Twilight Sleep (Wharton)/Chapter 8
VIII
THE morning after a party in her own house Pauline Manford always accorded herself an extra half-hour's rest; but on this occasion she employed it in lying awake and wearily reckoning up the next day's tasks.
Disenchantment had succeeded to the night's glamour. The glamour of balls never did last: they so quickly became a matter for those domestic undertakers, the charwomen, housemaids and electricians. And in this case the taste of pleasure had soured early. When the doors were thrown open on the beflowered supper tables not one of the hostess's family was left to marshal the guests to their places! Her husband, her daughter and son, her son's wife—all had deserted her. It needed, in that chill morning vigil, all Pauline's self-control to banish the memory. Not that she wanted any of them to feel under any obligation—she was all for personal freedom, self-expression, or whatever they called it nowadays—but still, a ball was a ball, a host was a host. It was too bad of Dexter, really; and of Jim too. On Lita of course no one could count: that was part of the pose people found so fascinating. But Jim—Jim and Nona to forsake her! What a ridiculous position it had put her in—but no, she mustn't think of that now, or those nasty little wrinkles would creep back about her eyes. The masseuse had warned her. . . Gracious! At what time was the masseuse due? She stretched out her hand, turned on the light by the bed (for the windows were still closely darkened), and reached for what Maisie Bruss called the night-list: an upright porcelain tablet on which the secretary recorded, for nocturnal study, the principal "fixtures" of the coming day.
Today they were so numerous that Miss Bruss's tight script had hardly contrived to squeeze them in. Foremost, of course, poor Exhibit A, moved on from yesterday; then a mysterious appointment with Amalasuntha, just before lunch: something urgent, she had hinted. Today of all days! Amalasuntha was so tactless at times. And then that Mahatma business: since Dexter was inflexible, his wife had made up her mind to appeal to the Lindons. It would be awkward, undoubtedly—and she did so hate things that were awkward. Any form of untidiness, moral or material, was unpleasant to her; but something must be done, and at once. She herself hardly knew why she felt so apprehensive, so determined that the matter should have no sequel; except that, if anything did go wrong, it would upsetall her plans for a rest-cure, for new exercises, for all sorts of promised ways of prolonging youth, activity and slenderness, and would oblige her to find a new Messiah who would tell her she was psychic.
But the most pressing item on her list was her address that very afternoon to the National Mothers' Day Association—or, no; wasn't it the Birth Control League? Nonsense! That was her speech at the banquet next week: a big affair at the St. Regis for a group of International Birth-controllers. Wakeful as she felt, she must be half asleep to have muddled up her engagements like that! She extinguished the lamp and sank hopefully to her pillow—perhaps now sleep would really come. But her bed-lamp seemed to have a double switch, and putting it out in the room only turned it on in her head.
Well, she would try reciting scraps of her Mothers' Day address: she seldom spoke in public, but when she did she took the affair seriously, and tried to be at once winning and impressive. She and Maisie had gone carefully over the typed copy; and she was sure it was all right; but she liked getting the more effective passages by heart—it brought her nearer to her audience to lean forward and speak intimately, without having to revert every few minutes to the text.
"Was there ever a hearth or a heart—a mother's heart—that wasn't big enough for all the babies God wants it to hold? Of course there are days when the mother is so fagged out that she thinks she'd give the world if there were nothing at all to do in the nursery, and she could just sit still with folded hands. But the only time when there's nothing at all for a mother to do in the nursery is when there's a little coffin there. It's all quiet enough then. . . as some of us here know. . ." (Pause, and a few tears in the audience.) "Not that we want the modern mother to wear herself out: no indeed! The babies themselves haven't any use for worn-out mothers! And the first thing to be considered is what the babies want, isn't it?" (Pause—smiles in the audience). . .
What on earth was Amalasuntha coming to bother her about? More money, of course—but she really couldn't pay all that wretched Michelangelo's debts. There would soon be debts nearer home if Lita went on dressing so extravagantly, and perpetually having her jewellery reset. It cost almost as much nowadays to reset jewels as to buy new ones, and those emeralds. . .
At that hour of the morning things did tend to look ash-coloured; and she felt that her optimism had never been so sorely strained since the year when she had had to read Proust, learn a new dance-step, master Oriental philosophy, and decide whether she should really bob her hair, or only do it to look so. She had come victoriously through those ordeals; but what if worse lay ahead?
