The Long Night (Holding)

by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

 

HE HAD WANTED ONLY ONE LITTLE GAY HOUR, ONE LITTLE INTERVAL

 

The Long Night

by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Illustrated by Joseph Simont

THE summer day was coming to an end; the sun was low, and the last level rays shone through the windows of the dining room, where Emily was setting the table for dinner. All the room was glowing and flaming with the sunset light; the mirror glinted like rippling water, the baby's silver mug was a blur of intolerable brightness. And it seemed to her, in her fatigue, that this great light had its own sound, a ringing, tremendous music, without form, without end. It confused her; she hesitated in her work, closed her eyes.

And immediately that letter came before her, perfectly clear and vivid. She opened her eyes hastily. “No,” she thought. “No; not now. I can't—I mustn't think about it now.”

All the afternoon she had told herself that; she had gone about her interminable duties with the letter tucked inside her blouse, and stifled in her heart the sickening pain she hadn't time to feel yet—not yet. She couldn't begin even to suffer until her day was done and she could be alone.

Only three places at the table.

 

“Be sure to come sharp at six, Tony! So that we can have a little music before the others come. Oh, Anthony, aren't 'others' a nuisance? But all day yesterday I was practicing that Tschaikowsky barcarolle, and now it's as smooth and clear and lovely as my dear lake must be, up in the hills, these summer days. And I want you to hear that, Anthony. There'll be other things for the other people.”

IT WAS a little after six; he must be there now with Mrs. Morey, in her cool, charming room, listening to her music. Just those two alone, before the tiresome “others” came. Even with no time for thinking, Emily could reconstruct the scene; she knew that room of Mrs. Morey's.

Hadn't she spent an evening there only a month ago with Anthony—had sat there, quiet, faintly amused, watching the fascinating Nina Morey industriously engaged in the process of fascinating Anthony?

“And I suppose I was one of the 'others,'” she thought. “Oh, if I could be alone, just for an hour!”

But even now she could hear Aunt Josie coming up the front steps with Willa-baby, come home from their daily walk. They were wrangling as usual in that absurd, distressing way. “You're a very naughty little girl,” said Aunt Josie sternly.

“Why?” asked Willa-baby. “What did I do? What did I do, Aunt Josie? Aunt Josie! What did I do? Why are I naughty? Aunt Josie! What did——”

“Hush!” said Aunt Josie. “Don't presume to argue with me, miss!”

“Why hush?” demanded Willa in an aggrieved whine. “Can't I even talk? Why hush?”

Emily's heart sank. She was so tired, and there was so much before her that she couldn't evade, so many little tasks, so many futile words she must speak before her quiet hour came. “I can't,” she thought. “I'll say I have a headache, and go and lie down. There's no reason why Aunt Josie shouldn't manage without me for one evening.”

But she knew this to be impossible; even in her own room with the door locked, she would have no peace; they would all come to her, always to her, with their questions, their quarrels, their perplexities. Anthony kept up the obstinate pretense that Aunt Josie was a help to Emily; but she wasn't; she was only another burden, and perhaps the worst of them all. She was Anthony's aunt, Anthony's responsibility—and he had presented her to Emily as if she were an undisguised blessing. She couldn't smile when the old lady came into the room; she was always civil to Aunt Josie, but she couldn't always be cordial; there were times when mortal weariness and resentment kept her dangerously smiling and silent.

“Willa's a very naughty little girl,” said Aunt Josie. She spoke severely, with that air of offended majesty that so exasperated Emily. A thin little old lady she was, incredibly neat, in a starched white blouse and high collar, and a black skirt, her gray hair in a queer little frizzed bang over her querulous brow. A queen in exile, Aunt Josie was, perpetually mourning for her old home in England.

ANTHONY, born and brought up in the United States, had been taken over to see Aunt Josie in his childhood, and he had given Emily a humorous description of that awful little house in Brighton; but Aunt Josie, after fifteen years in this country, still clung stubbornly and resentfully to her past glories. She wasn't grateful to Anthony, who had sent for her when her husband died; she wasn't grateful to Emily, who had accepted her when she accepted Anthony; on the contrary, she had the manner of one patiently enduring unmerited afflictions.

