 | Tales of the jazz age |  |
IV
A week later Harry appeared at Marlowe, arrived
unexpectedly at five o'clock, and coming up the walk
sank into a porch chair in a state of exhaustion. Roxanne
herself had had a busy day and was worn out. The
nerve specialist from New York. She was excited and
thoroughly depressed, but Harry's eyes made her sit
down beside him.
"What's the matter?"
"Nothing, Roxanne," he denied. "I came to see
how Jeff was doing. Don't you bother about me."
"Harry," insisted Roxanne, "there's something the
matter."
"Nothing," he repeated. "How's Jeff?"
Anxiety darkened her face.
"He's a little worse, Harry. Doctor Jewett has
come on from New York. They thought he could tell
me something definite. He's going to try and find
whether this paralysis has anything to do with the original
blood clot."
Harry rose.
"Oh, I'm sorry," he said jerkily. "I didn't know
you expected a consultation. I wouldn't have come. I
thought I'd just rock on your porch for an hour—"
"Sit down," she commanded.
Harry hesitated.
"Sit down, Harry, dear boy." Her kindness flooded
out now—enveloped him. "I know there's something
the matter. You're white as a sheet. I'm going to
get you a cool bottle of beer."
All at once he collapsed into his chair and covered his
face with his hands.
"I can't make her happy," he said slowly. "I've tried
and I've tried. This morning we had some words about
breakfast—I'd been getting my breakfast down town—
and—well, just after I went to the office she left the
house, went East to her mother's with George and a
suitcase full of lace underwear."
"Harry!"
"And I don't know—"
There was a crunch on the gravel, a car turning into
the drive. Roxanne uttered a little cry.
"It's Doctor Jewett."
"Oh, I'll—"
"You'll wait, won't you?" she interrupted abstractedly.
He saw that his problem had already died on the
troubled surface of her mind.
There was an embarrassing minute of vague, elided
introductions and then Harry followed the party inside
and watched them disappear up the stairs. He went
into the library and sat down on the big sofa.
For an hour he watched the sun creep up the patterned
folds of the chintz curtains. In the deep quiet
a trapped wasp buzzing on the inside of the window
pane assumed the proportions of a clamor. From time
to time another buzzing drifted down from up-stairs,
resembling several more larger wasps caught on larger
window-panes. He heard low footfalls, the clink of
bottles, the clamor of pouring water.
What had he and Roxanne done that life should deal
these crashing blows to them? Up-stairs there was
taking place a living inquest on the soul of his friend;
he was sitting here in a quiet room listening to the plaint
of a wasp, just as when he was a boy he had been compelled
by a strict aunt to sit hour-long on a chair and
atone for some misbehavior. But who had put him
here? What ferocious aunt had leaned out of the sky
to make him atone for—what?
About Kitty he felt a great hopelessness. She was
too expensive—that was the irremediable difficulty.
Suddenly he hated her. He wanted to throw her down
and kick at her—to tell her she was a cheat and a leech
—that she was dirty. Moreover, she must give him his
boy.
He rose and began pacing up and down the room.
Simultaneously he heard some one begin walking along
the hallway up-stairs in exact time with him. He found
himself wondering if they would walk in time until the
person reached the end of the hall.
Kitty had gone to her mother. God help her, what
a mother to go to! He tried to imagine the meeting:
the abused wife collapsing upon the mother's breast.
He could not. That Kitty was capable of any deep
grief was unbelievable. He had gradually grown to
think of her as something unapproachable and callous.
She would get a divorce, of course, and eventually she
would marry again. He began to consider this. Whom
would she marry? He laughed bitterly, stopped; a
picture flashed before him—of Kitty's arms around
some man whose face he could not see, of Kitty's lips
pressed close to other lips in what was surely passion.
"God!" he cried aloud. "God! God! God!"
Then the pictures came thick and fast. The Kitty
of this morning faded; the soiled kimono rolled up and
disappeared; the pouts, and rages, and tears all were
washed away. Again she was Kitty Carr—Kitty Carr
with yellow hair and great baby eyes. Ah, she had
loved him, she had loved him.
After a while he perceived that something was amiss
with him, something that had nothing to do with Kitty
or Jeff, something of a different genre. Amazingly it
burst on him at last; he was hungry. Simple enough!
He would go into the kitchen in a moment and ask the
colored cook for a sandwich. After that he must go
back to the city.
He paused at the wall, jerked at something round,
and, fingering it absently, put it to his mouth and tasted
it as a baby tastes a bright toy. His teeth closed on it
—Ah!
She'd left that damn kimono, that dirty pink kimono.
She might have had the decency to take it with her, he
thought. It would hang in the house like the corpse
of their sick alliance. He would try to throw it away,
but he would never be able to bring himself to move it.
It would be like Kitty, soft and pliable, withal impervious.
You couldn't move Kitty; you couldn't reach
Kitty. There was nothing there to reach. He understood
that perfectly—he had understood it all along.
He reached to the wall for another biscuit and with an
effort pulled it out, nail and all. He carefully removed
the nail from the centre, wondering idly if he had eaten
the nail with the first biscuit. Preposterous! He would
have remembered—it was a huge nail. He felt his
stomach. He must be very hungry. He considered—
remembered—yesterday he had had no dinner. It was
the girl's day out and Kitty had lain in her room eating
chocolate drops. She had said she felt "smothery" and
couldn't bear having him near her. He had given George
a bath and put him to bed, and then lain down on the
couch intending to rest a minute before getting his own
dinner. There he had fallen asleep and awakened about
eleven, to find that there was nothing in the ice-box
except a spoonful of potato salad. This he had eaten,
together with some chocolate drops that he found on
Kitty's bureau. This morning he had breakfasted hurriedly
down town before going to the office. But at
noon, beginning to worry about Kitty, he had decided
to go home and take her out to lunch. After that there
had been the note on his pillow. The pile of lingerie
in the closet was gone—and she had left instructions for
sending her trunk.
He had never been so hungry, he thought.
At five o'clock, when the visiting nurse tiptoed downstairs,
he was sitting on the sofa staring at the carpet.
"Mr. Cromwell?"
"Yes?"
"Oh, Mrs. Curtain won't be able to see you at dinner.
She's not well. She told me to tell you that the cook
will fix you something and that there's a spare bedroom."
"She's sick, you say?"
"She's lying down in her room. The consultation
is just over."
"Did they—did they decide anything?"
"Yes," said the nurse softly. "Doctor Jewett says
there's no hope. Mr. Curtain may live indefinitely,
but he'll never see again or move again or think. He'll
just breathe."
"Just breathe?"
"Yes."
For the first time the nurse noted that beside the writing-desk
where she remembered that she had seen a line
of a dozen curious round objects she had vaguely imagined
to be some exotic form of decoration, there was now
only one. Where the others had been, there was now
a series of little nail-holes.
Harry followed her glance dazedly and then rose to
his feet.
"I don't believe I'll stay. I believe there's a train."
She nodded. Harry picked up his hat.
"Good-by," she said pleasantly.
"Good-by," he answered, as though talking to himself
and, evidently moved by some involuntary necessity,
he paused on his way to the door and she saw him pluck
the last object from the wall and drop it into his pocket.
Then he opened the screen door and, descending the
porch steps, passed out of her sight.
| Tales of the jazz age | |