“Not yet,” said Edward, noticing him for the first time. He did not know why he rarely, in these past years, ever looked directly at his father or why he never talked with him alone, or easily, in the presence of others.
“I’ve got something to tell all of you,” he went on, for Heinrich’s eyes, so childlike, so mournful, so seeking, unnerved him. He was dimly aware that his father wanted something, and was even more dimly aware that the giving could only come from him. But what it was his father begged, and what he himself could give, he never knew.
“I’m going to be married soon,” he said, shortly.
“Married?” said Maria, putting down her knitting again. “Is this not sudden, Edward?” Now even Sylvia and Heinrich sat erect, in astonishment.
“No,” said Edward. “I’ve known the girl since I was fourteen.” He spoke carefully and slowly and avoided looking at them. “She was about ten then. Pa, you knew her, too.”
Heinrich, overjoyed that his son had spoken to him and had seen him at last, exclaimed: “I? It is I of whom you are speaking, my Eddie?”
“Yes.” Edward snuffed out his cigarette. This was going to be very bad, but it had to be faced. “She came into the old delicatessen when she was a little girl. It was a Sunday night. She was hungry. The—the people she lived with didn’t believe in feeding children too much. And you—we—fed her. You gave her a lollipop, and some ice cream, too.”
“Oh, the poor little one,” said Heinrich, and his eyes filled with easy tears. “But I fed many of the poor children, and it is hard to remember.”
“She left Waterford with her—parents,” said Edward. “And I didn’t see her again until some time ago. I recognized her, and she recognized me.”
“And you both fell in love!” said Sylvia, scornful and sure again. “How romantic. Naturally, she didn’t mind recognizing you again, since you’re a rich man! What is she doing now? Working in a shop, perhaps? Or somebody’s kitchen?” It was like her brother to be attracted to the coarse and the vulgar and the cheap! “And we’re supposed to receive some pauper or shopgirl and make her welcome! Don’t rely on me, Ed, to be the loving sister-in-law. After all, I have my standards.”
“Which I made it possible for you to have,” said Edward in a deadly voice.
“It does not matter what the young lady does to earn a living that is honest,” said Maria, the aristocrat. But Heinrich cried out feebly, “My Eddie, one must think, one must ponder. We have few friends, but their opinion must be considered. One must think of the Bullocks and the Fosters and the Freudhoffs—One must think of the position of the family, and the brothers and the sister.”
“But this is democracy,” said Sylvia with sober derision.
“What is the young lady’s name?” asked Maria, ignoring her daughter.
“I don’t know, and neither does she,” said Edward, and now he was coldly beginning to enjoy himself. “She was an orphan in the asylum here.”
“An orphan?” Sylvia gasped. “She doesn’t know who she is? Why she might even be—be—” She paused, and her pallor was relieved by a flush.
“Illegitimate?” said Edward, with fine carelessness. “Perhaps. Probably. She was left in the orphanage when she was a baby.”
“Oh, you can’t, you can’t!” Sylvia cried, in real and horrified despair. “Not a woman without a background or family or money or anything! You can’t do this to us!”
“I’m going to do it,” said Edward. (It wasn’t going to be so bad after all. In fact, it was going to be pleasant.)
“Tell us,” said Maria, not disturbed at all. She did not look at her daughter, who had begun to cry.
“I told you. We recognized each other. And I asked her to marry me about two hours later. I never forgot her. The people who adopted her had taken her to a farm near Albany. She didn’t return to Waterford until this year, when she came to dispose of some property her adopted parents had left her.”
“Property?” repeated Heinrich, with some hope.
“Property.” Edward nodded. “You see, her parents became almost rich when they sold off parts of their farm to real-estate men for new houses. She inherited their money when they died.”
Heinrich beamed. Maria gave her whole attention to her son, and even Sylvia abruptly stopped crying. “Ah, it is property,” murmured Heinrich. “It is not so bad, with property.”
“What is her adopted name?” asked Maria, quietly.
“Pa’s heard it; he heard it years ago. He knew the people.” Edward paused. “Her name is Margaret Baumer.”
