Reflections In A Golden Eye Part 3

'Are you sleepy?' she asked.

'Not at all.' But at the very mention of sleep he was so tired that he could not keep from yawning. Loyally he turned away and tried to pretend that he had opened his mouth in order to feel one of his new wisdom teeth with his forefinger. I had a nap this afternoon and then I slept awhile tonight. I dreamed about Catherine.'

Alison could never think about her baby without experiencing an emotion so loaded with love and grief that it was like an insupportable weight on her chest It was not true that time could m.u.f.fle the keenness of this loss. Now she had more control over herself, but that was all. For a while, after those eleven months of joy, suspense, and suffering, she was quite unchanged. Catherine had been buried in the cemetery on the post where they were stationed. And for a long time she had been obsessed by the sharp, morbid image of the little body in the grave. Her horrified broodings on decay and on that tiny lonely skeleton had brought her to such a state that at last, after considerable red tape, she had had the coffin disinterred. She had taken what was left of the body to the crematorium in Chicago and had scattered the ashes in the snow. And now all that was left of Catherine were the memories that she and Anacleto shared together.

Alison waited until her voice should be steady and then she asked: 'What was it you dreamed?'

'It was troubling,' he said quietly. 'Rather like holding a b.u.t.terfly in my hands. I was nursing her on my lap then sudden convulsions and you were trying to get the hot water to run.' Anacleto opened his paint box and arranged his paper, brushes, and water colors before him. The fire brightened his pale face and put a glow in his dark eyes. 'Then the dream changed, and instead of Catherine I had on my knees one of the Major's boots that I had to clean twice today. The boot was full of squirming slithery new born mice and I was trying to hold them in and keep them from crawling up all over me. Whoo! It was like '

'Hush, Anacleto!' she said, with a s.h.i.+ver. 'Please!'

He began to paint and she watched him. He dipped his brush into the gla.s.s and a lavender cloud showed in the water. His face was thoughtful as he bent over the paper and once he paused to make a few rapid measurements with a ruler on the table. As a painter Anacleto had great talent of that she was sure. In his other accomplishments he had a certain knack, but at bottom he was imitative almost, as Morris said, a little monkey. In his little water colors, and drawings, however, he was quite himself. When they were stationed near New York, he had gone into the city in the afternoons to the Art Students' League, and she had been very proud, but not at all surprised, to observe how many people at the school exhibition came back to look at his pictures more than once.

His work was at once primitive and over sophisticated, and it laid a queer spell on the beholder. But she could not get him to take his gift with proper seriousness and to work hard enough.

'The quality of dreams,' he was saying softly. 'That is a strange thing to think about. On afternoons in the Philippines, when the pillow is damp and the sun s.h.i.+nes in the room, the dream is of one sort. And then in the North at night when it is snowing '

But already Alison had got back into her rut of worry, and she was not listening to him. 'Tell me,' she interrupted suddenly. 'When you had the sulks this morning and said you were going to open a linen shop in Quebec, did you have anything particular in mind?'

'Why, certainly,' he said. 'You know I have always wanted to see the city of Quebec. And I think there is nothing so pleasant as handling beautiful linen.'

'And that's all you had in mind ' she said. Her voice lacked the inflections of a question and he did not reply to this. 'How much money do you have in the bank?'

He thought a moment with his brush poised above the water gla.s.s. 'Four hundred dollars and six cents...Do you want me to draw it out?'

'Not now. But we might need it later.'

'For Heaven's sake,' he said, 'don't worry. It does not a particle of good.'

The room was filled with the rose glow of the fire and gray flickering shadows. The clock made a little whirring sound and then struck three.

'Look!' Anacleto said suddenly. He crumpled up the paper he had been painting on and threw it aside. Then he sat in a meditative gesture with his chin in his hands, staring at the embers of the fire. 'A peac.o.c.k of a sort of ghastly green. With one immense golden eye. And in it these reflections of something tiny and '

In his effort to find just the right word he held up his hand with the thumb and forefinger touched together. His hand made a great shadow on the wall behind him. Tiny and ' 'Grotesque,' she finished for him. He nodded shortly. 'Exactly.'

But after he had already begun working, some sound in the silent room, or perhaps the memory of the last tone of her voice, made him turn suddenly around. 'Oh, don't!' he said. And as he rushed from the table he overturned the water gla.s.s so that it shattered on the hearth.

