 CHAPTER XXIX late September had come with a street, after its summer indolence taking up the burden of the year. At eight thirty, and at one, the school bell called the children. Little girls and pigtails carrying freshly sharpened pencils went primly toward the school, gathering, comet-fashioned, a tale of unwilling brothers as they went. An occasional football hurtled through the air. Lamoine had promised the baseball club a football outfit, rumor said, but would not coach them himself this year. A story was going about that Mr. Lamoine intended to go away. The street had been furiously busy for a month. The cobblestones had gone, and from curb to curb stretched smooth asphalt. The fascination of writing on it with chalk still obsessed the children. Every few yards was a hopscotch diagram. Generally speaking, too, the street had put up new curtains, and even here and there had added a coat of paint. To this general excitement, the strange case of Mr. Lamoine had added its quota. One day he was in the gas office, making out statements that were absolutely ridiculous. What, with no baking all last month and every Sunday spent in the country, nobody could have used that amount of gas. They could come and take their old meter out. And the next there was the news of Mr. Lamoine had been only taking a holiday in the gas office, paying off old scores, the baritone that Mrs. McKee's hazarded, and that he was really a very great surgeon and had saved Dr. Max Wilson. The street, which was busy at the time deciding whether to leave the old sidewalks or to put down cement ones, had one evening of mad excitement over the matter of Kay, not the sidewalks, and then had accepted the new situation. And over the news of Kay's approaching departure, it mourned. What was the matter with things anyhow? Here was Christine's marriage, which had promised so well, awnings and palms and everything, turning out badly. True, Palmer Howe was doing better, but he would break out again. And Johnny Rosenfeld was dead, so that his mother came on washing days and brought no cheery gossip, but bent over her tubs dry-eyed and silent. When the approaching move to a larger house failed to thrill her, there was Tilly, too, but one did not speak of her. She was married now, of course, but the street did not tolerate such a reversal of the usual processes as Tilly has indulged in. It censured Mrs. McKee severely for having been, so to speak, an accessory after the fact. The street made a resolve to keep Kay if possible, if he had shown any high in mightiness, as they called it, since the change in his estate. It would have let him go without protest. But when a man is the real thing, so that the newspapers gave a column to his having been in the city almost two years, and still goes about the same shabby clothes with the same friendly greeting for everyone, it demonstrates clearly, as the baritone put it, he's got no swelled head on him, that's sure. But he can see, by the way he drives that machine of Wilson's, that he's been used to a car, likely a foreign one. All the swells had foreign cars. Still, the baritone, who was almost as fond of conversation as of what he termed vocal, and another thing, did you notice the way he takes Dr. Ed around? Has him at every consultation? The old boys tickled to death. A little later, Kay, coming up the street as he had that first day, heard the baritone singing. Home is the hunter, home from the hill, and the sailor, home from the sea. Home, why this was home, the street seemed to stretch out its arms to him. The elanthus tree waved in the sunlight before the little house. Tree and house were old, September had touched them. He sat sewing on the balcony. A boy with a piece of chalk was writing something on the new cement under the tree. He stood back, head on one side, when he had finished, and inspected his work. Kay caught him up from behind, and swinging him around, hey, he said severely, don't you know better than to ride all over the street? What'll I do to you? Give you to a policeman? Ah, let me down, Mr. Kay. You tell the boys that if I find this street scrawled over any more, the picnic's off. Ah, Mr. Kay, I mean it, go and spend some of that chalk energy of yours in school. He put the boy down. There was a certain tenderness in his hands, as in his voice when he dealt with children. All his severity did not conceal it. Get along with you, Bill. Last bell's rung. As the boy ran off, Kay's eye fell on what he had written on the cement. At certain part of his career, the child of such a neighborhood as the street cancels names. It is a part of his birthright. He does it as he whittles his school desk, or tries to smoke the long-dried fruit of the Indian cigar tree. So, Kay read, in chalk, and a smooth street, Max Wilson Marriage, Sydney Page Love. Note, the A, L, and S and N of Max Wilson are crossed through, as are the S, D, N, and A of Sydney Page. The childish scrawl stared up at him imputedly, a sacred thing profane by the day. Kay stood and