Then why did Matthew feel no satisfaction? There was something about Ed even in defeat…. Defeat became him, as everything else seemed to do; he wore it with an air that made it seem worthier than triumph. Matthew puzzled on it, driving down the country road. Ed had done no good and much harm. He had ruined his life and damaged that of others. Rejecting God, he was in his own mind rejected. And yet—broken, ruined, and drunken—he still had that about him which commanded Matthew’s respect, his admiration even. Yes, and his envy. For envy it was, and the root went deep as the mandrake, impossible to pull up. But in the name of heaven, envy of what?
“Daddy cried,” the child said suddenly. He had been very still in his corner.
“Yes, Daddy was crying.”
“Why did he cry, Grandpa?”
“Well, he was sad.”
The child pondered the word. “Was he afraid?”
Matthew in turn pondered the child’s translation. “No!” he said with a wondering emphasis, for there was the answer. Ed was not afraid and never had been. Matthew envied him that. His courage, nothing more. But that was a very great deal. The courage to do as you pleased, regardless. It was that—the regarding—that held Matthew captive. There was so much he regarded. Hay in the barn, the ripe orchard, the diploma on the wall, the signed contract, the opinion of his neighbor, favor with God, the perpetuation of his soul. Ed prized none of these. And there was no hay in his barn. Yet fed or hungry, accepted or denied, he was his own man. How Matthew envied him that!
He wondered if belief in God was a substitute for belief in oneself. His fear—was it as holy as he held it up to be? Perhaps it was not fear at all, but cowardice. There is a difference. And perhaps God honored courage more than quaking humility. (It was the cautious servant who incurred the wrath of the master!) Perhaps, after all, Ed was the last who should be first. The meek shall inherit the earth, but nobody promised them heaven.
And he was not sure now, thinking of his own life, that they inherited the earth. He had been meek enough; he had not dared very much. And when you came right down to it, he had not achieved much, either. A smalltown school and a rundown farm, and out of a bottomless well a dipperful of learning. That was little enough. Nor did the lack of earthly treasure mean that he laid up treasure in heaven. It did not necessarily follow that the poor in body were rich in spirit.
And wasn’t it because of fear? He had tried to march forward with one foot firmly planted, afraid to give up the bird in hand for the brighter bird in the bush. He would not give up his farm for his school nor the other way around. Lusting for the girls, he would not give up Callie. Enticed by the new beliefs, he clung to the old ones. Reaching for the stars, he hung onto the grass. Always the compromise, wanting everything, giving up nothing, and having nothing to the hilt. He would not pay the price, but settled for the little, the safe, the not-quite-committed, the cautious just-enough. And just-enough is never as much as should content a man.
Perhaps this was his sin—timidity of spirit. Timidity and envy—and not the lust of the flesh which all are heir to, the little way-ward glances. Perhaps Ed was right. Alice, all the girls, even Charlotte, were just not important. He squirmed, feeling exposed and foolish, a grown man caught playing with toys. His little guilts had been important to him, comfortable and pleasant, even, to fondle in secret. But now he had a real guilt to bear. The sin of envy was one of the deadlies, just as much as lust. He had only flirted with that one, but envy had thoroughly seduced him.
And not only envy of Ed, he thought with deep remorse. Of Mathy, too. They were alike, those two, and he resented them both because they were not afraid of life, and he was. Care! he told them, and they would not—not for the things he prized. Plod! he said, and they flew. He wanted them to be made to care, to suffer a little. He wanted them brought down. Well, they were down. And feeling almost that he willed it, he was sorry to the marrow of his bones.
Oh, he could make it up to Ed, perhaps. He would try. But never to Mathy. A little moan of anguish escaped him as he thought of her. It was too late.
And yet (aware of the sleeping weight against him), he had the child! He looked down at the dark-haired boy, so like his mother that sometimes Matthew forgot that it was not she. And his heart filled with a quiet joy. He had been given another chance. Blessed are the ways of the Lord. He kissed the child and drove on down the darkening road eagerly toward home.
