They Call Me Patrice

Chapter Four

This was what it was like to be home; to be in a home of your own, in a room of your own.

She sat there waiting, her hand resting on the crib, the crib they had bought for him. The baby lay safe in it now. They’d thought of everything.

They had left her alone; she had to be alone to savor the feeling of home as fully as she was doing. A roof over your head. A roof to keep out rain and cold and loneliness. Not just the anonymous roof of a rented building, the roof of home. Guarding you, sheltering you, keeping you, watching over you.

Downstairs somewhere dimly perceptible was the soothing bustle of an evening meal in preparation. Carried to her in faint snatches now and then at the opening of a door, stilled again at its closing.

Someone was coming up the stairs now. She shrank back a little in the chair. She was a little frightened, a little nervous again. Now there would be no quick escape from the moment’s confrontation, as at the railroad station. Now came the real meeting, the real blending, the real taking into the fold. This was the real test.

“Patrice dear, supper’s ready whenever you are.”

You take supper in the evening, when you’re home, in your own home. When you go out in public or to someone else’s home, you may take dinner. But in the evening, in your own home, it’s supper you take, and never anything else. Her heart accepted the trifling word as a talisman.

She jumped from the chair and ran over and opened the door. “Shall I... shall I bring him down with me, or leave him up here in the crib?” she asked, half eagerly, half uncertainly. “I fed him at five, you know.”

Mother Hazzard slanted her head coaxingly. “Why don’t you bring him down just tonight, anyway? It’s the first night. Don’t hurry, dear, take your time.”

In the dining room Mother Hazzard was leaning forward, giving a last-minute touch to the table. Father Hazzard was returning his glasses to their case. A third person was in the room, somebody with his back half to her.

He turned when he heard her come in. He was young and tall and friendly-looking. A camera-shutter clicked in her mind and the film rolled on.

“There’s the young man!” Mother Hazzard reveled. “There’s the young man himself! Here, give him to me, let me put him in his own highchair. We’ll prop him up with pillows. You know Bill, of course.”

He came forward, and she half-offered her hand, hoping that if it was too formal the gesture would remain unnoticed.

He took her hand in both of his and held it warmly buried like that for a moment or two.

“Welcome home, Patrice,” he said quietly. Something about the straight, unwavering look in his eyes as he said it made her think she’d never before heard anything said so sincerely, so simply, so loyally.

And that was all. Mother Hazzard said, “You sit here, from now on. Do you think he’s high enough in that chair? I told them it’s coming right straight back if there’s the slightest—”

Father Hazzard said unassumingly, “We’re very happy, Patrice,” and sat down at the head of the table.

Whoever Bill was, he sat down opposite her.

The cook peeked through the door for a minute and beamed. “Now this looks right! This what that table’s been needing. This just finishes off that empty si—”

Then she quickly checked herself, and whisked from sight again.

Mother Hazzard glanced down at her plate for a second, then immediately looked up again smiling. The hurt was gone, it had not been allowed to linger.

They didn’t say anything memorable. You don’t say anything memorable across the tables of home. Your heart speaks, and not your brain, to the other hearts around you. She forgot after awhile to notice what she was saying, to weigh, to reckon it. That’s what home is, what home should be. It flowed from her as easily as it did from them. She knew that was what they were trying to do for her. And they were succeeding. Strangeness was already gone, never to return. Other things could come — she hoped they wouldn’t. But never strangeness, the unease of unfamiliarity.

“I hope you don’t mind the white collar on that dress, Patrice. I purposely saw to it there was a touch of color on everything I picked out; I didn’t want you to be too—”

“Oh, some of those things are so lovely. I really hadn’t seen half of them myself until I unpacked just now.”

“The only thing that I was afraid of was the sizes, but that nurse of yours sent me a complete list of measurements.”

“She took a tape measure to me one day, I remember now, but she wouldn’t tell me what it was for—”

“Which kind for you, Patrice? Light or dark?” Mr. Hazzard asked.

“It really doesn’t—”

“No, tell him just this once, dear; then after that he won’t have to ask you.”

“Dark, then, I guess.”

“You and me both.”

Bill spoke a little less frequently than the others. Just a touch of shyness, she sensed. Not that he was strained or anything. Perhaps it was just his manner; he had a quiet, unobtrusive way about him.

