All Kneeling/Chapter 9
"Would you like to play bridge with the Prestons, Christabel?"
"Curtis darling! Play bridge, with the sea and the sky looking like this?"
"Well, what would you like to do?"
"Dearest, must we do something all the time? Can't we just be?"
So for a few minutes they just were. How blue the sea is! she thought. How utterly it satisfies me! She looked toward Curtis to see if he were drinking it in, too. His eyes were shut, his mouth a little open.
Why was I such a fool as to think there could never be anything for me but loneliness? What is life, anyway, but just being alone, never really touching each other, except in those rare moments when a shared beauty, a shared reality, opens the prison doors? How I long to share with him this rapture of really seeing the blue of sea and sky. And here he is, beside me—asleep.
It seemed almost a symbol.
How Elliott would have gloried in this light, this benediction of color.
I am utterly lonely, I might as well admit it, she thought, tears stinging into her eyes. In this shipful of people I am all alone.
Of course they made a fuss about her. People always did, over anyone who was well known. And although she had begged Curtis not to tell anyone she was Christabel Caine, he was so proud of her he couldn't resist bragging, and he had given away a dozen copies of Carnation Flower already. He must have brought half a trunkful. It was a little ridiculous, like a drummer giving away free samples. There was something about Curtis—not an insensitiveness, exactly
She smiled at the Misses White, trotting past, with their arms full of bags, cushions, Cathedral Towns of England, Châteaux of Old France, My Trip Abroad, and a bristle of knitting-needles and fountain pens. Poor little old maids, so excited at meeting a writer. Poor little trippers, brave little Christopher Columbuses! She must ask them to tea in London, if she had time. They would be thrilled.
Louis Brown strolled by, lifting his eyebrows and thrusting out his lower lip as he looked from sleeping Curtis to her, and she smiled, lifted her eyebrows, too, drifted her hands through the air. A feeling of being understood warmed her heart. But I must keep him from caring too much, she thought. He mustn't be hurt—and neither must my Curtis. She turned her eyes, that had followed Louis along the deck, to her husband.
He really did look silly. She dropped a book with a bang, and he struggled up with a yawn that was almost a scream.
"Why don't you go and get into a bridge game, Curtis?"
"Well, I don't like to leave you."
"I want to be alone with the sea. I want to look at it until there isn't any me left, until there isn't anything left but blueness."
"Sure you won't be lonely?"
She smiled at him, and kissed her finger tips. He is just a grown-up little boy, eager to get to his toys. My grown-up little boy, who adores me so that it almost breaks my heart. When he turned to look back at her from the smoke-room door she smiled again, but she saw him through tears that splintered the world into crystals.
Loneliness
Courage, child. Wrap the sky around you, comfort yourself with the sea.
Perhaps Louis would be coming back.
But the deck remained deserted, and the dazzle of sun on water made her blink. Getting up to pull her chair around, she could look into a smoke-room window. The interior, its darkness swimming with scarlet balls to her sun-dazzled eyes, slowly revealed Curtis with his back to her, awake and lively enough now, with the Prestons, and Mrs. Sloane, who chose that moment to answer some remark of his with a friendly shove and shout of laughter.
Why did he marry me? Christabel asked herself, sinking into her chair. If that's what he wants, why did he take me away from the people I love, the people who love me? Suppose I should go overboard, how much would he really care? He would be sorry, of course, and wear correct mourning, and give a stained glass window to the church where we were married—Christabel, dearly beloved wife of Curtis Carey—and then he would play bridge with Mrs. Sloane.
The current volume of her Secret Journal lay on the deck by her chair. She picked it up and began to write.
"What peace it would be to say, I am too tired to go on. To let my body enter the sea, and sink, down, down, past goggling fish with drifting films of tail, past ribbons of ruffled sea-weed, purple and brown"
People were coming out from their afternoon naps. With her eyes on the words that streamed from her pen she felt them going by, felt them looking at her. "—writing—" she heard them murmur to each other respectfully. "—writing." They think I have more than my share, she told herself. They think I am young, beautiful, rich, brilliant, beloved—happy. They envy me.
If they only knew!
"To sink slowly, slowly, down to the trees of white and rose-red coral massed with bubbles, to the sprays of pearl, to drift and turn until my bones were white and delicate, covered with small rose-pink shells and silver bubbles, drifting and turning forever in that still depth of peace."
A group of skirts and trousers surrounded her chair. People! When all she wanted was to be alone. "Peace" she wrote again, and rose from the depths of the sea.
