“Your father is dying,” she cabled every day. But now there was no answer. “My husband, my darling, is dying,” she would say to the hot closed stillness of her room. But there was no answer. She said this, with her eyes, to her daughters, to her son, Tom, to Eugene, and still there was no answer. There was an answer in Oliver’s eyes, but she would not receive it. For she was full of grief and anguish and terror, and she was all alone, and the silence of her children was paradoxically, easier to bear, than the comfort she refused from Oliver.
She had helped Oliver, in his effort to save her husband a last suffering. But, strangely, in these tormented days, she could resent it that it was Oliver, who was not William’s son, and not hers, who was protecting William. She was all emotion now; sorrow had overwhelmed reason and kindness and understanding. If even one of her children had expressed sadness she would have broken down and wept, and been comforted. She wanted no comfort from Oliver. When she saw him, she remembered that she had had, for the sake of her husband, to assist Oliver in the forthcoming defeat of her son, Tom, and so storm-wracked was she that she could feel a thrill of hatred, a repugnance full of unreason. In the shadow of Oliver, Barbara hardly seemed her daughter. She, also, was in the conspiracy, and upon Barbara, too, Ursula could project her hatred.
“I wish Mama would give me just a single opportunity to comfort her,” Barbara would say, when she and Oliver had returned home. “She sits there so stiff, and with such a rigid and forbidding face, that I can’t say a word. I tried, once, but she only stared at me as if she hated me.”
“Your mother is a proud woman,” Oliver would repeat, over and over, trying to control his own wretchedness. “She’s very strong. She doesn’t want that strength touched; she’s afraid it will crumble. She’s just trying to warn you off, Barbie.” But he knew he lied. He knew all about Ursula. “Help her by being as matter-of-fact as possible, sweetheart.”
In the evening, Eugene and Julia would visit William. He would look only briefly at Eugene. But when he saw Julia the lividness would fade from his face, his eyes would brighten, and he would put his hands on her pretty shoulders when she bent to kiss him. Sometimes she would visit him during the day, too, but not often. She had many social engagements to fill, and her father’s love for her was becoming an uneasy and irksome thing. She had received from him all that he could give her; his hands were empty, now. The odd uneasiness she was feeling these days was nameless. It stayed with her even when she had left William, and she was less zestful with Eugene, even less tender. Often, when alone with Eugene, she was irritable, and would fall into a sullen silence.
Tom came two or three times a week with his pretty and vacuous little wife, who always looked on the bright side of things and was full of eager sentimentalities. She was not very intelligent; she always assured Ursula and Julia and Barbara and Tom and Oliver that “Father is really so much better every time we see him.”
She could not understand her witty Tom, who was usually so fond of her, and whose child she was carrying. He was very attentive to her, particularly in the presence of her adoring but sharp-eyed parents. But lately, and this hurt and puzzled her, he had fits of silence and sulkiness. He was an active man, yet even little Mary had a dim understanding that activity was something different from the restlessness which Tom was displaying.
Oliver, watching Tom and Julia closely at the Prescott house, had decided that these two ignoble plotters were finding their father’s illness tedious, and that they were impatient for his inevitable death. Lately, however, he had not been so sure, and this had disturbed him. It was certainly not in his plan that they should suffer real anxiety, or the faint beginnings of remorse and self-disgust. There was even an evening when Oliver saw Julia give her brother a somber and brooding glance, full of aversion. Tom had caught that glance: he had flushed, and his big coarse face had thickened. He had got up then, muttering something, and had left the room.
As for Barbara, in whom tenderness and concern for others had been nourished no more than they had been nourished in her sister and brothers, she had no means whereby to express her misery, even to Oliver. Once or twice she had wept, though she had proudly controlled her tears almost immediately. Her only link with tenderness was her husband and child, and even with them she was occasionally reserved. Knowing her father’s vulnerability to love, she is afraid for herself, Oliver would think, sadly.
