We Are What We Pretend to Be (2 page)

“You all call your father the General?” asked Haley.

“Oh, after the war, everybody around here called him that, and we just kind of picked it up, too. My sister Hope says it’s because he’s more like a general than a father, but that’s just some of her mean smartiness. Nobody ever had a better daddy than we do.” She nodded twice in affirmation of her statement.

“I would like to hang a picture over my bed,” said Haley. “Would it hurt anything if I drove a nail in the wall?”

“Oh, I guess it would be all right, if you’d be very careful not to crack the plaster. But that’s for the General to say, of course,” said Annie. “You can ask him when you meet him at suppertime. He ought to be in a pretty good mood, because he figures he’s got Caesar and Delores licked.”

“More cousins?” Haley asked abstractedly. He was examining a framed photograph, which had been swathed in a pair of flannel pajamas in the heart of his suitcase.

Annie chuckled appreciatively. “Maybe you’ll think they look like cousins when you see them tomorrow,” she said. “Caesar and Delores are the horses who pull the wagon. They ran away with a load last week, and they tore up the vegetable garden before
they finally came up against a fence. The General’s out today, trying some new bits that look like bicycle chains with sawteeth along one edge. He says if those two get fancy with him again, he’ll saw their heads off before they can run ten yards.” She seemed to relish the picture. “That’s why he wasn’t here to welcome you this afternoon,” Annie explained. “He’s out driving the team himself to make sure they know who’s boss now. Ordinarily, he only goes out and works on D-days.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know about D-days,” said Haley politely.

“Didn’t I explain all about that? Well, you would have seen all about it on the bulletin board anyway. Tuesdays and Thursdays are D-days, which means that everybody, including Kitty, Hope, and the General, has to go out and work a full day on the farm. Won’t make much difference to you, I guess. I understand you’re going to be working a full week. The only difference on D-days will be that you’ll be on D-squad instead of C-squad. D-squad is the General, the two girls, you, and Mr. Banghart. Mr. Banghart is nuts. C-squad is you and Mr. Banghart.”

“Uh huh.”

“A- and B-squads are a couple of other crews. They’re out working another part of the farm about a mile from here.”

“Sounds a little like the Army,” Haley ventured.

Annie rose from the cot with effort, smoothed her apron, and walked over to Haley’s side. “It’s the only way to get a lick of work out of anyone, organization is, according to the General,” she said. She looked at the picture that was absorbing most of his attention.

“The glass on it got cracked somehow,” he said. “Maybe I
could go into town and get another one. Do you suppose that would be possible?”

“Well, I don’t know. You’ll have to ask the General about that, too. He says you’re going to be a pretty busy boy around here, and I imagine he’ll want you to stick close to the farm for a while, anyway. Sometimes,” she said bitterly, “the girls walk into town and leave me to make the beds, wash the dishes, and straighten up the house all by myself—like today. I suppose they could get you another glass, if you asked them, if they could leave off chasing boys long enough to do it.” She studied the photograph. “Those your folks?”

“Yes, my mother and father,” said Haley gravely. “This was taken when they were very young, of course. You can tell that by the way Mother’s got her hair fixed. They somehow never had many pictures taken of themselves together. This is about the only one.”

“They’re both very nice looking,” said Annie. She squinted so as to see the picture more sharply. “You’d never know that the General and your mother were brother and sister, except for maybe the lines around her eyes.” She paused, and something like warmth came into her eyes for the first time since Haley had seen them. “Golly,” she said, “I can imagine what you’ve been through. We lost our mother while the war was going on, you know, and I had to kind of try and take over. Believe me, I know how you feel, Haley.”

Haley did not want to talk or think about it. He turned his back on her and busied himself with straightening the contents of his sock drawer.

“It’s funny about relatives, isn’t it?” mused Annie. “Here you are my first cousin, even if it is by adoption, and I never laid eyes on you before today, and the General’s never seen you. I just wonder where Kitty and Hope and I’ll be twenty years from today.” She made clucking noises and shook her head slowly.

The sound of voices and the crunching of footfalls in the gravel driveway below brought Haley and Annie from their separate reveries.

“I’m good and sick of walking. You’ve got a license. Why don’t you put your foot down and demand to use the car?” complained a girl’s high, melodic voice.

