CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Roger was in Los Angeles on a speaking trip when Anne's letter was forwarded to him from the office. He found it when he came back from one of the most successful meetings he had ever held. He had held his audience in his hands, moved them at his will. Enthusiasm had run high. He had thrilled with his own power, and then, depression had followed. It was so easy to move men with words. It was almost a trick, emphasis here, appeal to emotion there, a climax of enthusiasm malleable to his will.
After such a gathering men and women insisted on meeting him personally. He often left the halls with groups violently discussing his words. And so little resulted from this enthusiasm. An inclination strengthened here and there, a few teetering on the edge of belief converted. Sometimes a successful meeting such as this had been exhausted Roger more than any antagonistic opposition could have done.
To-night he was very tired. The ideal for which a few strove seemed so far away, so beyond those for whom he searched for it. He had left the hall instantly, escaping, as he rarely permitted himself to do, the urgent wish of strangers to meet him. Safe in his hotel room at last he had given the order not to be disturbed by any visitor or telephone call, and had begun indifferently looking over the forwarded mail, when he came unexpectedly on Anne's letter.
He looked at it for a moment curiously, as if it were something not intended for him. He turned it over and over, until a sudden eagerness to know of Anne and Rogie seized him and he tore the envelope open with quivering fingers. The note was brief, and, although Anne had intended it to be friendly, it seemed to Roger stiff and formal. He read it only once and then tore it across and dropped the pieces in the waste-basket with a touch of disappointment he refused to recognize. There was no reason Anne should write to him in another tone, and, after all, the important thing was that he could see Rogie. He had longed for this and resented Anne's monopoly of the boy, but now he knew that seeing Rogie rested alone with him he forgave Anne the bitterness he had felt. He sat down to answer instantly, but he, as Anne, found it difficult to write. Three drafts of a simple note he destroyed, and then suddenly pushed the pad from him. He would go. There was a train in an hour. He would be in the city in the morning, Sunday morning. He had another meeting on the following Monday to complete the itinerary, but when Roger visioned the empty Sunday between, he could not face it.
Half an hour later he had paid his bill and left the hotel. As the train pulled out of the station it began to rain sharp, slanting rain that lashed at the windows of his berth. But Roger, exhausted from the meeting and his own reaction to Anne's letter, slept almost instantly. Nor did he wake until the train clanged into the station. It was still raining, but less violently now. The sharp lashing had quieted to a steady fall. Roger had breakfast, went to the loft to see if there was an urgent matter for him, telephoned to Tom to send another speaker to Los Angeles in time for the Monday night meeting, and then went to the cottage.
It was still and clean and empty as he had left it. He made a fire, and, to persuade himself that he was in no haste, sat before it.
By night he would have seen Anne and Rogie. Whatever was to be the future relation between them would have been fixed. What did he want this relation to be? He felt no anger with Anne. She had been true to herself as he had been to himself. He felt no emotional eagerness to meet Anne, nor reluctance. His sharpest feeling was toward Rogie.
In the past Rogie had been a baby, the child of himself and Anne, not in any way distinct from them. But now that the convention of a home had been taken from Rogie—now that the accepted standard of father, mother, child under one roof had been taken from him, somehow Rogie had become a distinct personality. It was as if, in some strange way, the responsibility of being an individual, a separate social unit, had somehow descended upon the baby; so that now he was almost an adult in the separateness of his personality. Roger could not shake off a ridiculous feeling that he would almost meet Rogie as man to man.
It was after six before Roger climbed the hill, and, closing the old-fashioned garden gate quietly behind him, rang the bell.
At the sound of the bell pealing through the still house, Anne started, and then certainty gripped her beyond motion. Again the bell rang, this time less fiercely, as if eagerness in the ringer were passing. Anne hurried from the room, but at the foot of the stairs she paused, staring at the door, her heart thumping until she could scarcely breathe. It sounded again, this time a sad little clang of disappointment. Anne went slowly to the door and opened it. The cold wind and rain rushed in and then Roger was close to her in the hall; the door shut, and the smell of his damp clothes sharp in the air.
