The Dark Lady (16 page)

"You just don't believe in museums, Linda," Irving said flatly.

"Oh, a few, yes. But we're going to have far too many of them. The only way to learn about art is to start with bad art. All those schoolchildren who are brought up on masterpieces—no wonder they never learn to discriminate!"

"Mother, you're being ridiculous." Elesina got up to end the discussion. "Come on out now. I want to show you where I'm going to put the begonias."

Ivy, left alone with Irving, bustled with plans. All she had to do was to hear an idea, and in two minutes she had made it her own.

"It would be just the thing to start Elesina's new career with a bang. We could make the announcement a sensation. Elesina has been asked to take the chairmanship of the benefit ball for Saint Joseph's Hospital in Rye. Suppose you have it here? You could get the governor. We might have a fashion show in the patio. I could arrange that. We might get it underwritten by Saks or Bonwits. Oh, Irving, I begin to
see
it!"

What was most galling of all to him was the assumption which seemed to underlie her officiousness that the old and impotent should make good their deficiency with full shovels of heavily minted coin.

"I'm afraid, Ivy, there is a lot of hard work to be done before we can even think of bringing the public in. Still, I imagine you could help in the meantime. Your experience as a magazine editor might be valuable. My library has a collection of eighteenth-century Colonial newspapers, completely uncatalogued. Now if you..."

"Oh, no you don't, Irving!" she interrupted. "I know you'd like to put me in a corner where I'd be silenced. But Ivy Trask was exploited for the last time in nineteen eighteen. She's been on her own since, and she's going to stay that way. But now let me spring a surprise on
you.
When you know who I've brought for the weekend, you'll forgive me for everything." She threw back her head and laughed. "You may even like me!"

He stared. "Who have you brought?"

"Guess."

"I can't."

"Who would you rather see come into this room right now than anyone in the whole world?"

He looked a bit wildly at the empty doorway. "Not David? Oh, my God!"

David, hearing his name, hurried into the room, and Irving rose, staggering, to throw his arms about him.

"Oh, my darling boy!"

Ivy beamed at both, and then, miraculously, had the tact to leave. Even in the hectic atmosphere of his excitement Irving was able to reflect that she was either more generous than he had expected or that there was an unknown price to be paid. David's expression was of shocked surprise.

"You look so down, Dad. I had no
idea
you'd been that ill. I'd have come sooner. Believe me."

"Oh, I do." Irving collapsed now in his chair and began suddenly, convulsively, to weep.

"Dad! I'm sorry!"

"It's all right, my boy. I'm so happy to see you, that's all."

"But this isn't like you. Is something wrong? Is Elesina ... is she being difficult? I don't mean anything bad, but sometimes, with younger wives ... well..."

"No, dear boy. Elesina is an angel." Irving pulled himself together with an effort. "She is wonderful to me. It's just that..." He sobbed again. "It's all so ... so strange. Don't leave me, David."

David's hand gripped his shoulder until it hurt.

There were to be a dozen guests for dinner at Broadlawns that evening, and David understood that if he was to have any private talk with Elesina it would have to be before the cocktail hour. When his father had gone to his room and Arthur had informed him that Mrs. Stein was in the rose garden, he sought her there. He was mildly surprised to find her reading a volume of poetry. She closed it and looked up with a friendly smile.

"Oh, David, I'm so glad you've come."

"I hadn't any notion that he was that sick. Lionel and Peter told me it was a routine prostate. But it was a coronary!"

"It was that, too. Your father didn't want anyone to know. I did as he told me."

The haggard, haunting look that he had remembered from their first meeting was quite gone now. She seemed younger, more filled out. The black hair had a touch of bronze; the large dark eyes seemed amused. Her skin was a healthier white. If she was less mysterious, she was even more beautiful. But what astonished him most was the ease of her manner. She seemed to take it quite for granted that she should be welcoming him to Broadlawns.

"Between us we'll bring him around, you'll see," she continued. "At the moment he's full of gloom and ideas of death. But that will pass. What we have to convince him of is that every minute of life is equally important, whether one's seven or seventy. It's living that counts, not one's age."

