This Proud Heart (41 page)

He wrapped the old silk handkerchief carefully about the little wooden statue. “I feel I can’t bear to make money by it,” he added, “even if I could.” And then, his back to her, putting it away, he said casually, very adult, “You know, Marcia really has the outlook on life of a cat, Mother. She only thinks of herself. It worries me.”

“She’s very young,” Susan said, smiling. John was born to be responsible. Yes, there was a little of the look of Mark in his shoulders and about the back of his head, though when he turned, the look was gone. It was not in his face, but hidden somehow in his being.

“She’ll never change,” John said. “It’s the stuff she’s made of. I always feel she’s terra cotta, you know—not wood or marble—nothing lasting.”

She stood, drinking him in, enjoying his nearness, amazed at his wisdom.

“You and I,” she said shyly, “we ought to do more things together.”

He blushed sharply, his fair skin scarlet.

“I’d like it,” he said, “only you’re very busy, aren’t you?”

“Not too busy,” she said. “I’ve always had time for what I wanted.”

The moment was too sweet to bear. She broke it off suddenly.

“We’ll plan,” she said, “after my exhibition is over.”

She said so many times, “After my exhibition is over,” that she felt a premonition of break and change. She felt it so strongly and so strangely that on the day of the opening she went very early to her studio and planned her next work. She had put down notes of ideas for her complete American Procession, of which the seven pieces in exhibition were the first part. But when she went over them now they seemed too slight. None of them seized her as inevitably to be made. Besides, her marbles were gone. She was not sure that she wanted more from Fane Hill. Yesterday, late in the day, Blake’s father had come in at her invitation, to see the exhibition alone with her.

“Come and see your marbles,” she said gaily, opening the door to him in the afternoon. The last cleaning had been done, and everything was ready.

He had come in, his smooth black derby and his gray gloves in his hand. Together they had moved from piece to piece, and with his increasing silence she had talked more and more quickly. “You remember this? It is one of the blocks from Paros. These people work in a restaurant nearby. Aren’t they splendid? The man serves out soup as though he were a god feeding humanity.”

“Ah,” said Mr. Kinnaird, doubtfully.

“And this is the Belgian black.” She laid her hand on the thick black knee.

Mr. Kinnaird averted his eyes. “It is very overpowering,” he murmured.

When he had seen everything, he sat down and gazed at them all again.

“I can’t tell you how I feel,” he said, his face agitated. He passed his free hand across his forehead. “It’s—they’re so huge. The room is a little small, perhaps. Each of them needs a great deal of space—they seem to bear down on one.”

She waited a moment. Then she said, “I hope you aren’t sorry you gave me the marbles.”

“No, oh no,” he said quickly, “only I had not perhaps—expected such large things from a—a—lady. It wants getting used to, that’s all. I had thought, perhaps, of a lighter touch—something more classical.”

“They aren’t pretty, I know,” she said.

And then he made quick amends. “They are very strong, my dear. They are really quite masculine in their technique.”

“I don’t think men and women create so differently,” she said.

“I shall be very interested to see what the critics say,” Mr. Kinnaird said without answering her.

In her studio now, remembering his bewildered eyes, she thought, “Poor old man! He doesn’t like them. I mustn’t take any more of his marbles.”

But then it had been a curious varying day. For Michael had come in a little while, and looking about had whistled and cried, “Susan, they’re enormous, they’re splendid! They ought to be set out in the harbor somewhere, to show what’s marched into America!” And then he looked at her haggardly and said with trembling lips, “Susan, Mary is married!”

“Oh, Michael!” She sat down suddenly, struck down with his catastrophe.

He nodded. “She wouldn’t marry me—but she married that old chap Rhodes—a decent old chap—but Mary!”

He was swallowing hard, but he gave way. He sat beside her on a bench and put his head on her shoulder and she put her arms about him.

“Oh, dear, oh, dear,” she murmured in deepest distress.

“I’m just a fool,” he whispered, “it’s ridiculous. I couldn’t sleep all night. She called me up yesterday when she got in. He’d followed her to Paris. That’s all. Only I didn’t think she really would.”

She felt his shaking body. The quality of this weeping was terrifying and destructive.

“If I were you, Michael,” she said gently, “I would—”

“I can’t forget her,” he said sharply. “Don’t say that.”

