The Glimpses of the Moon - Edith Wharton (short novels in english txt) 📗

together

mournfully at the other end of the majestic vista.

 

Strefford, in his new mourning, looked unnaturally prosperous

and well-valeted; but his ugly untidy features remained as

undisciplined, his smile as whimsical, as of old. He had been

on cool though friendly terms with the pompous uncle and the

poor sickly cousin whose joint disappearance had so abruptly

transformed his future; and it was his way to understate his

feelings rather than to pretend more than he felt.

Nevertheless, beneath his habitual bantering tone Susy discerned

a change. The disaster had shocked him profoundly; already, in

his brief sojourn among his people and among the great

possessions so tragically acquired, old instincts had awakened,

forgotten associations had spoken in him. Susy listened to him

wistfully, silenced by her imaginative perception of the

distance that these things had put between them.

 

“It was horrible … seeing them both there together, laid out

in that hideous Pugin chapel at Altringham … the poor boy

especially. I suppose that’s really what’s cutting me up now,”

he murmured, almost apologetically.

 

“Oh, it’s more than that—more than you know,” she insisted; but

he jerked back: “Now, my dear, don’t be edifying, please,” and

fumbled for a cigarette in the pocket which was already

beginning to bulge with his miscellaneous properties.

 

“And now about you—for that’s what I came for,” he continued,

turning to her with one of his sudden movements. “I couldn’t

make head or tail of your letter.”

 

She paused a moment to steady her voice. “Couldn’t you? I

suppose you’d forgotten my bargain with Nick. He hadn’t-and

he’s asked me to fulfil it.”

 

Strefford stared. “What—that nonsense about your setting each

other free if either of you had the chance to make a good

match?”

 

She signed “Yes.”

 

“And he’s actually asked you—?”

 

“Well: practically. He’s gone off with the Hickses. Before

going he wrote me that we’d better both consider ourselves free.

And Coral sent me a postcard to say that she would take the best

of care of him.”

 

Strefford mused, his eyes upon his cigarette. “But what the

deuce led up to all this? It can’t have happened like that, out

of a clear sky.”

 

Susy flushed, hesitated, looked away. She had meant to tell

Strefford the whole story; it had been one of her chief reasons

for wishing to see him again, and half-unconsciously, perhaps,

she had hoped, in his laxer atmosphere, to recover something of

her shattered self-esteem. But now she suddenly felt the

impossibility of confessing to anyone the depths to which Nick’s

wife had stooped. She fancied that her companion guessed the

nature of her hesitation.

 

“Don’t tell me anything you don’t want to, you know, my dear.”

 

“No; I do want to; only it’s difficult. You see—we had so very

little money ….”

 

“Yes?”

 

“And Nick—who was thinking of his book, and of all sorts of big

things, fine things—didn’t realise … left it all to me … to

manage ….”

 

She stumbled over the word, remembering how Nick had always

winced at it. But Strefford did not seem to notice her, and she

hurried on, unfolding in short awkward sentences the avowal of

their pecuniary difficulties, and of Nick’s inability to

understand that, to keep on with the kind of life they were

leading, one had to put up with things … accept favours ….

 

“Borrow money, you mean?”

 

“Well—yes; and all the rest.” No—decidedly she could not

reveal to Strefford the episode of Ellie’s letters. “Nick

suddenly felt, I suppose, that he couldn’t stand it,” she

continued; “and instead of asking me to try—to try to live

differently, go off somewhere with him and live, like work-people, in two rooms, without a servant, as I was ready to do;

well, instead he wrote me that it had all been a mistake from

the beginning, that we couldn’t keep it up, and had better

recognize the fact; and he went off on the Hickses’ yacht. The

last evening that you were in Venice—the day he didn’t come

back to dinner—he had gone off to Genoa to meet them. I

suppose he intends to marry Coral.”

 

Strefford received this in silence. “Well—it was your bargain,

wasn’t it?” he said at length.

 

“Yes; but—”

 

“Exactly: I always told you so. You weren’t ready to have him

go yet—that’s all.”

 

She flushed to the forehead. “Oh, Streff—is it really all?”

 

“A question of time? If you doubt it, I’d like to see you try,

for a while, in those two rooms without a servant; and then let

me hear from you. Why, my dear, it’s only a question of time in

a palace, with a steam yacht lying off the doorstep, and a

flock of motors in the garage; look around you and see. And did

you ever imagine that you and Nick, of all people, were going to

escape the common doom, and survive like Mr. and Mrs. Tithonus,

while all about you the eternal passions were crumbling to

pieces, and your native Divorce-states piling up their

revenues?”

 

She sat with bent head, the weight of the long years to come

pressing like a leaden load on her shoulders.

 

“But I’m so young … life’s so long. What does last, then?”

 

“Ah, you’re too young to believe me, if I were to tell you;

though you’re intelligent enough to understand.”

 

“What does, then?”

 

“Why, the hold of the things we all think we could do without.

Habits—they outstand the Pyramids. Comforts, luxuries, the

atmosphere of ease … above all, the power to get away from

dulness and monotony, from constraints and uglinesses. You

chose that power, instinctively, before you were even grown up;

and so did Nick. And the only difference between you is that

he’s had the sense to see sooner than you that those are the

things that last, the prime necessities.”

