Maiden Flight (9 page)

Orv and I were at breakfast when the Western Union rang with Harry's first telegram. It said if I still thought it “wise”—or some such foolish thing—he could come to Dayton the next night at six. As soon as Orv was safely out of the house, I wired back that I did want him to come. I dropped Little Brother off at the train station at three o'clock and came home to lie down—only to be awakened around five-thirty by a phone call from Anne McCormick. She told me Orv
hadn't
gone to Philadelphia after all and was
at his office waiting to be picked up.
I was so scared I couldn't say anything but “Hasn't gone? Hasn't
gone
?” I nearly had a fit—as soon as I was sure Orv was all right—for then I began to think how my one chance to talk to Harry was all knocked up.

My first thought was to tell him that Orv hadn't gone so he wouldn't come all the way to Dayton for only the short talks we could get in between times. Before Orv and Frank came, the telephone rang again and Anne answered. “Western Union for you,” she called out. That was the message that said something—I was too excited to hear straight—about some
other
message being reported undelivered and saying Harry would come the next night. As soon as I could, I got to the telephone and called the Western Union. No answer. Called again. No answer. Called again. No answer.
Then I tried the Postal. I got hold of a blockhead—
man
,
of course!—who couldn't understand anything. Finally I got the message through that Orv had missed his train—but I told Harry to come anyway if he would and that we could manage somehow.

Talk about getting our wires crossed! It's a marvel that Harry made any sense of those messages. I was so worn down I couldn't say anything sensible to save my soul. To cap it off, later that night, after we got home from dinner with the McCormicks, there was another call from the Western Union saying that Harry
wouldn't
be stopping in Dayton. So as casually as I could I told Orv he wasn't coming after all. I felt as if Little Brother could see right through me in my new role of creative artist. Harry dear, the lies I told for you that day ought to be on your conscience. I regret to say they are
not
on mine!

Now that the terrible strain of the last few hours had been lifted, I wanted to laugh out loud. And yet I couldn't help feeling it was God's judgment on us that Orv had missed that train. Truly, I never spent such a disturbed day in my life, except when someone was dangerously ill. Altogether, my world was in a state of great disquiet and uneasiness. It wasn't just that I had begun to feel differently; I realized that I couldn't keep from letting Harry know it any longer. I couldn't tell him anything of what was inside me, but I had to try because it was so awful to let him think anything different from what I really felt—always s'posing I knew what I felt myself!

Isn't it funny trying to
feel
your feelings? What slippery, ill-mannered things they are! Just as I get them well settled, in a Punch and Judy box, so to speak, something touches a spring and up they jump. For years I had wanted to give Harry all the affection and sympathy I could muster, but I worried over the effect of having his
feelings stirred up so. Where was that peaceful and splendid future I was trying to hold out to him? All I could tell him truthfully was that I had found something in my heart that
might
be love. I wasn't even sure what love was. How could I tell where affection left off and love began? The thought of his loving me or my loving him was overwhelming. “Please, Harry,” I wanted to cry out, “don't care so much—and please
do
!”

I wasn't jealous of Harry's friendships with other women—or if it
was
jealousy at the bottom of my concern, I didn't know it. I think he more nearly diagnosed my feelings when he told Mr. Stetson that he appealed to my “mothering instincts.” I have a mighty big lot of those, to be sure! Back of everything was the feeling that I couldn't fail Harry when he needed me most, any more than I could fail Orv. I was in such a tight box and saw no way out. I couldn't even promise Harry that I would dare the great adventure anyway, if it came to that. When I was young the girls always laughed at me because I was so enthusiastic about
other
people getting married but was so thankful in each individual case that I was not the one involved. Now things looked very different—and it scared me so!

As a rule I despise playing safe—nothing risked, nothing worth having won, I always say. My experience has not been such that I take much stock in the Freudian theory of suppressed desires. I believe William James is nearer the truth in saying that feeling grows with expression. I am sure it has been so in my life. I don't mean that I have been able to control my feeling always, but I have found that unexpressed feeling usually gets weaker, especially if I don't act on the impulse. If it hadn't been for Orv, it wouldn't have taken me one second to know what to do! I'd have run the risk
of finding that I had affection instead of love for Harry. There is always a possibility of unhappiness in every friendship, of course, but not enough to justify one in avoiding every possible chance. Each one knows his own heart, which no one else
can
know.

I believe one could live on the kind of feeling I had—and have—for Harry. I was proud of his love because it was a beautiful love, kept in his heart so many years but not allowed to prevent him from doing and being what he ought to do and be. It would have been a horrid, ugly thing if he had not treated it as he did. While I teased him by telling him he was good when he wanted me to tell him I loved him, still that was a fundamental part of all my feeling for him. It was because I saw him doing everything he ought to do always that I wanted to get in and help him. Of course, I didn't know I was getting in quite so deep—but never mind!

Truly, Harry gave me a great shock by telling me he had loved me from those far-off days in Oberlin. He had always been a special person to me, but only as an especially interesting friend. I had no idea that he had any “thoughts” about me. If I had for one moment suspected his feeling for me, I wouldn't have felt free to write to him as I did after Isabel died. I wouldn't have dared to do it even if I could have gotten rid of my pesky conscience. I would have thought I was just making everything more difficult for him. There are half a dozen reasons why I wouldn't have added fuel to the fire if I had known there was even a spark there. I couldn't bear to think I had worked my way into his heart when he was in trouble and needed support and sympathy. I despise that. It is one of the commonest tricks of my sect.

