The Last Adam (9 page)

"Come down, Virginia, I want to talk to you."

"It's almost dinner-time. I have to change."

"Virginia —"

"Can't you ever let me alone?"

Guy had come out, too, now. "Listen, Ginny, the next time you —"

"Oh, shut up, Guy!"

"Virginia!"

The sound of her light footfalls passed along the hall above. Resounding, the door of her room went shut, slammed with all her might.

"For heaven's sake, Mother, why do you let her get away with it?"

Mr. Banning, standing with his back to the fire, shook his head. "What's to be done?" he asked. "You wouldn't suggest beating her, would you?" He looked at his son with frank interest.

"Well," Guy said, "you might take her allowance away."

"That isn't very effective up here. She can't get anything she really wants with money."

"You might promise her something she really wants, if she'd behave herself for a month. Or maybe twenty minutes would be enough."

Mr. Banning smiled. "It seems to me that the last thing she wanted—unless it was your car, which, you notice, she took—was to go to a notorious road-house over by Torrington. It seems to be not only a speak-easy but a house of assignation. We thought that it wasn't suitable."

"She must be crazy!"

"No, I don't think it's as simple as that. We're taught that there's no disputing tastes. Only, it happens that almost all the things she wants to do—well! We can't get results by saying, 'Virginia, if you don't obey, you won't be allowed to go to the Congregational Church Supper.' "

Guy was slightly amused. "You might try saying that if she didn't obey, she'd have to go."

"We might," admitted Mr. Banning, "but I think we won't. I don't know whether you've seen Mr. Keen, the new minister there. He appears to be a polite and agreeable young man. I don't think it would be fair to him to send Virginia in a resentful mood. She's no great respecter of places and persons."

"The whole trouble," Guy said, "is that you simply spoil her. She knows by this time that nothing ever happens to her, no matter what she does. That's why she always gets into trouble at school. She's never had to learn to do what she's told and keep still. When she knows nothing is going to happen to her —"

"Now, it seems to me that you're wrong there," Mr. Banning objected. "In point of fact, the most terrible things happen to her all the time."

"Herbert, what on earth do you mean?"

"My dear, I mean that every time she thinks of something she would like to do, her elders prevent her from doing it. What could be worse?"

"Well, she shouldn't want to do such asinine things!"

"Herbert, I don't think that's true at all. It seems to me that she has a remarkable amount of freedom." Guy, gazing at him, said: "You're always on her side, Father. You'd let her get away with murder if —"

"Dinner is served, ma'am."

"Oh, Mary, Virginia isn't down yet. Could we have five minutes?"

"I'm coming," she shouted. She stepped out of the shower, jerked off her rubber cap and slung it into the tub. Snatching a towel, she dried herself ferociously, writhed into step-ins. Coming into her room, she pulled out a drawer and found stockings, flung open the closet and threw on the bed first her blue frock, then slippers. Her stockings on, her frock over her head, she dropped, before the dressing-table, pulled a comb through her fluffy brownish hair, drove a hairpin in by her left, ear to hold it. Working her feet into the slippers, she unstopped a lipstick, smeared her upper lip, passed her lower lip over it. Leaving everything in great confusion, she went out and downstairs, hungry and very pale. It had taken her about four minutes.

In the candle-lighted dining-room, her father drew out her chair. "I hear you went for a drive," he said, seating her. "How does Guy's car behave?"

"It's all right."

"Comfortable?"

"Yes."

"He was particularly anxious to know what you thought of it."

A slight, stain-like flush began to appear on Virginia's cheek-bones. She lifted her eyes and looked across the table at Guy. "I'm sorry I took your damn car," she said. "I won't do it again."

"Well, all right," said Guy. "It doesn't matter."

Mrs. Banning, starting belatedly at the word "damn," let her lips part to protest, but Mr. Banning said: "Very handsome, Guy. I think we can call the matter closed. What happened at the School Board meeting, Lucile?"

"I want to talk to you about it some time," she said promptly.

Where Guy got his reasonable decisiveness was easy to see; but the truth was, Mr. Banning found it pleasanter in Lucile. That was; there were known limits to it. If she would consider it weak to be indecisive, she would consider it ill-bred to be assertive; and looking at her, he could guess that that consideration had once more stopped her short of accomplishment.

"As bad as that?" he said, smiling.

