by Anya Seton
She turned away and went to the bed corner. Dear Lord, she thought, what am I doing to you, Evan? But what can we do—either of us, but make the best—she clenched her hands and looked down at her belly with disgust. It seemed to her that already under the apron there was a tautness. She stared at the loft. The bed corner here, the washstand and bureau. The stove, table and shelf above it. The painting corner, with Evan silent at the easel, hunched close to it because of the crowding stacked canvases behind him. Everything crowded and shoddy. If only there was a window, something through which to look out and away. Instead of that pitiless skylight.
She took off her apron yanking at the entangled strings until one tore off. She flung her little crocheted shawl over her shoulders. “I’m going out—” she said. “I want to walk.” She waited a minute.
But Evan merely grunted. She saw relief on his intent face. She went out quickly. The streets were dusty and noisy, Broadway was crowded with jostling strangers. There were fashionable matrons bound for shopping at Lord and Taylor’s or Stewart’s. There were frock-coated men hurrying uptown for lunch at Delmonico’s, there were tradesmen and clerks and tourists, all intent and purposeful. She found herself peering into the faces as they passed, seeking for recognition. But there was none. The indifferent eyes flowed past her in an implacable stream. If I only had someone to talk to, she thought. She stopped and stared, unseeing, into a window filled with clocks and bric-à-brac. Suddenly she was exhausted. Weariness fell over her like a dense black veil. Her knees trembled. She turned down Broadway, and dragging each foot forward in painful effort, she plodded back to the loft.
During the fall and winter months Evan sold illustrations to the magazines, Our Young Folks, Hearth and Home, Appleton’s Journal, and two New York scenes of girls skating on the pond in Central Park to Harper’s, which paid better. He received from ten to forty-five dollars for his drawings, and on these proceeds they lived, reserving two hundred and fifty in the bank for emergencies.
The loft ceased to be hot and stuffy, it became cold and draughty. In November the snows began, and lay thick on the skylight, consigning them to a gray half-world until Evan climbed up the ladder to the roof and brushed off the clinging flakes. The little stove which had seemed so cruelly hot in August now barely warmed its half of the room, and along the floor there ran an icy draught.
Hesper was used to cold winter rooms, but at home they were only in use at night, and the rush from warm bed to the huge crackling fire in the kitchen downstairs had never taken more than a momentary fortitude.
But the months went by, they wore heavy clothes, wool stockings and stout shoes, Evan warmed numb fingers over the stove, and sketched doggedly. He was neither ill-tempered now, nor gay. He treated Hesper with kindness, sparing her all the heavy tasks, and more and more he avoided looking at her as her face grew pinched, the thick white skin lost its translucence, and her body swelled, blurring into grotesque lines. Often he went out on trips to editorial offices, or sometimes to see La Farge, Homer Martin, or Mr. Durand. Once or twice he suggested that Hesper accompany him, but she refused, unequal, during this malaise and lethargy of advancing pregnancy, to making any unnecessary effort, and knowing that he would be happier without her.
Hesper read a great deal, huddled close to the smoky kerosene lamp. She read the magazines in which Evan’s drawings appeared, because they usually got free copies. And she read romances that he brought her from a small circulating library on Astor Place. Sometimes these stories were about artists, and these puzzled and surprised her.
One December night as they sat at dinner she mentioned this. The weather had turned warmer, and the loft was more comfortable. She had made a rich chowder, having trudged through the slushy streets all the way to the Washington Market for the clams and haddock and salt pork. She used the famous Hearth and Eagle recipe which incorporated the fish and pork with plenty of potatoes, fried onions, milk, and cream. Susan added a sprinkle of nutmeg, but nutmegs were expensive and Hesper had no grater. All day the chowder had been resting against the stovepipe to blend, and the result pleased Evan.
He leaned back in the creaking chair and crossed his legs. “You’re a good cook, my dear,” he said. “It’s smart what you can do on that miserable stove.”
