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

class="calibre1">the strong bows of the Ibis hardly swayed as she flew forward

over the flying crests.

 

Only his hosts and their daughter were on the yacht-of course

with Eldorada Tooker and Mr. Beck in attendance. An eminent

archaeologist, who was to have joined them at Naples, had

telegraphed an excuse at the last moment; and Nick noticed that,

while Mrs. Hicks was perpetually apologizing for the great man’s

absence, Coral merely smiled and said nothing.

 

As a matter of fact, Mr. and Mrs. Hicks were never as pleasant

as when one had them to one’s self. In company, Mr. Hicks ran

the risk of appearing over-hospitable, and Mrs. Hicks confused

dates and names in the desire to embrace all culture in her

conversation. But alone with Nick, their old travelling-companion, they shone out in their native simplicity, and Mr.

Hicks talked soundly of investments, and Mrs. Hicks recalled her

early married days in Apex City, when, on being brought home to

her new house in Aeschylus Avenue, her first thought had been:

“How on earth shall I get all those windows washed?”

 

The loss of Mr. Buttles had been as serious to them as Nick had

supposed: Mr. Beck could never hope to replace him. Apart from

his mysterious gift of languages, and his almost superhuman

faculty for knowing how to address letters to eminent people,

and in what terms to conclude them, he had a smattering of

archaeology and general culture on which Mrs. Hicks had learned

to depend—her own memory being, alas, so inadequate to the

range of her interests.

 

Her daughter might perhaps have helped her; but it was not Miss

Hicks’s way to mother her parents. She was exceedingly kind to

them, but left them, as it were, to bring themselves up as best

they could, while she pursued her own course of self-development. A sombre zeal for knowledge filled the mind of

this strange girl: she appeared interested only in fresh

opportunities of adding to her store of facts. They were

illuminated by little imagination and less poetry; but,

carefully catalogued and neatly sorted in her large cool brain,

they were always as accessible as the volumes in an up-to-date

public library.

 

To Nick there was something reposeful in this lucid intellectual

curiosity. He wanted above all things to get away from

sentiment, from seduction, from the moods and impulses and

flashing contradictions that were Susy. Susy was not a great

reader: her store of facts was small, and she had grown up

among people who dreaded ideas as much as if they had been a

contagious disease. But, in the early days especially, when

Nick had put a book in her hand, or read a poem to her, her

swift intelligence had instantly shed a new light on the

subject, and, penetrating to its depths, had extracted from them

whatever belonged to her. What a pity that this exquisite

insight, this intuitive discrimination, should for the most part

have been spent upon reading the thoughts of vulgar people, and

extracting a profit from them—should have been wasted, since

her childhood, on all the hideous intricacies of “managing”!

 

And visible beauty—how she cared for that too! He had not

guessed it, or rather he had not been sure of it, till the day

when, on their way through Paris, he had taken her to the

Louvre, and they had stood before the little Crucifixion of

Mantegna. He had not been looking at the picture, or watching

to see what impression it produced on Susy. His own momentary

mood was for Correggio and Fragonard, the laughter of the Music

Lesson and the bold pagan joys of the Antiope; and then he had

missed her from his side, and when he came to where she stood,

forgetting him, forgetting everything, had seen the glare of

that tragic sky in her face, her trembling lip, the tears on her

lashes. That was Susy ….

 

Closing his book he stole a glance at Coral Hicks’s profile,

thrown back against the cushions of the deck-chair at his side.

There was something harsh and bracing in her blunt primitive

build, in the projection of the black eyebrows that nearly met

over her thick straight nose, and the faint barely visible black

down on her upper lip. Some miracle of will-power, combined

with all the artifices that wealth can buy, had turned the fat

sallow girl he remembered into this commanding young woman,

almost handsome at times indisputably handsome—in her big

authoritative way. Watching the arrogant lines of her profile

against the blue sea, he remembered, with a thrill that was

sweet to his vanity, how twice—under the dome of the Scalzi and

in the streets of Genoa—he had seen those same lines soften at

his approach, turn womanly, pleading and almost humble. That

was Coral ….

 

Suddenly she said, without turning toward him: “You’ve had no

letters since you’ve been on board.”

 

He looked at her, surprised. “No—thank the Lord!” he laughed.

 

“And you haven’t written one either,” she continued in her hard

statistical tone.

 

“No,” he again agreed, with the same laugh.

 

“That means that you really are free—”

 

“Free?”

 

He saw the cheek nearest him redden. “Really off on a holiday,

I mean; not tied down.” After a pause he rejoined: “No, I’m

not particularly tied down.”

 

“And your book?”

 

“Oh, my book—” He stopped and considered. He had thrust The

Pageant of Alexander into his handbag on the night of his Bight

from Venice; but since then he had never looked at it. Too many

memories and illusions were pressed between its pages; and he

knew just at what page he had felt Ellie Vanderlyn bending over

him from behind, caught a whiff of her scent, and heard her

breathless “I had to thank you!”

