The Handsome Road

by Gwen Bristow

  It was not easy to make Kester talk seriously about anything. He took a cigarette out of his pocket and held it lengthwise between his thumb and forefinger. He did not light it, because his mother disliked tobacco smoke, but he looked at it as though he found it more interesting than this conversation. “Why not?” he asked ingenuously.

  Denis answered. “Eleanor Upjohn’s mother came from heaven knows where and was brought up in an orphan asylum. Her father is the illegitimate son of a prostitute and a carpetbagger.”

  “How do you know that?” Kester demanded shortly.

  “About her father? I’ve just remembered it. Ever since I met that girl I’ve been trying to think where I had heard the name Upjohn. Then I recalled a story I had heard from my mother.”

  “What was your mother doing,” Kester inquired, “associating with prostitutes and carpetbaggers?”

  “I’d prefer you to speak of my mother in more respectful terms, Kester. Not long before the war she gave work to a girl who came here one day asking for charity. Some time later the girl left, and nothing was heard of her till she reappeared during the Reconstruction period as the mistress of a tax-gatherer of the most vicious type. A child was born of that association.”

  “Fred Upjohn?”

  “Yes.”

  Kester swung one leg across the other. His eyes shifted from Denis to Lysiane and back to Denis. “So I’m expected to blame Eleanor for that, am I? Honestly, I’d thought better of you.”

  “Kester,” Lysiane said reprovingly. She came to sit by him on the sofa. “We aren’t trying to cast any aspersions on Eleanor Upjohn,” she went on with gentle insistence. “But her people are common. It’s inevitable that she should have absorbed some of their commonness.” Kester did not answer and Lysiane went on, her voice low and pleading. “Don’t you see, my dear boy, we are simply trying to save you for your own sake? You and she are too different to have any basis for permanent understanding!”

  “Permanent—?” Kester got up from the sofa. He stared at them. “Holy smoke, do you think I want to marry her?”

  They were silent.

  “Hell and high water,” said Kester slowly. “I do!”

  He burst out laughing. “I do!” he repeated. Snatching up his overcoat he started to scramble into it.

  “Kester!” exclaimed Lysiane. “Where are you going?”

  “To the levee camp to ask Eleanor to marry me.”

  His father spoke sharply. “Kester, don’t be a fool.”

  “I’m not. You two have been turning on a light in my head.” He opened the door.

  “Kester,” said Lysiane.

  He paused. Lysiane had not moved. She sat with her white hands holding each other in her lap. Her words came with quiet emphasis.

  “You haven’t seen what we saw when we were children, Kester, the pride and desolation—two sisters with but one presentable dress between them so they could never both come into the parlor at once, the anguish and the desperate smiling pretenses, all to save our civilization from the kind of people we have been talking about. Maybe it’s because we know what it cost to give this to you that we shudder at seeing you try to throw it away.”

  Kester made a little annoyed movement of his head. “Mother, stop it.”

  Lysiane sprang up and came to him. “My dear child,” she pled, “believe me. If I thought there was the faintest chance of your being happy with this girl—”

  He was sorry for her, but at the same time he wanted to laugh. “This isn’t the old days of the aristocracy and the trash!” he exclaimed. “It’s 1912 and I’ve just found out I’ve been in love for six weeks.”

  He brushed a kiss on her forehead and went out. The sun had thinned to a golden sheen over the treetops. As he got into his car Kester began to whistle a ragtime tune. It seemed to him that Eleanor was like one of the Doric columns across the veranda, strong, clean-cut, austerely beautiful, and he marveled that his fondness for her had not long ago come to a climax. His little car panting at its utmost speed, he drove to the levee. As he burst into the main tent, Randa, who was puttering about the table, looked around and gave him her jeweled grin.

  “Evenin’, Mr. Kester.”

  “Evening, Randa. Can I speak to Miss Eleanor?”

  “Sho, Mr. Kester.” Randa lifted her voice. “Miss Elna! Gemman to see you!”

