On a wicker table beside Liza was the cage of Polly parrot. Tom had bought the parrot from a sailor. He was an old bird, reputed to be fifty years old, and he had lived a ribald life and acquired the vigorous speech of a ship's fo'c'sle. Try as she would, Liza could not make him substitute psalms for the picturesque vocabulary of his youth.
Polly cocked his head sideways, inspecting Adam, and scratched the feathers at the base of his beak with a careful foreclaw. "Come off it, you bastard," said Polly unemotionally.
Liza frowned at him. "Polly," she said sternly, "that's not polite."
"Bloody bastard!" Polly observed.
Liza ignored the vulgarity. She held out her tiny hand. "Mr. Trask," she said, "I'm glad to see you. Sit down, won't you?"
"I was passing by, and I wanted to offer my condolences."
"We got your flowers." And she remembered, too, every bouquet after all this time. Adam had sent a fine pillow of everlastings.
"It must be hard to rearrange your life."
Liza's eyes brimmed over and she snapped her little mouth shut on her weakness.
Adam said, "Maybe I shouldn't bring up your hurt, but I miss him."
Liza turned her head away. "How is everything down your way?" she asked.
"Good this year. Lots of rainfall. The feed's deep already."
"Tom wrote me," she said.
"Button up," said the parrot, and Liza scowled at him as she had at her growing children when they were mutinous.
"What brings you up to Salinas, Mr. Trask?" she asked.
"Why, some business." He sat down in a wicker chair and it cricked under his weight. "I'm thinking of moving up here. Thought it might be better for my boys. They get lonely on the ranch."
"We never got lonely on the ranch," she said harshly.
"I thought maybe the schools would be better here. My twins could have the advantages."
"My daughter Olive taught at Peachtree and Pleyto and the Big Sur." Her tone made it clear that there were no better schools than those. Adam began to feel a warm admiration for her iron gallantry.
"Well, I was just thinking about it," he said.
"Children raised in the country do better." It was the law, and she could prove it by her own boys. Then she centered closely on him. "Are you looking for a house in Salinas?"
"Well, yes, I guess I am."
"Go see my daughter Dessie," she said. "Dessie wants to move back to the ranch with Tom. She's got a nice little house up the street next to Reynaud's Bakery."
"I'll certainly do that," said Adam. "I'll go now. I'm glad to see you doing so well."
"Thank you," she said. "I'm comfortable." Adam was moving toward the door when she said, "Mr. Trask, do you ever see my son Tom?"
"Well, no, I don't. You see, I haven't been off the ranch."
"I wish you would go and see him," she said quickly. "I think he's lonely." She stopped as though horrified at this breaking over.
"I will. I surely will. Good-by, ma'am."
As he closed the door he heard the parrot say, "Button up, you bloody bastard!" And Liza, "Polly, if you don't watch your language, I'll thrash you."
Adam let himself out of the house and walked up the evening street toward Main. Next to Reynaud's French Bakery he saw Dessie's house set back in its little garden. The yard was so massed with tall privets that he couldn't see much of the house. A neatly painted sign was screwed to the front gate. It read: Dessie Hamilton, Dressmaker.
The San Francisco Chop House was on the corner of Main and Central and its windows were on both streets. Adam went in to get some dinner. Will Hamilton sat at the corner table, devouring a rib steak. "Come and sit with me," he called to Adam. "Up on business?"
"Yes," said Adam. "I went to pay a call on your mother."
Will laid down his fork. "I'm just up here for an hour. I didn't go to see her because it gets her excited. And my sister Olive would tear the house down getting a special dinner for me. I just didn't want to disturb them. Besides, I have to go right back. Order a rib steak. They've got good ones. How is Mother?"
"She's got great courage," said Adam. "I find I admire her more all the time."
"That she has. How she kept her good sense with all of us and with my father, I don't know."
"Rib steak, medium," said Adam to the waiter.
"Potatoes?"
"No--yes, french fried. Your mother is worried about Tom. Is he all right?"
