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diff --git a/79294-0.txt b/79294-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5a8ea63 --- /dev/null +++ b/79294-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,848 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79294 *** + + + + + Clay-Shuttered Doors + + + A Story + + Helen R. Hull + + Harper’s Magazine, vol. 152, May 1926, pp. 684-695. + + + + +For months I have tried not to think about Thalia Corson. Anything may +invoke her, with her langorous fragility, thin wrists and throat, her +elusive face with its long eyelids. I can’t quite remember her mouth. +When I try to visualize her sharply I get soft pale hair, the lovely +curve from her temple to chin, and eyes blue and intense. Her boy, +Fletcher, has eyes like hers. + +To-day I came back to New York, and my taxi to an uptown hotel was held +for a few minutes in Broadway traffic where the afternoon sunlight fused +into a dazzle a great expanse of plateglass and elaborate show motor +cars. The “Regal Eight”—Winchester Corson’s establishment. I huddled as +the taxi jerked ahead, in spite of knowledge that Winchester would +scarcely peer out of that elegant setting into taxi cabs. I didn’t wish +to see him, nor would he care to see me. But the glimpse had started the +whole affair churning again, and I went through it deliberately, hoping +that it might have smoothed out into some rational explanation. +Sometimes things do, if you leave them alone, like logs submerged in +water that float up later, encrusted thickly. This affair won’t add to +itself. It stays unique and smooth, sliding through the rest of life +without annexing a scrap of seaweed. + +I suppose, for an outsider, it all begins with the moment on Brooklyn +Bridge; behind that are the years of my friendship with Thalia. Our +families had summer cottages on the Cape. She was just enough older, +however, so that not until I had finished college did I catch up to any +intimacy with her. She had married Winchester Corson, who at that time +fitted snugly into the phrase “a rising young man.” During those first +years, while his yeast sent up preliminary bubbles, Thalia continued to +spend her summers near Boston, with Winchester coming for occasional +weekends. Fletcher was, unintentionally, born there; he began his +difficult existence by arriving as a seven-months baby. Two years later +Thalia had a second baby to bring down with her. Those were the summers +which gave my friendship for Thalia its sturdy roots. They made me +wonder, too, why she had chosen Winchester Corson. He was personable +enough; tall, with prominent dark eyes and full mouth under a neat +mustache, restless hands, and an uncertain disposition. He could be a +charming companion, sailing the catboat with dash, managing lobster +parties on the shore; or he would, unaccountably, settle into a foggy +grouch, when everyone—children and females particularly—was supposed to +approach only on tiptoe, bearing burnt offerings. The last time he spent +a fortnight there, before he moved the family to the new Long Island +estate, I had my own difficulties with him. There had always been an +undertone of sex in his attitude toward me, but I had thought “that’s +just his male conceit.” That summer he was a nuisance, coming upon me +with his insistent, messy kisses, usually with Thalia in the next room. +They were the insulting kind of kisses that aren’t at all personal, and +I could have ended them fast enough if there hadn’t been the +complication of Thalia and my love for her. If I made Winchester angry +he’d put an end to Thalia’s relation to me. I didn’t, anyway, want her +to know what a fool he was. Of course she did know, but I thought then +that I could protect her. + +There are, I have decided, two ways with love. You can hold one love, +knowing that, if it is a living thing, it must develop and change. That +takes maturity, and care, and a consciousness of the other person. That +was Thalia’s way. Or you enjoy the beginning of love and, once you’re +past that, you have to hunt for a new love, because the excitement seems +to be gone. Men like Winchester, who use all their brains on their jobs, +never grow up; they go on thinking that preliminary stir and snap is +love itself. Cut flowers, that was Winchester’s idea, while to Thalia +love was a tree. + +But I said Brooklyn Bridge was the point at which the affair had its +start. It seems impossible to begin there, or anywhere, as I try to +account for what happened. Ten years after the summer when Winchester +made himself such a nuisance—that last summer the Corsons spent at the +Cape—I went down at the end of the season for a week with Thalia and the +children at the Long Island place. Winchester drove out for the weekend. +The children were mournful because they didn’t wish to leave the shore +for school; a sharp September wind brought rain and fog down the Sound, +and Winchester nourished all that Sunday a disagreeable grouch. I had +seen nothing of them for most of the ten intervening years, as I had +been first in France and then in China, after feature-article stuff. The +week had been pleasant: good servants, comfortable house, a half-moon of +white beach below the drop of lawn; Thalia a stimulating listener, with +Fletcher, a thin, eager boy of twelve, like her in his intensity of +interest. Dorothy, a