Elmer Gantry (12 page)

Lulu was at the other end of the table from Elmer. He was rather relieved. He despised Frank’s weakness, but he was
never, as with Eddie Fislinger, sure what Frank would do or say, and he determined to be cautious. Once or twice he glanced
at Lulu intimately, but he kept all his conversation (which, for Lulu’s admiration, he tried to make learned yet virile) for
Mr. Bains and the other deacons.

“There!” he reflected. “Now Shallard, the damned fool, ought to see that I’m not trying to grab off the kid. . . . If he
makes any breaks about ‘what are my intentions’ to her, I’ll just be astonished, and get Mr. Frank Shallard in bad, curse
him and his dirty sneaking suspicions!”

But: “God, I’ve GOT to have her!” said all the tumultuous smoky beings in the lowest layer of his mind, and he answered
them only with an apprehensive, “Watch out! Be careful! Dean Trosper would bust you! Old Bains would grab his shotgun. . . .
Be careful! . . . WAIT!”

Not till an hour after supper, when the others were bending over the corn-popper, did he have the chance to whisper to
her:

“Don’t trust Shallard! Pretends to be a friend of mine—couldn’t trust him with a plugged nickel! Got to tell you about
him. Got to! Listen! Slip down after the others go up t’ bed. I’ll be down here. Must!”

“Oh, I can’t! Cousin Adeline Baldwin is sleeping with me.”

“Well! Pretend to get ready to go to bed—start and do your hair or something—and then come down to see if the fire is all
right. Will you?”

“Maybe.”

“You must! Please! Dear!”

“Maybe. But I can’t stay but just a second.”

Most virtuously, most ministerially: “Oh, of course.”

They all sat, after supper, in the sitting-room. The Bainses prided themselves on having advanced so far socially that
they did not spend their evenings in the kitchen-dining room—always. The sitting-room had the homeliness of a New England
farm-house, with hectically striped rag carpet, an amazing patent rocker with Corinthian knobs and brass dragon’s feet,
crayon enlargements, a table piled with Farm and Fireside and Modern Priscilla, and the enormous volume of pictures of the
Chicago World’s Fair. There was no fireplace, but the stove was a cheery monster of nickel and mica, with a jolly brass
crown more golden than gold, and around the glaring belly a chain of glass sapphires, glass emeralds, and hot glass
rubies.

Beside the stove’s gorgeous cheerfulness, Elmer turned on his spiritual faucet and worked at being charming.

“Now don’t you folks dare say one word about church affairs this evening! I’m not going to be a preacher—I’m just going
to be a youngster and kick up my heels in the pasture, after that lovely supper, and I declare to goodness if I didn’t know
she was a strict Mother in Zion, I’d make Mother Bains dance with me—bet she could shake a pretty pair of heels as any of
these art dancers in the theater!”

And encircling that squashy and billowing waist, he thrice whirled her round, while she blushed, and giggled, “Why, the
very idee!” The others applauded with unsparing plow-hardened hands, cracking the shy ears of Frank Shallard.

Always Frank had been known as an uncommonly amiable youth, but tonight he was sour as alum.

It was Elmer who told them stories of the pioneer Kansas he knew so well, from reading. It was Elmer who started them
popping corn in the parlor-stove after their first uneasiness at being human in the presence of Men of God. During this
festivity, when even the most decorous deacon chuckled and admonished Mr. Bains, “Hey, who you shovin’ there, Barney?” Elmer
was able to evade publicity and make his rendezvous with Lulu.

More jolly than ever, then, and slightly shiny from buttered pop-corn, he herded them to the parlor-organ, on which Lulu
operated with innocent glee and not much knowledge. Out of duty to the cloth, they had to begin with singing “Blessed
Assurance,” but presently he had them basking in “Seeing Nelly Home,” and “Old Black Joe.”

All the while he was quivering with the promise of soft adventure to come.

It only added to his rapture that the young neighboring farmer, Floyd Naylor—kin of the Bains family, a tall young man
but awkward—was also mooning at Lulu, longing but shy.

They wound up with “Beulah Land,” played by Lulu, and his voice was very soothing, very touching and tender:

“I just wish I knew,” said the wife of one of the deacons, a sentimental and lively lady, “what you were thinking of
while we sang, Brother Gantry?”

“Why—I was thinking how happy we’ll all be when we are purified and at rest in Beulah Land.”

“My, I knew it was something religious—you sang so sorta happy and inspired. Well! We must be going. It’s been SUCH a
lovely evening, Sister Bains. We just don’t know how to thank you and Brother Bains, yes, and Brother Gantry, too, for such
a fine time. Oh, and Brother Shallard, of course. Come, Charley.”