Private Williams had been in the room where the Captain's wife lay sleeping for only an hour that night. He waited near the outskirts of the woods during the party. Then, when most of the guests were gone, he watched through the sitting room window until the Captain's wife went upstairs to bed. Later he came into the house as he had done before. Again that night the moonlight was clear and silver in the room. The Lady lay on her side with her warm oval face cupped between her rather grubby hands. She wore a satin nightgown and the cover was pushed down to her waist. The young soldier crouched silent by the bedside. Once he reached out warily and felt the slippery cloth of her nightgown with his thumb and forefinger. He had looked about him on coming into the room. For a time he stood before the bureau and contemplated the bottles, powder puffs, and toilet articles. One object, an atomizer, had aroused his interest, and he had taken it to the window and examined it with a puzzled face. On the table there was a saucer holding a half eaten chicken leg. The soldier touched it, smelled, and took a bite.

Now he squatted in the moonlight, his eyes half closed and a wet smile on his lips. Once the Captain's wife turned in her sleep, sighed, and stretched herself. With curious fingers the soldier touched a brown strand of hair which lay loose on the pillow.

It was past three o'clock when Private Williams stiffened suddenly. He looked about him and seemed to listen to some sound. He did not realize all at once what caused this change, this uneasiness to come in him. Then he saw that the lights in the house next door had been turned on. In the still night he could hear the voice of a woman crying. Later he heard an automobile stop before the lighted house. Private Williams walked noiselessly into the dark hall. The door of the Captain's room was closed. Within a few moments he was walking slowly along the outskirts of the woods.

The soldier had slept very little during the past two days and nights and his eyes were swollen with fatigue. He made a half circle around the post until he reached the shortest cut to the barracks. In this way he did not meet the sentry. Once in his cot he fell into a heavy sleep. But at dawn, for the first time in years, he had a dream and called out in his sleep. A soldier across the room awakened and threw a shoe at him.

As Private Williams had no friends among his barrack mates, his absence on these nights was of little interest to anyone. It was guessed that the soldier had found himself a woman. Many of the enlisted men were secretly married and sometimes stayed the night in town with their wives. Lights were out in the long crowded sleeping room at ten o'clock, but not all of the men were in bed at this hour. Sometimes, especially around the first of the month, there were poker games in the latrine that lasted the whole night through. Once at three o'clock Private Williams had encountered the sentry on his way to the barracks, but as the soldier had been in the army for two years and was familiar to the guard on duty, he was not questioned.

During the next few nights Private Williams rested and slept normally. In the late afternoons he sat alone on a bench before the barracks and at night he sometimes frequented the places of amus.e.m.e.nt on the post. He went to the movie and to the gymnasium. In the evening the gymnasium was converted into a roller skating rink. There was music and a corner set aside where the men could rest at tables and drink cool, frothy beer. Private Williams ordered a gla.s.s and for the first time tasted alcohol. With a great rolling clatter the men skated around in a circle and the air smelled sharply of sweat and floor wax. Three men, all old timers, were surprised when Private Williams left his table to sit with them for a while. The young soldier looked into their faces and seemed to be on the point of asking some question of them.

But in the end he did not speak, and after a time he went away.

Private Williams always had been so unsociable that hardly half of his sleeping mates even knew his name. Actually the name he used in the army was not his own. On his enlistment a tough old Sergeant had glared down at his signature L. G. Williams and then bawled out at him: 'Write your name, you snotty little hayseed, your full name!' The soldier had waited a long time before revealing the fact that those initials were his name, and the only name he had. 'Well, you can't go into the U.S. Army with a G.o.ddam name like that,' the Sergeant said. 'I'll change it to E l l g e e. O.K.?' Private Williams nodded and in the face of such indifference the Sergeant burst into a loud raw laugh. 'The half wits they do send us now,' he had said as he turned back to his papers.

It was now November and for two days a high wind had blown. Overnight the young maples along the sidewalks were stripped of their leaves. The leaves lay in a bright gold blanket beneath the trees and the sky was filled with white changing clouds. The next day there was a cold rain, The leaves were left sodden and dun colored, trampled on the wet streets, and finally raked away. The weather had cleared again and the bare branches of the trees made a sharp filigree against the winter sky. In the early morning there was frost on the dead gra.s.s.

After four nights of rest Private Williams returned to the Captain's house. This time, as he knew the habits of the house, he did not wait until the Captain had gone to bed. At midnight while the officer worked in his study he went up to The Lady's room and stayed an hour there. Then he stood by the study window and watched curiously until at two o'clock the Captain went upstairs. For something was happening at this time that the soldier did not understand.

