This Side of Glory (24 page)

“Eleanor, why don’t you come to see me? You really won’t know anything about the war until you’ve had a look at a cantonment town. I can find you a room somewhere and I think I can get a couple of days’ furlough, and I miss you terribly.”

Eleanor lowered the letter and smiled at her empty fireplace. It was midwinter and the room was like an igloo, but as she read Kester’s letter it had been as though filled with his warm, laughing presence and the pain of her loneliness was as sharp as during the first days after he went away. She wired Kester to let her know when he could get a furlough.

Kester managed to get two days. Eleanor scrambled on a train that was crowded, smoky and full of cinders. She spent the night with her head on a pillow wedged against the red plush back of the seat and her feet resting against the knees of a bearded stranger who looked like a Bolshevik. In Columbia she and Kester stayed in a ramshackle hotel on a side street, in a back room for which Kester was paying fifteen dollars a day. The room had no heat; it contained a bed with sheets that were not long enough to tuck under both ends of the mattress at once and such inadequate blankets that they had to sleep under their coats; a bureau with a gray-spotted mirror that made them look like victims of some strange disease; a carpet with holes that caught their heels whenever they crossed the room; two shaky chairs, and a wash-stand with a bowl and pitcher for which they had to draw their own water from a pump at the end of the hall.

None of it made any difference. They were together for forty-eight hours. Eleanor thought she would have been glad to live in such quarters for the rest of her life if only Kester would swear never to leave her again.

Though when she got home Louisiana was bright after the Carolina snows and the camellias were flowering on the lawn, Ardeith looked grim and cold without Kester. She was glad it was time to get ready for the spring plowing. Kester had not noticed how thin she was, and she had not had time to tell him how she was working, but it did not matter very much; she was sure she could hold out, for every glance at the market news gave her an infusion of courage. Cotton was climbing toward thirty cents a pound.

3

In April there came a break in Kester’s letters, an unexplained silence that she knew by now did not need to be explained. The men were never told when they were to be sent overseas until just before they left, and when they made ready to go they were not allowed to notify their families, for the transport ships sailed in secret. Eleanor waited and waited, trying to ease her nerves by plunging into work with such intensity that she had no time to think, and wondering if the risk of German spies could possibly be great enough to justify this cruelty of not letting her know. During that period of uncertainty she was finally forced to seek counsel from Bob Purcell. Bob put two fingers on the leaping pulse in her wrist and shook his head at her with a reproachful smile, like a schoolmaster.

“If I thought there was the slightest chance of your listening to me,” he said, “I’d tell you to go to bed for a month.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Eleanor. “I can’t desert my plantation.”

He drew down her lower eyelid and looked at its lining. “Did you ever hear,” he inquired, “of the Irishman who said he’d rather be a coward for ten minutes than be dead the rest of his life?”

“You know there’s no chance of my dying.”

“I know you’re dangerously anemic,” Bob said shortly.

He gave her a great deal of iron and advice. Eleanor took the iron, but as the advice consisted of impossibilities such as nine hours’ sleep and a rest in the afternoon, she ignored it. When at last she received a letter from Kester she immediately felt so much better that she concluded that her ailment had been not anemia, but nerves. Kester was in France, he could not tell her where, but it was a lovely country, shell-scarred but trembling with spring, and full of birds chirruping above the noise of the guns.

“I am driving a car,” wrote Kester. “I convey colonels, messages and supplies. Although the rule of the army seems to be that a guy’s having been a cobbler for twenty years is good reason for making him a cook, some genius has appreciated my talent. Driving here is quite a job. No lights before or behind. No roads half the time, and if you strike one it is so full of ruts and shell-holes it is an invitation to suicide, or if not shell-holes it’s mud. My Lord, the mud of France! I was under the impression that Louisiana was a muddy place. Don’t ever let me say so again. The only thing in Louisiana that resembles French mud is New Orleans molasses. Thank God I know how to take a car apart and put it together again, so I always get through. But it’s rather fun. If there are no lights on my car neither are there traffic lights to stop me, nor speed limits, nor white lines that I mustn’t cross, nor smart-tongued ladies to say ‘So Kester is driving you home. Have you said your prayers?’