“That’s your cousin Hope,” said Annie. “She’s about your age.”

“He’d re-enlist as a private first,” said a second voice, with a gentle twang, pitched somewhat lower than the first. “If I got a speck of dust on it, I might as well stick my head in the oven and turn on the gas. Remember what he did to that poor pigeon?”

“That’s your cousin Kitty,” Annie explained. “She’s a year older, and president of her sorority at the high school.”

“You’re going to have to do the dishes tonight. Roy is coming by for me at seven, dear,” said Kitty’s voice.

“Drop dead,” said Hope.

“O.K., then let the mother hen do it again,” said Kitty. The front door slammed, and the conversation stopped.

“I’m the mother hen,” muttered Annie. “I have no doubt that they’ll tell you a lot of kind things about me when my back is turned. They may not have been behind the door when God passed out the pretty faces, but Heaven only knows where they were when He divided up the gratitude.”

Haley was embarrassed, not knowing what comment was expected of him. “I’m sure they’re very nice,” he said.

“You’ll see, Haley; you’ll see,” said Annie with a crooked smile. She shuffled from the room to the head of the staircase and shouted down to Kitty and Hope. “You two girls get on your good behavior. Your cousin Haley’s here a day early, and I want him to see what a fine, happy family he’s getting into.”

She returned to Haley’s room, followed by Kitty, whose full hips swayed with studied grace as she crossed the bare floor to where Haley stood, his long fingers laced behind him, a fixed smile on his face.

“So this is Haley,” Kitty exulted. Haley fidgeted under her warm, albeit vacant, gaze. Her face had much of the simple-naturedness of Annie’s, but the setting of this attribute was altogether enchanting, he thought. One year his senior, she was fully a woman, and her lush maturity made Haley feel very young and frail indeed.

His awe must have shown, for Kitty crooned, “Aw, look at him, Annie. What’s the matter, youngster? Afraid of girls, or don’t you like it out here in God’s country?”

“I think I’ll like it very much,” stammered Haley. “My mother used to tell me about when she was a little girl out here, and I got to feel it was kind of a second home of mine, too.”

“But what a come-down from New York, I’ll bet—nightclubs, theaters, fancy stores, and everything.”

“She’s crazy to hear about New York,” said Annie. “Four million men in New York.”

“It was very different, certainly,” said Haley, thoughtfully. “We
always lived in apartments, and there were a lot of interesting people around all the time. Father loved it, naturally. It was the only kind of life for him. But Mother always said she belonged back here.”

“Well, we’ll be seeing a lot of each other for many years to come,” said Kitty as she left the room. “You’ll have to excuse me until supper—which had better be on time for a change, Annie dear.”

Haley was agog. “She’s very beautiful, isn’t she, Annie?” he said.

“That isn’t exactly news for around two hundred miles,” said Annie. “The General says she’s a lot smarter than some of the livestock in the neighborhood, too.” She changed the subject abruptly. “I almost forgot to point out the General’s welcome present.” She indicated a pair of silver military brushes, which rested side by side on the otherwise barren dresser top. “If you want to keep on the right side of him, keep your hair brushed, don’t be scared of him, and don’t ask to use the car. That car’s his pride and joy, and he doesn’t trust anybody within ten feet of it. It used to belong to a German general, and there’s not another car in the country that can touch it.”

“That doesn’t sound very difficult,” laughed Haley.

“And remember,” said Annie with severity, “no matter what he seems like at times, the General is one of the finest men alive. Now go downstairs and meet your cousin Hope. She’s in the sunroom.”

As Annie had promised, Haley found Hope in the sunroom, her quasi-adult figure clad in denim trousers and a man’s shirt.
She was seated tailor-fashion on the broad sill of a bay window. When she looked up at him, he felt as though his bones would melt. Her face was angelic beneath a honey-colored blizzard of close-cropped curls. The thoughtful depths of her dark green eyes, and the radiant cast of her features, dispelled in an instant the image of Kitty that Haley had thought would be foremost in his thoughts for the rest of his life. “Welcome to Ardennes Farm,” she said. “It’s good to have another young person around. This place needs young ideas like nobody’s business.”

“I didn’t know the farm had a name,” said Haley.

