She did not thank him conventionally for his kind opinion of her father, for she took it for granted that any man of sensibility and learning would have this opinion as a matter of course. But she said, to his great confusion: “What did you think of the third volume, Mr. Littlefield? There was some controversy about that, between Papa and—and Geoffrey.”
Ravel’s sharp ear caught the sudden low dropping of her voice as she spoke her husband’s name, but he could not interpret it. Besides, he was embarrassed. He had never read any of Charles’ books, for the simple reason that he had never heard of them. But he could not withdraw now, so he said, with reverent enthusiasm: “Absolutely perfect, dear Mrs. Dunham! But not to be compared, even in perfection, with the fourth.” He fervently prayed that there had been a fourth. When he saw Melissa nod gravely, he sighed with profound relief.
“What was the controversy about the third?” he asked hastily, to forestall any insistence by Melissa that he enlarge upon the comparison, with details.
“Geoffrey thought the volume too—too scholarly,” said Melissa, censoriously. “I did not concur, though Papa listened. Papa did not agree that his chapter on Aristophanes demanded copious quotations from the plays, for Papa believed that the reading public would be misled by the apparent frivolousness of some of them. It was Papa’s belief that only the true scholar knew that the plays were really not comedies at all but subtle tragedies full of despair and suffering. The average reader would not know that, or even the average scholar, and Papa did not wish to degrade Aristophanes, nor to popularize the plays for the benefit of the light-minded. He used to say: ‘Imagine Aristophanes in the playhouses of New York! What desecration!’ But Geoffrey insisted that whole acts be incorporated in the book.” Melissa paused, and frowned. “Finally, Papa compromised, but only to the extent of quoting excerpts in the original Greek. Geoffrey was very annoyed, but Papa was adamant.”
For some reason, Ravel wanted to laugh out loud, but he controlled himself. “That certainly would prevent the ‘light-minded’ from understanding,” he said.
Melissa nodded vigorously. “Papa and I worked very carefully on the excerpts. To make sure, we eliminated some of the lighter speeches and moments, even from the original Greek.” She added: “The first edition, of course, contained the plays in the original, but the second edition—and Papa was furious and threatened to withdraw the book from circulation—had an English translation appended. I advised him then to find another publisher.”
“But he remained with Dunham?”
“Yes. I think it was a question of loyalty, on Papa’s part. He had always published through that house.”
Ravel was no fool. He might be pretentious when it came to “literature” and his own special province, “poetry,” but even he had moments of honest clarity when he confessed to himself that he was secretly envious of the success of less “dedicated” writers. So he understood that “Papa’s loyalty” was due to Papa’s knowledge that probably no one else but Dunham would publish his works. And why Dunham did publish them might have been baffling unless one looked hard and long at Melissa. It was an interesting subject.
Ravel sat down near Melissa and gave her that absorbed and profound attention which no other woman had been able to resist. Melissa, too, found it irresistible, but not for the same reasons. She thought it was reverence for her father, and she was moved and deeply grateful. The pain in her heart had almost disappeared. She sat back in her chair, and smiled again at Ravel, that touching smile which had fascinated him before.
Very softly, humbly, he began to tell her of his projected poem about Eurydice. He was so genuinely stirred by this girl, so inspired by her, that whole sonorous stanzas came easily to his mind, and he spoke them aloud. Never had he composed with such fervor, such perfection, such ease. He was at once astounded at himself and enormously excited. At moments, he saw only Melissa’s eyes, and it was to those eyes that he recited. And there were other moments when he cursed inwardly that he did not have pen and paper handy to put down these singing metaphors, these shining stanzas.
But for the time, it was enough that Melisaa was leaning breathlessly toward him, that her hands were clasped fiercely on her knees, that her eyes were glowing, that her whole face was illuminated with delight and passion. Once or twice she cried out as if in ecstasy, and this spurred him on. They were lost in their mutual raptures; they did not remember where they were. The fire fell lower, the lamps flickered. Not a servant came near them. They were not aware that the room was becoming colder, and that the wind of the night was striking heavily against the windows. They were certainly not aware of the fact that Ellis, sent by her indisposed mistress to fetch a book, stood near the threshold, but hidden, and was listening with avid interest.