"You should be able to convince him of that," he replied, with reluctant admiration. "You seem alive enough."

"Oh, I've never been better. The country air agrees with me. I've spent too much of my life in town."

David thought now that he could identify what was upsetting him: it was her healthiness. He had been mentally exaggerating her pallor, her air of lugubrious fascination, transforming her with his hostile spirit into the caricature of the vampire lady in a Charles Addams cartoon. He had not been prepared for her cheerfulness, her animation. God only knew why he had not been better prepared, with all the sexual fantasies which had raged in his angry head! He started to ask a question and realized that he had forgotten it.

"What are we going to call each other?" he blurted out.

"I've already called you David. What can you possibly call me but Elesina? 'Mrs. Stein' would be ridiculous, and I'm certainly not going to be 'aunt.'"

"How about 'stepmother'? Or more familiarly, 'step-ma'?"

"It sounds so hostile. The term has a bad reputation."

"Undeserved, of course."

"Undeserved so far."

"Well, I shall be a docile stepson. I shall join the chorus of your admirers."

Elesina looked at him suspiciously. "Your tone is bantering. You are playing with me. Tell me frankly what's on your mind. It's much better that way."

"Well, try to put yourself in my shoes." David turned away from her and took a few steps. "I come back to Broadlawns to find everything yours. Not that I really object. Dad can certainly do as he likes with his own. But it takes a bit of getting used to. As Fred Pemberton would put it: 'Thou has it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all.'"

"And you fear I played most foully for it?"

He laughed in spite of himself at her quickness. "No, no, I don't mean that. You mustn't think I meant that. It was just a quotation. We've always gone in for too many of them."

"Ah, but I
do
think you meant it. Let us be beautifully clear, David. You have come out here to see your father because you consider it your duty, and so it is. But at the same time you want to square your conscience about your mother. So you chatter innuendoes. I don't care for that. Let it all come out. If you think I'm a hussy and a gold digger, say so!"

David stared into the challenge of her direct gaze. He wondered if she would laugh or slap him if he took her up. "Very well. Why
did
you marry him?"

"Because we needed each other. Because I thought we could do something for each other. And that is precisely how it is working out. If you think you're going to hear an apology, you're sadly mistaken. I'm proud of having married your father. Prouder than of anything I've done in my life!"

He felt a sudden stab of anger. "I should have hoped it was more a question of love than of pride."

"It is both. I needn't discuss that with you. But be assured that I have the temerity to anticipate that I shall continue to make your father an excellent wife."

It was not merely that the mechanized divisions had now occupied the old kingdom. The civilian aides had penetrated to the heart of the citadel and donned the robes of the priests, assumed the headdresses of the old monarchs. The velvets and satins of David's past hung from the walls to celebrate the conquest. Elesina's very beauty repudiated him.

"I suppose that's easier now."

"What is?"

"To be a good wife."

"Why?"

"Well, you see I know the effects of my father's operation."

"You ought to have your mind washed out with soap, David Stein!" she exclaimed angrily. Then almost at once her indignation seemed to subside. "I hope at least you'll tell him I tried to be friendly."

Her tone was unassuming but firm, and she turned away to her garden with the air of resolution of one who has too many duties to perform to dissipate her time in losses already taken into account. David went indoors, where he found Ivy Trask working at a card table covered with papers which she had placed near the fountain in the patio. He sat down by her and told her of his tactlessness.

"What shall I do now? Go back to town?"

"Not because of Elesina," she replied at once. "Do you flatter yourself that your presence will embarrass her? She may not speak to you, except for the minimum civilities, but that will be simply because there is nothing to say. She doesn't bear grudges."

"Not even for what I said?"

Ivy shook her head. "The past has no importance for her. If it had, it would have crushed her long ago. She knows there's always a new deal coming up and that eventually her luck will change."

"Don't you think it has? Don't you think she's won now?"