"Pardon us for interrupting"
"What is probably a masterpiece in the making!"
"We've come to ask a very, very great favor."
She felt her eyes and mouth as round as an astonished child's, she touched her bosom delicately with outspread fingers.
"A favor? Of me?"
"We've been chosen as a committee to beg, bribe, or otherwise cajole you into giving a reading from your poems for the edification and delight of your fellow passengers."
"Please say you will!"
"Everyone wants to hear you!"
"We won't take no for an answer."
"Oh, thank you for wanting me to—but I can't! No, I can't!"
"Oh, please!"
"I tremble to think of the fate of the committee if it ventures to withdraw without your promise."
"Oh, but if you only knew how it terrifies me! No, no, I really can't!"
"Just think of the pleasure you'll be giving."
"You can't refuse when everyone wants so much to hear you."
"May I put in a special plea for 'Out where the long sea road Follows the curve of the cliff'?"
"Oh yes, exquisite!"
"And please, please, pretty-please, some of those darling kiddie poems!"
Tender assenting groans.
No longer the lonely cold depths of the sea. She rocked gently in the warm sun. They were being too kind, she told them, they were making too much of a fuss over her little songs. She thanked them for it, she loved them for it—but, no.
"Don't say that. Think it over and tell us this evening."
I can't do it, she thought, going down the stateroom. To get up and read in front of all those people! They don't realize how a thing like that drains you, if you're sensitive enough to have written the poems in the first place.
Yet if I have been given something precious, have I any right not to share it? Isn't this sacrifice of pouring forth, part of my gift and my burden? She opened the closet door and looked absently at her dresses.
If she did read to them, what poems would she choose?
And purple lilac, dark with rain
She tried it softly, watching herself in the long mirror. And as she spoke she became a lilac bush, delicate and cool. Elliott had said once that he must feel like what he was painting, and ever since then she had realized that she, too, must be what she created—she must be lilac, the sea wind crying, falling rain. She must be everything.
She was in his studio again, curled up in the window seat, hearing his words. She saw his old painting-shirt open at the throat, the fringe of hair she loved to run her finger under, vermilion spikes on table and canvas, for he had been feeling like red-hot pokers when he spoke.
"Dear Elliott!" she whispered, leaning against the closet door. Then she caught her breath, flung her head back bravely. Courage, child
There hung a golden gown she had never worn. It reminded her of something Louis Brown had said last night. "I'm the only one who's on to you. Everyone else thinks you're a little golden queen, but I know you're just a ridiculous beautiful child who has learned, God knows how, to cast a spell."
Smiling, she slipped into the gown. She put on her pearls, patted a film of powder over her face, and interestedly did a little work with her eyebrow pencil. Her white face and shadowed eyes made her feel frail and exquisite. She moved her white hands against her golden gown.
And purple lilac, dark with rain
She heard Curtis talking to the steward, and had just time to scramble out of her dress before he came in.
She threw her arms around him, she loved him and silently forgave him.
"Well, what's new?"
If only he wouldn't always greet her that way!
"Nothing—oh, they want me to give a reading of my poems."
"Fine!"
"Fine? I don't know what you mean. I hate the idea. Anything like that leaves me utterly spent."
"Oh, you'll enjoy it."
She felt ready to burst. We are utter strangers, she thought, as they dressed for dinner, getting into each other's way. He thinks I like getting up and having everybody look at me, when it kills me—when I can only bear it because I have something real, something true, something of myself to give them. It was a good thing she hadn't worn the golden gown before. A little golden queen. She heard herself speaking exquisite words, she saw Louis Brown's dark face in the audience. White lilac, delicate and cool. And running along with her thoughts was Curtis's voice, telling her what bad hands he had held, and what nice women Mrs. Preston and Zita Sloane were.
He had gone to get cigarettes after dinner, when Louis Brown carried her off to look at the stars. Standing by the rail, she felt the music from the distant orchestra, the long rays of light, her own voice, exquisite and sad, trailing out from the ship, delicate tendrils that found only darkness to cling to. All up her arm she felt how Louis wanted to cover her hand, lying white on the rail, with his.
And this moment of ours—this moment—already is the past.
She could hear him breathing hard through his nose. It was time she said something.
"Sometimes I think I'd like to go over the side of the ship, and just sink down into peace. Think of what you'd go drifting through—red and white coral trees all covered with silver bubbles, and ruffled ribbons of seaweed, and the ocean to rock you to sleep. Wouldn't you like to drift in the dim green light forever, with no more restlessness?"
