“It’s too wet. She was afraid of her rheumatism though I offered to come for her in the car with a hot water bottle and a blanket. Our mother,” Avis explained, “insists on living in her own house. It’s only a little way from here, we can walk over through the woods in nice weather.”
“We’ve tried to prevail on her to live with us, but she likes her own place best,” Bruce said. “Her own room and the things she has lived with for forty years, her old servants—”
“And her awful old car!” put in Meredith.
“Hush, dear, Granny loves that old car.”
“It’s very funny-looking,” persisted the little girl. “It has a horn you squeeze and it toots, Miss Warfield. Granny won’t let us live with her because I make noise and Skippy barks too much.”
“Old people like to be alone and, quiet. And we like to make a lot of noise—so it’s a very good arrangement,” Avis said. “I hope you like a simple home dinner, Virginia? I’m going to call you Virginia, too.”
“I am, too, then!” announced Meredith. “May I call you Virginia?”
“Of course,” Virginia smiled at her. “And I love home dinners. I do my own cooking on a gas-plate when I’m at home—and you know what that is.”
“Yes, I know,” Avis laughed. “I tried it myself a while. I was a very unimportant music student studying at the conservatory in New York and living in one room and two holes, before I was married. I lived on poached eggs and cereal, with a lamb chop on Sundays. After I married, it took me weeks to realize that men yearned for steaks and French-fried potatoes and apple pie.”
Bruce had told Virginia that Avis had been a widow for six years. Virginia found herself looking keenly at that calm, cheerful face now, wondering if Avis still had dark and bitter nights, if pain still tore at her when she let herself remember.
Would there come a day—if, as she would not let herself believe, Mike should be lost to her—when she could sit serenely behind a silver coffee pot and talk about steaks she had broiled for Mike? And yet, undoubtedly, Avis Andrews had loved her husband— passionately, perhaps; undoubtedly, there were moments she took out of memory, as women take little locks of hair and dance programs and wedding invitations from locked boxes, to shed tears over them. She was changed and made into another person because she had loved a man enough to marry him, just as Virginia knew that she herself had been changed in loving Mike. Yet Avis had been able to pick up life again.
Were there two personalities, two souls in all women? Did they live two lives, separate and untouched, each by the other? It couldn’t be. Love struck too deep, its alchemy touched every cell in brain and body, every fiber of the soul. And if it died, something died that could not live again, forever and ever. Voices would go on speaking and hands go on picking up familiar tasks, laying them down. But deep within, there would be tears that ate like acid and a pain that would not be dulled. Oh, she knew! For that was the way she was feeling now—looking across this pretty table into the smiling eyes of this tall man—who was not her lover, who was not Mike.
The meal over, they sat before the pleasant fire, and Meredith curled up promptly in the corner of a couch and went to sleep, the little dog in a ball at her feet.
Bruce said, “Play, Avis.” So without further urging Avis sat at the piano and played haunting things by Debussy and Palmgren, nostalgic, full of questioning and unsatisfied longing; and then the deeper, quieter fulfilment of Saint-Saëns.
How can she bear it—music like that—Virginia’s thoughts ran.
Then she glanced at Bruce Gamble to see if he had been caught up in the emotional spell, too, if he, too, was remembering poignant, lost hours. But Bruce was looking at her, with something in his eyes that made her heart quicken a little and her nerves draw tight with an uneasy prescience.
“That was lovely,” she said, to break the spell. “Oh,” she went on, going to the window, “the rain has stopped.”
Chapter 10
Bruce came and stood beside her.
“Would you like to walk over with me to see my mother? I usually go on Sundays—it’s only a little way. I’d like her to know you.”
“I’d love it—only my shoes—” Virginia looked do at them ruefully.
“Avis will lend you some overshoes. You’d better get a raincoat, too, Avis; the woods will be drippy.”
Avis’s raincoat flapped down to Virginia’s ankles and the overshoes were too large, but she tied a scarf over her hair and went out, laughing at the scarecrow figure she made.
