Edith Wharton - SSC 09

by Human Nature (v2. 1)

  Poor mother—and, alas, poor Stephen! All the sympathy I could spare from the mother went to the son. He had behaved harshly, cruelly, no doubt; the young do; but under what provocation! I understood his saying that he had too many mothers; and I suspected that what he had tried for—and failed to achieve—was a break with the Browns. Trust Chrissy to baffle that attempt, I thought bitterly; she had obviously deflected the dispute, and made the consequences fall upon his mother. And at bottom everything was unchanged.

  Unchanged—except for that thickening of the fog. At the moment it was almost as impenetrable to me as to Mrs. Glenn. Certain things I could understand that she could not; for instance, why Stephen had left home. I could guess that the atmosphere had become unbreathable. But if so, it was certainly Mrs. Brown’s doing, and what interest had she in sowing discord between Stephen and his mother? With a shock of apprehension my mind reverted to Stephen’s enquiry about his mother’s will. It had offended me at the time; now it frightened me. If I was right in suspecting that he had tried to break with his adopted parents—over the question of the will, no doubt, or at any rate over their general selfishness and rapacity—then his attempt had failed, since he and the Browns were still on good terms, and the only result of the dispute had been to separate him from his mother. At the thought my indignation burned afresh. “I mean to see Stephen,” I declared, looking resolutely at Mrs. Glenn.

  “But he’s not well enough, I’m afraid; he told me to send you his love, and to say that perhaps when you come back—”

  “Ah, you’ve seen him, then?”

  She shook her head. “No; he telegraphed me this morning. He doesn’t even write any longer.” Her eyes filled, and she looked away from me.

  He too used the telegraph! It gave me more to think about than poor Mrs. Glenn could know. I continued to look at her. “Don’t you want to send him a telegram in return? You could write it here, and give it to me,” I suggested. She hesitated, seemed half to assent, and then stood up abruptly.

  “No; I’d better not. Chrissy takes my messages. If I telegraphed she might wonder—she might be hurt—”

  “Yes; I see.”

  “But I must be off; I’ve stayed too long.” She cast a nervous glance at her watch. “When you come back …” she repeated.

  When we reached the door of the hotel rain was falling, and I drew her back into the vestibule while the porter went to call a taxi. “Why haven’t you your own motor?” I asked.

  “Oh, Chrissy wanted the motor. She had to go to see Stevie—and of course she didn’t know I should be going out. You won’t tell her, will you?” Mrs. Glenn cried back to me as the door of the taxi closed on her.

  The taxi drove off, and I was standing on the pavement looking after it when a handsomely appointed private motor glided up to the hotel. The chauffeur sprang down, and I recognized him as the man who had driven Mrs. Glenn when we had been together at Les Calanques. I was therefore not surprised to see Mrs. Brown, golden-haired and slim, descending under his unfurled umbrella. She held a note in her hand, and looked at me with a start of surprise. “What luck! I was going to try to find out when you were likely to be in—and here you are! Concierges are always so secretive that I’d written as well.” She held the envelope up with her brilliant smile. “Am I butting in? Or may I come and have a talk?”

  I led her to the reading-room which Mrs. Glenn had so lately left, and suggested the cup of tea which I had forgotten to offer to her predecessor.

  She made a gay grimace. “Tea? Oh, no—thanks. Perhaps we might go round presently to the Nouveau Luxe grill for a cock-tail. But it’s rather early yet; there’s nobody there at this hour. And I want to talk to you about Stevie.”

  She settled herself in Mrs. Glenn’s corner, and as she sat there, slender and alert in her perfectly-cut dark coat and skirt, with her silver fox slung at the exact fashion-plate angle, I felt the irony of these two women succeeding each other in the same seat to talk to me on the same subject. Mrs. Brown groped in her bag for a jade cigarette-case, and lifted her smiling eyes to mine. “Catherine’s just been here, hasn’t she? I passed her in a taxi at the corner,” she remarked lightly.

  “She’s been here; yes. I scolded her for not being in her own motor,” I rejoined, with an attempt at the same tone.

