by Gwen Bristow
She lived on her anticipation of Kester’s joy when he first saw the plantation, and tried to imagine his words. At first he would be speechless. Then he would turn to her. “Eleanor, I never dreamed it could be so beautiful! You did all this for me!” His delight would repay her for everything. She would not mind those weary days in the fields nor the influenza terror nor having worked herself nearly to death. They would have Ardeith, a model of prosperous efficiency, and would live here the rest of their lives together.
It was spring when Kester came. The gardens were shining with camellias and roses, magnolia flowers were starring the trees and in the fields the lines of young cotton were green from the road to the river. Eleanor met him in New Orleans. She stood in a shoving mob of people, not seeing any of them, and watched hundreds of soldiers, all of whom looked alike until she saw Kester. She caught sight of him before he saw her, Kester taking in the throng with his hello-everybody grin while his eyes searched for her, then when he saw her his grin became like a light of victory. Before she could struggle through the crowd to him he had somehow reached her, coming through the press of people as though he had leaped across it, and he had her in his arms. They were so starved for each other they might have been a thousand miles from any human company; Eleanor was conscious of nothing but his arms around her and his kisses on her mouth and eyes, and she never remembered what they said or if they said anything at all. She was simply aware that he was at home and that they would never be separated again.
After awhile—she never knew how long it was—she became conscious that bands were playing and people were cheering and a confusion of orders was being given around her. From somewhere she heard a group of shrill young voices triumphantly singing,
And it’s oh, boy,
It took the doughboy
To hang the wash on the Hindenburg Line!
She and Kester moved apart. They stood looking at each other, and began to laugh. He must parade and be cheered, he told her, no, he couldn’t help it, everybody seemed to have peace these days except the soldiers who had won the war. Eleanor had to relinquish him to the army, to his parents and his brother and sister, to what looked like thousands of friends. It seemed to her that half the population of New Orleans must have been waiting almost as eagerly as herself for Kester to come home. Though she had always enjoyed his popularity she wished now that nobody in town wanted to see him but herself.
But at last they came home to Ardeith.
Cameo met them at the train with the glittering car. Kester sprang forward and shook hands with Cameo, while Cameo beamed and stammered and looked him over and told him proudly, “Dey sho didn’t need to tell me, Mr. Kester, it was gonta take you to win dat war!”
“How’s Dilcy?” Kester inquired. “And Mamie?”
“Fine as pie, Mr. Kester. Just spoilin’ for a look at you.”
Kester took a look inside the car. “But didn’t you bring the children, Cameo?”
“Dey’s on de gallery waitin’, Mr. Kester. Miss Cornelia, she jes’ jumpin’ up and down, ’bout to bust.”
Kester gave Eleanor a wistful smile. “I suppose Philip won’t know me at all, will he?”
“He has a mental picture of you—I think something about eight feet high, clanking swords. Kester, do you like the car?”
Kester looked at it, “Holy jumping Joshua,” he gasped. He got in slowly, adjusted the mirrors, turned on the yellow fog lights and got out to examine the effect before turning them off again, and stared at her. “How much will she do?”
“Seventy or eighty. I’m not sure.”
“Like driving her?”
“I don’t know. This is yours.”
“Mine?”
She nodded happily. “I have another. A roadster.”
He looked around again, not yet used to it. “I thought I’d get a roadster. A little snappy one. I never dreamed of having anything like this.”
“You’re going to have lots you never dreamed of.” Eleanor squeezed his hand. “Don’t you want to drive it home? Cameo can sit in back with the bags.”
“No, let him do it. I’d rather talk to you.” They got into the back seat. Kester played with the inside light and the speaking-tube, raised and lowered the windows. “Why Eleanor, it’s a circus on wheels.”
Eleanor settled back. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Why yes, beautiful,” said Kester. He looked eagerly as they started to drive though Dalroy. “Why, Colston’s Dry Goods Store is all painted up. So’s the drug store. And all those new flower-beds in the park! Gee, the place looks prosperous.”
