by A. J. Cronin
Katharine had control of herself now. She said quietly: “Most of the bad luck is on Brandt, when you come to think of it.”
“Oh, of course, darling,” said Nancy. She paused. “It’s like you to look at it that way.”
She hung about a moment, anxious to prove her solicitude, fussing a little over Katharine, begging her to sit down, to have a cocktail, a cigarette, to order some dinner right away. But it was plain her concern flowed only from the superficial structure of her mind and that beneath she was pressingly absorbed by her appointment at the theatre, by the progress of rehearsals and all the quick prospect of her own affairs. And she left presently with a little gesture of compunction and affection.
Katharine had no wish for food. She rang for some hot milk, and when it arrived, she drank it with two sleeping tablets. Sleep was the remedy she required. And so, throwing off her clothes, she went immediately to bed.
She did sleep, under the powerful hypnotic, a drowsy, immediate slumber which closed down on her like wings. Yet through that fast embrace thoughts filtered and were transmuted to grotesque and terrorizing dreams.
Her mind, crushed and numb, reverted to that wild illusion which had begun to haunt her and which seemed now to fit the double burden of her sorrow. Mlle de Quercy, the subject of the miniature, came to life, merged into, and became her desolate, unhappy self. She, Katharine Lorimer, became the living portrait by Holbein, disappointed by life and love, her lips set in that pale perpetual smile, her hand clasping the spray of white carnations, tragic and futile. All the processes of fate by which the miniature had come into her hands at this period of her life seemed predestined and inevitable. A reminder and a presage. It was not the history but the destiny of the unhappy Lucie which repeated itself in her. And that destiny, seen through the phantom shadows of her dream, was enough to make her cry aloud.
She woke with a start, her throat dry, perspiration streaming from her brow, and saw that it was morning. Immediately the realization of her position renewed itself in her unrefreshed and throbbing brain. As if to escape it she jumped out of bed, took a shower, and dressed quickly. A glance into Nancy’s room showed her to be still asleep.
Katharine went out. She had no idea of where she was going. Not, of course, to the office. She could not face Breuget, nor the scene of her disaster. Dimly she realized her actions to be pathologic, her mind still half-drugged or wholly stunned. She was in Forty-second Street now, bearing towards Times Square. At the corner she stepped into a drugstore and ordered herself a cup of coffee and a roll. Outside again, she continued through the Square and then, unresistant to the stream of people flowing into the subway entrance, she was borne through the turnstiles and down the steps towards the trains.
Escape! Escape! She was in a train now, which one she knew not, sitting in the crowded compartment, pounding through the subterranean darkness, while the wheels whizzed and shrieked beneath her. She wished only to escape. Terminus. Out again, a windswept platform, with the tang of the sea in her nostrils, the faint sound of breakers in her ears. From the station, into a drab main street full of shuttered shops, oyster bars, sea-food restaurants, shooting galleries, all blistered paint and flaking whitewash, torn billboards and season-old notices. Above and around, gaunt mammoth structures, lifeless and grotesque, the wintry skeletons of an amusement park. A shaft of light struck through the haggard darkness of Katharine’s mind and exposed the mad derision of her situation. Her lips twitched with bitter, painful mirth. This place was Coney Island.
It made no difference. Indeed, on the deserted front, with its immense arc of sky and sea, a vast plateau of space cleft by the great liners of the world, the air was cold and clean. Katharine walked miles along the empty boardwalk. She walked all day, back and forth, head bent forward, eyes immobile, as though seeking. But though her head cleared, and the quivering balance of her mind took back its equipoise, she found nothing, nothing but lassitude and despair. The early December darkness drove her back to the lights of the derelict town and thence to the flashing pattern of New York, which received her with crashing mockery, the neon signs vomiting out their colours above the wild inferno of the teeming streets.
As she entered her apartment, plumbing the lowest depths of her desolation, her eye was taken by a pile of white slips, each bearing the habitual printed phrase, “Message awaits you at the office.” And at the same moment her telephone rang. It was the house operator.
