There Was a Time

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  He thought of his money which the Cunninghams had taken, and which he had never been able to retrieve. He had returned to Bison, leaving Kentucky in a frenzy of flight. He had engaged the services of a cheap and scummy little lawyer, who had written endless letters to the Bowling Green police. But the Cunninghams, as Frank had suspected, had remained in Bowling Green only a week, and then had fled, God only knew where.

  The Kentucky interlude, in retrospect, never failed to depress and horrify him. A grotesque light lay over it. What had become of the Sherry Hempsteads, of Isaac Saunders, of Peter O’Leary? Had the mountaineer he had shot, died? What had been his name? Frank could not remember. He could only remember Wade O’Leary with any clarity.

  Wade, he thought. Wade, do you hear me? Are you aware of anything, Wade? He saw Wade’s lean dark face, but it was stern now, and closed, and unseeing, as if, resolutely, it would not see.

  CHAPTER 61

  It was April now, a wet, chill April, with an opaline sky at sunset, and foghorns bellowing on the lake front in the foggy mornings. Frank could hear them, great bullfrogs monotonously booming their warnings to the newly arriving boats from other lake cities. He could smell the stale and fetid smell of the dirty quilts which covered him, the dank effluvium of his lumpy mattress and pillow. Then it was, in these mornings, before getting up to go on his rounds through the pouring streets, that he lay bound and rigid in a kind of mental hiatus.

  But a day arrived at the end of April, so sweet-smelling, so softly radiant, so mellow and fair, that it touched even Frank’s atrophied heart. This was a gilded day, and Bison, shaking off the rain as a dog shakes off water, looked up to greet the morning. Frank got up. Something fragile and quivering, like hope, passed over him. He had the strangest feeling that the hiatus had passed, that events had begun to stir for him. He even hummed a little as he dressed, and was surprised at the alien sound. He treated himself to a good breakfast at the corner “box-car,” and with more spirit and verve than in years he began his house-to-house canvass.

  The golden promise of the day continued. By noon, Frank had earned, in commissions, over five dollars. A fortune! The day had affected the people of the city, as it had affected him. The depression seemed less ominous today, less terrible and overwhelming. With the dollars in “deposits” jingling in his pockets, he almost forgot the hatefulness of the door-to-door canvasser’s lot, the debased humiliation, the inevitable loss of self-esteem, the instant before the opening of an unfriendly door, the first moment of his sales talk, the walking away from the slammed door with that hideous sensation of shame between the shoulder blades, the hot, sick hatred in the pit of his stomach. (How frightful it had been for him to wear that brittle, rehearsed smile, to learn to remove his hat and bow courteously and to speak in a “clear, well-modulated voice” as demonstrated by the sales manager, to smile, smile, smile, at the stupid, the tawdry, the vulgar, the bellicose, the impatient and the superior faces of the housewives, and to smile again at the loud or whining or rough refusal of his stockings, and to smile, endlessly smile, while walking away!) But now he almost forgot. Perhaps it was the new-minted day which had persuaded the housewives to forego their suspicion, and to like, instead of dislike, his sharp pale face and his harsh blue eyes which repudiated the wide tight smile. They had not treated him like a beggar, as usual; some of them had even welcomed him. They had ordered, most of them, not two pair of “Pure Silk Stockings” but three or four, or even half a dozen. He had also sold some rayon “negligées” at six dollars apiece, two dozen rayon “slips” and four dozen pair of men’s hose.

  This was a better neighborhood than usual, and he met few of his fellow canvassers on the streets this morning. At noon, he found a small clean drugstore on Elmwood Avenue, and ate lunch. Sunlight poured through the street outside; the children were returning to school, and he could hear their happy, released laughter. Sunlight glinted on the bodies and the tops of parked automobiles. Even the streetcars clanged merrily.

