Books: The Heart of Rachael

K >> Kathleen Norris >> The Heart of Rachael

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29

"I was afraid so," she stammered huskily. "Elfrida Hamilton told
me. I was so--sorry--"

Rachael began to perceive that this was a great adventure, a
tragic and heroic initiative for Charlotte. Poor Charlotte, red-
eyed behind her strong glasses, the bloom of youth gone from her
face, was perhaps touching this morning, the pinnacle of the few
strong emotions her life was to know.

"How well did you know Charlie, dear?" asked Rachael when Fanny
was for the moment out of hearing and they were in the dark, rep-
draped reception-room. She had asked Charlotte to sit down, but
Charlotte nervously had said that she could stay but another
minute.

"Oh, n-n-not very well, Aunt Rachael--that is, we didn't see each
other often, since"--Rachael knew since when, and liked Charlotte
for the clumsy substitute--"since Billy was married. I know
Charlie called, but M'ma didn't tell me until weeks later, and
then we were on the ocean. We met now and then, and once he
telephoned, and I think he would have liked to see me, but M'ma
felt so strongly--there was no way. And then last summer--we h-h-
happened to meet, he and I, at Jane Cook's wedding, and we had
quite a talk. I knew M'ma would be angry, but it just seemed as if
I couldn't think of it then. And we talked of the things we liked,
you know, the sort of house we both liked--not like other people's
houses!" Charlotte's plain young face had grown bright with the
recollection, but now her voice sank lifelessly again. "But M'ma
made me promise never to speak to him again, and of course I
promised," she said dully.

"I see." Rachael was silent. There seemed to be nothing to say.

"I suppose I couldn't--speak to him a moment, Aunt Rachael?"
Charlotte was scarlet, but she got the words out bravely.

"Oh, my dear, he wouldn't know you. He doesn't know any of us now.
He just lies there, sometimes sighing a little--"

Charlotte was as pale now as she had been rosy before, her lip
trembled, and her whole face seemed to be suffused with tears.

"I see," she said in turn. "Thank you, Aunt Rachael, thanks ever
so much. I--I wish you'd tell his grandmother how sorry I am. I--
suppose Fanny and I had better go now."

But before she went Rachael opened her arms, and Charlotte came
into them, and cried bitterly for a few minutes.

"Poor little girl!" said the older woman tenderly. "Poor little
girl!"

"I always loved you," gulped Charlotte, "and I would have come to
see you, if M'ma--And of course it was nothing but the merest
friendship b-between Charlie and me, only we--we always seemed to
like each other."

And Charlotte, her romance ended, wiped her eyes and blew her
nose, and went away. Rachael went slowly upstairs.

Late that same afternoon, as she and the trained nurse were
dreamily keeping one of the long sick-watches, she looked at the
patient, and was surprised to see his rather insignificant eyes
fixed earnestly upon her. Instantly she went to the bedside and
knelt down.

"What is it, Charlie-boy?" she asked, in the merest rich, tender
essence of a tone. The sick eyes broke over her distressedly. She
could see the fine dew of perspiration at his waxen temples, and
the lean hand over which she laid her own was cool after all these
feverish days, unwholesomely cool.

"Aunt Rachael--" The customs of earth were still strong when he
could waste so much precious breath upon the unnecessary address.
The nurse hovered nervously near, but did not attempt to silence
him. "Going fast," he whispered.

"It will be rest, Charlie-boy," she answered, tears in her eyes.

He smiled, and drifted into that other world so near our own for a
few moments. Then she started at Charlotte's name.

"Charlotte," he said in a ghostly whisper, "said she would like a
house all green-and pink-with roses--"

Rachael was instantly tense. Ah, to get hold of poor starved
little Charlotte, to give her these last precious seconds, to let
her know he had thought of her!

"What about Charlotte, dear, dear boy?" she asked eagerly.

"I thought--it would be so pleasant--there--" he said, smiling. He
closed his eyes. She heard the little prayer that he had learned
in his babyhood for this hour. Then there was silence. Silence.

Silence. Rachael looked fearfully at the nurse. A few minutes
later she went to tell his grandmother, who, with two grave
sisters sitting beside her, had been lying down since the
religious rites of an hour or two ago. Rachael and the smaller,
rosy-faced nun helped the stiff, stricken old lady to her feet,
and it was with Rachael's arm about her that she went to her
grandson's side.

