by A. J. Cronin
She put on her hat, threw on her coat. She took a last look round the bedroom and made to wrench herself away. Her limbs were heavy, her head light. She walked into her sitting room. And there, just inside the doorway, was Madden.
Her heart stood still within her, then raced with quivering life. So unexpected was the sight of him, so painfully and suddenly disturbing, she felt it as a trick of vision or perhaps some wild illusion of her fancy. But it was he. And with a grave composure that made her own agitation seem pitiful and absurd he advanced towards her.
“I couldn’t let you go,” he said in a tone of quiet friendliness, “without coming to say good-bye.”
So it was that! He had come merely to say good-bye. Her throbbing pulses stilled again, and upon her there settled a white, unnatural rigidity.
“After all,” he went on more lightly, “we agreed a long time ago we must be friends. And now we want to part good friends.”
Her face was stiff and pale. Yet she saw that some answer was demanded of her. “ Yes, we must part as friends,” she managed to say.
“That’s right.” He glanced about the room with unusual briskness and demanded: “ Where’s Upton?”
“Gone down to the ship,” she answered blindly.
“Ah! That’s a pity. I wanted to say good-bye to him, too.”
Head averted, eyes still upon the floor, she flushed slightly. His aggressive cheerfulness, never apparent to her before, bludgeoned her. Yet, because she suffered, her pride rose to support her.
“I’ll give him your message,” she said quietly.
“Thanks, Katharine.” He paused, rubbing his hands together with that incredible alacrity, like a boy on Christmas morning. “He’s a lucky fellow, travelling back with you like this.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
The words, into which she struggled to infuse a carelessness matching his own, stifled her. There was a hollow silence. She felt that if she did not terminate the interview, she would die. Dumbly she raised her head and forced herself to look at him.
“I’m going now,” she declared. “I don’t think we have anything more to say.”
He interposed. “ Please! Just one thing.” He had seated himself casually upon the edge of the table, and now, with a show of indifference, from the outside pocket of his overcoat he produced a paper parcel. “Besides saying good-bye I want to give you a little keepsake.”
She stared at him with suffering, wounded eyes, snared by the pitfall of her own contrivance. Mechanically she accepted the small package he held out to her. Under her stiff fingers the untidy wrapping and loosely knotted string fell away. Then a sort of vertigo possessed her. Giddily she contemplated the familiar green case. With a cry she opened it. Inside reposed the Holbein miniature.
“You!” she gasped at last. “It was you who bought it.”
“Why not?” He answered easily. “ It’s one of the little things I can well afford.”
She simply could not speak. In a daze of flashing light she perceived that his intention had saved her from disaster. Upon the news of Brandt’s death he had acted instantly though Ascher. But how? Bewildered, her poor mind groping between the fact and all her earlier suppositions could not cope with it. She trembled upon the brink of tears.
He shook his head. “ You got me wrong, didn’t you, Katharine? In London and ’ way up in Vermont, too. But I’m not a poor man. I’m rich, so rich I don’t have to bother to look it. It isn’t a little outfit I belong with. That’s how I began, but I guess I’ve worked it up some in these last ten years. I fixed the last amalgamation before I sailed for Europe. Now, if it interests you, Katharine, I’m president of International Adhesives.”
She stared at him, stunned. The name he mentioned devastated her. It was a mammoth corporation, a foundation of international solidity and fame. Its posters blazoned the countryside from coast to coast. It was universal. It made everything that sticks, from paper paste to adhesive plaster. Its debentures and preference holdings were a gilt-edged quotation on Wall Street, in London, on the Bourse. Vaguely she remembered seeing photographs of the giant plant in some magazine—the acres of factory buildings, the foundries, tanyards, shops and packing houses, the canteens, the restrooms for employees, the playing fields, gymnasium, and swimming pool. And he, Madden, whom she had fancied poor, was its head, the sole controller of its power. It was too much for her suffering, baffled comprehension.
“I must go,” she whispered. “It’s time. Charley will be waiting.”
Unseeingly, her head lowered, she placed the miniature upon the table and started towards the door.
But quickly he came forward, intercepting her. His manner was quite changed. All his earlier levity was gone, his casual inconsequence fallen from him like a mask. Now there dawned upon his face a great tenderness, and in his dark eyes a look which strangely illumined them.
“Upton isn’t waiting,” he said steadily. “ He’s going on to Florida by the night plane. But he’s booked two passages on the boat sure enough. Your passage, Katharine. And mine.”
She gave a little anguished cry. “ Chris!”
Gazing deeply into her eyes, he said slowly: “ Did you think I would really let you go? After Nancy had done everything to bring us both together?”
She gazed at him blindly. “I don’t understand.”
“Listen, Katharine,” he went on, even more slowly. “Nancy knew that we were in love with each other. She discovered it just before the première. And then she suddenly grew up. All the real fineness of her character came out. She did what she thought best, and in the way she knew to be the best.”
Katharine saw everything in a flash. “ Nancy,” she whispered.
He nodded his head. “ It was Bertram put me wise to what had happened, and then I tumbled to it all myself. He says it’s been the making of Nancy. She’ll go ahead now, right to the very top of the tree. She’ll play Ophelia, sure enough. As for us—well, we’re not going to let her down.”
Her vision was blurred by tears, her heart strained in her breast as though unable to sustain the emotion which filled it. Then she was in his arms. He held her close to him, feeling those wild heartbeats against his own, soothing her.
“Yes, you’re going to marry me all right,” he murmured gently. “In your little old church, Katharine, just round the corner from the old Inn Yard. That’s where I first fell in love with you, though I didn’t realize it at the time. We’ll stop a bit in London, settle up that old business of yours for good, then take the jump back to Vermont. I know some folks that’ll be mighty glad to see you there. After that maybe you wouldn’t mind dropping in on Cleveland. There’s a pretty fine site there, Katharine. Right up on the hill. I guess we could build a home there we might be happy in.”
She did not speak. Her heart was too full for speech. She pressed her cheek against his coat. And then her eye caught the miniature which lay in its still open case upon the table. Another wave of happiness mingled with relief rushed over her. How had the mad illusion ever possessed her that her destiny was bound by sadness to the miniature! It was bound by joy alone. That other was only a fantasy of her own foreboding. It was over now—a nightmare that would never come true. Loneliness would not be her portion after all. The eyes of Lucie met her without sadness, without rancour, smiling.
Two hours later they stood upon the top deck of the Pindaric watching the slow recession of the spangled squares and rectangles, the glittering sky pattern of New York. It was a night of velvet, soft and darkly luminous, filled with the play of water and the quiet pulsing of the engines. A white moon shed a soft radiance over them and made a long straight pathway upon the waters down which the ship, bearing them, seemed silently to pass. They stood together at the rail. Madden had linked her closely to him with his arm. There was no need for words. But suddenly they were conscious of a steward’s approaching them. Madden turned.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
The man answered: “I had
instructions to deliver this personally, sir.”
Madden snapped the cord and opened the box. Then he handed it to Katharine in silence.
The little spray of white carnations was lustrous in the moonlight. And the card said simply:
“Be happy, both of you—Nancy.”
Copyright
First published in 1976 by Gollancz
This edition published 2013 by Bello
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Copyright © A. J. Cronin, 1976
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