Part 11

She ran out the door, making a clatter on the steps, flinging the gate back after her. The lights were lit along the streets and lanes now and people were stirring about. The town seemed of one essence, every detail flattened to the mass, and she walked as if she walked alone, arrogant, stepping upon the closely conglomerated matter of voices, stones, shadows, faces, acquaintance, history. Singularly marked, standing above the stones on which she stepped, above the earth on which she walked, she came down the street and entered her gate, detached from her own entrance, standing above the click of the latch, above the segments of light that lay as broken rectangles on the gallery floor.

* * * * *

Anthony had passed into a delusion, imagining he was in some other place; he talked of a sea which he thought could be seen from the window and he would ask the state of the tide. He called Theodosia by a strange name, Amelia, one she had never heard in the family before.

Theodosia set herself to gather a class of students for stringed instruments and presently she had as large a number as her time allowed, for a passing fancy for this kind of playing was spreading over the town. The house was desolate and poorly warmed. There was little fuel, and Aunt Bet sulked of insufficient supplies for the kitchen. Theodosia brought the children to the parlor and taught them there, wondering at Anthony’s myth of Amelia and a sea. Or passing away from his room after he had talked with her in his strange knowledge, she would look with an unyielding scrutiny at herself, at the myth of Anthony, to try to find some last sign of an inevitable substance or kind, perpetually existent, unchanged, beyond delusion. “I join hands with him, and he is gone,” she said.

“Tell Sylvester to put harness on the gray,” Anthony would say, or again, “High tide comes the second of the month, Amelia....” If he were from his bed he would sit very quietly, sinking slowly with the fire until he sat crumpled in sleep.

He had departed although he continued some manner of life. He never again called Theodosia by any name but Amelia. She fed him broth from a spoon and thus nourished his continuation while he had already gone into some memory, perpetually keeping there now. “He’s gone, he’s gone,” she said in her thought, “and I join hands with him,” and as she tuned some child’s instrument or busied herself with the lessons she leaped forward to try to experience entire dissolution, to consummate it for him, to foretell the encounter already well begun, stayed from any outcry by the enveloping confusion and distrust without and within.

His regard for Amelia was constant, tender, dispassionate, and a curiosity to know who this person could have been troubled her and set her to search among all the names she had ever heard spoken in the house. Or she asked her father.

“Who was Amelia in Grandfather’s life? When did Grandfather know Amelia?”

“Amelia? Search me. You can’t never tell about the old war horse. Lived a long time, he did, and he lived well. What’s one skirt more to the old war horse? But she was a lady nohow. You can set that much down for certain. The old war horse, his taste ran to ladies. No white trash in his loven days. Amelia was a lady.” Horace spoke with tenderness now.

“And who was Sylvester then?”

“No tellen. Some nigger, I reckon. I wouldn’t say.”

* * * * *

“You can’t tell. A man lives a long time. Goes through a heap from first to last.”

They sat in the dining-room waiting; there were many hours of waiting now. Horace talked incessantly, as if the summary of a life being enacted on the bed in the front room loosed his tongue and brought his own experience to a period, to a momentary full-stop. Or he talked of the old man and he was touched often with grief. Theodosia sat half-drowsed now, for she had slept but little of late. The words came as a continued recitative as Horace talked.

“The old man was a good soldier. Nobody could say any dirt of the old man. Proud of his lineage and rightly so. He loved the fine things of the mind, you might say, and pursued classical learnen. Faithful to his ideal, honest with all men, proud, gentle, tender as a woman. Why, Father was a traveler far and wide. In his youth he spent several years in travel—and a right smart of money too, I reckon. Few men of his generation were more widely read, more richly informed. I know what I say. In his youth he was an omnivorous reader, optimistic, salubrious, and among his colleagues there was none better fitted to lead and counsel the young. Faithful to his highest conceptions, an inspiration to the youth of his circle, he was intelligent, honest, proud, and as tender as a woman.”

He would grow tired and slip into his more negligent mood. “Did I ever tell you about the time the old man put up Leslie Robinson for Governor? He put out, I reckon, five thousand dollars to nominate Les Robinson. It’s a pity the old man ever turned his talent to politics, even for so short a time as it took to roll Les Robinson up into a spit-ball and throw him up on the roof of the convention hall. It’s all in the count. But Father believed in Les Robinson’s genius, wanted to see him win, and he had some notion to get something for himself out of it, I reckon. It’s no use now to waste breath on old measures. All the west counties got in line, and then somebody got all the mountains in a handful. It was a frame-up on Les. The owls of iniquity will howl. No use to go into it now. Money melts in politics like sugar in hot water. Nobody knows where’t goes. The most hearty desire to render succor, service, unselfish devotion to the common cause of myself and my country. I promise, if elected, to emulate the great heroes of our great commonwealth in word and act, to uphold the constitutions of the state and of the nation, to honor the law and the right, and to protect the home as the sanctuary of mankind.”

