Waltz Into Darkness (45 page)

There
was nothing he could do. If he stopped her this time, she would find
another. If he accused, she would deny. If he proved, then her
smouldering resentment would burst into open flame, and he didn't
want that.

A
letter to the past. A letter to that other, subterranean world he
thought she had left forever.

He
went out and closed the door behind him, heavy hearted.

If
there was an added quality to be detected in her, several hours
later, on his return, it was a glint of malicious satisfaction, a
sort of sneer within the eyes. The look of one who says to herself, I
have not been idle. Just wait, and you shall see.

Within
another two days he could stand their estrangement no longer, he had
capitulated. He had capitulated in a lie; he had prostituted the
truth itself to his submission, than which there can be no greater
capitulation on the part of one to the desires of another. Making
what is not so, so, for the sake of renewed amity.

"I
lied to you, Bonny," he said without preamble.

She
was stroking her hair in readiness for bed, her back was to him.
Literally now, as it had been figuratively for days on end.

"There
is more money. That was not the end of it."

She
set down her brush smartly, turned to stare.

"Then
why did you tell me that? What did you do it for ?"

"I
thought perhaps we might run through it too quickly. I thought
perhaps we should put it by for a little while, for some later day."

Greed
must have dulled her perceptions. He made a poor liar, at best. And
now, because of the stake involved, he was at his worst. Yet she
wanted to believe him, and so she wholeheartedly did. Instantly she
had accepted for fact his faltering figment; that could be told by
the swiftness with which she entered into argument over it. And you
do not argue over something that is not a fact, you disregard it; you
argue only over something that is.

"Later?"
she said heatedly. "How much later? Will we be any younger when
it comes, that precious day? Will a dress look as good on me then as
it does now? Will my skin be as smooth, will your step be as firm ?"

She
picked up her brush again, but not for use; to fling it down in
emphasis.

"No,
I've never lived that way and I won't submit to it now! 'A rainy
day.' I've heard that old fusty saying. I'll give you another, a
truer one! 'Tomorrow never comes.' Let it rain tomorrow! Let it soak
and drench me! If I'm dry and warm tonight, that's all I care about.
Tomorrow's rain may never find me. I may be dead tomorrow, and so may
you. And you can't spend money in a grave. I'll take on the bargain.
I'll ask no odds. Bury me tomorrow, and welcome. In potter's field,
if you want. Without even a shroud to cover me. If I can only have
Tonight."

She
was breathing fast with the heat and fury of her philosophy. The
protest of the disinherited; the panic of the pagan, with no promise
of ultramundane reward.

"How
much is it?" she asked avidly. "How much, about?"

He
wanted her happy. He couldn't give her heaven, so he gave her the
only heaven she believed in, understood. "A great deal," he
said. "A great deal."

"About?"

"A
lot," was all he could keep saying. "A lot."

She
had risen, ecstatic, was coming closer to him step by step. Each step
a caress. Each step the promise of another caress still to come,
beyond the last. She clasped hands over her bosom, as if to hold in
the joy swelling it. "Oh, never mind, no need to tell me
exactly. I never did like figures. A lot, that's all that matters. A
bunch. A load. Where? Here, with us?"

"In
New Orleans," he mumbled evasively. "But where I can put my
hands on it easily." Anything to hold her. She wanted Tonight.
Well, he wanted Tonight too.

She
spun, suddenly, in a solo waltz step, as though unseen violins had
struck a single chord. Then flung herself half onto the bed and into
his waiting arms.

One
again; love again. Whisperings, protestations, promises and vows:
never another cold word, never another black silence, never another
hurt. I forgive you, I adore you, I cannot live without you. "A
new you, a new me."

Suddenly
she alerted her head for a moment, almost as if an afterthought had
assailed her. "Oh, I'm sorry," he heard her breathe, and
whether it was to him or to herself, he could not even tell, it was
so inward and subdued.

"It's
over, it's forgotten," he murmured, "we've agreed on that."

Her
head dropped back again, solaced.

But
the belatedness of the qualm, coming as it did after all the
pardons had been asked and given, and not in their midst, made him
think her compunction might have been for something else, and not
their state of alienation itself, now happily ended. Some act he'd
had no inkling of at the time, now rashly completed beyond recall.

She
kept asking when he was going, and when he was going, with increasing
frequency and increasing insistence, until at last he was face to
face with the retraction he'd dreaded so; there was nothing left for
him but to tell her. So tell her he did.

"I'm
not."

"But--but
how else can you obtain it?"

"There
isn't any there to obtain. Not a penny. It's all gone long since, all
been used. The money from the sale of the St. Louis Street house,
that Jardine took care of for me; my share of the business. There's
nothing more coming to me." He buried hands in pockets, drew a
deep breath, looked down. "Very well, I lied. Don't ask me why;
you should know. To see you smile at me a little longer, perhaps."
And he murmured, half-inside his throat, "It was cheap at that
price."

She
said, still speaking quietly, "So you hoodwinked me."

She
put aside her hand mirror. She stood. She moved about, with no
settled destination. She clasped her own sides, in double embrace.

The
storm brewed slowly, but it brewed suiphurous strong. She paced back
and forth, her chest rising and falling with quickened breath, but
not a word coming from her at first.

