The Custom of the Country (24 page)

‘Father, I did what you wanted that one time, anyhow – won’t you listen to me and help me out now?’

U
NDINE
stood alone on the landing outside her father’s office.

Only once before had she failed to gain her end with him – and there was a peculiar irony in the fact that Moffatt’s intrusion should have brought before her the providential result of her previous failure. Not that she confessed to any real resemblance between the two situations. In the present
case she knew well enough what she wanted, and how to get it. But the analogy had served her father’s purpose, and Moffatt’s unlucky entrance had visibly strengthened his resistance.

The worst of it was that the obstacles in the way were real enough. Mr Spragg had not put her off with vague asseverations – somewhat against her will he had forced his proofs on her, showing her how much above his promised allowance he had contributed in the last three years to the support of her household. Since she could not accuse herself of extravagance – having still full faith in her gift of ‘managing’ – she could only conclude that it was impossible to live on what her father and Ralph could provide; and this seemed a practical reason for desiring her freedom. If she and Ralph parted he would of course return to his family, and Mr Spragg would no longer be burdened with a helpless son-in-law. But even this argument did not move him. Undine, as soon as she had risked Van Degen’s name, found herself face to face with a code of domestic conduct as rigid as its exponent’s business principles were elastic. Mr Spragg did not regard divorce as intrinsically wrong or even inexpedient; and of its social disadvantages he had never even heard. Lots of women did it, as Undine said; and if their reasons were adequate they were justified. If Ralph Marvell had been a drunkard or ‘unfaithful’ Mr Spragg would have approved Undine’s desire to divorce him; but that it should be prompted by her inclination for another man – and a man with a wife of his own – was as shocking to him as it would have been to the most uncompromising of the Dagonets and Marvells. Such things happened, as Mr Spragg knew, but they should not happen to any woman of his name while he had the power to prevent it; and Undine recognized that for the moment he had that power.

As she emerged from the elevator she was surprised to see Moffatt in the vestibule. His presence was an irritating reminder of her failure, and she walked past him with a rapid bow; but he overtook her.

‘Mrs Marvell – I’ve been waiting to say a word to you.’

If it had been any one else she would have passed on; but Moffatt’s voice had always a detaining power. Even now that she knew him to be defeated and negligible the power asserted itself, and she paused to say: ‘I’m afraid I can’t stop – I’m late for an engagement.’

‘I shan’t make you much later; but if you’d rather have me call round at your house –’

‘Oh, I’m so seldom in.’ She turned a wondering look on him. ‘What is it you wanted to say?’

‘Just two words. I’ve got an office in this building and the shortest way would be to come up there for a minute.’ As her look grew distant he added: ‘I think what I’ve got to say is worth the trip.’

His face was serious, without underlying irony: the face he wore when he wanted to be trusted.

‘Very well,’ she said, turning back.

Undine, glancing at her watch as she came out of Moffatt’s office, saw that he had been true to his promise of not keeping her more than ten minutes. The fact was characteristic. Under all his incalculableness there had always been a hard foundation of reliability: it seemed to be a matter of choice with him whether he let one feel that solid bottom or not. And in specific matters the same quality showed itself in an accuracy of statement, a precision of conduct, that contrasted curiously with his usual hyperbolic banter and his loose lounging manner. No one could be more elusive yet no one could be firmer to the touch.

Her face had cleared and she moved more lightly as she left the building. Moffatt’s communication had not been completely clear to her, but she understood the outline of the plan he had laid before her, and was satisfied with the bargain they had struck. He had begun by reminding her of her promise to introduce him to any friend of hers who might be useful in the way of business. Over three years had passed since they had made the pact, and Moffatt had kept loyally to
his side of it. With the lapse of time the whole matter had become less important to her, but she wanted to prove her good faith, and when he reminded her of her promise she at once admitted it.

‘Well, then – I want you to introduce me to your husband.’

Undine was surprised; but beneath her surprise she felt a quick sense of relief. Ralph was easier to manage than so many of her friends – and it was a mark of his present indifference to acquiesce in anything she suggested.

‘My husband? Why, what can he do for you?’

