There Was a Time

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  She looked at the cigarette in her slim hand. Now her expression was sad. “Of course I want to see them. I have two friends who are very fine young doctors; they are selling sheets and pillowcases from door to door. A dentist I know has become a handy man, doing odd jobs. One of the sons of a friend of my uncle has a ‘swap-shop,’ where old junk is exchanged for other old junk. Some people might think it’s terrible. I think it is sort of—splendid.”

  There was real interest in her voice, and she smiled again. She went on: “I think we’re very snobbish in America, a very silly kind of snobbery. We don’t really have classes, and we have no inherited aristocracy. But we have to have something, it seems. So we call certain kinds of work degrading and other kinds respectable. Work is work. There isn’t any distinction.” She added, when Frank made no comment: “I should think you’d find your own work very interesting.”

  “I know.” Frank broke in rudely. “‘You must meet so many interesting people’!”

  He thought he had offended her, but she suddenly laughed, and after a moment he joined her sheepishly. He sat down opposite her, near the fire. “I don’t find frowzy housewives interesting,” he said. “I don’t find it exciting to have a door slammed in my face. I just want to kill someone, anyone, most of the time. But I like starving even less than I like canvassing. Besides—” He stopped abruptly and flushed. He had been about to tell her of his writing, and caught back the foolish words in time.

  He spread the samples on his shabby knees, selected three stockings of various shades, and handed them to her. She examined them carefully, critically. She listened as Frank, in a monotonous voice, quoted prices. She wanted to throw aside the stockings, but she was so acutely sensitive that she knew a careless gesture might hopelessly offend and insult him, so she affected to hesitate and to consider. “I’m not trying to disparage your goods,” she said coolly, “but I can buy this quality for fifty cents less in the downtown shops.”

  Frank was on familiar ground now, and he argued strongly. “Not this quality. Our stockings are pure, unadulterated silk. They will give almost twice the wear of the best-name stockings.” To illustrate, he deftly wound a stocking into a rope and gave it a hard pull, a trick taught the salesmen by the sales manager. Miss Bailey pretended to be doubtfully impressed. Frank unrolled the stocking and triumphantly displayed it still unmarred and without a run. Miss Bailey examined the stocking closely and appeared to surrender.

  “Well,” she said slowly. “Let me see. I’ll have a dozen pair of the taupe, half a dozen pair of the Sunbeam, and half a dozen pair of the Autumn Leaf. Size nine.”

  Frank wrote down her name: Jessica Bailey, and the address. But the pencil jerked in his hand; a wave of scented warmth spread from the girl to him. She sat at least seven feet from him, but he could feel the imminence of her white flesh, the very touch of her breath. He pressed his lips tightly together. His head was bent over his book, and the girl studied him intently, her mouth open a little and her eyes vividly shining. She saw the contour of his narrow head, the hard line of his chin, the set of his wide lean shoulders, and the fine strong shape of his hands. She moved in her chair with a curious restlessness.

  Frank gave her the carbon copy of his sales slip, and she read it. Francis Clair. So that was his name. Her life was filled with scores of names. It was very strange that this one should sound so exciting to her, so significant. She folded the slip carefully and put it into her purse.

  Frank said: “Do you wish to pay in full now, or give a deposit and pay the rest C.O.D. when the stockings arrive?”

  “I’ll pay now,” she said. She had friends who did this sort of thing, and she knew that the deposit was Frank’s commission. She opened her purse and gave him the exact money. She watched him as he stood up and snapped his case shut. All at once, she wanted to detain him, to keep him there for a while longer. She did not stop to analyze the queer impulse, as she usually examined her impulses. It was imperative to her that Frank should not go just yet. But what could she do? Could she ask him to stay for tea? There was no excuse, no pretense, that she could utter and not appear absurd or worse, or which he probably would not misunderstand. But, she thought, drily, would he not really understand? She was a fool. What was the matter with her? She was thirty-two years old, and she had never looked at any young man before except with indifference or with more than the mildest interest. But she did not want Frank to go. Desperately, she tried to find something to say which would keep him there just a little longer. She wanted to know all about him. She wanted to see him again!

  She said: “I see you have other things to sell. Why don’t you show them to me?”