Leonie
1
Neighbors passing the Soames place that summer, going to town and back, heard a strange sound on the land. A spongy, suspiratious, somewhat mournful sound, lonely in the torpor of afternoon when the farmhouse stood blind and still, and downright creepy at dusk, breathing after you down the hill like a wounded wolf.
It was precisely at dusk and midafternoon that the sound most frequently occurred. For it was then that Leonie found time to play her accordion. Since she could not study the pipe organ that summer, she had bought the accordion as the next best thing. It also served at the farm as a substitute for the piano, which they no longer moved back and forth. As often as possible, she retired to the parlor, and setting a hymnal on the music rack, groped her way through a song. When she had mastered one sufficiently, she taught the words to Mary Jo and Peter, and they all performed it together. They were particularly good on “There Shall Be Showers of Blessing,” a number rendered frequently at the evening musicales.
Peter was nearly four by this time; Mary Jo was seven. Each morning Leonie held an instruction period for them, and it was her feeling that they should have a chance to perform the songs and recitations they learned. The musicales were devised for this purpose. They also served as a pleasant diversion for the whole family, to clear the air of workaday matters and put them in a soothed and elevated state of mind before supper (now called dinner by Leonie, and by the others as often as they remembered).
On an evening in July, the family gathered in the parlor as usual. Matthew and Callie sat side by side on the settee, while the trio showered them with blessing. At the end of the song they applauded.
“My, that was just fine,” said Matthew.
“You’re gettin’ so good!” said Callie.
“Well, we’re working hard,” Leonie said. “We might be able to do our piece at church one of these Sundays.”
“Now wouldn’t that be nice!”
“Can we sing our new song, Aunt Linnie?” said Peter.
“Right now, darling!” She turned to her parents. “We have a brand-new song tonight. All right now, children, stand over here, like we practiced, and don’t forget your gestures.”
The children put their backs to the wall and stood at attention.
“Ready?” said Leonie, poised with the accordion. “Don’t start till I nod.” She played an introduction, gave the signal, and the song began:
“When you’re smiling, when you’re smiling,
The whole world smiles with you…”
They sang earnestly, reacting at the appropriate times with wide grins and horrible frowns. Matthew and Callie applauded enthusiastically.
“Now take your bow,” Leonie commanded.
They bent double. Peter went down to the floor and turned a somersault.
“Oh, Peter!” she said in reproach.
The boy lay on his back kicking his heels in the air. Matthew bent over him, laughing. “Here now! That’s no way to take a bow! You get up, sir, or I’ll put you up.” He picked Peter up by the heels and stood him on his head. Mary Jo had to be stood on her head, too, and it took Leonie several minutes to get the musicale back in hand.
“Come on now, let’s all sing together. One song and we can eat dinner. Come on—‘Showers of Blessing.’ Everybody together on the chorus!”
“Showers, showers of blessing,
Showers of blessing we need;
Mercy-drops round us are falling,
But for the showers we plead.”
“Well, I enjoyed that!” said Callie, following the children to the ki
tchen.
“I think it’s real nice,” Leonie said to her father as she put the accordion away. “I’ll bet there aren’t many families that take time out for music and things, like we do.”
“I doubt that there are.”
“Not around here, anyway.”
“No, not around here,” he said.
“You gave us kids such an interest in music, Dad, and I’ve always been so grateful. I thought we should do more with it this summer, really make it part of our lives.”
“That’s how it should be, absolutely.”
They went into the kitchen together. Callie was setting a lamp on the table.
“Oh, not the lamp, Mama,” said Leonie. “We’re having the candles again.”
“Oh yes,” said Callie. “I forgot.”
“They’re right there in front of you.”
“I know, I just didn’t think.”
Leonie lighted the candles in their silver holders—candlesticks she had given her mother at Christmas. In the dim glow, the mismatched china and glassware twinkled obligingly.
