The Hearth and Eagle (39 page)

“I’m sorry, Evan,” she said. She heard her own pleading voice, and suddenly anger possessed her. She jerked her head up and stood squarely in front of him. “I know you feel trapped, you needn’t pace back and forth to show it. I know you feel me a millstone, though I’ve done all you wanted. I know you had no wish to marry me. But you did. I don’t know why, I doubt you rightly know yourself. But you did.”

Evan was startled. They stood looking at each other and a dull red stained his face. His hands opened and shut. “You’re quite right,” he said. “Forgive me, Hesper.”

“Oh Evan—oh darling—I didn’t mean—” The tears that came so quickly nowadays burst from her. He put his arm around her, and she clung to him, hiding her face on his shoulder. He stroked her arm gently.

She stopped crying. She reached up and kissed his cheek. “I guess I’ve got the shogs—” she said with a small laugh, making use of her mother’s expression for nervous outburst. “Likely it’s the—the baby.” She went to the wash bowl and washed her face.

Evan said nothing. After a moment he set a sketching block on his easel, and began to draw on it in pencil. She came back and stood behind him, emboldened by their new understanding.

“What are you starting?” she asked, seeing a girl’s face emerge. He added extravagant eyelashes, erased the mouth and drew the upper lip more pouting. “Shepherdess, I should think,” he said. “A lapful of violets for a change. I’ll have to get a
Farm Journal
for the lambs.”

She stood rooted to the floor behind him. He rapidly sketched in the curly head, and above it two birds on a branch. “Everybody likes doves,” he said.

“Evan, don’t. Please don’t. I know how you hate them—” She twisted her hands together. “I heard how you spoke of them to Mr. Durand.”

“Spoke of what?”

“The—the croquet girls and shepherdesses—”

“True, my dear, but may I point out that three hundred dollars, two hundred and seventy actually, after Goupil’s commission, won’t last very long. We both need clothes, the winter is coming and also your confinement, and after that the little pledge of our love must be provided for. One must be practical.”

“There could be some other way—” Her voice dropped. “Evan—we might go home, to Marblehead. Ma’d take us in, until the baby’s born—”

“No.” He blocked in a lamb with short vicious strokes. “I’m through with Marblehead. And you—you were wild to get away from there. Your suggestion astonishes me.”

“I was,” she said. “Yes, I was. But—” She looked at the back of his head, the set of his shoulders under the loose painting shirt, his right hand moving so rapidly over the white paper.

“I want to be wherever you are, Evan.”

His mouth curved in the courteous smile of one interrupted by a casual compliment. He slanted his pencil and began the shading under the plump, dimpled chin.

She turned away and went to the bed corner. Dear Lord, she thought, what am I doing to you, Evan? But what
can
we do—either of us, but make the best—she clenched her hands and looked down at her belly with disgust. It seemed to her that already under the apron there was a tautness. She stared at the loft. The bed corner here, the washstand and bureau. The stove, table and shelf above it. The painting corner, with Evan silent at the easel, hunched close to it because of the crowding stacked canvases behind him. Everything crowded and shoddy. If only there was a window, something through which to look out and away. Instead of that pitiless skylight.

She took off her apron yanking at the entangled strings until one tore off. She flung her little crocheted shawl over her shoulders. “I’m going out—” she said. “I want to walk.” She waited a minute.

But Evan merely grunted. She saw relief on his intent face. She went out quickly. The streets were dusty and noisy, Broadway was crowded with jostling strangers. There were fashionable matrons bound for shopping at Lord and Taylor’s or Stewart’s. There were frock-coated men hurrying uptown for lunch at Delmonico’s, there were tradesmen and clerks and tourists, all intent and purposeful. She found herself peering into the faces as they passed, seeking for recognition. But there was none. The indifferent eyes flowed past her in an implacable stream. If I only had someone to talk to, she thought. She stopped and stared, unseeing, into a window filled with clocks and bric-à-brac. Suddenly she was exhausted. Weariness fell over her like a dense black veil. Her knees trembled. She turned down Broadway, and dragging each foot forward in painful effort, she plodded back to the loft.

