The Small Rain

by Madeleine L'engle

  After a long time she heard Charlot’s sleepy voice. “Hello.”

  “Charlot, this is Katherine,” she said. “Pen walks in her sleep, and she walked out of our window on the third floor. She’s breathing, but she’s not conscious and she’s bleeding out of her mouth.”

  “I’ll get hold of du Marsais and come right away,” Charlot said.

  “Her night clothes are drenched. Should I try to take them off?”

  “No. Keep her well covered. Get hot-water bottles, if you can. We’ll be over as soon as possible.”

  “All right.” She hung up. Then she took the blankets off her bed and covered Pen with them. She took a towel and wet it gently with warm water and carefully tried to wipe the blood from Pen’s face, pushing the wet hair back from her forehead and cheeks. Once Pen opened her eyes, looked at Katherine without recognition, and closed them again. When the porter came in with the hot-water bottles, Katherine packed them around Pen, well wrapped in towels so that they wouldn’t be too hot, and covered her with the blankets again.

  Out of a pocket in his green-baize apron the porter took Pen’s steel glasses-frames and some bits of broken glass and laid them on the blotter on the desk. In her sleep Pen must have automatically reached out and put on her glasses.

  Katherine waited until the porter had left. Then she dressed.

  It was almost an hour before Charlot came with Dr. du Marsais.

  “Is she your sister?” du Marsais asked.

  “No. A school friend. She was supposed to meet her fiancé here tomorrow.”

  “You’d better wait outside.”

  Katherine went out obediently. This time she didn’t have long to wait before Charlot came to her.

  “We’re taking her to the hospital,” he said. “It isn’t much use, but she’ll be better off there than she would here.”

  “Is she going to die?”

  “I’m afraid so, Katherine.”

  “Oh.”

  “This is a dreadful thing for you to have to go through, darling.”

  “It’s a dreadful thing for Pen to have to go through,” Katherine said, her voice shaking.

  “Dearest,” Charlot said, “I’ll go with her to the hospital, and I’ll stay with her so she won’t be alone in case she recovers consciousness.” He looked at his watch. “It’s five o’clock now. What time is her fiancé supposed to come?”

  “He said he’d be at the hotel tomorrow at noon.”

  “You’d better go to bed and get some sleep, then.”

  “I couldn’t sleep. Let me go to the hospital.”

  “Someone has to be here to meet that young man, and it had better be you. You are to get undressed and get into bed and try to sleep. I’ll phone at ten-thirty. Wait here.”

  Charlot went back into the room again. In a few minutes the door opened and Dr. du Marsais came out. He carried Katherine’s pajamas over his arm and held a small twist of paper out to her.

  “This contains a very mild sleeping tablet, and I want you to promise to take it.” In the dim light his body hardly showed in the dark suit, but his well-groomed hair shone silver, and his voice carried authority.

  “All right,” Katherine said.

  “I’ve taken another room for you, and you’re to go to bed right away and sleep. Charles will telephone and wake you up in plenty of time.”

  “All right.”

  The night porter came down the hall with a key in his hand. Katherine and Dr. du Marsais followed him down to the end of the passage, where he opened the door to a small room that looked out on the quiet side street. Dr. du Marsais dismissed him. Then he filled a glass with water and handed it to Katherine.

  “Now take the tablet and drink the full glass,” he said, and Katherine obeyed mechanically.

  Dr. du Marsais turned the bed down, lighted the bed lamp and switched off the ceiling light. “Now get undressed and get into bed,” he said. “You’re a brave girl.” And he left.

  Katherine took off her clothes, her blue serge uniform and white shirt, and white regulation underclothes, and got into her pajamas. Nothing was real. She felt nothing at all. She climbed into bed and turned off the light, and waves of drowsiness flooded her whole being. A soft rap on the door roused her.

  “Who is it?” she called.

  “Charlot.”

  She let him in, then got back into bed. “What is it?”

  “I just wanted to say good night, darling,” he said. He sat down beside her, and kissed her gently, and tiptoed out.

  The telephone woke her. She answered it, and Charlot’s voice came, strong and comforting. “Katherine.”

  “Hello, Charlot.”

