“My God, it’s going to be hot tonight, Averill,” he said. “My collar will be gone in five minutes—” He perceived Eden and stopped. “Good heavens,” he said, peering. “It’s little Eden Shore. Grown up. Kiss me, my dear—or are you too old for that? You used to, you know; and I’d take you and Averill to the movies and feed you on ice-cream sodas.”
“How are you, Uncle Bill?” She put up her face dutifully for his kiss and patted his fat shoulder affectionately. And thought, in spite of herself, I would scarcely have known him if I’d met him on the street. Has he changed so much—or have I?
Yet she remembered his extravagant, bluff good humor.
And she thought how intensely alive he seemed—alive, and full of energy and vitality. As if he would go on forever; as if nothing could stop him.
He said then, gayly, as if there were no such thing as mortality, as fate, “Come downstairs when you’ve changed, dearie, and I’ll give you the best cocktail this side the Mississippi. Did you see the old lady as you flew over?”
“She could scarcely miss the river. We’ll hurry,” said Averill coolly. “I imagine Major Pace will be down soon, Uncle Bill.”
“Oh. All right, my dear. All right.”
He went down the wide stairs, puffing and singing to himself.
“This way, Eden, the room you always had. Remember it?”
How well she remembered! It was like coming, home to a place of luxury and beauty. A maid, fluttering white organdy apron strings above trim black, was already deftly unpacking. A soft green evening gown—a good one, selected with care from the store’s French-import room but sold to Eden at cost—lay on the bed. Water was running in the adjoining bathroom and there was the scent of lavender and geranium—clean and clear and sweet.
Averill followed her inside the room and the maid went out, closing the door. Her departure left a sudden, rather strained silence. Eden walked to the mirror, took off her hat and put it down.
“How good it seem to be here,” she said. It was a little unnerving to discover that in the sudden silence of the room her voice sounded hollow and false.
Averill said nothing; she was looking at Eden thoughtfully. As if probing again—measuring.
Regretting? Was that it? Did Averill regret having invited her to come, having sent her tickets, having made the trip possible?
But Averill had done it voluntarily, had urged Eden’s acceptance.
The thought was not reassuring. Eden was uneasy. She pushed her hands through her hair, watching herself in the mirror, loosening the flattened waves. Conscious of Averill’s still regard.
“You’ve not changed much,” said Averill suddenly.
She came nearer Eden, walking as always smoothly but quickly in her white silk, and put out a white small hand and jerked on a dressing-table light so the glow fell directly upon Eden’s face.
“You’ve not changed at all,” she said.
Eden smiled a little nervously.
“What did you expect in two years, Averill? Crow’s feet? Gray hair?”
Averill didn’t smile at all.
“Your job must not be a very hard one.”
“Why, really, Averill!” Eden checked her rising irritation. “It’s hard enough,” she said. “But it hasn’t exactly made a physical wreck of me yet.”
“It doesn’t seem very long,” said Averill slowly, “since you were here last. Remember?”
Eden wanted to move away from the mirror—away from Averill. But Averill took a step or two nearer so she stood directly beside Eden, adding her own cool, poised reflection to what the mirror already held. Eden was aware of her own image—her trim gray traveling suit; the jacket long and buttoned in front like a basque, the wide-shouldered gray sleeves faintly leg-o’-mutton; a narrow white band tight around her throat at the collar, her brown hair brushed upward like an old-fashioned print. She was aware of Averill’s figure beside her—of her white gown and slender white shoulders and the fantastic scarlet dragon across Averill’s incredibly slender body—of her smooth dark hair and the neat white part in it; of a faint odor of lilies—a perfume Averill had always used. She was aware of the glimpses of the room behind then mahogany and yellow chintz and a green dress carefully laid across the bed.
But the eyes of the two women met in the mirror. An all the rest was only a frame for Averill’s small, white fact her shallow, enigmatic brown eyes, holding Eden’s fixedly.
