The Eighth Day (48 page)

“Oh,
Maman
, I can't breathe!”

“Lots of people in town think that dancing's wicked. Nonsense! Coaltown's thirty years behind the times. I'd rent Odd Fellows Hall and have dancing classes twice a month.

“
Maman!
Nobody'd come!”

“Mrs. Ashley would be teacher. We'd leave the blinds up so that everybody could see. We'd have four Ashleys and three Lansings to start with. I'd ask Mrs. Bergstrom and Mrs. Coxe to be chaperones and their children could have the lessons free. Later we'd have lectures for young people. Miss Doubkov could talk about Russia and her travels. I'd talk about the six rules of French cooking. Lily Ashley would sing. Maybe we'd put on a play or a
Scenes from Shakespeare.
George could do his speeches from
Hamlet
and
The Merchant of Venice.
Lily recites beautifully, too. There's no need for Coaltown to be so narrow-minded and solemn and boring.”

From across the hall and beyond the dining room came Lansing's voice: “S
TACEY
! S
TACEY
!”

“Yes, dear, I'm coming.”

“What are you doing in there? Buzz, buzz, buzz; cackle, cackle, cackle.”

“I'm coming, dear. Just a minute. Now, children, I want you to go to your beds and sleep. You can tell me tomorrow what you think about our plans.”

The girls, exhausted by these visions, could scarcely reach their beds. George remained at the door, gazing at his mother with intent burning eyes.

“George, what's the matter? . . . ? Answer me! Why are you looking at me like that?”

“
He struck you!
”

“What's that you're saying? Struck me? Your father struck me? No, no, he did not.”

“H
E STRUCK YOU
!”

“George, when do you think he struck me?”

“Last night. At this time!”

“Last night? . . . ? You're always imagining things. Last night your father wasn't feeling well. He was a little cross. He was waving his arms about and he knocked the water bottle off the table.”

“S
TACEY
! S
TACEY
!”

“I'm coming, Breck.—
Mon cher petit
, you mustn't start exaggerating things, just when we need good level heads and all our patience. And, George, I want to say one other thing.” She took his hand. “It's wrong to overhear the conversation of other people. It's not grown-up and it's not honorable. I don't want you to do that any more.”

George pulled his hand away from hers and rushed out of the house by the kitchen door. Thereafter Eustacia was never certain whether the conversation in the sickroom was overheard or not. She knew that the Mohicans prided themselves on moving soundlessly through the darkest forests, over the dryest leaves.

“Stacey! What were you doing?”

“Just scolding the children, Breck. Nobody seems to be getting any sleep around here. It'd be a great help if you'd remember not to raise your voice. And try not to knock things over.”

“I heard George's voice, too.”

“Yes, I gave him a good sound lecture.”

“That didn't take a whole hour. Buzz, buzz, buzz.—I guess I know what you were talking about.”

Night after night, in all but the worst weather, she would draw her shawl about her, pass through the glass doors, walk along the gravel path, and stand for a moment in the main street.

His conversation was becoming more and more querulous. His need for attention took the form of trying to wound her.

“Life's just one big donkey's kick. Get that into your head, Miss Sims. And that includes a man's children. . . . ? You can't say I had any part in spoiling them. Filly's as stuck-up as the Queen of Sheba. George will get caught one of these days and spend the rest of his life in prison. Anne
used
to respect her father, but something's happened. . . . ? You and your Roman Catholic mumbo-jumbo! Just some ignorant truck you brought from those nigger islands of yours.”

“Go on, Breck. I like to hear you saying things like that! You know they aren't true. You're getting rid of some old poison in you. Go on! We have a saying ‘The devil spits hardest just before he has to go.' You're getting better.”

“Jack Ashley! God! He's like a puppy that hasn't got his eyes open yet. He's just a milksop. And those inventions of his! He hasn't got brains enough to invent a can opener.—W
HERE ARE YOU GOING
?”

He dreaded being alone; he dreaded silence.