"I thought you must have left town," she said calmly.
"I have been away. I only just got back."
In the closing of the umbrella and the hanging up of his hat and overcoat they escaped a more intimate greeting. But now that the hat and coat were hung and the dripping umbrella safe in the stand, Anne faced the need to take Roger upstairs or into the gloomy parlor to the right. She hesitated.
Roger had come. In a moment, she would bring Rogie to him. The future would hold whatever was possible of friendship for them, or else she would be outside the union of Rogie and his father. Until she knew, she must keep her lonely rooms upstairs as a retreat untouched by Roger's presence. If the future was to hold nothing she did not want memory there. She led the way to the parlor and lit the light.
"I was just getting Rogie ready for bed, but he didn't want to go a bit. He's wide awake."
Roger felt the dismal chill of the room shutting down upon him and struggled against it in the first remark that came to him.
"I don't suppose he will remember me."
"Oh, yes, I think he will. I was afraid he wouldn't know me when I came back from the mountains, he took so long to size me up. But he did."
She pulled down the shades and moved to the door.
"I'll just dress him again; it won't take but a few minutes."
She had not taken Rogie with her then. He had been in the city all the time, guarded by the Mitchells. Roger frowned and began walking up and down the rather long room. At the farther end a narrow glass door, draped with an ugly curtain of monk's cloth, hid the garden beyond. When he reached it, Roger pulled the curtain aside and looked out into the dripping bushes. It was a neglected garden, not riotous with overgrown plants as the cottage garden, but a lank, weed-grown strip, long and narrow. Roger dropped the curtain quickly and, lighting a cigarette, began walking again.
As the ugliness of the room penetrated in detail, the red shaded lamp, the horsehair furniture, the onyx stand, gradually his anger at the Mitchells faded in wonder of Anne. Why had Anne come to live here; Anne, who hated ugly surroundings with physical passion? Was Anne so poor that she could find no better place, or had she changed? Did things like this no longer trouble Anne?
A door upstairs closed. Then the silence continued unbroken. Roger's nerves tightened. Why didn't Anne take him up to what was evidently her part of the house? He lit a cigarette and pulled deeply on it. The smell of the smoke drifted up to Anne. Her throat swelled and she braced her shoulders as she buttoned Rogie's rompers with trembling fingers.
Roger heard her coming and ground out the cigarette on the white mantelshelf. Anne was in the doorway, Rogie in her arms. Just as he had done with Anne, so now Rogie leaned away, frowning, before, with a plunge of delight, he almost threw himself from Anne's arms. Roger took him.
"Well, old chap, who is it? So you knew me, did you?"
Over the baby's head Roger smiled proudly at Anne, and Anne smiled back; for Rogie's hands were already clutching his father's hair as if, in this favorite game, he was making assurance doubly sure.
"You see, he did remember," Anne came nearer. "He really has a wonderful memory."
"I don't believe many his age would have remembered, do you?"
"No, I don't believe they would."
They laughed together. Then the memory of their intimacy, incarnate forever in Rogie, swept Anne, and she turned hastily away and sat down on the sofa. Still holding the child, Roger took the rocker.
Silence came between them. Each searched nervously for some spot in the present on which to meet. But the strangeness of seeing Anne and Rogie in these surroundings, his ignorance of all that had happened to them in the last months, wrapped Roger like a fog, through which he felt Anne receding from him.
But, for the first time, the room was not hideous to Anne. The damp smell of Roger's clothes, the lingering cigarette smoke, filled it with a throbbing vitality it had never had. She felt Roger's masculinity in the very air and it made the few small remarks she managed to catch from the whirling mass of feeling seem thin and artificial.
