“You go right ahead,” Bart said boisterously Sunday morning in the attic. “Paul’s all right with his dad, aren’t you, Paul?” He grimaced at the cradle.
She put on the white chip hat she had had before she was married. She had not worn it for so long that everybody would have forgotten it. Her white linen dress was old, too, but it was simple enough to wear without notice. She was thinner than she used to be and it hung a little on her hips. She had not for so long seen herself dressed like this. Her face was thinner, the lines of her bones clearly shaped, and her mouth was not so full as it once was. Her lips were restrained and set. But she had her clear skin and her mouth was still red.
She turned away from Bart. She knew she was still pretty enough so she did not want him to notice her. “I’ll walk from the Corners,” she said. “I can go in the surrey with them that far. Then it is only a little way.”
But Bart did not see her at all. He had thrown himself across her bed and was staring into the rafters.
She was a little late in church. They were all singing when she slipped into a back seat and sat down. She bent her head a moment and suddenly began to tremble. She was very tired. She had not realized how tired she was until she came to this familiar place. The singing went quietly on. The old folks sang gently:
“We may not climb the heavenly steeps
To bring the Lord Christ down”
The organ picked the notes out delicately, muted. The sunshine fell in bars as it used to fall through the closed windows, and lay upon the dying still air. All through her body little nerves began to relax and tremble. She wanted to cry again. She wanted to cry for herself, piteously and aloud: “I’ve had a hard time. I’ve really had a very lonely hard time.”
The singing softened in an “Amen,” and the people sat down. All their backs were to her, but she could recognize them. That was Miss Kinney’s summer hat, the tan leghorn with the circle of red cherries. There sat Mr. and Mrs. Billings. He had grown fatter than ever, and Mrs. Billings was already nodding, bless her heart. But the boys were gone. In the organ loft she saw Martin Bradley’s back, angular, as neat and spare as ever. His hair was almost white. He was moving his fingers over the silent notes as he always did during Scripture reading. Old Mr. Parker was dead. She had read that in the paper one day. He had died just before he was to retire on his savings, as he had feared he would. He had saved and saved for an annuity, going pinched all his days that he might be independent in age, and someone else was using it, someone who never cared for him, for he never married. “I have never made enough to warrant my inviting a lady to share my poor fortunes,” he used to say. Once he had said it at a church supper — that was when Mrs. Mark still had her legs. “I have asked the Lord concerning a wife, but there was no answer. I fear I asked amiss.” Mrs. Mark, cutting smartly into a huge white-iced cake, had shouted loudly, “That’s it, Brother Parker — you never asked a miss!”
Everybody had roared, and Mr. Parker smiled painfully and went out of hearing. Mrs. Mark was known to be a little indelicate for a lady.
Joan sat, smiling, remembering, forgetting for the moment why she had come. There was so much to remember here in this place — her mother, Francis, Rose, herself. It hurt most of all to remember herself. It was like remembering someone else, a young ardent girl. The door of the vestry opened and she looked up quickly, remembering her father. But instead a youngish bald-headed man came out in a dark business suit. He began to speak in a sharp practical voice.
“Today’s lesson is found in—”
He read quickly, plainly, without acknowledging any poetry in what he read, and sat down abruptly. A woman in the choir rose and sang in a sharp clear soprano. It was his wife. She remembered that definite high voice. “Is there only one bathroom in the manse? What sort of a kitchen stove do you have?”
She bent her head, waiting for the song to finish. When the congregation sang, she could go back to remembering. The soft murmuring of old voices, the muted organ — remembering, she might remember God. Her father could so invoke God in this place. Oh, that she might feel God true!
There was a short practical sermon, a few notices read. “There will be the usual meeting in the vestry after service. I shall discontinue the Wednesday prayer meeting while I am away on vacation during July.” A strange young man passed the collection plate and she shook her head. She had forgotten to bring money.
Then suddenly when they rose to sing the last hymn she could not face them. She could not bear the pressing questions, “Joan, what’s become of you?” “We never see you anymore.” “It’s nice to see you in the old home church again, Joan.” She was at their mercy, because they had all known her so well. She could not hide herself. She turned and hurried out of the church and went down the street. After her came the soft sound of their peaceful aged singing. The singing made the noon unreal.
… “Was Paul all right?” she asked Bart.
“Sure he was,” Bart answered. His voice sounded thick and queer, as though he had been drinking. But he could not have been drinking in this house. When a stranger asked Bart’s father for a match even, he would not lend it if he knew it was to light a pipe or a cigarette. “That’s flesh pander,” he said. And to drink even cider was wicked.
She looked at him closely. But he did not look at her. His red hair was tumbled and he smoothed it roughly. “You’ve been asleep,” she cried.
“Yeah,” he muttered.
“Asleep when you were to take care of Paul!”
“Well, he’s all right, isn’t he?”
Suddenly gorge rose in her. She could not bear to look at Bart. She let it pass. It did not matter, so long as Paul was safe.
She importuned Rose to pray for her, while she hung her own prayers on God. And she so prayed that she almost prayed herself into believing that her prayers must drive through the walls around her and reach an ear beyond. But in the night it was hard to believe. In the night, alone in her attic with Paul, the round-topped trunk pushed against the door, in the darkness of the deep night she might doubt and did often doubt. … “I must remember this is only because it is night and everything is so still, and because there is no one near me. I must remember that I believe in God and that the morning will come soon.”
She thought humbly of Rose who was so good, so sure. Rose’s prayers would count with God. In the night it was a comfort to think that far across the sea Rose was praying for her, too. And in the morning, when the sun came streaming through the treetops, it seemed to her that Rose’s prayers must be answered.
But it was a long time since she had heard from Rose. She went out one late summer morning to the mailbox at the road. When she saw the mail carrier there in his old Ford, she ran out. He seldom stopped, scarcely more than once a week to deliver the Sunday School Times or a farm circular.
“Good morning, Mr. Moore!” she called gaily. It was one of the moments of forgetting. The morning was clear over the hills, the earth was throbbing with sun and heat. The air was still and fertile with warmth. She felt her feet sure and vigorous upon the rich grass. It was impossible not to hope this morning. Paul was so well, so placid, so good.