So Little Time (29 page)

There was nothing in Louella's appearance to show that she was afraid of ghosts or spooks. She had on a new yellow silk dress that was very tight around her arms and shoulders, but the skirt was all yellow pleats and ruffles and the color went beautifully with her hair. When she asked Jeffrey what he was staring at, he said that he was looking at her dress and Louella said it was just a dress she had made from a pattern.

“I was just trying it on,” she said, “and then I heard you coming. Mother doesn't like it,” Louella said, “she thinks it's a little—too tight in front.”

Jeffrey looked carefully at the fire.

“Down on the paper,” Jeffrey said, “they think we're going to get into the war.”

“Oh,” Louella said, “men always talk about war.”

She said she hated the Germans, but she did not want to think of Jeffrey going to the war.

“But I suppose you'll be dying to go,” Louella said.

Jeffrey had not thought of it at all until she mentioned it, and then she asked him if he was sure he had not caught cold. They must have talked for some time, for all at once when he looked at the clock on the mantel, in front of the beveled mirror, it was half-past nine.

“Maybe I ought to go home,” Jeffrey said, “it's getting sort of late.”

“That's what you always say,” Louella said. “I don't know why I like to have you here when you always say that.”

“Well, I just meant—” Jeffrey began—“I just thought maybe you were tired.”

“You mean you don't like being alone with me,” Louella said.

And then her voice broke.

“You don't like me,” Louella said, “I always knew you didn't.”

Jeffrey could see himself, years afterwards, seated on that sofa with the golden oak of the Barnes mantelpiece in front of him. He could see himself edging furtively toward Louella Barnes. He could see himself extending his arm, gingerly, and putting it across her shoulders. He could remember Louella's sobbing, and the exact crinkling sound of that yellow dress. Whenever anyone said afterwards that Americans were bad lovers—and there was a time when serious thinkers were inclined to find that the answer for everything that was wrong in America—its brashness, its lack of good food, its inferior literary output and the frigidity of its women—whenever this assertion was advanced, Jeffrey would wince internally, and live that scene again. When he did, he would try to discover what had been wrong with it. He would wonder, with a lack of gallantry which he confined only to his thoughts, what might have happened if Louella had been more experienced. Often when he read passages on the beauty of young love, Jeffrey wondered if it did not rather possess a certain tragedy and a lack of fulfillment which the writer had conveniently forgotten. At any rate, that dated picture of Louella and himself on the sofa would tangle itself irrationally with all sorts of thoughts and moods.

“Louella,” he said. “Louella, I—”

He always thought of it when he read love scenes, particularly the parts about kissing. He thought of it when he read about the couples kissing each other carefully, lingeringly, or thoughtfully, or hungrily. He thought of it when he read that their lips met or that her lips found his. Whatever he and Louella did, it did not fall into that category. He had visualized that moment for so long that when it happened it was all a hasty blank. Somehow, doubtless because Americans were not great lovers, the fire tongs and poker fell upon the hearth when he kissed Louella Barnes, but he was not conscious of the sound. He was only conscious that Louella's dress was pressed against his coat. Her eyes were tight shut, and he saw that there were little freckles on her cheeks, and there was an aura of the same violet talcum powder that Alf had loaned him. He did not know whether she pushed him from her gently, as those love passages had it, or whether it was he who released her reluctantly. He only knew that they were sitting side by side on the sofa and that Louella's face was flushed.

“Oh, Jeffrey,” she said, “oh, Jeffrey.”

His first impression was that it was irrevocable. He could see his past moving from him, and he had never realized how comfortable his past had been. He was bewildered because reality could never have equaled the embroidery of his imagination. The clock on the mantel ticked more loudly. The rug in front of the hearth was scuffed and turned in little folds and Jeffrey found himself bending down and straightening it.

“Jeffrey,” Louella said, “do you think we ought to tell Father and Mother?”

“Why, I don't know,” he answered, “why?”

“But we're engaged, aren't we?” Louella asked.

The inescapable fact of it gripped Jeffrey.

“Yes,” he said, “I guess so.”

“Well, aren't you glad?” Louella asked.