I always thought I was not an upsetting person. That was one reason why I allowed myself to be rather queer and unconventional.
I fancied I could be as good friends as I wanted to be with men like Harry and Stef without involving a thing but common interests. Ha! I've learned my lesson! Harry was so dear and I had such a tender feeling about him, and still I had to be careful not to say anything I couldn't stand by later. I wasn't at all sure I really loved him, and yet I wanted desperately to
tell
him I loved him—
if I did!
Only one thing was absolutely clear to me: it was too late to go on a strictly “pre-explosion” program anymore. We were out of danger of the hazards of friendship and now had to consider the hazards of love.

How tortured I was! I was sure almost everyone would think it right for me to leave Orv, when I knew it wasn't. Harry kept insisting that I had the same rights to satisfy my own heart that Orv would have had, and that everybody would have thought it all right if he had married without considering me. But I knew I couldn't live with myself if I left Orv in the lurch. We had been more to each other than many married couples. After Will died, he built Hawthorn Hill with the idea of my being there with him just as much as any husband builds a home for his wife. Everything was planned for the future with the idea that we would be together always. The very suggestion that I could ever leave him drove me nearly wild.

In short, there was Orv on one side, to whom I owed a great obligation, and there was Harry on the other side, to whom I would owe a greater one if I said or did anything to make him care more for me. I was trying so hard to love him
and
be a friend at the same time. It nearly broke my heart to have him thank me for my “goodness through it all.” Oh, what an idea!

Harry spoke about our not being young and romantic anymore, but if I were expressing my honest opinion, I'd say we were acting like a pair of headstrong children instead of mature middle-aged folk. To be precise,
he
was acting like an impetuous twenty-year-old—and
I
was acting like a hopeless old maid! I hadn't wanted to marry anyone since I broke up with my college beau. As I got older, I realized that the chance of making even a reasonable success of marriage grew more and more unlikely. But I couldn't get along with a merely reasonable success—
my
marriage had to be a very beautiful thing. One minute I was all my years and knew that no ideal can ever be realized; the next minute I had the feelings of a girl and believed that an ideal
can
be realized—but all the time experience came in to temper my dreams with reasonableness!

Of course, I can never be a girl again—and I'm glad of it. I've often thought how nice it is to be past youth and most—not all!—of the perplexities that go with it. It was interesting to be young and now it is interesting to be middle-aged, but really there is no comparison. For one thing, I couldn't have had a friend—let alone a
lover
—like Harry when I was young. And I couldn't have cared so much for him at Oberlin. I didn't have it in me to love him back then as I love him now. I might have married him thirty-odd years ago if he had wanted me to, though. It would have been so much easier to think of marriage when we were young. Yet even then I was worried nearly sick over the thought of leaving the family without a woman to take care of the things that only a woman can look after very well.

I seemed to be on the verge of an explosion myself—and I had nobody to share it with, nobody to turn to or confide in. None of the family would have understood how I felt—Little Brother least
of all. I
couldn't
add to Harry's disquiet, and yet I wanted to tell him so much more than I did. I couldn't see which was worse—refusing to let him know how very, very dear his love was to me and letting him get over that as soon as possible; or admitting that his love did awaken something way back in my heart, which might come to be something neither of us could manage. I couldn't see how I could go ahead with that—with the possibility of unendurable pain for us both.

I was just beside myself when Carrie brought in the special-delivery letter saying that Harry had postponed his trip. Such a time as I put in at the breakfast table that morning! Unless Orv is a good deal stupider than I think, he saw that something was wrong. Lies are always a mess. I believe you have to begin younger than we were to arrange for these secret meetings. I was just possessed to talk to Harry, but I didn't want him to come in any but an open and aboveboard way. It happened that Orv had another trip planned the following week, so I wired Harry to come on Wednesday evening. Then he could stay until Friday and see Little Brother after he got back from Washington. We could never have lived through an evening and a day together with no chance to be by ourselves. Harry was so sweet about it. He said he would feel paid for coming if he could just be alone with me for three minutes so he could hold me close to him and kiss me.

A funny, smothery feeling comes over me when I think back to the night he arrived. It just
poured
while I was at the station waiting for him. The train was late, and Harry looked so strained when I picked him out in the crowd on the platform. And then I didn't know what to do with him—any more than he knew what to do with me, I 'spect. But I couldn't endure his having any more
heartache. I was so afraid that anything I did would make the situation worse than it already was. My blessed, blessed boy! He had been so good and so brave and so unselfish and so hurt, and had found out he could have rest and comfort and peace if only I loved him. I was so anxious about him, and I didn't want to mix up sympathy and love—and all the time I felt as if I couldn't love anyone because of what it would mean to Orv.

One day, one short day, was all we had to ourselves. Harry was so dear, and I should have been happy—but for some curious reason it nearly broke my heart. My feelings were all jumbled up like a pile of pickup sticks. The last time I saw him, I hadn't thought of anything more than our dear friendship. I couldn't talk much about marrying him and living with him, even though I knew that was uppermost in his mind. I felt I would be to blame if I let him think of marriage unless I was sure I could satisfy that longing eventually. Finally, since I had no idea what to say, I just put my arms around him and let him see what he could in my face. I wanted to shut out all the perplexities and love him and have him love me. I couldn't bear not to go all the way now that I knew he wanted it so much.

Orv got home Friday morning, and by lunchtime poor Harry was so wrung out that he had to lie down for a rest. It was just
too
bad to waste all that time before his train went. Why, oh why didn't we talk more? So many things I wanted to tell him and have him tell me. All the dear things he said to me—and all I didn't say to him—kept coming back to haunt me. I could see how hard it was for him too to go off in that way. He wanted, just as I did, to have one more chance to hold each other very, very close and forget everything else. How safe I felt in the circle of Harry's arms! Some
way his being there and the things that happened, the memories left with me and so on, had rather cut off the past and even the future. I'd be a pretty stupid companion if I were like that for very long!