughtfully at Harry's back.

"Where is this Southby now?" she asked.

"Mary's taken him to the Brill house," I said. "They're going somewhere
for lunch."

"He has a medium-price car," Sidney said. "It's green."

"That's significant," said Harry, "very significant. Green to go with
his tweed coat, do you see? Only a ten-thousand-a-year man would think
of that. It's a ten-thousand-dollar mind."

"Oh," said Bella, "for heaven's sake, shut up."

"Exactly why," Harry asked, "should I shut up?"

"Because I don't want to hear you talk," Bella said. "It gives me a
headache."

"Then go somewhere else," said Harry. "I'm talking for a definite
purpose. I'm thinking out loud. Southby is exactly the sort we want for
one of the inshore bungalows at Lake Poomow--not on the
frontage--inshore. The ten-thousand-dollar class should be the very
lowest there. You haven't heard about Lake Poomow, have you, Jim?"

Bella stood up and stretched herself and yawned rudely.

"It's just another of those damn things you'll make a mess of," Bella
said. "Jim doesn't want to hear about it, and I don't either." And she
left the room.

"Bitch," said Sidney softly.

"No," said Harry. "She's troubled about something. You wouldn't like to
go up to Lake Poomow, would you, Jim? Oh, I forgot, you'll be tied up."

It seemed selfish not to listen, but I did not want to hear about Lake
Poomow. I was not thinking of Harry's troubles or of Sid's or Bella's.
Instead I was thinking of something that George Stanhope had said just a
day or two before. Stanhope had been in his shirt sleeves by the table
with the picture of the police dog on it.

"The trouble," he was saying, "is with the ending. That's why they
didn't buy it down the street, because the ending was definitely wrong.
No one got anything in the end. They misunderstood each other and there
was definite conflict, but no one got anything. And what's the use of
characters and conflict if they don't get something out of it, something
definite? That's what everybody wants, and there's no use arguing. The
boy has got to get the girl and he's got to get the money, and he must
have a happy future. There is no excuse for all the loose ends. You have
to tie them up."

Harry Brill was speaking, but I did not hear him because my mind was
still on George Stanhope's voice. Everyone at Wickford Point was
struggling fitfully for something without getting it. Harry was talking
about Lake Poomow now, and for the moment Mary was pursuing some
visionary goal in Allen Southby's green car, and in a little while Bella
also would be storming a new Valhalla, but none of it would last. The
trouble was with the ending. There was nothing in the end.

"Well," I said, "so long. I'll see you later, boys."

Harry looked hurt.

"Jim," he said, "you haven't been listening?"

"I'll listen some other time," I said.

Neither of them answered but I could feel them staring after me.

There was the smell of fresh-cut grass on the lawn outside and Earle was
oiling the lawn mower.

"Say, Mr. Calder--" Earle began.

"Never mind it now," I said.

Then Josie was calling to me out of the kitchen window.

"Mr. Calder," Josie called, "if you're going downtown could you get me
those bobby pins? You forgot them, Mr. Calder."

"Never mind it now. I'm not going downtown," I said.

The canoe was by the old boat landing and the paddles were under it. I
had already turned it over and pushed it into the water when I heard
Bella calling to me. She must have watched me from somewhere and she
must have run after me for she was out of breath.

"Jim," she said, "where are you going?"

"I don't know," I said.

"Well, aren't you going to take me with you?" she asked.

"No, not this time," I said, and I remembered when I had taken her with
me once, long ago.

"Jim," she said, "you're not angry with me, are you? Can't we just
forget about everything?" And her words came so quickly that I had no
time to answer. "Darling," she cried, "don't--"

"Don't what?" I asked. "What are you talking about, Belle?"

There was a pause and I could hear the locusts in the trees and a breeze
was stirring through the pines. I tossed a paddle into the canoe and it
gave that strange dull clatter which one can only hear when a small boat
is in the water.

"Darling," said Bella, "it's so ridiculous. I don't know why I feel it,
but it's as though you were going away and leaving us. Please don't
leave us, Jim."

I stepped into the canoe carefully and pushed it away from the bank. I
wanted to speak to her, but I found it difficult. It was a simple act to
take the canoe out, so simple that her pleading was not natural, and yet
it was true what she said. It was exactly as if I were going away.

"Jim," she called again, "please don't."




XXXV

_It Can't Go on Like This_


When I was out in the center of the stream I could still see her
watching me from the bank. The tide in the channel was taking me
downstream, away from Wickford Point, and the heat waves were shimmering
over it, giving to the trees and the barn roofs an unstable mirage-like
quality. As the distance increased it all moved uncertainly in that haze
of summer heat. I kept thinking that if I looked away, and then looked
back, it really might be gone; and then it was gone, as far as I was
concerned, once I was far enough downriver.

