To-morrow Morning (Parrish)/Chapter 15
EVELYN opened her eyes and saw her dress lying on the floor, a pool of moonlit water, saw kicked off silver slippers, spilled powder on the dressing table, Ralph's gardenias broken and brown in a toothbrush glass. Happy, happy! Had it really happened? What proved it? Nothing but this singing surge within, this fizzing, bubbling
She couldn't stay in bed, though it was only half past eight. The shades were still down in the living room. Spilled ashes, last night's paper, crushed sofa pillows. They had taken the awful little furnished apartment because it was cheap and the address was good. She shapped up the shades, letting in pale March sunlight on the gas log framed in mustard-colored tiles, with its fire screen of imitation tapestry—an Italian peasant girl with a basket of grapes—the chairs, so large, so uncomfortable, long in the wrong places, sloping just too much, the ceiling light in its ground-glass wash basin. But they never lit that; they had made a lamp from a big creamy jar, shaded in pink; they had put around photographs, signed dashingly in blackest ink, "Tout à vous, de Casserelli," or, "Toujours, ta Berthe," and had replaced the "Lady with the Fan" in sepia by the painting of Mrs. Thorne's grandmother. Over the fireplace the whole room lay drowned in a pool of dim old mirror.
She was hungry; she went out to the kitchen for some breakfast. Black Clara was lying on her folded arms on the kitchen table, her behind high in air, one large foot trailing on its side on the floor, reading the morning paper. She gave a leap and a shout when Evelyn spoke to her.
"Isn't it a divine day, Clara? It's so lovely I couldn't stay in bed."
Clara glanced at the ordinary day, and thrust out a lower lip like a camel's.
"Will you make me some coffee? I have to go out."
While the coffee bubbled in the percolator and Clara scraped the scorch off the toast, she tried to read the morning paper. José Martinez, young Mexican, was hanged to-day for the murder of his sweetheart, Angelina Perez—jealousy. . . . Field mice are already leaving their nests, farmers report. . . . Woman of fifty weds youth of seventeen. . . . The very large hat, shadowy, picturesque, imported magnolias $1.95, pond lilies $1.25 to $2.50. . . . The wedding of Miss Rosamond Yardley, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Horace Garrison Yardley, and Louis Ricardo, followed by a reception at the Colony Club—poor Susette!
No use trying to read; she was too happy.
"Out on the street she felt the happiness and pain of the people who passed washing through her in waves; her barriers against the world were down. He was here, in this same city with her
She bought a coffee ring on a lace-paper mat, a halo for a German baby angel. Then to the florist's for yellow primroses, lots of little bunches, white lilac, lilies of the valley stiff with freshness, cool pointed pale-yellow tulips like spring sunlight. The box was so big she had to take a taxi, and leave it shuddering in front of the door while she went up and borrowed sixty cents from Clara. She had spent her last penny on the flowers.
From the dining room came Nevin's "Narcissus," accompanying a firm voice barking, "One—two—one—two—up—down—up—down—right—left—right—left—higher—two" On the floor in front of the gramophone, in a chemise, and with good imitation pearls, a little too big, in her ears, Mrs. Thorne lay on her back, lifting her legs in the air.
She greeted her daughter plaintively, rolling her eyes.
"Evelyn! What on earth have you been doing out so early?"
"I've got a beau coming to tea, and I had to get some things."
Do people ever die of happiness? she thought, going into the pantry with her flowers. And she suddenly hugged herself, spinning around on her heel. Oh, Joe—! In the kitchen Clara was moaning a song: Steal away, steal away home. Ah ain't got long to stay here."
"Clara! Can I have the scrub bucket?"
"Hol' on till ah dumps the potatoes out of it."
The trumpet sounds within-a mah soul"
"You have an engagement this afternoon, haven't you, ma darling?" Evelyn shouted through the roaring water as she filled the bucket for her flowers.
"Oh, Evelyn, have I? Again? Is it Ralph? Well, it ought to be. Oh, all right, I suppose so."
So at half past three she put on a small close hat and glossy furs, hand-me-downs from Mrs. Prather, and went out, chic and expensive-looking, with a hole in one shoe that the chill of the pavement struck through.
Evelyn shook out the filet-lace tea-cloth and brought in the coffee ring. Happy! Happy! But her hands shook so that she broke one of the best teacups. Damn!
Four silver drops from the clock. Her insides plunged. Was she going to be sick? The gas log made a popping sound—phluff!—as she lit it. The clock hand moved slowly on. She was quivering, listening for the bell. The gas fire went fff-fff; motor cars blew their horns below. Of course he wasn't coming.
And now she felt that she couldn't bear it if he did come; she couldn't bear ever to see him again.
The telephone rang, and the blood leaped to her heart, thundered in her ears; her legs shook so she could hardly reach it; she was shaken, smothered. And it was the lady who calls up with such a sweet voice to explain that Mr. Mawson wants to take one of his very lovely artistic photographs of her in her own home, with absolutely no obligations attached.
Then he came—Joe, so ridiculous, with his ears, and his spectacles, so everything she needed. She felt her mouth stretch into a wide delighted smile.
"I hardly expected you."
"Liar!"
"Isn't this a crazy little place? Have a cigarette?"
"How can I let you go? And I can't say stay with me, marry me now, and let them go without you, because I'm so damn poor"
She looked at him with eyes full of strange and innocent wisdom. It was as if she were saying: "We have come a long way to find each other, and we have only a little while to live at the longest. Love me until I die."
