{"id":1016,"date":"2019-03-27T03:29:27","date_gmt":"2019-03-27T03:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsnewsforyou.com\/?p=1016"},"modified":"2019-03-27T03:29:27","modified_gmt":"2019-03-27T03:29:27","slug":"the-lily-pond-by-thomas-beer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/?p=1016","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Lily Pond\u201d by Thomas Beer"},"content":{"rendered":"

A <\/em>Saturday Evening Post regular and writer of more than 100 short stories in the early twentieth century, Thomas Beer was best known for his biography of Stephen Crane as well as his novel <\/em>The Mauve Decade. Beer\u2019s fiction contained evocative metaphors and complex characters that preceded work along the same vein from writers like William Faulkner. In \u201cThe Lily Pond,\u201d a sunken boat gives way to a chance meeting for a widowed man and a reclusive girl. <\/em><\/p>\n

Published on April 16, 1921<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI can climb that,\u201d said Justin.<\/p>\n

He stared up at the face of the bluff where long patches of sandy clay showed among the massed wild bay that glittered metallic against the eastern sun. His father shook his head, studying the angle and rubbing his twisted ankle. \u201cPretty steep, Justy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can try though. I shan\u2019t break my neck. You sit still.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kane grinned. \u201cI\u2019m not likely to go far. Well, try it, son. Here, better take my shoes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRubbish,\u201d Justin laughed, \u201cI don\u2019t need \u2019em. I\u2019ll yell down from the top if I can see a town or something.\u201d<\/p>\n

He trotted up the sloping hot sand and into a belt of rattling dry beach grass that flicked his bare insteps. There were hummocks of loose soil covered with mealyberry trailer before the ground rose sharply and his climb began. The bay and wild-rose brush caught his soaked trousers and presently he tore the sleeve of his jersey on a scrub-oak bough. Small pebbles rolled down about his toes and a green-and-gold garter snake slid away in a delicate rippling. The sun heated his back, and dust from this baked soil made him cough. But the bluff wasn\u2019t really steep, now that he moved on its face. He glanced over a shoulder and saw Kane sitting, a composed gray figure on the white sand. The shallow water showed belts of ruddy drifting weed. The mast of the catboat wabbled still in view, a quarter mile from shore. It had sunk rapidly. Justin sighed hungrily and climbed on. Soon sweat filled his eyes. He was wonderfully thirsty. When he struggled over the lip of the bluff he sat for a moment panting and blind in this upper sunshine. Then he stood up and gazed down an endless olive landscape, a cup of dimpled moors splotched broadly with dark brush and flaked by lavender shadows from the clouds that fled above on the scented wind. Remotely, on the farther rim of this lovely peace, he saw a spire glitter. Here and there were the cream fronds of early flowering clethra and before him the meadow was stippled by scarlet lilies. Only one house showed, in a hollow that partly hid its silver shingle and the faded red paint of a little barn. Justin cupped his hands and yelled down to his father, \u201cThere\u2019s a house,\u201d but his voice croaked. Kane waved an arm, though, as if he heard, and Justin ran from the edge of the bluff.<\/p>\n

At Princeton he ran cross country. Now he fled expertly, dodging the larger clumps of brushwood and sparing his feet. But bands of meshed vine and low growths made him stumble. When he noticed a sandy crooked path, it was interrupted with more vine. The scrub oak rose shoulder high and hid the house so entirely that he grunted his surprise, coming suddenly to a cleared pasture where two cows didn\u2019t look up and an ambling dun horse raised its head to snort. Beyond, there was a trim garden where a man in blue overalls was weeding a tomato bed. This person looked at Justin\u2019s waving arms intently, his own hands on his hips, and came a cautious yard to meet him, scratching his black beard.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook here,\u201d Justin coughed, \u201cour boat sank \u2014 off \u2014 back there<\/p>\n

\u201cQu\u2019est-ce qu\u2019il ya<\/em>?\u201d said the man.<\/p>\n

Justin reeled and hunted for French, licking his lips. \u201cMon pere et moi, nous sommes naufrages<\/em> \u2014 notre<\/em> cat-boat \u2014 Oh, hell! Notre bateau est \u2014 c\u2019est \u2014 it <\/em>\u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTiens<\/em>,\u201d the man said. He scratched his beard again. Justin wagged an arm toward the bluff, despairing of his vocabulary. What on earth was a French farmer doing in this New England desert anyhow? But the man had gathered words: \u201cYou say your boat has sanked?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes. And dad\u2019s busted his ankle or something, and for Lord\u2019s sake give me a drink!\u201d<\/p>\n