When I got back the sun was low and the breeze was dropping as it often
did at the end of the day. The heat had gone out of the sun and a
coolness rose from the surface of the water. Quiet sounds were carried
over from the houses across the river--a voice, the sound of a hammer,
and the bark of a dog--all distinct in spite of the distance, as sounds
are at that time of day. First there came the sharp bend in the channel
near the woods in front of the Jeffries farm, and then came Wickford
Point. I had a sharp sensation of relief when I saw it. I walked up the
bank and through the pines and across the hayfield to the lawn. The
shadows from the trees were lengthening and I could hear no sound of
voices from the house. There was no one in the dining room and no one in
the little parlor. There were no sounds upstairs either, and I pushed
open the door of the back parlor noisily. Then I stood without moving.
Pat Leighton was sitting entirely alone in one of the chairs by the
fireplace.

Often before when the house was still I had felt that other people were
in the room with me, but the impression had never been as clear as this.
For just the fraction of a second I had an idea that she was there
because I had been thinking of her all day long, and it took me an
appreciable space of time to realize that she was actually there.

"Don't look so astonished," she said. "Didn't you expect me?"

"No," I said. I stood in the doorway and it was still too unexpected for
me to get it straight.

"Didn't you get my wire?" she asked. "I sent you one yesterday. I said I
was motoring up."

"You sent a wire?" I said. "Well, that's just the way things happen
here. They're so careless about things like that."

She smiled at me. "Well," she said, "aren't you glad to see me?"

"Yes," I answered, "very glad. I'm just surprised. It's just as though I
had been thinking about you and then you were here."

"Well, that's why I am," she said. "Have you really been thinking about
me?"

"Yes," I answered, "all the time."

"Then don't look so embarrassed," she said. "I sometimes wonder.... Once
you get away you seem to disappear. Well, I've come to get you." And
then she laughed and added: "It's awfully funny here, isn't it?"

Taken all together I must have spoken to Pat Leighton for a good many
hours about Wickford Point. She was always glad to listen, but she had
come of a methodical family which had never behaved like mine. Of
course, she must have formed some preconceived idea of it, which, like
all impressions one gains at second hand, was not correct.

"I suppose it's different from what you thought," I said.

"Yes," she said, "but you're not, and that's all I care about. I rather
dreaded that."

It pleased me to hear her say it. The half-careless, half-laughing way
she spoke made me forget my first astonishment at seeing her there at
all.

"You aren't any different either," I said.

She stretched out her hand toward me and smiled.

"It's because we're honest people," she said. "Honest people never
change. I'm glad we're both like that."

Now that she was there, it seemed to me that the room was just as it was
meant to be when it had first been built.

She looked away toward the yellowing, enlarged photograph of Mr. Brill,
and then at the painting of the brig _Alert_ anchored off Wampoa.

"Pat," I said, "you're quite a girl. You have good ideas."

"It isn't hard," she said. "You're quite a mental exercise, but I like
you the way you are.... It's awfully funny here."

Then I remembered that she might not have seen her room, and that no one
had brought her bags upstairs.

"Did anything happen?" I asked. "Have you seen anyone? I wonder where
they've gone."

She laughed again, not at me but at something she had seen.

"I sent you that telegram," she said. "I fixed things so that I could
leave a day earlier. There's a new girl who's good at handling routine,
and I thought it would be fun to motor up. I'll tell you about that
later. Out on the main road there was a gas station with a man who said
he went to school with you. We had quite a talk about you and he pointed
out the road. You've told me so much about the place, that of course I
recognized it, and then when I came into the yard here I saw a queer
thing."

"What?" I asked.

"There was a boy in overalls with a bucket," she said, "over by the
barn, and a man in white trousers had a rubber tube. He was sucking the
gasoline out of your automobile."

"Oh," I said, "that's Sid. They never have any gasoline."

"And just then the door opened and everyone came out. There was Bella
all dressed up. She was talking to a man who turned out to be your
friend, Mr. Southby, and then Harry came and introduced me to everyone.
I recognized your Cousin Clothilde right away. She was very pleasant;
and then there was a lady in shorts."

"That's Mirabel Steiner," I said.

"And then there was another cousin of yours," Pat Leighton went on, "who
had an orange ribbon in her hair and looked put out about something. She
didn't want to go and everyone said she'd better."