Eleanor chuckled. “Thirty-eight cent cotton, darling.”
“Thirty—eight—cents!” he gasped. “Did it really go that high?”
“Didn’t I write you? Or maybe I didn’t. That was about the time I got sick.”
“Are you all right now?” he asked anxiously.
“Oh yes, I never felt better in my life.”
“Lord, it’s good to be home!” Kester looked out, his eyes greedy for the sight of familiar things. The car turned into the river road, purring softly under his exclamations. “Eleanor, I can’t tell you how I’ve dreamed about this place. The wide shady streets and the palms with rosa montana climbing over them, the mules and Negroes in town on Saturday afternoons, the drug store with everybody getting cokes and lemonade, the darkies hoeing the cotton, watermelons and corn-bread and crab gumbo—there’s Ardeith, beyond the pomegranate trees!” His hand closed on hers. “How I’ve missed it,” he said in a low voice.
Eleanor was breathless in her desire to watch him as he saw Ardeith’s new beauty. Kester exclaimed,
“What gorgeous cotton! I never saw it so high this time of year.”
He watched the fields, his back to her. She tingled.
“Oughtn’t there to be some hoeing, about now?” asked Kester. “I haven’t seen any darkies yet.”
“I don’t use so many laborers now. We don’t need them.”
“But why not?” Before she could answer, he asked, “What’s that thing like an engine with claws, kicking up all that dust?”
“A cultivator. That’s why we don’t need so many Negroes.”
He turned back to her with an astonished little smile. “I reckon I’ll have to get used to them. That looks odd, somehow.”
“I wrote you.”
“But I don’t think I exactly imagined them here. Funny, isn’t it?”
“They do wonderful work.”
“Evidently they do. That’s fine cotton if I ever saw any.” His attention was back on the fields. “What are those little white houses with green trimmings, over near the river?”
“That’s where the Negroes live.”
“Holy smoke, you mean that’s the quarters?”
She nodded. “No more rickety cabins. They have screens and everything.”
“Amazing,” said Kester. He grinned. “I bet they’ve every one of them cut a hole in the screen door to let the cat in.”
“They tried that sort of thing at first. I put a stop to it.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“If they’re happier with mosquitoes, why not let ’em have mosquitoes? It’s none of our business, you know, as long as they tend to the cotton.”
She laughed at him. The car turned into the avenue. “Ardeith,” said Kester. He said it reverently, looking around. “Eleanor, what’s happened to the oaks? They seem smaller than I remember.”
“They’ve been pruned down. I had a couple of tree-surgeons attend to them.”
“Oh. The lawns are kind of—formal, aren’t they?”
“The flowers were running wild. I brought a landscaper here to do them over.”
The car stopped in front of the house. Kester sprang out. There was a shout from the gallery. Cornelia had said “Father?” tentat
ively, then as he ran toward her she screamed “Father!” and sprang to him in an ecstasy of delight. Philip, though he did not know him, was excited too, for Eleanor had told him so much about the wonderful man who was coming, and Kester stood up holding them both, each on an arm. They were all talking at once.
“Look at my new dress,” said Cornelia. “It’s got pink spots and a sash.”
“Baby, how you’ve grown!” Kester was exclaiming. “Philip, do you know who I am?”
“Sojer,” said Philip, “and father.”
He carried them into the house. Eleanor followed. She found Kester down on his knees in the parlor, an open suitcase on the floor beside him, from which he was taking such an assortment of dolls and toys that the children were shouting with glee. Eleanor smiled as she watched. The children were so pretty and so healthy, any man would be proud of them. And Kester certainly was. At last, when they had scampered away to show their treasures to Dilcy, he got to his feet.
“It’s such fun to see them be persons,” he said, “not babies any more. Eleanor, isn’t Cornelia the loveliest child you ever saw?”
