A Good Woman (Bromfield)/Part 3/Chapter 6
It was the Reverend Castor himself who greeted Philip on the doorstep when he reached home at last. Philip would have avoided him, but the clergyman was coming down the path as he turned into it and so there was no escape.
He greeted Philip with a smile, saying, "Well, it's good to see you about again, my boy. We had a bad time over you . . . thought you weren't going to make the grade."
Philip grinned. "I'm not so easy to be rid of." He felt a sudden refreshing sense of superiority over the preacher, strange in all his experience. It was simply that he had no longer any awe of him as a man of God.
The Reverend Castor coughed and answered, "Oh! My dear boy. We didn't want to be rid of you. That's the last thing. . . ." He protested nervously and added, "I just dropped in for a moment to see how your wife was doing . . . and the twins. You ought to be proud, my boy, of two such fine babies . . . two. Most people are thankful for one."
"I would have been, too."
"You don't mean you aren't delighted with what God has sent you?"
"No . . . of course not . . . I was only making a joke." It hardly seemed honest, Philip thought, to give God the credit for the twins.
"I suppose we'll be having Mrs. Downes back with us in the choir soon. . . . Since Mrs. Timpkins has moved to Indianapolis I've asked your wife to be the leader and the librarian of the music."
"Yes . . . she ought to be back soon. She seems strong again."
There was an awkward silence, and the Reverend Castor's kindly blue eyes turned suddenly aside. He started to speak and then halted abruptly and seized Philip's hand a second time. "Well, good-by. I must be off."
He was gone quickly, and for a moment Philip stood looking after him, puzzled by his strange, nervous manner. He was sorry for this poor man, whom he had always disliked. It was a sorrow he could not explain, save that his life must be a hell with a wife like his, and all the women of the parish on his neck. He did his duty, the Reverend Castor. He never shirked. It was good of him to call on Naomi. She would like such attention from the head of her church. It would bring back to her, Philip thought, some of the old glory and importance that had waned steadily since the night they had got down from the train, shivering, and fearful of what lay before them.
And she would be pleased at being asked to lead the choir and take care of the music. It was odd what little things brought happiness to her. She had need of the little things, for he meant to hurt her. He was certain now that it was the only way out. It would be easier for her to face the truth.
He found her sitting in the parlor where the Reverend Castor had left her. She was dressed for the first time since the twins were born, and she had been crying. As he entered, she came over to him and, putting her arms about his neck, pressed her head against Jim Baxter's overcoat, and said, "I'm ashamed, Philip . . . I want to die. I couldn't help it yesterday. It's the way I feel! I feel so tired."
The whole action disturbed him horribly. She had never done such a thing before; she had never done more than kiss him chastely. He freed himself and, still holding her hands, said, "I understand. It's all over now and I understand."
She began to cry again helplessly, pitifully. "You'll forgive me? You'll forgive me?"
"There's nothing to forgive. I understand it." He pushed her gently into a chair, and sat down beside her, silently, wondering how he could bring himself to say what he had to say.
"It's because I'm so unhappy, Philip. . . . I've been unhappy ever since we left Megambo . . . ever since that Englishwoman stopped there. I wish to God we'd never seen her."
"Let's not think about her. She had nothing to do with it."
"And it's so awful in this dreary house. I'm nothing here, Philip. . . . I'm less than a hired girl. Your Ma hates me. . . ." He tried to speak, but she cried out passionately, "I can't go on living here . . . I can't . . . I can't."
As he sat there, all his horror of scenes, of that wretched scene in the same room the evening before, swept over him. It was like a physical sickness rising into his throat and choking him. He was confused, too, with a sense of impotent rage.
"And after you ran away she told Mabelle she was never to enter the house again. . . . Now I haven't any one."
No, she hadn't any one, but she didn't know yet how alone she really was.
"Naomi," he said quietly. "Naomi . . . listen to me . . . try to control yourself."
"Yes. . . . Yes. . . . I'm trying to." Her pale, homely face was even paler with weeping. Her eyes were swollen beneath the transparent lashes and her nose was red.
"Naomi . . . would you like to have a house of your own?"
"Oh, Philip . . . yes."
"I don't mean a whole house, but a place to live . . . two or three rooms where you'd be away from my mother."
"Yes . . . yes. I'd do better. I'd take care of things . . . if I had a chance in my own place. Oh, Philip—if you'd only be kind to me."
He stroked her hand suddenly, but it was only because he pitied her. "I try to be kind, Naomi."
"You've been so hard to me . . . just like a stone—ever since we left Megambo. Oh, I knew it . . . I knew even when. . . ." She broke off suddenly, without finishing. Philip looked away, sick with misery. He pitied her, but he could not love her. She went on and on. "Out there I had something to live for . . . I had my work. I loved it. It was the only life I'd ever known. It was everything. And here . . . there's nothing. I don't know how to live here."
"There are the children," he said in a quiet voice.
"Yes . . . but that's not what I mean. It's my soul I'm thinking of. It's rotting away here. . . ."
