The snow crunched crisply under his cautious feet as he moved away from the door, along the front of the house. He could see Amalie’s footprints, small, firm, wide apart. They indicated a free stride, not a mince. Behind them was a faint brushing, which he knew was the mark of her skirts. She did not lift her garments, then. Jerome smiled.
Now he came to the angle of the house. He passed under the windows of his father’s bedroom, and he paused, looking up at them. The draperies were closely drawn. He passed his sister’s windows, and he saw the moonlight on the folds of the thick crimson velvet. He was under his own windows at last, where Amalie had stood and looked at the moon.
He had walked close to the house, but he knew that in spite of the caution of his steps, and his care to remain close to the wall, he was now clearly revealed to Amalie, in the shadow of the pines. He knew she was still there, facing him, that she had not moved. The moonlight poured down upon him; the radiance hid nothing of him. He felt singularly exposed, yet excited. He looked down at the copse of pines, and knew, instantly, that across that white and gleaming waste Amalie was watching him, though he could not see her.
It was curious and electrifying to know that, to feel the long and fixed pressure of her eyes upon him. Did she know he knew she was there? Or, did she think he had come out upon an impulse, as she had done? He could almost hear her thoughts. At any rate, she would not move, nor signify her presence. She would wait and see.
It was absurd of her to lurk there in that shadow, perhaps believing herself undiscovered. He thought: She must be smiling smugly, watching me exposed in this moonlight, like a butterfly on a pin, herself secure from my eyes. And then he knew that she was not smiling smugly at all. She was watching him as alertly as any wild animal come upon unexpectedly. She would not move until he went away.
The utter frozen silence of the night was unbroken. Not a twig cracked, not a tree groaned. The illumination grew brighter. Faint plumes of smoke from the chimneys turned to frail silver, floated over the house, cast ghost shadows on the snow. Time itself had ended on this world of the moon.
Across the snow the eyes of the man and the woman met in unwavering steadfastness. Now, he thought, she knows I know she is there. Why does she not move, if only to signify her indifference? It was absurdly obstinate of her, and ridiculous, to lurk there. Was she afraid? And, of what?
He moved at last, and followed her footprints down the slope. He walked leisurely, strolling. Yes, her stride was long.
He put his own feet into the prints. The throbbing was stronger in his leg; it had communicated itself to his chest.
Then he stopped, suddenly. Perhaps he was mistaken. Perhaps he would find her gone when he reached the pines. Perhaps she was meeting someone in those shadows, and was not aware of Jerome at all. Perhaps this was a midnight rendezvous. For the first time he was conscious of the bitter cold, of the empty and blazing sterility of the night.
Then, with less caution than before, and with more speed, he went down the slope. The pines appeared to move towards him, like a black and advancing wall. He stopped again. He could see the glimmer of Amalie’s white face below the pines. She was facing him fully. The trees were no more still than she. She was alone.
He began to smile. His stride slowed. He glanced back at the house. It stood, square and strong and gray, against the illuminated sky, all its windows blind, and only the dim blowing silver above the chimneys testifying that any life existed in its core at all. No one had heard him and Amalie. Everyone was asleep. Only she and he himself were awake. Not a light twinkled in the valley below.
He took a few more steps. Now her face was a small silver shield in the darkness of the pines. He said, in a low voice: “Is it you, there?” His words were so quiet that they did not arouse a single echo.
For a long moment or two there was no reply. Was she going to be obdurately silent? Was she playing a silly game? Then her voice came to him, softly and coldly: “Yes. I am here.”
He went on towards her. Now he, himself, was enveloped in the shadow of the pines. Let anyone look from those windows and he would see nothing. The moon struck the high glass with a white light. The snowy roof glittered.
Jerome was close to Amalie, almost within touching distance. She was standing straight and tall in the darkness, her face glimmering. He saw the diffused dark caverns which were her eyes, and the molded outlines of her lips.
“What on earth are you doing out here?” he said, keeping his voice low and hushed.
