Читать книгу Before the Sun Goes Down - Elizabeth Metzger Howard - Страница 8

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Rufe arrived home and found the family assembled on the big front porch, where they gathered every summer evening before dinner. Papa was reading the Ledger, Mama knitted, and Gramma Albright was crocheting. Lillian was doing her embroidery, while Sammy sat on the steps fooling with a slingshot.

“Well, Rufe,” Captain George said.

“Evening, Papa.”

Rufe couldn’t tell exactly what his feelings toward his father were. Of course he loved him. It would have been a sin not to love your father. And he admired him, the money he had and the way people looked up to him. Only once Rufe had seen Tom Leonard and his father going hunting together, laughing and talking like two boys, their guns over their shoulders, the sleek lean pointers, Rex and Queen, following....

“Rufe dear,” Pris was saying, “I wish you’d not stay out so late.”

“Yes, Mama.”

Late! She thought six o’clock late for a boy fifteen years old to be out! Rufe loved his mother. He knew he loved his mother. Sometimes he loved her so much he ached. But the things she would worry about—uneasy now because a boy fifteen years old wasn’t home before six! Rufe sank upon a chair. What if she knew the way he felt about Mollie Reynard?

“Rufe, you didn’t speak to your grandmother or sister,” George corrected.

“Evening, Gramma; evening, Lillian.”

They answered something Rufe didn’t hear. His eyes shifted to Sammy, wondering if he suspected anything. Sammy ignored him.

Rufe heard Lillian’s voice. “Mama, I’ve only three more roses and a daisy and I’ll be through.”

Three more roses and a daisy, Rufe thought. That was all a girl had to worry about, at least a girl from a best family. But Mollie—what about a girl from a family like Mollie’s?

Sammy couldn’t look at Rufe. He knew how bad Rufe must feel, letting a girl get the best of him. And it wasn’t Rufe’s fault—Mollie was stronger. Sammy liked Rufe more than anybody in the world except Mama, and he didn’t care if it was a sin to like a brother more’n your father. Papa was all right, only he was always telling you what to do or what not to do. Rufe never did, and Rufe could draw and make things. Rufe could make bows and arrows and reed whistles and he’d made a little boat whose sail really caught the wind. Last spring they’d taken it down to the crick when the water was high after the thaw. Rufe had a string tied to the boat. But it bobbed and pulled and Sammy suggested Rufe cut the string.

“We’ll lose it if we do,” Rufe said.

Sammy nodded. “Mighty likely. But we could follow it down the crick a long ways.”

Rufe cut the string. All afternoon they followed the little boat, past the shoals beyond the depot on to Elm Bank, where the water was deep enough for the ice cutters in winter to take out chunks of ice thicker than Sammy was tall. And the little boat never turned over once; its sail bulging in a stiff breeze, it bobbed along and along. Near dusk, though, it struck the eddies at the pine ford and smashed against a rock. Then a current pulled the wreck into a pool and they saw what was left of the little boat go under and come up and then go down again forever.

“She’s gone,” Rufe said.

But Sammy knew Rufe was glad he’d cut the string. Wonder what a real boat looks like? Sammy asked himself. Bert and Prissy had an uncle who was a doctor on a boat. Sammy decided he wouldn’t want to be a doctor, but maybe he’d be a sailor someday—that is, if he could get away from Mama and Papa. Maybe he could run away from home the way Uncle Tim had done.

Nobody remembered that Sammy knew about Uncle Tim. But a long time ago Papa had brought Gramma Albright a letter.

“Here’s a letter from Tim,” Papa had said.

“From Tim?”

Gramma Albright didn’t cry if she got upset the way Gramma Sargent did, but this day she looked like she was going to cry.

Papa nodded. “His name’s on the envelope and it’s postmarked London, England.”

“London, England?”

Reading the letter, Gramma Albright’s hands trembled and Sammy had felt sorry for her.

“Sammal,” Gramma Albright said now (she always called him Sammal because it had been her family name), “your hair shines just like your grampa’s used to.”

“What do you suppose his grampa would say if he got a look at his hands?” There went Papa.

“Sammy dear, you should try and keep yourself cleaner!” There went Mama.

“Sammy’s grubby.” There went Lillian, agreeing with Papa and Mama.

After dinner, Pris was thinking, I’ll ask George to take me over home.

