Angry Wife

by Pearl S. Buck

  Pierce turned away from this man of whom John MacBain had spoken so bitterly, and looked at the other listening, stubborn faces. “We must remember that the sympathies of the press and of the people, however, are with the workingmen,” he said. “If we act too severely or even too swiftly we may find ourselves condemned, though unjustly. We must distinguish between our own men and the communists.”

  Silence fell about him as the directors digested this common sense.

  “I move we adjourn,” Jim McCagney said abruptly.

  “To meet again on Monday morning,” Henry Mallows amended.

  Pierce seconded the amended motion and it was carried and the endless meeting was over.

  Pierce slept deep in exhaustion through the night and was awakened just before dawn by a fire alarm. He got out of bed and without lighting the lamp he went to the window and looked down. The streets were swarming again with people. Trouble had begun again. Toward the west the sky blazed almost to the zenith.

  The railroad shops!

  He dressed himself hurriedly and went out bareheaded, fearing that his silk hat would betray him. The streets were so crowded that he could barely force his way westward. It was an hour before he reached the railroad shops and found that they had not yet caught fire. A train of oil cars was burning. The firemen had isolated the cars and so far had saved the shops. While they worked the mob turned to a lumberyard and planing mill a few blocks away and set it afire. In a few minutes the air was filled with smoke and the flames roared black-edged toward the sky.

  Pierce stood back among the crowd, watching and helpless. He looked at the faces around him. Some were silent and grave, some were wild, some were drunken. He recognized no one and with a strange feeling that the whole world was burning to destruction he went back to the hotel. Downstairs the clerk gave him his door key and noted his return.

  “Terrible, ain’t it, sir?” he murmured.

  “Yes,” Pierce said.

  He felt chilled although the night had been warm. But there was no hot water with which to warm himself. He was grimed with smoke and he washed himself in cold water and then put on his nightshirt again and got back into bed.

  He lay shivering and strangely lonely, but for no one. He did not want Lucinda or the children. He was glad that they were not with him. His mood was old and he recognized it as the mood of many nights in the war when battle loomed in the morning. Then as though to carry the illusion to reality he heard the sudden sharpness of guns firing in the streets. He listened, lying tense and ready to spring out of bed. Then the sounds were stilled and he fell asleep at last for an hour.

  All through the next day he came and went, restless and yet exhausted. The streets were milling with people again, the crowds falling back only before the marines who had arrived early in the morning. It was a war which he did not understand. What was the cause and what the end?

  By afternoon eight marines and eight policemen were dead. How many other dead there were no one knew, for the mob hid their own dead. At midnight the mayor reported again. The armed men had won and the city was safe once more. Trains would run within the hour. Pierce went back to the hotel and found a telegram from John MacBain.

  “Change in company policy absolutely necessary. Postpone meeting until I come. John.”

  Pierce rang for a messenger and sent the telegram to Henry Mallows. Crisis in Baltimore was over, but would arms suffice for final victory? He sat down in his room, grimed and exhausted and this night too tired to go to sleep. Suddenly he knew what he wanted. He wanted to go and see Tom. Maybe Tom could tell him what the war was about.

  Chapter Seven

  PIERCE KNEW FBOM TOM’S letters that what he would see was a decent house on a quiet street in Philadelphia. He hired a hansom cab at the disordered railroad station and arrived at Tom’s house in the middle of the afternoon. The heat of the day had been ended by a sharp swift thunderstorm, which had beaten against the windows of the train. Now the sycamore trees that lined both sides of the street were wet and the air was clean. The cab drew up in front of a whitewashed stone house. He compared the number on the door with that of the figures set at the top of Tom’s last letter, got out and paid the driver. For a moment he had a strange feeling of isolation as the cab drove away. Then he crossed the street and knocked on the oak door. White marble steps shone beneath his feet and the knocker was polished brass. Bettina had always been a good worker.

  Bettina herself opened the door. At the sight of him she stood rigid for a moment. Then a deep flush spread over her face. She controlled her surprise.

  “Come in,” she said quietly. “We are glad to see you.”

