Testimony Of Two Men (42 page)

“No wonder,” he said. “And I do, too. Remember?”

But she whirled again through the rooms, singing loudly and laughing over some little note among the gifts, and chortled deeply. She had thrown her hat on a blue damask love seat, and her gloves on top of it. Her luggage, and Jonathan’s, was in the great bedroom with its enormous brass bed and lace counterpane. He began to tremble. He called to Mavis, “It’s nearly ten, darling, and we must be up at six to catch the Saratoga train at eight in the morning.”

She came running to him, and she grasped his arms and looked up into his face, winsome and rosy. “I am hungry!” she declared with pleasure. She pressed her cheek briefly but strongly against his chin. “Hungry as a wolf. Getting married did that to me, but I can always eat, anytime.”

“You mean—now?” asked Jonathan. She nodded with that immense good nature of hers, and laughed her exultant laughter. “Yes, yes,” she said. “I had hardly a bite at home, just half a plate of cream chicken and a slice of ham, and some rolls and cakes. And,” she continued with astonished joy and animation, “I want some more champagne!”

So a little table was brought up to the suite with covered silver dishes, steaming, and a bucket of ice with champagne, and Mavis, still in her white silk suit, hovered over the place settings lustfully, and smiled and smiled and smiled and made little joking comments to the infatuated waiter. “Oh, how delicious it all smells!” she exclaimed, sniffing loudly and lifting the silver covers of dishes, and then humming with anticipation. Her golden head bobbed emphatically, and she looked at Jonathan, grinning, and he saw the glittering slits of blue between her yellow lashes. He could not help it. He laughed back. He remembered that she was very young and extraordinarily healthy. And innocent. Innocent, above all. He must be patient and tender to one who knew nothing of marriage and what marriage meant. She was a child.

Before Jonathan could seat himself, Mavis had already filled a plate with heaping portions of meat and gravy and potatoes and stewed tomatoes, and was purring deeply in her throat with ecstatic enjoyment and appetite. Well, he thought, we’ll never have any vapors to contend with at any rate, and thank God my darling is abundantly healthy. He could not touch a bite. He drank champagne with Mavis and watched her eat. She ate daintily, but all at once he had a thought that she was also gross, a thought he squelched immediately. Even while she ate she smiled and purred in her throat in simple animal pleasure. She drank the champagne like water, and looked over the rim, twinkling, at her husband.

“You aren’t handsome in the least,” she informed him, and chuckled. “Not like Harald.”

“Does that matter?” he asked with indulgence, and worshiped her with his eloquent dark eyes.

“Um, um,” she said. Then she suddenly stood up, raced around the table to him, and kissed him smartly on the top of his head. Before he could seize her, she was back in her chair and eating again. Part of her hair was tumbling down her back and it caught vivid gilt lights from the chandelier. She motioned to Jonathan to fill her glass again, and she laughed aloud as the bubbles tickled her nose. He had never seen such verve before, and he thought how marvelous his life would be with Mavis, how lively and gay and refreshing, after he came wearily home from the hospital. She would be like a bright effervescent pool of water, fragrant and reviving to exhausted flesh, and the house would ring with her joy in life and her husky merriment. He was so moved at this thought that he could only stare and smile at her with the most touching hope. She would teach him so many things, adventure, new insights, lightness, happiness, peace, and, above all, zest in living. He had forgotten what zest was, but he would learn again.

“I wish,” she said, with a mouth full of ice cream, “that we weren’t going to live in that old house of your mother’s, Jon.”

“I know, dear. You’ve said that before. But it is my father’s house, and mine, and not my mother’s, and it is very beautiful.”

“Your mother doesn’t like me,” she informed him, and grinned flashingly.

“She loves you, Mavis. Who could help but love you?”

“Well, she doesn’t.” Mavis spoke like a malicious child. “Not that I care. I can get along with anyone, really. She won’t disturb me. And I won’t disturb her. I don’t care a bit about running a house, and perhaps I should be grateful that your mother will continue to do that and leave me free.”

“For what, love?”