  He was not far from Delaware Park, and after leaving the drugstore he walked the short distance to it, to look with passionate admiration and pride on the exquisitely beautiful Albright Art Gallery, that almost perfect reproduction of a Grecian temple. The trees of the park were filled with green and golden haze; grass was brightening under the sun; birds cried happily on brown branches; the drives gleamed and rippled with trickling water. Frank stood and looked at the art gallery, standing in the sunlight in all its white and lovely dignity, looming in delicate strength against a fresh blue sky. All about him rose the chill sweet breath of the awakening earth, the whisper of promise and hope. He felt a sudden exultation, an anticipatory thrill, a strongness of heart. Anything might happen on such a day!

  How wonderful it was to feel young again, as he had not felt young for so many years! He forgot that he was nearly thirty-four, that he was a homeless canvasser, that he had almost no money, that he was shabby, emaciated, weary and embittered. He was a boy again, with Paul Hodge standing beside him, sharing his wondering joy in the art gallery. Almost, he could feel Paul’s arm pressed against his; he could feel the sweet and innocent emotion at the nearness of his friend. Now he knew sadness, but it was a sweet sadness, a living ache and not a void. He thought of Paul as one thinks of someone who is dead.

  After a long time, he turned away with reluctance. But the strength and the hope walked with him, invisible companions of his youth. He returned to the streets. Now he saw other canvassers, furtively and quickly, or slowly, trudging along with their cases, men and women, young and old, shabby and tired and dragging of step. He looked at them and thought: They are afraid. Why, the whole country is afraid, this rich, potent, measureless country! This pride of the world, this hope of the world, this inexhaustible richness and fatness and power, is shocked into impotence by fear! Why? The land is the same, its bowels still swell with vast resources, its wealth is not really diminished, its potentialities lie like thick golden veins in its body, its vigor thunders like a dynamo in its heart, its cogency waits, like a puissant machine, for a hand on the switch. Nothing has really changed, after all. Nothing, except the belief of the people, the faith of the people. What is left, when a people no longer believes in its efficacy and might?

  The people of America, the people of all the world, were helplessly and fatalistically projecting another reality now, the reality of darkness and hate and fear. It was as real as the one they had projected before. What they did not know was that they had the power to replace it with another reality, if they so willed. The world was not an inexorable objectivity; it was malleable, capable of infinite mutation, in the hand and the will and the soul of man.

  Fear had gone from Frank, though he had never admitted it as fear. He walked quickly through the streets, looking away from his fellow canvassers. He had decided, earlier, not to try to sell more today. But a kind of invincibility was upon him. He knew he could sell now.

  He was walking along a low, gray-stone wall, about four feet high, above which immense lawns were banked, like a terrace. Beyond the wall, a hedge of evergreen trees still hid the house. There was an iron gate in the wall, and Frank opened it. He found himself on a long curving drive, and now he saw the house, extremely large and dignified, built of rough gray stone with a small turret on each end of its austere facade. The spring sunlight glimmered upon the small-paned and majestic windows, which gave the house a baronial look, in the English tradition. Frank could see the distant white steps and the grilled door, the red roof and the great stone chimneys which fumed blue smoke against the bright sky.

  Then he stopped abruptly. Slowly he put his suitcase down on the drive. It wasn’t possible! He had dreamt of this house a long time ago and now here it was, from its gray walls to the glittering conservatory in the rear, from its gardens with long flagged paths to its massive trees and shrubbery. It was all here, its large and quiet aura of wealth lying all about it. But something was wrong; it had been summer in his dream, and there had been a little gir
l with dark curls and great dark eyes. He had dreamt it when he had been a child, and he had tried to find the house, and it had vanished as all dreams vanish. Yet here it was, just as he remembered it.

  He remembered the little girl’s name. Jessica. Yes, it had been Jessica! She had run towards him along this very driveway, her hair tied back with a large pink ribbon. He waited. But no one stirred. The windows were blank; the driveway ran with the spring rains.

  He felt oddly numb, shakingly expectant. He hadn’t dreamt it, after all. He had been here a long time ago. The little girl had told him she was going away to New York with her father. He “played the piano,” her father, and her uncle had given her the pink dress she wore. They had sat in a summerhouse in the rear. Frank stepped to one side. Yes, there was the summerhouse, as he remembered it, the rose vines still empty of flowers. They had sat on white furniture, and there had been a white kitten, and the little girl had looked at him gravely, and he had told her that some day he would come back to her. Jessica!

