Twilight Sleep (15 page)

Manford, the day after his daughter had caught sight of him at the
Housetop, started out early for one of his long tramps around the
Park. He was not due at his office till ten, and he wanted first
to walk himself tired.

For some years after his marriage he had kept a horse in town, and
taken his morning constitutional in the saddle; but the daily
canter over the same bridle paths was too much like the circuit of
his wife's flower–garden. He took to his feet to make it last
longer, and when there was no time to walk had in a masseur who
prepared him, in the same way as everybody else, for the long hours
of sedentary hurry known as "business." The New York routine had
closed in on him, and he sometimes felt that, for intrinsic
interest, there was little to choose between Pauline's hurry and
his own. They seemed, all of them—lawyers, bankers, brokers,
railway–directors and the rest—to be cheating their inner
emptiness with activities as futile as those of the women they went
home to.

It was all wrong—something about it was fundamentally wrong. They
all had these colossal plans for acquiring power, and then, when it
was acquired, what came of it but bigger houses, more food, more
motors, more pearls, and a more self–righteous philanthropy?

The philanthropy was what he most hated: all these expensive plans
for moral forcible feeding, for compelling everybody to be cleaner,
stronger, healthier and happier than they would have been by the
unaided light of Nature. The longing to get away into a world
where men and women sinned and begot, lived and died, as they
chose, without the perpetual intervention of optimistic
millionaires, had become so strong that he sometimes felt the chain
of habit would snap with his first jerk.

That was what had secretly drawn him to Jim's wife. She was the
one person in his group to whom its catchwords meant absolutely
nothing. The others, whatever their private omissions or
indulgences, dressed up their selfish cravings in the same wordy
altruism. It used to be one's duty to one's neighbour; now it had
become one's duty to one's self. Duty, duty—always duty! But
when you spoke of duty to Lita she just widened her eyes and said:
"Is that out of the Marriage Service? 'Love, honour and obey'—
such a funny combination! Who do you suppose invented it? I
believe it must have been Pauline." One could never fix her
attention on any subject beyond her own immediate satisfaction, and
that animal sincerity seemed to Manford her greatest charm. Too
great a charm … a terrible danger. He saw it now. He thought
he had gone to her for relaxation, change—and he had just managed
to pull himself up on the edge of a precipice. But for the
sickening scene of the other evening, when he had shown her the
photograph, he might, old fool that he was, have let himself slip
into sentiment; and God knows where that tumble would have landed
him. Now a passionate pity had replaced his fatuous emotion, the
baleful siren was only a misguided child, and he was to help and
save her for Jim's sake and her own.

It was queer that such a mood of calm lucidity had come out of the
fury of hate with which he rushed from her house. If it had not,
he would have gone mad—smashed something, done something
irretrievable. And instead here he was, calmly contemplating his
own folly and hers! He must go on seeing her, of course; there was
more reason than ever for seeing her; but there would be no danger
in it now, only help for her—and perhaps healing for him. To this
new mood he clung as to an inviolable refuge. The turmoil and
torment of the last months could never reach him again: he had
found a way out, an escape. The relief of being quiet, of avoiding
a conflict, of settling everything without effusion of blood, stole
over him like the spell of the drug–taker's syringe. Poor little
Lita … never again to be adored (thank heaven), but, oh, so
much the more to be helped and pitied…

This deceptive serenity had come to him during his call on Mrs.
Landish—come from her very insensibility to any of the standards
he lived by. He had gone there—he saw it now—moved by the cruel
masculine desire to know the worst about a fallen idol. What he
called the determination to "face things"—what was it but the
savage longing to accumulate all the evidence against poor Lita?
Give up the Mahatma investigation? Never! All the more reason now
for going on with it; for exposing the whole blackguardly business,
opening poor Jim's eyes to his wife's past (better now than later),
and helping him to get on his feet again, start fresh, and recover
his faith in life and happiness. For of course poor Jim would be
the chief sufferer… Damn the woman! She wanted to get rid of
Jim, did she? Well, here was her chance—only it would be the
other way round. The tables would be turned on her. She'd see—!
This in his first blind outbreak of rage; but by the time he
reached Mrs. Landish's door the old legal shrewdness had come to
his rescue, and he had understood that a public scandal was
unnecessary, and therefore to be avoided. Easy enough to get rid
of Lita without that. With such evidence as he would soon possess
they could make any conditions they chose. Jim would keep the boy,
and the whole thing be settled quietly—but on their terms, not
hers! She would be only too thankful to clear out bag and baggage—
clean out of all their lives. Faugh—to think he had delegated
his own Nona; to look after her … the thought sickened him.

