There Was a Time

by Taylor Caldwell

  Again, the sensation of fear, of some presence near the door. Then she heard a woman’s voice, sullen, suspicious: “Who is it? What do you want? We don’t want agents.”

  Miss Jones was perplexed. Agents? Agents of what? Not familiar with English terminology, she could not know that “agents” means salesmen or peddlers. She said, loudly and clearly: “I am Miss Jones. Frank’s teacher. I’d like to see him, please.”

  To her surprise there came, after another prolonged silence, the scraping of a chain-lock, the drawing of a bolt. The door opened an inch or two, and she caught a glimpse of auburn hair, of dilated brown eyes, and an apron. “Mrs. Clair?” she asked, smiling brightly, and inserting a toe in the opening. “I’m Miss Jones. Frank has been absent from school, and I’ve been worried.”

  The door opened wider, and Miss Jones stepped into a dismal kitchen, which, clean as it was, smelled unpleasantly of disinfectant and harsh soap and kerosene. She looked at Maybelle, whose surly under lip was thrust out, and whose eyes were blinking watchfully. She thought: What a peculiar little woman! This must be Frank’s mother. She looks—she looks—just a little queer.

  “I’m very glad to see you, I’m sure,” said Maybelle, in a mincing voice, removing her apron from a very patched cotton dress. She smiled an artificial and unfriendly and still suspicious smile. “It was very kind of you, indeed. Frankie has the measles. He is always getting something wrong with him,” she added, and now her face became almost vicious. “Sickly,” she amended, with an intonation as if she had said: “Criminal.”

  She resents him. He costs money, no matter how little. Miss Jones’ thoughts came to her with such perception that she was momentarily dazed, for there was something of clairvoyance in them. Now, in only an instant or two, she understood.

  Maybelle did not ask her guest to sit down. It was evident that she wished her gone, that she actually feared her. Does she think I will steal something? thought Miss Jones, incredulously. And then, with anxiety: Will she punish the poor child because I came?

  She looked at the bundles and the books in her arms. “I brought these for Frank,” she said, trying, with a hopeless smile, to win some responsive friendliness, some human interest. Maybelle did indeed smile, but it was still artificial and false. “It’s very kind of you, I’m sure,” she answered, and now with some nervousness.

  “I do hope Frank isn’t very ill,” said Miss Jones, after a pause during which the presents had been turned over to Maybelle. “What does the doctor say?”

  “Oh, we didn’t have a doctor,” said Maybelle, with actual, defensive alarm and definite umbrage. “I’m sure I’m capable of doing what’s best. And I do hope you won’t say anything. We don’t want a placard on the door. Measles are nothing.”

  It’s a reportable disease, thought Miss Jones, with indignation unusual to her. And the poor child hasn’t even a physician! I see. It would cost money.

  “Oh, naturally, I’ll not say anything! But could I see Frank for a moment or two, if he isn’t very sick.”

  “Sick?” repeated Maybelle, frowning and suspicious again. “Oh, I understand. You mean ‘ill.’ I’m not used to Yankee language yet,” she added, with a smile that was clearly malevolent and intentionally derisive. “No, little Frankie isn’t very ill.” She hesitated. “If you won’t mind an upset room, he is in the bedroom.”

  Reluctantly, and with every line of her plump little figure expressing resentment, she led the way into the next room. There, on his hard and lumpy divan, lay Frank, flushed, blotched, half asleep, and manifestly sick. He opened his eyes languidly at the entrance of the two women, and his eyes, reddened, swollen and painfully rheumy, stared at them. Then, recognizing his former teacher, he smiled weakly, and his face lit up with incredulous pleasure.

  Miss Jones bent over him tenderly. She laid her large cool hand on his forehead. Its heat frightened her. She said softly: “My poor child. I didn’t know. I missed you so much.”

  Frank glanced at his mother, anxiously, and that glance filled Miss Jones with sudden anger and pity. He stammered: “I—I’m not very ill, Miss Jones. I—I’ll be better soon.”

