by Gwen Bristow
The receivers clicked into place. For a moment Eleanor sat still by the bed. She could feel her heart thumping. This might not be important, yet she was trembling; and all of a sudden she knew where she had heard voices like Sebastian’s voice today. He sounded like the men on the river saying, “I don’t think it will break, do you?” when the river was creeping up inch by terrible inch and sweat was streaming into their eyes from their fight to hold a levee that was just about to go under. “Oh please, God, please!” Eleanor whispered involuntarily, and she sprang up and began to put on her clothes with the same swift desperation with which she had seen them drag sandbags to the levee crown.
As she dashed around the turn of the spiral staircase she called to Kester that she was not to be disturbed till suppertime, and she got out her ledgers. Though she had tried not to, secretly she knew she had been counting on selling the cotton for at least twelve cents a pound. But now she began to figure out how little they could possibly take for it with safety. She and Kester had prepared for everything: they had cash ready to pay the cotton-pickers, they had provided for ginning and contracted for warehouse space to hold the cotton-bales until it was time for shipment. Unlike some improvident planters (one of whom Kester had been this time last year, she was reminded as she worked) they had not waited until the last minute to attend to these details; every single thing human effort could arrange was in order at Ardeith, and this heaven-sent weather was taking care of the only item beyond their control.
She worked until she was called to supper. After supper, telling Cameo to bring her a pot of coffee, she went back to her ledgers.
At eleven o’clock she looked up at Kester, who had been pretending to read. Her shoulders and the back of her neck ached with weariness, and as she spoke she thought her voice had a tinny sound.
“Kester, if the worst comes we can get through this fall on seven and a quarter cents a pound.”
He sprang to his feet, almost angrily. “Seven and a quarter cents? But my darling girl, we can’t take that! It’s giving it away.”
“I know it. But we may have to take it. It will mean we can’t do a thing but pay the interest and the outstanding bills. We can’t put a cent into the plantation or buy so much as a pair of shoes this winter. And of course we can’t put aside anything toward next year’s payment on the principal.”
“Seven and a quarter cents,” he repeated, as though they were words unfit to use in decent conversation. “It’s unthinkable.”
“Well, you might as well start thinking about it,” she retorted.
“I’d as soon plow it under,” Kester exclaimed.
“Oh, good heavens, Kester!” she cried. “Do you suppose I’m having any fun telling you that people who are desperate have to take what they can get?”
“No, darling. Forgive me.” He came around to the back of her chair and bent to kiss her forehead. “You’ve an astonishing mind for business. I couldn’t even squeeze out the interest at such a price.”
She leaned against him, aching with disappointment as much as with exhaustion. “I’m figuring on starvation wages to the pickers. Forty cents a hundred pounds—I hate to do it, but if cotton goes down that far they’ll be desperate too. Oh—” she brushed her hand across her eyes. “I was planning on tractors and cultivators, and so many pretty things for Cornelia! She’s been dressed like a pauper’s child this summer.”
Kester had his arm around her. “There’s nothing I can tell you, sweetheart,” he said in a low voice, “except that you’ve been splendid, and I feel worse than you do.”
She held his hand, afraid to speak again lest she break down and sob, and crying made her feel like such a fool.
The next morning when they rode over the fields the cotton was still as lavish as though the bombardment of Belgrade had never started. With proud authority Kester told Eleanor that this was as excellent cotton as could be grown anywhere in the world. “But what good is that,” she exclaimed, “if the price stays low?”
“How do you know it’s going to be low?” he demanded. “We won’t be selling for six or seven weeks.”
She looked down, stroking her horse’s mane. “I know. I’m ashamed of myself. But I feel so stricken.”
“Oh, stop it,” said Kester. He turned his horse abruptly and began hurrying back to the house. Eleanor followed, and found him at the telephone. “I’m ringing New Orleans again,” he said. “The market may have turned up by now. Go upstairs and listen if you want to.”
