Soldiers Pay (26 page)

The rector's swivel chair protested, tilting. “Ah, yes, you smoke cigars, I recall. Matches at your elbow.”

Mr. Saunders rolled his cigar slowly in his fingers. At last he made up his mind and lit it.

“Well, the young people have taken things out of our hands, eh?” the rector spoke around his pipe stem. “I will say now that I have long desired it, and, frankly, I have expected it. Though I would not have insisted, knowing Donald's condition. But as Cecily herself desires it——”

“Yes, yes,” agreed Mr. Saunders, slowly. The rector did not notice.

“You, I know, have been a staunch advocate of it all along. Mrs. Powers repeated your conversation to me.”

“Yes, that's right.”

“And do you know I look for this marriage to be better than a medicine for him. Not my own idea,” he added, in swift explanation. “Frankly, I was sceptical but Mrs. Powers and Joe—Mr. Gilligan—advanced it first, and the surgeon from Atlanta convinced us all. He assured us that Cecily could do as much if not more for him than anyone. These were his very words, if I recall correctly. And now, since she desires it so much, since you and her mother support her. . . . Do you know,” he slapped his caller upon the shoulder, “do you know, were I a betting man I would wager that we will not know the boy in a year's time!”

Mr. Saunders had trouble getting his cigar to burn properly. He bit the end from it savagely, then wreathing his head in smoke he blurted: “Mrs. Saunders seems to have a few doubts yet.” He fanned the smoke away and saw the rector's huge face gone grey and quiet. “Not objections, exactly, you understand,” he added, hurriedly, apologetically. Damn the woman, why couldn't she have come herself instead of sending him?

The divine made a clicking sound. “This is bad. I had not expected this.”

“Oh, I am sure we can convince her, you and I. Especially with Sis on our side.” He had forgotten his own scruples, forgotten that he did not want his daughter to marry anyone.

“This is bad,” the rector repeated, hopelessly.

“She will not refuse her consent,” Mr. Saunders lied hastily. “It is only that she is not convinced as to its soundness, considering Do—Cecily's—Cecily's youth, you see,” he finished with inspiration. “On the contrary, in fact. I only brought it up so that we could have a clear understanding. Don't you think it is best to know all the facts?”

“Yes, yes.” The rector was having trouble with his own tobacco. He put his pipe aside, pushing it away. He rose and tramped heavily along the worn path in the rug.

“I am sorry,” said Mr. Saunders.

(This was Donald, my son. He is dead.)

“But come, come. We are making a mountain out of a molehill,” the rector exclaimed at last without conviction. “As you say, if the girl wants to marry Donald I am sure her mother will not refuse her consent. What do you think? Shall we call on her? Perhaps she does not understand the situation, that—that they care for each other so much. She has not seen Donald since he returned, and you know how rurnours get about. . . .” (This was Donald, my son. He is dead.)

He paused mountainous and shapeless in his casual black, yearning upon the other. Mr. Saunders rose from his chair and the rector took his arm, lest he escape.

“Yes, that is best. We will see her together and talk it over thoroughly before we make a definite decision. Yes, yes,” the rector repeated, flogging his own failing conviction, spurring it. “This afternoon, then?”

“This afternoon,” Mr. Saunders agreed.

“Yes, that is our proper course. I'm sure she does not understand. You don't think she fully understands?” (This was Donald, my son. He is dead.)

“Yes, yes,” Mr. Saunders agreed in his turn.

Jones found his pipe at last and nursing his bruised hand he filled and lit it.

V

She had just met Mrs. Worthington in a store and they had discussed putting up plums. Then Mrs. Worthington, saying good-bye, waddled away slowly to her car. The negro driver helped her in with sufficient detachment and shut the door.

I'm spryer than her, thought Mrs. Burney exultantly, watching the other's gouty painful movement. Spite of she's rich and got a car, she added, feeling better through malice, suppressing her own bone-aches, walking spryer than the rich one. Spite of she's got money. And here approaching was that strange woman staying at Parson Mahon's, the one that come here with him and that other man, getting herself talked about, and right. The one everybody expected to many him and that he had throwed down for that boy-chasing Saunders girl.

