Bob seemed completely at ease as he helped Amy down, and walked beside her carrying her case to where Myron had parked the Packard and was waiting for them, but his lips were compressed and he did not glance about him. Everyone who had business downtown that afternoon would notice his arrival by bus with an elegant girl, and everyone would talk. It was only part of the talk which would go on for the rest of his life, but this realization made facts no easier to bear.
Myron, for one. Myron, who wore an ordinary blue suit but somehow conveyed the impression that he was dressed in dungarees and a farm straw-hat, sat looking in their direction without a flicker on his wooden face, but Bob knew that no movie-camera could have recorded their appearance, their very thoughts, more mercilessly.
“This is Myron Blodgett. Myron, this is Miss Lee,” he said shortly, dumping Amy’s case beside the handyman.
“Pleased to meet yer, Miss Lee,” snapped Myron, out of a dry square mouth suggesting that of a tortoise. Amy’s hand was already held out and he gave it one quick, firm shake.
“Bob, yer maw says will we go in yer uncle’s for some tomayto-juice, they ain’t sent.”
“Couldn’t you have done that while you were waiting?”
“Me? I hain’t but just come.”
“Get along, then; we’ll wait,” and as Myron climbed out and walked stiffly away he glanced apologetically at Amy, and suddenly exclaimed, with the youngest intonation she had yet heard from him:—
“Gosh, this is pretty awful for you—coming here by bus and me not being able to drive and Myron running errands and everything!”
She looked so elegant, standing by the car in her dark suit and blouse of fine French embroidery, that he had been overcome by a purely American feeling of shame. If only he had met her before they had lost their money, before he had gone crazy and run away with Dan and ruined his career! He stood under the ancient hickory trees whose shade had fallen upon three generations of Viners and Vorsts crossing the sidewalk to enter the stores of the Square, and the very homeliness and familiarity of the scene were hateful to him. Once it had been his kingdom and he had been happy in it, but now it was only an ordinary shabbyish square in a small town, shut in by houses where people lived who loved to gossip.
But Amy was looking about her, and for once hardly heard what he said. She had felt a tender interest in Vine Falls because it was Bob’s home, but now there was more than this: the spirit of the place had suddenly fallen upon her, as a place-spirit will invade the imagination of a writer, and she heard the creak of waggon wheels, the solemn lowing of herds retreating into the afternoon light; she saw in fancy the clouds of dust moving slowly Westwards, leaving a man and a woman and their children camped beside the waterfalls of the Mooween. Her only answer was a dreamy:
“Oh, that’s all right, I don’t mind a bit. Bob, I do think this is a lovely place! Where’s the Indian house?”
“South of the tracks. I’ll show you to-morrow. Let’s get in, shall we?” and he opened the door of the car, feeling ashamed of his outburst.
“You won’t mind this party, will you?” he said presently, as they sat side by side in the back of the car. “My mother wanted to have a few old friends to meet you and say hello to me. I’m supposed to have been visiting with my uncle, in the South.”
This time he spoke quietly, but Amy knew at once that he was very unhappy. She put out her hand and covered his, saying impulsively:
“I know it’s awful for you, but try not to mind. I’m here, and I’ll try to help. Let’s stick it out together, shall we?”
“God, that’s a wonderful thing to say,” he answered unsteadily, and the hand she held gripped fast on her own.
Simultaneously with the appearance of Myron at the door of Viner’s stores and his slow approach across the road, a voice said:
“Hello there, Mr. Vorst!” and a round whitish head, in shape and colour suggesting a mop, came over the side of the car. The flaxen hair crowned a boy’s face on which a shocking network of fading white scars and the dirt of a day’s activities were mingled, but no-one looking at him for the first time could see anything in that face except the reddened and sunken eyelid covering the socket where an eye, fellow to the blue one that was now looking steadily at Bob, should have sparkled.
“Hello, Joe.” Bob leant forward and smiled, but Amy saw his expression change. “Hey, where’s your shade?” he added quickly.