Roger tried to fill the silence with remarks to Rogie; by tickling him and riding him on his foot. For a while it succeeded. Then Rogie grew tired. His eyes filmed; he leaned more heavily on his father's shoulder.
Roger tried to keep him awake, but Rogie objected with impatient jerks, and Roger looked to Anne. In a few moments he would be asleep. Then he and Anne would be faced by the need to fill the silence or he would have to go.
"He's just about asleep. Perhaps I'd better carry him to bed. He must be awfully heavy for you."
"No, I'll take him. That's something no one seems to do just right. He wakes even if Mrs. Jeffries tries to carry him at this stage, and usually he's as good with her as with me."
She took Rogie from him and Roger watched her go, so small and fair herself. He heard her go slowly up the stairs, for Rogie was indeed a heavy weight for her slight arms.
Again it was still.
Anne put Rogie down, stayed a moment to make sure he would not wake, turned out the light and opened the window. Again the smell of smoke drifted to her and now she heard Roger's step walking up and down as he had used to walk in anger at Hilary Wainwright.
Up and down the long, narrow room Roger walked, trying to force the chaos of thought to ordered sequence by the rhythm of his step. He could not go back to the cottage which Anne had made beautiful and leave her and Rogie in this dismal place. No matter whether Anne had grown indifferent to her surroundings or not, he hated to think of his boy, even as a baby, absorbing impressions of that horsehair furniture and onyx stand. And in imagination he saw sharply Mrs. Jeffries, whom they represented, a dull, thin woman like the aunt who had brought him up. Anne hated to face new situations, and, if she had indeed persuaded herself that this was not so bad, she would go on living here year after year. Roger shuddered. What Anne chose to do was no longer his concern, although the old need to protect rose in him, untinged by any personal emotion, almost against his will. He wanted Anne to be happy and have the things she liked. But Rogie was very definitely his concern; not only his duty, but with the feel of the fat little body as vivid in his arms as when he had held him, Rogie was the deepest motive of his life.
He was just turning again at the far end of the room when Anne returned. He looked up quickly, still frowning over the problem, but said, with a strange, new hesitancy and unsureness:
"Anne, I don't like to think of you and Rogie living in this place. You ought to have the cottage. I only moved back because there seemed no reason not to."
Anne leaned against the onyx stand; she could get no farther, but her voice was steady and she even smiled slightly and looked in forced amusement about the room.
"It is pretty bad, isn't it? But I don't come in here often."
"Are your own any better?"
"Not exactly—in the furnishing, but the sitting-room looks over a garden and there's a little triangle of bay."
Roger locked about, trying to get clearer the location of the house.
"Darn little bay from any part of this house. Anne, won't you take the cottage? I have to be away a great deal now. It doesn't matter much where I live in between times."
"I—don't—see how I can quite—not yet, anyhow." By speaking so, very slowly in assumed consideration of this as a proposition, Anne succeeded in keeping her voice even. "I may get a raise after New Year's, although it's rather soon to expect one, but at present I couldn't pay the cottage rent and have Mrs. Horton too. This is ridiculously cheap and when Mrs. Jeffries is here she takes such care of Rogie."
"Isn't she here all the time?"
"Not at present. She had to go to a brother-in-law. Her sister died and left several children. She may bring them back with her."
"Will you go on just the same then?"
"I don't know. We didn't have time to discuss that. I suppose I can."
Again Roger walked the length of the room, past Anne, and back. When he came to the other end, as if only from this spot could he explain, he said sharply:
"Anne, I don't want it. I don't want any woman, no matter how kind she is, bringing Rogie up. Mrs. Horton didn't matter so much when he was quite little, but he's getting a regular boy now and—I don't want it."
This consideration was all for Rogie, but Anne felt as if some one very strong had picked her up and was carrying her easily.
"I would rather be with him all the time, too, but that's impossible."
