Читать книгу Kings Row - Henry Bellamann - Страница 4

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Spring came late in the year 1890, so it came more violently, and the fullness of its burgeoning heightened the seasonal disturbance that made unquiet in the blood.

On this particular day, the twenty-eighth of April, the vast sky seemed vaster than ever—wider, bluer, higher. Continents of white clouds moved slowly from west to east, casting immense drifts of blue over the landscape which seemed alternately to expand and to shrink as sunlight and shadow followed in deliberate procession.

The green distances of the land were gashed and scarred with wandering roads, lumpy and deep-rutted from the heavy wheels that had groaned and strained through the winter mud. These roads came from the outlying regions, springing up, like casual streams, marking themselves more and more deeply in the soil as they moved between rail fences, widening as they wound toward the county seat. Scattered in their beginnings, they drew nearer to each other, converged and straightened as they approached the town.

They were like the strands of a gigantic web, weaving and knitting closer and closer until they reached a center—Kings Row, the county seat. “A good town,” everyone said. “A good, clean town. A good town to live in, and a good place to raise your children.”

In the sagging center of this web of roads Kings Row presented an attractive picture as one drove in from the country. Elms, oaks, and maples arose in billows of early summer green. The white steeple of the Methodist church, the gilt weather vane of the Baptist, and the slender slate-covered spire of the Presbyterian thrust high. In the center arose the glistening dome of the courthouse. A few mansard roofs and an occasional turret broke through the leaves. Outside the comfortable shade a straggle of unconsidered Negro shacks and tumble-down houses of poor whites lay like back-yard debris.

In the first glimpse of the town, if one happened to approach it from the west, one saw the public-school building—Kings Row’s special pride. It stood on a rise of ground and looked down on Town Creek, where that noisy little stream bent itself around the west and south of the city limits. It was a red brick building, luxuriantly Gothic—a bewildering arrangement of gables, battlements, and towers. The tall narrow windows, sharply pointed like those of a church, were divided into many irregularly shaped panes. In late afternoons, when the towers and windows caught the level flow of waning light, it was as picturesque as an old castle.

On an adjoining rise stood Aberdeen College, the Presbyterian school for boys. It was less imposing than its neighbor, the public school, but most people thought its classic Corinthian portico impressive in spite of the mansard roof and square, iron-railed tower that surmounted it. Aberdeen College stood in a wide grove of beautiful elms.

The principal streets of the town had lately been macadamized. Formerly the stifling clouds of dust in summer and the quagmires of winter made these streets as bad as country roads. The new macadam was dazzling in the blaze of hot sun, but it was neat.

The old brick sidewalks, uneven after many years, were mossy and cool under the shade trees. The houses stood back from the street, and the lawns were dotted with flower beds which would shortly glow with verbenas, geraniums, and “foliage plants.”

To the east of town the State Asylum for the Insane expanded its many wings through ample grounds. At night, with its hundreds of windows gleaming through the high trees, it had a palatial and festive air.

Kings Row was no frontier town with raw newness upon it. It had successfully simulated the mellowness and established ways of older towns East and South—towns remembered in the affections of the early builders. Kings Row was, in fact, an odd but not incongruous blend of characteristics to be found in trim New England villages and more casual towns of the deep South.

A mid-afternoon drowsiness lay over Kings Row. Here and there in the residential sections some belated gardeners raked leaves and burned heaps of dead vines, the columns of blue smoke rising straight, and whitening as they thinned and drifted.

The business streets were deserted. There were no farm teams at the hitching posts about the courthouse, no knots of men gathered at street corners or in saloons. The country was busy launching a season, and the life of Kings Row came from the farms.

In the courthouse yard, a few men sat under the trees with chairs tilted back. Some, declaring that summer had come and that such heat was unseasonable, had taken off their coats.

“It’s not healthy,” they declared. “There’ll be a lot of sickness if this keeps up.”

A wagonload of lumber passed, the creaking of harness and the squeak of dry axles noticeably loud in the quiet street. The eyes of the loafing group followed it idly as it turned and passed out of sight along West Street.

“Jim Miller’s building a new barn out to his place,” someone remarked.

“Old one burned down, didn’t it?”

“Yep; last of February.”

“He’s late buildin’.”

“Had to borrow some money and old man Long over to the Home Savings Bank wouldn’t let him have it no sooner.”

“Miller’s a good farmer.”

“You’d think Mr. Long would let Jim Miller have a loan all right.”

“Long always wants good security.”

“Yes. Guess that’s right, too.”

“Maybe so. Long’s a hard man, though.”

“Got to be. Other people’s money.”

“Yes. That’s right.”

