Herbert Rowbarge

by Natalie Babbitt

  And of course he had. The opulent Cleveland hotel room with its oceanic bed, the bottle of wine at supper, Ruby’s ample breasts—the authenticity of these last long a subject of speculation on Herbert’s part after all those pictures of ruffle-padded corsets in catalogues—all these served to cool his apprehension and heat his purpose. And Ruby, terrified at first, had suddenly, well into the process, seized him round the hips with her two hands and guided him blindly but confidently home. Afterward she had wept with shame at her own shuddering pleasure—it was not supposed to be that way at all!—and the sight of her streaming nose and eyes above the rumpled mess of her nightdress deflated any urge he might have had to go another round. Still, it was done, and he felt relieved and only faintly disgusted.

  What did disgust him, finally, over the three years following, was Ruby’s enthusiasm for the thing. From everything he had read—which wasn’t much but was certainly unanimous—men were the ones who wanted these bedtime scuffles, not women. But with Ruby and him it was just the opposite, and soon he came to dislike her for it. Let them only close the door to their bedroom—in the fine little house old man Nill had bought for them—and there was Ruby mooning at him in that moist, annoying way, wordless but hopeful, that robbed him entirely of what was at best only a thin desire. Why, Ruby was easy! It would have been shocking in any case, but in so unattractive a girl, it was also somehow repellent. Nine times out of ten he would turn away and leave her to sigh alone on her own side of the bed.

  So when, in February of 1907, she proved to be pregnant, he was glad. Lovemaking, the doctor had assured her, would be dangerous now. Herbert must be made to cool his passion—and his heels—in the second bedroom till long after the baby was born. The doctor—his brother-in-law, Stuart Loose—was firm about this, and had had a little talk with Herbert on the subject. “At times like these, Herbert,” he said ponderously, “we must put mother and child above all other considerations.”

  Herbert, more than willing to do so, said, “Certainly, Stuart. Certainly.”

  There were times when Stuart allowed what he believed was a flash of the manly rakehell to leer through his medical reserve. He allowed it to leer through now. Jabbing Herbert in the ribs, he roared, “No cheating, now, you rascal! Leave the poor girl alone.”

  Herbert had fled to the Pleasure Dome as soon as this interview was over, and there he stood for a long time in the cold, crisp air, gazing at his new merry-go-round. This one was complete with twenty pairs of animals, and only half were horses. There was, at last, a pair of lions, poised forever side by side in a graceful forward leap, and he put out a hand to caress their varnished manes. How proud they were! He was eased here of all his irritations, even when, as now, the park was closed for the season. Especially, perhaps, when it was closed. Nearby, in the shooting gallery, Dick was cleaning the long row of guns, for Dick had taken over maintenance at the park. He liked caring for things, he said, and was pleased with his title of General Manager. Herbert strolled over to where he was working. “Stuart says I got to stay away from Ruby till the baby comes,” he reported happily.

  “Yes, they say that’s the safest thing,” said Dick. “Never mind, Bertie. It’ll be over soon.”

  “But I don’t mind,” said Herbert. “Not in the least.”

  Dick put down his rag and can of oil and leaned across the gallery counter to touch this strange little brother. “Bertie,” he said wonderingly, “don’t you care for her at all?”

  But Herbert turned away and went again to gaze at the merry-go-round. The lions were exactly alike in every particular. He had ordered them that way on purpose. It was what he had always wanted, and he was deeply satisfied.

  And then, on a wet September day, with remarkably little trouble, Herbert became a father. There was not much to it, none of the fuss he’d feared, for Ruby’s labor was nothing compared to that of Lollie Festeen. Resolutely repressing memories of that other confinement, Dick was there to stand by him, and Opal was there to stand by Ruby, and old man Nill came, too. They waited, all of them, in the parlor, while upstairs Stuart Loose and Ruby moved through the ancient rite with hardly any racket. And a little after four o’clock Stuart came down the stairs, beaming. “Herbert, old man,” he boomed, “bully for you! You’ve got a first-rate set of twins! Girls, and beauties, and Ruby’s fine. Go on up and congratulate her.”

