The Bird’s Nest (4 page)

The whole room partook somehow of the smooth hills and sunsets; the chair in which Elizabeth sat was soft and deep and upholstered in a kind of cloudy orange, her feet lay on a carpet in which a scarlet key design ran in and out and around a geometric floral affair in green and brown, and the wallpaper, pervading and emphasizing the room, and somehow the Arrows, presented the inadvertent viewer with alternate squares of blue and green, relieved almost haphazardly by touches of black. There was nothing of harmony, nothing of humor, in the Arrows' way of life; there was everything of compromise and yet, comfortably, a kind of deep security in the unmistakable realization that all of this belonged without dispute to the Arrows, was unmovable and after a while almost tolerable, and was, beyond everything else, solid. Not even Aunt Morgen could deny the Arrows the reality of their living room, and when one met them at a lecture on reincarnation, or walking placidly together toward the park on a Sunday afternoon, or dining at the home of one of those odd people who always seemed to invite them, Mr. and Mrs. Arrow brought with them, and spread infectiously, an air of unfading wallpaper and practical carpeting, of ironclad and frequently unendurable mediocrity.

From where she sat Elizabeth could see her own reflection in the polish of the grand piano, and sparks from her own face glancing off the cut glass bowl of wax fruit, and glitters when she moved her hand, flashing and glinting, from the gilt mirror over the marble mantel and the glass beads on the lampshade and Mr. Arrow's cuff links and the painted jar on the table, kept always full of sugared almonds. Mr. Arrow was going to get them some sherry, Mrs. Arrow hoped they would take a chocolate, Mr. Arrow was willing to break the ice with a song, if anyone liked; Mrs. Arrow wondered if Elizabeth was not getting thin, and the lights danced on the glass of the picture where the roses and peonies were massed in the country garden. Elizabeth identified a disturbance; she was getting one of her headaches. She rubbed the back of her neck against the chair, and moved uneasily. The headache began, somehow, at the back of her head and progressed, creeping and fearful, down her back; Elizabeth thought of it as a live thing moving down her backbone, escaping from her head by the narrow avenue which was her neck, slipping onto and conquering her back, taking over her shoulders and finally settling, nestled in safety, in the small of her back, from which it could not be dislodged by any stretching or rubbing or rolling; to a large extent her rubbing the back of her neck was an attempt to cut off the path of this live pain; firm enough rubbing might make it turn back, discouraged, and keep only to her head; “—museum?” Mrs. Arrow asked her.

“I beg your pardon?” Elizabeth said to Mrs. Arrow.

“Are you well, Elizabeth?” Mrs. Arrow asked, peering. “Do you feel all right?”

“I have a headache,” Elizabeth said.

“Again?”
Aunt Morgen asked.

“It will go away,” Elizabeth said, sitting still. Mr. Arrow would bring her an aspirin, and thought he might better not sing until her poor head was better; Mr. Arrow remarked smilingly to Aunt Morgen that frequently the headtones of the human voice were most irritating to the sensitive membranes of the brain, although, of course, many people found it soothing to be sung to when their heads ached. Mrs. Arrow had a kind of headache pill which she had always found more efficacious than aspirin, and would be delighted to bring one to Elizabeth; Mrs. Arrow herself always took two of these pills, but felt that Elizabeth had better not at first venture more than one. Aunt Morgen thought that Elizabeth should have her eyes examined, because these headaches came so often, and Mr. Arrow told about the headaches he had had before he got
his
glasses. Mrs. Arrow said that she would be very happy to go and get Elizabeth one of her headache pills if Elizabeth thought it would help and Elizabeth said untruthfully that she felt better now, thank you. Because everyone was looking at her she picked up the glass of sherry which Mr. Arrow had poured for her, and sipped at it daintily, loathing the underneath bitter taste of it, and feeling her head swim sickeningly.

“—to breed Edmund,” Mrs. Arrow was saying to Aunt Morgen. “It seems like a long way to go, of course, but we felt, Vergil and I, that it was worth it.”

“Got to take a lot of care with that kind of thing,” Mr. Arrow said.

“I remember,” Aunt Morgen began, “when I was about sixteen—”

“Elizabeth,” Mrs. Arrow said, “are you
sure
you feel all right?”

Everyone turned again and looked at her, and Elizabeth, sipping at her sherry, said, “I feel fine now, really.”