A red-haired woman in white came up the garden path as he brought this out. She spoke from a little distance, excitedly, shading her eyes with a palm: \u201cYou\u2019re in trouble? I could see you running down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Justin coughed and pulled himself to civilized speech. \u201cOur catboat. It sunk \u2014 sank. I think the auxiliary was too heavy. It just sank in about five minutes and we had to swim in. But dad\u2019s hurt his ankle. He\u2019s down on the beach there. Is there some way of getting a wagon sent down? He can\u2019t possibly walk.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I\u2019ll send our man, here. Marcel.\u201d She turned a rapid flood of words on the dullard, who nodded and lumbered off to catch the dun horse. \u201cThere\u2019s a road down, about half a mile from here. It\u2019ll take some time. You chose a bad place to sink,\u201d she smiled.<\/p>\n

Justin chuckled, fingering his ripped sleeve. He croaked: \u201cWe were anchored all night. Wasn\u2019t any wind yesterday and we had the engine goin\u2019 all afternoon. Just had it put in and it\u2019s an old boat. I suppose the engine jarred the seams loose. Could I get a drink of water at the house?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course,\u201d she said, and added: \u201cYou poor child!\u201d<\/p>\n

He couldn\u2019t resent this. People seldom took him for twenty and he must look deplorable. Also, the slim lady wasn\u2019t young. She might be all of thirty. He tramped after her white skirts across a grassy dooryard to the small porch, where an exclaiming fat Frenchwoman brought his water in a queerly ornate goblet, fragile and green. In the doorway an old man stood, leaning on a thin black stick. Justin sat down cross-legged to hide his aching feet and explained: \u201cWe live at Watch Hill, summers. We were goin\u2019 to my aunt\u2019s at Gloucester. I thought it\u2019d be fun to go in the tub \u2014 the boat. Dad had this auxiliary dingus \u2014 engine \u2014 put in. I think it sunk us. We were cookin\u2019 breakfast on the oil stove in the cabin and the water began coming up through the floor. Dad twisted his ankle gettin\u2019 out. Of course it\u2019s so shallow that we didn\u2019t have any trouble getting in, but \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you haven\u2019t had breakfast?\u201d the lady smiled.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, that\u2019s the least of our troubles.\u201d Justin grinned and jumped up. A buggy rattled through the dooryard, the dun horse attached. \u201cI\u2019d better go along. Dad \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Marcel can find your father. And you must have some breakfast. Father, this is Mr. \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKane,\u201d said Justin. He watched the lady pass down an interior hall, brightly papered. Her hair was the shade of his own, deeply red. The old man\u2019s hair was white and curled still thickly above the breadth of a blank pale forehead. He spoke, motionless on the sill.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re very lucky to get out of this so easily, my boy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I think we are, sir,\u201d Justin said.<\/p>\n

He felt foolish, with all his excuses, at the sound of this slow, vibrant voice that echoed under the porch, smooth and deep. Justin shifted his bare feet, which tingled and itched as he looked down at their profuse scratches, then up at the pointed pale face set with black prodigious eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cFunny! I changed the name of the boat. Had her painted in June. The fellow that painted her said it\u2019d be bad luck. And it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat did you call her?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEgypt.\u201d The name seemed amazingly silly. Justin defended it. \u201cDad\u2019s been there \u2014 Egypt \u2014 a lot. He\u2019s an engineer, y\u2019know. Thought he\u2019d like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAh, whither hast thou led me, Egypt?\u201d said the old man. He came stiffly into the porch on his polished slippers and looked after the buggy, a vague spot in a whirl of gold dust on the ribbon of road to the south. \u201cYou\u2019d like to wash? There\u2019s a bathroom at the head of the stairs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Justin climbed the narrow treads of the stair. This must be a converted, ancient farmhouse, made luxurious with gay papers and many prints or framed photographs. Beside the bathroom door there was a framed lady in frills and an extraordinary hat shaped like a flower pot. Across her skirt was splashed a signature: \u201cMerry Christmas from Matilda Heron.\u201d Justin tried to remember something about Matilda Heron while he sponged his salty hair and face. She was, he thought, a dead novelist or a singer \u2014 she had something to do with the arts anyhow. He hunted for iodine on the shelves and found a bottle of disinfectant to dabble on his feet. The styptic sting made him swear and he limped down to the porch again but was guided to the dining room and saw scrambled eggs smoking on the sheen of a round table. He wished his jersey had a collar as the old man examined him, sitting opposite, a cigarette poised in one hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cFather,\u201d said the lady, \u201cyou\u2019re embarrassing Mr. Kane.\u201d<\/p>\n