  “All right,” Eleanor called from the bedroom.

  Kester stood impatiently by the desk. A moment later Eleanor came in. She had changed her dress for a white shirtwaist and a close-fitting black satin skirt that glimmered with every movement of what Kester thought was the most regal figure of a woman he had ever seen. Eleanor gave an exclamation of surprise.

  “Why Kester! What brought you back?”

  “You’re in the way, Randa,” Kester said.

  “Yassah.” With a chuckle and a swish of skirts Randa left them alone. Kester came a step nearer to where Eleanor stood.

  “Eleanor, will you marry me?”

  For an instant Eleanor stood quite still. Then she put her hand to her forehead and pushed back her hair. Her dark blue eyes stared at him. In a low voice she answered,

  “Say that again.”

  “Will you marry me?” asked Kester.

  “Yes. Yes, of course I will.” She spoke in a voice of unbelieving wonder.

  He gripped her hands. “You mean it? You will?”

  With a happy little laugh far down in her throat she answered, “I told you I would. I think I’ve been in love with you since the first day I saw you.”

  “I’ve loved you since then too. Only I’m such a fool I didn’t know it till now. And think of it—I’ve never even kissed you.”

  “Then why don’t you?” Eleanor asked smiling.

  As he drew her to him Kester whispered, “I’ve been waiting for you all my life.”

  3

  They fled the approach of the engineers and drove off together. Kester had remembered gratefully that his parents had an engagement for supper and auction bridge, and he knew them well enough to be sure no domestic crisis could make them overlook a social obligation. Having stopped on the way to verify this by a telephone call, he took Eleanor to Ardeith.

  For a long time they sat together by the fire, in the silence of a miracle that seemed too vast and at the same time too simple to need words. At last Kester drew back and looked down at her.

  “Eleanor, why didn’t anybody in the whole stupid, inarticulate world ever tell me it was like this to be in love?”

  She shook her head. “Maybe you can’t tell it, Kester. Maybe it just happens. Like this.”

  They sat on the sofa between the front windows. The room was rosy in the firelight. After a moment Kester stood up. He bent and kissed her hair, and walked over to the hearth. Eleanor watched him, thinking she had never known before how handsome he was.

  Kester put a fresh log on the andirons and adjusted it with the tongs. The flames leaped up and glowed over him. Without looking around he said,

  “Eleanor, I suppose you know I’m not nearly good enough for you?”

  She leaned back, smiling at him slowly.

  “Don’t start that. You’re everything in the world I want.”

  Kester set down the tongs and turned. Their eyes met.

  “I love hearing you say that. But you make me sadly ashamed of myself.”

  Eleanor laughed, lovingly. “You look like a little boy caught with his fist in the cookie-jar. Did you mean this to be the preface to a big confession scene?”

  “If you think it should be,” Kester said simply.

  She shook her head. “No. It doesn’t matter.” After a pause she added, “Come here, Kester.” He obeyed and sat by her again. Eleanor said, “Can I help it if other women have found you as irresistible as I do?”

  “You darling,” said Kester.
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  “I don’t care at all,” Eleanor repeated. “Or maybe I should. Tell me—”

  “What, sweetheart?”

  “Were any of those girls—well, important?”

  “No.”

  “Just—regrettable incidents?”

  He nodded. “Too much Bourbon or too much moonlight. Or possibly—”

  “Yes?”

  “Since I’m trying very hard to be honest, Eleanor, there was one girl who was temporarily rather important. But it didn’t last long.”

  Eleanor smiled again. “Anyone I know?”

  He shook his head, smiling too.

  “And nobody I’m likely to meet?”

  “Oh no. I haven’t seen her for years.”

  “Then again, I don’t care.”

  There was a pause, while they sat and looked at each other, rapt in the witchery that had come upon them. Eleanor slipped down to kneel in front of him. She crossed her arms on his knees and looked up into his face.