plump, pink child of ten, had no use for stories of +French villages or Chinese temples. Nug, the wire-haired terrier, and +her dolls were more immediate and convincing. Thalia was thin and +noncommittal, except for her interest in what I had seen and done. I +couldn’t, for all my affection, establish any real contact. She spoke +casually of the town house, of dinners she gave for Winchester, of his +absorption in business affairs. But she was sheathed in polished +aloofness and told me nothing of herself. She did say, one evening, that +she was glad I was to be in New York that winter. Winchester, like his +daughter Dorothy, had no interest in foreign parts once he had +ascertained that I hadn’t even seen the Chinese quarters of the motor +company in which he was concerned. He had an amusing attitude toward me: +careful indifference, no doubt calculated to put me in my place as no +longer alluring. Thalia tried to coax him into listening to some of my +best stories. “Tell him about the bandits, Mary”—but his sulkiness +brought, after dinner, a casual explanation from her, untinged with +apology. “He’s working on an enormous project, a merging of several +companies, and he’s so soaked in it he can’t come up for a breath.” + +In the late afternoon the maid set out high tea for us, before our +departure for New York. Thalia suggested that perhaps one highball was +enough if Winchester intended to drive over the wet roads. Win +immediately mixed a second, asking if she had ever seen him in the least +affected. “Be better for you than tea before a long damp drive, too.” He +clinked the ice in his glass. “Jazz you up a bit.” Nug was begging for +food and Thalia, bending to give him a corner of her sandwich, +apparently did not hear Winchester. He looked about the room, a smug, +owning look. The fire and candlelight shone in the heavy waxed rafters, +made silver beads of the rain on the French windows. I watched +him—heavier, more dominant, his prominent dark eyes and his lips sullen, +as if the whiskey banked up his temper rather than appeased it. + +Then Jim, the gardener, brought the car to the door; the children +scrambled in. Dorothy wanted to take Nug, but her father said not if she +wanted to sit with him and drive. + +“How about chains, sir?” Jim held the umbrella for Thalia. + +“Too damned noisy. Don’t need them.” Winchester slammed the door and +slid under the wheel. Thalia and I, with Fletcher between us, sat +comfortably in the rear. + +“I like it better when Walter drives, don’t you, Mother?” said Fletcher +as we slid down the drive out to the road. + +“Sh—Father likes to drive. And Walter likes Sunday off, too.” Thalia’s +voice was cautious. + +“It’s too dark to see anything.” + +“I can see lots,” announced Dorothy, whereupon Fletcher promptly turned +the handle that pushed up the glass between the chauffeur’s seat and the +rear. + +The heavy car ran smoothly over the wet narrow road, with an occasional +rumble and flare of headlights as some car swung past. Not till we +reached the turnpike was there much traffic. There Winchester had to +slacken his speed for other shiny beetles slipping along through the +rain. Sometimes he cut past a car, weaving back into line in the glaring +teeth of a car rushing down on him, and Fletcher would turn inquiringly +toward his mother. The gleaming, wet darkness and the smooth motion made +me drowsy, and I paid little heed until we slowed in a congestion of +cars at the approach to the bridge. Far below on the black river, spaced +red and white stars suggested slow-moving tugs, and beyond, faint lights +splintered in the rain hinted at the city. + +“Let’s look for the cliff dwellers, Mother.” + +Thalia leaned forward, her fine, sharp profile dimly outlined against +the shifting background of arches, and Fletcher slipped to his feet, his +arm about her neck. “There!” + +We were reaching the New York end of the bridge, and I had a swift +glimpse of their cliff dwellers—lights in massed buildings, like ancient +camp fires along a receding mountain side. Just then Winchester nosed +out of the slow line, Dorothy screamed, the light from another car +tunnelled through our windows, the car trembled under the sudden grip of +brakes, and like a crazy top spun sickeningly about, with a final thud +against the stone abutment. A shatter of glass, a confusion of motor +horns about us, a moment while the tautness of shock held me rigid. + +Around me that periphery of turmoil—the usual recriminations, “what the +hell you think you’re doing?”—the shriek of a siren on an approaching +motor cycle. Within the circle I tried to move across the narrow space +of the car. Fletcher was crying; vaguely I knew that the door had swung +open, that Thalia was crouching on her knees, the rain and the lights +pouring on her head and shoulders; her hat was gone, her wide fur collar +looked like a drenched and lifeless animal. “Hush, Fletcher.” I managed +to force movement into my stiff body. “Are you hurt? Thalia—” Then +outside Winchester, with the bristling fury of panic, was trying to lift +her drooping head. “Thalia! My God, you aren’t hurt!” Someone focussed a +searchlight on the car as Winchester got his arms about her and lifted +her out through the shattered door. + +Over the springing line of the stone arch I saw the cliff dwellers’ +fires and I thought as I scrambled out to follow Winchester, “She