The Fathers, page 21
Sister turned. ‘How long have you been here?’ she said.
‘An hour,’ he said, surprised.
She gazed into his eyes as if she were trying to read them, then turned again to the window.
‘Aren’t you glad to see me, sister?’ he said.
She came away from the window and stood before him. ‘No!’ she said in a harsh tone. She walked back to the window, and a softer expression came into her eyes as she said: ‘Didn’t you get my last letter?’
‘I haven’t heard from you in over a week,’ he said.
‘Well, then,’ she said. She thought about it a moment. ‘I told you not to come here.’ She moved rapidly across the room to the door, seemed to listen, then came back to Semmes and sat down opposite him. Her pale face was flushed. ‘I won’t have it — I will not have it, Semmes!’ She sat back in her chair and studied his face. I could not decide just what it was that she would not have, but Semmes seemed to know. He rose and paced the floor, his finger at the side of his nose, his humorous, humorless face twitching. At last Susan said, in a calm, almost indifferent tone: ‘Well, have you seen her?’
Semmes halted abruptly, looked at her, and began again his measured strides.
‘I’m on my way to the Valley. I’ve been transferred. I’m assistant-surgeon in the Thirty-third Virginia, Jackson’s brigade, at Harper’s Ferry. Doctors are scarce.’ He looked slyly at sister. ‘John Langton was damned glad to get rid of me. He put up my name before I could volunteer.’ He stopped and stared hard at sister. ‘He sent his regyards to George.’ The stare turned into a hard smile that I had not seen in my brother’s face before. ‘Our George,’ he said, then: ‘Your George.’
Susan dropped her hands into her lap. ‘Semmes!’ she said. ‘Semmes!’ he mocked her. He stood over her. ‘Semmes! Yes, I’ve seen her. That’s what I’ve been doing for the last hour. I’ve been with her. And she says yes — she says yes she will marry me. Tomorrow.’ He became more matter-of-fact. ‘I will take her to Cousin Bruce Washburn’s in Charlestown. I can see her nearly every day.’ He resumed his seat and there was an expression of triumph in his long face.
The flush of a moment ago had subsided from Susan’s face: her gaze into Semmes’ eyes was fascinated, almost charmed.
‘It’s indecent,’ she said in a low, remote voice.
‘It’s indecent,’ he repeated in his mocking tone. ‘It’s indecent,’ he went on in a rising voice, ‘it’s indecent to take Jane away from this mad-house. You’re as mad as they are but you don’t know it.’ He seemed suddenly to hear his own words. He came over to sister. ‘Forgive me, sister,’ he said.
If she had heard him, she gave no sign. ‘Why, she’s only a child.’ She smiled weakly but there was a gleam of purpose in her eyes. ‘She’s as much in love with Lacy as she is with you.’ She looked at me, and Semmes followed her glance.
I had been sitting on the edge of the bed. Now I stood up, with the door in the corner of my eye; but I moved to the foot of the bed and held to the tall post. Semmes’ eyes drooped, and I knew that the tension had left him.
‘Are you in love with Jane, Lacy?’ His tone was both inquiring and incredulous. I must have blushed, for my face was hot and my hands cold. I kept listening, as if for another voice; I suppose I was trying to hear what my answer would be. I did not intend to lie, but when I spoke, the words were a lie that I see now may have hastened the enveloping destiny of all these people. I should have said, Yes, I love Jane and I think she loves me; and Semmes would have hesitated, he might have delayed his purpose and sister would then have withheld hers. I clung to the bedpost as sister, with parted lips, looked me eagerly in the face. But I was looking at Semmes.
‘No, brother,’ I said, ‘I ain’t in love with Jane.’ I left the foot of the bed and went back and leaned against the counterpane. Susan lowered her face into her hands.
