This Proud Heart (29 page)

Susan laughed. “He’s a sculptor, too.”

“It’s that one, is it, Mum?” said Jane doubtfully. “The children told me about him, only they didn’t say he was American. Well, I hope it’s for the best, I’m sure. I don’t know. For myself I always say let sleeping dogs lie, Mum. It’s luck when you’ve made one good marriage. There aren’t so many good men about. They’re married a’ready or under ground.”

“You’ll see,” said Susan. “He’s coming tomorrow. I want the children nice.”

She turned to go away, uncomfortable in Jane’s gloom. Jane was ridiculous. She could not run her life by Jane, who always wanted everything exactly the same.

“Why do you look so miserable, Jane?” she said impatiently. “You ought to be glad I’m to be happy again.”

But Jane refused to be cheerful.

“Shall we live in New York?” she asked.

“I suppose so,” Susan answered.

“All them brambleberries goin’ to waste, year after year, at home,” said Jane, mournfully.

But Susan had not paid any attention. Now that Jane knew, she must tell the children. She went into the bedroom where the two beds were close together.

“Not asleep, darlings?” She sat down on John’s bed and reached for Marcia’s hand.

“No,” said John.

“I am, though,” said Marcia.

John raised himself. “Marcia!” he said reproachfully, “you aren’t. She wouldn’t know you were here, would she, Mother?”

“My eyes are tight shut,” Marcia insisted.

“Never mind,” said Susan. “You may wake up because I’m going to surprise you. Darlings, I am going to marry Blake and we are all going to live in his house.”

John had not, she saw, the faintest idea of what marrying meant. But Marcia opened her eyes and lay looking at her brightly, secretly, in silence.

“Where is his house?” John inquired guardedly.

“In New York,” she said.

“And then what?” Marcia asked in a bright voice.

“Well, I suppose that’s all,” said Susan, astonished that it was indeed so. “Only he’s coming to see you tomorrow, and I want you to look your best. He is your new father, you know.”

“I didn’t know it,” said John.

“I can’t even remember my old one,” said Marcia.

“I can, a little,” said John. “Wasn’t he kind of tall, Mother? And he used to play with me when he came home.”

“Yes,” said Susan steadily. Mark came dimly out of the shadows. At the sound of his son’s voice he came out, and she saw him as she had not seen him alone for many months. She could not bear it. Marcia was looking at her still, with bright inquisitive eyes.

“What are you thinking, Marcia?” she asked.

“Will Blake like you best now?” she asked. “Will he like you better than me?” Her eyes were big and her mouth was small and bright.

“He loves me in one way and you in another,” Susan said.

She looked away from the coldness of Marcia’s perfect little face.

“Sleep—sleep—” she said quickly. “Good night.”

She was very proud of them, standing so precise, so upright, before Blake. John gave a little sharp French bow and Marcia curtsied. On other days she leaped at Blake, clinging to his neck, her knees tight at his waist. But today he might have been a stranger. She curtsied without speaking. Then they put out very clean hands.

“How do you do?” they said together.

“Thank you, very well,” Blake replied gravely. “I brought you chocolates, Mademoiselle, and to you, Monsieur, I bring a box of charming pencils.” He presented them with two boxes.

“Thank you, thank you,” they replied, and looked at Susan.

“Open them, yes, darlings. It’s very kind of Blake,” she said.

But John hissed, “Have you asked—you know, Mother?”

She did not remember. She looked at them blankly.

“You know—Daddy?” Marcia whispered.

“Oh, yes,” cried Susan. “How could I? Blake, what shall they call you after this?”

She smiled at him. It was so sweet of him to bring them gifts—it was so warm to have them all together, these whom she loved. Jane was bringing in tea. It was like home.

“This is our dear Jane,” she cried, and Jane ducked.

“Hello, Jane,” said Blake carelessly. Jane nodded and went out abruptly. “Well,” he went on, looking at the children, “I certainly shouldn’t want two great children calling me dad all of a sudden. I’d feel my front teeth would all fall out and my hair drop off. I’d begin to dodder. You’d better just say Blake…. I’ll have some tea, Susan.”

