“Oh, Pete’s all right,” Jenny repeated placidly. She lay perfectly still again. The water was a cool dim sound. Jenny spoke, suddenly confidential.
“Say, you know what she wants Pete to do?”
“No: What?” asked the niece quickly.
“Well — Say, what kind of a girl is she? Do you know her very good?”
“What does she want Pete to do?” the other insisted.
Jenny was silent. Then she blurted in prim disapproval: “She wants Pete to let her paint him.”
“Yes? And then what?”
“That’s it. She wants Pete to let her paint him in a picture.”
“Well, that’s the way she usually goes about getting men, I guess. What’s wrong with it?”
“Well, it’s the wrong way to go about getting Pete. Pete’s not used to that,” Jenny replied in that prim tone.
“I don’t blame him for not wanting to waste his time that way. But what makes you and Pete so surprised at the idea of it? Pete won’t catch lead poisoning just from having his portrait painted.”
“Well, it may be all right for folks like you all. But Pete says he wouldn’t let any strange woman see him without any clothes on. He’s not used to things like that.”
“Oh,” remarked the niece. Then: “So that’s the way she wants to paint him, is it?”
“Why, that’s the way they always do it, ain’t it? In the nude?” Jenny pronounced it nood.
“Good Lord, didn’t you ever see a picture of anybody with clothes on? Where’d you get that idea from? From the movies?”
Jenny didn’t reply. Then she said suddenly: “Besides, the ones with clothes on are all old ladies, or mayors or somethingc Anyway, I thought...”
“Thought what?”
“Nothing,” Jenny answered, and the other said:
“Pete can get that idea right out of his head. Chances are she wants to paint him all regular and respectable, not to shock his modesty at all. I’ll tell him so, to-morrow.”
“Never mind,” Jenny said quickly, “I’ll tell him. You needn’t to bother about it.”
“All right. Whatever you like.... Wish I had a cigarette.” They lay quiet for a time. Outside water whispered against the hull. The victrola was hushed temporarily and the dancers had ceased. Jenny moved again, onto her side, facing the other in the darkness.
“Say,” she asked, “what’s your brother making?”
“Gus? Why don’t you ask him yourself?”
“I did, only...”
“What?”
“Only he didn’t tell me. At least, I don’t remember.”
“What did he say when you asked him?”
Jenny mused briefly. “He kissed me. Before I knew it, and he kind of patted me back here and told me to call again later, because he was in conference or something like that.”
“Gabriel’s pants,” the niece murmured. Then she said sharply: “Look here, you leave Josh alone, you hear? Haven’t you got enough with Pete and Mr. Talliaferro, without fooling with children?”
“I’m not going to fool with any children.”
“Well, please don’t. Let Josh alone, anyway.” She moved her arm, arching her elbow against Jenny’s soft nakedness. “Move over some. Gee, woman, you sure do feel indecent. Get over on your side a little, can’t you?”
Jenny moved away, rolling onto her back again, and they lay quiet, side by side in the dark. “Say,” remarked Jenny presently, “Mr. — that polite man—”
“Talliaferro,” the other prompted. “ — Talliaferro. I wonder if he’s got a car?”
“I don’t know. You better ask him. What do you keep on asking me what people are making or what they’ve got, for?”
“Taxicabbers are best, I think,” Jenny continued, unruffled. “Sometimes when they have cars they don’t have anything else. They just take you riding.”
“I don’t know,” the niece repeated. “Say,” she said suddenly, “what was that you said to him this afternoon?”
Jenny said, “Oh.” She breathed placidly and regularly for a while. Then she remarked: “I thought you were there, around that corner.”
“Yes. What was it? Say it again.” Jenny said it again. The niece repeated it after her. “What does it mean?”
“I don’t know. I just happened to remember it. I don’t know what it means.”
“It sounds good,” the other said. “You didn’t think it up yourself, did you?”
