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Title: Glamour
   [From Bent's 1937 collection
   Thirteen O'Clock: Stories of Several Worlds]
Author: Bent, Stephen Vincent (1898-1943)
Date of first publication: 1937
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York and Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, 1937
Date first posted: 26 May 2011
Date last updated: 26 May 2011
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #794

This ebook was produced by
Barbara Watson, Mark Akrigg
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net






GLAMOUR

by Stephen Vincent Bent


I used to read quite a lot of books when I was younger, but now they
just make me sore. Marian keeps on bringing them back from the lending
library and, occasionally, I'll pick one up and read a few chapters, but
sooner or later you're bound to strike something that makes you sick. I
don't mean dirt or anything--just foolishness, and people acting the way
they never act. Of course, the books she reads are mostly love stories.
I suppose they're the worst kind.

But what I understand least is the money angle. It takes money to get
drunk and it takes money to go around with a girl--at least that's been
my experience. But the people in those books seem to have invented a
special kind of money--it only gets spent on a party or a trip. The rest
of the time they might as well be paying their bills with wampum, as far
as you can figure it out.

Of course, often enough, the people in books are poor. But then they're
so darn poor, it's crazy. And, often enough, just when everything's at
its worst, some handy little legacy comes along and the new life opens
out before them right away, like a great big tulip. Well, I only had one
legacy in my life and I know what I did with that. It darn near ruined
me.

Uncle Bannard died up in Vermont in 1924, and when his estate was
settled, it came to $1237.62 apiece for Lou and me. Lou's husband put
her share in Greater Los Angeles real estate--they live out on the
Coast--and I guess they've done pretty well. But I took mine and quit
the firm I was with, Rosenberg and Jenkins, mechanical toys and
novelties, and went to Brooklyn to write a novel.

It sounds crazy, looking back on it. But I was a bug about reading and
writing in those days, and I'd done some advertising copy for the firm
that pulled. And that was the time when everybody was getting steamed up
about "the new American writers," and it looked like a game without much
overhead. I'd just missed the war--I was seventeen when it finished--and
I'd missed college because of father's death. In fact, I hadn't done
much of anything I really wanted since I had to quit high school--though
the novelty business was all right as businesses go. So when I got a
chance to cut loose, I cut.

I figured I could easily live a year on the twelve hundred, and, at
first, I thought of France. But there'd be the nuisance of learning
frog-talk and the passage there and back. Besides, I wanted to be near a
big library. My novel was going to be about the American Revolution, if
you can picture it. I'd read "Henry Esmond" over and over and I wanted
to write a book like that.

I guess it must have been a bunch of my New England ancestors that
picked Brooklyn for me. They were pioneers, all right--but, gosh, how
they hated to take any chance but a big one! And I'm like that myself. I
like to feel tidy in my mind when I'm taking a chance.

I figured I could be as solitary in Brooklyn as I could in Pisa, and a
lot more comfortable. I knew how many words it took to make a novel--I'd
counted some of them--so I bought enough paper and a second-hand
typewriter and pencils and erasers. That about cleaned out my ready
cash. I swore I wouldn't touch the legacy till I was really at work. But
I felt like a million dollars--I swear I felt as if I were looking for
treasure--when I got into the subway that shiny autumn day, and started
across the river to look for a room.

It may have been my ancestors that sent me to Brooklyn, but I don't know
what landed me at Mrs. Forge's. Old Wrestling Southgate, the one who was
bothered with witches, would probably have called it a flowered snare of
the fiend. And I'm not so sure, looking back, that he'd have been wrong.

Mrs. Forge opened the door herself--Serena was out. They'd talked about
putting an ad in the paper but they'd just never got around to it; and,
naturally, they wouldn't have put up a card. If it hadn't looked like
the sort of house I'd wanted, I'd never have rung the bell. As it was,
when she came to the door, I thought that I had made a mistake. So the
first thing I did was beg her pardon.