But who exactly was he? She couldn’t ask outright. She’d omitted to at the first moment, and now it was too late. No last name had been given, so he must be—

I’ll find out soon, she reassured herself. I’m bound to. She was no longer afraid.

Once she found he’d just been looking at her when her eyes went to him, and she wondered what he’d been thinking while doing so. And yet not to have admitted that she knew, that she could tell by the lingering traces of his expression, would have been to lie to herself. He’d been thinking that her face was pleasant, that he liked it.

And then after a little while he said, “Dad, pass the bread over this way, will you?”

And then she knew he was Hugh Hazzard’s brother.

There was a cake for the baby on his first birthday, with a single candle flame like a yellow butterfly hovering atop a fluted white column. They made great to-do and ceremony about the little immemorial rites that went with it. The first grandson. The first milestone.

“But if he can’t make the wish,” she demanded animatedly, “is it all right if I make it for him? Or doesn’t that count?”

Emily, the cake’s creator, instinctively deferred to in all such matters of lore, nodded pontifically from the kitchen doorway. “You make it for him; he’ll get it just the same,” she promised.

Patrice dropped her eyes and her face sobered for a moment.

Peace, all your life. Safety, such as this. Your own around you always. And for myself — from you, someday — forgiveness.

She leaned down, pressed her cheek close to the baby’s and blew softly. The butterfly fluttered, disappeared.

A great crowing and cooing went up, as though they had all just seen a miracle.

A lot of people had come in. And long after the baby had been upstairs to bed, the gaiety continued.

She moved about the lighted, bustling rooms, chatting, smiling. She was happier tonight than she ever remembered being before.

A great many of the introductions were blurred. There were so many firsts, on an occasion like this. She looked about, dutifully recapitulating the key people, as befitted her role of assistant hostess. Edna Harding and Marilyn Bryant, she remembered, were the two girls sitting one on each side of Bill, and vying with one another for his attention. She suppressed a mischievous grin. Look at him, sober-faced as a totem-pole. Why, it was enough to turn his head — if he hadn’t happened to have a head that was unturnable by girls, as far as she’d been able to observe.

Grace Henson? She was that stout-ish, flaxen-haired girl over there, by the punchbowl. Or was she? No, she was the less stout but still flaxen-haired one at the piano, softly playing for her own entertainment. One wore glasses and one didn’t. They must be sisters, there was so close a resemblance. It was the first time either one of them had been to the house.

She moved over to the piano and stood beside Grace, She might actually enjoy playing, for all Patrice knew, but she should at least have somebody taking an appreciative interest. The girl at the keyboard smiled at her. “Now this,” she said and switched into a new selection. She was an accomplished player, keeping the music subdued, like an undertone to the buzz of conversations.

But suddenly all the near-by talk stopped. The music went on alone for a note or two, sounding much clearer than it had before.

The girl’s sister suddenly stepped up behind her, touched her just once on the shoulder, as if in remonstrance or as a reminder. That was all she did. Then she went right back to where she’d been sitting. The whole little pantomime had been so deft and quick it was hardly noticeable at all.

The player broke off, uncertainly. She apparently had felt the tap, but did not get its meaning. The slightly bewildered shrug and the look she gave Patrice was evidence of that.

“Oh, finish it,” Patrice protested unguardedly. “It was lovely. What’s it called? I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before.”

“It’s the Barcarolle, from Tales of Hoffman,” the other girl answered quietly.

Standing there beside the player, Patrice became conscious of a congealing silence about her. Something wrong had happened just then.

I’ve said something wrong. I said something that was wrong just now. But I don’t know what it was, and I don’t know what to do about it.

She touched her punch-cup to her lips, there was nothing else to do at the moment.

They only heard it near me. The music left my voice stranded, and that only made it all the more conspicuous. But who else in the room heard? Who else noticed? Maybe their faces will tell—

She turned slowly and glanced at them one by one, as if at random. Mother Hazzard was deep in conversation at the far end of the room. She hadn’t heard. The flaxen-haired girl who had delivered the cautioning tap had her back to Patrice; she might have heard and she might not. The two girls with Bill hadn’t heard, it was easy to see that. They were oblivious of everything else but Bill.

No one’s eyes met hers. No one was looking at her.

