Short fiction collected, p.19
Short Fiction Collected, page 19
There were three other distinguished members strung along the bar, as flaccid and sodden as scarecrows after a rain. They paid not the slightest attention to me or to one another. Each of them huddled close around his drink, clinging joyously to that glass buoy. The room reeked of defeat and disillusion. I raised my eyes and saw the pathetically, ludicrously ironic sign taped to the bar mirror: NO DANCING.
“What are you doing here?” Mr. Newman’s remembered voice rasped at me. I fled again.
The News-Journal office was locked and dark. I let myself in, pulled the string of the bulb hanging over my desk, sat down and wrote my last story for the paper. I did it in the two paragraphs the editor had asked for, and in the simple-minded style and words of few syllables which our readers required. “The Golden Sunset Retirement Retreat last night was the scene of a double birthday party for two guests who both turned 97 yesterday . . .” and so forth.
I dropped the sheet of copy paper on Hatley’s desk and another, even briefer text, on top of it—my resignation. I weighted these down with the plateholder bearing tire party picture. Leaving the DeSoto outside the office, I walked to my furnished, room and from there to the Greyhound bus stop.
There was a long, long time ahead, and I figured I’d look for a better Hell to spend forever in. Now I go hither and yon in the world, and I consort only, with the loveliest damned ladies, and laughing anti joyful—in girum imus nocte consumimur igni.
1972
Betty
This story is not, strictly speaking, either fantasy or sf, but when you come to the surprising ending, you’ll see that it is very close kin. But, please, start at the beginning.
“AYE, THE LASS IS NEAR HER end, she is,” said Mrs. Phillips from the fireplace at the back of the millinery shop. “She should never ha’ returned to Richmond this year, what with the river forever flooding and the skeeters thick as that.”
“Yes, a terrible year for the city,” murmured Mrs. Allan. “We stayed away the whole summer and fall, at our country place.”
“So she’s taken the malarial ague, as well,” the little Scotswoman went on. “And her poor lungs already like rags in her breast. The pneumony is bound to come next, and that will be the finish of our Betty.”
She removed a bonnet and its stand from the counter where her visitor sat and put down a cup of tea. With an air of abstraction, Mrs. Allan peeled off her fur-lined gloves and tucked them into her fur-lined muff.
“Mr. Allan is concerned,” she said, “that the mother’s consumption may run in the family. In the children.”
Mrs. Phillips glanced at her anxiously. “Is he against your taking the lad, then?”
“Oh, no,” Mrs. Allan said quickly. “Mr. Allan has met the boy, you know. He can see that the child is handsome and bright, and apparently in robust health. And he knows how much I yearn . . .” Her voice trailed off into a sigh.
Mrs. Phillips unobtrusively surveyed the other woman: her rich attire, her immaculate coiffure, her jeweled rings. Frances Allan was well-to-do, well-educated, well-traveled; she had probably never known a real affliction. And yet she seemed never to have known much joy, either. Her eyes held sadness, and the teacup trembled slightly in her flawlessly manicured fingers.
But she can’t be a whole lot older, thought Mrs. Phillips, than the girl Betty lying a-wasting upstairs. And that one, who had known little else but misery, poverty and privation—she was bonny and young and full of the love of life, even on her deathbed. Well and good, Mrs. Phillips decided; if by giving up her son to this woman, Betty also bequeathed some of her own blithe spirit to the unhappy Frances Allan, then she would not be dying entirely.
“Doesn’t it trouble you,” Mrs. Allan asked suddenly, “to have her die here, in your house?”
“Where would ye have her dee?” flared Mrs. Phillips. “I’ the cauld December streets of a cauld and heartless Richmond?”
“Oh, I meant nothing like that,” the woman said placativcly. “But some of your customers were shocked when you let the room to an actress. And now, when she dies, right over the shop . . .”
“An actress she be,” admitted Mrs. Phillips, “but a lady for a’ that. She came to board here because, being a widow woman, she wouldna put up at the Indian Queen wi’ the rest of the players. She cared aboot appearances, ye sec. And when the sickness laid her low, and her wee purse was empty, could I turn her oot? I couldna! And—and damned to you finicking gossips!”
