“You know, Sis, I feel good enough to go out and capture a couple of countries and bring them home in my pocket for you.”
“Bless his heart!” thought Nedda. “He just doesn’t know what to do with me when I’m fagged. If I could only manage to feel well all the time!”
Between the hours of two and three the next afternoon Nedda was considerably west of Westchester Avenue. So far west, that it was nearly five when she reached home again, dragging her feet wearily. She almost dropped the baby and all the covers on the third flight upstairs. The sight of the baby’s clothes waiting to be ironed filled her with a numb despair. She had barely started on them when Douglas phoned that he was bringing company home to dinner. Company! She could have cried at the phone.
“I’ll have to leave the ironing,” she figured, “and get some rest. Otherwise I won’t be presentable.”
So she laid the baby on the inside of the bed with her own body as a barricade. But the baby resented being put on the bed and commenced to cry. Nedda must have been very tired for she fell asleep in spite of its whimpering. She must have slept soundly, too, for the next thing she knew the baby was lying on the floor, screaming. It had crawled in some strange, new way, over her body and fallen to the floor. It was not hurt, but badly shocked.
At seven Douglas came in with his guest. He found the baby crying and Nedda a wreck. And supper was not even ready. When it was finally served, Nedda insisted on keeping the baby on her arm. And the kitchen looked so horribly untidy that he felt ashamed before his friend.
“Why don’t you put the youngster down?” he asked, at last, irritably.
“She’ll cry.”
“Well, put her in the bedroom and close the door and we won’t hear her,” he said.
So she took her into the bedroom, but stayed there with her, and left him to entertain his friend alone. When he came in to see what was the trouble, he found her walking up and down with the baby.
He gave one cold glance into the room. Then, “I’d better take Wallace to the movies,” he said, and went off.
Later when he came back the dishes were washed and Nedda was sleeping with her head on the kitchen table. He roused her and told her he was going to bed.
“Why don’t you leave that till tomorrow,” he suggested kindly enough when he saw that she was beginning to put the dishes away.
“Tomorrow!” she said wearily.
At last, just as she tumbled into bed he reminded her that the clock had not been wound.
“Wind it yourself,” she told him, and dropped on her face on the pillow.
The baby cried half through the night and Douglas, out of sorts and aggrieved, asked her in the morning—“What the devil was the matter with the kid?”
And when she told him about the fall he was furious.
“If a nurse-girl did a thing like that you’d fire her. How could you be so careless?”
As usual she did not answer him, but something hard, like a bitter resolve, tightened her lips and narrowed her eyes.
She was on Westchester Avenue at a quarter of two. At two she stepped silently into the car and waited while the man took the carriage back to her house.
“Mr. Lewis is in this neighborhood,” he told her, “and he said to call for him at the subway-station if it was agreeable to you, and drive him down. But if it wasn’t agreeable he would take the subway.”
So that was it. She had known he would manage somehow to keep only the letter of his promise. But it didn’t matter.
He was so radiantly happy when he caught sight of her that her heart warmed in spite of her. And he had the tact not to say anything, but stepped in quite matter-of-factly.
The October wind blew in their faces. “You ought to have a little hat,” he said.
“This is all right,” she told him, but he stopped the car and walked back to a millinery shop. Presently he came out again with a box, which he laid on the floor of the car. He did not offer it to her, so she had no opportunity of refusing it. There was a little autumn chill in the air, and Nedda shivered slightly. He wrapped the covers about her and the baby, and she felt deliciously cared for, shutting her eyes before the wind.
The man spoke very little. He seemed more than content just to have her there. And there was something comfortably impersonal in his attitude.
“Sometimes he is quite human,” she thought. “He’ll make a good husband for some girl.”
He helped her into the house, and when he saw that she had to walk up, he took the baby from her arms and carried it.
Hearing him puff, “I bet it’s the first time in his life he’s walked up three flights of stairs,” thought Nedda. The chauffeur followed with the carriage covers and the hat-box.
“Won’t you come in?” she asked, but with misgiving. But he would not and left at once. She unpacked the hat. It was a little velvet affair—a sort of tam—and it was very becoming.
She tried it on, and did not battle with herself. “I might as well. He’s an old dear, and he knows me too well to imagine things. It’s partly because I haven’t the heart to offend him.” But it was not. It was because the hat was both becoming and chic, and her other one was not. And with that almost feminine instinct of his he had made it so very easy for her to accept it.
The next day there was a warm coat in the car for her—a dark, good-looking wrap. Having taken the hat, she could not quibble over the coat.
Every clear day after that she drove out in the car with the baby. At the end of two months she looked better—felt better. Then, one day, he said to her suddenly:
“Oh, Nedda! If you would only care for me! We could be so happy together!”
Riding in his car, she only said, “You mustn’t talk about those things, Will.”
But when she got home she told him, “I am not going out with you any more, Will. I couldn’t after today.”
He seemed terribly disappointed, and begged her, “If you ever change your mind, call up and leave word at my house, or the garage, and Robbins will come up for you.”
