Pearl Buck - Angry Wife

He lay shivering and strangely lonely, but for no one. He did not want Lucinda or the children. He was glad that they were not with him. His mood was old and he recognized it as the mood of many nights in the war when battle loomed in the morning. Then as though to carry the illusion to reality he heard the sudden sharpness of guns firing in the streets. He listened, lying tense and ready to spring out of bed. Then the sounds were stilled and he fell asleep at last for an hour.

All through the next day he came and went, restless and yet exhausted. The streets were milling with people again, the crowds falling back only before the marines who had arrived early in the morning. It was a war which he did not understand. What was the cause and what the end?

By afternoon eight marines and eight policemen were dead. How many other dead there were no one knew, for the mob hid their own dead. At midnight the mayor reported again. The armed men had won and the city was safe once more. Trains would run within the hour. Pierce went back to the hotel and found a telegram from John MacBain.

“Change in company policy absolutely necessary. Postpone meeting until I come. John.”

Pierce rang for a messenger and sent the telegram to Henry Mallows. Crisis in Baltimore was over, but would arms suffice for final victory? He sat down in his room, grimed and exhausted and this night too tired to go to sleep. Suddenly he knew what he wanted. He wanted to go and see Tom. Maybe Tom could tell him what the war was about.

PIERCE KNEW FBOM TOM’S letters that what he would see was a decent house on a quiet street in Philadelphia. He hired a hansom cab at the disordered railroad station and arrived at Tom’s house in the middle of the afternoon. The heat of the day had been ended by a sharp swift thunderstorm, which had beaten against the windows of the train. Now the sycamore trees that lined both sides of the street were wet and the air was clean. The cab drew up in front of a whitewashed stone house. He compared the number on the door with that of the figures set at the top of Tom’s last letter, got out and paid the driver. For a moment he had a strange feeling of isolation as the cab drove away. Then he crossed the street and knocked on the oak door. White marble steps shone beneath his feet and the knocker was polished brass. Bettina had always been a good worker.

Bettina herself opened the door. At the sight of him she stood rigid for a moment. Then a deep flush spread over her face. She controlled her surprise.

“Come in,” she said quietly. “We are glad to see you.”

He stepped into the hall. “Tom home?” he asked.

She made no move to take his hat and stick and he put them on a settee. “I expect him in a very few minutes,” she replied.

She avoided the use of his name. He noticed it and did not care. Had Lucinda been with him, he would have been uncomfortable at such namelessness, but Lucinda could not possibly have been with him.

“Come into the parlor, please,” Bettina said. She opened the door into a cool dim room.

He hesitated. “Now, Bettina, you know I don’t care much for parlors.” He gave her his frank smile. “Why don’t you take me into Tom’s study? I’d relish a good cold drink, too.”

Bettina dimpled suddenly. The dimples which became Georgia’s soft oval cheeks were odd in her handsome and angular face. “How good you are!” she exclaimed under her breath.

“Nonsense,” he said, but he was set at ease by his own goodness. He followed her into a large room whose three windows, placed side by side, faced upon a garden. It looked comfortable to him. He sank down in Tom’s big leather chair and gave a great sigh. “Bettina, I’m so tired — so damned tired and confused — I’ve got to rest.”

“Then rest here,” she replied. She stood before him and they looked at each other.

He smiled suddenly. “I know why you look different — you haven’t got an apron on.”

“Tom won’t let me wear aprons any more,” she told him.

“Sally staying at the hotel?” he asked abruptly.

“Yes,” Bettina said. Then after a second, she added, “This is a colored street.”

“It is? Looks mighty nice!”

“Nice people live here.”

“Where’s Georgia?”

“She’s with Miss Sally. They and Tom went to the museum with the school children. But she has a room here.”

“Tom doesn’t have school in summer, surely,” he said.

“No — but he does have some work going on in the building for the neighborhood children. The summer’s long and they get into mischief.”

“Where are yours?”

“Leslie has a summer job in the store down the street. Georgy went with Georgia, The other two are out there—” She lifted her eyes to the garden and he saw a girl playing with a little boy. The girl’s hair was softly curled down her back and it was a copper color. The sun shone on it. The little boy was very dark.

“That’s Lettice, she was the baby when we left — and we have small Tom — that’s all.”

“Why don’t you sit down?” Pierce asked.

“Because I am going to fetch you a cool drink,” Bettina replied. She went away and he sat on, motionless. Their talk had been nothing but commonplace and yet that was extraordinary. He had talked to her as casually as though she were his real sister-in-law — as casually but not as intimately. He felt dazed and shaken. The world was completely upset. Here was where his own brother lived! But the house was a home. The garden was pretty and well kept and the walls were lined with flower beds. This room was clean and pleasant — a man’s room, full of books. Through the open windows a scent drifted in which he could not recognize. He lay back in Tom’s chair and closed his eyes and smelled the scent, a clean spiced odor. No one knew where he was. He could rest here. Tom’s world — not his world — but so quiet and clean—

He must have dropped asleep. When he came back to himself Bettina was standing there again, looking at him with pitying soft eyes. She held a silver tray and on it a slender glass, frosted cold. She set the tray upon the table beside him.

“Indeed you are tired,” she said in her rich voice. “When you have drunk this let me take you upstairs to Tom’s room. You can stretch yourself on his bed and sleep.”

“Don’t tell Sally I’m here,” he begged. “I’m too tired.”

“I won’t tell her,” she promised.

“What’s that sweet smell?” he asked.

“White clematis,” she replied.

He drank the cool sharp drink thirstily in a few gulps and rose to his feet and followed her upstairs. Tom’s room — then he did not share a room with Bettina. Yes, he could recognize Tom’s room. It was a big room, with little furniture but that little solid and good. The windows were open, but the shutters were drawn, and the late afternoon breeze fluttered the white curtains. Bettina drew back the covers of the bed and he saw smooth white linen sheets. He wanted to sleep and sleep.

“Tom has a bathroom right there,” she pointed to a door. “He has rigged himself up a shower bath, he calls it. It’s really wonderful. It will refresh you. Sleep and don’t wake until you wake yourself. No one will call you.”

She went away, and he stood looking about the dim, cool room. It had every small comfort that could be devised. Cold water stood in a pitcher by Tom’s bed, books on the table, a bed lamp, a fire place for winter, a soft woven rag rug under his feet, a handwoven coverlet on the bed of delft blue and white. Bettina’s work everywhere! He opened the door of the bathroom, and saw Tom’s shower bath. He had heard of such things but had never seen one. He undressed, stood under something that looked like a flower sprinkler, pulled a chain and felt a rain of cool water descend upon him from a hidden tank above his head. He wiped himself dry with a handwoven towel, and opened drawers in Tom’s bureaus until he found a nightshirt. Everything was in order, the clothes smelled clean and fresh with green lavender. He dropped upon the bed and was instantly asleep.