Soon as I got here I sent you a message last month as soon as I got settled down and I thought it had got lost—It was a fellow I didn’t know what his name was but he said he would take— He didn’t look reliable but I had to trust him but I thought when I gave him the ten dollars for you to travel on that he …” His voice died somewhere behind his desperate eyes.
Yet still she could watch his mind darting and darting as without pity, without anything at all, she watched him with her grave, unwinking, unbearable gaze, watched him fumble and flee and tack until at last all that remained in him of pride, of what sorry pride the desire for justification was, fled from him and left him naked.
Then for the first time she spoke.
Her voice was quiet, unruffled, cool.
“Come over here,” she said. “Come on.
I ain’t going to let him bite you.” When he moved he approached on tiptoe.
She saw that, though she was now no longer watching him.
She knew that just as she knew that he was now standing with a kind of clumsy and diffident awe above her and the sleeping child.
But she knew that it was not at and because of the child.
She knew that in that sense he had not even seen the child She could still see, feel, his mind darting and darting.
He is going to make out like he was not afraid she thought.
He will have no more shame than to lie about being afraid, just as he had no more shame than to be afraid because he lied.
“Well, well,” he said. “So there it is, sho enough.”
“Yes,” she said. “Will you set down?” The chair which Hightower had drawn up was still beside the cot.
He had already remarked it.
She had it all ready for me he thought.
Again he cursed, soundless, badgered, furious.
Them bastards. Them bastards But his face was quite smooth when he sat down.
“Yes, sir.
Here we are again.
Same as I had planned it.
I would have had it all fixed up ready for you, only I have been so busy lately.
Which reminds me—” Again he made that abrupt, mulelike, backlooking movement of the head.
She was not looking at him.
She said
“There is a preacher here.
That has already come to see me.”
“That’s fine,” he said.
His voice was loud, hearty.
Yet the heartiness, like the timbre, seemed to be as impermanent as the sound of the words, vanishing, leaving nothing, not even a definitely stated thought in the ear or the belief. “That’s just fine.
Soon as I get caught up with all this business—” He jerked his arm in a gesture vague, embracing, looking at her.
His face was smooth and blank.
His eyes were bland, alert, secret, yet behind them there lurked still that quality harried and desperate.
But she was not looking at him.
“What kind of work are you doing now?
At the planing mill?”
He watched her.
“No.
I quit that.” His eyes watched her.
It was as though they were not his eyes, had no relation to the rest of him, what he did and what he said. “Slaving like a durn nigger ten hours a day.
I got something on the string now that means money.
Not no little piddling fifteen cents a hour.
And when I get it, soon as I get a few little details cleared up, then you and me will …” Hard, intent, secret, the eyes watched her, her lowered face in profile.
Again she heard that faint, abrupt sound as he jerked his head up and back. “And that reminds me—”
She had not moved.
She said:
“When will it be, Lucas?” Then she could hear, feel, utter stillness, utter silence.
“When will what be?”
“You know.
Like you said.