Twilight Sleep (Wharton)/Chapter 12
XII
YES; this morning I think you can see her. She seems ever so much better; not in such a fearful hurry, I mean."
Pauline, from her dressing-room, overheard Maisie Bruss. She smiled at the description of herself, sent a thought of gratitude to Alvah Loft, and called out: "Is that Nona? I'll be there in a minute. Just finishing my exercises. . ."
She appeared, fresh and tingling, draped in a restful dove-coloured wrapper, and offered Nona a smooth cheek. Miss Bruss had vanished, and mother and daughter had to themselves the sunny room, full of flowers and the scent of a wood-fire.
"How wonderful you look, mother! All made over. Have you been trying some new exercises?"
Pauline smiled and pulled up the soft eiderdown coverlet at the foot of her lounge. She sank comfortably back among her cushions.
"No, dear: it's just—understanding a little better, I think."
"Understanding?"
"Yes; that things always come out right if one just keeps on being brave and trustful."
"Oh—." She fancied she caught a note of disappointment in Nona's voice. Poor Nona—her mother had long been aware that she had no enthusiasm, no transports of faith. She took after her father. How tired and sallow she looked in the morning light, perched on the arm of a chair, her long legs dangling!
"You really ought to try to believe that yourself, darling," said Pauline brightly.
Nona gave one of her father's shrugs. "Perhaps I will when I have more time."
"But one can always make time, dear." ("Just as I do," the smile suggested.) "You look thoroughly fagged out, Nona. I do wish you'd go to the wonderful new man I've just—"
"All right, mother. Only, this morning I haven't come to talk about myself. It's Lita."
"Lita?"
"I've been wanting to speak to you about her for a long time. Haven't you noticed anything?"
Pauline still wore her alert and sympathizing smile. "Tell me what, dear—let's talk it all over."
Nona's brows were drawn in a troubled frown. "I'm afraid Jim's not happy," she said.
"Jim? But, darling, he's been so dreadfully over-worked—that's the trouble. Your father spoke to me about it the other day. He's sending Jim and Arthur down to the island next month for a good long rest."
"Yes; it's awfully nice of father. But it's not that—it's Lita," Nona doggedly repeated.
A faint shadow brushed Pauline's cloudless horizon; but she resolutely turned her eyes from it. "Tell me what you think is wrong."
"Why, that she's bored stiff—says she's going to chuck the whole thing. She says the life she's leading prevents her expressing her personality."
"Good gracious—she dares?" Pauline sat bolt upright, the torn garment of her serenity fluttering away like a wisp of vapour. Was there never to be any peace for her, she wondered? She had a movement of passionate rebellion—then a terror lest it should imperil Alvah Loft's mental surgery. After a physical operation the patient's repose was always carefully guarded—but no one thought of sparing her, though she had just been subjected to so radical an extirpation. She looked almost irritably at Nona.
"Don't you think you sometimes imagine things, my pet? Of course, the more we yield to suggestions of pain and distress the more—"
"Yes; I know. But this isn't a suggestion, it's a fact. Lita says she's got to express her personality, or she'll do something dreadful. And if she does it will break Jim's heart."
Pauline leaned back, vaguely fortified by so definite a menace. It was laughable to think of Lita Cliffe's threatening to do something dreadful to a Wyant!
"Don't you think she's just over-excited, perhaps? She leads such a crazy sort of life—all you children do. And she hasn't been very strong since the baby's birth. I believe she needs a good rest as much as Jim does. And you know your father has been so wise about that; he's going to persuade her to go to Cedarledge for two or three weeks while Jim's in Georgia."
Nona remained unimpressed. "Lita won't go to Cedarledge alone—you know she won't."
"She won't have to, dear. Your father has thought of that too; he finds time to think of everything."
"Who's going, then?"
"We all are. At least, your father hopes you will; and he's giving up his tarpon-fishing on purpose to join us."
"Father is?" Nona stood up, her gaze suddenly fixed on her mother.
"Your father's wonderful," Pauline triumphed.
"Yes, I know." The girl's voice flagged again. "But all this is weeks away. And meanwhile I'm afraid—I'm afraid."