Ivy considered this for a moment. "It's a game; it's not the rubber."

"And you want a grand slam!"

"Oh, I want the world for her, yes. You'd better get on our side, David."

"Do I strike you as an opportunist?"

"You strike me as a man who can learn to face facts. I know a bit about injustice. I've had my share. It taught me not to dwell on the bad moments. Keep looking ahead!"

"You forget that it is not only the past that nags me. It's the present. Mother's present."

"Your mother has no present. She lives in the past. How does it help her for you to make the same mistake?"

"I suppose nothing helps her," he confessed, throwing up his hands. "How would you suggest I make my peace with Elesina?"

"The way rude little boys always make peace with those whom they've offended. By saying they're sorry."

"And you think she'll accept my apology?"

"Try her."

Which David did, before dinner, as the house party assembled in the parlor. He went straight up to Elesina. "My conduct this afternoon was abominable. Ivy leads me to hope that I may be forgiven."

She did not even look at him. "Leave Ivy out of it."

"Will you forgive me?"

She turned to him suddenly at this, with a rather artificial brightness, and he was sure that Ivy had warned her. "I shall." She stuck out her hand, as if not caring who noted the gesture. "Or rather I
will.
As Fred Pemberton would say, it's more than simple future. It's determination.
Let
us be friends, David."

This was rather further than he had intended to go, but how was one to be so churlish as to reject her? The large dark limpid eyes laughed at him, took him in, like flooding water over a valley, filling up the flat basins of cracked mud. How did she make one's loyalty, one's faith, one's word seem quaint, rather dear, old-fashioned things? "Are you sure you want to give them up?" her smile, half mocking, half commanding, seemed to ask. "Don't do it just for me, you know. I'm not a bit sure I'm worth it. After all, it might be fun to be a crank, a
joli garçon
of a crank, like you."

He reached for her hand. "Yes—let us be friends, Elesina."

There was a flicker of withdrawal in her eyes, perhaps at the pressure of his grasp. "Your father will be so pleased," she said in a more perfunctory tone and turned to speak to Arthur, who already too obviously preferred her to his old mistress. It occurred to David, with an inward chuckle that helped to leash his conscience, that it might be Ivy's function to scare the servants, leaving Elesina free to be worshiped. What a pair!

"You make it all easier than I would have thought possible," he said when she turned back to him.

"Why should things not be easy? Is there a law against it? Anyway, you can do something for me if you wish. You can be nice to my little daughter."

"Oh, is she coming here?"

"I hope so. Things have changed. Her Grandpa Everett, like so many of the parsimonious, has proved a reckless gambler. He's lost his fortune in oil ventures. And now that my situation has changed, too, he seems to want to have Ruth off his hands."

"I'd like to meet my stepsister."

"But of course you will. Isn't this your home? Why don't you help us catalogue the collection? At least until you get a job. You could be the most immense help. Your father says you're the only member of the family who cares about his things."

This was her first reference to the museum project of which Ivy had told him, and he mused about it as the house party now moved toward the dining room. Elesina seemed perfectly serious, although it was a cliché in his mother's circle to lament the fate of the Stein collection, destined, it was always asserted, to be converted into jewels and furs and yachts for "that woman." At dinner he found himself next to Mrs. Dart, a large, stylish woman, with big bones and lanky brown-freckled arms. Her hair was a dyed chestnut, and she smoked constantly, even at table, puffing her cigarettes with thick, deeply rouged lips.

"We have an unusual relationship," she instructed him. "My daughter's stepson." She nodded, as if to accept the bond. "Let's see what we can make of it."

"I have made my peace with Elesina. Will the same treaty include you?"

"Certainly not. I don't need a treaty. I don't take sides. I'm too old, and besides, I don't care. I can perfectly imagine that you and your brothers would have been less than overjoyed by your father's marriage."

"Oh, if he's happy, that's all we care about."

"Really? In your case, I should have cared about the money."

David was taken aback. "But we don't," he protested. "Or at least
I
don't. If Father and Elesina really love each other..."