She smiled, savoring the moment of warmth and digestive pleasure. Strange that two people could live so close, and yet it was as though their lives ran in two parallel grooves. She saw the grooves deep and sharp like twin channels, chiseled on an infinite wood plank. Evan and she were two tiny wood ticks, caught in these grooves. What a fancy, she thought. I never used to think ugly things like that when I was writing poetry back home. Ah, but then what fancies had she not had! Of romance, of gold and silver castles and princes.
“Evan—” she said, “I read a story in Appleton’s Journal about an artist’s life, and then the novel by Mrs. Rhoda Broughton, the things they say—it isn’t a bit like our life, or even, I guess, like that of those other artists you know.”
“How do you mean?” Evan was diverted. The wavering lamplight cast a kindly shadow over her. Her hair, which lately had seemed to lack all life, glowed bronze.
“Why, those artists I read about always seem so gay, even if they’re poor. They sing and have parties with models and drink wine out of slippers, and their studios are hung with vivid brocades and they always have a Moorish divan loaded with carelessly tossed pillows.”
Evan laughed. “Do they do any work?”
She laughed too, after a moment’s hesitation. “I guess so. They starve and struggle and their hearts break, they’re in despair, then suddenly—” “They smuggle a painting past the judges, who’ve turned it down, hang it on the line, in the Salon of course. The public is enraptured, the critics swoon, jostling each other for the privilege of touching the artist’s hand. All Paris is at his feet. After that he doesn’t have a care, but he doesn’t let his fame and riches spoil him. He marries the sweet little girl from the provinces who has been patiently waiting, or he marries the little model, virtuous as a snowdrop, despite the giddy life, and the Moorish divan.”
“Why, you read ‘Heart of an Artist,’ ” she cried, half laughing.
“No. But I can even finish the story. Our hero becomes a superb family man, dandling the little ones on his velvet-dad knee, and he continues to paint masterpieces with one hand while he dandles with the other. Everybody is very happy, especially the sweet little wife who is now dripping with diamonds.”
“But doesn’t it ever happen like that?” she asked after a moment. “At least I mean the gaiety, and living for the moment. Artists are supposed to be impractical and—”
“Bohemian is the word they use in Paris, I believe,” said Evan. “You find me disappointing in the artistic role. Perhaps you should remember my solid, middle-class Yankee background, not unlike your own.” His chair scraped across the varnished boards, and he got up. “At least I’m becoming a good family man.” There was no mistaking the sudden venom in his tone.
Hesper sighed, the moment of intimacy had curdled as it always did nor did this hurt her, as it used to.
Evan was struggling into his greatcoat and muffler. She watched him apathetically. It was an effort to feel or think these days. At the slightest cause the black weariness descended. Her head began to throb and the chowder which had tasted so delicious lay heavy in her stomach.
“I’ll be back later,” Evan said, his voice once more controlled. “You look very tired, Hesper. Go to bed, I’ll fix the stove when I come in.”
Christmas and New Year’s passed with no celebration except letters from home and a box full of cookies and wool socks from Susan. The letters were unexpressive in the case of Susan, and uninformative in the case of Roger who covered four pages with spidery writing to tell her that he had taken up the study of Arabic, and found it engrossing, even to the point of still further retarding work on the “Memorabilia.” He assumed that she was enjoying the “busy marts and stimulating society of
the great city with her talented husband,” and he thought of her often with deepest affection.
Susan’s letter was more objective.
Dear Hes—
How are you keeping? Mind you don’t reach up much, it twists the cord. A grummet of dry crust soaked in brandy mostly stops a queasy stummick if you’re still bothered. Can’t you fix it so’s to come here in March? It ud be mighty hard for me to leave the Inn, without that I’ve no relish for travel. Let me know, there’s plenty of time. There was a big fire on Front Street. Brown and Ledger’s wharfs both went. They broke out the new engine, the “M. A. Pickett” but she didn’t help none. The wind was westerly, and we fretted some here, but Glory be, it shifted.
I served one hundred seventy-one dinners last month, making a tidy profit. Twice had to use the parlor. Mr. Porterman was in yesterday. He’s bought a new buggy and a pair of bays. He looks fine and is building a great house up Pleasant Street. Well I guess I’ll closenow, haveing no more news. Your Pa and me keep pretty good. Remembrance to Mr. Redlake.
