Twilight Sleep (Wharton)/Chapter 25
XXV
MANFORD didn't know what first gave him the sense that Lita had slipped out among the departing guests; slipped out, and not come back. When the idea occurred to him it was already lodged in his mind, hard and definite as a verified fact. She had vanished from among them into the darkness.
But only a moment ago; there was still time to dash round to the shed in the service court, where motors were sometimes left for the night, and where he had dropped his Buick just in time to rush in and dress for dinner. He would have no trouble in overtaking her.
The Buick was gone.
Hatless and coatless in the soft night air, he rushed down the drive on its track. No moon tonight, but a deceptive velvet mildness, such as sometimes comes in spring before the wind hauls round to a frosty quarter. He hurried on, out of the open gate, along the road toward the village; and there, at the turn of the New York turnpike—just the road he had expected her to take—stood his Buick, a figure stooping over it in the lamp-glare. A furious stab of jealousy shot through him— "There's a man with her; who?" But the man was only his own overcoat, which he had left on the seat of the car when he dashed home for dinner, and which was now drawn over Lita's shoulders. It was she who stood in the night, bent over the mysteries of the car's insides.
She looked up and called out: "Oh, look here—give me a hand, will you? The thing's stuck." Manford moved around within lamp-range, and she stared a moment, her little face springing out at him uncannily from the darkness. Then she broke into a laugh. "You?"
"Were you asking a total stranger to repair your motor? Rather risky, on a country road in the middle of the night."
She shrugged and smiled. "Not as risky as doing it myself. The chances are that even a total stranger would know more about the inside of this car than I do."
"Lita, you're mad! Damn the car. What are you doing here anyhow?"
She paused, one hand on the bonnet, while with the other she pushed back a tossed lock from her round forehead. "Running away," she said simply.
Manford took a quick breath. The thing was, he admonished himself, to take this lightly, as nearly as possible in her own key—above all to avoid protesting and exclaiming. But his heart was beating like a trip-hammer. She was more of a fool than he had thought.
"Running away from that dinner? I don't blame you. But it's over. Still, if you want to wash out the memory of it, get into the motor and we'll go for a good spin—like that one when we came back from Greenwich."
Her lips parted in a faint smile. "Oh, but that ended up at Cedarledge."
"Well—?"
"Bless you; I'm not going back."
"Where are you going?"
"To New York first—after that I don't know. . . Perhaps my aunt's. . . Perhaps Hollywood. . ."
The rage in him exploded. "Perhaps Dawnside—eh? Own up!"
She laughed and shrugged again. "Own up? Why not? Anywhere where I can dance and laugh and be hopelessly low-lived and irresponsible."
"And get that blackguard crew about you again, all those—. Lita! Listen to me. Listen. You've got to."
"Got to?" She rounded on him in a quick flare of anger. "I wonder who you think you're talking to? I'm not Gladys Toy."
The unexpectedness of the challenge struck him dumb. For challenge it was, unmistakably. He felt a rush of mingled strength and fear—fear at this inconceivable thing, and the strength her self-betrayal gave him. He returned with equal violence: "No—you're not. You're something so utterly different. . ."
"Oh," she burst in, "don't tell me I'm too sacred, and all that. I'm fed up with the sanctities—that's the trouble with me. Just own up you like 'em artificially fattened. Why, that woman's ankles are half a yard round. Can't you see it? Or is that really the way you admire 'em? I thought you wanted to be with me. . . I thought that was why you were here. . . Do you suppose I'd have come all this way just to be taught to love fresh air and family life? The hypocrisy—!"
Her little face was flashing on him furiously, red lips parted on a glitter of bright teeth. "She must have a sausage-machine, to cram her into that tube she had on tonight. No human maid could do it. . . 'Utterly different'? I should hope so! I'd like to see her get a job with Klawhammer—unless he means to do a 'Barnum,' and wants a Fat Woman. . . I . . ."
"Lita!"
"You're stupid . . . you're stupider than anything on God's earth!"
"Lita—" He put his hand over hers. Let the whole world crash, after this. . .
Pauline sat in her upstairs sitting-room, full of that sense of repose which comes of duties performed and rewards laid up. How could it be otherwise, at the close of a day so rich in moral satisfactions? She scanned it again, from the vantage of her midnight vigil in the sleeping house, and saw that all was well in the little world she had created.
