Twilight Sleep (Wharton)/Chapter 32
XXXII
NONA shut her eyes again. Ever since that intolerable night she had ached with the incessant weariness of not being able to sleep, and of trying to hide from those about her how brief her intervals of oblivion had been. During the hours of darkness she seemed to be forever toiling down perspectives of noise and glare, like a wanderer in the labyrinth of an unknown city. Even her snatches of sleep were so crowded with light and noise, so dazzled with the sense of exposure, that she was not conscious of the respite till it was over. It was only by day, alone in her room, that her lids, in closing, sometimes shut things out. . .
Such a respite came to her now; and she started up out of nothingness to find her father at her side. She had not expected to see him alone before they parted. She had fancied that her parents would contrive to postpone their joint farewells till after dinner, just before driving off to their train. For a moment she lay and looked up at Manford without being clearly conscious that he was there, and without knowing what to say if he were.
It appeared that he did not know either. Perhaps he had been led to her side, almost in spite of himself, by a vague craving to be alone with her just once before they parted; or perhaps he had come because he suspected she might think he was afraid to. He sat down without speaking in the chair which Pauline had left.
Dusk had fallen, and Nona was aware of the presence at her side only as a shadowy bulk. After a while her father put out his hand and laid it on hers.
"Why, it's nearly dark," she said. "You'll be off in an hour or so now."
"Yes. Your mother and I are dining early."
She wound her fingers into his, and they sat silent again. She liked to have him near her in this way, but she was glad, for his sake and her own, that the twilight made his face indistinct. She hoped their silence might be unbroken. As long as she neither saw nor heard him there was an unaccountable comfort in feeling him near—as if the living warmth he imparted were something they shared indissolubly.
"In a couple of hours now—" he hegan, with an attempt at briskness. She was silent, and he went on: "I wanted to be with you alone for a minute like this. I wanted to say—"
"Father—."
He turned suddenly in his chair, and bending down over her pressed his forehead against the coverlet. She freed her hand and passed it through the thin hair on his temples.
"Don't. There's nothing to say."
She felt a tremor of his shoulders as they pressed against her, and, the tremor ran through her own body and seemed to loosen the fibres of her heart.
"Old dad."
"Nona."
After that they remained again without speaking till a clock chimed out from somewhere in the shadows. Manford got up. He gave himself one of his impatient shakes, and stooped to kiss his daughter on the forehead.
"I don't believe I'll come up again before we go."
"No."
"It's no use—"
"No."
"I'll look after your mother—do all I can. . . Goodbye, dear."
"Goodbye, father."
He groped for her forehead again, and went out of the room; and she closed her eyes and lay in the darkness, her heart folded like two hands around the thought of him.
"Nona, darling!" There were still the goodbyes to her mother to be gone through. Well, that would be comparatively easy; and in a lighted room too, with Pauline on the threshold, slim, erect and consciously equipped for travel—complete and wonderful! Yes; it would be almost easy.
"Child, it's time; we're off in a few minutes. But I think I've left everything in order. Maisie's downstairs; she has all my directions, and the list of stations to which she's to wire how you are while we're crossing the continent."
"But, mother, I'm all right; it's not a bit necessary—"
"Dear! You can't help my wanting to hear about you."
"No; I know. I only meant you're not to worry."
"Of course I won't worry; I wouldn't let myself worry. You know how I feel about all that. And besides," added Mrs. Manford victoriously, "what in the world is there to worry about?"
"Nothing," Nona acquiesced with a smile.
Pauline bent down and placed a lingering kiss where Manford's lips had just brushed his daughter's forehead. Pauline played her part better—and made it correspondingly easier for her fellow-actors to play theirs.
"Goodbye, mother dear. Have all sorts of a good time, won't you?"
"It will be a very interesting trip—with a man as clever and cultivated as your father. . . If only you could have come with us! But you'll promise to join us in Egypt?"
"Don't ask me to promise anything yet, mother."
Pauline raised herself to her full height and stood looking down intently at her daughter. Under her smooth new face Nona again seemed to see the flicker of anxiety pass back and forward, like a light moving from window to window in a long-uninhabited house. The glimpse startled the girl and caught her by the heart. Suddenly something within her broke up. Her lips tightened like a child's, and she felt the tears running down her cheeks.
"Nona! You're not crying?" Pauline was kneeling at her side.
"It's nothing, mother—nothing. Go! Please go!"
"Darling—if I could only see you happy one of these days."
"Happy?"
"Well, I mean like other people. Married—" the mother hastily ventured.
Nona had brushed away her tears. She raised her head and looked straight at Pauline.
"Married? Do you suppose being married would make me happy? I wonder why you should! I don't want to marry—there's nobody in the world I would marry." She continued to stare up at her mother with hard unwavering eyes. "Marry! I'd a thousand times rather go into a convent and have done with it," she exclaimed.
"A convent—Nona! Not a convent?"
Pauline had got to her feet and stood before her daughter with distress and amazement breaking through every fissure of her paint. "I never heard anything so horrible," she said.
Deeper than all her eclectic religiosity, deeper than her pride in receiving the Cardinal, deeper than the superficial contradictions and accommodations of a conscience grown elastic from too much use, Nona watched, with a faint smile, the old Puritan terror of gliding priests and incense and idolatry rise to the surface of her mother's face. Perhaps that terror was the only solid fibre left in her.
"I sometimes think you want to break my heart, Nona. To tell me this now!. . . Go into a convent. . ." the mother groaned.
The girl let her head drop back among the cushions.
"Oh, but I mean a convent where nobody believes in anything," she said.