“Yes, Breckenridge, sometimes you were a very stupid man.”
“What do you mean, stupid?”
“Well, I won’t give you a big example. I’ll give you a little one. Do you remember saying to me two nights ago, ‘You don’t know what I feel, Stacey. You’ve never been sick’—do you remember that?”
“Yes. It’s true. What’s stupid about that?”
“You forget, Breckenridge, that I lost three children. I was in what you call ‘discomfort’—great ‘discomfort’—for twenty and even forty hours.”
Silence.
“I see what you mean. . . . ? I’m sorry, Stacey. Do you forgive me?”
“Yes, I forgive you.”
“Don’t just say you forgive me. Really forgive me.”
“I do, Breckenridge. I do.”
“Stacey, will you call me Breck just once?”
“You know I don’t like nicknames.”
“Well, I’m sick. Do me a favor. Call me Breck. When I get well you can call me anything you want.”
Eustacia was playing a game for high stakes. According to her lights, within such means as were at her disposal (faute de mieux, as she wryly told herself), she was preparing her husband for death. She was trying to assist a soul to birth—to being born into self-knowledge, contrition, and hope. This project was conducted under peculiar difficulties. Any word faintly savoring of edification threw Lansing into a rage—a blasphemous rage. He had been for a short time a student preparing himself to be a clergyman; he was able to scent edification from afar and possessed a wide vocabulary with which to sneer at it. In addition, these conversations were often overheard by a third person. For several years George had seldom entered or left the house by any of the doors on the first floor. He came and went by his window—from the boughs of trees, by spikes driven into the wall, by climbing the back porch and swinging along the eaves. It now became his custom to prowl about the house. His mother could hear his footsteps on the soft ground of a late spring thaw. George had been described as having “the face of an angry lynx”; he had also the soft pads. Eustacia had the hearing of the felines and knew when her son’s ears were glued to the half-open window. Lansing’s voice was often raised in anger; he hurled objects about. George was there to protect his mother.
Eustacia’s project was not only difficult, but perhaps impossible.
Three in the morning (Tuesday, April 8):
Lansing awoke abruptly from a doze. “Stacey!”
“Yes, dear?”
“What’s that you’re doing?”
“I’m praying for you, Breck.”
Silence.
“What are you praying for—that I get better?”
“Yes. And there’s a phrase in your Bible that I like: I’m praying that you be ‘made whole.’”
Silence.
“I bet you think I’m going to die.”
“You know very well I know nothing about such things. But, Breck, I think that you’re really sick. I think you should go somewhere where you’d be better taken care of.”
“I won’t go, Stacey. I won’t. There aren’t any horses better than you are. I’d go crazy in any other place.”
“But I’d be there, too.”
“They’d have some old hen in grey-and-white stripes. They wouldn’t let you sit by me like this.”
“I wish I were an old hen in grey-and-white stripes. I have this fear all the time that I don’t know enough.”
“Stacey, I love you. Can’t you get that into your thick head: that I love you? I don’t want to be off in some damned hospital where you’d only be allowed in for half an hour a day. Stacey, will you listen—just once—to what I say? I’d rather die with you near me than live forever and ever without you.”
Eustacia ground her fingernails into the arms of her chair. We came into the world to learn.
Lansing forbade his children to enter the room. They were not even permitted to greet him from the door. He was temporarily indisposed; he would see them when he recovered. He forbade Eustacia to report his illness to his father, to his sister, to his brother Fisher. His mother had died. He let Ashley know that a visit every other day was sufficient. One late afternoon Eustacia was called to the front door. Beata had brought a covered dish of her famous German chicken and noodles. Lansing was furious. Gifts of food were brought only to homes that contained an invalid.
Day after day, night after night. Eustacia seldom left the room. She noticed that her patient’s dreams during the day differed from those that occupied his intermittent sleep at night. By day he dreamed of hunting. He shot animals. He even imagined himself to be leading troops in the Spanish War, to great effect. He shot Spaniards. The assassination of President McKinley in the previous year preyed upon his mind—he was alternately killer and victim. At night he wandered lost, in strange places, up and down stairs, in the interminable corridors of mines. He called upon his mother.
