My American

by Stella Gibbons

  It seemed a long time since he had felt comfortable. Business, politics, the newspaper game, were going from bad to worse; a man could never stop worrying nowadays. It was impossible to realize that only ten years ago America seemed to have entered her Golden Age. Now public and private affairs alike were all confusion, disappointment, uncertainty and bitterness. And bitterest of all to him, though he only vaguely knew it, was the fact that Bob, whom he had loved but always a little despised, should have “gone off like that,” breaking away from safety and the known ways of living to run with gangsters and down-and-outs. He had seen things his father never had and knew things his father would never know. Mr. Vorst was full of secret envy as he stared across the room at Bob. He was angry as a father, but as a man, an individual, he was full of deep envy. Danger, thrills, death, something big to do, a man’s job, rugged individualism, rail-splitting pioneers—the phrases went vaguely through his head as he smiled and talked with Judge van Damm, and he took a second big glass from the tray.

  “Miss Lee, this is Ellen van Damm—she’s just crazy to meet you——”

  “Miss Lee, may I present Mrs. Eldor—she’s read China Walk five times——”

  “My boys are crazy about your stories, Miss Lee——”

  “Miss Lee, have you taken my advice yet, and written something homey for the womenfolk?”

  “Well, I certainly am surprised to see you again, Bob! We all made sure one of those Southern belles would catch you!”

  The old friends, the kindly acquaintances, were all playing the game beautifully.

  He and she were separated by the length of the room, and he did not exchange more than a few words and a smile with her the whole time, yet she felt the bond between them grow steadily as the afternoon wore on and the noise of voices, the animation of the guests, the clouds of cigarette smoke, increased. She had been very anxious to play her part well, knowing that this gathering marked his return to the social life of Vine Falls, and she made great efforts; struggling to throw off her ordinary habit of polite silent attention and to give her full interest to whoever addressed her. The effort was something quite new for her, and it gave the deeper note to her voice and brought the colour to her face that only a few of her oldest friends in London, and Bob, had ever seen; and thus for the first time in her life she managed to convey something of her genius through her personality. She talked more than was usual for her, and if it was not in sparkling or profound phrases, her glowing face and steady brilliant eyes gave new meaning to her words and seemed to set them against the horrific and gorgeous background of her books.

  The atmosphere in the room went steadily up and up; sober people took an extra glass and glittered; the chaste became flirtatious and the elderly regained the delicious irresponsibility of youth; if no-one said or felt anything memorable, everyone felt that they had: and in short the party was a success. Mrs. Vorst was very pleased. Her highest hopes were exceeded, and she felt really warm towards Amy, to whom the success was due. Bob, too, was exactly right in manner. She had not detected one sigh or one fit of abstraction or one bitter enigmatic sentence. He had decided to take up his life where he had left it off, and he was doing so. Mrs. Vorst felt happier than she had for months as the rooms began to empty towards seven o’clock, and guest after departing guest assured her, with flattering earnestness, what a wonderful party it had been.

  But Amy was very tired. When the last guest had gone she sat down in a chair by the window and looked out into the garden, where the shadows were growing long. Behind her the room was in all the disorder of dirty glasses, crumpled straws, curling sandwiches and stale cigarette smoke. Mr. and Mrs. Vorst were in the hall saying a few last good-byes, and except for their voices the room was quiet. Suddenly she saw Bob come out through the french windows of the dining-room, and walk quickly across the lawn towards the woods. The sunlight fell on his fair head, turning it to gold. He was swinging his arm, and she could see that in one hand he held a letter. When he got to the edge of the lawn he turned back and looked at the house, and then he saw her sitting at the window. He held up the letter, and then pointed down towards the woods.

  “Just going to mail this,” he called. His voice came clearly through the evening air. “I shan’t be ten minutes.”

  She waved and smiled, not lifting her head because she was so tired. She was content to sit quiet, watching him, and thinking: To-morrow—to-morrow we shall be in the woods.

