Part 5 (1/2)
The guests began arriving--silent, awkward strangers--ten or twelve.
She heard the nurse come in with Susette and take her back to the nursery.
There was no music. Not a sound.
At last the silence was broken by the minister's low voice. Thank heaven that was kindly. He was brief, and yet too long; for from the apartment one flight below, before he had finished, the festive throb of a little orchestra was heard.
He prayed just a minute or two.
Then they followed the coffin out into the hall and back and down by the freight elevator.
A motor hea.r.s.e was waiting below.
When the burial was over, she came home alone with Joe. She sat in the living-room watching his face, while the dusk grew mercifully deep.
Then she made him eat some supper and take something to make him sleep.
And later in her own small room she lay on her bed, dishevelled, tearless, her mind stunned, her feelings queer and uneven, now surging up, now cold and still.
”Where has she gone? What do I know? . . . What do I believe?
Where is G.o.d? . . . What is life? What am I here for?”
With a pang she recalled the town in Ohio where she and Amy had been born, and her thoughts went drifting for awhile. Pictures floated in and out, pictures of her life at home. She was hungry for them now, the old stays and firm supports, the old frame house, her father and the G.o.d in the yellow church, the quiet river, the high school and that friendly group of eager girl companions, with work, discussions, young ideals, plans and dreams of life and love. . . . All up by the roots in a few swift weeks!
”Shall I go back?” she asked herself. ”Do I want to go--now that Dad is dead, and most of the girls have gone away, scattered all over the country?” Again she lapsed. ”I'm too dull to think.” She let the pictures drift again. Church sociables, a Christmas tree, dances, suppers and buggy rides, picnics by the river. How small and very far-away and trivial they now appeared. All had pointed toward New York. ”Go back and marry, settle down? Do I want to? No. And anyhow, there's Joe and Susette. My place is right here--and I'm going to stay.
But what is it going to mean to me? What do I want in this city now?”
In the turmoil, startled, she looked about her for a purpose, some ideal. But the old beliefs seemed dim; the new ones, garish and confused. She recalled those faces of Amy's friends. ”Yes, cheap and tough, for all their clothes!” Or was it just this ghastly time that had made them all appear so?
Again she thought of her sister dead. ”Oh Amy--Amy! Where have you gone?” And at last, quite suddenly, the tears came, and she huddled and shook on her bed.
CHAPTER V
She slept that night exhausted, woke up early the next morning and lay motionless on her bed: at first staring bewildered about the room, and then, with a sharp contraction of her brows and a quick breath, looking intently up at the ceiling. A vigilant look crept into her eyes, for at once instinctively she was on guard against letting the feelings of yesterday rise.
”What a selfish little beast I've been. Did I help in the funeral? Not a bit. Did I comfort poor Joe? Not at all. I was occupied wholly with my own morbid little soul. Now we're going to stiffen up, my love, and try to be of some use to Joe, and do as Amy would have liked.” She began to tremble suddenly. ”No, we're not going to think of her! It's dangerous! Be practical! To begin with, I must clear things up. I'll have a little talk with Joe. Poor Joe--it's going to be pretty dreadful. I'll stick by him, though, and I've got to learn how to keep him from going out of his mind.” More staring at the ceiling. ”One thing I know. I shan't wear black. Amy detested mourning, and Joe will see life black enough as it is. . . . Thank Heaven there's the housekeeping to do. That shall run smoothly if it kills me! . . .
All right, now suppose we get out of bed.”
About an hour later, from behind Amy's silver coffee pot, Ethel had her talk with Joe. She felt ill, but she bit her lips and smiled. She had dressed her hair becomingly and had donned a blue silk waist, one of the countless pretty things that she had bought with Amy. Her brown eyes had a resolute brightness.
”We'll have to help each other,” she said. ”And there's Susette to be thought of. The best way, I guess, is not to try to do much planning ahead just now. But I'd like to stay here if you want me, Joe. There's no other place where I want to be.”
He gave her a grateful tired smile. His hair was a bit dishevelled, and over his blunt kindly face had come a haggard lost expression. His voice was low:
”Thank you, Ethel--you're a brick. I want you here at first, G.o.d knows.
Later I'll try to fix things so that you can feel more free. You're only a kid, with a life of your own. Big city, you know, and you'll find your place.”
He stared over at the window, where the sun was streaming in.