“Don’t, Milton,” she said. “That’s all right.”
From below there came a slamming of doors, young happy voices, and then Edward’s laughter, too loud.
“There’s Peyton,” he said, drawing his face away from hers. For a moment they were silent. “She hates me,” she whispered. He took her hand in his and held it tightly. It was awful. A note of music, stark and persistent, sounding from nowhere, but filled with the sense of indelible pain, hovered in the air, and he shook his head, as if to cast it away from him, thinking of his children, of that old ecstasy no longer his but lost now, and of Maudie dying in another room. Beneath his fingers he felt the web of veins which lined her hand, and he pressed it to his cheek. “Oh, no,” he said, “oh, no, don’t say it.” But it passed. Sunk in resolute silence, she didn’t answer; she pulled her hand away, breathing deeply, and the music vanished. His pain was snatched up into the night, as if by an unseen hand.
He would recall later how that moment had expressed for the last time the tenderness that existed between them. It seemed the closest they could ever get. Why hadn’t something important happened, then? It was as if he—yes, she, too; how could he tell?—had just tried too hard. No one knows when the heart’s eye opens; theirs had opened wide for a moment and had gazed each at the other, then blinked shut as quickly. It was too late now, he knew; anything might happen, and he was prepared for an emergency. He got up.
“Do you want to see Peyton?” he said.
“No.”
“You said you did.”
“A little later. I’m tired now.”
“She doesn’t hate you, Helen. It’s you who hate things around here.”
“She has said to me,” she went on in a soft low voice, “she has said, I hate you.”
“Don’t be childish.”
“She said that to my face.”
It was no use. Damn Dolly anyway. Why had she called? And then it all came to him in a sudden bitter flash. He leaned over her, saying sharply: “Why do you have to take all this out on Peyton? Helen, what’s the matter with you, anyway? You’re not well. Let’s go to that Norfolk man like I said. I just can’t take any more of this.”
She stirred, sighed, a thin ugly phantom of a laugh escaped from her throat, and she murmured: “Old innocent Milton. How thoughtful.”
Yes. Good God, there was nothing to do. Some cold guilt crept up his back and he shuddered, saying quickly: “Helen, listen. Helen, I’ll throw up all this other thing, you know. If you’d just not antagonize Peyton. Oh, God, it’s so wrong! I thought this was going to be a fine Christmas, everybody saw how well you looked, and now see what’s happened.”
“All your fault, all your fault,” she said sarcastically and because it was dark now he couldn’t see her, but only heard the sullen rustle of bedclothes as she turned over on her side away from him.
That was all. He slammed the door as he went out, struck suddenly with a thought of his father’s: My son, pure frustration can lead to the highest understanding, pluck at those bare addled bones, sniff around, confront the awful truth and if you faint not, in the words of our Lord, and suffer in your hot desire then perhaps you will understand, patience, my son; but Papa just didn’t know. Papa could never realize that such talk was meant only for those who had no dilemmas anyway. He could never have foreseen this Christmas: how each minute that clicked past from the time he strode out of Helen’s room seemed charged with a violent inevitability, beyond the reach of platitudes: Loftis felt he could have halted the outcome only by dynamiting the house.
And he recalled later how grown-up Peyton seemed, after a space of three months: she had let her hair grow and, sparkling with snowdrops, it fell in brown waves to her shoulders, somehow lending a new, saucy assurance to her face, which she held up to him for a kiss, grinning and breathless, and with winter’s lovely glow inflaming her cheeks. She shook the snow from her coat and, holding his hand, said no, no, she positively couldn’t stay for supper, Daddy, there was a dance at the country club in less than an hour, and she introduced him to Dick Cartwright, a slender, rather handsome young junior from the University, smelling of beer, who had a crew cut and an oversized pipe, which he ceased gravely sucking long enough to shake Loftis’ hand, with the condescending air of juniors. In one corner of the living room Edward stood morosely nursing a drink and he bent down unsteadily and turned on the radio; having greeted Peyton and Dick, he had retreated to some grandiose world of his own, and Loftis, taking in this scene, had only time enough to turn and ask Peyton, “Are you going to stay till New Year’s, honey?” before she had dashed up the steps, to dress, shouting back, “I don’t know, Daddy!”
