With the dessert, there is a shifting of places. The meal’s decorum breaks. Natural tendencies evolve still further. Jonas jumps to his father’s knee. He is busy stealing whiffs of smoke as it shoots past his nose. Rhoda and Adelaide flock to Marsden. He is their god, and in this fact their parents find delight and no small measure of solace for their son’s misfortune. Marsden’s hair is fine and black and long. Rhoda discovers with a shriek of delight that it is getting thin. Yet Marsden is not nineteen. The two girls pass their fingers over his head. Marsden growls and utters sharp words, basking, the while, in their devotion. Mother moves back and forth in the business of clearing the table. And Quincy sits alone, desolate, ignored, while father talks fishing with Jonas and his two sisters vie with each other at their new sport of making braids in Marsden’s hair.
The minutes pass. Quincy cannot hide his interest in this shared spectacle of love wherein he has no part. A dull regret, as for something he has never had, yet something perpetually desired and observed, weighs on him. And through the shroud of this deep, yet inchoate want upon his soul, darts now and then a flare of anger, a cut of pain. But the anger shoots off into a formless gloom. So Quincy remains still, doing nothing, mindful of little, articulate not even in resentment. And his mother passes to and fro, clearing the table, too busy to see.
At last, however, she stops before him. He feels the doom of her words, ere she can utter them.
“Quincy,” she says, “it’s bed-time. Say good-night.”
For a moment, he sits motionless. It is as if he were lost in an incongruous atmosphere, shutting inhis body. But his mind has gone out before him, from the room. Vaguely, yet poignantly, he is rehearsing in his little brain the dreadful drama that lies out there—the ordeal of going up to bed. In his mind, he feels already the black loom of the house, the fitful shiver of light in the long halls, the numerous attendance, in a thousand shadows, in a thousand forms, of night’s dire beings. And although he sits there in the light-flooded room, filled as it is with those whom he knows best, he is alone already, abandoned already to mystery and terror. And those who are about him serve not at all to attenuate the presence of what acts in his mind, or to protect him from it. For this is very real. And those about him are very lifeless in their care, very vague in their reality.
“Did you hear what your mother said?”
These are the sole words his father has for him, all of the dinner hour. They serve to throw Quincy to his feet. He stands and looks about him. He would draw strength from these faces to meet his trial, light from them to brave the darkness. But, though his mind grasp it not and his mouth have no word for it, he knows that he has failed. Almost, escape from here is good. But there is so little choice! And his untutored heart has no law to make decision between the shadows that threaten and this light that mocks.
It is the rule that he must bid “good-night” individually, to each of these persons—his family—who now direct their gaze on him with a certain prying interest, as if to gain a sensation from his antics. He feels this. He feels that to cry out or misbehave in some wild fashion as his panic prompts, would merely furnish a cordial to their repast. He feelsthat to rush out, branding these salutes the mockery they are, would provide a pretext for dragging out his agony. And then, it comes back to him—the prospect beyond the door—! It is an odd impulse, indeed, that would impel rushing uponthat. Forthatis one of those recurrent ills which his life’s reason teaches him to take, slowly, hushedly, with gritted teeth—the passage to his room.
So he moves doggedly from father to Marsden, from Marsden to Marsden’s two adoring sisters, and thence to Jonas, who revels in his place beside his father.
Last comes his mother. She takes him in her two hands, lifts him from his feet, embraces him sturdily, once, twice, again, as he dangles in the air. And then, turning him about, she sets him toward the door. The fervor of her message sends the child almost exultant to the stairs. It required so little to enspirit him! But at the landing, the maternal warmth wears weak and the chill gloom of the hall breaks through.
Clenching his fists, humming a tune that has in it the fever of true inspiration, he stumbles toward his goal. The creak of his little feet affrights him; the dull glare of the hall lamp, swept low an instant by some occult draught, the deep-breathing shadow of the rooms he passes—everything conjoins in a stifled symphony of shock and fear.
He reaches his attic. The door is shut. With a dexterity that he cannot understand, he opens. It is as if he were being driven in by the fantasies that press on behind, about, and threaten to attain him. All of the dimensionless way, he has felt them, creeping and clinging at his back.
And now the door’s healthy slam has shut themout. A lamp is burning. Almost gaily, he watches the comb of its yellow flame spurting and receding. For the ordeal is over. And in his joy at this, he has no thought or fear of the morrow.
A prospectorin Wyoming and a Directors’ Board on the fifteenth floor of a great office-building in Chicago, brought by the benign twinkle of a star into an angle of conjunction, marked out an event in Harriet, Long Island. It was with the haphazard veer, the cold fatality of a compass. First, came the discovery of rich veins of metal on Josiah’s land and then, scarce with a breathing space, the plan of a railroad that gives currency to wealth in the great West, to nose its way through canyon and frozen lake into that very valley. No more than these two rods of fate were needed to mark fate’s point in Harriet, Long Island.
The first twenty-thousand dollars went to the prospector. Had he placed a claim or made contest to one-tenth of that amount, he would have found an antagonist in Josiah Burt. As it was, he remained silent and found a benefactor. The new magnate prepared to move his family to New York.
For Quincy, who was eleven, this trick of life had its own color and dimension.
It was a balmy day in early spring. He and Jonas had been across country on a jaunt, looking for rabbits. The elder boy had led his brother a breathless pace, with which Quincy only by sheer, desperate will managed to keep up. They had gone inland where a thick wood of birch and firs seemed to rise abrupt from the broad waste of sand-ground and dwarfed shrubs. Quincy’s going at all had been a matter oftolerance on the part of Jonas. In order to drive home this detail, significant as it was to a man of sixteen, Jonas struck a gait that was severe even for him and ignored his brother as best he could. He was resolved, if they should meet any of the “fellows” or, worse still, any of the “girls,” that they should read the truth of his sublime forbearance in the rapidity of his walk and the fixed, impersonal air on his face. But Jonas loved the sport of a cross-country run. And as they sallied on, leaping over brambled rock and pattering stream, enough of the open’s generosity of spirit entered his soul to make him half admire the little fellow that labored doggedly on, beside him.
They did not see any rabbits. But they found a carpet of myrtle and some half-ripe strawberries which they consumed with gusto. Their chief discovery, however, was a beaver’s dam. The stream widened sluggishly beneath an almost veiling margin of thick bushes—aspen and willow and oak. The leafage, turned silver and deep blue in the sun, lay over the strolling water. Perhaps, Quincy’s chief delight in this unearthing was the chance it gave him to get back his breath. But he feigned well a more direct enthusiasm—no hard thing. And then, facing about, they trudged home at a more comfortable gait. For Jonas was appeased, soaked through, perhaps, with the gentle afflatus of the woods before the tread of evening.
As they entered the little stone path that led in from the street, Quincy observed his father standing on the porch and looking down toward them. It was early for him to be at home. They were still twenty steps away, when the man spoke. He was addressing Jonas.
