Because of his own tumultuous emotions, John could not at first distinguish or recognize any particular face. Mr. Wilkins took this opportunity to pluck fervidly at his host’s sleeve. Mr. Gorth had taken a step or two towards his new guests, and glanced down impatiently at his agent.
“Mr. Gorth, sir, beggin’ your pardon—a word,” whispered Mr. Wilkins, urgently, “it’s somethin’ I’ve just come across, today. That bloke, there, I didn’t know. But your nevvy’s wife was the lass he was goin’ to marry, and which he was done out of, by Mr. Bollister.”
Mr. Gorth halted abruptly, and glared at the other. His strong rectangular face suddenly became suffused with hard colour. “The devil,” he muttered. “The devil, Mr. Wilkins.” He paused, and then said viciously: “You knew this, Mr. Wilkins!”
“Not till today, sir, not a bloody thing,” repeated Mr. Wilkins, with such a sincere and artless air that Mr. Gorth was almost persuaded to believe him. “I’d ’ave told you, sir. I tried, tonight, but there wasn’t no opportunity.”
Then Mr. Gorth knew that this creature lied. His fists doubled. His pale eyes stretched until they were a whitish glare. If he had known, even an hour ago, he would have sent a hasty message to John announcing that the dinner had been postponed. Even half an hour ago, he thought, furiously. It was too late, now. What had this mountebank in mind, this affable thief and liar?
He and Mr. Wilkins looked at each other steadfastly. Mr. Wilkins’ round pink countenance expressed nothing but sympathetic concern. Mr. Gorth ground his teeth together, turned away and proceeded towards John, followed by the twittering and awkward Mrs. Gorth, whose simper was very patronizing and arch. Mr. Wilkins, after a faint smile, followed them unobtrusively through the passage made for them by the guests.
Mr. Gorth was maddened. The purplish flush had receded from his face, and it was now as gray as winter ice. He was in a devil of a predicament. Even his short acquaintanceship with John had assured him that here was a character full of violent impulses and tumultuous reactions. There was no predicting what he would do in a few short moments. Mr. Gorth’s rage mounted. But, as he looked at John, now not more than two feet distant from him, he was seized with a harsh and reluctant pity and a real concern. He had come to be fond of his secretary; he relied upon him, admired the dogged and angered persistence with which he attacked a problem. He trusted him. Now he must appear to the young man to be an enemy, one plotting with condescending contempt behind his back for his discomfiture and humiliation and pain.
He seized John’s cold and clammy hand, and forcibly turned him slightly from the others. He took no notice of Lilybelle, though before he had heard the devastating revelation from Mr. Wilkins he had been struck by her beauty and her lavishness of young figure. Mrs. Gorth, nonplussed at the sudden action of her husband, stood uncertainly behind him.
Mr. Gorth, by his sheer will, forced John to look at him directly and to forget his embarrassment for a moment while he listened.
“Johnnie! You must understand. I didn’t know until a moment ago, when that stinking Wilkins told me. If I had known, whilst you were still at home, I’d have sent you a message. I’m damned sorry, lad.”
His rage and indignation temporarily choked him. His iron fingers tightened on John’s hand. The young man, who had been smiling mechanically, now frowned. But he answered quietly enough: “It’s quite all right, sir. I knew Andy Bollister was your nephew, that he would be here tonight. There’s no love between us. But I hope I am gentleman enough not to cause you any awkwardness.”
Mr. Gorth’s purplish slash of mouth divided, and John saw the glisten of his yellow teeth in something which had no resemblance to a smile. He heard a quick harsh sound as his employer drew in his breath. But he lifted his head angrily when he detected pity and impotent fury in Mr. Gorth’s glacous eyes. Their fishlike quality had disappeared.
But despite these evidences of fulminating wrath, Mr. Gorth’s rough voice was still quiet: “It’s worse than that, my lad. Brace yourself. You are a man, and you must face this.” He paused, then said in an even lower voice, hurried and pent: “Andy’s wife’s your cousin, Johnnie. Did Wilkins know? Didn’t he tell you?”