The old man started. \u201cMr. Kane reminds me of Maurice \u2014 of an old friend of mine. I got to staring. When you\u2019re seventy, Mr. Kane, all the people you meet won\u2019t be themselves but someone you knew.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFather\u2019s getting like that,\u201d said Justin. His father was only forty-four and Justin didn\u2019t encourage the habit; thought it grisly. He went on: \u201cHis ankle\u2019s rather weak. He got it mussed up in a motor smash \u2014 in France \u2014 year before last. He was an inspector. What\u2019s the town over there?\u201d<\/p>\n

The lady looked through the window across the olive downs. \u201cStallford,\u201d she said. \u201cOh, we\u2019ve a telephone. You\u2019ll want to wire your mother.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d Justin told her, \u201cmother\u2019s dead. Is there a shop? I can\u2019t go to Gloucester in these rags.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cToo bad it\u2019s Sunday,\u201d she laughed. \u201cYes, Stallford\u2019s quite large, these days. Summer people. You can get some clothes. Give Mr. Kane a cigarette, father.\u201d<\/p>\n

Justin was talking about Watch Hill and rubbing either ankle with the other sole when the Frenchman led his father in and he grinned. Kane\u2019s unconquerable neatness always charmed Justin. The gray flannel suit had dried somehow. Kane\u2019s curling black hair never needed brushing and he\u2019d wiped the salt from his brown humorless face.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, the ankle\u2019s all right. I was walking round when your man found me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He stood, considering the lady with his solemn hazel eyes. The old man made a level gesture with both white hands. His rich voice filled the square room.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy daughter\u2019s been a nurse. You\u2019d best look at it, Sarah.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot necessary,\u201d said Kane, then spoke to the daughter huskily: \u201cYou were at Bordeaux? One of the hospitals. I remember. Might I have some water?\u201d<\/p>\n

Justin leaned back in his chair and smoked three cigarettes, viciously rubbing his feet, hidden from this courteous group. It was singular, after a spring of track work and the summer swimming, that his skin should behave so badly. Miss Hammond \u2014 the old man named himself soon \u2014 talked evenly about Bordeaux, the rainy weather there and the hospitals. The wind tossed the cigarette smoke high to the ceiling now and then. Mr. Hammond seemed to drowse in his wicker chair, rigid and remote, turning a large seal ring on a finger.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat wonderful air this is,\u201d Kane said. \u201cWild rose and \u2014 are there pond lilies somewhere?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a pond. On the road to town. Yes, it\u2019s pleasant here.\u201d Miss Hammond didn\u2019t let the subject change though. She continued:<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Bordeaux wouldn\u2019t he bad under peace conditions, do you think?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Frenchwoman came to clear the table. Miss Hammond suggested their removal to the porch, and there a collie came to lure Justin away into the dooryard. It was a friendly beast, anxious to have sticks thrown; but Justin sat under a lilac bush presently and studied his feet with passion. They looked bigger than usual and the drying scratches had margins of white. The smell of pond lilies grew cloying. Justin wished his father would telephone for a car and get to a hotel where he could bathe and find iodine. He scrambled up as Kane strolled over the grass.<\/p>\n

\u201cFunny you\u2019d remember Miss Hammond, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. She was having dinner with some nurses in the Montre at Bordeaux. There wasn\u2019t anything else worth looking at.\u201d Kane smiled a little and nodded. \u201cCome along, son. Lunch seems to be ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s not bad looking,\u201d Justin murmured, and limped along to luncheon.<\/p>\n

Halfway through the meal he stopped eating and began to stare at a great steel engraving over the sideboard. It seemed to be Cleopatra dying, the asp on her breast, but it wavered, through his nausea. The nerves of his feet must be affecting his stomach. He lurched when the others rose, and the old man spoke with a real rapidity:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lad\u2019s ill. Sarah \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy feet,\u201d said Justin.<\/p>\n

