Conflict (Prouty)/Book 3/Chapter 2
'Mother's sick,' Laetitia told her father that night. She was at the corner to meet him when he got off the electric car, at half-past six. He had had his coat off when he left the car, it was such a hot day, and he carried his straw hat in his hand. But as soon as he reached the sidewalk he set down his brown leather hand-bag on the curbing, and put his hat and coat on again. Then wiped his face carefully with his handkerchief. He never went home to Sheilah, even after all these years, without thinking how he looked.
'Sick?' he repeated after Laetitia, and a frightened expression crossed his face. He flushed faintly. 'What's the matter?'
'I don't know. She just doesn't seem to care about anything, and asked me to get supper. She's lying down on the bed. I wanted to go to the Movies to-night, and she says I can, but I won't if she doesn't want me to.'
Felix said dully, 'It must be the heat. She works too hard,' and he leaned and picked up his bag, and the frightened look gave way to that expression of long-continued acquiescence that some men wear, some women, who carry a hidden burden—a hidden burden that in Felix's case had grown heavier and heavier with the years, as it became more and more evident to him what he had done to Sheilah.
He hadn't meant to. He had meant to be all the things Sheilah believed he could be, that he believed he could be too, with such a talisman. He had thought that the miracle of his marriage to Sheilah must perform some sort of magic upon him; that no one could enter the charmed atmosphere that surrounded Sheilah without becoming charmed a little by it, too. But somehow the magic hadn't worked, the charm had failed, and instead of growing into the image of Sheilah, as he had so tried to do, she had somehow grown into the image of him. The home he provided for her, for instance, where she lay sick and broken this afternoon, much more resembled the grimy white house where he was born on nondescript Flower Street in Wallbridge, than the cool, broad-verandahed, lawn-surrounded mansion where Sheilah had lived as a young girl.
The mansion had been made over into an apartment house now. It had been sold at the end of the war for just enough to wipe out a list of debts that had to be paid when Sheilah's father died, soon after peace was declared. Her mother had lived on alone afterward in one of the made-over apartments on the income from one small life-insurance policy.
When Felix had come back to Sheilah at the end of the war, he had been fired with determination to fill the big rôle waiting for him—so much bigger, now that Sheilah was in actual need of a man and provider. He had returned to his place in the bank full of hope and confidence. Sheilah, too, had been full of hope and confidence then. They had taken a small half-house near the golf club. Not expensive, because so far out from the center of the city.
How hard Felix had tried at first to pull himself out of his own personality. He had read every article Sheilah marked for him, so as to appear informed among her friends. Tried to learn bridge. Tried to learn golf. For in those early years in Wallbridge they had, as a matter of course, belonged to the group of young married people who had always been Sheilah's friends. Successful confident young married people. Rather ruthless since the war. Amazingly able and alert. Difficult competitors.
It had been Sheilah's suggestion that they move away from Wallbridge. Felix always dreaded any change, but he complied, for Sheilah explained to him that there was a future for him in the big prosperous manufacturing concern in Boston, if he tried hard and worked evenings. And he had tried hard! He had worked evenings! They both had worked evenings.
Felix had been in the sales department of the big manufacturing concern. There was little written on good salesmanship that Sheilah didn't read out loud to him, night after night, during their first months in Boston. Also, night after night, she had set him to work writing test business letters (for the new position required a limited amount of simple correspondence), which she corrected afterward. Felix used to fall asleep sometimes, from sheer exhaustion, while she was explaining the correct use of certain business terms and phrases. He never complained, however. He was too anxious for the promised reward.
But Sheilah had been mistaken about that. There wasn't a future for Felix in that business after all. One Saturday afternoon Felix's employer sent for him and told him so; and added that as soon as he was able to place himself elsewhere it would not inconvenience the concern to let him go at any moment.
Felix had been placing himself elsewhere (or else Sheilah had been placing him) half-a-dozen times since then, and always each new position had been a little further down the ladder than the one before.
Felix didn't work evenings at all now. That is, he didn't work at books and letters. He worked at his carpenter's bench. Felix used to keep his carpenter's bench in an unused corner of the cellar in Wallbridge. And again at first in Boston in a similar unused corner, underneath a dim window by the furnace. And indulged his whim only occasionally—sometimes on Sunday afternoons, and on holidays. But now he worked at it every night.
Sheilah had felt a sharp sting of remorse when she had seen the pleased look on Felix's face, when she first suggested that he set up the carpenter's bench in the dining-room. He had told her he would keep it very neat and wouldn't leave any shavings around at all. He always brushed up ever so carefully before he went to bed. Sheilah used to like to think that perhaps Esther's love of neatness came from Felix, too.
Felix was aware that the carpenter's bench was a symbol of his failure, for Sheilah had not suggested its installation in the dining-room until after it had been proved that he was unable to put his free time to any better use. He became, therefore, pathetically anxious to make it a source of income. It couldn't amount to much, of course, but even a few dollars would help to justify the hours he spent at it. There was a shop in town where he took the pieces of furniture as soon as they were finished, to be sold on commission. The money he thus earned he would bring back to Sheilah with shy and eager joy. He had six dollars for her to-night! He had sold the four Windsor chairs she had designed (she always did the designing) and the little table. But since Laetitia's news his joy had turned to shame. He wanted to hide the paltry six dollars. How far would six dollars go toward getting Sheilah out of this heat? Contempt for his trivial tinkering prodded Felix. Contempt for himself.
