Angry Wife

by Pearl S. Buck

  Upstairs in her room Georgia sat crying softly and waiting for Bettina. She was afraid of her younger sister, and yet the time had come when Bettina must tell her everything. If the two of them didn’t stand together, then what would happen? They had always told each other everything and had made their little world secure here in this room. But she knew Bettina had something hidden. Bettina didn’t talk any more. At night when they lay in bed where they used to talk, whispering so that nobody could hear, now only she talked, and Bettina lay listening and answering a word or two, and then lying awake. She knew Bettina lay awake, because in the night she heard her sigh.

  “Honey, can’t you sleep?” Every night nearly she waked to ask the question.

  “I can sleep after awhile, maybe,” Bettina answered.

  In the morning she made excuses that the night air was hot or the moonlight too bright. But the real reason was that there was something always awake in Bettina nowadays. She couldn’t get to sleep any more, not the old deep sleep when they never even dreamed, because they were so tired when night came and morning came so quickly. And now she knew what it was in Bettina.

  Still she did not come, and at last Georgia dared wait no longer, lest her mistress call and hear no answer. She washed her face and put on a fresh white cotton dress and went downstairs into the pantry and began to clean the silver.

  In Tom’s room Bettina sat with her hands in her face, listening and shaking her head again and again while he talked. He still had to rest in the afternoon and she read to him to help him rest. But today he had begun talking and talking.

  “Bettina, you’ve got to do what I say,” he insisted. “We can’t go on in the house like this. It’s horrible. It makes our—our relationship just like any—any—”

  He tried to pull her hands away from her face and she struggled against him and then yielded suddenly and sat looking at him, her face all bare and quivering. They knew each other so well now. She knew him to the bottom of his soul. In the long hours when she had been caring for him he had told her everything, every suffering, every loneliness, from the pain of a younger brother growing up in this house, Pierce always the stronger and the handsomer and the more brilliant and the more loved, and he always second, to the agonies of the prison camp and the slow starvation of body and soul in the war.

  And she had told him everything, too, and he knew what it was to be a woman like any other but inside a dark skin, and what it was to be a servant in this house and forever a servant somewhere. She told him of her mother and how her mother had taught Georgia and her to keep themselves apart and to cling always a little higher and nearer to the white people. But she did not tell him what her mother would have said now. Her mother had not known what it was to love a man so much that it no longer mattered that he was white. She had separated herself even from her mother because she loved Tom more than she loved herself.

  “So I want you to marry me, Bettina,” Tom was saying, “and you’ll be my true wife.”

  She was shaking her head again and he reached out his hands and took it between his palms and held it so that she could not shake it. “Yes, you will marry me,” he insisted. “The war was, fought so you could be free to marry me. It makes everything worth while to me—all I’ve been through. It makes me understand the good of suffering. We’re free to marry.”

  “No, we’re not,” she said stubbornly.

  They had been through all this before and would go through it again and she would always say no, over and over. For of course he couldn’t marry her. It would ruin him. He’d have to leave Malvern, and Pierce wouldn’t give him any money.

  “Why not?” Tom demanded. He knelt in front of her and held her hands so that she could not cover her face again.

  “The war didn’t change how people feel,” she said. “It’s how people feel that counts. They feel toward colored people just like they did before the war. Miss Lucie, she hasn’t changed. It doesn’t make any difference to her that Georgia and me get wages. She still thinks she owns us, I know.”

  “But she doesn’t own you,” Tom said impatiently. “It’s your fault if you keep feeling she does.”

  “I don’t feel she does,” Bettina said with patience. “What I’m saying is about her. You and she belong to the white people and I belong to the colored folks. She feels the colored folks still belong to the white people, and it don’t matter about the war or the law or anything so long as she feels that way and so long as you are white and I’m not. That feeling is going right on and the way she feels is the way she’s going to act, and she isn’t ever going to act like I was your wife, no matter if we marry, and if she don’t act that way, it won’t be that way, because she won’t let it.”

