The Reef

by Edith Wharton

  XXII

  It was not until late that afternoon that Darrow could claim hispostponed hour with Anna. When at last he found her alone in hersitting-room it was with a sense of liberation so great that he soughtno logical justification of it. He simply felt that all their destinieswere in Miss Painter's grasp, and that, resistance being useless, hecould only enjoy the sweets of surrender.

  Anna herself seemed as happy, and for more explicable reasons. She hadassisted, after luncheon, at another debate between Madame de Chantelleand her confidant, and had surmised, when she withdrew from it, thatvictory was permanently perched on Miss Painter's banners.

  "I don't know how she does it, unless it's by the dead weight of herconvictions. She detests the French so that she'd back up Owen even ifshe knew nothing--or knew too much--of Miss Viner. She somehow regardsthe match as a protest against the corruption of European morals. I toldOwen that was his great chance, and he's made the most of it."

  "What a tactician you are! You make me feel that I hardly know therudiments of diplomacy," Darrow smiled at her, abandoning himself to aperilous sense of well-being.

  She gave him back his smile. "I'm afraid I think nothing short of my ownhappiness is worth wasting any diplomacy on!"

  "That's why I mean to resign from the service of my country," herejoined with a laugh of deep content.

  The feeling that both resistance and apprehension were vain was workinglike wine in his veins. He had done what he could to deflect the courseof events: now he could only stand aside and take his chance of safety.Underneath this fatalistic feeling was the deep sense of relief thathe had, after all, said and done nothing that could in the least degreeaffect the welfare of Sophy Viner. That fact took a millstone off hisneck.

  Meanwhile he gave himself up once more to the joy of Anna's presence.They had not been alone together for two long days, and he had thelover's sense that he had forgotten, or at least underestimated, thestrength of the spell she cast. Once more her eyes and her smile seemedto bound his world. He felt that their light would always move with himas the sunset moves before a ship at sea.

  The next day his sense of security was increased by a decisive incident.It became known to the expectant household that Madame de Chantelle hadyielded to the tremendous impact of Miss Painter's determination andthat Sophy Viner had been "sent for" to the purple satin sitting-room.

  At luncheon, Owen's radiant countenance proclaimed the happy sequel, andDarrow, when the party had moved back to the oak-room for coffee, deemedit discreet to wander out alone to the terrace with his cigar. Theconclusion of Owen's romance brought his own plans once more to thefront. Anna had promised that she would consider dates and settledetails as soon as Madame de Chantelle and her grandson had beenreconciled, and Darrow was eager to go into the question at once,since it was necessary that the preparations for his marriage shouldgo forward as rapidly as possible. Anna, he knew, would not seek anyfarther pretext for delay; and he strolled up and down contentedly inthe sunshine, certain that she would come out and reassure him as soonas the reunited family had claimed its due share of her attention.

  But when she finally joined him her first word was for the youngerlovers.

  "I want to thank you for what you've done for Owen," she began, with herhappiest smile.

  "Who--I?" he laughed. "Are you confusing me with Miss Painter?"

  "Perhaps I ought to say for ME," she corrected herself. "You've beeneven more of a help to us than Adelaide."

  "My dear child! What on earth have I done?"

  "You've managed to hide from Madame de Chantelle that you don't reallylike poor Sophy."

  Darrow felt the pallour in his cheek. "Not like her? What put such anidea into your head?"

  "Oh, it's more than an idea--it's a feeling. But what difference doesit make, after all? You saw her in such a different setting that it'snatural you should be a little doubtful. But when you know her betterI'm sure you'll feel about her as I do."

  "It's going to be hard for me not to feel about everything as you do."

  "Well, then--please begin with my daughter-in-law!"

  He gave her back in the same tone of banter: "Agreed: if you ll agree tofeel as I do about the pressing necessity of our getting married."

  "I want to talk to you about that too. You don't know what a weight isoff my mind! With Sophy here for good, I shall feel so differentlyabout leaving Effie. I've seen much more accomplished governesses--tomy cost!--but I've never seen a young thing more gay and kind and human.You must have noticed, though you've seen them so little together, howEffie expands when she's with her. And that, you know, is what I want.Madame de Chantelle will provide the necessary restraint." She claspedher hands on his arm. "Yes, I'm ready to go with you now. But first ofall--this very moment!--you must come with me to Effie. She knows, ofcourse, nothing of what's been happening; and I want her to be toldfirst about YOU."

