This Side of Glory (14 page)

“Swell layout you got here,” he observed. “Now where’s the stuff you want me to look at?”

Eleanor had had the servants move it all into a back room downstairs. She saw Dilcy and Bessie now, regarding the new arrival as Cameo had done. “Will yo’ guest have some coffee, miss?” Bessie inquired with polite disdain.

“No time for coffee,” said the guest briskly. “Where—”

“In this room,” said Kester, opening a door, but the dealer had paused before the two companion portraits hung at the foot of the stairs. “Mhm,” he said, nodding with approval. “Romantic. How much you want for those?”

“They are not for sale,” said Kester. “Will you come in here, please?”

“Well, you needn’t freeze on it. What’d you bring me up here for if you didn’t want money?”

As this sort of trade was obviously not to Kester’s liking, Eleanor took charge. “It’s all in here,” she said briskly, leading them into the back room. “This tip-table, as you can see, is solid rosewood. This nest of tables is made up of six, fitting one within the other—”

“Sure, I see.” He bent down, tapping the wood and looking for wormholes. Eleanor nodded sagely. She had been right; this fellow wouldn’t waste time talking. He knew his business.

Kester looked on, speaking only when he had to answer a question. But now that she was actually doing something, Eleanor was enjoying herself. Matching her wits with someone else’s for profit gave her a feeling of gay triumph, for she was good at it; they dickered and argued, and when they agreed on a price for anything she wrote it down in a notebook. Evidently having begun with the misconception that he was calling upon a lady who could be cheated because she wouldn’t know any better, as the day advanced the dealer began giving her glances of unwilling respect. “You sure know what you’re up to, don’t you, Mrs. Larne?” he remarked at length.

“Certainly,” said Eleanor.

“You ought to be in business.”

“What do you think this is?” she retorted.

He continued to examine the seat of a chair he was holding upside down. “Funny. I don’t mind telling you. Most folks who’ve got this stuff to sell out of old houses don’t know a dollar from a biscuit,” he confided.

She laughed. “Well, I do.”

“So I observe. What you got total for this?”

“Two thousand one hundred and forty-two dollars.”

“Make it two thousand for the lot and we’ll call it quits.”

“It totals two thousand one hundred—”

“Damn!” he said, and began to laugh too. “Ain’t you a bit ladylike?”

“Not when it costs good money to be ladylike,” said Eleanor.

“All right, all right, you win. Look, Mrs. Larne, any time you want a job selling, let me know. I could use one like you.” He went back into the hall and looked around again at the portraits. “Better think twice, you two. I’d like to handle some of these.”

“I told you they were not for sale,” Kester answered crisply.

“Your kinfolks?”

“Yes.”

He surveyed the portraits wisely. “Sure, I knew it. You wouldn’t have ’em if they weren’t real. All your stuff is real. You can’t fool me.”

“Those are of no value to any family but my own,” said Kester, evidently wishing his visitor would remove himself as soon as possible. “They aren’t by great artists.”

The dealer gave a low whistle of derision. “I can see you’re new to this business, mister. Lots of them porky millionaires that come to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, they haven’t got any portraits. Their folks were on the steerage when your folks were getting painted. So they buy ’em a couple of pictures and take ’em home. Don’t you get it ?—Aunt Minnie.”

Kester gave a shrug. Eleanor began to laugh.

“I bet this little lady would sell ’em.” The dealer made a gesture with his thumb toward Eleanor.

“You heard my husband say they were not for sale,” she put in quickly. “Here’s the list of prices you offered, so you can add them yourself if you like. And here’s a pen.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said with exaggerated meekness. “Now what’s the first name, please?”

“Kester,” she told him.

“Oh, I make the check to him? All right, anything you say. There’ll be a couple of boys around with a truck in the morning. And don’t you get smart and slip a couple of pieces back in the garret, either.”

“Good Lord,” exclaimed Kester.

“Well, people have been known to. Don’t get me wrong, mister, I ain’t saying you’re not honest, but we need to be careful when we got our living to make.” He grinned at Eleanor. “If you change your mind about Aunt Minnie, say so.”

