The Golden Vanity (3 page)

Sam found an unholy entertainment in the answers he provoked from Annabel. "He's not blind, deaf, dumb and paralyzed, is he? What ails Arthur, he's one of those bashful boys, waiting for some wild woman to drag him off screaming. I'm like that myself."

"You!" Polly said.

"Sure," Sam maintained. "I'm waiting right now for Mrs. Fuller to drag me off for this dance."

"Don't," Polly warned Gina. "It's enough to blast any woman's reputation to be seen speaking to him."

"I—I'm not dancing," Gina protested. But with his arm about her waist, she was obliged to accede. He danced well, and she cast about vainly for a pretext to stop. When the music ceased, they were by the conservatory. He said: "Let's see if the best rubber plants are taken. All this necking I hear about has got to be investigated." She tried to disengage herself. "Are you one of those bigoted married women?" he asked reproachfully.

"I'm not married," she retorted, furious to the verge of absurdity.

"I'm sorry; I thought Polly said Mrs. Fuller." He remembered; she must be Charlotte's new lady-in-waiting. "It's just my way of making myself agreeable. So many women get mad if you don't insult 'em. . . . Where do you want to go?"

She walked blindly through the nearest door, refusing to speak or look at him again. The exit led to the hall -and stairway. "The library?" Sam said. "Good idea. Mind what I told you; it's the truth; the first determined woman that goes after him will get him."

What a horrible man! She hated Mrs. Brant too. Since he had mentioned it, she certainly would not go to the library. It was at the head of the stairs. The house was so large, she didn't know it thoroughly yet . . . She had not been in this room before. It was quiet, a cloistral atmosphere. Tall pointed windows, and a round green-shaded lamp on a long table. She sat down in a carved high-backed chair to get her breath. Not till then did she observe that the walls were lined with glazed bookshelves. It was Arthur's study, which held his collection of rare books. It opened off the library, at the back. The intervening door was slightly ajar. . . . Men's voices were audible, muted, through the narrow aperture. . . .

The ex-ambassador was saying that our prestige abroad suffered enormously from the lack of proper embassy quarters. The government should buy suitable buildings. Julius Dickerson's unctuous tones affirmed that Europe looked to America for leadership. Another voice regretted that the best people, young men of education and family, with independent means, did not enter politics. . .. Coolidge was a safe executive. A business administration meant prosperity ...

This intellectual exchange soothed and impressed Gina. This was how people should talk. The voices had a padded, luxurious sound. Each remark was offered with the measured gravity of a butler presenting a letter on a silver tray. None called for any specific reply. They were like clearing house certificates, balancing accounts. They depended for their validity on the name attached. . . .

She mustn't stay here. Nobody used this room except Arthur. But he couldn't come now; nobody would come. ... He had paid twenty thousand dollars for one book. Which was it? There were rows of small shabby volumes with dim titles behind the glass cases. More likely the manuscript lying open on the table:
The Legend of Good Women.
An initial was illumined with an aureoled angel, delicately drawn in its minute proportions, with grave rapt features and clear eyelids. Gina could hear the dance music, flowing through the talk in the next room.

She did not hear Arthur enter; he moved quietly, because he did not wish to be heard.

He had stolen five minutes. Long enough to smoke a cigarette in peace. A birthday party, he thought, was ridiculous at twenty-three, but he couldn't object if it pleased his grandmother. His world revolved around her; he accepted this as the natural order. He was strongly attached to her, being of an affectionate nature, with no one else belonging to him. . . . He did not know what to say to girls. He had no "line," and he danced badly. He respected girls. His mother was only a girl when she died; he thought he remembered her, and he owned a miniature of her. Very fair, with a gay proud flyaway expression. In college, he had been incautious enough to admit he'd never had a woman; it was turned into a joke against him. Some of the other fellows had got him tight. And took him somewhere, a drunken party; he didn't back out because he was ashamed of being ashamed. The liquor was bad and they mixed his drinks too. There had been several such occasions. Then he quit; he couldn't stand the next day. The girls had been drunk too; that was somehow the worst. . . .

He crossed over cautiously and closed the door to the library. In his whole life, he had never been really alone. Not without someone in the next room at furthest, aware of him, waiting for him. So he had never been really near anyone, on the intimate terms of equality.

