The Complete Stories of Morley Callaghan: Volume One

by Morley Callaghan

Dan said gravely, “It won’t do no harm to smoke, I guess.”

  “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t smoke,” Joe said mildly.

  “It’s got to be found out why they did it,” Ike said. “No one seems to know. No one may ever know.”

  “I guess we’ll never find out,” Joe said.

  Sitting in the kitchen they talked the matter over slowly from all angles. Joe was curiously interested in everybody’s opinion. He began to talk rapidly, advancing a number of theories, but stopped talking suddenly and was silent, melancholy, and dejected, refusing to answer any question, staring stupidly at the oilcloth on the floor. He felt responsible for all the trouble. It was hard to believe no one thought him the cause of the suicides, but everybody hesitated to use such an unpleasant word. He was getting lots of sympathy, but if he would just stand up there in the kitchen and start talking, they would change their opinions. One or two words would do it. Talking quite casually, he would come to the point quickly before they were aware of what he was saying and they would look hard at him. Dan maybe would let his chin drop. Joe got excited thinking about it. If he hadn’t thrown that note away he could pull it out of his pocket and say, “Here, I’ll tell you a thing or two,” but it was no good thinking about it. He felt very much like talking but it was no use. Over and over he repeated to himself it was no good to start talking.

  The smoke was getting thick in the room. Jerry got up and opened a window, a shaft of sunlight came slanting through the thick smoke. The sunlight shone on Dan’s red and shiny bald head. Dan blinked and waved his hand in front of his eyes. It was noontime.

  Dan said he would be going, but, if wanted, everybody knew where to find him. Ike asked Joe to have dinner with him and Joe accepted. Everybody felt better to be moving. Herb MacIntosh, the religious man, had hardly opened his mouth, smoking his pipe calmly. Joe, staring at him, remembered he was said to have killed his wife.

  Going out the door, Ike said, “Don’t worry about the undertaker, Joe. Hen’ll look after him. Hen’ll be glad to do it. It’ll make him feel important. He ain’t had anything to do for a long while.”

  Joe smiled and Jerry laughed loudly, mirthlessly. Joe and Ike walked across the road to Kremer’s house to have dinner.

  An hour later Joe, looking out Kremer’s front window, saw a small crowd gathered around his house. People had come from miles away, morbidly curious to get close to the house and inside if possible, but Hen Milburn stood grimly at the door. The undertaker’s black automobile was in front of the house.

  After a time Hen came over and explained fussily the bodies had been taken into the city. It was necessary to take them into the city because they had been found in the river. The matter was now out of his hands, though there was still work for him to do exercising his intelligence. That was all there was to it for him, though he would appreciate a quiet talk with Joe.

  Ike and Mrs. Kremer left Joe and Hen alone in the parlor and Hen picked his nose and couldn’t make head nor tail of the business. “She was a very religious woman,” he said.

  “She was very religious,” Joe said.

  “And this here Ellen was all right too.”

  That was as far as he could go. Hesitating to suggest Ellen might have been carrying on with fellows, he talked vaguely about it being a different matter if Ellen had been a gadabout. Finally he said, “There’s no knowing when a woman gets too religious, but everybody said Mrs. Harding was such a good woman.” He added in a matter-of-fact tone, “I never took much stock in the goings-on in the barn.”

  Joe was not interested. The simple questions as to where he had been last night he answered easily and willingly, and told of coming home, finding the light lit, and running up and down the road. Hen made a few careful notes, then shook hands heartily with Joe.

  All day Joe could not straighten the matter out in his head. He knew definitely he did not want to sleep alone in the house. Alone for any length of time, he muttered to himself and got excited.

  At night he did not sleep well, imagining himself talking to Lottie about trifling matters, and shuddering when he thought of Ellen. The long imaginary talks with Lottie pleased him. There she was sitting at the table and he was reading the paper to her. And then Joe found himself awake in bed, hating Hodgins. The house was quiet and from the bed he could look out the window down the road to Harvey Simpson’s place. Hodgins was living there. Joe was glad he was able to think so much about Hodgins and went to sleep.

