Twilight Sleep (Wharton)/Chapter 18
XVIII
LITA? But of course I'll talk to Lita—"
Mrs. Manford, resting one elbow on her littered desk, smiled up encouragingly at her daughter. On the desk lay the final version of the Birth Control speech, mastered and canalized by the skilful Maisie. The result was so pleasing that Pauline would have liked to read it aloud to Nona, had the latter not worn her look of concentrated care. It was a pity, Pauline thought, that Nona should let herself go at her age to these moods of anxiety and discouragement.
Pauline herself, fortified by her morning exercises, and by a double treatment" ($50) from Alvah Loft, had soared once more above her own perplexities. She had not had time for a word alone with her husband since their strange talk of the previous evening; but already the doubts and uncertainties produced by that talk had been dispelled. Of course Dexter had been moody and irritable: wasn't her family always piling up one worry on him after another? He had always loved Jim as much as he did Nona; and now this menace to Jim's happiness, and the unpleasantness about Lita, combined with Amalasuntha's barefaced demands, and the threatened arrival of the troublesome Michelangelo—such a weight of domestic problems was enough to unnerve a man already overburdened with professional cares.
"But of course I'll talk to Lita, dear; I always meant to. The silly goose! I've waited only because your father—"
Nona's heavy eyebrows ran together like Man- ford's. "Father?"
"Oh, he's helping us so splendidly about it. And he asked me to wait; to do nothing in a hurry. . ."
Nona seemed to turn this over. "All the same—I think you ought to hear what Lita has to say. She's trying to persuade Jim to let her divorce him; and he thinks he ought to, if he can't make her happy."
"But he must make her happy! I'll talk to Jim too," cried Pauline with a gay determination.
"I'd try Lita first, mother. Ask her to postpone her decision. If we can get her to come to Cedarledge for a few weeks' rest—"
"Yes; that's what your father says."
"But I don't think father ought to give up his fishing to join us. Haven't you noticed how tired he looks? He ought to get away from all of us for a few weeks. Why shouldn't you and I look after Lita?"
Pauline's enthusiasm drooped. It was really no business of Nona's to give her mother advice about the management of her father. These modern girls—pity Nona didn't marry, and try managing a husband of her own!
"Your father loves Cedarledge. It's quite his own idea to go there. He thinks Easter in the country with us all will be more restful than California. I haven't influenced him in the least to give up his fishing."
"Oh, I didn't suppose you had." Nona seemed to lose interest in the discussion, and her mother took advantage of the fact to add, with a gentle sideglance at her watch: "Is there anything else, dear? Because I've got to go over my Birth Control speech, and at eleven there's a delegation from—"
Nona's eyes had followed her glance to the scattered pages on the desk. "Are you really going to preside at that Birth Control dinner, mother?"
"Preside? Why not? I happen to be chairman," Pauline answered with a faint touch of acerbity.
"I know. Only—the other day you were preaching unlimited families. Don't the two speeches come rather close together? You might expose yourself to some newspaper chaff if any one put you in parallel columns."
Pauline felt herself turning pale. Her lips tightened, and for a moment she was conscious of a sort of blur in her brain. This girl . . . it was preposterous that she shouldn't understand! And always wanting reasons and explanations at a moment's notice! To be subjected, under one's own roof, to such a perpetual inquisition. . . There was nothing she disliked so much as questions to which she had not had time to prepare the answers.
"I don't think you always grasp things, Nona." The words were feeble, but they were the first that came.
"I'm afraid I don't, mother."
"Then, perhaps—I just suggest it—you oughtn't to be quite so ready to criticize. You seem to imagine there is a contradiction in my belonging to these two groups of . . . of thought. . ."
"They do seem to contradict each other."
"Not in reality. The principles are different, of course; but, you see, they are meant to apply to—to different categories of people. It's all a little difficult to explain to any one as young as you are . . . a girl naturally can't be expected to know. . ."
"Oh, what we girls don't know, mother!"
"Well, dear, I've always approved of outspokenness on such matters. The real nastiness is in covering things up. But all the same, age and experience do teach one. . . You children mustn't hope to get at all elders' reasons. . ." That sounded firm yet friendly, and as she spoke she felt herself on safer ground. "I wish there were time to go into it all with you now; but if I'm to keep up with today's engagements, and crowd in a talk with Lita besides—Maisie! Will you call up Mrs. Jim?"
