The Angry Wife (24 page)

“That’s Lettice, she was the baby when we left—and we have small Tom—that’s all.”

“Why don’t you sit down?” Pierce asked.

“Because I am going to fetch you a cool drink,” Bettina replied. She went away and he sat on, motionless. Their talk had been nothing but commonplace and yet that was extraordinary. He had talked to her as casually as though she were his real sister-in-law—as casually but not as intimately. He felt dazed and shaken. The world was completely upset. Here was where his own brother lived! But the house was a home. The garden was pretty and well kept and the walls were lined with flower beds. This room was clean and pleasant—a man’s room, full of books. Through the open windows a scent drifted in which he could not recognize. He lay back in Tom’s chair and closed his eyes and smelled the scent, a clean spiced odor. No one knew where he was. He could rest here. Tom’s world—not his world—but so quiet and clean—

He must have dropped asleep. When he came back to himself Bettina was standing there again, looking at him with pitying soft eyes. She held a silver tray and on it a slender glass, frosted cold. She set the tray upon the table beside him.

“Indeed you are tired,” she said in her rich voice. “When you have drunk this let me take you upstairs to Tom’s room. You can stretch yourself on his bed and sleep.”

“Don’t tell Sally I’m here,” he begged. “I’m too tired.”

“I won’t tell her,” she promised.

“What’s that sweet smell?” he asked.

“White clematis,” she replied.

He drank the cool sharp drink thirstily in a few gulps and rose to his feet and followed her upstairs. Tom’s room—then he did not share a room with Bettina. Yes, he could recognize Tom’s room. It was a big room, with little furniture but that little solid and good. The windows were open, but the shutters were drawn, and the late afternoon breeze fluttered the white curtains. Bettina drew back the covers of the bed and he saw smooth white linen sheets. He wanted to sleep and sleep.

“Tom has a bathroom right there,” she pointed to a door. “He has rigged himself up a shower bath, he calls it. It’s really wonderful. It will refresh you. Sleep and don’t wake until you wake yourself. No one will call you.”

She went away, and he stood looking about the dim, cool room. It had every small comfort that could be devised. Cold water stood in a pitcher by Tom’s bed, books on the table, a bed lamp, a fire place for winter, a soft woven rag rug under his feet, a handwoven coverlet on the bed of delft blue and white. Bettina’s work everywhere! He opened the door of the bathroom, and saw Tom’s shower bath. He had heard of such things but had never seen one. He undressed, stood under something that looked like a flower sprinkler, pulled a chain and felt a rain of cool water descend upon him from a hidden tank above his head. He wiped himself dry with a handwoven towel, and opened drawers in Tom’s bureaus until he found a nightshirt. Everything was in order, the clothes smelled clean and fresh with green lavender. He dropped upon the bed and was instantly asleep.

Some time in the night he awoke. The chime of a clock in the house was still ringing in his ears. He could not tell the hour because he did not know how many times it had struck before he woke. But the moonlight was lying across the floor in stripes of gold. He sat up and listened. The house was still. Everyone was asleep. No, he heard voices, muted, floating upward from under his window, Tom’s voice, then Bettina’s. He got up and put on his shirt and trousers and opened his door. A hanging oil lamp lit the stairs and he went down, guided by the voices, to the end of the downstairs hall. He opened a door and there on a narrow brick terrace facing the garden, he saw Tom.

He was shocked to see the moonlight silver upon Tom’s head. Tom greyhaired already, ahead of him!

“Tom!” he called softly, and Tom turned his head. His face was the same, thinner, but kind and severe together.

“Pierce!”

The two men ran into each other’s arms without shame.

“How good of you to come!” Tom murmured.

“Nonsense!” Pierce said. He looked at. Tom with wet eyes. “I don’t know why I didn’t come before.”

“Sit down, Pierce. He’s hungry, Bettina,” Tom declared.

“Maybe I am,” Pierce admitted.

“I have your supper waiting,” Bettina said.

They went into the house, into the dining room, and at the table two places were laid.

“You two sit down, please,” Bettina said. “Tom, you have a bite, too?”

“Only a little of your cold chicken broth, my dear,” Tom said.

Bettina went away, and the two brothers looked at each other by the light of the candles Bettina had placed on the table.

“I want to ask you a thousand things,” Pierce said abruptly.

“I want to answer them all,” Tom said steadily.

