“New York? How can we be in New York? There is a war on.”
“Even so, these liners still sail. The journey is in no way impossible.”
Constance knew that even and imperturbable tone of voice. She risked a quick look at her husband. He was seated beside her, regarding her with equanimity, a slight smile on his lips.
“And how long shall we stay there, Montague? A month? Two months?”
“Oh, longer than that. I thought we might stay there … for good.”
Constance did not like the tone in which this was said. A certain icy triumph could be discerned beneath the surface politeness. She risked a small wail.
“For good?” She drew her husband closer. She coiled her small arms about his neck. “Dearest Montague, don’t tease me. How can we live in New York? All your work is here. The bank. The munitions factories—”
“Oh, I have disposed of those,” Stern replied easily. “Did I not mention it? The intervention of the Americans in the war has been decisive, I feel. It cannot last much longer. I sold—for a better price than I would get a year from now.”
“But, Montague, the bank—”
“I have partners who can run the bank. It has links with Wall Street, in any case. Surely you remember. I have mentioned it.”
“I don’t remember at all.” Constance drew back with a sulky expression. “You never mentioned New York. Or America.”
“Perhaps you did not attend. Does the idea not please you? I thought you would be delighted. You always wanted to travel, my dear. You like change. New York is a city of change. It will make London seem very dull—”
“I don’t want to live in London,” Constance burst out. “I told you. We discussed this. I want to live in Peel’s house—”
“In Peel’s house?” Stern appeared surprised. “But, Constance, that is no longer possible. I have sold it.”
Constance became perfectly still. Color mounted in her face.
“Sold it?” she began slowly. “When did you do that?”
Stern shrugged. “My dear, this week, last week—I forget the exact date. Constance, you change your mind so very often. I thought your wanting Peel’s house was just a passing whim. It never once occurred to me—”
He stopped. It was now clear to Constance that her husband was lying. Never occurred to him! Why, she was perfectly certain he knew how much she wanted Peel’s house—and worse still, might even have known why.
Constance bit her lip hard with her small white teeth. Tears pricked behind her eyelids. To have been so close, for every one of her plans to have fallen obligingly into place, and then to be outwitted by this husband of hers.
Devil, devil, devil,
she said to herself. She clenched her small hands into two tight fists.
“Darling,” Stern said (Stern, who scarcely ever used such endearments). He leaned forward to embrace her. His voice (how she resented his acting ability) was contrite. “Constance, my dear—you seem distressed. If only I had known. An offer came up, to buy both Peel’s house and the Arlington place. The price was good—”
“Oh, I’m sure it was,” Constance muttered. “I’m sure it was.”
To her fury one small angry tear ran down her cheek. To her greater fury, her husband kissed first the tear, then her lips.
“Constance,” he went on, putting his arms around her. “Think a little. In Scotland you were very definite. Not Winterscombe, nowhere near Winterscombe—you said that. And besides, our little empire—you remember we spoke of that? That empire has been shrinking these past weeks. Peel’s house has few attractions, don’t you think, without the Winterscombe land or the Conyngham estate? And those, I fear, I shall never acquire—not if these rumors I hear are true—”
“Rumors? What rumors?”
“That Denton’s debts may be miraculously repaid. That Acland and a certain heiress are much in love. Those sorts of rumors, my dear.”
“Acland and Jane, do you mean? In love?” Constance struggled free of his arms. She tossed her head. “I never heard anything so silly in my life.”
“More than in love, or so I hear. Devoted.” Stern rose. “Devoted—and engaged to be married,” he added, with some emphasis.
Constance lay back upon the pillows. Since she was very angry, she knew better than to speak. Malice, she told herself, in that last remark of Stern’s—or, if not malice, an unmistakable desire to wound. Worst of all, since she was supposed to be indifferent to Acland, she could not show that hurt.
She should, of course, have been more careful, more subtle—she saw that now. Maud had warned her; she herself, in the early days of their courtship, had been well aware of Stern’s skill as an adversary—and yet what had she done? She had schemed and, while she did so, had forgotten the possibility that her husband might scheme too.
