 | Tales of the jazz age |  |
VI
After that she sat on her weather-beaten porch through
many afternoons, gazing down across the fields that
undulated in a slow descent to the white and green town.
She was wondering what she would do with her life.
years had eaten up Jeffrey's insurance; she had reluctantly
parted with the acres to right and left of her,
and had even placed a small mortgage on the house.
With her husband's death had come a great physical
restlessness. She missed having to care for him in the
morning, she missed her rush to town, and the brief
and therefore accentuated neighborly meetings in the
butcher's and grocer's; she missed the cooking for two,
the preparation of delicate liquid food for him. One day,
consumed with energy, she went out and spaded up the
whole garden, a thing that had not been done for years.
And she was alone at night in the room that had seen
the glory of her marriage and then the pain. To meet
Jeff again she went back in spirit to that wonderful year,
that intense, passionate absorption and companionship,
rather than looked forward to a problematical meeting
hereafter; she awoke often to lie and wish for that presence
beside her—inanimate yet breathing—still Jeff.
One afternoon six months after his death she was
sitting on the porch, in a black dress which took away
the faintest suggestion of plumpness from her figure.
It was Indian summer—golden brown all about her;
a hush broken by the sighing of leaves; westward a
four o'clock sun dripping streaks of red and yellow over
a flaming sky. Most of the birds had gone—only a
sparrow that had built itself a nest on the cornice of a
pillar kept up an intermittent cheeping varied by occasional
fluttering sallies overhead. Roxanne moved
her chair to where she could watch him and her mind
idled drowsily on the bosom of the afternoon.
Harry Cromwell was coming out from Chicago to
dinner. Since his divorce over eight years before he
had been a frequent visitor. They had kept up what
amounted to a tradition between them: when he arrived
down on the edge of the bed and in a hearty voice ask:
"Well, Jeff, old man, how do you feel to-day?"
Roxanne, standing beside, would look intently at
Jeff, dreaming that some shadowy recognition of this
former friend had passed across that broken mind—but
the head, pale, carven, would only move slowly in its
sole gesture toward the light as if something behind the
blind eyes were groping for another light long since gone
out.
These visits stretched over eight years—at Easter,
Christmas, Thanksgiving, and on many a Sunday
Harry had arrived, paid his call on Jeff, and then talked
for a long while with Roxanne on the porch. He was
devoted to her. He made no pretense of hiding, no
attempt to deepen, this relation. She was his best
friend as the mass of flesh on the bed there had been his
best friend. She was peace, she was rest; she was the
past. Of his own tragedy she alone knew.
He had been at the funeral, but since then the company
for which he worked had shifted him to the East
and only a business trip had brought him to the vicinity
of Chicago. Roxanne had written him to come when he
could—after a night in the city he had caught a train
out.
They shook hands and he helped her move two rockers
together.
"How's George?"
"He's fine, Roxanne. Seems to like school."
"Of course it was the only thing to do, to send him."
"Of course—"
"You miss him horribly, Harry?"
"Yes—I do miss him. He's a funny boy—"
He talked a lot about George. Roxanne was interested.
Harry must bring him out on his next vacation.
rompers.
She left him with the newspaper while she prepared
dinner—she had four chops to-night and some late vegetables
from her own garden. She put it all on and then
called him, and sitting down together they continued
their talk about George.
"If I had a child—" she would say.
Afterward, Harry having given her what slender advice
he could about investments, they walked through
the garden, pausing here and there to recognize what
had once been a cement bench or where the tennis court
had lain . . .
"Do you remember—"
Then they were off on a flood of reminiscences: the
day they had taken all the snap-shots and Jeff had been
photographed astride the calf; and the sketch Harry
had made of Jeff and Roxanne, lying sprawled in the
grass, their heads almost touching. There was to have
been a covered lattice connecting the barn-studio with
the house, so that Jeff could get there on wet days—
the lattice had been started, but nothing remained except
a broken triangular piece that still adhered to the
house and resembled a battered chicken coop.
"And those mint juleps!"
"And Jeff's note-book! Do you remember how we'd
laugh, Harry, when we'd get it out of his pocket and
read aloud a page of material. And how frantic he
used to get?"
"Wild! He was such a kid about his writing."
They were both silent a moment, and then Harry
said:
"We were to have a place out here, too. Do you
remember? We were to buy the adjoining twenty
acres. And the parties we were going to have!"
Again there was a pause, broken this time by a low
question from Roxanne.
"Do you ever hear of her, Harry?"
"Why—yes," he admitted placidly. "She's in Seattle.
She's married again to a man named Horton, a
sort of lumber king. He's a great deal older than she
is, I believe."
"And she's behaving?"
"Yes—that is, I've heard so. She has everything,
you see. Nothing much to do except dress up for this
fellow at dinner-time."
"I see."
Without effort he changed the subject.
"Are you going to keep the house?"
"I think so," she said, nodding. "I've lived here so
long, Harry, it'd seem terrible to move. I thought of
trained nursing, but of course that'd mean leaving.
I've about decided to be a boarding-house lady."
"Live in one?"
"No. Keep one. Is there such an anomaly as a
boarding-house lady? Anyway I'd have a negress and
keep about eight people in the summer and two or three,
if I can get them, in the winter. Of course I'll have to
have the house repainted and gone over inside."
Harry considered.
"Roxanne, why—naturally you know best what you
can do, but it does seem a shock, Roxanne. You came
here as a bride."
"Perhaps," she said, "that's why I don't mind remaining
here as a boarding-house lady."
"I remember a certain batch of biscuits."
"Oh, those biscuits," she cried. "Still, from all I
heard about the way you devoured them, they couldn't
have been so bad. I was so low that day, yet somehow
I laughed when the nurse told me about those biscuits."
"I noticed that the twelve nail-holes are still in the
library wall where Jeff drove them."
"Yes."
It was getting very dark now, a crispness settled in
the air; a little gust of wind sent down a last spray of
leaves. Roxanne shivered slightly.
"We'd better go in."
He looked at his watch.
"It's late. I've got to be leaving. I go East tomorrow."
"Must you?"
They lingered for a moment just below the stoop,
watching a moon that seemed full of snow float out of the
distance where the lake lay. Summer was gone and now
Indian summer. The grass was cold and there was no
mist and no dew. After he left she would go in and
light the gas and close the shutters, and he would go
down the path and on to the village. To these two
life had come quickly and gone, leaving not bitterness,
but pity; not disillusion, but only pain. There was
already enough moonlight when they shook hands for
each to see the gathered kindness in the other's eyes.
| Tales of the jazz age | |