“I'll fetch Willa's porridge,” she said.

“Cereal,” said Willa-baby in an undertone.

“Porridge,” said Aunt Josie. “At home no one would understand a little girl who asked for 'cereal.'”

“I wouldn't never ask for it,” said Willa. “I hate it.”

“It's wicked to hate good, wholesome food,” declared Aunt Josie indignantly. “You ought to be thankful to have any supper at all.”

“Well, I aren't,” said Willa. “I don't want any.”

“Shame on you, miss. Some day you'll——”

“Excuse me, Aunt Josie,” Emily intervened. “Willa-baby, run upstairs and wash. And hurry down again to mother.”

“Aw' wight!” said Willa. “I love you, mother!”

That was her almost invariable formula, tacked on to everything, a hurried, expressionless “I love you, mother!” But she meant it; little naughty, troublesome baby, she meant it with all her loyal heart. In the doorway she turned to throw a kiss to Emily, and Emily, returning it, felt a cruel stab of pain.

“I knew all the time that it was going to happen,” she thought. “Even on our wedding day I knew it was going to happen sometime. Nothing could hold him—nothing in the world.”

Aunt Josie came in from the kitchen with Willa's bowl of oatmeal. She disapproved strongly of this notion of letting Willa begin to eat before anyone else.

“If she were given a definite time in which to eat her porridge,” she said, “and at the end of that time it was taken away from her, she'd soon stop this dawdling.”

She did dawdle, though. She hadn't half finished when dinner was ready to serve, and, as usual, she and the highchair remained at the table.

“I'll call Dick,” said Aunt Josie.

But Dick came in without being called. He went upstairs and washed and brushed his hair without being told, too; not because of any notable urge of duty, but because he had lately developed a strange distaste for being told anything. He wished to be let alone.

Aunt Josie and Emily kept up the conversation, without which the meal could not be endured. They spoke of the plumber, and how long he had taken to stop the leak in the kitchen; they spoke of the laundress and her inordinate demands; of the possibilities of getting a new general houseworker, of the price of vegetables, the lack of rain. As if in conspiracy, no one mentioned the absent husband and father.

“Wouldn't Mrs. Morey feel sorry for him if she could hear this!” thought Emily when she and Aunt Josie had thoroughly exhausted the topic of laundresses. And suddenly a bitter tide of anger rose in her heart. “Very well!” she thought. “I'm sorry for him too—and sorry for myself, and for Dick, and Willa-baby and Aunt Josie—for all of us. We're all prisoners, shut up here together. But he can get away. Just a casual little lie, and he's free for a whole evening.”

Aunt Josie and Willa-baby had begun an argument and, to end it, Emily sat down beside the child and fed her the rest of her supper. Then, hand in hand, she and Willa went upstairs.

She could hear Aunt Josie downstairs washing the dishes and talking to Dick, who was drying them.

“And when I go down I'll say, 'Oh, Aunt Josie, you shouldn't have bothered!' And she'll say, 'Well, Emily, someone has to do the necessary work in this world.' I cannot stand it! I can't—not all alone. If I had Anthony! But he's gone. He's lied to me. He's deserted me. He lied to me—pretending he had to work late in the office; that old, old, unutterably cheap lie, the lie that's a joke. I suppose hes done it before... Only this time he made a mistake. When he comes home he'll go on lying—until I show him the letter.”

Willa-baby had climbed into her crib, and lay there, neat and straight, only her toes showing beneath the long nightdress.

Emily tucked in the sheet over her and kissed her peachlike cheek. “Good night, mother's baby!” she said softly. But there was no softness in her heart even for Willa—not just now. She could not feel at all; she could only think, and her thinking was strangely without bitterness.

(illustration)

“Because I've always known this would happen,” she said to herself. “I knew when Anthony first wanted me to marry him that he couldn't stand a life like this. I told him so. I begged him to wait. And he told me I was 'afraid of life!'”

The words ran through her head as she went slowly down the stairs. “Afraid of life.” Was she? “I don't know,” she reflected. “Perhaps I am—for Dick and Willa-baby; not for myself though. I don't care now what happens to me—after this. This was the very worst thing; and it's happened.”

