Green Doors :: Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

Out of the dark, out of the invisible, Lewis got his response: “Yes, this is Petra. I hope you hadn’t gone to sleep. They said you wanted me to call you. I’m sorry it’s so late.”

“That’s all right. No, I’m still up. But look here, Petra, of course I want to know about McCloud. What you did with him. How he is.” And then Lewis could not help adding to that, “Petra, have you only just got home?”

Again the brief silence. Because of the hour, the stillness, and all the Brahms in which Lewis was steeped, the stillness on the wire took on the proportions of a cosmic stillness. Or was she only hesitating between fabrication and fabrication—between stories to tell him? If he could only see her face, he would know.

Finally, “Yes, I’ve just come in. Clare waited up for me. I’d forgotten to telephone her, you see; I put it off, and then forgot it. I worried them, I guess. But it was Neil—made me forget. Yes, he is all right. He was starving, Doctor Pryne. Friday, when he came to the office, he was starving. He lost his job early in the week. He came Friday to borrow a dollar for food. Teresa and I have been feeding him up. He’s coming around to-morrow to talk with you, at your hotel, at ten o’clock.... Is that all right?”

She had paused before the question,—afraid, apparently, that she might a second time have made a mistake. Lewis was appalled.

“But Petra! Starving! This is a bad business. Where is he now? Do you mean he hasn’t money to buy meals with? What about his breakfast to-morrow morning?”

“Oh, I loaned him some money, all he would take. He’s gone back to his room. He thinks they’ll trust him for the rent until he gets a job. He’s perfectly sure he’ll get a job, now, you see,—now that he’s all right, you know. He’s terribly confident. He’s going to try to sell cars again. He says he has a knack for that....”

“You say you and Teresa fed him.—Teresa—” Lewis stopped. But surely now the barrier was broken down! Teresa was no longer to remain a mystery. For after all, Lewis and Petra and McCloud and Teresa were now linked together by the twist fate had taken this day. But Petra did not catch the implications of his tone and his hesitation. She offered no further details of the evening’s doings. Where they had fed the starving man, what they had fed him, and Teresa’s part in it all, were not forthcoming. “Is it all right about to-morrow at ten? That Neil should come to see you then?”

“Of course. I wish he had come to breakfast, though. I wish you had waited till I came back, this afternoon. Why didn’t you, Petra?”

“That’s what Teresa said, that we should have waited. But when I found that Neil was hungry—everything else went out of my mind. I’m sorry.”

“My dear! You have nothing to be sorry about. You’d better be rather satisfied with your day’s work, I should say! I hope your family understand that your not turning up for the birthday party was—was not your fault in any way.”

Petra lowered her voice to answer that. It was almost a whisper. Lewis suspected then that she was afraid that her end of this midnight conversation might be overheard. Clare had waited up for her. “I couldn’t really explain anything much about it, Doctor Pryne. You see—he—Neil—doesn’t want any one to know about—about what’s been happening to him. He cares a lot that nobody should know. So I just said it was work for you—my job—that kept me away, and that it had to be confidential. But Clare’s upset—a little.”

“I’m sorry.... I’ll write your father a note tomorrow morning, Petra. I’d better. He will make your stepmother understand. But I’m sorry it was unpleasant when you got home....”

“Oh, I don’t mind that. Clare wasn’t cross. Only hurt, you know. But the evening—well, the evening has been—lovely. We’ve had a wonderful time!”

