Читать книгу Wickford Point онлайн

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She put her hand on mine so that I could see her fingers, and then again her thoughts drifted away and she began to laugh.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"I was thinking about their wedding," she said. "Darling, do you remember how Archie got tangled up with the cat and fell down the entry stairs, right into that strange Negro who came from the bootlegger, the one who was carrying the tray of champagne?"

"Yes," I said, and I laughed too. I nearly always laughed when she did. "And I remember how the tailor burned the back of Harry's trousers when he took them off to have them pressed. He was having it done in the shop right near the church downtown. Do you remember that?"

"Yes," said Cousin Clothilde, "so he couldn't go at all. He had to borrow a raincoat. I wonder if he ever returned it."

There was another silence and I could hear the church bell again, ringing across the river. The sound made me think that nothing which had ever happened at Wickford Point ever entirely left it, and that parts of everything which had happened were always waiting—ready to move forward out of nowhere when they were least expected. I was sitting on the edge of Cousin Clothilde's bed but the bell had brought my thoughts away to the abstractions of marriage and divorce. I was thinking that one could never tell in advance, no matter with what experience, whether any two individuals would achieve a successful or an unsuccessful marriage. There was too much hidden in every character, too many doubts, too many hesitations.