“I don’t know how long I can stay,” Pierce went on. “The railroad is in a mess.”

“But now you will come back again and again,” Tom replied.

Pierce smiled and Bettina came in with food. It was delicious food and he was ravenous. While they ate Bettina came and went silently. He did not know where to begin with Tom. He wanted to tell him everything at once and he wanted to hear everything at once, and yet he did not know where to begin. And Tom sat in his easy quiet, without haste, in a relaxed peace. When Bettina had brought the iced lemon custard he looked up at her.

“Sit down now, Bettina,” he said.

She sat down naturally at the end of the table, and Pierce could not but see her beauty. She had kept her slender figure. Tonight she wore a gown of soft green stuff—muslin, perhaps, or silk—he did not know stuffs. But it was not rustling or stiff. White lace lay on her shoulders and in a knot on her bosom. Her dark hair sparkled with a few threads of silver, and she had put a white jasmine in the big coil at her nape. The old fire and anger of her youth had gone from her dark eyes. They were full of peace, tinged with sadness. Bettina, Tom’s wife—if ever he saw a woman who looked a wife it was she. He was surprised at his acceptance of her.

“We had a very interesting afternoon,” Tom was saying, half lightly. “Sally’s mind is keen. She wants to see everything—know everything. That’s remarkable, Pierce.”

“Has she been here?” Pierce asked.

“Every day,” Tom said.,

They hesitated. Then Pierce asked bluntly, “How does she take it, Tom?”

“Without a sign,” Tom answered. He drank his tumbler of water and Bettina filled it again. “I’ve wanted to ask you something,” Tom went on.

Pierce had finished his custard. “Why not?” he replied. He was beginning to feel wonderfully comfortable, rested and fed.

“Your son John writes to me, Pierce,” Tom went on. “He wants to come and visit us. I said he had to ask you. He says that you wouldn’t understand.”

Pierce grinned. “I don’t know why children always think their parents are nitwits.”

“He’s afraid of his mother,” Tom said.

“Then he is the nitwit,” Pierce said robustly. “Of course, Lucinda would object. But what of it?”

“Then shall I tell him—”

“You tell him to give me a chance,” Pierce said, pushing back his chair.

They went back to the moonlit terrace. Bettina poured their coffee and then rose. “I think I shall retire, Tom, if you don’t mind.” She put out her hand and he took it and kissed it. He looked at her searchingly. “Only if you’re tired,” he said. “I’d rather you stayed with us.”

“There’s tomorrow,” she said gently and went away.

In the silent garden, the moonlight outlining, the shrubs in shadows and silvering the flowers, the two men sat on, smoking. The silence continued. But it was not heavy upon them now nor uneasy. It was peace, deep peace.

“This seems another world,” Pierce said abruptly.

“It’s our world,” Tom said. “Mine, Bettina’s, our children’s.”

“Are you lonely, Tom?”

“No, Pierce. I have everything.”

“If Bettina should die—”

“I would live on here.”

Pierce stirred in his chair. “But, Tom,” he protested. “It’s damned selfish, isn’t it? You ought to be helping to clear up the mess we’ve got ourselves into—these strikes—the communism—the whole country’s threatened.”

“No,” Tom said gently. “I don’t have to help in those things. They’re all parts of the struggle. I’ve made my struggle—so has Bettina. We’ve won through.”

“To what?” Pierce asked.

“To our own peace,” Tom answered in tranquillity.

The dreamlike calm of his spirit persisted. He woke the next morning and Tom’s room was familiar to him and yet strange, as though he had waked in his own room but in a strange house. He lay on the pillows, not caring what the hour. The house was full of small pleasant sounds. Children’s voices came up from the garden and he heard quiet footsteps pass his door. Then a clear but muted voice rose through the silence. He listened and heard not a hymn nor a spiritual but an old English lullaby which his own mother used to sing to him and to Tom. It must be one of Tom’s children and it must be Georgy. He knew Georgia’s voice and it was not hers. Hers was deep and tender but this voice was high and clear, a bright rich soprano. It broke off suddenly as though someone had hushed it and he knew it had been stopped for him. He got up, lazily conscience-smitten, and curious, too, to see Tom’s children.