  Mrs. Brown laughed. “I knew you would! But I’d taken the motor on purpose to prevent her going out. She has a very bad cold, as I told you; and the doctor has absolutely forbidden—”

  “Then why didn’t you let me go to see her?”

  “Because the doctor forbids her to see visitors. I told you that too. Didn’t you notice how hoarse she is?”

  I felt my anger rising. “I noticed how unhappy she is,” I said bluntly.

  “Oh, unhappy—why is she unhappy? If I were in her place I should just lie back and enjoy life,” said Mrs. Brown, with a sort of cold impatience.

  “She’s unhappy about Stephen.”

  Mrs. Brown looked at me quickly. “She came here to tell you so, I suppose? Well—he has behaved badly.”

  “Why did you let him?”

  She laughed again, this time ironically. “Let him? Ah, you believe in that legend? The legend that I do what I like with Stephen.” She bent her head to light another cigarette. “He’s behaved just as badly to me, my good man—and to Boy. And we don’t go about complaining!”

  “Why should you, when you see him every day?”

  At this she bridled, with a flitting smile. “Can I help it—if it’s me he wants?”

  “Yes, I believe you can,” I said resolutely.

  “Oh, thanks! I suppose I ought to take that as a compliment.”

  “Take it as you like. Why don’t you make Stephen see his mother?”

  “Dear Mr. Norcutt, if I had any influence over Stephen, do you suppose I’d let him quarrel with his bread-and-butter? To put it on utilitarian grounds, why should I?” She lifted her clear shallow eyes and looked straight into mine—and I found no answer. There was something impenetrable to me beneath that shallowness.

  “But why did Stephen leave his mother?” I persisted.

  She shrugged, and looked down at her rings, among which I fancied I saw a new one, a dark luminous stone in claws of platinum. She caught my glance. “You’re admiring my brown diamond? A beauty, isn’t it? Dear Catherine gave it to me for Christmas. The angel! Do you suppose I wouldn’t do anything to spare her all this misery? I wish I could tell you why Stephen left her. Perhaps … perhaps because she is such an angel … Young men—you understand? She was always wrapping him up, lying awake to listen for his latch-key…. Steve’s rather a Bohemian; suddenly he struck—that’s all I know.”

  I saw at once that this contained a shred of truth wrapped round an impenetrable lie; and I saw also that to tell that lie had not been Mrs. Brown’s main object. She had come for a still deeper reason, and I could only wait for her to reveal it.

  She glanced up reproachfully. “How hard you are on me—always! From the very first day—don’t I know? And never more than now. Don’t you suppose I can guess what you’re thinking? You’re accusing me of trying to prevent your seeing Catherine; and in reality I came here to ask you to see her—to beg you to—as soon as she’s well enough. If you’d only trusted me, instead of persuading her to slip off on the sly and come here in this awful weather …”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to declare that I was guiltless of such perfidy; but it occurred to me that my visitor might be trying to find out how Mrs. Glenn had known I was in Paris, and I decided to say nothing.

  “At any rate, if she’s no worse I’m sure she could see you tomorrow. Why not come and dine? I’ll carry Boy off to a restaurant, and you and she can have a cosy evening together, like old times. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Mrs. Brown’s face was veiled with a retrospective emotion; I saw that, less acute than Stephen, she still believed in a sentimental past between myself and Catherine Glenn. “She must have been one of the loveliest creatur
es that ever lived—wasn’t she? Even now no one can come up to her. You don’t know how I wish she liked me better; that she had more confidence in me. If she had, she’d know that I love Stephen as much as she does—perhaps more. For so many years he was mine, all mine! But it’s all so difficult—at this moment, for instance …” She paused, jerked her silver fox back into place, and gave me a prolonged view of meditative lashes. At last she said: “Perhaps you don’t know that Steve’s final folly has been to refuse his allowance. He returned the last cheque to Catherine with a dreadful letter.”

  “Dreadful? How?”

  “Telling her he was old enough to shift for himself—that he refused to sell his independence any longer; perfect madness.”

