XVII
When Merrick arrived at his apartment shortly after midnight, he slipped out of his dinner clothes and into a dressing-gown, and told Matsu to toss another chunk of pine on the fire and go to bed.
The evening’s entertainment had been a gusty symphony set to every key and tempo; brief passages of ineffable tenderness, momentary measures of hope, drably padded intervals of manoeuvring and modulation, spiced, with occasional breathtaking crescendos that went ripping shrilly up the chromatic scale precariously freighted with anxiety. The finale, unfortunately, had brought up on a most disquieting diminished chord … Considering the evening, in total, its moods were as fitful and erratic as Sibelius’ Valse Triste.
He had hoped to bring to it the sportsmanly spirit of an athlete entering upon a vigorous contest. His dear antagonist had promised that nobody—not even he—should be aware of her irritation and resentment, and he knew she would keep her word. If hers would be a difficult part to play, his would be more so. All she had to do was to register cordiality. Whoever, with any social experience at all, had not learned how to dissemble in pretence of amiability when thrown with persons whom one disliked? As for him, the part he had drawn called for a cool casualness; not the stiff restraint of renunciation, or a show of ascetic indifference, but the calm courtesy of a man toward a woman he had barely met. It would be his task to carry this off convincingly—this with a heart aflame.
As he gave himself a brief inspection in the cheval glass before starting down town, he seriously pledged his own reflection that he would maintain an attitude of dignified chivalry toward the woman whose promised pretence of friendship, for an evening, would probably be little short of torture. And he had seen through, almost valorously—all but to the end.
And yet, remorseful as he was over that one brief but utter breakdown of self-discipline, which now made their relations more difficult than ever, he tingled to his nerves’ ends with memories of those few enchanted moments when, even fully aware that she but kept her contract, her comradeship had seemed sincere.
In the mood of a miser, eager to be alone to finger his gold, he impatiently dismissed the solicitously lingering Matsu, lighted his pipe, and eased himself into a deep chair before the crackling fire, determined to live the evening over, item by item, and recover its most stirring sensations.
Pursuant to instructions from Joyce, he had called for Nancy Ashford. Regally stunning in crimson, with her youthful face, glistening white hair, superb figure and resilient step, Nancy was worth all the pride he had in her. He told her so, and she thanked him—for that, and the flowers.
Nothing ever escaped her eye. She remarked, as he helped her into the limousine, that Richard had a new cap and puttees.
“You haven’t had him in uniform before, have you?” she inquired. “I thought you had some democratic convictions on the subject.”
“So I had,” he admitted, “but I’ve changed my mind. He’s part of an institution, with his uniform on, and it helps him keep out of mischief. At least, that’s the theory. Besides, he likes it.”
There had been a lot of rambling chatter like that, to which he had contributed with unusual animation; but Nancy dodged from under the fusillade of inconsequential talk presently, eager to be enlightened.
“Bobby,” she said, as his beautiful new car had swung into the current of boulevard traffic, and lengthened its stride, “something tells me this is to be a rather difficult event.”
“You always were a keen observer, Nancy,” he conceded.
“One didn’t have to be gifted with occult powers to see that the atmosphere at Brightwood, this afternoon, was heavily charged.”
“Pardon the interruption, but—I like you tremendously in that colour. You are very beautiful tonight, dear.”
“Meaning that you don’t want to tell me about it?”
“Well—perhaps … Something like that.”
“Very good, then. I shall shut my eyes, ears, and mouth. I am the three wise monkeys. I’ll pretend I don’t know that you two have had a quarrel.”
“That’s a dear!”
“And I shall also pretend I don’t know that you silly things are so deeply in love you’re afraid to exchange glances for fear your secret may be discovered.”
“I still think you are beautiful, Nancy.”
“But dumb!”
“No, no! Not that! … Quite exasperatingly to the contrary!”
At this she had forgiven him, squeezed his hand, called him her dear boy; and, for the rest of the trip, discussed hospital affairs in a most businesslike manner.
They stepped out, at the Book-Cadillac, into a big-flaked snowstorm, and hurried to cover through the revolving doors. Joyce and Helen were awaiting them, by appointment, on the mezzanine, Joyce almost boisterously gay, swishy and sinuous in some green taffeta confection, wearing the corsage he had sent her; and, unless he was much mistaken, she had tucked a cocktail or two under his orchids, for there was a taut nervousness in her canary gestures and a strident overtone in her voice hardly to be had for less bother than the embarkation of about three jiggers of gin … If Helen observed it, she was apparently resolved to ignore it. Seeing it was an occasion for the wholesale ignoring of unpleasant facts, there was probably no reason why she should cavil at this one … What an adorable creature she was … in the black velvet … and the pearls … and his orchids. So she had actually consented to wear them! … Score one against the beloved enemy!