Mrs. Allan smiled, patted the little old woman’s clenched hand, and assured her, “I don’t care a fig, cither, for their hoity-toity prejudice. For one thing, I believe Betty deserves respect as a really consummate actress.”
“Oh, aye?” said Mrs. Phillips, rather distantly. “I only know she must ha’ been a braw staunch lassie, to be singing and dancing i’ motley all oop and down the land. E’en while she was big wi’ her dead hoosband’s daughter.”
“She once played Ophelia,” confided Mrs. Allan, “to Mr. John Howard Payne’s Hamlet. It isn’t every actress has that honor.”
Mrs. Phillips nodded solemn agreement. “Most players never have sae much as a ham bone.” At this, Mrs. Allan had to hide for a moment behind her lifted teacup.
“I ween it must ha’ been the Lord’s will that fetched her here,” Mrs. Phillips continued. “To the shop where ye and Mrs. Mackenzie bring your custom. So that ye both took her twa bairns to your bosoms, and now they’ll not be orphans when she’s gone. She’ll lie peaceful, knowing that.”
“Don’t,” said Mrs. Allan faintly. “You know very well I’m not taking little Ned just for her sake.”
“An he has a home and homcfolk, what difference?” Mrs. Phillips said. “If it be to your ain heart’s ease, then ’tis a double blessing.”
“It’s just . . .” Mrs. Allan hesitated, frowning as if in pain. “I have to keep reminding myself that I’m sorry she’s dying . . .”
Mrs. Phillips took pity, and abruptly changed the subject with, “Let us go sec her, noo. She’s been looking forrard all the day.”
Upstairs, Mrs. Phillips rapped on the door and swung it open in the same motion. “Coompany, lass!” she crowed, with great good cheer. Mrs. Allan imperceptibly squared her shoulders, fixed a gladsome expression on her face, and swept regally into the room.
The girl, who had been hastily stuffing a soiled handkerchief under her pillow, turned in the bed with a slightly shamefaced smile. It brightened at sight of her visitor, and she said, “I would know—” but her voice was nearly inaudible. She took a deep breath and tried again, forcing heartiness into it. “I would know you if I were blind, Mrs. Allan. You always bring the fragrance of orrisroot. Mrs. Mackenzie’s scent is verbena.”
“Mrs. Mackenzie couldn’t come today, Betty,” said Mrs. Allan, smiling into the depths of the girl’s superb dark-gray eyes. “But I Couldn’t stay away . . .” She was already turning her head as she spoke, and her questing gaze met an identical pair of dark-gray eyes on the other side of the room, where the three-year-old stood quietly by the window. “Good afternoon, Master Ned,” she said. The tot replied with a bashful but impeccable bow.
His baby sister Rosalie, out of sight in the trundle bed, greeted the visitors rather more vociferously, with a wail to rival that of the winter wind outside.
“Rosie’s been peevish all the day,” Betty apologized to Mrs. Allan. “Hand her here, Mrs. Phillips, and I’ll cuddle her awhile.”
“Nay, lass,” said the woman gently. “Yell not be wanting her to-catch your cold, noo. I’ll cosset her myself.”
Mrs. Allan was looking around the room. Even now, after many visits, she had to make an effort to conceal her mingled pity and distaste. By the most charitable standards, the garret could only be called squalid.
Up here under the eaves the wind crashed in sporadic gusts, rattling the one window and all four walls, and insinuating a little of its chill self each time. The feeble warmth from the single fireplace downstairs was a stranger here. The children were bundled in what appeared to be several layers of their street clothes, and Betty was, too obviously, warmed by the fire that was consuming her. She had thrown aside the thin old bed quilts, but an ember glowed in each of her cheeks, and her ivory throat and shoulders glistened with a light sheen of perspiration.
The only furniture consisted of Betty’s bed, with an execrable straw mattress that crackled like a brush fire whenever she moved, the children’s unpainted pine trundle bed, two crippled old chairs, an ancient theatrical trunk, and an upended crate beside the bed, on which stood a flask of cough syrup, a pewter spoon and a drip-coated bottle containing a stub of candle.
The room was barely twilit; despite the lowering gloom of the December afternoon, the candle end was being hoarded against full darkness. But now, out of deference to their distinguished guest, Mrs. Phillips juggled Rosalie on one arm and struggled with the other to strike a tinder spark for the candle.
