Saints (63 page)

And then, her voice not a whisper but a tone so soft that he felt it more than heard it, felt it at the thousand separate points where her body touched him,

Then she laughed silently. He felt the movement, and asked why.

“What would Milton say, that old Puritan,” she answered, “if he could see the use we put his verses to!”

Charlie laughed, too, and was far happier all that night than he would ever have dared to think possible.

The addition to the house was framed and roofed, brooding over the old house, almost enclosing it.

“Looks like that big new house just had herself a little old baby,” Caleb the carpenter said to Sally.

“I just wonder if anyone will be able to tell the old house is still
there
, once the walls are done.” She had been watching him splitting clapboards, and now he stood with the heavy froe in his hands, dripping sweat like a rainstorm, panting a little. The finished clapboards had grown from a mere sheaf into a haystack in one afternoon.

“Oh, there’s a lot of the old house sticking out the back, Sister Kirkham.”

Sally laughed a little. “It looks silly. Like a wart.”

“I heard your husband mention he planned to face the old house in new clapboard, once the addition’s done.”

“Yes,” Sally said. “You’ll be working for us here for a while yet, won’t you?”

“Not me,” Caleb said. “I’ll be dead.”

“What!”

“I figure my life will probably end around six-thirty this very day. I’ve sweated more water this afternoon than I’ve drunk in my whole life. I’ve done more clapboards today than all the carpenters in Chicago do in a week.”

“Then take a rest, Brother Caleb!”

In answer he set the froe against the end of a board and began pounding with the mallet, pushing and twisting on the handle, so that the wood shrieked and slowly, delicately split at exactly clapboard thickness. “There’s sort of a law among house-builders, Sister Kirkham. Never rest while the owner’s watching.”

“Have I been watching long?”

“Only all day, Sister Kirkham. If you hadn’t gone inside for a few minutes half an hour ago, my bladder would’ve bust. Begging your pardon.”

“But I understand that resting is part of the job. You can rest when I’m here.”

“I’ve been doing this for thirty years, Sister Kirkham. It’d drive me crazy to set down with the owner watching. I just can’t do it.”

Sally smiled and patted his sopping wet shoulder. “I’ll stay away. Except for now and then.”

“Oh, we don’t mind you looking on now and then. After all, you can’t help but be interested in how it’s getting along—”

“I’m eager, Brother Caleb. I want this house finished tomorrow.”

“Well, in that case you want Brother Joseph, he’s the one who does the miracles here.”

Sally meant to leave immediately, as soon as Caleb finished this board. But with a cracking sound the wood took a sudden eccentric split, ruining the last two feet. Caleb started to say something, then caught himself. “Dammit, Sister Kirkham, I can’t even cuss proper with you looking on!”

She went inside quickly then, closed the door behind her, and sat and looked at the table. Must get dinner ready right away. Must do a washing. We’re nearly out of butter and I haven’t gone to Sister Calliver’s to pick up our eggs. Sally knew all the work she hadn’t done, and yet all she could think of was the addition to the house. All she wanted was for it to be finished, so that Charlie would no longer have to take unnecessary selling trips just to be able to spend a night at the little cabin on Temple Hill on the way out and on the way back. So that Charlie’s life would not take place where she could not be a part of it. So that she could have her sister back again. Sally sat on the chair and let herself imagine the way it would be—Harriette there all day while Charlie worked, so that it could be the way it was before that Day, the two sisters talking always, doing everything together, having no secrets from each other.

There was a knock at the door. Sally looked at the mantle clock. She had been sitting there for half an hour. Doing nothing. What am I becoming? she asked herself as she went to the door. What kind of wife spends a whole day in which she does no work at all?

It was Harriette at the door. “The house is so beautiful already,” Harriette said. “I was at Sister Calliver’s, and she said you hadn’t been by yet for the eggs. Where should I put them?”

Sally blushed. “I was going to get them.”

“Here?” Harriette was setting the basket on the table in the kitchen. Sally followed her in.

“Yes, of course.”

