6

  ‘You fool, you idiot, marrying a blind man, a man with nothing, practically dead.’

  ‘He is not! He is not!’

  ‘What do you call him then? Aunt Callie Nelson was here the other day saying that the white folks had killed him.’

  ‘You know nigger talk doesn’t mean anything. They probably wouldn’t let her worry him, so she says he—’

  ‘Nonsense. Aunt Callie has raised more children than I can count. If she says he is sick, he is sick.’

  ‘I don’t care. I am going to marry him.’

  Mrs Saunders sighed creakingly. Cecily stood before her, flushed and obstinate. ‘Listen, honey. If you marry him you are throwing yourself away, all your chances, all your youth and prettiness, all the men that like you: men who are good matches.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ she repeated, stubbornly.

  ‘Think. There are so many you can have for the taking, so much you can have: a big wedding in Atlanta with all your friends for bridesmaids, clothes, a wedding trip. . . . And then to throw yourself away. After your father and I have done so much for you.’

  ‘I don’t care. I am going to marry him.’

  ‘But, why? Do you love him?’

  ‘Yes, yes!’

  ‘That scar, too?’

  Cecily’s face blanched as she stared at her mother. Her eyes became dark and she raised her hand delicately. Mrs Saunders took her hand and drew her resisting on to her lap. Cecily protested tautly but her mother held her, drawing her head down to her shoulder, smoothing her hair. ‘I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to say that. But tell me what it is.’

  Her mother would not fight fair. She knew this with anger, but the older woman’s tactics scattered her defences of anger: she knew she was about to cry. Then it would be all up. ‘Let me go,’ she said, struggling, hating her mother’s unfairness.

  ‘Hush, hush. There now, lie here and tell me what it is. You must have some reason.’

  She ceased to struggle and became completely lax. ‘I haven’t. I just want to marry him. Let me go. Please, mamma.’

  ‘Cecily, did your father put this idea in your head?’

  She shook her head and her mother turned her face up. ‘Look at me.’ They stared at each other, and Mrs Saunders repeated: ‘Tell me what your reason is.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You mean you won’t?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’ She slipped suddenly from her mother’s lap but Mrs Saunders held her kneeling against her knee. ‘I won’t,’ she cried, struggling. The other held her tightly. ‘You are hurting me!’

  ‘Tell me.’

  Cecily wrenched herself free and stood. ‘I can’t tell you. I have just got to marry him.’

  ‘Got to marry him? What do you mean?’ She stared at her daughter, gradually remembering old rumours about Mahon, gossip she had forgot. ‘Got to marry him? Do you mean that you — that a daughter of mine — with a blind man, a man who has nothing, a pauper — ?’

  Cecily stared at her mother and her face flamed. ‘You think — you said that to — Oh, you’re not my mother: you are somebody else.’ Suddenly she cried like a child, wide-mouthed, not even hiding her face. She whirled running. ‘Don’t ever speak to me again,’ she gasped and fled wailing up the stairs. And a door slammed.

  Mrs Saunders sat thinking, tapping her teeth monotonously with a finger-nail. After a while she rose, and going to the telephone, she called her husband downtown.

  7

  Voices

  The Town:

  I wonder what that woman that came home with him thinks about it, now he’s taken another one. If I were that Saunders girl I wouldn’t take a man that brought another woman right up to my door, you might say. And that new one, what’ll she do now? Go away and get another man, I guess. Hope she’ll learn enough to get a well one this time. . . . Funny goings-on in that house. And a preacher of the gospel, too. Even if he is Episcopal. If he wasn’t such a nice man. . . .

  George Farr:

  It isn’t true, Cecily, darling, sweetheart. You can’t, you can’t. After your body prone and narrow as a pool dividing. . . .

  The Town:

  I hear that boy of Mahon’s, that hurt fellow, and that girl of Saunders’s are going to get married. My wife said they never would, but I said all the time . . .

  Mrs Burney:

  Men don’t know. They should of looked out for him better. Saying he never wanted for nothing. . . .

  George Farr:

  Cecily, Cecily. . . . Is this death?

  The Town:

  There’s that soldier that came with Mahon. I guess that woman will take him now. But maybe she don’t have to. He might have been saving time himself.

  Well, wouldn’t you, if you was him?