"Little girls mustn't be afraid. If you are, send Lita to me. I'm sure it's just a case of frustration—"
"Frustration?"
"Yes; the new psychological thing. I'll take her with me to see Alvah Loft. He's the great Inspirational Healer. I've only had three treatments, and it's miraculous. It doesn't take ten minutes, and all one's burdens are lifted." Pauline threw back her head with a sigh which seemed to luxuriate in the remembrance of her own release. "I wish I "could take you all to him !" she said.
"Well, perhaps you'd better begin with Lita." Nona was half-smiling too, but it was what her mother secretly called her disintegrating smile. "I wish the poor child were more constructive—but I suppose she's inherited her father's legal mind," Pauline thought.
Nona stood before her irresolutely. "You know, mother, if things do go wrong Jim will never get over it."
"There you are again—jumping at the conclusion that things will go wrong! As for Lita, to me it's a clear case of frustration. She says she wants to express her personality? Well, every one has the right to do that—I should think it wrong of me to interfere. That wouldn't be the way to make Jim happy. What Lita needs is to have her frustrations removed. That will open her eyes to her happiness, and make her see what a perfect home she has. I wonder where my engagement-list is? Maisie! . . . Oh, here. . ." She ran her eyes rapidly over the tablet. "I'll see Lita tomorrow—I'll make a point of it. We'll have a friendly simple talk—perfectly frank and affectionate. Let me see: at what time should I be likely find her? . . . And, no, of course not, darling; I wouldn't think of saying a word to Jim. But your father—surely I may speak to your father?"
Nona hesitated. "I think father knows about it—as much as he need," she answered, her hand on the door.
"Ah, your father always knows everything," Pauline placidly acquiesced.
The prospect of the talk with her daughter-in-law barely ruffled her new-found peace. It was a pity Lita was restless; but nowadays all the young people were restless. Perhaps it would be as well to say a word to Kitty Landish; flighty and inconsequent as she was, it might open her eyes to find that she was likely to have her niece back on her hands. Mrs. Percy Landish's hands were always full to overflowing with her own difficulties. A succession of ingenious theories of life, and the relentless pursuit of originality, had landed her in a state of chronic embarrassment, pecuniary, social and sentimental. The announcement that Lita was tired of Jim, and threatened to leave him, would fall like a bombshell on that precarious roof which figured in the New York Directory as somewhere in the East Hundreds, but was recorded in the "Social Register" as No. 1 Viking Court. Mrs. Landish's last fad had been to establish herself on the banks of the East River, which she and a group of friends had adorned with a cluster of reinforced-cement bungalows, first christened El Patio, but altered to Viking Court after Mrs. Landish had read in an illustrated weekly that the Vikings, who had discovered America ages before Columbus, had not, as previously supposed, effected their first landing at Vineyard Haven, but at a spot not far from the site of her dwelling. Cement, at an early stage, is malleable, and the Alhambra motifs had hastily given way to others from the prows of Nordic ships, from silver torques and Runic inscriptions, the latter easily contrived out of Arabic sourats from the Koran. Before these new ornaments were dry, Mrs. Landish and her friends were camping on the historic spot; and after four years of occupancy they were camping still, in Mrs. Manford's sense of the word.
A hurried telephone call had assured Pauline that she could see Mrs. Landish directly after lunch; and at two o'clock her motor drove up to Viking Court, which opened on a dilapidated river-front and was cynically overlooked by tall tenement houses with an underpinning of delicatessen stores.
Mrs. Landish was nowhere to be found. She had had to go out to lunch, a melancholy maid-servant said, because the cook had just given notice; but she would doubtless soon be back. With gingerly steps Pauline entered the "living-room," so called (as visitors were unfailingly reminded) because Mrs. Landish ate, painted, modelled in clay, sculptured in wood, and received her friends there. The Vikings, she added, had lived in that way. But today all traces of these varied activities had disappeared, and the room was austerely empty. Mrs. Landish's last hobby was for what she called "purism," and her chief desire to make everything in her surroundings conform to the habits and industries of a mythical past. Ever since she had created Viking Court she had been trying to obtain rushes for the floor: but as the Eastern States of America did not produce the particular variety of rush which the Vikings were said to have used she had at last decided to have rugs woven on handlooms in Abyssinia, some one having assured her that an inscription referring to trade-relations between the Vikings and the kingdom of Prester John had been discovered in the ruins of Petra.
