Читать книгу Kings Row - Henry Bellamann - Страница 17
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Оглавление“I guess Uncle Henry could hitch up and take me to school next week, couldn’t he?” Parris asked the question a bit diffidently one morning at breakfast. “I guess I couldn’t walk that far yet?”
Madame folded her napkin carefully, placed it beside her plate, and hunted in her reticule for her glasses before she replied.
“You’re not going to school this year, Parris.”
“Wha-at?” His eyes opened very wide with astonishment.
“You won’t be strong enough to start next week, and I have decided to get a tutor for you this winter. You can study at home.”
“Oh, goodness!” The tone of his voice dropped a little. It was mixed with dismay. School was really not bad. He had been looking forward to seeing everybody again. It was pretty lonesome at home.
“Besides,” Madame continued, “you need study in German and French that you don’t get at school.”
“But what for? I can talk all right—”
“Not really correctly, Parris. You must learn to read both languages easily, and to write them. You’ll be glad someday. You make mistakes.”
“Oh, dear. I don’t know—”
“I’ll arrange at Aberdeen College to get a nice young man to come here and hear your lessons. You can study at home, and I’m sure you will make better progress anyway. Of course you can go on with your piano lessons if you want to.”
Parris knew that tone in his grandmother’s voice. It was settled. He sighed. “All right,” he said.
He went restlessly about the house that day, scuffing and shuffling his feet and making a considerable number of small noises.
“Heavens, Parris. What’s gotten into you today? Couldn’t you make less noise?” Madame demanded finally.
“Yes’m,” he answered meekly.
He went slowly upstairs and stood at the hall window that looked out on the gently rising landscape. Beyond the green rows of the nursery plantings wide yellow fields tilted upward. One of the St. George farms adjoined Madame von Eln’s land. He drummed on the glass. It was going to be pretty bad not to go to school. If he lived in town, it wouldn’t be so lonesome, but out here in the winter—
“Grand’mère,” he called presently.
“Yes, what is it?”
“I see Mr. Thurston St. George coming across his pasture. I bet he’s coming down here.”
“Is he riding?”
“Yes’m. Toby’s laying down the rail fence for him now.”
“Well, come down and tell Anna to prepare a pitcher of lemonade. It’s warm this afternoon.”
“Yes’m.” He stood for a moment watching the familiar spectacle. Mr. St. George sat motionless on his huge horse, holding a vast cotton umbrella. It was as big as a tent. Presently the rails of the zigzag fence were laid aside and the old horse walked sedately through and stopped. Mr. St. George sat as grandly as a sultan on an elephant and waited until little black Toby replaced the panel of rails. Toby remounted, took charge of the umbrella, and they got under way again, with the effect of a procession.
Parris clattered down the uncarpeted back stairs to apprise Anna of the visit. He liked Mr. St. George.
Half an hour later the old man dismounted at the foot of the terrace and came up the steps with a sort of heavy alacrity. He took off his high-crowned straw hat and bowed to Madame, who had come out to greet him.
“Howdy, Marie, howdy, ma’am.”
“Well, it’s very nice to see you, Thurston. I hope you’re well.”
“Thank you. I don’t need to ask how you are. It’s warmer than usual this September, don’t you think so? I notice your young trees up there next my place are looking a little peaked.”
“Yes, it is hot, and dry.”
“I wonder if I could trouble you for a glass of water, ma’am?”
“Why, certainly. Parris, tell Anna to bring some lemonade.”
“Oh, so that’s your grandson back there!” Mr. St. George affected surprise. “I’d never have known you, boy. You’ve shot up so fast. Been sick, I hear.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s the matter?”
Madame interrupted. “It seems to have been a spell of brain fever.”
“Brain fever, eh? That’s no good. Been studying too hard, sonny?”
“I—I don’t think so, sir.”
“Parris—the lemonade.”
“No, now, ma’am. Water’ll do very nicely. Don’t trouble.”
“It’s no trouble, Thurston. It’s already made.”
“Oh, well then. In that case it will be very agreeable. I wonder if your man could give my horse some water, or Toby could do it himself.”
“Not at all. Parris, tell Uncle Henry to water Mr. St. George’s horse, and—Parris!”
“Yes’m.”
