“The other one looked like Mommy,” she said.
Frederica took up the first picture and regarded it again. “I’ll put this in Mommy’s room, then,” she decided.
“In the bathroom,” Beverly said. “One in the bathroom.”
Frederica giggled. “Silly,” she said. “No one puts pictures in bathrooms. One in Mommy’s room and one in our room and the rest in here.”
“Can I have one?” Beverley asked pleadingly. “Just to color?”
Frederica looked at her sister affectionately. “I suppose you can,” she said. “If you promise.”
“Promise?” Beverley said innocently.
Frederica got up and went over to stand in front of her sister. “I’m going in the kitchen to hunt for thumbtacks,” she said. “I won’t be gone more than a minute. Now promise.” She put one finger under Beverley’s chin and turned Beverley’s face up. “Promise,” she said again.
Beverley grinned and said, “Promise.”
“Then you can have this one.” Frederica selected a young lady leaning against a marble pillar and gave it to Beverley. “Color it all over, but stay inside the lines.”
Beverley nodded, intent on the picture, and Frederica went to the doorway and stopped to say once more over her shoulder, “Remember now, you promised.”
“Anyway I don’t have any money at all,” Beverley said, and began to rock and croon again as her sister left the room.
• • •
In the quiet late evening, the sun long gone and the stars shining correctly outside the window, Miss Fielding rocked slowly back and forth in her chair. She was inclined to be cold in her hands and feet these evenings of late summer, and so she had lighted the little oil stove which sat cleanly in the corner of the room, and the slight red glow from the holes in the sides and top of the stove, combined with the soft light from the lamp on the table beside Miss Fielding, made the little room seem homely and snug. When Mr. Donald knocked on the door Miss Fielding got up and walked over with her short old woman’s steps to open the door and smile and say, “Come in, it’s nice and warm.”
When he was sitting down on the other side of the table, in a pleasant colorless old chair with a lace antimacassar on the back, Miss Fielding said, “Will you have a cup of tea?” and Mr. Donald said, as he always did, “No, thank you. Just thought I’d step in for a few minutes.”
It was probable that everyone on Pepper Street knew that Miss Fielding and Mr. Donald were, oddly, friends, but it is certain that no one was particularly interested in it. Both Miss Fielding and Mr. Donald were so exactly the sort of people who want to hide, that the neighborhood was only thankful to have them hiding together, instead of intruding their modesty on busier people. Every so often one or another of the Pepper Street inhabitants, glancing out of a window in the late evening, or a child coming home later than usual, would notice Mr. Donald walking toward Miss Fielding’s little house, and possibly even, see him, a half-hour or so later, coming back home, the lights in Miss Fielding’s house out behind him, his own house completely incurious about his absence.
Miss Fielding and Mr. Donald were obviously two of a kind. When they sat in Miss Fielding’s little room Miss Fielding sat with her hands on the arms of her rocking chair, rocking back and forth, as though she were alone; Mr. Donald sat back in the old-fashioned chair with his head against the antimacassar, his eyes closed as though he were asleep. When they talked it was because both of them were given to talking to themselves.
Tonight Miss Fielding said almost immediately, in her gentle careful voice, “I don’t call those Terrel girls really highbred.” The subject had been troubling her since Frederica had spoiled her pot of tea, and there was almost a harsh tone in her voice. “Those girls are not of the best breeding. I don’t know the mother.”
“I haven’t seen them,” Mr. Donald said. He sighed deeply.
“Not of the very best,” Miss Fielding went on. “I can’t say that they are the best-bred girls around here.”
“There seem to be a lot of new people all the time,” Mr. Donald said. “First the Williams people and then these.”
“Take Harriet Merriam, for instance,” Miss Fielding went on. “Or Virginia Donald. Even Mary Byrne, I can’t say I hold religion against anybody. Take any of them.”
