Old Dogs and Children

by Robert Inman

  He moved away from her a few inches with a slightly amused look on his face. “Am I bothering you?”

  “No. Yes. You have a way of looking at people.”

  “Oh?” He seemed genuinely surprised. “I don’t mean to offend.”

  “It’s not offensive,” she said. “It’s just … disconcerting.”

  He smiled, a very nice smile that showed his even white teeth. “Then I shall sit way over here and try very hard not to disconcert.”

  They talked for a while longer and then Bright rose to go. “I have to go practice now, Mr. Birdsong.”

  “On Sunday afternoon?”

  “Yes, if I dare face Professor Hogarth on Monday morning.”

  He studied her for an instant and then he said, “I’d like to call again. Next Sunday?”

  She hung fire for a moment. “Mr. Birdsong, are you an impetuous young man?”

  He leaned toward her just a bit and filled the rest of the space between them with his smile. “About most things, no. I’m usually very careful.”

  “It’s a good habit,” she said, and turned and left him there in the foyer, feeling his eyes as she mounted the stairs without a backward glance. Enough of him, she thought. He was interesting, perhaps even a little fascinating. She thought of him once or twice as she sat in the cramped practice room through the afternoon, but she pushed the thought away. She had not come to the Atlanta Conservatory of Music at the great expense of her father’s disapproval to spend her time and energy on a young man, no matter how fascinating. She vowed not to let him bother her. Not a bit.

  But he did. He bothered her considerably, and in the nicest way. And as Atlanta slipped into autumn, as Bright began the metamorphosis into musician under Oscar Hogarth’s grueling tutelage, she found herself falling in love with Fitzhugh Birdsong. Catherine took note and kept her own counsel, but the blossoming relationship between Bright and her brother became an unspoken aspect of Catherine and Bright’s own friendship.

  Catherine was a bit of a pickle, as Fitzhugh had said. She could be peevish and petulant at times; and at others, gloomy and silent. She frequently was unwell—white-faced and short of breath. But Bright learned that Catherine’s physical frailty masked a wry, fierce independence and a great capacity for laughing at herself and her important family. “It’s hell being a Savannah Birdsong,” she liked to say. “They walk about like they’ve got cucumbers stuffed up their fannies.” She was mildly profane and she could do a devastating imitation of Oscar Hogarth, playing the alternate roles of terrified student and tyrannical teacher, leaving Bright and the other fellow-suffering students weak with laughter. She was candid about her own health, which was precarious at best. “I have a bad heart,” she said. “The doctors said I would live no longer than my sixteenth birthday. If you find me stiff as a board in my bed some morning, call them first thing and tell them they were wrong.”

  What she did not do was interfere in the least with the courtship. And it fairly quickly became that: a courtship. Bright found herself alternately perplexed and fascinated by Fitzhugh. He was a very earnest young man. But he was also much aware of his earnestness and went to great lengths to keep it from putting people off. Still, it popped through in bursts of enthusiasm despite his best efforts. He was handsome enough, she thought—not to the point of preciousness, but quite nice-looking, with good strong features and those snapping blue eyes. He had a quick, analytical mind and he was passionate about a few things in life—the law, for one; and, it became increasingly clear, Bright Bascombe. He visited her on Sunday afternoons and Wednesday evenings, those starchily restricted times when suitors were tolerated on the premises.

  “I hope you’ll come to visit Catherine sometime in Savannah,” he said one mid-October Sunday afternoon as they sat on a divan in the foyer. It was still warm, as Atlanta can be for spells in October, and a ceiling fan whooshed listlessly overhead, stirring the close air in the room. Still, there was just a hint of autumn, a quickness, a sense of things turning. “You should meet our family.”

  Bright smiled, thinking of what Catherine had said of them. “Are they terribly fascinating?”

  “Fascinating, perhaps. But not terribly. They came down from upstate South Carolina just after the Revolution and settled for a while in Charleston. But they didn’t consider Charleston good enough for them, if you can imagine that. So they moved on to Savannah.”

  She didn’t want to seem forward, but she was intrigued. “What is their business?”

