Paul Townsend got up and stretched. He couldn't seem to help exuding excess health. He said he had to go, he'd left off in the middle of trimming his ivy. "And by the way, Rosie," he said with his warm smile, "if you really want some cuttings there are going to be millions of them." Rosemary said, "Thanks so much, Paul, but I don't suppose I'll have the time . . ."
"Of course you'll have the time!" cried Mr. Gibson, shocked. "Don't let me be in the way ..."
She only smiled and Paul said he'd save a few dozen in water anyhow, and Jeanie, who had been seen but not heard most of this time, as she got up to go, said sweetly, "I'm awfully glad you are home again, Mr. Gibson."
By the tail of his eye, Mr. Gibson perceived on Ethel's face a look he knew very well. It was the look she wore when she was not going to say what she was thinking. This was fleetingly disturbing. In just that moment, Mr. Gibson felt quite out of touch.
"Forgot," said Paul in the doorway. "Mama sends regards and all that. Say, why don't you hob—come on over and sit with her sometimes. Gibson? She'd love it."
"I may do so, some day," said Mr. Gibson as cordially as he could, and Rosemary let the Townsends out.
"They have been so nice," she said returning. "More tea, Kenneth?"
"No, thank you." Mr. Gibson dug about in his head for a topic to mention aloud. "Jeanie is a quiet one, isn't she? Nice child."
"I don't suppose she's especially quiet with her contemporaries," Ethel said. "Although she certainly does sit like a cat watching the mouse. . . . Deeply attached to her father. Unconsciously, of course, she's scared to death he might marry again."
"Why do you say that?" inquired Mr. Gibson.
"She's bound to be," said Ethel. "And of course, he will. That's inevitable. Man in his prime and a very attractive man to women, or so I imagine. And well off, too. I doubt if he can help himself. Some blonde will catch him." Ethel took up the last piece of pound cake. "I presume he is actually only waiting for the old lady to die. Although until he gets Jeanie launched off to school or into a romance of her own, he may sense there would be trouble from that quarter."
"Trouble?" said Rosemary politely.
"The inevitable jealousy," said Ethel. "A teenager, especially, can be so bitter against a step-parent."
"I don't know Jeanie very well," murmured Rosemary rather unhappily.
"They don't intend to be known, these teen-agers," Ethel said. "They like to think they are pretty deep." She hooted.
They weren't too deep for her, the quality of its tone implied.
Mr. Gibson had known quantities of young people as they filtered through his classrooms. But the relationship, there, he reminded himself, was an arbitrary thing. They were supposed to respect him, on the surface at least. He had had many bright chattering sessions listening to the tumble of their inquiring thoughts. They'd show off to teacher. He would be the last to know them in a private or social capacity. He said rebelliously, nevertheless, "They feel deep."
"Don't we all?" said Ethel with one of her wise glances. "Shall I tell you whom I am sorry for?" she continued. "That's old Mrs. Pyne, poor soul."
"I don't feel as if I know her well enough to be sorry or otherwise," continued Mr. Gibson, for tliis was at least talk.
"Isn't it obvious?" said Ethel. "That to be old and ill and dependent upon, of all things, a son-in-law, is a pretty dismal fate? I see them wheel her out on that front porch of theirs every day and there she sits in the sun. Poor old thing. She must know, whether she lets herself admit it or not, that she is a nuisance. She must know it'll be a relief to all concerned when she dies. If ever I get old and helpless," said Ethel forcefully, "me for an institution. Remember that."
"I'll make a note of it," said Mr. Gibson with a touch of asperity. But he was doing anguished sums in his head. Take twenty years. Rosemary would be fifty-two, not many years older than Ethel was right now, and no one could be more the picture of strength than Ethel. But then he, Kenneth Gibson, would be seventy-five . . . ancient, decrepit, possibly ill . . . possibly—oh, Lord forbid!—another Professor James. Then would Rosemary be waiting for him to die?
He said wearily, "I'm afraid I had better lie down for 2l while. I'm sorry."
They sprang to assist him to his own place, where, on his own couch, among his books—his long beloveds—he tried to rest and remember without pain the bleak, the stricken pity on Rosemary's face.
One of his legs simply was not the same length as the other one. He could never conquer that little lurch in his body. He was lame. Old. Done for. So he was.
