The Road Through the Wall (6 page)

“Oh, Mother,” Harriet said irritably, and her father began heavily, “Josie, honey.”

“Don't
call
me that,” Mrs. Merriam almost screamed. Harriet looked at her father, but he turned his face away and sighed.

“I try to make my daughter into a good decent girl in spite of—” Mrs. Merriam sobbed, “—in spite of everything, and I work all day and I worry about money and try to make a good decent home for my husband and now my only daughter turns out to be—”

“Josephine,” Mr. Merriam said strongly. “Harriet, go upstairs again.”

Harriet went upstairs away from her mother's sorry voice. Her desk was unlocked; instead of eating dinner, she and her mother had stood religiously by the furnace and put Harriet's diaries and letters and notebooks into the fire one by one, while solid Harry Merriam sat eating lamb chops and boiled potatoes upstairs alone. “I don't know what it's all about,” he said to Harriet and his wife when they came upstairs. “Seems like a man ought to be able to come home after working all day and not hear people crying all the time. Seems like a man has a right to have a quiet home.”

Alone in her room again Harriet sat down by the window. Outside, the eucalyptus trees in the first rich darkness were quiet and infinitely delicate, a rare leaf moving softly against the others. Harriet was accustomed to thinking of them as lace against the night sky; on windy nights they were crazy, pulling like wild things against the earth. Tonight, in their patterned peacefulness, Harriet rested her head somehow against them and stopped thinking about her mother. Lovely, lovely things, she thought, and tried to imagine herself sinking into them far beyond the surface, so far away that nothing could ever bring her back.

“Harriet,” her mother said from the foot of the stairs. Her voice was steady. “Harriet, dear, come downstairs.”

Harriet came down the stairs, hitting every step violently with her great shoes. Her mother waited at the bottom, newly powdered and very tall and gracious. “Dear,” she said, “I want to apologize.”

In the living-room her father was reading the paper. His face was very tired and his mouth stiff, but when Harriet came in with her mother's arm around her he looked up and said, “Now everyone's happy,” and went back to his paper.

“Your father,” Mrs. Merriam said meekly, “has made me feel that I have been too severe with you today. I was very much upset, of course.”

“Oh, Mother,” Harriet said. Now that her mother was calm Harriet felt at last like crying. She loved her mother again, as one should love a mother, tenderly and affectionately. She put her arm around her mother and kissed her. “I'm sorry,” she said.

Her mother patted her shoulder. “We'll spend more time together from now on. Reading, and sewing. Would you like to learn to cook, really
cook
?
”
she added brightly.

Harriet nodded, and her mother laughed deprecatingly. “We can write together, too. I used to write poetry, Harriet, not very
well
, of course, but that's probably where you get it.”

Warmly Harriet smiled at her mother, and thought how pleasant it always was after these scenes, how for a little while the three of them would live together in vast amiability.

“You'll show your mother everything you write, of course,” her father said.

“Everything,” Harriet said earnestly. The room was so quiet, so friendly.

“And we won't see that Helen Williams any more,” her mother said. “Now that there's no more school, there's no need for my girl to run around with that sort of person.”

“She's not going to be here much longer, anyway,” Harriet said. “She's going to live with her father.”

Mrs. Merriam raised her eyebrows delicately and said, looking obliquely at her husband, “And perhaps next year, some really
nice
private school.”

There was a long silence, and then Mrs. Merriam sighed and went on, “I'm not going to punish you any more, Harriet. As I said, I feel that some of this is my fault.”

“I'm really sorry,” Harriet said. She put her head on her mother's shoulder, and her mother touched her hair lightly.

“I'll try to make it up to you, dear,” Mrs. Merriam said.

•   •   •

“I do not know why,” Mrs. Roberts said with a deadly level voice, “I really do not know why a grown man is not capable of conducting his affairs so that his women know their places.”

“I don't know anything about this ‘women' business,” Mr. Roberts said sullenly.

“Arthur took the message,” Mrs. Roberts went on. “
Arthur
. Someone named Jeanie.” She said “Jeanie” with a great casual gentleness, as though the name itself were precious to her.

“Arthur wouldn't know,” Mr. Roberts said. “Why don't you mind your own business?”

“It is my business.” Mrs. Roberts stopped and said, “Be quiet. Here come the children.”

Artie and Jamie hurried in, taking off jackets as they came. Mrs. Roberts called Jamie over to her and pushed his hair back out of his eyes. “Both boys look mostly like you,” she said reproachfully to her husband.

