To Look and Pass

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  Even her contemporaries became affectionate towards her. As they grew older their perspicacity lost its keenness and clarity. Bee was so sweet, the younger matrons said, blissfully forgetting how they had avoided her during schooldays. Such a perfect wife and housekeeper and hostess. Always so gently grateful for all patronizing favors. Livy and I were forced dozens of times to listen to eulogies about her, to be silent before lifted brows and acid comments when Dan was mentioned. I was even compelled to keep still when it was learned of the free gift of land for the little hospital. Opinion was unanimous that Bee was behind it, and South Kenton wrapped her enthusiastically in its arms. She did not deny the affectionate accusation, but merely smiled deprecatingly.

  Livy and I avoided as much as possible any contact with the Hendrickses. This was difficult, for our circle was small. We were obliged to call on them and to receive them. On the surface everything was pleasant and amiable. But Dan and I never approached friendship and familiarity. He held me off with unseen arms. Often I could not believe that we had ever been friends. Bee was always dropping in to see Livy, and it enraged me that after these visits the poor girl looked beaten and drained, though so far as I could tell Bee had been her most affable self.

  In the fall Beatrice was taken ill with quinsy. I made an excuse to keep from tending her, leaving that to my father. But I hoped feverishly that she would die, and on one hideous occasion I regretted that my father had taken her case and not I. A little neglect, a little carelessness—I shivered for days after, remembering that one blazing moment when I had thought of it. I was still the idealist, the devoted worshipper of Hippocrates. When my father announced that she was recovering I felt an hysterical relief, as though I had been delivered from committing a crime.

  Life moved on heavily and placidly in our little town. We were mildly excited by lectures, and the majority of us were delirious when that noble Don Quixote, William Jennings Bryan, passed through South Kenton and deigned to illuminate our bucolic minds with a few kind words. For several weeks afterwards no one spoke of much else besides free silver. Because of him our aristocrats looked graciously and pityingly at our proleteriat and farmers, and Willie Williams affected a Bryanese haircut for a long time and spoke of devoting his legal talents to heroic causes.

  Then we were filled with horrified thrills when Jane Mundell quietly committed suicide, smothering herself with gas from her mother’s new kitchen range. The girl was a pale and ultra-feminine creature, with a slight figure and a pretty face of such little expression that one hardly recalled her features afterwards. She had very little to say, was very religious, possessed a nervous and uncertain smile and voice, and little deprecating, timid gestures. She had had one or two suitors, the most ardent of whom had been Willie Williams, who had developed a profound and inarticulate hatred for Mary Knowles, Jane’s “dearest friend,” masculine and arrogant and excessively definite.

  I had heard casual rumors that Mary had quarreled with the pathetic little creature, who always seemed to be looking for someone to vent her devotion upon. Mary had called her “a complete fool,” and when the two met, the gentlemanly Mary had been aggressively rude to the poor girl, who had wilted visibly. South Kenton was too innocent to realize or see the undercurrents here; they thought it was really very hard of Mary Knowles to refuse to see poor little Janie when the latter came to see her. They saw no connection between the tragic suicide and Mary Knowles; I am sure they would have torn her to pieces had they known. Neither did they see the slimy thread that had begun to grow stronger between Mary and Susan Crawford, a prim, old-maidish girl who had taken Livy’s place at the school. They merely commented that Susan had never seemed to care for young men, that she was a born old maid, with her priggish manners, oversensitiveness, and air of continually looking for slights. They did not trace the sinister connections between Jane’s death, Mary Knowles, and Susan Crawford.

  But besides myself, there were two, I am sure, who suspected the truth. My father seemed abstracted for some time after Jane’s death, and finally he told me guardedly that he had gone to Susan’s father, a beefy and noisy man with whom my father had little in common. I understand that Mr. Crawford had palmed off an inferior horse on my father, who fatuously believed he knew something of horseflesh. What my father had said I do not know, but Susan was suddenly shipped off to relatives in Pittsburgh, “for her health.” It was the first time that I had heard that city recommended as a health resort, but I kept my thoughts to myself. Six months later Susan married one of her second cousins.

