FOR A LONG time after they had gone Darling Jill sat squeezing her fingers with savage excitement. She was afraid to look across the room at her sister then. The beating within her breast frightened her, and she was almost choked with nervousness. Never before had she felt so completely aroused.
But when she did not look at her sister, she was afraid of being alone. She turned boldly and looked at Rosamond, and she was surprised to see such composure as Rosamond possessed. She was rocking a little in the chair, folding her hands and unfolding them without haste. There was an expression of sereneness on Rosamond’s face that was beautiful to behold.
Beside her, Pluto was bewildered. He had not felt the things she had. She knew no man would. Pluto was speechless with wonder at Will and Griselda, but he was unmoved. Darling Jill had felt the surge of their lives pass through the room while Will stood before them tearing Griselda’s clothes to shreds, and Rosamond had. But Pluto was a man, and he would never understand how they felt. Even Will, who brought it, had acted only with the guidance of his want of Griselda.
Through the open doors they could see the restless flicker of the street light breaking through the leaves of the trees and falling on the bed and floor of the room. Over there, in that room, were Will and Griselda. They were not in hiding, because the doors were open; they were not in secret, because their voices were strong and distinct.
“I’ll pick up some of the lint now,” Rosamond said calmly. She got down on her knees and began gleaning the minute particles of cotton fiber from the floor, piling them carefully beside her. “I don’t need any help.”
Darling Jill watched her while she gathered the threads and torn cloth slowly and with care. She bent over, her face obscured, and picked piece by piece the clothes torn from Griselda. When she had finished, she went to the kitchen and brought back a large paper bag. Into it she placed the torn voile and underclothing.
It seemed to Darling Jill that Will and Griselda had been in the room across the hall for hours. They no longer were talking, and she began to wonder if they had gone to sleep. Then she remembered that Will had said he would not sleep that night, and she knew he would be awake even if Griselda were not. She waited for Rosamond to return from the kitchen.
Rosamond came back and sat down across from her.
“Buck is going to kill Will when he hears about this,” Darling Jill said.
“Yes,” Rosamond replied. “I know.”
“He’ll never find out from me, but he’ll learn of it in some way. Maybe he’ll just feel it or something. But he will certainly know what happened.”
“Yes,” Rosamond said.
“He may be on his way over here now. He expected Griselda to come straight back.”
“I don’t believe he will come tonight. But he may come tomorrow.”
“Will ought to go away somewhere, so Buck won’t be able to find him.”
“No. Will wouldn’t go anywhere. He’ll stay here. We couldn’t make him leave.”
“But Buck will kill him, Rosamond. If he stays here, and Buck hears about it, he’ll be killed as sure as the world. I’m certain of that.”
“Yes,” Rosamond said. “I know.”
Rosamond went to the kitchen to see what time it was by the clock. It was between three and four in the morning then. She came back and sat down, folding her hands and unfolding them without haste.
“Aren’t we ever going home?” Pluto asked.
“No,” Darling Jill said. “Shut up.”
“But I’ve got to—”
“No, you haven’t. Shut up.”
Will appeared noiselessly at the door, barefooted. He was wearing only a pair of khaki pants, and he looked like a loom-weaver, bare-backed and sleep-refreshed, ready to go to work.
He sat down in the room with them, holding his hands around his head. He had the appearance of someone trying to protect his head from an enemy’s fists.
Darling Jill felt the returning surge of savage excitement grip her. She could never again look at Will without that feeling coming over her. The memory of seeing Will stand in front of Griselda tearing her clothes to threads like a madman, hearing him talk like Ty Ty, watching him clutch Griselda with swollen muscles, that memory was branded upon her as if it had been seared upon her body with white-hot irons. She stood it as long as she could, and then she ran and fell at his feet, hugging his knees and kissing him all over. Will laid his hands on her head and stroked her hair.
She stirred jerkily, rising to her knees and thrusting her body between his legs, and locked her arms around his waist. Her head was buried against him, and she hugged him with her arms and shoulders. It was only when she could find his hands that she lay still against him. One after the other she kissed his fingers, pushing them between her lips and into her mouth. But after that, she still was not satisfied.
He continued to stroke her hair, slowly and heavily. His head was thrown back and his other arm was thrown around his face and forehead.
“What time is it?” he asked after a while.
Rosamond got up and went again to the kitchen and looked at the clock.
“It’s twenty past four, Will,” she said.
