The Unpossessed (34 page)

“But we mustn't forget the party,” said Merle again (dance music sounded from below), growing suddenly frightened—less, she decided honestly, at the sudden descent of Jeffrey's hands from her hair to her rigid waist, than at the simultaneous leaping of her heart. She had been happier when he had been tender and poetic, when he sat with his head in her lap, like Emmett when he was a darling little boy, like Emmett no longer and never again. She could have left it so, only that this terrible fear of hers that men could not desire her had crept like a challenge into her memory; and she had promised herself, had promised herself . . . So she had stolen closer to him, bringing her perfume and her Greek gown and her show of warmth into the circle of his arm, letting them play substitute for what she felt she didn't really have. Till slowly his desire roused, till at last his hand went trembling round her waist.

Her heart leaped with the terror. And so it always was with her and so would always be (despite poor Vammie's bright advice and brilliant explanations); only for Al because it had been her duty had she sufficiently stifled the terror to mechanically submit; and resentment had regularly frozen her stiff (as though in shutting off the terror she shut out also all capacity for joy) so that what she endured with Al—in her younger days, when she was still divided between hope that she might thaw and yield, and pride that her being remained untouched by him or any man—was torture beyond words, beyond even what she had conveyed in confidence to Vambery.

“The party, we must go down to the party,” she whispered, frightened. And the last time that he had so embraced her, this ardent youth as near her son's age as her own, she had murmured ‘But I think I hear my husband coming,' and then promised herself that if ever again she came so near . . . For something whispered that where Al had failed her (he had meant to be kind; but his kindness was rough and uncomprehending) this gentle youth might well succeed. But fear was greater than desire for what she had never fully known, and fear as well that Jeffrey, her last hope perhaps before she grew too old, would fail her too. “Listen to the music, we must go down,” she whispered, trembling.

Her l's were not so clear as always, Jeffrey felt, her voice not quite so beautiful; he felt that he had done with her forever. He had no mind for any woman now except Elizabeth (who might have come, who might be downstairs even now with Bruno—who had slapped him on the first occasion of his meeting her); and yet he had to show Merle, had to play the gallant, had to protest against her protests. “You are so nice, Merle, your hair is nice, your lips are nice.” He used the word “nice” with the double finesse of a mathematician and a poet. He used it, as a mathematician, as though it were an exact word, definite, as though he had chosen it scientifically out of all others to precisely bound his meaning. And yet he used it too, in his capacity as a poet, with deprecation, as though he stooped to it as to a common word because of his poet's fine sense of a better one being lacking in this our English language; it became delicate, apologetic; it carried an informal transcription of “words cannot express.”

She went limp again for a moment at his third “nice” and his tired hands patted her sexlessly and felt nothing but the texture of her gown. The thought that Elizabeth might already be below was unendurable; and Bruno would be with her—with his unbearable air of handling her like a chattel. Ah, he was beginning to see through Bruno, Comrade Fisher had been right; Bruno was a bourgeois, his attitude toward woman, toward Elizabeth, proved that. He had a vision of himself and Norah and Elizabeth—and Comrade Fisher—starting their own Magazine, their own workers' movement. “Perhaps you're right, we'd better see about the party, Merle.” He tried to sound reluctant.

“If you think so,” Merle said sadly. Her heart went dead. He gave her up too easily. Now she would give her soul to win back the ardor to his voice, now she would turn herself inside out to regain the exquisite terror. But she had no instinct, only fear, only endless humiliation. She stood before the mirror and smoothed her cloudy hair. She saw herself there between two candles as a woman who had never tasted life at all, who might as well have been a picture chastely framed by the pair of unused candles standing all of their lives in helpless decoration on the mantel. If one could scream, if one could tear one's hair and beat with one's breasts against the walls! But she went on smoothing her hair till not one strand was out of place.

He watched her and thought again, Fisher is right; this woman, worse than Bruno, belongs in some other fraternity than mine. She is not honest. She is an upper-class whore. She swung toward him, blown and angelic; histrionics, he thought with disgust. “Vammie calls me a Rabelaisian puritan,” she said. Archly, coyly, with all the bourgeois grace he had hated and must hate again, through Comrade Fisher's eyes. “Do you find me very, do you find me—like other women, Jeffrey, like your, oh like Norah for instance? do you think . . . ?”