A foolish mistake. Constance considered her husband. If he felt triumph at outwitting her, he disguised it well. She watched as, with his customary composure, he returned the liner tickets to their envelopes. As she watched him, she felt her anger first abate, then transmute into admiration.
More than a match for me
, Constance said to herself, and, since it pleased her to be combative, she began to scheme anew. Stern had won this battle, yes—but to win a battle was not to win the war. There was a small but discernible gap in her husband’s defenses.
“Montague …” she began in a thoughtful voice.
“Yes, my dear?” Stern replied, somewhat warily.
Constance held out her hand to him and drew him down beside her. She gave him her most innocent smile; her husband, she noted, tensed.
“Montague,” she began, “tell me the truth now. Have I made you angry?”
“Angry?” Stern replied, somewhat stiffly. “Of course not. Why should that be? Besides, I am rarely angry. I was blessed—or cursed—with a cool temperament. To be angry wastes time.”
“Does it?” Constance said, with a small sideways glance. “Are you never angry then?”
“Occasionally.” Stern’s eyes met hers. “I do not like to be crossed, Constance.”
“Crossed!” Constance made a little face. “Heavens! I’m sure no one would dare to cross you—I certainly would not. How strange. It cannot be anger then. Yet I thought, looking at you, when you gave me those tickets—”
“A present, Constance. A surprise.”
“Oh, and a lovely surprise, of course. But still I wonder. If you were not angry, were you jealous? Do you know, Montague, I suspect that you were! Ah, there!” She raised her eyes. “I see it in your face. I have hit upon it. You
are
jealous—of Acland. That is why you dispose of Peel’s house so conveniently, why you spirit me off to the other side of the globe. I suspect, Montague, that you want me a long way away from the … temptations of Winterscombe.”
To Constance’s irritation, Stern took this suggestion with an urbane and unruffled amusement.
“Constance, my dear, I hate to disappoint you. I know women like to attribute such motives to men. It is part of their feminine thinking. But in my case, alas, you are wrong. I have many failings. Jealousy is not one of them.”
“Truly, Montague?”
“I regret, but it is true. Acland is nothing to you, my dear. I know that, because you have told me often enough. So the sad truth is, my motives were purely financial.”
“Have you never felt jealousy then, Montague?” said Constance, who did not intend to give up.
“Not so far as I recall,” he replied shortly. “I try not to be possessive.”
Constance, sensing at last a vulnerability insufficiently disguised, gave a little frown. She lay back upon the pillows.
“Of course, I remember now,” she said, in a meditative voice. “What was it you said? That you did not set great store by physical fidelity—yes, that was it. Goodness, you are so very high-minded, Montague. I am not like that at all—”
“Are you not, Constance?”
“Never!” Constance cried, sitting up again and clasping his hand. “I am as jealous and possessive as could be. If you so much as looked at another woman, I should begin to die inside. If you went to bed with her … Oh, Montague, how horrible it would be! I should feel cut into little pieces, with sharp little knives—”
“Constance. Don’t say such things.” Stern’s hand tightened over hers. “You must know—there is no danger—” He checked himself. “There is no immediate danger of that. I am … content with you. I have no desire for other women.”
Constance gave a small cry. She pressed herself against him. An admission, she thought, as she clung to him: an admission, at last. She felt a rush of triumph and then, almost immediately, a flurry of more contradictory emotions. To be embraced by Stern, to feel his hands stroke her hair, to feel his lips against her brow, these provoked in her rebellious truthfulness. To be truthful was to be exposed, however, and that she would not risk—with Stern least of all. She drew back.
“So, there we are,” she said in a calmer voice. “I have a jealous nature, and you do not. Though I cannot quite believe you are as cold as you claim. Suppose I were to take an interest in another man … Suppose I were to take a lover. I never shall, of course—but if I did? You must mind then? A little? Not to do so would be inhuman, Montague.”
“Very well. If you insist.” Stern gave a small gesture of annoyance. “I would not be without feelings, obviously, in such a case. But I would try to contain them. I told you. There are other forms of faithfulness between a man and a woman which seem to me of greater importance. When I said that—”
“Yes, Montague?”
