But she had never thought about Aunt Etta with her whole mind; and by the time she had crossed the hall and entered her room, her own inner self absorbed her attention. Obeying a confirmed habit, of which she was entirely unaware, she walked straight to the mirror and gazed at herself with admiration, and a kind of unfailing surprise. There was a little smile tucked in at the corners of her mouth, and she tried to keep it there as long as she could, for it seemed to her very attractive, as if it were saying to men, "Come and catch me! Come and catch me!"
No, she wouldn't go out yet. There was no reason for going into the street on Saturday morning. Everything there seemed stale, dusty, unexciting, and strangely deserted, just as it looked after a parade had gone by and left only orange rinds and peanut hulls and flat toy balloons. A vague dissatisfaction stole into her mind, and her youthful features borrowed for an instant the hardened look of a woman who is disenchanted with life. She yawned slightly, not from drowsiness, but because she could think of nothing she wanted to do. It was too hot for a walk or a drive and, besides, Mamma would have the car for her Saturday marketing. If she went to see Bena, there would be only more talk of boys, and of the girls who had gone too far at the Whites' garden party last week. Boys, she thought angrily, dropping down into a chair by the window, are the most stupid things in the world. They never see when they are in the way; they never see anything but themselves. Older men are nicer, even if they are horrid and do try to tease. But they have some sense; they are more like her handsome father, who had been simply too wonderful to live in the world. Older men didn't just giggle and chaff and fling bread-crumbs across the table into one's face. Yes, older men knew something. They knew how to behave.
Outside, heat rained down like light from the metallic dome of the sky. From the garden end of the house, away from the street, the whole world appeared, not flat and dusty, but overripe and juicy and dripping with summer. As the sunshine poured down over the flower-beds, a sleepy fragrance floated up to the window. Now and then, after a long stillness, a faint breeze stirred the sensitive leaves of the mimosa; and then, for a minute only, an evil odour tainted the air and the sunlight.
CHAPTER 9
Downstairs on the back porch, sheltered from the sun by the grey-and-purple awning, General Archbald sat with a group of old men who had dropped in for a smoke. Though all were upwards of eighty, there was nothing impressive about their long lives except that they had been able to live them, that they had been young once and were now old. On the surface they were alike and yet not alike. Each face was engraved, as all old faces are, more by habit than by character or emotion. Only the expression of the eyes was indistinguishable—a look that was patient, uncertain, apologetic, and clinging. As they had accepted fate without thinking about it, so they clung now to the empty hours that were left over from life. If they stayed through the morning until one o'clock, Mrs. Archbald would send out mint juleps in silver goblets; and the old men would drink slowly, with a lingering delight in the quality of Bourbon or Bumgardner, and a moderation that would have amazed their grandchildren in the next decade.
Light footsteps sped through the hall, and Jenny Blair, still wearing her white straw hat with the pink lining, opened the screen door and glanced out. "Good-morning! I know you're having a lovely time!" she said, and darted away in time to escape being kissed.
Outside, in lower Washington Street, the sun blazed down on asphalt and dust and motor cars and a few hucksters' carts drawn by tormented horses. Several fine old elms were still left, preserved by the ceaseless vigilance of General Archbald and George Birdsong; but on the blocks beyond, where property was held in greater esteem, the trees had been cleared away before office buildings, shops, and garages. In front of the shops, people were passing in bands, colourless yet perspiring, slouching, giggling, untidy. The men slipped by rapidly, driven by the fetish of time; only the women, in bright stained dresses that clung to their ankles and flower-garlanded hats skewered to projecting masses of hair, dawdled to gaze in the windows with eyes that were absorbed, empty, pathetic. Many of them were old, and both old and young dragged whimpering, resisting children through the dust and the merciless sunshine. These were the unsheltered women, Jenny Blair knew, unsheltered everywhere, not only in places like Queenborough, but all over the world. They were the women, and the men too, of whom John Welch talked so long and so tediously.
Well, even if life were unfair to them (and Mamma insisted that they were all happier than Aunt Etta, who had been sheltered so tenderly), what could she or John or any one else do about it? "I suppose they are better off than they were in the Middle Ages," she thought cheerfully, "but I'm sure their faces could never have been more empty than they are now. Empty and sullen, John may say what he pleases. No matter," she thought, impatiently, turning back into the shade of the trees. "Life is like that, and you cannot change things by thinking." Why had she come out? It would have been better to stay in the house. Or, perhaps, she ought to have gone with Mamma to market. There wasn't anything to do out of doors on Saturday morning, and if she went to see Bena Peyton or Grace Bertram or Amy Jones, she would simply have to listen while they ran on about nothing. To be sure Bena always had caramels (it was the way she stuffed sweets that made her so fat); but it was silly to eat caramels when one might look ahead to Zoana's blackberry roll for lunch. No, she would not go anywhere until late afternoon. She would only stop at the Birdsongs' a minute to ask Maggie if she had remembered to give Ariel his bit of lettuce.
But the Birdsongs' house was so lonely she could scarcely bear to stay a moment inside. Life, air, colour, animation, all had melted away since yesterday morning. Was it being lived in that made houses alive? she asked herself, gazing at the silent canary. Or did Mrs. Birdsong possess some peculiar enchantment, some living magic of personality? Never, never had she felt such loneliness, such stillness, such vacancy. "When he comes back, and I know he is in town, everything will be different," she thought. "Then I shan't mind coming over here every morning. Even if we never meet, it will be something to feel that he will soon be in the house." The garden, too, was as flat and glittering as if it were seen under glass. Looking out, as she went through the library, she saw the overgrown flowerbeds, the web of blue morning glories, and a bent old coloured man cutting the tall grass with a sickle. Nothing looked natural. Every tree, every shrub, every flower, and even the monotonous rhythm of the sickle and the pale swaths of grass all seemed to be swimming in loneliness. "I've only three days to wait," she thought. "Not quite three days, because a part of one is already over." But, after three days, what did she expect? For what was she waiting? She could not answer. She did not know. Suddenly, she thought with a rush of emotion, a welling up of delight, "Just to see him again! After all this loneliness, just to see him again!"
As she turned back into the library, the door of the cupboard swung open, and she caught a glimpse of the brown woolen sweater he had worn for golf on cool days. Going inside, she buried her face in the knitted thickness and roughness and the intoxicating smell of sunshine on red clover. Little pointed flames flickered over her cheeks. Almost she could bring him back to her. Almost she could feel his arms about her and his eager kiss on her mouth. If only she had known sooner! Now, as long as he was away, she could steal over every morning, when nobody suspected, and bury her face in the brown wool while she pretended that she was clasped in his arms. Then, as she heard the sound of Maggie's step in the hall, she slipped out of the cupboard, shut the door carefully, and ran out of the house.