“I don't like the way that girl looks,” Mrs. Arrow said to Aunt Morgen, and shook her head worriedly, “she doesn't look well, Morgen.”

“Peaked,” Mr. Arrow amplified.

“She used to be strong as a horse,” Aunt Morgen said, turning to look intently at Elizabeth. “Lately she's been getting these headaches and backaches and she hasn't been sleeping at all well.”

“Growing pains,” Mrs. Arrow said tentatively, as though there was still a chance that it might turn out to be something worse. “She could be working too hard, too.”

“Young girls,” Mr. Arrow said profoundly.

“How old
is
Elizabeth?” Mrs. Arrow asked. “Sometimes when a girl spends too much of her time alone. . . .” She gestured delicately, and dropped her eyes.

“I'm all right,” Elizabeth said uneasily.

“Fanciful,” Mr. Arrow said, with a gesture reminiscent of Mrs. Arrow's. “Wrong ideas,” he added.

“I've been wondering if she ought to see Doctor Ryan,” Aunt Morgen said. “This business of not sleeping. . . .”

“Always just as well to go with the
first
symptoms,” Mrs. Arrow said firmly. “You never know what might turn up
later.
”

“General check-up,” said Mr. Arrow roundly.

“I think so,” Aunt Morgen said. She sighed and then smiled at Mr. and Mrs. Arrow. “It's a great responsibility,” she said, “my own sister's child, and yet it's not as though I've been much of a
mother.
”

“
No
one could have been more conscientious,” Mrs. Arrow declared, immediately and positively. “Morgen, you must
not,
you simply must
not,
blame yourself; you've done a
splendid
job. Vergil?”

“Fine job,” said Mr. Arrow hastily. “Often thought about it.”

“I've always tried to think of her as though she was my own,” Aunt Morgen said, and the sudden quick smile she sent across the room to Elizabeth made the words almost pathetic, because they were true. Elizabeth smiled back, and rubbed her neck against the chair.

“—Edmund,” Mrs. Arrow was saying.

“But I don't understand,” Aunt Morgen said. “Was the mother brown?”

“Apricot,” Mrs. Arrow said reprovingly.

“That was why we had to go so far out of town,” Mr. Arrow explained. “We wanted to get just the
right
color combination. But of course,” he went on mournfully, “as it turned out, we could have saved ourselves a trip.”

“It
is
a shame,” Aunt Morgen said.

“So of
course
we
had
to take the black one,” Mrs. Arrow said, and shrugged, to show how helpless they had been.

Mr. Arrow touched his wife on the shoulder. “All water under the bridge,” he said. “How about a little music? Elizabeth's head all right?”

“Fine,” said Elizabeth.

“Well, then,” said Mr. Arrow, moving with speed toward the piano. “Ruth? Care to play along?” As his wife rose and came toward the piano, Mr. Arrow turned to Aunt Morgen. “Which shall it be? Mandalay?”

“Lovely,” said Aunt Morgen, settling herself into her chair and reaching without formality for the sherry decanter. “Mandalay would be perfectly grand.”

Elizabeth opened her eyes then because instead of the sound of the piano playing the introduction to “The Road to Mandalay,” there was a silence, and then Mr. Arrow said, “Well, really.” He closed the music on the piano and said to Elizabeth, “I'm sorry. I
asked
if your head was all right. Really,” he said to Mrs. Arrow.

“He did, you know, Elizabeth,” Mrs. Arrow said. “I'm sure no one wants to
make
you listen.”

“I beg your pardon?” Elizabeth said, perplexed. “I
want
to hear Mr. Arrow sing.”

“Well, if it was a joke,” Aunt Morgen said, “it was in extremely poor taste, Elizabeth.”

“I don't understand,” Elizabeth said.

“It's all forgotten now, anyway,” Mr. Arrow said peaceably. “We'll go ahead, then.”

Elizabeth, waiting again, again heard only silence and opened her eyes to find them all looking at her.
“Elizabeth,”
Aunt Morgen was saying, chokingly and half-rising from her chair,
“Elizabeth.”

“Never mind, Morgen, really,” Mrs. Arrow said. She got up from the piano bench, her hands shaking and her mouth tight. “I'm certainly
surprised,
” Mrs. Arrow said.

Mr. Arrow, not looking at Elizabeth, folded the music slowly and put it with some care onto the other music on the back of the piano. After a minute he looked around the room, smiling his faint smile. “Let's not have our nice evening spoiled, ladies,” he said. “Sherry, Morgen?”