  “I’m calling from the hospital, darling. Pen is still unconscious, and I’m afraid it can’t be more than a few hours now. Perhaps you’d better go back to the room you had together and put her things in her suitcase. When her fiancé and his mother come, if they want to go straight to the hospital, you get a taxi and bring them over. We’ve tried to get hold of her parents, but couldn’t. I wired the address you gave me, and the wire was not received. Perhaps her fiancé will know. We’ve done everything we can, at any rate. Now, please send downstairs and order some breakfast.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Order at least fruit and coffee. Understand?”

  “Yes, Charlot.”

  “I’ll see you in a couple of hours, then.”

  “Yes … good-bye.”

  “Good-bye, little one.”

  In the room she had shared with Pen both beds were still unmade. On Pen’s pillow the blood had dried, and the rumpled bloodstained towel still lay on the washstand. On the green desk blotter lay the steel glasses-frames and the shattered bits of glass. She took Pen’s clothes from the back of the chair over which they were neatly folded and put them in the top of her suitcase. Then she took her toothbrush and paste and her comb and brush from the washstand, and packed them, too, and the glasses-frames. When the telephone rang and Mrs. and Mr. Murray-Lyon were announced, she took her coat and hat and went downstairs.

  Even if they had not been the only people in the lobby, she would have recognized them at once. Mrs. Murray-Lyon was a tall, white-haired old lady in a dark traveling suit and a Queen Mary hat. Edmond Murray-Lyon was tall, too, with a gentle, good-natured face, thick, brown hair, and a little brush mustache. His face was puckered with anxiety now, and Katherine saw that he already knew that something was wrong.

  She went up to them. “I’m Katherine Forrester. I’m a school friend of Pen’s who was traveling with her.” Suddenly she couldn’t go on. She stared helplessly from one to the other.

  “What has happened? Please tell me,” Edmond said.

  “You know Pen walks in her sleep—”

  “No. I didn’t know.”

  “Well, she does. At school they called her Lady Macbeth. The window in our room here is a French one, and it’s when she’s excited or tired that she walks in her sleep, and she was terribly excited about seeing you today, and I guess she was tired from the trip, too, and—and that’s what happened.”

  Edmond’s face was very white, and his mother clung to his arm. “You mean she—she walked out of the window in her sleep last night?” he asked.

  “Yes. It was the third story, you see, and it was raining. It was just because I had a telephone call around two o’clock last night that I woke up and saw she was gone. I have a friend who is a medical student here in Paris, and I called him at once, and he came right over with a doctor, and they took her to the hospital right away. She’s had the best medical care. If you want to go to the hospital, I can take you there at once.”

  “Of course,” Edmond Murray-Lyon said, and they hurried out. As they got into a taxi, he asked, “It’s—it’s very serious, then?”

  “I’m afraid it is.”

  “Is she conscious?”

  “No. She hasn’t been.”

  “Have you seen her?”

  “Not since last night, just after it
happened. Charlot—my friend—phoned me from the hospital about an hour ago.”

  “Do they think she’ll live?”

  Katherine clenched her fists. “No. They don’t,” she said.

  Charlot met them at the hospital and took Edmond and Mrs. Murray-Lyon up to Pen’s room. Then he came down to Katherine.

  “Her parents are in London at the moment, and the young man will get in touch with them and take care of everything. They’ll take her home to England,” he said.

  “Oh.”

  “You’re coming around the corner to the café with me and have an omelette or something.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  He put his arm around her. “Come along, Katherine.”

  They sat down at a small round table and Charlot ordered. “Was she a particularly good friend of yours?”

  “No. I didn’t have any particularly good friends. I never talked to her very much or got to know her at all until yesterday.”

  “I see.”

  “I don’t understand about people dying, Charlot.”

  “You mustn’t think about it.”

  “Of course I must think about it! Don’t be silly! If you don’t think about it and try to figure things out you become—just nothing. If you do think about it, maybe you go crazy. But I’d rather be crazy than nothing. Of course I must think about it!”

  “Go on and talk, if it helps you.”

