The Living is Easy

by Dorothy West

  Looking coldly at Thea, Cleo felt enormously cheated that what had cost Judy’s inheritance and Serena’s happiness had cost Thea no more than a night or two of lost sleep. Remembering Robert, she was aware of time again. It was nearly two. Perhaps Serena was on her way to the hospital. Maybe she wouldn’t be home until after four.

  I’ll give her a few minutes more, her thoughts ran. Then I’ll go out and call Mr. Judson. He’ll have to let me have the money. My rent is more important than his. There’s nothing in his empty store that needs a roof over it. These children can’t sleep under the stars. God, you’ve got your eyes on your sparrows. Look down on my little ones, too.

  Thea, seeing Cleo’s eyes grow luminous, thought that she had her attention and sympathy.

  “I’ve always thought Simeon was right in everything except his treatment of Lenore. Whatever she was before she was his wife, their marriage made her a Binney. As such she has deserved more respect than Simeon has chosen to give her.” That was the nearest that Thea could come to saying she knew about Simeon’s women. “He never really loved her. I believe she is dying of a broken heart, though the doctor calls it pernicious anemia.”

  “It isn’t love for Simeon that’s breaking her heart,” Cleo said heatedly. “Lenore’s always seemed to me like a lost saint, trying to find her way back to heaven. If anything, it’s Simeon’s sin against God’s commandment that’s killing her. She’s lived with sin the best part of her life, from the time she was born in sin to her mother. I guess she just can’t live with it any longer.”

  “That’s why I had to see you, Cleo. That’s why I want you to talk to Simeon. Lenore wants to make her last confession. She wants the last rites. And Simeon won’t call a priest.”

  Cleo, who had been importuning God all day, and felt closer to Him than she would tomorrow, said resonantly: “Why would Simeon want her to die cut off from God? If she wants her soul to go to heaven her way, who is Simeon to stand in her light? What difference can it make to him if she dies a Catholic?”

  Thea’s voice was stricken. “When Lenore began to ask for a priest, Simeon was upset out of all reason. He is afraid it is some diabolic plan to leave her money to her Church.”

  “I remember the time,” said Cleo richly, “when Simeon was too proud to touch a penny of the Duchess’s money.”

  Thea said simply, “He wants it for me.”

  Resentment flared in Cleo again. What right had Thea never to suffer when Serena walked in sorrow? What right had her son to a better life than Tim? Why, Tim was the brightest little boy in Boston. How many other six-year-olds were always begging to go to Harvard? Well, by God, he’d get there. She had a dozen years to dream and scheme how to do it. When he was ready, she would be ready, too!

  The Mission bells began to peal. Thea rose. “I must get back to little Simeon. I left him at my neighbor’s. But I don’t like to leave him there overlong. Her little boy fights him and calls him names. And I don’t want to teach him to fight back. I want him to be a gentleman. The neighborhood is running down, filling up with shanty Irish. I’ll be relieved to be back in Cambridge while Simeon’s growing up.”

  As they brushed cheeks, Thea said earnestly: “Give me your promise that you will see Simeon today. Tomorrow may be too late. I know how devoted you are to me. But don’t let Simeon persuade you to see his side.” She colored slightly. “Lenore is very low. I’m sure she’s too weak to change her will. Simeon is worrying unnecessarily.”

  “Of course, I’ll go,” said Cleo. She looked at Thea with the faint distaste and impatience she always felt when she compared her with Lenore. A soft feeling, a superstition, edged her mind. If she procured a priest for a dying woman, God would make everything right about the rent.

  CHAPTER 32

  SHE TURNED AWAY from the doorbell, where she had stuck the note for Serena, just as the trolley clanged to a stop. She said a little prayer. When the trolley step was let down, Serena descended. God was rewarding her already. Then she gave a little start. Serena’s arms were full of department-store packages.

  She waited apprehensively. Serena had gone in town to shop. That was why she was coming so tardily. She must have bought Easter things for the children. Cleo groaned, remembering too late that on Serena’s last visit she had broadly hinted about the children’s needs. But there had been nothing in Serena’s faraway look to indicate that she had even heard. O, Lord, how much of her money had Serena spent?

