Home from the Hill

by William Humphrey

  Mrs. Hannah reached out and switched on the bedlamp, and in the vanity mirror across the room her face sprang up. She reached for a magazine, propped her pillow against the headboard, settled back, and opened the magazine and read, “He’s still not home.”

  She closed her eyes. Where is he? she wondered. She opened her eyes and read, “This time it was for keeps, thought Cassandra Storey as Marc Mainwaring crushed her to him with his muscular brown arms.”

  She laid the magazine beside her on the bed and looked around the room. Why doesn’t he come? she asked her reflection in the mirror. Has something gone wrong? What has happened? Where are they? And then—shrinking a little from her own gaze: what have they been doing?

  She got up and went to the window. Her bedroom was above the den, and she saw that the lights were on down there; light fell out on the shrubbery and on the brick walk. Was Wade waiting up to meet Theron coming in? For once she would not mind his father’s giving him a lecture.

  She sat down at the vanity. Resting her face in her hands, she gazed at herself. She looked so old. She leaned forward, and the pressure of her palms drew the skin of her face taut, making the lines disappear. She withdrew her hands; the lines reappeared. She pressed her face again; the lines vanished.

  Idly, she picked up a lipstick, idly uncapped it, ran it out. She touched it to her lips. Then seeing herself clearly once again, said aloud, “Fool!” After a moment, nonetheless, she painted her lips. But her inescapable self-irony and her sense of the hopelessness of trying to make herself attractive resulted in an awkward job, and her stiff, unyielding pride made her leave it like that. She asked herself, “Why am I doing this? For whom?” She thought of her two men; thinking of the one who was not in the house turned her mind to the one who was.

  The time was not far distant when every night would be like this for her. What would be her life then, when the questions of Theron’s whereabouts, his doings, his comforts, would be some other woman’s concerns? And thinking of Theron’s being out with a girl suddenly made her feel more neglected by Wade than ever. She might as well have been entirely alone in the house. And when Theron had left home for good, and every night was like this, just the two of them in the house together, why should he want her then? He never had; why then, when she would be even older, even plainer?

  She examined the margin of gray at her hairline. She had once had pretty hair. It was Theron who had put those gray hairs there—and he showed his appreciation of them like this! A strange, fleeting thought, too strange to be dwelt on or endured, a sensation rather than a thought, shot across her mind: it would serve Theron right for this night if she took up with his father again.

  She remembered the day of the barbecue and her encounter with Wade that afternoon. She remembered the touch of his big horny hand upon her shoulder and the involuntary throb of response it had awakened in her. She remembered dancing with him that night, he as smooth, she as awkward as ever, until, despite herself, under his gaze—slightly alcoholic, she knew—of unaccustomed tenderness, she had, not exactly bloomed, but for her at least had budded, had found herself close to him, dancing in step to his rhythmical lead.

  “Fool!” she said aloud, though somewhat more softly than before.

  She remembered that she had lain awake in bed for a different cause that night, and she acknowledged the cause. Something had happened that day, something had changed. She felt it, and she could tell that Wade felt it too. It was no revolution of feeling on the part of either; she would have despised him for that almost as much as she would have despised herself. But whatever it was, in his arms dancing that night, and after the dance undressing in her room for bed, she had felt it. She had lain awake, expectant, for what she did not know, telling herself she was not, but still wakeful, expectant. Now she could acknowledge it. She had not really expected him to come to her bedroom door, but it would have been pleasant not to have let him in, to have turned him away with such words and in such a tone of voice as to remind him of his years of neglect, yet not discourage him from trying again another night. He had not come, and then too, in a moment of half-admission, she had called herself a fool; but—though she had not admitted this, not even halfway—it had hurt, had hurt with that special numb pain as when a scar is cut. But now she could admit this: putting aside the question, whose fault it was, a long time had passed since he had had from her anything he could interpret as encouragement.

  She put her hands to her temples and again drew back the skin of her face. A long time had passed, and yet, she thought, she was not old, not really old. He was old enough to have changed, perhaps. Was she too old to change?

  Her proud resentment was momentarily panicked, and in that moment she found in the very range of his pasturage a hope. If so many, why not, at last, her, too? It had not always been so. One or two lasting attachments: if that has been his history—ah, what that would have done to her she did not know. Surely that would have hurt. Perhaps it would have hurt more; she thought so now. Formerly, however, she had thought that it would have hurt, but that it would have hurt less. In his very lack of attachment to any one, there had been this humiliation: if so many, why not, also, her? Why had she alone been of no interest to him? She was not attractive. That she knew. She had always known that. But how deep went those attractions of the women who were? He had tired of them quickly enough. Now the thought came to her that, having played the field, perhaps he felt the desire to come to her. She regarded herself as possessed of the qualities which, sooner or later, after a course of women of that kind, a man would know to appreciate. Perhaps now he did, and did not know how to proceed, sensed that the techniques for proceeding with those other women would never do, but was ashamed of himself and suddenly shy and did not know how to let her see that he had at last come to an awakening.