Only Bill. His head was slightly down, and his forehead was drawn into a half-frown. He was gazing up at her with a strange intentness. Everything the girls were saying to him seemed to be completely ignored. She couldn’t tell if his thoughts were on her, or a thousand miles away.

She looked away. And even after she did, she could sense that his eyes were still upon her.

As they climbed the stairs together, after everyone had left, Mother Hazzard suddenly tightened an arm about Patrice’s waist, protectively.

“You were so brave about it,” she said, “You did just the right thing; to pretend not to know what it was she was playing. But, my dear, my heart went out to you for a moment, when I saw you standing there. That look on your face. I wanted to run to you and put my arms around you. But I took my cue from you, I pretended not to notice anything either. She didn’t mean anything by it, she’s just a thoughtless little fool.”

Patrice didn’t answer.

“But at the sound of the very first notes,” Mother Hazzard went on ruefully, “he seemed to be right back there in the room with all of us again. I could almost see him. The Barcarolle. His favorite song. He never sat down to a piano without playing it. Whenever and wherever you heard that being played, you knew Hugh was about someplace”

“The Barcarolle,” Patrice whispered, as if speaking to herself. “His favorite song.” And suddenly a chasm of uncertainly widened in her mind. So many little things she didn’t know. What day, what moment would trick her into confession?

It was only a week later, at supper one night, when the second test came.

“—Different now,” Mother Hazzard was musing comfortably. “I was there once, as a girl, you know. Oh, many years ago. Tell me, has it changed much since those days?”

Suddenly she was looking directly at Patrice, in innocent exclusive inquiry.

“How can she answer that, Mother?” Father Hazzard cut in. “She wasn’t there when you were, so how would she know what it was like then?”

“Oh, you know what I mean,” Mother Hazzard retorted indulgently. “Don’t be so precise.”

“I suppose it has changed,” Patrice answered feebly. She turned the handle of her cup a little toward her, as if about to lift it, and then didn’t lift it after all.

“You and Hugh were married there, weren’t you?” was the next question.

Again Father Hazzard interrupted before Patrice could answer, this time with catastrophic rebuttal. “They were married in London, I thought. Don’t you remember that letter he sent us at the time? I can still recall it; ‘married here yesterday’ London letterhead.”

“Paris,” said Mother Hazzard firmly. “Wasn’t it, dear? I still have it upstairs, I can get it and show you. It has a Paris postmark.” Then she tossed her head at him arbitrarily. “Anyway, this is one question Patrice can answer for herself.”

A moment before all had been security. Now she could feel nothing but the three pairs of eyes on her, waiting in trustful expectancy. In a moment, with the wrong answer, that trust could change to something else.

“London,” she said softly, touching the handle of her cup as if deriving some sort of clarivoyance from it. “But then we left immediately for Paris, on our honeymoon. I think what happened was, he began the letter in London, didn’t have time to finish it, and then posted it from Paris.”

“You see,” said Mother Hazzard pertly, “I was partly right, anyhow.”

“Now isn’t that just like a woman,” Father Hazzard marveled to his son.

Bill’s eyes had remained on Patrice. There was something almost akin to grudging admiration in them; or did she imagine that?

“Excuse me,” she said stiffly, thrusting her chair back. “I think I hear the baby crying.”

And then, a few weeks later, another pitfall. Or rather the same one, ever-present, ever lurking treacherously underfoot as she walked this path of her own choosing.

It had been raining, and the air was heavy with mist. A rare occurrence for Caulfield. They were all there in the room with her and she stopped by the window a moment to glance out.

“Heavens,” she said incautiously, “I haven’t seen everything look so blurry since I was a child in San Fran.”

In the reflection on the lighted pane she saw Mother Hazzard’s head go up, and knew before she turned to face them that she had said the wrong thing. Trodden incautiously again, where there was no support.

“In San Francisco, dear?” Mother Hazzard’s voice was guilelessly puzzled. “But I thought you were raised in — Bill told us you were originally from—” And then she didn’t finish it, withholding the clue; no helpful second choice was forthcoming this time. Instead a flat question followed, “Is that where you were born, dear?”

“No,” Patrice said distinctly, and knew what the next question was sure to be. A question she could not have answered at the moment.

Bill raised his head suddenly, turned it inquiringly toward the stairs. “I think I hear the youngster crying, Patrice.”

