I believe that, during those seconds, in that soundless corridor, we gazed at each other across a gap of seventy-five years. People from different times display a different look, I think; a look that is indigenous to their period. I believe she saw that in my face as I saw it in hers. It is intangible, of course, and cannot be reduced to particulars. I wish I could describe it more precisely but I can’t. All I know is that I feel she sensed 1971 in my presence as I sensed 1896 in hers.
I was uncertain, however, as to whether this explained why she kept staring at me with a candor the like of which I felt a woman of her time and station would not, normally, display. I do not exaggerate. She looked at me as though unable to withdraw her gaze—and, of course, I looked at her the same way. Literally, we stared into each other’s eyes for what must have been more than a minute, caught up in a mutual absorption. I wanted to take her in my arms and kiss her, hold her tightly, tell her that I loved her. I remained immobile, stilled. Perhaps it was that gap of time between us, perhaps a more simply explained emotional barrier. Whatever it was, nothing existed in the world but Elise McKenna and I, motionless, gazing at each other.
Again, she spoke first. “Richard,” she said, and I had the feeling that she was not so much speaking my name as testing my identity to see if it was palatable to her mind.
In light of what had gone before, it struck me as odd that, suddenly, her eyes averted and color flared in her cheeks. Only later did I realize that her curiosity had been naturally dissipated by demands of remembered etiquette. “I must go,” she said.
She actually started away from me. I felt my heartbeat stagger. “No,” I said. She turned back quickly, looking almost frightened. “No. Please.” My voice was trembling. “Please don’t leave me. I have to be with you.”
Once more that look of open, vulnerable candor. She was trying hard, so hard, to understand.
“Please. Have dinner with me,” I said.
Her lips stirred but she made no sound. “I have to change,” she murmured then.
“Can’t I—mayn’t I—?” I broke off. Proper grammar rattling me at such a moment? It was insane; I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. “Elise please … let me wait for you. Don’t you have a—parlor or something?” I was begging now. “Elise?”
She made a sound which, if I interpreted it correctly, said to me, “Why do I keep talking to you? Why don’t I scream and run?” All within that brief sound: incredulity and self-despair that she was giving credence to the babbling of a lunatic.
“I know I’m being difficult,” I said. “I know how strangely I’m behaving, know how I disturbed you on the beach. Why you’ve been so kind to me, I don’t know. Why you didn’t just throw sand in my eyes and make a run for it, I—”
My voice died. The beauty of her face, when she was solemn, was enough to make me cry. When she smiled, the radiance it gave her face seemed to make my heart stop. I looked at her with, I am certain, abject adoration. Her smile was so exquisite, so gentle in its understanding and bemusement.
“Please,” I managed to continue then. “I promise I’ll behave. I’ll sit quietly in a chair and—” I fell silent as I tried to think of something to complete the sentence. Only two words came. They were absurd and I said them anyway: “—be good.”
Her expression altered. I sensed an empathy in her. What form that empathy was taking I could not perceive; it may have been no more than pity for a suffering fellow creature. I only know that in that instant she responded to my pleas.
The look was gone as quickly as it came but I knew I’d reached her, for the moment anyway. She sighed as I had on the beach, a sigh of sad defeat. “All right,” she said.
Gratefully, afraid to speak for fear she’d change her mind, I walked beside her down the corridor, then over to the entrance of the public sitting room that opened on the bedrooms. I tightened as it struck me that perhaps she’d thought I meant this room. The tightness eased as we crossed the room without her saying anything and stopped before her door. I waited as she searched her purse for the skeleton key, removed it finally, and pushed it into the keyhole.
My eyes were on the key. When she didn’t turn it, I looked up to find her gazing at me. How can I appraise that look? Perhaps she was attempting to detach herself from everything that had taken place. After all, what was I but a strange male seeking access to her room? At any rate, I believe that she was thinking this and I said, unprompted, “I’ll just sit and wait, I promise you.”
