All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren [128]
“You could make lampshades,” I said.
“I could have done something–something–”
“You could have got married,” I said. “You could have married me.”
“Oh, I don’t mean just getting married, I mean–”
“You don’t know what you mean,” I said.
“Oh, Jack,” she said, and reached out and took my hand and hung on to it, “maybe I don’t. I don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight. When I come out here sometimes–I’m happy when I come, I truly am, but them–”
She didn’t say any more about it. By this time she had sunk her head to my chest, and I had given her a few comforting pats on the shoulder, and she had said in a muffled sort of way that I had to be her friend, and I had said, “Sure,” and had caught some good whiffs of the way her hair smelled. It smelled just the way it always had, a good, clean, well-washed, little-girl-ready-for-a-party smell. But she wasn’t a little girl and this wasn’t a party. It definitely was not a party. With pink ice cream and devil’s-food cake and horns to blow and we all played clap-in and clap-out and the game in which you sang about King William being King James’s son and down on this carpet you must kneel sure as the grass grows in the field and choose the one you love best.
She stood there for a minute or two with her head on my chest, and you could have seen daylight between her and her friend, if there had been any daylight, while her friend gave her the impersonal and therapeutic pats on the shoulder. Then she walked away from him and stood by the hearth, looking down at the fire, which was doing fine now and making the room look what is called real homey.
Then the front door swung open and the wind off the cold sea whipped into the room like a great dog shaking itself and the fire leaped. It was Adam Stanton coming into that homey atmosphere. He had an armful of packages, for he had been down into the Landing to get our provisions.
“Hello,” he said over the packages, and smiled out of that wide, thin, firm mouth which in repose looked like a clean, well-healed surgical wound but which when he smiled–if he smiled–surprised you and made you feel warm.
“Look here,” I said quick, “way back yonder, any time, was Judge Irwin ever broke? Bad broke?”
“Why, no–I don’t know–” he began, his face shading.
Anne swung around to look at him, and then sharply at me. I thought for an instant she was about to say something. But she didn’t.
“Why, yes!” Adam said, standing there, still hugging the parcels. I had speared it up from the deep mud.
“Why, yes,” he repeated, with the pleased bright look on his face which people get when they dredge up any lost thing from the past, “yes, let me see–I was just a kid–about 1913 or 1914–I remember father saying something about it to Uncle John or somebody, before he remembered I was in the room–then the Judge was here and he and father–I thought they were having a row, their voices got so high–they were talking about money.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Welcome,” he said, with a slightly puzzled smile on his face, and moved to the couch to let the parcels cascade to the soft softness.
“Well,” Anne said, looking at me, “you might at least have the grace to tell him why you asked the question.”
“Sure,” I said. And I turned to Adam: “I wanted to find out for Governor Stark.”
“Politics,” he said, and the jaw closed like a trap.
“Yes, politics,” Anne said, smiling a little sourly.
“Well, thank God, I don’t have to mess with ’em,” Adam said. “Nowadays, anyway.” But he said it almost lightly. Which surprised me. Then added, “What the hell if Stark knows about the Judge being broke. It was more than twenty years ago. And there’s no la against being broke. What the hell.”
“Yeah, what the hell,” Anne said, and looking at me, gave that not unsour smile.
“And what the hell are you doing?” Adam demanded laughing, and grabbed her by the arm and shook her. “Standing there when the grub needs cooking. Get the lead out, Sour-puss, and get going!” He shoved her toward the couch, where the packages were heaped.
She bent to scoop up a lot of packages, and he whacked her across the backsides and said,