No one at “St. Kitts” slept soundly. George prowled. Eustacia came upon her daughters sleeping in the guest room, in the sewing room, on sofas, in armchairs. There was much making of cocoa in the early hours.
Two in the morning (Wednesday, April 16):
“Girls, bring your cups into the sitting room. There’s something I want to talk to you about. I’ve looked everywhere for George. I don’t know where he can be.”
Félicité and Anne sat on the floor at her feet. George suddenly made his appearance at the door and stood listening.
“Mes très chers, it may be some time before your father recovers his full health. We’re going to do everything we can to make him comfortable, but we must think of ourselves, too. You know that vacant store on Main Street where Mr. Hicks used to sell hardware? I’m going to rent it. We’re going to open a store of our own. We’re going to take turns waiting on the customers.”
“Maman!”
“The window will be arranged by Félicité, who has the best taste in the world. It will be changed often. You haven’t forgotten that I ran a store all by myself when I was seventeen. Anne’s inherited that. She has a very good head for management and details. She’ll be our best saleslady and cash girl.”
“Maman! . . . ? Ange!”
“There’ll be things for George to do, too. I’ll come to that in a minute.—What do young people do now after supper? They walk up and down Main Street just to pass the time. But the store windows are all dark. Besides, everybody knows what’s in them. Félicité’s beautiful window will be lighted until nine o’clock. One week the window will be for girls and women. I can see Félicité putting some velvet on the bottom, maybe in waves. There’ll be red leather diaries with little locks on them and memory books and silks and wools. And wedding presents and birthday presents—card cases, scissors, and a thousand things. And books like those I sent to Chicago for—Know Your Cat and Daisy’s Trip to Paris and The Golden Treasury of Poetry.”
“Maman!”
“But when people think that our store’s only for girls, they’ll get the surprise of their lives. There’ll be a week for boys and men. That’s where George can help us. Fishing rods and flies; a geologist’s hammer and the surveyor’s maps of Grimble and Kangaheela counties. George will lend us his collection of minerals and Félicité will arrange them so that you can spend an hour looking at them. There’ll be books—Snakes of the Central States, The Indian Tribes of the Mississippi Valley, Mushrooms and Toadstools, the book about how to care for your dog, and With Clive in India and all the Henty books. And Roger Ashley will lend us his collection of Indian arrowheads. Don’t you think the young people would look in that window—and buy things?”
Anne flung her arms about her mother’s knees. “Oh, Maman, when can we start?”
“We’d have a lending library, of course, and a lot of things that have to do with art—crayons and watercolors and books about how to draw. And when we’d made some money I think we’d open another store and—guess!—put Miss Doubkov in it! So there’d be another window lighte
d at night. And she could ask Lily Ashley or Sophia to help her. But that’s not all—”
“Oh, Maman, I can’t breathe!”
“Lots of people in town think that dancing’s wicked. Nonsense! Coaltown’s thirty years behind the times. I’d rent Odd Fellows Hall and have dancing classes twice a month.
“Maman! Nobody’d come!”
“Mrs. Ashley would be teacher. We’d leave the blinds up so that everybody could see. We’d have four Ashleys and three Lansings to start with. I’d ask Mrs. Bergstrom and Mrs. Coxe to be chaperones and their children could have the lessons free. Later we’d have lectures for young people. Miss Doubkov could talk about Russia and her travels. I’d talk about the six rules of French cooking. Lily Ashley would sing. Maybe we’d put on a play or a Scenes from Shakespeare. George could do his speeches from Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice. Lily recites beautifully, too. There’s no need for Coaltown to be so narrow-minded and solemn and boring.”
From across the hall and beyond the dining room came Lansing’s voice: “STACEY! STACEY!”
“Yes, dear, I’m coming.”
“What are you doing in there? Buzz, buzz, buzz; cackle, cackle, cackle.”