looked at it. The baritone was still singing, but now it was, I'm twenty-one and she's eighteen. There was a cheerful air, as should be the air that had accompanied Johnny Rosenfeld to his long sleep. The light was gone from Kay's face again. After all, the street meant for him not so much home as it meant Sydney. And now, before very long, that book in his life, like others, would have to be closed. He turned and went heavily into the little house. Christine called him from her balcony. I thought I heard your step outside. Have you time to come out? Kay went through the parlor and stood in the long window. His steady eyes looked down at her. I see very little of you now, she complained, and when he did not reply immediately, have you made any definite plans, Kay? I shall do Max's work until he is able to take hold again. After that, will you go away? I think so. I'm getting a good many letters, one way and another. I suppose now I'm back in harness, I'll stay. My old place is closed. I'd go back there, they want me, but it seems so futile, Christine, to leave as I did, because I felt I had no right to go on as things were, and now to crawl back on the strength of having had my hand forced, and to take up things again, not knowing that I have a bit more right to it than when I left. I went to see Max yesterday. You know what he thinks about all that. He took an uneasy turn up and down the balcony. But who, he demanded, who would do such a thing? I tell you, Christine, it isn't possible. She did not pursue the subject. Her thoughts had flown ahead to the little house without Kay, two days without his steps on the stairs, or the heavy creak of his big chair overhead as he dropped into it. But perhaps it would be better if he went. She had her own life to live. She had no expectation of happiness, but somehow or other, she must build on the shaky foundation of her marriage, a house of life, with resignations serving for content, perhaps with fear lurking always, that she knew. But with no act of misery, misery applied affection, and her love for Palmer was quite dead. Sidney will be here this afternoon. Good. His tone was noncommittal. As it occurred to UK that Sidney is not very happy. He stopped in front of her. She's had a great anxiety. She has no anxiety now, Max is doing well. Then what is it? I'm not sure, but I think I know. She's lost faith in Max, and she's not like me. I—I knew about Palmer before I married him. I got a letter. It's all rather hideous. I needn't go into it. I was afraid to back out. It was just before my wedding. But Sidney has more character than I have. Max isn't what she thought he was, and I doubt whether she'll marry him. Kay glanced toward the street where Sidney's name and Max's lay open to the sun and to the smiles of the street. Christine might be right, but that did not alter things for him. Christine's thoughts went back inevitably to herself, to Palmer, who is doing better just now, to Kay, who is going away, went back with an ache to the night Kay had taken her in his arms and then put her away. How wrong things were! What a mess life was! When you go away, she said at last, I want you to remember this. I'm going to do my best, Kay. You have taught me all I know. All my life I'll have to overlook things, I know that. But in his way, Palmer cares for me. She will always come back, and perhaps some time. Her voice trailed off. Far ahead of her she saw the years stretching out, marked not by days and months, but by Palmer's wanderings away, his remorseful returns. Do a little more than forgetting, Kay said. Try to care for him, Christine. You did once, and that's your strongest weapon. It's always a woman's strongest weapon, and it wins in the end. I shall try, Kay, she answered, obediently. But he turned away from a look in her eyes. Harriet was abroad. She had sent cards from Paris to her trade. It was an innovation. Two or three people in the street who received her engraved announcements that she was there buying new chic models for the autumn and winter, afternoon frocks, evening gowns, reception dresses, and wraps from Poirette, a Martial, a Armand. And others left the envelopes casually on the parlor table, as if communications from Paris were quite to be expected. So Kay lunched alone and ate little. After lunch, she fixed a broken ironing stand for Katie. And in return, she pressed a pair of trousers for him. He had it in mind to ask Sydney to go out with him in Max's car, and his most presentable suit was very shabby. I'm thinking, said Katie, when she brought the pressed garments up over her arm and passed them in through a discrete crack in the door, that these pants will stand more walkin' than sittin', Mr. Gay. They're gettin' mighty thin. I'll take a duster along in case of an accident, he promised her. And tomorrow I'll order a suit, Katie. I'll believe it when I see it, said Katie from the stairs. Some fool of a woman from the alley will come in tonight and tell you she can't pay her rent, and she'll