XV
THAT hour with Strefford had altered her whole perspective. Instead ofpossible dependence, an enforced return to the old life of connivancesand concessions, she saw before her--whenever she chose to takethem--freedom, power and dignity. Dignity! It was odd what weight thatword had come to have for her. She had dimly felt its significance,felt the need of its presence in her inmost soul, even in the youngthoughtless days when she had seemed to sacrifice so little to theaustere divinities. And since she had been Nick Lansing's wife she hadconsciously acknowledged it, had suffered and agonized when she fellbeneath its standard. Yes: to marry Strefford would give her thatsense of self-respect which, in such a world as theirs, only wealth andposition could ensure. If she had not the mental or moral training toattain independence in any other way, was she to blame for seeking it onsuch terms?
Of course there was always the chance that Nick would come back, wouldfind life without her as intolerable as she was finding it without him.If that happened--ah, if that happened! Then she would cease to strainher eyes into the future, would seize upon the present moment and plungeinto it to the very bottom of oblivion. Nothing on earth would matterthen--money or freedom or pride, or her precious moral dignity, if onlyshe were in Nick's arms again!
But there was Nick's icy letter, there was Coral Hicks's insolentpost-card, to show how little chance there was of such a solution. Susyunderstood that, even before the discovery of her transaction with EllieVanderlyn, Nick had secretly wearied, if not of his wife, at least ofthe life that their marriage compelled him to lead. His passion was notstrong enough-had never been strong enough--to outweigh his prejudices,scruples, principles, or whatever one chose to call them. Susy's dignitymight go up like tinder in the blaze of her love; but his was made of aless combustible substance. She had felt, in their last talk together,that she had forever destroyed the inner harmony between them.
Well--there it was, and the fault was doubtless neither hers nor his,but that of the world they had grown up in, of their own moral contemptfor it and physical dependence on it, of his half-talents and herhalf-principles, of the something in them both that was not stout enoughto resist nor yet pliant enough to yield. She stared at the fact on thejourney back to Versailles, and all that sleepless night in her room;and the next morning, when the housemaid came in with her breakfasttray, she felt the factitious energy that comes from having decided,however half-heartedly, on a definite course.
She had said to herself: "If there's no letter from Nick this time nextweek I'll write to Streff--" and the week had passed, and there was noletter.
It was now three weeks since he had left her, and she had had noword but his note from Genoa. She had concluded that, foreseeing theprobability of her leaving Venice, he would write to her in care oftheir Paris bank. But though she had immediately notified the bank ofher change of address no communication from Nick had reached her; andshe smiled with a touch of bitterness at the difficulty he was doubtlessfinding in the composition of the promised letter. Her own scrap-basket,for the first days, had been heaped with the fragments of the lettersshe had begun; and she told herself that, since they both found it sohard to write, it was probably because they had nothing left to say toeach other.
Meanwhile the days at Mrs. Melrose's drifted by as they had been wontto drift when, under the roofs of the rich, Susy Branch had markedtime between one episode and the next of her precarious existence.Her experience of such sojourns was varied enough to make her acutelyconscious of their effect on her temporary hosts; and in the presentcase she knew that Violet was hardly aware of her presence. But if nomore than tolerated she was at least not felt to be an inconvenience;when your hostess forgot about you it proved that at least you were notin her way.
Violet, as usual, was perpetually on the wing, for her profoundindolence expressed itself in a disordered activity. Nat Fulmer hadreturned to Paris; but Susy guessed that his benefactress was stillconstantly in his company, and that when Mrs. Melrose was whirled awayin her noiseless motor it was generally toward the scene of some newencounter between Fulmer and the arts. On these occasions she sometimesoffered to carry Susy to Paris, and they devoted several long andhectic mornings to the dress-makers, where Susy felt herself graduallysuccumbing to the familiar spell of heaped-up finery. It seemedimpossible, as furs and laces and brocades were tossed aside, broughtback, and at last carelessly selected from, that anything but the whimof the moment need count in deciding whether one should take all ornone, or that any woman could be worth looking at who did not possessthe means to make her choice regardless of cost.
Once alone, and in the street again, the evil fumes would evaporate,and daylight re-enter Susy's soul; yet she felt that the old poison wasslowly insinuating itself into her system. To dispel it she decidedone day to look up Grace Fulmer. She was curious to know how thehappy-go-lucky companion of Fulmer's evil days was bearing the weight ofhis prosperity, and she vaguely felt that it would be refreshing to seesome one who had never been afraid of poverty.
The airless pension sitting-room, where she waited while a reluctantmaid-servant screamed about the house for Mrs. Fulmer, did not havethe hoped-for effect. It was one thing for Grace to put up with suchquarters when she shared them with Fulmer; but to live there while hebasked in the lingering radiance of Versailles, or rolled from chateauto picture gallery in Mrs. Melrose's motor, showed a courage that Susyfelt unable to emulate.
"My dear! I knew you'd look me up," Grace's joyous voice ran down thestairway; and in another moment she was clasping Susy to her tumbledperson.
