‘Do you feel like that now?’ she asked him suddenly.
‘No, no, my dear; I’m far below such feelings. Don’t talk about me. I sometimes wonder whether I’ve got a heart at all.’
She looked at him with a puzzled frown and he fancied that she had been hurt by his words as if by something clumsy and banal.
‘You must never say a thing like that to anyone who loves you,’ she said earnestly.
Richard smiled. ‘Why not, my dear?’
Her answer was a surprise to him. ‘Because it’s unfair; because it’s mean and cunning!’
There was a considerable flicker of annoyance at that moment flung across ‘the lake of his mind’. Had the girl managed to pierce the core of a very subtle form of self-complacency and vanity? Her words certainly broke up Richard’s mood of superior protective strength. In some profoundly recondite way they gave him the sensation of being exposed. The feeling he derived from this sensation was not a pleasant one; he experienced that kind of unharmonious shock from it which, as he had noted on other occasions, gave a severer prod to his life illusion than anything else.
‘I expect you are right, Catharine,’ he muttered, resuming his walk up and down the room. He made that time a genuine effort to break the crust of egoism which imprisoned his soul. Yes, the girl was undoubtedly right. That vague self-accusation ‘I have no heart’ was only too obvious an example of a mental trick he was always playing himself – an unctuous salve of moral evasion with which he covered up drastic issues!
His analysis of his real inmost reaction to all these events revealed to him that he had been all the while, secretly and without any self-forgetful suffering, dramatizing his situation. He had been making it all a part of one long stream of not wholly intolerable occurrences, in the flowing tide of which the figure of Nelly herself, the figures of Elise and Catharine and all the rest, were there to be exploited, were there to be contemplated subjectively, as scenes in the human play which after all remained his play – whereof he was not only an actor on the stage but an appreciative critic in the gallery!
His thoughts whirled confusedly through his brain now as he paced that little room, his guest’s purple stockings and white sand-shoes mingling with first one mental image and then another.
It cannot, he thought, be altogether selfish and contemptible to dramatize one’s life and to detach one’s self from it. Nelly never does that. Catharine never does. But surely Elise must do it, or she couldn’t put so much art into her dancing. How is it then that I annoy Elise so much with the way my mind works? Why does she despise my poetry so? Poetry must, surely, be detached from a person’s life and yet be the residuum of a person’s life. Am I hopelessly inhuman and unnatural in all this?
Suddenly it occurred to him, as quite a new discovery, that it was queer that instead of being reduced to hopeless misery by his wife’s departure he could occupy himself like this in cold-blooded abstract analysis!
Was it that, at the back of his mind, he felt confident that he had only to return to England, to receive Nelly’s forgiveness and settle down happily with her as before? Or was it really that nothing, beyond extreme immediate physical pain, could break up the crust of his indurated egoism? Was he actually wanting in some normal human attribute; and did everything that occurred to him approach his consciousness through some vaporous veil like a thick sea mist? He began naïvely to wonder what the great artists of the world were like in these complicated human relations. It occurred to him that they must have the power of transfiguring the results of analysis and forcing the issue by the use of some sort of creative energy which the gods had completely denied to him.
Where was his place in the world then, he who was neither a normal human being nor a creative genius? Was he doomed for ever to live this wretched half-life, neither deeply happy nor deeply unhappy, cheated in some mysterious way of the prerogative of being born a man? He looked at the long tenuous figure of the young girl in the chair; and he felt, for one swift moment, as some fabulous merman or neckan might feel, as it craved for the human soul that had been denied it by destiny.
When Catharine was at last safely in bed in Nelly’s room and he had kissed her goodnight and turned out her light, he felt amused to note how the mere fact of sleeping in the sitting room gave him a curious pleasure.
He lay for a long time before he went to sleep, smoking one cigarette after another, enjoying in spite of his conscience a certain primitive and heathen satisfaction at being alive at all in this mad complicated world; at being able to say still, with the royal villain in the famous drama – ‘Richard is Richard – that is I am I.’
His mind called up the image of Roger Lamb as he had last seen him. And with the thought of the dead boy he found himself recalling an interview which he himself had had with a great Paris specialist, when his heart troubled him in earlier days. ‘Any extreme physical strain may finish you off,’ the great man had warned him. He had thought of that verdict during his fit of exhaustion at the stage-door of Elise’s theatre; he thought of it again now as he began to grow drowsy. ‘That would be a better way than morphia,’ he said to himself.
Chapter 21
Richard slept long and heavily that night. Once he woke with a start, in complete bewilderment as to where he was and with a feeling that someone had called him by name. He sat up and listened; but if it had been a cry from Catharine she did not repeat it. He heard no sound from her room.
After that he fell into complete unconsciousness till Catharine herself aroused him with the news that breakfast would be ready in ten minutes.
The girl looked lamentably hollow-eyed as they sat down opposite each other. He surmised from her appearance that she had hardly slept at all; and this, in his morning mood of malicious irritation, made him almost angry with her. What right had she to punish him with a miserable face like that, when he had turned out of his room to make her comfortable?
