Up a Road Slowly (5 page)

She would show me the room
I
was to have, not the one
we
would share. There was a single bed in that room with a blue dust ruffle around it and a lacy white spread on top. It was a very pretty room and a pretty bed, but it was not a room to be shared by two sisters, not a bed where they could lie close together, where they could talk girl-talk until their eyes grew heavy and they drifted off to sleep, almost as secure as in the days when a mother had been alive.

Laura wouldn't look at me. I tried to force her to look into my eyes. If she would do that, I knew she would see there my agony and she would say, “Yes, Julie, I'm going to stay here with you.” That Bill doesn't much matter. But she wouldn't look at me; she kept chattering about the paper they had picked out with me in mind, about how I could sleep as long as I pleased the next morning, and would I like for her to make blueberry muffins for our breakfast. But she wouldn't look at me, and when she kissed me good-night, there was still the pretense that she didn't know I was sick with disappointment.

I cried on the white pillow that night and, switching on the bedside lamp, I was impressed by the sad stain my tears had made. Then I thought how Laura would never notice and would send the slip out to some laundry and impersonal hands would wash away the marks of grief, never knowing, never caring that part of a little girl had died with those tears. Then I cried again at that thought, and I felt the great loneliness I had felt that day of Mother's funeral. But this time my loneliness was mixed with resentment and an unreasoning jealousy.

Things were better the next morning. Both Laura and Bill were very gay and obviously determined to see that I was happy. We ate in the sunny kitchen from the gay breakfast service that Alicia Allison had given Laura for a wedding gift, and breakfast was delicious: fruit and muffins, bacon, strawberry preserves, and coffee blended with hot milk. Bill teased me a little, wondering if I had blacked any more little boys' eyes for the reason that I had blacked Danny's; Laura thought that my new blue robe was very becoming, and she and Bill agreed over my head that I was really growing up to be a very pretty girl. Everything was delightful and it should have remained that way except that the dark streak within me refused to be propitiated.

When Bill had gone off to the university and Laura and I had finished the dishes, she gave me a new book, bought especially for me, and suggested that I read while she looked up some references that Bill needed for his thesis. It was then that I wondered, not in so many words, but quite pointedly, if Bill had not sufficient academic aptitude to do his own research.

That brought the first flare to my sister's eyes and she assured me of Bill's brilliance and of her own gratitude that she was able in a small way to help him in an effort that meant so much to both of them. She said something about the fact that Father had considered Bill the ablest student he had known in years, and seeing that she was angry already, I dug my claws in deeper and told her that Uncle Haskell said that Father was a man of “middle-class values.”

Then she really did throw out sparks. “You tell Uncle Haskell,” she said angrily, “that if by ‘middle-class values' he means a sense of integrity, a willingness to contribute to society rather than to be a leech, then Father is, indeed, a man of ‘middle-class values.' Uncle Haskell should talk of values—if he has any at all, they are of the shoddiest sort. I think it's high time,” she added furiously, “that Father marries Alicia and gets you away from Uncle Haskell's influence.”

It had never occurred to me that there was a remote possibility of Father's marrying Alicia. Father was married to Mother and that was the way things were and should always be, world without end, and I thought that Laura should be heartily ashamed of herself for the remark she had just made.

“If Father marries Alicia—if Father marries any woman in this world, I'll never go home again; never, as long as I live. I should think that you would love Mother enough to feel that way too,” I added accusingly.

If I had known how tired and unwell Laura was feeling at that time, I surely would have been kinder. But I had no interest in anyone's feelings save my own, and for the first time, I deliberately tried to hurt the feelings of the person I loved above all others.

Laura grew almost hysterical with tears and anger as she defended her own love for Mother and her wish to see Father with a companion of whom Mother would have approved. “I don't know what has happened to you, Julie,” she sobbed, wiping her eyes. “You have always been such a darling child. What has got into you?”

