They Came Like Swallows (13 page)

“Your mother and father both have the flu, and they’re very sick.”

When he turned around to look at her, she was staring out of the window.

“Your mother has double pneumonia.”

Robert turned his back to the wall and closed his eyes. He had found out now what it was that he wanted to know.

“The baby was born yesterday … is still alive. I talked to the doctor this noon. He said that your mother was slightly improved…. She has an even chance, he said.”

After Irene had gone, Robert sought in his mind and in his fever for a way to describe the situation. He did not want to use certain words that frightened him.
Double pneumonia,
Irene had said. And both his father and his mother were in the hospital.

And there was Aunt Amelia’s husband, for instance. Mr. Shepherd had pneumonia (the plain kind) winter before last and there was something called
the crisis.
When that was over, he got well. But people didn’t always.

Miss Harris at school didn’t get well. She had “T.B.” and that was why she was so pale. She taught geography and all the kids used to bring her apples and oranges, and lilacs when they were in bloom. And for her birthday the whole class gave her sweet peas from the greenhouse.

When she had to stop teaching, Robert and Irish rode out to see her one afternoon on his bicycle. She was in a downstairs room, in bed, and she had changed so much during that short time that they hardly knew her. She coughed when she tried to talk to them. And there was a clock in the room that ticked loudly, and they were not allowed to stay but a minute or two.

That was several years ago. Before that Robert could remember about his Grandfather Blaney. Out in the country at a place called Gracelands they kept a ferret to drive the rats away. The ferret bit Grandfather Blaney in the ear while he was sleeping. Then he came home and was sick a long time, so that they had to have the Christmas tree upstairs in his bedroom. When the door was opened, Bunny and Agnes rushed in together—Agnes crying
See my rocking-horse,
and Bunny
Oh, see my doll!

Then Grandfather Blaney died and the door of
his room was kept tightly closed. Robert opened it once when there was nobody around, and went inside. They had taken everything out of the room except the furniture. There weren’t even any clothes in the clothes-closet.

When he went home, he talked to his mother about it. She told him how they thought Grandfather Blaney was dead, and how he opened his eyes and looked at them and said,
Heaven is a providing-place.
… That was very much like something Mr. Stark read in Sunday school:
In my Father’s house are many mansions.
The same thing, practically. If people were good, Mr. Stark said, and didn’t break the Ten Commandments, they went straight to Heaven when they died. Cats and dogs, too. Only that wasn’t right. Robert knew that for certain, because Irish’s cat had kittens that had to be killed. And he and Irish buried one of them in a Mason jar with a little water in it. And two weeks later they dug the jar up again.

There were some things it was better not to think about. Without thinking at all, therefore, Robert lay quietly while moment after moment rose over him and set. Some one came upstairs. He heard the toilet being flushed and the sound of water running in the bathroom. Then there was no sound at all, until Uncle Wilfred brought his dinner up to him.

He would have liked to talk about his mother, but he didn’t feel that he knew Uncle Wilfred well enough. Uncle Wilfred was kind and all that. He didn’t force medicine down Robert’s throat before he was half awake. And when he turned the light on, he
always put a piece of paper around it. But on the other hand, Uncle Wilfred wasn’t like other men. He didn’t smoke or drink whisky or tell stories about how there were two Irishmen named Pat and Mike. He didn’t have his hair cut often enough and he didn’t believe in dancing. He wore shoes that turned up at the toe and he went to church three times on Sunday and there wasn’t much of anything that Robert could talk to him about.

Each of them remained in a separate silence while Robert ate. But the moment Uncle Wilfred went out of the room, Robert was sorry that he had let Uncle Wilfred go, for he remembered, as soon as the light was turned out, that if anything happened to his mother, it would be
his
fault. He was frightened, then—more so than he had ever been. A terrible kind of fright, as if he were going to cry and be sick at his stomach, both at once. He doubled up his fists and buried his face in the hot pillow. The darkness was suffocating, but he stayed that way until he fell asleep, into a dream canopied with light.