She had on her black silk dress--the one with the white ruffles--just as
if she were going out calling in the barouche. The minute she started to
speak, I knew she was Southern. They all had that voice. I won't try to
describe it. There's nothing worse than a whiny one--it beats the New
England twang. But theirs didn't whine. They made you think of the sun
and long afternoons and slow rivers--and time, time, time, just sliding
along like a current, not going anywhere particular, but gay.

I think she liked my begging her pardon, for she took me in and gave me
a slice of fruit cake and some lemonade. And I listened to her talk and
felt, somehow, as if I'd been frozen for a long time and was just
beginning to get warm. There was always a pitcher of lemonade in the
ice-box, though the girls drank "coke," mostly. I've seen them come in
from the snow, in the dead of winter, and drink it. They didn't think
much of the cold, anyway, so they more or less pretended it didn't
exist. They were that way.

The room was exactly what I wanted--big and sunny, with an outlook over
a little backyard where there was the wreck of a forsythia bush and some
spindly grass. I've forgotten to say the house was in one of those
old-fashioned side-streets, not far from Prospect Park. But it doesn't
matter where it was. It must be gone, now.

You know, it took all my nerve to ask Mrs. Forge the price. She was very
polite, but she made me feel like a guest. I don't know if you can
understand that. And then she couldn't tell me.

"Well, now, Mr. Southgate," she said, in that soft, gentle, helpless
voice that ran on as inexorably as water, "I wish my daughter Eva had
been here to receive you. My daughter Eva has accepted a business
position since we came here for my daughter Melissa's art training. And
I said, only this morning, 'Eva, honey, suppose Serena's away and some
young person comes here, askin' for that room. I'll be bound to say
somethin' to them, sugar, and I'll feel right embarrassed.' But just
then some little boys started shoutin' down the street and I never did
rightly hear what she answered. So if you're in a hurry, Mr. Southgate,
I don't just know what we can do."

"I could leave a deposit," I said. I'd noticed, by this time, that the
black silk had a tear in it and that she was wearing a pair of run-down
ball-slippers--incredibly small they were. But, all the same, she looked
like a duchess.

"Why, I suppose you could, Mr. Southgate," she said, with an obvious
lack of interest. "I suppose that would be businesslike. You gentlemen
in the North are always so interested in business. I recollect Mr. Forge
sayin' before he died, 'Call them d---- Yankees if you like, Milly, but
we've all got to live in the same country and I've met some without
horns.' Mr. Forge was always so humorous. So, you see, we're quite
accustomed to Northerners. You don't happen to be kin to the Mobile
Southgates, do you, Mr. Southgate? You'll excuse an old lady's
askin'--but you seem to favor them a little, now your face is in the
light."

I'm not trying to put down just the way she talked--she didn't say "ah"
and "nah"--it was something lighter and suaver. But her talk went on
like that. They all did it. It wasn't nervousness or trying to impress
you. They found it as easy and restful to talk as most of us do to keep
still; and, if the talk never got anywhere, they'd never expected it
would. It was like a drug--it made life into a dream. And, of course, it
isn't that.

Finally, I simply went for my stuff and moved in. I didn't know how much
I was paying or what meals would be included in it, but I somehow felt
that these things would be shown unto me when the time was ripe. That's
what an hour and a half with Mrs. Forge did to me. But I did resolve to
have a clear understanding with "my daughter, Eva," who seemed to be the
business head of the family.

Serena let me in when I came back. I gave her fifty cents to get in her
good graces and she took an instant dislike to me which never wavered.
She was small and black and withered, with bright little sparks of eyes.
I don't know how long she'd been with them, but I thought of her growing
on the family, like mistletoe, from immemorial time.

Whenever I heard her singing in the kitchen, I felt as if she were
putting a private curse on me. "Honey-bird--" she'd croon--"honey-bird,
no one gwine tuh fly away wid mah honey-bird. Ole buzzard, he try his
wings--he flap and he flap--man wid a gun he see him--hi, hi, hi--shoot
ole buzzard wid a buckshot and never tetch mah honey-bird."