Gina heard the shutting of the door. She stood up; they were both startled. Arthur said: "Oh, please don't let me disturb you." She answered at random: "I only came in to hide for a minute."

"So did I." They both glanced about as if for pursuers; the absurd shared impulse mysteriously put them at ease. "Don't go," he said.

"I must," confusion had reduced her to naturalness. "I didn't touch anything," she looked down at the manuscript. "I suppose this is medieval?"

"Not exactly," his collector's enthusiasm gave him confidence. "Fifteenth century." Stupid, she told herself, of course Chaucer couldn't be earlier than the fourteenth. Arthur was opening a cabinet drawer eagerly. "Some of the finest manuscripts were produced just after printing was invented," he explained. "The scriveners tried to compete. But the earlier ones have more character. Here is the
Ancren Riwle,
thirteenth century; this copy is thought to be nuns' work, rather rare—it's a discipline for convents, you know."

"I don't, I wish I did. How bright the colors are, those tiny bluets and daisies." She pored over the thick black lettering, and murmured: "It says the anchoress mustn't wear rings or brooches or keep cows or any kind of beast,
except only a cat.
I'm glad she could have a cat. No, I must go now," she walked to the farther door, with a wistful and flattering air of regret. ... He thought, her face is shaped like the angel's, when she looks down. . . .

"I'll show you some other time," he offered.

"Will you? I'd like to. Good night—I'm not going down again."

While he smoked his cigarette, he retained the image of her, in a white gown, bending over the manuscript, with those clear eyelids lowered. And when he had returned to his duty, he looked for her in the ballroom unconsciously, because she was not there.

3

G
INA
had the afternoon off. Mrs. Siddall was closeted with her lawyers and business advisers. Her surgeon would have been greatly annoyed if he had known; the operation was set for next day, and he had ordered twenty-four hours of absolute quiet. He did not know.

In the atmosphere of secrecy proper to the discussion of large sums of money or other sacred subjects, Julius Dickerson explained that a holding corporation sometimes simplified the—ah—transfer tax. He avoided saying death duties. Mrs. Siddall was not discomposed. She had no intention of dying. The idea of trust funds gratified her by its implication of permanence, order and security. All obligations taken care of in advance, family, friends, good works. She gave a great deal to charity, in a fixed but handsome measure. She liked giving—as we should all like to give, out of an immense surplus.

Going out, Gina passed Janet Kirkland, hovering with a notebook in case Mrs. Siddall should call her. Janet's nose was glossy pink from weeping. She had the slightly imbecile expression of a loyal populace, on the route of royalty.

Arthur must be in his own library. Gina hurried; she was not prepared to encounter him. Since yesterday . . .

Standing on the steps, in the thin delusive February sunshine, lassitude invaded her, a spiritual fatigue. The massive weight of the great house at her back made itself felt, as if she had been trying to move it unaided.

So she had. The establishment, as such, was solidly against her as an individual. For her to become an integral part of it, the whole organization must undergo a relative displacement and adjustment. Had she moved it by the infinitesimal fraction of an inch in four months? Since the birthday dinner she had bent all her energies upon the almost impossible task. She sighed deeply, as if she had been holding her breath. Discouragement settled on her, localized as a physical chill between her shoulder blades, the coldness of a stone wall, shutting her out.

In a personal relation, there is an invisible boundary line you have to pass, at which it becomes personal, and you can't even tell till afterward. She couldn't now, about Arthur. She saw him every day. Mrs. Siddall found it humiliating to be led by her maid or secretary, and depended on Arthur. Every morning he came to her boudoir, to give her his arm when she went down to lunch. He sat about, his hands clasping his knee, pathetically masculine in a ruffled chintz chair, surrounded by knick-knacks and women: Mrs. Perry, Janet, Trudi. He was too polite to defend himself against tedium with a book. Gina was usually present, also waiting, in the background. She was glad it happened so; he grew used to her, his shyness wearing off with custom. He knew what she was there for, or he thought he did. She wasn't on
his
hands, not even when they were in his library. It seemed to happen by chance again, and he was pleased to show her his collection. The chance naturally recurred; he came to anticipate it, if he had something new to show. And they had a joke between them, looking over their shoulders for pursuers.

But yesterday evening . . .

No, she could not be sure . . . She hoped Mysie would be at home. She had an inward conviction that Mysie understood—about men.

