Jalna (1927)/Chapter 9
Eden found that his steps made no noise on the thick rug that covered the floor of the reception room of the New York publishing firm of Cory and Parsons, so he could pace up and down as restlessly as he liked without fear of attracting attention. He was horribly nervous. He had a sensation in his stomach that was akin to hunger, yet his throat felt so oddly constricted that to swallow would have been impossible.
A mirror in a carved frame gave him, when he hesitated before it, a greenish reflection of himself that was not reassuring. He wished he had not got such a brazen coat of tan in the North that summer. These New Yorkers would surely look on him as a Canadian backwoodsman. His hands, as he grasped the package containing his new manuscript, were almost black, it seemed to him, and no wonder, for he had been paddling and camping among the Northern lakes for months. He decided to lay the manuscript on a table, picking it up at the last minute before he entered Mr. Cory's private office. It had been Mr. Cory with whom he had corresponded about his poems, who had expressed himself as eager to read the long narrative poem composed that summer. For the book published in midsummer was being well reviewed, American critics finding an agreeable freshness and music in Eden's lyrics. As books of poems went, it had had a fair sale. The young poet would get enough out of it perhaps to buy himself a new winter overcoat. He stood now, tall and slender in his loosely fitting tweeds, very British-looking, feeling that this solemn, luxurious room was the threshold over which he would step into the world of achievement and fame.
The door opened and a young woman entered so quietly that she was almost at Eden's side before he was aware of her presence.
"Oh," he said, starting, "I beg your pardon. I'm waiting to see Mr. Cory."
"You are Mr. Whiteoak, aren't you?" she asked in a tranquil voice.
He flushed red, very boyishly, under his tan.
"Yes. I'm Eden Whiteoak. I'm the—"
Just in time he choked back what he had been about to say: that he was the author of Under the North Star. It would have been a horrible way to introduce himself—just as though he had expected the whole world to know about his book of poems.
However, she said, with a little excited catch of the breath:—
"Oh, Mr. Whiteoak, I could not resist coming to speak to you when I heard you were here. I want to tell you how very, very much I have enjoyed your poems. I am a reader for Mr. Cory, and he generally gives me the poetry manuscripts, because—well, I am very much interested in poetry."
"Yes, yes, I see," said Eden, casting about to collect his thoughts.
She went on in her low even voice:—
"I cannot tell you how proud I was when I was able to recommend your poems to him. I have to send in adverse reports on so many. Your name was new to us. I felt that I had discovered you. Oh, dear, this is very unbusinesslike, telling you all this, but your poetry has given me so much pleasure that—I wanted you to know."
Her face flashed suddenly from gravity into smiling. Her head was tilted as she looked into his eyes, for she was below medium height. Eden, looking down at her, thought she was like some delicately tinted yet sturdy spring flower, gazing upward with a sort of gentle defiance.
He held the hand she offered in his own warm, deeply tanned one.
"My name is Alayne Archer," she said. "Mr. Cory will be ready to see you in a few minutes. As a matter of fact, he told me to have a little talk with you about your new poem. It is a narrative poem, is it not? But I did so want to tell you that I was the 'discoverer' of your first."
"Well then, I suppose I may as well hand the manuscript over to you at once."
"No. I should give it to Mr. Cory."
They both looked down at the packet in his hand, then their eyes met and they smiled.
"Do you like it very much yourself?" she asked. "Is it at all like the others?"
"Yes, I like it—naturally," he answered, "and yes, I think it has the same feeling as the others. It was good fun writing it, up there in the North, a thousand miles from anywhere."
"It must have been inspiring," she said. "Mr. Cory is going to visit the North this fall. He suffers from insomnia. He will want to hear a great deal about it from you." She led the way toward two upholstered chairs. "Will you please sit down and tell me more about the new poem? What is it called?"
"'The Golden Sturgeon.' Really, I can't tell you about it. You'll just have to read it. I'm not used to talking about my poetry. In my family it's rather a disgrace to write poetry."
They had sat down, but she raised herself in her chair and stared at him incredulously. She exclaimed in a rather hushed voice: "Poetry? A disgrace?"
"Well, not so bad as that, perhaps," said Eden, hurriedly. "But a handicap to a fellow—something to be lived down."
"But are they not proud of you?"
"Y-Yes. My sister is. But she doesn't know anything about poetry. And one of my uncles. But he's quite old. Reads nothing this side of Shakespeare."