  “Good God, Bettina, Lucinda isn’t everybody!” Tom cried.

  “She’s like everybody,” Bettina said simply. She gazed at him sadly and smiled.

  But he would not accept the smile. “You don’t love me enough,” he complained.

  “I love you enough to have the baby and if you want more, I love you enough for any more,” she replied.

  He groaned. “But what are we going to do? We can’t stay here—”

  “You can stay here,” she said steadily. “And you can find me a little house somewhere near enough and there I’ll live, and you can come whenever you can. It’ll be my life.”

  He was not strong enough for her. He bent his head on her knees and she laid her cheek against the back of his head.

  “It’ll be a happy life for me,” she whispered. “Happy enough—”

  Lucinda’s horse was tied to the fence and she and Molly were talking upstairs in the bedroom. She had decided suddenly that she would go and see Molly MacBain because she was disturbed by a thought which had come to her as she was cantering through the woods along the Malvern stream. Pierce had made a path for horses along the stream before the war and had ordered it cleared as soon as he came home, but she had not ridden along it until today.

  “Maybe the war has really changed things,” this was the dreadful thought. “Maybe colored women aren’t any more just—property. Maybe Tom can really marry Bettina—legally!”

  She had touched the horse with her whip and had decided to go and talk everything over with Molly.

  “Honey, how glad I am to see you!” Molly had cried. “John’s gone to Wheeling and I’m all alone and lonesome.”

  They had begun by blackberry wine and cookies on the porch and then Molly had taken her through the house and here in the bedroom, where no one was near, Lucinda had told her.

  “Molly, I surely do need your help, honey,” she had said abruptly, sinking down on the window seat.

  Molly had listened avidly.

  “Tom has taken up with my girl Bettina,” Lucinda said.

  “You don’t tell!” Molly breathed. “Why, when did it happen?”

  “I shouldn’t have let her have the nursing of him, I reckon,” Lucinda said.

  “You mean—there’s a baby?” Molly asked.

  “I don’t know how far it’s gone,” Lucinda replied. “Of course if it’s begun, a baby will be the end of it and maybe half a dozen. It’s so sickening—not that I care about either of them, Molly. But what bothers me is whether Tom could make it legal.”

  Molly looked puzzled. “Make what legal, honey?”

  “I mean really—marry Bettina,” Lucinda said. She flushed with embarrassment. It sounded silly even to imagine such things.

  Molly began to laugh. “Honey, whoever heard of a white man marryin’ a nigger?”

  “Things are so queer now,” Lucinda said defensively. “It would be just—dangerous—for ladies like us—if colored wenches could be married—why, we wouldn’t have anything left—none of us would be safe in our own houses—”

  “Now, honey, stop your foolishness,” Molly cried. “Men don’t marry women they can get without marryin.

  The two women looked at one another. Each remembered the teaching of their mothers. “If Bettina’s given h
erself,” Molly went on; “what is there she can make him marry her for now?”

  Lucinda smiled. The worry rolled from her mind.

  “Maybe it’s a mercy that things have gone so far,” she said cheerfully. “Thank God, it’s not Pierce! But it’s still sickening. Molly, what do you suppose is the matter with men?”

  She was a little shocked by the greedy interest in Molly’s blue eyes. Molly’s red lips were parted and she wet them.

  “So long as it isn’t your Pierce, it isn’t so bad,” Molly agreed. She felt hotness creeping up her back, and her eyelids fluttered before Lucinda’s surprised look. “Men are—well, just that way,” she said. She patted both sides of her fluffy red hair. “We have to put up with them, Lucinda.” Then she laughed. “Maybe God felt sorry for women and gave us a little whip of our own to do the drivin’ with!”

  She felt relieved to laugh because Lucinda was staring at her so hard. She considered telling Lucinda in return about John and how he was wounded and then decided she would not. She had a whip over John, too. John was afraid all the time. Poor old John! “What does Pierce say?” she inquired.