“I was … looking ahead many years. I was thinking of the disparity in our ages. I was trying to be … realistic. After all, you are very young.” He hesitated. “When you are thirty, Constance, I shall be approaching sixty—”
He stopped. Constance watched him carefully.
“Oh, I see,” she said at last, in a small voice. “I understand. You were speaking of the future, not now?”
“Obviously. Constance, we have been married only a year, less than a year—”
“A year?” Constance gave an odd little cry. “Is it only a year? It feels so much longer than that. You make me happy, Montague. When I am with you, I have no sense of time. I feel … you change me—” Leaning forward in an impetuous way, she began to cover his face with quick kisses.
“I do! It’s true. If I were with you all the time—if I were never alone—I might change even more, I think. I could become—” She stopped. “Still, never mind that. That is not important. I just wanted to say: I’m glad you bought those tickets, Montague.”
“Is that true?” Stern tilted her chin, turned her eyes to his. He looked at her with some sadness. “Is it true? With you, Constance, I find I am never sure. Perhaps you mean what you say. Perhaps you would like to mean what you say. Perhaps you simply pretend—”
“It is true. I do mean it. I mean it now. Of course …” Constance lowered her eyes. She began to smile. “Of course, I cannot speak for the future. What I mean now I may not mean five minutes from now, or five years…. You see? I am honest, Montague. I know my own nature. I give you … little snatches of sincerity—and that is a great deal more than anyone else ever receives at my hands. So: the truth. When you gave me those tickets, I was not so very pleased. But now—I am. I think you have been clever, and wise—and I think we shall be happy in America. Just think …” Kneeling up in the bed, she put her arms about his neck. “A new world for us to conquer, just as we planned. Who cares for London and Winterscombe and all the people in them? We can leave them behind. We can begin again. Oh, I wish we were leaving tomorrow! You’ll see—I’ll be such an asset to you. Why, I shall toil and scheme—we shall have all the best parties, all the best guest lists. The whole city shall be at our feet! I shall be … a splendid wife for you! You’ll look at me and you’ll think: Constance is indispensable….”
“But my dear, I think that already,” Stern said in a dry voice.
“You will think it
more
,” Constance cried, rushing on, missing the implications of the compliment; and she began, as she liked to do, on a flurry of plans: where they should live, how they should live, detail after detail.
Stern, listening with some amusement, was touched by this. Constance’s optimism, on occasion, could be as artless as a child’s—and as poignant. Stern did not expect that this excitement or optimism would endure, yet he found that he was wrong. His wife’s spirits remained unflagging, her affection toward him undiminished, throughout the following weeks.
She besieged her friends; she telephoned; she lined up addresses and introductions. She shopped for new clothes, new jewelry. Every night when Stern returned, she would display her small triumphs for him.
Stern warned her, once or twice, that these social triumphs might be more complex than she envisaged: His race, he explained, might well close many doors to them in New York.
Constance pushed such suggestions aside. She tossed her head. She said that if they encountered prejudice, they would disdain it; they would treat it with the contempt it deserved.
“No one like that shall come to
my
parties,” she proclaimed.
“Constance, they wouldn’t come in any case. That’s what I’m trying to explain to you.”
“So much the better then,” she cried, “for I shan’t want to know them!”
This energy and excitement faltered only once, and this was when they were aboard ship. The crossing was rough, and Stern enjoyed it. Constance teased him for liking to pace the decks, for standing at the rails overlooking the space of the Atlantic. The water was the color of lead, the sky a wash of gray; by day and by night, there was always a narrow band of light at the horizon.
Stern tried to persuade his wife on deck, and she went once, their first evening. He showed her the finger of light the moon made upon the waves. He led her to the stern of the ship, so she might watch the wake churn. He spoke of the power of the turbines.
Constance looked at these things and shivered. She hated the sea, she said; it frightened her. She returned belowdecks and remained there for the duration of the voyage. She played bridge every evening, for high stakes, usually winning. She made many acquaintances who would later be useful to her in her advance upon New York society. She flirted with one of them in particular, a young man from one of New York’s oldest families who was returning, on honorable discharge, from the war.