“Oh, yes,” said Hope wearily, “it’s in honor of a battle, just like everything else around here.”

“Annie said you were very pretty, and you are,” said Haley, astonishing himself with his atypical gallantry, and with the sudden affection for Hope that surged within him.

“Uh huh,” said Hope, and Haley guessed that she hadn’t heard him clearly, for her head was turned away from him, her gaze intent on what Haley perceived to be a horse-drawn wagon, which was making a fitful and noisy approach toward the house. “Look at that idiot, that big, childish, old fool, Haley,” she said irritably.

As the wagon drew nearer, Haley saw that it was not moving continuously but was making a quick series of starts and stops, and that the man at the reins was standing on the empty wagon bed, dancing an abbreviated jig, and shouting at the top of his lungs. “Giddyap! by golly; whoa! by golly; giddyap! blast you; whoa! blast you . . .” A pink froth wreathed the mouth corners of the stamping, rearing horses.

Hope jumped through the open window onto the lawn below and ran toward the wagon, waving her arms. She reached it when it was less than one hundred yards from where Haley stood squinting into the bright, level rays of the setting sun. He watched with admiration Hope’s courage and vigor, and with melancholy reflections of his own deficiency in those manly qualities, as she scrambled onto the wagon, stamped on it with fury, and berated the man at the reins.

“What do you want to do, kill the poor horses with those awful bits?” Haley heard her say.

“I’m darn well going to have the most obedient pair of horses in the state;
that’s
what I’m trying to do,” bellowed the driver. “Now get back in the house and set the table or something!” He was short and plump, something like Annie, Haley thought, and he wore a disheveled ten-gallon hat, whose limp brim fluttered in the wind from the south, occasionally slapping at his steel-rimmed spectacles as he argued. “Now get! Go on and get! Giddyap! by golly.” The wagon jolted forward ten feet. “Whoa!” The driver hauled back on the reins.

Hope dropped from the wagon, ran to the head of the frantic team, and unsnapped the reins from the bridles. “You’ll regret that piece of high-handedness, young lady,” threatened the driver, pink with anger. In another moment, she had freed the team from the tongue and traces and set them trotting toward the barnyard.

Haley gaped as the man seized Hope by the arm and fetched her a smart slap on her behind. “Didn’t hurt,” she yelled. The man, still grasping her arm, marched her toward the house.
“Don’t care, don’t care, don’t care,” she chanted, as they scuffled nearer and nearer to Haley.

“We’ll see who cares,” said the man. He thrust her before him into the sunroom. Haley instinctively ducked behind a chair. “Now go upstairs, Miss I-know-so-much-more-than-anybody. No supper for you tonight, and no movies for a month. Do we understand each other?”

“Simply don’t care at all,” said Hope. She turned and walked turtle-slow to the foot of the stairs. “I repeat,” she said, “that I don’t care. I might add that this must have looked simply wonderful to cousin Haley, who’s hiding behind the red chair.”

The man wheeled to glare at Haley’s shelter. Haley bobbed up from behind the chair’s high back and bared his teeth in what he hoped would look like a smile. “How do you do, sir,” said Haley.

“You’re Haley Brandon?”

“Yessir.”

“Well, how do you do, young man? I’m your uncle, the great big bad bully the girls call ‘the General.’ Welcome to Ardennes Farm, and what were you doing behind the chair? Did I scare you, eh?” The General chuckled jovially.

Haley smiled sheepishly. “I just didn’t want to intrude—”

“Sorry about that disturbance,” the General interrupted. “It’s the sort of thing that could happen in any family—maybe not quite as often,” he added thoughtfully. “You saw it all from the first?”

“Yessir.”

“Good. Then I don’t have to justify my actions. You saw the
outrage that gave me no alternative.” He dismissed the matter with a shrug. “Well, first let me say that we’re glad you’re here. My sister brought you up as her own, and that’s what I intend to do. I know a good bit about you already from your mother’s letters. You’re thinner than I expected—a whole lot thinner—but otherwise she kept me pretty well posted. She was a lot better letter writer than I am. I know you’re quite a piano player, for one thing, and that you were looking forward to going to Chicago to study at the Conservatory this winter, before all this happened. That right?”