I knew it was Mary. Pat was smiling as though she still saw the scene.

"They were awfully pleasant," she said. "Your Cousin Clothilde wanted me
to come with them. She said they were going downtown. Nobody seemed to
know where you were. They just said you were out on the river, and I
said I'd just stay and wait, if they didn't mind, and then they all got
into two cars. Mr. Southby and Bella got in one. Mr. Southby was quoting
poetry."

"What sort of poetry?" I asked.

"Tennyson," she said, "'Locksley Hall.' Then he said that everything was
so priceless, and everyone else got into an older car. They called the
car 'Cousin Sue.'"

"Yes," I said. "They inherited it."

"Well," said Pat, "they all got into Cousin Sue, and then they asked me
again if I was sure I didn't want to come along. They were just as nice
as they could be, and your Cousin Clothilde said they were going
downtown to get some whisky and ice cream."

"Ice cream?" I repeated.

"Your Cousin Clothilde said she had been thinking about ice cream all
day and that she couldn't stand it any longer unless she had some. And
then a kitchen door opened and a woman came out holding a little boy who
was eating something. She called after them to buy her something."

"She wanted bobby pins," I said.

Pat looked at me.

"You know everything about them, don't you?" she inquired. "Yes, I
remember now, she wanted bobby pins; and then they all went away and I
came in here. They asked me to wait here because someone was sweeping
out my room. Then a little girl covered with lipstick came in to talk to
me. She said that she had heard that I worked in a department store and
she wanted to know about foundations. She wanted to show me one."

"That's Frieda," I said, "Josie's girl. I didn't know she wore anything
like that."

"And then the little boy who was eating something," Patricia said, "came
in and began turning somersaults, and then there were some kittens, and
then they all went away. It was like everything you'd ever told me."

"Yes, I suppose it was," I said, but I was thinking about Bella in Allen
Southby's car.

"Jim," Patricia said.

"Yes," I answered.

She was looking at me and only part of her smile lingered at the corner
of her lips.

"They haven't got you yet."

She could take me away from all sorts of things. I only had to ask her,
and I had no fear of consequences. I was sure that I could be what I had
always wanted to be if I were with her. It was only necessary to ask
her.

"Pat," I said, "you're the only thing that's worth a damn."

"That's why I love you, dear," she said, "because you say things like
that."

I was amazed that she could make me feel as I did, because no one else
ever had, and there was one thing that I wished made absolutely clear.

"I love you, Pat," I said. "I wish I didn't sometimes."

"Jim," she said, "you'll have to make a break. You see it, don't you?"

"Yes," I said, "I see."

"Well," she said, "I'm leaving tomorrow." She put her arm through mine.
"That's what comes of not getting telegrams. I told you I could only
stay for a day."

"But I thought you were going to stay over the week end," I said.

"No," she answered, "a day is long enough just now."

"How do you mean a day is long enough?" I asked.

She pressed my arm against her and put her hand over mine.

"You're generally so clever," she said. "It's silly for you and me to
say obvious things, but I suppose everyone does sometimes. Nothing is
right when it stays the same. Dear, we can't go on like this."

I must have known that last definite sentence would come sometime. I had
heard it before from other women, and often enough it had filled me with
a sense of relief, but now it did not.

"No," I said, "I don't see how we can."

She smiled at me and there was a pause while she waited for me to say
something more.

"It sounds so trite, doesn't it?" she said. "And what I'm going to say
won't be much better. So many women have said it so often. Women are
always stupid after a certain point."

"Perhaps," I told her, "but you're not stupid, Pat."

"It's stupid to be grasping," she said, "but I don't know any other way
to put it."

Her fingers touched mine softly.

"You see," she said, "this has to stop. We ought to be married, Jim. My
suggestion is that we go away tomorrow, and I really don't think it
would be so bad, not as such things go."

I heard the wheels of an automobile in the yard, and then I heard voices
and the screen door slammed.

"Here they come," I said, "with the whisky and ice cream."

"You're not put out, are you, Jim?" she said.

"No," I said. "I love you, Pat."

"Then don't be so grim about it," she said. "Kiss me before they come."

I was not annoyed that they were back, because it gave me time to think.
She had said that we both were honest people, and I wanted to be as
honest with her as she had been with me.

They were coming into the parlor and all of them were talking.

"Hello," said Mirabel Steiner. "Oh? I hope I'm not intruding."

"Not any more than usual," I said.

Cousin Clothilde came next. "Darling," she said, "where have you been
all day? You never told me that Miss Laughlin had sent a telegram."

"Her name is Leighton," I said. "No one told me about a telegram."

