The old ruin leaped forward as the driver released the clutch, and again Mr. Ferris laughed soundlessly when he heard his new friend shout back at him, "No wonder they make you feel at home! You should run on the Democrat ticket! Bye!"
Alone together by the road, Mrs. Waldridge seemed bent on continuing the stilted conversation that consisted primarily of unfollowed "why's" and "well's." But Mr. Ferris' gallantry had its limitations. He lifted his hat to her again.
"Nice to have seen you again – and remember me to your husband."
"Well – well, yes, I'll shore do hit, Mr. – Mr. Ferris. I'll -Did you come back on 'count a the Money Plane?"
Mr. Ferris looked back, nodding.
"Yes, that's right, Mrs. Waldridge."
"Well! Well, I never! Shad Hark – they say Shad Hark found hit, Mr. Ferris. Did you hear that already? Mr. Ferris?"
He was safely on his way by now. He smiled and waved, "Yes. Thank you, Mrs. Waidridge."
He remembered the way. The trail he was on was used by half-wild cattle and gaunt pigs. It led him down to a deeprutted turpentine road that was used by Negroes with mule wagons who came to scrape resin from the clay cups on the tapped turpentine trees.
And he remembered the next place very well, remembered the smell. It was a turpentine still. Negroes lived there in ratty cabins and abject poverty. It was a part of the swamp that Mr. Ferris didn't find at all picturesque. The little pickaninnies scattered to the weeds when they saw him coming, their eyes like small snowballs, each dotted with a single raisin. He nodded to a heavy Mammy, saying "Good evening," in passing, and heard her chanted "Yus suh, yus suh," follow him beyond the quarters.
He paused reflectively when suddenly confronted with a shallow dirt path running out of the bush to become a tributary to the road. That was his path, wasn't it? The path leading to the Culvers? Yes, he was certain of it.
A man passing through the shrub stopped a moment to look at Mr. Ferris. Then he put his hands akimbo and cocked his head off centre, as though the unbalance would help his power of observation. Suddenly he called. "Hey! Hi there, Mr. Ferris!" and waved.
Mr. Ferris smiled and waved back without stopping. Mr. Ferris frequently forgot other people, but other people never forgot Mr. Ferris.
The path led one mile from the road, around the head of a horseshoe lake and down to the Culver place. Mr. Ferris stopped and looked at the remembered wilderness. The lake lay like a chunk of blue shadow, lustrous and empty, while beyond the cypress barrier the swamp squatted green under the opaque sky. It recalled to his mind Heyst's abrupt declaration in Victory, "I am enchanted with these islands."
He climbed a shaky stile – remembering with amusement that four years ago Larry Culver was promising Iris he would do something about it – and traversed the meadow, coming at last to the grassy yard and the house. He paused on the bottom step, glancing at his shoes. No shine left; they looked like two small loaves of powdered bread. He looked right and left, didn't see what he wanted, and drew a handkerchief from his pocket. He swatted, not rubbed, at the shoes; then shook out the handkerchief, folded it neatly and returned it to his pocket. He picked up his bag and went up the steps to the screen door.
"Larry?" he called across the veranda. "Iris?"
He could hear the mechanical whirr of the air conditioner pulsating through the open living-room doors, and heard the drone punctuated by a liquid click of sound, like ice in a drink. Then he heard Iris Culver's voice. "Who is it?"
And a moment later he listened to her heels clicking toward him. She was but vaguely visible through the veranda screen, and the shadow from the porch overhang only showed her feet, legs, and bottom of her dress clearly. The rest of her was suggested dimly like a wraith.
"Why, Tarleton!" she said. "Why, it is you, Tarl!"
He smiled fleetingly and said yes and tried the screen door. It was open and he stepped inside, set down his bag and looked at Iris Culver.
Even with him, he noted, she smiled her practiced smile, the porcelain pose that belonged to the tall, thin, aloof girls of _Harper's Bazaar_, who give you cold scarlet smiles out of white faces as they stare at you fixedly with green eyeshadow eyes.
She came to him with a slender, pale hand, and that amused him because it was such a contrast to the manner in which she had said goodbye to him four years ago. But no, he amended, that wasn't quite correct. They had shaken hands four years ago. She and Larry had seen him off at the bus, and so of course they had had to shake hands. It was the night before he left that he was thinking about – the last night, when Larry was in his loft playing slave to that mechanical monster that typed out one inked letter after another, endlessly. In the bedroom with the Venetian blinds, in the rumpled double bed with the warm, moist sheets – No. Later may be too late. Listen to me. Find some young man, a stupid one preferably – but of course that means any of them around here. Listen to me. Find some young man and get him interested in you: keep him interested in the Money Plane. Do you understand? Keep him looking for it. But make certain – if and when he finds it- that he tells you and no one else. You can do that, can't you? You can handle a situation like that, can't – Oh, for Godsake, of course I can. But I don't want to discuss it now.
The rest didn't matter because Mr. Ferris was not ruled by Freudian passion, but he was an accommodating man and he firmly believed in living by the set standards of his hostess, whoever she might be at the time.
And now this same pale, icy woman with the hot Tarquin eyes was holding his hand again, was saying, "I don't understand, Tarl. I only just sent you a wire, only a few hours ago."
He nodded, taking back his hand. "Joel Sutt telephoned me long distance last night. Where's Larry?"
"Where would you expect him to be? He is far off in paradise writing deathless prose. Come in. Let me fix you a drink. Isn't this climate God awful?"
She tapped away from him and he followed slowly in the faint perfume of her wake. She had always been a nervous woman, but as a rule – especially when meeting people – her cover up had been superb. So she worried him, because now her cover was slipshod.
"I'm glad that Sutt person phoned you. I only found out about it this morning. Larry heard in the village." She was at the bar, bruising pale silver and ice in a shaker. Mr. Ferris said nothing. He watched her. His sense of perception was as delicate as radar and he was in tune with her agitation.
She came back to him with a martini glass in either hand. She came all the way with her eyes on his, came up close to him, the glasses now held out from their bodies and giving them the look of a grotesque candelabrum.
"Tarl -" a whisper. "I'm so very glad you've come."
There had always been something about him that stirred her. He had the gift of individuality which sparks excitement by its intangibility. "Kiss me, Tan."
He did, but stiffly, and she tried to melt him and he stepped back suddenly, precisely, and said, "Watch the drinks."
She stared at him, her mouth open, a fleck of red showing in both pupils, still standing with the glasses out like branches. He reached and relieved her of one. "Later," he said flatly. "Let's talk of the money."
She turned abruptly and put the glass to her mouth, drank half the martini in one swallow. He watched her, remembering the time when she wouldn't be caught dead drinking without sipping.
"That Shad Hark boy found it."
"How do you know?"
"Everyone knows. It's all over the village." Her voice had an insistent edge. "He found it, but he won't admit it. Not to anyone."
"How do you know that?"
She looked around at him and her eyes were like shards of glass.