“Traded it to George Mooney for nuts.” The eye turned towards the hickory trees, then back to Bob. “And a catapult,” he added. “Aw, I can get along without a shade fine now, guess I don’t hardly miss that old eye at all, Mr. Vorst.”
The tone was casual, but Amy, listening and watching intently, heard something else in it: a desire to comfort.
“Go over to the drug store and get yourself another one,” said Bob, feeling in his pocket. “That place still needs protecting,” and he gave him a half dollar.
“Gee, thanks a lot, Mr. Vorst!”
“How many shades have you traded this week?”
“Only three, honest!”
“Well, don’t trade any more.”
Joe laughed, and his eye moved past Bob’s face to Amy’s and stayed there, steadily watching her while the laugh faded to a mischievous smile. She was fascinated by the beauty of his teeth and could only return his gaze helplessly. That face, where childhood lingered like a prisoner behind the network of scars, filled her with unfamiliar emotion which she did not know was mother-love.
“She your girl?” demanded Joe suddenly, jerking his head at Amy.
“Scram!” Bob playfully lifted his arm, while Myron, climbing into the car, echoed hoarsely and as if to himself, “Scram!”
Joe continued to look steadily at Amy, and at length pronounced:
“She’s swell.”
“Thanks!” said Bob, glancing at Amy with a smile half-amused and half-painful. “There’ll be ice-cream at home if you come up round about five, Joe.”
“Gee, thanks a lot, Mr. Vorst!”
He jumped off the running board just as Myron started the engine and observed in the same low hoarse absent voice:
“Git out of here, will yer, we don’t want no more accidents.”
Joe waved and ran off towards the drug store as the car moved away.
“He’s about the most popular kid around town,” said Bob presently, staring down at his shoes. “Everybody made a hero out of him after the smash but it hasn’t spoilt him at all.”
“He likes you,” she said.
“Does he?” He glanced at her.
“Yes, I’m sure he does.”
“Oh, well … I’m going to do something for him later on, when he’s decided what he wants to do. His folks are very poor; the father’s a truck driver but he’s been on Relief ever since the smash, my mother says. I don’t want the kid to get taking laundry round and losing his job in the next slump. He’s smart and he’s got guts. When I’m qualified I’m going to take care of him.”
Oh, you’re so kind, you’re so good, and you don’t even hate Dan! thought Amy. I am a beast, hating people and never doing anything for anyone; if you knew what a beast I am you wouldn’t want to kiss me.
“I’m very selfish,” she said suddenly with an effort, staring straight in front of her.
“You’re lovely,” he answered gently, putting his hand over hers for a moment.
“Truly I’m not. I never do anything for anybody.”
“Never mind. We’ll do things for people together, won’t we? I’ll get better, maybe, and I won’t feel it’s all luck, and we’ll be together——”
(The beautiful hopefulness of a young people, his gift from his race, sounded in his voice.)
“Oh, yes! We’ll be together,” she breathed. (They were almost whispering, because of Myron there in front, driving carefully but listening to every word.)
“To-morrow we’ll go up into the woods, shall we? and make a fire.”
“That would be lovely.”
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They said no more for a while. Amy watched the white houses going past, set back from the road with wide lawns in front and large lilac and rose bushes in their unfenced gardens; and thought of the thick hedges, the gates and discreet net curtains that make privacy for the same type of house in English suburbs and seaside towns. Here, everybody seemed to live their life on the porch; there was none of the secrecy and rich atmospheric patina that glosses any European house over thirty years old.
But she liked it, she liked it all so much! The candour and hospitable kindness of Americans had charmed her by its contrast with the glum manner of Londoners (a disillusioned race of people, imbrued with the secret grumbling charm of their dark purple and grey city, sprawling on its ancient marsh) and American houses delighted her in the same way. And this was his home, and she loved the houses and the people because they belonged to the place where he had been born.
“We’re nearly there,” he said presently, and she smiled, but did not answer.
