Raintree County (90 page)

In the young afternoon, as he walked with Nell and Garwood on the lawn of the Capitol Building, all bitterness and sorrow drained away from Johnny Shawnessy. He was having one of his epic moments. He was walking with a beautiful woman of Raintree County, whom he loved and who had loved him once, and with a friend, who was also a competitor. They were with crowds close to a building that embodied in its tranquil form the wisdom and eternity of the Republic. It was a day of grave portent for the Nation, and words of public men sounded across the bared heads of the throng. Indiana's exultant summer rolled up in waves of heat from littered streets that narrowed to the heat-hazed distance. The city made a low continuous sound like surf. From the vast day, seductive touches came. More beautiful than any fabled flesh, the loveliest woman in the Republic walked in her great bellskirt beside him, dipping her parasol and laughing. The blended image of the erotic and the spiritual, which Nell Gaither had always embodied for him, found somehow its ideal setting here among the scenic attractions of the Capital City of Indiana.

—A call to arms, boomed a great voice from the platform, an
appeal to courage! In this momentous hour when our very homes are threatened, the sanctity of all we hold dear, the honor of our loved ones, can any patriot breast refuse the stirring summons of . . .

Nell and Johnny sat on a bench by themselves while Garwood stalked around the yard, looking important. Gloved hands folded in her lap, Nell gazed at Johnny gravely.

—You look awfully nice with your face all shaved, Johnny.

Johnny rubbed his lean jaws and grinned. It was not right to feel so happy. What had he to feel happy about? Yet something about the scene appealed to that inextinguishably young poet in him, who was always trying to live in a privately lovely universe. The summer drenched him with waves of languor and memory. He remembered the lightswollen stream of the Shawmucky, boats drifting, Nell in a wide white bonnet and a green dress, her fingers stroking the oarblade.

—Where is the Professor now, Johnny?

He told her, and they reviewed what they knew about the lives of others whom they had known together in the old days at the Pedee Academy. Two of the boys were dead, one at Shiloh and the other of camp fever during the training period. They sat talking gravely and hesitantly about these old things, drifting closer and closer to forbiddenly sweet memories, circling, touching lightly, retreating. Nell removed her left glove and began to trace a series of little curves on the wooden arm of the bench.

—Do you keep up with your reading and study, Nell?

—Not as well as I should, Nell said. Now and then I read a little Shakespeare.

She blushed. Her finger continued to make its delicate tracery on the wooden arm.

—Drive them back, I say, the great voice boomed from the platform, drive them back to the crimestained and slaveryblackened earth from whence they have arisen, till they are brought redhanded and trembling before the bar of universal justice. And were it not for the heavy responsibilities of . . .

—I was looking at my copy of
The Complete Works of Lord Byron
the other day, Johnny said offhand, and I found a page with a pressed flower in it. It left a very delicate stain on a poem I've always loved. Maybe you remember it:

So, we'll go no more a-roving

So late into the night,

Though the heart be still as loving

And . . .

—Who would not be young and a soldier of the Republic? shouted the voice from the platform. Who would not fight God's and his country's battles on distant fields? Be kind to these departing boys, young women of the Republic. They go forth to fight for you and the homeland. They are about to bare their young and amorous breasts to the miniéball and the Rebel bayonet. Embrace them fondly, young women of the Republic, for they go to battle and an unknown . . .

Nell opened her purse and found a handkerchief. She touched her nose and dabbed at her eyes.

—I cry so easily these days, she said. Everything is so sad with everyone leaving for the War.

She put her ungloved hand on Johnny's.

—Isn't it terrible, Johnny! The War and what's happened and everything. I don't know when I've felt so unhappy. Do you think we'll ever get straightened out?

Johnny studied the shining green eyes in the upturned face.

—Just now, I take a fairly hopeful view of the situation, he said.

They both smiled at this phrase which had been said so often in the pulpit of the Danwebster Church, and Nell slipped her hand back into her lap and began to glove it.