And then, in the end, it had all come out so differently. He
needed his hard tramp around the Park to see just why.

It was Mrs. Landish's own attitude—her silly rambling
irresponsibility, so like an elderly parody of Lita's youthful
carelessness. Mrs. Landish had met Manford's stern interrogations
by the vague reply that he mustn't ever come to HER for dates and
figures and statistics: that facts meant nothing to her, that the
only thing she cared for was Inspiration, Genius, the Divine Fire,
or whatever he chose to call it. Perhaps she'd done wrong, but she
had sacrificed everything, all her life, to her worship of genius.
She was always hunting for it everywhere, and it was because, from
the first, she had felt a touch of it in Lita that she had been so
devoted to the child. Didn't Manford feel it in Lita too? Of
course she, Mrs. Landish, had dreamed of another sort of marriage
for her niece … Oh, but Manford mustn't misunderstand! Jim
was perfect—TOO perfect. That was the trouble. Manford surely
guessed the meaning of that "too"? Such absolute reliability, such
complete devotion, were sometimes more of a strain to the artistic
temperament than scenes and infidelities. And Lita was first and
foremost an artist, born to live in the world of art—in quite
other values—a fourth–dimensional world, as it were. It wasn't
fair to judge her in her present surroundings, ideal as they
were in one way—a way that unfortunately didn't happen to be
hers! Mrs. Landish persisted in assuming Manford's complete
comprehension … "If Jim could only be made to understand as
you do; to see that ordinary standards don't apply to these rare
natures… Why, has the child told you what Klawhammer has
offered her to turn ONE FILM for him, before even having seen her
dance, just on the strength of what Jack Staley and Ardwin had told
him?"

Ah—there it was! The truth was out. Mrs. Landish, always in
debt, and always full of crazy schemes for wasting more money, had
seen a gold mine in the exploitation of her niece's gifts. The
divorce, instead of frightening her, delighted her. Manford smiled
as he thought how little she would be moved by Pauline's threat to
cut off the young couple. Pauline sometimes forgot that, even in
her own family, her authority was not absolute. She could
certainly not compete financially with Hollywood, and Mrs.
Landish's eyes were on Hollywood.

"Dear Mr. Manford—but you look shocked! Absolutely shocked! Does
the screen really frighten you? How funny!" Mrs. Landish, drawing
her rambling eyebrows together, seemed trying to picture the inner
darkness of such a state. "But surely you know the smartest people
are going in for it? Why, the Marchesa di San Fedele was showing
me the other day a photograph of that beautiful son of hers—one of
those really GREEK beings in bathing tights—and telling me that
Klawhammer, who had seen it, had authorized her to cable him to
come out to Hollywood on trial, all expenses paid. It seems they
can almost always recognize the eurythmic people at a glance.
Funny, wouldn't it be, if Michelangelo and Lita turned out to be
the future Valentino and—"

He didn't remember the rest of the rigmarole. He could only recall
shouting out, with futile vehemence: "My wife and I will do
everything to prevent a divorce—" and leaving his astonished
hostess on a threat of which he knew the uselessness as well as she
did.

That was the air in which Lita had grown up, those were the gods of
Viking Court! Yet Manford had stormed instead of pitying, been
furious instead of tolerant, risked disaster for Lita and Jim
instead of taking calm control of the situation. The vision of
Lita Wyant and Michelangelo as future film stars, "featured"
jointly on every hoarding from Maine to California, had sent the
blood to his head. Through a mist of rage he had seen the
monstrous pictures and conjectured the loathsome letter–press. And
no one would do more than look and laugh! At the thought, he felt
the destructive ire of the man who finds his private desires pitted
against the tendencies of his age. Well, they would see, that was
all: he would show them!

