The Lady With Carnations

by A. J. Cronin

  “I thought I loved Nancy,” he went on in that same controlled and level tone. “It was just infatuation. A pretty face after all the years I’d been grinding away at work. Youth and the Mediterranean and all the rest. I fell for it. I didn’t know until I met you. But now I do know, Katharine. This is the real thing that comes once in a lifetime. I never knew it could be like this, Katharine. For days I’ve been fighting it, but it’s no use. Even if I can’t do anything about it, I’ve got to tell you. I love you. Yes, Katharine, I love you.”

  She could not bear it. Wrenching her eyes away from the table, she turned her head aside. “ No,” she said in a choking voice. “ It’s not true.”

  “It is true, Katharine.”

  “It can’t be. It’s impossible. How could you—how could you think of such a thing?”

  She hardly knew what she was saying. Tears clouded her eyes. Blindly she got up from the table and went towards the window.

  “I’m sorry, Katharine. I just had to let you know. I tried to hold out against it, but it wasn’t the slightest use.”

  He rose and followed her, standing in an attitude of entreaty close to her. Outside it had begun to snow. The thin flakes drifted past the window lightly and impalpably as shadows. Beyond those drifting flakes all nature was hushed and motionless. The very trees stood still, like sentinels in sheepskin, posted in glacial immobility. The sky was saffron, and beneath its cupped immensity the earth lay white and glittering. The silence and the beauty of it added to Katharine’s hurt. She pressed her hand against her brow. She felt herself overwhelmed and impotent. “ Leave me,” she whispered. “Please let me be.” Again there was silence, crucial and intense. The snow-flakes still fluttered like tiny white birds winging through space.

  “I think I see,” he said at length in a heavy voice. “It’s all on my side. You don’t love me?”

  It broke the last of her resistance. The pulse in her breast was beating, confusing her beyond thought. A trembling tenderness suffused her. With a little sobbing moan she turned to him.

  “Chris! You know I love you with all my soul.”

  Then she was in his arms, her lips surrendered to his, tears streaming from her eyes. For a moment she clung to him. Unutterable happiness rushed over her. Her heart could not contain it. Then with a cry she tore herself away.

  “We can’t, Chris. It’s impossible! We must think of Nancy.”

  He was paler now than she. He clasped her hand as though he would never let it go.

  “We must think of ourselves. We love each other. That’s all that matters.”

  Reason was coming back to her. Though her whole being was swept and shattered, desperately she fought for self-control.

  “It isn’t all that matters. Nancy loves you. There’s no getting away from that. Never, never, never! You’ve got a duty to her, and so have I.”

  He set his teeth, resisting with all his faculties. “ But listen, Katharine darling. You love me. You belong to me.”

  “I will listen, Chris,” she answered. “But first you must listen to me. We can’t belong to each other. You belong to Nancy. You know how I care for her. I couldn’t hurt her. Never! Never! And neither, when you think it, could you.”

  He did not speak, his face drawn in lines of suffering. He looked into her eyes, which met his steadily, then quickly looked away. Outside against the windowpanes the snow piled softly, relentlessly.

  Katharine, with a stifled sob, turned and began to get her things together in preparation for departure. Something final in her actions conquered him. He was close to her, so close the perfume of her hair exhaled to him. He held his breath, then incoherently exclaimed:

  “I knew it would be this way, Katharine, from the minute I set out to tell you. But at least it makes it easier to think that you really care for me.”

  She did not answer, but again looked at him. The grave beauty of her eyes flowed towards him. The sweet anguish of those eyes silenced him. His heart went cold within him. Turning, he followed her from the room.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The drive back to New York was silent torment. Madden scarcely spoke, but sat rigid in his own corner of the car. Katharine looked straight ahead, her face shadowy and white, her chin pressed into the soft fur of her coat. How she got back to the apartment without completely breaking down, she never understood. But at last they were there, encompassed by the security of lights and people.

  It was five o’clock. Nancy had returned from the theatre bringing with her Bertram, Paula Brent, and John Sidney. Cocktails were about, and Nancy, gaily finishing her second, was enraptured at the sight of Madden.

