One day when he and Austin were alone in the study, Austin brought up the subject that no one was willing to talk to him about. “For a while,” he began, “we didn’t see as much of Nora as we ought to have. living right next door.”
“You and Cousin Martha weren’t in any way responsible for what happened,” Randolph said.
“I know, but I blame myself for——”
“You mustn’t. Sister shouldn’t have stayed up here on her own. Mama tried to prevent her. We all did. But she had this idea about being a kindergarten teacher, and wouldn’t listen to reason. I know you both love her and that’s enough, as I keep telling Mama. She thinks if she’d only allowed herself to realize that Nora was a grown woman, and not kept harping at her—but you know Mama is just as set in her ways as Nora is. After a little, when things are straightened out, I hope you’ll come and stay with us. You’d like it very much down South, Cousin Austin. I’ll take you around and show you the country. Take you coonhunting, if you like.”
3
“I just don’t know,” Mrs. Potter said.
Austin’s question had taken her by surprise. The hack was waiting in front of the house and Mrs. Potter, with her hat and coat on, was waiting at the foot of the stairs for Mr. Potter to come down and drive off to the hospital with her. She glanced around for a place to sit down. The only chair near her was an antique of carved walnut that had been put in the front hall purposely because in the hall there was less likelihood of anyone’s being tempted to sit on it. The chair creaked ominously but it sustained Mrs. Potter’s weight, which was not much, in any case.
“The doctor said——”
“I realize that she isn’t allowed to have visitors for a while yet,” Austin said, “but now that she’s out of danger, I thought maybe it would be all right for me to see her.”
His hesitancy and embarrassment in asking for this favour made it clear that he had some serious reason for wanting to be admitted to the hospital room where Nora was, some reason that wouldn’t or couldn’t wait any longer.
“You couldn’t give me the message?” Mrs. Potter asked.
Austin shook his head.
“You want to see her alone?”
“Yes,” Austin said, colouring. “I wouldn’t want to do anything contrary to Dr. Seymour’s orders, but if it’s all right with you, and you don’t mind asking him——”
“Oh, it’s perfectly all right with us,” Mrs. Potter said doubtfully. “And I’m sure that if Nora weren’t in pain, she’d be delighted to see you. She’s always admired you so. But if it’s something that would upset her——”
“I’d be very careful,” Austin said.
“I know you would,” Mrs. Potter said.
From the troubled expression on her face, she might have been sitting in front of some closet door that she had walked past a hundred times in the last week without once noticing that it was there. The beating of her own heart told her now that the closet contained something of interest to her. But was it something that needed to be discovered? Wouldn’t it be better and wiser to keep on walking past the closet door as she had been doing? She raised her eyes and met Austin’s questioningly.
Then it’s here—Nora’s secret—where I never thought to look for it? Is this why she doesn’t want to go on living?
That’s right.
Mrs. Potter parted the fur on her black sealskin muff with her fingers while she deliberated. At last she said, “I don’t know why you shouldn’t see her, if you want to. You’re our own kin, practically. I know you won’t stay too long or do anything to wear her out. I’ll speak to the doctor about it. If he says it’s all right for you to see her … Whatever can be keeping Mr. Potter? He knows we have to be at the hospital by four and it’s now——”
“I’d be deeply grateful if you would,” Austin said.
4
“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, Miss Stiefel,” Austin said, in the outer office. “But you do understand, don’t you, that legal work has to be done right. Otherwise there’s no point in——”
When it came time for Miss Stiefel to take dictation, she sat with her note-book on her knee and a frightened look on her face that nothing could erase. Austin dictated much slower than usual, and spelled out words as he went along, but the letters she brought in to him to be signed were, more often than not, full of mistakes. Worried lest he himself let something slip by that would cause difficulties later on, he had called the head of the business college. She had no one to send him who was any better than Miss Stiefel, or as good, and so he went on struggling with her, the struggling being interrupted occasionally by tears and apologies.