  “Of course,” said Miss Jones brightly. “Measles are nothing. Nothing at all. Everyone has them. Several of my children are out right now. Nothing at all, Frank.” I’m babbling, she thought. She was surprised that she was trembling. She saw the broad November light in the room, unshaded, beating down on the child’s sore and aching eyes. He coughed, deeply and hoarsely. The lumpy feather bed that covered him was obviously distressing.

  Miss Jones turned to Maybelle, who was watching sourly and closely. She coughed. “We have a new notion, now,” she said, with appeasing apology and a little false laugh. “We think children’s eyes should be guarded when they have the measles. What do you think? Perhaps if the blinds—” her voice died away into silence when she saw Maybelle’s resistive and sullen expression.

  Busybody, thought Maybelle. She gave a parody of a smile. “Air and light’s good for him,” she said. “It’s nonsense about the blinds. Can’t have it dark.”

  Miss Jones sighed. She had a fleeting and rebellious impulse to notify the Board of Health. No, that was impossible. Frank would suffer.

  She bent over the boy again, and bit her trembling lips. She smiled at him with tenderness and yearning. “I’ve brought you some fruit and candy, dear. And some books. But Frank, you must promise me something, and I know you will keep the promise. You must not read a line, not a single line, until you are completely better. You will remember? You won’t use your eyes? You will give me your promise?” she added with deep urgency.

  He nodded. Maybelle tumbled the gifts on the bed. He began to open them eagerly, his hot hands fumbling. Miss Jones removed the books and laid them on the dresser. Should she take them away? But the boy had promised, and she knew he would remember. She could trust him.

  She helped him peel an orange, and he sucked it with passionate delight, moistening his parched mouth with the fresh juice. A look of pure bliss came into his eyes. Something tightened and twisted in Miss Jones’ meagre breast. When he gave her a wildly grateful glance, full of love, tears blinded her.

  Maybelle was speaking in a whining and resentful voice that cracked and wavered with self-pity: “He’s never been well since we came here. He was never sickly before. Now he ails all the time. It’s a burden. And me with my bad health, too. It’s enough to make you wonder. I never thought I’d be mithered by a sickly child. It’s a burden, with everything else.”

  Miss Jones’ hands clenched. But she kept her voice soothing: “Oh, he isn’t sickly, I’m sure. He’s really a healthy little boy. All children have the measles. It’s nothing at all. One expects these things.”

  Maybelle moaned faintly. “I don’t know why I’ve been so cursed. Never a well day since we came here. Bottles and bottles of physic. Pills galore. I never had to take them in England. But this climate is killing.”

  “It is a little—difficult,” said Miss Jones. She bent over Frank and kissed him, not once, but several times. I can gargle when I go home, she told herself. One must protect other children. She looked at the glaring window. If only she dared pull down those ragged shades!

  “Get well soon, darling,” she murmured, her eyelids hot with salt tears.

  She stood up. Maybelle, with melancholy pride, was pointing to the rows of bottles ranged on the dresser. “That’s me,” she said, in hollow tones.

  “How unfortunate,” said Miss Jones, trying to be sympathetic. She wanted to smash the bottles. What is she doing for Frank? she asked herself. But she knew nothing was being done for him.

  Maybelle, whose old, natural friendliness had withered into poisonous hostility in America, scrutinized Miss Jones with wary suspicion. She had taken a dislike to the little teacher and thought her excessively ugly. There Miss Jones stood, with that painful, appeasing smile on her raisin of a little face, her cricket eyes lively and intelligent, her old black velvet hat perched high on her
monstrous black pompadour, her gray wool skirt and jacket obviously old in spite of the sedulous brushings and pressings, her gloves neatly darned, and her huge boots polished like twin mirrors. No, Miss Jones was not prepossessing, and her attempts to be charming for Frank’s sake only gave her a mendacious air which Maybelle had detected at once, and which she distrusted.

  They went out of the bedroom together. Maybelle, melancholy again, began to complain: “I don’t know what’s got into the lad. He was always so well in England. It isn’t for lack of good food. We don’t begrudge anything.” She pointed to the kitchen table, and Miss Jones, with surprise and pleasure, noted the groceries laid out upon it. There was a fresh chicken, plump and appetizing, a package of lamb chops, a joint of really excellent beef, eggs in profusion, butter, fresh vegetables, loaves of bread, and milk. Miss Jones, with gratitude, decided that Maybelle was a good cook. A large kettle of soup stood cooling on the miserable hot plate, and now Miss Jones caught a whiff of something very flavorsome.