Pris always referred to the Sargent place where she had been born and raised as “over home” and to the Albright place where she’d spent her married life as “back home.” Whenever she was in the Sargent place she’d think about going back home and when she was in the Albright place she’d think about going over home. And similar as the two places were, back home never meant to Pris what over home meant. Often, entering the Sargent house, she would have the sensation of having returned from a long journey. There was a familiarity about the big oak and walnut pieces, the marble-topped pedestals under the lamps, and the rest, which their counterparts in the Albrights’ never possessed. Sometimes she would linger in the icehouse and around the flower garden. Again the cold, musty, sweet smell of the icehouse, where a ton of ice was buried every winter, mingled with the cool, rich, smooth breath of new milk in gallon crocks and the delicate acrid aroma of the butter churns filled Pris’s soul full of a dear nostalgia never experienced in the icehouse back home. And the Sargent garden—with the crocuses and lilies of the valley and lilacs and snowballs in the springtime, and in the summertime the roses and hollyhocks and mignonette and babies’-breath and larkspur and dahlias and sweet William—made Pris’s nostrils quiver from a perfume which the same flowers in the Albright garden never seemed to exude.

Because Pris had been worrying a bit about her own children she particularly wanted to go over home this evening. Perhaps she could catch a fleeting sense of the little girl she’d been who had known no worry. Pris knew how foolish she was to worry about her children. Indeed, they were everything children should be: dutiful, healthy, and good-looking. Of course Rufe had been growing too fast, but truly he’d been the most beautiful as well as the best little boy who had ever lived. And after his face grew up to his nose and he filled out he’d make a handsome man. Sammy was still adorable-looking, with his yellow curls and his round blue eyes. And Lillian was perfect. Yet lately a feeling had come over Pris that she didn’t really know her children, especially Rufe.

She remembered again the dawn when Dan Field had put the baby Rufe on her shoulder. George had been upset from the time her pains began, and about midnight Dan had given him a powder and George was still sleeping and did not hear Rufe’s first wail. Dan had sent the nurse downstairs (to where the grandparents had been waiting on and off all night) to say it was a boy. Then Dan put the soft little mouth against her breast. She looked up and saw him bending over her, his white face whiter than ever and tired and drawn, as if he were the one who’d been suffering. It had seemed that there was nobody else in the whole world but the baby and Dan and herself. And during this moment it had seemed Dan was Rufe’s father.

How often she remembered how, during the time Rufe was beginning to talk, he insisted upon calling Dan “Da-da” and George “Ga-ga.”

Dan would say to the baby, pointing to himself, “Not Da-da. Uncle Doc.” He’d point to George. “There’s Da-da.”

“No, Ga-ga.” Rufe would shake his small head toward George and gurgle at Dan, “Da-da, Da-da, Da-da.”

George thought the situation very funny.

“ ‘It’s a wise child,’ ” he’d laugh.

But George had been terribly upset because she insisted upon naming the baby Rufus instead of George. It wasn’t, though, that Pris particularly wanted to name the baby after her father; it was simply that she couldn’t call him George, remembering the moment Dan had put the little mouth against her breast. She had really wanted to name him Dan—Dan Field. When Baby George died, Pris had felt that perhaps God was punishing her. And she never crossed her husband again, openly.

George was in the room the times Dan put Baby George and Sammy and Lillian on her shoulder and she had looked at George instead of at Dan. But she’d always felt Dan there bending over her, nearer, much nearer than George. No husband could ever be as close to a woman as a doctor whose merciful hands had lifted her from the valley of the shadow of death to lay against her breast a soft little mouth.

Not that she didn’t love George, Pris would tell herself. She had always loved George, and after Rufe’s birth came a new side to their relations. Then what she had accepted passively became an ecstasy. Only—and Pris could never understand this—George’s body over her in the darkness wasn’t a body. It was a spirit, or an essence, which seemed to release her from a bondage as the sweet kind whiffs of chloroform Dan Field would give her toward the last of childbirth lifted her from a bed of agony onto a cloud of rapture. Ga-ga, Da-da, Rufe, Rufe darling ...

He slouched in his chair, his long thin legs stretched before him. His eyes were a thousand miles away. Where are his thoughts? Pris asked herself. Rufe had never been like Sammy and Lillian, who kept their thoughts to themselves. Until lately he’d always brought her his joys and little worries. Rufe, my son, what is it? Now when I look at you your eyes don’t see me. If I try to talk to you there is nothing you want to tell me....

Perhaps Rufe needed the companionship of boys his own age, of his own kind. She’d been thankful enough when he dropped that Tom and Ben and Jack. It might amuse Rufe if she invited a few young people to the reception for the principal of the new public school—the Taylor girls and Laird Culver.

“Rufe,” Pris said, “why don’t you go and see Laird Culver?”

Rufe started. Why under the sun would she want him to go and see Laird Culver? Laird was the Presbyterian minister’s son and he had white eyelashes and buck teeth and a voice that sounded like a frog with a fishbone caught in its throat, and he was stuck on that big tub Margaret Taylor.

“I don’t want to go see Laird, Mama.”

“Well, if you don’t want to go see Laird why don’t you invite him around to see you, dear?”

“I don’t want to invite him around to see me, Mama.”

