In some mysterious way, he had detected that young Adelaide detested and feared Rufus Hastings, with his green eyes and sandy lifeless hair and grand manners. This infuriated him. He said to his daughter: “No wonder you look at him with such catlike aversion. You are envious. I don’t blame you in a way. You’ll never get a husband for yourself like young Hastings.”
He was proud that Lavinia was to make such an excellent match, but it was no more than he expected of her. He unbent from his chronic suspicion with the young man, and was heavily paternal and affectionate with him. Though Rufus’ father was immensely wealthy, as a result of his dealings with the railroad Vanderbilts, there was no nonsense about Rufus. He was to enter Everett Livingston & Company after his return from his honeymoon, as the first step in his initiation into the ramifications of John’s enterprises. His manner towards his future father-in-law always pleased John immensely. He was courteous and polite, attentive and respectful, full of intelligent questions about the business, and given to low expressions of admiration.
All in all, John knew a measure of happiness these days.
It is true that Louisa was showing a deep interest in Patrick Brogan, “that Irishman!” But the Brogans were wealthy, and Patrick had a fond and ingratiating manner and a sly laughing twinkle in the depths of his intensely blue eyes, little and foxy though they were. He twitted John fearlessly; he had an affectionate way with him, and was given to linking his arm in John’s and joking with him, quite openly and without timidity. John gave himself up to reconciling himself to accepting Patrick as a son-in-law, in spite of his natural aversion to the Irish. But he frequently hinted to Louisa that he would not countenance a marriage in the Catholic Church, and that if she was set on young Brogan she must induce him to marry her in the Protestant faith, with no future implications about children, and their religious allegiances. “In the end, perhaps, you may be able to wean him away from the priests,” he would say. He invited Patrick’s parents to his home and tried to overcome his deep dislike of their race and religion, for Louisa’s sake. He treated them with benign superiority, and was pleased at their humility and eagerness to placate him. Moreover, in Timothy Brogan, he recognized an opportunist, a gay rascal, a man without a conscience, and a flexible and agreeable soul. He was able to suggest certain transactions in the Market which considerably augmented Brogan’s fortune.
He took to returning home earlier during the last days before the marriage, for the pure delight of the flurry and noise all about the mansion. The hot and constant uneasiness of his spirit relaxed. There was a numbness in his mind, which he mistook for contentment. He became very amiable and easy, and was surprised that others responded to him in kind. It is true that his weariness increased, that the white rapidly spread in his hair, that there were dark hollows under his eyes, and that he frequently felt mortally ill.
But he was also convinced that he was very happy.
CHAPTER 38
Two days before the wedding, another crisis arose. Lavinia, with loud lamentations, discovered that the pale blue ribbons she had bought in Paris for her lingerie were not sufficient. Adelaide was immediately called, and intrusted with a slip of the ribbon and commanded to tour the shops in the burning August heat. She must match it exactly, Lavinia cried. And she must not dare return until she had found six yards more.
It was very hot this morning, the glittering air swirling with dust and chaff. Adelaide dressed herself in white muslin, tied a yellow Leghorn over her hair, and, pale with exhaustion, went out on foot to the shops on Fourteenth Street. Lilybelle urged a carriage upon her, and then it was discovered that Lavinia was to use one vehicle, Louisa another, and Lilybelle was to take lunch with Rufus’ parents. John had taken the fourth carriage. There was none for Adelaide.
The girl did not care. She walked through the hot closed streets, gasping a little in the heat. She took off her hat and let it hang by its ribbons over her arm. The flaying breeze lifted her long hair and blew it about her small pointed face. Flecks of black dust invaded her eyes and her nostrils, settled in the folds of the white muslin. But she hardly felt these discomforts. She was alone, away from the constant bickering of Lavinia, from Louisa’s amused soft smile and gentle irony, from the uproar in the house. She might have been some quiet girl from the lower middle-class, out for a shopping stroll.
