Twilight Sleep (13 page)

But the expected response did not come. His face grew blurred and
uncertain, and for a moment he said nothing. Then he muttered:
"It's all very unfortunate … a stupid muddle…"

Pauline caught the change in his tone. It suggested that her last
remark, instead of pleasing him, had raised between them one of
those invisible barriers against which she had so often bruised her
perceptions. And just as she had thought that he and she were
really in touch again!

"We mustn't be hard on her … we mustn't judge her without
hearing both sides … " he went on.

"But of course not." It was just the sort of thing she wanted him
to say, but not in the voice in which he said it. The voice was
full of hesitation and embarrassment. Could it be her presence
which embarrassed him? With Manford one could never tell. She
suggested, almost timidly: "But why shouldn't I leave you to see
Kitty alone? Perhaps we needn't both…"

His look of relief was unconcealable; but her bright resolution
rose above the shock. "You'll do it so much better," she
encouraged him.

"Oh, I don't know. But perhaps two of us … looks rather like
the Third Degree, doesn't it?"

She assented nervously: "All I want is to smooth things over…"

He gave an acquiescent nod, and followed her as she moved toward
the door. "Perhaps, though—look here, Pauline—"

She sparkled with responsiveness.

"Hadn't you better wait before sending for Lita? It may not be
necessary, if—"

Her first impulse was to agree; but she thought of the Inspirational
Healer. "You can trust me to behave with tact, dear; but I'm sure
it will help Lita to talk things out, and perhaps I shall know
better than Kitty how to get at her… Lita and I have always
been good friends, and there's a wonderful new man I want to
persuade her to see … some one really psychic…"

Manford's lips narrowed in a smile; again she had a confused sense
of new deserts widening between them. Why had he again become
suddenly sardonic and remote? She had no time to consider, for the
new gospel of frustrations was surging to her lips.

"NOT a teacher; he repudiates all doctrines, and simply ACTS on
you. He—"

"Pauline darling! Dexter! Have you been waiting long? Oh, dear—
my hour–glass seems to be quite empty!"

Mrs. Percy Landish was there, slipping toward them with a sort of
aerial shuffle, as if she had blown in on a March gust. Her tall
swaying figure produced, at a distance, an effect of stateliness
which vanished as she approached, as if she had suddenly got out of
focus. Her face was like an unfinished sketch, to which the artist
had given heaps of fair hair, a lovely nose, expressive eyes, and
no mouth. She laid down some vague parcels and shook the hour–
glass irritably, as if it had been at fault.

"How dear of you!" she said to her visitors. "I don't often get
you together in my eyrie."

The expression puzzled Pauline, who knew that in poetry an eyrie
was an eagle's nest, and wondered how this term could be applied to
a cement bungalow in the East Hundreds… But there was no time
to pursue such speculations.

Mrs. Landish was looking helplessly about her. "It's cold—you're
both freezing, I'm afraid?" Her eyes rested tragically on the
empty hearth. "The fact is, I can't have a fire because my
andirons are WRONG."

"Not high enough? The chimney doesn't draw, you mean?" Pauline in
such emergencies was in her element; she would have risen from her
deathbed to show a new housemaid how to build a fire. But Mrs.
Landish shook her head with the look of a woman who never expects
to be understood by other women.

"No, dear; I mean they were not of the period. I always suspected
it, and Dr. Ygrid Bjornsted, the great authority on Nordic art, who
was here the other day, told me that the only existing pair is in
the Museum at Christiania. So I have sent an order to have them
copied. But you ARE cold, Pauline! Shall we go and sit in the
kitchen? We shall be quite by ourselves, because the cook has just
given notice."

Pauline drew her furs around her in silent protest at this new
insanity. "We shall be very well here, Kitty. I suppose you know
it's about Lita—"

Mrs. Landish seemed to drift back to them from incalculable
distances. "Lita? Has Klawhammer really engaged her? It was for
his 'Herodias,' wasn't it?" She was all enthusiasm and
participation.

Pauline's heart sank. She had caught the irritated jut of
Manford's brows. No—it was useless to try to make Kitty
understand; and foolish to risk her husband's displeasure by
staying in this icy room for such a purpose. She wrapped herself
in sweetness as in her sables. "It's something much more serious
than that cinema nonsense. But I'm going to leave it to Dexter to
explain. He will do it ever so much better than I could… Yes,
Kitty dear, I remember there's a step missing in the vestibule.
Please don't bother to see me out—you know Dexter's minutes are
precious." She thrust Mrs. Landish softly back into the room, and
made her way unattended across the hall. As she did so, the living–
room door, the lock of which had responded reluctantly to her
handling, swung open again, and she heard Manford ask, in his dry
cross–examining voice: "Will you please tell me exactly when and
for how long Lita was at Dawnside, Mrs. Landish?"

