The sedative began to work upon him, but his thoughts were too terrible to surrender to it. He was enduring agonies. He was like a man surrounded by bayonets, upon which he must eventually impale himself. There was a weight of iron in his chest, which grew heavier each minute. The bed trembled slightly, with his trembling. He could not endure the darkness. He turned on the light. His face was slimy with sweat. He sat up, gasped once, groaned. Then he got out of bed, rolled up a blind, sat on the windowsill.
The grounds were mysterious with spectral moonlight. There was no shelter, no shrubbery. All at once he hated this openness, this barrenness, this cleanness. There was no darkness anywhere, nowhere to hide, to forget. He saw now that his love for sterility, for open places, came not from any desire of his, but from a psychic wish to see his enemies at all times, unconcealed.
In the light of imminent defeat he saw himself clearly, and was infuriated. He knew now that he had no true lust for power, no absorbing greed. These were what others had, not he, and because these others had believed them valuable, so also believed he, knowing that to obtain the respect of others, one must obtain what they consider valuable.
He was sick to death, of everything, including himself. He wanted to give up. Shamefully, he regarded his desire for defeat. But to accept, defeat, one must abolish hatred. He could not relinquish his mortal hatred. Therefore, he could not relinquish success. The answer to his enemies was triumph. He loathed this triumph now, but his wish to answer was still as powerful as ever.
I can’t give up, he thought. In that indomitable decision his love for Celeste was shriveled and blown away.
For the last few days, while he, appalled, saw his desire for the valueless ebb away, he had not been able to say anything to Celeste. He knew she waited for him to speak about Peter and herself. But something held him back. He struggled against it, for it was like a large hand upon his mouth. He avoided Edith, for in her face, so pale and tired, in her eyes, he saw her prayer to him that he would not hurt her brother, though she, herself, in spite of her own love for Henri, would not give up, either.
He had tried to speak to Celeste with ridicule of Peter. He had only waited for Peter to get out of the way! But alone with Celeste, he could say nothing. He had tried. But the hand on his mouth had been too heavy. And now a week had gone by.
He hated her for his impotence to destroy Peter. He avoided her. He did not know that his gray silence, his bladelike averted face, were more potent against Peter than any word he could have said. Celeste saw that he was suffering; she thought he was suffering because he was afraid for her. She was frightened; she knew that Christopher loved her, and she had trusted him all her life, believing him wise and good and strong. She had relied upon his judgment. Now, she saw that he was suffering, and it could only be because he was afraid of what marriage with Peter could do to her.
In the imminence of Christopher’s love and protection and familiarity, Peter acquired a faint hostile aura. But Henri became more dim. Celeste no longer considered him at all. He had left Crissons for Windsor, which he had declared more attractive than any summer resort. Upon his leaving, Celeste forgot him entirely. His sister remained, but for her Celeste had acquired a fearful aversion.
Christopher knew these things about his little sister, dispassionately. Perhaps, in some curious way, this knowledge was the heavy hand upon his mouth.
He tried to think, realizing the desperate necessity for thought At each awful vista, opening to his eyes wherever he looked, his soul sweated with despair and violence. Henri Bouchard was to him no longer a young man, and a relative, but a symbol of the hostile and inimical forces with which he had been surrounded all his life. The only hope he had, now, was the marriage between Henri and Celeste. Through Celeste, he would have a rein to hold Henri in check. Celeste was a thin but unbreakable wall of glass through which he could watch Henri, and be safe from Henri at the same time.
He left the window, more distraught than ever. The warm pale moonlight stood on his face, which was like death. He paced up and down the room. Celeste, awake and wretched herself, heard his movements. She felt guilty and contemptible, and lay in rigid misery, listening to him. But as she did so, she was pervaded with the memory of Peter, and it was so sweet, so protecting, that in spite of her efforts she relaxed and smiled with deep contentment, and finally fell asleep.
Christopher opened a desk drawer and drew out a bulky envelope which had arrived that morning from Francis. He re-read the short note: “Movie-idiocy or no movie-idiocy, you’d better use these if nicer methods fail. Send for me if you need corroboration. It’s nasty, but it’s necessary. We’re too deep in the soup to be nice about this.”