“Call Toby and give him some lemonade.”
“Thank you, ma’am, you are very kind. Toby always remembers your lemonade.”
Parris was back in a few minutes and sat a little way off to listen. Mr. St. George fascinated him—he was so big. Thurston St. George just missed being a giant. His great frame and enormous beard, his broad feet and thick legs were all on heroic scale. His hands were well shaped and well cared for. Parris thought they looked like hands seen through his grandmother’s big reading glass.
The talk ran on easily. They discussed crops and retailed the small news of the countryside.
“Money is awful tight this year.”
“It always seems to be,” Madame responded.
“Worse than usual, Madame.”
They spoke of the cashier of the County Savings Bank being in trouble.
“Money’s the root of all evil,” Mr. St. George said holding out his glass.
Madame laughed. “I don’t believe that—neither do you, or you wouldn’t have spent your life making so much.”
“That’s what Holy Writ says, ma’am.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Eh? How’s that? Heard that all my life.”
“Heard wrong, too, Thurston. The Bible says, ‘The love of money is the root of all evil.’ ”
“Well, now, is that so? Amounts to the same thing in the end, I guess.” He shook his glass, making a pleasant tinkle of ice. “By the way, Marie, I hear you lost your overseer.”
“Yes, I did. I was sorry to lose him, too. He had a way with plants and trees.”
“Where did he go?”
“Off somewhere. I don’t know.”
“H’m. Got anybody to take his place?”
“Not yet.”
“D’you know old Tom Carr?”
“Tom Carr? No, I don’t believe I do.”
“Tom Carr—lives ’way out north of town. Rents a little place of mine and works at the Stillman Flour Mill.”
“Oh, yes. Big bushy head of white hair? I’ve seen him.”
“Believe he’d be a good man for you.”
“But isn’t he pretty old?”
“Not as old as he looks. He’s spry as a cricket. I hear he’s had some experience along your line.”
“Well, I might talk to him.”
“Tell you what. I’m riding out that way tomorrow. I’ll send him around. I’d like to see him get a good place. Surely you remember the Carrs! They used to live in the Fuller place.”
“Don’t recall them, Thurston.”
“Long time ago. They came here from New York state. Had some money. Started off in big style—horses, carriage, everything. He tried trading in real estate. Lost it all. Wife went crazy—she’s been in the asylum here twice, but he keeps her at home now and looks after her himself. He’s a good man. Just didn’t have a knack of getting on somehow.”
“Um—send him to see me.”
“It’d be a mercy, ma’am, if you could take him. He’s educated—not the regular run at all. His wife was quite a highflier, I imagine. I heard she was a graduate of Vassar College back there, but she’s crazy as a loon now. Got dropsy, too. Fat as an elephant.”
“Dangerous, do you think? I wouldn’t want to have—”
“Oh, no, no! Not at all. Just sits and sings. Too fat to move.”
“Heavens. I’ll be glad if I can help the poor man. What a life that must be!”
“Terrible, terrible. But I never heard a word of complaint out of Tom Carr all the years I’ve known him. He’s as cheerful as Santa Claus.”
“Looks like Santa Claus, too, if I’m thinking of the same man.”
“That’s Tom Carr, all right! There’s nobody else in the county looks like him. Well, thank you, ma’am, I’ll be going along now. Good afternoon. Good day, sonny. Watch out you don’t study too hard!”
Toby led the horse to the terrace wall, and Mr. St. George dropped into the saddle. He unfurled the umbrella and handed it back to the inky boy already perched behind him. Majestically, they returned the way they had come.
The fires of Indian summer burned on every hill, and the nostalgic odors of autumn filled the air. It was the most stirring of all seasons in this region.
Age-old instincts stirred in the blood. Older men and women sat and watched the procession of colors veiled in the grape-blue haze that hung like a mysterious presence in the distance. Younger folks wandered over the hills, possessed with a restlessness they could not define. It was unlike the heady disturbance of spring; it was more like some primitive instinct of the chase—tamed now to a nervous wandering in unaccustomed places.
