The Man Who Loved Children (75 page)

When he got home, there were jobs to do. The house could never run without him. The icebox had broken down; and he rejoiced in his handyman’s skill as he showed them the wherefore and how easy it was to fix it with a little
knowledge.
At dinnertime, he showed them how to fry the fish in a new oil he had brought from town—it made an exceeding stench, but who cared?—now that querulous poor Mothering was not here to smell it. Then gently he chid the girls for this and that, a floor not washed, a dirty window, and over the dinner table (he insisted on Louie’s being present this time and ignored the sullen, brutish face she put on, as she sat there mute in Henny’s place) he told them the details of his new home economy. There would be three shemailes for the interior—Bonnie, Louie, and Evie, and all the horsework, the donkeywork, would be done by his great tribe of men. Charles-Franklin, Chappy (little Megalops was coming home, he said, with a faint droop of the eyes that they did not comprehend), and the new Charles, Samuel-Charles, a wonderful little boy with a great blond head full of brains and bright salty eyes, very observant, although only five weeks old, sure to be something exceptional; and he told them there was a superstition about boys born like Samuel-Charles, though he could not tell it to them till they grew up. Now, he said, nothing lacked, nothing at all: it only remained for Louie to cheer up, bear a hand, and stand there as his lieutenant when he piped all hands on deck.

After dinner, he took Louie for a long walk, round by the great house in its seedy grounds, by the unspeakable ruin of the Negro village, which had suffered so much in these storms, and by the slimy, rotting cove where the carcasses of old boats were, and spoke out all his heart to her—what the future would mean for him and her, if only she would stick to him and be happy.

“The same old story,” muttered Louie at last.

Sam shot her a troubled glance. “Looloo, now that poor Henny has left us, so awfully, so mistakenly, but gone, I thought a weight would be lifted off your shoulders. A young girl should bloom like a peach tree, but you are sullen, like a tree that will not bloom.”

They were both silent for a while. At last, out of her terrible gloom, Louie said quietly, “One night you were quarreling all night: I was standing up there next to the box I had from my mother, that redwood box full of pieces and patches.”

“I know,” said Sam, sympathetically, “with the little bit of blue dress she wore the day I proposed, and the little blue dress you wore when she died, and your baby shawl.”

“It was a very oppressive night,” said Louie, “and I saw a tree wave, like a shoal of fish that suddenly darts aside after they have been drifting in the water. Then I thought I saw an eagle dash itself against my window. Then I thought I would kill both of you.”

“Looloo!”

She took no notice of him, except that a very tiny smile crept round her mouth, the first, in his company, in many weeks. “I am telling the truth: I never lie. Why should I lie? Those who lie are afraid of something.”

“Pull yourself together: what is the matter with you? I don’t understand you.”

She smiled more, “You never will.” She chuckled, “You never will either. Thank goodness. But it is true—I got some cyanide out of your darkroom and put it in a pillbox, you know that pillbox—I got it out of Mother’s room the night before, and I meant to put it in both cups, but I lost my nerve, I suppose; I didn’t quite know what I was doing, I only put it in one cup. I got frightened.” She became sober, depressed.

“Looloo! Be quiet! I won’t allow this incredible absurdity to go on.”

“Then you came in with the cups—but before that, Mother came in, and I think she saw me. Anyhow, she seemed to know: then she didn’t say anything except what she said then, ‘I don’t blame her, you can’t blame her, she’s not to blame if she were to go stark staring mad’—she meant, it was just the same, that anyone would have. Then she took it: she couldn’t stand it any more.”

“Looloo! ‘Couldn’t stand it any more!’ You don’t know that I had to stand everything. The tyranny of tears: one person bears, and the other person cries and shrieks, and everyone—even you, even you—sympathize with her. And you make up this incredible, insane, neurotic story. For it is neurotic. I thought you had self-control. And you make up the damnedest, stupidest, most melodramatic lie I ever heard in all my born days. You talk about the truth. You don’t know what truth is. The truth isn’t in you, only some horrible stupid mess of fantasies mixed up with things I can’t even think about. What happened to you? Henny ruined you. I have got to take you away from school and keep you at home with me until you recover. You are not yourself.”

“You don’t notice anything. Everything has to be what you say,” said Louie. “For instance, Ernie was so unhappy at that time, right on that morning, that he tried to hang himself.”

“What do you mean?”

“You remember—we took mother in, to his bed?”

“I know.”

“On the bottom of the bed was that doll he had rigged up. It was himself. The children told us, don’t you remember: it was Ernie. Ernie hung himself. He made a doll. How do you know he mightn’t have done it really?”

“Child’s play, horseplay,” he said roughly. “That only goes to show how far out of your senses you are, Looloo, that in a little joke like that you see melodrama. I am going to take you away from all this foolery, this drama and poetry and nonsense they are putting into your head. You haven’t a good brain at all—you are just crammed with the most idiotic nonsense I ever heard of in my life. It has got to end. You are coming home to me, and I am going to watch every book you read, every thought you have.”

“All right! All right! You remember when you used to take me to see the Lincoln Memorial, walking along the Reflecting Pool from your office on Saturdays. I learned from him, not from you. You used to say your heart always beat when you were going towards it; my heart used to beat, but you always thought about yourself. When I was at Harpers Ferry, I only thought about John Brown. I always thought Israel Baken was just like him—my grandfather. Not a Pollit, thank goodness, not one of you.”

“That mean old vicious superstitious man!” Sam ejaculated. “Yes, you are like him, I am sorry to say. Your mother had none of that.”