  At once there was tumult in the parlor, but Herbert went up the stairway in a daze. In the bedroom he stood dumfounded, staring at Ruby and the two snug bundles tucked one in the crook of each elbow.

  “Oh, Herbert,” Ruby whispered, as happy tears slid down across her cheeks. “Isn’t it just wonderful! Come and look at them, the darlings.”

  He went nearer, and looked. They were, like the lions, exactly alike. But deep in the pit of his stomach he felt a dull resentment. It was just like Ruby to do this to him. Do this? Do what? He didn’t know, but he didn’t like it. Not at all. Twins! He stared at them, and the dull resentment swelled, tightening his throat. “Yes,” he mumbled, “it’s certainly grand.”

  “Oh, Herbert, what shall we call them? How about May and June? Or—let’s see—Phoebe and Hebe?”

  “Good grief, no,” he said with a scowl. “I hate trick names.”

  “Well,” said Ruby, taken aback by his tone, “then, maybe, dear, how about if I name one, and you name the other? Would you like that?”

  “I suppose so,” said Herbert. “All right.”

  “Then I think I’ll choose Louisa,” said Ruby. “Louisa May Rowbarge.” She’d been reading Little Women all summer. “What would you like to choose?”

  But Herbert could come up with nothing. He couldn’t seem to put his mind to the task. For weeks the twins were known as Baby and Louisa. And finally everyone was so used to it that when the christening day arrived, they made it permanent, with only one small change, and Babe and Louisa Rowbarge were formally anointed and licensed to begin their own long passage out, around, and back.

  Three years later, in the spring of 1910, Opal and Stuart Loose had a baby of their own, and named him Walter. A boy, and only one. Now, that, said Herbert to himself, was sensible. He gave the infant a brand-new Noah’s Ark, and began to think more kindly of Opal.

  Monday forenoon, May 26, 1952

  Babe turns Aunt Opal’s Oldsmobile into the driveway of her father’s house and even now, when she is baffled and anxious, she thinks what a nice house it is. Far and away the nicest house in Mussel Point, or Bell Fountain, as nice as any she has seen in Lima or Cleveland. Not a mansion, maybe—and thank goodness for that—it was hard enough for her and Louisa always to be the richest girls all the way through school—but still imposing. Brick painted white, green shutters, light post, birdbath, a playhouse out back when she and Louisa were children, everything. Well, she thinks for the thousandth time, Daddy was used to the best in Cincinnati; it’s nice he can afford the best in Mussel Point.

  She leaves the car in the turnaround, goes through the open garage, where her father’s Lincoln drowses in the oily cool, and with a quick knock lets herself into the kitchen. The “girl”—meaning the woman who comes in daily to clean and cook supper—turns from the sink and says, “Hiya.” Her name is Fawn and she is one of a long succession of “girls”—all of them middle-aged-who have graced the Rowbarge house in the last twenty years. Before that, there were always two, but with Babe and Louisa grown, that came to seem excessive, as indeed it was. They have, since then, done all the light cleaning themselves. They like to. And anyway, there isn’t much of it to do.

  “Oh, hello, Fawn,” says Babe. “Where’s Louisa?”

  “I dunno,” says Fawn. “Somewheres around. Upstairs, maybe. She was trompin’ around up there when I come in.”

  Babe says, “Where’s my father?”

  Fawn turns back to the sink. “Gone,” she says.

  The word has a flat, final sound. Oh, God, Babe thinks. She hurries down the hall to the front of the house and calls, “Louisa? Louisa
!”

  “Is that you, Babe?” Louisa answers, and in a moment she is fluttering down the stairs. “Babe, I’ve been calling and calling, but your line was busy.”

  “I was trying to call you,” says Babe. “What happened? I rang up Dr. Marks, but the nurse said you’d cancelled the appointment.”

  Louisa says, “Oh, Babe, what a morning! I’m a wreck. Want some coffee?”

  “Coffee!” Babe exclaims. “Louisa, for heaven’s sake, where’s Daddy? What happened?”

  “He refused to go,” says Louisa. “Even Walter couldn’t budge him.”

  “But—” Babe begins.

  “No, no, it’s all right,” Louisa reassures her. “He’s really all right. Come on, let’s get some coffee. There’s lots left over from breakfast.”

