Soldiers Pay (25 page)

Again he became one with the earth, with dark and silence, with his own body . . . with her body, like a little silver water sweetly dividing . . . turned earth and hyacinths along a veranda, swinging soundless bells . . . How can breasts be as small as yours, and yet be breasts . . . the dull gleam of her eyes beneath lowered lids, of her teeth beneath her lip, her arms rising like two sweet wings of a dream. . . . Her body like.

He took breath into himself, holding it. Something came slow and shapeless across the lawn toward him, pausing opposite. He breathed again, held his breath again. The thing moved and came directly toward him and he sat motionless until it had almost reached the flower bed in which he sat. Then he sprang to his feet and before the other could raise a hand he fell upon the intruder, raging silently. The man accepted battle and they fell clawing and panting, making no outcry. They were at such close quarters, it was so dark, that they could not damage each other, and intent on battle, they were oblivious of their surroundings, until Jones hissed suddenly beneath George Parr's armpit:

“Look out! Somebody's coming!”

They paused mutually and sat clasping each other like the first position of a sedentary dance. A light had appeared suddenly in a lower window and with one accord they rose and hurled themselves into the shadow of the porch: plunging into the flower bed as Mr. Saunders stepped through the window. Crushing themselves against the brick wall, they lay in a mutual passion for concealment, hearing Mr. Saunders's feet on the floor above their heads. They held their breath, closing their eyes like ostriches and the man came to the edge of the veranda, and standing directly over them, he shook cigar ashes upon them and spat across their prone bodies . . . after years had passed, he turned and went away.

After a while Jones heaved and George Farr released his cramped body. The light was off again and the house bulked huge and square, sleeping among the trees. They rose and stole across the lawn and after they had passed the frogs arid crickets resumed their mild monotonies.

“What——” began George Farr, once they were on the street again.

“Shut up,” Jones interrupted. “Wait until we are farther away.”

They walked side by side, and George Farr, seething, decided upon what he considered a safe distance. Stopping, he faced the other.

“What in hell were you doing there?” he burst out.

Jones had dirt on his face and his collar had burst. George Farr's tie was like a hangman's noose under his ear and he wiped his face with his handkerchief.

“What were you doing there?” Jones countered.

“None of your damn business,” he answered hotly. “What I ask is, what in hell do you mean, hanging around that house?”

“Maybe she asked me to. What do you think of that?”

“You lie,” said George Farr, springing upon him. They fought again in the darkness, beneath the arching silence of elms. Jones was like a bear and George Farr, feeling his soft enveloping hug, kicked Jones's legs from under him. They fell, Jones uppermost, and George lay gasping, with breath driven from his lungs, while Jones held him upon his back.

“How about it?” Jones asked, thinking of his shin. “Got enough?”

For reply, George Farr heaved and struggled, but the other held him down, thumping his head rhythmically upon the hard earth. “Come on, come on. Don't act like a child. What do we want to fight for?”

“Take back what you said about her, then,” he panted. Then he lay still and cursed Jones. Jones, unmoved, repeated:

“Got enough? Promise?”

George Farr arched his back, writhing, trying vainly to cast off Jones's fat enveloping bulk. At last he promised in weak rage, almost weeping, and Jones removed his soft weight. George sat up.

“You better go home,” Jones advised him, rising to his feet. “Come on, get up.” He took George's arm and tugged at it.

“Let go, you bastard!”

“Funny how things get , around,” remarked Jones mildly, releasing him. George got slowly to his feet and Jones continued: “Run along, now. You have been out late enough. Had a fight and everything.”

George Farr, panting, rearranged his clothes. Jones bulked vaguely beside him. “Good night,” said Jones, at last.

“Good night.”

They faced each other and after a time Jones repeated:

“Good night, I said.”

“I heard you.”

“What's the matter? Not going in now?”

“Hell, no.”

“Well, I am.” He turned away. “See you again.” George Farr followed him, doggedly. Jones, slow and fat, shapeless, in the darkness, remarked: “Do you live down this way now? You've moved recently, haven't you?”

“I live wherever you do tonight,” George told him, stubbornly.

“Thanks, awfully. But I have only one bed and I don't like to sleep double. So I can't ask you in. Some other time.”

They walked slowly beneath dark trees, in dogged intimacy. The clock on the courthouse struck one and the stroke died away into silence. After a while Jones stopped again. “Look here, what are you following me for?”

