Waltz Into Darkness (7 page)

Durand
was no more prudish than the next, but he saw something which he had
never seen any other woman do. Not even the "young ladies"
of Madame Rachel's "Academy," when he visited there during
his bachelor days. And this was the wife under his own roof.

"Do
you sit that way at other times too ?" he queried uneasily.

Subtly,
with a sort of dissembling stealth, the offending knees uncoupled,
the projecting leg descended beside its mate. Almost without the
alteration being detected, she was once more sitting as all ladies
sat. Even alone, even before only their own husbands.

"No,"
she protested virtuously, tipping horrified palms. "Of course
not. How should I? I--I was alone in the room, and it must have come
about without my thinking."

"But
think if it should come about, some time, without your thinking,
where others could see you."

"It
shan't," she promised, tipping horrified palms at the very
thought. "For it never did before, and it never will again."

She
dismissed the subject by elevating her face toward him expectantly.

"You
haven't kissed me yet."

The
incident died out in his eyes, to match its extinction in his mind,
in the finding of her lips with his.

8

Rosy-cheeked,
dewy-eyed, winsome in the early morning sunlight, in a dressing sack
of warm yellow whose hue matched the sunny glow falling about her.
she quickly forestalled Aunt Sarah, took the coffee urn from her
band, insisting as she did every day on pouring his cupful herself.

He
smiled, flattered, as he did every day when this same thing happened.

Next
she took up the small silver tongs, fastened them on a lump of
twinkling sugar, carefully carried it past the rim of his cup, and
holding it low so that it might not splash, released it.

He
beamed.

"So
much the sweeter," he murmured confidentially.

She
gave her fingertips a brisk little brushing-together, though they had
not as a matter of fact touched anything at first hand, placed a kiss
at the side of his head, hurried around to her side of the table, and
seated herself with a crisp little rustling.

It
was like a little girl, he couldn't help thinking, pressing a little
boy into playing at house with her. You be the papa, and I'll be the
mamma.

Settled
in her own chair, she raised her cup, eyes smiling at him to the last
over its very rim, until she must drop them to make sure of fitting
it exactly to her still incredibly, always incredibly, tiny mouth.

"This
is really excellent coffee," she remarked, after a sip.

"It's
some of our own. One of the better grades, from the warehouse. I have
a small sackful sent home every now and again for Aunt Sarah's use."

"I
don't know what I should do without it. It is so invigorating, of a
chilly morning. There is nothing I am quite so fond of."

"You
mean since you have begun to sample Aunt Sarah's?"

"No,
always. All my life I--"

She
stopped, seeing him look at her with a sort of sudden, arrested
attention. It was like a stone cast into the bubbling conversation,
and sinking heavily to the bottom, stilling it.

There
was some sort of contagion passed between them. Impossible to give it
a name. She seemed to take it from him, seeing it appear on his face,
and her own became strained and watthful. It was unease, a sudden
chilling of assurance. It was the unpleasant sensation, or feeling of
loss, that a worthless iron washer might convey, suddenly detected in
a palmful of golden disks.

"But--"
he said at last, and didn't go on.

"Yes?"
She said with an effort. "Were you going to say something?"
And the turn of one hand appeared over the edge of the table before
her, almost as if in a bracing motion.

"No,
I--" Then he gave himself the lie, went on to say it anyway.
"But in your letter once you said the opposite. Telling me how
you went down to a cup of tea in the morning. Nothing but tea would
do. You could not abide coffee. 'Heavy, inky drink.' I can still
remember your very words."

She
lifted her cup again, took a sip. She was unable therefore to speak
again until she had removed it out of the way.

"True,"
she said, speaking rather fast to make up for the restriction, once
it had been removed. "But that was because of my sister."

"But
your preferences are your own, how could your sister affect them ?"

"I
was in her house," she explained. "She was the one liked
tea, I coffee. But out of consideration for her, in order not to be
the means of causing her to drink something she did not like, I
pretended I liked it too. I put it in my letter because I sometimes
showed her my letters to you before I sent them, and I did not want
her to discover my little deception."

"Oh,"
he grinned, almost with a breath of relief.

She
began to laugh. She laughed almost too loudly for the small cause she
had. As if in release of stress.

"I
wish you could have seen your face just then," she told him. "I
didn't know what ailed you for a moment."

She
went on laughing.

He
laughed with her.

They
laughed together, in a burst of fatuous bridal merriment.

Aunt
Sarah, coming into the room, joined their laughter, knowing as little
as either of them what it was about.

9

Her
complexion was a source of considerable wonderment to him. It seemed
capable of the most rapid and unpredictable changes, al-. most within
the twinkling of an eye. These flushes and pallors, if such they
were, did not actually occur before his eyes, but within such short
spans of time that, for all practical purposes, it amounted to the
same thing.

They
were not blushes in the ordinary sense, for they did not diminish
again within a few moments of their onset, as those would have; once
the change had occurred, once her coloring had heightened, it
remained that way for hours after, with no immediate
counteralteration ensuing.