She said: “Why did you follow me?”
“Follow you?” He tried to make his tone light and incredulous. But she said, quickly and contemptuously: “You did, didn’t you? How could you know I was here, unless you saw me from your windows?”
He said: “Perhaps I wanted a breath of fresh air, too. Perhaps I saw your footprints in the snow, when I came out.”
“Perhaps,” she replied. And then she laughed a little, disdainfully.
“What makes you think that I should care to follow you?” he asked. His throat had thickened with the salty swelling of anger.
He felt, rather than saw, that she shrugged. “That is what I am wondering, too,” she said. “And so, perhaps you can enlighten me. I am very curious.”
Now he saw a sparkle in the whiteness of her face, and he knew that her eyes were mocking him, dismissing him. A dozen replies came into his mind, and all of them were absurd. His anger was blurring his reason, his savoir faire. He knew that he could only rescue himself from this ludicrous situation by saying: “I was not sure it was you. I only wondered who would be out so late. And now, if you please, I shall leave you to undisturbed enjoyment of the night.” And then, he had only to go.
But he could not say those words. He could not turn and leave her. He could only stand in silence, looking at her, forcing himself to meet the sparkle of her eyes with some semblance of composure.
He said, almost simply for the devious Jerome: “Yes. I admit I saw you. And followed you.”
“Why?” The one word was clear and indifferent.
“Perhaps I wanted to talk to you.”
“Why?”
He felt his face burning. “Is it odd that I might want that?”
She stirred. She was turning from him. Now she was moving through the dense thicket of the pines, towards the other side. He watched her go. His anger was mounting to rage. Again, he had only to return to the house. Instead, he followed her. He heard the whispering of the evergreens as she moved through them. Small plaques of snow dropped from them. Splintered fragments of silver broke through the twisted darkness. Finally, they emerged on the other side, and below them was only the continuation of the slope, steeper now, dropping down towards the valley. They stood in the shadow of the pines, side by side.
She looked down at the valley. She said, quietly: “Well, what have you to say to me?”
Snow from the fronds of the pines had fallen in silver stars on her bare head, and glittered on her shoulders. She stood, tall and straight, beside Jerome, her profile, calm and moonb-right, turned towards him.
“You are not polite,” he said, and knew his words were foolish. “After all, you are going to be a relative of mine, and I might like to know you better.”
She turned to him quickly, yet without agitation. “You have never wanted to know anyone ‘better,’ have you? You have only wanted to know others ‘worse.’”
He kept his temper, though he felt the blood rush to his face. “I still maintain that you are not polite. Where did you learn your manners, Miss Amalie?”
“In a harder school than yours,” she replied, scornfully.
“Doubtless,” he said, with slow soft insult. “I do not question that in the least.”
She drew a deep breath. He heard it clearly. “I, for myself, have nothing to say to you, Mr. Lindsey. I came out because I love such nights as this. You will be doing me a kindness, and be exhibiting your faultless manners, if you go away.”
The rude and vulg
ar trollop! He said the words slowly and viciously in his mind. They gave him confidence, decreased his anger.
He said: “Manners and politeness are the prerequisite of those to the ‘manor born,’” his voice was light. “I am not reproaching you, Miss Amalie. I am merely accepting a situation. Moreover, there is an obligation imposed on the members of a family such as ours.”
She said, very quietly: “And what is that obligation, sir?”
“To see that any other member is not consciously, or unconsciously, guilty of destroying its prestige, its position.”
She looked at him, steadily. And then she began to smile. Her white teeth shone in the moonlight. “Do go on, dear Mr. Lindsey. I find your conversation very amusing, even if it is disturbing my pleasure in my walk.”
Again, he was beginning to lose control of himself. He felt in his pockets for a cheroot and his box of lucifers. He lit one with deliberation. The motions helped him. She watched him with exaggerated and assumed interest. He leaned against the trunk of a tall pine, and put his cheroot firmly between his teeth. He studied the sky contemplatively, bending his bad leg to relieve it.
