The Rim of Morning

by William Sloane

  Of course,” I said cautiously, “it must be a rotten way of life, the one she has now. And I see that she couldn’t have stayed in College ville.”

  He looked at me directly, and said, “When we got engaged, Bark—and I wouldn’t tell another soul in the world this—she said, ‘Marry me soon, Jerry. I need you.’ So we decided on January. I told her it would be like this with most of the family, but she doesn’t care and neither do I.”

  Yes, I admitted to myself, she did need him in some obscure way I could not understand. From the very first time they had met, there in LeNormand’s house in Collegeville, I realized that she had been attracted to Jerry. And if that was so, and if she asked him to marry her soon, I had to admit that he was doing the right thing, although I felt it would have been decent of her to think about him as well as herself.

  “Hell,” I said, “don’t let them upset you. You’re probably right, and if Dad approves, that’s all that matters.”

  “Yes,” he said thoughtfully, “Dad doesn’t mind.” I said nothing, and he seemed to be thinking to himself for a minute. “Selena handled him marvelously. We went out there that weekend after your party, you know. Someway or other, she got round him that first night. I thought there’d be a row, but there wasn’t. They went into the library and talked awhile, after I told him our plan, and he just came out and gave me his blessing, so to speak.”

  He stirred in his chair, took out a cigarette and lit it. In the glare of the match his face was composed.

  “Yes,” he said in the impartial tone of a man who neither defends nor praises himself, “I told Jerry to go ahead. I could not have prevented their marriage, and I wanted to have him feel that I was behind him in whatever course he chose for his life. Let me tell you what happened in the library:

  “We went in,” he began, “after dinner. I told her that I wanted to talk a little with her before anything was settled too finally. We sat down beside the fire, and I tried to choose my words carefully. Aside from her beauty I realized that I knew very little about her. So I began by telling her something about Jerry, and what he meant to me. I mentioned the fact that I had had to bring him up myself, and that if there were faults in his character which she discovered later on, she must not think too harshly of me.

  “ ‘Of course, he has faults, Dr. Lister,’ she told me, ‘but so does every human being. I do not mind that. I expect that.’

  “That struck me as rather cool, and I felt that I hadn’t created the atmosphere in which I wanted to talk to her. So I told her that she must understand that Jerry did not need my consent for anything he chose to do, but that I loved him and wanted to see him happy. I told her something, too, about our family, and that we are proud of it because we have held ourselves to a code of personal conduct that is not altogether the ordinary one. I explained that even though she felt she was marrying Jerry, it was not a case of Jerry alone. That we are, on the Lister side at least, a united family of which Jerry was a part.

  “My expectation was that she would tell me something of herself, but she made no reply to me at all, so I asked her finally, as tactfully as I could, if she would mind telling me who she was and where she came from.”

  He drew deeply on his cigarette and looked reflectively along the terrace. I felt that he was trying to make clearer something that was still puzzling to him.

  “She did not answer me at once. As I waited for her to speak, Bark, I had a feeling that I had said something that offended her, but I paid no attention to it because it seemed to me I had asked nothing that was not proper for me to know.

  “At last she sighed and said, ‘You are entitled to ask me that question, Dr. Lister. But it is easier for you to ask it than for me to answer.’

  “I had the feeling that she was putting me off. My next remark was some sort of apology if I had said anything to disturb her.

  “ ‘No,’ she said, ‘it’s not that. Perhaps, if I explain what I mean, you will understand why I cannot tell you more.’ She gave me the definite feeling then that what she was going to tell me was all the information I would get out of her. ‘Walter LeNormand once rescued me, Dr. Lister. He was a man I think you would have liked. Your son liked him. I ought to tell you that I did not love him. But I liked him and I admired him. He took me into his house, he married me, when I was alone and in need of protection. He is dead now, and nobody knows how or for what reason. But when we were married my past ended. It was a new life for me. A life that he gave me and made for me. There was nothing in my background that you need to think about or worry over. Jerry loves me for what I am, not what I have been. I want you to do the same thing. I shall be good to your son and try to make him a good wife.’