II

NOW her quiet hour had come. She went out on the veranda and stood for a moment looking over the dark fields. It was lonely here, very lonely, very quiet. The little insects chirped valiantly in the immense silence; the long grass fluttered now and then when the light breeze ran across the meadow; overhead the clouds floated easily in a pale sky.

The children were asleep, and Aunt Josie had retired early, complaining of a headache. And it seemed to Emily that they had all withdrawn, gone infinitely far away, leaving her starkly alone with her pain. She was surrounded by blank indifference.

“I'm so tired,' she thought, “I wish——” For what did she wish? Nothing. Nothing. Her eyes closed; she sighed faintly. Now she was going to think of Anthony—and Mrs. Morey—of the letter....

“Emi-lee! Emi-lee-ee!”

She sat up, inordinately startled by the weak, mournful little cry. Then in an instant her mind, trained to respond a hundred times a day to a hundred calls upon her, was fully awake.

She hurried up the stairs to Aunt Josie's room. “Did you call me, Aunt Josie?” she asked.

The old lady was sitting up in bed, one hand pressed against her side, her sharp-featured face flushed and drawn. “I ——” she began, but ended with a gasp and mutely shook her head.

And in the quiet room, so neat, so austere, dimly lit by a green-shaded lamp on the bedside table, Emily could hear her drawing breath with terrible reluctance, pressing her shrunken lips together to keep back her groans.

"DO YOU think it's pleurisy again, Aunt Josie?” she asked, trying to speak easily and pleasantly to conceal her dismay. She had seen the poor old lady endure one such attack and her heart quailed at the thought of witnessing it again. “I'll telephone to Doctor Crowley, dear,” she said. ” And then I'll come back and make you comfortable.”

 

The old lady had dropped into a doze, breathing short and fast, her face terribly anxious as if she were trying in desperate haste to escape a relentless enemy. And Emily, sitting beside her, was filled with the same sense of hurry; her thoughts flew to meet Doctor Crowley, driving along the country lanes; she strained her ears to catch the distant sound of his motor, but heard only the rustle of the leaves. It was ten o'clock. Why didn't he come?

“O God! Oh, please, please, God, let her get well!” said Emily over and over again.

Aunt Josie stirred in her sleep; her thin brows drew together in a frown, and suddenly she cried out in an amazingly loud, clear voice: “Anthony! My dear, dear boy! You've been—good—good”—and then her voice trailed away—“goo-oo-ood to me-ee——”

She was awake now, looking up at Emily, her hand clutching her side again. But her cry had awakened Willa-baby.

“Mother!” came a lusty shout. “Mother! Come here!”

Impossible to leave Aunt Josie now alone, while her enemy so harried her.

“Wait, Willa-baby,” Emily called softly.

But Willa, the tyrant, would not wait.

“I'm fwightened,” the child shouted. “Mother, I'm fwightened.”

A chill ran down Emily's spine; she fancied that Aunt Josie's enemy had crept into the house.

“Attend—to your—child,” gasped Aunt Josie, with the shadow of her old austerity.

So Emily rose and went into the nursery. Willa-baby was sitting up in her crib. As her mother entered she stood up, holding out her arms, like a little white flying spirit in the dark. “Take me, mother,” she cried. “I'm fwightened.”

“Where's daddy?” It was Dick's voice from the doorway.

HE SPOKE in that new, casual, aloof tone of his, but to Emily his words came with appalling significance. She had not once thought of Anthony; she had tried to shoulder this burden alone, while he, the husband and father, the natural protector and helper of all the little household, was not there.

“Father's away, Dick, on business,” she answered.

And in her heart was a wish that shocked her; a wish that someone knew, that some one of these persons who idolized Anthony knew where he was. She struggled in vain against it. “Nobody ever will know,” she said to herself. “If poor little Aunt Josie dies——”

If Aunt Josie died Anthony would never forgive himself, never forget that he had been away enjoying himself.... Remorse swept over her. “Heaven forgive me!” she thought. “I didn't think I could feel like that. He ought to be here; he ought to have his chance. Dick, dear,” she said aloud, “stay here with little Willa. I'll turn on the light, and you can look at pictures; but be quiet, very quiet, both of you, not to disturb Aunt Josie.”