Just as he was leaving for the office she suddenly said, ‘Would you like me to get your supper for you or shall I go away when I’ve washed up?’
The idea of coming back to a lonely room struck his mind at that moment as the one thing he couldn’t endure. ‘Will you do that?’ he rejoined eagerly. ‘Here’s a couple of dollars.’ And he placed the two notes on the table. ‘Then we can manage again as we did last night,’ he added. ‘I don’t suppose either of us cares for Greenwich Village gossip.’
So it was brought about that these two took up their queerly assorted and entirely chaste domicile together.
Catharine reverted to her former method of earning a little money by embroidering Russian smocks which she sold at one of the numerous little art shops which abounded in that vicinity. Richard sent off many passionate and penitent letters addressed to Furze Lodge and by every weekly mail received a brief acknowledgement from Nelly of the small sums he punctually dispatched to her.
He worked more assiduously at the office of The Mitre than he had ever done before, receiving sometimes a bonus from the editor for work done beyond his original contract.
But he was all the while anxiously looking out for some means of rehabilitating his literary fortunes. He had constantly in his mind the idea of sailing for England; but it was obviously impossible to do so until he had obtained some permanent income. He could not see himself arriving in Sussex without a cent. To present himself before his wife, not to speak of Mrs Shotover, penniless as well as disgraced, was more than he could contemplate.
The weeks and months dragged on and the innumerable circles of people in that cosmopolitan city began in their various ways to prepare to celebrate the far-off event which for a minority meant the birthday of a God, while for the majority it signified parties and presents and desperate attempts to defy Prohibition.
The afternoon of Christmas Eve found Catharine occupied in a pathetic effort to adorn their bachelor apartment with some sprigs of holly and mistletoe, purchased in Jefferson Market.
The girl had seen nothing of Karmako
ff since that day at Atlantic City, and as far as she knew Richard had seen nothing of Elise. Her receptive nature, passively docile to the will of fate, had slipped insensibly into a sort of trance-like domesticity, the seclusion and regularity of which had a healing effect upon her wounded spirit. It was the first time in her life that she had felt herself to be necessary to another human being. The naïve way in which the incompetent Richard clung to her ministrations was a profound solace to her self-respect. Nothing but the feverish activity of that whirlpool of human effort which seethed and eddied around them could have enabled their association to pass uncriticized.
They invited no one to the flat and they went to see no one together. The few separate encounters they did have with former acquaintances led to no sort of inconvenience to either of them; and if one Greenwich Village habitué remarked to another that Cathy Gordon had ‘moved downtown’, the worst commentary that resulted was some such remark as, ‘They say she’s having an affair with that fellow in Charlton Street whose wife ran away.’
Richard did not mention to Nelly in any of his passionate love letters that he and her friend were living under the same roof. The instinct that prevented him doing this at first was an entirely unconscious one. It was Catharine herself who converted it into a deliberate and conscious repression.
‘I’d rather you didn’t say anything to Nelly about my being with you. She wouldn’t understand it. And why should we agitate her unnecessarily when we know that if she did understand it she would be quite satisfied?’
Richard, amused at this innocent piece of sophistry, had not worried further about the matter. Since his conscience was clear, let the affair go! He had grown accustomed to Catharine’s companionship. He had got fond of the girl; and his renewed loyalty to Nelly did not seem in any way impinged upon by this relationship. If any sort of scruple did flicker for a moment across his mind it was constantly being quelled by Nelly’s reiterated requests that he should look after Catharine. Well! Catharine was looking after him. So all was as it should be!
On this Christmas Eve, while the young girl was standing upon a chair, holding in her hand two large bunches of holly with the intention of fixing them behind a print after Watteau, she heard a sharp knock at the door.
She hurriedly jumped down and cried, ‘Come in!’
To her amazement and indignation the door opened and admitted Elise Angel.
The dancer was wrapped in a black Spanish cloak which she promptly flung down upon a chair. She then quite calmly closed the door behind her and, folding her arms with a dramatic gesture, ejaculated the words, ‘So it’s as they told me! I didn’t believe it. It seemed too funny to be true.’
‘What seemed too funny to be true, Miss Angel?’
‘That you and Richard should be living together.’
‘We’re not living together!’
‘Well, that you should be here, then. It isn’t for outsiders of course to inquire any further.’
‘I’m expecting him back any moment; so unless you want to meet him I advise you to leave your message quickly.’
‘Mon dieu! We have changed from our little devoted Cathy! Richard must have been telling you fine stories about me.’
‘We’ve never spoken of you once. Not once. Will you sit down?’
The last words were uttered in a reluctantly softened voice. It was difficult in the presence of Elise Angel, even for a jilted rival, to keep up the role of moral indignation.
The dancer settled herself in the armchair and fixed upon Catharine a look so disarming that the young girl asked hurriedly, ‘Can I get you anything, a glass of water?’
‘No – no! child. I’m only a bit tired. Your friend has left me and sailed for Russia.’
Catharine Gordon turned pale and leant against the table. ‘Sailed for Russia?’ she gasped. ‘When?’