John listened. All expression vanished from his face. He stood and looked at Mr. Gorth. His flesh took on the hue and texture of stone. Mr. Gorth felt the hand he held grow cold and stiff as ice. He felt a strong rigour pass over John’s body, an arching rigour like the last convulsion of a dying man. Then he looked away from Mr. Gorth and stared blindly, like a statue, at the opposite wall.
Mrs. Gorth coughed delicately behind her husband. “Really, my dear,” she simpered. “Your guests. You must introduce me.” She ignored poor Lilybelle, standing a little apart, her face puckered in an expression of childish perturbation.
Only three of the guests, Andrew, Eugenia and Mr. Wilkins, saw anything strange in this quick interchange between Mr. Gorth and his new guest. To the others, this seemed polite exchange of greetings, with perhaps a private aside, and they elaborately took up their conversation again until such fit time as they were introduced to the new arrivals. But Eugenia stood in silence, no less pale than John. She had understood that John knew of her marriage to Andrew; but all at once she was overwhelmed with terror and faintness. For, as she saw his look, she knew that he had not been informed, that Andrew had kept his silence for just this hour of sadistic pleasure, that his uncle had been ignorant of everything. As for Mr. Wilkins, lurking modestly near his hostess, he said nothing, and wore only a fixed and sympathetic smile. Once he glanced at Lilybelle, and thought: Ho, my lass, we’ve got our revenge, eh?
“Believe me,” said Mr. Gorth urgently, ignoring his wife, “I didn’t know, Johnnie. Think I’d humiliate you like this?” He wet his dry lips. “Don’t give ’em the satisfaction, Johnnie. Buck up. Brace yourself. You are a man.”
John’s face changed again. It had a look of death upon it. What a hellish trick to play upon this young and vulnerable man, and under what circumstances! He had thought his own ruthlessness immune to compassion for others. Had he been only a spectator, and had had no personal fondness for John, he would have enjoyed this. There was no enjoyment in him now.
He urged again, putting his hand on John’s sleeve, careless of whatever his guests might be thinking: “Buck up, Johnnie. They’re looking at you. You’ll not give them the satisfaction, eh? You’re a man, Johnnie.”
John did not move or answer. He seemed so stunned, so frozen, that he might have been blind or deaf. Mr. Gorth eyed him apprehensively. How soon would the reaction come? What would it bring with it? With a strange helplessness, he turned to his wife, and said: “My dear, let me present Mr. Turnbull and his lady.”
Mrs. Gorth, who had noticed nothing except that her husband had been remarking something inaudible to the young man, arched her neck, smirked condescendingly, and croaked: “It is a pleasure, I am sure, Mr. Turnbull.”
John heard her voice. He turned his dull glazed eyes upon her. His lips moved slightly. But that was all. Then, stiffly, as if his arm was made of wood, he indicated his wife.
As if John had spoken to introduce his wife, Mr. Gorth, in relief, turned quickly to Lilybelle, nudging his wife sharply to draw her attention to the girl, for she had begun to stare in puzzlement at John. “So, this is Mrs. Turnbull,” said Mr. Gorth, in loud delight, taking her slack hand and bowing over it. The girl surrendered to him, limply, for she saw nothing but John and his anguish. She did not know the cause. It was enough for her that he looked like death, itself. Wild panic suffused her. Her mouth fell open on what sounded dangerously like a sob. When Mrs. Gorth curtseyed only very slightly, the girl turned to the woman with all abrupt start, and gazed at her with glazed eyes. Then, after a moment or two, her shaking knee bent stiffly.
The moment had arrived to draw John and his wife into the circle of the guests. Sweat bedewed Mr. Gorth’s fixedly smiling face. He took John’s arm with exaggerated familiarity and pulled him along at his side. He uttered a
few bright words. John walked beside him, blindly, moving as stiffly as a marionette. His head was bent a little; his feet stumbled. Mrs. Gorth followed with the silent and trembling Lilybelle.
Mr. Gorth hoped savagely that that accursed Andrew and his wife would be the last to be introduced. He observed that they had withdrawn to the fringe of the group of guests. For one moment he saw Eugenia, and he understood a great deal. But Andrew was smiling wickedly to himself.
