All the Days and Nights (19 page)

“I don’t wonder,” Edmund said soberly.

“With woods all around the house, and as Mr. Hayes said, climbing over a stone wall a stone could fall on him and we wouldn’t find him for days.”

Ten minutes later, she went down to the basement for the scrub bucket, and left the door open at the head of the stairs. Edmund heard her exclaim, for their benefit, “God save us, I’ve just had the fright of my life!”

She had seen the scarecrow.

The tramp that ran off with the child, of course, Edmund thought. He went downstairs a few minutes later, and saw that Mrs. Ryan had picked the dummy up and stood it in a corner, with its degenerate face to the wall, where it no longer looked human or frightening.

Mrs. Ryan is frightened because of the nonexistent tramp. Dorothy is afraid of The Man Outside. What am I afraid of, he wondered. He stood there waiting for the oracle to answer, and it did, but not until five or six hours later. Poor Gerald Martin called, after lunch, to say that he had the German measles.

“I was sick as a dog all night,” he said mournfully. “I thought I was dying. I wrote your telephone number on a slip of paper and put it beside the bed, in case I
did
die.”

“Well, for God’s sake, why didn’t you call us?” Edmund exclaimed.

“What good would it have done?” Gerald said. “All you could have done was say you were sorry.”

“Somebody could have come over and looked after you.”

“No, somebody couldn’t. It’s very catching. I think I was exposed to it a week ago at a party in Westport.”

“I had German measles when I was a kid,” Edmund said. “We’ve both had it.”

“You can get it again,” Gerald said. “I still feel terrible.…”

When Edmund left the telephone, he made the mistake of mentioning Gerald’s illness to Mrs. Ryan, forgetting that it was the kind of thing that was meat and drink to her.

“Has Mrs. Fisher been near him?” she asked, with quickened interest.

He shook his head.

“There’s a great deal of it around,” Mrs. Ryan said. “My daughter got German measles when she was carrying her first child, and she lost it.”

He tried to ask if it was a miscarriage or if the child was born dead, and he couldn’t speak; his throat was too dry.

“She was three months along when she had it,” Mrs. Ryan went on, without noticing that he was getting paler and paler. “The baby was born alive, but it only lived three days. She’s had two other children since. I feel it was a blessing the Lord took that one. If it had lived, it might have been an imbecile. You love them even so, because they belong to you, but it’s better if they don’t live, Mr. Fisher. We feel it was a blessing the child was taken.”

Edmund decided that he wouldn’t tell Dorothy, and then five minutes later he decided that he’d better tell her. He went upstairs and into the bedroom where she was resting, and sat down on the edge of the bed, and told her about Gerald’s telephone call. “Mrs. Ryan says it’s very bad if you catch it while you’re pregnant.… And she said some more.”

“I can see she did, by the look on your face. You shouldn’t have mentioned it to her. What did she say?”

“She said —” He swallowed. “She said the child could be born an imbecile. She also said there was a lot of German measles around. You’re not worried?”

“We all live in the hand of God.”

“I tell myself that every time I’m really frightened. Unfortunately that’s the only time I do think it.”

“Yes, I know.”

Five minutes later, he came back into the room and said, “Why don’t you call the doctor? Maybe there’s a shot you can take.”

The doctor was out making calls, and when he telephoned back, Dorothy answered, on the upstairs extension. Edmund sat down on the bottom step of the stairs and listened to her half of the conversation. As soon as she had hung up, she came down to tell him what the doctor had said.

“The shot only lasts three weeks. He said he’d give it to me if I should be exposed to the measles anywhere.”

“Did he say there was an epidemic of it?”

“I didn’t ask him. He said that it was commonly supposed to be dangerous during the first three months, but that the statistics showed that it’s only the first two months, while the child is being formed, that you
have to worry.” Moonfaced and serene again, she went to put the kettle on for tea.

Edmund got up and went down to the basement. He carried the dummy outside, removed the hat and then the head, unbuttoned the shirt, removed the straw that filled it and the trousers, and threw it on the compost pile. The hat, the head, the shirt and trousers, the gloves that were hands, he rolled into a bundle and put away on a basement shelf, in case Dorothy wanted to make the scarecrow next summer. The two crossed sticks reminded him of the comfort that Mrs. Ryan, who was a devout Catholic, had and that he did not have. The hum of the vacuum cleaner overhead in the living room, the sad song of a mechanical universe, was all the reassurance he could hope for, and it left so much (it left the scarecrow, for example) completely unexplained and unaccounted for.