"No, it isn't. Anne, I don't want you to work. It isn't necessary. No, don't interrupt, please. Listen. I can do it very well. I've been writing some on the side lately and I've got to be quite a speech-maker. You'd be surprised. Speech-making doesn't pay a great deal, but it's something. Please believe me, I can do it very well."
The floor swayed beneath Anne, but she held tight to the cold onyx and answered quietly:
"I'll have to have time to think about it, Roger. I—can't—decide right away now."
Roger shrugged impatiently. "You can if you try. What is there to prevent? I—" he hesitated—"I won't trouble you in any way. You will be exactly as free as you are now. Anne, if you won't do it for yourself, won't you do it for Rogie?"
"I—don't—know," Anne whispered, her strength almost gone.
Roger turned away. Again he felt himself tilting against the soft, unbendable obstinacy of one of Anne's principles.
"Well," he said at length, "will you agree to this? Will you move back to the cottage and let me pay the rent? Will you?" he repeated more gently when Anne did not answer.
To be back in the cottage in her three white-painted rooms with all the Bay and the hills and the sweet garden. Anne felt herself sinking down into a peace so thick and deep that she could scarcely bear to break it even by an answer. She nodded.
"When will you come? To-night?"
"To-night!"
"Why not? It's early. Have you much to pack?"
"No—only my clothes and Rogie's."
"You could do it, couldn't you?"
"Yes—I—could—do it. There's Mrs. Jeffries though——"
Roger felt as if Anne were opposing tiny twigs to this sweeping need of his to get them both out of that horrible house.
"Do you owe her any rent?"
"No. I just sent her a check for the coming month."
"Then there's no reason you can't. Besides, from what you say, she's not sure of her own plans. Perhaps she won't come back herself."
"I think she will. But she may not."
"Then it's settled, is it? I can get a taxi while you pack?"
"All right." The words quivered and dropped from Anne in a low whisper as if her last resistance had died. She hurried from the room and Roger went out to find a telephone and get the taxi.
Anne could never remember how she packed her trunk or dressed Rogie or when she turned to find Roger beside her telling her the taxi was waiting. She seemed to be escaping from some terrible catastrophe, her whole consciousness taken in the effort to get away. It was only when they were all together in the close intimacy of the cab that Anne realized what she had done.
In a few moments she and Roger and Rogie would be again in the cottage. Beyond that Anne could not think. Nor did her mind clear to any detail, even as she followed Roger, carrying Rogie up the long, familiar flight and into the living-room. He put Rogie on the couch, paid the driver and closed the door. Anne was shaking so she could scarcely stand.
"I'll make a fire. Everything is just the same, except the crib. I—I'll get that. It's in the attic."
Roger went into the kitchen and Anne heard him light the candle-lantern they had always kept for searching things stowed in the tiny loft they called the attic. Then he brought the step ladder and, taking out the small square of ceiling that made the attic entrance, clambered up. Anne's hands were stiff with cold. It seemed impossible that Roger should be doing these things exactly as he had done them ages upon ages ago in the past. Life was so different now that no motion in it could be quite the same. But it was exactly the same, even to Roger's throwing the unwanted things out of his way as he always did, because he was a bad packer and never knew exactly where he had put anything. At last he found it, and threw the mattress out through the opening, scrambling down with the framework. When he had put away the ladder and lantern and dusted his clothes, he brought the crib in.
"Shall I put it up in the bedroom?"
Anne was bent now above the opened trunk searching Rogie's night things which she had thrust hastily in among her own clothes in the rush of packing.
"Yes," she whispered, without looking up, feigning this need not to wake Rogie, already restless from the unusual confusion about him.
When she had found the things she carried Rogie to the fire, undressed him, slipped on the tiny pajamas, and, holding him close, listened with every nerve to Roger moving about in the next room. In a few moments now Rogie would be in his own crib, in the old room. What would Roger do?
At last Roger came from the bedroom.
"I've put it up but I didn't make it—I don't know just how you do it. The blankets and things are all on the bed—I'm sure they're all there."
