So Little Time (50 page)

He saw Ethel fold her hands and unfold them again.

“When we came back,” Ethel said, “we were in the Tourist Class, but we were just as comfortable as could be, and there were a great many interesting, stimulating people—college boys and girls from Iowa, and college instructors, and a High School principal from Berkeley. I remember a poem one of the teachers recited. I know the way Jeffie is about poetry. He'll laugh and call it small-town, but it sums up—”

“Listen,” Jeffrey said, “let's have supper. Let's not sum anything up.”

“I'm not talking to you,” Ethel said. “Madge and I are having a nice visit, and after all, you're not as clever as you think. I used to do your algebra for you once Jeffie, and I'm going to recite that poem.”

“Don't mind Jeffrey, dear,” Madge said.

“I know what Jeffie's going to say,” Ethel said, “but just the same …” She drew a deep breath and half closed her eyes.

“Oh, London is a man's town, there's power in the air;

And Paris is a woman's town; with flowers in her hair;

And it's sweet to dream in Venice, and it's great to study Rome,

But when it comes to living, there is no place like home.”

The silence when she finished was not amusing. There was something impressive about those lines as Ethel spoke them, because they expressed a belief. He thought of Ethel playing the melodeon at Lime Street, and of his father and his aunt singing hymns after Sunday supper. After all, Ethel was his sister.

“Why, of course,” Madge said, but from her voice Jeffrey could tell what she was thinking. “That's the way I've always felt when I've got back. But Ethel, the only question is how to keep our homes, and our way of life.”

“Come on,” Jeffrey said, “I'll tell you a poem. ‘Good food, good meat, good God, let's eat!'”

“Jeffie,” Ethel said, “you stop!”

She spoke to him just as she would have back at Lime Street. He stopped, there was nothing more that he could do about it. He could see the dining room at home again and the bread board and the butter dish, covered with its netting frame to keep off the flies, and Ethel and her shirtwaist, with her gold-filled watch pinned upon it. He could feel a simplicity and a continuity that seemed more actual than any home of his that had come afterwards. Ethel's voice brought back to Jeffrey too a picture of her house in West Springfield with its brown-stained shingles and the two forsythia bushes by the front door. He could see the heavily upholstered suite in the parlor and the golden-oak chairs in her little dining room just off the kitchen and the radio that was part Gothic and part Jacobean and part Sheraton. He could see the
Ladies' Home Journal
and the
Country Gentleman
on the parlor table and the new
Encyclopædia Britannica
on its little glossy shelves that came free with the Encyclopaedia, and the tapestry carpet that was made to look like a Turkish rug. It was great to visit Venice, it was fine to study Rome, but when it came to living … He wondered whether Ethel were not a more solid citizen than he, and if her life had not been more useful. Then he heard the girls come back.

“Daddy, dear,” Gwen was saying, “don't be cross. Supper's ready.”

“I wish you could see,” Madge said. “It isn't a matter of the Atlantic Ocean, dear. We're a part of the world and not a separate planet, and it doesn't have anything to do with the wave of the future.”

“I'm only saying,” Ethel answered, “we can't solve the age-old feuds of Europe—”

“Come on,” Jeffrey said, “come on, don't fight.”

“We're not fighting, dear,” Madge said. “Why do you always call a friendly argument fighting? I was just telling Ethel—”

“Well, don't tell her,” Jeffrey said, “come on.”

Madge rested her hand on his arm as they walked into the dining room.

“Don't be so rude,” Madge whispered. “She's your sister—she's not my sister.”

“Damn it, Madge,” Jeffrey whispered back, “don't say that again.”

The dining room looked more pretentious than usual, as it always did on the couple's night out, and the table was set too elaborately. He saw Ethel looking at it and he knew that she was reducing the things there into dollars and cents, but there was no envy or malice in her. He was carving a cold chicken and everyone was passing plates.

“My,” Ethel said, “I haven't asked about the children. How's Charley?”

“He's fine,” Jeffrey said, “he's at school.”

“Dear me,” Ethel said, “I haven't seen him since he was five. I wish we were living nearer. How's Jim?”