  They go back to the kitchen and find that Fawn has set a sudsy bucket in the doorway. “You can’t come in here now,” she says. “I got to mop.”

  “We just want to get a cup of coffee,” Louisa explains. “We won’t get in your way.”

  “Not now,” says Fawn.

  “But, Fawn,” says Babe, “you haven’t even started yet!”

  Fawn is accustomed to command. Though not yet fifty-five, she is the mother of six and the grandmother of ten, and all are mortally afraid of her. “See this?” she says, brandishing the mop. “See that?”—pointing to the bucket. “That says work. You two’ll come out here and you’ll fiddle around and spill the sugar and use up more dishes when I just got ’em done up from breakfast, and all the time the bucket’s gettin’ cold and I’m standin’ here gettin’ older every minute. No, sir. No coffee. Too much coffee gives you the gripes anyhow, didn’t you know that?”

  Babe and Louisa are not accustomed to command. “Oh, well,” says Louisa nervously, “never mind.”

  “Never mind is right,” says Fawn, and she plunges the mop into the bucket.

  The twins retreat to the living room and sit down side by side on the sofa.

  “So, anyway,” says Babe, “what happened?”

  “Well,” says Louisa, “Walter came over—but you know that already—and Daddy said, ‘Just the man I wanted to see, let’s go down to the park, I want to check the’—whatever it was, I don’t remember—and Walter said, ‘Now wait a minute, Uncle Herbert, Louisa says you’re not feeling well,’ and Daddy said he’d be the judge of that and what did I know; if I was referring to his falling asleep at the breakfast table, that didn’t mean anything, he just hadn’t slept well last night because he was worried about the—that thing he wanted to check on at the park.”

  Babe, heartened, says, “Well—maybe that’s really all it was. Do you think so?”

  “I don’t know,” says Louisa. “Maybe. He certainly seemed all right by then. His color was good, and all that. So then Walter said it might be a good idea for him to let a doctor look him over, and Daddy said he’d be damned if he’d turn himself over to any idiot doctor.”

  Babe smiles at this.

  “I know,” says Louisa. “Daddy said, ‘Excuse me, Walter, I don’t mean to cast aspersions on your father’s memory,’ and Walter said, ‘Think nothing of it, Uncle Herbert. Father was an idiot!’ And of course Daddy loved that. He laughed and laughed.”

  “Good grief,” says Babe, laughing, herself. “Isn’t Walter terrible!”

  “Of course he is,” says Louisa. “That’s why Daddy likes him so much.”

  Babe settles back limply on the cushions and says, “Well, I was prepared for everything to be all haywire, and now that it’s not, I don’t know what to do. Where is Daddy?”

  “Down at the park, of course,” says Louisa. “He went down with Walter. I remember now what he wanted to look at. Something to do with the Tunnel of Love, something minor like a stiff lever or something. Babe, I guess he really is all right. I mean, what could be serious that could come and go like that? After he said that, about going to sleep at the table, it did seem to me that’s probably what it was. So, I don’t know. I feel like the boy who cried wolf. I’m really sorry to get you so upset.”

  “Never mind,” says Babe. “After all, we’re not doctors. And anyway, he never used to go to sleep at the table. I’d have done just what you did.”

  “He never used to be seventy-two, either, though,” says Louisa. “I think when Dr. Herdman gets back I’ll call and tell him what’s been going on. You know. Just to make sure. Because he did have that other little spell last week—remember? When I said he got dizzy? So it wouldn’t hurt just to check it out.”

  “No,” says Babe. “That’s a good idea. Well. Whew! I’m really relieved. I really thought there for a while …”

  “So did I,” says Louisa. “And it scared me silly.”

  “You know,” says Babe, “they say when your mother dies you’ve gone through the worst there is. But I don’t remember anything about that. Do you?”

  “Not much,” says Louisa. “A little bit about the funeral, I think, but that’s all. But we were so little, Babe. And we already had that nurse—remember her?—so I don’t suppose it was much of an upheaval or anything.” And then she smiles and adds, “It’s kind of sweet Daddy never married again.”

  “Well, he had us,” says Babe. “Maybe if he hadn’t already had us, he would have.”

