A Good Woman (Bromfield)/Part 3/Chapter 9
In the flat in Front Street, Philip put the last chair in place, washed his face and hands at the sink in the kitchen, and went in to look at the sleeping twins. They lay side by side, fat, rosy, healthy children, such as women like Naomi or Mabelle were certain to bear. He was alone in the room, and, after a time, he bent down and touched the fine, soft dark hair that covered their small, round heads. They were like him, and so, he supposed, like his father, with eyes that one day would be the same clear blue. It struck him suddenly that there was something ruthless in the operation of Nature which took no account of all the structure of habits and laws of man. It took no account of the fact that he had never loved Naomi, or that neither of them had really wanted these children. Nature had wanted children, and it did not matter how they were created, so long as the act of creation occurred. All man's ideas of love, of lawful wedlock, of sentimentality, had nothing to do with it. And it was impossible to imagine stronger, healthier children.
He fell to stroking the soft head of the little girl, and, slowly, in her sleep, she stirred and, groping with a fat, pink hand, found one of his fingers, and clutched it tightly. Something in the touch of the soft, plump hand melted him suddenly. She was so soft, so helpless, reaching out trustfully. And for the first time he felt a sudden quick pride and delight. These were his children; he knew that he loved them, despite everything, Naomi and his mother and all the trouble he had been through. They were his to care for and protect and set on their way in life. That was a wonderful thing. When he thought of it, he was frightened; and yet (he reflected) he would perhaps understand far better than most fathers how to help them. He had learned, he thought, bitterly, by his own blundering.
The little girl still clung tightly to his finger, and presently he found himself smiling, without knowing it. He was, oddly enough, suddenly happy, and conscious that no matter what fate befell him, it was good to be alive. He wasn't sorry any longer that he had helped to bring into existence these two fat, funny little morsels of life. He almost laughed, and then, bending down, he kissed first one and then the other on the tops of their round, dark little heads. They were his: he was a father. And it had happened without his wanting it, almost without his understanding how it had happened.
He was still bending over them when the door opened and, with a sense of falling spirits, he heard Naomi come in. Ever since that horrible day in his mother's parlor, she had made an effort to dress completely and neatly, but somehow it was impossible for her to accomplish it entirely. Little wisps of sandy hair fell down over the back of her high tight collar. Her white petticoat, showing itself an inch or two below her skirts, dragged on the floor. There was a smudge of the dust left behind by the dental salesman's wife on one side of her face. She might set herself in order a dozen times a day, but always, in some mysterious way, she was in disarray. At Megambo, it hadn't made any difference: in a place like that such things were lost in the whole cataclysm of disorder. But here in a civilized place, it was different. It was as if Naomi could not cope with the problems of decent living.
At the sound of the opening door, Philip straightened up quickly, as if ashamed to be found thus, caressing his children. But Naomi had seen him, and smiled—an odd, twisted, pitiful smile, which was like a knife turned in his flesh, for behind it lay a whole regiment of ghosts, of implications. It was as if he saw suddenly what happiness there might be in life, if he himself had been different, if Naomi had been a different woman, if he had only been able to love her. He couldn't change: he saw again how ruthless a thing Nature could be. Some one had meddled with her plans, and so the misery resulted. It was not that he thought these things: the whole impression happened far more quickly than any process of thought. It was a sudden, pitiful flash of illumination. What hurt him most was the faint hint of bitterness in her smile, a hint almost of mockery, a shadow which had crossed her pale, freckled face without her knowing it. But until now, he hadn't thought her capable of suffering in that way.
It frightened him by making him feel weak and yielding.
Perhaps if she had been a more clever woman, she could in that moment have changed the whole course of his life. Long afterward when he thought of the scene (and it always remained one of his clearest memories of her) he saw that it could have been done. But then he saw that if she had been a more clever woman he might have loved her in the beginning.
She came over and stood by his side. "What are we to call them, Philip? We've never even spoken of it." She said it in a flat voice, as if they had been puppies or kittens, and not children—his children—at all.
"I don't know."
"I've been thinking about the girl. Your mother would like to call her Emma, but I'd like it if you'd call her Naomi."
He knew before she had finished what she had meant to say, and he knew, too, that he hated both names. To go on for the rest of his life, even as an old man, calling his child "Emma" or "Naomi". . . .
"She's your child, too, Naomi. You have a choice in the matter."
"I wanted you to he pleased." There was a humbleness in her voice which made him feel ill.
"And the boy—have you thought of him?"
"I want to call him Philip, of course."
(No, he couldn't do that: it was like wishing them bad luck.)
"No, I hate the name of Philip. You can call the girl Naomi. You bore her, and you've more of a right to name her than Ma has. But—no, we won't call the boy Philip. We'll think of something else."
"I'd like to have her called Naomi . . . and then you'd think of me sometimes, Philip."
He looked at her sharply. "But I do think of you. Why should you say that?"
"Oh, I don't know . . . just in case anything happened to me. That's why I'd like to call him Philip."
"No . . . no . . . any other name."
He took up his hat. "What are you going to do with the twins on Sundays and choir practice nights?"
"I don't know. I'd thought of asking Mabelle to stay with them . . . but she lives such a long way off. Maybe I'd just better give it up."
"No, you mustn't do that. I'll come and stay with them. I'd like to."
"You don't mind my leading the choir, Philip?"
"No, of course not."
"Because I want you to be pleased. I want it to be a new start now, here in this new house."
He didn't answer, and after an awkward pause, she said, "I wouldn't go at all, but I think Reverend Castor needs me. He's got so many worries. Yesterday when I was talking to him, he began all at once to cry . . . not out loud, but the tears just came into his eyes. His wife's an awful woman. He's been telling me about her. And now that Mrs. Timpkins has moved away, there's no one to take the choir who knows anything about music."
"Of course, go by all means."
He was glad for two reasons, because he knew she liked the importance of leading the choir, and because he would have these evenings alone with the children—his children—who had been born in reality as he stood looking down at them a moment before.
"Good-night, Naomi," he said abruptly.
"Philip. . . ."
"Yes."
"Philip, you won't stay?"
"No, Naomi. . . . It wouldn't look right."
There was a pause.
"Sometimes you're like your mother, Philip."
He went out and in his agitation found himself halfway down the flimsy pine stairway before he remembered his overcoat. When he returned and opened the door of the little flat, he heard the sound of sobbing, a horrible choked sound, coming from the bedroom. She had not made a scene. She had not wept until he was gone, for she was trying to please him.