Kitabı oku: «The Guarded Heights», sayfa 24
"What do you mean – coming in here – unannounced?"
His eyes held her.
"I've had enough of that," he said, harshly. "All I can think of is the vile name your husband would have called you once if I hadn't choked him half to death."
For a second her eyes blazed, then her shoulders drooped, and she covered her face with her hands. With a sharp regret it occurred to him that he could throw the broken crop away, for at last he had struck her – hard enough to hurt.
Her voice from behind her hands was uncertain and muffled.
"Who told you?"
"He did – naturally, that – that – "
He broke off, choking.
"By God, Sylvia! It isn't too late. You've got to understand that. Now. This minute. I tell you it isn't too late."
She lowered her hands. Her fear was sufficiently visible. Her attempt at a laugh was pitiful, resembled an escaping grief.
"Leave me alone. You have to leave me alone now."
Her brutal definition of the great wall suddenly raised between them swept his mind clean of everything except her lips, her beauty, cloistered with his interminable desire in this dim room.
He stumbled blindly forward to his final chance. With a great, unthinking, enveloping gesture he flung his arms about her drew her so close to his body that she couldn't resist; and, before she had time to cry out, pressed his mouth at last against her lips.
He saw her eyes close, guessed that she didn't attempt to struggle, experienced an intoxicating fancy she was content to have him fulfill his boast. He didn't try to measure the enormity of his action. Once more he was the George Morton who could plunge ahead, casting aside acquired judgments. Then he felt her shudder. She got her lips away. She tried to lift her hands. He heard her whisper:
"Let me go."
He stared, fascinated, at her lips, half parted, that had just now told him he had never really wanted anybody else, never could have.
"Sylvia! Forgive me. I didn't know. I've loved you – always; I've never dreamed how much. And I can't let you go."
He tried to find her lips again, but she fought, and he commenced to remember. From a point behind his back something held her incredulous attention. He turned quickly. Dalrymple stood between the hangings.
XVII
George experienced no fear, no impulse to release Sylvia. He was conscious merely of a sharp distaste that it should have turned out so, and a feeling of anger that Lambert was responsible through his failure to grant his request; but Lambert might have been shocked to forgetfulness by Dalrymple's announcement, or he might have had too sharp a doubt of George's intentions. Sylvia had become motionless, as if impressed by the futility of effort. In a moment would she cry out to Dalrymple just what he had done? He waited for her charge, her justification, while he continued to stare at Dalrymple's angry and unbelieving face which the gay flower in his button hole had an air of mocking. Dalrymple started forward.
"You see that, Lambert – "
Lambert, who must have been standing close behind him, walked into the room, as amazed as Dalrymple, nearly as shocked.
"Sylvia!"
George let Sylvia go. She sat down in the chair by the fireplace and looked straight ahead, her lips still half parted. Dalrymple hurried the length of the room and paused in front of her.
"Be careful what you say, Dalrymple," George warned him.
Dalrymple burst out:
"You'll not tell me what to say. What's this mean, Sylvia? Speak up, or – "
"Easy, Dolly," Lambert advised.
George waited. Sylvia did not cry out. He relaxed, hearing her say uncertainly:
"I don't know. I'm sorry. I – "
She paused, looked down, commenced pulling at her gloves again with the self-absorbed gestures of a somnambulist. George's heart leapt. She had not accused him, had really said nothing, from her attitude wouldn't just yet. Dalrymple swung furiously on Lambert.
"God! Am I to believe my eyes? Pretends to despise him, and I find her in his arms!"
Sylvia glanced up once then, her face crimson, her lips trembling, then she resumed her blank scrutiny of her gloves at which she still pulled. George stepped swiftly forward, fancying Dalrymple was going to threaten her with his hands.
"Why don't you talk up?" Dalrymple cried. "What you got to say? Don't see there's much? Never would have dreamed it of you. What a scandal!"
"Morton," Lambert said with a leashed fury in his quiet voice, "no one but you could have done this. Leave us alone now to see what we can make of it."
George laughed shortly.
"All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't budge me just yet. And I'll tell you what we'll make of it. Just what she wishes."
"Keep your mouth shut," Dalrymple said, shrilly. "You won't go. We'll go. Sylvia! Come with me. We'll talk it out alone."
She shrank back in her chair, grasped its arms, looked up startled, shaking her head.