A heavy disappointment filled him (Why won’t she stay home? he was thinking) and, with vaguely fearful, shadowy thoughts of Helen upstairs lying in the darkness, he turned to Dick Cartwright and offered him a drink, adding, “What branch of the service are you going into, son?”
The boy ran his hand through his cropped hair. “I think I’ll get my degree and then go into the Navy. I’m in the Reserve.” They all sat down.
“Better go into a man’s outfit,” said Edward humorously.
It fell flat. The boy made a nervous chuckle, swallowed part of his drink, and solemnly stuck the pipe back between his teeth. The lights on the Christmas tree cast a cheery glow through the room. Loftis tried to make conversation, but there were subdued sounds from upstairs—Peyton’s and Helen’s voices together, punctuated by silences, low and faintly ominous—and he found it almost impossible to concentrate. However, he did learn a few details about the Cartwright home on the Northern Neck, where Peyton and Dick had spent the first part of the holidays, and discovered that the boy’s father was the well-known Harrison Cartwright, a wealthy automobile dealer who had strange, nebulous connections with the Byrd machine. The boy was nice-looking and had precise good manners, but with a sudden odd sense of possession Loftis began to wonder what Peyton thought of him, whether they had maybe … “Have another drink, Dick,” Loftis said, and regretted the offer, for the boy already looked as if he’d had one too many on the road. Eventually Edward began to go on pompously and at great length about the coming campaign in the Pacific, and Loftis, hearing the voices grow louder upstairs, felt miserable, with a limping undercurrent of fury: If Helen does anything, God damn her—but then, taking the cue from Dick, he listened with polite resentment to Edward’s speech, which had begun to compete successfully with the radio and the quavering, envenomed voice of Lionel Barrymore as Scrooge.
Peyton came down finally, but she didn’t stop in the living room, and her evening gown made a soft diaphanous rustle in the hallway, then ceased as she stood, silent and mysterious, behind them. “Bunny,” she called.
He got up from his seat and went to her. She looked beautiful and he took her in his arms, gazing down into her face. Oh, Lord, he thought and, aware of the answer, asked, “What’s the matter, baby?”
She told him. He might have known. Helen had said, Peyton you must stay home. Had said, Christmas Eve is no time for parties, Peyton dear; Uncle Edward is here, you and Dick stay downstairs and I’ll get up and get Maudie dressed and we’ll all have a nice party right here. We’ll open all the presents.
Or something like that.
Had said (As she saw that her words had had little effect, Loftis imagined, Helen’s voice had risen a little here, and the old frantic glow come to her eyes): Peyton, dear, it’s so nice to see you again, stay, won’t you? You’ve already arranged … No, then? No? But really, dear—I’m so glad you’ve let your hair grow, it’s lovely, dear—I’ve tried to fix things up so nice for you, and now … No, then? No? Oh, you’ve promised? (Sinking back onto the pillow.) All right, all right, have it your way then. (Turning to look at her for a moment, bitterly, then gazing away at the ceiling, perhaps with her breath now coming in long, pained gasps, or then again, naturally and easily, being mistress of her emotions.) All right then. I guess your father thinks it’s all right. Go out
, do what you want then. (Turning again.) Go on!
Dick Cartwright was assembling their coats and scarves in the other room, and trying nobly to pay attention to Edward. As Loftis held Peyton against him, she told him what had happened, in a remote wistful voice touched more with disappointment and regret than with anything else. She said, “I wanted to see Maudie, but—” and paused—“but I’m going, Bunny,” she added, not angrily, merely with a sort of placid acceptance of the fact that she was a woman now, and that the age of eighteen was made for fun, while rather sadly, “It’s too bad, isn’t it, that everything has to be like this?”
Suddenly she became gay; she stretched out her arm, arched her wrist, and said in the tones of Tallulah Bankhead: “Richard, dawling, my coat if you please!” “Peyton—” Loftis began, and reached out for her with something like desperation. But she was gone before he knew it and he found himself standing alone in the hallway with the touch of her last light kiss upon his cheek, young laughter—in a way not really heartfelt at all—hovering in the air around him, as he blinked stupidly at the chill black night, the open door, the lopsided wreath, still trembling.
