Authors: James Gould Cozzens
Both twins assented to this proposal, and they all disposed themselves on the floor, where Ronald fell asleep at once. The Vogel boys, squatting uncomfortably in their blankets, began, after a sibilant prompting from the wings, to explain that never had they seen a white man with the courage and strength of this Washington. Prompted again from the side, Jack Vogel blurted hastily: "But look, he seems to dream —"
Forthwith all the lights went out and there followed a pause, pregnant with rustlings, whispered admonitions and obscure movements. Quite suddenly other lights came on, illuminating, behind a haze of stretched gauze to the left, what could be understood to be a dream or a vision.
Ronald must have got up and gone round the back after it was dark. Somebody could be heard beating a drum in the background, while somebody else made a good deal of noise walking up and down. This was explained by Bill Ordway, who, having given the stiffly staring Ronald a résumé of the iniquities of George III, and described the Boston Tea Party and Paul Revere's ride, then informed him that he was assuming command of the Continental Army. Ronald began an acknowledgment, but someone had miscalculated a little and the lights went out, so he stopped. An interval of muffled expostulations followed; there was a great swishing and shuffling and the lights came on again, disclosing Molly Ordway and Jane Ely with caps and aprons on, apparently sitting on the floor, while Ronald and Bill, still in his Quaker costume, watched them approvingly. The audience was haltingly informed that Mistress Betsy Ross was engaged in sewing an American flag.
There was a succeeding, somewhat longer, delay, afterwards proving to have been due to the introduction of a painted back-drop representing a snowy forest. In the foreground Ronald was kneeling on one knee, looking intently at the ceiling, while two shabby soldiers, readily identified as the Lane boys, observed that the General was asking God's help and things were pretty bad at Valley Forge. After that, Lord Cornwallis (Joe Quimby) was disclosed in a fine scarlet uniform, eagerly presenting Ronald with his sword when he learned that the war was over. Bill Ordway next appeared, administering the presidential oath to Ronald. He was followed by Molly Ordway, clothed now in a costume representing Columbia, saying with the greatest composure a piece of poetry about Washington's undying fame and the republic going forward.
Somebody called audibly from behind, "That's all. That's the end." So everyone applauded hotly while the performers crowded into the vision part of the stage and bowed their acknowledgments. Mr. Ingraham hissed something, and his Boy Scouts ran and pulled up the shades. The audience faced about on its chairs and discussed admiringly the dramatic skill displayed by all members of the cast.
In the cloakroom ice-cream was being dished out. Agreeing that all the children did very well, pleased by the simple and innocently festive air—Mr. Getchell's wide smile, Miss Kiernan, pink with modest triumph, saying to Miss Kimball: "Oh, there you are! How did it go?"—Mrs. Banning glanced at the cloakroom door just in time to see Doctor Bull lumbering out, a plate raised on his big hand. With gross, jovial relish he was scooping up heaped spoonfuls of ice-cream.
Though Doctor Bull had, certainly, as good a right to refreshments as anyone else, it seemed to Mrs. Banning outrageous that poor Mamie Talbot, dead through his incompetence and neglect, was not yet even buried, while he stood there with no care in the world nor visible weight on his conscience, gobbling ice-cream.
She looked at him with chill, reproving distaste, while he put the empty plate on the seat of a chair, wiped his mouth, and seemed to consider for a moment, joining the herd of children getting drinks of water out of the porcelain fountain. Mr. Getchell came by then and all the way across the room Mrs. Banning could hear Doctor Bull booming: "Good show, Getchell. You ought to send Molly Ordway down to the Follies."
"Thanks for lunch," Virginia said. "I'll pay you back."
"Forget it," Guy nodded. "Where do you want to go?"
"Not home. We don't have to go home, do we?"
"Well, I don't want to drive all over the map. I have to get back to New Haven to-night, anyway."
The car was parked last in a line, almost in front of the Congregational church. Said to have been built from the same plans first used in New Winton, here in Litchfield greater skill or more liberal funds had been available. The four white pillars of the porch were a lofty, elaborated Corinthian, high enough for serenity which was lost in mere squat quaintness at New Winton. Perfectly restored, painstakingly cared for, it stood to best advantage, half against the north valley, at the fall-away of the Torrington road. Virginia looked at the sunlight slanting on it with, distracted pleasure.