  Many people next morning came to see Joe in the Harding house. The Rev. John Adams called just before dinner and talked about a proper Christian burial, insinuating Lottie had been unduly excited by the mistaken zeal of a few misguided fanatics who did not correctly understand the principles of religious practice. Joe listened respectfully and then was eager to explain the circumstances, but had not the faintest idea why Lottie and Ellen had done such a thing.

  In the afternoon Hodgins called but did not talk much, having lost confidence. He did not try to conceal his feelings and seemed to have more real sympathy for Joe than many people who had known him a long time. Hodgins tried to say a few appropriate words about never knowing when a dear one will be taken away, but mumbled and said miserably, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I feel like going back to the city and staying there and giving up everything here.”

  Joe felt he did not hate Hodgins because he seemed a good-natured young fellow, not used to being close to death. At the door he stood a moment and asked Joe if he objected to him calling again. On the veranda Joe said hastily, “Won’t you bury them, Mr. Hodgins? Lottie would want you to bury them.”

  Hodgins said quietly, “I’ll do it, Mr. Harding,” and walked quickly down the path to the road, not looking back.

  For the rest of the day Joe did not see anyone. All afternoon he walked idly up the river between the hills. Not for anything would he have gone downstream or along the beach. Climbing a low hill to sit on a rock and closing his eyes he could almost see Lottie and Ellen sitting in the kitchen and hear Lottie talking. Sitting on the big round stone, his head dropped forward to his hands, elbows on his knees, and he cried. He was feeling old, broken up inside, and did not ever again want to move quickly. He could not feel sure of himself and longed for some one consoling thought.

  Slowly he walked downstream, some of the leaves on the trees were turning yellow, and he thought of the fall coming on and the days in October that had always been lonesome for him. Ellen would have been starting back to school shortly. He sat on the end of a log jutting out into the river and cried again, muttering, “I’m sick, oh, so sick,” and his head started to sweat and he remembered how he had knelt down with Lottie that night in the bedroom. Lottie had prayed and he had thought of Hodgins. He got up and walked rapidly down the river to the hotel.

  It was getting dark. He had something to eat with Dan, and afterward they sat in the spare pantry looking solemnly at each other, drinking great quantities of poor beer.

  And then Joe said, “I might as well go home.”

  “How would you like to sleep here?”

  “No, I’m going home. I got to get used to it, so I’m going home.”

  The following night there was an inquest in the city and Joe was forced to attend it. There was some doubt at the inquest as to whether Ellen was pregnant. They concluded she was pregnant because it gave a motive to the suicide. Joe could not tell them very much.

  The account of the inquest in the papers satisfied everybody in the village. They were sorry for Joe, but evidently it hadn’t done Ellen any good to go off to high school in the city and get in with older boys, and they remembered Ellen had been too lively at her age; her end seemed to be a vindication of established opinion in the village. They could not understand what had got into Mrs. Lottie Harding, who had been such a respectable woman, though a little silly about religion the last few months.

  Lottie and Ellen had a good funeral. Rev. John Adams did not attend, though the burial was in the Harding plot in th
e little Anglican cemetery on the hill. The Anglican minister, Rev. Peter Hayes, who came into the village only on Sundays and did not know anybody very well, assisted Hodgins at the funeral service, which was simple. This thin gray man with a warm smile said it did not matter very much where they were buried so long as it was in Christian ground.

  A crowd came to the funeral and tried to get into the parlor close to the two coffins. Mrs. Harvey Simpson bustled around, worrying Joe, explaining that a number of people would return to the house after the funeral and he should have something to eat in the house.

  “Do you know where Mrs. Harding kept her silver knives and forks?” she asked, determined to set a good table.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “It won’t look right without them.”

  “This ain’t no wedding,” Joe said. “I don’t care.”

