Pierce looked at his brother. He had seen Tom every day of these years, but he saw him now exactly as he was, a grown man, mature and dignified. He could not endure the steady, cold light of his blue eyes.
“I came to talk with Bettina,” he said. “Bettina, I take back what I asked you. You can tell Tom everything I said. Tom, I’d like to see you tonight in my own study. We’ll thrash this thing out for fair and have an end to it.”
He snatched his hat and his stick and strode out of the house, looking neither to the right nor the left as he went.
In the room he left so silent Tom went to Bettina and knelt and put his arms about her and the child. But Bettina let the child down and leaned her head upon his shoulder and began to weep.
“My dear love,” Tom muttered.
“I know what he said was right,” she sobbed. “Oh, my mind tells me he is right! God give me the strength—”
“What do you want strength for?” Tom asked.
“Nothing — I don’t know — I love you too much, I reckon,” she whispered.
“You can’t love me too much,” Tom said. The child was sobbing and he took her in his arms and held her, rocking her a little while he talked.
“I know Pierce was here to badger you, but you mustn’t heed him. It’s Lucinda — I’m sure she’s behind it. Pierce is so easygoing — he wouldn’t care much.”
He sat down in the big chair. The love he had for this woman had changed from the wild first passion of his youth. But she was necessary to him, a part of his life. He never allowed himself to wonder whether he had done well in taking her. Having taken her he had kept her and would keep her. He respected her deeply. In her unchanging goodness he had refuge. She was selfless to the last drop of her blood. He had never found the same quality in any one else except in his own mother. His mother would have understood the quality of Bettina’s goodness. He knew, of course, that she would never have understood what he had done. He wanted to believe that she would have understood Bettina — that would have been enough. But he was glad she was dead. Living, she would never have entered this house. He did not pretend that what he had done was easy, nor that his life was not beset with complexity. Both he and Bettina were isolated from their communities and he was deeply troubled for the children. Bettina kept them away from other colored children, but he could not lead them to the children of his kind. Leslie, his son, was named for Bettina’s father. Both of them had avoided the names’ of his own family. He had toyed with the idea of naming the baby Laura, after his mother and then had not done so. They had named her Lettice instead.
Leslie came in now, flushed with the sun. “I’m hungry, Mother,” he said, hesitating at the door. He knew so well these long conversations between his parents and that in some fashion they concerned him. He had a strange feeling always of waiting for something to happen. He knew that whatever it was must be decided always by his father. Everything in this house waited upon his father.
“We must all eat,” Tom said, sighing. “I have to get back to the school.”
He did not often come here in the middle of the day, but he had been haunted with some sort of uneasiness when John came back and said his parents were home again. Bettina went out and the little girl slipped from his lap to follow her and he leaned back and closed his eyes. Through the open door he could hear Bettina moving about, setting the table, and pouring milk. Perhaps he had been at fault, too. He had taken his situation for granted — he had let this house become too much his home. Had he come only and occasionally at night, had he returned always for the day to the house at Malvern, had he not behaved as though Bettina were his wife, would it have been better?
She opened the door. “I have everything on the table,” she said softly. “I didn’t expect you, so there’s only what we’d have — cornbread and milk and salad greens.”
“I’m not hungry,” he said, and went in and sat down. He helped the children to food and helped her, and then himself. But every time he lifted his eyes he found the children watching him timidly. They were too sensitive. They had been born in doubt and they knew their fate was uncertainty. He did not speak and Bettina, too, was silent. He looked at her and saw the shadows under her eyes.
“You look tired,” he said. “You’d better rest yourself.”
“Will you come back tonight — after you’ve seen — him?”
“I’ll come back and tell you everything,” he promised.
He rose early from the meal, refusing the fruit she had taken from a hastily opened jar for dessert. He kissed her smooth forehead, and touched the children’s cheeks and went away.
In the long dining room at Malvern, Pierce sat at the head of his table and ate silently. He was aware of the children’s voices chattering about him and now and again he forced himself to listen and to answer a question, while Lucinda’s smooth voice rippled in and out of the children’s talk. He was thoroughly dissatisfied with what he had done. As usual, he told himself, he had been too hasty after too long delay. He put off a distasteful task endlessly and then when it could be put off no longer he did it badly. Now he had to talk with Tom tonight, when he would be tired and less patient than he ought to be.
He put down his fork and knife, aware that he was eating too much. When he was upset about something he ate without knowing what he was doing. He had consumed two helpings of the braised breast of guinea hen and too much sweet corn and mashed potatoes. Green stuff he could not abide. Lucinda’s salads he called rabbit food.
“What’s dessert?” he asked Marcus, the old butler, superintending the two young black boys who were waiting.
“Frozen raspberry custard, suh,” Marcus said in his politely gentle voice.
Pierce sighed. It was his favorite sweet. He wondered irritably if he were greedy. Sometimes, surveying his naked body in the mirror in the new bathroom, he saw unwillingly that he was growing heavy. Good food was an attribute of Malvern and its rich life. Not to have set a good table was unthinkable, not to have eaten would have been folly. If he were greedy it was not for food alone, but for all that meant life. He ate the frozen custard slowly, savoring it. He must remember not to eat hastily without tasting to the full what was in his mouth. There was no use in merely filling his belly.
Lucinda rose. “Come, my dears,” she said to the girls. “We will leave Papa and John. Pierce, I feel tired and shall make my siesta longer than usual.”
“I’ll be out in the stables,” he replied.
He reached out his arm and Sally stepped into its curve and he gave her a squeeze and brushed her cheek with his moustaches. “I have something for you,” he whispered. “Tonight when you’re in bed I’ll come up and give it to you.”
Her eyes shone and she nodded and skipped away, her skirts swinging above her ankles. He was left alone with John, and the boy, to his annoyance, began to talk about Tom.
“Uncle Tom says doubtless I shall make a better scholar than either Martin or Carey.”
Pierce poured himself a glass of French wine. Some day he planned to make better wine than this from his own grapes. He had fine grapes and he made wines, but he declared often that he had not yet learned the secret of the transubstantiation of their water into wine. Each year he tasted his product and threatened to import a French wine maker. Lucinda did not care for wine and protested at this further complication of their household. He poured half a glass of wine for John.
“But I don’t like wine, Papa,” the boy protested.
“Learn to drink like a man,” Pierce commanded him, “and don’t set yourself above your brothers. Books are a very little part in a man’s life. Your brother Martin has the best seat I ever saw on a horse and Carey is very clever.”