To-morrow Morning (Parrish)/Chapter 17
ACROSS the street, Noble was raking dead leaves. A rope of thick white smoke curled up from a pile in the ditch, Nancy Lou and Sonny Boy dove into tustling heaps and scattered them again. Charlotte's new coupé glittered in autumn sunlight by the mount ing block, and Charlotte herself came down the front steps and crossed to where Kate squatted, planting bulbs in the border.
"Well, Aunt Kate! Busy gardening, I see."
"I'm putting in some new tulips, though I hadn't any business to buy them. Bleu Aimable—the description's heavenly. Can you wait for spring?"
"Well, I guess we'll have to. I don't know what else we can do about it."
"You have a new sweater!"
"Oh, not very new."
"I've never seen it before. I love that jade green. How's Mrs. Driggs's cold? I've been meaning to go over, but I've been so busy. Charlotte! What do you think of that new standard lamp she has in the parlor? I told Joe it looked just like a boa constrictor standing on its tail, twisting round, with an old-rose silk shade hat on. Isn't it awful?"
"Why, I didn't think it was so bad as all that, Aunt Kate. I don't believe I noticed it particularly. I had something I wanted to ask you—what was it? Oh, I know, Aunt Sarah and Carrie. You know they're"
"Looking for a place to board. I should say I did know!"
"Why don't you take them, Aunt Kate? It would be such company for you. You must be so lonely, all by yourself all day."
"Charlotte, I don't know what it is to be lonely. Each day's so full and so interesting, and I love having time to myself. I only wish I had a lot more, there are so many things I want to do. Of course I'm very, very fond of Aunt Sarah and poor Carrie, but I'd die if I had them right here every minute. Anyway, I'm not alone—there's Joe. Oh no, Charlotte, I couldn't, I couldn't possibly. Here comes the postman. I wonder whether he'll have a letter from that girl. . . . Good morning! . . . It certainly is! Thank you. Good morning. Advertisement—post card for Joe from A. B. Who's A. B.? Whoever it is, wouldn't you think he could find something more interesting in California than an empty band stand? Yes! Here it is! Look, Charlotte! That's from that girl!"
Kate held out Evelyn's letter, as gingerly as if it had been a frog.
"You know sometimes I almost think he's getting over it. He doesn't seem unhappy, and he likes to do things—take me out in the Ford, and go to the movies—and he certainly hasn't lost his appetite. You wouldn't believe me if I told you how many popovers he ate last night for supper. I must say they were delicious. But he's awfully thin—haven't you noticed?"
"Why, no, he looks just about the same as usual to me."
"Well, he doesn't to me; he makes my heart ache. Of course he's working terribly hard; that may have something to do with it."
She looked at him anxiously that evening, and then turned back relieved to the lamp shade she was covering. He certainly didn't look unhappy. I do believe he is getting over it, she thought.
And all the time he looked so placid, all the time his eyes, quiet behind their spectacles, read the comic strips and the prize-fight accounts, and his hand lifted a cigarette, the feeling of separation, of time going past, fell silently, like snow, on his heart. Time speeding past, time when they should have been together and that could never be lived again, time creeping until he should be with her. Sometimes he was caught between the sense of speed and slowness, as if he were crushed between two turning stones. By day he worked feverishly; at night his tired mind went round in its circle. He knew no peace; he was stretched taut with living. Life had become a series of tense waitings for the mail; nothing was any comfort except her letters to him, the letters to her that he wrote late into the night.
"See, Joe, I think this lamp shade's going to be all right. Don't you? I thought maybe the yellow was too lemony, but it doesn't look so bad with the light shining through, does it? Look! Anyway, it was all they had at Small's. What do you think?"
"Yes," said Joe, warmly, looking through the lamp shade, through Kate, with starry eyes. He wanted to talk about Evelyn, just to speak her name, but he couldn't begin.
He's always moony when he's had a letter, Kate thought, picking up snips of silk from the floor. What: in the world is in all those wonderful letters? I wish he'd talk about her to me, but I suppose I'm not worthy. Hmp!
Joe picked up a magazine, but instead of opening it he dreamily began to draw spectacles and a mustache on the lovely lady on the cover. With his eyes on the pencil, he said:
"Evelyn wrote"
But Kate in a panic jumped up to fix the fire, clashing and crashing the fire irons.
Mrs. Prather poured herself another glass of Cointreau and dashed it down, crushed out a cigarette, popped a large liqueur chocolate into one cheek, and through it said, thickly and loudly:
"Bridge."
"You four play, and Evelyn and I will yawn together in the corner."
The footman had set out the card table, and Mrs. Prather, Mrs. Thorne, Cyril Wolfe, and Count Santarelli settled themselves around it, while Ralph Levinson and Evelyn sank into a deep sofa before a small fire in a carved stone fireplace at the other end of the room. The curtains of faded crimson brocade were looped back from the long windows. They could see the lights on the Grand Canal, the quivering reflections, and a grand-opera moon in the sky. Dinner had been delicious. Ralph was at his best as a host, paying the women subtle yet definite compliments; talking horses with Santarelli, who was a star in the Italian cavalry; explaining to Cyril Wolfe why he preferred the paintings of Toulouse-Lautrec to those of Renoir; discussing foreign finance with that hard-headed woman, Mrs. Prather; giving a servant an order in fluent Italian. How different he and Joe are, Evelyn had thought, lifting a spoonful of beaten cream and wine, putting it down because it was so fattening, and then thinking, oh, well! and eating it.
