All Kneeling/Chapter 7
Elliott answered Christabel's letter beautifully. Then he lay down, at eleven o'clock in the morning, and slept until Gobby came in and stepped on the cat at seven that evening.
The two men had supper together at The Mouse Trap. Elliott found it pleasant to be back in the familiar atmosphere of orange curtains, candle drippings, and sprays of bittersweet, with Lola and Peggy friendly and welcoming, slapping around in their sandals, after all the small dark Italian restaurants he had been to lately. Christabel had not seemed to care for the various tearooms, run by awfully nice girls, that he had patronized before his engagement.
As they ate their chicken patties and ice-cream, he explained to Gobby that his life was in pieces and that he couldn't talk about it yet.
"Now listen, Elliott, what you've got to do is to get to work on your painting. How long since you've done anything?"
"Well, not since we—not since Christabel—we I've been too busy living, Gobby. And now that I'll have the time, what's the use?"
"Make her sorry."
"I wouldn't do anything in the world to cause her pain."
"All the same, I do think you ought to get back to your painting. Sublimate your emotion, man!"
"It's easy to talk, but you haven't lost everything that makes life worth while," Elliott answered, mournfully, his eyes fixed on the gigantic slice of chocolate cake crumbling beneath his fork.
"I'd rather have your memories than most people's realizations."
"Yes, nothing can take those from me. Somehow I knew this would happen. I knew it was all too perfect to come true. What had I to offer a wonderful girl like Christabel? And yet like a fool I went on hoping—deceiving myself."
"Well, think of Abélard and Héloïse, and Dante and Beatrice—they were always getting separated or something, and they're the world's great lovers. Tristram and Isolde, too—Romeo and Juliet"
Elliott and Christabel. Elliott just stopped himself from saying it aloud. Mr. Foster and Miss Caine. How different that sounded! But Elliott and Christabel
"You'd never be satisfied, either of you, with bourgeois contentment. I don't so much mean make her sorry as I mean make her proud of you. Demi-tasse? I think we'd better have big cups of coffee tonight, don't you? With cream?"
"I don't care—yes, cream. It all seems so empty."
"Big cups, Peggy, please. Of course it seems empty, but, Good Lord! what's an artist made for except to transmute his pain into the world's beauty? You've got to give, man, you've got to give!"
"That's what she always said."
He slept next moming until nearly noon. But after breakfast at the pâtisserie around the corner he began to paint again. And every day after that he painted, no longer apprehensive of her coming in with a few sweet peas, or a book, or a pomegranate, saying, "It's your mouse, come to keep mouse-still," and presently, "But when you are through, darling"
"It's certainly true that the artist works best in pain," Gobby told him. He actually sounds envious, Elliott thought, squeezing the mounds of color onto his palette, screwing up his eyes to look at the waxy pears. "God! If you only, knew!" he said under his breath.
Gobby was washing a pair of socks in Elliott's dishpan and did not at once answer. When he at last said, "Knew what?" Elliott was lost in trying to feel like a pear swelling juicily in a smooth yellow-pink skin, and only hummed a rising "Mmm?"
That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close"
Christabel wrote in her Secret Journal, the day she read Elliott's brave farewell, and burned it. And for a long time her eyes filled with tears when she heard what they had called their tune, and had whistled to each other as a signal, although she never could be quite sure whether it was Nevin's "Narcissus" or "The Soldiers' Chorus" from "Faust."
Through veils of reticence she explained Elliott to Curtis, or tried to explain, for apparently he preferred to let Elliott remain a vague shadow.
"It wasn't love, dearest, not real love, like ours. It was compassion, I think. He seemed to need me so. It wasn't until you came that I ever knew what love could be. I was like a prism, that's nothing—nothing, that is, except just a clearness and a pureness, I did keep those, I hope. And then the sun shines through the poor little prism and turns it into rainbow glory—and you're the sun! But he was only you're not listening to me, Curtis!"
"How can I listen to you when I'm looking at you? Do you know that you're the most beautiful girl in the world?"
"Darling! How strong you are!"
"How soon will you marry me? There's nothing to wait for."
And there wasn't. Aunt Deborah was well again and had offered Shady Lawn for the reception. Germantown was foaming with bloom and ready for the wedding. Bishop Lacombe would be off to Bar Harbor if they didn't hurry. Both families were delighted with the engagement. Christabel and Curtis would be in Paris on their wedding trip, so it would be foolish to spend much time on her trousseau. And, after all, when a great love comes, why wait?