"I believe it's the first time in a month that I've heard Nona
laugh," Stanley Heuston said with a touch of irony—or was it
simply envy?

Nona was still in the whirlpool of her laugh. She struggled to its
edge only to be caught back, with retrospective sobs and gasps,
into its central coil. "It was too screamingly funny," she flung
at them out of the vortex.

She was perched sideways, as her way was, on the arm of the big
chintz sofa in Arthur Wyant's sitting–room. Wyant was stretched
out in his usual armchair, behind a crumby messy tea–table, on the
other side of which sat his son and Stanley Heuston.

"She didn't hesitate for more than half a second—just long enough
to catch my eye—then round she jerked, grabbed hold of her last
word and fitted it into a beautiful new appeal to the Mothers. Oh—
oh—oh! If you could have seen them!"

"I can." Jim's face suddenly became broad, mild and earnestly
peering. He caught up a pair of his father's eye–glasses, adjusted
them to his blunt nose, and murmured in a soft feminine drawl:
"Mrs. Manford is one of our deepest–souled women. She has a vital
message for all Mothers."

Wyant leaned back and laughed. His laugh was a contagious chuckle,
easily provoked and spreading in circles like a full spring. Jim
gave a large shout at his own mimicry, and Heuston joined the
chorus on a dry note that neither spread nor echoed, but seemed
suddenly to set bounds to their mirth. Nona felt a momentary
resentment of his tone. Was he implying that they were ridiculing
their mother? They weren't, they were only admiring her in their
own way, which had always been humorous and half–parental. Stan
ought to have understood by this time—and have guessed why Nona,
at this moment, caught at any pretext to make Jim laugh, to make
everything in their joint lives appear to him normal and jolly.
But Stanley always seemed to see beyond a joke, even when he was in
the very middle of it. He was like that about everything in life;
forever walking around things, weighing and measuring them, and
making his disenchanted calculations. Poor fellow—well, no
wonder!

Jim got up, the glasses still clinging to his blunt nose. He
gathered an imaginary cloak about him, picked up inexistent gloves
and vanity–bag, and tapped his head as if he were settling a
feathered hat. The laughter waxed again, and Wyant chuckled: "I
wish you young fools would come oftener. It would cure me a lot
quicker than being shipped off to Georgia." He turned half–
apologetically to Nona. "Not that I'm not awfully glad of the
chance—"

"I know, Exhibit dear. It'll be jolly enough when you get down
there, you and Jim."

"Yes; I only wish you were coming too. Why don't you?"

Jim's features returned to their normal cast, and he removed the
eye–glasses. "Because mother and Manford have planned to carry off
Lita and the kid to Cedarledge at the same time. Good scheme,
isn't it? I wish I could be in both places at once. We're all of
us fed up with New York."

His father glanced at him. "Look here, my boy, there's no
difficulty about your being in the same place as your wife. I can
take my old bones down to Georgia without your help, since
Manford's kind enough to invite me."

"Thanks a lot, dad; but part of Lita's holiday is getting away from
domestic cares, and I'm the principal one. She has to order dinner
for me. And I don't say I shan't like my holiday too … sand
and sun, any amount of 'em. That's my size at present. No more
superhuman efforts." He stretched his arms over his head with a
yawn.

"But I thought Manford was off to the south too—to his tarpon?
Isn't this Cedarledge idea new?"

"It's part of his general kindness. He wanted me to go with an
easy mind, so he's chucked his fishing and mobilized the whole
group to go and lead the simple life at Cedarledge with Lita."

Wyant's sallow cheek–bones reddened slightly. "It's awfully kind,
as you say; but if my going south is to result in upsetting
everybody else's arrangements—"

"Oh, rot, father." Jim spoke with sudden irritability. "Manford
would hate it if you chucked now; wouldn't he, Nona? And I do want
Lita to get away somewhere, and I'd rather it was to Cedarledge
than anywhere." The clock struck, and he pulled himself out of his
chair. Nona noticed with a pang how slack and half–hearted all his
movements were. "Jove—I must jump!" he said. "We're due at some
cabaret show that begins early; and I believe we dine at Ardwin's
first, with a bunch of freaks. By–bye, Nona… Stan…
Goodbye, father. Only a fortnight now before we cut it all!"