“You do remember, don’t you?” said Averill.
“I—yes.”
“It was a Christmas party. We came on from school.”
“Yes.”
“You had a crimson skirt and a little moleskin coat an cap and you pinned a sprig of mistletoe on your cap.”
“I don’t remember that,” said Eden—and did remember perfectly and wondered why she had said she hadn’t.
“Noel was here,” said Averill, her eyes unwavering, holding Eden’s in the mirror. “He was waiting for me. We were engaged. Don’t you remember? He was waiting for us a the steps and took me in his arms and kissed me and then said, ‘This is Eden, Noel, come to spend the holidays’; am he took your hands and then saw the mistletoe in your cap and kissed you, too.”
“That was so long ago.”
“Before the Christmas holidays were over—you were engaged to Noel and I had been quite neatly jilted.”
“Averill—you were twenty; I was eighteen. And an insufferable eighteen at that,” said Eden, striving for lightness
After a moment Averill smiled, too, quite deliberately and painstakingly.
“Yes, of course,” she said. “It’s odd how one does remember. I was so proud of showing off Noel to you—you had just won the leading role in the class play. I wanted it. Noel—a Prince Charming in those days and with that fantastic amount of money—seemed to even up the score between us.”
“It was Rosalind,” said Eden uncomfortably. “Oh, Averill do you remember the English teacher; the one with the nose?”
“Miss Beecham.” Averill’s mouth continued to smile; he eyes did not move from Eden’s. “Yes. But you got on top again—taking Noel away from me.”
With a ridiculous effort, Eden took a long breath and wrenched her eyes away from the reflection and turned face to face with Averill.
“We were children,” she said, laughing a little nervously. And added, again striving for lightness, “You know you said in your letter that if it hadn’t been for me you wouldn’t be marrying your Jim now. You ought to thank me, then.”
Her sudden and inexplicably frantic clutch for lightness merely achieved a kind of nervous flippancy.
Yes,” said Averill, still smiling. “My Jim—I must go and see to the table. If you want anything, you’ll ring. I’ll send Celeste in.”
She went away abruptly, except that Averill’s motions were never abrupt but always graceful and tidy as a cat’s.
The door closed neatly, precisely, behind her. “Ouch,” thought Eden. But she was perplexed and uncomfortable, too. She thought back to the affectionate terms of Averill’s letter; certainly there was no affection in her greeting. Yet Averill wouldn’t have asked her to come if she hadn’t wanted her. She shrugged her shoulders and opened her dressing case.
If they had been rivals, then they were so no longer because Averill had won. Had far outdistanced her. Lucky Averill.
Smart Averill, she thought finally—splashing milk-white froth in the enormous tub.
But what a long and extraordinarily exact memory she had!
Slipping the soft folds of green over her shoulders and surveying herself in the long mirror, she found herself curiously pleased because she had taken pains in selecting the gown; there is a certain subtlety in cut and fit and line of a really good gown; it shows off its wearer as the setting of a jewel adroitly flatters the stone it holds.
Celeste, helping her, adjusted the girdle with its long floating ribbon of silver and of violet. She set out silver slippers; she touched and patted Eden’s hair. She was
silent, unobtrusive, helpful. Eden couldn’t remember when she had last been assisted in dressing by a trained and skillful maid. Lucky Averill.
In the corridor outside her door she met Creda.
“Darling!” said Creda. “How wonderful! But, my dear, you look simply stunning! From what Averill has said I expected you to be quite worn down and aged by the business world! What a perfect gown! You must be terribly prosperous! My dear, you’re so marvelously slim!”
After that, “Hello, Creda,” seemed inadequate.
“You’re looking very stunning yourself, Creda,” said Eden. “But then you always do.”