  “Kester, I don’t see how I can possibly be jealous of anything that happened before you even knew I was alive. I’m so grateful to chance and destiny and God that I’ve got you now, I can’t quarrel about any of the paths that brought you to me.” She laughed a little. “Why Kester, if you hadn’t been quite audacious about girls in general, you’d never have come dashing up to speak to a perfectly strange one just because you liked the way she looked standing above the river.”

  “That’s right,” he exclaimed in lovable relief. “I suppose I shouldn’t have. Anyway, I feel as if I’m just beginning to live. The way all the poets say a man in love feels, and I thought they were so foolish.”

  “So did I.” She rested her head on his knee.

  For a long time they were silent. At last they realized it was midnight. Eleanor said he had to take her home. They drove in silence along the river road, through a still blue night thick with stars.

  4

  Fred had been sitting up late working on his monthly report to the state levee board. He was wondering where Eleanor could be. Eleanor was a sensible girl and could take care of herself, but Randa had said she had gone off with that Kester Larne and Fred was getting tired of her seeing him so often. Like a lot of fine intelligent girls who had never been bothered with puppy-love Eleanor was probably much more innocent about men than these little flirts who knew about men and nothing else, and while he didn’t care how many dates Eleanor had, most normal amusement in the world for a young girl, Fred decided to warn her about that no-’count parlor ornament. Maybe he’d been selfish, Fred told himself; there weren’t many men around a levee camp of a sort to entertain Eleanor. It was natural of her to be glad to see any presentable young fellow that came along. Great girl she was, and he shouldn’t take too much advantage of her willingness to help him, though the Lord knew he’d have a hard time finding another secretary as good as she was. Well, anyway, he’d speak to her about Kester Larne in the morning. Don’t want to be bossing you around, Eleanor, but he’s really not worth your time.

  For the love of Pete, it was past midnight and he had to be up and doing at five. He heard a car on the other side of the levee. So there they were. The canvas side of the tent next the levee was down, but Fred thought he’d better take a look out and be sure. He’d just glance side-wise around the edge of the canvas—he wouldn’t want Eleanor to think he was sitting up to spy on her.

  He saw Kester and Eleanor walking across the levee. As they neared the tent they started to say goodbye and dropped into each other’s arms.

  Fred smothered an exclamation. He was angry. But well, girls kissed young men a lot more casually nowadays than they did when he was young. No reason for him to be so startled. But Lord have mercy, that wasn’t just a kiss. That was as passionate an embrace as he’d ever heard of in his life.

  Fred knew Eleanor was not a girl to give herself lightly to that sort of lovemaking. He would have sworn Kester Larne was the only man who had ever held her like that. It meant Eleanor was in love: in love with that indolent hand-kissing scion of a wornout line.

  Finally they broke apart, and Eleanor ran toward the tents as though afraid to trust herself to look back. She let herself into her own room softly, evidently thinking the whole camp was asleep. Kester looked after her. In the starlight his face was worshipful.

  Fred turned around. His sense of decency forbade him to speak to Eleanor now. In the silence he could hear her sobbing, soft smothered sobs of thwarted ecstasy.

  Fred went to his own room, but he could not sleep. He sat up and smoked till nearly morning. All the time he had known that no matter who it would be Eleanor married he would never think the guy good enough for her, but he had always figured that when she made up her mind he’d say, “Well, if he suits you he’s all right with me,” and let her go. But not with this faded rose of the old Southland. Kester Larne did nothing but amuse himself and keep a paternal eye on his debt-ridden plantation; and he’d never, Fred thought grimly, do anything else. Fred cursed the difficulty of this particular levee job, which had kept him too busy to see what was going on. Why, he asked himself now, couldn’t he have taken time to pay some attention to his own daughter before she got herself bedazzled with this firefly?

  In the morning Eleanor did not appear till after seven. Fred was having his own belated breakfast.

  “I thought you’d be on the levee by now,” she remarked as she sat down at table.

  “I had a lot of work last night,” said Fred. “That report to the levee board.”

  “I suppose you want it typed? Show me where it is and I’ll start after breakfast.”