Maisie answered from the other room: "The delegation of the League For Discovering Genius is waiting downstairs, Mrs. Manford—"
"Oh, to be sure! This is rather an important movement, Nona; a new thing. I do believe there's something helpful to be done for genius. They're just organizing their first drive: I heard of it through that wonderful Mrs. Swoffer. You wouldn't care to come down and see the delegation with me? No . . . I sometimes think you'd be happier if you interested yourself a little more in other people . . . in all the big humanitarian movements that make one so proud to be an American. Don't you think it's glorious to belong to the only country where everybody is absolutely free, and yet we're all made to do exactly what is best for us? I say that somewhere in my speech. . . Well, I promise to have my talk with Lita before dinner; whatever happens, I'll squeeze her in. And you and Jim needn't be afraid of my saying anything to set her against us. Your father has impressed that on me already. After all, I've always preached the respect of every one's personality; only Lita must begin by respecting Jim's."
Fresh from a stimulating encounter with Mrs. Swoffer and the encouragers of genius, Pauline was able to face with a smiling composure her meeting with her daughter-in-law. Every contact with the humanitarian movements distinguishing her native country from the selfish laissez faire and cynical indifference of Europe filled her with a new optimism, and shed a reassuring light on all her private cares. America really seemed to have an immediate answer for everything, from the treatment of the mentally deficient to the elucidation of the profoundest religious mysteries. In such an atmosphere of universal simplification, how could one's personal problems not be solved? "The great thing is to believe that they will be," as Mrs. Swoffer said, à propos of the finding of funds for the new League For Discovering Genius. The remark was so stimulating to Pauline that she immediately drew a large cheque, and accepted the chairmanship of the committee; and it was on the favouring breeze of the League's applause that she sailed, at the tea-hour, into Lita's boudoir.
"It seems simpler just to ask her for a cup of tea—as if I were dropping in to see the baby," Pauline had reflected; and as Lita was not yet at home, there was time to turn her pretext into a reality. Upstairs, in the blue and silver nursery, her sharp eye detected many small negligences under the artistic surface: soiled towels lying about, a half-empty glass of milk with a drowned fly in it, dead and decaying flowers in the æsthetic flower-pots, and not a single ventilator open in the upper window-panes. She made a mental note of these items, but resolved not to touch on them in her talk with Lita. At Cedarledge, where the nurse would be under her own eye, nursery hygiene could be more tactfully imparted. . .
The black boudoir was still empty when Pauline returned to it, but she was armed with patience, and sat down to wait. The armchairs were much too low to be comfortable and she hated the semi-obscurity of the veiled lamps. How could one possibly occupy one's time in a pitch-dark room with seats that one had to sprawl in as if they were deck-chairs? She thought the room so ugly and dreary that she could hardly blame Lita for wanting to do it over. "I'll give her a cheque for it at once," she reflected indulgently. "All young people begin by making mistakes of this kind." She remembered with a little shiver the set of imitation tapestry armchairs that she had insisted on buying for her drawing-room when she had married Wyant. Perhaps it would be a good move to greet Lita with the offer of the cheque. . .
Somehow Lita's appearance, when she at length arrived, made the idea seem less happy. Lita had a way of looking as if she didn't much care what one did to please her; for a young woman who spent so much money she made very little effort to cajole it out of her benefactors. "Hullo," she said; "I didn't know you were here. Am I late, I wonder?"
Pauline greeted her with a light kiss. "How can you ever tell if you are? I don't believe there's a clock in the house."
"Yes, there is; in the nursery," said Lita.
"Well, my dear, that one's stopped," rejoined her mother-in-law, smiling.
"You've been seeing the boy? Oh, then you haven't missed me," Lita smiled back as she loosened her furs and tossed off her hat. She ran her hands through her goldfish-coloured hair, and flung herself down on a pile of cushions. "Tea's coming sooner or later, I suppose. Unless—a cocktail? No? Wouldn't you be more comfortable on the floor?" she suggested to her mother-in-law.
