Читать книгу Kings Row - Henry Bellamann - Страница 14

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Madame von Eln decided that spring to make a visit to friends in St. Louis and then to go on to Philadelphia where she had a few relatives.

“I think I’ll take you with me, Parris. You’ll like visiting the cities, though I suspect my relatives are dull. God knows they were dull enough the last time I saw them, and I’m sure time hasn’t improved them. Still, they are relatives. I suppose you ought to know them. I won’t live always and you should know your kinspeople.”

Parris was excited beyond measure. He had never made a long trip and he loved riding on trains. Madame decided they would leave the first week in June. Parris told Renée about it and became eloquent about the wonders of Philadelphia. He had heard his grandmother talk at length about it, although he remembered suddenly that she was always somewhat sarcastic at the same time.

Renée was not excited. She kept her eyes on his face as if waiting for him to say something different from what he was saying.

“Why, what’s the matter?” he asked finally.

“Nothing. Why?”

“You look so funny.”

She kept silent.

“Aren’t you glad I’m going to get to go on a trip?”

She shook her head. “I’ll be lonesome,” she said simply.

He was instantly contrite. “Aw, Renée, honest, will you miss me?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll bring you something when I come back.”

“What?” She asked the question listlessly.

“I don’t know. Something nice. What do you want?”

“Anything you want to bring me.”

“All right. I’ll keep looking for something for you.”

“I know I’ll like it—whatever you bring.”

They began to talk of other matters. Neither of them had ever spoken about the night of his birthday. Parris had not forgotten it. He had thought of it several times, but he remembered it more as a mere corroboration of the simple fact that Renée was his sweetheart.

She came to the house to say good-by to him the morning of his departure. She looked at the valises as Uncle Henry carried them to the surrey and piled them on the front seat, but her face was expressionless.

Madame counted the innumerable parcels and re-counted them. “Bien! I suppose that is all. Almost I wish I had not begun this, but I suppose we must go through with it, eh, Parris?”

Parris looked at her in amazement. It was incomprehensible that she should not look forward to the excitement and novelty.

“Now, then, we go.” She turned to Renée. “I wish you were coming, too, my child. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it. You would have been company for each other while I talk with my dreadful family.” She leaned over and touched her lips to Renée’s cheek. “Be a good girl. Come, Parris.”

Parris grabbed Renée roughly by the arm and kissed her. She received the caress passively.

At the big gate he looked back and waved. She was standing on the terrace. Very slowly she raised her arm above her head and waved back with a childish flapping motion.

The summer was well advanced when Parris and his grandmother returned. Parris was astonished at the appearance of the place. It looked so rough and unkempt.

He hurried at once to see Renée, with the package he had brought her. His grandmother had spent the whole of one morning shopping with him in an enormous store, and had made the selections herself.

Renée looked taller than he had remembered her.

“You’ve grown since I left, Renée. Look how tall you are!”

Gudrun, Renée’s mother, laughed. “I guess she don’ grow so much in six weeks!”

“Gosh, is it just six weeks? Seems like I’ve been gone a year.”

“It seems long to me, too.” Renée sounded formal.

“Look, I brought you something. My grandmother helped me pick ’em out. She said she hoped you’d like them. I hope so, too.”

Renée looked at her mother, then at Parris. She drew her shoulders up with a little giggle of pleasure. “I can’t wait, Mama. Quick, let’s look.”

“Take them in the other room and open them there.”

There was a box containing a dozen hair ribbons, all different colors.

“Oh, Parris, they’re beautiful!”

“They’re nice, nice—ver-ry,” Gudrun agreed with her broad smile.

Renée rustled the papers ecstatically. “Let’s see what else. Goodness, I’ll have enough hair ribbons to last me a whole year! What’s in this long box, Parris?”

“Look and see.”

It was a parasol, pink silk inside and white lace ruffles on the outside. Renée gasped.

“See,” Parris explained. “It’s got a crook handle so’s you can carry it on your arm—like this.”

“It’s the prettiest one I ever did see.”

“Och—” her mother warned. “Don’t open it in the house. Bad luck!”

Renée laughed and twirled it over her head, making the lace ruffles stand out in little rippling waves.

There was a box covered with tiny iridescent shells. “To keep little things in,” Parris explained, handing it to her.

“Now—I’ve saved the biggest box for last. I can’t guess what that is.”

She unwrapped the package and lifted the layers of tissue paper. “Oh—look, look! It’s a green silk dress.”

She took it out and held it up against herself. Parris felt his face burn with pleasure. He had never seen Renée so excited.

The dress was an intricacy of insertions, ruffles, braid loops, and tiny buttons.

“That’s a pretty dress, sure enough,” said Gudrun. “Parris, you tell your gran’ma we thank her ever so much. Renée, you got to go right away and thank Madame yourself.”

“Of course, I will; but Parris brought it to me, too.”