“Why weren't you playing with the other fellows tonight?” Mr. Roberts asked Artie.

“Talking to Pat.” Artie had his foot on the bottom step, his hand on the stair rail. He waited.

“You might come in and talk to your mother and father once in a while,” his father said.

“I was just going upstairs to read.” Artie came reluctantly into the living-room and sat tentatively on the piano bench.

“If we'd been going to a movie you'd be down here fast enough,” his father said.

“Mike,” Mrs. Roberts said.

Artie looked at Mr. Roberts solemnly. “There was a phone call for you,” he said. “Some dame wanted you.”

“Bedtime, darling,” Mrs. Roberts said to Jamie. “Artie, you may go upstairs now. Turn off your light in half an hour.”

She went to the foot of the stairs with both boys. “I'll be up to kiss you good night,” she said. She watched them up the stairs, and then turned back to her husband.

CHAPTER TWO

Nobody ever noticed Tod Donald very much. He was a quiet boy who had spent nearly thirteen years trying hard to be moderately good at what his older brother James was able to do naturally and effortlessly. James was tall and pleasant-looking; Tod might be tall some day, but at thirteen he wore a perpetual nervous smile which deepened occasionally into apprehensive trembling, and he was what his brother James called “a bad sport.” Tod had learned, painfully, to ride a bicycle and play football and rollerskate; no one had ever taught him anything; but when Tod sat on his front steps or walked off to school or joined in a game or brought out his bicycle, no one waited for him or asked him to wait. No one ever chose him for a side in a game; he was always allowed to merge himself undesired into one team or another, never allowed to bat in the baseball game.

Perhaps if Tod's father had been more interested in his children he might have favored Tod beyond anything he could feel for either James or Virginia, but Stephen Donald (perhaps, once, he had been very much like Tod, never like James) had no pity to waste on anything so distant as his youngest child. There was no recognition, now, in any look Stephen Donald gave the world; he had absorbed too much disappointment already to jeopardize himself needlessly for his children.

James Donald privately regarded his younger brother as an imperfect copy of himself, and was as irritated by Tod as he might have been by any cruel, pointed parody. Much of James's athletic sense of good and evil was invested in Tod; Tod was inefficient and a bad sport, which was evil; he was smaller, and could not be struck, which was a delineation of good. Consequently, James never required himself to include any form of evil in his own personality; such things belonged naturally to Tod, and were accepted numbly by Tod as his portion.

Much more, however, of Tod's lack of independent existence was due to his sister Virginia, who was a year older than Tod and his contemporary in a narrower sense than James—she played with the same children, and she hated Tod as she hated everyone upon whom it was not necessary to intrude her ingratiating personality. Tod was used to having his sister ignore him before the other children, and to hearing her say, “Don't let Toddie play, he does
everything
wrong.”

The other children followed Virginia's example, because she was tacitly assumed to know, being Tod's sister. If Virginia had called Tod names, or refused to play with him, he would have gained prestige as a participant in a family fight, but when she seemed to believe sincerely that he had never wholly existed, he was lost. If he had been able to do any single thing better than either his brother or sister, he might have won some small place in the neighborhood hierarchy, or perhaps even in school; as long as he was the patient, desperately-clinging minority of the family, he had to be content with the opinion his family were known to have of him.

However, one day during the early summer he came close to winning a foothold. The older children were lying in the heat on the Donalds' front lawn, the only spot where Tod could rightfully assume a position anywhere near the heart of the circle. Helen Williams was holding forth on her father; she had just sent her baby sister home crying, and she was saying, “And when I go to live with my father, Mildred will have to be in a nunnery.”

“What's wrong with a nunnery?” demanded Mary Byrne. She looked for her brother, her support on all theological questions, but he was in the street playing catch with George Martin. “Why do you say a nunnery like it was a punishment sort of?”

“A nunnery,” Helen explained patiently, “is a place where they put you and you never get out as long as you live. And sometimes they starve you,” she added convincingly.

“That isn't true at all,” Mary said with the conviction of inside information.

Helen turned the corners of her mouth down and looked around at her audience. “Let's hear
you
say what a nunnery is.”

“It isn't like that at all,” Mary said. “I bet your sister would like it in a nunnery even.”

“Where they starve you?” Helen said. “Not Mildred, not Mildred at all. She eats like a pig.”

