Chapter XII: Part V: Impasse (3)

"It's different, considering the children, too, as well as you and me. What you do, in an office, takes you away from me. What I do, Cathy, that is yours, too, isn't it?"

His fingers crept up about her wrist; beneath them her life beat in heavy, slow rhythm.

"It knocks the stuffing fairly out of everything, if I think you don't care."

"Yes. It does that for me, too." Catherine smiled at him in a flicker of mockery. She caught a faint slackening of his fingers. Stella Partridge! But she knew, even in the impulse to have that out, to insist upon it as part of the winter, that it was better left untouched. Intangible, incomplete, a kind of subtle aberration, it would dissolve more quickly unexpressed.

"I'd be a beast to say I wouldn't go. A perverted, selfish wife. Wouldn't I? I can't be that. I'm too soft. Charles, I do desire for you every chance----"

"You're not soft. You're really fine. You----" He jumped to his feet. "And when we get out there, you'll see. You'll like it! Lots of things for you to do. You will be happy, Cathy. I'll make you happy."

Catherine, leaning back in her chair, lifted her face to look up at him. She heard in his voice the shouting down of fear; he had been worried, then. He had not been sure.

XIII

Catherine sat on the window sill, looking down at the shadows which slanted across the tree tops of Morningside. In the distance roofs still glittered in the afternoon sunlight. Beneath her the spring leaves were delicate and small, keeping their own fine shape, not yet making green masses. A little easterly breeze touched her warm cheek, and she thought, leaning from the window, that she sniffed in it the faint piquancy of Balm of Gilead buds. The last trunk was banging down the hall, its thuds like muttered profanities.

She turned back to the dismantled rooms. How queer they looked, small, dingy, worn. Mrs. O'Lay, in the kitchen, was assuring Charles: "Sure and you needn't worry yourself about that, Mr. Hammond. I'll clear out every stick. Them little things I've saved for myself. I can make use of them."

She was cramming things into the dumbwaiter. Catherine could hear the rustling of waste paper.

Catherine stood up, cautiously. She was stiff, almost dizzy, as if she had bent so long over packing boxes and trunks that her head couldn't without penalty be held upright. Well, it was done. Incredible and astonishing, that the disorder and confusion had come to an end.

"All ready, dear?" Charles stood in the doorway, buttoning his coat, patting his tie into place. "About time we got off."

"Be sure there is nothing left." Catherine went slowly through the rooms, listening to the walls return her footsteps emptily.

In the kitchen Mrs. O'Lay poked among the salvage, bundles, piles, an old black hat of Catherine's mounted rakishly on a box of breakfast food, a dingy cotton duck of Letty's, limp from loss of stuffing.

"I'll finish up here, Mis' Hammond." The broad red face was creased into downward wrinkles. "Sure, an' I hate to see the end of you," she said. "It's fine for you you got a tenant to come in right away, but we'll miss you."

"Taxi, Catherine!" shouted Charles.

"Good-by, God love you!" Mrs. O'Lay waved her out of the apartment onto the elevator.

"Well, we certainly got things off in great style, eh?" Charles beside her in the cab, the bags stowed at their feet, had his erect, briskly managing air. "Everything done, and time for dinner before your train."

Catherine was sunk in a lethargy of weariness; dimly she still sorted, packed, gave directions.

"You know, I forgot about the gas deposit." She emerged frantically from her lethargy. "Five dollars!"

"I'll see to it. Where's the receipt?"

"Let's see--in that envelope. I'll mail it to you. It was good of mother to take the children until train time, wasn't it?" Catherine sighed.

"I tell you, it was a lucky thing we got the apartment off our hands before fall." Charles patted her knee cheerfully. "Awful job, if we'd had to pack up at the end of the summer."

"Awful job any time!"

"Oh, well, a week in Maine will make you forget it all. Especially with the rent off our chests."

"You'll surely come in three weeks?"

"Positively. That finishes up everything. And I'll have to get away then if I'm to have any vacation. Say, be sure to tell old Baker he's got to take me down to the ledges for some real fishing. I haven't fished for two years, except for flounders."

"And Buxton the first of August?"

"Be hot there in August, won't it? Well, I'll have to go then. But I can find a house for us, and sort of learn the ropes before you blow in."

"I wonder----" Catherine's brows met in a deep wrinkle. "I can't remember which trunk I put the blankets in, and the linen. Hope they aren't labeled Buxton!"

