It was quiet that evening in the house of Cyrus Holland; the noises that
living makes were muffled by life's awe of death, even sounds that could
not disturb the dying guarded against by the sense of decorum of those
living on. Downstairs were people who had come to inquire for the man
they knew would not be one of them again. For forty years Cyrus Holland
had been a factor in the affairs of the town. He was Freeport's senior
banker, the old-fashioned kind of banker, with neither the imagination
nor the daring to make of himself a rich man, or of his bank an
institution using all the possibilities of its territory. In venturing
days he remained cautious. His friends said that he was
sane--responsible; men of a newer day put it that he was limited,
lacking in that boldness which makes the modern man of affairs. He had
advised many men and always on the side of safety. No one had grown rich
through his suggestions, but more than one had been saved by his
counsels. With the expansion of the business of the town newer banks had
gone ahead of his, and when they said he was one of the good substantial
men of the community they were indicating his limitations with his
virtues. Such a man, not a brilliant figure through his lifetime, would
be lamented in his passing. They had often said that he failed in using
his opportunities; what they said now was that he had never abused
them--death, as usual, inducing the living to turn the kindly side to
the truth about the dying.
Ruth did not go downstairs to see the people who were coming in. Ted was
down there, and Flora Copeland, a spinster cousin of the Hollands, who
for several years had lived in the house. Once, in passing through the
hall, she heard voices which she recognized. She stood there listening
to them. It was so strange to hear them; and so good. She was hungry for
voices she knew--old voices. Once there was a pause and her heart beat
fast for she got a feeling that maybe they were going to ask for her.
But they broke that pause to say goodnight. She had received no message
about anyone asking for her.
But even though she was not seeing the people who came she felt the
added strangeness her presence made in that house which had suspended
the usual affairs of living in waiting for death. The nurse was one of
the girls of the town, of a family Ruth knew. She had been only a little
girl at the time Ruth went away. She was conscious, in the young woman's
scrupulously professional manner toward herself, of a covert interest,
as in something mysterious, forbidden. She could see that to this
decorous young person she was a woman out of another world. It hurt her,
and it made her a little angry. She wished that this professional,
proper young woman, stealing glances as at a forbidden thing, could know
the world in which she actually lived.
And yet it occurred to her that the strain was less great than it would
have been at any other time--something about a room of death making the
living a little less prone to divide themselves into good and bad,
approved and condemned. With the approach of death there are likely to
be only two classes--the living and the dead. After the first few hours,
despite the estranging circumstances, there did seem to be some sort of
a bond between her and this girl who attended her father.
Ruth and Ted and Flora Copeland had had dinner together. Her Cousin
Flora had evidently pondered the difficult question of a manner with
Ruth and was pursuing it scrupulously. Her plan was clearly indicated in
her manner. She would seem to be acting as if nothing had happened and
yet at the same time made it plain that she in no sense countenanced the
person to whom she was being kind. Her manner was that most dismal of
all things--a punctilious kindliness.
This same Cousin Flora, now an anaemic woman of forty-five, had not
always been exclusively concerned with propriety. Ruth could remember
Cousin Flora's love affair, which had so greatly disturbed the members
of the family, and which, to save their own pride, they had thwarted.
Cousin Flora had had the misfortune to fall in love with a man quite
outside the social sphere of the Copelands and the Hollands. He was a
young laboring man whom she knew through the social affairs of the
church. He had the presumption to fall in love with her. She had not had
love before, being less generously endowed in other respects than with
social position in Freeport. There had been a brief, mad time when
Cousin Flora had seemed to find love greater than exclusiveness. But the
undesirable affair was frustrated by a family whose democracy did not
extend beyond a working together for the good of the Lord, and Cousin
Flora was, as Ruth remembered their saying with satisfaction, saved.
Looking at her now Ruth wondered if there ever came times when she
regretted having been saved.
She tried to make the most of all those little things that came into her
mind just because this homecoming was so desolate a thing to be left
alone with. She had many times lived through a homecoming. And when she
had thought of coming home she had always, in spite of it all, thought
of things as much the same. And now even she and Ted were strange with
each other; it was Ted the little boy she knew; it was hard all at once
to bridge years in which they had not shared experiences.
It was the house itself seemed really to take her in. When she got her
first sight of it all the things in between just rolled away. She was
back. What moved her first was not that things had changed but that they
were so much the same--the gate, the walk up to the house, the big tree,
the steps of the porch; as she went up the walk there was the real
feeling of coming home.
Then they stepped up on the porch--and her mother was not there to open
the door for her; she knew then with a poignancy even those first days
had not carried that she would never see her mother again, knew as she
stepped into the house that her mother was gone. And yet it would keep
seeming her mother must be somewhere in that house, that in a little
while she would come in the room and tell something about where she had
been. And she would find herself listening for her grandfather's slow,
uncertain step; and for Terror's bark--one of his wild, glad rushes into
the room. Ted said that Terror had been run over by an automobile a
number of years before.
