Leave Her to Heaven (21 page)

Mrs. Berent's health that winter rapidly failed, but in mid-March she came with Ruth one day to see Ellen. To climb the half flight of steps which led from the street up to the front door made her breath come pantingly, and when they were admitted she was still trembling. Ellen saw her exhaustion and protested:

‘You ought to be in bed, Mother; not paying calls.'

‘You hadn't been near me for six weeks,' Mrs. Berent retorted. ‘People were beginning to wonder why. If you wouldn't come to me, I decided to come to you!'

‘I don't go anywhere,' Ellen assured her. 'I don't care to see anyone.'

She waited, hoping they would accept this rebuff and depart; but Mrs. Berent sat down — without invitation — and she asked sharply: ‘Why not? What is it you're ashamed of? Are you afraid to face people?'

Before Ellen could speak, Ruth said with a quick, appeasing smile: ‘Now, Mother! Anyone would think you'd come to quarrel!' And she told Ellen: ‘It was such a pleasant day, the
first day that's really felt like spring, I thought it would do Mother good to get a little fresh air.'

‘The air in this old house is always stale,' Ellen commented. ‘No matter how many windows you open.' She walked restlessly across the room, feeling that they had come to spy upon her and wishing to drive them away; but to do so might excite her mother's shrewd curiosity, so she put a curb on her tongue, forcing herself to play a welcoming part. ‘But I'm glad to see you,' she said.

‘We might all go for a drive,' Ruth suggested. The big car was waiting at the door.

Ellen shook her head. ‘I don't go out.' She spoke to Mrs. Berent. ‘I remember your saying, Mother, that in your time, when ladies were going to have babies, they never went out of doors in daylight.'

‘You show it surprisingly little.' Mrs. Berent examined her with an appraising eye. ‘Considering that you've only two months to go.'

Ellen felt a quick constriction at her heart, for this was almost like an accusation. She tried to speak easily. ‘Doctor Patron says I'm built for it.'

Mrs. Berent cleared her throat with a mumbling sound, and Ruth said gently: ‘You're more beautiful than you ever were, Ellen, it seems to me.'

‘Don't be idiotic! I've still a mirror, you know.'

‘I think there's always a special beauty in a woman who's going to have a baby.'

Ellen laughed shortly. ‘You sound like Richard. I had to have one, to keep him in love with me.'

Mrs. Berent tossed her head. ‘Richard's a fine young man, Ellen! You were lucky to get him.'

‘You tried hard enough to prevent it!'

‘For his sake, not for yours.' The old woman's tone was harsh. ‘You're not good enough for him!'

Ruth spoke quickly: ‘Hush, Mother!' She smiled. ‘You always were a barking dog. You don't fool us, you know.'

‘Richard's like a simple, decent boy,' Mrs. Berent remarked, half to herself. ‘Completely trusting and credulous.' Ellen looked at her in sharpened apprehension, but the older woman only said, half pleadingly: ‘See that you keep him so, Ellen. Don't ever mock the things he cherishes.'

‘I'd do anything for Richard,' Ellen assured her. ‘You know that!' She met her mother's shrewd eyes, but she could not support that searching glance, turned hurriedly to Ruth. ‘You mustn't let Mother get too tired,' she suggested, hoping they would go. But Mrs. Berent said:

‘Fiddlesticks! Where's Richard? I'd like to see him.'

‘At the club, I think,' Ellen told her. ‘He's never here in the afternoon.'

Ruth said: ‘He sometimes drops in on us. We're always so glad to see him. He does Mother good.'

Ellen did not speak, but Mrs. Berent said crisply: ‘And we do him good, too. You're making him pretty unhappy, Ellen, by the way you're carrying on. I've given him some good advice, but he doesn't take it!'

Ellen's voice hardened and her cheeks were hot. ‘I can just hear you all talking me over, over your teacups, like three old gossips!'

‘It isn't that, Ellen,' Ruth assured her. ‘Dick's just a bewildered young father-to-be, you know.' Her tone was affectionate. ‘Imagining all sorts of dreadful things. And he can't talk about them to you.'

‘Why not?' Ellen's eyes were icy. ‘Why can he say things to you he can't to me? Whose husband is he, mine, or yours and Mother's?' Abruptly her simmering rage at them and at the world overflowed, ‘Of course I know you were always in love with him yourself!'

Mrs. Berent came furiously to her feet. ‘You ought to be smacked!' she exclaimed. ‘You insufferable little...'

