Free The Last Adam by James Gould Cozzens Page A

the school children at Cold Hill. Plainly the county authorities weren't going to do anything about it. Her own personal distaste for Doctor Bull, his boorishness, his coarse, roaring manner, his callous, undoubtedly ignorant neglect of his work and his patients, she tried to keep out of it; but really it was almost incredible that a family like the Bulls could have produced such a person!
    From her encounter with Doctor Wyck, the Rector, she had the matters of seeing that flowers for the altar, in the proper, seasonally difficult red of an Apostle and Martyr, were on hand on Tuesday. When Doctor Wyck spoke of Tuesday, she had, with the greatest presence of mind, been able to remember that it was v St. Matthias's Day, and say so, before he made his own reference to the Feast of Our Patron. She was, after all, one of the few that Doctor Wyck relied on for a decorous High Church attitude, and she would have been much chagrined if she had let him down.
    Then there was poor Mamie Talbot. She must really go over to-morrow and see for herself if anything could be done to make the child more comfortable. Mamie's illness brought back the never welcome thought of Doctor Bull; and she wondered if Doctor Verney couldn't be persuaded—Doctor Bull's gross negligence and incompetence made it really Doctor Verney's Christian duty—to come up and—
    In the hall and along the stairs, the walls were papered in the modern copy of an old pattern. Vertically, horizontally, and obliquely, in exact alignment, three sage-green designs repeated themselves on the white ground. One was a stiff, heraldic eagle, his claws full of furled American flags; one was a laurel-wreathed bouquet of cannon, swords, muskets, and infantry drums. The third showed the gaunt face of President Jackson. Below his bust, the cleft streamer read: Our Federal Union it must be preserved. Mrs. Banning halted and studied it, startled, for she thought that she had seen a stain near the top at the end. Her mind jumped instantly to the chance of a tub overflowing in the bath between Guy's room and Virginia's. Relieved, she realized then that it was only a shadow, and went on.
    Turning back through the hall, the half-open door gave her a glimpse of the warm dusk in the library. A mixture of lamplight and failing firelight shone up the panelled, urn-topped doors of a secretary desk from her great-grandfather's New Haven house. Her husband sat before it, the pen in his hand moving steadily. Beyond his small, neat shoulders and upright head, she could see the books climbing the wall in unbroken rows through the aureate twilight, gilt titles catching the glow. From this glimpse as from the tranquil hall, and from the dining-room (now that she went through it) with the fine sideboard, the laid oval table with candles unlighted, the four good Chippendale chairs— , she wished that she had four more, instead of three more; but seven, when they were such exceptionally good and authentic ones, was a respectable number— Mrs. Banning could take the quiet, never-ending, often not even conscious, pleasure of a house by years of patient effort made exactly the way she wanted it, and functioning serenely under her attentive eye.
    The pantry and kitchen were glowing, full of a savoury warmth of good cooking, a cheery cleanliness and shining order in the porcelain and enamel, the glass and non-corrosive metals of modern equipment. Mary, seated by the prim burnt orange curtains, was reading the morning paper. Ethel was calmly busy over pots steaming on the long stove. Mary put down the paper and stood up. Ethel said: "Good evening, ma'am."
    "Oh, Ethel, that smells very nice," Mrs. Banning said contented. "Mary, will you remember to use the little silver boat for the mint sauce, please? And will you bring some ice and a shaker into the library in about five minutes? I think Mr. Banning and Guy would like a cocktail."
     
    Laying down the tapering black shadows of screening cedars, gilding the