Raintree County (83 page)

The ladies of the Mystic Country Cookers Society were dispensing free lemonade at a stand built near the edge of the Senator's birthplace. The Perfessor ordered four lemonades.

—It's on me, he said. Come and get it.

He sneaked a flask of corncolored fluid from his hip pocket and holding it cleverly inside his coat, uncorked, tipped a little into the glass, corked, and slipped the flask deftly into an inside coatpocket. To Evelina, he confided,

—As President of the W.C.T.U., I have a little confession to make. Until the age of twenty-one, I touched nothing stronger than pure gin. But one day in the company of a slicker from the city, I allowed myself to be persuaded to drink a glass of water. Friends, I'm here to tell you——

—Professor, you know I have no objection to liquor.

—I know, child, that your feminism is of a peculiarly amiable type. I sometimes wonder, dear, what the new America will be like when, according to your formula, the ladies have completely emancipated themselves and exchanged corsets for contraceptives. Well, believe me, I'm for it and trust I'll be there. That gives me a rime and a toast.

He held his glass aloft.

—To the World of Tomorrow, a Feminist Fair,

Where the Liquor is Free and the Ladies are Bare!

As she drank the sugared lemonwater, Evelina looked over the rim of her glass at the three gentlemen bowing to her. She had come surely a wondrous and far progress to stand here in her green gown sipping free lemonade on the Main Street of Waycross in the year 1892. Was it possible to cast off caution like a garment, be very simple like a child, say only the most true and eternal things? Was it possible to still the longing of summer nights, to gain reprieve from fevered dawns? How much truth could the world stand?. . .

EVELINA'S DREAM

At first, it seemed to be a meeting of delegates for a convention in a large park. But as she walked among old buildings of the little town and saw in the distance the winding river, she felt sure that it was New Harmony, Indiana, on the banks of the historic Wabash, or perhaps some Fourieristic Community. She remembered the summery lawns of all the would-be utopias, free moral worlds, communist experiments, free-love cults, and nudist societies that had flowered and faded along the pleasanter margins of American History.

She now perceived that hundreds of Americans were walking about the park with almost nothing on against a background of marble statuary and spouting fountains. Their eyes were elevated, and they were all busy conversing of Humanity, Perfectibility, and Universal Suffrage. She herself, decked out in highlaced boots, recognized a grave, bearded gentleman costumed with a copy of the
Paradiso.

—My dear Citizen Longfellow, she said, how pleased I am to see you! Are there any other distinguished poets present?

Citizen Longfellow spoke vaguely:

—Citizen Whittier and Citizen Holmes are taking the Edenic baths
and the Celestial Radiation Treatment. You'll pardon me, dear Citizen. I see two of my friends coming for me.

Giggling in unison, Alice and Phoebe Cary approached and catching Citizen Longfellow each by a hand, began to run lightfootedly through the park with him, he now and then executing a pigeon wing with commendable grace.

—Among Mr. Longfellow's many fast friends, explained the Perfessor, erect and tall in malacca cane and pince-nez, Alice and Phoebe Cary will be remembered as the fastest.

Senator Garwood B. Jones, wearing a cigar, took her arm and walked beside her discoursing with magniloquent gestures.

—Citizen Brown, I promise to do all I can for your cause in the National Sexual Congress of the Uniting States of . . .

She hunted through the great concourse of Americans, and after a while saw a number of ladies exclaiming over a statue. It was Mr. John Wickliff Shawnessy posing as the Apollo Belvedere, thighs turned slightly out, lines of the body idealized, an image of virile repose.

He smiled at her over the heads of the exclaiming women, but there was such confusion that she became lost in . . .

The crowd was getting thicker all the time around the lemonade stand. Both the Senator and Mr. Shawnessy were talking with Mr. Jacobs and some farmers of the vicinity.

The Perfessor, apparently watching for the chance, offered his arm and led her somewhat apart under the appletree at the site of the Senator's birthplace. He had left the large black book in a crotch of the tree.

—Evelina, for Christ's sake, how do you stand living in this little burg?

—It has its compensations, she said. I have my lovely house and garden and my work and studies, and of course, Maribell.