That night old Mrs. Gregory turned to her daughter-in-law and
said: "You're good, Rachael. Someone prayed for you long ago;
someone gave you goodness. Don't forget--if you ever need--to turn
to prayer. I don't ask you to do any more. It was for James to
make his sons Christians, and James did not do so. But promise me
something, Rachael: if James--hurts you, if he fails you--promise
me that you will forgive him!"

"I promise," Rachael said huskily, her heart beating quick with
vague fright. Mrs. Gregory was in her deep armchair, she looked
old and broken to-night, far older than she would look a few days
later when she lay in her coffin. Rachael had brought her a cup of
hot bouillon, and had knelt, daughter fashion, to see that she
drank it, and now the thin old hand clutched her shoulder, and the
eager old eyes were close to her face.

"I have made mistakes, I have had every sorrow a woman can know,"
said old Mrs. Gregory, "but prayer has never failed me, and when I
go, I believe I will not be afraid!" "I have made mistakes, too,"
Rachael said, strangely stirred, "and for the boys' sake, for
Warren's sake, I want to be--wise!"

The thin old hand patted hers. Old Mrs. Gregory lay with closed
eyes, no flicker of life in her parchment-colored face. "Pray
about it!" she said in a whisper. She patted Rachael's hands for
another moment, but she did not speak again.

At the funeral, kneeling by Warren's side in the great cathedral,
her pale face more lovely than ever in a setting of fresh black,
Rachael tried for the first time in her life to pray.

They were rich beyond any dream or need now. Rachael could hardly
have believed that so great a change in her fortune could make so
little change in her feeling. A sudden wave of untimely heat smote
the city, and it was hastily decided that the boys and their
mother must get to the shore, leaving all the details of settling
his mother's estate to Warren. In the autumn Rachael would make
those changes in the old house of which she had dreamed so many
years ago. Warren was not to work too hard, and was to come to
them for every week-end.

He took them down himself in the car, Rachael beside him on the
front seat, her baby in her arms, Martin and Mary, with Jim, in
the tonneau. Home Dunes had been opened and aired; luncheon was
waiting when they got there. Rachael felt triumphant, powerful.
Between their mourning and Warren's unexpected business
responsibilities she would have a summer to her liking.

He went away the next day, and Rachael began a series of cheerful
letters. She tried not to reproach him when a Saturday night came
without bringing him, she schooled herself to read, to take walks,
to fight depression and loneliness. She and Alice practised piano
duets, studied Italian, made sick calls in the village, and sewed
for the babies of dark's Hills and Quaker Bridge. About twice a
month, usually together, the two went up to the city for a day's
shopping. Then George and Warren met them, and they dined and
perhaps went to the theatre together. It was on one of these
occasions that Rachael learned that Magsie Clay was in town.

"Working hard--too hard," said Warren in response to her
questions. "She's rehearsing already for October."

"Warren! In all this heat?"

"Yes, and she looks pulled down, poor kid!"

"You've seen her, then?"

"Oh, I see her now and then. Betty Bowditch had her to dinner, and
now and then she and I go to tea, and she tells me about her
troubles, her young men, and the other women in the play!"

"I wonder if she wouldn't come down to us for a week?" Rachael
said pleasantly. Warren brightened enthusiastically. A little
ocean air would do Magsie worlds of good.

Magsie, lunching with Rachael at Rachael's club the following
week, was prettily appreciative.

"I would just love to come!" she said gratefully. "I'll bring my
bathing suit, and live in the water! But, Rachael, it can only be
from Friday night until Monday morning. Perhaps Greg will run me
down in the car, and bring me up again?"

"What else would I do?" Warren said, smiling.

Rachael fixed the date. On the following Friday night she met
Warren and Magsie at the gate, at the end of the long run. Warren
was quite his old, delightful self; the boys, perfection. Alice
gave a dinner party, and Alice's brother did not miss the
opportunity of a flirtation with Magsie. The visit, for everyone
but Rachael, was a great success.

The little actress and Rachael's husband were on friendly, even
intimate, terms; Magsie showed Warren a letter, Warren murmured
advice; Magsie reached a confident little brown hand to him from
the raft; Warren said, "Be careful, dear!" when she sprang up to
leap from the car. Well, said Rachael bravely, no harm in that!
Warren was just the big, sweet, simple person to be flattered by
Magsie's affection. How could she help liking him?

She went to the gate again, on Monday morning this time, to say
good-bye. Magsie was tucked in trimly in Rachael's place beside
Rachael's husband; her gold hair glinted under a smart little hat;
gloves, silk stockings, and gown were all of the becoming creamy
tan she wore so much.

