by Fannie Hurst
“Walter. I’ll call a doctor.”
“No. No. No.”
Locked in the same fear that must have smitten him as he writhed, she kept smoothing back his hair and running her hand along the cold sweat of his forehead.
“Then lie down, sweetheart. Relax against me.”
“I can’t,” he said stiffly. “I wonder if I’m going to faint.”
“No, darling, you’re not. You’re just in pain and short of breath.”
“That’s it. I’ll be all right.”
“Could you drink a little water now?”
“No. Just let me lie quietly. I’ll be all right.”
Three of the small knickknack clocks which cluttered up the room began suddenly and with absurd prominence to tick roundly and out of time with one another. Between their tiny spans, it seemed to Ray, holding him there, watching his damp brow spring out in globules each time she wiped them away, that long eternities of this terrible waiting wheeled in between the seconds. If only she dared risk his excitement, or his anger, or his—fear, by calling a doctor. Between the eternities of those clock-ticks, she visualized, precisely as if it were held flaming against her tormented eyes, the headline: “Head of banking house of Friedlander-Kunz dies in woman’s apartment.”
It was as if she had shocked him out of an impending stupor, because he opened his eyes, not quite taking her in for the moment.
“Walter, I will get a doctor.”
“I’m all right,” he said, and tried to lift himself away from her shoulder.
“Drink this then, darling,” she said, and held the tumbler against his shuddering lips. He was sick then, and terribly humiliated, his fastidiousness offended. And she had to assume the high singsong voice of talking to a drowsy child.
“Now it’s all over and we’re well again, and it’s forgotten. So! There! Pillow under his head. There! Purple coverlet that Ray crocheted herself! There! Collar loosed and lampshade just right for no bad glare! There—better, darling?”
“I must have overdone today. Two directors’ meetings and then that trip out to Rosmersholm to see Richard play the polo semifinals. Too much—in heat—”
“—of course—”
“—had attacks like this before—pass off—”
“—of course—everybody has—”
“—terrible—”
“—all over now—”
“—must—eat more carefully—”
“—everybody should—”
“—wonderful woman, Ray—”
“—darling—”
“—wouldn’t have had it happen for the world—”
“—why not, dearest—here to share bad times—”
“—God knows you have—mostly—”
“—no—no—no—”
He began to whimper, for all the world like a child.
“Don’t leave me, Ray.”
“Why, of course I won’t, Walter.”
“I haven’t let on, but I wouldn’t be surprised—if that isn’t what has upset me. Of course, if your heart is set on going—”
“Why, silly darling—it’s worth everything that you want me here—”
“I need you so, Ray. Don’t leave me … don’t go to Oxford.”
“Oh, my darling …”
“Wire them you can’t come. Sick. Tell them anything.”
“Anything.”
“We’ll go to Switzerland, Ray, one of these days. You won’t be sorry.”
“Of course I won’t.”
“Sure you’re not disappointed?”
“On the contrary, I’m happy.”
“—couldn’t stand your going—”
Crouched there, smoothing his still-damp brow, she was working it all out in flashes. Emma should have the money the railroad fare would have cost. Just as well. The child would need a good outfit to start teaching. It would have been nice going out, but—it was ineffably sweet being needed. How like a small boy he seemed, lying there pale and wanting her. Nothing in the world but an attack of out-and-out acute indigestion from overeating. Strange that she, the fancy one, should always be the one to be let in for the rather brutally plain facts of his life. It was as if, for Corinne, he had troubled to keep up an illusion. Not that she wanted illusion, here at the very core of his life where she belonged.…
“Sweet darling,” she said to him as he slept.
And even as he floated off, half hearing, his hand closed around her forefinger, holding on.
44
In June, Arnold, valiantly trying to emulate his big brother’s polo prowess, was thrown from a pony, and his ankle fractured in two places.
The redeeming side to this catastrophe, as voiced by Richard—whose attitude to his young brother, across the chasm of years that separated them, was a mixture of patronage and paternalism—was that, while it canceled all preparations for the western tour, it did throw Arnold back on the needed resort of spending the summer at school camp, tutoring in an arithmetic course, in which he was trailing.
So once more a default of summer plans, dismaying but not surprising! It had happened so often before, with what seemed by now a consistent perversity.
Corinne, with Arnold no longer able to take his western trip, was going to Aix with Walter, for the cure, which she declared gave her new life for a twelvemonth.
“It’s just as if some kind of fate were forever fixing summers for us the way we don’t want them, Walter.”
“Fact,” he said. “I’ve been banking on this summer being very different from the way it now looks it is going to be.”
The thought of the dreariness of the double precautions of the indoor life she must lead this time at Aix came flowing over her.
“Walter, you won’t get angry if I say something?”
“Am I as vicious as all that?”
“Now, Walter, you know that’s beside the point. Supposing this year I don’t go over, Walter. It’s hard under the conditions, being at a small place like Aix. I’ll stay home this trip.”
The old familiar look of hurt and personal affront came in a scowl between his eyes.
“I hadn’t realized before that a trip to Europe was a hardship. Of course, if you feel that way about it. Wouldn’t think of asking it.”