"I can't go anywhere with you, Dolly," she said in a wondering voice.
"What you mean? You came to church right enough with me this afternoon. Don't you forget that."
She nodded.
"It was wrong of me," she whispered. "I lost my temper. I didn't know at all – "
"How did you find out?" Dalrymple sneered. "From him? But you're my wife. Come away with me – "
She stood up swiftly, facing him.
"You shan't say such things to me, and I am not coming with you. I don't know what's going to happen, but that – I know – "
She turned helplessly to Lambert.
"Make him understand."
Lambert took her hand and led her to the door.
"Go to Betty," he said.
"But make him understand," she pled.
"Why did you marry him if you didn't love him?" Lambert asked.
She turned and glanced at Dalrymple.
"I was fond of him. I didn't quite realize. There's a difference – he must see that I've done an impossible thing, and I won't go on with it."
They were at the door. Lambert led her through, returning immediately. George watched her go, blaming himself for her suffering. He had, indeed, dragged her from her high horse, but he had not realized he would bring her at once and starkly face to face with facts she had all along refused to recognize; yet, he was convinced from his long knowledge of her, she would not alter her decision, and he was happy, knowing that he had accomplished, after a fashion, what he had come here to do.
"You're married," Lambert was saying dryly to Dalrymple. "The problem seems to be how to get you unmarried."
"You shan't do that," Dalrymple cried, hotly. "You'll talk her around instead."
"Scarcely a chance," Lambert answered, "and really I don't see why I should try. You've played a slippery trick. You may have had an understanding with Sylvia, but I am perfectly convinced that she wouldn't have let anything come of it if you hadn't caught her at a moment when she couldn't judge reasonably. So it's entirely up to her."
"We'll see about it," Dalrymple said. "I have my side. You turn nasty. I turn nasty. You Planters want an annulment proceeding, or a public divorce with this rotter as co-respondent?"
"Dolly! You don't know what you're saying."
"I'll fight for my rights," Dalrymple persisted, sullenly.
"See here," George put in, "I stayed to say one thing. Sylvia had nothing to do with what you saw. She couldn't help herself. Your crookedness, Dalrymple, made me forget everything except that – Never mind. Lambert understands. Maybe I was out of my head. Anyway, I didn't give her a chance. She had to suffer it. Is that quite clear?"
Lambert smiled incredulously.
"That'll sound well in court, too," Dalrymple threatened.
"Drop that!" Lambert cried. "Think who you are; who Sylvia is."
"My wife," Dalrymple came back. "I'll have her or I'll go to court."
George started for the door.
"Don't fret, Lambert," he advised. "Money will go a long way with him. If I might, I'd like to know what the two of you settle. I mean, if you want to keep it away from your father and mother, my money's available. I haven't much use for it any more – "
He broke off. What had he just meant to say: that since he had held Sylvia in his arms all that had marked the progress of his ambition had become without value? He would have to find that out. Now he waited at the door, interested only in Dalrymple's response to his bald proposal. Dalrymple thrust his hands in his pockets, commenced to pace the room, but all he said was:
"Teach you all not to make a fool of Dolly."
"Remember," George said. "What she wants. And undesired scandals can be paid for in various ways."
He glanced at Lambert. Evidently Sylvia's brother on that ground would meet him as an ally. So he left the house and walked slowly through the eastern fringe of the park, wishing to avoid even the few people scattered along the pavements of the avenue, for the touch of Sylvia's lips was still warm on his mouth. He felt himself apart. He wanted to remain apart as long as possible with that absorbing memory.
Her angry responses in the past to his few daring gestures were submerged in the great, scarcely comprehensible fact that she had not rebuked him when he had tumbled over every barrier to take her in his arms; nor had she, when cornered by Dalrymple and Lambert, assumed her logical defence. Had that meant an awakening of a sort?
He smiled a little, thinking of her lips.
Their touch had sent to his brain flashes of pure illumination in which his once great fondness for Betty had stood stripped of the capacity for any such avid, confused emotions as Sylvia had compelled; flashes that had exposed also his apparent hatred of the girl Sylvia as an obstinate love, which, unable to express itself according to a common-place pattern, had shifted its violent desires to conceptions of wrongs and penalties. Blinded by that great light, he asked himself if his ambition, his strength, and his will had merely been expressions of his necessity for her.
Of her words and actions immediately afterward he didn't pretend to understand anything beyond their assurance that Dalrymple's romance was at an end. Not a doubt crept into his strange and passionate exaltation.
