Twilight Sleep (7 page)

"Of course we all know YOU could tell us if you would. Everybody
knows the Lindons have gone to you for advice." Mrs. Toy's large
shallow eyes floated the question toward him on a sea–blue wave of
curiosity. "Not a word of truth? Oh, of course you have to say
that! But everybody has been expecting there'd be trouble soon…"

And, in a whisper, from the Marchesa's side: "Teasing you about
that mysterious Mahatma? Foolish woman! As long as dear Pauline
believes in him, I'm satisfied. That was what I was saying to
Pauline before dinner: 'Whatever you and Dexter approve of,
I
approve of.' That's the reason why I'm so anxious to have my poor
boy come to New York … my Michelangelo! If only you could see
him I know you'd grow as fond of him as you are of our dear Jim:
perhaps even take him into your office… Ah, that, dear Dexter,
has always been my dream!"

…What sort of a life, after all, if not this one? For of
course that dream of a Western farm was all rubbish. What he
really wanted was a life in which professional interests as far–
reaching and absorbing as his own were somehow impossibly combined
with great stretches of country quiet, books, horses and children—
ah, children! Boys of his own—teaching them all sorts of country
things; taking them for long trudges, telling them about trees and
plants and birds—watching the squirrels, feeding the robins and
thrushes in winter; and coming home in the dusk to firelight,
lamplight, a tea–table groaning with jolly things, all the boys and
girls (girls too, more little Nonas) grouped around, hungry and
tingling from their long tramp—and a woman lifting a calm face
from her book: a woman who looked so absurdly young to be their
mother; so—

"You're looking at Jim's wife?" The Marchesa broke in. "No
wonder! Très en beauté, our Lita!—that dress, the very same
colour as her hair, and those Indian emeralds … how clever of
her! But a little difficult to talk to? Little too silent? No?
Ah, not to YOU, perhaps—her dear father! Father–in–law, I mean—"

Silent! The word sent him off again. For in that other world, so
ringing with children's laughter, children's wrangles, and all the
healthy blustering noises of country life in a big family, there
would somehow, underneath it all, be a great pool of silence, a
reservoir on which one could always draw and flood one's soul with
peace. The vision was vague and contradictory, but it all seemed
to meet and mingle in the woman's eyes…

Pauline was signalling from her table–end. He rose and offered his
arm to the Marchesa.

In the hall the strains of the famous Somaliland orchestra bumped
and tossed downstairs from the ball–room to meet them. The ladies,
headed by Mrs. Toy, flocked to the mirror–lined lift dissembled
behind forced lilacs and Japanese plums; but Amalasuntha, on
Manford's arm, set her blunt black slipper on the marble tread.

"I'm used to Roman palaces!"

"At least you'll take a turn?" Heuston said; and Nona, yielding,
joined the dancers balancing with slow steps about the shining
floor.

Dancing meant nothing; it was like breathing; what would one be
doing if one weren't dancing? She could not refuse without seeming
singular; it was simpler to acquiesce, and lose one's self among
the couples absorbed in the same complicated ritual.

The floor was full, but not crowded: Pauline always saw to that.
It was easy to calculate in advance, for every one she asked always
accepted, and she and Maisie Bruss, in making out the list,
allotted the requisite space per couple as carefully as if they had
been counting cubic feet in a hospital. The ventilation was
perfect too; neither draughts nor stuffiness. One had almost the
sense of dancing out of doors, under some equable southern sky.
Nona, aware of what it cost to produce this illusion, marvelled
once more at her tireless mother.

"Isn't she wonderful?"

Mrs. Manford, fresh, erect, a faint line of diamonds in her hair,
stood in the doorway, her slim foot advanced toward the dancers.

"Perennially! Ah—she's going to dance. With Cosby."

"Yes. I wish she wouldn't."

"Wouldn't with Cosby?"

"Dear, no. In general."

Nona and Heuston had seated themselves, and were watching from
their corner the weaving of hallucinatory patterns by interjoined
revolving feet.

"I see. You think she dances with a Purpose?"

The girl smiled. "Awfully well—like everything else she does.
But as if it were something between going to church and drilling a
scout brigade. Mother's too—too tidy to dance."

"Well—this is different," murmured Heuston.

The floor had cleared as if by magic before the advance of a long
slim pair: Lita Wyant and Tommy Ardwin. The decorator, tall and
supple, had the conventional dancer's silhouette; but he was no
more than a silhouette, a shadow on the wall. All the light and
music in the room had passed into the translucent creature in his
arms. He seemed to Nona like some one who has gone into a spring
wood and come back carrying a long branch of silver blossom.

"Good heavens! Quelle plastique!" piped the Marchesa over Nona's
shoulder.

The two had the floor to themselves: every one else had stopped
dancing. But Lita and her partner seemed unaware of it. Her sole
affair was to shower radiance, his to attune his lines to hers.
Her face was a small still flower on a swaying stalk; all her
expression was in her body, in that long legato movement like a
weaving of grasses under a breeze, a looping of little waves on the
shore.

