by Sloan Wilson
“Young man,” the druggist said quite loudly, “how old are you?”
John glanced around. There was no one else in the store. “Twenty-one,” he said in a low voice.
“Young man, I doubt it. I have four children of my own and eight grandchildren. I see no reason why the fact that I’m a pharmacist should place me under an obligation to contribute to the…”
John walked out. He was trembling. Looking at his watch, he saw it was almost eight, when he had said he would meet Molly.
The wizened colored maid let him in the front door. Ken was sitting in the living room reading a newspaper. “Hello,” he said, smiling and looking up. “I suppose you want Molly.”
“Yes,” John said. “We’re going to the movies. King Kong.”
“She’s upstairs,” Ken said. “She’ll be down in a minute.”
John got a copy of the Saturday Evening Post with a picture of a little girl with pigtails on the cover. He sank down in an easy chair and started to read a story about a cowboy and a pretty schoolteacher. Then there was a footstep. He looked up. Molly was standing before him in a dress that was yellow, almost the color of gold, quite formal. She had put a white magnolia blossom in her hair. “Come on, Johnny,” she said. “Let’s go.”
“Kind of dressed up for the movies, aren’t you?” Ken asked.
“We might stop in at the dance afterward,” Molly said.
They walked out the front door and down the driveway.
“We can’t go,” John said. “The druggist wouldn’t sell me one. Maybe I can get a taxi and try somewhere else.” His voice sounded tortured.
“Poor Johnny,” she said. “It must have been horrible.”
“It was.”
“We’ll just have to be careful,” she said.
“No. I’ll take you to the dance.”
“Do you want to?”
“No!”
“Is the motel all right?”
“Yes! Why does this have to be so terrible?”
“It doesn’t,” she said.
The side door opened at his touch, and they climbed the dusty stairs silently together, his hand glowing over the flashlight beam. When he opened the door to his room, he saw that moonlight was streaming through the window, and he put the flashlight out. The wind from the sea was fresh. She stood in the center of the room with the moonlight glinting on her golden dress. “Oh, Molly,” he said. “I’ll never forget…”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
ALL THAT EVENING Ken was restless. At eleven-thirty he gave up trying to read and went to his bedroom, where Sylvia had already retired. No light was on when he opened the door, but he knew she was awake and having an asthma attack. The rasping of her breath was torturous. “Is it giving you a hard time tonight, darling?” he asked. As his eyes got used to the darkness, he saw that she was sitting up in bed.
“I’m afraid so,” she replied wryly.
“Have you used the nebulizer?”
“Not yet. The darn stuff keeps me awake.”
He undressed, slipped on his pajamas and got into bed. Sleep did not come. It seemed like a long while before she said, “Ken, what time is it?”
Snapping on the light on the bedside table, he glanced at his wrist watch and said, “Quarter after twelve.”
“Shouldn’t the children be home from the movies by now?”
“They said they might go on to the dance at the hotel afterward.”
“Oh.” There was the sound of a match striking and a sudden glare as Sylvia lit a cigarette.
“I wish you wouldn’t smoke in bed,” he said. “I’ll be careful.”
“It’s dangerous,” he retorted, feeling ridiculously irritable. “You shouldn’t do it.”
“I said I’d be careful!” Her voice was sharp.
“I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on mathematical problems, a procedure which had always worked better for him than counting sheep. Through the open window came the distant music of a radio turned too loud, and the growl of a truck’s gears on the state highway. It seemed to Ken that hours passed. It was hot.
“Ken,” Sylvia whispered. “Are you still awake?”
“Yes.”
“What time is it?”
He put the light on again. “Almost one o’clock.”
“When is the dance over?”
“One, I think.”
“They ought to be home pretty soon.”
“Now don’t lie there worrying about them!” he said impatiently.
“I can’t help it.”
“There’s nothing to worry about!”
“I don’t know, Ken. They’re terribly in love. Surely you can’t miss seeing that.”
“Of course.”
“It isn’t easy at that age. They’re both so intense!”
“That’s natural, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but I’ve been lying here thinking that we should talk to them. Do you think we should?”
“What about?” He kept his voice deliberately noncommittal.
“I don’t know. It seems as though we ought to be able to help them. We went through so nearly the same thing ourselves.”
“Don’t make the mistake of ascribing our experiences to them. They’re different people.”
“I know, but…”
“What do you think we should say to them?”
“I don’t know. That they should take it a little easy, I guess.”
“Do you think that would help?”
“Poor Johnny’s been hurt so much! I don’t want anything else to happen.”
“Molly wouldn’t hurt anybody, for heaven’s sake!”
“Not on purpose. But sometimes I wonder if she knows what she’s doing. A girl that age… Beauty is such a terrible power.”
“Molly isn’t like that!”
“Oh, I know,” Sylvia said in confusion. “But they’re both so young!”
“They’re going to be all right,” Ken replied.
“What time is it?”
“Quarter after one.”
“They ought to be home pretty soon.”
But at two Molly and John were not home, and they were still out at three. “Darn it, I will have a talk with that boy,” Ken said angrily. “He’s got to learn to be more responsible!”