A taxi drew up to the curb; Gina signaled it before recognizing the vacating passenger as Sam Reynolds. "Hello," he said cheerily, "any progress?" Gina regarded him with silent hatred and stepped into the cab. "There I go again," Sam said. "Ever hear of the goof that said to a girl: 'Oh, I know what you're thinking about'—and she slapped his face?"

The palm of Gina's hand tingled with the desire to do just that. The more because she was aware of an obscure counter-inclination to listen to Sam. As a man, he possessed that terrible profane knowledge which a woman could acquire only at an incalculable risk . . . She gave the taxi chauffeur his direction—Bank Street—in a low voice that nevertheless made him turn his head, startled by her tone.

Tears of anger brightened her eyes; Fifth Avenue shone through a crystalline veil. A light fall of snow, melting quickly, had washed the pavements clean; the shop windows were an open treasury of precious things, gold and silver and gems and rich fabrics, behind transparent walls that seemed as abstract as a mathematical line. People walking rapidly along the pavement stopped, stared dreamily into the windows, under a spell. ... A couple in a taxi, blocked against Gina's when the traffic signal changed, leaned together for a kiss.

Gina's hand went to her breast. What had she to count upon? No more than that kiss, which could be taken and given so lightly. In his study, yesterday evening, Arthur had kissed her, with the awkwardness of a novice. He was enough taller, so that when she bent her head her face was hidden against his shoulder. And she didn't know what she should have done next. They heard someone in the library, it must have been the butler or footman mending the fire, who dropped the tongs against the fender. Gina's nerves were not equal to the external shock. She fled. Afterward, she could not sleep. She was not yet sleepy, but dry and tense.

Her will power broke suddenly; she tasted the luxury of abandoning hope, letting her mind flow with the current of the traffic and disperse with the crowd. For the moment she did not care; she was passive until the cab turned west from Washington Square. Heaps of dirty snow remained on the side streets; children splashed and shouted in the muddy runnels. Grimy curtains flapped from basement windows; and a slatternly fat woman leaned out of a half-basement window unexpectantly, her elbows on the sill. . . . Gina sat up straight again, recapturing resolution. This was the goal of drifters.... Never, never, never for her.

The taxi stopped before a large old-fashioned house with a high front stoop. The entry was dim; Gina peered at the row of cards. This was the right bell: Mysie Brennan. A fine staircase curved upward; but some of the spindles were missing, and the uncarpeted treads worn into hollows. Gina withheld her white gloves from the film of dust on the slender mahogany balustrade as she ascended.

On the third landing she flattened against the wall and shrieked, echoing the crack of a gunshot. "Gosh—excuse me," a young man materialized from the general obscurity, holding a .22 rifle. "Didn't see you coming up—I was potting at a rat—" Gina could only gasp, edging further away. The landing above was better lighted; Mysie's voice sang out.

"Shut up, Lanty, you're making it worse. Rats—for heaven's sake! Shoot your own guests, not mine. Come on up, Gina; welcome to Matteawan." Gina took the last flight breathlessly.

"Mysie, I'm so glad to see you." The plain truth. The cousins exchanged that quick, glancing salute of women who would never have chosen each other as friends, but are linked by some other circumstance.

They looked vaguely alike, a family resemblance which emphasized the individual differences. Mysie too was neatly made, but not so tall and slender as Gina. Her square shoulders, beautiful flat back and straight thighs gave her the muscular balance of a cat. Her eyes were dark velvet brown, her nose slightly retroussé, and her smooth brown hair, bobbed, exhibited rusty streaks as the result of an injudicious experiment with henna, half outgrown. She had tried it for fun and discovered promptly that artifice did not suit her.

"Sit down, Gina; never mind Jake. Mr. Jakobus Van Buren. Make a nice bow to the lady, Jake."

Mr. Van Buren had already done so, rising politely from the sofa as Gina entered. Gina received a peculiar impression of a young man who was distinctly handsome and yet rather resembled a monkey in features. The bony structure of his face was well defined, especially about the eyesockets, so that his eyes, of a dark slate-color, seemed shadowed by an abiding sorrow, as with the more intelligent of the simian tribe. It is the face of comedy. Mr. Van Buren wore his clothes well, and had remarkably elegant ankles. His feet, unlike the average masculine extremities, did not seem to be in the way.