The room commenced to whirl grandly, like a merry-go-round. He reached for his father\u2019s arm. In this fluctuation he heard Miss Hammond\u2019s clear voice pronouncing \u201cPoison ivy! Oh, you poor thing!\u201d and the collie whined dolorously as Justin was guided, chewing his lips, up the stairs. There followed a feverish afternoon. He reclined in an unbelievable garment of silk, which was the first nightshirt of his life, on a four-post bed. Miss Hammond smeared his ankles with some ointment and a chirping Yankee doctor bustled in who called Miss Hammond \u201cSary\u201d and Justin \u201cbud,\u201d for which Justin wanted to kick him. His father wandered pathetically about and wouldn\u2019t smile, though Justin tried to indicate the humor of this childish accident. Jokes came to a silent death on his father\u2019s solemnity. The excellent man hadn\u2019t been gay even when his wife laughed. He met sallies with a puzzled civility, never offended, apparently anxious to smile. Justin was glad they had fallen, here, among grave folk; Miss Hammond and her old father were plainly serious. People who wanted amusement wouldn\u2019t pick out this windy, lonesome headland. He mentioned this when Kane brought up his dinner tray and lit three candles, which showed the gilt-edged engravings in the pleasant room.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, it\u2019s a lonely place. Very nice people, aren\u2019t they? I\u2019ve phoned a telegram to have Murphy bring the car up, and some clothes. You won\u2019t be able to walk for a day or two, son. How do your feet feel?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFierce,\u201d Justin said cordially, and regretted it at once, as Kane winced. \u201cBut they\u2019re lots better, of course.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI ought to have made you take my shoes this morning.\u201d Kane sighed and went downstairs.<\/p>\n

At times, the majestic inescapable voice rolled up from below. Mr. Hammond spoke so distinctly that Justin caught whole phrases. He seemed to be talking Egypt. \u201cPyramids, I was rather disappointed,\u201d and \u201cWe had a dragoman named \u2014 \u201d Dinner lasted a long time. The Frenchman came to take Justin\u2019s tray and to bring a silver box filled with cigarettes. These were marked P.H. and had lengthy gilt tips, which Justin abominated as a vanity. But the blended tobacco was soothing. He lay and blinked at the candles, heard someone play the piano below, and jumped as Mr. Hammond came in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThree candles going,\u201d said the amazing voice. \u201cThat\u2019ll never do.\u201d He lit a fourth on the dresser and sat by the bed in a pompous velvet chair, on which his thin person doubled stiffly yet with an exact grace. He smiled and spoke: \u201cYour father\u2019s most interesting, my boy. I hope your poor feet are \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re doing very well, sir. Hadn\u2019t been near any ivy for so long I\u2019d forgotten I poisoned.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was a boy,\u201d said Mr. Hammond, \u201cI was with Booth. I forget who she was \u2014 a very pretty girl. She played Ophelia to his Hamlet. We were somewhere in Pennsylvania, as I recall it, and the trunks were lost. We were opening in Hamlet<\/em>. Well, we scratched up some sort of clothes \u2014 there was a costumer \u2014 but there weren\u2019t any flowers for Ophelia. Booth sent one of the men out in a buggy and this idiot brought back an armful of wild flowers. The poor girl! She didn\u2019t know poison ivy when she saw it. She twisted a lot of the stuff round her head in the mad scene \u2014 the poor girl!\u201d<\/p>\n

His melodious pity boomed and filled the room. Justin sat up and examined an actor at short range. This was most fantastic, incredible. Justin found himself wearing the nightshirt of a man who had played with Edwin Booth, and now listening to a string of stately yarns about the tragedian.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, was Matilda Heron an actress, sir?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best Camille of all time, my dear boy. Clara Morris?\u201d He shrugged Clara Morris into nothingness. \u201cBernhardt? Not bad. She did the last act well. Oh, any competent actress can do Camille passably. Duse \u2014 I never saw her. Nellie Terry didn\u2019t like the part \u2014 \u201d His voice declined into a murmur. He stared at the floor, then checked a yawn with the pale fragility of his fingers. \u201cI\u2019d like to see Maurice\u2019s little girl play. Well, this is my bedtime. Good night to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