"And your parents? Your mother?" It seemed to her that he must have a mother to adore him.
"Both dead," he replied, and he added: "My brothers really despise me for it. There is a military tradition in our family."
She asked: "Were you through the War?"
"No. I was only seventeen when peace came."
"Oh, how stupid I am! Of course you were too young."
She began then to talk about his poetry. Eden forgot that he was in a reception room of a publisher's office. He forgot everything except his pleasure in her gracious, self-possessed, yet somehow shy presence. He heard himself talking, reciting bits of his poems—he had caught something of the Oxford intonation from his uncles—saying beautiful and mournful things that would have made Renny wince with shame for him, could he have overheard.
A stenographer came to announce that Mr. Cory would see Mr. Whiteoak. They arose, and looking down on her, he thought he had never seen such smooth, shining hair. It was coiled about her head like bands of shimmering satin.
He followed the stenographer to Mr. Cory's private room, and was given a tense handshake and a tenser scrutiny by the publisher.
"Sit down, Mr. Whiteoak," he said, in a dry, precise voice. "I am very glad that you were able to come to New York. I and my assistant, Miss Archer, have been looking forward to meeting you. We think your work is exceedingly interesting."
Yet his pleasure seemed very perfunctory. After a short discussion of the new poem which Mr. Cory took into his charge, he changed the subject abruptly, and began to fire at Eden question after question about the North. How far north had he been? What supplies were needed? Particularly, what underwear and shoes. Was the food very bad? He suffered at times from indigestion. He supposed it was very rough. His physicians had told him that a hunting trip up there would set him up, make a new man of him. He was strong enough but—well, insomnia was a disagreeable disorder. He couldn't afford to lower his efficiency.
Eden was a mine of information. He knew something about everything. As Mr. Cory listened to these details he grew more animated. A faint ashes-of-roses pink crept into his grayish cheeks. He tapped excitedly on his desk with the tips of his polished finger nails.
Eden in his mind was trying to picture Mr. Cory in that environment, but he could not, and his fancy instead followed Miss Archer, with her bands of shimmering hair and her gray-blue eyes, set wide apart beneath a lovely white brow. He followed her shadow, grasping at it as it disappeared, imploring it to save him from Mr. Cory, for he had begun to hate Mr. Cory, since he believed he had found out that he was interesting to the publisher only as a Canadian who knew all about the country to which a physician had ordered him.
Yet at that moment Mr. Cory was asking him almost genially to dinner at his house that night.
"Miss Archer will be there," added Mr. Cory. "She will talk to you about your poetry with much more understanding than I can, but I like it. I like it very well indeed."
And, naturally, Eden suddenly liked Mr. Cory. He suddenly seemed to discover that he was very human, almost boyish, like a very orderly grayish boy who had never been really young. But he liked him, and shook his hand warmly as he thanked him, and said he would be glad to go to dinner.
Eden had no friends in New York, but he spent the afternoon happily wandering about. It was a brilliant day in mid-September. The tower-like skyscrapers and the breezy canyons of the streets fluttering bright flags—he did not know what the occasion was—exhilarated him. Life seemed very full, brimming with movement, adventure, poetry, singing in the blood, crying out to be written.
Sitting in a tea-room, the first lines of a new poem began to take form in his mind. Pushing his plate of cinnamon toast to one side, he jotted them down on the back of an envelope. A quiver of nervous excitement ran through him. He believed they were good. He believed the idea was good. He found that he wanted to discuss the poem with Alayne Archer, to read those singing first lines to her. He wanted to see her face raised to his with that look of mingled penetration and sweet enthusiasm for his genius—well, she herself had used the word once; in fact, one of the reviewers of Under the North Star had used the word, so surely he might let it slide through his own mind now and again, like a stimulating draught. Genius. He believed he had a spark of the sacred fire, and it seemed to him that she, by her presence, the support of her admiration, had the power to fan it to a leaping flame.
He tried to sketch her face on the envelope. He did not do so badly with the forehead, the eyes, but he could not remember her nose,—rather a soft feature, he guessed,—and when the mouth was added, instead of the look of a spring flower, gentle but defiant, that he had tried to achieve, he had produced a face of almost Dutch stolidity. Irritably he tore up the sketch and his poem with it. She might not be strictly beautiful, but she was not like that.