“Oh, Miss Lorimer,” came the pleasant singsong voice, “Mr Breuget has been trying to locate you all afternoon. He’s telephoned you half a dozen times and called several times in person.”
Only Breuget, thought Katharine sadly, and aloud she said:
“That’s all right then, thank you. I’ll ring him later.”
Apathetically she made to replace the receiver, but before she could disconnect, the operator’s voice came back.
“Wait one moment, please, Miss Lorimer. Mr Breuget’s on the wire again right now.”
A plug clicked in, and Breuget was talking to her.
“Hello! Hello! Is that you, Miss Lorimer? Where in the name of heaven have you been?”
“Her hand pressed against her brow from weariness, Katharine still constrained herself to answer patiently: “ I took the day off, Breuget; nothing to be alarmed about at all.”
“But, mon Dieu,” cried Breuget. “Don’t you understand what’s happened?”
Katharine moistened her lips, beset by the strange hysteric quality of Breuget’s tone.
“What’s happened?”
“I’ve been trying to tell you all afternoon,” screeched Breuget in perfect paroxysm. “ Oh, mon Dieu! I cannot hold it any longer, or I’ll go up like a balloon. Miss Lorimer, dear Miss Lorimer, we’ve sold the miniature.”
“What!”
“Yes, yes, it’s true. Ha, ha! True as the good God above. I want to laugh, I want to sing, I want to dance for joy.”
The room spun round about Katharine. She could not believe it. She thought the old man had gone out of his mind. Hurriedly she steadied the receiver at her ear and said in a low, intense voice:
“Breuget! Are you mad?”
He interrupted her wildly. “No, thank God, Miss Lorimer, I’m gloriously sane. Listen, listen! Please listen. Don’t interrupt me please, or I’ll have a stroke. Ascher came in this morning, friendly as a brother. Regretted Brandt’s death and all the rest of it. Talked for half an hour. Then came out with the real business. He’d been commissioned to offer us one hundred thousand dollars for the miniature.”
Everything was going round again. She gripped the table edge tightly, holding herself erect by a supreme effort of her will. She had to believe Breuget, she had to, there was no avenue of doubt.
“I hope,” she gasped weakly, “I hope you accepted?”
“I rather think I did,” cried Breuget.
There was a quivering silence, then in a small still voice Katharine whispered: “ We’ve sold it after all—one hundred thousand dollars.”
“Yes,” shouted Breuget in a frenzy of jubilation. “And the draft’s been honoured by the bank. I placed it in at half-past eleven. The money’s standing to our credit now. Wait where you are, Miss Lorimer, and I’ll come round and tell you everything!”
Katharine dropped back the receiver nervelessly. A quick sobbing breath filled her breast. She swayed towards the couch. Then spinning lights fused suddenly, and everything went dark. For the first time in her life Katharine fainted.
Chapter Sixteen
Next morning was clear and frosty with a high blue sky and a sun which sparkled upon the city. Katharine, her inconceivable emotions of the previous day replaced by a deep and serious sense of thankfulness, sat at the desk in her apartment, writing home. She had already cabled the good news to Walters with instructions to inform the bank, and now, guardedly, she sketched out the turn of events in letters to him and to her mother.
She had barely finished when a knock came upon her door and a rad
iogram was delivered to her. Tearing it open, she read:
ARRIVING MONDAY EUROPA NANCY’S FIRST NIGHT STOP ROTTEN EXCUSE STOP AM COMING TO TAKE YOU HOME STOP LOVE CHARLEY
So Charley had fulfilled his threat at last! Her smile became warmer yet tinged with a wistful quality as she tucked the slip away. Somehow it pleased her to think of seeing Charley again, he was so indefatigable, so admirable a friend. But, alas, for all his hopes! If she had little enough to offer him before, how much less had she to give him now! And yet she did not know. Charley was a refuge, a kind of safety beacon, always on hand when he was wanted. Was he not the solution to the problem of her love for Madden, the easy answer to all her fears?
