Raintree County

by Ross Lockridge

  Wake unto me, faces of an old republic. Where did you come from, children of a golden god? Like big lush flowers, you briefly swayed in white seductions.

  —Over the streamlet vapors are borne,

  Waiting to fade at the bright coming morn.

  Beautiful dreamer, beam on my heart,

  E’en as the morn on the streamlet and sea;

  Then will all clouds of sorrow depart. . . .

  Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me! It was in a cold dawn of the unreturning years, and our tears and kisses mingled on our cheeks. There was a path that time never took, down ribboning rails to the great and golden West. Beside the little river that flows into the lake, on the banks where we played in childhood’s golden summer, we two were torn apart long ago, and your pale face glimmered down the vistas of the morn, long ago, long ago, and o, I remember, I remember, your sweet face fading in the mists above the river till the purple haze of morning wreathed it from my view.

  The Chanticleers were singing an encore.

  —I remember the days of our youth and love. . . .

  Mr. Shawnessy ached with love-desire, as there awakened, within the shell of middle-age, the young Shawnessy, the shockheaded boy, tender and sentimental, the adolescent god of early American days.

  —Nevermore will come those happy, happy hours,

  Whiled away in life’s young dawn;

  Nevermore we’ll roam thro’ pleasure’s sunny bowers,

  For our bright, bright summer days are gone.

  Listen! are you there, face of the young Shawnessy, face that is only half of the archetypal human face, seeking for the other half that will make up the sum of ideal beauty, hunting down the lanes and over the cornfields of an infinite number of hypothetical Raintree Counties! I see you momentarily—a young god, tall. Your hair is shaken into sunlight. You hunt a tree beside the river where you will find at last the face that you were seeking.

  —How we joyed when we met, and grieved to part,

  How we sighed when the night came on;

  How I longed for thee in my dreaming heart,

  Till the first fair coming of the dawn.

  She has risen from the river. Hurry, be fleet, for the bark is closing on her whitemusded loins, her face is covered up in leaves. And it is dark, dark, dark in the woodlands of all the Raintree Counties that never were, it is a long, long time till the first fair coming of the

  December 1-2—1859

  DAWN AND ITS DAY OF LONG FAREWELL WERE STILL

  many hours distant as Johnny Shawnessy rode home from Freehaven to the Home Place, returning from a bachelor’s dinner given him by Garwood Jones and Cash Carney. On the morrow he was to be married.

  The night was cloudy, raw, and moonless but not dark. He could see the wet road palely dissolving in the bleak night; he could see damp fields, dark masses of forest, and the mute farmhouses, lightless at this late hour.

  Crossing the bridge at Danwebster, he looked down at the river, a cold, cheerless water. Around him was the immutable and mournful earth of Raintree County, and beyond, the great plains rolling east and west and north and south, the valleys, mountains, deserts of America; beyond that the limitless, cold oceans, and the whole waste of earth, slowly revolving in the night of human time. Was it his earth? Did he hold lasting title to a single handful of it?

  He thought of people wandering in the night or making love or dying—all over the Republic. Was one any more important than another? Did any of them possess anything that they could keep forever? Did the lovers really possess each other in the night? Did they really become one? Did the bride and groom really marry and belong forever to each other?

  He was thinking then of John Brown, who had fought for the freedom of a few million nameless black men, shadowy projections of the Southern earth where they toiled. What good had it done John Brown to believe, to labor long and hard, to go up and down in the land? Now he would have one brief, reluctant morning. He would have one long farewell.

  Perhaps it was better to make a few concessions and live a little longer than to be once brave and forever dead.

  But then did it really matter so much if the neck snapped at a predictable time? Wasn’t each sleeper in his bed condemned and merely enjoying a stay of execution? Light was coming always, in great beams up the eastern marches of the earth. No one could keep the old man from the rope. John Brown must die, terribly alone as all men must.

  But John Shawnessy was alive. He would go tomorrow to far, strange places. He would escape and pleasure himself with a barbaric love while the old man went down to a dirty grave.