  Effie, sought throughout the house, was presently traced to theschool-room, and thither Darrow mounted with Anna. He had never seenher so alight with happiness, and he had caught her buoyancy of mood. Hekept repeating to himself: "It's over--it's over," as if some monstrousmidnight hallucination had been routed by the return of day.

  As they approached the school-room door the terrier's barks came to themthrough laughing remonstrances.

  "She's giving him his dinner," Anna whispered, her hand in Darrow's.

  "Don't forget the gold-fish!" they heard another voice call out.

  Darrow halted on the threshold. "Oh--not now!"

  "Not now?"

  "I mean--she'd rather have you tell her first. I'll wait for you bothdownstairs."

  He was aware that she glanced at him intently. "As you please. I'llbring her down at once."

  She opened the door, and as she went in he heard her say: "No, Sophy,don't go! I want you both."

  The rest of Darrow's day was a succession of empty and agitatingscenes. On his way down to Givre, before he had seen Effie Leath, hehad pictured somewhat sentimentally the joy of the moment when he shouldtake her in his arms and receive her first filial kiss. Everythingin him that egotistically craved for rest, stability, a comfortablyorganized middle-age, all the home-building instincts of the man whohas sufficiently wooed and wandered, combined to throw a charm about thefigure of the child who might--who should--have been his. Effie came tohim trailing the cloud of glory of his first romance, giving himback the magic hour he had missed and mourned. And how different therealization of his dream had been! The child's radiant welcome, herunquestioning acceptance of, this new figure in the family group, hadbeen all that he had hoped and fancied. If Mother was so awfully happyabout it, and Owen and Granny, too, how nice and cosy and comfortableit was going to be for all of them, her beaming look seemed to say; andthen, suddenly, the small pink fingers he had been kissing were laidon the one flaw in the circle, on the one point which must be settledbefore Effie could, with complete unqualified assurance, admit thenew-comer to full equality with the other gods of her Olympus.

  "And is Sophy awfully happy about it too?" she had asked, loosening herhold on Darrow's neck to tilt back her head and include her mother inher questioning look.

  "Why, dearest, didn't you see she was?" Anna had exclaimed, leaning tothe group with radiant eyes.

  "I think I should like to ask her," the child rejoined, after a minute'sshy consideration; and as Darrow set her down her mother laughed: "Do,darling, do! Run off at once, and tell her we expect her to be awfullyhappy too."

  The scene had been succeeded by others less poignant but almost astrying. Darrow cursed his luck in having, at such a moment, to runthe gauntlet of a houseful of interested observers. The state of being"engaged", in itself an absurd enough predicament, even to a man onlyintermittently exposed, became intolerable under the continuous scrutinyof a small circle quivering with participation. Darrow was furthermoreaware that, though the case of the other couple ought to have madehis own less conspicuous, it was rather they who found a refuge in
theshadow of his prominence. Madame de Chantelle, though she hadconsented to Owen's engagement and formally welcomed his betrothed,was nevertheless not sorry to show, by her reception of Darrow, ofwhat finely-shaded degrees of cordiality she was capable. Miss Painter,having won the day for Owen, was also free to turn her attention to thenewer candidate for her sympathy; and Darrow and Anna found themselvesimmersed in a warm bath of sentimental curiosity.

  It was a relief to Darrow that he was under a positive obligation to endhis visit within the next forty-eight hours. When he left London, hisAmbassador had accorded him a ten days' leave. His fate being definitelysettled and openly published he had no reason for asking to have thetime prolonged, and when it was over he was to return to his post tillthe time fixed for taking up his new duties. Anna and he had thereforedecided to be married, in Paris, a day or two before the departure ofthe steamer which was to take them to South America; and Anna, shortlyafter his return to England, was to go up to Paris and begin her ownpreparations.

  In honour of the double betrothal Effie and Miss Viner were to appearthat evening at dinner; and Darrow, on leaving his room, met the littlegirl springing down the stairs, her white ruffles and coral-colouredbows making her look like a daisy with her yellow hair for its centre.Sophy Viner was behind her pupil, and as she came into the light Darrownoticed a change in her appearance and wondered vaguely why she lookedsuddenly younger, more vivid, more like the little luminous ghost of hisParis memories. Then it occurred to him that it was the first time shehad appeared at dinner since his arrival at Givre, and the first time,consequently, that he had seen her in evening dress. She was still atthe age when the least adornment embellishes; and no doubt the mereuncovering of her young throat and neck had given her back her formerbrightness. But a second glance showed a more precise reason for hisimpression. Vaguely though he retained such details, he felt sure shewas wearing the dress he had seen her in every evening in Paris. It wasa simple enough dress, black, and transparent on the arms and shoulders,and he would probably not have recognized it if she had not called hisattention to it in Paris by confessing that she hadn't any other. "Thesame dress? That proves that she's forgotten!" was his first half-ironicthought; but the next moment, with a pang of compunction, he said tohimself that she had probably put it on for the same reason as before:simply because she hadn't any other.