She sat for a moment in a reverie which brought the mask of melancholy again upon her face; then, rising, she sealed and stamped her letters and slipped them in the mail chute. Returning, she went and looked out of the window. Though the mark of sadness lingered on her face, the keen crisp beauty of the day was irresistible. And, oh, how grand it was to feel her feet on a sound financial shore again! The miracle, though unbelievable, remained.
Ascher had bought the miniature, not for himself, of course, but for a client. Breuget suspected Joe Shard, the Pittsburgh steel magnate, for whom Ascher usually acted. Shard had been buying Pre-Raphaelite pictures for the new mansion he had built himself, but nothing was likelier than a sudden impulse towards the earlier school. Yet, whoever the purchaser, it made no odds; the money had turned the tide of Katharine’s fortunes, and now, deep within herself, she had the firm conviction that never again would they turn back.
The phone rang. “ Mr Madden to see you, Miss Lorimer. Shall I send him up?”
Katharine, completely taken by surprise, remained motionless, while the blood drained slowly from her face. Once again that pounding which she knew so well began in her breast and swelled into her throat. “ Yes,” she managed to say at last. “ Send him up.”
It was quite logical that he should be here, back in anticipation of Nancy’s première, yet the sound of his name even, spoken over the wire, was enough to start that turmoil of emotion which was agony and joy combined.
He came in with unusual directness, yet forgetting for some reason to shake hands. He stood a few paces away from her, his eyes fixed upon her with a queer intentness.
“Nancy’s at the theatre,” Katharine said. “ She’s working so hard she’s hardly ever here. But I’ll ring her for you straight away.”
“No, don’t,” he said quietly. “I’ll see Nancy later.”
She paused on her way to the telephone. His manner, even more restrained than usual, set a strange, intimidating current vibrating in her breast. Alarmed, she still mustered a smile.
“When did you arrive?”
“I’ve just got in. Travelled all night from Cleveland.” His lips came together, yet his voice was oddly casual. “Katharine, I want to have a word with you, if you don’t mind.”
Really startled now, she gazed at him with a scrutiny suddenly turned strained. His face, gaunt and shadowed, bore under its impassive mask the stamp of serious distress. His suit was worn with more than his usual carelessness. He had crushed his hat between his hands. All at once a painful thought, already implanted in Katharine’s mind, deepened to absolute conviction. She felt instinctively that Madden was in some financial trouble.
Many times she had suspected him of spending more than he could afford. Only the other day she had remonstrated with Nancy on this account. At Graysville he had responsibilities, his mother, the upkeep of the house, and all those needy relations. And now, returning to Cleveland after that long and costly vacation, he had most probably found his business out of gear, paying badly, or perhaps smashed up altogether. No matter how this fixed impression came upon her, come it did, imputing meaning to his manifest anxiety. With her own recent experience fresh in her mind she had a great flow of pity for Chris and with it a tender impulse to help him, to lighten his burden if she could. She took charge of the situation.
“Look here,” she said, covering her resolution with a pretence of lightness, “we can’t stop indoors on a day like this. If you’ve nothing better to do, will you lunch with me?”
“Lunch?” he echoed in that same strained tone, as though it were the last thing he expected.
“Yes, lunch,” she repeated firmly. “ We can talk then. And while we’re about it, we’ll do it properly. You look horribly tired. A breath of fresh air’ll do you good. And Nancy can’t possibly be free until four o’clock. I’ve got an idea. We’ll drive up the Hudson to Bear Mountain Inn. With this sun and sky it’ll be quite grand.”
His face brightened. Again he repeated her words. “Yes, it would be grand.” There was a pause which seemed to bring him back temporarily to the mundane. He added: “ I’ll see about the car.”
“No,” she answered with decision. “ This is my treat. If you think you’re going to fling any more money about, you’re very much mistaken.”
She rang the desk, instructing them to get her a car, and ten minutes later, comfortably wrapped in rugs, they were in the back seat of a long, dark limousine, slipping powerfully through the traffic, and emerging via the George Washington Bridge on the west side of the river. The nearer suburbs dropped quickly behind, and soon they were in the open country racing high up on the left bank of the Hudson. Below them the great river, swollen by snowfalls in the mountains. To their left the hills went tumbling back, clothed in brush and feathered pine, and topped by glittering caps of snow. The air was pure and arctic, the road hard as iron, the whole suffused by a lovely crystal brightness.