  A long time had passed. Could she betray all those years, she asked herself, searching her face, now again lined and furrowed, for signs of relenting, of weakness? Could she now give him anything that she would have to interpret as encouragement? To think of doing so revolted her, and yet at the same time caused a mysterious emotion to rise up and challenge her pride. She felt a temptation beckoning her to be disloyal to herself, to lay down her burden of resentment. She looked at herself again, and again saw the gray in her hair, again thought of Theron, and a wave of self-pity, that emotion she had held off for so long, of bitter loneliness, broke over her, dimming her sight. When she saw herself again, she recognized in her face a wish to relent, and then she saw that without tugging at her wrinkles, suddenly she looked younger.

  She rose, heart beating faster, and switched off the lamp, then went to the window and stood looking down at the light streaming from the den out on the shrubbery. In the darkness she did not have to see her own abjectness. In the darkness she could ask herself whether after all these years of estrangement, after all her remoteness, could he possibly be given to understand? Could she suggest willingness without suggesting … Without suggesting what? The truth? That she was dying of loneliness, that she was starved for love? She shook out her hair. She was ready now to risk the loss of a little gentility.

  She was turning resolutely from the window when she saw a figure appear around the corner of the house. It was a man. He came into the light, apparently headed for the back door, and Mrs. Hannah saw that he was looking back over his shoulder. This, plus his stealthy walk, gave the figure a furtive look, and so completely had she forgotten Theron that for a moment Mrs. Hannah thought it was a prowler. Then she remembered, and though the sight of him sneaking in brought back her anger and jealousy, it brought them back as if from a distance. Her resolution was confirmed, her desire whetted. He came on into the light, now peering into the den, trying to escape detection by his father. Nothing had given her such a feeling of union with Wade as this sight of Theron trying to sneak in from his late date past both of them. She waited. Soon now he would steal a glance up at her window. And he would never know that she saw his guilty face
, that she forgave him, never know that a look had passed between them in the dark in which she gave him her blessing to go his separate way.

  He turned. He lifted his face, and she saw that it was Wade.

  In the bitterness of her stultification, in the loud mockery of her body and soul, she forgot Theron again. And so it was with the force of a fresh blow that one minute later, she saw a second figure, a copy of the first, with the same stealth, the same furtive glance over his shoulder (apparently each of them had taken alarm from the noise of the other) complete the hideous farce by coming around the corner of the house, creeping into the light and casting a guilty look up at her room.

  34

  At the head of the stairs, in his stocking-feet, a shoe in each hand, he paused, listening in both directions down the hall. To the right was his father’s bedroom, to the left his mother’s, which he would have to pass on the way to his own. Listening first one way and then the other, he thought, what would he do to me if he knew, and, what would it do to her if she knew?

  He crept down the hall, felt his way into his room, to his bed, and lay down with his clothes on. He thought he heard something and sat up. He lay back and again thought he heard something and lay still to listen. He felt a hand upon his arm, leapt up, gasped. The lights came on. It was his mother.

  “You scared me!” he said.

  “You’re late,” she said. “Do you know what time it is?”

  “I’m sorry I woke you,” he said.

  “I was awake,” she said in an unsteady voice. Yes, she had been awake, she thought, and the memory of what she had been considering while awake made her flesh crawl.

  “And Papa?” he said. “Is Papa still up?”

  “Your father’s hours—” she began. But she gagged.

  “Don’t tell him, will you?”

  Don’t tell him! The sarcasm of his wishing to conceal from his father that he had stayed out late made her mind reel. Her voice broke. “What were you doing all this time?” she demanded.

  He avoided her eyes. “We went picnicking,” he said. “I told you.”

  “Is that what you call it? Picnicking? At two o’clock in the morning?”

  She knew. She had guessed. She must have seen it in his face. He had known he could not keep it from her. He was half glad she knew. “Oh, Mama,” he said, and was about to confess it all, when he realized that she did not know. It was a realization that brought him no relief. Instead it brought a new reproach, a new sense of unworthiness. What she suspected was not the truth. It was low-minded of him to have supposed that that could enter her thoughts. No; Mr. Halstead had suspected him of the worst. His mother had only suspected him of the worst she could: that he had been out until this hour petting with a girl. It was that thought which caused her jealousy, her pain, her bitterness. The irony of how inadequate her suspicion was brought a moan into his throat that would not be stifled.

  His moan brought Mrs. Hannah understanding. It rekindled her jealousy, yet her heart went out to him. She could not stand to see him suffering even when she resented the cause of his pain. “She has hurt you,” she said. She sat down on the bedside and again laid her hand upon his arm—a motherly touch from which Theron felt his flesh shrink. “Oh, son, she has hurt you, hasn’t she?”

  He shook his head. He tried to speak. But no words of denial came anywhere near his need.