  “Hello, honey,” she exclaimed loudly and enthusiastically before them all. “ I didn’t expect you back till tomorrow. It’s too lovely. Come and give me a great big hug.”

  Nancy’s mood was one of manifest exhilaration. She did not see Madden’s painful hesitation as he stood in the doorway, nor the struggle that showed upon his face. When, with an effort, he went forward, she flung her arms around his neck and pressed her lips against his.

  “It’s so good to see you, darling,” she sighed contentedly. “ I’ve had a beastly day. Bertram is driving us like dogs. This is just what I needed.”

  Her cheeks were a little flushed and her eyes bright. With her arm still around him, she drew him along beside her and smiled up into his eyes.

  There came an imperceptible pause. Katharine’s gaze was averted. Her face, still pale, was outwardly composed, but her lips trembled as with pain.

  Paula Brent, posed picturesquely in a high chair, glanced queerly from Madden to Katharine.

  “Where have you two been? You look all torn up and glacial. As if you’d just come off the mountains.”

  Katharine felt the others looking at her, too. She stirred. “As a matter of fact,” she said detachedly, pulling off her gloves, “we have been in the mountains. We went up the Hudson for lunch. It was wonderful up there in the snow.”

  “The Hudson!” exclaimed Sidney in a tone of incredulity. He was a flaxen, vapid youth with wavy hair and elegant clothes. His trousers gave him no knees whatever. With an air of supreme wit he added: “Good Lord!”

  “No! It sounds interesting to me,” murmured Paula politely. “Hope you didn’t strike an avalanche. Give me, a cigarette, John.”

  Katharine coloured imperceptibly. Even Bertram’s eyes were on her now. But, with an inner consciousness that nothing could disturb, she went directly towards Nancy and sat beside her.

  “Have you had a hard day, my dear?” she asked quietly.

  Nancy nodded a trifle exuberantly, waving her empty glass with her free hand. “Simply frightful for all of us. Thank heaven we open Monday. Bertie is driving us like hound dogs. I said that before, didn’t I? You know, Oupla! Oupla! Jump through the hoops or you get the whip! But I don’t feel so bad now Chris is here. We’ll all go out and have a good time. We’ll have a lovely time. Have a cocktail, Katharine?”

  Katharine refused. After the ice-cold purity of the Bear Mountain air the hot, scented, smoke-laden room made her slightly sick. She observed that Madden was not drinking, either. She turned to Bertram.

  “Are you satisfied with the way the show’s shaping?”

  He laughed, stretching out his legs and contemplating the toes of his shoes with a noncommittal air. “Am I ever satisfied? But I can tell you one thing. That impudent niece of yours is not altogether rotten.”

  Nancy made a grimace at Bertram.

  “Praise from the ringmaster. Oupla! Turn on the radio, someone. After that I think we ought to have some fun.”

  Young Sidney started the radio, and Nancy, disengaging her arm, threw a swift smile at Madden and began to make up her face, her movements calculating and precise, the colour of her lipstick matching exactly the scarlet enamel of her nails.

  It was a lovely, vivid face, Katharine decided, studying Nancy with a new and earnest scrutiny—the eyebrows too thinly pencilled, perhaps, and the lips a littl
e petulant, but the brow clever, the eyes sparkling. And her pose, though studied in its sophistication, struck Katharine as being strangely artless and pathetically young. She shivered slightly. She would never hurt Nancy, never, never, never. Nancy might be spoiled, even selfish, hard, too, and precocious. But she was no more than a child. Sense would come to her, and a deeper sensibility. Marriage to Madden would give her that, and a wider, greater knowledge of the meaning of life.

  “What about it, then?” demanded Nancy. “Didn’t you all hear me? I want to go places. Let’s have dinner at the Rainbow Room and hear those new Tyrolese singers.”

  Madden’s expression remained unreadable. He said with some difficulty: “I don’t think I want to go out to-night, Nancy.”

  Over her shoulder Paula languidly interposed: “The mountaineers are a little tired!”

  “Oh, but, honey,” protested Nancy with a little pout, “ you can’t let mama down that way. Mama’s sugar baby must be good!”