How the idea of the drive, almost vetoed by the season of the year, had come to her she scarcely knew. Perhaps an attempt to recapture the Vermont atmosphere. Perhaps instinct had told her how glorious it would be. At any rate, it was impossible not to taste the rapture of the scene, and Katharine turned to Madden with a quick, companionable glance. She tried to make her tone conversational.
“You’re not sorry you came?”
Without looking at her he answered: “ No! I’m very glad.”
She smiled, and remembering, by contrast, her nightmare experience of the day before, she told him something of her wanderings upon the deserted beach and the fortunate termination of that strange adventure.
“So you’ve sold the miniature,” he said, when she concluded. He paused. “ Well, I’m mighty pleased about that.”
“Yes, I’m in funds now,” she answered lightly. “It’s just the right moment to ask for an advance.”
But her remark, which offered him an opening to discuss his own affairs, passed by unheeded. He remained silent, not attempting even to pursue the conversation, his head sunk a little forward, as though busy with some secret and unalterable thought.
Away ahead of them the cliffs rose with blanker, stonier faces, then parted suddenly, as though pushed by a giant hand, disclosing a prospect of river and undulating valley more magnificent than before. Then they left the riverside, swung to the left along a private road, and, girding the base of Bear Mountain, came to the Inn.
Here the snowfall had been heavier, and on the lower slopes some boys were skiing.
Katharine and Madden got out into the iced wine air, hearing the shouts of the boys, which came cracking down like musket shots. The dry snow on the drive squeaked under their feet. An old porter, in fur cap and mittens, showed them into the hall and up a wide pine staircase, where hung cases of exotic butterflies, a strange reminder on this arctic afternoon of the languid August days. They entered the dining room, a vast half-timbered room built like a hunting lodge, with antlers and the heads of deer upon the walls, and a great half-moon fireplace filled with enormous blazing logs.
Upon her previous visit it had been mid-summer, when tourists and passing motorists had packed the sun-baked room, but though she liked the place then, now Katharine was more powerfully compelled by its deserted rustic splendour. Perhaps because it was already past two o’clock they had the pla
ce entirely to themselves and a table set exactly before the gorgeous blaze with a view which compassed the whole striking panorama of the mountains.
The lunch was simple but good: Southern bisque, tenderloin steak, pineapple fritters, and coffee. Yet Madden ate little of it. He continued taciturn, yet attentive to Katharine, his eyes still bent on hers with that dark, inscrutable intensity. Under that gaze Katharine felt a swimming weakness come upon her. Following a longer pause than usual, she said with an attempted smile:
“We came here to talk, didn’t we?”
“Yes,” he nodded slowly. “At least, as I told you, I have something I must say to you, Katharine.”
She dropped her eyes quickly. He spoke her name in such a fashion it made her heart turn over within her. She wanted to help him with all her soul, to make things easy for him at once.
“You’re in some trouble,” she said hurriedly. “I can see it in your face. But you know I’ll do anything I can.” She broke off awkwardly. “Tell me, is it money?”
Though his face did not apparently change, a line of perplexity drew between his eyes. He stared at her in a kind of puzzled wonder, then slowly shook his head. “Where did you get that idea, Katharine? I’ve got all the money I want. Yes, I’ve got plenty.”
The flat indifference of his tone was more convincing than any emphasis. There was no argument, no possibility of doubt. In a flash she saw that she had been mistaken. Why, then, were they here? A tremor went over her. She could not meet his eyes.
He spoke quietly, like a man who states irrevocable fact: “ It’s more important than that, Katharine, far more important. The plain fact is, Katharine, I’m in love with you.”
She sat perfectly still, a wild emotion singing in her blood. They were alone in the room. The warmth of the fire relaxed her body, a sense of exquisite well-being flowed through her limbs.