He was personally reminiscent now, his feet on a high hassock. “You remember, don’t you, Theodosia, the time I ran for the state senate?... It’s queer how it is, but your own brat that you begot yourself grows up and looks you full in the face and asks you with a sharp shoulder-blade, ‘What made you ever do that durned fool thing for?’ I’ve known you, Theodosia, ever since you were no bigger than my two hands, and earlier. Ronnie Robinson says, ‘Le’s make this one a toast,’ and then Mike O’Connor says, ‘We’ll drink to the health of the unborn.’ The time I acted Santy Claus in the church. I never told in your hearen about that, did I, Dosia?

“Folks there in the church thought here’s a good time to get Horace interested in church work, I reckon. Charlotte played the organ there part of the time. I recollect they asked me to act Santy Claus. ‘Who ever saw a Santy Claus six foot and over?’ I says, but they’d got their heads set to’t. Mike O’Connor says, ‘God’s sake, Horace!’ when he heard I was to be the Santy Claus. Christmas Eve at night, it was to be. Rosie Granger made the costume for me to wear, a red coat, boots with fur sewed on the top. A white beard all over my mouth. ‘I drink to the health of the unborn,’ Mike O’Connor says.”

She saw that he was repaying her for being a shoulder-blade to his pride. “I drink to the health of the unborn,” he repeated the saying. He was repaying her for all her scorn of him. “Tom Molloy says, ‘God’s sake, he won’t stay sober.’ I recollect after I got on my costume we all sat down in Tom Molloy’s room to wait till the church was ready, all the singen down and the tableau over, up the street from the church, in the old hotel. Miss Esther What’s-her-name down-stairs promised to call me when it was my time to go on, and we all sat down to a little cards, Tom Molloy, Mike O’Connor, and Ronnie Robinson, uncle to Ruth, he was. Sat down to a few hands of poker. Ronnie poured out the spirits and he poured big measures, and I sat there all dolled up for Santy Claus. ‘Christmas comes but once a year,’ Ronnie said, and then Mike stood up and, solemnly, he meant every word of it too, says, ‘We’ll drink to the health of the unborn.’ Charlotte was not goen out then. She was, you might say, in a delicate condition, and God’s sake! It was you yourself, Theodosia, that was curled up inside her asleep like a little kitten. God’s sake! Mike stood up, solemnly, too, meant every word he said, and out comes, ‘We’ll drink to the health of the unborn.’ Don’t you ever forget that about Mike. Then Ronnie in his turn, ‘I drink to the health of the unbegotten.’ I swear to God he did. After we’d drunk to the health of the unbegotten twice or three times Tom was so drunk he was beside himself and he says, ‘It’ll never do. It’ll never do on earth. He can’t stand up on his feet, let alone walk around a Christmas tree and hand out pretties,’ and we all sat down again to a little cards to steady our nerves.

“Tinkle, tinkle, merry bells. I remember the night as well, cold outside, the fire big in the grate, fireworks up the street where the boys were out, good cheer, good friends, and a world new-born. I recall I held two queens and was drawen for a third when up calls Miss Esther and says it’s time to go over, says they’re on the last piece, she can tell by the singen, and says they’ve already begun to light the candles on the tree. Then Tom says, ‘He can’t do it. He’s drunk. God’s sake, there’ll be a holy show if we let him get loose,’ and I called down to tell ’em to wait till I draw another queen, to keep the song on foot till I draw one time more. Well, we went over, and Ronnie laughed so hard he said he was in a paroxysm, and Mike says, ‘A what?’ Mike always was a good friend of mine. I recollect Tom was all in a tremble and he says, ‘It’ll be a holy show.’ Thought I couldn’t do it.”

A pity for him came into her mind and a hatred, cruel and bitter, for these men, his friends, some of them dead or gone somewhere. She remembered them now; they were scattered away from the town, or some of them were dead. She pushed her hair back from her forehead and sank into the hollows of the chair, her face turned toward him and away from the fire. She pitied him for a moment before he spoke again, but when he spoke her pity was lost, dispelled. “I handed out these little gauze sacks with candy showen through to fifty chaps. ‘I drink to the health of the unborn,’ Mike says. Old Mike. I handed out these little gauze sacks and I handed a good precept along with each one. I made a first-rate Santy Claus. ‘I drink to the health of the unbegotten,’ Ronnie says, over at the hotel before we set out for the church.”