"Nat couldn't remember if he'd given you our address, though he promisedme he would, the last time he was here." She held Susy at arms'length, beaming upon her with blinking short-sighted eyes: the sameold dishevelled Grace, so careless of her neglected beauty and hersquandered youth, so amused and absent-minded and improvident, that theboisterous air of the New Hampshire bungalow seemed to enter with herinto the little air-tight salon.
While she poured out the tale of Nat's sudden celebrity, and itsunexpected consequences, Susy marvelled and dreamed. Was the secretof his triumph perhaps due to those long hard unrewarded years, thesteadfast scorn of popularity, the indifference to every kind ofmaterial ease in which his wife had so gaily abetted him? Had it beenbought at the cost of her own freshness and her own talent, of thechildren's "advantages," of everything except the closeness of the tiebetween husband and wife? Well--it was worth the price, no doubt; butwhat if, now that honours and prosperity had come, the tie were snapped,and Grace were left alone among the ruins?
There was nothing in her tone or words to suggest such a possibility.Susy noticed that her ill-assorted raiment was costlier in quality andmore professional in cut than the home-made garments which had drapedher growing bulk at the bungalow: it was clear that she was trying todress up to Nat's new situation. But, above all, she was rejoicing init, filling her hungry lungs with the strong air of his success. It hadevidently not occurred to her as yet that those who consent to share thebread of adversity may want the whole cake of prosperity for themselves.
"My dear, it's too wonderful! He's told me to take as many concert andopera tickets as I like; he lets me take all the children with me. Thebig concerts don't begin till later; but of course the Opera is alwaysgoing. And there are little things--there's music in Paris at allseasons. And later it's just possible we may get to Munich for aweek--oh, Susy!" Her hands clasped, her eyes brimming, she drank the newwine of life almost sacramentally.
"Do you remember, Susy, when you and Nick came to stay at the bungalow?Nat said you'd be horrified by our primitiveness-but I knew better! AndI was right, wasn't I? Seeing us so happy made you and Nick decide tofollow our example, didn't it?" She glowed with the remembrance. "Andnow, what are your plans? Is Nick's book nearly done? I suppose you'llhave to live very economically till he finds a publisher. And the baby,darling-when is that to be? If you're coming home soon I could let youhave a lot of the children's little old things."
Mrs. Fulmer asked nothing better: Susy perceived that, so far, thegreater part of her European experience had consisted in talking aboutwhat it was to be. "Well, you see, Nat is so taken up all day withsight-seeing and galleries and meeting important people that he hasn'thad time to go about with us; and as so few theatres are open, andthere's so little music, I've taken the opportunity to catch up withmy mending. Junie helps me with it now--she's our eldest, you remember?She's grown into a big girl since you saw her. And later, perhaps,we're to travel. And the most wonderful thing of all--next to Nat'srecognition, I mean--is not having to contrive and skimp, and give upsomething every single minute. Just think--Nat has even made specialarrangements here in the pension, so that the children all have secondhelpings to everything. And when I go up to bed I can think of my music,instead of lying awake calculating and wondering how I can make thingscome out at the end of the month. Oh, Susy, that's simply heaven!"
Susy's heart contracted. She had come to her friend to be taught againthe lesson of indifference to material things, and instead she washearing from Grace Fulmer's lips the long-repressed avowal of theirtyranny. After all, that battle with poverty on the New Hampshirehillside had not been the easy smiling business that Grace and Nat hadmade it appear. And yet ... and yet....
Susy stood up abruptly, and straightened the expensive hat which hungirresponsibly over Grace's left ear.
"What's wrong with it? Junie helped me choose it, and she generallyknows," Mrs. Fulmer wailed with helpless hands.
"It's the way you wear it, dearest--and the bow is rather top-heavy. Letme have it a minute, please." Susy lifted the hat from her friend'shead and began to manipulate its trimming. "This is the way Maria Guy orSuzanne would do it.... And now go on about Nat...."
She listened musingly while Grace poured forth the tale of her husband'striumph, of the notices in the papers, the demand for his work, thefine ladies' battles over their priority in discovering him, and themultiplied orders that had resulted from their rivalry.
"Of course they're simply furious with each other-Mrs. Melrose and Mrs.Gillow especially--because each one pretends to have been the first tonotice his 'Spring Snow-Storm,' and in reality it wasn't either of them,but only poor Bill Haslett, an art-critic we've known for years, whochanced on the picture, and rushed off to tell a dealer who was lookingfor a new painter to push." Grace suddenly raised her soft myopic eyesto Susy's face. "But, do you know, the funny thing is that I believe Natis beginning to forget this, and to believe that it was Mrs. Melrose whostopped short in front of his picture on the opening day, and screamedout: 'This is genius!' It seems funny he should care so much, when I'vealways known he had genius-and he has known it too. But they're all sokind to him; and Mrs. Melrose especially. And I suppose it makes a thingsound new to hear it said in a new voice."
Susy looked at her meditatively. "And how should you feel if Nat likedtoo much to hear Mrs. Melrose say it? Too much, I mean, to care anylonger what you felt or thought?"