Contempt for himself was always sharper when Sheilah was sick or tired. It hurt terribly lately, because he knew now, and Sheilah knew too, that his failure was final. He was no longer young. His hair was grey at the temples, and his face bore deep lines and shadows. He looked years older than he really was, as he plodded home that night beside Laetitia, almost as tall as he. He had always stooped. He stooped more now. The leather bag, light as it was (it carried only his lunch each day, and sometimes the doll's furniture), dragged down one shoulder lower than the other. And he limped. For although Felix had never seen France he had been wounded in the war. It wasn't a wound he could boast of, however. One of the horses he had taken care of had kicked him in the back.
He tiptoed into Sheilah's presence ten minutes later.
'What is it?' He was alarmed. It was so seldom Sheilah gave up entirely like this.
She had tried not to. But in the middle of the afternoon the dizziness had become actual nausea. And again at six o'clock. Fear had gripped her. But she couldn't tell Felix her fear. She must spare him as long as there was doubt. He knew what a terrible fear it was to her (and had been ever since Esther had died), and now, suddenly, so much more terrible, since Roddie had been sent home from school for cheating—since it had been demonstrated that she was unable to mould perfect vases out of imperfect clay. Oh, she didn't want any more imperfect clay!
She wouldn't tell Felix either that Roddie had cheated. He had become very sensitive about his own early offenses. She had referred to them occasionally as a warning to him to be honest in his business life. But not lately. It hurt him so.
'It's just the heat, I think,' she said.
'After supper, when it's cooler, I'll take you down to City Point, or somewhere.'
'Oh, no. Not to-night. I couldn't, Felix.'
He gazed at her a moment helplessly, then leaned and picked up the hot-water bottle, which lay discarded on the floor. Three minutes later he brought it back to Sheilah filled with ice-water, and laid it beside her. 'It had gotten warm,' he remarked. Then crossed the room and shoved back the limp sash curtains to let in a little more air if possible.
Sheilah lay silent and unresponsive. She was aware of the tender, fumbling attentions. Always trying so hard. She would thank him later. But not now. She couldn't now. Only one thought was in her mind now—one fear, crowding out everything else. She didn't want any more imperfect clay. Oh, she couldn't have any more imperfect clay!
But Sheilah wasn't going to have any more imperfect clay. The relief was so great at first that for days she ignored the persistent sensation of nausea, and queer gripping attacks of tiredness that would steal upon her every few hours, fling heavy arms about her and bear down on her, till she drooped and succumbed.
One afternoon Felix brought a doctor home with him. The doctor stayed an hour, and returned several days later. Again returned several days later. And again. And still again. Five visits in all. Five times five is twenty-five dollars. On his fifth visit Dr. Evarts told Sheilah he could find no physical cause for her sensations. Sheilah, again from a sense of relief (for she had begun to be afraid that there might be something organic and expensive the matter with her), ignored the sickness and fatigue, and went on steadily making beds, picking up rooms, roasting beef, and suppressing the unreasonable irritation she felt over such natural and inevitable noises as Laetitia's heavy tread, Roddie's chronic cough, Phillip's sand-papering, and the whirr of Felix's saw.
In the privacy of his office, Dr. Evarts told Felix that Sheilah must get away to some restful place in the country, or by the sea, alone—or else—he shook his head. He had questioned Sheilah. He knew her history. He had talked over the telephone with her old doctor in Wallbridge. Nervous breakdowns had a tendency to repeat themselves, he told Felix. They were serious things. To be avoided. He went into detail. Oh, no, a week would scarcely do any good. Six weeks anyway. Better two months.
Felix, too, lay awake a good deal that June, on his couch in the dining-room, whither he had moved since Sheilah hadn't been feeling well, listening to the creak of the brass bed in the adjoining room, as Sheilah turned and tossed, watching for the disturbingly frequent glow of her light, his slow, laborious thoughts playing with frightening possibilities.
He must raise the money somehow! He visited frequently the shop in town where his furniture was sold. His 'chef-d'œuvre,' as Sheilah always referred to it, was still there waiting for a customer. A doll-house, completely furnished, eight rooms and bath, with actual running water. It had taken Felix the better part of two years to build and furnish the doll-house. The shop-keeper had told him if he waited, some day a man or woman would come along, the wealthy parent of some particularly cherished child, who would pay the two hundred dollars the house was well worth, and think the more of it because it wasn't cheap. But they weren't likely to come in summer. Felix fumbled for other possible ways out.
Felix was working in the office of a large wholesale concern. He had been there for nearly four years. He had started in as a time-keeper, but had drifted through various positions to that of sort of errandboy or general utility man to Mr. Fairchild, the general manager. He did everything for Mr. Fairchild from clearing up his desk every night to running his automobile in emergencies. Mr. Fairchild trusted Felix absolutely. Last week he had sent him over to the bank with an envelope full of bonds. Last month he had taken Felix with him to help cut a big crop of coupons.