“Ghastly!” exclaimed Lucy, fastidiously lifting her skirts again and glancing about the room. Her Percival, embarrassed, coughed to remind her of her manners, but she ignored him.
“Darling,” whispered May, turning paler than ever, “why on earth did you come here? You can’t be staying here!”
“Yes, Mama.” Godfrey’s voice trembled. He glanced furtively at his father, who stood in the center of the room and was calmly and thoroughly taking inventory of everything it contained. “I—I don’t know how to explain—It’s so hard.”
Gertrude went to him, and kissed his cheek. It was damp and cold under her lips. “What does it matter, Frey?” she said gently. “If you work here, if you are happy here, what does it matter? I’m sure it is quite good enough. But you ought not to have run away. With everyone applauding so, and waiting to acknowledge you, and everything. Oh, it was so beautiful, your symphony! What does anything matter compared with that!”
“Speak to your father, love,” said May faintly, disengaging her son’s rigid and clutching arms.
Ernest turned his smooth pale face to his son as the latter approached him hesitantly. He and Godfrey were almost the same height, but the young man seemed much shorter because of his slenderness and daintiness, his narrow face and girlish figure and his haughty yet diffident manner. He did not look his father in the face as he extended a visibly shaking hand, soft and white and transparent as a girl’s. “Papa—” he began, and could say nothing else. Ernest took his hand, shook it. He smiled heartily. “What the devil, lad!” he exclaimed. “Why did you run away? Why are you here? You made a success, a splendid success! And you ran away from it! That’s no way to do.
“Let me look at you. Not much meat on those bones, is there? I thought France would fatten you up. Look up, lad, look up! Nobody’s going to bite you, damned if they are. I don’t like this simpering business of running away from people who want to honor you and toady to you. You’ll never get anywhere that way. But look here, have you met Percival Van Eyck? Lucy’s husband? Speak up, to all of us, your mother and Trudie and Elsa and Lucy and Percival. What’s got into you?”
His voice boomed cheerily in the gritty and desolate room. The others, becoming infected by Godfrey’s tremblings and visible fright, glanced at each other uneasily. May fixed her eyes upon her son with an imploring and anguished expression, and put one hand to her heart.
Godfrey, aroused by his father to a cognizance of the others, bowed to them formally, smiled a little. His lips trembled continually with a faint fluttering. He was like a bright and fragile bird caught in a pair of crushing hands. Elsa’s hands, thought Gertrude, as Godfrey, in his circling, reached his cousin. Elsa was a little taller than the young man; her buxom rosiness, her great vitality and bouncing health seemed to envelop him. Simply, without a smile or a simper, she bent her head slightly and kissed him full on the lips. Her arms went about him as if in protection.
“Frey,” she said, and her hand touched his cheek. “Frey.” When she released him, there were tears in her eyes.
“Please sit down,” said Godfrey, after the greetings. He spoke feebly. They found seats. The ladies in their jewels and ermine and furs and velvets and feathers looked incongruous in that shabby and dreary room. “I haven’t anything but a little wine to offer you,” he continued, trying to smile. “I just moved here yesterday. I’ve been busy.”
“Of course, darling,” said May, crying out as if to throw him some of her strength.
He looked from one to the other and wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. Behind the white and delicate handsomeness of his face terror dodged about. He clenched and unclenched his hands on his knees. Ernest, folding his own hands on his cane, watched him. All at once his face thickened with brutality and malignancy. Gertrude, waiting, felt her heart begin to beat ominously. How ridiculous, she forced herself to think, for all of us to be sitting here like this, staring at poor Frey, who is dying by inches! I wish I could say something, but there’s a ball in my throat. It’s all a dream of course, a silly absurd dream, sitting here, staring at Frey, in this dreadful room.
“Don’t you think, lad,” said Ernest suddenly, “that all this is a little strange, not seeing you for an age, and then coming here to find you in a den, and you looking as though you are scared out of your wits? Don’t you think you owe us an explanation?”
Godfrey was silent. The hands on his knees suddenly fell open as if something thin and vital in him had shattered.