Moffatt explained at once, in the fewest words, as his way was when it came to business. He was interested in a big ‘deal’ which involved the purchase of a piece of real estate held by a number of wrangling heirs. The real-estate broker with whom Ralph Marvell was associated represented these heirs, but Moffatt had his reasons for not approaching him directly. And he didn’t want to go to Marvell with a ‘business proposition’ – it would be better to be thrown with him socially, as if by accident. It was with that object that Moffatt had just appealed to Mr Spragg, but Mr Spragg, as usual, had ‘turned him down’, without even consenting to look into the case.

‘He’d rather have you miss a good thing than have it come to you through me. I don’t know what on earth he thinks it’s in my power to do to you – or ever was, for that matter,’ he added. ‘Anyhow,’ he went on to explain, ‘the power’s all on your side now; and I’ll show you how little the doing will hurt you as soon as I can have a quiet chat with your husband.’ He branched off again into technicalities, nebulous projections of capital and interest, taxes and rents, from which she finally extracted, and clung to, the central fact that if the ‘deal went through’ it would mean a commission of forty thousand dollars to Marvell’s firm, of which something over a fourth would come to Ralph.

‘By Jove, that’s an amazing fellow!’ Ralph Marvell
exclaimed, turning back into the drawing-room, a few evenings later, at the conclusion of one of their little dinners.

Undine looked up from her seat by the fire. She had had the inspired thought of inviting Moffatt to meet Clare Van Degen, Mrs Fairford and Charles Bowen. It had occurred to her that the simplest way of explaining Moffatt was to tell Ralph that she had unexpectedly discovered an old Apex acquaintance in the protagonist of the great Ararat Trust fight. Moffatt’s defeat had not wholly divested him of interest. As a factor in affairs he no longer inspired apprehension, but as the man who had dared to defy Harmon B. Driscoll he was a conspicuous and, to some minds, almost an heroic figure.

Undine remembered that Clare and Mrs Fairford had once expressed a wish to see this braver of the Olympians, and her suggestion that he should be asked to meet them gave Ralph evident pleasure. It was long since she had made any conciliatory sign to his family.

Moffatt’s social gifts were hardly of a kind to please the two ladies: he would have shone more brightly in Peter Van Degen’s set than in his wife’s. But neither Clare nor Mrs Fairford had expected a man of conventional cut, and Moffatt’s loud uneasiness was obviously less disturbing to them than to their hostess. Undine felt only his crudeness, and the tacit criticism passed on it by the mere presence of such men as her husband and Bowen; but Mrs Fairford seemed to enjoy provoking him to fresh excesses of slang and hyperbole. Gradually she drew him into talking of the Driscoll campaign, and he became recklessly explicit. He seemed to have nothing to hold back: all the details of the prodigious exploit poured from him with Homeric volume. Then he broke off abruptly, thrusting his hands into his trouser-pockets and shaping his red lips to a whistle which he checked as his glance met Undine’s. To conceal his embarrassment he leaned back in his chair, looked about the table with complacency, and said ‘I don’t mind if I do’ to the servant who approached to refill his champagne glass.

The men sat long over their cigars; but after an interval Undine called Charles Bowen into the drawing-room to settle some question in dispute between Clare and Mrs Fairford, and thus gave Moffatt a chance to be alone with her husband. Now that their guests had gone she was throbbing with anxiety to know what had passed between the two; but when Ralph rejoined her in the drawing-room she continued to keep her eyes on the fire and twirl her fan listlessly.

‘That’s an amazing chap,’ Ralph repeated, looking down at her. ‘Where was it you ran across him – out at Apex?’

As he leaned against the chimney-piece, lighting his cigarette, it struck Undine that he looked less fagged and lifeless than usual, and she felt more and more sure that something important had happened during the moment of isolation she had contrived.

She opened and shut her fan reflectively. ‘Yes – years ago; father had some business with him and brought him home to dinner one day.’

‘And you’ve never seen him since?’

She waited, as if trying to piece her recollections together. ‘I suppose I must have; but all that seems so long ago,’ she said sighing. She had been given, of late, to such plaintive glances toward her happy girlhood; but Ralph seemed not to notice the allusion.

‘Do you know,’ he exclaimed after a moment, ‘I don’t believe the fellow’s beaten yet.’

She looked up quickly. ‘Don’t you?’