Semmes addressed her. ‘Is it indecent? I have everybody’s consent but yours. I have George’s, in this letter’ — he took a folded sheet from his pocket and waved it vaguely, but Susan taking no notice of it he thrust it back into his pocket — ‘and I’ve got Aunt Jane Anne’s consent too. I went from Jane to her. Old Atha said to “git away from hyar” when I knocked at her door, but I put my foot on the threshold and spoke directly to Aunt Jane Anne. She let me come in. It took me ten minutes to get the talk away from her “condition.” I made the unavoidable mistake of asking after her health. Well, she said she’d been poorly ever since ma’s funeral — the journey had permanently impaired’ her health.’ He paused and moved a step towards her. ‘Is it indecent to take Jane away from such a mother? She’ll indulge herself the rest of her life because just once she did something for somebody else, for somebody who was dead. And now after all this time, when we’ve forgotten all about it, she kept harping on George’s grief over mama’s death — because it seemed he might have to think for a few hours about somebody else’s mother.’ He paused with his mouth open ready to go on; but he suddenly shut his mouth and sat down with a sigh. ‘Sister, I don’t understand you,’ he said.
‘You said she gave her consent?’ sister asked.
‘Why, yes, she did. She said, “Of course, my dear boy,” and then she asked, “When?” but before I could answer her she had forgotten all about it, and was asking Atha when the priest, Father Monahan, was coming to play pinochle with her. “Get out my new lace cap, Atha,” she said. And I excused myself.’ He put his hands on his knees and leaned forward. ‘Sister, I am going to marry Jane.’
She got up and went to the wardrobe between the window and the head of the bed. She opened the door and took out a black knitted shawl, throwing it round her shoulders. As she turned back to the room she stopped at the window and looked out. She glanced at us and nodded her head towards the streets.
‘There’s Jane now,’ she said. ‘I wonder where she’s been.’ She pursed her lips reprovingly, as she might have done had Jane been present. Semmes was watching her intently, but she was oblivious of him, and I felt that I knew what Semmes was going to say.
‘That’s one reason why I’m taking Jane away.’
Still sister looked out the window as if she were alone; still Semmes kept looking at her. ‘Sister,’ he said, ‘Jane has been to special confession and to get Father’s special blessing and a waiver of the banns in this bad time. That’s why,’ he said almost gaily, ‘Father Monahan’s late for pinochle!’ He got up and went towards the door but I beat him there, and stood at the open door with the knob in my hand. I felt that I could not get out of that room quickly enough. Susan apparently had not heard anything. But as Semmes came to the door he glanced towards Susan’s rigid figure, a frown contracting his brow in perplexity.
Then Susan turned round suddenly and sat upon the bed, her feet thrown under her in the manner of a child. There was a smile on her face, secret and certain, and I thought she looked like a woman who had drawn a good hand at whist and waited impatiently to play the cards.
‘Semmes,’ she said in a tense but sisterly voice, ‘no member of our family will ever marry into the Posey family.’ Although the tone was kind, there was a note in it that I had not heard from her, ever, and the astonished expression that gradually spread over Semmes’ face told me that he had never heard it. I backed into the hall. From downstairs I heard the rapid, soft cadences of the harpsicord in a familiar strain — Flee as a Bird — and the colorless, sweet voice of Jane rising above the mellow bass. Semmes heard it too, with a glance into the hall. He seized the doorknob, took a stride into the hall, and closed the door with a bang.
‘I didn’t mean to do that,’ he said to himself.
‘No,’ I said listlessly.
He went down the hall to the last door, Brother George’s dressing-room, and disappeared. I walked softly past Aunt Jane Anne’s and Miss Milly’s doors to the head of the stairs. Jane had come to a bravura passage, trills and arpeggios, that covered my creaking descent. I stood at the parlor door waiting for the end. When it came she turned on the seat and gave me a happy smile. Her eyes were large, liquid, and blue, and she said: ‘Hello, Lacy.’
‘Hello,’ I said. I went into the room and sat on the edge of a rickety gilt chair, and stared at my boots.
‘Are you going to marry Brother Semmes?’ I said, still fixing my boots.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You won’t mind, will you, Lacy? I’ll still love you too — I love both of you.’ She smiled.
‘I thought maybe you’d marry me some time,’ I said, and although I had not felt much of anything, the words made me pity myself, and I felt tears coming, but I suppressed them.