"No, I simply want to find out what we can do, about a new Medical Examiner. It's really, getting out; of hand."

"Old Doc Bull cutting up?" asked Guy. "How's his inamorata, by the way?"

"Guy!"

"Oh, heavens, Mother," observed Virginia, her voice reviving, "don't you think I know he sleeps with Miss Cardmaker?"

"Herbert, I really —"

"My dear, Virginia knew all about it, it seems. What is the present difficulty?"

"He simply will not do the work. I think Doctor Verney could find somebody in Sansbury who would come up. The difficulty is what it always is. Mr. Harris and Mr. Lane. Of course, I cannot get on with Mr. Harris. I've always been as pleasant to him as I knew how, but I know he dislikes me and I know he dislikes Mr. Getchell. I've been noticing recently, and I've never known him to agree to anything that Mr. Getchell and I favoured. It seems to me real malevolence in a case like this. I mean, for him to insist on keeping an ignorant, careless, indifferent doctor in charge of the school children's health just to be contrary —"

"What happened about your note to the County Health Officer?"

"I had an answer. He said he would bring the complaint to Doctor Bull's attention. Of course that doesn't do any good. Doctor Bull has no interest in public health. He—"

"Or else, too much," Mr. Banning said. "You surely haven't forgotten that his zeal in the performance of his duty cost me fifty dollars last week? Larry, by the way, is something only very rich people can afford; it gets clearer and clearer to me."

"Herbert, that fine was simply spite. He knew about my writing to Litchfield. He knew I'd been trying to have something done about the vaccinations at Cold Hill since last September."

"But without success?"

"No. I mean, yes. How could I? I want to take the matter up with Hartford."

"Well, I'll bet he did them to-day," said Virginia, interested. "I met him coming from around the Cobble this afternoon, when I was going out to Val's. I guess he wouldn't have been at Joel Parry's; I know he wasn't at the Hoyts'; and that awful Mr. Lincoln is away. So he must have been up Cold Hill."

"That doesn't change the fact that he should have done them months ago."

"I'm afraid you'll find it does, though," Mr. Banning said. "As long as his duty wasn't done, you had a slight chance, if you could reach the right people, of getting somebody in lawful authority to write a letter asking him please to do it at his earliest convenience. I'm afraid not much attention will be paid, once it's learned that what you complain about has already been taken care of."

"Herbert, it's hard for me to believe that in this day and age we have to be saddled with that depraved old monster. To leave the health of the whole town officially in his care —"

"My dear, if the town is satisfied with it, what can you do? He isn't our physician. It would be hard to show how his failings could possibly affect us. Consequently I don't know that we have much right to interfere on behalf of people who don't see the need for interference."

"Well, I can assure you that plenty of people do see the need. I think that it would be a very poor attitude for me to take, that because he doesn't affect us, or can't, it's not my concern. I certainly shan't rest until I've seen what can be done with the State Health Department."

"The State Health Department acts in an advisory capacity, Lucile. Strictly advisory. We're very jealous of our small independences in Connecticut. Personally I'm all in favour of as little interference from Hartford as possible; but, of course, one drawback to being free is that you have to take care of yourself."

"Well, I wish you'd show me exactly what the law is on the subject. Do you know?"

"Only vaguely, my dear. As a Justice of Peace, I try to keep some track of the Connecticut Code, but there isn't much practical incentive. We so seldom have any cases. However, we can look it up. I'm not sure that I would advise you to press the matter against a general indifference. It's easily misinterpreted as officiousness— the train of pride, the impudence of wealth. If wealth it can be called."

"Are you through, Guy? All right, we'll go and have coffee."

The pantry door swung ajar and Mary said, "Might I speak to you a moment, ma'am?"

"Why, yes, Mary." Mrs. Banning turned and went into the pantry.

In the library, Mr. Banning said, "Cigar, son?"

"I guess not, thanks, sir." Guy snapped open a cigarette-case. He took a cigarette and Virginia took another.

"I'm afraid not," said Mr. Banning. "I don't want to seem tyrannical, but I've explained to you before that any smoking you do until after your seventeenth birthday will have to be surreptitious. That's not such a great inconvenience for you, is it?"

Virginia threw the cigarette into the fire. "Daddy," she said, "I want to go to Paris. I can, can't I? Val's going. We're going to stay with a French family. Mr. Hoyt stayed with them when he was studying in Paris; and we'd be perfectly all right; and it would hardly cost anything."