That evening, in his hotel, he took a good deal of care with his dressing. His evening clothes were well fitting, and the waistcoat, of the newest English cut, very becoming. If it had not been for that Indian coat of tan, his reflection would have been very satisfying. Still, it made him look manlier. And he had a well-cut mouth. Girls had told him it was fascinating. He smiled and showed a row of gleaming teeth, then snapped his lips together. Good Lord! He was acting like a movie star! Or a dentifrice advertisement. Ogling, just that. If Renny could have seen him ogling himself in the glass, he would have knocked his block off. Perhaps it were better that genius (that word again!) should be encased in a wild-eyed, unkempt person. He scowled, put on his hat and coat, and turned out the light.
Mr. Cory lived on Sixty-first Street, in an unpretentious house, set between two very pretentious ones. Eden found the rest of the guests assembled except one, an English novelist who arrived a few minutes later than himself. There were Mr. Cory; his wife; his daughter, a large-faced young woman with straight black shingled hair; a Mr. Gutweld, a musician; and a Mr. Groves, a banker, who it was soon evident was to accompany Mr. Cory on his trip to Canada; Alayne Archer; and two very earnest middle-aged ladies.
Eden found himself at dinner between Miss Archer and one of the earnest ladies. Opposite were the English novelist, whose name was Hyde, and Miss Cory. Eden had never seen a table so glittering with exquisite glass and slender, shapely cutlery. His mind flew for an instant to the dinner table at Jalna with its huge platters and cumbersome old English plate. For an instant the faces of those about him were blotted out by the faces of the family at home, affectionate, arrogant, high-tempered—faces that, once seen, were not easily forgotten. And when one had lived with them all one's life— But he put them away from him and turned to the earnest lady. Alayne Archer's shoulder was toward him as she listened to Mr. Groves on her other side.
"Mr. Whiteoak," said the lady, in a richly cultivated voice, "I want to tell you how deeply I appreciate your poetry. You show a delicate sensitiveness that is crystal-like in its implications." She fixed him with her clear gray eyes, and added: "And such an acute realization of the poignant transiency of beauty." Having spoken, she conveyed an exquisite silver spoon filled with exquisite clear soup unflinchingly to her lips.
"Thanks," mumbled Eden. "Thank you very much." He felt overcome with shyness. Oh, God, that Gran were here! He would like to hide his head in her lap while she warded off this terrible woman with her stick. He looked at her, a troubled expression shadowing his blue eyes, but she was apparently satisfied, for she went on talking. Presently Mr. Cory claimed her attention and he turned to Alayne Archer.
"Speak to me. Save me," he whispered. "I've never felt so stupid in my life. I've just been asked what my new poem was about and all I could say was—'a fish'!"
She was looking into his eyes now and he felt an electrical thrill in every nerve at her nearness, and an intangible something he saw in her eyes.
She said: "Mr. Groves has something he wants to ask you about supplies for a hunting trip to Canada."
Mr. Groves leaned nearer. "How about canned goods?" he said. "Could we take all our supplies over from here, or must we buy them in Canada?"
They talked of tinned meats and vegetables, till Mr. Groves turned to examine cautiously, through his glasses, a new dish offered by the servant. Then Miss Archer said softly:—
"So you are feeling shy? I do not wonder. Still, it must be very pleasant to hear such delightful things about your poetry."
Looking down over her face he thought her eyelids were like a Madonna's. "I tried to make a sketch of you to-day, but I tore it up—and some verses with it. You'll scarcely believe it, but I made you look quite Dutch."
"That is not so surprising," she answered. "On my mother's side I am of Dutch extraction. I think I show it quite plainly. My face is broad and rather flat, and I have high cheek bones."
"You draw an engaging picture of yourself, certainly."
"But it is quite true, is it not?" She was smiling with a rather malicious amusement. "Come, now, I do look a stolid Dutch Fräulein; acknowledge it."
He denied it stoutly, but it was true that the Dutch blood explained something about her. A simplicity, a directness, a tranquil tenacity. But with her lovely rounded shoulders, her delicately flushed cheeks, those Madonna eyelids, and that wreath of little pink and white flowers in her hair, he thought she was a thousand times more charming than any girl he had ever met.
