Edith Wharton - SSC 09 (7 page)

 
          
After
a day’s pondering I reflected that telegrams sometimes penetrate where letters
fail to, and decided to telegraph to Stephen. No reply came, but the following
afternoon, as I was leaving my hotel a taxi drove up and Mrs. Glenn descended
from it. She was dressed in black, with many hanging scarves and veils, as if
she either feared the air or the searching eye of some one who might be
interested in her movements. But for her white hair and heavy stooping lines
she might have suggested the furtive figure of a young woman stealing to her
lover.
But when I looked at her the analogy seemed a
profanation.

 
          
To
women of Catherine Glenn’s ripe beauty thinness gives a sudden look of age; and
the face she raised among her thrown-back veils was emaciated. Illness and
anxiety had scarred her as years and weather scar some beautiful still image on
a church-front. She took my hand, and I led her into the empty reading-room.
“You’ve been ill!” I said.

 
          
“Not very; just a bad cold.”
It was characteristic that
while she looked at me with grave beseeching eyes her words were trivial,
ordinary. “Chrissy’s so devoted—takes such care of me. She was afraid to have
me go out. The weather’s so unsettled, isn’t it? But really I’m all right; and
as it cleared this morning I just ran off for a minute to see you.” The
entreaty in her eyes became a prayer. “Only don’t tell her, will you? Dear
Steve’s been ill too—did you know? And so I just slipped out while Chrissy went
to see him. She sees him nearly every day, and brings me the news.” She gave a
sigh and added, hardly above a whisper: “He sent me your address. She doesn’t
know.”

 
          
I
listened with a sense of vague oppression. Why this mystery, this watching,
these evasions? Was it because Steve was not allowed to write to me that he had
smuggled my address to his mother? Mystery clung about us in damp fog-like
coils, like the scarves and veils about Mrs. Glenn’s thin body. But I knew that
I must let my visitor tell her tale in her own way; and, of course, when it was
told, most of the mystery subsisted, for she was in it, enveloped in it,
blinded by it. I gathered, however, that Stephen had been very unhappy. He had
met at St. Moritz a girl whom he wanted to marry: Thora Dacy—ah, I’d heard of
her, I’d met her? Mrs. Glenn’s face lit up. She had thought the child lovely;
she had known the family in Washington—excellent people; she had been so happy
in the prospect of Stephen’s happiness. And then something had happened … she
didn’t know
,
she had an idea that Chrissy hadn’t liked
the girl. The reason Stephen gave was that in his state of health he oughtn’t
to marry; but at the time he’d been perfectly well—the doctors had assured his
mother that his lungs were sound, and that there was no likelihood of a
relapse. She couldn’t imagine why he should have had such scruples; still less
why Chrissy should have encouraged them. For Chrissy had also put it on the
ground of health; she had approved his decision. And since then he had been
unsettled, irritable, difficult—oh, very difficult. Two or three months ago the
state of tension in which they had all been living had reached a climax; Mrs.
Glenn couldn’t say how or why—it was still obscure to her. But she suspected
that Stephen had quarrelled with the Browns. They had patched it up now, they
saw each other; but for a time there had certainly been something wrong. And
suddenly Stephen had left the apartment, and moved into a wretched studio in a
shabby quarter. The only reason he gave for leaving was that he had too many
mothers—that was a joke, of course, Mrs. Glenn explained … but her eyes filled
as she said it.

 
          
Poor
mother—and, alas, poor Stephen! All the sympathy I could spare from the mother
went to the son. He had behaved harshly, cruelly, no doubt; the young do; but
under what provocation! I understood his saying that he had too many mothers;
and I suspected that what he had tried for—and failed to achieve—was a break
with the Browns. Trust Chrissy to baffle that attempt, I thought bitterly; she
had obviously deflected the dispute, and made the consequences fall upon his
mother. And at bottom everything was unchanged.

