My Sister's Hand in Mine (6 page)

Miss Goering shrugged her shoulders and went inside the house.

She stood for a while in the parlor rearranging some flowers in a bowl and she was just about to go to her room and sleep when Arnold appeared.

“Hello,” said Arnold, “I meant to come and see you earlier, but I couldn't quite make it. We had one of those long family lunches. I think flowers look beautiful in this room.”

“How is your father?” Miss Goering asked him.

“Oh,” said Arnold, “he's all right, I guess. We have very little to do with each other.” Miss Goering noticed that he was sweating again. He had evidently been terribly excited about arriving at her house, because he had forgotten to remove his straw hat.

“This is a really beautiful house,” he told her. “It has a quality of past splendor about it that thrills me. You must hate to leave it ever. Well, Father seemed to be quite taken with you. Don't let him get too cocky. He thinks the girls are crazy about him.”

“I'm devoted to him,” said Miss Goering.

“Well, I hope that the fact that you're devoted to him,” said Arnold, “won't interfere with our friendship, because I have decided to see quite a bit of you, providing of course that it is agreeable to you that I do.”

“Of course,” said Miss Goering, “whenever you like.”

“I think that I shall like being here in your home, and you needn't feel that it's a strain. I'm quite happy to sit alone and think, because as you know I'm very anxious to establish myself in some other way than I am now established, which is not satisfactory to me. As you can well imagine, it is even impossible for me to give a dinner party for a few friends because neither Father nor Mother ever stirs from the house unless I do.”

Arnold seated himself in a chair by a big bay window and stretched his legs out.

“Come here!” he said to Miss Goering, “and watch the wind rippling through the tops of the trees. There is nothing more lovely in the world.” He looked up at her very seriously for a little while.

“Do you have some milk and some bread and marmalade?” he asked her. “I hope there is to be no ceremony between us.”

Miss Goering was surprised that Arnold should ask for something to eat so shortly after his luncheon, and she decided that this was undoubtedly the reason why he was so fat.

“Certainly we have,” she said sweetly, and she went away to give the servant the order.

Meanwhile Miss Gamelon had decided to come inside and if possible pursue Miss Goering with her argument. When Arnold saw her he realized that she was the companion about whom Miss Goering had spoken the night before.

He rose to his feet immediately, having decided that it was very important for him to make friends with Miss Gamelon.

Miss Gamelon herself was very pleased to see him, as they seldom had company and she enjoyed talking to almost anyone better than to Miss Goering.

They introduced themselves and Arnold pulled up a chair for Miss Gamelon near his own.

“You are Miss Goering's companion,” he said to Miss Gamelon. “I think that's lovely.”

“Do you think it's lovely?” asked Miss Gamelon. “That's very interesting indeed.”

Arnold smiled happily at this remark of Miss Gamelon's and sat on without saying anything for a little while.

“This house is done in exquisite taste,” he said finally, “and it is filled with rest and peace.”

“It all depends on how you look at it,” said Miss Gamelon quickly, jerking her head around and looking out of the window.

“There are certain people,” she said, “who turn peace from the door as though it were a red dragon breathing fire out of its nostrils and there are certain people who won't leave God alone either.”

Arnold leaned forward trying to appear deferential and interested at the same time.

“I think,” he said gravely, “I think I understand what you mean to say.”

Then they both looked out of the window at the same time and they saw Miss Goering in the distance wearing a cape over her shoulders and talking to a young man whom they were scarcely able to distinguish because he was directly against the sun.

“That's the agent,” said Miss Gamelon. “I suppose there is nothing to look forward to from now on.”

“What agent?” asked Arnold.

“The agent through whom she's going to sell her house,” said Miss Gamelon. “Isn't it all too dreadful for words?”

“Oh, I'm sorry,” said Arnold. “I think it's very foolish of her, but I suppose it's not my affair.”

“We're going to live,” added Miss Gamelon, “in a four-room frame house and do our own cooking. It's to be in the country surrounded by woods.”

