He looked down at her. “When you grow up, baby,” he said, “you’re going to be wonderful.”
She didn’t answer him. After a while, she said, “Daddy, I’m sorry Buster and me tied up Maudie.”
“No,” he replied, “that wasn’t a very good idea. Buster and I.”
“Buster and I. Why did Mama hit me like that? She never——”
“She was just feeling bad, baby.” He put his arm around her and pulled her close against him.
“Yes,” Peyton said thoughtfully. “I reckon she was feeling bad. I was really sorry to hurt Maudie like that.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Children should be kind to one another,” Peyton said.
“Yes.”
Soon Peyton fell asleep against him, and an offshore breeze sprang up, rustling her hair, bringing with it an odor of swamp and cedar, remembrance things, out of this season of love and rain.
3
HALFWAY between the railroad station and Port Warwick proper—a distance altogether of two miles—the marshland, petering out in disconsolate, solitary clumps of cattails, yields gradually to higher ground. Here, bordering the road, an unsightly growth of weeds takes over, brambles and briars of an uncertain dirty hue which, as if with terrible exertion, have struggled through the clay to flourish now in stunted gray profusion, bending and shaking in the wind. The area adjacent to this stretch of weeds is bleakly municipal in appearance: it can be seen from the road, and in fact the road eventually curves and runs through it. Here there are great mounds of garbage; a sweet, vegetable odor rises perpetually on the air and one can see—from the distance faintly iridescent—whole swarms of carnivorous flies blackening the garbage and maybe a couple of proprietary rats, propped erect like squirrels, and blinking sluggishly, with mild, infected eyes, at some horror-stricken Northern tourist.
It was along about here, as the limousine, with its tires sizzling musically over the hot asphalt, proceeded into town, that Dolly began to have her premonition again. The day had grown hotter; greasy waves of heat swam up from the road. There was no wind at all now and the weeds on either side of the road, so hot and dry and motionless, seemed perilously close to flame. Trickles of sweat began to ooze down beneath her arms. The garbage piles swept past, emitting a nasty smell, and with a jolt the limousine had risen to the span of a small bridge. Below was a brackish creek, foul with sewage and hostile to all life save for great patches of algae the color of green pea soup, where dragonflies darted and hovered, suspended from the sunny air as if by invisible threads. She looked at the creek despondently: somewhere there had been a silly story about the creek—about a Negro convict who had fallen into the stream and been drowned and who, since the body, mysteriously, was never recovered, had reappeared from the creek at night on each anniversary of his death, covered with scum and slobbering horribly at the mouth as he prowled the town in search of beautiful white women to ravish and to drag back to the unspeakable depths of his grave. Pookie had told her the story each time they had ever gone past the creek, and although she didn’t believe the tale, it had always caused her a pleasurable shiver of fear.
All at once the limousine gave a startling heave, dipping downward, and her stomach leaped up inside her like a balloon: this sudden jolt, together with the sight of the weeds and the garbage, and the boiling heat, gave her a sense of almost unbearable anguish, and so with a despairing little cry she sank back into the seat, wet and wilted, and clutched at Loftis’ hand. She felt Loftis quickly draw his hand away: That’s another time he’s done it, she thought—and it was then, looking up at him, that she had her horrible premonition.
He doesn’t love me any more. He’s going to leave me.
The same premonition she had had last night, and now she had it again. The moment pierced her with hopelessness and she shrank into one corner of the seat, looking at him. He was gazing out of the window with misty preoccupation. A lonely willow tree swept by, and beyond, following his gaze, she saw half a dozen gas storage tanks, rusty and enormous, rising up out of the wasteland like the truncated brown legs of some awful assembly of giants. They were still far off but the car was approaching them steadily, and for some reason the prospect of nearing them, going by them, filled her with anxiety and horror. She began to weep a little, silently in the corner, engulfed in a bleak gray fog of self-pity; small tears drained slowly down her cheeks. It’s true, she thought: the way he’s been acting. He doesn’t love me. He only came to get me this morning because Helen wouldn’t come. Through a blurred film of melancholy she saw a brown wart at the base of Ella Swan’s neck, unkempt strands of nigger hair turned gray.