“We’ve had a wonderful time!” The words and the lilt in them echoed over and over in Lewis’ head, forbidding sleep. He told himself it was the oppressive heat of the night which held him awake, his eyes open on the dark. At least, he told himself that in the beginning. After an hour or more of restless tossing, however, Lewis admitted the truth. It was Petra’s happy, excited voice saying “We’ve had a wonderful time” that was making the very idea of sleep fantastic. The words and the new tone in which she uttered them opened vistas to Lewis’ imagination. It was absolutely inevitable in the light of to-day’s happenings that McCloud should—worship Petra. How could he fail to! Only an imbecile, given the situation, could help it. McCloud, of course, was no imbecile. And Petra—how would she respond to the fellow’s idolization! Now that Lewis was at last face to face with the prophetic misery which was keeping him wakeful, he went on with it—followed the train of thought which he had, in his attempted self-deception, dammed up, while he tossed and blamed the stuffiness of the night.... McCloud was a gorgeous person. Gorgeous was a cheap adjective ordinarily, but in this one instance, it was the right adjective. McCloud—let Lewis face it, see it—was a gorgeous creature, not only physically, to look at, but in inward ways as well. Directness, simplicity and courage. Those qualities make for gorgeousness in a man. How could Petra, after to-night, fail to see McCloud as godlike? Why, her very share in bringing him back to life—for wasn’t that practically what she had done?—would add to her sensibility of his splendor.

“Oh, I don’t mind. The evening—well, the evening has been—lovely.” Lewis laughed audibly. Why should she mind! Why had he ever thought she might, and been concerned about it? How should a stepmother’s annoyance tarnish such a meeting and recognition as had come into Petra’s life to-day! The very tone in which she used McCloud’s Christian name showed how things had gone between them.... Neil and Petra.... “My God!” said Lewis into the dark. “Neil and Petra! Was it foreordained?” He felt a powerful impulse to communicate further with Him of whom he had so spontaneously asked the bitter question. He turned over and buried his face in his crossed arms. But he did not know how to go on with the Contact—did not know how to pray. Lewis had been born into the tradition that formal prayers which one has by heart have no functioning quality. One must make up one’s own prayers, for originality is the only guarantee of His creatures’ sincerity the Omniscient will recognize. But Lewis doubted this proud notion now, as he lay here, facing down into the dark, helpless with the anguish of loss. If only there were patterns: sweet, fluent channels of accustomed prayer, through which one could pour one’s blind groping toward fortitude and peace! What was it McCloud had said to God in Lewis’ office this afternoon? That was prayer, certainly,—even though not uniquely and strikingly the boy’s individual invention. “God have mercy on me a sinner.” Yes, that would do. “God have mercy on me a sinner.” Lewis uttered the ancient unoriginal cry-of-all-souls with stark sincerity to God imminent, God transcendent, and added to it, after a long sweet stillness, “It is Your justice. Why did I think Petra was for such as me? Your justice is Your mercy, Lord.”

In the morning Lewis seemed to remember that peace had flowed into the channel his prayer had cut through his dark with a rushing benediction in a sound as of many waters. Peace. Then sleep.

In the weeks that followed, Cynthia Allen gradually came to admit to herself that she had had all her worry for nothing about Lewis’ untoward infatuation for an uninteresting young girl; for the affair—if one could give anything so fleetingly ephemeral such a title—had blown over. She had been silly even to imagine it serious. A person like Lewis, so subtle, so perceptive, could not long be held in thrall to mere physical attraction and youth, with nothing to give it depth. No, Harry had not succeeded in convincing Cynthia of the ineptitude of qualifying passion with “mere.” Harry was a simple soul, really, in everything except finance. You could not expect him to understand a man like Cynthia’s famous brother. Lewis was all intellectual subtlety. First of all, in any contact, he would look for understanding and depth. Passion, when it appeared, would be a by-product of the discovery of his ideal. He was like Anodos in “Phantastes” in that. Cynthia was sure of it. He was not common clay!

For weeks now Lewis had not come out to Meadowbrook. That was hard on the children and on Harry. They were so devoted to him. But Cynthia herself was not the loser. She frequently met him in town for lunch, where she had him much more to herself than she possibly could in the midst of the family. And it was fun gossiping with him, her interesting brother, in undomestic freedom, giving him innumerable anecdotes of the children, telling him what Harry thought of the financial situation between the countries, and in our own country, and of what she herself thought of the latest selections of the book clubs. Cynthia subscribed to all the American book clubs and had recently added an English one to the list.... And sometimes, always in fact, she slipped in gossip of Green Doors; for Green Doors and its inmates fascinated Cynthia increasingly. The life there—the people who came and went—the parties, the talk—all of it was just a degree above anything Cynthia had ever experienced before of sophistication and a “newer, larger liberty of thought and feeling.” The air was electric. She remarked on it often.