Chapter IX
LIFE IN THE COTTAGE fell quickly into a pattern. Some weeks later Mr. Gibson mused upon this. One should, he perceived, kick like a steer (if steers really do kick) in the first hour of any regime, because habit is so easily powerful and it is so soon too late.
Surely his sister Ethel had not meant to dominate. She was too fair and reasonable a person. But she had long been used to independence, to making decisions. He supposed he had been too physically weak (and too emotionally preoccupied) to notice what was happening. Of course Rosemary did not seem to think it her place to assert herself, for she was so abysmally grateful. Grateful to him. Grateful to Ethel.
However it had come about, the hours they kept were Ethel's hours. They ate on an early schedule, which made the mornings too short and too full of petty detail. Afternoons were consecrated to naps and too soon thereafter to the preparation of their early dinner. The menus reflected Ethel's preferences if only because she had them and both the Gibsons were too amiable and too flexible.
Evenings they spent a trois. These were long and dedicated to music, Ethel's choice—all severely classical, and sometimes listened to in learned solemnity. Or they conversed, about the music, Ethel leading. Ethel had many opinions and it was difficult not to listen and agree. Mr. Gibson hated arguments.
Then, Ethel liked a game of chess. Rosemary did not play. Once Mr. Gibson tried reading aloud for half an hour, but when Ethel capped the reading with a sharp and knowledgeable sketch of Mr. Browning as a Victorian lady's man, while he couldn't dispute the truth of all she said it yet made such a ridiculous picture in Mr. Gibson's mind that he put the book back upon the shelf with apologies to an old friend..
In fact he now lived with his sister Ethel.
Ethel in her long years in New York had got out of the habit of expecting social gatherings. Ethel reveled in being
one of three. For her, this was a crowd. They had few callers. Paul Townsend, or Jeanie, -dropped in once and again. Their visits were not especially stimulating. Paul was casual. Jeanie was all manners.
Mr. Gibson's old acquaintances did not drop in. He seemed divorced from the college completely, so far out in this little house, and all the work going on without him.
So he lived with Ethel, and Rosemary was there in the same house. For instance, it was, quite properly, his sister, Ethel, and not the comparatively new, the stranger female, who attended to what nursing Mr. Gibson needed, for she, of course, was better able to cope with certain physical indecencies. . . .
Mr. Gibson had begun to feel that he was in a soft but inescapable trap. He was unable to fight out of it. He didn't know that he ought to try. Rosemary deferred to Ethel in all things. Rosemary did not seem to want to be alone with him. He sometimes wondered whether anything was amiss with Rosemary. Oh, she was well and busy, willing and agreeable . . . but he and she seemed locked away from communication and he, covering his seething doubts, wore the same armor of perfect courtesy.
Mr. Gibson sat in the sunny living room one morning, which was where he tended to sit. He did not often sit out of doors, where Mrs. Pyne was to be seen a lonely figure in her wheel chair on the Townsends' porch. He had found he did not enjoy it. Perhaps the light was too cruel, and fell too harshly from the sky. Perhaps he had become used to a more cloistered effect and in physical weakness preferred it. At any rate, he sat indoors and thought to himself, this morning, that he had never met anything
so grueling, so nearly maddening, as this adult atmosphere of mutual forebearance and perfect meaningless harmony.
While he pondered ways and means of rebellion, with only half a heart that ached obscurely but all the time, Mrs. Violette was dusting. (Both Ethel and Rosemary had asked him whether he minded, and he had said of course he did not mind.) He watched her swift coordinated motion with a little idle pleasure. There was no air of good will about Mrs. Violette particularly. She did her job, in her cool silent way, not caring whether he minded. She rather refreshed him. She was shifting the ornaments on the mantelpiece when she suddenly seemed to become aware of something behind her. She jerked her head around
and with that abrupt movement the cloth in her hand flicked out at a small blue vase and it fell. It smashed.
"Oh dear," said Ethel, who had come in on quiet feet, "and that belongs to Mr. Townsend."
"We can find another," said Mr. Gibson automatically.
Mrs. Violette ducked down and began to pick up the pieces. He noted the easy crouch of the knee, the slim straight back.