“I realize that the work is still new to you,” he said, “and it takes a while to get used to the legal phraseology, but after this when you aren’t sure about something——” Miss Stiefel’s eyes were on the doorway and she was not listening to what he said. Austin turned around and saw Randolph Potter. “Be with you in a minute,” he said. “After this, come to me with it and don’t try to guess what it should be, because nine chances out of ten it won’t be right, and it only makes more work for both of us. Mr. Griffon is coming in at four. Do you think you can have that lease ready by then?”
Miss Stiefel nodded, her pale face suffused with slowly rising colour.
“You’d better make two carbons, while you’re at it,” Austin said. “We’ll keep one here in the files.… Did you walk down?” he said, turning to Randolph.
“I came on the streetcar,” Randolph said.
“Any news from the hospital?”
“Mama asked me to tell you that she’s spoken to Dr. Seymour and it’s all right. You can see Sister tomorrow afternoon at four o’clock.”
Austin said, “Come inside.”
“I know you’re busy,” Randolph said. “I just dropped in for a minute. I’ve got a cheque here that I wanted to get cashed, and I thought maybe, since they don’t know me at the bank——”
“How much money is there in the cash box?” Austin said, turning to Miss Stiefel.
“Not very much,” Miss Stiefel said. “Mrs. Holby was in, and Mr. Holby took ten dollars out of it for her, so——”
“Never mind,” Austin said. “I’ll endorse it and you can take it over to the First National Bank. You know where that is?”
Randolph nodded, took out his leather billfold, and extracted a cheque, folded in two. Without bothering to look at the amount or the bank that the cheque was drawn on, Austin borrowed Miss Stiefel’s pen and wrote his name.
“Take this to the third window,” he said. “If there’s nobody there, ask for Ed Mauer. I’ll call him and tell him you’re on the way over.”
Before Austin could make this telephone call, the client he was expecting came in, and soon afterward the telephone rang. “Excuse me just a minute,” he said, and picked up the receiver. A voice that he recognized as Ed Mauer’s said, “There’s a fellow here says he’s a cousin of yours. He’s got a cheque——”
“Oh yes,” Austin said. “I was just about to call you.”
“——for a hundred and seventy-five dollars. I wanted to make sure the endorsement was genuine.”
Though Austin was in the habit of dealing with his suspicions so summarily that he was hardly aware that he had them, this one was not to be ignored. It leered at him and said Well? The receiver shook in his hand. He thought of the letter from Nora that was in a cubby-hole of his desk at home. He thought of Mrs. Potter’s face the day he had met her at the station and she said Don’t keep anything from me, that’s all I ask.… He thought of the night in the study, when Bud Ellis said Naturally, since he was a relative of yours, we thought … Some day, somehow, there would be an end. And meanwhile …
“It’s all right, Ed. I endorsed it. Much obliged for calling me.”
5
That evening it appeared that for once there would be no callers. Randolph left for the hospital with Mr. Potter soon after dinner, and Austin and Martha King settle
d down in the living-room.
“Do you feel all right? Is the house warm enough?”
“Yes,” Martha said.
“I’ll be glad when it’s over with,” Austin said.
“You’re not worrying?”
“No, not exactly,” Austin said. “It’s just that——”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” Martha said. “I feel fine, and it’s going to be a boy.”
“You thought Ab was going to be a boy.”
Like two people meeting by accident at a large party after years of not seeing each other, their two faces reflected the same slow recognition that nothing had changed, that everything was remembered.
“Do you remember, Austin, the beautiful fires you built for me when we were first married?”
“You don’t care for this fire?”
“It’s all right. I have no objection to it,” Martha said. And then, “Ab can stay at the Danforths, but I don’t know what to do about you.”
At such meetings, silences have the weight of words chosen carefully, and words convey now single, now double meaning. The conversation moves forward in strides that take miles and miles for granted.
I keep hearing the sound of my own footsteps, Austin tried to tell her, silently. Everywhere I go.
