The Golden Vanity (5 page)

She thought, he's got trouble anyhow. But Mike took what trouble was coming to him. . . .
When we all did just as we ought to do, or if not, we ne-ever told . . .

Theodora Ludlow opened the door; she was home early. She said, without any formalities of greeting: "Where did you learn that tune, Jake? It was before your time."

"Oh, I heard it somewhere," Jake said. He couldn't very well tell Thea where. Thea took off her hat and sat beside him on the piano bench.

"It goes like this," she played it over, imparting to the banal musical phrases a brilliant and ghostly delicacy. Jake accepted the lesson with docility. "Yes," he said, "but where did you used to tend bar?" Thea didn't answer; she dropped her hands in her lap. She was tall and bony and frankly her age, with strong aquiline features surmounted by a crest of thick sorrel-grey hair, rather stately. ... She saw herself at twenty, in a yellow satin ball-gown, with an eighteen inch waist, enormous puffed sleeves, and a yellow rose pinned to her corsage. Waltzing with Charles Ludlow. She used to waltz divinely. He proposed that night. She thought, it isn't possible. But which isn't possible, then or now?

Taking his departure later, Jake enquired of Mysie at the door: "By the way, did your cousin get what she came for?"

"She didn't say," Mysie said.

4

I
N
HER
own room, Gina seemed to hear the ticking of the nurse's wrist watch. An absurd fancy; it was her own traveling clock, of course; but her mind was elsewhere. She had ventured to pass by Mrs. Siddall's door at six o'clock, when the night nurses came on duty. The slight stir of the exchange roused Mrs. Siddall's curiosity; she was extremely bored after twenty-four hours of darkness and silence; and restless with discomfort. "Who is there?" she demanded. Mrs. Perry, already admitted, informed her, and Mrs. Siddall bade Gina come in. Since Mrs. Siddall ignored the surgeon's general instructions as soon as he was gone, the nurses did not know how to enforce them. She had refused to go to a hospital, and in her own house she was used to exercising unquestioned authority. It seemed inadvisable to give her any more sedatives.

"Don't sniffle, Annabel," Mrs. Siddall commanded. Propped against a mound of pillows in her immense canopied bed, against a headboard on which fat cupids were entwined with fat garlands of roses, she was still the dynamic center of her little world. The white stuff bound across her brow and secured under her chin lent her a Sibylline air. The visible portion of her face was slightly swollen and congested. The doctors said she had come through the operation wonderfully. Conscious of the exasperation of the nurses, Gina whispered: "Oh, Mrs. Siddall, I'm so glad ..."

Mrs. Siddall answered rather hoarsely: "You wouldn't expect that a bandage around your eyes would make it harder to breathe. It does, though." She turned her head impatiently. The nurse said: "Please, Mrs. Siddall, you mustn't tire yourself with talking."

"Very well," the old lady said. "Arthur!" She put out her hand. Arthur was on the opposite side of the bed, sitting in the shadow of a tall screen which cut off the light from the dressing room. He took the groping hand in his. "The doctor said he might stay half an hour, if he wouldn't disturb you," the nurse reminded Mrs. Siddall. The second nurse made a shooing motion; Gina backed out.

Miss Kirkland was sitting stonily in the library, resentful of exclusion. Gina went to her own room. She tried to read. Detached phrases irritated the surface of her mind. The book she had picked up at random was a romantic novel. Romantic novels told you nothing. Nor did the literal facts, which she had long ago gleaned academically from more technical treatises. Not only was there no help in them, they might be positively misleading, because they stopped short precisely where her experience stopped, giving no clue to the significance of facts. The same words, the same actions even, might mean everything, anything or nothing. What was the difference between Juliet bending to Romeo from her balcony, and the sullen, cheap, defiant girls whom the Settlement House workers strove to reform?

Gina didn't want to go to bed; the house was too still. Going out to the head of the stairs, she peered down. The upper hall was empty. She returned to her room, undressed slowly, and brushed her hair before the mirror. She observed the roundness of her arms, the smooth whiteness of her neck, against the old ivory silk of her kimono, which was embroidered with tiny yellow butterflies and blue flowers... She stared into the mirror, facing it down. It had done Mysie no good, but what harm? You could lose either way. Her thoughts had a terrifying clarity and her senses were uncannily sharpened. A disturbance, felt rather than heard, brought her up standing. She went to the head of the stairs again.