Curiously enough, Joyce, from the first moment, had seemed bent upon hurling them at each other, almost violently … Maybe it was the gin … Perhaps her instinct told her there was some unspoken bond between them which it was her duty to make articulate … Of course, it was always difficult to guess what, how, or whether Joyce was thinking … But, whatever her motive, if she had one, she was at no pains to disguise her intention to make this little party the occasion for a rapid development of their budding acquaintance … as if it were some fungus that must mature now or never.
Indeed, she had been utterly ruthless. Over the salad, she had chinked a momentary gap in the conversation by murmuring to herself, in an exaggeratedly stilted style, “Mis‑ses Hudson! … Doc‑tor Merrick! … Dear me!”—with a shrug and a sigh—“I had hoped they might be Bobby and Helen by this time!” To which Helen had replied, leaning toward her, in an apologetic, maternal undertone, “Drink your milk, little one. There’s a good child!” … They had laughed, their merriment in the nature of applause.
The hotel was suffocatingly crowded. Some big trade convention was on, and the public lounges and foyers were swarming with fussy fat men, wearing long blue and gold badges on their lapels, beads of perspiration on their foreheads. Dozens of them were milling about, bound in as many directions, teetering themselves crabwise athwart the current, begging pardons, right and left, in the tone of “Gangway!” Their corrugated brows certified that unless they managed to squeeze through, the whole enterprise, after all this trouble and expense, would be futile.
Their weary wives sagged in every available chair, conscious of their redundant knees, pecking at fresh marcels with nervous fingers. A few of the more intrepid attempted a languorous indifference toward their unaccustomed cigarettes which, however, they regarded gingerly and at arm’s length, as foolhardy urchins hold sputtering firecrackers—nonchalantly, but with secret concern at the tail of the eye.
Joyce had impetuously taken Nancy’s arm and led the way.
“Keep close, you two,” she shrilled, over her shoulder, “and don’t get lost. We must hurry, so we will not be late for the theatre!”—and had swept Nancy along into the squirming pack.
Bobby had offered his arm to Helen and she had taken it; not perfunctorily, but as if she wished to do so … She really needn’t have done it … Neither Joyce nor Nancy could observe them … She might have ignored his gesture … It was not necessary she should play a part at that moment.
They were jostled in the crowd. He had drawn her closer to him, and she had responded … No—it was not merely that she had been pressed against him from without … She had responded … There was a difference. He had drawn her closer to him, and she had responded! …
He relighted his pipe, mechanically, and absently held the match until it nipped his fingers.
She had responded so generously that he could feel the warm, soft contours of her against his arm … She needn’t have done that … It was not in the book of her play … Yet, it was what she would have done if there had been no estrangement between them; or would she? … Probably not … It was hard to think straight about this affair.
Until now, no words had passed between them except their brief salutation at meeting, and Joyce’s patter had sent even that into eclipse. He felt he should be saying something to her. He despised dull commonplaces, but the silence must not be permitted to grow any longer.
Of a sudden, he had become audacious.
“I led you this way, once, through a very dark lane,” he heard himself saying.
“Oh—was it?” she laughed. “I thought we went hand in hand. I felt like a little girl being led to her first day in the kindergarten.”
“So—you do remember!”
“Rather! I don’t know what I should have done that night without you.” And she had looked up into his face and smiled. He wondered if she could feel the pounding of his heart … They were entering the dining-room … Joyce waved a hand from a table halfway the length of the room.
“Tell me something, while we’re thinking about that,” continued Helen, confidentially. “Why didn’t you let me drive you home, that night, or at least put you down as we passed your gate?”
“Because I preferred you shouldn’t know me. I thought that if you knew, you might—” He had broken off, lamely, groping for a word.
“That was a very appropriate way to begin a friendship like ours,” she said crisply, “seeing it was destined to be full of little deceits and riddles.”
“I am sorry,” he said. He must have appeared appallingly so.
“Well—don’t be, then!” she commanded hotly, with a savage little tug at his arm. “You look like Hamlet! Grin, I tell you! Your Nancy Ashford knows well enough we have been quarrelling! I saw it in her face this afternoon. I’m not going to do this farce all by myself!”
