XXXV The Credo at Work
I
When school closed in June, Judith took Theodora for the long promised visit to New York. Sydney and Eileen were off for a belated honeymoon in the mountains of Colorado, and Lavinia Trench reflected that the coveted privacy had come at the crucial moment. She would be alone to think things out. David was away from home much of the time, and when he was in the house his wife was only mechanically conscious of his presence. She viewed the neighbours as through a mist. Orders were given to Drusilla, with the monotonous intonation of a talking machine. That the orders were rational was evidence of the complete detachment that could enable her mind to function without conscious effort. It was as if she had wound up the machinery of her being and had withdrawn, leaving it to the old familiar routine.
After three weeks, her cloistered retreat was invaded by the most disturbing member of her family. The passionate devotion that had centered in her youngest-born—to her purblind vision the most perfect copy of herself—had undergone insidious change, as she centered her interest in Eileen. Theodora was irritating beyond endurance. With the child in the house, there could be no peace. Reluctantly, almost bitterly, she came back to the dull reality of life. David was still in Jacksonville from Monday to Saturday. After a day or two, she consented to let Theo stay with Dr. Schubert and Nanny. To her daughter-in-law she confessed that it was not because the old doctor was so lonely, but that she could not endure the child’s incessant chatter. The dropping of a fork behind her chair would send her into a paroxysm of shaking—Lavinia, who had always laughed at nervous women.
II
One morning Judith stood with her husband at an upper window, watching the agitated woman as she paced up and down before the house. The postman was late.
“She watched for him just that way yesterday, Lary. And when he failed to bring what she was expecting, her disappointment was pitiful.”
“My mother is going through some deep transition. I wish I could help her; but she has always shut me out. She is a hundred times more frank and confidential with you than she has ever been with me or with her own daughters. Do you think, dear, you could induce her to tell you what is troubling her?”
“I have tried. She talks freely about the emptiness and misery of her life. She is gnawingly unsatisfied; but she gives no clue. Such devotion as your father’s ought to have won her, years ago. I spoke rather plainly to her about it. I knew it would anger her; but I wanted to shock her into some line of rational thinking. The mention of her husband’s tenderness only infuriated her. She said such cruel things about him. And, Lary, he is as much in the dark as we are. He talked to me about it, Sunday night. Is it possible....”
“What, dear?”