Nor was it only those whom death kept away who were not there. Her
sister Harriett had not been there to welcome her; now it was evening
and she had not yet seen her. Ted had merely said that he guessed
Harriett was tired out. He seemed embarrassed about it and had hastily
begun to talk of something else. And none of the old girls had come in
to see her. The fact that she had not expected them to come somehow did
not much relieve the hurt of their not coming. When a door opened she
would find herself listening for Edith's voice; there was no putting
down the feeling that surely Edith would be running in soon.
Most of the time she sat by her father's bed; though she was watching
him dying, to sit there by him was the closest to comfort she could
come. And as she watched the face which already had the look of death
there would come pictures of her father at various times through the
years. There was that day when she was a tiny girl and he came home
bringing her a puppy; she could see his laughing face as he held the
soft, wriggling, fuzzy little ball of life up to her, see him standing
there enjoying her delight. She saw him as he was one day when she said
she was not going to Sunday-school, that she was tired of Sunday-school
and was not going any more. She could hear him saying, "Ruth, go
upstairs and put on your clothes for Sunday-school!"--see him as plainly
as though it had just happened standing there pointing a stern finger
toward the stairs, not moving until she had started to obey him. And
once when she and Edith and some other girls were making a great noise
on the porch he had stepped out from the living-room, where he and some
men were sitting about the table, looking over something, and said,
mildly, affectionately, "My dears, what would you think of making a
little less noise?" Queer things to be remembering, but she saw just how
he looked, holding the screen door open as he said it.
And as she sat there thinking of how she would never hear his voice
again, he reached out his hand as if groping for something he wanted;
and when with a little sob she quickly took it he clasped her hand,
putting into it a strength that astonished her. He turned toward her
after that and the nature of his sleep changed a little; it seemed more
natural, as if there were something of peace in it. It was as if he had
turned to her, reached out his hand for her, knowing she was there and
wanting her. He was too far from life for more, but he had done what he
could. Her longing gave the little movement big meaning. Sitting there
holding the hand of her father who would never talk to her nor listen to
her again, she wanted as she had never wanted before to tell her story.
She had been a long time away; she had had a hard time. She wanted to
tell him about it, wanted to try and make him understand how it had all
happened. She wanted to tell him how homesick she had been and how she
had always loved them all. It seemed if she could just make him know
what it was she had felt, and what she had gone through, he would be
sorry for her and love her as he used to.
Someone had come into the room; she did not turn at once, trying to make
her blurred eyes clear. When she looked around she saw her sister
Harriett. Her father had relaxed his hold on her hand and so she rose
and turned to her sister.
"Well, Ruth," said Harriett, in an uncertain tone. Then she kissed her.
The kiss, too, was uncertain, as if she had not known what to do about
it, but had decided in its favor. But she had kissed her. Again that
hunger to be taken in made much of little. She stood there struggling to
hold back the sobs. If only Harriett would put her arms around her and
really kiss her!
But Harriett continued to stand there uncertainly. Then she moved, as if
embarrassed. And then she spoke. "Did you have a--comfortable trip?" she
asked.
The struggle with sobs was over. Ruth took a step back from her sister.
It was a perfectly controlled voice which answered: "Yes, Harriett, my
trip was comfortable--thank you."
Harriett flushed and still stood there uncertainly. Then, "Did the town
look natural?" she asked, diffidently this time.
But Ruth did not say whether the town had looked natural or not. She had
noticed something. In a little while Harriett would have another baby.
And she had not known about it! Harriett, to be sure, had had other
babies and she had not known about it, but somehow to see Harriett, not
having known it, brought it home hard that she was not one of them any
more; she did not know when children were to be born; she did not know
what troubled or what pleased them; did not know how they managed the
affairs of living--who their neighbors were--their friends. She had not
known about Harriett; Harriett did not know about her--her longing for a
baby, longing which circumstances made her sternly deny herself.
Unmindful of the hurt of a moment before she now wanted to pour all that
out to Harriett, wanted to talk with her of those deep, common things.
The nurse had come in the room and was beginning some preparations for
the night. Harriett was moving toward the door. "Harriett," Ruth began
timidly, "won't you come in my room a little while and--talk?"
Harriett hesitated. They were near the top of the stairs and voices
could be heard below. "I guess not," she said nervously. "Not tonight,"
she added hurriedly; "that's Edgar down there. He's waiting for me."
"Then good night," said Ruth very quietly, and turned to her room.
All day long she had been trying to keep away from her room. "Thought
probably you'd like to have your old room, Ruth," Ted had said in taking
her to it. He had added, a little hurriedly, "Guess no one's had it
since you left."
It looked as if it was true enough no one had used it since she went out
of it that night eleven years before. The same things were there; the
bed was in the same position; so was her dressing table, and over by the
big window that opened to her side porch was the same little low chair
she always sat in to put on her shoes and stockings. It took her a long
way back; it made old things very strangely real. She sat down in her
little chair now and looked over at a picture of the Madonna Edith had
once given her on her birthday. She could hear people moving about
downstairs, hear voices. She had never in her whole life felt as alone.
And then she grew angry. Harriett had no right to treat her like that!