T
HE
Whiteheads lived on the sheltered side of a New Hampshire hill, less than half a mile from town. Their house was set back from the road, and there were so many low-skirted pine trees on both sides of the drive that Miss Avery, who had a parcel under her arm and was coming to see Mrs. Whitehead, was almost up to the house before she could see the green shutters and the high New England roofline. The driveway went past the garage and up to the front door, then around and down again to the road. Both garage doors were open and the afternoon sun shone upon Mrs. Whitehead’s Buick sedan and, beside it, a new and shiny blue convertible. While Miss Avery was admiring it, an Irish setter came bounding out of the shrubbery. The dog barked and whined and stepped on Miss Avery’s feet and blocked her way no matter where she turned, so that in desperation she gave him a shove with the flat of her hand.

As soon as she did that, a window flew open upstairs and young Francis Whitehead put his head out. “Go on, beat it!” he said. Apparently he had no clothes on. His hair and his face and shoulders were dripping wet, and for a moment Miss Avery wasn’t sure whether Francis was talking to her or to the dog. “You silly creature!” he said, and whistled and gave orders and made threats until finally the dog disappeared around the side of the house. Then for the first time Francis looked at Miss Avery. “Oh,” he said. “It’s you. Come on in, why don’t you?”

“All right,” she said. “I was going to.”

“I’m in the shower,” Francis explained, “but Mother’s around somewhere. She’ll be glad to see you.” He drew his head in and closed the window.

Miss Avery had stood by, in one capacity or another, while Francis learned to walk and to talk, to cut out strings of paper dolls, and ride a
bicycle but they had seen very little of each other the last two or three years. Francis had been away at school much of the time. He was at Cornell. And Miss Avery decided, as she raised the knocker on the big front door, that he probably wouldn’t care to be reminded of the fact that she had once sewed buttons on his pantywaists. The knocker made a noise, but no one came. Miss Avery waited and waited, and finally she opened the door and walked in.

The house was dark after the spring sunlight outside. Miss Avery felt blind as a mole. The first thing she saw was herself — her coat with the worn fur at the collar and her thin, unromantic, middle-aged face — reflected in a mirror that ran from floor to ceiling. She turned her eyes away and walked on into the library. Bookcases went nearly around the room. A wood fire was burning in the fireplace and the clock on the mantel was ticking loudly. Over by the French windows a card table had been set up. There was a pile of little baskets on it, and a number of chocolate rabbits and little chickens made out of cotton, and quantities of green and yellow wax-paper straw.

Miss Avery put down her parcel, which contained some mending that Mrs. Whitehead had asked her to do, and stood looking at the confusion on the card table until a voice exclaimed, “Happy Easter!” She turned and found Mrs. Whitehead smiling at her. Mrs. Whitehead had a china dish in one hand and a paper bag in the other. She advanced upon Miss Avery, put both arms about her, and kissed her.

“Easter is still two days off,” Miss Avery said. “This is only Good Friday.”

“I know it is. I was just indulging myself,” Mrs. Whitehead said, and she carried the dish over to the card table and poured out the sackful of Easter eggs. “I was just thinking about you and here you are.” She drew Miss Avery down beside her on the sofa and took both of her hands. “How’s your mother? I’ve been meaning to stop in and see how she was but we’ve had so much company lately — Mrs. Howard from Portsmouth and Cousin Ada Sheffield right after that, and I really haven’t had a moment. And tell me how
you
are. That’s what I really want to know.”

“Well,” Miss Avery began without enthusiasm, but Mrs. Whitehead had already got up and was searching everywhere for little dishes and jars, lifting the tops and peering into them hopefully.

“I had some ginger, but it looks as if I’d eaten every scrap of it,” she said. “There isn’t a thing to offer you but Easter eggs.”

Miss Avery tried to explain that it was all right; she didn’t like ginger
any better than she liked Easter eggs, but Mrs. Whitehead paid no attention to her. “I was just going to fix some baskets. My only child is home for his spring vacation, and I’m having eight of his cronies to dinner tomorrow night. And they all have to have Easter baskets.” She gave up looking among the dishes and jars and sat down again, at the card table this time. “Francis brought a dog home with him, too,” she said as she took one of the baskets and began lining it with green straw. “A perfectly mammoth setter. You know how huge they are. And so beautiful and so dumb!”

