by Gwen Bristow
“Then where did you get his eyes, his voice, his mind? I know you, Arthur. My God, man, I loved you, I was married to you—”
“You were nothing of the sort,” he interrupted her harshly. “And if you don’t get this illusion out of your mind you’re going to be miserable the rest of your life. There is nothing I can do but deny it—no, there is something more I can do, and I’ll promise you to do it.”
“What else?”
“I’ll go away. You’ll never be troubled by me again. If I had dreamed this was going to happen no power on earth could have brought me here to destroy your peace. If you say the word, I’ll go tonight.”
“No!” she cried. “That won’t change anything.”
“Very well,” said Kessler. “But you will make me a promise too.”
“What is it?”
“That you will not trouble your husband with this. For it would trouble him, more than you can imagine in your present state. He’ll be here in a few minutes. Your first impulse will be to blurt out words that tomorrow morning you’d give half your life to take back. Will you promise?”
She did not answer, and he added,
“If you don’t promise, I’ll leave Beverly Hills tonight. I will not be the means of wrecking your peace or his.”
“You’ve wrecked mine pretty thoroughly,” she said half under her breath.
“For the present. Tonight you can wreck it for good if you want to. Mrs. Herlong, you said this evening in the restaurant you would come to see me tomorrow. Will you swear to me you will not mention this idea of yours to your husband before we have talked to each other again?”
“Yes,” she said faintly, “I promise that. But you haven’t convinced me. Everything you’ve said—I know you.”
They heard a car. Spratt was coming into the driveway. His voice called cheerily,
“Kessler! Ready to go?”
“Yes indeed, Mr. Herlong. I was waiting for you.”
Kessler stood up and started for the car. Without paying much attention to what she was doing, Elizabeth was following him.
“Hope I wasn’t too long,” said Spratt. “Why Elizabeth, what are you doing here? I thought you’d be asleep by now.”
They had reached the side of the car.
“Mrs. Herlong was just about to go upstairs to bed,” Kessler said. “She is very tired. She’ll probably be sound asleep before you come back.”
“I hope she is.” Spratt leaned across the door. “Then good night, Elizabeth.”
He kissed her. For an instant it was as though a stranger had kissed her, and then suddenly it was not. Dear Spratt. He was her husband. This other man—but he was Arthur. Or wasn’t he?
“These nights are really cold,” Spratt was saying to Kessler as he backed the car. “The days have been bright lately, but as soon as the sun goes down—”
His voice trailed off. Elizabeth turned and went back into the house. Tonight she would say nothing to Spratt. She had promised. Later, should she or shouldn’t she? Right now she could not tell. But at least, she would be asleep when he came home, or he would think she was.
Upstairs in her room, she got mechanically through the routine of undressing. In her state of turmoil it was easier to move than to sit still. That man was Arthur; he could deny it forever but it would still be true. “Good Lord,” she said aloud, “don’t I know my own husband?”
Looking around, she saw her bedroom as though she was seeing it for the first time, her fragrant, luxurious room full of beautiful objects that Spratt had given her. The room was as eloquent of his personality as of hers; Spratt was her husband, he was the father of her children, she loved him, but now it was as though she could hear herself talking as she had talked twenty years ago. “What I feel for you—it’s strange to call it love, because it’s so different. I can’t give you what I gave Arthur, because I haven’t got it to give. It’s just not there any more.”
Elizabeth stopped in the middle of the room. “What have I done?” she exclaimed in fright. “What would Spratt do if I told him? Shall I tell him? Can I live here the rest of my life and not tell him?”
She sat down on her bed, and suddenly she felt more tired than she had ever felt in her life. Her body ached in every muscle, her emotions were strained past the point of feeling anything more. She was utterly spent, too tired to know anything but her own exhaustion.
It cost her a great effort to make even the trivial movements of putting out the light and getting into bed. She lay there in the dark, unable to think coherently of anything except of whether or not she was too nervous to go to sleep. There were some sleeping-capsules on her bathroom shelf. The dentist had given them to her last year when she was undergoing some painful treatment. Tonight one of them would do her good, but she was too tired to get up and take it. Underneath her thoughts of the sleeping-capsules the rest of her mind was turning in rings, suggesting all sorts of vague fantastic possibilities: herself saying nothing more to Kessler, but telling Spratt that he was Arthur and leaving the rest up to them; Kessler telling her Arthur had had a twin brother from whom he had been separated in infancy, as happened in old romances; Kessler, Arthur, Spratt—she heard Spratt’s footsteps in the hall outside.
Elizabeth turned over and closed her eyes and made herself breathe deeply. She could not talk to him now.
Spratt opened her door softly. “Asleep?” he whispered. She lay quite still. He tiptoed over to the bed, stood an instant looking down at her, and carefully drew up the blankets to cover her shoulder. He bent and kissed her forehead, very lightly so as not to wake her, and slipped out again, closing the door silently behind him. Elizabeth moved, covering her face with her hands as though she were going to cry, but she was too tired to cry. She said to herself, “I must get that capsule, I’ve got to have some rest.” Then all of a sudden she was asleep, and she slept heavily, weariness closing her in like a drug.