“I wish I could tell you more. But it isn’t allowed. Send me a new picture of yourself, and new ones of Cornelia and Philip. Those I’m carrying in my pocket are nearly worn out. How tall is Cornelia now? Does she remember me? Good night, my darling, and don’t worry about me. I’m having a grand time.”

Eleanor kissed his signature, tingling with thankfulness that Kester was at least somewhat safer than he would have been among the barbwire barricades of the trenches. She need not worry, she told herself, Kester bore a charmed life if man ever did and was probably destined to outdrink his great-grandchildren. The children were racketing on the gallery. Carrying a picture of Kester, taken at Camp Jackson, Eleanor went to the door and watched them. They were playing soldier. In cocked hats made of newspapers—evidently supervised by Dilcy, who had some idea that all soldiers should look like the Spirit of ’76—they were marching up and down with hearthbrooms over their shoulders, singing what they believed to be a ferocious melody for the vanquishing of Germans.

There ain’t no cooties on me,

There ain’t no cooties on me,

There may be cooties on some of you beauties,

But there ain’t no cooties on me!

Eleanor laughed at them and held out Kester’s photograph.

“Cornelia,” she said.

Cornelia looked around in some annoyance. “Ma’am?”

“Come here, Cornelia.”

“Comp’ny
attention!”
ordered Cornelia, and while Philip painfully held the hearthbroom—which was taller than he was—she advanced to her mother. “I’m cap’n,” she objected. “What do you want?”

Eleanor showed her the picture. Instead of facing the camera with the well-what-do-you-want-now look of most men having their pictures taken, Kester had regarded it like a chum. Cornelia’s face broke into a smile as she looked at the picture, and her eyes softened. She had beautiful dark eyes.

“It’s father,” she exclaimed. Smiling at the picture, she said, “Ain’t he pretty?”

Whenever she showed her photographs of Kester, Eleanor envied him for the way Cornelia loved him. Cornelia could not be supposed to know that the house she lived in and the pleasant luxury that surrounded her were the gifts not of her father’s charm but her mother’s strength. She took it for granted that her mother was a strained and tired person too busy to play with her, and adored her recollection of Kester. Looking up at Eleanor, she asked,

“When is he coming home?”

“When the war’s over, dear.”

“He’s shootin’ Boches!” said Cornelia.

Eleanor called Philip to see the picture too. Philip surveyed it solemnly and said “Sojer boy.” He was two years old, and had no remembrance of Kester. “Father, Philip!” Cornelia corrected him severely.

“I’m a sojer,” said Philip.

“Yes, Philip,” said Eleanor, “you’re a soldier, and your father’s a soldier too.”

They began to march and sing again. As she had several errands to do in town Eleanor went upstairs to get dressed. She went into Kester’s room and paused a moment by his bureau, yearning for him. His clothes were in the drawers, too orderly in their piles to suggest his presence. Among his handkerchiefs was the little silver knife with his name on the handle. Eleanor picked it up and kissed it, remembering it was the first possession of his she had ever held in her hands.

From the window she could look out toward the fields. Again this year they were promising returns that made her feel triumphantly rich. Eleanor smiled proudly at what she was achieving.

When she went into her own room, even the simple processes of changing her clothes reminded her of how well she was accomplishing the task she had set out to do. She liked the silky feel of warm water in her beautiful bathtub, the convenience of the electric irons that curled up the hairs straying on her neck, the ease of dressing before a mirror with side-lights. Eleanor looked herself up and down in the glass. She was no ravishing beauty, but she was a good-looking woman, tall and slender, with a figure excellently proportioned, and she carried herself well. It was good to feel herself in luxurious clothes again, a dress of crisp brown taffeta with a hat to match, boots and gloves of champagne-colored kid that looked as if they had never been worn before. It was good to drive into town in a smart little car, to be successful and to know she looked it.