“No. It was a fellow told it to me. There was two couples of us at the Market one night, getting coffee: me and Pete and a girl friend of mine and another fellow. We had been to Mandeville on the boat that day, swimming and dancing. Say, there was a man drownded at Mandeville that day. Pete and Thelma, my girl friend, and Roy, this girl friend of mine’s fellow, saw it. I didn’t see it because I wasn’t with them. I didn’t go in bathing with them: it was too sunny. I don’t think blondes ought to expose themselves to hot sun like brunettes, do you?”
“Why not? But what about—”
“Oh, yes. Anyway, I didn’t go in swimming where the man got drownded. I was waiting for them, and I got to talking to a funny man. A little kind of black man—”
“A nigger?”
“No. He was a white man, except he was awful sunburned and kind of shabby dressed — no necktie and hat. Say, he said some funny things to me. He said I had the best digestion he ever saw, and he said if the straps of my dress was to break I’d devastate the country. He said he was a liar by profession, and he made good money at it, enough to own a Ford as soon as he got it paid out. I think he was crazy. Not dangerous: just crazy.”
The niece lay quiet. She said, contemplatively: “You do look like they feed you on bread and milk and put you to bed at sunset every day.... What was his name? Did he tell you?” she asked suddenly.
“Yes. It was...” Jenny pondered a while. “I remembered it because he was such a funny kind of man. It was... Walker or Foster or something.”
“Walker or Foster? Well, which one was it?”
“It must be Foster because I remembered it by it began with a F like my girl friend’s middle name — Frances. Thelma Frances, only she don’t use both of them. Only I don’t think it was Foster, because—”
“You don’t remember it, then.”
“Yes, I do. Wait.... Oh, yes: I remember — Faulkner, that was it.”
“Faulkner?” the niece pondered in turn. “Never heard of him,” she said at last, with finality. “And he was the one that told you that thing?”
“No. It was after that, when we had come back to N.O. That crazy man was on the boat coming back. He got to talking to Pete and Roy while me and Thelma was fixing up downstairs, and he danced with Thelma. He wouldn’t dance with me because he said he didn’t dance very well, and so he had to keep his mind on the music while he danced. He said he could dance with either Roy or Thelma or Pete, but he wouldn’t dance with me. I think he was crazy. Don’t you?”
“It all sounds crazy, the way you tell it. But what about the one that said that to you?”
“Oh, yes. Well, we was at the Market. There was a big crowd there because it was Sunday night, see, and these other fellows was there. One of them was a snappy looking fellow, and I kind of looked at him. Pete had stopped in a place to get some cigarettes, and me and Thelma and Roy was crowded in with a lot of folks, having coffee. So I kind of looked at this goodlooking fellow.”
“Yes. You kind of looked at him. Go on.”
“All right. And so this goodlooking fellow crowded in behind me and started talking to me. There was a man in between me and Roy, and this fellow that was talking to me said, Is he with you? talking about the man sitting next to me, and I said, No, I didn’t know who he was. And this fellow said, How about coming out with him because he had his car parked outside... Pete’s brother has a lot of cars. One of them is the same as Pete’s... And then... Oh, yes, and I said, where will we go, because my old man didn’t like for me to go out with strangers, and the fe
llow said he wasn’t a stranger, that anybody could tell me who some name was, I forgot what it was he said his name was. And I said he better ask Pete if I could go, and he said, Who was Pete? Well, there was a big man standing near where we was. He was big as a stevedore, and just then this big man happened to look at me again. He looked at me a minute, and I kind of knew that he’d look at me again pretty soon, so I told this fellow talking to me that he was Pete, and when the big man looked somewheres else a minute this fellow said that to me. And then the big man looked at me again, and the fellow that said that to me kind of went away. So I got up and went to where Thelma and Roy was, and pretty soon Fete came back. And that’s how I learned it.”
“Well, it sure sounds good. I wonder... Say, let me say it sometimes, will you?”
“All right,” Jenny agreed. “You can have it. Say, what’s that you keep telling your aunt? something about pulling up the sheet or something?” The niece told her. “That sounds good, too,” Jenny said magnanimously.
“Does it? I tell you what: You let me use yours sometime, and you can take mine. How about it?”
“All right,” Jenny agreed again, “it’s a trade.”
