The Reef

by Edith Wharton

  XIII

  Darrow, late that evening, threw himself into an armchair before hisfire and mused.

  The room was propitious to meditation. The red-veiled lamp, the cornersof shadow, the splashes of firelight on the curves of old full-bodiedwardrobes and cabinets, gave it an air of intimacy increased by itsfaded hangings, its slightly frayed and threadbare rugs. Everything init was harmoniously shabby, with a subtle sought-for shabbiness in whichDarrow fancied he discerned the touch of Fraser Leath. But Fraser Leathhad grown so unimportant a factor in the scheme of things that thesemarks of his presence caused the young man no emotion beyond that of afaint retrospective amusement.

  The afternoon and evening had been perfect.

  After a moment of concern over her step-son's departure, Anna hadsurrendered herself to her happiness with an impetuosity that Darrow hadnever suspected in her. Early in the afternoon they had gone out in themotor, traversing miles of sober-tinted landscape in which, here andthere, a scarlet vineyard flamed, clattering through the streets ofstony villages, coming out on low slopes above the river, or windingthrough the pale gold of narrow wood-roads with the blue of clear-cuthills at their end. Over everything lay a faint sunshine that seemeddissolved in the still air, and the smell of wet roots and decayingleaves was merged in the pungent scent of burning underbrush. Once, atthe turn of a wall, they stopped the motor before a ruined gateway and,stumbling along a road full of ruts, stood before a little old desertedhouse, fantastically carved and chimneyed, which lay in a moat under theshade of ancient trees. They paced the paths between the trees, founda mouldy Temple of Love on an islet among reeds and plantains, and,sitting on a bench in the stable-yard, watched the pigeons circlingagainst the sunset over their cot of patterned brick. Then the motorflew on into the dusk...

  When they came in they sat beside the fire in the oak drawing-room,and Darrow noticed how delicately her head stood out against the sombrepanelling, and mused on the enjoyment there would always be in the merefact of watching her hands as they moved about among the tea-things...

  They dined late, and facing her across the table, with its low lightsand flowers, he felt an extraordinary pleasure in seeing her again inevening dress, and in letting his eyes dwell on the proud shy set of herhead, the way her dark hair clasped it, and the girlish thinness of herneck above the slight swell of the breast. His imagination was struckby the quality of reticence in her beauty. She suggested a fine portraitkept down to a few tones, or a Greek vase on which the play of light isthe only pattern.

  After dinner they went out on the terrace for a look at the moon-mistedpark. Through the crepuscular whiteness the trees hung in blottedmasses. Below the terrace, the garden drew its dark diagrams betweenstatues that stood like muffled conspirators on the edge of the shadow.Farther off, the meadows unrolled a silver-shot tissue to the mantlingof mist above the river; and the autumn stars trembled overhead liketheir own reflections seen in dim water.

  He lit his cigar, and they walked slowly up and down the flags in thelanguid air, till he put an arm about her, saying: "You mustn't staytill you're chilled"; then they went back into the room and drew uptheir chairs to the fire.

  It seemed only a moment later that she said: "It must be after eleven,"and stood up and looked down on him, smiling faintly. He satstill, absorbing the look, and thinking: "There'll be evenings andevenings"--till she came nearer, bent over him, and with a hand on hisshoulder said: "Good night."

  He got to his feet and put his arms about her.

  "Good night," he answered, and held her fast; and they gave each other along kiss of promise and communion.

  The memory of it glowed in him still as he sat over his crumbling fire;but beneath his physical exultation he felt a certain gravity of mood.His happiness was in some sort the rallying-point of many scatteredpurposes. He summed it up vaguely by saying to himself that to be lovedby a woman like that made "all the difference"...He was a little tiredof experimenting on life; he wanted to "take a line", to follow thingsup, to centralize and concentrate, and produce results. Two or threemore years of diplomacy--with her beside him!--and then their real lifewould begin: study, travel and book-making for him, and for her--well,the joy, at any rate, of getting out of an atmosphere of bric-a-brac andcard-leaving into the open air of competing activities.

  The desire for change had for some time been latent in him, and hismeeting with Mrs. Leath the previous spring had given it a definitedirection. With such a comrade to focus and stimulate his energies hefelt modestly but agreeably sure of "doing something". And under thisassurance was the lurking sense that he was somehow worthy of hisopportunity. His life, on the whole, had been a creditable affair. Outof modest chances and middling talents he had built himself a fairlymarked personality, known some exceptional people, done a number ofinteresting and a few rather difficult things, and found himself, atthirty-seven, possessed of an intellectual ambition sufficient to occupythe passage to a robust and energetic old age. As for the private andpersonal side of his life, it had come up to the current standards, andif it had dropped, now and then, below a more ideal measure, even thesedeclines had been brief, parenthetic, incidental. In the recognizedessentials he had always remained strictly within the limit of hisscruples.

  From this reassuring survey of his case he came back to thecontemplation of its crowning felicity. His mind turned again to hisfirst meeting with Anna Summers and took up one by one the threads oftheir faintly sketched romance. He dwelt with pardonable pride onthe fact that fate had so early marked him for the high privilege ofpossessing her: it seemed to mean that they had really, in the truestsense of the ill-used phrase, been made for each other.

