Hard Money (22 page)

Impatience crept into Seay's eyes. He pocketed his pipe and came over to face her. “Vannie, I'll come see you any time I want to, if you want me. But the other—like that night—it's no go. Clean done. You understand that, Vannie?”

She nodded humbly. “Then come over tonight. I haven't said all I wanted.”

“I can't. I—I've got an engagement,” Seay said. Vannie looked at him so steadily that he felt the color creeping up his neck.

“Oh,” Vannie said quietly; then, “Sharon?”

“Yes. Miss Bonal.”

Vannie smiled enigmatically. “It's still ‘Miss' Bonal.” She shrugged and walked slowly past Seay. “You hate me for what I said about her that night, Phil?” she asked, her back to him.

“I think you were wrong, that's all.”

Vannie sighed. “Well, that's all you need to think. Goodby, Phil. Tomorrow night, then.”

Seay watched her mount and ride off, an erect, proud woman. Back at his work over the plans of the reduction mill, he found it hard to concentrate.

It was six when he emerged from the barbershop, freshly shaven and bathed. His boots were polished dully, and his gray trousers were tucked into their tops. His coat was loose, comfortable, his shirt open, and when he mounted the stairs to Bonal's suite he patted his pocket to make sure he had brought his pipe.

Sharon was waiting for him in Bonal's office, and she rose and crossed to him and shook hands with him. Then she stepped back and pulled out the skirt of her dress of net over shimmering satin.

“You said at six, and I've been ready ten minutes. And you said something simple. Is this simple enough?”

She read the look of consternation in Seay's eyes, and she said quickly, “Oh, it isn't, is it?”

Without making him answer, she turned and said over her shoulder, “I'll change. And I'll hurry, too.”

When she came back on a minute later she was wearing a pink lawn dress, demure with its long sleeves and high collar.

Seay said, “I like that.”

“It's not too—too …?”

“Grand? No. Come along.”

When they reached the sidewalk Seay said, “We'll walk. It's only a short ways. A buggy would frighten them.”

Sharon nodded eagerly. This was a new experience for her. Two nights ago, when, in the presence of Seay and her father, she had expressed boredom with the routine of her day, Seay had made a strange offer. She had listened to it with quickening heart and had accepted his invitation promptly. He knew, he said, a place that had never known boredom, people who would not recognize it. Would she care to have supper with them? They were simple people, shy of elegant strangers, but good people, working people.

Now, putting her arm through his, she felt a good kind of excitement, one that she had not known since she was a little girl. Occasionally she looked up at Seay, whose long strides she was hard put to match. His face was reserved, uncommunicative, but she did not feel the need of speech either. The evening jam was just beginning to swell through the streets, but Seay piloted her through the crowd without ever bumping her. Almost, it seemed, men and women gave way to him. Certainly he seemed to know many of these people, most of them rough-looking characters. Invariably his greeting was the same—a curt nod, a trace of a smile and a low-voiced, “Howdy, Ed,” or Bill, or Jim. The men, in turn, returned his greeting and tipped their hats respectfully. She had never had this feeling before of being with a person who counted for something among a strange, rough people. Hugh and her father spoke mostly to the men in stiff hats and derbies who hung around the hotel.

Clear of the business section, they turned up a side street which had a neat boardwalk. The houses were not grand, neither were they shabby. The few flowers in the windows or at the edges of the graveled tiny yards gave it a cheerful air. It was obviously a row of workers' homes, but it had a kind of pride, too, that Sharon did not miss. The children playing in the street looked well fed and happy, if dirty, and their greetings were polite and a little shy. Seay looked obliquely at her to see how she was taking this, and he could see only interest in her face.

At a tiny stone house surrounded by an iron fence Seay opened the gate and piloted her through it. They walked up the steps in a leisurely way, and as they were on the porch Borg Hulteen appeared in the door.

He was grinning, his face scrubbed and shining, his shirt clean.

“Hello, Phil,” he boomed, and then his gaze fell on Sharon. For one brief moment his honest, bony face reflected a quiet amazement, and his glance whipped to Seay. And then, like any man unashamed of himself and his possessions, and welcoming a stranger, he smiled at Sharon.