Will cut off the edging of fat from his steak and pushed it to the side of his plate. "She's got reason to worry," he said. "Something's the matter with Tom. He's moping around like a monument."
"I guess he depended on Samuel."
"Too much," said Will. "Far too much. He can't seem to come out of it. In some ways Tom is a great big baby."
"I'll go and see him. Your mother says Dessie is going to move back to the ranch."
Will laid his knife and fork down on the tablecloth and stared at Adam. "She can't do it," he said. "I won't let her do it."
"Why not?"
Will covered up. "Well," he said, "she's got a nice business here. Makes a good living. It would be a shame to throw it away." He picked up his knife and fork, cut off a piece of the fat, and put it in his mouth.
"I'm catching the eight o'clock home," Adam said.
"So am I," said Will. He didn't want to talk any more.
Chapter 32
1
Dessie was the beloved of the family. Mollie the pretty kitten, Olive the strong-headed, Una with clouds on her head, all were loved, but Dessie was the warm-beloved. Hers was the twinkle and the laughter infectious as chickenpox, and hers the gaiety that colored a day and spread to people so that they carried it away with them.
I can put it this way. Mrs. Clarence Morrison of 122 Church Street, Salinas, had three children and a husband who ran a dry goods store. On certain mornings, at breakfast, Agnes Morrison would say, "I'm going to Dessie Hamilton's for a fitting after dinner."
The children would be glad and would kick their copper toes against the table legs until cautioned. And Mr. Morrison would rub his palms together and go to his store, hoping some drummer would come by that day. And any drummer who did come by was likely to get a good order. Maybe the children and Mr. Morrison would forget why it was a good day with a promise on its tail.
Mrs. Morrison would go to the house next to Reynaud's Bakery at two o'clock and she would stay until four. When she came out her eyes would be wet with tears and her nose red and streaming. Walking home, she would dab her nose and wipe her eyes and laugh all over again. Maybe all Dessie had done was to put several black pins in a cushion to make it look like the Baptist minister, and then had the pincushion deliver a short dry sermon. Maybe she had recounted a meeting with Old Man Taylor, who bought old houses and moved them to a big vacant lot he owned until he had so many it looked like a dry-land Sargasso Sea. Maybe she had read a poem from Chatterbox with gestures. It didn't matter. It was warm-funny, it was catching funny.
The Morrison children, coming home from school, would find no aches, no carping, no headache. Their noise was not a scandal nor their dirty faces a care. And when the giggles overcame them, why, their mother was giggling too.
Mr. Morrison, coming home, would tell of the day and get listened to, and he would try to retell the drummer's stories--some of them at least. The supper would be delicious--omelets never fell and cakes rose to balloons of lightness, biscuits fluffed up, and no one could season a stew like Agnes Morrison. After supper, when the children had laughed themselves to sleep, like as not Mr. Morrison would touch Agnes on the shoulder in their old, old signal and they would go to bed and make love and be very happy.
The visit to Dessie might carry its charge into two days more before it petered out and the little headaches came back and business was not so good as last year. That's how Dessie was and that's what she could do. She carried excitement in her arms just as Samuel had. She was the darling, she was the beloved of the family.
&n
bsp; Dessie was not beautiful. Perhaps she wasn't even pretty, but she had the glow that makes men follow a woman in the hope of reflecting a little of it. You would have thought that in time she would have got over her first love affair and found another love, but she did not. Come to think of it, none of the Hamiltons, with all their versatility, had any versatility in love. None of them seemed capable of light or changeable love.
Dessie did not simply throw up her hands and give up. It was much worse than that. She went right on doing and being what she was--without the glow. The people who loved her ached for her, seeing her try, and they got to trying for her.
Dessie's friends were good and loyal but they were human, and humans love to feel good and they hate to feel bad. In time the Mrs. Morrisons found unassailable reasons for not going to the little house by the bakery. They weren't disloyal. They didn't want to be sad as much as they wanted to be happy. It is easy to find a logical and virtuous reason for not doing what you don't want to do.