  He stepped into the hall. “Tom home?” he asked.

  She made no move to take his hat and stick and he put them on a settee. “I expect him in a very few minutes,” she replied.

  She avoided the use of his name. He noticed it and did not care. Had Lucinda been with him, he would have been uncomfortable at such namelessness, but Lucinda could not possibly have been with him.

  “Come into the parlor, please,” Bettina said. She opened the door into a cool dim room.

  He hesitated. “Now, Bettina, you know I don’t care much for parlors.” He gave her his frank smile. “Why don’t you take me into Tom’s study? I’d relish a good cold drink, too.”

  Bettina dimpled suddenly. The dimples which became Georgia’s soft oval cheeks were odd in her handsome and angular face. “How good you are!” she exclaimed under her breath.

  “Nonsense,” he said, but he was set at ease by his own goodness. He followed her into a large room whose three windows, placed side by side, faced upon a garden. It looked comfortable to him. He sank down in Tom’s big leather chair and gave a great sigh. “Bettina, I’m so tired—so damned tired and confused—I’ve got to rest.”

  “Then rest here,” she replied. She stood before him and they looked at each other.

  He smiled suddenly. “I know why you look different—you haven’t got an apron on.”

  “Tom won’t let me wear aprons any more,” she told him.

  “Sally staying at the hotel?” he asked abruptly.

  “Yes,” Bettina said. Then after a second, she added, “This is a colored street.”

  “It is? Looks mighty nice!”

  “Nice people live here.”

  “Where’s Georgia?”

  “She’s with Miss Sally. They and Tom went to the museum with the school children. But she has a room here.”

  “Tom doesn’t have school in summer, surely,” he said.

  “No—but he does have some work going on in the building for the neighborhood children. The summer’s long and they get into mischief.”

  “Where are yours?”

  “Leslie has a summer job in the store down the street. Georgy went with Georgia, The other two are out there—” She lifted her eyes to the garden and he saw a girl playing with a little boy. The girl’s hair was softly curled down her back and it was a copper color. The sun shone on it. The little boy was very dark.

  “That’s Lettice, she was the baby when we left—and we have small Tom—that’s all.”

  “Why don’t you sit down?” Pierce asked.

  “Because I am going to fetch you a cool drink,” Bettina replied. She went away and he sat on, motionless. Their talk had been nothing but commonplace and yet that was extraordinary. He had talked to her as casually as though she were his real sister-in-law—as casually but not as intimately. He felt dazed and shaken. The world was completely upset. Here was where his own brother lived! But the house was a home. The garden was pretty and well kept and the walls were lined with flower beds. This room was clean and pleasant—a man’s room, full of books. Through the open windows a scent drifted in which he could not recognize. He lay back in Tom’s chair and closed his eyes and smelled the scent, a clean spiced odor. No one knew where he was. He could rest here. Tom’s world—not his world—but so quiet and clean—

  He must have dropped asle
ep. When he came back to himself Bettina was standing there again, looking at him with pitying soft eyes. She held a silver tray and on it a slender glass, frosted cold. She set the tray upon the table beside him.

  “Indeed you are tired,” she said in her rich voice. “When you have drunk this let me take you upstairs to Tom’s room. You can stretch yourself on his bed and sleep.”

  “Don’t tell Sally I’m here,” he begged. “I’m too tired.”

  “I won’t tell her,” she promised.

  “What’s that sweet smell?” he asked.

  “White clematis,” she replied.

  He drank the cool sharp drink thirstily in a few gulps and rose to his feet and followed her upstairs. Tom’s room—then he did not share a room with Bettina. Yes, he could recognize Tom’s room. It was a big room, with little furniture but that little solid and good. The windows were open, but the shutters were drawn, and the late afternoon breeze fluttered the white curtains. Bettina drew back the covers of the bed and he saw smooth white linen sheets. He wanted to sleep and sleep.

  “Tom has a bathroom right there,” she pointed to a door. “He has rigged himself up a shower bath, he calls it. It’s really wonderful. It will refresh you. Sleep and don’t wake until you wake yourself. No one will call you.”

