The Collected Stories of William Humphrey (14 page)

She asked them to wait one moment. She lifted the wall map that hung in front of a bookcase. She fitted her glasses and peered into the dark shelves until she found the book she wanted and brought it out, blowing dust oft it.

“Here,” she said to Thomas, “something to keep you busy for a while.” For Miss Carpenter barely tolerated summer, a season of laziness good only for making children forget all that she had taught them the year before.

Walking down the quiet halls Thomas thought how neither his father nor his mother had ever got as far in school as he was now. He could understand Harriet's pride in him. But he wished she wouldn't show it so plainly. It was not modest and it was not refined. He hoped she was not going to make too much over this in front of other people. Whenever she did that it made him embarrassed for her and angry, afraid that people thought he enjoyed being shown off. For her to make so much over it seemed to reveal that she herself had never had much schooling.

One minute Harriet was glad that no one else knew about this, so she could have all the pleasure of telling it, and the next minute it seemed impossible that the news was not already all over town.

As they reached the steps she threw back her head and laughed. “Just wait till I tell Jessie!” she cried. “Can't you just see the look on her face!”

To Thomas this sounded exactly like the sort of thing Aunt Jessie herself might have said, and a tremor of shame ran through him.

Harriet thought of the letter she would write her family. She could see her mother and father and Ben and all the rest of them sitting, reading it aloud, growing madder by the minute, until one of them said, “Well, you know Harriet. She would say anything in the world just to be different from the rest of us.”

“I guess you're mighty proud of yourself, aren't you?” she said, feeling actually that he did not seem nearly as proud as he ought. “Why, when I was a little girl,” she said, and her voice began trailing, growing far away and sad, as it did whenever she spoke of her childhood.

They passed the lonely seesaws and the swings hanging deadened and stiff. Down at the far corner of the playground, leaning against a slide, the Hazeltines sat waiting for somebody to come get them, chewing on their peanut butter sandwiches, watching the cars go by.

“Why, when I was a little girl,” she said, “if I'd got double-promoted, why, I'd have been so proud of myself nobody could have come near me.”

The Fauve

M
R
.
EMMONS
the butcher no longer smiled or shook his head in sympathy, and certainly he never brought down his price on anything when Rachel Ruggles said, “Oh, dear …”

It embarrassed Rachel to have to sigh over the prices of things. She dreamed of a time when she would be able simply to pay what was asked for things. But each time she went shopping she found prices a little higher.

Mr. Emmons shifted from foot to foot while Rachel stood looking at the meats in the counter. It took her a long while, not to choose, but to resign herself to another week of lung stew.

While Mr. Emmons wrapped her order Rachel allowed herself to gaze at the lamb chops. James craved lamb chops. So, although lamb chops had been beyond their means for years, Rachel felt sad each time the price of them went up. And the more expensive they became the more she admired James for his expensive tastes.

From Emmons' Market Rachel went down the street to the Universal Union store.

For years Rachel had wished for a supermarket in Redmond. When the baker first quit giving baker's dozens, when the butcher began charging for marrow bones, she sighed, “If only there were a supermarket in town.” Finally a Universal Union was built. Rachel had been astonished to find that the prices there were still more than she could afford.

But hope was always strong in Rachel. Before each shopping trip she convinced herself that this time she would find prices within her budget. Then she would come upon soup which had been nine cents a can last week and now was eleven. Other women begged her pardon, reached around her and took two, three, four cans of soup while she hesitated. Sometimes she felt she was the only woman in the world who had to watch her pennies.

Today, however, at the Universal Union Rachel found day-old bread at half-price, a one-cent sale on soap, and a special on sugar—so many bargains that she decided to buy some little treat for James. He loved artichokes. She picked out two. As the clerk was putting them into a bag she said:

“Oh, wait. That one is bruised.”

The clerk said, “I'll get you another instead.”

“I suppose part of it is all right,” she hinted. “If I just took off the top leaves.”

