Soldiers’ Pay - William Faulkner (people reading books TXT) 📗

came back himself. He got off the train this afternoon.”

“Eh? Why, he’s dead.”

“But he isn’t dead. Cecily was there and saw him. A strange fat young man brought her home in a cab⁠—completely collapsed. She said something about a scar on him. She fainted, poor child. I made her go to bed at once. I never did find who that strange young man was,” she ended fretfully.

Tobe in a white jacket appeared with a bowl of ice, sugar, water and a decanter. Mr. Saunders sat staring at his wife. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said at last. And again, “I’ll be damned.”

His wife rocked complacent over her news. After a while Mr. Saunders breaking his trance, stirred. He crushed his mint sprig between his fingers and taking a cube of ice he rubbed the mint over it, then dropped both into a tall glass. Then he spooned sugar into the glass and dribbled whisky from the decanter slowly, and slowly stirring it he stared at his wife. “I’ll be damned,” he said for the third time.

Tobe filled the glass from a water-bottle and withdrew.

“So he come home. Well, well. I’m glad on the parson’s account. Pretty decent feller.”

“You must have forgotten what it means.”

“Eh?”

“To us.”

“To us?”

“Cecily was engaged to him, you know.”

Mr. Saunders sipped and setting his glass on the floor beside him he lit a cigar. “Well, we’ve given our consent, haven’t we? I ain’t going to back out now.” A thought occurred to him. “Does Sis still want to?”

“I don’t know. It was such a shock to her, poor child, his coming home and the scar and all. But do you think it is a good thing?”

“I never did think it was a good thing. I never wanted it.”

“Are you putting it off on me? Do you think I insisted on it?”

Mr. Saunders from long experience said mildly: “She ain’t old enough to marry yet.”

“Nonsense. How old was I when we married?”

He raised his glass again. “Seems to me you are the one insisting on it.” Mrs. Saunders rocking, stared at him: he was made aware of his stupidity. “Why do you think it ain’t a good thing, then?”

“I declare, Robert. Sometimes⁠ ⁠…” she sighed and then as one explains to a child in fond exasperation at its stupidity: “Well, an engagement in war time and an engagement in peace time are two different things. Really, I don’t see how he can expect to hold her to it.”

“Now look here, Minnie. If he went to war expecting her to wait for him and come back expecting her to take him, there’s nothing else for them to do. And if she still wants to don’t you go persuading her out of it, you hear?”

“Are you going to force your daughter into marriage? You just said yourself she is too young.”

“Remember, I said if she still wants to. By the way, he ain’t lame or badly hurt, is he?” he asked quickly.

“I don’t know. Cecily cried when I tried to find out.”

“Sis is a fool, sometimes. But don’t you go monkeying with them, now.” He raised his glass and took a long draught, then he puffed his cigar furiously, righteously.

“I declare, Robert, I don’t understand you sometimes. The idea of driving your own daughter into marriage with a man who has nothing and who may be half dead, and who probably won’t work anyway. You know yourself how these ex-soldiers are.”

“You are the one wants her to get married. I ain’t. Who do you want her to take, then?”

“Well, there’s Dr. Gary. He likes her, and Harrison Maurier from Atlanta. Cecily likes him, I think.”

Mr. Saunders inelegantly snorted. “Who? That Maurier feller? I wouldn’t have that damn feller around here at all. Slick hair and cigarettes all over the place. You better pick out another one.”

“I’m not picking out anybody. I just don’t want you to drive her into marrying that Mahon boy.”

“I ain’t driving her, I tell you. You have already taught me better than to try to drive a woman to do anything. But I don’t intend to interfere if she does want to marry Mahon.”

She sat rocking and he finished his julep. The oaks on the lawn became still with dusk, and the branches of trees were as motionless as coral fathoms deep under seas. A tree frog took up his monotonous trilling and the west was a vast green lake, still as eternity. Tobe appeared silently.

“Supper served, Miss Minnie.”

The cigar arced redly into a canna bed and they rose.

“Where is Bob, Tobe?”

“I don’t know’m. I seed him gwine to’ds de garden a while back, but I ain’t seed him since.”

“See if you can find him. And tell him to wash his face and hands.”

“Yessum.” He held the door for them and they passed into the house, leaving the twilight behind them filled with Tobe’s mellow voice calling across the dusk.

II

But young Robert Saunders could not hear him. He was at that moment climbing a high board fence which severed the dusk above his head. He conquered it at last and sliding downward his trousers evinced reluctance, then accepting the gambit accompanied him with a ripping sound. He sprawled in damp grass feeling a thin shallow fire across his young behind, and said Damn, regaining his feet and disjointing his hip trying to see down his back.

Ain’t that hell, he remarked to the twilight. I have rotten luck. It’s all your fault, too, for not telling me, he thought, gaining a vicarious revenge on all sisters. He picked up the object he had dropped in falling and crossed the rectory lawn through dew, toward the house. There was a light in a heretofore unused upper room and his heart sank. Had he gone to bed this early? Then he saw silhouetted feet on the balustrade of the porch and the red eye of a cigarette. He sighed with relief. That must be him.

He mounted the steps, saying: “Hi, Donald.”

“Hi, Colonel,” answered the one sitting there. Approaching, he discerned soldier clothes. That’s