  Frank glanced up quickly. “You wouldn’t want them; that’s why I didn’t show them.”

  “How do you know? Please let me see them.”

  He brought out his other sample book, and she held it on her knees. The goods were strong, well-made but coarse. She said: “I like this—negligée. Rose, I think. Size fourteen, And the blue, too. One of each. And the—the—slips. Two white, same size.”

  Frank stood near her in silence. Then he said grimly: “You don’t want them.”

  She glanced at him swiftly and smiled. “Not for myself, perhaps,” she replied candidly. “But one of the maids has a birthday soon, and she’d love these.” A dimple twinkled apologetically near her pink mouth. “You might make it size eighteen. Fourteen is my size.”

  Frank’s mouth was tight and unpleasant as he made out another sales slip. She watched him almost humbly. She liked the way he wrote, clearly, sharply, and with no hesitation. He gave her the slip and said: “Fifteen dollars, if you want to pay in full.”

  She gave him the fifteen dollars, and he put it away in his worn billfold. It did not surprise her that his fingers trembled, though she could not have told why. Something strong and electric ran between her and this queer young man, and she knew he was conscious of it, as she was conscious.

  Could she say to him: “Please don’t go? Have tea with me now. I want to talk to you. I don’t know why, but I must talk to you.”

  Her mouth felt dry, and something pounded in her throat. How ridiculous I am! she thought confusedly. I’m acting and thinking like an idiot. But it did not matter! He must not go just yet, he simply must not go. He was picking up his hat and his shabby leather gloves; he was turning to her. She said, blurting out the words in a way which would have astonished her uncle:

  “Have you always lived in Bison? I have a feeling I ought to know you—”

  He regarded her with hard and somber directness. “Yes, I’ve always lived here, since I was six years old. I came from England with my parents. But I’ve never met you before.”

  She was baffled. She drew her fine dark brows together, as if trying to remember. “It’s the funniest thing, but I believe I’ve met you somewhere. Do you know the Crawfords, or the Ansteths, or the Brownes?”

  “No,” said Frank, “I don’t know them. And I doubt if you ever met any of the people I used to know, Miss Bailey. My father was a chemist. He worked for a long time in a shop on Niagara Street near Ferry. You wouldn’t be likely to know him.”

  But her face brightened eagerly. “But, of course! Wasn’t that shop owned by a Mr. Farley? We used to live on Porter Avenue, in a big old house, and Mr. Farley had the reputation of selling the biggest and the best sodas in town. My friends and I used to walk over there quite often. It is possible I saw your father—”

  But Frank’s face had darkened, and was very unpleasant.

  Jessica was oddly discomfited by his expression. She stammered slightly as she said: “I remember Mr. Farley very well. He was the sweetest old thing—”

  “Yes,” said Frank heavily. “He was.” Then he was caught by the tense in which they were both speaking. “He—he isn’t dead, is he?”

  “Why, yes. I remember seeing his name in the paper about twelve or thirteen, or perhaps fourteen, years ago. I was still in pig-tails and middy blouses then. It was somet
ime after the war.”

  Frank was silent. Dead. And he had not known. Why, he had intended to see Mr. Farley again! Until now he had not known that he had had this intention. He could not understand the wave of loss and depression that swept over him now. That poor old duffer! He had saved Frank’s life. He had understood as no one since had understood. Frank’s hands, holding the sales book, felt cold and numb.

  “I’m sorry,” he said dully. He put on his coat, and he said again, as if he were alone: “I’m terribly sorry. I wanted to see him again.”

  The girl rose. It was hopeless. There was nothing she could say which would keep him here. But their mutual regret over Mr. Farley was at least something between them. She said earnestly: “I’m sorry I was the one to tell you, Mr. Clair.”

  She went out into the hall with him and put her hand on the door. Then she said desperately: “Please come back in about two weeks. I might want to buy something more—”

  He nodded curtly, without speaking. He went out into the spring sunlight, and she watched him go until a bend in the walk hid him. Even then she stood on the threshold until the breeze chilled her.

  She thought: I’ve seen him before. I’ve known him before. I know it. But where, where? Why can’t I remember? It couldn’t have been a dream. I can’t let him go.

