Lady with Carnations

by A. J. Cronin

  “Yes,” she went on. “ I’ve been so busy I haven’t even had time to dress. But after all this is quite the proper rig for receiving movie directors. Don’t you think it’s rather fetching?”

  “Sure,” he smiled gently. “You know it is. Did Morris fall for it?”

  She laughed. “You ought to have seen it. It was better than pantomime. Little four-foot Morris saying his part: ‘I vont you, Miss Shervoot. Not in the bed of Napoleon dat cost me thirty thousand dollar. But I vont to make you a star. I vont you to meet Sophie, another Shirley Temple if I vont it. I vont everything, and den I think I vont to go home.”

  Deliberately she made her impersonation of the little director cruelly to the life. It seemed to send her into fits of mirth. A knock at the door did not disturb her. She stood laughing, while the waiter entered with the champagne cocktails.

  “Put them over there,” she commanded. “ On the table by the couch.”

  When the waiter had gone, she sat down on the couch. “ We didn’t have a real chance to see each other last night, Chris. But now we have. And you’ve got to drink to my success. Now don’t look so disapproving. It’s quite fitting, I think.”

  She drank her cocktail quickly while, with greater restraint, he drank his. Outside, the day was grey and overcast. By contrast, the room had an inviting warmth. In the far corner one light cast a soft shaded glow.

  “I’m all wound up, Chris,” she declared. “ I seem calm enough outside. But inside I’m not. And I want you to promise to be nice to me. For I’ve got something to say you mayn’t just care so much about.”

  He placed his glass upon the table and turned and faced her. He looked rather at a loss. “ What do you mean, Nancy?”

  There was a short silence.

  “I hardly like to tell you.”

  “Why not?” he said, his voice considerate and full of kindness. “After all, we’re being married on Saturday.”

  Another silence. She moved restively. “It’s just that, Chris.”

  His dark eyes were bent upon her now with a strained compunction.

  “Nancy! What on earth are you getting at?”

  She took a cigarette, twisted it between her fingers, and lit it. Then she drew a deep inhalation. “ I’m sorry, Chris, most terribly sorry. But since it has come to a showdown, we may as well get things straight. I don’t want to—in fact, I don’t propose to get married for quite a while.”

  His face had turned grim. He studied her with that same set, strained look, his body rigid, his lips pale. Her sudden declaration had staggered him.

  “You promised to marry me on Saturday.”

  “Yes, I know. But everything’s twisted round since last night. My stock’s jumped up to the top of the market. I’m going to be tied up with Bertram and Morris—a big Hollywood contract—I haven’t time to get married. Besides, it would be fatal publicity for me at the moment.” She appeared to relent momentarily. “ Oh, don’t misunderstand me, Chris. I care for you a lot. But you must see that things are different. When I met you at Nice, I was rather down on my luck. I had a flat spot when I thought I’d never make good. I fell for you terribly, and I sort of felt I wanted taking care of. But now I can take care of myself. Oh, it isn’t that I don’t want you. You can see that. And I don’t want to hurt you. But don’t you see it’s become a little complicated, a little difficult now?”

  “Difficult,” echoed Madden with sudden hardness. “ You don’t know the meaning of the word. Do you mean to say that because you’ve had this big success you refuse to marry me?”

  “Suppose we wait,” she temporized.

  Madden’s eyes were grim. “Wait,” he repeated. “You’d have me wait about like a messenger boy. Hang about doing errands for you, carrying your gloves, fetching you flowers, taking you out to lunch when you can spare the time, following you to Hollywood”—his voice rose, not without anger—“playing pet dog to you when you got out of the studios. By God, no, Nancy! I’ve done it for weeks now, and I don’t like it. I didn’t ask to be your lap dog. I asked you to marry me.”

  She was silent. She saw clearly that it was the crisis she had expected, which indeed she had deliberately sought. But nothing, nothing, was going to stop her now from doing what she had set out to do.

  “We were mistaken, Chris,” she said slowly. “Let’s face it honestly. You’d never have enjoyed my being on the stage.”