It was with regret that she saw him go. She knew that he meant well—he just could not understand. On the whole though, she was glad that it was over, on account of Douglas. She had never felt just right about it, especially when, as lately, he had been so good to her. And she felt so rested she was sure she could manage her work now.
She did. For a week. Then she began to grow very tired—even more tired than formerly. Afternoons, as she paced the streets, dropping with fatigue and numb with cold, she thought wistfully of the ease of the car. Presently she was back in that state of tiredness where every inch of her cried out for rest. There seemed to be no end to the agony the baby must endure with its teething. Nedda would hardly be asleep when the baby would cry and she would cry along with it for weariness.
She would get up and walk with it hours long in the front room. There was no need for Douglas to lose his sleep too. He would only be cross and unfit for work in the morning. And then when she sank into what seemed like the first real sleep she had tasted, the clock would go off and the day would begin. Over and over the same weary round of tasks, never done quite thoroughly—never finished and put out of the way.
She tried to make the cooking as light as possible, so Douglas would not find her too fagged when he came home. But he did not like simple things to eat. And when she made what he did like, often he did not touch it, because her eyes were red from weeping, and he felt upset about it. He knew he had not done anything to her. It was not his fault that he did not have more money so she could take things easier. He worked as hard as he could and he was doing the best he could do.
One night he had it out with her—that is, he didn’t tell her all that was on his mind, but he felt that she needed a little reasoning with. So he said, “If you think I got married just to have someone cook my meals, you’re mistaken. I could have
got a servant girl to do that!” He meant to add, gently, that a wife ought to be more of a companion to a man. He meant the whole thing in a nice way, but she had flared up at him furiously.
“Oh! How I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!”
The next morning at breakfast her mother phoned. She lived in a pretty place in Long Island.
“Nedda, darling, I wish you’d come out and see me. I’ve got the blues so bad, I’ve just got to see someone.”
“Why, mother, I don’t see how I can. Why don’t you come in?”
“I can’t, honey. Really I can’t. The trip just wears me out. Bring the baby along and stay over with me. The rest will do you good. I’m all unstrung. You know, since Annie left, I haven’t been able to get any kind of a cook. And now Jennie’s threatening to leave if she has to keep on doing all the work, and I’m half dead trying to manage. You never come near me,” she added reproachfully, “and I hardly know I have a grandchild!”
“Oh, Mother! But you know how it upsets baby to be taken away from home—”
“Really, Nedda, other babies are taken to see their grandparents occasionally. You’ll make a regular tyrant out of that child. You could come and stay over. The air out here would do her good.”
“But if I stay over, Douglas won’t have—”
Douglas interrupted. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll go to Spencer’s. It’ll be a change for me, too.”
And her mother was saying at the other end—“Don’t make such a slave of yourself for him. The more you do for him the more he expects and—”
“All right,” cut in Nedda wearily, “I’ll come. But not today. Tomorrow. I have to get an early start.”
That meant extra work that day. She thought she would never get through with it. And her head ached maddeningly. At twelve, just as she was finally getting the baby ready for the street the phone rang. It was Will Lewis.
“Hello, Nedda? I am coming up for you. Will it be all right?”
“Yes,” she answered quickly, “Ah! yes.”
“I felt as if you needed me, today,” he told her after they were seated in the car.
“I did,” she said and he took her cold, limp hand under the robe and held it in his.
“I just felt it… And I want to help you. I won’t let go of myself again. I know it’s no use, and it just makes it harder for you. You can’t make yourself care for me.”
She looked at him with large soft eyes. “No, Will. You know I used to try. I’m awfully fond of you, but I just never could care—that way.”
“And your husband—you care for him—that way?”
She pressed her lips tight together. Then she said, “I wonder if you’d understand, Will. I do care for Douglas. There never was anybody else. And I know he loves me. And we could be very happy—if—if”—She interrupted herself thoughtfully…“You know—sometimes—you dream that an Ogre is closing in on you, and you keep saying to yourself, ‘But it’s only a dream—only a dream…’ yet you keep on running and being frightened?”
He humored her by smiling.
“Well that’s the way it is with me. I know, at bottom things are all right between us, and by and by they’ll straighten out. But just now the Ogre has me panting. If only I didn’t get—so—tired!”
He patted her hand gently under the cover.
“I get so tired, I can’t think. And then I’m cross and that reacts on Douglas and he gets cross—and things keep getting worse and worse until I’m afraid, sometimes, where they will end. Will—last night—and this morning—I hated him!”
He held his breath while she went on and told him about the night before, and her mother’s message in the morning.
“And I don’t get any rest when I go out there,” she concluded. “It wears me out getting ready and carrying the baby and her bottles and things and catching a train. And it makes baby cross. And Mother is forever worrying over me and reminding me that she told me not to marry Douglas…it wears me all to pieces.”
He stroked her hand and there was a long silence between them. At last he said, “If you could get a good night’s sleep you would be yourself again.”
She did not answer.
“Nedda, I’d love to help you. But you keep tying my hands because you feel in your heart of hearts that I’m a devil with horns.”
