IT was on the Tuesday following that Mrs. Mallory gave her lunch party for Kay. All morning in her front room on the second floor Kay had heard the preparations going on for the meal; the squawking of chickens in the back yard, followed by a tragic silence, the arrival of the grocer's boy, Nellie turning the ice-cream freezer on the porch.
"You keep that lid down, or the salt will get in."
"I've got to look at it, haven't I? How do I know if it's freezing or not?"
Later the smell of cooking filled the house, and at half past twelve Mrs. Mallory came heavily up the stairs and tapped at the door.
"You'd better be getting ready," she said solemnly. "I just got to slip off this apron." She came into the room. "Would you mind if they came up here to take off their hats and coats? It's the best room. That George Smith's got his place so littered it's hardly decent."
George Smith was the railway freight brakeman who occupied at intervals the bedroom across.
"Of course not." She went over and put an arm around Mrs. Mallory's heavy shoulders. "You're sweet to go to all this trouble for me."
"I want you to know people. They're not the society folks, you know, Kay. They're plain people."
"Well, so am I 'plain people.'"
"No, you're not. And it wouldn't hurt some folks I know of to come and see you. They came fast enough when you were out last year at the ranch."
It was an old grievance of hers. Kay had heard it more than once in the two weeks she had been there. She changed the subject.
"Anyhow the rain's over," she said, and Mrs. Mallory went out.
Left alone, Kay went to the window. For three days it had rained, turned the roads into slime and Mrs. Mallory's heart to despair, but today was cold and clear. She was glad of that. If Tom had gone to the ranch for the week-end he could get back, now the roads were drying. She wondered how he had managed over that week-end. Long ago she had learned that his idea of making a bed was to fling the coverings over it anyhow, and as he said: "Let nature take its course." She was smiling a little as she went down the stairs.
The guests were already arriving. They came in soberly, creaked up the stairs, took off their dark substantial wraps, their unfashionable hats, and creaked soberly down again. They were not, as Mrs. Mallory had said, society folks; some were the wives of small storekeepers in Ursula, others had come in from the back country, from small cattle ranches; still others had been forcibly detached from their isolated hard-working lives by the recent hard times and were trying to fill in the empty anxious days. One and all they were elderly women; their hands, as they offered them, felt rough in her clasp, their faces were dried and lined with years of sun and alkali dust.
She felt her heart warming toward them. They were genuine. There rose before her Aunt Bessie, her short hair, her carefully massaged face, her long fingers with the long pointed tinted nails. She was as old as they were, older maybe. Suddenly she resented what life had done to them, and behind her resentment there was a pang of dismay. This was her future; in time, she too would dry up and wrinkle. Her youth would pass, and there would be no one to note its passing.
They shook hands and sat down. Mrs. Mallory had brought in extra chairs and arranged them around the wall. They sat stiffly, their tired hands folded in their laps. A decorous buzz of talk arose. Kay, in a low rocker in the center, felt like a very young kitten encircled by motherly cats softly purring. From the dining room came the clattering of plates as Nellie put them down, the pungent odor of coffee drifted in, and then she became conscious of another conversation in low tones, carried on behind her. The voices were carefully subdued.
"I hear Dicer isn't going to take her back."
"Still, with the roads the way they have been, no car could"
"Dicer says she didn't go to Easton at all. He thinks she went to the Res"
"Sh!"
Mrs. Mallory opened the sliding doors. She was highly flushed from excitement and the stove.
"Come right in while everything's hot," she said. "And I guess some of you ladies will have to bring in your chairs."
There was a move toward the dining room, a little suppressed laughter, a small confusion. Kay found herself moving in, sitting down; later she found herself eating. Great platters of fried chicken passed around, light biscuits, vegetables, honey. She even talked.
"No, we didn't ship anything this year. Maybe next year, if we're lucky"
"Well, I know that place. It's a good house, but it's lonely."
Food. More food. Wheat. Sugar beets. The five-and-ten, newly opened. The negro who had tried to kill a sheriff's deputy. Ice cream.
"Any of you ladies have some more ice-cream? We haven't made a dent in the freezer yet."
The early self-consciousness was wearing off, the talk was louder, more cheerful. When they went back into the parlor Mrs. Mallory urged Nellie to play the piano for them, and Nellie simpered and complied. She had been taking lessons for a year. They sat politely silent while she hammered away, their tired hands folded again, their strong bodies relaxed. They were comforted with good food they had not cooked themselves, they need not even talk. With natural good manners they kept their eyes from Kay. She had brought a bit of romance into their busy lives, for a little time they had seen their beautiful arid land through her eyes; they were even consumed with curiosity about her. But they kept their eyes away.
After awhile Kay slipped off. She went up to her room, where on the bed lay their substantial wraps, their unfashionable hats. She went inside and bolted the door, and then stood staring ahead of her. It was Clare they had been talking about. Clare had gone to see Tom and had been storm-stayed there. How long had it rained? This was Tuesday. It had begun Saturday night. Then she had been there for two days, living in her house, perhaps even occupying her bed.