was +leaning forward, looking at those, and that terrific spin of the car +must have knocked her head on the door as it lurched open.” + +“Lay her down, man!” An important little fellow had rushed up, a doctor +evidently. “Lay her down, you fool!” Someone threw down a robe, and +Winchester, as if Thalia were a drowned feather, knelt with her, laid +her there on the pavement. I was down beside her and the fussy little +man also. She did look drowned, drowned in that beating sea of tumult, +that terrific honking of motors, unwilling to stop an instant even +for—was it death? Under the white glare of headlights her lovely face +had the empty shallowness, the husklikeness of death. The little doctor +had his pointed beard close to her breast; he lifted one of her long +eyelids. “She’s just fainted, eh, doctor?” Winchester’s angry voice tore +at him. + +The little man rose slowly. “She your wife? I’m sorry. Death must have +been instantaneous. A blow on the temple.” + +With a kind of roar Winchester was down there beside Thalia, lifting +her, her head lolling against his shoulder, his face bent over her. +“Thalia! Thalia! Do you hear? Wake up!” I think he even shook her in his +baffled fright and rage. “Thalia, do you hear me? I want you to open +your eyes. You weren’t hurt. That was nothing.” And then, “Dearest, you +must!” and more words, frantic, wild words, mouthed close to her empty +face. I touched his shoulder, sick with pity, but he staggered up to his +feet, lifting her with him. Fletcher pressed shivering against me, and I +turned for an instant to the child. Then I heard Thalia’s voice, blurred +and queer, “You called me, Win?” and Winchester’s sudden, triumphant +laugh. She was standing against his shoulder, still with that husklike +face, but she spoke again, “You did call me?” + +“Here, let’s get out of this.” Winchester was again the efficient, +competent man of affairs. The traffic cops were shouting, the lines of +cars began to move. Winchester couldn’t start his motor. Something had +smashed. His card and a few words left responsibility with an officer, +and even as an ambulance shrilled up, he was helping Thalia into a taxi. +“You take the children, will you?” to me, and “Get her another taxi, +will you?” to the officer. He had closed the taxi door after himself, +and was gone, leaving us to the waning curiosity of passing cars. As we +rode off in a second taxi, I had a glimpse of the little doctor, his +face incredulous, his beard wagging, as he spoke to the officer. + +Dorothy was, characteristically, tearfully indignant that her father had +left her to me. Fletcher was silent as we bumped along under the +elevated tracks, but presently he tugged at my sleeve, and I heard his +faint whisper. “What is it?” I asked. + +“Is my mother really dead?” he repeated. + +“Of course not, Fletcher. You saw her get into the cab with your +father.” + +“Why didn’t Daddy take us too?” wailed Dorothy, and I had to turn to +her, although my nerves echoed her question. + +The house door swung open even as the taxi bumped the curb, and the +butler hurried out with an umbrella which we were too draggled to need. + +“Mr. Corson instructed me to pay the man, madam.” He led us into the +hall, where a waiting maid popped the children at once into the tiny +elevator. + +“Will you wait for the elevator, madam? The library is one flight.” The +butler led me up the stairs, and I dropped into a low chair near the +fire, vaguely aware of the long, narrow room, with discreet gold of the +walls giving back light from soft lamps. “I’ll tell Mr. Corson you have +come.” + +“Is Mrs. Corson—does she seem all right?” I asked. + +“Quite, madam. It was a fortunate accident, with no one hurt.” + +Well, perhaps it had addled my brain! I waited in a kind of numbness for +Winchester to come. + +Presently he strode in, his feet silent on the thick rugs. + +“Sorry,” he began, abruptly. “I wanted to look the children over. Not a +scratch on them. You’re all right, of course?” + +“Oh, yes. But Thalia—” + +“She won’t even have a doctor. I put her straight to bed—she’s so damned +nervous, you know. Hot-water bottles ... she was cold. I think she’s +asleep now. Said she’d see you in the morning. You’ll stay here, of +course.” He swallowed in a gulp the whiskey he had poured. “Have some, +Mary? Or would you like something hot?” + +“No, thanks. If you’re sure she’s all right I’ll go to bed.” + +“Sure?” His laugh was defiant. “Did that damn fool on the bridge throw a +scare into you? He gave me a bad minute, I’ll say. If that car hadn’t +cut in on me—I told Walter last week the brakes needed looking at. They +shouldn’t grab like that. Might have been serious.” + +“Since it wasn’t—” I rose, wearily, watching him pour amber liquid +slowly into his glass—“if you’ll have someone show me my room—” + +“After Chinese bandits, a little skid ought not to matter to you.” His +prominent eyes gleamed hostilely at me; he wanted some assurance offered +that the skidding wasn’t his fault, that only his skill had saved all +our lives. + +“I can’t see Thalia?” I said. + +“She’s asleep. Nobody can see her.” His eyes moved coldly from my face, +down to my muddy shoes. “Better give your clothes to the maid for a +pressing. You’re smeared quite a bit.” + +I woke early, with clear September sun at the windows of the room, with +blue sky behind the sharp city contours beyond