Maria’s hands stopped knitting; Sylvia’s mouth opened soundlessly; Heinrich stared at his son and blinked. The dinner gong rang through the house but no one heard it.
“Baumer?” said Heinrich, faintly. “That Baumer. I have heard it before. Yes, yes, I have heard it before, and not in the long ago.”
Maria’s large, pouched face became rigid and stiff. “Baumer,” she said slowly. “I have heard it in this house. Margaret Baumer.”
Then her pale blue eyes shone with a hard light. “Yes. I have heard it. I have written it down.”
Her hands closed tightly over her knitting, and she drew a deep breath and bent her head.
It was then that Sylvia jumped to her feet with a muffled cry. Her black hair, though neatly braided in her Tudor style, gave the impression of dishevelment. She pointed a trembling hand at Edward.
“Margaret Baumer! But she was the girl Dave was going to marry! He told us so, when Ma invited her—Margaret Baumer! Oh, God, it can’t be the same woman, it can’t, it can’t!”
She was overwhelmed with agony. She thought of David, whom she loved. She wrung her hands together. Now her agony centered on herself. So she had suffered when the man she wanted had suddenly married another woman, a stranger. She could not endure her pain. She pressed her hands against her small breasts. Edward had been responsible for that marriage, she knew! Edward had done that awful thing to her! David’s pain was her pain; she even forgot her brother. She was freshly wounded, freshly mortally injured. She cried out again, and bent over, as if struck in the heart.
“Why all the damned dramatics?” said Edward, in a loud voice, but he had colored. “Yes, she’s the girl Dave thought he was going to marry. But she didn’t want him; she never gave him any encouragement. She was only a friend of his, as far as she was concerned. If he had any stupid ideas, they weren’t hers.”
Sylvia groped for her chair, fell into it, and covered her face with her hands. She sobbed raggedly, her thin shoulders heaving, her grief unutterable.
“Don’t be a goddamn fool,” said Edward. “What’s it to you?” But he knew, and the pang of pleasure the knowledge gave him was involuntary. He was immediately ashamed, in spite of his detestation for his sister.
Maria gazed at her daughter and understood suddenly. Sylvia was weeping for herself, not for David. How had she, Maria, forgotten the dark stars in Sylvia’s eyes when she had looked at Padraig Devoe, and the trembling voice, and the sweetness of her face? But she had forgotten, and had not remembered until now. Maria paled. So this was the explanation of Sylvia’s illness and the long weeks of her invalidism. Maria stretched out her hand and took one of Sylvia’s gaunt wrists in her fingers, in an unusual gesture of maternal gentleness. “Hush,” she said softly. “Hush, my daughter. Let us be calm.”
Heinrich was gaping at his son. “It is the girl David loved?” he stammered. “The girl who was invited to this house and who did not come? My Eddie, this is not possible.”
“I suppose you think I should be miserable, or feel guilty, or something,” said Edward. “But I’m not. These things happen. I’m sorry for Dave, but he’s probably forgotten Margaret by now. She told him about us.”
“And that is why he suddenly went to Europe,” said Maria, and looked at her son straightly.
“Ma, be reasonable,” said Edward. “It isn’t my fault and it isn’t Margaret’s. Do you think I like it this way?”
Maria co
ntinued to gaze at him. Then she shook her head. “I do not know, I do not know,” she said slowly. “I do not think you planned it; no, Edward, I do not think so. But I also do not think you regret it.”
“It doesn’t make me happy!” said Edward, angrily. And believed it.
Sylvia raised her deathly face with its running tears. “It does, it does!” she exclaimed. “You’d rather have it this way than any other! I know!” She gulped desperately. “How can you do this to Dave, your brother?”
“Don’t be an idiot,” said Edward. “Do you think that if I didn’t marry her, she’d want Dave?”
“What a dreadful person she must be!” said Sylvia brokenly. “What a dreadful, conscienceless, hateful person! Dave wouldn’t have told us he was going to marry her unless he was sure. And then—and then—” her voice failed for a moment, “she meets you, understands that you have the money, and throws Dave over for you!” (As Padraig, with Ed’s encouragement, had married a rich woman in preference to Sylvia Enger, who had to rely upon her brother for her support!)
