He did not miss the fact that his guests congregated closely around and about him and Melissa as they slowly toured the room, with Arabella condescending to explain to the heathen the finer nuances of her paintings. She had always suspected that Geoffrey considered her art a frivolous and unimportant pursuit, of value only for keeping her out of mischief, as he said, but she knew that he had enough politeness not to be too frank before her guests. As for Melissa, she discounted the girl entirely. Among her friends, Arabella felt strong and invulnerable. She only hoped that Melissa had enough sense not to blazon forth her ignorance. And then, she hoped she did not have that much sense. It would be another punishment for Geoffrey.
Arabella held a pointer in her hand and her voice was high and unctuous as she explained. Geoffrey and Melissa kept abreast of her, and Arabella’s eye flickered hatingly on her beloved brown velvet, now altered to fit this hoyden and fool. Ravel Littlefield, flanked by his stepmother, stood behind Mélissa. Arabella’s dear friends, the gray and shadowy Bertrams, listened attentively and with concentrated frowns to her every word, and attested to their admiration with low murmurs. Mr. Holland, the artist, and his wife, tried not to let their courteous faces reveal what they thought. As they were kind people, each prayed silently that, for Geoffrey’s sake, Melissa would be temporarily stricken dumb. Mr. Littlefield was bored; he wandered away to a window, where he gloomily played with his keys and cursed the snowbound country. Mrs. Eldridge loved her fun, and quite maliciously hoped that Melissa would be candid in her harsh, childlike way, and Mr. Eldridge, who knew that his wife loved a joke, watched her anxiously. The ladies’ skirts rustled softly over the bare floor; the gentlemen’s heels clacked leisurely, Arabella’s saccharine tones went on and on.
Ravel Littlefield stood where he could watch Melissa’s face. For a while, he saw only its drawn pallor and the rough chapped spots high on her broad cheekbones. He saw her pale dry lips and the bruised circles under her eyes, and knew that she had been crying. She walked jerkily and nervously, sometimes stumbling on the hem of the velvet dress. Ravel did not understand this tenderness he felt whenever he glanced at the girl’s rigid profile, this aching desire to touch her hand and comfort her. She seemed entirely unconscious of everyone in the room; her whole attention, in her usual fanatical and intense way, was given to the paintings. Poor, poor child, thought Ravel. She hasn’t the slightest sense of humor; everything has “meaning” for her, and God help anything which she believes violates the standard she has set up for herself and for others. What touching egotism, what appalling humorlessness, the poor darling! And then he looked at her half-exposed breast, which she had forgotten, and saw how the stark northern glare brought out its marble contours and pearly high-lights.
Arabella had no sense of design, or of proportion, or of the subtleties of composition and color. She had a slight talent, but this was overwhelmed by pretentiousness. Had she confined herself to the pretty and obvious, she might have pleased the unfastidious. But she did not confine herself. If she painted a still-life of fruit and flowers, she must give it a “mood.” She must suggest something eerie, significant or fantastic, so catching the light on a yellow banana, for instance, that it became a glaring and bilious triangle. A drooping rose, and its bud, did not remain a rose and a bud; they must imply melancholy and tragedy. In principle, this was intriguing and thought-arresting. In Arabella’s hands, it became ludicrous. Moreover, her lack of real skill which, under prettiness, might have been hidden, became embarrassingly clear, as did her shallowness and affection. As she had no depth of character, her “moods” were banal and full of cheap artifice.
Melissa moved along slowly with Geoffrey, and now no one spoke, not even the murmurous Bertrams. Everyone listened for the queer Melissa’s comments, if she was to make any. For it was obvious that she was seething with potential comments. Her face had become more rigid and austere than ever, but, oddly, its usual expression of closed and silent sternness had given way to a kind of fierce, pent animation as she stared with concentration at every painting. This animation could be felt rather than seen, and so violent was it, in spite of her silence, that it attracted the attention even of Mr. Littlefield, who came back to the group and hovered on the edge of it like a quick and interested beetle.