  On a clear, cold day in mid-November, Johnny had gone back to the tall house in Freehaven to ask Susanna’s hand in marriage. Ushered in by a Negro girl, he had waited on the divan in the parlor. After a very long time, the maid returned.

  —Miss Susanna will receive in her room upstairs.

  He followed the maid up the stair from the hall and into a huge bedroom occupying most of the secondfloor front.

  The room was shaded by gorgeous red curtains closely drawn over the single window, which was the middle one of five on the front of the house. At first Johnny couldn’t see very well, but slowly his eyes made out a canopied bedstead scarlet-draperied like the window and closed on all sides. Except for mirrors placed at intervals along the walls, the rest of the room was almost empty of furniture.

  The maid stopped at the door.

  —Here’s the young gentleman to see you, Miss Susanna.

  —Come in, Johnny.

  It was Susanna’s voice, plaintive and remote from the depths of the bed. The draperies faintly stirred on the side nearest him.

  Johnny walked over to the bed.

  —How does a person get into this thing?

  —Just pull that cord there, the voice in the bed said. I haven’t been well, Johnny.

  —I’m sorry, Johnny said.

  He jerked the cord, and the curtains parted and shot back on his side.

  In the darkly scarlet depths of the huge bed he could see Susanna’s face looking at him from under a sheet. But what startled him was that a hundred other faces were peering at him from the shadowy corners and walls of the bed—tiny, motionless faces, grotesquely fixed at a hundred different angles.

  The bed was aswarm with dolls.

  Dolls were sitting on the head and foot of the bed, dolls were lying in the corners of the bed, dolls were propped against the head and footboards, dolls were hanging by their coats on hooks. There were all sizes from one as small as a thumb to a monster with a fat, creamy face, leering happily from a sitting position at the foot of the bed. All the dolls stared with a horrible, waxy fixity at nothing at all. Most of them were male.

  —My word! Johnny gasped. Are they all friendly?

  In the middle of this asylum of hideously diversified little human heads, Susanna lay voluptuously alive, softly moving her shoulders, but only her face showed above the sheet, peculiarly broad and lush in the reclining position. She looked savagely healthy. A shy smile curved her lips.

  —Sort of a hobby, she said.

  —How—how many are there?

  Susanna looked gravely around at the dolls.

  —One hundred and sixteen now, counting Jeemie, she said. This is Mr. John Wickliff Shawnessy, children.

  —Pleased to meet you, fellows, Johnny said, bowing formally. Nice day, isn’t it?

  The dolls continued to stare fixedly at nothing at all, a hundred lidded, mysterious little faces.

  —They’ve been sick children today, Susanna said, and they’ve all had to go to bed.

  —My word! Johnny said. Don’t tell me you move this gang around with you!

  —O, yes, Susanna said. Sometimes we sit on chairs, and sometimes we play on the floor, and sometimes we dress and undress ourselves, don’t we, children?

  Susanna looked entirely pathetic and adorable in the great bed as she gravely harangued her dolls. Johnny sat down on the edge of the bed and took one of her hands. Sh
e allowed him to have it, extending her naked arm from under the sheet.

  —Susanna, I have come to ask your hand in marriage.

  She lay for a long time merely looking pensively at the dolls, not changing her position. At last she said in a forlorn, low voice,

  —You don’t have to marry me, Johnny. I release you. As for the child——

  —I don’t care about the child, Johnny said fiercely. I have asked your hand in marriage, and I expect a reply.

  Susanna turned and looked a long time into his eyes with her violet eyes. Then with her free hand she pulled the sheet down a little from the pillow revealing a doll Johnny hadn’t yet seen lying with its little head on the pillow beside her. All the other dolls were beautifully clean and newlooking, but this doll had evidently been through a fire. Its clothes were charred and browned, and its head was blistered and blackened.

  —What about it, Jeemie? Susanna said to the doll. Shall we marry this gentleman? He’s a very lovely young man, and I love him very much, Jeemie. I love him much, much, much more than any of the rest. What do you think, Jeemie?

  She looked inquiringly at the firepuffed face on the pillow which in the darkness looked like a little Negro’s.

  —What does he say? Johnny said, grinning in spite of himself.