“I thought you wouldn’t mind if I got them for you. The building must be disrupting everything. Well, if you’re fine, I’ll just go see Dinah. She wanted me to come by this afternoon to talk about a—”

“Go ahead and go, you don’t have to tell me your errand, I don’t care.” The words surprised Sally even as she said them. But she couldn’t think of anything to say in apology.

It was as if Harriette had just been waiting for Sally to say some such thing, for almost without a pause her tone changed completely. She didn’t even bother to finish her sentence. “So you don’t care? Well, I care. I used to think my sister and I were better friends than any other women I knew, but I was
wrong
, and it may not bother you, but it bothers
me
.”

“Don’t talk as if it were
my
fault. You’re always in and out of here in such a hurry you haven’t said ten words to me in a row since—”

“Since! Yes,
since
! Why do you feel like you need to
punish
me—”

“Punish
you
! I’ve been walking around like a dead woman, no one to talk to for three weeks, the poor workmen actually had to yell at me to get me inside this house, and
you
have an errand, you have to visit Dinah,
you
never even sit down here and
talk
to me!”

Harriette walked to a chair, sat down hard, and said, “Here I am.”

“Not like that!”

Harriette turned sideways in the chair. “Now?”

And in spite of herself Sally had to laugh. “I think we’re fighting.”

“It makes me feel like a little girl again,” said Harriette. “It’s been years.”

“Why don’t you talk to me anymore?”

“Why haven’t you even invited me to dinner?”

“You know you’re always welcome.”

“And how would I know that?”

“Because I’m telling you, now. Oh, Harriette, I’ve missed you.”

Harriette seemed surprised. “Have you?”

“That’s the worst thing. Dinah told me wives were supposed to become sisters—but we’ve become strangers, Harriette. I was afraid of losing my husband. I never thought I’d lose
you
.”

Harriette looked off toward the corner of the room.

“Harriette, aren’t you listening to me?”

Harriette nodded. “Oh, yes. I’ve thought the same things myself. But I also thought—maybe it would be better that way. Not to talk at all. Not to see each other.”

“Why! It’s been so lonely these last weeks!”

“When we used to talk, Sally, you spoke freely about Charlie. Can you speak as freely about your quarrels or your hopes or even your love for him when you’re telling it to his wife?”

“I don’t know.”

“Almost everyone who’s living the Principle is keeping separate houses for the wives, Sally. I’m so afraid our plan is a mistake.”

“I don’t know if we can talk about everything, Harriette, but surely we can talk about
some
things.”

“I’m not talking about talking.” Harriette lifted her chin in the proud way she did whenever she was feeling frightened. Almost no one but Sally knew that it was a sign of fear. “I’m talking about living here together. Taking our meals together. I don’t know if I can live in the same house with you.”

“Do you think I’ll be so terrible?”

“You’ll be an angel, that’s not what worries me.”

“I’m not even as jealous as I thought I’d be, Harriette. I lie awake sometimes, but not because the two of you—just because I need him in the house with me. If I knew he was in the house, even if he were with you—”

“Sally, I remember when we were very small. You were three and I was six. We were in the street—Mother was taking us to market with her—and three other women stopped and looked at you, and chucked you under the chin and all the other things that ladies do to babies—”

“I used to hate it—”

“And they said, ‘Oh, she’s so beautiful.’ And you said, ‘Yes, I’m the most beautifullest girl in the world.”

“Did I really say that?”

“You were only three. That’s what Mother said, ‘She’s only three, and she hears that all the time.’ Only I stood there, I remember standing there and thinking—I’ve never heard that in all my life. No one has ever said, Oh, Harriette, you’re so beautiful.”

Sally was perplexed. All these years, and Harriette had never shown the slightest sign of jealousy. The difference in their looks had never been a barrier between them. “Why should that hurt you now, Harriette?”

“Oh no, you misunderstand me. I’ve never hated you for that, I’ve always been glad for you. No one’s taken more pleasure from your beauty than I have, Sally. I don’t even envy you now, because I think that Charlie loves me anyway. I really think he does.”

