The Power of the Dog

by Thomas Savage

  8

  Over the years the old Burbanks — perhaps out of noblesse oblige and perhaps out of loneliness — had given a series of dinner parties, and not one had been successful. It was not merely that the Burbanks had little in common with the other ranchers; it was that men and women in that country had only in common what could not be mentioned at dinner parties. From the earliest days, when the guests arrived by buggy and team — elegant matched pairs of Hambletonians or Standardbreds — to the present when a man with great dignity behind the wheel of his Maxwell or Hudson Super Six drove his wife into the yard, the sexes separated, husbands and wives parted and remained as though they had never met and did not ever wish to. The hours before dinner were strained, the women lined up on one side of the room and the men on the other, the air in the spaces between them charged, hostile and embarrassed.

  The women feared their gowns were not adequate, nor their hair nor their hands and fingernails. They took refuge in sitting straight and tense as they imagined ladies did, fearing to open their mouths should some ugliness pop out like a toad and mock them. They could respond to old Mrs Burbank’s chatter of books and articles come upon in her use of the newspapers with but the stiffest smiles, for they had neither read books nor papers. Until this moment, caught in this room, there had seemed no reason to.

  On his side of the room, the Old Gent was no more successful in getting the men to respond to his talk of politics, the war with Spain, then the Boer War, then the trouble in the Balkans. They knew nothing of Spain, nor of the Boers, certainly nothing of the Balkans, and they, too, found refuge in sitting straight, sweating. They touched their neckties and collars and looked at their feet, strange in new shoes. The Burbank music, played on the Victrola, could not weld the sexes — selections from Aïda, from operettas of the day, The Runaway Girl, Mademoiselle Modiste, The Red Mill. They had the rugs rolled up and called on the group to dance, but the Burbanks had no reels and schottisches, and the ranchers and their wives hobbled about only briefly in the waltz and two-step and longed for the dear walls of their own establishments.

  Uneducated people, they felt talk risky, for if they spoke of what they knew, of ranching and the breeding of cattle and horses, the talk might treacherously veer to the facts of breeding, to the purchase and worth of bulls and studs, delicately called gentleman-cows and he-horses, but suggesting all the same that there was more to life, more to marriage, than merely living in the same house together, and that every couple in that room was guilty of it — however far they now sat apart with wooden faces, however unresponsive. The world must suspect their guilt. Topics that were at once safe and required little imagination or education were few. Recent deaths among their numbers were dwelt on, the duration and nature of the final suffering, the last words, the final scene, the last food taken, and the bereavement of the survivors.

  The weather offered a variety of aspects fit for talk, and the subject when broached was leapt on with almost hysterical enthusiasm, that each guest might express and relieve himself before the subject was left lifeless and limp, on the extremes of temperature, of humidity, rain, snow, sleet, the velocity of the wind, winds past and winds yet to be. The weather exhausted, the company might sit dumb until dinner was announced by the chimes struck at the door of the dining room by the hired girl.

  The elder Burbanks learned early not to embarrass guests by finger bowls and butter plates; they kept silverware to a minimum. Group eating was scarcely less embarrassing than bodily functions, and guests watched carefully to see how the Burbanks did it.

  To eat and to talk at once was especially difficult, but George remembered one dinner party that had been intruded on by the Episcopal minister in unexpected parish call, perhaps not realizing that the Burbanks had no particular need of God and — when they did — they would come to Him. It was the minister himself who had brought up the subject of cabbage (his wife, of German extraction, fancied cabbage) and he was both astounded and flattered by the avidity with which the company took it up, the women expressing either affection or dislike for the vegetable, the men using it as a springboard to memories of their mothers’ preparation of sauerkraut, of the primitive gardens in the country, and of the dear past long gone. Recipes for the preparation and preservation and the enhancing of cabbage were exchanged and each woman vowed, with a nod of the head, that she would soon attempt the recipe of the other. Phil referred to that as the Cabbage Dinner, and it was one of the last parties that the old Burbanks ever attempted. But there had been others — the Mud-Hole Dinner and the Grizzly Bear Dinner.

