Добавил:
ivanov666
Опубликованный материал нарушает ваши авторские права? Сообщите нам.
Вуз:
Предмет:
Файл:The Reef
.pdf
THE REEF
her jacket, he would like her even better, feel her nearer,
dearer, more desirable, than in all the splendours she might
put on for him. In the light of this discovery she studied her
face with a new intentness, seeing its defects as she had never seen them, yet seeing them through a kind of radiance, as
though love were a luminous medium into which she had
been bodily plunged.
She was glad now that she had confessed her doubts and
her jealousy. She divined that a man in love may be fl attered
by such involuntary betrayals, that there are moments when
respect for his liberty appeals to him less than the inability to
respect it: moments so propitious that a woman’s very mistakes and indiscretions may help to establish her dominion.
The sense of power she had been aware of in talking to Darrow came back with ten-fold force. She felt like testing him
by the most fantastic exactions, and at the same moment she
longed to humble herself before him, to make herself the shadow and echo of his mood. She wanted to linger with him in
a world of fancy and yet to walk at his side in the world of fact.
She wanted him to feel her power and yet to love her for her
ignorance and humility. She felt like a slave, and a goddess,
and a girl in her teens . . .
CHAPTER XIII
Darrow, late that evening, threw himself into an armchair
before his fi re and mused.
The room was propitious to meditation. The red-veiled
lamp, the corners of shadow, the splashes of fi relight on
the curves of old full-bodied wardrobes and cabinets, gave it
an air of intimacy increased by its faded hangings, its slightly
frayed and threadbare rugs. Everything in it was harmoniously shabby, with a subtle sought-for shabbiness in which Darrow fancied he discerned the touch of Fraser Leath. But Fraser
Leath had grown so unimportant a factor in the scheme of
things that these marks of his presence caused the young man
no emotion beyond that of a faint retrospective amusement.
The afternoon and evening had been perfect.
After a moment of concern over her step-son’s departure,
Anna had surrendered herself to her happiness with an impetuosity that Darrow had never suspected in her. Early in the afternoon they had gone out in the motor, traversing miles of
sober-tinted landscape in which, here and there, a scarlet vineyard fl amed, clattering through the streets of stony villages,
coming out on low slopes above the river, or winding through
the pale gold of narrow wood-roads with the blue of clear-cut
hills at their end. Over everything lay a faint sunshine that
132
THE REEF
seemed dissolved in the still air, and the smell of wet roots and
decaying leaves was merged in the pungent scent of burning
underbrush. Once, at the turn of a wall, they stopped the motor before a ruined gateway and, stumbling along a road full of
ruts, stood before a little old deserted house, fantastically
carved and chimneyed, which lay in a moat under the shade of
ancient trees. They paced the paths between the trees, found
a mouldy Temple of Love on an islet among reeds and plantains, and, sitting on a bench in the stable-yard, watched
the pigeons circling against the sunset over their cot of patterned brick. Then the motor fl ew on into the dusk . . .
When they came in they sat beside the fi re in the oak drawing-room, and Darrow noticed how delicately her head stood
out against the sombre panelling, and mused on the enjoyment there would always be in the mere fact of watching her
hands as they moved about among the tea-things . . .
They dined late, and facing her across the table, with its
low lights and fl owers, he felt an extraordinary pleasure in
seeing her again in evening dress, and in letting his eyes
dwell on the proud shy set of her head, the way her dark hair
clasped it, and the girlish thinness of her neck above the slight
swell of the breast. His imagination was struck by the quality of reticence in her beauty. She suggested a fi ne portrait kept
down to a few tones, or a Greek vase on which the play of light
is the only pattern.
After dinner they went out on the terrace for a look at
the moon-misted park. Through the crepuscular whiteness
the trees hung in blotted masses. Below the terrace, the garden
drew its dark diagrams between statues that stood like muffl ed
133
EDITH WHARTON
conspirators on the edge of the shadow. Farther off, the meadows unrolled a silver-shot tissue to the mantling of mist above
the river; and the autumn stars trembled overhead like their
own refl ections seen in dim water.
He lit his cigar, and they walked slowly up and down
the fl ags in the languid air, till he put an arm about her, saying: “You mustn’t stay till you’re chilled”; then they went back
into the room and drew up their chairs to the fi re.