“I am sorry to disturb your pleasure,” he said, with mocking ponderousness. “It is indeed a lovely night. We are alone. What better opportunity for a talk?”
“I am all attention, Mr. Lindsey. The fact that my feet and knees are turning slowly to ice will not disturb you in the least, I know.”
“Do ladies have knees, Miss Amalie?” His tone was very light, and bantering. “I did not think the subject of female knees was ever mentioned in conversation between ladies and gentlemen.”
Again her teeth flashed brightly. “But you are not a gentleman, Mr. Lindsey, and I am not a lady.” She paused. “I have very real knees, sir. And at the present time they are becoming quite numb. So, pray make your conversation brief and to the point.”
“I shall, indeed,” he said, seriously. “May I ask you a blunt question, especially now that it is settled that we are not genteel?”
“Do, sir.” Her voice was as serious as his own.
“Why are you marrying my cousin, Alfred Lindsey?”
She was silent. She regarded him quietly. Then she said: “I could evade that question. I could tell you that you are a boor. I could leave you abruptly. That would reveal to you that I have some knowledge of proper conduct, and you might have a better opinion of me. But I am not concerned with your opinion. I do not care for it in the least. And so, I will answer your question. I am marrying your cousin for what he can give me.”
He lifted his hand as if in shrinking protest. “Oh, Miss Amalie! How excessively crude! I did indeed believe that you might have acquired some slight polish, under the tutelage of my sister. I am mistaken, it seems. So the adage is true, that you—”
“Cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” she interrupted tranquilly.
He bowed. “Thank you, Miss Amalie.”
She began to laugh. It was a clear and sincerely amused laugh. “How ridiculous you are, sir! You believe you are quite charming, and irresistible? Not to me. I find you absurd. I do not know why you followed me, but it was certainly not to catechize me on my reasons for marrying Mr. Alfred Lindsey. And so, I am curious again. I am still waiting for enlightenment.”
His cold fingers suddenly itched. It would give him pleasure to slap that bright and laughing face. At the thought, his heart leapt. He felt the sudden aroused drumming of his blood. He moved closer to her. Her smile faded, and he could see her expression, and it was, all at once, watchful and hard.
He said, thickly: “How much will you take to leave here, ma’am, and never return?”
He observed the widening of her eyes, and now he saw the vivid purple of them in the moonlight. He saw the palpitating pupil, and the shadow of her lashes on her white cheek. Her mouth was dark and full, and very still.
She said, softly: “You do not possess enough, Mr. Lindsey, to bribe me to leave.”
The brilliant moonlit scene began to swing about him in wide circles. There was a strange roaring all about him. He thought, confusedly: The wind is rising. Now the brightness was diminishing, becoming duller. Her face was becoming diffused and uncertain.
He whispered: “I might be able to get enough.”
He knew she was studying him calmly. She moved back a step. He followed her. The scene was darkening, dimming. She continued to retreat. Then she stopped abruptly, prevented from moving by the trunk of a pine. He could hear her breathe again, quickly, unevenly.
Then she cried out, in a shaken voice: “Go away! Let me alone!”
She lifted her large muff before her breast, like a shield. She shrank against the pine. He knew she was trembling. He put out his hand and caught her arm. His fingers pressed through the fur, and he felt the stiffening of her flesh, its quick tremors.
The moon had gone, suddenly. Clouds had mushroomed into the burning sky. The pines bent a little, quaking and groaning. All at once, the gale rushed out of space upon the earth. The quiet snow began to fume, to smoke, filling the air with stinging particles. But it was very still, as yet, among the pines.
The man and woman did not move. She did not attempt to pull her arm from his grasp. She felt him come nearer to her. She lifted her muff higher, as if to protect herself. Their breath mingled, rising in pale vapor between them.
Now he could feel the beating of her blood in the flesh under his fingers. The fur was thin; he felt its cheapness. His fingers clenched deeper, with a kind of fierce and inexplicable ecstasy. He pulled her roughly to him, so that her face was only a few inches from his own, and he could look into her eyes.