Moment by moment, Melissa’s furious agitation increased. Now it was becoming increasingly apparent in her high jerky steps, the swift sweep of her pale blue eyes over the canvases, the tenseness of her long white throat. She would bend her head and stare strongly at a painting, then throw it back stiffly. There was a kind of excitement about her now. Arabella’s attention was finally caught by this, and her voice died away. Like the others, she fell into a trance of waiting for Melissa to speak, for it was evident that the poor girl would explode at any moment. She had snatched away her hand from Geoffrey’s arm, and in some manner had been able to shut herself in a circle of isolation.
No one else knew it, but Melissa felt as if she were accompanied by her father. From the first moment her eye had fallen upon the pictures, she had heard his soft, regretful, yet satirical voice, and so profound was the impression that she really believed he was there with her, inspecting Arabella’s work. She heard him say: “But what horrors, my dear Melissa! What outrageous presumption in this woman, that she dare take up the sacred palette and disfigure innocent canvases! I implore you to look at that leprous vase containing three scabrous gilt bulrushes. What is this shameless woman trying to say? But she really says nothing, expresses nothing but her conceit, her ridiculous absence of knowledge of the simplest fundamentals. Mood? She has nothing to express but petty vanity and foolish sentimentality. Why, she cannot even draw! Does it not amuse you?”
Really horrible, thought Melissa, outraged at Arabella’s presumption. What dreadful coloring, what out-of-scale drawing! Papa, are these people serious, who are looking at these things in respectful silence or murmuring politely? How can they be such liars, such fools? They are not ignorant, surely. Why, they are really laughing at her! Yes, they are laughing.
It was at this moment that Melissa snatched her hand from Geoffrey’s arm, but the action was purely reflex, for with her knowledge of the hidden and malicious amusement of the others she felt a wild hard thrill of pain which she did not recognize as a virgin and novel attack of compassion. Her anger boiled up against them, and against her father, whose gentle laughter she felt keenly. She was sure she could see his long scholar’s face, the glint of his hooded blue eyes, his languid and pedantic smile, and the graceful movement of his delicate hand as if he were imploring that these monstrous paintings be removed at once from his sensitive and affronted sight.
Melissa’s blind fury mounted, and she felt a stamp of hatred on her heart, as agonizing and hot as a brand. Suddenly, she turned her back on the paintings and faced the others in a commotion and swirl of brown velvet skirts and crackling petticoats. Her eyes sparkled with intemperate rage and she was very white. Violence blew about her, so that her hair seemed to flow back from the harsh angles of her face. Her breath was disordered and vehement. She faced them all, and, among them, she faced her father, in resolute indignation.
Bewitched, the guests and Geoffrey and Arabella stared back at her.
She made an abrupt and unrestrained gesture, and cried out: “I know what you are all thinking! You are thinking that these paintings are frightful! You know that they have neither design, composition nor artistic meaning! You know what they are, and yet all you can do is to smile in yourselves and ridicule these things by exchanging silent glances with one another; and then you lie, and lie, and induce this poor woman to believe that you think she is a real artist! Oh, what liars you are, what hypocrites!”
Her gestures became wilder, more distracted and uncouth, in the faces of the others, who looked at her in utter stupefaction. They could not stir nor speak. No one glanced at Arabella. Geoffrey, paralyzed, gaped at his wife disbelievingly, forgetting for once to be bland and natural. The Bertrams became gray
er with pallid affront and astonishment; Mrs. Littlefield opened her leaden mouth with the faintest of gasps; the Hollands appeared greatly distressed; the Eldridges, like Geoffrey, merely gaped. But Ravel, after the first incredulity, began to smile with a kind of sardonic tenderness and moved a step closer to the embattled Melissa, and there was about him a protective alertness. Mr. Littlefield, after the stupefaction of everyone had lasted for several moments, gave a queer little grunt, whether of entertainment or disgust no one knew.