Why, even Petra now interested her, rather, and had taken her place as part of the general fascination of all that made Clare’s life so dramatic. For Petra was having a romance; and all the world loves a lover—at least when no relations are involved. It was that attractive young Irishman, Neil McCloud. Petra had picked him up somehow, all on her own, without anybody’s help, it seemed. Cynthia’s curiosity as to the precise how of that had never been satisfied, exactly. But he was forever at Green Doors these days—followed Petra around like a faithful dog—literally. If they weren’t engaged, it was obvious they were the next thing to it. Perhaps they were engaged and were refraining from mentioning it until Edyth Dayton McCloud should return from Switzerland with a divorce in her pocket. Cynthia often imagined to herself—and with some enjoyment—how the snobbish Daytons were going to feel when they woke to the fact that the husband whom Edyth had so casually jilted was marrying Lowell and Clare Farwell’s extraordinarily beautiful daughter. Cynthia imagined that the wedding, when it came, would be at Green Doors, outside, on the terrace or lawn; for Clare had no use for stuffy churches and organized religion, although she was more religious, Cynthia was sure of it, than most so-called pious people. Clare lived her religion without any pretense. She would plan a beautiful wedding. It was pretty wonderful of her, too, to take Neil McCloud in as she had done, without apparent question or hesitation. Petra liked him. Petra admired him. That was enough for Petra’s stepmother. She was ready to like and admire him also. But it was only good luck and no special credit to Petra’s discrimination, Cynthia felt, that nobody could help liking the man. He was a perfect darling.

To-day Lewis himself had taken the trouble to call Cynthia up and ask her to dine with him. And he was being very generous and extravagant, for him; he had brought her to the New World Hotel, the best dining room in the city. It was almost the middle of August, the end of a summer that had been the warmest in Boston’s weather record. Lewis was beginning to show, Cynthia saw, what the strain of the vacationless summer in the city had been. There was a perpetual white line around his mouth, two dark hollows in his forehead, and he was certainly thinner. But—bless him—he appeared to be as interested in herself and her chatter as ever, and as alive to all her interests. About himself and his work he had nothing to say except to tell her, when she asked about it, that his new book was all but finished. The last set of proofs, in fact, would go to the publisher within a few days.

“That’s grand,” Cynthia congratulated him. “All’s well then and the goose hangs high?”

“Oh, yes,” he laughed. “The goose hangs high. They’ve already started arranging in Vienna for the translation. I’ve let Mendel have it. I’ve quite a nice letter from him about it. Came to-day. If he comes over this fall, and he must, I think, may I bring him to Meadowbrook? I should like him to meet you.”

Cynthia was thrilled, naturally. Between her famous brother and Green Doors, her life held all sorts of potentialities these days. It was fun having interests outside and a little beyond mere “Society,” with all its futilities!

“Somebody told me Mr. Malcolm Dayton has come to you for treatment,” Cynthia said, suddenly remembering it. “Clare told me, I think. Not Petra. She’s as secretive with me about office affairs as if I weren’t your sister. Is it true?”

“No,” Lewis answered. He was always a little short when she questioned him about his patients. Cynthia never got used to it nor quite understood it. “Where’d Mrs. Farwell get such a notion?”

“She was waiting for Petra. In the reception office. She said he came in while she was there. She was interested, of course, on account of Neil. Very much interested, as you may imagine!”

“Oh? But yes, I remember. He wanted to see me about a personal matter. It was a damned interruption in office hours.”