“That does sound gloomy, doesn't it?” said Arnold. “But why should Miss Goering have decided to do such a thing?”

“She says it is only a beginning in a tremendous scheme.”

Arnold seemed to be very sad. He no longer spoke to Miss Gamelon but merely pursed his lips and looked at the ceiling.

“I suppose the most important thing in the world,” he said at length, “is friendship and understanding.” He looked at Miss Gamelon questioningly. He seemed to have given up something.

“Well, Miss Gamelon,” he said again, “do you not agree with me that friendship and understanding are the most important things in the world?”

“Yes,” said Miss Gamelon, “and keeping your head is, too.”

Soon Miss Goering came in with a batch of papers under her arm.

“These,” she said, “are the contracts. My, they are lengthy, but I think the agent is a sweet man. He said he thought this house was lovely.” She held out the contracts first to Arnold and then to Miss Gamelon.

“I should think,” said Miss Gamelon, “that you would be afraid to look in the mirror for fear of seeing something too wild and peculiar. I don't want to have to look at these contracts. Please take them off my lap right away. Jesus God Almighty!”

Miss Goering, as a matter of fact, did look a little wild, and Miss Gamelon with a wary eye had noticed immediately that the hand in which she held the contracts was trembling.

“Where is your little house, Miss Goering?” Arnold asked her, trying to introduce a more natural note into the conversation.

“It's on an island,” said Miss Goering, “not far from the city by ferryboat. I remember having visited this island as a child and always having disliked it because one can smell the glue factories from the mainland even when walking through the woods or across the fields. One end of the island is very well populated, although you can only buy third-rate goods in any of the stores. Farther out the island is wilder and more old-fashioned; nevertheless there is a little train that meets the ferry frequently and carries you out to the other end. There you land in a little town that is quite lost and looks very tough, and you feel a bit frightened, I think, to find that the mainland opposite the point is as squalid as the island itself and offers you no protection at all.”

“You seem to have looked the situation over very carefully and from every angle,” said Miss Gamelon. “My compliments to you!” She waved at Miss Goering from her seat, but one could easily see that she was not feeling frivolous in the least.

Arnold shifted about uneasily in his chair. He coughed and then he spoke very gently to Miss Goering.

“I am sure that the island has certain advantages too, which you know about, but perhaps you prefer to surprise us with them rather than disappoint us.”

“I know of none at the moment,” said Miss Goering. “Why, are you coming with us?”

“I think that I would like to spend quite a bit of time with you out there; that is, if you will invite me.”

Arnold was sad and uneasy, but he felt that he must at any cost remain close to Miss Goering in whatever world she chose to move.

“If you will invite me,” he said again, “I will be glad to come out with you for a little while anyway and we will see how it goes. I could continue to keep up my end of the apartment that I share with my parents without having to spend all my time there. But I don't advise you to sell your beautiful house; rather rent it or board it up while you are away. Certainly you might have a change of heart and want to return to it.”

Miss Gamelon flushed with pleasure.

“That would be too human a thing for her to consider doing,” she said, but she looked a little more hopeful.

Miss Goering seemed to be dreaming and not listening to what either of them was saying.

“Well,” said Miss Gamelon, “aren't you going to answer him? He said: why not board your house up or rent it and then if you have a change of heart you can return to it.”

“Oh, no,” said Miss Goering. “Thank you very much, but I couldn't do that. It wouldn't make much sense to do that.”

Arnold coughed to hide his embarrassment at having suggested something so obviously displeasing to Miss Goering.

“I mustn't,” he said to himself, “I mustn't align myself too much on the side of Miss Gamelon, or Miss Goering will begin to think that my mind is of the same caliber.”

“Perhaps it is better after all,” he said aloud, “to sell everything.”

2

Mr. and Mrs. Copperfield stood on the foredeck of the boat as it sailed into the harbor at Panama. Mrs. Copperfield was very glad to see land at last.

