Kitabı oku: «The Paliser case», sayfa 17

XXXVIII

"It is going to be splendid. There will be candles!" – a young person, dead since but still living, exclaimed of her poet's fête. The fête, however lavish, and which you will find reported by Murger, was not held in a kitchen. The poet's garret did not contain a kitchen. That was Paris.

Hereabouts, nowadays, walk-ups are more ornate. Cassy's dinner that night was served on rich linoleum and not out of snobbishness either but because the table had gone from the living-room and though the piano remained one could not very well dine on that, or, for that matter, on the sofa. There are details into which a hostess never enters. Cassy – in black chiffon – did not offer any and Lennox – in evening clothes – did not ask. He had never dined in a kitchen before and, so far as the present historian knows not to the contrary, he did not dine in one again. But he enjoyed the experience. There was cold chicken, a salad, youth, youth's wine and running laughter. For dessert, a remark.

The rich linoleum then had been abandoned for the other room where Cassy sat on the sofa and Lennox on the one surviving chair. Beyond was the piano. Additionally, in some neighbourly flat, a phonograph performed.

Among these luxuries sweets were served. A question preceded them.

"Do you remember the afternoon you were in my rooms?"

Yes, Cassy remembered it.

Then came the remark. "That afternoon I laughed. Until to-night – except once – I haven't laughed since then."

Very good dessert, with more to follow.

"When you went, the sunlight went with you. It went out at your heels like a dog. I was thinking about it recently. I don't seem to have seen the sunlight again, until it played about your rhinoceros."

There are sweets that are bitter. Cassy took one.

"Mr. Jones told me. It does seem such a pity, such a great pity. I saw her once and I could see she was not merely good to look at but really good, good through and through."

"May I smoke?" Lennox asked.

Had he wished he could have stood on his head. Cassy nodded at him. He got out a cigar.

"Miss Austen is all you say. She is a saint. A man doesn't want a saint. A man wants flesh and blood."

Cassy took another bitter-sweet. "She's that. Any one would know it."

Lennox bit at the cigar. "Too good for me, though. So good that she threw me over."

Cassy put a finger through it. "She did not understand. Any girl might have done the same."

Sombrely Lennox considered her. "Would you? You say she did not understand. I know well enough she did not. But if you cared for a man, would you throw him over because of a charge which you could not be sure was true and without giving him a chance to disprove it? Would you?"

He could stand on his head, yes, but it was unfair to grill her. She flushed.

"I don't see what that has to do with it."

"How, you don't see?"

"Isn't it obvious? Miss Austen and I move in different worlds. On any subject our views might differ and I don't mean at all but that hers would be superior."

"There can be but one view of what's square."

"I am sure she meant to be."

Unconcernedly, Lennox smiled. The smile lit his face. From sombre it became radiant.

"That's all very well. The point is what you would think. Would you think it square to throw a man over as she threw me?"

Cassy showed her teeth. "If I didn't care for him, certainly I would."

"But if you did?"

That was too much. Cassy exclaimed at it. "If! If! How can I tell? I don't know. I lack experience."

"But not heart."

He was right about that, worse luck. How it beat, too! It would kill her though to have him suspect it.

"I do wish you would tell me," he added.

Cassy, casting about, felt like an imbecile and said brilliantly: "Haven't you a match? Shall I fetch one?"

Lennox extracted a little case. "Thanks. It's an answer I'd like."

It was enough to drive you mad and again casting about, but not getting it, she hedged.

"It will have to be in the abstract, then."

"Very good. Let's have it in the abstract."

Yet even in the abstract! However, with an uplift of the chin that gave her, she felt, an air of discussing a matter in which she had no concern at all, she plunged.

"One never knows, don't you know, but it seems to me that if by any chance I did care for a man – not that it is in the least presumable that I ever shall – but if I did, why, then, no. He couldn't get rid of me, not unless he tried very hard, but if he didn't, then no matter what I heard, no matter how true it might be, I would cling to his coat-tails, that is, if he wore them, and if, also, he cared for a ninny like me."

Cassy paused, shook her docked hair and solemnly resumed: "Which, of course, he couldn't."