“Like nobody else in the world,” he said mechanically; and closed his eyes for a farewell kiss, his nervous hands longing for the door and for escape, longing for morality of his own kind, for Norah, for Elizabeth. Dance music greeted them in a rush as they opened the door to the landing.

This was sugar-coating the pill, Miles thought, as the distasteful jazz drummed its way into his ears, his blood, confusing his brain against his will, like some slow poison of the devil. What sort of Magazine could they build from such a base, what sort of movement could they serve if they must sugar-coat each step to suit their over-civilized palates. They had lured the upper classes here on false pretexts; now they gave them music, dancing, caviar—everything they could to fool them into swallowing something alien, into giving their tainted money for a cause in which they played no part. “Now if Jeffrey only would appear,” said Bruno. “I am in favor,” said Firman, “of more and more investigating” “not skating round,” said Cornelia, “as we all are” “we are just as bad as Fisher's fellow-travellers” “on the periphery of things” “and intellectuals as a class,” said Firman, “are dying out, their function's dead—nobody's left to support them” “But we haven't anything in common with proletarians,” Margaret said, bewildered, “I wouldn't know one if I saw one.” “Don't talk like that,” said Miles too sharply; for she said, in her simple undirected way, what he hated admitting to himself: that with the far-off and somehow disdainful class of proletarians they had as little in common as the upper classes here foregathered had with them. “I had a hard job,” said Elizabeth (how like she was to Bruno!) “drawing proletarians for the posters, I wasn't sure they didn't have horns or some distinguishing characteristic.”

“If the Magazine,” began a Maxwell brother . . . “What Magazine,” said Bruno wearily, “I don't see any sign of the assistant editor who's supposed to start the works.” “If the Magazine,” continued the second Maxwell brother, “is to have any value more than just being a swan-song for the intellectuals, it will seek to introduce them” “to the proletariat” “to the real movement” “to America” “to life, in other words, outside of books,” said Firman winding up in triumph. “How in hell did I ever let myself in for this,” said Bruno; “I could have stayed at home and gone on drinking.”

“And what happens to the intellectuals,” said Miles, “if our race is dying out?” He addressed the eager Sheep; Bruno's look was too disheartening. “Why we'll hold down regular jobs for a change” “instead of wearing caps and gowns” “instead of being figure-heads” “instead of writing useless books and having useless titles” “we'll use our brains where they are needed!” they shouted in noisy chorus above the raging music in his ears. “Anyway,” said Margaret—placid, Miles thought, but worried too, as any sign of confusion or disagreement always made her, and following again his innermost thoughts and feelings and ready blindly to turn herself inside out to soothe him, “anyway I hope intellectuals, people in general, will be made happier.” He looked her way ironically; they were people, he thought, with such different paths! “Pigs!” he reminded her gently, “pigs are happy.” “Well then, I wish I were a pig, I wish we all were,” she cried in one of her sudden bursts of revolt against him in which he could feel her live and powerful, ten times more than he, as though she deliberately made the contrast; “don't you remember, Bruno, what you said one night—” “Now none of that,” said Bruno, “you'll have Elizabeth thinking I'm a God damn sentimentalist.” And Margaret crumpled then; “Norah, Norah, let us get some air, some water, Norah wait—” Miles thought her cry was piteous as she rose to join her friend. He watched her with compunction, remembering with embarrassment her condition; but he could not bring himself to say a word. “Will you come, Elizabeth,” she said politely, “and have a change from the revolution-brewers?” Elizabeth shook her head. And Miles watched Margaret and Norah, very much women, both of them, move off together arm in arm, floating in their women's world.