  “I guess you’re right,” he cried bitterly. “ I wanted a wife to be in my home, to…”

  “Don’t say any more,” said Nancy quickly. “I don’t want to hear it. And in any case it wouldn’t be the slightest use.”

  With effort she cut herself off. She rose abruptly and stood with her back to him, crushing out the end of her cigarette.

  He stared at her, his face grey, his spirit suffering and wholly disillusioned. He had been, or at least he had imagined himself, in love with her. He still was fond of her. He was silent a long time. Then, remembering his promise to Katharine, he threw aside his own inclination and tried once more to bridge the gap between them.

  “Listen, Nancy,” he hazarded. “Have we really lost everything? Isn’t there anything we can do to straighten this out?”

  She did not stir. “ It’s no use, Chris,” she said in a final voice. “This has been coming to us for a long time. The road I’m going to travel isn’t yours. We may be fond of each other, but that makes not the slightest odds. We’ve got to forget each other. I don’t bear you any ill feeling. But once and for all we’re through.”

  There was nothing more to be said. In five minutes he was out of the apartment and heading in the direction of his hotel. He walked mechanically, caught between two extremes of emotion. He had, strangely, no sense of release. But through the heavy burden of his disillusionment came the dismal consciousness that he had failed somehow in his promise, in his obligation to Katharine. In his present mood he could not contemplate the prospect of the future. As for Nancy, though he knew it not, she sat, pale-lipped, in her room, struggling against tears.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  When Katharine returned to the apartment at half-past five, she sensed immediately that some crisis had occurred. Nancy, who was dressed for the street, had apparently fulfilled her luncheon engagement with Bertram. But though her expression was normal enough, Katharine’s intuition told her that something was wrong. She did not speak immediately, however, but first rang for tea. Only when this arrived did she veer towards Nancy and say, between concern and affection:

  “Well, tell me? Did the contract fall through?”

  Nancy picked up a cigarette and studied it intently. “ No, the contract was all right.”

  “What then?” asked Katharine.

  There was a pause. Supported on her elbow, Nancy lit her cigarette and let it come to rest in the corner of her lips. She said deliberately: “In the language of movieland, darling, I’ve made the greatest sacrifice of my sweet young life.”

  “Sacrifice!” repeated Katharine in a slightly bewildered tone. “For whom?”

  Another pause. Then very distinctly Nancy said: “ For my career.”

  Katharine put down her cup and bent her brows firmly upon Nancy.

  “Would you mind telling me just exactly what you mean?”

  Under her affectation, Nancy’s eyes flinched. But she concealed it. “I’ve chucked Chris,” she answered briefly, “ for good.”

  A silence of stupefaction. The startled quiver that went through Katharine betrayed itself in her face. But following on that emotion came a rush of intolerable feeling so complex and unsettling, so powerfully commingling rage, pity, and downright indignation, that Katharine was really shaken out of herself.

  “Nancy!” she cried sharply. “ Stop acting and tell me what you’ve done.”

  Nancy kept her eyes upon the glowing end of her cigarette. “It’s no use getting excited. It’s done now. It was either Chris or my career. I had to choose, and of course I couldn’t, I couldn’t ever, ever,
ever give up my career.”

  “And you’ve always insisted you could have Chris and your career,” protested Katharine.

  “Not now,” Nancy answered. “Not after last night.”

  It needed no further explanation. Katharine imagined she saw the whole situation. Immediately everything within her rose in violent protest. Leaning forward she said rapidly, and in quite a different voice:

  “You can’t do it, Nancy. You’re unsettled, perhaps a little above yourself with all the success and flattery you’ve had. But you can’t throw away your happiness like this.”

  “Who says I’m throwing it away?” replied Nancy evenly.

  “I do,” Katharine answered earnestly. “And I ought to know.”

  Nancy sat up and faced Katharine, her face curiously set.

