The Reef

by Edith Wharton

  XVI

  In the oak room he found Mrs. Leath, her mother-in-law and Effie. Thegroup, as he came toward it down the long drawing-rooms, composed itselfprettily about the tea-table. The lamps and the fire crossed theirgleams on silver and porcelain, on the bright haze of Effie's hair andon the whiteness of Anna's forehead, as she leaned back in her chairbehind the tea-urn.

  She did not move at Darrow's approach, but lifted to him a deep gaze ofpeace and confidence. The look seemed to throw about him the spell ofa divine security: he felt the joy of a convalescent suddenly waking tofind the sunlight on his face.

  Madame de Chantelle, across her knitting, discoursed of theirafternoon's excursion, with occasional pauses induced by the hypnoticeffect of the fresh air; and Effie, kneeling, on the hearth, softly butinsistently sought to implant in her terrier's mind some notion of therelation between a vertical attitude and sugar.

  Darrow took a chair behind the little girl, so that he might look acrossat her mother. It was almost a necessity for him, at the moment, tolet his eyes rest on Anna's face, and to meet, now and then, the proudshyness of her gaze.

  Madame de Chantelle presently enquired what had become of Owen, anda moment later the window behind her opened, and her grandson, gun inhand, came in from the terrace. As he stood there in the lamp-light,with dead leaves and bits of bramble clinging to his mud-spatteredclothes, the scent of the night about him and its chill on his palebright face, he really had the look of a young faun strayed in from theforest.

  Effie abandoned the terrier to fly to him. "Oh, Owen, where in the worldhave you been? I walked miles and miles with Nurse and couldn't findyou, and we met Jean and he said he didn't know where you'd gone."

  "Nobody knows where I go, or what I see when I get there--that's thebeauty of it!" he laughed back at her. "But if you're good," he added,"I'll tell you about it one of these days."

  "Oh, now, Owen, now! I don't really believe I'll ever be much betterthan I am now."

  "Let Owen have his tea first," her mother suggested; but the young man,declining the offer, propped his gun against the wall, and, lightinga cigarette, began to pace up and down the room in a way that remindedDarrow of his own caged wanderings. Effie pursued him with herblandishments, and for a while he poured out to her a low-voiced streamof nonsense; then he sat down beside his step-mother and leaned over tohelp himself to tea.

  "Where's Miss Viner?" he asked, as Effie climbed up on him. "Why isn'tshe here to chain up this ungovernable infant?"

  "Poor Miss Viner has a headache. Effie says she went to her room as soonas lessons were over, and sent word that she wouldn't be down for tea."

  "Ah," said Owen, abruptly setting down his cup. He stood up, lit anothercigarette, and wandered away to the piano in the room beyond.

  From the twilight where he sat a lonely music, borne on fantasticchords, floated to the group about the tea-table. Under its influenceMadame de Chantelle's meditative pauses increased in length andfrequency, and Effie stretched herself on the hearth, her drowsy headagainst the dog. Presently her nurse appeared, and Anna rose at the sametime. "Stop a minute in my sitting-room on your way up," she paused tosay to Darrow as she went.

  A few hours earlier, her request would have brought him instantly to hisfeet. She had given him, on the day of his arrival, an inviting glimpseof the spacious book-lined room above stairs in which she had gatheredtogether all the tokens of her personal tastes: the retreat in which,as one might fancy, Anna Leath had hidden the restless ghost of AnnaSummers; and the thought of a talk with her there had been in his mindever since. But now he sat motionless, as if spell-bound by the play ofMadame de Chantelle's needles and the pulsations of Owen's fitful music.

  "She will want to ask me about the girl," he repeated to himself, with afresh sense of the insidious taint that embittered all his thoughts;the hand of the slender-columned clock on the mantel-piece had spanneda half-hour before shame at his own indecision finally drew him to hisfeet.

  From her writing-table, where she sat over a pile of letters, Annalifted her happy smile. The impulse to press his lips to it made himcome close and draw her upward. She threw her head back, as if surprisedat the abruptness of the gesture; then her face leaned to his with theslow droop of a flower. He felt again the sweep of the secret tides, andall his fears went down in them.

  She sat down in the sofa-corner by the fire and he drew an armchairclose to her. His gaze roamed peacefully about the quiet room.

  "It's just like you--it is you," he said, as his eyes came back to her.

  "It's a good place to be alone in--I don't think I've ever before caredto talk with any one here."

  "Let's be quiet, then: it's the best way of talking."

  "Yes; but we must save it up till later. There are things I want to sayto you now."

  He leaned back in his chair. "Say them, then, and I'll listen."

  "Oh, no. I want you to tell me about Miss Viner."

  "About Miss Viner?" He summoned up a look of faint interrogation.

  He thought she seemed surprised at his surprise. "It's important,naturally," she explained, "that I should find out all I can about herbefore I leave."

  "Important on Effie's account?"

  "On Effie's account--of course."

  "Of course...But you've every reason to be satisfied, haven't you?"

  "Every apparent reason. We all like her. Effie's very fond of her, andshe seems to have a delightful influence on the child. But we know solittle, after all--about her antecedents, I mean, and her past history.That's why I want you to try and recall everything you heard about herwhen you used to see her in London."

  "Oh, on that score I'm afraid I sha'n't be of much use. As I told you,she was a mere shadow in the background of the house I saw her in--andthat was four or five years ago..."

  "When she was with a Mrs. Murrett?"

  "Yes; an appalling woman who runs a roaring dinner-factory that used nowand then to catch me in its wheels. I escaped from them long ago; butin my time there used to be half a dozen fagged 'hands' to tend themachine, and Miss Viner was one of them. I'm glad she's out of it, poorgirl!" "Then you never really saw anything of her there?"

