Testimony Of Two Men (32 page)

“I myself,” said Jon, waving his hand in dismissal, “believe that their charm is that they are so thoroughly alive, so immediate, so eager for experience, so complete. They are full-blooded women. That’s why women more anemic resent them so.”

“I don’t resent them,” said Marjorie. “I just know all about them, though I’ve met only two or three in my lifetime. I think they are interesting phenomena, like a tidal wave or a comet or a tornado.” She paused. “I hope this isn’t an academic discussion, Jon. You’ve probably met one or two yourself, and they interest you. As a future doctor.”

“Perhaps,” said Jon. He stood up. He appeared irresolute. Is it possible he is going to tell me something? thought Marjorie. He said, “I think I’ll have another drink.”

When he had left the room, Marjorie thought with more concentration. Jonathan had left the house in the heat of the day on his bicycle to visit Martin Eaton. He had had time only to arrive there, give or take five minutes or so, and then he had immediately returned. He had not dallied. Half an hour in all. Where could he have met one of his Laughing Girls in that short space of time, especially when he had been on his bicycle practically every moment? He had not mentioned Flora Eaton, so it was probable he had not seen her. He had not seen Martin Eaton. He had gone to the house, found the older doctor home—yet had immediately left without seeing him. Therefore, he had received some kind of a shock almost at once.

He had seen a girl. Marjorie knew the girls of all the best families in Hambledon and she skimmed their faces with her mental eyes. Nice, wholesome girls, some flirts but innocent ones, and none calculated to strike Jonathan so forcibly. Besides, he had known them all his life, these potential wives. Jonathan was stricken; there was no doubt about it. He was under some fierce and devastating spell, for his mother had never seen him drink so steadily before and so much. He was pale; he had the aspect of a man under extreme stress. His hands had trembled a few times. It was someone he had not known before, then. Dear Heaven, not some strumpet of the street! thought Marjorie, then almost, even in her distress, she laughed at herself. Jonathan was not the kind, and where would he have encountered such in half an hour, which had been spent almost entirely on a bicycle?

Her thought returned to Martin Eaton. Had there been a young strange patient in the house or some distant visiting young relative? If so, then the bewitched Jonathan would have inevitably stayed for more bewitchment, and he would not now be so evasive. He would speak. Men do not fly from charmers on a bicycle. They stay and grovel, thought Marjorie, with some bitterness. Then stay and offer their necks for a dainty foot. Even Jonathan would do so. More brilliant men had become victims of the Laughing Girls. They loved to be victims. They dedicated their lives to the victimization and thought themselves blest. They fly only when they know the object of all that silliness and stupidity is either not for them, or beyond them, or is very dangerous to them—and often they do not flee even then. Very rarely do they flee.

So, it must be a young girl, a very young girl. Who? Slowly Marjorie remembered something that had happened last week. She had been at the Garden Club meeting near the river, and Flora Eaton had brought her adopted daughter with her though children were invariably forbidden. “She is really so grownup and interested,” Flora had apologized. The ladies had not objected after the first affronted frowns. They had been charmed within moments by Mavis Eaton, who had been so deferential, so beguiling, so lovely, so polite and eager to please. She had laughed so often too, with open delight at everything, the flight of a heron, the scuffling run of a young fox. Her delight had been something radiant and completely fascinating. And it had not been false and shown for effect. The girl was what she was. A Laughing Girl. Marjorie, of all the women there, had disliked her at once and with unusual intensity.

“What a charmer!” the ladies had twittered when Flora and Mavis had left. “What an absolute charmer! What she will do to the boys and men when she is older!”

But she was never young, Marjorie had thought. I know her well.

She started now, seeing that Jonathan had returned to the room and was standing before her, drinking again. He was looking a little sick, as if he were remembering in spite of the whiskey. Marjorie spoke carefully. “You say you didn’t see Martin Eaton. I’m sorry. I heard last week that he wasn’t feeling so well. Flora told me. It was very tiresome of Flora, really, but she had brought little Mavis with her. You remember Mavis, the niece they adopted.”