the windows. There was +none too much time to make the morning train for Albany, where I had an +engagement that day, an interview for an article. The maid who answered +my ring insisted on serving breakfast to me in borrowed elegance of +satin negligee. Mrs. Corson was resting, and would see me before I left. +Something—the formality and luxury, the complicated household so unlike +the old days at the Cape—accented the queer dread which had filtered all +night through my dreams. + +I saw Thalia for only a moment. The heavy silk curtains were drawn +against the light and in the dimness her face seemed to gather shadows. + +“Are you quite all right, Thalia?” I hesitated beside her bed, as if my +voice might tear apart the veils of drowsiness in which she rested. + +“Why, yes—” as if she wondered. Then she added, so low that I wasn’t +sure what I heard, “It is hard to get back in.” + +“What, Thalia?” I bent toward her. + +“I’ll be myself once I’ve slept enough.” Her voice was clearer. “Come +back soon, won’t you, Mary?” Then her eyelids closed and her face merged +into the shadows of the room. I tiptoed away, thinking she slept. + + * * * * * + +It was late November before I returned to New York. Free-lancing has a +way of drawing herrings across your trail and, when I might have drifted +back in early November, a younger sister wanted me to come home to +Arlington for her marriage. I had written to Thalia, first a note of +courtesy for my week with her, and then a letter begging for news. Like +many people of charm, she wrote indifferent letters, stiff and +childlike, lacking in her personal quality. Her brief reply was more +unsatisfactory than usual. The children were away in school, lots of +cold rainy weather, everything was going well. At the end, in writing +unlike hers, as if she scribbled the line in haste, “I am lonely. When +are you coming?” I answered that I’d show up as soon as the wedding was +over. + +The night I reached Arlington was rainy, too, and I insisted upon a taxi +equipped with chains. My brother thought that amusing, and at dinner +gave the family an exaggerated account of my caution. I tried to offer +him some futile sisterly advice and, to point up my remarks, told about +that drive in from Long Island with the Corsons. I had never spoken of +it before; I found that an inexplicable inhibition kept me from making +much of a story. + +“Well, nothing happened, did it?” Richard was triumphant. + +“A great deal might have,” I insisted. “Thalia was stunned, and I was +disagreeably startled.” + +“Thalia was stunned, was she?” An elderly cousin of ours from New Jersey +picked out that item. I saw her fitting it into some pigeon hole, but +she said nothing until late that evening when she stopped at the door of +my room. + +“Have you seen Thalia Corson lately?” she asked. + +“I haven’t been in New York since September.” + +She closed the door and lowered her voice, a kind of avid curiosity +riding astride the decorous pity she expressed. + +“I called there, one day last week. I didn’t know what was the matter +with her. I hadn’t heard of that accident.” + +I waited, an old antagonism for my proper cousin blurring the fear that +shot up through my thoughts. + +“Thalia was always _individual_, of course.” She used the word like a +reproach. “But she had _savoir faire_. But now she’s—well—_queer_. Do +you suppose her head was affected?” + +“How is she queer?” + +“She looks miserable, too. Thin and white.” + +“But how—” + +“I am telling you, Mary. She was quite rude. First she didn’t come down +for ever so long, although I sent up word that I’d come up to her room +if she was resting. Then her whole manner—well, I was really offended. +She scarcely heard a word I said to her, just sat with her back to a +window so I couldn’t get a good look at her. When I said, ‘You don’t +look like yourself,’ she actually sneered. ‘Myself?’ she said. ‘How do +you know?’ Imagine! I tried to chatter along as if I noticed nothing. I +flatter myself I can manage awkward moments rather well. But Thalia sat +there and I am sure she muttered under her breath. Finally I rose to go +and I said, meaning well, ‘You’d better take a good rest. You look half +dead.’ Mary, I wish you’d seen the look she gave me! Really I was +frightened. Just then their dog came in, you know, Dorothy’s little +terrier. Thalia used to be silly about him. Well, she actually tried to +hide in the folds of the curtain, and I don’t wonder! The dog was +terrified at her. He crawled on his belly out of the room. Now she must +have been cruel to him if he acts like that. I think Winchester should +have a specialist. I didn’t know how to account for any of it; but of +course a blow on the head can affect a person.” + +Fortunately my mother interrupted us just then, and I didn’t, by my +probable rudeness, give my cousin reason to suppose that the accident +had affected me, too. I sifted through her remarks and decided they +might mean only that Thalia found her more of a bore than usual. As for +Nug, perhaps he retreated from the cousin! During the next few days the +house had so much wedding turmoil that she found a chance only for a few +more dribbles: one that Thalia had given up all her clubs—she had +belonged to several—the other that she had sent the children to boarding +schools instead of keeping them at home. “Just when her husband is doing +so