  “He’s getting gruel, made with sugar and milk,” offered Maybelle, “and I’ve just made him a drop of Scotch broth. But he doesn’t eat anything. Miserable appetite. We have to force him.”

  Miss Jones anxiously recalled Frank’s growing tenseness and nervous instability. It was not for lack of excellent food, then. It was something emotional. She suspected she knew the cause.

  “We live for the day we can go home,” said Maybelle, her voice breaking. “We’re wretched here. We don’t like Yankeeland.”

  A hot little prickle touched Miss Jones’ heart. But she quelled her natural and stinging retort to this remark.

  “We lived comfortable in England,” Maybelle went on. “Our own place, and lovely furniture. Rich. We lived like kings, compared to this. Now we live like beggars.”

  Miss Jones had to make some mental readjustment. Immigrants frequently made such disparaging remarks, in order to add superiority to themselves. But all at once she knew that Maybelle spoke truly. She was amazed, and now genuinely sorry. But was it necessary to live like this? It was apparent that the Clairs were saving every penny in order to return to England. Again the hot little prickle of indignation touched Miss Jones. She felt an anger against these people who regarded her beloved country as the Cave of the Forty Thieves, to be ravished, to be robbed of its jewels, to be sacked, in order that the sackers might carry off the treasure to an alien land. How dared they come like this, landing on the golden shores at midnight, seeing nothing of the beauty, hearing nothing of the great strange music, carrying their bags, which they hoped to fill with gems, and then depart! Was it for these that Americans had dreamed, had died, had prayed, and had hoped? God had blessed this huge and lofty land, had touched it with supernal loveliness, had dyed cliff and mountain with flaming cataracts, had sunken tremendous rivers in the midst of teeming plains, had set the very light of the sun on endless yellow meadows.

  How dared Maybelle speak like this, with such mean contempt, such imperviousness, such lack of understanding! Miss Jones felt a constriction in her throat, and a new surge of anger. And then she knew what she must do. She had only to be patient.

  She said, murmurously: “Well. Things change. I’m sorry you are unhappy here, dear Mrs. Clair.” She paused. “But I know you have some happiness, really. Frank is a wonderful little boy. Really wonderful. But, of course you know that.”

  Maybelle listened restively, Then, to Miss Jones’ gratification, the dark and melancholy look lifted from Maybelle’s face, and it was reluctantly pleased. Natural maternal love still lingered, then, in this wretched little woman so beset by self-pity and resentment and homesickenss.

  “Well, I don’t know,” said Maybelle, trying to be harsh. “His new teacher doesn’t think much of him, according to the report.” But a light of eagerness, pathetic and cautious, touched her eyes.

  Miss Jones went on with real and earnest enthusiasm. “It takes a great deal of discernment to understand Frank. I think I understand him. He has a great mind. Some day he will, I know, do great things.”

  Maybelle smiled and simpered. “Funny, but that’s what his teacher in England said. It was a private school,” she added with pride. “Miss Ballister said he had great dreams.” She paused, eagerly waiting for more.

  “Oh, I am sure he has great dreams! He reads so much. He is fascinated by words. He is so sensitive and subtle. Why, he reads far beyond his age, with the most marvelous understanding. He plays with words as artists play with paints. He loves poetry, and I have taught him a lot of it. Even Shakespeare.”

  Maybelle bridled, simpered again, tossed her head. “Well, he doesn’t hear trash in this house. His father and I are great readers. We go to the library every week. His father likes history, and he tells it to Frank. And reading’s my greatest pleasure.”

  Miss Jones was doubtful for only an instant, and then again, with incredulity, she knew that Maybelle spoke with truth. These were not the average run of immigrants. In some way she had always known it. She thought: They are of my own blood, English. And it was Englishmen who had made America, and it is English blood which will always save it. She had had her own anxious fears at the sight of the increasing number of young aliens in the schools, who spoke in broken accents, and whose faces were strange in the brilliant light of America. The Celts and the English: these were truly the blood of her country, and so long as they remained in the majority, America was safe.

