Old Dogs and Children

by Robert Inman

“Well, Grandma grew up in Missouri. It’s usually cold in Missouri by this time of year.”

  “She probably misses it,” Bright said.

  Elise knelt suddenly beside Bright, dropping the muff on the platform between them, and took Bright’s hands in her own. “I want you to go straight home and get out all the Christmas things and put them up. You and Hosanna. Make Papa go to the woods and cut a tree right away.” She squeezed Bright’s hands almost painfully. There was an urgency, almost a desperation in her voice. “And play the piano a lot. All your favorite things.”

  “Yes, Mama,” Bright answered.

  Elise searched her face, looking for something. “You’re a most uncommon young lady, Bright. I’ve scarcely known what to do with you. Sometimes I think you’re very much older than I am.” Elise dropped her hands then and enveloped Bright in a fierce hug. Bright clung to Elise, burying her face in her mother’s coat, breathing deeply the smell of wool and perfume, winter and summer. Then Elise kissed her on the forehead and held her at arm’s length. “I love you,” she said.

  “I love you too, Mama.”

  “Practice the piano, now.”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “And take care of Papa.”

  “Yes. I will.”

  Elise stood and Dorsey joined them then on the platform, towering above them. He was dressed in his Sunday best today, a tweed suit with a vest, the coat buttoned over the leather sling that encased his left arm. He took off his felt hat, leaned down to kiss Elise on the cheek. “Have a safe trip,” he said.

  “I will.”

  “I wish …”

  “No, I think not.”

  Dorsey knelt, picked up the muff she had dropped, handed it to her. Their hands met, lingered for a moment. “You’ll need this,” he said. “These railroad cars can get awfully drafty. Don’t want you to catch cold and reach New Orleans with a runny nose.”

  Elise looked at him for a long moment. “All I wanted was to be needed,” she said.

  “You were. Are.”

  “No. Not truly.”

  Bright looked up at them, saw the defeat, the resignation in both their faces. Their hands parted. Elise knelt, gave Bright another quick peck on the cheek, and then turned to the open door of the train car. Dorsey reached to help her, but she stepped nimbly up and his hand hung there in the empty air for a moment. The conductor leaned from the car in front of them and called out, “Board!” as Elise disappeared into the car. Bright watched for her to appear at the window, but as the train rattled and lurched and began to move, she realized that Elise had taken a seat on the far side, away from them, even though there seemed to be plenty of empty places on this side.

  The train moved away, groaning irritably like a dragon awakened from a nap. Bright craned her neck, trying to see into the car, walking alongside until she reached the end of the platform and it left her standing there, gathering force for the long journey south. As the distance between them widened, she thought for an instant that she saw her mother’s face at the window above the rear platform, but it was too far now to be sure. She watched for a long time until she felt her father’s hand on her shoulder. She looked up to see that he too was staring at the empty space where the train had been, down where the tracks curved into the woods. The wind sang at her ears, carrying away the sound of the receding train, and finally, the last wisps of its gray smoke on the horizon.

  She turned to Dorsey then. “She won’t be back for Christmas,” she said. She could hear the accusing thing in her voice, mean and spiteful. And then she felt a pang of remorse. Whom was she accusing? She reached and took his hand.

  He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “No. I think not.”

  “Mama told me to put up the tree and play all your favorite songs on the piano.”

  “Yes,” he said softly. Then he looked down at her for a long moment before he said, “Bright, don’t ever leave me.”

  Bright gave his hand a squeeze. “Of course not, Papa.” And she thought, What a strange thing to say.

  18

  The Atlanta Conservatory of Music was an aging, nondescript three-story red brick building, constructed in the early years of Atlanta’s rebirth after the devastation of Sherman. As Bright Bascombe stepped from her taxi on a late August morning in 1929, she looked up at the building with sinking heart and thought, It’s dreadful. But then she heard the lilting music of a clarinet from an open window upstairs. The clarinetist was running scales—up and down, up and down—and it reminded her of a fawn hopping nimbly across a meadow, water tripping over stones in a shallow brook. There was an exuberance and a technical skill to it that made her breath catch in her throat. Music. That’s what I’ve come for. And then she thought, I dare not fail here. There is too much at stake.

