Читать книгу The Death Wish - Elisabeth Sanxay Holding - Страница 6

Rosalind’s Dinner Party

Hugh Acheson sat in his room, looking out of the window, and considering the situation.

It was a situation very familiar to him. How many times had he arrived at a house, and found there a girl—invited only on his account…!

This seemed to him a wrong and unfortunate thing; he always felt apologetic toward these girls, charming girls, pretty, well-bred, intelligent, altogether suitable; he liked them all—but never quite enough. Not one of them had that quality, which he could not have defined, or named, yet which was to him indispensable. Sometimes he had a glimpse of it in a play, an opera; Isolde had it, and Mary of Scotland; he could believe that there had once been women in the world who had that tragic and passionate magnificence. But he had lived for twenty-seven years without encountering it in actual life, and the girls he met seemed to him, all of them, a little insipid.

Mrs. Luff’s new protégée rather surprised him, although in his eyes Anabel Luff could do no wrong. She had been a friend of his mother’s, and ever since his schooldays he had felt for her an affection and respect he accorded to no one else. If she were so fond of this silent and almost sullen girl, then there must be something admirable in her which he had not yet discerned.

“Her father was Foxe Sackett, you know!” Mrs. Luff had told him, and seeing by his face that the name meant nothing to him: “The musician,” she had added. “A composer. …He was really famous, in musical circles. And Elsie plays marvelously, and she’s beautiful, don’t you think, Hugh?”

“Oh, very!” he had answered, politely.

He sighed now, thinking of Elsie. His chivalrous attitude toward woman was a burden to him; he could not help being deferential to them. He could not let Anabel Luff suspect how little interest he felt in her Elsie; he could not let her know how reluctant he was to go to dinner to-night with this artist fellow. Mrs. Luff enjoyed the society of artists, but Hugh didn’t. He admired them, of course; no doubt it was necessary for pictures to be painted, music and books to be written, and so on, but the people who did these things were trying. He did not know how to talk to them. What he understood and liked best were riding, hunting, polo, flying, sailing; he liked to be active physically. To-night, he would probably have to look at this fellow’s pictures, and say something. …

With another sigh, he rose and began to dress. Dressing was one of the many things he knew how to do well. He was extremely fastidious; his dinner-jacket was a marvel, his trousers were a work of art. Slender, fair-haired, boyish in appearance, he had none the less a sort of dignity about him; he was easy, friendly, polite, but no one took liberties with him.

Anabel was waiting in the hall for him. Her black evening dress did not fit very well; her sandy hair was untidy, as usual, but she was privileged to look like that; she was beyond criticism. Luff was with her, wooden and immaculate.

“We’ll have cocktails before we go,” he said. “Whitestone’s liquor is…Well, Anabel’s responsible for this.”

“Robert Whitestone’s quite charming,” said Mrs. Luff, firmly. “And very talented.”

“But he doesn’t do anything!” her husband objected. “I mean—after all—how d’you know he’s talented? Never has any pictures to show.”

“If you’d ever seen him at work,” said Mrs. Luff, “in an awful little sort of summer-house, full of spiders, and wearing a smock, and his hair ruffled…”

Her husband and young Acheson both smiled with inmeasurable indulgence. Anabel Luff was past fifty, there was gray in her hair, but she would always be able to evoke in men that tender amusement.

“You’ll see yourself—” she began, and stopped, looking toward the staircase. Elsie was coming down, in a long white evening frock, a rose-colored ribbon about her dark hair; her appearance was unusual, and as a rule Hugh Acheson disliked any sort of eccentricity. But this girl, he thought, was like some portrait in a gallery, fragile, immature, touchingly lovely.

“You won’t want a cocktail, dear…?” said Mrs. Luff.

“I do, please.”

“It’s not good for your complexion—”

“I need one!” Elsie said vehemently.

This seemed to Hugh in poor taste. A kid of her age had no business to “need” a drink.

“Neurotic,” he said to himself.

He did not know definitely what that word meant, but he did know what it connoted for him. It signified too much smoking, and too little fresh air, too much emotion, and too little exercise. He was sorry to see her swallow a cocktail almost at a gulp, and hold out her glass for another. For she was authentically young, not more than eighteen or nineteen, he decided, and her youth was exquisite.

She had been badly brought up, though, or else she was bad-tempered. As he sat beside her in the car, he made two or three attempts to talk to her as he talked to other girls, without getting anything better than the curtest possible retorts. So he let her alone.

The Whitestones’ house was worse than he had expected, shabbier and smaller; something queer in the atmosphere, too. Whitestone was silent and distrait; Mrs. Whitestone was too gay. Moreover, it made Hugh uncomfortable to be waited upon by his hostess; he found it embarrassing to sit at the table while she hurried back and forth. He wanted to help her, but she would not allow that, wouldn’t even let her husband help her.