She knew at once, for his hand quite violently shook for a second, and the whiskey splashed on his fingers. He was looking at her fully and the white ridges she always dreaded had sprung up about his mouth. “What,” he said, “is wrong with the kid?”

“Wrong? In what way is she wrong?” asked Marjorie, as if surprised.

“I don’t mean that, damn it!” He was almost shouting. “I mean, what have you got against the girl?”

“Jon, please. The windows are all open. I don’t understand you. Why should we be talking about a little girl, a little girl in the eighth grade, I believe? A child. Aren’t there more interesting things to talk about than children? I don’t remember that they are so very important at all but rather boring, in fact, and intelligent people—”

“I asked you, Mother, what you have against the girl?” • Marjorie was terribly frightened. She had never known Jonathan to be like this before, even in his reckless childhood. She said, making her voice cold, “Don’t talk to me like that, Jon, and shouting, too! What’s the matter with you? Shall we close the subject? Besides, there is something about dinner which I must attend to—” She began to get up.

In spite of her fear she was truly angered when he put his hand against her shoulder and pushed her back into the chair.

“I only asked you a simple, reasonable question,” he said, and there was a hard, thick quality about him which was alien to her. “Just a simple question.”

“Which I think is too stupid to answer, and far too stupid for an adult to ask. I refuse to talk about a chit. Why should I? Why should you? Are you drunk, Jon? I’m afraid you are. I want to warn you about one thing, my boy. Don’t you dare touch me in that manner again. You aren’t too old for me not to strike you hard—very hard—across the face.”

For a moment their eyes held together and Jonathan saw the icy anger in his mother’s, and he was ashamed. He put down the drink. “You’re right,” he said. “I’ve been drinking too much today. You see, I’ve met one of your Laughing Girls, or mine, I should say.” He tried to smile. “You must be brave, Mother. I’m not going to be like your Martin Eaton; I’m going to wait for the girl to grow up. But unlike Martin, I’m not going to be put off. I’m going to marry her.”

He was still staring at her. She knew that she must not let him know that she knew of whom he was speaking. She must only pray, if she could, that something would happen— She was suddenly confused and exhausted and ill. Not her Jonathan, not her darling!

She tried to laugh a little before that frightening face. “Oh, so she’s very young? Well.” She paused. “And you are twenty-three. That makes you a mature man, doesn’t it—and she is a little girl. I wouldn’t, if I were you, let anyone know—”

“Do you think I am insane?” he demanded.

Probably, as of just now, his mother replied inwardly. Yes, very probably.

“I know what happens to men when they fall in love with children,” he said.

“Oh, Jon.” In spite of herself she winced. “Please don’t say anything else. You’ll regret it when you remember later. Don’t say anything else! It’s too dangerous.”

“Yes,” he said. “It’s too dangerous. And I can wait.” Later, he wondered why his mother had not been outraged, horrified and shocked to death.

He had waited. All that his mother had said that hot August day had meant nothing at all to him. He had never respected her opinion or known her. He had talked to her that day only because his inner extremity had been so great and uncontrollable, and because he had drunk too much. Within a few days, as she never mentioned that talk—assuredly only a rambling affair to her—he was relieved that she had forgotten it. Only fear of himself, of what he was capable of doing, had impelled him to talk so dangerously. But his mother could have not the slightest idea, and he put her out of his mind. She had no imagination. She was really not very intelligent. And she and old Martin Eaton, by God! Martin had not known what he had escaped. It was unfortunate that his own father had not been so lucky.

He saw Mavis Eaton on every possible occasion during the next five years, and he thought himself exceedingly prudent and subtle at all times. But Mavis had known from the very beginning, and it amused her that this “old man” was interested in her. She teased him artfully when she encountered him in her uncle’s house or in his gardens, or demurely tormented him. She was not intelligent, but she had a primitive wisdom. Her uncle and aunt often spoke of the Ferrier money, and as Martin Eaton was as fond of Jonathan as if the young man had been his son, Martin constantly talked of Jonathan’s professional future and success and even hinted that he might possibly leave Jonathan a part of his estate. When she was fifteen, Mavis was already picturing herself as a
grande dame
in Philadelphia or New York, presiding over her successful and famous husband’s mansion, for Mavis had no intention of spending her life in little Hambledon. She wanted multitudes of admirers and craved influence. At sixteen she was more than attracting the casual attention of young men in New York, where she attended a private school for a year, and at seventeen she knew her great powers, the seduction and fascination of her perpetual merriment, and her beauty.