During the fall and winter months Evan sold illustrations to the magazines,
Our Young Folks, Hearth and Home, Appleton’s Journal,
and two New York scenes of girls skating on the pond in Central Park to
Harper’s,
which paid better. He received from ten to forty-five dollars for his drawings, and on these proceeds they lived, reserving two hundred and fifty in the bank for emergencies.

The loft ceased to be hot and stuffy, it became cold and draughty. In November the snows began, and lay thick on the skylight, consigning them to a gray half-world until Evan climbed up the ladder to the roof and brushed off the clinging flakes. The little stove which had seemed so cruelly hot in August now barely warmed its half of the room, and along the floor there ran an icy draught.

Hesper was used to cold winter rooms, but at home they were only in use at night, and the rush from warm bed to the huge crackling fire in the kitchen downstairs had never taken more than a momentary fortitude.

But the months went by, they wore heavy clothes, wool stockings and stout shoes, Evan warmed numb fingers over the stove, and sketched doggedly. He was neither ill-tempered now, nor gay. He treated Hesper with kindness, sparing her all the heavy tasks, and more and more he avoided looking at her as her face grew pinched, the thick white skin lost its translucence, and her body swelled, blurring into grotesque lines. Often he went out on trips to editorial offices, or sometimes to see La Farge, Homer Martin, or Mr. Durand. Once or twice he suggested that Hesper accompany him, but she refused, unequal, during this malaise and lethargy of advancing pregnancy, to making any unnecessary effort, and knowing that he would be happier without her.

Hesper read a great deal, huddled close to the smoky kerosene lamp. She read the magazines in which Evan’s drawings appeared, because they usually got free copies. And she read romances that he brought her from a small circulating library on Astor Place. Sometimes these stories were about artists, and these puzzled and surprised her.

One December night as they sat at dinner she mentioned this. The weather had turned warmer, and the loft was more comfortable. She had made a rich chowder, having trudged through the slushy streets all the way to the Washington Market for the clams and haddock and salt pork. She used the famous Hearth and Eagle recipe which incorporated the fish and pork with plenty of potatoes, fried onions, milk, and cream. Susan added a sprinkle of nutmeg, but nutmegs were expensive and Hesper had no grater. All day the chowder had been resting against the stovepipe to blend, and the result pleased Evan.

He leaned back in the creaking chair and crossed his legs. “You’re a good cook, my dear,” he said. “It’s smart what you can do on that miserable stove.”

She smiled, savoring the moment of warmth and digestive pleasure. Strange that two people could live so close, and yet it was as though their lives ran in two parallel grooves. She saw the grooves deep and sharp like twin channels, chiseled on an infinite wood plank. Evan and she were two tiny wood ticks, caught in these grooves. What a fancy, she thought. I never used to think ugly things like that when I was writing poetry back home. Ah, but then what fancies had she not had! Of romance, of gold and silver castles and princes.

“Evan—” she said, “I read a story in
Appleton’s Journal
about an artist’s life, and then the novel by Mrs. Rhoda Broughton, the things they say—it isn’t a bit like our life, or even, I guess, like that of those other artists you know.”

“How do you mean?” Evan was diverted. The wavering lamplight cast a kindly shadow over her. Her hair, which lately had seemed to lack all life, glowed bronze.

“Why, those artists I read about always seem so gay, even if they’re poor. They sing and have parties with models and drink wine out of slippers, and their studios are hung with vivid brocades and they always have a Moorish divan loaded with carelessly tossed pillows.”

Evan laughed. “Do they do any work?”

She laughed too, after a moment’s hesitation. “I guess so. They starve and struggle and their hearts break, they’re in despair, then suddenly—” “They smuggle a painting past the judges, who’ve turned it down, hang it on the line, in the Salon of course. The public is enraptured, the critics swoon, jostling each other for the privilege of touching the artist’s hand. All Paris is at his feet. After that he doesn’t have a care, but he doesn’t let his fame and riches spoil him. He marries the sweet little girl from the provinces who has been patiently waiting, or he marries the little model, virtuous as a snowdrop, despite the giddy life, and the Moorish divan.”

“Why, you read ‘Heart of an Artist,’ ” she cried, half laughing.

“No. But I can even finish the story. Our hero becomes a superb family man, dandling the little ones on his velvet-dad knee, and he continues to paint masterpieces with one hand while he dandles with the other. Everybody is very happy, especially the sweet little wife who is now dripping with diamonds.”