She was naturally nervous of meeting his parents, but not as nervous as a conventionally brought-up girl would have been. It did not occur to her that her position as “Bob’s friend, Miss Lee,” was ambiguous. She was simple in such matters; her ingenuous upbringing by Mrs. Beeding had preserved her social innocence while her fame had given her confidence, and her present apprehensions only took the shape of the thought: oh, will they like me? A fleeting recollection of Buck Finch among the cannibals did just cross her mind, but she severely dismissed it.
“Here we are,” he said, as the car turned in at the drive between the two snowball bushes, “and there’s my mother,” he added a little nervously.
A tall woman was standing on the shallow circle of steps, smiling with eyes screwed up against the afternoon sunlight, and Amy, with awe, recognized her as one of the two ladies who had been with Bob at Kenwood House eleven years ago. It was the strangest moment of her life. She got out of the car and walked slowly up the steps towards Mrs. Vorst, who advanced to meet her, and as she did so Amy felt, rather than thought, how safe and gracious was the setting in which she appeared. The old house, the steady sunlight, the slight rustle in the trees surrounding the drive, Mrs. Vorst’s own welcoming look, all breathed of peace and the pleasant procession of everyday affairs. It’s all so lovely—perhaps everything’s going to be all right now!—what is there that can go wrong, now he’s home again? Amy thought, as she took his mother’s outstretched hand.
“I’m so very pleased to welcome you, Miss Lee.”
“It’s very kind of you to ask me, I’m so glad to come——”
Their voices murmured on, coming without pause after Bob’s words—“Mother, this is Miss Lee—this is my mother—”
“Did you have a good trip?” Mrs. Vorst continued, leading the way into the house and looking down at Amy with a lazy smile in her dark eyes. “I dislike travelling by railroad, I find it twice as tiring as a road trip. But flying! I flew down South two years ago. That’s the way to travel!——”
They were crossing the hall. Its little air of melancholy had gone, banished by two large vases filled with blazing yet delicate summer flowers, and a pair of worn gloves tossed down on the lowest stair. The only sounds were Mrs. Vorst’s voice and the distant tinkle made by someone shaking a cocktail mixer behind the half-open door that Amy knew led to the kitchen, but that sound conveyed the renewed cheerfulness which pervaded the whole house, and again Amy thought: Everything feels all right again. Surely there isn’t anything that can hurt it, now? Her mind ran anxiously over all the possibilities, just as it used to when she was a child and feared that a visit from Old Porty might prevent her father taking her to the pictures.
And suddenly she remembered something. The dream of Bob’s head lying against the red cushion had come true, and the dream of his face bending over her as she awoke from sleep had come true. She and Lou had talked over this amazing fact when they met on the morning of Bob’s return to Vine Falls, exclaiming and wondering, feeling frightened and awed. But there was a third dream, the dream of the torn newspaper photograph, of which Amy had never spoken to a soul. That had not come true—yet. But if the other two had “happened”, why should not the third happen? The third, the most frightening of the three? There arose in her mind the exact shape and dark-dotted texture of that squalid fragment of paper. She saw again the wooden cabin and the ring of men staring down at something lying on the ground and felt the evil rising from the scene.
A peculiar horror surrounds newspaper photographs of scenes of violence. The coarse surface of the actual paper, its ephemeral nature, the impression left upon the beholder’s mind of a calculated display of horror in order to make money, the knowledge that ever-widening rings of distress, ugliness and morbid attention are spread by the appearance of such pictures, make them one of the few fully contemporary horrors of this age. Unsoftened, unheightened by art, reminders of our increasing danger in the civilization that we have made, they are more vile than any demons in stained glass or any figures lost in lust on the frescoes of the Ancient World.
These qualities began at once to press with their full weight upon Amy’s imagination and as she followed Mrs. Vorst upstairs her spirits sank. Myron followed close behind, carrying her case and conveying so much by his silence that she was as aware of his presence as if he had been a lion; but even Myron, even Mrs. Vorst of whom she was so nervous, was better company now than her own thoughts. She was glad when Myron lingered to inspect a window-sash after he had dumped her cases down on the gay colours of the hooked rug, and she detained Mrs. Vorst at the door to ask shyly if there was time to take a shower before she came downstairs.