Your affectionate—Ma.
SUSAN DOLLIBER HONEYWOOD.
Hesper reread both letters many times. The scenes they evoked would not come vivid, yet an unhappy compulsion continually forced her to try. She lay on the bed shivering beneath the cheap quilts, and pictured the fire on Front Street, the shouts, the church bells clanging, the running feet, the hiss and bang of the pump on the new engine, the excitement and fear in the smoky air. But she could not picture Front Street without Brown and Ledger’s wharves.
Nor could she picture such a press of customers as would force Susan to serve them in the sacred parlor. She had been gone six months and already there were changes at home which had seemed unchanging, and this hurt her like a deliberate and callous desertion. She knew it to be unreasonable. Yet the sense of loss persisted.
She thought too about Amos Porterman, the new carriage, and the new house. Likely he was going courting, maybe he and Charity had settled it after all.
I didn’t want him, why shouldn’t he? she told the hurt resistance in her heart. And she lay hour after hour, not fully awake but staring at the ceiling—the planchment, they called it in Marblehead.
It became increasingly hard to drag herself from bed. Her ankles and feet were puffed like white pincushions, and when the blood ran into them they throbbed painfully. Her head throbbed too, and giddiness swirled in it like water; sometimes black spots swam across her vision and the implacable outlines of the stove, the easel or Evan dissolved into grayish blur. Early in January she fainted on the stairs on a trip down to the water closet on the lower landing. Evan, fortunately at home, soon found her and helped her back to bed.
He was deeply concerned, forbade her to move, and rushing out to Mercer Street summoned a doctor, whose brass plate he had noticed. “Arthur M. Stone, M.D.” The young doctor opened the door himself. He had fresh rosy cheeks and a hopeful smile, and he had been graduated two months from the Bellevue Medical College.
“I don’t know anything about this kind of thing, of course,” said Evan as they hurried along together. “She didn’t have much of a fall, but she’s been looking very bad. Still, maybe that’s natural.”
“Oh, certainly. I think so. Quite, quite,” said the young doctor nervously. He had had very few obstetrical cases, and those had all been husky Irish girls who did the business themselves in an hour or two. He was disappointed in the shabby loft after he had climbed all those flights. Mr. Redlake’s speech had been cultivated and he had hoped for a rich patient. Still, one would do one’s best.
At the end of his quick self-conscious examination, he was not at all sure what his best should be. The girl didn’t look right, that was certain, her color was bad, her heart beat irregularly and there certainly seemed to be a lot of edema, even her hands were swollen.
Still she seemed to be in no particular pain, and smiled at him feebly before she again shut her eyes.
He decided to go home and look in his textbooks. Before leaving he opened his bag and poured out a placebo, of colored peppermint water, told Evan in a loud confident voice to keep her in bed and not to worry, said he would return in the evening, and departed.
Hesper opened her eyes and turned her head on the pillow. “Evan—” she whispered—“I’m an awful bother to you. I’m sorry.”
He pulled the stool over to the bedside and took her hand. “You’re going to be all right, Hesper,” he said levelly. “I’ll take care of you.” She lay looking up at his averted face. She saw how thin it had grown; the bones of his cheeks and jaws pushed out the dark skin. There were lines she had never noticed before on either side of his mouth and between his eyebrows. His brooding gaze was fixed on the wall beyond the bed.
She made no sound, but the tears ran from her eyes and down her cheeks. Tears of pity for Evan, for the feeble thing that fluttered inside her, and for herself.
That day and the next, he tended her, bringing food from the outside, performing the most intimate duties with a matter-of-fact efficiency. By the next evening, and the undecided young doctor’s third visit, the need for diagnosis had passed since Hesper had gone into active labor. Doctor Stone watched her for a few minutes, then with a sensation of relief sent Evan for a midwife.
The woman was fat, she arrived wheezing and panting from the climb, flung her bonnet in the corner, examined Hesper, vouchsafed the young doctor a glance of utter contempt, and rolled back her sleeves.