“Never mind explanations, Frey!” laughed Elsa tremulously. “Just tell us you are coming home with us tomorrow, and we’ll all be satisfied.”
In the silence that followed her words, Godfrey drew a sharp and audible breath. He struggled upright; he was trying to evoke a courage he never had, and succeeded only in becoming desperate. He glanced at his mother, and the expression of suffering on her face, her evident comprehension that something was very wrong, unnerved him. He glanced at his father, and winced so openly that on any other occasion the involuntary gesture would have been amusing. He looked at Elsa, and her robust bloom seemed to sicken him; his eye slid dully over Lucy and Percival. But when he reached Gertrude and looked at her, his expression steadied, his mouth tightened, as though she had spoken encouragingly to him. He spoke to all of them in an almost inaudible voice, but he looked only at his sister, whose smile was steadfast and gentle.
“I want to give you an explanation. That’s why I’ve asked you here. But it seems terribly hard. I’ll have to skip a lot of it. I came to New York a few days ago, and I’ve been busy—” He drew a deep breath and plunged on, his terror rapidly increasing as though he were running from something trying to overtake him.
“Yes, darling!” cried May. Ernest glanced at her briefly. His lips had turned pale and his nostrils were distended.
Godfrey still gazed at his sister.
“I’m not going—home!” he said, incoherently. “I can’t go home! For more than one reason. I’m going to stay in New York, to work. I—I’ve got another symphony half finished. There’s nothing for me in Windsor. I mean, nothing that can help me with my work. I—yes, the symphony was a success tonight, but it is the first thing of mine to be performed here. I—I don’t like the largo. The largo,” he continued, more and more incoherently, and now flashing his strained brown eyes from one to the other with increasing dread, “isn’t good at all. I want to delete it. I don’t care what the critics say—It isn’t any good. I’ve got a better largo partly written, and then I’ll—”
No one spoke, even when his strangled voice was silent and he visibly struggled. They merely stared at him, fascinated, infected by his own terror. Coals dropped in the little stove, and the mended curtains swayed in a draft. Gertrude, bemused and cold, thought of a bird beating its wings against a closed window, dying. Frey! she cried out to him soundlessly. Don’t be so frightened, Frey!
Ernest stirred. His expression had become more and more brutal, and his eyes had contempt in them.
“You’ve got something to say to us, haven’t you?” he asked loudly. “Well, be a man, and say it! No one’s going to murder you. Be a man.”
Godfrey turned to him and glared at him, his terror without a mask full on his face. His throat worked; his hands worked. Suddenly he sprang to his feet and ran to the end of the room. “Simone!” he cried.
He stood aside. A woman about thirty years of age appeared in the doorway. She was much taller than Godfrey, and very much fatter. She was luxuriantly made, with deep full breasts and broad hips. Her cheap black silk gown, draped and rustling and badly made, could not conceal the abundance of her flesh. Her reddish hair was elaborately curled and twisted, and false brilliants winked in it. Below the hair was a bellicose and florid face and snapping yellow-brown eyes, a curved nose and a thick painted smile. On her pudgy hands, none too clean, were other false brilliants. Her whole air was common, vulgar, aggressive and bold. And frightened. Her fright made her stare belligerently at the guests, though he
r smile pulled her red lips wide apart to show really excellent white teeth.
Godfrey lurked behind her. An impersonal observer might have thought this extremely funny. No one in that room found it funny. They merely gazed at Simone with blank faces, and blinked a little.
“My wife, Simone Renard,” said Godfrey faintly, and seemed to dissolve behind her.
There was absolute silence for a long moment or two. Then May rose slowly, with a distraught expression and looked about her blindly. Gertrude stood up also and put her arm about her mother. Elsa merely sat, the bright strong color sinking from her face. Lucy and Percival turned and glared emptily at each other. But Ernest stood up slowly, without any expression at all, and with only a dusky tint appearing about his mouth to show that he heard what Godfrey had said.
“Your wife?” he repeated, almost politely, as one repeats a phrase which has not seemed clear to him.
“Yes,” replied Godfrey, dodging from behind the silent big young woman. His voice was fainter than ever.