  “Walk up, Serena,” she called, when she could stand the suspense no longer. “It’s taking you a year to get from the carstop to here.”

  Serena reached the bottom step. “I guess I was thinking,” she said so sad and low that Cleo who was not really listening did not hear.

  “I was just on my way out. I wrote a note for you.” She took it out of the bell. “Charity’s working across the street. She went this noon. I said in my note for you to go see her and give her what money you could spare.”

  Serena piled her packages on the stoop, and opened her pocketbook. Her movements were jerky, tense. She shivered in the mild wind.

  “I won’t come in. You’re in a hurry. So am I. I’m late getting out to Robert. I went downtown.” She thought a minute, then her rare smile lifted a little of the bitterness off her mouth, filled the hollows in her thin cheeks, eased the sorrowing in her eyes. “I’m glad Charity’s got a job. She’ll be happier out of the house.”

  Cleo protested hotly: “I had to push her out. I had to make her go. Way you spend your free day with Robert, there’s no way for you to know what a time your sisters have together.”

  “Tomorrow’s Robert’s birthday,” Serena said softly. “That’s why I’m late. That’s where I’ve been, buying him presents. She took out a little handful of bills. “I guess I spent more than I realized. There’s only eight dollars here,” she apologized. “I’ll have to owe you four.” She put the money in Cleo’s hand.

  Cleo’s voice choked with disappointment. “I was counting on every penny you could spare. What makes you think Robert remembers his birthday? The children are naked, and so are you, and you buy that half-crazy nigger a lot of presents that’ll just sit on his table.”

  Serena said desperately, “Robert don’t have to appreciate what I do for him. I can’t ever make up for what I done to him.”

  “But why,” Cleo demanded wearily, “did you have to buy him so much? You’ve got enough here for a dozen birthdays. Robert isn’t so crazy he thinks you’re Santa Claus.”

  Serena picked up her packages. Her voice was diffident. “They’re from all of us. I don’t want him to know you all don’t care. I’m trying to help him come back to himself. He don’t think he belongs to anybody. I’m trying to teach him he’s one of us, no matter what happened down home.”

  For a moment she looked at Cleo with eyes so vulnerable that Cleo held back the words of rebuttal that were hot on her tongue.

  “You go on to Robert,” she said instead. “I’m going the other way on my errand. Don’t you worry about that four dollars. It takes more money than that to worry me.”

  Serena gave her a shy smile. “Well, good-bye until next week.” She started back toward the car stop. She looked very small in Charity’s old coat, very shabby at the heels, very slight to be carrying her load of doomed love.

  “Serena,” Cleo said shakily. Serena turned around. “Tell Robert all of us wish him a happy birthday.”

  At the other end of the wire, Bart answered Cleo’s urgent, “Is that you?” with “Yes, it’s me.” There was no one else it could have been.

  Miss Muldoon had been let go with regret well over a year ago. She was not working anywhere. In the last slow years in Bart’s store her skills had slowed down, too. She made mistakes in totaling, garbled messages, mislaid mail. She lost the assurance of being indispensable that a successful business had given her. Bart was spared concern for her welfare, despite her age. Her savings were sufficient for her few demands. When Cleo felt mean, it was her opinion that Mi
ss Muldoon ought to have saved considerably after all the years she had access to Mr. Judson’s till.

  Christian Christianson was a fruit broker now with more business than he could handle. His eye and his hand and his intuition had been trained by Bart, and he was considered one of the cleverest brokers in the Market. When he was trying his wings, he had urged Bart to enter a partnership. But Bart was set in the way of his past when he was the Black Banana King. He, who had scoffed at Binney and Hartnett for expecting the tailor-made suit and the horse to survive the mass production of progress, stood in the whirlwind of the mergers, shutting his eyes to his own wreckage. Even Chris, who loved him, had nothing to sell him with the pile of dynamic orders taking precedence on his desk. Bart put his faith in the war’s end and the coming of summer’s abundance.