  “Money,” he said simply. “Originally, land speculation and shipping. Now, just money. Papa manages money.”

  “How does one manage money?”

  “Oh”—he waved his hand—“you push it around from pile to pile and somehow it grows. Stocks and bonds, that sort of thing. I think Papa considers land and ships rather grubby by comparison.”

  “I don’t mean to pry,” she said.

  “Not at all.”

  “And do you plan to go back to Savannah when you’ve finished law school?”

  “Good Lord, no. I’ll try to clerk for a judge here in Atlanta, then join a good firm somewhere. A few years from now, I’ll go to Congress.”

  She marveled. “Just like that? Does one get elected to these things, or anointed?”

  “Elected, of course,” he smiled, slightly abashed at the way he had let his earnestness get out of hand.

  Bright tried to think of him being in Congress. He was an attractive man and he dressed well and had good manners, and she supposed his earnestness would be an asset. But she was not at all sure what people did in Congress. In fact, she had hardly considered Congress at all. “What do you plan to do in Congress?” she asked.

  “Do? Why, serve. Make a mark.” He seemed surprised at the question.

  “Does a Savannah Birdsong really need to make a mark?” she teased.

  “By all means,” he said vigorously. “I intend to be my own man.” He paused, thinking about it. “It’s not easy being a Savannah Birdsong.”

  “It’s quite easy being a Bascombe,” she said. “All you have to remember is that Bascombes are always right. At least that’s what my father says.”

  “You speak a lot of your father.”

  “Yes. He’s the best man I know. In his own words, he will do to hunt with.”

  Fitzhugh considered that, then smiled. “I like the sound of that. A man who will do to hunt with. And are Bascombes always right?”

  “Of course.”

  He sat silent for a moment and then he said very carefully, “I should hope you would be right about me.”

  “And I should hope you would not press me to be right or wrong,” she answered.

  “No,” he said emphatically. “I have all the time in the world, Miss Bascombe.”

  >

  As it turned out, neither of them had all the time in the world. Time very suddenly became an irrelevancy. The world turned upside down. In late October, the stock market crashed. At first, Bright paid scant attention to the bold black headlines across the front page of the Constitution. Bad news, but it didn’t concern her. But one evening several days later, Catherine didn’t appear at supper, and Bright went looking for her. She found Catherine in their room, ashen-faced.

  “What on earth is the matter?” she asked. “Are you ill?”

  “I’ve got to leave.” Her voice was leaden.

  “Why?”

  “My father’s been wiped out. He had all the family money in stocks.”

  Bright sat down next to her on Catherine’s bed. “Everything?”

  “Everything. All we have left is the house. And our pride, I suppose. God knows, we’ve always had plenty of that. Even a stock market collapse couldn’t wipe out the Birdsong pride.”

  “What will you do?”

  “We’ll stay in the house because it’s been in the family for nearly a hundred years. What little money there is will go to help Fitzhugh finish law school. He’s too close to the end now to quit. But there’s no money for
little sister to fritter away her time playing the piano.”

  “My father will help,” Bright said instantly.

  “No!”

  “But Catherine—“

  “Did you hear me?” she cried. “We’ve still got our pride!”

  “Don’t let it ruin you,” Bright snapped back. Catherine’s face softened. She looked incredibly tired, very frail. “It may kill me, but it won’t ruin me.”

  Catherine’s father arrived by motorcar the next day to fetch her. By the time he arrived, Fitzhugh had Catherine’s trunk and suitcases at the front door. He and the girls stood at the top of the steps, Fitzhugh silent and grim-faced, Catherine tight-lipped, none of them trying to make conversation. There didn’t seem to be much worth saying.

  “There they are,” Fitzhugh said, and Bright looked to see a gleaming Packard pull up to the curb, driven by a Negro in chauffeur’s uniform and narrow-brimmed cap, a white man sitting in the back, staring straight ahead. He seemed not to see them there on the steps. The car stopped and the Negro got out and walked around to the back door.

  “Morning, Hobart,” Fitzhugh called as he descended the steps.

