Edith Wharton - SSC 09 Page 4

  “Oh, hell,” he groaned. “Can’t you get Kit to drop all that?”

  Mrs. Brown made an impatient gesture. “Isn’t he too foolish? Of course he ought to go away. He looks like nothing on earth. But his only idea of Switzerland is one of those awful places we used to have to go to because they were cheap, where there’s nothing to do in the evening but to sit with clergymen’s wives looking at stereopticon views of glaciers. I tell him he’ll love St. Moritz. There’s a thrill there every minute.”

  Stephen closed his eyes and sank his head back in the cushions without speaking. His face was drawn and weary; I was startled at the change in him since we had parted at Les Calanques.

  Mrs. Brown, following my glance, met it with warning brows and a finger on her painted lips. It was like a parody of Mrs. Glenn’s maternal gesture, and I perceived that it meant: “Can’t you see that he’s falling asleep? Do be tactful and slip out without disturbing him.”

  What could I do but obey? A moment later the studio door had closed on me, and I was going down the long flights of stairs. The worst of it was that I was not at all sure that Stephen was really asleep.

  

  VII.

  The next morning I received a telephone call from Stephen asking me to lunch. We met at a quiet restaurant near his studio, and when, after an admirably chosen meal, we settled down to coffee and cigars, he said carelessly: “Sorry you got thrown out that way yesterday.”

  “Oh, well—I saw you were tired, and I didn’t want to interfere with your nap.”

  He looked down moodily at his plate. “Tired—yes, I’m rued. But I didn’t want a nap. I merely simulated slumber to try and make Chrissy shut up.”

  “Ah—” I said.

  He shot a quick glance at me, almost resentfully, I thought. Then he went on: “There are times when aimless talk nearly kills me. I wonder,” he broke out suddenly, “if you can realize what it feels like for a man who’s never—I mean for an orphan—suddenly to find himself with two mothers?”

  I said I could see it might be arduous.

  “Arduous! It’s literally asphyxiating.” He frowned, and then smiled whimsically. “When I need all the fresh air I can get!”

  “My dear fellow—what you need first of all is to get away from cities and studios.”

  His frown deepened. “I know; I know all that. Only, you see—well, to begin with, before I turn up my toes I want to do something for mother Kit.”

  “Do something?”

  “Something to show her that I was—was worth all this fuss.” He paused, and turned his coffee-spoon absently between his long twitching fingers.

  I shrugged. “Whatever you do, she’ll always think that. Mothers do.”

  He murmured after me slowly: “Mothers—”

  “What she wants you to do now is to get well,” I insisted.

  “Yes; I know; I’m pledged to get well. But somehow that bargain doesn’t satisfy me. If I don’t get well I want to leave something behind me that’ll make her think: ‘If he’d lived a little longer he’d have pulled it off.”

  “If you left a gallery of masterpieces it wouldn’t help her much.”

  His face clouded, and he looked at me wistfully. “What the devil else can I do?”

  “Go to Switzerland, and let yourself be bored there for a whole winter. Then you can come back and paint, and enjoy your success instead of having the enjoyment done for you by your heirs.”

  “Oh, what a large order—” he sighed, and drew out his cigarettes.

  For a moment we were both silent; then he raised his eyes and looked straight at me. “Supposing I don’t get well, there’s another thing …” He hesitated a moment. “Do you happen to know if my mother has made her will?”

  I imagine my look must have surprised him, for he hurried on: “It’s only this: if I should drop out—you can never tell—there are Chrissy and Boy, poor helpless devils. I can’t forget what they’ve been to me … done for me … though sometimes I daresay I seem ungrateful. …”

  I listened to his embarrassed phrases with an embarrassment at least as great. “You may be sure your mother won’t forget either,” I said.

  “No; I suppose not. Of course not. Only sometimes—you can see for yourself that things are a little breezy … They feel that perhaps she doesn’t always remember for how many years …” He brought the words out as though he were reciting a lesson. “I can’t forget it …of course,” he added, painfully.

