Grand Canyon Read online

  They seemed to take it for granted that she would welcome their company whenever they felt inclined to accord it. No matter if she sat reading a book after dinner; the book that during dinner at her solitary table she had kept propped open by a fork; they arrived like a lot of puppies, and, throwing themselves down on the floor beside her chair, engaged her attention without a thought of being importunate. He had already observed this evening comedy. She lays down her book with a smile. They are right, he thought: this boisterous, arrogant arrival of the group cannot fail to flatter her, though she keeps her sense of flattery always in the right proportion. Their physical presence is in itself a source of pleasure to her. She loves their soft loose limbs and soft warm faces, though I can’t decide whether she prefers them in the daytime, in their bright woollen sweaters and bright caps, or in the evening when they have changed into their silks for dinner. In the evening she can see their glossy heads, glossy not only with health but with the constant care of the hairdresser—but far from censuring them for their vanity she must surely commend them for the care of their persons, seeing the ripples of light on the brown, the black, and the fair waves; she must admire the poise of the head on the young shoulders, and the quick turn, the quick toss, the impatience, all the pretty movement, for she is surely hedonistic enough to be grateful for physical beauty even when she cannot match it with mental.

  All these things he had noted with detached interest for the past fortnight while he ate his dinner at a table as solitary as Mrs. Temple’s; now, seeing her for the first time as a real person, he languidly decided to increase their slight acquaintance. There was an hour to be put away before sunset and he thought he might spend it in her company if she would have him. At the first hint of disinclination on her part he would make an excuse and leave her. He had sufficient regard for his own independence to respect the independence of other people.

  He had already decided not to mention the Indian boy. That interview must represent something very private. He would not allude to that. Already he had begun to feel that he should not have I-spied it.

  She was standing, looking at the canyon in the evening light. He approached her, conventionally raising his hat.

  “Lovely evening, Mrs. Temple.”

  He instantly disliked himself for saying it and hoped only that she did not dislike him as much as he disliked himself.

  “You came and quacked beside me in the wood,

  You said, It’s nice to be alone a bit.

  You said, The sunset’s pretty, isn’t it?

  By God! I wish, I wish that you were dead!”

  As these lines occurred to him, he hoped that they would not occur to her also.

  They evidently hadn’t, judging by the smile with which she received him. She was either a polite humbug or was really pleased to welcome him. By that smile she had managed to make him feel not unwanted. He knew himself to be a fat squat man, unattractive to women, therefore he was grateful for her courtesy. Kind woman, clever woman! Experience had taught him to distrust woman’s wiles, but somehow he could not believe that Helen Temple ever practised woman’s wiles; she had no need to do so. Here was a woman with whom he could talk with no nonsense of sex or chivalry; a woman with whom he could meet on equal terms; a woman who was likely to get bored with him as quickly as he was likely to get bored with her; a woman, in short, with whom he could link a brief contact as easily as with another man.

  “I can’t imagine,” he said, “how you manage to put up with all those chattering children. Your patience amazes me—especially with the girls. Minxes not sphinxes —donkeys and monkeys. They cluster round you, but don’t they bore you to death?”

  He was glad that he had started to talk to her in this real way. He hoped she would respond in equal terms.

  She did. Their ideas met.

  “No, they don’t bore or bother me,” she said. “They interest me. I like knowing something about them, and making up stories about their backgrounds. I like knowing about people,” she said, cutting her sentence short to stare along the rift of the canyon at that moment of the sinking sun. The sun was still strong though slanting over the desert, but the shadows it cast were deep and fantastic, building the mountains of the canyon into temples and pyramids strongly shadowed with emerging peaks of light.

  “No,” said Mrs. Temple, after they had both looked for a while, “you make a mistake in thinking that I could ever allow myself to get bored by those children or by anyone here.”

  “Well,” he said, liking her more, “do tell me please what interest enables you to bear the gabble of those children, boys and girls whom you met at the head of the trail just now?”