Ugly. Oh, ugly.
She turned and stared miserably out of her window: He’s that way not just because he’s grieving for Peyton, but because he’s rejecting me. I can tell. Two buzzards flapped soundlessly up from a junk heap, swooped toward the weeds, were gone.
Well, for that matter, she thought bitterly, she had felt all this, just a bit, for the past few months, although it had only been last night that she had really become conscious of something wrong. After all, he had left her once before to go back to Helen. It was his divorce this time, she knew. Backing out at the last minute like that. That was what he wanted to do. And last night. Last night had been just horrid, and as the remembrance—the recognition of the pure shock it had caused her, and of what that shock meant now—fled through her mind, a new, yet more crushing wave of agony and remorse swept over her and she began to sob in little stifled gasps, clutching the velvet tassel above her and rocking mournfully with the rhythm of the limousine as she watched the gas tanks mercilessly approaching, truncated and incomplete, like totems on a plain.
Oh, Milton honey.
Now late yesterday afternoon it had been very warm, and toward sunset she and Loftis had been sitting on the terrace at the country club. The club was on a bluff overlooking the James, a costly establishment, vaguely gothic in style, complacent and splendid. There was a swimming pool with sapphire waters near the eighteenth hole; a diver in shiny blue trunks arched against the twilight—they could see him from the terrace—and soared downward cleanly, behind beach umbrellas slanting like crazy sombreros, to break the water without a splash. Dolly and Milton were drinking martinis—this was his third, her second—mixed from his private bottles in the kitchen. Children in sunsuits, tumbling on the slope below, made pink pinwheel patterns against the grass. An odor of mint and pollen filled the dusk, and golfers wandered in from the course; their caddies trailed indolently behind, golfbags merrily clinking. There were perhaps a dozen other people on the terrace: lazy evening conversation, faintly heard, eddied, flowed, swelled downward toward the pool where a fat woman, sunbathing, lay on the grass sunless and asleep, absorbing the evening shadows.
“To D-day,” said Dolly. It was their private joke. D-day was October twenty-first, when Loftis’ divorce, the result of two years’ separation, became final. Usually Loftis proposed the toast, but after Dolly had caught on she had managed to wear the joke a trifle thin, so now Loftis didn’t answer her but only forced a faint smile of acknowledgment and concentrated on the martini. A shiny red convertible slid to a stop on the driveway. White dresses issued from the doors like so much airy foam, and three young girls ran laughing up the walk, followed by three young men in tuxedoes, as solemn as crows.
“Dance tonight,” Dolly said. “Dinner dance, it looks like.”
“Mmm-hh.”
“What are you thinking about, darling?” she asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he replied. “Nothing.”
Oh dear, she thought. For all the years she had known him she had identified him with talk, speech; his talent in this direction was possibly the reason for their rather one-sided communion. She loved to hear him talk and was a conscientious listener, although often, in a dreamy sort of abstraction, she found herself listening not so much to the substance of what he said as to the tone of the words, the melodious, really endearing way he
said them. The eccentric manner of twisting words into grotesque parodies of themselves, his supplications—“Oh, God” or “Oh, Jesus” when something went wrong—uttered with such profound and comical intensity to the heavens; and his own particular wit, the subtleties of which she often didn’t get: to listen to that steady flow of words, the fine enthusiasms and the wry, damning accusations of things in general, so true, so commanding and intelligent—she could listen to all that forever. And usually she agreed with him. He had taught her so much.
But she was worried now. This air of preoccupation and mystery she had taken particular notice of in the past few months. It always worried her. It meant that shortly he would be rude to her, at least impatient, and she would be unhappy. She was determined to cheer him up. She took a sip of the martini; it burned clear down to the pit of her stomach—she had never decided whether she liked martinis or not, and only drank them because he did—but looking up past the flower centerpiece she took note of his brooding face and thought: Trouble trouble boil and bubble.
“Trouble, trouble, dear. What’s the matter, dear?” she said lightly. “You can tell me.”
“Nothing.”
“You can tell me,” she said. “Tell Dolly,” she said, teasing.