Very few noticed the smallness of her blue eyes, for they were almost always arched like fringed quarter moons under her golden brows, crinkled and squinted with laughter. There were some women and girls who said she had “little sly eyes,” but this was accounted as envy. Fewer ever saw the cold and conjecturing gleam of those eyes, for they appeared almost entirely closed at all times and somewhat sunken in their sockets. This flaw in her loveliness, which would have been serious and even ugly in a less pretty girl, only gave her more bewitchment and, to young men, a naughty flirtatiousness. Among those who were disturbed by Mavis’ eyes and their secretiveness was Marjorie Ferrier.

When Mavis was eighteen, Jonathan told his mother and brother abruptly that he was going to marry the girl in the near future.

Marjorie said nothing, for there was nothing to say. But Harald laughed and said, “Not Golden Girl! Why, she’s a dragon! She’d eat the heart out of you in a year!”

The totally infatuated and adoring Jonathan Ferrier hardly heard. Later he was to know that the secret of Mavis’ charm was her absolute sexuality. It was not overt; paradoxically she was almost incapable of being aroused herself, almost devoid of sensual passion. She knew that she was irresistible to men, and when she had been fifteen, she knew exactly why, and so she had contempt and amused scorn for those she attracted. However, she learned the art of flaunting her sexual attractions in a most delicate way, with rarely a stir in herself. Such flaunting brought her adoration and gifts and abject admiration, and these were all she really desired. If men were stupid enough to dream that she desired them, more fool they. It had nothing to do with Mavis Eaton’s real desires, which she kept hidden.

The Laughing Girls, as Jonathan was to learn much later, have but one love and that is themselves, and but one passion, and that was their enchantment and gain. When Mavis petulantly told him—but with exquisite smiles—that she would not “dream” of spending her life in Hambledon, Jonathan fatuously promised her that in good time they would move to Philadelphia or New York or wherever she desired. This alarmed Martin Eaton. He had a long talk with Jonathan. “We need surgeons and physicians of your kind here, Jon,” he said. “You can’t desert us, can you, even for Mavis?”

“She’s very young. I’m just humoring her,” said Jonathan. “Of course, I could have a practice in Philadelphia, too—” It was all in the blissful future, and in the meantime there was Mavis, whose touch and laughter and natural gaiety and beauty almost drove him mad. He could not wait for their marriage. To Marjorie Ferrier this abasement of her son seemed tragic, for she had expected more intelligence and discernment in Jonathan and more taste. There was a certain grossness about Mavis, an animal shine and sleekness, which promised many lustful delights. But Marjorie knew that those delights would be an illusion, for the Laughing Girls knew no pleasure but in themselves and their desires, and none of them concerned the happiness and welfare and joy of others. Once Marjorie had said to Harald, “Mavis, under other circumstances and in a different age, would be the perfect—the perfect—”

“Tart,” said Harald. “Concubine? Mavis isn’t clever enough. Doxy? Perhaps. I think I like tart best.”

“Oh, Harald,” said Marjorie, and smiled sadly, but she knew he was right. “I really think, concubine. The perfect illusion of the perfect woman.”

“With no personal involvement,” said Harald. He frequently startled his mother with his perceptive comments, and she was startled now, and thought, as she thought very

often, that Harald was much cleverer than most people knew. It was out of character, in some way, that he had this worldly shrewdness which Jonathan did not possess at all.

Harald said, “There are men who find the world contemptible but, being genial men, they also find it amusingly mad. Jon is not genial, and so he is constantly appalled by the world and enraged by what he considers its meannesses and cruelties and stupidity. He never for a single moment finds it mad, and so he’ll never be able to laugh at it and enjoy it. And he’ll never understand people, either. How else could he consider marrying Mavis, who has claws where a heart should be?”