“Maybe if you went to the office, at least part of the time——”
“No,” Austin said, “I want to be here.”
In desperation at the clotted feeling inside him that cried out Oh I do love you, he raised his hand as far as his forehead, and slowly took off his mask. No one is ever fooled by false faces except the people who wear them. The doorbell rings on Halloween, and you go to the door and what do you find? A policeman or a Chinaman, four feet high. The face might be convincing enough if you are near-sighted, but how can you fail to recognize and be touched by the thin arms and legs of the little Ludington boy who lives two houses down the street and who, for all his fierceness on this occasion, you know to be a delicate child and a worry to his mother?
The face under Austin King’s mask was just the same as the mask, but the eyes betrayed anxiety.
“I know you do,” Martha said.
They sat looking into the fire in a silence that was familiar and trusting. Austin wanted to tell her that he was going to see Nora, and he also wanted to explain his reasons for doing this, so that the trust and deepest level of contact between them wouldn’t be destroyed. He let five minutes slip by and then said, “Aunt Ione has arranged for me to see Nora, tomorrow afternoon. I wanted to tell you about it first so you’d understand. I would have waited until she was out of the hospital, but——”
“You asked to see her?”
“Yes,” Austin said. “I had a letter from Nora, written that night after she left here. You said you didn’t care to discuss her or anything to do with her——”
“I still don’t,” Martha said.
“—so I didn’t show it to you. Martha, in the letter she——”
The doorbell chose this moment to ring. Austin looked around the room helplessly and then at Martha, who had turned away and was looking into the fire. He got up and went to the door.
Sitting on Martha King’s antique sofa, with his rubbers still on, and one leg crossed over the other, old Mr. Ellis looked very small, like a shrunken boy. He had dressed himself up very carefully, but there was a large spot on his mottled green tie, and his shirt collar was badly frayed. Mary Ellis would never have let him out of the house with it on, but then she and Bud had gone out after dinner. They had gone to call on the Rupps, and as soon as the old man was sure that it was safe, he had shaved—nicking his face in several places—dressed himself, and with a fine satisfaction in disobeying orders, had come calling.
“It’s been a strange winter,” he said. “I don’t ever remember one like it. Everyone is on edge, it seems like. You go in the stores and the clerks act like they don’t want to wait on you. People I’ve known for forty years pass me by on the street. I know I’m an old man and I forget sometimes what it was I was going to say, but I used to feel that I was welcome when I went places, and now I don’t any more.”
“You’re always welcome here,” Martha said quietly. “I oughtn’t to have to tell you that.”
“I know I am,” Mr. Ellis said. “I saw your lights and so I thought I’d just drop in for a minute. Bud and Mary don’t want me to go anywhere. They’re afraid I can’t take care of myself, but I’m just as able to take care of myself as I ever was. I was out sprinkling ashes on the walk this morning and you’d have thought——You folks weren’t going any place?”
“No,” Martha said. “I don’t go out much in this weather.”
“I don’t want to keep you if you’ve got to go someplace,” Mr. Ellis said. “And they’re always keeping things from me. Things I have a right to know. Nelson Streuber died and they didn’t tell me. I didn’t get to the funeral.”
“They probably didn’t want to upset you,” Martha said, avoiding Austin’s eyes.
“He was five years younger than I am, and I never expected to outlive him.… That nice young girl—what’s her name?—from Mississippi?”
“Nora Potter,” Martha said.
“I saw her the other day,” old Mr. Ellis said. “I saw her on the street with some children and stopped to talk to her. She’s always nice to old people. ‘You don’t belong here,’ I said to her. ‘You ought to go home. You don’t look happy like you did when you come out to the farm that day with your folks,’ and she said, ‘Mr. Ellis, I’m going soon. I’ve learned my lesson.’ ” Old Mr. Ellis nodded solemnly. “ ‘I’ve learned my lesson,’ she said. I always enjoy hearing Southerners talk. It’s softer than the speech you hear ordinarily, and it seems to belong to them.”