The resolve to act brought relief to his straining imagination.
Once again he felt himself seated at his office desk, all his
professional authority between him and his helpless interlocutors,
and impressive words and skilful arguments ordering themselves
automatically in his mind. After all, he was the head of his
family—in some degree even of Wyant's family.

Pauline's nervousness had gradually subsided. About the Rivingtons—
why, after all, it wasn't such a bad idea to show them that, with
a man of Manford's importance, one must take one's chance of
getting him, and make the best of it if he failed one at the last.
"Professional engagement; oh, yes, entirely unexpected; extremely
important; so dreadfully sorry, but you know lawyers are not their
own masters…" It had been rather pleasant to say that to a
flustered Mrs. Rivington, stammering: "Oh, but COULDN'T he … ?
But we'll wait … we'll dine at half–past nine…" Pleasant
also to add: "He must reserve his whole evening, I'm afraid," and
then hang up, and lean back at leisure, while Mrs. Rivington (how
Pauline pictured it!) dashed down in her dressing–gown and crimping
pins to re–arrange a table to which as much thought had been given
as if a feudal aristocracy were to sit at it.

To Pauline the fact that Manford wanted to be alone with her made
even such renunciations easy. How many years had passed since he
had expressed such a wish? And did she owe his tardy return to the
Mahatma and reduced hips, or the Inspirational Healer and renewed
optimism? If only a woman could guess what inclined a man's heart
to her, what withdrew it! Pauline, if she had had the standardizing
of life, would have begun with human hearts, and had them turned
out in series, all alike, rather than let them come into being
haphazard, cranky amateurish things that you couldn't count on, or
start up again if anything went wrong…

Just a touch of rouge? Well, perhaps her maid was right. She DID
look rather pale and drawn. Mrs. Herman Toy put it on with a
trowel … apparently that was what men liked… Pauline shed
a faint bloom on her cheeks and ran her clever fingers through her
prettily waved hair, wondering again, as she did so, if it wouldn't
be better to bob it. Then the mauve tea–gown, the Chinese
amethysts, and those silver sandals that made her feet so slender.
She looked at herself with a sigh of pleasure. Dinner was to be
served in the boudoir.

Manford was very late; it was ten o'clock before coffee and
liqueurs were put on the low stand by the fire, and the little
dinner–table was noiselessly removed. The fire glowed invitingly,
and he sank into the armchair his wife pushed forward with a sound
like a murmur of content.

"Such a day—" he said, passing his hand across his forehead as if
to brush away a tangle of legal problems.

"You do too much, Dexter; you really do. I know how wonderfully
young you are for your age, but still—." She broke off, dimly
perceiving that, in spite of the flattering exordium, this allusion
to his age was not quite welcome.

"Nothing to do with age," he growled. "Everybody who does anything
at all does too much." (Did he mean to imply that she did
nothing?)

"The nervous strain—" she began, once more wondering if this were
not the moment to slip in a word of Alvah Loft. But though Manford
had wished to be with her he had apparently no desire to listen to
her. It was all her own fault, she felt. If only she had known
how to reveal the secret tremors that were rippling through her!
There were women not half as clever and tactful—not younger,
either, nor even as good–looking—who would have known at once what
to say, or how to spell the mute syllables of soul–telegraphy. If
her husband had wanted facts—a good confidential talk about the
new burglar–alarm, or a clear and careful analysis of the engine–
house bills, or the heating system for the swimming pool—she could
have found just the confidential and tender accent for such topics.
Intimacy, to her, meant the tireless discussion of facts, not
necessarily of a domestic order, but definite and palpable facts.
For her part she was ready for anything, from Birth Control to neo–
impressionism: she flattered herself that few women had a wider
range. In confidential moments she preferred the homelier themes,
and would have enjoyed best of all being tender and gay about the
coal cellar, or reticent and brave about the leak in the boiler;
but she was ready to deal with anything as long as it was a fact,
something with substance and outline, as to which one could have an
opinion and a line of conduct. What paralyzed her was the sense
that, apart from his profession, her husband didn't care for facts,
and that nothing was less likely to rouse his interest than burglar–
alarm wiring, or the last new thing in electric ranges. Obviously,
one must take men as they were, wilful, moody and mysterious; but
she would have given the world to be told (since for all her
application she had never discovered) what those other women said
who could talk to a man about nothing.