Melissa’s normally colorless face was suddenly deluged with hot fire. Recklessly, scornfully, she exclaimed, with another of her crude and distraught gestures:
“I know how you are secretly mocking this poor woman! And you must have been mocking her for years. You pretend to be genteel and educated people. Yet not once, I am sure, have you tried to point out to her her errors, to correct her faults. No, you were content to be amused by them, to laugh behind her back, to show your superiority. But there is one thing you have forgotten,” and she paused to glare at them bitterly, “you have forgotten that she really has the urge to paint, to create, and that in itself is a sacred thing, no matter how feeble. Before that, if you had hearts, you would have been respectful and sober.”
She swung upon the grimacing Arabella, who started back from her with an expression of extreme loathing and hatred which the aroused girl did not see. “Pay no heed to them, Arabellal” cried the rampant young woman. “You have very little, but it is more than any of these pretentious fools have, and you should be proud.”
Arabella drew in her painted lips with a sucking sound and her eyes slid over the faces of her friends. Ravel was grinning, but he was regarding Melissa as if he were both hugely entertained and inordinately touched. The Bertrams’ stare had shifted to their clasped hands; the Hollands were slowly drifting away; the Eldridges had begun to smile; Mrs. Littlefield, catching Arabella’s eye, moved towards her friend and stood by her side. Geoffrey said nothing; he appeared abstracted. And then Mr. Littlefield began to chuckle uncontrollably.
Geoffrey spoke for the first time, and sternly and loudly: “Melissa, you will please go to your room.”
Melissa, even in her aroused state, heard him, and she literally jumped. She turned upon him: “Geoffrey! You must tell them I am right! You must defend your sister against their ridicule; you owe it to her!”
Geoffrey visibly controlled himself. “I said, Melissa, you are to go to your room.”
Melissa abruptly became very still and rigid. She regarded him with her customary searching and zealous intensity, as if doubting what she had heard and wanting only to be certain she had comprehended.
Then her face changed, became young and bewildered again. “I have said something wrong, Geoffrey?” she asked. “I do not understand.”
Geoffrey did not answer. He went to the door, opened it, held it open significantly. Melissa flashed a dazed and questioning glance at the others. All looked studiously away from her, except Ravel, who smiled half sadly, half humorously, into her eyes. In the very act of turning away, she was caught by this smile, and studied it with open and singular fascination. She took a step towards him, as a child moves towards a comforting hand. Then her eyes filled with tears, she caught up her skirts, and, with bent head, she hurried out of the studio. She did not glance at Geoffrey as she passed him, but for a moment or two he watched her flight, until she disappeared down the Stairway in the gathering winter dusk.
The bedroom was empty but Rachel had lit two delicate candelabra on the mantel-piece, and the fire crackled warmly in the increasing twilight. Melisa flung herself in a chair. Her breath came fast and hot; something hurt her chest. She put her hand to it. Her eyes were blinded with mist. She wiped it away with the back of her other hand.
In some incomprehensible way, she had affronted and outraged Geoffrey. What had he said to her yesterday? That she must not shame the memory of her father. Now her mind became confused, her thoughts riotous and chaotic. She could not think. She could only feel her bemused and frantic pain and a sudden and unusual loneliness. She did not recognize it as loneliness, for she had never been really lonely before. But there was such an emptiness and darkness in her now, and a new suffering, which was not grief as she had known it. However, when she remembered her outburst in the studio, she exclaimed aloud: “But I was right! Why, then, did they look so and why did Geoffrey tell me to leave?” Her voice dropped mournfully: “Poor Arabella. But I am here now, and they shall not mock you, not ever again.”
She felt, in her pity, that she loved Arabella, and Arabella, incongruously, began to take on, in the poor girl’s thoughts, the character and the defenselessness of Phoebe. Because there were such ardent depths in her cold nature, Melissa lacked much insight and judgment, and was totally unable to compromise or to consider.
“Oh, they shall not hurt you again, the gross and insensitive creatures!” said Melissa, her loneliness swallowed up in her indignation. She sat upright in her chair and beat her velvet knees with her clenched fists. But the pain in her heart did not diminish, and she would not think of her father.
She wanted to talk to somebody; she must talk to somebody! She jumped to her feet and ran to the bell-rope. Rachel would come, and listen comprehendingly to the story. There was a desperate hunger in Melissa now, a deepening of her pain. But her hand had only reached for the rope when the door opened and Geoffrey entered.