He made a stiff and graceful exit. Justin grinned, shivered mentally; this old man was a bit of history. Kane remembered Edwin Booth hazily. It must be an anguish to look back so far. Justin flexed his arms and wished Miss Hammond would play something recent. But a passage of Lohengrin was the most modern of her offerings, and ragtime had no place in this still, lost house. Moonlight covered the moor and brought a sparkle from some pool not far away, before Kane came up, reflective and silent after his prompt question about the feet. In another of the appalling nightshirts he looked like an overgrown choir boy, and strolled about smoking a last cigarette. Justin chuckled.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeems the old gentleman was an actor, dad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour mother and I saw him play \u2014 Richelieu, I think \u2014 in San Francisco on our honeymoon, in 1899. Justy, your mother\u2019s been dead twelve years?\u201d This seemed to be a question. Justin nodded soberly. Kane threw the cigarette out of the window and drew the shade over the upper pane. He blew the candles out methodically but paused over the last to smile without the hint of any humor. \u201cHammer me if I start snoring, son.\u201d<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t snore but slept stolidly, stretched on an edge of the bed, and was gone when Justin woke, sneezing, in bright morning. The pond lilies must be open. Their scent crushed down all the other intermingling odors of the brush and, sitting up, Justin could see, a quarter mile off, the shimmering of this pond, oval in a hemming rim of scrub oak. A white gown stood by the end of a bridge that crossed it, and soon a gray male figure joined this whiteness. Kane and Miss Hammond wandered up the road together.<\/p>\n

\u201cGreat Caesar\u2019s immortal spirit!\u201d Justin muttered.<\/p>\n

The gilt clock on the dresser struck seven. What on earth was his father doing abroad at such a preposterous hour? It had the look of an appointment. He considered Kane when the man brought his breakfast up, and surveyed Miss Hammond when she came to change the bandages on his miserable feet. He could approve of Miss Hammond, he thought, quite heartily. She was certainly enough, if handsome not precisely young.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour father doesn\u2019t act anymore? I go to the theater a lot. I\u2019d have seen him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe \u2014 retired in 1903,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s quite odd. Your father saw him on his last tour, in San Francisco. That too tight?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo; fine. I suppose you go to the theater a lot, winters?\u201d<\/p>\n

She raised her head and looked at Justin with her bronze eyes, smiling sadly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere isn\u2019t any theater in Stallford,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy \u2014 my word! You don\u2019t live here the year round?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes. I haven\u2019t been away since I got back from France,\u201d she stated, and left Justin gaping.<\/p>\n

The fact bit his brain whenever he looked at the olive moor thereafter. It was ten miles to Stallford, a town \u2014 in winter, when only the natives filled it \u2014 of a thousand people. On Thursday, when he limped down in loose slippers to the motor, he shook hands zealously with Miss Hammond. \u201cA great pleasure to have had you with us, my dear boy,\u201d said the old man, smiling against the sun. \u201cI\u2019m afraid I\u2019ve bored you with my old tales. Sarah\u2019s very patient with me. I prose along. Goodbye.\u201d<\/p>\n

Justin stared back and waved, as the driver let the car go gently out of the grassy yard. Old Hammond lifted his black stick and there was a delicate commotion in the cloud of cigarette smoke about him. The daughter did not stir on the steps.<\/p>\n

\u201cLord,\u201d Justin said, \u201cI should think she\u2019d go crazy! And if I had to listen to him talkin\u2019 all the time, I\u2019d kill him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAwful,\u201d Kane assented; \u201clike a church organ.\u201d<\/p>\n

The car passed with a mild rumble between the rails of the bridge over the lily pond, where dragon flies swirled like odd blooms freed from the glittering surface and the perfume choked Justin to a cough.<\/p>\n

\u201cToo sweet,\u201d Kane agreed. \u201cYour mother hated them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The gray shingles of the lonesome house effaced themselves on the olive slope of the headland. Justin looked at the dull shady streets of Stallford eagerly. Here, after five days spent among aged, settled characters, he saw youth perambulating the tennis courts of a small hotel, and more youth in bath suits motoring down to the beach. In Gloucester his cousins chuckled over his feet instead of sighing, and he forgot about Miss Hammond for six days, then asked Kane how old he thought she might be.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s thirty-one, son,\u201d said his father slowly.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid she tell you, dad?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes. And she\u2019s lived there ever since 1903. She was only in France six months. It\u2019s \u2014 disgusting,\u201d said Kane, and walked heavily down the veranda, his head sagging. He came back to Justin\u2019s hammock with a frown. \u201cI want to send her some novels. Go tell Murphy to bring the car. You\u2019ll have to help me pick \u2019em out, Justy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Justin picked out half a dozen novels, was afterward consulted about chocolates and thus was prepared for a question by his aunt. \u201cYour father seems awfully preoccupied, Justy. What on earth\u2019s the matter with him?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s preoccupied,\u201d said Justin obscurely.<\/p>\n