And Tom had been there. She knew that, beyond the question of a doubt.
From downstairs there came a clapping of hands, a murmur. Nellie began again, even more vigorously. The thin floor vibrated under Kay's feet. She sat down in a chair and put her hands to her burning face. She had no doubts whatever: she knew. She was fair, even then. She could see Tom's early annoyance, even his angry protests, but as the storm continued she could see Clare, moving about the little house and making it livable again; cooking meals, and then the two of them at the table across from each other. Or in the long evenings in the lamplight, Clare curled up in a chair, her pretty face transfigured with love, her short skirt outlining her young body, deliberately feminine and tempting. His anger would not outlive that. How could it?
She was still trembling when she went downstairs again. When at last the party was over, when the last heavy figure had descended the porch steps, she jerked on her small soft hat and the blue coat, and went out. She went deliberately into the Emporium, made a small purchase and saw that Clare was not there. Then, with fear and anger in her heart she started out along the street which led to the Reservation Road. She had thought it all out; if Clare had been with Tom she could hardly have left until noon, when the roads were dry enough to use. She would have to come slowly, too. She might even now be nearing Ursula.
It had turned bitterly cold after the rain. The wind whipped her face. Somewhere Dr. Dunham's draggled white poodle had picked her up and trotted sedately at her heels. Where the town abruptly ended she took to the road, a road which wound across the empty open country. It rose to a hill and was lost. So far as eye could judge it served no one, went nowhere. But she knew better. She knew that it led to the Reservation and to Tom McNair.
She sat down and waited, and the dog shivering with cold, crept into her lap! It smelled to heaven of flea-killer, but because it was cold she held it close. She had no feeling of shame at what she was doing. She was beyond shame. She neither hated nor loved. She waited.
And after an hour she had her answer. A small muddy car labored over the hill and began to descend. It followed a rut already made, advancing drunkenly and ribaldly, and as it came closer she saw Clare at the wheel. She was intent on driving. Not until she was almost abreast of her did she see Kay. She looked frightened, but the next minute she had stopped the car.
"Want a lift?" she said airily.
"Thanks. I'm out for a walk."
They stared at each other, Kay pale, Clare defiant. Then Clare started the car again, with a faint smile.
"These roads are sure hell," she said, and went on. Not until she was almost into the town did she remember that she had one of Kay's plaid blankets across her knees. She was frightened then; she stopped the car and rolling it up, dropped it into an irrigation ditch beside the road. And Kay, suspecting some such action, saw it lying there on her way back.
What was she to do? She had already done her best. She had worked for him, loved him, been lonely for him, forgiven him over and over. But there was a limit to what one could forgive or endure. She had tried. She was fairer than that, they had both tried. But he had never really wanted to marry her. He had had this girl then. Perhaps he had never let go of her, for all his protestations. How had she known that he was going to be at the ranch that week-end, unless he had told her, or written her? That was it, of course. He had written. He had got rid of her, sent her into town, so that he
Her world was profoundly shaken; what she wanted was sanctuary, security, the reserves of a society which, whatever its hypocrisies and weaknesses, covered them decently away. The ease and dignity of living; cars stopping at the door, and liveried chauffeurs with cards in their hands.
"Is Mrs. Dowling receiving?"
"Madam is not receiving today."
Or its amenities:
"I am so sorry that John had to fall out at the last moment," when every one knew that John was having one of his periodical "spells," and had not been home for three days.
But her despair was more profound than that. What common ground had she and Tom ever had, except their love for each other? When that was gone, what was to take its place? What was it Aunt Bessie had said? "Tastes. Habits. Ideas of life When it"—love—"has gone, you have to have something else to fall back on."
What had they to fall back on now? Nothing; only their—mutual poverty, their mutual anxieties, to hold them together.
She thought of her people. She was in the house now, in her room, and Nellie's voice was raised from below in angry expostulation.
"For gosh sake, ma! How can I answer the bell with my hands in dishwater?"
Time and distance had softened her memories of her people; she saw them loving and forgiving, kind and understanding. They had been right after all. Her marriage had been doomed to failure from the start. Herbert had been wrong that day at the hospital. He had said it didn't pay to be decent and honest, but surely it did.
Suppose she confessed her failure and went back? Wasn't that the answer? How could she face the long winter with Tom, knowing what she did? The long hours, without even books to read, except those eternal reports of the Department of Agriculture, with nothing to talk about but the cattle, or the small unimportant happenings of the day:
"Saw Red this morning. He says Bill's got a girl in Easton."
"Has he?"
And always that shadow between them, of a girl with a pert face and defiant eyes, passing with one of Kay's blankets over her knees.
She could not do it. Before Mrs. Mallory tapped at the door she knew she could not do it. And Mrs. Mallory held a special delivery letter in her hand.
It was from Nora.