  Dinner over, guests were free to make, shifty-eyed, their lame excuses and to depart, leaving the Old Gent squatting before the Victrola, filing away his records and rising to stare at the green felt cover of the turntable before closing over it the coffinlike lid, leaving the Old Lady to remove her jewelry before her dressing table, staring sober-eyed at her face in the mirror. The guests, now some miles away in their cold cars, drove in silence, ashamed of each other’s wooden performance, wondering what was wrong with them that they couldn’t talk, couldn’t waltz, couldn’t rise to an occasion. Why had they married? Why labored to acquire property and money when the end was sitting in chairs in the Herndon House, watching the townspeople go about their legitimate, mysterious errands?

  The day of the Governor’s visit stalked ever closer.

  ‘Whom should I ask?’ Rose asked George, who greatly admired her English. ‘You’ll have to give me a list. And of course they’ll all come. You can’t refuse a dinner given for a governor. Oh, George!’

  Mrs Lewis was cooperative; she had never seen a governor, and fancied the opportunity.

  ‘Why of course you can meet him,’ Rose said.

  ‘Thank you, no,’ Mrs Lewis said. She wished only to look on him from the window when he drove up, and departed. She would make popovers and prepare chickens as her dead mother had prepared them. ‘For a time it looked as if she would take the recipe to her grave,’ Mrs Lewis said. She would have one of the men bring ice from the icehouse, and make maple mousse.

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you, Rose,’ George said, recalling the Cabbage Dinner. ‘If you don’t mind, we won’t ask anybody. Just you and me and Phil. Phil’s a crackerjack talker, and after dinner you can liven things up at the piano. It never worked out to have a lot of people.’ He explained the Cabbage Dinner. ‘My mother’s face got pale, and it was years before she could laugh about it.’

  ‘Whatever you want, George.’ She had so counted on the safety in numbers (the table would seat twenty-four), had so counted on dazzling the Governor with numbers, wanted to hide in the presence of numbers. ‘I just thought it might be easier.’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t be easier,’ said George. ‘It would be harder. I almost wish sometimes we hadn’t got ourselves into this.’

  ‘Don’t worry, George,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, I’m not worrying,’ said George.

  The table was set for five, and there were finger bowls and butter plates that April day that opened threatening snow, the clouds lowering over the mountains, the smoke from the bunkhouse settling down. From upstairs there seeped like a wraith the odor of singeing hair, for Lola the hired girl had been busy with lamp and curling tongs. By two in the afternoon all hope was dashed that the Governor and his lady would not arrive because of some gubernatorial business, some pardoning of a criminal, some presiding at solemn ceremony, for he telephoned from Herndon that they were indeed on their way. ‘He sounds in capital spirits,’ George told Rose, and they stared at each other a moment. ‘He says he’s looking forward to a drink, and his wife likes one, too. Don’t be surprised when she smokes.’

  The doors on either side of the buffet were locked on such whiskeys and gins as nobody else in the valley ever drank, and the key hung hidden inside the china closet. Until the Old Gent went to Salt Lake City, only he used the key or touched the bottles, and George had felt curiously emancipated when first he opened the doors and looked on the arra
y of bottles, Holland gin, Booths, House of Lords, Chivas Regal. The Old Gent had long been opposed to women’s drinking just as he, like Phil, was opposed to women’s cutting off their hair and generally acting up, but the swell of the times had forced him into offering females a cocktail called an Orange Blossom, and the recipe was included in the Bartender’s Manual of 101 Drinks, also locked behind the little door.

  ‘I’ll make the cocktails when they come,’ George said, ‘while you talk to them,’ and his eyes escaped hers. Behind him she touched the napkins on the table. He lifted out gin and bitters and set the bottles on a silver tray, reached for the silver cocktail shaker with the monogram, the sort that people like the Burbanks gave each other. ‘You haven’t seen Phil, have you?’

  ‘Why, no,’ she murmured. ‘Why?’

