The trouble in Thor

by Armstrong Charlotte

  "I'd better wash," said Henry. "Here's the mail." He put the pack of letters in her hands and her mother's was on top. She didn't even look at the rest of them. She let them slip away to fall on the floor. Even to feel the paper, on which lay her mother's firm crabbed handwTiting, was comforting to her fingers. "From home!" she cried joyously.

  Henry was all the way across the front hall into their bedroom, on his way to wash, and he didn't answer. He never answered when there was no real answer required. He never murmured "So I saw," or "Yes, isn't it?" or "Umhum."

  Libby ripped the paper. "My dearest girl:"

  Disappointment struck her numb.

  I know you will be sorry, dear, at what I have to write today. Your father, it seems, must needs have an operation. It is not dangerous, and you must not be concerned about him, but it does mean that I cannot leave him to come to you. Dr. Amory decrees . . .

  It went on. She read it all. Her eyes passed over the lines and the words.

  Henry said, "Anything the matter?"

  She looked up wondering what made him think anything was the matter. She hadn't moved, she hadn't cried. Now she said in a calm, steady voice, "My mother isn't coming at all . . ."

  "Why not, dear?"

  "Dad has to have an operation."

  "Ah, too bad. Is it anything serious?"

  "She says not."

  "May I read it?" Henry took the letter. "Oh," he said. He read faster than anyone in the world. How could he have read it all so fast? "Well, I doubt if that's anything much to worry about."

  "No," she said in a wondering tone.

  "You're disappointed . . ."

  "Of course I'm disappointed," she said rather brightly.

  "You'll be all right, Libby. Your mother must stay with your father, naturally."

  19

  "Naturally," said Libby in the bright cheerful voice that surprised her so. "Poor Dad. I must write . . . and say not to worry about me."

  Henry's face was grave and kind and watchful. "That's the girl/' he said.

  She thought: It isn't though. That isn't the girl. I don't know who it is being so gay about it. Not me.

  Henry turned her gently toward the dining room. "Go ahead to dinner. I'll pick these up." He bent to gather the other letters that lay on the floor.

  Libby moved slowly through the archway into the dining room, talking to herself. Well, that's that. Well, I can manage. I will just go minute by minute. I'm very calm about it really. It's quite amazing how calm I feel.

  Celestina was bringing food from the kitchen. Using her hips she batted through the swinging door. She had a platter of fricasseed chicken balanced on her right hand and a white bowl of gravy grasped in the fingers of her left.

  Her thumb was in the gravy.

  Libby looked at it and screamed.

  When she screamed again, Celestina let go the bowl.

  It broke on the floor and the gravy began to flow around the pieces with a nasty eagerness to stain the rug. Celestina grabbed for the tilting platter with her left hand, ran crouching to the table, and all the chicken slid off the platter onto the cloth and the silver.

  "Oh, oh," screamed Libby. "How can you be so stupid!"

  And then Celestina was wailing and bawling, and Henry's strong arms went around his wife from behind. His cool syllables dropped like ice crystals into the cauldron of noise.

  "Be quiet, Celestina. Libby, what happened?"

  Henry held her strongly and she seemed to herself to be struggling against his strength, and then she fell back sobbing upon it.

  "Her thumb . . . her thumb . . . her thumb!"

  "Yes . . ." Henry was patient.

  But he must see the enormity! How it was not to be borne! Libby tried to speak quietly, for surely this news would convey its own horror. Surely when Henry knew he would share her revulsion.

  "Her thumb was in the gravy," she said.

  Celestina said sullenly, ''My thumb's clean."

  And Henry laughed.

  Libby felt the sting all the way down to the bottom of her heart. Laughed . . . ! She knew he was making her walk into the other room, and she knew when he made her sit down, but it was necessary to show him that this was no laughing matter. And she was pouring out a whole mixed flood of words.

  "I can't believe that anyone could be so ignorant! I can't tell her every single, solitary, tiny thing, I have to depend on her. Oh, I'm glad I haven't any friends and nobody comes. Nothing's right, the way I want it. Nothing's neat, and nothing's pretty."

  Henry stood pressing her shoulders with his firm hands, saying nothing. And suddenly she heard her mother's voice in her ear. 'This is ridiculous, Libby," her mother said, coldly.