"I don't know why it is," said Cousin Clothilde, "that I always can
recall faces but not names. I remember now. The telegram was left right
on the table in your room. Mirabel must have taken everything off it
when she was dressing. I'm dreadfully sorry, Miss Leighton."

Pat smiled and they both looked at each other curiously.

"Jim has spoken of you so often," Pat said, and Cousin Clothilde
answered:

"I don't know what we'd do without him, dear."

Then Mary walked into the room alone and her face was white and set.
Sidney and Harry followed, talking about clothes.

"At the Racquet Club," Harry was saying, "and at the Field Club--How do
you do, Miss Leighton."

Allen Southby and Bella appeared next, and Bella had that starry look,
as though the doors might open at any moment for the Christmas tree.

"Hello, old man," Allen Southby said. "Where have you been? It's been
such a priceless day. I'm just going to pop upstairs and change."

"Never mind it, Allen," Bella said. "Allen is taking me out to dinner."

"But Allen--" Mary began, and then she stopped because Southby had gone,
and Harry and Sidney had gone with him.

"Is there anything for dinner?" Cousin Clothilde asked, and Bella began
to laugh.

"Not much," she said. "That's why I'm going out."

Then Mary spoke so loudly that everyone looked at her.

"No," said Mary, "that isn't why you're going."

"Why, Mary," said Bella, "darling!"

"You're going out to dinner," Mary said, "because you want to take Allen
away from me."

"Why, Mary," said Bella gently, "what under the sun is the matter?
You've had him for a whole day. You can't monopolize him all the time."

"Well, I did before you came," Mary cried; "and now you make him take
you out to dinner. You always do that to me."

"Mary dear," said Cousin Clothilde, "I do wish you wouldn't raise your
voice, and I think you'd better go upstairs and do your hair, and don't
slouch your shoulders so. No one will like you unless you stand up
straight."

She stopped because Mary had run away and slammed the door.

"I don't know what has got into Mary," said Cousin Clothilde. "I don't
see why she should be jealous just because Bella is nice to Mr.
Northby."

"I want everyone to understand," said Bella, "that I asked Mr. Southby
again and again if he didn't want to sit next to Mary or have Mary in
the car, and he didn't. I can't help it if he didn't, can I?"

"No, honey bee," I said, "you can't help anything. You can't help taking
a crack at Mary, because you know she's too decent to hit you back."

"Jim," said Cousin Clothilde, "I do wish you'd try to do something about
Mary. There ought to be some man somewhere. Don't you really think that
you could telephone and find some man, just anyone, just for tonight,
Jim? There might be some boy on the float at the Yacht Club if only you
and Miss Laughlin would go down there and look. See if you can't find
someone."

Bella opened her compact and got out her lipstick.

"Yes," she said, "go out and find one, Jim. Anyone in pants will do."

"That's about enough from you, honey bee," I said.

"But Jim," said Cousin Clothilde, "can't you think of anybody? If you
were just to take your car and go down to the Club."

"There isn't any gas in my car," I said, "unless Sidney puts it back."

"But darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "Miss Laughlin has a car. I'm sure
Miss Laughlin wouldn't mind."

"You see," I said to Pat, "we're all unworldly here."

"Yes," said Pat, "I see. Do you always find them on the Yacht Club
float?"

"No," said Cousin Clothilde, "I just thought of it. I don't suppose it's
sensible; but I don't know what's got into Mary, and besides there
_might_ be someone on the Yacht Club float. They always look so young
there, and so brown. I've often thought of speaking to one of them and
asking him to dinner--but then it might be too obvious."

Bella had opened her compact again, and now she dabbed her lipstick
across her lips and looked down at the little mirror and then up at Pat.

"All the women here are trying to catch the men," she said.

She spoke casually but the room was quiet after she finished. She put
some more red on her lips, but her eyes never left Pat's face.

"Yes," Pat answered, "that's true. I hadn't thought of that."

"I don't see why people don't understand," Bella said, "that men don't
like to be pursued. It's biologically wrong and it never does any good,
and besides it's frightfully inartistic. Don't you think so?"

"Yes," Pat answered, "I suppose it is."

Bella closed her compact again and shrugged her shoulders.

"You can't get them off the Yacht Club float," Bella said, "if they want
to stay there, any more than you can get them if you follow them to
their houses. No man with the guts of a guinea pig likes it. If you have
to run after a man it simply means that he's getting tired of you--and
it's so damned silly not to see it. There's something about Jim that
makes all the girls run after him. Isn't that true, Pat?"