“But you’ve hurt your hand, Mrs. Whitestone!” Hugh protested, observing a bandage about her fingers.

“It’s nothing,” she assured him, smiling. “Just a tiny burn.”

She could not suppress the other man, though, that Delancey whom Hugh had met earlier in the day. Delancey seemed very much at home here, jumping up from the table, going in and out of the kitchen, making good-humored and somewhat pointless jokes. He carried it off very well, but Hugh saw. …

It was perhaps because he so seldom read anything, because his thoughts were so largely occupied by sports and more or less impersonal matters, that Hugh Acheson had so great a power of observation. He observed, and he understood, only by the light of his own experiences. There were no other people’s ideas in his head. He was that rare creature, a truly independent human being. Moreover, his active and temperate life had sharpened his senses; he had almost the accuracy, the quickness of a savage, and he never thought of doubting his own conclusions. He simply didn’t make mistakes.

“Something wrong here…” he thought.

There was something wrong with Delancey, and with Elsie, and with Mrs. Whitestone, and something very wrong indeed with Robert Whitestone.

“That fellow’s in hell,” thought Hugh, soberly.

Mrs. Whitestone was talking with animation to the polite and unresponsive Luff; Mrs. Luff and Delancey were very cheerful together, and Elsie and Whitestone obviously had no desire and no intention of talking at all, so Hugh thought himself justified in keeping silent, and trying to understand this situation. His quiet gray eyes never seemed to watch; his boyish face never revealed that he was listening, but he saw, and he heard, and every nerve in his alert, hardy body was conveying impressions to him.

Somehow, it was Delancey who interested him most. Beneath that genial air was a strained uneasiness; he kept glancing from Whitestone to Mrs. Whitestone.

“Is he in love with Mrs. Whitestone?” thought Hugh.

He decided not. He had seen plenty of fellows in love, and they had not been like this.

“No,” he thought. “He’s afraid of something.”

Fear, he reflected, was the one emotion that could not be concealed. Hate, love, even pain could be disguised, but not fear, that first great primeval passion and driver of men. At the hangar, at sea in a storm, Hugh had seen men afraid; he knew what that side-long look, that overhearty laugh meant.

“Why?” he thought. “What’s he afraid of? Whitestone? Mrs. Whitestone? Is it blackmail?”

He was well enough acquainted with the less creditable aspects of life; on one occasion an attempt had been made—unsuccessfully—to blackmail him. He knew that such things happened, and he was neither unduly shocked nor distressed about them. He turned this idea over in his head. But whatever was afoot, he decided, the Whitestones were not acting in concert; there was no harmony between them. Mrs. Whitestone wasn’t afraid of anything; he felt sure of that. The flush in her cheeks, the forced gaiety of her manner were caused by anger. That was how women behaved when they were angry. And she had cause for irritation, with her husband sitting there silent and haggard, eating none of the excellent dinner she had prepared. She couldn’t feel much good-will toward Elsie, either; the girl did not make the slightest effort to do her duty as a guest; never even glanced at her hostess.

“The kid’s miserable,” he thought. “And so is Whitestone.”

That gave him another idea, and a most unwelcome one, but one that persisted. As always, he fell back upon his own experience, recalling what he himself had seen or heard, and he could not call his idea impossible, or even improbable. Elsie would not be the first poor little fool to entangle herself in a disastrous love affair of this sort, or the last. It happened all the time. And it fitted. It explained her sullen mood, and Whitestone’s morose and distrait silence, and Mrs. Whitestone’s anger.

But it left out Delancey’s fear.

“I don’t see…” thought Hugh.

He wanted to see, on Elsie’s account, because Anabel Luff was fond of the girl, and because she was so young. He did not want to witness any disaster to her, and he was troubled by the possibility. For, by some sixth sense, which he trusted implicitly, he felt that, there was something atrocious overshadowing this cottage.

Mrs. Whitestone, with no servant, and very little money, and, he suspected, very little social training, had however an undeniable social talent; she was the sort of woman, he thought, who could have married a man in a far more exalted position and managed well for him. He didn’t like her; he saw her as insincere, vain, and superficial, but he admired her for the valor of that dinner, well-cooked, well-served, if a little over-elaborate. And he pitied her, too, because it was so unsuccessful. She served wine, and that was one thing she did not understand; no one but Delancey drank it. The conversation grew more and more desultory; Mrs. Luff tried in vain to aid her. …

Whitestone laughed abruptly, at nothing.