take your suit away in her pocketbook, as like as not to pay an installment on a piano. There's two new pianos in the alley since you came here. I promise it, Katie. Show it to me, said Katie leconically, and don't go pickin' up anything you drop. Sydney came home in half past two, came delicately flushed as if she had hurried, and with a tremulous smile that caught Katie's eye at once. Bless the child, she said. There's no need to ask how he is today. You're all one smile. The smile set just a trifle. Katie, someone has written my name out on the street in chalk, is with Dr. Wilson's, and it looks so silly. Please go out and sweep it off. I'm about crazy with their old chalk. I'll do it after a while. Please do it now. I don't want anyone to see it. Is Mr. K upstairs? But when she learned that K was upstairs, oddly enough, she did not go up at once. She stood in the lower hall and listened. Yes, he was there. She could hear him moving about. Her lips parted slightly as she listened. Christine, looking in from her balcony, saw her there and seeing something in her face that she had never suspected put her hand to her throat. Sydney, oh, hello, Chris. Won't you come and sit with me? I haven't much time. That is, I want to speak to K. You can see him when he comes down. Sydney came slowly through the parlor. It occurred to her all at once that Christine must see a lot of K, especially now. No doubt he was in and out of the house often. And how pretty Christine was. She was unhappy, too. All that seemed to be necessary to win K's attention was to be unhappy enough, while surely in that case. How is Max? Still better. Sydney sat down on the edge of the railing, but she was careful Christine saw to face the staircase. There was silence on the balcony. Christine soared. Sydney sat and swung her feet idly. Dr. Ed says Max wants you to give a pre-training and marry him now. I'm not going to marry him at all, Chris. Upstairs, K's door slammed. It was one of the failings that he always slammed doors. Harriet used to be quite disagreeable about it. Sydney slid from the railing. There he is now. Perhaps in all her frivolous, selfish life, Christine had never had a bigger moment than the one that followed. She could have said nothing. And in the queer way that life goes, K might have gone away from the street as empty of heart as he had come to it. Be very good to him, Sydney, she said unsteadily. He cares so much. End of Chapter 29. Chapter 30 of K. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Rita Butros. K by Mary Roberts Reinhart. Chapter 30. K was being very dense. For so long had he considered Sydney as unattainable that now his masculine mind, a little weary with such wretchedness, refused to move from its old attitude. It was glamour that was all K, said Sydney bravely. But perhaps, said K, it's just because of that miserable incident with Carlotta. That wasn't the right thing, of course, but Max has told me the story. It was really quite innocent. She fainted in the yard and Sydney was exasperated. Do you want me to marry him, K? K looked straight ahead. I want you to be happy, dear. They were on the terrace of the White Springs Hotel again. K had ordered dinner, making a great to-do about getting the dishes they both liked. But now that it was there, they were not eating. K had placed his chair so that his profile was turned toward her. He had worn the duster religiously until nightfall and then had discarded it. It hung limp and dejected on the back of his chair. Past K's profile, Sydney could see the magnolia tree shaped like a heart. It seems to me, said Sydney suddenly, that you are kind to everyone but me, K. He fairly stammered his astonishment. Why, what on earth have I done? You are trying to make me marry Max, aren't you? She was very properly ashamed of that and when he failed of reply out of sheer inability to think of one that would not say too much, she went hastily to something else. It is hard for me to realize that you lived a life of your own, a busy life doing useful things before you came to us. I wish you would tell me something about yourself. If we're to be friends when you go away, she had to stop there for the lump in her throat. I want to know how to think of you, who your friends are, all that. He made an effort. He was thinking, of course, that he would be visualizing her in the hospital, in the little house on its side street as she looked just then, her eyes like stars, her lips just parted, her hands folded before her on the table. I shall be working, he said at last, so will you. Does that mean you won't have time to think of me? I'm afraid I'm stupider than usual tonight. You can think of me as never forgetting you or the street, working or playing. Playing, of course he would not work all the time and he was going back to his old friends to people who had always known him, to girls. He did his best then. He told her of the old family house built by one of his forebears who had been a king's man until Washington had put