Edith Wharton - SSC 10 (16 page)

 
          
I
saw the apprehensive look come back to her eyes. “Plans—oh, why, today?”

 
          
“Isn’t
it natural that two people who’ve decided to live together should want to talk
over their future? When are we going to be married—to begin with?”

 
          
She
hesitated for a long time, clasping and unclasping her unhappy hands. She had
passed the stage of resistance, and I was almost sure she would not return to
it again. I waited, and at length she said, looking away from me: “But you
don’t like Cassie.”

 
          
The
words were a shock, though I suppose I must have expected them. On the whole, I
was glad they had been spoken; I had not known how to bring the subject up, and
it was better she should do it for me.

 
          
“Let’s
say, dear, that Cassie and I don’t like each other. Isn’t that nearer the
truth?”

 
          
“Well,
perhaps; but—”

 
          
“Well,
that being so, Cassie will certainly be quite as anxious to strike out for
herself as I shall be to—”

 
          
She
interrupted me with a sudden exclamation. “No, no! She’ll never leave
me—never.”

 
          
“Never
leave you? Not when you’re my wife?”

 
          
She
hung her head, and began her miserable finger-weaving again. “No; not even if
she lets me—”

 
          
“Lets
you—?”

 
          
“Marry
you,” she said in a whisper.

 
          
I
mastered her hands, and forced her to turn around to me. “Kate—
look
at me; straight at me. Shall I tell you something? Your
worst enemy’s not Kate Spain; it’s Cassie Wilpert.”

 
          
She
freed herself from my hold and drew back.
“My worst enemy?
Cassie—she’s been my only friend!”

 
          
“At the time of the trial, yes.
I understand that; I
understand your boundless gratitude for the help she gave you. I think I feel
about that as you’d want me to. But there are other ways of showing your
gratitude than by sharing the rest of your life with her.”

 
          
She
listened, drooping again. “I’ve tried every other way,” she said at length,
below her breath.

 
          
“What
other ways?”

 
          
“Oh, everything.
I’m rich you know, now,” she interrupted
herself, her colour rising. “I offered her the house at Cayuga—it’s a good
house; they say it’s very valuable. She could have sold it if she didn’t want
to live there. And of course I would have continued the allowance I’m giving
her—I would have doubled it. But what she wanted was to stay with me; the new
life she was leading amused her. She was a poor servant-girl, you know; and she
had a dread-fill time when—when my father was alive. She was our only help… I
suppose you read about it all … and even then she was good to me… She dared to
speak to him as I didn’t…
And then, at the trial…
The
trial lasted a whole month; and it was a month with thirty-one days… Oh, don’t
make me go back to it—for God’s sake don’t!” she burst out, sobbing.

 
          
It
was impossible to carry on the discussion. All I thought of was to comfort her.
I helped her to her feet, whispering to her as if she had been a frightened
child, and putting my arm about her to guide her down the path. She leaned on
me, pressing her arm against mine. At length she said: “You see it can’t be; I
always told you it could never be.”

 
          
“I
see more and more that it must be; but we won’t talk about that now,” I
answered.

 
          
We
dined quietly in a corner of the
pension
dining-room, which was filled by a colony of British old maids and retired army
officers and civil servants—all so remote from the world of the “Ezra
Spain
case” that, if Shreve had been there to
proclaim Mrs. Ingram’s identity, the hated syllables would have waked no echo.
I pointed this out to Mrs. Ingram, and reminded her that in a few years all
memory of the trial would have died out, even in her own country, and she would
be able to come and go unobserved and undisturbed. She shook her head and
murmured: “Cassie doesn’t think so”; but when I suggested that Miss Wilpert
might have her own reasons for cultivating this illusion, she did not take up
the remark, and let me turn to pleasanter topics.

 
          
After
dinner it was warm enough to wander down to the shore in the moonlight, and
there, sitting in the little square along the lakeside, she seemed at last to
cast off her haunting torment, and abandon herself to the strange new sense of
happiness and safety. But presently the church bell rang the hour, and she
started up, insisting that we must get back to the
pension
before Miss Wilpert’s arrival. She would be there soon now,
and Mrs. Ingram did not wish her to know of my presence till the next day.

 
          
I
agreed to this, but stipulated that the next morning the news of our
approaching marriage should be broken to Miss Wilpert, and that as soon as
possible afterward I should be told of the result. I wanted to make sure of
seeing Kate the moment her talk with Miss Wilpert was over, so that I could
explain away—and above all, laugh away—the inevitable threats and menaces before
they grew to giants in her tormented imagination. She promised to meet me
between eleven and twelve in the deserted writing-room, which we were fairly
sure of having to ourselves at that hour; and from there I could take her up
the hillside to have our talk out undisturbed.