“No, Will, I don’t. You’re awfully good to me.”
“Well, I have an idea. But promise me you won’t think—promise me you’ll believe I really want to help you.”
“Of course I believe it, Will. But I’d rather just help myself—”
“The way you have all along! I tell you, it’s too much for you—all the work and the worry—”
“Other women do it.”
“It’s different, Nedda. You aren’t strong enough. You weren’t trained to hard work. And you’ve got generations of ancestors behind you who had nothing much to do but take care of themselves. You haven’t the endurance.”
“But what am I to do?” she demanded bitterly; “I chose this life, and I’m willing to live up to my end, I’m content to do what I have to do.”
“But what if you can’t? If you break down?”
She looked at him with wide eyes. “But I won’t!”
“No,” he said, “of course not!”
She sat in miserable silence. Then she cried, “But what can I do?”
“You remember—I told you about Mrs. Wardell—my old nurse… She lives with me and keeps my house. Would your husband find out if I sent her up to help you during the day?”
“Yes—his sister often drops in—and she knows we haven’t money enough to afford—Oh, don’t bother, Will. It’ll all work out right. I know it will.” Then she broke out, despairingly, “If I only didn’t have to go to mother’s—!”
“Listen, Nedda. Douglas expects you to stay overnight at your mother’s, doesn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Well—would your mother be surprised if you changed your mind and came home?”
“N-no,” she replied with almost a premonition of what was coming.
“Well, I’ll be out of town tomorrow night. If you would go to my house, nobody would be the wiser. Mrs. Wardell would take the baby from you when you stepped in the door—she was a trained baby-nurse once—and Florence would help you to bed and you wouldn’t have a thing to do but sleep as long as you like. You wouldn’t hear the baby, but you’d know she was being taken care of properly. It isn’t much to offer but maybe it would help you to—to fool the ogre,” he finished with a little smile.
She did not respond, and he did not press her. But at last he asked, “What do you say?”
“It’s out of the question,” she answered.
“No—it’s not. If I were a woman you would do it without hesitation. But because I am a man you think I have only one certain idea in my head. I won’t ask you again. I have some pride, too—even though I love you enough to swallow it most of the time.”
She looked at him helplessly. “Don’t, Will; don’t quarrel with me. I know you want to help me. But I don’t want to be helped. Only don’t quarrel with me—please—” she was very near to tears.
His arm went around her shoulders. “Dear, don’t cry. I’m not quarreling with you. If you don’t want me to help you, I’m not angry. I’ll tell you what. I’ll just give my orders and the place will be ready for you. Maybe if you don’t have to tell me anything about it, you’ll go right ahead. If you get off the subway, at Seventy-Second street, you can hop on a taxi and it will be paid for at the house. Just drive up, and Florence and Mrs. Warded will take care of you and you needn’t have another thought until you’re ready to go home. Stay there a week, if you can. Mrs. Warded will let me know at the office when you are gone. And she’ll have orders to get you anything you need. You can have your meals in bed and it will do you a worl
d of good.”
Unaccountably she was crying, and he kept his arm about her shoulders and soothed her. At last she felt better. When she stepped out, she said, “You’re a dear, Will. You’re as thoughtful as a woman. I can’t accept it—but I know how you meant to offer it. And— thanks!”
“Don’t thank me, honey. I’d do anything, anything—for you.”
“Yes, he would,” she reflected when she was alone—“only—”
On the train the next day, her mind dwelt wearily on the horrid nightmare of the whole day…the endless restlessness of the baby…the nervous strain of handling Jennie, who refused to be placated even when Nedda cooked the lunch and helped with the dishes. And her mother’s greeting:
“Heavens, Nedda, you’re a perfect rail! And why don’t you get yourself some decent clothes? Doesn’t he ever think you need anything for yourself?… I told you when you married him, you were making a mistake. But children always know everything better than their parents. Don’t you wish, now, you had listened to me?… For Heaven’s sake, Nedda, doesn’t that baby ever lie still? Why, when you were a child you used to lie there for hours just playing with your toes. You must have spoiled her terribly.
“Isn’t it awful the troubles one has—just living? I often ask myself—is it worth it? You struggle to raise a family and then, what have you got out of it? A son in the army and a daughter in the Bronx. And then Annie has to go and get married on top of it all—and Jennie gets the bugs.” And so forth…
Her mother had remonstrated when Nedda, whose nerves were unstrung, said she must go—Douglas was expecting her.
“But you’ll have to cook your own supper when you get in. I think it’s an outrage the way you make a slave of yourself for that man. And what’ll you get out of it? A good kick. It’s just like I always said—the game isn’t worth it for the woman. Nothing but work and wear yourself out when you’re young, and then when you’re old there’s nobody to care what happens to you.”
The baby fidgeted all the way home in the train. And she struck the rush hour in the subway. Men and girls stumbled over her satchel and pressed in close around her and the baby. The youngster began to cry. People looked at her as though she were a public nuisance. She felt that she was, with her satchel and her screaming baby.
The Viola Brothers Shore Mystery Page 23