  She went away, and he stood looking about the dim, cool room. It had every small comfort that could be devised. Cold water stood in a pitcher by Tom’s bed, books on the table, a bed lamp, a fire place for winter, a soft woven rag rug under his feet, a handwoven coverlet on the bed of delft blue and white. Bettina’s work everywhere! He opened the door of the bathroom, and saw Tom’s shower bath. He had heard of such things but had never seen one. He undressed, stood under something that looked like a flower sprinkler, pulled a chain and felt a rain of cool water descend upon him from a hidden tank above his head. He wiped himself dry with a handwoven towel, and opened drawers in Tom’s bureaus until he found a nightshirt. Everything was in order, the clothes smelled clean and fresh with green lavender. He dropped upon the bed and was instantly asleep.

  Some time in the night he awoke. The chime of a clock in the house was still ringing in his ears. He could not tell the hour because he did not know how many times it had struck before he woke. But the moonlight was lying across the floor in stripes of gold. He sat up and listened. The house was still. Everyone was asleep. No, he heard voices, muted, floating upward from under his window, Tom’s voice, then Bettina’s. He got up and put on his shirt and trousers and opened his door. A hanging oil lamp lit the stairs and he went down, guided by the voices, to the end of the downstairs hall. He opened a door and there on a narrow brick terrace facing the garden, he saw Tom.

  He was shocked to see the moonlight silver upon Tom’s head. Tom greyhaired already, ahead of him!

  “Tom!” he called softly, and Tom turned his head. His face was the same, thinner, but kind and severe together.

  “Pierce!”

  The two men ran into each other’s arms without shame.

  “How good of you to come!” Tom murmured.

  “Nonsense!” Pierce said. He looked at. Tom with wet eyes. “I don’t know why I didn’t come before.”

  “Sit down, Pierce. He’s hungry, Bettina,” Tom declared.

  “Maybe I am,” Pierce admitted.

  “I have your supper waiting,” Bettina said.

  They went into the house, into the dining room, and at the table two places were laid.

  “You two sit down, please,” Bettina said. “Tom, you have a bite, too?”

  “Only a little of your cold chicken broth, my dear,” Tom said.

  Bettina went away, and the two brothers looked at each other by the light of the candles Bettina had placed on the table.

  “I want to ask you a thousand things,” Pierce said abruptly.

  “I want to answer them all,” Tom said steadily.

  “I don’t know how long I can stay,” Pierce went on. “The railroad is in a mess.”

  “But now you will come back again and again,” Tom replied.

  Pierce smiled and Bettina came in with food. It was delicious food and he was ravenous. While they ate Bettina came and went silently. He did not know where to begin with Tom. He wanted to tell him everything at once and he wanted to hear everything at once, and yet he did not know where to begin. And Tom sat in his easy quiet, without haste, in a relaxed peace. When Bettina had brought the iced lemon custard he looked up at her.

  “Sit down now, Bettina,” he said.

  She sat down naturally at the end of the table, and Pierce could not but see her beauty. She had kept her slender figure. Tonight she wore a gown of soft green stuff—muslin, perhaps, or silk—he did not know stuffs. But it was not rustling or stiff. White lace lay on her shoulders and in a knot on her bosom. Her dark hair sparkled with a few threads of silver, and she had put a white jasmine in the big coil at her nape. The old fire and anger of her youth had gone from her dark eyes. They were full of peace, tinged with sadness. Bettina, Tom’s wife—if ever he saw a woman who looked a wife it was she. He was surprised at his acceptance of her.

  “We had a very interesting afternoon,” Tom was saying, half lightly. “Sally’s mind is keen. She wants to see everything—know everything. That’s remarkable, Pierce.”

  “Has she been here?” Pierce asked.

  “Every day,” Tom said.,

  They hesitated. Then Pierce asked bluntly, “How does she take it, Tom?”

  “Without a sign,” Tom answered. He drank his tumbler of water and Bettina filled it again. “I’ve wanted to ask you something,” Tom went on.

