Soldiers Pay Part 9

"Run down to the garden and tell your father to come here. Run, now."

He left the room in exasperation. His mamma would have been shocked could she have read his thoughts. It wasn't her especially. They're all alike, he guessed largely, as has many a man before him and as many will after him. He wasn't going to hurt the old 'fraid cat.

Cecily freed of her clothing lay crushed and pathetic between cool linen, surrounded by a mingled scent of cologne and ammonia, her fragile face coiffed in a towel. Her mother drew a chair to the side of the bed and examined her daughter's pretty shallow face, the sweep of her lashes upon her white cheek, her arms paralleling the shape of her body beneath the covers, her delicate blue-veined wrists and her long slender hands relaxed and palm-upward beside her. Then young Robert Saunders, without knowing it, had his revenge.

"Darling, what did his face look like?"

Cecily shuddered, turning her head on the pillow. "Ooooh, don't, don't, mamma! I c-can't bear to think of it. "

(But I just want to ask you a civil question.) "There, there. We won't talk about it until you feel better."

"Not ever, not ever If I have to see him again I'll-just die. I can't bear it, I can't bear it."

She was crying again frankly like a child, not even concealing her face. Her mother rose and leaned over her. "There, there. Don't cry anymore. You'll be ill." She gently brushed the girl's hair from her temples, re-arranging the towel. She bent down and kissed her daughter's pale cheek. "Mamma's sorry, baby. Suppose you try to sleep. Shall I bring you a tray at supper time?"

"No, I couldn't eat. Just let me lie here alone and I'll feel better."

The older woman lingered, still curious. (I just want to ask her a civil question.) The telephone rang and with a last ineffectual pat at the pillow she withdrew.

Lifting the receiver she remarked her husband closing the garden gate behind him.

"Yes? . . . Mrs. Saunders. . . . Oh, George? . . . Quite well, thank you. How are you . . . no, I am afraid not. . . . What? . . . yes, but she is not feeling well . . . later, perhaps . . . Not tonight. Call her tomorrow . . . yes, yes, quite well, thank you. Good-bye."

She pa.s.sed through the cool darkened hall and onto the veranda letting her tightly corseted figure sink creaking into a rocking chair as her husband carrying a sprig of mint and his hat mounted the steps. Here was Cecily in the masculine and gone to flesh: the same slightly shallow good looks and somewhere an indicated laxness of moral fibre. He had once been precise and dapper but now he was clad slovenly in careless uncreased grey and earthy shoes. His hair still curled youthfully upon his head and he had Cecily's eyes. He was a Catholic, which was almost as sinful as being a republican; his fellow townsmen, while envying his social and financial position in the community, yet looked askance at him because he and his family made periodical trips to Atlanta to attend church.

"Tobe!" he bellowed, taking a chair near his wife.

"Well, Robert," she began with zest, "Donald Mahon came home today."

"Government sent his body back, did they?"

"No, he came back himself. He got off the train this afternoon. "

"Eh? Why, he's dead."

"But he isn't dead. Cecily was there and saw him. A strange fat young man brought her home in a cab-cormpletely collapsed. She said something about a scar on him. She fainted, poor child. I made her go to bed at once. I never did find who that strange young man was," she ended fretfully.

Tobe in a white jacket appeared with a bowl of ice, sugar, water and a decanter. Mr. Saunders sat staring at his wife. "Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned," he said at last. And again, "I'll be d.a.m.ned."

His wife rocked complacent over her news. After a while Mr. Saunders breaking his trance, stirred. He crushed his mint sprig between his fingers and taking a cube of ice he rubbed the mint over it, then dropped both into a tall gla.s.s. Then he spooned sugar into the gla.s.s and dribbled whisky from the decanter slowly, and slowly stirring it he stared at his wife. "I'll be d.a.m.ned," he said for the third time.

Tobe filled the gla.s.s from a water-bottle and withdrew.

