He got up hastily. He threw back his shoulders. He said to himself: Dorothea’s humors have been too much for me.
He entered the quiet, dark house, which held the warmth of the July day. He heard, as Jerome had heard, the loud ticking of the clock. His new weariness weighed him down as he climbed the stairs to his room. All the strong order of his life had been disrupted; strange shadows had been flung across familiar paths; unknown and whispering voices murmured in and about him.
A single lamp burned in the room he shared with Amalie. He crept across the carpet to the bed. Amalie slept. He saw the thinness and whiteness of her cheek, the hollows under her eyes. He stood there and looked down at her.
One of her hands hung listlessly over the side of the bed. Her black hair was tossed thickly on the pillows. She sighed faintly, once, then again and again.
Terror suddenly engulfed Alfred, and tearing love and passion. What if Amalie were dying? There was such a gaunt hollow under her cheekbones, such a sharpness about her chin. He knelt down beside the bed and stayed there for a long time, seeing nothing but his wife, and hearing nothing but his fear.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Amalie awoke, lifting eyes heavy with lassitude. The sun thrust a bar of hot yellow steel through the parting in the draperies. It burned sharply on the carpet, touched one bedpost with fire, struck a spot on the mirror opposite like a small and blazing explosion.
Amalie discovered that she was still alone. Alfred had spent his first night at home on the small couch in the dressing-room in order that he might not disturb her. She raised herself on her elbow, feeling the warm moist weight of her hair on her neck and shoulders, and sickening under it. Her whole body was invaded by that sickness. She lifted the massy hair a moment with her two hands, but the air about her was hardly less oppressive. She heard the tinkle of the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece; it was only seven. The fowl were clucking drowsily at a distance. There were subdued sounds of morning activity on the stairways and in the rooms below.
The room was dusky except for that burning and hurting bar of light, and Amalie, as she looked at the mirror beyond, saw her face in it, ghostly, haggard and completely ravaged. She fell back on her hot pillows and moaned under her breath. All at once consciousness seemed too terrible to bear; she closed her eyes, pulled the warm sheet over her shoulders.
The dressing-room door opened softly, and Alfred tiptoed into the room in his crimson silk dressing gown. With the instinct of love, he knew she was awake. He came to the bed. She felt his shadow, dark against her eyelids. She opened her eyes sluggishly, and when she saw him his whole silhouette suddenly melted with the flood of her tears.
He drew a small armless rocker to the bedside and sat there, watching her with intense gravity and sadness. He did not speak; he waited. She wiped her eyes, then stared, at him blindly.
He said, at last, very gently: “What is it, my darling? Are you in pain? Are you ill?”
She stirred, tried to lift herself on her pillows. He stood up and helped her, competently. The effort had exhausted her; her color became even more gray. Alfred said, in the quick loud voice of fear and anxiety: “I have sent for Dr. Hawley. He will be here at nine. My God, Amalie! What has happened to you? I am your husband. Can’t you tell me?”
The long bar of light brightened until the room was suffused with a warm incandescent dusk. Amalie saw that Alfred was extremely agitated, his broad strong face pale, his hazel eyes strained. She thought: I ought to tell him now, while we are alone. But Jerome has forbidden it. Is he wrong?
Surely it would be easier, in the quietness of this room, to confess to Alfred, to plead for his understanding, to soften his first furious anger. But her lips and her tongue were numb and stiff. She could only wring her hands on the sheet.
Afred waited for her to answer him, then, sighing, he went to the silver pitcher and bowl on the commode, dipped a linen towel in the cool water, and returned with it to the bed. With slow and gentle hands he wiped Amalie’s hot, white face. He smoothed back her hair tenderly. Then he sat down again. Now his expression was set and stern.
“Amalie,” he said, “I had a talk with Dorothea last night She told me that you are unhappy. My darling,” he continued urgently, “you know I live only for you. If you are unhappy, you must tell me, so I can help you.”
His heart was hammering with renewed fear and apprehension, even while his mind repudiated Dorothea’s words. He leaned towards his wife and took one of her cold hands.