‘No; and I could see that Bowen didn’t either. He strikes me as the kind of man who develops slowly, needs a big field, and perhaps makes some big mistakes, but gets where he wants to in the end. Jove, I wish I could put him in a book! There’s something epic about him – a kind of epic effrontery.’

Undine’s pulses beat faster as she listened. Was it not what Moffatt had always said of himself – that all he needed was time and elbow-room? How odd that Ralph, who seemed so dreamy and unobservant, should instantly have reached the
same conclusion! But what she wanted to know was the practical result of their meeting.

‘What did you and he talk about when you were smoking?’

‘Oh, he got on the Driscoll fight again – gave us some extraordinary details. The man’s a thundering brute, but he’s full of observation and humour. Then, after Bowen joined you, he told me about a new deal he’s gone into – rather a promising scheme, but on the same Titanic scale. It’s just possible, by the way, that we may be able to do something for him: part of the property he’s after is held in our office.’ He paused, knowing Undine’s indifference to business matters; but the face she turned to him was alive with interest.

‘You mean you might sell the property to him?’

‘Well, if the thing comes off. There would be a big commission if we did.’ He glanced down on her half ironically. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

She answered with a shade of reproach: ‘Why do you say that? I haven’t complained.’

‘Oh, no; but I know I’ve been a disappointment as a money-maker.’

She leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes as if in utter weariness and indifference, and in a moment she felt him bending over her. ‘What’s the matter? Don’t you feel well?’

‘I’m a little tired. It’s nothing.’ She pulled her hand away and burst into tears.

Ralph knelt down by her chair and put his arm about her. It was the first time he had touched her since the night of the boy’s birthday, and the sense of her softness woke a momentary warmth in his veins.

‘What is it, dear? What is it?’

Without turning her head she sobbed out: ‘You seem to think I’m too selfish and odious – that I’m just pretending to be ill.’

‘No, no,’ he assured her, smoothing back her hair. But she continued to sob on in a gradual crescendo of despair, till the vehemence of her weeping began to frighten him, and he
drew her to her feet and tried to persuade her to let herself be led upstairs. She yielded to his arm, sobbing in short exhausted gasps, and leaning her whole weight on him as he guided her along the passage to her bedroom. On the lounge to which he lowered her she lay white and still, tears trickling through her lashes and her handkerchief pressed against her lips. He recognized the symptoms with a sinking heart: she was on the verge of a nervous attack such as she had had in the winter, and he foresaw with dismay the disastrous train of consequences, the doctors’ and nurses’ bills, and all the attendant confusion and expense. If only Moffatt’s project might be realized – if for once he could feel a round sum in his pocket, and be freed from the perpetual daily strain!

The next morning Undine, though calmer, was too weak to leave her bed, and her doctor prescribed rest and absence of worry – later, perhaps, a change of scene. He explained to Ralph that nothing was so wearing to a high-strung nature as monotony, and that if Mrs Marvell were contemplating a Newport season it was necessary that she should be fortified to meet it. In such cases he often recommended a dash to Paris or London, just to tone up the nervous system.

Undine regained her strength slowly, and as the days dragged on the suggestion of the European trip recurred with increasing frequency. But it came always from her medical adviser: she herself had grown strangely passive and indifferent. She continued to remain upstairs on her lounge, seeing no one but Mrs Heeny, whose daily ministrations had once more been prescribed, and asking only that the noise of Paul’s play should be kept from her. His scamperings overhead disturbed her sleep, and his bed was moved into the day nursery, above his father’s room. The child’s early romping did not trouble Ralph, since he himself was always awake before daylight. The days were not long enough to hold his cares, and they came and stood by him through the silent hours, when there was no other sound to drown their voices.

Ralph had not made a success of his business. The real-estate
brokers who had taken him into partnership had done so only with the hope of profiting by his social connections; and in this respect the alliance had been a failure. It was in such directions that he most lacked facility, and so far he had been of use to his partners only as an office-drudge. He was resigned to the continuance of such drudgery, though all his powers cried out against it; but even for the routine of business his aptitude was small, and he began to feel that he was not considered an addition to the firm. The difficulty of finding another opening made him fear a break; and his thoughts turned hopefully to Elmer Moffatt’s hint of a ‘deal’. The success of the negotiation might bring advantages beyond the immediate pecuniary profit; and that, at the present juncture, was important enough in itself.