“Mercy, yes, please do whatever you want here, Miss Lee; I want you to have a real rest and just relax. It’s only a few old friends coming in to meet you and say hello to Bob.”
“Thank you.”
“You’ve got everything you want, I hope? Myron, did you fix that window?”
“Sure.”
Myron worked his way past her, with a sidelong glance.
“Then I’ll leave you to rest.”
She went smiling away, but she was thinking: I can’t quite make her out. She looks rather French, so dark and elegant, and I like her looks, but still I can’t make her out. I wish Bob had picked a girl like Helen, someone sweet and lovely, that we could all love. Maybe it’s because Miss Lee’s a writer; writers are different, I suppose. Or maybe she’s shy? She certainly has poise, and taste, too. I like that suit. Well, I’ll just have to see how she turns out.
She went downstairs to overlook the preparations for the party.
Amy went slowly over to the bed, and lay down on it and shut her eyes.
Why did I suddenly remember that bit of newspaper (she thought), unless it’s getting near the time for it to come true? If only I had someone to talk to about it! If only I could tell him! Then she remembered that they were going into the woods to-morrow, and decided that she would tell him about it then. I can’t keep it to myself any longer, she thought, I’m too frightened.
She lay there for a little while, trying to calm her feelings, and presently the peaceful silence in the room and the small sounds coming in through the open windows from the garden restored her. A shower-bath and a leisurely dressing soothed her still more, and when she went downstairs an hour later she felt more able to face the party.
She came slowly down the shallow stairs, and as she came a curtain blew slowly out in a beam of sunlight and then slowly fell back against the long window. The drawing-room door stood open, and she could see that the room was already full, while the not unpleasant sound of voices (the voices of people who had known one another for years and could therefore address one another naturally and without haste) floated up the well of the stairs. She went down, also without haste, longing for the moment when she should see Bob’s fair head above the others, and moving as she used to move when a child through the crowded streets of London, lightly as a leaf from a London plane tree.<
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Bob’s father glanced out through the door and saw her coming down; she seemed very much the famous Miss Lee to him, with her hair done higher than any woman’s there that afternoon and wearing a dark red silk dress printed with a Persian design by a famous house. He came quickly out to meet her, thinking that she looked a queer little highbrow stick, but impressive; and he was at once anxious to impress her.
Before she reached the foot of the stairs a commotion at the kitchen door attracted her attention and she turned her head slightly to see what it was (for in the Beeding household you had not pretended something exciting was not going on when it was).
“Git away from that door, will yer?”
“Honest, I was on’y goin’——”
“One squawk out o’ you and you don’t get a mite o’ ice-cream, not a mite.”
It was Joe and Myron, wrestling. Myron dragged the boy inside but not before Joe had seen Amy and waved to her. She waved back, laughing, and thereby establishing herself more favourably with Bob’s father, who felt a little less anxious to impress her and therefore better disposed towards her. But as he came up to her and said—
“Miss Lee? How do you do? I’m Bob’s father. I’m delighted to welcome you—hope you had a good trip?” and listened with relief to the unaffected English voice replying: “Oh, yes, thank you. Isn’t it a lovely day?” he was wondering just what there was between this girl and his son? She looked a dark, secret little kitten, now that he stood close to her; she was too calm, too simple-mannered, altogether too good to be true. She was part of the three months Bob had spent away from home, part of that time about which he would not talk to anyone, in spite of his father’s demands to be informed exactly where he had been and what he had done.
Mr. Vorst led the way into the drawing-room, giving Amy a good imitation of a simple hospitable American welcoming a distinguished guest. But as he turned away, leaving her with his wife and a group of eager Vinebridge ladies, his handsome silver head was full of unhappy suspicions and he instinctively took a large glass from a tray to comfort himself. He drank half of it, watching his son who was talking with some people at the other end of the room, and then he sighed.