Tammy out of Time Page 25

  Mr. Fernan was speaking, his sad dark eyes turned on Mr. Bissle. “Twenty years I put in at business. That is how I gained the leisure and the financial independence to become an artist.”

  “That so?” Mr. Bissle stopped with one foot on the step that led to the upper ell porch.

  “But I would not recommend that to a young man. Better to combine the two—a sustenance job, part time, and leisure to pursue some creative art, part time also. That is the ideal. It is also the solution of the economic difficulties of production.”

  Pete stood motionless looking at Mr. Fernan. After a minute he said, “That interests me very much.”

  Mr. Bissle asked, “What business were you in, Fernan?”

  “Ever hear of the Fernan shoe?”

  “Sure thing. Who hasn’t. High-class product. Crisp and Pico handle their advertising. It’s an account I wouldn’t mind having myself. You connected with the business at all now?”

  Mr. Fernan shook his head. “I have finished. Did I not tell you?”

  Mr. Bissle went on up the steps. “It’s a pity.”

  Tammy stood over against the wall, watching Pete. He seemed to be studying Mr. Fernan with a curious earnestness, but when he moved nearer, Tammy saw that it was Grandma’s chair he was looking at.

  Mr. Fernan turned to him. “You, too, admire? It is an excellent piece of work. It is a chair of which there should be more.”

  “A small business—that’s what you said, wasn’t it?”

  Mr. Fernan brought his hands down on the arms of the chair. “Exactly.” His sad eyes lighted up. “I see what you think. It is a good idea.”

  Tammy let out a little gasp. “You mean people would buy chairs like that?”

  “Just give them a chance. You have the wood in plenty?”

  “Hickory? There’s enough for anything.”

  “And the hides?”

  “Well,” Pete said, “with a herd of cattle one might manage.”

  Tammy’s hands were pressed against her breast so nobody would hear how her heart was pounding. Pete had found something to do, right here at Brenton Hall. Like Grandpa said, ready to hand. Then she heard what Pete was saying.

  “He’s really skilled at anything of the sort. Roots, by the way—” he nodded at Roots’s paintings on the wall behind Mr. Fernan’s head—“Roots is his boy and he has some of the same sort of ability, I imagine. I’ve been trying to figure out something to keep him on the place. With a lathe——”

  “No, no, no,” Mr. Fernan broke in. “By hand it must be, with the stroke of the knife blade showing. There are enough people who appreciate true craftsmanship.”

  Tammy had turned away. All Pete was doing was fixing things for Steve. He would get Steve started, then he would go away himself. Or did he mean that Steve might help him, that he himself——“Pete——” she began.

  Barbara came down the porch in her town dress carrying her suitcase. She broke in as usual, as if no one else in the world had anything to say. “Come on, Pete, while the rain’s stopped,” she said with impatience. “We’re going to be late. Here’s my bag. It’s such a nuisance to have to carry my costume back and forth.” She gave Pete time to do no more than wave good night.

  As they went down the walk together, Tammy heard him ask, “Where’s Ernie?”

  “He went back early. Why? Don’t you want to take me?” She sounded cross. “Damn this weather!”

  “Of course, Barb, I just——” Then their voices passed out of hearing as they went toward the carriage house and Pete’s car.

  Tammy watched them, thinking Barbara was likely mad because Mr. Fernan had not wanted to draw her picture. But she had Pete. She should be content, no matter what. Tammy looked around at the long gallery. How dreary and chill it was, for all its fine ironwork, how empty the whole house was without Pete!

  The rain began again after supper, and whenever she woke in the night, Tammy heard it beating on the roof and beating against the windowpanes as if it would drown all her hopes. Maybe it was good for Pete’s tomatoes, but it was ruination for her. Oh, surely there could be no more rain left in the skies. But there was. All the next day the rain came at intervals, and when the pilgrims arrived, there was still a drizzling. Mrs. Brent was in a state about the mud that was brought in and tracked over the rugs. Tammy was downhearted too, because there would have to be another day for her like yesterday, and no play acting with Pete. There was a crowd in spite of the rain. The porch was filled so there was scarce room to move about in, and it was warm and muggy so that many people came for her drinks of water, and she sang as she served them.

