There Was a Time

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  He stayed several days in New York, on clouds of elation. He bought himself a really good suit and new English shoes. He went to the theatres and the best restaurants. He bought an armful of books. He spent a day in the Metropolitan Museum, and visited the Planetarium. He rode up and down Fifth Avenue on the tops of busses. The smell and the sound and the sight of the city were a delirium of expectation to him.

  Not wishing to make a “nuisance” of himself, or to “impose,” he did not call upon Mr. Hawkins again, though Mr. Hawkins wondered at his absence. But he passed and repassed the building which housed the offices of Thomas Ingham’s Sons as one passes a temple in which dwells a holy joy. Once he saw Mr. Hawkins emerging, and he shrank away into a doorway, praying that he had not been observed. Mr. Hawkins, of course, would frown at him; it would not “do” to “annoy.” It did not occur to Frank that he was behaving exactly as his father had behaved at the sight of poor old Mr. Farley nor did he know that his thoughts were almost identical with his father’s thoughts.

  He returned to Bison, his mind a fever of plans. Immediately upon his arrival he would call the Bison newspapers. They would be glad to know that a fellow-citizen had so distinguished himself. They would rejoice with him. He would see his name in their pages, and perhaps his photograph. He wanted them to be proud of him.

  And he would see Jessica Bailey. He would stand with her in that room, and he would see on her face what he craved to see on every face, though that was something he did not as yet know.

  CHAPTER 69

  From a telephone booth in the station at Bison he called the newspapers. The reporters to whom his call was relayed were properly surprised, pleased and congratulatory. If he stammered, they appeared not to notice it. If he sounded naïve to them, they were politely oblivious, being cynical young men with writing ambitions of their own. They made appointments to visit him at his apartment the next day. The Bison Evening News suggested a photographer, and this was agreed to with eagerness on Frank’s part.

  His quiet and pleasant apartment was filled with morning sunshine. Frank remembered that he had had no breakfast as yet, and he cooked himself a meal. But he could scarcely eat. His excitement returned to him deliriously. If only his father were alive, so that he could choke the old fool with this news! So he was a “failure,” was he? He was just “Babbling Bill,” was he? His father’s wan, pinched face rose up before him, and he shouted his derision and his triumph at the ghost. He was abstractedly surprised at the strength of the passionate hatred that exploded in him at the thought of his father, the contempt, the revulsion. He was too excited, he reflected. But he could not control the spate of his rage against Francis Clair. Why did he have to be dead now? How glorious it would be to see him crawl and grovel before his son today! How servile and placating he would show himself, overwhelmed at the idea of so much money to come, at so much success. Frank could hear him say: “Bank it. Bank it all. You can’t tell what rain will fall tomorrow. Bank it. Don’t waste a penny of it. Reduce your outgo to nothing; live quietly, spend nothing you don’t have to spend. Keep your head down; you might offend somebody. That chap Hawkins: did you behave yourself respectfully? Can’t tell what those chaps might do to you if they think you’re pushing and forward. How did he look at you? What did he say? What did you say? You shouldn’t have said that! They might not publish your book—Let me see that check. Best give it to me. To bank for you. Bank it!”

  Bank it! “I’ll bank nothing!” cried Frank, with hating disgust. “I’ll spend every penny of it. I’ll live, not die, as you died, you penurious, terrified old ass! I’ll take the precious dollars you worshipped and ‘tucked away’ and buy myself a car, all the clothes I want, a ticket to a thousand miles away. That makes you cringe, doesn’t it? You and your bank-books! What did they give you at the last? A narrow grave in the cemetery, ‘tucked away’ among ‘strangers,’ with a mean little stone at your head, and weeds over your body. What did you do with your life except save, except huddle your fears around you like rags? Worst of all, what did you do to me? You sold the years of my youth, and added the dollars to a neat little row in your bankbooks.”

