Twilight Sleep (12 page)

Manford lit another cigarette, and sat puffing it in silence. It
seemed as though a weight had been lifted from him too; yet his
face was still heavy and preoccupied. Perhaps before their talk
was over she might be able to say a word about Alvah Loft; she was
so sure that Dexter would see everything differently if only he
could be relieved of his frustrations.

At length he said: "I don't see why this should interfere with
your arrangements, though. Hadn't you meant to go somewhere for a
rest–cure?"

He had thought of that too! She felt a fresh tremor of gratitude.
How wicked she had been ever to doubt the designs of Providence,
and the resolving of all discords in the Higher Harmony!

"Oh, my rest–cure doesn't matter; being with you all at Cedarledge
will be the best kind of rest."

His obvious solicitude for her was more soothing than any medicine,
more magical even than Alvah Loft's silent communion. Perhaps the
one thing she had lacked, in all these years, was to feel that some
one was worrying about her as she worried about the universe.

"It's awfully unselfish of you, Pauline. But running a big house
is never restful. Nona will give up Asheville and come to
Cedarledge to look after us; you mustn't change your plans."

She smiled a little. "But I MUST, dear; because I'd meant to go to
Dawnside, and now, of course, in any case—"

Manford stood up and went and leaned against the chimney–piece.
"Well, that will be all right," he said.

"All right?"

He was absently turning about in his hand a little bronze
statuette. "Yes. If you think the fellow does you good. I've
been thinking over what you said the other day; and I've decided to
advise the Lindons not to act … too precipitately…" He
coughed and put the statuette back on the mantelshelf. "They've
abandoned the idea…"

"Oh, Dexter—" She started to her feet, her eyes brimming. He had
actually thought over what she had said to him—when, at the time,
he had seemed so obdurate and sneering! Her heart trembled with a
happy wonder in which love and satisfied vanity were subtly
mingled. Perhaps, after all, what her life had really needed was
something much simpler than all the complicated things she had put
into it.

"I'm so glad," she murmured, not knowing what else to say. She
wanted to hold out her arms, to win from him some answering
gesture. But he was already glancing at his watch. "That's all
right. Jove, though—we'll be late for dinner… Opera
afterward, isn't there?"

The door closed on him. For a moment or two she stood still, awed
by the sense of some strange presence in the room, something as
fresh and strong as a spring gale. It must be happiness, she
thought.

"Yes; this morning I think you CAN see her. She seems ever so much
better; not in such a fearful hurry, I mean."

Pauline, from her dressing–room, overheard Maisie Bruss. She
smiled at the description of herself, sent a thought of gratitude
to Alvah Loft, and called out: "Is that Nona? I'll be there in a
minute. Just finishing my exercises…"

She appeared, fresh and tingling, draped in a restful dove–coloured
wrapper, and offered Nona a smooth cheek. Miss Bruss had vanished,
and mother and daughter had to themselves the sunny room, full of
flowers and the scent of a wood–fire.

"How wonderful you look, mother! All made over. Have you been
trying some new exercises?"

Pauline smiled and pulled up the soft eiderdown coverlet at the
foot of her lounge. She sank comfortably back among her cushions.

"No, dear: it's just—understanding a little better, I think."

"Understanding?"

"Yes; that things ALWAYS come out right if one just keeps on being
brave and trustful."

"Oh—." She fancied she caught a note of disappointment in Nona's
voice. Poor Nona—her mother had long been aware that she had no
enthusiasm, no transports of faith. She took after her father.
How tired and sallow she looked in the morning light, perched on
the arm of a chair, her long legs dangling!

"You really ought to try to believe that yourself, darling," said
Pauline brightly.

Nona gave one of her father's shrugs. "Perhaps I will when I have
more time."

"But one can always MAKE time, dear." ("Just as I do," the smile
suggested.) "You look thoroughly fagged out, Nona. I do wish
you'd go to the wonderful new man I've just—"

"All right, mother. Only, this morning I haven't come to talk
about myself. It's Lita."

"Lita?"

"I've been wanting to speak to you about her for a long time.
Haven't you noticed anything?"

Pauline still wore her alert and sympathizing smile. "Tell me
what, dear—let's talk it all over."

Nona's brows were drawn in a troubled frown.

"I'm afraid Jim's not happy," she said.

"Jim? But, darling, he's been so dreadfully over–worked—that's
the trouble. Your father spoke to me about it the other day. He's
sending Jim and Arthur down to the island next month for a good
long rest."

"Yes; it's awfully nice of father. But it's not that—it's Lita,"
Nona doggedly repeated.

A faint shadow brushed Pauline's cloudless horizon; but she
resolutely turned her eyes from it. "Tell me what you think is
wrong."

"Why, that she's bored stiff—says she's going to chuck the whole
thing. She says the life she's leading prevents her expressing her
personality."