Dessie's business began to fall off. And the women who had thought they wanted dresses never realized that what they had wanted was happiness. Times were changing and the ready-made dress was becoming popular. It was no longer a disgrace to wear one. If Mr. Morrison was stocking ready-mades, it was only reasonable that Agnes Morrison should be seen in them.
The family was worried about Dessie, but what could you do when she would not admit there was anything wrong with her? She did admit to pains in her side, quite fierce, but they lasted only a little while and came only at intervals.
Then Samuel died and the world shattered like a dish. His sons and daughters and friends groped about among the pieces, trying to put some kind of world together again.
Dessie decided to sell her business and go back to the ranch to live with Tom. She hadn't much of any business to sell out. Liza knew about it, and Olive, and Dessie had written to Tom. But Will, sitting scowling at the table in the San Francisco Chop House, had not been told. Will frothed inwardly and finally he balled up his napkin and got up. "I forgot something," he said to Adam. "I'll see you on the train."
He walked the half-block to Dessie's house and went through the high grown garden and rang Dessie's bell.
She was having her dinner alone, and she came to the door with her napkin in her hand. "Why, hello, Will," she said and put up her pink cheek for him to kiss. "When did you get in town?"
"Business," he said. "Just here between trains. I want to talk to you."
She led him back to her kitchen and dining-room combined, a warm little room papered with flowers. Automatically she poured a cup of coffee and placed it for him and put the sugar bowl and the cream pitcher in front of it.
"Have you seen Mother?" she asked.
"I'm just here over trains," he said gruffly. "Dessie, is it true you want to go back to the ranch?"
"I was thinking of it."
"I don't want you to go."
She smiled uncertainly. "Why not? What's wrong with that? Tom's lonely down there."
"You've got a nice business here," he said.
"I haven't any business here," she replied. "I thought you knew that."
"I don't want you to go," he repeated sullenly.
Her smile was wistful and she tried her best to put a little mockery in her manner. "My big brother is masterful. Tell Dessie why not."
"It's too lonely down there."
"It won't be as lonely with the two of us."
Will pulled at his lips angrily. He blurted, "Tom's not himself. You shouldn't be alone with him."
"Isn't he well? Does he need help?"
Will said, "I didn't want to tell you--I don't think Tom's ever got over--the death. He's strange."
She smiled affectionately. "Will, you've always thought he was strange. You thought he was strange when he didn't like business."
"That was different. But now he's broody. He doesn't talk. He goes walking alone in the hills at night. I went out to see him and--he's been writing poetry--pages of it all over the table."
"Didn't you ever write poetry, Will?"
"I did not."
"I have," said Dessie. "Pages and pages of it all over the table."
"I don't want you to go."
"Let me decide," she said softly. "I've lost something. I want to try to find it again."
"You're talking foolish."
She came around the table and put her arms around his neck. "Dear brother," she said, "please let me decide."
He went angrily out of the house and barely caught his train.
2
Tom met Dessie at the King City station. She saw him out of the train window, scanning every coach for her. He was burnished, his face shaved so close that its darkness had a shine like polished wood. His red mustache was clipped. He wore a new Stetson hat with a flat crown, a tan Norfolk jacket with a belt buckle of mother-of-pearl. His shoes glinted in the noonday light so that it was sure he had gone over them with his handkerchief just before the train arrived. His hard collar stood up against his strong red neck, and he wore a pale blue knitted tie with a horseshoe tie pin. He tried to conceal his excitement by clasping his rough brown hands in front of him.
Dessie waved wildly out the window, crying, "Here I am, Tom, here I am!" though she knew he couldn't hear her over the grinding wheels of the train as the coach slid past him. She climbed down the steps and saw him looking frantically about in the wrong direction. She smiled and walked up behind him.
"I beg your pardon, stranger," she said quietly. "Is there a Mister Tom Hamilton here?"
