over,” he said.
Sarah Bly ended the discussion by saying, “You know, during the last ten minutes I began to wonder whether you were buying the house and we were trying to sell it!” He smiled then.
They said good night in the hall, and he waited at the foot of the stairs until they reached the landing. Then he turned away, picked up his wide-brimmed felt hat from the hall chest, pulled it well down over his forehead, and left the house without another glance around it. But as he entered the strip of cottonwood-trees to reach the bridge and the road to his cabin he halted. He looked back at the house. It lay in darkness, except for the dim candlelight in the guest-room.
It was a house where he had been happy, but that was a long time ago. It was too large, built for a family and their friends. A man living alone there would feel he was a relic as much as the house.
He turned away, walking confidently in the dark along the twisting path and over the bridge, knowing each rut in the road, every jutting branch. He might as well be as frank as these two women had been. He needed the money. If the choice had to be between selling valuable acres and selling the house it would have to be the house. A house didn’t provide grazing land for cattle, and without cattle the ranch would close down. Then why hadn’t he agreed at once to sell the house? Perhaps because it was a problem he had postponed for many months. He resented its being solved so quickly. Then he entered his cabin, kicked aside the clothes he had thrown on the floor earlier that evening, lit the oil-lamp, and, as he threw his hat up on to the antlers above the door, he wondered irritably how the devil he had ever got into this evening’s predicament.
* * *
In the guest-room Mrs. Peel stood near the blazing fire and watched it thoughtfully. All the talk downstairs about Paris had recalled memories she wanted to forget.
“What’s wrong, Margaret?” Sarah asked. “Regretting your buying impulse?”
Mrs. Peel shook her head. “I was thinking of Paris. Of Marie and Charles.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice.
“Marie and Charles...well, aren’t they Communists?”
“That,” Mrs. Peel said angrily, “may be an explanation, but it is certainly not an excuse for their conduct. Just think what they have done with our printing-press! Ours, mark you!”
Sarah nodded. That had been very hard to take. When Margaret and she had left Paris in 1942 their printing-press had been put in charge of Marie and Charles. Once peace came they had begun publishing the little magazine which, in pre-War days, had been Margaret’s pride.
“Look how they’ve changed our magazine!” Mrs. Peel rushed on. “Everything is slanted politically. Why, they won’t even review a book on its literary merits. If the author is a Communist he gets a good review. If he isn’t he is either damned with a twisted phrase or he gets no review at all.” She stopped, partly out of indignation, partly out of breath.
“He doesn’t need to be against Communism,” Sarah reminded her. “He only needs to approve of something that Marie and Charles have been told they must play down, and he gets the treatment. Think of André Mercier... Look at the way they bludgeoned him when he wrote a book about the early days of the Resistance. Underground movements, according to Marie, just didn’t exist until the twenty-second of June 1941. And after then they were good Undergrounds only if they were run by Marie’s political friends: all the other Resistance movements were organised by people in the pay of Fascists.”
Mrs. Peel said nothing. But there was a flush of anger on her usually pale cheeks.
Sarah Bly said slowly, “Perhaps we ought to have stayed and fought Marie’s claim to our printing-press.”
“As Americans? Just think what she would have made of that. No, Sarah. And I wasn’t going to stay and see our magazine perverted.”
There was a short
Sarah Bly ended the discussion by saying, “You know, during the last ten minutes I began to wonder whether you were buying the house and we were trying to sell it!” He smiled then.
They said good night in the hall, and he waited at the foot of the stairs until they reached the landing. Then he turned away, picked up his wide-brimmed felt hat from the hall chest, pulled it well down over his forehead, and left the house without another glance around it. But as he entered the strip of cottonwood-trees to reach the bridge and the road to his cabin he halted. He looked back at the house. It lay in darkness, except for the dim candlelight in the guest-room.
It was a house where he had been happy, but that was a long time ago. It was too large, built for a family and their friends. A man living alone there would feel he was a relic as much as the house.
He turned away, walking confidently in the dark along the twisting path and over the bridge, knowing each rut in the road, every jutting branch. He might as well be as frank as these two women had been. He needed the money. If the choice had to be between selling valuable acres and selling the house it would have to be the house. A house didn’t provide grazing land for cattle, and without cattle the ranch would close down. Then why hadn’t he agreed at once to sell the house? Perhaps because it was a problem he had postponed for many months. He resented its being solved so quickly. Then he entered his cabin, kicked aside the clothes he had thrown on the floor earlier that evening, lit the oil-lamp, and, as he threw his hat up on to the antlers above the door, he wondered irritably how the devil he had ever got into this evening’s predicament.
* * *
In the guest-room Mrs. Peel stood near the blazing fire and watched it thoughtfully. All the talk downstairs about Paris had recalled memories she wanted to forget.
“What’s wrong, Margaret?” Sarah asked. “Regretting your buying impulse?”
Mrs. Peel shook her head. “I was thinking of Paris. Of Marie and Charles.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice.
“Marie and Charles...well, aren’t they Communists?”
“That,” Mrs. Peel said angrily, “may be an explanation, but it is certainly not an excuse for their conduct. Just think what they have done with our printing-press! Ours, mark you!”
Sarah nodded. That had been very hard to take. When Margaret and she had left Paris in 1942 their printing-press had been put in charge of Marie and Charles. Once peace came they had begun publishing the little magazine which, in pre-War days, had been Margaret’s pride.
“Look how they’ve changed our magazine!” Mrs. Peel rushed on. “Everything is slanted politically. Why, they won’t even review a book on its literary merits. If the author is a Communist he gets a good review. If he isn’t he is either damned with a twisted phrase or he gets no review at all.” She stopped, partly out of indignation, partly out of breath.
“He doesn’t need to be against Communism,” Sarah reminded her. “He only needs to approve of something that Marie and Charles have been told they must play down, and he gets the treatment. Think of André Mercier... Look at the way they bludgeoned him when he wrote a book about the early days of the Resistance. Underground movements, according to Marie, just didn’t exist until the twenty-second of June 1941. And after then they were good Undergrounds only if they were run by Marie’s political friends: all the other Resistance movements were organised by people in the pay of Fascists.”
Mrs. Peel said nothing. But there was a flush of anger on her usually pale cheeks.
Sarah Bly said slowly, “Perhaps we ought to have stayed and fought Marie’s claim to our printing-press.”
“As Americans? Just think what she would have made of that. No, Sarah. And I wasn’t going to stay and see our magazine perverted.”
There was a short
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