Ernest glanced at his wife, hatred like points in his light disks of eyes.
“Really,” exclaimed Lucy helplessly. “Percy, my love, I don’t believe any one wishes us here now, so would you mind taking me home?”
No one noticed the flight of the Van Eycks. May had sat down again. In some way Godfrey had been induced to stand beside his wife, and she held his hand. Her eyes glinted, and though she pressed her young husband’s finger the look she kept flashing upon him was bitter and menacing. Then she turned to Ernest and said in a hoarse, painfully accented voice: “I am not so very, very bad, M’sieu Barbour. Your son lived at my father’s pension. He was very lonely. I taught him French and he taught me English. A very lonely young man, very unhappy. My parents are respectable, so you must not be too disturbed. I helped him with his music. I have the very good voice, also. I wish’ to come to America to sing here. In concerts. My little Godfrey promised that he would help me. Would you wish to hear me sing, M’sieu?” she added, with mockery.
Ernest said nothing. He leaned on his cane, his torso bent forward slightly. He still looked at his son, and then he turned from him with a gesture of disgust.
May lifted her head, looked about her dazedly. Then her eyes fastened upon Simone, dilated, filled with tears. An expression of almost piteous pleading came out upon her face, as if she begged someone to assure her that what she was experiencing was not real. She wet her lips, and the cords of her throat strained as though every word cost her physical anguish as she spoke:
“No, no, my—my dear, you cannot be ‘bad’ at all. Not if you love my Godfrey—” She looked at her daughter in agony, at her son, and then again at Simone. “I am sure—I know it must be—all right. Perhaps if we—” Her voice sank, dropped to a whisper, was no longer audible. She wrung her hands, and Gertrude, unable to bear the sight of such misery, closed her eyes as on an internal spasm. Simone showed no emotion whatsoever.
As she gazed at Godfrey, studying his imploring face, his terror, his incredulous expression, all these things showed on her own face and Ernest read them. He pursed his lips; he inclined his head as though he saw something he could respect and deal with. He almost smiled.
“My poor little one,” said Simone at last, sighing, and taking her husband’s hand. “How can we live without money? Not your little Simone, I am devastated to confess. And it is very evident that your Papa will give us no money. How, then, shall we live?”
“Simone!” he pleaded distractedly. “You said nothing of money before. If it is money you wish, I shall make it—”
“How?” she asked gently and reasonably. “You are only a child.”
He glared at her blankly. He looked much less than his twenty-four years. His mouth worked. Simone shrugged, sighed again, turned from him with pity, to his father.
“He is only a child,” she repeated.
“Oh, of course!” assented Ernest ironically, with a significant undertone. But Simone did not seem embarrassed. She merely smiled. And waited.
Godfrey looked about the room distractedly. His wandering glance fell on his mother. He made a faint whimpering sound. Gertrude regarded him steadily, with great quietness. He did not see Elsa yet at all. When she loomed up beside him and faced Simone, he could only blink at her dully.
Elsa, tall and broad as Brunhilde, said to her cousin: “Come home, Frey. Come home with us.” Her voice trembled with pity, indignation and love.
“And that,” said Ernest, “was what I was about to suggest, myself. When this lady,” indicating Simone with a wave of his hand, “is ready to leave this—place, I will make arrangements with her about her little—reward. Of course, none of it shall be given to her until she sues for a divorce. And, in the meantime, on Godfrey’s promise that he will forget all this music nonsense and return home with us and try to make a man of himself, we will take him with us to Lucy’s house—”
Godfrey had listened to all this stupidly. He saw his life taken competently into the hands of his Wagnerian cousin and his father; he saw the flash between them, the faint smile, the sudden indulgent smugness of Elsa’s mouth. He was too austere and cold and selfish of temperament ever to have had much emotion or passion, too shy and self-centered ever to have learned the ways of other human beings. Therefore, when he looked at his father and Elsa with new clarity, he was horror-stricken and filled with frenzy; they were as suddenly alien and incomprehensible and dangerous as creatures from a world never approached by him. And their danger was all pointed at him. All at once he was overwhelmed with loathing and rage, so new to his character that they drove deeply into the virgin places of him like the shining blades of plows. They scarred him and turned him over, this loathing and this rage, set him afire, made him mad, tore his roots from the cool and sterile soil in which they had lain all his life, and tossed them out into the burning sun of reality. He forgot the defection of his cunning wife, forgot he was ridiculous and abandoned, forgot his mother, and thought only of his danger and his despair and his frantic need of escape. He even forgot his life-long terror of his father, and his hatred.