His aunt oozed sympathy over anything loverly. He didn\u2019t care to loose her on his father, and went off to play tennis. If his father had fallen in love with Miss Hammond it was only fair to let him enjoy that condition without scrutiny. Justin had often wondered if women had any meaning to Kane. It was thrilling to find that they had. He wasn\u2019t surprised when Kane suggested a return to Watch Hill; less so that, below Boston, his father ordered the motor to head for Stallford, where rooms seemed to be ready at the hotel and many females observed their first meal in the dining room. Then Kane vanished and Justin spent an afternoon of speculation on a pier by the shallow bay. However, before sunset he met a classmate coming in from a sail and, shortly after, the classmate\u2019s three sisters. By ten o\u2019clock he found that all three liked red hair and two of them liked gray eyes.<\/p>\n

It was midnight when he heard Kane enter the adjoining room. The man moved to and fro, undressing. Justin grinned in his darkness. But after a moment he had to chuckle; his father was whistling, though badly enough, a waltz of the incredible days before Justin\u2019s birth.<\/p>\n

In the morning the good man looked penitent. He sat on the edge of Justin\u2019s bed and patted one of the still tender ankles, shuffled his feet and fooled with the frogs of his pajama jacket.<\/p>\n

\u201cHope you found someone to talk to last night, son.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course I did. I know a lot of people here. How was she?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI shouldn\u2019t have stayed so late,\u201d Kane muttered, \u201cbut he goes to bed at nine and \u2014 you don\u2019t mind staying here a while? \u201c<\/p>\n

\u201cNot a bit, sir. And she\u2019s awfully nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kane said swiftly: \u201cMakes me think of your mother, Justy,\u201d and went off to shave. He came back with his eyes anxious above the mask of white lather and went on: \u201cOf course I \u2014 I\u2019ve never cared about anyone the way I did for your mother, Justy. Couldn\u2019t.\u201d Then he appeared with half the lather erased, to mumble: \u201cMighty lonesome when you\u2019re off at college, son.\u201d There Justin laughed, and the shaven tract of his father\u2019s face colored. He chuckled timidly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThought I\u2019d better let you know, son.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m mighty glad,\u201d Justin assured him, and often mused on his father\u2019s happiness for the rest of the week.<\/p>\n

It was impossible that Miss Hammond would refuse this fine man, and she deserved a reward for her isolation on the headland. None of the summer colonists knew the Hammonds, but several ladies told Justin that Miss Hammond drove to town occasionally.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s very handsome,\u201d one said. \u201cThe old man\u2019s neurotic, you know. He has one of those phobias. He can\u2019t stand meeting people. They live there all the year. It\u2019s really quite pathetic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMust have been jolly for him when she went to France,\u201d Justin pondered.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh,\u201d said the lady, \u201cthey said it was dreadful! I heard about it. He was so anxious to have her go. Then, their doctor says, he almost went insane. He used to walk up and down the road by the house and talk to his wife \u2014 she\u2019s dead \u2014 and it frightened his servants. The French are so superstitious, aren\u2019t they? They say his wife was very pretty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Justin thought these eccentricities rather childish. But Mr. Hammond was old and so excusable. Kane didn\u2019t propose that Justin come calling, and Justin was busy. Stallford was undermanned. Girls even suggested that he get his father to fill out clambakes and motorboat parties. They flattered him on Kane\u2019s youthful charms and there was a loud alarmed chorus when the engineer came, rumpled and wet, from the motor one evening.<\/p>\n

\u201cI fell in that beastly lily pond,\u201d he grunted to Justin over the edge of the bathtub. \u201cSarah wanted some lilies \u2014 the old gentleman likes \u2019em \u2014 and I was fishing for one off the bridge with a stick. By George, I nearly swallowed the whole concern! The stems, you know? They got tangled all round my legs. You came pretty near being an orphan. That somebody knocking?\u201d<\/p>\n

Justin went to the bedroom door and brought back a telegram. Kane read this and gave a long sigh, almost comic in its woe. \u201cI\u2019ll have to go to New York. Man from Denver. Take a week, pretty near. You\u2019ll go out and see h \u2014 \u2019em, though?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course I shall,\u201d Justin promised, and remembered that he must do so one morning three days later, when their mothers had dragged most of his associates to church.<\/p>\n