He had looked down into her big blue eyes, amazed at this outburst so startlingly out of keeping with her serene expression, and laughed aloud. As he reviewed it, now, he laughed again. It had been absurd … beyond belief!
“What’s the joke?” demanded Joyce, as the waiters drew their chairs.
“Long story,” said Helen briefly, “and the good man laughed at it once. I can’t have him hearing it over again.”
Nancy looked puzzled. He was secretly pleased over her bewilderment, and amused to see that the little episode had put a crimp in her omniscience.
“Your curriculum is all prescribed,” Joyce was saying, as the waiters hurried away, “all but the dessert. That’s an elective. Otherwise, you take what the institution thinks will be good for you. No, darling,” she added, turning to Helen, “it isn’t veal. I remembered that you had already worked off your credits, majoring in veal.”
“Do tell us some of your other experiences abroad!” Nancy had begged. “I’m hoping to go over, for a summer, presently, and I’m awfully keen on travel tales.”
How graciously she had complied! And how charmingly she talked of her impressions. Most of the larger cities he knew almost as he knew his own, but she had seen things that he had missed—intimate glimpses up narrow streets and into quaint shops where, it seems, she had frequently made the acquaintance of a whole family … How tenderly she talked about little children! …
“In Assisi, I once made some wonderful friends that way, in a little shop,” she was saying. “I’m afraid I began visiting the Bordinis, at first, to improve my colloquial Italian. Of course, I always bought some trifle to pay for my tuition, or brought along something for the children; but after a while, I found myself going there because I liked them and really needed their friendship. And, one day, little Maria, about three, took dreadfully ill. For three weeks, she just hung on to the mere edge of life. They were all so terribly worried. And, not having anything very important to do, I was in and out, frequently, through those days—”
She interrupted her story to unfasten from within the neck of her gown a little silver cross.
“Maria’s mother insisted on giving me this when I left Assisi.”
The trinket was passed around the table. When it came to him, he had inspected it, with a feeling of reverence. It was holy—for many excellent reasons.
“I did not want to take it,” pursued Helen, “for I am sure it was the most treasured thing she owned. It had been blessed by the Holy Father himself, when, as a young girl, in nineteen hundred, she had accompanied a pilgrimage to Rome.”
“So that’s why you’re wearing that cheap little cross!” exclaimed Joyce. “Does it bring you good luck?”
Helen smiled.
“Perhaps,” she answered. “At least, I like it better than any other jewellery I have.”
“Very naturally,” commented Nancy understandingly.
Joyce was quite attentive.
“You must have been the family’s main prop, during their trouble, to earn their enchanted cross. Let’s have the rest of the story. What all did you do for them while Maria was sick? Help keep store? Were you the nurse? Go on, darling! Tell us all about it!”
At that point, he had been unable to restrain himself. Quite to his own amazement, he had held up a protecting hand.
“No, no, Joyce! We really daren’t ask Mrs. Hudson to tell us that!” Instantly he had felt embarrassed by his own remark.
“How funny! Why shouldn’t she tell us?”
He had turned to Helen, at that, and asked soberly, “Did you ever tell anybody that story?”
“No! Now that you ask—I don’t believe I ever did.”
“Then I wouldn’t, if I were you. This is a very valuable little keepsake, and its chief charm is in the fact that nobody knows but you what you did to earn it.”
“How perfectly ridiculous, Bobby!” shouted Joyce. “Did you know he was so superstitious, Nancy?”
“I had suspected it—a time or two.”
Helen was regarding him with perplexed, wide eyes as he put the little fetish into her palm with a gesture that had been perilously close to a caress, for his fingertips had lingered there.
“Sometimes I have thought of sending it back to her. You seem to have ideas on this subject, Doctor Merrick. Perhaps you will tell me; should I?”
“By no means. It wouldn’t be valuable to her any more if she accepted it. She really can’t take it back now, you see, because—because …”
Helen’s lips were parted, and she was a bit breathless as she urged, insistently, “Yes?—because—because what?”
“Well—because—by this time she has possibly—probably—used it all up, herself.”
She stared at him steadily for a moment, as if she had seen a ghost. Then, half-articulately, and for his ears only, she murmured, “So—that’s—what—that—means!”
“Yes—exactly! That’s what it means!”
Her eyes were misty and her fingers trembled as she refastened the little cross inside the neck of her gown.
“I’m glad you told me,” she said, under her breath. “I have so often wondered.”
Joyce put down both hands with a sudden gesture of impatience.
“What on earth are you people talking about! … Do you know, Nancy?”