Eleanor climbed the stairs and sat by her bed, the receiver in her hand. She had a long time in which to resolve to be cheerful, for Kester had difficulty in getting Sebastian to the telephone. As Sebastian answered, Eleanor heard a confusion of voices behind him. To her strained attention they sounded like pandemonium. She heard Kester speak.
“Sebastian, what’s happening to cotton?”
Sebastian took a sharp breath. “Still falling.”
“But what’s going on?”
“Can’t you read? With Russia mobilizing, God knows who else will be in it by night.”
Kester asked more questions. Sebastian answered shortly, as though in no mood to discuss anything with anybody. At length, with an evident attempt to be optimistic, he urged, “After all, cotton is still in the flower. The war may not last more than a few months.”
“That’s what they said about the Civil War,” Kester returned, “and it lasted—”
At that Sebastian’s own dismay got the better of him. “Oh for God’s sake, Kester, do you think you’re the only one who’s in a panic today? The Cotton Exchange is a madhouse. There’s never been anything like it. If it’ll cheer you up I’ll tell you what I’ve lost this week. Some of us—”
Eleanor put back her own receiver, feeling that she simply could not bear to listen any longer. She dropped her forehead on her hands, and found that in spite of the blistering heat her hands were cold.
Beyond her windows the cotton blossoms danced in the sun, their opulence mocking her despair. She remembered those hundreds of hours in the fields when the sun had pounded on her head and her back had ached till she could hardly sit her horse, and the nights when she had sat up over her accounts though her head was heavy with sleepiness; she had pretended she did not need rest or amusement, and had looked the other way when she passed shopwindows full of fluffy dresses for a baby girl. She had given all she had it in her to give, till a thousand bales of perfect cotton were flowering in the fields. And now a prince nobody cared about had been shot in a town nobody had ever heard of by a maniac whose name nobody could pronounce, and she might as well have let the plantation grow up in grass.
Too shaky to work and too restless to sit still, she and Kester walked up and down the gallery, trying to encourage each other. Maybe Germany wouldn’t enter the war. And as for France and the British Empire, what concern could they possibly have with a dead Austrian archduke? It was beyond reason. Somebody in the Austrian royal family was always getting murdered, it seemed to be their destiny, and nobody had started a war over Prince Rudolph, or the Empress Elizabeth; the other kings had said they were sorry and had gone about their business as usual. But the fact that it was past understanding did not alter the fact that today the cotton of Ardeith was worth only about half as much as it had been worth the day before yesterday.
“Let’s have a party,” said Kester suddenly.
Eleanor stopped short. “A party? Are you losing your mind?”
“No, but I will if we keep on like this. Let’s call up everybody we know. Tell Mamie to whip up some sandwiches. I’ll go down and get out the best liquor in the house. Let’s have a party!”
He had grabbed her hand and dragged her indoors. As he said the last word he pulled down the receiver of the telephone and shouted a number. Eleanor listened, aghast.
“Violet? This is Kester Larne. You and Bob come over at seven. We feel like dancing
. Good! We’ll be looking for you.” He rattled the hook again. “Eleanor, tell Mamie about those sandwiches. Cameo!” he yelled over his shoulder. “Hello? Neal? This is Kester. We’re having a party tonight. You and Clara—yes, I know, damn the cotton—we’re expecting you.” Cameo had appeared from the back and Kester began giving him orders. “Cameo, make a lot of Sazeracs, we’re having some people in. Eleanor, go talk to Mamie!”
Giggling almost hysterically, Eleanor dropped a kiss on the tip of his ear. “You’re wonderful,” she whispered, and hurried back to the kitchen.
