Читать книгу The Death of a Celebrity - Footner Hulbert - Страница 5

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Siebert Ackroyd and Cynthia Dordress were driving up the Avenue from Washington Square in Siebert’s little convertible with the top down. It was a typical November night, cold, with sparkling stars. Cynthia was enveloped in a beaver coat, Gavin’s gift, and had a chiffon veil around her trim head to keep her hair in place. When her hair was covered, it emphasized the clean, pure line of her profile. Siebert was a big young man with strongly marked features and a look of resolution that verged on impatience. Most men, seeing the look in his eye, addressed him politely.

“What a night!” he said. “I wish we could drive right through until morning, without having to go to that silly party at your dad’s.”

“Dad’s parties are not silly,” said Cynthia.

“By morning we could be in Virginia,” murmured Siebert. “You are sweet enough to eat.”

“Long before morning we should be quarreling,” said Cynthia.

“Well, is it my fault that we always seem to get in a quarrel?”

“Is it mine?” countered Cynthia.

“Let’s not start anything now,” said Siebert quickly. “Let me put the case to you in a matter-of-fact way without any heat or passion. I am horribly in love with you. I have gone all out. To be beside you like this is heaven for me. Does that make you sore?”

“Of course not,” she said in a softened voice.

“You have me to make or break,” he went on. “You come between me and everything. Naturally, such a state of suspense is hell on earth. I am good for nothing.”

“That seems a little excessive to me,” said Cynthia.

“Excessive!” he exclaimed. “Do you want a half portion of love? Do you wish that I wasn’t completely in love with you?”

“No ... yes ... I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose it would be better for you if you weren’t.”

“Do you love me back again?”

“Well, yes, in a way.”

“In a way! ... In a way!” he muttered, pounding a fist on his thigh. “That’s what gets me! How can any warm-blooded person be in love ‘in a way’?”

“Well, it hasn’t swamped my intelligence,” said Cynthia.

“Meaning that it has mine?”

“Now you’re beginning to quarrel.”

“No! No!” he said quickly. “I am perfectly cool and reasonable. I’m trying to get to the bottom of this. I’m head over heels in love with you, and you love me ‘in a way’! Why don’t we get married?”

“I’ve told you so many times ...”

“Yes, but always with anger and insults. Consequently it wasn’t convincing. Let’s talk it over calmly. We could afford to get married. My agency is only a small affair, but it’s solidly founded because I only accept authors for my clients who have something in them, and I do so well for them they will never leave me. Year by year it is bound to pay better. O God! to think of having a home! To come home to you at night ...”

“You forget that I have my job, too, at the clinic.”

“I admit I am jealous of your job,” said Siebert. “You are not hard-boiled enough to deal with sick people all day. It takes too much out of you.”

“I have the feeling of being useful,” said Cynthia. “There is nothing to beat it.”

“I wouldn’t mind if you worked at home. You should write like your father, and let me be your agent.”

“I have no talent for writing.”

“Well, I concede the job at the clinic,” he said. “We can afford a good servant. Don’t you want a home, too? Wouldn’t it be lovely to meet in our own home after work and be together until we went to work again?”

“Yes,” said Cynthia a little faintly; “but ...”

“Then why don’t we do it?” Taking a hand from the wheel he felt for Cynthia’s hand, but she drew it back out of reach.

“This is where we begin to quarrel,” she said sadly.

“Not tonight,” said Siebert. “You couldn’t make me mad.”

“This longing to be together,” she murmured, “this love, doesn’t last—or at least it changes very much. All older people, all books, tell you that.”

“The heck with them!” said Siebert. “I will never change.”

“And when it changes, we’ve got to have something more solid to go on with.”

“Time will take care of that.”

“You are simply refusing to face things. That’s what brings couples to Reno.”

“Cyn, for God’s sake, if we love each other, why go behind it?”

“You’re such a boy!” she murmured.

“Is that where I fall short?”

“Yes. I see through you too clearly. You’re no wiser than I am. You never surprise me.”

“Well, I’m damned!” he muttered. And after a silence, grimly: “I could surprise you all right if I didn’t love you so damned much!”

“I shall never marry,” said Cynthia, “unless some man wants me who I feel is bigger and cleverer than myself, and who has reserves that I cannot enter into.”

“In other words, a Gavin Dordress,” he said with extreme bitterness.

“Now you’re just being hateful.”

“This feeling for your father is ridiculous!”

“It’s not ridiculous; it’s only unusual. The circumstances are unusual. It’s just a year ago since I saw my father for the first time. My mother was a foolish, light-headed woman. She was jealous of his popularity and his fame. Soon after I was born she divorced him, and regretted it as long as she lived. She kept me away from him, and he made no effort to see me because, as he has told me since, he thought the most important thing was not to come between a child and its mother. Her bitterness against him was pathological, and naturally I absorbed it. I grew up thinking of him as a kind of monster.

“When I did go to see him after my mother’s death, it was not with any idea of finding a father; I simply meant to use him as a means of getting on in the world. And then when I saw him and talked to him.... Oh, Siebert! I thought I was hiding my hatred and bitterness, but of course he instantly saw it, though he made believe not to. He was so funny and human and casual; so honest! Not like a father at all, but somebody my own age. I felt a sympathy and understanding such as I had never known in my mother. Yet he didn’t make any effort to win me over, but just let me alone. All my defences went down immediately. I felt as if it would take the rest of my life to make up for the way I misjudged him. During the past year I have seen him almost every day, and my admiration has grown with every meeting. He has never let me down.”

“Well, that’s all right,” said Siebert grudgingly. “Gavin’s a right guy. He’s your father. He doesn’t conflict with me. I aim to be your husband.” He laughed, not very mirthfully. “A fellow is heavily handicapped in marrying the daughter of such a superman, but I’ll chance it.”

Cynthia did not respond to the laugh. “You don’t understand,” she said. “During the past year my father has given me an ideal that I—well, I couldn’t take anything less than my ideal, could I?”

Siebert glanced at her in dismay. “Cynthia!”

“You asked for the plain truth,” she cried, “and there it is!”

“Damn Gavin Dordress!” he said savagely.

“I hate you when you talk like that!” said Cynthia, seething. “You are merely coarse and shallow! You understand nothing!”

“Damn him!” said Siebert. “I hate him!”

Cynthia was near tears then. “You knew him before I came on the scene. It was at his place that I first met you. You were his friend.”

“Sure I was his friend. I don’t mean to say that Gavin is a crook or anything. But if he comes between me and you I hate him! It’s a natural feeling and I’m not ashamed of it. Damn him! I say. I’m no pious Christer to turn the other cheek. If anybody hurts me I’m going to strike back!”

“Well, I’m glad you have shown yourself in your true colors!” said Cynthia.

“God! I’d like to shake you!” groaned Siebert. “I’d like to shake some sense into your silly head!”

“Really!” said Cynthia.

They drove up in front of Gavin’s house. “I suppose we’ve got to sit through this damn dinner,” he growled.

“I’ll see that you’re not placed beside me,” said Cynthia.

“Go on in,” he said. “I’ll find a parking-place and follow.”

The bulbs flashed as Miss Dordress crossed the sidewalk. “Hold your head up!” yelled the photographers, but she only pressed it lower. When Siebert followed, a few minutes later, one said, “Wipe off that scowl, brother.”

“Go to hell,” said Siebert.

The bulbs flashed, anyhow.

“Miss Dordress’ escort,” said a voice. “What’s the name, please?”

“Julius Cæsar,” said Siebert.