"So he come home. Well, well. I'm glad on the parson's account. Pretty decent feller."

"You must have forgotten what it means."

"Eh?"

"To us."

"To us?"

"Cecily was engaged to him, you know."

Mr. Saunders sipped and setting his gla.s.s on the floor beside him he lit a cigar. "Well, we've given our consent, haven't we? I ain't going to back out now." A thought occurred to him. "Does Sis still want to?"

"I don't know. It was such a shock to her, poor child, his coming home and the scar and all. But do you think it is a good thing?"

"I never did think it was a good thing. I never wanted it."

"Are you putting it off on me? Do you think I insisted on it?"

Mr. Saunders from long experience said mildly: "She ain't old enough to marry yet."

"Nonsense. How old was I when we married?"

He raised his gla.s.s again. "Seems to me you are the one insisting on it." Mrs. Saunders rocking, stared at him: he was made aware of his stupidity. "Why do you think it ain't a good thing, then?"

"I declare, Robert. Sometimes . . ." she sighed and then as one explains to a child in fond exasperation at its stupidity: "Well, an engagement in war time and an engagement in peace time are two different things. Really, I don't see how he can expect to hold her to it."

"Now look here, Minnie. If he went to war expecting her to wait for him and come back expecting her to take him, there's nothing else for them to do. And if she still wants to don't you go persuading her out of it, you hear?"

"Are you going to force your daughter into marriage? You just said yourself she is too young."

"Remember, I said if she still wants to. By the way, he ain't lame or badly hurt, is he?" he asked quickly.

"I don't know. Cecily cried when I tried to find out."

"Sis is a fool sometimes. But don't you go monkeying with them, now." He raised his gla.s.s and took a long draught, then he puffed his cigar furiously, righteously.

"I declare, Robert, I don't understand you sometimes. The idea of driving your own daughter into marriage with a man who has nothing and who may be half dead, and who probably won't work anyway. You know yourself how these ex-soldiers are."

"You are the one wants her to get married. I ain't. Who do you want her to take, then?"

"Well, there's Dr. Gary. He likes her, and Harrison Maurier from Atlanta. Cecily likes him, I think."

Mr. Saunders inelegantly snorted. "Who? That Maurier feller? I wouldn't have that d.a.m.n feller around here at all, Slick hair and cigarettes all over the place. You better pick out another one."

"I'm not picking out anybody. I just don't want you to drive her into marrying that Mahon boy."

"I ain't driving her, I tell you. You have already taught me better than to try to drive a woman to do anything. But I don't intend to interfere if she does want to marry Mahon."

She sat rocking and he finished his julep. The oaks on the lawn became still with dusk, and the branches of trees were as motionless as coral fathoms deep under seas. A tree frog took up his monotonous trilling and the west was a vast green lake, still as eternity. Tobe appeared silently. "Supper served, Miss Minnie."

The cigar arced redly into a canna bed and they rose.

"Where is Bob, Tobe?"

"I don't know'm. I seed him gwine to'ds de garden a while back, but I ain't seed him since."

"See if you can find him. And tell him to wash his face and hands."

"Yessum." He held the door for them and they pa.s.sed into the house, leaving the twilight behind them filled with Tobe's mellow voice calling across the dusk.

II.

But young Robert Saunders could not hear him. He was at that moment climbing a high board fence which severed the dusk above his head. He conquered it at last and sliding downward his trousers evinced reluctance, then accepting the gambit accompanied him with a ripping sound. He sprawled in damp gra.s.s feeling a thin shallow fire across his young behind, and said d.a.m.n, regaining his feet and disjointing his hip trying to see down his back.

Ain't that h.e.l.l, he remarked to the twilight. I have rotten luck. It's all your fault, too, for not telling me, he thought, gaining a vicarious revenge on all sisters. He picked up the object he had dropped in falling and crossed the rectory lawn through dew, toward the house. There was a light in a heretofore unused upper room and his heart sank. Had he gone to bed this early? Then he saw silhouetted feet on the bal.u.s.trade of the porch and the red eye of a cigarette. He sighed with relief. That must be him.