  “It doesn’t help. Nothing helps. When you’re alone. You’re in love now. It shines out of every atom of you. You’re so different because of it, you might almost be another person. And when you’re in love, everything you touch has a kind of excitement and glamour. Even death. Besides, you see death so much, don’t you, Charlot? that you have to harden yourself to it. But I’m afraid! I’m afraid! Nobody’s safe! It’s all around, reaching out for you, catching you unawares. Pen wasn’t ready to die. She was in love, and she was going to marry Edmond, and she’d have made a good wife and mother; she wasn’t one of the bad people we hate. And she was so young! She was only eighteen—just a year older than I am. I don’t understand about young people dying. It’s bad enough when you’re older, and you’ve lived your life—oh, God, it’s bad enough then, but young people, Charlot! Young people oughtn’t to die! I’m afraid! I’m afraid!”

  “Don’t,” Charlot said gently.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make a spectacle of myself. But I am afraid. I don’t want to die, and death’s everywhere. If it could take Pen like that, how do I know it won’t lake me next? I don’t want to die! I’ve too much to do, and there isn’t enough time to do half of it, even if I live to be a very old woman. Death’s unfair at any time—but to a young person!”

  “Drink your coffee, darling.”

  “You won’t talk, because you know there isn’t anything comforting to say. Isn’t that true?”

  “Drink your coffee.”

  “It is true.”

  “Tonight I’ll take you to the Moulin Rouge.”

  “I don’t want to go to the Moulin Rouge.”

  “But you will go.”

  “I don’t know why I want so frightfully to live. A lot of the time I haven’t been very happy. And I’m afraid of having to be alone always. I don’t want to be alone. But I’m afraid of having to be. I know our bodies are our only means of communication with other people, but isn’t it the fact of our having separate bodies that really keeps us apart? Because you see it’s awful, but I’m thinking more about myself than about Pen. Is that why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Now that you’re in love, are you still satisfied with the idea of being nothing, of just being finished after you die? Or don’t you believe it any more?”

  “Don’t you want to get in touch with that Justin person of yours while you’re in Paris?” Charlot asked her.

  “Of course. That’s why I came to Paris … And he isn’t mine.”

  “Why don’t you get in touch with him today?”

  “I don’t know. I feel sort of funny about it all of a sudden. Maybe I shouldn’t bother him.”

  “Don’t be a little fool. Why didn’t you write him to tell him you were coming to Paris?”

  “I don’t know. I just couldn’t, somehow.”

  “Why don’t you write a note now and leave it for him?”

  “All right. I guess that would be all right.”

  “Another thing I was thinking of, little one. Wouldn’t you rather move to another hotel?”

  “You mean because of Pen?”

  “Yes.”

  “No. I don’t think so. I don’t think I should. I want to. But I don’t think I should.”

  “Why, dear?”

  “It’s sort of like falling off a horse and not getting back on again. That’s not right, but do you know what I mean?”

  “Yes, I think so. But I don’t think you should torture yourself.”

  “Well, I—let’s not talk about it, Charlot.”

  “All right, my dear.”

  “We’d better go back to the hospital now, and see, hadn’t we?”

  “All right, come along.”

  As they went into the lobby, they saw Edmond Murray-Lyon and his mother coming out of the elevator.

  “It’s all over,” Edmond said. “She—she never regained consciousness.”

  Katherine was silent, watching the tight control of his face.

  Mrs. Murray-Lyon spoke to her. “Would you do us the kindness of having dinner with my son and me at our hotel tonight? I know there are some things Edmond would like to ask you.”

  “Yes. I’d be glad to,” Katherine answered.

  “Will seven o’clock be convenient for you?”

  “Yes, of course, any time.”

  “Edmond will call for you, then.”

  “Oh, please—he needn’t bother. I’ll be with Charlot all afternoon and he can drop me off.”

  “All right. The Meurice, then, at seven o’clock.”

  “Yes. Thank you very much, Mrs. Murray-Lyon.”

  “Thank you, my dear.”

  Katherine took Charlot’s arm and watched Mrs. Murray-Lyon lead Edmond out of the hospital. “I want to walk,” she said suddenly. “Please let’s walk, Charlot.”

  “All right, darling. Where do you want to go?”

  “I don’t know. Anywhere.”

