Galveston (13 page)

“Anyway, Ruth, poor dear, is just at the depths. She would be furious if she knew I were writing to you, but could you and Charles just happen to invite her down for a spell this summer? By that time I can find someone to help out in the store in her absence, and knowing the trip is coming up might help take her mind off
him
. I know there are bound to be more eligible young men her age down there than there are here …”

It occurred to me as I read Betsey's letter that Ruth's presence might be a hindrance for she might guess about my designs on Rubin, yet I couldn't refuse Betsey anything, no matter what she asked. I gave it a good deal of thought that evening before Charles came home, and by the time I showed the letter to him I'd decided that as I was willing to take the chance of Charles or Janet finding out my feelings for Rubin when they were both ever present, surely I could afford the more remote chance of being found out by Ruth. Besides, I wanted to see her, if for no other reason than that she came from Betsey and was therefore special to me, and even if she did accept my invitation to come, she wouldn't arrive for at least a couple of months. Much could happen in two or three months' time.

Charles was at first indifferent about the idea of Ruth's visit, because he couldn't think of any eligible young men that we knew.

“Well, there's the young people's group at church,” I said. “They do things in the summer—go on picnics and hayrides, and whatever. Then Teddy Marlowe—he seemed a nice young man when we met him New Year's Day. Won't he be here for a while this summer?”

“I suppose he will. And Driscoll down the street has a young son, too, come to think of it. Nice boy … works for a dry goods store downtown.”

“Ruth won't be interested in him, when she learns what his father does.”

“Oh, silly. Everyone doesn't scorn undertakers the way you do. Driscoll doesn't go round envisioning his neighbors dressed out in shrouds, and he assures me he washes his hands of the embalming fluid at least once a week.”

“Oh, stop it!”

“Seriously now, I don't think Josh Driscoll is planning to follow in his father's footsteps. Anyway, he might not be interested in Ruth either. She might be fat and ugly for all we know. It's going on three years since we saw her last. Kids change a lot in three years.”

“I never thought of that. The poor little thing was at the gawky stage, wasn't she—all arms and legs—but she'd be eighteen by now, a young woman. I'd be willing to bet she's a pretty little thing. We already know she did have at least one ardent suitor for a while.”

The third day of April was dark and gloomy, stalked by heavy showers that began before Janet's train departed at eight o'clock. I rose early to prepare a box lunch for her to take along—food at train stops is something almost ungodly, and one is generally given no longer than twenty minutes to consume whatever part of it might chance to be edible.

Rubin took Janet alone to the train, and I feared she'd miss it after all, because they were no more than halfway down the block when I saw Rubin's horse double back, and bring the rig up to the front of their house again. She'd forgotten something she had promised to carry to her mother. I worried until I was certain enough time had lapsed for her to have been back home if she missed her connection, then I went to work cleaning house and cooking all of Rubin's favorite things. He'd promised to have dinner with us that evening.

By six-thirty I had the table set and had put on fresh clothes and combed my hair, and noticed the rain had finally ended and the sky was beginning to clear. It was Charles I expected to see when I looked out the front window then, for he was half an hour late getting home. Yet it was Rubin coming down the block and up the walk, and for a moment a fairy tale flashed through my mind: he was coming not just for dinner, but coming home to see me and would stay not for an hour or two, but for the whole night through.

I stepped out on the porch to greet him, and the cool air gave me a funny, light-headed feeling after the stuffiness of the house. “Come in, Charles isn't home yet. You can keep me company while I finish dinner.”

He nodded, followed me in and through the hall to the kitchen. He'd probably followed in my footsteps hundreds of times since we had lived next door to each other, yet today I felt as though he must be gazing at my movements and was tempted to look behind.

He sat down in a kitchen chair. “I smell cherry cobbler,” he said. “You know, I just can't countenance cherry cobbler.”