  Then toward the end of the afternoon Professor Brent came out to the ell gallery bringing with him some men who, she saw at once, were not like the other pilgrims. She studied them as she sang. They had a manner of importance and dignity and they stood in a row against the wall, not looking at Miss Renie’s paintings but watching and listening to her song and arguing among themselves with a low buzzing. Several in the crowd looked around at them, annoyed, and one woman said, “Sh-sh, for shame,” but they did not seem to hear. They were no doubt people unaccustomed to being sh-sh-ed by anyone.

  When she came to the end of her song, while the crowd was still clapping, Professor Brent brought them nearer and she served them water. They drank without seeming to know what they were drinking, their eyes on her, as if she were some new kind of animal they had never seen before.

  “I thought,” Professor Brent was saying, “that you would find it interesting, gentlemen, in the light of what I told you of her environment—a sort of challenge to our educational system.” He turned to Tammy, his dark eyes twinkling. “Tammy, you may remember I told you I would present to some of my colleagues the question of your education?”

  “Yes, Professor Brent,” Tammy said, standing very straight and looking gravely from one to the other.

  “Well, they came by this afternoon on their round of the Pilgrimage. This is Professor Carley of the English department.” He indicated the younger one who looked as if he had been ordered from among the men’s suits in the catalogue, he was so perfect, though small size. “And here is Professor Fureau of Education, and Doctor Somer of Psychology.”

  Tammy said, “Howdy” to each one as his name was called, then as they seemed to be waiting for her to say more, she looked again at the mail-catalogue one. “I can read and write English already,” she said.

  He smiled, showing his even white teeth that were the falsest-looking real teeth or else the realest-looking false teeth she had ever seen. “There is a little more to it than that,” he said, not telling what it was, keeping it secret inside himself. “How did you learn these delightful folk songs?”

  “Grandpa used to sing me to sleep with them, and Grandma knew a sight of them, too.”

  “And how did your grandparents come to know them?”

  “Oh, they just come down to them like they come down to me. Old songs, they are, that have been a long time ripening through all the course of time. That’s what makes them pure and sweet.”

  “Um-m.” He patted his lips with a blue-bordered handkerchief that matched his eyes and set down his cup so he could put it back right in his front coat pocket with the corner showing.

  “It would be rather interesting,” Doctor Somer said to Professor Brent, “to try out the free association series on her, to determine her aptitudes, in fact, to give her all the intelligence tests.”

  “You mean—” Tammy hesitated, then gathered her courage and went on—“you mean you know how to test me to see if I have any sense?”

  “Er...in a way, yes.” He plucked at his brown pointed whiskers, studying her through his thick-lensed spectacles.

  “But,” Tammy puzzled, “looks like if I didn’t have any sense, somebody would have noticed it before now.”

  Doctor Somer looked annoyed when Professor Brent laughed and said she had plenty of sense. “You, as a man of science, Professor, should be the last to find it amusing
that we are applying the scientific method to psychology. I assure you that it is possible to gauge and analyze intelligence in as objective a manner as the chemist uses in his laboratory.”

  Tammy was shaking her head, remembering how Osia had warned her not to let anybody monkey with her brain. “Seems like I wouldn’t like getting my mind tore up and pinned down like that. Besides, how can you? A mind’s kind of moving and open, like—like water.”

  “It’s really very simple,” Doctor Somer said, his voice losing its sharpness, “and not at all...er...harmful. Merely a matter of human engineering. Through these aptitude tests we discover the various compartments and at the same time we relate them to the contemporary social configuration.”

  “Oh,” Tammy said. “But—I don’t know. Seems it might be better to keep the mind free-flowing.”

  “That’s just what we don’t want—all this vagueness.” He turned back to Professor Brent. “You see what we must fight against constantly, this notion that the things of the mind cannot be classified scientifically. The focus of consciousness is off center and——”

  “Center of what?” Professor Brent interrupted. “You know, Somer, the mere use of scientific terminology——”

  While they went on arguing, the other professor held out his cup to Tammy. “May I have some more?”