  Sergeant Madden:

  Powers. Powers. . . . A man’s face spitted like a moth on a lance of flame. Powers. . . . Rotten luck for her.

  Mrs Burney:

  Dewey, my boy. . . .

  Sergeant Madden:

  No, ma’am. He was all right. We did all we could. . . .

  Cecily Saunders:

  Yes, yes, Donald. I will. I will! I will get used to your poor face, Donald! George, my dear love, take me away, George!

  Sergeant Madden:

  Yes, yes, he was all right. . . . A man on a fire-step, screaming with fear.

  George Farr:

  Cecily, how could you? How could you?

  The Town:

  That girl . . . time she was took in hand by somebody. Running around town nearly nekkid. Good thing he’s blind, ain’t it?

  Guess she hopes he’ll stay blind, too. . . .

  Margaret Powers:

  No, no, good-bye, dear dead Dick, ugly dead Dick. . . .

  Joe Gilligan:

  He is dying, he gets the women he doesn’t want even, while I am not dying. . . . Margaret, what shall I do? What can I say?

  Emmy:

  Come here, Emmy? Ah, come to me, Donald. But he is dead.

  Cecily Saunders:

  George, my lover, my poor dear. . . . What have we done?

  Mrs Burney:

  Dewey, Dewey, so brave, so young. . . .

  (This was Donald, my son. He is dead.)

  8

  Mrs Powers mounted the stairs under Mrs Saunders’s curious eyes. The older woman had been cold, almost rude, but Mrs Powers had won her point, and choosing Cecily’s door from her mother’s directions she knocked.

  After a while she knocked again and called: ‘Miss Saunders.’

  Silence was again a hushed tense interval, then Cecily’s muffled voice came through the door:

  ‘Go away.’

  ‘Please,’ she insisted. ‘I want to see you a moment.’

  ‘No, no. Go away.’

  ‘But I must see you.’ There was no reply and she added: ‘I have just talked to your mother, and to Dr Mahon. Let me come in, won’t you?’

  She heard movement, a bed, then another interval. Fool, taking time to powder her face. But you would, too, she told herself. The door opened under her hand.

  Powder only made the traces of tears more visible, and Cecily turned her back as Mrs Powers entered the room. She could see the indentation of a body on the bed, and a crumpled pillow. Mrs Powers, not being offered a chair, sat on the foot of the bed, and Cecily, across the room, leaning in a window and staring out, said ungraciously: ‘What do you want?’

  How like her this room is! thought the caller, observing pale maple and a triple mirrored dressing-table bearing a collection of fragile crystal, and delicate clothing carelessly about on chairs, on the floor. On a chest of drawers was a small camera picture, framed.

  ‘May I look?’ she asked, knowing instinctively who it was. Cecily, stubbornly presenting her back in a thin formless garment through which light from the window passed revealing her narrow torso, made no reply. Mrs Powers approached and saw Donald Mahon, bareheaded, in a shabby unbuttoned tunic, standing before a corrugated iron wall, carrying a small resigned dog casually by the scruff of the neck, like a handbag.

  ‘That’s so typical of him, isn’t it?’ she commented. Cecily said rudely:

  ‘What do you want with me?’

  ‘That’s exactly what your mother asked me, you know. She seemed to think I was interfering also.’

  ‘Well, aren’t you? Nobody asked you to come here.’ Cecily turned, leaning her hip against the window ledge.

  ‘I don’t think it’s interference when it’s warranted though. Do you?’

  ‘Warranted? Who asked you to interfere? Did Donald do it, or are you trying to scare me off? You needn’t tell me Donald asked you to get him out of it: it will be a lie.’

  ‘But I’m not: I don’t intend to. I’m trying to help you both.’

  ‘Oh, you are against me. Everybody’s against me, except Donald. And you keep him shut up like a — prisoner.’ She turned quickly and leaned her head against the window.

  Mrs Powers sat quietly examining her, her frail revealed body under the silly garment she wore — a webby cloying thing worse than nothing and a fit complement to the single belaced garment it revealed above the long hushed gleams of her stockings . . . If Cellini had been a hermit-priest he might have imagined her, Mrs Powers thought, wishing mildly she could see the other naked. At last she rose from the bed and crossed to the window. Cecily kept her head stubbornly averted, and expecting tears, she touched the girl’s shoulder. ‘Cecily,’ she said, quietly.