“She didn't ask you to come there tonight.”

“How do you know. If she asked you, she would ask someone else.”

“Listen,” said George Farr, “if you don't let her alone, I'll kill you. I swear I will.”

“Salut,” murmured Jones. “Ave Caesar. . . . Why don't you tell her father that? Perhaps he'll let you set up a tent on the lawn to protect her. Now, you go on and let me alone, do you hear?” George held his ground stubbornly. “You want me to beat hell out of you again?” Jones suggested.

“Try it,” George whispered with dry passion. Jones said:

“Well, we've both wasted this night, anyway. It's too late, now——”

“I'll kill you! She never told you to come at all. You just followed me. I saw you behind that tree. You let her alone, do you hear?”

“In God's name, man! Don't you see that all I want now is sleep? Let's go home, for heaven's sake.”

“You swear you are going home?”

“Yes, yes. I swear. Good night.”

George Farr watched the other's shapeless fading figure, soon it became but a thicker shadow among shadows. Then he turned homeward himself in cooled anger and bitter disappointment and desire. That blundering idiot had interfered this time, perhaps he would interfere every time. Or perhaps she would change her mind, perhaps, since he had failed her tonight. . . . Even Fate envied him this happiness, this unbearable happiness, he thought bitterly. Beneath trees arching the quiet sky, spring loosing her girdle languorous . . . her body, like a narrow pool, sweetly . . . I thought I had lost you, I found you again, and now he . . . He paused, sharply struck by a thought, an intuition. He turned and sped swiftly back.

He stood near a tree at the corner of the lawn and after a short time he saw something moving shapeless and slow across the faint grass, along a hedge. He strode out boldly and the other saw him and paused, then that one, too, stood erect and came boldly to meet him. Jones joined him, murmuring, “Oh, hell,” and they stood in static dejection, side by side.

“Well?” challenged George Farr, at last.

Jones sat down heavily on the sidewalk. “Let's smoke a while,” he suggested, in that impersonal tone which people sitting up with corpses use.

George Farr sat beside him and Jones held a match to his cigarette, then lit his own pipe. He sighed, clouding his head with an unseen pungency of tobacco. George Farr sighed also, resting his back against a tree. The stars swam on like the mast head lights of squadrons and squadrons on a dark river, going on and on. Darkness and silence and a world turning through darkness toward another day. . . . The bark of the tree was rough, the ground was hard. He wished vaguely that he were fat like Jones, temporarily. . . .

. . . Then, waking, it was about to be dawn. He no longer felt the earth and the tree save when he moved. It seemed to him that his thighs must be flattened like a table top and that his back had assumed depressions into which the projections of the tree trunk fitted like the locked rims of wheels.

There was a rumour of light eastward, somewhere beyond her house and the room where she lay in the soft familiar intimacy of sleep, like a faintly blown trumpet; soon perspective returned to a mysterious world, and instead of being a huge portentous shadow among lesser shadows, Jones was only a fat young man in baggy tweed, white and pathetic and snoring on his back.

George Farr, waking, saw him so, saw earth stains on him and a faint incandescence of dew. George Farr bore earth stains himself and his tie was a hangman's knot beneath his ear. The wheel of the world, slowing through the hours of darkness, passed the dead centre point and gained momentum. After a while Jones opened his eyes, groaning. He rose stiffly, stretching and spitting, yawning.

“Good time to go in, I think,” he said. George Farr, tasting his own sour mouth, moved and felt little pains, like tiny red ants, running over him. He, too, rose and they stood side by side. They yawned again.

Jones turned fatly, limping a little. “Good night,” he said.

“Good night.”

The east grew yellow, then red, and day had really come into the world, breaking the slumber of sparrows.

IV

But Cecily Saunders was not asleep. Lying on her back in her bed, in her dark room she, too, heard the hushed sounds of night, smelled the sweet scents of spring and dark and growing things: the earth, watching the wheel of the world, the terrible calm, inevitability oflife, turning through the hours of darkness, passing its dead centre point and turning faster, drawing the waters of dawn up from the hushed cistern of the east, breaking the slumber of sparrows.

V

“May I see him,” she pleaded hysterically, “may I? Oh, may I, please?”

Mrs. Powers, seeing her face, said: “Why, child! What is it? What is it, darling?”

“Alone, alone. Please. May I? May I?”

“Of course. What——”

“Thank you, thank you.” She sped down the hall and rrossed the study like a bird.