  Frank hoped his enemies from the old days would see his name in the papers. But they had been such insignificant enemies, and probably they had forgotten everything about him. He regretted that he had no enemies of real consequence. A man, he thought, should make himself some respectable foes, in order to triumph over them and sear them with envy. They were almost more necessary than friends.

  When he could control himself, he called Jessica Bailey. After some delay, her voice, quiet and a little subdued, answered him. She congratulated him, and now her voice warmed. Yet he felt something distrait in her, and he was chilled with apprehension. But she invited him to call upon her that afternoon at four.

  The sluggard clock finally stood at half-past three. He called a cab and was driven through the warm sunlit streets to the great house he remembered. There was a stricture in his breathing; he sat on the edge of the seat and saw the basking city through a haze of radiance. His thoughts became incoherent, chaotic. Though the day was quite hot, he sometimes shivered. Now a sudden sharp pain, remembered from childhood, struck him a savage blow in the chest, and he pressed his hand instinctively, and with fear, to the spot. Then, slowly and carefully, he slid back on the seat and tried to quiet his breathing. Stop it, he said to himself. Hold on, or you’ll die. The pain ebbed away, but he was weakened by it.

  When the cab reached its destination, he forced himself to get out slowly, though his instinct was to run. Remembering the pain, he walked up the long winding driveway at a measured pace. It disappointed him, childishly, that his old enemy, the maid Marie, did not open the door for him. An elderly woman led him into the dim and faded living room. Jessica was not there. He spent the moments waiting for her in looking about the room, admiring it, yet smiling at it. It needed a robust dash of crimson about, or a flare of scarlet, the brightness of a vivid blue against that sunny wall. He saw the trees outside; they threw a faint aqueous green light into the room.

  He turned and saw Jessica standing near him and was startled. Then he was embarrassed. How long had she stood there, watching him, perhaps smiling amusedly to herself? He felt the flush in his face and could not speak. Then, as they looked at each other in silence, he saw that she had changed.

  He had not thought that Jessica would change. In his dreams of her, he had always seen her as he had seen her on that other day, dressed in a gray woolen dress, pearls at her throat, her face calmly composed and lucent, her smooth black hair waved over her white forehead and drawn back into a low knot at the nape of her neck. But she had changed. She wore a plain black dress and no jewelry. She was very pale and quite thin, and seemed much older than he had remembered her. Only her shining black eyes were the same, except that they were more thoughtful now, somewhat sunken in mauve shadows.

  She said something, and gave him her hand. He took it dully. He felt the smooth soft fingers in his own. He said something in reply. He heard her invite him to sit down, and she sat down near him. Then they were silent again. Jessica had crossed her shimmering ankles, and he saw her narrow feet in the black slippers.

  He had dreamt of bringing her this news. Her smooth and beautiful face would light up; she would cry out something, and hold his hand in both her own, and she would look at him with a dazzling light in her eyes. Then he would confess to her that he loved her, that he had never forgotten her, that he wanted her, and she would smile at him steadfastly, and say—What would she say? He had forgotten. The dream died away, and she sat there opposite him, abstracted and pale, as if she were not aware that he was there at all.

  He heard the long slow ticking of the clock in the hall. He heard the warm rustling of the trees outside the open French windows. He felt the old sinking, the old malaise in himself. The dream had lied. Jessica did not care; she was not as he had remembered her. She was bored with him, for he was a stranger.

  Jess
ica gazed at him levelly and inscrutably. Then she was speaking: “I can’t tell you how glad I am—about your book.” But her voice, if polite, was lifeless. Her eyes surveyed him coolly, indifferently. What a fool he had been! While he had been planning and working, dreaming of her, she had had a life of her own in which he had no part. He was presumptuous; she was probably wondering why he had come to her at all. In a few moments he would have to get up and leave her, while she murmured courteous goodbyes.

  No, it could not happen this way! He would not permit it. He would not be cheated now. He would force her, and circumstance, to live up to his dreams. He would make her see him, bring interest to her eyes.

  He said: “I hoped you would be glad. You see, I thought of you all the time I was writing it.”