She looked at the blazing light sky, at the dusty trees, at the gritty hot streets, and felt some contentment. It was lovely to be alone, to think in peace. She even hummed a little under her breath, though her thoughts, as always, were vaguely sad. She could not recall a time in her life when she had not been sad and subdued in mind. No one ever knew what she thought, not even Lilybelle. But Adelaide’s thoughts were very acute, subtle and mature. If she felt an emotion, she analysed it with irony, until it subsided, embarrassed. She had the wry inner mirth of the outcast, of the unloved. Later, she might grow bitter and inflexible, but she was still too young for these sorrows. She felt the sun on her face and her hands, the wind in her hair. If her heart was heavy, it was an old story, and she no longer questioned it. Today she was aware of her youth, the echo of her footsteps on the pavement, of the bright light falling all about her, of her rare freedom and happy solitary condition.
Next month, she would return to her boarding-school. A pang touched her heart, and she firmly quelled it. She disliked the school, the girls and the teachers, as much as they all disliked her. She thought her contemporaries stupid and vapid, the teachers steeped in gall. She would not think of it now, she told herself. There were six more weeks at home. In the previewing of misery was an augmentation of misery.
Lilybelle had furtively given her some money for herself this morning, and she stopped at a curio shop to buy herself a little ivory box from China for her trinkets, a length of China silk for a frock, and two pairs of white silk stockings. In the meantime, she searched for the ribbon. It was a wearisome task. There was every shade of blue, but not the required one. Adelaide was not annoyed. A further search meant a longer absence from home. The shops were lively and gay, full of cool dusk, the smell of textiles and leathers, the brushing of women’s garments, the voices of clerks, and a living busyness. Carriages rolled constantly on the cobbles of the streets, and the air outside was pungent with warm manure and acrid dust.
Adelaide bought her mother a beautiful ivory and lace fan to be used at the wedding. It was painted with tiny pink rosebuds. Adelaide privately thought it vulgar, but it would please Lilybelle inordinately. She was conscious of being hungry, now, but young ladies never entered restaurants alone, so Adelaide bought a bag of hot chestnuts to munch in doorways between shops. The chestnuts were delicious. She wiped her hand on her handkerchief, and was about to reenter the blazing light of the streets when she heard a masculine voice exclaiming at her elbow: “It’s little Adelaide, isn’t it? The little mouse?”
Flushing deeply, and hastily brushing away one or two hulls which remained on her bodice, she turned to her accoster. She saw a tall young man at her side, smiling down amusedly at her. She did not recognize him, and recovering herself, straightened haughtily, trying, with haste, to replace her hat.
“Don’t you remember me?” he asked, touching her arm. “I’m your cousin, Anthony Bollister.”
The ribbons were tangled. He helped her smooth them out. She was intensely mortified. Her heart began to beat with great rapidity.
“How pretty you’ve gotten,” said Anthony, beaming at her affectionately. “And how glad I am to see you again.”
The hat was in place now. Adelaide’s trembling fingers fumbled with the bow, her cheeks bright with embarrassment. She looked up from under the brim of her hat, and her eyes gleamed like brown velvet. She tried to smile.
“How do you do?” she murmured, almost inaudibly.
“It’s been six years,” he said. “We’re grown up now, aren’t we? You are quite a young lady. How are your sisters? I’ve been away so long, over five years. I’ve often thought about you.
”
Adelaide was silent. The beating of her heart did not subside. The strangest tears were making a bright dazzle before her eyes. She heard Anthony’s voice, and nothing else. It seemed to fill all the air about her, and little darting thrills ran over her legs and arms and young breasts. She had the oddest impulse to cry.
Then she stammered, her voice loud in her embarrassed ears: “I’ve often thought about you, too. And wondered where you were.”
They looked at each other, as they stood in the doorway, apart from the hot and hurrying throngs in the street. They did not speak. Their eyes clung; Anthony was very close to the girl, and his sleeve brushed her bare forearm. Adelaide’s mouth, now pink and moist, opened a little on a faint gasp.
After what appeared to be a long time, Anthony said gently, not taking his eyes from hers: “I’ve been in England. But now I’m home. I’ve been going to Harvard. We ought to see a lot of each other, Adelaide.”