“She knows it, too,” Eleanor returned. “If we aren’t careful she’s going to spend her life in front of a looking-glass. How do you like Philip?”
“I like him enormously. But I’ve got to get acquainted all over again with both of them.”
She slipped her hand through the bend of his arm. “Come with me, Kester. I’ve got so much to show you, I hardly know where to start.”
He looked around hungrily. “Ardeith,” he said. “I want to see every room, every chair of it. Let’s tell Cameo to take the bags upstairs.” He took a step toward the wall and turned back to her with puzzled eyes. “Why Eleanor, where’s the bellcord?”
“In the attic.” Dropping his arm she went to the black button-studded rectangle in the corner and took down the telephone receiver. “Bessie? Tell Cameo to take Mr. Kester’s things to his room. And have Mamie make a pot of fresh coffee and send it up. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Kester was staring. “What—in the name—of conscience—is—that thing?”
“A house-telephone. They save an endless lot of running about. Come along.”
She guided him through the house, showing him the convenience of buttons and switches, and the calculating machines in his office. Kester looked at everything with amazement.
“I don’t suppose you’re so much interested in the kitchen,” she said, “or the laundry, but would you like to take a peek?”
“Why—yes,” said Kester.
Eleanor opened the kitchen door. Kester stared at the expanse of white tiles, the curtained windows, Mamie presiding over the electric stove.
“It looks like a restaurant,” he said in a low voice.
“Mighty fine doin’s we got,” Mamie announced to him.
“I’ll say you have. But Mamie, can you cook on that thing—I mean, cook the way you used to?”
“Well sah, it was kind of funny at first. But it’s mighty nice and clean, Mr. Kester. Right highclass, after you gets used to it.”
“I suppose it must be,” said Kester.
He and Eleanor went back into the main hall. “Don’t you like it?” Eleanor exclaimed.
“Why yes, yes, of course. Only it’s all so new. It’s like coming to a different place. I’ll have to get used to it, as Mamie said.”
They went up the spiral staircase and into Kester’s bedroom. Eleanor proudly pushed the button that controlled the hidden fan.
“I can’t say anything yet,” he murmured. “I’m too astonished. I feel like a horse and buggy.”
She laughed. Kester crossed the room and opened the bathroom door.
“For the love of the Lord,” he breathed. “Eleanor, this isn’t mine!”
“Yes it is. Watch.” She pressed a button. A brush came out of the wall, spinning, and she showed him how to hold his foot under it so as to get his shoe brushed without stooping. She displayed the faucets and mirrors and lights. Kester stood in the middle of it like a child before a baffling toy.
“All this,” he marveled, “just to take a bath. Have you got one like it?”
She nodded. “You can see mine later.”
There was a knock, and Cameo entered with the coffee-tray and the old silver service. “I could stand a cup of coffee,” said Kester. “My head’s positively addled.”
They sat down by the bedside table and Eleanor began to pour the coffee. “Kester, tell me what you think of it!”
“Why—everything must be very convenient,” he returned slowly. “I mean once you learn how to work all these things.”
“Oh yes, it is. Living here is so easy now. Everybody has so much more time.”
Kester stroked the handle of the silver coffee-pot. “It’s good to see all this again, and drink Mamie’s coffee. She makes the best coffee on earth. Why Eleanor!” he broke off.
“What’s the trouble, darling?”
“Where’s the dent?”
“Oh, that! You had me scared for a minute. I had it straightened.”
“Oh, I see. You had it straightened.” Kester set down his cup and stood up. “Eleanor, run along, will you? I’d like to get washed up before dinner.”
“Why—all right.” She stood up too. “Don’t you want me to help unpack your things?”
“No, I’ll do it.”
She moved away from him. He was looking out at the landscaped gardens. “Kester, what’s the matter?” she asked.
“Not a thing. But I’m all cindery from the train, and famished. What have we got for dinner, by the way?”
