Читать книгу Kings Row - Henry Bellamann - Страница 16

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Evening light filled the room. Parris tried to open his eyes wider, but the lids were very heavy. Everything looked wavery—it was like looking through glass that streamed with rain. Maybe it was raining. He strained hard to see. No—that was sunshine. It was very still. It must be late in the afternoon. Afternoon ... Then he must have slept all day. Goodness! He tried to lift his head but it stuck to the pillow. He tried to raise his hand but it would not move. It seemed weighted. What was the matter? He knew he ought to get up—there was something he ought to see about. Was it school? No, no—this was summertime—he didn’t have to go to school. But there was something—something. What was it? Something dreadful he had to do, or see about. He could almost think of it. It—whatever it was—slid nearer—something terrible. He was afraid now to think. The effort tired him. He didn’t believe he had ever been so tired. He would have to go to sleep again ... maybe when he woke up he could remember. He closed his eyes....

When he awoke it was dark outside. There was a shaded light in the corner, and someone was in the big rocking chair. He tried to turn his head to see who it was. It must be Anna.

“Anna!” He could hardly hear himself—such a funny weak croak he made!

“Gott, Parris, bist du wach?” Anna ran to the door. “Madame, bitte komm’!”

In a moment his grandmother leaned over him. “Parris,” she said very softly.

“Yes.” He tried to move.

“You must lie very still. Don’t talk.”

“Why?”

“S-sh! Not now, tomorrow you can talk, perhaps.” She slipped her arm under his pillow and raised him a little. “Try to drink this.”

The glass clinked against his teeth, and something very queer-tasting ran into his mouth. Some of it ran out again, and Anna wiped it away with a napkin. After a little he felt sleepy ... something he must remember, though—something he must tell his grandmother. He would remember—tomorrow.

He waked and slept and waked again but never for very long. Then one morning the objects in the room were steadier and clearer, but the inside of his head was heavy as lead. His temples seemed to spread out like balloons—then he floated for a moment until the heaviness returned and thrust his head down hard into the pillow.

He lay half awake and tried once more to think. A wagon rattled along the drive below the terrace. He heard a whip crack. A quick little cry escaped his lips. That was it! Renée!

His grandmother was instantly beside the bed. “Parris, what is it?”

“Where’s Renée?”

“Renée?”

“Yes, where is she?”

“She’s not here just now, dear. Try to lie still.”

He wailed a little. “But where is she?”

Madame laid one of her wrinkled little hands on his. “Renée has gone away, Parris.”

“Gone? Gone away? Where?”

“Well, I don’t know, dear. Her father moved away somewhere.”

All of the breath went out of him. Madame was wearing her thick-lensed glasses and saw how he sank back on the bed.

“That’s all right, Parris. I daresay she’ll come back sometime. You mustn’t mind that.”

His face drew up, but he couldn’t cry. “Oh, oh!” he said weakly.

“Why, Parris! Were you so fond of your little friend as all that?”

He noticed that she said “were.” The word seemed to close a door—a great, heavy, iron door. Renée was gone. He knew he would never see her again. He felt his stomach shake, but his eyes were quite dry.

“Parris! My darling child—you mustn’t. I’ll try to send for Renée if you’ll be very quiet and not worry.”

He knew she could not. Never, never, never, never, never! He held on somehow to her hand, but his fingers were like paper.

“Have I been awful sick?”

“You’ve been quite sick, yes.”

“A long time?”

“Yes, Parris—now be quiet.”

“What time is it?”

“Why—I don’t know, child. Almost seven, I suppose.”

“I mean—no, no—I mean what time this week?”

“Oh—it’s Sunday.”

“Goodness! Why, I got sick last Tuesday, didn’t I?”

“Longer than that, dear. It’s the middle of August.”

“The—middle—of—August?” He whispered the words. “Have I been—”

“You’ve been unconscious for weeks, Parris. You see now how very sick you have been, and how careful you’ll have to be.”

“What’s the matter with me?”

“You’ve had fever—a very bad fever.”

He was silent for a few minutes. He turned his head very slowly on the pillow and looked out of the window. “When—when did she go away?”

“What? Oh! The Gyllinsons left just the day after you took sick.”

“Why?”

“Well, Sven told me he had the offer of better wages and he’d have to go. I hated to lose him. He was a good manager.”

“Did Renée—did—” He couldn’t frame the question; he feared the answer.

“I didn’t see Renée, Parris. Anna said she came to the kitchen door that morning. She thought Renée seemed very frightened—maybe because she heard you were so sick. She ran away again very quickly. Sven made up his mind very suddenly. It seemed queer. Certainly it is the first time I’ve ever known him to do anything in a hurry.”