  Even Bertram laughed. Nancy’s rapid acquisition of the American idiom was not without its humour. But Madden, staring broodingly at the floor, did not seem amused. A deep and bitter struggle raged within him. At last, however, conscious of Katharine’s eyes upon him, he made a gesture of acquiescence. He stood up.

  “All right, Nancy,” he said. “I’ll come.”

  They all rose, preparing to leave, Nancy taking Madden’s arm, Sidney pushing down a last quick drink, Bertram helping Paula with her cloak. But Katharine, firmly pleading a headache, remained behind. She wanted Madden and Nancy to be alone. She prayed that things might straighten themselves out between them during that evening. She prayed it with all her strength.

  Chapter Eighteen

  On the following morning Katharine had a business appointment on Riverside Drive with a Mrs Van Beuren who was interested, as Breuget had indicated, in their Beauvais tapestry. Actually this tapestry was not Katharine’s—it belonged to Richet et Cie, the well-known Paris dealers for whom Katharine was acting as agent—but the commission accruing from a successful sale would most certainly be handsome.

  That determination which bulked so largely in her character forced Katharine to carry on as though nothing had occurred. She put on her severest tailored suit and set out for the office at half-past nine. Breuget, looker sprucer and glossier than he had done for weeks, was waiting for her, studying the catalogues of some forthcoming sales. He put them aside as she came in, and jumped up briskly.

  “I have the panel packed, Miss Lorimer. We can take it along with us now.”

  “Good!”

  He studied her, smiling, rubbing his hands together gently. “Didn’t I say we’d turned the corner? We are going to sell the tapestry. We are going to do big business this year.”

  With a quite portentous nod he led the way to the door, where he called a cab and, having solicitously handed Katharine in, he bestowed the precious package beside her and then stepped in himself. They drove off together.

  “It’s very curious, Miss Lorimer,” he remarked, when he had settled himself. “ I’ve been interrogating Ascher all I know, and I can’t find out who has bought the miniature.”

  “Does it matter?” she asked vaguely.

  “Oh, it doesn’t matter,” he agreed with his well-brushed, deprecatory smile. “Mon dieu, no! Since we are all right. But it’s rather extraordinary none the less. Consider, a work of art of that importance just vanishing off the market— pouff!”

  “I thought you said it was for Shard.”

  “It isn’t. No, no! I found that much, out. The good Shard remains faithful to his Pre-Raphaelites.”

  “Perhaps Ascher still has it?”

  “No, Miss Lorimer. He assured me on his oath he’d parted with it to his client.”

  “Well,” Katharine sighed and shook her head, “it’s queer, certainly. But we don’t have to bother about it. That episode is closed. We’ve other things to get on with now.”

  When they reached the house on Riverside Drive, it proved to be a brownstone with tiled window boxes and a fine iron grilled door, evincing that the glory had not all departed from this once famous thoroughfare. Mrs Van Beuren had quite fallen in love with the tapestry, she declared to Katharine, but was undecided as to whether she had a place for it. Already they had too many pictures in the dining room. As for the drawing room upstairs, it was quite unsuitable.

  Katharine said little. She followed Mrs Van Beuren over the house, listening in apparent attentiveness. But from the first she had seen that the entrance hall was the ideal situation for the panel. So when they came downstairs again, she inquired:

  “Are you satisfied with your hall.”

  “Why, no,” Mrs Van Beuren pecked the air doubtfully. “I’ve always considered it out of proportion.”

  “Then suppose you let me do something with it,” said Katharine. “Frankly, it could be the nicest feature of this house.”

  Helped by Breuget and the manservant, she took down a row of rather insignificant prints that hung upon the main wall. In their place she stretched the tapestry, a lovely hunting panel. Below, she moved over an Italian refectory table that had stood, half-hidden, in the morning room. On this she placed two long gesso candlesticks filched from the overcrowded drawing room, and between them a square embossed silver salver.

  The transformation was miraculous. The hall took on dignity and character instantly. Even Breuget nodded his approval. As for the little lady of the house, she twittered with excitement.

  “Don’t move them back,” she cried. “ Not an inch. I’ll have it exactly like that. Exactly!”

