Soldier's Pay

  “Robert,” said Mrs. Saunders.

  The rector spoke greyly. “Cecily, we have talked it over together, and we think—your mother and father——”

  She moved in her silly, revealing garment, “Daddy?” she exclaimed, staring at her father. He would not meet her gaze but sat slowly twisting his cigar. The rector continued

  “We think that you will only—that you—They say that Donald is going to die, Cecily,” he finished.

  Lithe as a sapling she thrust herself backward against his arm, bending, to see his face, staring at him. “Oh, Uncle Joe! Have you gone back on me, too?” she cried, passionately.

  IX

  George Farr had been. quite drunk for a week. His friend. the drug clerk, thought that he was going crazy. He had become a local landmark, a tradition: even the town soaks began to look upon him with respect, calling him by his name, swearing undying devotion to him.

  In the intervals of belligerent or rollicking or maudlin inebriation he knew periods of devastating despair like a monstrous bliss, like that of a caged animal, of a man being slowly tortured to death: a minor monotony of pain. As a rule, though, he managed to stay fairly drunk. Her narrow body sweetly dividing naked . . . have another drink. . . . I’ll kill you if you keep on fooling around her . . . my girl, my girl . . . her narrow . . . ’nother drink . . . oh, God, oh, God . . . sweetly dividing for another . . . have drink, what hell I care, oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, oh, God.

  Though “nice” people no longer spoke to him on the streets he was, after a fashion, cared for and protected by casual acquaintances and friends both black and white, as in the way of small towns particularly and of the “inferior” classes anywhere.

  He sat glassy-eyed among fried smells, among noises, at an oilcloth-covered table.

  “Clu—hoverrrrrr blarrrr—sums, clo—ver blarrrr—summmzzzz,” sang a nasal voice terribly, the melody ticked off at spaced intervals by a small monotonous sound, like a clock-bomb going off. Like this:

  Clo(tick) ver (tick) rrr (tick) (tick) bl (tick) rrs (tick) sss (tick) umm (tick) zzz.

  Beside him sat two of his new companions, quarrelling, spitting, holding hands and weeping over the cracked interminability of the phonograph record. “Clo—verrrr blar—sums.” it repeated with saccharine passion; when it ran down they repaired to a filthy alley behind the filthier kitchen to drink of George Farr’s whisky. Then they returned and played the record through again, clutching hands while frank tears slid down their otherwise unwashed cheeks. “Cloooooooover blaaaaaarsummmssss. . . .”

  Truly vice is a dull and decorous thing: no life in the world is as hard, requiring so much sheer physical and moral strength, as the so-called “primrose path.” Being “good” is much less trouble.

  “Clo—ver blar—sums. . . .”

  . . . After a while his attention was called to the fact that someone had been annoying him for some time. Focusing his eyes he at last recognized the proprietor in an apron on which he must have dried dishes for weeks. “What’n ’ell y’ want?” he asked, with feeble liquid belligerence, and the man finally explained to him that he was wanted on the telephone in a neighbouring drug-store. He rose, pulling himself together.

  “Clu—hoooooooover bla—ums.

  After a few years he languished from a telephone mouthpiece holding himself erect, watching without interest a light globe over the prescription desk describing slow concentric circles.

  “George?” There was something in the unknown voice speaking his name, such anguish, as to almost shock him sober. “George.”

  “This George . . . hello. . . .

  “George, its Cecily. Cecily . . .”

  Drunkenness left him like a retreating wave. He could feel his heart stop, then surge, deafening him, blinding him with his own blood.

  “George. . . . Do you hear me?” (Ah, George, to have been drunk now!) (Cecily, oh, Cecily!) “Yes! Yes!” gripping the instrument as though this would keep her against escape. “Yes, Cecily? Cecily? It’s George . . . .”

  “Come to me now. At once.”

  “Yes, yes. Now?”

  “Come, George, darling. Hurry, hurry. . . .”

  “Yes!” he cried again. “Hello, hello!” The line made no response. He waited, but it was dead. His heart pounded and pounded, hotly; he could taste his own hot bitter blood in his throat. (Cecily, oh, Cecily!)