He re-read the incriminating correspondence between Peter and Francis. He felt disgust and a sense of degradation, new sensations for the merciless Christopher. He sat on the edge of his bed, the papers in his hand. Suddenly the sedative took effect, and he fell asleep, sunken there in a sitting posture, in the warm dim darkness.
He dreamt that Adelaide was standing beside him, in the room, as he sat. He could see her despairing and pleading gestures. He heard the sound of her voice, saw her mouth move. Her hands fluttered in the dusk, urgently. He did not know what she was saying, but he finally gathered that she was pleading, not for Celeste, but for himself.
CHAPTER LI
Celeste sat in her room, her breakfast tray on her knees, reading a letter from Peter. She kept re-reading it. Her lips trembled. Someone knocked at her door, and when it opened she saw that it was her mother.
The two women regarded each other in silence, Celeste’s unguarded expression turning to one of reserve and formality. Adelaide was tremulous and tired. “Come in, Mother,” said Celeste.
Adelaide sat down on the edge of a chair. She kept putting her handkerchief to her lips. Her eyelids were moist and reddened. Celeste regarded her with uneasy alarm. “Is anything the matter?” she asked, something fluttering in her throat. Adelaide shook her head. Then she turned in her chair and stared blindly through the window. She began to speak as though she were talking aloud to herself:
“It’s a terrible thing for a mother to have to stand by and watch her children destroying themselves, and be thought only an old impertinent fool if she tries to save them.”
Celeste was silent. Her lovely colorless face became cold. Her fingers folded and unfolded Peter’s letter. Then, when Adelaide did not speak again, she said formally: “I don’t know what you mean, Mother. What am I doing that’s so wrong, this time?”
Adelaide said, not looking at her: “I know you have a letter from Peter this morning. I saw it on the tray.” Now she turned to Celeste and cried passionately: “My darling, what are you doing to yourself? What is Christopher doing to you?” Celeste’s face was like a stone wall suddenly rising to confront the old woman. Adelaide blamed herself bitterly. She had only to mention her son’s name to have this look appear in Celeste’s eyes, this maddening look.
“Christopher’s doing nothing to me, Mother. That’s silly. He doesn’t even speak to me—about Peter. He’s left it entirely to me.” Tears appeared in her eyes. “And apparently Peter doesn’t mind so much. He’s away up in Canada. He tells me I needn’t write to him unless I ask him to come back.”
“Oh, the fool!” cried Adelaide, beating her clenched hands together. “Doesn’t he know that he shouldn’t leave a girl like you alone with—him?”
“You’re being unfair to Christopher!” exclaimed Celeste, angrily. “Christopher doesn’t even mention Peter. It’s just that I gave Christopher my word that I wouldn’t do anything for a month.”
“Your word!” said Adelaide bitterly. “You don’t know what you’re doing, Celeste. You don’t know who you’re dealing with. How can you use honor in dealing with rascals and thieves?” She stood up and approached the bed. “Write to Peter, Celeste, at once. Tell him to come back to you, that you need him, and that you want him to take you away. My darling,” she implored, “listen to your
mother. I know more about this than you do.”
Celeste regarded her inimically. “Mother, you never did like Christopher, did you?” she asked coldly. “You used to try to turn me against him when I was a little girl, and he was so dear and kind to me. You said unkind things to me about him, and he never retaliated, not even once. He hasn’t a friend in the world, besides me. Everyone tries to blacken him, and lie about him. You’re his mother; you ought to have been more sympathetic. But you’ve been so hard—”
Adelaide stared at her, aghast, not at the words, but at her own helplessness. “Celeste! You talk like a fool! Christopher’s my son; I’m his mother. What can you know of our feelings for each other, a silly little girl like you? A silly little girl without any experience in living, a foolish little girl who can’t even recognize what a fine person Peter is, and how little she deserves him! Celeste, you’re a bad impudent girl, and I can’t forgive you.” She burst into tears, and put her handkerchief to her eyes, stricken, and ashamed that she could not help debasing herself like this to her daughter.