  The Negro nodded, but he didn’t say anything. He looked sullen and put-upon, and Bright wondered for an instant if he too had lost heavily in the stock market. He opened the car door and Fitzhugh’s father stepped out.

  “Father,” Fitzhugh said simply.

  Fletcher Birdsong had the look of a shipwreck survivor, slack-jawed in disbelief. She could see Fitzhugh in him—the same trim carriage, the bright blue eyes. Only his eyes were bleak now, uncomprehending, and he stood blinking on the sidewalk in the gray morning. It struck Bright how personal a thing this was, this business on Wall Street, how deeply it cut into people’s lives and changed the way they regarded themselves, perhaps forever. Fletcher Birdsong might be a proud man, but this morning his tailored pin-striped suit looked a size too big for him.

  Catherine gave him a quick hug. “Father, this is my friend Bright Bascombe.”

  “Yes, yes,” he said absently and shook the hand she offered. “Pleased to meet you.”

  They stood in awkward silence for a moment and then Catherine said, “Well, I’m ready.”

  He stared at her, then he seemed to come to himself. He turned with a jerk to the Negro. “Go fetch Miss Catherine’s things, Hobart,” he snapped, “and be quick about it.”

  But Hobart didn’t move. Bright could see him tense, the muscles of his face twitching. Then he said, “Fetch ’em yo’self.”

  It took an instant to sink in; then a crimson flush spread across Fletcher Birdsong’s face. “You sonofa—“

  “Father!” Fitzhugh grabbed his father’s arm.

  Hobart stepped back a couple of paces, out of harm’s way, eyes flashing with defiance. “I ain’t been paid and it don’t look like no prospect.”

  “You’re fired!” Birdsong exploded.

  “No,” Hobart said, “I quits. I get back to Savannah best I can.” He took off the chauffeur’s cap and tossed it on the sidewalk at Fletcher Birdsong’s feet. “You kin have this, Mr. Birdsong. You gone need it ’fore long. See how you like bein’ on the other end.” Then he turned abruptly and walked away, leaving them there on the sidewalk, staring at his back.

  Bright turned then to see the look of utter humiliation on Fitzhugh’s face. It was a terrible thing, seeing him so vulnerable, so nakedly ashamed, and she wanted to cry out and throw her arms around him. But it would not do, of course. So instead she wished to flee from their misery, to go home to her father, where things were safe and untroubled, where she could sort out the chaos that had suddenly turned things upside down.

  Fletcher Birdsong drew himself up. “Well, to hell with him.” Then he thought for a moment and said, “But I can’t drive.”

  Fitzhugh released his father’s arm. “Here, get in the car, Father. I’ll drive you to Savannah. I can come back on the train tonight.” He helped Fletcher into the back seat and closed the door gently behind him. Then he opened the trunk and put Catherine’s things inside while she and Bright stood on the sidewalk, miserable in their silence. It was done quickly and Fitzhugh opened the back door on the other side.

  Catherine gave Bright a fierce hug, then drew back a bit. “Take care of yourself.”

  “And you.” Bright felt tears quicken and fought them back. “You’ll write?”

  “No. I think not.” She turned to go, but then she stopped herself. “It’s probably not a good match,” she said. “You’re both too sure of yourselves.”

  Then she was gone. As the Packard pulled away from the curb, none of them looked back at her standing there on the sidewalk.

  >

  And then, quickly on the heels of Catherine Birdsong’s departure, there was the letter:

  Dear Miss Bright,

  I’m writing this letter for my mama, who is mighty worried about Mister Dorsey. We think things has gone bad for him. He is spending a lot of time out at the camp house these days and Mama believes he has took to drinking more than he ought to. And he is drinking alone, which Mama says is the worst way.

  Mama says it is time you come home directly and see what you can do.

  Flavo Richardson

  She found him at the camp house, sitting at a small table in the middle of the darkened room, a near-empty bottle in front of him. He stared uncomprehendingly as she pushed open the door, flooding the room with the slanting light of late afternoon. The room reeked of whiskey and his own stench, the smell of death and defeat, and her hand went involuntarily to her mouth as she tried to stifle a rush of nausea. She was aware of a terrible clutter, clothes tossed about, furniture overturned—the abiding place of a soul in agony.