I knew who the old buzzard was, all right. And it may sound funny--but
it wasn't. It was spooky. Eva wouldn't see it; they'd all treat Serena
like a combination of unavoidable nuisance and troublesome child. I
don't understand how they can treat servants that way. I mean friendly
and grand at the same time. It isn't natural.

It sounds as if I were trying to keep from telling about Eva. I don't
know why I'm doing that.

I got unpacked and pretty well settled. My room was on the third floor,
back, but I could hear the girls coming home. There'd be the door and
steps and a voice saying, "Honey, I'm so tired--I'm just plumb dragged
out," and Mrs. Forge saying, "Now, honey, you rest yourself." There were
three of those. I kind of wondered why they were all so tired. Later on,
I found that was just something they said.

But then Mrs. Forge would begin to talk and they wouldn't be tired any
more. They'd be quite excited and there'd be a good deal of laughter. I
began to feel very uncomfortable. And then I got stubborn. After all,
I'd rented the room.

So, when Eva finally knocked at the door, I just grunted, "Come in!" the
way you would to a chambermaid. She opened the door and stood in the
doorway, hesitant. I imagine Melissa had bet her she wouldn't have the
nerve.

"Mr. Southgate, I believe?" she said, quite vaguely, as if I might be
anything from a cloud to a chest of drawers.

"Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" I said. There was an old picture on the
wall--the two Englishmen meeting formally in the middle of a paper
jungle. But I'll hand her something--she saw I wasn't trying to be
fresh.

"I reckon we have been making a lot of racket," she said. "But that's
mostly Melissa. She never was rightly raised. Won't you give us the
favor of your company downstairs, Mr. Southgate? We-all don't act crazy.
We just sound like it."

She was dark, you know, and yet she had that white skin. There's a kind
of flower called freesia--when the petals are very white, they have the
color of her skin. And there's a strong sweetness to it--strong and
ghostly at the same time. It smells like spring with the ghosts in it,
between afternoon and dusk. And there's a word they call glamour. It was
there.

She had small white teeth and red lips. There was one little freckle in
the hollow of her throat--I don't know how she happened to have only
one. Louisa was the beauty and Melissa the artist. They'd settled it
that way. I couldn't have fallen in love with Louisa or Melissa. And
yet, I liked to see them all together--the three sisters--I'd liked to
have lived in a big, cool house by a river and spent my life seeing them
all together. What fool thoughts you get, when you're young. I'd be the
Northern cousin who managed the place. I used to send myself to sleep
with it, every night, for months.

Mrs. Forge wasn't in it, or Serena. It was a big place--it went on for
miles and miles. Most of the land wasn't good for much and the Negroes
were bone-lazy, but I made them work. I'd get up in the first mist of
morning and be in the saddle all day, overseeing and planning. But,
always, I'd be coming back, on a tired horse, up that flowery avenue and
they'd be waiting for me on the porch, the three white dresses bunched
like a bouquet.

They'd be nice to me, because I was weary, and I'd go upstairs to the
room looking over the river and change out of my hot clothes and wash.
Then Eva would send me up a long drink with mint in it and I'd take it
slowly. After supper, when I wasn't doing accounts, they'd sing or we'd
all play some foolish sort of round game with ivory counters. I guess I
got most of it out of books, but it was very real to me. That's one
trouble with books--you get things out of them.

Often we got old, but it never seemed to change us much. Once in a
while the other girls were married and, sometimes, I married Eva. But we
never had any children and none of us ever moved away. I kept on working
like a dog and they accepted it and I was content. We had quite a few
neighbors, at first, but I got tired of that. So I made it a river
island you could only reach by boat, and that was more satisfactory.