She smiled at that. “River-shrimp and stuffed crabs, and rice—”
“Ah!” He grinned. “Wonderful. And we haven’t—just by the merest possible chance—we haven’t got pecan pie for dessert?”
She nodded vehemently. “Yes, we have.”
Kester looked around. “Imagine, pecan pie in the same house with that bathroom. Eleanor, you—” He broke off again and began to laugh.
“What’s so funny about pecan pie?” she exclaimed.
“Nothing, Eleanor. I’m just so glad to get it. Tell Mamie to hurry up, and I’ll be down in a couple of minutes.”
Eleanor went out and shut the door. She walked across to the middle of the hall and stood with her hand on the balustrade of the staircase, looking back at the door of Kester’s room. She could hear him moving around. From downstairs she could hear the voices of the children.
Within her was a feeling of emptiness. It was very strange. Kester’s homecoming was flat. He had not said or done anything to justify her having such an impression, but there it was. She slowly went downstairs.
“Nothing is as wonderful as you think it’s going to be,” she advised herself as she stood at the foot of the staircase. “He’s so full of things to say he can’t say any of them yet. That’s all. I’m just overworking my imagination.”
Kester called her, leaning over the balustrade above the turn. “Eleanor, have you invited any people over for this evening?”
“Why no,” she answered, looking up. “I haven’t.” She felt a pang of disappointment; she had thought he would want to be alone with her.
“Oh, call them up—Neal and Bob and Violet—you know, everybody. I want to see them.”
“All right,” said Eleanor.
He went back to his room, whistling. Eleanor shook her head. She could not get rid of a feeling of having been delicately, perhaps unintentionally, snubbed.
2
She did not get rid of it as the weeks passed. Kester rode with her through the fields, praising the cotton and admiring her rejuvenation of the land, but he never showed the joy she had expected. He had an abstraction she had never observed in him before. In the midst of her explanation of how the tractors worked she saw that his eyes
had wandered over to the river; when she demonstrated the new fertilizing machine he answered in phrases that would have looked all right had they been written down, but in a manner that was in some indefinable way not quite as enthusiastic as it might have been. It was not like Kester to be absent-minded. One of his most enjoyable characteristics was his quality of being absorbed in the affair of the moment as if nothing else existed. Knowing how he loved every clod and corner of Ardeith, she had expected that he would want to examine everything and visit every field to see how it was growing. But he did not. He followed her deferentially, giving generous praises, but only rarely did she hear a spontaneous expression of pleasure.
Eleanor was beginning to hear about the war’s effect on some men, who had come back from France shivering neurotics unfit to resume normal life, but she was sure that was not what was wrong with Kester. He had seen very little of the war’s worst aspects. He talked about it freely, though with his usual tact he was quick to sense the increasing reaction of “Oh let’s not talk about the war, everybody’s so tired of that,” and change the subject. Their friends said, “Isn’t Kester delightful? How did we ever do without him!”—and she smiled to hide an increasing pain. Kester was delightful. But what she could confess to nobody was that Kester was just as delightful in their hours of privacy as he was in a roomful of people, and hardly less superficial.
Kester was not pleased with her; he did not say so, but she could feel it. His conversation was copious, born of a prodigal mind too long deprived of its most eager listener. But being with Kester was like attending a banquet where the food was choice, the wine exquisite, and her partner quick to anticipate and please her every desire, but where intimacy died in its trappings of gaiety. There had been a swift physical intoxication at their being together after their long separation, but that could not last forever and they seemed to have very little else. They had not recaptured their old sense of being one person with a single aim and a single desire; they were separate, with an empty space between them that kept them apart. They played with the children, and it was obvious that Kester was very fond of them both. They went to parties or gave parties at Ardeith, and he was as merry as ever. But they rarely spent an evening alone. They did not have their long hours of alternate silence and chatter, tossing back and forth between them the tiny unimportant threads that in the course of years became an unbreakable web of union. Kester was knightly and adoring, but that was not what she wanted.
