“I love you, darling,” one girl said with a squeal, and Ballard hugged her, looking over her shoulder for approval.
“Don’t be so chauvinistic,” said Peyton, in a sophisticated voice, but there was a smile on her lips, and Dick hauled her down from the bar and they danced, very close, to a band playing “Stardust.”
“I want to go somewhere,” she said abstractedly.
“Where, honey?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Anywhere. Everybody’s so polluted here.”
“I know. Bunch of bums.”
“Oh, they’re wonderful,” she said, “all these guys. But I think everyone started out too soon today.”
“Yes.”
“And I like to drink, but——”
“But what?” he said.
“Nothing.”
“We could drive down to the farm, honey,” he said.
“Mmmmm-hh.”
“What do you mean—mmmm-hh?”
“I mean——”
“Don’t you like going down to the farm with Dickie boy?”
She pushed away from him a little, looking up into his eyes. “Oh, honey, certainly I do. It’s just that—well, I’ve told you. I love it down there. I love that old place, and your folks. I just love it all——” She was thinking it over. “Oh, Dick, I just don’t think it’s right to go down when your folks are away. Besides——”
“Besides what?” he demanded gently.
“It’s just that I don’t think it’s right.”
“Prissy,” he said. “How many drinks have you had today? I thought you were the Sweet Briar intellectual type with modern ideas.”
“Don’t be an ass,” she said mildly. “If I’d had many drinks today, I’d be asking you.”
“Do you love me?” he said.
“Mmm-m.”
He stopped her in the middle of a dip, holding her close, their lips nearly touching. Past them a girl with an unattractive pale face and large breasts was being led sobbing, complaining of insults and Virginia gentlemen, so-called, and hoarse rowdy laughter filled the room. They hardly noticed. “Do you love me?” he repeated intensely. She looked up, eyes wide with astonishment.
“There’s Daddy. Oh, he’s bleeding! He’s hurt!”
Having been lost, having left the game only to find himself wandering hopelessly down side streets, unpaved, dreary roads which he should have but hadn’t remembered after all his early years in Charlottesville, Loftis had been possessed by the belief that all this was only a dream: his search, Peyton, even his fear and agony, were all part of an impossible illusion. He had sobered somewhat, by an effort of will so strong, so unfamiliar, that it had frightened him. And lurching through the cold gray dusk beneath the windless trees—listening to the bells and car horns far-off, receding from him, the fatigued departing sounds of half-hearted cries and bells signaling the knowledge, that, incredibly, he was going in the wrong direction, away from Peyton, away from Maudie and Helen and the hospital, away from his colossal responsibilities—he had listened also to something being spoken in the air, and knew that it was his own voice muttering aloud. It came like a chant: I will be strong, I will be strong—above the noise of his feet scraping grittily across unfleshed fallen leaves and above the noise of the blood at his brain, pulsing a steady, somber, rhythmic voluntary, not of fear but of cowardice. His own cowardice had caught him unawares. Appalled him. And it was then, still murmuring, I will be strong, I will be strong, that he had turned about-face, as much as if he had heard a trumpet call, to strike out through the dusk back up the hill toward the KA house. He toiled uncertainly up the rutted road. This first part of the walk had taken a little over a half-hour, and perhaps, after all, it had been good for him. He had become more sober. At least he had regained a certain sensible balance, of reason if not of body. It was almost dark. He was in Nigger-town. There was a variety of smells and all around him came a chorus of barkings while screen doors slammed and dark shapes came out to say, Hush, Tige, or Hush, Bo, for they knew, too, the dogs had sniffed a white man. Now no longer was he utterly lost. He felt calm, capable even, for the first time today in command of his senses, and although he was afraid for Maudie, still afraid, indeed, for them all, he forgave himself for the day’s lapse of conscience. Strange things had happened; he had had strange dreams. God, if You are there, forgive Your foolish son. … It was at that moment that he fell into the culvert.