It seemed only a moment later that she said: “It must be
after eleven,” and stood up and looked down on him, smiling
faintly. He sat still, absorbing the look, and thinking: “There’ll
be evenings and evenings” – till she came nearer, bent over
him, and with a hand on his shoulder said: “Good night.”
He got to his feet and put his arms about her.
“Good night,” he answered, and held her fast; and they
gave each other a long kiss of promise and communion.
The memory of it glowed in him still as he sat over his crumbling fi re; but beneath his physical exultation he felt a certain
gravity of mood. His happiness was in some sort the rallyingpoint of many scattered purposes. He summed it up vaguely
by saying to himself that to be loved by a woman like that made
“all the difference” . . . He was a little tired of experimenting on
life; he wanted to “take a line”, to follow things up, to centralize and concentrate, and produce results. Two or three more
years of diplomacy – with her beside him! – and then their
real life would begin: study, travel and book-making for him,
and for her – well, the joy, at any rate, of getting out of an atmosphere of bric-a-brac and card-leaving into the open air of
competing activities.
134
THE REEF
The desire for change had for some time been latent in him,
and his meeting with Mrs. Leath the previous spring had given
it a defi nite direction. With such a comrade to focus and stimulate his energies he felt modestly but agreeably sure of “doing
something”. And under this assurance was the lurking sense
that he was somehow worthy of his opportunity. His life, on
the whole, had been a creditable affair. Out of modest chances
and middling talents he had built himself a fairly marked personality, known some exceptional people, done a number of
interesting and a few rather diffi cult things, and found himself, at thirty-seven, possessed of an intellectual ambition suffi cient to occupy the passage to a robust and energetic old age.
As for the private and personal side of his life, it had come up
to the current standards, and if it had dropped, now and then,
below a more ideal measure, even these declines had been
brief, parenthetic, incidental. In the recognized essentials he
had always remained strictly within the limit of his scruples.
From this reassuring survey of his case he came back to
the contemplation of its crowning felicity. His mind turned
again to his fi rst meeting with Anna Summers and took up one
by one the threads of their faintly sketched romance. He dwelt
with pardonable pride on the fact that fate had so early marked
him for the high privilege of possessing her: it seemed to mean
that they had really, in the truest sense of the ill-used phrase,
been made for each other.
Deeper still than all these satisfactions was the mere elemental sense of well-being in her presence. That, after all,
was what proved her to be the woman for him: the pleasure he
took in the set of her head, the way her hair grew on her fore-
135
EDITH WHARTON
head and at the nape, her steady gaze when he spoke, the grave
freedom of her gait and gestures. He recalled every detail of
her face, the fi ne veinings of the temples, the bluish-brown
shadows in her upper lids, and the way the refl ections of two
stars seemed to form and break up in her eyes when he held
her close to him . . .
If he had had any doubt as to the nature of her feeling
for him those dissolving stars would have allayed it. She was
reserved, she was shy even, was what the shallow and effusive
would call “cold”. She was like a picture so hung that it can
be seen only at a certain angle: an angle known to no one but
its possessor. The thought fl attered his sense of possessorship
. . . He felt that the smile on his lips would have been fatuous
had it had a witness. He was thinking of her look when she
had questioned him about his meeting with Owen at the theatre: less of her words than of her look, and of the effort
the question cost her: the reddening of her cheek, the deepening of the strained line between her brows, the way her
eyes sought shelter and then turned and drew on him. Pride
and passion were in the confl ict – magnifi cent qualities in
a wife! The sight almost made up for his momentary embarrassment at the rousing of a memory which had no place in
his present picture of himself.
Yes! It was worth a good deal to watch that fi ght between
her instinct and her intelligence, and know one’s self the object of the struggle . . .
Mingled with these sensations were considerations of
another order. He refl ected with satisfaction that she was
the kind of woman with whom one would like to be seen in
136
THE REEF
public. It would be distinctly agreeable to follow her into
drawing-rooms, to walk after her down the aisle of a theatre, to
get in and out of trains with her, to say “my wife” of her to
all sorts of people. He draped these details in the handsome
phrase “She’s a woman to be proud of”, and felt that this fact
somehow justifi ed and ennobled his instinctive boyish satisfaction in loving her.
He stood up, rambled across the room and leaned out for
a while into the starry night. Then he dropped again into his
armchair with a sigh of deep content.
“Oh, hang it,” he suddenly exclaimed, “it’s the best thing
that’s ever happened to me, anyhow!”