In these reconnoiterings, and during the dark vigils in The Lady's room, the soldier had no fear. He felt, but did not think; he experienced without making any mental resume of his present or past actions. Five years before L. G. Williams had killed a man. In an argument over a wheelbarrow of manure he had stabbed a negro to death and hidden the body in an abandoned quarry. He had struck out in a fit of fury, and he could remember the violent color of blood and the weight of the limp body as he dragged it through the woods. He could remember the hot sun of that July afternoon, the smell of dust and death. He had felt a certain wondering, numb distress, but there was no fear in him, and not once since that time had the thought shaped definitely in his mind that he was a murderer. The mind is like a richly woven tapestry in which the colors are distilled from the experiences of the senses, and the design drawn from the convolutions of the intellect The mind of Private Williams was imbued with various colors of strange tones, but it was without delineation, void of form.

Through these first winter days only one realization came to Private Williams, and it was this: he began to perceive that the Captain was following him. Twice a day, his face bandaged and still raw with rash, the Captain went out for short rides. And then when he had checked in the horse he lingered for a while before the stables. Three times on his way to mess Private Williams had looked behind him to see the Captain only about ten yards away. Far more often than chance could account for the officer pa.s.sed him on the sidewalk. Once after one of these encounters the soldier stopped and looked behind him. After a short distance the Captain paused also and turned halfway around. It was late afternoon and the winter dusk had in it a pale violet tint. The Captain's eyes were steady, cruel, and bright Almost a minute pa.s.sed before, with one accord, they turned to continue on their ways.

CHAPTER 4.

It is not easy on an army post for an officer to bring himself into personal contact with an enlisted man. Captain Penderton was now aware of this. Had he been serving as an ordinary line officer such as Major Morris Langdon, heading a company, a battalion, or a regiment, a certain amount of intercourse with the men in his command would have been open to him. Thus Major Langdon knew the name and face of almost every soldier in his charge. But Captain Penderton with his work at the School was in no such position. Except through his riding (and no feat of horsemans.h.i.+p was reckless enough for the Captain these days) there was no way at all for him to establish relations with the soldier whom he had come to hate.

Yet the Captain felt an aching want for contact between them of some sort. The thought of the soldier tantalized him continually. He went down to the stables as often as he could reasonably do so. Private Williams saddled his horse for him and held the bridle as he mounted. When the Captain knew in advance that he would meet the soldier, he felt himself grow dizzy. During their brief, impersonal meetings he suffered a curious lapse of sensory impressions; when he was near the soldier he found himself unable to see or to hear properly, and it was only after he had ridden away and was alone again that the scene developed itself for the first time in his mind. The thought of the young man's face the dumb eyes, the heavy sensual lips that were often wet, the childish page boy bangs this image was intolerable to him. He rarely heard the soldier speak, but the sound of his slurring Southern voice meandered constantly in the back of his mind like a troubling song.

Late in the afternoons the Captain walked on the streets between the stables and the barracks in the hope of meeting Private Williams. When from a distance he saw him, walking with sluggish grace, the Captain felt his throat contract so that he could scarcely swallow. Then, when they were face to face, Private Williams always stared vaguely over the Captain's shoulder and saluted very slowly with his hand quite relaxed. Once as they were nearing each other the Captain saw him unwrap a bar of candy and drop the paper carelessly on the neat strip of gra.s.s bordering the sidewalk. This had infuriated the Captain and, after walking for some distance, he turned back, picked up the wrapper (it was from a bar of Baby Ruth), and put it in his pocket.

Captain Penderton, who on the whole had lived a most rigid and unemotional life, did not question this strange hate of his. Once or twice, when he awoke late after taking too much Seconal, he made himself uncomfortable by thinking back over his recent behavior. But he made no real effort to force himself to an inward reckoning.

One afternoon he drove before the barracks and saw the soldier resting alone on one of the benches. The Captain parked his car farther down the street and sat watching him. The soldier sprawled in the abandoned position of one who is on the point of napping. The sky was a pale green and the last of the wintry sun made sharp, long shadows. The Captain watched the soldier until the call for supper. Then, when Private Williams had gone inside, the Captain still sat in his car, looking at the outside of the barracks.

