A Good Woman (Bromfield)/Part 3/Chapter 11
The choir met in the room of the church which was given over on the Sabbath to "the infant class" of the Sunday School for children under six. It was a large, barren room, with large chromos of Biblical scenes decorating the walls—the soldiers of Moses returning from the Promised Land, Moses smiting the Rock, the same as an Infant being discovered in the Bulrushes by a Princess dressed in garments as gaudy and inaccurate as those of—a music-hall Cleopatra, Noah and his family receiving the Dove and Olive Branch. In the center of the room two dozen lilliputian chairs sat ranged in a circle, save on the occasions of choir practice, when a dozen adult chairs were brought in from the main Sunday School room to accommodate members of the choir.
Naomi arrived early, and, admitting herself with the private key that was her badge of office, turned on the gas and seated herself at the upright piano. There was no piano in the flat by the railroads, and she fell at once to playing, in order to recover her old careless facility. She had no sense of music; yet music was to her only what wine is to some temperaments: it served to unlock the doors of the restraining prison which forever shut her in. She played relentlessly in showers of loud, banging notes, heedless of discord and strange harmonies; and the longer she played, the more shameless and abandoned became the character of her playing. To-night she played from a none too sure memory The Ninety and Nine and Throw Out the Life Line (her favorites) and then I'm a Pilgrim, I'm a Stranger, which always made her want to cry, and then with a strong arm and a loud pedal she swept into Ancient of Days, which filled her with the strangest, emotional grandeur. There was a splendor in it which made her feel noble and heroic: it filled her with a sense of beauty and power. She saw herself vaguely as a barbarian queen, like Sheba, riding on an elephant, surrounded by guards and servitors. The image in her mind bore a strange resemblance to her memory of a highly painted artificial blonde, clad principally in sequins and crimson satin, whom she had once seen riding an elephant in the circus parade—a lady advertised as "the ten-thousand-dollar beauty." But always when she had finished Ancient of Days, and the last note had died away, she was left with a melancholy feeling of depression and a sense of wickedness. The world about her became after one of these musical debauches a sad and unbearable place.
To-night, alone in the bare, unattractive room, she poured into the music all the pent-up emotions of days . . . all her hatred of Emma, her fear of the new life on which she had embarked, but, most of all, that curious passionate half-wicked feeling she had for Philip. Beneath the spell of Ancient of Days this emotion for him seemed to become purified and free of all restraint. She poured into the banging, careless chords all the things which she could never bring herself to tell him—how the sight of him standing by the crib had made her feel suddenly ill with warm voluptuous feeling, how there were times when she wanted to lie own before him and beat her head on the floor to show him how she felt, how she wakened out of a sound sleep in the midst of the night with her hands aching to touch his face and his dark hair. In the splendor of the hymn it was as if all those things were realized. For a time she was that fantastic, barbaric queen of her imagination and Philip was her lover, dressed like one of the soldiers in the chromo of the return from the Promised Land, and sometimes in an overwhelming wave of wickedness she saw him as she had seen him on the night of the drums, standing half naked by the light of the dying fire.
It was thus that she saw him to-night, and, as if she meant to preserve the wild romantic feeling, she played and sang the whole hymn over again in her loud, flat voice. She was wildly happy, for in the end it seemed that Philip really belonged to her, and that they were alone once more by the lake at Megambo. They weren't even missionaries and Swanson wasn't there. And he loved her.
When she had finished, the spell clung to her until the last chord, held deliberately by the use of the loud pedal, died away, leaving her weak and exhausted, and prey suddenly to the horrible, sickening depression. She let her head fall forward on the piano. She wanted to cry, but she couldn't cry, because people would be coming in at any moment. And suddenly she felt the touch of a hand on her shoulder and a voice saying, "That was splendid, Mrs. Downes! That's the sort of music that will bring them to the Lord!"
It was the Reverend Castor. He had come in quietly, without a sound, and had been sitting there all the while listening to her while she desecrated the sanctity of a hymn with all her fleshly emotions. She tried to gain control of herself, and, without looking up, mopped her eyes and nose with her handkerchief. But it was no good: when she looked up he saw that she had been crying. She was blushing with shame, and the color made her seem almost pretty.
"Why, you've been crying!" he said.
She choked, recovered herself, and answered, "Yes . . . I . . . I can't help it. . . . It always makes me cry—that hymn."
He laid a big, bony, masculine hand on her shoulder. "But you mustn't cry . . . Mrs. Downes. You mustn't cry. . . . It's something to be joyful over."
She looked (he thought) so young and pitiful and unhappy. If it were only possible to comfort her, to take her on his knee as if she were a little child. It was no more than that, this feeling toward her. He wanted to comfort her. But you couldn't do that, of course, especially if you were a preacher.
"I watched your face while you were singing," he said. "It was a beautiful sight . . . so filled with joy and hope and exaltation . . . like the face of one who has seen a vision. It was an inspiration—even to me, a man of God."
She thought, "Oh, I am wicked. I am wicked!" And aloud, suddenly, without knowing why, she said, "Oh, I'm so unhappy!"
"But why, Naomi?"
He had called her by her name, without thinking, and suddenly he was frightened. He always thought of her thus, as if she had been his own child, and now the thought had slipped into words. He saw that she had noticed it, for she was blushing and avoided his eyes. She did not answer his question, and suddenly he said, "You mustn't mind that . . . that . . . Mrs. Downes. . . . It only means . . . that . . . well, I always think of you as Naomi because I think of your mother-in-law as the Mrs. Downes."