  She realized that he didn’t recognize her at first, profiled as she was in the open doorway with the afternoon light at her back. “Papa,” she said, and he flinched at the sound and turned his face from her. She crossed to him and knelt beside the chair. “Papa, I love you.”

  He began to weep softly and she held him, cradling his head in her arms as she would an infant. She hurt deeply for him, the most terrible hurt she had ever known, far worse than the dull empty ache when her mother had boarded the train for New Orleans. Elise had been a tiny, frightened animal, running from her life in order to survive it. But her father was the strong one, the proud one. To see him like this wrenched the core of her being. She wanted to flee from the awful sight and smell of him, from the shame of his impoverished strength and pride. But she couldn’t flee. After Dorsey, there was simply no place to go. So now she must stay and be the strong one. She struggled against herself, gained control.

  He calmed himself after a while, but he wouldn’t look at her. “I’m ashamed for you to see me like this.”

  “I know.”

  “I want you to go away.”

  “No, Papa. I’m going to stay with you. Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

  “I’m wretched,” he whispered. “That’s what’s wrong.”

  “Why, Papa?”

  “I’ve suffered some great losses.”

  “The crash?”

  He nodded. Then after a moment he said, “And this.” He reached into the pocket of his flannel shirt and pulled out a piece of yellow paper. It was folded into a square, the creases worn from much handling. She opened it, squinted at the bold black words of the telegram in the fading light.

  ELISE DIED TODAY.

  JOHN FOURNIER.

  Then she saw the date. October 3.

  “Papa,” she said softly, “it’s been more than a month. Why didn’t you tell anybody?”

  He shook his head. “I couldn’t. I’m ashamed.”

  “Why, Papa?”

  He looked up at her then, showed her the ravages of his face. He was old and withered, held prisoner inside the hated leather corset that bound his wasted arm. “I killed her, Bright,”

  She wanted to cry out, No! No! But then she thought, What if he is right? What then? Bright had neither the
capacity nor the will to judge either of them. The only thing that mattered right now was that one was gone and the other remained. So she said, “Don’t kill yourself, Papa.”

  “I’m afraid.”

  “Yes. I know.”

  “It has all turned out badly, Bright. I’ve lost everything.”

  “No, not everything.” She rose, put her hand under his elbow. “Come, Papa. We’re going home. Flavo’s outside with the car, and we’re going to take you home. And that’s where we’ll stay.”

  He didn’t protest. Instead, he looked up at her with the pitifully grateful eyes of a man being thrown a lifeline. Perhaps the last one that existed.

  >

  She quite forgot Fitzhugh Birdsong for a time. She dispatched Flavo to Atlanta to get her things from the Conservatory and she got about the business of caring for her father. They put him to bed, she and Hosanna, began tending to him as they would an invalid. And she began sifting through Dorsey’s affairs, learning the extent of his financial troubles. He had indeed lost money in the stock market debacle, but the worst of it was that the lumber business was in disarray, more the victim of his neglect than anything. And that alone was proof enough of his decline. It had been his great pride, his great achievement. Now he seemed to have lost interest.

  What to do? She sat down with Pegram Gibbons and they talked through the options. Bright could try to persuade Dorsey to sell the business, but in its present state, and with the nation’s affairs in even more dire straits, there seemed little hope of getting much for it. And Bright could not run things by herself. The alternatives, Pegram suggested, were to close it down entirely or find someone to manage it. Closing it, Bright decided, was no option at all. How would they live? Dorsey had some landholdings, but who wanted to buy land, now that people could barely afford essentials? No, the timber business was all they had.

  Bright left the bank in a daze and stood on the sidewalk for a moment in the thin January sunshine, staring at the pavement, her mind aswirl. Then she looked up and saw Monkey Deloach. He was pushing a dray cart full of potato sacks along the sidewalk in front of Putnam’s Mercantile, wearing a canvas apron, a pencil tucked behind his ear.