The door shut after him on a silence. Wyant reached for his pipe
and filled it. Heuston stared at the tea–table. Suddenly Wyant
questioned: "Look here—why is Jim being shipped off to the island
with me when his wife's going to Cedarledge?"

Nona dropped from her sofa–arm and settled into an armchair.
"Simply for the reasons he told you. They both want a holiday from
each other."

"I don't believe Jim really wants one from Lita."

"Well, so much the worse for Jim. Lita's temporarily tired of
dancing and domesticity, and the doctor says she ought to go off
for a while by herself."

Wyant was slowly drawing at his pipe. At length he said: "Your
mother's doctor told her that once; and she never came back."

Nona's colour rose through her pale cheeks to her very forehead.
The motions of her blood were not impetuous, and she now felt
herself blushing for having blushed. It was unlike Wyant to say
that—unlike his tradition of reticence and decency, which had
always joined with Pauline's breezy optimism in relegating to
silence and non–existence whatever it was painful or even awkward
to discuss. For years the dual family had lived on the assumption
that they were all the best friends in the world, and the
vocabulary of that convention had become their natural idiom.

Stanley Heuston seemed to catch the constraint in the air. He got
up as if to go. "I suppose we're dining somewhere too—." He
pronounced the "we" without conviction, for every one knew that he
and his wife seldom went out together.

Wyant raised a detaining hand. "Don't go, Stan. Nona and I have
no secrets—if we had, you should share them. Why do you look so
savage, Nona? I suppose I've said something stupid… Fact is,
I'm old–fashioned; and this idea of people who've chosen to live
together having perpetually to get away from each other… When
I remember my father and mother, for sixty–odd years… New York
in winter, Hudson in summer… Staple topics: snow for six
months, mosquitoes the other. I suppose that's the reason your
generation have got the fidgets!"

Nona laughed. "It's a good enough reason; and anyhow there's
nothing to be done about it."

Wyant frowned. "Nothing to be done about it—in Lita's case? I
hope you don't mean that. My son—God, if ever a man has slaved
for a woman, made himself a fool for her…"

Heuston's dry voice cut the diatribe. "Well, sir, you wouldn't
deprive him of man's peculiar privilege: the right to make a fool
of himself?"

Wyant sank back grumbling among his cushions. "I don't understand
you, any of you," he said, as if secretly relieved by the
admission.

"Well, Exhibit dear, strictly speaking you don't have to. We're
old enough to run the show for ourselves, and all you've got to do
is to look on from the front row and admire us," said Nona, bending
to him with a caress.

In the street she found herself walking silently at Heuston's side.
These weekly meetings with him at Wyant's were becoming a tacit
arrangement: the one thing in her life that gave it meaning. She
thought with a smile of her mother's affirmation that everything
always came out right if only one kept on being brave and trustful,
and wondered where, under that formula, her relation to Stanley
Heuston could be fitted in. It was anything but brave—letting
herself drift into these continual meetings, and refusing to accept
their consequences. Yet every nerve in her told her that these
moments were the best thing in life, the one thing she couldn't do
without: just to be near him, to hear his cold voice, to say
something to provoke his disenchanted laugh; or, better still, to
walk by him as now without talking, with a furtive glance now and
then at his profile, ironic, dissatisfied, defiant—yes, and so
weak under the defiance… The fact that she judged and still
loved showed that her malady was mortal.

"Oh, well—it won't last; nothing lasts for our lot," she murmured
to herself without conviction. "Or at the worst it will only last
as long as I do; and that's a date I can fix as I choose."

What nonsense, though, to talk like that, when all those others
needed her: Jim and his silly Lita, her father, yes, even her proud
self–confident father, and poor old Exhibit A and her mother who
was so sure that nothing would ever go wrong again, now she had
found a new Healer! Yes; they all needed help, though they didn't
know it, and Fate seemed to have put her, Nona, at the very point
where all their lives intersected, as a First–Aid station is put at
the dangerous turn of a race–course, or a points–man at the
shunting point of a big junction.

"Look here, Nona: my dinner–engagement was a fable. Would the
heavens fall if you and I went and dined somewhere by ourselves,
just as we are?"

