Christopher came back to Edith, and after he had scrutinized her for some time, he thought, with a quickening rise of wariness: She’s up to something. He waited for her to speak, and when her lips parted he was suddenly dizzy with fear. But all she said, was: “There is going to be a storm. Does everybody feel as sticky and apprehensive as I do?”
Christopher heard his mother sigh. But Henri said quickly, as though he had been offered some escape: “Yes, I do! Let’s go out and walk around a while. It can’t be worse out there!”
They went out, Adelaide first, then Edith and Christopher, then Henri and Celeste. The hot darkness was intense, even in the open grassy spaces. It was even more intense in the smothering vacuums under the trees, which were pits of blackness. The profound and hollow silence was pierced through and through with the shrilling of autumn insects, a monotonous sound yet maddening. There was a portentousness in the air, an ominous waiting.
Adelaide sat down under a tree. Her heart was beating rapidly. The portentousness was part of herself. She had known about it, ever since Edith had called her abruptly that afternoon.
Christopher and Edith passed her so closely that she could have touched them, but though she saw them they did not see her. There was the faintest glimmer from the sky, and she could see how they walked, side by side, not touching, but emanating a private portentousness and danger. They were not speaking. Celeste and Henri passed. Celeste was laughing a little. The sound came mirthlessly to Adelaide’s ears, a forced and artificial laughter. Then Adelaide was alone. She shrank, on her seat under the tree. She seemed to gather herself together for protection.
Christopher and Edith found their way to the rose garden. A few roses bloomed here still. They had a dry burning scent, without sweetness. Beyond them, the trees were nebulous shadows smudged faintly against a sky that glinted with pale lightning. It was too dark for either to see the other’s face. Edith’s voice, when she spoke, was very low, but the silence made it clear and sharp to Christopher’s ears.
“I’m going away, Christopher, after Henri and Celeste are married.”
“Going away?” His own voice was surprised, slightly edged with cautious concern. “You mean, for a trip, yourself?”
She was silent a moment, and then resumed even more quiedy: “No. I’m not coming back.”
Christopher was silent. She could barely see him. But she felt his imminence. Even in the darkness, she could feel this intense imminence, which was as strong as a pungent odor. The world, the garden, the night, outside him, became empty and presenceless before this imminence of his; they became without substance or living reality. The night, which made most men negligible, increased his ferine quality, as it increased that of the night-prowlers. His innate ferocity was enhanced in darkness, as his physical colorlessness was obscured. Quite irrelevantly and suddenly, Edith thought, with weariness: Oh, dear God! how much I’d like to know some ‘nice’ people for a change! Nice, safe, normal, kind people, dull people, stupid people, harmless people!
His threatening imminence became almost overpowering when he said: “You’re not coming back? Why not? Don’t you want to see me any more, Edith?” His voice was close, dangerously close to her, but, she thought, without warmth or passion. And yet it seemed to penetrate her very body.
“No,” she said, stiffening her trembling lips. “No, Christopher, I don’t want to see you any more.”
And again he was silent. A dim murmur of thunder disturbed the air over the trees, and they whispered anxiously together, and then fell once more into their attitudes of immobile waiting. The dry burning scent of flowers blew into the darkness.
Then a rigor crept over Edith’s flesh, for Christopher had put his arm about her. She kept herself rigid. His hand cupped her chin, lifted it. His mouth found hers. She stiffened backward, but he held her tightly. She seemed to smother; the trees swirled in a circle before her staring eyes, which were fixed beyond the vague outline of his head. His mouth, which always before had felt so dry and lifeless on hers, was warm now, and demanding. A sick pang ran through her. She thrust him from her violently, and cried out, careless of anyone who might be hearing: “Oh, go away! Leave me alone! You don’t want me. You want—something else! And you can’t have that and have me, too!”
He caught her arm savagely, and shook her. “Shut up, you idiot! You’re making a fool out of yourself!”
She was sobbing dryly. She tried to release her arm. After a minor struggle, he let her go. Her sobs softened to smothered gasps. She could feel him trying to see her, and knew that he was no longer enraged, and even amused. She heard him laugh shortly. That sound cut her. She began to cry, silently.