"Mine was rotting at Megambo." She did not answer him, and he said, "There's church work to do, and now Reverend Castor wants you to lead the choir."
"But it's not the same, and they're all jealous of me . . . all those women . . . jealous because I'm more important because I've been a missionary, and jealous because Reverend Castor shows me favors. Oh, I know. I don't belong here, and they don't want me here. Oh, I don't know what's to become of me!"
There was a long silence, in which they sat there, dumbly trying to find some way out of the hopeless muddle, trying to patch together something which was now in tatters, if it had ever existed at all. Philip's thin jaw was set in that hard, stubborn line that made even his mother afraid.
"Naomi," he said presently, "I'll get you a place to live. It won't be much, for I haven't much money, but you'll be free . . . to do what you please. Only . . . only, Naomi . . . I . . . I . . ." Suddenly, his head fell forward, and he buried his face in his hands. In a voice that was hardly audible he said, "I don't want to live with you any longer. It's . . . it's all over."
For a long time there was no sound in the room, save the ticking of the great onyx clock beneath the picture of Jason Downes. Naomi didn't even sob; but presently she said, in a voice like the voice of a deaf person, "Philip, you meah you're going to leave me?"
"No," he said slowly. "No . . . it's not that exactly. I shan't leave you. I'll come and see you every day and the children—only I won't sleep in the house. I'm going to sleep where I work."
In the same dead voice she asked, "You're not going back to the Mills?"
"No, I'm not going back to the Mills . . . they wouldn't have me now. I'm going to paint. . . ."
"Pictures?"
"Yes . . . pictures. That's what I've always wanted to do and now . . . now, nothing can stop me." There was in his voice a sudden cold rasp, as of steel, which must have terrified her. He thought, "I've got to do it, if I'm to live. I've got to do it."
She said, "But you could have a good congregation. You could preach."
"No, that's the last thing I could do. I'm through with all that."
"Oh, my God! Oh, my God!"
He raised his head, and saw that she was biting her handkerchief. "Naomi," he said. "Naomi," and the sound of her name seemed to precipitate a sudden climax. She fell on her knees and beat them with her fists.
"You won't do that, Philip. You can't . . . you can't leave me for everybody to mock at. Say that you won't . . . I was wrong in the beginning, but now I'll do anything. I'll lie down and let you walk over my body!"
"Naomi," he said. "Please! For God's sake!"
"Oh, don't you see! It's different now . . . I love you. Don't you see that makes it different?"
"It can't make it different, Naomi. I can't pretend what isn't true . . . it's a thing a man can't do."
Suddenly she stopped sobbing and looked up at him, her face all white and contorted. "You can't say that! You can't mean it! It isn't true!"
"It's true, Naomi. I can't help myself. I wish to God I could!"
"And you didn't love me . . . even . . . even then?"
He made a heroic effort. "No . . . not even then."
She flung herself on the floor, pressing her face against the carpet, moaning and moaning. Kneeling down, he picked her up bodily and laid her on the sofa. Bending over her—
"Naomi . . . listen to me. It's not my fault. It's not yours. It's all a muddle. Nobody's to blame."
Then she sat up suddenly. "Yes, there is. It's your mother who's to blame. She made me marry you. It all began with that. I didn't want to . . . I didn't want to marry any one, but I wanted to have a mission of my own. She did it. She's to blame, and now she hates me. She thinks I've stolen you from her."
She buried her face in the cushions and lay sobbing. After a time, Philip said, "Naomi . . . listen to me. You didn't steal me from her."
"Who did then?" said Naomi's muffled voice.
"I don't know. It just happened. I suppose it's one of the things that happen in life. I've grown up now. I've grown up since we went to Megambo. That's all. I know my own mind now."
"Oh, you're hard, Philip . . . harder than flint." She sat up slowly. "I'll do anything for you. You can wipe your feet on me. I can't let you go now . . . I can't . . . I can't!" She began suddenly to laugh. "I'll do anything! I'll prove to you I can keep house as well as your mother. I'll show you how I can care for the children. They're your children, too. I'll learn to cook . . . I'll do anything!"
He did not answer her. He simply sat staring out of the window like an image carven of stone. And he was saying to himself all the while, "I can't yield. I daren't do it. I can't—not now." And all the while he felt a kind of disgust for the nakedness of this love of Naomi's. It was a shameful thing. And during all their life together he had thought her incapable of such love.
She kept moaning and saying, over and over again, "I've got nothing now. I'm all alone . . . I've got nothing now."
He rose, and laid a hand on her shoulder. "I'm going now, Naomi. I'm not going to the restaurant. I'll come back this afternoon. It'll be all right. We'll work it out somehow."
She looked up at him. "You've changed your mind?"
"No, I don't mean that. No, it's better this way."
"I'll show you, Philip, what a good wife I can be."
He picked up his hat, Jim Baxter's hat, and suddenly he thought, "The old Philip is dead—as dead as Jim Baxter. Ive dared to do it."
Aloud he said, "Let's not talk any more now. I'll be back in an hour or two when you feel better."
Then he went away, and outside the house, among the lilacs, he was suddenly sick.