Twilight Sleep (11 page)

He mumbled: "Dining out. Can't wait."

"Oh, but you must!" Her hand was on his arm, as light as a petal.
"I want you." He could just see the twinkle of small round teeth
as her upper lip lifted… "Can't … can't." He tried to
disengage his voice, as if that too were tangled up in her.

He moved away toward the door. The "Looker–on" lay on the floor
between them. So much the better; she would find it when he was
gone! She would understand then why he hadn't waited. And no fear
of Jim's getting hold of the paper; trust her to make it disappear!

"Why, what's that?" She bent her supple height to pick it up and
moved to the lamp, her face alight.

"You darling, you—did you bring me this? What luck! I've been
all over the place hunting for a copy—the whole edition's sold
out. I had the original photograph somewhere, but couldn't put my
hand on it."

She had reached the fatal page; she was spreading it open. Her
smile caressed it; her mouth looked like a pink pod bursting on a
row of pearly seeds. She turned to Manford almost tenderly.
"After you prevented my going to Ardwin's I had to swear to send
this to Klawhammer, to show that I really CAN dance. Tommy
telephoned at daylight that Klawhammer was off to Hollywood, and
that when I chucked last night they all said it was because I knew
I couldn't come up to the scratch." She held out the picture with
an air of pride. "Doesn't look much like it, does it? … Why,
what are you staring at? Didn't you know I was going in for the
movies? Immobility was never my strong point…" She threw the
paper down, and began to undo her furs with a lazy smile, sketching
a dance step as she did so. "Why do you look so shocked? If I
don't do that I shall run away with Michelangelo. I suppose you
know that Amalasuntha's importing him? I can't stick this sort of
thing much longer… Besides, we've all got a right to self–
expression, haven't we?"

Manford continued to look at her. He hardly heard what she was
saying, in the sickness of realizing what she was. Those were the
thoughts, the dreams, behind those temples on which the light laid
such pearly circles!

He said slowly: "This picture—it's true, then? You've been
there?"

"Dawnside? Bless you—where'd you suppose I learnt to dance? Aunt
Kitty used to plant me out there whenever she wanted to go off on
her own—which was pretty frequently." She had tossed of her hat,
slipped out of her furs, and lowered the flounce of the lamp–shade;
and there she stood before him in her scant slim dress, her arms,
bare to the shoulder, lifted in an amphora–gesture to her little
head.

"Oh, children—but I'm bored!" she yawned.

Pauline Manford was losing faith in herself; she felt the need of a
new moral tonic. Could she still obtain it from the old sources?
The morning after the Toys' dinner, considering the advisability of
repairing to that small bare room at Dawnside where the Mahatma
gave his private audiences, she felt a chill of doubt. She would
have preferred, just then, not to be confronted with the sage; in
going to him she risked her husband's anger, and prudence warned
her to keep out of the coming struggle. If the Mahatma should ask
her to intervene she could only answer that she had already done so
unsuccessfully; and such admissions, while generally useless, are
always painful. Yet guidance she must have: no Papist in quest of
"direction" (wasn't that what Amalasuntha called it?) could have
felt the need more acutely. Certainly the sacrament of confession,
from which Pauline's ingrained Protestantism recoiled in horror,
must have its uses at such moments. But to whom, if not to the
Mahatma, could she confess?

Dexter had gone down town without asking to see her; she had been
sure he would, after their drive to and from the Toys' the evening
before. When he was in one of his moods of clenched silence—they
were becoming more frequent, she had remarked—she knew the
uselessness of interfering. Echoes of the Freudian doctrine,
perhaps rather confusedly apprehended, had strengthened her faith
in the salutariness of "talking things over," and she longed to
urge this remedy again on Dexter; but the last time she had done so
he had wounded her by replying that he preferred an aperient. And
in his present mood of stony inaccessibility he might say something
even coarser.

She sat in her boudoir, painfully oppressed by an hour of
unexpected leisure. The facial–massage artist had the grippe, and
had notified her only at the last moment. To be sure, she had
skipped her "Silent Meditation" that morning; but she did not feel
in the mood for it now. And besides, an hour is too long for
meditation—an hour is too long for anything. Now that she had one
to herself, for the first time in years, she didn't in the least
know what to do with it. That was something which no one had ever
thought of teaching her; and the sense of being surrounded by a
sudden void, into which she could reach out on all sides without
touching an engagement or an obligation, produced in her a sort of
mental dizziness. She had taken plenty of rest–cures, of course;
all one's friends did. But during a rest–cure one was always busy
resting; every minute was crammed with passive activities; one
never had this queer sense of inoccupation, never had to face an
absolutely featureless expanse of time. It made her feel as if the
world had rushed by and forgotten her. An hour—why, there was no
way of measuring the length of an empty hour! It stretched away
into infinity like the endless road in a nightmare; it gaped before
her like the slippery sides of an abyss. Nervously she began to
wonder what she could do to fill it—if there were not some new
picture show or dressmakers' opening or hygienic exhibition that
she might cram into it before the minute hand switched round to her
next engagement. She took up her list to see what that engagement
was.

