put on weight in the fall, eating those elaborate luncheons in the
school dining room. The final glimpse of herself in the mirror—even her
hair looked better this morning, shining-white, the ends tucked under
and pinned, she was getting so she did it pretty well herself—gave her
an unexplained feeling of anticipation. There’s nothing that can happen,
she thought. Nothing left to happen to me. But she moved more lightly
than she had for days, setting her bedroom in order, turning back sheets
and blankets over a chair to air, preparing tea and toast for her
breakfast. Whenever she listened, she could hear the waves down on the
shore, but she postponed the walk she had promised herself, saying,
first I will do this, and that. Be a good girl and finish your work
first, then you can go and play. She smiled, hearing the words from her
childhood. She had neglected her house lately, running around on
footless errands. Not that anything was dusty; the rains had prevented
that. But this morning every polished surface had a dulling over it, as
if the day had laid a warm mouth close and blown upon it. Margaret
rubbed tables and chairs and floors bright again, she wiped off the
inside of the small-paned windows. Once or twice the sun shone out,
several times the rain started again, an onslaught of long, slanting
lines which stopped abruptly. When Margaret had finished the stint she
had set herself, well past noon, the rain seemed to have ceased, and as
she stood at her front door, the raincoat over her arm beating in the
wind, she saw how shadows of torn clouds moved swiftly over the sun-lit
landscape, like waves of an advancing tide of night. She hesitated a
moment, because the wind was strong, but the surf pounded loud, and she
thought, I ought to see it, I don’t remember ever hearing it so loud.
She had to step back inside the hall to get her arms into the sleeves of
the raincoat, she tied a scarf over her head, she locked her door and
hid the key under one of the stones that bordered the row of tattered
perennial stalks, glancing first up and down the deserted highway to
make sure no one watched. Then she pushed herself into the wind, she
leaned against it, she climbed against it, breathing hurt, it was a
great hand laid against her chest, pressing it back against her spine.
She reached the shelter of the old barn, and stopped, gasping. She could
breathe there, and the air tingled to the tips of her fingers. She
wouldn’t be beaten by a few gusts, she meant to look at the water. The
ground was littered with leaves, they ran on the wind, not single and
brown as in the fall, but torn clumps, branches of green leaves. Behind
her the wind scooped at the barn roof, and old gray shingles flew off,
no noisier than the leaves. Presently she went on, turning sidewise,
ducking her head. The house afforded another lee, as she passed it, she
walked close to it, liking the space of silence under the walls, the
noise and the wind came over the roof like a wave, not touching her,
breaking farther out in the great trees. She ducked her head again,
wading through the long wet grass toward the shore, and suddenly,
although the sun shone now, her face was wet, her lashes were beaded.
She tasted salt on her lips, and saw the spray break above the rocks.
Queer, because the tide was low now, she had looked it up in her almanac
that morning, she had thought the rain had stopped as the tide ebbed.
Instead, even on the sheltered shore where the bath-house stood, the
waves broke higher than the top step, the air was full of salt spray,
stinging her eyelids so that she could scarcely see the craziness of the
water beyond the point. That’s very queer, she thought. I must have made
a mistake, it’s high tide now. She rubbed her eyelids dry. The reef
which made the extension of the rocky shore beyond the point, and
protected the harbor side, was now so submerged it had no line of
breakers, and as Margaret stared, one wave—a seventh wave, she thought,
remembering a bit of child lore—rushed up, a splendid smooth wall of
green, over the rocks, broke into white over the grass, and crawled back
as if discomfited at that strange contact. Then, without a sound above
the wind and water, the old bath-house rose slowly, a foot or two, and
lurched forward, flattening like a cardboard box, sliding out
uncertainly as the beach was sucked bare between waves. A huge cloud
shadow moved over the water, dimming the brilliant green and white to
gray, almost to black, it covered the land, too, and Margaret turned
inland. If it meant to rain again, she had better hurry back to her
house. It would be less lonely inside a house; the curious excitement of
anticipation which had carried her since waking, like a wave, had broken
all about her feet into complete solitude. She had just taxed herself
too much, fighting the wind. It was behind her now, she went quickly
with it, head down, she felt flat as paper, the wind carrying her along.
When she reached the old house, she would stop for a moment on the
kitchen porch, to rest.
