But Hannah, who had been gently saying, "He's right, Mary, he's right, be thankful for that," now told him quietly, "It's all right, Andrew"; and Mary, whose eyes fixed upon his, had shown increasing shock and terror, now said tenderly, "Don't mind, dear. Don't be sorry. I understand. You're right."
"That venomous thing I said about Christians," Andrew said after a moment. "I can never forgive myself, Mary."
"Don't grieve over it, Andrew. Don't. Please. Look at me, please." He looked at her. "It's true I was thinking as I was bound to as a Christian, but I was forgetting we're human, and you set me right and I'm thankful. You're right. Jay wasn't-a religious man, in that sense, and to realize could have only been-as you said for him. Probably as much so, even if he were religious." She looked at him quietly. "So just please know I'm not hurt or angry. I needed to realize what you told me and I thank God for it."
There was a noise on the porch; Andrew got from his knees and kissed his sister on the forehead. "Don't be sorry," she said. He looked at her, tightened his lips, and hurried to the door.
"Papa," he said, and stood aside to let him past. His mother fumbled for his arm, and gripped it hard. He put his hand gently across her shoulders and said, next her ear, "They're back in the kitchen"; she followed her husband. "Come in, Walter."
"Oh no. Thank you," Walter Starr said. "These are family matters. But if there's…"
Andrew took him by the arm. "Come in a minute, anyway," he said. "I know Mary'll want to thank you."
"Well now…" Andrew led him in.
"Papa," Mary said, and got up and kissed him. He turned with her towards her mother. "Mama?" she said in a pinched, almost crying voice, and they embraced. "There, there, there," her mother said in a somewhat cracked voice, clapping her loudly on the back. "Mary, dear. There, there, there!"
She saw Walter Starr, looking as if he were sure he was unwelcome. "Why, Walter!" she whispered, and hurried to meet him. He put out his hand, looking frightened, and said, "Mrs. Follet, I just couldn't ever…"
She threw her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek. "Bless you," she whispered, crying softly.
"There now," he said, blushing deeply and trying to embrace and to sustain her without touching her too closely. "There now," he said again.
"I must stop this," she said, drawing away from him and looking about wildly for something.
"Here," said Andrew and her father and Walter Starr, each offering a handkerchief. She took her brother's, blew her nose, dried her eyes, and sat down. "Sit down, Walter."
"Oh thank you, no. I don't think," Walter said. "Only dropped in a moment; really must be off."
"Why Walter, what nonsense, you're one of the family," Mary said, and those who could hear nodded and murmured "Of course," although they knew this was embarrassing for. him, and hoped he would go home.
"Now that's ever so kind," Walter said, "but I can't stay. Really must be off. Now if…"
"Walter, I want to thank you," she said; for now she too had reconsidered.
"So do we all," Andrew said.
"More than I can say," Mary finished.
He shook his head. "Nothing. Nothing," he said. "Now I just want you to know, if there's anything in the world I can do, be of help in any way, let me please, don't hesitate to tell me.
"Thank you, Walter. And if there is, we certainly will. Gratefully."
"Good night then."
Andrew walked with him to the front door. "Just let me know, Andrew. Anything," Walter said.
"I will and thank you," Andrew replied. Their eyes met, and for a moment both were caught in astonishment. He wishes it was me! Andrew thought. He wishes it was himself! Walter thought. Perhaps I do, too, Andrew thought, and once again, as he had felt when he first saw the dead body, he felt absurd, ashamed, guilty almost of cheating, even of murder, in being alive.
"Why Jay, of all people?" Andrew said, in a low voice.
Still watching his splintered eyes, Walter heavily shook his head.
"Good night, Andrew."
"Good night, Walter."
He shut the door.
Mary's father caught her eye; with his chin he beckoned her to a corner of the kitchen. "I want to talk to you alone a minute." he said in a low voice.
She looked at him thoughtfully, then took her glass from the table, said, "Excuse us a minute," over her shoulder, and ushered him into the room she had prepared for her husband. She turned on the bedside lamp, quietly closed both doors, and stood looking at him, waiting.
"Sit down, Poll," he said.
She looked about. One of them would have to sit on the bed. It was neatly laid open, cool and pleasant below the plumped pillows.
"I had it all ready," she said, "but he never came back."
"What's that?"
"Nothing, Papa."
"Don't stay on your feet," he said. "Let's sit down."
"I don't care to."
He came over to her and took her hand and looked at her searchingly. Why he's just my height, she realized again. She saw how much his eyes, in sympathy and pain, were like his sister's, tired, tender and resolute beneath the tired, frail eyelids. He could not speak at first.
You're a good man, she said to herself, and her lips moved. A good, good man. My father. In an instant she experienced afresh the whole of their friendship and estrangement. Her eyes filled with tears and her mouth began to tremble. "Papa," she said. He took her close to him and she cried quietly.
"It's hell, Poll," she heard him say. "Just hell. It's just plain bell." For a few moments she sobbed so deeply that he said nothing more, but only stroked the edge of her back, over and over, from her shoulder to her waist, and cried out within himself in fury and disgust, Goddamn it! God damn such a life! She's too young for this. And thinking of that, it occurred to him that it was at just her age that his own life had had its throat twisted, and not by death, but by her own birth and her brother's.
"But you gotta go through with it," he said.
Against his shoulder he could feel her vigorous nodding. You will, he thought; you've got spunk.
"No way out of it," he said.
"I think I will sit down." She broke from him and with an almost vindictive sense of violation sat heavily at the edge of the bed, just where it was turned down, next the plumped pillows. He turned the chair and sat with her knee to knee.
"Something I've got to tell you," he said.
She looked at him and waited.
"You remember what Cousin Patty was like? When she lost George?"
"Not very well. I wasn't more than five or six."
"Well, I do. She ran around like a chicken with its head off. 'Oh, why does it have to be me? What did I ever do that it happened to me?' Banging her head against the furniture, trying to stab herself with her scissors, yelling like a stuck pig: you could hear her in the next block."
Her eyes became cold. "You needn't worry," she said.
"I don't, because you're not a fool. But you'd better, and that's what I want to warn you about."
She kept looking at him.
"See here, Poll," he said. "It's bad enough right now, but it's going to take a while to sink in. When it really sinks in it's going to be any amount worse. It'll be so much worse you'll think it's more than you can bear. Or any other human being. And worse than that, you'll have to go through it alone, because there isn't a thing on earth any of us can do to help, beyond blind animal sympathy."
She was gazing slantwise towards the floor in some kind of coldly patient irony; he felt sick to death of himself.
"Look at me, Poll," he said. She looked at him. "That's when you're going to need every ounce of common sense you've got," he said. "Just spunk won't be enough; you've got to have gumption. You've got to bear it in mind that nobody that ever lived is specially privileged; the axe can fall at any moment, on any neck, without any warning or any regard for justice. You've got to keep your mind off pitying your own rotten luck and setting up any kind of a howl about it. You've got to remember that things as bad as this and a hell of a lot worse have happened to millions of people before and that they've come through it and that you will too. You'll bear it because there isn't any choice-except to go to pieces. You've got two children to take care of. And regardless of that you owe it to yourself and you owe it to him. You understand me."