"Miss Brown" meanwhile sat primly at the end of the porch, a little apart from the others. From the dark sun-parlor at the side came swiftly the tall elegant figure of Miss Irene Mallard, twenty-eight, of Tampa, Florida. She caught him at the step edge, and pulled him round sharply, gripping his arms lightly with her cool long fingers.
"Where are you going, 'Gene?" she said quietly. Her eyes of light violet were a little tired. There was a faint exquisite perfume of rosewater.
"Leave me alone!" he muttered.
"You can't go on like this," she said in a low tone. "She's not worth it--none of them are. Pull yourself together."
"Leave me alone!" he said furiously. "I know what I'm doing!" He wrenched away violently, and leaped down into the yard, plunging around the house in a staggering run.
"Ben!" said Irene Mallard sharply.
Ben rose from the dark porch-swing where he had been sitting with Mrs. Pert.
"See if you can't do something to stop him," said Irene Mallard.
"He's crazy," Ben muttered. "Which way did he go?"
"By there--around the house. Go quick!"
Ben went swiftly down the shallow steps and loped back over the lawn. The yard sloped sharply down: the gaunt back of Dixieland was propped upon a dozen rotting columns of whitewashed brick, fourteen feet high. In the dim light, by one of these slender piers, already mined with crumbling ruins of wet brick, the scarecrow crouched, toiling with the thin grapevine of his arms against the temple.
"I will kill you, House," he gasped. "Vile and accursed House, I will tear you down. I will bring you down upon the whores and boarders. I will wreck you, House."
Another convulsion of his shoulders brought down a sprinkling rain of dust and rubble.
"I will make you fall down on all the people in you, House," he said.
"Fool!" cried Ben, leaping upon him, "what are you trying to do?" He caught the boy's arms from behind and dragged him back. "Do you think you can bring her back to you by wrecking the house? Are there no other women in the world, that you should let one get the best of you like this?"
"Let me go! Let me go!" said Eugene. "What does it matter to you?"
"Don't think, fool, that I care," said Ben fiercely. "You're hurting no one but yourself. Do you think you'll hurt the boarders by pulling the house down on your own head? Do you think, idiot, that any one cares if you kill yourself?" He shook the boy. "No. No. I don't care what you do, you know. I simply want to save the family the trouble and expense of burying you."
With a great cry of rage and bafflement Eugene tried to free himself. But the older brother held on as desperately as the Old Man of the Sea. Then, with a great effort of his hands and shoulders, the boy lifted his captor off the ground, and dashed him back against the white brick wall of the cellar. Ben collapsed, releasing him, with a fit of dry coughing, holding his hand against his thin breast.
"Don't be a fool," he gasped.
"Did I hurt you?" said Eugene dully.
"No. Go into the house and wash yourself. You ought to comb your hair once or twice a week, you know. You can't go around like a wild man. Get something to eat. Have you any money?"
"Yes--I have enough."
"Are you all right now?"
"Yes--don't talk about it, please."
"I don't want to talk about it, fool. I want you to learn a little sense," said Ben. He straightened, brushing his whitened coat. In a moment, he went on quietly: "To hell with them, 'Gene. To hell with them all. Don't let them worry you. Get all that you can. Don't give a damn for anything. Nothing gives a damn for you. To hell with it all! To hell with it! There are a lot of bad days. There are a lot of good ones. You'll forget. There are a lot of days. Let it go."
"Yes," said Eugene wearily, "let it go. It's all right now. I'm too tired. When you get tired you don't care, do you? I'm too tired to care. I'll never care any more. I'm too tired. The men in France get tired and don't care. If a man came and pointed a gun at me now, I wouldn't be scared. I'm too tired." He began to laugh, loosely, with a sense of delicious relief. "I don't care for any one or anything. I've always been afraid of everything, but when I got tired I didn't care. That's how I shall get over everything. I shall get tired."
Ben lighted a cigarette.
"That's better," he said. "Let's get something to eat." He smiled thinly. "Come along, Samson."
They walked out slowly around the house.
