The Listener by Taylor Caldwell Read Free Book Online Page A

worked day and night, and I’d forget to sleep or eat. Then Celia was suddenly thirty-eight and I was forty-one, and we had our lot and we had the money for our house. And we were rich! It was only on Celia’s birthday, when she was thirty-eight, that we had time, all at once, to realize the fact that we were rich.
     
    “We also realized that Celia wasn’t young any longer, and if we were to have any children at all we must begin immediately. And so we had George, but Celia could have no more children. She almost died when George was born; she was a little old to be having her first child. The house wasn’t quite finished when we moved in. But women are sentimental. Celia wanted George to be born in our own house, for which we’d worked so many years.”
     
    He chuckled dryly, then started at the sound and put his carefully tended fingers to his lips, as if he had uttered an obscenity. But he shook his head over and over, musingly, and his dry smile lifted the corners of his bitter mouth. “It was winter, and only four rooms could be heated; the entire equipment wasn’t yet in, and the plaster was still wet, and there was no wallpaper or paint. It was, in a way, like the life we’d had as children, huddled together for warmth, a big black old stove temporarily heating the bedroom, a bare table in the kitchen, no curtains at the windows. Makeshift. I never heard Celia laugh so much. She never laughed again quite like that.”
     
    He laughed himself, a rustling murmur like the crackle of parchment. He forgot where he was, remembering. Then he came to himself and stared at the shut curtains. He said a little huskily, “You’re very patient, I see. Thank you. I can’t remember when I’ve talked like this. I was always so busy, too busy for conversation. It must have been lonely for Celia, even with the clubs she joined after we became rich, and her community activities, and only one child who was cared for by experts. No illiterate nursemaids, you see. Yes, it must have been lonely.”
     
    He paused, struck and frowning, and shook his head again. “That’s a stupid remark,” he said. “Celia now had everything she’d ever dreamed of: furs, cars, leisure, effortless living, travel. Of course I was too busy to travel much with her; she had an older sister, a widow, and she would travel with Ethel. Then Ethel died; that was about ten years ago. And then Celia had no one.”
     
    Again he paused, and now he shifted violently on the chair. “Nonsense. I must be losing my mind. Celia had everything. And everyone. Friends, house buzzing with women’s meetings, the church affairs, the Philharmonic Women’s Committee, the various hospital boards. Of course Celia was always a little shy; ‘the schoolteacher’s personality’, I would say to her. It was hard for her to mingle easily. Then of course she was at some disadvantage. All the other women had been in these things from girlhood, and Celia was a late arrival, and I believe there was some social snobbery — People are fools, aren’t they? But I suppose you know that only too well in your practice. Fools.”
     
    The word echoed back from the gleaming white walls like an accusation. Mr. Summers said hurriedly, “Celia began to develop arthritis, or perhaps it was neuritis. At any rate, it is hard for her to walk much now, and she’s only sixty-four. Damn those doctors! They can talk about miracle drugs and new treatments, but, so far as I can see, people are as frequently and mysteriously sick as they were when I was a boy. Celia spends a lot of time in bed now, poor girl. And — ” He hesitated, then spoke in a shamed voice. “We have only a maid of all work, as we used to call them, and she only part time. We can’t afford even that now.”
     
    He waited for a superior murmur from behind the curtains, a condescension. But there was no sound. However, Mr. Summers became suddenly and acutely aware of a deep listening, a weighing, a kind measuring, a