  "This is ridiculous," sobbed Libby. "I know I shouldn't have screamed. But Henry! Her thumb in our food! It sickens me!"

  "You sit here a minute." Henry put his big handkerchief into her hands.

  "Oh, I suppose," wailed Libby, fumbling to recover some reasonable attitude, "she doesn't know any better."

  "Knows better now." Some dryness in his tone made Libby turn her face up.

  She let one eye escape the cambric and suddenly she, too, saw that it was funny. It was out of proportion. "I didn't mean to scream the house down and wreck the whole place, Henry. It's just ... I couldn't . . . Oh, dear . . ." She began to giggle.

  "Last straw, I expect," said Henry calmly. "Sit still. I'll see."

  Libby sat sobbing softly and, alternately, choking off soft laughter in the handkerchief. A terrible pressure seemed lifted away. She felt quite surprisingly spry and free. She knew already that she must, of course, apologize to Celestina for the lack of proportion in her behavior. But she didn't

  mind. She felt so much better. She thought: Maybe it was a good thing I blew up.

  She could hear Henry. One could always hear him. He was saying with a detached crispness that was not unkind, "All right, Celestina." (Was Celestina crying, too?) "Now wipe up that mess on the floor, quickly. Then take everything off this table. Put on a clean cloth, a pretty one, if you can find it. And make some toast."

  She thought: He's doing what mother would do, what I ough to be doing. How strange! Henry is such a man. How very strange this is, me to be having such a fit and Henry housekeeping . . .

  She let her head drop back and she lay quietly and even rather dreamily in that chair. She thought: Henry is more grown up than I. When he came back and asked gently, "Will you speak to the girl now, Libby?" she said, "Yes, Henry. Of course."

  Her blue eyes, soft and shining, searched his face. Henry had such a finished face, the flesh so firm to the bone. There was no baby fat left on it anywhere. He expected her to have collected herself. Well, she had. She felt quite ready to speak to Celestina now, as a lady should.

  Celestina came stumbling and said at once, in Henry's words, as Libby divined, "I'll try to be more careful, Mrs. Duncane. I am very sorry."

  Libby smiled with all kindness. "Celestina, you must please forgive me. I'm not feeling quite well just now. I will be better soon. You shouldn't have carried the bowl as you were carrying it, Celestina, but I certainly shouldn't have screamed at you. So I do beg your pardon."

  Celestina said nothing.

  "Can't we forget about it?" Libby prodded. "Please."

  "All right," said Celestina uneasily. It meant nothing to her that her pardon was begged. Nothing at all. Her own emotions were not to be curbed by a bit of a phrase. Words didn't drive her. When she said "All right," it was not yet all right in her dark, Mediterranean heart, but Libby Duncane could not know this.

  "I do know," said Libby sweetly, "that everything falls on you just now. I understand."

  Celestina's dark face seemed to sharpen. Her red lips parted. "When is it?" she blurted.

  And Libby's pink lips parted, and she drew a little back in the chair. Why the girl was wild with curiosity! All these weeks the girl must have been speculating and trying to guess. It had never occurred to Libby to confide in her. But the girl
was wild to be told. For just one flash Libby saw the two of them as simply two females in the same house, both born to bear children, both fascinated by the incomprehensible wonder of their own bodies. But the vision passed. She drew back from such prying.

  "The baby will be born in about ten days," she heard her husband say, quite as a matter of fact, informatively.

  "That will do, Celestina," she said quickly, and the girl fled. Then Henry began to help her up and, leaning on him, she let it go, let it pass. It was only one more little sting. She could never explain why one was not always blunt and matter-of-fact, why there was reticence, part instinct, part rule. But let it go.

  When she had washed and powdered her face and combed her hair, and she took her place at the table, she was surprised to find it charming. Everything was orderly. The cloth was fresh and the rescued pieces of chicken resting daintily on toast were a delicious surprise, somehow. Her outburst must have blown off a lot of steam. It had certainly done her good. She was hungry and her tongue was light. It was easy to chat.

  "Mrs. Gilchrist was in the post office," Henry told her. "Said she would be dropping in to see you."