He spun around and he squealed with pleasure and picked her up in a bear hug and danced around her. He held her off the ground with one arm and spanked her bottom with his free hand. He nuzzled her cheek with his harsh mustache. Then he held her back by the shoulders and looked at her. Both of them threw back their heads and howled with laughter.
The station agent leaned out his window and rested his elbows, protected with black false sleeves, on the sill. He said over his shoulder to the telegrapher, "Those Hamiltons! Just look at them!"
Tom and Dessie, fingertips touching, were doing a courtly heel-and-toe while he sang Doodle-doodle-doo and Dessie sang Deedle-deedle-dee, and then they embraced again.
Tom looked down at her. "Aren't you Dessie Hamilton? I seem to remember you. But you've changed. Where are your pigtails?"
It took him quite a fumbling time to get her luggage checks, to lose them in his pockets, to find them and pick up the wrong pieces. At last he had her baskets piled in the back of the buckboard. The two bay horses pawed the hard ground and threw up their heads so that the shined pole jumped and the doubletrees squeaked. The harness was polished and the horse brasses glittered like gold. There was a red bow tied halfway up the buggy whip and red ribbons were braided into the horses' manes and tails.
Tom helped Dessie into the seat and pretended to peek coyly at her ankle. Then he snapped up the check reins and unfastened the leather tie reins from the bits. He unwrapped the lines from the whip stock, and the horses turned so sharply that the wheel screamed against the guard.
Tom said, "Would you care to make a tour of King City? It's a lovely town."
"No," she said. "I think I remember it." He turned left and headed south and lifted the horses to a fine swinging trot.
Dessie said, "Where's Will?"
"I don't know," he answered gruffly. "Did he talk to you?"
"Yes. He said you shouldn't come."
"He told me the same thing," said Dessie. "He got George to write to me too."
"Why shouldn't you come if you want to?" Tom raged. "What's Will got to do with it?"
She touched his arm. "He thinks you're crazy. Says you're writing poetry."
Tom's face darkened. "He must have gone in the house when I wasn't there. What's he want anyway? He had no right to look at my papers."
"Gently, gently," said Dessie. "Will's your brother. Don't forget that."
"How would he like me to go through his p
apers?" Tom demanded.
"He wouldn't let you," Dessie said dryly. "They'd be locked in the safe. Now let's not spoil the day with anger."
"All right," he said. "God knows all right! But he makes me mad. If I don't want to live his kind of life I'm crazy--just crazy."
Dessie changed the subject, forced the change. "You know, I had quite a time at the last," she said. "Mother wanted to come. Have you ever seen Mother cry, Tom?"
"No, not that I can remember. No, she's not a crier."
"Well, she cried. Not much, but a lot for her--a choke and two sniffles and a wiped nose and polished her glasses and snapped shut like a watch."
Tom said, "Oh, Lord, Dessie, it's good to have you back! It's good. Makes me feel I'm well from a sickness."
The horses spanked along the county road. Tom said, "Adam Trask has bought a Ford. Or maybe I should say Will sold him a Ford."
"I didn't know about the Ford," said Dessie. "He's buying my house. Giving me a very good price for it." She laughed. "I put a very high price on the house. I was going to come down during negotiations. Mr. Trask accepted the first price. It put me in a fix."
"What did you do, Dessie?"
"Well, I had to tell him about the high price and that I had planned to be argued down. He didn't seem to care either way."
Tom said, "Let me beg you never to tell that story to Will. He'd have you locked up."
"But the house wasn't worth what I asked!"
"I repeat what I said about Will. What's Adam want with your house?"
"He's going to move there. Wants the twins to go to school in Salinas."
"What'll he do with his ranch?"
"I don't know. He didn't say."
Tom said, "I wonder what would have happened if Father'd got hold of a ranch like that instead of Old Dry and Dusty."
"It isn't such a bad place."
"Fine for everything except making a living."
Dessie said earnestly, "Have you ever known any family that had more fun?"
"No, I don't. But that was the family, not the land."
"Tom, remember when you took Jenny and Belle Williams to the Peachtree dance on the sofa?"
East of Eden Page 44