  I glanced at my watch and stood up. I wanted to spare him the evident effort of going on. “Mr. and Mrs. Brown’s tastes don’t always agree with your mother’s. That’s evident. If you could persuade them to go off somewhere—or to lead more independent lives when they’re with her—mightn’t that help?”

  He cast a despairing glance at me. “Lord—I wish you’d try! But you see they’re anxious—anxious about their future….”

  “I’m sure they needn’t be,” I answered shortly, more and more impatient to make an end.

  His face lit up with a suddenness that hurt me. “Oh, well … it’s sure to be all right if you say so. Of course you know.”

  “I know your mother,” I said, holding out my hand for goodbye.

  

  VIII.

  Shortly after my lunch with Stephen Glenn I was unexpectedly detached from my job in Paris and sent on a special mission to the other side of the world. I was sorry to bid goodbye to Mrs. Glenn, but relieved to be rid of the thankless task of acting as her counsellor. Not that she herself was not thankful, poor soul; but the situation abounded in problems, to not one of which could I find a solution; and I was embarrassed by her simple faith in my ability to do so. “Get rid of the Browns; pension them off,” I could only repeat; but since my talk with Stephen I had little hope of his mother’s acting on this suggestion. “You’ll probably all end up together at St. Moritz,” I prophesied; and a few months later a belated Paris Herald I, overtaking me in my remote corner of the globe, informed me that among the guests of the new Ice Palace Hotel at St. Moritz were Mrs. Glenn of New York, Mr. Stephen Glenn, and Mr. and Mrs. Boydon Brown. From succeeding numbers of the same sheet I learned that Mr. and Mrs. Boydon Brown were among those entertaining on the opening night of the new Restaurant des Glaciers, that the Boydon Brown cup for the most original costume at the Annual Fancy Ball of the Skiers’ Club had been won by Miss Thora Dacy (costume designed by the well-known artist, Stephen Glenn), and that Mr. Boydon Brown had been one of the stewards of the dinner given to the participants in the ice-hockey match between the St. Moritz and Suvretta teams. And on such items I was obliged to nourish my memory of my friends, for no direct news came to me from any of them.

  When I bade Mrs. Glenn goodbye I had told her that I had hopes of a post in the State Department at the close of my temporary mission, and she said, a little wistfully: “How wonderful if we could meet next year in America! As soon as Stephen is strong enough I want him to come back and live with me in his father’s house.” This seemed a natural wish; and it struck me that it might also be the means of effecting a break with the Browns. But Mrs. Glenn shook her head.

  “Chrissy says a winter in New York would amuse them both tremendously.”

  I was not so sure that it would amuse Stephen, and therefore did not base much hope on the plan. The one thing Stephen wanted was to get back to Paris and paint: it would presumably be his mother’s lot to settle down there when his health permitted.

  I heard nothing more until I got back to Washington the following spring; then I had a line from Stephen. The winter in the Engadine had been a deadly bore, but had really done him good, and his mother was just leaving for Paris to look for an apartment. She meant to take one on a long lease, and have the furniture of the New York house sent out—it would be jolly getting it arranged. As for him, the doctors said he was well enough to go on with his painting, and, as I knew, it was the one thing he cared for; so I might cast off all anxiety about the family. That was all—and perhaps
I should have obeyed if Mrs. Glenn had also written. But no word, no message even, came from her; and as she always wrote when there was good news to give, her silence troubled me.

  It was in the course of the same summer, during a visit to Bar Harbour, that one evening, dining with a friend, I found myself next to a slight pale girl with large gray eyes, who suddenly turned them on me reproachfully. “Then you don’t know me? I’m Thora.”

  I looked my perplexity, and she added: “Aren’t you Steve Glenn’s great friend? He’s always talking of you.” My memory struggled with a tangle of oddments, from which I finally extricated the phrase in the Herald about Miss Thora Dacy and the fancy-dress ball at St. Moritz. “You’re the young lady who won the Boydon Brown prize in a costume designed by the well-known artist, Mr. Stephen Glenn!”

  Her charming face fell. “If you know me only through that newspaper rubbish … I had an idea the well-known artist might have told you about me.”

  “He’s not much of a correspondent.”

  “No; but I thought—”

  “Why won’t you tell me yourself instead?”