  “Then she said nothing more for a while. ‘In a way Jerry, too, rescued me. After my husband’s death I did not know what to do. I was alone again, and in a world of unfriendly people. Jerry has changed all that for me without having to question me. Please think of me as Selena LeNormand and no more than that. I want you to like me or not like me for what I am, not for what I have been.’ She stopped and looked at me a long time. ‘I give you my assurance that there is nothing dishonorable, by your own standards, in my past, and that my people, too, are the equal of yours.’

  “When she finished speaking, Bark, I did not know what to say. I felt that she would tell me no more even if I questioned her further. As I repeat it to you, all that she said constituted nothing more than a polite and devious way of telling me that she would not tell me anything about herself. But as she spoke to me in the library, I felt a great respect for her. There was character in her words and the way she said them.

  “I debated the wisdom of trying her again. If there was a mystery in her past, I felt that I had to know of it. Yet it was essential to me not to maneuver myself into the position of opposing the marriage. You see that, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” I answered, “I see how difficult it was for you.” His story interested me, but I had known all along that he knew no more than I did. And yet, had he only realized it, he had had in that library the only opportunity any of us ever had to save Jerry’s life. There was no blame in that. If he had known what the stakes were, he would have played his cards differently.

  “It seemed wisest to me,” he went on, “not to insist. I simply asked her if she felt there was any danger that her past, whatever it was, might sometime confront her and Jerry when it was too late.

  “She leaned forward in her chair and replied, ‘No. No. I promise you that will never happen.’

  “We went on talking for a while about other things. I began to feel a great admiration for her as a person. She gave me the impression of tremendous inner strength. And I could not doubt her intelligence. Jerry, I felt, had chosen wisely. It would be an experience to live with a woman like Selena. I thought of their future together without fear. She was his equal, I believed, in the things that really matter. If I had to choose between an ordinary girl, no matter how much I might approve of her background, and this woman to whom I was talking I should not have hesitated.

  “Only once did I wonder if my judgment was wise. We had been talking about the future, and without meaning to pry into any understanding there might be between her and Jerry I mentioned my pleasure at the thought that he was getting married and said something about my hope that they would have children.

  “ ‘No,’ she said again, urgently. ‘You must not expect that.’ My face must have showed some surprise or disappointment, for she went on, after a moment, ‘at least, not for a while.’

  “My first feeling was one of embarrassment. Evidently I had blundered into something. I told her that I did not want to make her unhappy, but that I hoped there was nothing to prevent their having a family when they got ready.

  “She smiled at me, the warmest, most sympathetic smile I think she ever gave me. ‘Oh, no,’ she said, and there was a note of something like hope in her voice. ‘I want to have children someday.’ ”

  He was silent, a
nd I knew that he could add no more to the problem that concerned us both. Time was passing, and I went on with my story immediately. Nothing he had said gave any further substance to the shape without shadow that was haunting my mind. And yet, neither did what he had told me seem to conflict with the growing clearness of its outline.

  Jerry and I went out to the Long Island house several days before the wedding. Grace was there too, and a couple of Jerry’s aunts and uncles. Everything was very quiet, of course, and though all of us had our reservations, probably I was the only one who felt really serious about possible objections to Selena.

  She behaved, I must say, beautifully. The first evening she was there, Dr. Lister showed her all his prize books—the Sir Thomas Browne that he found in a little shop in Tokyo and bought for a few yen because the Japanese proprietor thought it was only an English book, the special Melvilles he was so fond of, the association copy of Endymion, and his collection of Arabic treatises on mathematics. She spent about ten minutes looking at one of those, I remember, although she confessed that she did not know a word of Arabic. Just the same she gave it back to him with a smile and said it was interesting. He laughed and said she was the first woman who ever thought that about it, and she was welcome to come in and read it any time she liked.

