The Last Adam (11 page)

Of the cruelties of illness, chief might be the change in disposition, from which Joe, once perpetually smiling, good-humouredly easy-going, had suffered. He was the same person, and yet he wasn't. Of the many cruelties of death, there was one like that. Mamie, living, had been regarded as pretty. Living, she had a youthfulness, or mere animation, which screened her resemblance to her mother. May had never noticed it; and she stood, disturbed, for Mamie, dead, was a little Mrs. Talbot. Her nose looked slight as a knife. The bony structure of her face showing through was patterned exactly on Mrs. Talbot's.

Regarding this phenomenon of a face which was both Mamie, sick and thin, and someone else inextricably mingled with her, May continued to stand, her hands' lax, overpowered by discouragement. She had wished, somehow, to arrange it so that curious people would see Mamie serenely asleep, not contorted and ravaged. This way no one could miss the subtle record of her last struggles, so terrible as they grew more surely vain, to get air; although unconscious in her stupor, to keep from drowning in her own clogged lungs. Any superficial arrangement would be futile. Whatever was done, Howard Upjohn would have to do; and immediately May could guess details of that grim fantastic art— the work with rouge, the dressing of dead hair—which simulated peace or dignity in a corpse.

When May finally moved, it was to draw back the twisted covers. The flannel nightgown had worked up to wrinkle about Mamie's Waist. It was possible to see, shockingly, the shape of hip-bones through the wasted flesh; the thighs were shrunk almost to bony pipes; there were no calves left to the legs. Drawing down the nightgown, May wondered if it would be possible to dress Mamie. Turning her over, hideous, wasted, hardly covered, to Howard Upjohn seemed terrible; but she could not see how it was to be helped. She pulled the sheet across Mamie's face, making it lie as straight and smooth as she could, turned out the light.

Mrs. Talbot was still snoring in the front bedroom. There was nothing left to do but wrap herself in the blanket which she had brought over with her and lie down on the broken springs of the couch. May, too, slept. At seven Harry Weems ran over through the rain and woke her up.

Joe said: "Hell! Look at it rain! I bet Louie won't come over."

"He will," promised May. She went to the window, looking out to see if anyone were approaching Mrs. Talbot's house. "I'll go and tell him he's got to."

"I'll tell him," said Harry. "I want to go over anyway. Thanks for breakfast. So long, Joe. Be seeing you."

May followed him out through the kitchen to the back door. "Make Louie promise," she said. "And thanks an awful lot, Harry."

"I guess you know I'll do anything I can, May. Listen, Someone ought to telephone Doc Bull about coming down. They'll have to have a death certificate for Mamie. Want me to do it?"

"Will you? And you won't forget about Louie?"

Louie came from his barber shop over by the station on Tuesdays and Saturdays to shave Joe. He had started by doing it free. After a month or so, he became, like everyone except Harry, less enthusiastic. May said she thought that he ought to be paid. He hadn't objected, except to remark that a quarter would be enough for both times.

On the whole, it was better to have it arranged that way. In a life like Joe's, Louie's coming to shave him was an event of the first importance. May felt freer about seeing that Louie did come, when it wasn't just a favour. Joe would be feeling depressed enough on a miserable day like this without having to forgo Louie. She said, "Joe, I'll have to go back to get Mrs. Talbot some coffee. You don't mind, do you?"

Joe said: "Sure I mind. But it don't do me any good." He was still surly, oppressed by the weather and the chance that Louie might not come. "Why can't you let someone else do something? I don't see that it's any of your business. Why don't you let her alone?"

"I'll come back as soon as I can, Joe. I just want to wait until Doc Bull gets down and they decide what they're going to do."

"What they ought to do, is put her in the nut house over at Middletown," Joe said. "She gets crazier all the time—"

"I meant, about Mamie," May said. "Joe, do you want your bottle again before I go?"