“The Desmonds were first,” Mr. Donald said. “Or the Merriams. I think the Merriams. After all, that house has been in his family. Yes, first the Merriams and then the Desmonds.”
They were both quiet for a while. Miss Fielding rocked peacefully, as though in a cradle, and Mr. Donald, his eyes shut, let his fingers unclench and lie easily against the arms of his chair.
“You never can tell,” Mr. Donald said finally, barely making words from the murmur of his voice. “You never can tell, never know, father knows best.”
“There’s a lot to be said for religion in any case,” Miss Fielding said. “Not that I was ever very much of a religious. It’s cruel not to give a child a chance.”
“Spare the rod and spoil the church,” Mr. Donald said suddenly. They frequently interrupted one another, or talked both at once, as though all that were necessary was to make a companionable noise. “Everybody worrying, everybody moving so fast, all going to church, all hitting each other, all worrying.”
Perhaps Miss Fielding thought she had been talking right along since her last statement, for she went on, “and never asked him again. Not that he would have allowed it, of course.”
“They ask me to watch,” Mr. Donald said. “They just sit there and expect people to watch them and be interested. They expect people to think everything is important and necessary. That’s the word, necessary. Necessary is the word.”
“You take young people today,” Miss Fielding said. “They’re not as high-bred as they used to be. The Terrel girls, for instance. I don’t know the mother, but the girls are really not first-class.”
“Necessary is really the word.” The light on Mr. Donald’s face made him seem much younger, and he smiled shyly. “It’s hard to remember sometimes,” he confessed, “but sometimes I can think without trying. I remember the way the sun shone on my sister and me. She had a doll named Julia.”
“You can always tell about people,” Miss Fielding said.
“It used to be much warmer then,” Mr. Donald went on. “Sometimes it’s so cold now in the summer I wonder about it. Even in the summer.”
“I expect to be very cool to them,” Miss Fielding said. “I haven’t met the mother yet, but when I do I shall be very cool indeed.”
“I wish I knew why it happens,” Mr. Donald said. He leaned forward, preparatory to standing up. “Why it’s so much colder now in the summer.” He looked directly at Miss Fielding, who turned her wrinkled old eyes to look at him.
“Why yes,” Miss Fielding said. “I expect we’re all older than we were.”
When he stood up she rose and followed him to the door. “I’m very glad you came,” she said formally. “Come again.”
“Thank you,” Mr. Donald said as formally. “Thank you for letting me come.”
He went down the narrow flight of steps outside, and Miss Fielding held the door open to give him light until he reached the sidewalk. Then he called “Good night,” and she said, “Good night,” and closed her door and turned the key.
Back in her little room she turned out the oil stove and straightened the antimacassar on Mr. Donald’s chair. “Not really first-class,” she was saying tunefully as she worked. “We’re all much older now.”
• • •
Mrs. Merriam was sitting on the foot of Harriet’s bed, leaning forward eagerly, and her eyes were light and earnest. While she talked she continually stretched her long hands out to her daughter, as though to grasp Harriet’s mind and force it to accept her intent, as though to hold Harriet from running away. “I know you are the most generous and
tolerant girl around here,” she was saying, “but remember, what is most important is not to let yourself get carried away.”
Harriet sat dully on her desk chair. She had been writing when her mother came in to talk to her; it was her regular writing time her mother had assigned, the two hours after lunch, and Harriet had been dutifully forcing metrical rhymed lines down on paper. The greater part of her writing time had been lost in her mother’s talking; mostly Harriet was wondering if the lost time might still be required of her or if she would be allowed to go outdoors at her usual time.
“We must expect to set a standard,” her mother said. It was perhaps the third time she had said it, and it registered muddily on Harriet’s mind. “We must expect to set a standard. Actually, however much we may want to find new friends whom we may value, people who are exciting to us because of new ideas, or because they are different, we have to do what is expected of us.”
“What is expected of me?” Harriet said suddenly, without intention.
“To do what you’re told,” her mother said sharply.