"Saturday night?" Rachael said to Warren.

"Possibly not, dear. I can tell better later in the week."

"You don't know how we slaves envy you, Rachael!" Magsie said.
"When Greg and I are gasping away in some roof-garden, having our
mild little iced teas, we'll think of you down here on the
glorious ocean!"

"We're a mutual consolation league!" Warren said with an
appreciative laugh.

"He laughs," Magsie said, "but, honestly, I don't know where I'd
be without Greg. You don't know how kind he is to me, Rachael!"

"He's kind to everyone," Rachael smiled.

"I don't have to TELL you how much I've enjoyed this!" Magsie
added gratefully.

"Do it any other time you can!" Rachael waved them out of sight.
She stood at the gate, in the fragrant, warm summer morning, for a
long time after they were gone.

In the late summer, placidly wasting her days on the sands with
the two boys, a new experience befell Rachael. She had hoped, at
about the time of Jimmy's third birthday, to present him and his
little brother with a sister. Now the hope vanished, and Rachael,
awed and sad, set aside a tiny chamber in her heart for the dream,
and went on about her life sobered and made thoughtful over the
great possibilities that are wrapped in every human birth. Warren
had warned her that she must be careful now, and, charmed at his
concern for her grief and shock, she rested and saved herself
wherever she could.

But autumn came, and winter came, and she did not grow strong. It
became generally understood that Mrs. Gregory was not going about
this season, and her friends, when they came to call in Washington
Square, were apt to find her comfortably established on the wide
couch in one of the great rooms that were still unchanged, with a
nurse hovering in the background, and the boys playing before the
fire. Rachael would send the children away with Mary, ring for
tea, and chatter vivaciously with her guests, later retailing all
the gossip to Warren when he came to sit beside her. Often she got
up and took her place at the table, and once or twice a month,
after a quiet day, was tucked into the motor car by the watchful
Miss Snow, and went to the theatre or opera, to be brought
carefully home again at eleven o'clock, and given into Miss Snow's
care again.

She was not at all unhappy, the lessening of social responsibility
was a real relief, and Warren's solicitude and sympathy were a
tonic of which she drank deep, night and morning. His big warm
hands, his smile, the confidence of his voice, these thrilled and
rejuvenated her continually.

The boys were a delight to her. In their small rumpled pajamas
they came into her room every morning, dewy from sleep, full of
delicious plans for the day. Jim was a masterful baby whose
continually jerking head was sure to bump his mother if she
attempted too much hugging, but dark-eyed, grave little Derry was
"cuddly"; he would rest his shining head contentedly for minutes
together on his mother's breast, and when she lifted him from his
crib late at night for a last kiss, his warm baby arms would
circle her neck, and his rich little voice murmur luxuriously,
"Hug Derry."

Muffled rosily in gaiters and furs, or running about her room in
their white, rosetted slippers, with sturdy arms and knees bare,
or angelic in their blue wrappers after the evening bath, they
were equally enchanting to their mother.

"It's a marvel to see how you can be so patient!" Warren said one
evening when he was dressing for an especially notable dinner, and
Rachael, in her big Chinese coat, was watching the process
contentedly from the couch in his upstairs sitting-room.

"Well, that's the odd thing about ill health, Greg--you haven't
any chance to answer back," she answered thoughtfully. "If money
could make me well, or if effort could, I'd get well, of course!
But there seem to be times when you simply are SICK. It's an
extraordinary experience to me; it's extraordinary to lie here,
and think of all the hundreds of thousands of other women who are
sick, just simply and quietly laid low with no by-your-leave! Of
course, my being ill doesn't make much trouble; the boys are cared
for, the house goes on, and I don't suffer! But suppose we were
poor, and the children needed me, and you couldn't afford a nurse-
-then what? For I'd have to collapse and lie here just the same!"

"It's no snap for me," Warren grumbled after a silence. "Gosh! I
will be glad when you're well--and when the damn nurse is out of
the house!"

"Warren, I thought you liked Miss Snow!"

"Well, I do, I suppose--in a way. But I don't like her for
breakfast, lunch, and dinner--so everlastingly sweet and fresh!'
I declare I believe my watch is losing time--this is the third
time this week I've been late!'"

This was said in exactly Miss Snow's tone, and Rachael laughed.

But when he was gone a deep depression fell upon her. Dear old
boy, it was not much of a life for him, going about alone, sitting
down to his meals with only a trained nurse for company! Shut away
so deliciously from the world with her husband and sons, enjoying
the very helplessness that forced her to lean so heavily upon him,
she had forgotten how hard it was for Greg!

