Home from the Hill (40 page)

“All our children deserve better fathers,” the other said. He had been in an awkward position. “I'll go up there for you if you like,” he said. “Show the fellow his duty.” Mr. Halstead remembered the words and the vague connection they had had in his mind with the guns in that cabinet.

But perhaps, he now remembered thinking, she herself had shot her betrayer before coming home. No, he could not believe that. She was too dutiful a daughter. She would think of her parents. She was ready to do anything to make up, to avoid bringing further shame on them. Anything. Even marry such an improbable fellow as Fred Shumway (and she such a pretty, such a popular girl, and one whose father had set his sights so high for her).

He had made the offer, “Seeing she doesn't have anybody to take her part in a thing like this.” Fred—happy as a pig in clover—wouldn't do anything if you told him. Fred did not know that the Captain was not the same man since that quarrel on the street that day with Albert Halstead, when Albert said, “I don't want any son of yours around my daughter.”

Another thing Fred did not know, nor anyone else, was that there was another who was not the same man he used to be. Mr. Halstead saw in his mind a man standing by a lighted gate with tears in his eyes because, his sensibilities quickened by the experiences he had just gone through, a small act of courtesy on the part of a man he had intended to deceive had made him weep. He could remember the experiences, but not the man whose response to them had been tears.

One of the experiences he remembered was the unexpected warmth of feeling that had gone out of him towards the other man. He had pondered over it at the time. One explanation which had occurred to him then was that the man had a connection, though distant, with her, with her previous innocence and her present misfortune. Truth showed its teeth in a smirk. He had mused on the strange discovery that a special sort of comfort was to be had in the company of a man of the very sort who had betrayed her. Or was it, Mr. Halstead remembered asking himself, just that he was somebody, the only other person as yet, who knew?

On one point Mr. Halstead was in complete accord with the men who were and were not just around the corner from him. The fact that his grandchild was a boy was for him too added evidence that a bend sinister had been drawn down the Shumway escutcheon. Mr. Halstead's sense of injury, it need hardly be said, was not increased by adding his son-in-law's to his own. To the contrary. His son-in-law was an additional injury. (He had set his sights so high for her.) If there was any addition beyond that to Mr. Halstead's wrath for the monstrous deceit which had been practiced upon him, it came when he thought of the deceit the man had practiced upon his own son. No doubt this had had something to do with Theron's throwing himself away on that vulgar country girl with the ready-made family.

He'd done it again, I God. Well, he'd done it for the last time.

58

His parting with Opal had delayed him. At the church Theron found the street lined with cars, no one going in or waiting on the steps. The services must already have begun. He climbed the steps and entered the dimly-lit vestibule. The doors of the auditorium were closed. He could hear the murmur of the congregation, the coughing and shuffling of feet. He opened the door, saw that they were at prayer, and softly shut the door. He waited a minute, his hand upon the big brass knob; then, hearing a swelling of the noise within, tried again. He was unfamiliar with the ceremony, and apparently he had missed his opportunity: the minister, his hand raised in benediction, was again praying. No other late arrivals had joined him in the vestibule, and he wondered if the services were nearing the end.

He opened the door for the third time. What he saw made him quickly close it. He saw—and a hush fell over everything—Libby's baby in the minister's arms.

He shut the door, but this did not shut out the sight. Until that moment Libby had not been a mother in his thoughts. He withdrew his hand from the knob and wiped it upon his breast, and he felt the pounding of his heart. He had come here to get a glimpse of her; he had not thought of the occasion. It was one of the great occasions of her life, one of the most joyful—the christening of her child. He knew that Libby had not loved Fred Shumway when she married him. She had married Fred because of him, of what he had done to her, out of revenge, despair, or both. He had gone on loving her; had he also, he asked himself now, believed that she had gone on loving him? He heard the sibilant murmur, and through the door that excluded him he seemed to see the solemn, joyous rite that symbolized her new life. He was no part of her life now. She had her child to love, to live for, no matter if it was Fred Shumway's—as Opal had loved her child without loving its father. Libby had reason to remember him with more hatred than Opal Verne; but this was not the thought that crushed him. It was that she did not remember him at all, that he had passed completely out of her life. He tried to tell himself that he had not hoped for more. He had come here today, so he had thought, hoping merely to see her. Now he confessed to himself that he had come hoping to see her as unhappy as he was. And then there came to him the most numbing thought of all: having lived with Fred as his wife, and compared him with her false former lover, and having borne him a child, why should she not have come to love him now?