“What do you know about my mother? She was a woman. I found a letter from her in the old redwood box. Someone who died sent it back to her when they knew they were dying. It was just after you were married. She said, ‘Samuel is a very young man. I am very sick or I would not be writing such foolish things, I am sure. But he does not understand women or children. He is such a good young man, he is too good to understand people at all.’ ”

Sam said dreamily, “Yes, I was a very good young man. I never allowed a breath of scandal or of foolish small talk to be spoken in my presence; and your mother understood me. She was ready to sacrifice everything for me. Perhaps she loved me even better than I loved her. But I was very young: I did not see things as I see them now. She loved you too dearly, ‘little Ducky,’ as she called you. It is a pity you never had a mother.”

“Well, I’m my own mother,” Louie said, without emotion. “And I can look after myself. I want you to let me go away. You can’t want me to live in the house with you after what I was going to do.”

“If you think I believe that cock-and-bull nonsense you made up out of your soft, addled melodramatic bean,” he said with rough good humor, “you have another thunk coming, my girl. You are going to stay here with me until you get out of this stupid adolescent crisis, and that’s all there is to it.”

“Then you don’t believe me?”

“Of course not. Do you think I’m going to be taken in by a silly girl’s fancies? You must think me a nitwit, Looloo, after all.” He laughed and put his arm on her shoulder, “Foolish, poor little Looloo.”

She shook him off and said nothing. Sam went on talking to her gently, chidingly, lovingly. When they reached home, she made him another cup of coffee and went upstairs. Out of the old redwood box she took an old-fashioned bag made of grass and raffia, and embroidered in beads by her mother, at one time. Into this she put a few clothes and a dollar bill that one of the visitors had given her after Henny’s death. She hardly slept at all, but when she heard Sam begin his whistling early the next morning, she got up and dressed quickly and quietly. She heard the warm, old, jolly, pulsating home life beginning its round: “Little-Womey,
Philohela minor!
Git up, git up!” It was only six o’clock, and the boys were still drowsily groaning and rubbing their heads on their pillows. She heard Evie grumbling in her bed and dragging herself out of it and Sam thumping on the wall: “You, Gemini, hey, you Navel Academy, what’s about your early-morning swim?” She expertly got downstairs and to the kitchen with her satchel. Once there, she banged the kettle about to sound as if she were making the tea, and heard Evie’s grumble, “Looloo’s making it,” and, taking some food out of the icebox (she was always hungry), she ran out of the house and in no time was screened by the trees and bushes of the avenue. She smiled, felt light as a dolphin undulating through the waves, one of those beautiful, large, sleek marine mammals that plunged and wallowed, with their clever eyes. As she crossed the bridge (looking back and seeing none of the Navel Academy as yet on their little beach, or scrambling down the sodden bluff), she heaved a great breath. How different everything looked, like the morning of the world, that hour before all other hours which Thoreau speaks of, that most matinal hour. “Why didn’t I run away before?” she wondered. She wondered why everyone didn’t run away. Things certainly looked different: they were no longer part of herself but objects that she could freely consider without prejudice.

In a few minutes, she reached Clare’s little cottage and saw Clare walking about in her nightdress, down the passage. Clare came to the door, seeing her, with big eyes, and half whispered, “I say, where are you going?”

“I’m going to Harpers Ferry. I’m going to my Auntie Jo’s to get some money, and then I’m going out there; won’t you come along?” Clare stared at her longingly, but Louie could tell from her hesitation that she was going to refuse. “You won’t come, too?”

“Oh, Louie! Oh, Louie! Oh, Louie!”

“You won’t come?”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I just can’t. I don’t know why not. I have my little sister.”

“I suppose, if I had any decency,” said Louie slowly, “I’d think of my little sister and brothers, but there’s Auntie Bonnie. No, there are plenty of them. Well—good-by.”

“Are you really going?”

“Yes, of course.”

“You’re all right,” said Clare.

“Why don’t you come, Clare? What is the good of staying here?”

“I can’t, Louie, I can’t.”

“All right.” Louie turned about and went down the path till she got to the gate, then she looked back. Clare had come to the front door. A milkman was coming down the street. Louie lingered, “I’ll write you a letter when I get there.”

“You send me your address, and I’ll write to you.”

It was this that was final: Louie’s last hope went then. “Well,” said Louie, going out of the gate, “I won’t see Miss Aiden any more, will I?”

“What will she say?” asked Clare. “Well, anyhow, I suppose, you’ll come back for school.”

“Will I?” cried Louie, awaking from a doleful mood, “will I? No, I won’t. I’ll never come back.”

Clare sniffed, and Louie saw that she was crying. Louie looked at her stupidly and, humping one shoulder, began to walk away.

“Good-by, Louie!”

“Good-by!” She walked away without looking back, feeling cheated and dull. Clare did not really think she should go. She walked across the market space and into Main Street, looking into a little coffee shop and wondering if she would have a cup of coffee. She had never been in there, because it was like a fishermen’s hangout, dingy and dubious. But no, she walked on. Everyone looked strange. Everyone had an outline, and brilliant, solid colors. Louie was surprised and realized that when you run away, everything is at once very different. Perhaps she would get on well enough. She imagined the hubbub now at Spa House, as they discovered that she was not bursting up the stairs with their morning tea. They would look everywhere and conclude that she had gone for a walk. “So I have,” she thought, smiling secretly, “I have gone for a walk round the world.” She pictured Ernie, Evie, the twins, darling Tommy, who loved the girls already and loved her, too; but as for going back towards Spa House, she never even thought of it. Spa House was on the other side of the bridge.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1968 by Christina Stead

Introduction copyright © 1965 by Randall Jarrell

cover design by Mimi Bark

978-1-4532-6525-3

This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media

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New York, NY 10014

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