It
was most noticeable in the mornings. On first opening the shutters
and turning to behold her, her coloring would be almost camelia-like.
And yet, but a few moments later, as she followed in his wake down
the stairs and rejoined him at the table, there would be the fresh
hue of primroses, of pink carnations, in her cheeks, to set off the
blue of her eyes all the more, the gold of her hair, to make her a
vision of such loveliness that to look at her was almost past
endurance.

In
a theatre one night (they were seated in a box) the same
transfiguration occurred, between two of the acts of the play, but on
this occasion he ascribed it to illness, though if it were, she would
not admit it to him. They had arrived late and had therefore entered
in the darkness, or at least dimness relieved only by the stage
lights. When the gas jets flared high, however, between the acts, she
discovered (and seemed quite concerned by it, why lie could not make
out) that their loge was lined with a tufted damask of a particularly
virulent apple-green shade. This, in conjunction with the blazing gas
beating full upon her face, gave her a bilious, verdant look.

Many
eyes (as always whenever she appeared anywhere with him) were turned
upward upon her from the audience, both men and women alike, and more
than one pair of opera glasses were centered upon her, as custom
allowed them to be.

She
shifted about impatiently in her chair for a moment or two, then
suddenly rose and, touching him briefly on the wrist, excused
herself. "Are you ill ?" he asked, rising in the attempt to
follow her, but she had already gone.

She
returned before the lights had had time to be lowered again, and she
was like a different person. The macabre tinge was gone from her
countenance; her cheeks now burned with an apricot glow that fought
through and mastered the combined efforts of the gaslights and the
box-lining and made her beauty emerge triumphant.

The
number of pairs of opera glasses tilted her way immediately doubled.
Some unaccompanied men even half rose from their seats. A sibilant
freshet of admiring comment could be sensed, rather than heard,
running through the audience.

"What
was it?" he asked anxiously. "Were you unwell? Something at
supper, perhaps--?"

"I
never felt better in my life!" she said confidently. She sat
now, secure, at ease, and just before the lights went down again for
the following act, turned to him with a smile, brushed a little
nonexistent speck from his shoulder, as if proudly to show the whole
world with whom she was, to whom she belonged.

One
morning, however, his concern got the better of him. He rose from the
table they were seated at, breakfasting, went over to her, and tested
her forehead with the back of his hand.

"What
do you do that for ?" she asked, with unmarred composure, but
casting her eyes upward to take in his overhanging hand.

"I
wanted to see if you had a temperature."

The
feel of her skin, however, was perfectly cool and normal. He returned
to his chair.

"I
am a little anxious about you, Julia. I'm wondering if I should not
have a doctor examine you, just to ease my mind. I have heard of
certain--" he hesitated, in order not to alarm her unduly,
"--certain ailments of the lung that have no other indication,
at an early stage, than these--er--intermittent flushes and high
colorings that mount to the cheeks--"

He
thought he saw her lips quiver treacherously, but they formed nothing
but a small smile of reassurance.

"Oh
no, I am in perfectly good health."

"You
are as white as a ghost, at times. Then at others- A few moments ago,
in our room, you were unduly pale. And now your cheeks are like
apples."

She
turned her fork over, then turned it back again the way it had been.

"It
is the cold water, perhaps," she said. "I apply it to my
face with strong pats, and that brings out the color. So you need not
worry any longer, there's really nothing to be alarmed at."

"Oh,"
he exclaimed, vastly relieved. "Is that all that causes it?
Who would have believed--!"

He
turned his head suddenly. Aunt Sarah was standing there motionless, a
plate she had forgotten to deliver held in her hand. Her eyes stared
at Julia's face with a narrow-lidded scrutiny.

He
thought, understandingly, that she too must feel concern for the
state of her young mistress' health, just as he had, to fix upon her
such a speculative stare of secretive appraisal.

10

Comfortably
engrossed in his newspaper, he was vaguely aware of Aunt Sarah
somewhere at his back, engaged in a household task known as "wiping."
This consisted in running a dustcloth over certain surfaces (when
they were equal to or lower than her own height) and flicking it at
others (when they were higher). Presently he heard her come to a halt
and cluck her tongue enticingly, and surmised by that she must have
at last reached the point at which Julia's canary, Dicky Bird, hung
suspended in its gilt cage from a bracket protruding close beside the
window.

"How
my pretty ?" she wheedled. "Hunh? Tell Aunt Sarah. How my
pretty bird?"

There
was a feeble monosyllabic twit from the bird, no more.

"You
can do better than that. Come on now, perk up. Lemme hear you sing."

There
was a second faltering twit, little better than a squeak.

The
old woman gingerly thrust her finger through, apparently with the
idea of gently stroking its tiny feathers.

As
though that slight impetus were all that were needed, the little
yellow tenant promptly fell to the floor of the cage. He huddled
there inert, head down, apparently unable to regain the perch he had
just lost. He blinked repeatedly, otherwise gave no sign of life.

Aunt
Sarah became vociferously alarmed. "Mr. Lou!" she brayed.
"Come here, sir! Something the matter with Miss Julia's little
old bird. See you can find out what ails her."

Durand,
who had been watching her over his shoulder for several minutes past,
promptly discarded his newspaper, got up and went over.