He was stunned, hurt; the sky, gray with clouds, was strewn with galaxies of capering stars. With blood flowing from a gash on his temple, he felt himself on wet concrete, and smelled weeds somewhere. He looked up slowly, groping for broken bones. He had fallen four feet off the road, although why and how he couldn’t tell. Water trickled beneath him; there was a smell of weeds and sewage. Painfully and cautiously he picked himself up, holding on to some pipe, wet with scum, to steady himself. He pushed a handkerchief against his wound and moaned aloud, “Oh, Jesus, Jesus,” trembling all over, while a black face peered over the culvert and said, “What’s de matter, man?”
“I fell.”
“Come on up here, man.”
Strong arms offered him support, lifted him up: the man was a young, muscular Negro with a mean, mashed-in face and cheeks with scars pink and raw in the gathering darkness. “Hoo,” he said, “you got a slit for sure.” Loftis puffed as he dragged his feet over the edge of the culvert and stood erect, mopping the blood away.
“Do it hurt much?”
“No,” Loftis said. “Thanks.”
The Negro eased him down to a log. “Get you a portice and put on it,” he said, “make you a portice out of some pipe ashes and some whisky and put in some lard so it’ll keep de air out.”
“Yes,” Loftis said, “I will.”
“Is you all right? Want me carry you up to Main Street?”
“No, thanks,” Loftis said dizzily. “No, I’ll be all right.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. Yes. Thanks a lot.”
It got dark, the Negro was gone, and the blood became matted in his hair. Lights winked on. Orange fires appeared in the houses, and shadow shapes flickered at the doors. It was getting colder. He pulled himself up. A dog snarled at his feet and he kicked at it feebly, hating all dogs forever. Surely this was a punishment, but unconsciously, perhaps mercifully so, he somehow made his way back to the house, concerned solely with the matter of not bleeding to death. There he was snapped back to life by the cool hand of the boy who had greeted him at noon, the priggish voice: “Ah, good evening there, Brother Loftis!” Exquisite warmth enveloped him. He saw Peyton.
“Daddy, Daddy, what happened? You’re cut!” The music died; people turned and stared. Peyton took his arm and, with Dick Cartwright helping her, led him into a downstairs bedroom. He must have slept. Half an hour later he was bandaged, soothed, flat on his back in a bunk, and as his senses returned he heard Peyton say, somewhere far above him, that he was a perfect mess. She was sitting beside him on the bed. He turned his aching head and looked up at her. They were alone.
“Daddy, for heaven’s sake, what are you doing up here anyway, and so stinking?”
“I—I … much better now.”
“Does it hurt much?”
“Not much.” He smiled, reached for her hand.
“It’s not a bad cut, honey. Maybe you’d better go over to the hospital though and have them take a look at it. Bunny, just what on earth are you doing up here this week end?”
“I’m much soberer now,” he said irrelevantly.
“That’s not the point, Bunny——”
“I—I … Oh, hell.”
“Why didn’t you write me, darling? When did you get here? If I’d just known. Dick and I could have taken you to the game and——What on earth happened to you? Did you get into a fight?”
He rose up on his elbows. “No, baby, I just—I fell down. Baby, look here,” he said earnestly, “I don’t quite know how to say it. Something’s happened today. I don’t know. I don’t k
now what. I just——”
“Bunny, for God’s sake what are you trying to convey to me? I thought you were soberer.”
“I am,” he said. “Look, let me explain it. First there’s Maudie, you know she’s up here in the hospital. No, you don’t know, do you?”
“Maudie? Up here again?” Her face became pale. “What’s wrong with her, Bunny?”
“Wait a minute, baby; let me tell you.” He paused and sighed, probing with a finger at his bandage. She pulled his hand away. Then he told her. All. About Maudie. About leaving Helen, and the party at noon and about Pookie, the football game and Frances Brocken-borough and his disaster at the culvert and the drinking, drinking, drinking, and through all this about his mad unhappy homesickness for her, her alone; didn’t she see: how she had fled him, persistently, impudently, and without any remorse, though of course (he smiled) she had really been unaware of it all the time. He held her hands tightly, grinning a little, asking her didn’t she see, how it had been a torture for him all day: this pursuit of something which he had finally despaired of ever attaining, like the impossible ripe carrot on a stick beyond the donkey’s nose; now here she was, he had found her, and wasn’t that fine? And with a gay lie, the old panic returning, he kept on grinning and forced himself to say that he was glad she had been pinned to such a swell boy, and he hoped it augured good things, real things, for the future.