The subject seemed to be exhausted. Nothing else passed; conversation died.

The wagon made its deliberate way along West Street. Streets had borne names for years in Kings Row, but it was only lately that people had begun using them. Miles Jackson, editor of The Gazette, had started the fashion in the weekly paper. Some thought it sounded too pretentious for a town of four thousand people.

“Kings Row’s trying to be tony, like Fielding.”

“It’s as good as Fielding any day.”

“Yes, but Fielding’s a lot bigger.”

“Don’t make no difference.”

The lumber wagon had reached the hill where the road sloped down to the bridge across Town Creek. Ray Barber, the driver, awoke from pleasant meditations as the heavy load gained unwonted speed on the descent. He jerked the lines. “Whoa, God damn it, where you think you’re goin’?”

Rays voice carried easily through the open windows of the schoolroom where Miss Sally Venable held sway over some sixty children ranging in age from ten to fourteen. Several boys giggled. One or two bolder girls grinned across aisles toward the boys’ side of the room in appreciation of Ray’s vocabulary, but most of the girls pretended not to hear.

Miss Sally rapped on her desk with a brass-bound ruler, and stretched her abnormally long fingers out in a gesture of admonition. Miss Sally was tired and she had broken schedule to devote the last hour of the day to reading. She was a veteran teacher and much a law unto herself. The reading was entrusted to two or three of the better readers, and Miss Sally had settled into a wandering reverie behind her desk until aroused by Ray Barber’s passing. She wrinkled her long nose fastidiously.

“Disgusting!” she remarked to the room. “Go ahead, Lizzie.”

Lizzie, the proudly self-conscious reader, feigned not to understand the interruption, and continued with an increased elegance of delivery.

Miss Sally, whose sense of humor was seldom far submerged, passed a hand over her face and smoothed away the derisive smile that lurked in her deeply seamed features. That smile was her strongest weapon of discipline. There was not a pupil in her room who did not dread it far more than the superintendent’s switches. She sank back in her chair and shut out the sound of Lizzie Morris’ mincing pronunciation. Her prominent brown eyes roved the room, resting for brief instants on first one face and then another. Her charges were intent on the story and remained unaware of her quick scrutinies.

Sally Venable was not an ordinary woman. She was intelligent, and the sardonic cast of her features indicated that her observations of the world were rewarding. She liked her children and she had been teaching long enough to see a generation grow up. She never lost interest in old pupils, and the knowledge so acquired lent more than common zest to her speculations about those who sat before her this afternoon. She knew practically everybody. She knew the homes of these children, and their present fortunes, so she found interest in imagining their probable destinies.

She stirred in her chair and sniffed audibly. The windows were open—those tall, narrow church windows, but they afforded poor ventilation. The room smelled abominably. Sweaty bodies, most of them infrequently washed; winter clothes that had seen a hard season; the harsh odor of small boys verging on adolescence—she closed her eyes for an instant and thought of the hour of dismissal, still thirty minutes away. When she glanced up again she saw Jamie Wakefield looking at her. Almost she could believe he wore a look of concern—of sympathy, even. She nodded at him, and the boy flashed back his quick, brilliant smile.

“He’s pretty, that boy,” she thought. “Too pretty for a boy. But all the Wakefields are good-looking.”

Jamie’s attention had returned to the reading, and Sally Venable watched the play of expression on his mobile features. He was affecting, now, a sort of disdain—a precocious expression for a boy of twelve—that pursed his full red lips and narrowed his wide overbright eyes. His hair, soft and black, swept back picturesquely from his wide blue-veined forehead with its exquisitely traced brows.

“I wish they’d dress him differently. That ruffled collar now—”

That very ruffled collar spread out over his blue jacket did get Jamie into trouble sometimes. Boys called him “sissy,” but he never resented it and usually this proved a good defense.

He was interested now in spite of himself. He had forgotten that Miss Venable was looking at him and his lips parted in a half-smile—an enchanting smile.

“He looks like a girl—like a girl in love,” his teacher thought. “He’s as beautiful as Cassandra Tower.”

Cassandra Tower was the prettiest girl in town. Boys were beginning to be interested in Cassandra. Only yesterday Miss Venable had noticed a legend chalked on the walk: “Drake McHugh loves Cassandra Tower.”

Miss Venable grinned. Those inscriptions multiplied in the spring of the year.

“Yes,” she agreed, “Drake McHugh would be in love with Cassandra.”