  "I never had the chance. Mrs. Murrett discouraged any competition on thepart of her subordinates."

  "Especially such pretty ones, I suppose?" Darrow made no comment, andshe continued: "And Mrs. Murrett's own opinion--if she'd offered youone--probably wouldn't have been of much value?"

  "Only in so far as her disapproval would, on general principles, havebeen a good mark for Miss Viner. But surely," he went on after a pause,"you could have found out about her from the people through whom youfirst heard of her?"

  Anna smiled. "Oh, we heard of her through Adelaide Painter--;" and inreply to his glance of interrogation she explained that the lady inquestion was a spinster of South Braintree, Massachusetts, who, havingcome to Paris some thirty years earlier, to nurse a brother through anillness, had ever since protestingly and provisionally camped there in astate of contemptuous protestation oddly manifested by her never takingthe slip-covers off her drawing-room chairs. Her long residence onGallic soil had not mitigated her hostility toward the creed and customsof the race, but though she always referred to the Catholic Church asthe Scarlet Woman and took the darkest views of French privatelife, Madame de Chantelle placed great reliance on her judgment andexperience, and in every domestic crisis the irreducible Adelaide wasimmediately summoned to Givre.

  "It's all the odder because my mother-in-law, since her second marriage,has lived so much in the country that she's practically lost sightof all her other American friends. Besides which, you can see howcompletely she has identified herself with Monsieur de Chantelle'snationality and adopted French habits and prejudices. Yet when anythinggoes wrong she always sends for Adelaide Painter, who's more Americanthan the Stars and Stripes, and might have left South Braintreeyesterday, if she hadn't, rather, brought it over with her in hertrunk."

  Darrow laughed. "Well, then,
if South Braintree vouches for MissViner----"

  "Oh, but only indirectly. When we had that odious adventure withMademoiselle Grumeau, who'd been so highly recommended by Monsieur deChantelle's aunt, the Chanoinesse, Adelaide was of course sent for, andshe said at once: 'I'm not the least bit surprised. I've always told youthat what you wanted for Effie was a sweet American girl, and not one ofthese nasty foreigners.' Unluckily she couldn't, at the moment, put herhand on a sweet American; but she presently heard of Miss Viner throughthe Farlows, an excellent couple who live in the Quartier Latin andwrite about French life for the American papers. I was only too thankfulto find anyone who was vouched for by decent people; and so far I've hadno cause to regret my choice. But I know, after all, very little aboutMiss Viner; and there are all kinds of reasons why I want, as soon aspossible, to find out more--to find out all I can."

  "Since you've got to leave Effie I understand your feeling in that way.But is there, in such a case, any recommendation worth half as much asyour own direct experience?"

  "No; and it's been so favourable that I was ready to accept it asconclusive. Only, naturally, when I found you'd known her in London Iwas in hopes you'd give me some more specific reasons for liking her asmuch as I do."

  "I'm afraid I can give you nothing more specific than my general vagueimpression that she seems very plucky and extremely nice."

  "You don't, at any rate, know anything specific to the contrary?"

  "To the contrary? How should I? I'm not conscious of ever having heardany one say two words about her. I only infer that she must have pluckand character to have stuck it out so long at Mrs. Murrett's."

  "Yes, poor thing! She has pluck, certainly; and pride, too; which musthave made it all the harder." Anna rose to her feet. "You don't know howglad I am that your impression's on the whole so good. I particularlywanted you to like her."

  He drew her to him with a smile. "On that condition I'm prepared to loveeven Adelaide Painter."

  "I almost hope you wont have the chance to--poor Adelaide! Herappearance here always coincides with a catastrophe."

  "Oh, then I must manage to meet her elsewhere." He held Anna closer,saying to himself, as he smoothed back the hair from her forehead: "Whatdoes anything matter but just THIS?--Must I go now?" he added aloud.

  She answered absently: "It must be time to dress"; then she drew back alittle and laid her hands on his shoulders. "My love--oh, my dear love!"she said.

  It came to him that they were the first words of endearment he had heardher speak, and their rareness gave them a magic quality of reassurance,as though no danger could strike through such a shield.

  A knock on the door made them draw apart. Anna lifted her hand toher hair and Darrow stooped to examine a photograph of Effie on thewriting-table.

  "Come in!" Anna said.

  The door opened and Sophy Viner entered. Seeing Darrow, she drew back.

  "Do come in, Miss Viner," Anna repeated, looking at her kindly.

  The girl, a quick red in her cheeks, still hesitated on the threshold.

  "I'm so sorry; but Effie has mislaid her Latin grammar, and I thoughtshe might have left it here. I need it to prepare for tomorrow'slesson."

  "Is this it?" Darrow asked, picking up a book from the table.

  "Oh, thank you!"

  He held it out to her and she took it and moved to the door.

  "Wait a minute, please, Miss Viner," Anna said; and as the girl turnedback, she went on with her quiet smile: "Effie told us you'd gone toyour room with a headache. You mustn't sit up over tomorrow's lessons ifyou don't feel well."

  Sophy's blush deepened. "But you see I have to. Latin's one of my weakpoints, and there's generally only one page of this book between me andEffie." She threw the words off with a half-ironic smile. "Do excuse mydisturbing you," she added.

  "You didn't disturb me," Anna answered. Darrow perceived that she waslooking intently at the girl, as though struck by something tense andtremulous in her face, her voice, her whole mien and attitude. "You DOlook tired. You'd much better go straight to bed. Effie won't be sorryto skip her Latin."

  "Thank you--but I'm really all right," murmured Sophy Viner. Her glance,making a swift circuit of the room, dwelt for an appreciable instant onthe intimate propinquity of arm-chair and sofa-corner; then she turnedback to the door.

  BOOK III