No, Elizabeth would not join them. She sat with Bruno's friends and could not take her eyes off Bruno's face. Here she was home again, she thought, ironic. Here (with Bruno) she had meant to stay forever. But her trunk remained unpacked; her mind remained unpacked; Bruno postponed talking to her, put off meeting her eyes. She recalled that they had come near to a real conversation when he came to hook her dress; but what they had said and why they had not said more was not clear to her. “Our report,” said Firman, laughing, “was that Fisher's only claim to fame is that she's slept with all the crowned heads of the left wing.” “My God,” said Bruno, “I wish I'd said that; nasty wit” (was he turning toward her?) “is the opiate of the intellectual.” “An adage,” she said, suddenly elated, “recently dug up from the tomb of Tutankhamen.” They laughed simultaneously, the laugh they had used from childhood for jokes more valued for familiarity than wit. She caught in his look (as his quick smile died) some weight of guilt as he might look at a woman he had wronged. She looked back gravely as though some ultimate truth might suddenly spring to life between them. And then it was over, it was too late again. God knew, she thought a moment later, which had happened first: the wryly smiling downward curve of her own wounded mouth or Bruno's eyes flickering back to Miles.

“Let's have some water,” Margaret said; “the crowd and the music are going to my head as though I'd drunk.” “It's a nice party,” said Norah, “only Mr. Middleton wants to seduce me and I've lost my husband.” “He'll come back,” said Margaret warmly, “he always does, Norah darling,” she said for she wanted everyone to feel as happy, as secure, as she did. “But so will Mr. Middleton,” said Norah laughing; “what, no cocktails, Maggie? only water?” “No cocktails,” Margaret said, “because a Mrs. Salvemini told me—oh Norah listen; I've got the silliest thing to tell you: I'm going to have a baby.” Norah dropped her arm in alarm and they stood stock still on the fringe of the dancers. “A
baby
? have you tried everything?” “Why Norah Meadows Blake, you
cynic
!I
want
it, I did it on purpose.” Norah seemed to think a minute. “Well I'm damned,” she said at last; “I thought there weren't any any more, I mean, I thought they'd gone out, like horse-cars.” Norah's voice was dry, contained no lift. That Norah should not recognize her joy was sad; she had hoped in some way to make herself more secure by telling Norah—for Miles was clearly frightened, she would have to wait months (according to Mrs. Salvemini who had waited five times for
Mister
Salvemini) before Miles would share her feeling or dare to face his own; but then, she thought, the thing was
hers
, she could feel secret joy and secret pride until her friends could see. “But haven't you ever thought of it yourself,” she said, curious, for Norah's eyes, as though she had forgotten Margaret's news, were roaming absently around the room. “Oh, yes.” “Then why—” “Oh, we're supposed to be making some sort of protest against something, Jeffrey and I,” said Norah cheerfully; “sometimes I forget just what.” They walked slowly back toward Miles again; and Margaret knew that Norah was searching through the crowd for Jeffrey. “I suppose you think,” said Margaret, “that Jeffrey couldn't stand the competition; but he wouldn't be so spoiled, Norah, if he weren't your only child.” “Oh you're all too smart for me,” said Norah; “I don't know, I was brought up in a barnyard, I was brought up to respect the rooster.” “But Norah, is it fair, do you think, to
you
?” said Margaret anxiously. “I have everything in the world I want,” said Norah primly, “and all I want is Jeffrey—oh look, Maggie, there he is, there he is! he's looking for me. Of course, I think it swell about you, Maggie, I wish you all the luck. . . .” Amused, Margaret watched the back of Norah forging through the crowd, taking a short-cut through the dancers straight to Jeffrey; and felt a warm urge herself to return to Miles.

“
Lydia! that's Jeffrey now
.”

“Where, where?
where
?” Lydia craned her neck. “Oh he's simply
beautiful
!” she said; and her feelings for Ruthie in this crisis and for the mystery of lovers in general smothered her with joy.

All at once Ruthie Fisher grew quite calm. She discovered to her own surprise that she was proud of herself, of being in love, of taking chances in the world, proud even if it brought her suffering. She felt a dignity she had never expected to feel, a calm, a willingness to face anything that should arise, take anything that should be flung at her. For she saw clearly that Jeffrey's restless eyes were not seeking her behind the buffet; she saw (as he took Norah's hands in greeting) that it was not Norah either whom he sought. She watched them cross the room together, Norah's eyes uplifted and quiet, Jeffrey's roving like his hands. Not till Norah pulled his sleeve did Jeffrey so much as glance toward Ruthie; and then it was a nod, a wave, the barest smile—and back went his eyes on their journey, seeking someone else.