Reflections in a Golden Eye

CHAPTER 1

An army post in peacetime is a dull place. Things happen, but then they happen over and over again. The general plan of a fort in itself adds to the monotony the huge concrete barracks, the neat rows of officers' homes built one precisely like the other, the gym, the chapel, the golf course and the swimming pools all is designed according to a certain rigid pattern. But perhaps the dullness of a post is caused most of all by insularity and by a surfeit of leisure and safety, for once a man enters the army he is expected only to follow the heels ahead of him. At the same time things do occasionally happen on an army post that are not likely to re occur. There is a fort in the South where a few years ago a murder was committed. The participants of this tragedy were: two officers, a soldier, two women, a Filipino, and a horse.

The soldier in this affair was Private Ellgee Williams. Often in the late afternoon he could be seen sitting alone on one of the benches that lined the sidewalk before the barracks. This was a pleasant place, as here there was a long double row of young maple trees that patterned the lawn and the walk with cool, delicate, windblown shadows. In the spring the leaves of the trees were a lucent green that as the hot months came took on a darker, restful hue. In late autumn they were flaming gold. Here Private Williams would sit and wait for the call to evening mess. He was a silent young soldier and in the barracks he had neither an enemy nor a friend. His round sunburned face was marked by a certain watchful innocence. His full lips were red and the bangs of his hair lay brown and matted on his forehead. In his eyes, which were of a curious blend of amber and brown, there was a mute expression that is found usually in the eyes of animals. At first glance Private Williams seemed a bit heavy and awkward in his bearing. But this was a deceptive impression; he moved with the silence and agility of a wild creature or a thief. Often soldiers who had thought themselves alone were startled to see him appear as from nowhere by their sides. His hands were small, delicately boned, and very strong.

Private Williams did not smoke, drink, fornicate, or gamble. In the barracks he kept to himself and was something of a mystery to the other men. Most of his leisure time Private Williams spent out in the woods surrounding the post. The reservation, fifteen miles square, was wild unspoiled country. Here were to be found giant virgin pines, many varieties of flowers, and even such shy animals as deer, wild pig, and foxes. Except for riding, Private Williams cared for none of the sports available to enlisted men. No one had ever seen him in the gym or at the swimming pool. Nor had he ever been known to laugh, to become angry, or to suffer in any way. He ate three wholesome, bounteous meals a day and never grumbled about the food as did the other soldiers. He slept in a room accommodating a long double row of about three dozen cots. This was not a peaceful room. At night when the lights were out there was often the sound of snores, of curses, and of strangled nightmare groans. But Private Williams rested tranquilly. Only sometimes from his cot there would be a stealthy rustle from the wrapper of a candy bar.

When Private Williams had been in the army for two years he was sent one day to the quarters of a certain Captain Penderton. This came about in the following manner. For the past six months Private Williams had been detailed to permanent stable fatigue, as he was quite a hand with horses. Captain Penderton had telephoned the post Sergeant Major and by chance, as many of the horses were out on maneuvers and work around the stables was slack, Private Williams was chosen for this particular duty. The nature of the assignment was simple. Captain Penderton wished a small part of the woods behind his quarters cleared so that later when a steak grill was put up he could give alfresco parties. This job would require about one full day's work.

Private Williams set out for this assignment at about seven thirty in the morning. It was a mild and sunny day in October. He knew already where the Captain lived, as he had passed his house often when starting out for his walks in the woods. Also, he knew the Captain well by sight. In fact he had once done the Captain an accidental injury. A year and a half ago Private Williams had for a few weeks served as striker to the Lieutenant in command of the company to which he was then attached. One afternoon the Lieutenant received a visit from Captain Penderton and while serving them refreshments Private Williams had spilled a cup of coffee on the Captain's trousers. In addition to this he now saw the Captain frequently at the stables and he had in his charge the horse of the Captain's wife a chestnut stallion which was easily the handsomest mount on the post.

The Captain lived on the outskirts of the fort. His house, an eight room two story building of stucco, was identical with all the other houses on the street except for the distinction of being an end house. On two sides the lawn adjoined the forest of the reservation. On the right the Captain had as his only near neighbor Major Morris Langdon. The houses on this street faced a large, flat expanse of brown sward which had until recently served as the polo field.