Amalasuntha, in one of Mrs. Manford's least successfully made-over dresses, came in looking shabby and humble—always a bad sign. And of course it was Michelangelo's debts. Racing, baccara, and a woman . . . a Russian princess; oh, my dear, authentic, quite! Wouldn't Pauline like to see her picture from the "Prattler"? She and Michelangelo had been snapped together in bathing tights at the Lido.
No—Pauline wouldn't. She turned from the proffered effigy with a disgust evidently surprising to the Marchesa, whose own prejudices were different, and who could grasp other people's only piece-meal, one at a time, like a lesson in mnemonics.
"Oh, my boy doesn't do things by halves," the Marchesa averred, still feeling that the occasion was one for boasting.
Pauline leaned back wearily. "I'm as sorry for you as I can be, Amalasuntha; but Michelangelo is not a baby, and if he can't be made to understand that a poor man who wants to spend money must first earn it—"
"Oh, but he does, darling! Venturino and I have always dinned it into him. And last year he tried his best to marry that one-eyed Miss Oxbaum from Oregon, he really did."
"I said earn," Pauline interposed. "We don't consider that marrying for money is earning it—"
"Oh, mercy—don't you? Not sometimes?" breathed the Marchesa.
"What I mean by earning is going into an office—is—"
"Ah, just so! It was what I said to Dexter last night. It is what Venturino and I most long for: that Dexter should take Michelangelo into his office. That would solve every difficulty. And once Michelangelo is here I'm sure he will succeed. No one is more clever, you know: only, in Rome, young men are in greater danger—there are more temptations—"
Pauline pursed her lips. "I suppose there are." But, since temptations are the privilege of metropolises, she thought it rather impertinent of Amalasuntha to suggest that there were more in a one-horse little place like Rome than in New York; though in a different mood she would have been the first to pronounce the Italian capital a sink of iniquity, and New York the model and prototype of the pure American city. All these contradictions, which usually sat lightly on her, made her head ache today, and she continued, nervously: "Take Michelangelo into his office! But what preparations has he had, what training? Has he ever studied for the law?"
"No; I don't think he has, darling; but he would; I can promise you he would," the Marchesa declared, in the tone of one saying: "In such straits, he would become a street-cleaner."
Pauline smiled faintly. "I don't think you understand. The law is a profession." (Dexter had told her that.) "It requires years of training, of preparation. Michelangelo would have to take a degree at Harvard or Columbia first. But perhaps"—a glance at her wrist-watch told her that her next engagement impended—"perhaps Dexter could suggest some other kind of employment. I don't know, of course. . . I can't promise. . . But meanwhile . . ." She turned to her writing-table, and a cheque passed between them, too small to make a perceptible impression on Michelangelo's deficit, but large enough for Amalasuntha to murmur: "How you do spoil me, darling! Well—for the boy's sake I accept in all simplicity. And about the reception for the Cardinal—I'm sure a cable to Venturino will arrange it. Would that kind Maisie send it off, and sign my name?"
It was well after three o'clock when Pauline came down the Lindons' door-step and said to her chauffeur: "To Mr. Wyant's." And she had still to crowd in her eurythmic exercises (put off from the morning), and be ready at half-past four, bathed, waved and apparelled, for the Mothers' Day Meeting, which was to take place in her own ball-room, with a giant tea to follow.
Certainly, no amount of "mental deep-breathing," and all the other exercises in serenity, could combat the nervous apprehension produced by this breathless New York life. Today she really felt it to be too much for her: she leaned back and closed her lids with a sigh. But she was jerked back to consciousness by the traffic-control signal, which had immobilized the motor just when every moment was so precious. The result of every one's being in such a hurry to get everywhere was that nobody could get anywhere. She looked across the triple row of motors in line with hers, and saw in each (as if in a vista of mirrors) an expensively dressed woman like herself, leaning forward in the same attitude of repressed impatience, the same nervous frown of hurry on her brow.
Oh, if only she could remember to relax!
But how could one, with everything going wrong as it was today? The visit to Fanny Lindon had been an utter failure. Pauline had apparently over-estimated her influence on the Lindons, and that discovery in itself was rather mortifying. To be told that the Mahatma business was "a family affair"—and thus be given to understand that she was no longer of the family! Pauline, in her own mind, had never completely ceased to be a Wyant. She thought herself still entitled to such shadowy prerogatives as the name afforded, and was surprised that the Wyants should not think so too. After all, she kept Amalasuntha for them—no slight charge!
But Mrs. Lindon had merely said it was "all too painful"—and had ended, surprisingly: "Dexter himself has specially asked us not to say anything."
The implication was: "If you want to find out, go to him !"—when of course Fanny knew well enough that lawyers' and doctors' wives are the last people to get at their clients' secrets.