“Miss Bonal, this is Borg Hulteen.”

Sharon put out a tentative hand, and Borg took it. When she smiled at him Borg was won over. He led the way back through the house, avoiding the parlor as if he had not seen it, and marched straight to the kitchen. A bracket lamp was lit against the coming dusk, and by its light they could see a woman sitting in a chair, undressing a small boy. Beside the woman a little girl of five, utterly naked, was regarding their entrance with wide-eyed astonishment.

But it was the woman Sharon noticed. She gave a little cry of delight, rose, slinging the boy on her hip, and came over and kissed Seay with a resounding smack.

“Hello, Kristin,” Seay said, smiling, and turned to Sharon. “Kristin, this is Sharon Bonal,” Seay said.

Borg's wife gave Sharon her hand. She was a big, full-breasted woman, just out of girlhood, with the smoothest skin and the palest blue eyes Sharon had ever seen. There was a flush to her face, and her eyes were bright with excitement, and if Sharon expected the name of Bonal to impress her, she was disappointed. Her smile was warm and friendly, her glance anything but critically appraising. Immediately, Sharon felt, she was accepted. The child on Kristin's hip squirmed and made a noise, and Kristin laughed.

“Heavens, I'd forgotten Karl.” She set him down on the floor, and he ran to his sister. Together, both as naked as the day they were born, they stood hand in hand regarding the strangers.

Sharon laughed with joy at the sight, and Kristin said, “You scoot to bed, you two. And, Sigrid, don't forget to make Karl say his prayers.”

This was the introduction, then, Sharon thought, and she could feel Seay's inquisitive lance upon her.

The smell of cooking in the big kitchen was delicious and of strange foods that Sharon could not name. In less than a minute Kristin had her by the stove, and while Sharon listened to the talk about the children she looked at the room. This, too, was strange. The walls seemed to be built of hewn timbers, and in a far corner, away from the heat of the stove, was one of the most massive tables Sharon had ever seen. It fitted against the wall, which held the same heavy benches. The edges of the table and benches were carved, Sharon could see. Above the benches were designs scrolled in the timbers of the wall and painted with gay colors. Between every design was a clean polished tile, blue and white. The table was already set, and with a heavy silver and rich linen that glowed warmly in the light of a candelabra loaded with fat candles.

Sharon was immediately pressed into service, putting the food on the table, and there was so much of it that she wondered how the stove could have cooked it all.

When Kristin had put off her apron she came to the table, and they seated themselves. Sharon was on the bench, her back to the wall and next to Seay. There was a small glass of brown, fiery liquor at each plate which, when once down, seemed to kindle the appetite until hunger was almost unbearable.

“You like that, Miss Bonal?” Borg asked, indicating the liquor.

Sharon nodded. “It's strong, but it makes me hungrier. What is it? Something Scandinavian?”

Borg threw back his head and laughed. “That's bourbon whisky,” he said. “It takes a Swede to teach an American how to drink his own liquor.”

The food was a revelation to Sharon. There were Swedish dishes—
getmesost, knakkebrod,
and rosettes, small fried pies filled with jam.

All of it was strange and good, and Kristin blushed with pleasure when Sharon complimented it. Kristin told Sharon a little of her life here, how Borg had tried to fix over this part of the house to look like their homes back in Wisconsin, which, in turn, were built on the order of the old-country places. It was foolish, really, Kristin said, because they would be moving again soon. When coffee was served it was thick and strong, and Sharon needed its strength to keep her from settling back into the amiable stupor that comes from overeating good things. Seay paid little attention to her, and Sharon thought she knew why. He had put her on her own among these people, seeing if she could win their friendship.

It was true. Seay listened with half an ear to the women talk while Borg talked of anything that came into his head. There was none of the profane, hard-fisted workman about Borg now; he was easy and friendly and gentle. When it came time to clear the dishes Seay saw Sharon rise immediately to help. The two women were chattering away oblivious to the men.

