The Reef

by Edith Wharton

  XVIII

  Anna Leath, from the terrace, watched the return of the little group.

  She looked down on them, as they advanced across the garden, from theserene height of her unassailable happiness. There they were, comingtoward her in the mild morning light, her child, her step-son, herpromised husband: the three beings who filled her life. She smiled alittle at the happy picture they presented, Effie's gambols encirclingit in a moving frame within which the two men came slowly forward in thesilence of friendly understanding. It seemed part of the deep intimacyof the scene that they should not be talking to each other, and it didnot till afterward strike her as odd that neither of them apparentlyfelt it necessary to address a word to Sophy Viner.

  Anna herself, at the moment, was floating in the mid-current offelicity, on a tide so bright and buoyant that she seemed to be one withits warm waves. The first rush of bliss had stunned and dazzled her;but now that, each morning, she woke to the calm certainty of itsrecurrence, she was growing used to the sense of security it gave.

  "I feel as if I could trust my happiness to carry me; as if it had grownout of me like wings." So she phrased it to Darrow, as, later in themorning, they paced the garden-paths together. His answering look gaveher the same assurance of safety. The evening before he had seemedpreoccupied, and the shadow of his mood had faintly encroached on thegreat golden orb of their blessedness; but now it was uneclipsed again,and hung above them high and bright as the sun at noon.

  Upstairs in her sitting-room, that afternoon, she was thinking ofthese things. The morning mists had turned to rain, compelling thepostponement of an excursion in which the whole party were to havejoined. Effie, with her governess, had been despatched in the motor todo some shopping at Francheuil; and Anna had promised Darrow to joinhim, later in the afternoon, for a quick walk in the rain.

  He had gone to his room after luncheon to get some belated letters offhis conscience; and when he had left her she had continued to sit in thesame place, her hands crossed on her knees, her head slightly bent, inan attitude of brooding retrospection. As she looked back at her pastlife, it seemed to her to have consisted of one ceaseless effort to packinto each hour enough to fill out its slack folds; but now each momentwas like a miser's bag stretched to bursting with pure gold.

  She was roused by the sound of Owen's step in the gallery outside herroom. It paused at her door and in answer to his knock she called out"Come in!"

  As the door closed behind him she was struck by his look of paleexcitement, and an impulse of compunction made her say: "You've come toask me why I haven't spoken to your grandmother!" He sent about him aglance vaguely reminding her of the strange look with which Sophy Vinerhad swept the room the night before; then his brilliant eyes came backto her.

  "I've spoken to her myself," he said.

  Anna started up, incredulous.

  "You've spoken to her? When?"

  "Just now. I left her to come here."

  Anna's first feeling was one of annoyance. There was really somethingcomically incongruous in this boyish surrender to impulse on the part ofa young man so eager to assume the responsibilities of life. She lookedat him with a faintly veiled amusement.

  "You asked me to help you and I promised you I would. It was hardlyworth while to work out such an elaborate plan of action if you intendedto take the matter out of my hands without telling me."

  "Oh, don't take that tone with me!" he broke out, almost angrily.

  "That tone? What tone?" She stared at his quivering face. "I might," shepursued, still half-laughing, "more properly make that request of YOU!"

  Owen reddened and his vehemence suddenly subsided.

  "I meant that I HAD to speak--that's all. You don't give me a chance toexplain..."

  She looked at him gently, wondering a little at her own impatience.

  "Owen! Don't I always want to give you every chance? It's because I DOthat I wanted to talk to your grandmother first--that I was waiting andwatching for the right moment..."

  "The right moment? So was I. That's why I've spoken." His voice roseagain and took the sharp edge it had in moments of high pressure.

  His step-mother turned away and seated herself in her sofa-corner. "Oh,my dear, it's not a privilege to quarrel over! You've taken a load offmy shoulders. Sit down and tell me all about it."

  He stood before her, irresolute. "I can't sit down," he said.

  "Walk about, then. Only tell me: I'm impatient."