At length, Ravel was actually exhausted and burned out by the fires of his inspiration. He felt spent but mysteriously peaceful and full of happiness. Long after he had become silent, Melissa could only sit there and look at him with that deep glow in her eyes, a shy smile on her lips. And he returned her look with tender and gratified excitement, for Ravel, at once intimate and remarkably sincere. The young woman’s innocent and uninhibited ardor and emotional admiration enhanced the high esteem in which he always held himself, and if he had not already loved her, he would have loved her now for this ingenuous and completely pure flattery.
Women had flattered him with their love and their adoration of his face and figure and manners. No one, he reflected ruefully for a moment, had ever flattered him for his “mind.” No one, with the exception of fat beldames, ladies (very serious) of more or less certain age and frustrated emotions, and women like Arabella and Mrs. Bertram, who “devoted their lives to art.” But really valuable women—that is, women fair of face and body and luminous with youth—had little knowledge of or use for poetry or for earnest and important literature of any kind. It was his one vain regret. He had always dreamed of a beautiful young woman who would admire him as a poet and not merely as a man with a face.
And now here was such a woman, beautiful and young, who listened to his impromptu poetry in a kind of shining bemusement and joy. She listened to him and looked at him as a man, too. That was evident by the expression of her eyes and the moist vividness of her lips.
It was at this point that something cold blew over Ravel, and he leaned forward the better to see Melissa. That shy smile: Why, it was the smile of a very young girl, a girl of eight or ten or twelve, perhaps. It was not the smile of a woman at all. It was not even the coy smile of green puberty. It was, Ravel reflected with sudden bitterness, “a breastless smile.” Those eyes, too, though deep and intense, were the eyes of a young child unaware of life and men. I would bet, thought Ravel, with increasing bitterness, that she believes babies are found under cabbages, or, if they are not, that it is very bad taste. I haven’t the slightest doubt that she can quote whole acts by Aristophanes, but what that ribald Greek was implying she wouldn’t have the faintest idea.
Ravel thought female ignorance “very damn boring.” Give him the rose-cheeked peach but never the hard-fibered young apple, even if the peach might be somewhat overripe. For a moment, as he studied Melissa, he felt a definite impatience and revulsion. She was not a young girl, yet she was as smooth, and possibly as sour and juiceless, as that apple still hanging on the bough.
His inspection, at a polite distance, of the female body, was always circumspect and without obviousness. But he saw he need not be so delicate with Melissa. Quite cooly, he ran his eyes nimbly over her major points of interest, and now it was only with impatience. Yet he smiled a little. Again, he felt tenderness, and amusement, and a sudden excitement. He was certain that, once having seduced her mind, he could proceed with the seduction of something infinitely more desirable and rewarding.
Melissa was saying, and Ravel came back from his musings with a start: “When your poem is published, Mr. Littlefield, I hope you will send me a copy.”
Ravel said, with heavy emphasis on the bit
terness: “I am sure, dear Mrs. Dunham, that no publisher will be interested. I don’t write poems for the empty-headed masses. They would not understand, and would not buy them, and so there would be no profit for the publisher.”
“I know!” exclaimed Melissa, with answering anger. “They prefer to let the true poet, the true writer, starve to death in his garret!”
Ravel had a sudden vision of his very elegant New York establishment, and as he was sometimes a man of reason and humor, as well as a poet, he felt some sheepishness.
“To think that genius should be at the mercy of tradesmen!” cried Melissa.
Ravel suddenly remembered that his father was a cheese-monger, and that it was to good healthy cheese, eaten by masses of people with enjoyment, that he owed his establishment, his leisure, his ladies, his excellent tailor, and the money in his pocket. But, he reflected, if Melissa wished to see the shadow of gaunt emaciation on his cheeks, it would do no harm at all. He sighed heavily, let his hands sag wearily between his broadcloth knees. A very fine diamond ring glittered on one of his white fingers. He was sure that Melissa saw neither the broadcloth nor the ring.