"My God, no!" he exploded. "What do you think I am? The town reservoir?" To give mere curiosity pause was this ceaseless fall of rain, this dreary, abominable day. To interfere with mere sympathy was Mrs. Talbot herself. Mrs. Talbot had been in miserable want too long. Her "poverty approximated a disease; it might be catching. Living on what was called the back street, near the railroad, behind the houses fronting the east of the green, Mrs. Talbot's immediate neighbours were all poor. They struggled to maintain a pinched and difficult self-respect. By keeping their bills small, they managed to pay them, and so to make their poverty their own business. This was the only luxury possible to them; prizing it, they did not practise the sympathetic fellowship of those poor beyond hope in the squalor of big cities. Because it was well known that Mrs. Talbot would borrow, but could never lend herself, or even return, they must exclude her. They could even exclude her with bitterness. Themselves unable to afford that small wastage of borrowed cups of flour or sugar, they could be indignant that Mrs. Talbot should dare to need them when, had she chosen to go without a telephone, used for no practical purpose at all beyond interminable whining conversations with her brother's widow who did housework for the Herrings at Banning's Bridge, she might be that, at least, ahead.

Nobody knew how much money she had been allowed to owe Bates. The clerks would not let her have anything more, but, by appealing to Mr. Bates, she could and did add to the debt. Mr. Bates, cornered, assented at once, trying sadly to stop her explanations; blinking at her as though he hoped that she might change into somebody else and spare him, not the small loss of goods, but the great ordeal of doing what he was a fool to do. His daughter, Geraldine, coming out of the post office, or any one of his clerks, would promptly start what Mr. Bates meekly called giving him hell; but he had never refused anyone credit to buy food. All of Mrs. Talbot's neighbours at some time or another found it necessary to owe Mr. Bates money. Laboriously they paid it to the last penny. It was hard to see Mrs. Talbot never paying, or ever likely to.

Mrs. Andrews, peering from a curtained window perhaps a hundred feet away beyond a fragment of picket fence, could not take the risk of visiting Mrs. Talbot. Others, farther along the street, but well aware of what was going on, felt the same. Mrs. Talbot, asked if there were anything they could do, would certainly say yes. She would need things which they could not afford to give. Like Mrs. Andrews, peeping restlessly, they were all ill at ease, distressed by their own unkind prudence. The only solace was that May Tupping appeared to be able, or at least willing, to bear the brunt, to act for all in the rôle of neighbour. May, they could reflect, got a regular salary from the telephone company. Thus, people who came to Mrs. Talbot would not be the ones nearest at hand.

The first one who did come was Mrs. Jackson. May, looking anxiously out of the front window for Doctor Bull's car, saw Mrs. Jackson at the back door of the plain, but very near, brightly red-painted little building which was the New Winton branch of Gosselin Brothers. Mrs. Jackson had a basket covered with newspaper on her arm. In clean white apron and coat, a cap bearing Gosselin's entwined scarlet monogram tilted on his head, her husband, who was the manager, stood in out of the rain, putting up her umbrella for her. By chance seeing this, May could not imagine where Mrs. Jackson was going, as she trudged straight across the back. Mrs. Jackson had gained the road, gone over it carefully through the puddles and softening mud, and May still didn't guess.

The Jacksons weren't New Winton people. Gosselin Brothers simply waved a hand, and up sprang the scarlet store, windows covered with brightly printed strips—
Prunes. Average
55
to lb.
3
lbs.
19c.;
Fancy Salt Pork lb.
15c. It was swept and spotless, backed by elaborate refrigerators, blazing with electric light, walled solidly with the profusion of brightly packed goods put down once or twice a week by Gosselin ten-ton trucks. Every item was three or seven or thirteen cents cheaper than the same thing at Bates' or Upjohn's. Mr. Jackson, with his apron, coat and cap fresh every morning, seemed as much part of the fixtures as the refrigerators. What was regarded as the unfairness of Gosselin's competition caused the Jacksons to be let alone socially, as though the people who could not resist trading there wished to pretend that they didn't. The last person in New Winton who might be expected to come was Mrs. Jackson. May, astounded, saw her walk deliberately up the ill-kept cinder path.

Turning, May called: "Mrs. Talbot, Mrs. Jackson is-coming in."

News so surprising should certainly draw a response, and getting none, May went to the door of the bedroom. Opening her mouth to repeat, she stopped, shocked. "Why, Mrs. Talbot, what's the matter?"

There was really no need to ask. May could see that Mrs. Talbot must have decided to let go again. Sitting on the bed, she had brought her feet up,, clasped her hands about her knees and laid her forehead against them. The posture, so suggestive of a terrible despair, and so absurd, almost jaunty in its youthful flexibility, irritated May nearly as much as it disturbed her. She went and took Mrs. Talbot by the shoulder. "If you don't feel well, you just lie down," she said, "but you can't sit there like that. Mrs. Jackson's coming up the path now."