I was miserable by that time, ashamed and sorry. “I don't know,” I wailed, “unless it's because I'm standing where the brook and river meet.”

Then Laura said, “Oh, good Heavens,” in a tone that suggested I had said something completely idiotic, and she laughed at the same time she was crying in such a way that I was at first deeply offended and then frightened. It was an unhappy morning.

We smoothed each other's feelings, of course, and the visit was not quite spoiled. But it was a disappointment, a dreary, heartbreaking disappointment, and when we kissed one another good-bye the morning I left, we were both heavy with the certainty that we had lost something precious.

Bill took me to the station that morning, a very grave young man and unusually kind. He explained that if Laura had seemed a little sharp, a little unlike herself, it was because she was not well, that she was nervous and perhaps a little anxious in her first pregnancy. He told me that she loved me very much, that she was going to name the baby “Julie” if it was a girl, that the three of us would back Aunt Cordelia into a corner and persuade her that the French “Julie” was quite as legal as the Roman “Julia.” There wasn't a word about my share of the blame for which I had no excuse except a childish jealousy. My sense of guilt was very deep when I boarded the train for my journey home.

I sat beside a window on the green mohair seat and stared out at the countryside, all but lost in a gray mist of rain. I thought of Laura having a baby, and I wondered if it hurt dreadfully and considered the possibility that she might die. And how, I thought, could I live the rest of my life remembering how she had tried to make me happy in all the little ways she could, and how I had repaid her with snide and cruel remarks that had possibly destroyed all the love she had felt for me. Finally I covered my face with my hands and shook with the misery pent up inside me.

A gray-haired, blue-uniformed conductor had looked at me kindly when he took my ticket, and after a while he came back, bringing me a chocolate bar bulging with almonds. He sat down in the seat beside me when I thanked him tearfully, and he patted my shoulder.

“Maybe it would help to talk about it,” he said gently. “I've raised five little girls to womanhood; like as not I'll be able to understand.”

To my surprise, I told him all about it, this stranger whom I would probably never see again. I had to tell someone, and I knew that it would shame me terribly to tell either Father or Aunt Cordelia. And so I talked and talked, sometimes between sobs, and although it didn't bring me peace of mind, it somehow helped for me to put my guilt feelings into words.

The conductor nodded often during my story and when I was through, he was silent for a long time. He pursed his lips thoughtfully and tapped the fingers of his left hand against the arm of the seat.

Finally he spoke, almost as if to himself. “It happens the world over—we love ourselves more than we do the one we say we love. We all want to be Number One; we've got to be Number One or nothing! We can't see that we could make ourselves loved and needed in the Number Two, or Three, or Four spot. No sir, we've got to be Number One, and if we can't make it, we'll rip and tear at the loved one till we've ruined every smidgin of love that was ever there.” He sighed. “I don't know what to tell you, little lady.”

He had to leave me then to go about his duties, and he didn't return to my seat until it was almost time for the train to pull into the station where Father would be waiting for me. Then he leaned down and spoke to me almost in a whisper. “I believe that, was I you, I'd try growing up a little and giving some thought about what I could do for my big sister from the Number Three or Four spot.”

The last days of that summer were troubled ones for me. I wondered if I had ripped and torn at Laura as the conductor had said people did, the world over, if I had destroyed all her love for me because of my anger at being somewhere other than in the “Number One spot.” I recalled all the brattish things I had said, though I wanted to forget them. The little Cathedral of Four Silver Birches became my hideaway during those troubled days, and the tears I shed were those of the true penitent.

Aunt Cordelia noticed my preoccupation, and she was unusually kind. “Laura is young and healthy and under good medical care, Julia. I don't think that we need to be fearful. In a few weeks she will be as happy as your mother used to be after each of you was born.”

I nodded, but the dreariness inside me was undiminished. Even when Father called us early one morning in September to tell us that Laura and Bill had a little daughter, that Laura was well and happy, that the baby was healthy and beautiful—even then, I crawled off to my cathedral and wept because I didn't believe that Laura could ever really love me again.