She waved her white hand on which Jonathan’s diamond broke in light. “Why, for so many things! All the parties we’ll be giving, and accepting, and lawn fetes, and dancing, and shopping and being with friends, and teas, and receptions.”

Now she was looking at him with the strangest expression, and her little eyes were sly and calculating and a little cruel. But he did not see the cruelty. He saw only her humor.

“There are more things in life than that, Mavis,” he said, and thought what a child she was.

“I’d like to know what is more pleasant,” she said. “Um. These lovely little cakes! Marzipan.” She burst out laughing. “I remember what you called Senator Campion. A Marzipan Pear. Uncle Martin thinks it is precious. Did you know he’s afraid of the Senator?”

“No. Is he? And why?”

She chuckled. “I don’t know. Who cares? But he is. And the Senator is such a handsome man, and so kind and happy. I love happy people, don’t you?”

“I love you,” said Jonathan.

Mavis threw back her head and began to sing hoarsely. “Happiness! Happiness! It’s a great wide wonderful world, it’s a great wide wonderful world, it’s a great wide beautiful, wonderful world!”

Teach me how it is, thought Jonathan. Mavis sprang up again and began to whirl about the room, singing, her arms thrown out, her falling golden hair swirling about her, and she was entirely unconscious of her husband’s presence. She was staring sunnily at the ceiling and had her own relishing thoughts. She picked up her wide white skirts and he saw the firm and graceful calves and her delicate knees. He got up and tried to take her in his arms, to dance the dance of life with her. But she pushed him off with head-shaking impatience and danced away from him, as if she needed no one but herself for her own joy.

But Jonathan did not know that now, though the faintest coldness touched him as he watched his young wife whirl alone and dance dizzily through the rooms, singing only to herself. He watched her with passion, exulting in her beauty and vigor.

I don’t deserve all this, thought the proud young man with rare humility. I don’t deserve all this beauty and youth and sheer exultation in living, and all this hope and happiness.

Mavis stopped suddenly, across the room from him, and she shrieked with mirth, bent and clasped her hands between her knees, and shook with her delight and exuberance. She flung back her hair and raced to him, seized him by the shoulders and kissed him heartily. “Oh, what an old man you are, to be sure!” she cried.

He seized her and held her, vibrating, against his chest. “Teach me how to be young, Mavis,” he said, his hps in her fresh and scented hair.

But she was moving restlessly in his arms, like a cat. She danced away again. It was hot in the suite, and the odor of flowers and food was overpowering. He caught a glimpse of Mavis’ face and he was surprised to see that it was no longer smiling and that she was sullenly pouting even as she danced. Her small eyes, as usual, were hidden in their arched lashes, and she seemed to be thinking furiously.

“Mavis!” he called to her.

She stopped at once, panting, and pushing back her hair. She stared at him.

“What?” she asked, as if disagreeably reminded of his presence.

“It’s half-past eleven, almost.”

“Oh, who cares?” she cried. “Are you so old that you can’t miss an hour or two of sleep without being ill, or tired, or something? Can’t you enjoy anything?”

He was startled. He, as a doctor, was always aware of time and its pressing. He was disturbed. Then he thought, I must get used to this, to having someone near me who isn’t harassed all the time and can enjoy the passing moments and live in the present. I’ve been so immured, so shut in.

“Yes, I can enjoy, Mavis,” he said in a humble voice. “But I thought you must be tired, after the wedding and everything.”

“I’m never tired!” Her hoarse voice was emphatic. “I don’t know what it is to be tired! And I hate tired people! I won’t have them around me, ever!” She shook her head with such vehemence that her hair flew. “I detest serious people, such slugs!”

Half alarmed, half pleased, he teased her: “But I’m a serious person, Mavis.”

Again her eyes shut cunningly. “Yes, I know,” and then she laughed as at some enormous joke. “I don’t mind you being serious, Jon. It helps you make such a lot of money, and don’t you just adore making lots of money?”

She is only a child, he reminded himself, as yet unaware that women like Mavis are never children.

“Such a lot of money, a lot of money, a lot of money!” sang Mavis, and kicked up one leg like an expert dancer. She whirled on the other. There was something frenzied in her movements.