  Eleanor had evidently not slept much herself. She was heavy-lidded, and sat playing with her bacon abstractedly and drinking a great deal of coffee. Fred was wondering how to speak to her. Whatever he said would be wrong. When a man had spent his life in levee camps he hadn’t had time to learn diplomatic phrases. He was still wondering when Randa came in and gave Eleanor a box of red camellias.

  She sprang up to receive it. As she read the card that lay among the flowers, a dreamy glow flickered over her face. She looked up. “Is the boy waiting, Randa?”

  “Yassum.” Randa grinned knowingly.

  “Give him coffee in the kitchen while I write a note.”

  As Randa departed Eleanor went to the desk. Fred got up from his chair.

  “Who’re the flowers from?” he asked, though he knew already.

  “Kester.” She was writing.

  “Wait a minute before you answer,” said Fred.

  Eleanor halted her scribbling pen. As though seeing his face for the first time that day, she started. “What’s the matter, dad?”

  He crossed the tent and stood before her. “Eleanor, you’re in love with that man, aren’t you?”

  She nodded, smiling to herself. “How did you know?”

  “I was still up when you came in last night,” he said abruptly. “I saw you kiss him.”

  He had expected her to make an indignant retort. But at once he realized that he had underestimated her. Eleanor had never kept any secrets from him, nor did she now. She only said, her eyes on the camellias, “I’d have told you very soon. I’m going to marry him.”

  “No you’re not,” said Fred.

  Eleanor stared at him. Her blue eyes stretched wide. In a thin, amazed voice she gasped, “Why—dad!”

  Fred stood with his hands in his pants pockets. He did so hate to hurt her. Feeling very awkward, he fumbled with his matter-of-fact vocabulary.

  “I don’t reckon I’m very smart about some things, Nellie,” he said gently. “If I was I could tell you better. But that fellow’s not good enough for a girl like you.”

  “Yes he is.” Smiling tolerantly, Eleanor stood up and put her hands on his shoulders. “Between you and me, dad, I think the same thing you do about his family. But they aren’t Kester.
”

  Fred sighed and started over. “Nellie, listen to me.”

  She was still smiling, as though he were trying to deny that the world was round. “Stop calling me Nellie. I’m not going to listen.” She sat down again and was about to take up her pen.

  “Yes you are,” said Fred. He spoke with a tender vehemence. “Eleanor, I reckon this is about the hardest thing I ever tried to say. I guess you really are in love with him, and you’re mighty happy about it right now, but if you marry Kester Larne you’re not going to be happy long.”

  “Why not?” she asked as if hardly hearing him.

  “He’s just no good,” said Fred.

  Eleanor picked up a match and began breaking it into small pieces. “He told me he hadn’t been an angel, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Honey child,” said Fred earnestly, “I’m not talking about anything he’s done. I’m talking about the kind of person he is.”

  Eleanor was beginning to be angry. “So you think I’ll have to wander around wearing a brave smile above a broken heart! But I won’t.”

  “I want you to get more out of life,” said Fred, “than just not having your heart broken.” He repeated, “That fellow is just no good.”

  Eleanor’s eyes had narrowed dangerously as he spoke. They looked like lines of blue fire. “You’d better be careful, dad,” she said in a low voice.

  “Why should I be careful? I’m saying what I know is true. And you’re going to sit there and hear me.” Fred caught his voice and went on as gently as he could. “Eleanor, honey, Kester don’t know what it means to be a man grown up. He’s a child in a man’s body, and you deserve better than that.”

  As he paused, Eleanor stood up. Her hands were in the pockets of her skirt. Fred saw them swell the cloth as they doubled into fists. It was his own movement of determination.

  “All right, dad,” she said evenly. “I’ve listened. Now I’ll tell you. I love Kester. That’s all.”

  Fred thought he should have known that if Eleanor ever loved a man it would be like this. She was so intense. Feeling that he would have given anything he owned to pierce the armor of infatuation around her, he tried again.