Benton's Row

by Frank Yerby

  She sat down on the edge of the bed. That was the crux of the matter: even the lovers bored her now. The whole thing lacked the spice of danger, of excitement. General Rafflin, a man nearing eighty, was content to have his glittering, ornamental young wife as a showpiece—in the same category really as his exquisite furniture, old masters, and the finest equipage of matched greys in town. He made no demands upon her, sleeping soundly and happily in his own walnutpanelled, Tudor-style bedroom, while Stormy repeatedly added to the number, shape, and convolutions of the horns she placed upon him in the green and rose bedroom scant yards away.

  Out of respect for him, because he was very gentle and kindly towards her, she half-heartedly concealed her numerous affaires from him. But she knew quite well it didn’t really matter to him, and, in a way, that spoiled things.

  Not much fun deceiving a man who doesn’t care, she thought. That is, if I really am deceiving him. I doubt it. I’m just another possession of his—like a piece of jewellery to be shown off before his ancient New Jersey cronies to make them envious. Since he’s incapable himself, what I do with other men doesn’t bother him. He closes his eyes to it. And I kind of hide it from him. Sort of a game with rules we both respect. As long as I don’t proclaim his cuckoldry before the world, it doesn’t trouble him.

  But there was more to it than that. The other aspect to the matter was the lovers themselves. Gerald Metroyer. Lucien Sampoyac. Murray Randolph. Ashley Davis. André and Henri Aubert. Georges le Blanc. Saint-Just Beauregard. Thomas Chandler. . . . The list was endless. On the whole, there were more Creoles than Americans, because she had found them better lovers. The Americans were too brusque, violent, poorly controlled.

  And those perfumed Creoles are just too damned artistic sometimes, she thought. Wish I could find a man who could combine American brutality with French control—I guess there isn’t any such animal. Chattering, glittering popinjays, all of them! Lord God, I’m bored!

  There was in this a thing she never suspected, a dark, hidden root component of her being. Her lovers, one and all, had an invisible, invincible rival—her subconscious memory of her father. Even adolescence, that time of rebellion, had not shaken his ascendancy over her. By then the plastic mould of her being had been too firmly set—and the first impressions, her infantile memories of him, towering dark and gigantic above her, the boom of his laughter, the fear that appeared in the eyes of other men at his frown, though pressed down below the level of conscious thought by the newer memories, the weight of years, lived in her still. There had been no one else like him since; there never would be. He had beaten her cruelly, but she recognised the justice of her punishment. And behind that remained the other images, warm and undiminished, of herself striding through the woods with him, seeing his deadly marksmanship, his centaur-like bearing on a horse, his infinite pride in and approval of her, the looks that came over the faces of women at the sight of him, their mouths slackening, growing moist, a hint of panting getting into their breathing. There was, of course, a certain amount of distortion, a loving exaggeration in these her memories of Tom Benton; but both the distortions and the exaggerations were very natural things, repeating in her the source materials out of which men have always created their legends, valuable in themselves, because without the ancient, majestic father-image, man would have had to endure the terrible centuries bereft of the saving myth of God.

  She was sitting there, lost in reverie, when Seraphine knocked again on the door. She glanced quickly at the gold and china clock on the mantel, and frowned. Barely ten minutes had gone by. It was quite impossible for the girl to have heated her bath water to the degree she like it, perfumed it, laid out fresh under-things, towels, and all the intricate luxuries of her toilet. No, she decided, it must be something else. One of the boys, maybe. Damn his soul, anyhow, whoever he is; they all know very well I don’t receive until afternoon.

  “Come in, Seraphine,” she said crossly. “What is it?”

  “A man,” Seraphine said, thrusting her head through the doorway. “Says it’s important, him—that he’s got to see you right now, yes!”

  “Which one is it?” Stormy said. “Damn it all, Seraphine! How many times do I have to tell you I don’t see anyone before noon?”

  “Ain’t nobody we know, madame. He’s a strange gentleman, him. Never seen him before, me.”

  Stormy half turned and stared at the maid speculatively.

  “Tell me, Seraphine,” she said, “what’s he like?”

  Seraphine grinned. She knew her mistress’s tastes.