  She smiled at him, smiled down upon him from heights of maternal understanding, a sad, hurt, tender, forgiving smile that gave away her next words and caused his mind to writhe in anticipation of them. “Don’t you know,” she said softly, “that you can’t keep anything from me?”

  She knew now why he had wanted to avoid her on coming in. She had wronged him in thinking that because he came so close upon his father’s heels and had the same furtive air, there had been any similarity in their motives for stealth. He had had his first disappointment in love, and he had wanted to spare his mother the sight of his pain, the knowledge that a girl had been able to hurt him. “They’re all alike,” she said. “All girls. They’re all alike. All heartless.”

  “Oh, Mama!” he said. “Don’t. Don’t.”

  His voice was husky; there was a kind of desperation in it. His eyes were wide, and his head shook. She was astonished. She drew her hand away. Her face hardened. “Well! You must be very much gone on her!” she said bitterly.

  “Mama, you don’t know what you’re saying. You don’t know,” he said.

  “Don’t I?” she said coldly. She turned from him. She sighed bitterly and made a move to rise.

  Now it was his hand upon her arm. “Mama,” he said. “If I tell you something …” He stopped.

  She turned. “Yes?” she said.

  “Will you not tell Papa?”

  It was like a slap in the face. She clenched her jaw. Her head trembled. He thought she had shaken it.

  But at the last moment his courage failed him. What he said was, “Mr. Halstead turned me out of his house.”

  “What? He what? Turned you out? What do you mean?”

  “Not tonight,” he said. “The first time I went there. The night of our dance.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? Turned you out? It’s impossible. He wouldn’t dare. And do you mean to say you’ve been seeing each other without—”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you mean, turned you out? What did he do? What did he say?”

  “I was waiting for her to get ready, and he came down and said she’d suddenly been taken sick. I handed him the orchid and told him to give it to her and to say I’d call the next day to see how she was feeling, and he said, ‘She’ll be feeling just the same tomorrow,’ and then he handed me back the orchid and shut the door in my face.”

  “There must have been some misunderstanding,” she said. Then the image of it all formed in her mind, she felt the ignominy as he must have felt it. “Oh, my poor boy!” she said. “Didn’t he know who you were?”

  It’s Theron Hunnicutt, he had said, and Mr. Halstead had replied I see it is. Mr. Halstead had taken just one look at him and had seen him as he really was, as no one else had ever seen him, as he had never seen himself. She’s going to have to teach me to dance, he had said, and Mr. Halstead had said, And what are you going to teach her? He remembered his indignation, his determination to go back and defend himself. “Yes,” he said in almost a whisper, “he knew.”

  Mrs. Hannah shook her head. “There must be some mistake,” she said. And then she knew what the mistake was. As clearly as if he were in the room, she heard Mr. Halstead’s voice in her mind, saying, Like father, like son. She was amazed that she had not foreseen this inevitability. What father of a daughter would not be mistrustful of a son of Wade Hunnicutt’s? Oh, was a man’s son to have no life, no name part, no identity of his own?

  He had not told. His courage had failed. He had only added to the burden upon his conscience. He had enlisted his mother’s sympathies against the man whose suspicions of him he had proved justified. “As if,” he said aloud, “he could tell just by looking that I was no good. Nobody ever looked at me like that before. As if he didn’t care what my name was, it was me he was looking at.”

  When he looked at her, he saw that she was biting her lip. Around the teeth the flesh had gone white. She released it and the blood returned in a rush. She let out a deep breath. “Your name,” she said, “was all he saw!” Her voice was husky, hot. “Listen,” she said. “Listen to me. I’ll tell you what Mr. Halstead saw in you. Your name—your father’s name. It had nothing to do with you personally. He didn’t trust his daughter with you because of your father.”

  She stopped herself from telling him that his father had come into the house only a minute ahead of him tonight. Instead she said, “Your father is not what you think. I have kept the truth from you as best I could. There isn’t a woman in town whose name hasn’t been linked with his at one time or another. He’s been notorious since he was your age. Like father, like son—that was what Mr.
Halstead was thinking. It had nothing to do with you personally. Understand?”

  He had raised himself in bed, stiffening as she spoke. Now what she had done caused her to stiffen too. They sat, both breathless, staring into each other’s eyes. Of the two she was the more incredulous at her revelation. He could not doubt her disclosure: it was too perfectly what he deserved. She, though she had thought many times of doing this very thing, had known she never would. She had contemplated it for the sake of denying it to herself. Now, in a moment, with a few words, by her own act, she had swept away twenty years of her life, destroyed her ideal of herself, which out of necessity, as her only defence, she had fashioned in bitterness and clung to in desperation. She had had to make a merit of her suffering and her silence, and the strongest article in her creed had been that she would never, she the one most to have been justified in doing it, never disillusion his son about him. Now, the long vow broken, the precious penance terminated, it was as if her moral nature had collapsed. The very room, the color of the light, seemed altered, and for a moment she was a stranger to herself.