  Cleo’s voice questioned him sharply, “Have you signed your lease yet?”

  “No. Seems to be some kind of hitch,” Bart said worriedly. He who had once seemed ageless sounded old. There had been nothing to sustain him during the hard years of the war. There had only been Cleo urging him to turn water into wine. When he came home with hollow eyes, she had turned her back on his need for comfort, seeking escape from knowing that things were not the same.

  “I expected the agent at half-past two, like I told you,” Bart continued in that worried voice.

  “I know you told me,” Cleo interrupted. “That’s why I’m calling you before he comes and takes all your money.”

  “The agent just telephoned. He said Mr. Bancroft was coming himself.”

  “Who’s Mr. Bancroft?” asked Cleo impatiently. “I never heard of him.”

  “That’s because you never listen,” Bart said wryly. “He’s only the bank, he’s only the owner of my store, of this whole block of stores. He’s only been my banker and friend as long as I’ve been in the Market.”

  “If he’s your friend, what you stewing about?”

  “I’m puzzled. I’ve been in Mr. Bancroft’s office more times than I can count. But this is the first time he’s ever set foot in my store.”

  “I’m in a pay booth, Mr. Judson.”

  “I know that, Cleo. What about it?”

  “My nickel will be up while you’re telling me Mr. Bancroft’s life history.”

  She could hear him clearing the hurt out of his throat. “What was it you called up to say?”

  “Now don’t try to jump through the telephone. But I’ve got a dispossess. I’ve got to give Mr. Benjamin eighty dollars before four o’clock. Serena came, but she didn’t have one penny to give me. She paid the hospital. I’ve got to get forty dollars from somewhere if you don’t want your child to sleep on the street.”

  He didn’t ask any unanswerable questions. He was seasoned to her emergencies. In a three-minute telephone call there was no time, and at any time it was futile, to try to teach her common sense about money.

  He expelled a long sigh. “I just have to take it out of my own rent. And God knows I hate to at a time like this.”

  “That isn’t much to take from all that money you’ve got for Mr. Bancroft,” she said defensively. “What’s left will still be a lot. If he’s such a friend of yours, he’ll be nice about it.”

  “I’ll bring the money to you as soon as he goes.”

  “Why can’t I come and get it?”

  They both knew why. She would time her coming to Mr. Bancroft’s and ask for fifty dollars, because Mr. Bancroft would be nice about it.

  “You might miss me,” Bart said. “Mr. Bancroft’s a busy man. Ten to one he’ll call me to come to his office instead. Your best bet is to go home and wait. I’ll be up around half-past three.”

  “All right,” she said huffily, and snapped the receiver back on its hook without saying good-bye. She thought it a waste of words to exchange civilities with a husband.

  She quitted the booth, and knew that she did not have the patience to go home and wait. With the children at school and her sisters at work, it was too hard a thing to be alone in a great big house. She would rattle around like a pill in a box.

  She might as well go to Cambridge to see Simeon. There was nothing else to do that didn’t cost more than carfare. Though the thought of sickness depressed her, she really should see the Duchess. She had always meant to see more of her. She had always meant to get to know her better. But there was something about the Duchess that had made her feel uncomfortable on the few occasions when they were briefly alone. She tried to give a name to it, and could not.

  CHAPTER 33

  CLEO sat beside the great bed where Lenore lay with hands still as hands carved in ivory on the counterpane. Her fine pale hair was in two obedient braids whose tips touched the hem of the turned-back sheet. Her quiet breast made as little stir as would keep her alive for the rest of her endurance. Her skin was so translucent that the poignant mouth could not have borne more color than the thin trace of pink. The blue veins were quite visible. There was no mistaking her right to die a Binney.

  The nurse had let Cleo go up. There was no longer any need for her patient to conserve her strength. Simeon and Cleo had greeted each other in the entrance hall with the low-voiced murmurs suitable to the imminence of death. Then Simeon had returned to his nervous waiting in the library.

