Twilight Sleep (8 page)

She poured herself a glass of cherry brandy, dropped a kiss on his
thinning hair, and ran up to her room humming Miss Jossie Keiler's
jazz–tune. Perhaps after all it wasn't such a rotten world.

The morning after a party in her own house Pauline Manford always
accorded herself an extra half–hour's rest; but on this occasion
she employed it in lying awake and wearily reckoning up the next
day's tasks. Disenchantment had succeeded to the night's glamour.
The glamour of balls never did last: they so quickly became a
matter for those domestic undertakers, the charwomen, housemaids
and electricians. And in this case the taste of pleasure had
soured early. When the doors were thrown open on the beflowered
supper tables not one of the hostess's family was left to marshal
the guests to their places! Her husband, her daughter and son, her
son's wife—all had deserted her. It needed, in that chill morning
vigil, all Pauline's self–control to banish the memory. Not that
she wanted any of them to feel under any obligation—she was all
for personal freedom, self–expression, or whatever they called it
nowadays—but still, a ball was a ball, a host was a host. It was
too bad of Dexter, really; and of Jim too. On Lita of course no
one could count: that was part of the pose people found so
fascinating. But Jim—Jim and Nona to forsake her! What a
ridiculous position it had put her in—but no, she mustn't think of
that now, or those nasty little wrinkles would creep back about her
eyes. The masseuse had warned her… Gracious! At what time
was the masseuse due? She stretched out her hand, turned on the
light by the bed (for the windows were still closely darkened), and
reached for what Maisie Bruss called the night–list: an upright
porcelain tablet on which the secretary recorded, for nocturnal
study, the principal "fixtures" of the coming day.

Today they were so numerous that Miss Bruss's tight script had
hardly contrived to squeeze them in. Foremost, of course, poor
Exhibit A, moved on from yesterday; then a mysterious appointment
with Amalasuntha, just before lunch: something urgent, she had
hinted. Today of all days! Amalasuntha was so tactless at times.
And then that Mahatma business: since Dexter was inflexible, his
wife had made up her mind to appeal to the Lindons. It would be
awkward, undoubtedly—and she did so hate things that were awkward.
Any form of untidiness, moral or material, was unpleasant to her;
but something must be done, and at once. She herself hardly knew
why she felt so apprehensive, so determined that the matter should
have no sequel; except that, if anything DID go wrong, it would
upset all her plans for a rest–cure, for new exercises, for all
sorts of promised ways of prolonging youth, activity and
slenderness, and would oblige her to find a new Messiah who would
tell her she was psychic.

But the most pressing item on her list was her address that very
afternoon to the National Mothers' Day Association—or, no; wasn't
it the Birth Control League? Nonsense! That was her speech at the
banquet next week: a big affair at the St. Regis for a group of
International Birth–controllers. Wakeful as she felt, she must be
half asleep to have muddled up her engagements like that! She
extinguished the lamp and sank hopefully to her pillow—perhaps now
sleep would really come. But her bed–lamp seemed to have a double
switch, and putting it out in the room only turned it on in her
head.

Well, she would try reciting scraps of her Mothers' Day address:
she seldom spoke in public, but when she did she took the affair
seriously, and tried to be at once winning and impressive. She and
Maisie had gone carefully over the typed copy; and she was sure it
was all right; but she liked getting the more effective passages by
heart—it brought her nearer to her audience to lean forward and
speak intimately, without having to revert every few minutes to the
text.

"Was there ever a hearth or a heart—a mother's heart—that wasn't
big enough for all the babies God wants it to hold? Of course
there are days when the mother is so fagged out that she thinks
she'd give the world if there were nothing at all to do in the
nursery, and she could just sit still with folded hands. But the
only time when there's nothing at all for a mother to do in the
nursery is when there's a little coffin there. It's all quiet
enough THEN … as some of us here know…" (Pause, and a few
tears in the audience.) "Not that we want the modern mother to
wear herself out: no indeed! The babies themselves haven't any use
for worn–out mothers! And the first thing to be considered is what
the babies want, isn't it?" (Pause—smiles in the audience)…

What on earth was Amalasuntha coming to bother her about? More
money, of course—but she really couldn't pay all that wretched
Michelangelo's debts. There would soon be debts nearer home if
Lita went on dressing so extravagantly, and perpetually having her
jewellery reset. It cost almost as much nowadays to reset jewels
as to buy new ones, and those emeralds…

At that hour of the morning things did tend to look ash–coloured;
and she felt that her optimism had never been so sorely strained
since the year when she had had to read Proust, learn a new dance–
step, master Oriental philosophy, and decide whether she should
really bob her hair, or only do it to look so. She had come
victoriously through those ordeals; but what if worse lay ahead?