Manford lit a cigar and stared into the fire. "It's about that
fool Amalasuntha," he began at length, addressing his words to the
logs.

The name jerked Pauline back to reality. Here was a fact—hard,
knobby and uncomfortable! And she had actually forgotten it in the
confused pleasure of their tête–à–tête! So he had only come home
to talk to her about Amalasuntha. She tried to keep the flatness
out of her: "Yes, dear?"

He continued, still fixed on the fire: "You may not know that
we've had a narrow escape."

"A narrow escape?"

"That damned Michelangelo—his mother was importing him this very
week. The cable had gone. If I hadn't put a stop to it we'd have
been saddled with him for life."

Pauline's breath failed her. She listened with straining ears.

"You haven't seen her, then—she hasn't told you?" Manford
continued. "She was getting him out on her own responsibility to
turn a film for Klawhammer. Simply that! By the mercy of heaven I
headed her off—but we hadn't a minute to lose."

In her bewilderment at this outburst, and at what it revealed,
Pauline continued to sit speechless. "Michelangelo—Klawhammer? I
didn't know! But wouldn't it have been the best solution,
perhaps?"

"Solution—of what? Don't you think one member of the family on
the screen's enough at a time? Or would it have looked prettier to
see him and Lita featured together on every hoarding in the
country? My God—I thought I'd done the right thing in acting for
you … there was no time to consult you … but if YOU don't
care, why should I? He's none of MY family … and she isn't
either, for that matter."

He had swung round from the hearth, and faced her for the first
time, his brows contracted, the veins swelling on his temples, his
hands grasping his knees as if to constrain himself not to start up
in righteous indignation. He was evidently deeply disturbed, yet
his anger, she felt, was only the unconscious mask of another
emotion—an emotion she could not divine. His vehemence, and the
sense of moving in complete obscurity, had an intimidating effect
on her.

"I don't quite understand, Dexter. Amalasuntha was here today.
She said nothing about films, or Klawhammer; but she did say that
you'd made it unnecessary for Michelangelo to come to America."

"Didn't she say how?"

"She said something about—paying his debts."

Manford stood up and went to lean against the mantelpiece. He
looked down on his wife, who in her turn kept her eyes on the
embers.

"Well—you didn't suppose I made that offer till I saw we were up
against it, did you?"

His voice rose again angrily, but a cautious glance at his face
showed her that its tormented lines were damp with perspiration.
Her immediate thought was that he must be ill, that she ought to
take his temperature—she always responded by first–aid impulses to
any contact with human distress. But no, after all, it was not
that: he was unhappy, that was it, he was desperately unhappy. But
why? Was it because he feared he had exceeded his rights in
pledging her to such an extent, in acting for her when there was no
time to consult her? Apparently the idea of the discord between
Lita and Jim, and Lita's thirst for scenic notoriety, had shocked
him deeply—much more, in reality, than they had Pauline. If so,
his impulse had been a natural one, and eminently in keeping with
those Wyant traditions with which (at suitable moments) she
continued to identify herself. Yes: she began to understand his
thinking it would be odious to her to see the names of her son's
wife and this worthless Italian cousin emblazoned over every
Picture Palace in the land. She felt moved by his regard for her
feelings. After all, as he said, Lita and Michelangelo were no
relations of his; he could easily have washed his hands of the
whole affair.

"I'm sure what you've done must be right, Dexter; you know I always
trust your judgment. Only—I wish you'd explain…"

"Explain what?" Her mild reply seemed to provoke a new wave of
exasperation. "The only way to stop his coming was to pay his
debts. They're very heavy. I had no right to commit you; I
acknowledge it."

She took a deep breath, the figure of Michelangelo's liabilities
blazing out before her as on a giant blackboard. Then: "You had
every right, Dexter," she said. "I'm glad you did it."