Then she stopped abruptly and again stared at Jonathan, and again her gaze was cunning and thoughtful. “All right, old man,” she said. “I’ll tuck you in your bed so you won’t be too tired to make money!”

“But you have a lot of money yourself, darling,” he said, “and you are your uncle’s heir—”

“Nobody has enough money!” she shouted pettishly, then ran past him into the bedroom and slammed the door behind her. He sat down, and the air in the suite seemed fetid to him, as well as hot and stinking with the smell of rich food. He stood up and pushed the table out into the corridor. The champagne bottle was empty. He was conscious, all at once, of the need of a drink of whiskey, several drinks. He was also, he admitted, very tired, and then he was aware of
a
kind of hollow emptiness and disorientation. The lights in the parlor of the suite stung his eyes and he got up heavily and turned off all but one lamp. Now there was an odor of gas in the suite. He opened the windows and leaned out and drew in the hot air, burdensome with the smell of heated pavements and brick and dust. The lights of Hambledon winked at him, and he yawned, then rubbed his eyes. He saw the far glitter of the river and the dull shadow of the mountains against a dark but burning sky full of stars. There was a rumble of thunder somewhere, and a little dusty wind blew over his sweating face.

Then he became aware that he had forgotten he had a bride in those brief seconds. He looked about him, somewhat dazed. He felt no passion any longer. He was too tired.

“All right!” shouted Mavis from behind the shut door. “You can come in now if you want to! I’m finished with the bathroom.”

He went into the bedroom, shamefully aware of the aching in his legs and back. He was only thirty. He felt like an old man.

Mavis had hung up her suit and put away her hat and gloves, and now she stood before him, a pillar of gold and white in her silk nightgown and peignoir, her hair hanging long and flowing down her back. She smiled at him, and she was neither nervous nor shy. Her scrubbed face shone rosily and her teeth were like young ivory, big and wet. She was freshly perfumed, and, weary as he was, he thought how tireless she was, how young, how adorably alive and greedy for life, and again he hoped.

When he had bathed and undressed in the bathroom, he came out. Mavis had dimmed all but one light in the big hot bedroom and was lying high on the pillows in the bed, contemplating something mysteriously. She turned her little eyes to him and said with affection, “I never saw your hair mussed before, Jon. I like it.” She held out her arms to him like a child eager for a doll. Her hair was spread over the pillows in a golden stream. All at once he wanted to devour all that juicy life, all that verve and simplicity, and to forget that life was complicated and full of pain, and mostly joyless.

He sat on the edge of the bed and took one of her cod smooth hands and looked down at her. He quoted:

“Ah, love, let us be true to one another, For the world which seems To he before us like a land of dreams,

So beautiful, so various, so new, Hath neither joy nor hope, nor help for pain—”

She opened her small eyes wide at him. “I don’t like that,” she said. “I don’t like poetry, anyway. It’s too gloomy. Aren’t you coming to bed? You wanted that, didn’t you? What’s the matter? Oh, I didn’t understand that poem, eh? Well, I didn’t, and don’t. Turn off that light. It’s nearest you.”

He lay beside her in the hot darkness. It was some time before he heard her muffled chuckling, and he turned toward her and she buried her face in his shoulder, and her young and gorgeous body was under his hands. She was laughing at him, and he was happy. “What is it, love?” he asked with tenderness. Now she would tease the weariness from him.

“I’m just thinking,” she said. “Old Betsy Grimshaw, one of my bridesmaids. You know. Twenty-five if she’s a day, and never a beau! She caught my bouquet, and she almost cried! She’ll never get a husband.”

He drew away his hands from her. She lifted her head from his chest and tried to see him in the darkness.

“What’s the matter?” she demanded. “Too tired? Or afraid of hurting me? You needn’t be afraid. Aunt Flora told me all about it. It’s something a woman has to stand, she said. And Uncle Martin gave me a book. I’m not scared.”

Shallow, mindless, he was thinking with a rush of deadly new despair. There’s nothing for me in her. It’s not her fault, the child. The fault was in me and my fantasies. All my life has been full of fantasies, and I never knew it until now.