There Is Confusion/Chapter 35

Maggie and Philip had returned from the sanitarium to New York, but Philip undoubtedly was dying. Peter and Harry Portor were at his bedside every day, but not because of their ability to help him. They were simply three friends together. Philip never spoke to Peter of the incident at Des Moines, though it is probable that he thought of it many times, but the young doctor seemed so serenely unaware of any former misunderstanding that Philip, with a deep sense of relief, let the whole incident slide out of his mind.

Joanna, meanwhile, was experiencing a little private purgatory of remorse and grief. As she saw Philip's joy in Maggie, his complete and unbounded satisfaction in her presence, she became more and more overwhelmed with the awfulness of that old unconsidered act of hers, the sending of the letter which had caused Maggie to marry Henderson Neal. Maggie had never told her this, but she was pretty sure that such was the case. The mere fact that Maggie had never spoken about it to Peter, even in the days of their engagement, led her to suspect that her sister-in-law had attached more significance to it than she had cared to show. There was only one thing for her, if she was ever to know any peace, and that was to confess to Philip.

She went to see him in the late October weather. On the way she had passed Morningside Park and the gorgeous autumn sights and colors had brought back to her in a sudden heady rush the memories of the old days,—partings with Peter, concert tours and meetings with Philip, talks, dreams, ambitions, ​all the activities of her assured, confident, determined youth. If she might only relive a few brief scenes—the night she had dismissed Peter, the time she had spent in writing that cruel letter to Maggie—how different her memories would have been!

Philip was in excellent spirits. He seemed quite reconciled to dying and even spoke of it with a cheerfulness and familiarity that never failed to bring a rush of tears to Joanna's eyes, though this she was careful to conceal. "Just think of the luck I'm in," Philip would say, "I never expected to come home at all. If Maggie hadn't found me there in Chambéry and taken pity on my lonesomeness, I'd probably be lying in a French cemetery this moment with one of those little white crosses standing above me. As it is, I'm seeing you all again and I have Maggie. She has promised to stay with me always. It's all right, Joanna, old girl, I've had a good run for my money and except for Maggie I'm not so sorry to chuck it all. Just think, it might have been my luck never to have found her again at all."

He said something like that to Joanna on this afternoon. Sobbing she fell on her knees beside the bed. "Oh Philip, if it hadn't been for me, you'd have found her long ago."

He was suddenly attentive, his eyes bright and keen in his thin sharpening face as she told him about the letter. With infinite gentleness he let his hand rest on that proud dark head which life had taught so hardly to bow.

"Dear Janna, dear little sister, don't blame yourself one moment. It was all my fault. If you'd left a hundred letters unwritten, I should hardly have moved any more quickly. In those days I was so taken up with the business of being colored! After I'd adjusted that I thought I'd arrange my life. Ah, Joanna, that's our great mistake. We must learn to look out for life first, then color and limitations. My being colored didn't make me forget to provide myself with food ​and raiment. I shouldn't have allowed it to make me forget love." His grasp on her hand tightened.

"Learn this, Joanna, and tell the rest of our folks. Our battle is a hard one and for a long time it will seem to be a losing one, but it will never really be that as long as we keep the power of being happy. And happiness has to be deliberately sought for, gained; even that doesn't solve the problem, but it does make it easier for us to fight. Happiness, love, contentment in our own midst, make it possible for us to face those foes without. 'Happy Warriors,' that's the ideal for us. Only I realized it too late."

That was his last long talk with Joanna. Usually he gave all his attention to Maggie who was with him always, supplying and anticipating his wants and radiating an ineffable peace. Her hand was in his when he died.

His father, remembering his intense patriotism as a child, said with a touch of bitter pride: "He died for his country."

"It was what he always wanted to do," Sylvia said gently. But Joanna knew that Philip's real desire envisaged living for his country—to save her from something worse than war.

His death diffused a gentle melancholy over the others. It was the first serious rent in the fabric of the Marshall family. Old Joel took to indulging in long, deep reveries. Mrs. Marshall, quite dry-eyed, took out all of Philip's baby things, wrapped them up to send away and quite suddenly put them back in their places. Her interest in Sylvia's children took on an almost feverish intensity. Sylvia herself and Joanna and sometimes Sandy had many talks, wistful with reminiscences.

Maggie alone remained calm and almost cheerful. "Not because she's unfeeling," Joanna explained to Sylvia, "but because she is so satisfied."

Sylvia raised an eyebrow. "Satisfied and Philip dead?"

"Yes, because so easily he might have died without their ​ever having come together. But they did. Oh, Sylvia, you and Brian have had such a simple, easy, jog-trot time of it, you don't know what it means to have your life all broken up like Maggie's and mine have been, and poor Vera Manning's."

Whatever the cause, Maggie spent her days serenely. Secure not only in the knowledge that she was bulwarked by the Marshall respectability, but also by the resolve which she had made before she saw Philip in Chambéry, she started on the project of her Beauty Parlors.

She said to Joel who, she knew, admired her ability: "See if you can't make me as great a success in business as you've been." They spent many pleasant hours in consultation.