He washed himself, and ate a hearty meal. The boarders finished, and wandered off into the darkness variously--some to the band-concert on the Square, some to the moving-pictures, some for walks through the town. When he had fed he went out on the porch. It was dark and almost empty save where, at the side, Mrs. Selborne sat in the swing with a wealthy lumber man from Tennessee. Her low rich laughter bubbled up softly from the vat of the dark. "Miss Brown" rocked quietly and decorously by herself. She was a heavily built and quietly dressed woman of thirty-nine years, touched with that slightly comic primness--that careful gentility--that marks the conduct of the prostitute incognito. She was being very refined. She was a perfect lady and would, if aroused, assert the fact.
"Miss Brown" lived, she said, in Indianapolis. She was not ugly: her face was simply permeated with the implacable dullness of the Mid-Westerner. In spite of the lewdness of her wide thin mouth, her look was smug. She had a fair mass of indifferent brown hair, rather small brown eyes, and a smooth russet skin.
"Pshaw!" said Eliza. "I don't believe her name's 'Miss Brown' any more than mine is."
There had been rain. The night was cool and black; the flower-bed before the house was wet, with a smell of geraniums and drenched pansies. He lighted a cigarette, sitting upon the rail. "Miss Brown" rocked.
"It's turned off cool," she said. "That little bit of rain has done a lot of good, hasn't it?"
"Yes, it was hot," he said. "I hate hot weather."
"I can't stand it either," she said. "That's why I go away every summer. Out my way we catch it. You folks here don't know what hot weather is."
"You're from Milwaukee, aren't you?"
"Indianapolis."
"I knew it was somewhere out there. Is it a big place?" he asked curiously.
"Yes. You could put Altamont in one corner of it and never miss it."
"How big is it?" he said eagerly. "How many people have you there?"
"I don't know exactly--over three hundred thousand with the suburbs."
He reflected with greedy satisfaction.
"Is it pretty? Are there a lot of pretty houses and fine buildings?"
"Yes--I think so," she said reflectively. "It's a nice homelike place."
"What are the people like? What do they do? Are they rich?"
"Why--yes. It's a business and manufacturing place. There are a lot of rich people."
"I suppose they live in big houses and ride around in big cars, eh?" he demanded. Then, without waiting for a reply, he went on: "Do they have good things to eat? What?"
She laughed awkwardly, puzzled and confused.
"Why, yes. There's a great deal of German cooking. Do you like German cooking?"
"Beer!" he muttered lusciously. "Beer--eh? You make it out there?"
"Yes." She laughed, with a voluptuous note in her voice. "I believe you're a bad boy, Eugene."
"And what about the theatres and libraries? You have lots of shows, don't you?"
"Yes. A lot of good shows come to Indianapolis. All the big hits in New York and Chicago."
"And a library--you have a big one, eh?"
"Yes. We have a nice library."
"How many books has it?"
"Oh, I can't say as to that. But it's a good big library."
"Over 100,000 books, do you suppose? They wouldn't have half a million, would they?" He did not wait for an answer, he was talking to himself. "No, of course not. How many books can you take out at a time? What?"
The great shadow of his hunger bent over her; he rushed out of himself, devouring her with his quest
ions.
"What are the girls like? Are they blonde or brunette? What?"
"Why, we have both kinds--more dark than fair, I should say." She looked through the darkness at him, grinning.
"Are they pretty?"
"Well! I can't say. You'll have to draw your own conclusions, Eugene. I'm one of them, you know." She looked at him with demure lewdness, offering herself for inspection. Then, with a laugh of teasing reproof, she said: "I believe you're a bad boy, Eugene. I believe you're a bad boy."
He lighted another cigarette feverishly.
"I'd give anything for a smoke," muttered "Miss Brown." "I don't suppose I could here?" She looked round her.
"Why not?" he said impatiently. "There's no one to see you. It's dark. What does it matter anyway?"
Little electric currents of excitement played up his spine.
"I believe I will," she whispered. "Have you got a cigarette?"
He gave her his package; she stood up to receive the flame he nursed in his cupped hands. She leaned her heavy body against him as, with puckered face and closed eyes, she held her cigarette to the fire. She grasped his shaking hands to steady the light, holding them for a moment after.
"What," said "Miss Brown," with a cunning smile, "what if your mother should see us? You'd catch it!"