 
          
Unchanged—except for that thickening of the fog.
At the
moment it was almost as impenetrable to me as to Mrs. Glenn. Certain things I
could understand that she could not; for instance, why Stephen had left home. I
could guess that the atmosphere had become unbreathable. But if so, it was
certainly Mrs. Brown’s doing, and what interest had she in sowing discord
between Stephen and his mother? With a shock of apprehension my mind reverted
to Stephen’s enquiry about his mother’s will. It had offended me at the time;
now it frightened me. If I was right in suspecting that he had tried to break
with his adopted parents—over the question of the will, no doubt, or at any
rate over their general selfishness and rapacity—then his attempt had failed,
since he and the Browns were still on good terms, and the only result of the
dispute had been to separate him from his mother. At the thought my indignation
burned afresh. “I mean to see Stephen,” I declared, looking resolutely at Mrs.
Glenn.

 
          
“But
he’s not well enough, I’m afraid; he told me to send you his
love,
and to say that perhaps when you come back—”

 
          
“Ah,
you’ve seen him, then?”

 
          
She
shook her head. “No; he telegraphed me this morning. He doesn’t even write any
longer.” Her eyes filled, and she looked away from me.

 
          
He
too used the telegraph! It gave me more to think about than poor Mrs. Glenn
could know. I continued to look at her. “Don’t you want to send him a telegram
in return? You could write it here, and give it to me,” I suggested. She
hesitated, seemed half to assent, and then stood up abruptly.

 
          
“No;
I’d better not. Chrissy takes my messages. If I telegraphed she might wonder—she
might be hurt—”

 
          
“Yes;
I see.”

 
          
“But
I must be off; I’ve stayed too long.” She cast a nervous glance at her watch.
“When you come back …” she repeated.

 
          
When
we reached the door of the hotel rain was falling, and I drew her back into the
vestibule while the porter went to call a taxi. “Why haven’t you your own
motor?” I asked.

 
          
“Oh,
Chrissy wanted the motor. She had to go to see Stevie—and of course she didn’t
know I should be going out. You won’t tell her, will you?” Mrs. Glenn cried
back to me as the door of the taxi closed on her.

 
          
The
taxi drove off, and I was standing on the pavement looking after it when a
handsomely appointed private motor glided up to the hotel. The chauffeur sprang
down, and I recognized him as the man who had driven Mrs. Glenn when we had
been together at Les Calanques. I was therefore not surprised to see Mrs.
Brown, golden-haired and slim, descending under his unfurled umbrella. She held
a note in her hand, and looked at me with a start of surprise. “What
luck!
I was going to try to find out when you were likely to
be in—and here you are!
Concierges
are always so secretive that I’d written as well.” She held the envelope up
with her brilliant smile. “Am I butting in? Or may I come and have a talk?”

 
          
I
led her to the reading-room which Mrs. Glenn had so lately left, and suggested
the cup of tea which I had forgotten to offer to her predecessor.

 
          
She
made a gay grimace.
“Tea?
Oh, no—thanks. Perhaps we
might go round presently to the Nouveau Luxe grill for a cock-tail. But it’s
rather early yet; there’s nobody there at this hour. And I want to talk to you
about Stevie.”

 
          
She
settled herself in Mrs. Glenn’s corner, and as she sat there, slender and alert
in her perfectly-cut dark coat and skirt, with her silver fox slung at the
exact fashion-plate angle, I felt the irony of these two women succeeding each
other in the same seat to talk to me on the same subject. Mrs. Brown groped in
her bag for a jade cigarette-case, and lifted her smiling eyes to mine.
“Catherine’s just been here, hasn’t she? I passed her in a taxi at the corner,”
she remarked lightly.

 
          
“She’s
been here; yes. I scolded her for not being in her own motor,” I rejoined, with
an attempt at the same tone.

 
          
Mrs.
Brown laughed. “I knew you would! But I’d taken the motor on purpose to prevent
her going out. She has a very bad cold, as I told you; and the doctor has
absolutely forbidden—”

 
          
“Then
why didn’t you let me go to see her?”

