Waltz Into Darkness

59

He foresaw the change in her that would surely follow this debacle before it had even come, so well did he know her now, so bitterly, so costly well. Know her by mood and know her by nature. And come it did, only a little less swiftly and surely than his apprehension of its coming.

The first day after, she was simply less communicative, perhaps; a shade less friendly. That was all. It was as if this was the period of germination, the seed at work but unseen as yet. Only a lover’s eye could have detected it. And his was a lover’s eye, though set in a husband’s head.

But by that night, already, a chill was beginning. The temperature of her mood was going down steadily. Her remarks were civil, but in that alone was the gauge. Civility bespeaks distance. Husband and wife should never be civil. Sugared, or soured, but civil not.

By the second day dislike had begun to sprout like a noxious weed, overrunning everything in what was once a pleasant garden. Her eyes avoided him now. To bring them his way he had to make use of the question direct in addressing her, nothing less would do. And even then they refused to linger, as if finding it scarcely worth their while to waste their time on him.

Within but an additional day of that, the weeds had flowered into poisonous, rancid fruit. The cycle of the sowing was complete, all that was needful was the reaping; and who would the scythe wielder be? There was a sharp edge to her tongue now, the velvet was wearing thin in places. The least provocative remark of his might touch one of them, strike a flinty answer.

It was as though this had the better even of her herself; as though, at times, she tried to curb it, make an effort, at intervals, toward relenting, softening: only to find her own nature opposed to her intentions in the matter, and overcoming them in spite of the best she could do. She would smile and the blue ice in her eyes would warm, but only for fleeting minutes; the glacial cast that held her would close over her again and hide her from him.

He took refuge in long walks. They were a surcease, for when he took them he was not without her; when he took them he had her with him as she had been until only lately. He would restore, replenish the old she, until he had her whole again. Then coming back, with a smile and a lighter heart, the two would meet face to face, the old and the new, and in an instant he would have his work all for nothing, the new she had destroyed the old.

“I’ll get a job, if this affects you so much,” he blurted out at last. “I’m capable, there’s no reason why I—”

He met with scant approval.

“I hate a man that works!” she said through tight-gripped teeth. “I could have married a dray horse if I’d wanted that. It’d be just about as dull.” Then gave him a cutting look, as if he had no real wish to better their state, were purposely offering her alternatives that were useless, that were not to be seriously considered. “There must be some way besides that, that you could get your hands on some money for us.”

He wondered uneasily what she meant by that, and yet was afraid to know, afraid to have it made any clearer.

“Only fools work,” she added contemptuously. “Someone once told me that a long time ago, and I believe it now more than ever.”

He wondered who, and wondered where he was now. What jail had closed around him long since, or what gallows had met him. Or perhaps he was still unscathed, his creed vindicated, waiting somewhere for word from her, in tacit admission that she had been wrong; knowing that some day, somehow, in his own good time, he would have it.

“He must have been a scalawag,” was all he could think to say.

There was defiance in her cold blue eyes. “He was a scalawag,” she granted, “but he was good company.”

He left the room.

And now there was stone silence between them, following this; not so much as a “By your leave,” not so much as a “Good night.” It was hideous, it was unthinkable, but it had come about. Two mutes moving about one another, two pantomimists, two sleepless silhouettes in the dimness of their chamber. He sought to reach for her hand and clasp it, but she seemed to be asleep. Yet in her sleep she guessed his intention, and withdrew her hand before he could find it.

On the following day, coming from the back of the hall, he happened to pass by the sitting room, on his way out to take one of his restorative walks, and caught sight of her in there, sitting at the desk. He hadn’t known her to be in there. She was not writing a letter, by any evidence that was to be seen. She was sitting quite aimless, quite unoccupied. The desk slab was out, but no paper was in view. Yet for what other purpose do people sit at a desk, be asked himself? There were more appropriate chairs in the room for the purpose, in itself, of sitting.

He had an unhappy feeling that some action she had been engaged in had been hastily resumed as soon as he was gone. The very cast of her countenance told him that; its resolute vacancy. Not a natural vacancy, but a studied one, carefully maintained just for so long as he was in the doorway watching. The pinkey of her hand, which rested sideward along the desk slab, rose and descended again, as he watched. The way the tip of a cat’s tail twitches, when all the rest of it is stilled; betraying a leashed, lurking impatience.

There was nothing he could do. If he stopped her this time, she would find another. If he accused, she would deny. If he proved, then her smouldering resentment would burst into open flame, and he didn’t want that.