"Good gracious—she dares?" Pauline sat bolt upright, the torn
garment of her serenity fluttering away like a wisp of vapour. Was
there never to be any peace for her, she wondered? She had a
movement of passionate rebellion—then a terror lest it should
imperil Alvah Loft's mental surgery. After a physical operation
the patient's repose was always carefully guarded—but no one
thought of sparing HER, though she had just been subjected to so
radical an extirpation. She looked almost irritably at Nona.

"Don't you think you sometimes imagine things, my pet? Of course,
the more we yield to suggestions of pain and distress the more—"

"Yes; I know. But this isn't a suggestion, it's a fact. Lita says
she's got to express her personality, or she'll do something
dreadful. And if she does it will break Jim's heart."

Pauline leaned back, vaguely fortified by so definite a menace. It
was laughable to think of Lita Cliffe's threatening to do something
dreadful to a Wyant!

"Don't you think she's just over–excited, perhaps? She leads such
a crazy sort of life—all you children do. And she hasn't been
very strong since the baby's birth. I believe she needs a good
rest as much as Jim does. And you know your father has been so
wise about that; he's going to persuade her to go to Cedarledge for
two or three weeks while Jim's in Georgia."

Nona remained unimpressed. "Lita won't go to Cedarledge alone—you
know she won't."

"She won't have to, dear. Your father has thought of that too; he
finds time to think of everything."

"Who's going, then?"

"We ALL are. At least, your father hopes you will; and he's giving
up his tarpon–fishing on purpose to join us."

"Father is?" Nona stood up, her gaze suddenly fixed on her mother.

"Your father's wonderful," Pauline triumphed.

"Yes, I know." The girl's voice flagged again. "But all this is
weeks away. And meanwhile I'm afraid—I'm afraid."

"Little girls mustn't be afraid. If you are, send Lita to ME. I'm
sure it's just a case of frustration—"

"Frustration?"

"Yes; the new psychological thing. I'll take her with me to see
Alvah Loft. He's the great Inspirational Healer. I've only had
three treatments, and it's miraculous. It doesn't take ten
minutes, and all one's burdens are lifted." Pauline threw back her
head with a sigh which seemed to luxuriate in the remembrance of
her own release. "I wish I could take you ALL to him!" she said.

"Well, perhaps you'd better begin with Lita." Nona was half–
smiling too, but it was what her mother secretly called her
disintegrating smile. "I wish the poor child were more
constructive—but I suppose she's inherited her father's legal
mind," Pauline thought.

Nona stood before her irresolutely. "You know, mother, if things
do go wrong Jim will never get over it."

"There you are again—jumping at the conclusion that things will go
wrong! As for Lita, to me it's a clear case of frustration. She
says she wants to express her personality? Well, every one has the
right to do that—I should think it wrong of me to interfere. That
wouldn't be the way to make Jim happy. What Lita needs is to have
her frustrations removed. That will open her eyes to her
happiness, and make her see what a perfect home she has. I wonder
where my engagement–list is? Maisie! … Oh, here…" She
ran her eyes rapidly over the tablet. "I'll see Lita tomorrow—
I'll make a point of it. We'll have a friendly simple talk—
perfectly frank and affectionate. Let me see: at what time should
I be likely to find her? … And, no, of course not, darling; I
wouldn't think of saying a word to Jim. But your father—surely I
may speak to your father?"

Nona hesitated. "I think father knows about it—as much as he
need," she answered, her hand on the door.

"Ah, your father always knows everything," Pauline placidly
acquiesced.

The prospect of the talk with her daughter–in–law barely ruffled
her new–found peace. It was a pity Lita was restless; but nowadays
all the young people were restless. Perhaps it would be as well to
say a word to Kitty Landish; flighty and inconsequent as she was,
it might open her eyes to find that she was likely to have her
niece back on her hands. Mrs. Percy Landish's hands were always
full to overflowing with her own difficulties. A succession of
ingenious theories of life, and the relentless pursuit of
originality, had landed her in a state of chronic embarrassment,
pecuniary, social and sentimental. The announcement that Lita was
tired of Jim, and threatened to leave him, would fall like a
bombshell on that precarious roof which figured in the New York
Directory as somewhere in the East Hundreds, but was recorded in
the "Social Register" as No. 1 Viking Court. Mrs. Landish's last
fad had been to establish herself on the banks of the East River,
which she and a group of friends had adorned with a cluster of
reinforced–cement bungalows, first christened El Patio, but altered
to Viking Court after Mrs. Landish had read in an illustrated
weekly that the Vikings, who had discovered America ages before
Columbus, had not, as previously supposed, effected their first
landing at Vineyard Haven, but at a spot not far from the site of
her dwelling. Cement, at an early stage, is malleable, and the
Alhambra motifs had hastily given way to others from the prows of
Nordic ships, from silver torques and Runic inscriptions, the
latter easily contrived out of Arabic sourats from the Koran.
Before these new ornaments were dry, Mrs. Landish and her friends
were camping on the historic spot; and after four years of
occupancy they were camping still, in Mrs. Manford's sense of the
word.