When he had gone Kester shivered with relief and ordered a highball. Eleanor went jubilantly to him with the check. “Endorse this now,” she exclaimed, “and I’ll send it right to the bank. Kester, aren’t you delighted?”

“I’m delighted he’s gone,” said Kester dryly. He wrote his name.

Eleanor picked up the check. For a moment she stood still, looking down at him, then she crossed to the desk, where she put the check into an envelope to be mailed the bank for deposit. As she stamped the letter she turned around again and looked at him. Kester sat by the window sipping his highball.

“Aren’t you even glad I got some money for us?” she asked.

“Of course I’m glad,” he said without turning.

“Then what’s the matter with you?”

“Do I have to pretend besides I enjoyed your haggling like a pawnbroker?”

“Somebody had to haggle,” she exclaimed, “and it was evident you weren’t going to.”

“You were very good at it. That nest of tables you got eighty dollars for isn’t worth more than fifty.”

Eleanor walked across the room and stood in front of him.

“Then you might have said so. All you’ve done this afternoon is stand around with your lip curled. One would think trying to pay your debts was a matter beneath a gentleman’s dignity.”

She stopped, drew a breath and let it out audibly. She went to him and put her hand on his shoulder. As she was tingling with anger she waited a moment, then spoke slowly and carefully. “Kester, please don’t make me mad! My nerves are in the same state as European culture, and if I lose my—”

He turned impulsively, put his arm around her and drew her down to sit on the arm of his chair. “I know, darling. Mine are too.” He gave a sorry little shake of his head. “Odd, isn’t it—we’re just as bad as the Europeans. The minute people start fighting for civilization they start behaving as if they never heard of it.”

For several minutes they were silent. At last Eleanor stood up restlessly. “I think I’ll take a drive down the river road before supper. The air will be good for my disposition.”

He smiled. “I’m sorry, darling,” he said.

“So am I,” Eleanor answered, and kissed his hair.

She piloted the automobile down the avenue and past the gates. The scenery along the river road was not a happy sight this fall. The oaks grew on either side, their branches lacing overhead so that the road was spotted with sunlight, but behind them in the fields unpicked cotton was lying on the ground in dirty little curls, as numerous planters had not thought it worth while to go to the trouble of getting it in. Bales for which no warehouse space had been contracted beforehand were piled around the gins, for with none of the year’s harvest moving the warehouses had no more space to rent. Eleanor had come out because she wanted to relax and not talk about cotton, but she could not help thinking about it. With the cash she had acquired today and the jewels as security for the rest of the interest they could doubtless pacify the bank into letting them stay at Ardeith through another year. But during that year—?

The future ahead of her was blank as a desert. They had no money for the laborers who would be needed to tend the plantation during the winter, they could buy no fertilizer till they paid for what they had bought already, and there were a hundred other needs from repairs and fodder to subscriptions to agricultural journals; and all that without considering the necessities of daily living, for which their credit was strained till Eleanor shrank from entering a shop. And suppose they somehow got through the winter, what in the name of reason were they going to plant next spring? The country had ten million bales of cotton on its hands. Planting more was folly, yet except for vegetables grown for their own table nothing but cotton had been planted at Ardeith since the Civil War. You could not revolutionize a plantation suddenly any more than a factory. Cotton, cotton, cotton— the word rattled in her head. Didn’t those lunatics in Europe need clothes? Of all the harmless commodities to be swept off the seas!

It was getting late. Eleanor turned the car and drove back to Ardeith. As she stopped in front of the house, impulsively she rested her elbows on the steering wheel and put her head down on her arms. “Please, God,” she whispered, “if you aren’t going to let cotton move, let something, anything, happen to make me stop thinking about it!”

2

Something did happen, of a nature to make Eleanor remember that she had heard ministers warn their congregations to be careful what they prayed for lest their prayers be answered.

They left the jewels at the bank as security, and the money they received for the old brandy they put aside to be used for living expenses. It was impossible to say how long it would last, for due to the lack of manufactured articles from abroad the price of many commodities was rising, and a war-tax bill, to make up for diminishing customs receipts, sent the cost of living higher still. Though they had a breathing space Eleanor felt like a patient who was barely breathing. There was still no answer to the question of what they could plant next spring to give them the twenty thousand dollars they had promised to pay the bank in the fall.