For this is love, Christabel thought, as she lay awake after the day she had been with Curtis to choose her engagement ring. On the darkness, as vividly as if they had been drawn with a sharp pencil and painted with clear water-colors, she saw details that she had not consciously noticed. The sweep of Panama-hat brim, the black hat-band, the black silk tie with silver-gray dots, and a tuck-in of shadow under the knot, the scarlet carnation. She had read somewhere that intense emotion gives clairvoyance, that, when exaltation passes, memory of some detail remains forever as a sign. I never even noticed that he was wearing a carnation, she thought. Yet there it was, printed on the darkness, frilled and pinked as a penwiper. This is real love, she thought, touching the enormous sapphire. But she couldn't see his face. There was the expensive hat, the beautifully fitting soft collar, the tie, the carnation—and between them nothing, in spite of all her efforts.
The day drew near. In Mrs. Caine's bedroom Miss Plympton knelt to fit Christabel's wedding-gown.
"It's all wrong—everything's wrong! Look at this line! Just look at it! The whole idea was simplicity, not these disgusting little puckers and fullnesses!"
"I'm sorry, Miss Christabel. It was the way it was pinned up, and I thought we decided that was the way we wanted it."
"Don't work yourself up, darling. You're overtired."
Yes, she was tired. She shut her eyes and pressed her fingers to her temples.
"It will be all right."
"Mother, what is the use of saying it will be all right when it's all wrong?"
"If you could just hold still while I rip out the gathers, Miss Christabel, then we could drape it just the way you want."
Christabel gave a loud, exasperated sigh, stood on one foot, stood on the other, put her hands to her head again.
"Sit down and rest a minute. You're worn out."
"While she's resting I'll run down and get the little nighties. They're just awfully dainty. I think you're going to love them!"
Christabel turned to Mrs. Caine as Miss Plympton scuttled from the room. "Well, mother, you see what a mess she's made of everything! I told you it was a mistake to have her."
"But, darling! She's made your clothes ever since your first little gingham dresses. It would have broken her heart to have anyone else make her Miss Christabel's wedding-dress. Besides, I think it looks all right, dear. And she needs the money dreadfully just now, with her mother breaking her ankle."
"Well, I'm sorry, but really! If you're seventy you oughtn't to climb trees."
"Darling, she just stood on a step-ladder to get some cherries for a pie"
"Well, it isn't my fault, and you act exactly as if it was—yes, you do, mother! And you know Miss Plympton absolutely revels in being a martyr. I wish I'd eloped, the way Curtis begged me to! Trousseau! What do I care for a trousseau? I'm just doing it to please you and the aunts."
"Darling"
"I've explained to Miss Plympton till I'm hoarse that what I want this dress to look like is a novice's robes—oh, that reminds me! Mother!"
"Yes, dearie?"
"What did Mr. Leach say when you telephoned about that choir-boy?"
"I—I'll just slip down and call him up this minute."
"Mother! Oh, I'm so sick of everybody promising to do things, and then nothing gets done unless I attend to it."
"I'll call him up this minute, darling. I tried to get him this morning, but the line was busy, and then I had to see the florist"
Left alone, Christabel lit a cigarette and sat smoking and frowning angrily, tapping a foot. Oh, she was tired! Her nerves were a nest of twittering sparrows. And everyone was being so stupid. This time, that should have been hushed, holy, tremulous with exquisite apprehension, was vulgarized by a stupid dressmaker getting things wrong, by the boy who sang the solos at Saint Mark's getting measles, by everyone being stupid and inconsiderate.
"Here's the nighties, dear!" Miss Plympton's eyes were swollen, her nose was pink and glazed. She had evidently taken the opportunity to have a cry. "Look—all eight of them. Mamma couldn't sleep last night, her ankle pained so, and I was sitting up, anyways, so I got them finished. Aren't they dainty?"
Christabel looked at one of the cobweb nightgowns, sighed, folded her lips.
"Isn't it all right, dear?"
"We don't seem to be having much luck, do we, Miss Plympton? I said ribbons under the net, and no lace. I gave you the lace to put on the camisoles. Have you put it on all of the nightgowns?"
Miss Plympton's eyes swam, her nose glowed.
"Well, we can't do anything about it now." Christabel sighed again. "Never mind. But please let's try to get this dress right."
Miss Plympton sank on her knees and began pulling with shaking hands at the satin folds. Christabel looked at herself in the mirror. The effect really was exquisite, after all. What a contrast the two reflected figures were. Her young loveliness glowing out of satin pure as snow in moonlight, Miss Plympton with her mouth full of pins, her red nose, her spectacles. Christabel's eyes grew softer as she looked from her own white beauty to the dumpy figure kneeling beside her. Poor old maid, spending her life sewing other women's wedding-dresses! It would make a poignant poem. She said, gently:
"There, that's lovely, Miss Plympton. I knew you could fix it."
Miss Plympton blew her nose violently. Christabel suddenly put her hands—how white they looked—on either side of the red face, and, tilting it up, bent to kiss it.