He continued to breathe hard through his nose.
"Wouldn't you, Louis?"
"I haven't been listening to you. How can I hear you when I'm looking at you?"
Oh, my poor dear, you mustn't love me so, she thought. She put one cool finger tip against his lips.
"Ironical, our meeting on your wedding trip, isn't it?" he asked. And although he had recovered his usual tone of light bitterness, she felt his love pouring over her. It made her love Curtis, who at that moment joined them, made her greet him radiantly, tenderly, putting her hand through his arm, her eyes on Louis.
All through dinner Christabel's voice had come to Curtis from far away, her eyes had been a wounded deer's, and afterward she had disappeared. He had been looking for her all evening. Somehow he must make up to her for having hurt her, though what he had done he didn't know. She was so sensitive, so tender-hearted, that he was always putting his foot in it, when he only wanted to make her happy. Perhaps it's just the artistic temperament, he thought.
This afternoon he had had a struggle to keep awake. Two cocktails before lunch, a bottle of stout, and the sun on the waves had caused an agonizing struggle, followed by oblivion, but something had made him sit up with a jerk, had made the rail, the life-preserver, his own cocked-up feet swim back into their places, before Christabel noticed that he had dozed off, he was almost sure. So she couldn't have been hurt by that, or by his playing bridge, for she had suggested it.
It had been a good game. He thought of Zita, and how she had laughed at his jokes and looked at him as he lit her cigarette. He seemed to be able to please some women. He didn't know what was the matter with Christabel.
He found her with Mr. Brown, he insolently close, as usual. Christabel drew away from him and put her arm through Curtis's, saying that Mr. Brown was showing her the stars. That is Ursa Major, said Mr. Brown, and Curtis said, the only constellation he could recognize was the good old Dipper. And Christabel's aid the floor of heaven was thick inlaid with patines of bright gold. A respectful silence followed this, and then Mr. Brown said he would hope to see them later, and left.
"Well! Ive been looking all over the ship for you!" said Curtis.
"Darling, you mustn't be jealous."
"Jealous! Of that?"
She rubbed her cheek against his sleeve. "Ooh, I'm so glad you've come! You've left me pretty much alone today." She lifted his hand and left a kiss in the palm. She's forgiving me, he thought, with mixed relief and indignation, for he had meant to forgive her.
"I don't know what's been the matter, Christabel. I knew I was in Dutch some way."
"Ridiculous boy!"
"It wasn't because I played bridge, was it?"
She was silent. It was, he thought, and said aloud:
"But, Christabel, you said"
"Said? Said? Curtis, don't you know there's a language deeper than words, that the heart understands?"
"But I"
"I wasn't going to tell you. I wasn't going ever to let you know!"
"But"
"But, oh, Curtis, you hurt me so this afternoon! I was so lonely I wanted to die!"
"But you said"
"I didn't want you to stay with me if you wanted to be with them. If you would rather be with Mrs. Preston and that Mrs. Sloane, I want you to be with them."
"But I asked you"
"Only don't expect me to come, too, because they make a spiritual atmosphere that I simply can't—breathe in."
"Oh, now, what's the matter with them?"
"So material—so self-centered."
"But Zita Sloane's nice-looking and polite"
"Curtis, she's just cheap. Bracelets like a Fiji Islander, and powder enough on her nose to make an avalanche. I don't care for myself, but I'm so ashamed for you, to see you taken in by a type like that."
She's really jealous, he thought, in a pleased glow. She loves me even more than I realized. "I can't remember what she looks like," he said. "When I look at you I can't remember what anyone else looks like."
She drew close to him again.
"And this evening I waited for you and I waited for you, and you didn't come! I didn't want to be sharing this starlight with him. I wanted you!"
"But, my darling, I was hunting for you everywhere." And he thought, I must never leave her unless I absolutely have to.
"I wanted you so!"
How she loves me, he thought, lifting her fingers to kiss.
"Isn't it beautiful, sailing into the night? It's like coming home again, home into the heart of God."
"It certainly is."
That was inadequate. He felt unworthy of his wonderful girl, who had given herself to him so completely. And as they stood in silence he was ashamed of himself for suddenly thinking how much he would like a whisky and soda and a cheese sandwich. He managed to get his wrist watch into the light without her noticing. Almost smoke-room closing time. But somehow he couldn't mention it to Christabel.
Her face was lifted to the stars, a long end of the white veil she had bound around her silky head molded itself to his features.
"We're very close at times like this, aren't we, my husband?"