“I have never
been
so humiliated,” Aunt Morgen said. “I can't understand it at
all.
I do apologize, Vergil, I honestly do. All I can say is—”

“Please don't mind it,” Mrs. Arrow said. She put her hand gently on Aunt Morgen's arm. “Let's forget all about it.”

“Elizabeth?” Aunt Morgen said.

“What?” said Elizabeth.

“—feel all right?”

“What?” said Elizabeth.

“She ought to lie down or something,” Mr. Arrow said.

“I had no idea—” Mrs. Arrow said.

“She's taken eight glasses of sherry, by
my
count,” Aunt Morgen said grimly. “Where she ought to be is home in bed; I never saw her drink
any
thing before.”

“But just sweet sherry—”

“—see a doctor,” said Mrs. Arrow wisely. “Can't be too careful.”

“Elizabeth,” Aunt Morgen said sharply, “put down your cards and get up and put on your coat. We're going home.”

“Must you?” Mrs. Arrow asked. “I don't really think she needs to go
home.
”

Aunt Morgen laughed. “Three rubbers of bridge is about
my
limit,” she said. “And Elizabeth has to get up in the morning.”

“Well, it's been lovely to have you,” Mrs. Arrow said.

“Come again soon,” Mr. Arrow said.

“We've enjoyed it
so
much,” Aunt Morgen said.

“Thank you for a very nice time,” Elizabeth said.

“It was nice to see you, Elizabeth. And, Morgen, do make a point of getting to that science lecture. Maybe we can all go together—”

“Thanks again,” Aunt Morgen said.

When the door had closed behind them and they were going down the walk in the cool night air Aunt Morgen took Elizabeth's arm and said, “Look, kiddo, you frightened me. Are you sick?”

“I have a headache.”

“No wonder, after all that sherry.” Aunt Morgen stopped under the street light and took Elizabeth's chin and turned her face to look at her. “You're
not
tight on sherry,” Aunt Morgen said, wondering. “You look all right and you talk all right and you walk all right—there
is
something wrong. Elizabeth,” she said urgently, “
what
is it, kiddo?”

“Headache,” Elizabeth said.

“I wish you'd talk to me,” Aunt Morgen said. She put her arm through Elizabeth's and they began to walk on. “I get so goddamned
worried
,” Aunt Morgen said. “All during the bridge game I—”

“What bridge game?” Elizabeth said.

 • • •

“Well, now, Morgen,” Doctor Ryan said. He leaned back in his chair and the chair creaked under his huge weight, as it had been doing, Elizabeth thought, all her lifetime; she had never thought of it so clearly before, but all she remembered of Doctor Ryan after leaving his office was the way his chair creaked. “Well, now, Morgen,” Doctor Ryan said. He put his fingers together in front of him and raised his eyebrows and looked quizzically at Aunt Morgen. “Always
were
one to get het up about trifles,” he said.

“Hah,” said Aunt Morgen. “
I
can remember a time, Harold Ryan—”

They both laughed, similarly, greatly, looking at one another with wrinkles of laughter around their eyes. “Damn disrespectful woman,” Doctor Ryan said, and they laughed.

Elizabeth looked at Doctor Ryan's office; she had been here before, with her mother, with Aunt Morgen; Doctor Ryan had been here in this office ever since Elizabeth could remember, and so far as Elizabeth knew he had no other home. He had been in Aunt Morgen's house when her mother died, his arm around Aunt Morgen's shoulders, his great voice saying small things; he had come once in the night, looming jovially at the foot of Elizabeth's bed, speaking coolly through the feverish, inflamed phantoms crowding the pillow; “You're making quite a fuss, my girl,” he had said then, “over nothing but a couple of measles.” The rest of the time, the rest of Elizabeth's life, Doctor Ryan had been here in this office, leaning back in his chair and making it creak. Elizabeth did not know the names on the backs of any of the books in the glass-doored case behind Doctor Ryan's back, but she knew peculiarly well the tear on the leather spine of the one third from the end on the second shelf, and wondered, now, if Doctor Ryan ever turned around and took down one of the books to look at. While Doctor Ryan and Aunt Morgen laughed, Elizabeth looked at the grey curtains over the window, and the books, and the glass inkwell on Doctor Ryan's desk, and the little ship model which Doctor Ryan had made himself, long ago, when his fingers were nimbler.