Twilight Sleep (25 page)

"Jim will have a good deal to be grateful for when he gets home,"
Pauline smiled to her daughter. "I do hope he'll appreciate what
your father has done. His staying on the island seems to show that
he does. By the way," she added, with another smile, "I didn't
tell you, did I, that I ran across Arthur yesterday?"

Nona hesitated a moment. "So did I."

"Oh, did you? He didn't mention it. He looks better, don't you
think so? But I found him excited and restless—almost as if
another attack of gout were coming on. He was annoyed because I
wouldn't go and see him then and there, though it was after six,
and I should have had to dine in town."

"It's just as well you didn't, after such a tiring day."

"He was so persistent—you know how he is at times. He insisted
that he must have a talk with me, though he wouldn't tell me about
what."

"I don't believe he knows. As you say, he's always nervous when he
has an attack coming on."

"But he seemed so hurt at my refusing. He wanted me to promise to
go back today. And when I told him I couldn't he said that if I
didn't he'd come out here."

Nona gave an impatient shrug. "How absurd! But of course he
won't. I don't exactly see dear old Exhibit walking up to the
front door of Cedarledge."

Pauline's colour rose again; she too had pictured the same
possibility, only to reject it. Wyant had always refused to cross
her threshold in New York, though she lived in a house bought after
her second marriage; surely he would be still more reluctant to
enter Cedarledge, where he and she had spent their early life
together, and their son had been born. There were certain things,
as he was always saying, that a man didn't do: that was all.

Nona was still pondering. "I wouldn't go to town to see him,
mother; why should you? He was excited, and rather cross,
yesterday, but he really hadn't anything to say. He just wanted to
hear himself talk. As long as we're here he'll never come, and
when this mood passes off he won't even remember what it was about.
If you like I'll write and tell him that you'll see him as soon as
we get back."

"Thank you, dear. I wish you would."

How sensible the child could be when she chose! Her answer chimed
exactly with her mother's secret inclination, and the latter,
rising from the breakfast–table, decided to slip away to a final
revision of the Cardinal's list. It was pleasant, for once, to
have time to give so important a matter all the attention it
deserved.

When Nona came down the next morning it was raining—a cold
blustery rain, lashing the branches about and driving the startled
spring back into its secret recesses.

It was the first rain since their arrival at Cedarledge, and it
seemed to thrust them back also—back into the wintry world of
town, of dripping streets, early lamplight and crowded places of
amusement.

Mrs. Manford had already breakfasted and left the dining–room, but
her husband's plate was still untouched. He came in as Nona was
finishing, and after an absent–minded nod and smile dropped
silently into his place. He sat opposite the tall rain–striped
windows, and as he stared out into the grayness it seemed as if
some of it, penetrating into the room in spite of the red sparkle
of the fire, had tinged his face and hair. Lately Nona had been
struck by his ruddiness, and the vigour of the dark waves crisping
about his yellow–brown temples; but now he had turned sallow and
autumnal. "What people call looking one's age, I suppose—as if we
didn't have a dozen or a hundred ages, all of us!"

Her father had withdrawn his stare from the outer world and turned
it toward the morning paper on the book–stand beside his plate.
With lids lowered and fixed lips he looked strangely different
again—rather like his own memorial bust in bronze. She shivered a
little…

"Father! Your coffee's getting cold."

He pushed aside the paper, glanced at the letters piled by his
plate, and lifted his eyes to Nona's. The twinkle she always woke
seemed to struggle up to her from a long way off.

"I missed my early tramp and don't feel particularly enthusiastic
about breakfast."

"It's not enthusiastic weather."

"No." He had grown absent–minded again. "Pity; when we've so few
days left."

"It may clear, though."

What stupid things they were saying! Much either he or she cared
about the weather, when they were in the country and had the
prospect of a good tramp or a hard gallop together. Not that they
had had many such lately; but then she had been busy with her
mother, trying to make up for Maisie's absence; and there had been
the interruption caused by the week–end party; and he had been
helping to keep Lita amused—with success, apparently.

"Yes… I shouldn't wonder if it cleared." He frowned out
toward the sky again. "Round about midday." He paused, and added:
"I thought of running Lita over to Greystock."

She nodded. They would no doubt stay and dine, and Lita would get
her dance. Probably Mrs. Manford wouldn't mind, though she was
beginning to show signs of wearying of tête–à–tête dinners with her
daughter. But they could go over the reception list again; and
Pauline could talk about her new Messiah.