Amalasuntha, in one of Mrs. Manford's least successfully made–over
dresses, came in looking shabby and humble—always a bad sign. And
of course it was Michelangelo's debts. Racing, baccara, and a
woman … a Russian princess; oh, my dear, AUTHENTIC, quite!
Wouldn't Pauline like to see her picture from the "Prattler"? She
and Michelangelo had been snapped together in bathing tights at the
Lido.

No—Pauline wouldn't. She turned from the proffered effigy with a
disgust evidently surprising to the Marchesa, whose own prejudices
were different, and who could grasp other people's only piece–meal,
one at a time, like a lesson in mnemonics.

"Oh, my boy doesn't do things by halves," the Marchesa averred,
still feeling that the occasion was one for boasting.

Pauline leaned back wearily. "I'm as sorry for you as I can be,
Amalasuntha; but Michelangelo is not a baby, and if he can't be
made to understand that a poor man who wants to spend money must
first earn it—"

"Oh, but he does, darling! Venturino and I have always dinned it
into him. And last year he tried his best to marry that one–eyed
Miss Oxbaum from Oregon, he really did."

"I said EARN," Pauline interposed. "We don't consider that
marrying for money is earning it—"

"Oh, mercy—don't you? Not sometimes?" breathed the Marchesa.

"What I mean by earning is going into an office—is—"

"Ah, just so! It was what I said to Dexter last night. It is what
Venturino and I most long for: that Dexter should take Michelangelo
into his office. That would solve every difficulty. And once
Michelangelo is here I'm sure he will succeed. No one is more
clever, you know: only, in Rome, young men are in greater danger—
there are more temptations—"

Pauline pursed her lips. "I suppose there are." But, since
temptations are the privilege of metropolises, she thought it
rather impertinent of Amalasuntha to suggest that there were more
in a one–horse little place like Rome than in New York; though in a
different mood she would have been the first to pronounce the
Italian capital a sink of iniquity, and New York the model and
prototype of the pure American city. All these contradictions,
which usually sat lightly on her, made her head ache today, and she
continued, nervously: "Take Michelangelo into his office! But
what preparations has he had, what training? Has he ever studied
for the law?"

"No; I don't think he has, darling; but he WOULD; I can promise you
he would," the Marchesa declared, in the tone of one saying: "In
such straits, he would become a street–cleaner."

Pauline smiled faintly. "I don't think you understand. The law is
a profession." (Dexter had told her that.) "It requires years of
training, of preparation. Michelangelo would have to take a degree
at Harvard or Columbia first. But perhaps"—a glance at her wrist–
watch told her that her next engagement impended—"perhaps Dexter
could suggest some other kind of employment. I don't know, of
course… I can't promise… But meanwhile … " She turned
to her writing–table, and a cheque passed between them, too small
to make a perceptible impression on Michelangelo's deficit, but
large enough for Amalasuntha to murmur: "How you do spoil me,
darling! Well—for the boy's sake I accept in all simplicity. And
about the reception for the Cardinal—I'm sure a cable to Venturino
will arrange it. Would that kind Maisie send it off, and sign my
name?"

It was well after three o'clock when Pauline came down the Lindons'
door–step and said to her chauffeur: "To Mr. Wyant's." And she
had still to crowd in her eurythmic exercises (put off from the
morning), and be ready at half–past four, bathed, waved and
apparelled, for the Mothers' Day Meeting, which was to take place
in her own ball–room, with a giant tea to follow.