‘Oh several weeks ago. I ought to have come and told you before. We quarrelled before he went – of course.’
‘He left you, too?’
Elise Angel smiled. ‘Yes, my dear, he left me too! It seems that neither you nor I are very clever at keeping people. But you seem to have got Richard safely anyhow!’
‘Have you come to take him away?’
‘Mon dieu! little one, heaven forbid! But my impression is that our good Richard is pining for his wife. You know that pretty young person is going to have a child?’
‘A child? He never told me!’
‘I don’t know why he should have told you, you funny thing, unless you’re in love with him now.’
Catharine Gordon frowned at this and shook her head.
‘Not yet?’ repeated the dancer. ‘You’re just living – what shall I say – like brother and sister?’
The young girl coloured and nodded furiously.
There was a moment’s pause during which the two women exchanged one of those indescribable glances which reveal without words so many things. Then the dancer stretched out her arms.
‘Come and be friends again, you darling! We’re both deserted now!’
The look which accompanied this gesture was too much for the generous-hearted Catharine. She slid down upon the arm of her rival’s chair and hugged her impetuously.
‘What you and I have to think about now,’ said Elise Angel, ‘is what we’re going to do with our dear Richard. I caught a glimpse of him in the street the other day and he looked to me wretchedly thin.’
Catharine pouted like a child at this.
‘I give him very good meals,’ she said.
‘I’m sure you do. But he’s an Englishman, my dear, and English– men, whatever they may do in New York, pine for their rainy fields. We don’t want to have to bury our Richard out here do we?’
‘But he’s got no money. He sends home nearly all he makes, as it is.’
‘Well! We must get him the money. A thousand dollars would keep him going till he could get over to Paris. And once in Paris he’d soon pick up again. They know his value over there.’
‘But – a thousand dollars!’
‘It isn’t so much as it sounds, you dear baby. Why, Pat Ryan lent me as much as that only two months ago! I mustn’t go to him for this; but I could sell my pearl necklace.’
Catharine looked at her with tears in her eyes. A wave of vibrant sympathy flowed between the two.
‘You dear!’ cried the younger girl.
Elise smiled. ‘You’d do the same for him. I’m not blind. You’re one of those people, little Cathy, who put their genius into their heart, just as I put mine into my legs!’
Catharine looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I have got fond of him. But that’s because he’s got so used to me, I expect. It’s a new thing to me to be really wanted.’
The dancer put her arm around her waist. ‘Well! now we’re friends again, I may tell you that I want you most abominably. So you see my cunning design! I pack off our good Richard to his wife and have you all to myself again! For you will come back to me now, child, won’t you? No! don’t shake your head. You must –I can’t be deserted by everyone.’
Catharine looked wonderingly into those mysterious eyes which were neither grey nor blue nor violet nor green, and yet were all those colours together.
‘If you’re very good and very nice, I may teach you to dance,’ said Elise Angel.
Catharine leapt to her feet at those words and clapped her hands. ‘Not really? Do you think I could? That would be simply heaven! I used to dream of that when I was a little girl. And to be taught by you!’ She snatched at one of the dancer’s hands and kissed it fervently.
‘Meanwhile,’ said Elise, ‘I’ve got to go round and pick up a thousand dollars.’ She rose slowly from the armchair and laid her hand on her Spanish cloak. ‘Richard won’t, I suppose, be too proud to take it when I’ve got it?’ she said, as Catharine arranged the cloak round her shoulders.
Once more they exchanged that curious enigmatic glance with which women converse without the necessity for words.
‘I do
n’t think so,’ responded the girl smiling. ‘I don’t think he is very proud – in those things.’
‘Well! goodbye, you dear child. I’ll bring the money round to you in a day or two. By the way, why don’t you bring him to see me dance tonight? I’ll tell them at the box office to keep you good seats. But just as you like of course. It won’t matter if you don’t come. Goodbye!’ And she ran lightly down the narrow stairs and let herself into the street.
That last word of Elise’s had a little clouded Catharine’s pleasure.
Somehow she felt reluctant to sit with Richard in a prominent seat at that theatre.
She left her pieces of holly lying on the table and, sitting down with her hands around her knees, fell into deep meditation.
Just very faintly, across the most remote portion of her consciousness, there flickered a vague shadow of suspicion. It was scarcely articulate. It had no definite shape or form. But like a small cloud on the horizon it spoilt the complete harmony of her thoughts. Before Richard’s return, however, she had recovered the balance of her normal generosity and had driven this little cloud altogether out of her mind. The pieces of holly with their red berries were now adorning the ‘Watteau’ print and the table was decorated with copper-coloured chrysanthemums, candied ginger, New England grapes and a bottle of California wine.
He arrived at half past six. He was already in better spirits than he had been in for some long while, and the sight of his ‘young monk’, as he called her, with this festive background gave him a thrill of pleasurable excitement.
They were halfway through their meal, drinking wine and tea in shameless propinquity, and laughing with most keen amusement over what Richard called ‘crackers’ and she called ‘bon-bons’, when Catharine broached the subject of Elise’s visit and her offer of tickets for that night.
After My Fashion Page 32