“Yes,” Bill said. “He’ll want to see what Harry’s brought home this time,” and I knew that Bill had been telling her all about the house. I didn’t want her to feel that anything was really the matter with it. I did not want her to be conscious of it at all. Yet I was more aware of our house when I took Marvin there than I had ever been before.
Mary was waiting for us in the hall and Mary took Marvin up to her room and I carried her bags while Hugh showed Bill where he was going to sleep. Marvin had the big blue room in the front of the house, and Hannah was waiting to help her unpack.
“When you’re through,” I told Mary, “let’s all go down to the library.”
I waited in the library alone, just thinking that Marvin was in the house, and imagining how she would look when she came down with her hat off and her gloves off, as though she belonged there. Bill came in before she did.
“Have you got everything you want, Bill?” I asked, and Bill said that he had everything he wanted.
“Bill,” I said, “I hope Marvin likes it here.”
“Of course she’ll like it,” Bill said. “Why shouldn’t she?”
“I just don’t want her to think it’s stuffy.”
Bill had picked up the paper and was looking at the headlines. Now he put the paper down.
“Listen,” he said, “don’t act as though you’re afraid that Marvin is going to use the wrong fork.”
“I’m not acting that way at all,” I said.
“You know what I mean,” Bill answered. “You used to be like that with me when I came here first.”
I did not answer him, because I heard Marvin and Mary coming down the stairs. Marvin was in a tailored traveling suit, all new and perfect, which she must have bought just for the trip. I saw her glance about the room, at the books and Father’s prints and at the heavy leather chairs and at the wine-colored curtains drawn tight across the windows.
“It’s awfully nice,” she said. “It’s just what I thought it would be like.”
“I hope there was everything you wanted upstairs,” I said, and I rang the bell by the fireplace. Hugh answered it too quickly, showing that he must have been listening in the upper hall.
“We want some ginger ale,” I said, “and Mr. King will have a Scotch-and-soda, won’t you, Bill?”
“What about me?” Marvin asked.
“Bring up the tray, Hugh,” I said.
“And what about me?” Mary asked. “Don’t keep worrying about Hugh.”
“Why?” asked Marvin. “What’s the matter?”
“There’s nothing really the matter,” I said, “but it might upset him to find you and Mary drinking highballs. It will be all right just as soon as Hugh brings up the tray. We can wash out the glasses afterwards.”
“You mean he will smell the glasses?” Marvin asked.
“Hugh’s an awful sneak,” Mary said.
“That’s right,” said Bill. “We’ll have to rinse the glasses. You girls don’t want to lose your reputations, do you?”
“It isn’t that,” I said, “but Hugh would tell everybody downstairs and then somebody would tell Mother.”
“Oh,” Marvin said.
We spoke softly because Hugh was coming back. He set down the tray and the ice and the glasses on the low table near the fire.
“May I help, sir?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “That’s all for tonight, Hugh.”
I took out my key ring and unlocked the cupboard beneath the bookshelves by the window, and took out two bottles and put them on the tray.
“How much do you want, Marvin?”
“Just a drink,” Marvin said. “A good stiff drink.”
Now that was the way she always talked, but I wished she had not said it until Mary knew her better.
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” Marvin said. “Mary, you and Bill can drink out of one glass and Harry and I can drink out of another. Then we can put some ginger ale in two other glasses and throw it out the window.”
“That isn’t such a bad idea,” I said.
Then everyone was laughing, except Mary who looked annoyed.
“You mustn’t mind Harry,” she said to Marvin. “Harry’s always worrying.”
“Yes, I know,” Marvin said. “Harry’s just like that, and he doesn’t change. I’m glad he doesn’t change.”
“You wouldn’t think, would you,” Mary said, “that Harry had been a hero in the war?”
“See here,” I said. “I wish you wouldn’t all discuss me as though I weren’t here at all. I know what you all think about me.”
Yet at the same time I knew that I was perfectly right. Mother would have heard about it and it would have made a lot of trouble.
Sometimes when I am acutely aware that something is worrying me I find that it is actually some stray thought of that visit of Marvin Myles’s. Even now I find myself going over all the little phases of it, wondering why I behaved the way I did at such a moment, wondering what would have happened if I had made some different remark. Nothing could have made that visit any better—nothing that she could have done or that I could have done. What gives it such pathos is that both of us tried so hard.
It could not have been anything that she or I said, but rather what we thought. I do not even believe at the time that either of us was conscious of any difficulty; but I know now, and she must know, that there were all sorts of odd little moments, when something discordant happened. She kept looking at everything, which was perfectly natural, since it was all new to her and important, but that attention of hers made me nervous. When she examined the Inness over the mantelpiece and the large canvas on the opposite wall—cows standing in a shallow pool, and when she looked at the paper knives and little books and put out her fingers carelessly to touch things, I kept feeling that she was a stranger. I kept wanting everyone to see her as I did, and yet I knew that everyone we met saw her as a stranger. That was the way Mary saw her—as something desirable and exotic, and Mary was sweet to her. She often told me afterwards how much she liked her. Mother was sweet to her too. She gave her a copy of Emerson’s Essays before she went away, because they had talked about Emerson. Marvin had the gift Bill had of knowing what to talk about. I don’t know why I was continually afraid that she might say the wrong thing, because she never did.