He had come home.

He was in the little sewing-room at the head of the stairs.

It was night.

Waiting to go to sleep, he heard the stairs creaking.

And voices on the stairs.

The voices of his aunts, saying
Robert can’t … Robert can’t say … can’t say fewer
… Aunt Clara, Aunt Eth, Irene. Their voices elongated in the
dark and yet recognizable, saying the same thing one after another.

It made him uneasy. He turned, clutching the hem of his blanket.

Feather … Feather …

He could say it now without any trouble. Light as a … but not when he was little.

Feather …

The word snapped conclusively.

Feather …

It scraped against the dark side of the house and there was laughter on the stairs.

Feather …

The night wind bound him, dark, divided, on his hollow bed. Unwillingly, having premonitions of anguish, he settled farther into sleep.

In his dream he heard ringing, hoofs clopping, clopping on hard pavement…. He saw Dreyfus with his brown flanks shining. He heard Dreyfus with his harness jigging…. With faces white and intent Boyd and Irene drove past him in a high black carraige. He ran after them, crying
Irene! Irene!
but they did not hear him. And so he tried to climb on the back end of the carriage, crying

Irene!

(wildly)

As the wheels, turning

Do you hear me, Irene?

dragged him …

Torn bodily, torn by the roots out of his dream,
he sat up in the dark. Some one was shaking him.

Robert darling, wake up!

It was his mother.

I am awake.

You’re not.

I am, too.

Then tell me what’s the matter?

Sighing, he lay back upon the pillow. The bed-springs creaked under his dead weight. He was very tired.

I don’t know … I was having a bad dream.

I heard you, clear in my room.

She bent over him in the dark and brushed the hair back from his forehead.

It must have been a very bad dream.

Yes, it was.

Sleep was still under him, like a pit.

He could look down….

If his mother would only stay with him, he would not drop into it immediately and dream that same dream. But he could not ask her to do that. He was too old. Much too old.

It’s this room, Robert.

She seemed to have guessed, anyway.

Without his having to tell her, she went to the window and adjusted the shade so that it wouldn’t snap.

You’re not used to sleeping in this room.

She came back then, and sat down beside him on the edge of the bed.

His head cleared.

His lungs were no longer expanding and contracting with excitement.

When he was quite calm inside, he started down…. He was not afraid now. His mother was there, and she was not going away just yet. There was no need to hurry.

Once he looked back, trying to say good-night to her, but no words came.

He had gone too far.

There was a great distance between them.

At the very bottom, he turned and saw that she was still sitting on the edge of the bed where he had left her.

Robert was not supposed to get up. Tomorrow, Dr. Macgregor said, if he didn’t have any fever. But it was not hard. So long as Robert braced his arms against the side of the bed, he felt all right. It was only when he stood. Or when he bent over to pull on his stocking. He had to rest a little. And again before he could finish tying his shoe. Then he stood, one-legged and shivering, while he measured the distance across the room to the wardrobe where Aunt Clara had hung his suit. The floor tilted slightly—not any more than he had expected and not enough to make him fall. He
drew on his underwear and his shirt. While he was adjusting the straps of his leg, a sparrow came to peck at a grain of paint on the window sill and Robert waved his arms weakly to frighten it away.

Before he had finished dressing, the telephone rang and Aunt Clara’s voice came up through the register. Robert drew his belt on and buckled it, listening.

“Hello…. Hello, James, I can’t hear you … I say I can’t hear you very well. Can you hear me? … Yes….”

At the thought of his father, Robert had to sit down and with both hands cling to the edge of the chair.

“You don’t mean it, James….” And then a long silence and, “No, but I will … if you want me to.”

Straining, Robert heard the click of the receiver. The stairs creaked softly.

“Bunny …
Oh,
Bunny….”

Aunt Clara was already at the head of the stairs when Robert pulled his door open. She was neither surprised to see him nor angry.

“Come in here, Robert,” she said. “I have something to tell you.”