Edward’s hands clenched into fists. “She didn’t throw Dave over, you fool. She never accepted him. Get that into your stupid head.”
He was suddenly sick of them all, sick of his mother’s gleaming stare, his father’s tear-filled eyes, his sister’s hysterics. This was his house; they were his dependents. The food they ate, the roof that sheltered them, the clothing they wore, the money they spent, were the things he had given them freely. They could sit there, looking stricken and wounded or accusing, because for the first time in his life he wished something for himself and had taken it!
He spoke to them all, very quietly but with malignance burning the edges of his words, “If it’s so terrible to you, Ma, Pa, Sylvia, and you can’t stand it, you don’t have to stay here when I marry Margaret in a few weeks. You’ll have time. You can get ready to leave. You don’t have to receive her. I’ll look for a house for you.” He smiled somberly. “I hear our old house on School Street is for sale again. I’ll buy it for you.”
“This is all unnecessary,” said Maria with hard coldness. “It is no occasion for threats.”
“I’m not threatening,” said Edward. “I’m just not going to have my wife embarrassed. This is going to be Margaret’s home; she is going to be mistress here. I want decent behavior toward her. If any of you think you can’t give it to her, then you can leave.”
Maria ignored this. But Sylvia had stopped crying. She was looking affrightedly at her brother and blinking her wet lashes. Maria said, “You have considered what David will think, how he will feel?”
“Yes, I have,” said Edward, flatly. “And that’s why I wanted to marry Margaret before telling you. Do you think I enjoy all this? But Dave will have to get over it, if he hasn’t already gotten over it by now.” Then his anger flared again, and he said with new violence, “But if he hasn’t, and no matter how he feels, I can’t help it. It’s happened. It’s got to be accepted. If any of you feel you can’t accept it, I’ve offered you an alternative. It’s the best I can do.”
“I just can’t receive her!” Sylvia sobbed.
“You don’t have to,” said Edward. All at once he was exhausted.
Maria said, “Naturally, we will accept her. Naturally, she will be my daughter. We must be sensible.” She smiled wryly. “Have we any other choice?”
She rose and went to Edward, for she was deeply concerned for him because of the dark color on his cheekbones and the sudden hollowness of his eyes. She put her hand on his arm. She could feel the throbbing of some large artery under the shabby cloth of his coat, and was alarmed. She tried to smile.
“But if I am to be the welcoming mother, I must make a request, Edward. I must request that you see a physician. It is only just that you find if your health is good. It is only just for—Margaret.”
He wanted to shake off her hand, then was caught by her expression, which was almost tender. He had never seen it before. And he was grateful.
“All right, Ma,” he said, smiling. But he had no intention of complying.
The dinner gong rang again, with impatience.
“It is dinner,” said Maria. “We must descend.”
“I don’t want dinner, I won’t go down, I can’t bear it!” Sylvia groaned. “I’m going to my room, I’m going to bed.”
Maria said, “You will be sensible, you will join us at dinner. I am still mistress in this house, and this is my command.”
CHAPTER VIII
Maria was convinced that English was a vulgar language. Or, rather, those who spoke English were self-consciously vulgar. Only the poets and a few writers used English with all its sonorous potentialities, all its possible richness of phrasing, all its grand architecture of power, subtlety and allusions. It could be a pillared temple of many arches, but only a few understand that. All others preferred dull brick mortared with clichés common to the masses. There seemed a perverse fashion, lately, for all that was written to be short-phrased, without the clarity of French, without the grandeur of German. Symbolism, formality, sophistication, had vanished from American English.
Therefore, when writing in English, she felt constrained. She wondered if Miss Margaret Baumer would understand if she wrote to her in German. The Baumers had been Saxon-Germans; they had, no doubt, taught Margaret their native tongue. And it was possible that in school Margaret had acquired more facility with the language. But Maria pondered. The formality of Maria’s cultured German might frighten the girl, and she might consider it cold or repellent. Maria sighed, and her vast breast rose tightly against the black silk and restrained it. She decided to write to Margaret in English, but in the English she had learned so many years ago and not in the modern half-literate fashion.