  "Oh, when, Henry?"

  "She wasn't definite."

  "But she was here only the other day. She's been awfully nice," said Libby, pleased,

  "Friendly?" He cocked an eyebrow.

  "I shouldn't have said I had no friends," Libby confessed, "At least, it's not exactly true. I suppose what I meant is old friends. People who've known me forever. But I couldn't have them anywhere but home." She sipped tea. "Mrs. Gilchrist has really helped me more than anyone . . ."

  "Helped you how, Libby?"

  "Oh, telling me about the town. And who is who, and that sort of thing. Whose husband is important . . ."

  Henr)' was looking at her with a M:y expression—maybe he was going to laugh at her again. She hurried to forestall this. "Oh, I know she's a snob, Henry, and I think it's ridiculous, too, bothering to be snobbish way up here in the woods." Libby herself laughed. "But for goodness sakes, I need to know these things, don't I?"

  "Whose husbands are important, according to Mrs. G.?" asked Henr)'. Now he wore an innocent-bystander kind of look.

  "You should know," she teased. "But you'd never think to tell me."

  "If I were asked, I'd say we are all important one way or another," Henry said mildly.

  "Oh, that's too dull," said Libb)' merrily. "That's no fun. Why there has to be some kind of pushing and climbing going on, even if you have to make it up, or you'd just be bored." She felt he had no capacity for this kind of affectionate laughter at human nature, for he looked at her quite as if he had never heard such talk in his life. She went on gaily, "And if there is, why, I'd better know about it, so I won't make a mistake."

  "What kind of mistake?"

  Henry was so literal.

  "Well, I'm not going to let a social climber climb on me, for instance, just because I don't realize ..."

  "Who wants to social climb?"

  Was he the solemn puzzled innocent he looked, or was Henr}' going to laugh any minute?

  "Well, I don't know, Henr}', but there is that Mrs. Arthur Cole, for instance. You know, she is so nice looking and she goes to our church, so of course I thought . . . But, Mrs. Gilchrist says not to get too chummy . . . You see, you are important and that makes me important."

  She thought. Doesn't he understand, at all? She said sharply, "Henry, do you want me to be a little bit careful, or don't you?"

  Henry's eyes were unfathomable. "Use your common sense, Libby," he said gently.

  She sighed, to reproach him, but she felt happy. Gossip was fun. It was give and take, at least. She read so much that Henry had no time to read, and it wasn't fun just to keep telling him what she had been reading or what she had been fancying, and watch him pare all the whimsy, all the playfulness, away from it.

  "Oh, and she told me—" Libby remembered more gossip, and she leaned closer—"Henr}', now don't raise your voice because whatever you say goes through the whole house. Mrs. Gilchrist told me that up until just four months ago, our Celestina was thick as thieves with Captain Trezona's boy. But the captain found out, and he stopped the two of them on tlie street one night and flew into a perfect rage. Because she's Catholic, of course . . . and he forbade them to see each other at all—just like an old tyrant. And the boy is so terrified of his father that he walks on the other side of the road. You heard about it." This was accusing. She knew by his look that he had.

  "I hear what everybody else hears, I suppose," he admitted.

  "Henry, you could have told me. Of course, I don't suppose . . ,"

  Libby felt her eyes roll. Quite suddenly, she wondered: Why, one could put Mrs. Gilchrist's story and Celestina's urgent curiosit}' together and make a scandalous guess out of it.

  Libby said, tensely, "If she's that kind of girl, Henry, I don't . . . Do you suppose . . . ?" . Their eyes met.

  Henry said, "Ask her."

  "What?"

  "Ask her," he repeated.

  "But Henr}' ... I can't ask her such a thing. What do you mean? I only wanted to know w^hat you think."

  "I don't think about it," Henr)' said.

  "Well, Henry, I don't suppose you do, but I'd like to know."

  "Quickest way to find out is to ask someone who has the information. Ask her, Libby. She knows what kind of a girl she is," he grinned.

  "Oh, Henrj' . . . You just put on that, that bluntness. You know very well it's impossible, . . ." He just sat tliere wrapped in his merciless reasonableness. He was a million miles away. "You know I can't insult her. . . ."

  Henry's lip twitched.