  Dinner was over, and the company had moved out to a wide, starlit verandah looking seaward. I found a corner for two, and installed myself there with my new friend, who was also Stephen’s. “I like him awfully—don’t you?” she began at once. I liked her way of saying it; I liked her direct gaze; I found myself thinking: “But this may turn out to be the solution!” For I felt sure that, if circumstances ever gave her the right to take part in the coming struggle over Stephen, Thora Dacy would be on the side of the angels.

  As if she had guessed my thought she continued: “And I do love Mrs. Glenn too—don’t you?”

  I assured her that I did, and she added: “And Steve loves her—I’m sure he does!”

  “Well, if he didn’t—!” I exclaimed indignantly.

  “That’s the way I feel; he ought to. Only, you see, Mrs. Brown—the Browns adopted him when he was a baby, didn’t they, and brought him up as if he’d been their own child? I suppose they must know him better than any of us do; and Mrs. Brown says he can’t help feeling bitter about—I don’t know all the circumstances, but his mother did desert him soon after he was born, didn’t she? And if it hadn’t been for the Browns—”

  “The Browns—the Browns! It’s a pity they don’t leave it to other people to proclaim their merits! And I don’t believe Stephen does feel as they’d like you to think. If he does, he ought to be kicked. If—if complicated family reasons obliged Mrs. Glenn to separate herself from him when he was a baby, the way she mourned for him all those years, and her devotion since they’ve come together again, have atoned a thousandfold for that old unhappiness; and no one knows it better than Stephen.”

  The girl received this without protesting. “I’m so glad—so glad.” There was a new vibration in her voice; she looked up gravely. “I’ve always wanted to love Mrs. Glenn the best.”

  “Well, you’d better; especially if you love Stephen.”

  “Oh, I do love him,” she said simply. “But of course I understand his feeling as he does about the Browns.”

  I hesitated, not knowing how I ought to answer the question I detected under this; but at length I said: “Stephen, at any rate, must feel that Mrs. Brown has no business to insinuate anything against his mother. He ought to put a stop to that.” She met the suggestion with a sigh, and stood up to join another group. “Thora Dacy may yet save us!” I thought, as my gaze followed her light figure across the room.

  I had half a mind to write of that meeting to Stephen or to his mother; but the weeks passed while I procrastinated, and one day I received a note from Stephen. He wrote (with many messages from Mrs. Glenn) to give me their new address, and to tell me that he was hard at work at his painting, and doing a “promising portrait of mother Kit.” He signed himself my affectionate Steve, and added underneath: “So glad you’ve come across little Thora. She took a most tremendous shine to you. Do please be nice to her; she’s a dear child. But don’t encourage any illusions about me, please; marrying’s not in my programme.” “So that’s that,” I thought, and tore the letter up rather impatiently. I wondered if Thora Dacy already knew that her illusions were not to be encouraged.

  

  IX.

  The months went by, and I heard no more from my friends. Summer came round again, and with it the date of my six weeks’ holiday, which I purposed to take that year in Europe. Two years had passed since I had last seen Mrs. Glenn, and during that time I had received only two or three brief notes from her, thanking me for Christmas wishes, or telling me that Stephen was certainly better, though he would take no care of himself. But several months had passed since the date of her last report.

  I had meant to spend my vacation in a trip in southwestern France, and on the way over I decided to invite Stephen Glenn to join me. I therefore made direct for Paris, and the next morning rang him up at Mrs. Glenn’s. Mrs. Brown’s voice met me in reply, informing me that Stephen was no longer living with his mother. “Read the riot act to us all a few months ago—said he wanted to be independent. You know his fads. Dear Catherine was foolishly upset. As I said to her … yes, I’ll give you his address; but poor Steve’s not well just now … Oh, go on a trip with you? No; I’m afraid there’s no chance of that. The truth is, he told us he didn’t want to be bothered—rather warned us off the premises; even poor old Boy; and you know he adores Boy. I haven’t seen him myself for several days. But you can try … oh, of course, you can try … No; I’m afraid you can’t see Catherine either—not just at present. She’s been ill too—feverish; worrying about her naughty Steve, I suspect. I’m mounting guard for a few days, and not letting her see anybody till her temperature goes down. And would you do me a favour? Don’t write—don’t let her know you’re here. Not for a day or two, I mean … She’d be so distressed at not being able to see you. …”

  She rang off, and left me to draw my own conclusions.