Adelaide had known such little joy in her life that she could not understand this pure and intoxicating ecstasy which flooded her, blinded her, and made her feel as if she had been lifted into radiant space. She began to laugh softly, quite without reason, and she felt her knees trembling. Her small and quiet face bloomed in tremulous beauty under the deep shadow of the Leghorn hat with its fluttering ribbons.
She had never forgotten her cousin. And how handsome he appeared to her now, tall and slender, almost as tall as her father. She had never forgotten those slate-gray eyes, intent and more than a little hard, that thick sandy-red hair under the round black hat, that slender sharp nose and quiet inflexible mouth. She felt his strength and purposefulness and strong assurance. She wanted, more than anything else, to touch his hand, to feel what she knew she would feel: warm familiarity and firmness, kindness and protection.
As if he knew what she thought, he extended his hand, and with a quick hunger, she laid her own in it. When his fingers pressed hers, her heart quaked with rapture, and the dazzle before her eyes splintered into rainbows.
“See here, this is no place to stand,” she heard him say, from a long distance. “Let’s go somewhere where we can sit down and have a cup of tea, or something.”
She felt him take her arm. Obediently, her legs moved. She did not feel the ground under her feet. Her chin was at the level of his shoulder, and she brushed it strongly against the brown roughness of it, again and again, as a puppy would do. She clung to his side; people jostled her, and she was unaware. There was a sweet long singing in her ears. She was not alone now. She would never be alone again. Her desire to cry choked her, and she swallowed convulsively.
She found herself in a small restaurant with neat white tables, plated silver, dark panelled walls, crimson carpet underfoot, and very elderly waiters. The air was full of the smell of beef and onions, beer and coffee. But she hardly saw this background, discreet and dim and old. It was only the background of dreams wavering behind this glittering and ecstatic presence. She gazed about her, bemused, returning to Anthony to smile with shy radiance.
He leaned his elbows on the table and studied her with frank affection. What a strange pale little face it was, but so beautiful in its delicacy. And how like his mother’s, too. But, there was a difference, he discerned. His mother’s face might possess features like these, but this hauteur was timid rather than arrogant. His mother’s eyes were cold; these brown soft eyes were quick, alive and warm. Pride might lie across that smooth clear forehead with its smooth wings of brows, but it was a simple and noble pride, rather than Eugenia’s disdainful withdrawal. The mouth was very lovely in this girl’s face, though its loveliness was in its expression and not in its colouring, which was pale, nor in its formation, which was somewhat wide and thin. He saw, however, that time and bitterness might change that expression, and leave the mouth exactly like Eugenia’s: overbearing, full of hard authority, and disingenuousness. He hoped, with a sudden fierceness, that nothing would happen to Adelaide to change her into a replica of his mother. And he wondered, with sadness, if his mother might not once have been like this girl, naturally noble of temperament, sweetly intelligent and gently grave.
He felt a strong tenderness for Adelaide, a protectiveness and love. He reached across the table and took one of her little hands, so brown and thin and firm. She watched him with childish absorption, never looking away from his face. There were rare stains of colour on her cheek-bones.
Now she stammered, as she struggled to retain coherence over her wild emotions: “You remember Lavinia, Tony? She is to be married day after tomorrow.”
He raised an eyebrow. “So I heard. I’m not invited, of course.” And he smiled.
Adelaide’s, colour increased with sudden distress. But she said nothing.
“She is marrying Rufe Hastings, isn’t she?” asked Anthony. “Well, it’s a good match. What about Louisa? Is it true she is to marry Patrick Brogan?”
“I don’t know,” murmured Adelaide.
The waiter brought them a plate of cold beef, bread, a salad and some coffee. Adelaide was not aware of eating, though she watched Anthony intently as he filled her plate. All about her was a singing warmth and a passionate happiness.
“Now, tell me about yourself, my pet,” said Anthony, leaning his elbows on the table and scrutinizing her fondly. “What have you been doing?”