By eight o’clock the parlors were full and the phonograph was shrieking, “I want a girl, just like the girl, that married dear old dad!” Eleanor was dancing with Bob Purcell and Kester was mixing drinks for everybody. They talked a little about the drop in cotton, especially those who, like Neal Sheramy, were directly affected by it, but ragtime and Sazeracs were convincing most of them that things would be all right pretty soon. None of the guests knew how dangerous the state of Ardeith was, so nobody sympathized, and as the evening advanced Eleanor was more and more glad of it. She hardly sat down for hours. Though she had been up since six she kept going with a fierce inner stimulation that made her forget to think whether or not she was tired; she drank two Sazeracs before supper and two highballs afterward, more than she had ever drunk in an evening before, and for the first time in her life she smoked a cigarette. It gave her a welcome lightness in her head.
It was three o’clock before the guests left, clamoring that they had had a wonderful time and that Kester was really a bad influence, keeping people up till such hours on a Thursday night when tomorrow was a workday, but the all-of-a-sudden parties at Ardeith were such irresistible fun. As the door closed behind the last of them Eleanor stood still in the hall a moment, then all the strength went out of her and she sank down on the staircase, realizing that every joint of her body had a separate ache and her head was pounding.
Kester took her hands and helped her up. “Feel better?” he asked.
She nodded. He put his arm around her waist and they went upstairs. Kester was slightly drunk, but it did not seem important. She did not blame him.
But though she was so tired, she did not go to sleep at once. As she lay in bed, too tense to relax immediately and her thoughts clear with the cruel clarity of fatigue, she could not help remembering that if Kester had minded his plantation in normal times this drop would not have threatened disaster.
It was nearly eleven o’clock when she was wakened by Cornelia scrambling around in the hall outside. The room was hot but dim, and she noticed that somebody had tiptoed in early to draw the curtains so that the sun would not disturb her. Slipping out of bed, Eleanor put on her slippers and went to the door, where she saw Dilcy coming out of the nursery to rescue Cornelia. Pinned to the outside of her door was a torn scrap of paper on which Kester had scribbled, “Don’t wake up Miss Eleanor.”
Eleanor smiled. The darling. Taking care of her just as if he had not been up as late as she had. The door of his room across the hall was open and the bed was empty. She asked Dilcy where he was.
“He been downstairs quite awhile,” Dilcy told her. “You want yo’ coffee now, miss?”
“Yes, please.” Eleanor went back into her room and began to get dressed. She drank coffee, but it was too hot for her to want breakfast. By force of custom she put on a riding-habit, though it was too late to see much of the cotton this morning.
Kester was downstairs, reading the paper and drinking iced tea. He sprang up as she came in. “Hello, darling. How do you feel?”
“Fine. Better than you do—how much sleep did you get?”
“Funny,” he said. “I woke up at six, as usual.”
“Thanks for drawing my curtains,” said Eleanor. She kissed him and rumpled up his hair. “Is there anything in the paper?”
He chuckled. “Panama Canal to be opened for world traffic August fifteenth, as if anybody cares, now that there’s practically no traffic to go through it.”
“I’d forgotten all about the canal. Remember how important it was a month ago?”
“Since you’re all dressed for it,” he suggested, “want to take a look at the cotton?”
She looked him over wonderingly. “Kester, I had a good sleep and feel very well, but if you were up at six—”
“Oh, I’m all right,” he assured her.
They ordered the horses and went out. The sky was white with heat, but Kester said there was a feel of rain in the air. Last night’s merriment had cleared away much of their despondency, and the sight of the cotton reminded them that markets went up as well as down. If there was any change at all, Kester said, it would have to be up. And no matter what cannibals the Europeans were turning out to be they hadn’t given up the custom of wearing clothes. Unless, of course, the British went back to painting themselves blue like their ancestors. Laughing at his nonsense, Eleanor felt her spirits rising.
The cotton needed very little attention. They rode past the cabins, where most of the Negroes were idling in the sun, waiting for the bolls to open. A group of them were celebrating the slack period with a watermelon-cutting, and a pickaninny ran up with slices of watermelon for the master and mistress. They rode back to the house wiping the juice off their chins.
Cameo met them in the hall with a telegram.
“From Sebastian?” Eleanor exclaimed.