When Private Williams arrived, the Captain came out to explain in detail what he wanted done. The scrub oaks, the low briary bushes were to be cleared, the limbs of the large trees growing at a level less than six feet would be cut away. The Captain pointed out a large old oak about twenty yards from the lawn as the boundary for the space to be worked on. The Captain wore a gold ring on one of his white, fattish hands. He was dressed this morning in knee length khaki shorts, high wool socks, and a suede jacket. His face was sharp and strained. He had black hair and eyes of a glassy blue. The Captain did not seem to recognize Private Williams and he gave his directions in a nervous, finicky manner. He told Private Williams he wanted the work completed that day and said he would be back sometime in the late afternoon.

The soldier worked steadily all morning. At noon he went to the mess hall for his lunch. By four o'clock the job was finished. He had done even more than the Captain specifically requested. The large oak marking die boundary had an unusual shape the branches on the side toward the lawn were high enough to walk beneath, but the branches on the opposite side swept down gracefully to the ground. The soldier had with a great deal of trouble cut off these down sweeping limbs. Then, when all was done, he leaned against the trunk of a pine tree to wait. He seemed at peace with himself and quite content to stand there waiting forever.

'Why, what are you doing here?' a voice asked him suddenly.

The soldier had seen the Captain's wife come out of the rear entrance of the house next door and walk toward him across the lawn. He saw her, but she did not enter the dark sphere of his consciousness until she spoke to him.

'I was just down at the stables,' Mrs. Penderton said. 'My Firebird has been kicked.'

'Yes, ma'am,' the soldier answered vaguely. He waited for a moment to digest the meaning of her words. 'How?'

'That I don't know. Maybe some damn mule or maybe they let him in with the mares. I was mad about it and I asked for you.'

The Captain's wife lay down in a hammock that was slung between two trees on the edge of the lawn. Even in the clothes she was now wearing boots, soiled whipcord breeches very worn at the knees, and a gray jersey she was a handsome woman. Her face had the bemused placidity of a Madonna's and she wore her straight bronze hair brought back in a knot at the nape of her neck. As she was resting there the servant, a young Negress, came out with a tray holding a pint bottle of rye, a whiskey jigger, and some water. Mrs. Penderton was not pernickety about her liquor. She drank down two jiggers straight and chased them with a swallow of cold water. She did not speak to the soldier again and he did not question her further about the horse. Neither seemed aware of the presence of the other in any way. The soldier leaned back against his pine tree and stared unblinking into space.

The late autumn sun laid a radiant haze over the new sodded winter grass of the lawn, and even in the woods the sun shone through in places where the leaves were not so dense, to make fiery golden patterns on the ground. Then suddenly the sun was gone. There was a chill in the air and a light, pure wind. It was time for retreat. From far away came the sound of the bugle, clarified by distance and echoing in the woods with a lost hollow tone. The night was near at hand.

At this point Captain Penderton returned. He parked his car before the house and crossed the yard immediately to see how the work had been done. He greeted his wife and curtly saluted the soldier who now stood at rather lax attention before him. The Captain glanced over the cleared space. All at once he snapped his fingers and his lips sharpened with a thin, stiff sneer. He turned his light blue eyes to the soldier. Then he said very quietly: 'Private, the whole idea was in the big oak tree.'

The soldier received his comment in silence. His round serious face did not change.

'The instructions were for the ground to be cleared only so far as the oak tree,' the officer continued in a higher voice. Stiffly he walked back to the tree in question and pointed to the cut stark limbs. 'The way the boughs swept down and made a background shutting off the rest of the woods was the whole point. Now it is all ruined.' The Captain's agitation seemed more than such a mishap warranted. Standing alone in the woods he was a small man.

'What does the Captain want me to do?' Private Williams asked after a long pause.

Mrs. Penderton laughed suddenly and put down one booted foot to rock the hammock. 'The Captain wants you to pick up the branches and sew them back on again.'

Her husband was not amused. 'Here!' he said to the soldier. 'Bring some leaves and spread them on the ground to cover the bare spaces where the bushes have been cleared. Then you may go.' He tipped the soldier and went into the house.

Private Williams walked slowly back into the darkened woods to gather fallen leaves. The Captain's wife rocked herself and seemed about to go to sleep. The sky filled with a pale, cold yellow light and all was still.