"Oh, you got them where they belong. Don't fuss, I tell you. You let me drop you at the Gilberts' now, and I'll go on to the station. I can check these things, and that will give you a few minutes to rest."

"I don't care where you drop me." Catherine laughed. "All my poor mind does is to hunt for things in those trunks and boxes."

"You might as well stop worrying. They're settled."

* * * * *

Catherine stood at the entrance to the hotel, watching the taxi jerk its way along with the traffic. Charles's hand lay on the opened window, a resolute, capable fist. Every one was going home. Home from work. Shop girls in gay tweeds, already faded across the shoulders; sallow, small men in baggy trousers, with bits of lint sticking to them, from the lofts where they sewed--perhaps on more gay tweed suits, or beaded silk dresses for the trade. Moist, pale faces, with a startled, worn expression, as if the warmth of the day surprised and exhausted the city dwellers. And in Maine--a sharp visual image of pointed firs reflected in clear water, with a luminous twilight sky behind dark branches.

"Ought to be glad I'm going," she thought. "Instead of spending the summer here, with these people. And the children--I couldn't keep them here. Could I!"

Henrietta's maid admitted her to the quiet, orderly living room. Dr. Gilbert was in her office. She would be free soon. Catherine sat down at the window, looking idly out at the great steel framework which shadowed the room. How long ago she had looked down into pits of water and uncouth shapes of cranes! New Year's Day. And Henry had said, "You'd be a fool not to go."

The methodical arrangement of the room was restful, sane, after the hurly-burly of the last week. Distressing that confusion could so fray the edges of yourself. She closed her eyes, relaxing into a kind of blankness.

She opened them presently, to find Henrietta in the doorway, staring through her eyeglasses, her mouth firm and compassionate.

"Hello!" Catherine moved hastily erect. "Don't turn that professional stare on me. I won't have it."

"Hoped you were asleep." Henrietta came in. "Bill hasn't shown up yet. Perhaps we'd better go down to the dining room. Your train is so beastly early. Where's Charles?"

"Checking the trunks. He'll be in soon."

As they waited for the elevator, Catherine turned suddenly upon Henrietta.

"You know, Henry, I appreciate your not telling me what you think. I suppose you're disgusted, and you haven't said a word. Not since I told you we were going."

"Not disgusted." Henrietta thrust her eyeglasses between the buttons of her jacket. "I've been rather cut up about it. But it's your affair. I don't see that you could do anything else. Not now, at any rate."

"Perhaps some women could. I can't."

"Women can't alone." Henrietta sounded violent. "Not without men helping them. Being willing to help them. So long as their own affairs come first----"

The door of the elevator swung open.

"When Mr. Gilbert comes in, tell him we are at dinner. And Mr. Hammond, too."

"Yes, ma'am."

Henrietta nodded to the waiter, who led them into an alcove off the main dining room.

"Quiet in here." Henrietta settled herself briskly. Catherine was thinking: Henrietta manages her life so that things, mere things, never get in her way--laundry, or food, or packing. "I wanted to see you make a go of it," said Henrietta. "You're so darned intelligent. It's the children, I know. If it weren't for them, you could stay here. If you would. Probably Charles would pull you along by a heartstring even then. Now, Bill---- But I'll let him speak for himself. He has some news."

"Perhaps"--Catherine did not glance up--"perhaps, Henry, I've just been knocked flat at the end of the first round. Who knows? I may get my wind back--in Buxton."

"What can you do in a country town?"

Catherine did not answer; Charles was coming toward them, buoyant, touched with excitement, and behind him, Bill. Charles tucked the checks into her purse.

"I'll mail these others to the Dean," he said. "Great place we're going to. The Dean himself has offered to see to our chattels. Going to store them in some building on the campus until we come. Real human beings in Buxton!"

Catherine looked silently at Bill, as he took her hand for a brief moment. She hadn't seen him for weeks; he had been out of town again. His glance was grave, a little pleased.

"Tell them your news, Bill."

"Oh"--he shook out his napkin--"I'm off to South America next week, to build a bridge."

Henrietta explained. Huge engineering project, throwing a link across mountains, a road for commerce. Difficult enough to interest even a clam like Bill.

Catherine listened rather vaguely; Bill was moving his knife, his salt, his roll, to illustrate. Saves hundreds of miles in shipping, you see, if the thing can be done. A straight line from the interior.

"How long will it take?"

"Can't tell exactly until I see the ground. Perhaps a year. Or longer."