Amalie bent her head, and the veil of her black hair swept across her cheek. She whispered: “Yes. Yes.”
Afred’s fear heightened. “Yes what?” he exclaimed, quite sharply. “What do you mean, Amalie? Am I to blame for something, for something which has changed you so terribly, and has made you so ill?”
Her head bent even lower. “Oh, no, no, Alfred. It is not you. You are everything that is kind and good. It is I who am wrong.”
Alfred was silent, but his hand tightened about hers.
There was a subdued knock on the door, and Jim entered, carrying Amalie’s breakfast tray. Alfred frowned on him. What the devil was Jerome’s man doing here, instead of a female servant? He stood up, and coldly took the tray from Jim. “I will be down shortly for my breakfast, Jim,” he said. He watched the little man retreating and he thought there was something furtive in his quick movements and sidling.
Alfred looked down at the tray with concern and distaste. There was only a plate of hot toast there, and a silver pot of tea. “Is this all you eat in the mornings, Amalie?” he asked.
She pushed back her hair with a languid hand and closed her eyes on a wave of nausea. Alfred laid the tray on her knees. He was more alarmed than ever. “This is nonsense,” he said. “No wonder you have failed so. But eat this, and then you must go downstairs with me for a real breakfast.”
He was human enough to be filled with a quick, sharp bitterness. He had come back to Riversend full of triumph. He had anticipated telling Amalie what had happened in New York, the kind and civil words and invitations of Mr. Regan. He had been confident, had felt new and exultant strength. He was returning to a loving friend, who would rejoice with him. But he had returned to a desperately ill wife, a woman who looked close to death, who had no will to speak or to greet him.
Suddenly, this very fact filled him with enormous fright. But he forced himself to pour Amalie’s tea. He lifted the silver cover from the toast.
“No. Please,” said Amalie, in a voice of husky misery. “I am afraid I do not want it.”
“Nonsense. You are pining away.” Again, bitterness and anger came to him, as well as fear. “You have neglected yourself. We must stop this foolishness. Am I not your husband? If something is troubling you, you must tell me. And I want to know at once.”
He waited again. But Amalie only looked emptily at the tray on her knees. Alfred moistened lips suddenly dry and salty.
“Once, you asked me to take you away from this house, to build a home for you, and me, and Philip.” His voice broke; his jaw became rigid with his harsh self-control. He went on, more quietly, more firmly: “I know that things may not be well for you here, under Dorothea. She is a little—difficult. I know that she resented you, and perhaps still resents you. You are not mistress in this house. I was wrong, perhaps, in insisting that we remain, even though Uncle William gave me the impression that eventually this house will belong to me.” He paused. “Amalie, my love, if it will make you happier, we will leave. I will build you a house wherever you desire it, and we can be alone, you, and I, and Philip.”
Amalie’s fingers touched the warm teacup. She tried to lift it, but it seemed too heavy for her. Alfred, watching her closely, sighed, raised the cup to her lips. She drank a little. He replaced the cup in its saucer.
“Is that what you would wish, my darling, to have a home of our own?”
She thought: If only I had never seen Jerome!
She forced herself to speak: “Alfred, I am allowing
you to believe that something is the fault of Dorothea. It is not true. She—she has been remarkably kind. If she resents me at all, it is my fault.”
“Well, then,” he said, with a cheerfulness he did not feel, “that is settled. But you have still not answered my question.”
Amalie’s exhaustion and miserv prostrated her. She murmured: “Let me wait a little, Alfred.” She looked at him fully now, and it was more than she could endure to see his kindness and concern, his love for her. She said: “Alfred, you ought not to have married me. You are too good for me, and I am afraid.”
This so touched Alfred that some of his fear and alarm disappeared. “Nonsense! We shall have the happiest life, my darling. I will not press you now, but I do hope that soon you will help me to decide whether we are to stay here or not. I want only the best, and the most satisfying, for you.”
He left her side and began to walk up and down the room, his hazel eyes sparkling. “We can have whatever we wish. Mr. Regan complimented me on the soundness and the increasing assets of the Bank. Of course, he has the daring and cosmopolitan mind, and cannot always understand the caution and conservation necessary for a rural banking house, but I think, all in all, that he approved of my policies.”
