But Marjorie said, “The town won’t forget. In spite of all that Jon has done for it, and his really ferocious care for the sick and his hatred for pain and his devotion, it won’t forget. They never say anything, but they still think he killed Mavis.”
“They want to believe it, Mother. People always want to believe the worst of others,”
Oh, God, Marjorie prayed in herself, please stop me! But she said, “You never believed it for a moment, did you, Harald?”
“Not for a moment! Don’t I know Jon? I didn’t need those medical witnesses from Pittsburgh to tell me! Jon’s word was enough.” He hesitated.
Marjorie took up her knitting again. She was afraid that Harald would see the trembling of her hands. “Please pour me some fresh tea, dear.”
She watched Harald’s deft gestures as if all her life depended on his smallest movement. “Cream, again? Sugar? Well, here you are. You didn’t drink the first cup.”
“Thank you, Harald. Harald, all those months in prison, for Jon! Oh, it’s gone and past and the past is better buried! But it won’t stay buried for Jon. People still drag out the corpse for him. He thinks I don’t know, but I do. He often spends the night out in the offices, drinking—”
“Jon?” Harald stared. He frowned. Does he really care? Marjorie asked herself.
“He thinks I don’t know. And I know something else.
When the little Best girl died, he was inconsolable, for all his surface cynicism. And I heard that her parents rejected his diagnosis, and all the hospital rang with contempt for him. The nurses, and some doctors, had heard poor Howard Best’s ravings and threats when Jon told them. But he was right, and the poor little thing died soon after. Sometimes I can’t sleep, Harald. So I know that Father McNulty went to see Jon in his offices the night of the death. I don’t exactly know why. But Jon wouldn’t go to the funeral. I’ve heard he won’t speak to Howard or Beth. Two weeks ago. He really loved that little girl; he loves children. It’s very strange, isn’t it?”
Harald had been listening with deep interest. He said, “I don’t think it’s strange. I don’t blame Jon. I thought they were among his best friends and had always stood by him.”
“What is a ‘best friend,’ Harald? Sometimes I don’t know. I never completely trusted anybody. We are truly alone. But Jon had a way, until recently, of expecting the best from people, or at least decent human behavior. Howard had visited him in prison, and it was Howard who found good lawyers for him and always fought furiously with anyone who said Jon was guilty. Then this.” She put down her teacup. “If Jon had any doubts about leaving Hambledon, he hasn’t any now. I hope he hurries. I hope he leaves soon!”
And so do I, thought Harald. He can’t go soon enough for me. He reached out and patted his mother’s hand. “Darling, don’t be so upset. It’s been a miserable time for everybody. It’s over. People will forget Jon will set up practice in a better place.”
“Jon won’t forget, Harald. He won’t forget those months and the trial.”
She picked up her knitting, though the dusk in the room had become almost opaque. “No, dear. I can knit without a lamp. If Jon ever finds out the truth, I’m afraid he might—he might—”
“Oh, he was always violent. What ‘truth’? Some hack injured Mavis, and then when she began to be infected from the injury, she went to her darling uncle, old Eaton, and he rushed her to the hospital and tried to save her life with an operation. But it was too late. That’s what he testified in court, wasn’t it? It all happened when Jon was in Pittsburgh. If old Eaton still believes that Jon bungled, or something, and then sent her to him, no one can change his opinion. Everybody wants to believe what he wants to believe. Including Jon.”
Please stop me, Marjorie prayed. She said, “Everyone knew that Jon wanted children. He wouldn’t have performed such an operation on Mavis.”
The silence was suddenly intense in the room. Then Harald said, too softly, “Unless he wanted to kill her.”
He waited. His mother said nothing. She was only a pale shadow in the room.
“But I don’t believe that,” said Harald. “We know the truth. He was not in Hambledon for five days. It all happened when he was away.”
“Yes,” said Marjorie. She thought she was going to faint. Her heart was thumping erratically and there was sweat on her calm forehead. “That is why he was acquitted. The medical testimony even from Dr. Eaton, Martin. And Jon’s witnesses. It was impossible.”
“How did we get on this gloomy subject?” Harald now stood up as if the dusk were too much for him. He struck a match and lit a lamp. He stood in his tall and elegant handsomeness and stared at the lamp for a long time. “We’ve gone over this so many times. You mustn’t be so morbid, Mother. I thought it was agreed that no one must mention this again.”
