All Kneeling/Chapter 16
When the war was over, Christabel went back to her writing. While she was at work on her whimsical romance, O Fair Dove, Uncle Johnnie had heard her say—not to himself, "It will be ignored and hated."
"Oh no! Why, I'm sure it will be a great success!" a voice had answered, whose voice he didn't remember, for Eliza's drawing room had been full that afternoon, and Mrs. Russell had distracted his attention by talking to him.
"I've tried bone-meal around the roots, and I've tried soot" Mrs. Russell said, and through her voice Christabel's voice had replied:
"I write for the few—I can say this to you, because I do feel that you are an understanding person—and if there is even one who hears what I'm saying, that will be all I ask."
I hear what you're saying, thought Uncle Johnnie. "—whale-oil soap," said Mrs. Russell. "But of course, if they've already begun to curl up"
"I do indeed understand," the understanding person answered, earnestly. "One feels that in all your work there is that quality of truth too deeply and sensitively felt to be easily understood"
"Every one of them with the yellows!" Mrs. Russell said, triumphantly, in a duet with Christabel's:
"If it is a success—what the world calls a success—that will mean to me that it is an utter failure."
So when O Fair Dove turned out to be a best seller, he wondered what Christabel would say. He never doubted her ability, but he was curious.
Calling on Susannah one afternoon, he voiced his curiosity.
"If thee really wants to know, I have a letter from the dear child that came this morning." She left the room to get it, and Uncle Johnnie sat looking at a small table on which bronze elephants held between them Stars and Wild Strawberries, by Christabel Caine, Carnation Flower, by Christabel Caine, Rocket Fire: Poems of War, by Christabel Caine, Fly in Amber, by Christabel Caine, O Fair Dove, by Christabel Caine. A bowl of sweet peas stood before a large photograph of Christabel letting off bubbles of's ilvery light, as a fish in an aquarium lets off bubbles of air. A grand picture, Uncle Johnnie thought. But I fear you'll never be a really great whimsical writer, because you can't very well be photographed smoking a pipe.
Susannah returned. "This is the part—hmm—let me see—yes, here: Thank you for your congratulations, dearest. Yes, it is exciting—we never dreamed of anything like this when you were starting me on my 'literary career,' did we? I hope my head won't be turned with all the lovely things you and all the rest of my kind, kind friends, known and unknown, are saying to me. It does make me proud, but at the same time it makes me very humble, and it teaches me all over again that when one gives one's best, simply and from the heart, resisting all temptation to try to make an effect, one touches something universal. It does give one faith in one's fellow creatures, that swift generous response.'"
She put the letter between elephant and sweet peas, sat up straighter than ever, folded her hands above her belt, and looked at her brother over her spectacles.
"There, Johnnie! I think that answers thy question!"
Irma Goff waited, sitting on the edge of an old red velvet chair, her feet crossed in an easy position, her fingers clutching her bag until they ached. She was going to interview Christabel Caine; her first important interview, and she wouldn't have been given it to do if Bess McCleary, chosen first, hadn't ordered crab salad for lunch yesterday. Oh, make me able to do it all right, she prayed silently. Please, please make it all right.
The room was as cold and still as the grave. Clearing her throat sounded loud.
"Mrs. Carey will see you in her sitting-room, madam."
She followed the butler into the lift, and seeing herself in the mirror, tried to put on an expression of indifference, even scorn. If only her knees would stop shaking
Please make it all right
A tea-table with a lace cloth was drawn before the fireplace. The butler lit the fire, drew the curtains, hiding the streaming rain, and left her. My, this is cozy, she said to herself, unconvincingly.
She waited, sunk in a chair so deep and low she felt as if she were lying on the floor. At first she was motionless, listening, not only with her ears, but with her whole body. But presently she began to look about. Would it be all right to snoop a little? She struggled up out of her chair.
Sea-green and ash-pink chintz, a carpet with faded sheaves of wheat and wreaths of flowers. She took out her notebook and wrote:
"Aubosson—Aubuson—Aubousson—Aubusson—???—carpet."
Two corner cabinets held jade trees, with red coral fruits and moon-white mother-of-pearl blossoms, widespread or in cuplike bud. "Chinese cabinets speaking of junk-filled seas," she wrote, and, thinking, I want to make it kind of quaint, like her own writing, added, "Every soft chair seemed to say, do sit in my lap."
Violets all round, bowlfuls! Irma was used to a bunch of them, with stems in green foil and an edging of those other leaves, the hard shiny ones that kept, not masses like these, bowls and bowls of them.
