The Eighth Day (12 page)

Lodgers came and went. Sophia's savings increased as the larger expenditures necessary to fitting out the house became fewer. Her mother did not ask to see the money or to know its amount. The second winter in the life of the boardinghouse drew near. Lily would be twenty on the New Year's Day of 1904. She had returned from her dreamy “absence,” but she was not impatient for a more varied life. She seemed to be aware that she would soon have to cope with as much adulation as a young woman could sustain; she could afford to wait. Neither Mrs. Ashley nor Lily nor Sophia found anything to interest them in the procession of guests. Only Constance scanned each face and weighed each disposition. She felt curiosity about all and even affection for some. She was searching for her father. She alone of the Ashleys was demonstrative of affection. Her suffering at his disappearance from the home took the form of astonishment. She was unable to understand why her mother so seldom mentioned him. Throughout her life, even when she had forgotten him in all but the most inward sense, she retained a resentment against her mother for this silence. Mrs. Ashley sat at the head of the table in apparent serenity. She kept the conversation going, contributing the most conventional remarks, to which her beautiful speaking voice lent an air of measured reflection. Dr. Gillies's eyes often rested with concern on Sophia, his favorite, who would be sixteen next spring. She had lost weight and would be a beauty, too. At intervals they engaged in whispered conversations about her ambition to be a nurse. The thing that worried him about her was that she seemed to be developing in two different directions. There was the practical Sophia, hurrying from store to store on the main street, bargaining, selling ducks, buying her flour, sugar, and cornmeal by the barrel, or, in the house, firmly extracting the money due her from reluctant guests, behaving like a more than usually capable young woman of twenty-five; and there was another Sophia who seemed to have grown younger, who blushed and stammered in any encounter that did not involve her managerial capacity. Her air of happiness had taken on an exalted quality that disturbed him. He feared she was carrying too great a load. On the second Christmas morning of the new era he met her at the door of “The Elms” and placed a package in her hands.

“Merry Christmas, Sophia!”

“Merry Christmas, Dr. Gillies!”

“See if you like that.”

She unwrapped the package, blushing, and read the title of the book,
The Life of Florence Nightingale.
As he told his wife later, “Her face went to pieces.” She could not speak. She stared at him as though he were a frightening object, murmured a few words, and fled to the kitchen. “She's starved for something,” he said to himself. “She misses her father and her brother.” There was a lack of affection in the air at “The Elms.” Each of the Ashleys lived apart from the others. “Something's going to break. Something's got to give,” he thought.

Mrs. Ashley was never seen outside her house. One night two days after this Christmas of 1903 she stayed up later than usual. The boardinghouse was closed from Christmas Eve to the third of January. There was generally an old lady who was allowed to remain in the house on condition that she went to the Tavern for her dinners and suppers. Porky closed his store and went to live at his grandfather's home on Herkomer's Knob. Mrs. Ashley and her daughters took their meals in the kitchen. At this break in the routine they all became aware of an unfathomable fatigue. They slept late and went early to bed. At this break, too, Mrs. Ashley's hoarseness and insomnia returned. She was filled with longing for her husband and her son, for hope and for change. On this evening, instead of going to bed, she went into the kitchen and baked six of her famous cakes. Mr. Bostwick was always ready to give them a place of honor in his grocery store. At eleven-thirty Lily came down the stairs. She found her mother sitting on a low stool brooding before the empty oven. The cakes stood resplendent on the table.

“Mama, come to bed! Why do you have to cook now? Mama, they're beautiful, but why are you working tonight?”

“Lily, would you like to go for a walk?”

“Mama! Of course, I would!”

“Put your clothes on and call Constance. Tell her to get dressed.”

“Oh, Mama, what fun!”

All was dark in the town. It was clear and cold. They went to the depot, they passed under the window of the jail, passed the courthouse. They peered through the windows of the post office, trying to see the poster with John Ashley's photograph on it. They went the length of the main street. They paused before “St. Kitts,” looking long at the house where they had spent so many hours—in candy pulls, games, storytelling, and rifle practice. It would be too much to say that Beata Ashley had felt any affection for Eustacia Lansing; she had never had much to spare. The two women had had little in common—the German and the Creole—but they had got on well together. Neither was a petty woman. But now Beata Ashley was overcome with something near to love for her former friend. If they could only sit beside one another, disdaining that ugly thing that had come between them. Beata Ashley was starved for someone to talk with, to exchange silence with over a woman's life, over the passing of the years, over the fading of beauty, over the rearing of children, over the presence and absence of husbands, over the coming of old age and death.