All right, Rufe, Pris thought. Her eyes turned toward Sammy. Pris could remember George at his age looking the same. And Sammy was exactly like George. He’d never admit any secrets and yet no one could ever find out what he really thought. Sammy should have been called George. Baby George had been a dark wisp of a baby who would have looked like Tim if he’d lived. How cold it was that winter he died, and how Dan Field fought to save the tiny life! Dan had made George take her from the room and it was Dan Field’s arms which held the tiny racked body choking to death. She had gone with George but she’d wanted to stay beside Dan while he held her dying baby.

Lillian heaved a great sigh. Oh dear, Pris thought, she sounds and looks as if all the troubles of the world were upon her shoulders.

“Darling, whatever is the matter?” Pris asked, knowing Lillian wouldn’t tell.

“Nothing, Mama.”

The truth was that Lillian sighed because she’d told the family Sammy was grubby. The idea of saying such a mean thing about Sammy! I’m always saying and doing things I don’t mean to please Papa and Mama, and that Prissy, Lillian fumed inwardly. But I’m glad I stayed out and talked to Alexander, Lillian decided, no matter how mad Prissy is. The idea of her saying Sammy’s grubby....

Bert Sargent found his family assembled on their front porch: Papa reading the Ledger, Mama knitting, Gramma Sargent crocheting, and Prissy embroidering.

If I’d a knife as little as Prissy’s needle I could of done it better, not hurt the rabbit at all maybe, Bert was thinking.

“Good evening, Bert,” Papa said.

“Evening, Papa. Evening, Mama. Evening, Gramma. Evening, Prissy.” Bert was thorough or nothing.

Suddenly Mama screamed. “Bert, you’re covered with blood. Rufus, look, Bert’s covered with blood.”

Rufus sprang to his feet. “What? What?”

Prissy moaned.

Gramma Sargent groaned.

Bert looked down. “Rabbit blood. Nothing but rabbit blood. I ain’t hurt.”

Lou sighed with relief. “However would you get rabbit blood on you, dear?”

“Off a rabbit what’s got blood on it.” Bert knew how to change the subject. “Mama, I’m so tired. Please come upstairs and help me change.”

“Of course, dear.”

Rufus sank back upon his chair and forgot his son’s bloody shirt. He gave his children little thought. After Prissy came, Rufus had wanted to mind the baby a bit, cuddle her, spoil her mildly. But he hadn’t a chance. Lou monopolized the management of the child as she monopolized the management of the household. If Rufus began by protesting he soon saw that an argument with Lou was never finished until she won—or thought she won. By the time Bert arrived Rufus had become so used to ignoring Prissy that he was hardly aware of the boy.

At thirty-five Rufus Sargent was a distinguished-looking man. He had gained weight and the added fullness of his face made his nose appear a normal size. He wore a mustache which widened his small mouth and even the thick-lensed glasses didn’t detract from the brilliant black eyes under their sweeping lashes.

Well, whatever the condition in his home, Rufus continued thinking, he ran the bank and the town. If he fed George’s vanity, George ate out of his hands. George certainly was set up over the Ledger squib, never suspecting that he, Rufus, inserted the column to put George in such an amiable mood that he’d agree to incorporating an arc-light company. George believed the position he held in the town was his because he was George Albright. But George the First and Rufus the First had found dissenters among the townspeople, and Ralph Pettigrew might have been elected mayor of Willowspring if Rufus hadn’t managed George’s campaign shrewdly. Now perhaps the town didn’t need arc lights but again an arc-light company might mean a new fortune. That fellow Edison at Menlo Park was trying to make an electric lamp suitable for use in homes and offices. Of course such an idea might be merely a flash in a pan. On the other hand, electric-lighted houses weren’t improbable, and if the idea did prove practical the arc-lighting company could be easily converted. The only way to make money was to take gambles, Rufus speculated. Certainly Pa and Uncle George took chances and hadn’t always won. During the panic of ’57 they’d made another gold strike by buying and holding supposedly worthless railroad bonds. But on the other hand, a corner of the bank safe still held Confederate bonds that had been bought—just in case ...

However, despite shortsightedness, George was all right, Rufus decided. He had really worked like a dog making the legislature appropriate a sum sufficient to build a modern school large enough to take care of all the Willowspring children. And Pris thought George about perfect. Rufus held the greatest affection for his sister, and he was sincerely glad she was happily married. Too, George seemed contented. Rufus wondered whatever had happened to Vi Larsen. George had certainly gone wild over her. He would have married her if his father hadn’t gone to Philadelphia and raised hell, telling the Larsen family he’d disinherit George. Pris had never known a thing about the affair.

Rufus began wondering, and not for the first time, if perhaps a man weren’t more content married to a woman he wasn’t mad about. The hell he’d been through and still went through. And what a fool he was, knowing—and knowing the way he did—nothing could make Lou respond.