“I wasn’t going to say that,” she answered. “I was going to say, accept it as your life. Everything that is in your life goes into you—you can’t forget, you mustn’t forget. You need it all—everything—love and loss—all of it.” She paused, distilling something from herself. “Deprivation—that’s positive, too—that also is a sort of life.”

She held him, waiting for him to grow quiet. What she had told him she told herself also. What Blake gave her was part of her life, but what he did not was her life too. What she had and what she had not, it was all the everything which she needed.

“I’m going north somewhere to paint.” Michael moved away from her. He turned his back to her and cleared his throat.

She rose, picked up a cloth and dusted the foot of the stone Sonia.

“I always feel that you haven’t really found what you want to paint.” She longed for easily flowing words with which to help him, but she did not have them, so she went on as she could. “There is a sort of final material, native to you—when you find it you will paint from the inside out. All those pictures of Mary—none of them are painted from the inside of her—or of you. One works like that with what one has for the moment. But nothing comes clearly through until you find your own stuff.”

He was listening, but he did not answer.

“I’m glad Mary has married someone else,” she went on, doggedly. “If she had married you, you would have stopped forever where you are.”

“I wouldn’t have cared.” Michael’s voice was thick. “Who cares whether I paint a few pictures or not?”

“Nobody,” Susan answered. “A few pictures or statues, a little more music, a little more or less of anything—it doesn’t matter. But it matters whether you are happy in your life. And you can only be happy if you find what you want to make, and if you can make it.” She paused, trying to tell him what she meant. “Some people are pools and some are rivers—flowing to the sea. You are a river—you must flow on—you cannot be caught in a pool. You would be bound and angry and overflow at last in all sorts of wildness and misery. You must keep your channel clear.”

All this she was saying to herself, too, as she polished the marble and made it dustless—only it did not matter about her. She must say something more to Michael, something real for comfort. She remembered suddenly, and she looked up at him, bright with joy.

“Michael, I saw your horses!”

“Horses?” He did not know what she was talking about.

“Your wild horses—the picture Joseph Hart bought!”

Now he knew what she said.

“Susan! What did you think of them?”

“Perfect,” she whispered, “perfect, that’s all. I felt when I looked at them—I felt—”

“Yes?” His eyes were eagerly upon her. She must tell him exactly how she felt so that he might forget Mary, so that he might be comforted.

“I felt that you were free at last,” she said. “The endless desert, the endless sky, that pure cold moonlight on the water, those flying lovely shapes, whom no one had ever tamed, whom no one can ever tame—” They were looking into each other’s eyes, and an ecstasy of comprehension passed between them which had nothing to do with themselves.

“I know,” he said.

Michael came over to her where she knelt. He touched her cheek with his hand and went away without a word.

And when he was gone, she knelt a moment more, motionless. Then she went to the telephone and called Mary’s apartment. A brisk voice answered that Mary Gaylord’s number was changed and gave a new number, and she dialed and heard a man’s pleasant, rumbling voice, drawling a little into her ear.

“I want to speak to Mary Gaylord, please,” she said, and heard the voice call, “Mary, honey, here’s somebody for you!” And then Mary’s crisp, very clear voice inquired of her, “Yes?”

“This is Susan,” she answered.

The quality of Mary’s voice did not change. “I was just about to call you, Susan, and tell you—”

“Michael has told me,” she said.

“Has he? We only got back yesterday. I decided rather quickly.” Her clear voice admitted no fault.

“Have you told Dad and Mother?” Susan asked.

“No, I am going to write today,” Mary answered.

She heard the pleasant rumble and Mary said, “Benny wants to talk to you a minute. He saw the announcement of your exhibition this morning.”

And there at her ear was the kind rumbling again. “Well, well, Susan! I was all excited. Mary didn’t tell me you were going to have an exhibition. I just happened to see the name and I asked her if it was a relative.”

This was Mary’s husband, she thought, listening, answering a word or two—a kindly, good voice, a little dull, a little commonplace. Of course nothing was his fault. Mary would never tell him that Michael even lived.

“Yes, of course,” she was answering now. “No, I am not busy. Tomorrow I’ll probably be much busier. I hope so, at least. Do come over now. I am quite alone.” She threw the phrases into the receiver, between his questions. Then Mary was there again.