The clerk said nothing. He stood waiting. She was about to suggest he let her have it for half-price. Suddenly she imagined James watching her. She said hurriedly, “Never mind. Just give me the good one.”

The clerk shrugged his shoulders. Rachel took the bag, wondering what she was going to do with one artichoke. The clerk picked up the bad one, looked at it, then, as Rachel was turning away, tossed it into the wastebasket.

Rachel almost gasped. A perfectly good artichoke! Her next thought was of James. What if he knew she had haggled over something for him which a clerk considered fit for the trash!

Standing there, Rachel could not help thinking that if she asked him, the clerk would probably give her that artichoke. James need never know. It was selfish of her to rob him of such pleasure merely to spare herself a little embarrassment.

Rachel shook her head to get such thoughts out of her mind, and wheeled away her carriage to put herself out of range of temptation. She shuddered to think of serving James that artichoke, and him finding out. And she was convinced that with his fine taste he would know. She was even afraid he would be able to tell that she had had these thoughts.

But Rachel could not worry or remain unhappy for long. She walked down the street enjoying the air and the early sunlight, and even seeing onions cheaper than she had just paid could not put her out of humor.

Many of the shops were just opening. The blinds went up in the bakery and the door was opened to let the smell of fresh bread settle heavily on the street. Mrs. Burton, her hair in curlers, leaned out of the window of her apartment over the variety store and shook the breakfast crumbs out of a red-checked tablecloth. On the sidewalk in front of the hardware store the clerk was setting out spades and turning forks and flats of pale tomato plants. The sun moved from behind the spire of the church and lighted the new glass onyx front of the drugstore, and the china, the milk glass, and the brassware in the window of the antique shop.

Suddenly from around a corner rolled a truck loaded with men in overalls. It pulled up in front of the old Redmond Inn. The men piled out and began unloading tool kits, while a fat man from the cab of the truck stood surveying the building with his hands on his hips. The men rummaged in their kits and came up with hammers, chisels and wrecking bars.

A young man shinnied up a porch pole to the weather-beaten sign of the Inn, and motioning those below aside, raised his hammer. But the sound of a blow was heard while his hammer was still poised. The men turned to look up the street. The crew hired to demolish the old Putnam Tavern had beaten them to the job this morning.

Soon, thought Rachel, all the old landmarks would be known only in pictures. In the early days there had been so many things in Redmond to paint. That was why it had been chosen as a colony. One of the most popular subjects was the Inn. James was perhaps the only painter in town who had never done a picture of it. Among the artists the saying was, you can alway sell a picture of the Inn. Rachel herself had painted it many times. It was ironical that all those pictures of the Inn and the Tavern and the old mill had brought so much money to Redmond that now it had no room for old unprofitable buildings and was tearing them down two or three at a time to make way for movie houses and tea rooms and ski-supply stores. It was becoming hard for Rachel to remember Redmond as it looked when she first came. And according to James a great deal of the charm was gone already when she got there.

“Good morning, Rachel.”

“Oh, good morning, John.”

“Fine morning.”

“It certainly is. How are Mary and the children?”

“Fine, thanks. Just fine.”

Rachel had not gone five steps when she recalled that she was not supposed to be friendly with John Daniels. What a nerve he had, saying Mary was fine! What could one trust? Rachel asked herself. John Daniels was known as a great family man—and all those years he had been beating his wife every Saturday night! Oh, it seemed that every day one discovered fresh wickedness in the world. And what she knew was only a fraction, even, of what went on in Redmond, for James protected her from the knowledge of so much more. It was for her peace of mind that he never told her about John Daniels until last week, though he had known it for years. James was so considerate. I, too, Rachel told herself, might have got a man who beat me. The more she lived and the more she saw of the world, the more sure she was that hers was the best man alive.

“Rachel, you're looking mighty cheerful this morning.” It was Martha Phillips.

“Martha!” cried Rachel. “Just the person I was hoping to see. I've been dying to tell you what happened with James and me the other day.”

“Don't tell me you've left him,” said Martha.