"We could swing around Torrington and Winsted to Canaan and come down US7," Guy said generously. He sank into his racoon skins. "I'll bet you're cold. You ought to have worn your fur coat. This isn't spring."
"Why, it's hot, Guy. I'm not cold. I'm not a bit cold."
"Anyway, that's the lousiest-looking thing —" He indicated the leather jacket. "You ought to throw it away."
"It's all right," she said, subdued and flushing a little. "I don't care how I look. What difference does it make around here?" She turned her blue eyes on him desperately. "Guy, couldn't I —"
"Listen, I said I wouldn't let you drive. If you're going to make a fuss, we'll go home."
"All right," she sighed.
At Canaan, when it was at least as far back one way as the other and Guy had stopped for gasolene, she risked it again. "Guy," she besought him, "just a little, please?"
"Lord!" he groaned. "I suppose you won't be happy till you kill yourself. All right."
Headed south, she drove with zeal reluctantly curbed while Guy watched her as though she were going to meet head-on every approaching car or, if that failed, smash into the next telegraph-pole. Through the wide fields beyond the South Canaan church, she turned down into the Housatonic river valley. Here, between the hills, there was no wind and the sun was warm, glittering off the shallow, ice-free river. She was doing a carefully gained fifty miles an hour when they passed West Cornwall, but Guy did not protest. From the high viaduct and great white arch lifting US7 across the river, they could look down on the railroad tracks, the roof of the station, the bare tree-tops and shingled back of the original small covered Cornwall bridge far underneath. Virginia, reassured now, sat at alert, unstrained ease, her gloved hands over the lower spokes of the big wheel. She was attuned to the car, as a practised rider may be to a horse. Knowing nothing of a time when there were no motors, unable to remember when those there were could not be wholly loved and trusted, she shared Guy's special sympathetic feeling for fine machinery. Such cruelties as improper lubrication or careless adjustment would move her with almost the same compunction as the wanton ill-treatment of an animal.
Moved grudgingly by the obviousness of this right attitude, and by Virginia's resulting competence, to be seen well enough through her calm heavenly pleasure, not in going anywhere nor in the hills and the river valley, but in the perfect performance of a motor as fine as could possibly be built, Guy said: "As a matter of fact, you drive pretty well for a girl. Some women do drive all right if they can keep their minds on it and nothing happens they don't expect —"
"Just a little longer, Guy —"
They swept down under the great bare maples in long alignment through Kent. Virginia crossed the railroad tracks faster than she should have, but after all, somewhat slower than Guy would have crossed them, so he didn't point it out to her. Reaching New Milford, sprawled on the eastern slope in unpicturesque array across the river, he said: "Cut over here and back through Southbury. It's getting late."
Indifferent, or moved to pity by the intensity of her small pleasure, Guy still did not suggest that he should drive. Silent, he occupied himself with a pipe which he did not like, but which happened to be a fad among his friends, a revolt against the cigarettes so incessantly smoked by people they did not care to know. He was occupied, too, with the crowded world of his college: how much tutoring he was going to have to invest in to get through his Economics; how much whisky he had better provide for Friday night; whether he could spare a chapel cut to go to a Friday night (the next Friday) dance in New York, and whether, if he could, he could afford to stay the weekend; and if he could afford it, whether Marjorie Pitkin were worth the trouble and expense. Or would he do better to call up the DeFoe girl? He had almost decided, along with several punctilious friends, to drop her after her tipsy behaviour caused almost a scandal at the Junior Prom. However, being seen with her in New York was not the same as being seen with her in New Haven, and she would probably let him sleep with her.
He was surprised to find them in New Winton, with the twilight over the green. Virginia relaxed, slumping as though at last tired, at the wheel. "Thanks a lot,"
she startled him by saying, "I've had a swell time, Guy."
She looked at him, a little tremulous; and so, rather ridiculously, resolved his last difficulty; for he did not care to think of his sister, whose purity or innocence he didn't exaggerate, but who none the less had, it in the senses he considered important, in connection with the shamefully attractive and obscenely available DeFoe girl—after all, nothing but a slut of good family. Righteousness thus triumphed, probably definitely; and he resolved to call up Marjorie as soon as he got back to New Haven.
