Green Doors

by Ethel Cook Eliot

“I have. It’s my letter. The one I wrote him. You read it, he said. That simply idiotic letter. I wrote it because I was sorry for Dick. I thought I’d been all wrong about him and Clare. I thought I’d been cruel to him! I thought I’d insulted him, unforgivably. So I told him why I couldn’t—couldn’t marry him. And you read it. And I won’t work here any more. I couldn’t, now. But where can I work? How can I earn money? I want never to see you again.”

“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about, Petra. Why you don’t want to work for me, I mean, or see me again. But that’s all right. No reason I should know. There are other jobs. We’ll find you one. Is that all that makes you—that makes you look like this? I thought something terrible had happened. I really did.”

“Something has. Worse than his showing you that letter and your knowing everything about me!” She stopped, took off her hat, dropped it into the patients’ chair. That incongruously worn-looking, slouchy felt hat! Her hands went to her hair, pressing it back from her forehead. Then, standing very straight, and with eyes on the window, not Lewis, she said, “Dick says that things are wearing ‘pretty thin’ between my father and Clare. He says that he and Clare belong to each other ‘by right of understanding and sympathy.’ He says he worships her and that—that she kissed him. On the road. Last night. When they went out. You remember? He says Clare wants me to know. He says Clare thinks that they owe it to me, to let me know. He says Clare is so fond of me that for a long time—for months—she has tried to think that black was white, and white black, so that she might not lose me as her daughter. He says Clare feels more a traitor to me than to my father. He says Clare feels that I need her more than my father needs her. He says Clare will never, never stop loving me and taking care of me, as long as I will let her. He says he means both financially and spiritually. He says it would simply break Clare’s heart if I change in my feelings toward her simply because she has changed in her feelings toward my father. He says Clare trusts me to be objective and detached in this difficult situation. More difficult for Clare than for any of us, but she is being big and brave. He says Clare wants him, Dick, to help me to a sane, large-minded, unselfish point of view.... But before he said anything at all, he swore me to secrecy about what he was going to say. They are going to wait to tell Father, you see, until he has finished the last chapter of the novel. It might upset him, hurt the book. Clare thought even of that. But there’s even a better reason for secrecy. Clare hasn’t actually decided she will marry Dick. Dick says he has still to get her definite promise. Dick says she is terrified that she can’t make him absolutely happy. But she can. He will make her see she can. So he swore me to secrecy and then told me all this. And my first conscious act, since, is to tell you every word he said,—the whole business. That’s the kind of a girl I am. You see the kind of girl I am. You see. You see. You see. The kind of girl I am. You see! You see! You—”

But Lewis by now had stopped her. He had laid firm hands on her and put her into his own chair, even in that moment remembering that the patients’ chair was occupied by a violet felt hat,—shabby, yes, but since it seemed to be Petra’s only hat, probably worth preserving....

“Sit there, Petra. Stop. There’s nothing to cry about. Be as mad as you like. But don’t cry. Dick must have gone crazy. This is beyond reason. Of course, a woman like Clare will never give up a Lowell Farwell for that callow fool. She never expected him to believe she would. She was merely practicing her art—out on the moonlit road last night. Dick happened to be there to practice on, that was all. The poor boy’s stark crazy. And Clare was rather mad herself, last night. She was horribly wounded in the most vulnerable part of her spirit’s anatomy.”

But Petra was going on again. Her head was in her hands, as his had been in his hands earlier in the day. And she was talking now not to him, but to herself, behind her hands. “They are horrible. All of them. Clare, Father, Dick, Marian. All the people who belong to me. All I belong to. I have known it a long time. But I was weak. I didn’t know how to escape. How to get out. Now I shall escape. Now I shall get out. Only how can I earn the money? I won’t work here. Not for you. But I must get away from Green Doors.”

Lewis heard Petra, faintly, going on with it while he was off getting her a glass of water. He came back, said, “Drink this. Stop talking. Let me think a minute. We’re both too excited.”

She stopped talking, but she did not take the water. And she kept her head in her hands. Lewis sat himself on the corner of the desk. He took his cigarette case from his pocket but put it back unopened.

He said, “Petra, I understand. Everything, almost, I think. Yes, you must get away from Green Doors. Live your own life. I thought that, you know, that first day, when I went there to tea. And last night it was even more clear to me. But there’s nothing to be so frightened about. You are silly to be scared about the money. You’ll make enough. And if you don’t want to go on with this job, well, there’s no need to. At least, not after Miss Frazier gets back. You must stand by till then, of course. You wouldn’t like yourself if you didn’t. But after she’s back, you can go. I’d already been thinking about it. There are other jobs, you know. And what about Teresa? Can’t you live with her? The way you planned—once before?”

Petra had listened, hardly breathing. Now she lifted her ravaged young face and looked at him, hope dawning. “But do you mean it? Am I good enough to recommend? Any one would believe you, of course, if you said I was. But can you really say it? You have to go slow when you dictate to me, you know. And yesterday in that letter I spelt hypophrenia wrong.”