She saw, not believing, that the long weathered green shutters of the
drawing room at the corner of the house were open. Had the wind—Then she
saw that the inner blinds were folded back, a figure moved within the
room. The wind swept her on, in spite of her desire to stand there,
staring, around the corner of the house. The side door, under the
porte-cochere, was open, a man stood there, poised in haste to be off, a
youngish stocky man with a brimmed cap pushed back on his head. Margaret
had a good look at him, square forehead, handsome eyes under full lids,
a young mouth twisted impatiently, a short, round chin that jutted well
forward.
“What do you want to stay here for?” he was saying. “Come along with me
now, and save me the trip back.”
“It won’t take you ten minutes to drive out for me.” The voice came from
within the hall, and at its sound, full, rich, amused, Margaret lifted
her head, moved a step nearer, leaning stiffly against the push of the
wind. “Run along, darling?”
“You’re crazy! A day like this—”
“It’s a nice day, Eddie. Exciting, here at the shore. I won’t go sit in
that garage while you tinker over the car. I’ll look for that box I told
you about. Why, maybe I won’t go with you when you come back!”
Eddie’s face changed, it was impudent and cajoling. “You promised!”
“Before I came back here, came—home. I had forgotten—” The voice drew
Margaret to the edge of the steps. Eddie shrugged, he flung up one hand
as the elm behind him bent in the wind and straightened again, with a
noise through all its wet leaves like the tearing of paper.
“Listen to that! I don’t like it!” he cried out, “I don’t like leaving
you!” Then he saw Margaret. As he stared, a figure moved through the
doorway to stand on the narrow porch, a plump figure stepping briskly on
small feet in high-heeled wine-colored sandals, a wine-colored coat
fluttering as the wind caught it, the long bands of golden lynx
flattening in the wind, the chiffon veil which tied on the brimmed hat
moving, and there, above the fur, under the hat, a small face, pointed,
wrinkled, with an astonishing russet rim of curled hair, with eyes green
and alive and laughing under penciled brows and darkened lashes, there
stood Susan herself.
“You’re just a poor little city fellow,” she was saying. “Any weather
makes you nervous as a kite. Who’s that?” One hand, with a flash of
maroon-lacquered cusps, dove into the softly moving lynx over the deep,
full bosom, came out with a sparkling lorgnette, and through it Susan
looked at Margaret. “No, don’t tell me! Let me guess!” She came forward,
stepping like a pigeon on her stilted sandals, peering down, and
Margaret braced herself, her hands hard against the rough surface of the
granite step, her heart beating in her palms. “It is—” (How had she
forgotten that voice of Susan’s, the way it made each word round and
separate and charged with meaning, not the dull words that other people
spoke, but sound made of feeling itself, like notes plucked softly on a
violin, or like the speech of birds.) “It’s Maggie! Those eyes! It is
Maggie!” She made a gay, grasping gesture with her hands, the lorgnette
swinging on its chain. “Come up here where I can see you!”
Margaret moved up the steps, past the young man, who eyed her without
curiosity, chewing his lip, impatient at the interruption; she was
pinned for a moment against lynx and soft bosom, scent of perfume and
powder pricking through the warm salt wet odor of the wind, Susan was
kissing her with lips powdery and dry under the lipstick, her mouth had
changed, the upper lip was thin and fine in spite of paint, the under
lip had transverse creases in its fullness. “Darling little Maggie! This
is perfect!” Susan had Margaret’s cold fingers between the soft palms of
her two hands. “You can stay with me while Eddie mends the car. This is
an old friend, Eddie. When I was a little girl—” Susan stopped, her head
a little at an angle, her lively eyes inspecting Margaret, her smile
quick and sly. “Maggie was very good to me, she was lots older, but she
let me tag her around, didn’t you? Run along, Eddie, darling! I don’t
care if you never come back!”
“You’ll get your fill of this before I’m back,” said Eddie, firmly, and
Margaret pulled her fingers out of Susan’s grasp, she stood stiff, her
knees quivering, she opened her mouth to speak. But Eddie, with a quick
salute, was running along the driveway, the two women watching him,
through the brandishing branches of trees there was a glimpse of the
car, long and cream-colored and shining, pointed in from the highway.
“He didn’t dare drive in, this old lane is soft,” said Susan. The wind
carried away all sound, they saw the car back away, vanish, silent as a
dream. Susan sighed. “He’s crazy about that car, we practically drowned
it this morning, where was it, I don’t remember, the roads were rivers,
just rivers, Maggie! You’d never believe it. So we turned back, to try
this route, and the motor began to spit. There we were, at Eastbourne. I
said, Eddie, you better drive straight on to New York, I warn you! But
would Eddie? No. I tell him if he’d treat a woman as he does that car!”
