3
On the next afternoon Benbow was at his sister’s home. It was in the country, four miles from Jefferson; the home of her husband’s people. She was a widow, with a boy ten years old, living in a big house with her son and the great aunt of her husband: a woman of ninety, who lived in a wheel chair, who was known as Miss Jenny. She and Benbow were at the window, watching his sister and a young man walking in the garden. His sister had been a widow for ten years.
“Why hasn’t she ever married again?” Benbow said.
“I ask you,” Miss Jenny said. “A young woman needs a man.”
“But not that one,” Benbow said. He looked at the two people. The man wore flannels and a blue coat; a broad, plumpish young man with a swaggering air, vaguely collegiate. “She seems to like children. Maybe because she has one of her own now. Which one is that? Is that the same one she had last fall?”
“Gowan Stevens,” Miss Jenny said. “You ought to remember Gowan.”
“Yes,” Benbow said. “I do now. I remember last October.” At that time he had passed through Jefferson on his way home, and he had stopped overnight at his sister’s. Through the same window he and Miss Jenny had watched the same two people walking in the same garden, where at that time the late, bright, dusty-odored flowers of October bloomed. At that time Stevens wore brown, and at that time he was new to Horace.
“He’s only been coming out since he got home from Virginia last spring,” Miss Jenny said. “The one then was that Jones boy; Herschell. Yes. Herschell.”
“Ah,” Benbow said. “An F.F.V., or just an unfortunate sojourner there?”
“At the school, the University. He went there. You dont remember him because he was still in diapers when you left Jefferson.”
“Dont let Belle hear you say that,” Benbow said. He watched the two people. They approached the house and disappeared beyond it. A moment later they came up the stairs and into the room. Stevens came in, with his sleek head, his plump, assured face. Miss Jenny gave him her hand and he bent fatly and kissed it.
“Getting younger and prettier every day,” he said. “I was just telling Narcissa that if you’d just get up out of that chair and be my girl, she wouldn’t have a chance.”
“I’m going to tomorrow,” Miss Jenny said. “Narcissa——”
Narcissa was a big woman, with dark hair, a broad, stupid, serene face. She was in her customary white dress. “Horace, this is Gowan Stevens,” she said. “My brother, Gowan.”
“How do you do, sir,” Stevens said. He gave Benbow’s hand a quick, hard, high, close grip. At that moment the boy, Benbow Sartoris, Benbow’s nephew, came in. “I’ve heard of you,” Stevens said.
“Gowan went to Virginia,” the boy said.
“Ah,” Benbow said. “I’ve heard of it.”
“Thanks,” Stevens said. “But everybody cant go to Harvard.”
“Thank you,” Benbow said. “It was Oxford.”
“Horace is always telling folks he went to Oxford so they’ll think he means the state university, and he can tell them different,” Miss Jenny said.
“Gowan goes to Oxford a lot,” the boy said. “He’s got a jelly there. He takes her to the dances. Dont you, Gowan?”
“Right, bud,” Stevens said. “A red-headed one.”
“Hush, Bory,” Narcissa said. She looked at her brother. “How are Belle and Little Belle?” She almost said something else, then she ceased. Yet she looked at her brother, her gaze grave and intent.
“If you keep on expecting him to run off from Belle, he will do it,” Miss Jenny said. “He’ll do it someday. But Narcissa wouldn’t be satisfied, even then,” she said. “Some women wont want a man to marry a certain woman. But all the women will be mad if he ups and leaves her.”
“You hush, now,” Narcissa said.
“Yes, sir,” Miss Jenny said. “Horace has been bucking at the halter for some time now. But you better not run against it too hard, Horace; it might not be fastened at the other end.”
Across the hall a small bell rang. Stevens and Benbow both moved toward the handle of Miss Jenny’s chair. “Will you forbear, sir?” Benbow said. “Since I seem to be the guest.”
“Why, Horace,” Miss Jenny said. “Narcissa, will you send up to the chest in the attic and get the duelling pistols?” She turned to the boy. “And you go on ahead and tell them to strike up the music, and to have two roses ready.”
“Strike up what music?” the boy said.
“There are roses on the table,” Narcissa said. “Gowan sent them. Come on to supper.”
Through the window Benbow and Miss Jenny watched the two people, Narcissa still in white, Stevens in flannels and a blue coat, walking in the garden. “The Virginia gentleman one, who told us at supper that night about how they had taught him to drink like a gentleman. Put a beetle in alcohol, and you have a scarab; put a Mississippian in alcohol, and you have a gentleman——”
“Gowan Stevens,” Miss Jenny said. They watched the two people disappear beyond the house. It was some time before he heard the two people come down the hall. When they entered, it was the boy instead of Stevens.
“He wouldn’t stay,” Narcissa said. “He’s going to Oxford. There is to be a dance at the University Friday night.
