Pearl Buck - Angry Wife

“I had nothing to do with the war,” she told herself. “It’s just the same as if it had never been — for me, anyway.” She sat down again and began to plan the colors of her satin.

“TOM!” PIERCE’S VOICE WAS softened to suit the pale face on the pillow. It was morning, a summer morning, and he was on his way to the farms.

Tom opened his eyes.

Pierce tiptoed in, and the boards creaked.

“You don’t need to do that,” Tom said. “I’m better.”

“You ought to be,” Pierce said, “after all these weeks.”

Bettina was sitting by a window darning a nightshirt. Now she rose and stood waiting.

“I’ll look after him awhile, Bettina,” Pierce said. “You can go and get some fresh air.” He sat down in the armchair near the bed.

“Yes, Master Pierce,” Bettina replied. She picked up a few threads, straightened the bed covers, and went out. Pierce, watching Tom’s face, saw his eyes follow the girl’s figure until the door closed. He coughed.

“Does she take good care of you?” he asked.

“Yes,” Tom said.

“Lucinda says both those sisters are good at nursing,” Pierce went on.

“Bettina says she took care of their father for a long time,” Tom said.

Now that he was alone with Pierce, Tom did not know what to say.

“Their father was old Colonel Halford, who used to live down in Mississippi,” Pierce said. “Luce doesn’t know much about him, though.” He sighed. “It’s queer even for me to remember we don’t live in Virginia any more. Luce is taking it hard. But I can’t move Malvern.”

“When I look at Bettina,” Tom said strangely, “I know what the war was for. To think she could be bought and sold!”

Pierce said, “Now look here, Tom, you’re mighty weak. It’ll likely be months before you feel just right.”

“I’m weak,” Tom agreed. He lay listless for a moment. He felt now that he could not begin talking to Pierce. He felt crushed under his brother’s health and strength. The war had made Pierce coarse and tough. While he had been shut up in a Confederate prison, Pierce had commanded a regiment of men. Authority had hardened him. All the days and weeks and months that he had been idle and starving and struggling to live for his own sake and wondering every hour of the day and night why life was what it was, Pierce had been too busy to think. They had both been changed and in opposite directions. He closed his eyes.

“Tired?” Pierce asked.

“I reckon I’ll be tired forever,” Tom said.

“Now don’t you get to feeling sorry for yourself,” Pierce advised him. “Especially when you have as nice a horse as still lives outside a soldier’s stomach,” he added and laughed.

Anger burned under Tom’s eyelids and gave him strength. “I’m not in the habit of feeling sorry for myself,” he said sharply. Then he relented. “Thanks for the horse — I reckon I’ll be riding again one of these days.”

“Of course you will,” Pierce declared. He went on, because he could not think of anything to say to that closed face. “Tom — your mare came today — ready to train to do anything you like. Canters naturally, like a girl waltzing.”

Tom opened his eyes, and Pierce went on with enthusiasm. “You’d better look, Tom. I’m going to pace her under your windows and you’ll be up and on her back in no time.”

The room was full of Pierce’s big voice. The noise of it echoed in Tom’s ears and made him faint. He had the feeling that Pierce was using up all the air in the room and he gasped. Pierce stood up in alarm. “Are you feeling worse, Tom?”

“Yes,” Tom whispered. He longed suddenly for Bettina. Bettina knew how to make him feel strong. She could lift up his head and put the pillows right.

“Bettina!” Pierce shouted out of the window. “Bettina, you come here right away!”

Out in the kitchen summerhouse Bettina was drinking a cup of sassafras tea. She had poured the boiling water from the kettle always hot on the range, and had taken her cup to be out of Annie’s way. She heard Pierce’s voice, and threw what was left of the tea on the roots of the climbing rose and went quickly upstairs.

Pierce was poised in anxiety and met her at the door. “Looks to me like Tom’s fainted,” he whispered. “Better see what you can do — quick.”

“Yes, sir,” Bettina said. She moved to the bed. Pierce paused in the doorway. He was no good in a sick room. Tom was sick, he supposed, weak, anyway. He had helped many a man to die, but he did not know what to do with a starving man.

“Better give him more real food,” he told Bettina. “Get him full of something strong.”

“Yes, sir,” Bettina said.

Pierce stood a moment longer and then could not bear to stay. “I’ll be downstairs in the library if you call,” he said. “Or I’ll be out at the stables.”

“Yes, sir,” Bettina said.

But she knew the moment that she looked at him that Tom had not fainted. She closed the door softly and then stood beside the bed, smiling. His eyelashes were quivering. He opened his eyes and saw her standing there.

“Kneel down,” he commanded.

She knelt, wondering. He turned himself and put out his arms and she drew back.

“Oh no,” she whispered. “Oh no, Master Tom—”

“Yes, Bettina, yes!”

A moment ago he would have said he was really fainting. But now he felt a strange tingling energy. He seized her arms and held her fast. “You belong to me,” he said. “I fought for you — I made you free.”

She pulled back and was amazed that she could not wrench herself from his hands. “Then leave me free!” she cried, and glanced fearfully at the door.

To her surprise he loosened her as suddenly as he had seized her. “You’re right,” he muttered. “Of course — I fought to make you free of everybody — me, too, God knows!”

He lay back on the pillows and flung out his hands. “Go on away,” he said. “I don’t own you—”

One of his hands fell near her breast. She put out her two hands and took it and held it pressed against her. On the pillow his thin face turned to her.

“You don’t own me—” she whispered. “Nobody owns me any more. I do belong to myself. But seeing I belong to myself — why, I reckon I can do what I like — with myself—”

She put her lips into the palm of his hand and he felt them soft and hot.

“I can give myself—” she faltered, “seeing how I am free—”

He turned to her and she leaned to him. He put his arms about her and kissed her full. She turned her face away at last.

“Oh, my Lord,” she breathed.

“Why didn’t you tell me you loved me?” he complained.

“’Tisn’t for me to tell. Oh, Master Tom, it isn’t even what I want—”

“Hush,” he said, “don’t call me master — never, so long as we live!”

The first harvests of Malvern were being reaped. Pierce rose at dawn for the joy of seeing his harvests, and rode about his fields. In his barns could be heard again the sound of cows lowing and the whinny of horses. Not all were paid for, but with the harvests he had money in his hand and he was not afraid.

The year had been an unusually good one. Winter had been mild toward the end, and spring had come with a rush of rhododendrons in the woods. He had forgotten all beauty in the years of war, and now it seemed to him he was seeing everything for the first time, the ruddy blossoms of the red maples, the early green of lilac, the redbud and the dogwood. During the spring he had searched avidly for each sign of life and growth. Sugar was still scarce and there was excuse for the making of maple sugar, as his father and grandfather had done before him, and as he had not done since he was master. He had ordered staple crops sown into the freshly ploughed fields, wheat for bread and corn and oats for man and beast, barley and rye. There was still no coffee to be had, but the rye made a fair drink when it was roasted slowly with black molasses. There were no dye stuffs to be had either, and he had superintended the making of dark brown dye from the black walnuts and saffron yellow from sulphur and red and purple from wild berries. Lucinda put up her nose at his household interests, but he could not sufficiently satiate himself with life after the years of death. He had even busied himself in the dairy, ordering great flagstones to be laid and new shelves to be built. It gave him solid comfort today when he rode over the land to know that in the dairy at Malvern crocks were full of butter and jugs full of buttermilk and that cheeses already stood in the presses.