7

That leaves me very little in my personal account now, thought Stephen, but without regret, as he approached the bank building somewhat out of breath. He had hoped to be able to start digging in the coal fields near Scranton this spring. He had hoped to be able to buy Alice a sable coat next winter. He thought of the “Fielding money” which had been invested in the State Railroad Company, and which had enabled the company to extend its lines and to contemplate extending them again. Alice did not have much of her dower left at the present time; her husband had hoped to restore it. But there were so many desperate calls on his charity, which he answered anonymously. Rufus, he knew, was much more “sensible” than he. In fact, Rufus, who contributed meagerly to any request for aid, received enormous praise for what he did give, for he bestowed it with an air, an attitude of immense generosity and an implication of remorse that he could not do much more at the present time.

Stephen knew all this, but it meant nothing to him. Rufus’s dazzling glory did not arouse his envy. It was enough for him that through his charity there was somewhat less suffering in Portersville. He had explained it all to young Alice, and she had agreed with him eagerly, not questioning him, but believing that whatever Stephen did was the wisest thing possible. Stephen, trudging into the bank building, thought: At any rate, we didn’t take the money Alice will have when she is thirty-five. There is always that for her.

He started up the stairway, remembering Joseph Baynes’s joy, and smiling in the remembrance. He was already building up a wall against the depression he felt when thinking of Senator Peale, and how, for the sake of his friend, he had betrayed his deepest principles. He reached his offices and was met by a circle of white-faced clerks and the bookkeeper.

“Mr. Stephen!” one exclaimed. “We’ve been trying to find you! Everybody has been trying to find you! Mr. Rufus said to go home immediately after you returned here! He is with Mrs. Stephen, and the whole family, he said.”

Stephen stood and looked at them. “What?” he muttered. “What? What?”

“It’s Mrs. Stephen,” said the bookkeeper with a tragic look, and with obvious relish in the dramatic news he was imparting.

So, it had happened while he was away. There had been no way by which he could have been reached. He had not expected it, God forgive him, not this morning when he had left Alice smiling and serene in her bed, with her tray beside her. Would Alice forgive him for not being available in her extreme hour of suffering? He would tell her. … He stood there, his grayish face twitching—idiotically, in the opinion of his employees. “I think you’d better go home, sir,” said the bookkeeper. It had been too much to expect that this absurd and stupid employer of theirs should show any emotion or alarm. “Shall I call you a hack at once?”

“Yes,” said Stephen in a dull voice. He was suddenly very faint. He sat down on the bookkeeper’s stool, and his hat toppled from his head. He looked at it emptily; wisps of his thin brown hair stood up all over his skull; his cravat was pulled to one side; his legs, like stilts, hardly seemed part of him but more like lathes of lumber. He had to clutch the side of the bookkeeper’s high desk to keep from falling.

I’ve got to be calm and intelligent about this, he thought. I couldn’t help being away. Alice isn’t alone; the family is with her. Her sister, and Rufus, and probably my mother. Besides, babies aren’t born that fast. I’ll get to her in time. He said to the clerks, “How long ago was I called?”

“At ten o’clock, sir. It was very urgent. Your housekeeper sent the boy for Dr. Worth at once, and then he came here for you, in your carriage.”

Ten o’clock. He was talking with Senator Peale at that very time. It was now half-past three. Stephen, with a strangled cry, got to his feet. “Has there been any more news?” he asked. Rufus had gone! Rufus had gone in his place! Why? Why? The child of Stephen and Alice would not seem important to Rufus, whose daughter had already been named “heiress” by her grandfather. Rufus would have waited until the evening, and then would have paid a casual brotherly visit. But Rufus had gone, Rufus who never cared for anyone.

Small pits of darker gray appeared in Stephen’s gaunt face. Not bothering about his hat, and dropping his brief case where he had been sitting, he stumbled from the room. He flew down the stairway, passing acquaintances who looked after him with amazement. There was no end to the stairs; they went down eternally into nightmare. His heart was one hollow of agony and fear. Five and a half hours ago, Rufus had gone, precipitously, leaving everything! Rufus had gone—gone—gone—It was a clanging in Stephen’s head, an uproar which rose to a tumultuous thunder as he burst into the street.

The bookkeeper was hastening toward him. “I can’t find a hack, sir!” he cried desperately. “It’s the weather. They’re all being used. But wait—”

But Stephen, with a wild face and mad eyes, had charged past him, and was running like a tall scarecrow down the street. He flew across intersections, his coat sailing out behind him, his bare head streaming with water, for it had begun to rain again. He charged up hilly streets, his breath tearing in his throat. He collided with hurrying pedestrians and with umbrellas, rebounded from them, staggered, and then resumed his frantic speed.