"Oh, Stan—" Her heart gave a leap of joy. In these free days,
when the young came and went as they chose, who would have believed
that these two had never yet given themselves a stolen evening?
Perhaps it was just because it was so easy. Only difficult things
tempted Nona, and the difficult thing was always to say "No."

Yet was it? She stole a glance at Heuston's profile, as a street–
lamp touched it, saw the set lips already preparing a taunt at her
refusal, and wondered if saying no to everything required as much
courage as she liked to think. What if moral cowardice were the
core of her boasted superiority? She didn't want to be "like the
others"—but was there anything to be proud of in that? Perhaps
her disinterestedness was only a subtler vanity, not unrelated,
say, to Lita's refusal to let a friend copy her new dresses, or Bee
Lindon's perpetual craving to scandalize a world sated with
scandals. Exhibitionists, one and all of them, as the psycho–
analysts said—and, in her present mood, moral exhibitionism seemed
to her the meanest form of the display.

"How mid–Victorian, Stan!" she laughed. "As if there were any
heavens to fall! Where shall we go? It will be the greatest fun.
Isn't there rather a good little Italian restaurant somewhere near
here? And afterward there's that nigger dancing at the Housetop."

"Come along, then!"

She felt as little and light as a wisp of straw carried out into
the rushing darkness of a sea splashed with millions of stars.
Just the thought of a friendly evening, an evening of simple
comradeship, could do that; could give her back her youth, yes, and
the courage to persevere. She put her hand through his arm, and
knew by his silence that he was thinking her thoughts. That was
the final touch of magic.

"You really want to go to the Housetop?" he questioned, leaning
back to light his cigar with a leisurely air, as if there need
never again be any hurrying about anything. Their dinner at
the little Italian restaurant was nearly over. They had
conscientiously explored the paste, the frutte di mare, the
fritture and the cheese–and–tomato mixtures, and were ending up
with a foaming sabaione. The room was low–ceilinged, hot, and
crowded with jolly noisy people, mostly Italians, over whom, at
unnoticed intervals, an olive–tinted musician with blue–white
eyeballs showered trills and twangings. His music did not
interrupt the conversation, but merely obliged the diners to shout
a little louder; a pretext of which they joyfully availed
themselves. Nona, at first, had found the noise a delicious
shelter for her talk with Heuston; but now it was beginning to
stifle her. "Let's get some fresh air first," she said.

"All right. We'll walk for a while."

They pushed back their chairs, wormed a way through the packed
tables, got into their wraps, and stepped out of the swinging doors
into long streamers of watery lamplight. The douche of a cold rain
received them.

"Oh, dear—the Housetop, then!" Nona grumbled. How sweet the rain
would have been under the budding trees of Cedarledge! But here,
in these degraded streets…

Heuston caught a passing taxi. "A turn, first—just round the
Park?"

"No; the Housetop."

He leaned back and lit a cigarette. "You know I'm going to get
myself divorced: it's all settled," he announced.

"Settled—with Aggie?"

"No: not yet. But with the lady I'm going off with. My word of
honour. I am; next week."

Nona gave an incredulous laugh. "So this is good–bye?"

"Very nearly."

"Poor Stan!"

"Nona … listen … look here…"

She took his hand. "Stan, hang next week!"

"Nona—?"

She shook her head, but let her hand lie in his.

"No questions—no plans. Just being together," she pleaded.

He held her in silence and their lips met. "Then why not—?"

"No: the Housetop—the Housetop!" she cried, pulling herself out of
his arms.

"Why, you're crying!"

"I'm not! It's the rain. It's—"

"Nona!"

"Stan, you know it's no earthly use."

"Life's so rotten—"

"Not like this."

"This? This—what?"

She struggled out of another enfolding, put her head out of the
window, and cried: "The Housetop!"

They found a corner at the back of the crowded floor. Nona blinked
a little in the dazzle of light–garlands, the fumes of smoke, the
clash of noise and colours. But there he and she sat, close
together, hidden in their irresistible happiness, and though his
lips had their moody twist she knew the same softness was in his
veins as in hers, isolating them from the crowd as completely as if
they had still been in the darkness of the taxi. That was the way
she must take her life, she supposed; piece–meal, a tiny scrap of
sweetness at a time, and never more than a scrap—never once! Well—
it would be worse still if there were no moments like this, short
and cruel as they seemed when they came.