One warmish day a crowd of boys swarmed down the hill after school, shouting the relief of their escape from the stuffy classrooms. It was Fulmer Green’s “gang.” Fulmer Green had won through to undisputed leadership after two years of bullying fights and the commission of such minor depredations as gained him the admiration and adherence of his kind. Fulmer was a broad-shouldered, muscular boy, good-looking, rather, though his hair grew low on his brow and his small bright blue eyes were a shade too close together. His father had made money the past two years on some road-building contracts and had bought the Mason Thill place on Union Street. His mother, ambitious for a better standing in Kings Row now that she had moved “uptown,” tried to break Fulmer’s old associations. So far she was unsuccessful.
The boys swooped down the hill and passed through the tiny streets of Jinktown.
“Looky!” Fulmer Green pointed to the blue cottage at the end of the street. “That’s where ol’ crazy Ben lives.” He picked up a rock and threw it in a long easy curve. It landed with a loud thump on the rotten shingles. A little puff of dust marked the accuracy of the shot, and Mrs. Singer’s chickens gave loud, startled cackles. The boys shouted gleefully.
“C’mon, let ’em have some more.” A shower of rocks clattered on the low roof, making the splinters of dry wood fly in every direction.
Mrs. Singer came out on the front step. “Get on with you! What do you mean throwing rocks around here? You’re going to hurt somebody first thing you know.”
The boys did not answer. They grinned and shuffled a shade uneasily. Mrs. Singer went into the house and closed the door. A heavy clod shattered against the panels, and yells of laughter greeted Fulmer Green’s daring and spirited answer.
“C’mon,” he commanded, looking back at the house as they passed. “Ol’ slut—talkin’ to us like that. Who does she think she is, anyhow? Crazy, that’s what she is. People like that ain’t got no business livin’ round Kings Row, nohow.”
There was a murmur of agreement. One of the bolder boys sent another rock banging against the side of the house. Mrs. Singer appeared once more. “Go on, now,” she called. “You quit that, or I’ll have the law on you.”
Fulmer stood in the road facing her squarely. “Aw, you shut up,” he said.
“Go on, go on. If you don’t behave yourselves, I’ll sick the dog on you!” She closed the door once more.
“Did you hear that?” Fulmer demanded. “Goin’ to sick her ol’ dog on us, is she? I guess we got a perfick right to be out here in a public street. I guess my pa’d show her, crazy ol’ fool.”
They shuffled on a few steps, looking back darkly at the house. Fulmer felt he had not acquitted himself very gallantly as a leader.
“I’ll tell you,” he said. “Let’s give her ol’ house one good rockin’, then we’ll run.”
A hail of stones fell on and around the house. A few window-panes shattered with loud crashes. At that moment Benny, returning from a neighbor’s, ran down the road and yelled at the top of his voice. “Stop that, stop throwin’ rocks at our house, you dirty ol’—dirty ol’ snoozers, you!”
The stones whizzed so close to his head he had to dodge. He ran quickly around the house and reappeared with an old rusty pitchfork. Holding it ahead of him, he charged straight at his tormentors. They stood ground for only a moment and then ran. Benny chased them well out of Jinktown, and came back wiping the sweat from his face with his sleeve. “Dirty ol’ snoozers!” he muttered.
A week later Drake McHugh came to see Parris after school. “Did you hear about Benny Singer?”
“No, what?”
“He had a kind of fight over there in Jinktown with Fulmer Green’s gang. They rocked Benny’s house and he got after ’em with a big pitchfork. He pretty near got some of ’em, too. Guess he’d have killed ’em.”
“Goodness, I never saw Benny fight, did you?”
“No, but he went for ’em that time. Fulmer told his daddy, and they had Benny arrested.”
“Sure enough? Did they put him in jail?”
“Just one night. Mr. Green said he ought to be sent to a reform school, but Colonel Skeffington was on Benny’s side—he got him off. But they bound Benny’s mother over to keep the peace.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I don’t know exactly. Just a kind of a warnin’, I guess.”
“Fulmer Green is kind of low-down, I think, don’t you?”
“Sure he is. He’s a stinker.”
Parris told his grandmother the story that evening after supper.
The next day he and Madame met Mrs. Green in the Burton County Bank.
“How do you do, Madame von Eln!” Mrs. Green extended her hand, but Madame did not see it. Mrs. Green flushed.