Dark came on and the building was brightly lighted. In a recreation room downstairs he could see the men playing billiards or lounging with magazines. The Captain thought of the mess hall with the long tables laden with hot food and the hungry soldiers eating and laughing together with l.u.s.ty camaraderie. The Captain was not familiar with enlisted men and his picture of the life inside the barracks was greatly enriched by his imagination. The Captain was drawn toward the Middle Ages and had made a careful study of European history during feudal times. His imaginings of the barracks were flavored by this predilection. As he thought of the two thousand men living together in this great quadrangle, he felt suddenly alone. He sat in the dark car and as he stared at the lighted, crowded rooms inside, as he heard the sounds of shouts and ringing voices, the tears came to his gla.s.sy eyes. A bitter loneliness gnawed in him. He drove quickly home.

Leonora Penderton was resting in the hammock by the edge of the woods when her husband arrived. She went into the house and helped Susie finish in the kitchen, as they were to dine at home that evening and then go out to a party. A friend had sent them half a dozen quail and she planned to take over a tray to Alison, who had had a bad heart attack on the night of their party more than two weeks ago, and was now kept permanently in bed. Leonora and Susie arranged the food on a huge silver waiter. On a service plate they put two quail and generous helpings of several vegetables, the juices of which ran together to form a little pool in the middle of the plate. There were a good many other dainties besides, and when Leonora staggered out carrying the big waiter, Susie had to follow after her with a tray holding the overflow.

'Why didn't you bring Morris home with you?' the Captain asked when she returned.

'Poor fellow!' said Leonora. 'He was already gone. Eating his meals at the Officers' Club. Think of it!'

They had dressed for the evening and were standing before the fire in the sitting room with a bottle of whiskey and their gla.s.ses on the mantelpiece. Leonora wore her red crepe frock and the Captain his tuxedo. The Captain was nervous and kept tinkling the ice in his gla.s.s.

'Hah! Listen!' he said suddenly. 'Here is a pretty good one I heard today.' He put his forefinger along the side of his nose and drew his lips back over his teeth. He was going to tell a story, and was sketching out the skeleton in advance. The Captain had a nice feeling for wit and was a sharp gossip.

'Not long ago there was a telephone call for the General, and the Adjutant, recognizing Alison's voice, put it through immediately. "General, here is a request," said the voice in a very poised and cultivated manner. "I want you to do me the great service of seeing to it that that soldier does not get up and blow his bugle at six o'clock in the morning. It disturbs Mrs. Langdon's rest." There was a long pause and at last the General said: "I beg your pardon, but I don't believe I quite understand you." The request was repeated, and there was a still longer pause. "And pray tell me," the General said finally, "whom do I have the honor of addressing?" The voice answered: "This is the garcon de maison to Mrs. Langdon, Anacleto. I thank you."'

The Captain waited soberly, for he was not one to laugh at his own jokes. Neither did Leonora laugh she seemed puzzled.

'What did he say he was?' she asked.

'He was trying to say "houseboy" in French.'

'And you mean Anacleto called up like that about reveille. Well, if that doesn't beat anything I ever heard. I can hardly believe it!'

'Nit wit!' said the Captain. 'It didn't really happen. It's just a story, a joke.'

Leonora did not get the point. She was no gossip. First, she always found it a little difficult to picture a situation that did not actually take place in the room with her. Also, she was not in the least malicious.

'Why, how mean!' she said. 'If it didn't happen, why should anyone go to the trouble to make it up? It makes Anacleto sound like a fool. Who do you suppose started it?'

The Captain shrugged and finished his drink. He had fabricated any number of ridiculous anecdotes about Alison and Anacleto, and they had all gone the rounds of the post with great success. The composition and sharpening of these scandalous vignettes afforded the Captain much pleasure. He launched them discreetly, making it understood that he was not the originator but was pa.s.sing them on from some other source. He did this less out of modesty than from the fear that they might sometime come to the ears of Morris Langdon.

Tonight the Captain's new story did not please him. In the house alone with his wife he felt again the melancholy that had come to him while sitting out in the car before the lighted barracks. He saw in his mind the deft, brown hands of the soldier and felt himself s.h.i.+ver inwardly.

'What in the h.e.l.l are you thinking about?' Leonora asked.

'Nothing.'

'Well, you look awfully peculiar to me.'

They had arranged to pick up Morris Langdon, and just as they were ready to leave he called for them to come over for a drink. Alison was resting, so they did not go upstairs. They had their drinks hurriedly at the dining room table, as they were already late. When they were finished, Anacleto brought to the Major, who was in uniform, his military evening cape. The little Filipino followed them to the door and said very sweetly: 'I hope you have a pleasant evening.'

'Thank you,' said Leonora. 'Same to you.'

The Major, however, was not so guileless. He looked at Anacleto with suspicion.