Some books on a low table. O Fair Dove, bound in green morocco; the English edition of Fly in Amber; Fleur d'Oeillet, par Christabel CaineBells of the Temple, by Geoffrey Strade. She opened that one. Young Mr. Strade looked at her sternly from the frontis piece, in his shirt—mercy, how declasay, thought Irma—and with something behind his ear, hollyhock or hibiscus flower. There was a dedication, "To Christabel Caine," and on the fly-leaf, in blackest ink, "C. C. from G. S., to say all the things that can never be said." It had been written so violently that the pen had ploughed through the paper in the stroke beneath the words.
She was looking at it when a voice said: "How kind of you to come to see me," making her heart nearly jump out of her mouth.
She had felt that she looked so nice, in her Alice-blue sports suit, with an Alice-blue hat trimmed with sand-color, sand-colored shoes and stockings, and just a touch of the new orange rouge Bess McCleary was so crazy about. But now, looking at Christabel Caine, in simple filmy black, with pearls, she felt too light, too obvious.
"What a dreadful day! You're very brave to venture out. Come closer to the fire. An open fire is such a friendly thing, don't you think?"
"I certainly do!"
"Fire and flowers and books, and a room is furnished—for me! But I have a fear of becoming possessed by possessions that I'm afraid I carry to extremes. Cream or lemon? Though you really shouldn't take either with this jasmine tea."
"Over our steaming cups of jasmine tea," Irma wrote in her mind. The lacquer cup was so unexpectedly light that she nearly dashed the tea into her face.
Marvelous sandwiches, caviare. Miss Caine—Mrs. Carey—which ought she to say?—took one on her plate, but didn't eat it, and didn't pass them again to Irma, who wanted another awfully. She didn't often get a chance at caviare, and there were other kinds that looked exciting, too. Besides, she had only had time for an ice-cream soda for lunch. She tried saying in her mind, "Might I have another of those very delicious sandwiches?" There they were, and, after all, why shouldn't she? But somehow's he didn't. It would have looked so greedy, with Miss Caine not touching hers.
She had a sudden vision of mamma and Velma and herself making sandwiches in the kitchen back home, trying new kinds out of the women's magazines, sometimes grandly buying a little yellow pot of foie gras, when mamma was going to have the Just Sew Club, or the bunch was coming to play bridge. When they were passed everyone would say, "Mmm! how yummy!" or, "Oh, now, listen, Mrs. Goff! I've had nine!" and mamma would answer: "Go on, take some! There's nothing to them!" She felt suddenly weak with homesickness.
I guess I ought to begin interviewing. Oh, dear! How do I begin? Oh, please let me know how to do it all right! Please!
"But with a gush of gratitude she realized that the interview had begun.
"I have a ridiculous terror of being interviewed," Christabel Caine was saying, her voice low, yet so clear that each word stood by itself, exquisite and apart as if it were inclosed in a glass bell. "You must be kind to me. Because—it sounds absurd, I know—I'm very shy. I think perhaps it comes from my lonely childhood. I must have been a funny little person, growing up alone, in a big old house with a big old garden, talking to the flowers and the butterflies."
"Oh, that's lovely! Do you mind if I take notes? You see, this is my very first important interview"
"Really!"
"You see, I thought newspaper work would be the best training I could get, because I kind of—I guess you certainly must get tired of people saying—I hope to write."
"Really! Have you done anything yet?"
"Well, I did some poems—verses, I guess I should say—that some magazines took, and I want to do enough for a book. I wanted to do a series of Western wildflower poems—my home's in Colorado. Spanish bayonet and Indian paintbrush. The one I'm really dying to do is Mariposa lily"
"Mariposa lily?"
"M-mariposa's Spanish for butterfly—well, I guess you know that better than I do! White, with sort of faint lilac streaks—it's p-perfectly lovely. It's sort of hard to—it grows up in the m-mountains"
What's the matter with me, stammering this way?—she wailed to herself. But the thought of the luminous lilac-veined petals comforted her.
"I see. Flowers mean a great deal to you, just as they do to me. I've tried to express my love for them in some of my poems."
"Oh, I know! 'White lilac, delicate and cool,' and 'Heather in the mist,' and the one about the scarlet tulip being like the Holy Grail!"
"Those among others. I always have been passionately attached to 'green things growing.' I remember when I was tiny there was an old thousand-leafed rose-bush I used to tell my troubles to."
"Lonely kiddie tells trouble to roses," Irma's pencil flew.
"Before I could write, I used to make up little stories and tell them to the beetles and the hoptoads in the garden. There has been a good deal of loneliness in my life, as it happens, and I hope that it has made me a little more understanding of the loneliness of others. I have always tried so hard never to let the heartaches that have come my way make me sorry for myself. I have tried to turn them into pity and understanding. One wants so terribly just to try to help the hurts a little—not to let suffering make one hard."
"Have you a literary creed, Miss Caine?"