well, too!” + +I was glad when the wedding party had departed, and I could plan to go +back to New York. Personally I think a low-caste Chinese wedding is +saner and more interesting than a modern American affair. My cousin +“should think I could stay home with the family,” and “couldn’t we go to +New York together, if I insisted upon gadding off?” We couldn’t. I saw +to that. She hoped that I’d look up Thalia. Maybe I could advise +Winchester about a specialist. + +I did telephone as soon as I got in. That sentence “I am lonely,” in her +brief note kept recurring. Her voice sounded thin and remote, a poor +connection, I thought. She was sorry. She was giving a dinner for +Winchester that evening. The next day? + +I had piles of proof to wade through that next day, and it was late +afternoon when I finally went to the Corson house. The butler looked +doubtful but I insisted, and he left me in the hall while he went off +with my card. He returned, a little smug in his message: Mrs. Corson was +resting and had left word she must not be disturbed. Well, you can’t +protest to a perfect butler, and I started down the steps, indignant, +when a car stopped in front of the house, a liveried chauffeur opened +the door, and Winchester emerged. He glanced at me in the twilight and +extended an abrupt hand. + +“Would Thalia see you?” he asked. + +“No.” For a moment I hoped he might convoy me past the butler. “Isn’t +she well? She asked me to come to-day.” + +“I hoped she’d see you.” Winchester’s hand smoothed at his little +mustache. “She’s just tired from her dinner last night. She overexerted +herself, was quite the old Thalia.” He looked at me slowly in the dusk, +and I had a brief feeling that he was really looking at me, no, _for_ +me, for the first time in all our meetings, as if he considered me +without relation to himself for once. “Come in again, will you?” He +thrust away whatever else he thought of saying. “Thalia really would +like to see you. Can I give you a lift?” + +“No, thanks. I need a walk.” As I started off I knew the moment had just +missed some real significance. If I had ventured a question ... but, +after all, what could I ask him? He had said that Thalia was “just +tired.” That night I sent a note to her, saying I had called and asking +when I might see her. + +She telephoned me the next day. Would I come in for Thanksgiving? The +children would be home, and she wanted an old-fashioned day, everything +but the sleigh ride New York couldn’t furnish. Dinner would be at six, +for the children; perhaps I could come in early. I felt a small +grievance at being put off for almost a week, but I promised to come. + +That was the week I heard gossip about Winchester, in the curious +devious way of gossip. Atlantic City, and a gaudy lady. Someone having +an inconspicuous fortnight of convalescence there had seen them. I +wasn’t surprised, except perhaps that Winchester chose Atlantic City. +Thalia was too fine; he couldn’t grow up to her. I wondered how much she +knew. She must, years ago, with her sensitiveness, have discovered that +Winchester was stationary so far as love went and, being stationary +himself, was inclined to move the object toward which he directed his +passion. + +On Thursday, as I walked across Central Park, gaunt and deserted in the +chilly afternoon light, I decided that Thalia probably knew more about +Winchester’s affairs than gossip had given me. Perhaps that was why she +had sent the children away. He had always been conventionally discreet, +but discretion would be a tawdry coin among Thalia’s shining values. + +I was shown up to the nursery, with a message from Thalia that she would +join me there soon. Fletcher seemed glad to see me, in a shy, excited +way, and stood close to my chair while Dorothy wound up her phonograph +for a dance record and pirouetted about us with her doll. + +“Mother keeps her door tight locked all the time,” whispered Fletcher +doubtfully. “We can’t go in. This morning I knocked and knocked but no +one answered.” + +“Do you like your school?” I asked cheerfully. + +“I like my home better.” His eyes, so like Thalia’s with their long, +arched lids, had young bewilderment under their lashes. + +“See me!” called Dorothy. “Watch me do this!” + +While she twirled I felt Fletcher’s thin body stiffen against my arm, as +if a kind of panic froze him. Thalia stood in the doorway. Was the boy +afraid of her? Dorothy wasn’t. She cried, “See me, Mother! Look at me!” +and in her lusty confusion, I had a moment to look at Thalia before she +greeted me. She was thin, but she had always been that. She did not heed +Dorothy’s shrieks, but watched Fletcher, a kind of slanting dread on her +white, proud face. I had thought, that week on Long Island, that she +shut herself away from me, refusing to restore the intimacy of ten years +earlier. But now a stiff loneliness hedged her as if she were rimmed in +ice and snow. She smiled. “Dear Mary,” she said. At the sound of her +voice I lost my slightly cherished injury that she had refused earlier +to see me. “Let’s go down to the library,” she went on. “It’s almost +time for the turkey.” I felt Fletcher break his intent watchfulness with +a long sigh, and as the children went ahead of us, I caught at Thalia’s +arm. “Thalia—” She drew away, and her arm, under the soft flowing sleeve +of dull blue stuff, was so slight it seemed