They began to talk more as his health improved. They discussed the trips of the
Pierce
and his work on the commission. Would the war be the making of Joanna? Might she even yet marry? She told him that Jules Bleeker was writing a pro-Confederate column for a London newspaper and that he and Annie had split up.
"Yes, I heard. Charley told me. She'll never stay with any man."
"She's as giddy in love as Father is with his parties!"
"Ah, but your father works for the cause." After a pause, he continued in a different tone. "Rosalie?"
"Yes, dear?"
"May I ask you something serious? Do you think you and I could ever go back?"
"To where?"
"To the way we were when we were first married."
She gave the sheet she was folding a sharp pat. "Should you really want to? Were we so fine then?"
"Of course, I know you never really approved of me. Not from the very beginning. You thought I was worldly and snobbish."
"You were certainly worldly. I'm not so sure you were snobbish. And I think I might not have minded your worldlinessâafter all, my background was not exactly asceticâif I had thought it was sincere. Like Papa's. But there was always something ... well, artificial about it."
"You mean I put it on?"
"In a way. As if you were under some kind of a dark duty to be worldly."
"But that sounds crazy!"
"Maybe you were a bit crazy. I was even sometimes half-afraid you might convert me! Because there was something fanatical about you. Everything had to be so black or white."
"Well, you won't have to worry about my blacks and whites anymore," he said ruefully. "They have all blurred."
"No doubt you'll repaint them again neatly enough when you recover."
"Oh, Rosalie! You're laughing at me again."
"Not really. I'm laughing at both of us. My blacks and whites were as bad as yours. Worse! Oh,
I
was such a prig, Dexter! So sure of my sincerity, my honesty, my deep,
deep
heart! But I've learned on this vessel that nobody needs my silly heart. I'm just as useful as I am competent, not a whit more. And that made me do some thinking about hearts. What right did I have to think I had any more than you? Any more than Annie?"
"Oh, you have more than Annie."
"Annie started life with a heart. Only perhaps it got smothered somewhere along the line. Yours, my dear, is fine. You mustn't worry about it."
"I'd like to think we
could
go back."
She rose. "I think that's enough for now. We must remember you're still a convalescent. I'll put this quilt over the porthole. You should rest, my dear."
When she had done this, she leaned down in the semidarkness to kiss him on the forehead. It was more than the kiss of a devoted nurse, if perhaps less than that of a devoted wife. But he felt that it might doâand certainly that he would try with everything he had to make it do. When the door was closed behind her, he smiled to himself at the idea that his old ego was coming back with his health. He was going to insist that she love him at least as much as she had loved the war!
R
OSALIE
was discouraged about Dexter's convalescence. He remained for five days on the
Pierce
and then spent a week in bed at Union Square. The pneumonia seemed to take care of itself, but his spirits continued low. When he got up he would amble slowly about the second story, standing for minutes on end staring down into the street. His doctor told him that pneumonia was a well-known depressant, but even so, his languor and apathy gave her concern.
Dexter himself insisted that he was perfectly all right and that she could now return to her vessel, but she suspected that he dreaded her going. She discussed this with Charley Fairchild one afternoon in the front hall, as he was leaving, after visiting Dexter upstairs.
"You're really going back?" he asked in dismay.
"Well, not till Dexter's well enough, of course. But in time I think I must. Don't you?"
"I'll be perfectly frank with you, Rosalie. I don't think Dexter can manage without you. He doesn't seem to be able to organize himself. He's been working much too hard. None of the other commissioners put in the hours he does. They all have their own businesses to carry on. But Dexter doesn't even come to our office anymore."
"I thought you didn't need him," Rosalie responded in surprise. "I thought you were handling everything so beautifully! And let me say at once, Charley, that I consider that the men who are keeping the businesses running for their partners in war work, are contributing just as much to the cause!
They
will be the unsung heroes of the war."
"That's all very well." Charley showed little enthusiasm for her endorsement. "And I know Dexter likes to think I'm carrying his load. But the truth is, I'm not. He's a far better lawyer than I. The clients will stick along with me for a while, but if it's a long war, we're going to lose a lot of them. Dexter owes it to himself and his family not to let the practice he took so many years to build up go to ruin."