Susan laughed. “So then I came here.” Something fey leaped in her green
eyes, drifted across her pointed face. “The wind shouted at me, come
home, Susan, before it is too late! And here you are!”
Margaret held her hands down against the flutter of her raincoat, she
said, stiffly, “I’m not older than you!”
Susan blinked at her, and then laughed. “I just said that, you know how
men are! I thought you were, I really did! You _have_ kept your figger,
but you’ve let your hair go white. Um-um. Let’s go inside, I can’t hear
in this wind, I don’t like standing around, my feet are too small.” She
slid her hand under Margaret’s arm, she trotted her along into the
house, it was a dive into stillness, into an absence of buffeting which
bewildered Margaret, she was a child, following Susan’s bidding, all her
protests, her planned upbraiding whisked away like the leaves which
filled the air around the house. The hall was dim, but the drawing room
had light from the long windows where the shutters had been opened, dust
covers shrouded the chairs, the divan, even the crystal chandelier,
everything was muted to gray, a gray film of dust over the squares of
the parquetry floor, beyond the windows a film of gray, not dust, over
the sky. Green-gray mildew made queer patterns, a geography of decay,
over the wall paper with its gold and satin stripes. The cool, fusty air
within the house was sucked out through the opened door, the warm breath
of the wind flowed in around them.
“It’s a good deal like a tomb,” said Susan. “But Eddie had to close the
windows again, that wind would blow the paper off the wall! Maggie, it’s
wonderful to see you! Take that thing off your head. Your hair is
pretty, just as heavy as ever, isn’t it? Do you think white hair softens
a face? I’ve wondered sometimes—but a man never likes white hair, you
know, he sees that first—Ah, you’re really the same Maggie, I always
liked white on you, proud and quiet—You sit here by the window, I have
to find something, a box of trinkets. I think I can lay my hand right on
it. Then you must tell me everything you’ve done—”
Margaret stood there in the middle of the room where Susan left her,
listening to the quick tap of heels across the hall. On the wide stairs
the velvet-padded stair-runner absorbed the sound, but presently it came
again overhead, little flurries of taps, like a Morse code of a search
for a box of trinkets. She thought, now is my chance to say the things
I’ve wanted to, so long; but she thought it doubtfully and in confusion,
her heart beat too rapid. So long—since anyone had called her Maggie,
had, in a glance, looked past her neat and formal outer self, had—oh,
however lightly, gaily!—looked at her with human warmth. It’s just her
voice, thought Margaret, sounding as if she cared more than she does.
Look at her, decked out like a girl, traipsing about with that—that
Eddie, shameless—She listened to the faint sounds overhead, she thought,
I don’t have to stay here, I can go on to my own house, and she wished,
instead, to follow Susan upstairs, because the drawing room without her
was high and gray and empty, and the air that blew in warm puffs through
the open door was the breath of restlessness.
The footsteps overhead had stopped, and Margaret moved to one of the
long windows. She didn’t want Susan thinking she’d been struck dumb and
immovable by her! The window was recessed, the blinds folded back on
each side, and from the narrow, closed slats there rose a fine dust,
flecks of dried enamel, circling in spirals up the window edges. I never
saw wind do that, thought Margaret. Holding her hands out toward the
glass, she felt it, a strong suction against the palms. A branch struck
the window, startling her, leaves crumpled and torn, clung to the glass
as the branch fell away. Rain had started again, fine slanting rain,
which obscured the water, she was not sure whether she really saw gray
waves running over the grass, well in beyond the rocky shore, as if the
ocean were moving inland, or whether she saw only the rain. Even within
the house now she could hear the water, loudly enough so that she was
again not sure what she had heard in the hall. But she went quickly
across the room. Something small and hard slid under the ball of her
foot as she stepped into the hall, on the bottom step of the wide stairs
was a heap of lynx fur and wine-colored coat, the hat knocked forward,
hiding the face.
“Don’t step on them, they’re all over the place!” Susan pushed back her
hat, thrust her feet out straight in front. “Damn that stair carpet!”
“Did you fall? Have you hurt yourself?” Margaret ran across to the
stairs on tiptoe, skirting the small red velvet box which lay there, its
cover bent open, its contents scattered. “Susan!”
“I damned near took a header.” Susan hitched herself upright, she
wriggled first one toe, then the other. “Don’t you pull me up, not yet.