  “Maybe,” says Louisa. “But sometimes I think he married the park instead.”

  From the kitchen comes the clank of the bucket and a rush and gurgle as Fawn dumps water into the sink. Then she comes down the hall and stands in the archway, hands on hips. “I got to vacuum,” she says.

  “All right,” says Louisa.

  Fawn stares at them in silence for a moment and then she says, “Well?”

  “Well what?” says Babe.

  “Well, clear out!” says Fawn. “I got to vacuum. And stay outa the kitchen. The floor ain’t dry.”

  “Oh, dear,” says Louisa. “Well, come on upstairs, Babe, and tell me if you think the present looks all right.”

  They stand up, and Babe says, “No, I probably better go. Aunt Opal needs the car.”

  “Use the front,” says Fawn as they pass, “so’s you don’t track up the kitchen.”

  Louisa walks out with Babe to the driveway. “Fawn’s so bossy,” she says. “I suppose I ought to stand up to her, but I’m afraid to. She might quit or something, or bawl me out.”

  “I know,” says Babe. “She is kind of big. I forget when I’m not around her for a while. Well, still, there’s a lot of work to do and I suppose we’re just in the way.”

  “Yes,” says Louisa, “we probably are.”

  April 1912

  Ruby Nill Rowbarge was as misnamed as a female scarlet tanager, in that this half of the species isn’t scarlet at all but greenish, and not even greenish enough to make a noise about. Still, it’s a commonplace that people’s names are chosen years before there is anything much to go on. The determining factor is parental whimsy—or perhaps, to put it more kindly, artless parental confidence that the infant will grow up to embody all the name’s delightful implications. No doubt Ruby was attractive enough as a baby—“enough” doesn’t have to be much for babies—and so to call her Ruby must have seemed not completely irrational. But later on, to anyone who cared about such things, the name appeared more ironic than otherwise. So do we say to each other when we meet out walking in a downpour, “Fine weather we’re having,” and, with a caustic laugh, pass on. Ruby was not a glowing, precious stone. She was merely a stone, like thousands of others, and she, at least, never expected more. Irony was not in her, or caustic laughter, either. She accepted all things as they were.

  And things, at least on the surface, were fine, for the Pleasure Dome was flourishing. Besides the new merry-go-round, which had arrived the same year as the twins, there was, by 1912, a Ferris wheel, and a terrifying thing called a Tilt-A-Wheel that tipped you nearly on your head, and another ride called a Flying Saucer that whirled you around till you were almost too dizzy to stand. There were boats, too, and frozen custard
, and popcorn and balloons. Everybody loved it, and all summer long the place was full. Some people even said it was better than the Euclid Beach Park up in Cleveland, and indeed, it seemed it must be. On the Fourth of July in 1911, Herbert and Dick had grossed five thousand dollars. In just one day alone. It was amazing.

  Ruby knew it was amazing, and she was grateful to Herbert, wise and clever Herbert, for marrying her. She was grateful for the twins, too. She was grateful for the fine new house he was building, for the cook, the maid, the nurse. When he left her untouched at night, as he nearly always did, she sometimes wept, very quietly so as not to disturb his sleep, but she didn’t blame him for his coldness. Instead, she blamed herself for what she privately confessed was the deadly sin of lust. She was deeply ashamed of her body’s wicked desires, and on Sundays, in church, she would pray for forgiveness.

  She would pray, also, in church, that her husband might be happy. For she’d built around Herbert a saving little fantasy in which she saw him as the victim of a tragic love affair endured before she’d met him. That he was heartless by nature she couldn’t and wouldn’t allow; that he had long ago given half his heart away, this she could bear and even call romantic. Her fantasy was close to the mark, and Herbert, if he’d known of it, would have been amazed by her insight, since he sometimes, with horror and confusion, thought the very same thing himself. It was tied up, somehow, with mirrors and the sense of going mad rather than with the shadow of a longlost woman. But however it defined itself, he had never shared it with Ruby. Too bad. She could, perhaps, have helped him. Sometimes Ruby saw with remarkable clarity. But even when that happened, her confidence was such that she could never defend her philosophies, even supposing she constructed them, and instead called vision by another, apologetic name—her woman’s intuition—and kept it to herself.