A hurried telephone call had assured Pauline that she could see
Mrs. Landish directly after lunch; and at two o'clock her motor
drove up to Viking Court, which opened on a dilapidated river–front
and was cynically overlooked by tall tenement houses with an
underpinning of delicatessen stores.

Mrs. Landish was nowhere to be found. She had had to go out to
lunch, a melancholy maid–servant said, because the cook had just
given notice; but she would doubtless soon be back. With gingerly
steps Pauline entered the "living–room," so called (as visitors
were unfailingly reminded) because Mrs. Landish ate, painted,
modelled in clay, sculptured in wood, and received her friends
there. The Vikings, she added, had lived in that way. But today
all traces of these varied activities had disappeared, and the room
was austerely empty. Mrs. Landish's last hobby was for what she
called "purism," and her chief desire to make everything in her
surroundings conform to the habits and industries of a mythical
past. Ever since she had created Viking Court she had been trying
to obtain rushes for the floor: but as the Eastern States of
America did not produce the particular variety of rush which the
Vikings were said to have used she had at last decided to have rugs
woven on handlooms in Abyssinia, some one having assured her that
an inscription referring to trade–relations between the Vikings and
the kingdom of Prester John had been discovered in the ruins of
Petra.

The difficulty of having these rugs made according to designs of
the period caused the cement floor of Mrs. Landish's living–room to
remain permanently bare, and most of the furniture having now been
removed, the room had all the appearance of a garage, the more so
as Mrs. Landish's latest protégé, a young cabaret–artist who
performed on a motor–siren, had been suffered to stable his cycle
in one corner.

In addition to this vehicle, the room contained only a few
relentless–looking oak chairs, a long table bearing an hour–glass
(for clocks would have been an anachronism), and a scrap of dusty
velvet nailed on the cement wall, as to which Mrs. Landish
explained that it was a bit of a sixth century Coptic vestment, and
that the nuns of a Basilian convent in Thessaly were reproducing it
for eventual curtains and chair–cushions. "It may take fifty
years."

Mrs. Landish always added, "but I would rather go without it than
live with anything less perfect."

The void into which Pauline advanced gave prominence to the figure
of a man who stood with his back to her, looking through the window
at what was to be a garden when Viking horticulture was revived.
Meanwhile it was fully occupied by neighbouring cats and by swirls
of wind–borne rubbish.

The visitor, duskily blocked against a sullen March sky, was at
first not recognizable; but half way toward him Pauline exclaimed:
"Dexter!" He turned, and his surprise met hers.

"I never dreamed of its being you!" she said.

He faced her with a certain defiant jauntiness. "Why not?"

"Because I never saw you here before. I've tried often enough to
get you to come—"

"Oh, to lunch or dine!" He sent a grimace about the room. "I
never thought that was among my duties."

She did not take this up, and a moment's silence hung between them.
Finally Manford said: "I came about Lita."

Pauline felt a rush of relief. Her husband's voice had been harsh
and impatient: she saw that her arrival had mysteriously put him
out. But if anxiety about Lita were the cause of his visit it not
only explained his perturbation but showed his revived solicitude
for herself. She sent back another benediction to the Inspirational
Healer, so sweet it was to find that she and Dexter were once more
moved by the same impulses.

"It's awfully kind of you, dear. How funny that we should meet on
the same errand!"

He stared: "Why, have you—?"

"Come about Lita? Well, yes. She's been getting rather out of
hand, hasn't she? Of course a divorce would kill poor Jim—
otherwise I shouldn't so much mind—"

"A divorce?"

"Nona tells me it's Lita's idea. Foolish child! I'm to have a
talk with her this afternoon. I came here first to see if Kitty's
influence—"

"Oh: Kitty's influence!"

"Yes; I know." She broke off, and glanced quickly at Manford.
"But if you don't believe in her influence, why did you come here
yourself?"

The question seemed to take her husband by surprise, and he met it
by a somewhat rigid smile. How old he looked in the hard slaty
light! The crisp hair was almost as thin on his temples as higher
up. If only he would try that wonderful new "Radio–scalp"! "And
he used to be so handsome!" his wife said to herself, with the rush
of vitality she always felt when she noted the marks of fatigue or
age in her contemporaries. Manford and Nona, she reflected, had
the same way of turning sallow and heavy–cheeked when they were
under any physical or moral strain.

Manford said: "I came to ask Mrs. Landish to help us get Lita away
for Easter. I thought she might put in a word—"

It was Pauline's turn to smile. "Perhaps she might. What I came
for was to say that if Lita doesn't quiet down and behave
reasonably she may find herself thrown on her aunt's hands again.
I think that will produce an effect on Kitty. I shall make it
perfectly clear that they are not to count on me financially if
Lita leaves Jim." She glanced brightly at Manford, instinctively
awaiting his approval.