Shadows of affronted faces flashed up before him. As in a nightmare, he heard offended exclamations, saw angry glares. He slipped on muddy cobblestones, leaped across rushing gutters, was conscious of the clamoring river in the distance. His legs flailed and lifted his bounding body. His arms jerked back and forth, the elbows lifted high. The walls of buildings tilted toward him, tilted back; the sky flew up, flew down. Children coming home from school saw him and ran out of his way, or pursued him for a few feet, jeering and screaming. Once or twice he fell against passing carriages and hacks and even horses, and raucous shouts followed him, cursing. No one recognized him in that dimness and in that rain; he blew along like the wind. There was nothing in him but the dreadful necessity to get to Alice, and nothing but his terror. He was caught up in a spinning eternity, and though he did not utter a word he thought he could hear himself shrieking his wife’s name.

Now he was on the steep rise of the road which led to his home. A trundling wagon with a farmer huddled on the seat was ahead of him. His strength was failing; his knees were swinging from side to side; the agony in his chest had become a boiling pool of blood which was strangling him. He yelled, and the sound seemed to come from the whole of his sweating body. The wagon rumbled to a halt, and the stout farmer turned as Stephen came alongside.

“Well, it warn’t my fault,” the farmer grumbled later to spellbound friends. “How’d I know it was Mr. Stephen? There it was, raining like the flood, and it was dark as seven o’clock, and the wind was somethin’ to feel! And then this fellow lopes up, without a hat, and streamin’ with water, and a face like I wouldn’t want any of you to see. I tell you, it was a sight! His face a-pullin’ like mad, like he had the fits or somethin’, and the most God-awful noises you ever heerd comin’ out of his mouth. What would a man think? That he’d got a loony on his hands, and there on the road without no house in sight, and everything mud, and the horses jumping up and down at the sight of him. And him holdin’ onto the side of the wagon, makin’ them sounds, and not even talkin’ sensible, but just lookin’ at me walleyed, and lookin’ as if he’d been fished out of the river. What was I to do? Did he say, ‘Look, my man, I’m Mr. Stephen deWitt. I must get home.’? Well, then, wouldn’t a fellow do anything for the deWitts, seein’ they’re so important? But what does he say?” The farmer rubbed his beard, in defiant bafflement. “He don’t say nothin’ for a moment, just jabbering and growling-like in his throat, and I got scared, I tell you. I lifted my whip and hit him across the shoulders, and then when that didn’t do no good, I took the butt and hit it sharp across his hands. Brought him to his senses a little. He squeaked, ‘My wife. I’ll give you five dollars, now, but take me home. I can’t run any longer.’ And then, bejabbers, if he don’t start to sob, just like a woman, and groan.

“Well, five dollars is five dollars, even for a loony, and then he fished out the gold-back, and I snapped it away from him, and he clambered up beside me and kept on makin’ those damn sounds. I don’t wonder now, but I did then, and am I to blame? I hit up the horses, wantin’ to get rid of him fast; no telling what loonies will do in lonesome places. And there he sat, a-clutchin’ his knees, and there was blood on his knuckles where I’d hit him, and it ran down with the rain, and he kept heavin’ and lookin’ ahead and a-moanin’, ‘Can’t you go faster, faster?’ ‘Look, mister,’ I says, ‘my horses are doin’ the best they can, and it’s better than walkin’, though you can try it again if you want to.’ And he don’t answer, but looks at the backs of the horses, and horses are nervous critters and they felt him lookin’, and they begin to tear along like crazy, and I kept holdin’ back on the reins. Frightened? I thought the devil had got in the wagon with me!

“Five dollars. That was a lot of money for a ride of less than two miles, and I got my suspicions it was stolen money, or maybe that Confederate money, and the fellow’d murder me up the road. And so I sneaked a look at it, and it was all right, and then I said, ‘Shut up makin’ those damned noises. What’s the matter with you? Are you crazy, or somethin’? Somebody after you? It ain’t my business, but—’

“And then he only says, and now he got a voice like a thread, like a baby’s, kind of weak and broke off, ‘I’m Stephen deWitt, and I’m afraid my wife is dying.’

“Well, now,” the farmer related, “you could’ve pushed me off the seat with one finger! I took a hard look at him in that damned funny light, and sure enough it was Mr. Stephen deWitt! Seen him hundreds of times on the street, but never rightly remembered him. Always skulkin’ along, near the sides of buildings, and never noticin’ anybody, and sidlin’ away like a gun-shy dog. You had to see him a hundred times before you’d remember him, and me, my eyes ain’t what they was. But it was Stephen deWitt all right, and I got to shiverin’, and reached behind me for a blanket to cover him, him all wet the way he was. But he just kept on sayin’, ‘Hurry, hurry.’ And I said, ‘Mr. deWitt, sir, I didn’t know you at all, and I’m sorry, damned sorry! and tried to give him back the gold note, but he pushed it away with his elbow, and said, like he was prayin’, ‘Faster, faster.’