the case for the colonies and who had given himself and his oldest son then to the cause that he made his own. He told of old servants who had wept when he decided to close the house and go away. When she fell silent, he thought he was interesting her. He told her the family traditions that had been the fairy tales of his childhood. He described the library, the choice room of the house, full of family paintings in old guilt frames and of his father's collection of books. Because it was home, he waxed warm over it at last, although it had rather hurt him at first to remember. It brought back the other things that he wanted to forget. But a terrible thing was happening to Sidney. Side by side with the wonders he described so casually, she was placing the little house. What an exile it must have been for him. How hopelessly middle class they must have seemed. How idiotic of her to think for one moment that she could ever belong in this new old life of his. What traditions had she? None, of course, save to be honest and good and to do her best for the people around her. Her mother's people, the Kennedys, went back a long way, but they had always been poor. A library full of paintings and books, she remembered the lamp with the blue silk shade, the figure of Eve that used to stand behind the minister's portrait and the cherished bookcase with the encyclopedia in it and beacon lights of history. When Kay, trying his best to interest her and to conceal his own heaviness of spirit, told her of his grandfather's old carriage, she sat back in the shadow. Fearful old things said Kay, regular cabriolet, I can remember yet the family rouse over it, but the old gentleman liked it, used to have it repainted every year. Strangers in the city used to turn around and stare at it, thought it was advertising something. When I was a child, said Sidney quietly and the carriage drove up and stopped on the street, I always knew someone had died. It was a strange note in her voice. Kay, whose ear was attuned to every note in her voice, looked at her quickly. My great-grandfather, said Sidney in the same tone, sold chickens at market. He didn't do it himself, but the fact's there, isn't it? Kay was puzzled. What about it, he said, but Sidney's agile mind had already traveled on. This Kay she had never known, who had lived in a wonderful house and all the rest of it, he must have known numbers of lovely women, his own sort of women, who had traveled and knew all kinds of things, girls like the daughters of the executive committee, who came in from their country places in summer with great armfuls of flowers and hurried off after consulting their jeweled watches to luncheon or tea or tennis. Go on, said Sidney Dully, tell me about the women you have known, your friends, the ones you liked and the ones who liked you. Kay was rather apologetic. I've always been so busy, he confessed. I know a lot, but I don't think they would interest you. They don't do anything, you know, they travel around and have a good time. They're rather nice to look at some of them, but when you've said that, you've said it all. Nice to look at. Of course they would be, with nothing else to think of in all the world but of how they looked. Suddenly, Sidney felt very tired. She wanted to go back to the hospital and turn the key in the door of her little room and lie with her face down on the bed. Would you mind very much if I asked you to take me back? He did mind. He had a depressed feeling that the evening had failed and his depression grew as he brought the car around. He understood, he thought. She was grieving about Max. After all, a girl couldn't care as she had for a year and a half and then give up a man because of another woman without a wrench. Do you really want to go home, Sidney, or were you tired of sitting there? In that case, we could drive around for an hour or two. I'll not talk if you'd like to be quiet. Being with Kay had become an agony now that she realized how wrong Christine had been and that their worlds, hers and Kay's, had only touched for a time. Soon they would be separated by as wide a gulf as that which lay between the Cherry Bookcase, for instance, and a book-lined library hung with family portraits. But she was not disposed to skimp as to agony. She would go through with it, every word a stab, if only she might sit beside Kay a little longer, might feel the touch of his old gray coat against her arm. I'd like to ride, if you don't mind. Kay turned the automobile toward the country roads. He was remembering acutely that other ride after Joe in his small car, the trouble he had had to get a machine, the fear of he knew not what ahead. And his arrival at last at the roadhouse to find Max lying at the head of the stairs and Carlotta on her knees beside him. Kay, yes? Was there anybody you cared about, any girl when you left home? I was not in love with anyone if that's what you mean. You knew Max before, didn't you? Yes, you know that. If you know things about him that I should have