The Rebellion of Yale Marratt (62 page)

 

 

And while he made love to her, Barbara would have frozen to death. And
he would have known that had he come home Barbara would be alive. Had
she died, her death would forever have been his responsibility. Because
that was the way it was, once you accepted responsibility. That was the
way it was with Anne whom he had made pregnant. That was the way it was
with Cindar who was pregnant and needed help, and probably loved him. Did
it make so much difference that they had lost six years? Wouldn't it be
an even deeper and more understanding marriage because they knew what
it was to have lost each other?

 

 

Yes, somehow he would convince Cindar to marry him. As he fell asleep
he wondered if, when married to Cindar, he would forever worry about
Anne. Why had Anne thought so lightly of their love? Could it be that he
would never be a complete person again? When would he grow old enough to
be more blasé? Look at Barbara. Tom Eames obviously didn't give a damn
that his wife had almost frozen to death . . . or nearly got screwed by
her brother. . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

3

 

 

While they slept the snow kept falling. A northeast wind blowing in
from the Atlantic whipped it into huge drifts, and then in howling
dissatisfaction picked up the drifts and deposited them in even greater
piles somewhere else.

 

 

In Midhaven, weary men seated high in the cabs of trucks hastily rigged
with plows, worked hopelessly against the storm. All through the night,
as fast as the main roads were cleared they filled in again. Six people
died. They were buried in drifts or, abandoning their cars, froze to
death or had heart attacks trying to reach home.

 

 

Yale slept restlessly. He tossed and turned, unaccustomed to sleeping
with a woman. He awoke to a cold grey room. His nose felt frozen. The
electric clock on Barbara's dresser said nine-fifteen. That must have
been the time last night that the power went off. What time was it now?

 

 

He looked at Barbara. Her hair was scattered on the pillow, one bare arm
flung over her head. Her breasts were uncovered. She looked at him and
smiled faintly. "I'm awful sick," she said. "I must have wakened you
going to the bathroom. I've got the runs. Feel as if I'm burning up."

 

 

Yale felt her face and drew back alarmed. "For God's sake. Cover up,
you fool! You've got a fever."

 

 

He jumped out of bed, found some clothes in his room, and located
a thermometer in the master bathroom. When he came back Barbara was
shivering violently. Her skin looked bluish. He shoved the thermometer
between her trembling lips. A few minutes later he looked at it in dismay.
It read 101. "Lady, you're a sick pup!" he muttered. "I'm going to call a
doctor." He found a telephone book. "Do Pat and Liz still have old Starkey?"

 

 

"I'll be all right," Barbara whispered. "Just pooped from the trip back
. . . don't need a doctor."

 

 

Yale found the telephone number. He picked up the phone. There was no
dial tone. The lines must be down. Barbara was perspiring and moaning
a little. What could he do for her? He searched the medicine cabinet
in the master bathroom and found some aspirin. Better than nothing. She
swallowed two, tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry, Yale. I guess I'd be dead
if it wasn't for you. How did you ever get me to the house?"

 

 

Yale put his hand on her cheek with a friendly caress. He was frightened
by the heat of her skin. "Look, Bobby, you've got to have a doctor! The
phone isn't working. I'm going to see if I can get the plow hitched up to
the farm truck and plow out the road. It will take some time." He pulled
the phone over beside her bed. "I'll write down Starkey's number. Keep
trying. They may get the lines fixed."

 

 

It was still snowing lightly when Yale went out the back door. He jumped
through drifts to reach the garage. Whit had backed the truck in and
the plow was attached, evidently prepared for a storm. The truck started
easily. About fifty feet from the garage, he plowed into a drift nearly
two feet high. The truck bucked, skidded. If Whit had been home he would
have kept plowing every hour or so through the night. Now it was too
late. The drifts were too high for the lightweight truck. Discouraged,
he backed into the garage. There was only one way to reach the highway
and that was on foot.