The coldness and obstinacy of the Bouchards became more evident in Celeste’s face and eyes. “I’m sorry if you think I’m impudent. I didn’t mean to be, really. But you’ve never been a friend to poor Christopher. You even tried to turn Papa against him. Oh, yes, you did! And Papa listened, and put Christopher into the most awful position, in his will. Anyone else would have tried to revenge himself. Christopher didn’t. He just did the best he could, in the position into which you helped put him. He never asked anything of anybody. He’s been just and reasonable at all times. He’s been like my own father to me, trying to make up for Papa dying. And you’ve never, at any time, sympathized with him, or encouraged him, or helped him. You’ve only tried to turn me against him every time you could. So, how can I listen to you now?”
While Celeste had been speaking Adelaide had been staring at her intently And slowly, as the girl spoke, Adelaide’s face blanched to ghastliness. Her lips moved. Her eyes seemed to see things she never saw before. They formed before her, only nebulous still, and beyond a faint formation she could discern nothing. But it was enough. Scenes that had passed slowly reenacted themselves before her. They moved into position, into place. Words she had partly overheard, gestures she had noticed, expressions she had seen. Henri and Christopher! Christopher and Henri! She suddenly cried out. The plottings, still only half-formed, were apparent to her for a few lightning instants. Armand’s fear-filled face and gloominess. The many conferences. The tension in the family. And then, Celeste and Henri, and Christopher’s face these days since he had known about Peter—
She cried incoherently: “There’s something here you don’t understand, Celeste! I’ve got to go away, and think about it!” She seemed to be feeling her way to the door, as though blind. She went down the corridor to her own room. Someone barred her way; she felt her arm hit against a body. She looked up, dazed, uncomprehending. Then she saw it was Christopher, and one bemused glance at him told her that he had been listening.
His fingers closed about her arm, and she experienced intense pain. She felt herself thrust into her room. The door was closed silently behind her. She stood in the center of the room, Christopher beside her. He was panting a little, and grimacing. And now, through the swirling light and shadow of her horror, she heard him say:
“Keep out of this! I warn you, keep out of this!”
Then she was alone. She did not know how he had gone. For a dazed, chaotic moment she thought that he had just disappeared, like an evil specter.
CHAPTER LII
When Christopher came into Celeste’s room, she had already gotten out of bed and was standing helplessly by the window, crying. Her white silk nightgown blew about her in the gentle wind, her black hair, rumpled and childishly curling, rolled on her bare shoulders. She gazed at Christopher with wet frightened eyes, and held out her hands to him in a touching gesture.
He laid down on the disordered bed the envelope he had brought and went to his sister. He put his arm about her. His gray face with its sleepless eyes smiled. “Well, what the devil?” he exclaimed indulgently. “Has someone been upsetting you, pet?”
She leaned against him with a sigh of relief, putting her head on his shoulder. Her arms childishly hugged him, she sobbed aloud.
. “Mother hasn’t been scaring the life out of you, has she?” His voice was still affectionately indulgent. He picked her up bodily, sat down, and held her on his knee. Now his expression was all quizzical affection. “What’s the matter now?” She looked at the face she had always loved and trusted, and tried to smile in answer. But she said nothing, merely wiping her wet cheeks on the back of her hands. Finally she said: “It’s just that Mother thinks I ought to send for Peter, right now, though I told her that I’d promised not to see him for a month.”
Christopher patted her shoulder, pulled her closer to him. “Well, you’ve got to overlook things, sometimes. Don’t use that tone about Mother, pet. It isn’t the thing, you know. I don’t want you to be one of those girls who are confoundedly impertinent. Mother doesn’t know all the circumstances, so you’ve got to be patient, you see. Well, do you want to send for Peter, now?”
Her face glowed unbelievingly. She put her hands on his shoulders, studied his face intently. “Christopher! Do you mean it?”
