I
March came, and the layette was practically finished. Judith Trench
looked up from her sewing to realize with a strange thrill that it was
just a year since first she heard the name of Springdale. She and Lary
would be going to the theatre, that evening. She wondered whether he
had remembered, when he got the tickets. Eileen was leaving for Rye on
an early afternoon train--indeed she must be well on the way, going
directly from Professor Auersbach’s studio. The train must pass Pelham
in a few minutes.
A year ago, Judith Ascott had gone out to Pelham with the buoyancy of
a toy balloon released from its tether, to break the epoch-making news
to her mother. Now the house at Pelham was in alien hands. Father was
still abroad, was still complaining of floating specks in the air and
a disheartening lack of appetite for breakfast. Mother was rapturous
over the new house Lary was building for her. Ben was eager to get back
to America, to try his hand at concrete construction. Jack thought he
wanted to be a landscape architect--with brother Lary to instruct him.
That would beat the Beaux Arts all hollow.
From one to another of the family, her mind flitted. Had they not
accepted Lary without reservation? Was not her own life complete? She
turned questioning eyes towards the door. A key in the outer lock. Had
Lary come home early ... remembering? Was he ill? The living-room door
opened, slowly, as if it were pushing some imponderable but deadly
weight. In an instant she was on her feet.
“Eileen! What has happened?”
The girl sank into the nearest chair and buried her face from sight.
After a moment she said, in a voice hollow and remote:
“There’s no use torturing you with suspense. I’m not hurt.”
“But something has happened to you--something dreadful.”
“Judith, you don’t need to go out of your way to hunt punishment, when
you’ve sinned. And you don’t need to dodge it, either. A little while
ago I would have thrown myself in front of a subway train, if I hadn’t
been a coward. Last summer I thought I had done something heroic. But
when I saw _him_, this afternoon--”
“Hal Marksley? Eileen!”
“Now you know the worst.” She nodded slowly. “If you’ll let me, Judith,
I’ll tell you from the beginning. I guess I’m like mamma in that, too.
She has to tell a thing all in one piece, or she loses the thread of
it. In the first place, I had a great lesson. I was the last, before
luncheon, and Professor Auersbach stopped to compliment me. It was the
first time. He explained the meaning of _hypsos_, the sublime reach of
spiritual exaltation--and he said it had come into my playing because
of what I had suffered. He talked like Syd Schubert. I went out of
the studio walking on air. I don’t know what I ate--or where. All I
remember is that I left too large a tip, because the change came out
wrong.
“I went to the Grand Central and bought a ticket. It was ever so long
before train time, but I thought I’d better scout around and see how to
get down to the tracks. You know, the construction people change the
route every few days. The first passage I tried had been barricaded. I
went half way up the stairs when I came face to face with three men.
The one in the middle was Hal.”
“He recognized you?”
“Not at first--and I hurried past them and into a side aisle. It was
a blind pocket, and before I could get out of it I heard him calling
my name. Judith, I was all alone. Hundreds of people within hearing,
and I was all alone with the man I loathe. It was like a nightmare--my
feet hobbled with ropes. Before I knew it, he had me in his arms and
was kissing me. I suppose I fainted. When I began to see things again,
we were in that little temporary waiting-room, and my head was on his
shoulder. I looked at him through a mist ... and every minute of last
summer rolled over me. It was a flood from a sewer. They say you review
your life when you are about to die. You don’t need any hell after
that.”
When the tumultuous beating of her heart subsided a little, she went
on:
“He wanted to call a taxicab and take me to a hotel. I didn’t get his
meaning at first. When I did--life came back to me. I suppose the
people around us thought we were a married couple, having our first
public quarrel. Once he looked at me with a leer and said: ‘So you were
mistaken about what you told me, the first of September--or else you
took my advice’. I told him I was mistaken about a good many things,
last summer. Then he said he had gone to the studio to look me up,
after his sister wrote him that I was studying music in New York, and
the secretary said there was no one enrolled there by the name of
Trench. He chuckled and said I was a smart kid, and he had half a mind
to take me with him to Rio.”
“Rio?”
“Yes. He hasn’t been at Pratt Institute at all. He flunked his entrance
exams. He didn’t let his people know, but has been taking all the money
they’d sent him. Has a position in a Brazilian importing house, and has
been studying Portuguese all winter. They are sending him down there in
an important place--and he hopes he’ll never see this ratty old country
again. He even said he’d marry me, if ...”
“And there was no return of the old ardour?”
“No, Judith, only a sick disgust.”