“Edith, you’re a simpleton. Do you know that? Making a scene like this. What’s the matter with you? What do you want? Do you want me to make you a formal proposal of marriage?” He waited. She did not move or reply. He laughed again, put his arm about her. “All right, then. Will you marry me, Edith?”
He expected her to laugh, to surrender, to turn to him with eagerness and delight. But he had not expected her to stand like this, not moving, not agitated, and he had not expected her to say so quietly, so unemotionally: “No, I won’t marry you, Christopher.” And then, as he stood, dazed with amazement and affronted shock, she pushed his arm from her and stepped away from his side.
His sensations were furiously mixed: anger, humiliation, amusement, astonishment, confusion. She could feel his eyes searching for her as a wild beast searches. She wanted to run away, terrified lest she should betray herself, lest she should throw herself upon him, surrendering, lest she should cry out, or strike him. But she had something else to say, and had to remain to say it.
“I can’t marry you,” she repeated. “I couldn’t bear to live with a man who was responsible for my brother’s misery.” She turned to him, and her voice rose with accusing passion: “Your own sister’s misery doesn’t mean anything to you! But my brother means more to me than anything else in the world. He’ll be wretched, marrying your sister! And in spite of knowing all this, you’re pushing her at him, just for your own mean and wicked reasons!”
She panted. Tears and sweat mingled on her face. She waited for him to speak, but he did not. Yet even in the thick darkness she could feel the cold violence of him.
“Oh, go away,” she said drearily. She left him, pushing her tear-blinded way through shrubbery and thicket. After a while she heard him following her without hurry. The house, which they were approaching now, was only a dim wall in which were inset triangles of yellow light.
Celeste and Henri had strolled slowly in a direction opposite to that taken by Edith and Christopher. They had talked lightly and casually at first, but now they were silent. When Celeste found herself in a grove of trees, she started uneasily, and then stopped. Her heart began to beat furiously, with a sort of dread and excitement. Henri, who had gone on a step or two, turned around and waited. But she did not follow. He turned back. “What’s the matter, sweetheart?” he asked. He bent his head; his voice was close to her ear. She stepped back precipitately, and then stepped forward. “It’s so dark and hot here, under these trees,” she said. Now it was he who was following her. The night was laced with sparks and flashes before her frightened eyes. She had a horror that if he touched her she would cry out. And yet, more than anything else, she wanted him to touch her, bringing her the reassurance and forgetfulness she desperately craved.
They emerged into a narrow grassy area between two thick groves of trees. Here the air was cooler, freer. Celeste stopped, breathing unevenly. Henri was beside her now. “What’s the matter, Celeste?” he repeated.
“Nothing. It is so hot and oppressive,” she murmured. The smile which was so automatic and pathetic these days came again to her face, even though he could not see it. He stood beside her, not speaking, not touching her, not even turned to her. But he was thinking. He had had too much experience with women not to feel her disturbance, her distress, and fear.
He was
thinking that some virtue in Celeste had been violated, some virtue which had drawn him to her from the very first. It had been a quality mixed of gaiety and steadfastness, purity and strength. Not only had it been violated, it had been destroyed. After a moment, he refused to accept this. Perhaps the virtue had been shaken, during the episode of Peter. But it would come back. Hadn’t she, herself, told him that she had made a “mistake” about Peter? Sometimes mistakes did shake the psychic equilibrium, but they never destroyed it. However, it needed time, and change.
He reached in the darkness and took her hand. At first she faintly resisted, then the hand remained in his, childishly warming, as though he had comforted her. He drew the hand forward, and then put his arms about her. He kissed her forehead, her cheeks, and then her mouth, very gently. Again she resisted, and then all at once, like a heartbroken child, she clung to him, silently, almost fiercely.
Tenderness was a new sensation for Henri Bouchard, and he was not yet used to its uniqueness. He could marvel objectively at the gentleness it gave his hands, the soft coolness it blew on desire, its warmth which was at once paternal and overwhelming. He thought: No matter how long I live, there’ll never be anyone for me but this funny little girl. He was glad for this tenderness. He knew that Celeste’s wounds would have borne no other handling, and would have opened more at the touch of exigency and passion.
