“Perhaps you haven’t got all you wanted,” said Miss Watts wisely. She went back to the house, and Cathy followed.
The next day was Mrs. Ferguson’s day off. Elvira came to Cathy during the morning, looking upset.
“It’s mother again. Poorly. Can I take my Saturday off today, Aunty Cathy?”
“Certainly, Elvie.”
“Fergie’s off, too.”
“I can manage.”
Elvie smiled widely. “After how you managed last time the children will enjoy the change.”
Miss Watts had departed early, David driving her out to Mascot. Elvira put on her navy coat and hat and left within the hour.
Cathy sat in the kitchen looking through the little black book of household notes.
Rissoles first, she decided, then Spanish Cream—or flummery. She looked in the larder. They were down on eggs, so that precluded the Spanish Cream. The oranges and lemons, too, were short, so she decided against flummery. Oh, well, she thought with a hint of humor, it will have to be gelatin.
She was standing at the stove stirring the milk mixture when she heard the steps behind her. This time she did not mistake them. She knew them too well. She turned around.
“Good morning Dr. Malcolm. Did you want something?”
“A word with the housemother. No, please continue. I can speak here just as well.”
She took up the spoon again. She saw that her hand was trembling.
“I’ve come to apologize,” he said without preamble, “for my behavior last night.”
“Accepted,” she nodded coolly. She stirred furiously a moment, then added, “I’m always accepting your apologies, aren’t I?”
“Twice, and for similar offences.” He paused a long moment, then baited, “Aren’t you going to say something?”
“That they were not offences. That would be more polite, wouldn’t it, even if you didn’t mean it.”
Cathy pushed the saucepan to one side. “Dr. Malcolm, what did you come to tell me?”
He looked back at her, his eyes not baiting now. He spoke directly and curiously without emotion.
“I came to tell you I love you, Catherine, that I have loved you from the moment I first saw you, that I’ll love you till I die.”
She went as though to move away, but as he had done that first time, he crossed quickly to the range and imprisoned her by stretching out his two big arms and planting a large brown hand each side of the stove.
She challenged a little huskily, “If you say you feel like this, have felt like this, why did you apologize that first time?” She was remembering with a curious pain that knowledge of an empty grate with a leaping fire, two familiar chairs.
He looked at her reproachfully, “You offered me no encouragement. You accepted, but you did not give. There is give and take in love. One to kiss and one to be kissed was your attitude, and you did not kiss.”
“What was Fayette to you?” she demanded almost huskily, ignoring his reproach.
“I despised her; I’ve always despised her. She possessed that worst of all traits, meanness.”
“And yet you danced to her tune?”
“I despised myself for that, too, but I was tied, Catherine. I was tied in loyalty to a place I distrusted and yet loved. Without Fayette Redgates could not have functioned. I realized that. But I realized, too, if I married her she would tire of it, of Redgates, and all my efforts would have gone for nothing. So I just held off, saying nothing, doing nothing, dancing, as you said, to her tune, but allowing the tune to go so far and no further. Sometimes—” wearily “—I think it was the wrong method. It only whetted her desire, made her more determined to get what she was after.”
“She told me she was going to marry you.”
‘So you told her about David.”
“That was a mistake.”
He said grimly, “It was.”
A silence fell between them. Cathy broke it nervously.
“I was coming to you after Miss Watts told you that Susan was not your sister. I knew how you felt, Jeremy—cold, rootless, at the beginning of a long empty road.”
“I waited for you. I waited in vain.” His eyes were again reproachful.
She asked gently, “Was it so awful?”
“Not so awful. I realized that the chip I had worn on my shoulder all these years against Little Families was unwarranted, that they had not broken up an intrinsic unit, as I thought. But long before that, Catherine, in fact, ever since I met you, I had found myself thinking differently. I believe it was those four words.”
“What words?”
“ ‘In a little while,’ you said. In a little while things would be different. I saw things as scientists see them—time past, time present, time future, all happening together on the same broad canvas. Even now—who knows? Children everywhere, Wednesday’s children, are living in small home units with their own brothers and sisters. You can’t have everything in your own lifetime. It is just a matter of a little waiting; just a case, as you said, of ‘in a little while.’ ”
She nodded, not speaking.
“I was sad, of course, because of Susan. I was discouraged because I had learned indisputably I was a Wednesday’s child. Then Rita and Andrew, Wednesdays as I was, were lost and I found them, and with them in their faith I found my own faith and new resolve. I knew that Wednesday’s child or not I was going to marry you, that Wednesday’s child or not you were going to be proud to have me for your mate.”
The gas flickered and made a little hissing sound. She remembered it was wasting outrageously, the gelatin beginning to crust the saucepan.
Then she forgot the gas and the gelatin. She forgot everything. There was no empty hearth in which a fire could leap, there were no waiting chairs. There was only the white flame between them, between her and Jeremy; there were only waiting arms. In a little while she would go to those arms. She would dissolve the sadness. He would hold her to him as she had never been held. She would feel his aching hunger for her in his kisses, his months of needing her. He would feel her own response to him, and somewhere in her tenderness he would recognize it—the deep roots at last, the personal belonging, the beginning of that structure called family. He would be Wednesday’s child no more.
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