All Kneeling/Chapter 22
Nick and Christabel had spent a satisfactory afternoon under the beech tree, talking of deep things. Conversation had had to be simplified and lightened when Ellen came back from town. Through Friday evening, through Saturday and Sunday, she had sparkled with what seemed to Christabel an artificial gayety. Ellen had often returned from calls on Uncle Johnnie with ideas in her head, but they had never lasted for more than a day, before, and by Sunday afternoon Christabel felt that she must be spoken to, very lovingly and understandingly. So before supper she knocked on Ellen's door, carrying a cornucopia held in a glass hand, delicately cuffed in glass, which she had filled with sprays of heliotrope.
"I've brought you a nosegay for your dressing-table, Ellen darling. I know you've seen this intriguing thing, but doesn't it look even more perfect with flowers? No, really? Haven't you seen it? Why, I thought, of course, you'd helped Nick pick it out. Wasn't it enchanting of him to bring it to me?"
She curled up on the window-seat.
"Go on dressing and I'll just perch here out of the way and chatter a little. Nick's monopolized you so I haven't had a word, and I wanted to ask you if you were quite well."
"I'm all right, thank you."
"You haven't felt feverish?"
"Not a bit."
"You're sure? Nick and I have been a little worried. Perhaps it's just the heat, or perhaps we love you so that we imagine things. I don't mean you haven't been gay and bright, you have, unusually so, but I seemed to feel such an effort behind it, I was afraid you were ill and trying to hide it from us. You know we both adore you so when you're just your own sweet natural self, that it worries us when you're different. Well, I'll tell him we've both been old fuss-budgets. Ellen, tell me to go! I have to change my dress for supper, and I'm so happy and comfy here I don't want to move."
She watched Ellen brushing her silky hair, stepping into white slippers, pulling an absurdly childish dress over her head. If she was going to affect simplicity to the extent she did, she ought to carry it all the way through. It didn't go with the Tabac Blonde she was tilting out of a full bottle, certainly new, on to her handkerchief (what a place to put perfume!) or the lipstick that she had never used before Friday evening.
I ought to speak to her, much as I hate to, since I'm almost in a mother's position to her, or at least an elder sister's. Shall I? It would be so much easier not to. Shall I?
- She looked at the lovely room, the soft clear colors, the white and silver of the bathroom beyond, that Ellen had all to herself, unless there were guests. Where would she have been, except for me? She had no one else to go to. Who would have been so generous, so patient with her lack of training?
"Ellen, darling, don't use that dreadful lip stick! Nick and I hate it so, on you!"
Quick red stained Ellen's face and throat. Christabel jumped up and kissed her lightly.
"Forgive me! You know how dreadfully impulsive I am—I blurt things out, and then I'm broken-hearted! But it's just because I love you that I can't bear to let you go on doing things like that."
But Ellen's mouth was scarlet when she came defiantly downstairs, and she wore the ear-rings that Curtis had mistakenly given her for Christmas. Through the first part of supper she laughed and talked exaggeratedly, she threw herself at Nick, flirting with him, teasing him, paying him outrageous compliments. Christabel could see how uncomfortable it was making him, through all his extravagant response, and for both their sakes, to stop the painful exhibition, she changed the subject from personalities to old mazes.
Late last night, after he had gone to bed, she had found the book he had been reading. Now she was glad she had studied it until nearly dawn, for she was able to ask just the questions that drew him out, that made him glow. Mazes were his new passion, and he flung himself into discussion.
"But it's such a specialized subject. How do you know so much about it, Christabel?"
"It fascinates me; it always has. Maze! Just that symbolic word—all one's life translated into box or yew."
"Which one do you think we ought to copy for the lower garden here, Ellen?"
"I don't know, Nick."
"Didn't you go through that book I brought? You said you were going to."
"I haven't had time."
"We've kept her too busy with tennis and swimming and talk. But you have a treat in store for you, hasn't she, Nick? I picked it up last night, and I couldn't put it down. The sun was rising when I finished it. Tell me, Nick, could you—but you could, I know—plan a simplified one for me like that old one at Beeches St. Mary? You know, Ellen, dear Oh, I forgot, you haven't had time to look at the book yet. I shouldn't have had, teally, but somehow one finds time for what one really wants to do, don't you think so, Nick? Ellen, you're lucky! Do you know how lucky you are? Suppose Nick's interests were in stocks and bonds and golf, like—like most husbands! But a creative thing like planning gardens! How different! How wonderful to be making the world a more beautiful place to live in!"
"I'll read that book tonight, Nick!"
"Oh, don't bother, Ellen. I think it would probably bore you, after all. I don't think the Beeches St. Mary maze, Christabel, but there's a wonderful old one very few people have heard of, at a place called Lesser Monkton"
"Oh yes! The one in holly!"
"My Lord! you do know about them! I thought something like that, in box, within sound of the waterfall."
Ellen's strange flame died down, she sat pale and silent, listening to them, and only messing with the delicious peach mousse, which Christabel was greatly enjoying. Afterward she went to bed early—with a headache, she said, and for her own sake Christabel hoped it was that, not sulkiness—leaving Nick and Christabel on the terrace.
"More coffee, Nick? You can reach the cigarettes. Oh, what a night!"