  “You don’t know. You can’t know. I’m the one that’s got to make the choice. You can’t combine matrimony and art. It’s been tried a thousand times before, and it never has worked yet. Oh, I know what I used to say. There’s no use going over all that ground again. I’ve been over it with Chris. Yet I’ll go a little bit farther with you, Katharine. This big success makes all the difference. Everything has opened out for me, a wonderful career—success.” Her voice turned low and oddly fascinated. “ One day I’ll be a great actress, a really great actress.”

  “Don’t be too sure,” Katharine said flatly. “Others have said the same thing after their first success.”

  “I’ll be different,” Nancy answered dreamily. “ I’ll go on and on. Wait till you see me play Ophelia.”

  Remembering Izzard’s prophetic words, a sense of fatalism came over Katharine. But she put it away from her. She said quickly, pleadingly:

  “And even if you do succeed, what is it all going to amount to in the end? Are you going to be happy? Success doesn’t mean happiness. Often it means less than nothing. Oh, I know that sounds absurd to you, Nancy; but it’s true, most terribly true. I’m older than you, my dear, and I know a little about life. I’ve had my own experience.

  “You talk about your career. Well, I’ve had my career, made every sacrifice, given up everything that matters for it. And believe me, it isn’t, oh, it isn’t worth it. If I were starting all over again, I wouldn’t give a snap of my fingers for success and all this nonsense about career. I’d rather have a home of my own anywhere, even in the poorest suburbs, and children, and someone to be fond of me in my old age than all the fame and popularity in the world.”

  Katharine concluded brokenly, swept away by the fervour of her own conviction. But Nancy’s expression remained unmoved, a trifle arrogant, even disdainful.

  “You may imagine that, Katharine,” she said in a hard tone. “But I just won’t let myself think that way.”

  “You’ll regret it.”

  “Oh, no, I won’t.” Nancy made a slow negation with her head.

  There was a throbbing silence. With a strained face Katharine stared at her niece. Hurt and baffled, she still persisted. In a low voice she advanced her final plea.

  “But, Nancy, I can’t really understand. Don’t you love Chris?”

  Nancy turned her gaze, now strangely metallic, upon Katharine.

  “Yes,” she said, “ I’m fond of Chris. But perhaps not enough. There’s something I want more than Chris. And that’s why he had to go.”

  “I can’t believe that,” Katharine gasped breathlessly. “At least not of you.”

  Nancy rose abruptly, her face a pale impenetrable mask. “Sorry you feel that way about it, darling! Tiresome, but it can’t be helped. We’ve got our own lives to lead. And I’ve decided how I must lead mine. That’s all.” She glanced at the clock significantly and, pushing back her hair with a quiet gesture, moved towards her bedroom. “Meantime, I’ve got to get to the theatre by seven.”

  “Nancy!” Katharine exclaimed in a tone of final entreaty.

  But Nancy seemed not to have heard. The door closed behind her with a sharp dramatic click, and at the sound, which somehow symbolized the end of all her striving, Katharine’s heart sank, and her figure drooped hopelessly. She had fought with all her strength to convince Nancy, and she had failed. Perhaps she was wrong, yet she saw Nancy as a foolish, precocious child who had thrown her happiness away, and now ran heedlessly along the high edge of disaster, her eyes dazzled by the glitter, her hands outstretched towards the gaudy bubble of illusion.

  All at once a shutter seemed to uncover before Katharine’s sight. She recollected with a tender pang those early days when Nancy had come to her, a solitary little figure, bereft of her father and her mother, tragic yet strangely tearless. What love she had lavished upon her since then! What plans she had made, and what preparations for her happiness!

  A wave of pain passed over Katharine, forcing from her lips a low and bitter sigh. She had torn her heart in two by sending Chris away. She had a strange sensation, unreal yet despairing, that she had lost Chris and Nancy, too. Nothing remained but a weight of blind futility.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  It was eight o’clock on Saturday evening, and the floor of Katharine’s apartment, littered with tissue paper, coat hangers, rugs, a few articles of clothing, and two half-filled suitcases, presented the melancholy spectacle of a belated packing. Her heavy luggage had gone ahead, and now, having the moment before dismissed the chambermaid, Katharine sat down to rest, her eyes surveying the wreckage of the room, the untidy carpet, empty vases, the choked wastepaper basket, the faded flowers flung upon the window sill. Somehow this litter and confusion seemed to symbolize her own life. Vainly she tried to tell herself that the wreckage would be cleared away, the room restored, refurbished, and renewed. That, alas, would be in preparation for another occupant. It would not be for her.