“But, Daddy, what about Maudie? Why on earth did you leave Mother? Why didn’t you telephone over here instead? Oh, Daddy, honestly——”
“Yes, but, baby——” He hadn’t foreseen this sort of thing: her doubt, this look of subtle, mild reproof. Not even that. Perhaps he had expected too much. He had foreseen her as jolly, popping with enthusiasm, as she had been when he had visited her last summer in Washington: then, when they had been together, alone in restaurants, in his car, at the evening concert on the river, they had seemed breathlessly close, indissoluble, perfect. That was as he had last seen her. Now her face was cool and grave, reproachful. Trustfully he had made his confessional, told her everything—and look what had happened. He had even mentioned—in the oblique reference to Pookie—Dolly, thus putting on a conversational level a very adult and very tricky problem. She was no longer listening. He faltered, chewing on his words sourly and fatuously, like an old cow.
“Bunny, what about Maudie? We’ve got to go see her. Why didn’t you stay with Mother?”
“Baby——”
“No, not for her sake. I don’t give a damn about that. But just on account of Maudie. What prompted you to come out and get boiled to the eyes like this? Going to football games. When—when … Oh, Bunny, you’re a mess, a perfect mess!” She got up and began to pace about, running her hands through her hair. “This whole family’s nuts. Absolutely nuts!” She turned; tears were running down her face, tears not of sorrow but of anger and frustration and regret. “Why can’t you stay sober once, Bunny?”
“Baby——”
“I don’t give a damn about Mother——”
“Don’t say——”
“I will say it! I don’t care about her. I never have. But I’d think you’d have enough—oh, Bunny.” She ran to him and threw her arms around his neck. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry, Bunny. For saying things like that. I love you. I just think you’re a jerk.” She sniffled against him, then drew back and dried her eyes. “Now come on,” she said. “We’ve got to go over and see Maudie.”
“All right, baby.” He arose stiffly, once with her to go anywhere at all, to Abaddon, or limbo, or the bottom of the sea. Peyton went out to tell Dick she’d be back later. In the chapter room, still dazed, Loftis wandered through a conga line of pledges, seniors with paddles, and with his bandage threw panic through a gallery of simpering girls. From the door Peyton called for him to hurry up, which he did, stumbling a little, and someone pressed on him the KA grip, splashing whisky down his sleeve. Outside, in the brisk cold air, he knew he’d sober shortly: what the hell, in spite of mad things to come, he had found his baby—wasn’t that enough?
They sat across from her on the sun porch, in the shoddy chairs. The place had not even the virtue of a gentle light; it seemed perfectly suited to weariness and waiting. Two bulbs behind scorched lampshades cast a bald white incandescence through the room; the lamps were set too high, with a studied and unerring miscalculation, and the light they shed denuded the room of all its comforting shadows, like the lights in courtrooms and bus stations or any place oppressive and temporary. In the hallway outside, nurses passed noisily, carrying away the supper trays. Here all three of them puffed on cigarettes; smoke floated in oily blue coils around the room. There was one ashtray, which Helen, standing at her vantage point by the door, kept to herself, and soon beneath the chairs lay a litter of smashed butts, some red from the paint on Peyton’s lips.
“Love,” said Helen in a quiet tone, scornfully, “love!” Her voice rose on the last word and she paused, staring at them violently. Neither of them returned her gaze. “Love!” she repeated haughtily. “Neither of you will ever know what that means!”
She sat down with a sort of swift, rustling fierceness, propped up rigid and tense and exact on the edge of the couch. “Now it’s not the waiting that hurts so,” she said more softly. “That I could stand. I have waited all my life, it seems, for things to happen, for things to come that never came, for one word, I guess, just one single solitary word to tell me that all this lonesomeness wasn’t in vain—that my afternoons of waiting and silence and misery didn’t add up to an eternity after all. One word and I’d be saved, a word that I could have said as well as you, it didn’t matter, so long as we both understood: ‘love’ or ‘forgive’ or even ‘darling,’ it made no difference. One single word. If you only knew my waiting, all waits would seem to you like one minute, do you understand? But you don’t know what love is—or waiting, either.