Hyde, the novelist, was saying, in his vibrant tones: "When I come to America, I always feel that I have been starved at home. I eat the most enormous meals here, and such meals! Such fruit! Such cream! I know there are cows in England. I've seen them with my own eyes. I ran against one once with my car. But they don't give cream. Their milk is skimmed—pale blue when it comes. Can any one explain why? Mr. Whiteoak, tell me, do you have cream in Canada?"
"We only use reindeer's milk there," replied Eden.
After dinner Hyde sauntered up to him.
"You are the lucky dog! The only interesting woman here. Who is she?"
"Miss Alayne Archer. She is an orphan. Her father was an old friend of Mr. Cory's."
"Does she write?"
"No. She reads. She is a reader for the publishing house. It was she who—" But he bit that sentence off just in time. He wasn't going to tell this bulgy-eyed fellow anything more.
Hyde said: "Mr. Whiteoak, had you a relative in the Buffs? A red-haired chap?"
"Yes. A brother—Renny. Did you know him?"
Hyde's eyes bulged a little more.
"Did I know him? Rather. One of the best. Oh, he and I had a hell of a time together. Where is he now? In Canada?"
"Yes. He farms."
Hyde looked Eden over critically. "You're not a bit like him. I can't imagine Whiteoak writing poetry. He told me he had a lot of young brothers. 'The whelps,' he used to call you. I should like to see him. Please remember me to him."
"If you can manage it, you must come to see us."
Hyde began to talk about his adventures with Renny in France. He was wound up. He seemed to forget his surroundings entirely and poured out reminiscences ribald and bloody which Eden scarcely heard. His own eyes followed Alayne Archer wherever she moved. He could scarcely forbear leaving Hyde rudely and following her. He saw the eyes of Mr. Cory and Mr. Groves on him, and he saw gleaming in them endless questions about hunting in the North. It seemed as though walls were closing in on him. He felt horribly young and helpless among these middle-aged and elderly men. In desperation he interrupted the Englishman.
"You said you would like to meet Miss Archer."
Hyde looked blank, then agreed cheerfully: "Yes, yes, I did."
Eden took him over to Alayne, turning his own back firmly on the too eager huntsmen.
"Miss Archer," he said, and saw a swift color tinge her cheeks and pass away, leaving them paler than before. "May I introduce Mr. Hyde?"
The two shook hands.
"I have read your new book in the proof sheets," she said to Hyde, "and I think it is splendid. Only I object very strongly to the way you make your American character talk. I often wish that Englishmen would not put Americans into their books. The dialect they put into their mouths is like nothing spoken on land or sea." She spoke lightly, but there was a shadow of real annoyance in her eyes. She had plenty of character, Eden thought; she was not afraid to speak her mind. He pretended to have noticed the same thing. The Englishman laughed imperturbably.
"Well, it's the way it sounds to us," he said. "Then my man, you remember, is a Southerner. He doesn't speak as you do here."
"Yes, but he is an educated Southerner, who would not prefix every sentence with 'Gee' and call other men 'guys,' and continually say, 'It sure is'—I hope I'm not being rude?"
But Hyde was not annoyed. He was merely amused. No protests could change his conception of American speech. He said to Eden: "Why don't you Canadians write about Americans and see if you have better luck?"
"I shall write a poem about Americans," laughed Eden, and the glance that flashed from his eyes into Alayne's was like a sunbeam that flashes into clear water and is held there.
Would they never be alone together? Yes, the pianist was sitting down before the piano. They melted into a quiet corner. There was no pretending. Each knew the other's desire to escape from the rest. They sat without speaking while the music submerged them like a sea. They were at the bottom of a throbbing sea. They were hidden. They were alone. They could hear the pulsing of the great heart of life. They could feel it in their own heartbeats.
He moved a little nearer to her, staring into the room straight ahead of him, and he could almost feel her head on his shoulder, her body relaxing into his arms. The waves of Chopin thundered on and on. Eden scarcely dared to turn his face toward her. But he did, and a faint perfume came to him from the wreath of little French flowers she wore. What beautiful hands lying in her lap! Surely hands for a poet's love. God, if he could only take them in his and kiss the palms! How tender and delicately scented they would be—
The pianist was playing Debussy. Miss Cory had switched off the lights, all but a pale one by the piano. The sea was all delicate singing wavelets then. He took Alayne's hands and held them to his lips.
As he held them, his being was shaken by a throng of poems rushing up within him, crying out to be born, touched into life by the contact of her hands.