“How do you do,” Madame replied.
“And how is Parris? I heard he’d been very sick.”
“Yes. He’s quite well now.”
“But he’s not in school, is he?”
“No. He is studying with tutors.”
“My, my, you don’t say so! Well, I think school is good for boys. The associations—”
“Are not always desirable,” Madame interrupted sharply.
“Well, no, of course not. That is true,” Mrs. Green swallowed audibly. “I suppose you heard about Fulmer?”
“Your son?” Madame said politely.
“Yes, yes, of course; my boy Fulmer. Parris knows him. He nearly got killed by that crazy Singer boy.”
“I hadn’t heard that.” Madame’s emphasis on the word escaped Mrs. Green’s attention.
“Yes, yes, indeed. I told Mr. Green that boy ought to be in the reform school.”
“Which one?” Madame’s voice was like a thin trickle of ice water.
Mrs. Green stared. “That Benny Singer—that’s who I’m talking about. He’s dangerous. Or else he ought to be in the asylum.”
“I heard some boys had broken the windows in the Singer house and that Ben was protecting his home.”
Mrs. Green’s eyes opened very wide. “Well,” she said, “I guess you can hear most anything.”
“So it appears,” said Madame crisply. She bowed slightly and walked away.
Mrs. Green looked after her with narrowed eyes. “Why—why, the stuck-up old—old foreigner,” she said softly.
They met Colonel Skeffington on the bank steps.
“Good morning, Marie, how are you this fine day?” The Colonel extended his left hand to Parris, who shook it gravely.
“Very well, Colonel Skeffington.”
“Mighty fine weather we’ve been having.”
“Too dry, Colonel. I’ve been needing rain on my place.”
“That so? Can’t please everybody about the weather, though. How’s the boy?”
“Parris is all right, I believe.”
“Hear you’re keeping him out of school.”
“Yes, I’m going to have a tutor for him this winter.”
“Fine idea, too, Marie, a mighty fine idea. Public school’s full of ruffians like that Green youngster—Rodney Green’s boy. You send your boy to public school and they rub against all kinds. That’s democracy for you! Damned if I believe in it—not that kind, anyhow. Suppose you know Rodney Green’s bought the old Thill place up on Union Street.”
“So I heard.”
“Yes. Moved in already. All the Thills dead and gone. I bet they’d turn in their graves if they knew Rod Green was in their house. White trash, that’s what they are, white trash!”
“Are they going to do anything about the Singer boy, Colonel?”
“Not now. But somebody will aggravate that boy until he does something desperate. ’Twon’t be his fault, but they’ll blame him, and he’ll be in serious trouble.”
“Don’t you think it would be a good idea to get some sort of employment for him—out of the way somewhere? I hear he really can’t learn in school.”
“It would be a good idea, ma’am, and a mighty sensible one. I’ll ride around to Jinktown some of these mornings and have a talk with his mother about it. I don’t suppose you could take him on your place, could you?”
“I’ve got more help of that kind than I can use, but if you can’t find anything else, let me know. I suppose I could pay him a little something if he’s willing—not much, though.”
“I’d like to send that infernal young Green scamp to a reform school.”
Madame laughed. “Mrs. Green just suggested to me that Ben Singer ought to be there—or in the asylum.”
Colonel Skeffington flared red above his shining beard. He brought his cane down with a loud thwack on the stone step. “There you are now! Did you ever notice, Marie, in this town how everybody’s always ready to send somebody else to the asylum? It’s a fact. First thing occurs to them.”
Madame smiled. “It does seem to crop up in conversation a good deal.”
“Certainly it does, certainly. Do you know, I think it’s a bad thing to have a lunatic asylum in a town. Keeps it in everybody’s mind. I think a lot of people go crazy just because the building stands out there at the end of Federal Street. It’s too confounded convenient.” He chuckled and clawed his beard. “What’s more, if you’d turn all the lunatics out and put the rest of us in there, I doubt if you could tell any difference.”
“Oh, Colonel—”
“It’s the living truth. Look what the world’s coming to—just look at the infernal thing! Well—good day. I’ll see about Ben Singer right away.”
“Oh, by the way, Colonel. Do you know Tom Carr?”
“Yes, yes, indeed.”