She sighed again, despairingly. “This is—” She did not complete the thought but turned the key and opened the door. I could guess what she had been on the verge of saying: This is madness. That it was; far more than she knew.
The room was dimly illuminated as we entered; I stood aside as she closed the door. The fireplace was unlit, I noticed, and I heard the hiss of steam from a radiator I couldn’t see. I glanced at a white marble statue on the mantel, that of a nymph holding a cornucopia overflowing with flowers. Beyond that, my impression of the room was general; thick carpeting, white furniture, a gold-framed mirror on the wall, a writing table near the window.
All of it inconsequential background for her graceful figure as she crossed the room, unbuttoning her coat. “You can wait in here,” she said, her tone that of a woman who had accepted the folly of her actions but was not exactly overjoyed about them.
“Elise,” I said.
As she turned, I saw with a start that, beneath the coat, she wore the blouse I’d seen in her photograph in Well-known Actors and Actresses, white with a dark tie fastened by a band around the bottom edge of its high collar. The coat as well, I realized then, was the same—black, double-breasted with wide lapels, reaching to the floor.
“What is it, Mr. Collier?” she asked.
I’m sure I winced. “Please don’t call me that,” I asked. I sensed that she had done it as a form of defense against my being in the room with her, a method of erecting a barrier of politesse between us. It intimidated me nonetheless.
“What shall I call you then?” she asked.
“Richard,” I answered. “And I—” I drew in sudden breath. “I may call you Elise, mayn’t I? I just can’t call you Miss McKenna. I can’t.”
She studied me in silence. Was suspicion returning? I wondered. It would not have surprised me. Any application of her reason to this moment had to result in suspicion.
Still, her expression was kinder than that. “I don’t know what to say,” she told me.
“I understand.”
A pained smile drifted fleetingly across her lips. “Do you?” she said, and turned away almost gratefully, I felt. I was sure she’d be relieved to be alone a while, to review this enigma in peace and quiet.
She glanced across her shoulder as she neared the door to the adjoining room; did she think I was stalking her? I saw a wisp of auburn hair trailing down the back of her neck and, suddenly, I felt a burst of love for her. One of my fears had been groundless at any rate. Being in her presence had not reduced, in any way, my feeling for her. I possessed it more strongly than ever.
Abruptly, I became aware, once more, of the dryness in my throat; the dryness of a medium’s throat following a psychic experience, it occurred to me. “Elise?” I said.
She stopped by the bedroom door and looked around.
“May I have a drink of water?” I asked.
Again, that sound compounded of amusement and amazement. I seemed to constantly be throwing her off balance. She nodded once and left the room.
I crossed the parlor, stopping by the open doorway. In the bedroom I could see a heavy double bed, painted white, standing in an alcove, the curtains of which were open. To its right was a white end table with a metal lamp on top of it, its metal shade set with red stones.
I heard her running water into a glass. A private bathroom too, I thought. I became aware that both my legs were wavering. I’d have to sit down soon.
Elise came back, carrying a glass of water which she gave to
me, our fingers touching for an instant as I took it. “Thank you,” I said.
She looked into my eyes with such intense petition that it startled me. She seemed to be questioning my very existence, questioning herself and her response to that existence, finding lack in all of them.
She turned away then, murmuring, “Excuse me.” I tensed as she shut the bedroom door, waited for the sound of it being locked, then slowly relaxed when it didn’t come. “Elise?” I called.
Silence. Finally, she answered. “Yes?”
“You’re not going to—climb out a window and flee, are you?”
What was she doing? I wondered. Smiling? Frowning? Had she in fact intended to do that very thing? I didn’t want to believe it but my fears were childlike at the moment; irrational.
“Should I?” she asked at last.
“No,” I said. “I’m not a criminal. I only came to—” love you, my mind completed. “—be with you,” I finished.