It wasn't a dream, you know, or anything sappy like that. I just made it
up in my head. Toward the end of the year, I'd lie awake for hours,
making it up, but it never seemed to tire me. I never really told Eva
about it at all, not even when we were engaged. Maybe it would have made
a difference, but I don't think so.

She wasn't the kind of person you'd tell any dreams to. She was in the
dream. I don't mean she was noble or fatal or like a ghost. I've had her
in my arms and she was warm and alive and you could have had children by
her, because things are that way. But that wasn't the point--that wasn't
the point at all.

She didn't even have much imagination. None of them had. They just
lived, like trees. They didn't plan or foresee. I've spent hours trying
to explain to Mrs. Forge that, if you had ten dollars, it wasn't just
ten dollars, it was something you could put in a savings bank. She'd
listen, very politely. But ten dollars, to her, was just something that
went away. They thought it was fine if you had money, but they thought
it was equally fine if you had a good-looking nose. Money was rather
like rain to them--it fell or it didn't--and, they knew there wasn't any
way to make it rain.

I'm sure they'd never have come North at all, if it hadn't been for some
obscure family dispute. They often seemed to wonder about it
themselves. And I heard the dispute talked about dozens of times but I
never really got the gist of it, except that it was connected with two
things, the new spur-track to the turpentine plant, and Cousin Belle.
"Cousin Belle, she just acted so mean--she gave up her manners," Mrs.
Forge would say, placidly. "She left us no reco'se, Bannard--no reco'se
at all." And then the girls would chime in. I suppose they got the money
to come North from selling land to the turpentine plant, but even of
that I am not sure.

Anyhow, they had golden visions, as they would have. Louisa was going to
be a great actress and Melissa a great artist--and Eva--I don't know
exactly what Eva expected, even now. But it was something. And it was
all going to happen without any real work, it was going to fall from a
cloud. Oh, yes, Melissa and Louisa went to classes and Eva had a job,
but those, you felt, were stop-gaps. They were passing the time till the
cloud opened and the manna fell.

I'll say this for them--it didn't seem to hurt them to have their
visions fail. The only person it really hurt was me.

Because I believed them, at first. How could I help it? The dream I had
wasn't so wrong. They were living on an island--an island in the middle
of Brooklyn--a piece of where they came from. People came to the
house--art students and such--there were always plenty of young men.
But, once inside the house, they submitted to the house. Serena would
pass the cold ham, at supper, and you'd look out of the window and be
surprised to find it snowing, for the window should have been open and
the warm night coming through. I don't know what roomers they'd ever had
before, but in my time there was only myself and Mr. Budd. He was a fat
little clerk of fifty, very respectable, and he stayed because of the
food, for Serena was a magnificent, wasteful cook.

Yes, I believed it, I believed in it all. It was like an enchantment. It
was glamour. I believed in all they said and I saw them all going back
to Chantry--the three famous sisters with their three distinguished
husbands--like people in a fairy-tale.

We'd all have breakfast together, but the only person who talked much
then was Mr. Budd. The Forges never were properly alive till later in
the day. At breakfast, you saw them through a veil. Sometimes I'd feel
my heart beat, staring at Eva, because she looked like one of those shut
flowers in greenhouses--something shut and mysterious so you fairly held
your breath, waiting for it to open. I suppose it was just because she
took a long time to wake up.

Then Mr. Budd and the girls would go away, and, when my bed was made,
I'd go up and work. I'm not saying much about the novel, but I worked
hard on it. I'd made a little chart on cardboard with 365 squares and
each day I'd ink one in.

I'd go out for lunch and take a walk afterwards. A man has to have
regular exercise, and that's free. Then I'd work some more, until they
started to come home. I couldn't work after that--not after the first
months. But I'd make myself not listen for Eva's step.

The first time I kissed Eva was the New Year's party. One of Louisa's
beaus had brought some red wine and we were singing and fooling around.
Serena was off for the evening and Eva and I were out in the kitchen,
looking for clean glasses. We were both feeling gay and it just seemed
natural. I didn't even think of it again till the next afternoon, when
we'd all gone to the movies. And then I suddenly began to shake all
over, as if I had a chill, remembering, and she said, "What is it,
honey?" and her hand slipped into my hand.