Which was true enough. Creda’s long lashes dropped over her brown eyes—pansy eyes, soft and warm. She was so very pretty and so very conscious of it that it was curiously obtrusive; it came between you and Creda. She had light blonde hair; she had the most doll-like, round and dimpled face; she had a small, rosebud mouth—she had delicate, fat little hands which fluttered quite a lot; she wore girlish clothes. Inevitably there came a time when one looked at Creda and realized with a kind of jolt that she wasn’t a girl in her teens, she was a matured and, perhaps, an extremely selfish woman. For her round, girlish face could suddenly grow a little fixed and hard and her eyes could gleam rather shrewdly from those soft, long eyelashes. She weighed at least thirty pounds more than a girl in her teens would be likely to weigh.
She was, however, very much younger than Bill Blaine; Eden knew that. And so far as Eden knew, their marriage which had lasted now for five or six years, had been a reasonably happy one.
Creda was, that night, very youthful in a ruffled marquisette, black over white with a demure little-girl collar, and Creda’s entire, plump white back was visible through the fine black mesh. She slipped her arm through Eden’s and began to talk. Creda’s incessant talk, too, was deceiving; it seemed like the frankest, most indiscreet babble—and never told you anything unless Creda wanted you to know it.
Tonight it was sheer babble.
The wedding was going to be simply lovely. It was grand of Eden to come; Averill so loved having her. Averill had always adored Eden—in spite of their differences. Eden would adore Averill’s young man. He was too marvelous. He adored Averill. In short, thought Eden rather tersely, everybody adored everybody else and wasn’t everything just too ducky.
The others were having cocktails on the terrace just outside the library. Creda fluttered across the room toward the open french windows, beyond which were brightly cushioned chairs and the murmur of voices and the soft clatter of glasses and ice in a cocktail shaker. Eden followed.
Averill was talking vivaciously, a cigarette in her hand Bill was dispensing cocktails; Noel sprang toward Eden and Creda as they came out the french windows; he was smiling his eyes like blue stars under his peaked black eyebrows; he was impeccably tailored and triumphantly handsome.
He took Eden’s hand and tucked it under one arm and put Creda’s fat little hand on his other arm.
Where—oddly, suddenly, it clenched. As if Creda had tripped and clutched at his arm to save herself from falling
But she hadn’t tripped. She hadn’t indeed taken a step and was standing perfectly still.
Eden happened to see that. Then Noel said:
“May I present Major Pace?”
Major Pace was short, fat and curiously buoyant; he was half bald, with knowing, heavy-lidded eyes set in a swarthy face. He bowed and Eden put out her hand briefly. Then he moved to Creda and the little, white fat hand on Noel’s dark sleeve slowly unclinched itself, withdrew from Noel’s arm and was placed in Major Pace’s thick-fingered, dark hand.
“How do you do,” said Creda.
They’ve met somewhere before, thought Eden unexpectedly. And then Noel said:
“And this, Eden darling, is Jim.”
She looked up. Into a brown face, straight and, somehow, soldierly. That was her first fleeting impression. Then Jim’s eyes caught her own and held them. Neither spoke.
Perhaps three seconds passed. It seemed much longer, for in those three seconds something came to life that was never to be stifled, some boundary was crossed that could never be recrossed, some secret was discovered and could never be undiscovered again.
“Well—” said Noel.
As if it came from a great distance Eden heard Noel’s voice, roused and slowly put her hand toward Jim. He took it as slowly.
“So—you’re Eden.”
“Haven’t we—” began Eden. He finished it for her.
“Haven’t we met before? No—I should have remembered.”
A little ring of stillness encompassed them. There were voices, there was laughter and movement all about but it was outside that invulnerable, encompassing ring.
Not quite invulnerable. For Eden was finally aware that Averill had approached them.
“You’re to take Eden in to dinner, Jim. I want you two to know each other.”
Eden sought for words and found none. Averill turned to reply to something someone else said; everyone was talking. Quite suddenly the isolation, the enfolding ring of stillness, deeply shared, was gone but it left a poignant memory that was almost like a shock except it was so sweet.