“I'm just going for a stroll outdoors.”

She returned.

“What did you do?”

“Oh, nothing, Breck. Looked up at the stars. Thought.”

Silence.

“You didn't have to be an hour about it.”

Silence.

“What do you think about when you think?”

“All the years that I've been in this country I've missed the sea. It's like a faint toothache that never goes away. The sea is like the stars. The stars are like the sea. I don't have any original thoughts, Breck. I just have the thoughts that millions of people have when they look at the sea or the stars.”

He longed to ask what those thoughts were. He shivered. He wanted to bring her thoughts back from all those stars, back to him; and, as so often, he became angry. He flung his arms about and, as so often, knocked the objects off the table beside his bed. His hand bell fell to the floor with a loud clatter. She crossed to the window and looked out.

There was a large table in the sewing room. George and Félicité would play cards, but George couldn't keep his mind on the game; he didn't care whether he won or not. He insisted on the door's remaining open. From far away they could hear the talk, talk, talk in the sickroom—the former playroom on the first floor. (“Happy Debevoises, where are you now?”) When their father's voice reached them, loud in anger, or the sounds of falling objects, Félicité would put her hand on her brother's arm to restrain him. (He had “fits.” Maybe he was crazy.) But he would rush from the room, descend the walls of the house, and prowl.

Often they would sit in silence for hours.

“If he strikes
Maman
, I'll kill him.”

“Jordi!
Père
would never strike
Maman.
He's sick. Maybe he's in pain. He's cross. But he knows how necessary she is to him. He'd never strike her.”

“You don't know.”

“I do. Even if . . . ? if he went out of his senses,
Maman
would understand. She'd forgive him. Jordi, you exaggerate everything so.”

Half an hour of silence.

“If I thought
Maman
was safe, I'd go away for a while.”

“I'd miss you, but I think it'd be good if you went away for a
short
while.”

“I haven't any money.”

“I've saved sixteen dollars. I'll give it to you right now.”

“I wouldn't take it.—I tried to sell my gun today. Mr. Callihan would only give me twelve dollars.”

“Maman will give you some. I'll ask her.”

We have seen John Ashley's notion in the Southern Hemisphere of “holding up the walls” of his home. We have seen Sophia and Eustacia shoring up walls and roof tree. Year after year Félicité delayed her preparation to enter the life of the religious to do what she could for “St. Kitts.” George, perhaps, was a little bit crazy. At all events he was in great travail of mind. Félicité knew three ways of distracting him, however briefly, from his somber thoughts. She knew that she could resort to them only infrequently; they must not be staled by repetition. She could direct the conversation to Russia; she could discuss the glorious, the dazzling life careers that lay open to both of them; she could persuade him to declaim poems and enact scenes from plays. George had told only one person of his ambition to be an actor. He had told no one of his ambition to be an actor in Russia—that ambition was too secret, too inner, too preposterous, too fraught with wonder, hope, and despair. He let his sister believe that he was still bent on saving the lions, tigers, and panthers of Africa from extermination and on living among them in a circus, exhibiting their beauty and power to audiences. Félicité had never seen a play—not even
Uncle Tom's Cabin.
But Miss Doubkov, who had instructed Lily Ashley in how to conduct herself in a concert hall, had also coached Félicité and George in the formal reading of La Fontaine's
Fables.
She had opened their eyes to how difficult it is to declaim
one verse correctly.
Passing through Paris at the time of her family's flight to the new world she had heard the greatest of all
diseuses;
she had had a glimpse of simplicity—the north star and torment of great art. Now in the sewing room, one night in four, Félicité could persuade George to work on some “pieces.” They did scenes from
Athalie
and
Britannicus
(George was very fine as Nero), from
Hamlet
and
The Merchant of Venice.
George could be very funny, too, presenting Molière's miser and his casket, or Falstaff and his honor. He would forget himself and raise his voice. This would awaken Anne—a rapt and adoring audience (“Do the one in Russian, George—please!”), who could not, however, keep her eyes open long. Their mother would appear at the door and stand listening until the passage came to a close.