Captain Penderton was in no comfortable state of mind this evening. On coming into the house he went straight to his study. This was a small room planned originally as a sun porch and leading from the dining room. The Captain settled himself at his desk and opened a thick notebook. He spread out a map before him and took his slide rule from a drawer. In spite of these preparations he was unable to put his mind to his work. He leaned over the desk with his head in his hands and his eyes closed.

In part his restlessness was caused by his annoyance with Private Williams. He had been irritated when he saw that it was this particular soldier who had been sent him. There were perhaps only half a dozen enlisted men on all the post whose faces were familiar to the Captain. He looked on all soldiers with bored contempt To him officers and men might belong to the same biological genus, but they were of an altogether different species. The Captain well remembered the accident of the spilled coffee, as it had ruined for him a brand new and costly outfit. The suit was of heavy Chinese silk and the stain had never been entirely removed. (The Captain always wore uniform when away from the post, but on all social occasions among other officers he affected mufti and was a great swell.) Aside from this grievance Private Williams was associated in the Captain's mind with the stables and his wife's horse, Firebird an unpleasant association. And now the blunder about the oak tree was the last straw. Sitting at his desk the Captain indulged in a brief, peevish daydream he imagined a fantastic situation in which he caught the soldier transgressing in some way and was instrumental in having him court martialed. This consoled him a little. He poured himself a cup of tea from the thermos bottle on his desk and became absorbed in other and more pertinent worries.

The Captain's restlessness this evening had many causes. His personality differed in some respects from the ordinary. He stood in a somewhat curious relation to the three fundaments of existence life itself, sex, and death. Sexually the Captain obtained within himself a delicate balance between the male and female elements, with the susceptibilities of both the sexes and the active powers of neither. For a person content to withdraw a bit from life, and able to collect his scattered passions and throw himself wholeheartedly into some impersonal work, some art or even some crack brained fixed idea such as an attempt to square the circle for such a person this state of being is bearable enough. The Captain had his work and he did not spare himself; it was said that he had a brilliant career ahead of him. Perhaps he would not have felt this basic lack, or superfluity, if it had not been for his wife. But with her he suffered. He had a sad penchant for becoming enamoured of his wife's lovers.

As to his relations with the other two fundaments, his position was simple enough. In his balance between the two great instincts, toward life and toward death, the scale was heavily weighted to one side to death. Because of this the Captain was a coward.

Captain Penderton was also something of a savant. During the years when he was a young Lieutenant and a bachelor he had had much opportunity to read, as his fellow officers tended to avoid his room in the bachelors' quarters or else to visit him in pairs or groups. His head was filled with statistics and information of scholarly exactitude. For instance, he could describe in detail the curious digestive apparatus of a lobster or the life history of a Trilobite. He spoke and wrote three languages gracefully. He knew something of astronomy and had read much poetry. But in spite of his knowledge of many separate facts, the Captain never in his life had had an idea in his head. For the formation of an idea involves the fusion of two or more known facts. And this the Captain had not the courage to do.

As he sat alone at his desk this evening, unable to work, he did not question himself as to his feelings. He thought again of the face of Private Williams. Then he recollected that the Langdons next door were dining with them that evening. Major Morris Langdon was his wife's lover, but the Captain did not dwell on this. Instead he suddenly remembered an evening long ago, soon after he had married. On that evening he had felt this same unhappy restlessness and had seen fit to relieve himself in a curious manner. He had driven into a town near the post where he was then stationed, had parked his car, and had walked for a long time in the streets. It was a late winter night. In the course of this walk the Captain came upon a tiny kitten hovered in a doorway. The kitten had found shelter and made itself warm; when the Captain leaned down he found that it was purring. He picked up the kitten and felt it vibrate in his palm. For a long time he looked into the soft, gentle little face and stroked the warm fur. The kitten was at the age when it was first able to open wide its clear green eyes. At last the Captain had taken the kitten with him down the street. On the corner there was a mailbox and after one quick glance around him he had opened the freezing letter slot and squeezed the kitten inside. Then he had continued on his way.

The Captain heard the back door slam and he left his desk. In the kitchen his wife sat on a table while Susie, the colored servant, pulled off her boots. Mrs. Penderton was not a pure bred Southerner. She had been born and brought up in the army, and her father, who a year before his retirement had reached the rank of Brigadier General, was originally from the West coast. Her mother, however, had been a South Carolinian. And in her ways the Captain's wife was Southern enough. Their gas stove was not crusted with generations of dirt as her grandmother's had been, but then it was by no means clean. Mrs. Penderton also held to many other old Southern notions, such as the belief that pastry or bread is not fit to eat unless it is rolled on a marble topped table. For this reason they had Once, when the Captain was detailed to Schofield Barracks, hauled the table on which she was now sitting all the way to Hawaii and back. If the Captain's wife chanced to find a black, crooked hair in her food, she wiped it calmly on her napkin and went right on with the enjoyment of her dinner without the bat of an eye.