Dr. Banks, though always richly cheerful with his patient, held out no hope to the latter’s family. The end might come at any moment. It could not be long postponed. Dr. Banks had called in an eminent heart specialist from Philadelphia. The verdict had been confirmed.
The days went on, and William steadily lost strength. During the last three days of July he remained in bed, looking at the painting on his wall, lying in emaciated exhaustion and motionless for hours. Nurses came in now. He no longer protested. There was in his eyes a dull withdrawal, a terrible sick patience. But still, he spoke very little to Ursula. He could speak only a few words even to his children. When they left, he immediately fell into a deep sleep. Ursula could hear his hard and painful breathing even in her room, where she lay all night, tense and unsleeping, dry-eyed and dry-lipped, listening to the wind in the trees, waiting for a call she knew was coming. During these hours she sometimes drowsed fitfully, awakening to the muffled sound of the nurse’s footsteps in the hall, and finding herself braced like steel against her pillows. Only when the footsteps retreated, and William’s door closed softly, did she relax. Then pain would run all through her body, and she would turn her face to her pillow, but not to weep. There were no tears in her. There was only an anguish beyond thought or expression, an anguish so vast that she seemed surrounded by it, breathed it into her lungs, expelled it only to feel it gain power within her. And, over and over, to herself she would say: No. No. Her eyes would follow the path of the moonlight along her wall, until it paled and the sunrise would stream red against it. And she would say to it, aloud now: “No. No.”
William lay sleeping, under the influence of the sedative which had been administered to him at midnight. He was dreaming. It was a very vivid dream, and he did not once suspect that it was only a dream. He was hurrying in a gray world, and he was full of pain, which had taken the form of a tortured thirst. The ground under his feet was broken and cracked, bleached like sand, but hard. Behind him, about him, and in the distance, the wilderness stretched away without a horizon. The sky was gray glass, without sun or moon. There was no sound; even his feet, stumbling upon gray stones, made no noise. The deathly plain that lay everywhere about him had been sucked dry of everything but silence. No hill, no house, no tree, no grass, could be seen anywhere. Only this pallid wilderness without end, without beginning.
There was something he must reach, he thought in his dream, something which would quench this thirst which was now a fiery agony. A well? A stream? A river? He did not know. But he had to find it, or he would die. He would surely die, he said aloud, but his voice had no sound, either.
And then, in the distance, he saw the fountain, a thin gray shaft, wavering in the shifting gloom. He knew it was a fountain. He hurried faster. He reached the fountain. But the shaft was broken; it stood in a heap of stones faintly glimmering like skulls. There was no water in it.
He stood there and looked at the empty fountain. There had never been any water there, he said to himself. It was all a lie. It was always a lie. He had come to the end. There was no going on, for there was no hope of water except in this fountain which, he now saw, had never contained water.
The nurse was shaking Ursula, who had fallen into a stupor of exhaustion. Becoming aware of the nurse’s anxious hands, she sat up immediately. “I’ve called Dr. Banks,” whispered the nurse quickly. “I think you ought to go to Mr. Prescott immediately, Mrs. Prescott. I’ll wake up one of the maids and send for your children.”
Ursula flung herself out of bed, caught up her crimson dressing-gown, and raced out of the room like a young gir
l. Her heart was beating suffocatingly. She could not think. Her knees bent under her; the few short steps to William’s room seemed a league.
It was quiet in the room except for William’s long and rasping breaths. He seemed to be still sleeping. Only a night-light burned on a distant table. Ursula bent over her husband. His face was the color of earth, and covered with a film of moisture. His mouth was open, as he struggled for air.
Ursula knelt down beside the bed. She put her head on William’s pillow; his labored breath blew against her gray hair and cheek. It was not warm, that breath, but cold. She put her hand over one of his, and it was like ice, and wet. Now she was in darkness, conscious only of that dying wind against her flesh, and of the dying hand she held.
Someone touched her head. A hand lay upon it, comfortingly. But, in her dreadful paralysis, she could not move. She had no strength to shake off the consolation of that hand, which had begun to smooth her hair tenderly. She could not even moan or cry out. Then she heard a hoarse and gentle voice: “Ursula.”
