Seven
I
I WOULD HAVE SPENT more time worrying about Terence if I had not already been so worried about Paul. By the end of July I was certain he was working too hard; often he would begin his dictation to his secretaries as he finished dressing, and every few days he would be dashing up and down the Eastern Seaboard in response to telephone calls from New York. I was accustomed to his dabbling in business while he was on vacation, but that summer his work claimed him to an unprecedented degree, and even when he was supposed to be relaxing at Bar Harbor he would be too busy supervising his protégés to rest for long. Although the weather became very hot he insisted on playing tennis every -afternoon, and when he retired indoors he seemed incapable of sitting down for more than two minutes. During his debates with the boys he would pace up and down the room, and later in the middle of the night I was often aware of him leaving the bed to ease the boredom of insomnia. I fully expected him to be too exhausted to pay me much attention at night, but the more tense he became the more he sought relaxation in our physical relationship. I became uneasy. I was glad to have so many chances to conceive the baby, but the mechanical repetition seemed to inhibit true communication between us, and I began to think we would be much closer if we simply sat down and talked about the matters which were troubling him.
But I knew he would never discuss his work with me. One afternoon when Paul was out sailing with the boys my housekeeper told me there was yet another urgent personal telephone call for him. Terence was away in New York on some mission, his deputy Herbert Mayers had the afternoon off, and the stenographers were not allowed to handle Paul’s private calls.
“Whoever it is, tell them to leave their name and say my husband will return their call later,” I said, but Mrs. Keller came back to say the caller had asked for me.
“Who is it?”
“A Mr. Stewart Da Costa, ma’am.”
The shock was so unpleasant that it took me a moment to recover myself. “I’m not at home to either Mr. Stewart or Mr. Gregory Da Costa, Mrs. Keller,” I said evenly. “They’ll have to call again.”
Outside I wandered restlessly through the garden. It was another hour before Paul returned and I was able to tell him of the call.
“Stewart Da Costa? How dare he call me here!” His dark eyes blazed in his white face. “I’ll leave for New York right away.”
“Oh, but Paul …” It was several hundred miles to New York, and the exhausting journey involved many hours in a train.
Of course he ignored all my efforts to detain him.
He was away four days, and when he returned his rage was gone, replaced by a feverish cheerfulness.
“Those boys of Jay’s are no damned good,” he said carelessly as if he realized I was longing for a reassuring explanation, “and now that they’ve run through the money Jay left them they expect the bank to foot their bills. What insolence! I told them it was time they stood on their own feet and stopped sponging on everyone in sight.” And he hurried off to play tennis with the boys before dinner.
He dreamed of tennis that night. When I awoke he was twisting in the bed beside me and saying, “Fifteen-forty, but I can win. Two more points to deuce. It’s all right, Papa, I’m going to win, I’m going to—Oh no, not that, it can’t be, all those years, get out, Elizabeth, get out, get out, get out!”
“Paul!” I flung my arms around him as he sat bolt upright in bed. “Darling, it was a dream, only a dream.”
He was shivering. I found the light. His forehead shone with sweat
“It was nothing,” he said. “I dreamt I was playing tennis at Newport with Jay. All over now, all past. Nothing at all. … I’m sorry I disturbed you.”
“Shall I turn out the light?’
“Yes, for God’s sake let’s get some rest,” he said impatiently. But unable to sleep he left the bed twenty minutes later and did not return that night.
Terence arrived back from New York the following evening, but I did not see him until breakfast the next day when he entered the dining room with the morning mail. The boys were already closeted with their tutor. Paul and I were having coffee by ourselves.
“Good morning, sir. Good morning, Mrs. Van Zale.” He carefully did not look at me as he handed the mail to Paul.
“Good morning, Mr. O’Reilly,” I said, hurriedly reaching for another slice of toast.
“Letter for you, Sylvia,” said Paul, pushing an envelope across the table to me.
I glanced at it as the footman refilled my cup of coffee. The address was typed. I noticed that the stamp seemed to have escaped the machines at the post office, but before an explanation could occur to me I was breaking the seal and drawing out the letter.
The notepaper was white, unembossed and expensive. Underneath the address, “14, Hengist Mansions, South Kensington,” someone had written in a clear firm, hand:
MY DEAR PAUL,
Of course I’d like to see you again! But we workers of the world—unlike you investment bankers and other people of ill-repute—have to earn our living and have neither the time nor the money to go jaunting from continent to continent (and please don’t insult us both by offering to pay my fare). Yes, of course I remember the wonderful times we had together at Mallingham, and no, I don’t believe you when you say you think of me every day. I find it hard to imagine you gazing yearningly across the Atlantic like some utterly celibate, utterly boring lovesick Victorian swain, and anyway if you really mean what you say (and we both know you don’t) why don’t you issue me a frank, straightforward, honest-to-God invitation to New York instead of sending letter after letter full of coy hints and dismal “wish-you-were-here” refrains …
The letter dropped to the floor. My sense of balance seemed to be deserting me. Instinctively I groped for the edge of the table to steady myself.
