Of Time and the River Read Free Page B

seen an’ heard ‘em all,’ I says. ‘And as for this common Pentland blood you speak of, Pett’—oh, I guess I talked to her pretty straight, you know,” she said with a little bitter smile, and the short, powerful, and convulsive tremor of her strong pursed lips— “‘as for that common Pentland blood you speak of, Pett,’ I says, ‘I never heard of that either—for we stood high in the community,’ I says, ‘and we all felt that Will was lowerin’ himself when he married a Creasman!’”
    “Oh, you didn’t say that, Mama, surely not,” the young woman said with a hoarse, protesting, and yet abstracted laugh, continuing to survey the people on the platform with a bemused and meditative curiosity, and stroking her big chin thoughtfully as she looked at them, pausing from time to time to grin in a comical and rather formal manner, bow graciously and murmur:
    “How-do-you-do? ah-hah! How-do-you-do, Mrs. Willis?”
    “Haw! Haw! Haw!” Again the great laugh of empty animal good nature burst out across the station platform, and this time George Pentland turned from the group of which he was a member and looked vacantly around him, his teeth bared with savage joy, as, with two brown fingers of his strong left hand, he dug vigorously into the muscular surface of his hard thigh. It was an animal reflex, instinctive and unconscious, habitual to him in moments of strong mirth.
    He was a powerful and handsome young man in his early thirties, with coal-black hair, a strong thick neck, powerful shoulders, and the bull vitality of the athlete. He had a red, sensual, curiously animal and passionate face, and when he laughed his great guffaw, his red lips were bared over two rows of teeth that were white and regular and solid as ivory.
    —But now, the paroxysm of that savage and mindless laughter having left him, George Pentland had suddenly espied the mother and her children, waved to them in genial greeting, and excusing himself from his companions—a group of young men and women who wore the sporting look and costume of “the country club crowd”—he was walking towards his kinsmen at an indolent swinging stride, pausing to acknowledge heartily the greetings of people on every side, with whom he was obviously a great favourite.
    As he approached, he bared his strong white teeth again in greeting, and in a drawling, rich-fibred voice, which had unmistakably the Pentland quality of sensual fullness, humour, and assurance, and a subtle but gloating note of pleased self- satisfaction, he said:
    “Hello, Aunt Eliza, how are you? Hello, Helen—how are you, Hugh?” he said in his high, somewhat accusing, but very strong and masculine voice, putting his big hand in an easy affectionate way on Barton’s arm. “Where the hell you been keepin’ yourself, anyway?” he said accusingly. “Why don’t some of you folks come over to see us sometime? Elk was askin’ about you all the other day—wanted to know why Helen didn’t come round more often.”
    “Well, George, I tell you how it is,” the young woman said with an air of great sincerity and earnestness. “Hugh and I have intended to come over a hundred times, but life has been just one damned thing after another all summer long. If I could only have a moment’s peace—if I could only get away by myself for a moment—if THEY would only leave me ALONE for an hour at a time, I think I could get myself together again—do you know what I mean, George?” she said hoarsely and eagerly, trying to enlist him in her sympathetic confidence—“If they’d only do something for THEMSELVES once in a while—but they ALL come to me when anything goes wrong— they never let me have a moment’s peace—until at times I think I’m going crazy—I get QUEER—funny, you know,” she said vaguely and incoherently. “I don’t know whether something happened Tuesday or last week or if I just imagined it.” And for a moment her big gaunt face had the dull strained