I Married A Dead Man (8 page)

               
There was a scattering of orange peel, and two or three seeds, in a dish on a low stand beside her easy chair. There was a cigarette burning in another, smaller dish beside that one. It was custommade, it had a straw tip, and the initials "P H" on it had not yet been consumed.

               
The sunlight, falling from behind and over her, made her hair seem hazily translucent, made it almost seem like golden foam about her head. It skipped the front of her, from there on down, due to the turn of the chair-back, and struck again in a little golden pool across one outthrust bare instep, lying on it like a warm, luminous kiss.

               
There was a light tap at the door and the doctor came in.

               
He drew out a chair and sat down facing her, leaving its straight back in front of him as an added note of genial informality.

               
"I hear you're leaving us soon."

               
The book fell and he had to pick it up for her. He offered it back to her, but when she seemed incapable of taking it, he put it aside on the stand.

               
"Don't look so frightened. Everything's arranged--"

               
She had a little difficulty with her breathing. "Where--? Where to?"

               
"Why, home, of course."

               
She put her hand to her hair and flattened it a little, but then it sprang up again, gaseous as before, in the sun.

               
"Here are your tickets." He took an envelope out of his pocket, tried to offer it to her. Her hands withdrew a little, each one around a side of the chair toward the back. He put the envelope between the pages of the discarded book finally, leaving it outthrust like a place-mark.

               
Her eyes were very large. Larger than they had seemed before he came into the room. "When?" she said with scarcely any breath at all.

               
"Wednesday, the early afternoon train."

               
Suddenly panic was licking all over her, like a shriveling, congealing, frigid flame.

               
"No, I can't! No! Doctor, you've got to listen--!" She tried to grab his hand with both of hers and hold onto it.

               
He spoke to her playfully, as if she were a child. "Now, now, here. What's all this? What is all this?"

               
"No, doctor, no--!" She shook her head insistently.

               
He sandwiched her hand between both of his, and held it that way, consolingly. "I understand," he said soothingly. "We're a little shaky yet, we've just finished getting used to things as they are-- We're a little timid about giving up familiar surroundings for those that are strange to us. We all have it; it's a typical nervous reaction. Why, you'll be over it in no time."

               
"But I can't do it, doctor," she whispered passionately. "I can't do it."

               
He chucked her under the chin, to instill courage in her. "We'll put you on the train, and all you have to do is ride. Your family will be waiting to take you off at the other end."

               
"My family."

               
"Don't make such a face about it," he coaxed whimsically.

               
He glanced around at the crib.

               
"What about the young man here?"

               
He went over to it, and lifted the child out; brought him to her and put him in her arms.

               
"You want to take him home, don't you? You don't want him to grow up in a hospital?" He laughed at her teasingly. "You want him to have a home, don't you?"

               
She held him to her, lowered her head to him.

               
"Yes," she said at last, submissively. "Yes, I want him to have a home."

13

               
A train again. But how different it was now. No crowded aisles, no jostling figures, no flux of patient, swaying humanity. A compartment, a roomette all to herself. A little table on braces, that could go up, that could go down. A closet with a full-length mirrored door, just as in any ground-fast little dwelling. On the rack the neat luggage in recessive tiers, brand-new, in use now for the first time, glossy patent finish, hardware glistening, "P H" trimly stencilled in vermilion on the rounded corners. A little shaded lamp to read by when the countryside grew dark. Flowers in a holder, going-away flowers--no, coming-homeward flowers--presented by proxy at the point of departure; glazed fruit-candies in a box; a magazine or two.

               
And outside the two wide windows, that formed almost a single panel from wall to wall, trees sailing peacefully by, off a way in a single line, dappled with sunshine; dark green on one side, light apple-green on the other. Clouds sailing peacefully by, only a little more slowly than the trees, as if the two things worked on separate, yet almost-synchronized, belts of continuous motion. Meadows and fields, and the little ripples that hillocks made off in the distance every once in awhile. Going up a little, coming down again. The wavy line of the future.

               
And on the seat opposite her own, and more important by far than all this, snug in a little blue blanket, small face still, small eyes closed--something to cherish, something to love. All there was in the world to love. All there was to go on for, along that wavy line outside.

               
Yes, how different it was now. And--how infinitely preferable the first time had been to this one. Fear rode with her now.

               
There hadn't been fear then. There hadn't been a seat, there hadn't been a bite to eat, there had only been seventeen cents. And just ahead, unguessed, rushing ever nearer with the miles, there had been calamity, horror, the beating of the wings of death.