“Sylvia!” Paul’s voice was sharp with alarm. I heard his chair scrape backward, but when I opened my eyes I felt dizzier than ever. I managed to take several deep breaths, but when I saw he was stooping to retrieve the letter an iron weight seemed to descend on my lungs.
“Sir,” I heard Terence say urgently, “shall I call a doctor? In view of Mrs. Van Zale’s condition—”
Sheer fright effected a miraculous cure. “No!” I screamed at Terence with such force that Paul dropped the letter with a start upon the table. When the letter fell face upward I knew we were all headed straight for disaster.
Paul dismissed the servants.
As the door closed on the last footman Terence tried to explain away his intimate knowledge of my health. “Mrs. Van Zale suffered a similar spell before I went away, sir,” he said levelly, “and that’s how I happen to know about her pregnancy.”
Paul looked at me. I could not speak. He looked at the letter. I could not move. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Terence’s face was no longer white but gray.
Paul read the letter without expression, reached for the envelope and noted the unmarked American stamp. “Since when have you been accustomed to forwarding Miss Slade’s letters to my wife, O’Reilly?” he asked pleasantly.
“Sir, I must absolutely deny—”
“You’re responsible for handling Miss Slade’s letters. I’ve never seen this one before. Obviously you picked it up in New York this week and decided, for reasons best known to yourself, to present it to my wife after pretending it had come through the mail.”
“Sir—”
“We’ll discuss this fully later. Now leave us, please. I want to talk to my wife.”
Terence left the room without a word.
There was a pause before Paul said: “Shall I call a doctor?”
I shook my head.
“Are you pregnant?”
I shook my head again.
He sighed, slipped the letter into his pocket and gently made me sit down in my chair. “Then what on earth’s going on?” he said mildly as he drew up another chair for himself. “No, don’t tell me—I could hear the throb of passion in O’R
eilly’s voice when he suggested calling a doctor. Very well, let’s discuss this sensibly without becoming upset. O’Reilly, incredible though it seems, has overcome his Jesuit background to such an extent that he’s fallen violently in love with you. You, in a valiant effort to dampen his grand passion, told him you were pregnant. O’Reilly, in a mixture of fury, disappointment and God knows what else, sent you this letter, which I regret to say doesn’t show Miss Slade in the best of lights—”
“Nor you,” I said, and ran stumbling from the room.
He followed me. I had barely reached our bedroom when he flung open the door.
“Sylvia—”
“Terence told me you’d send for her someday and I didn’t believe him. I didn’t believe you were capable of inviting her to New York to humiliate me … with her child … all the gossip …” My voice faltered, but I controlled it. “You told me your private correspondence with Miss Slade was inconsequential and I believed you. Yet now I see you’ve been writing her the most intimate letters—apparently for some time—and hinting if not actually demanding that she should come here.”
“I wasn’t serious. I’ve never invited her.”
“I don’t believe you! I can’t believe you anymore!”
He stood motionless. His fists were clenched at his sides, and as his debonair mask was discarded the tension made his face stark and hard. He said roughly, “I notice you call O’Reilly by his first name. Have you slept with him?”
“No,” I said, and began to cry. “I wish I had slept with him!” I sobbed. “I wish I had!”
He was silent. At first I thought he was too full of contempt to speak, but when I dashed away my tears I saw instead that he was deeply shocked. He started at me, still without speaking, and then backing away he disappeared into his dressing room. But he did not close the door. I could hear him pacing up and down, and when I closed my eyes I could imagine every muscle of his body braced against his tension while his quick mind twisted and turned endlessly for a solution.
At last he paused, and as I rose unsteadily from the bed he walked back into the room. He had gone no more than a pace past the dressing-room threshold when he stopped. He was looking at me, then past me. I glanced over my shoulder, but there was nothing there.
He said confused, “Oh, I have to be alone, I—” And then his voice was cut off as he twisted his head to one side.
“Paul!”
I ran but could not reach him in time. He took a step forward, and although there was nothing which could have caught his foot he seemed to trip on the highly polished wooden floor. His left leg turned inward, his right leg was flung off balance. For one horrible second he was still, frozen in that eerie posture, and then without further warning he crashed to the ground like a corpse.
II
My first instinct was to panic. I thought of stroke and heart attack, but before I could rush from the room, rouse all the servants and scream for a doctor, Paul had a convulsion which flung him over onto his back.
I remembered the Da Costa brothers. It was then I knew that their lies had been truths, and that the truths by which I had lived had all been false.
I was paralyzed with the shock. Paul was still, and that too confused me because in my ignorance I had thought epileptic convulsions were always continuous. His limbs twitched. I shied away, but a second later, realizing how frightened I was, I made a considerable effort to clamp down on my fear. Paul couldn’t hurt me. The only person he could hurt was himself.
I groped in my memory, tried to recall what ought to be done. Something between the teeth … Stumbling to a drawer, I found two handkerchiefs, wound them together and forced myself to kneel down beside him just as the saliva, frothy and unnatural, began to spill sideways from his mouth. I found I could not part his teeth; he was rigid, and I was just sitting back on my heels in despair when his back arched and he flung himself over so violently that his face banged against the floor.