The damask stripes in the tablecloth (it was pure linen; also a gift from Leonie) made silvery runnels. “Now isn’t that pretty!” she said.
“Yes, it is,” Callie said, “mighty pretty. My land, though, honey, don’t you get tired doin’ up that tablecloth? Looks like we could just eat on the oilcloth part of the time.”
“Now Mama, I’ve told you I don’t mind. We’re going to live graciously, and if it takes a little more trouble, it’s worth it.”
“Where’s the supper?” said Mary Jo. “There’s nothing on the table but dishes and nothing in them. Are we going to eat dishes?”
“Eat the dishes!” said Peter and both of them staggered with laughter.
“Hush that,” said Callie. “You’ll get something to eat.”
“Where is it?” said Mary Jo.
“It’s out on the porch. Sit down, both of you, and behave. We’re not going to pass things around like we usually do. Leonie’s putting everything on our plates.”
“What for?”
“It’s a new way to serve, like city folks.”
Leonie brought the plates in from the back porch. They were filled with fresh cold food, the pièce de résistance a mound of chicken salad in a nest of lettuce.
“My! Doesn’t that look good!” said Callie.
“I hope it’s enough,” said Leonie with modest pride. “I put every bit of the salad on our plates.”
“It looks like plenty—just the right amount.”
“Well, it ought to be enough, with all the other things—the beets and carrot curls and the eggs à la Russe. Isn’t it a colorful plate! Color is found to stimulate the appetite.”
“It certainly looks appetizing,” said Matthew. He bowed his head and returned thanks.
He had scarcely got “Amen” out of his mouth when there was a loud blast of an auto horn from the barnlot.
“Mercy!” said Callie.
“It’s Daddy!” shouted Peter. He and Mary Jo jumped up from the table without so much as excuse-me-please and ran out the door.
“Why, I guess it is,” said Callie, pushing back her chair. “What’s he doing here in the middle of the week?”
“Oh foot!” said Leonie. “I hadn’t counted on him.”
“It’ll be all right. We can fix a little something else to go with this.”
“But the chicken salad—” Leonie said plaintively, left alone at the table. The cool lovely mosaic of her supper—so carefully wrought that one thing added would spoil the whole design. “Phooey,” she said, getting up to add another place.
“Hi, Aunt Linnie!” Ed came limping in with Peter clinging to his cane.
“Hi,” said Leonie. “Lose your job?”
“Ah now, Aunt Linnie!” He poked her with the cane.
“Stop that.”
“I got laid off for a couple of days. Thought I’d come on down and shuck a little corn.”
“This is a fine time for shucking corn,” she said.
“Well, there must be something I can do around here to earn my keep.” He helped himself to a drink of water. “Haven’t you folks had supper yet?”
“We’d just set down,” said Callie.
“I’m sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt you. Go right ahead.”
“You haven’t eat yet, have you?”
“I had a hamburger in the city.”
“That ain’t enough to hold you. Set down here—Leonie’s fixed you a plate.”
“I don’t need very much,” he said.
“We haven’t got much,” said Leonie.
Callie laughed. “You should have run ahead and told us you was comin’! We wouldn’t a-been so skimpy. Papa, bring that ham out of the smokehouse and we’ll fry a few slices.”
“Oh, not fried ham!” said Leonie.
“Why not?”
“Not with this kind of a supper. He can have my salad.”
“I don’t want to do that,” said Ed.
“I’m not really hungry.”
“Why, you are, too,” said Callie. “We’ll just have some ham on the side, honey. I know Ed likes ham.”
“Don’t go to all that trouble,” he said.
“It’s no trouble. You menfolks go out and set on the porch—we’ll have it fixed in a few minutes.”
A half hour later, Leonie called them in. Hot and out of sorts, she sat down to the ruins of her supper. Fried potatoes steamed in a bowl; a platter of ham smoked in the center of the table where the flowers had been. The candles had gone out. She had lighted the coal-oil lamps.