As for John, after the first crushing immensity of the horror which had fallen upon him, he felt nothing at all. Colour, light, movement, walls, floor and men and women had merged together in a great blinding swirl before him. He felt himself swaying and tottering, and all at once it became most enormously important to him that he keep his feet. There was a frightful rocking nausea in his middle; he felt cold wet fingers running up and down his back. His physical sensations were too intense to admit any thought to their crowded arena.
Mr. Wilkins followed behind the ladies. He walked gently, on the balls of his feet. Had any one noticed him at the moment, he would have seen him nod very softly to himself.
Now Mr. Gorth had a sudden inspiration which so relieved him that he felt quite weak, and there was a rush of salt water into his mouth. He began the introductions. The ladies curtseyed, the gentlemen bowed stiffly. Mr. Gorth, still holding John’s arm, felt his automatic dazed response, and knew that he saw nothing. He raised his voice loudly and genially:
“Mr. Turnbull has just informed me that he must leave almost immediately, on some important matter. I am sure that we are quite regretful.”
This surprising remark, and John’s own face, which in contour and tint resembled wet clay, would have immediately engrossed the curious attention of the guests had not Lilybelle compelled every eye with her height, figure, toilette, bright hair and pretty wholesome freshness. The ladies only half heard Mr. Gorth’s soothing regretful words, for they were enviously and maliciously studying every curve of Lilybelle’s arms and neck and bosom, calculating the origin of the purple gown, estimating the value of her turquoise jewels, concluding that the tint of her curls was artificial, and that she was quite astoundingly vulgar, and not at all genteel. Literally yellow with envy, they lifted their fans to their lips and tittered meanly behind them, and archly whispered to their neighbours. If Eugenia’s elegance had made them appear gross and cheap, Lilybelle overpowered them so that they resembled dun peafowl. As for the gentlemen, they were overcome with admiration. Such glowing health, such pearly translucence of exposed bosom and neck, such glorious shimmering hair, such vitality of line and movement, intoxicated them. There were furtive lickings of masculine lips in the wretched Lilybelle’s wake, and glances too bold? eager and lustful. “Gad, a beauty!” they whispered to each other. “A lusty piece,” said others. “What a warm baggage, what an armful!” said still others. It was no wonder, then, John’s obvious illness, his somnambulant walk, his blind staring eyes, escaped all but the most passing and indifferent attention. If any one did remark it, he concluded that all this was but the natural reaction of a young ill-bred man in the midst of superiors.
Mr. Gorth had faced many difficult and dangerous experiences in his exigent and relentless life, but none of them affected him as did this experience. He was vaguely astounded at his own inner shaking and disorganization. The pangs of pity were so unfamiliar to him that he hardly recognized them. These unpleasant sensations increased as he approached the worst moment of the ordeal.
Eugenia stood beside her husband, but slightly behind him, her head bent, her face half concealed by her fan. But under lashes, fixed and rigid, she watched the approach of John and his wife. Her white fan emphasized the gray pallor of her small face. One flicker of her eye had passed over Lilybelle, and her eyelids had contracted, and she had winced a little, not with affected fastidiousness, but with real revulsion. The knuckles of the frail hand that held the fan turned white and blue.
Andrew waited easily, slightly smiling, his slender head with the painted silver-gilt hair gleaming under the light of the great crystal chandelier. He himself, felt no apprehension, but only a wary amusement and quiet disdain. He loved the discomfiture and misery and pain of others, and enjoyed them objectively, especially if he despised them. He watched John’s blind approach, saw that he walked as if drunk or wounded. His eye flickered over Lilybelle, and he felt a momentary surprise and curiosity. Though his taste rejected the flamboyant and the too gaudy and obvious, it was, nevertheless, aroused to a more sturdy interest. Too, he was faintly annoyed. The girl was very suitable for stupid old Johnnie, if the fool would only see it. Much more suitable than Eugenia, standing in such a vacuum of silence and coldness beside her husband, and affecting him whether he would admit it or not with her bitter stillness. There was a kind of physical harmony between John and Lilybelle, as there was between Andrew and Eugenia. If only old Johnnie, and that silly little Eugenia could see that! reflected Andrew, with fresh surprise.