“Now, Walter, dear, please don’t go getting sarcastic. You know I didn’t mean it that way. I think it’s wonderful, of course. It’s the conditions I’m talking about. Walter, dear, have you ever thought what it means to be cooped up a prisoner in a small town like Aix, sometimes not seeing you for days, and afraid to go out, for fear?”
“Yes, naturally, but I’ve been fool enough to believe that it might be worth it.…”
“Why, Walter Saxel, honestly, I could spank you. Of course it is worth it, darling, and you know it … but …”
“I see. But it’s not worth it to you.”
“Honestly, dear, it is a talent with you to twist what I say into something I didn’t even dream of. I only meant …”
“I know what you only meant. And you may rest assured there is nothing I want less than to force you into anything against your will.”
In the end, propitiating, she had to plead her way slowly, a matter of hours, step-by-step, back into precisely the estate from which she had sought this summer to extricate herself.
“Walter, dearest, it isn’t that I don’t love to be near you, it is because I do so value it, that I can’t bear the thought of chancing—”
“Funny way of showing it.”
“But I’ve tried to explain.…”
“I know what you’ve tried to explain, and you’ve succeeded, too. It has always been one of my policies, in business and out—no unhappy, discontented people around me. The moment that happens—out!”
“Why, Walter, honestly you—you just make me feel as if I’m going crazy, trying to make you understand. I love Aix, dearest. I love being there just because you are there. I love being anywhere you are, even if I only see you one hour out of a month.
I only meant …”
“Well then, just what did you mean?”
“I only meant, Aix being so small—”
“Oh, I see—you want me to enlarge it, eh?”
Oh. Oh. Oh. Tears were in her eyes, and each time she attempted the propitiating gesture of trying to take hold of his coat lapels, he pushed her away, unconciliatory.
“None of that.”
“Very well,” she said, sitting herself down firmly on a chair opposite him. “But just the same, I’m going to Aix this summer and you’re not going to hold me back. I won’t be punished for saying a little thing that had no meaning.”
“You are not going.”
“I am.”
“We’ll see.”
“Walter,” she cried, making fists of her hands and beating them up and down in the air, “oh, you make me mad. So mad. So mad.”
Finally, after hours of this, he permitted his head to be held between her hands, submitted to be kissed, and finally, thawing, took her into his arms.
“You’re a bad girl. I oughtn’t to let you lick me every time. You sail on the Saxonia, July sixth, one week after we leave on the Paris.”
“My dearest, you have forgiven me—haven’t you?”
“What can I do? You’re stronger than I am.”
“Don’t make me laugh, darling.”
“Tell you what I’m going to do, Ray. Something you’ll like.”
“What?”
“Corinne has got it into her head that after her cure she wants to take that Norway and Sweden trip with Irma and Mordecai. I’ve already begged off. While they’re at that, we’re going to have our holiday in the Alps after all. I’ve got it all planned! Zermatt. Blue ice. Cows. Chalet. Peace.”
“Oh, Walter!”
“This is one plan that is going through, Ray. Mark you that.”
It was easy to be happy after that, regardless or no of whether the trip to the Alps actually would materialize.
By a perversity as benign as it was unexpected, this, of all summers, proved to be one of pleasure and pleasurable surprise.
First of all, for two weeks, Corinne remained in Paris with the Friedlander spinsters to shop, while Walter hurried along to Aix-les-Bains ten days ahead of them.
Long, perfect, always cautious afternoons of drives or walks. Evenings in and out of the Casino, at will. Dinner in her little suite of the chocolate-ochre wallpaper roses, not just hotel cuisine, but served by a waiter trained to bring in dishes steaming hot from the Casino kitchens.
And even up to the day before the arrival of Corinne, Richard, and the young Pooles, they ventured the celebration of a day’s motor trip to Geneva, where she purchased a small silver wrist-watch for Emma, and, to a delight that was almost childish, was presented with an identical one from Walter, who told the salesman to wrap two—a delight, however, which was to precipitate one of their bitterest quarrels.
“From the way you behaved before that clerk,” he told her on the drive back, “you would think that you had never been presented with anything before.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to blurt out, “But I haven’t, Walter, at least so seldom.” But she did not.
“You don’t understand German. I do. I heard what one of the clerks said to another.”
“What could he have said, Walter? I was only being appreciative.…”
“Never mind what he said, but it made me small.”
“I’m sorry, dear. It was just the surprise.…”
“Precisely what you took pains to convey in the shop.”
“What did I say that was wrong?”
“Nothing. It was all subterfuge, which I dislike. Your subtle way of conveying larger dissatisfactions by petty pleasures. I don’t know about what—but perhaps because you’re not covered with gems.”
“Walter Saxel, if I knew the way, I’d get out of this car after a remark like that, and walk home.”
“Wouldn’t, if I were you.”
“You’re insulting and horrid, and if there is one thing I am not, and you know it, it’s the things you—you are insinuating,” she said, and began to cry.
“Oh, Lord, must I always live in a world of women who turn on the waterworks at the drop of a hat?”
