Reflections in a Golden Eye - Carson McCullers [22]
'I just wondered because I was almost sure that I saw someone go into your house by the back way late last night and come out again before dawn.'
'You just imagined it,' said Leonora soothingly. She considered Alison to be quite off her head, and did not believe even the simplest remark that she made.
'Perhaps so.'
Leonora was bored and ready to go home. Still, she thought that a neighborly visit should last at least an hour, so she stuck it out dutifully. She sighed and tried again to look somewhat ill. It was her idea, when she was not too carried away with thoughts of food and sport, that the tactful topic of conversation in a sickroom was an account of other illnesses. Like all very stupid people she had a predilection for the gruesome, which she could indulge in or throw off at will. Her repertoire of tragedies was limited for the most part to violent sporting accidents.
'Did I tell you about the thirteen year old girl who came along with us on a fox hunt as a whipper in and broke her neck?'
'Yes, Leonora,' said Alison in a voice of controlled exasperation. 'You have told me of every terrible detail five times.'
'Does it make you nervous?'
'Extremely.'
'Hmmm ' said Leonora. She was not at all troubled by this rebuff. Calmly she lighted a cigarette. 'Don't ever let anybody tell you that's the way to fox hunt. I know. I've hunted both ways. Listen, Alison!' She worked her mouth exaggeratedly and spoke in a deliberately encouraging voice as though addressing a small child. 'Do you know how to hunt 'possums?'
Alison nodded shortly and straightened the counterpane. 'You tree them.'
'On foot,' said Leonora. 'That's the way to hunt a fox. Now this uncle of mine has a cabin in the mountains and my brothers and I used to visit him. About six of us would start out with our dogs on a cold evening when the sun had set. A colored boy would run along behind with a jug of good mellow corn on his back. Sometimes we'd be after a fox all night long in the mountains. Gosh, I can't tell you about it. Somehow ' The feeling was in Leonora, but she had not the words to express it.
Then to have one last drink at six o'clock and sit down to breakfast. And, God! everybody said this uncle of mine was peculiar, but he sure set a good table. After a hunt we'd come in to a table just loaded with fish roe, broiled ham, fried chicken, biscuits the size of your hand '
When Leonora was gone at last, Alison did not know whether to laugh or cry; she did a little of both, rather hysterically. Anacleto came up to her and carefully beat out the big dent at the foot of the bed where Leonora had been sitting.
'I am going to divorce the Major, Anacleto,' she said suddenly when she had stopped laughing. 'I will inform him of it tonight.'
From Anacleto's expression she could not tell whether or not this was a surprise to him. He waited for a time and then asked: 'Then where shall we go after that, Madame Alison?'
Through her mind passed a long panorama of plans which she had made dining sleepless nights tutoring Latin in some college town, shrimp fishing, hiring Anacleto out to drudge while she sat in a boarding house and took in sewing
But she only said: 'That I have not yet decided.'
'I wonder,' Anacleto said meditatively, 'what the Pendertons will do about it.'
'You needn't wonder because that is not our affair.'
Anacleto's little face was dark and thoughtful. He stood with his hands resting on the footpiece of the bed. She felt that he had some further question to put to her, and she looked up at him and waited. Finally he asked hopefully, 'Do you think we might live in a hotel?'
In the afternoon Captain Penderton went down to the stables for his usual ride. Private Williams was still on duty, although he was to be free that day at four o'clock. When the Captain spoke, he did not look at the young soldier and his voice was high pitched and arrogant.
'Saddle Mrs. Penderton's horse, Firebird.'
Private Williams stood motionless, staring into the Captain's white, strained face, 'The Captain said?'
'Firebird,' the Captain repeated. 'Mrs.