No further sound. I wondered whether she was still on the opposite side of the door or beginning to change clothes. I stared at the door in anxious silence, wanting to open it and be with her again, already beginning to dread that our meeting was delusion on my part. I almost called her name again, then willed myself to turn away. I had to give her time to think.
I looked around the room that was so obviously a part of 1896 and felt a little better. There was a silver, upright calendar on the writing table. Printed in Old English script in its three small windows were Thursday / November, and 19th. The absence of the year disturbed me even though I understood that such an expensive calendar could hardly be utilized for only one year.
I became aware of the glass in my hand and drank the water in a single swallow, sighing as it bathed my parched mouth and throat although the taste of it was brackish. I’m drinking 1896 water, I thought, the notion somehow thrilling to me because it was my first physical absorption of the period—unless I considered the air I’d breathed.
I was still thirsty but felt reluctant to ask Elise for more. I’d sit and rest instead. Moving to an armchair, I sank down on it with a groan and set the glass on a nearby table.
Immediately, my eyes began to close and I started in dismayed reaction. I mustn’t fall asleep or I might lose it all! I shook my head, then reached back to the glass, and picked it up. There were a few drops still remaining on its bottom. I shook them onto my left palm, rubbed them over my face, and set the glass back down again.
I tried to stay alert by concentrating on the details of the room. I stared at a lace doily pinned to the back of a nearby armchair. I looked at a table near the wall, counting the number of flower carvings on its legs. I gazed intently at a clock on the table. It was almost six o’clock; Time 1, I thought. I looked up at the six-bulb chandelier hanging from the ceiling. I counted and recounted all the crystal pendants dangling from it. Just don’t sleep, I ordered myself. You mustn’t sleep.
I stared at the upright calendar on the writing table. It was part of a desk set, I saw now—a silver tray on which were two cut-glass bottles of ink, a silver pen, and the calendar. It doesn’t have to have the year, I thought. I knew where I was.
It was 1896 and I had reached her.
I jolted awake with a cry, looking around in shocked confusion. Where was I?
Then the bedroom door was opening quickly and Elise was staring at me, an expression of alarm on her face. Without thought, I held out my right hand toward her. I was shaking badly.
She hesitated, then walked over and took hold of it; I must have looked pathetic. The feel of her warm hand clasped in mine was like a transfusion. I saw her features tighten and relaxed my grip. “I’m sorry,” I said. I could barely talk.
I looked at her hungrily. She’d changed to a wine-colored dress of woolen serge, its high collar trimmed with black silk, its long sleeves not the typical leg-of-mutton type but instead fitting close to the arms. Only the front and sides of her hair were up, held in place by tortoise-shell ornaments.
She returned my look in silence with that same expression of inquiry, searching my face as though for an answer.
Finally, she lowered her gaze. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m staring again.”
“I’m staring too.”
She looked at me again. “I just don’t understand,” she said, her tone one of calm observation.
She gasped and jerked her hand free suddenly as someone knocked on the door. Both of us looked across the room, then I glanced back at her. Her expression was a combination of uneasiness and—what? The first word that occurs is wariness; as though she were already planning what to say in explanation of my presence. I hoped she had a ready explanation; I had none. “I’m sorry if I’m compromising you,” I said.
She looked at me quickly and I saw suspicion on her face. Had I inadvertently made her think again in terms of dire motivation on my part? Compromise, embarrassment, dear God, even blackmail? The notion appalled me.
“Excuse me,” she said. I started as she suddenly began to brush my hair; until that moment, I had not noticed the brush in her left hand. I stared at her in bewilderment until I realized that my hair must have become disheveled by the wind or by my sleeping. She was trying to make me more presentable to whoever it was at the door.
As she leaned across me, I could smell the scent she wore. I had to concentrate to keep myself from bending forward and kissing her cheek. She glanced at me. I must have still looked distraught because she whispered, “Are you all right?”