“I’ve got some whiskey that’s really fit to drink,” he said, and pushing back his chair, went out of the room.

Delancey rose too, and with an inaudible excuse, followed his friend, through a swing-door that led to the pantry. The door fitted badly; from his end of the table, Hugh heard that hearty voice, subdued to an anxious murmur.

“Now, Robert, see here…! Pull yourself together, old man! I mean to say—with guests in your house—”

“I’ll be fine in a little while,” Whitestone answered. “I’m going to get drunk.”

Mrs. Whitestone had taken Mrs. Luff and Elsie into the sitting-room; Luff sat staring at his glass of wine with gloomy intentness. …Hugh’s ethical code was artless as a schoolboy’s, but rigid. He considered eavesdropping a discreditable thing, so, much as he wanted to hear more of that conversation in the pantry, he addressed a remark to Luff. Luff, though, was slow in answering, and in the interval, Hugh heard Delancey speak again.

“Oh, shut up about your plan!” he cried, and there was a note in his voice that disturbed the listener. “I know you’re only talking through your hat. I know it’s simply dam’ nonsense—but I don’t like it.”

“Ah…!” said Luff, at last. “Well, I shouldn’t be inclined to back Weyman too heavily. …Seems to me…”

He went on talking, and presently Whitestone re-entered, followed by his friend. Luff and Hugh accepted his whiskey; they praised it politely, but a curious uneasiness possessed them all. Even Luff was restless.

They went, presently, into the sitting-room, and it was better there.

“Mrs. Luff does that,” thought Hugh.

He had seen her do it before. Once away from the disturbing influence of Whitestone’s moody silence and Delancey’s forced geniality, her own influence had made itself felt, her cool, light gaiety, her effortless good-humor. Mrs. Whitestone was more tranquil now, Elsie less somber, and when the four men entered, they too were changed. Delancey was a little subdued, and Whitestone suddenly became animated. It might have been the whiskey, but whatever the cause, he showed a quick, biting wit that was close to brilliancy. For the first time Hugh could see that Whitestone had a certain charm; he was handsome in his fashion, he was clever, and he was appealing. He had the air of a man who laughs in despair. “That’s what gets women,” thought Hugh, and glanced at Elsie.

Her beauty dazzled him. Her dark eyes were soft and shining, her lips were parted in a half smile as she listened to Whitestone. She was enthralled, rapt. And Mrs. Whitestone was watching her.

“Lord!” thought Hugh. “This won’t do. …”

“Robert, dear,” said Mrs. Whitestone. “Won’t you bring in some of your work? I’m sure—”

“Please!” said Mrs. Luff. “Have you finished that one of the bridge in the twilight, Mr. Whitestone?”

“He hasn’t!” said Rosalind, laughing. “He won’t finish things. I wish you could make him, Mrs. Luff. He’s such a provoking boy. All these—”

“He’ll do something big, one of these days,” Delancey interrupted, so hastily, so loudly as to startle the others. “Thing is, with an artist…You’ve got to let ’em alone. I mean, they’ve got to work things out their own way. One of these days Robert’ll do a picture that’ll surprise all of us. The fellow he used to study with—can’t think of his name just now—I remember he said Robert was the most promising pupil he had. And you’ve got to remember Robert won a scholarship in that art school. I mean, all that shows he’s got it in him.”

It was difficult, even for Anabel Luff, to find anything to say after this vehement outburst; but, after a brief and embarrassed silence, she did speak.

“But we all feel sure of that, Mr. Delancey! You’ve no idea. …I use Mr. Whitestone as a decoy. I ask people down to meet our artist.”

“Please do!” entreated Rosalind. “What Robert needs is more encouragement. Of course, what I say doesn’t count. He can’t help feeling that I’m prejudiced—”

“My dear girl,” interrupted Whitestone. He rose and lit a cigarette, with a very unsteady hand. “My dear girl—on the contrary! I never forget the things you’ve said. I can assure everyone that I’d never be where I am, if it hadn’t been for you.”

It seemed to Hugh astounding that Mrs. Whitestone didn’t see. …Mrs. Luff began to talk again, Delancey responded to her. No one seemed to have understood that note in Whitestone’s voice, the look on his face.

Hugh himself was so disturbed that Mrs. Luff’s move to go home was a great relief to him. He wanted to think over all this, in quiet. They went out to the car, the Whitestones standing silhouetted in their lighted doorway. Luff was helping his wife in, when Elsie touched Hugh’s sleeve. He turned quickly.

“I’d like to speak to you,” she said, in a whisper.

“Now?” he asked. “Shall we walk?”

“No. I’d rather—I’ll come to your room after they’ve gone to bed,” she said, and got into the car.