"But what can
I
do about that?"
"If you're home, you can make him go to the office at least two or three days a week. That should do the trick. I've tried, and he won't listen to me. But he can't disregard you, when you're pleading for yourself and the boys!"
Rosalie felt the coils of his argument closing uncomfortably around her. "But how can I use a selfish argument in times like these? Besides, would it be fair? I can't pretend that the boys and I depend altogether on his law practice. Dexter knows I have substantial expectations."
Charley frowned, as if to shield her from embarrassment. "That may be more questionable than you think. As a member of the firm that represents your father I should not make any disclosure of his affairs, but I think, under the circumstances, I may be justified in telling you that he has made some unfortunate investments in the past three years and that he is living well beyond his income."
"But that's terrible! You mean he might die and leave Joanna strapped?"
"It's nice of you to think only of Joanna."
"Well, she's the one who'd be worst off. She has no trade, unless she goes in for professional nursing. There really ought to be some way that parents who accept the sacrifices of grown-up children should obligate themselves to look after them!"
"You mustn't be too hard on your father. He's always been an optimist. He has no concept of how much he's spending."
"Then someone should tell him!"
"Who? A daughter who's off at sea? But the really important thing is for you to get Dexter back to work.
Both
at the Sanitary Commission
and
at his law office. Forgive me for saying it, Rosey, but I can't help feeling that a man of Dexter's capability is going to be more valuable to the Sanitary Commission than one more nurse. Valuable though I'm sure that nurse is."
"Oh, of course, I know that," she conceded gloomily. "He can build a hospital while I'm nursing one soldier. But I still can't see why I'm that indispensable. Must Dexter be
made
to do two jobs? Can't you, really and truly, hold the office together? I'm sure, dear Charley, you underestimate yourself!"
"Don't forget I have a problem. I'm on top of it now, but you know what they say about alcoholics..."
"Oh, hush up!" she cried in dismay, hastily putting her fingers over his lips. "You're going to be just fine! But, all rightâI'll think about it."
"Poor Rosalie." He shook his head sadly. "I see how much you want to go back."
"Oh, run along now, please!" she exclaimed sharply, afraid that she was going to weep. "You've done your job. Enough for one day, anyway!"
But as soon as Charley had gone, she remembered her own trust fund. Surely,
that
would always be hers, no matter what her father lost. And couldn't she live on it? Well, of course, she could live on it, and so could Dexter and the boys! It wasn't much, but at least they would be housed and clothed and fed. How absurd were the expectations of New York society! If you couldn't keep a carriage and leave town in the summer, people thought you might as well turn your face to the wall.
All that night she kept dreaming of the
Pierce
and waking up.
Why
was she really needed at home? The boys were exuberantly healthy and totally occupied with school and sports. Mrs. Lindley had the household under perfect control. Dexter was in poor spirits, true, but there was nothing
physically
wrong with him. And the agreement of his three big donors to go along with Silas Cranberry's outrageous condition had been a great feather in his cap. He was the hero of the Sanitary Commission! How could that not cheer him up in time? Was it not even possibleâjust barely possible, that he was putting his gloominess on a bit? To hold her back? Might he not even be
jealous
of the
Pierce?
The next morning, when Dexter's mother made her daily call on the patient, Rosalie was struck with a brilliant idea. Following Mrs. Fairchild on her way out to the front hall, she asked if she might have a word with her.
"Of course, my dear. You may have two. What are the old for but to listen?"
"I was wondering, when I go back to the
Pierce,
if it would be possible for you to move in here and keep an eye on Dexter. I know that's a great imposition, but Mrs. Lindley would do everything for you. She would make you thoroughly comfortable. And it would be so nice for Fred and Selby, having their grandmother here when they come home!"
Mrs. Fairchild searched her daughter-in-law's eyes carefully, as if looking for hidden traps or motives. "Don't you think Mrs. Lindley would resent having someone look over her shoulder? For that's what I'd be doing. You can't trust that breezy type. Always so enthusiastic and busy, busy. But when they catch coldsâand they always do (maybe it's from their own breezes!) they tend to go to pieces."
