And Grandy, thought Jane, with his dramatic sense. It was like living in the middle of a movie all the time, to be in this house with the pair of them. The way he opened the door of the study. Not merely so that he could go through it into the next room. No, there had to be a flourish, a significant sweep. He opened the door as if he were blowing a fanfare for himself.
"Mathilda is in New York," he chanted, "even now." He seemed to be tasting each word. "I spoke to her on the telephone." The way he said it, the warmth and wonder he could pour out with that voice of his, made you reflect what a miracle the telephone was, pay mental tribute to Alexander Graham Bell, realize the strides of modern civilization, all in a flash, and then go on to consider the infinite pathos of human affection, and, somehow or other, also the gallantry of the human spirit in die face of the infinite.
Althea said, "Was Francis with her?" She had a clear, high voice. She articulated well through her pretty, small mouth, with a precise, rather strong-minded effect.
Grandy put his ten fingertips together in pairs, tapped his mouth with the long triangle of his forefingers. "Oh, yes," he said, "and I think . . . spaghetti!" The lines around his eyes crinkled up shrewdly. "I shall begin my sauce. Yes, spaghetti will be exactly right. Both friendly and delicious, but not distracting."
Althea made a slow, wide circle with the mop. "They'll be here for dinner," she remarked. It wasn't a question. It wasn't a comment. It was as if the thought in her mind had got expressed accidentally.
"Flowers!" cried Grandy.
"Let Jane do the flowers," Althea said. Tm just out of a sickbed. I decline to get my feet wet."
"The rain is only in your sulky little heart," said Grandy lightly.
Oliver, standing in the arch, asked suspiciously, "What rain? Whose heart?"
The minister's house was one of those city brownstones with a high stoop and a double-doored entry. The white lace curtains were spotless and crisp. The paint around the window frames was neat and newly done.
A servant opened the door. Her face broke into welcome. "Mr. Howard and your bride!" she said. "Oh, the doctor will be glad. I'll tell him."
She went briskly down the hall to tap on a door toward the back of the house. Francis was whispering in Mathilda's ear, saying that the servant had been a witness. To their wedding, he meant. Mathilda couldn't speak.
She felt the quiet of the house oppressing her. The very cleanliness, the spotless carpet, the shining wood of the stair banister, the faint smell of polish and soap, seemed inhuman and frightening. Somebody spoke from above.
A tiny elderly woman with soft, faded skin and faded blue eyes was standing on the stairs. "My dear," she said in a lady's voice, "we read in the papers that you were safe. How very kind and thoughtful of you to come."
The strange woman came all the way down into the hall and her hands touched Mathilda's. Her tiny hands were ice cold.
Francis said, apologetically, "She's been through a good deal, Mrs. White."
The woman's eyes narrowed. They looked at Francis very intently, very searchingly. They seemed to cling to his face, to pull away reluctantly at last. She whispered, "Poor child."
"She would like to see Doctor White," said Francis, and Mathilda had a strong sense that he was suffering.
"Of course," the woman murmured. They followed her in the track of the servant, who had vanished. This woman tapped, too. on the same door, and then she opened it. For a moment Mathilda could sec only the outline of a man sitting behind a desk. He rose.
He said in a soft, powerful voice, "My dear Mrs. Howard—" He, too, came and touched both her hands.
Mathilda clutched. She was frightened. She found her fingers twined around his big hands as if she had been a child. She said, "I would like to talk to you by myself, please."
"Why, of course," he said with a certain tenderness. "Please, Hilda."
When they were alone, Mathilda said, "Doctor White, you aren't going to tell me that you performed any marriage . . . that I am the girl you married to—to Mr. Howard? Are you?"
His heavy brows lifted. "I am not likely to forget your face," he said. His eyes did not falter or change his odd look of sorrow. "You have a very beautiful face, my dear."
Mathilda was unbalanced a moment by such a strange and unexpected compliment to her appearance. Then she cried, "But I'm not the girl! If there was a girl! He's been trying to convince me, but I've never seen him before! I've never seen you! It isn't true! Please!"
He drew a book toward him and showed her the page. She saw the names again: John Francis Howard. Mary Frazier, written in her own hand. "No," she cried. She sank back in the chair and put her hands to her eyes.
"You are confused," said the minister in his soft, mellow voice. "That is a terrible feeling. I know. Won't you have faith that all will come clear to you in a while?"
She looked at him, startled. What was he trying to tell her? That she was mad?
"Try not to—dwell on it," he went on, with difficulty. "I don't think you can doubt your own senses."
"No," she said, stiffening. "I don't doubt them. And he can't make me. Nor can you."
"That's right," he said calmly. "Rest on what you remember, on your own best belief. My dear, if you are right and we are all . . .mistaken, for some terrible reason, then it must become clear sooner or later "
"But why?" she cried. "Why isn't it clear now? I'm not mistaken. I'm not sick. Why"—her voice rose hysterically—"why does everybody tell me this lie?"
He came around the desk and put his big hands on her shaking shoulders. "Remember this," he said at last: "I have known Francis before. I know that he has no wish to harm you, Mathilda. And you are not sick. Don't believe that for one second. Don't consider
it." He walked away from her.
And the blood drained away from her heart in sudden panic because something about this man was familiar to her. He was a stranger, but some things about him she seemed to know.
"Come to see me again." He seemed distressed. He opened the door to the hall. The woman came and Mathilda felt herself being led away. The woman was talking softly about tea.
Mathilda was puzzled and angry and frightened, and comforted. She felt somewhere in this quiet house a secret, a secret to do with herself. She was comforted by a queer sense that if she knew she would understand. At the same time, she resented that there should be any secret
"I won't drink tea here!" She flung it in the woman's face.
"Poor child," murmured Mrs. White.
When Francis and the doctor came belatedly through the door, she searched the ministers face for that sympathy. But his face had turned to stone. Even his eyes had changed. They no longer seemed to be seeing her. The sympathy and the mystery both were gone. He said, “I'm very sorry." But he was not. Not any more.
Mathilda thought to herself, Don't make a scene. Don't cry. to Grandy. Grandy will know what to do.
Chapter Eight
"Did you know Rosaleen Wright?"
She was startled. They had been sitting side by side on the train like strangers. She said, "Of course."
"Did you like her?"
"Of course," she said again. "We are good friends."
"Were," said Francis.
"What?"