“Oh—vaguely, I think,” she replied … “You liked the little towns best, didn’t you, Helen? Let’s hear some more about them. There was Bellagio. Tell us about that.”
“Oh, do!” echoed Joyce. “You wrote such wonderful letters from there. What was the name of that little hotel—on the top of the hill?”
“The Villa Serbelloni?” Helen grew moody. “Yes—I quite liked it, at first; but I grew very lonely there. I became so unhappy I left, one afternoon, on a moment’s impulse—in a drenching rain.”
“Why—what was the matter, darling?” inquired Joyce solicitously.
“Just sheer loneliness! The season was over, really, and almost everybody had gone away. There was a young woman I had found congenial, but she turned out to be a writing person, and seeing that was what she was there for I couldn’t impose myself on her when she needed all her time for writing; so, one dreadfully lonely, stormy day, I left.”
“Ever see any of her work?” Nancy wanted to know.
Helen shook her head.
“Perhaps you should make some inquiries,” suggested Joyce. “Maybe you figured in some of her tales, yourself. Wouldn’t it be odd to pick up a story and find oneself cavorting about in it?”
During all this Bellagio talk, Helen had addressed herself chiefly to the others. As she replied to Joyce’s comment, however, she turned her eyes slowly in his direction.
“It’s quite possible I may have qualified for some minor part in a story; for I had been as garrulous as a high school girl before I discovered her occupation.”
“I am sure you were the heroine of the piece,” he had declared stoutly. “I would swear to that!”
“You seem as certain as if you really knew.” She had leaned slightly toward him. Her nearness gave him a chance to mutter, in an undertone, “I do!”
The talk had drifted, then, to ships. Nancy was anxious to know all about voyages; what to wear, how much and whom to tip, how long in advance one should book passage to insure good space.
“Helen had hers on a day’s notice, coming back,” remembered Joyce.
“But it’s not always that way,” Nancy argued. “I recall a quite hectic experience we had in getting accommodations for some friend of Bobby’s who was suddenly required to go to Buenos Aires.”
He had glanced apprehensively at Helen, and found her staring into his eyes, her brows knitted in perplexity. Quickly collecting herself, she said:
“Perhaps the season had something to do with the congestion. When was it?”
“When was it, Bobby?” queried Nancy. “You ought to remember. You were no end excited over getting him off by that boat. It must have been about a year ago; possibly a little earlier than this.”
“Something like that,” he had agreed disinterestedly.
The waiters had handed them menu cards. Joyce and Nancy had their heads together in consultation over parfait flavours. Helen had raised her card until it screened her face from them.
“That was very good of you,” she said softly. “I never guessed—until now.”
“I didn’t intend you should. I hope you will never give it another thought. I’m sorry the matter inadvertently came up.”
Her face was studious for a moment; then brightened, suddenly, with illumination.
“Oh—I see!” she murmured.
“I wonder if you do.”
She nodded her head vigorously.
“It is something like—like my Bordinis—and my little cross, isn’t it?”
“Yes—exactly like that!”
Joyce had put an end to their cryptic byplay with a demand for light on the dessert problem … It had been a very tender moment. As he mulled it over now, analytically, it occurred to him that had he been called away, on some emergency duty, at that juncture, he might at this moment be exulting in the hope that their misunderstanding had been definitely cleared …
He rose and paced the room, digging his fingertips into his temples, paused at the little table, refilled his pipe, replenished the grate, and sank again into his chair. A small cathedral clock on the mantel wearily tolled the first quarter.
Those four strokes, when, on occasion, they caught his attention, invariably sent a momentary cloud drifting across his mood. It was not so at the half. The clock seemed to have cheered up, noticeably, by that time. It was almost reassuring when it came to the third quarter. But, always, that jaded, resigned, mocking, Amarish da-de-di-dum at the first quarter impressed him with the solemn asininity of whatever he happened to be doing and the futility of everything he was planning to do. It was exactly as if Eternal Destiny stretched its long arms and yawned. He could never be sure precisely what it said. Sometimes the strokes were but four gradations of an articulate sigh of inexpressible fatigue.
The vibrations still lingered. He glanced up. It was fifteen minutes past two … He resumed his reflections, moodily, realizing that his memories, from this point, would be disturbing.
The short trip to the nearby theatre had been uneventful, made in his own car. As it drew up at the kerb, he had heard Helen exclaim to Nancy, “What a beautiful car! What is it?” … He had not caught Nancy’s reply; but she knew.
They were very late, having lingered long at dinner … Gropingly following the usher’s little electric torch, they had dodged guiltily into their seats which fortunately were on the aisle.