“Well, Thurston St. George suggested I try him for overseer. I lost my man—a Swede—a good man, too.”
“Now, let me see. Surely, ma’am, I do believe old Tom might be just what you want. He’s got a crazy wife, though, if that makes any difference.”
“I know. Thurston told me.”
“Tom Carr’s a fine man. Don’t come any better.”
“Thank you. I’m going to talk to him.”
Colonel Skeffington bowed deeply and turned to go. Then he took off his hat again. “I still think the Greens are trash.” He chuckled.
“You’re a cynical old sinner, Colonel.”
“Not cynical, ma’am, just a sinner. Had a happy career at it, too.” He laughed and hobbled up the steps.
“Don’t pay any attention to what Colonel Skeffington says, Parris. He’s a good man, a very good man. I wish there were more like him.”
Tom Carr moved into the overseer’s cottage the following week. Time was oppressively heavy on Parris these days when his lessons were finished. He went down to watch the men unload the household stuff. There was very little of it. Mr. Carr was the most extraordinary-looking apparition Parris had ever seen. A cyclone of snow-white hair and whiskers enveloped his massive head. Parris thought he looked as though somebody had dropped a stone in his face and splashed the whiskers in all directions. Only his eyes showed—the brownest, merriest, kindest eyes imaginable. When he spoke his voice boomed. Parris had been heavyhearted at sight of the house; it was the first time he had been near it since that day he had made the little grave under the snowball bush. He glanced furtively in that direction. A faint rise in the ground showed where the mound had been.
Mr. Carr was so lively and said so many funny things that Parris laughed. He realized he hadn’t laughed much in a long time.
The last thing taken from the wagon was an old square piano with an extremely scarred and battered case.
“Oh, you’ve got a piano!” Parris exclaimed. “Do you play?”
“No, my wife plays. It was her piano when she was a girl. I brought it out from the East with us. Years ago.” He added the last two words a bit sadly.
“I have to practice every day.”
Mr. Carr finished adjusting the pedals after it was set up. He opened it. “Let’s hear you play a little, son.”
Parris sat down and ran his fingers lightly over the ancient yellow keys. A crazy jangle greeted his ears. He drew back, startled, but tried to conceal his surprise. He tried once more. The piano was so badly out of tune that it was impossible to tell anything about the sounds that came out of it. It was a nightmare of hideous discords.
Parris looked up with some embarrassment. “It’s pretty badly out of tune. I guess it got shook up a lot hauling it down here.”
“Out of tune? Is that so? I’ll have to ask Lucy about that. She never said there was anything wrong with it. I had it all fixed up once—about twenty years ago. Well, well, we’ll see about it. I got to go get Lucy now. I guess everything’s as much in place as I can get it today. I’ll see you later, Johnny; you must come down often and play for Lucy. She’s always been a great lover of music.”
Parris grinned. It was going to be fine to have Mr. Carr around. “But my name is Parris, Mr. Carr.”
“Parris? That so? Well, I think I’ll call you Johnny for short. Easier, too. ’By.”
“Good-by, sir.”
Decidedly Mr. Carr was a very different sort of person from Sven Gyllinson. The thought of Sven made him “go goose flesh” all over. His eyes filled with tears, but he dashed them away. He wondered where Renée was and what she was doing this very minute. There was such a lump in his throat that he could hardly breathe. He went out on the road and skipped rocks in the creek for a long time.
Mr. Carr drove out of the gate in a rickety two-wheeled cart. His gray horse was so old and poor that its bones stood out in sharp crags all over. It had a comical jouncing gait as though it moved up and down more than it trotted forward. A little stepladder with two carpeted steps swung from the back of the cart. Parris wondered what it could be doing there, and what it was used for.
It was nearly dark when the horse and cart came in sight again, creaking and creeping along the sandy road. In it was the fattest woman Parris had ever seen. The cart sagged on one side until the springs buckled.
Lucy Carr wore a dress trimmed with many colors. Innumerable strings of beads lay about her neck, and many cheap rings shone on her tiny hands—deformed-looking, helpless little hands—so tiny that they seemed like doll hands attached to her enormous arms. She wore a large round hat perched precariously on a lopsided bunch of false curls. It was trimmed on either side with a tuft of curving feathers. Parris thought they looked like ordinary rooster-tail feathers.
