This Side of Glory (22 page)

Eleanor scowled thoughtfully at the corner of the room. “And if we didn’t grow cotton, we’d lose Ardeith.”

“We certainly would, to somebody who isn’t too idealistic to grow it. I’m not the stuff martyrs are made of, Eleanor, and you aren’t either. We’d better just grow as much cotton as we possibly can and be thankful the price is rising.”

She gave him an ironic little smile. “Be thankful? To whom?”

“Honey child,” said Kester, “everybody else has God on his side. Why shouldn’t we?”

3

The plantation produced eight hundred and sixty-four bales that fall. The price in October was twelve cents a pound. With two crops in the warehouse, Kester and Eleanor found themselves possessed of more than one hundred thousand dollars’ worth of cotton, and after a long siege with her books Eleanor announced that they could hold part of it.

“We can pay Mr. Tonelli and also that twenty thousand dollars to the bank,” she said, “and if we are very careful we can cling to a little of this and wait for 1916 prices. Please let’s do that. The war is not over, Kester.”

He agreed with her, but added, “Now I’m going to see my tailor.”

“Do,” said Eleanor, “and as soon as I get my figure back I’m going to get some clothes too. An allover embroidery dress with a parasol to match, and patent-leather shoes with white kid tops and black silk lacings, and a suit of that new battleship gray, and a hat with a Paradise feather—stop me, Kester! I’m getting silly.”

“Go on and be silly. How long since you had a new dress?”

“Don’t you remember? That black one with the slit skirt, just after the archduke was killed.”

Kester pulled her to him impulsively and kissed her.

Their son was born in January. Kester romantically insisted upon naming him Philip Larne, in memory of the periwigged founder of Ardeith whose portrait hung in the hall. He brought Cornelia in to see her brother and Cornelia regarded him with grave interest. “A yive doll,” she commented, for she had difficulty with the letter L.

Kester smiled and put his finger through one of her curls. Watching them from the bed, Eleanor said, “I observe that somebody’s nose is not out of joint.”

He laughed and said he should hope not. When he had gone out, Cornelia toddling after him in abject devotion, Eleanor turned her head on the pillow to look at the cradle, where she could just see one of baby Philip’s hands on the coverlet. It was a very tiny, very pink hand, and she loved it very much.

She went to sleep, and when she woke it was because Kester had put his head in to tell her that though submarine attacks on merchant ships were scaring the market, cotton was twelve and a half cents a pound.

Eleanor opened her eyes. “Have the Allies got through the Dardanelles?”

“No.”

“Are the Germans any nearer Paris?”

“No.”

“Cotton will be fifteen cents by fall,” said Eleanor.

4

By the time the 1916 crop was in flower, cotton was fourteen cents a pound. That autumn they harvested a crop of one thousand and thirty-two bales, and in October, the month when the Ardeith cotton was usually sold, the price was sixteen cents.

They sold what they had to, to pay the bank. About the rest, Eleanor hesitated with a sensation of mentally catching her breath. “Let’s hold it till after the Presidential election,” she pled.

The truth was, she needed a respite. Kester simply did not work with the fierce consistency that was needed if the plantation was to be made to produce to its utmost, and her knowledge of this had made her return to the battle sooner than she should have done after the birth of her second child. She had nursed little Philip for six months, driven by a sense of duty that would not let her admit that this, coupled with the efforts that had raised the plantation’s yield by nearly two hundred bales, was costing more than she could safely give. Her experience of illness was small—except at the births of her children she had not been confined to bed for as long as a fortnight since she had had measles at the age of thirteen—and she had taken it for granted that her bodily endurance was limitless. She dreaded being compelled to own that it was not.