I knew it was a mistake but I didn’t have the will to resist. I whispered back, “I love you.”
The brush twitched in her hand and I saw the skin draw taut across her cheeks. Before I could apologize, the knocking came again and a voice called out, “Elise?” I shuddered. It was the voice of an older woman. Here we go, I thought.
Elise had straightened up abruptly at my whisper. Now she started toward the door. “I’m sorry,” I blurted. She glanced back at me but didn’t reply. I swallowed hard—I needed more water—sat up straight, then pushed up, knowing I should be on my feet when Mrs. McKenna entered.
I got up too fast and lost my balance, almost falling before I grabbed the back of the chair. I looked at Elise. She’d stopped near the door to watch me anxiously. How terrible a moment it must have been for her.
I nodded. “I’m all right.”
Her lips parted as she drew in silent breath—or, more likely, sent up silent prayer. Turning to the door, she braced herself visibly, then reached for the knob.
Mrs. McKenna entered, started saying something to her daughter, then broke off immediately, her expression one of astonished displeasure at seeing me across the room. What was she thinking? A rush of memory charged my mind. Up to this very day, her daughter had never been known to have anything to do with men beyond the most cursory of exchanges. Her closest relationship was with Robinson and that was strictly business.
To come upon a total stranger in Elise’s hotel room must have been electrifying to Mrs. McKenna. She tried to control her reaction, I saw, but the shock was extreme.
Elise’s voice was well controlled as she spoke; the voice of a skilled actress delivering a line of dialogue. If I hadn’t known otherwise, I would have sworn that she was perfectly calm. “Mother, this is Mr. Collier,” she said. Etiquette. Sobriety. Madness.
I will never know from what source I tapped the strength to cross the room, take Mrs. McKenna’s hand in mine, shake it lightly, bow, and smile. “How do you do?” I said.
“How d’you do,” she answered distantly. It was at once a curt acknowledgment of my existence and a questioning of its validity. Oddly enough, the stiffness of her tone helped me make the first step toward adjustment. In spite of my uneasiness, her rigid bearing and undisguised disapproval enabled me to see, behind this autocratic pose, the longtime actress not entirely skilled in such a presentation.
It was not that she consciously played a scene for my benefit but that the effect was similar. I have n
o doubt she took genuine offense at my being there. Her behavior seemed in excess of what she conveyed to me as a person, though; in brief, she sought to act beyond her nature. Seams were showing. She had come from the rough-and-tumble of nineteenth-century rural theater and was no grande dame no matter how hard she tried to make me think so. Next, she would turn to her daughter, eyebrows rising, waiting for an explanation. Next, she did exactly that and, despite continued nervousness, I felt a tremor of amusement.
“Mr. Collier is staying at the hotel,” Elise provided the expected explanation. “He is here to see the play.”
“Oh?” Mrs. McKenna regarded me coldly. I knew she wanted to ask: Who is he, though, and what is he doing here in your room? But it was not acceptable to be so blunt. For the first time, I felt grateful for the social reticences of 1896.
Silence told me that I had to help Elise; I was leaving her adrift, expecting her to clarify my presence unassisted. There was no way she could do that if I failed to act in concert. “Your daughter and I met in New York City,” I lied; how successfully I have no idea. A sudden inspiration hit me. “After a performance of Christopher, Junior,” I added. “I was coming down from Los Angeles on business and decided to stop at the hotel to see the play tomorrow night.” Good story, Collier, I thought; superior hypocrisy.
“I see,” said Mrs. McKenna frigidly; she didn’t see it at all. No matter what my story was, I had no reason to be found in her daughter’s hotel room. “What business are you in?” she asked.
I hadn’t expected that particular question and could only gape at her in obvious dismay. By the time it came to me that truth was simpler than pretense, I’m sure she thought my answer was a lie. “I’m a writer,” I said. I felt my insides shrivel. God help me if she asked what kind.
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