Hannah nodded, and felt: you really are. How good it is that you don't even want to touch my hand. And she felt something shining and majestic stand up within her darkness as if to say before God: Here she is and she is adequate to the worst and she has done it for herself, not through my help or even, particularly, through Yours. See to it that You appreciate her.
Mary went on: "It's just barely conceivable that the news is so much less bad than we'd expected, that Andrew is simply too overjoyed with relief to bother to phone, and is bringing him straight home instead, for a wonderful surprise. That would be like him. If things were that way. And like Jay, if they were, if he were, conscious enough, to go right along with the surprise and enjoy it, and just laugh at how scared we've been." By her shining eyes, and her almost smiling face, she seemed almost to be believing this while she said it; almost to be sure that within another few minutes it would happen in just that way. But now she went on, "That's just barely conceivable, just about one chance in a million, and so long as there is that chance, so long as we don't absolutely know to the contrary, I'm not going to dismiss the possibility entirely from my mind. I'm not going to say he's dead, Aunt Hannah, till I know he is," she said as if defiantly.
"Certainly not!"
"But I'm all but certain he is, all the same," Mary said; and saying so, and meeting Hannah's eyes, she could not for a few moments remember what more she had intended to say. Then she remembered, and it seemed too paltry to speak of, and she waited until all that she saw in her mind was again clear and full of its own weight; then again she spoke, "I think what's very much more likely is, that he was already dead when the man just phoned, and that he couldn't bear to tell me, and I don't blame him, I'm grateful he didn't. It ought to come from a man in the family, somebody-close to Jay, and to me. I think Andrew was pretty sure-what was up-when he went out, and had every intention not to leave us in mid-air this way. He meant to phone. But all the time he was hoping against hope, as we all were, and when-when he saw Jay-it was more than he could do to phone, and he knew it was more than I could stand to hear over a phone, even from him, and so he didn't, and I'm infinitely grateful he didn't. He must have known that as time kept-wearing on in this terrible way, we'd draw our own conclusions and have time to-time. And that's best. He wanted to be with me when I heard. And that's right. So do it. Straight from his lips. I think what he did-what he's doing, it's…"
Hannah saw that she was now nearer to breaking than at any time before, and she could scarcely resist her impulse to reach for her hand; she managed, with anguish, to forbid herself. After a moment Mary continued, quietly and in control, "What he's doing is to come in with Jay's poor body to the undertaker's and soon now he'll come home to us and tell us."
Hannah continued to look into her gentle and ever more incredulous and shining eyes; she found that she could not speak and that she was nodding, as curtly, and rapidly, almost as if she were palsied. She made herself stop nodding.
"That's what I think," Mary said, "and that's what I'm ready for. But I'm not going to say it, or accept it, or do my husband any such dishonor or danger-not until I know beyond recall that it's so."
They continued to gaze into the other's eyes; Hannah's eyes were burning because she felt she must not blink; and after some moments a long, crying groan broke from the younger woman and in a low and shaken voice she said, "Oh I do beseech my God that it not be so," and Hannah whispered, "So do I"; and again they became still, knowing little and seeing nothing except each other's suffering eyes; and it was thus that they were when they heard footsteps on the front porch. Hannah looked aside and downward; a long, breaking breath came from Mary; they drew back their chairs and started for the door.
Chapter 9
She was watching for him anxiously as he came back into the living room; he bent to her ear and said, "Nothing."
"No word yet?"
"No." He sat down. He leaned towards her. "Probably too soon to expect to hear," he said.
"Perhaps." She did not resume her mending.
Joel tried again to read The New Republic. "Does she seem well?"
Good God, Joel said to himself. He leaned towards her, "Well's can be expected."
She nodded.
He went back to The New Republic. "Shouldn't we go up?"
That's about all it would need, Joel thought, to have to bellow at us. He leaned towards her and put his hand on her arm. "Better not," he said, "till we know what's what. Too much to-do."
"To much what?"
"To-do. Fuss. Too many people."
"Oh. Perhaps. It does seem our place to, Joel."
Rot! he said to himself. "Our place," he said rather more loudly, "is to stay where she prefers us to be." He began to realize that she had not meant our place in mere propriety. Goddamn it all, he thought, why can't she be there! He touched her shoulder. "Try not to mind it, Catherine," he said. "I asked Poll, and she said, better not. She said, there's no use our getting all wrought up until we know."
"Very sensible," she said, dubiously.
"Damned sensible," he said with conviction. "She's just trying her best to hold herself together," he explained.
Catherine turned her head in courteous inquiry.
"Trying-to hold-herself-together!"
She winced. "Don't-shout at me, Joel. Just speak distinctly and I can hear you."
"I'm sorry," he said; he knew she had not heard. He leaned close to her ear. "I'm sorry," he said again, carefully and not too loudly. "Jumpy, that's all."
"No matter," she said in that level of her voice which was already old.
He watched her a moment, and sighed with sorrow for her, and said, "We'll know before long."