  Frank picked up his suitcase. It slipped from his fingers and fell. He picked it up again. It was foolish, but he was trembling. He walked on towards the house. She had been going to New York. There was no possibility that she was here now. The house might no longer be owned by her uncle. After all, it was a long time ago. But his feet hurried him along to the high white door, and he lifted the brass knocker and let it fall loudly so that the sound echoed back from every wall.

  He heard the slipping of bolts, and he saw the face of a capped and uniformed maid. She looked at his suitcase and said brutally: “You oughta come to the side door. Besides, we don’t want nothin’. We don’t buy from people like you.”

  He looked at her coarse and pimply face, at her piglike eyes, at her slit of a malevolent mouth. He detested her immediately, made his eyes stare at her quellingly.

  “Who lives here?” he asked. “I have a message for your mistress.”

  She had been about to slam the door in his face. Then she paused and eyed him with a cunning grin. “No, you don’t! How kin you have a message when you don’t know who lives here?”

  “Call your mistress,” he said, and he put his foot in the doorway. She saw that and was frightened.

  “Git outta here, or I’ll call the police!” she cried breathlessly. “You goddam thief, you!”

  She flung the words at him like stones; livid hatred quivered on her features, slackened and shook her mouth, so that she was no longer afraid of him, but felt for him the instinctive hostility of an inferior.

  “I’m not a thief,” he said quietly, “and you know it. I have to talk to your mistress.” What was the name? Jessica—what? He could not remember.

  Neither of them heard the soft gliding of a black limousine up the driveway, nor the quick light step, and both started at the sound of a girl’s clear voice: “What is it, Marie?”

  Frank turned and saw the young woman, almost at his elbow. Slowly he removed his hat. The maid burst out wrathfully: “It’s this beggar, Miss Bailey! I was just gonna call the police. He tried to get in the house!”

  The girl looked at Frank with deep, searching quiet, grave and reserved. She was a tall girl, and very slender, with long and pretty legs and delicate feet. She wore a dress of pearl-gray wool, and a rich mink coat was slung carelessly over her shoulders. She had shining hair, coal-black and polished, and startling against the pure whiteness of her temples and forehead and throat. There was no color in her pale face, except for the coral mouth which was at once firm and soft, thoughtful and gentle. There were pearls in her ears and a string of pearls about her neck.

  Her eyes fixed themselves upon Frank questioningly; they were exceedingly vivid yet quiet, very dark and radiant, and now, as they looked at the young man, they lit up a little, though they did not lose anything of their steadfastness, their serious intelligence and still humor.

  It is Jessica, he thought. It wasn’t a dream, after all. It is Jesscia. The suitcase was heavy iron in his hand; he felt all his shameful shabbiness, his awkwardness, just as he felt her assured composure and vitality.

  Of course, she did not know him. She had been so young, all those years ago. She need never know that he was that enchanted little boy who had sat with her in the summerhouse. He could not tell her, for, if he did, she would look at him more closely and would despise him for what he had become. He had only to back away and leave, and there need not be anything else, nothing at all.

  And then he wanted to hear her voice again, her sweet deep voice. He said: “If—if I could have just a few moments of your time—” And then he stopped, hating himself.

  The girl’s eyes did not move over him, but she saw him clearly and completely, his neat shabbiness, his thin face, his too-long hair ruffling in the chill breeze. And she felt something like embarrassed compassion and surprise. She moved past him towards the door and said courteously: “Please come in. I have a few minutes to spare.” She went into the house without glancing back, leaving the maid to stare in furious stupefaction at Frank.