'Susie,' said Mrs. Penderton, 'do people have gizzards like chickens do?'

The Captain stood in the doorway and was noticed neither by his wife nor his servant When she had been relieved of her boots, Mrs. Penderton moved about the kitchen bare footed. She took a ham from the oven and sprinkled the top with brown sugar and bread crumbs. She poured herself another drink, only half a jigger this time, and in a sudden excess of vigor she performed a little shag dance. The Captain was intensely irritated with his wife, and she knew it.

'For God's sake, Leonora, go up and put on some shoes.'

For an answer Mrs. Penderton hummed a queer little tune to herself and went past the Captain and into the living room.

Her husband followed close behind her. 'You look like a slattern going around the house like this.'

A fire was laid in the grate and Mrs. Penderton bent down to light it. Her smooth sweet face was very rosy and there were little glistening sweat beads on her upper lip.

'The Langdons are coming any minute now and you will sit down to dinner like this, I suppose?'

'Sure,' she said. 'And why not, you old prissy?'

The Captain said in a cold, taut voice: 'You disgust me.'

Mrs. Penderton's answer was a sudden laugh, a laugh both soft and savage, as though she had received some long expected piece of scandalous news or had thought of some sly joke. She pulled off her jersey, crushed it into a ball, and threw it into the corner of the room. Then deliberately she unbuttoned her breeches and stepped out of them. In a moment she was standing naked by the hearth. Before the bright gold and orange light of the fire her body was magnificent. The shoulders were straight so that the collar bone made a sharp pure line. Between her round breasts there were delicate blue veins. In a few years her body would be fullblown like a rose with loosened petals, but now the soft roundness was controlled and disciplined by sport. Although she stood quite still and placid, there was about her body a subtle quality of vibration, as though on touching her flesh one would feel the slow live coursing of the bright blood beneath. While the Captain looked at her with the stunned indignation of a man who has suffered a slap in the face, she walked serenely to the vestibule on her way to the stairs. The front door was open and from the dark night outside a breeze blew in and lifted a loose strand of her bronze hair.

She was halfway up the steps before the Captain recovered from his shock. Then he ran trembling after her. 'I will kill you!' he said in a strangled voice. 'I will do it! I will do it!' He crouched with his hand to the banister and one foot on the second step of the stairway as though ready to spring up after her.

She turned slowly and looked down at him with unconcern for a moment before she spoke. 'Son, have you ever been collared and dragged out in the street and thrashed by a naked woman?'

The Captain stood as she had left him. Then he put his head down on his outstretched arm and rested his weight against the banister. From his throat came a rasping sound like a sob, but there were no tears on his face. After a time he stood up and wiped his neck with his handkerchief. Only then did he notice that the front door was open, the house brightly lighted, and all the shades raised. He felt himself sicken strangely. Anyone might have passed along the dark street before the house. He thought of the soldier whom he had left a short while ago on the edge of the woods. Even he might have seen what had occurred. The Captain looked all about him with frightened eyes. Then he went into his study where he kept a decanter of old, strong brandy.

Leonora Penderton feared neither man, beast, nor the devil; God she had never known. At the very mention of the Lord's name she thought only of her old father who had sometimes read the Bible on a Sunday afternoon. Of that book she remembered two things clearly: one, that Jesus had been crucified at a place called Cavalry Hill the other, that once He had ridden somewhere on a jackass, and what sort of person would want to ride a jackass?

Within five minutes Leonora Penderton had forgotten the scene with her husband. She ran the water for her bath and laid out her clothes for the evening. Leonora Penderton was the subject of much lively gossip among the ladies of the post.

According to them her past and present affairs were a rich medley of amorous exploits. But most of what these ladies told was hearsay and conjecture for Leonora Penderton was a person who liked to settle herself and was adverse to complications. When she married the Captain she had been a virgin. Four nights after her wedding she was still a virgin, and on the fifth night her status was changed only enough to leave her somewhat puzzled. As for the rest it would be hard to say. She herself would probably have reckoned her affairs according to a system of her own giving the old Colonel at Leavenworth only half a count and the young Lieutenant in Hawaii several units in her calculations. But now for the past two years there had been only Major Morris Langdon and no one else. With him she was content.