  He plunged down the length of the store and while a middle-aged clerk filling a prescription poised his bottle to watch in dull amazement, George Farr tore his shirt open at the throat and thrust his whole head beneath a gushing water tap in a frenzy of activity.

  (Cecily, oh, Cecily!)

  X

  He seemed so old, so tired as he sat at the head of the table toying with his food, as if the very fibre of him had lost all resilience. Gilligan ate with his usual informal appetite and Donald and Emmy sat side by side so that Emmy could help him. Emmy enjoyed mothering him, now that she could never have him again for a lover; she objected with passionate ardour when Mrs. Powers offered to relieve her. The Donald she had known was dead; this one was but a sorry substitute, but Emmy was going to make the best of it, as women will. She had even got accustomed to taking her food after it had cooled.

  Mrs. Powers sat watching them. Emmy’s shock of no-particular-colour hair was near his worn head in intent devotion, her labour-worried hand seemed to have an eye of its own, so quick, so tender it was to anticipate him and guide his hand with the food she had prepared for him. Mrs. Powers wondered which Donald Emmy loved the more, wondering if she had not perhaps forgotten the former one completely save as a symbol of sorrow. Then the amazing logical thought occurred to her that here was the woman for Donald to marry.

  Of course it was. Why had no one thought of that before? Then she told herself that no one had done very much thinking during the whole affair, that it had got on without any particular drain on any intelligence. Why did we take it for granted that he must marry Cecily and no other? Yet we all accepted it as an arbitrary fact and off we went with our eyes closed and our mouths open, like hounds in full cry.

  But would Emmy take him? Wouldn’t she be so frightened at the prospect that she’d be too self-conscious with him afterwards to care for him as skilfully as she does now; wouldn’t it cause her to confuse in her mind to his detriment two separate Donalds—a lover and an invalid? I wonder what Joe will think about it.

  She looked at Emmy impersonal as Omnipotence, helping Donald with effacing skill, seeming to envelop him, yet never touching him. Anyway, I’ll ask her, she thought, sipping her tea.

  Night was come. Tree frogs, remembering last night’s rain, resumed their monotonous moulding of liquid beads of sound; grass blades and leaves losing shapes of solidity gained shapes of sound: the still suspire of earth, of the ground preparing for slumber; flowers by day, spikes of bloom, became with night spikes of scent; the silver tree at the corner of the house hushed its never-still never-escaping ecstasy. Already toads hopped along concrete pavements drinking prisoned heat through their dragging bellies.

  Suddenly the rector started from his dream. “Tut, tut. We are making mountains from mole hills, as usual. If she wants to marry Donald I am sure her people will not withhold their consent always. Why should they object to their daughter marrying him? Do you know——”

  “Hush!” she said. He looked up at her startled, then seeing her warning glance touch Mahon’s oblivious head, he understood. She saw Emmy’s wide shocked eyes on her and she rose at her place. “You are through, aren’t you?” she said to the rector. “Suppose we go to the study.”

  Mahon sat quiet, chewing. She could not tell whether or not he heard. She passed behind Emmy and leaning to her whispered: “I want to speak to you. Don’t say anything to Donald.”

  The rector, preceding her, fumbled the light on in the study. “You must be
careful,” she told him, “how you talk before him, how you tell him.”

  “Yes,” he agreed apologetically. “I was so deep in thought.”

  “I know you were. I don’t think it is necessary to tell him at all, until he asks.”

  “And that will never be. She loves Donald: she will not let her people prevent her marrying him. I am not customarily in favour of such a procedure as instigating a young woman to marry against her parents’ wishes, but in this case. . . . You do not think I am inconsistent, that I am partial because my son is involved?”

  “No, no. Of course not.”

  “Don’t you agree with me, that Cecily will insist on the wedding?”

  “Yes, indeed.” What else could she say?

  Gilligan and Mahon had gone and Emmy was clearing the table when she returned. Emmy whirled upon her.

  “She ain’t going to take him? What was Uncle Joe saying?”