I took her up to Mother’s room after breakfast next morning. Marvin must have noticed that I was looking at her to see that she was all right.
“What’s the matter?” she asked me in the upstairs hall. “Is my slip showing?”
As a matter of fact, Mother would not have minded at all if Marvin’s slip had been showing. It would have given her something homely to work on, because Mary was always having the same trouble. The difficulty was that nothing was showing. I suppose that Marvin must have been working very hard on herself before breakfast, though I did not think of it then.
“No,” I said, “it isn’t that. It’s your nose.”
“Why,” asked Marvin, “what’s the matter? Is it shining?”
It would really have been better if it had been, because Mother would have understood a well-scrubbed, shining face.
“No,” I said, “just take your handkerchief and rub a little of the powder off.”
Marvin rubbed some of the powder off.
“Now,” she asked, “how’s that?”
I have often wondered what Marvin really thought about Mother, and that was something which she never told me. I kept worrying about Mother too, hoping that she would not be gushing and sentimental, hoping that she would not begin to cry about Father. As it turned out, Mother was awfully nice. She said she was glad that Harry knew nice girls, really nice girls in New York, although she knew that she ought to trust me to have good taste, since I was just like my dear father. She was sure that Marvin would understand how a mother worries more about a boy than about a girl.
“And now, my dear,” Mother said, “tell me about yourself.”
I could tell
that she did not really want to know. She really wanted to go on talking about me. No matter what Marvin said, Mother would listen very politely, and then go on with her own ideas, just where she had left off.
“She’s sweet,” Marvin told me afterwards.
I don’t know whether she said it to please me or not, but it was sweet of her to say so, and I tried to explain about Mother—particularly that she lived in a little world of her own.
“Why, darling,” Marvin said, “everyone does.”
Afterwards Mary lent Marvin a pair of arctics and I took her for a walk toward Beacon Hill along the Esplanade. It was a gray sort of morning and the brick buildings on the hill looked old and smoky.
“I like it,” Marvin said, “because it makes me understand you.”
And then I told her we were going out to Westwood for lunch. I wanted her to see Westwood. I told her I knew that she would like it.
“We’re going to have a picnic,” I said, “and go coasting.”
“Coasting?” Marvin said.
“Yes,” I told her, “or else we can chop wood.”
“But, darling,” Marvin said, “I haven’t any clothes.”
I told her that Mary could lend her some, that Mary had lots of old tweeds and sweaters and things like that. Later Mary took Marvin up to her room to give her clothes and to get her dressed and Bill and I could hear them laughing about it. All the details of the picnic were a good deal on my mind. I told him that I hoped Westwood would be warm enough, that we only kept a low fire there in winter to prevent the pipes from freezing.
“Is anyone coming with us?” Bill asked.
“There’ll be you and Mary,” I said, “and Marvin and me and Joe Bingham and Kay Motford.”
“Oh,” said Bill, “she’s coming is she?”
“I asked them,” I said, “because you’ve always liked Kay.”
“Yes,” said Bill, “that’s so. When are they going to be married?”
“Sometime in June,” I said.
“Oh,” said Bill, “in June. I suppose it’s too cold to get married here in winter.”
I had so much on my own mind—I was thinking so much of Marvin and how it would be at Westwood—that I did not think much about Bill. What I recall best is the snow, and how it got all over you and melted, and how it kept getting down Marvin’s neck, and that Marvin wanted to coast downhill sitting up.
When we all met downstairs in the hall ready to go everyone was wrapped up in sweaters. Marvin was wearing Mary’s brown tweed skirt and knitted stockings and one of my old turtleneck sweaters which was too big for her.
“Everything makes me itch,” Marvin told me.
“Well, it will do you good to get some fresh air,” I said.
We didn’t have time to say anything more with everyone else in the hall. Kay always looked well in winter clothes. They seemed to fit her better than summer ones and her cheeks were red and her eyes were bright.
“Look at the snow queen,” Bill said.
When she saw Bill she looked surprised for a moment and then she looked happy.
“I didn’t know you were here,” Kay said.
“Here today,” Bill said, “and gone tomorrow.”
I picked up the lunch basket and Joe picked up the vacuum bottles. When we crowded into the limousine everyone was laughing and it was just the way a winter picnic should be. It had been quite a while since I had heard Bill be so amusing. When he started to tell about all the hidden dangers that lurked around the waistline and the rest of his crusade for suspenders, I had an idea that Kay would not understand his humor, but everything sounded all right in the car. One thing kept leading to another and Marvin told about how she and I had gone out on the soap survey and how the Jewish lady was going to call the police until I said that I would wash her clothes.
“Why, Harry,” Mary said, “you never told me about that.”
With everyone laughing and talking it did not matter what anyone was thinking. All the girls seemed to be having a good time, but I suppose that’s the way with girls when there are men around.