He was surprised to find himself at his destination. When he reached his apartment he got out the old photograph and the broken riding crop, and with them in his hands sat before the fire, dreaming of the long road over which they had consistently aided him. He compared Sylvia as he had just seen her with the girlish and intolerant Sylvia of the photograph, and he found he could still imagine the curved lips moving to form the words:
"You'll not forget."
He lowered his hands, and took a deep breath like one who has completed a journey. To-night, in a sense, he had reached the heights most carefully guarded of all.
XVIII
He heard the ringing of the door bell. His servant slipped in.
"Mr. Lambert Planter, sir."
George started, placed the crop and the photograph in a drawer, and looked at the man with an air of surprise.
"Of course, I should like to see him. And bring me something on a tray, here in front of the fire."
Lambert walked in.
"Don't mind my coming this way, George?"
"I'm glad I'm no longer 'Morton'," George said, dryly. "Sit down. I'm going to have a bite to eat."
He glanced at his watch.
"Good Lord! It's after ten o'clock."
"Yes," Lambert said, choosing a chair, "there was a lot to talk about."
Little of the trouble had left Lambert's face, but George fancied Sylvia's brother looked at him with curiosity, with a form of respect.
"I'm glad you've come," George said, "but I don't intend to apologize for what I did this evening. I think we all, no matter what our inheritance, fight without thought of affectations for our happiness. That's what I did. I love your sister, Lambert. Never dreamed how much until to-night. Not a great deal to say, but it's enormous beyond definition to think. You have Betty, so perhaps you can understand."
Lambert smiled in a superior fashion.
"I'm a little confused," he said. "She's led me to believe all along she's disliked you; has kept you away from Oakmont; has made it difficult from the start. Then I find her, whether willingly or not – at least not crying out for help – in your arms."
"I had to open her eyes to what she had done," George answered. "I wasn't exactly accountable, but I honestly believe I took the only possible means. I don't know whether I succeeded."
"I fancy you succeeded," Lambert muttered.
George stretched out his hand, looked at Lambert appealingly.
"She didn't say so – she – "
Lambert shook his head.
"She wouldn't talk about you at all."
He waited while the servant entered and arranged George's tray.
"Of course you've dined?"
"After a fashion," Lambert answered. "Not hungry. You might give me a drink."
"I feel apologetic about eating," George said when they were alone again. "Don't see why I should have an appetite."
Lambert fingered his glass.
"Do you know why she didn't have you drawn and quartered?"
"No. Don't try to create happiness, Lambert, where there mayn't be any."
"I'm creating nothing. I'm asking a question, in an effort to understand why she won't, as I say, mention your name; why she can't bear to have it mentioned."
"If you were right, if things could be straightened out," George said, "you – you could put up with it?"
"Easily," Lambert answered, "and I'll confess I couldn't if it were Corporal John Smith. I've been fond of you for a long time, George, and I owe you a great deal, but that doesn't figure. You're worthy even of Sylvia; but I don't say I'm right. You can't count on Sylvia. And even if I were, I don't see any way to straighten things out."
George returned to his meal.
"If you had taken the proper attitude," he scolded, "you could have handled Dalrymple. He's weak, avaricious, cowardly."
"Oh, Dalrymple! I can handle him. It's Sylvia," Lambert said. "In the long run Dolly agreed to about everything. Of course he wanted money, and he'll have to have it; but heaven knows there's plenty of money. Trouble is, the wedding can't be hushed up. That's plain. It will be in every paper to-morrow. We arranged that Dolly was to live in the house for a time. They would have been together in public, and Dolly agreed eventually to let her go and get a quiet divorce – at a price. It sounds revolting, but to me it seemed the only way."
George became aware of an ugly and distorted intruder upon his happiness, yet Lambert was clearly right. Sylvia and Dalrymple, impulsively joined together, were nothing to each other, couldn't even resume their long friendship.
"Well?" George asked.
"Mother, Betty, and I talked it over with Sylvia," Lambert answered. "You see, we've kept Father in ignorance so far. He's scarcely up to such a row. Mother will make him wise very gently only when it becomes necessary."
"But what did Sylvia say?" George demanded, bending toward Lambert, his meal forgotten.
