The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Jazz Age Stories (25 page)

There was a general laugh in which Lois joined.

“An old lady who comes here to Mass sent Kieth this ice-cream,” whispered Jarvis under cover of the laugh, “because she'd heard you were coming. It's pretty good, isn't it?”

There were tears trembling in Lois' eyes.

Then half an hour later over in the chapel things suddenly went all wrong. It was several years since Lois had been at Benediction
⁴
and at first she was thrilled by the gleaming monstrance with its central spot of white, the air rich and heavy with incense, and the sun shining through the stained-glass window of St. Francis Xavier
⁵
overhead and falling in warm red tracery on the cassock of the man in front of her, but at the first notes of the
“O Salutaris Hostia”
⁶
a heavy weight seemed to descend upon her soul. Kieth was on her right and young Jarvis on her left, and she stole uneasy glances at both of them.

What's the matter with me? she thought impatiently.

She looked again. Was there a certain coldness in both their profiles, that she had not noticed before—a pallor about the mouth and a curious set expression in their eyes? She shivered slightly: they were like dead men.

She felt her soul recede suddenly from Kieth's. This was her brother—this, this unnatural person. She caught herself in the act of a little laugh.

“What is the matter with me?”

She passed her hand over her eyes and the weight increased. The incense sickened her and a stray, ragged note from one of the tenors in the choir grated on her ear like the shriek of a slate-pencil. She fidgeted, and raising her hand to her hair touched her forehead, found moisture on it.

“It's hot in here, hot as the deuce.”

Again she repressed a faint laugh, and then in an instant the weight upon her heart suddenly diffused into cold fear. . . . It was that candle on the altar. It was all wrong—wrong. Why didn't somebody see it? There was something
in
it. There was something coming out of it, taking form and shape above it.

She tried to fight down her rising panic, told herself it was the wick. If the wick wasn't straight, candles did something—but they didn't do this! With incalculable rapidity a force was gathering within her, a tremendous, assimilative force, drawing from every sense, every corner of her brain, and as it surged up inside her she felt an enormous, terrified repulsion. She drew her arms in close to her side, away from Kieth and Jarvis.

Something in that candle . . . she was leaning forward—in another moment she felt she would go forward toward it—didn't any one see it? . . . anyone?

“Ugh!”

She felt a space beside her and something told her that Jarvis had gasped and sat down very suddenly . . . then she was kneeling and as the flaming monstrance slowly left the altar in the hands of the priest, she heard a great rushing noise in her ears—the crash of the bells was like hammer-blows . . . and then in a moment that seemed eternal a great torrent rolled over her heart—there was a shouting there and a lashing as of waves . . .

. . . She was calling, felt herself calling for Kieth, her lips mouthing the words that would not come:

“Kieth! Oh, my God!
Kieth!
”

Suddenly she became aware of a new presence, something external, in front of her, consummated and expressed in warm red tracery. Then she knew. It was the window of St. Francis Xavier. Her mind gripped at it, clung to it finally, and she felt herself calling again endlessly, impotently—Kieth—Kieth!

Then out of a great stillness came a voice:

With a gradual rumble sounded the response rolling heavily through the chapel:

“Blessed be God.”

The words sang instantly in her heart; the incense lay mystically and sweetly peaceful upon the air, and
the candle on the altar went out.

“Blessed be His Holy Name.”

“Blessed be His Holy Name.”

Everything blurred into a swinging mist. With a sound half-gasp, half-cry she rocked on her feet and reeled backward into Kieth's suddenly outstretched arms.

“Lie still, child.”

She closed her eyes again. She was on the grass outside, pillowed on Kieth's arm, and Regan was dabbing her head with a cold towel.

“I'm all right,” she said quietly.

“I know, but just lie still a minute longer. It was too hot in there. Jarvis felt it, too.”

She laughed as Regan again touched her gingerly with the towel.

“I'm all right,” she repeated.

But though a warm peace was filling her mind and heart she felt oddly broken and chastened, as if someone had held her stripped soul up and laughed.

Half an hour later she walked leaning on Kieth's arm down the long central path toward the gate.

“It's been such a short afternoon,” he sighed, “and I'm so sorry you were sick, Lois.”

“Kieth, I'm feeling fine now, really; I wish you wouldn't worry.”

“Poor old child. I didn't realize that Benediction'd be a long service for you after your hot trip out here and all.”

She laughed cheerfully.

“I guess the truth is I'm not much used to Benediction. Mass is the limit of my religious exertions.”

She paused and then continued quickly:

“I don't want to shock you, Kieth, but I can't tell you how—how
inconvenient
being a Catholic is. It really doesn't seem to apply any more. As far as morals go, some of the wildest boys I know are Catholics. And the brightest boys—I mean the ones who think and read a lot, don't seem to believe in much of anything any more.”

“Tell me about it. The bus won't be here for another half-hour.”

They sat down on a bench by the path.

“For instance, Gerald Carter, he's published a novel. He absolutely roars when people mention immortality. And then Howa—well, another man I've known well, lately, who was Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard, says that no intelligent person can believe in Supernatural Christianity. He says Christ was a great socialist, though. Am I shocking you?”

She broke off suddenly.

Kieth smiled.

“You can't shock a monk. He's a professional shock-absorber.”

“Well,” she continued, “that's about all. It seems so—so
narrow.
Church schools, for instance. There's more freedom about things that Catholic people can't see—like birth control.”

Kieth winced, almost imperceptibly, but Lois saw it.

“Oh,” she said quickly, “everybody talks about everything now.”

“It's probably better that way.”

“Oh, yes, much better. Well, that's all, Kieth. I just wanted to tell you why I'm a little—lukewarm, at present.”