  He left her in the kitchen and went into the parlor to take a last look at the faces in the coffins. Three young girls were standing solemnly beside the coffins. One of the girls giggled and the other two started to giggle, and blushing, they hurried from the room, the girl who had giggled first starting to cry going along the hall.

  Joe felt sorry for the three girls because they could not help giggling. “They’re just a little younger than Ellen was,” he said to himself. Ellen had not liked funerals.

  From the Harding house to the Anglican cemetery was a short walk. The hearse went on before and the procession walked slowly up the hill and Hodgins prayed by the open grave. Joe was one of the first to leave the cemetery.

  Mrs. Simpson was disappointed when Joe explained he did not want people in the house after the funeral. Joe insisted he wanted to be left alone, and, though unwilling, she submitted, but pointed out he hadn’t made any arrangements and she hadn’t found Lottie’s silver forks.

  Everybody went home at suppertime. Mrs. Kremer asked Joe over for tea, but he had promised to eat at the hotel with Dan Higgins. Mrs. Kremer’s manner suggested it was not quite right to eat with Dan so soon after such a solemn occasion.

  11

  A few days after the funeral, Joe talked of moving away from Eastmount. Sympathy for him had gradually changed to doubtful suspicion of his good intentions. People were talking of wide differences of opinion between Lottie and him. Lottie was a religious woman and he had always tried to discourage her, they said. It might have got on her nerves and caused her to despair of his salvation, though he had been a good enough husband, no one doubted that. His godless opinions must have been revolting to a highly strung woman like Mrs. Harding, so conscious of the spiritual values in life. The Rev. John Adams had said he could have little real sympathy for Joe under the circumstances.

  The Kremers, the Hammonds and Dan Higgins were more friendly than ever with Joe. Mrs. Moore, calling to express sympathy, had indignantly advised him not to pay any attention to anything the hottentots in the barn had to say. Mrs. Moore had made up her mind to let everybody know she preferred Joe to his detractors.

  Joe did not like people to be talking, whispering behind his back, little kids pointing at him when he walked down the road. He was accustomed to being friendly with everybody.

  It was lonely in the house. The kitchen seemed very big. He devoted a lot of time to the hens, cleaned out the henhouse thoroughly. He attended to the potato plants and hoped they would turn out as well as the Henrys’. Old Mrs. Henry came over one afternoon to talk about the potato plants and was quite friendly. In a rude way she gave him to understand she had never had anything against him. Joe said he was glad the Henrys had decided to stay in Eastmount until the end of September, old neighbors were worthwhile to a man.

  In the evenings, after getting his own supper, he read the paper and then went over to the hotel. After the reading of the paper he missed Lottie and Ellen. No story seemed good now that he could not read it out loud to them. After an evening at the hotel, he returned to the house as late as possible and went straight to bed to try and go to sleep at once, but he was not comfortable in the bed.

  He would have moved from Eastmount but had an idea he would be more lonesome in the city, having lived all his life in the village. Lottie had always lived in Eastmount. Everybody knew him and he was at home there. Now he was uncomfortable, but he had at times been uncomfortable in his own house, even when Lottie was living.

  Hodgins wanted to be very friendly and got into the habit of coming over after supper to sit on Joe’s veranda and talk until nearly dark. He talked about college football, fraternities at the university, and initiations, all of which very much interested Joe. Hodgins could tell a good story and Joe could tell a good story, so they got along nicely together. Joe looked forward to these visits, for people could not be nasty when Hodgins was friendly with him. Hodgins did not smoke, but confessed he liked the smell of tobacco, so they sat on the veranda, Joe readings stories from the papers to Hodgins. They talked about God occasionally, but in a big-hearted, broad-minded way that appealed to Joe.

  At dusk one evening, they sat on the veranda, Hodgins rocking back and forth lazily while Joe smoked his pipe and talked.

  “The fall is coming on now,” Joe said.

  “There’s something about the fall I like,” Hodgins said thoughtfully.

  “The fall’s a lonely time. The leaves blowing along the roads and over the field make me feel restless.”