  He walked past the maid as if she did not exist, as if she were a dog whose yappings he had ignored. Miss Bailey stood in the great panelled hall and removed her gloves. The maid had slammed the door, and Frank could hear her loud, outraged breath. But Miss Bailey tranquilly removed her coat and hat, handed them to the woman, and led the way into a room to the right. Frank followed her, but not without a glance around the hall, where a fire burned in a black marble fireplace. He saw the great oaken stairway winding upwards to the second floor; on the landing was a large window, opening out upon the sky. He heard the warm crackling of the fire, felt the rich thickness of the rug under his feet, saw above the fireplace the dim portrait of a man in a gold frame.

  He went into the vast living room where Miss Bailey waited for him, and he saw the exquisite simplicity of the room that denied, rather than affirmed, the existence of unlimited means. Another log fire glowed here, lighting up the pale green walls, whose French windows looked out upon the lawns and the soaring trees. The furniture of the room was pale, and it was skillfully grouped, here and there, on the faded Persian rug with its dim and entrancing colors. Everything was old and exquisitely fashioned, and Frank caught an impression of soft rose, faded blue, fragile ivory, from the French chairs and settees to the faint subdued tints of the draperies that outlined the windows. Every small table bore on it a crystal or silver or bronze lamp, an exotic little box or figurine, or a silver bowl of flowers. On the dimly gleaming grand piano in a distant corner stood a large crystal vase of yellow roses, and on the walls hung excellent portraits and landscapes in narrow golden frames, old and faded. It was an aristocratic room, ordered and furnished by an aristocrat. But, even to Frank’s inexperienced eyes, there was something decadent about it, something too tenuous and too refined.

  Miss Bailey stood near the fireplace, graceful and composed. She lit a cigarette and nodded toward a crystal box on the low table beside her. Frank put down his hat and case, took a cigarette. His fingers shook a little. For the first time in his life he was really conscious of a woman, conscious of her in his fingertips, his face, his whole body, conscious of her as something sweetly familiar. He could feel the heat in his face, the beat of his heart. Though he did not look directly at the girl, he could sense the shimmer of her silken knees under the pearl-gray woolen dress, the pressure of the wide silver belt about her slender waist, the warmth of her thighs and the movement of her breast. She stirred a little, waiting for him to remove his coat, and he could smell her faint sweet perfume.

  It was no use. He ought not to be in this house. He had had his chance to leave, and now it was gone. So that she need suspect nothing, he must go on with this ridiculous farce. He must not show, by the slightest gesture or intonation, that they had ever met before. There was no recognition in her eyes, no perplexity, no wonder. Of course not. How could she remember, anyway? He had only to be calm, give his sales talk, and leave, in ignominy, unremembered, forever anonymous. He had
had a dream; it had come to life. He could go away with it, and have it always, unspoiled.

  Her face was calm and aloofly pleasant as she sat down. He opened his case on a settee. He tried to begin his sales talk. But before he could speak, she said very gently: “Do you really like this sort of thing?”

  There was no condescension in her voice, but a genuine and polite curiosity. Frank’s first angry emotion died. He said, with simple sincerity, as he brought out several samples: “No. I hate it. But, just now, I can find nothing else to do.”

  She smiled. She had a most charming and sudden smile which made her appear very young, though she was apparently in her early thirties. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be—impertinent, of course. But I thought it might be a little out of your line.” She paused. “I’m just filled with vulgar curiosity, I’m afraid.” She waited, obviously expecting him to tell her his real occupation. Frank regarded her in silence. Should he lie, and tell her he was a jobless certified public accountant, a young executive of some sort, a young businessman who had failed, a clientless lawyer, or even a physician? She was gazing at him with her large shining eyes, which were so kind and so steady.

  He said: “I never did anything of any real importance, or I’d not be doing this now. I’m one of the inadequates, I suppose.”

  She did not speak. She only smiled and smoked, leaning back in her chair, her shimmering ankles crossed. Frank said impatiently: “Do you really want to see this stuff, Miss Bailey, or are you only trying to be kind? I’d rather you wouldn’t, you know.”

  Why did the rich and secure think they had a right to pry into the lives of others less fortunate, and to bestow the patronizing insult of their pity on those who had need of them? Frank held his case in his hands, and only a strong effort of his will kept him from slamming it shut. His eyes almost glared upon the girl, and his thin cheeks were white.