She lowered the side of the crib and Dick sat down there, scornfully forbearing, explaining the pictures in one of his sister's unutterably silly books. As she went downstairs she could hear his valiant little voice: “It's a enchanted bird and a witch out in the woods. Aw' right! Turn over! That's a ogre. Hold the book still.”

First she telephoned again to Doctor Crowley.

“Hasn't he come yet?” asked his wife anxiously.... “He started nearly an hour ago. He must have had a breakdown. Is it another attack of pleurisy, Mrs. Cane?... Then I'll tell you what to do until he comes. Heat cloths in very hot water and wring them dry——” And so on.

WHEN the brisk, cheerful voice had stopped, Emily lifted the receiver again, and asked for Mrs. Morey's number. She couldn't keep from smiling coldly as she did so.

Poor Anthony! He would be more than a little disconcerted. Perhaps the charming, well-poised Mrs. Morey would be just a trifle perturbed herself. Here was her soft, drawling voice now.

“Will you please tell Mr. Cane that his aunt is very ill?” said Emily—only that. She gave no name, offered no salutation, and before Mrs. Morey could answer, she had hung up the receiver.

III

THE kitchen fire was out, and the boiler was scarcely warm. Emily got down on her knees, clearing out the ashes in nervous haste. Hot water was needed for Aunt Josie—now—at once. And Dick had forgotten to bring in kindling wood, and the coal scuttle was empty. She must hurry, she must hurry. She fancied that even down here in the kitchen she could hear Aunt Josie's tormented breathing.

“Mother! Mother!” came a shrill little voice.

Emily hurried to the foot of the stairs, and there stood Willa and Dick, hand in hand, halfway down. Willa descended the rest of the flight with a wild rush and flung her arms about her mother's knees; she was trembling pitiably, her eyes wide and terror-stricken.

“I can't do anything with her,” said Dick with quiet scorn.

“Run up——” Emily began; but after all she couldn't send this very little son to sit with Aunt Josie; he was only a baby himself, so very slight and little in his frogged pajamas, with his fair hair all ruffled, and his grim little mouth. He was frightened himself; she could see it in his resolute stare.

She held out her hand, smiling, and he came leisurely down. And in the very act of comforting the little creatures a chill dread crept over the mother, a bleak, sorrowful fear—of nothing, of everything, of the monstrous hazards of life. She wanted to gather both her children into her arms; she wanted to hurry with them into some safe corner, outside of the relentless currents of life; she felt abandoned, unutterably forlorn and desolate. The house was terribly still—and every human creature in that house waited for her, looked only to her for assuagement and support.

“Stay here with Dickie, my dearie,” she said. “I want to go up to see Aunt Josie for a minute.”

But Willa would not stay. She began to sob, and her sobs were unbearable in the silent house. In despair Emily picked her up and started toward the door, leaving the valiant little Dickie alone in the kitchen.

“I'll go down in the cellar and get the coal,” he said in a shaking voice.

EMILY was about to protest, for ever since he was a baby he had been afraid of that dark region where the kitten had died. But looking at him, their eyes met, and a thrill of pride ran through her. He had conquered himself, this son of hers; he was still frightened, but he meant to play a man's part.

He picked up the empty scuttle, opened the cellar door and, barefooted, descended into the black depths.

With Willa clinging round her neck Emily went out into the hall toward the stairs. And just then there was a step on the veranda, a key turned in the lock, and Anthony entered.

They faced each other in silence for a moment.

A handsome man Anthony was, with a fastidious sort of elegance in spite of his rather shabby suit, his far from new shoes. No man on earth liked better to be well dressed, yet he had never made the least complaint because he could not be so. She knew how he flinched inwardly at having to wear darned socks and mended gloves; yet she had only to mention that the children needed anything, had only to appear herself in something obviously outworn, and he would turn over to her every penny he had with that nonchalant air that concealed his embarrassment at being thanked.

“He's not selfish in that way,” she thought. “He'd go without anything—for us.” And she was glad that this thought had come to her, glad that, as she held his child in her arms, she could think of something good in him.