  “Her people don’t like the idea. That’s all. She hasn’t refused. But I think we had better stop it now, Emmy. She has changed her mind so often nobody can tell what she’ll do.”

  Emmy turned back to the table, lowering her head, scraping a plate. Mrs. Powers watched her busy elbow, hearing the little clashing noises of china and silver. A bowl of white roses shattered slowly upon the centre of the table.

  “What do you think, Emmy?”

  “I don’t know,” Emmy replied, sullenly. “She ain’t my kind. I don’t know nothing about it.”

  Mrs. Powers approached the table. “Emmy,” she said. The other did not raise her head, made no reply. She turned the girl gently by the shoulder. “Would you marry him, Emmy?”

  Emmy straightened hotly, clutching a plate and a fork. “Me? Me marry him? Me take another’s leavings? (Donald, Donald.) And her leavings, at that, her that’s run after every boy in town, dressed up in her silk clothes?”

  Mrs. Powers moved back to the door and Emmy scraped dishes fiercely. This plate became blurred, she blinked and saw something splash on it. She shan’t see me cry! she whispered passionately, bending her head lower, waiting for Mrs. Powers to ask her again. (Donald, Donald. . . . )

  When she was young, going to school in the spring, having to wear coarse dresses and shoes while other girls wore silk and thin leather; being not pretty at all while other girls were pretty——

  Walking home to where work awaited her while other girls were riding in cars or having ice cream or talking to boys and dancing with them, with boys that had no use for her; sometimes he would step out beside her, so still, so quick, all of a sudden—and she didn’t mind not having silk.

  And when they swam and fished and roamed the woods together she forgot she wasn’t pretty, even. Because he was beautiful, with his body all brown and quick, so still . . . making her feel beautiful, too.

  And when he said Come here, Emmy, she went to him, and wet grass and dew under her and over her his head with the whole sky for a crown, and the moon running on them like water that wasn’t wet and that you couldn’t feel. . . .

  Marry him? Yes! Yes! Let him be sick: she would cure him; let him be a Donald that had forgotten her—she had not forgotten: she could remember enough for both of them. Yes! Yes! she cried, soundlessly, stacking dishes, waiting for Mrs. Powers to ask her again. Her red hands were blind, tears splashed fatly on her wrists. Yes! Yes! trying to think it so loudly that the other must hear. She shan’t see me cry! she whispered again. But the other woman only stood in the door watching her busy back. So she gathered up the dishes slowly, there being no reason to linger any longer. Keeping her head averted she carried the dishes to the pantry door, slowly, waiting for the other to speak again. But the other woman said nothing and Emmy left the room, her pride forbidding her to let the other see her tears.

  XI

  The study was dark when she passed, but she could see the rector’s head in dim silhouette against the more spacious darkness outside the window. She passed slowly on to the veranda. Leaning her quiet tall body against a column in the darkness beyond the fan of light from the door she listened to the hushed myriad life of night things, to the slow voices of people passing unseen along an unseen street, watching the hurried staring twin eyes of motorcars like restless insects. A car slowing, drew up to the corner, and after a while a dark figure came along the pale gravel of the path, hurried yet diffident. It paused and screamed delicately in midpath, then it sped on towards the steps, where it stopped again and Mrs. Powers stepped forward from beside her post.

  “Oh,” gasped Miss Cecily Saunders, starting, lifting her hand slimly against her dark dress. “Mrs. Powers?”

  “Yes. Come in, won’t you?”

  Cecily ran with nervous grace up the steps. “It was a f-frog,” she explained between her quick respirations. “I nearly stepped—ugh!” She shuddered, a slim muted flame hushed darkly in dark clothing. “Is Uncle Joe here? May I——” her voice died away diffidently.

  “He is in the study,” Mrs. Powers answered. What has happened to her? she thought. Cecily stood so that the light from the hall fell full on her. There was in her face a thin nervous despair, a hopeless recklessness, and she stared at the other woman’s shadowed face for a long moment. Then she said Thank you, thank you, suddenly, hysterically, and ran quickly into the house. Mrs. Powers looked after her, then following, saw her dark dress. She is going away, Mrs. Powers thought, with conviction.