Charley, as well as the other deacons, had vanished into the kitchen after Brother Bains. There was a hollow noise, as of
a jug mouth, while the ladies and the clergy talked loudly and looked tolerant. The men appeared at the door wiping their
mouths with the hairy backs of their paws.

After the tremendous leave-taking, to a yawning host Elmer suggested, “If it won’t bother you and Sister Bains, I’m going
to stay down here by the fire a few minutes and complete my notes for my sermon tomorrow. And then I won’t keep Brother
Shallard awake.”

“Fine, fine—eaaaaah—‘scuse me—so sleepy. The house is yours, my boy—Brother. G’night.”

“Good night! Good night, Brother Bains. Good night, Sister Bains. Good night, Sister Lulu. . . . Night, Frank.”

The room was far more boisterous when he was left alone in it. It reeled and clamored. He paced, nervously smiting the
palm of his left hand, stopping in fever to listen. . . . Time crawling forever. . . . She would not come.

Creep-mouse rustle on the stairs, reluctant tip-toe in the hall.

His whole torso swelled with longing. He threw back his arms, fists down by his side, chin up, like the statue of Nathan
Hale. But when she edged in he was enacting the kindly burly pastor, an elbow on the corner of the parlor-organ, two fingers
playing with his massy watch-chain, his expression benevolent and amused.

She was not in a dressing-gown; she wore her blue frock unaltered. But she had let down her hair and its pale silkiness
shone round her throat. She looked at him beseechingly.

Instantly he changed his pose and dashed at her with a little boyish cry:

“Oh, Lu! I can’t tell you how Frank hurt me!”

“What? What?”

Very naturally, as with unquestioning intimacy, he put his arm about her shoulder, and his finger-tips rejoiced in her
hair.

“It’s terrible! Frank ought to know me, but what do you think he said? Oh, he didn’t dare come right out and say it—not
to ME—but he hinted around and insinuated and suggested that you and I were misbehaving there in the church when we were
talking. And you remember what we were talking about—about my moth-er! And how beautiful and lovely she used to be and how
much you’re like her! Don’t you think that’s rotten of him?”

“Oh, I do! I think it’s just dreadful. I never did like him!”

In her sympathy she had neglected to slip out from under his arm.

“Come sit down beside me on the couch, dear.”

“Oh, I mustn’t.” Moving with him toward the couch. “I’ve got to go right back up-stairs. Cousin Adeline, she’s
suspicious.”

“We’ll both go up, right away. But this thing upset me so! Wouldn’t think a big clumsy like me could be such a sensitive
chump, would you!”

He drew her close. She snuggled beside him, unstruggling, sighing:

“Oh, I do understand, Elmer, and I think it’s dandy, I mean it’s lovely when a man can be so big and strong and still
have fine feelings. But, honest, I MUST go.”

“Must go, DEAR.”

“No.”

“Yes. Won’t let you, ‘less you say it.”

“Must go, dear!”

She had sprung up, but he held her hand, kissed her fingertips, looked up at her with plaintive affection.

“Poor boy! Did I make it all well?”

She had snatched away her hand, she had swiftly kissed his temple and fled. He tramped the floor quite daft, now
soaringly triumphant, now blackly longing.

During their hand-car return to Babylon and the Seminary, Elmer and Frank had little to say.

“Don’t be such a grouch. Honest, I’m not trying to get funny with little Lulu,” Elmer grumbled, panting as he pumped the
hand-car, grotesque in cap and muffler.

“All right. Forget it,” said Frank.

Elmer endured it till Wednesday. For two days he had been hag-ridden by plans to capture Lulu. They became so plain to
him that he seemed to be living them, as he slumped on the edge of his cot, his fists clenched, his eyes absent. . . . In
his dream he squandered a whole two dollars and a half for a “livery rig” for the evening, and drove to Schoenheim. He
hitched it at that big oak, a quarter of a mile from the Bains farmhouse. In the moonlight he could see the rounded and
cratered lump on the oak trunk where a limb had been cut off. He crept to the farmyard, hid by the corncrib, cold but
excited. She came to the door with a dish-pan of water—stood sidewise in the light, her gingham work-dress molded to the
curve from shoulder to breast. He whistled to her; she started; came toward him with doubtful feet, cried with gladness when
she saw who it was.

She could not stay with him till the work was done, but she insisted that he wait in the stable. There was the warmth of
the cows, their sweet odor, and a scent of hay. He sat on a manger-edge in the darkness, enraptured yet so ardent that he
trembled as with fear. The barn door edged open with a flash of moonlight; she came toward him, reluctant, fascinated. He
did not stir. She moved, entranced, straight into his arms; they sat together on a pile of hay, taut with passion,
unspeaking, and his hand smoothed her ankle. And again, in his fancies, it was at the church that she yielded; for some
reason not quite planned, he was there without Frank, on a week-day evening, and she sat beside him on a pew. He could hear
himself arguing that she was to trust him, that their love partook of the divine, even while he was fondling her.