I gasped. My hands were clenched so hard they hurt, and I had to make another great effort to keep calm. Surely I had read somewhere once that such attacks always looked much worse than they were? Anyway I had to stop Paul from hurting himself unnecessarily, that was quite obvious. I moved a nearby chair well out of his way and nerved myself to loosen his tie and unbutton his shirt. When he remained motionless I tried to slip the handkerchiefs between his teeth again, and this time I was successful.
Relief streamed through me, and it was only then, when I had done all I could, that I began to imagine how he would feel when he recovered consciousness. Suddenly I thought: Elizabeth! And when I guessed at last what must have happened after Vicky’s death I felt ill with fear.
I glanced wildly at the clock by the bed. How long had he been unconscious? It seemed as if I had been kneeling beside him for at least half an hour, but it was probably no longer than three minutes. How long did such attacks last? How long did I have to decide what I should say? I seemed to be incapable of rational thought. More saliva was spilling out of Paul’s mouth, and hardly knowing what I was doing I fetched a washcloth from the bathroom and wiped his face clean. His eyes flicked open, giving me a shock, but they saw nothing. He was still unconscious.
His eyes closed again, but he seemed to be breathing better and his skin gradually lost its frightening bluish sheen. I knew my time was running out, but the more I searched in panic for the right words, the more speechless I became. It was no good pretending I had not seen the attack, because he would remember I was in the room, and it was no good telling myself that Paul wouldn’t care that I now knew he was an epileptic; anyone who had gone to such great lengths to conceal his illness would undoubtedly have very strong feelings about being found out. I was dealing with a burden Paul evidently felt unable to share with anyone, least of all with those closest to him, and when I tried to imagine the size of that burden I knew it could crush my marriage in seconds, just as it had annihilated his long love affair with Elizabeth.
He moved. The handkerchiefs fell from his mouth as his muscles relaxed, and aware of the movement he turned his head to stare at the crumpled linen.
In the end I said only the simplest words. I told him that it was all right and that we were alone in our bedroom. “What bedroom?”
“The bedroom at the cottage. Bar Harbor.” He sat up. His eyes, dark with confusion, glanced briefly around the room.
“I’ll get you a glass of water,” I said. When I returned he had not moved, and I suddenly noticed that his trousers were stained and that water was seeping onto the floor. I had been so busy watching his face for some sign of consciousness that I had noticed nothing else.
“Would you like to be alone for a minute?” I said. “I can go and sit on the window seat at the top of the stairs, and when you want me you can just open the door and call.”
He nodded. His face, devoid of all vivacity, was so blank that he did not look like himself at all but like someone I barely knew. The pain was beginning to show in his eyes. I left the room and waited a long time. It was very difficult not to go back, tap on the door and ask if he was all right, but I knew I had to wait until he was ready for me. It was over an hour before he opened the door and looked down the hallway to the stairs.
“Oh God,” he said, “are you still there? You shouldn’t have waited all this time. I’ve been asleep.”
“That’s all right.” I stood up, smoothed my skirt and walked toward him. For a moment he watched me before he turned to disappear into the bedroom. “Do you feel better now?” I said as I followed him inside.
“Of course. You weren’t foolish enough to send for a doctor, were you?”
“No.”
The room was immaculate. He had cleaned everything up, changed his suit and covered the cut on his cheekbone with a strip of plaster.
“Well, now,” he said, “where were we? I think we were talking about O’Reilly.”
Despite his normal tone of voice he was so disturbed that it was difficult to look at him without flinc
hing.
“We don’t have to talk about that now, Paul,” I said steadily. “O’Reilly’s not important at present and neither is Miss Slade. We’re the ones who are important, you and I. I know you must hate my knowing, but you needn’t. I understand everything much better now. I’m only sorry I didn’t know from the beginning, because if I had I wouldn’t have made you endure all those awkward discussions about having children.”
“You would never have married me.”
He spoke as if there could be no doubt whatever about it, and although I at once repudiated the statement as strongly as possible I saw he could not believe me. I was appalled. I had never before thought much about the difficulties of epileptics, but now I realized with shock that their sufferings extended far beyond their seizures.
At that point his air of nonchalance, which must have cost him so much to assume, dissolved distressingly before my eyes.
“Oh my God,” he said, sinking down on the bed and giving way to utter despair. “If Jay could see me now!”
“This was at the bottom of your whole relationship with Jay, wasn’t it?”
“He knew,” he said, squeezing his hands together until the knuckles shone white, and those two simple syllables at once suggested unimaginable horror and shame. “It gave him power over me. He put me through hell and enjoyed it. After that I could never rest until my power equaled his … and surpassed it.” He stopped.
“Everything Stewart and Greg said was true, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. It was all true, all the unspeakable things. And even my worst nightmares are coming to life. This is the second attack I’ve had in a month, Sylvia.”
“How often does it happen?”
“I was well for over thirty years. Then after Vicky’s death it came back. It was just once, but always afterward I was afraid … Then after Jay died there was another seizure, but Europe … I was well there and for some time afterward. But this is the third attack I’ve had during the past year. The other two times I managed to be alone.”
The Rich Are Different Page 27