  —We accept, Susanna said.

  Her large lovely eyes were suddenly filled with tears. She squeezed Johnny’s hand and let her free arm bend loosely over his neck so that the open hand swung back and forth languidly at his throat. It was surprising how heavy this hand was, pulling his head down toward hers. Her deep lips pouted and parted under his. She was shuddering with sobs.

  —O, Johnny, she said, I do love you so much.

  —And I love you too, Johnny said, thinking that perhaps after all he did love this strange, passionate, wistful, wandering child who had come back to him from the Deep South.

  But his position was an awkward one, as he still sat on the bed with his head bent all the way down.

  —Here, get in with us, Susanna said, and lying on her side, with a quick motion she flipped the sheet back.

  She was completely naked. She touched her hand delicately to the everpresent scarlet scar that burned cruelly into the beginnings of the left breast, which—downtilted, tipped with rose—swung softly from the motion of her shoulders.

  Confused, Johnny accidentally put his hand on the burnt doll. He picked it up.

  Susanna stopped sobbing and watched intently. Johnny carefully put the doll at the top of the pillow. Susanna looked at him and then looked at the doll, sitting stiffly at the top of the pillow.

  —There now, Jeemie, how’s that? Johnny said. You can see everything from there.

  Susanna smiled sweetly and sank back on the pillow.

  —I’m glad the family likes me, Johnny said, feeling as though he had successfully passed an examination of some kind.

  —We love you, Johnny, Susanna said.

  And with her catlike strength she pulled him violently down upon her, where he lay fully dressed in a tweed suit, stiff collar, and shiny knobtoed shoes. Disturbed, the doll population shook on their hooks and nodded vigorously and in unison from their perches on the head and footboards. One fell down and sat astraddle Johnny’s neck. The big one at the foot of the bed bent over and tackled him heavily on the calves. Another fell with a faint squeak on the small of his back. For a moment, he felt as though he was being attacked by hideous dwarfs, while his face was only three inches away from the dreadful, seared face of the doll Jeemie.

  Suddenly, Susanna began to laugh, and Johnny laughed too, as it was all rather absurd and delightful. Susanna laughed with little high shrieks and sobs, and while she laughed her sinewy arms and legs seemed to envelop him in a net of nudity. She laughed and laughed, and the doll heads laughed too, all gently nodding in happy unison.

  That was how Johnny Shawnessy had proposed marriage to Susanna Drake, and that was how his proposal had been accepted.

  The day following this adventure with a sick girl and a hundred and sixteen dolls, Johnny had his approaching marriage announced in the newspapers. When he dropped in at the Clarion office, Garwood Jones, who had become the editor-in-chief a few weeks before, was busy filling the copy hook.

  —Hi, sprout, he said, when Johnny showed up.

  Garwood kept on writing. He was in shirt sleeves and bowtie, and his lush dark hair was attractively mussed. His big mobile, sensual mouth pursed at the pencil as he studied for the next word.

  —I’m getting married, Garwood, Johnny said casually. Here’s an item on it.

  Garwood didn’t bother to look up.

  —Go away and be funny somewhere else, he said. I’m busy as hell.

  —I really am, Johnny said. And I expect a little better treatment than this from my in-laws.

  —Huh? Garwood said. All right. You’re getting married. Who is it?

  —This will give you all the needful information, Uncle, Johnny said, dropping the item on Garwood’s desk.

  —Well, I’ll be goddamned! Garwood said, as Johnny went out of the door. Susanna!

  In the newspapers, the announcement sounded very official and correct. The Clarion in particular laid itself out to do the thing right.

  APPROACHING NUPTIALS ANNOUNCED

  The long and happy engagement of Mr. John Wickliff Shawnessy and Miss Susanna Drake will soon be consummated in marital union, the prospective groom disclosed today. This festive event, toward which the friends and relatives of the blissful pair have long been looking with keen anticipation, has been set for December 2 and at the bride’s request will be held at the Danwebster Methodist Church, with the groom’s father, the Reverend T. D. Shawnessy, presiding. Among the many unusual and romantic features of this genuine love-match is the fact that the bride is a former resident of the Sunny South. Her frequent visits to friends in Freehaven began the friendship which soon ripened into reciprocal esteem and at last achieved the full flower of mutual love. The groom, a young newspaperman and writer of promise, is well-known throughout Raintree County as the author of . . .