"What a night!" Nick echoed, pouring another glass of chartreuse. "You look silver in the moonlight."
Silver Christabel, she thought, hoping that he did, too. That was the sort of thing Nick always looked as if he were going to say, and never said. That was part of Nick's strange charm, that he not only never made pretty speeches like other men, but he dared to say rude things, beside which compliments seemed insipid. And at the thought of his smile as he said them, she grew suddenly weak. I hate him, she thought. How does he feel toward me? I don't know, I don't know. Nick, love me!
She realized that she was trembling with tenseness; she had held her attitude of easy grace so long. It tired her to be with Nick, for she never ceased to be conscious of how she looked to him, so that often her hands, her shoulders, would ache from the graceful positions she kept them in. It tired her to be with him, it tortured her to be without him.
She rose, stretching white arms to the moon, and stepped into the garden. She could see what she hoped he was seeing—silver Christabel glimmering in the moonlight through the glimmer of white flowers, against the white plume of the fountain. Moon Maiden. She bent and kissed a clump of white phlox.
Nick joined her, and they strolled up and down together.
"So fresh, so fragrant! How it comforts me!"
"Do you need comfort, Christabel?"
She looked at him without speaking. The air vibrated with the cries of insects. Nick, kiss me, kiss me, she called to him in silence. The sound of the fountain grew faint as they walked, the servants' radio grew loud.
Her hand brushed against his as if by accident. He caught it lightly, swung it, let it go.
He has led me to the edge of ecstasy, she thought.
Then in the starlight—hold me tight
With one more little kiss say nightie night, good night, my dear,
Good night, dear, good night, dear, nightie night
They turned. The sound of the radio was drowned in the loud cool splashing of the fountain.
Nick, kiss me, kiss me. Her delicate slippers were soaked with dew, but who could think of such a thing at such a time?
"You haven't answered me. Do you need comfort, Christabel?"
"I think we understand each other pretty well without words, Nick."
"We do. Too damn well."
The light in Ellen's window went out. Christabel said to Nick:
"We must go in."
"Yes—we must go in."
"We really must, Nick."
He kissed her. At-last! I am dying of bliss, she thought, breathless in his arms. I'm not disappointed. No, no! I'm not, I'm not!
He went on kissing her. The feeling of being crushed increased, her face was pressed uncomfortably against his shoulder now. She pushed away the thought of discomfort, and tried unsuccessfully to push away the thought that anyone might see them, in the bright moonlight.
"Nick—please"
He let her go.
"Oh, Nick, how could you?"
"I must have gone mad for a minute. Can you ever forgive me?"
"Oh, my dear, it isn't a question of forgiveness. But it must never happen again—never again."
"Never again."
"We'll never speak of it, dear, and we'll never forget. Love only asks to love; it does not ask love in return, or joy."
He groaned assentingly.
"Curtis and Ellen must never know."
"My God! I should say not!"
"We must never, never hurt them."
"Never."
"We must go in-now. Good-by, my dear."
"Good-by—good-by!"
The lighted sitting room was a room she had never seen before, like a scene on the stage, ready for the acting of a play. Apricot, lilac, and soft green of chintz, shaded lamps, heaped silk cushions, great splashes of foaming and spraying flowers. For a cold moment she thought there was a bland, an almost smug look on Nick's face, but she knew, she knew, it was a trick of the light. Who can enjoy heartbreak?
She was nervous about how she looked, for one isn't at one's best coming in from moonlight and dew, blinking in the light, especially after such an embrace.
"I'm cold, Nick," she said, and, as he knelt to light the fire, she came close to him, close against him, for reassurance from the mirror over the mantel. He lifted her floating sleeve to his lips. A thrill, a chill ran through her as she realized that, except for Ellen, Mademoiselle and the children, and the servants, they were alone in the house.
She touched his dark hair with a white hand she couldn't keep from shaking. She put her head back, her eyelids were closing, when a reflection in the mirror made them start wide open. Curtis was in the hall.
Something saves one, she thought, flooded with relief and disappointment. Something stronger than oneself. And she dropped her bracelet and cried, "There, Nick! There it is, close to the fender," as Curtis came into the room.
"Curtis, darling! Where did you come from? Doesn't Nick look devoted? But, alas! he's only looking for my bracelet. I must have the clasp fixed. Dearest, how glad I am to see you—thank you, Nick—but why have you come home?"
"I—I've got awfully sad news for you, Christabel."
"What? Curtis, what?"
"Uncle Johnnie died this afternoon."
She sank to the seat in front of the fire, and covered her face with her hands. Nick was still kneeling on one side, Curtis dropped to his knees on the other, patting her arm.
"I shouldn't have told you so suddenly."
"Shall I get you some water?"
"No, no. I'll try to be brave in a minute."
"You are brave, Christabel darling. You're wonderful," Curtis said in a hushed, solemn voice.
"You're wonderful," Nick agreed, a hollow echo.
"I can't seem to realize it. Uncle Johnnie—dead."
There was silence, except for the brisk snapping of the fire. Then she lifted her head.
"Forgive me. I'm all-right now. But sometimes—I have felt as if he were the one person in the world who—understood me—and now I—I"
The end
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