Yet how could she get well when the stubborn weakness and languor
persisted, when her nights were so long and sleepless, her
appetite so slight, her strength so quickly exhausted?

"When do you think I will get well, Miss Snow?" she would ask.

"Come, now, we're not going to bother our heads about THAT," Miss
Snow would say cheerfully. "Why, you're not sick! You've just got
to rest and take care of yourself, that's all! Dear ME, if you
were suffering every minute of the time, you might have something
to grumble about!"

Doctor Valentine was equally unsatisfactory, although Rachael
loved the simple, homely man so much that she could not be vexed
by his kindly vagueness:

"These things are slow to fight, Rachael," said George Valentine.
"Alice had just such a fight years ago. When the human machinery
runs down, there's nothing for it but patience! You did too much
last winter, nursing the baby until you left for California, and
then only the hot summer between that and September! Just go
slow!"

Perhaps once a month Magsie came in to see Rachael, ready to pour
tea, to flirt with any casual caller, or to tickle the roaring
baby with the little fox head on her muff. She had been playing in
a minor part in a successful production. Among all the callers who
came and went perhaps Magsie was the most at home in the Gregory
house--a harmless little affectionate creature, unimportant, but
always welcome.

Slowly health and strength came back, and one by one Rachael took
up the dropped threads of her life. The early spring found her
apparently herself again, but there was a touch of gray here and
there in her dark hair, and Elinor and Judy told each other that
her spirits were not the same.

They did not know what Rachael knew, that there was a change in
Warren, so puzzling, so disquieting, that his wife's convalescence
was delayed by many a wakeful hour and many a burst of secret
tears on his account. She could not even analyze it, much less was
she fit to battle with it with her old splendid strength and
sanity.

His general attitude toward her, in these days, was one of
paternal and brisk kindliness. He liked her new gown, he didn't
care much for that hat, she didn't look awfully well, better
telephone old George, it wouldn't do to have her sick again! Yes,
he was going out, unless she wanted him for something? She was
reminded hideously of her old days with Clarence.

Shaken and weak still, she fought gallantly against the pain and
bewilderment of the new problem. She invited the persons he liked
to the house, she effaced her own claim, she tried to get him to
talk of his cases. Sometimes, as the spring ripened, she planned
whole days with him in the car. They would go up to Ossining and
see the Perrys, or they would go to Jersey and spend the day with
Doctor Cheseborough.

Perhaps Warren accepted these suggestions, and they had a
cloudless day. Or when Sunday morning came, and the boys, coated
and capped, were eager to start, he might evade them.

"I wonder if you'll feel badly, Petty, if I don't go?"

"Oh, WARREN!"

"Well, my dear, I've got some work to do. I ought to look up that
meningitis case--the Italian child. Louise'll give me a bite of
lunch--"

"But, dearest, that spoils our day!" Rachael would fling her wraps
down, and face him ruefully. "How can I go alone!_ I don't want
to. And it's SUCH a day, and the babies are so sweet--"

"There's no reason why you and the children shouldn't go." She had
come to know that mild, almost reproachful, tone.

"Oh, but Warren, that spoils it all!"

"I'm sorry!"

Rachael would shut her lips firmly over protest. At best she might
wring from him a reluctant change of mind and an annoyed offer of
company which she must from sheer pride decline. At worst she
would be treated with a dignified silence--the peevish and
exacting woman who could not understand.

So she would go slowly down to the car, to Mary beaming beside
Martin in the front seat, to the delicious boys tumbling about in
the back, eager for Mother. With one on each side of her, a
retaining hand on the little gaiters, she would wave the attentive
husband and father an amiable farewell. The motor car would wheel
about in the bare May sunshine, the river would be a ripple of
dancing blue waves, morning riders would canter on the bridle-
path, and white-frocked babies toddle along the paths. Such a
morning for a ride, if only Warren were there! But Rachael would
try to enjoy her run, and would eat Mrs. Perry's or Mrs.
Cheseborough's fried chicken and home-made ices with gracious
enthusiasm; everyone was quite ready to excuse Warren; his
beautiful wife was the more popular of the two.

He was always noticeably affectionate when they got home. Rachael,
her color bright from sun and wind, would entertain him with a
spirited account of the day while she dressed.

"I wish I'd gone with you; I will next time!" he invariably said.