Yes; all was well, from the fire-drill which had given a rather languishing dinner its requisite wind-up of excitement to the arrangements for the Cardinal's reception, Amalasuntha's skilful turning of that Birth Control obstacle, and the fact that Jim was philosophically remaining in the south in spite of his father's unexpected return. The only shadow on the horizon was Michelangelo's— Dexter would certainly be angry about that. But she was not going to let Michelangelo darken her holiday, when everything else in life was so smooth and sunshiny.
She remembered her resolve to write to Jim, and took up her pen with a smile.
| "I can guess what heavenly weather you must be having from the delicious taste of spring we're having here. The baby is out in the sunshine all day: he's gained nearly a pound, and is getting almost as brown as if it were summer. Lita looks ever so much better too, though she'd never forgive my suggesting that she had put on even an ounce. But I don't believe she has, for she and Nona and Dexter are riding or golfing or racing over the country from morning to night like a pack of children. You can't think how jolly and hungry and sleepy they all are when they get home for tea. It was a wonderful invention of Dexter's to bring Lita and the baby here while you were having your holi |
| day, and you'll agree that it has worked miracles when you see them.
"Amalasuntha tells me your father is back. I expected to hear that he had got restless away from his own quarters; but she says he's looking very well. Nona will go in and see him next week, and report. Meanwhile I'm so glad you're staying on and making the most of your holiday. Do get all the rest and sunshine you can, and trust your treasures a little longer to your loving old "MOTHER." |
There—that would certainly reassure him. It had reassured her merely to write it: given her the feeling, to which she always secretly inclined, that a thing was so if one said it was, and doubly so if one wrote it down.
She sealed the letter, pushed back her chair, and glanced at the little clock on her writing-table. A quarter to two! She had a right to feel sleepy, and even to curtail her relaxing exercises. The country stillness was so deep and soothing that she hardly needed them. . .
She opened the window, and stood drinking in the hush. The spring night was full of an underlying rustle and murmur that was a part of the silence. But suddenly a sharp sound broke on her—the sound of a motor coming up the drive. In the stillness she caught it a long way off, probably just after the car turned in at the gate. The sound was so unnatural, breaking in on the deep nocturnal dumbness of dim trees and starlit sky, that she drew back startled. She was not a nervous woman, but she thought irritably of a servants' escapade—something that the chauffeur would have to be spoken to about the next day. Queer, though—the motor did not turn off toward the garage. Standing in the window she followed its continued approach; then heard it slow down and stop—somewhere near the service court, she conjectured.
Could it he that Lita and Nona had been off on one of their crazy trips since the guests had left? She must really protest at such imprudence. . . She felt angry, nervous, uncertain. It was uncanny, hearing that invisible motor come so near the house and stop. . . She hesitated a moment, and then crossed to her own room, opened the door of the little anteroom beyond, and stood listening at her husband's bedroom door. It was ajar, all dark within. She hesitated to speak, half fearing to wake him; but at length she said in a low voice: "Dexter—."
No answer. She pronounced his name again, a little louder, and then cautiously crossed the threshold and switched on the light. The room was empty, the bed undisturbed. It was evident that Manford had not been up to his room since their guests had left. It was he, then, who had come back in the motor. . . She extinguished the light and turned back into her own room. On her dressing-table stood the little telephone which communicated with the servants' quarters, with Maisie Bruss's office, and with Nona's room. She stood wavering before the instrument. Why shouldn't she call up Nona, and ask—? Ask what? If the girls had been off on a lark they would be sure to tell her in the morning. And if it was Dexter alone, then—
She turned from the telephone, and slowly began to undress. Presently she heard steps in the hall, then in the anteroom; then her husband moving softly about in his own room, and the unmistakable sounds of his undressing. . . She drew a long breath, as if trying to free her lungs of some vague oppression. . . It was Dexter—well, yes, only Dexter . . . and he hadn't cared to leave the motor at the garage at that hour. . . Naturally. . . How glad she was that she hadn't rung up Nona! Suppose her doing so had startled Lita or the baby. . .
After all, perhaps she'd better do her relaxing exercises. She felt suddenly staring wide awake. But she was glad she'd written that reassuring letter to Jim—she was glad, because it was true. . .