His Second Wife Part 5

The guests began arriving--silent, awkward strangers--ten or twelve.

She heard the nurse come in with Susette and take her back to the nursery.

There was no music. Not a sound.

At last the silence was broken by the minister's low voice. Thank heaven that was kindly. He was brief, and yet too long; for from the apartment one flight below, before he had finished, the festive throb of a little orchestra was heard.

He prayed just a minute or two.

Then they followed the coffin out into the hall and back and down by the freight elevator.

A motor hea.r.s.e was waiting below.

When the burial was over, she came home alone with Joe. She sat in the living-room watching his face, while the dusk grew mercifully deep.

Then she made him eat some supper and take something to make him sleep.

And later in her own small room she lay on her bed, dishevelled, tearless, her mind stunned, her feelings queer and uneven, now surging up, now cold and still.

"Where has she gone? What do I know? . . . What do I believe?

Where is G.o.d? . . . What is life? What am I here for?"

With a pang she recalled the town in Ohio where she and Amy had been born, and her thoughts went drifting for awhile. Pictures floated in and out, pictures of her life at home. She was hungry for them now, the old stays and firm supports, the old frame house, her father and the G.o.d in the yellow church, the quiet river, the high school and that friendly group of eager girl companions, with work, discussions, young ideals, plans and dreams of life and love. . . . All up by the roots in a few swift weeks!

"Shall I go back?" she asked herself. "Do I want to go--now that Dad is dead, and most of the girls have gone away, scattered all over the country?" Again she lapsed. "I'm too dull to think." She let the pictures drift again. Church sociables, a Christmas tree, dances, suppers and buggy rides, picnics by the river. How small and very far-away and trivial they now appeared. All had pointed toward New York. "Go back and marry, settle down? Do I want to? No. And anyhow, there's Joe and Susette. My place is right here--and I'm going to stay.

But what is it going to mean to me? What do I want in this city now?"

In the turmoil, startled, she looked about her for a purpose, some ideal. But the old beliefs seemed dim; the new ones, garish and confused. She recalled those faces of Amy's friends. "Yes, cheap and tough, for all their clothes!" Or was it just this ghastly time that had made them all appear so?

Again she thought of her sister dead. "Oh Amy--Amy! Where have you gone?" And at last, quite suddenly, the tears came, and she huddled and shook on her bed.

CHAPTER V

She slept that night exhausted, woke up early the next morning and lay motionless on her bed: at first staring bewildered about the room, and then, with a sharp contraction of her brows and a quick breath, looking intently up at the ceiling. A vigilant look crept into her eyes, for at once instinctively she was on guard against letting the feelings of yesterday rise.

"What a selfish little beast I've been. Did I help in the funeral? Not a bit. Did I comfort poor Joe? Not at all. I was occupied wholly with my own morbid little soul. Now we're going to stiffen up, my love, and try to be of some use to Joe, and do as Amy would have liked." She began to tremble suddenly. "No, we're not going to think of her! It's dangerous! Be practical! To begin with, I must clear things up. I'll have a little talk with Joe. Poor Joe--it's going to be pretty dreadful. I'll stick by him, though, and I've got to learn how to keep him from going out of his mind." More staring at the ceiling. "One thing I know. I shan't wear black. Amy detested mourning, and Joe will see life black enough as it is. . . . Thank Heaven there's the housekeeping to do. That shall run smoothly if it kills me! . . .

All right, now suppose we get out of bed."

About an hour later, from behind Amy's silver coffee pot, Ethel had her talk with Joe. She felt ill, but she bit her lips and smiled. She had dressed her hair becomingly and had donned a blue silk waist, one of the countless pretty things that she had bought with Amy. Her brown eyes had a resolute brightness.

"We'll have to help each other," she said. "And there's Susette to be thought of. The best way, I guess, is not to try to do much planning ahead just now. But I'd like to stay here if you want me, Joe. There's no other place where I want to be."

He gave her a grateful tired smile. His hair was a bit dishevelled, and over his blunt kindly face had come a haggard lost expression. His voice was low:

"Thank you, Ethel--you're a brick. I want you here at first, G.o.d knows.

Later I'll try to fix things so that you can feel more free. You're only a kid, with a life of your own. Big city, you know, and you'll find your place."