  The other one who knew was Beatrice Faire. Trust her to know everything evil and obscene! One night some dozen of us young married couples were sitting together at a church sociable, Bee exquisite in dark blue wool and silver. Mary Knowles sat there in her excessively mannish suit, her arm over the back of her chair and her legs crossed in a most gentlemanly manner. She was talking indulgently and affectionately to Matilda Hughes, who had just recently married Bob Cunningham, and her free hand touching, very delicately the girl’s round and rosy face. Then Bee’s voice, clear and sharp as a rapier, rose above the casual chatter about us. She spoke to all of us apparently, but her dancing eye roamed to Mary Knowles.

  “They do say poor Mr. Withers has taken to drink since poor little Janie’s death,” she said, sighing. “Wasn’t it awful? I’ll never forget it. I’m sure it was an awful shock to you, Mary, wasn’t it, you two being such dear friends?”

  Mary’s horsy face thickened with dark blood. She and Beatrice stared at each other with naked hate. Then Mary shrugged; her voice was a little hoarse when she said:

  “We weren’t ‘dear friends’ for a long time, Bee darling. Jane become quite impossible. No intellect. Really very tiresome. Of course, I’m sorry she’s dead. But she never seemed to have anything to live for.”

  “I’m sure life must be very interesting for you,” said Beatrice with an air of soft meditation and envy. Mary was silent; she sat glowering, her sharp bold eyes betraying, to me at least, sudden fear.

  Beatrice murmured. The others glanced questioningly at each other; they felt undercurrents of tension, but were too ignorant to understand them. I understood them, and for the first time I felt glee myself and silently applauded Beatrice. I watched, gloatingly.

  “Life is always interesting, except for fools,” said Mary at last; above her collar I saw the straining cords in her neck. She knew that Beatrice knew, and Beatrice knew that Mary knew this and Bee daintily moistened her lips.

  “I suppose so,” she said regretfully. “I have always been so sorry that I am not so intellectual as you, Mary. It must be quite—exciting, to have such—intellect. So, sort of strange, isn’t it? Something quite out of our humdrum experience. I’ve sometimes thought that you were one of these New Women we hear so much about, but I’m sure now that I’m mistaken. I don’t think even the New Woman is so—so intellectual, after all.

  Mary stood up abruptly, tall in her tweeds, her shoulders unusually broad and straight.

  “I don’t find your conversation intellectual, Bee,” she said insultingly. But again I saw fear in her eyes. She glanced about her uncertainly at the surprised faces of our innocent friends, and drew a sharp breath. She looked at Bee again, who was gently and musingly smiling, as though at angelic thoughts.

  “You’re—you’re pretty much of a skunk, Bee Hendricks,” she said shortly, and stalked away from us. Stupefied silence followed this apparently unprovoked insult, and after a moment everyone but myself and Livy made indignant comments and sympathized with Bee, who sighed regretfully.

  “Mary is so touchy,” she murmured. “She always was. She doesn’t look very well, either; she hasn’t looked well since poor Janie’s death. She ought to go away for her health.”

  Mary apparently thought so, too, for a few weeks later she and her mother went away for a long trip.

  Chapter Seventeen

  One night in early spring I returned at ten o’clock at night from a country visit. It
had been a long, hard confinement case, and I was worn out. I passed the brightly lit American House Bar, and hesitated. It was pretty late, and I was tired, but the sight of several of my friends standing at the bar persuaded me to enter. It was a Wednesday night, when a few farmers came to town, and the thought of a cold glass of beer and a little chaff was attractive. I might even have a game or two of checkers, or a few rounds of poker. I entered, and was greeted vociferously. I was surprised to see Dan Hendricks smoking quietly at a table in a blue haze of smoke, a glass of beer before him. He did not often go there at night. He returned my nod curtly; and I stood at the bar and ordered whiskey. The bartender was a smart young man from Ripley, with deft elbows and a flashing grin. Ed Ford often came in for a word with us, a broad and ruddy man with curled mustache and shirtsleeves and heavy gold chain. I did not see him tonight. He usually spent his evenings playing cribbage with his stout and placid wife in the ornate red plush parlor behind the saloon.

  Though my back was to Dan I was acutely conscious of him. I had the idea that he was watching me, but that if I turned to him he would repulse me as usual with his cold gravity and impersonal remarks. We all laughed, and joked, and ribbed each other for a time.

