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Book 2Two
All afternoon Lucy lay in the sun under a low-branching apple tree, on the dry, fawn-coloured grass. The orchard covered about three acres and sloped uphill. From the far end, where she was lying, Lucy looked down through the rows of knotty, twisted trees. Little red apples still clung to the boughs, and a few withered grey-green leaves. The orchard had been neglected for years, and now the fruit was not worth picking. Through this long, soft, late- lingering autumn Lucy had spent most of her time out here.
There is something comforting to the heart in the shapes of old apple trees that have been left to grow their own way. Out here Lucy could remember and think, and try to realize what had happened to her: remember how the kind Auerbachs had come to her that morning (long ago it seemed) and taken her home with them. Paul had understood, without being told, that she must get away, must go home, that she wished never to see Chicago again.
Mrs. Auerbach did all her packing for her, made explanations to the bakery people, got her railway ticket, took Lucy to the train. She had even made up a little package of "keepsakes" at Sebastian`s studio, before his lawyer came in to clean everything out; some of the handkerchiefs left in his drawer, a pair of his gloves, photographs of himself and his friends, a few of his books, scores he had marked. She selected these things without consulting Lucy and sent them by express to Haverford. They now lay in the bottom of Lucy`s trunk. They meant nothing to her; she couldn`t bear to look at them.
To have one`s heart frozen and one`s world destroyed in a moment-- that was what it had meant. She could not draw a long breath or make a free movement in the world that was left. She could breathe only in the world she brought back through memory. It had been, and it was gone. When she looked about this house where she had grown up, she felt so alien that she dreaded to touch anything. Even in her own bed she lay tense, on her guard against something that was trying to snatch away her beautiful memories, to make her believe they were illusions and had never been anything else. Only out here in the orchard could she feel safe. Here those feelings with which she had once lived came back to her.
Her father`s house was accounted comfortable; she could recall that she used to take pride in it. But all those wooden dwellings in Western towns were flimsily built,--built for people without nerves. The partitions were too thin, especially between the upstairs chambers. Her own room was next Pauline`s. She could not cry, or switch on her light, or turn over in bed, without knowing that her sister heard her.
Out here in the orchard she could even talk to herself; it was a great comfort. She loved to repeat lines from some of Sebastian`s songs, trying to get exactly his way of saying the words, his accent, his phrasing. She tried to sing them a little. It made her cry, but it melted the cold about her heart and brought him back to her more than anything else did. Even that first air she ever played for him, "Oh that I knew . . . where I might find Him . . ." she used to sing it over and over, softly, passionately, until she choked with tears. But it helped her to say those things aloud to her heart, as if something of him were still living in this world. In her sleep she sometimes heard him sing again, and both he and she were caught up into an unearthly beauty and joy. "So shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in their heavenly Father`s realm." It was like that, when she heard him in her sleep.
But sometimes she was afraid of sleep, and did not go to bed, but sat up in a little chair by the window for hours rather than take that chance. There had been nights when she lost consciousness only to drop into an ice-cold lake and struggle to free a drowning man from a white thing that clung to him. His eyes were always shut as if he were already dead; but the green eyes of the other, behind his shoulder, were open, full of terror and greed. She awoke from such dreams cold and exhausted with her struggle to break that cowardly embrace. Then she would lie awake for the rest of the night, shivering. Why had she never told Sebastian she knew this man was destined to destroy him? Why hadn`t she thrown herself at his feet and pleaded with him to beware of Mockford, that he was cowardly, envious, treacherous, and she knew it!
After one of these terrible nights Lucy was afraid to trust herself with anyone. A very little thing might shatter her self-control. She would come out here under the apple trees, cold and frightened and unsteady, and slowly the fright would wear away and the hard place in her breast grow soft. And now the orchard was going to be cut down; the old trees were feeling the sun for the last time this fall.
Just behind the orchard was the pasture where Mr. Gayheart used to graze a horse, in the days when he kept one. Two years ago Pauline had this field ploughed up and planted in Spanish onions. She marketed very profitable crops, and that sealed the fate of the orchard.
Lucy had been at home only a few weeks when she was awakened one morning by the sound of an ax. She listened languidly for a moment, then suddenly realized that it wasn`t somebody chopping wood. The sound was not like that at all; there was no vibration. The ax was cutting into something alive. She sprang out of bed, caught up a dressing-gown, and ran to her father`s big room at the back of the house, which looked out over the yard and the orchard. Her father was in the bathroom, shaving. From his window she could see a man in the orchard, cutting down an apple tree. She ran down the back stairs to the kitchen, where Pauline was getting breakfast, and told her to go out to the orchard, quick! Someone was cutting a tree.
Pauline looked sidewise out of her rather small eyes. Her voice was not quite natural as she tried to answer carelessly.
"I told Poole to come today, but I didn`t tell him to come so early. I`m sorry if he wakened you."
"But what`s the matter with the tree? Why is he cutting it?"
Pauline broke an egg into the hot saucepan. "Hadn`t I told you we are going to clear away the old orchard?"
"Clear away-- Oh, where is Father?"
Startled by the frantic note in her sister`s voice, Pauline pushed the eggs to the back of the stove and turned round.
"Father has agreed to it. You surely must know, Lucy, that he turns in very little money toward the running of this house. My onion crops have done a good deal for us. I am having the orchard cut down this fall and the ground prepared, so that I can put it into onions and potatoes in the spring. I can`t be going out to the farms all the time to look things over, and I`m sure the tenants cheat me. But here I can have a crop under my eyes and make a good thing of it. I have to turn some trick, to keep the place going."
"But, Pauline, don`t do it this fall. Don`t do it now, when I`m so miserable!"
"Try to be reasonable, Lucy. I`ve made all the arrangements, and if I put it off I lose a year`s crop."
Lucy was still scarcely awake. She caught Pauline`s chubby hand and broke out wildly: "I can`t stand it, I can`t! It`s all I have in the world just now. Leave it this year, and I`ll pay you back what you lose, truly I will. I`ll soon be making money again, and I`ll pay you every cent. Pauline, go out and send that man away! Listen, it`s down! He`ll begin on another. I can`t stand it!" Lucy dropped into a chair, and her head sank upon her bare arms on the kitchen table. Her hair was hanging in two braids over her shoulders which were shaking with bitter sobs. Pauline frowned darkly, but her own eyes filled with tears. She couldn`t doubt the desperateness of Lucy`s distress, and she looked so helpless. Not since she was a child had she ever begged for anything like that. Pauline bent over the table and gave her sister an awkward, spasmodic hug.
"There, there, Sister. I didn`t know you would take it so hard. I`ll let it stand till next fall. But won`t you feel just the same about it then?"
Lucy lifted her face. "I won`t be here then. I`ll be off making my living, somewhere. I know you have to make up for Father`s easy ways." She said this very low, and swallowed a lump in her throat. "But if you`ll just--just humour me this year, you`ll never be sorry. Some time you`ll understand."
"All right, my dear. I`ll go and send Poole away. And you go upstairs now and put your clothes on. Take this cup of coffee along, and drink it while you dress."
Lucy took it with gratitude, and went up the back stairs slowly, meekly, like a child who has been whipped until, as they say, its will is broken.
At the top of the stairs, before the door of his bedroom, stood a man who was also afraid of Pauline. He was freshly shaven, in a clean shirt, with bay rum on his greying hair and goatee. He took the coffee-cup from Lucy, put it on his dresser, and then took her in his arms. He kissed her with love, as he always did when he kissed her at all, on her lips and eyes and hair. He said not a word, but, keeping his arm around her, went with her to her own door, carrying the coffee.
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