Every whalebone in Pauline's perfectly fitting elastic girdle contracted apprehensively. "Thank you; I'm very well here." She assumed as willowy an attitude as the treacherous seat permitted, and added: "I'm so glad to have the chance of a little talk. In this rushing life we all tend to lose sight of each other, don't we? But I hear about you so constantly from Nona that I feel we're very close even when we don't meet. Nona's devoted to you—we all are."
"That's awfully sweet of you," said Lita with her air of radiant indifference.
"Well, my dear, we hope you reciprocate," Pauline sparkled, stretching a maternal hand to the young shoulder at her knee.
Lita slanted her head backward with a slight laugh. Mrs. Manford had never thought her pretty, but today the mere freshness of her parted lips, their rosy lining, the unspoilt curves of her check and long white throat, stung the older woman to reluctant admiration.
"Am I expected to be devoted to you all?" Lita questioned.
"No, dear; only to Jim."
"Oh—" said Jim's wife, her smile contracting to a faint grimace.
Pauline leaned forward earnestly. "I won't pretend not to know something of what's been happening. I came here today to talk things over with you, quietly and affectionately—like an older sister. Try not to think of me as a mother-in-law!"
Lita's slim eyebrows went up ironically. "Oh, I'm not afraid of mothers-in-law; they're not permanent as they used to be."
Pauline took a quick breath; she caught the impertinence under the banter, but she called her famous tact to the rescue.
"I'm glad you're not afraid of me, because I want you to tell me perfectly frankly what it is that's bothering you . . . you and Jim. . ."
"Nothing is bothering me particularly; but I suppose I'm bothering Jim," said Lita lightly.
"You're doing more than that, dear; you're making him desperately unhappy. This talk of wanting to separate—"
Lita rose on her elbow among the cushions, and levelled her eyes on Mrs. Manford. They looked as clear and shallow as the most expensive topazes.
"Separations are idiotic. What I want is a hundred per cent New York divorce. And he could let me have it just as easily. . ."
"Lita! You don't know how wretched it makes me to hear you say such things."
"Does it? Sorry! But it's Jim's own fault. Heaps of other girls would jump at him if he was free. And if I'm bored, what's the use of trying to keep me? What on earth can we do about it, either of us? You can't take out an insurance against boredom."
"But why should you be bored? With everything on earth. . ." Pauline waved a hand at the circumjacent luxuries.
"Well; that's it, I suppose. Always the same old everything!"
The mother-in-law softened her voice to murmur temptingly: "Of course, if it's this house you're tired of. . . Nona told me something about your wanting to redecorate some of the rooms; and I can understand, for instance, that this one. . ."
"Oh, this is the only one I don't utterly loathe. But I'm not divorcing Jim on account of the house," Lita answered, with a faint smile which seemed perverse to Pauline.
"Then what is the reason? I don't understand."
"I'm not much good at reasons. I want a new deal, that's all."
Pauline struggled against her rising indignation. To sit and hear this chit of a Cliffe girl speak of husband and home as if it were a matter of course to discard them like last year's fashions! But she was determined not to allow her feelings to master her. "If you had only yourself to think of, what should you do?" she asked.
"Do? Be myself, I suppose! I can't be, here. I'm a sort of all-round fake. I—"
"We none of us want you to be that—Jim least of all. He wants you to feel perfectly free to express your personality."
"Here—in this house?" Her contemptuous gesture seemed to tumble it down like a pack of cards. "And looking at him across the dinner-table every night of my life?"
Pauline paused; then she said gently: "And can you face giving up your baby?"
"Baby? Why should I? You don't suppose I'd ever give up my baby?"
"Then you mean to ask Jim to give up his wife and child, and to assume all the blame as well?"
"Oh, dear, no. Where's the blame? I don't see any! All I want is a new deal," repeated Lita doggedly.
"My dear, I'm sure you don't know what you're saying. Your husband has the misfortune to be passionately in love with you. The divorce you talk of so lightly would nearly kill him. Even if he doesn't interest you any longer, he did once. Oughtn't you to take that into account?"
Lita seemed to ponder. Then she said: "But oughtn't he to take into account that he doesn't 'interest me any longer?"
