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

boot, I’m damned if I’ll have you running around with anybody else.”

There were red prints of his fingers on her cheek, and her eyes slowly filled. “You are hurting me,” she said, and feeling her soft, vague chin in his palm and her fragile body against his arm, he knew a sudden access of contrition. He picked her up bodily and sat again in a chair, holding her on his lap.

“Now, then,” he whispered, rocking, holding her face against his shoulder, “I didn’t mean to be so rough about it.”

She lay against him limply, weeping, and the rain filled the interval, whispering across the roof, among the leaves of trees. After a long space in which they could hear dripping eaves and the happy sound of gutters and a small ivory clock in the room, she moved and still holding her face against his coat, she clasped her father about the neck.

“We won’t think about it any more,” he told her, kissing her cheek. She clasped him again tightly, then slipping from his lap, she stood at the dressing-table, dabbing powder upon her face. He rose, and in the mirror across her shoulder he saw her blurred face and the deft nervousness of her hands. “We won’t think of it anymore,” he repeated, opening the door. The orange sweater was a hushed incandescence under the formal illusion of her robe, molding her narrow back, as he closed the door after him.

As he passed his wife’s room she called to him.

“What were you scolding Cecily for, Robert?” she asked.

But he stumped on down the stairs, ignoring her and soon she heard him cursing Tobe from the back porch.

Mrs. Saunders entered her daughter’s room and found her swiftly dressing. The sun broke suddenly through the rain and long lances of sunlight piercing the washed immaculate air struck sparks amid the dripping trees.

“Where are you going, Cecily?” she asked.

“To see Donald,” she replied, drawing on her stockings, twisting them skilfully and deftly at the knees.

X

Januarius Jones, lounging through the wet grass, circled the house and peering through the kitchen window saw Emmy’s back and one angled arm sawing across her body. He mounted the steps quietly and entered. Emmy’s stare above her poised iron was impersonally combative. Jones’ yellow eyes, unabashed, took her and the ironing board and the otherwise empty kitchen boldly. Jones said:

“Well, Cinderella.”

“My name is Emmy,” she told him icily.

“That’s right,” he agreed equably, “so it is. Emmy, Emmeline, Emmylune, Lune⁠—‘La lune en grade aucune rancune.’ But does it? Or perhaps you prefer ‘Noir sur la lune?’ Or do you make finer or less fine distinctions than this? It might be jazzed a bit, you know. Aelia thought so, quite successfully, but then she had a casement in which to lean at dusk and harp her sorrow on her golden hair. You don’t seem to have any golden hair, but, then, you might jazz your hair up a little, too. Ah, this restless young generation! Wanting to jazz up everything, not only their complexes, but the shapes of their behinds as well.”

She turned her back on him indifferently, and again her arm sawed the iron steadily along a stretched fabric. He became so still that after a while she turned to see what had become of him. He was so close behind her that her hair brushed his face. Clutching her iron, she shrieked.

“Hah, my proud beauty!” hissed Jones in accepted style, putting his arms around her.

“Let me go!” she said, glaring at him.

“Your speech is wrong,” Jones informed her helpfully. “ ‘Release me, villain, or it will be the worse for you,’ is what you should say.”

“Let me go,” she repeated.

“Not till you divulge them papers,” he answered, fat and solemn, his yellow eyes expressionless as a dead man’s.

“Lemme go, or I’ll burn you,” she cried hotly, brandishing the iron. They stared at one another. Emmy’s eyes were fiercely implacable and Jones said at last:

“Dam’f I don’t believe you would.”

“See if I don’t,” she said with anger. But releasing her, he sprang away in time. Her red hand brushed her hair from her hot face and her eyes blazed at him. “Get out, now,” she ordered, and Jones, sauntering easily toward the door, remarked plaintively:

“What’s the matter with you women here, anyway? Wildcats. Wildcats. By the way, how is the dying hero today?”

“Go on now,” she repeated, gesturing with the iron. He passed through the door and closed it behind him. Then he opened it again and making her a deep fattish bow from the threshold he withdrew.

In the dark hallway he halted, listening. Light from the front door fell directly in his face: he could see only the edged indication of sparse furniture. He paused, listening. No, she isn’t here, he decided. Not enough talk going on for her to be here. That femme hates silence like a cat does water. Cecily and silence: oil and water. And she’ll be on top of it, too. Little bitch, wonder what she meant by that yesterday. And Georgie, too. She’s such a fast worker I guess it takes a whole string to keep her busy. Oh, well, there’s always tomorrow. Especially when today ain’t over yet. Go in and pull the Great Dane’s leg a while.

At the study door he met Gilligan. He didn’t recognize him at first.

“Bless my soul,” he said at last. “Has the army disbanded already? What will Pershing do now, without any soldiers to salute him? We had scarcely enough men to fight a war with, but with a long peace ahead of us⁠—man, we are helpless.”

Gilligan said coldly: “Whatcher want?”

“Why, nothing, thank you. Thank you so much. I merely came to call upon our young friend in the kitchen and to incidentally inquire after Mercury’s brother.”

“Whose brother?”

“Young Mr. Mahon, in a manner of speaking, then.”

“Doctor’s with him,” Gilligan replied curtly. “You can’t go in now.” He turned on his heel.

“Not at all,” murmured Jones, after the other’s departing