“Go away, Amalie,” he said, with savage gentleness.
She was trembling violently. She lifted her muff higher still, so that it concealed the lower half of her face. He saw her do it. Then, with his free hand he dashed it out of her grasp. He pushed his hand into the masses of her thick black hair. He felt the soft warmth of it. He clenched it tighter, with fierce and twisting rapture. He pulled her face roughly to his own.
“Amalie,” he whispered. She did not struggle. She seemed numb and without any volition. Even when he pressed his mouth to hers, his hand still tangled in her hair, she did not move. Her lips were cold and smooth under his.
He kissed her mouth again and again, with slow and delirious deliberation. It did not warm. He did not care. He held her to him, and felt the warmth of her tall and slender body, the pressure of her breasts under the cheap fur. Her eyes were closed.
Then a long shiver ran over her. With amazing strength, she pushed him from her. Her hair slipped from his fingers, as she flung back her head. Caught off balance, he fell back a step or two. She looked at him. The moon came briefly from behind a cloud, and he saw the sudden glaze of her eyes, the gleam of her teeth. Then she caught up her skirts and muff, swung about, and ran. He heard the crunching of the snow under her feet, the rustle of the evergreens as she rushed between them.
He followed her, pushing aside the weighted branches. He reached the other side in time to see her flying figure approaching the house. She ran along the wall, disappeared beyond its angle. He was alone, now, in the rising storm.
A curtain of snow fell abruptly. The wind was fiercer. It beat against his face. He felt the heavy pounding of his heart. He put his hand against a rough tree-trunk to steady himself. His injured leg was on fire.
The darkness increased. He was exhausted. He climbed towards the house, very slowly. The drifting snow was covering Amalie’s footprints. He thought: By morning, there will be no trace of us. He became conscious of a slow and welling sickness, a heaviness, as if he were ill, and a hideous desolation.
His room was warm and dark, except for the dying fire on the hearth. Only a few coals remained alive. He stood before them, looking down at them. The desolation was becoming stronger, and the sickness. They were like the fulminating increase of disease.
He felt something about his fingers. Dully, he examined them. The
re was a black and gleaming strand of Amalie’s hair still curling about his hand, a thin strand like torn silk. He stood and looked at it for a long time, until every coal had died on the hearth.
CHAPTER NINE
He awoke to the sound of faint laughter below his windows, and the shrill barking of the dog, Charlie. The sun was finding narrow entrances through the draperies. Long fingers of light lay on the carpet. Someone, during his sleep, had lit the fire again. It crackled cosily on the hearth.
The door opened and the gnomelike face of Jim pushed itself into the room. “Ah, sir, you are awake at last,” said the hoarse, Cockney voice. The valet entered, a silver tray carried high in his hand. He beamed. “Coffee, sir, and muffins, and good eggs and bacon, the like I’ve never seed in the city.”
He set down the tray, went briskly to the windows, and pulled aside the draperies. The windows were white with frost, forming scenes of valley and woods and branching firs. Charlie was barking almost hysterically. The laughter was louder. Jim smiled fondly. “A rare old time the dog’s havin’, sir, in the snow. Almost beside hisself. I’ve just come in. Nothin’ like the country, after all.”
Jerome pulled a pillow over his eyes. “Shut out that damned light a little!” he shouted. “And I don’t want breakfast. I want a drink.”
Jim subdued the light, regretfully. “Nothin’ like country air and light, sir. Freshes up a man like nothin’. Makes him feel he’s alive.” He came to the bed, anxiously, and stood looking down at his master huddled under the silken quilts. “You don’t want a drink, Mr. Jerome,” he said, in a wheedling voice. “Doctor’s orders, y’know. Thought we’d gone past that Look at that coffee, steamin’. And the eggs—”
“I want a drink, damn you,” said Jerome. He pushed aside the pillow. His face was gray and haggard. “Come on, be quick about it.”
This Side of Innocence Page 10