Pick up that stuff for me while I get my breath.” She threw aside her
hat, her hair, an astonishing brick color in the dim hall, stood up over
her small head in wisps and curls.
“Those heels are enough to kill anybody,” said Margaret, as she bent to
gather up the box and its contents.
“Nonsense.” Susan drew in her feet, her skirts sliding above her knees,
she laid a hand around each slim ankle. “I was hurrying, that’s all. I
wanted to see you before Eddie gets back.”
“This is the box you had—” Margaret drew a finger over the velvet. “I
remember it.” White satin lining, yellowed with age, gold clasp, the
cover dangling by one hinge. Most of the contents lay where the box had
fallen, rings, a child’s bracelet of gold, a brooch of garnets, a gold
necklace with a locket, a pearl in the center of a blue enameled flower.
Margaret stood erect, her temples throbbing, the necklace hanging from
her finger.
“It was my first jewel case,” said Susan. “I had forgotten it, it was in
the little wall safe in the bedroom, the one I open with my initials. I
thought there were some pearls in it. I told Eddie I’d have them made
into studs.” She giggled. “He’s never had a dress suit, he’s going to
get one.”
“You gave me this, once,” said Margaret.
“What is it?” Susan squinted toward her. “Oh, that. How’d it get in the
box, then?”
Margaret set the box on Susan’s knee, she let the necklace fall into the
satin bed. “You forgot to give it back.”
“Did I! Oh, Maggie! And you felt bad! Oh, darling, do you want it now?”
“No.” Margaret went on with her search. A string of amber had broken,
the beads had rolled everywhere, at the threshold they gleamed like eyes
of a cat, elsewhere they were hard to find, she gathered them cool and
hard in her fingers. She found a small irregular nugget of gold, and
laid it in Susan’s hand. Susan turned it in her painted finger-tips.
“Why, that’s the very nugget Rob sent me.” She looked up at Margaret,
her eyes like the amber. “Your brother! His first gold, he said.”
“And his last,” said Margaret. Ah, it was coming, now, her chance to
tell Susan—
But Susan said, softly, “If he hadn’t gone away!” The nugget dropped
from her fingers into the box. “That always happens when I come back to
this house!” She raised her voice against a gust of wind, the rain blew
in across the hall. “I go soft as jelly—like an old woman! Shut the
door, Maggie, we don’t want to drown! And give me a hand.”
Margaret tugged at the door, she edged behind it and pushed, both hands
laid against the wooden panels, it seemed almost to bend, as if it would
fold over her head, and then, so abruptly that she staggered and
followed it for an awkward step, it was snatched away from her and
whanged shut. She righted herself indignantly, disliking the large and
impersonal rudeness of the day. “It must be blowing harder,” she said.
“I should think it had blown long enough!”
Susan laughed, a low, delighted laugh, extending her hands to Margaret.
“You never did like storms.” She heaved her soft flesh up, dragging hard
on Margaret’s hands. “I remember. They blew up your skirts and ruffled
your hair and you couldn’t manage them. Pick up the box, Maggie, it’s on
the step there. I don’t see where those pearls are, they were earrings,
three little dangling pearls for each ear. Maybe I lost them.”
“You did hurt yourself! When you fell—” Margaret felt Susan’s weight
pull at her shoulder, she saw the stiff dragging forward of one foot.
“I just sat down too hard. I’ll be all right in a minute. Help me across
to a chair, that’s a good Maggie. That divan’s nearer—”
Margaret got her to the divan, stood above her in dismay. But Susan
leaned back, her wry mouth changing into a quick smile. “I’m too fat, I
might as well admit it!”
“Where is it, Susan? Your foot? Ankle? Let me take off your shoe—”
Susan crossed one ankle over the other. “No, you don’t! I’d never get it
back on. Leave it alone. In ten minutes I’ll be all right, I always am.”
“I could run over to my house and get you something—”
“All you’d get would be a soaking! Why, look—” The two women looked, at
one window and then at the other. Outside the house the rain made a
solid wall, over the inner surface of the glass the rain poured, falling
against the wide sill, falling against the floor, it was as if the glass
had lost its essential quality and was no longer impermeable, as if the
rain drove through it, piercing it like light. Margaret stared,
bewilderment tasted dry in her mouth, not the sharp taste of fear.