(illustration)

“Emily,” he said—his dark-browed, fine-featured face did not change its expression of cool reserve, but a slow flush crept over it; he wanted to speak, but the words stuck in his throat—“I”—he said—“I'm sorry. How's Aunt Josie?”

“You'd better go up and see,” said Emily dryly. “I sent for Doctor Crowley long ago, but he must have broken down on the way. I want hot water for her, but the fire's out—and the children both waked up.”

He stood before her, neat, slender and tall in his dark suit; he had, she thought, a curiously formal air, as if he didn't belong there in this little house. Hadn't she always known that he couldn't endure this sort of life? She could, she must endure everything, but not he; he had to escape, to run away—to Mrs. Morey and her Tschaikowsky barcarolle.

“I'll take Willa,” he said.

WITH regal indifference Willa went from her mother's arms to his; her eyes were heavy; she rested her bright head on her father's shoulder, looking back with a drowsy smile at Emily, who followed them up the stairs. They entered Aunt Josie's room.

And a little miracle took place. The dread shadow of fear and doubt lifted. It seemed to Emily that the room grew actually brighter, that the lamplight had a new and reassuring mellowness. Aunt Josie, propped up against the pillows, had lost that look of terrible aloofness, and was once more a familiar figure.

Anthony sat down on a chair beside the bed, with Willa on his knee. And he and Aunt Josie began to talk. She was still in great pain, able only to gasp a few broken phrases; but it was somehow a comprehensible, almost an ordinary sort of pain now. She and Anthony both took it for granted, in that stoic fashion of theirs; Aunt Josie had an attack of pleurisy, that was all, and she would simply have to make the best of it. It was not possible for him to speak to her tenderly, cheerfully as Emily did; he said briefly that it was “too bad,” he gave her frail old hand a hasty squeeze, asked her a few questions. And all the doctors on earth couldn't have helped her as this did; they understood each other, these two. Her drawn face had resumed its usual expression of affronted severity. Anthony understood how one ought to behave with pleurisy, and she intended to live up to his ideal.

“We'll see about these hot cloths,” he said at last, rising. “Emily'll stay with you.” And off he went with Willa.

Aunt Josie had no wish to talk any more, and again that blank silence fell—a different silence now though; the clock ticked briskly; the leaves rustled soothingly outside the window.

“He's so good to Aunt Josie,” she thought. She struggled for a moment against a sharp resentment. She, too, was good to Aunt Josie, and she had her all day and every day; easy enough for Anthony to be good to her.

BUT he did things for the old lady which were not easy. It wasn't only that he had taken care of her for years and years; almost any man would have done that. It was his unostentatious and tireless generosity, his genuine sympathy and understanding which were so rare. When Aunt Josie made a remark for the hundredth time, he didn't simply endure in silence; he made a response. He watched her; he found out for himself when she was suffering with a martyr's patience for lack of a new pair of slippers; he got for her those little things she sternly protested she didn't want, yet secretly longed for—an electric flashlight, a hot-water bottle, a wonderful set of scissors, graduated from tremendous shears down to buttonhole size. And what he did for Aunt Josie was not so much less done for the children; it was his own personal deprivation. No wonder Aunt Josie loved him so; no wonder!

She was surprised to feel tears stealing down her cheeks, tears quiet and effortless, curiously assuaging.

IV

DOCTOR CROWLEY had come and gone. Aunt Josie was resting in comparative comfort now. And still Emily sat beside her in the quiet room, while the brisk little clock ticked out the minutes of that endless night. She could hear Anthony's quiet voice in another room. A singularly agreeable voice he had, level, inexpressive, yet always with a hint of warmth, of fervor in it. She remembered once, long ago, at a dance, accidentally overhearing him speaking of her to an old friend; she remembered how he had spoken her name—“Emily.” That had been no cool, matter-of-fact love he had felt for her; he had worshiped her, idolized her for her innocent young dignity, her graciousness, her fresh loveliness. All gone now, weren't they? She was tired, worn out, her bright color dimmed, her grave gayety stifled by responsibilities, by anxiety—by grief. For it was grief she felt now, not anger; it was an immeasurable sorrow for her immeasurable loss. He had lied to her—because he wanted to get away.