—How old now?

—Twelve.

The Perfessor shook his head.

—Shall we give but one copy of this loveliness to the world?

Evelina smiled pensively and shifted her bundle of pamphlets to the other arm.

—I had intended to pass these out, she said evasively.

—Don't tergiversate, the Perfessor said. Evelina, I've never seen
you look so beautiful. You must be in love. Are you waiting for someone?

—Of course, she said, smiling.

—Why didn't you tell me sooner? the Perfessor said, irritably. I'm a shy man and never caught on.

He looked sharply at her.

—You got my letter?

—O, yes, she said. It was an utterly charming and completely wicked letter, and what you suggested was quite implausible. At your age! Really, Professor! Anyway, I don't think I would like Bermuda.

The Perfessor leaned his head against the bark of the appletree.

—Ah, God! he said. I grow old.

He rallied quickly.

—I only said Bermuda for fun. What I really meant was New York. I see it all clearly now. You go charmingly through all this absurd flooflah today. And then right after the picnic this evening, you clap your hands once, and make all these cretins disappear like phantoms of an uneasy sleep. We pack our grips and catch the midnight train, and back we go to New York. How about it?

The Perfessor leaned forward with lifted brows. His black eyes glittered with excitement.

—I really must distribute my pamphlets, Professor. Won't you help, please?

—If only you weren't so damn rich, the Perfessor sighed, I could offer something substantial. As it is, I have only myself.

Resignedly, he took a handful of the pamphlets and began to pass them to various farmers and housewives who walked in the vicinity of the Senator's birthplace. She watched him accosting them with ceremonial courtesy, calling their attention to the title of the pamphlet and no doubt elaborating on its contents, which he hadn't read. . . .

EVELINA'S DREAM

—Farewell.

The cars rumbled and shook; the train was starting. It appeared that she was to have the upper berth, but there was considerable confusion about who was to sleep where and with whom. Hundreds of men, women, and children, all the backwash and breakup of that
famous and forlorn experiment, including Mr. Shawnessy, the Perfessor, and the Senator, were hunting through the car for places to sleep. It appeared to be a great excursion to New York, just as the Perfessor had written in his letter.

—I suppose, Mr. Shawnessy said, handing her up to her berth, that the time will come when the whole process will be controlled better than now. But the dispatcher seems to have lost the lists.

In bride's sheer nightdress, long hair down, she clung to his hands.

—I have been waiting with my taper, dear Lord, for your second coming.

The great train roared and wailed, passing like a projectile through a darkening landscape of lawns and lakes and rivers. In the dim car rocking and swaying, she saw his beloved, wonderful face and she tried to pull him aloft into the berth with her, but there was some kind of confusion, for it turned out to be the Perfessor instead, whose long face looked intently into hers, and whose breath hissing slowly turned into the wail of the train, a melancholy diphthong of sorrow and farewell, renunciation, feminine bereavement, and of lost days and faded gardens that were once purple with summer. Farewell . . .

To the old appletree the Perfessor returned for the large black book, which in the meantime she had been idly examining.

—What in the world are you carrying this about for? she asked.

—It's all a delightful hoax that John has played on us, the Perfessor said, hugging the book under his left arm. I'll tell you about it later. Now, if you're ready, I'll see you home.

Passing the senatorial group on the Perfessor's arm, she leaned back.

—Senator, may we hope for the pleasure of your company at the picnic of the Literary Society this evening?

—Alas, my dear, I have an engagement in the great city of St. Louis tomorrow. I'm taking a train right after the Program this afternoon.

—John, I'll be back in time for a certain rural exhibition, the Perfessor said. Reserve a ringside seat for me.

Walking home on the Perfessor's arm, she had a sensation that she was being watched, and when she turned nervously as if she might have forgotten something, she saw that the Senator, Mr. Shawnessy, and a dozen other men were walking down the road behind, their eyes curiously intent upon her.

—Where are they going? she asked.

—To see a painting by Titian, the Perfessor said.