The chauffeur was amiably occupied with a native beauty on a bench before the hotel. Justin drove himself over the moors, wondering if his father had kissed Miss Hammond yet, and blushed when he found her on the pond bridge, fishing for lilies with a long stick.<\/p>\n

\u201cFather\u2019s fond of them,\u201d she said in her serious brisk voice. \u201cSuch a thick sort of perfume, though, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLots too thick; bad as ether almost. Had a note from dad. He\u2019ll be back Thursday morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t answer but went on prodding a polished lily pad with the stick. As the color came up her face Justin saw that she could look like his mother. He slid out of the car and perched on the solid rail of the bridge close to her moving arm in its thin white sleeve. The dragon flies dipped and hissed in long circles among the bowl-shaped glistening flowers and the high sun beat a path for Justin\u2019s eyes into the dull water so that he could guess at serpentine stems trailing down to some black depth.<\/p>\n

\u201cJustin,\u201d said Miss Hammond, \u201cI can\u2019t marry your father. I must write and tell him so. Or \u2014 would you tell him? I \u2014 I\u2019m so sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBetter marry him,\u201d Justin advised.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

She threw the stick into the pond and began to cry, motionless, the tears rippling on her upturned pallor. The muscles of Justin\u2019s throat contracted. It was worse since she made no sound.<\/p>\n

\u201cFather\u2019s the finest kind of man,\u201d he mumbled, chewing his lips.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know. But I can\u2019t go away. You see? He\u2019s so old. Over seventy. It\u2019d kill him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLook here,\u201d Justin said soon. \u201cWe\u2019ve got an awfully big house. It\u2019s at Irvington \u2014 up the Hudson. Lots of ground all round. He wouldn\u2019t have to see anyone. He could have my grandfather\u2019s rooms. He could be just as \u2014 as lonesome as he liked.\u201d<\/p>\n

She did not seem to hear. She said, \u201cMy mother was much younger. He was playing Antony with Fanny Davenport when they met. She wasn\u2019t kind to him. She flirted with other men. I can remember. He was always kind to her. She wasn\u2019t a good actress, but he had her for a leading lady in his company. Her name was Eugenie Watson. She ran away with someone. He never spoke unkindly of her \u2014 never. He was playing in San Francisco when the news came that she\u2019d died. She killed herself. Then he couldn\u2019t act as well. And then he stopped. I look very like her. Sometimes he calls me Eugenie. He can\u2019t live any place but here. He tried to live in Stallford when he made me go to France. It didn\u2019t work. He \u2014 he needs me. He\u2019s happy. I can\u2019t do it. When I was away he used to walk up and down the road here and talk to her \u2014 just as though she could hear him. Won\u2019t you write your father?\u201d<\/p>\n

Justin twisted on the rail and shook his head.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I won\u2019t. Mr. Hammond can come and live in Irvington. He needn\u2019t miss seein\u2019 you at all. Dad likes him a lot. It\u2019ll work out. You\u2019ll see.\u201d He brightened with speech. \u201cAnd dad takes all summer off anyhow. He\u2019s got three partners. You can come here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Presently she put her face in her hands and leaned on the rail. She did not look up when Justin turned the car and drove away, soaked in a queer anger. The old man seemed a monstrous selfish shadow flung across the world suddenly. Justin raged, not hopelessly, but with a sick vexation. He could imagine Kane stroking the red luster of her hair and arranging all this gravely. It was utterly stupid that his father should be held off so. Justin smoked a pipe and got the lily smell out of his throat by lunch time, but anxiety stayed strongly in him. Kane was probably a timid lover. He might take fright in these perplexities, let himself be sacrificed. Justin thought of Hammond with a large impatience until thinking made his head ache and the crowd of cheerful young persons on the tennis courts afflicted him. He found that company wasn\u2019t good for a brain congested with worries.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday the chatter of the girls watching a game of clock golf was peculiarly burdensome and Justin fancied he could learn to loathe women. He was scowling over a stroke when the chatter waned and someone whispered his name, deeply. Justin stared up at old Hammond, close to him, the spectral hands still on the gold crook of his cane, the face rigidly frowning under the sweep of a wide hat. At this vision the youngsters round about were glaring, amazed and lost to manners. Justin handed his putter to a friend and followed the stiff legs away from the herd.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat game,\u201d Hammond said, \u201clooks as imbecile as croquet, my dear boy. Is there some quiet place? I \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