“Yes, yes, of course. It’s awful nice. Did you have a good time, Parris?”

“Yes’m. Wonderful.”

“And Madame, she is well, yes?”

“Quite well, thank you.”

“I want to try it on, can I, Mama, right now?”

“Couldn’t you wait?”

“No, I got to see how it looks.”

Renée snatched at the hem of her short gingham dress.

“My goodness, Renée,” her mother expostulated, laughing. “You ain’t goin’ to undress right here before Parris?” But Renée’s dress went flying toward a chair. “My goodness, look at the child. Here, let me help you. It’s all pinned up. Be careful now!”

“Look, Parris. It fits exactly right.” She turned around two or three times. “It’s lovely,” she said softly—almost under her breath.

Parris and Renée fell quickly into their accustomed summer pastimes. They waded in the creek, climbed trees, hunted berries, and got themselves thoroughly sunburned.

One stifling afternoon they went up through the spruce planting and down on the other side. It was the way to the pond—their “secret lake,” as they always called it. They went without discussing their destination. Ordinarily they understood each other so well that words were unnecessary. They simply drifted here or there by unspoken agreement.

This day did not differ from any other day, but they found themselves loitering through the long emerald lanes as though some intangible reluctance slowed their steps. It was very still among the rows of evergreens. The hot air hung motionless. An occasional bumblebee zoomed up before them and shot away, leaving a thinning trail of sound behind him.

They came to the pond, and Renée sat down on the bank. She took off one shoe and stocking and dipped her toes in the water.

“It’s warm,” she said.

“Of course,” he answered. “Look how hot it is today.”

She leaned back and threw the shoe and stocking toward the shade of a wide low-hanging apple tree. She took off the other shoe and rolled the stocking into it. It followed the first. Stretching out both feet, she paddled them quickly, sending the little waves flying across the still surface.

Very slowly Parris removed his shoes and stockings. Both sat for some time without saying a word.

“Well, going in?” he asked. His voice sounded a little strange in his own ears—thick, as though he had a cold.

She nodded. “In a minute.”

Parris looked sidewise at her. She was watching the water splash about her feet, apparently unaware of him.

“Want me to help you undress?”

She shook her head.

“Do you remember how I used to have to unbutton your waist in the back?”

“Uh huh. I don’t wear that kind now.”

He sat silent for a few moments, throwing small clods into the water.

“Gee, Renée, it’s hot here in the sun. Let’s undress under the trees.”

She arose without a word. The branches of the big crab-apple tree swept the ground on all sides.

“Lots of crab apples this year,” he said. “Look how they pull the limbs down. Clear to the ground.”

“Uh huh, lots of them.”

He held the branches aside, and she stooped to enter the canopied space beneath.

“Isn’t this nice? Look, like a tent.”

She nodded.

“What’s the matter, Renée?”

“Nothing.”

“Why don’t you talk?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

It was strange. He had never felt like this before. He could not imagine what was the matter with him.

“Gee, I feel funny, Renée. Don’t you?”

She turned her eyes slowly toward him. “Yes, I guess I do. Maybe we’d better go back.”

He was surprised. “Don’t you want to go in swimming?”

She hesitated a moment, then she nodded. “I guess so,” she said. Her voice sounded strange, too—hoarse.

“I think I’ll hang my clothes up on this old dead limb here,” he said with an effort to be casual.

She glanced at the limb. “Looks like a good place.”

He rolled his shirt over his head and hung it up. In a moment he was undressed. Instinctively he turned his back. He did not look at her. He pretended an interest in a small caterpillar laboring along one of the knotty branches.

“Ready?” he asked turning around. She was undressed and was sitting down.

“In a minute. I—I want to rest just a minute.”

“Good idea,” he agreed, sitting down beside her. “You don’t want to go in when you’re hot. Gives you cramps.”

She broke off tufts of grass and covered her toes. He began pulling grass, too, heaping it on her feet until they were hidden under little green mounds. He pulled some more and scattered it over her.

“That tickles.” She smiled, looking directly at him for the first time.

He seized a handful and held it out, letting it trickle through his fingers on her back.

“Ouch, ugh, it feels like bugs!” She clasped her arms about herself and rolled over.

In a moment they were lying side by side talking with something of their accustomed ease. Renée tried to reach a low-hanging branch with her foot. She caught a twig between her toes and swung it back and forth. He reached with his foot and tried to capture it from her.

After a few moments they lay quite still. Parris could hear the quick spring of grasshoppers outside in the tall grass. Renée was so quiet he thought she must be asleep. He raised himself on one elbow and looked at her. Her eyes were wide open. Suddenly his heart pounded—suffocatingly. The green world seemed to rush at him. The illusion made him dizzy. His thoughts flew back and forth in his head.

He leaned over her. “Renée!” he said in a harsh whisper.