“Was it about Neil?” Cynthia was curious almost beyond bounds. And it would be gratifying to have some really interesting news to take to Clare. “Has old Dayton tumbled to the situation? Does he know Neil’s fallen on his feet—in the inner circle at Green Doors?”

“No. At least, I don’t know anything about what he knows or doesn’t know about his son-in-law. Certainly he didn’t mention McCloud to me. He wouldn’t. It’s to be hoped he doesn’t even know McCloud came to me for treatment. It’s Dick Wilder’s fault that anybody knows it. He saw him here one day and then meeting him at Green Doors he remembered. That’s how you know, my dear Cynthia, and the Green Doors crowd. Petra never told. No, Dayton wanted my ideas on something in connection with a new charity he is starting. That, too, was confidential.”

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to be prying, darling. But I hope he doesn’t know about Neil and Petra. He might get dog-in-the-mangerish feelings and stop the divorce going through. I’m not often so hateful, but I rather hope that Edyth is going to see what a fool she has been, too late. Why, from her, you’d think Neil was the veriest bounder. Clare says so, anyway. Edyth had filled Clare up with stories. Now Clare doesn’t believe a word of any of it. She never happened to see Neil, or she wouldn’t have believed them before, she says. But how she detests Edyth! Now more than ever—although she has always seen through her more or less. I always liked Edyth myself; though now, of course, I can see what Clare means about her! It’s nice Neil makes money so easily, isn’t it, in these times! He sold Harry a car last week—on the very day when Harry said we simply had to begin economizing. A joke on Harry! We have no more need of a third car than—than you have, Lewis! But after Neil had talked a few minutes, Harry thought life wouldn’t be life without it! He’s a super-salesman,—must be. Clare is wonderful about the whole thing. She says they’re bound to be happy if Petra goes into it open-eyed. Petra must realize, though, Clare says, that Neil is the type always to have affairs. Nobody so stunning-looking, so amusing and good-natured, can help it. But also he is the type—if Petra’ll only be a little understanding—who’ll be reverential to his wife and simply adore his children. All Petra will need to manage him will be a little adroitness. That’s Clare’s only worry about it—that Petra won’t know how to manage him. Why even now—before he’s got Petra safely for his, he flirts with Clare herself—absurdly—under Lowell’s very nose. With me too. But nicely, you know. I’m rather thrilled and I love seeing Harry glower! Petra’s a lucky girl.”

Lewis had decided that he wouldn’t have dessert, after all. Only black coffee. He’d begin drinking it while Cynthia had her ice, if she didn’t mind. He’d have a second cup with her when she came to it. He had some work he had to do to-night later. Lots of coffee was necessary. He had brought some English Ovals along for Cynthia. Yes, truly. Would she have one now—or wait?

“He’s a type who’ll be reverential to his wife and simply adore his children.” Petra the wife, Petra’s the children. Why, now, after weeks of mental self-discipline and grim philosophizing—and nightly prayer—did such a remark have the power to rock Lewis’ very being in agony?

Cynthia was eating what she considered a particularly delectable ice. Too bad Lewis didn’t want his. “But there’s one thing may spoil the whole show,” she went on. Her chatter to-night was tireless! “It looks almost as if Dick himself is getting serious about Petra. Remember your asking me why he didn’t, weeks ago? And I said, how could he? Well, he seems to be like most men—let another male admire a woman and they begin to think there may be something in her. Men act like sheep in their erotic adventures. I don’t know whether Clare has noticed it. But if she has, she probably isn’t bothering. Dick needs some one quite different from Petra—a younger Clare. He is so utterly a product of super-civilization. While Petra and Neil—there’s something untamed, unaccountable, about both of them. With Neil it’s his Celtic blood, I s’pose. I shouldn’t wonder if Petra’s mother was Irish. Those blue eyes! Are you interested in all this chatter? Lewis, I’m boring you!”