Mrs. Siddall's rooms were on the floor below. There was a telephone at the end of the hall; a nurse was speaking through it, resting one knee on a chair and leaning forward. Obviously she was using this extension so that Mrs. Siddall should not hear. "Yes," she said, "the amyl capsules ... we did . . . yes, yes ... I understand, doctor ... nothing else unless . . ." She went into some technical terms which Gina did not understand; then she replaced the telephone and hurried back to her duty. Her blue and white striped uniform and stiff winged cap struck a firm note against the dark-paneled wall... Gina stayed by the newel post above, waiting.

Very soon Arthur went along the hall below, in a dark blue brocade dressing gown, his hair rumpled. Then the doctor came up, grave and hurried, shedding his overcoat into the hands of the butler on the stairs. After five minutes of strained watchfulness, Gina returned to her room, leaving the door ajar an inch. She hoped intensely that nobody would call Mrs. Perry or Miss Kirkland.

Gina kept her vigil for an hour. It seemed interminable. If Mrs. Siddall were dying down there . . . Gina needed, desperately, a little more time. There would be no place for her in a house of mourning; she might never see Arthur again. As a child she was taught to pray; she had always prayed for some definite, tangible benefit. She prayed now for her chance.

It wasn't fair. . . .

She heard the doctor leaving, and stole out to the stairhead. A nurse, listening to final instructions, looked briskly cheerful. Arthur shook hands with the doctor, and accompanied him downstairs. Gina returned to her room. She sat for half an hour, telling herself she ought to go to bed. The door was still ajar. Before closing it, she listened again.

She could hear Arthur pacing up and down the hall below. She knew his step. He went by twice before he looked up and saw her.

"Gina," he said in a low voice, and came up.

"Is she better?" Gina whispered.

"Yes . . . Gina—can I talk to you?"

"Where?" She steadied herself by the banister.

"Anywhere. Couldn't you ..." He looked about. "In the library?" She made a negative motion of regret, and he caught her sleeve. She looked over her shoulder.

"Listen," she said, "if you . . ." He followed her. Inside her room, she leaned against the closed door, with her hands behind her. "You won't think . . .?"

"No," he said simply. He was not thinking; he was comforted, enchanted by the atmosphere without perceiving the details which composed it: a silk slip lying across a chair, slippers decorously placed side by side, mirror and powderpuff and silver trifles on the dressing-table. The shaded lamp made a warm ring of light on the rose-colored rug. The room was shadowy and serene; he may have seen it before, but it seemed different, as if it did not belong to the rest of the house.

Gina slipped the catch of the lock. She said soothingly: "What was the matter? I was dreadfully worried, but didn't like to intrude."

Arthur answered vaguely; the doctor had been professionally incomprehensible. Nervous shock, syncope; the danger was averted; the patient was in a natural sleep. In short, the doctor preferred not to mention that Mrs. Siddall had over-eaten at supper; she believed in keeping up her strength, and as a result had come near putting all her other beliefs to proof.

"But she might have . . ." Arthur rubbed his hand across his eyes and sat down on the chaise longue. He didn't want to put in words or remember the scene; he had been admitted to Mrs. Siddall's room while she was unconscious, fighting for breath. There was a ghastly indignity about it, violence to age and to the integrity of personality. His affection for his grandmother rested upon a foundation of respect; it was as if he had been forced to stand by helpless and witness the contempt of elementary forces for all human values. He had never seen death; the death of his mother and father was far-off, tragic and poetic. Youth turns to youth instinctively, in league against the knowledge of age and decay before them; he had been thinking of Gina, though hardly aware of it, when he looked up and saw her ... He shuddered slightly, drawing a deep breath.

"Don't, please please don't," she put her arm over his shoulders, moved for once to a natural and uncalculated gesture. "The doctor said there was no danger, didn't he?"