Miss Avery nodded, out of politeness. One dog was much like another so far as she was concerned.

“The boy it belonged to got a job somewhere,” Mrs. Whitehead said, choosing first a yellow chicken from the pile in front of her, then a rabbit, and then a white chicken small enough to fasten on the rim of the basket. “Boston, I think it was.”

“Providence,” Francis said from the doorway. He came in and sat down quietly and stretched his long legs out in front of him. His hair was still wet, but it was combed neatly back from his ears. He had flannel trousers on, and a white shirt, and an old tweed coat. He was also wearing heavy leather boots that were laced as far as his ankles and came halfway up his shins. Miss Avery let her eyes wander from boots to coat, to the right-hand pocket of the coat, which had been ripped open by accident last fall when Francis was home for Thanksgiving. The cloth had been torn a little, too, but it was all right now, Miss Avery decided. She had made it as good as new.

“Providence, then,” Mrs. Whitehead was saying. “Anyway, they had the dog in their dormitory all year and this boy couldn’t take it to work with him, so Francis brought it home, without saying a word to anybody. Red, his name is. And I give you my word, he’s as big as a pony. All morning long he’s been going around knocking things over, tracking dirt in and out, stealing meat off the kitchen table — all the things boys do in college, I’m sure.” She looked at Francis slyly. “And then every time he does something wrong, he comes and apologizes with those great brown eyes of his until I really don’t think I can stand it much longer.”

Francis drew himself up into his chair. “You exaggerate something awful,” he said.

Mrs. Whitehead looked at Miss Avery. “It isn’t so,” she said meekly. “Is it, Miss Avery? Francis is always saying that I exaggerate.” She turned to Francis. “Miss Avery’s mother exaggerates, too, Francis, even with her hardening of the arteries.” Then back to Miss Avery: “Though I never
heard her do it, you understand. I daresay all mothers exaggerate.” She looked from one to the other of them and then burst into laughter. “Miss Avery takes me so seriously,” she said. “She always did. She never changes a bit. We’re the ones who have changed, Francis. There’s not one piece of ginger in the house.”

She held the Easter basket off, admiring it from this angle and that. Then she put it aside and began on another one, which she lined with yellow straw. Before she had finished the second basket, the maid appeared in the doorway, carrying a wide silver tea tray. The dog followed after her, sniffing. “Annie, how nice of you to think of tea,” said Mrs. Whitehead. When Annie tried to put the tray down, the dog came forward, blocking her way completely. Mrs. Whitehead was plunged into despair. “You see, Francis?” she said.

Francis rose and took hold of the dog’s collar. “Red,” he exclaimed fondly, “did anyone ever tell you you were a nuisance?” and dragged the dog out of the room.

“Don’t put him in the pantry,” Mrs. Whitehead called. Then she turned to Miss Avery again. “He can open the swinging door with his paw. Besides, he’ll just be there for Annie to fall over.”

From where Miss Avery sat, she could see into the front hall. Francis was whirling the dog round and round by his front legs and saying “Swing, you crazy dog, swing, swing!”

“Francis is going to leave school,” Mrs. Whitehead said. “Last summer nothing would do but he must learn to walk the tightrope. Now he wants to leave school.” She began arranging the teacups absentmindedly in their saucers. “He intends to go back and take his examinations in June. Then he’s going to stop. I’ve talked until I’m blue in the face and it makes no difference to him. Not the slightest.… What kind of sandwiches are there, Annie?”

“Cream cheese,” Annie said, “and guava jelly, and hot cross buns.”

“Hot cross buns!” Francis said, coming back into the room. “Do you hear that, Mother?”

Mrs. Whitehead looked at him disapprovingly as he sat down. “The way you twist Annie around your little finger! I don’t know what I’ll do when you come home to stay.”

Francis bent over, and having folded the cuffs of his trousers inside his boots, continued lacing them. “I’m not coming home to stay,” he said, with his chin between his knees.

For a moment the room was absolutely still. Without looking at her son, Mrs. Whitehead put the tea strainer on the tray where the plate of
lemon had been, reflected, and changed them back again. “Sugar?” she said to Miss Avery.