The Fathers, page 2
‘Why,’ the narrator wonders, ‘cannot life change without tangling the lives of innocent persons? Why do innocent persons cease their innocence and become violent and evil in themselves that such great changes may take place?’ For they had all been innocent and they had all, in different ways, become more or less evil. Thus, either because of changes in themselves that made the world unbearable to them, as with George, or because of changes in the world about them such that ‘unnatural vices are fathered by our heroism,’ as with Major Buchan, or because of both, as with Susan, time and change manifest themselves concretely in the action of the novel.
Such, then, is The Fathers, a novel with an action of a certain magnitude that satisfies the demands of probability and is, at the same time, a sustained, particularized, and unified symbol. Because it is, its meaning is not merely a lyric and personal response to experience but takes on the full, public life that only a probable action can give, as George Posey’s self could not, as Major Buchan’s did. The motive of The Fathers’ action is a meaning, and the life of that meaning is an action. It is an imitation of life.
ARTHUR MIZENER
Arthur Mizener’s Introduction, in a somewhat different form, originally appeared in the Winter 1947 issue of Accent magazine and, in the present form, in The Sewanee Review, Autumn 1959.
Part One
PLEASANT HILL
PLEASANT HILL
IT WAS only today as I was walking down Fayette Street towards the river that I got a whiff of salt fish, and I remembered the day I stood at Pleasant Hill, under the dogwood tree. It was late April and the blossoms shot into the air like spray. My mother was dead. Crowds of the connection had arrived the night before; and I had come, a boy of fifteen, after breakfast, out into the yard. Under the tree I could still taste the salt of the roe herring that Aunt Myra Parrish had kept serving to the kin and friends from Washington and Alexandria. There was old Uncle Armistead, my father’s brother and twenty years his elder, born at the end of the Revolution and older than even his eighty years: who deaf and half blind said only ‘Hanh?’ to remarks directed to him, and he never asked a question. My mind now echoes Hanh? to the smell of the herring and I can see the black coffin of my mother lying in the hush of the front parlor, a white, long room.
My name is Lacy Gore Buchan, the third son and the last child of my parents. My father was the late Major Lewis Buchan, a native of Spotsylvania County, Virginia, who died as I shall relate at the beginning of the War, in Fairfax County at Pleasant Hill, a ‘place’ that came to us through his mother, who was a Lewis of Spotsylvania. My father, through his father Dr John Buchan, was the grandson of the ‘immigrant’, Benjamin Buchan, a Scots adventurer who ordinarily must have followed his compatriots west of the Blue Ridge had he not won the hand of Mary Armistead the very year of his landing, I think 1741; Mary Armistead thus became my great-grandmother, and by means of certain dower properties to which she fell heir — after her father’s displeasure with the adventurer had been conquered by the grave — the name of Buchan, obscure in origin, became assimilated to that unique order of society known latterly as the Virginian aristocracy. — Of my mother’s people I know, first-hand, much less. She was Sarah Semmes Gore of the Valley of Virginia; on the Gore side, Scotch-Irish; on the Semmes, of Maryland stock that had migrated to the Valley around 1800. My mother might have said of my father, ‘Thy people are my people’, for she became a pure Buchan — in all but religion; she could not have added, ‘and thy God my God’. She remained a Presbyterian.
The death of my mother is a suitable beginning for my story. There, for the last time, I saw our whole family assembled from that region, down to the fifth and sixth degree of kin, besides three or four of the Poseys, the family of my remarkable brother-in-law, George Posey from Georgetown, who had the year before married my lovely sister Susan. A year later came the war; we were uprooted from Pleasant Hill, and were never together again.
Of the Poseys I shall have a good deal to say hereafter. They were a respectable family of Anne Arundel County, Maryland, quiet, presentable, and at one time, in the day of old Samuel Posey, George’s grandfather, possessed of considerable landed property and servants; but otherwise, like the Buchans, undistinguished. Mr Rozier Posey, George’s father, moved down to Charles County, and in George’s boyhood the family left the land and settled permanently in Georgetown, in a tall red brick house on Vista Avenue, overlooking the Potomac. The family, I say, was unexceptional. I cannot understand why they came out, in the old phrase, ‘at the little end of the horn’, as they grievously did.