“But doesn’t it ever happen like that?” she asked after a moment. “At least I mean the gaiety, and living for the moment. Artists are supposed to be impractical and—”

“Bohemian is the word they use in Paris, I believe,” said Evan. “You find me disappointing in the artistic role. Perhaps you should remember my solid, middle-class Yankee background, not unlike your own.” His chair scraped across the varnished boards, and he got up. “At least I’m becoming a good family man.” There was no mistaking the sudden venom in his tone.

Hesper sighed, the moment of intimacy had curdled as it always did nor did this hurt her, as it used to.

Evan was struggling into his greatcoat and muffler. She watched him apathetically. It was an effort to feel or think these days. At the slightest cause the black weariness descended. Her head began to throb and the chowder which had tasted so delicious lay heavy in her stomach.

“I’ll be back later,” Evan said, his voice once more controlled. “You look very tired, Hesper. Go to bed, I’ll fix the stove when I come in.”

Christmas and New Year’s passed with no celebration except letters from home and a box full of cookies and wool socks from Susan. The letters were unexpressive in the case of Susan, and uninformative in the case of Roger who covered four pages with spidery writing to tell her that he had taken up the study of Arabic, and found it engrossing, even to the point of still further retarding work on the “Memorabilia.” He assumed that she was enjoying the “busy marts and stimulating society of the great city with her talented husband,” and he thought of her often with deepest affection.

Susan’s letter was more objective.

Dear Hes—

How are you keeping? Mind you don’t reach up much, it twists the cord. A grummet of dry crust soaked in brandy mostly stops a queasy stummick if you’re still bothered. Can’t you fix it so’s to come here in March? It ud be mighty hard for me to leave the Inn, without that I’ve no relish for travel. Let me know, there’s plenty of time. There was a big fire on Front Street. Brown and Ledger’s wharfs both went. They broke out the new engine, the “M. A. Pickett” but she didn’t help none. The wind was westerly, and we fretted some here, but Glory be, it shifted.

I served one hundred seventy-one dinners last month, making a tidy profit. Twice had to use the parlor. Mr. Porterman was in yesterday. He’s bought a new buggy and a pair of bays. He looks fine and is building a great house up Pleasant Street. Well I guess I’ll closenow, haveing no more news. Your Pa and me keep pretty good. Remembrance to Mr. Redlake.

Your affectionate—Ma.
SUSAN DOLLIBER HONEYWOOD.

Hesper reread both letters many times. The scenes they evoked would not come vivid, yet an unhappy compulsion continually forced her to try. She lay on the bed shivering beneath the cheap quilts, and pictured the fire on Front Street, the shouts, the church bells clanging, the running feet, the hiss and bang of the pump on the new engine, the excitement and fear in the smoky air. But she could not picture Front Street without Brown and Ledger’s wharves.

Nor could she picture such a press of customers as would force Susan to serve them in the sacred parlor. She had been gone six months and already there were changes at home which had seemed unchanging, and this hurt her like a deliberate and callous desertion. She knew it to be unreasonable. Yet the sense of loss persisted.

She thought too about Amos Porterman, the new carriage, and the new house. Likely he was going courting, maybe he and Charity had settled it after all.

I didn’t want him, why shouldn’t he? she told the hurt resistance in her heart. And she lay hour after hour, not fully awake but staring at the ceiling—the planchment, they called it in Marblehead.

It became increasingly hard to drag herself from bed. Her ankles and feet were puffed like white pincushions, and when the blood ran into them they throbbed painfully. Her head throbbed too, and giddiness swirled in it like water; sometimes black spots swam across her vision and the implacable outlines of the stove, the easel or Evan dissolved into grayish blur. Early in January she fainted on the stairs on a trip down to the water closet on the lower landing. Evan, fortunately at home, soon found her and helped her back to bed.

He was deeply concerned, forbade her to move, and rushing out to Mercer Street summoned a doctor, whose brass plate he had noticed. “Arthur M. Stone, M.D.” The young doctor opened the door himself. He had fresh rosy cheeks and a hopeful smile, and he had been graduated two months from the Bellevue Medical College.