“But what am I supposed to do?”
“You may,” her mother said, “in fact, I insist,” she added with relish, “that you see her once more, in order to tell her exactly why you are not to be friends any longer. After all,” Mrs. Merriam went on dreamily, “she ought to know why she can’t hope to be your friend any longer.”
“Yes, Mother,” Harriet said. “I’d have to give her back her books anyway.” She waited for a minute and then, when her mother showed signs of leaving, she said, “May I go out now?”
“Of course, dear,” her mother said. She looked back at Harriet as she was leaving the room. “I can trust you, of course?”
“Yes, Mother,” Harriet said.
“You remember, dear,” her mother said lightly, “that little matter of those dirty letters. After all, I trusted you then.”
“But I didn’t—” Harriet began, and her mother went on quickly, “I have never been so disappointed in my girl. It will take a long time, Harriet, before I forget the filth that went into those letters. The filthy words, the filthy thoughts.”
“I won’t do it again,” Harriet said helplessly.
“Of course you won’t,” her mother said gently. “We won’t bring the subject up any more.”
• • •
Mary Byrne was standing lonesomely on the sidewalk in front of her house, shredding a leaf she had pulled off the bushes and looking at it trying to think of what to do, when she heard someone saying, “Hello, lady.” She looked up. She had, along with the rest of the neighborhood, encountered Beverley Terrel, had seen Frederica taking her up and down the block for careful walks; and she had, with the other children, laughed at her when Frederica was not around, imitating her clumsy walk and her thick speech. No one was afraid of Beverley, because she was always smiling, so Mary looked up and smiled back and said, “Hello, Beverley.” She was mildly surprised for a minute because Frederica did not seem to be around, but she forgot to be surprised immediately when Beverley held out a hand full of money.
“I’ve money,” Beverley said.
Mary leaned forward and touched it and then looked up at Beverley. “Where’d you get it all?” she asked, awed.
“Let’s spend it,” Beverley said. She gestured back and forth rapidly with her hand, so that a dollar bill dropped to the ground. Mary picked it up respectfully and tried to hand it back, but Beverley clenched her hand so tight around the money that after a minute Mary gave up trying to force in the dollar bill and put it instead into her own pocket. She kept her hand on it ready to give back to Frederica when she came.
“Come on,” Beverley said. She gave Mary a push. “Come on, let’s spend it,” she said.
Mary looked up and down the street quickly. No one was in sight, and yet by taking the dollar bill into her own pocket, even knowing she would not keep it, she had become an accessory, a participant with Beverley in something exciting and dishonest. “What’ll we do with it?” Mary asked, dropping her voice to a whisper.
“Candy,” Beverley said immediately, “candy and hot butterscotch sundaes, and we can go to the movies if we want to, and we can buy lots of candy.”
Mary’s mind dwelt on a chocolate bar with almonds, and then she realized that even the dollar bill in her pocket would buy many of them, and Beverley had so much money in her hand that it was impossible to count it.
“I’d have a marshmallow sundae too,” Beverley said. “And a butterscotch sundae and lots of candy.”
“We better run,” Mary said, as Beverley started toward Cortez Road. “My mother might not like it if she saw me.” Beverley began obediently to move faster and Mary followed, frightened already at the prospect of going all the way down the street without being seen. She had a feeling of warm friendship with Beverley which overwhelmed and disgusted the faint nausea she felt at the thought of doing anything or going anywhere with this great awkward girl who talked like a six-year-old child.
“We better not go to any of the usual places,” she said to Beverley. “We wouldn’t want anyone to tell on us.”
“Take a taxi,” Beverley said. “We’ll go far away. I’ve money.” She gestured forward with the money-filled hand.
“Do you want me to carry it for you?” Mary asked considerately. She wanted to know how it felt to hold that much money, instead of the paltry dollar bill in her pocket, but Beverley snatched her hand away and glared suspiciously. “Mine,” she said.