The difficulty of having these rugs made according to designs of the period caused the cement floor of Mrs. Landish's living-room to remain permanently bare, and most of the furniture having now been removed, the room had all the appearance of a garage, the more so as Mrs. Landish's latest protégé, a young cabaret-artist who performed on a motor-siren, had been suffered to stable his cycle in one corner.
In addition to this vehicle, the room contained only a few relentless-looking oak chairs, a long table bearing an hour-glass (for clocks would have been an anachronism), and a scrap of dusty velvet nailed on the cement wall, as to which Mrs. Landish explained that it was a bit of a sixth century Coptic vestment, and that the nuns of a Basilian convent in Thessaly were reproducing it for eventual curtains and chair-cushions. "It may take fifty years." Mrs. Landish always added, "but I would rather go without it than live with anything less perfect."
The void into which Pauline advanced gave prominence to the figure of a man who stood with his back to her, looking through the window at what was to be a garden when Viking horticulture was revived. Meanwhile it was fully occupied by neighbouring cats and by swirls of wind-borne rubbish.
The visitor, duskily blocked against a sullen March sky, was at first not recognizable; but half way toward him Pauline exclaimed: "Dexter!" He turned, and his surprise met hers.
"I never dreamed of its being you!" she said.
He faced her with a certain defiant jauntiness. "Why not?"
"Because I never saw you here before. I've tried often enough to get you to come—"
"Oh, to lunch or dine!" He sent a grimace about the room. "I never thought that was among my duties."
She did not take this up, and a moment's silence hung between them. Finally Manford said: "I came about Lita."
Pauline felt a rush of relief. Her husband's voice had been harsh and impatient: she saw that her arrival had mysteriously put him out. But if anxiety about Lita were the cause of his visit it not only explained his perturbation but showed his revived solicitude for herself. She sent back another benediction to the Inspirational Healer, so sweet it was to find that she and Dexter were once more moved by the same impulses.
"It's awfully kind of you, dear. How funny that we should meet on the same errand!"
He stared: "Why, have you—?"
"Come about Lita? Well, yes. She's been getting rather out of hand, hasn't she? Of course a divorce would kill poor Jim—otherwise I shouldn't so much mind—"
"A divorce?"
"Nona tells me it's Lita's idea. Foolish child! I'm to have a talk with her this afternoon. I came here first to see if Kitty's influence—"
"Oh: Kitty's influence!"
"Yes; I know." She broke off, and glanced quickly at Manford. "But if you don't believe in her influence, why did you come here yourself?"
The question seemed to take her husband by surprise, and he met it by a somewhat rigid smile. How old he looked in the hard slaty light! The crisp hair was almost as thin on his temples as higher up. If only he would try that wonderful new "Radio-scalp"! "And he used to be so handsome!" his wife said to herself, with the rush of vitality she always felt when she noted the marks of fatigue or age in her contemporaries. Manford and Nona, she reflected, had the same way of turning sallow and heavy-cheeked when they were under any physicalor moral strain.
Manford said: "I came to ask Mrs. Landish to help us get Lita away for Easter. I thought she might put in a word—"
It was Pauline's turn to smile. "Perhaps she might. What I came for was to say that if Lita doesn't quiet down and behave reasonably she may find herself thrown on her aunt's hands again. I think that will produce an effect on Kitty. I shall make it perfectly clear that they are not to count on me financially if Lita leaves Jim." She glanced brightly at Manford, instinctively awaiting his approval.
But the expected response did not come. face grew blurred and uncertain, and for a moment he said nothing. Then he muttered: "It's all very unfortunate . . . a stupid muddle. . ."
Pauline caught the change in his tone. It suggested that her last remark, instead of pleasing him, had raised between them one of those invisible barriers against which she had so often bruised her perceptions. And just as she had thought that he and she were really in touch again!
"We mustn't be hard on her . . . we mustn't judge her without hearing both sides . . ." he went on.