  His immediate response was to throw himself into the armchair at herside, where he lounged for a moment without speaking, his legs stretchedout, his arms locked behind his thrown-back head. Anna, her eyes on hisface, waited quietly for him to speak.

  "Well--of course it was just what one expected."

  "She takes it so badly, you mean?"

  "All the heavy batteries were brought up: my father, Givre, Monsieur deChantelle, the throne and the altar. Even my poor mother was dragged outof oblivion and armed with imaginary protests."

  Anna sighed out her sympathy. "Well--you were prepared for all that?"

  "I thought I was, till I began to hear her say it. Then it sounded soincredibly silly that I told her so."

  "Oh, Owen--Owen!"

  "Yes: I know. I was a fool; but I couldn't help it."

  "And you've mortally offended her, I suppose? That's exactly what Iwanted to prevent." She laid a hand on his shoulder. "You tiresome boy,not to wait and let me speak for you!"

  He moved slightly away, so that her hand slipped from its place. "Youdon't understand," he said, frowning.

  "I don't see how I can, till you explain. If you thought the time hadcome to tell your grandmother, why not have asked me to do it? I had myreasons for waiting; but if you'd told me to speak I should have doneso, naturally."

  He evaded her appeal by a sudden turn. "What WERE your reasons forwaiting?"

  Anna did not immediately answer. Her step-son's eyes were on her face,and under his gaze she felt a faint disquietude.

  "I was feeling my way...I wanted to be absolutely sure..."

  "Absolutely sure of what?"

  She delayed again for a just perceptible instant. "Why, simply of OURside of the case."

  "But you told me you were, the other day, when we talked it over beforethey came back from Ouchy."

  "Oh, my dear--if you think that, in such a complicated matter, everyday, every hour, doesn't more or less modify one's surest sureness!"

  "That's just what I'm driving at. I want to know what has modifiedyours."

  She made a slight gesture of impatience. "What does it matter, now thething's done? I don't know that I could give any clear reason..."

  He got to his feet and stood looking down on her with a tormented brow."But it's absolutely necessary that you should."

  At his tone her impatience flared up. "It's not necessary that I shouldgive you any explanation whatever, since you've taken the matter out ofmy hands. All I can say is that I was trying to help you: that no otherthought ever entered my mind." She paused a moment and then added: "Ifyou doubted it, you were right to do what you've done."

  "Oh, I never doubted YOU!" he retorted, with a fugitive stress onthe pronoun. His face had cleared to its old look of trust. "Don't beoffended if I've seemed to," he went on. "I can't quite explain myself,either...it's all a kind of tangle, isn't it? That's why I thought I'dbetter speak at once; or rather why I didn't think at all, but justsuddenly blurted the thing out----"

  Anna gave him back his look of conciliation. "Well, the how and whydon't much matter now. The point is how to deal with your grandmother.You've not told me what she means to do."

  "Oh, she means to send for Adelaide Painter."

  The name drew a faint note of mirth from him and relaxed both theirfaces to a smile.

  "Perhaps," Anna added, "it's really the best thing for us all."

  Owen shrugged his shoulders. "It's too preposterous and humiliating.Dragging that woman into our secrets----!"

  "This could h
ardly be a secret much longer."

  He had moved to the hearth, where he stood pushing about the smallornaments on the mantel-shelf; but at her answer he turned back to her.

  "You haven't, of course, spoken of it to any one?"

  "No; but I intend to now."

  She paused for his reply, and as it did not come she continued: "IfAdelaide Painter's to be told there's no possible reason why I shouldn'ttell Mr. Darrow." Owen abruptly set down the little statuette betweenhis fingers. "None whatever: I want every one to know."

  She smiled a little at his over-emphasis, and was about to meet it witha word of banter when he continued, facing her: "You haven't, as yet,said a word to him?"

  "I've told him nothing, except what the discussion of our own plans--hisand mine--obliged me to: that you were thinking of marrying, and thatI wasn't willing to leave France till I'd done what I could to see youthrough."