I have never seen Pat Leighton lose her temper, and she did not lose it
then.

"Have you ever tried?" she asked.

Bella gave a light, amused laugh.

"Why, darling," she said, "I've never had to try. I do hope you're not
taking anything I've said personally."

"No," said Pat, "I'm not taking it at all."

"Because I never meant such a thing, of course," Bella said.

"Of course you didn't," Pat answered. "It would look so like personal
pique, wouldn't it? And you're always so nice about such things, Bella."

"Well, darling," said Bella, "I'm so glad you didn't misunderstand me.
You're always such a determined person--so executive."

"Yes," Pat answered, "I suppose I am."

"I know you are, dear," said Bella. "Everybody says so. Well, I must be
running upstairs. Jim, there's something I want to tell you, if you're
not busy, darling."

"Never mind it now," I said.

"Well," said Bella, "I'll see you later, darling."

"Not if I see you first, honey bee," I said.

Cousin Clothilde sighed. "I don't see what's got into Bella," she said.
"But she is sweet, isn't she, and I think she's looking better."

"She's the way she always is," Pat Leighton answered, "so natural."

Cousin Clothilde sighed again. "But I don't see what's got into her,"
she said. "I wish that everyone could be happy, like Mr. Northby."

"Southby," I said.

"I wish you wouldn't be so cross, dear," Cousin Clothilde answered. "You
know exactly what I mean."

"Yes," I told her, "I know what everybody means."




XXXVI

_The Wickford Sage_


A breeze moved through the dining room making the candles drip. The last
of the blue Canton china, very badly chipped around the edges--for Josie
was never careful of the dishes--was on the bare mahogany table. It was
not one of our happier meals. Mary sat looking stonily at her plate,
eating nothing. I heard Sidney expounding to Patricia some idea he had,
and I knew that he was being bright and entertaining, but Harry was
maintaining the burden of the conversation.

I was thinking of that statement of Pat Leighton's that we could not go
on like this. It kept repeating itself in my consciousness, spoken
sometimes slowly, sometimes hastily, or then loudly and finally softly.
I heard it while everyone else was speaking.

"I was selected," Harry was saying, "because of my connections. My
object has always been to know as many people as possible, and now it's
beginning to pay--not at the moment, of course, because no one yet is
drawing a salary except Mr. Fruitgate."

"Darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "who is Mr. Fruitgate? It sounds like
one of those foreign names translated into English."

"It was probably Mr. Apfel-something," Mirabel Steiner said.

Harry set down his knife and fork gently.

"On the contrary," he said, "enlightening as your deduction may appear,
Mirabel, Mr. Fruitgate comes of an old Huguenot family which settled
here shortly after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes."

"You're sure he wasn't killed at the Massacre of St. Bartholomew?" I
said.

"Mr. Fruitgate," said Harry more loudly, "comes of Norman French
Huguenot extraction. Mr. Fruitgate, by ability and not by accident of
birth, has been connected with some very important promotions. Tim
Fruitgate and I hit it off right at the start."

"Oh," said Cousin Clothilde, "is his first name Tim? I knew a man once
named Tim, who played a mandolin. I didn't mean to interrupt you, dear."
And she looked at all of us meaningly, signaling to us not to interrupt.

"Tim Fruitgate," said Harry, "is the one who thought of a colony of
Distinguished People, not just this one and that one, but people who
have achieved something. He wants them all to be together so that they
can exchange ideas. Every applicant for a bungalow must be passed by a
board of governors, after Tim Fruitgate investigates his credit. Well,
I'm a member of that board of governors."

"Oh," said Cousin Clothilde, "I think that's lovely, dear. It must mean
so much to you, but I wish you wouldn't squint that way, Harry. It makes
such dreadful wrinkles between your eyes."

"Perhaps his eyes are out of focus," Sidney said. "He might do exercises
looking at a pencil."

"What sort of exercises?" Cousin Clothilde asked.

"You hold a pencil in front of you and move it toward your nose," said
Sidney, "until you see it double."

"But I'm sure no one wants to exercise with a pencil," said Cousin
Clothilde. "I never did like pencils, and when I want one it's never
there, and when I find one it's always broken or Mary has been chewing
at it."

Mary pushed her chair back and rose.

"I should think I might be allowed to chew on a pencil," she said. "If
everyone's going to pick on me I'm going upstairs."

"But dear," said Cousin Clothilde, "no one's picking on you."

She had no time to finish because Mary had left the room.

"Oh dear," said Cousin Clothilde, "I really don't understand Mary."