We ate our picnic in front of the fire in Father’s old den at Westwood. Somehow when the fire was burning you did not mind the furniture’s being covered with sheets. I managed to bring some whisky and we had plenty of hot coffee and sandwiches and pie, and then we all went out to the barn and got the sleds and dragged them over to the big hill. Joe took Mary down. Joe was always awfully good in the snow. Bill took Kay down and I took Marvin.
“Don’t be like Ethan Frome,” she said. “I want to live.”
Bill and Kay tipped over halfway to the bottom of the hill. They rolled into a snowdrift and Bill got up first and pulled her up.
“That’s what comes of not wearing suspenders,” I heard him shouting.
Then I saw that Marvin looked cold. We began throwing snowballs at each other, but the snow kept getting down her neck.
“Let’s go back to the house,” she said. “I want to see it all.”
“All right,” I said.
I wanted to be alone with her and we had never seemed to be alone. We walked down the lane past the stables and up the terraces where the rose bushes were all wrapped in straw. The house looked sad and deserted, brown and bare among the trees, and I tried to tell her how it looked in summer with the wistaria and ivy over it and all the beeches out. I took her all through the house, telling her little things about it: how I used to slide down the banisters, how I used to think that the back hall was full of ghosts. Her hands were cold when she took her mittens off, so we went downstairs to the den to sit in front of the fire.
“There wouldn’t be anybody who could see us if you kissed me,” she said, “only the ghosts in the back entry.”
When I kissed her it was not like winter at all. I told her it was like May when all the tulips were out in the garden.
“You’re so sweet,” she said. “I wish I didn’t love you so.”
I saw her glancing at all the covered pictures and all the covered furniture. I loved the way the fire struck her face, now that the white winter dusk from the snow was coming through the windows. I loved the way she looked in that sweater of mine that was too big for her.
“You look the way I’ve always wanted you to,” I said.
She leaned toward me and rested her hand on my knee and gazed at me, as though she wanted to remember how I looked.
“You’re going to stay here,” she said. She was speaking softly, but it sounded absolutely final, incapable of shading or misinterpretation.
“If I stay,” I said, “you’re staying too.”
“God knows why it is you’re always so,” she said. “You never say the wrong thing, even here.”
I might have asked her what she meant if I had not heard the front door open. The sound of voices in the hall made me get up quickly from the bench where we had been sitting in front of the fire, and then Mary came in with Joe Bingham.
“Softy,” Mary said to Marvin, “didn’t you like the snow?”
Joe took off his mittens and blew loudly on his fingers.
“Where’s everybody else?” he asked.
“Who?” I asked.
“Why, Bill and Kay,” he said. “Didn’t they come back here?”
“No,” I said. “Why should they have?”
Joe blew on his fingers again, looked at them and rubbed his hands together hard.
“They went walking somewhere. I thought they were coming back to the house.”
“They’ll be back,” Mary said. “There’s still some coffee left. Who wants some coffee? Do you want some, Joe?”
“Not right now,” Joe said. “I wonder where they are. It’s getting sort of late.”
It was getting late. Outside the bare limbs of the beech trees seemed to be growing lighter the way they did just before it grew dark in winter.
“It isn’t five o’clock yet,” I said.
“I’ll bet you’ve never been coasting before like this,” Mary was sa
ying to Marvin. “You ought to see it in April. I’d love to take you out in April walking in the mud!”
“I wonder where the deuce they are,” Joe said. “I don’t want Kay to be catching cold.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “They’ll be back in a minute. Bill won’t let her catch cold.”
“Sometimes for someone grown up,” said Joe, “you make pretty dumb remarks.”
“Why, Joe’s jealous!” Mary said.
“Who should I be jealous of?” Joe asked. “Are you intimating that I’m jealous of Bill King? It’s only they may be lost or something in the woods.”
“What under the sun,” I asked him, “would Bill and Kay be doing in the woods?”
“Walking, of course,” Joe said. “Whenever Kay gets anywhere she starts walking. You know how she walks, Harry.”
“Yes,” I said, “I know. They’ll be back in a minute.”
“Well, Patrick’s back here now with the car,” Joe said.
Of course there was nothing wrong about Bill’s being out with Kay, but I was glad when I heard them outside on the porch. I heard Bill singing when he opened the door.
“Oh, joy, oh, boy!” Bill was singing. “Where do we go from here?”
“Anywhere from Jersey,” I heard Kay sing back, “to Harlem with you, dear!”
They stood side by side in the doorway for a moment and there was a sort of pause for no particular reason. I was thinking again that Kay certainly looked better in winter than she did in summer. The scarf around her neck matched her eyes and her cheeks were scarlet and she was out of breath as though they had been running.
“I don’t see how you can stick in the house,” Kay said, “on a day like this.”
“It isn’t day,” Joe answered. “It’s darned near night.”
“All right,” Kay said, “on a night like this. Harry, do you know where we’ve been? We went down to the brook.”
“This is quite a piece of real estate,” Bill said. “I didn’t know you had a brook.”
“If Patrick’s here,” Mary told us, “we’d better be going back.”
“Here today,” Bill said, “and gone tomorrow. ’Tis but a tent where takes his one night’s rest.”
“Keep the cash,” said Marvin, “and let the credit go.”
H. M. Pulham, Esquire Page 24