Pity had him shackled in frail impotence; he felt bound by threads of affection—or was it merely habit?—too thin to break. Even then, in the monstrous blush of pity which verged close to despair, he somehow knew that his vast pity for Helen was only a form of self-pity, and he cursed himself for an unmerry Christmas, for Peyton’s unhappiness and his own bleak inertia. Perhaps, he later thought, he would have been justified at that moment in having a showdown with Helen, but it was Peyton who would suffer the most if there were a fight, and he knew that the longed-for phrase (mentally practiced with stern fury and gestures)—“I’m leaving now, Helen. Period”—would still only be a threat. Pity had him enthralled. Bemused by his Weltschmerz, he telephoned Dolly, but there was no answer. He nibbled on some turkey that Ella had left in the kitchen. Finally he went back to the living room and drank with Edward, and because he was lonely and full of pity he even warmed a little to the man’s deplorable egotism, and they talked until past midnight when, to the faint sound of carols far down the street, they wobbled upstairs to bed.
So Christmas Day was ghastly. Pure hell. Waking with a headache, he knew by the sunlight that it was late, and by some dark residual sense of gloom that the day would have to be a cautious one, full of perils. The house was completely still; there were no festive shouts or excited murmurings—only silence. It felt like a house in which someone was lying gravely ill, and he got out of bed with a foul taste in his mouth. He looked at his watch. Helen and Maudie would be at church. Outside, the bay was partly frozen, but the exposed blue water was dazzling; the blues and the whites together were stark and monumental, like a day painted on a calendar, with no subtle colors anywhere. But far off in the north, clouds were gathering, promising more snow. He made a ticklish shave and dressed and tiptoed into the room where Peyton lay sleeping. He sat down on the bed beside her and roused her with a kiss. She stirred, stretched and pressed her head down into the pillow.
“God, I’ve got a hangover,” she said.
He punched her in the ribs, gently, and leaned down and kissed her again. “Baby,” he murmured, “what did you say?”
She opened one eye and then the other, wide, and, blushing, covered her head with the pillow. “Didn’t know it was you” came the muffled voice.
He spanked her across the bottom. “Merry Christmas!”
“Ow!” She sat up, hair falling across her face.
“Who do you love?” he asked.
“Me.”
“No,” he persisted, “who do you love? Who’s your sugar baby?”
She frowned, squinting into the light. Then she rested her head on his shoulder, and said sleepily: “Bunny. Anyway, it’s ‘whom’ do you love. I think.”
“Spell it.”
“J-A-C-K-A-S-S.”
“That’s not right, but it’ll do. Since you’ve got a hangover. When did you start hitting the bottle that hard? I thought I was the family disgrace.”
“Oh, darling, I have the vastest capacity ever,” she asserted, in a new sprightly voice, “I go with the KA’s, you know. You should know. You’re a KA yourself. I have really an enormous capacity. It’s good for you. It clears the mind and allows the entry there of things of the in-tell-ect. I also have lots of other vices.”
“What do you know about intellect? Or vices?”
“That’s what Dick said.”
“He’s a nice boy. Do you like him?”
“Mmm. He’s nice enough, I guess. He’s in love with me,” she said serenely.
A curious sinking sensation came over him. “Where is he now?” he said. “I thought he was going to stay here.”
“He was, but when we came in this morning at the glorious hour of three-thirty he and Chuck Barlow just had to go to Chuck’s house to finish drinking. Chuck’s a KA too, you know—the Barlows live down in Hampton. So I told him to go on, it was all right with me, and I’d see him tonight.” She paused, thoughtfully; her brow went up in tiny wrinkles. “I was a little scared, though. The roads are full of ice, you know, and everyone was most gloriously drunk. Bunny, you should have heard them singing—all the old songs—it was lovely. Oh, give me a cigarette, Bunny.”
Now he would ask her. He held out a pack of cigarettes, saying, “Baby, aren’t you going to stay until New Year’s?”
She lit the cigarette, pushing the hair back from her eyes, and gazed toward the bay. “Are you?” he repeated, adding irrelevantly, as if he didn’t want at all to hear her answer: “You’ve got to come down and open your presents.”
“Uncle Eddie’s gone,” she said.