He mounted the steps, saying: "Hi, Donald."

"Hi, Colonel," answered the one sitting there. Approaching, he discerned soldier clothes. That's him. Now I'll see, he thought exultantly, snapping on a flash light and throwing its beam full on the man's face. Aw, shucks. He was becoming thoroughly discouraged. Did anyone ever have such luck? There must be a cabal against him.

"You ain't got no scar," he stated with dejection. "You ain't even Donald, are you?"

"You guessed it, bubo I ain't even Donald. But say, how about turning that searchlight some other way?"

He snapped off the light in weary disillusion. He burst out: "They won't tell me nothing. I just want to know what his scar looks like but they won't tell me nothing about it. Say, has he gone to bed?"

"Yes, he's gone to bed. This ain't a good time to see his scar."

"How about tomorrow morning?" hopefully. "Could I see it then?"

"I dunno. Better wait till then."

"Listen," he suggested with inspiration, "I tell you what: tomorrow about eight when I am going to school you kind of get him to look out of the window and I'll be pa.s.sing and I'll see it. I asked Sis, but she wouldn't tell me nothing."

"Who is Sis, bub?"

"She's just my sister. Gosh, she's mean. If I'd seen his scar I'd a told her now, wouldn't I?"

"You bet. What's your sister's name?"

"Name's Cecily Saunders, like mine only mine's Robert Saunders. You'll do that, won't you?"

"Oh . . . Cecily. . . . Sure, you leave it to me, Colonel."

He sighed with relief, yet still lingered. "Say, how many soldiers has he got here?"

"About one and a half, bub."

"One and a half? Are they live ones?"

"Well, practically."

"How can you have one and a half soldiers if they are live ones?"

"Ask the war department. They know how to do it."

He pondered briefly. "Gee, I wish we could get some soldiers at our house. Do you reckon we could?"

"Why, I expect you could."

"Could? How?" he asked eagerly.

"Ask your sister. She can tell you."

"Aw, she won't tell me."

"Sure she will. You ask her."

"Well, I'll try," he agreed without hope, yet still optimistic. "Well, I guess I better be going. They might be kind of anxious about me," he explained, descending the steps. "Good-bye, mister," he added politely.

"So long, Colonel."

I'll see his scar tomorrow, he thought with elation. I wonder if Sis does know how to get us a soldier? She don't know much but maybe she does know that. But girls don't never know nothing, so I ain't going to count on it. Anyway I'll see his scar tomorrow.

Tobe's white jacket looming around the corner of the house gleamed dully in the young night and as young Robert mounted the steps toward the yellow rectangle of the front door Tobe's voice said: "Whyn't you come on to yo' supper? Yo' mommer gwine tear yo' hair and my hair bofe out if you late like this . She say fer you to clean up befo' you goes to de din'-room: I done drawed you some nice water in de baffroom. Run 'long now. I tell 'em you here."

He paused only to call through his sister's door: "I'm going to see it tomorrow. Yaaaah!" Then soaped and hungry he clattered into the dining room, accomplishing an intricate field manoeuvre lest his damaged rear be exposed. He ignored his mother's cold stare.

"Robert Saunders, where have you been?"

"Mamma, there's a soldier there says we can get one too."

"One what?" asked his father through his cigar smoke.

"A soldier."

"Soldier?"

"Yes, sir. That one says so."

"That one what?"

"That soldier where Donald is. He says we can get a soldier too."

"How to get one?"

"He wouldn't tell me. But he says that Sis knows how to get us one."

Mr. and Mrs. Saunders looked at each other above young Robert's oblivious head as he bent over his plate spooning food into himself.

III.

On board the Frisco Limited, Missouri, April 2, 1919.