"But of course not." It was just the sort of thing she wanted him to say, but not in the voice in which he said it. The voice was full of hesitation and embarrassment. Could it be her presence which embarrassed him? With Manford one could never tell. She suggested, almost timidly: "But why shouldn't I leave you to see Kitty alone? Perhaps we needn't both. . ."
His look of relief was unconcealable; but her bright resolution rose above the shock. "You'll do it so much better," she encouraged him.
"Oh, I don't know. But perhaps two of us . . . looks rather like the Third Degree, doesn't it?"
She assented nervously: "All I want is to smooth things over. . ."
He gave an acquiescent nod, and followed her as she moved toward the door. "Perhaps, though—look here, Pauline—"
She sparkled with responsiveness.
"Hadn't you better wait before sending for Lita? It may not be necessary, if—"
Her first impulse was to agree; but she thought of the Inspirational Healer. "You can trust me to behave with tact, dear; but I'm sure it will help Lita to talk things out, and perhaps I shall know better than Kitty how to get at her. . . Lita and I have always been good friends, and there's a wonderful new man I want to persuade her to see . . . some one really psychic. . ."
Manford's lips narrowed in a smile; again she had a confused sense of new deserts widening between them. Why had he again become suddenly sardonic and remote? She had no time to consider, for the new gospel of frustrations was surging to her lips.
"Not a teacher; he repudiates all doctrines, and simply acts on you.
He—"
"Pauline darling! Dexter! Have you been waiting long? Oh, dear—my hour-glass seems to be quite empty!"
Mrs. Percy Landish was there, slipping toward them with a sort of aerial shuffle, as if she had blown in on a March gust. Her tall swaying figure produced, at a distance, an effect of stateliness which vanished as she approached, as if she had suddenly got out of focus. Her face was like an unfinished sketch, to which the artist had given heaps of fair hair, a lovely nose, expressive eyes and no mouth. She laid down some vague parcels and shook the hour-glass irritably, as if it had been at fault.
"How dear of you!" she said to her visitors. "I don't often get you together in my eyrie."
The expression puzzled Pauline, who knew that in poetry an eyrie was an eagle's nest, and wondered how this term could be applied to a cement bungalow in the East Hundreds. . . But there was no time to pursue such speculations.
Mrs. Landish was looking helplessly about her. "It's cold—you're both freezing, I'm afraid?" Her eyes rested tragically on the empty hearth. "The fact is, I can't have a fire because my andirons are wrong."
"Not high enough? The chimney doesn't draw, you mean?" Pauline in such emergencies was in her element; she would have risen from her deathbed to show a new housemaid how to build a fire. But Mrs. Landish shook her head with the look of a woman who never expects to be understood by other women.
"No, dear; I mean they were not of the period. I always suspected it, and Dr. Ygrid Bjornsted, the great authority on Nordic art, who was here the other day, told me that the only existing pair is in the Museum at Christiania. So I have sent an order to have them copied. But you are cold, Pauline! Shall we go and sit in the kitchen? We shall be quite by ourselves, because the cook has just given notice."
Pauline drew her furs around her in silent protest at this new insanity. "We shall be very well here, Kitty. I suppose you know it's about Lita—"
Mrs. Landish seemed to drift back to them from incalculable distances. "Lita? Has Klawhammer really engaged her? It was for his 'Herodias,' wasn't it?" She was all enthusiasm and participation.
Pauline's heart sank. She had caught the irritated jut of Manford's brows. No—it was useless to try to make Kitty understand; and foolish to risk her husband's displeasure by staying in this icy room for such a purpose. She wrapped herself in sweetness as in her sables. "It's something much more serious than that cinema nonsense. But I'm going to leave it to Dexter to explain. He will do it ever so much better than I could. . . Yes, Kitty dear, I remember here's a step missing in the vestibule. Please don't bother to see me out— you know Dexter's minutes are precious." She thrust Mrs. Landish softly back into the room, and made her way unattended across the hall. As she did so, the living-room door, the lock of which had responded reluctantly to her handling, swung open again, and she heard Manford ask, in his dry cross-examining voice: "Will you please tell me exactly when and for how long Lita was at Dawnside, Mrs. Landish?"