brittle. I thought suddenly +that she must have chosen that gown because it concealed so much beneath +its lovely embroidered folds. “You aren’t well, Thalia. What _is_ it?” + +“Well enough! Don’t fuss about me.” And even as I stared reproachfully +she seemed to gather vitality, so that the dry pallor of her face became +smooth ivory and her eyes were no longer hollow and distressed. “Come.” + +The dinner was amazingly like one of our old holidays. Winchester wore +his best mood, the children were delighted and happy. Thalia, under the +gold flames of the tall black candles, was a gracious and lovely +hostess. I almost forgot my troublesome anxiety, wondering whether my +imagination hadn’t been playing me tricks. + +We had coffee by the library fire and some of Winchester’s old +Chartreuse. Then he insisted upon exhibiting his new radio. Thalia +demurred, but the children begged for a concert. “This is their party, +Tally!” Winchester opened the doors of the old teakwood cabinet which +housed the apparatus. Thalia sank back into the shadows of a wing chair, +and I watched her over my cigarette. Off guard, she had relaxed into +strange apathy. Was it the firelight or my unaccustomed Chartreuse? Her +features seemed blurred as if a clumsy hand trying to trace a drawing +made uncertain outlines. Strange groans and whirrs from the radio. + +“Win, I can’t stand it!” Her voice dragged from some great distance. +“Not to-night.” She swayed to her feet, her hands restless under the +loose sleeves. + +“Static,” growled Winchester. “Wait a minute.” + +“No!” Again it was as if vitality flowed into her. “Come, children. You +have had your party. Time to go upstairs. I’ll go with you.” + +They were well trained, I thought. Kisses for their father, a curtsy +from Dorothy for me, and a grave little hand extended by Fletcher. Then +Winchester came toward the fire as the three of them disappeared. + +“You’re good for Thalia,” he said, in an undertone. “She’s—well, what do +you make of her?” + +“Why?” I fenced, unwilling to indulge him in my vague anxieties. + +“You saw how she acted about the radio. She has whims like that. Funny, +she was herself at dinner. Last week she gave a dinner for me, important +affair, pulled it off brilliantly. Then she shuts herself up and won’t +open her door for days. I can’t make it out. She’s thin—” + +“Have you had a doctor?” I asked, banally. + +“That’s another thing. She absolutely refuses. Made a fool of me when I +brought one here. Wouldn’t unlock her door. Says she just wants to rest. +But—” he glanced toward the door—“do you know that fool on the bridge +... that little runt? The other night, I swear I saw him rushing down +the steps as I came home. Thalia just laughed when I asked about it.” + +Something clicked in my thoughts, a quick suspicion, drawing a parallel +between her conduct and that of people I had seen in the East. Was it +some drug? That lethargy, and the quick spring into vitality? Days +behind a closed door— + +“I wish you’d persuade her to go off for a few weeks. I’m frightfully +pressed just now, in an important business matter, but if she’d go +off—maybe you’d go with her?” + +“Where, Winchester?” We both started, with the guilt of conspirators. +Thalia came slowly into the room. “Where shall I go? Would you +suggest—Atlantic City?” + +“Perhaps. Although some place farther south this time of year—” +Winchester’s imperturbability seemed to me far worse than some slight +sign of embarrassment; it marked him as so rooted in successful deceit +whether Thalia’s inquiry were innocent or not. “If Mary would go with +you. I can’t get away just now.” + +“I shall not go anywhere until your deal goes through. Then—” Thalia +seated herself again in the wing chair. The hand she lifted to her +cheek, fingers just touching her temple beneath the soft drift of hair, +seemed transparent against the firelight. “Have you told Mary about your +deal? Winchester plans to be the most important man on Automobile Row.” +Was there mockery in her tone? “I can’t tell you the details, but he’s +buying out all the rest.” + +“Don’t be absurd. Not all of them. It’s a big merging of companies, +that’s all.” + +“We entertain the lords at dinner, and in some mysterious way that +smooths the merging. It makes a wife almost necessary.” + +“Invite Mary to the next shebang, and let her see how well you do it.” +Winchester was irritated. “For all your scoffing, there’s as much +politics to being president of such a concern as of the United States.” + +“Yes, I’ll invite Mary. Then she’ll see that you don’t really want to +dispense with me—yet.” + +“Good God, I meant for a week or two.” + +As Winchester, lighting a cigarette, snapped the head from several +matches in succession, I moved my chair a little backward, distressed. +There was a thin wire of significance drawn so taut between the two that +I felt at any moment it might splinter in my face. + +“It’s so lucky—” malice flickered on her thin face—“that you weren’t +hurt in that skid on the bridge, Mary. Winchester would just have tossed +you in the river to conceal your body.” + +“If you’re going over that again!” Winchester strode out of the room. As +Thalia turned her head slightly to watch him, her face and throat had +the taut rigidity of pain so great that it congeals the nerves. + +I was silent. With Thalia I had never dared intrude except when she +admitted me. In another moment she too had risen. “You’d better go home, +Mary,” she said, slowly. “I might tell you things you wouldn’t care to +live with.” + +I tried to touch her hand, but she retreated. If I had been wiser or +more courageous, I might have helped her. I shall always have that +regret, and that can’t be much better to live with than whatever she +might have told me. All I could say was stupidly, “Thalia, if there’s +anything I can do! You know I love you.” + +“Love? That’s a strange word,” she said, and her laugh in the quiet room +was like the shrilling of a grasshopper on a hot afternoon. “One thing I +will tell you.” (She stood now on the stairway above me.) “Love has no +power. It never shouts out across great space. Only fear and self-desire +are strong.” + +Then she had gone, and the butler appeared silently, to lead me to the +little dressing room. + +“The car is waiting for you, madam,” he assured me, opening the door. I +didn’t want it, but Winchester was waiting, too, hunched angrily in a +corner. + +“That’s the way she acts,” he began. “Now you’ve seen her I’ll talk +about it. Thalia never bore grudges, you know that.” + +“It seems deeper than a grudge,” I said cautiously. + +“That reference to the ... the accident. That’s a careless remark I +made. I don’t even remember just what I said. Something entirely +inconsequential. Just that it was damned lucky no one was hurt when I +was putting this merger across. You know if it’d got in the papers it +would have queered me. Wrecking my own car ... there’s always a +suspicion you’ve been drinking. She picked it up and won’t drop it. It’s +like a fixed idea. If you can suggest something. I want her to see a +nerve specialist. What does she do behind that locked door?” + +“What about Atlantic City?” I asked, abruptly. I saw his dark eyes +bulge, trying to ferret out my meaning, there in the dusky interior of +the car. + +“A week there with you might do her good.” That was all he would say, +and I hadn’t courage enough to accuse him, even in Thalia’s name. + +“At least you’ll try to see her again,” he said, as the car stopped in +front of my apartment house. + + * * * * * + +I couldn’t sleep that night. I felt that just over the edge of my +squirming thoughts there lay clear and whole the meaning of it all, but +I couldn’t reach past thought. And then, stupidly enough, I couldn’t get +up the next day. Just a feverish cold, but the doctor insisted on a week +in bed and subdued me with warnings about influenza. + +I had begun to feel steady enough on my feet to consider venturing +outside my apartment when the invitation came, for a formal dinner at +the Corsons’. Scrawled under the engraving was a line, “Please come. T.” +I sent a note, explaining that I had been ill, and that I should +come—the dinner was a fortnight away—unless I stayed too wobbly. + +I meant that night to arrive properly with the other guests, but my +watch, which had never before done anything except lose a few minutes +a day, had gained an unsuspected hour. Perhaps the hands +stuck—perhaps—Well, I was told I was early, Thalia was dressing, and +only the children, home for the Christmas holidays, were available. So I +went again to the nursery. Dorothy was as plump and unconcerned as ever, +but Fletcher had a strained, listening effect and he looked too thin and +white for a little boy. They were having their supper on a small table, +and Fletcher kept going to the door, looking out into the hall. “Mother +promised to come up,” he said. + +The maid cleared away their dishes, and Dorothy, who was in a beguiling +mood, chose to sit on my lap and entertain me with stories. One was +about Nug the terrier; he had been sent out to the country because +Mother didn’t like him any more. + +“I think,” interrupted Fletcher, “she likes him, but he has a queer +notion about her.” + +“She doesn’t like him,” repeated Dorothy. Then she dismissed that +subject, and Fletcher too, for curiosity about the old silver chain I +wore. I didn’t notice that the boy had slipped away, but he must have +gone down stairs; for presently his fingers closed over my wrist, like a +frightened bird’s claw, and I turned to see him, trembling, his eyes +dark with terror. He couldn’t speak but he clawed at me, and I shook +Dorothy from my knees and let him pull me out to the hall. + +“What is it, Fletcher?” He only pointed down the stairway, toward his +mother’s door, and I fled down those stairs. _What_ had the child seen? + +“The door wasn’t locked—” he gasped behind me—“I opened it very still +and went in—” + +I pushed it ajar. Thalia sat before her dressing table, with the +threefold mirrors reiterating like a macabre symphony her rigid, +contorted face. Her gown, burnished blue and green like peacock’s +feathers, sheathed her gaudily, and silver, blue, and green chiffon +clouded her shoulders. Her hands clutched at the edge of the dressing +table. For an instant I could not move, thrust through with a terror +like the boy’s. Then I stumbled across the room. Before I reached her, +the mirrors echoed her long shudder, her eyelids dragged open, and I saw +her stare at my reflection wavering toward her. Then her hands relaxed, +moved quickly toward the crystal jars along the heavy glass of the table +and, without a word, she leaned softly forward, to draw a scarlet line +along her white lips. + +“How cold it is