Waltz Into Darkness

14

He waited until after they were through their supper to speak of it, and then only in the mildest, least reproachful way.

He took it out and gave it to her, after they had entered the sitting room from the dining room, and settled themselves there, she across the lamplit table from him. “This came for you today. I opened it by mistake, not noticing. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

She took the whole envelope first, and studied it a second, this way and that. “Who’s it from?” she said.

“Can’t you tell?”

Just as he was about to wonder why the script in itself did not tell her that, she had already withdrawn its contents and opened them, and murmured “Oh,” so the question never had a chance to form itself in his mind. But whether the “Oh” meant recognition of its sender or merely recognition of the nature of the letter, or even something else quite different, there was no way for him to distinguish.

She read it rather quickly, even hurriedly, her head moving with each line, then back again, in continuous serried little twitchings. Then reached the bottom and had done.

He thought he saw remorse on her face, in its sudden, still abstraction, that held for a moment after.

“She says—” She half-tendered it to him. “Did you read it?”

“Yes, I did,” he said, slightly uncomfortable.

She put it back in the envelope, gave the latter two taps where its seam was broken.

He looked at her fondly, to soften the insistence of his appeal. “Write to her, Julia,” he urged. “That is not like you at all.”

“I will,” she promised contritely. “Oh, I will, Louis, without fail.” And twisted her hands a little, about themselves, and looked down at them as she did so.

“But why didn’t you before now?” he continued gently. “I never asked you, because I felt sure you had.”

“Oh, so much has happened — I meant to, time and again I meant to, and each time there was something to take my mind off it. You see, Louis, this has been the beginning of a whole new life for me, these past few weeks, and everything seemed to come at one time—”

“I know,” he said. “But you will write?” And he took up and lost himself in his newspaper.

“The very first thing,” she vowed.

Half an hour went by. She was, now, turning the leaves of a heavy ornamental album, regaling herself with the copperplate engravings, snubbing the text.

He watched her covertly from under lowered lids a moment. Presently he cleared his throat as a reminder.

She took no notice, went ahead, with childlike engrossment.

“You said you would write to your sister.”

She looked slightly disconcerted. “I know. But must it be right tonight? Why won’t tomorrow do as well?”

“Don’t you want to write to her?”

“Of course I do, how can you ask that? But why must it be this instant? Will tomorrow make such a difference?”

He put his newspaper aside. “A great deal in time of arrival, I’m afraid. If you write it now, it can go off in the early morning post. If you wait until tomorrow, it will be held over a full day longer; she will have that much more anxiety to endure.”

He rose, closed the album for her, since she gave no signs of intending to do this herself. Then he stopped momentarily, looked at her searchingly to ask: “There’s no ill-feeling between you, is there? Some quarrel just before you left that you haven’t told me about?” And before she could speak, if she had meant to, put the answer in her mouth. “She doesn’t write as though there had been.”

The lines of her throat, extended for an instant, dropped back again, as if he’d aborted what she’d been about to say.

“How you talk,” she murmured. “We’re devoted to one another.”

“Well, then, come. Why be stubborn? There’s no time like the present. And you have nothing to occupy yourself with, that I can see.” He took her by both hands and had to draw her to her feet. And though she made no active sign of resistance, he could feel the weight of her body against the direction of his pull.

He had to go to the desk and lower the writing-slab. He had to draw out a sheet of fresh notepaper from the rack, and put it in place for her, slightly tilted of corner.

He had to go back and bring her over, from where she stood, by the hand. Then even when he had her seated, he had to dip the pen and place it in her very fingers. He gave her head a pat. “You are like a stubborn child that doesn’t want to do its lessons,” he told her humorously.

She tried to smile, but the effect was dubious at best.

“Let me see her letter a moment,” she said at last.

He went back to the table, brought it to her. But she seemed only to glance at the very top line of the page, almost as if referring to the mode of address in order to be able to duplicate it. Though he told himself this thought on his part must be purely fanciful. Many people had to have the physical sight of a letter before them to be able to answer it satisfactorily; she might be one of those.

Then turning from it immediately after that one quick look, she wrote on her own blank sheet, “My own dear Bertha:” He could see it form, from over her shoulder. Beyond that she seemed to have no further use for the original, edged it slightly aside and didn’t concern herself with it any further.

He let her be. He returned to his own chair, took up his newspaper once more. But the stream of her thoughts did not seem to flow easily. He would hear the scratch of her pen for a few words, then it would stop, die away, there would be a long wait. Then it would scratch for a few jerky words more, then die away again. He glanced over at her once just in time to see her clap her hand harassedly to her forehead and hold it there briefly.

At length he heard her give a great sigh, but one more of short-patienced aversion continuing even after a task has been completed than of relief at its conclusion, and the scratching of the pen had stopped for good. She flung it down, as if annoyed.

“I’ve done. Do you want to read it?”

“No,” he said, “it’s between sister and sister, not for a husband to read.”

“Very well,” she said negligently. She passed her pink tongue around the gummed edge of the envelope, sealed it in. She stood it upright against the inside of the desk, prepared to close the slab over it. “I’ll have Aunt Sarah post it for me in the morning.”

He had reached for it and picked it up before her hands could forestall him, though they both flew out toward it just a moment too late. She hadn’t expected him to be standing there behind her.

He slid it into his inside breast pocket, buttoned his coat over it. “I can do it for you myself,” he said. “I leave the house earlier. It’ll be that much sooner on its way.”

He saw a startled expression, almost of trapped fear, cause her eyes to dodge cornerwise for an instant, but then they evened again so quickly he told himself he must have been mistaken, he must not have seen it at all.

When next he looked she was stroking the edge of her fingers with a bit of chamois penwiper, against potential rather than actual spots, however, and that seemed to be her sole remaining concern at the moment, though she puckered her brows pensively over the task.