Chapter Fourteen #2
“Ah—soon. We haven’t set a date,” Hannah said, her face burning, her eyes on everything in the neat office but the doctor’s face.
“I see,” Doctor Singer said slowly, as she sat at her desk again.
She made a few notes and handed a paper to Hannah.
“There is the diet you must follow, and an exercise schedule. When you are wed, and if you still fail to conceive, return to me with your marriage certificate, and we will investigate further.”
She paused, and then stared at Hannah with sadness in her eyes, “My dear,” she said sternly as Hannah’s heart began to race with shame, “I am a female doctor, and I suppose that’s why you came to me.
Female physicians have a certain reputation in some quarters…
I know it, and deplore it. But I do not practice abortion or irregular medicine,” she said as Hannah, white-faced, rose on shaking legs and tried to summon the courage to flee.
“I know women in the theater have special problems, but I cannot cater to them,” the doctor said, rising to her feet as well, “for I firmly believe that chastity is womankind’s greatest asset.
A woman’s delicacy of feeling, her lack of strong lusts and passions—these are our crowns of glory, not the lure of our external bodies, whatever some misguided and debased men may claim.
But it is not men alone who are so unprincipled and misled.
My child, chastity is the only road for those who are unwed—and for those in a state of holy matrimony: ‘Maternity is the highest shrine of human life, to which true men bow in reverence’—as I say in my text.
These pure and noble emotions are what make men revere us, and make us…
dare I say it? Yes. They make us, in some ways, superior to men.
Walk the right path, my dear,” she said with as much compassion as censure, “and you shall come to no harm.”
“Did you have a good lunch?” Kyle asked curiously when Hannah returned.
“Not really,” she said, to explain her ashen face and shaking hands. She didn’t mention that her lunchtime had cost her five dollars—as much as they said it cost two people to dine at Delmonico’s—although she hadn’t dined at all, and doubted she’d ever be able to eat again.
But the food at the Savarin was so delicious on Wednesday night that she ate enough to match Gray as he devoured his dinner.
She could, because she’d left off lacing.
And because, as he said, there was something about food that eased homesickness.
For just as he’d said, there was also something about Wednesday nights, something that increased homesickness.
And that was something she’d suffered from all her life.
Except that it seemed she’d found a cure, because he banished all sorrow from her heart all through dinner, and every time she looked at him.
“So we have a theater now, or shall, by the weekend,” she explained, as they sipped their coffee.
“It’s the Evergreen, on Twenty-fourth, between Sixth and Seventh, near Proctor’s and not far from Daly’s.
We’ve signed some from the old troupe—Lester Claxton is back with us, after his performance in Aspen, Kyle resolved to keep him as our centerpiece—if we can keep him from celebrating after the performance as he did then,” she sighed.
And then brightened and said, “And Polly Jenkins—remember little Polly? She’s growing quickly enough for us to be able to use her as a junior ingenue.
We’re still looking for a lead female, Titania, after all, has retired. ”
They grinned at each other. But then she lowered circles gaze, and began to draw a complex pattern of circles in the slush that was all that remained of her pudding in the bottom of its dessert dish.
“Ah, Kyle has said, and I have thought…I might wish to try to act again,” she said, and looked up to him with every bit of her doubt and fear in her eyes, before she glanced down again quickly.
Because it didn’t matter what he thought, after all, it was her life and she had to get on with it.
But she felt hollow now despite all she’d eaten, as she waited for his reaction.
“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” he said slowly.
“I think you could be a fine actress, and I think you have to prove it to yourself, if no one else. I know a man, or a woman, can do a lot of dumb things to prove they’re grow-up—who knows that better than me?
” he asked, chuckling. “But sometimes, living with doubt can be worse. If you see it as a challenge, it’ll always be there, unless you try it.
Then, win or lose, at least you know you had the courage to try. ”
It was exactly the answer she’d wanted of him, so it was odd that she had to pick up her coffee cup and swallow her hurt before she could speak again.
It was just as well, she thought, as she swallowed past the lump in her throat, that he’d no plans for her that an acting career would get in the way of—like marriage— after all.
Ah, but it was wickedly foolish to be hurt, she reminded herself, because although she might be able to do the one thing she’d mentioned, she could never perform the other that he hadn’t, even if he had wanted it of her.
“But,” Gray said very quietly, “knowing you’re capable of doing something doesn’t necessarily mean you have to do it forever. I mean, I proved I could ride that horse, but I didn’t stay on it the rest of my life, did I?”
The relief that flooded through her actually weakened her for a second. Then she smiled at him. “No. Yes. Oh, I mean I agree,” she said, hoping he understood her garbled answer, but from the way he smiled back at her, he knew.
It was early evening when they finished eating, and it seemed not only too early, but too cold to leave him standing in her hall when he took her home.
She’d been on her own for months, but she’d never had a man in her rooms, and so her murmured invitation, “If you’d like to come in for a few moments…
Not longer, I’m afraid, because of my landlady.
I haven’t anything to offer you but conversation, but if you’d like to chat…
I don’t usually, but…,” was as much an attempt to explain it to herself as it was to him, and equally unsuccessful.
Because the moment he stepped over her threshold and closed the door, she panicked.
“Hold on!” he said as he saw her eyes widen as she stepped back. “Now, do you, or don’t you want me here?”
“I don’t know,” she said quickly, seeing how out of place he looked in her home.
He wore buff and brown tonight, and his tanned face and wide shoulders cramped her parlor and crowded in on her heart.
“That is to say,” she said, as she continued to edge away, “I want you here, of course. I like to talk with you and it’s early yet.
And I’m a widow and not an ingenue. But I know even a widow oughtn’t to live alone, and I must. Still, you oughtn’t to be here, because I live alone.
I don’t entertain men, and—oh. Gray, I don’t want you to think I do, because I don’t. ”
He did the very thing she’d feared, but it made her feel much better. He stepped closer and took her in his arms. Then he simply held her.
“I know you don’t entertain men,” he said, with laughter in his voice that she could feel shaking in his chest. “Though if you’re thinking of going on the stage, I think you’d better reconsider that—no sense having only women in your audience, is there?
No, listen. I know. It’s all right, I understand.
I’ll leave now, though Lord knows I don’t want to, but it’s the long run I’m thinking of.
There’s no point in making you uncomfortable now. All right?”
He looked down to see her response, as she looked up to nod her head, so it was only natural that their lips should meet.
Which must have been how it happened, she thought, because she couldn’t think who’d started it.
It was how it happened, he decided, because he hadn’t meant to make it worse for her, no matter how good it felt to him.
But he was the one who ached when he had the sense to pull away, at last. Because he was the one who’d discovered she wore no corset tonight, and the thought of that made him realize, in some small corner of his mind not occupied with delighted lust, that if he didn’t leave now, he mightn’t be able to do so, gracefully at least, later on.
She obviously wasn’t willing to take him to her bed now, but he thought he might be able to seduce her.
He knew how she felt about him, although she’d never said it, he could feel it, literally, and she was no virgin child.
But he disliked beginning their life together with a seduction.
He wanted wholehearted cooperation now, and later.
She was his lady, he no longer doubted it, and he wanted her to know it in every way.
She was beautiful and clever, educated and good—but none of that mattered so much as the fact that he felt right with her, and displaced without her.
He could have a wife with money, family, and position—before he’d met her, he amended.
Now he could have no other but her. He only regretted that she’d a bad marriage before they met, although if she hadn’t, he reasoned, they wouldn’t have met at all, and she wouldn’t be just who she was. And she was perfect for him as she was.