  He did not want to be at home, but the doctor had advised him that it was wiser not to leave. He sat slumped in his father’s chair, with his father’s decanter at his elbow. The room had been the elder Binney’s bulwark, where he had bolstered his delusions with his gentleman’s drink of decay. It was unchanged, though there were servants now to keep it spotless. It had become Simeon’s barricade against the piety of Lenore.

  He had tried to destroy her goodness. It seemed to him that her spirit wrestled with his, despite the stillness that attended all her ways. Evil had ridden him whenever he looked at her. He had wanted to strike her, scream insults, brutalize her. But his hands had been powerless, his tongue had gone dry, as had his loins.

  He had tried to destroy her through other women. When he returned to her in the morning after insane nights of lust, his eyes were rimmed with the evil of his adultery, his mouth was slack with the satiation of sin.

  Lenore could not live with it. Simeon had profaned their marriage before she could persuade him to sanctify it through her Church. The shamelessness of his women became her shame. When they arrived at her tea-table to still the suspicions of their friends, she sat superbly composed. At the frequent parties Simeon requested for the purpose of making her betray her recognition of his immorality on a wanton face, she gave him no sign of knowing. But the world that she had expected to shut outside the high walls of a sacred union rushed in with a violence that she could not withstand.

  Once she had wanted the nunnery and the true marriage. Then in a moment of earthly ambition she had wanted to be a Binney. There was no atonement for this mortal error save the refinement of the spirit through the body’s destruction.

  Her intense purity seared away her flesh to free her soul for its flight from earth. And Simeon’s hatred grew into the gross shape of fear, which expressed itself in his belief that in revengeful spite Lenore would leave her fortune to her Church. The degradation of this thinking was part of his punishment.

  “Lenore,” Cleo said, with tenderness.

  She opened her eyes. They blazed in the white face, the terribly alive blue eyes, belying the body’s attitude of repose and resignation.

  “I’m glad it’s you,” she said, in a voice as thin as thread. “You were my first friend. You were not afraid of Thea. You were not afraid of Simeon. Tell me you are not afraid now.”

  Cleo lifted Lenore’s hands from the coverlet. They lay between her palms as weightless as petals. “I’ve already spoken to Thea. I’ve come to speak to Simeon.”

  Two great tears trembled on Lenore’s lashes. “I knew,” she whispered. “You will intercede for my soul. You are stronger than Simeon. You are good. I have not forgotten. When you talked about your sisters and their
children that day, I saw that your life was devoted to others. I know that Simeon must yield to your selflessness.”

  Gently Cleo released Lenore’s hands. She could not stay any longer. Something oppressed her, and she thought, I have never seen anyone die, and I have had enough of seeing it.

  Her warm mouth touched Lenore’s cold cheek. “I promise you a priest will come.”

  Softly Cleo quitted the room.

  Simeon stood before Cleo, saying expressionlessly: “Once you came to persuade me to marry Lenore to save Thea’s happiness. It was not Lenore’s asking price. She would have preferred the nobler gesture of freely giving. It would have been more in keeping with her imitation of Christ. Now you have cooked up some story about Thea’s peace of mind. I do not believe you are here on her behalf. You are here for reasons of your own.”

  She shrugged. “It was Thea who sent me. You can pick up the telephone and ask her.”

  He made an impatient gesture. “Thea trusts you beyond your worth. If you have already got to her, you have made her believe what suits your ends.”

  “If you think your sister has no mind of her own, I bow to your opinion,” said Cleo coolly. “But if you think she will forget that Lenore was a Binney when you condemned her to wander between heaven and hell, you are mistaken.”

  “Cleo,” Simeon said contemptuously, “what is it to you? I have never suspected you of innocence.”

  They eyed each other like adversaries.

  “I persuaded Lenore to marry you. Now I want to make amends. I’ve seen my sisters’ lives ruined by men. I remember how happy they were before their husbands broke their hearts. Let a priest give Lenore the peace with God she could not find with you.”

  He said quietly: “Then you did come for private reasons. And you are proposing to sacrifice Thea’s one remaining chance to live as she was meant to.” He crossed to the door, put his hand on the knob. “You must forgive me for asking you to leave.”