"11.45. Mrs. Swoffer."

Oh, to be sure … Mrs. Swoffer. Maisie had reminded her that
morning. The relief was instantaneous. Only, who WAS Mrs.
Swoffer? Was she the President of the Militant Pacifists' League,
or the Heroes' Day delegate, or the exponent of the New Religion of
Hope, or the woman who had discovered a wonderful trick for taking
the wrinkles out of the corners of your eyes? Maisie was out on an
urgent commission, and could not be consulted; but whatever Mrs.
Swoffer's errand was, her arrival would be welcome—especially if
she came before her hour. And she did.

She was a small plump woman of indefinite age, with faded blond
hair and rambling features held together by a pair of urgent eye–
glasses. She asked if she might hold Pauline's hand just a moment
while she looked at her and reverenced her—and Pauline, on
learning that this was the result of reading her Mothers' Day
speech in the morning papers, acceded not unwillingly.

Not that that was what Mrs. Swoffer had come for; she said it was
just a flower she wanted to gather on the way. A rose with the dew
on it—she took off her glasses and wiped them, as if to show where
the dew had come from. "You speak for so MANY of us," she
breathed, and recovered Pauline's hand for another pressure.

But she HAD come for the children, all the same; and that was
really coming for the mothers, wasn't it? Only she wanted to reach
the mothers through the children—reversing the usual process.
Mrs. Swoffer said she believed in reversing almost everything.
Standing on your head was one of the most restorative physical
exercises, and she believed it was the same mentally and morally.
It was a good thing to stand one's SOUL upside down. And so she'd
come about the children…

The point was to form a League—a huge International League of
Mothers―against the dreadful old practice of telling children
they were naughty. Had Mrs. Manford ever stopped to think what an
abominable thing it was to suggest to a pure innocent child that
there was such a thing in the world as Being Naughty? What did it
open the door to? Why, to the idea of Wickedness, the most awful
idea in the whole world.

Of course Mrs. Manford would see at once what getting rid of the
idea of Wickedness would lead to. How could there be bad men if
there were no bad children? And how could there be bad children if
children were never allowed to know that such a thing as badness
existed? There was a splendid woman—Orba Clapp; no doubt Mrs.
Manford had heard of her?—who was getting up a gigantic world–wide
movement to boycott the manufacturers and sellers of all military
toys, tin soldiers, cannon, toy rifles, water–pistols and so on.
It was a grand beginning, and several governments had joined the
movement already: the Philippines, Mrs. Swoffer thought, and
possibly Montenegro. But that seemed to her only a beginning: much
as she loved and revered Orba Clapp, she couldn't honestly say that
she thought the scheme went deep enough. She, Mrs. Swoffer, wanted
to go right down to the soul: the collective soul of all the little
children. The great Teacher, Alvah Loft—she supposed Mrs. Manford
knew about HIM? No? She was surprised that a woman like Mrs.
Manford—"one of our beacon–lights"—hadn't heard of Alvah Loft.
She herself owed everything to him. No one had helped her as he
had: he had pulled her out of the very depths of scepticism. But
didn't Mrs. Manford know his books, even: "Spiritual Vacuum–
Cleaning" and "Beyond God"?

Pauline had grown a little listless while the children were to the
fore. She would help, of course; lend her name; subscribe. But
that string had been so often twanged that it gave out rather a
deadened note: whereas the name of a new Messiah immediately roused
her. "Beyond God" was a tremendous title; she would get Maisie to
telephone for the books at once. But what exactly did Alvah Loft
teach?

Mrs. Swoffer's eye–glasses flashed with inspiration. "He doesn't
teach: he absolutely refuses to be regarded as a TEACHER. He says
there are too many already. He's an Inspirational Healer. What he
does is to ACT on you—on your spirit. He simply relieves you of
your frustrations."

Frustrations! Pauline was fascinated by the word. Not that it was
new to her. Her vocabulary was fairly large, far more so, indeed,
than that of her daughter's friends, whose range was strictly
limited to sport and dancing; but whenever she heard a familiar
word used as if it had some unsuspected and occult significance it
fascinated her like a phial containing a new remedy.

Mrs. Swoffer's glasses were following Pauline's thoughts as they
formed. "Will you let me speak to you as I would to an old friend?
The moment I took your hand I KNEW you were suffering from
frustrations. To any disciple of Alvah Loft's the symptoms are
unmistakeable. Sometimes I almost wish I didn't see it all so
clearly … it gives one such a longing to help…"

Pauline murmured: "I DO want help."

"Of course you do," Mrs. Swoffer purred, "and you want HIS help.
Don't you know those wonderful shoe–shops where they stock every
size and shape the human foot can require? I tell Alvah Loft he's
like that; he's got a cure for everybody's frustrations. Of
course," she added, "there isn't time for everybody; he has to
choose. But he would take YOU at once." She drew back, and her
glasses seemed to suck Pauline down as if they had been quicksands.
"You're psychic," she softly pronounced.

