Now she was entering the kitchen. The kitchen wouldn’t be changed, for that would make the other room a bigger surprise. She would stand in front of the door, and he would reach around her and throw it open. There was the room, rather dark, but full of dark light, really. The fire flowed up like a broad stream, and the lamps reflected on the floor. You could make out the glazed chintz hangings and the fat tiger of the overmantel hooked rug. The pewter glowed with a restrained richness. It was all so warm and snug. Pat’s chest contracted with delight.
Anyway, she was standing in the door and—what would she say? Well, if she felt the way he did, maybe she wouldn’t say anything. She might feel almost like crying. That was peculiar, the good full feeling as though you were about to cry. Maybe she’d stand there for a minute or two, just looking. Then Pat would say—“Won’t you come in and sit for a while?” And of course that would break the spell. She would begin talking about the room in funny choked sentences. But Pat would be off-hand about it all. “Yes, I always kind of liked it.” He said this out loud as he worked. “Yes, I always thought it was kind of nice. It came to me the other day that you might like to see it.”
The play ended this way: Mae sat in the wingback chair in front of the fire. Her plump pretty hands lay in her lap. As she sat there, a far away look came into her eyes … And Pat never went any farther than that, for at that point a self-consciousness overcame him. If he went farther, it would be like peeking in a window at two people who wanted to be alone. The electric moment, the palpitating moment of the whole thing was when he threw open the door; when she stood on the threshold, stunned by the beauty of the room.
At the end of three months the room was finished. Pat put the magazine picture in his wallet and went to San Francisco. In the office of a furniture company, he spread his picture on the desk. “I want furniture like that,” he said.
“You don’t mean originals, of course.”
“What do you mean, originals?”
“Why, old pieces. You couldn’t get them for under thirty thousand dollars.”
Pat’s face fell. His room seemed to collapse. “Oh—I didn’t know.”
“We can get you good copies of everything here,” the manager assured him.
“Why, of course. That’s good. That’s fine. How much would the copies cost?”
A purchasing agent was called in. The three of them went over the articles in the picture and the manager made a list; pie-crust table, drop-leaf gate-leg table, chairs: one windsor, one rush seat ladderback, one wingback, one fireplace bench; rag rugs, glazed chintz hangings, lamps with frosted globes and crystal pendants; one open-faced cupboard, pictorial bone-china, pewter candlesticks and sconces.
“Well, it will be around three thousand dollars, Mr. Humbert.”
Pat frowned with thought. After all why should he save money? “How soon can you send it down?” he demanded. While he waited for a notice that the furniture had arrived in Salinas, Pat rubbed the floor until it shone like a dull lake. He walked backward out of the room erasing his faint foot marks with a polisher. And then, at last the crates arrived at the freight depot. It took four trips to Salinas in his truck to get them, trips made secretly in the night. There was an air of intrigue about the business.
Pat uncrated the pieces in the barn. He carried in chairs and tables, and, with a great many looks at the picture, arranged them in their exact places. That night the fire flowed up, and the frosted lamps reflected on the floor. The fat tiger on the hooked rug over the fireplace seemed to quiver in the dancing flame-light.
Pat went into the kitchen and closed the door. Then, very slowly he opened it again and stood looking in. The room glowed with warmth, with welcoming warmth. The pewter was even richer than he had thought it would be. The plates in the open-faced cupboard caught sparks on their rims. For a moment Pat stood in the doorway trying to get the right tone in his voice. “I always kind of liked it,” he said in his most offhand manner. “It just came to me the other day that you might like to see it?’ He paused, for a horrible thought had come to him. “Why, she can’t come here alone. A girl can’t come to a single man’s house at night. People would talk about her, and besides, she wouldn’t do it.” He was bitterly disappointed. “Her mother will have to come with her. But—maybe her mother won’t get in the way. She can stand back here, kind of, out of the way.”
Now that he was ready, a powerful reluctance stopped him. Evening after evening passed while he put off asking her to come. He went through his play until he knew exactly where she would stand, how she would look, what she would say. He had alternative things she might say. A week went by, and still he put off the visit that would bring her to see his room.
One afternoon he built up his courage with layers of will. “I can’t put it off forever. I better go tonight.” After dinner, he put on his best suit and set out to walk to the Munroe house. It was only a quarter of a mile away. He wouldn’t ask her for tonight. He wanted to have the fire burning and the lamps lighted when she arrived. The night was cold and very dark. Pat stumbled in the dust of the road, he thought with dismay how his polished shoes would look.
There were a great many lights in the Munroe house. In front of the gate, a number of cars were parked. “It’s a party,” Pat said to himself, “I’ll ask her some other night. I couldn’t do it in front of a lot of people.” For a moment he even considered turning back. “It would look funny though, if I asked her the first time I saw her in months. She might suspect something.”
When he entered the house, Bert Munroe grasped him by the hand. “It’s Pat Humbert,” he shouted. “Where have you been keeping yourself, Pat?”
“I’ve been studying at night.”
“Well, it’s lucky you came over, I was going to go over to see you tomorrow. You heard the news, of course!”
“What news?”
“Why, Mae and Bill Whiteside are going to get married next Saturday. I was going to ask you to help at the wedding. It’ll just be a home affair with refreshments afterwards. You used to help at the schoolhouse all the time before you got this studying streak.” He took Pat’s arm and tried to lead him down the hail. The sound of a number of voices came from the room at the end of the hall.
Pat resisted firmly. He exerted all his training in the offhand manner. “That’s fine, Mr. Munroe. Next Saturday, you say? I’d be glad to help. No, I can’t stay now. I got to run to the store right away.” He shook hands again and walked slowly out the door.
In his misery he wanted to hide for a while, to burrow into some dark place where no one could see him. His way was automatically homeward. The rambling house was dark and unutterably dreary when he arrived. Pat went into the barn and with deliberate steps climbed the short ladder and lay down in the hay. His mind was shrunken and dry with disappointment. Above all things he did not want to go into the house. He was afraid he might lock up the door again. And then, in all the years to come, two puzzled spirits would live in the beautiful room, and in his kitchen, Pat would understand how they gazed wistfully into the ghost of a fire.
Eleven
WHEN Richard Whiteside came to the far West in ‘50, he inspected the gold workings and gave them up as objects for his effort. “The earth gives only one crop of gold,” he said. “When that crop is divided among a thousand tenants, it feeds no one for very long. That is bad husbandry.”
Richard drove about over the fields and hills of California; in his mind there was the definite intention of founding a house for children not yet born and for their children. Few people in California in that day felt a responsibility toward their descendants.
On the evening of a fine clear day, he drove his two bay horses to the top of the little hills which surround the Pastures of Heaven. He pulled up his team and gazed down on the green valley. And Richard knew that he had found his home. In his wandering about the country he had come upon many beautiful places, but none of them had given him this feeling of consummation. He remembered the colonists from Athens and from Lacedaemon looking for new lands described by vague oracles; he thought of the Aztecs plodding forward after their guiding eagle. Richard said to himself, “Now if there could be a sign, it would be perfect. I know this is the place, but if only there could be an omen to remember and to tell the children.” He looked into the sky, but it was clean of both birds and clouds. Then the breeze that blows over the hills in the evening sprang up. The oaks made furtive little gestures toward the valley, and on the hillside a tiny whirlwind picked up a few leaves and flung them forward. Richard chuckled. “Answer! Many a fine city was founded because of a hint from the gods no more broad than that.”