Amalie bestirred herself out of her lethargy to say: “I am sure that Mr. Regan could do no less than to approve of you, Alfred.”
He stopped near her to smile down at her. “Thank you, my dear.” It was coming out very well, now. She was taking an interest in his words; there was something like hope in her eyes. “Do eat some toast,” he urged. To please him, she did so, though it sickened her.
“I ought not to have left you,” he said tenderly. “I ought to have taken you with me. But I thought—I thought—”
“Yes,” she said, with bitter simplicity, “you ought to have taken me.”
Again he was pleased and touched. He stretched out his hand to lift a lock of her hair, which he fondled.
“But that was because I had hoped we were to have a child, and you must be protected, my love. However,” he resumed briskly and with a shy smile, “perhaps we can have our hopes again, in the future.”
Amalie pushed away the tray. She appeared faint and weak again. Alfred put the tray on the table. All his concern returned, but he said sturdily to himself: Females often have these strange vapors, I have heard. They are so delicate and susceptible. She will be better, now that I am home. I still believe that Dorothea has been oppressive, and that my darling, has been lonely and depressed.
He could feel the gathering heat of the room. He saw the moistness on Amalie’s white face, the pallid drooping of her mouth. He hesitated. “You are sure that you cannot join me at breakfast?”
“No. Please.” She closed her eyes. “I think I prefer to remain in bed for a little longer, Alfred.”
“Yes. Perhaps that is best. Dr. Hawley will be here at nine, and we must have his opinion.”
He bent and kissed her forehead, and then her lips. Her hands clenched under the sheet to control her instinctive shrinking and the pang that seemed to divide her heart. Then he retired to the dressing-room, where he dressed for breakfast. Amalie lay rigid and still, listening to his soft humming, his subdued movements. When he opened the door again, she pretended to have fallen into a doze.
She heard him go down the stairs. Acid tears burned her eyelids. Then she forced herself out of bed. She stood by the window and looked out. The grounds below were inundated with radiance. Charlie, Jerome’s little dog, was chasing some pigeons. Amalie could hear the distant whistling of a stableboy. The roofs of the barns were ruddy, and the weathercock upon the highest roof moved gently in the warm breeze, catching a blinding glitter as it turned towards the house. The valley below floated in a heat-haze beneath a sky like a hot opal.
Amalie stood by the window for a long time. She heard the sleepy chirp of a bird, the soft cooing of pigeons, the bright moving of the breeze. But all these sounds were faint and warm, and full of peace, hardly disturbing the shimmering cataract of light that fell on the earth and the house and the trees weighted with slumber.
Amalie turned from the window. She had pushed aside the curtains, and the large pleasant room was filled with light. How welcoming it was, how much her home, the first home she had ever known. She began to shiver in spite of the heat, and she was transfixed with pain. No matter what happened in the terrible future near at hand, this house would never be home for her again. It would remember how she had stricken it, how she had filled it with hatred and clamor and bitterness. All the portraits on the walls would repudiate her; every wall would shrink away from her.
She bathed her face and hands, combed and brushed her hair and then twisted it in long black braids that fell far below her waist. She fastened a long dressing-gown of pale-blue silk about her. Then, overcome once again by that strange weakness and fainting sensation, she sat down in a chair near the window, her hands slowly but strongly wringing themselves together on her knees.
But she had endured so much that she was conscious now of her suffering only as a huge and disembodied pain, suffused and no longer sharp. She began to rock a little, her face stiff and passive between the black braids of her hair. She watched the sunlight dancing on her blue silk thighs and glinting on her wedding ring.