I turned around and stared at him in astonishment, not catching the most obvious of jokes. Then I saw his smile, and realized how ridiculous I must have looked. “I know it, that's why you force down three platefuls whenever I make it. It's a little warm in here, but I've coffee made if you care for some.”

“Sounds good,” he said, and I turned back to the stove and lifted the lid on the pot. It was a silly thing to do. I knew the coffee was ready. I went to the cupboard and pulled down two cups and saucers, wondering whether he really was following me with his eyes or if I only imagined it. “Won't be a moment,” I said, and wondered why I had said it for it was obviously true.

When I placed a cup of coffee in front of him and one across the table for me, the cups clattered just enough to give my nervousness away. “I've—I've hurried too much today. It's gotten me nervous.”

“Well, sit down, for goodness sake. You look a little flush.” He crossed one black-trousered leg over the other, drummed his fingers on the table. It was surely the quietest evening I have ever known … no sounds coming from outside, no children calling to each other, no dogs barking, no mothers scolding. We opened our mouths to speak at the same time. “You first,” he said.

“I was just going to say we're doing fine on the garden.”

“Ah, yes. And what are all those tubs about? I almost walked into one under the cloisters today.”

“Oh, I completely forgot. Those are oleander cuttings. They have to root in tubs of water for ten days, you see, before being put into sand … we can move them out of the way if they're a bother.”

“No, no. Now I know why they're there I'll be more careful where I step. What's that on your hand?”

I picked it up and looked at it. “Oh, just a hazard of gardening I guess. Must have cut it.” I put the hand down again on the table, as though it were something unconnected to me, and he stretched his own hand across and covered it.

“You've no idea how much we appreciate your efforts,” he said, and took his hand away.

“If it gives you pleasure, that means a lot to me. Rubin?”

“Yes.”

“Remember that day, in the church office when we talked, then Charles—”

“Yes, yes.”

“What were you going to say to me, Rubin? Tell me now.”

He looked away, but I could see enough of his face to recognize his expression of resignation, and it made me catch my breath, wondering if I'd spoken too soon, or if I was wrong altogether and had spoken out of turn completely, and I wished profoundly I could recall the words. I opened my mouth to tell him “never mind,” but it was too late.

He rose from the table and walked across to the kitchen counter, and stood there against it, his arms outspread and resting against its edge. “It's best, I think, that we get this out in the open now, Claire, before it goes any further and someone is hurt. I was about to tell you—that day—sometimes I wished I'd have met you first, before Janet.”

My heart danced at the sound of the words. I blushed and looked down at the table, like a schoolgirl who's just been kissed by her first beau.

“I admire everything you are—your strength, your ability to organize things. How many times I've wished to call on you to stand beside me, be my hostess at church functions when Janet could not or would not. As much as I love her, as much as I am saddened by her confusion and her inability to handle routine matters, I have found since we came to Galveston that the patience I expected of myself on her behalf is just not there.

“And I think perhaps it is because I see you so much and I'm too human not to compare your gifts with her inabilities, and it makes it so hard to keep things in perspective and to remember my obligations.

“I—it's hard sometimes, Claire—people at the church don't really understand about Janet and I feel as though I'm walking a tightrope sometimes, trying to please my parishioners, to make excuses for her, and then I grow angry inside and, afterward, I go home to her and look at her and my guilt at having betrayed her in my thoughts makes me almost sick … can you understand?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“And that isn't all.”

“Yes?”

“Claire, you must have guessed, must have sensed, that I've found you attractive in other ways, too.”

“Oh, Rubin—” I began, and looked at him. If I had taken a breath, I would have cried.

“No,” he said, raising one of his hands. “No, don't. Let me finish. Claire, Charles is one of the finest men I've ever known, finer than me, believe that, and I regard him as the best friend I have ever had. Do you see where all this leaves me?”

I nodded because I couldn't speak.

“It means that nothing can come from this and if it isn't stopped I shall have to go away, find another position in another town, perhaps it's what I ought to do right now.”