“Yes, dear.” She looked at him with passionate love and sorrow. “But it all came back with little Martha’s death. It keeps coming back. And Jon’s drinking. He was usually moderate. Harald, I’m afraid for him. He is the desperate kind.”
“Oh, come. You don’t think he’d kill himself, do you?” Harald laughed.
“I don’t know. If the worst comes to the worst, the truth will have to come out.”
Harald slowly turned and looked at his mother.
“What truth, Mother? The name of the hack who botched the job?”
“Harald. Before Mavis was taken to the hospital, she told me Jon had—had—done that thing to her.”
Harald’s color diminished. “I can’t believe that!”
“She told me, Harald. That was even before she went to see her uncle. I knew she was sick—and then she told me.”
“But that’s impossible! Jon wasn’t even here!” He studied her intently.
“And she told her uncle.”
“She lied,” said Harald. “Mavis was always a liar.”
“I know. But that’s what she told me and her uncle.”
“If so, why didn’t old Martin so testify?”
“I’ve thought about it. Was he trying to protect Jon, even if he hated him after all that? You know how doctors stand together. But I did read that he protested when the verdict of acquittal came in.”
Harald still stared at his mother. Then he said with quiet violence, “I hope to God you haven’t told anyone else about this!”
She raised her large hazel eyes to the eyes so like her own. “No, dear. I haven’t told anyone. And, if I should hear it rumored about, Harald, I’ll know where it comes from.”
Mother and son regarded each other without moving. Then Harald said, “It won’t come from me. How could you think that? Why do you look at me like that?”
“Because, dear, I know that you hate Jon. I’ve known that for years. You disliked each other when you were children. I blame your father a lot for that. Harald, if things get worse—”
“They won’t.” He spoke reassuringly and with quickness. “Let the dead bury the dead.”
“But the dead often won’t stay dead.”
She stood up. She was very tall and thin and straight and she looked at her son intensely. “Harald. Don’t try to force Jenny to marry you. I know you love her. But don’t make life too intolerable for her. She doesn’t want you, Harald.”
He felt threat in the room. He said with lightness, “How can I force Jenny to marry me, Mother? These aren’t medieval days.”
“Harald, you musn’t force her. She isn’t as strong as she appears. She’s a very sensitive girl. You mustn’t force her.”
The feeling of threat increased. Harald moved a step backward from his mother. He said, “If Jenny ever marries me, it’ll be her decision. I promise you that.”
“Yes, dear,” she said, and wanted to weep. “Yes, dear.” She put her arms about him and it was as if she held, again, her very vulnerable little boy, the little boy who had always laughed when he was hurt. But she had loved Jon the most How could she forgive herself?
“Well, I really don’t know, Robert,” said Jane Morgan in her usually discontented voice. “The rooms aren’t very elaborate.”
“But, Mother, they are excellently proportioned and the house isn’t that old.”
“I thought we’d live elegantly and up to our station.”
“We haven’t any yet—here.”
“Oh, dear Robert! How can you say that? This wretched little town!”
“It isn’t wretched and you’ve liked the ladies you have already met and you told me yourself that they were very ‘civil.’ Most of them have Main Line relatives in Philadelphia,” and Robert added to himself, Whom you don’t know and would love to. He stood with his mother in the parlor of the really attractive Georgian house, and, as he had said— prompted by Jonathan Ferrier—the rooms were excellently proportioned, with high molded ceilings, fine balanced doors, white marble fireplaces and beautiful bright wood floors. Robert resembled a red-gold bear more emphatically and stubbornly each day.
“And the lawns,” he said, “magnificent old elms, hickories, oaks, and a view of the river from the morning room and bedroom windows. You won’t find any better in Philadelphia at the price.”
Jane Morgan, leaning on her canes, again studied the big room with discontent, her widow’s weeds heavy and black this hot day, her white silk and lace cap set firmly on her hair in defiance of “modern ways.” Her long thin nose twitched; her hard mouth moved with pettish but unspoken thoughts. Her small gray eyes slipped coldly over the sun-shadowed walls, looking for faults and cracks.