  He looked at her in silence, and for an instant, above Effie's bobbinghead, she gave him back his look in a full bright gaze.

  "Oh, there's Owen!" Effie cried, and whirled away down the gallery tothe door from which her step-brother was emerging. As Owen bent to catchher, Sophy Viner turned abruptly back to Darrow.

  "You, too?" she said with a quick laugh. "I didn't know----" And as Owencame up to them she added, in a tone that might have been meant to reachhis ear: "I wish you all the luck that we can spare!"

  About the dinner-table, which Effie, with Miss Viner's aid, had lavishlygarlanded, the little party had an air of somewhat self-consciousfestivity. In spite of flowers, champagne and a unanimous attempt atease, there were frequent lapses in the talk, and moments of nervousgroping for new subjects. Miss Painter alone seemed not onlyunaffected by the general perturbation but as tightly sealed up inher unconsciousness of it as a diver in his bell. To Darrow's strainedattention even Owen's gusts of gaiety seemed to betray an inward senseof insecurity. After dinner, however, at the piano, he broke into a moodof extravagant hilarity and flooded the room with the splash and rippleof his music.

  Darrow, sunk in a sofa corner in the lee of Miss Painter's granitebulk, smoked and listened in silence, his eyes moving from one figure toanother. Madame de Chantelle, in her armchair near the fire, clasped herlittle granddaughter to her with the gesture of a drawing-room Niobe,and Anna, seated near them, had fallen into one of the attitudes ofvivid calm which seemed to Darrow to express her inmost quality. SophyViner, after moving uncertainly about the room, had placed herselfbeyond Mrs. Leath, in a chair near the piano, where she sat with headthrown back and eyes attached to the musician, in the same rapt fixityof attention with which she had followed the players at the Francais.The accident of her having fallen into the same attitude, and of herwearing the same dress, gave Darrow, as he watched her, a strange senseof double consciousness. To escape from it, his glance turned back toAnna; but from the point at which he was placed his eyes could nottake in the one face without the other, and that renewed the disturbingduality of the impression. Suddenly Owen broke off with a crash ofchords and jumped to his feet.

  "What's the use of this, with such a moon to say it for us?"

  Behind the uncurtained window a low golden orb hung like a ripe fruitagainst the glass.

  "Yes--let's go out and listen," Anna answered. Owen threw open thewindow, and with his gesture a fold of the heavy star-sprinkled skyseemed to droop into the room like a drawn-in curtain. The air thatentered with it had a frosty edge, and Anna bade Effie run to the hallfor wraps.

  Darrow said: "You must have one too," and started toward the door;but Sophy, following her pupil, cried back: "We'll bring things foreverybody."

  Owen had followed her, and in a moment the three reappeared, and theparty went out on the terrace. The deep blue purity of the night wasunveiled by mist, and the moonlight rimmed the edges of the trees witha silver blur and blanched to unnatural whiteness the statues againsttheir walls of shade.

  Darrow and Anna, with Effie between them, strolled to the farther cornerof the terrace. Below them, between the fringes of the park, the lawnsloped dimly to the fields above the river. For a few minutes they stoodsilently side by side, touched to peace beneath the trembling beauty ofthe sky. When they turned back, Darrow saw that Owen and Sophy Viner,who had gone down the steps to the garden, were also walking in thedirection of the house. As they advanced, Sophy paused in a patch ofmoonlight, between the sharp shadows of the yews, and Darrow noticedthat she had thrown over her shoulders a long cloak of some lightcolour, which suddenly evoked her image as she had entered therestaurant at his side on the night of their first dinner in Paris. Amoment later they were all together again on the terrace, and when theyre-entered the drawing-room the older ladies were on their way to bed.

  Effie, emboldened by the privileges of the evening, was for coaxing Owento round it off with a game of forfeits or some such reckless climax;but Sophy, resuming her professional role, sounded the summons to bed.In her pupil's wake she made her round of good-nights; but when sheproffered her hand to Anna, the latter ignoring the gesture held outboth arms.

  "Good-night, dear child," she said impulsively, and drew the girl to herkiss.

  BOOK IV