“You better change to your good grey pants today, Master Pierce,” he said gravely. “Theseyere creases didn’t set with all the pressin’ I did.”
“All right,” Pierce yawned and stretched mightily. “We’re going home so I might as well look pretty.”
He felt gay and relieved of his problems. Today he would talk to Molly and clear his debt of friendship to John. Alone with Joe it suddenly occurred to him that he would speak of Georgia, and tell him he must marry her. He piled his pillows and lay back on them. Joe was lifting the grey trousers from the hanger in the big mahogany wardrobe.
“Joe!” he said suddenly.
Joe jumped and clutched the trousers. “Lordamighty, Marse Pierce, why you yell at me like that?” he asked reproachfully.
Pierce laughed. “I didn’t mean to yell — I just thought of something. Joe, I told Georgia that if you and she would get married I’d let you have the little stone tenant house.”
“It’s a mighty nice house,” Joe said thoughtfully, smoothing the creases of the trousers.
“Well?” Pierce asked.
“Georgia’s a mighty nice girl,” Joe said still more thoughtfully. “But I reckon she won’t marry no colored man.”
“She can’t marry anybody else,” Pierce said positively.
“No, sir — reckon she cain’t,” Joe agreed.
“Have you asked her?” Pierce inquired.
“I mintion it, yes, sir — about a thousand times, I reckon. She always says the same thing. ‘You go ’way fum me, Joe’—that’s all she say — don’t say nothin’ else but just that. So I goes away.”
“You try her again,” Pierce commanded.
“Kin I tell her you said I was to?” Joe looked at him with a gleam of hope in his small dark eyes.
Pierce considered, staring into the canopy of the bed.
“Yes,” he said finally, “tell her I said so. Tell her I want you two to get married and have children — right away.”
“Yes, sir,” Joe said doubtfully. “Thank you kindly, Marster Pierce.”
He went away and Pierce got up and made a great splash of cold water in the flowered porcelain basin on the washstand. Then he dried himself before the fire. There was a mirror above the mantel and he saw his tall firm white body reflected in it. He would have been less than a man had he not felt complacently that he did not look his age by ten years.
He went down to breakfast half an hour later dressed in his grey suit and a new satin tie that Lucinda had ordered from New York for him. His dark hair, barely silvered at the temples, was smoothly brushed and he had trimmed the ends of his moustache. Molly was alone in the dining room, when he came in.
“John’s gone to the office — he said to tell you,” she told him. “I came down to have breakfast with you — you vain and handsome man!”
“Thank you, Molly,” he said. He did not touch her hand but he smiled at her as the butler pulled out his chair for him. Kidneys and bacon and eggs were set before him and his coffee was poured. Then the servants went away and he was left alone with her.
“I’ll breakfast with you, my dear,” he said, “and then I’ll go and see if John has any more news for me before I take the train south.”
“I’ll miss you, Pierce — I always miss you—” she said. She leaned her arms on the table and the white lace of her elbow sleeves fell away from them. She wore a blue satin thing — a peignoir of some sort, he supposed. He did not look at her beyond a glance.
“You know what a fuss we make over Christmas,” he said, buttering a muffin. “Lucinda scolded me for leaving at all.”
“Has Lucinda changed?”
“Not a bit — a dash of silver over her right temple that makes her more beautiful than ever.”
Molly took her coffee cup in both hands and sipped from it, her eyes contemplating him over the edge. He looked up, caught their gaze and looked at his plate again.
“I suppose she’s very much the mistress of the manor?” She put an edge of malice to the words, but he refused to hear it.
“Lucinda has always been that,” he said cheerfully, “even when I came back from the war and found half the servants gone and the house threadbare and nothing but cornbread in the pantry. Of course, now, Malvern’s all that we’ve dreamed — almost!”
“You’ve stayed in love with her, Pierce?”
“How could I help it?” he retorted.
“My Gawd, she’s had a very good thing in you, Pierce,” Molly said flatly. “Jewels and children — and a great fine house — and acres of prosperous land — and racing horses—”
He lifted his head. “Molly, you should have seen Beauty’s foal win the Darby! Lord, it made me think of music! Phelan’s turned into a great little jockey. Of course Beauty is living on the best of the pasture, retired, honorably discharged.”
“How many foals have you had from her that were first-rate?”
“Four good racing horses—”
They both loved horses, and they forgot themselves, as he meant they should.
“I wish John cared about horses,” Molly said with discontentment.
“His horses are all iron,” Pierce said lightly.
“John and I don’t have anything in common,” she said in a low voice.
He cut through a rasher of bacon firmly. “Yes, you do, Molly. You have this fine house together and you have big parties and you have your trips to Europe and you have damn near everything a woman needs—”
“Except the one thing—”
“Lots of women don’t want children,” he countered.
“Don’t be silly,” she retorted. “You know what I want … Pierce, are we going to grow old like this?”
He met her squarely. “Yes, Molly — just like this, my dear. I love you but I love John better.” He put half a well-buttered muffin into his mouth.
“You don’t care what I do?” she demanded.
“I don’t want John hurt,” he replied.
“You don’t care if I’m hurt?”
“Molly, I’ve made it a rule never to care about any woman except Lucinda. But if you hurt, John, then—”
“Then what, Pierce?”
“I reckon I don’t want to see you again as long as we live.”
“If you don’t care what I do, what does that matter to me?”
“Henry Mallows,” he began.
“You know I don’t care about Henry!” she broke in.
“Then why—”
She interrupted him passionately. “Because you won’t look at me — and every morning I look at myself in the mirror and see myself growing older, and I think—”
He burst into loud laughter. “You see yourself looking like the rose of Sharon,” he said briskly, “and you think what mischief you can do this day. Ah, Molly, I know you! Even if I — gave in to you — which I never will, my red-haired darling — you will still look in your mirror in the morning and think of what mischief you can do.”
“Pierce, I wouldn’t — I promise you — Oh, Pierce, dearest—”
She was half out of her chair and he threw down his napkin. He was sick with disgust at himself. For the fraction of a second when he looked at her smooth pink skin he had thought of Georgia’s cream-pale face again — not Lucinda—
“I swear I think there’s something wrong with my insides,” he groaned. “I keep seeing things.” He got up and pushed in his chair. “I’ve been eating and drinking too well here, Molly. It’s time I left.”
Let her do what she would, he thought. John would have to bear his own burden. He smiled at her as she stood staring at him and then he turned quickly and left the room. Upstairs in his own room he sent for Joe. They took an early train and went away without telling Molly or John goodbye. He wanted to get home.