  “You really want a long mirror on the opposite wall,” Katharine suggested, “ with a narrow beading and a bevelled glass. We have a really fine George I piece that would suit perfectly.”

  “Yes, yes,” breathed Mrs Van Beuren, “I’ll come in and look at it to-morrow.”

  On their way back again, Breuget turned to Katharine with a respectful chuckle.

  “Was I right, Miss Lorimer? The turn of the tide, eh? Don’t I feel it in my old bones?”

  The turn of the tide! What did it mean to Katharine now? On a pretext she had Breuget drop her at Fifty-seventh Street and made her way on foot towards her hotel. She recollected, as through a mist, that to-day Upton was due and that she ought to meet him on his arrival. But she did not know at what hour the Europa would dock.

  When she got to the apartment, her first thought was that Charley had already arrived, for on her table stood a long package from the florist’s. But immediately she opened the box she knew that she was wrong. There, dazzling her eyes with their beauty, lay a great spray of exquisite white carnations, each perfect, virginal, fragrant. They were from Madden. A pain leaped up in Katharine’s heart like a tongue of flame. With eyes half-closed she pressed her cheek against the soft blooms. Their sweetness was more than she could endure. It held for her all the sadness of happiness forsworn. She stood there a long time. Then, opening her eyes, she caught sight of herself unexpectedly in the mirror which hung upon the opposite wall. She was startled by the picture which she made. It was like an evocation of the past, of the miniature, and its meaning in her life. She sighed. “The lady with carnations,” she thought sadly. That, henceforth, was her rôle.

  No card or message had accompanied the flowers. She knew that Madden would telephone. And indeed almost at once he rang up, his voice low and toneless.

  “I’d like to see you, Katharine,” he said. “ If you can manage, I’d like to see you at once.”

  Katharine reflected rapidly. Strengthened by the passage of those last few hours, her mind was now unalterably made up. Yet she knew that in reason she must agree to meet him once again, if only to convey the finality of her decision. The time of her weakness was over. Now she could be practical and strong. She would not, however, agree to lunch with him. But casting about in her mind for a meeting place, she chose, with almost melancholy humour, the Metropolitan Museum for their appointment. This, at least, w
as convenient for both of them, and its formidable galleries would surely dampen the most romantic enterprise.

  At a quarter to two she set out for the Metropolitan. The hour had not yet struck when she got there, yet Madden was already awaiting her, pacing up and down in the high entrance hall in full view of the turnstiles. He took her hand silently. But if she expected their interview to take place in that lofty draughty hall, under the frowning and majestic statuary, she was mistaken. He led the way to the far wing where, as it happened, an exhibition of Early American furniture was then being displayed in its original settings. After glancing up and down the quiet gallery he advanced into a pine-panelled room from the coast of Maine. Here he turned and faced her. She saw that he was suffering. His vehemence of yesterday had vanished. He looked worn out. And his voice was strangely uncertain.

  “Katharine! I had to see you again. We didn’t seem to have a chance to talk things over yesterday. You just make up your mind in a flash. Perhaps you’ve had time to think differently. Listen, Katharine, we can’t get along without each other. Just to see you, it’s unbelievable happiness. All night long I’ve been awake thinking it out. There’s only one solution. We must go away together.”

  Instantly she knew that it was going to be harder, infinitely harder than she had expected, and from the very depths of her being she summoned all her fortitude to meet it.

  “Run away,” she queried, with a faint semblance of her old smile, “like a couple of children? I don’t think so, Chris. We’re a little way past that, aren’t we?”

  “We must do something,” he said inarticulately. “We can’t ruin both our lives.”

  With a great effort she made her tone practical and light. “That’s exactly what we should do if we went away. We’d be completely wretched and miserable.”

  “But why, Katharine?”

  “Have you forgotten Nancy?”

  “I haven’t forgotten her. But, oh, that isn’t the same thing. She doesn’t care that much for me.” He went on blindly: “ She belongs to a different generation, harder and more selfish. Surely you saw that last night when we came in. Surely you saw it in Vermont. The others did, although they didn’t say so. Life falls lighter on her. She’d find it easier to forget.”