When he went downstairs Tom heard his footsteps and came to the door of the study. By the light of the morning Tom looked calm and poised, his fair skin ruddy and his blue eyes clear. He was as slender as ever, his shoulders as straight. The youngest child whom Pierce had seen only in the garden came toddling through a door and Tom picked him up and held him. He saw the love in Tom’s eyes and felt his own heart shaken.

“This fellow I haven’t seen,” he said, trying to speak lightly. He took the child’s fat brown hand.

“Small Tom, this is your uncle,” Tom said. The boy did not speak, but he gazed at Pierce with large eyes full of serene interest.

“Can’t you say good morning?” Tom inquired of his son.

Small Tom shook his head and the men laughed to ease their emotion.

“Come and have your breakfast,” Tom said. He put the child down and they walked together to the dining room. Georgy was there, arranging a silver bowl of roses. She looked up gravely. Pierce realized that yesterday the children had been kept from him, but today he would see them as they were in this house.

“My daughter,” Tom said formally. “Georgy, this is your uncle.”

Georgy put out a narrow smooth hand, and Pierce, somewhat to his own astonishment, took it.

“How do you do,” he said.

“Mother asks, how will you have your eggs?” she inquired, in a soft clear voice.

“Scrambled, please,” Pierce said. Tom’s daughter was an exceedingly pretty girl and he smiled at her as he sat down. “Did I hear you singing?” he demanded,

She flushed. “I forgot,” she said. “Mother had told me to be quiet.”

“It was a pleasant way to wake,” Pierce said. He began to eat the sliced oranges in front of him.

“Bring the coffee, my dear,” Tom said gently. He who knew Pierce so well could feel the trembling of foundations within his brother. Pierce was behaving wonderfully, out of the natural goodness of his nature, but change must not come too fast.

“You had your breakfast?” Pierce shot up his dark eyebrows.

“We have our family breakfast early,” Tom replied. “Leslie has to go to work at seven, and the children like to play in the garden in the cool of the morning.”

“I haven’t seen Leslie—this time,” Pierce said.

“He’ll be home for lunch,” Tom replied.

The door opened and his second daughter stood there, a plate of toast in her hand.

“Come in, Lettice, while the toast’s hot,” he said.

She came tiptoeing in, trying to take great care, her fringed eyes wide, and her tongue between her lips.

Pierce could not keep back his smile for children. “That’s wonderful toast,” he said heartily. “I want a piece right now.”

Something in her shy and dewy look made him think of Georgia. She had Georgia’s softness of contour. He watched her while she tiptoed away again, not speaking a word.

“Handsome children, Tom,” he said.

“I think so,” Tom agreed.

Both brothers knew that the dam they were building with their scanty commonplace words must break. They must open their hearts to each other. Pierce must know Tom’s life, and he must tell Tom everything. They were too close, strangely closer than ever after these years of separation.

“Sally here?” Pierce muttered.

Tom shook his head. “Not yet this morning.”

“Hold her off, will you?” Pierce did not look at him. “I have to get things straight myself, Tom.”

“I know,” Tom said gently. His voice, always deep, had taken on a still deeper quality. The harshness of youth had disappeared from it. No, there was something else. Pierce recognized it. Tom had so long heard Bettina’s voice and the soft voices of her people that his own voice had grown slow and deep.

“Georgia knew you and I would have to talk,” Tom went on. “She is taking Sally to shop this morning.”

“She’s staying with Sally at the hotel, isn’t she?” Pierce asked.

“Of course,” Tom replied. He hesitated and then went on resolutely. “Pierce, Georgia wants to leave Malvern. We’ve always told her we had a room for her when she wanted to come. Now she does.”

To save himself Pierce could not answer naturally. “I don’t know what Lucinda will say,” he murmured. He took a fourth slice of toast which he did not want.

“Georgia is afraid of that,” Tom said. “But I told her I knew you would wish her to do as she likes.”

“Did she tell you to talk to me?” Pierce inquired.

“No, as a matter of fact she asked me not to,” Tom replied frankly. “I do it on my own responsibility. Let her stay, Pierce. She’s never been a servant.”

“I know that,” Pierce said. The toast grew dry in his mouth and he swallowed coffee to wash it down. Then he touched his lips with his napkin and got up.

“Let’s get away together, Tom,” he said. “Somehow my heart feels ready to break over you.”

“You must not feel so,” Tom said quickly. “I am happy, Pierce. You’ll see—”

They went out in silence to the study and Tom closed the door and turned the key.