  Tammy dipped up some cool water for him and asked, seeing the others were not noticing her, “Are you the one he said teaches Education?”

  “Yes,” he said in a kindly tone.

  “Then it seems to me like anybody wanting an education wouldn’t have to look any further. You could just teach it all to them and be done with it.”

  Professor Fureau looked pleased. “We cover the field pretty well in our department.” He brushed some hairs off his coat collar though it was a wonder where they came from because his head was mostly bald. “Of course, I myself am an exponent of methods.”

  “Methods?” Tammy puzzled. Pete was coming from the back hall and she beckoned to him to hurry. He could maybe help her to understand.

  “Yes,” Professor Fureau said, with a nod to Pete as he joined them. “You see we have worked out an approved method for teaching in each of the areas—or I should say, nuclei—of the various subjects, for we are as scientific in Education as they are trying to be in Psychology.”

  “Looks like Grandpa’s right in style, Pete, making the Bible scientific,” Tammy said with pride.

  “And,” Professor Fureau went on, “we are of course making every effort in these days to correlate the subjects with reference to their societal value. Personally, however, being a specialist in methodology, I am occupied mostly with the methods of teaching the various methods.”

  “Oh,” Tammy said. She seemed to have come up to a standstill with him now as she had with Doctor Somer. It was the tongues they spoke in that made them so hard to figger out. And yet now she thought maybe she had a glimmer of what he meant. “Methods of teaching methods,” she repeated. “It’s likely arranged the way it is when you hold up a looking glass in front of another one and you see yourself looking at yourself looking at yourself——Goshamighty—” she turned to Pete in dismay—“it’s enough to scare you, how it could go on forever. Maybe I don’t want education, Pete. I just want to get taught some learning.”

  Pete moved closer to her. He looked from her to the professors, his dark eyes twinkling. But he said nothing at all.

  Doctor Somer, who seemed to have argued himself out of arguments for the moment, turned back to Tammy saying, “It would be interesting to try the tests. I’ll see what commitments I have.”

  Pete said, “I always came out at the bottom on those things. Always got to thinking that maybe some of the answers didn’t really fit any of the questions and that there were actually a lot more possibilities. Then first thing I knew the time limit was up.”

  “You are perhaps the too-many-aptitudes person. We run across that type now and then.”

  “I reckon,” Tammy said, “that to get to be a professor of it, you must have known every one of the answers right when they gave you the tests.”

  “Me?” Doctor Somer blinked behind his thick glasses. “What a very curious idea. Why, I am one of those who helped standardize the tests.” He glanced at his wrist watch. “This has all been very interesting I am sure, but——”

  They all began to move away except Professor Carley who had been standing there studying Tammy all the while. She turned to him now. “Is there anything you want to—to do to me?”

  He smiled his secret smile, lifting his brows. “Academically speaking, no.”

  “Coming, Carley?” Doctor Somer called with impatience.

  “I’ll be right there.” Again he lowered his voice. “All quite wacky. Don’t bother with them. Thanks for the songs and I’d like to hear you sing again some time.” Then, seeing they had all turned and were listening, he added, going away, “And about the problem of your education, to institute actual implementation—” he gave her a slow wink as he spoke—“I could send you a list of the hundred ten books——”

  Tammy looked after them as they disappeared down the hall. “Somehow, they all seemed to be more taken up with themselves than——”

  Pete was scowling at Professor Carley’s neat back. “Academically, no,” he muttered. “Why, the little——”

  Tammy said, “Did he mean I could just read some books And——What is it, Pete?”

  “Oh, let him go. Honestly, my father must have combed the campus to get that bunch together. Usually there’s one out of three that isn’t so...so...”

  “They’re all so serious,” Tammy said, “and disturbed. I thought, being so educated, they would be—well, that they would kind of pleasure in it more.”

  Pete looked down at her, his face softening, his eyes holding hers. “Didn’t I tell you, Tammy, back on the river, you know the important things already?”