  He walked on, and presently she saw him go into the dark trees, and then she saw him no more.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  BOB WALKED DOWN the track. That part of the country seldom had a day without clouds, because of the hills to the north, and now there was a gigantic one towering slowly forward over half the heavens, gradually blotting out the setting sun and filling the woods with hush and awe. The south wind was rising fitfully, as it often did at eventime, but it was as yet only in the treetops, and the undergrowth was motionless. He walked quickly, anxious to catch the mail with this letter to the landlord of his former rooms at Morgan; the party had caused him nearly to forget it. He was anxious, too, to get back to Amy, for he felt as if he had not spoken to her for hours. But the party had been an ordeal for him, and he welcomed a walk in the cool evening air.

  It was over now. Old friends had seen him and shown him that they were going to ignore the past; and acquaintances had taken their cue from the successful tone of the party and decided not to hint or sneer. His first step back towards his own side of the fence had been taken, and if one part of his nature felt impatient and scornful of the whole business, another side was warmly grateful towards his own family and the friends who had made that step possible. I must be getting better, he thought, striding down towards the steep slope that led to Carr’s bungalow; it’s a long time since I’ve felt like that about people. They’ve taken me back, that’s what it amounts to. I can’t ever feel better about what I did, but I can feel grateful to them for wanting me back. And I’ve got her, and to-morrow we’re going up into the woods.

  Carr’s bungalow had been deserted for months. The snows of a long winter had broken the rail fence so that part of it lay on the ground, and the windows of the house were boarded over. A grey rag on the porch flapped in the rising wind, and as Bob came sliding down the slope among the fading briars a chipmunk ran across the yard where he and Dan used to play. It stopped at the edge of the wood and look back at him, and he halted to return its stare. For a moment they steadily contemplated one another, then it darted off among the trees and he went on down the slope and crossed over to the fallen fence.

  The wind was getting into its strength now, shaking the bushes with strong gusts and blowing dust along the ground. He stepped over the fence and walked round the house towards the mailbox on its post, and as he did so he thought again: I’m getting better. For weeks this particular spot had haunted his imagination, with its gap in the fence and its history of commonplace violence and breaking of the law. Here (it had seemed to him in countless miserable fits of brooding) he had taken as a boy the first steps that had led to the wrecking of his life as a young man. But now the spell was broken; he had come down to the mailbox without once thinking: I’ll have to go by Carr’s—I can’t face it; and this evening “Carr’s” was only a squalid little house falling into ruin, with a grey rag flapping on the porch where Dan used to lie on Sunday afternoons and read in the tabloids about Al Capone.

  Good luck to Dan; I don’t ever want to see him again. The thought went through his head as he came round the house into the road. And then he saw that there was a small black sedan standing opposite Carr’s, and a woman in a light coat just getting out of it. She slammed the door and tried it, standing with her back to him, while he stopped, staring at her and recognizing her hair and the beautiful lines of her body with a shock of dismay, and then she turned hastily round as if she were in a hurry to set off somewhere.

  It was Francey Carr.

  She gasped loudly when she saw him an
d ran towards him, while he simply stood there looking at her, with all the nightmare of the last months horribly revived.

  “Bob! I was coming to call you up!”

  “What for?” he said roughly, moving a little away as she came up with him. She was breathing quickly and her face was very pale and for an instant a painful suspicion filled his mind. But it stayed no longer than her next words:

  “It’s Dan. He’s taken Joe Murphy. He picked him up at the crossroads half an hour ago.”

  “Picked him up?” he repeated stupidly.

  “He’s crazy. The kid was waiting for the bus, and Dan and I were riding together. Dan stopped the car and said would he like a ride and the kid said no thank you, he was going by bus. So Dan said, “You’re a popular kid around Vine Falls, aren’t you, Joe? I guess they’d pay a lot to have you back if you were to get lost,” and then he got out his rod and made the kid get in. He told me to go home by the bus. But I went in to town and hired this,” she jerked her head at the car, “and I was coming up to call you from the box on your corner.”

  “But he’s crazy!”

  “Bob, he’s been crazy for weeks. A big job went wrong and he had to lie low and he got in with a man who put him on to some drug or other—Mary Warner, may be.” She lowered her voice over the mobsman’s name for the drug marihuana.