“Why, yes,” Jeffrey said, “yes, Louella.”

“Then you might act glad,” Louella said.

Her voice had a sharpness that was unfamiliar to him, but he felt the justice of it. The least he could do was to act glad.

“I'm just getting used to it,” he said. “I never thought—”

Louella's laugh interrupted him. He could see that she must have wanted it to happen.

“Maybe it would be nicer to have it a secret,” Louella said, “just for a little while. Do you think it would be nicer?”

“Maybe it would, for a while,” Jeffrey said.

“Oh, Jeffrey,” Louella said. “I can't believe it, can you?”

He was already believing that perhaps it had not happened, even though he knew it had.

“Oh, dear,” Louella said, “here come Mother and Father now.”

He could hear their footsteps on the porch. He could hear Mr. Barnes stamping on the mat and then the front door closed.

“Why,” Mrs. Barnes said, “hello, you two.”

“Hello,” Mr. Barnes said, “Jeffrey's been calling, has he?”

“Yes, sir,” Jeffrey said, “is it still raining outside?”

“It's raining cats and dogs,” Mr. Barnes said. “How cozy you two look in front of the fire.”

“I guess I ought to be going now,” Jeffrey said.

“Well, it's so nice you came over,” Mrs. Barnes said. “Harold, will you come out here for a minute?”

“Why,” Mr. Barnes said, “what's the matter now?”

“Harold,” Mrs. Barnes said, “there's something I want to show you in the kitchen.”

Back in the kitchen he could hear Mr. Barnes's voice.

“Don't keep telling me,” he said, “I
am
leaving them alone.”

But Jeffrey pretended not to hear it. He was pulling on his overshoes. He and Louella were alone in the front hall. Louella was helping him into his coat and telling him to button it tight around his neck. She was saying that she would see him tomorrow, and of course he would see her tomorrow, and he was wondering if Mr. and Mrs. Barnes could hear them.

“Well,” Jeffrey said, “good night, Louella, I had a very nice time.”

But he knew that something else was required of him. He bent down quickly and kissed Louella's cheek.

“Good night,” Louella whispered, “dear.”

He hoped that Mr. and Mrs. Barnes did not hear them. There was no doubt that they were engaged.

Jeffrey found himself walking very quickly and in the confusion of his thoughts he did not mind the rain. He wanted to feel that he was absolutely happy, but instead he had a feeling that was almost like relief that he was not there any longer. He had known that he would love Louella Barnes always. Yet, now that he had discovered that Louella Barnes loved him, instead of experiencing the acme of happiness, he wanted to get away. He told himself that he must be going mad, that decency and obligation and every proper instinct made any sort of escape impossible. He told himself it would be better the next time he saw her. He told himself that it was all because he was so surprised. He never realized, as he was walking away in the rain, that he was leaving Louella Barnes already, and with her leaving everything he had ever known.

20

Old Kaspar, and the Sun Was Low

One morning in the summer of 1935, when Jeffrey was not obliged to go to New York, and when there was nothing to do at all, he was reading the paper under a tree in front of the house in Connecticut. Madge had bought the place two years before with her own money, and Jeffrey had not approved particularly. He had told her that everyone was buying farms in Connecticut, especially in the neighborhood of Westport, and that now the whole country was being filled with all sorts of people who wanted to get away from the city. They were just like all the people that they were trying to get away from, except that in the country they had allowed their personalities to expand. Jeffrey had told her that she was only buying the place because her friend Beckie had bought one. It had not helped, either, when he had heard Madge saying to someone across the table, when they were out at dinner, that she had bought it so that they could have some place to live, come the Revolution.