But Ruth hushed her, and she said to Ellen gravely: ‘You're right, Ellen, but not in the way you think. Mother and I are both fond of Dick. We love him dearly. And Ellen — we all — all three of us — love you!'

Ellen bit her lip. ‘I'm sorry,' she said. ‘I'm — I don't know what I'm saying, half the time.'

Mrs. Berent adjusted her fur piece, turning toward the door. ‘Come along, Ruth, she said indignantly. ‘Good-bye, Ellen!'

‘Wait,' Ellen urged. ‘I'll give you a cup of tea.'

‘Thanks, I can get tea at home!'

Ellen looked appealingly at Ruth. ‘Make her stay,' she begged. A moment ago she had wished to be rid of them, but now she was suddenly afraid of being alone. ‘I didn't mean it, Ruth. Make her stay. Richard will be here soon.'

So at Ruth's intercession Mrs. Berent was persuaded to sit down again, and tea came, and they talked polite commonplaces for a while; but Ellen was appraising Ruth with a thoughtful eye, remembering something half seen in the other's face a moment ago. When Harland presently appeared she watched Ruth greet him, and she caught her lip between her teeth, her fingers digging at her palms. She had flung the bitter taunt blindly, seeking only to hurt at any cost. ‘You were always in love with him . . .' She had spoken without thought, but her own words produced the thought. Perhaps they were true! Perhaps Ruth had always been in love with Richard — and was in love with him today!

When they departed, he went with them to the waiting car, and Ellen from the open door above watched him hand Mrs. Berent into her place. He leaned in to kiss her wrinkled cheek, turned to grasp Ruth's hand. ‘Good-bye,' he said. ‘We're mighty glad you came. See you soon.' They drove away, and he climbed the steps to Ellen.

‘Ruth's sweet, isn't she?' she said, watching him secretly.

‘They're swell people,' he agreed, his eyes on the departing car.

‘I always seem to quarrel with Mother, but no one can quarrel with Ruth.'

He laughed. ‘Your mother has a sharp tongue, but it doesn't mean anything!'

‘Ruth's wonderful, always so good to her.' She persisted, studying him with narrowed eyes. 'Her life will be pretty empty, when Mother dies.'

‘I think Ruth will always have a rich, full life,' he said thoughtfully. ‘She's that kind of person.'

Ellen, in sudden terror at his tone, desperate to please him and make him content with her, laughed and caught his hand. ‘Come, darling,' she cried. ‘I feel like being gay this evening. Let's have a celebration.' She led him away upstairs, made merry love to him, said he must dress for dinner. ‘We'll be festive,' she insisted. ‘Just to humor me.' She put on her most becoming gown, and went downstairs on his arm, and even though she would not share it she insisted that he have a cocktail, and herself mixed it for him; and at dinner she was very gay, and afterward at her suggestion they played piquet together till because he won every game she declared she would play no more, and turned on the radio and found dance music and made him dance with her. He caught the infection of her gaiety, and she thought she won him to a deeper fondness than he had felt since Danny died. It was late, well past midnight, when they went upstairs together, and when after she was abed he came to kiss her good night, wishing to be reassured, she asked:

‘Was it fun this evening, Richard?'

‘You bet.'

‘Have you liked me?'

‘I've loved you,' he told her gently.

She brushed this assurance almost indifferently aside. ‘I know. I know you love me. But I want you to like me, too.'

He bent to kiss her again. ‘Don't you ever worry about that,' he told her heartily. ‘Good night, Ellen!' He turned away. ‘Sleep well,' he called from the door.

But she lay long awake, remembering that he had not answered her, trembling with recurrent waves of terror, feeling terribly alone.

After that day, Ellen's solitary thoughts gnawed at another bone. Richard had loved Danny, and Danny was dead; but
now Richard turned to Ruth — who called him Dick, as Danny had used to do — and who had always loved him! Thus thinking, as a flagellant courts the lash, she urged him to see as much of Ruth as possible, herself avoiding him. For weeks now she had had breakfast in bed, and she began to have her lunch from a tray in her room, refusing to join him at the table, till Harland in a rising concern insisted she must be ill and would have summoned Doctor Patron. But at her last visit to the doctor's office she had suspected some unspoken question in his eyes, as though he were puzzled by what he saw, and she was unwilling to face him; so she consented to join Harland every day at lunch. Yet she still sent him away each afternoon, and she began to urge him to go out in the evening, to his club, or wherever he chose.