"She'll not see us," he said. "Besides," he added generously, "why shouldn't women smoke the same as men? There's no harm in it."
"Yes," said "Miss Brown," "I believe in being broad-minded about these things, too."
But he grinned in the dark, because the woman had revealed herself with a cigarette. It was a sign--the sign of the province, the sign unmistakable of debauchery.
Then, when he laid his hands upon her, she came very passively into his embrace as he sat before her on the rail.
"Eugene! Eugene!" she said in mocking reproof.
"Where is your room?" he said.
She told him.
Later, Eliza came suddenly and silently out upon them, on one of her swift raids from the kitchen.
"Who's there? Who's there?" she said, peering into the gloom suspiciously. "Huh? Hah? Where's Eugene? Has any one seen Eugene?" She knew very well he was there.
"Yes, here I am," he said. "What do you want?"
"Oh! Who's that with you? Hah?"
"'Miss Brown' is with me."
"Won't you come out and sit down, Mrs. Gant?" said "Miss Brown." "You must be tired and hot."
"Oh!" said Eliza awkwardly, "is that you, 'Miss Brown'? I couldn't see who it was." She switched on the dim porch light. "It's mighty dark out here. Some one coming up those steps might fall and break a leg. I tell you what," she continued conversationally, "this air feels good. I wish I could let everything go and just enjoy myself."
She continued in amiable monologue for another half hour, her eyes probing about swiftly all the time at the two dark figures before her. Then hesitantly, by awkward talkative stages, she went into the house again.
"Son," she said before she went, troubled, "it's getting late. You'd better go to bed. That's where we all ought to be."
"Miss Brown" assented gracefully and moved toward the door.
"I'm going now. I feel tired. Good-night, all."
He sat quietly on the rail, smoking, listening to the noises in the house. It went to sleep. He went back and found Eliza preparing to retire to her little cell.
"Son!" she said, in a low voice, after shaking her puckered face reproachfully for a moment, "I tell you what--I don't like it. It doesn't look right--your sitting out alone with that woman. She's old enough to be your mother."
"She's YOUR boarder, isn't she?" he said roughly, "not mine. I didn't bring her here."
"There's one thing sure," said Eliza, wounded. "You don't catch me associating with them. I hold up my head as high as any one." She smiled at him bitterly.
"Well, good-night, mama," he said, ashamed and hurt. "Let's forget about them for a while. What does it matter?"
"Be a good boy," said Eliza timidly. "I want you to be a good boy, son."
There was a sense of guilt in her manner, a note of regret and contrition.
"Don't worry!" he said, turning away suddenly, wrenched bitterly, as he always was, by a sense of the child-like innocence and steadfastness that lay at the bottom of her life. "It's not your fault if I'm not. I shan't blame you. Goodnight."
The kitchen-light went out; he heard his mother's door click gently. Through the dark house a shaft of air blew coolly. Slowly, with thudding heart, he began to mount the stairs.
But on that dark stair, his foot-falls numbed in the heavy carpet, he came squarely upon a woman's body that, by its fragrance, like magnolia, he knew was that of Mrs. Selborne. They held each other sharply by the arms, discovered, with caught breath. She bent toward him: a few strands of her blonde hair brushed his face, leaving it aflame.
"Hush-h!" she whispered.
So they paused there, holding each other, breast to breast, the only time that they had ever touched. Then, with their dark wisdom of each other confirmed, they parted, each a sharer in the other's life, to meet thereafter before the world with calm untelling eyes.
He groped softly back along the dark corridor until he came to the door of "Miss Brown's" room. It was slightly ajar. He went in.
She took all his medals, all that he had won at Leonard's school--the one for debating, the one for declaiming, the one in bronze for William Shakespeare. W. S. 1616-1916--Done for a Ducat!
He had no money to give her: she did not want much--a coin or two at a time. It was, she said, not the money: it was the principle of the thing. He saw the justice of her argument.
"For," said she, "if I wanted money, I wouldn't fool with you. Somebody tries to get me to go out every day. One of the richest men in this town (old man Tyson) has been after me ever since I came. He's offered me ten dollars if I'll go out in his car with him. I don't need your money. But you've got to give me something. I don't care how little it is. I wouldn't feel decent unless you did. I'm not one of your little Society Chippies that you see every day uptown. I've too much self-respect for that."