“Martha!” said Rachel. “Now what I wanted to tell you was about a little misunderstanding we had the day before yesterday. It was in the morning. Then …”

“You're welcome to come to my place, Rachel. I've got an extra …”

“Wait, let me finish. It was nothing important, you understand.”

“Well,” said Martha, “just remember, if he ever …”

“Let me finish, Martha. Listen. I don't even remember what we disagreed over. The important thing is what happened in the afternoon. James said he knew he had been short-tempered with me lately, and asked me to forgive him. ‘Don't say I haven't,' he said, ‘because I know I have.' And he said that now at last he could tell me the reason.”

Rachel paused to get her breath, then emphasizing each word, “He said that for the last six months he had been tormented with the fear that he loved another woman!”

“What!” cried Martha. “Who?”

“Wait, wait. Then he said, ‘Well, I know better now. I thought I was in love with Jane Borden,' he said, ‘but now I realize it was only her money I was in love with.'”

“Ah-hah,” said Martha. “And now that all of a sudden she hasn't got any any more he knows it wasn't love.”

“Oh, Martha, imagine him living in that torment all that time! Not knowing how he felt, doubting himself at every turn, not wanting to hurt me.” Rachel's eyes moistened, she was silent for a moment, then she sighed, “And when I think how it is with some couples.”

“You have,” asked Martha, “some particular couple in mind?”

“Martha, would you ever think to look at him that every Saturday night for the last ten years John Daniels has beaten Mary!”

“What! John Daniels! Oh, Lord! Who ever told you that one?” cried Martha. “Why, if anything, Mary beats him!”

Rachel was confused. She changed the subject. She said, “Martha, I've got a little laugh on James. I didn't tell him, you understand, but I hadn't noticed he was being short-tempered with me lately. Had you, Martha?”

“Oh, Rachel, Rachel,” Martha laughed, and went off down the street shaking her head.

Rachel liked to spread her shopping over all the stores in town. It made her feel she was buying more. She spent ten cents here, twenty-five there, and thought that in so doing she kept a good name with each merchant. It was eleven o'clock by the time she finished. She started home.

Rounding the curve in Main Street she was delighted to see James strolling into town. His migraine must have passed. She set down her packages and waved to him. He came on at the same pace. He sparkled in the sunshine, with his pink cheeks and his orange curls. “James Finley Ruggles,” said Rachel to herself.

He was a big man with a slow stride. He wore red mustaches trained into a cheerful twirl. His tweed jacket was ancient; fuzzy and gray, it seemed to have sprouted a mold. The sleeves came down no further because they had grown frayed and been turned back more than once. His trousers had once been some other color, now they were more pale pink than anything else. Too short, they revealed Argyle socks of red and yellow.

Gathering up her packages, Rachel hastened to meet him.

“James,” she called, “I got an artichoke,” and fumbling in the bag as she walked, she found it and brought it out and bore it before her. “See?”

“I never knew you liked them,” said James.

She came to a stop. “It's for you.”

“
All
of it?”

Rachel looked at it. It seemed to shrink.

“With lung stew?” said James, clearing his throat.

She had not thought of that. She looked again at the artichoke. Then she found James smiling tolerantly at her, as though having asked himself how she could be expected to know any better.

She did not say how glad she was to see him up. James never liked to have it observed that he had got over an illness. Rachel was pleased with herself for having discovered this little quirk of his. She had a little hoard of such insights. She admired him for being complicated.

James said there was a meeting of the Artists' Association, and set off. Rachel hitched up her packages and followed, taking two steps to his one.

Rachel thought that when they walked together they made quite a handsome pair. She thought she set James off well. She was dark as he was fair. Her eyes, set in slanted lids, were as intensely black as his were blue. Her hair, glossy black and straight, parted in the middle and gathered into a heavy bun, was the perfect complement to his mass of orange ringlets. It was with an eye to James's clothes that she had made her low-cut flowing peasant blouse with its rich embroidery, and her long skirt of thick blue flannel.