Its sudden pulse of light flashed glints from spangles in a corner of the loft. There, neatly ranked on hangers, hung Betty’s most valuable possessions-the costumes of her calling. Their glossy beads and golden threads were irremediably tarnished. Their gauzes had been often patched with common cheesecloth, and the trimmings of once-patrician lace were now pieced out with plebeian crochetwork.
Mrs. Allan’s eyes came around again to the bed, and the litter of objects that covered it. Betty noted her glance and said, with a rueful little laugh, “I’ve been adding up my life savings. All twenty-four years’ worth.” Mrs. Allan couldn’t help thinking, with a rush of compassion: twenty-four cents would buy it all.
As if she had overheard the thought, Betty quoted, “ ‘They are but beggars that can count their worth. But my true love is grown to such excess . . .’ Come and look,” she invited. “You might want to keep some of these-mementos.”
Mrs. Allan pulled out the chair from beside the bed. Then she reconsidered, determinedly put the chair back close again, and sat down shoulder to shoulder with the sick girl.
Betty said, with childish optimism, “Some of these objects arc quite rare. They just might have a bit of value, someday. Here’s a program from Covent Garden; it’s rather an antique. And see? Mr. and Mrs. Henry Arnold.”
“Your parents?” asked Mrs. Allan.
“Um-hm. They were regulars in the cast there, before we emigrated to America. And here—the program of my very first Shakespearean performance. In Richard III. I felt very daring and wicked, donning boy’s breeches.”
“ ‘The young Duke of York,’ ” Mrs. Allan read. “ ‘Mistress Elizabeth Arnold.’ How very sweet.”
“I had thought of giving these things to Mr. Placide,” mused the little actress. “So the troupe could have a sort of traveling museum of theatrical memorabilia . . .”
“Oh, no, my dear! Do let me keep them. Your children will treasure them one day.”
“I hope they don’t all crumble away before then,” said Betty. She picked up a circlet of faded paper flowers and set it atop her raven-black hair. “Ophelia,” she explained. Then the circlet’s string broke, the flowers cocked down tipsily over one eye, and she giggled, “ ‘I wear my rue with a difference.’ ”
The little laugh suddenly caused her to choke, but Betty waited for a gust of wind to cover the sound before she let herself cough. It was a useless camouflage; even the wild winds and the quaking of the old house could not muffle the cavernous hacking that wracked her body. Mrs. Allan and Mrs. Phillips exchanged anguished, helpless looks across her heaving shoulders, while the girl rummaged blindly beneath the pillow to retrieve the handkerchief and crush it to her lips.
When the wind dropped again to a sullen moan, Betty stifled the cough, neatly folded the stained cloth, and put it away. She dabbed at her watering eyes, essayed a shaky smile and said mockingly, “We ac-actors have a feeling for words. We’d set the d-dogs on a playwright who gave us a word like phthisis in dialogue. How mortifying—that has to be the ailment I’ve come down with.”
Mrs. Allan willed firmness into her trembling lip and said, “Betty, I have some-news for you.” She flicked her glance at the boy, meaning “not for his ears.”
Betty stiffened slightly, and her face registered a sequence of emotions—bewilderment, anxiety, alarm. But Mrs. Allan waited impassively, so she turned to her son and said, “Would you like to go and play outside, Neddy?”
He shook his head.
“Well, would you like to go and visit the actor-folks over at the tavern?”
He mouthed, “No, Mama,” without saying it aloud.
When Betty hesitated, Mrs. Phillips bravely cast aside her Scottish caution and suggested, “Neddy-boy, if ye want, ye can go downstairs and dress up in yon fancy hats.”
He wavered for a moment, looking with longing at his mother. But the temptation of the usually untouchable bonnets won; he turned, scampered out the door and clattered down the steps. Mrs. Phillips suppressed a martyr’s sigh.
“If I had his curls,” Mrs. Allan said lightly, “I’d never hide them under a bonnet.”
Betty’s somber gaze remained fixed on the door. “I think he knows,” she said, half to herself.
“Aye, could be,” Mrs. Phillips agreed. “He’s a rare canny lad.” She winced at the sound of a minor crash from down in the shop.
