“But I am not beyond my usual hour.” he said mildly, in surprise. “I am not usually home before six. I remained to speak to the people.”
His hand hung in hers, delicate, bloodless, cool.
“Anyway, you’re home now,” she said breathlessly. “Come in to supper. I’ll open a jar of the red cherries. Let’s light the fire. Maybe there’s a letter from Rose or maybe even Frank.”
He did not reply. He wanted to take his hand away, but he did not wish to be unkind. He let it lie one instant uncomfortably and then withdrew it. She did not prevent him. It was impossible to cling to that hand.
In the night she woke. It was raining. The night had turned warm and wet and still. There was only the soft downward rush of rain. Suddenly she felt safe again, safe and secure, after all, in this house where she had been born. The rain shut her in, the rain held her safe against intrusion. She slept deeply, and in the morning she woke, quieted. The day was slumberous with rain and quiet, and day after day the week passed. She sat by her window, sewing. She looked over all her dresses one by one. She still needed nothing new — there was no reason yet for buying anything new.
She woke on Saturday morning to sunshine, to scold herself and to laugh with relief. Tomorrow she would tell Bart never to come again. She did not want anything from him. She had so much. She was very silly. For they all needed her as much as ever. Rose had said in her very last letter:
Please buy me two pairs of black stockings and a paper of pins and three spools of white cotton thread and some needles. Such little things we cannot buy here. We are now wearing native garments, but the needles are blunt and short and hard to hold. You will rejoice with us that on Sunday four more, three women and one man, were received—
She would buy the things today. She would find Rob’s father in the store and say, “They go all the way to China, Mr. Winters, to Rob and to Rose.” He would want to put in something — he was so kind and gentle and always wanting to do nice things, even if they were rather silly things. He kept giving Mrs. Winters bottles of perfume, or when he went to New York to get his stock he would bring her home a flashy ring or a glass necklace. Mrs. Winters grew so provoked with him. If the jewelry cost too much she would say plainly, “I’m going to send it right back, Henry Winters. Me with earrings!” Sometimes she could only get credit, and then she had to buy whatever she could, so she bought flat silver. She had a great deal of flat silver.
But certainly Mr. Winters would want to put in a gift for Rose. Joan’s mind ran over the big one-room store. What would be nice? Rose had never mentioned the peach nightgown. Joan, remembering, had a pang of missing it still. It was so pretty. She would probably never have another so pretty.
She leaped from her bed and was suddenly gay. The house was itself again. Rose and Francis were alive, needing her — her dear old father. She was gay with him at breakfast and laughed when he looked at her in bewilderment.
“I’m only making fun,” she cried, and dropped a light kiss upon the ends of his white hair. “The rain’s over!”
“Your mother used to have days,” he remarked with mild patience.
Her heart shadowed. “There — I’ll stop teasing you,” she said remorsefully.
Well, it didn’t matter. She must get the things for Rose. She would buy a little gift, too, to put in. She had several dollars saved. She could get some ribbon — but there they wore native dress. Why didn’t Rose tell her how they looked? Or perhaps a pair of silk stockings. It was impossible to believe that Rose did not secretly adore silk stockings. She put on her hat and her old brown coat and went down the street, singing under her breath.
In the store at the far end, among the cotton stuffs, she saw Ned Parsons and turned her head. She did not want to bother with him today, but probably she would have to — he’d call or come bustling up. But he did not. When she glanced toward him he seemed to be absorbed in a list he was checking. He did not seem to see her. She searched for Mr. Winters, and found him at last in the stock room, surrounded by half-opened packages and boxes. He stood tall and narrow, his too narrow shoulders drooping about his narrow chest. It was known that he was “consumptive” and only Mrs. Winters’ constancy and determination had kept him alive. Left to himself he would not have touched milk or butter or eggs. But twice a day she came to the store with a tumbler of eggnog and stood watching him while he drank it. Everybody knew that once, when he was young, in desperation he had poured it into a bale of new white cotton sheeting while she was looking about, but she had caught him because he had poured it too quickly. The stuff had slipped down the sized cloth in trickles of yellow. She had never forgotten it. “The wicked waste!” she had cried hundreds of times in remembering it. Hundreds upon hundreds of times she had stood watching him drink the eggnog down, never trusting him. Once goaded by the smiles of clerks he had muttered, “You don’t need to stand there — seems as if all the times I’ve drunk it would count.”
But she had retorted, “I’ve never felt I knew exactly what you’d do next, Henry Winters! If it wasn’t for me, you’d be in your grave.” His life, saved thus daily, belonged to her.
“Mr. Winters!” Joan called across an aisle, beaming at him. “I’ve come to get some things for Rose. I thought you’d be interested.”
His face cracked into wrinkles, and she warmed to see him. He was so kind!
“Well now, come along and let’s see.” He was all excitement at once, his bony body moving in all convulsive darts of overflow. “I’m just unpacking some perfume. It so becomes a lady — like a flower scented, I always think.”
“But to send so far? A bottle might break.”
“Yes — yes — stupid of me. Well now, let me think. A brooch? I have some nice costume jewelry.” Why did Mr. Winters seem so excited today? He fumbled in a package and brought out a pasteboard box and opened it. His hands were trembling, and he did not quite meet her eyes. “Look, it’s pretty stuff, isn’t it? See, here’s a garnet set. I’m partial to garnet. This is amethyst — glass, but it looks real, doesn’t it? This is pretty, isn’t it — and these blue beads.” He touched the glass beads with a long, delicate forefinger, the nail blunt and broken.
“Well,” said Joan, hesitating. It was so hard to tell him Rose never wore jewelry. “I think,” she said warmly, not to hurt his feelings, “if we chose some silk stockings — They’re easy to send.”
He closed the box at once. “You’re right,” he said quickly, and hurried ahead of her.
In the store, people were beginning to come for their day’s shopping. Since it was Saturday, wives were in from the country, the older ones in calico waists and dark skirts and little stiff hats, and the young women in wash dresses, the sort Mr. Winters hung on a rack and sold for a dollar. Three or four of them stood by the rack, turning the dresses eagerly. She could hear them. “There — that’s real pretty.” “I don’t care for checks, though — looks like apron stuff.” One of them, a plump squat woman who had a coarse pretty face, said, “Yes, when I’m dressed up I like to feel dressed up. Joe likes something fancy on Sunday, too — he’s partial to lace.” She listened, watching them, smiling yet feeling them strange to her. They would be shy of her because she was educated, because she was the minister’s daughter. She said impulsively to Mr. Winters, “Wait on them first — I’m in no hurry.”
“No indeed,” he said heartily, although any other day he would have obeyed her. What was the matter with him today? She smiled at them when he went back unwillingly toward them. But they did not smile back. Their eyes met hers blankly and they took her courtesy, not recognizing it. She waited, foolishly hurt.