  At her first words the colour had rushed to his forehead; but as shecontinued she saw his face compose itself and his blood subside.

  "You're a brick, my dear!" he exclaimed.

  "You had my word, you know."

  "Yes; yes--I know." His face had clouded again. "And that'sall--positively all--you've ever said to him?"

  "Positively all. But why do you ask?"

  He had a moment's embarrassed hesitation. "It was understood, wasn't it,that my grandmother was to be the first to know?"

  "Well--and so she has been, hasn't she, since you've told her?"

  He turned back to his restless shifting of the knick-knacks.

  "And you're sure that nothing you've said to Darrow could possibly havegiven him a hint----?"

  "Nothing I've said to him--certainly."

  He swung about on her. "Why do you put it in that way?"

  "In what way?"

  "Why--as if you thought some one else might have spoken..."

  "Some one else? Who else?" She rose to her feet. "What on earth, my dearboy, can you be driving at?"

  "I'm trying to find out whether you think he knows anything definite."

  "Why should I think so? Do YOU?"

  "I don't know. I want to find out."

  She laughed at his obstinate insistence. "To test my veracity, Isuppose?" At the sound of a step in the gallery she added: "Here heis--you can ask him yourself."

  She met Darrow's knock with an invitation to enter, and he came into theroom and paused between herself and Owen. She was struck, as he stoodthere, by the contrast between his happy careless good-looks and herstep-son's frowning agitation.

  Darrow met her eyes with a smile. "Am I too soon? Or is our walk givenup?"

  "No; I was just going to get ready." She continued to linger betweenthe two, looking slowly from one to the other. "But there's something wewant to tell you first: Owen is engaged to Miss Viner."

  The sense of an indefinable interrogation in Owen's mind made her, asshe spoke, fix her eyes steadily on Darrow.

  He had paused just opposite the window, so that, even in the rainyafternoon light, his face was clearly open to her scrutiny. For asecond, immense surprise was alone visible on it: so visible thatshe half turned to her step-son, with a faint smile for his refutedsuspicions. Why, she wondered, should Owen have thought that Darrow hadalready guessed his secret, and what, after all, could be so disturbingto him in this not improbable contingency? At any rate, his doubtmust have been dispelled: there was nothing feigned about Darrow'sastonishment. When her eyes turned back to him he was already crossingto Owen with outstretched hand, and she had, through an unaccountablefaint flutter of misgiving, a mere confused sense of their exchangingthe customary phrases. Her next perception was of Owen's tranquillizedlook, and of his smiling return of Darrow's congratulatory grasp. Shehad the eerie feeling of having been overswept by a shadow which therehad been no cloud to cast...

  A moment later Owen had left the room and she and Darrow were alone. Hehad turned away to the window and stood staring out into the down-pour.

  "You're surprised at Owen's news?" she asked.

  "Yes: I am surprised," he answered.

  "You hadn't thought of its being Miss Viner?"

  "Why should I have thought of Miss Viner?"

  "You see now why I wanted so much to find out what you knew about her."He made no comment, and she pursued: "Now that you DO know it's she, ifthere's anything----"

  He moved back into the room and went up to her. His face was serious,with a slight shade of annoyance. "What on earth should there be? As Itold you, I've never in my life heard any one say two words about MissViner."

  Anna made no answer and they continued to face each other withoutmoving. For the moment she had ceased to think about Sophy Viner andOwen: the only thought in her mind was that Darrow was alone with her,close to her, and that, for the first time, their hands and lips had notmet.

  He glanced back doubtfully at the window. "It's pouring. Perhaps you'drather not go out?"

  She hesitated, as if waiting for him to urge her. "I suppose I'd betternot. I ought to go at once to my mother-in-law--Owen's just been tellingher," she said.

  "Ah." Darrow hazarded a smile. "That accounts for my having, on my wayup, heard some one telephoning for Miss Painter!"

  At the allusion they laughed together, vaguely, and Anna moved towardthe door. He held it open for her and followed her out.