The autumn woods smelled pungently of dead oak leaves, lying light and new-fallen under the trees an in the path.
“Inevitably,” Bruce said, “all this will be cut into streets and built up with suburban houses, but we are postponing the evil day as long as possible. But if the tax assessments keep on rising, we may have to give it up.”
“You own this?” Virginia looked into the high, quiet, naked boughs, etched into individual angles by the clear light that follows a rain. “It seems a pity to spoil it.”
“Once this was a farm—the old Meredith place. My mother was born in the old house where she still lives. Then the city came out and surrounded it. My mother made money, selling lots when the fields were cut up, but the improvements were expensive—paving and other things. We’ve hung on to this piece of woodland up to now. I hope we can manage to hold it as long as Mother lives—and till Merry grows up.”
They emerged from the grove into an orchard, gnarled and old, and beyond that was a garden with grapevines on a trellis, a chicken yard to one side, and in the middle a stone-walled well with a great sweep.
“It’s lovely.” Virginia saw the mossy roof of the low, white house through the bare, lifting boughs of a row of pear trees. “No wonder you want to keep it.”
“It’s distinctly un-American to cling to what is old,” Bruce said. “The English do it, and Americans spend money to go over there and see their lanes and hedges and the cottages where four or five generations have grown up. Then they come home and tear down places like this to build modernistic white houses with glass walls, or awful Spanish affairs with one cactus and one red olla for atmosphere, and wonder why in this country there’s a feeling of restlessness and temporariness.”
“And why their children have no special affection for the old home,” Virginia added, feeling somehow disloyal to Mike, who had not lived in a house since he could remember, and who had thought the idea of owning a place of his own slightly amusing. But this was the day she was not going to think about Mike. She shut her heart up tight like a fist, untied the scarf and shook her head to free her bright hair, as Bruce Gamble opened a gate that entered upon a sunken brick walk.
Pinks and day lilies, frost-browned now, bordered the path, and at the end of it was the old, white house with a narrow porch on two sides and old-fashioned dormer windows in the roof. Wood-smoke drifted from the chimney, and there was a smell of rainwater and of decaying wood—old, old smells, the smells of home.
A Negro man, white-haired, stooped, and voluble, opened the door, limped about eagerly helping them with their raincoats, insisted on kneeling and removing Virginia’s overshoes, though his ancient knee creaked and he had difficulty in rising again.
“Miss Sally—she’s sittin’ by the fire,” he announced “You-all go right in.”
“She’s so tiny!” was Virginia’s first thought, as she met Bruce’s mother. So little and frail to be the mother of tall Bruce and big-boned Avis, and the grandmother of husky Meredith.
But though Mrs. Gamble was small, she was very erect and her back was straight as a ramrod, her white head held very high. And though she sat in a low rocker, surrounded by comfortably shabby Victorian furniture, with yellowing portraits framed in walnut on the walls, she wore a well-cut blue frock and she marked her place in one of the more modern novels, as she rose to greet them.
“Nice of you
to come on this soggy day,” she said. “I was resigned to spending the afternoon with this book. I was not feeling sorry for myself. Have this chair, Miss Warfield. Bruce, that one squeaks—push it back and pull up another. Bruce tells me you are a businesswoman?”
“I’m with a tour bureau. It’s quite interesting. We haven’t expanded yet as much as Teresa Harrison hopes to. We’ve invaded Europe, but now she has her eye on Africa—the Nile and the South Seas.”
“I’ve never seen anything,” sighed Sally Gamble, “and now I’m too old and stiff to venture. So I sit by my fire and toast my swollen joints and let people who write show me the places I was too timid in my youth to explore for myself. And I raised two children who are as much vegetables as I was.”
“But—I thought you liked staying at home, Mother?” Bruce said.
“I do like staying at home. A good thing, now, since I can’t go down three steps without grunts of misery. But if I were young again—like you,” she turned her bright gaze upon Virginia, “I’d marry a rover and see the world!”