               
But there hadn't been fear. There hadn't been this gnawing inside. There hadn't been this strain and counterstrain, this pulling one way and pulling the other. There had been the calm, the certainty, of going along the right way, the only way there was to go.

               
The wheels chattered, as they always chatter, on every train that has ever run. But saying now, to her ear alone:

                               
" You'd better go back, you'd better go back,

                               
Clicketty-clack, clicketty-clack,

                               
Stop while you can, you still can go back ."

               
A very small part of her moved, the least part of her moved. Her thumb unbracketed, and her four fingers opened slowly, and the tight white knot they'd made for hours past dissolved. There in its center, exposed now--

               
An Indian-head penny.

               
A Lincoln-head penny.

               
A buffalo nickel.

               
A Liberty-head dime.

               
Seventeen cents. She even knew the dates on them by heart, by now.

                               
" Clicketty-clack,

                               
Stop and go back,

                               
You still have the time,

                               
Turn and go back ."

               
Slowly the fingers folded up and over again, the thumb crossed over and locked them in place.

               
Then she took the whole fist and struck it distractedly against her forehead and held it there for a moment where it had struck.

               
She stood up suddenly, and tugged at one of the pieces of luggage, and swivelled it around, so that its outermost corner was now inward. The "P H" disappeared. Then she did it to the piece below. The second "P H" disappeared.

               
The fear wouldn't disappear. It wasn't just stencilled on a corner of her, it was all over her.

               
There was a light knock outside the door, and she started as violently as though it had been a resounding crash.

               
"Who's there?" she gasped.

               
A porter's voice answered, "Five mo' minutes fo' Caulfield."

               
She reared from the seat, and ran to the door, flung it open. He was already going down the passage. "No, wait! It can't be--"

               
"It sho' enough is, though, ma'm."

               
"So quickly, though. I didn't think--"

               
He smiled back at her indulgently. "It always comes between Clarendon and Hastings. That's the right place fo' it. And we've had Clarendon already, and Hastings's comin' right after it. Ain't never change since I been on this railroad."

               
She closed the door, and swung around, and leaned her whole back against it, as if trying to keep out some catastrophic intrusion.

                               
" Too late to go back,

                               
Too late to go back --"

               
"I can still ride straight through, I can ride past without getting off," she thought She ran to the windows and peered out ahead, at an acute angle, as if the oncoming sight of it in itself would resolve her difficulty in some way.

               
Nothing yet. It was coming on very gradually. A house, all by itself. Then another house, still all by itself. Then a third. They were beginning to come thicker now.

               
"Ride straight through, don't get off at all. They can't make you. Nobody can. Do this one last thing that's all there's time for now."

               
She ran back to the door and hurriedly turned the little fingerlatch under the knob, locking it on the inside.

               
The houses were coming in more profusion, but they were coming slower too. They didn't sail any more, they dawdled. A schoolbuilding drifted by; you could tell what it was even from afar. Spotless, modern, brand-new looking, its concrete functionalism gleaming spic-and-span in the sun; copiously glassed. She could even make out small swings in motion, in the playground beside it. She glanced aside at the small blanketed bundle on the seat That would be the kind of school she'd want--

               
She didn't speak, but her own voice was loud in her ears. "Help me, somebody; I don't know what to do!"

               
The wheels were dying, as though they'd run out of lubrication. Or like a phonograph record that runs down.

                               
" Cli-ck, cla-ck,

                               
Cli-i-ck, cla-a-a-ck ."

               
Each revolution seemed about to be the last.

               
Suddenly a long shed started up, just outside the windows, running along parallel to them, and then a white sign suspended from it started to go by, letter by letter in reverse.

                                               
"D-L-E-I-"

               
It got to the F and it stuck. It wouldn't budge. She all but screamed. The train had stopped.

               
A knock sounded right behind her back, the vibration of it seeming to go through her chest.

               
"Caulfield, ma'm."

               
Then someone tried the knob.

               
"Help you with yo' things?"

               
Her clenched fist tightened around the seventeen cents, until the knuckles showed white and livid with the pressure.

               
She ran to the seat and picked up the blue blanket and what it held.

               
There were people out there, just on the other side of the window. Their heads were low, but she could see them, and they could see her. There was a woman looking right at her.

               
Their eyes met, their eyes locked, held fast. She couldn't turn her head away, she couldn't withdraw deeper into the compartment. It was as though those eyes riveted her where she stood.