That, perhaps more than anything else, is the reason why an unmarried old man, having nothing else to do, with a competence saved from the practice of medicine, thinks he has a story to tell. Is it not something to tell, when a score of people whom I knew and loved, people beyond whose lives I could imagine no other life, either out of violence in themselves or the times, or out of some misery or shame, scattered into the new life of the modern age where they cannot even find themselves? Why cannot life change without tangling the lives of innocent persons? Why do innocent persons cease their innocence and become violent and evil in themselves that such great changes may take place?
These questions must go unanswered. I have a story to tell but I cannot explain the story. I cannot say: if Susan had not married George Posey then Susan could not have known Jane Posey and influenced her. But of course I might not have known Jane either. Could I have known her without Susan, I might have married her, for I loved her. That no doubt was the life I wanted. But what I wanted and did not get would not have changed the events by which all these people were tortured. It would have all happened in some other way.
I see figures on the lawn that morning at Pleasant Hill, I hear voices. Of that large company I remember the ordinary tone of the conversation, the hospitable anxiety of the nearer connection for the comfort of the more distant kin and friends; it was like a family infare but that my sister sat in the back parlor with my poor father and the kindly smiles never broke into laughter. Only Uncle Armistead sat in the front parlor by the coffin all day. Aunt Myra — his sister and my father’s — went in to him, or took the kin in to the presence of the dead: a small decisive woman, Aunt Myra, with deep eyes and a long straight nose: she would say to Uncle Armistead: ‘Brother, go into the chamber and lie down.’ The ‘chamber’ was my own mother’s bedroom where the family sat informally. But Uncle Armistead only replied, ‘Hanh?’ and took another toddy from Sam, the little colored boy he had brought with him from Falls Church.
But as I went aimlessly about the lawn, a mysterious exile from the other children, I seemed to see the home of my childhood with new eyes. I could feel that people were waiting, waiting; but it was different from our waiting for my mother, over many days, to die. The waiting was hurried; there was hurried deliberation in Aunt Myra’s managing everything. Out of this changed tempo trivial incidents emerged, and were fixed in my memory: and changed even was the air of the place.
I remember George Posey coming out into the yard, not restlessly but inquiringly, swinging a riding crop and looking from tree to tree and off into the slanting fields. How big and mature he was! He was actually only eleven years older than I was — a man of twenty-six, married a year to my sister and the father of a baby girl in whom I took no interest. He was a good six feet three, and standing he always rested squarely though easily on both feet, his head back, his arms limp at his sides: he seemed taller than he was because he looked at you from the angle of his backward tilted head. He stood looking at the long gallery, two storeys, on slender square posts, across the whole front of the house; and his lips moved. I thought he had spoken to me. I ran nearer.
‘Brother George!’ I cried.
He motioned me to him, put his hand on my head, and smiled down at me.
‘You’re my friend, Lacy boy.’
He resumed his gaze. I too looked up at the gallery sagging at one end, at the cracked paint on the weatherboarding, at the wisps of smoke struggling out of the big red end-chimneys, then off up the ridge towards the negro cabins, a pink brick row, and towards the stables and, back of them, near the woods, the big unpainted tobacco barn. I looked at Brother George but he was as fixed as a marble in Mr Corcoran’s gallery. A phrase of my father's comes to mind, for at that moment Brother George’s face was a ‘study’. His eyes roved to my mother’s garden, down towards the lower end of the ridge by the side of the house: the garden was a big square bordered by box, the inside a tangle of shrubs in which now I saw the first shoots of April green. And on the hither side of the garden I saw the horseblock, an old millstone standing on edge and half buried in the ground: there began the long line of gnarled cedars winding with the muddy lane along the side of the ridge, the mile and a half to the old Ox Road, the ‘big road’ that led into the great world — Fairfax, Occoquan, Pohick, Alexandria, then down the Potomac by salt water to the cities beyond the main!
