He had given her time, and Lucinda had returned to him sweetly and when Carey was born he had been ready for her hatred. That was during the war, and he was taking saltpeter like the rest of the men and they were all too busy to think about women.
But this time it had been hard. Lucinda was different. There could be no doubt that the war had made her self-sufficient and independent. She had got used to managing without him. She knew she could live without him — dangerous knowledge for any woman to know that she could live without a man! She had been more than usually absorbed in her pregnancy.
He frowned, remembering how often she was cruel to Georgia. Not that he cared what she did to her own servant, except that Georgia was a human being, after all, and unfortunately delicate and fine. Lucinda had lain abed on the long hot days, fretful and complaining, and commanding Georgia to fetch and carry, until the girl had looked faint with weariness. But Georgia never complained. Pierce wondered sometimes at her unvarying sweetness. She was too patient. He would not have blamed her had she flung out at them all He had been silent. He had not reproached Lucinda for a long time. He had not indeed meant to reproach her at all, but one day, before his eyes, her white hand had darted upward so quickly that it made him think of a snake’s tongue, and she had slapped Georgia’s cheeks.
Georgia stepped back, her palm on her cheek, her eyes wide. Pierce had been reading aloud to Lucinda. It was evening — night, in fact, and he had paused to light the lamp. His eyes had been turned from the bed, then the sound of the slap had made him start.
“For God’s sake, Luce!” he had shouted.
“I’ve told you not to shake my bed!” Lucinda said fiercely to Georgia.
The girl had looked from her mistress to him, and for one full second he had found himself gazing into her great brown eyes. Then she had turned and fled from the room, her soft white skirts flying behind her.
“She’s so clumsy,” Lucinda complained. She closed her eyes.
He had not answered for an instant. Why were women so cruel? Then, pondering, he suddenly understood Lucinda’s cruelty. She was revenging herself upon Georgia for Bettina. She never mentioned Bettina, she never reproached Tom, but she was taking her sharp revenge on Georgia. He went and stood beside the bed, and he looked down at her. He loved her, but into his love welled a deep sadness. She was so pretty, his Lucinda, his wife, often so good, a good mother, and to him, when she was herself, a good and dutiful wife. She had a dear and lovely body. But what was it that twisted her soul? He did not know. He only knew that something made her smaller than his love deserved. The war, perhaps, had shown him too much nobility among men, and he measured her by it.
She had opened her eyes and now looked up at him with her clear blue gaze. “Well?” she asked.
“I wish you wouldn’t be so hard on Georgia, Luce,” he said gently. He had not wanted to reproach her. He only wanted her to be big enough for him to love utterly. He longed for wholeness of her soul and for largeness in her spirit, because he wanted her perfect for his love. He was loath to judge her or see her smaller than the image his love made of her.
He had been horrified by the flash of rage that lit her eyes and changed her face. “Don’t you dare stand up for a nigger, Pierce Delaney!” she had screamed at him. She sat up in bed, her hands clenched. It had seemed to him that even her golden hair stiffened and sprang alive with her fury.
And then in her rage she had flung at him the unspeakable insult, which even yet he could not forget or forgive. She had cried at him, “Don’t tell me you’re going to take up with Georgia — like Tom has with Bettina! Men are all the same — you are all beasts — every one of you!”
She had covered her face with her hands and sobbed. But he had turned and walked out of the room.
Outside he had met Tom. He was choosing a walking stick from the stand in the hall, debonair in a new grey suit and a white felt hat. Pierce saw every detail of Tom’s well-being.
“Where are you going, Tom?” he had asked. He was pricking with rage and hurt and yet he could not tell Tom what Lucinda had said.
Tom had answered in his usual calm way. “Bettina expects me, and I won’t be back until Monday morning.”
He had not answered. Instead he had walked to the front door that stood wide open to the evening air. Mosquitoes were beginning to whine about the terraces. Damn Tom for his calmness! Damn him, too, for his happiness.
“By the way,” Tom said behind him. “I must tell you, Pierce, that Carey is making the most extraordinary progress with his reading. I think he will be ready for his second year’s work soon — a clever boy. Martin could do as well if he weren’t all for play and horseback riding.”
“Martin’s smart enough,” Pierce replied.
“Of course he’s your favorite,” Tom retorted. He ran lightly down the marble steps, smiled at Pierce and waved his stick. Pierce stared after the graceful figure walking briskly down the road between the oaks. Down by the stile Jake was waiting with a horse. What did Jake think of Tom and Bettina? He wondered morosely, and his mind ran ahead of Tom into the little brick house at Millpoint, where Bettina waited. Angrily he saw her soft dark beauty, her readiness, her warmth. For weeks Lucinda had not let him come near her. Yet she had flung at him the insult. It was then, at that very moment, that he had decided to go to Wheeling and see John MacBain.
The train pounded around a curve in the mountain road. Pierce loved mountains. As a boy he had spent days of hunting in the mountains that circled Malvern. But always after a few days he grew oppressed with loneliness, and was compelled to go home again and feel the walls about him safely, and see his parents and Tom.
He became aware now of something very like that loneliness. He was thinking about Lucinda. He had never spoken to her of the taunt she had flung at him nor had she. When they met they had both said nothing. Perhaps he had forgiven her, after all. At any rate, he wanted to forgive her. He sighed loudly as he thought of her.
“I’m weak,” he thought mournfully. “At least, where she is concerned.”
In the army he had been hard enough — no, even there he had been secretly tender to those who depended on him. He stared at the flying landscape and was troubled afresh at his own confusion.
When he got to Wheeling he would use that newfangled telegraph and send word to Lucinda. She was safe not to have the child until he got back, but he wanted her to know where he was in Wheeling, in case something went wrong. He had told Georgia to be watchful.
“Georgia, you keep a sharp eye on your mistress,” he had told her. It had been hard for him to be natural with her. Lucinda’s foolish words stuck in his mind like a flung dagger he could not pull out. They’d be in him always, maybe. He had looked away from Georgia’s beautiful, waiting face. “If you think anything doesn’t look right, you’re to tell my brother, and then he’ll get a telegram to me.”
“Yes, sir,” Georgia had said.
And then the girl’s gentleness had moved him in pity to go on, “You don’t blame her, I hope, Georgia, for all her fancies and tempers these days? She doesn’t mean anything.”
“Oh, no, sir,” Georgia had replied, flushing under her pale golden skin.
“She’s always like that before the children come,” Pierce had gone on. He wanted to stop talking and yet he wanted to go on. He wanted to say that she must understand that Lucinda might go on being cruel because of Bettina. But Georgia had said it for him.
“It isn’t just that, sir,” she had said simply and plainly. “I know she feels upset about Bettina, and she can’t say so, and she doesn’t know it, but she takes it out on me. But I don’t mind, sir. People can’t help themselves, I reckon. Anyway, if it’s for Bettina, I can bear it.”