So, in lieu of money, he gave her his medals as pledges.
"If you don't redeem them," said "Miss Brown," "I'll give them to my own son when I go home."
"Have you a son?"
"Yes. He's eighteen years old. He's almost as tall as you are and twice as broad. All the girls are mad about him."
He turned his head away sharply, whitening with a sense of nausea and horror, feeling in him an incestuous pollution.
"That's enough, now," said "Miss Brown" with authority. "Go to your room and get some sleep."
But, unlike the first one in the tobacco town, she never called him "son."
"Poor Butterfly, for her heart was break-king,
Poor Butterfly, for she loved him so-o--"
Miss Irene Mallard changed the needle of the little phonograph in the sun-parlor, and reversed the well-worn record. Then as with stately emphasis, the opening measure of "Katinka" paced out, she waited for him, erect, smiling, slender, beautiful, with long lovely hands held up like wings to his embrace. She was teaching him to dance. Laura James had danced beautifully: it had maddened him to see her poised in the arms of a young man dancing. Now, clumsily, he moved off on a conscientious left foot, counting to himself. One, two, three, four! Irene Mallard slipped and veered to his awkward pressure, as bodiless as a fume of smoke. Her left hand rested on his bony shoulder lightly as a bird: her cool fingers were threaded into his hot sawing palm.
She had thick hair of an oaken color, evenly parted in the middle; her skin was pearl-pale, and transparently delicate; her jaw was long, full, and sensuous--her face was like that of one of the pre-Raphaelite women. She carried her tall graceful body with beautiful erectness, but with the slightly worn sensuousness of fragility and weariness: her lovely eyes were violet, always a little tired, but full of slow surprise and tenderness. She was like a Luini madonna, mixed of holines
s and seduction, the world and heaven. He held her with reverent care, as one who would not come too near, who would not break a sacred image. Her exquisite and subtle perfume stole through him like a strange whisper, pagan and divine. He was afraid to touch her--and his hot palm sweated to her fingers.
Sometimes she coughed gently, smiling, holding a small crumpled handkerchief, edged with blue, before her mouth.
She had come to the hills not because of her own health, but because of her mother's, a woman of sixty-five, rustily dressed, with the petulant hang-dog face of age and sickness. The old woman suffered from asthma and heart-disease. They had come from Florida. Irene Mallard was a very capable business woman; she was the chief bookkeeper of one of the Altamont banks. Every evening Randolph Gudger, the bank president, telephoned her.
Irene Mallard pressed her palm across the mouthpiece of the telephone, smiling at Eugene ironically, and rolling her eyes entreatingly aloft.
Sometimes Randolph Gudger drove by and asked her to go with him. The boy went sulkily away until the rich man should leave: the banker looked bitterly after him.
"He wants me to marry him, 'Gene," said Irene Mallard. "What am I going to do?"
"He's old enough to be your grandfather," said Eugene. "He has no hair on the top of his head; his teeth are false, and I don't know what-all!" he said resentfully.
"He's a rich man, 'Gene," said Irene, smiling. "Don't forget that."
"Go on, then! Go on!" he cried furiously. "Yes--go ahead. Marry him. It's the right thing for you. Sell yourself. He's an old man!" he said melodramatically. Randolph Gudger was almost forty-five.
But they danced there slowly in a gray light of dusk that was like pain and beauty; like the lost light undersea, in which his life, a lost merman, swam, remembering exile. And as they danced she, whom he dared not touch, yielded her body unto him, whispering softly to his ear, pressing with slender fingers his hot hand. And she, whom he would not touch, lay there, like a sheaf of grain, in the crook of his arm, token of the world's remedy--the refuge from the one lost face out of all the faces, the anodyne against the wound named Laura--a thousand flitting shapes of beauty to bring him comfort and delight. The great pageantry of pain and pride and death hung through the dusk its awful vision, touching his sorrow with a lonely joy. He had lost; but all pilgrimage across the world was loss: a moment of cleaving, a moment of taking away, the thousand phantom shapes that beaconed, and the high impassionate grief of stars.