  Bright had not intended to eavesdrop, but she came upon the conversation between Hosanna and Dorsey quite by accident, two days after she had received the invitation from the Atlanta Conservatory to audition for a prized scholarship. She stopped outside the door to the kitchen and listened to their voices, quite clear on the other side. She knew she should go away, was afraid of what she might hear. But she was unable to move.

  “It’s none of your damned business!” Dorsey said angrily beyond the door.

  His voice, once so clear and strong, quavered now. He was an old man, old before his time, wasted physically, his business in decline because he seemed to have lost the will to make it prosper. Still, it could be, when he was sufficiently aroused, a voice that brooked no argument. Except from Hosanna. “Course it’s my bidness,” she flashed now. “I raised that young’un, much as anybody did. Difference is, I know when to turn loose.”

  Bright heard a strangled snarl and her hand went to her mouth in fear. Don’t!

  “Git mad if you want to, Mr. Dorsey. I’m jest an old nigger woman. You can slap me down if you want. Go ahead!”

  There was a moment of terrible silence, then a thump and scrape as Dorsey sat down in a kitchen chair. “I’m sorry,” he said after a moment. “I’d never raise a hand to you, Hosanna.”

  Hosanna was unrelenting. “Did I speak the truth?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You know I did! You know deep down what’s right for that girl. She got to live her own life, Mr. Dorsey. Bad as you need her, she need to be her ownself even badder.”

  “But this music business …”

  “It’s her bidness,” Hosanna said. “I don’t know how good she is. She play mighty good to me, but ain’t me or you got sense enough to know the difference. Thing is, she got to strike out and you got to loose your hold. Least a little. You keep this up, you gone mark that young’un for life. If you ain’t already.”

  Bright wanted to rush through the door and throw her arms around Dorsey, tell him it was all right, she didn’t really want to go to the Atlanta Conservatory, she didn’t want to leave him. But she stood in the dim hallway outside the kitchen and did battle with her mortal soul because she did want to go. Not to leave him, but to seek herself. She jammed her fist against her mouth to keep from crying out. It was his fault! He had encouraged her to think her own thoughts and speak her own mind. And now she must do exactly that, even if it led her away from him for a time, even if it caused a terrible rending of her mortal soul. So she went quietly away from the kitchen door, and into the world.

  And thus, the Atlanta Conservatory of Music. She had won the scholarship and there was no earthly reason not to take it. The faculty had said, in awarding it to her, that she had talent. She might, with prodigious hard work, make a pianist.

  There were seventy students, about evenly divided between male and female. The men boarded in the community; the young ladies occupied cramped cubicles on the third floor of the red brick Conservatory building. The second floor was devoted to practice rooms and closetlike offices for the ten members of the faculty. The first floor contained a dining room, a recital hall, and a spacious foyer where students could entertain visitors. It had formerly been the h
ome of a medical college, and when the windows were closed for very long at a time, you could still get faint whiffs of its past life.

  There had been a frightening beginning back in May at the audition. All the way to Atlanta on the train by herself to find the head of the faculty, Oscar Hogarth, waiting for her in the recital hall, slumped in a seat in the front row with his legs stretched out in front of him, head resting on his chest. Bright thought at first he was asleep. Or perhaps dead. He was a small ancient man with a large head crowned by an unruly mop of steel-gray hair. He wore a goatee, and a monocle tucked in one eye. He looked very European, or what Bright thought might pass for European. She walked to the front of the hall, stopped in front of him, waited for a moment. Finally, she cleared her throat. “Professor Hogarth?”

  “Bascombe,” he said without opening his eyes.

  “Yes sir,” Bright said. “Bright Bascombe.”

  He pointed a bony finger toward the stage, where a Steinway grand piano stood huge and black and gleaming like a piece of the night sky. “Play,” he said.