When Anacleto had closed the door, he hurried into the sitting room and drew back the curtain an inch to peek outside. The three of them, each of whom Anacleto hated with all his heart, had paused on the steps to light cigarettes. Anacleto watched with great impatience. While they had been in the kitchen a fine scheme had come to him. He had moved three bricks from the rose garden and placed them at the end of the dark front sidewalk. In his mind he saw all three of them tumbling like ninepins. When at last they strolled across the lawn toward the car parked before the Pendertons' house, Anacleto was so vexed that he gave his thumb a mean little bite. Then he hurried out to remove the obstruction, as he did not wish to catch anyone else in his snare.

The evening of that night was like any other evening. The Pendertons and Major Langdon went to a dance at the Polo Club and enjoyed themselves. Leonora had her usual rush from the young Lieutenants and Captain Penderton found the opportunity, over a quiet highball out on the veranda, to entrust his new story to a certain artillery officer who had a reputation as a wit The Major stuck in the lounge with a cl.u.s.ter of his cronies, talking of fis.h.i.+ng, politics, and ponies. There was to be a drag hunt the next morning and the Pendertons left with Major Langdon at about eleven o'clock. By that hour Anacleto, who had stayed with his mistress for a time and given her an injection, was in bed. He always lay propped up with pillows, just as did Madame Alison, although this position was so uncomfortable that he could hardly ever get a good night's rest. Alison, herself, was dozing. The Major and Leonora were in their rooms and sleeping soundly by midnight. Captain Penderton had settled down for a quiet period of work in his study. It was a warm night for the month of November and the scent of the pines was balmy in the air. There was no wind and shadows lay still and dark on the lawns.

At about this time Alison Langdon felt herself awaking from a half sleep. She had had a series of curious and vivid dreams that went back to the time of her childhood, and she struggled against returning consciousness. But such a struggle was useless, and soon she was lying wide awake with her eyes open to the dark. She began to cry, and the sound of her soft nervous sobbing seemed not to come from herself, but from some mysterious sufferer out somewhere in the night. She had had a very bad two weeks and she cried often. To begin with, she was supposed to keep strictly to the bed, as the doctor had told her that the next attack would finish her. However, she had no high opinion of her doctor and privately she thought of him as an old army saw bones and a first cla.s.s jacka.s.s to boot He drank, although he was a surgeon, and once in an argument with her he had insisted that Mozambique was on the west instead of the east coast of Africa and would not admit his error until she got out an atlas; altogether she set little store by his opinions and advice. She was restless, and two days before she had suddenly felt such a longing to play the piano that she had got up, dressed, and gone downstairs when Anacleto and her husband were away. She played for a while and enjoyed herself. On the way back to her room she took the stairs very slowly and although she was very tired there were no ill effects.

The feeling of being trapped because now she would certainly have to wait until she was better before going on with her plans made her difficult to care for. At first they had had a hospital nurse, but the nurse and Anacleto did not get on well together and after a week she had left. Alison was continually imagining things. That afternoon a child somewhere in the neighborhood had screamed, as children often scream in play, and she had had the unreasonable fear that the child was. .h.i.t by an automobile. She sent Anacleto rus.h.i.+ng out into the street, and even after he had a.s.sured her that the children were only playing I spy, she could not get over her anxiety. Then the day before she had smelled smoke and was certain the house was on fire. Anacleto went over every inch of the premises and still she was not rea.s.sured. Any sudden noise or trivial mishap would make her cry. Anacleto had bitten his fingernails to the quick and the Major stayed away from home as much as possible.

Now at midnight as she lay crying in the dark room another delusion came to her. She looked out of the window and saw again the shadow of a man on the Pendertons' back lawn. He was standing quite still, leaning against a pine tree. Then, as she watched him, he crossed the gra.s.s and went in by the back door. It came to her then with a fearful shock that this man, this skulker, was her own husband. He was sneaking in to Weldon Pendertons wife, even though Weldon himself was at home and working in his study. So great was her feeling of outrage that she did not stop to reason. Sick with anger she got out of bed and vomited in the bathroom. Then she put on a coat over her nightgown and stepped into a pair of shoes.

She did not hesitate on her way over the Pendertons'. Nor did she once ask herself what she, who hated scenes above all things, would do in the situation which she was about to precipitate. She went in by the front way and closed the door behind her noisily. The hall was half dark, as only a lamp was lighted in the sitting room. Breathing painfully she climbed the stairs. Leonora's door was open and she saw the silhouette of a man squatting by the bedside. She stepped inside the room and switched on the lamp in the corner.