 

“I don’t believe it!”

 

“Of course you don’t: at your age one doesn’t reason one’s

materialism. And besides you’re mortally hurt that Nick has

found out sooner than you, and hasn’t disguised his discovery

under any hypocritical phrases.”

 

“But surely there are people—”

 

“Yes—saints and geniuses and heroes: all the fanatics! To

which of their categories do you suppose we soft people belong?

And the heroes and the geniuses—haven’t they their enormous

frailties and their giant appetites? And how should we escape

being the victims of our little ones?”

 

She sat for a while without speaking. “But, Streff, how can you

say such things, when I know you care: care for me, for

instance!”

 

“Care?” He put his hand on hers. “But, my dear, it’s just the

fugitiveness of mortal caring that makes it so exquisite! It’s

because we know we can’t hold fast to it, or to each other, or

to anything ….”

 

“Yes … yes … but hush, please! Oh, don’t say it!” She

stood up, the tears in her throat, and he rose also.

 

“Come along, then; where do we lunch?” he said with a smile,

slipping his hand through her arm.

 

“Oh, I don’t know. Nowhere. I think I’m going back to

Versailles.”

 

“Because I’ve disgusted you so deeply? Just my luck—when I

came over to ask you to marry me!”

 

She laughed, but he had become suddenly grave. “Upon my soul, I

did.”

 

“Dear Streff! As if—now—”

 

“Oh, not now—I know. I’m aware that even with your accelerated

divorce methods—”

 

“It’s not that. I told you it was no use, Streff—I told you

long ago, in Venice.”

 

He shrugged ironically. “It’s not Streff who’s asking you now.

Streff was not a marrying man: he was only trifling with you.

The present offer comes from an elderly peer of independent

means. Think it over, my dear: as many days out as you like, and

five footmen kept. There’s not the least hurry, of course; but

I rather think Nick himself would advise it.”

 

She flushed to the temples, remembering that Nick had; and the

remembrance made Strefford’s sneering philosophy seem less

unbearable. Why should she not lunch with him, after all? In

the first days of his mourning he had come to Paris expressly to

see her, and to offer her one of the oldest names and one of the

greatest fortunes in England. She thought of Ursula Gillow,

Ellie Vanderlyn, Violet Melrose, of their condescending

kindnesses, their last year’s dresses, their Christmas cheques,

and all the careless bounties that were so easy to bestow and so

hard to accept. “I should rather enjoy paying them back,”

something in her maliciously murmured.

 

She did not mean to marry Strefford—she had not even got as far

as contemplating the possibility of a divorce but it was

undeniable that this sudden prospect of wealth and freedom was

like fresh air in her lungs. She laughed again, but now without

bitterness.

 

“Very good, then; we’ll lunch together. But it’s Streff I want

to lunch with to-day.”

 

“Ah, well,” her companion agreed, “I rather think that for a

tete-a-tete he’s better company.”

 

During their repast in a little restaurant over the Seine, where

she insisted on the cheapest dishes because she was lunching

with “Streff,” he became again his old whimsical companionable

self. Once or twice she tried to turn the talk to his altered

future, and the obligations and interests that lay before him;

but he shrugged away from the subject, questioning her instead

about the motley company at Violet Melrose’s, and fitting a

droll or malicious anecdote to each of the people she named.

 

It was not till they had finished their coffee, and she was

glancing at her watch with a vague notion of taking the next

train, that he asked abruptly: “But what are you going to do?

You can’t stay forever at Violet’s.”

 

“Oh, no!” she cried with a shiver.

 

“Well, then—you’ve got some plan, I suppose?”

 

“Have I?” she wondered, jerked back into grim reality from the

soothing interlude of their hour together.

 

“You can’t drift indefinitely, can you? Unless you mean to go

back to the old sort of life once for all.”

 

She reddened and her eyes filled. “I can’t do that, Streff—I

know I can’t!”

 

“Then what—?”

 

She hesitated, and brought out with lowered head: “Nick said he

would write again—in a few days. I must wait—”

 

“Oh, naturally. Don’t do anything in a hurry.” Strefford also

glanced at his watch. “Garcon, l’addition! I’m taking the

train back to-night, and I’ve a lot of things left to do. But

look here, my dear—when you come to a decision one way or the

other let me know, will you? Oh, I don’t mean in the matter

I’ve most at heart; we’ll consider that closed for the present.

But at least I can be of use in other ways—hang it, you know, I

can even lend you money. There’s a new sensation for our jaded

palates!”

 

“Oh, Streff … Streff!” she could only falter; and he pressed

on gaily: “Try it, now do try it—I assure you there’ll be no

interest to pay, and no conditions attached. And promise to let

me know when you’ve decided anything. “

 

She looked into his humorously puckered eyes, answering. Their

friendly smile with hers.

 

“I promise!” she said.

XV

THAT hour with Strefford had altered her whole perspective.

Instead of possible dependence, an enforced return to the old

life of connivances and concessions, she saw before her—

whenever she chose to take them—freedom, power and dignity.

Dignity! It was odd what weight that word had come to have for

her. She had dimly felt its significance, felt the need of its

presence in her inmost soul, even