The Star in the Window (Stokes)/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II
SHE walked slowly upstairs to her room. There was in her eyes somewhat the same acceptance-of-the-inevitable look as in a dog's trained obedience from puppyhood. She was as dumb and undemonstrative about it too. Even safely within her room, with the door closed, there was no gesture of impatience, no tears, no throwing herself down upon the bed—nothing of that sort. She simply sat down in another rocking-chair, by another window, and gazed out at another winter landscape.
Her bedroom was furnished in the brown-grained furniture of her young girlhood. There were pink rosebuds painted on each of the bureau drawers, and more rosebuds on the head of the bed. As Reba sat there, in the small square space allotted to her before she was born, her tortured spirit rocked back and forth on the little swinging perch inside her cage, as it had done so many times before, seeking relief. She mustn't mind, she mustn't care, silently she told herself. What difference did it make what she did—whether she went out, or stayed in, whether her wishes or her mother's and aunts' were gratified—what difference in the long run? What if she had never known, and now never would know, the heart-thrills, and the heartaches of youth? What if life was monotonous and humdrum? All that was no concern of hers. Her great task was self-mastery. Nothing else. The more hopes blasted, the more pleasures denied, the more her way was crossed, and her will thwarted, the greater would be the triumph of her resignation. She must remember that. She must hold it before her like a light. It was weak and ignoble to beat oneself against circumstances. Back and forth her thoughts swung on the little perch. "Suppress, accept, submit," it squeaked.
Reba wished that she might reason with her physical feelings, too. For sometimes it seemed to her as if she must actually have swallowed the retorts she didn't make, the protests she restrained, and that her stomach rebelled. Such a wave of nausea now possessed her. But you wouldn't have guessed it. She rocked gently, her open palms relaxed, upturned. Whatever combat there was, should be inside, hidden. She waited patiently for the nausea to pass away, and when it had, she sat a long while, rocking there by the window, hugging her victory close for comfort, staring out at the pretty lights of the town.
Reba was glad that her grandfather had built his house upon a hill. She could see not only the stars in the sky, but those in the valley too. From her high lookout every light in every window in the valley made a star for Reba. Somebody had told her once, when she was a little girl, eight years old or so, that the stars in the sky were other worlds. Well, so were the stars in the valley—other worlds, other little worlds, and at dusk she used to make-believe that the souls of the little worlds came stealing shyly out, one after another to meet each other under the cover of night. She liked to watch them assembling, for even though the house she lived in did not join the others (Aunt Augusta always drew the shades down just as soon as the few necessary lights were lit in the back of the house) it used to comfort Reba, make her feel less isolated, to be able to look down every night upon the friendly clustering in the valley.
The part of the town which her room overlooked was known as lower Ridgefield. It was there that many of the employees at the mills at the foot of Chestnut Street lived. They were Swedes and Poles, Greeks and Italians mostly. Reba had often wandered there after dark at night and she well knew that in scores of smoky little low-studded kitchens behind those stars in the windows supper was now being prepared. She could almost smell the frying potatoes and onions. She could almost feel the expectancy. The evening held nothing of expectancy for her. Eighty-nine Chestnut Street was lightless, lifeless, starless, a big black empty shell. But within sight of it, within sound, there was eagerness, joy, anticipation—somebody coming home to supper with a laugh and a hearty greeting; somebody coming to call after supper, a lover possibly; somebody coming for a visit next week; a baby expected next month perhaps—plans, preparations, hopes, fears, life!
The ribbons of twinkling mill-windows Reba loved best of all the lights in the valley. She had always been thankful for the mills. When she was a child Aunt Augusta had not allowed her to have a light outside her room when she went to bed. The thought of the big empty front bedrooms, the ceiled cubes of black, awesome silence, across the dark hall, used to fill her with overpowering fear. It was when she was five years old that the mills began running at night, and, Aunt Augusta or no Aunt Augusta, came stealing into her windows, to reassure her, like some kind, understanding parent, and sing her to sleep, with their pleasant hum. Not for anything would she have mentioned to her mother or aunts the comfort the mills were to her. They did not believe in coddling. They might have changed her room to the other side of the house, where there were only the fields, and the lonely farm-house to be seen, and where, instead of the distant chorus of revolving wheels and flying belts blended into harmonious din, was nothing to be heard out-of-doors except, in August and September, the mournful drone of crickets in the grass.
Even when she was older and no longer afraid of the darkness of night, the mills teeming with life and activity could pierce through the gloom of her eventless days.
Sitting now idle and listless in her rocking-chair, Reba found exhilaration in picturing to herself the contrasting scene down there behind the mill windows. She had intended to go down to the mills to-night and watch the employees pour out of the big side doors at six o'clock. She had intended to join the noisy throng herself for a little way, and bring back to this deadly quiet little bedroom of hers bits of boisterous laughter, impetuous speech, and joyous jargon to feed her starved soul on.