  Lucinda shrugged. “Oh Pierce—”

  “He can’t approve?” Molly cried.

  “Oh, he doesn’t approve,” Lucinda said impatiently, “but after all, Tom is his brother—and when you come right down to it, men are all the same about that one thing, Molly.”

  Molly laughed again, her eyes shining. She put out her soft plump white hand on Lucinda’s slender one. “Honey if I were you, I just wouldn’t pay any mind to it. I’d just live as though the whole thing was beneath my notice. That’s the way ladies have always done, you know, and it’s the best way. My own mother used to say that we had to realize men have a lower nature and the less it was noticed, the better.”

  Lucinda drew her hand away gently. “I do believe you’re right, Molly,” she said with gratitude. “So long as you don’t think harm could come of it … It isn’t like it was before the war, you know. I get to worrying for fear Bettina would be uppity.”

  “I wouldn’t notice anything,” Molly said smoothly. “If she gets uppity I would just send her away like a servant. There’s that good thing out of the war—you can send ’em away.”

  “You could sell them before,” Lucinda reminded her. “I wouldn’t like to lose Georgia, and if Bettina went, Georgia would probably want to go, too. We’d lose two good house girls without getting a penny for them, though Papa could have sold them for a thousand dollars apiece. I know, because Mama scolded him so, when we didn’t need them. It isn’t fair, do you think, Molly? I mean, for that poor white in Washington just to write a few lines and say that your property isn’t your property!”

  “I’m glad he was killed,” Molly said simply.

  They rose, feeling, that everything had been said and decided, and went downstairs, their arms about one another like girls.

  Lucinda kissed Molly when she went away. “You have certainly made me feel better,” she said. “I’m going home and I’m not going to speak of it again, not to Pierce or anybody.”

  “I’m sure that’s best, honey,” Molly replied.

  She looked at Lucinda a moment and then laughed. “Why do you stay way out here in the country, honey? We’re goin’ to Wheeling, John and me.”

  Lucinda looked at her, speechless. “Why, Molly, leave your own house?”

  Molly’s eyes flitted restlessly about the room. “I feel to change. I’d like to travel. I tell John he’s just got to get rich. Honey, he’s goin’ into the railroad.”

  “Railroad!” Lucinda cried. She thought of the smoking, puffing, bell-topped little engine that ran choking and spluttering westward from Baltimore. “I don’t see how that’ll make him rich,” she declared.

  “Railroads are goin’ to grow,” Molly said firmly. “We’ve borrowed money and bought stock—”

  Lucinda felt a jealous envy of possible riches. She hid it behind her pretty smile.

  “I certainly do hope you will get what you want, Molly dear,” she said. She rose as she spoke and brushed Molly’s red cheek with the palm of her hand. “Of course, I have the boys. Pierce would kill me if I didn’t let them be brought up at Malvern—and I’ve a girl here under my belt.”

  She pressed her wrist. A flicker in Molly’s eyes made her suddenly smile. “Goodbye, honey!” she said and tripped away.

  So meditating, Lucinda rode home through the mild evening air. An instinctive resolution was growing within her. She would say nothing at all about Bettina, not to Pierce, not to Tom, and not even to Bettina herself. She would ignore the whole matter, as generations of women before her had ignored the doings of their men. After all, Tom was only a brother-in-law. Sooner or later he might even be leaving Malvern. There was no use upsetting her house over Tom. Besides, she wanted to think about railroads. Why should Molly MacBain be rich?

  When her horse ambled into the yard again, she smiled at the two boys who ran to greet her.

  “Is your papa home yet?” she asked.

  “He ain’t come,” Martin said.

  “Don’t say ain’t,” she commanded him. She handed the reins to Joe, who came forward scratching himself. “You surely are going to have to start some schooling, Martin … Joe, have you got fleas?”

  “No’m, I hope I don’t,” Joe answered grinning. “But maybe I has,” he added, and led the horse away. “I’m liable,” he muttered. “I shore am liable. Until there’s soap again, fleas take advantage.”