Ethel said, "Such a lovely blue! Didn't I speak of that only yesterday?"
"I didn't mean to do it," spat Mrs. Violette with an astonishing burst of anger.
"Of course you didn't mean to do it," said Ethel soothingly. "You couldn't help it."
Mr. Gibson watching Mrs. Violette's face found himself beginning to blink. Why was she so furious?
Rosemary came, called from her bedroom by the noise, "Oh, too bad ... I don't suppose it costs much, do you?"
Ethel said, "No, no, I've seen them in the dime store. It's not expensive."
"Please don't worry about it, Mrs. Violette," said Rosemary at once. "I just hope you haven't cut yourself."
"No ma'am," said Mrs. Violette, rising. She looked boldly at Ethel for a moment. "I'll pay for it." she said contemptuously. She walked across the room with the bits of pottery in her hand and disappeared into the kitchen.
"We can't let her pay for it," said Mr. Gibson, "when it was just an accident."
Ethel was smiling a peculiar smile. "She seems to know it was no accident," she said musingly. "How odd!"
"What do you mean, no accident?" said Mr. Gibson in surprise.
"She did it because she dislikes me, of course."
"Ethel . . . !"
"She does, you know. And I did admire the color of that vase in her hearing only yesterday. She dislikes me because I check up on her, which is more than either of you seem to do."
"But . . . what need . . . ?" he said bewildered.
"What need? Oh me," sighed Ethel seating herself. "I believe a servant could steal you blind and you'd never know, either of you."
Mr. Gibson felt like a Babe-in-the-Wood. Such a thought had never occurred to him.
"I don't think she'd steal," said Rosemary in a low voice, hesitantly. "Do you, Kenneth?"
"Of course not!" he exploded.
"Of course not," mocked Ethel. "No ' of course ' not' about it. These foreigners don't have the same ideas of honesty as you do. She wouldn't call it stealing . . . but you would, and so would I."
"What has she stolen?" said Rosemary, looking a bit flushed.
"She takes food," said Ethel, looking mysterious. "All foreigners take food. They don't think of it as property."
"She eats," said Rosemary. "That is true."
They were in conflict. Mr. Gibson held his guilty delighted breath.
"Nor any small loose-lying thing," Ethel went on, drawling. "Don't you ever take precautions, you dear sheltered people? Don't you believe in the fact of theft? I hate to think what would happen to you in less bucolic places. There is wickedness in this world."
"Really," said Mr. Gibson much annoyed. "I see no more reason to believe that Mrs. Violette would steal than to believe she broke that vase on purpose. And I was right here, Ethel. I saw what happened."
"You think you did," said Ethel, as to a very young child.
He felt shaken.
"It's the first thing she has broken," began Rosemary. "She's been quite remarkable . . ."
"Quite so," said Ethel with satisfaction. "Of course, it is the first thing. Don't you se© she resents me, and has, since the moment I came? So she breaks something I liked. I'm not blaming her. I merely understand."
Mr. Gibson had a faint sense of something fading out of his peripheral vision. "For heaven's sakes, Ethel," he sputtered. "Anyone can have an accident!" • "There is no such thing as an accident," said Ethel calmly. "Honestly, Ken, you are ignorant in some fields. Subconsciously she wanted to spite me. She likes to be let entirely alone the way you let her be. But, of course, I am not such an easy mark."
"What on earth are you saying?" said Mr. Gibson in amazement. "Of course, there is such a thing as an accident. She turned to look because you startled her . . . and then her hand . . ."
"Oh no," said Ethel.
"Wait a minute." Mr. Gibson turned to see what might be on Rosemary's face but Rosemary was no longer in the room. She was gone. It was disconcerting.
Mr. Gibson turned back and said severely, "I don't agree with your suspicions, Ethel."
"Suspicions?" sighed Ethel, "or normal precautions? The fact is, old dear," she continued affectionately, "all of us can't live in a romantic, poetical and totally gentle world. Some of us have to face things as they are." Her bright eyes were direct and honest and he feared they were wise. "Face reality," she said.
"What reality?" he snapped.
"Facts," said Ethel. "Malice, resentment, self-interest— the necessities of the ego—all the real driving forces behind what people do. The conscious mind, old dear, is only the peak of the iceberg. You believe so easily in the pretty surfaces . . ."
