I looked out, at the dark New York skyline, with the lights of other
offices, shining. I wondered what the people, sitting in those offices,
after hours, were discussing. I thought: “This finishes me . . . but it
finishes Noel, for ever, and he is a more valuable person than I.”
She said: “Don’t blame me, Patricia . . . may I call you Patricia? I
have always heard of you, as that. I held Noel back from Asia . . . but
think of the things his careless driving of that automobile has held me
from, through nine years. . . . And I’ll try to make it up to him by
having a child.”
I said: “I am thinking.” And a most curious idea came . . . and warmed
me who had felt for ten minutes, as if nothing in life could warm me
again.
And I thought: “Yes—if I can manage it.” (And when in some speakeasy
someone who dislikes me says, ‘By the way, Patricia, what happened to
your beautiful red-headed boyfriend?’, I shall answer, ‘Oh, didn’t you
hear? I gave him the air—and the continent of Asia.’ I shan’t make that
answer, though. If I manage this, I shall never tell anyone, except
perhaps Lucia . . . and Helena.)
I said: “Why don’t you pack up and go to Asia with Noel? Start life
over, with your child?”
She said: “I will show you.” She took the black mask off her face. I
looked. There was a sightless red blotch, where there had been contours
that men—Noel, no doubt—had ten years ago found desirable to kiss.
There was a congealed horror. . . . Whatever of hate, or resentment, I
had had against that woman, died. Had I suffered that, what sort of
woman would I have been, after?
She covered that twisted red scar that had been half a face. I heard her
voice, saying “If you were I, would you travel among strangers, with
this?”
I did not pity her, actually. One does not pity fate, when it intervenes
between one’s self and what one wanted most of all in the world.
I said, “No” at first “I wouldn’t travel.” Then I thought of Noel . . .
who loved the beauty of women, and the beauty of strange places, and I
said, “No, but—there are things that you could do.”
“What?” she said. “After the war, I went to various facial surgeons.
They could do nothing for me. . . . There was not enough left, on which
to re-build.”
Then, suddenly, she began to cry, out of her one violet-blue eye. And I
said: “Don’t cry. I am thinking about you—and Noel whom I loved so
much. You don’t mind hearing me say that I loved Noel so much.”
She said: “No. He is, in a way, a good man. I don’t exactly remember
loving him. I was only nineteen then, you see. But as much as he could
be, he was good to me through these years. I have often been bitter—and
blamed him. I suppose no one was to blame.”
I thought: “_And there are no villains in the piece._ I knew that
before. If there is a God, among things so badly managed—if there is
One, let Him please remember that, in this, I did the best I could.
Because of a baby . . . a baby with long dark lashes that curled over
his white skin . . . a baby who died long ago . . . and because of Noel
who healed everything that had hurt me . . . and who thought me a
generous woman, in this I shall do the best I can.”
I said to her: “Noel wants to go to Asia. You go with him. If you stay
around here, I don’t promise to keep out of his life. I don’t know that
I can. If you go, you have him for all time . . . and he has the work he
wants.”
She began to speak. I said: “Wait a minute . . . I have a friend . . . a
painter . . . a girl who paints masks . . . theatrical masks, mostly.
But she did three for a girl who was going South—a girl with an
especially delicate skin that couldn’t stand sunburn—and that girl wore
them all the time, outdoors, during the daytime. I’ll get this painter
to make some masks for you. They aren’t obvious masks, fifteen feet
away. And you can tell people whom you meet travelling that
you—hurt—your face recently, and are just wearing a mask until it gets
better.”
It was dreadful, to watch what waked in that half of a white, cold face.
“Do you mean it?” she said. “Do you mean that I could go and see the
Coast, and go on a ship to Japan, and not be pointed out, and have
people shudder and turn away? . . . My sister is so tiresome; it would
be such relief to see new places. And you don’t think Noel would be
ashamed of me?”
(I said to myself, “Since you have to do it, Patricia, do it in the
grand manner. Hope that that may be some comfort to you—through all the
years when nothing else will be much comfort.)
“Your name is Beatrice, isn’t it?” I said. “I am going to call you
Beatrice—if you don’t stand in the way of Noel’s career, he will become
very fond of you, I’m sure. And he will love the baby . . . I’m going to
take you to see Helena, now. She is the girl who makes the masks. She
should get them finished for you in a week or so. Then you could come to
town again, to try them on—and if you like, I’ll take you about to
various smart wholesale clothing houses—where you can buy quantities of
things for travelling.
“You have a lovely figure—and, after the child is born, you can use
these things in the East. . . . In a good many places you might find it
intriguing to wear a veil, as if you were a Mohammedan woman. Let your
yellow hair show, and everyone will find the effect piquant as can be.”
She was shaking with excitement. “You make it seem so real.” She said.
“I like you. I thought I should hate you. I think I am sorry . . . that
I am taking Noel away from you.”
Years of practice in flippancy were a wall against my back. “Oh, don’t
mind that,” I said. “I shall get over it. I have got over a good many
things, first and last.”
I telephoned Helena: “I have some rush work for you . . . client’s a
friend of mine . . . it’s masks . . . I’ll explain in detail when I see
you. . . . May I bring her up, now?”
She said: “Sure. Why does your voice sound so queer? Lucia’s here,
visiting. Shall I tell her to wait?”
I said, “For God’s sake, do, Helena. I shan’t be more than fifteen
minutes.”
“Come on,” I said to Noel’s wife.
In the taxi, on the way to Helena’s, she said: “Will she have to look at
my face?”
“You won’t mind, Beatrice. It’s just as if she were a surgeon. She’ll
just want to know the proportions.”
When we climbed the stairs to Helena’s apartment I thought of divers
other times I had climbed them—feeling happy, feeling sad, feeling
tired. Now, for the moment at least, I felt—nothing.
Lucia was sitting, being very decorative, in a warm brown frock and
furs, on the little couch. Helena was finishing a fashion drawing. They
both looked at me sharply. I said: “This is Noel’s wife . . . you both
have met Noel. . . . He is going to take the Yokohama job I mentioned to
you, and Beatrice is going with him. . . . She had an accident, long
time ago. . . . And she wants Helena to make her some masks, so that she
won’t be embarrassed travelling.”
Lucia said: “Why, that’s a _marvellous_ idea. Helena’s masks are _so_
decorative.”
Helena said: “I should _love_ to make her half a dozen masks . . . blend
the skin tones with her gorgeous hair. She has the most beautiful hair I
have seen in years.”
Beatrice hesitated a moment, and then took off her hat. Her hair _was_
lovely. She arranged it badly, but I could take her to a hair-dresser
next time she came to town.
I walked across the room, and dropped my coat and hat on Helena’s
daybed.
“That’s a lovely violet frock you have, Pat,” Lucia said from across the
room.
Helena followed me, without being obvious about it. “There’s a bottle of
Scotch under the washstand in the bath,” she said, in an undertone. “For
God’s sake go pour yourself a couple of drinks. You look as if you were
going to faint.”
“What’s Noel’s wife’s first name, Pat?” she asked aloud. “I always call
my models by their first names.”