Virginia, unconscious of her service to him, wheeled precisely through the gate. Another car was standing on the loop the drive made approaching the side door. "Hoyts'," she said. "They must have been down to that lousy play."
Behind the cedars and the chestnut sapling fence, she stopped the car. The dogs, muzzles down, had been bolting their suppers; and though they both turned, barking and wagging their tails, they did not trust each other enough to. leave their separate feeding-pans. Larry, smoking a cigarette, perched on the doorstep of his stable quarters. He waved a hand.
Virginia sat still a moment while Guy got out. A white moon, approaching the first quarter, hung half a foot above the long summit of the western hill, and she sighed again, aware of the wonderful stillness of the night air and the calm vacancy of the impending clear night. She breathed deep then, trying to get together the remnants of a day almost entirely happy to protect herself. Larry had got up and come over negligently. "Val Hoyt's inside with her father looking for you, Virginia," he remarked. "She came down to see if you were around the stables. Told me she was going away some place."
"I know," said Virginia, her tone flattening. "She's going to Paris."
"Nope," said Larry with calm positiveness. "They had some changed plans. Somewhere west. With her father. Somewhere in New Mexico. They were going to be gone two months and they were fixing it up for you to go with them."
Virginia snapped open the car door. "Larry!" she gasped, "they haven't left, have they?"
"Car's still there. But I guess you better hurry. Val said she thought your father was going to let you, if you wanted —"
She started away, running towards the house; and this was too much for the dogs. They left what they hadn't eaten, eagerly overtaking her, bounding and barking.
"Just look at her!" invited Larry, shaking his head. "She don't want to stay home much, I guess. She's sure funny when she gets excited."
Guy automatically gave him one of the freezing blank stares used effectively to annihilate impertinent inferiors at college. Here, it, passed harmlessly over Larry's thick-skinned amiability. "Going to go down to college to-night, Guy?" he asked.
"I am."
"Might as well leave your car out, then. Not much chance of freezing to-night, I guess. Yeah, the Hoyts want to drive down there. He's got a ranch there, or something, hasn't he? I always heard —"
"If you haven't anything else to do," said Guy, "get a rag and wipe this off, will you?"
"Thou turnest man to destruction: again thou sayest,
Come again, ye children of men.
For a thousand years in thy sight —"
Doctor Wyck naturally knew it by heart. Against the fresh lawn of his surplice, the rector held in his left hand, forefinger marking the Burial of the Dead, a black leather-bound book, but that was purely formal. Every word out of his mouth had the perfection of familiarity and practice. To Virginia, disinterested, his voice differed not at all from the clean even print in the Prayer Book—an unnecessarily exquisite one given her on the occasion of her confirmation—which she held idly open. Doctor Wyck even supplied the punctuation. Here, in a psalm, he held over on the caesural colon. His voice surged, paused dryly, returned, like a calm sea on a beach:
—
thy wrathful indignation
—
the light of thy countenance
—
the days of our age
—
apply our hearts unto wisdom
—
To bury Mamie to such a strain really seemed absurd.
Virginia, in the prodding pleasure of her own constantly recalled happiness, noticed it at once, with the solemn pronouncement of the preliminary sentences. It was part of her feeling so acutely and joyfully stimulated. Everything had an edge and an interest; every detail was cause enough for some sort of joy. Even perceiving how wrong all this was gave her pleasure. Who could imagine Mamie doing anything so resolute as, though she were dead, yet living? Where on earth would she get the nerve to see God for herself, her eyes beholding, and not another? Mamie, stretched out, shut up in the shrouded coffin, would probably think that they were making fun of her. As it is to the wise, a word to the weak is sufficient. . Unless you were proud, strong, well up in life, you had no need to be reminded at such length that you were nothing and went down like grass. Who could doubt it?
Doctor Wyck had launched now on the long, resounding muddle following 1 Corinthians xv. Virginia, looking at it in print, felt invulnerable even to that awful boredom. She did not want to think about Santa Fé too much, for he had learned that anything thought about eagerly would be bound to disappoint her; but she could at least think of not being in New Winten, or not being in any rotten school. Even that night be risky, however, so she turned back, began to read at random:
Here is to be noted that the office ensuing is not to be used for any unbaptized adults, any who die excommunicate, or who have laid violent hands upon themselves.