  Of course, her beauty was like a candle in the house. Wherever she moved she seemed to bring a light with her, and it was pathetic to watch Jerry follow her with his eyes. Yet I never saw them exchange any very passionate intimacies. Once, coming into the room we always called the extra room—a sort of little box that opened off the library and had originally been intended for a secretary’s workroom —I found him sitting beside her on the old, battered leather sofa in there. He wasn’t holding her at all, but was bent over her hand, kissing it. She was looking at his head with a clear, almost wondering gaze, and, there was, I thought, a little smile on her lips like the ones children have when they are not quite sure of themselves.

  I excused myself hastily, of course, and went away, but I felt good about it. They made a swell couple, and perhaps she did have a heart. Later I found her in the library, alone, looking at some of Dr. Lister’s books again. She had on a heavy, dark-cream knitted sweater and a dull green woolen skirt, and no ornaments at all except the big, square-cut emerald ring Jerry had given her. I asked her if I could come in.

  “Certainly, Bark,” she said, and put down her book.

  I settled myself in the big chair that I liked, over by the hearth. Looking at her, meeting those extraordinary eyes of hers gazing steadily across at me, I felt suddenly sheepish. “Selena,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “I just wanted to tell you that I am sorry for the things that have happened this last month. I haven’t acted very decently, I’m afraid.”

  “You mustn’t feel that way.”

  “I know, but I’m sorry about it. Listen, Jerry is a swell guy, see? The best is none too good. Treat him well.”

  She kept on looking at me. “I want to,” she said finally. And then, “What do you wish me to do?”

  I couldn’t meet her eyes. “Oh, you know. Give him a break.”

  “No,” she said, “I do not know. Am I not being the way I ought to be?”

  The conversation, I felt, was getting out of hand, and I began to feel silly. “Yes,” I told her, “I suppose you are. Don’t mind me. Maybe I have a hangover.” Then I began to get stupidly intense. “If you don’t know what I mean, it’s a compliment to you, but all I want to say is, remember Jerry is the finest man you’ll ever meet. There’s only one way to be with him, and that’s completely honest.” It was on the end of my tongue to add, “And if you are Luella Jamison for God’s sake tell him so,” but I did not risk that.

  She listened to me without moving and without changing her expression. Then she got up and crossed over to my chair. As she stood there, looking down at me, I began to feel sorry that I’d said as much as I had. Maybe it was the impersonal calm of her expression, but I felt again the touch of dread, brushing the fringe of my consciousness, which she seemed capable of imparting to me. She put one hand on my shoulder as I sat there.

  “Bark,” she said, “I am going to try to do what you want me to do. And I shall try as wisely and as hard as I can. Does that satisfy you?”

  “ ’Yes,” I told her.

  “You hope,” she went on calmly, “that I shall make Jerry happy. You do not hope it a fraction as much as I do. But, you must stop thinking about me as you have been doing.”

  “I haven’t been thinking about you in any special way.”

  “You have been resenting me. I do not object to that because it is natural, I believe. But you distrust me. You must not do that. You must forget anything that may be in your mind about me. Jerry and I have more things in common than you think. We shall be all right if no one interferes with us.”

  Without looking back once she went out of the room. For a long time I sat there, staring out the bay window at the snow swirling and eddying in the air outside. Maybe it was watching the storm that made me feel so cold. But I think it was my passive realization that whatever it was I did not like about Selena—and I still could not put a definite name to it—nothing in me was strong enough to resist her. There was a profound force of some sort in her.

  What she had actually said to me was not a snub, which I had richly deserved, but a warning, and so assured a one that it frightened me. Yet, looking back at the scene, listening to her repeat those words in my mind’s ear, I realize that there was something else in them which I did not perceive at the time.