in here,” I said, stupidly, glancing toward the windows, +where the heavy silk damask, drawn across, lay in motionless folds. +“Fletcher said—” I was awkward, an intruder. + +“He startled me.” Her voice came huskily. She rouged her hollow cheeks. +It was as if she drew another face for herself. “I didn’t have time to +lock the door.” Then turning, she sought him out, huddled at the +doorway, like a moth on a pin of fear. “It wasn’t nice of you, Son. It’s +all right now. You see?” She rose, drawing her lovely scarf over her +shoulders. “You should never open closed doors.” She blew him a kiss +from her finger tips. “Now run along and forget you were so careless.” + +The icy stir of air against my skin had ceased. I stared at her, my mind +racing back over what I knew of various drugs and the stigmata of their +victims. But her eyes were clear and undilated, a little piteous. +“This,” she said, “is the last time. I can’t endure it.” And then, with +that amazing flood of vitality, as if a sudden connection had been made +and current flowed again, “Come, Mary. It is time we were down stairs.” + +I thought Fletcher peered over the railing as we went down. But a swift +upward glance failed to detect him. + +The dinner itself I don’t remember definitely except that it glittered +and sparkled, moving with slightly alcoholic wit through elaborate +courses, while I sat like an abashed poor relation at a feast, unable to +stop watching Thalia, wondering whether my week of fever had given me a +tendency to hallucinations. At the end a toast was proposed, to +Winchester Corson and his extraordinary success. “It’s done, then?” +Thalia’s gaiety had sudden malice—as she looked across at Winchester, +seating himself after a slightly pompous speech. “Sealed and cemented +forever?” + +“Thanks to his charming wife, too,” cried a plump, bald man, waving his +glass. “A toast to Mrs. Corson!” + +Thalia rose, her rouge like flecked scarlet on white paper. One hand +drew her floating scarf about her throat, and her painted lips moved +without a sound. There was an instant of agitated discomfort, as the +guests felt their mood broken so abruptly, into which her voice pierced, +thin, high. “I ... deserve ... such a toast—” + +I pushed back my chair and reached her side. + +“I’ll take her—” I saw Winchester’s face, wine-flushed, angry rather +than concerned. “Come, Thalia.” + +“Don’t bother. I’ll be all right—now.” But she moved ahead of me so +swiftly that I couldn’t touch her. I thought she tried to close her door +against me, but I was too quick for that. The silver candelabra still +burned above the mirrors. “Mary!” Her voice was low again as she spoke a +telephone number. “Tell him _at once_.” She stood away from me, her face +a white mask with spots of scarlet, her peacock dress ashimmer. I did as +I was bid and when I had said, “Mrs. Corson wishes you at once,” there +was an emptiness where a man’s voice had come which suggested a sudden +leap out of a room somewhere. + +“I can never get in again!” Her fingers curled under the chiffon scarf. +“Never! The black agony of fighting back—If he—” She bent her head, +listening. “Go down to the door and let him in,” she said. + +I crept down the stairs. Voices from the drawing-room. Winchester was +seeing the party through. Almost as I reached the door and opened it I +found him there: the little doctor with the pointed beard. He brushed +past me up the stairs. He knew the way, then! I was scarcely surprised +to find Thalia’s door fast shut when I reached it. Behind it came not a +sound. Fletcher, like an unhappy sleepwalker, his eyes heavy, slipped +down beside me, clinging to my hand. I heard farewells, churring of +taxis and cars. Then Winchester came up the stairs. + +“She’s shut you out?” He raised his fist and pounded on the door. “I’m +going to stop this nonsense!” + +“I sent for a doctor,” I said. “He’s in there.” + +“Is it—” his face was puffy and gray—“that same fool?” + +Then the door opened, and the man confronted us. + +“It is over,” he said. + +“What have you done to her?” Winchester lunged toward the door, but the +little man’s lifted hand had dignity enough somehow to stop him. + +“She won’t come back again.” He spoke slowly. “You may look if you care +to.” + +“She’s dead?” + +“She died—months ago. There on the bridge. But you called to her, and +she thought you wanted—_her_.” + +Winchester thrust him aside and strode into the room. I dared one glance +and saw only pale hair shining on the pillow. Then Fletcher flung +himself against me, sobbing, and I knelt to hold him close against the +fear we both felt. + +What Winchester saw I never knew. He hurled himself past us, down the +stairs. And Thalia was buried with the coffin lid fast closed under the +flowers. + + + + + Transcriber’s Notes + + +Transcribed from Harper’s Magazine, vol. 152, May 1926, pp. 684-695. + +New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public +domain. + +The original spelling and punctuation were mostly preserved. Minor +typesetting mistakes were silently corrected. All other changes +(before/after) are listed here: + + [p. 686]: + ... stiff body. “Are your hurt? Thalia—” ... + ... stiff body. “Are you hurt? Thalia—” ... + + [p. 687]: + ... hurried out with umbrella which we ... + ... hurried out with an umbrella which we ... + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79294 *** |