While Melissa stared at him, rapt, seeing him clothed in shabbiness, with the aureole of the “true, serious poet” shining about his well-barbered and exquisitely curling head, Ravel became aware of tinkling bells outside, and voices. He jumped to his feet, and said, in a lowered voice: “Mrs. Dunham, I believe the party is returning.” It would be extremely embarrassing to have his host, and the other guests, enter this library and find him tête-à-tête with his hostess, whose green velvet peignoir had long since parted quite heedlessly and shamelessly, revealing the nightgown underneath.
Melissa, still bemused, stood up. She caught Ravel’s meaning glance, looked down, snatched the robe about her. Without a word of goodbye, she fled out of the room, and he heard her footsteps rushing up the stairs just as the gay company reëntered the house.
When she burst into her own room, she was wild with excitement, her whole mind electric and thrumming. She threw herself into a chair, then stood up and ran to her desk. Her earlier lethargy and dullness had gone. Why, she could write for hours now, without weariness! And all because of her wonderful conversation with Mr. Littlefield, who had so inspired her, so recharged her with energy and pride. He had justified her faith in her father; he had made work meaningful for her again.
While she scribbled furiously, opened and shut books, Ellis, standing panting before her mistress, her hand on her breast, was saying: “Mrs. Shaw, ma’am, she was right on my heels! I thought she’d catch me any moment, she came that fast when the master and the other gentlemen and ladies came in. Flew like the culprit she was.”
Arabella had listened to her maid’s story with avidity and delight, though she had felt a momentary fury and incredulous rage at the thought of Ravel’s engrossment with that impossible zany. But she knew Ravel’s reputation well. It was not possible that he thought Melissa handsome! It was not possible he” was really interested in her. However, to Ravel
Littlefield, a woman was a woman. If only he lived in Mid-field, he might be used to ruin Melissa and thus remove her forever from this house! But every tiniest piece of evidence could be used to destroy her, and Arabella was grateful.
“I have you as a witness, Ellis,” she said, solemnly, and prepared to go to bed in comparative satisfaction.
PART THREE
CHAPTER 38
Andrew and his young wife, the former Miriam McDowell, came slowly away from the barns, where they had been anxiously brooding over Miriam’s favorite mare, which had been suffering from some obscure illness. They left the barnyard; then, as the June night was so lovely, they strolled together over the long lawns that surrounded the old gray house where they lived with Judge Farrell, and went aimlessly but contentedly towards the river. Andrew smoked his pipe; Miriam’s slender dark arm was linked affectionately in his. Her small head, ruffled and black in the moonlight, reached hardly to his massive shoulder, which she occasionally pressed with her slender brown cheek.
Andrew smiled down at her with a deeper emotion that he could ever express. To Miriam, the adjective “spry” could be applied most aptly, yet it was not a hard and cricket-like spryness; it was a gay and lively thing, quick and light, yet very shrewd and intelligent. There were, as the Judge, her grandfather often said: “No flies on Merry.” There were some who thought her a trifle shrewish and somewhat caustic of tongue, but her friends saw the clear bright sparkle in her black eyes, the flash of her open smile. She might indeed on occasion have a wounding point to her tongue, but it was never a cruel point, and never used in malice. She loved satire, and was usually so full of humorous quips that she kept the ordinarily impassive Andrew in a happy mood.
Miriam had a neat little figure, and the narrowest waist in the township, for she was a small woman. Her tiny brown, hands were incessantly busy about the house, and during the day her voice could be heard moving from room to room, advising the “hired girl” and commenting freely upon everything. Like many small women, she was never blowsy or untidy, preferring, in winter, smooth brown or gray bombazine well-cut and plain, and, in summer, pleasant little frocks of flowered batiste for the evenings, and light silks for special oc casions. Not for Miriam the enormous new bustles, gathers, ruffles and drapes. Everything must be well-sewed and without ostentation or vulgarity.