“Oh, my dears! Will you never get any sleep? Now, listen: each of you recite one beautiful thing for me and then promise you'll go to bed.”

This was a mistake. Eustacia, who never wept under trial, became what she called “a perfect fool” in the presence of beauty.

Her son mistook the source of her tears.

Night after night:

During the last week of April there was a change in the atmosphere of the sickroom. Lansing's condition seemed to improve. There was a less frequent resort to laudanum. The patient had no wish to leave his bed, however. All-night conversation had become a habit and a cruel game. He became overbearing and, worse than overbearing, sly.

Maudlin: He loved her. Did she love him?
Really
love him? When had she loved him least? When had she loved him most? When he met that little girl on the island of St. Kitts he'd foreseen that she'd be the best little wife in the world. Oh, yes, he had. He was no fool.

Aggressive: Had she loved any other man since she left the islands? He didn't mean
misbehaved
—merely loved? Answer honestly. Would she swear to it? She didn't sound as though she meant it. He bet there was somebody. She was hiding something from him. That fellow in Pittsburgh—what was his name? Leonard something. He'd thought she was pretty neat and cute. The fellow with the big weeping-willow mustache. Was it him?

Sly (soothing digressions from which he could suddenly stage a surprise attack): The way she ran that store in Basseterre! It beat the Dutch! Smartest little head in the Caribbean. Regular little Shylock! . . . ? All the officers from those foreign ships. Girls go crazy for a uniform . . . ? He wouldn't be surprised. . . . ? Lot of little back rooms. . . . ? He'd been blind as a bat. He bet that she'd lied to him all his life. She'd gone to Fort Barry to church. Who'd she seen there?

“Now, Breckenridge, I can't stand your going on like this much longer. I'm tired. I've scarcely had what amounts to one night's rest for five weeks. I'm going to ask Dr. Gillies to send Mrs. Hauserman over to sit with you. You're simply trying to torment me. That's bad for
you.
You don't torment me, Breckenridge. You only injure yourself.”

“Then give me one honest answer and we'll drop the whole subject.”

“If you don't believe what I say, I'm no use to you. If you don't respect twenty-four years of married life, send me out of the room.”

“W
HERE ARE YOU GOING
?”

“Breckenridge, I'm going to lie down in the sitting room. If you really need me, ring the bell. But don't call me in here to talk nonsense. I'll bring you your gruel at four o'clock.”

But it was precisely those twenty-four years of married life that did not permit any such gesture of independence. Leaving the room was the only retaliation in her power—the only punishment; but she was not there to punish him. He rang the bell furiously. She capitulated. She resumed her chair under the green translucent lampshade. The most painful aspect of this phase was the absence of any faint intimation from the realm of the spirit; but there, too, lay its deep interest. She never doubted that the spirit was struggling behind these manifestations. Cruelty and hypocrisy are
interesting.
She felt—she
knew
—that his insistent attack was a mask behind which lay his regret for his neglect of her, for his numerous cheerless infidelities. He was trying to goad her into denouncing and reproaching him; but that was too easy. He must confront the judge within him. “The devil spits hardest just before he has to go.” When self-justification is so impassioned, does contrition follow?

Dr. Hunter had directed that he should have some nourishment every four hours.

She brought him his gruel at four o'clock. Before this phase there had been moments of congeniality over the gruel. It was a game. She dusted it lightly with cinnamon or grated lemon peel. She hid two or three raisins in it. Three tears of sherry. The attentions that accompany feeding quicken both affection and repulsion. Now that game was over.

“How do I know that you went to church in Fort Barry? How do I know you aren't the talk of the county—you and Dr. Hunter?”

Her eyes kept returning to the glass doors that opened on the lawn. She arose and went quickly into the hall. Félicité was sitting on the stairs.

“Go to bed, Félicité. I don't want you
ever
to listen to what your father says when he's uncomfortable.”