She looked at him. Her eyes were wide and black in the shadow of the leaves.

“Renée!” he repeated.

She drew her chin in and caught her lower lip with her little pointed teeth.

“You know?” he asked almost inaudibly.

She nodded slowly, her eyes fixed on his face.

“Do you want to?” he asked.

She drew her breath sharply, and turned her head quickly to one side.

“Renée.” Parris did not recognize his own speech—or the words. They seemed to say themselves.

She turned her head back again with the same quick motion. There was question in her look.

“I don’t know,” she said.

He moved closer and pressed his cheek against hers. Her soft skin was flaming.

“Do you want to?” he repeated.

He felt her nod against his cheek. “Yes.” She turned her face as far away as she could, but her arms went around his neck.

The world of green leaves and grass and blue sky seemed once more to rush toward him, over him, past him—and to recede suddenly into a deathly silence. He scarcely knew what he did, but he knew with an amazing clarity how Drake McHugh’s talk had prepared him for this moment. He felt her soft, yielding body stiffen with surprise—he felt her try to thrust him away from her, but he knew he could not help her, or spare her in any way—he heard her cry and felt the resistance go out of her. Then her arms tightened around his neck, pressing his face hard into the cool sweet grass.

The deep gold tide of afternoon covered them. They lay side by side without speaking. He felt her shiver from time to time—a long shiver that seemed to shake her from head to foot.

“Renée!”

“What?” she whispered.

“Are you mad at me?”

“Of course not.”

He reached for her hand and held it. Her fingers were cold.

There was a rustle in the shrubbery back of them. Renée leapt to her feet and cowered against the tree.

“Parris, there was somebody in those bushes—somebody watching us.”

He scrambled to his feet and stood close to her, holding her arms tight. “How do you know? Did you see anybody?”

“I saw somebody—I don’t know who it was—oh—” she began to cry.

“It was just some one of the hands. They’ve been thinning out trees up that way.” He pointed across the pond.

“He saw us; I bet he did. What’ll we do?”

“But listen, Renée, maybe he didn’t—maybe he couldn’t see in here through all these leaves.”

“I—I think it was that awful Gus Metzger—it looked like him.”

“Oh, gee!”

“Quick, let’s get dressed.”

They threw their clothes on and scrambled through the branches into the sunlight.

“Come on, Renée, let’s go.”

“No.” She thought a minute. “I tell you what let’s do. You stay here, and I’ll go first. You come on after a while. But you wait a good while. Maybe it’ll look like we wasn’t up here together.”

“I better go with you.”

“You do like I tell you. You wait.”

Before he could argue further, she ran. He watched her blue dress fluttering down the long alley between the trees. Once she turned and looked back, raised her arm. She waved; then she walked on slowly out of sight.

He stood by the edge of the pond for what seemed an interminable time. Twice he started to go, but he remembered her words, “wait a good while.” Maybe she knew best.

The sun dropped lower and long shadows reached across the pond, darkening its bright surface. Overhead a little flock of swallows circled and dipped, appearing now black and now a rusty brown, as the light caught them.

He decided he might go now. It must be all of an hour.

He went slowly down the same way she had gone. He thought first he had best go home some roundabout way, but he felt that he must see her—pass her house. Maybe she would come to the door and give him a look—some sign of reassurance.

When he came in sight of the little cottage he was surprised. The doors were shut and the shades were drawn. He felt a sense of relief. Maybe her father and mother were away from home. He was about to pass when he heard voices. He stopped and listened. They were angry voices. It was Sven—Gudrun, too. A wild alarm shot through him. Without thinking he ran up the walk to the door. He could hear Sven cursing, and Gudrun saying something very loud. They were speaking Swedish, though, and he could not understand. Sven began to shout. Through it he heard a little wail that almost stopped his heart. Renée!

He went close to the door and called her name. There was no answer. He called again. There was a thud on the door as though someone had been thrown against it. Then he heard a dreadful sound. It was the unmistakable swish of a heavy leather strap. He heard it strike flesh and heard Renée’s piercing scream. He hurled himself against the door and shouted.

“Sven! Sven Gyllinson—Sven—Sven ...”

But Sven did not hear. Sven was cursing louder than ever. The sharp slap of the strap came faster and faster. Renée’s screams ran together in a continued stream of sound. Still the murderous blows went on and on. The screams changed. They were suddenly hoarse—like the cries of an animal.

Parris whirled and leaned his back against the door. He flung his arms straight on either side to keep from falling. He looked up where a few clouds seemed to hang motionless. “Dear God—dear God—dear God—don’t—don’t let—”

Suddenly the terrible crying sank to a shaking moan and stopped, but the hideous swish of the strap went on—steadily—relentlessly.

Parris felt himself turn icy cold. He knew he was going to be sick. He felt himself sliding against the rough weatherboards and threw out his hands as he saw the ground slanting sharply toward his face.