“Well, sonnie. It’s through. Went through, to-day. It’s panned out great!”
Jonas leaped forward. With a bound, he was on the porch, beside his father.
“O Dad,” he cried, “Iamglad!”
Quincy, left behind, looked at the tall, portly man and the boy beside him. Jonas was slightly shorter and a good deal less stout. But the resemblance between the two was striking. And in the thrust-forward of their heads, the almost perpetual shrug of their shoulders, the movements of their hands, were the unmistakable gestures of accord. The consequence of these details, Quincy was well aware of, although he ignored the physical features. With instinctive logic he felt that friendship or love for one so like his father must be a meretricious and illusory thing. The first conscious articles of his revolt from Jonas were stirring in him.
Meantime, the pair had passed in together. Quincy mounted to the porch with a pang in his heart. They had gone in, rejoicing, oblivious of him. So whatever this new thing was, which had succeeded, which had made them happy, to Quincy it could bring no pleasure, for he had no share in it and it had served merely to give an accent to the old want and the old yearning.
In this spirit, he opened the door and stepped inside. The entire family was assembled in the parlor. And the glow of excitement that they gave out seemed to pervade the dingy room. The portières and other hangings took on a higher key of color. A vibrancy had shot through everything. Everything was rhythmed to this new joyous theme which he did not understand—everything save himself. He lookedmore sharply. There were other exceptions. He went over to his mother. Sarah took his hand and held it tightly. For at that moment, Marsden was talking, and it was forever necessary to attend him.
“One thing let’s do:” he was saying, “—get out of Harriet.”
“But summer’s coming, dear,” replied Josiah, “It would be sort of foolish to go to New York just when every New Yorker that can afford it, is coming to Long Island.”
“Well, let’s get out of this house just the same,” spoke Rhoda, and rose to her feet as if to emphasize her hurry. By now, she was a tall, slender beauty. She knew it. She was clad in a pale pink frock, loosely hung from over her candid breasts. The skirt fell awkwardly. The color was too dull not to detract from the dusky splendor of her hair and eyes and soft-grey skin. It was an unbecoming frock, indeed. And this also, Rhoda knew.
“I want to go to New York and help Rhoda buy some dresses.” It was Adelaide who spoke. In her round, bright, golden face there shone another passion than that of altruism. A not uncommon trait in girls before they reach sixteen,—Adelaide was merely transferring her love of mature decoration to her sister against the time when she could glut it on herself.
Josiah was pacing the room, his hands clasped behind him. He had made a flying journey to New York and he was arrayed in his best finery—a capacious Prince Albert coat that flared below the waist like a rubber cylinder about to burst. His trousers were too tight. The knees were crinkled, puffy and turned-in, an anatomical detail which stout men sharewith women. He wore an upstanding collar and in the wide frontal gap his heavy chin thrust down in amiable meditation.
“Well,” he said, as he paced, “I’ll tell you: choose for yourselves where you want to go, and I’ll foot the bill. Your mother can take you. I got to stay near Town, this summer.”
The panorama of promise overwhelmed them. They were silent. All of them, save Rhoda, were without a thought. After a pause, she uttered one word:
“Europe!”
And with the comfortable way of crowds, all who were present fell upon her suggestion as if it had been the exact articulation of their desire.
“Good!” said Josiah. “Just make your plans,” and with a true sense of the dramatic, left the room. Jonas ran after him, noisily humming, half skipping. Rhoda and Adelaide clasped waists and danced away. There was the tramp of their feet, the sharp cadence of their voices. And then, came silence.
Marsden and Sarah and Quincy were left. And, as if by magic, the parlor’s mood had changed. Heavier than ever were the portières and other hangings; narrower and lower than before, the greyish cut of ceiling, the impress of walls. The cripple lay back in his cushions. His eyes were upturned. And he was musing. He did not philosophize his meditation. It was hurting too much for that.
But his looking up and within himself made it as if Sarah and her last-born had been alone.
She was seated on her favorite cane chair. At her knees stood Quincy, half leaning against them, his hands in hers, his head on a level with her eyes. And so, facing each other, they remained. There was apathetic similarity between this aging woman and this growing boy. Their faces were long and drawn; their heads were generously moulded. The eyes of both were a deep blue-grey that reminded one in her of faded violets, in him of violets that were fresh but in a shadow. Even their mouths were alike—large, tender-pointed, mobile. And at this moment, there played upon them a tremor like the echo of a single pain.
Sarah shifted her gaze. To her, this searching intercourse between them had become almost unbearable. It was as if, in this deep sympathy that had annealed them, lay infidelity toward the others to whom she was attached. For Quincy could not be the only one. In the rapt intensity which drove his spirit toward her, and in her impulse to respond just so intensely, just so wholeheartedly, it was as if, easily, it might be brought about that there should be no others. But such a blessed gift was not ordained for Quincy. Sarah repulsed her passionate inner gesture of bestowal; she beat down this mother in her which threatened to clasp Quincy to the exclusion of all else. She summoned her sense of duty, her social sense, her common sense. She looked toward Marsden for aid in her resolve. And deliberately, coldly, though she knew not the full nature of her act, she broke this blinding, seething current that threatened to submerge the pair, one with the other. She felt the presence in her eyes, in the expression of her face, of just this feeling of exclusion, of hopelessness, of irony that she found in his. She wiped all this away, forcing her mind and smiling. Within herself, she knew that this wealth was mockery for her—the gilding of a death’s-head. It would not return her husband to her, after eleven years of tolerant estrangement.
But, somehow, it was wrong that her child should feel such things within his mother. It was wrong that he should understand. So she turned hypocrite and smiled.
“Well, dearie,” she said, clapping his hands together within hers, “you’re goin’ to have fine clothes now, and—”
She stopped.
Quincy was withdrawing his hands. With a tremor of his eyelids, he turned silently and marched out of the room.
Sarah remained as she had been—half forward in her chair. Her smile was frozen on her face. And all of her was similarly frozen.
There had been something Quincy was not to understand. Here, then, was something beyond the understanding of Quincy’s mother.
TheEuropean project had to be abandoned. Josiah could not leave his affairs for so prolonged a journey. And Sarah declined to leave Marsden. Beside, Rhoda and Jonas who were its instigators, had their doubts as to the pleasure of a jaunt in Europe with their mother as guide. And they were right. Sarah’s training and life in Harriet were scarce such as to have fitted her for Paris and Berlin, even if the comfortable aid of Cook’s had been invoked—as Josiah had suggested. So a short run out West with a peep-in on Yellowstone Park was arranged by way of compensation.