  “Atrocious cruelty—”

  “Yes; that too. I told him so. But do you realise the result?” The lashes, suddenly lifted, gave me the full appeal of wide, transparent eyes. “Steve’s starving—voluntarily starving himself. Or would be, if Boy and I hadn’t scraped together our last pennies …”

  “If independence is what he wants, why should he take your pennies when he won’t take his mother’s?”

  “Ah—there’s the point. He will.” She looked down again, fretting her rings. “Ill as he is, how could he live if he didn’t take somebody’s pennies? If I could sell my brown diamond without Catherine’s missing it I’d have done it long ago, and you need never have known of all this. But she’s so sensitive—and she notices everything. She literally spies on me. I’m at my wits’ end. If you’d only help me!”

  “How in the world can I?”

  “You’re the only person who can. If you’d persuade her, as long as this queer mood of Stephen’s lasts, to draw his monthly cheque in my name, I’d see that he gets it—and that he uses it. He would, you know, if he thought it came from Boy and me.”

  I looked at her quickly. “That’s why you want me to see her. To get her to give you her son’s allowance?”

  Her lips parted as if she were about to return an irritated answer; but she twisted them into a smile. “If you like to describe it in that way—I can’t help your putting an unkind interpretation on whatever I do. I was prepared for that when I came here.” She turned her bright inclement face on me. “If you think I enjoy humiliating myself] After all, it’s not so much for Stephen that I ask it as for his mother. Have you thought of that? If she knew that in his crazy pride he was depriving himself of the most necessary things, wouldn’t she do anything on earth to prevent it? She’s his real mother … I’m nothing …”

  “You’re everything, if he sees you and listens to you.”

  She received this with the air of secret triumph that met every allusion to her power over Stephen. Was she right, I wondered, in saying that she loved him even more than his mother did? “Everything?” she murmured deprecatingly. “It’s you who are everything, who can help us all. What can I do?”

  I pondered a moment, and then said: “You can let me see Stephen.”

  The colour rushed up under her powder. “Much good that would do—if I could! But I’m afraid you’ll find his door barricaded.”

  “That’s a pity,” I said coldly.

  “It’s very foolish of him,” she assented.

  Our conversation had reached a deadlock, and I saw that she was distinctly disappointed—perhaps even more than I was. I suspected that while I could afford to wait for a solution she could not.

  “Of course, if Catherine is willing to sit by and see the boy starve”—she began.

  “What else can she do? Shall we go over to the Nouveau Luxe bar and study the problem from the cock-tail angle?” I suggested.

  Mrs. Brown’s delicately pencilled brows gathered over her transparent eyes. “You’re laughing at me—and at Steve. It’s rather heartless of you, you know,” she said, making a movement to rise from the deep armchair in which I had installed her. Her movements, as always, were quick and smooth; she got up and sat down with the ease of youth. But her face star-tied me—it had suddenly shrunk and withered, so that the glitter of cosmetics hung before it like a veil. A pang of compunction shot through me. I felt that it was heartless to make her look like that. I could no longer endure the part I was playing. “I’ll—I’ll see what I can do to arrange things,” I stammered. “If only she’s not too servile,” I thought, feeling that my next move hung on the way in which she received my reassurance.

  She stood up with a quick smile. “Ogre!” she just breathed, her lashes dancing. She was laughing at me under her breath—the one thing she could have done just then without offending me. “Come; we do need refreshment, don’t we?” She slipped her arm through mine as we crossed the lounge and emerged on the wet pavement.

  

  X.

  The cosy evening with which Mrs. Brown had tempted me was not productive of much enlightenment. I found Catherine Glenn tired and pale, but happy at my coming, with a sort of furtive school-girl happiness which suggested the same secret apprehension as I had seen in Mrs. Brown’s face when she found I would not help her to capture Stephen’s allowance. I had already perceived my mistake in letting Mrs. Brown see this, and during our cock-tail epilogue at the Nouveau Luxe had tried to restore her confidence; but her distrust had been aroused, and in spite of her recovered good-humour I felt that I should not be allowed to see Stephen.