A nimble chorus marched mincingly across the stage, single file, in close formation, like a garish caterpillar; coquetted, shrieked a piercing blast, broke ranks, and were joined by the male contingent which sauntered in from the wings. There was a stormy repetition of the theme song, a final deafening screech, with arms aloft, and the lights burst on as the curtain fell.
Joyce, who had insisted on leading the way, leaned to the left, across Nancy and Helen, to hand him the seat checks … How vividly every trivial incident stood out now, chiselled in high relief … He had reached for the ticket-stubs, his movement pressing him close against Helen’s bare shoulder. His hand had lightly brushed her arm. Every chance contact swept him with a suffocating surge of emotion. It was only by the sternest resolution that he resisted the urge to touch her.
He could not remember what the chatter was about at this first entr’acte. Joyce seemed to have provided most of it—some amusing incident of Jasmine’s opening night in New York. Nancy was her best listener; Helen smilingly half-attentive, half-preoccupied.
The orchestra trailed in, twitched its E-string; the director raised both hands, swept his crew fore and aft with a final inspection; and they were off at full gallop in the descending darkness.
He had wished he was not quite so acutely conscious of her beside him, fearing she might sense the physical out-groping of himself toward her. Nancy’s experienced observation recurred to him. He had told her how keenly aware he had been of the girl in the car beside him, that night in the country. Nancy had pooh-poohed his naive notion that Helen was, of course, ignorant of his sensations.
“Nonsense!” Nancy had scoffed. “Do you imagine she could have that effect on you without sharing it? … How little you know about women!”
It was near the close of the second act that the catastrophe occurred.
He had not been following the silly, threadbare plot with enough attention to realize what, if anything, it was aiming at. His mind had been concentrated on the magnetic presence beside him, what time he was not daydreaming of the happiness he would find in surrounding her with the things she ought to have. It was not until he had irretrievably blundered that he came awake to the fact that he had unwittingly insulted her.
The dashing ingénue had returned—it was a colourful scene of a country house party—in a luxurious limousine. The fact that she was penniless; that the car was the property of the brazen broker who had been pursuing her throughout the play with gifts and attentions obviously to be credited on account; that the imported gown she wore was his by purchase—all this was of no significance to him … At that moment, the only fact of any interest to him was the quite good-looking limousine.
Impetuously, he had turned to Helen—their heads had touched, lightly, for an instant—and whispered, “I heard you say you liked my new car. I’m not using it much. I’d like to lend it to you for the time you’re here.”
Perhaps, even then, the most serious blunder of all might have been avoided had she been quick with an emphatic refusal … Unsuspecting that her silence meant nothing more encouraging than that she had been stunned by his raw audacity, and heartened by that misinterpreted silence, he had groped shyly, his heart pounding, for the hand that he knew lay, palm up, very white against the black velvet.
Perhaps she had intuitively divined his intention … Perhaps the slight movement of his arm gave her warning … Or, did she choose that exact second to toy with her strand of pearls? … He would probably never know how it had happened … The warm velvet stirred uneasily under his brief caress.
The curtain was falling. The house was flooded with light. He glanced apprehensively toward her. Her cheeks were flushed, and her little fist, tightly clutching her handkerchief, was pressed hard against her lips.
On Joyce’s suggestion, they strolled in the lobby. On the way up the aisle, Helen had taken Nancy’s arm, and Joyce, observant, had tarried until he fell into step with her. Animatedly, she had carried the full responsibility for their desultory talk. He was glad, for his mind was in chaos.
When the signal summoned to the last act, they returned in the order in which they had made their exit, and when their seats were reached, Helen led the way in, leaving Joyce beside him.
What a beastly cad she must think him! … But—surely her own good sense would tell her he had not meant it! … Not that way!
He hadn’t the faintest idea what the last act was about; sat through it suffering every imaginable torture. After a few eternities, the wretched thing was done.
Their parting was brief, conventional, without one single understanding look into each other’s eyes.
In the morning, he would find her and attempt an explanation … The clock tolled the four quarters and struck three … He had an operation to do at nine.
Wearily he flung off his clothes and went to bed. As he relaxed on his pillow, sick at heart, the chimes offered a cynical comment on his adroit handling of the evening’s complicated problem.
Upon his arrival at the hospital, in the morning, the desk notified him he was requested to call Mr. Randall at the Fourth National Bank, to which he paid no attention.
Having finished his operation, he called the Statler and asked for Mrs. Hudson. She had checked out.