She could see him as she sat. He ran his fingers through his hair, full of the pride of memory. He had forgotten her then. His blond hair stood over his head, ready always for his fingers when they responded to his pride, and she pitied again, seeing the bare spots above his temples. His great body was untouched by fatigue, was full of vitality. He could talk all night, she thought. He was speaking further, half slyly, making an end each instant and renewing himself.

“There’s more I could tell if I was of a mind to, but I won’t. After it was over we decided to take a walk in the cold to sort of clear up our heads. We took a walk after it was over, a long walk, took a walk....” His voice seemed delayed, the words slowly pushed apart to let clearer pictures stand between.

She was waiting on a street that was thronged with people, all of them hushed to await some event that gathered itself together and approached far up the street. “The street-parade,” a voice said. There was a wide promenade left for the procession which was coming far up the way, all the people standing back and all very still. The procession was near at hand then, was passing by. It was made up of women, long strange creatures, not old but haggard, spent, thin, labored. Their long lank garments hung to their ankles, but their meager thin forms could be seen through the dejected attire they wore. They walked in an irregular procession, more than a hundred although they were uncounted. It was a terror to see them.

They converged toward something, focused toward some following object or person although their faces were set forward and they marched on. Their steps plodded on the pavement. They centered back in a fan-shape of interest toward some other, some focus. Then there was a great blare of sudden music and, the women being finished, the object was at hand. It was the figure of a man, made of human flesh. He stood at ease on a dais or float and moved forward with the blare of music without effort. The women were gone now, their backs visible as they walked down the way of the procession, but the man was at hand in the midst of a great burst of horn music. He was more than life-size, was of heroic proportions, moving easily along on the float as if he were propelled by some unseen force engendered by the multitude of women. He was one, one man, heroic in size, bursting with strength and life, made of flesh like a man. He stood erect, his limbs apart, in a lewd pose. He was naked. On his body were marks then; on his chest they began, as small warts sprinkled over his breast, but lower, on his upper abdomen, they were larger and were shaped like small teats. They became larger as they descended over his abdomen and became more alive, each one more living than the last. They were rigid with life and were pointed forward toward the women.

Her own self stood at her elbow. She turned quickly about, toward her self, and she knew a deep wish, an ardent prayer that her self had not seen this last. Her self had not seen, was watching the women as they were going far down the street. The great fanfare of horns became suddenly remote and the float had passed by. Her self had not seen it. She was glad with a great thankful prayer. She found then, suddenly, that she had waked from sleep, that she was in the room with Horace, who was still speaking. His voice gathered itself back, closing the wide opening that had stood between his words. “_Silent Night_ and one thing and another,” the words said, gathering together into sense. “It was Mike proposed to take a walk, and we sang a long while out by the Johntown forks of the road.”

Her dream rolled back before her conscious eyes, vivid in memory now. The terrible drama of it stood it before her eyes as a passing design. Her picturing mind went back to it, detail by detail, fascinated and frightened. She put it together and took it apart, dwelling on each terrible picture, and saw the dreary women in procession, laboring forward, and then the man infinitely furnished, and then herself guarding her self from the sight. She went back to the beginning and stated it anew, bringing the pageant into play slowly. The women marched in their long drab garments, walking without music, laboring forward. The man then, and the blare of horns.

She walked to the opened door and looked at Anthony where he lay stretched out to die, covered as she had covered him. He was sleeping profoundly, his breath continuing. The evening was early as yet; later she would look for others to come, Frank and a friend or two of Horace’s. She went back to her seat by the fire, and Horace was still speaking.

“Then I recollect we set-to to finish up the job Mike proposed for us, to walk down every street and alley in town. ‘We’ll slight not one,’ Mike said. ‘No alley or by-way so humble it would be said we wouldn’t walk on it,’ Mike said. That’s how I ever got in the alley back of the jail, I reckon. ‘I drink to the health of the unborn,’ Mike said, up in Tom’s room before we went over to the Christmas tree, and had you in mind, you understand. Mike was always a good friend of mine. I’ve been richly endowed with friendship all my life, good friends as any you’ll ever see any man have.... That my father should ’a’ come you might say to poverty in his old age, to actual poverty. Those sneaken, low-down, three-times-damned hounds that got his property. I’ll do something about it yet. Put up Les Robinson for governor and all the low-down sharks in the state got the pickens of his purse. They’re not done with me yet, not by a jugful. That my father, Anthony Bell, should.... The old man adored you, always from the start. I could see it, you no bigger than two years old. Believed in you. ‘She’s got a rare musical talent,’ he said. Used to get warmed up over it, you no bigger than that high. What’ll become of us now, we two the only ones left? We’ll have to console each other, get near together. The world, it’ll be a lonesome place for me and you without the old man.”

