Pearl Buck - Angry Wife

Some time in the night he awoke. The chime of a clock in the house was still ringing in his ears. He could not tell the hour because he did not know how many times it had struck before he woke. But the moonlight was lying across the floor in stripes of gold. He sat up and listened. The house was still. Everyone was asleep. No, he heard voices, muted, floating upward from under his window, Tom’s voice, then Bettina’s. He got up and put on his shirt and trousers and opened his door. A hanging oil lamp lit the stairs and he went down, guided by the voices, to the end of the downstairs hall. He opened a door and there on a narrow brick terrace facing the garden, he saw Tom.

He was shocked to see the moonlight silver upon Tom’s head. Tom greyhaired already, ahead of him!

“Tom!” he called softly, and Tom turned his head. His face was the same, thinner, but kind and severe together.

“Pierce!”

The two men ran into each other’s arms without shame.

“How good of you to come!” Tom murmured.

“Nonsense!” Pierce said. He looked at. Tom with wet eyes. “I don’t know why I didn’t come before.”

“Sit down, Pierce. He’s hungry, Bettina,” Tom declared.

“Maybe I am,” Pierce admitted.

“I have your supper waiting,” Bettina said.

They went into the house, into the dining room, and at the table two places were laid.

“You two sit down, please,” Bettina said. “Tom, you have a bite, too?”

“Only a little of your cold chicken broth, my dear,” Tom said.

Bettina went away, and the two brothers looked at each other by the light of the candles Bettina had placed on the table.

“I want to ask you a thousand things,” Pierce said abruptly.

“I want to answer them all,” Tom said steadily.

“I don’t know how long I can stay,” Pierce went on. “The railroad is in a mess.”

“But now you will come back again and again,” Tom replied.

Pierce smiled and Bettina came in with food. It was delicious food and he was ravenous. While they ate Bettina came and went silently. He did not know where to begin with Tom. He wanted to tell him everything at once and he wanted to hear everything at once, and yet he did not know where to begin. And Tom sat in his easy quiet, without haste, in a relaxed peace. When Bettina had brought the iced lemon custard he looked up at her.

“Sit down now, Bettina,” he said.

She sat down naturally at the end of the table, and Pierce could not but see her beauty. She had kept her slender figure. Tonight she wore a gown of soft green stuff — muslin, perhaps, or silk — he did not know stuffs. But it was not rustling or stiff. White lace lay on her shoulders and in a knot on her bosom. Her dark hair sparkled with a few threads of silver, and she had put a white jasmine in the big coil at her nape. The old fire and anger of her youth had gone from her dark eyes. They were full of peace, tinged with sadness. Bettina, Tom’s wife — if ever he saw a woman who looked a wife it was she. He was surprised at his acceptance of her.

“We had a very interesting afternoon,” Tom was saying, half lightly. “Sally’s mind is keen. She wants to see everything — know everything. That’s remarkable, Pierce.”

“Has she been here?” Pierce asked.

“Every day,” Tom said.,

They hesitated. Then Pierce asked bluntly, “How does she take it, Tom?”

“Without a sign,” Tom answered. He drank his tumbler of water and Bettina filled it again. “I’ve wanted to ask you something,” Tom went on.

Pierce had finished his custard. “Why not?” he replied. He was beginning to feel wonderfully comfortable, rested and fed.

“Your son John writes to me, Pierce,” Tom went on. “He wants to come and visit us. I said he had to ask you. He says that you wouldn’t understand.”

Pierce grinned. “I don’t know why children always think their parents are nitwits.”

“He’s afraid of his mother,” Tom said.

“Then he is the nitwit,” Pierce said robustly. “Of course, Lucinda would object. But what of it?”

“Then shall I tell him—”

“You tell him to give me a chance,” Pierce said, pushing back his chair.

They went back to the moonlit terrace. Bettina poured their coffee and then rose. “I think I shall retire, Tom, if you don’t mind.” She put out her hand and he took it and kissed it. He looked at her searchingly. “Only if you’re tired,” he said. “I’d rather you stayed with us.”

“There’s tomorrow,” she said gently and went away.

In the silent garden, the moonlight outlining, the shrubs in shadows and silvering the flowers, the two men sat on, smoking. The silence continued. But it was not heavy upon them now nor uneasy. It was peace, deep peace.

“This seems another world,” Pierce said abruptly.

“It’s our world,” Tom said. “Mine, Bettina’s, our children’s.”

“Are you lonely, Tom?”

“No, Pierce. I have everything.”

“If Bettina should die—”

“I would live on here.”

Pierce stirred in his chair. “But, Tom,” he protested. “It’s damned selfish, isn’t it? You ought to be helping to clear up the mess we’ve got ourselves into — these strikes — the communism — the whole country’s threatened.”

“No,” Tom said gently. “I don’t have to help in those things. They’re all parts of the struggle. I’ve made my struggle — so has Bettina. We’ve won through.”

“To what?” Pierce asked.

“To our own peace,” Tom answered in tranquillity.

The dreamlike calm of his spirit persisted. He woke the next morning and Tom’s room was familiar to him and yet strange, as though he had waked in his own room but in a strange house. He lay on the pillows, not caring what the hour. The house was full of small pleasant sounds. Children’s voices came up from the garden and he heard quiet footsteps pass his door. Then a clear but muted voice rose through the silence. He listened and heard not a hymn nor a spiritual but an old English lullaby which his own mother used to sing to him and to Tom. It must be one of Tom’s children and it must be Georgy. He knew Georgia’s voice and it was not hers. Hers was deep and tender but this voice was high and clear, a bright rich soprano. It broke off suddenly as though someone had hushed it and he knew it had been stopped for him. He got up, lazily conscience-smitten, and curious, too, to see Tom’s children.

When he went downstairs Tom heard his footsteps and came to the door of the study. By the light of the morning Tom looked calm and poised, his fair skin ruddy and his blue eyes clear. He was as slender as ever, his shoulders as straight. The youngest child whom Pierce had seen only in the garden came toddling through a door and Tom picked him up and held him. He saw the love in Tom’s eyes and felt his own heart shaken.

“This fellow I haven’t seen,” he said, trying to speak lightly. He took the child’s fat brown hand.

“Small Tom, this is your uncle,” Tom said. The boy did not speak, but he gazed at Pierce with large eyes full of serene interest.

“Can’t you say good morning?” Tom inquired of his son.

Small Tom shook his head and the men laughed to ease their emotion.

“Come and have your breakfast,” Tom said. He put the child down and they walked together to the dining room. Georgy was there, arranging a silver bowl of roses. She looked up gravely. Pierce realized that yesterday the children had been kept from him, but today he would see them as they were in this house.

“My daughter,” Tom said formally. “Georgy, this is your uncle.”

Georgy put out a narrow smooth hand, and Pierce, somewhat to his own astonishment, took it.

“How do you do,” he said.