“Donald, Donald! It's Cecily, sweetheart. Cecily. Don't you know Cecily?”

“Cecily,” he repeated mildly. Then she stopped his mouth with hers, clinging to him.

“I will marry you, I will, I will. Donald, look at me. But you cannot, you cannot see me, can you? But I will marry you, today, any time: Cecily will marry you, Donald. You cannot see me, can you, Donald? Cecily. Cecily.”

“Cecily?” he repeated.

“Oh, your poor, poor face, your blind, scarred face! But I will marry you. They said I wouldn't, that I mustn't, but yes, yes, Donald my dear love!”

Mrs. Powers, following her, raised her to her feet, removing her arms. “You might hurt him, you know,” she said.

“Joe.”

“Whatcher say, Loot?”

“I'm going to get married, Joe.”

“Sure you are, Loot. Some day——” tapping himself on the chest.

“What's that, Joe?”

“I say, good luck. You got a fine girl.”

“Cecily . . . Joe?”

“Hallo.”

“She'll get used to my face.”

“You're damn right. Your face is all right. But easy there, don't knock 'em off. Attaboy,” as the other lowered his fumbling hand.

“What do I have to wear 'em for, Joe? Get married as well without 'em, can't I?”

“I'll be damned if I know why they make you wear 'em. I'll ask Margaret. Here, lemme have 'em,” he said suddenly removing the glasses. “Damn shame, making you keep 'em on. How's that? Better?”

“Carryon, Joe.”

II

San Francisco, Cal.,

April 24, 1919.

Margaret Dearest—

I miss you so much. If I could only see each other and talk to each other. I sit in my room and I think you are the only woman for me. Girls are not like you they are so young and dumb you can't trust them. I hope you are lonely for me like I am just to know you are sweetheart. When I kissed you that day I know you are the only woman for me Margaret. You cannot trust them. I told her hes just kidding her he wont get her a job in the movies. So I sit in my room and outside life goes on just the same though we are thousand miles apart wanting to see you like hell I think of how happy we will be. I haven't told my mother yet because we have been waiting we ought to tell her I think if you think so. And she will invite you out here and we can be together an day riding and swimming and dancing and talking to each other. If I can arrange business affairs I will come for you as soon as I can. It is hell without you

I miss you and I love you like hell.

J.

III

It had rained the night before but this morning was soft as a breeze. Birds across the lawn parabolic from tree to tree mocked him as he passed lounging and slovenly in his careless unpressed tweeds, and a tree near the corner of the veranda, turning upward its ceaseless white-bellied leaves, was a swirling silver veil stood on end, a fountain arrested forever: carven water.

He saw that black woman in the garden among roses, blowing smoke upon them from her pursed mouth, bending and sniffing above them, and he joined her with slow anticipated malice mentally stripping her straight dark unemphatic dress downward from her straight back over her firm quiet thighs. Hearing his feet on the gravel, she looked over her shoulder without surprise. Her poised cigarette balanced on its tip a wavering plume of vapour and Jones said:

“I have come to weep with you.”

She met his stare, saying nothing. Her other hand blanched upon a solid mosaic of red and green, her repose absorbed all motion from her immediate atmosphere so that the plume of her cigarette became rigid as a pencil, flowering its tip into nothingness.

“I mean your hard luck, losing your intended,” he explained.

She raised her cigarette and expelled smoke. He lounged nearer, his expensive jacket, which had evidently had no attention since he bought it, sagging to the thrust of his heavy hands, shaping his fat thighs. His eyes were bold and lazy, clear as a goat's. She got of him an impression of aped intelligence imposed on an innate viciousness; the cat that walks by himself.

“Who are your people, Mr. Jones?” she asked after a while.

“I am the world's little brother. I probably have a bar sinister in my 'scutcheon. In spite of me, my libido seems to be a complex regarding decency.”

What does that mean? she wondered. “What is your escutcheon, then?”

“One newspaper-wrapped bundle, couchant and rampant, one doorstep stone, on a field noir and damned froid. Device: Quand mangerai-je?”

“Oh. A foundling.” She smoked again.

“I believe that is the term. It is too bad we are contemporary: you might have found the thing yourself. I would not have thrown you down.”

“Thrown me down?”

“You can never tell just exactly how dead these soldiers are, can you? You think you have him and then the devil reveals as much idiocy as a normal sane person, doesn't he?”

