Waltz Into Darkness

9

Her complexion was a source of considerable wonderment to him. It seemed capable of the most rapid and unpredictable changes, almost within the twinkling of an eye. These flushes and pallors, if such they were, did not actually occur before his eyes, but within such short spans of time that, for all practical purposes, it amounted to the same thing.

They were not blushes in the ordinary sense, for they did not diminish again within a few moments of their onset, as those would have; once the change had occurred, once her coloring had heightened, it remained that way for hours after, with no immediate counteralteration ensuing.

It was most noticeable in the mornings. On first opening the shutters and turning to behold her, her coloring would be almost camelia-like. And yet, but a few moments later, as she followed in his wake down the stairs and rejoined him at the table, there would be the fresh hue of primroses, of pink carnations, in her cheeks, to set off the blue of her eyes all the more, the gold of her hair, to make her a vision of such loveliness that to look at her was almost past endurance.

In a theatre one night (they were seated in a box) the same transfiguration occurred, between two of the acts of the play, but on this occasion he ascribed it to illness, though if it were, she would not admit it to him. They had arrived late and had therefore entered in the darkness, or at least dimness relieved only by the stage lights. When the gas jets flared high, however, between the acts, she discovered (and seemed quite concerned by it, why he could not make out) that their loge was lined with a tufted damask of a particularly virulent apple-green shade. This, in conjunction with the blazing gas beating full upon her face, gave her a bilious, verdant look.

Many eyes (as always whenever she appeared anywhere with him) were turned upward upon her from the audience, both men and women alike, and more than one pair of opera glasses were centered upon her, as custom allowed them to be.

She shifted about impatiently in her chair for a moment or two, then suddenly rose and, touching him briefly on the wrist, excused herself. “Are you ill?” he asked, rising in the attempt to follow her, but she had already gone.

She returned before the lights had had time to be lowered again, and she was like a different person. The macabre tinge was gone from her countenance; her cheeks now burned with an apricot glow that fought through and mastered the combined efforts of the gaslights and the box-lining and made her beauty emerge triumphant.

The number of pairs of opera glasses tilted her way immediately doubled. Some unaccompanied men even half rose from their seats. A sibilant freshet of admiring comment could be sensed, rather than heard, running through the audience.

“What was it?” he asked anxiously. “Were you unwell? Something at supper, perhaps—?”

“I never felt better in my life!” she said confidently. She sat now, secure, at ease, and just before the lights went down again for the following act, turned to him with a smile, brushed a little nonexistent speck from his shoulder, as if proudly to show the whole world with whom she was, to whom she belonged.

One morning, however, his concern got the better of him. He rose from the table they were seated at, breakfasting, went over to her, and tested her forehead with the back of his hand.

“What do you do that for?” she asked, with unmarred composure, but casting her eyes upward to take in his overhanging hand.

“I wanted to see if you had a temperature.”

The feel of her skin, however, was perfectly cool and normal. He returned to his chair.

“I am a little anxious about you, Julia. I’m wondering if I should not have a doctor examine you, just to ease my mind. I have heard of certain—” he hesitated, in order not to alarm her unduly, “—certain ailments of the lung that have no other indication, at an early stage, than these... er... intermittent flushes and high colorings that mount to the cheeks—”

He thought he saw her lips quiver treacherously, but they formed nothing but a small smile of reassurance.

“Oh no, I am in perfectly good health.”

“You are as white as a ghost, at times. Then at others— A few moments ago, in our room, you were unduly pale. And now your cheeks are like apples.”

She turned her fork over, then turned it back again the way it had been.

“It is the cold water, perhaps,” she said. “I apply it to my face with strong pats, and that brings out the color. So you need not worry any longer, there’s really nothing to be alarmed at.”

“Oh,” he exclaimed, vastly relieved. “Is that all that causes it? Who would have believed—!”

He turned his head suddenly. Aunt Sarah was standing there motionless, a plate she had forgotten to deliver held in her hand. Her eyes stared at Julia’s face with a narrow-lidded scrutiny.

He thought, understanding, that she too must feel concern for the state of her young mistress’ health, just as he had, to fix upon her such a speculative stare of secretive appraisal.