  She clutched the sales slip in her hand.

  CHAPTER 62

  The sunlight seemed less bright and promising now, as Frank walked down the quiet and stately parkway. The suitcase was heavy in his hand.

  So, Farley was dead. Frank could not understand his crushing depression. In these past fourteen years he had hardly thought of the old man at all. Something had walled itself away in his mind, shutting out the years of his life from his recollection, shutting out the memory of his father and his mother and the days of his youth. But the thought of Mr. Farley must have lain in that walled, shut place, like a little pool of brightness. Had he really, all the time, unknown even to himself, intended to go to see the old man?

  Hardly knowing what he did, he boarded a bus, and then a streetcar. He was vaguely surprised to find himself eventually on Niagara Street, in the vicinity of the little drugstore. What did he intend to do? What compulsion had brought him here? It was nearly five o’clock, and he was hungry. What would it profit him to go into that shop and ask about Mr. Farley and the details of his death? It was ridiculous. But the compulsion had driven him, as it had often driven him when he had been a boy, and in an off moment he had been ruled and directed by it.

  The drugstore was as he remembered it, yet somehow it appeared smaller and shabbier. The great red and green jars still stood in the dusty window, but the big flourishing fern Mr. Farley had sentimentally set between them was gone. Shabby, dirty children went in and out, emerging with icecream cones or suckers, just as he had sometimes emerged. He went in. Had it always been so dark, so evil-smelling, so dusty, so ill-kept? A big, bluff, middle-aged man in a soiled white coat stood behind a counter of cheap cosmetics. He had a large red face and twinkling blue eyes. He resembled Mr. Farley in some indefinable way, and he said: “Yes, sir?” in the eager, welcoming voice that shopkeepers used during the Depression.

  Frank bought a shaving stick, toothpaste, and some razor blades. He went to the soda fountain and ordered a soft drink. The man waited on him rapidly. Frank drank, then said, idly: “Are you Mr. Farley?”

  “Why, yes,” said the other, squinting at him. “Don’t know as I remember you, though?” He looked at Frank’s sample case and his smile disappeared.

  “I used to know old Mr. Farley,” said Frank. “I suppose you are a relative of his?”

  The man’s smile returned, and it was quite soft. “I’m his nephew. He left the store to me, and I came here from Detroit with the wife and kids. Fourteen years ago. Yep, he was a good old coot, Uncle Tim.”

  “I just heard he was dead,” said Frank, putting down his glass. “I was sorry to hear it. I knew him very well when I was a kid. My father used to work for him.”

  Mr. Farley was wiping up the cracked black marble counter with a soiled wet rag, but at Frank’s words he suddenly stopped, became rigid. He stared at the young man, narrowing his eyes.

  “What’s your name?” he asked abruptly.

  Frank frowned. “It isn’t important, but my name is Clair.”

  Mr. Farley’s face became excited. “Frank Clair? Old Frank Clair’s boy? The pharmacist who used to work here?”

  “Yes.” Frank was curious. “My father died a long time ago, but Mr. Farley and I used to be friends. He took a kind of interest in me.”

  Mr. Farley leaned his fat elbows on the counter and laughed silently, showing all his yellow teeth. Then he reached out, took Frank’s shoulder in his hand, and gave him a push. “Well, I’ll be damned! Did you know the lawyer’s been lookin’ all over town for you? Say, you wasn’t in Kentucky one time, was you?”

  Something began to tingle in Frank. “Yes, I was.”

  “Well, I’ll be God-damned! Say, the lawyer wrote to the place you was supposed to be at. Nobody down there knew where you was.”

  “They wouldn’t,” said Frank, thinking of his flight. “I didn’t leave any forwarding address. I’ve been here for nearly fourteen years, now, but, of course, nobody would know.” Why was his throat so constricted? “What did your—your lawyer want?”

  “What did he want?” Mr. Farley threw back his head and shouted. “Why, you son of a gun, he only wanted to give you fifteen hundred dollars, that’s what! The old man left you the money in his will! Say, look, I’ll give you the lawyer’s address! No! It’s only five o’clock, and maybe you can get him at his office! Wait, I’ll get him for you! If this ain’t the God-damndest thing—!”

