She smiled in secret triumph. This great boy the father of her son! She smiled tolerantly. “Why, yes, Bart. Why not?”
“I could get me a used car,” he said in excitement. “I could paint it up all new. Say, do you like red or blue? Maybe a nice green. I’m partial to green.”
He went off, planning. She said to herself, “Let him have his car. It will mean more to him than the child. I can have the child to myself.”
The next Saturday, when he came home in an old car, she went out and admired it. The owner said loudly, “He’s the quickest fellow to learn to drive I’ve ever seen. I told him a few things and he’s got the hang already.” Bart said, “Move over and let me see.” He shoved himself into the driver’s seat and studied the gears. “Let’s see—” The car moved slowly. His face grew solemnly ecstatic.
She smiled, content. Her child was her own. It was more easy now to be pleasant, to be kind. She was very kind to them all, these days.
But she wanted someone to whom to talk. If her mother had been alive she would have run to her. “Mother, I am going to have my child!” She could see her mother’s dark eyes go joyous in that brightness, as though an inner light had been turned on, like windows shining in the night. “Oh, my darling!” She could feel the quick warm arms about her. And she yearned for Rose and Francis. It had been so long — how had they grown so separate? She wanted to see him again. As if an answer to her longing, a letter came from Rose. Rose’s child was born, a little delicate boy, so delicate they had not dared to hope to keep him alive, but he lived. He had been born on a warm April day in a Chinese city, a fair little boy who looked like Rob. Rose had no milk for him. Her round breasts were useless, for the nipples were too small. They would not rise and the boy could not grasp them in his lips, or he was too feeble to try. So they had hired a Chinese wet nurse, a peasant woman whose baby was a girl. She was willing for money to take the girl’s milk for Rose’s little boy. “We feel only our prayers have kept him alive,” Rose wrote. Joan, reading the letter closely, longed for the frail child. She looked at her own swelling breasts proudly. If the children had been together, I believe I could have fed them both, she thought in triumph. I shall have so much — far more than enough.
Bart’s mother said, “Reckon I can help you when your time comes. And Mrs. Potter over at Clarktown is a midwife, if anything seems out of the way.”
But Joan said, “I’ve made my plans. I shall have Dr. Crabbe.”
“It doesn’t seem as if you had to have a real doctor,” Bart’s mother objected. She was peeling potatoes and she looked at Joan reproachfully. “It ain’t like a sickness.”
“He knows me,” Joan answered tranquilly.
She was ironing a small, plain white dress she had just finished — six little dresses. Bart’s mother had said, “There’s some of Sam’s old baby clothes in the attic.”
“No,” said Joan quickly. “No, I don’t need them.” She could not have Sam’s old garments on her little tender-fleshed son. The thought revolted her. She could not bear to touch Sam even in accidental passing. But she opened the round-topped trunk and searched over the baby dresses, the little petticoats and shoes, and the red jackets Francis had worn. They were old and much washed but still dainty, because her mother had made them so fine of good lasting stuff and with small embroidery and tiny worked buttonholes and narrow laces.
One day in late October she hitched an idle horse to the buggy and drove to Middlehope to see Dr. Crabbe. She chose a Monday, when people would be busy and she might meet no one. Bart said proudly, “I’ll drive you in the car if you’ll wait till the work’s done.” But she could not trust her son to his slow-witted driving. She said quietly, “I’d better go earlier, thank you, Bart.”
So she had driven gladly alone through the still October sunshine. She had made it habit now to choose things for her son’s life. I choose these colors, she thought happily, that red vine in that oak, that yellow white-barked birch, that little gay chipmunk. Together they would see all these things, and soon, in only a year or two, they could talk about them. Then there would always be someone with whom to talk. She must watch and find out all she could, see all she could, with which to enrich his life. These hills should not imprison him, nor should the woods seem dark or frightening. He must never feel lonely in this silence. She must be always there.
She drove into the quiet sunlit street, and past the churchyard, the church, the manse. Upon the manse steps sat two small children, a boy and a girl, eating slices of bread, staring at her as she passed. She heard a woman’s brisk voice calling, “Mollie, where’s Donny?”
“We’re here,” the little girl piped back.
“Take good care of him,” the voice answered. In the garden she saw a youngish man raking leaves, bareheaded and a little bald. It was the new minister. Monday was his holiday as it had been her father’s. But her father never raked leaves — he spent the whole day in his study, reading books he had not time for on other days or making parish calls. The new minister? He was no longer new. He was the minister now, his the house and children. It was impossible to believe that the two small children were not the ghosts of herself and Francis, so short the time was since they had sat on the steps eating bread and sugar. She could hear her mother’s voice: “Joan, where’s Francis?”
“We’re here, Mother!”
“All right, darling.”
She must find Francis, she thought ardently. She took her mind from her errand to think of him, troubled, her conscience stirring. She ought not have let him go so long. But he did not write and she had no way to find him. She must send letters, many letters, send them out like arrows, until one found him and brought him home to her again. …
In Dr. Crabbe’s office she waited, and then in a moment he was there, his hair a curly white rim about his bald crown, his blue eyes dim and rheumy, his hands shaking.
“My goodness, it’s you, Joan Richards! Why on earth haven’t you — Where’s that Godforsaken hole you hide in, anyway? I’ve been driving all round that country seeing sick folks and never see hide nor hair of you!”
She found her lips trembling. She wanted to cry. She wanted to cry and cry and tell Dr. Crabbe everything, to be the little girl again, to catch for a moment the warm old circle about her. But she steadied herself. No use trying to go back.
She laughed and took his hands, feeling their shaking.
“Dr. Crabbe, I’m going to have my baby — and I want you to help me.”
“Well, well, well — I keep on living and living. Your mother came to me with those very words. Let’s see — sit down, child — I want to ask you a few things. Let me look at you.” She gave her body over to his hands gratefully, confidently. He peered and puffed as she remembered he always did, breathing hard as he grew absorbed.
“There — you’ve got a glorious body, Joan — sound as an apple — no trouble at all — everything’s just beautiful. God, I like to see a good body!”
He washed contentedly, talking cheerfully. “Old Mrs. Kinney’s not dead yet, Joan — had pneumonia last winter and I had to pull her through it, damn her! She thought sure she’d go. You know how scary she is of everything — won’t even ride in an automobile. But she got well. I swear I’m going to live to bury her. You heard Netta and Ned married, didn’t you? They’re going to have a baby next month, but she’s a different story — slack built sort of female — I don’t know what’s going to happen there — I’m dubious, that’s all, I’m dubious!”