After a time they went back to the house, their arms about each other. The deep diffused suffering which was an old familiar to Celeste had ebbed into a gray contentment and peace, as though she had taken a narcotic. When they reached the high level which dipped towards Robin’s Nest, they saw Christopher and Edith entering through one of the lighted French windows. They followed. Unseen, unheard, Adelaide crept in behind them.
“Well,” said Christopher, in a voice that sounded artificially loud and expansive, “I think we’d better be getting home. There’s going to be a rumpus in half an hour. It’s thundering already.”
Henri glanced about the big room. His nostrils distended, like those of an animal scenting danger. He looked at his sister, so pale, her eyes glittering with tears. He looked at Christopher, the malignant light so vivid upon his narrow, bladelike face. He looked, now, at Adelaide, standing near a window, in an attitude of old fear, hardly breathing. He looked at Celeste, who stood like a child, uneasily aware of secret violence.
“Yes,” said Henri, slowly, always watching, “perhaps you’d better hurry along. It looks like a hell of a storm.”
He glanced at the window. Suddenly the whole scene outside, trees, grass, sky, terraces, flower-beds and groves, became a scene painted in grisaille, a thousand tints of spectral gray, evoked by the lightning. A moment or two later the deep hollow groaning of thunder rolled over the great house, accompanied by the dry rushing of the awakened wind. The room was filled, all at once, by a hundred disturbed odors of grass and earth and dust.
In the abrupt silence that followed the wind and thunder Edith spoke. Her voice was clear and calm, but singularly arresting. She spoke to her brother.
“Before they go, Henri, why don’t you tell Christopher that you are not going to marry Celeste?”
No one moved. Everyone seemed petrified. Four pairs of dilated eyes fixed themselves with terrible intensity on Edith. No one made the slightest sound, not even Adelaide, at one of the Windows. Outside, the wind rose again, with a louder voice, and filled the open room with a more insistent presence of disturbed earth and air.
Then Henri’s face was suddenly suffused with a swelling scarlet. He regarded his sister with fury. “What’s the matter with you?” he exclaimed. “Are you crazy?”
But she looked at him with passionate pleading. “Henri, can’t you see what he is trying to do to you? He is trying to tie you, hand and foot. He is using you for his own advantage, not caring what it does to you or to his sister.”
Adelaide, at the window, uttered a faint cry, and clasped her hands to her breast. Her brown eyes filled with tears. But no one heard or noticed her. Christopher’s face was suddenly wizened, transformed to a wrinkled mask of evil, in which his eyes glinted. Celeste had turned white, her black hair spectacular against her forehead and cheeks. But Henri stood like an enraged bull, facing his sister, his head thrust forward and lowering. His face was swollen, and his inexorable eyes were baleful.
“Get out of this room,” he said in a low and violent tone. “Go on, get out.”
But she faced him without fear, only with steadfast grief and determination. “Henri, can’t you see? He’s afraid of you, even while he is using you. So he is using his sister like a rope, to tie you so you can’t do anything.” She turned to Christopher in sudden passion and thrilling accusation: “Why don’t you lie? Why don’t you tell him I’m a fool, or that I’m insane and ought to be locked up? Or why don’t you tell your sister the truth, that you lied to her about Peter, and manipulated her into this engagement with my brother? Why don’t you tell her that you are using both of them, because you are an inhuman monster who can think of nothing but your mean revenge on your brother? Why don’t you tell her everything you have done to Peter, and herself, the lies you’ve told, the cruelties you’ve done?”
Christopher’s shrunken lips parted; his teeth gleamed. He and Edith looked at each other across the room. She saw hatred and murder in his eyes, and a malevolence that was not human. She closed her own eyes on a spasm, unable to bear it, feeling that her heart was being torn and shattered in her breast. She thought to herself: It’s all wasted. I’ve accomplished nothing, except to make him hate me. She felt herself seized by the arm and ferociously shaken. She felt the impact of someone’s hand savagely against her cheek. She thought for a moment that she was going to faint, for everything became dim and confused, and the floor seemed to move under her feet. Nothing was clear to her but her own thoughts: He hates me. I’ve accomplished nothing. I’ll never see him again.