Tradespeople hurried to serve her, deferentially. That was pleasant too, when she remembered that three years ago they had been closing her accounts because she could not pay. The town looked prosperous. The shops were full of customers and the streets full of cars. In the park girls strolled under parasols that matched their dresses, gay and fluttery in the sunshine. Everybody seemed to be in good spirits. The soft rustle of the palms in the park seemed to whisper, “Thirty-cent cotton!” Thirty-two cents, Eleanor corrected her musings as she drew up in front of the drug store and honked for the services of the
soda-jerker, thirty-two cents and still rising, while everybody, from herself to the druggist rejoicing in the increased ability to buy merchandise, was profiting by it.

When the soda-jerker appeared she told him to bring her a box of face-powder and a glass of lemonade. The weather was already summery, and the lemonade looked cool in its tinkling glass. As she put her lips to the straw Eleanor noticed Isabel Valcour with a blue linen parasol on her shoulder, wandering along the sidewalk. Eleanor had not seen her for a long time. Probably she was consumed by ennui, Eleanor reflected as she watched Isabel approaching the drug store as though in search of some other idler who could help her get rid of an empty afternoon.

Two dirty little urchins wandered along the pavement from the other direction. They caught sight of Eleanor sipping lemonade. With quick shrewdness their eyes took in Eleanor herself, her sparkling car and the parcels piled on the seat. Looking elaborately away from her the taller of the two thrust his hands into his pants pockets and began to sing as he strolled ahead.

She’s the army contractor’s only daughter,

Spending it now,

Spending it now…

Isabel glanced up, started, and burst out laughing. She turned around instantly, lowering her parasol to cover her mirth, but her shoulders were quivering as the singer, sensing a kindred spirit, sidled up to her with a practiced:

“Lady gimmya nickel to go t’a show?”

“Surely, I’ll give you a nickel to go to a show,” said Isabel. Eleanor could hear the suppressed amusement in her voice. Opening her bag Isabel bestowed nickels on both of them. As they scampered off down the street Isabel disappeared into the drug store. Eleanor pressed the horn.

She was ashamed of her irritation. It was silly to let a street-gamin’s taunt and Isabel’s laughter annoy her. “Thanks, Mrs. Larne, come back to see us,” the soda-jerker said genially as she returned the glass, and Eleanor managed to smile at him. But as she drove toward the plantation she was calling Isabel names, and it was not until she was out of town and driving once more along the oak-lined river road, her fields stretching on either side of her, that she could calm her temper. But the sight of her cotton plants could always soothe her. She compared her own achievement with Isabel’s bored and useless life and smiled as she went indoors.

Wyatt was waiting for her. Eleanor was surprised to see him, for he rarely came to the house.

He greeted her more grimly than usual. “Mrs. Larne, I don’t want to scare you or anything, but you’d better start getting pickers together early. Some of the hands are getting sick.”

“Sick? What’s the matter?”

He examined his dusty shoe. “Well ma’am, I don’t rightly know what it is. They’re calling it the Spanish influenza.”

“Spanish influenza? I never heard of that. Thanks for telling me. I’ll have the doctor come over. But I don’t think you need to worry, for we won’t be picking for a good while yet.”

“No’m, but there seems to be a lot of it around. I thought you’d better know.”

She thanked him again, and Wyatt took his lugubrious departure. Eleanor went to the telephone and rang Bob Purcell.

“Could you drop around sometime tomorrow, Bob?”

“Surely. What’s the matter with you now?”

“Nothing, but some of my darkies are getting a new form of the misery.”

“Not flu?” said Bob.

“What?”

“Spanish flu. Is that what they have?”

“Yes, influenza, Wyatt called it. Why?”

“There’s a lot of it, all of a sudden.”

“Is it serious? What is it?”

“I don’t know, to both questions,” said Bob frankly. “But I’ll come over.”

In the morning he visited the quarters, and then came to her in the house. He was wearing a mask consisting of several squares of gauze tied over his mouth and chin. His eyes looked grave.

He told her to wear a mask too, since she was with the Negroes so much, and to keep the children inside the boundary of the lawns. Nobody knew whether or not this ailment was dangerous, but there was no good in taking chances. Eleanor promised to be careful, and ordered the children’s dishes washed with antiseptic soap before their meals.

The next day Neal Sheramy telephoned to cancel an invitation to a Sunday night supper Clara had been planning. Clara was ill “—this strange thing everybody’s getting,” said Neal. “The flu.”