"Sylvia," Lambert replied, spreading his hands helplessly, "would agree to nothing. In the first place, she wouldn't consent to Dolly's staying in the house even to save appearances. I don't know what's the matter with her. She worried us all. She wasn't hysterical exactly, but she cried a good deal, which is quite unusual for her, and she seemed – frightened. She wouldn't let any one go near her – even Mother. I couldn't understand that."
George stared at the fire, his hands clasped. When at last he spoke he scarcely heard his own voice:
"She will get a divorce – as soon as possible?"
Lambert emptied his glass and set it down.
"That's just it," he answered, gloomily. "She won't listen to anything of the sort."
George glanced up.
"What is there left for her to do?"
Lambert frowned.
"Something seems to have changed her wholly. She declares she'll never see Dolly again, and in the same breath talks about the church and a horror of divorce, and the necessity of her suffering for her mistake; and she wants to pay her debt to Dolly by giving him, instead of herself, all of her money – a few such pleasant inconsistencies. See here. Why didn't you run wild yesterday, or the day before?"
"Do you think," George asked, softly, "it would have been quite the same thing, would have had quite the same effect?"
"I wonder," Lambert mused.
George arose and stood with his back to the fire.
"And of course," he said, thoughtfully, "you or I can't tell just what the effect has been. See here, Lambert. I have to find that out. I must see her once, if only for five minutes."
He watched Lambert, who didn't answer at first.
"I'll not run wild again," he promised. "If she'd only agree – just five minutes' talk."
"I told you," Lambert said at last, "she wouldn't mention your name or let any one else; but, on the theory that you are really responsible for what's happened, I'd like you to see her. You might persuade her that a divorce is absolutely necessary, the only way out. You might get her to understand that she can't go through life tied to a man she'll never see, while people will talk many times more than if she took a train quietly west."
"If she'll see me," George said, "I'll try to make it plain to her."
"Betty has a scheme – " Lambert began, and wouldn't grow more explicit beyond saying, "Betty'll probably let you hear from her in the morning. That's the reason I wanted you to know how things stand. I'm hurrying back now to our confused house."
George followed him to the door.
"Dalrymple – where is he?" he asked.
"Gone to his parents. He'll try to play the game for the present."
"At a price," George said.
Lambert nodded.
"Rather well-earned, too, on the whole," he answered, ironically.
XIX
George slept little that night. The fact that Lambert believed him responsible for the transformation in Sylvia was sufficiently exciting. In Sylvia's manner her brother must have read something he had not quite expressed to George. And why wouldn't she mention him? Why couldn't she bear to have the others mention him? With his head bowed on his hands he sat before the desk, staring at the diminishing fire, and in this posture he fell at last asleep to be startled by Wandel who had not troubled to have himself announced. The fire was quite dead. In the bright daylight streaming into the room George saw that the little man held a newspaper in his hand.
"Is it a habit of great men not to go to bed?"
George stood up and stretched. He indicated the newspaper.
"You've come with the evil tidings?"
"About Sylvia and Dolly," Wandel began.
George yawned.
"I must bathe and become presentable, for this is another day."
"You've already seen it?" Wandel asked, a trifle puzzled.
"No, but what else should there be in the paper?"
Wandel stared for a moment, then carefully folded the paper and tossed it in the fireplace.
"Nothing much," he answered, lighting a cigarette, "except hold-ups, murders, new strikes, fresh battles among our brethren of the Near East – nothing of the slightest consequence. By by. Make yourself, great man, fresh and beautiful for the new day."
XX
George wondered why Wandel should have come at all, or, having come, why he should have left in that manner; and he was sorry he had answered as he had, for Wandel invariably knew a great deal, more than most people. In this case he had probably come only to help, but in George's brain nothing could survive for long beyond hazards as to what the morning might develop. Betty was going to communicate with him, and she would naturally expect to find him at his office, so he hurried down town and waited, forcing himself to the necessary details of his work. For the first time the mechanics of making money seemed dreary and unprofitable.
Goodhue came in with a clearly designed lack of curiosity. Had his partner all along suspected the truth, or had Wandel been talking? For that matter, did Goodhue himself experience a sense of loss?
"Not so surprising, George. Dolly's always been after her – even back in the Princeton days, and she's played around with him since they were children; yet I was a little shocked. I never thought it would quite come off."
It was torture for George to listen, and he couldn't possibly talk about it, so he led Goodhue quite easily to the day's demands; but Blodgett appeared not long after with a drooping countenance. Why did they all have to come to him to discuss the unannounced wedding of Sylvia Planter?