“Jim,” Jeffrey said, “oh, Jim's fine.”

“Madge,” Ethel said, “it gave me a start the last time I saw Jim. He looked just the way Jeffie used to, before he went to the war. Don't you think he looks like Jeffie?”

“I know people say so,” Madge said, “but I've never been able to see it. He reminds me more of his grandfather—his forehead and around the eyes.”

“Jeffie,” Ethel said, “I never thought of that. I never saw Father in Jim.”

It was like juggling balls and knives—balls and knives.

“I mean my father,” Madge said. “Let me see, I don't believe you ever saw him.”

“Oh yes I did,” Ethel said, “at the wedding.”

“How about some more chicken, Gloria?” Jeffrey asked. “Gwen, pass your cousin's plate and give Gloria some cocoa.”

“No thank you, Uncle Jeff,” Gloria said, “cocoa's fattening.”

“We asked Jim to come up and take Gloria to the Harvest Ball,” Ethel said. “He couldn't come. Boys are always busy in college.”

“Let me see,” Jeffrey said, “I think he told me about it. He was awfully sorry he couldn't do it. Be sure to ask him again.”

“We'll ask him again,” Ethel said, “if he'd really like to come.”

“Of course he'd like to come,” Jeffrey said.

“I'd like to see him,” Ethel said, “beside that picture of you in uniform. Do you remember that picture, Jeffie?”

Madge glanced at him down the length of the waxed mahogany table through the soft light of the Georgian candlesticks. It was a glance of kindly but puzzled curiosity which he had observed whenever those days before they had known each other obtruded themselves into the conversation. She always said she loved to hear about them because they made her remember how much he had done for himself, and she said that it always gave her a new respect for him. Nevertheless, he was not entirely sure that she liked it.

“You had it taken at Halsey's—Mat Halsey with the shriveled arm who always did the High School groups,” Ethel said. “You remember, Jeffie—over Martin's Hardware Store. Father made you have it taken.”

“Yes,” Jeffrey said, “I remember. I thought they were all thrown away. I burnt mine up.”

“Oh, Jeff,” Madge said, “you never told me. Why did you bum it up?”

“You should have kept it for the children,” Ethel said, “so they could have seen you in uniform. You should have seen Jeffie, Madge. He kept looking at himself in store windows before he went away—Well, I have one of those pictures and someone else has too—can you guess who?—Louella Barnes.”

“Oh,” Jeffrey said, “she has one, has she?”

“She showed it to me,” Ethel said. “She has it in her memory book.”

“Oh,” Madge said, looking at him, “poor Louella Barnes.”

“She may have been slow for Jeffie,” Ethel said, “but she isn't poor exactly.”

Jeffrey glanced to his left where Gwen and Gloria were sitting. Gwen was looking at him with a puzzled look that was like her mother's, and in some way Gwen and Gloria seemed to personify Madge's difficulties with his past.

“Jeffie,” Ethel asked, “have you heard from Alf?”

“No,” Jeffrey said, “not for quite a while.”

“You haven't seen his new wife, have you?”

“Why Jeff,” Madge called across the table, “you never tell me anything. I never knew he was married again.”

“They've got an orange grove,” Jeffrey said, “near San Bernardino. She had it. He met her in Las Vegas.”

The girls' faces had lighted up when Alf's name was mentioned.

“Uncle Alf knows a lot of songs,” Gwen said.

“The last time Uncle Alf visited us,” Gloria said, “he was drunk.”

“Now, Gloria,” Ethel said, “your Uncle Alf was only a little tired. Next thing you'll be saying that about your Uncle Jeffrey.”

The table with its silver and its Wedgwood plates dissolved into the table at Lime Street. By some odd alchemy, Ethel had accomplished it simply by being there. There was the same dull, prosaic talk, meaningless and full of meaning, but Jeffrey could no longer fall back into its comfort. He seemed to be suspended between the personalities of Madge and Ethel.

He found himself staring into the candles and thinking of his conversation with Marianna Miller.

“
Why, hello
.”

“
Hello, are you going to take me home
?”

“
I wish I could. I've got to find Madge. She's around here somewhere
.”

“
You're looking well
.”