A letter to the past. A letter to that other, subterranean world he thought she had left forever.

He went out and closed the door behind him, heavy hearted.

If there was an added quality to be detected in her, several hours later, on his return, it was a glint of malicious satisfaction, a sort of sneer within the eyes. The look of one who says to herself, I have not been idle. Just wait, and you shall see.

Within another two days he could stand their estrangement no longer, he had capitulated. He had capitulated in a lie; he had prostituted the truth itself to his submission, than which there can be no greater capitulation on the part of one to the desires of another. Making what is not so, so, for the sake of renewed amity.

“I lied to you, Bonny,” he said without preamble.

She was stroking her hair in readiness for bed, her back was to him. Literally now, as it had been figuratively for days on end.

“There is more money. That was not the end of it.”

She set down her brush smartly, turned to stare.

“Then why did you tell me that? What did you do it for?”

“I thought perhaps we might run through it too quickly. I thought perhaps we should put it by for a little while, for some later day.”

Greed must have dulled her perceptions. He made a poor liar, at best. And now, because of the stake involved, he was at his worst. Yet she wanted to believe him, and so she wholeheartedly did. Instantly she had accepted for fact his faltering figment; that could be told by the swiftness with which she entered into argument over it. And you do not argue over something that is not a fact, you disregard it; you argue only over something that is.

“Later?” she said heatedly. “How much later? Will we be any younger when it comes, that precious day? Will a dress look as good on me then as it does now? Will my skin be as smooth, will your step be as firm?”

She picked up her brush again, but not for use; to fling it down in emphasis.

“No, I’ve never lived that way and I won’t submit to it now! ‘A rainy day.’ I’ve heard that old fusty saying. I’ll give you another, a truer one! ‘Tomorrow never comes.’ Let it rain tomorrow! Let it soak and drench me! If I’m dry and warm tonight, that’s all I care about. Tomorrow’s rain may never find me. I may be dead tomorrow, and so may you. And you can’t spend money in a grave. I’ll take on the bargain. I’ll ask no odds. Bury me tomorrow, and welcome. In potter’s field, if you want. Without even a shroud to cover me. If I can only have Tonight.”

She was breathing fast with the heat and fury of her philosophy. The protest of the disinherited; the panic of the pagan, with no promise of ultramundane reward.

“How much is it?” she asked avidly. “How much, about?”

He wanted her happy. He couldn’t give her heaven, so he gave her the only heaven she believed in, understood. “A great deal,” he said. “A great deal.”

“About?”

“A lot,” was all he could keep saying. “A lot.”

She had risen, ecstatic, was coming closer to him step by step. Each step a caress. Each step the promise of another caress still to come, beyond the last. She clasped hands over her bosom, as if to hold in the joy swelling it. “Oh, never mind, no need to tell me exactly. I never did like figures. A lot, that’s all that matters. A bunch. A load. Where? Here, with us?”

“In New Orleans,” he mumbled evasively. “But where I can put my hands on it easily.” Anything to hold her. She wanted Tonight. Well, he wanted Tonight too.

She spun, suddenly, in a solo waltz step, as though unseen violins had struck a single chord. Then flung herself half onto the bed and into his waiting arms.

One again; love again. Whisperings, protestations, promises and vows: never another cold word, never another black silence, never another hurt. I forgive you, I adore you, I cannot live without you. “A new you, a new me.”

Suddenly she alerted her head for a moment, almost as if an afterthought had assailed her. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he heard her breathe, and whether it was to him or to herself, he could not even tell, it was so inward and subdued.

“It’s over, it’s forgotten,” he murmured, “we’ve agreed on that.”

Her head dropped back again, solaced.

But the belatedness of the qualm, coming as it did after all the pardons had been asked and given, and not in their midst, made him think her compunction might have been for something else, and not their state of alienation itself, now happily ended. Some act he’d had no inkling of at the time, now rashly completed beyond recall.

She kept asking when he was going, and when he was going, with increasing frequency and increasing insistence, until at last he was face to face with the retraction he’d dreaded so; there was nothing left for him but to tell her. So tell her he did.

“I’m not.”

“But... but how else can you obtain it?”

“There isn’t any there to obtain. Not a penny. It’s all gone long since, all been used. The money from the sale of the St. Louis Street house, that Jardine took care of for me; my share of the business. There’s nothing more coming to me.” He buried hands in pockets, drew a deep breath, looked down. “Very well, I lied. Don’t ask me why; you should know. To see you smile at me a little longer, perhaps.” And he murmured, half-inside his throat, “It was cheap at that price.”