Now the meeting was inevitable, was at hand. Richard Gorth, smiling fixedly, his harsh face furrowed with his efforts to maintain an appearance of ease and heartiness, lifted his eyes and met those narrow glinting ones of his nephew. The smile remained, but Andrew, to his languid inner mirth, saw the sudden savage fury that boiled in his uncle, a fury which would have intimidated any one else but Andrew. He felt a rustling movement near him; Eugenia had uncontrollably started, and he laid his hand lightly upon her arm. But that arm jerked away from him as though convulsed.
The moment had come. “You know Andy, Johnnie! And, we’ve a surprise for you!” exclaimed Mr. Gorth, feeling as if his casklike chest was contracting painfully about his heart. “Your cousin, Johnnie, Mrs. Andrew Bollister! Thought we’d keep it a surprise for you, finding her here in New York! Mrs. Turnbull, ma’am, my nephew, and his lady, Mrs. Turnbull.”
Andrew, smiling, bowed. Eugenia moved slightly, in a curtsey. But John neither bowed nor inclined his head. He stood and looked at Andrew and Eugenia, slowly, steadfastly. The blindness was gone from his eyes. There was a terrible quiet awareness in them. And, as John stood there, so rigid and impassive, without a word or a movement, the suave smile faded from Andrew’s face. He regarded John without flinching, but his lips tightened slowly, and he appeared to recoil without actually making the slightest motion.
John gazed at Eugenia, and she returned his gaze proudly and silently. But her eyes pleaded desperately with him, hopelessly. He made no gesture of recognition. Very slowly, Eugenia’s pale face flushed deeply and thickly, and her throat contracted.
Andrew had not expected this. He had not dreamt of such control on the part of his enemy. He had wondered if John would break out into wild threats and imprecations, and create a disturbing scene, which would furnish him, Andrew, with amusement, and great entertainment for the guests. Then Uncle Richard would be impelled, later, to sack the blackguard without Andrew lifting a single finger to bring about that pleasant culmination. He had half believed that John might attempt to assault him, which would be very ludicrous, and bring forcibly to Eugenia’s mind the impossible and odious character of her cousin.
But John betrayed no indication that he was about to explode into unseemly violence. He stood there before his enemy and his cousin for long moments, only his eyes aware of them, and they were appalling in their expression, so full of loathing they were, so full of frozen abhorrence and detestation. It was as if he found them too abominable for petty violence, too despicable for a word from him.
Andrew found all this very extraordinary and baffling. John was not proceeding according to type, and in accordance with former indications of his character. Before silence, before immobility that suggested a deep horror of him and his wife, Andrew was impotent. Richard Gorth, seeing all this, felt a sudden slackening of relief in himself, and sudden malignant gratification. Andy was not to have his circus, after all. As for Lilybelle, she stood forgotten.
Then John turned quietly to his wife, and spoke softly: “Come,
my dear.” He took the girl’s trembling arm, and piloted her back through the now completely silent and curious guests towards the door. He moved without haste, and with a strange new dignity, his head high, his eyes ahead. If there was a taste of death, of mortal illness, in his mouth, he did not betray it. It is true that deep blue lines had appeared about his white lips and about his eyes, but there were no further signs of the bottomless agony within him.
A carriage was waiting in the quiet street outside. John helped his wife to enter. In a controlled voice he gave his destination, and the carriage started up. It was Richard Gorth’s vehicle; that quick-witted gentleman had ordered it for his departing guests.
Lilybelle was terrified. John sat beside her as if made of stone. Something awful had occurred, but the girl could not understand it. A streetlamp shone on John’s stiff features, which had a kind of contortion upon them as if he had been seized with physical anguish, with overpowering torture. Breath was suspended on his lifted and twisted lips.
She forgot her own terror in her overwhelming compassion for him, and touched his arm, murmuring to him. He started violently. He turned and stared at her, awareness of her presence slowly and horribly dawning upon him. He struck off her hand; he thrust her from him so ferociously that her head crashed against the window of the carriage. He cried out, his hoarse voice broken by the most appalling dry sobs:
The Turnbulls Page 25