  He rumbled off to the telephone booth in the rear. Frank stood up. His knees felt weak. Fifteen hundred dollars! Fifteen hundred dollars! Something blurred his eyes. All these years of semi-starvation, and fifteen hundred dollars had been waiting for him in the bank, waiting cosily, waiting for him to take them! He followed Mr. Farley to the rear of the store. He had to put out his hand against a counter to steady himself. The ball in his throat became huge. My God! he thought.

  Mr. Farley, more excited than ever, beaming like a red sun, handed him the telephone receiver. Frank put it to his ear, but the roaring in his head prevented him from hearing clearly. The man at the other end was cackling drily: “—Identification, of course. Formality. Tomorrow morning, at ten o’clock? What did you say? All right, ten o’clock, Mr. Clair. Of course, there are certain small expenses, about a hundred dollars which we spent trying to find you. Ten o’clock.”

  Frank found himself sitting at the counter again, sweating, shaking. He said, stammering violently: “I—I am afraid—I—didn’t get his name. Would—would you write it down for me, Mr. Farley. It’s sort of sudden—”

  “Yeh. I know,” replied Mr. Farley in a rich and sympathetic voice, looking again at the sample case. “Hits you over the head hard, don’t it, when you get some unexpected money? Well, I’m damn glad. The good old coot musta thought a lot of you. I’ve read the will, and he said somethin’ that was kind of—well, kind of wonderful. Somethin’ like: ‘To my dear young friend, who has all my blessings and my prayers.’” Mr. Farley blinked unashamedly. “He didn’t have much to leave; he was always handin’ out cash to young fellers, God bless him. Left me three thousand dollars and the store, and a little house on Hampshire Street. More than we had a right to expect.”

  Frank felt weak. “All my blessings and my prayers.” He leaned his head on his hand, to hide his eyes. He saw old Mr. Farley’s face clearly, sharply, etched on the darkness of his closed eyelids. He saw his smile with incredible vividness and heard his voice over the abyss of the years. “All my blessings and my prayers.”

  He caught the faint, distant drift of Mr. Farley’s nephew’s voice: “Died of pneumonia, sudden. Guess it was his heart, too. We come down for the funeral. There was three priests, and even the bishop. You couldn�
��ta believed it. Like the funeral of one of them plutocrats. You never saw such flowers. The three priests told how he’d helped them when they was kids. The bishop said he was among the angels. Made us cry like babies. Well, that’s the kind he was. They don’t make them no more.”

  “Where is he buried?” Frank whispered.

  “Out in Mount Calvary Cemetery. He didn’t leave no money for a stone, but the Missus and me bought him the damndest best monument in the whole cemetery. A big marble cross six feet high, like this.” Mr. Farley demonstrated proudly with his hand. “Flowers all summer, too. We got flowers in our back yard, and we take a load out every Sunday, after Mass. He left money for Masses for his soul, but we pay for ’em, too. Don’t want to forget him. That’s the kind he was.”

  Masses for the soul of John Farley. He didn’t need Masess. Frank saw the old man’s face again, and pressed his hand tight over his eyes.

  “Why don’t you come out and have supper with us tonight?” asked Mr. Farley, with warm affection. “Seems you’re kinda like one of the family.”

  The street was dark now, in the early spring twilight. Frank still felt weak and hollow, but he was not hungry. He trundled along on the streetcar, and then walked the few blocks to his room. His head was light; his feet did not seem to touch the sidewalk. But his heart was shaking, trembling. He had refused Mr. Farley’s invitation to supper. He wanted to be alone to think, to think of old Mr. Farley, and his deliverance. To make his plans. To sit in his dark room, his hands clenched on his knees, and to think, and to plan.

  The invincibility he had felt in the morning gathered stronger in him at each step he took towards his room. He was always one in whom reaction was delayed. Now, as he approached the doorway to the stairs that led up to his room, he was shaken by a sudden sense of rapturous power, of exaltation, that made him stop, unable to move. Oh, my God! he thought, something has changed, moved, shifted its position! Something has thundered across the blankness of the years and is here all about me! I’m blinded; I can’t see yet. But something has happened. I’m going to be free! My God, my God!