Someone in Eden’s clothes, wearing her face, answering to her name, smiled, spoke, drank a champagne cocktail that was put in her hand. Afterwards Eden told herself it was the cocktail and the champagne.
But when they went into dinner and she brushed momentarily against Jim’s arm—when they sat at the candlelighted, lace-draped table with the great pool of crimson roses in the middle of it, and her hand accidentally touched Jim’s, when they turned and again looked almost searchingly into each other’s eyes—she felt actually drunk. So the light pressure of arm against arm, the actually fleeting brush of his hand against her own lasted for moments afterward.
Her heart was confused, tremulous in its beating. Little waves of the maddest exultation ran along her pulses.
Something indescribable had happened to her; it had happened instantly, without warning. The roses were redder; their perfume sweeter. The flames of the candles, the soft talk and laughter, the warm summer night—all of it had all at once a sharp, deep significance that was mysterious. But it was deeply provocative, too, as if she were on the threshold of a new, terribly exciting world.
“I’m drunk,” she thought. “It’s the champagne. It’s—”
And Jim turned to her and spoke.
“You came,” he said slowly, “for the wedding. That’s why you came—” He stopped, as if only then aware that he was speaking.
But that was right of course; he was to marry Averill. On Friday.
Averill. Who had won when it was important.
Besides there was Noel and her own deliberate, thought-out decision to marry Noel if he could be induced to ask her.
Chapter 3
DINNER MUST HAVE TAKEN its prescribed, leisurely course; Eden must have moved, eaten, replied when spoken to. Averill, Noel and Major Pace did most of the talking. Bill, as always, drank more than he talked, listened blandly, smiled good-naturedly at everything and offered no opinions that were not of the most general nature. Noel was charming with Creda who sat at one side of him; Averill was adroit with Major Pace who was suave, polished and urbane—unexpectedly graceful in conversation.
Creda, who usually talked a great deal, said almost nothing and was nervous; she avoided Pace’s eyes, yet once Eden saw her watching him with almost deadly seriousness from behind her deceptively demure eyelashes.
And Jim, after that one checked remark, said almost literally nothing.
She wouldn’t look at Jim. She wouldn’t even let herself look at his hand—brown, lean, with strength and perception in its wiry slenderness—which lay on the lace cloth beside hers for a moment. Wouldn’t look at it because when she did she so desperately wanted to touch it. To feel it turn so her own hand could nestle within it.
It was a mad thought—as the night was mad. She forced herself to listen to the
talk, and they were speaking of the flight the next day.
“I’m going up, you know,” said Averill to Major Pace.
His smile complimented her; his eyes remained cold and disapproving.
“Jim took her up when she was first set up in the plane—” began Bill when Averill interrupted.
“The feminine pronoun here refers always and exclusively to the engine,” she said to Major Pace.
Bill went on: “Jim and one of the mechanics took the engine up for the first time. Now it’s my turn and Averill’s.”
“You liked the engine’s behavior in the air?” inquired Major Pace.
“She’s a honey,” said Noel. “When you see her actually perform, Major, you’re going to be even keener than you are now.”
Again there was a cold, remote look in Pace’s dark eyes.
“I must see the engine perform, naturally,” he said.
Averill glanced once at Noel.
“Naturally,” she said to Pace. “Shall you be in America long, Major? Or ought I ask?”
Pace smiled.
“One never knows,” he said.
Averill, refusing to be rebuffed, accepted it smilingly.
“We’ll have coffee on the terrace,” she said and rose. The men did not linger over the table but strolled with Averill and Eden and Creda along the wide wall, across the shadowy library and again onto the terrace. It was by that time a soft, deep twilight. Cocktail glasses had been removed and the butler brought a tray with coffee and another with liqueurs. There were cigarettes and deep-cushioned chairs and soft fragrances from the garden below.
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