  She looked at him with a new curiosity, seeing him for the first time. She saw a very unattractive man, pallid, pasty, rather too fat; lonely.

  She put down her sunshade as the sun was no longer hot enough to make it necessary.

  “Let’s sit down,” she said.

  “I am not detaining you?”

  “You are not detaining me.”

  How punctilious he is, she thought.

  How gravely well-mannered she is, he thought.

  They sat down on a bench. He was grateful to her for not making any comment on the canyon, which was approaching the peak of its sunset magnificence, and she was equally grateful to him.

  “So you wonder why I take an interest in my young friends, do you?” she said at last, feeling that if this conversation were going to begin it had better begin quickly. She almost trusted him not to remark on the canyon, but not quite. Not yet.

  He was glad she had spoken. He almost trusted her not to remark on the canyon, but not quite. Not yet.

  “They all seem to me to be cut very much on a pattern,” he began. “Of course I can’t tell. You may know them or some of them at home; otherwise, your kindness towards them must be purely impersonal.”

  “It is, it is,” said Mrs. Temple earnestly, “if you can call it kindness. I had never set eyes on any of them before I came here. Naturally I prefer some of them to the others. One of them, for instance, always seems to stand a little apart. I don’t know if you will understand me if I say that she seems one of those people for whom a terrible fate is in store. There are people who give one that impression, you know, irrespective of their youth or innocence. Now you will probably set me down as one of those tiresome women who believe themselves to be occult, but I assure you that I am nothing of the sort. I do not have ‘feelings,’ I do not believe in numerology, or the prophecy of the Pyramids, nor do I tell fortunes by tea-leaves or endeavour to interpret dreams. So don’t misjudge me. I am purely matter of fact, but I cannot look at that, child without becoming conscious of some very anxious desire to protect her, yet knowing that neither I nor anybody else is capable of doing so.”

  “I won’t ask you what that terrible fate is likely to be, for I am sure you have no idea. You mean, simply, that although the child may be quite commonplace in herself, no different from any other girl of her age though possibly a little more vulnerable, something is coming to her which she cannot escape.”

  “Thank you for understanding,” said Mrs. Temple. “Vulnerable, yes, that is the right word. Mind, this is all mere speculation on my part. I have no inside information. I know nothing whatever about Loraine Driscoll, save that her home is in Massachusetts. I can imagine it pretty clearly and can create a picture of her parents. …”

  “Please create it for me.”

  Mrs. Temple changed; she had been speaking seriously, now her eyes twinkled.

  “I think I can do that for you if you really want me to. They are an elderly couple, for Loraine is the child of their later years, and her brother is ten years older than herself. They are decent people—so decent that one wonders how they ever brought themselves to commit the grotesque act necessary to beget children. They live in a neat New England town, in a white clap-boarded house with green shutters, set back a few yards from the main road which runs through the village under an avenue of elms. Rather pretty, in a smug way; pleasant enough in summer, when the trees are green and shady. In winter bleak and bare; the roads muddy underfoot, and for months on end there may be snow upon the ground. But such seasonal severity is a good corrective for the character. The Driscolls’ house resembles all the other houses set along that road. They would not like it to differ in any way. They have lived in it for thirty years and are satisfied with it, though I would not say that they have ever thought about it otherwise than as a convenient and suitable residence. It stands exposed to the glances of passers-by on the road, and to the gaze of their neighbours on either side, but it has never occurred to the Driscolls any more than it has occurred to anyone else in the village that privacy might be secured by the planting of a hedge or the erection of a fence. Such things are not done, nor have the Driscolls any wish to do them. Life is pure and open and democratic, so pure as to be almost meaningless, so democratic as to be almost communal; so pure and open that neither the Driscolls nor their neighbours trouble to draw their curtains when evening falls and the lights are lit. Any evening you may see them sitting there, under the lamp with the pink shade, Mr. Driscoll reading the evening paper, Mrs. Driscoll knitting.—Shall I go on?”