That was how it began. And that night I started inventing the river
plantation. And I'm not a fool and I've been around. But I held hands
with that girl through January, February, and most of March before I
really kissed her again. I can't explain it at all. She wasn't being coy
or mean or trying to fight me. It was as if we were floating downstream
in a boat together, and it was so pleasant to look at her and be near
her, you didn't need any more. The pain hadn't started, then.

And yet, all through that time, something in me was fighting, fighting,
to get out of the boat, to get away from the river. It wasn't my river
at all, you know. It never was. And part of me knew it. But, when you're
in love, you haven't got common sense.

By the end of March, the novel was more than half finished. I'd allowed
two months for revision and making contacts, which seemed sensible. And,
one evening, it was cold, and Eva and I took a walk in the park. And
when we came in, Mrs. Forge made us some hot cocoa--the other girls had
gone to bed early, for once--and, while we were drinking it, Mrs. Forge
fell asleep in her chair. And we put down our cups, as if it were a
signal, and kissed--and the house was very quiet and we could hear her
breathing, like sleep itself, through the long kiss.

Next morning, I woke up and the air felt warm and, when I looked out in
the yard, there were leaves on the forsythia bush. Eva was just the same
at breakfast, shut and mysterious, and I was just the same. But, when I
went up to work, I shook my fist at old Wrestling Southgate, the fellow
that was bothered with witches. Because I was going to marry Eva, and he
could go to grass.

I tell you, they didn't plan or foresee. I told Mrs. Forge very straight
just how I stood--finances and everything--and they treated it like a
party. They were all as kind and excited as they could be, except
Serena. She just refused to believe it and sang a lot more about
buzzards. And, somehow or other, that made me feel queerer than ever.
Because I knew Serena hated me but I knew she was a real person. I could
understand her, she was close to the ground. And I loved the others but
I didn't understand them, and sometimes I wouldn't be sure they were
quite real. It was that way with Eva, even though we were in love.

I could kiss her but I couldn't be sure that she was always there when I
kissed her. It wasn't coldness, it was merely another climate. I could
talk for hours about what we were going to do when we were married and
every time I stopped she'd say, "Go on, honey, it makes me feel so nice
to hear you talk." But she'd have been as pleased if I'd sung it
instead. God knows I didn't expect her to understand the novelty
business, or even writing. But, sometimes, I'd honestly feel as if we
didn't speak the same language. Which was foolish, because she wasn't
foreign.

I remember getting angry with her one evening because I found out she
was still writing to this boy friend, down South, and hadn't even told
him about us. She opened her eyes very wide.

"Why, honey," she said, in the most reasonable of voices, "I couldn't
stop writing Furfew right off like that. I've just always been sort of
engaged to Furfew."

"Well, now you're engaged to me," I said.

"I know," she said. "That's why I can't stop writing him, honey. It
would hurt Furfew something dreadful if he knew I had to stop writing
him because I was engaged to you."

"Look here," I said, wondering which of us was crazy, "are we going to
be married?"

"Of co'se, honey."

"Then what," I said, "has this Furfew got to with it? Are you engaged to
him or me?"

"Of co'se I'm engaged to you, honey, and we're going to get married. But
Furfew, he's kind of like kin, and we been engaged a long time. It seems
right mean and uncivil to break off with him short like that."

"I don't believe it," I said, "I don't believe there are any Furfews. It
sounds like something you grow under glass. What's he like?"

She thought for a long time.

"He's right cute," she said finally. "But he's got a little doin's of a
black moustache."

I managed to find out, however, that he owned the turpentine plant and
was considered quite the John D. Rockefeller of Chantry. I was so used
to no one in Chantry ever having any money that was worth anything,
that this came as an unpleasing surprise. After that, Furfew used to try
to come to the river plantation in a very shiny motor-launch with a
red-and-white awning and I would warn him off with a shotgun.