“No!” he cried. “I’ll not go home with you! I’ll never go home with you! You can’t buy me off; you can frighten others, but you can’t frighten me any longer. I’ve done with all that!”
He stopped abruptly, panting. An evil and brutish look started across Ernest’s face.
“Why,” he said, with dull wonder, “you scurvy little dog!” And struck his son across the face viciously.
At that sound, May and Gertrude stood up abruptly.
“Ernest!” May cried out. “Frey!”
Ernest swung upon her. “Get out,” he said in a low voice. “Get out!” He turned to Elsa. “Take them away; get them out of here. I’ve got to take care of this, myself!”
Elsa hesitated, then when she saw his face she caught her aunt by the arm. “Aunt May, let us go. Uncle Ernest can take care of what is to be done very well without us—”
“Frey!” cried May, trying to release her arm, trying to go to her son, who stood with his hand against his struck cheek.
“Get out,” said Ernest again, and involuntarily his fist doubled as he commanded his wife with glittering eyes.
“Mama,” said Gertrude through pale dry lips, “let’s go. We can see Frey tomorrow. Tomorrow, Frey—,” she repeated, glancing at her brother pleadingly. “Tomorrow?”
Godfrey had been completely demoralized since his father’s blow, but now, at the sound of his mother’s voice his scattered wits and courage came back. For one of the few times in his life he felt pity for someone besides himself, experienced the new emotion of wanting to help someone else, wanted to give protection to another who desperately needed it. His pity and love made him strong, made his courage stiff once more, made a sort of exhilaration run along his nerves again. He looked at his mother gently, pitifully.
“Go on, Mama, go home,” he said quietly. “I’ll see you—tomorrow. Please go home,” he repeated, and un
der his quietness May, even in her misery, heard his urgency.
“Tomorrow, darling,” she whimpered, trying to smile at him, to give him the assurance of her support no matter what happened. Then Gertrude took one of her arms and Elsa the other, and the three women went out.
Ernest watched them go; after they had closed the door, he stared at it for a long moment. Then he turned to his son, who had not moved. On Godfrey’s white cheek the imprint of his father’s hand stood out in red welts. But the young man stood there, thin and pale, and completely resolute, as though despair had given him immovable courage. Simone, smiling ever so little, seated herself negligently in a chair, began to play with her chain. Her glance, indolent and amused, passed between father and son; the spectacle seemed to give her some enjoyment, quite detached and impersonal.
“Now, then,” said Ernest. “Now then.”
Godfrey tightened the muscles about a mouth that tried to tremble. But he said nothing.
“For the last time,” Ernest went on, trying to keep his voice calm, “I tell you that this is the end. You’ll come home with us tomorrow, or you can make up your mind never to see any of us again. Is that clear?”
“Yes, it’s clear,” said Godfrey.
The eyes of the two men met and held. Suddenly it occurred to Ernest that in all his son’s life he had never met Godfrey’s eyes fully before; at all times they had shifted away from his, and he had caught only half-glimpses, as one catches glimpses of the shape of a deer in a thicket. Now he saw them, brown, and bright with terror but also shining with the courage that terror can finally bring. But he also saw his son for the first time, and something seemed to tell him that never had he really touched Godfrey, and that never would he touch him. Martin had looked at him like that once or twice, even out of the extremity of his fear. The last night he had ever spoken to Martin came back to him; Martin had had such a face as Godfrey’s, and such eyes. Martin had always eluded his brother, and then, when forced to see him, cornered by him, had looked at him directly, terrified by him, yet knowing that Ernest could never reach him, could never pass into the dimension that protected him.
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