Soldiers’ Pay by William Faulkner (digital e reader txt) 📕

“Miss Saunders,” repeated Jones, counterfeiting surprise, admiring the way she had turned the tables on him without reverting to sex, “my dear lady, can you imagine anyone making love to her? Epicene. Of course it is different with a man practically dead,” he added, “he probably doesn’t care much whom he marries, nor whether or not he marries at all.”

“No? I understood from your conduct the day I arrived that you had your eye on her. But perhaps I was mistaken after all.”

“Granted I had: you and I seem to be in the same fix now, don’t we?”

She pinched through the stem of a rose, feeling him quite near her. Without looking at him she said:

“You have already forgotten what I told you, haven’t you?”

He did not reply. She released her rose and moved slightly away from him. “That you have no skill in seduction. Don’t you know I can see what you are leading up to⁠—that you and I should console one another? That’s too childish, even for you. I have had to play at too many of these sexual acrostics with poor boys whom I respected even if I didn’t like them.” The rose splashed redly against the front of her dark dress. She secured it with a pin. “Let me give you some advice,” she continued sharply, “the next time you try to seduce anyone, don’t do it with talk, with words. Women know more about words than men ever will. And they know how little they can ever possibly mean.”

Jones removed his yellow stare. His next move was quite feminine: he turned and lounged away without a word. For he had seen Emmy beyond the garden hanging washed clothes upon a line. Mrs. Powers, looking after his slouching figure, said Oh. She had just remarked Emmy raising garments to a line with formal gestures, like a Greek masque.

She watched Jones approach Emmy, saw Emmy, when she heard his step, poise a half-raised cloth in a formal arrested gesture, turning her head across her reverted body. Damn the beast, Mrs. Powers thought, wondering whether or not to follow and interfere. But what good would it do? He’ll only come back later. And playing Cerberus to Emmy.⁠ ⁠… She removed her gaze and saw Gilligan approaching. He blurted:

“Damn that girl. Do you know what I think? I think she⁠—”

“What girl?”

“What’s her name, Saunders. I think she’s scared of something. She acts like she might have got herself into a jam of some kind and is trying to get out of it by taking the loot right quick. Scared. Flopping around like a fish.”

“Why don’t you like her, Joe? You don’t want her to marry him.”

“No, it ain’t that. It just frets me to see her change her mind every twenty minutes.” He offered her a cigarette which she refused and lit one himself. “I’m jealous, I guess,” he said, after a time, “seeing the loot getting married when neither of ’em want to ’specially, while I can’t get my girl at all.⁠ ⁠…”

“What, Joe? You married?”

He looked at her steadily. “Don’t talk like that. You know what I mean.”

“Oh, Lord. Twice in one hour.” His gaze was so steady, so serious, that she looked quickly away.

“What’s that?” she asked. She took the rose from her dress and slipped it into his lapel.

“Joe, what is that beast hanging around here for?”

“Who? What beast?” He followed her eyes. “Oh. That damn feller. I’m going to beat hell out of him on principle, some day. I don’t like him.”

“Neither do I. Hope I’m there to see you do it.”

“Has he been bothering you?” he asked quickly. She gave him her steady gaze.

“Do you think he could?”

“That’s right,” he admitted. He looked at Jones and Emmy again. “That’s another thing. That Saunders girl lets him fool around her. I don’t like anybody that will stand for him.”

“Don’t be silly, Joe. She’s just young and more or less of a fool about men.”

“If that’s your polite way of putting it, I agree with you.” His eyes touched her smooth cheek blackly winged by her hair. “If you had let a man think you was going to marry him you wouldn’t blow hot and cold like that.”

She stared away across the garden and he repeated: “Would you, Margaret?”

“You are a fool yourself, Joe. Only you are a nice fool.” She met his intent gaze and he said Margaret? She put her swift strong hand on his arm. “Don’t Joe. Please.”

He rammed his hands in his pockets, turning away. They walked on in silence.

Spring, like a soft breeze, was in the rector’s fringe of hair as with upflung head he tramped the porch like an old warhorse who hears again a trumpet after he had long thought all wars were done. Birds in a wind across the lawn, parabolic from tree to tree, and a tree at the corner of the house turning upward its white-bellied leaves in a passionate arrested rush: it and the rector faced each other in ecstasy. A friend came morosely along the path from the kitchen door.

“Good morning, Mr. Jones,” the rector boomed, scattering sparrows from the screening vine. The tree to his voice took a more unbearable ecstasy, its twinkling leaves swirled in a never-escaping silver skyward rush.

Jones, nursing his hand, replied Good morning in a slow obese anger. He mounted the steps and the rector bathed him in a hearty exuberance.

“Come ’round to congratulate us on the good news, eh? Fine, my boy, fine, fine. Yes, everything is arranged at last. Come in, come in.”

Emmy flopped on to the veranda belligerently. “Uncle Joe,” she said, shooting at Jones a hot exulting glance. Jones, nursing his hand, glowered at her. (God damn you, you’ll suffer for this.)

“Eh? What is it, Emmy?”

“Mr. Saunders is on the phone: he wants to know if you’ll see him this morning.” (I showed you! Teach you to fool with me.)

“Ah, yes. Mr. Saunders coming to discuss plans for the