  “Mighty fine, him,” she said. “Dressed to kill, but kind of countrified.”

  “Doesn’t interest me,” Stormy said. “You know I can’t abide bumpkins!”

  “ ‘Scuse me, madame,” Seraphine said, “but this one’s different, him. It’s sort of hard to explain why. He’s real ugly; but, madame, it’s the real exciting kind of ugliness—the kind what makes a girl look and wonder. Time I saw him I thought: Madame’s going to like this one—he’s twice the man of all them pretty boys she’s always got around her, yes!”

  Stormy went on looking at the girl. Then, very slowly, she smiled.

  “Send him up here, Seraphine,” she said.

  Oren Bascomb had a kind of instinct for the differences between women. He had been mistaken in Sarah, who had lived too long, and too hard, to be deceived by him. But he was almost entirely correct about Mary Ann. Sooner or later, he knew, out of weariness, boredom and desperation, she would fall into his hands. That she would never love him he also knew; but it didn’t interest him. He had not one ounce of sentimentality about him. He failed to see what difference it made whether a woman loved or hated him as long as he was able, finally, to enjoy her body. He rather preferred their hatred to their love, which had the bad habit of becoming cloying and too demanding. But to take a woman in spite of her dislike, to make her submit both to his prowess and the humiliating admission of her own animalism, was to him the quintessence of delight. It was an attitude of mind similar to the one Tom Benton had had, expressed almost in the same words, “I like ‘em a mite bitchy,” but grosser, in fact, as the man himself was cruder, lacking the deep vein of sensitivity which Tom had had to fight all his life.

  Now, seeing Stormy in the big bed, her black hair spread out on the rose-silk pillows, a slow smile lighted his eyes. She was staring at him with cool appraisal, her blue eyes, startlingly light beneath the heavy black brows she had inherited from her father, searching his face in speculation, interest, and amusement.

  Damn my soul! he thought happily, here she is—the woman I been looking for all my life. Pure bitch and bitters all the way through! Soft as cream on the outside but harder than a tenpenny nail inside. Look at that gawdamned mouth! Big and red and wet—Lord Jesus, that there nightgown’s made out of window glass! Damn my soul! Damn my wicked, ever-loving soul. . . . But, aloud, all he said was:

  “Howdy, ma’am. I’m Oren Bascomb—overseer on your brother’s place.”

  “How do you do, Mister Bascomb,” Stormy said coolly.

  “Got a little message from your brother. Here it is.” He crossed to the bedside and gave her the note, taking the opportunity as he did so to peer down the low-cut V neck of her gown, which made very little difference, anyway, since he could see through the gossamer silk almost as clearly.

  Stormy saw the look, but made no effort to cover herself.

  “You like what you see, Mister Bascomb?” she said icily.

  “Sure Lord do, ma’am,” Oren grinned. “Just checking to see if my eyes was deceiving me.”

  “Well,” Stormy demanded, “are they?”

  “No’m. Except for being kind of blinded by the sight, they ain’t told a word of lie. Lord God, Miz Stormy, a build like that is a sure Lord simon-pure miracle! You ought to charge admission, and that’s a fact.”

  Stormy studied him—lounging there, his dark eyes filled with insolent delight, the whole of him so gangling, homely, raw-boned, and y
et so shamelessly cocksure, that for the life of her she couldn’t help smiling.

  She patted the edge of the bed.

  “Sit down, Mister Bascomb,” she said. “You know, I think I’m going to like you.”

  “Ma’am,” Oren said; “I’ll be most humbly grateful if you do—no matter how little.”

  “Humbly!” Stormy laughed. “You haven’t a humble bone in your body, Oren Bascomb, and you know it! Now shut up and let me see what my fat, swinish brother has to say.”

  She looked up again after a couple of minutes.

  “A birthday party, eh?” she mused, “for his brats. Tell me, Oren”—she was making no attempt to go back to formality now—“tell me, are they like him?”

  “No’m,” Oren laughed. “From all I hear tell, them two bloodthirsty little cannibals is just like your pa. Tough! Lord God! Let ‘em alone for a half a hour the whole house is plumb wrecked. I’m crazy about ‘em myself. Had any kids, I’d want ‘em like those two—grit in their craw, and no mistake!”