  They were not of the pleasantest. I was perplexed by the apparent sequestration of both my friends, still more so by the disquieting mystery of Mrs. Glenn’s remaining with the Browns while Stephen had left them. Why had she not followed her son? Was it because she had not been allowed to? I conjectured that Mrs. Brown, knowing I was likely to put these questions to the persons concerned, was manoeuvring to prevent my seeing them. If she could manoeuvre, so could I; but for the moment I had to consider what line to take. The fact of her giving me Stephen’s address made me suspect that she had taken measures to prevent my seeing him; and if that were so there was not much use in making the attempt. And Mrs. Glenn was in bed, and “feverish,” and not to be told of my arrival….

  After a day’s pondering I reflected that telegrams sometimes penetrate where letters fail to, and decided to telegraph to Stephen. No reply came, but the following afternoon, as I was leaving my hotel a taxi drove up and Mrs. Glenn descended from it. She was dressed in black, with many hanging scarves and veils, as if she either feared the air or the searching eye of some one who might be interested in her movements. But for her white hair and heavy stooping lines she might have suggested the furtive figure of a young woman stealing to her lover. But when I looked at her the analogy seemed a profanation.

  To women of Catherine Glenn’s ripe beauty thinness gives a sudden look of age; and the face she raised among her thrown-back veils was emaciated. Illness and anxiety had scarred her as years and weather scar some beautiful still image on a church-front. She took my hand, and I led her into the empty reading-room. “You’ve been ill!” I said.

  “Not very; just a bad cold.” It was characteristic that while she looked at me with grave beseeching eyes her words were trivial, ordinary. “Chrissy’s so devoted—takes such care of me. She was afraid to have me go out. The weather’s so unsettled, isn’t it? But really I’m all right; and as it cleared this morning I just ran off for a minute to see you.” The entreaty in her eyes became a prayer. “Only don’t tell her,
will you? Dear Steve’s been ill too—did you know? And so I just slipped out while Chrissy went to see him. She sees him nearly every day, and brings me the news.” She gave a sigh and added, hardly above a whisper: “He sent me your address. She doesn’t know.”

  I listened with a sense of vague oppression. Why this mystery, this watching, these evasions? Was it because Steve was not allowed to write to me that he had smuggled my address to his mother? Mystery clung about us in damp fog-like coils, like the scarves and veils about Mrs. Glenn’s thin body. But I knew that I must let my visitor tell her tale in her own way; and, of course, when it was told, most of the mystery subsisted, for she was in it, enveloped in it, blinded by it. I gathered, however, that Stephen had been very unhappy. He had met at St. Moritz a girl whom he wanted to marry: Thora Dacy—ah, I’d heard of her, I’d met her? Mrs. Glenn’s face lit up. She had thought the child lovely; she had known the family in Washington—excellent people; she had been so happy in the prospect of Stephen’s happiness. And then something had happened … she didn’t know, she had an idea that Chrissy hadn’t liked the girl. The reason Stephen gave was that in his state of health he oughtn’t to marry; but at the time he’d been perfectly well—the doctors had assured his mother that his lungs were sound, and that there was no likelihood of a relapse. She couldn’t imagine why he should have had such scruples; still less why Chrissy should have encouraged them. For Chrissy had also put it on the ground of health; she had approved his decision. And since then he had been unsettled, irritable, difficult—oh, very difficult. Two or three months ago the state of tension in which they had all been living had reached a climax; Mrs. Glenn couldn’t say how or why—it was still obscure to her. But she suspected that Stephen had quarrelled with the Browns. They had patched it up now, they saw each other; but for a time there had certainly been something wrong. And suddenly Stephen had left the apartment, and moved into a wretched studio in a shabby quarter. The only reason he gave for leaving was that he had too many mothers—that was a joke, of course, Mrs. Glenn explained … but her eyes filled as she said it.