In spite of her resolution, suspense made her temper uncertain and she was not always easy to live with. Kester urged her to go out. Their friends were entertaining again, saying you couldn’t stay under a pall forever. It was true their gaiety had a hysterical quality suggesting that of the beleaguered cities overseas, but dancing was less destructive to the nerves than pacing the floor at home, so Eleanor yielded, and they had dinner with the Sheramys and went on a picnic with Violet Purcell. They also had a Sunday night supper with the three Durham girls, a rather lugubrious meal, as the old ladies habitually set a place at table for their sister Kate who had eloped forty years ago in defiance of parents and propriety, a matter that had grieved them so much they had felt it their duty ever since to ignore her departure.

Kester’s Cousin Sylvia came around to sell them a pair of tickets to a dance being given at the Hunt Club in town for the benefit of the Buy-a-Bale movement, which had been begun with the hope that if everybody with any money to spare would buy a bale of cotton at the standard price of fifty dollars the market would be eased. “Such a worthy cause,” Sylvia urged, “and nobody is going to lose anything by it, because all the brokers say that as soon as the war is over the need for cotton in Europe will send the price to twelve cents a pound. So anybody who buys a bale now will make ten dollars by holding it.”

“Really?” said Eleanor.

“Yes indeed.” Cousin Sylvia was fluttering about the parlor. “Have you bought your bale yet?”

Eleanor gasped.

“We have all the cotton we need, Cousin Sylvia,” answered Kester. He looked as if he wanted to giggle.

“But my dear boy, it’s the
principle
of the thing!”

“We can’t afford principles,” Eleanor said curtly.

“Now Eleanor, you
mustn’t
say things like that. President Wilson has bought a bale, and I’m sure he doesn’t need it. And all sorts of people are buying bales and putting them on their front porches—”

“Doing their alms before men in the most delicate fashion,” murmured Kester.

“And a great many of the leading merchants in New Orleans and everywhere are buying bales, and they put them on the sidewalks with a sign saying ‘Bought by the Soandso Company, have you bought yours?’”

“A nice way to get free advertising by shoving the taxpayers off the sidewalk,” said Eleanor. “I think it’s silly. The cotton is all being held for sale again, so I don’t see that it’s easing the market.”

“Now Eleanor, you don’t understand.” Sylvia opened her handbag and took out a rattling handful of buttons. “We are giving out these buttons to be worn on your dress, or your coat lapel, Kester. You see, they have ‘I’ve bought a bale, have you?’ printed on them.”

Quivering with suppressed merriment, Kester took a button. “I see. Excellent. I tell you, Sylvia, I’ll buy a bale from somebody if you’ll buy a bale from me.”

Sylvia gave a tolerant little laugh.
“Now,
Kester, you know I have
barely
enough to live on! My poor Conrad,” she explained to Eleanor, “was not a practical business man for all his noble qualities. That’s why I’m giving all I have, my strength and my time, to the cause. It’s all I have to give.” She proceeded to explain that of course, she had known it all along, when people put their whole confidence into one staple commodity they were heading
straight
for disaster. As neither of them had ever heard her say so before, Kester continued to be amused and Eleanor irritated. Cousin Sylvia asked Kester if he would please look for her handkerchief, she must have dropped it when she got out of her buggy, and when he was gone she urged Eleanor in a confidential voice to be
very
cheerful during these trying days. “And
don’t
make such pessimistic remarks, my dear girl,” she went on. “What every man wants of his wife is comfort and cheer. I know about these things.”

Eleanor was tempted to slap her, but was saved from carrying out her impulse by Kester, who returned to say that he could not find the handkerchief, and remarkably Sylvia discovered that she still had it in her bag, how stupid of her to think she had dropped it. Now if they couldn’t buy a bale today, would they at least take tickets for the dance? Such a worthy cause. Eleanor was moved to wrath when Kester bought the tickets.

“Did you have to do that?” she demanded when Cousin Sylvia had left.

Kester sank into a chair and began to laugh. “No, but I did it because I wanted to. Isn’t she wonderful? The first time I ever got sent upstairs in disgrace it was for laughing at Sylvia out loud.”