"I do!"
"Yes, you," said Ethel kindly. "You don't know a tenth of what goes on, Ken. Your head's in the clouds. Always has been. Of course I love you for it. . . . But for every saint with his head in the clouds," sighed Ethel, "I suppose there has to be somebody to take the brunt of things as they really are."
"I see no reason," said Mr. Gibson with stubborn lips, "to mistrust Mrs. Violette."
"You wouldn't see a reason to mistrust anyone," said Ethel indulgently, "until the deed popped up and hit you in your nice fastidious nose. You have always sidestepped the nasty truths of this earth, brother dear. More power to you."
He stared at her.
"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, and she did look sorry, "I shouldn't say these things . . ."
"Why not?" he cried, "if you believe them."
But Ethel evaded and said, "You are a lot like Mama was, you know? I think you should have been the woman, Ken, and I should have been born the man."
"Tell me," he cried. "What are you saying?"
"You musn't pay any attention. Your world of poetry and quixotic goodness and faith and all the rest is a pretty darned nice place. . . ."
"And your world?" he demanded. "I imagine you call it the real world, he said, goaded to some anger.
Ethel responded to the anger. "Mine?" She looked him in the eye. "It happens to be full of knives-in-the-back and all kinds of human meannesses. It cannot help but be. Men are animals, whether you like it or not."
"And you say," he groped back for something solid with which to challenge her, "That Mrs. Violette broke the blue vase deliberately?"
"Of course, she didn't consciously plan it," said Ethel. ' 'You don't understand. But she did break it to displease me, just the same."
"I don't believe itI' said Mr. Gibson. "Don't then," said Ethel. "Stay as sweet as you are . . . that's in a song, isn't it?" She grinned at him and he knew her teasing was a form of apology. "You are a lamb, Ken, and everybody loves a lamb. I cannot help it if I am no lamb, you know. Now, I haven't upset you, have I?"
He thought he felt as upset as he had ever felt in his life. He scarcely knew why, but he was afraid for Rosemary. So he struggled up, and, using his cane, he limped into the kitchen.
Mrs. Violette was briskly washing
the counter. Rosemary was there too, just staring out the window. He thought she looked rather lonely.
"Now, Mrs. Violette," he said, "please understand that I will pay for the vase. It wasn't your fault." Mrs. Violette shrugged and said nothing. Rosemary said in a brisk voice, "Mrs. Violette tells me she has to leave us, Kenneth. She's going away with her husband, next week."
"Is that so?" he said unhappily. "Yeah, we're taking off to the mountains," said Mrs. Violette. "He's going after a new job for the both of us. If we get it, we'll stay on up there."
"On a ranch," said Rosemary. "How nice that will be!" She sounded rather desperately cheerful. "But we'll miss you, Mrs. Violette."
Mrs. Violette made no response. She didn't care whether she'd be missed. She wasn't even angry at Ethel any-more, for all Mr. Gibson could see.
"Ought we to try to get somebody else?" said he across to Rosemary worriedly.
"No," she said. "No. I'm able. Ethel and I can manage beautifully." He couldn't read her eyes af all.
"But if one day," he said, "Ethel were to go and live on her own, then . . ."
"Oh, she musn't do that!" cried Rosemary. "That would be a shame! Your only sister, Kenneth, and so good to come ..." He saw her hands on the round wood of the kitchen chair. The knuckles were blue-white. "Such a fine person," Rosemary said. "So wise and so good."
Mr. Gibson felt alarmed. Something was wrong with Rosemary. She was a stranger and far away and how could he tell what was the matter when she seemed shut up against him . . . when her eyes seemed to search his so . . . could it be? . . . fearfully. Ethel was right, he conceded. There must be a good deal going on that he missed. He felt lost. What anxiety, what stress could there be, to so inhabit Rosemary's eyes? "Yes," he said absently. "Of course she is."
Meanwhile, Mrs. Violette scrubbed vigorously at the sink there in the small room. Ethel came in and said jauntily, "Lunch, dears? I'll start the vegetables."
Out in the yard, Paul Townsend was working near the low stone wall. He was on vacation. School was out; Jeanie was around and about; Mrs. Pyne sat on the porch. There was no privacy.
A dram of poison Page 6