He followed her into Grandmother Morison’s room. Bunny was there alone. And he was in his pajamas. Aunt Clara sat down in the rocking-chair and gathered Bunny onto her lap.

“It’s about your mother,” she said.

Her voice sounded hoarse, as if she had a cold.
She began to rock back and forth, back and forth, until her eyes covered over with tears. Robert turned then and went out of the room.

He did not have to be told what had happened. He knew already. During the night while he was sleeping, she got worse. Then she did not have an even chance, like the doctor said. And she died. His mother was dead.

If James Morison had come upon himself on the street, he would have thought
That poor fellow is done for.
… But he walked past the mirror in the front hall without seeing it and did not know how grey his face was, and how, all in a few days, sickness and suffering and grief and despair had aged him.

It was a shock to step across the threshold of the library and find everything unchanged. The chairs, the white bookcases, the rugs and curtains—even his pipe cleaners on the mantel behind the clock. He had
left them there before he went away. He crossed the room and heard his own footsteps echoing. And knew that, now that he was alone, he would go on hearing them as long as he lived.

Sophie followed him when she had hung his coat and hat in the hall closet. “There’s some letters for you,” she said.

“Some what?”

“There’s some letters for you and some bills. They come while you were gone.”

“Oh,” James said.

“I put them on the table.”

He looked at Sophie for the first time and saw that her eyes were red from weeping.

“I thought I’d tell you,” she said.

“Yes.”

“In case there might be something important.”

“Yes, I’ll look at them”—he realized suddenly why she looked so different. It was because she had no teeth. And with her mouth sunken in, Sophie had become an old woman—“after a while.”

“I turned the spread back in your room so you can lay down if you want to, Mr. Morison.”

She saw that he didn’t hear her and tried again. “Mrs. Hiller telegraphed from Decatur yesterday. She said to come and open the house this morning. And have the guest-room ready for Miss Blaney.”

“For Miss Blaney? … Oh yes, I forgot about that. Or maybe they didn’t tell me. It’s all right, though. When is she coming?”

“The telegram didn’t say. It just said to have the
guest-room ready for her when she come. And Karl is going away.”

“Where?”

“Why, didn’t he tell you, Mr. Morison? He’s going to Germany.”

“Maybe he did. Yes, I guess so. When?”

“Right away. In a couple of days.”

James put his hands over his eyes and felt the relief of darkness. His eyelids were cracked and hard. He had not slept for three nights. It did not seem likely that he would ever sleep again.

“You must tell Karl to be sure and see me before he goes.”

Sophie nodded. “He was here early this morning. I had him build a fire in the grate. All you have to do is light a match to it.”

“That’s fine.”

“When he comes I’ll tell him you want to see him, Mr. Morison.”

James took the stack of letters and sat down.
Mr. James B. Morison … Mr. James Morison, 553 W. Elm Street, Logan, Illinois … Mr. and Mrs. James B. Morison
… He read the envelopes again and again, without having the strength or the will to open them.
Mr. and Mrs. James B. Morison….
When he closed his eyes for a moment and sank back, it was more than he could do to raise his head from the cushions.

“It’s like being drunk,” he said.

To his surprise, Sophie was still there and answered him.

“Once when I was a girl in the old country—”

James did not hear the end of her sentence. If he listened to Sophie, he would have to look at her. He would have to open his eyes.

When he relaxed, when he sat too long in one place, he invariably found himself on the railway platform downtown, with her. The train was coming in—the one they were going to take to Decatur. And there were people walking up and down the platform, waiting to get on. He shoved forward, knowing each time that if he’d only waited—but he didn’t wait. That was the whole trouble. He was trying to get seats for the two of them before all the others got on. If he’d stepped back, he’d have seen the interurban draw up alongside the train. On the other tracks … The interurban had a parlor car that was almost empty. It would have been ever so much better to take that, don’t you see? And turn their train tickets in later. That way they wouldn’t have been exposed. But they had suitcases and all the people were pushing them forward and the train was crowded already. There was nothing to do but go up the steps and onto the train.