 
          
  

 
          
I
did not get much sleep that night, and the next morning before the
pension
was up I went out for a short
row on the lake. The exercise braced my nerves, and when I got back I was
prepared to face with composure whatever further disturbances were in store. I
did not think they would be as bad as they appeared to my poor friend’s
distracted mind, and was convinced that if I could keep a firm hold on her will
the worst would soon be over. It was not much past nine, and I was just
finishing the
café au lait
I had
ordered on returning from my row, when there was a knock at my door. It was not
the casual knock of a tired servant coming to remove a tray, but a sharp
nervous rap immediately followed by a second; and, before I could answer, the
door opened and Miss Wilpert appeared. She came directly in, shut the door
behind her, and stood looking at me with a flushed and lowering stare. But it
was a look I was fairly used to seeing when her face was turned to mine, and my
first thought was one of relief. If there was a scene ahead, it was best that I
should bear the brunt of it; I was not half so much afraid of Miss Wilpert as
of the Miss Wilpert of Kate’s imagination.

 
          
I
stood up and pushed forward my only armchair. “Do you want to see me, Miss
Wilpert? Do sit down.”

 
          
My
visitor ignored the suggestion. “Want to see you? God knows I don’t… I wish
we’d never laid eyes on you, either of us,” she retorted in a thick passionate
voice.
If the hour had not been so early I should have
suspected her of having already fortified herself for the encounter.

 
          
“Then,
if you won’t sit down, and don’t want to see me—” I began affably; but she
interrupted me.

 
          
“I
don’t
want
to see you; but I’ve got
to. You don’t suppose I’d be here if I didn’t have something to say to you?”

 
          
“Then
you’d better sit down, after all.”

 
          
She
shook her head, and remained leaning in the window-jamb, one elbow propped on
the sill. “What I want to know is: what business has a dandified gentleman like
you to go round worming women’s secrets out of them?”

 
          
Now
we were coming to the point. “If I’ve laid myself open to the charge,” I said
quietly, “at least it’s not because I’ve tried to worm out yours.”

 
          
The
retort took her by surprise. Her flush darkened, and she fixed her small
suspicious eyes on mine.

 
          
“Afy
secrets?” she flamed out. “What do you know about my secrets?” She pulled
herself together with a nervous laugh. “What an old fool I am! You’re only
trying to get out of answering my question. What I want to know is what call
you have to pry into my friend’s private affairs?”

 
          
I
hesitated, struggling again with my anger. “If I’ve pried into them, as you
call it, I did so, as you probably know, only after I’d asked Mrs. Ingram to be
my wife.”

 
          
Miss
Wilpert’s laugh became an angry whinny.
“Exactly!
If
indeed you didn’t ask her to be your wife to get her secret out of her. She’s
so unsuspicious that the idea never crossed her mind till I told her what I
thought of the trick you’d played on her.”

 
          
“Ah,
you suggested it was a trick? And how did she take the suggestion?”

 
          
Miss
Wilpert stood for a moment without speaking; then she came up to the table and
brought her red fist down on it with a bang. “I tell you she’ll never marry
you!” she shouted.

 
          
I
was on the verge of shouting back at her; but I controlled myself, conscious
that we had reached the danger-point in our struggle. I said nothing, and
waited.

 
          
“Don’t
you hear what I say?” she challenged me.

 
          
“Yes;
but I refuse to take what you say from any one but Mrs. Ingram.” My composure
seemed to steady Miss Wilpert. She looked at me dubiously, and then dropped
into the chair I had pushed forward. “You mean you want her to tell you
herself?”

 
          
“Yes.”
I sat down also, and again waited.

 
          
Miss
Wilpert drew a crumpled handkerchief across her lips. “Well, I can get her to
tell you—easy enough. She’ll do anything I tell her. Only I thought you’d want
to act like a gentleman, and spare her another painful scene—”

 
          
“Not
if she’s unwilling to spare me one.”

 
          
Miss
Wilpert considered this with a puzzled stare. “She’ll tell you just what I’m
telling you—you can take my word for that.”

 
          
“I
don’t want anybody’s word but hers.”

 
          
“If
you think such a lot of her I’d have thought you’d rather have gone away
quietly, instead of tormenting her any more.” Still I was silent, and she
pulled her chair up to the table, and stretched her thick arms across it. “See
here, Mr. Severance—now you listen to me.”

 
          
“I’m
listening.”

 
          
“You
know I love Kate so that I wouldn’t harm a hair of her head,” she whimpered. I
made no comment, and she went on, in a voice grown oddly low and unsteady: “But
I don’t want to quarrel with you. What’s the use?”

 
          
“None whatever.
I’m glad you realize it.”

 
          
“Well,
then, let’s you and me talk it over like old friends. Kate can’t marry you, Mr.
Severance. Is that plain? She can’t marry you, and she can’t marry anybody
else. All I want is to spare her more scenes. Won’t you take my word for it,
and just slip off quietly if I promise you I’ll make it all right, so she’ll
bear you no ill-will?”

 
          
I
listened to this extraordinary proposal as composedly as I could; but it was
impossible to repress a slight laugh. Miss Wilpert took my laugh for an answer,
and her discoloured face crimsoned furiously. “Well?”