 

 

Nothing to do but try. Barbara must have a doctor. Dressed in a lumberman's
jacket, high boots, and a woolen hat pulled over his head, he reached
the highway in about an hour. Puffing and feeling slightly sick from
the exertion, he was relieved to find one lane had been plowed. There
was no traffic. He walked in the direction of Midhaven. He remembered
a small grocery store and a cluster of houses about two miles away.
As he walked he was impressed with the strange quiet of the morning.
The snow had temporarily put a forest hush on the land. The only sound
was his boots crunching the snow beneath him.

 

 

He finally reached the grocery store. It was damp inside and smelled of
wet cardboard boxes. Three men stood around an old pot-bellied stove.
In answer to his query one of them pointed to a phone on the wall. As he
picked it up, one of them said, "It ain't working." The others laughed
in great good humor at Yale's stupidity. Yale looked at them angrily.

 

 

"Can one of you drive me into Midhaven? I've got to get a doctor for
my sister."

 

 

One of them, a man of about sixty, heavy-built, with a two-day growth
of beard, introduced himself. "I'm Ralph Weeks. You're young Marratt,
ain't you? I used to work for your pa."

 

 

Yale, embarrassed at confiding personal information and pleading for help,
explained his problem.

 

 

"Well, young fellow, you're in luck. If your danged employment manager,
Jim Sanford, hadn't given me the sack last week because I was too old to
be liftin' crates, I wouldn't have gone out and gotten me a job plowing
yesterday. Too old, how do you like that?" Weeks clapped Yale on the back,
with a thunderous blow. Yale could feel the strength of the man.

 

 

"Might have a little rheumatism. Might need a few drinks to warm me up
now and then, but by god Ralph Weeks ain't too old yet! Got a city plow
down the street. I'll plow you right up to that no-good Starkey's front
porch, and then plow you back home at city expense." Weeks laughed
a belly-shaking laugh. Yale was impressed with the good-humored,
country-bred warmth of the man.

 

 

Sitting in the cab, Yale watched with admiration the dexterous way that
Weeks handled the big truck. "Twenty years ago I used to operate a steam
shovel for a construction company." Weeks' breath curled in a cloud around
his face. "Then, Martha, my old woman, inherited the Langley house. Damned
big ark. Must have been built after the Revolutionary War. So I quit and
started a truck farm. Good way to starve to death. Off and on I worked
for Marratt. Me and Martha liked the old place, though. Then the kids
grew up and went their way. Last year Martha died. I'm living there by
myself, now."

 

 

Weeks reached behind him and produced a pint of liquor. "Have a shot,
son! It's damned cold. Made this myself. Got a little still now that
Martha is gone. Liquor and women, that's what makes life worth living,
boy. Trouble is you get older. You keep thinkin' about a nice young
female cuddled up with you and there ain't none available. Guess I'll sell
the house and move into town. Don't know anyone like to buy an old ark,
do you? They don't build houses like that today. It's got ten rooms and
six fireplaces plus a barn and forty acres of glacial stone and woods."

 

 

Yale remembered the house. It was a Georgian colonial, sitting on the crest
of a hill a few miles beyond the Marratt house. The house had seen better
days. Pat used to complain that it looked like something out of Tobacco
Road. Unpainted, weather-beaten, it seemed to have a personality of its own;
benign and disinterested in the progress of the world that had passed it by.

 

 

Weeks interspersed his conversation with an occasional shot of whiskey,
passing the bottle each time to Yale. It had the light flavor of corn
liquor and went down easily, erupting in a glow that spread throughout
his body. Yale was feeling slightly tipsy when they pulled up in front
of Doctor Starkey's house. To get there, Weeks had plowed a fresh lane
through the virgin snow.

 

 

"I'll finish the street while you rouse Starkey," Weeks said. "He must
be home. We are the first plow in this section. I'm out of my territory
but what the hell."

 

 

When he recognized Yale, Doctor Starkey wasted no time. "Might be
pneumonia," he said. "Got something, pretty new . . . penicillin.
Good chance to try it."

 

 

They plowed easily through the drifts on Pat's private road. Yale asked
Weeks to come back later and plow out his car and Barbara's.

 

 

Yale watched Starkey as he examined Barbara. "You've got to stay right
in that bed, young lady. This could develop into something if you're
not careful." He gave Barbara an injection and left some medicine.