He did not answer for a moment. He regarded her face, her eyes, and felt her trembling. An odd darkness moved over his own face. He looked away. He was still smiling, but it was a fixed smile now, like a grimace. But he said: “Yes, I do mean it, Celeste. That’s what I came to talk to you about, you see. And to discuss future arrangements for your and Peter’s future.”
She did not answer him, and after a while he looked at her. He was taken aback, for in a moment Celeste had become a woman. Tears stood in her shining eyes; she was smiling tremulously. Her breath had quickened, and there was a light about her which seemed to have its origin in her flesh. He saw that she could not speak. But after a little she kissed him gently, and held his hand. He felt its rapid pulse, its tremor.
“Do you—like—him so much, Celeste?” he asked in a strange voice.
She nodded, still unable to speak, and the light on her flesh brightened.
He dropped his head and stared at the floor. His mouth was a mere slit in his face; his jawbone was hard and sharp under his skin. He saw a brilliant flash of hot color on Celeste’s hand. He turned his eyes upon it. It was the opal which Etienne had given her. It seemed to burn like a living thing on the white soft flesh, a derisive thing which flashed its scorn at him, its power and immunity.
He moved his eyes away from it, and they fell on the brown envelope on the bed. The envelope seemed to fascinate him. He regarded it for a long time. Feeling his abstraction, Celeste put on a blue wrap, and sat down beside him. She was vaguely disturbed at his expression, the gray lifelessness of his color, the thin compressed line of his mouth. “Christopher,” she said timidly, and touched him.
He moved slightly. He looked at her and smiled. That smile increased her anxious perturbation. He put his hand on her shoulder. “Shall we get down to business and discuss how you two are going to live?” he asked.
She was greatly relieved. “Oh, is that so important?” she asked, and laughed.
He responded wryly: “It is considered so, of course. Well, I’ll go into this a bit for you, you little ignoramus.
“First of all, you are a great heiress. Do you know that? Do you know what that means? I thought not. It means that you are one of the powerful people in the world. But what do a pair of fluttering innocents like you and Peter know or care about that! But there it is. I’m your guardian, until you are twenty-one. I thereafter have some control over your fortune until you are thirty. But I’ve told you this before, haven’t I?
“Peter is a rich man in his own right, but not a quarter so rich as you. Though he has said nothing to me about this, or to anyone, I have an idea that that is an annoying fact to him. Men don?
??t like to feel financially inferior to their wives. It does something to their masculine ego.” He smiled. Celeste smiled also, but with a dim uneasiness.
“Now, lamb, I don’t want you to start your married life with this embarrassment between you and Peter. He ought to be put into a position of importance, so that this importance will overshadow your greater financial advantage, and will also increase his own wealth. Francis and I have discussed this previously.” He shook his finger at her indulgently. “Yes, lamb, we discussed this a long time ago, only tentatively, of course, as I had only a little idea that you liked him more than you should have done, considering that you were engaged to Henri.”
Celeste laughed. She leaned her head against his with deep contentment and happiness. He had a foreshortened view of her delicate smiling face with its peculiar air of strength. “You’re so sweet, Christopher,” she murmured.
The arm against which she leaned became rigid as wood. This startled her. She glanced up. But Christopher was still smiling quizzically.
“Oh, I’m not so sweet! I’m just careful, pet. Well, I’ll go on. You really ought to be in your bathing suit and down on the beach with the rest of them. You see, Celeste, a fortune is a serious responsibility, almost as much as a husband. Peter knows the responsibility. That is why, before he could make any move in your direction, he approached Francis for help.”
Celeste nodded solemnly. She was a little bored by this discussion. She wanted to be alone, so that she could write to Peter. At this thought her eyes glowed, her face flushed. She made a chuckling sound, and clasped her hands together gleefully. “Isn’t he silly?” she murmured, shining upon her brother. She glanced at the ring on her finger, and with the simplicity of a child she kissed it.
Again the gray rigidity passed over Christopher’s face. His lips moved stiffly when he continued:
“You remember, Celeste, that on the night we first saw him on his return to Windsor he mentioned that he wanted to dispose of his Bouchard stock?”