  “Dan never used to be a hophead.”

  “Oh, well, maybe he isn’t now. I don’t know. But he was certainly acting queer this evening.”

  “Is he shot up much? Enough to make him hurt the kid?”

  “Not much. He said he wouldn’t touch Joe unless the bulls came after him. But you know what they’re like in this state about kidnapping since the Rhinelander kid got bumped off. If they catch Dan they’ll lynch him, and me too.” And she began to cry, getting a cigarette case out of her bag and lighting one with shaking hands.

  “But what did you come to me for?” he demanded. “What can I do?”

  “Oh, Bob, you’re the only one that can do anything!” she said, sobbing and choking so over the smoke that he could hardly hear what she said. “You owe Joe a good turn, anyway, and Dan’ll listen to you. And maybe you could fix up about the ransom——”

  “But where’s he taken him?” he asked, his strongest feeling one of fury at being dragged back into the violent unrealities of the life he had just escaped from.

  “Up in the woods, he said.”

  “The place near Black Lake?”

  “No—the cabin, I guess.”

  “You mean where we——”

  “Sure.” She tossed her cigarette away, not looking at him and he, too, glanced away from her as he spoke.

  “You’d better tell the police,” he said in a hard voice. “Come on, let’s go,” and he took a step down the road. But Francey did not follow him.

  “Bob, he swore he’d kill the kid if I squawked. He’s going to let the town know somehow to-night he’s got him, and then——”

  “Is he working alone?”

  She nodded.

  “Was Joe scared?” said Bob suddenly.

  “Sure he was, scared stiff, but he tried not to show it, he kinda made a joke of it——”

  “Oh, hell.” The two words came out in a groan.

  There was a pause. The wind blew furiously against them.

  “I’ll have to go,” he said at last.

  “Oh, Bob! I knew you would! Maybe he’ll let you have the kid back without any money——”

  “How is this off for gasoline?” he interrupted, going over to the car.

  “I just filled up.”

  “All right.” He was getting into the driver’s seat when he suddenly remembered that he was forbidden to drive. But he put the thought impatiently aside.

  “Aren’t you going home for a gun?”

  “I won’t need one. If he isn’t so shot up as all that he won’t kill me. And he wouldn’t, anyway.”

  “No. I guess it’ll be all right,” she said, relieved by his matter-of-fact tone. “Maybe he just meant it for a kind of joke; you know he’s got a funny sense of humour. But the kid was scared all right.”

  “Yes. You said so before.” He had started the engine and the regular mechanical noise seemed to add to the violence that had come into the evening with the rising of the wind. He turned the car round while she watched, and set it towards the north.

  “Francey.”

  “What?”

  “Do something for me, will you? Call up home and tell them I’ve had to go into Morgan and I may be back late. You needn’t say who you are.”

  She nodded. “Sure I will, Bob. I’ll do that first thing after you’ve gone, so’s they won’t worry.”

  “Thanks.” The car began to move. She came over and walked beside it, putting her hand for a moment over his.

  “Gee, Bob, I think you’re swell!”

  “I don’t feel it. Go home, there’s a good girl, and just lie low, will you? The quieter you keep the better.”

  “Oh, Bob, I do hope you’ll be all right!” She was running beside the car with her red hair blowing in the wind as it used to when they were children, and he turned to look at her. But even the little affection that had been between them was dead now, killed by full bodily knowledge without love. He only smiled meaninglessly at her and said, “Don’t worry, it’ll be all right,” and then accelerated. The car moved off into the wild lights and moving shadows of evening.

  When it had disappeared she stood for a little while glancing uncertainly about her, up into the woods where the trees were now swaying furiously in the wind, now down the road towards the town, and all the time frying to tilt her hat on her curls at its correct angle. The dust blew against her ankles and stung them. She seemed to be trying to make up her mind about something. At last she shook her head, said something under her breath, and began to walk quickly away towards the town. An expression of shame was on her doll-like face for a few moments; then, as she gave all her attention to increasing her pace and struggling against the wind, it faded. With her coat flapping and both hands holding on to her hat she passed quickly out of sight.