Water lapped and whispered ceaselessly in the pale darkness. The curve of the low ceiling directly over the berth lent a faint sense of oppression to the cabin, but this sense of oppression faded out into the comparatively greater spaciousness of the room, of the darkness with a round orifice vaguely in the center of it. The moon was higher and the lower curve of the brass rim of the port was now a thin silver sickle, like a new moon.
Jenny moved again, turning against the other’s side, breathing ineffably across the niece’s face. The niece lay with Jenny’s passive nakedness against her arm, and moving her arm outward from the elbow she slowly stroked the back of her hand along the swell of Jenny’s flank. Slowly, back and forth, while Jenny lay supine and receptive as a cat. Slowly, back and forth and back... “I like flesh,” the niece murmured. “Warm and smooth. Wish I’d lived in Rome... oiled gladiators.... Jenny,” she said abruptly, “are you a virgin?”
“Of course I am,” Jenny answered immediately in a startled tone. She lay for a moment in lax astonishment. “I mean,” she said, “I — yes. I mean, yes, of course I am.” She brooded in passive surprise, then her body lost its laxness. “Say—”
“Well,” the niece agreed judicially, “I guess that’s about what I’d have said, myself.”
“Say,” demanded Jenny, thoroughly aroused, “what did you ask me that for?”
“Just to see what you’d say. It doesn’t make any difference, you know, whether you are or not. I know lots of girls that say they’re not. I don’t think all of ’em are lying, either.”
“Maybe it don’t to some folks,” Jenny rejoined primly, “but I don’t approve of it. I think a girl loses a man’s respect by pom — prom — I don’t approve of it, that’s all. And I don’t think you had any right to ask me.”
“Good Lord, you sound like a girl scout or something. Don’t Pete ever try to persuade you otherwise?”
“Say, what’re you asking me questions like that for?”
“I just wanted to see what you’d say. I don’t think it’s anything to tear your shirt over. You’re too easily shocked, Jenny,” the niece informed her.
“Well, who wouldn’t be? If you want to know what folks say when you ask ’em things like that, why don’t you ask ’em to yourself? Did anybody ever ask you if you were one?”
“Not that I know of. But I wou—”
“Well, are you?”
The niece lay perfectly still a moment. “Am I what?”
“Are you a virgin?”
“Why, of course I am,” she answered sharply. She raised herself on her elbow. “I mean — Say, look here—”
“Well, that’s what I’d ‘a’ said, myself,” Jenny responded with placid malice from the darkness.
The niece poised on her tense elbow above Jenny’s sweet regular breathing. “Anyway, what bus — I mean — You asked me so quick,” she rushed on, “I wasn’t even thinking about being asked something like that.”
“Neither was I. You asked me quicker than I asked you.”
“But that was different. We were talking about you being one. We were not even thinking about me being one. You asked it so quick I had to say that. It wasn’t fair.”
“So did I have to say what I said. It was as fair for you as it was for me.”
“No, it was different. I had to say I wasn’t: quick, like that.”
“Well, I’ll ask it when you’re not surprised, then. Are you?”
The niece lay quiet for a time. “You mean, sure enough?”
“Yes.” Jenny breathed her warm intent breath across the other’s face.
The niece lay silent again. After a time she said: “Hell,” and then: “Yes, I am. It’s not worth lying about.”
“That’s what I think,” Jenny agreed smugly. She became placidly silent in the darkness. The other waited a moment, then said sharply:
“Well? Are you one?”
“Sure I am.”
“I mean, sure enough. You said sure enough, didn’t you?”
“Sure, I am,” Jenny repeated.
“You’re not playing fair,” the niece accused, “I told you.”
“Well, I told you, too.”
“Honest? You swear?”
“Sure, I am,” Jenny said again with her glib and devastating placidity.
The niece said, “Hell.” She snorted thinly.
They lay quiet, side by side. They were quiet on deck, too, but it seemed as though there still lingered in the darkness a thin stubborn ghost of syncopation and thudding tireless feet. Jenny wiggled her free toes with pleasure. Presently she said:
“You’re mad, ain’t you?” No reply. “You’ve got a good figure, too,” Jenny offered, conciliatory. “I think you’ve got a right sweet little shape.”