A letter had come from Joe that morning. "I was out in the wind all afternoon," he wrote. "I thought of you and I ran and jumped over fences. The wind was stripping the maples; sometimes the road was a running river of scarlet and pale pink leaves."
The wind blew through the room as she thought of him, but it did not bend the candle flames or stir the mimosa.
Now she was comfortable and relaxed; she felt beautiful; the short full skirt of her black gown billowed on the crimson brocade; she idly admired her white hand, lying among the folds. Ralph admired it, too, and covered it with his own.
She smiled at him. "Unhand me, villain. You know I'm another's."
"I know it amuses you to say so."
The dim light in the room, yellow and thick as honey, showed a tapestry of white unicorns in the forest, sea-water-colored glass jars of calla lilies, pouring smooth and creamy from smooth green stems, and an Epstein statuette of a big-bellied small-headed woman, repulsive and fascinating. Mrs. Prather's tight flesh-colored chiffon gown gave a curious effect. "Venus arising from the card table," Ralph murmured. Cyril Wolfe's monocle flashed in the spurt of a match; Mrs. Thorne's delicate eyebrows drew together in a frown; her upper lip lengthened like a monkey's as she took advantage of being dummy to peer into the mirror of her vanity case and put fresh scarlet on her mouth.
Evelyn knew she would have been engaged to Ralph now if she hadn't inconveniently fallen in love with Joe. Comfort and beauty would have been hers, Ralph's dark and silken love-making would have been hers. She was fascinated and excited by him; she grew light-headed on his admiration, his intuitive Oriental understanding. She could always depend on him not to miss the subtlest shade as they mocked the others in intimate murmurs. She felt almost indignant with Joe. He couldn't keep her for himself, yet he kept her from everyone else. If this is being engaged, I don't like it, she thought. But in a minute Ralph was making her laugh by mimicking Mrs. Prather's severe reprimands to poor little Santarelli, who was almost weeping. She lay back among silk cushions, laughing, too comfortable to lift the lighted cigarette between her fingers, warmly shut within the moment.
But going home in Ralph's gondola, poled through liquid silver by his gondoliers with their apple-green sashes and apple-green ribbons fluttering from the sailor hats little girls used to wear in the 'eighties, she was overwhelmed by a rush of feeling for Joe. She thought of another sentence from his letter:
"I love you so that it must make atonement to you for everything."
When Mrs. Thorne was asleep Evelyn went into the bathroom with pad and pencil and wrote to him.
"Joe, I'm terrified! This separation terrifies me! I don't want a beautiful dream, or to be made finer and stronger through patient waiting, or anything like that; I want to be yours now. I'm sick with fright at time and distance. Oh, Joe, my darling, take me and keep me, before it's too late."
Her letter was carried across the sea to the Westlake post office. In Mr. James Perkins' mail bag it went to 29 Chestnut Street, where Kate was dusting the hall.
"Good morning, Mrs. Green. Looks like summer's really over, don't it?"
The first snow fell on the dry ground and dead leaves with a hissing sound, a tiny rattling. The summer that had been so happy, after all, was gone. She had dreaded it, and it had been the most beautiful one she had ever known. She thought of times with Joe—always with Joe. The day he took her to Small's to buy a hat, and had been so funny that Miss Minnie had had a stitch in her side from laughing. The hot day when everything went wrong, and she tipped over the blackberry jam and scalded her hand, and then Joe came home and took her to Tetwillow's Pond, with a picnic supper. Bells sounded faintly from the distant church; lily pads lay flat and cool on water stained pink by sunset; shadowy fish swam near the shore, silent as thoughts. The day they had been out driving in the Ford, and she had cried: "Joe! What is all that yellow?" and they had seen the multitudes of butterflies, their wings folded, blown sideways by the wind as they clung to the edges of the ruts in the road, then rising in a quivering cloud of clear color that brought tears of pure happiness to her eyes.
With a start she shut the door. Crazy! Standing there in the snow! Her smile faded; she looked at the letter in her hand, wrinkling up her nose. How could Joe recover if that girl kept on writing all the time? What on earth did they find to write so much about? "Venezia." What an affected postmark! Why not just say "Venice," simply and naturally? She propped it up against the hall lamp and went on dusting, but she had to keep turning her head to look at it, and once she childishly put out the tip of her tongue.
They had finished supper and Joe was in his room when Mr. Porter telephoned him. Kate shouted up the stairs.
"Joe-ho! Telephone!"
"I've got to go over to Mr. Porter's right away," he told her, shrugging into his overcoat. "He's going to New York on the night train, and he wants to tell me some things before he goes. 'By!"