  “Where’s Bob?” asked Mrs. Vorst in a surprised tone, coming into the drawing-room a little later and finding Amy still among the wreckage of the party. “I didn’t know you were all alone, Miss Lee—I’m so sorry! I thought Bob was here.”

  “He just went out to post a letter. He said he’d be about ten minutes,” replied Amy. She was quite content to sit there by the window enjoying the restful silence. She turned her head to smile tranquilly at Bob’s mother.

  “Well, won’t you come into the sun-parlour, and rest a little before we go up to change? I feel quite exhausted, don’t you?”

  When they had been lying on the long chairs in the sun-parlour for a while, enjoying the evening light from the garden with the windows shut against the rising wind, Mr. Vorst joined them, and for half an hour Amy had to answer questions about her work. She knew very little about the side of it that most interested him, leaving as she did all questions of contracts, terms and translations to the efficient Messrs. Aubrett and Humfriss, and her natural disinclination to talk about the dull side of being a writer was increased by her gathering uneasiness at the prolonged absence of Bob. He had said he would be ten minutes, and he had been gone nearly an hour! It was silly to feel rather frightened, but she did.

  At last, after a pause in their talk, she said to Mrs. Vorst with an uneasy smile—

  “Wherever do you think Bob can be?”

  “Yes—he is a long time, isn’t he!” said his mother at once, getting up and going over to the window. “If he’s not back soon he’ll get wet. Look!” She put a finger against the pane, where a glittering drop had just dashed, and turned to smile at Amy. “It’s going to be a wet night.”

  “Where’d he go?” demanded his father, rousing himself from a silence.

  “Only out to mail a letter, Miss Lee says.”

  “Yes, I saw him,” said Amy eagerly, glad
for some reason to be able to put her last sight of him into words. “I was looking out of the window and he came past with a letter in his hand; he was walking fast, and when he got to the edge of the lawn he turned round and held up the letter and called, ‘I won’t be ten minutes.’ And then he went into the wood.”

  “Oh, then he’s gone down to the mailbox by Carr’s. Perhaps he’s coming the long way home; the road goes round the hill, you know, and turns off up to here by the river. Yes, I expect that’s what he’s done,” murmured Mrs. Vorst, still with her finger pressed against the window pane as she stared out into the garden. The whole expanse glittered with drops now and they were beginning to roll down it.

  “Crazy thing to do on a night like this,” said his father, getting up. Amy happened to be looking at him as he spoke, and he suddenly gave her a grudging, amused, sympathetic smile. But then, the boy is crazy. We know that, don’t we? it said. Amy replied with a shy but eager look, and thus a completely unexpected friendship was formed. The fact was, she had charmed him. Her fame, her simplicity, her feminine ignorance of contracts and her French-seeming elegance was a new combination for him, and its piquancy brought stimulating memories of a time when he was a happier man, with the energy and inclination to admire piquancy in a woman. His suspicions about her relationship with his son had vanished: they were simply not possible in the face of this new liking for her. She’s charming, he decided, and she and Bob ought to do very well together; they’re both so darned queer! But Sharlie isn’t sure about her yet; I can tell that.

  “Oh, he’ll be in any minute now,” he said, moving to open the door for them.

  “Surely,” murmured Mrs. Vorst, but for a moment she lingered by the window, looking up at the lowering twilight sky, before she followed Amy out of the room.

  When Bob had been driving for an hour and had left the town well behind him, he had an impulse to turn back. He was not afraid of Dan, for he knew him too well to believe that he would be dangerous, but a deep distaste and weariness came over him. He must go on, of course; the boy must be got back as quickly and secretly as possible; and it was quite out of the question to stop on the way to the cabin and tell Joe’s parents or inform the police, but he loathed the task in front of him. He could already hear Dan’s soft voice, gently justifying himself in sentences full of the long words which helped to hypnotize him when he was in a self-justifying mood. He would have to “manage” Dan as he had done many times before, exactly as if he were managing an ill-tempered and worthless horse; and this time, too, he might be more difficult to manage than he had ever been, if Francey had not been exaggerating about the drugs and his mood.