“Come, girls.”

They returned home by a side street, passing their church, passing Dr. Gillies's house. They paused for a moment on the bridge over the Kangaheela River as it flowed with a sound of suppressed laughter under its thin layer of brown ice.

“Oh, Mama,” cried Constance, flinging her arms around her mother as they entered their hall, “let's do that often.”

It would have been strange if they had happened to meet Eustacia and Félicité Lansing on one of those midnight walks when they, too, stood for a moment gazing at “The Elms,” longing for something they had read about, for something that may not exist—friendship.

Spring is very beautiful in Coaltown. The tulips and hyacinths rise brave, though pockmarked, from the sour ground. The dandelions are briefly yellow and the lilacs promise as best they can. The Kangaheela River shakes off the last pieces of smoked glass along its shores. There is love-making in Memorial Park and, when Memorial Park is full, in the cemetery. As always in spring, there are more accidents in the mines. No satisfactory explanation has been found for this. Mr. Kenny, the carpenter-undertaker, has made those boxes throughout the winter in expectation of the spring's demands. The miners emerging from underground at six are astonished to find that there is still daylight; they take deep breaths and assemble new courage toward feeding and shoeing their families. All those men and women with tuberculosis, up Polktown way, feel better and, with Mrs. Hauserman's encouragement, pick up heart for their recovery; they resolve to cough less.

So, in its beauty, the spring of 1904 came to Coaltown and with it came Ladislas Malcolm. Few young men applied for admission at “The Elms”; those few were turned away. Neither Lily nor Constance had seen a young man save Porky for almost two years or had been seen by one. Sophia saw young men daily and was accustomed to their jeering smiles and whispered taunts; they were merely “rowdies” and “hoodlums.” Yet the books the girls read were filled with heroes like Lochinvar and Henry the Fifth, or troubling apparitions—burdened with a crushing need of a thoughtful and loving woman—like Heathcliff and Mr. Rochester. The lodgers who came to “The Elms” seemed to them to be “over a hundred years old.”

It happened to be Lily who answered the doorbell.

“Good afternoon, ma'am,” said Mr. Malcolm, fanning himself with his straw hat. “I hope you can put me up for two nights.”

Blue eyes looked into blue eyes, astonished; they hardened.

“Why, yes. Will you write your name and address in this book? Those are our terms. Your room will be Number Three—upstairs, the second door on the left. The door is open. Supper is at six. We ask the gentlemen who wish to smoke to kindly use the plant room, there, at the end of the sitting room. If you wish for anything, you have only to call us. Our name is Ashley.”

“Thank you, Miss Ashley.”

Mr. Malcolm carried his grip and his samples case to Room Three; then he left the house for an hour. Soon after five o'clock unaccustomed sounds reached the ears of the women working in the kitchen. Someone was playing the piano in the living room, offering a type of music not previously heard there. It was loud; the rhythm was strongly marked and the melody was embellished by arpeggios traversing the entire length of the keyboard. Mrs. Ashley went into the front hall and appraised the newcomer. Her younger daughters followed her.

In the kitchen Constance said, “Isn't he handsome! He's like the men in books.”

Later her mother said, “Sophia, I want you to wait on table tonight.”

“I'll wait on table,” said Lily. “It's my turn.”

“But, Lily, he's not the kind of person we want in the house.”

Lily looked at her mother coldly and repeated, “It's my turn.”

At six o'clock Lily carried the soup tureen into the dining room. When she returned to the kitchen she said, “Mama, they're waiting for you to serve the soup.”

“Dear, let Sophia finish serving at table.”

“Mama, he's musical. That's my field. I'm going to wait on table and after supper I'm going to sing.”

“Dear! Lily! It will only . . . ?”

“Mama, we never
see
anybody. You can't keep us locked up forever. They're waiting for you.”

Lily had never disobeyed her mother.

It was one of the Wednesday nights when Miss Doubkov's call was expected. For the first time Mrs. Ashley had invited her to join them at supper. The girls took their meals in the kitchen; each in turn helped Mrs. Swenson in the dining room.