She opened her eyes. In a gray fog she saw Henri’s face, grotesquely and dimly enlarged, thrust towards her. She saw his lips moving, but could hear nothing. It was his hand which was shaking her, his hand which had struck her. She was faintly aware that her cheek was throbbing. There was a taste of blood in her mouth. She felt herself being propelled towards the door, towards darkness. Then she heard a voice, cutting through her confusion. It was Adelaide, who had left the window, and who was standing, now, before her stricken daughter, and pleading. “Celeste, my darling, it’s true. Every word is true. Christopher lied to you about Peter. I don’t know what he said, but it’s a lie. From the very start, he’s been using you. He’s been pushing you at Henri; he’s been working you into this marriage. Because he needed it. He needed it to revenge himself on Armand, because of your father’s will.”
“No!” cried Celeste, in a clear loud voice, an appalled voice, the voice of a child who, in terror, refuses to believe. Henri heard it, and forgot his sister, whose arm he dropped. He started back towards Celeste, who watched him come with blind and frantic eyes. He had almost reached her, when she saw him, and thrust out both her arms, stiffly, to keep him off. She seemed beside herself. Her expression, the look of her face, paralyzed him. He stopped abruptly, unable to move.
Adelaide turned to her son. She held out her hands. There was no condemnation in her face. Her hands were extended, as though she were praying to him. There was only compassion, only love, only sorrow, in her eyes.
“Christopher,” she said. And that was all. But her eyes remained upon him, mutely, passionately pleading, not for her daughter, but for himself. All at once he remembered the dream he had had of her, when she had pleaded for him like this.
The most frightful expression wrinkled his face, but it was only the vaguest shadow of the frightful sensations that went on inside himself. He could hardly endure the torture and madness that boiled in him, the hatred, the fury, the despair. He felt as though he stood in icy water, the sand sliding away under his feet. His hands moved futilely. He struggled appallingly in himself,
to regain foothold, to regain what he was losing. He moved his head, as though he were strangling.
Then Celeste, with a rush, had flung herself upon him. Her hands tore at him. Bemused, he looked down at her frantic face, her staring desperate eyes. He listened to her cries. “Christopher, it isn’t true! You didn’t lie about Peter, did you? You didn’t send him away, so that I’d marry Henri, because you had a reason for me to marry him? Christopher!” Her hands tore at him more and more. There was frenzy, futile panic, in her clutches, her drowning hands. “Christopher, you wouldn’t do that to me, would you? You’ve always loved me, haven’t you, Christopher? You wouldn’t do this to me?”
He looked down at her, shaken by the desperate strength of her hands, his ears filled with her crying vehemence, seeing only her wounded eyes, eyes which begged him not to strike her down, which implored him not to destroy her belief in him, and so destroy herself. But he also saw, as in a terrible and clarified light, what he had done to her. He saw how thin she was, how feverish; he saw the lines of suffering in her young face. He saw her tears. And then, all at once, the pain that ran through him seemed mortal, beyond the endurance of flesh to withstand.
He sighed. He put his arms about her. He smiled. He pulled her head to his breast, in order that he might not have to see her eyes and her tears.
“Hush, darling. Hush, darling,” he said tenderly, sheltering her head with his hand, holding her. “I was wrong, dear. I’ve just found out. I—I’ve talked to Francis. He explained everything. It was just a joke, those letters. It was a joke between him and Peter. I—I misunderstood Peter. He’s everything you’ve ever thought him, my darling. I would have told you about it before, but I thought you had forgotten him. I even thought it was just an infatuation—I thought you had really returned to Henri—”
Her sobs became quieter. The pathetic tearing hands were still. She relaxed against him, her arms falling to her side. He held her tightly, kissing the top of her head. He did not hear Adelaide’s cry of joy, nor did he see her luminous look of compassionate understanding. He did not see Henri, standing in silence, biting his lower lip. He did not see Edith near the door, weeping. There was no one now, but Celeste, sighing, murmuring, relaxing against him.