But the other refused to be cajoled. Jenny sighed again ineffably, her milk-and-honey breath. She said: “Your brother’s a college boy, ain’t he? I know some college boys. Tulane. I think college boys are cute. They don’t dress as well as Pete... sloppy.” She mused for a time. “I wore a frat pin once, for a couple of days. I guess your brother belongs to it, don’t he?”
“Gus? Belong to one of these jerkwater clubs? I guess not. He’s a Yale man — he will be next month, that is. I’m going with him. They don’t take every Tom, Dick and Harry that shows up in up there. You have to wait until sophomore year. But Gus is going to work for a senior society, anyhow. He don’t think much of fraternities. Gee, you’d sure give him a laugh if he could hear you.”
“Well, I didn’t know. It seems to me one thing you join is about like another. What’s he going to get by joining the one he’s going to join?”
“You don’t get anything, stupid. You just join it.”
Jenny pondered this a while. “And you have to work to join it?”
“Three years. And only a few make it, then.”
“And if you do make it, you don’t get anything except a little button or something? Good Lord... Say, you know what I’m going to tell him to-morrow? I’m going to tell him he better hold up the sheet: he’s — he’s — What’s the rest of it?”
“Oh shut up and get over on your side,” the niece said sharply, turning her back. “You don’t understand anything about it.”
“I sure don’t,” Jenny agreed, rolling away and onto her other side, and they lay with their backs to each other and their behinds just touching, as children do.... “Three years... Good Lord.”
Fairchild had not returned. But she had known they would not: she was not even surprised, and so once more her party had evolved into interminable cards. Mrs. Wiseman, herself, Mr. Talliaferro and Mark. By craning her neck she could see Dorothy Jameson’s frail humorless intentness and the tawdry sophistication of Jenny’s young man where they swung their legs from the roof of the wheelhouse. The moon was getting up and Pete’s
straw hat was a dull implacable gleam slanted above the red eye of his eternal cigarette. And, yes, there was that queer, shy, shabby Mr. Gordon, mooning alone, as usual; and again she felt a stab of reproof for having neglected him. At least the others seemed to be enjoying the voyage, however trying they might be to one another. But what could she do for him? He was so difficult, so ill at ease whenever she extended herself for him... Mrs. Maurier rose.
“For a while,” she explained; “Mr. Gordon. — . the trials of a hostess, you know. You might play dummy until I — no: wait.” She called Dorothy with saccharine insistence and presently Miss Jameson responded. “Won’t you take my hand for a short time? I’m sure the young gentleman will excuse you.”
“I’m sorry,” Miss Jameson called back. “I have a headache. Please excuse me.”
“Go on, Mrs. Maurier,” Mrs. Wiseman said, “we can pass the time until you come back: we’ve got used to sitting around.”
“Yes, do,” Mr. Talliaferro added, “we understand.”
Mrs. Maurier looked over to where Gordon still leaned his tall body upon the rail. “I really must,” she explained again. “It’s such a comfort to have a few on whom I can depend.”
“Yes, do,” Mr. Talliaferro repeated.
When she had gone Mrs. Wiseman said: “Let’s play red dog for pennies. I’ve got a few dollars left.”
She joined him quietly. He glanced his gaunt face at her, glanced away. “How quiet, how peaceful it is,” she began, undeterred, leaning beside him and gazing also out across the restless slumber of water upon which the worn moon spread her ceaseless peacock’s tail like a train of silver sequins. In the yet level rays of the moon the man’s face was spare and cavernous, haughty and inhuman almost. He doesn’t get enough to eat, she knew suddenly and infallibly. It’s like a silver faun’s face, she thought. But he is so difficult, so shy.... “So few of us take time to look inward and contemplate ourselves, don’t you think? It’s the life we lead, I suppose. Only he who creates has not lost the art of this: of making his life complete by living within himself. Don’t you think so, Mr. Gordon?”
Complete Works of William Faulkner Page 42
