XV
Alice marched up to her, blazing with anger and indignation. She was not, at that moment, the gentle Alice, as everybody called her, Alice-sit-by-the-fire, equable and pacific, believing the best of people. She was the mother-woman eager to revenge the hurt that had been done to one who had all her love.
“Ah,” she said, “you’re just in time for me to tell you what I think of you.”
“Whatever you may think of me,” replied Joan, “is nothing to what I think of myself.”
But Alice was not to be diverted by that characteristic way of evading hard words, as she thought it. She had seen Joan dodge the issues like that before, many times, at school. They were still screened from the veranda by a scrub-supported dune. She could let herself go.
“You’re a thief,” she blurted out, trembling and out of all control for once. “Not a full-blown thief because you don’t steal to keep. But a kleptomaniac who can’t resist laying hands on other women’s men. You ought not to be allowed about loose. You’re a danger, a trap. You have no respect for yourself and none for friendship. Loyalty? You don’t know the meaning of the word. You’re not to be trusted out of sight. I despise you and never want to see you again.”
Could this be Alice,—this little fury, white and tense, with clenched hands and glinting eyes, animal-like in her fierce protectiveness?
Joan looked at her in amazement. Hadn’t she already been hit hard enough? But before she could speak Alice was in breath again. “You can’t answer me back,—even you, clever as you are. You’ve nothing to say. That night at my house, when we had it out before, you said that you were not interested in Gilbert. If that wasn’t a cold-blooded lie what was it? Your interest has been so great that you’ve never let him alone since. You may not have called him deliberately, but when he came you flaunted your sex in his face and teased him just to see him suffer. You were flattered, of course, and your vanity swelled to see him dogging your heels. There’s a pretty expressive word for you and your type, and you know it as well as I do. Let me pass, please.”
Joan moved off the narrow board-walk without a word.
And Alice passed, but piqued by this unexpected silence, turned and went for her once most intimate friend again. If she was callous and still in her “Who Cares?” mood words should be said that could never be forgotten.
“I am Mrs. Gray. My husband won’t be back for several days,” These were the only words that rang in Joan’s ears now. Alice might as well have been talking to a stone.
“Things are coming to a head,” Alice went on, unconsciously using Gilbert’s expression and Hosack’s.
“And all the seeds that you’ve carelessly sown have grown into great rank weeds. Ask Mrs. Jekyll what you’ve driven Martin into doing if you’re curious to know. She can tell you. Many people have seen. But if you still don’t care, don’t trouble, because it’s too late. Go a few yards down there and look at that man bent double in the summer house. If you do that and can still cry out ‘Who Cares?’ go on to the hour when everything will combine to make you care. It can’t be far away.”
“I’m Mrs. Gray. My husband won’t be back for several days.” Like the song of death the refrain of that line rose above the sound of the sea and of Alice’s voice. Joan could listen to nothing else.
And Alice caught the wounded look in the eyes of the girl in whom she had once had faith and was recompensed. And having said all that she had had in her mind and more than she had meant to say, she turned on her heel, forced herself back into control and went smiling towards the group on the veranda. And there Joan remained standing looking as though she had seen a ghost,—the ghost of happiness.
“Mrs. Gray,—and her husband Martin.... But what have I got to say,—I, who refused to be his wife? It only seemed half true when I found them together before, although that was bad enough. But this time, now that my love for Martin has broken through all those days of pretending to pretend and that girl is openly in that cottage, nothing could be truer. It isn’t Martin who has taken off his armor. It’s I who have cut the straps and made it fall from his shoulders Oh, my God, if only I hadn’t wanted to finish being a kid.”