"I wanted you all night long."
"I wanted you."
"I'll work like the devil—I'll find other ways of making money. Evelyn, you're mine whatever happens. This is something we've got to go through together—we haven't any choice about it."
"Oh, hold me! Hold me! Never let me go!"
He was gone. On the tea table the blue flame quivered under the kettle, the clean cups waited. They had forgotten to have any tea. She poured herself a cup and drank it thirstily.
How had she looked to him? Had she been lovely in his eyes? She tried to see herself in the mirror in the positions he had seen. Awful! She powdered her nose and put on some lip salve to help things; they did, but too late now!
Only one more day. She remembered Clara's song:
Ah ain't got long to stay here.
The next morning. Her bath water roared in, steaming. The mirror showed her a face veiled like a bride, then changed to a sheet of secret silver. She poured in almost a third of the big bottle of bath salts. The green crystals melted in the faint green of the hot water—well, not entirely; some of them were still very sharp to siton. She had a book open on the rim of the tub, but she was too happy to read. She was really floating in this quivering cloud of heat and fragrance. She lay smoking one of the amber cigarettes Ralph Levinson had given her, that made her feel a little dizzy, paying no attention to Mrs. Thorne's cries: "Don't lie there soaking, Evelyn; it's very weakening!"
"Miss Ev'lyn! Miss Ev'lyn! Mistah Green's hyah!"
"Heavens! Tell him to wait a minute"
She came to him fragrant and warm in her padded blue-silk dressing gown. His face was cold and glowing.
"Heavens! What an hour! Well, wait, and I'll get dressed and we'll take a walk, shall we? Mother's going to have the place full of storage men and things all day. Isn't it the limit?"
In the Park the gray squirrels rippled across the paths.
"The pine woods at home are full of squirrels. Wait till I get you out in those woods in old clothes."
Evelyn instantly felt that her soul's desire was a country life, away from the turmoil of the city.
"Joe, will I ever see them? Is it real?"
"You bet your life it's real!"
"Let's not wait too long"
The branches of the cherry trees were piled with light snow. "They're prettier this way than when they bloom, really; they're such a dirty pink."
"What are?"
"What are what? I don't know, Joe, I don't remember what we were talking about."
Apprehensive children, sunk into joggled bundles on Shetland ponies, were led past them; little boys shouted under an echoing arch. They went into the hot stuffy bird house. No one was there but a slow old German, peering through his glasses at the flamingoes with their long dangling legs and pink, black-tipped bills. They ruffled their pink and white feathers and grunted like pigs.
"My great-aunt has a parrot like that one over there."
"What did you say?"
"What? I don't know what I said."
Then the old man went out.
"God, Evelyn! Kiss me"
The flowers had faded. They never lasted when the gas log was lit. Evelyn had saved the best tulips, although their edges were tightly rolled and their color had gone dead. In a gold-lace-collared green glass vase belonging to the apartment they made a centerpiece for the painful dinner, lighted by electric lights glaring in frosted glass shades like bathroom lamps, for the candlesticks were packed. Clara dragged around the table, offering slanted dishes with a lax hand, but no one ate much, and more than once tears stung into the women's eyes or Joe flushed darkly from the low-voiced, well-bred, wounding conversation. When dinner was over Mrs. Thorne said good night almost inaudibly through barely moving lips, and went to her room.
"You mustn't mind mother, Joe; she has a bad headache. And she's worried so much and so long about being poor, her one idea for me is to feel that I'm safely married to some one with plenty of money. You see, she doesn't really know you."
"She doesn't know anything about me except that I'm as poor as dirt. Why should she jump up and down and scream with joy? Oh, Evelyn, if I only had more money! Or if I didn't have anyone else depending on me! Your mother's right—twenty-eight years old, and I have to ask you to wait!"
She shivered, pulling closer about her the shawl Ralph Levinson had brought her from Spain. She had worn it to cover the shabby dress, too old to take, that would be given to Clara in the morning. On an ivory background huge dark-hearted roses, soft yellow and pale red, and leaves and tendrils of blue-green, shifted and gleamed as her body moved beneath them.
They were both crazy. Why had she done this insane thing, promised to marry a stranger, so poor, so different from the people of her world? Yet as she turned to look at him she knew that was why she loved him. He was different. Instead of tense excitement he brought her rest; he brought fresh air, cold water, secret bread.
"Evelyn—" Joe said, miserably.
She came to him swiftly, sweetly.
"Darling, it's going to be all right. I know it! I know it!"
"Oh, it is, Evelyn; it is! I'm going to work like hell. I never cared much before, as long as I made enough for mother and me; I always thought of it as just something to do till I got going with designing scenery. I had a crazy idea that I was going to do something wonderful sometime"
"You are, too!"
"I don't care now. I just want to make enough money so we can be married."
"Joe darling, it won't be so very long. Must you be so unhappy?"
He groaned, burying his face on her breast.
"You mustn't suffer so! I can't bear it!"
He took her dark head between his hands, and kissed her closed eyes, tasting the salt of her tears.
"To-morrow"
"Keep me! Don't let me go!" she cried, strangely.
"Oh, my God, it's all wrong!"
"I thought love would make me happy. Joe, save me! Tell me that nothing can ever come between us."
"I wish we could go to sleep in each other's arms to-night and never wake up again."
"Oh, no, no! I want to be happy!"