  “Good,” Stormy said. “Ordinarily I wouldn’t consider going within one half-mile of that fat swine; but I would like to see Ma. And Clint is going to be there. There’s a man for you, Oren! I’m sorry as all get out he’s my half-brother.”

  “Then you’ll come?” Oren said.

  “I haven’t said so yet. Tell me one other thing, Mister Oren Bascomb. Are you going to be there? Ordinarily overseers aren’t included in family gatherings.”

  Oren grinned at her.

  “I ain’t no ordinary overseer, ma’am. Me’n’ Wade’s old war buddies. I was at Briar Creek when he—”

  “I know,” Stormy said. “And you can skip the lies, Oren. I know very well, and I don’t give two hoots up a hollow stump how many Bibles you swear on, that that story you made up for Wade is the damnedest lie you ever told in a lifetime of lying. Anybody pointed a gun at Wade—pointed it, mind you, let alone fired it, he ran like a rat. Or knelt down and cried and begged. One or the other—and I don’t care which!”

  “Ma’am,” Oren grinned, “you ain’t being fair. You’re downright misjudging your brother.”

  “Rubbish!” Stormy said. “So you’ll be there, eh?”

  “Yes’m,” Oren said.

  “Then I’ll come. Now get out of here and let me get dressed. Tell Seraphine to come and help me as you pass.”

  “Yes’m,” Oren said again, then: “First time in my life I ever admired to be a lady’s maid.”

  “Good-bye, Oren,” Stormy said, and put out her hand.

  Oren took it and stood there, holding it. He resisted the temptation to jerk her forward into his arms.

  “I,” he said, “got me a mighty sweet little whitewashed cottage down in the south section—long ways from the big house, Miz Stormy. I’d sure admire to have you see it. Got roses growing round the door. But I ain’t got no pink silk sheets, ma’am.”

  Stormy looked at him. Then she smiled.

  “That doesn’t matter, does it, Oren Bascomb?” she said calmly. “I rather think it’s the man that counts, isn’t it?”

  Oren threw back his head and laughed aloud.

  “Lord Jesus, how fine you put it!” he chuckled. “Be seeing you, Miz Sormy.”

  “Yes,” Stormy said; “I rather think you will—at that.”

  Riding out to Broad Acres the day of the party, Clinton Dupré was morose and sad. He kept glancing at his fiancée, trying actually to find some basis for the mood that gripped him; but there was none—nothing tangible, just this faint malaise, this brooding sense of impending disaster.

  Jane Henderson was, as Wade had said, a very pretty girl. She had her father Davin Henderson’s white-gold hair and soft blue eyes. She was also very sweet and very gentle, but at that moment, perversely, Clint hated her with all his heart.

  I’m a fool! he thought angrily. She’s a lovely girl—any man on earth would be proud . . .

  “Clint,” Jane said, “let’s not go up to the house just yet. There’s a place down on the river I’d like to see—the spot where my father’s house used to stand.”

  Clint looked at her wonderingly.

  “But my father owned all the land hereabouts,” he said.

  “Finally. After he had stolen this section from Dad. Didn’t you know that?”

  “No,” Clinton said. “But then I didn’t know my father. I met him for the first time—consciously, that is, because I must have seen him when I was very small; but I don’t remember it—just before he died. And, strangely enough, I liked him. I hadn’t thought I would; because, in a way, he had treated my mother very badly. But there was something fine about him. I don’t know what it was; yet . . .”

  “I can understand that,” Jane said. “Even Dad was much less bitter towards him afterwards. You see, if your father hadn’t sent Zeke Hawkins to burn our barn, we would have stayed here and been poor all our lives—merely because Dad loved the beauty of his little place. As it was, Dad acquired much better lands in Mississippi, and with mother to drive him on, by the time the war came we were quite rich. Funny thing, too—Mother and Dad had been childless for years; but as soon as they settled in Mississippi in ‘forty-four, they started having children. My oldest brother, who was called Davin after my father, was born the very next year. He—he was killed in the war, you know. Then Ashton came along in ‘forty-seven, and I was born in ‘fifty-two. All that helped Dad feel better about it. Of course, we lost all the money during the war, but it’s nice to have had it.”

