Читать книгу There are Victories - Charles Yale Harrison - Страница 16

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On entering the house Ruth discovered that she was late for dinner and ran upstairs to dress. Her clothes were laid out on her bed but her hands trembled so that when her mother knocked fifteen minutes later she was still undressed. Mrs. Throop bustled into the room.

“Come along, darling, hurry! You’re keeping the Bishop waiting and he says he’s famished. Good heavens, your hands are trembling and you’re as pale as death. Whatever is the matter with you? Are you ill?”

In reply Ruth sank to her bed, buried her face in her hands and burst into tears.

“Ruth, my darling child,” Mrs. Throop said in alarm, “what’s the matter? Tell me! What’s happened to you? Oh, dear, I have a house full of guests and here you are carrying on like this. Tell mother what’s the matter.”

She knelt down at her daughter’s side, patted her hands and attempted to comfort her, but the weeping continued. When the girl’s sobbing had subsided she observed that Ruth’s pallor was intense and her eyes were wide open. Mrs. Throop took a handkerchief, soaked it with eau de Cologne and dabbed the girl’s temples with it.

When Ruth was more calm her mother urged her again:

“Now don’t upset yourself, Ruth dear, but if you can, tell me what is the matter.”

In a faltering and hushed voice Ruth stammered out her story: the drive to the top of the mountain, the walk through the woods, the heat of the afternoon, her fatigue, the cool pine grove, how she sat at her uncle’s side and rested her head against his shoulder, the kiss and——. Her mouth was hot and parched and as she talked she stumbled, groped for words to describe what had happened for which her convent vocabulary was now hopelessly inadequate.

“And then I felt his hands, they were cold and clammy, here on my—my leg.” She wanted to say thigh but she knew her mother preferred limb. She compromised on leg. “He pressed me hard up against his body and his hand——.” She could go no farther, not even to her mother, and she lapsed into silence.

Mrs. Throop listened without making comment. Then: “Why did you lean up against him?”

“I was hot and tired—he asked me to.”

“And why did you kiss him, being alone with him in the woods?”

“He—he is my uncle—your brother.” Ruth was astonished at her mother’s tone which was relentless now.

“And why, of all girls, should this happen to you? Why don’t things like this happen to me?”

“I don’t know. Please, mother, I don’t want to talk of it any more now.”

But the girl’s story held Mrs. Throop in morbid fascination. She urged her daughter to tell her more.

“There is nothing more, mother.”

Mrs. Throop looked grim and angry. Suddenly Ruth burst into a hot, resentful fury: “I hate him,” she said, nearly shouting; “I never want to see him again. I hope he dies—and I don’t want his filthy money. He—he told me that when he died he would leave his money to me, but I don’t want it. I suppose that he has been buying everything with his money, we——”

“Ruth, how dare you talk this way about your uncle?”

There were cruel, hard words—clenched fists—glowering resentful eyes. With a sinking feeling Ruth realized that she had not found sympathy in her mother, that the woman was groping for a reason to attack her, to defend her brother. Here, she realized, was no consoler, no assuager of grief and bewilderment. Here was a Steele, a defender of reputations, a preserver of the family, a silencer of family scandal.

“He’s a dirty old”—she groped for a suitable word—the word she wanted was “lecher”—“he’s a dirty swine.”

“Keep quiet,” Mrs. Throop ordered. “Your uncle is a clean upright man, a God-fearing man, do you hear? Why, I never heard of such a thing. How is it that things like that never happened to me when I was a girl? Tell me that?”

There was nothing for Ruth to say. Mrs. Throop paced up and down the room in murderous silence.

“Why is it that your uncle,” she continued, “who is nearly four times your age, a respected businessman, a benefactor of the poor and a generous contributor to the Church—why should this sterling person attempt to—er—make love to you?”

The word love startled the girl. Love? Was that love? She remembered the books she had read: the lyricism, the poetic fantasies.

——Is this what they meant? God, is it possible that Keats and all the great poets lied! Was Diana a harlot and Endymion a drooling swine like my uncle?

She was no longer interested in what her mother was saying; the words poured from the woman’s lips, but Ruth found retreat within herself. She sat looking at the floor lost in thought as her mother continued her tirade.

——Love! His scarlet lips livid against his pasty green face. To think that he——.

Her mother was demanding an answer to a question she had made but which Ruth had not heard. Mrs. Throop stood over her daughter and continued with mounting righteous indignation.

“Very well, then, I’ll tell you. You have a lustful heart—you tempted him, otherwise how could he have acted as you say?”

“What? What?” Ruth rose to her feet and looked at her mother in bewildered astonishment. At first she thought she had not heard correctly.

“Yes, I mean just that. It was your fault.”

“Mother, what are you saying?”

Mrs. Throop’s passionate defense of her brother now carried her well beyond the pale of reason: “Yes, you are a little wanton. You either tempted him or else you have misinterpreted a perfectly innocent kiss as an attack on your—your virtue. It is strange, I must repeat, that no one ever insulted me that way. Well, in either case you are a—a wanton.” She spat the word out at her daughter in a burst of uncontrolled anger; her eyes blazed and her face was white under the stress of her overwhelming rage.

As Ruth heard the word “wanton,” her knees weakened under her. Her mother’s attitude was impossible to understand; it seemed so completely irrational and without basis. She caught the edge of her table and steadied herself, desperately trying to understand what was happening. Then she, too, was overcome by passion; and she struck out in blind defense.

“You are not telling the truth—you are mistaken.”

“So you persist in your damnable lie, do you?”

“I am not lying——.”

Without warning Mrs. Throop stepped back and brought the palm of her hand sharply across her daughter’s cheek. Ruth was stunned and stared for a moment or two at her mother, then she flung herself across the bed and buried her face in her hands. Her mother stood over her trembling with shame and anger (she was now aware of the injustice of her charge but there was nothing to be done about it; better to have the last righteous word) and said:

“God forgive me for what I have done, but it is better that I should use my hands upon you than let you grow up to be a bad woman.”

Then she left the room.

For more than an hour Ruth lay upon her bed, numb with shame and bewilderment. After the blow it seemed as though her body had refused to function; her feet were cold and her mind was empty of thought. From the dining room downstairs she heard the sound of conversation and once she fancied she heard her mother’s voice in laughter. Then she heard the front door open and the sound of the guests departing. It was quite late (she had lost count of time) when a maid came and brought her a tray of food.

“Mrs. Throop says you are not to speak to anyone about what happened,” the maid said.

Ruth did not answer but drank some tea until she felt the warmth return to her fingers and toes. Later when she undressed and got into bed, sleep seemed out of the question.

——I shall never forget this day. I’ll never get through this night.

But an hour later, after much fretful tossing and twisting, she fell into a heavy, exhausted sleep.