Heinrich was dozing feverishly in the bedroom, and Maria had carefully closed the door after a long anxious glance at his miserable face. She sat down at her big mahogany desk in her sitting room and wrote to Margaret Baumer.
“My son Edward and I have had a quiet discussion of your coming marriage, my dear Margaret, though we have not as yet met you. It was his first intention, and so he told me, for you to be married in Albany, with only strange witnesses present and a brief appearance before public officials. I have now convinced him that this would be an injustice to you and would leave you with no memories. A young lady, on her wedding day, is entitled to her memories of that most important occasion in her life, and to pleasant and happy recollections of which she will tell her children.
“The young lady is also entitled to know and become intimate with the members of her husband’s family, and to acquire a familiarity with her new home where she will pass her life. I have also convinced Edward of this, and he has suggested that I write you. However, had he not made this suggestion, I should have written in any event. To do otherwise would be an injustice to you.
“It is fortunate that you will be married on June 28th, in your new home, and under the auspices of our minister, the Reverend Mr. Yaeger. For by that time my other children will be in residence, Gregory from Yale and Ralph from Paris, where he has been studying art. My daughter, Sylvia, who is much gifted in the theater arts, has not left home and her health is delicate. My son David, whom you knew slightly, I believe, will not be present, though he has just returned from Berlin. He has many piano-recital engagements to which he agreed some months ago, and is compelled by the terms of his contracts to fulfill these engagements.”
Maria paused, and her stern, light blue eyes bulged with tears. She gazed through the windows at the sun-struck lawns and flower beds beyond. A gardener or two was mowing the grass, and she could smell the sweetness of the cut blades and the scent of roses from the rose gardens. A small cloud of white butterflies blew up against the screen of the opened casement, and a warm wind whispered in the trees. Then Maria resolutely wrote again:
“My son Ralph is at present spending a few days in New York, consulting with the establishment where he will study again beginning in September. H
e has paid us a short visit, bringing with him his bride, the former Violette Carré, a young French lady of distinguished family.…”
Maria took her lace handkerchief from her sleeve and pressed it against her lips. How silly and stupid it was of Ralph to tell his mother that fiction! She had known at once that Violette was a cocotte and that she had probably been Ralph’s mistress as well as model. Still, it had been a con cession to his mother, and a tribute to her sensibilities, and her aristocracy, when he had lied. This, however, did not mitigate her silent horror and contempt and agitation that her son had actually married such a creature, impudent and saucy and uncultured and without delicacy and morals. The rest of the family had received Violette without adverse comment, having been charmed by her humor, her accent, her prettiness and style. Sylvia, in particular, and this was amazing in the aloof and bitter young woman, had shown great interest in Violette and had spent animated hours with her discussing fashion. Violette had displayed much respect for Ralph’s family and had ingratiated herself with everyone but Maria. From the first the astute girl had understood that she had not deceived her husband’s mother. This had not given her any uneasiness. Fear or undue apprehension was not part of her nature; she accepted life with the gay nonchalance of a naughty child and the cynical awareness of a worldly woman who was determined that nothing must injure her enjoyment or her prospects.
I trust, thought Maria, that Margaret’s knowledge of French is too limited to detect the grossness of Violette’s patois, her paucity of education. Maria was too intelligent, too subtle a woman, to believe that because Margaret Baumer’s birth was clouded, because she had been an inmate of a public orphan asylum and she had been adopted by mean people, she would be a young woman of Violette’s type. For Maria knew her son Edward too well to fear that he would be drawn to vulgarity or cheapness or mediocrity. Moreover, Edward had given his mother a small photograph of Margaret, and Maria had immediately, if silently, approved of that fine young face, those candid and beautiful eyes, the circumspect dress, and the lovely sensitive mouth. Whoever Margaret’s parents had been, there was the signature of patrician birth upon her features.
The Sound of Thunder Page 40