Sarah and Marsden remained behind in Harriet for the last months. Workmen and decorators had full swing in a broad, brown-stone house near Central Park on the West side of Manhattan. And meantime, Josiah, who needed at any rate to visit his property near Red Bear and to confer with his promoters in Helena, Butte and Billings, made ready to take his two daughters and two sons along. The preparation on his part consisted in the booking of two compartments to Chicago and thence West. For the children, it meant the buying of clothes, valises, toilet articles, and descriptive literature. There was much bustle, much serious discussion, less anticipation than sheer worry. And in all this, Quincy’s part was passive, disaffected. He knew that he was going along because his mother had insisted that he was not tooyoung to enjoy geysers. He should greatly have preferred to remain at home, considering the trip’s company and the air of fevered preparation that made it from the outset ominous. But Sarah had nursed the fond illusion that by including him in the arrangement he would become automatically one, in all its myriad, impromptu reckonings, with the family life whence she was wise enough to feel his past exclusion. Sarah, then, was sponsor of the child’s forced participation in the trip. Sarah, as so often before, was clumsily in error. But the serious element of this lay not in her mistake, not in the needless discomfort that her mistake brought on Quincy. It lay in the circumstance of Quincy’s knowing just these things, of his knowing how they and their like bore on his life. For Quincy was coming fatalistically, stoically, to adjudge his mother, to recognize her failures and to accept her in their shadow.
The trip was interminable. Chiefly, it consisted of long, stiflingly hot days in a cramped car that lurched and groaned and pounded and halted, getting nowhere in a scorch of wheat-fields. Nights, Quincy was perched far up under the chandelier, with no window through which to reaffirm, by looking out, his hold on the realities. This was insufferable. To be shuffled along through endless flatlands was bad enough if one could see. But to be thrust through the black with no sense of direction or of space, while one’s limbs ached with the unceasing murmurs of the train, bordered on nightmare. The cities, moreover, were an unmeaning jangle of lights and muddy, topless houses and clamoring traffic.
The gem of their journey—Yellowstone Park—proved to be the height of his torture. It lasted, bycount, four days. But by this period, Quincy’s sense of time had gone the way of his other senses. He was packed stiffly, hotly, into a high, swaying stagecoach. Before being swung to his position he always saw the horses that drew the wagon. He loved horses. And the fiery sinew of these Western beasts gave his heart a turn. He wished to pet them and feed them sugar and talk with them. But always, he was swung up between Josiah and Jonas where the horses were invisible. Their rhythmic patter he still heard, and it was bitter music to him, since he could not fix this one suggested joy by seeing. And now, as they swayed on, Quincy observed that the Park’s chief quality was not geysers at all, but dust. True, it was a peculiar sort of dust. Never had he tasted dust so thick, so bitter, so plentiful, so blinding. It rolled and plunged over the coach, over the crouched, packed creatures that hung upon its scruff, over the very skies. It came in great clouds. It cut into his eyes and ears and mouth. It made him itch and ache. And yet, so carefully had he been wedged against his father and his brother that he could not scratch where the dust itched, nor stretch where the ride stiffened him. At noontime, the coach creaked to a stand-still and there was a hotel, instead of dust, upon the map of living. He was fed at a long table where waitresses hurled thick crockery and men smelled of sweat. Before or after coach-time, he saw geysers.
Unpleasant, ill-natured, evil-tempered things they were to Quincy—freaks without form or beauty, uninspiring and meaningless. To any lad of vision, a brook with a bass sunning in its bed, a flower upon a ledge of rock, must mean immeasurably more. But for the vague impression of this truth, Quincy wasupbraided. He could not buttress it with clarifying questions, such, for instance, as whether a man with three noses would be deemed worshipful or a woman ten feet high entrancing. And if not, then why these freaks styled geysers? Quincy knew deeply that he would be more comfortable and more inspired in a copse of saplings. But to a continent with no imagination, these miserable spurts of water and hot mud are a property of pride. So, of course, the boy riled his father and the gaping girls by his indifference, the few times they turned to sound him.
And then, after the nightmare of dusty roads and advertised monstrosities which one was ordered to admire, as one is ordered to brush one’s teeth (and which seemed equally aside the point of living), came another scourge of trains. And between them, cities that deafened and terrified and bullied. And then, one blessed day, after the most abysmal and thundering of all the cities, there was Harriet at the end of the day’s journey!
With a real sense of joy, Quincy took in the modest, crumbled-wood station, the box-like freight house on the siding. And when the platform slid in beneath his staring eyes that seemed glued to the car-window, and there, in a grey dress and a black shawl over her head, was mother, he could not restrain himself from a demonstration. Here at last was something got to by trains that he could rejoice in and wonder at! For there, despite the ceaseless purgatory he had been hurled or pushed through, stood the old bulwark, the old love—as serenely unchanged as if all of it had been an angry dream. And so perchance it had been! Yet, Quincy did not on that account elect to linger in it. Dream or actuality, it was to be got behind!And the one efficacious way of that was to storm from the train, to fling into the arms of the dear past—and to lie there, huddled, tearful, aglow, while the great iron monster with snort and scream pulled the horror—dream or actuality—forever after it, out of the station.
So, it was needful that Quincy act. And so, he acted. Oblivious of hat or coat, he rushed frantic down the aisle of the lugubrious car—his hands out, his mouth open. A trainman guarded the door. He passed him, nor could the car platform hold him. Down he flew, and stumbled upon the whirling walk of the station. His mother picked him up, bruised but happy.
He looked up at her. He had seen her first; he had reached her first. And now, here she was touching him, clasping his shoulders, smoothing his hair, brushing his coat. What mattered an abrasion on the knee or a burning on the forehead? He looked up, then, speechless, taking in his delight.
And his mother said, in the old voice which was somehow not quite the voice that he had so often summoned to him on his journey:
“You silly boy! You silly boy! Why couldn’t you wait until the train stops? It’s a wonder you weren’t killed.”
Whereupon, the train did stop—and the scolding, while Sarah went to greet the others.
For a moment, Quincy stood alone on the platform, next to a very sharp old man that seemed to be looking through him with steel eyes, so that he was ashamed. And the abrasion on his knee hurt very much; and the burning on his forehead seemed somehow to have scorched his heart.
Inearly September, the workmen and the decorators left the big brown-stone house in a condition of coldness known as “modern” and a state of deadness known as “beautiful.” And then, the family of Burt moved in. At this time, Quincy was approaching his twelfth birthday.
Not as long as he lived did he forget the feeling that came over him, that first time, as he mounted the stoop and went through the ponderous carved door into the house that was now to be his home.