She never did and she never would, but I could not consider it then.
Those words of Pat's kept passing through my mind, obscuring all the
talk--_We can't go on like this_. There was no reason why they should
have surprised me. I should have realized that nothing remained
unchanged indefinitely. Now here at Wickford Point everyone had said
several times a day that they could not go on like this, and yet they
always had. I had always thought that Pat Leighton and I could continue
for a long while, indefinitely perhaps, and now she meant what she was
saying. It could not go on as it had.

They were all pushing back their chairs and rising. I had not realized
that the meal was over. I had not tasted what I ate. I could not
remember what they had been saying. I only knew that we could not go on.

"Pat," I said, "let's go outside before the light is gone. It all looks
better in the dusk."

It was quiet enough outside except for the sound of the crickets in the
grass. We were walking through the old flower garden toward the hay barn
near the south orchard, and then through the gap in the fence where the
first rows of apple trees, too old to bear much any longer, shut us from
the house. We were alone out there with the crickets and the waning
light. I wished sometimes that the darkness would come down suddenly,
like the tropic dark, and that the light would not keep lingering in the
sky the way it did at Wickford Point. Pat's hand rested on my arm and
though she did not speak I could tell that she was happy.

"Do they always talk like that," she asked, "just on and on?"

"Yes," I said, "just on and on."

"Well," she said, "I see what you meant about your Cousin Clothilde.
She's beautiful, and everything she says is kind--but it's not for you,
Jim, is it?"

"No," I said, "it shouldn't be."

"What are all those little stones?" she asked. It was nearly dark, but
the stones were white against the grass.

"Those are the dogs' graves," I told her.

"Oh yes," she said, "I remember. I wish you'd light a match, I'd like to
see one."

We were standing near a stone where one of my Llewellyn setters lay, the
one I had used for woodcock years ago, and I was wondering if there were
woodcock in the coverts nowadays. I knelt beside it and lighted a match
and she bent over to read.

"'Nauna, a good bitch,'" she read.

"She was mine," I said, "and that's exactly what she was."

Pat's voice told me that she was smiling. Her hand was resting on my
shoulder.

"Well," she said, "I rather like it. There are so few of them, aren't
there?"

"Yes," I said, "not many."

"If I died," she said, "I wouldn't mind it if you put that on my stone,
but I don't suppose the grounds committee would allow it, would they?"

She was silent for a while.

"You know she was absolutely right," she said.

"Who?" I asked.

"Your cousin Bella Brill," Pat answered. "It made me rather angry when
she said I was running after you, because I hadn't thought of it that
way at all, and it isn't very attractive, is it? Perhaps I _am_ doing it
because you're getting tired of me."

"No, I'm not," I told her.

"Well," said Pat, "perhaps you ought to be. But I didn't always run
after you, did I? Do you remember--"

"Yes," I told her, "I remember."

"Well," Pat said, "that's the way things happen. It has to be settled
one way or the other, doesn't it? I don't mind what Bella said really,
but that's another reason why I'm leaving here tomorrow. I might lose
my temper it I talked to her again. Are you coming with me, Jim?"

I waited for a moment because I wanted my voice to be steady.

"I'd go twice around the world with you tomorrow, Pat," I said. "There's
nothing I'd like better."

"And farther than that?" she asked.

"Farther than that," I said. "The sky's the limit. I could go anywhere
you say and as long as you like, up to the moon if you wanted or down in
a diving bell, but finally, dear, I'd always come back here, and you
couldn't stop me and I couldn't stop myself, and you wouldn't have any
more of me than you've ever had. Part of me would always be here,
perhaps most of me that matters; and you wouldn't like that at all. It
isn't anything I can help. It isn't any one person; it's everything.
You're not going to be mixed up in all this, Pat.

"No," I went on, "you wouldn't like it, because there's nothing for you
here. You saw the way it was tonight. I'd have asked you to marry me
long ago, if it weren't for everything here. You wouldn't like it, Pat."

She did not answer immediately and instead of speech there came the
notes of all the crickets in the grass rising in an ageless stringlike
surge of music which promised to continue long after human beings had
vanished from the earth. The sound reminded me again of that nave
remark of Bella Brill's that the music had nearly stopped for her, and
now I knew exactly what she had meant. Pat was still silent and I wished
that she would speak and be done with it.

"I'm glad you told me that," she said then, "but of course you would
have. Do you mind if I ask you something else?"

"Anything you like," I said.

"You're not saying this," she asked me, "on account of Bella Brill?
You'll be frank about that, won't you? I don't mind if it hurts."