  Cecily’s green eyes were dry, stony, and she moved swiftly across the room with her delicate narrow stride. She stood holding the door open. Mrs Powers, at the window, did not accept. Did she ever, ever forget herself? she wondered, observing the studied grace of the girl’s body turned on the laxed ball of a thigh. Cecily met her gaze with one of haughty commanding scorn.

  ‘Won’t you even leave the room when you are asked?’ she said, making her swift, coarse voice sound measured and cold.

  Mrs Powers thinking O hell, what’s the use? moved so as to lean her thigh against the bed. Cecily, without changing her position, moved the door for emphasis. Standing quietly, watching her studied fragility (her legs are rather sweet, she admitted, but why all this posing for me? I’m not a man) Mrs Powers ran her palm slowly along the smooth wood of the bed. Suddenly the other slammed the door and returned to the window. Mrs Powers followed.

  ‘Cecily, why can’t we talk about it sensibly?’ The girl made no reply, ignoring her, crumpling the curtain in her fingers. ‘Miss Saunders?’

  ‘Why can’t you let me alone?’ Cecily flared suddenly, flaming out at her. ‘I don’t want to talk to you about it. Why do you come to me?’ Her eyes darkened: they were no longer hard. ‘If you want him, take him, then. You have every chance you could want, keeping him shut up there so that even I can’t see him!’

  ‘But I don’t want him. I am trying to straighten things out for him. Don’t you know that if I had wanted him I would have married him before I brought him home?’

  ‘You tried it, and couldn’t. That’s why you didn’t. Oh, don’t say it wasn’t,’ she rushed on as the other would have spoken. ‘I saw it that first day. That you were after him. And if you aren’t, why do you keep on staying here?’

  ‘You know that’s a lie,’ Mrs Powers replied, calmly.

  ‘Then what makes you so interested in him, if you aren’t in love with him?’

  (This is hopeless.) She put her hand on the other’s arm. Cecily shrank quickly away and she returned to lean again against the bed. She said:

  ‘Your mother is against this, and Donald’s father expects it. But what chance will you have against your mother?’ (Against yourself?)

  ‘I certainly don’t need any advice from you,’ Cecily turned her head, her haughtiness, her anger, were gone and in their place was a thin hopeless despair. Even her voice, her whole attitude, had changed. ‘Don’t you see how miserable I am?’ she said, pitifully. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude to you, but I know what to do. I don’t know. . . . I am in such trouble: something terrible has happened to me. Please!’

  Mrs Powers, seeing her face, went to her quickly, putting her arm about the girl’s narrow shoulders. Cecily avoided her. ‘Please, please go.’

  ‘Tell me what it is.’

  ‘No, no, I can’t. Please—’

  They paused, listening. Footsteps approaching, stopped beyond the door: a knock, and her father’s voice called her name.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Dr Mahon is downstairs. Can you come down?’

  The two women stared at each other.

  ‘Come,’ Mrs Powers said.

  Cecily’s eyes went dark again and she whispered. ‘No, no, no!’ trembling.

  ‘Sis,’ her father repeated.

  ‘Say yes,’ Mrs Powers whispered.

  ‘Yes, daddy. I’m coming.’

  ‘All right.’ The footsteps retreated and Mrs Powers drew Cecily towards the door. The girl resisted.

  ‘I can’t go like this,’ she said, hysterically.

  ‘Yes, you can. It’s all right. Come.’

  Mrs Saunders, sitting militant, formal, and erect upon her chair, was saying as they entered:

  ‘May I ask what this — this woman has to do with it?’

  Her husband chewed a cigar. Light falling upon the rector’s face held it like a grey bitten mask. Cecily ran to him. ‘Uncle Joe!’ she cried.

  ‘Cecily!’ her mother said, sharply. ‘What do you mean, coming down like that?’

  The rector rose, huge and black, embracing her. ‘Uncle Joe!’ she repeated, clinging to him.

  ‘Now, Robert,’ Mrs Saunders began. But the rector interrupted her.

  ‘Cecily,’ he said, raising her face. She twisted her chin and hid her face against his coat.

  ‘Robert,’ said Mrs Saunders.