“I eat like a pig too,” Virginia Donald said dreamily. “I ate almost a whole apple pie once. You should have seen me eat a whole apple pie.”

Tod was on his own front lawn. “I ate a whole mince pie once,” he said, giggling.

According to neighborhood ethics, there was only one person who could lead the attack on Tod on his own land. His sister turned slowly to look at him and then back to the other children. “He never does anything really,” she said.

“You never did it,” Helen said. “Your sister says so.”

“I did so,” Tod began weakly, but Mary Byrne said, “I don't believe you could eat even one piece of mince pie.”

“Even a piece as big as a ant,” Hallie Martin said.

Having nine-year-old Hallie join in against him was the lowest indignity. Tod stood up, said, “Guess I'll get in the ball game,” and walked down to the street while his sister said, “Tell more about nunneries, Willie.”

Tod stood for a few minutes waiting to be asked to play ball, but neither George nor Pat offered to include him. As an indication that he would play if asked, Tod picked up a handful of stones from the gravel driveway and began tossing them into the bushes. After a minute he tossed one at George's foot and laughed weakly when George said, “Cut it out, Toddie.”

He threw another so that it landed about a foot from George, and George looked at him crossly and hesitated for a minute before throwing the ball, as though debating whether or not to walk over and give Tod a lesson in interference. When he decided against it and went back to the game, Tod was afraid to throw any more pebbles in that direction and faced directly around to throw at the girls. He was possessed of as strong a desire for punishment as he had ever achieved, but he wanted more for his penalties than tapping George Martin on the ankles with a pebble. He threw a pebble at his sister and hit her in the arm, and she said, “Hey,” and looked around; if it had been any of the other boys who threw it she would have been in a fantastic exaggerated rage and would have stood up, most likely, and found rocks of her own, but she only said, “Oh, run
along,
will you, Toddie?”

Tod threw his next pebble at Hallie Martin because she had spoken up against him, but he missed her and she laughed at him.

“Toddie,” Virginia said sharply, “if you don't cut it out you can just go and stay in the house.”

His sister had no right to give him orders, particularly not in a tone indicating that she expected them to be obeyed. Possessed by a sort of frenzy, Tod threw a handful of pebbles together, as hard as he could, into the group of girls on the lawn, and Mary Byrne howled and fell over backward, her hands over her face.

“Tod Donald,” Virginia shouted, “I'll tell Mother on you!”

It was glory of a sort, and Tod ran up to Mary and stood next to her while she lay on the ground crying. “I'm sorry, Mary,” he said. “I'm
awfully
sorry.”

Pat Byrne pushed him aside and said impatiently, “What's the matter now?” and Helen Williams said, “Tod put Mary's eye out with a rock, that's all,” and Hallie began to wail, and someone went running for Mary's mother, and Pat said, “
Toddie
did?” and George Martin said, “Golly,” over and over again.

Mrs. Byrne came running across the street, and the children stood silently while she knelt down beside Mary on the grass and pulled Mary's hands away from her face. Tod, wondering vaguely what happened to people who put other people's eyes out with rocks, said, “I'm sorry,” again, and Mrs. Byrne let her hands drop in relief and said, “She's got a little scratch on her cheek; she's no more hurt than a fly.”

“Someone was throwing rocks, and she got in the way,” Pat said.

“You children shouldn't be throwing rocks,” Mrs. Byrne said, standing up. Mary sat up and wiped the tears off her face. “You'd think she'd been killed.”

She started back across the street, and Pat said, “Come on, George,” and they went back to their ball game. “I knew she wasn't much hurt,” Pat said, “when I heard how she was hollering.”

“I'm certainly glad you weren't really hurt,” Virginia said to Mary.

“I'm sorry, Mary,” Tod said.

She looked up at him, surprised. “That's all right, Toddie,” she said. “You didn't mean to do it.”

“What were you aiming at?” Virginia asked cruelly. “A window?”

•   •   •

“I only wish,” Mrs. Roberts said crossly, “that the summer was over and school was starting again. Sometimes I think—” Her voice trailed off as she leaned over her workbox to choose a thread.

“I don't know,” Mrs. Desmond said gently.

“Well,
Caroline
,” Mrs. Merriam said. She looked sweetly down at Caroline, who sat on a small stool between Mrs. Merriam and her mother, absorbed in a collection of bright scraps of ribbon she was cutting into pieces. “Caroline is simply an angel.”