“I'm not shocked, Lois. I understand better than you think. We all go through those times. But I know it'll come out all right, child. There's that gift of faith that we have, you and I, that'll carry us past the bad spots.”

He rose as he spoke and they started again down the path.

“I want you to pray for me sometimes, Lois. I think your prayers would be about what I need. Because we've come very close in these few hours, I think.”

Her eyes were suddenly shining.

“Oh, we have, we have!” she cried. “I feel closer to you now than to any one in the world.”

He stopped suddenly and indicated the side of the path.

“We might—just a minute——”

It was a pietà, a life-size statue of the Blessed Virgin set within a semicircle of rocks.

Feeling a little self-conscious she dropped on her knees beside him and made an unsuccessful attempt at prayer.

She was only half through when he rose. He took her arm again.

“I wanted to thank Her for letting us have this day together,” he said simply.

Lois felt a sudden lump in her throat and she wanted to say something that would tell him how much it had meant to her, too. But she found no words.

“I'll always remember this,” he continued, his voice trembling a little—“this summer day with you. It's been just what I expected. You're just what I expected, Lois.”

“I'm awfully glad, Kieth.”

“You see, when you were little they kept sending me snap-shots of you, first as a baby and then as a child in socks playing on the beach with a pail and shovel, and then suddenly as a wistful little girl with wondering, pure eyes—and I used to build dreams about you. A man has to have something living to cling to. I think, Lois, it was your little white soul I tried to keep near me—even when life was at its loudest and every intellectual idea of God seemed the sheerest mockery, and desire and love and a million things came up to me and said: ‘Look here at me! See, I'm Life. You're turning your back on it!' All the way through that shadow, Lois, I could always see your baby soul flitting on ahead of me, very frail and clear and wonderful.”

Lois was crying softly. They had reached the gate and she rested her elbow on it and dabbed furiously at her eyes.

“And then later, child, when you were sick I knelt all one night and asked God to spare you for me—for I knew then that I wanted more; He had taught me to want more. I wanted to know you moved and breathed in the same world with me. I saw you growing up, that white innocence of yours changing to a flame and burning to give light to other weaker souls. And then I wanted some day to take your children on my knee and hear them call the crabbed old monk Uncle Kieth.”

He seemed to be laughing now as he talked.

“Oh, Lois, Lois, I was asking God for more then. I wanted the letters you'd write me and the place I'd have at your table. I wanted an awful lot, Lois, dear.”

“You've got me, Kieth,” she sobbed, “you know it, say you know it. Oh, I'm acting like a baby but I didn't think you'd be this way, and I—oh, Kieth—Kieth——”

He took her hand and patted it softly.

“Here's the bus. You'll come again, won't you?”

She put her hands on his cheeks, and drawing his head down, pressed her tear-wet face against his.

“Oh, Kieth, brother, some day I'll tell you something——”

He helped her in, saw her take down her handkerchief and smile bravely at him, as the driver flicked his whip and the bus rolled off. Then a thick cloud of dust rose around it and she was gone.

For a few minutes he stood there on the road, his hand on the gate-post, his lips half parted in a smile.

“Lois,” he said aloud in a sort of wonder, “Lois, Lois.”

Later, some probationers passing noticed him kneeling before the pietà, and coming back after a time found him still there. And he was there until twilight came down and the courteous trees grew garrulous overhead and the crickets took up their burden of song in the dusky grass.

The first clerk in the telegraph booth in the Baltimore Station whistled through his buck teeth at the second clerk:

“S'matter?”

“See that girl—no, the pretty one with the big black dots on her veil. Too late—she's gone. You missed somep'n.”

“What about her?”

“Nothing. 'Cept she's damn good-looking. Came in here yesterday and sent a wire to some guy to meet her somewhere. Then a minute ago she came in with a telegram all written out and was standin' there goin' to give it to me when she changed her mind or somep'n and all of a sudden tore it up.”

“Hm.”

The first clerk came around the counter and picking up the two pieces of paper from the floor put them together idly. The second clerk read them over his shoulder and subconsciously counted the words as he read. There were just thirteen.

 

“Tore it up, eh?” said the second clerk.

In the millennium an educational genius will write a book to be given to every young man on the date of his disillusion. This work will have the flavor of Montaigne's essays and Samuel Butler's note-books—and a little of Tolstoi and Marcus Aurelius.
¹
It will be neither cheerful nor pleasant but will contain numerous passages of striking humor. Since first-class minds never believe anything very strongly until they've experienced it, its value will be purely relative . . . all people over thirty will refer to it as “depressing.”

This prelude belongs to the story of a young man who lived, as you and I do, before the book.

The generation which numbered Bryan Dalyrimple drifted out of adolescence to a mighty fanfare of trumpets. Bryan played the star in an affair which included a Lewis gun
²
and a nine-day romp behind the retreating German lines, so luck triumphant or sentiment rampant awarded him a row of medals and on his arrival in the States he was told that he was second in importance only to General Pershing and Sergeant York.
³
This was a lot of fun. The governor of his State, a stray congressman, and a citizens' committee gave him enormous smiles and “By God, Sirs,” on the dock at Hoboken; there were newspaper reporters and photographers who said “would you mind” and “if you could just”; and back in his home town there were old ladies, the rims of whose eyes grew red as they talked to him, and girls who hadn't remembered him so well since his father's business went blah! in nineteen-twelve.

But when the shouting died he realized that for a month he had been the house guest of the mayor, that he had only fourteen dollars in the world, and that “the name that will live forever in the annals and legends of this State” was already living there very quietly and obscurely.