He breathed deeply, summoning strength to turn and go, and thought, he had nowhere to go, no one to go to, not even Opal.

At that moment the door opened and he was face to face with Libby. She was alone—he hurriedly saw that—or rather, with only her baby. She was huddled over the baby as if shielding it from rain. She looked up, dazedly, without recognition. He felt no twinge of shame for having wished to see her unhappy; he did not remember it. He saw tears in her eyes and he knew only that he would have died to take them away. She stared at him, still without recognition. Then, losing her grip on the door, which swung wider open, she let out a sob. Had he not made a grab for the door and closed it, the congregation might have heard.

It was almost, after recovering from her initial shock, as if she had expected to find him there. She threw herself, sobbing, into his arms.

“Hush, Libby!” he whispered hoarsely. “They'll hear you.”

But it was a cry from the baby that suddenly quieted her, hardened her against him, made her tear himself from him and step back, made her tearful eyes blaze. “How could you do it?” she said. “How could you treat me so?” Her voice rose again, broke. “Why? What did I ever do to you—but love you?”

Torn between love and hatred, she could not control herself. She heaved with sobs, and the baby, taking alarm from her, cried too. He could barely control himself, but he said, “Hush now. Hush now. They'll hear.”

“Let them!” she hissed. “They know. They all know. Oh, Theron, I never loved him. I loved only you. Why did you do it? Why did you ever say you loved me?”

“Oh, Libby, I do love you! I do!”

“Why did you let me think—” She broke off, shuddered, and he understood that she was remembering her vision of Opal and Brucie that morning when she had just come home, and he understood too that she had since learned that her inference was wrong. “I loved you so, Theron,” she said.

“Love me still!” he said. “Oh, Libby, forgive me and love me still. It's not too late.”

She moaned. He touched her and she moaned louder. “They'll hear you,” he whispered. “Ssssh!”

Her feelings were beyond her, mercurial. Now she turned bitter again. “They all know,” she said. “Are you afraid your wife will find out?”

“My wife and I have separated,” he said. He had been glad of it before; now he was ecstatic. “Just today. Just now.”

“She found out?” said Libby.

“About you? About us? Yes, I suppose. But she was never my wife, Libby. In name only. We never—”

He stopped, stopped by her look. “What? What is it?” he said, and he reached out again to touch her.

She shrank from him. She withdrew into the light of the door, and he followed her. She looked at him with a strange, wild, questioning uncertainty. Suddenly she reached down and pulled the blanket from around the baby's face and held the child up to him. He looked at it, then looked back to her, and her expression then was more inscrutable than ever. He did not know, and she saw that he did not see, did not recognize his child, and at that moment she hated him with a savage hatred. It was looking at her rather than at the child which, after a moment, told him, and as she watched him receive the awesome knowledge of fatherhood, her hatred vanished, replaced by love equally intense. She saw his face go stony white, saw his head shake, saw tears gather in his eyes. Then it was he who did not care if the people inside heard: he sobbed. When his sight cleared, it cleared only to dim again, for he saw her holding out the baby to him. Blindly, timidly, he reached out his arms and he felt that slight bit of himself tenderly laid in them. He was awkward, and the blanket slipped and fell to the floor, and when he held the child to his breast, he felt his own blood pulsing softly in that small body. He was a father; the moment made him again a son. He felt, like a mystic seizure, the fierce passion of paternity, felt the great current of life flow through him, from his father to him, from him to his son. For a moment he then turned savage, elemental, hardly knew Libby as he stared at her. He is mine, he thought, mine, for ever. He is me.