"She ought to have done better," Blodgett disapproved funereally.
He fingered a gaudy handkerchief. He thrust it in his pocket, drew it forth again, folded it carefully with his pudgy hands.
"Don't think I've ever ceased to regret – " he started rather pitifully.
After a moment's absorbed scrutiny of George he went on.
"If she had picked somebody like you I wouldn't have minded. Papa Blodgett would have given you both his blessing."
So they had all guessed something! George questioned uneasily if Blodgett's suspicions had lived during the course of his own unfortunate romance, and he was sorrier than ever he had had to help destroy that. He got rid of Blodgett and refused to see any one else, but he had to answer the telephone, for that would almost certainly be Betty's means of communication. Each time the pleasant bell tinkled he seized the receiver, and each time cut short whatever masculine worries reached him. The uneven pounding of the ticker punctuated his suspense. It was a feverish morning in the market, but not once did he rise to glance at the tape which streamed neglected into the basket.
It was after one o'clock when he snatched the receiver from the hook again with a hopeless premonition of another disappointment. Then he heard Betty's voice, scarcely more than an anxious whisper "George!"
"Yes, yes, Betty."
"My car will be somewhere between Altman's and Tiffany's at two o'clock, as near the corner of Thirty-fifth Street as they'll let me get. Lambert knows. It's all right."
"But, Betty – "
"Just be there," she said, and must have hung up.
He glanced at his watch. He could start now. He hurried from the building, but there was no point in haste. He had plenty of time, too much time; and Betty hadn't said he would see Sylvia; hadn't given him time to ask; but she must have arranged an interview, else why should she care to see him at all, why her manner of a conspirator?
He reached the rendezvous well ahead of time, but he recognized Betty's car just beyond the corner, and saw her wave to him anxiously. He stepped in and sat at her side. She laughed nervously.
"I guessed you would be a little ahead," she said as the car commenced to crawl north.
"Am I to see Sylvia?"
Betty nodded.
"Just once. This noon, before I telephoned, she acknowledged that she wanted to see you – to talk to you for the last time. That's the way she put it."
Betty smiled sceptically.
"You know I don't believe anything of the sort."
"What do you think can be done?" George asked.
She didn't suggest anything, merely repeating her faith, going on while she looked at George curiously.
"So all the time, George – and I didn't really guess, but I might have known you would. I can remember now that day at Princeton when I asked you about her dog, and your anxiety one night at Josiah's when you wanted to know if she was going to be married – oh, plenty of hints now. George! Why did you let it go so far?"
"Couldn't help myself, Betty."
She looked at him helplessly.
"And what have you done to her?"
"If you can't guess – " George said.
Betty smiled reminiscently.
"Perhaps I can guess. You would do just that, George, when there was nothing else."
"You don't blame me?" he asked. "You don't ask, as Lambert did, why I waited so long?"
She shook her head.
"I'm sure," she said, "when you came last night you saw a Sylvia none of us had ever met before. Don't you think it had come upon her all at once that she was no longer Sylvia Planter, that in defeating you she had destroyed herself? If that is so, she has every bit of sympathy I'm capable of, and we must think first of all of her. The pride's still there, but quite a different thing. She's never known fear before, George, and now she's afraid, terribly afraid, most of all, I think, of herself."
George counted the corners, was relieved when beyond Fiftieth Street the traffic thinned and they went faster. He took Betty's hand, and found that the touch steadied and encouraged, because at last her fingers seemed to reach his mind again.
"Betty! Do you think she cares at all?"
"I'm prejudiced," Betty laughed, "but I think the harder she'd been the more she's cared; but she wouldn't talk about you except to say she would see you for a minute this once. Lambert's lunching with Dolly."
"We are conspirators," George said, "and I don't like it, but I must see her once."
They drew up at the curb, got out, and entered the hall. The house was peculiarly without sound. George glanced at the entrance to the room where he had found Sylvia last night.
"I think she's in Mr. Planter's study," Betty said. "He hasn't come downstairs yet."
She led him through the library to a small, square room – a quiet and comfortable book-lined retreat where Old Planter had been accustomed to supplement his work down town. George looked eagerly around, but the light wasn't very good, and he didn't at first see Sylvia.
"Sylvia!" Betty called softly. "I've brought George."