Nona glanced down at her own letters. She often forgot to look at
them till the day was nearly over, now that she knew the one
writing her eyes thirsted for would not be on any of the envelopes.
Stanley Heuston had made no sign since they had parted that night
on the doorstep…

The door opened, and Lita came in. It was the first time since
their arrival that she had appeared at breakfast. She faced
Manford as she entered, and Nona saw her father's expression
change. It was like those funny old portraits in the picture–
restorers' windows, with a veil of age and dust removed from one
half to show the real surface underneath. Lita's entrance did not
make him look either younger or happier; it simply removed from
his face the soul–disguising veil which life interposes between a
man's daily world and himself. He looked stripped—exposed …
exposed … that was it. Nona glanced at Lita, not to surprise
her off her guard, but simply to look away from her father.

Lita's face was what it always was: something so complete and
accomplished that one could not imagine its being altered by any
interior disturbance.

It was like a delicate porcelain vase, or a smooth heavy flower,
that a shifting of light might affect, but nothing from within
would alter. She smiled in her round–eyed unseeing way, as a
little gold–and–ivory goddess might smile down on her worshippers,
and said: "I got up early because there wasn't any need to."

The reason was one completely satisfying to herself, but its effect
on her hearers was perhaps disappointing. Nona made no comment,
and Manford merely laughed—a vague laugh addressed, one could see,
less to her words, which he appeared not to have noticed, than to
the mere luminous fact of her presence; the kind of laugh evoked by
the sight of a dazzling fringed fish or flower suddenly offered to
one's admiration.

"I think the rain will hold off before lunch," he said,
communicating the fact impartially to the room.

"Oh, what a pity—I wanted to get my hair thoroughly drenched.
It's beginning to uncurl with the long drought," Lita said, her
hand wavering uncertainly between the dishes Powder had placed in
front of her. "Grape–fruit, I think—though it's so awfully ocean–
voyagy. Promise me, Nona—!" She turned to her sister–in–law.

"Promise you what?"

"Not to send me a basket of grape–fruit when I sail."

Manford looked up at her impenetrable porcelain face. His lips
half parted on an unspoken word; then he pushed back his chair and
got up.

"I'll order the car at eleven," he said, in a tone of aimless
severity.

Lita was scooping a spoonful of juice out of the golden bowl of the
grape–fruit. She seemed neither to heed nor to hear. Manford laid
down his napkin and walked out of the room.

Lita threw back her head to let the liquid slip slowly down between
her lips. Her gold–fringed lids fluttered a little, as if the
fruit–juice were a kiss.

"When are you sailing?" Nona asked, reaching for the cigarette–
lighter.

"Don't know. Next week, I shouldn't wonder."

"For any particular part of the globe?"

Lita's head descended, and she turned her chestnut–coloured eyes
softly on her sister–in–law. "Yes; but I can't remember what it's
called."

Nona was looking at her in silence. It was simply that she was so
beautiful. A vase? No—a lamp now: there WAS a glow from the
interior. As if her red corpuscles had turned into millions of
fairy lamps…

Her glance left Nona's and returned to her plate. "Letters. What
a bore! Why on earth don't people telephone?"

She did not often receive letters, her congenital inability to
answer them having gradually cooled the zeal of her correspondents;
of all, that is, excepting her husband. Almost every day Nona saw
one of Jim's gray–blue envelopes on the hall table. That
particular colour had come to symbolize to her a state of patient
expectancy.

Lita was turning over some impersonal looking bills and
advertisements. From beneath them the faithful gray–blue envelope
emerged. Nona thought: "If only he wouldn't—!" and her eyes
filled.

Lita looked pensively at the post–mark and then laid the envelope
down unopened.

"Aren't you going to read your letter?"

She raised her brows. "Jim's? I did—yesterday. One just like
it."

"Lita! You're—you're perfectly beastly!"

Lita's languid mouth rounded into a smile. "Not to you, darling.
Do you want me to read it?" She slipped a polished finger–tip
under the flap.

"Oh, no; no! Don't—not like that!" It made Nona wince. "I wish
she HATED Jim—I wish she wanted to kill him! I could bear it
better than this," the girl stormed inwardly. She got up and
turned toward the door.

"Nona—wait! What's the matter? Don't you really want to hear
what he says?" Lita stood up also, her eyes still on the open
letter. "He—oh…" She turned toward her sister–in–law a face
from which the inner glow had vanished.

"What is it? Is he ill? What's wrong?"

"He's coming home. He wants me to go back the day after tomorrow."
She stood staring in front of her, her eyes fixed on something
invisible to Nona, and beyond her.

"Does he say why?"

"He doesn't say anything but that."

"When did you expect him?"

"I don't know. Not for ages. I never can remember about dates.
But I thought he liked it down there. And your father said he'd
arranged—"

"Arranged what?" Nona interrupted.

Lita seemed to become aware of her again, and turned on her a
smooth inaccessible face. "I don't know: arranged with the bank, I
suppose."

"To keep him there?"