She moved away, at last, from the place where Alice had left her and without looking to the right or left walked slowly down to the edge of the sea. Vaguely, as though it was something that had happened in a former life, she remembered the angry but neat figure of Alice and a few of the fierce words that had got through to her. “Rank weeds... driven Martin... too late.... Who Cares?” Only these had stuck. But why should Alice have said them? It was all unnecessary. She knew them. She had said them all on the way back from Devon, all and many more, seated beside that nice boy, Harry, in his car.... She had died a few feet from the stoop of the cottage, in the scent of honeysuckle and Come back to something that wasn’t life to be tortured with regrets. All the way back she had said things to herself that Alice, angry and bitter as she had seemed to be, never could have invented. But they too were unnecessary. Saying things now was of no more use than throwing stones into the sea at any time. Rank weeds... driven Martin... too late... who cares—only who cares should have come first because everything else was the result.
And for a little while, with the feeling that she was on an island, deserted and forgotten, she stood on the edge of the sea, looking at a horizon that was utterly blank. What was she to do? Where was she to go?... Not yet a woman, and all the future lay about her in chaos.... Once more she went back in spirit to that room of Martin’s which had been made the very sanctum of Romance by young blood and moonlight and listened to the plans they had made together for the discovery of a world out of which so many similar explorers had crept with wounds and bitterness.
“I’m going to make my mark,” she heard Martin cry. “I’m going to make something that will last. My father’s name was Martin Gray, and I’ll make it mean something out here for his sake.”
“And I,” she heard herself say, “will go joy-riding on that huge Round-about. I’ve seen what it is to be old and useless, and so I shall make the most of every day and hour while I’m young. I can live only once, and I shall make life spin whichever way I want it to go. If I can get anybody to pay my whack, good. If not, I’ll pay it myself,—whatever it costs. My motto’s going to be a good time as long as I can get it and who cares for the price!”
Young fool, you young fool!
The boy followed her to the window, and the moonlight fell upon them both.
“Yes, you’ll get a bill all right. How did you know that?”
And once more she heard her answer. “I haven’t lived with all those old people so long for nothing. But you won’t catch me grumbling if I get half as much as I’m going out for. Listen to my creed, Martin, and take notes if you want to keep up with me.... I shall open the door of every known Blue Room, hurrying out if there are ugly things inside. I shall taste a little of every known bottle, feel everything there is to feel except the thing that hurts, laugh with everybody whose laugh is catching, do everything there is to do, go into every booth in the big Bazaar, and when I’m tired and there’s nothing left, slip out of the endless procession with a thousand things stored in my memory. Isn’t that the way to live?”
“Young fool, you young fool,” she cried, with the feeling of being forgotten and deserted, with not one speck on the blank horizon. “You’ve failed—failed in everything. You haven’t even carried out your program. Others have paid,—Martin and Gilbert and Alice, but the big bill has come in to you... Who cares? You do, you do, you young fool, and you must creep out of the procession with only one thing stored in your memory,—the loss of Martin, Martin.”
It was a bad hour for this girl-child who had tried her wings too young.
And when Gilbert straightened up and gave thanks to God for the woman who had never stirred him, but whose courage and tenderness had added to his respect, he too turned towards the sea with its blank horizon,—the sea upon which he was to be taken by his good wife for rest and sleep, and there was Joan... young, and slight and alluring, with her back to him and her hands behind her back, and the mere sight of her churned his blood again, and set his dull fire into flames. Once more the old craving returned, the old madness revived, as it always would when the sight and sound of her caught him, and all the common sense and uncommon goodness of the little woman who had given him comfort rose like smoke and was blown away.... To win this girl he would sacrifice Alice and barter his soul. She was in his blood. She was the living picture of his youthful vision. She only could satisfy the Great Emotion.... There was the plan that he had forgotten,—the lunatic plan from which, even in his most desperate moment, he had drawn back, afraid,—to cajole her to the cottage away from which he would send his servants; make, with doors and windows locked, one last passionate appeal, and then, if mocked and held away, to take her with him into death and hold her spirit in his arms.
To own himself beaten by this slip of a girl, to pack his traps and leave her the field and sneak off like a beardless boy,—was that the sort of way he did things who had had merely to raise his voice to hear the approach of obsequious feet?... Alice and the yacht and nothing but sea to a blank horizon? He laughed to think of it. It was, in fact, unthinkable.
He would put it to Joan in a different way this time. He would hide his fire and be more like that cursed boy. That would be a new way. She liked new things.