Pauline rose to her feet, offended, and not averse from showing it. "Well, my dear, I can only say that if it's so awful that you can't tell me, I rather wonder at your wanting to tell Tom, Dick and Harry. Have you thought of that?"
Oh, yes, she had, Mrs. Lindon wailed. "But Grant says it's a duty . . . and so does Dexter. . ."
Pauline permitted herself a faint smile. "Dexter naturally takes the lawyer's view: that's his duty."
Mrs. Lindon's mind was not alert for innuendos. "Yes; he says we ought to," she merely repeated.
A sudden lassitude overcame Pauline. "At least send Grant to me first—let me talk to him."
But to herself she said: "My only hope now is to get at them through Arthur." And she looked anxiously out of the motor, watching for the signal to shift.
Everything at Arthur Wyant's was swept and garnished for her approach. One felt that cousin Eleanor, whisking the stray cigarette-ends into the fire, and giving the sofa cushions a last shake, had slipped out of the back door as Mrs. Manford entered by the front.
Wyant greeted her with his usual rather overdone cordiality. He had never quite acquired the note on which discarded husbands should welcome condescending wives. In this respect Pauline was his superior. She had found the exact blend of gravity with sisterly friendliness; and the need of having to ask about his health always helped her over the first moments.
"Oh, you see—still mummified." He pointed to the leg stretched out in front of him. "Couldn't even see Amalasuntha to the door—"
"Amalasuntha? Has she been here?"
"Yes. Asked herself to lunch. Rather a to-do for me; I'm not used to entertaining distinguished foreigners, especially when they have to picnic on a tray at my elbow. But she took it all very good-naturedly."
"I should think so," Pauline murmured; adding inwardly: "Trust Amalasuntha not to pay for her own lunch."
"Yes; she's in great feather. Said you'd been so kind to her—as usual."
Pauline sounded the proper deprecation.
"She's awfully pleased at your having promised that Manford would give Michelangelo a leg up if he comes out to try his luck in New York."
"Promised? Well—not quite. But I did say Dexter would do what he could. It seems the only way left of disposing of Michelangelo."
Wyant leaned back, a smile twitching under his moustache. "Yes—that young man's a scourge. And I begin to see why. Did you see his picture in bathing tights with the latest lady?"
Pauline waved away the suggestion. How like Arthur not to realize, even yet, that such things disgusted her!
"Well, he's the best looking piece of human sculpture I've seen since I last went through the Vatican galleries. Regular Apollo. Funny, the Albany Wyants having a hand in turning out a heathen divinity. I was showing the picture to Manford just now, and telling him the fond mother's comment."
Pauline looked up quickly. "Has Dexter been here too?"
"Yes; trying to give me a leg up." He glanced at his bandages. "Rather more difficult, that. I must get it down first—to the floor. But Manford's awfully kind too—it's catching. He wants me to go off with Jim, down to that island of his, and get a fortnight's real sunshine. Says he can get Jim off by a little wirepulling, some time just before Easter, he thinks. It's tempting—"
Pauline smiled: she was always pleased when the two men spoke of each other in that tone; and certainly it was kind of Dexter to offer the hospitality of his southern island to poor Arthur. . . She thought how easy life would be if only every one were kind and simple.
"But about Michelangelo: I was going to tell you what is worrying Amalasuntha. Of course what she means by Michelangelo's going into business in America is marrying an heiress—"
"Oh, of course. And I daresay he will."
"Exactly. She's got her eye on one already. You haven't guessed? Nona!"
Pauline's sense of humour was not unfailing, but this relaxed her taut nerves, and she laughed. "Poor Michelangelo!"
"I thought it wouldn't worry you. But what is worrying Amalasuntha is that he won't be let—"
"Be let?"
"By Lita. Her theory is that Lita will fall madly in love with Michelangelo as soon as she lays eyes on him and that when they've had one dance together she'll be lost. And Amalasuntha, for that reason—though she daren't tell you so—thinks it might really be cheaper in the end to pay Michelangelo's debts than to import him. As she says, it's for the family to decide, now she's warned them."
Their laughter mingled. It was the first time, perhaps, since they had been young together; as a rule, their encounters were untinged with levity.
But Pauline dismissed the laugh hurriedly for the Grant Lindons. At the name Wyant's eyes lit up: it was as if she had placed an appetizing morsel before a listless convalescent.