"Look at Jim!" Heuston laughed. Jim Wyant, from a doorway, drank
the vision thirstily. "Surely," his eyes seemed to triumph, "this
justifies the Cubist Cabaret, and all the rest of her crazes."

Lita, swaying near him, dropped a smile, and floated off on the
bright ripples of her beauty.

Abruptly the music stopped. Nona glanced across the room and saw
Mrs. Manford move away from the musicians' balcony, over which the
conductor had just leaned down to speak to her.

There was a short interval; then the orchestra broke into a fox–
trot and the floor filled again. Mrs. Manford swept by with a set
smile—"the kind she snaps on with her tiara," Nona thought. Well,
perhaps it WAS rather bad form of Lita to monopolize the floor at
her mother–in–law's ball; but was it the poor girl's fault if she
danced so well that all the others stopped to gaze?

Ardwin came up to Nona. "Oh, no," Heuston protested under his
breath. "I wanted—"

"There's Aggie signalling."

The girl's arm was already on Ardwin's shoulder. As they circled
toward the middle of the room, Nona said: "You show off Lita's
dancing marvellously."

He replied, in his high–pitched confident voice: "Oh, it's only a
question of giving her her head and not butting in. She and I each
have our own line of self–expression: it would be stupid to mix
them. If only I could get her to dance just once for Serge
Klawhammer; he's scouring the globe to find somebody to do the new
'Herodias' they're going to turn at Hollywood. People are fed up
with the odalisque style, and with my help Lita could evolve
something different. She's half promised to come round to my place
tonight after supper and see Klawhammer. Just six or seven of the
enlightened—wonder if you'd join us? He's tearing back to
Hollywood tomorrow."

"Is Lita really coming?"

"Well, she said yes and no, and ended on yes."

"All right—I will." Nona hated Ardwin, his sleekness, suppleness,
assurance, the group he ruled, the fashions he set, the doctrines
he professed—hated them so passionately and undiscerningly that it
seemed to her that at last she had her hand on her clue. That was
it, of course! Ardwin and his crew were trying to persuade Lita to
go into the movies; that accounted for her restlessness and
irritability, her growing distaste for her humdrum life. Nona drew
a breath of relief. After all, if it were only that—!

The dance over, she freed herself and slipped through the throng in
quest of Jim. Should she ask him to take her to Ardwin's? No:
simply tell him that she and Lita were off for a final spin at the
decorator's studio, where there would be more room and less fuss
than at Pauline's. Jim would laugh and approve, provided she and
Lita went together; no use saying anything about Klawhammer and his
absurd "Herodias."

"Jim? But, my dear, Jim went home long ago. I don't blame the
poor boy," Mrs. Manford sighed, waylaid by her daughter, "because I
know he has to be at the office so early; and it must be awfully
boring, standing about all night and not dancing. But, darling,
you must really help me to find your father. Supper's ready, and I
can't imagine…"

The Marchesa's ferret face slipped between them as she trotted by
on Mr. Toy's commodious arm.

"Dear Dexter? I saw him not five minutes ago, seeing off that
wonderful Lita—"

"Lita? Lita gone too?" Nona watched the struggle between her
mother's disciplined features and twitching nerves. "What
impossible children I have!" A smile triumphed over her
discomfiture. "I do hope there's nothing wrong with the baby?
Nona, slip down and tell your father he must come up. Oh, Stanley,
dear, all my men seem to have deserted me. Do find Mrs. Toy and
take her in to supper…"

In the hall below there was no Dexter. Nona cast about a glance
for Powder, the pale resigned butler, who had followed Mrs. Manford
through all her vicissitudes and triumphs, seemingly concerned
about nothing but the condition of his plate and the discipline of
his footmen. Powder knew everything, and had an answer to
everything; but he was engaged at the moment in the vast operation
of making terrapin and champagne appear simultaneously on eighty–
five small tables, and was not to be found in the hall. Nona ran
her eye along the line of footmen behind the piled–up furs, found
one who belonged to the house, and heard that Mr. Manford had left
a few minutes earlier. His motor had been waiting for him, and was
now gone. Mrs. James Wyant was with him, the man thought. "He's
taken her to Ardwin's, of course. Poor father! After an evening
of Mrs. Toy and Amalasuntha—who can wonder? If only mother would
see how her big parties bore him!" But Nona's mother would never
see that.

"It's just my indestructible faith in my own genius—nothing else,"
Ardwin was proclaiming in his jumpy falsetto as Nona entered the
high–perched studio where he gathered his group of the enlightened.
These privileged persons, in the absence of chairs, had disposed
themselves on the cushions and mattresses scattered about a floor
painted to imitate a cunning perspective of black and white marble.
Tall lamps under black domes shed their light on bare shoulders,
heads sleek or tousled, and a lavish show of flesh–coloured legs
and sandalled feet. Ardwin, unbosoming himself to a devotee, held
up a guttering church–candle to a canvas which simulated a window
open on a geometrical representation of brick walls, fire escapes
and back–yards. "Sham? Oh, of course. I had the real window
blocked up. It looked out on that stupid old 'night–piece' of
Brooklyn Bridge and the East River. Everybody who came here said:
'A Whistler nocturne!' and I got so bored. Besides, it was REALLY
THERE: and I hate things that are really where you think they are.
They're as tiresome as truthful people. Everything in art should
be false. Everything in life should be art. Ergo, everything in
life should be false: complexions, teeth, hair, wives …
specially wives. Oh, Miss Manford, that you? Do come in. Mislaid
Lita?"