  ‘He’s probably in the shop,’ George said, ‘or in the bunkhouse.’

  ‘Did you look in his room?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I looked in his room. He isn’t there.’

  ‘Then I imagine he’s outside.’ George could not know, she thought, how it disturbed her to speak of Phil. Was he unaware that Phil had not spoken directly to her more than twice? And both times only at the table when he wanted and couldn’t reach something with his long arms and then, in her direction, he mentioned its name — the salt, the bread? Or did George take it for granted that Phil would not speak to her, their having nothing in common, the one a man, the other a woman? Or was he aware of the strain and only able to bear it by ignoring it? When she spoke of Phil her mouth grew dry, her tongue thickened. The thought of him scattered all pleasant and coherent thought and reduced her emotions to a child’s. Almost with relief she saw the speck appear far down the road, at the top of the rise, and the sun picked out some glass or metal on the Governor’s automobile.

  ‘There they come,’ she said, her heart beating.

  ‘So they do,’ and George’s hand went to his necktie. She had never seen him dressed in a suit except on town occasions, and she felt as if they were about to attend a funeral.

  With smiles fixed, they walked down the porch steps and stood at the gate meant to keep wandering livestock from trampling over the feeble lawn. The Governor’s automobile pulled into the driveway, and halted. Then George and Rose in her new satin slippers with the cut-steel buckles crossed the gravel patch.

  The Governor alighted, and opened the door for his lady. Then he turned. ‘Long time no see!’ he shouted, and under cover of his cheery voice his lady unfolded herself and arranged her little fur about her and got down to the troublesome gravel. She was a handsome, gray-haired woman with a stiff, nervous carriage and a quick smile. ‘So good of you to let us come,’ she cried. ‘Not really breathed all winter. The air out here!’ and she laughed delightfully. ‘But in this state, you never know whether to carry an umbrella or wear snowshoes. My word!’

  ‘We couldn’t be happier to see you,’ Rose said.

  ‘My!’ the lady breathed. ‘The air!’ She turned easily to George. ‘I should think your parents would miss it here. There is such a promise about the spring.’ She moved easily around the puddle of water.

  George smiled. ‘I’m afraid the old people began to mind the cold, some years back.’

  ‘I suppose they would,’ the Governor agreed.

  ‘I suppose as we grow older, we do mind the cold,’ his lady said. ‘But don’t they find it cold in Salt Lake? I can remember being cold there.’

  ‘It is pretty cold there,’ George admitted.

  ‘I believe I read it was thirty below, this past winter. And they have such dampness. The lake.’

  ‘They’re in this hotel down there,’ George said. ‘They have goldfish in the lobby and they keep it warm.’

  ‘Oh, I love Salt Lake and I love the Hotel Utah.’

  Rose grew a little desperate. ‘I have never been in Salt Lake,’ she admitted.

  The Governor’s lady took her hand. ‘Don’t you worry. We’ll meet there one day for dinner. We’ll plan something enchanting.’

  They could not seem to get started, could not seem to get to the house; and to appear busy, George frowned at the front tire of the Governor’s automobile and kicked it speculatively, and raised his eyes to the Governor. ‘See you’ve got on the new balloon tires!’

  ‘Well, sir, I have at that,’ the Governor said thoughtfully, ‘and believe me, it makes a difference in the ride!’

  ‘I imagine it would,’ George said. ‘Great big tires.’

  ‘What are you driving now?’ the Governor asked.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s a Reo.’

  ‘Now, George. The Reo is a good machine.’

  In spite of the sun the air was chilly with a small wind that whispered of snowdrifts not far off in the mountains, and the two women, their arms folded, looked at the men. Why could they not move to the house? Rose glanced at the Governor’s lady, noting the veiled look of boredom, fatigue and discomfort. She had driven two hundred miles to stand here watching men kick tires.

  ‘Well,’ Rose smiled, ‘why don’t we just go in?’

  ‘Capital idea!’ the Governor roared. ‘Capital idea from a capital little lady!’ and across the gravel patch they went, women first, men behind, George admitting that he had once considered buying a Pierce-Arrow.