On the post Leonora Penderton enjoyed a reputation as a good hostess, an excellent sportswoman, and even as a great lady. However, there was something about her that puzzled her friends and acquaintances. They sensed an element in her personality that they could not quite put their fingers on. The truth of the matter was that she was a little feebleminded.

This sad fact did not reveal itself at parties, or in the stables, or at her dinner table. There were only three persons who understood this: her old father, the General, who had worried no little about it until she was safely married; her husband, who looked on it as a condition natural to all women under forty; and Major Morris Langdon, who loved her for it all the more. She could not have multiplied twelve by thirteen under threat of the rack. If ever it was strictly necessary that she write a letter, such as a note to thank her uncle for a birthday check or a letter ordering a new bridle, it was a weighty enterprise for her. She and Susie shut themselves in the kitchen with scholarly seclusion. They sat down to a table furnished with an abundance of paper and several nicely sharpened pencils. Then, when the final draft was finished and copied, they were both exhausted and in great need of a quiet, restoring drink.

Leonora Penderton enjoyed her warm bath that evening. She dressed herself slowly in the clothes she had already laid out on the bed. She wore a simple gray skirt, a blue Angora sweater, and pearl earrings. She was downstairs again at seven o'clock and their guests were waiting.

She and the Major found the dinner first rate. To begin with there was a clear soup. Then with the ham they had rich oily turnip greens, and candied sweet potatoes that were a transparent amber beneath the light and richly glazed with sweet sauce. There were rolls and hot spoon bread. Susie passed the vegetables only once and left the serving dishes on the table between the Major and Leonora, for those two were great eaters. The Major sat with one elbow on the table and was altogether very much at home. His red brown face had a blunt, jovial, and friendly expression; among both officers and men he was very popular. Except for the mention of Firebird's accident there was almost no table talk. Mrs. Langdon hardly touched her dinner. She was a small, dark, fragile woman with a large nose and a sensitive mouth. She was very ill and she looked it. Not only was this illness physical, but she had been tortured to the bone by grief and anxiety so that now she was on the verge of actual lunacy. Captain Penderton sat very straight with his elbows held close to his sides. Once he cordially congratulated the Major on a medal he had received. Several times during the course of the meal he flicked the rim of his water goblet and listened to the clear, resonant ring. The dinner ended with a dessert of hot mince pie. Then the four of them went into the sitting room to finish out the evening with cards and conversation.

'My dear, you are a damn fine cook,' the Major said comfortably.

The four people at the table had not been alone. In the autumn darkness outside the window there stood a man who watched them in silence. The night was cold and the clean scent of pine trees sharpened the air. A wind sang in the forest near by. The sky glittered with icy stars. The man who watched them stood so close to the window that his breath showed on the cold glass pane.

Private Williams had indeed seen Mrs. Penderton as she left the hearth and walked upstairs to her bath. And never before in his life had this young soldier seen a naked woman. He had been brought up in a household exclusively male. From his father, who ran a one mule farm and preached on Sunday at a Holiness church, he had learned that women carried in them a deadly and catching disease which made men blind, crippled, and doomed to hell. In the army he also heard much talk of this bad sickness and was even himself examined once a month by the doctor to see if he had touched a woman. Private Williams had never willingly touched, or looked at, or spoken to a female since he was eight years old.

He had been late in gathering the armfuls of damp, rank autumn leaves back in the woods. When at last his duty was done, he had crossed the Captain's lawn on his way to evening mess. By chance he glanced into the sharply lighted vestibule. And since then he had not found it in him to go away. He stood motionless in the silent night with his arms hanging loose at his sides. When at dinner the ham was carved, he had swallowed painfully. But he kept his grave, deep gaze on the Captain's wife. The expression of his mute face had not been changed by his experience, but now and then he narrowed his gold brown eyes as though he were forming within himself some subtle scheme. When the Captains wife had left the dining room, he still stood there for a time. Then very slowly he turned away. The light behind him laid a great dim shadow of himself on the smooth grass of the lawn. The soldier walked like a man weighted by a dark dream and his footsteps were soundless.