“He won’t stop loving you if you live here with us, Harriette. If he were going to compare us, he already would.”

“What do I care if
he
compares. Don’t you see, Sally? There in my little cabin, in Dinah’s little cabin, there in the light of the fire, when we talk about the most difficult doctrines and say poetry to each other and—love each other, Sally—I can pretend, just for a few hours, that
I
am the most beautifullest girl in the whole world. I have to laugh at myself even talking about it. But I can tell you anything, can’t I, and you never think I’m a fool for it, do you? When I live with you, Sally, and have that silly little dream broken every day, I won’t be miserable, I won’t suffer, I won’t mope around the house and grieve. I know it’s foolish even now. I just don’t want to lose it, that’s all. I have to move in with you soon enough. I just want to keep my foolishness a little longer. Those old women just annoyed you with their cooing and petting. You don’t know how precious a thing it is.”

Harriette was not a weeper, but Sally knew when she needed comforting, and so they sat on chairs beside each other, held each other’s hands and talked and talked, and then prepared dinner together, all without deciding that they would. And when Charlie came home there were three places set at the table, and two wives to serve him.

At first Sally almost laughed at Charlie, he was so embarrassed. He hardly said anything at all, just let the sisters talk. It was the way it had always been between them, with one exception. Sally had never seen Harriette so bright and happy in front of anyone but Sally and their mother before. And as the meal went on, Sally began to feel uncomfortable herself. As Charlie joined in the conversation it became almost irritating, for he and Harriette were so natural with each other. They had never
been
that way before. He even had a pet name for her—he called her Sabrina, and she called him My Gentle Swain, and then they stifled their laughter and acted embarrassed, as if it were a secret they had to keep. Gradually Sally began to understand that it could not be the same old Harriette and the same old Charlie, all living with her in the same house. Charlie and Harriette had changed each other. Only three weeks and they were new people, and Sally, who hadn’t changed, Sally was the stranger in her own house.

“What’s wrong?” Charlie asked.

“Nothing.” Sally realized that they had finished eating, and her plate was still almost full. “Oh. I think I’m not very hungry, that’s all.”

“You aren’t very talkative, either.”

Don’t you dare to criticize me. “Nothing to say, I suppose.”

“The house is going up remarkably fast. Old Brother Caleb tells me I should hire you out to buildings that are going up behind schedule—you’ll have them right on time within a day or two.”

He meant it in good humor, Sally knew that, but it still annoyed her. “I’m terribly sorry if I’ve been bothering the workmen. From now on I’ll only use the back door, so they won’t have to see me at all.”

“I didn’t mean to give offense, Sally.”

Harriette spoke. “Never mind, Charlie.” She smiled gently at Sally. “I knew it would be this way. I tried to tell you, Sally. I’ve changed, and it’s not what you wanted it to be. I’m glad we had dinner tonight, because now you’ll know that you don’t really want me over here after all—”

Yes, Sally thought, that’s right, it was a mistake, just my own foolishness in not understanding at all the way it would be. Go back to your cabin, and I’ll go back to moping around the house like a martyr, like a Christian in the lions’ den, waiting for the lions and getting so damned impatient when they never come.

“No,” Charlie said.

“Charlie, Harriette’s right—”

“And I said no. It’s better
this
way.”

“But it isn’t, Charlie! Harriette will come visit me when you’re gone, that’ll be all right, won’t it, Harriette?”

“Excellent idea!” Charlie said, with far too much enthusiasm. “And I’ll wear a bell so that you can hear me coming and never be together when I’m here. If I ever forget my bell, I can call out, ‘Unclean, unclean,’ so that one of you can jump out the window and run away, in fear that you might actually have to see that I love you both. We wouldn’t want
that
, would we, because we know that no man can really love two women at the same time. It isn’t natural. Of course,
you
both love dozens, hundreds of people. You can both love each other, and me, and Dinah, and your families, but God help us all if I should dare to love two people in the same room at the same time.”