  ‘Mmm,’ the Governor said. ‘That’s quite a machine.’

  George deposited the Governor’s coat in the office off the living room; the Governor threw back his shoulders and looked around. The two women disappeared into the bedroom, and in the center of it, the Governor’s lady stopped and took a breath. ‘You’d never guess you were on a ranch, would you? Never, never know you were in the country, in a western state.’

  It was an enormous room, rose-carpeted. On the shell-white walls big prints of Fragonard in silver frames — pretty sylvan scenes — caught the cold north light; the big windows were framed in lavish white lace caught by satin bows, and similar bows were poised like enormous butterflies on the lacy shades of the lamps, one beside a chaise longue. The canopy bed had an alcove to itself, and was flanked by highboys; the mirror over the dressing table was as large as a pier glass, casually reflecting an array of heavy silver objects and crystal decanters worth surely several thousand dollars: the number and disarray and the fact that old Mrs Burbank had not bothered to take them along with her to the hotel in Salt Lake struck the Governor’s lady as an insulting attitude toward luxury. How strange that she who had been born for such things had them now only on loan, only so long as her husband remained in office! Then away would go the official cars, the mansion, the cook, the gardener and the maid and again they’d repair to a fair-to-middling house, her husband to his fair-to-middling law practice, awaiting a change of heart in The People. And this small woman beside her had been born to nothing. She had inquired of her husband as to who Mrs Burbank was, and he had inquired, and found she had run some kind of rooming house. Rooming house or not, it was she who now possessed these treasures, her husband who could talk of maybe or maybe not buying a Pierce, depending on his whim — or rather on hers. But suppose this little woman in black beside her failed at living up to it all? She must constantly feel herself on trial, playing a role, wearing a mask that might someday slip. The Governor’s lady could not but feel a little jealous of her who pretended to be born into this room. ‘Imagine finding such elegance — on a ranch!’ She had paused to admire the two Dresden figures that flanked the dressing table — Love, and Love Blinded. Into the ear of the first, a fat cherub whispered nothing. A similar cherub fixed a band of flowers about the eyes of the second whose hands were raised in dainty protest. ‘Such elegance.’

  ‘I’m afraid it is,’ Rose smiled. The Governor’s lady felt herself stiffen, for here was a casual acceptance of wealth equal to that disarray of the silver pieces. But then she smiled to herself. For wasn’t the little lady perhaps deliberately casual, that the loss of these things would be tolerable, should she fail …? ‘Well, now,’ she said. ‘I’m sure the men must w
onder what’s happened to us!’

  The men were smoking cigars. Both rose at once. George said, ‘My brother will be here soon. We might just as well go ahead and have our cocktails. Something must have held him up.’

  And it was then that Rose knew Phil would not appear.

  Until then she had wondered if perhaps it was better that he didn’t, for how could she or George explain — if explanations were even possible — the clothes he wore, his hair, his hands raw with the weather and only casually washed? Now she began to pray silently that he would appear, for when she spoke — and her voice was so frightened it came from the very top of her throat — when she spoke she spoke the very commonplaces George had said made all those other dinners dull, dinners attended by no more important people than other ranchers. The duller the conversation, the more would depend on her piano playing. Without Phil, everything depended on the piano playing.

  ‘The weather has been awfully changeable,’ she began, and the Governor and his lady agreed, while George clinked glass against glass in the buffet in the dining room, and made Orange Blossoms as he’d seen his father make them.

  ‘Female weather,’ the Governor laughed. ‘Can’t seem to make up its mind.’

  ‘Well, sir!’ his lady said, pretending to be offended, but there was George with the cocktails. ‘Why, what lovely cocktails!’ she cried out. ‘Orange Blossoms, I do believe.’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ George said, ‘That’s what they are.’

  ‘Now, I tell you!’ the Governor boomed.

  ‘I’m afraid they’re something of a ladies’ drink,’ George remarked with a certain shyness.

  ‘And whyever not?’ the lady asked. ‘Ladies are here present!’