"There! And you mustn't mind what I said. It wasn't I who was talking; it was my tiredness and nervousness."
How simple an understanding heart makes everything, she thought, feeling bathed in Miss Plympton's love. How wonderful if we could all go to each other, and say simply, I'm sorry. But it takes love and courage. I was right about the pure white for the satin, she thought, gazing into the mirror. Not cream, like Ernestine's wedding-dress, that had turned her into a gigantic charlotte russe, but just this purity—a Madonna in alabaster. Of course not everyone can stand pure white.
In the mirror she saw her mother, and cried:
"Look, mummy dear! Isn't it lovely now?"
"Lovely!" Mrs. Caine echoed. "Simply perfect! Mr. Leach says everything's all right, honey. He's gotten a boy from Saint Clement's for the solo. And a lot of new boxes have come. I told Jake to open them on the back porch. Curtis and Uncle Johnnie are looking at the presents."
"Uncle Johnnie! What's Uncle Johnnie doing here? There, that'll have to do, Miss Plympton."
"Wouldn't you like it just a crumb easier in the armholes?" asked Miss Plympton through pins, but Christabel was already struggling out of the satin folds.
She hurried into a dress and downstairs. From the landing window she caught a glimpse of Uncle Johnnie trotting to the gate, looking pleased with himself. Now what had he been saying, or not saying? She put the question to Curtis, wandering among clocks and dessert plates and cases of silver.
"What did you two find to talk about, dearest?"
"Why, I don't know exactly. Lots of things."
"Are you dead? Poor Curtis! Uncle Johnnie's a darling, of course, but he is old, and so He has ideas"
"I didn't notice that he had any. He seemed perfectly sensible to me."
"Did he? Do you know you're a very kind person? Oh, Curtis, it's a comfort to be with you! I'm exhausted! Things!" She touched the gold soup plates from a family of Carey cousins with sad scornfulness. "Let's promise each other never to become the slaves of things, material possessions, Curtis."
"All right, let's. I thought that was awfully nice, that part you showed me in your Journal, where you wrote about wedding presents, and how you'd rather be given the moon than a silver tray. That reminds me, I know if you don't like the tray, Cousin Bessie would much rather have you exchange it for something you do like."
"Dearest, I adore the tray! I only used it as a symbol. Don't you remember the other things I said, too—that I'd rather be given wild raspberries than rubies, and a snowy branch of pine than an ermine cloak?"
"I'm going to get you an ermine cloak, all the same, or a sable one, if you'd rather."
"Oh, darling, really? Oh, you're so wonderful to me! How can I show you how much I love you?"
"By not getting all tired out. There's too much for you to do all the time. You must learn to let other people do things for you. I had no idea a wedding meant so much hullabaloo."
"And all so empty. I mean, what does anything matter except that you are mine and I am yours? These tribal laws, these sacrifices to tradition—they're all wrong. What do we care for laws, except the law of love? You know, Curtis, that what I would rather do would be simply to come home with you, across the fields, some evening when the frogs are piping and the west is pink, just you and I. You do know that, my lover, don't you?"
"I know, and I think it's wonderful of you, darling, but still I guess we'd better go ahead and have some sort of ceremony. I mean, I was thinking about your mother and my mother. I suppose it would sort of worry them if we didn't. But I certainly am with you about thinking the simpler the better."
"Oh, so much better, dearest! If I considered myself—but, after all, does it matter so very much? If it's going to make the aunts and the dear little mothers happier to have the bishop and the choir-boys and lilies and organ thunder and all the old enchantments, does it matter so much what we want?"
"I don't believe you ever think of yourself."
"Oh, don't I! Don't I think about myself, and know I'm the happiest girl in the world? So happy that I feel wings fluttering—look and see if I haven't a pair of soap-bubble-colored wings!"
"I guess if you have wings they're angel wings."
"Darling! Not now! Some one's coming. Oh, Miss Plympton! Going home? You've met Mr. Carey, haven't you? Curtis, this is our dear Miss Plympton, whom we couldn't live without. She gave us that lovely picklefork, you remember. Wait, Miss Plympton. Will you take these to your mother, with my love?" She took an armful of roses from a vase and thrust them dripping into Miss Plympton's summer-silk arms, against her summer-silk bosom. "And tell her she must hurry up and get well for my wedding, because I refuse to have it without her."
Miss Plympton's eyes filled with tears again. "I'm sorry I was so stupid," she whispered. "I've got the—you-knows—with me. I can change that lace all right."
"Goo-sie! You're not to touch them if it's the least bit of trouble." Christabel dropped a kiss lightly on the crumpled cheek.
"I think she's—an angel," said Miss Plympton to Curtis, with a sniff, and he answered:
"That makes it unanimous, Miss Plympton."