—Well, children, Garwood said, stopping in front of the bench, let's go have some fun. These blowhards are going to spend all afternoon sending those poor boys to the slaughter. I suggest we have some more drinks and dinner at the Savoy-Rialto, a new sort of dancehall-beerparlor combined where ladies go.

The Savoy-Rialto was one of the fanciest spots Johnny had ever got into. It had a downstairs dining place with orchestra, and the walls were covered with gilt and draperies. Garwood ordered champagne, and both he and Nell insisted on keeping the glasses full.

—What's the matter, Nell? Garwood said once. Never saw you drink so much before.

Turning to Johnny, he said,

—You know, John, usually Nell's trying to keep me from sopping this stuff up, but tonight she just keeps pouring. We consider this a special occasion, sprout.

He patted Johnny's shoulder affectionately.

—We want you to remember us, he said.

Nell looked at Johnny over the rim of her glass, and her eyes were shining. She seemed very gay for a person who had never felt so unhappy before.

—Fill sprout's glass up, Garwood said, while I talk to the waiter. I feel like drinking something strong. This champagne's just fizz water.

He got up and walked unsteadily away and came back shortly with the waiter and more glasses.

—Got a bottle of choice bourbon, he said. Ripe stuff. I drink it like a baby. Never affects me.

Garwood waved to some friends at another table. He was beginning to leave out the short words when he talked.

—Folks, he said, developing his big voice and striking an easy pose, hand in coat, want you meet my friend, young John Wickliff Shawnessy, hope the Republic. Boy's enlisting the Army morrow. Drink around honor of our boy, John, and s'on me, Ez.

Johnny took a bow while the orchestra played ‘The Battle Cry of Freedom.' Everybody began to sing. Johnny put his hand below the table and it touched Nell's hand, which was ungloved and deliciously passive in his. On the stirring rhythms of the chorus it gave his hand tender little squeezes. Garwood got funnier and funnier, and Nell and Johnny laughed more and more. Johnny couldn't remember when he had been so happy. There was no doubt about it—Garwood Jones was a great guy, when he wanted to be.

Some time later, Garwood went off for another bottle of bourbon.

—I reckon you think I've got pretty wild and wicked since the old days in the County, Nell said.

—You never could be wicked, Nell. Of course, people do change.

—Not every way, Nell said.

Her voice was husky. A wisp of her hair kept falling down over her cheek. Johnny had her hand again under the table. It was all right in a way because, after all, everything was meant to make him happy before leaving for the wars.

—This bourbon is really ripe stuff, Garwood said, solemnly trying to fit himself into his chair. Never affects me. I can drink it all night like a baby.

Nell filled his glass, and when Garwood tossed it off to confirm the statement just made, she filled it up again.

A little later Garwood was standing and trying to make a speech, though the Savoy-Rialto was beginning to be very noisy, with a number of officers on furlough singing regimental songs.

—Garwood's pretty tight, isn't he? Johnny said.

—Terrible, Nell said, thoughtfully, as she refilled Garwood's empty glass. I've never seen him this way before.

—I don't think he can stand much more, Johnny said. Do you think we can get him home?

It was around twelve o'clock that Nell and Johnny helped Garwood up the steps and out into the street where they hailed a carriage. Garwood peeled a greenback from his roll and told the driver he was hired for the night.

—I feel like riding, he said. O, night, o, stars! Nothing's too good for our boy John.

Five minutes later, he was out cold. Johnny and the carriage driver deposited Garwood at his bachelor's quarters, where a young lawyer received the body with equanimity.

—Just put it over there, boys. Never saw Garwood so pied before. You know, he really doesn't drink much. Too golderned ambitious.

When Johnny and Nell were alone in the carriage, they didn't say much for a while.

—I guess you—you intend to marry Garwood, Johnny said.

—He keeps asking me, Nell said. But I don't know——

They put their heads back on the seat of the carriage and let the wind stream over them as they rode on rivers of the night toward the place where the gaslamps came together.

—I
wish
you weren't going off to the War, Johnny.

—Going off to the War seems to be one of the nicest things I've ever done, Johnny said.

