Twilight Sleep (Wharton)/Chapter 14
XIV
PAULINE MANFORD left Mrs. Landish's door with the uncomfortable sense of having swallowed a new frustration. In this crowded life of hers they were as difficult to avoid as germs—and there was not always time to have them extirpated!
Manford had evidently found out about Lita's Dawnside frequentations; found it out, no doubt, as Pauline had, by seeing her photograph in that loathsome dancing group in the "Looker-on." Well, perhaps it was best that he should know; it would certainly confirm his resolve to stop any action against the Mahatma.
Only if he had induced the Lindons to drop the investigation, why was he still preoccupied by it? Why had he gone to Mrs. Landish to make that particular inquiry about Lita? Pauline would have liked to shake off the memory of his voice, and of the barely disguised impatience with which he had waited for her to go before putting his question. Confronted by this new riddle (when there were already so many others in her path) she felt a reasonless exasperation against the broken doorknob which had let her into the secret. If only Kitty Landish, instead of dreaming about Mesopotamian embroideries, would send for a locksmith and keep her house in repair!
All day Pauline was oppressed by the nervous apprehension that Manford might have changed his mind about dropping the investigation. If there had been time she would have gone to Alvah Loft for relief; she had managed so far to squeeze in a daily séance, and had come to depend on it as "addicts" do on their morphia. The very brevity of the treatment, and the blunt negative face and indifferent monosyllables of the Healer, were subtly stimulating after the verbiage and flummery of his predecessors. Such stern economy of means impressed Pauline in much the same way as a new labour-saving device; she liked everything the better for being a short-cut to something else, and even spiritual communion for resembling an improved form of stenography. As Mrs. Swoffer said, Alvah Loft was really the Busy Man's Christ.
But that afternoon there was literally not time for a treatment. Manford's decision to spend the Easter holidays at Cedarledge necessitated one of those campaigns of intensive preparation in which his wife and Maisie Bruss excelled. Leading the simple life at Cedarledge involved despatching there a part of the New York domestic staff at least ten days in advance, testing and lighting three complicated heating systems, going over all the bells and electric wiring, and making sure that the elaborate sanitary arrangements were in irreproachable order.
Nor was this all. Pauline, who prided herself on the perfect organization of every detail of both her establishments, had lately been studying the estimate for a new and singularly complete system of burglar-alarm at Cedarledge, and also going over the bills for the picturesque engine-house and up-to-date fire-engine with which she had just endowed the village patriarchally clustered below the Cedarledge hill. All these matters called for deep thought and swift decision; and the fact gave her a sudden stimulus. No rest-cure in the world was as refreshing to her as a hurried demand on her practical activity; she thrilled to it like a war-horse to a trumpet, and compelled the fagged Maisie to thrill in unison.
In this case their energy was redoubled by the hope that, if Manford found everything to his liking at Cedarledge, he might take a fancy to spending more time there. Pauline's passionate interest in plumbing and electric wiring was suffused with a romantic glow at the thought that they might lure her husband back to domestic intimacy. "The heating of the new swimming-pool must be finished too, and the workmen all out of the way—you'll have to go there next week, Maisie, and impress on everybody that there must not be a workman visible anywhere when we arrive."
Breathless, exultant, Pauline hurried home for a late cup of tea in her boudoir, and settled down, pencil in hand, with plans and estimates, as eagerly as her husband, in the early days of his legal career, used to study the documents of a new case.
Maisie, responding as she always did to the least touch of the spur, yet lifted a perplexed brow to murmur: "All right. But I don't see how I can very well leave before the Birth Control dinner. You know you haven't yet rewritten the opening passage that you used by mistake at the—"
Pauline's colour rose. Maisie's way of putting it was tactless; but the fact remained that the opening of that unlucky speech had to be rewritten, and that Pauline was never very sure of her syntax unless Maisie's reinforced it. She had always meant to be cultivated—she still thought she was when she looked at her bookshelves. But when she had to compose a speech, though words never failed her, the mysterious relations between them sometimes did. Wealth and extensive social activities were obviously incompatible with a complete mastery of grammar, and secretaries were made for such emergencies. Yes; Maisie, fagged as she looked, could certainly not be spared till the speech was remodelled.
The telephone, ringing from downstairs, announced that the Marchesa was on her way up to the boudoir. Pauline's pencil fell from her hand. On her way up! It was really too inconsiderate. . . Amalasuntha must be made to understand. . . But there was the undaunted lady.
"The footman swore you were out, dear; but I knew from his manner that I should find you. (With Powder, now, I never can tell.) And I simply had to rush in long enough to give you a good hug." The Marchesa glanced at Maisie, and the secretary effaced herself after another glance, this time from her employer, which plainly warned her: "Wait in the next room; I won't let her stay."
To her visitor Pauline murmured somewhat coldly: "I left word that I was out because I'm desperately busy over the new plumbing and burglar-alarm systems at Cedarledge. Dexter wants to go there for Easter, and of course everything must be in order before we arrive. . ."
The Marchesa's eyes widened. "Ah, this marvellous American plumbing! I believe you all treat yourselves to a new set of bathrooms every year. There's only one bath at San Fedele, and my dear parents-in-law had it covered with a wooden lid so that it could be used to do the boots on. It's really rather convenient—and out of family feeling Venturino has always reserved it for that purpose. But that's not what I came to talk about. What I want is to find words for my gratitude. . ."
Pauline leaned back, gazing wearily at Amalasuntha's small sharp face, which seemed to glitter with a new and mysterious varnish of prosperity. "For what? You've thanked me already more than my little present deserved."
The Marchesa gave her a look of puzzled retrospection. "Oh—that lovely cheque the other day? Of course my thanks include that too. But I'm entirely overwhelmed by your new munificence."