"Isn't she here?"

"IS she?" He pivoted about on the company. When he was not
dancing he looked, with his small snaky head and too square
shoulders, like a cross between a Japanese waiter and a full–page
advertisement for silk underwear. "IS Lita here? Any of you
fellows got her dissembled about your persons? Now, then, out with
her! Jossie Keiler, YOU'RE not Mrs. James Wyant disguised as a
dryad, are you?" There was a general guffaw as Miss Jossie Keiler,
the octoroon pianist, scrambled to her pudgy feet and assembled a
series of sausage arms and bolster legs in a provocative pose.
"Knew I'd get found out," she lisped.

A short man with a deceptively blond head, thick lips under a
stubby blond moustache, and eyes like needles behind tortoiseshell–
rimmed glasses, stood before the fire, bulging a glossy shirtfront
and solitaire pearl toward the company. "Don't this lady dance?"
he enquired, in a voice like melted butter, a few drops of which
seemed to trickle down his lips and be licked back at intervals
behind a thickly ringed hand.

"Miss Manford? Bet she does! Come along, Nona; shed your togs and
let's show Mr. Klawhammer here present that Lita's not the only
peb—"

"Gracious! Wait till I get into the saddle!" screamed Miss Keiler,
tiny hands like blueish mice darting out at the keyboard from the
end of her bludgeon arms.

Nona perched herself on the edge of a refectory table. "Thanks.
I'm not a candidate for 'Herodias.' My sister–in–law is sure to
turn up in a minute."

Even Mrs. Dexter Manford's perfectly run house was not a
particularly appetizing place to return to at four o'clock on the
morning after a dance. The last motor was gone, the last overcoat
and opera cloak had vanished from hall and dressing–rooms, and only
one hanging lamp lit the dusky tapestries and the monumental
balustrade of the staircase. But empty cocktail glasses and
ravaged cigar–boxes littered the hall tables, wisps of torn tulle
and trampled orchids strewed the stair–carpet, and the thicket of
forced lilacs and Japanese plums in front of the lift drooped
mournfully in the hot air. Nona, letting herself in with her latch–
key, scanned the scene with a feeling of disgust. What was it all
for, and what was left when it was over? Only a huge clearing–up
for Maisie and the servants, and a new list to make out for the
next time… She remembered mild spring nights at Cedarledge,
when she was a little girl, and she and Jim used to slip downstairs
in stocking feet, go to the lake, loose the canoe, and drift on a
silver path among islets fringed with budding dogwood. She hurried
on past the desecrated shrubs.

Above, the house was dark but for a line of light under the library
door. Funny—at that hour; her father must still be up. Very
likely he too had just come in. She was passing on when the door
opened and Manford called her.

"'Pon my soul, Nona! That you? I supposed you were in bed long
ago."

One of the green–shaded lamps lit the big writing–table. Manford's
armchair was drawn up to it, an empty glass and half–consumed
cigarette near by, the evening paper sprawled on the floor.

"Was that you I heard coming in? Do you know what time it is?"

"Yes; worse luck! I've been scouring the town after Lita."

"LITA?"

"Waiting for her for hours at Tommy Ardwin's. Such a crew! He
told me she was going there to dance for Klawhammer, the Hollywood
man, and I didn't want her to go alone—"

Manford's face darkened. He lit another cigarette and turned to
his daughter impatiently.

"What the devil made you believe such a yarn? Klawhammer—!"

Nona stood facing him; their eyes met, and he turned away with a
shrug to reach for a match.

"I believed it because, just afterward, the servants told me that
Lita had left, and as they said you'd gone with her I supposed
you'd taken her to Ardwin's, not knowing that I meant to join her
there."

"Ah; I see." He lit the cigarette and puffed at it for a moment or
two, deliberately. "You're quite right to think she needs looking
after," he began again, in a changed tone. "Somebody's got to take
on the job, since her husband seems to have washed his hands of
it."

"Father! You know perfectly well that if Jim took on that job—
running after Lita all night from one cabaret to another—he'd lose
the other, the one that keeps them going. Nobody could carry on
both."

"Hullo, spitfire! Hands off our brother!"

"Rather." She leaned against the table, her eyes still on him.
"And when Ardwin told me about this Klawhammer film—didn't Lita
mention it to you?"

He appeared to consider. "She did say Ardwin was bothering her
about something of the kind; so when I found Jim had gone I took
her home myself."

"Ah—you took her home?"

Manford, settling himself back in his armchair, met the surprise in
her voice unconcernedly. "Why, of course. Did you really see me
letting her make a show of herself? Sorry you think that's my way
of looking after her."

Nona, perched on the arm of his chair, enclosed him in a happy hug.
"You goose, you!" she sighed; but the epithet was not for her
father.