“
So are you, very well
.”

“
Do you like my hat
?”

“
I like you better without a hat
.…”

“
Well, good-by
.”

“
Well, good-by, Marianna
.”

But he did not want to say good-by to it. It belonged to him more completely than anything around him. It meant that he was still a person, and not a completed fact.

Then he heard the telephone. For an instant he thought that it might be Marianna calling—

“Gwen,” Madge said.

Gwen pushed back her chair. He could hear the uncertain tapping of the high-heeled shoes which she had just begun to wear. The incessant ringing broke upon them rudely as it always did, snapping the thread of conversation although there was not much to snap.

“It's probably for her,” Madge said.

“I suppose she's very popular with boys,” Ethel said. “She looks like you, Madge.”

But it was not for Gwen. Jeffrey heard her high heels clicking back.

“Daddy, dear,” she called, “the telephone.”

“Who is it?” Madge asked. “Couldn't you take the message?”

“Never mind, Madge,” Jeffrey said, “that's all right.”

“She ought to learn,” Madge said. “Who is it, dear?”

“I asked who it was. It's Jim.”

“Oh, dear,” Madge said, and she sat up straighter, “did he say what he wanted?”

“Ma,” Gwen answered, “you always think Jim's done something crazy. He just wants to talk to Daddy.”

“All right,” Jeffrey said, “all right. Never mind it, Gwen.”

He put his napkin on the table. That was the way it always was in New York; he had to move from one contact to another. First it was Marianna Miller and Madge and his sister and Lime Street, and now he walked down the hall to the library, getting ready for something else.

“Hello,” he called, “Jim. Hello, Jim.”

The connection was bad, and Jim's voice was faint.

“I'm coming down to see you,” Jim said. “It's something I can't tell you over the telephone.”

“Can you hear me?” Jeffrey called back. He felt a sudden stab of anxiety mixed with anger. Jim had no right to do this. “What's the matter with you? Are you all right?”

“Yes, I'm all right,” he heard Jim say. “Don't get mad. I'm just telling you I'm coming down tonight. I can't tell you why over the telephone.”

“Wait a minute,” Jeffrey called, and he tried to control the tautness in his voice. “Speak louder and just tell me what it is in general.”

“I can't,” Jim said, “it takes too long.”

“Listen,” Jeffrey said, “do what I tell you. Tell me what it is in general.”

“Well, it's this way,” Jim said. “The Captain in the Officers' Course …”

Jeffrey walked back slowly into the dining room. He tried to look composed and he even tried to smile. It was curious that he felt closer to his sister than he did to Madge at the moment. Somehow, he knew that Ethel was still fond of him and he did not mind her being there at all.

“It's all right,” Jeffrey said, and something made him repeat it. “It's all right.” But when he smiled at Madge, the muscles of his face felt tight.

“Jeff,” Madge said.

He laughed, but the sound surprised him. “Don't worry,” he said. “I talked him out of it.”

“What?” Madge's voice was shriller. “Out of what?”

“It's all right,” Jeffrey said again. “He wanted to enlist.”

He sat down, still smiling, and took a drink of water, and no one spoke.

“He's taking a Military Science course, you know,” he said to Ethel. “Artillery. I guess he's pretty good at it.” He felt a little proud, just as though he had been good at it himself. “The West Pointer who gives the course called in two or three of them. They're looking for material for the School of Fire at Fort Sill.”

“Fort Sill?” he heard Madge say. “Jeffrey, where's Fort Sill?” It annoyed him. Women could talk about the war, but they never knew anything about it.

“Fort Sill, Oklahoma,” Jeffrey said, “the regular Army Artillery School. I know the way Jim feels, having that West Pointer recommend him.”

“But Jeffrey,” Madge said, “I can't see exactly what he's recommended for.”

He did not mean to be impatient; it was his business and Jim's business, and he could look out for it better than a lot of other people, because he had been in the service once, himself. He knew what should or should not be done, so that there was no need for argument.

“As far as I can gather,” he said, and he could sound intelligent about it, “the War Department is looking for officer material, and I suppose they've been inquiring through the colleges. That's all it was, Madge.”