Harvest Home

“Capital! The battle of Jericho and all.” Pause; then: “Sophie’s pear tree’s all a-bloom.”

“I saw.”

“Just like in the portrait. Pity it never got finished. Good painter, he was.”

“Yes.”

When the Widow’s buggy had gone, Beth came back in the kitchen and busied herself with the remaining details of the lunch. The wicker of the Hammacher Schlemmer hamper creaked as she packed it. The refrigerator door opened and closed several times, and her brisk footsteps took her from one area in the room to another while she went about her work. In another moment the sink tap was turned on.

“‘My dear Copperfield,’ cried Traddles, punctually appearing at my door, in spite of all these obstacles, ‘how do you do?’

“‘My dear Traddles,’ said I, ‘I am delighted to see you at last, and very sorry I have not been at home before. But I have been so much engaged…’”

The gush of water from the tap stopped; then there was a quick zip as Beth tore a paper towel from the roll. She dried her hands, humming lightly, then opened the door under the sink and raised the lid of the trash container.

“‘Dear me!’ said Traddles, considering about it, ‘do I strike you in that way, Copperfield? Really I didn’t know that I had…’”

She lifted the hamper and set it on the chair by the kitchen door. “I’m forgetting my quilting,” she told herself in a surprised tone. She came walking briskly from the kitchen, softening her step as she came into the bacchante room.

“‘Now you mention it, Copperfield, I shouldn’t wonder at all. I assure you she is always forgetting herself, and taking care of the other nine.’

“‘Is she the eldest”?’ I inquired.

“‘Oh dear, no,’ said Traddles. ‘The eldest is a Beauty!’”

The passage ceased abruptly. “I’m going, dear.” She lifted the pickup arm and set it aside and switched off the talking-book machine as she went on speaking. “It’s such beautiful weather. Nothing like a New England spring. Kate’s gone on ahead with Jimmy Minerva. I wish you’d change your mind and come with us. Ned?”

I could hear her leaning to take up her work basket from the end of the hunter-green sofa.

“The sun would do you good-being cooped up in here all winter. No? Well, you know best what you want to do- I won’t urge.”

I knew what was coming next.

“Oh, Ned,” she said in the nurse’s tone she had made her own, “you didn’t eat your lunch again. Won’t you try a little? It’s calf’s liver-your favorite.”

I could hear her lifting the fork, the tines striking the plate as she speared a piece of the carefully cut liver. I raised my hand to forestall her. Though I find it difficult learning to feed myself, I do not care to have her do it for me.

“All right, darling,” she said in her bright, indulgent way. “There’s crackers in the cupboard and cheese in the refrigerator, if you get hungry. And tonight we’ll have dinner at the Yankee Clipper, if you’d like that. Ned?”

I made no reply for I could not. It was as Robert had suggested: some tragedies were unspeakable. I would never speak again. I heard her murmur, and knew she was making an inventory of the things on my table. I recognized the familiar sound of the rubber-stoppered bottle as she moved it closer. “Don’t forget to put in your drops,” she said. “They’re right here”-taking my hand to feel where the bottle was-”and the cotton’s just beside them. I have my sewing, and Jimmy’s present, and the picnic,” she said, and I knew she was standing in the middle of the room, checking for anything she might have forgotten to do for me. She bent to kiss me, her cheek grazing the frames of my dark glasses, which she took pains to straighten again. “Bye, darling,” she said, pressing my clenched hand, then starting out. Her footsteps halted briefly and I heard the rustle of leaves; I knew she was making a last-minute rearrangement of the flowers she had brought in. Lilacs for Heart’s Desire… Then she laughed softly, the light, rueful laugh that was a copy of Maggie Dodd’s. “I’m forgetting your talking-book,” she said, switching on the phonograph and resetting the needle on the record.

“‘Very pretty!’ said I.”

When she had gone, I sat in my club chair, finding it extraordinary that she could unfailingly locate the precise place where the narrative had been interrupted. But then, she had always been extraordinary.

Somewhere in the distance a child called, another answered; a dog barked; and still the warm May breeze slipped over the sill, rustling the chintz curtains and softly stirring the leaves of: the lilacs on the sideboard. Their heavy odor hung in the room. For no apparent reason, I was thinking of Joshua: it would be a boy, as Missy had predicted; I was sure it would have Justin Hooke’s blond hair and blue eyes. Outside, in the bitter spring, the yellow bird sang as it built its new nest. I folded my hands in my lap. The clock ticked. The Invisible Voice continued.

The End