In the room adjoining hers, Spratt was undressing quickly, opening and closing the closet doors with care so as to make no noise. He was glad Dick had not waited to join the Marines. What he was getting into was mighty tough for a kid, but when something had to be done, the longer you waited to do it the tougher it was. And having him actually in it was going to be easier on Elizabeth than these months of looking forward to it had been. Easier on himself too, for that matter. After all, no matter when your youngsters left home it seemed too soon. You knew they were going to find life a lot harder than they expected to find it, and you dreaded it for them. But you did your best to teach them to be honest, to have a sense of responsibility and to take what happened with their chins up, and beyond that there wasn’t much more you could give them. Dick was a good kid. He’d be all right. Elizabeth would be all right too. She sometimes cringed before a hard job, but she always got through it and came up smiling. He was glad this fellow Kessler had turned up. Knowing Kessler had been good for all of them.
Spratt got into bed. He was tired, and was asleep in five minutes.
In his apartment, Kessler had not begun to get ready for bed. He was sitting alone on a sofa, asking himself over and over, “Good Lord, what have I done to her?”
Useless now to wish he had not come here. The damage was done. Now it was up to him to undo it. He had to convince Elizabeth that he was not Arthur, and leave her marriage as secure as he had found it. The task appalled him. It was going to require the last shred of his strength, and even with that he was not sure he was equal to it. He was giving way. The studio had been letting him work at home for the past few days. That was all right, as long as he had the story treatment ready on time. But the story treatment was quite unimportant compared with clearing up the mischief he had wrought in Elizabeth’s life. Exhausted as he was he had to sit here all night if necessary, devising means of persuading her.
The strongest weapon was always the truth. Not the truth about his identity this tim
e, but the truth about what it would mean to her if she continued to believe her recognition correct. If he could make that clear to her she would not want to believe it, Kessler told himself. Once he had done that he could rest, yielding to his weariness in the blessed thought that he need never make an effort again. He stayed where he was, thinking, until the daylight began to creep between the curtains and he fell asleep with his head against the sofa cushions.
12
When Elizabeth awoke she could tell by the sun that it was late in the morning. Her first thought was that she should have been up to see Dick off to his eight-thirty class, then she remembered Dick was gone to boot-camp in San Diego. She sat up. It was after nine, so Cherry and Brian would be gone too, as well as Spratt. Elizabeth rang her bell.
The maid came in, bringing orange juice and the morning paper. “Why didn’t anybody wake me?” Elizabeth asked.
“Mr. Herlong said not to. He said you were tired.”
Spratt had left her a note, scribbled in pencil across a sheet of studio stationery. “Elizabeth—Glad you’re getting a long sleep. I told Cherry and Brian to go on to school without bothering you. I have to leave now, will ring you later if anything turns up, otherwise will see you tonight. All well. Chin up, the war news looks pretty good this morning, anyway nothing lasts forever. I love you, thought I’d remind you in case I hadn’t mentioned it lately. Spratt.”
The maid brought her toast and scrambled eggs. She had been about to ask for bacon before she remembered what a rare commodity it had become. Elizabeth laid the note on her bedside table and looked around her at the day.
She felt fresh and well, and last night’s tumult seemed a long way behind her. The morning was cool, sparkling like a jewel. It had brought back her courage; today was ahead of her and she could face it. In fact, she wanted to face it, to do what needed to be done and get it over. She thought of Kessler. She had to see him and talk to him like a reasonable human being. What a fool she must have sounded like last night. It had all been too much, that astounding recognition just after Dick’s going. But Kessler?
Was that a fantasy or was it the truth? Last night she had been so sure, this morning it seemed more like an illusion born of nerves worn to the limit of endurance. Until those last minutes before she went to sleep she had not realized how tired she was. She had read somewhere that intense fatigue produced strange mental symptoms, like those of a narcotic that brought foolishness without unconsciousness.
But he did look like Arthur. That at least was not her imagination. It was Arthur he had suggested the first night she saw him, it was Arthur he had been bringing back all these months. Now, in the fresh light of the morning, was he Arthur or wasn’t he?
If he was not, what a lunatic he must think her! But if he was, where had he been, why had he been silent, what was this going to mean? She had a picture of Arthur packed away in a closet, but it had been years since she had looked for it and it would take her a long time to find it now. Anyway, she did not need it. Her memory was vivid enough, and Kessler was there to be seen.
“I’ll get this over now,” said Elizabeth. “Now. Today.”
She got up and went to her telephone. Apparently he had been waiting for her call, for he answered the phone himself. When she told him who she was he said, “Yes, Mrs. Herlong?” and waited expectantly.
“First,” said Elizabeth, “I want to apologize for my startling behavior last night.”
“Then you do know this morning,” he asked eagerly, “that you were mistaken?”
“I don’t know that, not yet. But at least this morning I can promise you to behave like an intelligent adult. You told me I could see you today. May I come over?”
“Certainly.”
“Now?”
“Whenever you like.”
“Thank you.”