"I believe I am," Pauline acknowledged. "But—"

"Yes; I know; those frustrations! All the things you think you
ought to do, AND CAN'T; that's it, isn't it?" Mrs. Swoffer stood
up. "Dear friend, come with me. Don't look at your watch. Just
come!"

An hour later Pauline, refreshed and invigorated, descended the
Inspirational Healer's brown–stone doorstep with a springing step.
It had been worth while breaking three or four engagements to
regain that feeling of moral freedom. Why had she never heard of
Alvah Loft before? His method was so much simpler than the
Mahatma's: no eurythmics, gymnastics, community life, no mental
deep–breathing, or long words to remember. Alvah Loft simply took
out your frustrations as if they'd been adenoids; it didn't last
ten minutes, and was perfectly painless. Pauline had always felt
that the Messiah who should reduce his message to tabloid form
would outdistance all the others; and Alvah Loft had done it. He
just received you in a boarding–house back–parlour, with bunches of
pampas–grass on the mantelpiece, while rows of patients sat in the
front room waiting their turn. You told him what was bothering
you, and he said it was just a frustration, and he could relieve
you of it, and make it so that it didn't exist, by five minutes of
silent communion. And he sat and held you by the wrist, very
lightly, as if he were taking your temperature, and told you to
keep your eyes on the Ella Wheeler Wilcox line–a–day on the wall
over his head. After it was over he said: "You're a good subject.
The frustrations are all out. Go home, and you'll hear something
good before dinner. Twenty–five dollars." And a pasty–faced young
man with pale hair, who was waiting in the passage, added: "Pass
on, please," and steered Pauline out by the elbow.

Of course she wasn't naturally credulous; she prided herself on
always testing everything by reason. But it WAS marvellous, how
light she felt as she went down the steps! The buoyancy persisted
all day, perhaps strengthened by an attentive study of the reports
of the Mothers' Day Meeting, laid out by the vigilant Maisie for
perusal. Alvah Loft had told her that she would hear of something
good before dinner, and when, late in the afternoon, she went up to
her boudoir, she glanced expectantly at the writing–table, as if
revelation might be there. It was, in the shape of a telephone
message.

"Mr. Manford will be at home by seven. He would like to see you
for a few minutes before dinner."

It was nearly seven, and Pauline settled herself by the fire and
unfolded the evening paper. She seldom had time for its perusal,
but today there might be some reference to the Mothers' Day
Meeting; and her newly–regained serenity made it actually pleasant
to be sitting there undisturbed, waiting for her husband.

"Dexter—how tired you look!" she exclaimed when he came in. It
occurred to her at once that she might possibly insinuate an
allusion to the new healer; but wisdom counselled a waiting policy,
and she laid down her paper and smiled expectantly.

Manford gave his shoulders their usual impatient shake. "Everybody
looks tired at the end of a New York day; I suppose it's what New
York is for." He sat down in the armchair facing hers, and stared
at the fire.

"I wanted to see you to talk about plans—a rearrangement," he
began. "It's so hard to find a quiet minute."

"Yes; but there's no hurry now. The Delavans don't dine till half–
past eight."

"Oh, are we dining there?" He reached for a cigarette.

She couldn't help saying: "I'm sure you smoke too much, Dexter.
The irritation produced by the paper—"

"Yes; I know. But what I wanted to say is: I should like you to
ask Lita and the boy to Cedarledge while Jim and Wyant are at the
island."

This was a surprise; but she met it with unmoved composure. "Of
course, if you like. But do you think Lita'll go, all alone?
You'll be off tarpon–fishing, Nona is going to Asheville for a
fortnight's change, and I had intended—" She pulled up suddenly.
She had meant, of course, to take her rest–cure at Dawnside.

Manford sat frowning and studying the fire. "Why shouldn't we all
go to Cedarledge instead?" he began. "Somebody ought to look after
Lita while Jim's away; in fact, I don't believe he'll go with Wyant
if we don't. She's dead–beat, and doesn't know it, and with all
the fools she has about her the only way to ensure her getting a
real rest is to carry her off to the country with the boy."

Pauline's face lit up with a blissful incredulity. "Oh, Dexter—
would you really come to Cedarledge for Easter? How splendid! Of
course I'll give up my rest–cure. As you say, there's no place
like the country."

She was already raising an inward hymn to Alvah Loft. An Easter
holiday in the country, all together—how long it was since that
had happened! She had always thought it her duty to urge Dexter to
get away from the family when he had the chance; to travel or shoot
or fish, and not feel himself chained to her side. And here at
last was her reward—of his own accord he was proposing that they
should all be together for a quiet fortnight. A softness came
about her heart: the stiff armour of her self–constraint seemed
loosened, and she saw the fire through a luminous blur. "It will
be lovely," she murmured.