"But you're the very person to tell me all about it—or, no, you can't, of course, if Manford's going to take it up. But no matter—after all, it's public property by this time. Seen this morning's 'Looker-on' with pictures? Here, where—" In the stack of illustrated papers always at his elbow he could never find the one he wanted, and now began to toss over "Prattlers," "Listeners" and others with helpless hand. How that little symptom of inefficiency took her back to the old days, when his perpetual disorder, and his persistent belief that he could al- "ways put his hand on everything, used to be such a strain on her nerves!
"Pictures?" she gasped.
"Rather. The nigger himself, in turban and ritual togs; and a lot of mixed nudes doing leg-work round a patio. The place looks like a Palm Beach Hotel. Fanny Lindon's in a stew because she's recognized Bee in the picture. She says she's going to have the man in jail if they spend their last penny on it. Hullo—here it is, after all."
Pauline shrank back. Would people never stop trying to show her disgusting photographs? She articulated: "You haven't seen Fanny Lindon too?"
"Haven't I? She spent the morning here. She told Amalasuntha everything."
Pauline, with a great effort, controlled her rising anger. "How idiotic! Now it will be spread to all the winds!" She saw Fanny and Amalasuntha gloatingly exchanging the images of their progenies' dishonour. It was too indecent . . . and the old New Yorker was as shameless as the demoralized foreigner.
"I didn't know Fanny had been here before me. I've just left her. I've been trying to persuade her to stop; to hush up the whole business before it's too late. I suppose you gave her the same advice?"
Wyant's face clouded: he looked perplexedly at his former wife, and she saw he had lost all sense of the impropriety and folly of the affair in his famished enjoyment of its spicy details.
"I don't know—I understood it was too late; and that Manford was urging them to do it."
Pauline made a slight movement of impatience. "Dexter—of course! When he sees a 'case'! I suppose lawyers are all alike. At any rate, I can't make him understand. . ." She broke off, suddenly aware that the rôles were reversed, and that for the first time she was disparaging her second husband to her first. "Besides," she hurried on, "it's no affair of Dexter's if the Lindons choose to dishonour their child publicly. They're not his relations; Bee is not his cousin's daughter. But you and I—how can we help feeling differently? Bee and Nona and Jim were all brought up together. You must help me to stop this scandal! You must send for Grant Lindon at once. He's sure to listen to you. . . you've always had a great influence on Grant. . .
She found herself, in her extremity, using the very arguments she had addressed to Manford, and she saw at once that in this case they were more effective. Wyant drew himself up stiffly with a faint smile of satisfaction. Involuntarily he ran a thin gouty hand through his hair, and tried for a glimpse of himself in the mirror.
"Think so—really? Of course when Grant was a boy he used to consider me a great fellow. But now . . . who remembers me in my dingy corner?"
Pauline rose with her clear wintry smile. "A good many of us, it seems. You tell me I'm the third lady to call on you today! You know well enough, Arthur—" she brushed the name in lightly, on the extreme tip of her smile—"that the opinion of people like you still counts in New York, even in these times. Imagine what your mother would have felt at the idea of Fanny and Bee figuring in all the daily headlines, with reporters and photographers in a queue on the doorstep! I'm glad she hasn't lived to see it."
She knew that Wyant's facile irony always melted before an emotional appeal, especially if made in his mother's name. He blinked unsteadily, and flung away the "Looker-on."
"You're dead right: they're a pack of fools. There are no standards left. I'll do what I can; I'll telephone to Grant to look in on his way home this evening. . . I say, Pauline: what's the truth of it all, anyhow? If I'm to give him a talking to I ought to know." His eyes again lit up with curiosity.
"Truth of it? There isn't any—it's the silliest mare's-nest! Why, I'm going to Dawnside for a rest-cure next month, while Dexter's tarpon-fishing, The Mahatma is worlds above all this tattle—it's for the Lindons I'm anxious, not him."
The paper thrown aside by Wyant had dropped to the Roor, face upward at a full-page picture—the picture. Pauline, on her way out, mechanically yielded to her instinct for universal tidying, and bent to pick it up; bent and looked. Her eyes were still keen; passing over the noxious caption "Dawnside Co-Eds," they immediately singled out Bee Lindon from the capering round; then travelled on, amazed, to another denuded nymph . . . whose face, whose movements. . . Incredible! . . . For a second Pauline refused to accept what her eyes reported. Sick and unnerved, she folded the picture away and laid the magazine on a table.
"Oh, don't bother about picking up that paper. Sorry there's no one to show you out!" she heard Wyant calling. She went downstairs, blind, unbelieving, hardly knowing how she got into her motor.
Barely time to get home, change, and be in the Chair, her address before her, when the Mothers arrived in their multitude. . .