“What?” he exclaimed, surprised.
“When I came in he went out. They called him from camp. An emergency or something. He didn’t want to wake you up. God, he looked lit. Mother was downstairs in her bathrobe telling him good-by when I came in.”
“What would the war do without Edward?” he said, with a touch of malice and perhaps jealousy.
“What?” Peyton said, turning toward him.
“Nothing.” He took her hand. “Are you going to stay with me a little while?” His voice was light but there was sudden pleading in it, and in order to hide his anxiety he added with a laugh: “Baby’s got to quit running around the countryside all the time.” The squeeze he gave her hand betrayed him and she drew it away, saying in the impatient, grown-up tone: “Oh, I don’t know, Bunny. Now if you’ll just get out of here—” kissing him smack on the mouth—“I’ve got to get dressed. I’m just most violently opposed to men watching my soft young baw-dy. Now go on, sweetie.”
“O.K.” He got up. At the door he turned and said, “Did she say anything else to you last night? When you came in?”
“Oh, I’m hung over!” Hard noontime light filled the room; it was a light which, from where he stood, dazzled and blinded, yet it possessed a cold transparency, a frozen lemonade color that brought to his eyes, still puffy with sleep, all the familiar, forgotten configurations of the room: the bookcase in fading childish enamel, red and green; tatters of high-school pennants still clinging to the walls; and in one shady corner a locker colored in naive pink where still lay, for all he knew, in positions of blushing painted catalepsy, all the cast-off dolls, Here, framed in the sun’s bright rectangle, she was already undressing, and along the arch of her back were drawn, like marks from a lash, the slatted shadows of the open blinds. Fascinated and confused, he watched this woman: she was shivering a little from the chill, and there was a final swift wriggle as the pajama pants fell from her waist. “Well, are you going to stay honey?” he fairly shouted, in a broken voice, but she only called back over her shoulder, “Daddy, get out of here!” and, swallowing hard, he left the room.
The moment of excitement, confusion, whatever it was, lingered briefly but soon passed away, for when Helen arrived a few minutes later, pulling up the driveway with a sputter of tires on the hard-pack
ed snow, the day began to gather quick momentum. Oddly, she put him off guard at first, not with a mere “Merry Christmas!” but with: “My, you should have seen the church, Milton. It was beautiful,” smiling at him in an equivocal way, which made him turn his eyes aside, as she took off her galoshes. Pleased at this amenity, but still cautious, he started to make a general reply—“Well, nice!” or even, “Splendid!”—but she had deposited Maudie on a stool beneath the Christmas tree and, because Ella had been granted leave of absence to attend church, hurried into the kitchen to fix dinner.
He was not aware of the moment when the sky became overcast. He poured himself a drink; a smell of cooking drifted in from the kitchen, and in boredom, waiting impatiently for Peyton to come downstairs, he sat on the floor beside Maudie and picked out tunes on a toy xylophone. His gifts had not been opened: there was a large square package, probably a dressing gown, from Helen, another, smaller one from Peyton. Neither Peyton nor Helen had opened their presents—only Maudie, early that morning—and he sat amid a litter of tinsel string and wrappings plunking aimless notes from the xylophone, which was chipped and nearly bare of paint, a perennial. “Listen, Maudie,” he said.
God knew how many Christmases ago Maudie had first seen it, uncomprehendingly pushed it aside, or how many Christmases, each Christmas, it had been revived by Helen to tie together the passing years, to perform its tinkling ritual of remembrance, regret and undying hope. Now, bending over him, Maudie inclined her head to one side and was pleased, perhaps, for she stared into space with brown rapt eyes which made him at least imagine she was pleased, as the hollow insipid knocking notes echoed plunk-plink-plunk around the room. Si-lent night, ho-ly night. There was an inept clashing of pots and pans in the kitchen, an undertone of furious, obsessed whisperings—was she talking to herself? “Helen!” he called dutifully, “can I help you?” No answer. He drank, looking up from the xylophone, and saw that the sun, like the day itself, passing with the merest unconscious flicker of a threat out of morning, had faded: a ghostly recessional of ocean-bound clouds hung over the bay, gray, portentous, billowing, enveloping the snow in an apron of dull dingy smoke.