  She hesitated, and now she smiled briefly. “That is very kind of you.” Was that incredulity in her voice, rejection of his impertinence? Was she considering him a low-bred boor, presuming on her time and her attention?

  Now he stammered desperately: “You see—I—I remembered that you were kind to me. I—I remembered the letters you wrote me, and the telephone calls—”

  She said, and her tone was cold: “You didn’t answer them.”

  She remembered that! Now he felt more confidence, a renewed excitement. “I—didn’t want to presume. You see, I was poor—I had no right to impose upon you. You see, you don’t know what it is to be poor, to endure humiliation, and—” He smiled miserably.

  An opaque shadow fell over Jessica’s face, so that her features appeared less distinct and sharp. “You don’t know what it is to be poor.” She knew, well enough, God knows. Her father, James, brother of her uncle, Wentworth Bailey, had been a musician, one of those unfortunate ones who live and breathe only for music, who have their being in music, but are completely unable to interpret it with soul and passion. No, thought Jessica, he wasn’t really unfortunate. He never knew how inadequate he was. He thought, when he sat at his piano, that he was conveying to the ears of his listeners the same lovely wildness and glory that he heard with his inner ear. She saw his fine thin face, moved, transfigured, as he listened to a majesty he was unable to transmit. But he never knew he did not transmit it. In that, at least, God had been kind. He wandered from city to city, securing consistently fewer bookings in consistently smaller towns, his air bemused and exalted, the light of rapture beaming from his tired eyes. She saw him infrequently. He never wrote when away from New York. But somehow, in some way, this frail and delicate man had managed to educate her at second-rate boarding schools, where she had endured the indignity of shabby clothing and very little spending money.

  Yes, she had been poor, but she could not tell Frank Clair this. For by some subtle intuition she knew that if she told him she would lose value in his eyes. She stared at him, and her dark pupils dilated. He was a fool!

  When her father had died, her uncle had condescended to go to New York for the quiet funeral. He had paid all the expenses and had accompanied her back to her apartment, which he appraised with one swift look. Watching him, Jessica remembered her father’s words: “He lives like a stone.” A gray, thin, monumental stone, covered with green lichen. He had icy, webbed eyes, and a mouth like a blade. But, curiously, he had appeared to be interested in her, had inquired about her work. Then he had made an astounding suggestion. He wanted her to return with him to Bison, there to act as his private secretary, managing his affairs. In return, he had told her (and she had no way of knowing that she had impressed him most favorably and that she was already established in his mind as his heir) she was to live in his own home, and she would be paid a good salary. Jessica was not “proud” or otherwise stupid. She had a deep respect for money. She had accepted at once. She had never had a moment’s reason to regret her decision, particularly not now.

  These thoughts ran through her mind in a matter of moments, while Frank sat opposite her, looking at her with such proud misery. She was filled with pity for him. But she was angered also. What could she say to him? It was apparent that he had said something, and was waiting for her to answer.

  “I beg your pardon,” she murmured. “I’m afraid I was thinking of something else. You see, my uncle was buried yesterday. He died four days ago, quite suddenly.”

  Frank was taken aback. She saw the line of his jaw spring out under his fair skin; she saw the disappointed tightening of his thin face. He said, with an effort: “I’m sorry. If I had known, I shouldn’t have bothered you.” He had come on such a high wave of bright exaltation, and now he was defeated, his news as nothing. He added lamely: “It must have been a shock.”

  “Not really,” she said, in her clear voice. “My uncle was a very hard man. I can’t help feeling that way about him, even though I have just heard that he has left me all his money and everything else he had. You see, he could have helped my father.” She stopped and watched Frank closely.

  But Frank had hardly heard her. He was too engrossed in his deflation and disappointment. He said something conventional. All at once, he was exhausted and depleted. This girl was not interested in him. She was a wealthy woman; what he had to offer was nothing. She sat there gazing at him so remotely, forcing herself to be polite and wishing he would go away at once and leave her in peace.