 

 

On the way downstairs Starkey remarked on how cold the house was. "Your
sister has all the symptoms of pneumonia. I don't know how this penicillin
will react. It should help . . . but she's going to need a nurse. I don't
want her out of that bed." He looked at Yale seriously. "I'd try to get
a hold of your father and mother."

 

 

Yale explained that he wasn't sure where they were staying in Florida,
but he would try to contact them once the phone was working. Starkey
asked him if he knew some woman that might come in. Yale shook his head.

 

 

"You can't get a nurse unless you personally know one," Starkey said
gloomily. "There's been a real shortage around here since the war."
He told Yale that he would come back around five o'clock, if he could
get his car out.

 

 

"Keep her on that medicine. Change the bed, if she sweats too much.
Feed her liquids."

 

 

From the upstairs window, Yale watched the truck disappear in the distance.
He realized that he hadn't eaten since yesterday afternoon.

 

 

Later, puttering around in the kitchen, Yale remembered Cynthia.
He wondered if he could ask her to help him. If Barbara really had
penumonia, he was going to need a woman. But it was unreasonable.
He couldn't ask Cynthia to expose herself to pneumonia. Unless he could
contact Pat and Liz, the best thing would be to get Barbara to a hospital.

 

 

For the rest of the long day he sat in Barbara's room, huddled in an
overcoat. Barbara slept, breathing heavily. Every hour or so Yale tried
to telephone but there was no response.

 

 

During the day the conviction had grown on him that he needed Cynthia.
If she was willing, they would try to recapture the love and close
compatibility they had once known. He would tell her about Barbara.
Without directly asking her help, he would see if she would offer to
come. Unless she had changed from the person he had known, he knew that
he wouldn't have to ask her. Cynthia would come. Having her in the house,
meeting a common problem, he would break through her reserve. He was
convinced that if he could discover what had happened to her the day
before their graduation, he could gradually rebuild their love. Cynthia's
obsession with her Jewishness was completely silly. Yesterday, she had
practically admitted that she loved him.

 

 

Sometime in the afternoon Yale got the telephone operator. Explaining
to her that there was probably no telephone where Cynthia lived, he gave
the operator her address. She agreed to telephone-canvass the street.
In less than an hour she called back and Yale heard Cynthia's voice.

 

 

"Yale, are you all right?" she asked. Her voice sounded husky and warm.
"I worried about you all night. It's been the worst storm on record."

 

 

Yale felt an agreeable shiver of happiness as he realized her concern.
When he told her what had happened, purposely minimizing how sick Barbara
was, Cynthia said softly, "Yale, I'll come if you want me to. . . ."

 

 

She arrived at the Midhaven railroad station at one o'clock in the morning.
Yale met her in his Ford which Ralph Weeks had helped him extricate from
the snow. The grille had been smashed, and one mudguard caved in from the
crash with Barbara's car, but the car ran all right.

 

 

Cynthia had immediately taken over. She insisted that Yale looked worn
out and made him go to bed. Yale left the bathroom doors open between
his room and Barbara's. He didn't attempt to introduce Cynthia to Barbara.
Barbara's temperature was still very high. She was moaning unintelligibly.

 

 

Yale called Starkey several times during the day. At four in the morning
he arrived, looking irritated and wan. "I have had it today." He sighed.
"I've been on the go all day. Two emergency operations, three heart
attacks, a couple of cases of pneumonia. You need to be two men. Are you
an R. N. Mrs. Chilling?"

 

 

Cynthia explained that she wasn't but that she could follow instructions.
Starkey responded to her crisp manner. He told her in detail what to do
for Barbara.

 

 

For the next two days Cynthia maintained an almost unceasing vigil.
She made light meals, persuaded Barbara to eat, changed her sheets, and
bathed her. When Yale tried to draw her into conversation she avoided
him. "I came to help you with your sister, Yale," she said. "We can talk
later. In case you don't know it, I don't think Barbara is fighting at
all. She hopes she'll die. Something happened with her husband. Some
other woman, I guess."