While she was getting dressed she remembered that last night Kessler had said he had a favor to ask of her. She must remember to tell him to go ahead, and not let what he called her mistake stand in the way. If she was wrong, he would forgive her and never mention it again, to her or anybody else—she was sure she could trust him for that. But if she was right—she shivered, and she did not know whether it was a tremor of hope or dread.
Kessler’s housekeeper told her he was waiting for her in his study. Elizabeth went in and shut the door behind her. Kessler had been sitting before his typewriter, with sheets of manuscript around him. For an instant she wondered if he had been working, or if he had set the stage to make it look as if he found this so unimportant that he could go on with his work without interruption. But she thought of that only an instant. As she came in Kessler put his hand on his cane and stood up. Their eyes met, and Elizabeth said,
“I came here this morning to see if I was right or wrong in what I said to you last night. I was right.”
Kessler drew in a quick breath, without answering. Elizabeth came nearer and sat down. Holding her handbag in her lap, she leaned back to look up at him.
She said, “I have not been drinking and I am not hysterical. I had nine hours’ sleep, and when I woke up my impression of last night seemed like a mistake based on a chance resemblance. It was not a mistake.” She smiled at him, pleadingly. “Arthur, let’s face this and talk about it.”
“I’ll talk about it as long as you like,” he answered her, and as he spoke he smiled too, as though sorry for her. “But it’s not true, Mrs. Herlong.”
But Elizabeth continued, “You have a scar on your arm where you were burnt by a splash of boiling chocolate one night when I was making fudge. You have another scar on your right knee, made when you and I were practicing fancy dives and you hit the edge of the pool.”
Kessler sat down, and moved a pencil that was about to fall off the edge of his table. “I have so many scars,” he said, “that no doubt you could find two that would fit those you are talking about.” Then, supporting himself on his cane, he leaned toward her, and continued, “Mrs. Herlong, my body is such an accumulation of patches and makeshifts that to prove or disprove my likeness to any healthy man would be very difficult. I didn’t grow this beard to disguise my face, but to cover some ugly lines on my chin that would make me even harder to look at than I am now. Yet you insist I resemble your first husband.”
Elizabeth felt no yielding of her conviction. “It’s not just that you look like him,” she persisted. “It’s—how shall I say it?—your mind, the way you think, the way you peak. You are interested in everything. You are full of scraps of knowledge on all sorts of subjects, picked up because of an insatiable curiosity about what goes on in the world. Your teaching Margaret to examine flowers through a microscope, your encouraging her to ask questions—it’s how Arthur would have dealt with a child, and for the same reason. Your generosity, your tremendous tolerance, your encompassing love for the human race—that’s not ‘like’ Arthur Kittredge, it is Arthur. Yet you—” She stopped, her eyes on him with a passionate earnestness.
“Yet I tell you I am not Arthur Kittredge. I am Erich Kessler, and you are going to believe me.”
“How can I?”
“Can’t more than one man be curious about the planet he lives on? Can’t more than one man love the human race, as you put it?”
“You are talking in abstractions. I tell you, I know.”
Kessler shook his head.
Elizabeth shrank back into her chair, away from him. “How can you do this to me!” she exclaimed. “Don’t you remember how I loved you?”
For a moment she covered her face with her hands. She did not know how thankful he was for that moment, when she did not see the tightening of his eyes and lips that even his grim self-control could not prevent. She got out a handkerchief and began twisting it between her fingers, then carefully untwisted it and folded it again. Her pause to regain her own calmness had given him time to regain his, and when he spoke again his voice was steady.
“Now that Dick has gone to fight for tomorrow’s world,” he said to her, “it would be a catastrophe to see his mother refusing to give up her dependence on yesterday.”
Elizabeth started. “What on earth do you mean?”
He spoke to her in a low, intensely purposeful voice. “Mrs. Herlong, not long ago your son sat where you are sitting, defining in his own mind the question before this generation. At length he understood—I like to think I helped him understand—that he was living in one of the periods when the advance of civilization seems to halt because of forces that are trying to push it back instead of letting it go ahead as it was meant to do. He came to see that his side was the right and ultimately victorious side, because those who fight to raise up the dead past eventually destroy themselves.”
Elizabeth shook her head with a puzzled frown. “I understand that, but what has it got to do with me? With us?”
“It has a great deal to do with you and me. This battle between yesterday and tomorrow is only occasionally an international affair. But it’s going on all the time in our own lives. Some of us refuse to let go of what used to be. We cling to it even when it is nothing but dust and dead leaves, instead of accepting the fact that we’ve got to go ahead in time whether we like it or not.”
Elizabeth did not answer. But she was listening to him, for he spoke so earnestly that he made her listen.
“You know men and women like this, though for the most part you’ve been too intelligent to be among them. You’ve lived past your first youth without any great regret for it, for you’ve acquired a richness of social experience that makes you a far more vital personality, for instance, than your daughter. You don’t envy Dick and Cherry’s friends. If you had to associate with them all the time you’d be bored beyond expression, for pretty and entertaining as they are, they’re shallow and unfinished compared to what you have become. But you’ve seen men and women who have let time go by without being enriched by it, haven’t you?”