  The rector spoke greyly. ‘Cecily, we have talked it over together, and we think — your mother and father—’

  She moved in her silly, revealing garment, ‘Daddy?’ she exclaimed, staring at her father. He would not meet her gaze but sat slowly twisting his cigar. The rector continued:

  ‘We think that you will only — that you — They say that Donald is going to die, Cecily,’ he finished.

  Lithe as a sapling she thrust herself backward against his arm, bending, to see his face, staring at him. ‘Oh, Uncle Joe! Have you gone back on me, too?’ she cried, passionately.

  9

  George Farr had been quite drunk for a week. His friend, the drug clerk, thought that he was going crazy. He had become a local landmark, a tradition: even the town soaks began to look upon him with respect, calling him by his given name, swearing undying devotion to him.

  In the intervals of belligerent or rollicking or maudlin inebriation he knew periods of devastating despair like a monstrous bliss, like that of a caged animal, of a man being slowly tortured to death: a minor monotony of pain. As a rule, though, he managed to stay fairly drunk. Her narrow body sweetly dividing naked . . . have another drink. . . . I’ll kill you if you keep on fooling around her . . . my girl, my girl . . . her narrow . . . ‘nother drink . . . oh, God, oh, God . . . sweetly dividing for another . . . have drink, what hell I care, oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, oh, God. . . .

  Though ‘nice’ people no longer spoke to him on the streets he was, after a fashion, cared for and protected by casual acquaintances and friends both black and white, as in the way of small towns particularly and of the ‘inferior’ classes anywhere.

  He sat glassy-eyed among fried smells, among noises, at an oilcloth-covered table.

  ‘Clu — hoverrrrrr blarrrr — sums, clo — ver blarrrr — summmzzzz,’ sang a nasal voice terribly, the melody ticked off at spaced intervals by a small monotonous sound, like a clock-bomb going off. Like this:

  Clo (tick) ver (tick) rrr (tick) (tick) bl (tick) rrs (tick) sss (tick) umm (tick) zzz.

  Beside him sat two of his new companions, quarrelling, spitting, holding hands, and weeping over the cracked interminability of the phonograph record. ‘Clo — verrrr blar — sums,’ it repeated with saccharine passion; when it ran down they repaired to a filthy alley behind the filthier kitchen to drink of George Farr’s whisky. Then they returned and played the record through again, clutching hands while frank tears slid down their otherwise unwashed cheeks. ‘Cloooooooover blaaaaaarsummmssss. . . .’

  Truly vice is a dull and decorous thing: no life in the world is as hard, requiring so much sheer physical and moral strength as the so-called ‘primrose path’. Being ‘good’ is much less trouble.

  ‘Clo — ver blar — sums. . . .’

  . . . After a while his attention was called to the fact that someone had been annoying him for some time. Focusing his eyes he at last recognized the proprietor in an apron on which he must have dried his dishes for weeks. ‘What’n ‘ell y’ want?’ he asked, with feeble liquid belligerence, and the man finally explained to him that he was wanted on the telephone in a neighbouring drugstore. He rose, pulling himself together.

  ‘Clu — hoooooooover blar — sums. . . .’

  After a few years he languished from a telephone mouthpiece holding himself erect, watching without interest a light globe over the prescription desk describing slow concentric circles.

  ‘George?’ There was something in the unknown voice speaking his name, such anguish, as to almost shock him sober. ‘George.’

  ‘This George . . . hello. . . .

  ‘George, it’s Cecily. Cecily. . . .’

  Drunkenness left him like a retreating wave. He could feel his heart stop, then surge, deafening him, blinding him with his own blood.

  ‘George. . . . Do you hear me?’ (Ah, George, to have been drunk now!) (Cecily, oh, Cecily!) ‘Yes! Yes!’ gripping the instrument as though this would keep her against escape. ‘Yes, Cecily? Cecily! It’s George. . . .’

  ‘Come to me, now. At once.’

  ‘Yes, yes. Now?’

  ‘Come, George, darling. Hurry, hurry. . . .’

  ‘Yes!’ he cried again. ‘Hello, hello!’ The line made no response. He waited but it was dead. His heart pounded and pounded, hotly; he could taste his own hot bitter blood in his throat. (Cecily, oh, Cecily!)