  Cecily flew on ahead like a slim dark bird, into the unlighted study. “Uncle Joe?” she said, poised, touching either side of the door-frame. The rector’s chair creaked suddenly.

  “Eh?” he said, and the girl sailed across the room like a bat, dark in the darkness, sinking at his feet, clutching his knees. He tried to raise her but she clung to his legs the tighter, burrowing her head into his lap.

  “Uncle Joe, forgive me, forgive me?”

  “Yes, yes. I knew you would come to us. I told them——”

  “No, no. I—I——You have always been so good, so sweet to me, that I couldn’t. . . .” She clutched him again fiercely.

  “Cecily, what is it? Now, now, you mustn’t cry about it. Come now, what is it?” Knowing a sharp premonition he raised her face, trying to see it. But it was only a formless. soft blur warmly in his hands.

  “Say you forgive me first, dear Uncle Joe. Won’t you? Say it, say it. If you won’t forgive me, I don’t know what’ll become of me.” His hands slipping downward felt her delicate tense shoulders and he said:

  “Of course, I forgive you.”

  “Thank you. Oh, thank you. You are so kind——” she caught his hand, holding it against her mouth.

  “What is it, Cecily?” he asked, quietly, trying to soothe her.

  She raised her head. “I am going away.”

  “Then you aren’t going to marry Donald?”

  She lowered her head to his knees again, clutching his hand in her long nervous fingers, holding it against her face. “I cannot, I cannot. I am a—I am not a good woman anymore, dear Uncle Joe. Forgive me, forgive me. . . .”

  He withdrew his hand and she let herself be raised to her feet, feeling his arms, his huge kind body. “There, there;” patting her back with his gentle heavy hand. “Don’t cry.”

  “I must go,” she said at last, moving slimly and darkly against his bulk. He released her. She clutched his hand again sharply, Jetting it go. “Good-bye,” she whispered, and fled swift and dark as a bird, gracefully to a delicate tapping of heels, as she had come.

  She passed Mrs. Powers on the porch without seeing her and sped down the steps. The other woman watched her slim dark figure until it disappeared . . . after an interval the car that had stopped at the corner of the garden flashed on its lights and drove away. . . .

  Mrs. Powers, pressing the light switch, entered the study. The rector stared at her as she approached the desk, quiet and hop
eless.

  “Cecily has broken the engagement, Margaret. So the wedding is off.”

  “Nonsense,” she told him sharply, touching him with her firm hand. “I’m going to marry him myself. I intended to all the time. Didn’t you suspect?”

  XII

  San Francisco, CaI.,

  April 25, 1919.

  Darling Margaret,

  I told mother last night and of coarse she thinks we are too young. But I explained to her how times have changed since the war how the war makes you older than they used to. I see fellows my age that did not serve specially flying which is an education in itself and they seem like kids to me because at last I have found the woman I want and my kid days are over. After knowing so many women to found you so far away when I did not expect it. Mother says for me to go in business and make money if I expect a woman to marry me so I am going to start in tomorrow I have got the place already. So it will not be long till I see you and take you in my arms at last and always. How can I tell you how much I love you you are so different from them. Loving you has already made me a serious man realizing responsibilities. They are all so silly compared with you talking of jazz and going some place where all the time I have been invited on parties but I refuse because I rather sit in my room thinking of you putting my thoughts down on paper let them have their silly fun. I think of you all ways and if it did not make you so unhappy I want you to think of me always. But don’t I would not make you unhappy at all my own dearest. So think of me and remember I love you only and will love you only will love you all ways.

  Forever yours

  Julian.

  The Baptist minister, a young dervish in a white lawn tie, being most available, came and did his duty and went away. He was young and fearfully conscientious and kind-hearted; upright and passionately desirous of doing good: so much so that he was a bore. But he had soldiered after a fashion and he liked and respected Dr. Mahon, refusing to believe that simply because Dr. Mahon was Episcopal he was going to hell as soon as he died.