"My new munificence?" Pauline echoed between narrowed lips. Could this be an adroit way of prefacing a fresh appeal? With the huge Cedarledge estimates at her elbow she stiffened herself for refusal. Amalasuntha must really be taught moderation.
"Well, Dexter's munificence, then—his royal promise! I left him only an hour ago," the Marchesa cried with rising exultation.
"You mean he's found a job for Michelangelo? I'm very glad," said Pauline, still without enthusiasm.
"No, no; something ever so much better than that. At least," the Marchesa hastily corrected herself, "something more immediately helpful. His debts, dear, my silly boy's debts! Dexter has promised . . . has authorized me to cable that he need not sail, as everything will be paid. It's more, far more, than I could have hoped!" The happy mother possessed herself of Mrs. Manford's unresponsive hand.
Pauline freed the hand abruptly. She felt the need of assimilating and interpreting this news as rapidly as possible, without betraying undue astonishment and yet without engaging her responsibility; but the effort was beyond her, and she could only sit and stare. Dexter had promised to pay Michelangelo's debts—but with whose money? And why?
"I'm sure Dexter wants to do all he can to help you about Michelangelo—we both do. But—"
Pauline's brain was whirling; she found it impossible to go on. She knew by heart the extent of Michelangelo's debts. Amalasuntha took care that everyone did. She seemed to feel a sort of fatuous pride in their enormity, and was always dinning it into her cousin's ears. Dexter, if he had really made such a promise, must have made it in his wife's name; and to do so without consulting her was so unlike him that the idea deepened her bewilderment.
"Are you sure? I'm sorry, Amalasuntha—but this comes as a surprise. . . Dexter and I were to talk the matter over . . . to see what could be done. . ."
"Darling, it's so like you to belittle your own generosity—you always do! And so does Dexter. But in this case—well, the cable's gone; so why deny it?" triumphed the Marchesa.
When Maisie Bruss returned, Pauline was still sitting with an idle pencil before the pile of bills and estimates. She fixed an unseeing eye on her secretary. "These things will have to wait. I'm dreadfully tired, I don't know why. But I'll go over them all early tomorrow, before you come; and—Maisie—I hate to ask it; but do you think you could get here by eight o'clock instead of nine? There's so much to be done; and I want to get you off to Cedarledge as soon as possible."
Maisie, a little paler and more drawn than usual, declared that of course she would turn up at eight.
Even after she had gone Pauline did not move, or give another glance to the papers. For the first time in her life she had an obscure sense of moving among incomprehensible and overpowering forces. She could not, to herself, have put it even as clearly as that—she just dimly felt that, between her and her usual firm mastery of facts, something nebulous and impenetrable was closing in. . . Nona—what if she were to consult Nona? The girl sometimes struck her as having an uncanny gift of divination, as getting at certain mysteries of mood and character more quickly and clearly than her mother. . . "Though, when it comes to practical things, poor child, she's not much more use than Jim. . ."
Jim! His name called up the other associated with it. Lita was now another source of worry. Whichever way Pauline looked, the same choking obscurity enveloped her. Even about Jim and Lita it clung in a dense fog, darkening and distorting what, only a short time ago, had seemed a daylight case of domestic harmony. Money, health, good looks, a beautiful baby . . . and now all this fuss about having to express one's own personality. Yes; Lita's attitude was just as confusing as Dexter's. Was Dexter trying to express his own personality too? If only they would all talk things out with her—help her to understand, instead of moving about her in the obscurity, like so many burglars with dark lanterns! This image jerked her attention back to the Cedarledge estimates, and wearily she adjusted her eye-glasses and took up her pencil. . .
Her maid rapped. "What dress, please, madam?" To be sure—they were dining that evening with the Walter Rivingtons. It was the first time they had invited Pauline since her divorce from Wyant; Mrs. Rivington's was the only house left in which the waning traditions of old New York still obstinately held out, and divorce was regarded as a social disadvantage. But they had taken Manford's advice successfully in a difficult case, and were too punctilious not to reward him in the one way he would care about. The Rivingtons were the last step of the Manford ladder.
"The silver moiré, and my pearls." That would be distinguished and exclusive-looking. Pauline was thankful Dexter had definitely promised to go with her—he was getting so restive nowadays about what he had taken to calling her dull dinners. . .
The telephone again—this time Dexter's voice. Pauline listened apprehensively, wondering if it would do to speak to him now about Amalasuntha's extraordinary announcement, or whether it might be more tactful to wait. He was so likely to be nervous and irritable at the end of the day. Yes; it was in his eleventh-hour voice that he was speaking.
"Pauline—look here; I shall be kept at the office rather late. Please put off dinner, will you? I'd like a quiet evening alone with you—"
"A quiet. . . But, Dexter, we're dining at the Rivingtons'. Shall I telephone to say you may be late?"
"The Rivingtons?" His voice became remote and utterly indifferent. "No; telephone we won't come. Chuck them. . . I want a talk with you alone . . . can't we dine together quietly at home?" He repeated the phrases slowly, as if he thought she had not understood him.
Chuck the Rivingtons? It seemed like being asked to stand up in church and deny her God. She sat speechless and let the fatal words go on vibrating on the wire.
"Don't you hear me, Pauline? Why don't you answer? Is there something wrong with the line?"
"No, Dexter. There's nothing wrong with the line."
"Well, then. . . You can explain to them . . . say anything you like."
Through the dressing-room door she saw the maid laying out the silver moiré, the chinchilla cloak, the pearls. . .
Explain to the Rivingtons!
"Very well, dear. What time shall I order dinner here?" she questioned heroically.
She heard him ring off, and sat again staring into the fog, which his words had only made more impenetrable.