“Nothing, dammit,” he said.
She ignored this surliness, hoping by coy persuasion to make him be nice. “Now, honey,” she murmured, “be nice.” Just then, at a table near by, a woman with red hair and plump, exposed arms suddenly leaned back in her chair and uttered a high-pitched, massive series of laughs. Detonating upon this casually genteel atmosphere, it had all the effect of a flock of geese set loose in church, and caused everyone on the terrace to turn with knives and forks hovering in mid-air, looking for the source. Then, recognizing the woman as a familiar character, given to such outbursts, they turned back to their tables with knowledgeable nods of their heads and patronizing smiles.
“Who’s that woman, dear?” Dolly asked. Although their affair had been going on for years, it had only been lately that they had taken to venturing so easily together at the country club, and there were many people in the new, exclusive and beautifully exciting circle whom Dolly didn’t know. Defined by Port Warwick protocol, Dolly had been “social,” but never “country clubby.” She had often come here as a guest, but poor Pookie had never been able to make the grade.
Loftis had looked, too. He was smiling a little, “Sylvia Mason,” he said. He waved, “ ‘Lo, Syl.” “Milton Loftis. How you?” A gentle, trivial greeting.
A waiter descended upon them with a happy grin and a metal tray, piled high with dishes, as big as the lid from a garbage can, impossibly balanced on four fingers. “Order, Cap’n Milton?”
Loftis looked up. “Hello, Luther. How you tonight? Clam cocktails. Steak dinner.” The waiter left.
Suddenly he said, “I was thinking about Peyton.” He drank the rest of his martini.
“Oh dear,” she said. “Is she all right?” Actually she didn’t care. Peyton, whom Milton dwelt on constantly, bored her stiff. And often when he spoke of her—although she strove to be understanding—she felt an emotion that, try as she might to call it something else, was nothing but wretched jealousy. To be known as “his mistress” by the children of the man you love is likely to cause worry and fretfulness and maybe broodings at night, and Dolly, who preferred things to be worked out simply, detested Peyton for her own sense of sin. She had avoided Peyton as well as she could during the past years—it was the only right thing to do—but even from afar she felt that the girl cast forbidding shadows across her tenderly hopeful destiny. Milton and I.
In the twilight he looked very handsome; the provoking streak of gray hair, the color of old pewter: a vulgar handsome man could never wear it with such grace. And soberly talking now; she loved him so much when he was sober, which was fairly infrequent: then his very spirit, so uncompromisingly aware of life, of the poignancy of their dilemma, so richly conscious of the fine things soon in store for them—this sober, gentle spirit promised to envelop her like a flame, a tender flame radiating decent contentment just as the soft, temperate voice seemed to promise: “I will take care of you. You need have no worries now. I will show you what love is, and truth.”
But he was talking about Peyton.
“There’s something wrong with the girl. Ever since they broke up, she’s been at loose ends. I get these letters, you see, and they worry the hell out of me. The poor kid’s had a rough time. You see, what I advise her … take it easy. God knows I know that a marriage can be difficult. It’s a shame. Poor kid … I think I’ll run up to New York next week … talk to her.…”
It was hard to concentrate; her eyes wandered to the other tables, to the Mason woman—on whose fat arms there were a dozen silver bracelets, jangling noisily as she ate—to tablecloths, silver, gay flowers, all imparting a splendid, important air of luxury and comfort. Inside, beyond the French doors, boys and girls in twos and fours strolled aimlessly about, waiting for the dance to start—the boys gawky and grave, wearing their new tuxedoes with grown-up unconcern, while the girls laughed and tugged at the boys’ hands or, lifting their skirts off the floor, practiced a dance step or two. The band was tuning up. She lifted her gaze to a second-story window, where, screened a bit by a virile growth of ivy, was his room—the place where he lived, now that he had no home. His room. Inside there, drowned in shadows, she saw familiar things, faintly defined by the dying sun: a corner of his desk, the lampshade, the back of a chair where, sloppily draped over one wooden slat, was a white shirt he had worn, no doubt, that afternoon while golfing: something tugged tenderly at her heart. His shirt unwashed. And looking back at him now, at the grave, wide, honest, yet soberly comprehending face, she thought: He’s so sweet.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get her back to Port Warwick,” he was saying. “After her wedding she said she’d never come back here. Not that she should. She and Helen never got along and anyway I think she belongs up there. Poor kid. She’s got a lot of talent, at least I guess she does. …” He was talking rapidly, with sudden, disheartening animation. She didn’t like to see him like this; as images, thoughts of Peyton swam forth, a troubled glow inflamed his forehead; against the sun the lobe of one ear was transparent and a tiny pool of blood was gathered there, very red. When we’re married, she thought, I’ll have to make him stop drinking so much. … She had heard all this before. She was bored. She wished he’d talk about going to the Skyline Drive. From a glass dish she took a piece of celery, put it on her plate and began to nibble on a ripe olive. A bit giddy from the martinis, she tried to listen to him, but her thoughts, like dandelion seeds, strayed airily away: love, a marriage, maybe, in New Orleans, the Skyline Drive.