Later, Borg got out his accordion, and they sat around the table and listened to him play. His chubby calloused fingers held a kind of magic in them that turned the accordion into a full-throated organ. He played half a hundred of the Scandinavian folk songs, bits of opera, folk dances. Sometimes Kristin, recognizing a tune as an old favorite, would rise and show Sharon the steps to the old-country dances. There was a pitcher of wine on the table and a bowl of nuts, things as simple and good as the music.

But as it grew later Seay felt a depression settling on him. He watched Sharon covertly, and his face settled into a gravity that seemed strange in all this gaiety.

Soon, then, he rose abruptly and said they must leave. Sharon wanted to protest, but what she saw in Seay's face stopped her. Kristin and Borg both protested politely, but Seay was firm. Borg was a working-man and had to get sleep, he said.

At parting, Sharon and Kristin kissed each other. Seay could tell that Borg and his wife liked her, and that the evening had been fun for them all.

Once out in the night, Sharon took Seay's arm, and they walked slowly toward town. The night sounds away from the business of town were remote and individual. The stamp mills were hammering the high night sky with their pounding, a kind of sustaining chorus that was the background of the town.

Sharon was first to speak. “I had a lovely time,” she murmured. “I didn't know such simple things could be so much fun. And how nice they were to me.”

“They liked you,” Seay said.

Sharon sighed. “Oh, why did we have to leave so soon? An hour from now I'll be wondering if it all happened.”

“Borg's a workman,” Seay said.

It irritated Sharon the moment he said it. “Of course, but don't workmen stay up late? Who packs the saloons till dawn?”

“Not Borg's kind,” Seay said firmly. “Right now, Borg is sitting over books. And what he gets out of those books will make him an engineer someday. He's come as far as muscle can bring him—from a mucker to an expert driller. It's not enough.”

“Oh, I didn't know,” Sharon murmured.

They were silent then, but Sharon was happy and disturbed and a little bit sad, too.

Suddenly Seay said, “No, that wasn't the reason I wanted to leave, either.”

Sharon looked up at him, but in the dark his face was only a dark, high blur.

“Then what was it?” she asked.

Seay made an inarticulate gesture with the arm Sharon had her hand on, and then he laughed shortly. “Have you ever seen a kid stand in front of a showcase full of candy and punish himself by looking at it? The sensible kid walks away, and I'm old enough to be sensible.”

After a pause Sharon said slowly, “Punish himself. I'd never thought of it that way.”

“Yes, punish himself.” He, too, was quiet a moment. “Borg has everything a man wants to make his life. He and Kristin have made it for themselves. They know where they're going, and they'll get there, and when he lies down to die he'll be ready to laugh like hell.”

Sharon was astonished at the quiet passion in his voice. “Laugh? But why?”

“He's beat the game,” Seay said simply. “Even if a man isn't born to suffer like they tell us, he soon picks up the ability. He tries to beat it all his life, and if he's lucky he can. Borg can. He already has.”

“Then Borg and his life are the candy in the showcase and you're the boy—the boy who walks away.”

“That's right,” Seay said shortly.

Sharon did not speak for a moment, and then she laughed huskily, softly. “How strange you are,” she murmured, “how hard—even on yourself.”

“The man who doesn't get hurt is the man who won't let himself be,” Seay countered.

“You envy Borg then?”

Seay considered this a moment before he answered. “Yes. That's what I want, what he's got. Not the same wife or the same children, or the same possessions, maybe, but what he's got; that's my life. It's got balance and—and hardheadedness.”

“Why is it so different?” Sharon asked quietly.

“It isn't soft or easy or safe,” Seay answered, just as quietly. “It doesn't ask for any help or take any, but it always gives it. What's wrong with envying that?”

“Nothing,” Sharon murmured. “It's—it's just strange to, that's all.”

“To you, maybe,” Seay said carefully.

Sharon felt the reproof in his words, and a tiny anger flared up within her. “To me. Am I so different, then?”

“From Borg, from me, from Kristin, yes.”

Sharon stopped, and Seay swung around to face her.

“How am I different then?” Sharon demanded.

“You've hunted for the soft all your life, haven't you?” Seay asked quietly. “It's nothing to be ashamed about. Most people do. You have. It's money and ease and comfort. You look for it always, even in your men.”