Speech did not come readily to Adelaide, but soon she found herself talking, at first shyly, and then with quick eagerness. She told him of her years at school, barren and lonely years. She did not speak of this barrenness or loneliness, but he heard them in her words. And then all at once her expression became blank and sad. “There isn’t really much to tell,” she said. “Nothing happens to me.”
“How old are you, Adelaide?”
“I will be fifteen next April.”
Anthony was silent, still gazing at her. Then he began to tell her, in a light tone, of his experiences in England, of his school years there, of his uncle, Lord Brewster, and the simpering Melissa. Adelaide listened, enraptured. She hardly heard his words; she listened to his voice. Once or twice she closed her eyes as if her happiness was unendurable.
He was to go to Harvard for two more years, to complete his studies, he said. Then he was to go into Richard Gorth Company. “America is my home,” he said. “I’m not going away again. So, we shall see each other often, Adelaide.”
There was a sudden quenching of the light on her face. She began to murmur, and he leaned across the table the better to hear her. She had dropped her eyes, and was twisting her napkin in her hands.
“You know, Tony, that our parents don’t like each other. I don’t know why. It—it seems a little silly. I never understood. I questioned Mama, but she seemed so distressed that I changed the subject. You know they won’t want us to meet—like this. Not ever.”
She lifted her eyes now, and they were full of anguished tears. He took her hand again.
“Would you like us to meet, dear Adelaide?” he asked.
“Yes!” she cried, with quick despair.
He smiled. “Then we shall. I shall not ask you to disobey your parents. That would hurt you, you silly little creature. But I shall haunt you. I really shall. When we meet, it won’t be your fault. I shall just come up behind you, and there we’ll be! Just as simple as that. For instance, if every fourth Sunday you take a stroll down Fifth Avenue, I shall be strolling, too. If you should happen to wander past this restaurant on Friday afternoons, on the holidays, I shouldn’t wonder if I should be wandering along, also, remembering today. No one could blame you then if your cousin suddenly accosted you; no one would ask you to be so uncivil as to refuse to speak to me.”
She returned his smile, but it was sad. “That would be sneaking,” she said.
“What a conscientious little thing it is, to be sure! Well, I’ll manage some way.” Now he became very serious. “What is it to us if our parents are disagreeable to each other? Are we to build our lives on their prejudices?”
Adelaide
said simply, looking him full in the eyes; “I love my Papa, Tony. I love him very much.” And then her face became dark and sad, and she averted her eyes.
Though she had told him so little, he guessed with prescience, the circumstances and wretchedness of her life. He was filled with anger. So strange and quiet a little creature, with such flashing warm eyes and intelligent mouth and sweet dignified manners! Who could look at her and not love her?
And then he knew that such people as Adelaide are always hated, that the universality of the hatred that surrounded them was a terrible commentary on the nature of men. It is the liars, he reflected, that are loved, the hypocrites, the thieves, the false and the cruel, for they love only themselves. Those who are by temperament high and virtuous, just and gentle, good and honourable, inspire only detestation.
He walked with Adelaide down the street, insisted on helping her match the ribbon in the shops. He heard her slow and reluctant laughter. It delighted him to see how happiness and joy and amusement sparkled in her eyes. He became quite foolish and ridiculous, in order to see that light under her brown lashes. The shopgirls were entranced by him. Finally, the ribbon was matched, and they emerged in the long hot glow of the late afternoon.
He accompanied her almost to her home, and there he took her hand. They looked at each other with sudden gravity.
“We’ll meet, my love,” he said, gently but firmly. “I won’t lose you. Remember that.”
He hesitated. He glanced up and down the long quiet avenue with its frowning houses and clean swept steps. No one was about. Every window was shuttered against the heat. Before Adelaide could utter a sound, he drew her to him and kissed her shaking lips. She resisted a moment, then suddenly her hands seized his arms and clung to them, and her mouth pressed eagerly against his own.
CHAPTER 39
Adelaide found her mother with her sisters in Lavinia’s sitting room when she entered the house.