Helen had lain awake for hours in darkness, in a strange comatose state of terror and hallucination. There was no sound save the sound of Barton’s breathing beside her, but in her strange drugged state she would imagine she heard all kinds of sounds. As she lay there in the dark, her eyes wide open, wide awake, plucking at her large cleft chin abstractedly, in a kind of drugged hypnosis, thinking like a child:
“What is that? . . . Someone is coming! . . . That was a car that stopped outside. . . . Now they’re coming up the steps. . . . There’s someone knocking at the door. . . . Oh, my God! . . . It’s about Papa! . . . He’s had another attack, they’ve come to get me . . . he’s dead! . . . Hugh! Hugh! Wake up!” she said hoarsely, and seized him by the arm. And he woke, his sparse hair tousled, grumbling sleepily.
“Hugh! Hugh!” she whispered. “It’s Papa — he’s dying . . . they’re at the door now! . . . oh, for heaven’s sake, get up!” she almost screamed in a state of frenzied despair and exasperation. “Aren’t you good for anything! . . . Don’t lie there like a dummy — Papa may be dying! Get up! Get up! There’s someone at the door! My God, you can at least go and find out what it is! Oh, get up, get up, I tell you! . . . Don’t leave everything to me! You’re a man — you can at least do that much!”— and by now her voice was almost sobbing with exasperation.
“Well, ALL right, ALL right!” he grumbled in a tone of protest, “I’m going! Only give me a moment to find my slippers and my bath-robe, won’t you?”
And, hair still twisted, tall, bony, thin to emaciation, he felt around with his bare feet until he found his slippers, stepped gingerly into them, and put on his bath-robe, tying the cord around his waist, and looking himself over in the mirror carefully, smoothing down his rumpled hair and making a shrugging motion of the shoulders. And she looked at him with a tortured and exasperated glare, saying:
“Oh, slow, slow, slow! . . . My God, you’re the slowest thing that ever lived! . . . I could walk from here to California in the time it takes you to get out of bed.”
“Well, I’M going, I’M going,” he said again with surly protest. “I don’t want to go to the front door naked — only give me a minute to get ready, won’t you?”
“Then, go, go, go!” she almost screamed at him. “They’ve been there for fifteen minutes. . . . They’re almost hammering the door down — for God’s sake go and find out if they’ve come because of Papa, I beg of you.”
And he went hastily, still preserving a kind of dignity as he stepped along gingerly in his bath-robe and thin pyjamaed legs. And when he got to the door, there was no one, nothing there. The street outside was bare and empty, the houses along the street dark and hushed with their immense and still attentiveness of night and silence and the sleepers, the trees were standing straight and lean with their still young leafage — and he came back again growling surlily.
“Ah-h, there’s no one there! You didn’t hear anything! . . . You imagined the whole thing!”
And for a moment her eyes had a dull appeased look, she plucked at her large cleft chin and said in an abstracted tone: “Ah-hah! . . . Well, come on back to bed, honey, and get some sleep.”
“Ah, get some sleep!” he growled, scowling angrily as he took off his robe — and scuffed the slippers from his feet. “What chance do I have to get any sleep any more with you acting like a crazy woman half the time?”
She snickered hoarsely and absently, still plucking at her chin, as he lay down beside her; she kissed him, and put her arms around him with a mothering gesture.
“Well, I know, Hugh,” she said quietly, “you’ve had a hard time of it, but some day we will get away from it and live our own life. I know you didn’t marry the whole damned family — but just try to put up with it a little longer: Papa has not got long to live, he’s all alone over there in that old house — and she can’t realize — she doesn’t understand that he is dying — she’ll never wake up to the fact until he’s gone! I lie here at night thinking about it — and I can’t go to sleep . . . I get funny notions in my head.” As she spoke these words the dull strained look came into her eyes again, and her big-boned generous face took on the warped outline of hysteria —“You know, I get queer.” She spoke the word in a puzzled and baffled way, the dull strained look becoming more pronounced — “I think of him over there all alone in that old house, and then I think they’re coming for me —” she spoke the word “they” in this same baffled and puzzled tone, as if she did not clearly understand who “they” were —“I think the telephone is ringing, or that someone is coming up the steps and then I hear them knocking at the door, and then I hear them talking to me, telling me to come quick, he needs me — and then I hear him calling to me, ‘Baby! Oh, baby — come quick, baby, for Jesus’ sake!’”
“You’ve been made the goat,” he muttered, “you’ve got to bear the whole burden on your shoulders. You’re cracking up under the strain. If they don’t leave you alone I’m going to take you away from here.”
“Do you think it’s right?” she demanded in a frenzied tone again, responding thirstily to his argument. “Why, good heavens, Hugh! I’ve got a right to my own life the same as anybody else. Don’t you think I have? I married YOU!” she cried, as if there were some doubts of the fact. “I wanted a home of my own, children, my own life — good heavens, we have a right to that just the same as anyone else! Don’t you think we have?”
“Yes,” he said grimly, “and I’m going to see we get it. I’m tired of seeing you made the victim! If they don’t give you some peace or quiet we’ll move away from this town.”
“Oh, it’s not that I mind doing it for Papa,” she said more quietly. “Good heavens, I’ll do anything to make that poor old man happier. If only the rest of them — well, honey,” she said, breaking off abruptly, “let’s forget about it! It’s too bad you’ve got to go through all this now, but it won’t last for ever. After Papa is gone, we’ll get away from it. Some day we’ll have a chance to lead our own lives together.”
“Oh, it’s all right about me, dear,” the man said quietly, speaking the word “dear” in the precise and nasal way Ohio people have. He was silent for a moment, and when he spoke again, his lean seamed face and care-worn eyes were quietly eloquent with the integrity of devotion and loyalty that was of the essence of his life. “I don’t mind it for myself — only I hate to see you get yourself worked up to this condition. I’m afraid you’ll crack under the strain: that’s all I care about.”
“Well, forget about it. It can’t be helped. Just try to make the best of it. Now go on back to sleep, honey, and try to get some rest before you have to get up.”
And returning her kiss, with an obedient and submissive look on his lean face, he said quietly, “Good night, dear,” turned over on his side and closed his eyes.
She turned the light out, and now again there was nothing but darkness, silence, the huge still hush and secrecy of night, her husband’s quiet breath of sleep as he lay beside her. And again she could not sleep, but lay there plucking absently at her large cleft chin, her eyes open, turned upward into darkness in a stare of patient, puzzled, and abstracted thought.