“Well,” she remarked with comfortable curiosity, peering t up into the white calm face of the tall dark woman in her dark dress with its immaculate cuffs and collar. “I hear you are going to have a marriage up at your house. That's so nice for Donald. He's quite sweet on her, ain't he?”

“Yes. They were engaged for a long time, you know.”

“Yes, they was. But folks never thought she'd wait for him, let alone take him sick and scratched up like he is. She's had lots of chances, since.”

“Folks think lots of things that aren't true,” Mrs. Powers reminded her. Mrs. Burney was intent on her own words.

“Yes, she's had lots of chances. But then Donald has too, ain't he?” she asked cunningly.

“I don't know. You see, I haven't known him very long.”

“Oh, you ain't? Folks all thought you and him was old friends, like.”

Mrs. Powers looked down at her neat cramped figure in its air-proof black without replying.

Mrs. Burney sighed. “Well, marriage is nice. My boy never married. Like's not he would by now: girls was all crazy about him, only he went to war so young.” Her peering, salacious curiosity suddenly left her. “You heard about my boy?” she asked with yearning.

“Yes, they told me, Dr. Mahon did. He was a good soldier, wasn't he?”

“Yes. And them folks got him killed with just a lot of men around: nobody to do nothing for him. Seems like they might of took him into a house where womenfolks could have eased him. Them others come back spry and bragging much as you please. Trust them officers and things not to get hurt!” Her washed blue eyes brooded across the quiet square. After a time she said: “You never lost no one you loved in the war, did you?”

“No,” Mrs. Powers answered, gently.

“I never thought so,” the other stated fretfully. “You don't look like it, so tall and pretty. But then, most didn't. He was so young,” she explained, “so brave. . . . “She fumbled with her umbrella. Then she said briskly:

“Mahon's boy come back, anyway. That's something. Specially as he's taking a bride.” She became curious again, obscene: “He's all right, ain't he?”

“All right?”

“I mean for marriage. He ain't—it's just—I mean a man ain't no right to palm himself off on a woman if he ain't——”

“Good morning,” said Mrs. Powers curtly, leaving her cramped and neat in her meticulous air-proof black, holding her cotton umbrella like a flag, stubborn, refusing to surrender.

VI

“You fool, you idiot, marrying a blind man, a man with nothing, practically dead.”

“He is not! He is not!”

“What do you call him then? Aunt Callie Nelson was here the other day saying that the white folks had killed him.”

“You know nigger talk doesn't mean anything. They probably wouldn't let her worry him, so she says he——”

“Nonsense. Aunt Callie has raised more children than I can count. If she says he is sick, he is sick.”

“I don't care. I am going to marry him.”

Mrs. Saunders sighed creakingly. Cecily stood before her, flushed and obstinate. “Listen, honey. If you marry him you are throwing yourself away, all your chances, all your youth and prettiness, all the men that like you: men who are good matches.”

“I don't care,” she repeated, stubbornly.

“Think. There are so many you can have for the taking, so much you can have: a big wedding in Atlanta with all your triends for bridesmaids, clothes, a wedding trip. . . . And then to throw yourself away. After your father and I have done so much for you.”

“I don't care. I am going to marry him.”

“But, why? Do you love him?”

“Yes, yes!”

“That scar, too?”

Cecily's face blanched as she stared at her mother. Her eyes became dark and she raised her hand delicately. Mrs. Saunders took her hand and she drew her resisting onto her lap. Cecily protested tautly but her mother held her, drawing her head down to her shoulder, smoothing her hair. “I'm sorry, baby. I didn't mean to say that. But tell me what it is.”

Her mother would not fight fair. She knew this with anger, but the older woman's tactics scattered her defences of anger: she knew she was about to cry. Then it would be all up. Let me go,” she said, struggling, hating her mother's unfairness.

“Hush, hush. There now, lie here and tell me what it is. You must have some reason.”

She ceased to struggle and she became completely lax. “I haven't. I just want to marry him. Let me go. Please, mamma.”

“Cecily, did your father put this idea in your head?”

She shook her head and her mother turned her face up. “Look at me.” They stared at each other and Mrs. Saunders repeated: “Tell me what your reason is.”