“You don’t have to be mean,” Mary said. “I don’t want your old money.” She drew away from Beverley, indignant that Beverley should think she wanted to steal. “I won’t even go with you,” she said crossly.
“We’ll have a marshmallow sundae,” Beverley said appealingly, “and lots of candy.”
“All right.” No one saw them, after all. They hurried down the street side by side, almost the same height. Beverley had a handful of money and Mary had a dollar bill in her pocket, which she had already resolved not to spend, since Beverley had so much more, but to save and return virtuously when they came back.
• • •
“We wouldn’t turn you out,” old Mrs. Martin said down through the living-room filled with big vases and glassed-in flowers. She looked at her husband and he nodded heavily, his frightened old eyes blinking back at his wife. It was not the first time in his life, by any means, that old Mr. Martin had been frightened of his wife: there was the day they were married, young Mrs. Martin, as she was then, looking him over after the ceremony with narrow critical eyes, estimating accurately her future life with him; there was their son, storming out of the house against his mother’s will, to go dancing with the girl he had set his heart on, and Mrs. Martin tight-lipped and threatening in the doorway; there was the night Hallie came home with Mr. Perlman. Mr. Martin, afraid of speaking for fear he should say something wrong, longing to be back in his greenhouses where things were steadily, quietly growing, looked at his wife and nodded, and then at his daughter-in-law with her bright pretty face, and nodded again.
“We wouldn’t ever turn anybody out of our house, no one ever gets turned out of our house ever. Papa would never forgive me,” old Mrs. Martin said, “if I tried to turn his own son’s wife out of our house.”
In the Martins’ living-room there were great pink and blue pots holding plants Mr. Martin had brought home from the greenhouses, there were dark undistinguishable pieces of furniture, lined up soberly against the walls; the carpet was unfaded by the sun, because old Mrs. Martin drew the shades every afternoon to keep out the light. The family only sat here all together on Sundays, because then young Mrs. Martin did not work, but when they sat all together in the big echoing room it still seemed empty, because the ferns and the great furniture and the straight hanging curtains were made for an empty room, had sustained their purpose even against the voices, or the laughter and shouti
ng of George and Hallie.
“But you’ve got to leave,” old Mrs. Martin said. “You must leave here.”
“I won’t go,” young Mrs. Martin said. She sat daintily in a chair much too large, George and Hallie on either side of her, looking back and forth with wide incurious eyes. “I just simply will not go.”
“These changes,” old Mrs. Martin said, “all these changes in the estate, are not good for Papa. They are making all kinds of changes in the estate, perhaps soon in the greenhouses even.”
“May I point out just once more,” young Mrs. Martin said precisely, “that I am your own son’s wife? When my George died—” She hesitated for a minute, and allowed her lip to tremble. “—when my dear George died, he promised me that I would always find a home for my children with his parents. And now. . . . Your own son’s wife.” Young Mrs. Martin allowed her voice to catch and shake.
Mrs. Martin nodded this time, and her husband, looking at her, nodded afterward. “We would not turn out our own son’s wife,” old Mrs. Martin said. “But you must leave.”
“And your grandchildren?” young Mrs. Martin said. “Your own son’s own children. Who’s going to take care of them?”
Old Mrs. Martin looked at George and then at Hallie, and for a minute her eye was cynical. “My own son’s children,” she said, and they looked back stolidly at her. “But the little one runs away, to beg from strangers, and the great one does nothing. And when the little one runs away,” old Mrs. Martin said, with tremendous deliberation, “she is doing like her mother.”
For a minute old Mrs. Martin met young Mrs. Martin’s eyes, and then the younger said with anger, “You don’t need to talk nasty like that. I never did anything I’m ashamed of.”
“You must take my son’s children and leave,” old Mrs. Martin said. “Papa and I are old and now we are worried about the changes in the estate. You must not live here any more.”
The Road Through the Wall Page 17