Mr. Malcolm was the soul of good manners. He gave his full attention to Mrs. Ashley's discussion of the weather and to Mrs. Hopkinson's account of her rheumatism. He did not raise his eyes when Lily removed the soup plates. His glance returned often to Miss Doubkov; her eyes rested thoughtfully on him. She had seen him surreptitiously remove a wedding ring from his finger and place it in his vest pocket.

“You're a real musician, Mr. Malcolm,” said Mrs. Hopkinson. “Oh, yes, you are! You play the piano like a professional. But you're not the only musician in this house. Mrs. Ashley, you must persuade Lily to sing for Mr. Malcolm after supper. She sings like an angel, Mr. Malcolm—that's the only word for it.” In a lower voice she added, “Isn't she a lovely girl? Lovely!”

Mr. Malcolm waited until Lily had returned to the room. He spoke modestly, “Well, I play and sing some. The fact is I mean to go on the professional stage. I'm just traveling to earn the money to arrange it.”

After supper the company moved into the sitting room. The two musicians performed alternately. Each commended the other's performance. It was apparent to all that Mr. Malcolm was swept off his feet. As we have said, Lily had neither seen nor been seen by any young man, except Porky, for twenty months. She had no memory of any town larger than Fort Barry. Yet she behaved like some princess whom rude revolutionaries had temporarily driven from her throne. She happened to be in Coaltown, Illinois, and happened to be waiting on table in a boardinghouse. She happened to be passing the evening with an agreeable young man whom no princess in her senses could take seriously—unless, perhaps, he might be useful to her. She made light fun of the songs he sang; she made fun of the way he kept his right foot firmly on the pedal. And yet, at the same time, she gave the impression of quite liking him—that is to say, he could take his place among the twenty other agreeable young men who came in from time to time for a musical evening.

Mrs. Ashley sat tranquilly sewing until she was called upon to accompany her daughter. Mr. Malcolm's songs were not of the same order as Lily's, but there was nothing tentative about them. He had a pleasant baritone voice and he sang loud. Lily had hitherto sung with measured sweetness; on this night she discovered that she could sing loud, too. He sang about when the watermelon ripens on the vine and she sang about Marguerite discovering a box of jewels on her dressing table. He sang about how stout-hearted the boys in Company B were and she sang about Dinorah dancing with her shadow in the moonlight. The shells on the whatnot trembled; the dogs in the neighborhood began barking.

Miss Delphine Fleming, the mathematics teacher at the High School, asked, “Lily, will you sing that song from
The Messiah?
”

Mrs. Hopkinson clapped. “Yes, dear. Please do!”

Lily nodded in assent. She drew herself up straight and looked gravely into the distance, quieting her listeners, as Miss Doubkov had taught her. Finally she glanced at her accompanist. She sang “I Know That My Redeemer Liveth.”

A girl, a little over twenty, living in a dust-mantled town in southern Illinois, who had never heard a trained singer save through mechanical reproduction, sang Handel. Miss Doubkov's hands trembled as she listened. This was indeed a house of signs. Lily had her mother's beauty and her mother's freedom from any trace of provincialism or vulgarity; but above that she had her father's inner quiet, his at-homeness in existence. This was the voice of faith, selfless faith. John Ashley and his ancestors, Beata Kellerman and her ancestors, were contributing of their creativity, of their consciousness of freedom—hundreds of them from beyond the grave.

At nine-thirty Mrs. Ashley rose, saying it was late, very late. Miss Doubkov took her leave, kissing Lily in silence. She watched her thank Mr. Malcolm for his music and wish him good night. The Princess of Trebizond gave him her hand, a radiant smile, and tripped upstairs. He stared after her as though she had struck him.

Lily did not appear in the dining room the following evening. It was warm. Mrs. Hopkinson proposed that they adjourn to the summerhouse after supper. Lily joined the party there. The hour was not at first conducive to conversation. The group fell under a spell cast by the reflection of the starlight on the water, the lapping of the waves under the floor, the odors from the foliage, the murmurs from the circling ducks. For a moment Lily hummed a song that Mr. Malcolm had sung on the previous evening as though to offer an apology for having disparaged it. Mrs. Ashley questioned him about his childhood. His parents had arrived from Poland a year before he was born. As no one could pronounce or spell his name he had chosen that of Malcolm. He talked of his theatrical ambitions.