“I’m coming, dear. Just a minute. Now, children, I want you to go to your beds and sleep. You can tell me tomorrow what you think about our plans.”
The girls, exhausted by these visions, could scarcely reach their beds. George remained at the door, gazing at his mother with intent burning eyes.
“George, what’s the matter? . . . ? Answer me! Why are you looking at me like that?”
“He struck you!”
“What’s that you’re saying? Struck me? Your father struck me? No, no, he did not.”
“HE STRUCK YOU!”
“George, when do you think he struck me?”
“Last night. At this time!”
“Last night? . . . ? You’re always imagining things. Last night your father wasn’t feeling well. He was a little cross. He was waving his arms about and he knocked the water bottle off the table.”
“STACEY! STACEY!”
“I’m coming, Breck.—Mon cher petit, you mustn’t start exaggerating things, just when we need good level heads and all our patience. And, George, I want to say one other thing.” She took his hand. “It’s wrong to overhear the conversation of other people. It’s not grown-up and it’s not honorable. I don’t want you to do that any more.”
George pulled his hand away from hers and rushed out of the house by the kitchen door. Thereafter Eustacia was never certain whether the conversation in the sickroom was overheard or not. She knew that the Mohicans prided themselves on moving soundlessly through the darkest forests, over the dryest leaves.
“Stacey! What were you doing?”
“Just scolding the children, Breck. Nobody seems to be getting any sleep around here. It’d be a great help if you’d remember not to raise your voice. And try not to knock things over.”
“I heard George’s voice, too.”
“Yes, I gave him a good sound lecture.”
“That didn’t take a whole hour. Buzz, buzz, buzz.—I guess I know what you were talking about.”
Night after night, in all but the worst weather, she would draw her shawl about her, pass through the glass doors, walk along the gravel path, and stand for a moment in the main street.
His conversation was becoming more and more querulous. His need for attention took the form of trying to wound her.
“Life’s just one big donkey’s kick. Get that into your head, Miss Sims. And that includes a man’s children. . . . ? You can’t say I had any part in spoiling them. Filly’s as stuck-up as the Queen of Sheba. George will get caught one of these days and spend the rest of his life in prison. Anne used to respect her father, but something’s happened. . . . ? You and your Roman Catholic mumbo-jumbo! Just some ignorant truck you brought from those nigger islands of yours.”
“Go on, Breck. I like to hear you saying things like that! You know they aren’t true. You’re getting rid of some old poison in you. Go on! We have a saying ‘The devil spits hardest just before he has to go.’ You’re getting better.”
“Jack Ashley! God! He’s like a puppy that hasn’t got his eyes open yet. He’s just a milksop. And those inventions of his! He hasn’t got brains enough to invent a can opener.—WHERE ARE YOU GOING?”
He dreaded being alone; he dreaded silence.
“I’m just going for a stroll outdoors.”
She returned.
“What did you do?”
“Oh, nothing, Breck. Looked up at the stars. Thought.”
Silence.
“You didn’t have to be an hour about it.”
Silence.
“What do you think about when you think?”
“All the years that I’ve been in this country I’ve missed the sea. It’s like a faint toothache that never goes away. The sea is like the stars. The stars are like the sea. I don’t have any original thoughts, Breck. I just have the thoughts that millions of people have when they look at the sea or the stars.”
He longed to ask what those thoughts were. He shivered. He wanted to bring her thoughts back from all those stars, back to him; and, as so often, he became angry. He flung his arms about and, as so often, knocked the objects off the table beside his bed. His hand bell fell to the floor with a loud clatter. She crossed to the window and looked out.
There was a large table in the sewing room. George and Félicité would play cards, but George couldn’t keep his mind on the game; he didn’t care whether he won or not. He insisted on the door’s remaining open. From far away they could hear the talk, talk, talk in the sickroom—the former playroom on the first floor. (“Happy Debevoises, where are you now?”) When their father’s voice reached them, loud in anger, or the sounds of falling objects, Félicité would put her hand on her brother’s arm to restrain him. (He had “fits.” Maybe he was crazy.) But he would rush from the room, descend the walls of the house, and prowl.