"To let him have a good long holiday. You all thought he needed it
so awfully, didn't you?"

Nona stood motionless, staring out of the window. She saw her
father drive up in the Buick. The rain had diminished to a silver
drizzle shot with bursts of sun, and through the open window she
heard him call: "It's going to clear after all. We'd better
start."

Lita went out of the door, humming a tune.

"Lita!" Nona called out, moved by some impulse to arrest, to warn—
she didn't know what. But the door had closed, and Lita was
already out of hearing.

All through the day it kept on raining at uncomfortable intervals.
Uncomfortable, that is, for Pauline and Nona. Whenever they tried
to get out for a walk a deluge descended; then, as soon as they had
splashed back to the house with the dripping dogs, the clouds broke
and mocked them with a blaze of sunshine. But by that time they
were either revising the list again, or had settled down to Mah–
jongg in the library.

"Really, I can't go up and change into my walking shoes AGAIN!"
Pauline remonstrated to the weather; and a few minutes later the
streaming window–panes had justified her.

"April showers," she remarked with a slightly rigid smile. She
looked deprecatingly at her daughter. "It was selfish of me to
keep you here, dear. You ought to have gone with your father and
Lita."

"But there were all those notes to do, mother. And really I'm
rather fed–up with Greystock."

Pauline executed a repetition of her smile. "Well, I fancy we
shall have them back for tea. No golf this afternoon, I'm afraid,"
she said, glancing with a certain furtive satisfaction at the
increasing downpour.

"No; but Lita may want to stay and dance."

Pauline made no comment, but once more addressed her disciplined
attention to the game.

The fire, punctually replenished, continued to crackle and drowse.
The warmth drew out the strong scent of the carnations and rose–
geraniums, and made the room as languid as a summer garden. Dusk
fell from the cloud–laden skies, and in due course the hand which
tended the fire drew the curtains on their noiseless rings and lit
the lamps. Lastly Powder appeared, heading the processional
entrance of the tea–table.

Pauline roused herself from a languishing Mah–jongg to take her
expected part in the performance. She and Nona grouped themselves
about the hearth, and Pauline lifted the lids of the little covered
dishes with a critical air.

"I ordered those muffins your father likes so much," she said, in a
tone of unwonted wistfulness. "Perhaps we'd better send them out
to be kept hot."

Nona agreed that it would be better; but as she had her hand on the
bell the sound of an approaching motor checked her. The dogs woke
with a happy growling and bustled out. "There they are after all!"
Pauline said.

There was a minute or two of silence, unmarked by the usual yaps of
welcome; then a sound like the depositing of wraps and an umbrella;
then Powder on the threshold, for once embarrassed and at a loss.

"Mr. Wyant, madam."

"Mr. Wyant?"

"Mr. Arthur Wyant. He seemed to think you were probably expecting
him," Powder continued, as if lengthening the communication in
order to give her time.

Mrs. Manford, seizing it, rose to the occasion with one of her
heroic wing–beats. "Yes—I WAS. Please show him in," she said,
without risking a glance at her daughter.

Arthur Wyant came in, tall and stooping in his shabby well–cut
clothes, a nervous flush on his cheekbones. He paused, and sent a
half–bewildered stare about the room—a look which seemed to say
that when he had made up his mind that he must see Pauline he had
failed to allow for the familiarity of the setting in which he was
to find her.

"You've hardly changed anything here," he said abruptly, in the far–
off tone of a man slowly coming back to consciousness.

"How are you, Arthur? I'm sorry you've had such a rainy day for
your trip," Mrs. Manford responded, with an easy intonation
intended to reach the retreating Powder.

Her former husband took no notice. His eyes continued to travel
about the room in the same uncertain searching way.

"Hardly anything," he repeated, still seemingly unaware of any
presence in the room but his own. "That Raeburn, though—yes.
That used to be in the dining–room, didn't it?" He passed his hand
over his forehead, as if to brush away some haze of oblivion, and
walked up to the picture.

"Wait a bit. It's in the place where the Sargent of Jim as a
youngster used to hang—Jim on his pony. Just over my writing–
table, so that I saw it whenever I looked up…" He turned to
Pauline. "Jolly picture. What have you done with it? Why did you
take it away?"

Pauline coloured, but a smile of conciliation rode gallantly over
her blush. "I didn't. That is—Dexter wanted it. It's in his
room; it's been there for years." She paused, and then added:
"You know how devoted Dexter is to Jim."

Wyant had turned abruptly from the contemplation of the Raeburn.
The colour in Pauline's cheek was faintly reflected in his own.
"Stupid of me … of course… Fact is, I was rather rattled
when I came in, seeing everything so much the same… You must
excuse my turning up in this way; I had to see you about something
important… Hullo, Nona—"