He covered his face again, trying to blot out the light from his eyes. His mind was so clear he could follow a thought through the endless tube of his brain. Each thought reached to endless depths, but each time it returned after the whirling journey of his brain. Each thought raced around and around in his head, flowing smoothly from cell to cell, and he closed his eyes and knew at each moment the exact point on his skull where he could place the tip of his finger and locate it.
Up and down the Valley his mind raced, biting eagerly at the doors of the yellow company houses and at the windows of the ivy-walled mills. At Langley, at Clearwater, at Warrenville, at Bath, at Graniteville, he stopped for a moment to look at the people going into the spinning mills, the bleacheries, the weaving mills.
He came back to the room in the yellow company house in Scottsville and listened to the early morning hum of motor trucks and trailers and the whirr of passenger cars and busses on the Augusta-Aiken highway speeding over the wide concrete up and down the Valley. When the sun rose, he would be able to see the endless regiments of wild-eyed girls with erect breasts, firm-bodied girls who looked like morning-glories through the windows of the ivy-walled mills. But out in the streets, in the early morning shadow of the sun, he would see the endless rows of bloody-lipped men, his friends and brothers standing with eyes upon the mills, spitting their lungs into the yellow dust of Carolina.
At sunrise, in the cool black-and-white of morning, Griselda came to the door. She had not been asleep. She had lain upon the bed in the other room prolonging with bated breath the night that so inevitably merged into day. It was day now, and the red glow of the sun rising over the house-tops covered her with a glow of warmth that flushed her face again and again while she stood in the doorway.
Rosamond got up.
“I’ll cook breakfast now, Will,” she said.
They went out, the three of them, going first to one of the other rooms to clothe Griselda.
Later in the kitchen Will heard them at the table and at the stove. First there was the smell of chewed grain, the boiling grits; then the smell of frying meat, the hunger for food; and finally there was the smell of coffee, the start of a new day.
Through the window he could see someone in the kitchen of the yellow company house next door making a fire in the cook-stove. Soon there came the curl of blue wood smoke from the chimney top. People were getting up early today; for the first time in eighteen months the mill was going to run. Down at the mill beside cool, broad, dammed-up Horse Creek they were going to turn on the power. The machinery would turn, and men would be standing in their places, stripped to the waist, working again.
He went to the kitchen impatiently. He wished to fill his stomach with warm food and to run down the street calling to his friends in the yellow company houses on both sides of the street. They would come to the door, shouting to him. On the way down to the mill the mass of men would grow, piling into the green in front of the mill, chasing away the sheep that had grazed so fat for eighteen months while men and women and children had grown hollow-eyed on grits and coffee. The barb-wire steel fence would be up-rooted, the iron posts and the concrete-filled holes would be raised into the air, and the first bar would be lowered.
“Sit down, Will,” Rosamond said.
He sat down at the table, watching them prepare a place for him hurriedly, easily, lovingly. Darling Jill brought a plate, a cup, and a saucer. Griselda brought a knife, a spoon, and a fork. Rosamond filled a glass of water. They ran over the kitchen, jumping from each other’s way, weaving in and out in the small room hurriedly, easily, lovingly.
“It’s six o’clock,” Rosamond said.
He turned and looked at the face of the clock on the shelf over the table. They were going to turn the power on that morning. They were going in there and turn it on and if the company tried to shut it off, they were going to—well, God damn it, Harry, the power is going to stay turned on.
“Here’s the sugar,” Griselda said.
She put two spoonfuls into the coffee cup. She knew. It wasn’t every woman who would know how much sugar to put into his cup. She’s got the finest pair of rising beauties a man ever laid eyes on, and when you once see them, you’re going to get right down on your hands and knees and lick something. Ty Ty has got more sense than all of us put together, even if he does stay out there among those God damn pot holes digging for what he’ll never find.
“I’ll bring a dish for the ham,” Darling Jill said.
Rosamond stood behind his chair, watching him cut the meat and place hungry bites into his mouth. It was the thirty-pound ham Ty Ty had given them.
“What time will you be home for lunch?” she asked.
“Twelve-thirty.”
Already men were walking down the street towards the ivy-walled mill by the side of broad Horse Creek. Men who had all night, sitting at windows, looking at the stars, left as soon as they had finished breakfast, walking down the street towards the mill in khaki pants. No one looked at the ground on which he walked. Down at the ivy-walled mill the windows reflected the early morning sun, throwing it upon the yellow company houses and into the eyeballs of men walking down the streets. We’re going in there and turn the power on and if the company tries to shut it off—well, God damn it, Harry, it’s going to stay turned on.
“Could you get us jobs in the mill, Will?” Darling Jill asked him. “For Buck and Shaw and me?”