“You’d best bestir yourself, me fine young cub, and lend me a ’and ’ere, if you don’t want to lose ’em both.”
Doctor Stone started and flushed. “Labor appears to me quite normal,” he said stiffly. “Unfortunately it has come on so early, of course. But she had a slight fall.”
“Fall, me foot. It’s ’er kidneys ’as backed up, as anyone without a finemedical degree Id know. She’ll go into fits next, lessen me luck is in. ’Ave you no chloroform in that shiny new bag?”
Doctor Stone threw Evan a miserable look, and followed the midwife behind the baize curtain.
Evan stood in the painting corner by his easel. On the rack there was a half-finished sketch of three young ladies in a rowboat, ordered by Hearth and Home for their May issue. He stood looking at the sketch in the dim light. From behind the baize curtain by the bed there came dreadful sounds; the figure of the doctor and midwife hunched like monstrous dwarfs passed and repassed through the lamplight.
Evan’s face contorted. He kicked the easel. It swayed and fell sideways against the wall. He turned and ran, coatless, down the stairs into the bitter January night.
The baby was a girl, and it never breathed at all, nor did the doctor and midwife pay much attention to it. A seven-months baby had little chance at best. They had their hands full with Hesper, and when it appeared that she was out of danger, both claimed the credit, credit really due to the sturdy young body, strengthened by years of healthy living and healthy ancestors.
Hesper recovered rapidly, the midwife sent a daily woman in to nurse and cook for three weeks, and at the end of this period Hesper’s body felt normal. The binding had come off the breasts, which had been agonizingly distended with milk for which there was no use. Her face and hands and feet returned to their natural fine-boned thinness, her white skin and flaming hair regained their brilliance.
During the weeks of the daily nurse’s reign, Evan kept away during the daytime, returning late at night and lying carefully on his side of the bed so as not to disturb her. At seven in the morning, he was already dressed and waiting. The instant the nurse came he went out. The halffinished sketch for Hearth and Home remained untouched on the easel.
Since the morning after the birth they had made no reference to the baby. At that time, Doctor Stone had met him on the landing with the tragic news, and had been shocked to have Mr. Redlake interrupt his laborious preamble.
“You mean the baby’s dead?” said Evan and at the doctor’s reluctant nod, he had added something under his breath that sounded li
ke “Thank God.” He had gone to his wife, and kissed her on the forehead. She had raised weighted lids, looking up at him steadily. “There isn’t any baby, Evan.”
“I know. You’ve had a bad time, Hesper. Try not to worry about anything.”
Doctor Stone, hovering in the background, was puzzled. The words and sentiment were adequate for the circumstances, but somewhere there was a lack. It occurred to him that Mr. Redlake’s attitude toward the girl might have been that of any sympathetic friend. You’d never think him part of an intimate mutual tragedy. He’s a queer duck. Noaccount artist, thought Doctor Stone, staring at the cluttered loft and wondering about his fee. Then the obvious explanations for all that puzzled him flew into his mind, and he flushed at his own lack of sophistication. Of course, they aren't married. What a fool I am, he thought, and adopted toward Evan a cold truculence. He presented his bill to date at once, and was somewhat disgruntled to have it paid at once and in cash. Apparently the artistic temperament and irregular morals did not extend to money matters. So Doctor Stone felt disapproving pity for Hesper, congratulated her on her complete recovery, and disappeared forever from the Fourth Street loft. Twenty years later, when Doctor Stone had become a fashionable doctor, he told the story quite differently, and with it bedewed lovely eyes and brought lumps to manly throats at many a Gramercy Park dinner party.
To Hesper, neither doctor, midwife nor daily nurse ever emerged sharply from the gray blur. She followed their commands and allowed them to do what they liked to her body while her spirit withdrew itself to a small shut room and waited.
On Thursday the fourteenth of February a brilliant sun sparkled off the snow and through the skylight which had become a rectangle of blue. Hesper got up early, made coffee and fried bacon, finding zest in these tasks so long suspended. Evan too seemed to share the buoyancy of the day. He ate his breakfast leisurely and showed no signs of going out as usual.