Instantly she thought of the painting ‘Sacred and Profane Love,' in which, according to the Perfessor, that duplicate lady, clothed on one side of the fountain and naked on the other, bore a striking resemblance to herself. She blushed, feeling dizzy in the noon heat. The great eye of the sun blazed intently at her and filled her with delicious shame. . . .

EVELINA'S DREAM

It was a medieval storybook setting. Gabled roofs leaned over a crooked cobbled street in which all the men that were in Christendom lined the way, silently watching. Naked, she bestrode the great white horse in the masculine fashion, pleasantly chafed by the smooth column of the back. Her hair unloosened hung in braids of massy gold around her tipping breasts. With rhythmical motions of his head and clopping hoof, the horse wound forward through the predestined way, while she, holding a book in her hand, read gravely to the multitude.

—Then she rode forth, clothed on in chastity.

She had to re-enact the old story of Lady Godiva's indignity to save mankind from oppression. For this she was to make a medieval progress in the jogging meter of the nursery rimes that filled her little book:

—Ride a cockhorse to Funbury Farce,

To see a fine lady . . .

Senator Garwood Jones in guise of a rich burgher in bejewelled gown stood on a platform, rubbing his chin. Gently chiding, she recited:

—Pussycat, pussycat,

Where have you been?

The Senator's face assumed slowly the aspect of a big tomcat's. He pulled his whiskers and licked his lips. . . .

A white cat big as a man was lunging along the street, frightening everyone out of his wits. The veiled purpose of this fantastic spectacle was beginning to be clear to her. It was a trick to rob her of her virtue. Her horse galloped wildly down the crazy thoroughfare frightened by the caterwauling of the cat. She clung for dear life, expecting at any moment to be thrown. Then the remembered climax of the old fairy tale suddenly disclosed itself in a most delightful way,
as the heroic form of the young blacksmith stood athwart her path, be-aproned, hammer in hand. It was Mr. Shawnessy, at sight of whom her horse came sedately to a stop. Everyone began to dance and clap his hands with pleasure as the Perfessor, wearing cockscomb and rooster's tail, recited,

—Cockadoodle doo!

My dame has lost her shoe!

And master's lost his fiddling stick

And doesn't know what to do.

Meanwhile, Mr. Shawnessy bent courteously to the task of shoeing her horse, though through some quaint mistake he was nailing on a lady's high heel to the hoof of . . .

—A great white beast is pastured around here somewhere, the Perfessor said, passing Mr. Jacobs' barn. I'm supposed to drop back in time to see him perform in that wellknown museum piece ‘The Rape of Europa.'

He was looking at her hair.

—You might have posed for Titian's loveliest paintings, my dear. You belong in the workshop of old Cellini or the
Memoirs
of Casanova, anywhere rather than in Mrs. Mitford's
Village.

She glanced back again.

—Stop being so mysterious, she said. Where are they going?

—Mr. Jacobs has a bull, the Perfessor said, and somebody else has a heifer. And the Senator has a warm interest in all aspects of rural life.

—My goodness! she said. Are they going to do that again today?

—Evelina, the Perfessor said, isn't there anything I can do to persuade you?

—Professor dear, I seem to remember that we have been all over this ground before.

—In the pursuit of beauty, the Perfessor said, I have no pride. Think how much fun we could have in the great City of New York. Don't you have any secret debts that I could pay?

—No. Professor dear, there isn't anything that you can offer me.

—Don't be always thinking of yourself, the Perfessor said. Think of me. I don't ask love, you understand. All I want is your pity—and unselfish compliance.

The Perfessor as usual seemed only half in earnest, as he walked along jauntily swinging his cane and taking in the scenery around him with his roving, perceptive eye.

—Come, Evelina, he said suddenly. Out with it. You're in love with him.

—What in the world are you talking about?

—Good morning, Madame, the Perfessor said, bowing pleasantly.

A woman was standing at the back of her yard, a roseclipper in one hand and a few cut flowers in the other, her figure buxomly protrudent in a white dress. She had been studying the Perfessor with a shrewd green eye.

—Good mornin', she said, distrustfully.

—Who is that colossally voluptuous creature? the Perfessor whispered.