Still looking away, she answered, "I know . . . I know. . . . It's all right. You may call me that if you want, only . . . only not in front of the others. I didn't. . . . I think it would make me feel less alone."
And then the door creaked, and Mrs. Wilbert Phipps came in. The Reverend Castor began fingering the piles of music, and Naomi began again to pound the piano with an hysterical violence.
"Good-evening, Mrs. Phipps."
"Good-evening, Reverend Castor."
"I've been looking over the anthems for next Sunday."
"We haven't sung O the Golden, Glowing Morning for a long while."
"No . . . but that's an Easter hymn!"
"But we have sung it before on other occasions . . . it's so moving."
"What do you think, Mrs. Downes?"
Naomi stopped in the midst of her playing. "I think it would be fine. It's so full of joy."
One by one the others arrived. Each had his favorite, some song which he or she found moving. Naomi, troubled and unhappy, yielded to their choice. She was not, it was plain to be seen, to be a leader save in name alone. The eleven singers took their seats. There was a rustling of music and Naomi plunged noisily into:
Stars above and Stars adorning!"
The voices rang out loud and clear, filling the infants' classroom with a wild joy that seemed almost improper in so bare and chaste a place. They went on through a whole program of anthems and hymns, singing more and more loudly. At last, as the clock banged out eleven, the orgy of music came to an end, leaving them tired but happy, and filled with a strange excitement. At the piano, Naomi turned away to collect the sheets of music. There was a bustle of farewells and small talk and, one by one, or in pairs, the singers drifted out. It had been a happy evening: the happiness of these evenings in the infants' classroom held the choir together. In all the dreary Town of slate-colored houses, the weekly orgy of singing provided a half-mystical joy that elsewhere did not exist. It was, for all the pious words that were chanted, a sort of pagan festival in which men and women found a wild, emotional abandon. It was from choir practice that Mrs. Swithers had run off with the county auditor, leaving behind a husband, an aged mother and three small children.
The music was kept in a cabinet in the Reverend Castor's study, and before the others had all gone, Naomi hurried off to place it there. The depression had begun to settle over her once more, leaving her a prey to uneasiness. The drawer of the cabinet was jammed, and while she pulled and tugged at it, she heard the singers in little groups passing the door. She heard the dry Mrs. Wilbert Phipps say in a curious, excited voice, "No, Hanna, you mustn't say that here. Wait until we get out," and then the banging of the door. She pulled and tugged desperately at the drawer. The door banged again, and again. Without thinking, she counted the number of times it had closed . . . ten times! They must all have gone, and she was left alone. She knew suddenly that she must escape before the Reverend Castor appeared. She could not stay alone with him there in the study. She could not. She could not. . . . Suddenly, in a wave of terror, she let the music slip to the floor, and turned to escape, but at the same moment the Reverend Castor came in. He stood for a second, looking at her with a queer, fixed expression in his kindly gray eyes, and then he said, gently, "What is it, Naomi? Did I frighten you?"
In her struggle with the drawer, her hat had slipped to the back of her head and her hair had fallen into disarray. Her pale face was flushed once more.
"No," she said. "I just couldn't get that awful drawer open."
"I'll do it for you."
She couldn't escape now. She couldn't run past him out of the door. It would be too ridiculous. Besides, she had a strange, wicked desire not to escape. She sat down on one of the shabby leather chairs and put her hat straight. The Reverend Castor stooped without a word and gathered up the music, and then, with one hand, he opened the drawer easily. She saw it happen with a chill of horror. It was as if the drawer had betrayed her.
She rose quickly and said, "It really wouldn't open for me. It really wouldn't. . . . I tried and tried." (He would think she had planned it all.)
But when he turned toward her, he said gently, "Yes, I know. It's a funny drawer. It sticks sometimes like that." He was so calm and so . . . usual, she had suddenly, without knowing why, a queer certainty that he understood what was happening there deep inside her, and was trying to still her uneasiness. The knowledge made her want to cry. If only for a second Philip would treat her thus. . . .
He was rubbing his hands together. "Well, that was what I call a real choir practice. We've always needed some one like you, Naomi, to put spirit into them. It's the way you make the piano talk. Why, it was like a new choir to-night."
She looked away from him. "I tried my best. I hope they liked it."
"It was wonderful, my child."
There was a sudden, awkward silence, and Naomi said nervously, "Well, I ought to be going."
She moved toward the door, and the Reverend Castor took up his hat and coat. "I'll walk with you, Naomi. I want some air."
Despite herself, she cried out in a sudden hysteria, "No, no. You mustn't do that."
"But it isn't safe down there by the railroads."
"Oh, I'm not afraid." She kept moving slowly toward the door.
"But I don't mind the walk, Naomi. It's no walk for a strong man like me."
"Oh, it isn't that. . . ." She hesitated for a moment. "I don't mean that. . . . I don't know how to explain, only . . . only you never walked home with Mrs. Timpkins when she was leading the choir . . . and . . . you see, if any one saw us. . . ."
He looked suddenly at the floor, and a great sigh escaped him—a heart-breaking sigh, filled with the ghosts of disillusionment, of misery and disappointment.
"Yes . . . I know," he said gently. "I understand."
The door closed behind her, and she was outside in the snow. She kept hearing the sigh. It haunted her as she hurried, confused and out of breath, down the long hill. She felt so sorry for him . . . a kind, good man like that. And all at once she began to cry silently. There was no sound, but only tears and a lump in her throat.