The soldier blinked in the light. He put his hand to the window sill and half rose from his crouching position. Leonora stirred in her sleep, murmured, and turned over toward the wall. Alison stood in the doorway, her face white and twisted with amazement. Then without a word she backed out of the room.

In the meantime Captain Penderton had heard the front door open and close. He felt that something was amiss, but an instinct cautioned him to remain at his desk. He nibbled the eraser of his pencil and waited tensely. He had not known what to expect, but he was surprised when there was a knock on the door, and before he could reply Alison had come into the study.

'Why, whatever brings you here this time of the night?' the Captain asked with a nervous laugh.

She did not answer at once. She gathered the collar of her coat up close around her neck. When at last she spoke, her voice had a wooden tone, as if shock had deadened the vibrations. 'I think you had better go up to your wife's room,' she said.

This announcement, together with the strangeness of her appearance, startled the Captain greatly. But even stronger than his inward tumult was the thought that he must not lose his composure. In a flash a number of conflicting a.s.sumptions came to the Captain's mind. Her words could mean only one thing that Morris Langdon was in Leonora's room. But surely not, for they would hardly be so w.i.l.l.y nilly as that! And if so what a position it would put him in! The Captain's smile was sugary and controlled. He did not reveal in any way his feelings of anger, doubt, and intense annoyance.

'Come, my dear,' he said in a motherly voice, 'you shouldn't be roaming around like this. I'll take you home.'

Alison gave the Captain a long piercing look. She seemed to be fitting together some mental puzzle. After a time she said slowly: 'You don't mean to sit there and tell me you know this and do nothing about it?'

Stubbornly the Captain retained his poise. 'I'll take you home,' he said. 'You're not yourself and you don't know what you're talking about.'

He got up hurriedly and took Alison by the arm. The feel of her frail, brittle elbow beneath the cloth of her coat repelled him. He hurried her down the steps and across the lawn. The front door of her house was open, but the Captain gave the doorbell a long ring. After a few moments Anacleto came into the hall, and before the Captain could make his departure he also saw Morris come out of his room at the top of the stairs. With mixed feelings of confusion and relief, he went back home, leaving Alison to explain herself as she chose.

The next morning Captain Penderton was not greatly surprised to learn that Alison Langdon had altogether lost her mind. By noon the whole post knew of this. (Her condition was referred to as a "nervous breakdown," but no one was misled by this.) When the Captain and Leonora went over to offer their services, they found the Major standing outside the closed door of his wife's room, holding a towel over his arm. He had been standing there patiently almost all the day. His light colored eyes were wide with surprise and he kept twisting and mas.h.i.+ng the flap of his ear. When he came down to see the Pendertons, he shook hands with them in a strangely formal fas.h.i.+on and blushed painfully.

With the exception of the doctor, Major Langdon kept the details of this tragedy a secret in his own shocked heart Alison did not tear up the sheets or foam at the mouth as he had imagined the insane to do. On coming into the house in her nightgown at one o'clock in the morning, she had simply said that not only did Leonora deceive her husband but that she deceived the Major as well, and with an enlisted man. Then Alison said that furthermore, she herself was going to get a divorce, and she added that as she had no money she would appreciate it if he, the Major, would lend her the sum of five hundred dollars at four per cent interest with Anacleto and Lieutenant Weincheck as guarantors. In answer to his startled questions, she said that she and Anacleto were going into some business together or would buy a prawn boat Anacleto had hauled her trunk into the room and all night he was busy packing under her supervision. They stopped off now and then to drink hot tea and study a map to decide where they would go. Sometime before dawn they settled on Moultrieville, South Carolina.

Major Langdon was greatly shaken. He stood in the corner of Alison's room for a long time and watched them pack. He dared not open his mouth. After a long time, when all that she had said had soaked into his mind and he was forced to acknowledge to himself that she was crazy, he took her nail scissors and the fire tongs out of the room. Then he went downstairs and sat at the kitchen table with a bottle of whiskey. He cried and sucked the salty tears from his wet mustache. Not only did he grieve for Alison's sake, but he felt ashamed, as though this were a reflection on his own respectability. The more he drank the more his misfortune seemed to him incomprehensible. Once he rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling and called out in the silent kitchen with a questioning roar of supplication: 'G.o.d? O G.o.d ?'