He shook his head.
“No,” he said.
“I wish you would, Will, so we could move over here.”
“This is no place for you, or the others.”
“But you and Rosamond live here.”
“That’s different. You stay in Georgia.”
He shook his head again and again.
“I wish I could come,” Griselda said.
“No,” he said.
Rosamond brought him his shoes and socks. She knelt on the floor at his feet, putting them on his feet. He worked his shoes on and she tied them. Then she got up and stood behind his chair.
“It’s nearly seven o’clock,” she said.
He looked up at the clock above. The minute hand was between ten and eleven.
People passed the yellow company house faster, all going swiftly in one direction. Women and children were among them. The local draws pay for sitting on their tails on the platform and shaking their heads when somebody says something about turning the power on. The sons-of-bitches. The union sends money in here to pay those sons-of-bitches who run the local, and the rest of us grow hollow-eyed on grits and coffee. The people were walking faster down the street, their eyes on a level with the sun-red mill windows. Nobody looked down at the ground on which he walked. Their eyes were on the sun-bright windows of the ivy-walled mill. The children ran ahead, looking up at the windows.
Somebody came through the house and into the kitchen. He found and jerked a chair. He sat down beside Will, his head a little on one side, his other hand on the back of Will’s chair. He watched Will Thompson eat grits and ham. Where’d you get the ham, Will? Jesus Christ, it looks good!
“They’ve brought down some plain-clothes guards from the Piedmont, Will.”
“When did you find that out, Mac?”
He swallowed the ham unchewed.
“I saw them when they got here. I was just getting up, and I looked out the window and saw three cars of them drive around to the rear of the mill. You can tell those bastards from the Piedmont a mile off.”
Will got up and went to the front of the house. Mac followed him, his eyes sweeping the girls as he left. They could be heard talking in the front room where Pluto was asleep in the chair.
Griselda began washing the dishes. None of them had eaten anything. But they drank coffee while they washed the dishes and tried to hurry. There was no time to waste. They had to hurry.
“We ought to start back home, but I would rather stay,” Griselda said.
“We are going to stay,” Darling Jill said.
“Buck might come.”
“He will come,” Rosamond said. “We can’t stop him.”
“I’m sorry,” Griselda said.
They knew without asking further what she meant.
“I would rather you wouldn’t be. I wish you wouldn’t say that. I’d rather that you weren’t sorry.”
“It’s all right, Griselda,” Darling Jill spoke. “I know Rosamond better than you do. It’s all right.”
“If Buck ever finds out about it, he’ll kill Will,” Rosamond said. “That’s all I’m sorry about. I don’t know what I would do without Will. But I know Buck’s going to kill him. I’m certain of it. Nothing can stop him when he finds it out.”
“But there is something we can do, isn’t there?” Griselda said. “I couldn’t let that happen. It would be awful.”
“I don’t know anything to do. I’m afraid Pluto might say something when he gets back, too.”
“I’ll attend to him,” Darling Jill promised.
“But you never can tell what may happen. If Buck asks him a question, he can read his face. Pluto couldn’t hide anything.”
“I’ll talk to Pluto before we get back. He’ll be careful after I get through talking to him.”
They went into the front of the house. Pluto was still asleep, and Will and Mac had left. They began getting ready quickly.
“Oh, let Pluto sleep,” Darling Jill said.
Griselda put on some of Rosamond’s clothes. She had her own slippers. Rosamond’s dress looked well on her. They each stopped and admired it.
“Where’s Will gone to?” Darling Jill asked.
“To the mill.”
“We’ve got to hurry. They’re going to turn the power on.”
“It’s nearly eight o’clock. They may not wait much longer. We can’t wait any longer.”
They ran out of the house, one behind the other. Down the street they ran towards the ivy-walled mill trying to keep together in the crowd. Everyone’s eyes were on a level with the windows that the sun shone so redly upon.
“Buck will kill him,” Griselda said, breathless.
“I know it,” said Rosamond. “We can’t stop him.”
“He’ll have to shoot me too, then,” Darling Jill cried. “When he points a gun at Will, I’ll be the first to be shot. I would rather die with Will than live after he was killed by Buck. Buck will have to shoot me.”
“Look!” Rosamond cried, pointing.
They stopped, raising their heads above the crowd. Men were gathering around the company fence. The three sheep so fat that had grazed on the green for eighteen months were being chased away. The fence was raised into the air—iron posts, concrete holes, and the barb-wire and steel mesh.
“Where’s Will?” Griselda cried. “Show me Will!”