  Moved, she impulsively laid her hand on Maybelle’s plump soft arm. “Frank is fortunate in his parents,” she said; and now without hypocrisy “But he is such a nervous little boy. That is what makes me think he has genius. Do you know, Mrs. Clair, I have a feeling he will be an artist of some sort. A writer, perhaps.”

  They parted on a surge of great amity, and with a lighter heart, now, Miss Jones went down the dark clean stairs.

  Maybelle put the pot of soup on the fire. She poured a huge bowl full of the steaming and appetizing liquid. She brought it to Frank, who had fallen into a half doze again. She awakened him. When he saw and smelled the food, he turned away, sick.

  “You’ve got to eat,” said Maybelle, with determination. Her sallow face softened. “Look, Frankie. Good, rich soup. You’ll enjoy it. Now, eat, or I’ll bash you.”

  Later, Frank lay on his hot pillows, and sank again into a half doze. Maybelle stood, looking down at his red and crusted eyes. Then, impatiently, she pulled down the shades. She stood looking at the brilliant cracks and pinpricks of light which imprinted themselves on the dark cloth. Her eyes filled with tears.

  Frank was only partly asleep. Words were forming in his mind as stars appear in a darkening sky. Lovely words, marching together with hushed majesty, his own words rising out of the abyss of his being:

  “Now God walked in the Garden all alone.

  A mist was lingering where the sun had shone,

  A mist of light in which the forest bowed

  And murmured in a gentle monotone.”

  He saw the dark and murmurous forest, deep as velvet in the shadows, the tree-tops afloat in pale golden mist. He saw the trunks of the trees, purple in the fading light; he saw the aisles, adrift with shadow. He saw a Presence moving there, radiant as with moonlight, the branches gathering in canopies above the lofty head. He saw the Presence come upon a fallen tree, and seat himself upon it. All was silence, all was strengthening darkness, somber stillness, and peace. And then, far off in some distant and unfathomable reach, a thrush began to sing, and God lifted His head and listened.

  CHAPTER 15

  Miss Emily Jones, who had so little time in her harried life, now devoted fragments of hours to her protégé. Sometimes, on Saturdays, she prevailed upon Maybelle to allow her to take Frank to The Front, her favorite spot. Only rain prevented these excursions.

  They would stand, this little wizened woman and this young boy, and gaze at the Niagara River, gray as ashes under an ashen sky, its current boiling swiftly and powerfully as it sped towards the Falls. They would wa
tch sunsets splash the river with running scarlet streaks. Sometimes the sky would be flat and cold and the color of tarnished silver, and the waters would turn white and deathly under it. And once they were rewarded with such beauty and such majesty that they could not speak of it again to each other.

  It was at sunset, in July, 1909, that they saw this ineffable and solemn thing. There had been a storm during the day, but now the air was full of strong freshness. The Canadian shore, usually a blurred green wall across the river, had disappeared in a mist, so that the river was without boundaries. The sky, vast and motionless, had become a wrack of color, almost violent in intensity. From the cobalt zenith, westward, it merged from profound purple to amethyst, from amethyst to brilliant lavender, from lavender to an enormous arch of vivid and pulsating green that imperceptibly quickened to tender rose, from rose to scarlet, from scarlet, as it neared the horizon, to a bloody crimson. The sun was gone. But the colors overhead brightened, widened, deepened, moment by moment, as if the palpitating sun would not depart, but must throw his vaults of color, his rainbows of burning green flame, eternally over the dark earth, engulfing the universe in unbearable effulgence.

  But wonderful though the sky, the rushing Niagara surpassed it. Dark purple at the watery horizon, it faded to deep but delicate violet towards the observers, the crests of the impetuous waves touched with pinkish mauve, their hollows shining with evanescent fire. The small waves lay in scallops on the glistening beach, and these were of the purest turquoise, like liquid enamel, reflecting the green of the sky, and as they retreated and advanced, slowly and gently, they left glowing shreds behind them on the wet shingle.