I
Mr. Petersen and Frances lingered at the table long after the meal was
finished. Partly from fatigue, partly from embarrassment, neither of
them cared to suggest getting up. For _how_ were they to spend the
evening? They couldn’t sit down and read, as if nothing had happened,
and certainly they couldn’t talk. They would both have been delighted
never to exchange another word.
There was an unusual air of peace and order. Sandra and the baby were in
bed and asleep, wisely and lovingly managed by Frances. Mr. Petersen had
gone up to look at them in their cribs, clean, quiet and happy. Mrs.
Hansen was working away, without friction.
Yet it was an ominous quiet. There had been no “scene,” no excitement.
Simply Minnie had packed a bag and gone off in scornful silence, and
Lionel had vanished. It would have been far better if there _had_ been a
scene; no matter how violent or disgraceful. The roused emotions were
cheated, there was an exasperating lack of finality about it all, a
sense of frustration. Mr. Petersen and Frances had not opened the
subject at all. Mrs. Hansen of course was silent. Even Sandra had asked
no questions. It wasn’t natural!
Mr. Petersen had good reasons for his reticence. He was ashamed of his
thoughts; he would not have divulged them to any living creature.
Because he was longing and longing for Minnie, for the old turmoil and
disorder, Sandra running round the table while he ate, for Minnie,
holding the crying baby on her lap and feeding it sugar and water from a
spoon, Minnie in a wrapper, with her hair coming down, and her eternally
anxious look, worn out after having accomplished nothing.
He was aware of Frances opposite him, beautiful, severely neat, in her
starched blouse. He knew she was much better than Minnie, that she had
been cruelly wronged, and was behaving nobly. And yet he felt no
sympathy for her. All his pity was ridiculously, futilely given to
Minnie. He did not even blame her. The upright, honourable Mr. Petersen
was able to see the thing from her distorted angle; he could almost hear
her saying:
“But I tried to do what seemed best at the time.”
No anger, no bitterness, only a great sense of bereavement and grief. He
actually sat there worrying about her, thinking she had no money, afraid
she would suffer without her children.... That poor tiny Viking, replica
of himself, left now without a mother! And poor, poor mother, bereft of
such a son!