She said, still speaking quietly, “So you hoodwinked me.”

She put aside her hand mirror. She stood. She moved about, with no settled destination. She clasped her own sides, in double embrace.

The storm brewed slowly, but it brewed sulphurous strong. She paced back and forth, her chest rising and falling with quickened breath, but not a word coming from her at first.

She seized her cut-glass flask of toilet water at last, and raising arm up overhead to full height, crashed it down upon the dresser top.

“So that’s what you think of me. A good joke, wasn’t it? A clever trick. Tell her you have money, tell her you haven’t. The fool will believe anything you say. One minute yes, the next minute no.” The talcum jar came down next, shattered into crystal shrapnel, some of which jumped almost to his feet, across the room. Then the hand mirror. “It isn’t enough to lie to me once, you have to lie to me twice over!”

“The first time was the truth; the only lie was when I said I did have.”

“You got what you wanted, though, didn’t you? That was all you cared about, that was all that mattered to you!”

“Haven’t you got any modesty at all? Isn’t there anything you leave unsaid?”

“You’d better make it do, I warn you! It’ll be a long long time—”

“You’ve got a filthy mouth for such a beautiful face,” he let her know sternly. “A slut’s tongue in a saint’s face.”

She threw a scent bottle, this time directly at him. He didn’t swerve; it struck the wall just past his shoulder. A piece of glass nicked his cheek, and drops of sweet jasmine spattered his shoulder. She was not play-acting in some lovers’ quarrel; her face was maniacal with hate. She was beside herself. If there had been anything sharp at hand to use for weapon—

“You—” She called him a name that he’d thought only men knew. “I’m not good enough for you, am I? I’m beneath you. I’m just trash and you’re a fine gentleman. Well, who told you to come after me? Who wants you?”

He took a handkerchief to the tiny spot of blood on his cheek. He held his peace, stood there steadfast against the sewage torrents of her denunciation.

“What good are you to me? You’re no good to me at all. You and your romantic love. Faugh!” She wiped her hand insultingly across her mouth, as though he had just kissed her.

“No, I suppose I’m not,” he said, eyes hard now, face bitter. “The wind has changed now. Now that I have nothing left. Now that you’ve had everything out of me that’s to be had. You greedy little leech. Are you sure you haven’t overlooked anything?” He was trembling now with emotion. His hands sought into his pockets, turning their linings out with the violence of their seeking. “Here.” He dragged some coins out, flung them full at her face. “Here’s something you missed. And here, have this too.” He ripped the jeweled stickpin from his tie, cast that at her. “And that’s all there is. An insurance policy among my papers somewhere, and maybe you’d like me to cut my own throat to profit you — but unfortunately it’s not in force.”

She was pulling things out of the drawers now, dropping more than she secured.

“I’ve left you once already, and I’ll leave you again. And this time for good, this time goodbye. I don’t ever want to see the sight of you again.”

“I’m still your husband, and you’re not leaving this house.”

“Who’s to stop me? You?” She threw back her head and shrieked to the ceiling with wild laughter. “You’re not man enough, you haven’t got the—”

They both ran suddenly for the door, from their two varying directions. He got there first, put his back to it, blocked it.

She raised diminutive fists, battered futilely at his chest, aimed the points of her shoes at his insteps.

“Get out of my way. You can’t stop me.”

“Get back from this door, Bonny.”

The blow, when it came, was as unexpected to him as it must have been to her. It was like a man swiping at a mosquito, before he stops to think. She staggered back, turned as she fell, and toppled sideward onto the bench that sat before her dressing table, the lower part of her body trailing the floor.

They looked at each other, stunned.

His heart, wrung, wanted to cry out “Oh, darling, did I hurt you?” but his stubborn lips would not relay the plea.

The room seemed deathly still, after the clamorous discord that had just filled it. She had become noticeably subdued. Her only reproach was characteristic. It was, rather, a grudging backhand compliment. As she picked herself stiffly up, she mouthed sullenly: “It’s a wonder you were man enough to do that much. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

She came toward the door again, but this time with all antagonism drained from her.

He eyed her under narrowed, warning lids.

“Let me get to the bathroom,” she said with sulky docility. “I need to put cold water on my face.”

When he came up again later from below, she had dragged her bed things out of their room and into the spare bedroom at the back of the hall up there.