A new year of school had begun and each day Aunt Cordelia and I marched off to the white schoolhouse, sometimes joined by Danny and Carlotta, all of us employing our diaphragms in deep breathing and obediently fixing our thoughts upon the beauty of September skies and the glory of wild asters and goldenrod—sometimes with sly grins at one another. Once again I lost my identity as Aunt Cordelia's niece, put my mind upon the tasks she set for me, avoided Aggie Kilpin, became a devoted friend and then an avowed enemy of Carlotta Berry. But this year was different; I missed Chris sharply when I looked at the empty seat beside Danny, and I grieved, even as I learned to find the area and circumference of a circle, for my big sister's love which I was sure that I had lost forever.

Another telephone call came on the sixth of September. I shall never forget the date for it was the day of my return to happiness. Aunt Cordelia answered the telephone. I heard her address someone as “William”—that would be Bill, of course—heard her ask about Laura and the baby, heard her say thoughtfully that yes, she thought it could be arranged; no, the schoolwork could be made up easily; yes, she felt that it would be a good thing for both girls. Then she called me to the telephone and Bill's voice, now grown very dear to me, told me that the baby's name was “Julie,” that Laura was home from the hospital, that he had wanted to hire a woman to help her with the baby, but that Laura had said no, she wanted her sister with her for the next few days. He asked me if I would come, and I began to cry and told him between hiccoughs that, yes, I would be there.

Aunt Cordelia found one of my old dolls that evening, and she showed me how to protect an infant's head and back; she told me what an extra pillow could mean in a new mother's chair and how a flower on a luncheon tray could make a plain bowl of soup something of a treat for a convalescent.

When I went to my room that night the world was a better and brighter place, and I was controlled by a new discipline which I imposed sternly upon myself.

“Bill is in the Number One spot, and don't forget it, Julie Trelling. And the baby is in the Number Two spot.” I hesitated at that point, and then drew the hair-cloth shirt a little tighter. Father was in the Number Three spot, one had just as well admit it. But when I thought of Chris preceding me as Number Four, I balked. Chris could share that place, I supposed, but that was all. There was a limit to my humility.

When I burrowed down between my white sheets that night, I breathed deeply of happiness. I wished that I could tell the old conductor how wise I had grown; I thought of how much more than an almond chocolate bar he had given me.

 

 

 

M
y twelfth year, we supposed, would be my last one with Aunt Cordelia, since I would be entering high school the next year and be going into town to live with Father; therefore Aunt Cordelia agreed that I might have a birthday party that spring and the talk among the girls at school centered for a period of several weeks upon the social event of the season. Word of it got to Aggie Kilpin, who still sat in the center of a wide circle of peasants during the noon hour; Aggie gleefully told me that yes, kid, she would be coming to my party too. I didn't think she would.

Alicia Allison sent me a box of tiny pink notes and matching envelopes on which I could write, “Miss Julie Trelling requests the pleasure,” and so on. I spent a happy and satisfying hour in preparing these notes and addressing each tiny envelope. Aunt Cordelia had said, “Boys and girls, or just girls?” when I had suggested the party, and I had decided in favor of just girls, including some of the girls from town. Since she hadn't demurred at the exclusion of boys, I rather hoped that she would not notice one other omission. She did, of course. Ruffling through the little pile of envelopes, she said quietly, “Julia, you have forgotten to include Agnes.”

“Oh, Aunt Cordelia, I can't. I simply can't have Aggie. She would spoil the whole party. You know that.”

“She knows about your party, Julia, and it has been something she's looked forward to for weeks. You can't do this to another child; it would be too cruel.”

“I can't invite her. I simply can't have the town girls thinking that she is my friend. I'm sorry for Aggie, awfully sorry, but let's face it, Aunt Cordelia: Aggie smells.”