‘Oh, but you didn’t ask me. Semmes did — weeks ago, when he got into the war.’ She looked serious. Her voice dropped to a low register, as if she feared being overheard. ‘Lacy, I can’t stand it. I’m afraid. I’m afraid of everybody. Sister too. She gives me such strange looks!’
I could hardly believe what I heard: was this Jane, the child Jane, who in body only was a woman? She was far beyond me now. I said:
‘I see, Jane.’
Then there were footsteps in the hall. I rose in order to retreat why, I don’t know; but retreat was cut off by Susan who stood in the door.
‘Jane,’ she said in a harsh tone. ‘Jane!’ She waited. Jane clasped her hands together.
‘Yes’m,’ she said.
‘Jane, you know you don’t practice your music in the evening.’ She looked around. ‘Where’s your embroidery?’
Jane, her hands still clasped and her eyes meekly cast down, rose and went to the embroidery frame by the front window. Her back was turned to me as she began to push the long needle through the cloth. I went by Susan into the hall, and ran up the stairs. At the top I leaned over the banister. Susan looked up at me with a smile of satisfaction. That smile frightened me. I turned away and ran to the backstairs, and up to my room where, throwing myself upon the bed, I waited for it to get dark.
*
Whether Jane saw her mother later that day I am not sure, but I suppose she did see her, because one of the things that Jane kept repeating time and again, all night, was: ‘Mama didn’t listen to me, Mama didn’t listen to me,’ but what it all meant was one of those mysteries that never come into the light. Perhaps Aunt Jane Anne ought to be blamed, but it would be like blaming a what-not or a piece of bric-a-brac. Doubtless we cannot help judging everybody a little, but if we judge one person we have got to judge all the others and to fix nicely the degree of personal within the common frailty, until in the end the judgments add up to a pharisaical jumble of ifs and buts.
But this story is not an effort to fix blame, any more than it is a record of triumphing virtues. It is not only possible, it is necessary to say: that man is dishonest, or this other man is an honest man, for in so saying we are not judging an action or blaming or praising him for it; we are only distinguishing a quality of character. But if two honorable men kill each other — and it is possible for men of honor to kill without dishonor — and bring upon their families untold sorrows and troubles, what have we then? Who is to blame? I believe that here towards the end of my story all that one can say justly is that some of us behaved a little better than the others; but not much better. If Aunt Jane Anne had listened to Jane, would the end have been different? I doubt it; and I doubt if it would have done us any good to think better of Aunt Jane Anne.
I have already said that I went upstairs to wait for it to get dark. Why I wanted the dark no one could remember after all this time. There are days when we consciously guide the flow of being towards the night, and our suspense is a kind of listening, as if the absence of light, when it comes, will be audible just because sight and touch are frustrated. Of course this is what we all know. But how many of us know that there are times when we passionately desire to hear the night? And I think we do hear it: we hear it because our senses, not being mechanisms, actually perform the miracles of imagination that they themselves create: from our senses come the metaphors through which we know the world, and in turn our senses get knowledge of the world by means of figures of their own making. Nobody today, fifty years after these incidents, can hear the night; nobody wishes to hear it. To hear the night, and to crave its coming, one must have deep inside one’s secret being a vast metaphor controlling all the rest: a belief in the innate evil of man’s nature, and the need to face that evil, of which the symbol is the darkness, of which again the living image is man alone. Now that men cannot be alone, they cannot bear the dark, and they see themselves as innately good but betrayed by circumstances that render them pathetic. Perhaps some of the people in this story are to be pitied, but I cannot pity them; none of them was innately good. They were all, I think, capable of great good, but that is not the same thing as being good.