“I wouldn’t call you dad,” Marcia said suddenly.

“Why?” asked Blake. “What’s the matter with you today, Mam’selle? You’re as cold as a snowflake.”

“You are not my father,” Marcia said.

“Right!” said Blake briskly.

John turned to Susan. “Do you mind if I take my tea in with Jane, Mother?” he said. “She’s probably lonely in the kitchen.”

They went off, their plates carefully balanced, and Susan looked at Blake, laughing, proud.

“Aren’t they lovely?” she demanded.

“Very decent kids,” he said. “I say, Susan, let’s go and look at that exhibit of French moderns.” He looked at his watch. “There’s just time.”

She rose and went into the kitchen. At the table sat John and Marcia, with Jane, in silence.

“I’m going out a little while, Jane,” she said.

“Very well, Mum,” said Jane. She was gazing at Susan mournfully over a large cup of tea.

Susan hesitated. “Goodbye, darlings,” she said. “I shan’t be late.”

“Good night, Mother,” said John. But Marcia did not answer. She regarded her mother thoughtfully as she chewed, slowly, her small red lips shut tight.

“There is something wrong with Marcia,” she told Blake as they walked in the cold bright evening air.

“Queer kid,” Blake said. “In some ways she’s older than you are—born old, as some women are—born knowing.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Will you forget them?” he answered impatiently. “You are with me, Susanne.”

She loved them, she loved them. But when she walked out into the street with Blake, she left them behind.

But he was very kind to them in his abrupt, gay fashion. It came to be usual that though in the evenings they were alone together at some place of amusement, or alone in the studio, on Sundays they took the children and Jane to the Bois or to a theater or even to Fontainebleau as spring drew on.

He never pretended that he was not happier alone with her.

“There now,” he said heartily when the door closed on the children, “your duty is done. Now, Susanne, you will please think only of me.”

“Ah, but I am always thinking only of you,” she answered ruefully. “When I am with them, I am impatient to be with you. When I am working I look to see what time it is—I who never used to think until it was too dark to see what I was doing!”

He seized her and laughed with triumph.

“You are in love with me!” he cried, and the certainty in his voice made her tremble….

“What goes wrong with you, Mademoiselle?” the
maître
asked in the morning. “You who were so hot to work now waste your time staring at what you have already done. How shall you finish in time to send it to the Salon? You are so nearly finished and you do not finish.”

Blake, overhearing, came striding over to her as soon as he was gone, while the French pupils stared at them secretly, curiously.

“Finish!” he commanded her in a low voice. “We are going to be married and go home.”

“When?” she asked, astonished. He said every night, “Marry me soon—soon—” but the next word was lost in his kiss.

“Why do you decide so quickly?” she asked now.

“I am through with this,” he answered impatiently. “I want to take you home.”

She did not answer. She set soberly to work finishing her marble. She caught, at the last, a few moments of her old rich loneliness. She forgot Blake for fragments of hours while she finished the eyes, the hands, the line of hair. Then she cut small and deep, into the pedestal of rough marble, the words. “The Kneeling Woman,” and smaller still her own name.

The next week, the day before they sailed, she and Blake were married quietly in a clerk’s office. She went home afterwards exactly as though it were any other day. She said to them, “Blake and I were married today.”

Jane put her hand to her mouth.

“Oh, Mum—not right off, like that!”

“We both wanted to get it over,” she said.

“Mother!” John cried, and Marcia looked at her and went on eating her supper.

“I am not changed,” she said quietly. She stooped and kissed them both. Then she went into the bedroom and took off her hat and smoothed back her hair. It was the last night in this small room. Blake had said, “Let’s get it over with. I hate weddings.” It had not been a wedding, only a contract, signed by their two names. Blake had said tensely, “Come to my rooms, Susanne—tonight. Why not?” But she had shaken her head. “No, Blake, I couldn’t leave them—they’ve never been alone at night.” So she came home.

He did not persuade her, although she had braced herself against it. The tenseness cleared from his face. He lit a cigarette.

“All right, Susanne,” he said. “It doesn’t matter—today or tomorrow.” He smiled. “I’ve taken the grandest suite on the ship, just for fun.”