  “Well, there’s a month yet before October.”

  “That’s right, but it gets dark early now.”

  “Everything’s ripening.”

  “I’ll tell you somethin’. I don’t like hearing the wind rustling in dead leaves.”

  “That’s funny, Mr. Harding.”

  “That’s why I don’t want the fall to come on.”

  Hodgins began to quote some lines about “season of mellow fruitfulness,” but got twisted and then laughed heartily. Joe did not laugh.

  “Lottie was funny that way.”

  “What way? Quoting poetry?”

  “No, about the fall.” Joe was smoking his pipe carefully.

  “Did she like it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Most people like the spring. There’s going to be a swell moon on the lake tonight. Look.”

  They looked down the valley at the big gold moon low on the lake behind the broken line of birch trees on the valley slope.

  “Lottie used to like feeling blue in the fall.”

  “Really blue?”

  “No, but lonesome and half like crying because she liked it.”

  “Women are funny,” Hodgins said.

  “Lottie wasn’t really funny. She just took fancies.”

  “Her mind was set on being baptized next week.” Hodgins cleared his throat and was sorry he had mentioned it. Joe didn’t even turn his head.

  “It’s kind of worthwhile to have some idea to lean against,” Hodgins added.

  “You never feel so lonesome, then” Joe said.

  “That’s it, Mr. Harding, that’s exactly it. That’s why there will always be religion.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “The whistle of that streetcar sounds like a nighthawk screeching,” Hodgins said reflectively.

  “Like a screech, when it gets dark.”

  “I guess I had better be going,” Hodgins said, stretching his legs.

  He smiled genially and walked down the path, his hat brushing against the leaves on the low branches of the haw tree. Joe watched his tall figure turn down the road. By rights the haw tree should be trimmed so it wouldn’t brush against people’s hats.

  He sat on the veranda until dark, then got up to go down to the hotel. Hodgins was all right, he thought, and Dan was all right too, and he was glad to be able to like them both.

  That evening, thinking of Hodgins and Lottie, he did not talk much to Dan and went home earlier than usual. Something had to be done to satisfy Lottie, if she could know about it. In the house he took off his coat, vest, and shoes, and sat at the kitchen table. An idea was growing stronger in hi
s thoughts. It was necessary to do something to atone for everything that had happened so he could sleep in the night. That was it. He owed something to himself and something to Lottie, and had to do something to take the uneasiness out of his mind.

  Lying awake in bed, he thought about the world and death and life, but no matter how he tried he found he could go back only so far. That was why he had stopped thinking about it when a young man. He couldn’t get anywhere.

  In the dark, lying alone in the big bed, he tried to go back to the beginning of things, until his head ached. There he was, lying in bed, there was the bed, and outside was the moon and the stars and the lake. Well, what about it, where did it all come from? He remembered learning in school about masses swimming in space and now he thought about it eagerly but got tired wondering where the mass came from. Lottie was dead. She had believed in certain answers to a riddle he could not fathom. That was it. If he had an answer his head would not get tired trying to go back beyond life. There was the moon and the stars to start with. The moon was a worn-out offshoot from the earth, the earth was a planet. Stars in the sky were often planets. Life might conceivably be on all the planets. Canals were on Mars. Mars was the red planet shining over the lake. The school geography. Ellen had liked talking about Mars. What if people were up there. Where did they come from? God made the world in six days and rested on the seventh. Where did God come from? No one knew, no one would ever know. The Bible did not know, but maybe it did, for he didn’t know the Bible very well. He was lying alone in the bed, that was all he knew. His thoughts were getting mixed up and he was tired. He went to sleep.

  In the morning the sun was shining through the window and he forgot his thoughts of the night before and was glad he had work to do.

  In the evening Joe had supper with the Kremers. When Mrs. Kremer was clearing off the table Joe and Ike had a talk, and Ike was saying, “You got to take things as they are.”

  “There’s no use saying one thing and thinking another,” Joe said.

  “No, but it don’t get you nowhere bucking against people.”