  In three hours’ time she would sail on the Pindaric, back to England again in the same old ship which had brought her out. Even this struck her as a symptom of the tenor of her life. Upton was returning with her. An hour ago he had gone down to the shipping office, with the facile courtesy which so characterized him, to pick up her ticket and make sure that her cabin arrangements—since she had booked at the last moment—were satisfactory and complete.

  Again Katharine admitted Charley’s kindness. He was an obliging fellow, a good friend. Yet she knew irrevocably that he could never be more than that to her. Charley was too weak, too facile, far too soft-fibred ever to awaken or to hold her. Her nature demanded someone vital, someone restrained and deep, whose very silences would master her, whose simplicity would evoke the rushing tenderness of her love.

  Again she thought of Madden. She loved him with all her heart and soul, such a love as she had never known or ever hoped to know. She would never stop loving him. Already she acknowledged it as her destiny, like that of the poor de Quercy, to carry this secret pain forever in her breast. She thought of him soberly. She had not seen him since the night of the première, yet she knew that he had checked out of his hotel. It did not surprise her that he had not come to her. At first, perhaps, she had expected him. But now she saw the situation as too confused and too upsetting for such a simple ending. The human emotions were delicately attuned. Nancy’s behaviour must have hurt him badly, altered his outlook, shifted his sense of values.

  She felt convinced that he had returned to Cleveland, sick of the vagaries of women, disillusioned and equally determined to close the painful chapter of his recent experience. She was aware of the telephone at her elbow, an instrument which might have been created to restore communication between Madden and herself, yet she would have died sooner than avail herself of it. Her pride forbade it, and the bitter memory of that moment in the Metropolitan when she had thrown her happiness away. No, no! Let him keep away from her if he did not wish to come. That was the best solution, the clean-cut remedy. It offered the easiest outlet of escape.

  Presently he would forget her, marry some American girl, young and beautiful, who would make him happy. She winced, remembering with a little pang that early trivial e
pisode in her life. At least George Cooper had not mourned her long, and it was a precedent which Madden might well follow. She would remain unwanted and unlamented, following the orbit of her lonely star.

  She got up slowly, began to toss the last few articles into her travelling case. Nancy had already left for the theatre and would probably not be free until after the time of sailing. Thinking of Nancy, Katharine sighed. She seemed so different now, so elusive and remote. She would not talk of Madden or of her own affairs. Her whole life seemed bound, as though consecrated, to the service of the stage.

  Nancy’s success continued, blazed in bright lights across the sky, and was now in fact assured. Apparently she had not sacrificed Madden in vain. The contract with Morris was signed. She was going to Hollywood in the spring at a salary which must have satisfied the most exorbitant demand. Moreover, despite her allegiance to Morris, she was still on the best of terms with Bertram, having arranged that he should handle the theatrical side of her work. He had altered the structure of the play, amplifying her part, giving her extra and more telling lines. He was full of enthusiasm and plans. Nancy was to lead, for certain, in his next production. He had given a special press interview under the heading, “A New Star Rises”, which dealt exclusively with Nancy and his own unerring faculty for discovering genius.

  Katharine snapped the cases shut with a kind of melancholy finality. It was finished now. Nothing remained but to ring the office, give her instructions to the porter, and silently depart. It was very quiet in the bedroom, and extraordinarily still. Softly, from a neighbouring apartment across the corridor, the muted sound of a radio came stealing in, an almost ghostly music, familiar yet curiously remote. Instinctively Katharine listened, then with a shiver of pain recollection came to her. It was the refrain to which she and Madden had danced upon the Pindaric. Silly words and sentimental music. Yet scalding tears filled Katharine’s eyes. She dashed them away. Courage! That was all remaining to her now. Yet the melody held her, played upon her heartstrings with haunting, desperate insistence.