Certainly, no amount of "mental deep–breathing," and all the other
exercises in serenity, could combat the nervous apprehension
produced by this breathless New York life. Today she really felt
it to be too much for her: she leaned back and closed her lids with
a sigh. But she was jerked back to consciousness by the traffic–
control signal, which had immobilized the motor just when every
moment was so precious. The result of every one's being in such a
hurry to get everywhere was that nobody could get anywhere. She
looked across the triple row of motors in line with hers, and saw
in each (as if in a vista of mirrors) an expensively dressed woman
like herself, leaning forward in the same attitude of repressed
impatience, the same nervous frown of hurry on her brow.

Oh, if only she could remember to relax!

But how could one, with everything going wrong as it was today?
The visit to Fanny Lindon had been an utter failure. Pauline had
apparently overestimated her influence on the Lindons, and that
discovery in itself was rather mortifying. To be told that the
Mahatma business was "a family affair"—and thus be given to
understand that she was no longer of the family! Pauline, in her
own mind, had never completely ceased to be a Wyant. She thought
herself still entitled to such shadowy prerogatives as the name
afforded, and was surprised that the Wyants should not think so
too. After all, she kept Amalasuntha for them—no slight charge!

But Mrs. Lindon had merely said it was "all too painful"—and had
ended, surprisingly: "Dexter himself has specially asked us not to
say anything."

The implication was: "If you want to find out, go to him!"—when
of course Fanny knew well enough that lawyers' and doctors' wives
are the last people to get at their clients' secrets.

Pauline rose to her feet, offended, and not averse from showing it.
"Well, my dear, I can only say that if it's so awful that you can't
tell ME, I rather wonder at your wanting to tell Tom, Dick and
Harry. Have you thought of that?"

Oh, yes, she had, Mrs. Lindon wailed. "But Grant says it's a
duty … and so does Dexter…"

Pauline permitted herself a faint smile. "Dexter naturally takes
the lawyer's view: that's HIS duty."

Mrs. Lindon's mind was not alert for innuendos. "Yes; he says we
OUGHT to," she merely repeated.

A sudden lassitude overcame Pauline. "At least send Grant to me
first—let me talk to him."

But to herself she said: "My only hope now is to get at them
through Arthur." And she looked anxiously out of the motor,
watching for the signal to shift.

Everything at Arthur Wyant's was swept and garnished for her
approach. One felt that cousin Eleanor, whisking the stray
cigarette–ends into the fire, and giving the sofa cushions a last
shake, had slipped out of the back door as Mrs. Manford entered by
the front.

Wyant greeted her with his usual rather overdone cordiality. He
had never quite acquired the note on which discarded husbands
should welcome condescending wives. In this respect Pauline was
his superior. She had found the exact blend of gravity with
sisterly friendliness; and the need of having to ask about his
health always helped her over the first moments.

"Oh, you see—still mummified." He pointed to the leg stretched
out in front of him. "Couldn't even see Amalasuntha to the door—"

"Amalasuntha? Has she been here?"

"Yes. Asked herself to lunch. Rather a to–do for me; I'm not used
to entertaining distinguished foreigners, especially when they have
to picnic on a tray at my elbow. But she took it all very good–
naturedly."

"I should think so," Pauline murmured; adding inwardly: "Trust
Amalasuntha not to pay for her own lunch."

"Yes; she's in great feather. Said you'd been so kind to her—as
usual."

Pauline sounded the proper deprecation.

"She's awfully pleased at your having promised that Manford would
give Michelangelo a leg up if he comes out to try his luck in New
York."

"Promised? Well—not quite. But I did say Dexter would do what he
could. It seems the only way left of disposing of Michelangelo."

Wyant leaned back, a smile twitching under his moustache. "Yes—
that young man's a scourge. And I begin to see why. Did you see
his picture in bathing tights with the latest lady?"

Pauline waved away the suggestion. How like Arthur not to realize,
even yet, that such things disgusted her!

"Well, he's the best looking piece of human sculpture I've seen
since I last went through the Vatican galleries. Regular Apollo.
Funny, the Albany Wyants having a hand in turning out a heathen
divinity. I was showing the picture to Manford just now, and
telling him the fond mother's comment."

Pauline looked up quickly. "Has Dexter been here too?"