All at once she had a poignant sense of approaching calamity, loud and terrible. She sat up straight in her chair, shaking violently. Some mysterious instinct warned her. She started to her feet, staggered, caught at the curtain beside the window. Her instinct sharpened. She must get away from this bouse at once! She looked about the room wildly, put her hands to her ears as if to shut out some roaring and impelling voice. She ran to her wardrobe and tore out a light gown of flounced dimity tied with cherry ribbons. She snatched a wide hat of yellow straw from the wardrobe shelf, a pair of black slippers from the floor. She laid out her lace petticoats, her stockings, her corset. Her hands were trembling and fumbling. She did not hear the grating of Dr. Hawley’s buggy on the gravel drive below. She did not hear his voice and Alfred’s rising up the staircase. When the door opened she started back so frantically, clutching a petticoat to her breast, that she had the air of a prisoner caught in the midst of despairing flight.
“Well, well,” began Dr. Hawley, cheerfully, “so here we are!”
“She seems to be better,” said Alfred, with pleased surprise. “You decided to dress, my love?”
But Dr. Hawley had paused on the threshold. His smile disappeared; his eyes narrowed with stern anxiety. He saw Amalie’s face, frenzied and distraught. He saw her eyes, darting from him to her husband like the eyes of a cornered animal.
Alfred moved towards his wife, but Dr. Hawley, who had a strong instinct of his own, caught his arm. He tried to speak easily. “Alfred, may I talk to Amalie, alone? Would you wait outside for a few moments?”
Alfred stopped. He turned to the doctor, frowning.
“You see,” said Dr. Hawley, with elaborate casualness, “a lady sometimes tells her doctor—things—which might embarrass her before her husband. I must insist upon it, Alfred.”
Alfred was bewildered. He stared at Dr. Hawley, then slowly turned to Amalie. She had shrunk back against a bedpost, still clutching her petticoat, her blue robe twisted about her body. Her expression was stark, hunted, and unfamiliar to him.
“What is it, Amalie?” he cried. “What has happened?”
Her lips moved in a whisper: “Nothing. I was about to dress. You—you startled me.”
Alfred relaxed a little. “Well, you must not, until you have talked to Dr. Hawley and he has decided whether you are to remain in bed.” But his heart had begun to beat with a kind of curious dread and alarm. He glanced at the physician pleadingly, as if to say: You can see how she is.
Dr. Hawley nodded, and gently and firmly pushed Alfred towards the door. “It will take only a few moments,” he said, reassuringly. “Then I’ll call you immediately.”
To the last, Amalie saw Alfred’s pale an
d anxious face, until the closing door shut it away from her. Then she sank down upon the side of the bed, still clutching her petticoat, and her head dropped forward.
Dr. Hawley stood near the door and watched her for several long and silent moments. The sunlight washed into the room. There was no sound.
“Why are you frightened, my dear?” asked the doctor at last, in a gentle voice.
Amalie replied faintly, not lifting her head: “I am not frightened.”
He advanced towards her. “Yes, you are. And you are very ill.”
He took her hand, felt its coldness, felt the-pounding beat of her pulse. He regarded her gravely. Then he drew a chair close to her, and sat down.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Alfred paced uneasily up and down the dim heat of the upper hall. At intervals he wiped his damp face with his linen kerchief, which smelled freshly of lavender. He ‘was annoyed that his knees were sometimes seized with a tremor, and that he felt slightly sick. Amalie, then, was much more ill than he had suspected. He remembered the doctor’s voice, the touch of his restraining hand. Dr. Hawley was not given to dramatics. Even during crises he was usually calm and casual.
During his pacing, Alfred often stopped by the bedroom door, straining his ears. But he heard very little beyond a subdued and questioning murmur. The grandfather clock below chimed the quarter-hour. Alfred glanced at his watch. He ought to be at the Bank now, with his despatch case of papers. He was not accustomed to being home on weekdays, and this gave him a disturbing sense of unreality. He stiffened his legs to restrain the fits of light trembling that occasionally shook them.
What if Amalie were going into a decline? What if her heart were failing? He tightened his hands in his pockets. No, he had done nothing to deserve this terror. God could not be so cruel. He looked about him at the quiet walls. He leaned on the banister to stare down at the sun-dappled hall below. He heard the muffled clinking of china and silver as the servants removed the breakfast service from the dining-room, where he and Dorothea had just breakfasted.
This Side of Innocence Page 36