As they strolled nearer the river, Andrew looked down fondly at his light-footed little wife, who hardly seemed to touch the grass as she walked beside him. The flood of moonlight made her small triangular face curiously elfin and alive. It bleached away its warm brown and rose tint, and left her very expressive mouth dark and mysterious. Andrew thought: There is nothing, ever, dull or heavy or oppressive about Merry. She will always laugh, always have common-sense, and will always have a shrewd remark to throw into the face of solemnity. Particularly, self-conscious and precious solemnity. Merry might make hilarious epigrams, but she would never be guilty of an intellectual profundity. And for these things Andrew, remembering his father and Melissa, was passionately grateful.
Then, as always, when he thought of Melissa, he was uneasy. He tried to shake off the uneasiness by looking at the moon-flooded earth and sky. Everything was so vivid tonight, and accompanied by such a warm, rushing wind, that the torn shadows of the trees danced and flew over the dark earth as vividly as if the sun were shining upon them. Every leaf sparkled with nimble silver; the blown grass, too, flowed in pale silver under the moon. The old roofs behind them seemed bathed in bright water. Rail fences stood sharp and clean against backgrounds of illuminated meadows and fields. When they reached the banks of the narrow river, they found it running in tumultuous silver and brilliant blackness. They stood on the low banks and listened to the frogs saluting the night, and to the softly loud murmurs of grass and tree in the wind. Now that the dew had fallen, the earth gave up a rich strong scent, at once peaceful and voluptuous, so that Andrew felt both contented and disturbed. He bent his large head and kissed Miriam’s hair, which blew against his lips.
He and Miriam had been married four months now, and they had been the only four months of his life when he had felt resolved and happy and certain of himself. The two adjoining farms, the Upjohns’ and the Farrells’, had become one. The old Upjohn house, battered, lean and gray, stood deserted on its disheveled lawns. It was Andrew’s intention to raze the house and its crumbling out-buildings very shortly. But he so hated that house that he could not, as yet, bring himself to enter it and examine its contents for salvage. There were too many memories there of misery and frustration, of hating faces, of averted eyes, of silent turmoil, distrust and wretchedness. It pained him too much to remember his mother. He would turn from the thought of his father with such a somber disgust and revulsion that he could hardly endure it. But Melissa haunted him, and he did not wish to be haunted by Melissa. Sometimes he forced himself to share the opinion of the countryside: that Melissa had “done very well for
herself,” and that as the wife of Geoffrey Dunham she occupied a magnificent and invulnerable position and had all that her heart desired.
Miriam always seemed to know what her young husband was thinking. She leaned lightly against him, and said: “I have tried again, about Melissa, Andy. I drove up to see her today. She was very polite, but absent-minded, as usual. But I will say that her manners have improved. She informed me that dear Arabella”—and Miriam’s mobile lips twisted sardonically —“was instructing her daily in elegant deportment. If so, I must congratulate dear Arabella. Melissa’s hands are now very smooth and white, and she doesn’t stride any more, though she’ll never mince correctly, and she has dropped her voice down a couple of octaves and doesn’t shout. She very carefully pretended that she was delighted to see me, and said so in the most civil words. Lesson number two, apparently, in ‘how to greet an unexpected and undesired guest.’ She even remembered, and only a few minutes too late, to invite me for tea, and when it came, she served it without doing any greater harm that cracking a saucer and rattling the silver once or twice. Arabella has taught her how to put her feet together nicely, and how to lift her little finger elegantly, and how to bore a guest to the final exquisite degree by not saying anything in the least startling and never offering any original remark.” Miriam paused. “I think I prefer the old, outrageous Melissa, but this one, if much duller, is definitely easier on the nervous system.”
“In other words,” Andrew remarked gloomily, “Melissa has become lifeless.”
“No, I should not say that. I should say, rather, that she is becoming a lady.” Miriam laughed, not too kindly. “And nothing is worse than a great lady’s company, for more than ten minutes.”
“But does she seem well? She was not at home when I called to see her on Tuesday, nor on last Friday, nor the week before that, on a Thursday.”