  But, he thought in his despair, I can’t give you up! She is everything I have ever wanted. She is all I have ever hoped for and striven for and desired.

  As clearly as if he had spoken, Jessica followed his thoughts, and now she was sick with her anger. Why do I waste my time with him? Why don’t I just get up and tell him to go? He is a snob and a fool; he is as incredulous as a silly child. He is all wrong!

  She stood up, and her eyes flashed at him as he slowly rose. “Why didn’t you come to see me before?” she demanded, in a hard, stern voice. “Why did you wait until now?”

  His expression darkened as he replied: “Because I was nothing. Because it would have been insolent to have come before I had accomplished something. You know what I was when you first saw me. I was selling stockings at your door. If I had come to you before today, you would have had a perfect right to kick me out. I wanted to come here as an equal; I wanted the right to come.”

  “I gave you that right when I wrote to you and called you!”

  “You were only being kind,” he said.

  She glared at him incredulously. Was he that stupid? Was it possible for him to be so idiotic? But he was staring at her in confusion, as if he were trying to understand her, and failing.

  “You mean,” she said, with disgust, “that you thought you didn’t ‘have a right’ because you were poor and earning a living by selling stockings? I told you I had friends who were doing much the same thing, and not losing—caste—or anything else by doing it.”

  “But your friends were different. They had had money. They had had an education. It was only a temporary matter. But I was nothing from the beginning.”

  “And you think you are different now?”

  “Yes.” He said this simply and grimly, and she saw his eyes, like blue stones, and she thought again of her uncle. Then he went on: “My father was a grubby little chemist. My mother was a seamstress. I have done all sorts of work. I’ve had to acquire an education, of a kind, by myself. I never had anything, until recently, until now.”

  He will hate me, she thought, if I assure him that he means no more and no less to me today than he did that first time I met him. If I tell him that what he has accomplished is of no importance to me, he will walk out of this room and never see me again, and he will remember me with contempt.

  She felt she despised him. She felt that he was insulting her. She said: “You must have a very low opinion of me to think that what you were matters at all.”

  He smiled unpleasantly. “Because,” he repeated, “you don’t know what it means to be poor.”

  She set her mouth in a hard line. She studied him intently. Then she said: “I’ve read your stories in various magazines.”

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nbsp; He colored. He said: “They are trash.”

  She said, quickly and harshly: “I’m glad you think so. I thought so, too. I was embarrassed. In some way, I knew you could do better than that. I hope this book is an improvement.”

  They stood facing each other like furious antagonists.

  “The people who are going to publish it think so.” His voice was bitter.

  “What is it about?”

  He told her briefly. She listened, her eyes fixed upon his. “That is a silly premise, on which you have built your syllogism of war guilt,” she said when he had finished. “And somehow I think you know it. You know very well that wars, and all other such calamities, spring out of the ugliness and evil and guilt of every man, everywhere in the world. You know that it is man’s hatred for other men which makes him such a beast. You know that, don’t you?”

  He had turned very white. He said: “Yes, I know it. But that isn’t what the people want to hear. They want to blame anything, anybody, for their own crimes. And a writer makes money by telling them what they want, by furnishing them with a scapegoat.” He added viciously: “A victim. Or a romance, preferably full of fornication or adultery. That’s what they want, and that is what I am giving them.”

  “Why, you’re a kind of procurer! You—you are shameful!”

  He saw her rage, her incredulity, and he could not speak.

  “How can you write these things?” she cried. “Why haven’t you, why hasn’t any writer, the decency to write: ‘You, you the reader of this, are guilty of the cruelty and hatred and foulness and lies and godlessness which surround you? You, you alone, are guilty. You are the rewarder of murderers; you are the condoner of concentration camps and wars. You create the criminal politician, the betrayer of peace, the assassin, the thief, the traitor and the dictator. Because you hate. Look at yourself, and know yourself for what you are.’ Why don’t you write that?”