“Drop of a hat! You’ve slapped me in the face. You’ve hurt me to the core.”
“I know. I know. What about me? Innuendoes because I didn’t go in there, where likely as not I’m known from my newspaper pictures, and indulge in the conspicuous pastime of buying you an emerald brooch.”
“Well, I’ll say this for you, I’ve never known you take any such chance.”
It was out! She could have bitten off her tongue, and did press down on it to the limit of her endurance.
“I see,” he said slowly. “I see a great deal now that I’ve never seen before.”
“Walter, I didn’t mean that! You goaded me to it. Please don’t let us have the commonest kind of quarrel a man and woman can have. It’s so vulgar. Walter, have I ever mentioned money to you in all these years?”
“You’ve never had occasion to.”
Oh, how she could have unloosed then! The unspoken hurt of years of unnecessary deprivations. The second-rate hotels, from which, when he came to dine, he refused to eat the cuisine. The need to contribute to her table budget out of winnings and pickings from petty traffic with the Women’s Exchange. The necessity, always, to speculate with last year’s homemade clothes; the fact that for years she had needed, but never achieved, a successor to her one fur coat, long since cut up into strips, so that the least-worn parts could be salvaged for collars and cuffs. The fact that had she gone to Miami, sure as fate, not one extra penny would have found its way into the bisque boy’s basket. His unobservance of her self-denials, when he was forever sending her out on the mission of purchasing remembrances for the stenographers and clerks about his office. The fact that at Christmas he sent his favorite candies, crystallized nuts from Bissinger’s in Cincinnati, to be consumed later by him, and a case of Cointreau, also to be consumed by him. The fact that, upon her graduation, he had never so much as offered to give her a sum of money for Emma. Not that she would have accepted. It was her proud and secret boast that not one cent of Emma’s education had come out of the Saxel coffer. But if only he had offered—oh, there were sore, hurt, bleeding places that he was having the temerity to stir.…
“There are some things we had better not discuss.”
“Now what do you mean by that? I am not afraid to discuss any subject under the sun.…”
“Of course not, dear, but some hurt more than others.…”
“Not me, when I feel I’ve done my part.…”
“I’ve done that too, Walter, where you are concerned.”
“Not saying you haven’t. But I hate to be made to seem small.”
She began to cry quietly into her handkerchief.
“Well, this is the sort of holiday a harassed busy man looks forward to when he tries to escape his affairs.”
Without raising her eyes from the handkerchief, she put out her hand toward his, which he withdrew.
“I’m sorry, dear. I was so innocent of harm—just happy—over the sweetness of the gift—”
“Funny way of showing it. A child could see through the sarcasm of the way you acted.”
“I—I—oh, what’s the use! What’s—the—use!” And racked with the scalding tears, knowing them to be only an irritant to him, she tried to check them, and trying, cried the more.
“Walter, whatever I am that is bad, I am not that. If I had wanted the things that money could buy, I could have—”
“Meaning I don’t supply them?”
“No, darling, no. I mean, if I were a gold digger—Don’t you see, dear, that’s why the little silver watch made me as glad as something more valuable might have made another person.” Again she could have bitten her tongue, but to her surprise he jerked her into his arms and kissed her with emotion.
“Don’t say any more, Ra
y. I know I’m a dog and you’re an angel. Try to understand, dear. Of course, I could deck you with diamonds. But I won’t! I want you like this—mine—alone—simple—plain. If I’m a selfish dog, I’m a selfish dog. But I’m going to take care of you in a different way. A way that will never cause you to regret the happiness you have given me. I’ve something worked out, now. My first act, when I get back to America, will be to take care of that little matter of my will. I take a solemn oath before God, Ray, it will be my first act. A Frenchman gave me the idea—it’s all very simple—”
“That is darling of you, Walter. It will mean a lot—that kind of security against the future. But for now, this is all I need or ask, or want, darling—and please believe me when I tell you that the little watch—”
“Don’t hurt me anymore by rubbing salt into the wound of my rottenness. We’ll have a good dinner tonight, Ray, and after that—after that—”
“Dearest dear.”
“It’s our last free-and-easy evening before our holiday in the Alps. You won’t see much, if anything, of me during the next few days. Corinne and the children arrive on an early-morning train—no Casino tonight, dearest—just us—alone—”
“Dearest dear.”
As it turned out, they were forced to spend the evening quietly, because he insisted upon ordering sent over from the Casino kitchens, an elaborate specialty known as canard tour d’argent, a rich concoction of pressed duck, prepared with wine-sauce, and for two hours suffered pangs of dyspepsia that distressed him.
But withal, sweet was the cleansed air of after their quarrel, and pressed against her eyelids and along her throat and against her hair were his kisses, as he bade her good night, his arms still ringing with the passion of having held her for the long, close hours of their intimacy.…
It was two mornings following, that her Paris edition of the New York Herald arrived as usual by mail, and she opened it to read a first-page headline that, read and reread as she would, did not penetrate beyond causing within her the wildest impulse to risibility she had ever known. Off and off, her mind kept skidding, only to be jerked back to the point of her lunatic-looking eyes.