“Benny wants to come over, so we’ll be there as soon as we get the car.”

“I am here all day,” Susan answered.

Waiting, she remembered Mary, a little girl at the piano, playing doggedly over and over, wrongly, a fragment of music, and growing sullen when she was told she was wrong.

“This is Benny,” Mary said. Her face and voice were composed as ever and she was very smart in a new suit of brown velvet. Susan looked away from her into kind very blue eyes, small in a round red face under thin, carefully brushed white hair, through which the scalp showed scarlet. She felt her hand taken warmly into a plump, impulsive, dampish grasp.

“Well, well!” the rumbling voice was saying, “I can’t tell you how proud I am!”

Mr. Rhodes pulled out his silk handkerchief and wiped his face and laughed. “It’s cold enough outside,” he said, “but I always perspire a little when I’m excited, and meeting you has certainly got me excited, hasn’t it, honey?” He turned to Mary and she smiled a little smile. He glanced at the statues. “Is this—My goodness, Mary, you never told me your sister was a real sculptor!”

“I haven’t had time to tell you all about my family yet,” Mary replied.

“That’s right,” said Mr. Rhodes with heartiness. “Well, I’m going to start right in. I’m anxious to meet them all, Susan, especially your children. I’m fond of children. I’ve been married before—lost my first wife by typhoid when we were taking a world tour, and I never thought I’d marry again until I saw Mary here one day in the store.” He laughed again.

She saw what he was, anyone could see what he was, a kind and good man, no longer young, and born in innocence. She looked at Mary reproachfully, and Mary met her eyes fully and arrogantly. There was still that sullen, stubborn child she had once been.

“Don’t Mary look splendid?” Mr. Rhodes was demanding of Susan. He gazed at Mary lovingly and took her hand and patted it. She had drawn off her gloves and Susan saw the shining new wedding ring and another ring of diamonds and emeralds. “Marriage agrees with her,” said Mr. Rhodes.

“She looks as if you treated her with the greatest kindness,” said Susan with energy. She liked this friendly, childlike man, and she wanted to cry out to Mary that she must be kind to him, because it was wicked to be cruel to the old and innocent.

“I can’t be too kind to her, that’s what I think.” Mr. Rhodes’ face was grave. He was playing with the thick gold watch chain that was drawn a little tightly across his rounding waistcoat. “A man can’t be too kind to a woman anyway, is what I think, and when a lovely young girl like Mary trusts herself to an old fellow like me—” he broke off. There were tears in his blue innocent eyes—“Well, I can’t do too much for her. What she sees in me, I don’t know. It can’t be much.” He paused, and went on shyly. “I don’t mind telling you I feel awful humble when I think of myself. This morning when I was shaving I looked at myself and thought, ‘You old son-of-a-gun, what makes you think she can love that?’ I had to remind myself that if she didn’t love me for some reason of her own sweet nature, she wouldn’t have married me. I’ve often wondered, looking at some of the men I know, why their wives, sweet women, could marry ’em. Whyever it is, it comes out of their own good womanly natures—” his voice was trembling—“so I don’t ask why—I only thankfully take what she gives me. She’s a wonderful girl.”

And he looked at Mary and adored her, and she stood smiling her small smile, cold and unmoved, in her strange secret beauty. She put out her hand and touched his hand lightly. “Nice Benny,” she murmured, and then she said quickly to Susan, “We’re going to buy a house in town, Susan, isn’t it exciting? And one at Palm Beach! Benny spends months in the South every winter.”

“You must bring the children and your husband and come to see us,” he said. “Now, honey, we must stop chattering and look at all this—”

Behind his broad back Susan looked at Mary with grave eyes, but Mary’s eyes were still blank, bright, impenetrable. “I will tell you,” Susan thought with anger, gazing into the hard darkness of those eyes, “you must not hurt this kind old man. You can hurt him more than you hurt Michael even, because he is so defenseless. You must be good to him if you cannot be tender.” But he would, she knew, want tenderness. He would beg Mary humbly for her tenderness and not understand why she withheld it, nor ever understand that it was not in her. And he was not like Michael who could go away. He would cling to her the more she hurt him, having nowhere to go away from her, because he was what he was, because he was old and had no refuge. Susan ached for him, her imagination running ahead into the years. She went to him and began explaining warmly and fully, though she knew he could not understand.