Her friend's worn face flushed quickly, and then paled: Susy almostrepented the question. But Mrs. Fulmer met it with a tranquil dignity."You haven't been married long enough, dear, to understand... how peoplelike Nat and me feel about such things... or how trifling they seem, inthe balance... the balance of one's memories."
Susy stood up again, and flung her arms about her friend. "Oh, Grace,"she laughed with wet eyes, "how can you be as wise as that, and yet nothave sense enough to buy a decent hat?" She gave Mrs. Fulmer a quickembrace and hurried away. She had learned her lesson after all; but itwas not exactly the one she had come to seek.
The week she had allowed herself had passed, and still there was no wordfrom Nick. She allowed herself yet another day, and that too went bywithout a letter. She then decided on a step from which her pridehad hitherto recoiled; she would call at the bank and ask for Nick'saddress. She called, embarrassed and hesitating; and was told, afterenquiries in the post-office department, that Mr. Nicholas Lansinghad given no address since that of the Palazzo Vanderlyn, three monthspreviously. She went back to Versailles that afternoon with the definiteintention of writing to Strefford unless the next morning's post broughta letter.
The next morning brought nothing from Nick, but a scribbled message fromMrs. Melrose: would Susy, as soon as possible, come into her room fora word, Susy jumped up, hurried through her bath, and knocked at herhostess's door. In the immense low bed that faced the rich umbrageof the park Mrs. Melrose lay smoking cigarettes and glancing over herletters. She looked up with her vague smile, and said dreamily: "Susydarling, have you any particular plans--for the next few months, Imean?"
Susy coloured: she knew the intonation of old, and fancied sheunderstood what it implied.
"Plans, dearest? Any number... I'm tearing myself away the day afterto-morrow... to the Gillows' moor, very probably," she hastened toannounce.
Instead of the relief she had expected to read on Mrs. Melrose'sdramatic countenance she discovered there the blankest disappointment.
"Oh, really? That's too bad. Is it absolutely settled--?"
"As far as I'm concerned," said Susy crisply.
The other sighed. "I'm too sorry. You see, dear, I'd meant to ask youto stay on here quietly and look after the Fulmer children. Fulmer andI are going to Spain next week--I want to be with him when he makes hisstudies, receives his first impressions; such a marvellous experience,to be there when he and Velasquez meet!" She broke off, lost inprospective ecstasy. "And, you see, as Grace Fulmer insists on comingwith us--"
"Ah, I see."
"Well, there are the five children--such a problem," sighed thebenefactress. "If you were at a loose end, you know, dear, while Nick'saway with his friends, I could really make it worth your while...."
"So awfully good of you, Violet; only I'm not, as it happens."
Oh the relief of being able to say that, gaily, firmly and eventruthfully! Take charge of the Fulmer children, indeed! Susy rememberedhow Nick and she had fled from them that autumn afternoon in NewHampshire. The offer gave her a salutary glimpse of the way in which, asthe years passed, and she lost her freshness and novelty, she would moreand more be used as a convenience, a stop-gap, writer of notes, runnerof errands, nursery governess or companion. She called to mind severalelderly women of her acquaintance, pensioners of her own group, whostill wore its livery, struck its attitudes and chattered its jargon,but had long since been ruthlessly relegated to these slave-ant offices.Never in the world would she join their numbers.
Mrs. Melrose's face fell, and she looked at Susy with the plaintivebewilderment of the wielder of millions to whom everything that cannotbe bought is imperceptible.
"But I can't see why you can't change your plans," she murmured with asoft persistency.
"Ah, well, you know"--Susy paused on a slow inward smile--"they're notmine only, as it happens."
Mrs. Melrose's brow clouded. The unforeseen complication of Mrs.Fulmer's presence on the journey had evidently tried her nerves, andthis new obstacle to her arrangements shook her faith in the divineorder of things.
"Your plans are not yours only? But surely you won't let Ursula Gillowdictate to you?... There's my jade pendant; the one you said you likedthe other day.... The Fulmers won't go with me, you understand, unlessthey're satisfied about the children; the whole plan will fallthrough. Susy darling, you were always too unselfish; I hate to see yousacrificed to Ursula."
Susy's smile lingered. Time was when she might have been glad to addthe jade pendant to the collection already enriched by Ellie Vanderlyn'ssapphires; more recently, she would have resented the offer as an insultto her newly-found principles. But already the mere fact that shemight henceforth, if she chose, be utterly out of reach of such bribes,enabled her to look down on them with tolerance. Oh, the blessed moralfreedom that wealth conferred! She recalled Mrs. Fulmer's uncontrollabl
ecry: "The most wonderful thing of all is not having to contrive andskimp, and give up something every single minute!" Yes; it was only onsuch terms that one could call one's soul one's own. The sense of itgave Susy the grace to answer amicably: "If I could possibly help youout, Violet, I shouldn't want a present to persuade me. And, as you say,there's no reason why I should sacrifice myself to Ursula--or to anybodyelse. Only, as it happens"--she paused and took the plunge--"I'm goingto England because I've promised to see a friend." That night she wroteto Strefford.
The Glimpses of the Moon Page 15