  Before she could speak, Barbara called from the back hall door, taking him away. But she could not take away this one small magic moment they had had. The memory of it stayed with Tammy all the evening, after they had gone to town to the big ball. The way Pete had looked at her—it warmed and cheered her that night against the sound of rain falling steadily on the roof. She told the Lord in her prayers how important it was for the sun to shine next day. “After tomorrow, Lord,” she said, “let it rain a flood if You like, but tomorrow I’m bound to have the sun and no two ways about it.”

  Morning showed her that the Lord had heard for sure. The sun was shining as it never shone before, and every green leaf and every blossom seemed washed clean and readied for the coming of the pilgrims. They came in swarms and droves all through the warm afternoon, they flocked to the garden for a cool drink of water, and when she began to tell her story, there were yet others who came straight from the parked cars to hear her before going in to see the house.

  When she came up the walk, swinging her sunbonnet and singing “Black Is the Color of My Truelove’s Hair,” she sang it loud and clear and gaily as never before. And this time when Pete took her hand and bent to kiss her, he found her lips. Then she could speak no more for a moment; she could only stand there with her eyes downcast and the warm color flooding her cheeks.

  But Pete spoke up for her and said, “I’ll take the eggs and I’ll take the bonnet. I’ll take the gown and all that’s in it.”

  Then her voice came back and she lifted her head to speak proudly, saying, “That’s how I came to the great house, and how I lived here till I died.” She dropped Pete’s hand quickly and ran back to her table, not looking at him or at anyone, but scooping up the ice water and handing it right and left without a word because her breath came so fast and the pounding in her ears drowned out the chatter and the clapping that was louder and longer than ever before.

  20.

  THE Pilgrimage was over. The certain, the beautiful past had withdrawn into itself again and there was left only the confused present and the uncertain future.
The house had put on its usual air of shuttered quiet, the fine china was stored in the dining-room cabinets, the dead flowers were thrown out, and the dust was once more gathering undisturbed on the books in the library. Brenton Hall could rest in shabby seclusion for another year. It no longer mattered that the parlor carpet was threadbare, that the sofa in the hall had a block of wood in place of one leg.

  At dinner on the ell porch Mrs. Brent said, “Well, that’s over for another year. One of our most successful seasons. I only hope there’ll be enough money handed out to homeowners this year so that we can reshingle the roof and replace the front steps. Really yesterday, with all that crowd, I was afraid they’d give way.” She drew a long sigh. “If only Mr. Bissle—from something he said last night I thought——”

  Professor Brent said, “I hope I’ll have a little quiet next week to finish my outline for the new course.”

  Miss Renie said, “Thank Heaven the Pilgrimage is over! Now I can dye in peace.”

  Tammy turned to her in alarm. “You are going to die?”

  “Yes, my batik. The one of the woman walking, bowed and resigned, alone under the live oaks with the moss hanging down like widow’s weeds. I want Mr. Fernan to see it before he goes. It is symbolic.”

  “What’s it symbolic of, Aunt Renie?” Pete came out of his absorption to ask.

  “Of my acceptance of life and death, of my conviction that it is enough that I have taught Roots well. It will show that I have accepted my fate.”

  “It’s good to have it all settled, Aunt Renie.” Pete smiled. “After speculations and wonderings, struggle and indecision, it is surely good to have come to some sort of settlement of things.”

  “You’re so understanding, Pete.” Miss Renie gave him a sharp glance from her quick black eyes.

  The others looked at him hurriedly and away again, trying to hide their watchfulness and as usual not succeeding. But this time, Tammy thought, Pete did not close up and draw back from their anxiety and their eagerness to know and to be reassured. There was something new in his face and manner, a quickening, a resolution. Her heart stopped beating for a moment and began again with hard painful throbs. Was he remembering the last day of the Pilgrimage when he had bent to her on the steps? Or was it something that happened in his long talk with Mr. Bissle last night after everyone had gone to bed? How could she know? How could she wait to know, feeling this tightness in her breast, this wild wondering that possessed her mind?