“You must admit now,” she said to Mr. Copperfield, “that the land is nicer than the sea.” She herself had a great fear of drowning.

“It isn't only being afraid of the sea,” she continued, “but it's boring. It's the same thing all the time. The colors are beautiful, of course.”

Mr. Copperfield was studying the shore line.

“If you stand still and look between the buildings on the docks,” he said, “you'll be able to catch a glimpse of some green trains loaded with bananas. They seem to go by every quarter of an hour.”

His wife did not answer him; instead she put on the sun-helmet which she had been carrying in her hand.

“Aren't you beginning to feel the heat already? I am,” she said to him at last. As she received no answer she moved along the rail and looked down at the water.

Presently a stout woman whose acquaintance she had made on the boat came up to talk with her. Mrs. Copperfield brightened.

“You've had your hair marcelled!” she said. The woman smiled.

“Now remember,” she said to Mrs. Copperfield, “the minute you get to your hotel, stretch yourself out and rest. Don't let them drag you through the streets, no matter what kind of a wild time they promise you. Nothing but monkeys in the streets anyway. There isn't a fine-looking person in the whole town that isn't connected with the American Army, and the Americans stick pretty much in their own quarter. The American quarter is called Cristobal. It's separated from Colon. Colon is full of nothing but half-breeds and monkeys. Cristobal is nice. Everyone in Cristobal has got his own little screened-in porch. They'd never dream of screening themselves in, the monkeys in Colon. They don't know when a mosquito's biting them anyway, and even if they did know they wouldn't lift their arm up to shoo him off. Eat plenty of fruit and be careful of the stores. Most of them are owned by Hindus. They're just like Jews, you know. They'll gyp you right and left.”

“I'm not interested in buying anything,” said Mrs. Copperfield, “but may I come and visit you while I'm in Colon?”

“I love you, dear,” answered the woman, “but I like to spend every minute with my boy while I'm here.”

“That's all right,” said Mrs. Copperfield.

“Of course it's all right. You've got that beautiful husband of yours.”

“That doesn't help,” said Mrs. Copperfield, but no sooner had she said this than she was horrified at herself.

“Well now, you've had a tussle?” said the woman.

“No.”

“Then I think you're a terrible little woman talking that way about your husband,” she said, walking away. Mrs. Copperfield hung her head and went back to stand beside Mr. Copperfield.

“Why do you speak to such dopes?” he asked.

She did not answer.

“Well,” he said, “for Heaven's sake, look at the scenery now, will you?”

They got into a taxicab and Mr. Copperfield insisted on going to a hotel right in the center of town. Normally all tourists with even a small amount of money stayed at the Hotel Washington, overlooking the sea, a few miles out of Colon.

“I don't believe,” Mr. Copperfield said to his wife, “I don't believe in spending money on a luxury that can only be mine for a week at the most. I think it's more fun to buy objects which will last me perhaps a lifetime. We can certainly find a hotel in the town that will be comfortable. Then we will be free to spend our money on more exciting things.”

“The room in which I sleep is so important to me,” Mrs. Copperfield said. She was nearly moaning.

“My dear, a room is really only a place in which to sleep and dress. If it is quiet and the bed is comfortable, nothing more is necessary. Don't you agree with me?”

“You know very well I don't agree with you.”

“If you are going to be miserable, we'll go to the Hotel Washington,” said Mr. Copperfield. Suddenly he lost his dignity. His eyes clouded over and he pouted. “But I'll be wretched there, I can assure you. It's going to be so God-damned dull.” He was like a baby and Mrs. Copperfield was obliged to comfort him. He had a trick way of making her feel responsible.

“After all, it's mostly my money,” she said to herself. “I'm footing the bulk of the expenditures for this trip.” Nevertheless, she was unable to gain a sense of power by reminding herself of this. She was completely dominated by Mr. Copperfield, as she was by almost anyone with whom she came in contact. Still, certain people who knew her well affirmed that she was capable of suddenly making a very radical and independent move without a soul to back her up.