But then the money business began. You like to give a girl presents when
you're in love--you like to do things right. Well, Lord knows, Eva was
no gold-digger--she was as likely to be pleased with a soda as a pair of
imported gloves. On the other hand, she was as likely to be pleased with
the gloves.

I kept on schedule with the work, but I couldn't with the money. Each
week, I'd be just a little over the line. I tell you, the people in
books don't know about money. The people who write them can tell what
it's like to be broke. But they don't tell what it's like to go around
with clothes enough to cover you and food enough to satisfy you, and
still have your heart's desire depend on money you haven't got.

Sure, I could have gone back in the novelty business and Eva could have
kept on working. That would have been right for nine people out of ten.
But it wouldn't have been right for the way I felt about Eva. It can be
like that.

I wanted to come to her--oh, like a rescuer, I suppose. Like a prince,
like the Northern cousin that saved the plantation. I didn't want to
make the best of things--I wanted it all. You can't compromise with
glamour. Or that's the way I feel.

Besides, I'd put in eight months' work on that novel and it didn't seem
sensible to throw it all away. It might be a ladder to climb out on. It
might have been.

Eva never complained, but she never understood. She'd just say we could
all go back and live in Chantry. Well, I'm not that kind of man. If it
had only been the river plantation! But, by now, I knew Chantry as well
as if I'd been born there, and there wasn't a thing for me to do. Except
maybe a job in Furfew's turpentine plant. And wouldn't that have been
pretty?

Then, gradually, I got to know that the Forges, too, were almost at the
end of their string. I had to get it casually--they never talked about
those things directly. But when you keep on spending what you've got,
there comes a time when you don't have it any more. Only, it always
surprised them. I wish I was built that way.

It was the middle of July by this time, and one Saturday afternoon Eva
came home and said she'd been let off at her office. They were cutting
down the staff. I'd just been going over my accounts, and when she told
me that, I started laughing as if I couldn't stop.

She looked rather surprised at first, but then she laughed, too.

"Why, honey," she said, "you're the killin'est. You always take things
so serious. And then, sometimes, you don't take them serious a bit."

"It's an old Northern custom," I said. "They call it 'Laugh, clown,
laugh.' For God's sake, Eva, what are we going to do?"

"Why, honey," she said, "I suppose I could get me another position." She
never told me it was up to me. She never would have. "But I just sort of
despise those mean old offices. Do you think I ought to get me another
position, honey?"

"Oh, darling, it doesn't matter," I said, still laughing. "Nothing
matters but us."

"That's mighty sweet of you, honey," she said and she looked relieved.
"That's just the way I feel. And, when we get married, we'll fix things
up right nice for Melissa and Louisa, won't we? And mother, of co'se,
because she just can't stand Cousin Belle."

"Sure," I said. "Sure. When we're married, we'll fix up everything." And
we went out in the back yard to look at the forsythia bush. But that
night, Furfew brought his launch inshore and landed on the lower end of
the island. He pitched camp there, and I could see his fire at night,
through a glass.

I can't describe the next two months very well. They were all mixed up,
the reality and the dream. Melissa and Louisa had to give up their
classes, so we were all home, and lots of people came to the house. Some
of them were callers and some of them were bill-collectors but, whoever
they were, they generally stayed to a meal. Serena never minded that,
she liked company. I remember paying a grocery bill, with almost the
last of my legacy, toward the end. There were eight hams on the bill and
ten cases of "coke." It hadn't been paid for a long time.

Often, we'd all pile into an old Ford that belonged to one of the art
students and go down to a public beach for the day. Eva didn't care so
much about swimming but she loved to lie in the sand. And I'd lie beside
her, painfully happy, and we'd hardly say anything at all. My God, but
she was beautiful against those beach colors--the clear greens of the
water and the hot white and tan of the sand. But then, she was just as
beautiful, sitting in the plush rocker in the front parlor, under that
green lamp.