He stood silent, his head bent, twisting between his fingers the
cigar he had forgotten to relight. It was as if he had been
startled out of speech by the promptness of her acquiescence, and
would have found it easier to go on arguing and justifying himself.

"That's—very handsome of you, Pauline," he said at length.

"Oh, no—why? You did it out of regard for me, I know. Only—
perhaps you won't mind our talking things over a little. About
ways and means … " she added, seeing his forehead gloom again.

"Ways and means—oh, certainly. But please understand that I don't
expect you to shoulder the whole sum. I've had two big fees
lately; I've already arranged—"

She interrupted him quickly. "It's not your affair, Dexter.
You're awfully generous, always; but I couldn't think of letting
you—"

"It IS my affair; it's all of our affair. I don't want this nasty
notoriety any more than you do … and Jim's happiness wrecked
into the bargain…"

"You're awfully generous," she repeated.

"It's first of all a question of helping Jim and Lita. If that
young ass came over here with a contract from Klawhammer in his
pocket there'd be no holding her. And once that gang get hold of a
woman…" He spoke with a kind of breathless irritation, as
though it were incredible that Pauline should still not understand.

"It's very fine of you, dear," she could only murmur.

A pause followed, during which, for the first time, she could
assemble her thoughts and try to take in the situation. Dexter had
bought off Michelangelo to keep one more disturbing element out of
the family complication; perhaps also to relieve himself of the
bother of having on his hands, at close quarters, an idle and
mischief–making young man. That was comprehensible. But if his
first object had been the securing of Jim's peace of mind, might
not the same end have been achieved, more satisfactorily to every
one but Michelangelo, by his uniting with Pauline to increase Jim's
allowance, and thus giving Lita the amusement and distraction of
having a lot more money to spend? Even at such a moment, Pauline's
practical sense of values made it hard for her to accept the idea
of putting so many good thousands into the pockets of Michelangelo's
creditors. She was naturally generous; but no matter how she
disposed of her fortune, she could never forget that it had been
money—and how much money it had been—before it became something
else. For her it was never transmuted, but only exchanged.

"You're not satisfied—you don't think I did right?" Manford began
again.

"I don't say that, Dexter. I'm only wondering—. Supposing we'd
given the money to Jim instead? Lita could have done her house
over … or built a bungalow in Florida … or bought jewels
with it… She's so easily amused."

"Easily amused!" He broke into a hard laugh. "Why, that amount of
money wouldn't amuse her for a week!" His face took on a look of
grim introspection. "She wants the universe—or her idea of it. A
woman with an offer from Klawhammer dangling in front of her! Mrs.
Landish told me the figure—those people could buy us all out and
not know it."

Pauline's heart sank. Apparently he knew things about Lita of
which she was still ignorant. "I hadn't heard the offer had
actually been made. But if it has, and she wants to accept, how
can we stop her?"

Manford had thrown himself down into his armchair. He got up
again, relit his cigar, and walked across the room and back before
answering. "I don't know that we can. And I don't know how we
can. But I want to try… I want TIME to try… Don't you
see, Pauline? The child—we mustn't be hard on her. Her
beginnings were damnable… Perhaps you know—yes? That cursèd
Mahatma place?" Pauline winced, and looked away from him. He had
seen the photograph, then! And heaven knows what more he had
discovered in the course of his investigations for the Lindons…
A sudden light glared out at her. It was for Jim's sake and Lita's
that he had dropped the case—sacrificed his convictions, his sense
of the duty of exposing a social evil! She faltered: "I do
know … a little…"

"Well, a little's enough. Swine—! And that's the rotten
atmosphere she was brought up in. But she's not bad, Pauline …
there's something still to be done with her … give me time …
time…" He stopped abruptly, as if the "me" had slipped out
by mistake. "We must all stand shoulder to shoulder to put up this
fight for her," he corrected himself with a touch of forensic
emphasis.

"Of course, dear, of course," Pauline murmured.

"When we get her to ourselves at Cedarledge, you and Nona and I…
It's just as well Jim's going off, by the way. He's got her
nerves on edge; Jim's a trifle dense at times, you know… And,
above all, this whole business, Klawhammer and all, must be kept
from him. We'll all hold our tongues till the thing blows over,
eh?"