She skilfully pinched the coal from her cigarette end and flipped the stub in a white twinkling arc, grinding the coal under her toe. “If that was an implied compliment——”

“Only fools imply compliments. The wise man comes right out with it, point-blank. Imply criticism—unless the criticizedis not within earshot.”

“It seems to me that is a rather precarious doctrine for one who is—if you will pardon me—not exactly a combative sort.”

“Combative?”

“Well, a fighting man, then. I can't imagine you lasting very long in an encounter with—say Mr. Gilligan.”

“Does that imply that you have taken Mr. Gilligan as a—protector?”

“No more than it implies that I expect compliments from you. For all your intelligence, you seem to have acquired next to no skill with women.”

Jones, remote and yellowly unfathomable, stared at her mouth. “For instance?”

“For instance, Miss Saunders,” she said, wickedly. “You seem to have let her get away from you, don't you?”

“Miss Saunders,” repeated Jones, counterfeiting surprise, admiring the way she had turned the tables on him without reverting to sex, “my dear lady, can you imagine anyone making love to her? Epicene. Of course it is different with a man practically dead,” he added, “he probably doesn't care much whom he marries, nor whether or not he marries at all.”

“No? I understood from your conduct the day I arrived that you had your eye on her. But perhaps I was mistaken after all.”

“Granted I had: you and I seem to be in the same fix now, don't we?”

She pinched through the stem of a rose, feeling him quite near her. Without looking at him she said:

“You have already forgotten what I told you, haven't you?” He did not reply. She released her rose and moved slightly away from him. “That you have no skill in seduction. Don't you know I can see what you are leading up to—that you and I should console one another? That's too childish, even for you. I have had to play at too many of these sexual acrostics with poor boys whom I respected even if I didn't like them.” The rose splashed redly against the front of her dark dress. She secured it with a pin. “Let me give you some advice,” she continued sharply, “the next time you try to seduce anyone, don't do it with talk, with words. Women know more about words than men ever will. And they know how little they can ever possibly mean.”

Jones removed his yellow stare. His next move was quite feminine: he turned and lounged away without a word. For he had seen Emmy beyond the garden hanging washed clothes upon a line. Mrs. Powers, looking after his slouching figure, said Oh. She had just remarked Emmy raising garments to a line with formal gestures, like a Greek masque.

She watched Jones approach Emmy, saw Emmy, when she heard his step, poise a half-raised cloth in a formal arrested gesture, turning her head across her reverted body. Damn the beast, Mrs. Powers thought, wondering whether or not to follow and interfere. But what good would it do? He'll only come back later. And playing Cerberus to Emmy. . . . She removed her gaze and saw Gilligan approaching. He blurted:

“Damn that girl. Do you know what I think? I think she——”

“What girl?”

“What's her name, Saunders. I think she's scared of something. She acts like she might have got herself into a jam of some kind and is trying to get out of it by taking the loot right quick. Scared. Flopping around like a fish.”

“Why don't you like her, Joe? You don't want her to marry him.”

“No, it ain't that. It just frets me to see her change her mind every twenty minutes.” He offered her a cigarette which she refused and lit one himself. “I'm jealous, I guess,” he said, after a time, “seeing the loot getting married when neither of 'em want to 'specially, while I can't get my girl at all. . . .”

“What, Joe? You married?”

He looked at her steadily. “Don't talk like that. You know what I mean.”

“Oh, Lord. Twice in one hour.” His gaze was so steady, so serious, that she looked quickly away.

“What's that?” she asked. She took the rose from her dress and slipped into it his lapel.

“Joe, what is that beast hanging around here for?”

“Who? What beast?” He followed her eyes. “Oh. That damn feller. I'm going to beat hell out of him on principle, someday. I don't like him.”

“Neither do I. Hope I'm there to see you do it.”

“Has he been bothering you?” he asked quickly. She gave him her steady gaze.

“Do you think he could?”

“That's right,” he admitted. He looked at Jones and Emmy again. “That's another thing. That Saunders girl lets him fool around her. I don't like anybody that will stand for him.”

“Don't be silly, Joe. She's just young and more or less of a fool about men.”

“If that's your polite way of putting it, I agree with you.” His eyes touched her smooth cheek blackly winged by her hair. “If you had let a man think you was going to marry him you wouldn't blow hot and cold like that.”

She stared away across the garden and he repeated: “Would you, Margaret?”