She sat thinking. She was in complete love with him. She knew now that Blake had found a woman in her who had been sleeping until he came. When she was with him she was all that woman, shy and quivering, eager, alive, alive. Covering after covering he had stripped away until he had come to the core of womanhood. He did not care in the least that there was power in her to do or to make. It was nothing to him that she was a sculptor, great or small. He laughed whenever she said soberly that she must work.

“Why need you work when you have me to take care of you?” he said. And before she could speak he cried passionately, “Susanne, do you know there is a dimple just to the left of your mouth? Wait—don’t move—I must kiss you.”

And she waited, forgetting….

She wanted to do exactly what she had done. Then why did she keep thinking of her Kneeling Woman and what her fate would be, alone and left behind in the hands of old academicians?

“Susanne, Susanne!”

The day began with his voice. She was sleeping as she had not since she was a child. His voice called her out of sleep. “You are so beautiful when you are asleep that I must wake you to tell you!” She woke, and the stateroom was full of fresh sea air, of sunshine and the sound of his voice. And she felt herself beautiful, lying still half asleep, beneath his gaze. She was a beautiful woman, nothing else, and it was enough. “Susanne, do you remember last night? Every morning when you wake up your eyes look as though they remembered nothing.”

She nodded quickly and shyly. She remembered everything. In his detailed love of her body she felt as though she were marble and he were carving her free, as though she were clay and he were giving her shape. His hands, touching her, defined her. She had not seen herself until now.

“Susanne, let me feel this line of your shoulder, down your back and your lovely thigh, your knee, your ankle, your exquisite foot. Your body is so strong. I hate fragile women.”

“I have to be strong for my work,” she had said once. And he had answered quickly, “No, you are strong because it is beautiful to be strong.”

In his adoration of her he was creating something she had never yet been, a woman conscious and aware of herself. It was not in the least like marriage, and it stirred no memories. It was much more like being his mistress, lovely and beloved. And their love did not go beyond each other. There was no desire for homemaking or for ordinary life together. There was only this intense exciting closeness to each other, hour by hour…. He lifted her out of bed and put a lace wrap about her. The closets in their room were full of such garments as he had chosen for her.

“Go and wash your face and brush your hair,” he commanded.

When she came back breakfast was ready in the little drawing room. They ate together in half-laughing passion. He made her forget everything.

Once she said, “I ought to go and see how the children are.”

“No, you ought not,” he said. “You ought only to love me. You have no other duty—and no other pleasure.”

He swept her into his arms and she gave herself to the moment again. Each moment was a life, a new and shining life. She laughed, she was always laughing. The ocean was a bright and dancing blue, day after day, and there was a full moon. The children were happy and good. She scarcely saw them or thought of them.

Every detail was as absurdly perfect as a too cleverly directed play. Blake took joy in perfect details. But there were the full moon, and the windless sea, the procession of extravagantly colored sunsets, for which he could not have planned.

“Although,” she said, leaning her head against him one midnight when they stood together at the bow of the ship, “I feel as if you might have ordered it all, sun and moon and purple sea.”

“I did,” he said gravely. “I said to God, ‘Turn on your works. She’s going to cross your old ocean.’ And he was as meek as anything.”

They laughed and he seized her and held her and kissed her.

“Blake,” she whispered, her breath tight in her throat, “Blake, I half believe that about God.”

She had an intense realization of this moment, she and Blake, pressed together, held together, by moonlight and the smooth dark sea.

“It can’t possibly be as perfect on land as it’s been these days on the sea,” she thought, watching the towers on the shore loom in the sky. She felt her heart cooling in her bosom, slowing its dancing pace. There was a subsidence in her blood. They had not been living in the world at all. Now she must think soberly of a house, of servants, of a sort of life she had never had in a great city. Blake’s life would be very strange to her. She knew him so closely well, and she knew so little about him. Alone she knew him as she had never dreamed of human knowledge. And then, stepping out of the door of her room, he was suddenly another man, debonair, a little impatient, quick to be critical, even of her.

“Susanne,” he said at the cabin door when they were ready to go, “your hat is wrong with that brown costume.”