  “Please go on.”

  “Mr. Driscoll is a spare man with a brown bony face and grey hair. He wears rimless glasses, cut square. Not a harsh man,—he can rub the dog behind its ears in quite a kindly way,—obviously a man of the utmost rectitude and probity. In business, of course, he would not hesitate to get the better of a weaker rival, would not hesitate to take advantage of someone else’s mistake, but in no way would he consider this a departure from the high moral standards of his private life. Possibly this is because he has never thought about it; possibly because in busin
ess, as in private life, he accepts other people’s standards as he finds them, ready-made. He holds certain views which admit of no argument or modification, but those, again, have been transmitted to him; he has not worked them out for himself. In this, as in everything else, he and Mrs. Driscoll are in perfect tacit harmony. Tacit, because their reserve and decency shun any discussion or examination of things which are better taken for granted. Such examination would be unnecessary and distressing, and the thing they dread most in life is any crisis involving exposure. Safety and orderliness is the rule which they have agreed to maintain. Firmly, quietly, they have achieved their ideal. Rather grimly, perhaps, but if it satisfies them let us wish for both their sakes that nothing ever happens to disturb it.”

  “Very benevolent of you. I suspect it is only because you believe them to be incorrigible,—no good upsetting them, you know,—and also because you are not interested.”

  “On the contrary, having plenty of leisure and nothing better to do I am very much interested, I like thinking about the Driscolls. I like thinking about any family—strange little unit. I like thinking about them in their little box of a house, so exposed in one sense, so isolated in another. The parents, and then the children, so closely held at first, but getting ready all the time to break off into little separate pieces on their own.”

  “Tell me more about Mrs. Driscoll.”

  “Surely you know Mrs. Driscoll already? If not, I have done my sketch very badly. She is about five years younger than her husband, somewhere between fifty and fifty-five, rather short and plump and busy, white hair very beautifully waved; she wears a brooch with a miniature of her son as a little boy. If you admire it, she will take it off and turning it over will show you how fair the lock of his hair was then, although it is now so dark, an alteration she appears to consider remarkable, if not unique. The son is her heart’s joy and pride; you have seen him here for yourself, Robert Driscoll, handsome beyond reason; he ought to be a film star instead of a pilot in the Air Force. I dislike him myself extremely though I am sure his mother prefers him to poor Loraine. But I was telling you about his mother, wasn’t I? and not about that offensively handsome young man. She has a certain voluble animation and ready laughter which make her husband glance tenderly at her, and lead one to suspect that this is what attracted him to her when they were both young, added to his intention of settling down in marriage with a girl of approved family. This animation and energy render Mrs. Driscoll a valuable as well as a respected member of the community. Indeed, the local Women’s Club does not know how it would get on without her. Mrs. Driscoll would not be happy without plenty of occupation, so apart from ordering her own house most efficiently she really orders the entire village. She likes to wake every morning with the knowledge that she has a full day before her. She goes to her desk and consults her engagement block with satisfaction. Only on Saturday evenings does she allow herself some relaxation, when she reads a novel instead of knitting between dinner and bed. She has approved authors who never disturb or disappoint, for their values are similar to her own, morally, sentimentally, and in their rules of conduct; never an unorthodox suggestion or uncomfortable idea. The same is true of her friends. She has friends, you must know, who all admire her greatly,—‘A really fine woman, Mrs. Driscoll,’ though I wonder if they could say very precisely in what her fineness consists, except for the certainty that she would instantly dismiss a servant-girl who bore a child in love and not in wedlock. The Driscolls entertain their friends to dinner once a week, and once a week they go out to dinner at one house or another, like Visiting Partners in the old dance: Bow, curtsey, waltz, take hands, revolve in a circle, return to place, bow. I suppose that they get some pleasure out of these entertainments, though more likely it is the reassuring habit of solidarity which chases them out to dinner under rain or snow in mufflers and overshoes. And although they call themselves friends, and would tell you that they have visited pleasantly for the last twenty-five years or more, I doubt whether their conversation or their current of feeling has ever gone deeper below the surface than the works of Mrs. Driscoll’s favourite authors. No electric moments, leaping like sparks on a frosty night! Decorum will blanket the electric moments, the dangerous moments, and as for conversation there are so many topics, not so much inexhaustible as recurrent—politics for the men, local affairs and gossip of one kind and another for the women. In principle Mrs. Driscoll disapproves of gossip, and would tell you that she always discourages it, but in practice nothing can happen in the village without reaching her ears and incurring her judgement. Curiously enough, she is equally interested in tales of the great and famous whom she has never known and is never likely to know, but here she does not censure: she merely marvels. Hollywood and the princes of Europe may do as they please, and the more extravagant their personal behaviour the better Mrs. Driscoll likes it.”