They say the time between the Ordinance of Secession and the firing on
Sumter was one of the gayest seasons Charleston ever had. I can
understand that. They'd come to the brink of something, and fate was out
of their hands. I got to feel that way.

Everything mixed, I tell you, everything mixed. I'd be sitting on the
beach with Eva and, at the same time, I'd be riding around the river
plantation, getting reports from my foreman and planning years ahead. I
got to love that place. Even toward the end, it was safe, it didn't
change. Of course, we kept having more and more trouble with Furfew; he
kept extending his lines from the lower end of the island, but it never
came to actual warfare--just fights between our men.

Meanwhile, I finished the novel and started revising it. And sometimes
Eva would say why didn't we get married, anyway, and I knew we couldn't.
You can't get married without some future ahead of you. So we started
having arguments, and that was bad.

Why didn't I just seduce her like the big, brave heroes in books? Well,
there were times when I thought it might be the answer for both of us.
But it never happened. It wasn't shame or good principles. It just isn't
so awfully easy to seduce a dream.

I knew they were writing letters but I didn't want to know any more. I
knew the legacy was gone and my savings account was going, but I didn't
care. I just wanted things to go on.

Finally, I heard that Furfew was coming North. I was going around like a
sleepwalker most of the time, then, so it didn't hit me, at first. And
then it did hit me.

Eva and I were out in the back yard. We'd fixed up an old swing seat
there and it was dusky. Serena was humming in the kitchen. "Ole buzzard
he fly away now--buzzard he fly away." I can't sing, but I can remember
the way she sang it. It's funny how things stick in your head.

Eva had her head on my shoulder and my arms were around her. But we were
as far away as Brooklyn and New York with the bridges down. Somebody was
making love, but it wasn't us.

"When's he coming?" I said, finally.

"He's drivin' up in his car," she said. "He started yesterday."

"Young Lochinvar complete with windshield," I said. "He ought to be
careful of those roads. Has he got a good car?"

"Yes," she said. "He's got a right pretty car."

"Oh, Eva, Eva," I said. "Doesn't it break your heart?"

"Why, honey," she said. "Come here to me."

We held each other a long time. She was very gentle. I'll remember that.

I stayed up most of that night, finishing revision on the novel. And,
before I went to sleep, Furfew came to the house on the river plantation
and walked in. I was standing in the hall and I couldn't lift a hand to
him. So then I knew how it was going to be.

He came in the flesh, next afternoon. Yes, it was a good car. But he
didn't look like Benedict Arnold. He was tall and black-haired and
soft-voiced and he had on the sort of clothes they wear. He wasn't so
old, either, not much older than I was. But the minute I saw him beside
Eva, I knew it was all up. You only had to look at them. They were the
same kind.

Oh, sure, he was a good business man. I got that in a minute. But,
underneath all the externals, they were the same kind. It hadn't
anything to do with the faithfulness or meanness. They were just the
same breed of cats. If you're a dog and you fall in love with a cat,
that's just your hard luck.

He'd brought up some corn with him and he and I sat up late, drinking
it. We were awfully polite and noble in our conversation but we got
things settled just the same. The funny thing is, I liked him. He was
Young Lochinvar, he was little Mr. Fix-it, he was death and destruction
to me, but I couldn't help liking him. He could have come to the island
when Eva and I were married. He'd have been a great help. I'd have built
him a house by the cove. And that's queer.

Next day, they all went out in the car for a picnic, and I stayed home,
reading my novel. I read it all through--and there was nothing there.
I'd tried to make the heroine like Eva, but even that hadn't worked.
Sometimes you get a novelty like that--it looks like a world-beater till
you get it into production. And then, you know you've just got to cut
your losses. Well, this was the same proposition.