  Pierce had finished his custard. “Why not?” he replied. He was beginning to feel wonderfully comfortable, rested and fed.

  “Your son John writes to me, Pierce,” Tom went on. “He wants to come and visit us. I said he had to ask you. He says that you wouldn’t understand.”

  Pierce grinned. “I don’t know why children always think their parents are nitwits.”

  “He’s afraid of his mother,” Tom said.

  “Then he is the nitwit,” Pierce said robustly. “Of course, Lucinda would object. But what of it?”

  “Then shall I tell him—”

  “You tell him to give me a chance,” Pierce said, pushing back his chair.

  They went back to the moonlit terrace. Bettina poured their coffee and then rose. “I think I shall retire, Tom, if you don’t mind.” She put out her hand and he took it and kissed it. He looked at her searchingly. “Only if you’re tired,” he said. “I’d rather you stayed with us.”

  “There’s tomorrow,” she said gently and went away.

  In the silent garden, the moonlight outlining, the shrubs in shadows and silvering the flowers, the two men sat on, smoking. The silence continued. But it was not heavy upon them now nor uneasy. It was peace, deep peace.

  “This seems another world,” Pierce said abruptly.

  “It’s our world,” Tom said. “Mine, Bettina’s, our children’s.”

  “Are you lonely, Tom?”

  “No, Pierce. I have everything.”

  “If Bettina should die—”

  “I would live on here.”

  Pierce stirred in his chair. “But, Tom,” he protested. “It’s damned selfish, isn’t it? You ought to be helping to clear up the mess we’ve got ourselves into—these strikes—the communism—the whole country’s threatened.”

  “No,” Tom said gently. “I don’t have to help in those things. They’re all parts of the struggle. I’ve made my struggle—so has Bettina. We’ve won through.”

  “To what?” Pierce asked.

  “To our own peace,” Tom answered in tranquillity.

  The dreamlike calm of his spirit persisted. He woke the next morning and Tom’s room was familiar to him and yet strange, as though he had waked in his own room but in a strange house. He lay on the pillows, not caring what the hour. The house was full of small pleasant sounds. Children’s voices came up from the garden
and he heard quiet footsteps pass his door. Then a clear but muted voice rose through the silence. He listened and heard not a hymn nor a spiritual but an old English lullaby which his own mother used to sing to him and to Tom. It must be one of Tom’s children and it must be Georgy. He knew Georgia’s voice and it was not hers. Hers was deep and tender but this voice was high and clear, a bright rich soprano. It broke off suddenly as though someone had hushed it and he knew it had been stopped for him. He got up, lazily conscience-smitten, and curious, too, to see Tom’s children.

  When he went downstairs Tom heard his footsteps and came to the door of the study. By the light of the morning Tom looked calm and poised, his fair skin ruddy and his blue eyes clear. He was as slender as ever, his shoulders as straight. The youngest child whom Pierce had seen only in the garden came toddling through a door and Tom picked him up and held him. He saw the love in Tom’s eyes and felt his own heart shaken.

  “This fellow I haven’t seen,” he said, trying to speak lightly. He took the child’s fat brown hand.

  “Small Tom, this is your uncle,” Tom said. The boy did not speak, but he gazed at Pierce with large eyes full of serene interest.

  “Can’t you say good morning?” Tom inquired of his son.

  Small Tom shook his head and the men laughed to ease their emotion.

  “Come and have your breakfast,” Tom said. He put the child down and they walked together to the dining room. Georgy was there, arranging a silver bowl of roses. She looked up gravely. Pierce realized that yesterday the children had been kept from him, but today he would see them as they were in this house.

  “My daughter,” Tom said formally. “Georgy, this is your uncle.”

  Georgy put out a narrow smooth hand, and Pierce, somewhat to his own astonishment, took it.

  “How do you do,” he said.

  “Mother asks, how will you have your eggs?” she inquired, in a soft clear voice.

  “Scrambled, please,” Pierce said. Tom’s daughter was an exceedingly pretty girl and he smiled at her as he sat down. “Did I hear you singing?” he demanded,