 

“My book’s hung up,” he said impatiently, annoyed with Miss

Hicks’s lack of tact. There was a girl who never put out

feelers ….

 

“Yes; I thought it was,” she went on quietly, and he gave her a

startled glance. What the devil else did she think, he

wondered? He had never supposed her capable of getting far

enough out of her own thick carapace of self-sufficiency to

penetrate into any one else’s feelings.

 

“The truth is,” he continued, embarrassed, “I suppose I dug away

at it rather too continuously; that’s probably why I felt the

need of a change. You see I’m only a beginner.”

 

She still continued her relentless questioning. “But later—

you’ll go on with it, of course?”

 

“Oh, I don’t know.” He paused, glanced down the glittering

deck, and then out across the glittering water. “I’ve been

dreaming dreams, you see. I rather think I shall have to drop

the book altogether, and try to look out for a job that will

pay. To indulge in my kind of literature one must first have an

assured income.”

 

He was instantly annoyed with himself for having spoken.

Hitherto in his relations with the Hickses he had carefully

avoided the least allusion that might make him feel the heavy

hand of their beneficence. But the idle procrastinating weeks

had weakened him and he had yielded to the need of putting into

words his vague intentions. To do so would perhaps help to make

them more definite.

 

To his relief Miss Hicks made no immediate reply; and when she

spoke it was in a softer voice and with an unwonted hesitation.

 

“It seems a shame that with gifts like yours you shouldn’t find

some kind of employment that would leave you leisure enough to

do your real work ….”

 

He shrugged ironically. “Yes—there are a goodish number of us

hunting for that particular kind of employment.”

 

Her tone became more business-like. “I know it’s hard to

find—almost impossible. But would you take it, I wonder, if it

were offered to you—?”

 

She turned her head slightly, and their eyes met. For an

instant blank terror loomed upon him; but before he had time to

face it she continued, in the same untroubled voice: “Mr.

Buttles’s place, I mean. My parents must absolutely have some

one they can count on. You know what an easy place it is ….

I think you would find the salary satisfactory.”

 

Nick drew a deep breath of relief. For a moment her eyes had

looked as they had in the Scalzi—and he liked the girl too much

not to shrink from reawakening that look. But Mr. Buttles’s

place: why not?

 

“Poor Buttles!” he murmured, to gain time.

 

“Oh,” she said, “you won’t find the same reasons as he did for

throwing up the job. He was the martyr of his artistic

convictions.”

 

He glanced at her sideways, wondering. After all she did not

know of his meeting with Mr. Buttles in Genoa, nor of the

latter’s confidences; perhaps she did not even know of Mr.

Buttles’s hopeless passion. At any rate her face remained calm.

 

“Why not consider it—at least just for a few months? Till

after our expedition to Mesopotamia?” she pressed on, a little

breathlessly.

 

“You’re awfully kind: but I don’t know—”

 

She stood up with one of her abrupt movements. “You needn’t,

all at once. Take time think it over. Father wanted me to ask

you,” she appended.

 

He felt the inadequacy of his response. “It tempts me awfully,

of course. But I must wait, at any rate—wait for letters. The

fact is I shall have to wire from Rhodes to have them sent. I

had chucked everything, even letters, for a few weeks.”

 

“Ah, you are tired,” she murmured, giving him a last downward

glance as she turned away.

 

>From Rhodes Nick Lansing telegraphed to his Paris bank to send

his letters to Candia; but when the Ibis reached Candia, and the

mail was brought on board, the thick envelope handed to him

contained no letter from Susy.

 

Why should it, since he had not yet written to her?

 

He had not written, no: but in sending his address to the bank

he knew he had given her the opportunity of reaching him if she

wished to. And she had made no sign.

 

Late that afternoon, when they returned to the yacht from their

first expedition, a packet of newspapers lay on the deck-house

table. Nick picked up one of the London journals, and his eye

ran absently down the list of social events.

 

He read:

 

“Among the visitors expected next week at Ruan Castle (let for

the season to Mr. Frederick J. Gillow of New York) are Prince

Altineri of Rome, the Earl of Altringham and Mrs. Nicholas

Lansing, who arrived in London last week from Paris. “Nick threw

down the paper. It was just a month since he had left the

Palazzo Vanderlyn and flung himself into the night express for

Milan. A whole month—and Susy had not written. Only a month—

and Susy and Strefford were already together!

XVII

SUSY had decided to wait for Strefford in London.

 

The new Lord Altringham was with his family in the north, and

though she found a telegram on arriving, saying that he would

join her in town the following week, she had still an interval

of several days to fill.

 

London was a desert; the rain fell without ceasing, and alone in

the shabby family hotel which, even out of season, was the best

she could afford, she sat at last face to face with herself.

 

>From the moment when Violet Melrose had failed to carry out her

plan for the Fulmer children her interest in Susy had visibly

waned. Often before, in the old days, Susy Branch had felt the

same abrupt change of temperature in the manner of the hostess

of the moment; and