Kester was different. When Kester was tired he went to sleep. When work grew dull he called up some people and had a party. The inexorable, persistent fact that Ardeith was still groaning with debt and that the madness of Europe was a temporary boon that could be used only while it lasted, seemed to trouble him not at all. He enjoyed their present prosperity, bought a new car and restocked the liquor-closets, and as usual let the future take care of itself. In her leisure after the cotton was in Eleanor was compelled to acknowledge what she had not been willing to admit during the summer, that he was increasingly restless. Kester was tired of being a hard-working planter. He wanted something to happen. In the summer, when they were working from daybreak till dark, Kester had talked yearningly of going to one of the new preparedness camps; when she had exclaimed in horror that he could not leave her with the plantation and a newborn baby both to be cared for, he had given up the idea, but she had seen him looking at the pictures of the camps wistfully, like a little boy denied a holiday. Eleanor sighed as she recalled it. She had learned Kester’s nature and knew there was no changing it; he was brilliant, generous, charming, but he reminded her of the rich young ruler to whom the Lord had said, “One thing thou lackest.” He had no talent for drudgery.

But she had, and she was forced to conclude that hers must be enough for them both. When she compared other women’s husbands with hers she felt blessed. Whatever Kester’s shortcomings he had two virtues she prized above all else: he was never dull, and he never gave her a chance to doubt that he adored her. He told her so often, never more fervently than when Isabel came back to town. They were out riding in Kester’s new car and saw her with Violet, standing on the street in the shadow of a billboard flaunting a huge picture of President Wilson and the proclamation “He Kept Us Out of War.”

“I didn’t know she was here again,” said Eleanor.

“She’s been here several weeks,” said Kester, “but this is the first time I’ve seen her.”

Violet waved, but if Isabel saw them pass she gave no evidence of it. Eleanor looked down at her shoe-lacing. “Kester?”

“Yes, honey?”

“Have you talked to her at all since—” she stopped.

“Once.”

“When?”

“Not long after that. I told her I was ashamed of myself and didn’t intend to let any such thing happen again. That’s all. It was a very short interview. You aren’t concerned about her, are you?”

She shook her head. “No. Of course not.”

“You shouldn’t be. You see, Eleanor, I love you. I love you more than I’ve ever been able to tell you. You couldn’t get rid of me unless you threw me out and locked the doors.”

She put her hand over the one that lay near her on the steering-wheel, and pressed it.

“You don’t wear darned gloves any more,” Kester remarked.

The market hesitated until Mr. Wilson was safely re-elected, then cotton leaped to eighteen cents a pound. It was a magnificent price; though they had had to raise the wages of their laborers their profits were higher than they had dared to expect. Kester suggested that they give a dinner-party to celebrate, and Eleanor joyfully acceded, buying for the occasion the most beautiful velvet dress she had ever owned. They had a glorious Christmas tree for the children, and though golden-haired bisque dolls with lashed eyelids could no longer be obtained from Germany, Cornelia did not miss them and baby Philip was so delighted with the bright tree that he kicked and gurgled without paying any attention at all to his toys.

By the time the excitement of Christmas was over they became aware of a feeling of expectancy. It did not come suddenly; it had been growing, as when a sound of rain becomes noticeable and one realizes that one has been hearing it, without noticing, for a long time. The United States was going into the war. Nobody knew just when, but there it was, unmistakably about to happen. The feeling of expectancy was hard to analyze: it was not caused by such disasters as the
Lusitania
attack—one was used to them by now, and said shrugging that Americans who didn’t want to be bombed should stay home; it was not the horror-stories—one was used to those too, so used to them that readers skimmed nightmarish accounts with bored eyes; it was not even the vast American loans to the Allies; it was an odd, resentful feeling that something tremendous was going on and Americans were missing it. Eleanor observed that everybody she knew seemed to share Kester’s feeling of restlessness. The preparedness camps, the army expedition to chase Villa along the Mexican border, the defense appropriations, seemed like rehearsals for a show too long delayed. When she took the children out to play one afternoon and found Kester with half a dozen of his friends practicing shots at a target set up in a meadow, she began to be frightened. Cornelia clapped her hands, shouting, “Father’s a sojer! Aren’t you a sojer, father?”

“Not yet,” Kester said merrily, “but watch! Hold them, Eleanor.”

Eleanor kept the children back while Kester put a shot neatly into the middle of the target. Baby Philip, alarmed at the noise, began to cry, and that gave her an excuse to take him and Cornelia indoors, but when Kester came in she demanded, “Kester, if we should get into this imbroglio—”

“It does look as if we’re about to get into it.”