 
          
“Because the doctor forbids her to see visitors.
I told you
that too. Didn’t you notice how hoarse she is?”

 
          
I
felt my anger rising. “I noticed how unhappy she is,” I said bluntly.

 
          
“Oh,
unhappy—why is she unhappy? If I were in her place I should just
lie
back and enjoy life,” said Mrs. Brown, with a sort of
cold impatience.

 
          
“She’s
unhappy about Stephen.”

 
          
Mrs.
Brown looked at me quickly. “She came here to tell you so, I suppose? Well—he
has
behaved badly.”

 
          
“Why
did you let him?”

 
          
She
laughed again, this time ironically. “Let him? Ah, you believe in that legend?
The legend that I do what I like with Stephen.” She bent her head to light
another cigarette. “He’s behaved just as badly to me, my good man—and to Boy.
And
we
don’t go about complaining!”

 
          
“Why
should you, when you see him every day?”

 
          
At
this she bridled, with a flitting smile. “Can I help it—if it’s me he wants?”

 
          
“Yes,
I believe you can,” I said resolutely.

 
          
“Oh,
thanks! I suppose I ought to take that as a compliment.”

 
          
“Take
it as you like. Why don’t you make Stephen see his mother?”

 
          
“Dear
Mr. Norcutt, if I had any influence over Stephen, do you suppose I’d let him
quarrel with his bread-and-butter? To put it on utilitarian grounds, why should
I?” She lifted her clear shallow eyes and looked straight into mine—and I found
no answer. There was something impenetrable to me beneath that shallowness.

 
          
“But
why did Stephen leave his mother?” I persisted.

 
          
She
shrugged, and looked down at her rings, among which I fancied I saw a new one,
a dark luminous stone in claws of platinum. She caught my glance. “You’re admiring
my brown diamond? A beauty, isn’t it? Dear Catherine gave it to me for
Christmas. The angel! Do you suppose I wouldn’t do anything to spare her all
this misery? I wish I could tell you why Stephen left her. Perhaps … perhaps
because she
is
such an angel … Young
men—you understand? She was always wrapping him up, lying awake to listen for
his latch-key…. Steve’s rather a Bohemian; suddenly he struck—that’s all I
know.”

 
          
I
saw at once that this contained a shred of truth wrapped round an impenetrable
lie; and I saw also that to tell that lie had not been Mrs. Brown’s main
object. She had come for a still deeper reason, and I could only wait for her
to reveal it.

 
          
She
glanced up reproachfully. “How hard you are on me—always! From the very first
day—don’t I know?
And never more than now.
Don’t you
suppose I can guess what you’re thinking? You’re accusing me of trying to
prevent your seeing Catherine; and in reality I came here to ask you to see
her—to beg you to—as soon as she’s well enough. If you’d only trusted me,
instead of persuading her to slip off on the sly and come here in this awful
weather …”

 
          
It
was on the tip of my tongue to declare that I was guiltless of such perfidy;
but it occurred to me that my visitor might be trying to find out how Mrs. Glenn
had known I was in Paris, and I decided to say nothing.

 
          
“At
any rate, if she’s no worse I’m sure she could see you tomorrow. Why not come
and dine? I’ll carry Boy off to a restaurant, and you and she can have a cosy
evening together, like old times. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Mrs. Brown’s
face was veiled with a retrospective emotion; I saw that, less acute than
Stephen, she still believed in a sentimental past between
myself
and Catherine Glenn. “She must have been one of the loveliest creatures that
ever lived—wasn’t she? Even now no one can come up to her. You don’t know how I
wish she liked me better; that she had more confidence in me. If she had, she’d
know that I love Stephen as much as she does—perhaps more. For so many years he
was mine, all
mine
! But it’s all so difficult—at this
moment, for instance …” She paused, jerked her silver fox back into place, and
gave me a prolonged view of meditative lashes. At last she said: “Perhaps you
don’t know that Steve’s final folly has been to refuse his allowance. He
returned the last cheque to Catherine with a dreadful letter.”