Again he banged his head on the table until a knot came out on his forehead. By six thirty in the morning he had finished more than a quart of whiskey. He took a shower, dressed, and telephoned Alison's doctor, who was a Colonel in the medical corps and the Major's own friend. Later another doctor was called in and they struck matches in front of Alison's nose and asked her various questions. It was during this examination that the Major had picked up the towel from the rack in her bathroom and put it over his arm. It gave him the look of being prepared for any emergency and was somehow a comfort to him. Before leaving, the Colonel talked for a long while, using the word 'psychology' many times, and the Major nodded dumbly at the end of every sentence. The doctor finished by advising that she be sent to a sanatorium as soon as possible.

'But look here,' the Major said helplessly. 'No strait jacket or any place like that. You understand where she can play the phonograph comfortable. You know what I mean.'

Within two days a place in Virginia had been chosen. Due to hurry the inst.i.tution had been selected more because of the price (it was astonis.h.i.+ngly expensive) than for the therapeutic reputation. Alison only listened bitterly when the plans were told to her. Anacleto, of course, was going also. A few days later the three of them left on the train.

This establishment in Virginia catered to patients who were both physically and mentally ill. And the diseases that attack the body and the brain simultaneously are of a special land. There were a number of old gentlemen who floundered about in a state of total confusion and had to keep a close watch on their unwieldy legs. There were a few lady morphinists and any number of rich young liquor heads. But the place had a pretty terrace where tea was served in the afternoon, the gardens were well kept, and the rooms furnished luxuriously; the Major was satisfied and rather proud that he could afford it.

Alison, however, made no comment just at first. Indeed she did not speak at all to her husband until they sat down to dinner that night. As an exception, on the evening of her arrival she was to dine downstairs, but beginning with the next morning she was to rest in bed until the condition of her heart improved. At their table there were candles and hothouse roses. The service and the table linen were of the best quality.

Alison, however, seemed not to observe these niceties. On sitting down to the table she took in the room with one long, wandering gaze. Her eyes, dark and shrewd as always, examined the occupants at all the other tables. Then finally she spoke quietly and with bitter relish: 'My G.o.d, what a choice crew!'

Major Langdon was never to forget that dinner, for it was the last time he was with his wife. He left very early the next morning and stopped off to spend the night in Pinehurst where he had an old polo friend. Then, when he returned to the post a telegram was waiting for him. On the second night of her stay there Alison had had a heart attack and died.

This autumn Captain Penderton was thirty five years old. Despite his comparative youth he was soon to wear the maple leaves of a Major; and in the army, where promotion is largely contingent on seniority, this premature advancement was a marked tribute to his ability. The Captain had worked hard and his mind was brilliant from a military point of view it was the opinion of many officers, including the Captain himself, that he would one day be a high ranking General. Nevertheless, Captain Penderton showed the strain of his long efforts. This autumn, especially during the past few weeks, he seemed to have aged disproportionately. There were bruise like circles beneath his eyes and his complexion was of a yellow, mottled color. His teeth had begun to trouble him considerably. The dentist told him that two of the lower molars would have to be extracted and some bridgework put in, but the Captain kept deferring this operation, as he felt he did not have the time to spare. The Captain's face was habitually tense and a tic had developed in the muscles of his left eye. This spasmodic twitching of the eyelid gave to his drawn face a strangely paralyzed expression.

He was in a constant state of repressed agitation. His preoccupation with the soldier grew in him like a disease. As in cancer, when the cells unaccountably rebel and begin the insidious self multiplication that will ultimately destroy the body, so in his mind did the thoughts of the soldier grow out of all proportion to their normal sphere.

Sometimes with dismay he made a wondering resume of the steps that had brought about this condition beginning with the carelessly spilt coffee on a new pair of trousers, and continuing with the clearing of the woods, the encounter after the ride on Firebird, and the brief meetings on the streets of the post. How his annoyance could have grown to hate, and the hate to this diseased obsession, the Captain could not logically understand.

A peculiar reverie had taken hold of him. As he always had been keenly ambitious, he had often amused himself by antic.i.p.ating his promotions far in advance. Thus, when he was still a young West Pointer the name and the t.i.tle 'Colonel Weldon Penderton' had to him a familiar and pleasing sound. And during the past summer of this year he had imagined himself as a Corps Area Commander of great brilliance and power. Sometimes he had even whispered the words 'Major General Penderton' aloud to himself and it seemed to him he should have been born to the t.i.tle, so well did the sound of it fit with his name. But now during the past weeks this idle dream had strangely reversed itself. One night or rather it was one thirty in the morning he had sat at his desk in a trauma of fatigue. Suddenly in the silent room three words had come unbidden to his tongue: 'Private Weldon Penderton.' And these words, with the a.s.sociations they engendered, aroused in the Captain a perverse feeling of relief and satisfaction. Instead of dreaming of honor and rank, he now experienced a subtle pleasure in imagining himself as an enlisted man. In these phantasies he saw himself as a youth, a twin almost of the soldier whom he hated with a young, easy body that even the cheap uniform of a common soldier could not make ungraceful, with thick glossy hair and round eyes unshadowed by study and strain. The image of Private Williams wove itself through all these day dreams. And the background of all this was the barracks: the hubbub of young male voices, the genial loafing in the sun, the irresponsible shenanigans of camaraderie.