Thecoupécame to a stand-still. The horses had made a strange and muffled sing-song on the pavement. From time to time, this changed to a metallic patter in syncopation—a sound symbol, it seemed to Quincy, of affright. At these intervals, the carriage jolted, one wheel rolled high, the other was in a trough. Then again, all righted itself and the sing-song was resumed. In the coach, was gloom of blue upholstery and leather. His father and his sisters sat tight, thrilled, their eyes intent upon the passing city. It was a maelstrom of half impressions. Cars clanged, other horses sloughed off the view, a swaying coachman shouted, an insatiate tide of men and women ebbed and flowed. Marsden, mother, Jonas and the servant had gone before in another carriage. And now, the frenzy of Manhattan seemed to abate. It was like leaving the wind behind one on the water. They swung up the border of a Park. There weretrees and shrubs and grass! It was a wood, by all conventions. And yet it depressed Quincy who yearned for just such balm. The trees were grey; the grass was dull. Here was not life, but a show of artifice. Hard walks girded the green stretches like belts of steel. None of the free tang and give and sunniness, none of the lilt and smiling, none of the purple murmur of the woods was here. Central Park did not fool Quincy—could not have fooled him, even if cars had not swept back and forth between him and it; even if a depressing monotone of houses had not filled the other flank.
And now, the carriage rolled up. A crowded tramp of the horses and it came to a halt.
Rhoda and Adelaide seemed to emerge from a trance.
“Here we are!” they sighed, with a hollow note that bespoke the nervous feel in their stomachs. The carriage door flung open. They bounded out and ran up the stoop. Josiah half-lifted, half-pushed Quincy to the pavement. He stood there, balanced by his bewilderments, while his father paid the coachman.
“Come on, sir,” the big man tapped his shoulder. The carriage had disappeared. Quincy looked up.
Before him was an unbroken but uneven battlement of houses. Some were brown, some were red, some were grey. At their feet ran the wide, flagstoned pavement. Some were straight-stepped, some were curved, some were curiously decorated boxes. A few had no feet at all—with doorways punched abruptly in the wall. Before Quincy’s eyes it was brown; the protuberance with stairs was straight. Red doors were flung wide open—held so for passage of the trunks—and within was darkness. Above, it was allvery vague and high. Quincy felt this, though he did not look. He went up mechanically, with his father. As he stepped in, he felt a quick sensation of the sky—shrill blue, inexorably far away, yet good. It seemed like a short draught of water when one has been long athirst. It was but a momentary glimpse. And then, his body carried him beyond, within, where the sky was not. He saw the long hall, shadowed, and the wide stairs. It seemed clear to him now why it had been as if the sky was snuffed away. Everything loomed forward and smothered Quincy; filled up the crystal space within him that cared for the blue above and seemed somehow related to it. Everything loaded down upon him, occupied him, stayed there. As he trudged up, it was as if a mighty burden had come suddenly. Quincy observed no more, felt nothing more explicit. But for an instant a perspective flashed on him, though he deemed it merely a natural panic like a score of others he had undergone. In it, he saw himself, slight, small, stooped, his head strained back with his disordered tension, his legs careering stiffly with untrained, superfluous energy. In it, he saw about him a weight of gloom—the stuff and color of this house which was to be his home. And then, once more, he was a child. His mother stood at the head of the stairs. She was very busy, and rather dirty-looking.
“You had better go up to your room, dear, where you won’t be in the way.” She turned to Jonas who sat sprawling within vision, upon a great chair in green satin. “Jonas, will you take Quincy up?”
“Sure,” replied the boy. “Come along, Kid.”
It was easy to tell that what interested Jonas was the chance of showing.
So they were still to share a room? Quincy learned this, as he took in the two white-enameled beds and the valise with “J.B.” upon it that he stumbled over as he entered. The sight of his mother and this new event which scarcely he had dared to hope for, seemed to enliven Quincy. He had not given up Jonas. He had had his pangs from him, as from his mother.
“Oh, Jonas,” he exclaimed, “aren’t you glad we’re here?”
“You bet,” said Jonas.
“No—I meanwe—”
The elder boy looked down, first quizzically, then with a withering wrinkle upon his eyes and nose and mouth.
“For God’s sake, Quincy—what a sis you are!” Then,—“Ma says for you to stay up here,” and left the room.
So Quincy was alone.
The end of that first month was the beginning of the time when Quincy began once more to breathe in a normal fashion. For long, everything had been so new, all the old ceremonies had been so suddenly replaced, all the comfortable nooks of life which with difficulty he had carved for himself in Harriet were so miserably absent, that life had become a breathless trick like trying to ride bareback (as he had once essayed), or endeavoring not to irritate his sisters. There was, for instance, the problem of eating in the ominous, overbearing dining room, the problem of sleeping in a bed which shone like the exhibition motor in the shop on Main Street, the problem of being comfortable in blouses that had to be kept clean and with thin new stockings that had to be kept whole.Also, there was the problem of loving his mother in a dazzling housegown of blue satin. These were like enemies, besetting the routes of life. And at first they had seemed insuperable. And at last they had faded quite away, and wonder about them, as well as memory, had died in the fresh, general glamor. But now, with his recovery, came a new shock.
Something of adoration had persisted in Quincy toward his room-mate despite constantly recurring disillusions, rational promptings, and rebuffs. In the fixations of childish fantasy and love there is the doggedness of plant-life which persists where it has grown, though all nature conspire to prove the folly of its position. Such plants will die, or they must be uprooted. They are such stubborn things precisely because of the logic of their existence—to rise from their roots. A similar instinct was in Quincy concerning Jonas. All the persuasions of deed or mind could prevail little against his intuitive attachment, because they were in different planes. He would hold to his sentiment for Jonas until the roots of energy which had thus grown were pointedly grasped and torn away. For a seed of his life instinct was there. And where it had fallen, it had remained. In Jonas, Quincy saw a future of his own growth—a boy, happy, cherished, of importance. What aided this admiration perhaps most of all was the sense of imperviousness to life’s problems which permeated Jonas. This, in particular, was a desideratum. But, after all, these were but rationalizations. The heart of the young boy’s attachment, no young boy could understand.
Quincy was in his room. It was but half an hour before dinner. The boy sat at his desk solving aknotty problem in arithmetic with a facility beyond the power of his six-years-older brother. Quincy was very apt at mathematics. But also, he was good at literature. This double accomplishment militated against his being singled out for any talent. It is a way of people, to mark a virtue only when it is one-sided.
So Quincy sat at his little desk and worked. It was a slanting, box-shaped affair. Its top lifted upon a hinge, disclosing within a maze of paper, school-books, pencils, twine. In one corner, half hidden under a pad, were two unframed pictures—cheap photographs which he had clandestinely collected of the Farnese Hercules and the Venus de Milo. Quincy’s instinct told him that it would be well not to make show of these treasures. His mother would have found them naughty, Jonas would have seared them with the laughter of Philistia. So he hid them and, like forbidden fruit, enjoyed them. Of all the pictures he had ever seen, these meant the most to him. The huge, power-ridged torso of the Hercules filled him with fellowship to so much might and in some way seemed to make him share the giant’s merciless efficiency. He could repeat the Labors. The genius of this overweening man who had penetrated to all the corners of the earth and forever forced for himself acceptance and a welcome was dazzling to Quincy. He enjoyed gazing at a plastic wish fulfillment. But for the sentiment of the divine, he turned toward the Venus. Hercules was to him a successful man; Venus was a goddess. He loved to look at her. The subdued rhythm of her body, the gentle poise of her head and breasts justified Quincy in his own nature, whereas the brawny giant served to mitigate that nature’s realness and to exalt its opposite. So also, since the Venus reached him not by antithesis, but by a direct appeal to a deep, primal part of him, his love for her was more rapt, more pointless, sweeter. He spent more time with her than with the giant. But she made him think less. And he knew less about the instinct which drew him toward her.