If Aunt Augusta hadn't interfered, and Reba had gone down to the mills, she would have hidden herself first in a secret corner by a brick fire-wall, as she had done many times before, and, thus concealed, would have watched the mill-hands wash up at the long row of soapstone sinks in the basement. She didn't know why it fascinated her so to watch those curious male-creatures roll up their sleeves and lather their sinewy forearms generously with soap, then splash furiously, and make the suds fly—but it did, irresistibly. It gave her pleasure to see those big, boisterous, blackened men, make themselves clean and shining before going home to their women. Their rough-hewn features would be all scrimmed-up and dripping wet as they approached the roller-towels. Afterward they would come very close to Reba's corner (it was only in the winter when it was dark that she could stand there unobserved) and brush their hair before a little mirror hung by the window. She could have leaned and touched their heads, had the window been open.
There was one man whom Reba liked to watch in particular—an Italian she thought. He had very white teeth and dark eyes. His forearms were black and hairy. He was a big, jovial fellow. He would come over to the little mirror, with his thick hair all wet and tousled, and apply the brush to it vigorously until it lay flat and smooth and shone with dazzling high-lights, like patent-leather. He would make a straight, white part in it, on one side, and then stand there a moment, critically surveying himself. Many a time Reba wished she could tell him how beautiful she thought he was! What if his nails were rimmed with black machine grease? His skin was pink with scrubbing! His cheek-bones shone. His laugh was clear and bright. His vitality had something of the same indestructible crystal quality of one of the diamonds in her bracelet, she thought. It was this man whom Reba waited for so frequently of late, as she had seen some of the girls who worked in the mills wait for their men, and when he had passed, followed him, pretending he had greeted her with his big laugh; making believe she was keeping step beside him, even that his shoulder touched hers once in a while. After one of those secret meetings with the Italian, Reba would return to her room alarmed at the courage of her imagination, disturbed that she yielded to such self-indulgence, allowed her thoughts to stray so far into forbidden regions.
Eighty-nine Chestnut Street owed its existence to the mills at the foot of the hill. Somewhere behind those ribbons of stars down there Reba's father sat. His name appeared on the ground-glass panel of the door to the little room he occupied, painted in big black letters—David O. Jerome. David helped make out time-cards. His labors did not require a private office, but the Jerome Wire Company gave him one out of deference to the forty-six per cent. of the Company's shares which he owned. Also out of deference to those shares, he was invited to sit in one of the oak armchairs at the directors' meetings every month.
Reba's father was not what could be called an influential man in his business. He occupied that armchair as unobtrusively as he knew how. The truth was, David had no wish to interfere with a management that had miraculously transformed the stock, which since his father's death had gradually become as barren as a barnacled rock, into property rich and productive. There was never an off-year now. There was never a dividend passed. Ever since Joseph Horween had taken charge of affairs, the mills had yielded a harvest every season. As surely as January, April, July, and October appeared on the calendar over David's desk, there dropped like ripe fruit into his hands, from out of one of the Company's long blue envelopes, large, beautifully developed checks, quarter after quarter, year after year. David had long since exhausted the limited storing-space afforded him by all the savings-banks within range. Fearful as he was, and suspicious of any paper that had the peculiar crackle of a bond, or stock-certificate, he had been obliged to find bins for his dividends somewhere. In spite of suspicions, David's safe-deposit boxes became crammed with ripening coupons. No wonder, then, that at the directors' meetings, David always covertly glanced in the direction of the man who had brought about this happy state of prosperity, to discover how he was voting, even on unimportant questions, before committing himself to a raised hand, or a murmured "Aye."
Not that he approved of Mr. Horween's extravagant principles. He didn't. It was simply awful, the way Joseph Horween spent money! Every newfangled cost-system, lighting, heating, or power device in the world attracted him. He was always building additions to the plant, too. It fairly made cold shivers run up and down David's back to stand by and see him using up the Company's surplus on such unnecessary expenditures as a fancy front to the office-building, a cement garage for his own automobile, and white-enameled sanitary drinking fountains for the employees. But commonsense told David it was safer to rely upon Joseph Horween's confidence, however inflated, than upon his own misgivings. Besides, discussion of business problems was not David's gift. He was slow when it came to selecting words to express his opinions. The directors with whom he sat had a way of leaping so, leaving him way behind, mulling over and painfully trying to comprehend the significance of a vote that had just been passed, while they sprang nimbly ahead to fresh ones. No; better keep mum, David concluded, vote with the man whom fortune had so far favored, then close your eyes, hold your breath, and wait for the crash, which, if it should come, wouldn't be any of your doings anyway.
But at home David told himself that he played no such insignificant part. Up there in the gray house on the hill, he was a factor that had to be taken into consideration. In his own domain he bore all the marks of a tyrant. He was taciturn, churlish, stated his wishes gruffly, and wanted them obeyed without parley. David felt cross about all the time, when he was at home—"unhappy in his mind," Augusta expressed it. He said that a family consisting of an invalid wife, two interfering sisters-in-law, and a backboneless daughter, was enough to make a man feel unhappy in his mind. But the truth was that the most healing ointment that David could apply to his smarting pride, after spending the day monotonously making out time-cards, or sitting silent and submissive in the directors' room at the mills, where years ago his own father had been the ruling spirit, was to assume the rôle of despot somewhere at any cost. Besides, a man had to present something of an unyielding front in the same house where Augusta Morgan lived, or else be crushed and obliterated under her steam-roller methods.