  “Her husband, I imagine, does not share this taste?”

  “On the contrary, the patience with which he listens to her is really a concealed pleasure. Not only does he like to feel superior to a woman’s weakness, but although he would never admit it he also enjoys a vicarious titillation through the recital of other people’s follies. Especially when they are follies which are never likely to touch his own household.—There is an eagle flying above our heads,” said Mrs. Temple without looking up.

  “How did you know?”

  She showed him the outstretched shadow stationary upon the desert. The lowering sun distorted it, making it twice its natural size.

  “I should feel sorry for the Driscolls,” she went on, “if such a shadow ever fell across their lawn. I believe you are right about not wanting to upset them. Only a very mauvais esprit wants to startle people whom it is hopeless to change. It would be no more amusing than bursting a paper bag behind their ears. Only, perhaps, for the sake of someone else might one wish to sacrifice them.”

  “Well, they have two children, as you know. The young man will take care of himself, only too well. Mr. Driscoll will lend Mrs. Driscoll his handkerchief to dry her tears and will murmur something about boys being boys, trying to keep the chuckle out of his voice. Robert will be forgiven all his errors. His parents will even turn them into a source of pride, saying that all healthy young men ought to be like that. They will not see that Robert has nothing to recommend him except his good looks, which are no merit of his. They will not see that he is as cheap as the daily newspaper. But I do wonder what will happen to Loraine. Perhaps I exaggerate my dread on her behalf. Fortunately for her she is no rebel by nature, so perhaps she will be quite content to marry in the ordinary way and continue to accept her mother’s advice in everything. Mrs. Driscoll will remark that instead of losing a daughter she has gained another son and will forget all the anxieties she has already endured on Loraine’s account.”

  “But what anxieties can that docile child already have given her?”

  “Educational so far, not personal. Mrs. Driscoll discovered that all Loraine’s friends were going to college and that discovery gave her food for very serious thought. Mrs. Driscoll does not approve of colleges for women, yet if Mrs. Ephraim P. Heffer and Mrs. Cyrus J. Hinks can send their daughters to Vassar or Wellesley, there seemed no valid reason why Mrs. Driscoll should not do likewise, especially in face of Loraine’s own rather wistful desire. Besides she is more than a little afraid of Mrs, Heffer’s and Mrs. Hinks’ criticism; she does not mind being thought old-fashioned, which gives a certain distinction, but she cannot endure to be thought economical.”

  Mr. Dale laughed politely. Mrs. Temple amused him. He liked her thumb-nail sketch and thought that there was something in her voice which made her words sound less shallow than they might appear if they were written down. There was something in her voice which deepened her words beyond the chatter of a witty woman trying to entertain and possibly attract a bored man. There was a mixture of humanity, tolerance and apartness which pleased him.

  “Are you a novelist?” he asked her.

  He had never known a novelist but had heard of their cynical ways and became suddenly suspicious lest a woman he liked might be using life in the hotel as Copy. Her portrait of the Driscolls suggested all too glibly the setting provided for the accomplished novelist for a family tragedy. He was relieved when she frankly laughed.