“Don’t put all the blame on him. I imagine Molly has something to do with it.”
“I’ll have a talk with her too,” Ken said grimly. Lying in the darkness with his ears straining for the sound of a door closing or of footsteps on the stairs, Ken was shocked at the series of thoughts to which his worried imagination was subjecting him. There was, grotesque in its ugliness, the image of John making love to Molly, of his hand on her breast, of… That is ridiculous, Ken told himself. The old are always attributing their own guilty memories to the young. They are innocent, both of them; they are little more than children; there is something especially hideous in the concept of the worried father conjuring up such fantasies about his daughter.
But damn it, he thought, there’s something that I don’t trust about that boy—that unnatural courtesy; he is a Hunter after all; he’s more Bart than Sylvia, he’s Bart all over again.
Ken remembered with strange acuteness then the sensation of seeing Bart kiss Sylvia in the old days, his own helpless longing, the mute jealousy…
Jealousy, he thought, turning over violently in his bed; that’s it, I’m jealous all over again, and that’s really ugly, the father jealous of his daughter’s suitor. Johnny’s not really like Bart; I suppose I wouldn’t like any boy with Molly. It’s not fair to damn Johnny because of his father.
Nevertheless, Ken found his fists doubling up at the very thought of the name “Hunter.” The way the boy looked at Molly, the quick response in her eyes, the manner in which she got up immediately and followed when John left the room, without any conversation being necessary, the hours during which the two of them dis
appeared together, walking down the beach—suddenly these fresh memories seemed sinister to Ken and infuriating.
I will not let him take advantage of her, he thought; I shall have a talk with her; I shall warn her. It is the duty of a father to teach his daughter the ways of the world.
At half past four in the morning, while these thoughts were still revolving in Ken’s mind, he heard the front door shut softly and footsteps on the stairs. He got out of bed.
“Ken!” Sylvia said. “Where are you going?”
“They’re here. I’m going to have a talk with them!”
“Wait! Do it in the morning when we’re all calmed down!”
“I’m going to do it now!”
“No! You’ll only say things you’ll regret. Wait till everybody’s rested.”
Disregarding her, Ken opened the bedroom door and walked into the hall. In the dim light he saw Molly and John standing halfway up the stairs, Molly a step above John, leaning over and embracing him, with John almost lifting her. “I love you” Ken heard her say before his heavy tread startled them and they broke apart, their faces white, staring up at him. Instinctively Ken retreated into his room and shut his door, and he had no way of knowing how distraught and how angry his face had looked to them, what a shock his sudden appearance at the head of the stairs had been. A moment later he heard the sound of hurrying footsteps as Molly ran through the hall to her room. Leaning against his closed bedroom door, Ken pressed his forehead against the cool wood. He felt dizzy.
“Ken, are you all right?” Sylvia asked.
“Yes.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I guess you’re right. I should wait till morning.”
“Of course. Come to bed now, darling. They’re home and there’s nothing to worry about any more.”
Back in bed, Ken lay trying to formulate the talk he was going to deliver to Molly in the morning. You must wait, the gist of it was; you must not give yourself too easily. You must be practical. You must realize that passions, once aroused, are not easily controlled. You must be sure that a boy like John is honest in his affections. It is hard for you to realize, I know, but I’ve heard too many young men standing in washrooms boasting of their conquests, describing each whisper of love as a personal victory. “Boy, what a night!” I’ve heard them boast, and I’ve seen the evil grins upon their faces. It sounds ridiculous to you I know, he thought of himself saying, but it would be more normal for John to be like that at his age than not.
You must learn to be master of your emotions, he thought he would say. Do not let a boy like John take advantage of you. It will be years before you can be married. Meanwhile, it is better for you to be careful, to permit a good-night kiss perhaps, but only a circumspect one.
Be chaste, he thought he would say. Oh, for your own sake, be chaste! Be conventional. It is not right for a girl your age to be out with a boy till dawn. Be home by midnight after this, and no more kisses on the stairs, no more kisses like that one…
All this developed in his mind into such a puritanical lecture that finally his sense of irony was aroused. What a great moralist I in my middle age have become, he thought; how stern I am about the morals of others!
Remembering his old longings for Sylvia when she had been Molly’s age, remembering his dreams of going to a far land where seventeen-year-old girls could be married in the fullness of their beauty instead of wasting their youth away, he smiled wryly at himself. I should not be surprised, he thought, to find that what I want for my daughter is exactly opposite to what I wanted for myself.
Outside his window the first light of dawn turned the bedroom gray. I must be realistic when I speak to Molly, he thought; God knows I’m old enough and I’ve been through enough to have something sensible to say.
I cannot tell my daughter to welcome passion, to be proud of her beauty, to take joy in the giving of it, he thought. That might be a nice idyl, but it is hardly the sort of advice which would be best for her now.
He had, he recalled, heard of “modern” parents who gave their children complete license and who even provided them with contraceptives, but that thought was so hideous that he could not stomach it. That could happen only in a debauched family, he thought; that would not be encouraging love at all, that would be destroying it. Such a thing could only be the final degradation for everyone concerned.