Above Quincy’s head, as he worked, was an electric bracket. To his left were the two beds. In the direction that he faced were the windows, curtained in dainty, dun-colored mesh. To his right was a mahogany bureau. This was no ideal setting for his work. But Quincy had learned—it was one of the gifts of the poor days—to concentrate.
The door opened and Jonas slammed in. There was no formality between them. So Quincy went on working. But in the pause that followed, the child felt something which disturbed him. Still holding his pencil, he turned about. There, near the door, stood Jonas, looking at him. On his face was a gleam of triumph.
“What’s happened, Jonas?”
Jonas chuckled. “Time to get ready for supper, Quint.”
The child jumped up, to obey. “What has happened?”
“Oh, if you only knew!”
“Tell me.”
Jonas laughed tantalizingly. The little lad looked at him with a hopeless rebuke. And then, tossing his head, he moved to the bureau and began to brush his hair. His hair seemed to grow awry, to shoot out in a dozen directions from his scalp. So Quincy’s task was always a fairly hard one since his mother insistedon a part; and since, when he did not succeed, she would brush it for him and invariably hurt him. So Quincy fell to. Jonas stood smiling at him still. Suddenly, he began to speak.
“I guess I will tell you. I’m going away to school—right off.”
The child leaped around. “Jonas!”
“Next week. To Exeter.”
Quincy’s head worked fast. Then, with effort: “Can’t I go, too?”
It was a fatal question. Jonas took it sneering. He was nearly seventeen and he had the sense of age and independence that ordinary boys are prone to.
“You? I guess not. I don’t wantyou’round any more. You stay at home, where you belong—if you belong anywhere.” He smiled.
He would have said more in this great need of establishing his power and independence through attack on some one immeasurably weaker, in these things, than himself. But just then a flying brush hurled against his forehead. He looked up, not understanding. And then, he smiled through his pain. For it was not to be admitted that this infuriated child could hurt him.
“You little sinner!—” he stepped back instinctively. Then, again, he smiled.
And at this last smile, Quincy became an unaccountable demon. He saw what he had done. It moved him strangely. A need swept over him to rush up to Jonas, to fling arms about his neck, to kiss him, to implore him, to cry out: “Take me too. Please, please stop despising me!” This was all his need. And yet, out of the fullness of his love he had flung his brush. And out of his love again, there he was,leaping upon his brother, biting him, scratching him, tearing his face. And all that became articulate of his beseechment was a liquid “Oh! Oh! Oh!”
Jonas grasped at his frenzied, writhing assailant. At length, he caught him comprehensively within his arms. And then, Quincy went flying through the air. He fell, safely, stomach downward, on the bed. And there he lay, tearless, motionless, overwhelmed with the bitterness of life.
The door opened. He did not budge. But he understood. The alarm had brought his father. And there in the door he felt the cold, looming figure of the man whose presence alone was needed to brim his misery. Stark, stiffly, he lay now—one nerve of agony. And when his father’s voice came, it was like the sharp touch of steel upon a nerve that is exposed.
“What is this?”
“Oh, nothing,” replied Jonas, moved again by the need of minimizing the damage done by a child not yet turned twelve. But his father could see the two bloody scratches on his cheek, the slight swelling on his forehead. And Quincy could hear the nervous clutch in his voice.
Josiah looked long, saying nothing. And then:
“It’s supper time, Jonas.... Come down.... And as to you, my lad,—” Quincy held his breath with his galled anguish,—“you’d better stay up here—and cool off.”
Quincy had felt the smile in this voice also. He felt the two, their eyes meeting and smiling together. Then the door slammed and they were gone.
Smiles, smiles—what a curse smiles seemed to him! There was so much laughter in the house. But when they looked at him, it became a smile. Never,never did they laugh with him. Surely, then, he too must learn to smile. Rigid as ever, he turned on his back. And through his scarce-started tears, he looked up at the blurred electric lamp. And then, as he lay there, his mouth trembled and he learned to smile. It was an evil moment.
Never had there been so deep a silence. With outstretched body, it was to Quincy as if he had been swept beyond the bed. He seemed afloat, astride two worlds, strangely apart from the one in which he had been incontinently dropped. And then a thought of what had happened—a whispered thought like a dim memory—brushed him back into the actual living. With his face hot in fever, his mind seething in visions that burst out and vanished ere they had been caught, all of his life came to him in a clear, ghostly light. He saw the household, below stairs, joyously seated at the gleaming table, eating good things. He felt hungry. He wished to go out and steal some food. He wished to crash through the floor and fall, dead and mangled, upon that board of mocking plenty. But through it all, he managed still to smile.
And then, he looked up. His mother had come in, holding a tray.
“You were very naughty, Quincy,” she said in a voice that went up and down, “but I have brought you some dinner.”
Quincy was still smiling. He reached out his arm for a pillow and flung it at his mother. It fell short, doing no harm. Sarah placed the tray precipitately on a chair and rushed to the bed.
“Darling, darling!” she cried, “why are you like this? Tell mother, won’t you? What is it? Why? Why?”
She kissed his face. She pressed his hands. She clamped his ears so that they hurt deliciously. And Quincy lay silent, happy; his smile lost at last in the sweet tears.
Then, something came over his mother. She stopped.
“I must go now,” she said hurriedly. “Father was angry even at this. He said for Bridget to bring it up. He’ll be mad, dearest, if I stay.”
She leaned over and kissed her son, once more. He lay now, stiffly again and sternly. Then the door closed behind her.
For some time Quincy remained upon the bed. His face was a screen to a bitter battle. Bitterness had the victory. He jumped up and uncovered the dishes on the tray. Roast-beef soaking in gravy, peas and sweet-potatoes, apple-sauce and angel cake. Calmly and slowly he took a dish, moved to the low casement window, opened it, and threw out the contents. And in this gesture he continued, going back and forth, eyes bright with fever, mouth parted with passion,—until all of the food he craved had disappeared into the grey, deep night.
So Jonas went away to school, and the agony of this period in Quincy’s life set in—the end of the Reign of Jonas.