"Good-by, darling. Be careful not to skid!" Kate called to the slamming door, and went upstairs for her darning basket.
Of course the careless boy had left his light on. She went in to turn it off, and saw lying on the desk under it Evelyn's letter, and the answer Joe had begun in his clear black writing.
Shuddering, ice-cold, sick with shame, she lay face down on her bed. Why had she done it? Why had she done it? The words leaped at her again.
"I'm trying with all my might to earn enough for us and for mother too. I know you understand about her, and I bless you for it, my darling. Somehow we must be together. I can't bear the torture of another summer like this empty one that was meant for you"
She rolled over, pushing her hair up from her forehead with shaking hands. She who had always been so honest, she who had always felt such scorn for poking and prying
Oh, the comfort if she could ask him to forgive her as he had once confessed and asked to be forgiven when he was little.
"I'm trying—to earn enough for us and for mother too. I know you understand about her"
Oh, Joe, how could you, how could you, to a stranger?
"—the torture of another summer like this empty one"
The summer that had been bliss to her and torture to her child.
Well, summer is over. The leaves of the trees are brighter than ever before—but bright with vermilion and yellow; they fall
She heard the doorbell ringing. Joe had forgotten his key again. She ran into the bathroom and washed her eyes with cold water, tipped some of his talcum powder into her hand and dipped in her nose, turning it into a mulberry. Then down to the door. And there was J. Hartley Harrison. She simply couldn't say anything, but Hartley could.
"Good evening, Mrs. Green! How's the lady? May I come in for a little visit with you? . . . Thanks. I don't want to get snow on that very pretty chintz of yours. Funny, Aunt Martha Ellsworth, dad's sister, you know, over at Green Falls, has exactly the same pattern for her living-room curtains. Perhaps that's why this place always feels so homey to me, if any reason is needed beside your gracious welcome, Lady Green! But what I was going to ask was if I might trouble you for a whisk. . . . Thanks! I think I'll just take my rubbers off; then we can visit more comfortably. I'm combining business and pleasure to-night, Mrs. Green; I'm here to tell you a little about the new gymnasium equipment we're after for the Y"
"Well, I'm afraid"
"No obligations, Mrs. Green, no obligations. I just want to tell you about it. Come close to the fire, Mrs. Green; have the easy-chair. Comfy? What a dear photograph of Charlotte's kiddies! Very sweet indeed. I suppose Joe will be leaving the ranks of us gay bachelors soon?"
"Yes."
He could see that she had been crying, but he was tremendously tactful. Saying "Pardon me," he folded his nose in his nice monogrammed handkerchief, gift of Aunt Martha, and pretended to blow.
"I see we're fellow victims, Mrs. Green—these head colds! The motherkin has a mean one. Well, about that gym equipment"
I must give up Joe, utterly, utterly. I must be glad to let him go; I must care more for him than for myself. I must help my child.
"Of course one has to adopt different methods in presenting the case. Now suppose I was tackling another fellow. We'd just have it out, man to man. 'Smith, old fellow'—of course Smith is just a fictitious name—'Smith, old fellow, how about coming across for the Y?' 'Surest thing you know, Harrison!' 'Put it there, Smith!' But that wouldn't go with the ladies—I should say not! I find the only way of telling the ladies about it is to let them tell me! You'll pardon my having a little joke at the expense of the fair sex, Mrs. Green? You know it's hats off to every one of them with me, God bless them, but the way they love to talk just tickles my sense of humor. I always have to chuckle at that delicious story of the man who hadn't spoken to his wife in ten years because he said he didn't want to interrupt her!"
"I"
"So I just let the ladies do the talking. Let! That's rich! I guess there's not much let about it! Well, as I was saying"
I must help my child. But how? And will it be helping him, really? She's not the girl for him. He'll get over it if he only has time
"Miss Pyne tells us she and Mrs. Whipple are looking for a nice boarding place. The little mother was thinking of suggesting Cousin Gerty and Cousin Will White's; they'd be just the ones to make them fit right in and feel like home folks. Mrs. Whipple's wonderful for her age, isn't she? Ninety-four, I understand. A dear little old lady"
I must love Joe enough to let him go.
She sat by her window all night, looking out at the falling snow, not seeing it. Hartley Harrison had told her what she must do, though he would never know. She opened her hands and let Joe go; she tore the hope of his return utterly out of her heart. Dawn showed her gray and old, wrapped in her rosy eiderdown. The tears that had swollen her eyes had been dry for hours. She sat there with no thought, just broken feeling, until the gate clicked behind Effa and Joe's bath water roared in the tub.
"Joe, do you think there's any chance of your getting married soon?" she asked him that night. "You see, I really am lonely, here by myself all day, and I was thinking I might take Aunt Sarah and Carrie in if I had the studio. They're going to give up housekeeping, anyway, and they're crazy to come here, and I'd love to have them; it would be such company for me. And then what they paid would help out so that you could keep your millions for starting in yourself, you and Evelyn. I don't want to hurry you, only it will have to be settled pretty soon, because they have an offer for the house."
He looked so happy he made her want to cry. Even his spectacles shone.