"Hardly anything is rather an elastic term."

"I mean, maybe a thousand dollars, for a whole year. Daddy, say I can!"

"Don't be crazy!" said Guy. "What on earth would you do in Paris?"

"I'd learn French, and we could study, and——"

"Good so far," admitted Mr. Banning. "But is it far enough? Perhaps we'd better postpone the hearing to give you time to prepare your case. I don't think your mother would be enough impressed —"

"But you think I should go? You think it's all right? Please, Daddy."

"Now, now, now. I have to see which way the wind is blowing. You can't expect me to go in on the losing side, can you?"

"Daddy, don't joke! Won't you please say yes?"

"Ginny, what good would it do you to hear me say yes, when your mother is so likely to say no?"

"Daddy, I've got to go. I just can't stand it here!"

" When is Val going?"

"In April, unless her father has to go to New Mexico. But he won't have to. She wrote for our reservations."

'My dear, I'm sorry to say it, but there is not the faintest chance of your going in April. I simply won't have the money."

"Daddy! Only ninety dollars! You could send me the rest later. Only ninety dollars, Daddy!"

"Virginia, you may not know it, but with things as they are, ninety dollars is by no means a trifle. If ninety dollars were the end of it, I won't pretend that it couldn't be managed. But, my dear, it's not. The sum you first named wouldn't be a beginning. In matters like this, one thousand dollars always means two and usually three. I absolutely cannot afford to add that way to our expenses at the moment. In a year or two —"

"Listen, Ginny, don't you even know there's a depression on?"

Virginia sat down tense on the edge of a chair. "Daddy, please! Please! I wouldn't ask you if——"

"You might as well ask me for the moon, my dear. I haven't got it. If, in a year or two, things look better, I promise you I'll manage somehow to make it possible for you to spend a year in Paris, if you still want to. You'll be older then, and your mother may not object so much. Now, now; economic necessity is insensible to tears! That's why the poor are always with us."

"Don't be so rotten and selfish, Ginny!" said Guy. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, sitting here bawling because you can't go on a bat to Paris, when God knows how many million people don't know where their next meal's coming from!"

"Well, son," said Mr. Banning, "that sounds like a social conscience! Is it a permanent improvement, or are you just experimenting with it to add to your sister's troubles?" He came over, drew a handkerchief from his breast-pocket and put it in Virginia's hands. "Can't we keep this from your mother? You see, even if she were to consent, we couldn't manage it. No need to have a difference of opinion over what we would or would not do if we could. That's a good girl. You just sit back in that chair out of the light and you'll do —"

"Herbert!"

"Why, Lucile! What is it?"

"Oh, my dear—that poor child! Mary's brother just came in. Mamie's dead."

TWO

1

EVEN Belle Rogers would, not wait until after midnight to learn if or when he left. Walking to his car, there was not a light George Bull could see anywhere; there was no one to see him. Under the dark hill of the barn, in tepid darkness, the cows maintained a vigil in their fashion; some aimlessly standing; some couched philosophic on the concrete. They were not bored; probably they were not sad or weary. If they heard the mortal gasps of the Devon dying near them, they knew by now that the noise did not mean anything worth attention.

George Bull thought of it, oppressed, for the disgust of sobriety regained, and his body's accumulated need to sleep, took the life out of his wakefulness. Leadenly, he was aware of himself alive, and so, heavy-hearted, of death—of when he would no longer be what he now wearily was. The evil destinies of man and the immense triumphs of death, seen so clearly at this bad hour, loaded him down. Discouragement, to feel death's certainty; exasperation, to know the fatuousness of resisting such an adversary—what was the use of temporary evasions or difficult little remedies when death simply came back and came back until it won?—moved him more than any personal dread of extinction, or compassion for those stricken. The stricken, beyond help, were beyond needing help. During the last forty years, fully a hundred human beings had actually died while he watched. He couldn't recall one who gave signs of minding much; they were too sick or too badly hurt to care. If they were conscious enough to know that they were alive, pain blurred their view; they saw no good anywhere. They were not given peace to regret a lost future; they were beyond desiring anything. In its melancholy way, the flesh, maligned mortality, took tender care of its own. It would never let the intolerable be long imposed; the impossible was never required. George Bull thought: "The Bulls are long-lived. I might be here twenty years from now, without surprising anyone."