"I knew you would say that."

"Say what?" Previously flushed, she reddened. But there is a God. The room had grown dim.

"That you wouldn't cut and run."

She could have slapped him. "Then why did you ask me?"

Lennox blew a ring of smoke.

"To have you see it as I do. To have you see that at the first flurry Miss Austen ran to cover. I am quite sure I could show her that she ran too quick, but I am equally sure it is a blessing that she did run. It is not ambitious of a man to want a girl who will stand her ground. Sooner or later some other flurry would have knocked the ground from under and then it might have been awkward. This one let me out."

He stood up, opened the window, dropped the cigar from it. The cigar might have been Margaret Austen.

"What are your plans?" he asked and sat again.

Ah, how much safer that was! Cassy grabbed at it.

"You are the third person to ask me. First, Mr. Jones. Then – then – " But she did not want to mention Dunwoodie or anything about the great cascade of gorgeous follies and she jumped them both. "Then an agent. He asked me yesterday and to-day he had a contract for me and a cheque in advance. He is a very horrid little man but so decent!"

"When does it begin?"

"The engagement? Next week. What plans have you?"

"A few that have been made for me. Presently we sail."

"For France?"

"For France."

It was cooler now, at least her face was, and she got up and switched the light.

"I wish I might go, too," she told him. "But I lack the training to be nurse and the means to be vivandière – canteener, I think they call it." She hesitated and added, "Shall I see you before you go?"

But now from the phonograph in the neighbourly flat, the Non te scordar drifted, sung nobly by some fat tenor who probably loathed it.

Lennox, who had risen with her, asked: "May I come to-morrow?"

The aria enveloped them and for a moment Cassy trilled in.

"Perhaps to-morrow you will sing for me," he continued.

"Yes, I'll sing."

Later, in the black room on the white bed, the fat tenor's tuneful prayer floated just above her. Cassy repeated the words and told herself she was silly. She may have been, but also she was tired. She knew it and for a moment wondered why. Painted hours dancing to jewelled harps are not to be sneezed at. But when they are not yours, when you have really no right to them, it is not fatiguing to say so. A gesture does not fatigue. It is certainly taxing to go to a greasy office, sign your name and receive a cheque. Taxing but endurable. It is not that that does you up. It is argument that tires you, particularly when there is no need for any and you are forced to turn yourself inside out. How fortunate it was, though, that the room had been dark! In the balm of that, sleep took her.

The next day she had many things to do and succeeded in botching most of them. I have no mind for anything, she decided. What is the matter with me? But, at least, when at last she opened the door for him, there was nothing amiss with her appearance.

In the room where the piano was, she sat down on the bench and smiled up at him. "Shall I sing now?"

Lennox put his hat on the sofa. "If you don't mind my talking to you."

"Very good, we will have a duo."

Over the keys her fingers moved, sketching a melody, passing from it into another.

Beside the bench Lennox had drawn the only chair. He looked about, then at her.

"I remember so well the first time I came here."

Her lips tightened, but, suppressing the smile, she turned to him and said and so patiently:

"Is it a song without words you want, or words without song?"

Lennox leaned toward her. It was then or, it might be, never.

"It is you I want."

Cassy turned from him. Her fingers, prompted by a note, had gone from it into Gounod.

"Will you marry me?"

"Certainly not."

It was as though he had asked her to go skating. To mark the absurdity of it her voice mounted.

"Le printemps chasse les hivers —"

The words are imbecile but the air, which is charming, seemed to occupy her wholly.

"Et sourit dans les arbres verts– "

"I know you don't care for me but couldn't you try?"

"Eh?" Cassy stayed her fingers, reached for a score on the top of the upright. "I thought you wanted me to sing."

"I want to know whether you can't ever care for me."

It sang about her like a flute. Something else was singing, not the bird in her throat, for she had hushed it, but a bird in her heart. It had been singing ever since he had entered the room. It had been singing with her the duo of which lightly she had spoken. But it was singing too loud.

Hastily she replaced the score, pulled at another, shoved it back.