“You are a fool yourself, Joe. Only you are a nice fool.” She met his intent gaze and he said Margaret? She put her swift strong hand on his arm. “Don't Joe. Please.”

He rammed his hands in his pockets, turning away. They walked on in silence.

IV

Spring, like a soft breeze, was in the rector's fringe of hair as with upfiung head he tramped the porch like an old war-horse who hears again a trumpet after he had long thought all wars were done. Birds in a wind across the lawn, parabolic from tree to tree, and a tree at the comer of the house turning upward its white-bellied leaves in a passionate arrested rush: it and the rector faced each other in ecstasy. A friend came morosely along the path from the kitchen door.

“Good morning, Mr. Jones,” the rector boomed, scattering sparrows from the screening vine. The tree to his voice took a more unbearable ecstasy, its twinkling leaves swirled in a never-escaping silver skyward rush.

Jones, nursing his hand, replied Good morning in a slow obese anger. He mounted the steps and the rector bathed him in a hearty exuberance.

“Come 'round to congratulate us on the good news, eh? Fine, my boy, fine, fine. Yes, everything is arranged at last. Come in, come in.”

Emmy flopped on to the veranda belligerently. “Uncle Joe,” she said, shooting at Jones a hot exulting glance. Jones, nursing his hand, glowered at her. (God damn you, you'll suffer for this.)

“Eh? What is it, Emmy?”

“Mr. Saunders is on the 'phone: he wants to know if you'll see him this morning.” (I showed you! Teach you to fool with me.)

“Ah, yes. Mr. Saunders coming to discuss plans for the marriage, Mr. Jones.”

“Yes, sir.” (I'll fix you.)

“What'll I tell him?” (Do it, if you think you can. You have never come off very well yet. You fat worm.)

“Tell him, by all means, that I had intended calling upon him myself. Yes, indeed. Ah, Mr. Jones, we are all to be congratulated this morning.”

“Yes, sir.” (You little slut.)

“Tell him, by all means, Emmy.”

“All right.” (I told you I'd do it! I told you you can't fool with me. Didn't I, now?)

“And, Emmy, Mr. Jones will be with us for lunch. A celebration is in order, eh, Mr. Jones?”

“Without doubt. We all have something to celebrate.” (That's what makes me so damn mad: you said you would and I let you do it. Slam a door on my hand! Damn you to hell.)

“All right. He can stay if he wants to.” (Damn YOU to hell.) , Emmy arrowed him another hot exulting glance and slammed the door as a parting shot.

The rector tramped heavily, happily, like a boy. “Ah, Mr. Jones, to be as young as he is, to have your life circumscribed, moved hither and yonder at the vacillations of such delightful pests. Women, women! How charming never to know exactly what you want! While we men are always so sure we do. Dullness, dullness, Mr. Jones. Perhaps that's why we like them, yet cannot stand very much of them. What do you think?”

Jones, glumly silent, nursing his hand, said after a while: “I don't know. But it seemed to me your son has had extraordinarily good luck with his women.”

“Yes?” the rector said, with interest. “How so?”

“Well (I think you told me that he was once involved with Emmy?), well, he no longer remembers Emmy (damn her soul: slam a door on me) and now he is about to become involved with another whom he will not even have to look at. What more could one ask than that?”

The rector looked at him keenly and kindly a moment. “You have retained several of your youthful characteristics, Mr. Jones.”

“What do you mean?” asked Jones, with defensive belligerence. A car drew up to the gate, and after Mr. Saunders had descended, drove away.

“One in particular: that of being unnecessarily and pettily brutal about rather insignificant things. Ah,” he added, looking up, “here is Mr. Saunders. Excuse me, will you? You will probably find Mrs. Powers and Mr. Gilligan in the garden,” he said, over his shoulder, greeting his caller.

Jones, in a vindictive rage, saw them shake hands. They ignored him and he lounged viciously past them seeking his pipe. It eluded him and he cursed it slowly, beating at his various pockets.

“I had intended calling upon you today.” The rector took his caller affectionately by the elbow. “Come in, come in.”

Mr. Saunders allowed himself to be propelled across the veranda. Murmuring a conventional response the rector herded him heartily beneath the fanlight, down the dark hall and into the study, without noticing the caller's air of uncomfortable reserve. He moved.a chair for the guest and took his own seat at the desk. Through the window he could see a shallow section of the tree that, unseen but suggested, swirled upward in an ecstasy of never-escaping silver-bellied leaves.