“No, Rubin, no, please.”

He came across and put a hand on my cheek. “You see, nothing has happened and nothing must. You do see, don't you?”

“Yes, yes.”

“And I do love my wife, love her with all my heart as you must love Charles.”

I said nothing; I couldn't lie to Rubin Garret.

“And someday she will be strong and over her … problems. You see, just getting this off my chest has brought back some of my old optimism. It will be so much better for me and for you that we were wise enough to stop something that could only bring hate and bitterness in the end.

“And now you know the answer to a question you put to me that day in the office. Perhaps some priests do have a calling, and maybe that's why I have so many trials, for I don't have that special ‘calling.' You see, I'm only a man, and at times not a very admirable one.”

“And I'm only a woman, Rubin,” I said. “And I want you and have felt all the things you've felt, but if that's the way it must be—the way you say—then it shall be so, and I won't interfere.”

He stood straight and sighed, then smiled down at me with tenderness in his eyes and relief flooding his face.

“And we'll get over this,” he added, “and turn out stronger and better human beings for overcoming temptation.”

That night at dinner Rubin's mood was more animated than I had ever seen it, and he and Charles ate a whole cherry cobbler between them, and later had several glasses of Charles's favorite madeira, while I sat by, scarcely able to believe what had taken place between us and wondering whether I would be able to do as Rubin said we must. Yet I was determined to try, if only for his sake, because I knew that I loved him then in a way I had not loved even Damon Becker. His truth and honesty in front of me had won me for good and all.

Chapter 13

I was not certain, even in those days, that there would not be a time for Rubin and me, that some turn of events would not eventually occur, a sort of reward for our good behavior, our putting others before ourselves, and this thought helped me through the weeks following until, long after, my feelings for him mellowed, even withered a bit for lack of nourishment on his part, the memory of his words ennobled by his strictness in keeping to his bargain.

There was, from the first, my fierce determination to keep his image of me on the high plane where he'd kept it before the words passed between us, and I managed this by keeping frantically busy: that was the most effective way I knew of dealing with my own passions, for I am not one by nature to suppress true feelings, though much of my life up to that time had been thus spent.

When planting was done with in late April, I gave high tea for the ladies on the gardening committee, and made it a point to tell Rubin I was in hopes of Janet returning to Galveston in time to attend. Of course she failed to make it back in time, for both the tea and for the April art show, which she had resolved again to enter after having backed out the year before. Her mother took ill during her stay so she delayed coming home until the second week of June.

In the interim we invited Rubin three times to take meals with us, but he came only once, and when he did I cooked Charles's favorite dishes rather than his, and I noticed he took care not to look directly into my eyes whenever we exchanged conversation across the table.

In May I attended two Chamber of Commerce dinner meetings with Charles. He'd been on the Chamber since January, but until mid-April had taken no great part in its activities. Then he was appointed to the Committee for Industrial Expansion, and right away was asked by the committee chairman to prepare a short speech upon the importance of diversifying the manufacturing industries in the city.

I sat next to Faye Marlowe during the speech, and was impressed with his ability to present it. Afterwards the members, themselves impressed, stood and gave Charles an ovation and Andrew Swearingen, the president, said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I doubt if every one of you have met Charles Becker's charming wife, Claire. Will she please stand so that we might all know her tonight?”

Pete Marlowe hastened to pull out my chair and whispered, “Smile purty, now,” and I rose to be applauded, knowing that, with or without Charles's joining Pete's firm, we were becoming “known” as a couple around Galveston.

Early in the same month, Ruth wrote she would arrive the second day of June, and after reading the letter I walked into the despised front bedroom, the one with the dais, and considered ways of making it more attractive for a young woman. I bought a milk glass hurricane lamp with hand-painted roses on it, a new pink chintz bedspread, and a small hooked rug. I made a new cushion for the rocking chair and polished the brass headboard on the bed, and was thankful when all was done, because the room now had a welcome look.