She had worked; she had suffered; she had done her best in meeting the
hard things of living. She had gone the way of women, met the things
women meet. Why, she had done her own washing! Harriett had no right to
treat her as if she were clear outside the common things of life.
She rose and went to the window and lowering it leaned out. She had
grown used to turning from hard things within to the night. There in the
South-west, where they slept out of doors, she had come to know the
night. Ever since that it had seemed to have something for her,
something from which she could draw. And after they had gone through
those first years and the fight was not for keeping life but for making
a place for it in the world, she had many times stepped from a cramping
little house full of petty questions she did not know how to deal with,
from a hard little routine that threatened their love out to the vast,
still night of that Colorado valley and always something had risen in
herself which gave her power. So many times that had happened that
instinctively she turned to the outside now, leaning her head against
the lowered casing. The oak tree was gently tapping against the
house--that same old sound that had gone all through her girlhood; the
familiar fragrance of a flowering vine on the porch below; the thrill of
the toads off there in the little ravine, a dog's frolicsome barking;
the laughter of some boys and girls who were going by--old things those,
sweeping her back to old things. Down in the next block some boys were
singing that old serenading song, "Good-night, Ladies." Long ago boys
had sung it to her. She stood there listening to it, tears running down
her face.
She was startled by a tap at the door; dashing her hands across her face
she eagerly called, "Come in."
"Deane's here, Ruth," said Ted. "Wants to see you. Shall I tell him to
come in here?"
She nodded, but for an instant Ted stood there looking at her. She was
so strange. She had been crying, and yet she seemed so glad, so excited
about something.
"Oh, Deane," she cried, holding out her two hands to him, laughter and
sobs crowding out together, "_talk_ to me! How's your mother? How's your
Aunt Margaret's rheumatism? What kind of an automobile have you? What
about your practice? What about your dog? Why, Deane," she rushed on,
"I'm just starving for things like that! You know I'm just Ruth, don't
you, Deane?" She laughed a little wildly. "And I've come home. And I
want to know about things. Why I could listen for hours about what
streets are being paved--and who supports old Mrs. Lynch! Don't you see,
Deane?" she laughed through tears. "But first tell me about Edith! How
does she look? How many children has she? Who are her friends? And oh,
Deane--tell me,--does she _ever_ say anything about me?"
They talked for more than two hours. She kept pouring out questions at
him every time he would stop for breath. She fairly palpitated with that
desire to hear little things--what Bob Horton did for a living, whether
Helen Matthews still gave music lessons. She hung tremulous upon his
words, laughing and often half crying as he told little stories about
quarrels and jokes--about churches and cooks. In his profession he had
many times seen a system craving a particular thing, but it seemed to
him he had never seen any need more pitifully great than this of hers
for laughing over the little drolleries of life. And then they sank into
deeper channels--he found himself telling her things he had not told
anyone: about his practice, about the men he was associated with, things
he had come to think.
And she talked to him of Stuart's health, of their efforts at making a
living--what she thought of dry farming, of heaters for apple orchards;
the cattle business, the character of Western people. She told him of
the mountains in winter--snow down to their feet; of Colorado air on a
winter's morning. And then of more personal, intimate things--how lonely
they had been, how much of a struggle they had found it. She talked of
the disadvantage Stuart was at because of his position, how he had grown
sensitive because of suspicion, because there were people who kept away
from him; how she herself had not made friends, afraid to because
several times after she had come to know the people around her they had
"heard," and drawn away. She told it all quite simply, just that she
wanted to let him know about their lives. He could see what it was
meaning to her to talk, that she had been too tight within and was
finding relief. "I try not to talk much to Stuart about things that
would make him feel bad," she said. "He gets despondent. It's been very
hard for Stuart, Deane. He misses his place among men."
She fell silent there, brooding over that--a touch of that tender,
passionate brooding he knew of old. And as he watched her he himself was
thinking, not of how hard it had been for Stuart, but of what it must
have been to Ruth. That hunger of hers for companionship told him more
than words could possibly have done of what her need had been. He
studied her as she sat there silent. She was the same old Ruth, but a
deepened Ruth; there was the same old sweetness, but new power. He had a
feeling that there was nothing in the world Ruth would not understand;
that bars to her spirit were down, that she would go out in tenderness
to anything that was of life--to sorrow, to joy, with the insight to
understand and the warmth to care. He looked at her: worn down by
living, yet glorified by it; hurt, yet valiant. The life in her had gone
through so much and circumstances had not been able to beat it down. And
this was the woman Amy said it was insulting of him to ask her to meet!
She looked up at him with her bright, warm smile. "Oh, Deane, it's been
so good! You don't know how you've helped me. Why you wouldn't believe,"
she laughed, "how much better I feel."
They had risen and he had taken her hand for goodnight. "You always
helped me, Deane," she said in her simple way. "You never failed me. You
don't know"--this with one of those flashes of feeling that lighted Ruth
and made her wonderful--"how many times, when things were going badly,
I've thought of you--and wanted to see you."
They stood there a moment silent; the things they had lived through
together, in which they had shared understanding, making a spiritual
current between them. She broke from it with a light, fond: "Dear Deane,
I'm so glad you're happy. I want you to be happy always."