  Bright shrugged, mounted the stage, sat at the piano, got up and adjusted the seat, sat again. She looked down at Hogarth. He hadn’t moved a muscle. She raised her hands, went ripping into her first piece.

  “Stop!” Oscar Hogarth roared. Bright froze, badly frightened, surprised by the volume he had suddenly summoned from that tiny, shriveled body. “Aren’t you going to announce yourself, Miss Bascombe?” he said dryly. “What are you going to play?”

  Bright stammered. “I’m, ah, I’m going to play …” Good God, what am I going to play? What was I playing just then? Right. The Rachmaninoff. “I’m going to play Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in G Major.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No sir.”

  “Well,” he boomed, “what else, then?”

  “I’m going to play Schumann’s Traumerei and Chopin’s Mazurka in F Minor.”

  “Hmmmm,” he hummed. “The F Minor.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “I’ve heard it done right only once. By Rubinstein. And he’s Polish.”

  Bright stared at him. Great God! The man was a monster! She started shivering. It was cold in the recital hall and she was unnerved by Oscar Hogarth and she felt miserable. She wanted to get up and walk out. Damn him!

  Then he asked, “Are you nervous, Miss Bascombe?”

  “Of course I’m nervous, Professor Hogarth.”

  And he surprised her totally by giving her a nice little smile, his eyes still closed and his head propped on his chest. “Entirely to be expected. Just play. You have three nice selections, so give them your best.” And he gave a little wave of his hand, signaling her to start.

  She got her trembling hands under control, took a deep breath, and launched again into the Rachmaninoff. She started badly, tripped over a note or two, but soon began to get the feel of the piano and to lose herself in the music. By the time she began the Schumann she was entirely in control, and she fairly congratulated herself on the zest of the Chopin. As the last notes died away, she lifted her hands from the keyboard and put them in her lap, then looked at Hogarth again. His eyes were open now and the left one, peering up at her through the monocle, made him look like some terrible fish. They sat looking at each other for a long moment before he finally said, “Hmmm. Yes. Well, that was very nice, Miss Bascombe.” His voice was flat and noncommittal.

  “Thank you, sir,” she said, and stood up. “Is that all?”

  “Yes. Quite. We’ll be in touch, Miss Bascombe.” And he closed his eyes again, dismissing her.

  In the foyer, Bright stood awhile, feeling quite numb. Then she saw the young couple standing off to the side—a girl about her age, a boy slightly older. More than a boy. Midtwenties, perhaps, rather thin, wearing a tweed suit and holding a snap-brim hat in his hands. He was looking at her and when he caught her eye he walked over, followed by the young woman.

  “That was beautiful,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I was listening from the foyer here. The last piece. It was so beautiful it made me cry.”

  She stared at him, wondering what kind of young fool he was. A fairly handsome young fool, with quick blue eyes and high cheekbones.

  “Fitzhugh Birdsong,” he said, offering his hand. “Bright Bascombe,” she replied. She took his hand and he gave hers a quick squeeze. “My sister, Catherine,” he said, introducing the young woman. “She’s auditioning too.”

  Catherine Birdsong looked a bit frail, as if she might be affected by spells. But she had lovely slim hands that held a small stack of sheet music against her chest. Bright smiled and shook Catherine’s hand. “Professor Hogarth is a bit of a bear,” she said. “Don’t let him scare you.”

  “Oh, he won’t,” Catherine said, putting her arm through her brother’s. “I’ve got Fitzhugh here to protect me.”

  “Where are you from?” Bright asked.

  “Savannah,” Fitzhugh Birdsong answered. “But I’m in law school at Emory here in Atlanta. So I met Catherine’s train this morning.”

  He was a rather odd young man, Bright decided. He had a way of leaning a bit toward you as he talked, just enough to make you feel that he was speaking to you and only you—that you were the only person in the world worth talking to at that particular moment. At this particular moment, he was leaning slightly toward Bright and she was aware of being riveted by his gaze, immobilized by those bright blue eyes. In a rank stranger, it was somewhat unsettling.

