He was a widower. Mr. Gibson had never known his wife, alive. Her picture was in this house many times. It was a little sad to -see how young the pictures were. She did not look as if her daughter could be this tall Jean, fifteen, and in high school. A pleasant child, with a cropped and tousled dark head, fine white teeth in a ready smile, excellent company manners. Then there was
Paul's mother-in-law, Mrs. Pyne, a cripple, poor soul, who inhabited a wheel chair.
Supper was not formal but nicely served and stiffly, politely eaten. Mr. Gibson watched Rosemary. Was she nervous about these people? Was it a strain? Was she strong enough?
The old lady asked kind commonplace questions, and told kind commonplace statistics about herself and the family. She had a thin, rather delicately boned face, and the tact not to mention her own disabilities. The young girl kept her place among her elders, served the meal, cleared the table afterward, and then excused herself to do her homework. Paul was a considerate host, full of good will and social anxiety.
But there are just so many commonplaces. Mr. Gibson set to work to dissolve the stiffness of this first meeting of Rosemary and her nearest neighbors. He was bound Rosemary was going to find it easy and pleasant to move into a world of friendly give and take. In fact, he talked a good deal for a while. At last, by prying and prodding for mutual interests, he discovered how to egg Paul on to talk about his garden. Rosemary began to listen and contribute. Mr. Gibson was eager to learn. Once Paul asked a silly punning question . . . whether Mr. Gibson had a sense of humus. Mr. Gibson was inspired to reply, 'Not mulch.' And Rosemary giggled. The old lady smiled indulgently and kept listening pleasantly as the session grew quite animated.
At ten o'clock they took their leave, for Mr. Gibson did not want Rosemary tired out. After the good nights and the kind parting phrases, they crossed the roofless porch at the front of Paul's house. They came down the five steps and crossed the double driveways in the soft chill air of night time. They went in at their own back door, skirting the shining new garbage cans, symbolic of a functioning house. They crossed the pale dim orderly kitchen and entered the living room, where a lamp had been left burning. The sense of home flowed into Mr. Gibson's heart.
'Wasn't that fun?' said he. 'I thought you were having a good time.'
Rosemary stood there, in the blue dress, slowly shrugging off the dark sweater from around her shoulders. She looked brooding and intense. 'I have never known,' she
said vibrantly, 'it was possible to have so good a time. I never, never, knew . . .'
It rather shocked him. He could think of nothing to reply. She tossed the sweater into her chair and sat down and looked up at him and smiled. 'Read to me, Kenneth, please,' she said coaxingly, 'for just ten minutes? Until I simmer down?'
'If you drink your milk and eat your cookies.'
'Yes, I will. Bring four.'
So he fetched the nourishment. He opened a book. He read to her.
Afterward, she licked a cookie crumb from her forefinger. She thanked him with a drowsy smile. . . .
Kenneth Gibson went into his room, which had by now acquired the look of all the places he had ever lived for long, the mellow order, the masculine coziness. He went to bed a little bewildered. He was beginning not to understand her.
Chapter V
ON THE 19th of May, Rosemary got up before him to make his breakfast. She had on a new cotton frock, for 'around the house,' she said. It was pink and a particularly springlike pink, somehow. She chattered away. She would like to try feeding the border with a new kind of fertilizer. Paul Townsend said it did wonders. Did he think $3.95 was too much to spend on it? And would he like roast lamb for dinner? Did he prefer mint sauce or a sweet mint jelly with his lamb? Wasn't the early sun on the little stone wall a lovely sight! Pale gold on the gray. Why was sunlight, in the morning, so crisp—and then, by noon, more like cloudy honey?
'Shadows?' he speculated. 'Some day you should try to paint what you see, Rosemary.'
She wasn't good enough, she said, although to try.,, At least, she announced, tossing her head, Mrs. Violette must wash and starch the kitchen curtains. They'd be nicer crisp to match the mornings. Didn't he think so?
Mr. Gibson sat there at the table, watching her and
Kstening, and his eyes suddenly cleared. Scales fell. He saw Rosemary, not as she had been, or as he had been thinking of her, but as she was, this morning.
The crisp frock showed a figure that, while slim, certainly could not be called skinny any more. Neither was it bent and hollow with the posture of weakness. On the contrary, she sat quite upright and above her snug waist swelled a charming bosom, and the shoulder bones were covered with sweet flesh. Then her hair! Why, her hair was thick and shining and full of chestnut lights! Where had it come from? Whence this face? This face was not pasty white nor did the flesh droop in sad rumples. It was almost firm, and sun-gilded to a rosy-gold, and the lines in her forehead were a maturity (more interesting than the bare bold brow of youth could be). Her blue eyes were snapping with the range of her thoughts among her projects for this day. The odd little fold in the flesh at the comers was so characteristic, so significant of her fine good humor. Her whole face was so animated and ... he didn't know what to call it but . . . Rosemaryish. And that low bubbly chuckle of hers was constantly in her throat.
His breast swelled. Why, she is well! he thought.
Mr. Gibson hid this for a secret temporarily while he smiled and patted all her plans on the back encouragingly .. . and said goodbye.
But he rode the bus with a joyful booming in his heart. She is well again! Rosemary is alive and well! He had as good as raised her from the dead.
All day long, the miracle rang in his heart. He would come back to it, back to it, and, every time, it boomed and rang like bells.
When he came home, to admire the lamb and watch her dainty hunger, and hear how the day had gone and was already only a foundation for tomorrow, he said firmly, 'Tomorrow night, Rosemary, we are going to celebrate.'