“‘It was the damn storm, and the dark, sir,’ I said, rememberin’ that the bank holds my notes, and old Aaron deWitt’s alius buyin’ up notes and foreclosin’ on the side—buying future right of way, he says. And my farm’s right on his damn railway. So I whipped those damn horses to a gallop, and by and by we come to his house, all dark except for a couple of windows, and two carriages outside, and Mr. Stephen jumped from my wagon and was gone before you could draw your breath! Never saw legs go so fast—like a grasshopper’s. Didn’t seem to touch ground.”

“Well, it sure was bad,” said one of his listeners.

The farmer looked at him belligerently, even though he was ashamed. “ ’Twaren’t my fault, I keep tellin’ you. And he’s got lots of money. They made lots during the war, on their railway.” He added surlily: “Anyways, though I’m sorry, he don’t have no use for the little folks around here. Don’t even notice ’em. It’s Mr. Rufus that’s our friend, not him.”

The chorus of assent reassured him, and the listeners’ resentment vaguely began to extend itself to Stephen for no logical reason at all.

Stephen never remembered that awful running through the streets of Portersville, nor did he ever recall the farmer. He knew that in someway he must have gotten home, but the details were forever hidden from him, and he never tried to remember. After all, that had been nothing. The only thing that he could recollect was racing desperately up the walk toward the tall, narrow house which had been his father’s, and straining his frantic eyes at the two windows which were lighted, one his own and Alice’s, and one the long living room which Alice had transformed from bleakness into charm.

His hair plastered to his skull, his eyes distracted, his clothing sodden and muddy, his boots pouring water, he flung himself into the small hallway and began to cry out in a cracked voice, “Alice! Alice! Where is Alice?” He had to lean against the wall, for his breath was suddenly gone, and he had no more strength.

For he knew. He had known it all for what seemed like black and timeless hours. When Lydia and his mother and his brother ran out to him, and he saw their faces, he could make no outcry; he could just look at them dumbly, his breath harsh and fast and moaning. Even when they surrounded him, he could not speak or ask a single question; and when his mother, by the light of the small chandelier which hung from the high ceiling, saw his face, she burst into wails and covered her eyes with her hands. Lydia was weeping, her pale and slender cheeks raw with tears, and even Rufus was red and wet of eye.

It was Lydia who came to him and took his hand speechlessly. He could direct all the wild intensity of his regard only upon her. He did not know that his brother was supporting him; he did not hear his brother’s voice. Something was happening to him internally; something was bleeding, pouring out all his life, something was twisting his heart in iron. He ought to have known! He ought to have known that he could never keep anything.

“Oh, Stephen, poor Stephen,” Lydia was saying, and she reached up and kissed his collapsed face. “My poor Stephen. Rufus, he must sit down. He seems as if he is dying.” A chair was forced behind Stephen’s knees, and he sat down obediently, without removing his eyes from Lydia’s face. She knelt beside him and put her arms about him, and her pretty mauve foulard dress was stained with his wetness and his mud. But his own arms hung slackly from his shoulders, and his breath was still a terrible thing to hear.

Sophia and Rufus stood near him, and Sophia sobbed loudly. Her crimson velvet dress had been put on hastily over her handsome figure, the lace collar awry, the pearl brooch at a sharp angle, and her gray hair was disordered. “My poor boy!” she moaned, and wrung her hands.

Rufus said, and his rich voice was queerly low and sustained, “Stephen, it couldn’t be helped. She fell down the stairs about half-past nine, and at ten the boy went for you and the doctor. It was no one’s fault; she tripped, poor Alice.”

Poor Alice, poor Alice, poor Alice! There was a jangling in Stephen’s ears, like a screaming of insane bells. Poor Alice, who had fallen, whose husband ought to have been with her, at home, helping her. But her husband was away, far away from her, helping a stranger, a friend. There was all that assistance for a friend, but none for Alice. The horrible refrain began once more: Alice! Poor Alice, poor Alice! Poor child, poor little one, poor bright blue eyes, poor happy voice, poor laughter, poor singing. Poor child, who was all he had.

Now he could speak, and only one word, very rustily, “Alice?”

Lydia tried to pull his head to her breast, but he put her aside with a gesture which could be gentle even now. He spoke only to her: “Alice—the baby—they are dead?” His voice seemed to come back to him from a far place, hollow and echoing.

Lydia could not reply, and all at once he remembered, even in that agony which could not possibly be real, that Lydia was Alice’s sister. He, with an effort so immense that it took his final strength, put his wet arm about her shoulders, and she fell against him, broken with anguish.

There was nothing inside him now but an empty place howling with exquisite torture. His blood and his organs had gone, and he was untenanted except for his suffering.