  After a time I persuaded Thomas to bring me a drink, and went on sitting beside the fire. Grace came in, looking charming and full of enthusiasm. She disapproved of my attitude and occupation.

  “What are you doing, my lamb, sitting here and moping and drinking?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Cheer up,” she said brightly; “tomorrow’s the great day. You’ll feel better once it’s over.”

  “Sure.”

  She settled herself in Selena’s chair. “You’re still not reconciled, I see.”

  I got up and kissed her. “Come on, darling. Give me a break. I’m a damn fool, I know, but I hate the fact as much as everybody else tells me they do.”

  She said soberly, “I think you’re spoiling things a little for Jerry. It’s your manners I criticize.”

  “And not my motives?”

  “Get me a cigarette, will you, my angel? Thanks.” She projected a cloud of smoke large enough to conceal her expression. “No. I think your motives are of the purest.”

  I felt a rush of gratitude toward her. There was one person who did not believe I was a complete fool, then. “You take some of the weight off my mind. I was wondering if I was going nuts.”

  She spread her hands in a gesture of humorous resignation. “Selena is a beautiful woman, but . . .” She said no more.

  “But what?” I asked her.

  She got up, came over, and pulled me out of my chair. “But I still don’t know how old she is.” She tucked her arm under mine and we went away together. Grace had her moments, all right.

  The morning of the twelfth it stopped snowing and the sun came out. The decorators were busy in the house, so Jerry and Selena and I went sliding on the drive. There’s a long run down the bluff and on past the house to the very edge of the Sound. A couple of the pitches are pretty steep; Jerry and I had been going down them for years, but I’d never got entirely accustomed to the drop just below the terrace, where the sled shoots out into the air and you feel yourself in a free fall the second before the crash as the runners bit the slope below.

  Our big sled just held the three of us, and I must say for Selena that she never turned a hair. Once when I turned and looked at her sitting behind me there was a look of exultation on her face.

  After a while we went inside and Thomas brought us hot buttered rum in front of the fire. We sat there talking and laughing, and Jerry and Selena held
hands. Then it was time for lunch, and then it was after lunch. In no time at all we went upstairs to get dressed. The ceiling of my room was white with the reflected sun off the snow. I had a drink, while I dressed. Happy is the bride the sun shines on and God damn that collar button. Time to go downstairs and pin a smile on your face as you go out the door. Thank heaven, it was not a large wedding. The fewer people present the better. The music playing Lohengrin, because Jerry insisted that only the most conventional and sentimental of weddings would do for his girl after a first marriage presided over by a justice of the peace named Willetts.

  “Here comes the bride” . . . walking by herself and looking so beautiful in Grace’s dress I felt almost sick. Silver-gray cloth, like metal and as soft as velvet, and a narrow fillet of flowers around her head. Lilies of the valley from the hothouse, probably . . . Her eyes, shining and cool, remote as the stars and with a light in them. Her face was still and she looked more than ever like a statue come to life.

  “Where is the groom?” . . . Jerry in a cutaway, standing beside the hall table made into an altar, and looking white and thin-faced and dangerous, the way he used to look when he lined up on the field before the kickoff and tightened the chin strap under his helmet . . . The quick smile when he glanced at his bride while the minister was praying. The responses, firm and low from both of them . . . “And if any person know just cause” . . . I knew what might pass for a just cause . . . “or forever hold his peace.” . . . All right, forever hold my peace. Jerry kissing Selena, kissing his wife. Everybody kissing the bride . . . Your lips are cold, Selena . . . Yes, such a lovely ceremony . . . I’ll have another glass of champagne when you get to it, Thomas . . . Yes, doesn’t time pass quickly. It does seem like only yesterday that we were . . . The two of them going upstairs to change. Plenty of time. The boat doesn’t sail for hours. . . . No, I don’t think it’s any secret. They’re going to Bermuda . . . Thanks, Thomas. This is swell champagne . . . Here they come now. Whack him on the back as he goes out the door.