His mouth flickered in a curious spasm and his long face twitched. Justin guided him across the sunny turf to a summerhouse, happily empty,<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dear lad,\u201d the old man murmured, \u201cthis is very awkward. I had Marcel drive me in. I hate the telephone. We fossils are prejudiced, you know! Well my poor Sarah seems to have lost her senses.\u201d He laughed, richly and smoothly, on an organ note. \u201cI hope you haven\u2019t written your good father that \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I didn\u2019t, sir,\u201d said Justin. \u201cHe\u2019ll be here tomorrow morning and \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad you didn\u2019t disturb him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hammond took his hat off and lit a cigarette. He seemed lightly amused and beamed at Justin gayly.<\/p>\n

\u201cSarah\u2019s too sensitive on my account. She fancies things. I\u2019ve been watching her very closely. Last night she broke down while she was playing the piano for me. I had to bully her \u2014 absurd \u2014 until she told me. Of course this is preposterous. I\u2019ve always looked forward to her marriage. Oh, not as cheerfully as I should \u2014 one gets selfish. I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll find me a very kind stepgrandfather-in-law.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSure I shall,\u201d Justin said. \u201cI was telling S-Sarah, sir, that you\u2019d be awfully comfortable in our place at Irvington. There\u2019s a set of rooms where my grandfather \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sounds most inviting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hammond stretched his legs and crossed his small feet jauntily, blew a smoke ring and waved it aside. His mouth twitched a little.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy nerves went to pieces badly, in my last season. I was really ill for some years and I got used to living out here. \u2018Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time.\u2019 What a wretched part Orlando is, to be sure! Do you ever wrestle? I had a silly mishap when I was playing Orlando in London in \u201986.\u201d He told, with many gestures and at great length, how he had dislocated a shoulder in the wrestling scene of As You Like It<\/em>, then came back to their business. \u201cBut I\u2019m anxious your good father should understand that this is merely \u2014 ah \u2014 overanxiety on Eugenie\u2019s \u2014 on my daughter\u2019s part. What time does he get here tomorrow?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout eleven, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n

The old man ground out his cigarette with the tip of the black cane.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure he\u2019ll make my girl an excellent husband. And you\u2019ll make her a good stepson or I\u2019ll come back and haunt you, my lad. I\u2019ve had a deal of experience haunting. I played along nicely. Good day to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the buggy went off he spoke to the driver in French, and that fluid speed of music remained with Justin as he trotted down to the beach. The old fellow was artifice itself. He had played this scene like a bit from a play, airily and gracefully, tactfully. And it was really a noble act, Justin thought. He was much pleased, and exploded sociably in his relief, took a carful of youth on a drive under the failing August moon and came home to his bedroom at midnight. The clack of the rusty telephone bell startled him, half undressed, and the gracious roll of Hammond\u2019s voice was diminished in the buzz of the wire.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome out early in the morning, my dear boy. I mean, before you go to meet your father. Sarah will want to talk to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout when, sir?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWould eight be too early?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease don\u2019t fail Sarah. Good night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Justin left a call for seven and, when it rang, remembered the reason. It was most important to be prompt in his father\u2019s behalf. No doubt Miss Hammond was going to give in and wanted to explain this. He dressed, whistling, got the car from the hotel shed and set off, hungrily hoping that there would be coffee for him at the house, which did not show through a faint sunsmitten mist that rolled on the moors, frosting the brush and hiding the gulls that yelled above. The farther pads of the lily pond were obscured in the gray flow as the car passed the bridge, and some lads in faded country clothes stared at Justin mutely. The collie capered down the dooryard to welcome him as he stopped inside the gates. The Frenchman was talking to an elderly farmer by the porch and Justin went into the hall unannounced, then whistled. Miss Hammond came out of a room behind him and put her arms about his neck, silently, though she was weeping. Justin patted her hair cordially.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll right,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s all right.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, where\u2019s your father, Justin? Some boys found him. They\u2019d come out to get lilies. They sell them in town. And he was so happy last night. I played the Mikado for him. I went to bed early.\u201d She leaned on Justin\u2019s shoulder, sobbing slowly. \u201cMy mother drowned herself too. Oh, Justin, where\u2019s your father? Why doesn\u2019t he come?\u201d<\/p>\n

Featured image illustration by J.E. Allen<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Saturday Evening Post regular and writer of more than 100 short stories in the early twentieth century, Thomas Beer was best known for his biography of Stephen Crane as well as his novel The Mauve Decade. Beer\u2019s fiction contained evocative metaphors and complex characters that preceded work along the same vein from writers like…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}