  The door opened, and we glanced at it expectantly, hoping for another reveller. But the man entering was one we all knew only slightly. He was a poor miserable farmer of the Wally Lewis type, shambling, emaciated, with weak pale eyes, and a frightened air. He lived on a stony plot of land near Big Creek, and though he worked hard he seemed to have the perpetually hard luck of a lot of dirt farmers. He was about fifty years old, with sunburned, wrinkled face, and broken hands. His name was Abe Witherbee. I knew him better than the others, for I had recently attended his wife for goiter. I nodded to him in my father’s best casual manner, and went on talking to my friends.

  The man glanced about him timidly, almost imploringly, rubbing his hands together. He wore a rough buttonless coat over his clean and faded overalls, and his high boots were caked with mud. He seemed to hesitate, begging for notice. At length the bartender looked at him with his tiny sharp eyes, and grinned impatiently.

  “Well, what’ll you have, Abe? Come on up to the bar.” He grinned at us with a foxlike smile. “Whiskey? Beer? Gin?”

  The farmer still hesitated, but did not approach the bar. He glanced at all of us imploringly, as though seeking a friend.

  “You know I’m a teetotaler, Barney,” he whined diffidently. “You know I don’t hold with liquor. Signed the pledge when I was a boy. But that ain’t what I come to tell you.” He swallowed convulsively. My friends leaned idle elbows on the bar and waited; there was an air of resolute fright, which amused them, about the man.

  “Well, speak up!” said Barney, shaiking up a Tom Collins for Willie Williams. “I can’t wait all night. Get it off your chest.”

  The farmer gulped. “Well, sir, I jest wanted to ask you not to sell my boy Charlie any more liquor. He ain’t a bad boy, Charlie, but he’s got a taste for the drink. Spends all his money, and all he can git or take from me, on sech. All the last spring he came home, jest a reelin’, and takin’ on so his maw’s scared to death. Almost got killed yistiddy mornin’ runnin’ the plow. All on account of his drinkin’. He ain’t a bad boy when he don’t drink. Good’s a boy you’d find anywheres. But it’s killin’ his maw slow. He’s the only boy we got, and we was always right proud of him. Wanted to send him away to school. He ain’t but eighteen even now, and when he ain’t drinkin’ he’s got all sorts of idees. Might amount to somethin’. I got five hundred saved, and I want to send him to Ripley. Once he had the idea of bein’ a doctor.” And now the poor wretch glanced at me timidly with watering and terrified eyes. I stirred uncomfortably.

  Barney laughed shortly. “If he don’t get it here, he’ll get it some other place, Paw,” he sneered. “Besides, we ain’t in the church business, and ain’t aimin’ to save no souls. Long’s your Charlie’s got the cash, we’ll serve him liquor. When he ain’t, out he goes,” and he made a flippant motion with his hands towards the door.

  “No!” said the farmer eagerly. “If he don’t get it here, he can’t get it nowheres. Other folks promised not to sell him anythin’ they made theirselves. And Ripley’s too far. By the time he got there he’d have his sense back. Charlie’s a good boy—”

  “If he’s that damn good, you can keep him at home,” snorted Barney. “If that’s all you got to say, git. I’m busy. This saloon ain’t run for love. We’re in the business.” He pointed at the door.

  Abe wrung his hands together desperately, and anguish stood in his pale eyes.

  “Please listen to me jest a minute,” he begged. But at that moment Ed Ford, who had an uncanny ear for altercations even of the mildest in his saloon, entered, scowling. He had no desire to embroil himself with the virtuous ladies of South Kenton, and always notified us that if we weren’t gentlemen we could get the hell out of his place, and stay out.

  “What’s all this?” he growled, his red face barren of its usual affability.

  “Oh, this here hick’s raisin’ Cain ’bout us sellin’ his good boy Charlie liquor,” shrugged Barney. “I just told him we’ll sell it to him long’s he’s got the money.”

  Abe turned passionately to Ed Ford, who had advanced threateningly, one big fist clenched.

  “Mr. Ford, you’ll listen to me, won’t you? Charlie’s a good boy. It’s jest that he drinks too much, and I been askin’ this boy here not to sell him liquor. I been sayin’—.”