“I can't.”

“You mean you won't?”

“I can't tell you.” She slipped suddenly from her mother's lap but Mrs. Saunders held her kneeling against her knee.

“I won't,” she cried, struggling. The other held her tightly. “You are hurting me!”

“Tell me.”

Cecily wrenched herself free and stood. “I can't tell you. I have just got to marry him.”

“Got to marry him? What do you mean?” She stared at her daughter, gradually remembering old rumours about Mahon, gossip she had forgot. “Got to marry him? Do you mean that you—that a daughter of mine—with a blind man, a man who has nothing, a pauper——?”

Cecily stared at her mother and her face flamed. “You think—you said that to—Oh, you're not my mother: you are somebody else.” Suddenly she cried like a child, wide-mouthed, not even hiding her face. She whirled running. “Don't ever speak to me again,” she gasped and fled wailing up the stairs. And a door slammed.

Mrs. Saunders sat thinking, tapping her teeth monotonously with a fingernail. After a while she rose, and going to the telephone, she called her husband downtown.

VII

VOICES

The Town:

I wonder what that woman that came home with him thinks about it, now he's taken another one. If I were that Saunders girl I wouldn't take a man that brought another woman right up to my door, you might say. And that new one, what'It she do now? Go away and get another man, I guess. Hope she'll learn enough to get a well one this time. . . . Funny goings-on in that house. And a preacher of the gospel, too. Even if he is Episcopal. If he wasn't such a nice man. . . .

George Farr:

It isn't true, Cecily, darling, sweetheart. You can't, you can't. After your body prone and narrow as a pool dividing. . . .

The Town:

I hear that boy of Mahon's, that hurt fellow, and that girl of Saunders's, are going to get married. My wife said they never would, but I said all the time . . .

Mrs. Burney:

Men don't know. They should of looked out for him better. Saying he never wanted for nothing. . . .

George Farr:

Cecily, Cecily. . . . Is this death?

The Town:

There's that soldier that come with Mahon. I guess that woman will take him now. But maybe she don't have to. He might have been saving time himself.

Well, wouldn't you, if you was him?

Sergeant Madden:

Powers. Powers. . . . A man's face spitted like a moth on a lance of flame. Powers. . . . Rotten luck for her.

Mrs. Burney:

Dewey, my boy. . . .

Sergeant Madden:

No, ma'am. He was all right. We did all we could. . . .

Cecily Saunders:

Yes, yes, Donald. I will, I will! I will get used to your poor face, Donald! George, my dear love, take me away, George!

Sergeant Madden:

Yes, yes, he was all right. . . . A man on a fire-step; screaming with fear.

George Farr:

Cecily, how could you? How could you?

The Town:

That girl . . . time she was took in hand by somebody. Running around town nearly nekkid. Good thing he's blind, ain't it?

Guess she hopes he'll stay blind, too. . . .

Margaret Powers:

No, no, good-bye, dear dead Dick, ugly dead Dick. . . .

Joe Gilligan:

He is dying, he gets the woman he doesn't want even, while I am not dying. . . . Margaret, what shall I do? What can I say?

Emmy:

Come here, Emmy? Ah, come to me, Donald. But he is dead.

Cecily Saunders:

George, my lover, my poor dear. . . . What have we done?

Mrs. Burney:

Dewey, Dewey, so brave, so young. . . .

(This was Donald, my son. He is dead.)

VIII

Mrs. Powers mounted the stairs under Mrs. Saunders's curious eyes. The older woman had been cold, almost rude, but Mrs. Powers had won her point, and choosing Cecily's door from her mother's directions she knocked.

After a while she knocked again and called: “Miss Saunders.”

Silence was again a hushed tense interval, then Cecily's muffled voice came through the door:

“Go away.”

“Please,” she insisted. “I want to see you a moment.”

“No, no. Go away.”

“But I must see you.” There was no reply and she added; “I have just talked to your mother, and to Dr. Mahon. Let me come in, won't you?”

She heard movement, a bed, then another interval. Fool, taking time to powder her face. But you would, too, she told herself. The door opened under her hand.