Melissa’s hand fell to her side. Now, as she saw him, as he closed the door slowly behind him and stood against it, looking at her silently, the nameless pain suddenly swelled up in her like a conflagration. Almost without volition, she took several rapid steps towards him, and then stopped, halted by his grim silence, by the hard and piercing expression of his small gray eyes. Her hands drew together convulsively, and her fingers intertwined with an aching tightness.
Geoffrey, still without speaking, went to the fireside, took a taper and held it to the tip of his cheroot. “May I?” he asked coldly.
“Why not?” replied Melissa faintly, a shadow of her old confusion passing over her pain.
Geoffrey lit his cheroot, puffed at it a few moments, while Melissa continued to watch him from her corner. He said: “May I sit down?”
“Why, certainly,” she murmured. “Why should you ask, in your own house?”
Geoffrey sat down in a chair facing her. He seemed about to speak in comment on her last remark, then apparently decided it was no use and that the ensuing argument would only tend to confuse him, himself. But his expression became a little less grim, though his eyes remained cold.
“Melissa,” he said, in a conversational tone, “I am having a hard time trying to decide whether you are extraordinarily stupid or extraordinarily malignant. Perhaps you can tell me. I think I should prefer to hear that you are extraordinarily stupid. It is less dangerous, I think.”
Melissa was astounded. She came from the corner with her old and stately majesty, so natural and unassumed. Then she stood by the fireplace opposite her hubsand and looked down at him in utter bafflement. “Malignant?” she said. Then she was single-heartedly outraged. “I would not waste my time being malignant! I have always thought malignancy the height of stupidity!”
“You have a point there,” said Geoffrey, after a moment’s study of her, and with a lessening of his inflexible hardness.
“Besides, why should you consider me malignant?” cried Melissa. “What right have you to entertain this libelous opinion?”
Geoffrey sighed, as if now everything had become too confused and hopeless. Melissa was staring down at him, her pale strong face so powerfully innocent and uncorrupted, so carved by the firelight into planes of marble and fire, that Geoffrey was fascinated and momentarily forgot what he had been saying.
Now Melissa’s voice became peremptory: “I think you should explain yourself, sir.”
“That is my intention, Melissa. That is why I came. Would you mind sitting down? It is a strain on the back of my neck, looking up at you.�
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Stiffly, Melissa sat down in the “lady’s” chair opposite him and fixed her eyes upon him formidably. Yet those eyes were not as assured and arrogant as usual. The long bronze lashes blinked vulnerably.
“I want you,” said Geoffrey slowly, deciding he would proceed better if he looked only at his cheroot, “to consider your appalling and incredible outburst up in Arabella’s studio a short time ago. I know you have lived a monkish life, my dear, with practically no concept of the world outside your father’s house and your father’s study, but I have always believed that a woman of good blood and good family was instinctively a lady, no matter how immured a life she might have led. I thought, in short, that there were certain instinctive social manners. It seems I was wrong, doesn’t it?”
Melissa considered this with the fanatical closeness she gave to everything offered for her consideration. Then she said: “I don’t think there are ‘instinctive’ manners or customs. They are only products of an artificial, if necessary, civilized order. I use the word ‘necessary’ advisedly, and only tentatively. In a wild and allegedly barbaric society, our customs would seem absurd and we should be faced by another order of behavior which we, in turn, might find equally ridiculous. Our concept is built up on unnatural acceptances—”
“Yes, yes, I quite understand,” said Geoffrey hastily. He rubbed his forehead, as if tired.
“For instance,” went on Melissa, warming, “infanticide is regarded as intolerable and evil in modern society. Why? Because we have not felt the pressure of economic determinism and necessity. You would not consider the Romans a barbaric or uncivilized people, though Papa often thought they were. Yet there came a time of such huge and onerous taxes, such pressure of population, such burdens upon individual families, that infanticide was not only countenanced, it was even approved, under certain circumstances.”
Melissa Page 34