  “Out!” roared Ed, like a maddened bull. “I’m not listenin’. Out!” He seized the hapless devil by the scruff of his neck and started to drag him towards the door. Then suddenly Dan was beside him, his hand was invisibly removed from Abe’s neck, and Dan, quiet and grave, was between the two men.

  “No, you don’t,” he said calmly. “You’ll listen to what he has to say, Ed Ford. When you listen, you can decide what you have to do. And perhaps you’ll decide to do it.”

  My friends stared at each other with consternation and outrage.

  Ed Ford swelled with fury; his vast cheeks turned purple. He raised his fist, but looking at Dan’s quiet face, he let the fist fall slowly to his side. He twisted his loose mouth into a smile, and put his hands jauntily on his huge hips, rocking back on his heels.

  “So, Mister Dan Hendricks, you’ll tell me how to run my business, will you? You’ll tell me who to sell liquor to, and who not to, eh? You’ll stick your ugly face into my affairs, will you?” His smile faded suddenly, and he thrust Dan furiously in the chest. “Why, you so-and-so, who the hell do you think you are?”

  Things moved so fast then that I could barely follow them, but the next instant Ed Ford hit the floor with a crash, and Dan stood over him, rubbing his knuckles. Everyone at the bar was stupefied, and merely stared. Abe Witherbee cringed backwards, rubbing his hands uneasily over his hips.

  “You wouldn’t listen to Abe. But you’ll listen to me,” said Dan in his slow voice. “And now, listen. You won’t sell his Charlie any more drink. You’ll kick him out if he shows his face in here. If you don’t,” and he rubbed his fist meditatively, “there’s more where that came from.”

  He took Abe firmly by the arm and led him out of the saloon.

  Uproar broke out. Several helped Ed Ford to his feet, and everyone talked at once. What Dan had done was unpardonable; comment upon him came fast and furious. Everyone threatened to cut him off from that moment on. Why, the dirty, sneaking, cowardly so-and-so! Taken in by good society, and the first chance he gets he commits assault and battery on a decent citizen! Well, that went to show you that a yellow dog was a yellow dog, even if he got himself a golden collar! All the stored and unexpressed resentment and hate they had all felt for him since Dan had acquired his money a few years back foamed to the surface. Tension was relieved; everyone expressed himself freely. There was a sort of exhilaration in the townspeople, now that they could speak their minds. They crowded outside, filling the cool spring nigh
t with their indignant voices.

  I went home alone. The only thing that seemed important to me was that Dan’s eye had touched me during his altercation. All I could think of was the old affair about Wally Lewis. And somehow I knew that Dan had remembered, also, and was also remembering that now, as then, I had only stood by. I went home, hating both myself and him.

  Chapter Eighteen

  By early morning the whole town knew about the affair, and the reaction of South Kenton was identical with that of the young men who had witnessed it. There was a sort of sadistic pleasure in everyone’s face; everyone could express openly what he had been constrained from saying recently about Dan Hendricks. It were as if a tight constraint had been loosened, and all breathed freely and delightedly. They again had an excuse to lacerate the stranger they had always hated.

  I was eating breakfast the next morning when my father stamped upstairs, smiling unpleasantly.

  “They tell me you were around when that precious friend of yours beat up poor old Ed Ford,” he said, nodding at Livy, who was pouring my coffee.

  “Yes. I was.” I told my father what had taken place. He growled.

  “No sense to it, at all. You’d think he’d mind his own business, and step careful, now that we’ve taken him in. But no, he’s got to make a damn fool of himself. Well, let him take care that this ain’t the end for him. We’ve stood him on account of Bee—”

  “You’ve stood him on account of his money,” I broke in, throwing my napkin from me. “Just his money! He was right; he’s always right. But none of you have the guts and the decency to see it. What’s Ed Ford to you? Nothing. But you’ve all just been looking for an excuse to knife Dan. Why not be honest about it? Bee! Why, by God, if he strangles her some day, it’ll be what she deserves! He’s too damn good for this town, for all you—” Fury choked me, and my father and I glared at each other. He was petrified, and I stamped out of the room.