Jeffrey could trace phases of this thought trend, “Come the Revolution,” through most of his adult life. First there had been the Bolsheviki, a menace which had appeared on the horizon with the close of the war. Bolsheviki was a new word then, and the Bolsheviki were going to infiltrate into the United States; they were going to blow up everything, and they had started when they exploded that mysterious milk wagon in front of the Morgan offices on Wall Street. Then there came Russia's Five Year Plan, which was going to industrialize Russia in no time, and make all of Russia so comfortable that people over here would forget the advantages of a democratic system. Then came the depression and that was when they all began saying “Come the Revolution.” Personally Jeffrey had been unable to perceive any signs of the Revolution, but a friend of his, Edward Mace, who had been a social worker in Chicago and who had written reports for various foundations which Jeffrey had never been able to read, had told Jeffrey that the New Deal had staved off violent revolution. Edward Mace agreed with Mr. Tugwell that it was necessary to make over the station but to allow the trains still to go in and out of it, a simile which indicated that Mr. Tugwell and a few others with the proper intellectual endowment hoped to repair a shaky economic system without tearing everything down. Edward Mace said that Rex was perfectly sound about this; and that was one thing about the New Dealers which annoyed Jeffrey—they were always calling each other by their first names, or what was worse, by nicknames, as though they were all members of a club or of an athletic team. Edward Mace, for instance, referred to the President as “the Skipper” and Mr. Roosevelt, not to be outdone, had stated that he was the quarterback who called the signals. This New Deal intimacy disturbed Jeffrey much more than the Revolution, which, according to Edward Mace, was going on right now, although people like Jeffrey did not know it because people like Jeffrey possessed no social sense.

Jeffrey thought of this as he sat beneath the tree, reading his morning paper. He had told Madge that it would be cheaper to go on renting a house for the summer, as they always had before, but Madge had said that she wanted something solid. If he did not want to pay for it, why, she would pay for it out of her own money which she had inherited from her father and mother. This was what always happened when Madge wanted something which he did not want. It was useless to explain to her that whenever she bought something with her own money, he was the one who maintained it. She had bought the house, and having bought it, the least he could do was to pay for the plumbing and the painting and for keeping up the grounds, which cost more than renting a summer house, any way you looked at it, any summer. Yet he could understand Madge's desire to own it. It was a place of their own where they could keep their own things without ever being compelled to move them, a place which they could furnish the way they wished with a separate room for each of the three children and a garden where the vegetables cost more to grow than they would have to buy in the chain store. In spite of everything, he was pleased, on that summer morning in 1935, that Madge had bought the house. He felt a sense of security that morning, and a sense of peace. The new couple, who were Finnish, gave an illusion that they might stay and the man, whose name was Frank, gave an illusion of being interested in waxing the floors. The woman, whose name he believed was Hulga, made good coffee, and there had been bacon and eggs for breakfast. There were sit-down strikes in France and there was unrest in Spain, but on the whole, the world seemed quiet.

That summer of 1935 was one of the few times in his life that Jeffrey had felt free to relax and turn around. He had bought a part interest in a play the previous winter which unexpectedly had netted him eighty thousand dollars, and he had income from other work which he had been doing. Even with the income tax it meant that he could relax that summer. He knew very well that buying a share in a play was like betting on a horse race, but now he was considering trying it again and Jesse Fineman had sent him a manuscript, which he proposed to read that afternoon. Meanwhile, Madge had taken the station wagon to do the shopping and she had taken Gwen and Jim somewhere to play tennis and swim. He was glad they were all gone; the house was quiet.

Just then the screen door slammed, and he looked up. It was his youngest son Charley, who was eight years old then, walking down the path, scuffing his shoes in the gravel.

“Hey,” Charley said, “what's this?”

Jeffrey did not care what it was; he did not want to be disturbed. When he looked at Charley, he felt, as he often did, that he scarcely knew the little boy. Charley was wearing gray Oxford shorts, stockings which came up to his bare knees, and a blue jersey with white stripes. The whole costume made him look like Christopher Robin as he appeared in
The House at Pooh Corner
, a book which Jeffrey wished had never been written, and which he knew that Madge had read to the children without telling him. As he looked at Charley, he could not believe that a son of his could be dressed like that, and all of Charley's mental processes were equally unfamiliar to him. Charley had gone to a progressive school, something unheard-of in Jeffrey's youth. At the age of eight, Charley could talk enthusiastically about the architecture of Indian wigwams, and about the care and diet of small rodents. He lived in an environment unknown to Jeffrey, made up of small workbenches and of water-color paints in rows of bottles, and electric questioners.