  He took her to the Luxembourg gardens, and there something incredible happened, for coming down a path toward them was Anne Vigneras.

  She recognized Katherine at once and hurried toward her. “Katherine! What are you doing in Paris? Why didn’t you let Justin know?”

  “We—I—I didn’t get in till last night. This is Charlot. M. Charles Bejart. Charlot, I’d like you to meet Mademoiselle Vigneras.”

  Anne shook hands with Charlot. “I’m very glad to meet you. Do you know, you look so much like my brother—has Katherine ever told you?”

  “Often,” Charlot said. “That’s my main attraction for her.”

  Anne turned back to Katherine. “Come and sit down for a moment, if you have time. Are you busy? I’m intruding, perhaps?”

  “No, oh, no, please let’s sit down.”

  Anne led them to an empty bench, sat down, and took Katherine’s hand.

  “Do you think I—do you think I could see Monsieur Vigneras?” Katherine asked her.

  “Of course, darling. How long are you going to be here?”

  “Just till Sunday. I have to sail for America on Sunday.”

  “Oh, what a shame! And Justin isn’t here just now. He won’t be back till Saturday night.”

  “Then I shan’t see him!” Katherine cried.

  “You’ll see him Saturday night, of course,” Anne said. “But it’s a pity you couldn’t have had more time with each other. I know he’ll be very disappointed. He often talks of you, and wonders how you are getting on with your work. Julien Quimper asks after you, too, whenever he comes to dinner. Justin was quite hurt because you never wrote him after that
first letter, Katherine. Why didn’t you let him hear from you?”

  “I didn’t think I ought to bother him unless I had a really good reason.”

  “Coming to Paris was reason enough, wasn’t it? You should have let him know.”

  “I didn’t think I ought to bother him.”

  “You funny child.”

  “No. I—”

  “Katherine, what is it? What’s the matter? Do you want me to go away?”

  “No, oh, no, please don’t go.”

  Briefly Charlot told Anne about Pen.

  “What a terrible thing,” she said, in a quivering voice. “What a terrible, terrible thing. Katherine, won’t you come and stay with me this week? It would give me so much pleasure to have you, and then you’d really have a chance to see Justin when he comes home on Saturday night. He’s done awfully well, you’ll be proud of him, Katherine, he’s very highly thought of. Won’t you stay with me?”

  Charlot said, “It’s very kind of you, Mlle Vigneras. I should be much less worried about her if I knew she wasn’t alone.”

  “It’s all right, then, Katherine? You’ll stay with me?”

  “You know I’d love it. It just seems like a dreadful imposition.”

  “On the contrary. It’ll be a great pleasure for me. I’ve been very lonely this past week without Justin. It’s all settled, then? Let’s move you right now, shall we?”

  Justin’s apartment was a charming one, four flights up, under the eaves. There was a big room with the piano and a sofa and books and comfortable chairs and a fireplace and warm lamplight, and there were two tiny bedrooms, a bathroom, and a sizable kitchen.

  “I’ll put you in Justin’s room till he comes back,” Anne said. “And then on Saturday night, if you don’t mind terribly, you can sleep on the divan in the living room. It’s really very comfortable. I’ve slept there often myself. Now I’ll light the fire and make some tea, and then you’ll play for me, won’t you?”

  They stayed in front of the fire, drinking quantities of tea, until it was time for Katherine to go to the Meurice to meet the Murray-Lyons. Dinner was a strained, miserable affair. Katherine did her best to answer Edmond’s questions, but she found she knew very little about Pen. She knew what she looked like hunched over her desk in the preparation hall, with her glasses sliding down her nose; waving her hand violently in class when the most difficult questions were asked; standing with authority and dignity behind Miss Halsey’s desk at form meetings; speaking to the entire school in chapel, punctuating her speech with the characteristic gesture of pushing her glasses up on her nose; leading the “crocodile” to church on Sunday with Sarah (—I ought to write to Sarah about this—Katherine thought); singing happily, off key, at choir practice; and disgracing herself by laughing outright in the middle of the sixth-form play—it was only exterior things like this that Katherine knew about Pen. She knew very little about her inner being.