"Well, I should tell her, of course, that you had complete authority."
Her mother-in-law grunted. "That never works. No, dear, I think I can do better for you by just checking in every day, as I have been."
Rosalie reflected bitterly that it was probably her own fault that Mrs. Fairchild was not more obliging. Her relationship with her mother-in-law had never been warm. Her appreciation of the latter's rule of never interfering with her or the children had been tempered by her suspicion that it had as much the taint of indifference as the merit of policy. And she had never been able to bridge what she deemed the gulf between their values: Dexter's mother, to her view, was worldly to the marrow of her being. Living all her life on the fringes of wealth, she had been obliged to cultivate its possessors, with the inevitable result that she had become more conservative than they.
Rosalie supposed now that Mrs. Fairchild's reluctance to move into her house sprang from a desire not to appear to condone the "folly" of her marine nursing, and she prepared herself for a lecture on her own domestic duties. But it was not forthcoming.
"How soon do you think you'll be going back?" she asked instead.
"Well, how soon do you think I can safely leave Dexter?"
Mrs. Fairchild grunted again. "So long as you ask me, I think it's better to take the bull by the horns."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning that if you're going, you'd better go."
"And just leave him? 111?" Rosalie contemplated with surprise the restless little woman before her. Mrs. Fairchild had a way of fiercely shaking her head and shoulders when she had a point to make. She would continue these gesticulations even after she had made it.
"Dexter's not going to die," his mother observed bleakly.
"But I assume that a wife's duties are more than merely mortuary!"
"He'll get along."
"You have more confidence in him than Charley does." Rosalie found it odd to be taking sides against herself. "He thinks he'll work himself into a crack-up and ruin his law practice if I'm not around to direct him."
"Charley just wants to be free to go back to his bottle."
"Oh, Mrs. Fairchild! What a terrible thing to say!"
"It sounds terrible, but don't forget my long experience with the male members of the Fairchild family. You know how my husband treated me. And how Dexter has treated
you!
"
Rosalie was startled by a novel, vindictive gleam in those small glittering eyes.
"But that is all over, Mrs. Fairchild!"
"Over! A man does that to you, and you can call it over? When it happened to me, I had to slave to make ends meet to bring up my children. There were no hospital ships for me! But I tell you this, Rosalie. If I'd been off on a boat with a life of my own, I'd have never come back! Never!"
"Of course, you would have! For the children's sake."
"Maybe I'd have taken them with me. I don't know. The times were different, then. But of one thing I'm certain. If I'd had what you have, I wouldn't have given it up for any man under the sun!"
"If Dexter could hear you!"
"Would you like me to go upstairs and tell him to his face? I'd be glad to!"
"No, no, in the name of God, please!"
All she wanted now was to get the terrible little old lady out of her house. How was it possible that, from all the cards and card parties, from all the gossip over the needlepoint, from all the evenings on gilt chairs watching the young fry dancing, from all the murmured condolences and festive congratulations of a New York social life, should have sprung this maenad! Was the war going to tear every mask from every living countenance?
But Mrs. Fairchild was leaving now; she was assuring her, in her old, brisk tone, that she would call regularly to be sure that Mrs. Lindley wasn't getting sloppy.
"I know she's
started
well. But don't forget they get colds!"
Rosalie accompanied her to the stoop, nodding dumbly at her injunctions. But when she had closed the door behind her mother-in-law, she stretched her back up against it tightly and searched the ceiling with wild eyes, as if seeking a remedy there for her desperation. Even Dexter's mother had never loved him! The boy must have been included in the abounding wrath against his sex aroused by his father's desertion. And how could she now leave a man whom nobody loved and when she alone had promised to? How could she leave a man who, with her help and support, and a semblance, maybe, of love, might build hospitals for the wounded and a great law practice for her sons? While she indulged her silly fantasy of being Florence Nightingale? "O God, I have no choice!" she cried harshly aloud. "None at all!"