‘Go see Ruth,' she suggested more than once, watching him jealously. ‘You like her, and I'm not good company for anyone, not even for you.'

Because she insisted, he sometimes left her even after dinner; and she imagined him with Ruth, and not infrequently she was proved right in this suspicion, because he brought her messages from Ruth or from her mother.

But one April evening when she asked where he had been he said that he had gone that afternoon to see Doctor Patron, and in a quick anger born of terror she demanded:

‘Why did you do that?'

‘I've been worried about you,' he evaded. ‘You're not looking well.'

She thrust her hand out of his sight below the table, clenching her fist hard, forcing herself to smile, exclaiming: ‘Darling, don't you know you must never tell a woman that? I feel half-sick already, just from hearing you say it!' She was breathless with terror.

‘As a matter of fact,' he admitted, ‘his nurse called up to ask why you hadn't been to see him. You're supposed to go every month, you know, but you haven't done it.'

She tried to speak lightly. ‘Oh, I can't be bothered! He's a
regular old Miss Nancy, always giving me pills and things.' She laughed carefully. ‘Don't worry, darling! I'm just as anxious as you are to have our baby perfect, you know.'

‘It's you I'm thinking about, not the baby.'

‘Liar!' She smiled. ‘You know that's not true!'

‘It is, Ellen,' he insisted. ‘You see — the baby's not very real to me yet; but you are! I see you every day, and you're thin, and you look so tired and dragged.'

‘I'm fine,' she insisted, but her nerves were in jangling revolt and she wanted to scream.

‘He says exercise would be good for you. We might take a walk, on nice days.'

‘There haven't been any nice days yet! Either it's freezing cold, or it's all mush underfoot!' She laughed, fighting for self-control, hating him, hating his solicitude. ‘I shall see to it that we have our next baby in the fall.'

‘Fine,' he agreed. ‘But that's the next one. This one is our job now, Ellen. You've got to take care of yourself.'

She could endure no more. ‘I'm sleepy,' she said, forcing a yawn. ‘Maybe you're right. I'll begin right now by going to bed.'

He went upstairs with her. She had elected, since the turn of the year, to have a room of her own; and at her door she kissed him, said: ‘There, Richard. Good night!'

‘Let me help you undress.'

‘For Heaven's sake!' she cried in a sharp exasperation, 'I can take care of myself!'

‘I'm worried about you.'

Her voice rose in shrill hysteria. ‘Oh, let me alone! For God's sake, let me alone!' He stared at her in hurt bewilderment, and she went into her room, and banged the door hard in his face, shutting him out, standing with her hands braced against the door as though afraid he would force his way in to her. He said at last, humbly, through the heavy panels:

‘Good night, Ellen!'

‘Good night!'

‘I'll stop on my way to bed, see you're tucked in!'

Her lips were red and bitten, but she controlled her voice. ‘All right, but don't wake me up!' she told him, and heard his reluctant footsteps move away.

She crossed to her dressing table and sat down, looking at herself in the mirror in a long appraisal. What he had said was true. The smooth roundness of her cheeks was, gone, and her sleek hair was lifeless, and her eyes were shadowed. Her own thoughts during these months had clawed at her, till there were faint lines like scars at the corners of her mouth; but she told herself now — even though she knew it was not true — that it was her baby which thus ravaged her, draining her strength, tormenting her nerves, haunting her dreams. She hated it, and she was near hating Richard too; and at the realization her head dropped in her arms and she wept long and rackingly, pitying herself because life had thus betrayed her. It was to hold him that she was bearing him this child; yet now because to do so the beauty he had loved must pay a heavy price, he was turning against her, mocking her who was become in his eyes an ugly, swollen thing. She wept, alone and loveless in the bitter, heartless world, hating him, hating her mother and Ruth, hating herself.

The baby in her stirred and she beat at it with her fists, crying through tight teeth:

‘Oh, I hate you, too, you little beast! I hate you, hate you! Oh, I wish you'd die!'

Then, as though her own words had been a revelation, she sat for a long time, staring into her glass, her thoughts a turmoil. The baby had served its turn, averting Harland's first reaction to Danny's death; but now the baby which had helped her hold him was making her lose him. Yet if she were herself again, her beauty restored, she could surely win him back to her side.

She looked intently down at her heavy body, remembering her own wish, wondering how she could make that wish come true.