Drake was watching Cassandra now, his long faun eyes glinting a little under his brows that grew shaggily together over the bridge of his arched nose. Drake, robust, deep-chested, hair always falling into his eyes. “A regular boy,” most people said, but Sally Venable was not so sure of that. He was open and frank, but his mouth was a trifle loose for so young a boy. It was likely to go slack and sensual in a few years, unless—

She sighed a little. Was there really anything in that word “unless”? Wasn’t it determined? She veered from the philosophical consideration. She would take him in hand next week.

Drake gave up his fruitless ogling of Cassandra Tower. That lovely creature was far away on an island with the Swiss Robinsons. Cassandra’s oval face remained as ivory-cool and pale as always, although her eyes were excited. Odd eyes—very odd.

She always had that startled look, distended pupils, a strained look about her nostrils, her thin curved lips compressed.

Miss Sally tapped the desk. “That will do, Lizzie; we’ll let Jamie read for the rest of the period.”

Jamie flushed. He was pleased. He knew that he read exceptionally well.

The children rustled and stirred while Jamie walked to the reading stand. Drake McHugh was trying to attract Cassandra’s attention again, but Cassandra was looking elsewhere. She had not moved, but her eyes drooped a little, and her face wore a look of sly secretiveness. She ran her hands through her short coppery curls with a gesture that was curiously troubled. Then she gave her whole attention to the reading. As she leaned forward, pressing against the desk, her dress strained across her bosom, revealing unexpected curves beneath. Drake McHugh was watching her again but he did not see this. His eyes were on her long legs in their shimmery silk stockings. Cassandra was the only girl in school who wore silk stockings.

Miss Venable’s keen eyes missed nothing. “Well,” she muttered. “The forward little devil.” She shrugged her bony shoulders in her worn blue velvet blouse. “Still—Drake’s about fourteen, and big for his age. I guess it’s to be expected.”

Drake McHugh leaned forward and whispered something to Parris Mitchell who occupied the desk in front of him. Parris gave an impatient wriggle but glanced quickly at Cassandra’s legs. Her short dress lay above her knees, and between a blue frilled garter and the lace edging of her drawers there was a glimpse of pink flesh.

A slight flush warmed Parris Mitchell’s downy face.

Miss Venable made a slight sound—tch! tch! but no one heard her.

Parris Mitchell was her pet. It was a tribute to the just conduct of her teaching that not one of her pupils suspected this partiality—least of all Parris himself. The boy was different in every way. Perhaps it was because he lived with that curious foreign grandmother, Madame von Eln. Dr. Axel Berdorff, pastor of the German Lutheran church, said that Parris spoke French and German better than he did English. Miss Venable remembered that even two years ago he spoke with an accent. The other children used to laugh sometimes. But the accent had disappeared, leaving his speech oddly precise.

He looked foreign, she thought. Stocky and broad-shouldered. Vitality showed in his warm coloring and in the heavy eyebrows arched high over large hazel eyes. His hair, too, was as thick as plush. A slight shadow showed on his upper lip, although he was only twelve. He had a quickness of motion that bespoke Latin blood. That rippling motion of his hands, for example. Maybe that was because he played the piano. He was the only boy in Kings Row who studied music. Dr. Berdorff, who taught him, said he was talented.

He stole another quick, fleeting look at Cassandra, and his flush deepened. He fidgeted and thrust angrily with his elbow at Drake who was whispering again.

Randy Monaghan, two seats back of Cassandra, had her attention derailed by the movements of the two boys. She leaned forward and looked under Cassandra’s desk. A grin, shrewd and a little coarse, widened her mouth. Randy Monaghan knew many things that boys talked about. She played more with boys than with girls, and liked them better. Round-figured and muscular, strong legs in heavy stockings, stubby hands, and two thick plaits of chestnut hair—she was a picture of energy and aggressiveness. Randy was common, but with a frank and engaging commonness.

She made a low sibilant sound. Both Drake and Parris looked back. Thrusting her knee from under the desk, she snapped her red elastic garter and grinned again.

Vera Lichinsky, a child of Polish Jews, looked wonderingly. This seemed naughty, but it didn’t appear to have any sense to it. Her brother, lean and eager Amos, was looking at Randy, too. She must ask Amos about Randy. Her slow gray eyes returned to the reader, but she was thinking of something else—her violin lesson after school. Carefully, methodically, she began to go over her exercises in her mind. The effort knotted her broad, calm brow and gave her the look of a troubled old woman. At that moment she resembled her grandmother, who lived above the Lichinsky jewelry store and always wore a shawl over her head. No one ever spoke to old Mrs. Lichinsky because she understood no English.

Miss Venable drew in her chin and screwed her head to one side to look at the gold chatelaine watch she wore pinned to her blouse. Thank heaven, only ten minutes more and she could go home and change to cooler clothes.