Theodosia was distraught when he began to weep. She walked to the inner door again, but when she returned his head was in his hands, his body bowed forward. Retelling all that he had said of Anthony he cried aloud, “A fine old man. I’ll be a bereft man now,” turning his mind toward self-pity. “Come to your father’s arms, Dosia. My heart, it’s broken. Come kiss your poor old father.”

She kept in her place. “I’ll stay where I am,” she said.

She had moved to a chair toward the table, toward her grandfather’s door, and sat erect. The large heavy sideboard reached beyond her, too near, as if she were crowded into its shadow, as if she were something living that was being expelled from the dark, dead mass of the furniture, pushed outward into a quivering point of pain. She stared at the dim pattern in the carpet, or she moved and stood before the sideboard, her arms folded together. Her tears were gone now and she gathered herself together in the act of folding her arms. Expelled from the entire room, from all the history of the place, she turned about without guidance and stood near the wall.

“You poor child. Come to my arms,” he said, coming near to her.

“Your hands off me. I’ll stay where I am.” She felt herself to be diminished to a point of denial, concentrated to negation, and his grief continued.

“Over your grandfather’s dead body, around his deathbed, you wouldn’t kiss your own father. She’s hard, a hard girl....”

His tears dwindled to a close, lingering while she, feeling a summons, walked toward the inner door. She stood beside Anthony’s bed listening to his long, slow breathing, each breath fixed into a space of quiet. She opened the window to give him fresh cold air for his labored inhalations. One or two came, friends of Horace, and later Frank came. Theodosia sat by the bed alone, but now and then one of the men from the parlor would come to stay with her for a little. At midnight the night-lamp which Anthony liked to have near at hand burned out and she called Siver to carry it away and renew the oil. When he returned with it rubbed clean and restored, he set it on the table and stood beside the bed, charmed by the enactment there, and presently it appeared that Anthony would not breathe again, that one of the slowly breathed sobs that had quietly shaken his body had been his last breath. They, Theodosia and Siver, stood beside the bed, she making her farewell of the beloved cadaver. Siver found two silver pieces from his pocket and held them in his hand, uncertainly, or he showed them to her, and they seemed for the moment appropriate, as if they gave some sign or made some charm. Then Siver made as if he would lay them across Anthony’s eyelids and she consented. When he had done this she adjusted the coins with her own hands, and thus they closed his eyes. Then she called the men from the parlor.

* * * * *

After the funeral Horace went to Paducah to attend court. Mr. Reed called on Theodosia, his blank kindly face looking at her from across the parlor while she settled to her chair. He seemed weary of his mission before he had begun, knowing the end from the beginning. Anthony had made a will seven years earlier making her his sole heir. The formality of unfolding papers and citing memoranda was scarcely necessary, for there was nothing left. He might at any moment have forgotten to proceed, to have summed all with a sigh.

He told her how she might stay certain creditors and hold the house for a short time. “Until you can look about you a little,” he said. He had taken his hat from the table and had placed the memoranda on the piano. She might rent a part of the house, retaining a part of it for herself, he suggested. “Until you get used to things and can look about you a little.” She had already floated far from the hour and the interview in her apathy, in the numbness following the acceptance of the disclosures. He would give her any advice he could, he said; she might always apply to him. Apply for what? she wondered, and she closed the house door, looking intently at the door-frame, at the latch, at the baseboard and the floor, seeing them for the first time, seeing them as her possessions.

Horace did not return from Paducah. Time passed. He wrote once hurriedly asking her to send his clothing, or again, much later, he expressed affection and said that he had entered a law firm. In his final letter he said, “My practice needs new life and this city offers a splendid field. I shall start life anew. I shall grow younger every day in this new field. The broad river spreads out before me as I pen these lines.”

She walked through the house day after day, her house, experiencing ownership, making certain her knowledge of the place through which she had moved since first she could remember. She saw the stairway intently each time she mounted it, and saw the cabinets where the Indian hatchets and flints lay. She owned the house with a deep passion, possessed it, brick laid on brick in the chimney, the sagging floor of the upper gallery, the upper chambers. She had rented a part of it to a small family, retaining the parlor and the chamber above, and she had her meals at the renters’ table.

Frank looked at her complacently now across the space of the parlor. She saw the deeply subordinated admiration in his eyes which had their advice from his life design. He would sit at ease in his chair beside the lamp, Albert’s place, and listen to her playing, more at ease now that Albert and Conway were gone. His large, rugged, unbalanced face induced a thought of solid strength, of simplicity. “You could work him out by a formula,” she thought, as she saw him appropriate her music to his hour of relaxation. He had an office in the court square of the town and his talk was of wills, deeds, farms, contracts, or foreclosures, unless he remembered to quote from his favorite poets. He remembered the poets often. As a formula he sat now, out before the walls of the parlor, detached from her determination to keep her house, her inheritance.