"Won't you tell me?" Lennox was asking.

It will burst, she thought. Sidling from the bench, she went to the sofa, looked at it as though she had never seen it before, and sat down.

"Won't you?" he repeated.

She glanced over at him. Apparently now she was calm as you please.

"People marry out of optimism, or at any rate I did. I have had my lesson, thank you."

Lennox stood up. "You have suffered – "

"I read somewhere," she cut in, "that we have to suffer terribly before we learn not to suffer at all." Pausing, she added: "I suppose then we are dead."

She was getting away from it and he rounded on her.

"See here! We have both been in hell, but that's over. Even otherwise, hell would not be hell to me if I were in it with you."

Thump! Thump! It was worse than ever. None the less she looked cool as a cucumber.

"The prospect is not very tempting. Besides, even if it were – " Again she paused, but this time without getting on with it.

He came toward her. "Even if it were what?"

"Temptation has its dangers. It may lead to captivity."

"And you fear that?"

"For you, yes."

"For me!" he exclaimed.

How it thumped! It thumped so that it hurt, yet spartanly she contrived to smile.

"You or any one. I was speaking generally. Then, too, you know, hell may not be all your fancy pictures it."

He floundered in it. "What do you mean?"

"In no time you might get sick to death of me."

"Never!"

The denial exploded with such violence that the walls fell. Or at least so it seemed to Cassy. It seemed to her that the room had become a tent of fulgurant colours. They were blinding. She could not look at them. How delicious it all was, though! In spite of which, she sighed.

"Well, there is no telling. Some day I may go and take a look there."

With mounting astonishment he repeated it. "Some day! But, if you ever will, why not now?"

Her eyes then were on him. "To find out."

"Find out what?"

"How you felt about it."

"But how could you, if you don't care for me?"

"Why do you say that?"

"Because you told me so."

Innocently, with an air of wonder, she took it up. "Did I? I don't think so. I am sure I did not. I am convinced that I would not have volunteered it and I am certain you did not ask."

"I asked you a moment ago."

If I don't make it stop, she thought, it will jump out. What shall I do?

"And I ask you again," he gravely continued.

It was in her throat. Try as she might she could not choke it back. Out it came.

"I have never cared for any one else."

Lennox stared. It was incredible. Like many another it was incredible to him that he should have sought afar for what was at his side.

But not having finished, she resumed. "And I never shall."

To that there could be but one reply. It was rough enough. Cassy did not mind, but she freed herself, undulantly, as a woman can.

Unrebuffably Lennox renewed it. "Let's be married at once."

Cassy smoothed her rumpled hair. "No." The monosyllable fell like a stone.

Lennox kicked it. "In God's name, why not?"

Cassy turned away. It was the hardest of all. Beside it, what was the gesture of the day before?

"Because. Just because."

"Because why?"

"Because I could not live to see you regret it."

"But why should I? I never shall." His hands on her shoulders, violently his eyes probed her own.

She thought him so dear, but she said: "I have not cared for any one else. You have. The growth of love is slow. You cannot love me now as I love you."

He wanted to shake her and nearly did. "But when you find I do?"

"Ah, when that day comes, I will."

"And meanwhile?"

She just plucked at his sleeve. Nothing could have been more yielding. It was yielding as water, and yielding still, her eyes fell.

"For your sake only. Later – if – if – "

Any great astonishment is dumb and, at the moment, a whirlwind tossed his thoughts. In the swirling gale were sudden pictures; the girl's fair arms, the delight of her lips, his own desire. Tumultuously they passed. Before him flew the hazards of life, of death, and, curling there, the iniquity of leaving her afterward, as leave her he must, alone to face them. The counter-blast steadied him. Astonishment may be dumb, love is clairvoyant.

"For your own sake, no. The war cannot last forever and if I return, then – then – "

Shortly, among the Victorian horrors of his gloomy rooms, she came to see him off.

Mrs. Austen, who heard of everything, heard of that. "I always knew it!" she exclaimed. The dear woman had known nothing of the kind and her perspicacity amazed her.

But this has nothing to do with the Paliser Case which ended before it began.