“You haven’t any wild notion of going, have you?”

“I don’t know. Why not?”

“If you aren’t scared of being shot—and I suppose you aren’t—don’t you know you have a job to do here? Who’d raise the cotton if you went?”

“I haven’t gone yet,” said Kester easily. “And if Mr. Wilson dillydallies much longer it may be over before anybody goes from here.”

But his efforts were more spasmodic than ever that spring, and getting the fields planted required incessant labor from her. She was not surprised when the United States entered the war, but she was increasingly irritated that with cotton now at twenty cents a pound Kester seemed to think the plantation could run itself while he watched parades and read and talked about the war.

“Listen, Eleanor. Whatever they say about Wilson, they can’t deny he’s got a tremendous talent for words. ‘We are glad to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its people… . The world must be made safe for democracy—’”

“Kester, did you order fertilizer for the south field?”

“I forgot about it. I’ll phone in the morning. This is really good, Eleanor, did you read it? ‘To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured—’”

“You promised to order that fertilizer yesterday. How do you expect to raise cotton if you won’t pay any attention to it?”

“Oh Eleanor, be quiet! I said I’d order it tomorrow. Do you want to hear any more?”

“Good heavens, no! I haven’t got time for democracy. What’s that phone number? I’ll call.”

She went to the phone in the hall and ordered the fertilizer. When she came back Kester was still buried in the President’s message to Congress, apparently having quite forgotten his earlier cynical attitude toward the war. Eleanor felt a pang of apprehension. The plantation had become a tedious job, nobody knew it better than she did, while the war was new and exciting. It beckoned a man of Kester’s temperament with an imperative thrill. She thought of the work that still lay ahead if they were to save Ardeith, and shivered at the possibility of facing such a battle alone.

She could see it happening, though she tried not to see it and argued to herself that Kester simply could not go now and leave Ardeith to her. Kester did not have to go, for he was thirty-two years old and only men from eighteen to thirty were being required to register for the draft. But she knew he was going, and when he went she was not surprised, but despairing.

Kester came in happily, singing at the top of his voice, and burst into the room where she was working on her records and at the same time trying to keep an eye on Cornelia and Philip, who were playing on the floor. He picked up Cornelia and swung her around and as he put her down he turned to Eleanor. “How do you think you’ll like me in a uniform?”

She dropped her pen, making a blot on the figures. “Kester! You haven’t!”

He grinned and nodded. “Yes I have.”

“You’ve signed up?” she asked in a voice that came out of a throat tight with dismay.

“I’ve promised to. I’m signing up finally this afternoon.”

Eleanor got up slowly. She walked to the wall where the bellcord hung and pulled it. When Dilcy appeared she told her to take the children out. As the door closed behind them she turned back to Kester, who was watching her with puzzled astonishment.

“Eleanor, what’s the matter? Don’t you want me to go?”

She held the back of a chair tight with both hands. “Kester,” she exclaimed sternly, “you can’t do this to me. If you’ve only promised somebody you’ll enlist, you don’t have to do it. You can’t leave Ardeith now.”

“My dear darling,” he exclaimed, “don’t start being one of those wives!”

“I’m not being one of those wives. I’m talking as your business partner. What will happen to Ardeith if you go away?”

Kester’s face went blank. “Why Eleanor, you know all about it now!”

“Knowing about it is one thing. Doing it is something else.” She tried to plead with him. “Kester, this plantation is a full-time job. Running this house and taking care of two children is too much to add to it. You have responsibilities at home!”

He took a step toward her. “But this is war! Don’t you understand?”

“Certainly I understand,” she retorted. “The terrible Huns. Hang the Kaiser. Berlin or bust. I understand. You’re running away.”

“Running away?” He was hurt and astonished.

“Yes,” said Eleanor.

Kester was angrily patriotic. Didn’t she know the country needed men? That every billboard, every newspaper, was urging women to keep the home fires burning while their husbands went out and saved democracy? Didn’t she want the children to be proud of him when they grew up?