known, why didn't you tell me? I couldn't do that, could I? Anyhow, yes? I thought everything would be all right. It seemed to me that the mere fact of your caring for him, that was shaky ground, he got off it quickly. Schwitter has closed up. Do you want to stop there? Not tonight, please. They were near the White House now. Schwitters had closed up indeed. The sign over the entrance was gone. The lanterns had been taken down and in the dusk they could see Tilly rocking her baby on the porch. As if to cover the last traces of his late infamy, Schwitter himself was watering the worn places on the lawn with the garden can. The car went by. Above the lohum of the engine, they could hear Tilly's voice flat and unmusical, but filled with the harmonies of love as she sang to the child. When they had left the house far behind, Kay was suddenly aware that Sidney was crying. She sat with her head turned away using her handkerchiefs stealthily. He drew the car up beside the road and in a masterful fashion turned her shoulders about until she faced him. Now tell me about it, he said. It's just silliness, I'm a little bit lonely. Lonely? Aunt Harriet's in Paris and with Joe gone and everybody, Aunt Harriet. He was properly dazed for sure. If she had said she was lonely because the cherry bookcase was in Paris, he could not have been more bewildered and Joe and with you going away and never coming back. I'll come back, of course. How's this? I'll promise to come back when you graduate and send you flowers. I think, said Sidney, that I'll become an army nurse. I hope you won't do that. You won't know, Kay, you'll be back with your old friends. You'll have forgotten the street and all of us. Do you really think that? Girls who have been everywhere and have lovely clothes and who won't know a T-bandage from a figure eight. There will never be anybody in the world like you to me, dear. His voice was husky. You are saying that to comfort me. To comfort you. I, who have wanted you so long that it hurts even to think about it. Ever since the night I came up the street and you were sitting there on the steps. Oh my dear, my dear, if you only cared a little. Because he was afraid that he would get out of hand and take her in his arms, which would be idiotic since, of course, she did not care for him that way. He gripped the steering wheel. It gave him a curious appearance of making a pathetic appeal to the windshield. I have been trying to make you say that. All evening, said Sidney, I love you so much that, Kay, won't you take me in your arms? Take her in his arms. He almost crushed her. He held her to him and muttered incoherencies until she gasped. It was as if he must make up for long arrears of hopelessness. He held her off a bit to look at her as if to be sure it was she and no changeling. And as if he wanted her eyes to corroborate her lips. There was no lack of confession in her eyes. They showed him a new heaven and a new earth. It was you always, Kay, she confessed. I just didn't realize it. But now, when you look back, don't you see it was? He looked back over the months when she had seemed as unattainable as the stars and he did not see it. He shook his head. I never had even a hope. Not when I came to you with everything. I brought you all my troubles and you always helped. Her eyes filled. She bent down and kissed one of his hands. He was so happy that the foolish little caress made his heart hammer in his ears. I think, Kay, that is how one can always tell when it is the right one and will be the right one forever and ever. It is the person one goes to in trouble. He had no words for that. Only little caressing touches of her arm, her hand. Perhaps without knowing it, he was formulating a sort of prayer that since there must be troubles, she would always come to him and he would always be able to help her. And Sidney, too, fell silent. She was recalling the day she became engaged to Max and the lost feelings she had had. She did not feel the same at all now. She felt as if she had been wandering and had come home to the arms that were about her. She would be married and take the risk that all women took with her eyes open. She would go through the valley of the shadow as other women did, but Kay would be with her. Nothing else mattered. Looking into his steady eyes, she knew that she was safe. She would never wither for him. Where before she had felt the clutch of inexorable destiny, the woman's fate, now she felt only his arms about her, her cheek on his shabby coat. I shall love you all my life, she said shakily. His arms tightened about her. The little house was dark when they got back to it. The street, which had heard that Mr. Lemoine approved of night air, was raising its windows for the night and pinning cheesecloth bags over its curtains to keep them clean. In the second-story front room at Mrs. McKee's, the baritone slept heavily and made diverse, unvocal sounds. He was hardening his throat and so slept with a wet towel about it. Down on the