But—Suppose it were Deacon Bains who came to his whistle, and found him sneaking in the barnyard? Suppose she declined to
be romantic in cow-barns? And just what excuse had he for spending an evening with her at the church?

But—Over and over, sitting on his cot, lying half-asleep with the covers clutched desperately, he lived his imaginings
till he could not endure it.

Not till Wednesday morning did it occur to the Reverend Elmer Gantry that he need not sneak and prowl, not necessarily,
no matter what his custom had been, and that there was nothing to prevent his openly calling on her.

Nor did he spend any two dollars and a half for a carriage. Despite his florid magnificence, he was really a very poor
young man. He walked to Schoenheim (not in vision now, but in reality), starting at five in the afternoon, carrying a ham
sandwich for his supper; walked the railroad track, the cold ties echoing under his heavy tread.

He arrived at eight. He was certain that, coming so very late, her parents would not stay up to annoy him for more than
an hour. They were likely to ask him to remain for the night, and there would be no snooping Cousin Adeline Baldwin
about.

Mr. Bains opened to his knock.

“Well, well, well, Brother Gantry! What brings you down to this part of the world this time of night? Come in! Come
in!”

“I sort of thought I needed a good long walk—been studying too hard—and I took a chance on your letting me stop in and
warm myself.”

“Well, sir, by golly, Brother, I’d of been mad’s a wet hen if you HADN’T stopped! This is your house and there’s always
an extra plate to slap on the table. Yes, sir! Had your supper? Sandwich? Enough? Foolishness! We’ll have the womenfolks fix
you up something in two shakes. The woman and Lulu, they’re still out in the kitchen. LU-lu!”

“Oh, I mustn’t stop—so terribly far back to town, and so late— shouldn’t have walked so far.”

“You don’t step your foot out of this house tonight, Brother! You stay right here!”

When Lulu saw him, her tranced eyes said, “And did you come all this way for me?”

She was more softly desirable than he had fancied.

Warmed and swollen with fried eggs and admiration, he sat with them in the parlor narrating more or less possible
incidents of his campaigns for righteousness in Kansas, till Mr. Bains began to yawn.

“By golly, ten minutes after nine! Don’t know how it got to be so late. Ma, guess it’s about time to turn in.”

Elmer lunged gallantly:

“Well, you can go to bed, but we young folks are going to sit up and tell each other our middle names! I’m no preacher on
week days—I’m just a student, by Jiminy!”

“Well—If you call this a week day. Looks like a week night to me, Brother!”

Everybody laughed.

She was in his arms, on the couch, before her father had yawned and coughed up the stairs; she was in his arms, limp,
unreasoning, at midnight; after a long stillness in the chilling room, she sat up hastily at two, and fingered her rumpled
hair.

“Oh, I’m frightened!” she whimpered.

He tried to pat her comfortingly, but there was not much heat in him now.

“But it doesn’t matter. When shall we be married?” she fluttered.

And then there was no heart in him at all, but only a lump of terror.

Once or twice in his visions he had considered that there might be danger of having to many her. He had determined that
marriage now would cramp his advancement in the church and that, anyway, he didn’t want to marry this brainless little
fluffy chick, who would be of no help in impressing rich parishioners. But that caution he had utterly forgotten in emotion,
and her question was authentically a surprise, abominably a shock. Thus in whirling thought, even while he mumbled:

“Well—well—Don’t think we can decide yet. Ought to wait till I have time to look around after I graduate, and get settled
in some good pastorate.”

“Yes, perhaps we ought,” she said meekly to her man, the best and most learned and strongest and much the most
interesting person she had ever known.

“So you mustn’t mention it to anybody, Lu. Not ever to your folks. They might not understand, like you do, how hard it is
for a preacher to get his first real church.”

“Yes, dear. Oh, kiss me!”

And he had to kiss her any number of times, in that ghastly cold room, before he could escape to his chamber.

He sat on his bed with an expression of sickness, complaining, “Hell, I oughtn’t to have gone so far! I thought she’d
resist more. Aaah! It wasn’t worth all this risk. Aaaaah! She’s dumm as a cow. Poor little thing!” His charity made him feel
beneficent again. “Sorry for her. But, good God, she is wishy-washy. Her fault, really, but—Aaah! I was a fool! Well, fellow
has to stand right up and face his faults honestly. I do. I don’t excuse myself. I’m not afraid to admit my faults and
repent.”

So he was able to go to bed admiring his own virtue and almost forgiving her.