"I believe in truth. I think I could say that is not only my literary creed, but the creed I try to live by. Truth, crystal-clear, like cold water. What if it hurts? I believe in the diamond-hardness of truth. Softness is the end of everything."
"Truth—hard—c. water—wh if hurts?" Irma wrote under the note that said "Pity and u-standing. Don't let suff make hard," twisting her head a little, trying to ease the pain in the back of her neck.
"Now, what I have tried to do in O Fair Dove"
"Well, I mustn't trespass on your kindness any longer," Irma said at length. "I just don't know how to thank you!"
"Thank you, with all my heart! Good-by, Miss—uh—. Smedley will show you out."
But Irma had to turn back again to cry:
"Oh, you just can't know how much you mean to people!"
Christabel absent-mindedly ate several sandwiches after Miss Goff left. Generally she disliked being interviewed by women, and certainly it was strange, to put it mildly, of the paper to send a novice. But the little thing had been rather touching, she thought, popping a whole sandwich into her mouth, and she was glad she had given her such a good time. How naïve she had been in her surprise at finding a celebrity so human!
The mild glow faded, boredom and restlessness crept over her. She roamed about the room, picking up a book, putting it down, shaking the sofa pillows into shape, stretching out her arms and yawning, yawns that ended in moans. She was sick and tired of this room and everything in it, the wishy-washy chintz, Marie Laurencin's gray-faced ladies with their small strawberry-ice-cream pink mouths matching their strawberry-ice-cream pink ribbons, the "amusing" shell flowers—amusing! Evelyn Thompson had done the decorating for her. She liked helping poor Evelyn, who had had hard times since her divorce. She had given her work, and sent little Roberta to the twins' dancing class. But the room had never expressed her real self. Marvin Marcy-Jones was going to do it over for her. There was a square of purple carpet, to try, on the floor, and lengths of orange stuff trailed on to it, from a chair. Evelyn's feelings would be hurt, and she herself probably wouldn't like it any better. Still, Marvin felt that he really had caught her personality. Perhaps he had. Perhaps it would be all right.
Oh, what do I want to do? Shall I call up Marvin? She drifted to the telephone, pausing to write on the pad beside it, "Mariposa lilies." Standing tapping her cheek with the pencil, she decided she didn't want to see Marvin. Elliott? Austin? Gobby?
She picked up the telephone and gave a number.
"Is Count du Sanglier there? . . . Thank you. . . . Mrs. Carey." Then: "Maurice, this is Christabel. Oh, you nice person! I needed that!"
She felt her twittering nerves grow still, her whole being relaxed to velvet smoothness, velvet softness.
"Maurice, take pity on me! If I don't put on a flame-colored frock with no back and go somewhere to dance tonight I shall die—and Curtis is in Washington. Somewhere with very loud jazz and cocktails in coffee-cups"
Listening to his answer, she sank into a low chair, smiling a little, shutting her eyes.
"Don't be silly! . . . I'll tell you when I see you—maybe! . . . Au 'voir"
Putting the receiver into its hook, she lay with the telephone against her breast, in a silence that still vibrated with Maurice's words.
When she finished writing her interview that night Irma Goff was still too excited to sleep, in spite of the hour. So she wrote to mamma and Velma, telling them all about it. the Metropolitan Museum. But I didn't interview her there, but in front of the open fire in her own boudoir, wasn't that sweet of her, just like I was one of her intimate friends, a simply darling room, with heaps of violets absolutely everywhere and the most marveelious tea, caviare sandwiches 'n' everything. Well, Mamma and Velma, you can imagine the thrill of meeting Christabel Caine, though you can bet I didn't let her see how excited I was. I was kind of scared, too, but as it turned out, I needn't have been, because after we got friendly she confessed that she was very shy and actually had been scared of me—could you believe it?
"I kept thinking about Mrs. Coffy's paper on her at the Club last winter, and what she'd think if she could see me! She's simply beautiful, very young-looking in spite of having two adorable twin kiddies, 5 yrs. old, but kind of sad-looking and quiet, and all in black. I wonder if she's in mourning for anyone? I didn't like to ask—I kept feeling as if she'd had some terrible sorrow sometime and that's what makes her work so wonderful. It wasn't her husband, because she spoke simply marvelously of him and what a help his interest was to her in her work. She was wonderful about my writing, really interested. It's made me crazy to do something worth while. When I was going I said 'I'm going to try to write harder than I ever have in my life, this very evening!' and she said 'Do you know, so am I!' It sort of thrills me to think of her sitting there all alone writing. She told me some nights she works all night long!
"Just as I was going she picked up an enormous bunch of the violets out of one of the bowls and gave them to me. I have them here on my desk, in front of a great big signed photograph she gave me!!!"