  “My father engaged in barn-burning?” Clint said. “You know, Jane, for some reason, I can’t quite believe that. Doesn’t seem like him.”

  “He did, though. The cotton in that barn was all that stood between Dad and bankruptcy. Your father knew that. He had been pestering Dad to sell our place, offering him fantastic prices, and when Dad refused, he sent that roughneck to burn us out. Then Henry Hilton took over and sold your father this place. Of course that was after your father got better; because Dad had shot him.”

  “Good Lord!” Clint said. “I don’t know a thing about my family history, do I? I’m sorry, Jane—I didn’t know there was bad blood between our families. Is that why Ashton was against our engagement?”

  “Partially,” Jane said. She looked at him and smiled. “There were a lot of other things, too. You look so much like your father that everybody expected you to act like him, too. But you’ve been so nice you’ve won Ashton over. Then there were the circumstances surrounding—your birth. I convinced Ashton we couldn’t rightly hold that against you—you neither chose your parents nor the way you were conceived. But the biggest thing, Clint, was—and is—that newspaper of yours. I’ll admit you’ve whacked away at the carpet-baggers and scalawags just as hard as you have at the Knights of the White Camellia and the Ku Klux Klan. You say you’re an independent; but, Clint, your sheet does seem a mite too friendly towards negroes, even to me.”

  “I can’t help that,” Clinton said; “I feel sorry for the poor devils. And I must tell the truth as I see it. You must bear with me, Jane.”

  She looked at him—a long, slow look.

  “I don’t have to bear with you, Clint,” she said; “you see—I love you. That kind of arranges everything, doesn’t it? Or it will—when we really are together.”

  They sat there a long time, on the veranda of the abandoned cottage, looking at Davin Henderson’s view.

  “Now I understand your father,” Clint said; “that is worth anything a man can give to keep it. It’s ever so much more valuable than cotton or corn, or any of the tangible things, isn’t it? I think sometimes that all the good things of life are like that: strangely untouchable, Jane. They have no market value, cannot be bought or sold—or even owned. The things that God keeps for Himself and only shares with us a little: trees, and streamers of moss, the slant of sunlight, the blue of the sky, and the river running down there talking to itself, saying the only things that really matter, the things we seek all our lives to know and somehow n
ever learn.”

  “You’re strange,” Jane whispered. “Sometimes you scare me when you talk like that. What could a river say that we couldn’t learn?”

  Clint smiled at her.

  “The river, and the wind, Jane,” he said in his deep, quiet voice. “They’ve always whispered things to me, but I could never quite catch the words. The tune I knew; but the words were strange. If I could catch them once, I’d know it all—the ‘why’ of things—what we were born for, I mean, where we came from, where we are going. Maybe even what life is, and death—and the hereafter, if there is such a thing. But that’s not given unto man, my dearest, because then he’d become one with God, and man no longer. He’d have to be driven out then, branded, crucified.”

  “Lord God, Clint, don’t talk like that! You give me the shivers!” Jane said. “Come on now, we’re going to be late.”

  “I’m going to ask Mary Ann to sell us this place,” Clint said. “Just for the house, Jane. It’s in surprisingly good shape. A little painting and patching here and there, that’s all. We wouldn’t need the land. I’m no planter, God knows, and the paper will take care of us well enough.”

  He was aware suddenly of how she was looking at him, of the expression on her face.

  “Always Mary Ann,” she said slowly, “never her husband. It’s his land, isn’t it? But he doesn’t count to you, does he, Clint? He doesn’t even exist, does he?”

  “Sorry,” Clint said shortly. “You’re right. We’d better be going now.”

  “I,” General Rafflin said pompously, “have become thoroughly Southern since I’ve been here. You understand, Doctor, that I don’t engage in politics. I’m a business man pure and simple.”

  “But you did play politics, General,” Sarah said tartly, “and you won your point, even if it did take barn-burning, twisting railroad tracks around trees, and laying waste farmland to do it. Guns settle things sometimes what ballots can’t, don’t they?”