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

from mole hills, as usual. If she wants to marry Donald I am sure her people will not withhold their consent always. Why should they object to their daughter marrying him? Do you know⁠—”

“Hush!” she said. He looked up at her startled, then seeing her warning glance touch Mahon’s oblivious head, he understood. She saw Emmy’s wide shocked eyes on her and she rose at her place. “You are through, aren’t you?” she said to the rector. “Suppose we go to the study.”

Mahon sat quiet, chewing. She could not tell whether or not he heard. She passed behind Emmy and leaning to her whispered: “I want to speak to you. Don’t say anything to Donald.”

The rector, preceding her, fumbled the light on in the study. “You must be careful,” she told him, “how you talk before him, how you tell him.”

“Yes,” he agreed apologetically. “I was so deep in thought.”

“I know you were. I don’t think it is necessary to tell him at all, until he asks.”

“And that will never be. She loves Donald: she will not let her people prevent her marrying him. I am not customarily in favor of such a procedure as instigating a young woman to marry against her parents’ wishes, but in this case.⁠ ⁠… You do not think that I am inconsistent, that I am partial because my son is involved?”

“No, no. Of course not.”

“Don’t you agree with me, that Cecily will insist on the wedding?”

“Yes, indeed.” What else could she say?

Gilligan and Mahon had gone and Emmy was clearing the table when she returned. Emmy whirled upon her.

“She ain’t going to take him? What was Uncle Joe saying?”

“Her people don’t like the idea. That’s all. She hasn’t refused. But I think we had better stop it now, Emmy. She has changed her mind so often nobody can tell what she’ll do.”

Emmy turned back to the table, lowering her head, scraping a plate. Mrs. Powers watched her busy elbow, hearing the little clashing noises of china and silver. A bowl of white roses shattered slowly upon the center of the table.

“What do you think, Emmy?”

“I don’t know,” Emmy replied, sullenly. “She ain’t my kind. I don’t know nothing about it.”

Mrs. Powers approached the table. “Emmy,” she said. The other did not raise her head, made no reply. She turned the girl gently by the shoulder. “Would you marry him, Emmy?”

Emmy straightened hotly, clutching a plate and a fork. “Me? Me marry him? Me take another’s leavings? (Donald, Donald.) And her leavings, at that, her that’s run after every boy in town, dressed up in her silk clothes?”

Mrs. Powers moved back to the door and Emmy scraped dishes fiercely. This plate became blurred, she blinked and saw something splash on it. She shan’t see me cry! she whispered passionately, bending her head lower, waiting for Mrs. Powers to ask her again. (Donald, Donald.⁠ ⁠…)

When she was young, going to school in the spring, having to wear coarse dresses and shoes while other girls wore silk and thin leather; being not pretty at all while other girls were pretty⁠—

Walking home to where work awaited her while other girls were riding in cars or having ice cream or talking to boys and dancing with them, with boys that had no use for her; sometimes he would step out beside her, so still, so quick, all of a sudden⁠—and she didn’t mind not having silk.

And when they swam and fished and roamed the woods together she forgot she wasn’t pretty, even. Because he was beautiful, with his body all brown and quick, so still⁠ ⁠… making her feel beautiful, too.

And when he said Come here, Emmy, she went to him, and wet grass and dew under her and over her his head with the whole sky for a crown, and the moon running on them like water that wasn’t wet and that you couldn’t feel.⁠ ⁠…

Marry him? Yes! Yes! Let him be sick: she would cure him; let him be a Donald that had forgotten her⁠—she had not forgotten: she could remember enough for both of them. Yes! Yes! she cried, soundlessly, stacking dishes, waiting for Mrs. Powers to ask her again. Her red hands were blind, tears splashed fatly on her wrists. Yes! Yes! trying to think it so loudly that the other must hear. She shan’t see me cry! she whispered again. But the other woman only stood in the door watching her busy back. So she gathered up the dishes slowly, there being no reason to linger any longer. Keeping her head averted she carried the dishes to the pantry door, slowly, waiting for the other to speak again. But the other woman said nothing and Emmy left the room, her pride forbidding her to let the other see her tears.

XI

The study was dark when she passed, but she could see the rector’s head in dim silhouette against the more spacious darkness outside the window. She passed slowly onto the veranda. Leaning her quiet tall body against a column in the darkness beyond the fan of light from the door she listened to the hushed myriad life of night things, to the slow voices of people passing unseen along an unseen street, watching the hurried staring twin eyes of motorcars like restless insects. A car slowing, drew up to the corner, and after a while a dark figure came along the pale gravel of the path, hurried yet diffident. It paused and screamed delicately in midpath, then it sped on toward the steps, where it stopped again and Mrs. Powers stepped forward from beside her post.

“Oh,” gasped Miss Cecily Saunders, starting, lifting her hand slimly against her dark dress. “Mrs. Powers?”

“Yes. Come in, won’t you?”

Cecily ran with nervous grace up the steps. “It was a f-frog,” she explained between her quick respirations. “I nearly stepped⁠—ugh!” She shuddered, a slim muted flame hushed darkly in dark clothing. “Is Uncle Joe here? May I⁠—” her voice died away diffidently.

“He is in the study,” Mrs. Powers answered. What has happened to her? she thought. Cecily stood