I suppose I wanted the night to come so that I could face a new emotion, that no doubt meant that I was no longer a boy. Children never hate; they only feel anger. Hate is of the mind, a consciousness of defeated purpose; children have no conscious purpose. I knew as night came on that I hated my brother Semmes. There may be many ways of killing time — how accurate is the common phrase! — but I knew two of them: minute activity either monotonous or surprising, but if it be the latter you will have to be borne up by some powerful excitement; or just lying on the bed and floating away into the stream of timeless images, and then suddenly you are aware of the secret feeling that all the set concentration in the world would not have let you face. It must have been about eight o’clock when without a knock the door opened a narrow crack. There was enough light, on that south side of the house, for me to distinguish my brother’s face: he stepped just over the threshold and leaned, unspeaking, against the jamb. How do I know what I should have felt had it been full daylight? He was dim, and only the configuration of person would have let me at any other time recognize him. But even without that I knew it was he, and I knew he was a stranger whom I hated for the sacrificial lie that I had told. Is not a noble liar God’s own scourge? He is always believed, and his genuine disinterestedness, his repudiation of self, seems to render him exempt from all responsibility: was not his intention good? I knew that I hated Semmes, and if I had known as much as I knew a day later I should have known that my hatred was a kind of fear. My lie committed Semmes to full participation in the events directly to come. We are like children playing drop-the-handkerchief; the conventions make the emotions that we are willing to die for, as children eagerly run themselves to exhaustion round a ring.
He stood more than a minute in the door, then closed it behind him and came, softly in carpet slippers, over to the bureau where, striking a match on his slipper and watching the oily purple flame change to yellow, he lit a candle and gazed at it, his long face pale and composed. He looked as if he had been working problems in trigonometry. Without changing his posture he turned his face to me.
‘You’ll get like Mr Jarman if you keep on staying in the dark,’ he said.
I did not move or speak. I felt that if I ever addressed my brother again I should have to tell him that I had lied; but no noble liar is noble enough to obviate the evil of his lie. He waits to confess it vindictively.
He straightened up, and said in a formal tone: ‘The ceremony is set for four o’clock tomorrow.’ There was not a breath of air in the room. The candle burnt with a straight, unwavering flame. Seconds passed. I did not answer. He backed towards the door. ‘It will be here, of course.’
I wanted to ask him a question, and he knew that I did, for just as he reached the door he paused and raised his head inquiringly. I turned over and pushed my face into the pillow.
’Lacy,’ he said. I raised myself on my elbows but did not turn my head. ‘Lacy, I can’t be here tonight.’ Yes, I thought, he can’t be here tonight. He grasped the doorknob and said: ‘Yes, what about George? He can’t be here. He can’t get here in time.’ As he was about to close the door after him he said, ‘Lacy, Cousin John is right about George Posey. I see it now. Why is he away all the time? I’ve got to take Jane away from this.’ I still said nothing, and then Semmes must have heard the thunder of his own soliloquy echoing in his ears. With a swift awkward motion he jerked the door to after him, and I heard the first two or three steps as he went down the stairs.
I heard somebody talking downstairs; I supposed it was Semmes and Susan; and then silence, which I thought meant that Semmes had gone, but gone where for the night I could not guess, and I never knew. What difference did it make? He was running a risk coming to Georgetown at all where he knew everybody and everybody knew that he was a rebel; yet at that early stage of the conflict men passed to and fro between the lines with ease if they were cautious. But where was Brother George? Where, indeed, was he? Did sister know? I was sure that Semmes Buchan knew perfectly well where he was, and his rhetorical question: Why is he away all the time? made me feel, as I turned it over, hollow inside, and not a little glad that the candle still burned on the bureau. Semmes’ moral desertion, and there is no other word for it, of his friend and brother, somewhat thickened the darkness around me, and I fixed my eyes upon the candle-light in a mesmeric stare.
*
I was not sleepy and I said: I can’t lie here forever. Semmes had been gone about an hour and the voices downstairs were persistent and unabashed and I recalled the long procession of silent evenings in that house. There would be talking for five or ten minutes, then doors would close, and silence for a while; the voices rose again. I had nothing to do with anything in that house but I saw no way of getting out of it. It must have been midnight or later when at last the talking ceased, or rather I thought it had ceased, since the rhythm of its lapse and renewal had been followed by a long silence; and going to the side window overlooking the garden I saw the blackness where had shone on the foliage a ray of light from a window in Jane’s room.