He left the summer house, only the roof of which was touched by the last golden rays of the sun, and with curious cunning adopted a sort of caricature of his old light manner. There was a queer jauntiness in his walk as he made his way over the sand, carrying his hat, and a flippant note in his voice when he arrived at her side.
“Waiting for your ship to come home?” he asked.
“It’s come,” she said.
“You have all the luck, don’t you?”
She choked back a sob.
He saw the new look on her face. Something,—perhaps boredom,—perhaps the constant companionship of that cursed boy,—had brought her down from her high horse. This was his chance!...
“You thought I had gone, I suppose?”
“Yes,” she said.
“To-morrow suits me best. I’m off to-morrow,—I’ve not decided where. A long journey, it may be. If you’re fed up with these people what do you say to my driving you somewhere for dinner? A last little dinner to remind us of the spring in New York?”
“Would you like me to very much?”
He steadied his voice. “We might be amused, I think.”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” she said.
“I’d love you to,” he answered. “It would be fair, too. I’ve not seen much of you here.”
Yes, it would be fair. Let her try, even at that late stage of the game, to make things a little even. This man had paid enough.
“Very well,” she said. “Let’s go.” It would be good to get away from prying eyes and the dull ache of pain for a few hours.
He could hardly believe his ears. Joan,—to give him something! It was almost incredible.
She turned and led the way up. The sun had almost gone. “I’ll get my hat at once,” she said, “I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”
His heart was thumping. “I’ll telephone to a place I know, and be waiting in the car.”
“Let me go in alone,” she said. “We don’t want to be held up to explain and argue. You’re sure you want me to come?” She drew up and looked at him.
He bowed to hide his face. “Of all things on earth,” he said.
She ran on ahead, slipped into the house and up to her room.
Exultant and full of hope, Gilbert waited for a moment before following her in. Going straight to the telephone room he shut the door, asked for the number of his cottage and drummed the instrument with his fingers.
At last!
“Is that you, Itrangi?... Lay some sort of dinner for two,—cold things with wine. It doesn’t matter what, but at once. I shall be over in about an hour. Then get out, with the cook. I want the place to myself to-night. Put the door key on the earth at the left-hand corner of the bottom step. Telephone for a car and go to the hotel at Sag Harbor. Be back in the morning about nine. Do these things without fail. I rely upon you.”
He hardly waited for the sibilant assurance before putting back the receiver. He went round to the garage himself. This was the first time he had driven Joan in his car. It might be the last.
Harry was at the bottom of the stairs as Joan came down.
“You’re not going out?” he asked. She was still in day clothes, wearing a hat.
“Yes, I am, Harry.”
“Where? Why?”
She laid her hand on his arm. “Don’t grudge Gilbert one evening,—his last. I’ve been perfectly rotten to him all along.”
“Palgrave? Are you going out with Palgrave?”
“Yes, to dine somewhere. I want to, Harry, oh, for lots of reasons. You know one. Don’t stop me.” Her voice broke a little.
“But not with Palgrave.”
“Why?”
“I saw him dodge out of the telephone room a minute ago. He looked—queer. Don’t go, Joan.”
“I must,” she said and went to the door. He was after her and caught hold of her arm.
“Joan, don’t go. I don’t want you to.”
“I must,” she said again. “Surely you can understand? I have to get away from myself.”
“But won’t I do?”
“It’s Gilbert’s turn,” she said. “Let go, Harry dear.” It was good to know that she hadn’t hurt this boy.
“I don’t like it. Please stay,” but he let her go, and watched her down the steps and into the car, with unaccountable misgiving. He had seen Gilbert’s face.
And he saw it again under the strong light of the entrance—triumphant.
For minutes after the car had gone, with a wave from Joan, he stood still, with an icy hand on his heart.
“I don’t like it,” he repeated. “I wish to God I’d had the right to stop her.”
She thought that he didn’t love her, and he had done his best to obey. But he did love her, more than Martin, it seemed, more than Gilbert, he thought, and by this time she was well on her way to—what?