It was foolish to have thought that she would not notice my
preoccupation with Bella Brill. I only hoped that she would never
misunderstand the fragile inhibitions of the relationship.

"No," I said, "not now. It's something else."

"Well," she said, "I'm glad it isn't that. I don't think that I should
have liked it--not at all." There was a soft sort of surprise in her
voice as though something incredible had happened. "Jim," she said, "I
wish you'd put your arm around me. I feel a little dizzy. I thought it
was all over. Women all have different ways of being jealous. I don't
mind anything as long as it isn't Bella Brill."

"Do you really mean that you can put up with all the rest of it?" I
asked.

"It's funny," she answered, "but that is just what I mean. As long as it
isn't Bella I don't mind how often you come back. I don't mind anything.
Jim, let's go away tonight. You can take my bags down for me and put
them in the car."

"You heard what I said," I told her, "that I'd always be coming back."

"And I told you I didn't mind," she answered. "And, Jim--"

"What?" I said.

"You'll make me a nice tombstone, won't you?"

I was thinking that they would all be in the back parlor talking, and
that it would not be hard to get her car. Even if they heard us they
would only think that we were going somewhere for a little while.

"We can stop along the way at a stonecutter's," I said. "Where do you
want to go?"

"You can work that out," she answered; "anywhere at all."

       *       *       *       *       *

I stood in my room with a suitcase opened on my bed. It didn't matter
how I left things as long as it was certain that I would be back, as
long as it was certain that I would see the cracks on the ceiling that
looked like a map again. I had been leaving that room for almost as long
as I could remember. The upper bureau drawer stuck, but I knew exactly
how to get it open. The only thing I wanted was not to see any of the
family, because any explanation would grow complicated. I began moving
about softly, opening the bureau drawers and opening the closet door,
trying to select a few of the things I really wanted. I had only a few
minutes to pack, and I was so absorbed in the process that I heard no
footsteps. The only sound that interrupted me was a loud decisive knock.
I shut the suitcase hastily and put it in a corner.

"What is it?" I asked, and I heard Allen Southby's voice.

"May I come in, old man," he asked, "just for a moment?"

I could think of nothing more superfluous than a call from Allen
Southby. He was smiling; he was dressed in his slacks and his green
tweed coat.

"I didn't think you and Bella would be back so soon," I said. "I'm just
putting things to rights here."

Then I saw he was not interested in what I was doing. He had not even
noticed that I was packing.

"It isn't like Bella to get home early," I said. "You haven't had a row
with Bella, have you?"

Allen Southby raised his eyebrows incredulously.

"You're joking, aren't you, Jim?" he asked. "I can't imagine anyone ever
having a row with Bella Brill. I've never known a sunnier disposition.
I've never known ..." He stopped as though he thought it might be just
as well not to tell me what he knew.

"Then why did you come back so early?" I asked him.

Allen Southby smiled as if his own thoughts pleased him.

"She wanted me to read to her," he said. "We've discovered a common
love--poetry, Jim. You haven't a copy of the _Canterbury Tales_ up here,
have you?"

"You mean you and Bella came back here," I asked him, "because she
wanted you to read her the _Canterbury Tales_?"

"Why, of course," Allen answered. "What's so odd about that?"

"Nothing at all," I said. "You'll find a volume of Chaucer downstairs
with the books. You're sure she wouldn't rather hear 'Beowulf'?"

I thought he would go then, but instead he took his pipe and his tobacco
pouch out of his tweed coat pocket.

"Have you a match, old man?" he asked. "Thanks. There's nothing like a
pipe, is there? Actually it wasn't only the poetry which brought us
back, although old Geoffrey can lead his devotees for long distances.
No, it wasn't only the knights and the friars and the prioresses--no, it
wasn't only that--"

"It must have been uncomfortable in your car then," I said. "Bella isn't
usually uncomfortable in cars."

"No," said Allen, but it seemed to me that my last remark embarrassed
him. "No, it wasn't that. We have another love in common, Jim."

"What?" I asked. "Biology?"

Allen's tanned face reddened slightly, but he smiled.

"The same old Jim," he said. "You can't ever be serious for long, can
you? Our other love is Wickford Point. We both confessed that we could
not stay away from it for long. She loves it, not as you do, but as I
do, Jim. She sees the sadness of its neglect. It hurts her as it hurts
me that so few love it. Something should be done about the place here,
Jim."

"What would you suggest?" I asked.

"Frankly," he answered, "I could not say exactly. But there should be
someone here who could cherish it, someone who could carry on its
tradition. Bella understands what I mean."

"Bella's always understanding," I said.