“She’s had a rough time. …”
Oh, talk about someone else. Talk about us.
“Now she and Harry. Harry’s a nice guy, but I think they resented each other somehow, almost from the very beginning. She should have taken more time! You go North—you become expatriated, exiled. You reach out for the first symbol that completes your apostasy—you become a Communist or a social worker or you marry a Jew. In all good faith, too, yearning to repudiate the wrong you’ve grown up with, only to find that embracing these things you become doubly exiled. Two losts don’t make a found. Marry a Jew or a Chinaman or a Swede, it’s all fine if you’re prompted by any motive, including money, save that of guilt. My father told me when I went barreling off to the University, ‘Son,’ he said, ‘you don’t have to be a camp-follower of reaction but always remember where you came from, the ground is bloody and full of guilt where you were born and you must tread a long narrow path toward your destiny. If the crazy sideroads start to beguile you, son, take at least a backward glance at Monticello.’ You see …”
She nodded, smiling vacantly. She had caught the word “Jew.” It sent her mind astray again. Why doesn’t he talk about us? Jews, How true. Like Milton she felt herself to be a liberal Democrat; about six years ago—
soon after they had first made love, but before Loftis’ political hopes had completely withered—he had mentioned something about her becoming National Committeewoman, if and when they were married. This had excited her teiribly—even though she somehow felt the remark was meant lightly—during the mid-hours of one hot, sweet night at the Hotel Patrick Henry in Richmond. How lovely that had been. Their best, really their best. There had been an exquisite secrecy; untried as she was—for, though she had entertained many alluring fantasies, this had been her, first out-of-town adultery—the knowledge of misdoing added enchantment to the night. The old Virginia drawl. “Miz Roosevelt, ah’m Dolly Loftis. How you? National Committeewoman from Virginia. Mah husband’s tol’ me so much about you and Pres’dent Roosevelt. Or shall ah say Franklin?” A neon sign winks shamelessly; red sinful splashes fill the room. She gets up, pulls down the shade, hiding her guilt beneath the darkness. Should I? Should I still? He’s married. Stern pentecostal watchwords out of the gray November small-town past, making her sweat: Forswear adultery and other such iniquities. It passes. She crawls back into bed beside him, strokes his face, exalted, thinking: I don’t care. He needs me. … “Milton,” she says, “wake up, sweetheart.”
He was still talking about Peyton, and now the evening started to get horrid. In filmy yellow waves, a bilious sort of despondency took possession of her; from the last martini, somehow swallowed wrong, a vaporous gas rose up in her nose, smelling faintly of juniper, and, looking out of the corner of her eye, she felt that two people, at least, were staring at her. She wished she might see a familiar face, for these, all strange to her, seemed suddenly to damn and accuse. A tawny light spilled over the grass below; through this light a motorized lawnmower, towing a sleepy Negro, moved like a boat across the green, showering a billow of bright grass before it. A man wandered out to the green and removed the flag; in the sunset the little red pennant had been so pretty, she was sad to see it go. The band began to play, and the sound of music, too, filled her with vague, remote sadness, and a fidgety yearning; hungrily, her mind sought old places, old events …