So I took it down to the furnace and watched it burn. It takes quite a
while to burn four hundred sheets of paper in a cold furnace. You'd be
surprised.

On my way back, I passed through the kitchen where Serena was. We looked
at each other and she put her hand on the bread-knife.

"I'll like to see you burning in hell, Serena," I said. I'd always
wanted to say that. Then I went upstairs, feeling her eyes on my back
like the point of the bread-knife.

When I lay down on the bed, I knew that something was finished. It
wasn't only Eva or the novel. I guess it was what you call youth. Well,
we've all got to lose it, but generally it just fades out.

I lay there a long time, not sleeping, not thinking. And I heard them
coming back and, after a while, the door opened gently and I knew it was
Eva. But my eyes were shut and I didn't make a move. So, after another
while, she went away.

There isn't much else to tell. Furfew settled everything up--don't tell
me Southerners can't move fast when they want to--and the packers came
and four days later they all started back for Chantry in the car. I
guess he wasn't taking any chances, but he needn't have worried. I knew
it was up. Even hearing Cousin Belle had "come around" didn't excite me.
I was past that.

Eva kissed me goodbye--they all did, for that matter--the mother and the
three sisters. They were sort of gay and excited, thinking of the
motor-trip and getting back. To look at them, you wouldn't have said
they'd ever seen a bill-collector. Well, that was the way they were.

"Don't write," I said to Eva. "Don't write, Mrs. Lochinvar."

She puckered her brows as she did when she was really puzzled.

"Why, honey, of co'se I'll write," she said. "Why wouldn't I write you,
honey?"

I am sure she did, too. I can see the shape of the letters. But I never
got them because I never left an address.

The person who was utterly dumbfounded was Mr. Budd. We camped in the
house for a week, getting our own meals and sleeping under
overcoats--the lease wasn't up till the first and Furfew had made an
arrangement with the owner. And Mr. Budd couldn't get over it.

"I always knew they were crazy," he said. "But I'll never get such
cooking again." I could see him looking into a future of
boarding-houses. "You're young," he said. "You can eat anything. But
when a man gets my age----"

He was wrong, though. I wasn't young. If I had been, I wouldn't have
spent that week figuring out three novelties. Two of them were duds, but
the third was Jiggety Jane. You've seen her--the little dancing doll
that went all over the country when people were doing the Charleston. I
made the face like Serena's at first, but it looked too lifelike, so we
changed the face. The other people made most of the money, but I didn't
care. I never liked the darn thing anyway. And it gave me a chance to
start on my own.

They couldn't stop me after that. You're harder to stop, once you get
rid of your youth. No, I don't think it was ironic or any of those
things. You don't, outside of a book. There wasn't any connection
between the two matters.

That fall I met Marian and we got married a year later. She's got a lot
of sense, that girl, and it's worked out fine. Maybe we did have the
children a little quick, but she'd always wanted children. When you've
got children and a home, you've got something to keep you steady. And,
if she gets a kick out of reading love stories, let her. So I don't have
to.

In a book, I'd have run across Eva, or seen Furfew's name in a paper.
But that's never happened and I suppose it never will. I imagine they're
all still in Chantry, and Chantry's one of those places that never gets
in the news. The only thing I can't imagine is any of them being dead.

I wouldn't mind seeing Furfew again, for that matter. As I say, I liked
the man. The only thing I hold against him is his moving them back, that
way, before the lease was up. It was all right and he had his reasons.
But they had two weeks left--two weeks till the first. And that would
just have finished the year.

And when I get to sleep nowadays, Marian's there in the next bed, so
that's all right, too. I've only tried to go back to the river
plantation once, after a convention in Chicago when I was pretty well
lit. And then, I couldn't do it. I was standing on the other side of the
river and I could see the house across the water. Just the way it always
was, but it didn't look lived in. At least nobody came to the
window--nobody came out.




TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

Minor variations in spelling and punctuation have been preserved.




[End of Glamour, by Stephen Vincent Bent]