The hand lay heavily upon her head, and she knew it was William’s hand. But still for a long time she could not move, and not until the hand fell away. She lifted her head, and her wrecked face was illuminated by the faint light. William was smiling at her. Now she became aware that his harsh breathing had softened, was almost normal. His eyes, sunken far back in his head, were tender and grave.
“Dear Ursula,” he whispered. A shadow ran like a wave over his face.
“William,” she said. Then: “Oh, William. Don’t leave me, William.” The gravity increased in his eyes. His words came very low and haltingly: “The will. Don’t mind the will, Ursula. I—didn’t know.”
She caught up his hand and held it to her numb lips. “I love you, my darling,” she said. “Don’t leave me, William. I have no one but you.”
An expression of wonder brightened his eyes. He lifted his weighted hand and laid it against her cheek. “I have no one but you, Ursula,” he said. “I never had anyone, but you.”
She could not bear these terrible words. Her throat could hardly move, but she finally managed to whisper: “The children, my darling. They’re coming.”
He looked beyond her. She did not know that Eugene and Julia were already standing at the foot of the bed. But she saw William’s face had become stern and remote. She saw that he looked away.
“I’ve been cabling Matthew,” Ursula whispered, and her voice was a low grating. “I—I’ve had a cable. He ought to be here in a day or two. Perhaps tomorrow.”
William smiled at her, and again touched her cheek. “No,” he said. “There isn’t any water.”
She thought his mind was wandering. She looked about wildly for the nurse. The room was unnaturally dim about her. Two shadows approached her. She stammered: “Bring him water.”
William said: “I have asked Oliver to take care of you. Go to him and Barbie, my love. There isn’t anything for you here.”
He shut his eyes. Frantically, she pressed her mouth against his. His lips were cold and dry. But she could feel that he was trying to return her kiss. Then his eyes opened. “Poor Ursula,” he said. “Forgive me.”
She did not know that she cried aloud: “Don’t leave me! Wait for me, William.” Hands were lifting her. She tried to fight them off. She tried to cling to the hand she held. It was cold now, and limp. William’s eyes, open and staring, looked before him. But now they did not look at the painting on the wall. They did not look at the shadows beside his bed.
White sleeves and white hands were drawing a white sheet over William’s face. It was then that Ursula screamed once, and loudly: “No!”
She stood there, supported by someone’s arm. She heard Eugene’s voice: “Let’s take her back to her room, Julie. And you stay with her.”
A great cold silence and calm fell upon Ursula. She pushed away the arms about her. She heard a sharp sob, and then the sound of weeping. She turned around and saw Eugene and Julia. She looked at them. She stepped back from them. She continued to look at them. Eugene was very pale. Julia, her bright auburn hair hanging in disheveled beauty far below her waist, had buried her face in her hands. She was sobbing. Ursula listened to the sound, and the great cold silence in her strengthened.
She turned, and very steadily, her head held high, she went out of the room. She went to her own room and quietly lay down on her bed. She could feel nothing.
Oliver found her there. Barbara was with her sister. Oliver had begged her to let him see her mother alone. He sat down beside Ursula. He said, and his voice shook: “Poor Mother.”
He took her hand. He said: “He asked me to take care of you.”
“Yes,” said Ursula. Her lightless eyes turned upon him. A spasm ran over her face. She said, as William had said to her: “Forgive me.”
Then she saw that Barbara, very white, her face streaming with tears, was entering the room. Ursula watched her calmly. All at once something broke in her and shattered, in overwhelming pain. She held out her hand to her daughter; the motion took her last strength. Barbara bent over her, lifted her in her strong young arms. Her tears wet Ursula’s face; Ursula could taste the salt of them.
“Dear Barbie,” she whispered. “Oh, Barbie, my dear child.” Her head fell on Barbara’s shoulder, and she closed her eyes.