The cart rolled into the back yard. Tom Carr hopped out gaily, detached the little ladder, and set it close to the wheel. “Now, then, sweetheart, here we are. Give me your hands. Upsadaisy!” He heaved and strained; the little cart joggled dangerously. Parris watched, his eyes popping with astonishment. Lucy came up from the seat at last and surged down the steps. Her feet were as tiny as her hands. They almost disappeared in the rolls of fat that lay about her ankles.
“Whew! Well, we made it, honey.”
Lucy wheezed noisily. She said “Ha!” once or twice, and then “Ho! Ho! Ho!”
“Lucy, my love, this is Mrs. von Eln’s grandson. Name’s Johnny.”
All at once Lucy became very gay. She took a tottering step forward and held out her hand. She nodded her head with a certain graciousness. There was in the slight and elegant inclination of her bonnet something of an air. Like something in a play, or an old-fashioned picture in a book.
“Come now, darling, we must get in and have a look. Got to get some supper for you. Is Papa’s baby hungry?”
She leaned so heavily on Tom Carr that he almost carried her. At the door she turned her ponderous weight slowly. She gasped out some words. “Glad, Johnny, glad.” Then she said “Ha!” and as she squeezed through the door, “Ho! Ho! Ho!”
On the way home Parris met Uncle Henry carrying a large basket.
“What you got in there, Uncle Henry?”
“Got some suppah for Mistah Cah’ and Mis’ Cah’. Yo’ gramma sont ’em. She say hurry up, de suppah settin’ on de table gittin’ cold.”
Tom Carr had proved to be a valuable man. Madame was delighted. Parris went to see the Carrs two or three times a week. Lucy always made him play for her. He had learned to go through the motion of playing on the wrecked piano. She always listened seriously and thanked him. Sometimes she struggled to the piano and played for him. Her little hands flew back and forth across the keys in obedience to some automatic memory. The sounds were as mad as Lucy Carr herself. Some days she was not so well, and could see no one. At such times passers-by heard her thumping diabolic music from the piano and singing old songs at the top of her voice.
Mr. Carr talked once or twice of Lucy to Madame von Eln. “She was a pretty girl, Mrs. von Eln, and a happy girl. A proud girl, too. When we ran out of money it seemed she just couldn’t stand the snubs she got here in Kings Row. She was as well-born as anybody, and, as I said, proud. I guess she just couldn’t stand it,” he repeated. “She just went out of her head. Then she was happy. I made up my mind she should stay happy. I kept her with me as much as I could. Twice she got so bad I had to send her to the asylum, but I took her home again as soon as she was better. I decided I’d just do the best I could. You know, she’s like a child. I had to put rockers under her bed—like a cradle. Every night of the world I sing to her and rock her to sleep.”
Madame von Eln stared.
“Yes’m; I know it sounds like I’m crazy, too, but I know how to humor her. The thing is to keep her from getting excited. Of course, I wouldn’t like anybody to know what I just told you about the cradle-bed and all, but Parris has seen it. He knows all about it, don’t you, Johnny? Lucy likes your boy, Mrs. von Eln. I’ve never seen her take to anyone so before.”
Madame shook her head sadly as she watched the white-headed old man trudging home. She passed her fingers slowly across her eyes.
“Dieu!” she said. “La vie! Comme c’est affreuse!”
Almost every day Uncle Henry went down the slope carrying a covered basket to Tom Carr’s door.
A strange friendship sprang up between Lucy Carr and Parris. It had begun a few days after the Carrs arrived. Old Tom saw Parris and hailed him.
“Hey, Johnny!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you busy right now?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, Lucy’s been asking about you. Wants to see you.”
“Me?”
“Yep. Took a fancy to you right off. Tell you what you do. Go down and see her. Let her talk to you for a little while. She gets pretty lonesome, you know. Don’t be afraid, son, she won’t hurt you. Wouldn’t hurt a fly—my Lucy wouldn’t. Likes to talk, though.”
Parris went reluctantly. He was afraid. Well, maybe not afraid, exactly, he thought, but he felt queer anyway.