For the most part, it was the feeling of a void; to fill it, the creating of a fancied Jonas. And this, being in its essence art, Quincy discovered to be painful. In his relations with his school-mates, with his sisters, with Marsden, he missed him most. And the Jonas whom he regretted was a bland, kind brother, not reasoned-out but clear through the pleasing memorythat he inspired. In brief, Quincy was longing for a brother he himself had invented. And to this creation went little fact beyond the name of Jonas. If this new brother’s face was one with the old, at least his expression was so different as to transfigure it. If his voice was one, the words he spoke had varied even that. Besides, Quincy was happy with his creation. Had Jonas never returned, never shown his real face, his real spirit, doubtless Quincy would have prospered with his auspicious figment. And though life had turmoiled him in a dozen other ways, he would still have clung close to his dream, derived from it sustenance and so hewn out an indomitable faith. For no actual occurrence could have attained to splinter it. Jonas alone was so empowered.
Quincy had troubled his mother enough to know on what day Jonas was coming for his Christmas holidays. At first, knowledge of the day had sufficed. He had aimed his existence at that day. It had seemed a small enough target. But when the day came, Quincy realized his error. He learned of the vague, broad desert that a day can be. He felt the irony of implacable dimension when one’s heart strains toward a pin-point. He awoke in the morning with a bound of fear. What if Jonas was already there! He lay in bed and listened. No stirring. It was not too late. For Jonas always made a noise. And then, as a sense of gratitude came over him, it was dispelled at once by a succeeding sickish thought. His vacation did not begin until the morrow. He would, then, have to spend the morning—half of the day—out of sight and beyond watch. During that time, Jonas might walk in! The idea froze him. He thought of playing sick—just so sick as to be able to remainat home. He did not care even if it did mean doctoring him. His fervor laughed at castor-oil. Once more, a glow of satisfaction, such as one feels after a great invention. But this also, was short-lived. The mournful countenance of duty had thrust in at the door. The school, that morning, was giving a Christmas Exercise. He had his rôle in the festivities. There was to be a masque of the nations, assembled to wish America a happy new year. In this great ceremony, Quincy was to take the part of Mexico. Leggins, sombrero, tasseled vest and practice in rolling out “carramba” had gone toward the occasion. He could not shirk this austere duty. The vision of staying luxuriously at home, of waiting in the warm house for Jonas, had disappeared.
And so, since he must run risks, he faced them. He jumped out of bed although it was a full hour before breakfast. He dressed and went downstairs. Perhaps Jonas might come in early—and he be there, alone, to greet him! He was disappointed. And then his mother appeared.
“You down so early?” she asked, looking for something wrong.
“Mama, when does Jonas come?”
“Today.” She went toward the pantry to signal the cook.
“Yes, Mama. Butwhento-day?”
Sarah looked at her little son as he stood there, all serious and expectant.
“I don’t know. Don’t bother me. By suppertime, I guess,” and she went out.
Breakfast went fast, since the threat of school was at its termination. And then, he and Adelaide were shuttled off in the brand-new limousine.
Before he had gauged the event, he was on his feet. The thought of Jonas had lurked in a strategic corner of his consciousness. And it had gathered to it the energy which might have gone to stage-fright.
Before him lay countless amorphous rows of children, with stern sprinklings of teachers. He began. It was as if his voice went on of itself—uncontrolled, aloof from him, so that he heard it from afar. He had studied his rôle too well. It left no fear of his forgetting it. And in the relief, back stole the thought of Jonas, the possible catastrophe if he returned, while Quincy stood there droning out his duty. If his duty was to be done, at least it could be gone through quickly. The words flowed. He hurried them, as if pursuing from behind. It was a way of getting back. And then, suddenly, his words stopped. He realized that there were no others. He sat down.
He received little praise for his performance. His teacher, a stout, florid creature, came up to him showing her teeth, as she did always when she was irritated. She found fault with his rendition. But what bothered Quincy was the thought that his hurrying had not brought nearer his return. It had been useless.
He did not hate the woman only because of his indifference. About him was a bustle of holiday excitement. Children laughed and ran about. Teachers relaxed and Quincy noticed that when they became smirkingly human they were still more disagreeable than when they had been teachers. It was as if they had taken off their clothes. Greetings of “Merry Christmas” interspersed the general murmur of voices and light feet. It was all like a great, dim wave on the edge of Quincy’s consciousness.
At last, however, the wave broke; the voices scattered; the eddies lessened. And then, Quincy came home.
Jonas was not there. So he ate his lunch, tossed between gladness at not having missed him and hollow perturbation at the deep-shadowed future. For in this state, the coming home of Jonas was Quincy’s future.
His mother had said to Rhoda:
“Dear, if you have nothing to do, will you take the children for a short walk in the Park?”
Rhoda had consented. The remainder of the meal was torture to Quincy. But out of his new anguish was born a device. For he was resolved not to go out, that afternoon.
As soon as the company had gotten up from the table, Quincy went bravely up to Rhoda who stood alone in a corner. Rhoda was seventeen—a remote, resplendent creature. She was dark and tall and very cold and very occupied in her own mysterious affairs. Quincy looked up at her with admiration, but with distance. He felt that she was beautiful. He felt that he would not have minded had she kissed him—which she never did; that he would have been glad, had she noticed him—which occurred scarce more often. Now, however, he was inspired. So he went up to her unhesitant, reached for her wrists, clasped them, and spoke.
“Sister.”
“Well?”
“Please, sister—make Mama not make you take me out, to-day.”
“What’s wrong?” She looked down, interested.
“Please, sister—I want to be here when Jonas is coming.”
He looked up piteously. And Rhoda laughed.
“All right. I don’t care, I’m sure. I’ll see to it.”
So Quincy went up to his room. He did not take out his toy engine or his soldiers. He knew he should not be able to do his vacation homework. For some strange reason, he was prompted to look at Hercules and Venus. But mostly, he waited. Waiting was by now the atmosphere he lived in. His mood had grown so wide, he scarcely noticed it, for want of something to contrast it with. His strain toward Jonas had grown so intense, he scarce saw him, felt him, thought of him any longer. His subconscious mind seemed to be the active one. So he merely waited, doing few external things, aware of few external qualities. And among those that went were time and Jonas. All that remained was the abstract waiting for him.
And then, a noise below. For a moment, it meant nothing. Then it flashed on him palpably that Jonas had arrived! He rushed to the door. He was downstairs. Jonas was before him.
“Brother!” he cried, aching to be caught up.
Jonas looked down at the intrusion.
“Oh, hello, Kid. How are you?” He had outgrown kissing. He threw his coat on a chair, lounged into another, lighted a cigarette and then went on: “Say, Ma—I’m hungry.”
If there was a shred of hope left, it went that evening.