“I was away,” he muttered. “I was far away, and I didn’t know.” He looked up at his brother, and his eyes were blank pits. “I shouldn’t have been away. I didn’t know.”

Rufus put his hand on his brother’s soaking head, and he was shaken. “You couldn’t have helped. It happened too fast. Your idiot housekeeper was up the road buying eggs, and found Alice when she came back. She shouldn’t have left her. Steve, don’t look like that. It would have happened anyway. She was—she was—almost gone when she was found.”

He could not tell Stephen that Alice’s neck had been broken, and that she had lived only an hour after her fall, and had died even while her child was being delivered hastily, on this very hall floor, by Dr. Worth. A rug had been thrown over the bloody pool which had stained the light carpet. There she had lain in her deathly ignominy, in her red-stained white morning robe, while the doctor wrestled and struggled to bring forth the child before it, too, died. No, Rufus could not tell him this. He had seen it, himself, for he had arrived with the doctor. He would never tell poor Steve of the tumbled mass of pale hair which had lain on the floor, or the white still face, the glaring eyes upturned, the slack mouth open and emitting the gurgling sounds of death, and the pretty white arms and legs thrown wide in the last agonies. Rufus, who was rarely moved by anything, had been unbearably moved by this. The housekeeper had been useless, screaming in the background; but Rufus, in all his ruddy splendor, had knelt by the doctor and had assisted him. His own hands had been covered by gushing blood, and his own hands had touched the baby being wrested from the moribund body.

He could not tell Stephen, not so long as either of them lived, that at the final moment, before Alice died, her glazed eyes had taken on a gleam of consciousness, and that she had whimpered one lost and seeking question: “Stephen? Stephen?”

“She never recovered consciousness; she never knew,” lied Rufus. “She never suffered. Even if you had been here, she would never have looked at you or known you.”

Rufus rubbed his brother’s head clumsily, and Lydia, unable even to weep now, pressed her body against Stephen’s wet coat and could hear the slow thick beating of his heart under her ear.

“It’s a girl; a very nice little girl,” said Rufus, and his voice was changed and hushed. “Wouldn’t you like to see—to see—”

“I want to see Alice,” said Stephen faintly. He put aside Lydia, and Rufus helped him to his feet. The brothers moved slowly to the stairs, and step by step, held strongly by Rufus, Stephen climbed them, sagging and reeling. Lydia followed; she saw Stephen’s slipping and fumbling boots. The water and the mud ran over the light blue carpeting, leaving footmarks that resembled dark blood. She did not know the truth, either, and Rufus had resolved that he would never tell her. She had accepted his lies, without question, and had arrived a considerable time after Alice had died and had been taken to her bedroom. Even she did not know what the small carpet covered in the hall below. But it was she, and not the shrieking Sophia, who had taken off that beautiful white velvet morning gown, and who had washed and dressed the young and little sister who had always been in her care and under her protection. She had done this alone, in tearless and stony silence, for, until it was done, she dared not let her grief overpower her. It had seemed, while she worked, that she was washing and dressing the small Alice of their childhood, and she had combed the bright pale hair neatly and had folded the colorless hands on that childish breast.

A dim light burned in the bedroom which Alice had made so attractive with the light and airy furniture of her parents’ home. She lay in hers and Stephen’s bed, her head turned slightly toward the door as if she waited for her husband, not in eagerness but with sleeping, smiling patience. Lydia had dressed her in her cherished bridal nightgown of white satin and lace. Her closed eyelids, veined and rounded, were like marble; her lips, too, were marble.

Stephen staggered to the bedside, held by his brother, and he looked down at his wife. He stood like that for a long time, then his knees bent and he laid his head beside Alice’s on the same pillow, and he closed his eyes. The tears ran down Lydia’s face, and Rufus made a move as if to put his arms about her, then did not. There was such a bitter coldness on Lydia’s face, such a stiffness, such an anger.

Stephen’s breath, inaudible now, flowed over Alice’s serene and silent face. Rufus thought that he had fainted.

All that I had, all that had ever loved me, in all the world, Stephen was thinking. There is nothing now, just as there was nothing before I knew her. But it is worse than before; I have had her, and I’ve known what it is to have her, this dear thing, this loving thing, this sweetest of all things.

How could a man live when his darling was gone, when the voice that had coaxed, soothed, and comforted him, would never be heard again? What was there in life that could numb this desolation, take away this anguish, fill up the emptiness that had been full? She had been alone; he had not been with her; he had not been able to help her. She had died alone, and she had taken with her all the meaning of his existence and left him bereft. She had died while he was helping a friend, and with her had gone the sun and the warmth, the joy and the faith, the fire and the love.

He had not expected any reward for anything he had done, or for any suffering he had alleviated. It would never have occurred to him that he should have a reward. No, he had expected nothing.

But he had not expected to be punished because he had fed others and had consoled others. His punishment was too much, for what he had done.