It passed, and he saw her. He choked. He could only murmur her name like a prayer. They came together, together held the baby as they kissed endlessly.

At last, upon a sound, a stir from within, she, taking back the baby, broke free. “They're coming out!” she whispered, reluctantly tearing herself from his grasp.

He held her. “Does he know?” he said.

She was still breathless; she did not understand.

“Fred,” he said. Not wanting to name him, he had tried to say
Your husband;
that was even more distasteful. “Does he know? Has he threatened you?”

She shook her head. “He doesn't know,” she said. “He's the only one who doesn't.”

“Tell him!” he said fiercely. “As soon as you're together tell him! I hate every minute of the time he thinks—” he had to pause, to swallow, the words were still too strange in his mouth—“my child … our child is his. You're not afraid to tell him?”

She was afraid of nothing now. She shook her head. “I will! I'll tell him! I'll tell him! Oh, Theron, I love you so. I nearly died. I didn't care. Without you I—Oh, but I'm so happy now!”

He took her in his arms again, kissed her eyes, whispered, “And when you've told him, come to me!”

Smiling blissfully, her eyes radiant with tears, she nodded.

And he thought of divorce and of Opal and of her leaving him, and thought again of what he had just said. She could not come to his house directly on leaving Fred. Besides, he was unwilling to ask her to the house in which he had lived with Opal.

“They're coming,” she said. She said it quietly. She was not alarmed now. She did not care.

He did now. He wanted to spare her what pain he could. “Quick then. Listen. Go to your parents' house when you've told him. Will they take you back, do you think?”

“Yes. They love me. They'll always take me back.”

“All right, we'll go now. We'll be together soon.”

Their parting kiss was short. They could bear to shorten it; it was only the token of things to come. Bundling the baby to her breast, she set off towards home to await Fred's coming; he, watching her out of sight, then turning, towards—he did not know where.

Mechanically, he set out towards home. Now the streets were no longer deserted. Churchgoers, families, afoot and in cars, were on their way home now—on their way home, he thought, to Sunday dinner.

His way took him through the square, and as he was going down the block, the bus for Dallas came in by the opposite corner. The bus stop was the drugstore on the corner, and he now saw Opal sitting there on the bus passengers' waiting bench. Or rather, he saw her, all eagerness, getting up from the bench the moment the bus entered the square, shifting Brucie to her alternate hip, and picking up her single, old suitcase from the sidewalk. For a moment Theron was touched with pity for her, so naïve, country, going out into the big world. But Opal was traveling light and light-hearted. From the tilt of her head, the chesty way she boarded the bus, it was apparent that Opal was leaving with no regrets, was looking forward with no misgivings. The driver gave her an appraisal as she climbed up, which was not lost on her, but which also was not more than she knew how to handle, then he ducked into the drugstore, came out peeling the cellophane off a pack of cigarettes, and hopped in. The bus roared off. As it passed him, Theron saw Opal sitting up straight in her seat, eyes fixed straight ahead on Dallas, her face all anticipation and smiles.

Not that he regretted her, but seeing Opal leave made his return to their empty house seem more pointless, more depressing than ever. He kept on walking in the same direction, but when he reached the empty bench where Opal had sat to wait for the bus, he stopped, sat down. The square was empty. Pigeons, pecking in the dung of Saturday's farm horses, rookety-cooing as they bounced along, filled the paved area. He noticed that the grass was beginning to come up in the plaza, coloring it with a pale wash of tender yellow-green.

He thought again of the weight and feel of his son in his arms, and he thought again of his father and mother. Then into his mind came Libby's answer to his question, whether her parents would take her back.
Yes. They love me. They'll always take me back
. She had said it so simply; did she know, he wondered, with all the fatuity of discovery, what a profound thing she had said?
They love me. They'll always take me back
. In those simple words, so simply spoken, he found the last of her great gifts to him. He stood up suddenly and, now taking a different direction, began walking home.