Captain Penderton had formed the habit of walking each afternoon before the quadrangle where Private Williams was quartered. Usually he saw the soldier sitting alone on the same bench. Walking on the sidewalk the Captain would pa.s.s within two yards of the soldier, and at his approach Private Williams would get up reluctantly and give a lazy salute. The days were growing short, and at this time in the late afternoon a hint of darkness was already in the air. For a brief period after sunset there was in the atmosphere a misty lavender glow.

The Captain on pa.s.sing always looked full into the soldier's face and slowed his footsteps. He knew that the soldier must now realize that these afternoon walks were made on his account. It even occurred to the Captain to wonder why the soldier did not evade him and go elsewhere at this time. The fact that the soldier clung to his habit gave to these daily contacts a flavor of a.s.signation that filled the Captain with excitement. After he had pa.s.sed the soldier he had to suppress a craving to turn around, and as he walked away he felt his heart swell with a wild, nostalgic sadness which he could not control.

At the Captain's house there were a few changes. Major Langdon had attached himself to the Pendertons like a third member of the family, and this state of affairs was agreeable both to the Captain and Leonora. The Major was left quite stunned and helpless by the death of his wife. Even physically there was a difference in him. His jovial poise had deserted him, and when the three of them were sitting before the fire in the evening, he seemed to want to get himself into the most hobbledehoy and uncomfortable positions possible. He would twist his legs around each other like a contortionist or hike up one heavy shoulder while he mashed his ear. His thoughts and his words now centered entirely on Alison and the part of his life that had now come so abruptly to an end. He was inclined to make doleful plat.i.tudes concerning G.o.d, the soul, suffering, and death subjects the mention of which would hitherto have made his tongue grow thick and awkward with embarra.s.sment. Leonora looked after him, fed him excellent dinners, and listened to any mournful observations he might have to make.

'If only Anacleto would come back,' he said often.

For Anacleto had left the sanatorium the morning after Alison had died and no one had heard of him since. He had repacked the luggage and put all of her things in order. Then he had simply disappeared. To replace him Leonora had hired for the Major one of Susie's brothers who could cook. For years the Major had longed for an ordinary colored boy who would maybe steal his liquor and leave dust under the rug, but who at any rate, by G.o.d, would not fiddle around with the piano and jabber in French. Susie's brother was a good boy; he played on a comb wrapped in toilet paper, got drunk, and cooked good cornbread. But at the same time the Major did not feel the satisfaction he had antic.i.p.ated. He missed Anacleto in many ways and felt concerning him the most uncomfortable remorse.

'You know I used to devil Anacleto by describing what I would do to him if I could get him into the service. You don't suppose the little rascal really believed me, do you? I was mostly kidding him but in a way it always seemed to me that if he would enlist it would be the best thing in the world for him.'

The Captain was weary of the talk about Alison and Anacleto. It was a pity the nasty little Filipino hadn't been carried off by a heart attack also. The Captain was tired of almost everything around the house these days. The plain, heavy Southern meals that Leonora and Morris enjoyed were especially distasteful to him. The kitchen was filthy and Susie too slovenly for words. The Captain was a connoisseur of good food and a neat amateur chef. He appreciated the subtle cookery of New Orleans, and the delicate, balanced harmony of French food. Often in the old days he used to go into the kitchen when he was in the house alone and prepare for his own enjoyment some luscious tidbit. His favorite dish was fillet of beef a la Bearnaise. However, the Captain was a perfectionist and a crank; if the tournedos were too well done, or if the sauce got hot and curdled even the slightest bit he would take it all out to the back yard, dig a hole, and bury it. But now he had lost all appet.i.te for food. This afternoon Leonora had gone to the movies and he sent Susie away. He had thought that he would like to cook something special. But in the midst of preparing a rissole he had suddenly lost all interest, left everything as it was, and walked out of the house.

'I can imagine Anacleto on K.P.,' Leonora said.