“I’ll go up and take a look,” she said gratefully, and left the room.

The baby was in a soundless sleep when she reached him. He wasn’t making a whimper that anyone could possibly have heard. She stood there by him with a look of thoughtful scrutiny on her face.

Had Bill really thought he heard the baby crying?

A single low-pitched voice was droning on as if somebody were reading aloud in the library. The three of them were in there, and a man she didn’t recognize was with them. He was reading aloud a mass of typed reports.

No one else was saying a word. Father Hazzard was following every word closely. Mother Hazzard was in an easy chair, a basket on her lap, darning something. And Bill, strangely present, sat with one leg dangling over the arm of his chair, his head tilted back.

She tried to get by the door without being seen, but Mother Hazzard looked up at just the wrong time and caught her. “There she is now,” she said, “Patrice, come in here a moment, dear. We want you.”

She turned and went in, with a sudden constriction in her throat.

“Patrice, do you know Ty Winthrop?”

“I don’t believe I do,” she said. The nervousness shook her voice. She forced herself to go and shake hands with him. She kept her eyes carefully away from the table. It wasn’t easy.

“Ty is Father’s lawyer,” Mother Hazzard said.

Bill had risen and drawn up a chair beside the table for her. “Sit down, Patrice, and join the party,” he invited.

“Yes, we want you to hear this, Patrice,” Father Hazzard urged as she hesitated. “It concerns you.”

Her hand tried to stray betrayingly toward her throat. She kept it down by sheer will-power.

The lawyer cleared his throat. “Well, I think that about takes care of it, Donald. The rest of it remains as it was before, from there on.”

Father Hazzard hitched his chair nearer. “All right. Ready for me to sign now?”

Mother Hazzard bit off a thread with her teeth, having come to the end of her darning. She began to put things away in her basket. “You’d better tell Patrice what it is first, dear. Don’t you want her to know?”

“I’ll tell her for you,” Winthrop offered. “I can put it in fewer words perhaps.” He turned toward Patrice and gazed over the tops of his reading glasses, “Donald’s changing the provisions of his will, by adding a codicil. You see, in the original, after Julia here was provided for, there was an equal division of the residue made between Bill and Hugh. Now we’re altering that to make it one-quarter of the residue to Bill and the remainder to you.”

She could feel her face beginning to flame, as though a burning crimson light were focused on it. She felt agonizing sensations of wanting to push away from the table and make her escape.

She tried to speak quietly, “I don’t want you to do that. I don’t want to be included.”

“Don’t look that way about it,” Bill laughed. “You’re not doing anybody out of anything. I have Dad’s business—”

“It was Bill’s own suggestion,” Mother Hazzard let her know.

“As you know, I gave both the boys a cash sum to start them off, the day they each reached their twenty-first—”

Patrice was on her feet now, facing them, almost panic-stricken. “No, please! Don’t put my name down at all! I don’t want my name to go in the will!”

“It’s on account of Hugh, dear,” Mother Hazzard said in a tactful aside to her husband. “Can’t you understand?”

“Well, I know; we all mourn for Hugh. But she has to go on living Just the same. She has a child to think of. And these things shouldn’t be postponed on account of sentiment.”

She turned and fled from the room. They made no attempt to follow her.

She closed the door of her room after her. She stormed back and forth berating herself with bitter words. “Swindler!” She burst out. “Thief! It’s just like someone climbing in through a window and—”

A low knock came at the door about half an hour later. She went over and opened it, and Bill was standing there.

“Hello,” he said diffidently.

It was as though they hadn’t seen one another for two or three days past, instead of just half an hour before.

“He signed the will,” he said, “After you went up, Winthrop took it back with him, Witnessed and all. It’s done now, whether you wanted it or not.”

She didn’t answer. The battle had been lost in the room downstairs. This was no more than a final communique.

He was looking at her in a way she couldn’t identify. It seemed to have equal parts of shrewd appraisal and blank incomprehension in it, with just a dash of admiration added.

“You know,” he said, “I don’t know why you acted like that about it. And I don’t agree with you. I think you were wrong.” He lowered his voice a little in confidence. “But somehow or other I’m glad you did. I like you better for acting like that about it.” He shoved his hand out to her suddenly. “Want to shake good night?”