  A good deal of mischief was circulated at Johnny’s expense by his male friends, but the female contingent of his own family bravely conducted a series of parties at which the bride and groom appeared sometimes singly, sometimes together.

  The most embarrassing moment in all the hectic days before the marriage, came when Johnny presented Susanna to his parents. At the appointed time, he brought her from town and ushered her into the front parlor of the Home Place, which was always kept cool and closed, with the shades drawn except for special visits. Ellen Shawnessy had on a new dress, and T. D. was togged out in his one good suit. Susanna had been very nervous on the way over, but when she came in she was all grace and loveliness. Her manner toward Johnny’s mother was a mixture of girlish humility and ladylike reserve. Johnny could tell that Ellen was pleased, and as for T. D. he rocked violently on his heels, yawned, blinked, smiled, bowed, and chuckled with satisfaction. Susanna insisted upon hearing him recite the famous ‘Ode on the Evils of Tobacco’ and listened attentively without a single trace of amusement even on the two celebrated lines:

  Some do it chew and some it smoke

  Whilst some it up their nose do poke.

  She talked with Ellen very diligently about the preparation of certain Southern dishes, admired her dress, which was too large for her bony little figure, and remarked that she saw now where Johnny got his beautiful smile and hair. She also met some of Johnny’s brothers and sisters and was very sweet to them all. There wasn’t a single slip on anyone’s part, except that Zeke whistled when he first saw Susanna. It was a wonderful performance, and Johnny was as grateful and proud as under the circumstances it was possible for him to be.

  After it was over and Johnny was taking Susanna home, she said,

  —I just love your folks, Johnny. They’re awfully sweet. I see now why you’re the way you are. Johnny——

  She had said the name suddenly an
d plaintively.

  —Yes.

  —I want to tell you something.

  —Yes.

  —I’m not going to have a child after all.

  —O.

  —I lied about it, Susanna said, dropping her eyes and nervously smoothing her left coat lapel.

  —What for?

  But he was so immensely relieved that he couldn’t feel angry at the imposture.

  —Because I wanted you more than anything I can remember since I was a little girl.

  As far as Johnny was concerned, this was the perfect excuse. The admission proved one thing conclusively—that for some reason Susanna Drake was really in love with him. Now, suddenly, he felt very cheerful and innocent, as if, after all, everything had been scrupulously correct from the start.

  —Tell me something, Susanna. With your money and looks, you could have married a lot of different men. Why did you want me?

  —I never cared much for the men I met before, except in a passing sort of way. But the minute I laid eyes on you, I fell in love.

  —Why? What was it?

  —O, I couldn’t explain it to you, she said, smoothing and smoothing her left coat lapel. Any woman would know.

  She turned and touched his cheek near the mouth with her right hand and looked intently at his face with the wistfully childlike look of her photographs.

  —But you’d look better with beard and mustaches, Johnny, she said. More manly.

  In the days preceding the marriage, Ellen Shawnessy threw all her energy into preparations for the event, and in general Raintree County rose heroically to the task of making everything conform to its ancient canons of respectability. There was a great deal to do. Everything was complicated by Susanna’s decision that she wanted to go away immediately after the marriage ceremony. The happy pair were to catch the train at Freehaven and follow a tight schedule which would bring them by nightfall to the city of Louisville, Kentucky, on the other side of the Ohio River from Indiana. This was to be the start of a long honeymoon in the South. The loving pair were going to go by steamboat down the Ohio to the Mississippi, and from there to New Orleans, where Johnny would have a chance to meet Susanna’s relatives. It all sounded lustrous and magnificent and helped give a respectable air to the whole undertaking. In fact, all of Johnny’s friends began to consider his precipitate marriage a step up in life for him. He had married money, beauty, and culture. Raintree County’s fairhaired boy was making good after all.