She
seized her cut-glass flask of toilet water at last, and raising arm
up overhead to full height, crashed it down upon the dresser top.

"So
that's what you think of me. A good joke, wasn't it? A clever trick.
Tell her you have money, tell her you haven't. The fool will believe
anything you say. One minute yes, the next minute no." The
talcum jar came down next, shattered into crystal shrapnel, some of
which jumped almost to his feet, across the room. Then the hand
mirror. "It isn't enough to lie to me once, you have to lie to
me twice over!"

"The
first time was the truth; the only lie was when I said I did have."

"You
got what you wanted, though, didn't you? That was all you cared
about, that was all that mattered to you!"

"Haven't
you got any modesty at all? Isn't there anything you leave unsaid ?"

"You'd
better make it do, I warn you! It'll be a long long time--"

"You've
got a filthy mouth for such a beautiful face," he let her know
sternly. "A slut's tongue in a saint's face."

She
threw a scent bottle, this time directly at him. He didn't swerve; it
struck the wall just past his shoulder. A piece of glass nicked his
cheek, and drops of sweet jasmine spattered his shoulder. She was not
play-acting in some lovers' quarrel; her face was maniacal with hate.
She was beside herself. If there had been anything sharp at hand to
use for weapon--

"You--"
She called him a name that he'd thought only men knew. "I'm not
good enough for you, am I? I'm beneath you. I'm just trash and you're
a fine gentleman. Well, who told you to come after me? Who wants
you?"

He
took a handkerchief to the tiny spot of blood on his cheek. He held
his peace, stood there steadfast against the sewage torrents of her
denunciation.

"What
good are you to me? You're no good to me at all. You and your
romantic love. Faugh!" She wiped her hand insultingly across her
mouth, as though he had just kissed her.

"No,
I suppose I'm not," he said, eyes hard now, face bitter. "The
wind has changed now. Now that I have nothing left. Now that you've
had everything out of me that's to be had. You greedy little leech.
Are you sure you haven't overlooked anything?" He was trembling
now with emotion. His hands sought into his pockets, turning their
linings out with the violence of their seeking. "Here." He
dragged some coins out, flung them full at her face. "Here's
something you missed. And here, have this too." He ripped the
jeweled stickpin from his tie, cast that at her. "And that's all
there is. An insurance policy among my papers somewhere, and maybe
you'd like me to cut my own throat to profit you--but unfortunately
it's not in force."

She
was pulling things out of the drawers now, dropping more than she
secured.

"I've
left you once already, and I'll leave you again. And this time for
good, this time goodbye. I don't ever want to see the sight of you
again."

"I'm
still your husband, and you're not leaving this house."

"Who's
to stop me? You?" She threw back her head and shrieked to the
ceiling with wild laughter. "You're not man enough, you haven't
got the--"

They
both ran suddenly for the door, from their two varying directions. He
got there first, put his back to it, blocked it.

She
raised diminutive fists, battered futilely at his chest, aimed the
points of her shoes at his insteps.

"Get
out of my way. You can't stop me."

"Get
back from this door, Bonny."

The
blow, when it came, was as unexpected to him as it must have been to
her. It was like a man swiping at a mosquito, before he stops to
think. She staggered back, turned as she fell, and toppled sideward
onto the bench that sat before her dressing table, the lower part of
her body trailing the floor.

They
looked at each other, stunned.

His
heart, wrung, wanted to cry out "Oh, darling, did I hurt you?"
but his stubborn lips would not relay the plea.

The
room seemed deathly still, after the clamorous discord that had just
filled it. She had become noticeably subdued. Her only reproach was
characteristic. It was, rather, a grudging backhand compliment. As
she picked herself stiffly up, she mouthed sullenly: "It's a
wonder you were man enough to do that much. I didn't think you had it
in you."

She
came toward the door again, but this time with all antagonism drained
from her.

He
eyed her under narrowed, ,warning lids.

"Let
me get to the bathroom," she said with sulky docility. "I
need to put cold water on my face."

When
he came up again later from below, she had dragged her bed things out
of their room and into the spare bedroom at the back of the hall up
there.

60

About
four or five days later, he was returning toward the house from one
of his walks--walks which had become habitual by now-- when suddenly
her figure came into view far ahead of him, some two or three road
crossings in advance, but going the same way he was, down the same
mottled tunnel made by the overhanging shade trees.

The
distance was so great and the figure was so diminished by it, and
above all the flickering effect given off by the alternating sun and
shade falling over it made it so blurry in aspect, that he could not
be altogether sure it was indeed she. Yet he thought he knew her
gait, and when someone else had passed her he could tell by that
yardstick she was small in proportion to others and not just because
of the distance alone, and above all the coloring of the dress was
the same as the one he had last seen her in when he'd left the house
an hour before: plum serge. In short, there was too much overall
similarity; he felt sure it was Bonny.

It
was useless to have hailed her; she would not have heard, she was too
far ahead. The separation was too great even for him to have hoped to
overtake her within a worthwhile time by breaking into a run; she
would have been almost back at their own door by the time he had done
so. Moreover, there was no reason for undue haste, no emergency, he
would see her soon enough, and besides he was somewhat fatigued from
his recent walk and disinclined to run just them.