Pauline made a final effort at self-control. "Yes, dear; if it's really so. But if he goes away for a time. . . You know he's to have a long holiday soon, and my husband has arranged to have him go down with Mr. Wyant to the island. All I ask is that you shouldn't decide anything till he comes back. See how you feel about him when he's been away for two or three weeks. Perhaps you've been too much together—perhaps New York has got too much on both your nerves. At any rate, do let him go off on his holiday without the heartbreak of feeling it's good-bye. . . My husband begs you to do this. You know he loves Jim as if he were his son—"
Lita was still leaning on her elbow. "Well—isn't he?" she said in her cool silvery voice, with innocently widened eyes.
For an instant the significance of the retort escaped Pauline. When it reached her she felt as humiliated as if she had been caught concealing a guilty secret. She opened her lips, but no sound came from them. She sat wordless, torn between the desire to box her daughter-in-law's ears, and to rush in tears from the house.
"Lita . . ." she gasped . . . "this insult. . ."
Lita sat up, her eyes full of a slightly humorous compunction. "Oh, no! An insult! Why? I've always thought it would be so wonderful to have a love-child. I supposed that was why you both worshipped Jim. And now he isn't even that!" She shrugged her slim shoulders, and held her hands out penitently. "I am sorry to have said the wrong thing—honestly I am! But it just shows we can never understand each other. For me the real wickedness is to go on living with a man you don't love. And now I've offended you by supposing you once felt in the same way yourself. . ."
Pauline slowly rose to her feet: she felt stiff and shrunken. "You haven't offended me—I'm not going to allow myself to be offended. I'd rather think we don't understand each other, as you say. But surely it's not too late to try. I don't want to discuss things with you; I don't want to nag or argue; I only want you to wait, to come with the baby to Cedarledge, and spend a few quiet weeks with us. Nona will be there, and my husband . . . there'll be no reproaches, no questions . . . but we'll do our best to make you happy. . ."
Lita, with her funny twisted smile, moved toward her mother-in-law. "Why, you're actually crying! I don't believe you do that often, do you?" She bent forward and put a light kiss on Pauline's shrinking cheek. "All right—I'll come to Cedarledge. I am dead-beat and fed-up, and I daresay it'll do me a lot of good to lie up for a while. . ."
Pauline, for a moment, made no answer: she merely laid her lips on the girl's cheek, a little timidly, as if it had been made of something excessively thin and brittle.
"We shall all be very glad," she said.
On the doorstep, in the motor, she continued to move in the resonance of the outrageous question: "Well—isn't he?" The violence of her recoil left her wondering what use there was in trying to patch up a bond founded on such a notion of marriage. Would not Jim, as his wife so lightly suggested, run more chance of happiness if he could choose again? Surely there must still be some decent right-minded girls brought up in the old way . . . like Aggie Heuston, say! But Pauline's imagination shivered away from that too. . . Perhaps, after all, her own principles were really obsolete to her children. Only, what was to take their place? Human nature had not changed as fast as social usage, and if Jim's wife left him nothing could prevent his suffering in the same old way.
It was all very baffling and disturbing, and Pauline did not feel as sure as she usually did that the question could be disposed of by ignoring it. Still, on the drive home her thoughts cleared as she reflected that she had gained her main point—for the time, at any rate. Manford had enjoined her not to estrange or frighten Lita, and the two women had parted with a kiss. Manford had insisted that Lita should be induced to take no final decision till after her stay at Cedarledge; and to this also she had acquiesced. Pauline, on looking back, began to be struck by the promptness of Lita's surrender, and correspondingly impressed by her own skill in manœuvring. There was something, after all, in these exercises of the will, these smiling resolves to ignore or dominate whatever was obstructive or unpleasant! She had gained with an almost startling ease the point which Jim and Manford and Nona had vainly struggled for. And perhaps Lita's horrid insinuation had not been a voluntary impertinence, but merely the unconscious avowal of new standards. The young people nowadays, for all their long words and scientific realism, were really more like children than ever. . .
In Pauline's boudoir, Nona, curled up on the hearth, her chin in her hands, raised her head at her mother's approach. To Pauline the knowledge that she was awaited, and that she brought with her the secret of defeat or victory, gave back the healing sense of authority.
"It's all right, darling," she announced; "just a little summer shower; I always told you there was nothing to worry about." And she added with a smile: "You see, Nona, some people do still listen when your old mother talks to them."