"Yes. But she's always been good to me." There was no danger. . . . He was quiet for awhile; the long silk sleeves sheltered him like wings. When he raised his head he saw the soft curve of Gina's arm and rested his cheek against it. He said: "I couldn't get to speak to you yesterday. You didn't come to the study. I thought you were offended." Gina thought dazedly, he expected me! She could only shake her head. He held her very gently, as if that were enough.

He had been reared by women, though less fortunate than Achilles among the maidens. Older women, a matriarchy. Had he been less masculine, he would have been less in subjection. He regarded Gina as if he had never seen a girl before, with his senses heightened to pure perceptiveness . . . Delicate bones, fine fingers, a dent in her upper lip and at the base of her throat. He wanted to touch the corners of her mouth, and there, between her breasts. . . . The folds of silk fell straight over her knees. . . .

"I didn't know," she murmured.

"You went out in the afternoon."

"Only for a little while," she answered. His simplicity gave her no lead. She thought, but he hasn't
said
anything. She did not understand the oldest language, which can use any words and needs none. . . . Her feet were bare, and she drew them under the hem of her kimono.

At her movement his expression changed. When he kissed her mouth she was afraid. She felt small and captive, ignorant that his strength was turned against himself; she turned away her face and he kissed her throat, and dropped his head on her breast; the warmth of his cheek came through the thin silk. "No, please," she whispered desperately, and struggled free, leaning back. When he lifted his head his eyes asked her. They were an intense dark blue, and he frowned against the light. She was to remember that look. He said: "I wouldn't hurt you." She knew it was true. His obedience gave her another kind of fear, not of him but of the unknown, the incalculable, the irrevocable. She could send him away. It rested with her. She knew it perfectly; and whichever course she chose, she might lose; there was no assurance.

She forced herself to remain passive. His unseeing look bewildered her and left her cold. When she kissed him she knew what she was doing. If this were her only chance. ... I can't, she thought. ... But I must—

* * *

Not in the light. She was never sure afterward if she said it aloud. In a panic of resolution, she stood up. The lamp was by the head of the bed; as she turned it off, the sudden dark dazzled her, and she seemed to have no weight in his arms. ... In deep water, if you let yourself go, you would be borne up safe; the tide would bring you in ... Or out . . . But it wasn't like that for her. If only she need not be so terribly aware. This was what nobody could ever tell; it was shaming and absurd and trivial and final.

And after all.... She thought, he doesn't care, it didn't mean anything to him except. . . . She had lost. Was he asleep? How could he? . . .

The two windows were squares of twilight framed in darkness; she could distinguish the mirror over the dressing-table, by the dim silver columns of the candlesticks reflected in it. The clock ticked away the minutes sharply.

She had supposed she would seem, to herself, a different person. It wasn't so. Except that she knew now how defenseless men and women are against each other, having once surrendered. Even if it meant nothing, there is nothing left to turn aside a word or a look. Her heart stopped and started again; Arthur said: "What is it, darling?"

"Nothing . . ." She thought, Mrs. Siddall might wake and ask for him; he would be missed.

"May I turn on the light?"

She remembered she herself had turned it off. ... It blinded her, pressed on her eyelids. Oh, no!

"I want to see you," he said. "Gina, will you marry me?"

Her lips were cold, and she tasted the salt of tears; they flowed from beneath her closed eyelids. He dried them with his handkerchief, lifting her up against his breast. She couldn't stop the tears nor open her eyes.

"Gina, I'm so sorry. You won't hate me, will you— because I love you. Darling, you will marry me?"

She said in a drowned voice: "Mrs. Siddall won't let us."

"It doesn't matter—I mean, of course I'll tell her we're going to be married; but why should she object? When will you? To-morrow?"

The impulse to take him at his word was almost overwhelming. "We can't do that." Only as a last resort. Absolute secrecy would be impossible; his name was too well known. There mustn't be discoveries and accusations, a quarrel, appalling publicity. "Please don't tell her till she's quite well."

He thought her exquisitely unselfish, and was glad to keep something absolutely his own for awhile. . . . Her humbled head, the points of her wet lashes resting on her cheek, gave him a curious sensation, a twist under his midriff, a masculine pride he was unable to deny, however barbarous the tradition. . . . Those other women— he didn't want to think of them now, but the thought came in spite of him—the difference was, you couldn't exactly think of this.