Lucy Carr sat in a huge armchair by the window. Old Tom had rigged up an elaborate system of cords and pulleys with handles in easy reach of the chair. She could open and close windows or doors, lower shades, or open and close the stove door without moving from her chair. Actually she could not get about the house without assistance. She sat looking out of the window all day, waiting for Tom Carr to come home at mealtimes.
“Ha!” she exclaimed at sight of Parris. “Ha! Glad, Johnny, glad!” She wasted no words. Each syllable cost her asthmatic lungs an effort. Nevertheless, she managed to talk a good deal. And she talked well. She told stories of her girlhood, of travel, of funny people she had seen. She roared with laughter, purpling and gasping and strangling through involved narratives. She beat on the arms of her chair to recover breath, quivering and shaking her semi-liquid bulk until it seemed she must burst.
Listening to her was like looking through a lattice. Her short, broken sentences shattered the continuity of her stories, but somehow they pieced together. Somehow one perceived a gay and amusing mind that functioned in a fragmentary, fluttering sort of fashion.
She was always glad to see him. She always said, “Ha! Glad, Johnny, glad,” and then, “Ho! Ho! Ho!”
The mind of Lucy Carr was like something flying in dizzy circles. It darted in and out of the darkness that encompassed her, that pressed always closer as though waiting to engulf her. Parris felt sometimes that if he could only seize her flickering attention and fasten it down, she would suddenly become herself. But that bright spot of lucidity and sanity was now here, now there, hovering for a moment and then gone from sight. It was kin to the flight of a dragonfly, so sudden, so quick and unpredictable.
Her helplessness appealed to his sympathy. He aided in many small ways, but most of all he talked. He discovered the kind of news that interested her and learned to tell it bit by bit. She could not follow a long story.
One day in the late spring Tom Carr came up on the terrace. “I guess I’ll have to take tomorrow off, ma’am.”
“All right, Tom. No trouble, I hope?”
“No, no. I’m going to the circus.”
“Oh!”
“I used to take Lucy to the circus—whenever one came along. She liked it tremendously and talked about it for weeks. I thought maybe she’d enjoy it. It’s been years since she’s even been to town.”
“Why, certainly. Go right ahead. I hope she does enjoy it.”
Parris and his grandmother drove into town the next day. She agreed to see the parade, but he would have to go to the circus with some of his friends.
They hitched the horse on a side square and walked to Union Street. They met August Kummer who owned the bakery shop and ice-cream parlor opposite the courthouse.
“Tell you what you do. You go up and sit on my upstairs porch. You can see goot and you won’t be crowded so.”
“Thank you, August, I think we will. I don’t like being pushed about.”
“It’s awful—these country jakes,” he growled. “Like cattle.”
The parade, an hour late, moved grandly up the street, the heavy cages grinding and crunching on the hard gravel. Parris felt that he was a little too old to show too much pleasure, but he really found it rather thrilling.
The long procession ended with a leaping crowd of clowns.
“That’s all,” said Madame, sighing with relief. “Let’s go. We’ll have some lunch downstairs.”
“No, wait, there’s something else. Look at all that crowd. What is it?”
Laughing and shouting boys, black and white, were crowding about some last feature of the parade that had gotten behind. They watched its approach curiously.
“Oh—oh—look! Oh, it’s the Carrs!”
Tom and Lucy Carr with their bony old horse and cart were moving slowly up the street surrounded by a howling mob. Tom was making furious efforts to escape the crowd, but Lucy, her feathers tossing and all her finery glittering in the sun, was enjoying herself. She waved her arms and shouted and jounced up and down with glee.
“Oh, look, grand’mère. They think the Carrs are part of the parade.”
“Nom de dieu! What shall we do, Parris? This is terrible. She’ll kill herself with excitement. Oh, how dreadful!”
The frantic old man managed at last to turn into Federal Street. The crowd stopped but waved and cheered. Lucy waved, too, and shouted as loud as she could.
Parris hurried as they went downstairs.
“What’s the matter, Parris? Where are you going?”
“I think I’ll go home with you. I don’t believe I want to go to the circus.”
“Aren’t you feeling well?”
“I’m all right. I just don’t want to go.”