Then for the first time in the wonder of death I saw the whole place all together. Looking back through the cloud of George Posey’s life and my sister Susan’s, I think that he too saw as a world, as a strange place, the home of his wife’s family, as if he had never seen it before. How handsome he was! How strong! His hand on my head, I glanced from the gray homespun of my trousers and jacket to the rich broadcloth of his black doublebreasted coat with the big square lapels. It fitted him like a glove, and the silver buttons glistened in the sunlight. He turned my head and looked down into my eyes.
‘Son, I’ve got to go.’ Putting on his black silk hat, he glanced at the front door where people were still going in and out. ‘Go tell Coriolanus to saddle my horse!’
I was off like a shot towards the side of the house to the path that led to the stable; then I slowed to a walk, in doubt that a boy should be running on the day his mother was dead. Round the corner of the house, out of sight of the porch, there was little Jane Posey, Brother George’s sister, just my age, stooping in a bed of new violets. She looked stiffly dressed up, in poke bonnet, blue velvet jacket, with the pantalettes showing white at the hem of her dress. She looked up with doe-like eyes and said, ‘Hello!’ I paused, but she picked violets as if I had passed on. I suppose it was out of the wonderful loneliness of that day that I wished to say something, or rather to plead for the chance to say something later, at some certain moment, in a world in which nothing could be counted on, it was so quietly bustling and strange. I said, ‘Wait for me.’
I ran again, as if being out of sight made it proper, and vaulted the rail fence into the stable lot. I shouted, ‘Uncle Lanus!’ Then I saw him, his white wool first, and the fader brushed broadcloth above the tallow-grease on his boots. He sat on a stool, his hands folded; he raised his eyes gently, with the polite attention of an old gentleman whom nothing can surprise.
‘Brother George says saddle his horse.’ Then, as if I suddenly knew something important: ‘Quick!’
The old man placed his hands on his knees and rose. He vanished into the stalls, and I looked at the back of the house. One of the negro girls was hanging a red quilt over the rail of the upper back gallery: it had come from my mother’s bed. Over to the right beyond the out-kitchen, by the smokehouse, Henry Jackson, the yard boy, now that the severe old Coriolanus was out of sight, was whistling; one of the young wenches passed and he laughed and slapped her; she giggled. I felt an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh. I looked down at the pawed earth. There was a piece of old strap. If I wanted it I knew I had better get it into my pocket before the old negro came out again. With one motion I had it and it was in my pants pocket. I looked again towards the smokehouse. The negroes had gone. I lifted my gaze beyond the smokehouse to the rear of my mother’s garden down the ridge towards the three big chestnut trees. By a low wall I could see Mr Higgins, the overseer, squatting on his heels and smoking; just below him two negro men with shovels were scarring the red earth with the new grave.
Coriolanus was talking to the big bay mare, and now he led her out. But he did not lead her to the gate; he stopped. There was anxiety in his weathered face, as if he did not know what he was expected to do. ‘Come here, Lacy,’ he said, and when he said it, his anxiety left him. I came nearer. He handed me the bridle and turned away as if he would have nothing to do with this business. He sat down on his stool, folded his hands, and looked me calmly in the eyes.
‘I knowed he’d do it,’ he said.