  Libby sat as straight as she could. "If I insulted Celestina before dinner, I've apologized for that," she said stiffly. "And I know I shouldn't listen to gossip, Henry, or jump to conclusions. And you needn't remind me, because I'll try not to. But I don't quite understand this kind of town. And I don't know what might be going on. It's such a queer place, with so few people, divided up so sharply, I don't always know what I ought to do, and I wish you would help me a little bit more."

  Henr)''s eyes were softer, but they were thoughtful too. "You don't like it here very much, do you, Libby?" he stated.

  Well, she didn't. She couldn't lie. "I haven't had a chance , , ," she said impatiently, "It happened too soon, Henry , . ." She wished she hadn't said it. "You know?" she added anxiously.

  His lips closed before tliey opened, as if Henry had been going to offer another thought but now forbore. He said, and rather sadly, too, "Yes, it happened too soon."

  Libby was glad he agreed, and a little bit surprised. Henry might have come out with one of those blunt remarks that was always shocking to her sensibilities and undeniably true. She nibbled toast. "Will you always have to live in a town like this one, Henry?" she asked him, suddenly.

  "This, or worse. . , ."

  "Worse!" She was startled.

  "Have to go where the job is," he said lightly, and got up from the table. "I'm late, Libby. Let Celestina do the best she can, will you?"

  "Yes, Henry."

  "Try not to worry about the house."

  "All right."

  "There's no need for you to worry," he said, rather awkwardly.

  "I know," she lied, absent-mindedly.

  "Ring me on the mine phone, in case you want me. I may

  be going underground for awhile this afternoon, but somebody will find me."

  "Oh, yes Henry. All right." She was hardly listening. She was thinking about his word "worse."

  "Good-by," said Henry.

  Libby, lying on the top blanket with the afghan pulled over her ankles, gratefully let the alien weight go against the bed. The big room was cool and dim. She would close her eyes. She would rest. She would not remember for now that her mother wasn't coming, at all.

  But Libby came of people who were in the habit of trying to understand themselves. Lying still, it was revealed to her in the peaceful sile
nce what kind of a woman she had seemed to be during all that dinner hour. A woman who had a tantrum, who caused an ugly scene with a servant, who wept and complained, who indulged in petty gossip and in cruel speculations. One had only to stop and count to know that, of course, Celestina was not pregnant. Libby Dun-cane, a woman counting! Without a generous thought! She squirmed on the bed. Oh, why had she screamed so?

  Then this was revealed to her, also. She had screamed not from the shock of Celestina's thumb,' at all, but from the shock of that letter. Because of the news in it. Because of her fear.

  Oh, I'm not so small, thought Libby, I'm not so petty. I am not. Oh, surely Henry understands. She rubbed her hot cheek on the cool pillow. But I am, she confessed, a woman who is afraid of the Valley of the Shadow of Death. And also afraid to say so.

  And she thought, further; Henry Duncane never was afraid in all his life. He's fearless, that's what it is. That's what I feel is so far-away about him.

  She bit into the pillow. She thought, I'm afraid, but that doesn't mean I can't be brave. I'll manage—I will manage. Everything will be better when this is safely o'er.

  CHAPTER THREE

  When Henry Duncane turned off the main road at West Thor Mine and began to climb the crooked hill, his car passed first over the railroad spur, and then ran betvv'een the shafthouse and the roaring building across the road which housed the giant hoists. It twisted on around the compressor house, which lay a little higher, and passed, in turn, a very long, low and very narrow wooden building which lay on a shelf of land and was divided like a ruler, of which the inch nearest the crooked road was Captain Trezona's office. (Back of that, other offices—the clerks', the timekeepers', the mining engineer's and his staff, and the chemist's.)

  Above this, a footpath snaked and climbed off over the hillside, to the dry. (A change house, for the men who worked underground and of course wore special and necessary costumes to do so.) Highest buildings of all on the hill —the carpenter shop and the machine shop, lay on opposite sides of the road. Duncane's car passed between these two. Here the road ended; the woods came down over the crown of the hill like a cap of curls. There was, however, an upper road, a mere trail that wound off along the hairline above the mine buildings, below the woods on the rim of the sloping meadows that lay to the east and to the west.