The scene took place directly after supper. It took place before Quincy. And, most horrible of all, Quincy was its cause. Jonas objected to sharing aroom during his vacation with a twelve year old child. That was the crux. He explained amply what he meant. He had had a different sort of a room-mate at school. He was sorry now, that he had not accepted his invitation to go with him to Chicago. He’d not have been placed in the nursery,there. When fellows came home from “work” at Christmas, their families were expected to be a little considerate of them. Some had their breakfasts served in bed. He didn’t demand that. He wasn’t selfish. But there were certain indignities one had to draw the line at! He was not proposing to spend his vacation by going to bed with the chickens—or the babies. He expected to have “late dates” every night; “late sleeps” every morning. He did not wish to be disturbed. He was used to smoking in his bedroom, before sleep, before arising. This also, was a habit dear to his manhood. But, most important of all arguments, he simplywould not have it! If the Kid stayed where he was, he, Jonas, would wire to his chum and take the sleeper to Chicago. Just watch and see if he didn’t! Didn’t he have cash enough in his pocket?
All this, Quincy heard, sitting quiet and alone in a corner, while his hero paced the floor, using his name, ignoring his presence, soiling his soul. And now, Rhoda chimed in, agreeing. And now they all agreed!
The broad sofa in the parental room was to be improvised at once into a bed. This would do for Quincy, during the vacation.
The servant was summoned, the deadly order given. Jonas called out a general “good-bye” that somehow did not include his brother in the corner, since he had not turned in that direction. He left the house to meet a friend, downtown.
Twodays Quincy had been going about with a soiled handkerchief. At last his mother noticed it, lost patience and sent him upstairs for a fresh one. Quincy grit his teeth and went. But the philosophy behind that handkerchief no one in the family was near to reckoning.
The truth was, he avoided his old room. Throughout the holidays, he stepped within it as little as was possible. And there his handkerchiefs were kept. Had he been wise, once there, he would have taken more than a day’s supplies. But Quincy did not have that manner of shrewdness. And even if he had, it would have been a costly risk to hide his linen in the room below. So, at times, a hurried visit was inevitable. In the old days, he had spent long hours there. And still, he might have, since Jonas generally was gone with lunch, not to return until vague hours after. But the charm and the glow of the room were dead. Enough of it remained to have turned into a sneer and mockery. For this room had been an altar to Quincy’s faith. In it, he had performed his services; here he had dwelt as a priest, in the abode of his faith. And he had been driven out and all of the temple had been sullied. And now, there was no god at all. So that the room served merely as a cold record of present miseries and lost illusions.
Meantime, for two weeks, he slept in a broad couch placed at the foot of his parents’ beds. And here wasa steadfast torture not to be avoided like the room above. A dilemma confronted Quincy. He was, for some reason, uneasy about lapsing into unconsciousness ere his parents came to retire; and yet, to be awake when they came in was a miserable trial. So between the two uncomfortable states, the child built up a fever of resentments. Although he could not so have worded it, his was a feeling more than all else of humiliation, of shame at this promiscuous arrangement. He went to bed with a weighing smart on his soul, like the mark of a blow that one can not avenge. And then, with gloomy prospect, he drew the covers high over his face and lay there, staring out, gripping his blanket, stiff with a sense of deep discomfort. And all manner of wild, ugly thoughts raced through his half somnolent mind—thoughts of vindication against Jonas, against his sisters, against his parents; lurid sweeps of chastisement in which there was neither mercy nor discrimination. Fairly, his blood boiled with his resentment at this cavalier disposal of him and the malignant token—his lying there!—of how well Fortune could distort his hopes. And then, generally, his body would prevail and he would fall asleep.
But with such rivalry, sleep could not be firm. Too much passion and reflection, thrown up by his unconscious self like the lava of a volcano, flooded the black slopes of Quincy’s night. And in his sleep came hectic, vivid dreams—dreams in which a burst of repressed wishes stormed to realization. Nor were the wishes good or gentle or composed....
In the midst of some fantasy, painting his sleep, Quincy slides across the faint border into consciousness. There are his parents. A light sears throughhis closed eyes. He will keep them closed, though it meant never to be able again to open them. For solely by feigning sleep can he be sure his mother and father will not address him. And the idea of that is unbearable. How can he speak to these two tyrants about whom his thoughts contain so many guilty reservations? He lies still, strained, listening for all the little noises that will upset him, waiting for the light to go and rest to come. His parents never make mention of his name. They talk sparingly, and then of things that he does not understand. But every sound they make seems to him a monstrous thing. They are trying to be quiet. But of what avail, when the drop of a shoe on the floor twinges through him like a dart? when the creak of a bed plays on his nerves as on a jangled harp? when the repressed sound of their voices, whispering, becomes a source of suffering worse through the very quality of stillness and of effort?
And with the morning, the shame of getting up when they do; the grim refusal (though the price be their completer feeling of his “badness”) in such naked intimacy to share their life, as if he shared as well their cruelty and their dull perceptions. The agonized last minutes waiting under covers, though the dregs of sleep be turned into a bitter wide-awake, until they are dressed. And then, to spring up with a sick relief, to rush into clothes and go!... Above all, with the morning, the consciousness of the next night.
So came the New Year, while the City revelled. And then, at last this holiday of suffering was over. Jonas was gone. Quincy returned to his room. And it had no positive reaction upon him. Simply, he wasglad that certain things were gone. Passively, he accepted the present. He entered upon a period of calm, of seeming apathy. But this welcome state was destined to prove meretricious. Quincy had not really attained serenity or resignation, after his turbulent experience. His soul, rebuffed and bruised, was not yet content to retire within itself and glut its own demands. There was a long road, ere this, for Quincy. For the present, unconsciously of course, he delighted in his breathing space and with great readiness forgot the past with its poignant measure of prophetic warning. But, in truth, his soul was merely crouching ere it leaped out once more. It had not been discouraged. Within it, was too much vitality for that. It was lying low, only to attempt a higher flight, once a new object had been scented.
When Quincy was thirteen, he discovered Rhoda.
Jonas was still away—at college. Rhoda had done with school and the idea of college for a girl was not part of the mental outfit which the Burt family had brought along from Harriet, Long Island. Adelaide approached sixteen. Her educational trials were not yet over. Marsden was now literally a man. A certain surface of his mind had grown hard and polished, so that he was clever and ingenious; able to make bearable the largely mental life to which his body had condemned him. The depths of his mind had died, so that he was bitter in spirit, visionless, and well nigh content. He derived the same satisfaction from his dominion in the household that a normal man might glean from his part in a community. He drew joy from his ability to judge aloof; he created a sort of life from the business of poising the lives of others.
Some time, he had been watching Quincy. But theperiod of their talks was not yet ripe. For the present, he was a cold, hard, cynical obstruction upon Quincy’s path—a creature that could sear and wither with a word, an intimate that exploited his foreknowledge with the evil unconcern of an outsider. Quincy hated him, feared him. For he was powerful beyond his parents when it became his listless fancy to ordain. And his mother loved him with a warmth that was thrice cursed, since it withdrew a part of her from Quincy, since it served as a common interest to veer her toward his father and since in the last fact, the love she did bestow upon him seemed somehow tainted and imperfect. Marsden had not yet beencreatedin Quincy’s life. He stood there as a bitter, impersonal condition—an element, a natural detail. In this way, a pagan peasant might regard a mountain that stood north above his land—the womb of storms, the treasury of frosts, a thing under no circumstance to be explored.