“It’s not that he dreads losing me,” Betty explained to Mrs. Allan. “He’s brave about that. It’s more like he just wants to keep me company—as long as I need him.”
Mrs. Allan nodded understandingly.
“You said you have news,” Betty prodded, a little fearfully. “It isn’t—you haven’t changed your mind about—?”
“No, indeed, dear. That is all settled. Ned will come to me, and Mrs. Mackenzie will take Rosalie.” The woman impulsively put her hand on Betty’s. “She’ll make a good mother for your daughter, because she’s already got two children of her own. And I’ll be a good mother to your son—because I never had any.”
Betty’s hand squeezed hers. “And Mister Allan?” she ventured.
Mrs. Allan sought for the softest possible words. “My husband is a no-nonsense businessman, and rather strait-laced. He is determined on discipline, but he’s no tyrant.” She smiled suddenly and warmly. “Don’t forget, Betty, Ned will be his first child, too.”
“Will you-will you be taking him with you today?”
“No, dear,” said Mrs. Allan tenderly. “Both the children will stay with you until . . .”
“Until afterwards?” said Betty, matter-of-factly. “I do thank you. It will be a comfort to have them by me as long as I can.”
Mrs. Allan blinked rapidly several times, then caught hold of herself to say, “The news that I wanted to tell you, Betty. You know what the feeling is, about-well, about interring stage people in consecrated ground . . .”
“Aye!” spat Mrs. Phillips, making both the other women jump. She added with deep disgust, “Contamination, they call it!”
“Oh,” said Betty, as if the matter had never occurred to her. “Well, that’s of little consequence.”
“Wait, child,” said Mrs. Allan cheerily. “Mr. Allan being a man of some influence in Richmond City, he has persuaded St. John’s to allow you to rest in the churchyard.” She sat back and nodded triumphantly.
“Oh, Mrs. Allan!” Betty exclaimed joyfully. She might have been awarded, just that moment, a full reprieve by the Summoning Angel himself.
“Hoots!” added Mrs. Phillips. “Ain’t that the best news ever!”
“The pastor did insist,” Mrs. Allan had to say, “that your grave be situated near the wall. But, after all, it will be in the Episcopal Church grounds. And maybe someday we can persuade him to allow a marker.”
“Dear Mrs. Allan!” Betty said, tears in her eyes and in her voice. “How can I thank such wonderful friends?”
Mrs. Allan’s voice was equally husky. “You are giving me the most precious thanks you ever could give-or I could ask.”
Mrs. Phillips loudly blew her nose.
“ ‘What shall Cordelia speak?’ ” Betty quoted, in a reminiscent murmur. “ ‘Love, and be silent.’ ” Then, briskly, she banished sentimentality. “Now! Mrs. Allan, will you take care of one last thing for me?
“You can see that I’m not leaving much of an estate,” the girl said humbly. She gestured at the pitiful keepsakes scattered on the bed-the playbills, Ophelia’s crumpled flowers, Ariel’s stick wand with the rusty tin star. “But there are some few things I’d like handed on to my children when they’re old enough. This, I’d like Rosie to have.”
Mrs. Allan took the small, inlaid jewelbox and turned it over in her hands. Unthinkingly, she opened its lid. It was empty.
“I’m afraid the jewelry had to go for-for more practical things,” Betty said. Then she added hurriedly, as if to disclaim any intention of boasting, “There never was much. “
“Rosalie will fill it someday with her own jewels,” Mrs. Allan assured her.
“And these are for Ned,” Betty went on. She handed over first a garishly tinted portrait miniature. She and Mrs. Allan studied it together. “It’s not very good,” Betty conceded, “but it’s supposed to be me.
“It isn’t half so lovely as you arc,” Mrs. Allan said, and meant it.
Betty next produced a small painting, a watercolor on rough paper. “I made that,” she said, with shy pride.
Mrs. Allan looked at it and groped for a compliment. “It’s a cityscape, isn’t it?”
“The harbor at Boston, where he was born.”
“And by his own mother’s hand!” said Mrs. Allan. “My dear, it shall hang in his room at our house—in his lodgings at the university-and someday in his own home. I promise you.”