“She loves to come here,” Mrs. Desmond said to Mrs. Merriam. “You treat her as though she were grown-up.”

“No need for
you
to worry about school for a while,” Mrs. Roberts said.

Mrs. Desmond laughed and let her embroidery lie on her lap. “I don't know what I'll
do
when Caroline goes to school,” she said. Mrs. Desmond always did embroidery while Mrs. Roberts and Mrs. Merriam darned socks and mended torn sweaters; it would have been incongruous for Mrs. Desmond, with her small delicate hands always so near Caroline's blond head, and her pale face so like Caroline's, to sit with great socks or spools of darning cotton on her lap. Mrs. Desmond brought her sewing in a lacquer box, and Caroline had a miniature lacquer box filled with her bright ribbons. Mrs. Roberts and Mrs. Merriam had no objection to seeing their own sufficiently ladylike hands dealing competently with heavy mending, but either of them would have been faintly surprised at Mrs. Desmond's doing it; it was an unexplained aristocratic principle.

“Caroline is just an angel,” Mrs. Merriam repeated. “Aren't you, darling?” Caroline looked up gravely, and Mrs. Merriam said, “She's an angel.”

“Boys, now—” Mrs. Roberts said, holding up a middle-sized brown sock, fearfully torn at heel and toe.

“I don't know,” Mrs. Merriam said. “Harriet's almost as bad. Sometimes I worry about her,” she went on confidentially, “about her being so heavy, I mean. It's very hard on a girl.”

“Harriet's a nice girl, Josephine,” Mrs. Desmond said. “She'll outgrow it in time.” Her soft voice made Harriet sound slimmer.

“I was very heavy at Harriet's age,” Mrs. Roberts said. She straightened her shoulders and took one hand away from her sewing to pull down the front of her dress where it had a tendency to blouse. “I can't say I completely
outgrew
it—” she laughed richly “—but I guess I
tamed
it.”

Mrs. Desmond and Mrs. Merriam smiled, and Mrs. Desmond said, “I always used to admire girls who could really
wear
clothes. Caroline and I will always have to go around in pale colors and ruffles.” She made a small face and looked fondly down at her daughter.

“But Harriet is getting to an age where it's really important to her,” Mrs. Merriam said.

“When she gets interested in
boys
, Josephine,” Mrs. Roberts said emphatically, “it won't take her long before she starts cutting out candy and potatoes and begins to watch her figure. I
know
,” and she laughed again.

“Did you girls,” Mrs. Merriam said carefully, looking down at her sewing, “did either of you girls hear anything about this silly business?” She looked at Mrs. Desmond and Mrs. Roberts, and said, “I mean, the letters the girls were writing to some of the boys?”

“Artie was in on it,” Mrs. Roberts said, with a note that sounded like pride. “One of the girls had a crush on Artie. Can you imagine, Marguerite,” she went on, looking helplessly at Mrs. Desmond,
“Artie?”

“Some day Artie is going to surprise you,” Mrs. Desmond said. “He's a very quiet boy, but that type usually turns out well.”

“Well,
you
don't need to worry,” Mrs. Merriam said unhappily. “I was never so
shocked
.”

“These things happen,” Mrs. Roberts said philosophically.

“I really couldn't believe it of Harriet,” Mrs. Merriam said. “Those letters—I saw one—they were
disgusting
.”

“The ones Artie got were silly,” Mrs. Roberts said, “but I wouldn't have called them exactly disgusting.”

“Who wrote them?” Mrs. Merriam asked quickly.

Mrs. Roberts shrugged. “The Donald girl,” she said.

“I'm not surprised.” Mrs. Merriam set her sewing aside and leaned forward earnestly. “I don't know what you think of that girl,” she said, “but I think she has more to do with these things than anyone knows.”

“There's no real harm in Virginia,” Mrs. Desmond said.

“Well, I know her,” Mrs. Merriam said, and tossed her head angrily. “I'd be the last person to defend Harriet—I think her conduct was absolutely
disgusting
—but I'd be inclined to think that nothing at all would have happened if certain young ladies around this neighborhood weren't a good deal too
mature
for their own good.”

“Well, Helen Williams—” Mrs. Roberts said.

Mrs. Desmond snipped off a long length of blue embroidery thread and held it out to Caroline. “Here you are, darling,” she said. Then she said to Mrs. Merriam, “I don't know very much about Helen, of
course
, but I think that kind of person is very often more sinned against than sinning.”