Almost Virginia laughed aloud. Almost she cried out, “But I did marry a rover—and here am I, and he goes roving.” But she caught herself in time and said something polite instead, something about Mrs. Gamble’s ideas fitting in beautifully with Teresa’s business, while Bruce filled his pipe and blew smoke into the fire and said nothing at all.
Julius, the old servant, brought wine, in priceless little shoe-peg glasses, on a silver tray, and hard biscuits that Virginia tried to bite without much success.
“Don’t do that—dip them like this.” Sally Gamble snapped a biscuit and soaked half of it in her wine. “Easy to see you weren’t born in Maryland. Where were you born, anyway? You talk like a southerner.”
“In Tennessee.” Virginia soaked her biscuit obediently, thinking that they were tasteless things anyway and why bother? But the wine was very good.
“I make it myself,” said the little old lady. “It’s elderberry—and I use a big crock with a plate over it and a brick on top of that. Keep out the gnats—that’s the important thing. What’s Avis doing—playing the piano?”
“She did play for us. She plays beautifully.”
“She could have toured Europe in concert—and she married a college professor.” Mrs. Gamble bit a biscuit almost viciously. “And now—if Bruce would only stir himself and get another wife, she’d like to marry a fellow who works in a bank—who’ll put her in a brick house with a car to drive and nothing to do but go to luncheons and play bridge and let her brain dry-rot forever!”
“Oh, but look here, Mother,” Bruce protested, “I’m not interfering with Avis’s life. She hasn’t made up her mind about Dan Thomas, anyway. And do you have to marry me off so precipitately?”
“You’re no earthly good the way you are,” snapped his mother, setting her glass down with a clink. But she gave Virginia an impish, wise smile, and Virginia felt her prickling uneasiness returning again.
The feeling of being on guard increased when they had said goodbye to Mrs. Gamble and started back through the damp orchard and the grove where already blue shadows of dusk were beginning to gather. Bruce held her arm to help her over rough places and then he slowed suddenly, and Virginia felt the clasp of his fingers tighten.
“My mother,” he said suddenly, “likes being outrageous now and then. But aside from that she’s a very wise woman.”
“She’s a love,” said Virginia, maintaining a casual air. “I wish I had known her when she was younger.”
“She’s a clever woman—because she sees that I’m in love with you,” Bruce went on, standing still now, keeping his hold on her arm. “I wonder if you’ve seen it, too?”
“Oh—but, please, Bruce—I can’t— Can’t we, be friends?” she asked unhappily.
“Do you want me for a friend?” he countered, his brown face set, his lips very straight.
“I do want you, Bruce. This has been such a nice day—knowing you—you and Avis and Merry—and your mother—”
“You’ve been happy today?”
“But—of course. I feel so at ease—as if I were at home.” And that, she knew instantly, was the wrong thing to say.
For Bruce was quick. “You feel at home because this is where you belong—you’re a home person, Virginia. You belong on a hearth—just as a yellow kitten belongs. You’re a woman made for loving and cherishing—not for haranguing hotel men and whatever else it is that Teresa Harrison makes you do.”
“Oh, but I liked haranguing those hotel men. I got a thrill out of it. And I like my job, too, Bruce—”
“And you don’t like me? Is that it?”
“How ridiculous! Of course I like you. But I’ve known you only a little while—and I can’t fall in love—with anyone, Bruce. I’m sorry—but I can’t.”
He released her, and she began to walk away, Bruce following closely. The rain had begun again, softly, a small, teary rain, sad and thin and slow with the dying of the day.
He said, “Is there someone else, Virginia? You needn’t answer unless you feel like it. I have no right to ask.”
She hesitated and her throat ached with a sharp, cramping pain. Her voice came, low and harsh, so that Bruce had to lean forward a little to hear.
“Yes,” the word was little more than a breath, “there is someone else, Bruce.”