The next day was even better. He felt, and knew she felt,
that they had reached a clearer understanding of each other. It was as if, after a swim through bright opposing waves,
with a dazzle of sun in their eyes, they had gained an inlet in
the shades of a cliff, where they could fl oat on the still surface
and gaze far down into the depths.
Now and then, as they walked and talked, he felt a thrill of
youthful wonder at the coincidence of their views and their
experiences, at the way their minds leapt to the same point in
the same instant.
“The old delusion, I suppose,” he smiled to himself. “Will
Nature never tire of the trick?”
But he knew it was more than that. There were moments in
their talk when he felt, distinctly and unmistakably, the solid
ground of friendship underneath the whirling dance of his
sensations. “How I should like her if I didn’t love her!” he
summed it up, wondering at the miracle of such a union.
137
EDITH WHARTON
In the course of the morning a telegram had come from
Owen Leath, announcing that he, his grandmother and Effi e
would arrive from Dijon that afternoon at four. The station of
the main line was eight or ten miles from Givre, and Anna,
soon after three, left in the motor to meet the travellers.
When she had gone Darrow started for a walk, planning to
get back late, in order that the reunited family might have
the end of the afternoon to themselves. He roamed the country-side till long after dark, and the stable-clock of Givre was
striking seven as he walked up the avenue to the court.
In the hall, coming down the stairs, he encountered Anna.
Her face was serene, and his fi rst glance showed him that
Owen had kept his word and that none of her forebodings had
been fulfi lled.
She had just come down from the school-room, where Effi e
and the governess were having supper; the little girl, she told
him, looked immensely better for her Swiss holiday, but was
dropping with sleep after the journey, and too tired to make
her habitual appearance in the drawing-room before being
put to bed. Madame de Chantelle was resting, but would be
down for dinner; and as for Owen, Anna supposed he was off
somewhere in the park – he had a passion for prowling about
the park at nightfall . . .
Darrow followed her into the brown room, where
the tea-table had been left for him. He declined her offer of
tea, but she lingered a moment to tell him that Owen had in
fact kept his word, and that Madame de Chantelle had come
back in the best of humours, and unsuspicious of the blow
about to fall.
138
THE REEF
“She has enjoyed her month at Ouchy, and it has given her
a lot to talk about – her symptoms, and the rival doctors, and
the people at the hotel. It seems she met your Ambassadress
there, and Lady Wantley, and some other London friends of
yours, and she’s heard what she calls ‘delightful things’ about
you: she told me to tell you so. She attaches great importance to
the fact that your grandmother was an Everard of Albany. She’s
prepared to open her arms to you. I don’t know whether it
won’t make it harder for poor Owen . . . the contrast, I mean . . .
There are no Ambassadresses or Everards to vouch for HIS
choice! But you’ll help me, won’t you? You’ll help me to help
him? To-morrow I’ll tell you the rest. Now I must rush up and
tuck in Effi e . . . ”
“Oh, you’ll see, we’ll pull it off for him!” he assured her;
“together, we can’t fail to pull it off.”
He stood and watched her with a smile as she fl ed down
the half-lit vista to the hall.
CHAPTER XIV
If Darrow, on entering the drawing-room before dinner, examined its new occupant with unusual interest, it was
more on Owen Leath’s account than his own.
Anna’s hints had roused his interest in the lad’s love affair,
and he wondered what manner of girl the heroine of the coming confl ict might be. He had guessed that Owen’s rebellion
symbolized for his step-mother her own long struggle against
the Leath conventions, and he understood that if Anna so passionately abetted him it was partly because, as she owned, she
wanted his liberation to coincide with hers.
The lady who was to represent, in the impending struggle, the forces of order and tradition was seated by the fi re
when Darrow entered. Among the fl owers and old furniture of the large pale-panelled room, Madame de Chantelle
had the inanimate elegance of a fi gure introduced into a “stilllife” to give the scale. And this, Darrow refl ected, was exactly
what she doubtless regarded as her chief obligation: he was sure
she thought a great deal of “measure”, and approved of most
things only up to a certain point. She was a woman of sixty, with
a fi gure at once young and old-fashioned. Her fair faded tints,
her quaint corseting, the passementerie on her tight-waisted
dress, the velvet band on her tapering arm, made her resemble
140
Соседние файлы в предмете [НЕСОРТИРОВАННОЕ]