"That's fine of you," Allen answered. "Fine of you under the
circumstances, Jim."

"Under what circumstances?" I asked.

Allen Southby looked embarrassed. He puffed at his pipe and coughed.

"I hope you won't mind my saying this, old man," he said, "but Bella
and I were rather frank this evening. We told each other a good deal
about ourselves, the way two people will who discover themselves utterly
congenial. She said that you and she never have been able to get along,
old man--not that she said it unkindly, I don't mean that for a moment.
I don't believe there's a single unkind thought in Bella Brill. She's so
shy, so hesitant, so unlike Mary, isn't she?"

"I thought you said that Mary was shy," I told him.

"Oh no," Allen said, "I could never have said exactly that ... but
Bella, even you must admit she's very rare--like a shepherdess watching
her white thoughts."

"Yes," I said, "she's a shepherdess."

"And she's so alone," Allen said. "Has it ever occurred to you that she
seems to be afraid of being alone?"

"You may be right about that," I answered.

"There's a desperation about her," said Allen, "a strange, gay, gallant
desperation."

"You know," I told him, "Joe Stowe said that, once."

Allen nodded.

"She told me a great deal about their misunderstanding," he said. "I
think we are both a little bit astonished at how much we told each other
tonight. It was a moment of self-illumination. It was as though we had
known each other always, like a brother and sister, but not exactly like
that either."

"No," I said, "of course it wouldn't be ... exactly."

Allen looked at me almost sharply.

"You aren't laughing at me, are you, Jim?" he inquired. "It's just that
I wanted to talk to someone about Bella, and you know a good deal about
her, don't you?"

"Yes," I answered, "quite a lot. I'm not laughing at you, Allen."

He was so intent on his own thoughts that he did not notice when I
continued with my packing.

"She's very rare," Allen said again, "very rare and withdrawn. I'm going
to make a confession to you, old man. I seem to be in a revealing mood
tonight. This place makes me see everything so clearly. I really think
that all my life I've been a little bit afraid of women. I understand
them, of course, but I'm not what you'd call susceptible. There has
always been my work--and yet you know it's curious, I'm not afraid of
Bella Brill."

"She wouldn't want to frighten you," I said.

Again Allen looked at me suspiciously.

"That's what she said about you," he said, "that you have a bitter,
disillusioned mind ... but you do know enough about her to understand
what I mean. It isn't often that one finds someone with one's own point
of view, with one's own sense of appreciation, with one's own humor.
She's told me so much about everything that I can understand her better
than you do, Jim. Of course Stowe couldn't understand her. He treated
her very badly, don't you think?"

"It's hard to tell," I answered, "about anything like that."

"He never helped her," Allen said. "He never gave her a feeling of
security, and that's what she needs: the same sense of security that I
feel here. She says for instance that you are never secure, that you are
always going away. If all this were mine, I should never go away."

"Well," I said, "you don't have to necessarily."

"I wonder," said Allen Southby, "yes, I really wonder ..." He paused and
hesitated, but there was something else on his mind which made him
continue. "May I ask you a question, old man?" he went on. "Mrs. Wright
is so charming, but sometimes I don't seem to know where I am with her.
Could you tell me--does she like me--I mean really like me?"

That question of his first filled me with incredulity--and then with an
unexpected sense of freedom; and when I thought of Bella Brill waiting
for him to read from Chaucer, I felt grateful to her in some strange,
perverted way.

"Of course she likes you," I answered. "She's always a little vague,
Allen, but she'll always like you, if you make her feel--"

I paused, wondering exactly how to put it, and again I realized that I
had not felt so free for a long while.

"Yes," said Allen, "you said--make her feel?..."

"That you'll look out for her," I told him.

Allen nodded gravely.

"I see what you mean," he said. "That's true. She's so like Bella ...
with no one to look after her. Well, I mustn't stay here running on in
this vein. You say the Chaucer is down there with the old books? I
wonder if it could have been John Brill's copy. Well, I mustn't keep her
waiting."

"Don't," I said, "she doesn't like to be kept waiting." And I snapped my
suitcase shut.

"Then you'll excuse me," he said, "won't you, old man? Do you remember
that bit from Sir Thopas--just a snatch, but suitable?"

"Go ahead," I said. "What is it?"

Allen smiled mischievously, and his voice became throaty and very Saxon.

"Just a snatch from Sir Thopas," he said, "but a mirror to my mood:

    Alle othere wommen I forsake,
    And to an elf-queene I me take
    By dale and eek by downe!"




[End of Wickford Point, by John P. Marquand]