Augusta Morgan was the kind of woman who made everybody lie down flat, and fit into whatever chinks and crevices there happened to be, when once she made up her mind the course she meant to pursue—that is, if you got in her way, or didn't possess a good deal of steam power, yourself. There was nothing Augusta Morgan enjoyed more than smoothing out stretches of road out of repair in the lives of her family. But she smoothed them in only one way—the steam-roller way.
Her own father, David well knew, had died a broken and disappointed man, because this martinette of an oldest daughter of his, who, after her mother's death, ruled his house with iron masterfulness for years, denied him the privilege of remarrying; and Emma's husband had died groping for a hand he couldn't find, because Augusta Morgan, nursing him through his last sickness, decided when death was near not to summon Emma, his wife, asleep in the next room, who, she coolly concluded, needed her rest. Emma herself had become like pulp under her older sister's tyranny. So had Eunice. So had Reba.
Augusta Morgan was an able woman. There was no denying that. No job was too big for her. Competency radiated from her like kindness from some women. In her own way, she was as marvellous to David as Joseph Horween. They both had brought order out of confusion. They both had brought relief and peace of mind out of mental distress. David had only to recall that period of his life immediately preceding Augusta's advent, to realize how indispensable she was to him.
Augusta and Emma had just finished burying a cousin, who lived in Machias, Maine, when Reba's mother had her runaway accident accident. The runaway accident, followed by a night of exposure spent by the roadside, had resulted in a serious illness for Eunice. When Augusta returned from Machias and appeared at 89 Chestnut Street she found David in a pitiable condition.
"They're ruining me, Augusta," he said to her in a voice that quavered. "They think I'm a rich man, and I'm not—I'm not! I don't know how many calls the doctors make, nor how many doctors call, nor how many specialists from Boston, nor how many of those expensive trained nurses I'm paying for at the rate of twenty-one dollars a week and board, nor who the woman is they call an accommodater they said I'd got to have in the kitchen, cooking my food and throwing it away untouched in the swill. I found eight whole boiled potatoes there last night, and half a loaf of bread yesterday, and the day before half a chicken. Yes, I did! Oh, they're ruining me—between them all, they're ruining me, Augusta."
Augusta placed her hands upon her hips. She was a tall woman, a good head-and-a-half taller than David. At forty-five she was a handsome woman, too, with ruddy cheeks, and crisp hair, brushed stiffly up from her forehead, and rolled into a formidable peak on top of her head. She thrust her chin toward David.
"Want me and Emma to come up here, and help you out, David?" she inquired. "Trained nurses! Accommodaters! Specialists! Bosh! It won't take me two hours to clean this house of such nonsense!"
David had always been afraid of this energetic sister-in-law of his. Best to keep a watch away from big dynamos; best to keep away from Augusta Morgan. That is the way David had always felt. But he was in trouble now. He glanced up at Augusta and then quickly down again.
"Well," she demanded impatiently. "What do you say? Come, what do you say?"
David shook his head and sighed. "Do as you think best. Do as you think best, Augusta," he said.
Twenty-five years had passed since then, but David, as much as he believed he disliked Augusta, still looked upon her as the force that kept his life from flying apart into fragments and disorder. Not once since the day she had set foot in the house had there been any hired help to cook the food in the kitchen; not once since that day had a specialist from Boston, or from anywhere else, crossed the threshold of 89 Chestnut Street; and only for a brief two days when Reba was born and the town-doctor said he'd drop the case if Augusta wouldn't let him bring a trained nurse, had David been disturbed by the sight of white caps and uniforms.
Reba, too, looked upon Augusta Morgan as the force that had kept her life from flying apart. But, oh, she had wanted her life to fly apart! There was all the difference of youth and age between her and David. She had wanted no cement to bind together the thousand and one elements of her life. Like a seeded dandelion floating away on tiny white wings in a dozen different directions, but for Aunt Augusta, Reba too would have discovered the mysteries over the confining walls. However, she did not think accusingly of her aunt—not for any length of time. It wasn't in her nature. Immersed as her mother and aunts had always kept her in the dull gray atmosphere of this dull gray house, she knew it wasn't from unkindness. They had always done what they thought was for her "best good," as they expressed it. No pains had been spared in her bringing-up. "She's been hand-raised," Aunt Augusta was fond of boasting. "'Tisn't many girls who've had her advantages," she would say. "Private tutor ever since she was seven, hand-made clothes, every stitch, right down to her combinations. Tonsils out, and eyes examined I don't know how many times, and teeth straightened to the tune of fifty dollars."