He couldn’t have known anything of the kind, but there it was; I actually got a little comfort out of the fact that someone imagined he had predicted Brother George’s impulse, which had surprised and excited me. And I was more excited than ever now that I was leading Queen Susie, the fine mare Brother George had bought from Colonel Tayloe the day before he had become engaged to my sister; I led her through the stable-lot gate, down the short lane by the side of the house and into the front yard. There was Brother George on the far side by the horse-block, one foot on the block, holding his elbow on his knee, his chin in his hand. I pressed right on, but all the way I admired him all over again: the frank, open face, the careless, cold blue eyes, the cheerful mouth with the corners curving upward in a kindly smile. He never looked any other way — only even more that way sometimes, when he broke into a sudden laugh that startled you at first; yet in the end you laughed too, without reason, and you felt you were only waiting for him to tell you what to do. I had heard my father say that George could make anybody do anything. In my boyish delight I would have any day followed him over a precipice, just for his bidding. I know distinctly that I thought of him always boldly riding somewhere, and because I couldn’t see where, I suppose I thought of a precipice. Yet I am sure he had never done anything crudely bold that would arrest the attention of a boy.
I was at the block, the mare whinnied, and Brother George noticed me. I held the bridle out to him, but he ignored it. He took his foot off the block and stood erect. I followed his eyes to the front gallery, where Sister Susan was coming rapidly down the steps. He advanced to meet her, pausing to flick a spot of mud off his knee with his whip, for the world as if he were walking towards some natural object, like a gnarled tree, that had engaged his curiosity. The permanent smile was on his face. They met about fifty feet from where I stood holding the mare, halfway between the block and the steps.
My sister was not beautiful, but she was lovely; the hazel eyes, set deep in their sockets under a wide low brow, dominated her face. Her hair was like an acorn, her skin fair almost to monotony, not pale but without trace of color; she was like pear blossoms against a lingering winter landscape. Her face was all structure, with just enough smooth surface to bring all the strong lines together into design. I know now, what I could not have known or cared about then, that she had got that face from papa, who had got it through his mother Margaret Lewis from her people, the Washburns, a family greatly distinguished in the Revolution, whom recent members of our own family are proud of being descended from: in the old days the Washburns were unlike other people for their saying so. Some of them over in the Valley of Virginia had always said that if only Mr Jefferson had not been so perversely democratic they would be the royal family. Well, papa — who had been a fine horseman in his youth — used to say that perhaps he could have qualified as Master of the Horse; but he was not sure, he was perversely democratic too: he was only Major Lewis Buchan by grace of the county militia that had not fought since 1812.
Brother George was taking off his hat, smiling, while Susan, speaking in a low tone, looked him gravely in the eye. For an instant Brother George hung his head as if he were impressed by her earnest words, whatever they were, and she smiled at him and placed the tips of her fingers on his forearm. Standing so, she raised her voice and I heard the one word — ‘papa’. That must have been too much for Brother George. He said — raising his head, the permanent smile a little tighter on his lips — he said: ‘No, damn it!’
Her fingers lingered on his sleeve. She withdrew them, clenched them at her side, and turned so quickly that I heard the hoops swish under the heavy black silk of her skirt. Ladies did not run in those days, but she very nearly ran, with the rigid plunging and dipping of the hoops, until she sailed up the steps and with the same motion went through the front door. Not until the door had closed behind her did I see Brother George. He was smiling, not after the vanished figure of his wife, but at Mr Higgins, who had slid noiselessly into the scene, and was squatting on his heels (he never stood up, he only walked or squatted) not ten feet away from Brother George, a little to one side. He was a hatchet-faced, impassive young man, quite honest — said my father — of the small-farming class for generations: if he never entered our front door, we never entered his simply because we were not wanted. Mr Higgins, squatting there in his black store clothes, did not smile. Brother George turned on his heel and approached Queen Susie. He looked a little surprised when he saw me; he had forgotten that I was there. He must have forgotten Mr Higgins, who shifted his balance a little, took his pipe out of his mouth, and said:
‘I like that mar’ better ever’ time I see her.’
Brother George had heard no words but only a voice. He looked off over my head as he took the bridle from my hand.
‘No, God damn it!’ he said. He put his foot into the stirrup as he threw the bridle over the mare’s head, and he was off before he was well seated, down the lane under the broken cedars.
Mr Higgins’ expression had not changed, nor did it change when he spoke to me.
‘Boy,’ he said, ‘hit ain’t right fer a man to gallivant off on a day like this.’