doorstep, Mrs. McKee and Mr. Wagner sat and made love with the aid of a lighted match and the pencil pad. The car drew up at the little house and Sydney got out. Then it drove away, for Kay must take it to the garage and walk back. Sydney sat on the doorstep and waited. How lovely it all was, how beautiful life was. If one did one's best by life, it did its best too. How steady Kay's eyes were. She saw the flicker of the match across the street and knew what it meant. Once, she would have thought that that was funny. Now it seemed very touching to her. Kay had heard the car and now she came heavily along the hall. A woman left this for Mr. Kay, she said. If you think it's a begging letter, you'd better keep it until he's bought his new suit tomorrow. Almost any moment, he's likely to bust out. But it was not a begging letter. Kay read it in the hall with Sydney's shining eyes on him. It began abruptly. I'm going to Africa with one of my cousins. She is a medical missionary. Perhaps I can work things out there. It is a bad station on the West Coast. I am not going because I feel any call to the work, but because I do not know what else to do. You were kind to me the other day. I believe if I had told you then, you would still have been kind. I tried to tell you, but I was so terribly afraid. If I caused death, I did not mean to. You will think that no excuse, but it is true. In the hospital, when I changed the bottles on Miss Page's medicine tray, I did not care much what happened, but it was different with you. You dismissed me, you remember. I had been careless about a sponge count. I made up my mind to get back at you. It seemed hopeless. You were so secure. For two or three days, I tried to think of some way to hurt you. I almost gave up. Then I found the way. You remember the packets of gauze sponges we made and used in the operating room? There were 12 to each package. When we counted them as we got them out, we counted by packages. On the night before I left, I went to the operating room and added one sponge every here and there. Out of every dozen packets, perhaps I fixed one that had 13. The next day, I went away. Then I was terrified, what if somebody died? I had meant to give you trouble so you would have to do certain cases a second time. I swear that was all. I was so frightened that I went down sick over it. When I got better, I heard you had lost a case and the cause was being whispered about. I almost died of terror. I tried to get back into the hospital one night. I went up the fire escape, but the windows were locked. Then I left the city. I couldn't stand it. I was afraid to read a newspaper. I am not going to sign this letter. You know who it is from. And I am not going to ask your forgiveness or anything of that sort. I don't expect it. But one thing hurt me more than anything else the other night. You said you'd lost your faith in yourself. This is to tell you that you need not. And you said something else that anyone can come back. I wonder. Kay stood in the hall of the little house with the letter in his hand, just beyond on the doorstep with Sydney waiting for him. His arms were still warm from the touch of her. Beyond lay the street. And beyond that lay the world and a man's work to do. Work and faith to do it. A good woman's hand in the dark. A providence that made things right in the end. Are you coming, Kay? Coming, he said. And when he was beside her, his long figure folded to the short measure of the step, he stooped humbly and kissed the hem of her soft white dress. Across the street, Mr. Wagner wrote something in the dark and then lighted a match. So Kay is in love with Sydney Page after all he had written. She is a sweet girl and he is every inch a man. But to my mind, a certain lady, Mrs. McKee flushed and blew out the match. Late September now on the street with Joe gone and his mother eyeing the postman with pitiful eagerness, with Mrs. Rosenfeld moving heavily about the setting up of the new furniture and with Johnny driving heavenly cars, break and clutch legs well and strong. Late September with Max recovering and settling his tie for any pretty nurse who happened along but listening eagerly for Dr. Ed's square tread in the hall with Tilly rocking her baby on the porch at Schwitters and Carlotta staring westward over rolling seas with Christine taking up her burden and Grace laying hers down with Joe's tragic young eyes growing quiet with the piece of the tropics. The Lord is my shepherd, she reads, I shall not want. Yay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Sydney on her knees and the little parlor repeats the words with the others, Kay has gone from the street and before long she will join him. With the vision of his steady eyes before her, she adds her own prayer to the others that the touch of his arms about her may not make her forget the vow she has taken of charity and its sister service of a cup of water to the thirsty of open arms to a tired child. End of chapter 30. End of K by Mary Roberts Reinhardt.