“So I could stand the wait all afternoon. I could stand the waiting. It was this other thing that mattered. All afternoon I sat right here where I am now, looking out at the hills. You never came, nobody came, but please don’t think I suffered over that: the waiting I can stand. Nobody came. … Yes. The doctor came. He’s a fine, nice man. It was miliary T.B., he said. I guess he saw I was alone, and he’d come and talk to me, pretending to be sociable, but that wasn’t his real intention. He told me finally, very gently: that she probably wouldn’t pull through—a day or two more or something like that—but never fear, there was always a chance. That gave me some strength. I sat here watching the light come down. Oh, what a dark day. I said to myself, be strong. That’s what I said. I said, even if they don’t know, well, Maudie knows, and that’s enough. She knows! Want me to tell you about her, my dears?” She paused for a moment to gaze at them.
They looked back at her now with pity, with a sort of horrified tolerance, but with anguish, too, and guilt. And as if to reassure each other, they took each other’s hand, conscious only of the moment’s accusing silence and the treacherous, pervasive hospital fumes, in each corner confounding disease and decay. Suddenly Loftis blinked. His bandage had slipped down over his eye; with shaking fingers he reached up to adjust it. Past the door a colored orderly toiled, pushing a cartful of spoons; somewhere far-off, water trickled, murmurous, liquid, unceasing. Helen shifted a little on the couch, without lowering her gaze brought one finger up to the side of her nose in a quizzical, humorous gesture, but unconsciously, and then pointed a hand at them. Then suddenly she let her hand fall. Her eyes became gentle.
In a tender, reminiscent voice, she told them.
“Listen—I remember my afternoons … listen …”
In the summer they’d sit together on the porch, she and Maudie, watching the ships and the clouds and the bumblebees in the hollyhocks buzzing about, flying from light to shade. She’d sit and knit or read and Maudie would stay beside her, looking at the picture books. There would be a breeze from the bay, and clouds: they’d come over across the beach, edges d
ead-white, melting, with rain like dark stuff inside, traveling very low, and soundlessly bend the tops of the willows, trailing huge shadows across the lawn beneath; the wind would rustle Maudie’s hair, the picture book and her hair, too. Then there’d be a sort of whisper and the wind would cease, the pages would stop fluttering and the sun return and make the lawn smell like grass again, very hot. They’d drink iced tea, Ella would bring it to them. They’d hear the screen door slam, Ella’s feet limping on the gravel, to scrape then across the porch and finally stop behind them. Ella would lean down and stroke Maudie’s arm, then put the glass in her hand and say something gentle to her, and leave. Helen and Maudie would be alone again.
Sometimes gulls would come over and Maudie would point to them and lift up her arms. Sometimes Helen would tell her about the battleships and freighters: they were anchored far out, and while they watched them the wind would change, the tide sometimes, and the ships would turn all facing the house, so thin against the horizon that they almost disappeared. Smoke hung above Norfolk; sailboats tilted against the wind: sometimes their hulls couldn’t be seen, only the sails, so they looked like scraps of cloth being blown above the waves by something invisible.
Helen would tell her about Pocahontas and Captain John Smith, telling the mind of an infant, hardly even that, stories about people who hardly even existed. Were they still here, still alive? Maudie wanted to know. Helen would say, “Yes,” because they were her friends: friends never died but always lived, and would live in her silent heart forever. She’d tell her of the ships coming past the house years ago, the Indian forest, and of the pagan who saved the Christian soul from sacrifice. Wasn’t that nice, Maudie would say. Were they still here, she’d ask; where were they now, Mamadear? She’d say, “Out there, darling, now close your eyes and think and they’ll return.” And so they’d close their eyes, thinking; then Helen would squeeze her hand and they’d both look at the bay. So too, to Helen it would seem that all had changed: soon Maudie would say, “Yes, Mamadear, I see them,” and below the scudding clouds it appeared that each stake and boat and scrap of sail had been swallowed up by the waves. The towns around the shore had gone; forests grew to the beaches. On the sand bars stood windswept trees. Even the house had vanished: from where the terrace had once stood they were peering through a sunny canebrake where insects darted and hummed; there was marshland beneath their feet.