  But Lucinda was walking toward the house, her long riding habit sweeping the grass, a hand on the shoulder of each son. She felt strong and clear for the future. The ride had not hurt her, and she would not even tell Pierce she had taken it.

  When Pierce came home that night he found his house quiet, his children cleaned and fed their supper and ready for bed. Tom was outstretched on the long chair on the terrace, and opposite him, in the calmest of moods, Lucinda sat on a garden seat. The sun had set and a pure light flowed over the landscape.

  Pierce approached, aware suddenly of the beauty of the scene, and warmth welled up in his heart. If things were quiet, it meant that Lucinda had decided to keep them so. He drew near, his intuition alert. Lucinda turned up her face for his kiss. He smelled a faint perfume upon her skin, and beneath his eyes hers were calm. Yes, she was all right. She was in a good mood. God knew why, after the fuss she had made after luncheon, but he was grateful. Maybe she had talked with Tom and they had decided something. He glanced at Tom.

  “Hello, Tom,” he said. “You’re looking well enough to be your old self.”

  “I feel well, at last,” Tom replied.

  “The children are waiting for you to kiss them good night, Pierce,” Lucinda reminded him.

  “I’ll go upstairs,” he said. He was bewildered by the utter peace, but he was too grateful for it to speak of it. He went upstairs slowly and turned into the nursery. Georgia was there with the boys, reading to them while they lay on their stomachs, listening. She ceased when he came in, and the boys shouted to her to go on.

  But she rose and stood waiting, her eyes fixed on Pierce’s face. He saw her eyes, doubtful and defensive, and looked away.

  “Tell your father good night,” she said in her soft voice. The boys rose and jumped up and clung to his legs and he leaned to them and kissed them, and then, his arms on their shoulders, he looked at her again, and made up his mind to be completely casual. “Had you a chance to talk to Bettina?” he inquired.

  “No, sir,” Georgia said simply. “We’ve both been busy. Tonight, I’ll ask her, sir.”

  “Good,” he said heartily. He looked down at his two sons. “How’d you like me to find you a pony?” he inquired.

  They screamed their joy at him and he promised. Then as he went to the door, Martin called after him, “What’s school, Papa?”

  “Who said school?” he asked.

  “Mama said I need to go to school.”

  “So you do,” Pierce replied.
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  “Then I could ride the pony to go,” Martin said.

  “So you could,” Pierce agreed.

  He went to his own room and changed his clothes into the semiformal garments that Lucinda required of menfolk in her house at dinner. The coat was tight. Outdoor life had thickened him. Must he struggle into the coat? To think he had a son old enough to go to school! Only, there were no schools! A tutor, he supposed, must be found, unless Tom wanted to teach the boys. The idea struck him as a happy one. Tom would make a good schoolmaster. Yes, it would give him something to do, take him out of the house.

  He had one of his waves of simple happiness. The mellowness of the light in his room, the comfort of his bed and chair, the cleanliness of floors and walls and white curtains at the window, the reality of his home all conspired to make his mood. No, hang it, he would not disturb all this for a fancy that Tom had for Bettina. He tied his stock and ran lightly down the stairs, and at the sound of his step Lucinda and Tom rose and met him in the hall and they went into the oval dining room, she between the two of them.

  That night after Lucinda had gone upstairs he turned to Tom. They had come into the drawing room after a pleasantly satisfactory dinner. The windows stood open to the terrace, and Lucinda had played her harp for them. He had watched her white hands on the strings and had admired her head in profile as she leaned it against the gilded frame. All his love for her had surged into his heart and melted his mind. In spite of her pregnancy her figure in its full skirt still looked graceful. She was a beautiful woman and he was proud of her. She plucked the strings and broke into occasional song. Her voice was light and musical, and he loved to hear her sing. He had a vision of himself, a happy man in a happy home, this pretty woman his wife, bearing his children. Such homes as his were the foundation of the re-established union in the nation.