  Deeper still than all these satisfactions was the mere elemental senseof well-being in her presence. That, after all, was what proved her tobe the woman for him: the pleasure he took in the set of her head, theway her hair grew on her forehead and at the nape, her steady gaze whenhe spoke, the grave freedom of her gait and gestures. He recalled everydetail of her face, the fine veinings of the temples, the bluish-brownshadows in her upper lids, and the way the reflections of two starsseemed to form and break up in her eyes when he held her close to him...

  If he had had any doubt as to the nature of her feeling for him thosedissolving stars would have allayed it. She was reserved, she was shyeven, was what the shallow and effusive would call "cold". She was likea picture so hung that it can be seen only at a certain angle: an angleknown to no one but its possessor. The thought flattered his senseof possessorship...He felt that the smile on his lips would have beenfatuous had it had a witness. He was thinking of her look when she hadquestioned him about his meeting with Owen at the theatre: less of herwords than of her look, and of the effort the question cost her: thereddening of her cheek, the deepening of the strained line between herbrows, the way her eyes sought shelter and then turned and drew on him.Pride and passion were in the conflict--magnificent qualities in a wife!The sight almost made up for his momentary embarrassment at the rousingof a memory which had no place in his present picture of himself.

  Yes! It was worth a good deal to watch that fight between her instinctand her intelligence, and know one's self the object of the struggle...

  Mingled with these sensations were considerations of another order. Hereflected with satisfaction that she was the kind of woman with whomone would like to be seen in public. It would be distinctly agreeableto follow her into drawing-rooms, to walk after her down the aisle of atheatre, to get in and out of trains with her, to say "my wife" of herto all sorts of people. He draped these details in the handsomephrase "She's a woman to be proud of", and felt that this fact somehowjustified and ennobled his instinctive boyish satisfaction in lovingher.

  He stood up, rambled across the room and leaned out for a while intothe starry night. Then he dropped again into his armchair with a sigh ofdeep content.

  "Oh, hang it," he suddenly exclaimed, "it's the best thing that's everhappened to me, anyhow!"

  The next day
was even better. He felt, and knew she felt, that they hadreached a clearer understanding of each other. It was as if, after aswim through bright opposing waves, with a dazzle of sun in their eyes,they had gained an inlet in the shades of a cliff, where they couldfloat on the still surface and gaze far down into the depths.

  Now and then, as they walked and talked, he felt a thrill of youthfulwonder at the coincidence of their views and their experiences, at theway their minds leapt to the same point in the same instant.

  "The old delusion, I suppose," he smiled to himself. "Will Nature nevertire of the trick?"

  But he knew it was more than that. There were moments in their talk whenhe felt, distinctly and unmistakably, the solid ground of friendshipunderneath the whirling dance of his sensations. "How I should like herif I didn't love her!" he summed it up, wondering at the miracle of sucha union.

  In the course of the morning a telegram had come from Owen Leath,announcing that he, his grandmother and Effie would arrive from Dijonthat afternoon at four. The station of the main line was eight or tenmiles from Givre, and Anna, soon after three, left in the motor to meetthe travellers.

  When she had gone Darrow started for a walk, planning to get back late,in order that the reunited family might have the end of the afternoonto themselves. He roamed the country-side till long after dark, and thestable-clock of Givre was striking seven as he walked up the avenue tothe court.

  In the hall, coming down the stairs, he encountered Anna. Her face wasserene, and his first glance showed him that Owen had kept his word andthat none of her forebodings had been fulfilled.

  She had just come down from the school-room, where Effie and thegoverness were having supper; the little girl, she told him, lookedimmensely better for her Swiss holiday, but was dropping with sleepafter the journey, and too tired to make her habitual appearance in thedrawing-room before being put to bed. Madame de Chantelle was resting,but would be down for dinner; and as for Owen, Anna supposed he was offsomewhere in the park--he had a passion for prowling about the park atnightfall...

  Darrow followed her into the brown room, where the tea-table had beenleft for him. He declined her offer of tea, but she lingered a momentto tell him that Owen had in fact kept his word, and that Madame deChantelle had come back in the best of humours, and unsuspicious of theblow about to fall.

  "She has enjoyed her month at Ouchy, and it has given her a lot to talkabout--her symptoms, and the rival doctors, and the people at the hotel.It seems she met your Ambassadress there, and Lady Wantley, andsome other London friends of yours, and she's heard what she calls'delightful things' about you: she told me to tell you so. She attachesgreat importance to the fact that your grandmother was an Everard ofAlbany. She's prepared to open her arms to you. I don't know whether itwon't make it harder for poor Owen...the contrast, I mean...There are noAmbassadresses or Everards to vouch for HIS choice! But you'll help me,won't you? You'll help me to help him? To-morrow I'll tell you the rest.Now I must rush up and tuck in Effie..."

  "Oh, you'll see, we'll pull it off for him!" he assured her; "together,we can't fail to pull it off."

  He stood and watched her with a smile as she fled down the half-litvista to the hall.