After supper the men went back to the porch. Ed smoked and they talked. She could hear them as she and Callie washed dishes.
“I don’t suppose we can study our Shakespeare tonight, with him here,” she said.
“I suppose not,” said Callie.
“Makes me mad, too. Dad enjoys it so much.”
“Yes, Papa was always wanting to read.”
“I thought we could read a lot this summer. But it seems like we’re having the worst time getting at it. Something always gets in the way.”
“Does seem like it,” said Callie.
“One play a week doesn’t seem like too much to get read.”
“They’re pretty long. Especially when we have to stop and talk about them.”
“Well, you’ve got to discuss,” said Leonie. “You can’t just read Shakespeare.”
“No, I guess not.”
Leonie dunked the skillet in the rinsewater. “I don’t know why Ed doesn’t take an interest in things like that.”
“Why, I thought he did,” said Callie. “I thought Ed was always reading books.”
“Oh, he is—or says he is. I never heard him discuss any of them much.”
“Maybe he just don’t talk about ’em.”
“More likely, he can’t. Dad always said Ed just looked at the pages—didn’t really read.”
“Well, I don’t know.” Callie sighed. “I’m afraid he ain’t doin’ very well. Just sort of living from day to day. I used to think he’d amount to something. But I don’t know. Maybe if Mathy had lived—”
“Now, Mama, don’t dwell on that,” Leonie said gently. “We said we wouldn’t.”
“I know. I try not.”
“And you’re doing just fine, too. Why don’t you go on in the other room where it’s cooler and finish your magazine story?”
“I don’t want to leave you with the dishes.”
“We’re through, all but the skillets. You go on now and read your magazine. You haven’t had time all day.”
Callie hung up the dish towel. “I reckon I ought to visit with Ed a few minutes. I can’t hardly read by lamplight, anyway. It hurts my eyes.”
“Whatever you want to do. I’ll finish here.”
Callie went away. Leonie carried the dishpan out to the back porch and emptied it into the slop bucket, silently vowing vengeance on the hateful thing. What she wouldn’t
give for a sink and running water! She dried her hands and rubbed them with honey-and-almond cream. Then, taking a lamp, she retired to the parlor. She tried to read, but the voices on the porch disturbed her. Ed was talking about the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and how much better it was than the Kansas City Star. Matthew, loyal to his side of the state, kept trying to defend the Star. Then Ed got off on Pendergast again and how he controlled everything in Kansas City, including the press. Leonie had a hard time keeping her mind on King Lear. Ed made her so mad, always arguing with Dad.
She set her elbows on the table with a little thud, like a gavel rapping for order, and, settling her chin firmly in hand, attacked the printed page. Somewhere on the heath she must have dozed, for she roused with a start at the sound of her father’s voice. “…the tombstone,” she heard him say. “They’re bringing it out next week.”
“Oh,” said Ed, “I didn’t know you had ordered it yet.”
“Yes, some weeks ago.”
“I should have taken care of that. I meant to, but I just put it off.”
“Well…” Matthew said, sounding embarrassed.
“I guess I didn’t like to think of it.”
“Yes, sometimes we wish we could avoid such things. They’re not pleasant.”
Leonie closed the book. What her father had not told Ed was that he had ordered a tombstone last summer, soon after Mathy died. Only when it arrived and was set at the grave had he realized his error. He had had “Soames” cut into the granite. Whether he liked it or not, Mathy had died an Inwood. Covered with embarrassment, he called the men back. They came with some grumbling, trampled the petunias on the grave, and took the marker away. For the rest of the year, Mathy lay with no other headstone than a Mason jar filled with flowers in season. But now, reconciled to the proper inscription, Matthew had gone again to the monument maker. After next week, Mathy’s death would be final, stamped with the stern authority of her name cut in stone:
The Moonflower Vine Page 28