“Was she all right?”

“Renée, you mean? Why, I guess so, Parris. Anna said she seemed sorry to go, and very sorry to hear you were ill, but the doctor was here, and we were all busy looking after you. You were really very ill that day.”

Parris had shifted his position and watched his grandmother’s face narrowly. It was certain that she knew nothing of the events of that terrible afternoon.

“Where did they go?”

“I don’t know, dear. I don’t think Sven told anyone. He packed up in a hurry and went off. I think down toward the Ozark Mountains, somewhere. Now don’t talk any more. Try to go to sleep. You’ll be getting strong soon, now.”

His convalescence was slow and tedious. Gradually he learned to take a few steps, and then to walk without leaning on Anna. His head had been shaved and now it was covered with a thick soft stubble—like black velvet. He was very thin, and his bones stuck out. Seeing himself in the mirror, he thought he looked like the scarecrow in Amos Miller’s garden.

It was a long time before he could bring himself to so much as look toward the Gyllinson cottage. It stood empty and close shuttered. The sight of it struck him with an almost physical impact.

He would think now—go over that day again. In spite of the ache and soreness of his heart, he remembered it all—made himself think of it. Something between pain and an unbearable pleasure made him a little sick. He wanted to lie down and cry when he thought of Renée and what had happened to her. He blamed himself. He could hear again her voice saying, “Maybe we’d better go back.”

If only they had gone back as she had suggested. And yet—something, some obstinate feeling in his flesh refused that regret. It was hateful to think that she had suffered, and for him. But he knew they could not help it—either of them. That—that which happened just had to happen. Even now, weak as he was, a strange imperious thrill ran along his nerves, tightened them, made them respond again to the recollection of her as she sat in the dappled shade under the tree. She was so white, and sweet. Where the quivering spots of sunshine fell through the leaves and touched her she was all silvery—

He decided he could not wait any longer. He must go to her house, walk around the yard where she used to be, maybe look through the windows. He went slowly down the rough stone steps.

“Where are you going, Parris?” His grandmother called from an upper window.

“Just going to take a little walk.”

“Well, you must carry an umbrella over you. The sun is warm today. Take that old black one in the hall. Don’t stay out long.”

“Yes’m.”

He went a bit unsteadily across the wide stretch of dry grass, holding the big black-silk umbrella over his head.

The cottage yard was weedy and overgrown. The late summer rains had washed the sand from the walk that led to the door, and heaps of trash had blown into corners of the porch. Pieces of paper and old rags lay about, testifying to the haste of Sven’s packing and departure. It was unbearably desolate—and so still!

He walked around the house. The back yard was cluttered with pieces of lumber. An overturned chicken coop lay on the ground near the kitchen door. A barrel stood at the door of the smokehouse. His eye caught a glimpse of something green through a wide crack between the staves. He went idly, unthinkingly, to see what it was.

The barrel was filled with debris—broken china and some rusted cans, but underneath was something green—something familiar. He pulled at it. It was the dress he had brought Renée from Philadelphia—torn to shreds and thrust in among the odds and ends of trash. He turned the barrel to one side to see better. There was the parasol, too, its white crook handle snapped off short. Pieces of the shell box, and a crumple of colored ribbons!

The sight of his presents, thus contemptuously and angrily discarded, struck him as nothing else had—not even Renée’s departure—with the utter completeness of his loss. They wouldn’t even let her keep the pretty things he had given her—the things she had liked so much! The ugly, dirty awful people—the dogs. Rage shook him. If God would just help him, he’d hunt for her sometime—he’d take her away from them. Then he began to cry, a broken whimper that puffed out his lips and hurt his throat. He leaned against the barrel and held to the rim with both hands while tears ran down his face and dripped into the barrel. The drops fell on the soiled and crumpled silk and made round, dark spots. He cried with long hoarse sounds, weakly, hopelessly—filled with despair and a harsh pressing realization of his own helplessness. When he could cry no more he sat down and leaned his face against the splintery wood. He pushed hard against it in a desperate effort to relieve the ache and pain in his throat and breast.

After a while he arose, and mechanically sorted out the fragments and scraps of Renée’s treasures. He found a broken china doll at the bottom of the barrel. He remembered it. She used to play with it a long, long time ago. He made a little heap of his ruined gifts and added to it everything he could find that had belonged to her.

There was an old hoe leaning against the garden fence. With that he dug a deep hole in a corner of the yard by the snowball bushes, and carefully buried the shabby bundle. Then he opened the umbrella, held it between him and the sun, and trudged home without looking back.

He wished he had died when he was sick. He wished he could die—right now.