Marsden’s time would come. But now, the child’s senses opened miraculously wide to Rhoda. With Rhoda, a new Adelaide was as well created. But in the counterpoint played by these sisters upon Quincy, the elder had the upper hand.
It was the common mistake of most people to call Rhoda the prettier of the two. Such are the triumphs of an aggressive spirit. For although the younger girl was essentially the finer girl, her subdued nature shone forth badly beside the obvious brilliance of her sister. Rhoda was tall and dark; Adelaide was short and blonde. Rhoda’s eyes were large, brown, pent-up always with whatever mood possessed her. Adelaide’s eyes were small and their blue was unobtrusive; their spirit was diffident; their suggestion of an Orientaltilt seemed somehow to conceal itself. They were set deep and soft, seclusively almost. And the angle of their position with the faint thickness of their lids, the short fringe of golden lash above them (a sign of delicacy for who understood), served with most persons as an excuse for not noticing her at all. Rhoda’s eyes, on the other hand, squarely, unimaginatively set, came forward to command. At eighteen, it was obvious to her mother that she was to be what she herself termed a “belle.”
To Quincy, Rhoda became now, by degrees, a dominant and estimable figure. The evolution of this from early hatred and mistrust, through the period of apathy when Jonas had foregathered his affections, was of course not a conscious one. But gradually, Rhoda entered his dreams, later his thoughts—came in some way to merge with them and to be welcome there. The sporadic walks which she took in Central Park with Adelaide and him grew to be hours of anticipation. During them, this tall glamorous creature that lived so near seemed to relax from her haughty state and to be willing to consort with him.
Upon one occasion, he had chanced to see her as she was dressing. Rhoda had seemed unconcerned enough at this momentous incident. She had crossed her hands quickly upon her breasts, cried: “Go away!”—and been otherwise unmoved. In the shock of his amazement and swift retreat, he had seen little. Yet that little remained long, branded within the texture of his mind. He had not forgotten the event,—although he had no idea of what, exactly, he remembered.
For his thirteenth birthday, Quincy received a bicycle. With the spring, he determined to learn toride it. And Rhoda volunteered to teach him. They went to Central Park, to the circular abandoned road-way where once, ere Quincy’s memory, had stood a statue of Bolivar and which later great quantities of stone and sand turned into a manner of Park dump. With the strangely sweet presence of Rhoda beside him, he had learned rapidly. And having learned, he found that he had learned too rapidly, since now this presence would be no longer there, beside him, as he pedalled. Having stooped from her cold estate in the excitement of teaching her brother how to ride, Rhoda lost no time in clambering back again. And so, Quincy found a new want in his heart.
In his own way, he began to pay court to Rhoda. He was fully aware that he had rivals. Rhoda went to parties on many evenings. And on many others, she remained alone in the parlor with some caller whom Quincy never saw. A great curiosity came over him to see these men who were his rivals. Once, he slipped downstairs at the time when he was supposed to go up to bed, and hid in the portières. He knew that a caller was coming. But he became frightened and ran away even before the bell had rung. It was decidedly too dangerous an experiment. Quincy knew that his discovery in such flagrant badness before his sister’s caller would reflect on her. It would plunge them together into shame. Had not his mother told him that when he was bad, she always lost a bit of her prestige before her God? He did not wish that kind of sharing, with his sister. So he never stole downstairs again, to hide, when he had been sent to bed.
Quincy’s way of courting Rhoda gave little promise of his subsequent success with women. Quincy didnot understand his sister. It did not occur to him to psychologize beforehand the effect which his efforts would be likely to attain. It did not occur to him to find what she most wished by studying her nature, to suppress what was conflicting in himself and to feign what was harmonious. Gallantry is a sense in men capable of being tutored into art. At thirteen, it was already patent that Quincy’s sense of hearing did not promise the musician, nor his sense of sight the artist—nor his sense of pleasing, the diplomat or gallant. He was an ordinary boy. The most that one had ever said about him was that he was bright at school.
Now, when Quincy received a piece of chocolate or a box of soldiers or a flower, he was very happy. Also, in his new state, he needed—though he ignored the reason—to make Rhoda happy. His way was that of a miserable logic. When he received a cake of chocolate, in lieu of devouring it as his lust urged, a greater love restrained him. He saved it. And when, in the late afternoon, Rhoda came home from a tea, he rushed up to her, held out his offering before her, and said: “Here!”
In his accent, Quincy put neither a suggestion of his sacrifice nor a hint of the motive behind his gift. So perhaps Rhoda must be excused. She looked at the chocolate:
“I don’t want it.” The fact was that she had eaten too much pastry at the tea.
Quincy withdrew his offering and ate it, that night, before retiring.
On another occasion, it was a daisy that his mother gave him. It was the evening of the great dance to which Rhoda was going and for which preparations were on foot with the early afternoon. Now Quincyhad learned much of the mundane way. And one of the things he knew was that when his sister went to a dance, she always wanted flowers.
So he took his daisy and held it up to her.
“Will you wear this to-night?” he asked proudly.
Rhoda laughed. “Here,” she said, “—wear it yourself,—” and pinned it upon his blouse.
Quincy left it there. But he felt the condescension in her retort. Had he seen the bower of roses that one of the callers brought with him, after he had gone to bed, he might have understood. But also, he might not have gained much solace from his added wisdom, since roses were so pathetically far beyond his reach.
And so, time and again, Quincy’s assiduous courtship failed, not only of impression but of notice. Gradually, Quincy began to realize that his desire to be an entity in Rhoda’s life was for some reason quite as monstrous and preposterous as had been his kindred wish with Jonas. His mute attempts to share in the lives of those whom he was so apt to love, his efforts to inspire them to share in his, seemed, for some cause, to partake of the nature of a jest—of an extravagance.
Once more, his vital energies swirled and stormed and veered within him, hopeless of goal or outlet. His affection for his sister had at best been vague. Quincy had no conception of the deep ties and firm hold which a response in her would have called forth. He had no idea of the undirected force which this thwarting had thrown wildly back upon himself. All that he knew, was that life, somehow, hurt; and that his mother was indubitably right when she called him “bad” and constantly “growing worse.”
And meantime, near Rhoda, in whose cold, perverse,spoiled beauty his ironic instinct had caused him to seek a haven, there was another sister, yearning for his companionship.
But Adelaide’s eyes were diffident, and her way was quiet. Quincy knew about her only that she was in Rhoda’s graces, and therefore to be tacitly envied and resented.