“It must be,” Kester answered eagerly as he tore it open. “He promised to wire if anything happened.”
Eleanor read it over his shoulder. As the words met her eyes she had a curious deathlike sensation. It was as though all the blood in her body had dropped, making her legs very heavy and the upper part of her feel as if it were not there at all.
NEW ORLEANS COTTON EXCHANGE CLOSED FIRST TIME IN HISTORY TEN TWENTY SIX THIS MORNING NEW YORK AND LIVERPOOL EXCHANGES ALSO CLOSED THIS MEANS COTTON CANNOT BE SOLD ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD AT ANY PRICE
SEBASTIAN
Chapter Six
1
Then they had the experience of living in a country that was paralyzed.
From Virginia to Texas the South had stood on a foundation of cotton. There were other crops, of course, and other industries, but cotton was their staff of life. Most of them had accepted their dependence on cotton like their dependence on the sun, never dreaming that either could be blotted from their reckoning. “The South clothes the world” was their proverb, and they were very nearly right: silk and linen were luxuries, and all but the most costly woollens were woven with a mixture of cotton. Cotton was the principal export of the United States.
Manufacturers abroad had contracted months in advance for cotton, and the merchant ships were embargoed in American ports: a city of ships clogged the river below New Orleans. There were vessels from all the warring nations, huddled so close together that the crews shouted to one another with an amiability that their kings overseas would hardly have sanctioned. In Europe the price of gingham was shooting beyond the reach of all but the wealthy, in the United States gingham was being sold for six cents a yard, because those who expected to profit by the havoc had ordered that cotton should not be moved.
Eleanor woke every morning with a sense of heaviness, looked around and remembered the cotton. She hated to get up. She hated the dragging days. She dreaded seeing Kester.
He said very little about their situation, apparently preferring to talk of any subject on earth but the fact that if their long overdue interest were not paid in November the bank would almost certainly foreclose. But sometimes when he was playing with Cornelia she would see him give the baby a look that made her remember that Cornelia was the seventh generation of the Larnes of Ardeith, and if they should take her away from it now she would not have even a memory of what her home had been.
It had never occurred to Eleanor to doubt that if she gave everything she had she could win this battle, and her
courage to endure the labor of the past few months had been based on a joyous self-confidence. She had always believed things did not happen to you unless you let them happen. The defeated people were those too lazy or too stupid to make their way. Now she felt as if all her knowledge and religion were turning to mockery. She walked up and down her bedroom, trying to think of a way out till she was dizzy with thinking. The loss of Ardeith would mean a fearful blow to her faith in herself, and as she fought to keep from having to receive such a blow she was reminded at every turn that this was not her fault, but Kester’s. All cotton planters were staggering under the shock, but those who had been provident were not facing utter ruin. And though she resolved to have patience with him, it was the first time she had ever had much need for such a quality and it was hard to acquire.
Fred wrote asking her if the collapse of the cotton market had put the plantation into really evil straits, and if so, was there anything he could do? Eleanor showed the letter to Kester. He read it soberly and went to his desk. Later in the day he brought her an answer he had written.
“Your kind letter to Eleanor would make me realize, if I never had before, what a fine and thoughtful man she has for a father. However, your anxiety is premature. We have no cotton to sell yet even if the times were normal, and there is every reason to expect the market to open by fall.” There followed several paragraphs of news about Eleanor and the baby. “Shall I send it?” Kester asked.
“Of course,” said Eleanor.
They read the papers, less to follow the war than to search for some indication that the warmakers were going to lift the embargo on cotton. The Germans were on their way to Paris and the Russians pushing through East Prussia toward Berlin. Eleanor wished savagely that one or the other army would get where it wanted to go; she didn’t care which, if only that would end the war and open the seas again. Through September she and Kester worked doggedly getting the cotton in, and sent it to the warehouse to fill the space they had so exultantly contracted for three months ago. There were nine hundred and thirty-two bales of it, worth nearly fifty thousand dollars last July and today not worth two cents.