“I’m sorry.” He walked a few steps his hands thrust into his pockets. “I didn’t know, of course—”
“No—you didn’t know. But—we don’t have to change—do we, Bruce? We needn’t spoil—what we have?”
“I can’t change, Virginia, I can’t stop loving you—merely because you happen not to care—now. I’m not giving up, you know. I’m going on—loving you—even if you’d rather I didn’t talk about it.”
“Thank you, Bruce—I’d be so glad if you didn’t talk about it. And—I think the woman who could love you will be very lucky.”
“I’m not going to stop hoping,” he said firmly. “I’m not giving you up—not so long as there is a ray of hope.”
This was cruel and unfair, she hated herself for doing it—for not speaking frankly, but pride—was it pride or merely vanity that kept her silent? No, it was hurt pride—a stiff sort of pride that would not let her admit, even to herself, that she had married a rover who loved his roving best, who had, so it appeared, loved her so casually and so lightly that only a few miles, only a few days, could make him forget!
They strove, as polite people do, to recapture old ground, to be as before. But Virginia caught Avis Andrews’ eyes upon them once, sharply, saw her mouth twist a little and then straighten into a dry, thin smile.
“They all know—and they’ve been waiting—and they’re such nice people,” she thought unhappily.
She wondered, as they drove back to Washington through the gathering darkness, if she could have loved Bruce if she had never met Mike. No two men could be more unlike; Bruce, quiet, tall, gentle, a trifle grave; Mike so impulsive, so volatile, so effervescent. But Mike could be tender, too—tender and sweet. Suddenly her heart went wailing through the empty void of sky and earth and sea—crying as the curlew cries, seeking what it may not find, in the hollow twilight.
“Oh, Mike—come back to me! Come back to me—and love me again!”
And only the rain answered, dripping from the naked trees like tears.
At Teresa’s door, Bruce helped her out, holding an umbrella carefully, over her hat, till she was under the shelter of the marquee. She put out her hand.
“Goodbye, Bruce. Thanks for a lovely day.” And impulsively she added, smiling a little, “Goodbye, friend.”
Bruce took her hand, and did not let it go.
“Virginia,” he said, “I’m older than you—much older, undoubtedly—”
“I’m twenty-five—not adolescent, you know, Bruce—”
“I’m thirty-eight—and to thirty-eight, twenty-five is youth—beautiful, lost youth. Promise me that if ever things—change, if ever you change, Virginia—you’ll let me know.”
“I’ll promise that. I’m sorry I can’t care, Bruce—I do admire you and—”
“Promise something else,” he cut in hoarsely. “Promise me that if you need me—ever—no matter why or how—you’ll tell me that, too?”
“I promise, Bruce.”
“Goodbye, Virginia.” He bent and kissed her gently on the forehead and hurried away.
Chapter 11
The usual Sunday-night brawl, as Mike had called it, was going on in Teresa’s apartment when Virginia let herself in.
Teresa, wrapped in a velvet housecoat, her hair elaborately done, her arms jingling with heavy bracelets, was lying on the chaise longue that had been dragged into the drawing room.
Her injured leg, in the heavy white cast, was lying out straight, and a hilarious group were gathered around—five men and two women, glasses in hand, most of them sitting on the floor.
Teresa gave a yelp of welcome as Virginia entered. Her eyes were feverish, her voice shrill.
“She’s been drinking again,” thought Virginia wearily. “She knows she shouldn’t and she does it anyway.”
“Look, darling,” screamed Teresa, gesturing, “I’m collecting autographs on my cast. Isn’t it precious? I’m going to keep the darn thing forever. Look here, Sam—you’re writing that upside down. I can’t read it up here where I am. Make him write it so I can read it, Virginia. I’m missing all the fun.”
Sam Hinchey, hunkered down on the floor, was scribbling on the white plaster with a fountain pen; the others leaned near to watch and screamed with laughter when he had finished. Obviously, from the noisy mirth, Sam had written something ribald, and Teresa fumed loudly that someone must read it to her, but they all rocked with tipsy merriment and refused.
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