—Maybe they'll put you in camp around here, Nell said, at Shanks or somewhere.

—Would you like that?

—Yes, I would, Johnny, Nell said gravely.

Her hair had been blown down by the wind, and she raised her arms to lift it and put it back. As they passed a gaslamp, her eyes glowed greenly and then darkly. She took a pin from her mouth. He put his arms around her little waist and felt how gently her face swayed toward him. Her bare arms circled his neck and pulled his face down to hers.

Desire. Desire was of the river and the pale flesh that moved in a green pool of the river. Desire.

He had come back to Raintree County sooner than he had expected, had come back briefly to his older memory of it, had become again the poet and possessor of its beauty. The river ran, a sinuous green, swelling and swelling between treebordered banks to heatblurred horizons. He would climb up again with a slow stroking of oars to the summit of that serpent water, glide upward in the swooning heat, upward to where the river joined the lake, to where with a slow anguish the strong waters found their way through marsh and shallow, tarn and tangling swamp into the tepid pool of Paradise, in the very center of Raintree County.
Oft was I weary when I toiled with thee.

Desire! He would know desire, noontide young desire beside the river. O, he would dig his hands into the tingling earth of the twin mounds. He would breathe grass and warm earth in the sunshine, clover and cut hay and dandelions. He would rise and run through cloverstubble toward the third mound, the flowering one a little way off. His cheeks would be raked with a thousand tingling tips of shaken hair beside the river.

He would return to Lake Paradise. Somewhere here the tawny tree was standing, bright pollen fell at noontime by the river.

He would also be the runner through a public place, the stringbreaker, applauded by thousands. He would not stop but keep right on until he reached the place of secret waters, thrust to the very quick of life, his form softly flayed and flung by the vines and the beautiful flowers, the tall tough weeds and the odorous grasses in the place where the Raintree grows.

Make way, make way for the Hero of Raintree County! Make way for the young god with sunlight in his hair! He has humbled himself and performed great labors, he has been chastened, he has starved and wanted food—shall he not have at last the golden apples? Make way for the Hero of Raintree County!

Johnny and Nell held on to each other as if they were afraid something was about to separate them forever, and even when he handed her down from the carriage in front of the little white house on Pennsylvania Avenue, they couldn't say good night.

—Do you think your aunt will mind your being out so late, Nell?

—Aunt loves Garwood, Nell said. I'll tell her it was Garwood that had me out late.

—This is pretty hard on Garwood, Johnny said. Not that he doesn't deserve it.

—He said the evening was on him, Nell said. Poor Garwood.

—Tell me one thing, Johnny said. Are you going to go on saying no to him?

—Yes, I will, Johnny. For a while.

—You understand, Nell, my marriage still stands in the eyes of the law. There isn't anything that can be done about it, even if Susanna is hundreds of miles away from here, and I never see her again. She's started back to her family already, you know. We managed to get a passage for her through the lines. It was her own wish. It's all a closed book, but I can't forget having read it.

—I understand, Johnny.

They walked silently arm in arm to the back of the house. When he started to kiss her good-by, she clung to him.

—I don't want to let you go, Johnny, she said. I'm afraid.

—So am I.

—Where are you going tonight?

—I don't know. I haven't a room yet.

—I hate to let you go. I'm afraid something will happen to you.

—Nothing will happen to me, dear.

—Johnny, I love you so much. Why don't you come in with me for a while? If Aunt isn't awake, we can slip in. I have my own place up the back stair.

It seemed to Johnny Shawnessy, standing in the July dark, that life had decided to be good to him again. It was time to be affirmative and forget conventions. Let the wounded republic of war and moral obligation reclaim him on the morrow: tonight he would lose himself in the sweet republic of love. He would have a reluctant, last good night, a long farewell.

They slipped around to the back of the house, and Nell went up on the back porch stealthily and pushed open the door.

Aunt was up. She turned up a huge lamp, and Johnny could see a wattled, proper face peering out into the night. Nell gave a sharp gasp, and then said,