One of Ours - Willa Cather (great book club books .TXT) 📗

Gladys spoke in her usual low, round voice, but her quick breathing showed he had touched something that hurt. “I suppose I have used him. It gives a schoolteacher a certain prestige if people think she can marry the rich bachelor of the town whenever she wants to. But I am afraid I won’t marry him⁠—because you are the member of the family I have always admired.”

Claude turned away to the window. “A fine lot I’ve been to admire,” he muttered.

“Well, it’s true, anyway. It was like that when we went to high school, and it’s kept up. Everything you do always seems exciting to me.”

Claude felt a cold perspiration on his forehead. He wished now that he had never come. “But that’s it, Gladys. What have I ever done, except make one blunder after another?”

She came over to the window and stood beside him. “I don’t know; perhaps it’s by their blunders that one gets to know people⁠—by what they can’t do. If you’d been like all the rest, you could have got on in their way. That was the one thing I couldn’t have stood.”

Claude was frowning out into the flaming garden. He had not heard a word of her reply. “Why didn’t you keep me from making a fool of myself?” he asked in a low voice.

“I think I tried⁠—once. Anyhow, it’s all turning out better than I thought. You didn’t get stuck here. You’ve found your place. You’re sailing away. You’ve just begun.”

“And what about you?”

She laughed softly. “Oh, I shall teach in the High School!”

Claude took her hands and they stood looking searchingly at each other in the swimming golden light that made everything transparent. He never knew exactly how he found his hat and made his way out of the house. He was only sure that Gladys did not accompany him to the door. He glanced back once, and saw her head against the bright window.

She stood there, exactly where he left her, and watched the evening come on, not moving, scarcely breathing. She was thinking how often, when she came downstairs, she would see him standing here by the window, or moving about in the dusky room, looking at last as he ought to look⁠—like his convictions and the choice he had made. She would never let this house be sold for taxes now. She would save her salary and pay them off. She could never like any other room so well as this. It had always been a refuge from Frankfort; and now there would be this vivid, confident figure, an image as distinct to her as the portrait of her grandfather upon the wall.

XIII

Sunday was Claude’s last day at home, and he took a long walk with Ernest and Ralph. Ernest would have preferred to lose Ralph, but when the boy was out of the harvest field he stuck to his brother like a burr. There was something about Claude’s new clothes and new manner that fascinated him, and he went through one of those sudden changes of feeling that often occur in families. Although they had been better friends ever since Claude’s wedding, until now Ralph had always felt a little ashamed of him. Why, he used to ask himself, wouldn’t Claude “spruce up and be somebody”? Now, he was struck by the fact that he was somebody.

On Monday morning Mrs. Wheeler wakened early, with a faintness in her chest. This was the day on which she must acquit herself well. Breakfast would be Claude’s last meal at home. At eleven o’clock his father and Ralph would take him to Frankfort to catch the train. She was longer than usual in dressing. When she got downstairs Claude and Mahailey were already talking. He was shaving in the washroom, and Mahailey stood watching him, a side of bacon in her hand.

“You tell ’em over there I’m awful sorry about them old women, with their dishes an’ their stove all broke up.”

“All right. I will.” Claude scraped away at his chin.

She lingered. “Maybe you can help ’em mend their things, like you do mine fur me,” she suggested hopefully.

“Maybe,” he murmured absently. Mrs. Wheeler opened the stair door, and Mahailey dodged back to the stove.

After breakfast Dan went out to the fields with the harvesters. Ralph and Claude and Mr. Wheeler were busy with the car all morning.

Mrs. Wheeler kept throwing her apron over her head and going down the hill to see what they were doing. Whether there was really something the matter with the engine, or whether the men merely made it a pretext for being together and keeping away from the house, she did not know. She felt that her presence was not much desired, and at last she went upstairs and resignedly watched them from the sitting-room window. Presently she heard Ralph run up to the third storey. When he came down with Claude’s bags in his hands, he stuck his head in at the door and shouted cheerfully to his mother:

“No hurry. I’m just taking them down so they’ll be ready.”

Mrs. Wheeler ran after him, calling faintly, “Wait, Ralph! Are you sure he’s got everything in? I didn’t hear him packing.”

“Everything ready. He says he won’t have to go upstairs again. He’ll be along pretty soon. There’s lots of time.” Ralph shot down through the basement.

Mrs. Wheeler sat down in her reading chair. They wanted to keep her away, and it was a little selfish of them. Why couldn’t they spend these last hours quietly in the house, instead of dashing in and out to frighten her? Now she could hear the hot water running in the kitchen; probably Mr. Wheeler had come in to wash his hands. She felt really too weak to get up and go to the west window to see if he were still down at the garage. Waiting was now a matter of seconds, and her breath came short enough as it was.

She recognized a heavy, hobnailed boot on the stairs, mounting quickly. When Claude