But it was true. She had been unjust to Bart. She had done wrong to them all. She had come into this house of simple people, good people. Bart was not bad — he was only stupid. Ah, Paul helped her to understand them all — Paul, who was born as he was and not to be blamed.
“Yes,” she said. “You are right. I’ve done very wrong.” They looked at her astonished. They had not expected her to be gentle. She was not by nature gentle. But Paul had taught her to be gentle — she had learned how to be infinitely gentle.
Bart began to mumble. “I’m not—”
“I don’t blame you,” she went on quickly. “Don’t tell me, Bart. You — maybe this girl would have made you happy. I’ve injured you.”
The girl stopped crying and listened, her look upon Joan’s dusty shoes. Her coarse mouth was swollen and pouting, her small pale eyes were hidden behind their swollen lids. She looked like the girl who had come to the manse to be married, long ago—
“I won’t have divorce in this house!” said Bart’s father loudly. “That’s worse still. What God’s joined—”
“Bart and I aren’t joined — we can’t be — if we lived together all our lives we wouldn’t be joined.” They sat stupefied by her quiet voice. They were not able to understand. She turned from one bewildered face to the other. They understood meat, drink, work. But she went on. “I see how difficult I’ve been for you to bear.” She hesitated and went on quickly, forcing herself to smile. She made her voice bright as one makes one’s voice bright to speak pleasantly and resolutely to children. “I see it all so clearly. The only thing I can do for you is to go away. You can live as you did before I came. After a while you will forget I was ever here.”
Without waiting for them to answer, she ran through the room and up the back stairs to the attic. She must go away at once. She must not wait for Bart to come to her, sheepish, sullen, wanting her back. She must not wait until they laid hold on her to keep her so people would not know. Paul was whimpering for food, but she paid no heed to him. She would go by the cellar and get him some milk as she went out. She began to pack with frantic speed.
Where could she go in the world? There was no door anywhere hers to open. Then she thought of Mrs. Mark. She could go and stay with her — take care of her. In a week or two she could find something elsewhere. She’d put their clothes into a bundle — it would be easier to carry than a bag. She opened the round topped trunk and found the sandalwood box and took out all her money. That was comfort — it was her own. She put everything she was not able to take into the trunk and locked it. She would send for it. Now she must get away before they knew it. They would not believe she could go so soon. They would not imagine she would go on foot, carrying Paul. But she had her strong good body for servant.
She put a cap on Paul, picked him up and slipped her arm through the bundle and went softly down the front stairs and out the open door. She went around the porch to the cellar and filled a cup for Paul and put it to his mouth. She listened. Bart’s father was talking on and on. She held Paul to her and let him drink.
No one came after her. No one called. All about her was the rich silence of the lengthening autumn afternoon. She looked light. The sun was shining through the golden dusty air. An hour ago she had been walking this road, not dreaming of such a thing as she was doing. But now it was the one inevitable end ahead, into the sky. It was a deep empty bowl of pure blue to which life led her. She had been coming unaware down a long path alone and the path stopped at a gate, and she had opened the gate and closed it behind her forever, not knowing what was beyond.
She plodded steadily eastward. Paul slept again, content. By sunset she would be at Mrs. Mark’s cottage, at least by twilight.
The sun would swing its way around the world to bring another day. No cry or prayer of hers could stay or hasten the measure of the day and night. She knew it now and accepted all that had been her life. What had happened to her, she accepted. What was to come, she had strength to accept. She went steadily on, in freedom and alone, carrying her own burden.
IV
SHE LIFTED THE LATCH very softly, the cottage was dark, a dark small solid shape in the faintly lighter surrounding darkness. Mrs. Mark must be asleep. But she was not. Her voice came cutting small and thin out of the darkness.
“Who’s that?”
“It’s only I — Joan — back again.”
“What are you back for at this time of night?”
She heard Mrs. Mark fumbling for matches, and there was a scratch and a flaring light. In it Mrs. Mark’s wizened face peered out, a jumble of lines.
“My soul, Joan, what have you got there?”
She stood holding Paul, her bundle on her arm. “I’ve left my — the house — the Pounders’ house. I can’t go back. If I can just stay the night with you—”
Mrs. Mark was lighting the candle beside her bed. “My soul and body,” she was muttering, “my soul and body! There’s no peace.”
“He’s a quiet child,” said Joan quickly.
“I don’t mean him,” said Mrs. Mark. “Come on in. There are sheets in the bureau drawer and quilts in that old box. I don’t know where you can sleep.”
“I’ll sleep in the other room, on that settee — I’ll manage.”
She was desperately tired. Paul was so heavy, always inert in her arms. She laid him down on the foot of the bed. Mrs. Mark peered at him.
“He’s a big child to carry. What did he do — go to sleep?”
She had better speak at once, tell it definitely and clearly. “He’ll never be right — he’s born wrong.”
“Oh, my soul,” Mrs. Mark whispered. “Give him to me.”
Joan lifted Paul and laid him across the dead legs. Mrs. Mark held him in her sticks of arms and stared at him with her small inscrutable eyes, muttering over and over, “Oh, my soul — my soul—” Her face was gathered into a knot of pity.
Joan sat down on the bed and suddenly the old sobbing began to rise in her, the old dry aching sobbing. But she held it in her throat, choking, dry. No use crying. There was really no use crying. She set her teeth. “Don’t feel sorry for me,” she said. “I can just manage if you don’t feel sorry for me.”
“I’m not being sorry for you,” Mrs. Mark answered. “What’s the good? Well, get along and fix your bed. It’s late. There ought to be milk and bread in the kitchen. I heard the delivery man leaving them tonight.”
She lay back and Joan took Paul from her and undressed him for the night. She made the bed upon the couch in the small sitting room and laid him there. Then she went back to Mrs. Mark and took her scrawny yellow hand. “Shall I tell why I left that house? I feel as if I ought to tell you, coming here like this.”
Mrs. Mark’s hand was like a clutch of wires, thin, stiff, dry.
“It doesn’t matter to me,” she said. “I gave up wanting to know why long ago. What happens happens. You came away because you had to, I reckon.”
“Yes, I had to,” she said.
“It’s why we all mostly do the way we do. Get along now. I’m ready for my sleep.”
She blew out the candle and Joan felt her way out of the dark room.
When she woke in the morning it was light. She woke in light and the small stone house was full of a warm peace. She got up and bathed and dressed Paul freshly and fed him and then when she was dressed she opened the door quietly. But Mrs. Mark was not asleep. She had brushed her hair and tidied her sheets about her and put on her bedsack and was lying with her eyes fixed upon the door.
“I wasn’t sure I hadn’t dreamed it,” she said in her high small voice. “These days I take to dreaming. There are times when I feel my old man in the house and my girl that died when she was six.”