368: Nor did I see ...
Herb ’n’ Lorna, Chapter 16 continues
Nor did I see that there was tension in the house. I was happy there. I supposed that everyone else was, and supposing it to be so, I saw it as so. I would never have imagined that, one night, Herb lay in bed, awake, imagining how Bert and Ella must feel, at night, lying in bed in the room down the hall, inhibited by the fact of their living in his house, forced to be so quiet, so contained, constrained to whisper, so tense and awkward. He realized that the feelings he ascribed to them were those he felt himself.
“Lorna,” he whispered. “Lorna, are you awake?”
“Mmm.”
“It must be awful for them, Lorna.”
“What?”
“Living here with us.”
“Oh. I know.”
“You remember how you felt about living with your parents?”
“Indeed I do.”
“This is worse.”
“I think you’re right.”
“Back then, neither of us ever thought about what it might have been like for your parents if we had lived there. I mean, well, I never thought that they would feel — inhibited.”
Lorna sat up. “I never thought about them at all. I suppose I thought they were too old to care. I suppose I thought that when they went to bed they just went to sleep and that was that.”
“Now we’re finding out,” said Herb. “We have to whisper at night, just the way we would have if we had lived at your parents’ house.”
“And we have to be careful about not having one drink too many.”
“We have to talk in code.”
“And we haven’t set fire to anything for quite a while.”
“We’re hiding from them.”
“And they’re hiding from us, too.”
“They’re so quiet at night that sometimes I catch myself straining to try to hear something.”
“I know what you mean. Sometimes I worry that their marriage is breaking up. I never hear any — crackling flames. If it weren’t for Peter, I would have wondered whether they ever — well — ”
“ — struck a match.”
“We’ve got to get them out of here, Herb.”
“How much do you think they have saved?”
“Oh, I don’t know, but it can’t be much.”
“I think I could raise some money pretty quickly, Lorna.”
“You could?”
“I could — I’m sure I could. There are — a couple of people who are going to be coming due for new cars that I could kind of hurry along, I think, and the — I forgot to tell you this — the company is having a contest — it’s a contest for top salesman in the country — they haven’t announced it or anything yet — and the whole thing is going to be kept quiet — no ceremony or anything like that — no hoopla — just a cash award, and — ”
“I have an idea too!” said Lorna. “Mr. Berwick — ”
“ — wants you back at the slide rule factory?”
“No — better than that. He wants me to make some jewelry for Mrs. Berwick — very special. He’s been after me about it for some time. I don’t know why I never mentioned it. I guess I was a little afraid of it — it’s a bigger job than I’ve ever tried before. Well, I’m going to do it! He’s willing to pay very well.”
They lay there in silence for a while, contented, scheming, each planning how to return to the coarse-goods trade, which they had long neglected. Herb planned some bogus business trips. Lorna planned to enlist May’s help. But then another thought came to them. How would they get Bert to accept the money? It was easy enough for them to imagine duping each other, but they didn’t immediately see how they could fool anyone else.
“Lorna — ” said Herb.
“I know. How are we going to get Bert to accept the money?”
“Yeah. He’s so damned stubborn about it.”
“I’ll think of something,” said Lorna. “Let me worry about that part.”
[to be continued on Wednesday, October 26, 2022]
In Topical Guide 368, Mark Dorset considers Generosity, Acts of; “Selfless” Acts from this episode.
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