She rose softly and, after a glance at Aunt Josie, went on tiptoe out of the room. She wanted to see what Anthony was doing.

A light was burning in the nursery, and the door was ajar. She stopped outside and looked in. Willa was asleep in her crib, one hand fast in her father's. Dick sat beside him on the floor, his head resting against his father's knee; his eyes were closed, his face wore no longer that expression of manly indifference; it was serene, infantile, lighted by dreamy contentment. Tight in one hand he grasped that model sailboat, the making of which had engrossed him for days. No doubt he had been explaining it to Anthony; Anthony encouraged him in his ridiculous passion for all things maritime; read him sea stories, found items and pictures for him in the newspapers. He had been a purser himself, years ago, on a P. and O. steamer—before he had Aunt Josie and a wife and children. And Emily knew how his spirit flew back to the sea for refuge; he never forgot his old, free days.

A BORN rover Anthony was, restless, adventurous, curious. This routine domestic life was sometimes very hard for her, but she had her blessed compensations—her hours with the children, her delight in the order and security of her little domain. And what had he? So little, so very little. He hadn't her quiet, simple tastes; he wanted a lively and varied existence; he loved good talk, hearty laughter, stir and activity about him.

And night after night he came home—to Aunt Josie, to his children, to herself. Night after night he sat at the dinner table, making his kindly replies to the old lady, so unfailingly good-tempered with his children, so interested in her small affairs, in plumbers, laundresses, neighbors. So generous, so kindly always to these his own people. He made an honest effort to understand each one, to meet them halfway—and who understood him?

Suddenly, with a strange contraction of the heart, she did understand. She looked at his worn, handsome face, his gray eyes staring blankly before him, and she did understand. He had wanted only one little gay hour, one little interval; no matter what had happened, he had not been unfaithful to his own people. One lie, one deflection could in no way affect his illimitable fidelity. Always, as long as he lived, he would stand by them, willingly and gladly give for them the very breath of his life. He hadn't really gone away—only turned his weary glance aside for a moment. He was here, always would be here when any one of them needed him.

No matter what had happened, he had not been unfaithful to his own people.

IT SEEMED to her this thought was too great for her heart to contain, that this knowledge, this revelation had all in an instant transformed her and ennobled her. All that had so troubled and wounded her fell away; they were the little things, and this was the great thing, the invaluable, beautiful vision that must not be veiled.

“Tony!” she whispered. He turned sharply, smiled as he saw her, and got up cautiously, letting Dick's fair head rest upon the cushion of the chair. “Everything all right?” he asked.

They stood side by side in the dim hall; all the others were asleep, safe and comforted now, because he was here.

“Everything,” she answered.

He looked at her bright face with a shadow of bewilderment. Then he flushed and turned his head. “Emily, old girl,” he said very low, “I—don't know what to say——”

“Then don't say anything!” she interrupted. “It's—finished with, Anthony.”

“It's not. I—I'm not trying to excuse myself, Emily—only it's not so bad as it looks. There never could be anyone but you; never! It was just her music, you know. I wanted——”

Her arm was round his neck, her cheek against his. “Oh, Tony, my own dear boy!” she said. “What does it matter?”

He held her away a little, to see her face. “But—Emily!” he said. “I—do you mean you can forgive me for that mean, beastly little lie that——”

“No!” she cried with a sob. “There's no 'forgiving' between us. Only forgetting—and loving—and understanding.”

They clung to each other alone in their little world, her tears wet on his face, his arms holding her fast. The high moment of life, the moment the divine light of which would never quite fade out.

V

AUNT JOSIE waked up with a cough. She felt better, considerably better. The lamp was still burning, but the room was filled with the clear, pale light of dawn. The birds were awake out in the trees; she liked to hear them. She turned her head; there was her nephew sitting bolt upright on the sofa, his head against the wall, and Emily beside him, leaning on his shoulder, both of them sound asleep.

She was sorry, but she couldn't stop coughing. Emily opened her eyes. The sun was up now, over the hill; the first gleam of it dazzled her drowsy eyes.

The long night was ended.