Anne rose and moved to lay Rogie on the couch while she made up the crib, but Roger held out his arms and Anne laid the baby in them. Very gently Roger sat down in Anne's place and she went in to make the crib. But the blood beat so behind her eyes and her hands trembled so violently that she scarcely knew what she did.
Roger stared across his son's head into the flames, conscious of the new disorder of the room, the opened trunk, Rogie's tiny garments lying on the hearthrug, Anne in the next room.
The past, the present, the future tangled before him, a mass of paths leading in all directions; quagmires of misunderstanding, blind alleys of separate interests, smooth, pleasant spots of memories long past. Here a path to the night by the lake when Anne's lips had clung as eagerly as his own; there the blank wall of the lacquer screen and the desert spots of Anne's carping criticism. Here the path of his deepest faith and belief broke short above the chasm of Anne's indifference. The world was indifferent too. But the world's indifference he could escape in the comradeship of others who believed with him; in solitary hours when, physically rested, his own faith always rose again clear and strong. With the narrowness and indifference of strangers he did not have to rise up and lie down, eat, sleep and be patient.
Then suddenly the past and present divided, and in the space between Roger saw a future, the future Katya had pictured—a devastating passion that would destroy him—or remake life. Roger felt as if a fiery wind were suddenly blowing upon him, and his hold on Rogie tightened. He did not want life broken or remade. He wanted to work on as he was working, accomplish more and more, mold Rogie to the ideal he had once shaped for himself, but which he sometimes felt now was very high and far away. He would get only a little way to it and die. But Rogie might reach and pass it.
The door opened and Anne came in. Quietly Roger handed the baby to her, and she went back again into the bedroom. Roger got up and stood leaning against the mantelshelf.
Had Anne really changed?
Had he?
From the maze of separate interests and ideals could they find one tiny path back to the old dreams? Could they cut a new one to a shared future? Would his arms ever again seek Anne hungrily of their own will? Would hers close about him and hold him fiercely as they had held him by the lake? Was need like this ever reborn?
What was Anne doing in the other room? Why didn't she come back?
She came at last, softly closing the door behind her. At the other end of the hearth she too stood leaning against the mantelshelf, staring down into the fire, as conscious of the familiar room and Roger leaning so close beside her as Roger of her.
What was Roger going to do? What did he expect of her? In a moment would he take his things and go, as many guests had gone after a pleasant evening in those far gone days? Would she lock the door and put out the lights after Roger, as Roger had done after those other guests whose going had meant nothing at all?
Why did Roger stand there staring into the fire? Was he waiting for her to speak?
Without changing her position Anne looked to him. He seemed suddenly, in her absence with Rogie, to have grown strangely weary. His face, turned in profile, looked thinner, sharper, and a little drawn about the corners of the eyes and lips. His shoulders sagged as they only did when he was very tired. When he had grown suddenly tired like this it had always rested him to lie on the couch and have her stroke his head quietly in one long, sweeping gesture from forehead to neck. Anne felt the outline of his head now beneath her hand, and the dry crispness of his hair as if it were actually beneath her touch. She looked quickly back into the fire.
The rain began again and Roger threw another log on the fire. The acacia lashed its long, thin arms and the rising wind cried over the hill. Anne felt Roger's look on her and very slowly her own rose to meet it.
"Shall we try again, Anne?"
"Y-e-s," Anne whispered, and her eyes filled with tears.
Roger drew her gently to him. There was no passion of possession in his hold, but deep tenderness and protection,
"I think it will be all right this time, Princess."
Anne stood close.
"Are you quite sure, Roger, that you want it so?"
"Yes. For myself I am quite sure. And you?"
"I'm—sure—too."
They stood so for a moment, then Roger drew her gently nearer.
Would they ever find it now, that everlasting, undestroyable love that they had missed? Over Anne's fair head, Roger gazed wistfully into the fire.