Rufus’s eyes rested upon his daughter. For the first time in years a tenderness toward her flooded him. Poor little devil, he thought, she means no more to her mother than I do. It’s all Bert, Bert, Bert with Lou. He wished he could call Prissy to him, take her on his lap, cuddle her a bit. But they’d grown so far, far apart.

“Prissy.”

“Yes, Papa.”

He saw the brilliant black eyes under their sweeping lashes, so like his own, the dimpled rosy cheeks and the thick brown plait, hanging over a shoulder now. Why, she’s beautiful.... He wanted to tell her she was beautiful, tell her she was beautiful and she was his little girl and he loved her.

Instead he said, “Did you have a nice time today, Prissy?”

“Yes, thank you, Papa.”

Prissy had been thinking, Bert didn’t tell Mama how he got the blood on him and he won’t. But she was hoping fervently no one had seen Bert coming along the street all over blood. It would be terrible if anyone had seen him, after telling Lillian Bert wasn’t grubby.

Lou and Bert came back on the porch. Bert wore a clean suit and his face was soap-shiny.

Maggie, the hired girl, a gaunt, rawboned woman, wearing a starched calico dress and apron, stuck her head through the door and said, “Supper’s ready.”

Prissy knew that across the lawn at the Albrights’ Nellie, who was Maggie’s sister and looked and dressed like Maggie, was saying the same thing. The next minute both families would be settling around like tables to eat the same bounty—tonight a huge roast, mashed potatoes, gravy, peas, lima beans, corn on the cob, hot biscuits, butter, cream, strawberry preserves, and custard pies and doughnuts.

The grandmothers, if unable to ignore the fare, were wont to wince inwardly as Maggie and Nellie announced, “Supper’s ready.” When they had charge, they often remarked, it was: “Dinner is served.” Nor could the grandmothers accustom themselves to having only one hired girl in a house. Before Lou and Pris took over, there were never less than three or four girls in each house.

“But you didn’t have Maggie and Nellie,” Lou and Pris would tell them, to no avail.

Where in those days the young people took their lot for granted, in after years they all loved to dwell upon the bounty of the households when they were young. They told of the great roasts, dripping with their own abundance, sent away from the table only half finished but never to be seen again, no one caring what happened to the leftovers. Their tongues would linger upon stories of quart pitchers full of yellow cream, huge slabs of golden butter, how both families kept two cows, and the hogs got the milk. Their lips would roll over tales of giant tureens brimming with fresh vegetables in summer and put-ups in winter. They’d tell about peas big as marbles, beans thin as needles, limas rich as butter, corn sweet as sugar, and juicy, red, round beefsteak tomatoes. And then about the piles of potatoes and onions stored all year round in the icehouses, and the jellies and preserves, pies and cakes, and on Sundays the gallon freezers full of ice cream.

And Maggie and Nellie—such girls couldn’t be found in days to come. Why, they did all the work—the cleaning, cooking, baking, churning, preserving, for a dollar and a half a week. Of course on Mondays and Tuesdays Mrs. Race came to the Sargents’ and Mrs. Schiller to the Albrights’ to do the washing and ironing. And they came a week every fall and a week every spring to help with the house cleaning.

In 1880 Maggie and Nellie had lived with the Albrights and Sargents ten years. They were well past thirty but neither had married. Maggie and Nellie were Catholics and on Sundays their parents, Mr. and Mrs. Beamer, brought the little boy Gregory Beamer in to mass from the farm at Four Mile Run. But Maggie and Nellie never visited the farm. And although Gregory was supposedly their brother, it was Maggie he went to see every month when he came to confession. And it was Maggie who bought his clothes, as well as her own, out of her dollar and a half a week. Sometimes Maggie would be sitting beside the kitchen lamp until midnight, making shirts and pants or mending the little boy’s things. And now Maggie wanted to keep Gregory all night Saturdays. Prissy had heard Mama telling Papa.

“It seems,” Mama had said, “Father Callahan is taking an interest in that boy, Gregory Beamer. He wants to give him Latin lessons Saturday afternoons and Maggie asked if she might keep the boy here Saturday nights. What do you think, Rufus?”

“Whatever you think, my dear,” Papa had answered, the way he always did.

“He’s to walk in from the farm Saturday afternoons and his grandparents” (Prissy wondered why Mama called Mrs. and Mr. Beamer Gregory’s grandparents; they were his mother and father) “will take him back Sunday mornings after mass. Of course Maggie knows he mustn’t have a thing to do with Bert or Prissy.”

“Of course, my dear.”

“For this food we are about to receive make us grateful, O Lord,” Prissy heard Papa saying.

She knew Uncle George was saying the same thing.