He stared over at the window, where the sun was streaming in.

"Another cup of coffee, Joe?"

"No, thanks." he rose slowly, and added, "Let's go now to--Amy's desk--and fix up the housekeeping part of it."

Later he said, "I'll see the nurse and the other two maids and tell 'em they're to take orders from you." He paused a moment. "And Ethel--if you're to stay here, I want it to be as nearly like it was as I can." he gave a wincing frown. "I mean on the money side," he said. "I'll give you a check the first of each month. You'll need things of your own, of course--as she did. I want it just like that."

"Thank you, dear." She saw a muscle in his cheek suddenly begin to twitch, and she thought, "It won't be easy."

When Joe left for his office, she went with him to the door.

She turned at once to the housekeeping. Her talks with the waitress and the cook left her both a little relieved and a good deal disappointed.

For there seemed to be nothing for her to do; she was made to feel that things would run best with the least possible interference. She learned with surprise that hitherto the cook had done all the ordering.

"All I need to know is how many is coming," said the cook.

"There won't be any one for awhile."

"Then it's very simple, ma'am." On the woman's face was a look which said, "Just you keep out of my kitchen."

It was the same in her talk with the nurse. That tall gaunt creature briefly explained that, "Mrs. Lanier bought clothes Spring and Fall, and then she left the child to me. I go out every Thursday and every other Sunday--afternoon and evening. Lucy the waitress takes my place.

The rest of the time I've managed alone." She looked around in a jealous way and asked, "I suppose you'll want things as before?"

"Yes, for the present," Ethel said. She felt the woman glance at her sharply as she turned toward the door.

She went into her sister's room, sat down and had a little cry. But the sunlight was streaming in through the pretty chintz curtains there; and its softness and its ease, its luxury and blithe content, stole into her spirit and quieted her. She sat looking about.

"What is there for me to do?"

It came over her that the cook and the nurse could tell her just about what they pleased. She had no means of checking them up, for Amy had never talked of such things. It had all been pretty clothes and shops, in those brief exciting weeks, and shrewd counsel about men and what it was they wanted of women. How appallingly shallow and meaningless those conversations now appeared. They gave no comfort or support. The remembrance of the terror in Amy's eyes at the thought of death rose vividly in Ethel's mind, and she got up and walked the floor.

"We'll fight this down--we'll fight this down," she kept repeating determinedly. And as soon as she was quiet again: "What is there for me to do? Why Joe, of course--and heaven knows he'll be enough. He's the hardest kind, he doesn't cry, he keeps it all inside of him." She drew a deep breath. "How about this room?" She frowned and looked around her.

"No, I don't think he wants anything changed. For the present at least, I'll leave it alone. But he ought not to be reminded of her by every little thing he sees."

She looked into the closets. In Joe's she found some of Amy's things.

She put them back in her sister's closet and then gently closed the door. As she stood there a moment longer, she had a curious feeling of Amy's presence by her side.

"Now, my dear, we'd better go out for a walk," she told herself as she turned away. But she threw a glance behind her.

In the weeks that followed she and Joe were more intensely alone together than she could have imagined.

At first a few of Amy's friends kept dropping in every now and then.

But although their intentions were kindly enough, Ethel felt repelled by them. She resented their having been Amy's friends. For swiftly and quite unconsciously, in her resolute groping in the dark for solid ground on which to stand, she was building up an ideal of her sister--and these women jarred on that. They came to her direct from a world, her sister's world, which she now vaguely felt to be cheap, shallow, disillusioning. And she needed her illusions. By nature frank to bluntness, she was not good at hiding dislikes; and her uneasy visitors soon realized with relief that they were not wanted here.

f.a.n.n.y Carr still came for a time. For some reason that Ethel could not understand, this shrewd person seemed reluctant to let go her hold as a friend. She was most solicitous about Joe and tried to come when he was at home. But as Ethel's dislike of the woman deepened in intensity, gradually f.a.n.n.y's visits, too, grew less frequent and then ceased.

During the first week or two, Joe's partner almost every night came home with him to dinner and took him out for evening walks. But his talk was all of business. It seemed to Ethel that purposely Nourse shut her out of the conversation. His manner to her, though not unkind, was like that of the cook and the nurse. "The less you meddle here," it said, "the better it will be for Joe. Leave him to me."