  In this respect poor Mrs. Glenn could not help me. She could only repeat the lesson which had evidently been drilled into her. “Why should I deny what’s so evident—and so natural? When Stevie’s ill and unhappy it’s not to me he turns. During so many years he knew nothing of me, never even suspected my existence; and all the while they were there, watching over him, loving him, slaving for him. If he concealed his real feelings now it might be only on account of the—the financial inducements; and I like to think my boy’s too proud for that. If you see him, you’ll tell him so, won’t you? You’ll tell him that, unhappy as he’s making me, mistaken as he is, I enter into his feelings as—as only his mother can.” She broke down, and hid her face from me.

  When she regained her composure she rose and went over to the writing-table. From the blotting-book she drew an envelope. “I’ve drawn this cheque in your name—it may be easier for you to get Stevie to accept a few bank-notes than a cheque. You must try to persuade him—tell him his behaviour is making the Browns just as unhappy as it is me, and that he has no right to be cruel to them, at any rate.” She lifted her head and looked into my eyes heroically.

  I went home perplexed, and pondering on my next move; but (not wholly to my surprise) the question was settled for me the following morning by a telephone call from Mrs. Brown. Her voice rang out cheerfully.

  “Good news! I’ve had a talk with Steve’s doctor—on the sly, of course. Steve would kill me if he knew! The doctor says he’s really better; you can see him today if you’ll promise to stay only a few minutes. Of course I must first persuade Steve himself, the silly boy. You can’t think what a savage mood he’s in. But I’m sure I can bring him round—he’s so fond of you. Only before that I want to see you myself—” (“Of course,” I commented inwardly, feeling that here at last was the gist of the communication.) “Can I come presently—before you go out? All right; I’ll turn up in an hour.”

  Within the hour she was at my hotel; but before her arrival I had decided on my course, and she on her side had probably guessed what it would be. Our first phrases, however, were non-committal. As we exchanged them I saw that Mrs. Brown’s self-confidence was weakening, and this incited me to prolong the exchange. Stephen’s doctor, she assured me, was most encouraging; one lung only was affected, and that slightly; his recovery now depended on careful nursing, good food, cheerful company—all the things of which, in his foolish obstinacy, he had chosen to deprive himself. She paused, expectant—

  “And if Mrs. Glenn handed over his allowance to you, you could ensure his accepting what he’s too obstinate to take from his mother?”

  Under her carefully prepared co
mplexion the blood rushed to her temples. “I always knew you were Steve’s best friend!” She looked away quickly, as if to hide the triumph in her eyes.

  “Well, if I am, he’s first got to recognise it by seeing me.”

  “Of course—of course!” She corrected her impetuosity. “I’ll do all I can …”

  “That’s a great deal, as we know.” Under their lowered lashes her eyes followed my movements as I turned my coat back to reach an inner pocket. She pressed her lips tight to control their twitching. “There, then!” I said.

  “Oh, you angel, you! I should never have dared to ask Catherine,” she stammered with a faint laugh as the banknotes passed from my hand to her bag.

  “Mrs. Glenn understood—she always understands.”

  “She understands when you ask,” Mrs. Brown insinuated, flashing her lifted gaze on mine. The sense of what was in the bag had already given her a draught of courage, and she added quickly: “Of course I needn’t warn you not to speak of all this to Steve. If he knew of our talk it would wreck everything.”

  “I can see that,” I remarked, and she dropped her lids again, as though I had caught her in a blunder.

  “Well, I must go; I’ll tell him his best friend’s coming … I’ll reason with him …” she murmured, trying to disguise her embarrassment in emotion. I saw her to the door, and into Mrs. Glenn’s motor, from the interior of which she called back: “You know you’re going to make Catherine as happy as I am.”

  Stephen Glenn’s new habitation was in a narrow and unsavoury street, and the building itself contrasted mournfully with the quarters in which he had last received me. As I climbed the greasy stairs I felt as much perplexed as ever. I could not yet see why Stephen’s quarrel with Mrs. Glenn should, even partially, have included the Browns, nor, if it had, why he should be willing to accept from their depleted purse the funds he was too proud to receive from his mother. It gave me a feeling of uneasy excitement to know that behind the door at which I stood the answer to these problems awaited me.