“I can’t say,” she said, “that this is a soffiscated town.”
“You mean ‘sophisticated,’ Mother.”
“Robert! I’m growing very weary of your impertinent remarks about my use of the Queen’s English!”
“It’s King’s English now, Mother, remember? King Edward.”
The cold little eyes studied him. “You were never like this in Philadelphia! Something has happened to you here—probably that dreadful Ferrier man. I knew I wouldn’t like him, and since I’ve met him my opinions have been confirmed. What a repulsive creature! Haven’t you noticed how those thick white ridges spring out around his mouth for no reason at all?”
“That’s when he’s impatient with people—as he usually is, I admit.”
“Bad temper, that’s all. Bad blood. I’ve been hearing a number of things,” and she nodded significantly and tapped her canes on the bare wooden floor.
“I suppose you have. Hambledon’s as bad as Philadelphia for gossip. Now, Mother. We must decide. This house, you can see, isn’t far from the Ferriers, and it is very close to the offices I will be renting. I like it; it is cheaper than the other houses you’ve seen and we are lucky. It would be much higher priced if the lawyers weren’t anxious to close an estate.”
“I visualized a more sumptuous home. I can’t say I like this home—”
“Mother.” Robert was weary. “This isn’t a ‘home’ yet; we don’t live here yet. So, it is still a house.”
“Home,” repeated Mrs. Morgan. She sighed with her discontent. She was really impressed by the house, but it was not in her nature to approve of anything. “Very well,” she said in a grudging voice, “if it pleases you, it’ll have to please me, I suppose. But I know I won’t sleep well living so close to a murderer— I told the ladies—”
“Mother!” Robert spoke harshly. “For God’s sake, I hope you haven’t been calling Jon Ferrier a ‘murderer!’ My God! That’s libel. Not here in Hambledon, for God’s sake!”
She saw that he was genuinely aghast. She smiled knowingly. “I do hope you can trust my discretion, Robert. I’m not a fool. And many important people think well of him, and I wouldn’t offend them, for your sake. Don’t take the Almighty’s name in vain; that’s blasphemy. I don’t like your new manners. But not everyone admires him as you do, and I gathered, from a word here and there— Well, it doesn’t matter.”
“Mother, don’t lend yourself to gossip here. That would be the one thing that would ruin me forever.”
“Robert, you forget that though I am the mother of a physician, I was the wife of one, too. But I can hardly shut my ears and pretend that I don’t hear. That would be most impolite.”
She uttered a faint shriek and Robert turned quickly. A large fawn and brindle dog, almost as big as a mastiff, was entering the room, sniffing alertly, its pointed ears high and quivering. “Oh, that’s just Jon’s dog,” said Robert, and squatted on his heels and snapped his fingers at the animal.
“Take the brute away!” cried Mrs. Morgan, forgetting that she had arthritis, for she sped briskly to the windows and almost crouched there in extreme terror. “Robert! Don’t touch it! It may be mad. It may have fleas. It may kill us!”
“Nonsense,” said Robert. The dog had now thrown its great front legs and paws about Robert’s neck and was kissing him with enthusiasm, its big liquid eyes shining delightedly. “Look at the boy,” said Robert, parrying the kisses with not too much success. He laughed. “A boxer. Jon imported him from Germany. His name is Montgomery Sears Ward Roebuck. That’s one of Jon’s little pleasantries, because Monty came in a Sears crate, when he was three months old. Now, boy,” he said to the dog, who was taking a sudden interest in Jane Morgan. He had never heard such curious sounds before, a shrill bleating. Moreover Jane was fluttering her handkerchief threateningly at him, and with terror. Robert held his collar tightly, for Monty had decided to investigate this interesting phenomenon. “Do stop screaming, Mother,” said Robert. “Jon must be around someplace; he never roams without Jon.”
At that beloved name Monty lost his curiosity about Jane and opened his mouth in a great grin and looked at the door. He barked commandingly. Jon, dressed for riding, strolled into the echoing parlor. “So, there he is,” he said, and he bowed briefly in Jane’s direction, and then smiled at Robert. “He must have heard your voices; he shot off like a bullet There’s nothing so inquisitive as a boxer. They’re terrible gossips and such, and always want to know what’s going on everywhere.”