CHAPTER LX
The August wind, warm, fragrant and soft as silk, blew through the opened windows of the Prescott house. The massed trees, a hundred different shades of rich green, whitened and ruffled slightly in the wind, glittered as the sun struck them, clamored in a gentle chorus. The sky poured out its light, locusts shrilled loudly; from the road outside the gray walls of the grounds came the clatter of passing carriages, the very occasional roar of an automobile. It was a gay and joyous day.
But in the Prescott house grief moved heavily and silently. Ursula sat with her two daughters and her son in the dimmed library. Consoling guests had gone; the servants had been told to admit no others. Ursula had asked her children to remain with her, and they sat here, not speaking, only waiting. They looked at their mother, grim and white-haired and haggard, thin to emaciation.
Since William’s death, almost a month ago, she had not cried, and her eyes, sleepless and dull, were dry as paper. Her cracked lips had a mauve tint. Sorrow lay on her face, but it was a bitter sorrow, desolate and forbidding, and as cold as a wintry day.
Much of Julia’s auburn and rose-tinted beauty had dimmed during these past weeks, and her black frock only emphasized her pallor. She twisted her hands together upon her knees. Her face was sullen and tired. Thomas, too, was pale, his large coarse face sulky, his cunning eyes fixed upon his mother. Barbara sat near Ursula.
Ursula looked at them all, slowly and fixedly. She said, at last: “I asked you to be with me today, because I have a few things I want to tell you. We all know the terms of your father’s will. It was made several years ago. He spoke to me of it, just before he—died.” Her taut and wrinkled face moved slightly. “He left all he had to you, with the exception of this house, and a small annual income for me. He left me the house.”
She paused. Her voice was very quiet and without emotion. “That will, as I have said, was made several years ago. He had a lot of money, then. He died almost bankrupt. Because, during these past years, he poured all he had, all he could make at the cost of his health and his life and his peace of mind, into those trust funds for you. When he died, there was practically nothing left. Over the years, from the time we were married, he gave me a very large allowance. I saved much of it. So, with careful investment, I now have nearly two hundred thousand dollars.”
She waited for some comment. No one spoke. Julia, however, stared at her mother with intent interest and thoughtfulness.
Ursula began to sigh, but she dared not sigh; she dared not weep. There was in her too much agony, which she must keep imprisoned.
“The house,” she said, “is heavily mortgaged, of course. When your father made that will, he belie
ved that he would in time be able to lift the mortgages. He left the house to me, expressing the wish that his children should live here also. This house was his dream; it was the house he built for his children; he thought they loved it as he loved it. Your father,” added Ursula, in that terrible, quiet voice, “was a very tragic man. He loved you. He thought you loved him.”
Julia looked down at her hands; Tom thrust out his thick lips and squinted his eyes. Barbara dropped her head.
“I can’t afford to keep up this house,” said Ursula. “I am letting it go. None of you wants it, I am sure of that. I don’t want it. It was my home all these years. But I don’t want it. And I know that your father would want me to let it go. At the last, it meant nothing to him, for he knew that his whole life had been wasted, and that this house was a house of lies and cruelty and duplicity and ingratitude. That is what he died with: the knowledge of what this house really was, of what his children were. No one,” added Ursula, “ought to be punished like that, when he is dying.”
Thomas said in a queer voice: “I don’t ever want to see it again, either. I’ll never come here again.”
Ursula looked at him. Something ran over her face, a sort of dull surprise and wonder. She looked at him for a long time. Julia began to cry, softly. But Ursula did not turn to her.
“Tom,” said Ursula. “I know what you tried to do to your father. He knew, too, I am afraid, in spite of what Mr. Bassett and Judge Muehller told him two weeks before he died: That the Board of Directors had had a meeting and had decided that, in the event of your father’s death, they would make you president of the company. They told him that, because Oliver forced them to do it. You know all about it. Gene’s told you. It’s all out in the open, now. Oliver discovered all your treachery, all that you and Gene intended to do; actually, all that Gene intended to do to your father, and to you.”