“It must be getting in around the edges of the panes,” said Susan,
slowly. “That old putty—”
“I ought to wipe it up,” said Margaret. “I haven’t anything to wipe it
up with—”
“What harm can it do?” Susan turned away from the windows, she threw her
coat back from her shoulders, her throat, above the low V of the dull
red frock, was white and full. “Unless it gets our feet wet. Sit down,
Maggie, there are so many things to say. Eddie’ll be back any moment, he
hates this, he’ll want to get on to New York.”
Margaret looked again at the windows; if she watched, she would be
frightened. The dust cover on the divan stretched taut from Susan’s bulk
to the arms, there wasn’t room there. She brought one of the hooded
small chairs and set it with its back toward the windows, rather near
Susan, and seated herself.
“Where’s your house?” asked Susan. “Near here?”
“It’s the farmhouse. I bought it.”
“You did?” Susan’s face was alert, admiring.
“We should have gone there, instead of staying here. I’ve made a
charming place of it, it’s not like this.” She glanced toward that
appalling wetness. “I ought to be there now! Something might happen.”
“It will be all right. Nothing can happen to your house, Maggie. You
always could worry. I noticed someone lived there, someone—It’s funny,
your coming back here! You know, I’ve always thought someday I would
come back. To stay. When we drive anywhere near here, I have to come.
But I didn’t want to stay—yet. I—I’m not happy when I’m here.”
Margaret laid her hands together in her lap, her cold fingers hooked,
she hugged her elbows against her sides, she felt herself spare, hard,
her white dress limp now, drabbled, and anger began to shrill in her
head, like the highest note in which the wind now spoke, anger at the
difference between herself and this soft woman on the couch, a heap of
silk and furs and jewels, her painted mouth beguiling Margaret with her
Maggie this and that.
“You see”—again that fey look, a shadow over Susan’s gaiety—“I’ll tell
you—it was strange, my landing here just today. Yes, I’ll tell you. Did
you wonder why we were so crazy, driving to New York in such weather?
You’d never guess. Eddie’s going to school, he’s going to be an
engineer, he’s not really a chauffeur. But he’s very proud, he didn’t
want me to help him at first. And I thought I’d like to settle down, I’d
like to be sure I had somebody. We were going to get married. I haven’t
been married for a long time. He’s younger, but he’s quite old for his
years, he’s always had to look out for himself.” She lifted her
lorgnette, it shimmered in unsteady fingers as she held it to her eyes.
“Aren’t you ever afraid of being alone? When you get older, you don’t
want to be alone. But the minute I stepped in this house, I knew. I’d be
lonelier with him—Who lives in your house with you?”
“I am alone,” said Margaret. Her anger was a rod now, stiffening her
back. “But thank God, I’m respectable!”
Susan blinked through her lorgnette, she let it fly down against her
full bosom, she tipped back her head with its ragged petals of hair, and
laughed. “Oh, Maggie! Maggie, darling!” Her laughter was warm and round
in the strange gray room. “What good does that do you?”
“You wouldn’t understand, you’re shameless and dreadful, your name is a
byword, men leer after you—” Margaret had to stop, her anger was a tight
band around her chest, her heart strained madly against it.
Susan stopped laughing, she leaned forward a little, holding out her
hands, fingers spread, soft white palms with deep creases turned up, as
if she held Margaret’s words away from her ears. “Why, Maggie, you—you
don’t like me?” Her eyes were incredulous, her mouth sagged a trifle.
Margaret stumbled to her feet, she pushed away the chair, and before she
could make a word in her parched throat the hall door crashed open, wind
tore into the house, bellying the covers on the furniture, and with it
the boy Sam, water running from his cap, from his yellow slicker, so
that he stood in a pool there at the entrance to the drawing room.
“Geeze!” His voice was faint, a gasp, and gathered force as he caught
his breath. “Hurry up! Eddie sent me—I had to leave the car—they’s a
tree down—you’ll have to walk out to it—Come along, I say! We ain’t got
a minute!”
Susan looked at him, she tucked her feet farther under the edge of the
couch. “Where’s Eddie?” she asked.
“Working on your car, him and Bill. Water in the base.” His sandy face
was blanched with rain and excitement, he wriggled inside his slicker,
wanting to be off. “You gotta hustle, I tell you! Geeze, I never seen
nothing like it! The tide didn’t go down, Bill says when it’s high tide
again, the road’ll be under water, we got an hour to make it.”
“Where’s the car?” asked Margaret. “Can’t you bring it—”
“I can’t climb over a tree with it!” Sam shrieked above the wind, he
swung his arms. “Can’t you get a move on you? You can walk a few steps,
can’t you?”