Thus urged, half forced, by May's impatient hand, Mrs. Talbot moved, turning and putting her feet on the floor. "Seems like I can't get any peace," she said with unexpected harshness. "What's that woman want?"

Mrs. Jackson had reached the door and knocked on it. Mrs. Talbot, starting, seemed to weaken. "I don't believe I want to see her, May. I-—"

"She won't stay long, Mrs. Talbot. I think she's bringing you some things."

"No, none of them stay. They all get out as quick as they can. I don't have anybody who cares —"

"Now, Mrs. Talbot, that's not true —"

Since nothing could have been truer, May saved herself by rushing out to the door. "Come in, Mrs. Jackson. There, let me take your umbrella."

Mrs. Jackson seemed to be in an anguish of embarrassment. "Oh, how do you do, Mrs. Tupping!" she faltered. "My, isn't it a mean day! I just want to tell Mrs. Talbot how awfully sorry Malcolm and I are about her bereavement. I just know how awfully she feels. I just thought I might bring her something. I mean, I know how it is and I thought some things that wouldn't need cooking—"

Agitated, she pulled off the wet newspapers covering the basket. May could see a ham, and at least a dozen cans of various sorts and sizes. Mr. Jackson could get them at cost, of course, but even so that basketful came to money. May found herself almost as embarrassed as Mrs. Jackson. "Oh, that's kind of you —" she said.

"Well, I just thought—my sister-in-law had a little girl die when we lived in Bayonne, New Jersey. At such a time, it just doesn't seem as if you could do anything, and —"

Mrs. Jackson was still floundering, dismayed by the difficulties which she had nervously foreseen. She couldn't quite manage the assured, sympathetic patronage of her less fortunate neighbours. Mrs. Tupping, who was actually nothing but a thin blonde girl, came in her civil reserve closer to patronizing Mrs. Jackson. Mrs. Talbot herself hadn't even bothered to put in an appearance. They did not know what to do with Mrs. Jackson, formerly of Bayonne, New Jersey, even when she brought gifts.

Mrs. Jackson, hazily in her own mind envisioning the opportunity of saying to Mrs. Vogel, or Mrs. Ely, or both, that she had just felt that she ought to do something for that poor Mrs. Talbot over the back street, saw that it would not mean what she thought. Mrs. Tupping and poor Mrs. Talbot would have known what to do with the Vogels or Elys. They went just a shade under Bates, Ordway, Quimby, Harris, Weems, Upjohn; a shade over Talbot, Tupping, Clark, Webster, Foster, Andrews. Since no one, by his behaviour, gave the faintest sign of considering himself inferior to anyone else, these were subtleties you had to recognize by long acquaintance. Mrs. Jackson was not being recognized as anything; no one had taken her in and so given her a level and a place which everyone else could understand. The Vogels, the Elys, and Mrs. Fell whose husband owned the meat market were the ones she seemed to be thrown with, but they did not treat her as though the things that interested them could be expected to interest her. They did not ask about her or tell her about themselves. Thus she was greatly confused when she had learned for the first time (months after she had been acting as neighbourly as she could) that the Vogels weren't German, in the sense of being born in Europe, the way everyone with a foreign-sounding name was in Bayonne. They had been right there for a hundred and fifty years, descendants of the foremen of the old furnace. You had to live here all your life to know, with that perfect assurance, all these things about everybody. There was not one woman in town who called Mrs. Jackson by her Christian name, or offered to share anything but the most superficial and impersonal gossip with her.

May, seeing Mrs. Jackson's disappointment, though not clearly over what, decided that she wanted appreciation of her generosity. "Mrs. Talbot," she called, "I want to show you the lovely things Mrs. Jackson brought."

Mrs. Talbot groaned, for the first time audible. "Yes, May, I'm coming. She put in her bedraggled appearance, holding the door jamb. "I'm sure it's very kind of you, Mrs. Jackson. I thank you very much."

Mrs. Jackson gathered herself together. "I don't want to intrude at a time like this," she said. "I just wanted to tell you how awfully sorry Malcolm and I —"

"Yes, that's very nice of you," said Mrs. Talbot without conviction.

"I think you'd better lie down again, Mrs. Talbot," suggested May, blushing at the listlessness of the acknowledgment. The sound of a motor coming to a halt outside reached her and she said: "I believe that's Doctor Bull now. You lie down, Mrs. Talbot, and before he goes we'll have him look at you —"