Catherine flung her glance at Henrietta, and found her watching Bill, her blue eyes calmly reflective. Not a trace of dispute, not a faint echo of bitterness, although Henrietta was looking less at Bill than back into whatever secret, intimate hour of decision lay behind the present announcement. This was what Henrietta had meant. That Bill would go alone if he wished, not for an instant expecting Henrietta to drop her life and follow.

"And you're just staying here?" Charles was naïve, surprised.

"Naturally." Henrietta grinned at him. "I can't move my practice. It's a long time, but perhaps one of us can wriggle in a vacation."

"Well!" Charles leaned back. "If my wife----" he broke off, suspiciously.

"Henrietta might reasonably object to being deserted," said Bill quietly. "But she's good enough to see why I wish to go."

Charles paused an instant over that, and then with a shrug came out on clear, safe ground with a question about the work. Catherine listened. She was tired. Her thoughts crawled obscurely, undirected, in a fog of weariness. Charles would pull her along by a heartstring, Henrietta said. Probably. She lacked that cold singleness which Henrietta kept. But Bill never tried to pull Henry by a heartstring. He hid away from her.

"You're not eating a thing, Cathy," said Henrietta. "Too much packing, I suppose. I hope you'll loaf for a while. Do you have the same woman who took us for peddlars?"

"I think so." Catherine stared out of her fog.

"Amelia will have the house opened and ready. Catherine can loaf all summer." Charles was hearty, assured. "It's been a hard winter, some ways."

The talk went on, with coffee and cheese, and Catherine drifted again in her fog. Perhaps one person always hides away. Bill had said something about that, once. In every combination of people, one hides. But if you hide away, then you shouldn't sulk. Play fair.

Dinner was over. Time to go. Henrietta, regretfully, explained that she couldn't go to the station. A case. Bill would walk over.

"I shall miss you, Cathy." They stood at the entrance of the hotel. "And the children. Bill gone, too. I'll have to work like fury."

"You must come out to Buxton when we're settled. Take a week off." Charles glanced at his watch, edged toward the street.

"I may." Henrietta's lips, firm and cool, touched Catherine's. "Good-by."

"We'd better walk fast," said Charles. "I have to get the bags out of the parcel room."

"Want a taxi?" Bill lifted his hand, but Catherine refused.

"It's only three blocks. Let's walk."

At the corner entrance of Grand Central, Charles darted ahead, with a hasty, "Meet you at the clock. You find Mother Spencer and the kids."

Catherine drew a long breath and looked up at Bill.

"South America," she said. "Mountains. And you are really keen about it?"

"It sounds good, don't you think?" He pushed open the heavy door for her. "Too bad we can't have dinner on some mountain peak." He smiled down at her. "What would they give us? Hot tamales, or are those Mexican?"

"South America--and Buxton," said Catherine.

"There is Spencer." Bill took her arm and swung her out of the path of a laden porter. "And the others."

"I hope it will be wonderful, Bill. And I'm not done for, not yet." Catherine could see the children, Letty with round eyes and her doll hugged under one arm, Marian jiggling on her toes with delight.

"I hope that you----" What he would have said, Catherine did not know, for Marian had seen them and hurled herself upon her mother with a burst of staccato excitement. But Catherine had met, for a clear instant, in a lifting of Bill's somber impersonality, a kind of dogged, sympathetic challenge.

"Oh, Mother!" Spencer had his fingers around her arm. "I began to think you weren't coming!"

"Margaret's here somewhere." Mrs. Spencer clung to Letty's hand. "Buying you magazines, I think. Where is Charles?"

"Here's the King." Margaret came up with him. "Hello, Mr. Bill."

"The guard will have to let me through the gate," announced Charles severely, "to settle these bags for you."

"Oh, Cathy!" Margaret whisked to Catherine's side. "We're coming up to see you in Maine, Amy and I. In our own car! Want us?"

"I shall probably stop in Buxton on my way back from George's," said Mrs. Spencer, as she pushed Letty and Marian toward the gate. "I wish you weren't going so far"--she sighed--"but as I've said, I think it's just the place for you all."

Charles was impressing the guard, successfully, so that he did step through, Spencer beside him tugging at a handbag. A flurry of good-bys, and Catherine, with Letty and Marian clinging to her hands, followed him upon the platform. She turned for a last glimpse. Margaret, her bright hair flying, was waving at them; Mrs. Spencer dabbed softly at her cheeks with her handkerchief; Bill--no, Bill had turned away. There, he was waving, too. Marian waggled her handkerchief. Charles called behind her, "Come along, Cathy, your coach is halfway down the track."