So, he asked himself, what is my advice to my daughter? Kiss a little, but not too much. Do not allow a boy to make love to you, but do not be too angry if he tries, do not freeze yourself. Do not be too chaste nor not chaste enough at seventeen. Be a half virgin, for that is the rule of your world, and such rules cannot be trespassed against. We do not live in Samoa, no; we have our own strange customs. Allow yourself to be fondled, to be half had in the back seats of cars if you must, but always draw back in time; restrain yourself; give no final fulfillment either to yourself or to the man you love. And if you cannot be half chaste, be the complete, eternal virgin like Helen and old Margaret; be shocked by sex; be sterile. Or accomplish if you can the ideal of your world: withhold yourself completely before marriage and give yourself completely afterward. Be a quick-change artist.
How ridiculous it all is, Ken thought: there simply is no honest advice on this subject which can be passed between the generations. Shall we all maintain a frightened silence?
Look, Molly, he thought of himself as saying a little desperately. People with healthy emotional lives can love without having to find physical expression right away. Your love will be greater if you can save it. The economic capacity for parenthood is a necessary preliminary to love in this country.
What solemn nonsense, he thought; how like a YMCA counselor I begin to sound; how big the words get when the truth is left behind! “The economic capacity for parenthood is a necessary preliminary to love” indeed!
Poor Molly, he thought; after all Helen and I have put her through, I expect her to be perfectly sensible. Do not be starved, I want to say to her; do not be hungry; wait patiently for love, wait until it is convenient.
My daughter, he thought; that is the trouble; she is my daughter and oh, she’s seen love run hot and cold, she has. A father has no right to be horrified at seeing his child turn out to be the image of himself. I, the great moralist, did not have such a patient youth; no, in the grove of pines with Sylvia that night, I read no moral lectures, no exhortations to virtue, and I have never really been sorry.
Do not be like me: that is really what I want to tell my daughter, he thought. And do not be like Helen, and do not be as Sylvia was at your age; do not withhold and do not give; just wait; youth should be a time of suspended animation, and I have almost forgotten the loneliness and the hunger, the impatience, and the waste, and that is good, for if I remembered these too clearly I could give no fatherly advice.
“Ken,” Sylvia said, “are you still awake?”
“Yes.”
“What are you thinking about?”
“I’m trying to figure out what we should say to the children.”
“I wish I could talk to John, but I can’t,” Sylvia said. “I’m afraid he would think me an utter hypocrite.”
“Molly will probably think that of me too. God knows what Helen has told her about us.”
Ken finally fell into a fitful sleep. Awaking at nine, he dressed quickly and went down to breakfast. Neither Molly nor John had got up yet. At eleven Ken went upstairs and with sudden timidity knocked on Molly’s door.
“Who is it?” she asked sharply.
“Me,” Ken said in his deep bass. “If you’re awake, I’d like to talk to you a minute.”
“Come in,” she said, her voice tight.
He opened the door. Molly was half sitting with the bedclothes pulled modestly up to her chin. It was immediately apparent to Ken that she knew what he had come to talk about and that she was both scared and defiant. He sat down on the foot of her bed.
“What do you wan
t?” she asked, and her stare was so direct that he found himself momentarily tongue-tied.
“I just wanted to caution you a little…” he began.
“About what?”
“You and Johnny…”
“I’m in love with him,” she said, barely above a whisper.
He answered before thinking; the words blurted themselves out automatically. “You’re too young!” he said. “You’ve got to be sensible!” He did not mean to make his voice sound angry. He saw her expression change; it was almost as though she had slipped a mask over her face, and he knew suddenly and with despair that there would be no more confidences between them.
“We will be sensible,” she said, her voice flat and ironic.
“I mean…” he began again, but he did not really know what he meant. For a moment they stared at each other wordlessly. “I just want to help,” he said finally. “I don’t want to see you get yourself into a mess.”
“I know,” Molly said, dropping her eyes. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get dressed now.”
“All right!” he said gruffly. He got up clumsily and kissed her on the forehead. Feeling completely helpless, he left the room. In the living room he met John. Not wanting to face him at that moment, Ken said “Good morning!” rather brusquely, and brushed by him to the front door. John saw him smash his fist into the palm of his hand with exasperation, and the noise seemed almost as loud as a clap of thunder.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“I’M GLAD TO SEE that you are entering into more of the school’s activities,” Mr. Caulfield said in May, six weeks after Easter vacation. “Yes, sir,” John replied.
“Of course, your record here has been an extraordinary one, but in my report to the admissions officer at Harvard I did feel obligated to say you were an oddly solitary boy. It was the only mark against you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Of course you got the scholarship anyway, but I think I will send in an addendum to my report, saying that we have helped you to become more gregarious.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your being chosen leader of the band—well, it will look very good on your record, as a counterbalance to your academic and athletic distinctions,” Mr. Caulfield continued. “The well-rounded boy—it’s what all the colleges want. I think perhaps you might apply for a bigger scholarship.”