Often they would sit in silence for hours.
“If he strikes Maman, I’ll kill him.”
“Jordi! Père would never strike Maman. He’s sick. Maybe he’s in pain. He’s cross. But he knows how necessary she is to him. He’d never strike her.”
“You don’t know.”
“I do. Even if . . . ? if he went out of his senses, Maman would understand. She’d forgive him. Jordi, you exaggerate everything so.”
Half an hour of silence.
“If I thought Maman was safe, I’d go away for a while.”
“I’d miss you, but I think it’d be good if you went away for a short while.”
“I haven’t any money.”
“I’ve saved sixteen dollars. I’ll give it to you right now.”
“I wouldn’t take it.—I tried to sell my gun today. Mr. Callihan would only give me twelve dollars.”
“Maman will give you some. I’ll ask her.”
We have seen John Ashley’s notion in the Southern Hemisphere of “holding up the walls” of his home. We have seen Sophia and Eustacia shoring up walls and roof tree. Year after year Félicité delayed her preparation to enter the life of the religious to do what she could for “St. Kitts.” George, perhaps, was a little bit crazy. At all events he was in great travail of mind. Félicité knew three ways of distracting him, however briefly, from his somber thoughts. She knew that she could resort to them only infrequently; they must not be staled by repetition. She could direct the conversation to Russia; she could discuss the glorious, the dazzling life careers that lay open to both of them; she could persuade him to declaim poems and enact scenes from plays. George had told only one person of his ambition to be an actor. He had told no one of his ambition to be an actor in Russia—that ambition was too secret, too inner, too preposterous, too fraught with wonder, hope, and despair. He let his sister believe that he was still bent on saving the lions, tigers, and panthers of Africa from extermination and on living among them in a circus,
exhibiting their beauty and power to audiences. Félicité had never seen a play—not even Uncle Tom’s Cabin. But Miss Doubkov, who had instructed Lily Ashley in how to conduct herself in a concert hall, had also coached Félicité and George in the formal reading of La Fontaine’s Fables. She had opened their eyes to how difficult it is to declaim one verse correctly. Passing through Paris at the time of her family’s flight to the new world she had heard the greatest of all diseuses; she had had a glimpse of simplicity—the north star and torment of great art. Now in the sewing room, one night in four, Félicité could persuade George to work on some “pieces.” They did scenes from Athalie and Britannicus (George was very fine as Nero), from Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice. George could be very funny, too, presenting Molière’s miser and his casket, or Falstaff and his honor. He would forget himself and raise his voice. This would awaken Anne—a rapt and adoring audience (“Do the one in Russian, George—please!”), who could not, however, keep her eyes open long. Their mother would appear at the door and stand listening until the passage came to a close.
“Oh, my dears! Will you never get any sleep? Now, listen: each of you recite one beautiful thing for me and then promise you’ll go to bed.”
This was a mistake. Eustacia, who never wept under trial, became what she called “a perfect fool” in the presence of beauty.
Her son mistook the source of her tears.
Night after night:
During the last week of April there was a change in the atmosphere of the sickroom. Lansing’s condition seemed to improve. There was a less frequent resort to laudanum. The patient had no wish to leave his bed, however. All-night conversation had become a habit and a cruel game. He became overbearing and, worse than overbearing, sly.
Maudlin: He loved her. Did she love him? Really love him? When had she loved him least? When had she loved him most? When he met that little girl on the island of St. Kitts he’d foreseen that she’d be the best little wife in the world. Oh, yes, he had. He was no fool.
Aggressive: Had she loved any other man since she left the islands? He didn’t mean misbehaved—merely loved? Answer honestly. Would she swear to it? She didn’t sound as though she meant it. He bet there was somebody. She was hiding something from him. That fellow in Pittsburgh—what was his name? Leonard something. He’d thought she was pretty neat and cute. The fellow with the big weeping-willow mustache. Was it him?
The Eighth Day Page 37