On the next Sunday she might try another experience. No plans to-
day. The initiative should be left to him. Breakfast would drag
along until after ten o'clock, and Mary would appear with a low
question. Were the boys to go out to the Park? Rachael would
pause, undecided. Well, yes, Mary might take them, but bring them
in early, in case Doctor Gregory wished to take them somewhere.

And ten minutes later he might jump up briskly. Well! how about a
little run up to Pelham Manor, wonderful morning--could she go as
she was? Rachael would beg for ten minutes; she might come
downstairs in seven to find him wavering.

"Would you mind if we made it a pretty short run, dear, and then
if I dropped you here and went on down to the hospital for a
little while?"

"Why, Warren, it was your suggestion, dear! Why take a drive at
all if you don't feel like it!"

"Oh, it's not that--I'm quite willing to. Where are the kids?"

"Mary took them out. They've got to be back for naps at half-past
eleven, you see."

"I see." He would look at his watch. "Well, I'll tell you what I
think I'll do. I'll change and shave now--" A pause. His voice
would drop vaguely. "What would YOU like to do?" he might suggest
amiably.

Such a conversation, so lacking in his old definite briskness
where their holidays were concerned, would daunt Rachael with a
sense of utter forlornness. Sometimes she offered a plan, but it
was invariably rejected. There were friends who would have been
delighted at an unexpected lunch call from the Gregorys, but
Warren yawned and shuddered negatives when she mentioned their
names. In the end, he would go off to the hospital for an hour or
two, and later would telephone to his wife to explain a longer
absence: he had met some of the boys at the club and they were
rather urging him to stay to lunch; he couldn't very well decline.

"Would you like to have me come down and join you anywhere later?"
his wife might ask in the latter case.

"No, thank you, no. I may come straight home after lunch, and in
that case I'd cross you. Boys all right?"

"Lovely." Rachael would sit at the telephone desk, after she had
hung up the receiver, wrapped in bitter thought, a bewildered pain
at her heart. She never doubted him; to-morrow good, old, homely,
trustworthy George Valentine, whose wife and children were
visiting Alice's mother in Boston, would speak of the bridge game
at the club. But with his wife waiting for him at home, his wife
who lived all the six days of the week waiting for this seventh
day, why did he need the society of his men friends?

A commonplace retaliation might have suggested itself to her, but
there was no fighting instinct in Rachael now. She did not want to
pique him, to goad him, to flirt with him. He should be hers
honorably and openly, without devices, without intrigue. Stirred
to the deeps of her being by wifehood and motherhood, by her
passionate love for her husband and children, it was a humiliating
thought that she must coquette with and flatter other men. As a
matter of fact, she found it difficult to talk with any interest
of anything except Warren, his work and his plans, of Jimmy and
Derry, and perhaps of Home Dunes. If it were a matter of necessity
she might always turn to the new plays and books, the opera of the
season, or the bill for tenement requirements or juvenile
delinquents, but mere personalities and intrigue she knew no more.
These matters were all of secondary interest to her now; it seemed
to Rachael that the time had come when mere personalities, when
bridge and cocktails and dancing and half-true scandals were not
satisfying.

"Warren," she said one evening when the move to Home Dunes was
near, "should you be sorry if I began to go regularly to church
again?"

"No," he said indifferently, giving her rather a surprised glance
over his book. "Churchgoing coming in again?"

"It's not that," Rachael said, smiling over a little sense of
pain, "but I--I like it. I want the boys to think that their
mother goes to church and prays--and I really want to do it
myself!"

He smiled, as always a little intolerant of what sounded like
sentiment.

"Oh, come, my dear! Long before the boys are old enough to
remember it you'll have given it up again!"

"I hope not," Rachael said, sighing. "I wish I had never stopped.
I wish I were one of these mild, nice, village women who put out
clean stockings for the children every Saturday night, and clean
shirts and ginghams, and lead them all into a pew Sunday morning,
and teach them the Golden Rule, and to honor their father and
their mother, and all the rest of it!"

"And what do you think you would gain by that?" Warren asked.

"Oh, I would gain--security," Rachael said vaguely, but with a
suspicion of tears in her eyes. "I would have something to--to
stand upon, to be guided by. There is a purity, an austerity,
about that old church-going, loving-God-and-your-neighbor ideal.
Truth and simplicity and integrity and uprightness--my old great-
grandmother used to use those words, but one doesn't ever hear
them any more! Everything's half black and half white nowadays;
we're all as good or as bad as we happen to be born. There's no
more discipline, no more self-denial, no more development of
character! I want to--to hold on to something, now that forces I
can't control are coming into my life."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29