Tom Carr had put Lucy to bed when Parris and his grandmother reached home. He asked to have Uncle Henry fetch the doctor. Dr. Gordon came about the middle of the afternoon and gave Lucy a sleeping powder.
“Excitement,” he said. “She’ll probably be all right by tomorrow.”
Late that afternoon Parris went down to the little house and tiptoed into the front room. Lucy Carr lay on the bed, and Tom was rocking her gently, crooning in his deep bass voice.
Lucy saw him. “Look, honey, it’s Johnny. Glad, Johnny.”
Parris sat down on the edge of a chair and waited. She closed her eyes and slept for a while. Her breathing was louder than he had ever heard it, though she always struggled to get air. From time to time a loud strangled breath came and went roughly. It sounded like the turn of a rusty wheel.
“Is she better?” he asked.
“Yes—much better.”
Lucy opened her eyes after a while. They seemed to roll loosely in her head. “Johnny, play,” she gasped.
“Please,” Tom Carr begged.
Parris sat down and began to play. The weird sounds jingled and crackled under his fingers. He turned around and spoke over his shoulder. “Won’t this make her awful nervous?”
She heard, and her voice came shrill: “Play, Johnny!”
He played on and on. He heard her breath come more and more slowly, but he thought the awful cranking sound was more frequent.
“I don’t know any more pieces, Mr. Carr,” he whispered.
“Play the same ones. She likes it. She’s getting quieter, Johnny.”
The afternoon light faded, and the still spring twilight came on gradually. Still Parris played on and on. He thought Lucy must be falling asleep. He could scarcely hear her. The insane witches’ music that came from the piano was beginning to make his head ache. He dropped his chin on his chest and played more softly. The sounds were ghastlier than ever—like the chattering of ghouls and devils, he thought. The creak of the rockers on the floor slowed and stopped.
Tom Carr laid a hand on his shoulder. “That will do now. Thank you, Johnny.”
Parris saw that the sheet covered Lucy’s face. The old man pushed him gently toward the door.
“Is she asleep, Mr. Carr?”
Tom Carr shook his head. “She’s dead. Will you tell your grandmother, please? And—thank you again, Johnny.”
The hot summer months dragged slowly. Parris was lonelier than he had ever been. His grandmother seemed preoccupied. She talked less than usual. He realized that she was not looking well. Old Tom went silently about his work. Parris saw Drake McHugh only three or four times. Once he found himself saying aloud: “I’m not having a good time. I’m not having a good time at all.” He stopped, surprised, and laughed a bit uncertainly. He was embarrassed to have been talking to himself.
Parris had never thought much about God. When he did, it was with a certain uneasiness. He had always supposed there was God—somewhere.
The death of Lucy Carr made him think about it more definitely than he ever had before. It seemed to him if there was a God, who looked after everything and everybody, that events were strangely ordered. Things didn’t seem right—or fair. He thought about Renée and the memory was stony hard in his breast. That wasn’t right, or fair, either. He was bitterly resentful.
He began to recall as much as he could of what he had heard at church. There was no help there, certainly. The very thought of it bounced back at him—hard, hard, and uncomforting.
One day he went to see Drake. It turned out to be a pleasant visit. They had a lot of fun. Toward evening they walked up Walnut Street.
“Have you ever been inside a Catholic church?” Drake asked.
Parris shook his head.
“Let’s go in there and look around. I never have, either. It’s open all the time.”
The little church seemed very odd indeed with its pictures and its altar glittering with unfamiliar objects. The dim glow of a small red lamp swung from the ceiling gave Parris a strange feeling. As they became accustomed to the gloom, they saw Father Donovan at the altar rail. He was kneeling.
Drake nudged Parris. “Look!”
Parris nodded.
The dark figure was motionless—seemingly lost to all awareness of anybody or anything.
They tiptoed out again.
“Parris! Was he worshiping an idol?”
“I don’t know. Just praying, I guess.”
They began to talk of other matters.
Parris walked up the long shadowy avenue toward the house. The lamps were already lighted. The happy mood of the day had gone. He felt that his familiar world had changed. It was aloof. It had drawn away from him a little, as though it looked at him, considered him, weighed him.
He rushed his hand across his eyes with a gesture he had borrowed from his grandmother. It was not a childish gesture.