  She tore her eyes away from him. “Well, good luck,” she said to Catherine.

  “Perhaps you’ll both get accepted,” Fitzhugh said. “That would be awfully nice.” He fished in a pocket of his coat for a watch, snapped it open. “Almost time,” he said. “Miss Bascombe, I hope to have the pleasure again.” He gave her a tiny bow and then he opened the door of the recital hall and followed Catherine through with a last quick look back at Bright.

  Alone in the foyer, Bright flushed. My goodness, she thought to herself. How odd. But not at all unpleasant.

  >

  “I hope you’re quite happy with yourself,” Catherine Birdsong said to her on the day they arrived for classes in August, assigned as roommates.

  “I beg your pardon,” Bright said, barely remembering their encounter months earlier.

  “He broke his engagement,” Catherine said.

  “Who?”

  “My brother. He has embarrassed the family and made an utter fool of himself.”

  “Why, for goodness’ sakes?”

  “He doesn’t say. But you’re all he talks about.”

  “Merciful heavens,” Bright said, incredulous. She had given the young man—Fitzmorris, was that his name?—scarcely a thought since the afternoon he had introduced himself. She had certainly given him no encouragement.

  “Do you know anything about the Savannah Birdsongs?” Catherine asked.

  “Not a morsel,” Bright said. Nor did she care.

  “Well, we’ve got a great deal of money and even more social standing.”

  Bright bristled. This thin, pale young woman appeared to be a snob of the worst order. Bright dreaded the thought of sharing lodgings with her. Perhaps …

  “We’re also incredibly stuffy and, on the whole, boring,” Catherine went on, her eyes twinkling. “And Fitzhugh’s former fiancee is a ninny and plays the piano like it was a kettledrum.”

  Bright was quite taken aback. “I hardly know what to say,” she said. “And I haven’t the foggiest notion what to say to your brother.”

  “Well, you’d better think of something,” Catherine said. “He’s coming to see you on Sunday afternoon.”

  She spent the week in dread of it. But as it turned out, Fitzhugh Birdsong was altogether proper and pleasant and charming. He sent around a note during the early part of the week, asking permission to call on Sunday, and arrived in the early afternoon, after dinner was finished. She half expected him to present himself moon-eyed with an armful of flowers, pre
ssing himself upon her. But he came empty-handed, pleasantly casual, as if he were simply an old friend who had stopped by to chat for a moment. He seemed to sense her wariness, and though he was attentive, he was careful not to appear in the least bit familiar.

  “It’s been a good first week?” he asked as they sat on a divan under the watchful eye of one of the female faculty members, who perched behind a desk at one end of the room.

  “Mostly,” Bright answered. She had decided that she would not help him by appearing interested. In fact, she was not. She was here to study music, not young men. And if she wanted to think at all about young men, there was Harley Gibbons, who had already written to her from the University to tell about pledging Sigma Nu and beginning his classes.

  “How are you getting on with Catherine?” he asked.

  “Just fine, thank you.”

  “She’s a bit of a pickle sometimes,” he said. “Don’t let her bully you.”

  “Mr. Birdsong, I’ve never been bullied in my life.”

  He smiled. “I can believe that.”

  “Your sister, in fact, has been very pleasant company and has had the good sense to ship most of her wardrobe back home.”

  “The quarters are cramped?”

  “Practically nonexistent.”

  “A Spartan environment here,” he said. “The young artists, forsaking creature comfort to pursue truth and beauty.”

  “No,” she said, “just music.”

  “Ah,” he said, “surely in a place like this there’s no such thing as ‘just music’ ”

  Then she realized with a jolt that he was leaning toward her just a bit, drawing her to him without so much as a gesture. His eyes never left her face. Those bright blue eyes and that way of listening very carefully to everything you said, making you feel that it was the only thing in the world worth hearing just now. Good God. He makes you want to get up and go with him. Bright shook her head, trying to rid herself of the notion.

  “Mr. Birdsong, sit back,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Over there.” She pointed to the other end of the divan.