Austin examined his hands as if they contained the terribly important answer to some riddle like As soft as silk, as white as milk, As bitter as gall, a thick wall, And a green coat cover me all.
“Mr. and Mrs. Potter will be sorry that they missed you,” Martha said.
“Are they still here?” Mr. Ellis asked in surprise. “Why, I thought they’d gone home long ago.… Austin … Martha … There’s something I want to say to you. I’m an old man. You may not see me many times more. I’ve seen a great many things happen. I’ve had almost as much experience as it’s possible to have in a lifetime, and people ought to value it. Because that’s all there is to growing old. You just gradually accumulate a store of experience. But nobody wants it. Nobody cares what I’ve seen or what I think. Times have changed, they say, but that’s where they’re wrong. There’s nothing new. Only more of the same. Gradually you accumulate a store of experience—but I said that, didn’t I? Bud gets so annoyed with me when I repeat myself. In the summer it’s all right. I can go out to the farm every day, and I’m not under foot. But now I have to stay pretty close to home, on account of the ice and snow, and I don’t want to catch cold and have it turn into pneumonia. An old man like me, I could go off just like that. I wouldn’t mind too much. I’ve outlived my usefulness, but dying isn’t something you can do whenever you have a mind to. You have to wait out your time. My father lived to be almost ninety. The last two years he was bedridden, but his mind was clear. And when he died we were all there around the bed and saw him go.…”
Mr. Ellis stayed a long while—long enough for Austin to surrender his last hope of restoring the atmosphere of trust that had been broken in upon. What he had to say he would say, but it would not be the same now, and neither would it have the same effect, in all probability.
He helped Mr. Ellis on with his coat and handed him his muffler. In repayment for this courtesy, old Mr. Ellis said with a twinkle in his eyes, “The greatest hardship in the old days was courting the girls. There was only one room in the house and the old folks would sit and watch the proceedings. It was exceedingly hard on a bashful young man like me. But I managed. We all did, somehow or other.”
He would have gone off without his hat, if Austin hadn’t
forced it on him, and he refused to be helped down the icy steps. “I’m all right,” he said. “I’ll just hang onto the railings.” And slowly, a step at a time, as if it were the grave he was descending to, he made it and said one last good night, quite cheerfully for one so old and so tired out by waiting.
Austin shut the door upon the cold, and turned around in time to see Martha start up the stairs.
“Don’t go up just yet,” he said. “I haven’t told you why it’s so important that I see Nora right away.”
“I understand that it is important and that’s enough,” Martha said.
“You don’t understand a damn thing,” Austin said. The sound of footsteps on the porch made him turn. Mr. Potter and Randolph had come home from the hospital.
6
The waiting room on the ground floor of the hospital had a tile floor, cream-coloured walls, a mission table, three hard straight chairs and a wooden bench. The one window looked out on the back wing of the hospital—a red brick wall with a double row of windows that were green-shaded, curtained, quiet, and noncommittal. The grey day had been warm. There were bare patches in the snow. The trees had here and there a trace of their white outline, and from the icicles hanging along the gutters, drops of water fell at regular intervals as if from a leaky faucet. The light was failing, the afternoon all but over when Austin put his hat and coat and muffler on a chair and sat down to wait for Dr. Seymour.
Over the bench was a sepia print of Sir Galahad with his young head bent, brooding, and his arm thrown over his charger’s neck. There was also a wall vase with artificial flowers in it. The flowers were made of crêpe paper dipped in wax. They did not resemble any actual flowers and there had been no attempt to convey a general truth, such as what a flower is or why there are such things as flowers, but merely to make one more disconcerting object. There were no magazines on the mission table. It was not part of the hospital’s intention to offer entertainment or to make the time pass more quickly for visitors who, more often than not, stayed too long and ran the patients’ fever up and were a nuisance, all around.