“No, Cynthia. I’m not bored. Only it’s all so futile. I didn’t know you and your friend Clare had those two already married. Haven’t either of you remembered that Neil is a Catholic? His marriage to Edyth Dayton was confirmed by a priest. No matter how legal a divorce she gets, so far as McCloud is concerned, he is married to Edyth as long as they both live.”

“Oh!—But if Edyth can be free, why can’t Neil? He never mentions anything religious. I don’t believe he gives it a thought!”

“Perhaps not. I don’t know anything about that. But if your surmise is true, it is only temporary. In his heart McCloud would feel that any marriage he contracted now was no marriage. Whatever his plunge into Clare’s circle has done to him, it won’t—in the last analysis—change his Catholic heart. At least, I don’t see how it can.”

“But Lewis! Surely—surely you aren’t so—why, I don’t understand! You wouldn’t have a man like that go unmarried! He’s just the sort to go to the devil—if he hasn’t ties. Of course he will marry again. If not Petra, some one else. He’s bound to.”

Lewis had good hold of himself now. He said, “No one is bound to be disloyal to the truest thing in him. Any more than he’s bound to be loyal to it. We’re creatures of free will. But if McCloud does use his free will toward the destruction of his new-found integrated self, I hope that it won’t be Petra who is the instrument. I’m very fond of Petra, as it happens,—deeply fond of her; and to see her ruin any man’s life—I simply can’t, that’s all. No matter what tragedy this means for them both, I hope they don’t go so far as a marriage pretense. Now I’ve told you my ideas on the subject, let’s forget it. It’s really their affair, not ours. But somehow I’m putting my faith on McCloud’s integration saving them both from inevitable misery. Petra’s doing awfully well at the office, by the way. Losing her would be no joke!” ... He ended on something which Cynthia, taking it at its face value, considered a laugh.

But though she let the sound pass as a laugh, Cynthia looked at her brother rather keenly. Had she been wrong? Was he still attracted by Petra himself? She shrugged it off. No, she was not wrong. Mere physical attraction wasn’t going to twist Lewis’ fine, important career out of shape, wasn’t going even to worry him for a minute. She was happily sure of it.

It was true, what Lewis had just said of Petra’s work. She had made herself invaluable in these long, hot, trying weeks, both to him and Miss Frazier. She could take dictation now, if given a trifle slowly, and when Lewis and Miss Frazier were both working under pressure, they sometimes even left letters unread for Petra to sign. And in the reception office people trusted her and liked her. They liked her even to the point, it seemed, of not minding being put off by her. This was a blessing in itself, since putting off people was one of the chief functions of her job. Just her voice over the telephone seemed to have the power to salve wounded feelings and instil resignation in importunate patients.

Lewis had taken her out to lunch several times during the summer, getting in his bid ahead of Neil or Dick. But those intimate hours afforded no reprieve from his loneliness for the real Petra. Those hours tÊte-À-tÊte over little tables turned Petra and Lewis into strangers. Although Lewis never accepted Clare’s eager invitations to parties and intimate teas at Green Doors, and met Clare only by accident at times when she came up to the office ostensibly to see Petra, Petra still considered him Clare’s friend, not hers. She clung almost passionately to that assumption. Lewis knew no way of breaking it down. Her stubbornness in this one matter was equalled only by her reticence. And since their midnight telephone conversation, she had never spontaneously brought Teresa into the conversation once. To his own tentative and diffident suggestions, she had always the same answer, “If she asks me, I will take you to see her some day. But not just now. She is—very busy.”

So paradoxically their casual contacts in the office were better, more satisfying, than any planned tÊte-À-tÊtes. When he stopped by her desk, going out to lunch or coming back, Petra might tell him of some comical incident that had come up during the morning in her gracious sphere, the reception room, and they would chortle over it in good fellowship. But sometimes she seized the opportunity to plead somebody’s case with him. To-day she had done that. Wouldn’t he please give Mrs. Jack Loring more attention? It was so special, so pitiful,—the thing she wanted his help with. Wouldn’t Lewis at least talk with Mrs. Loring about it? Lewis had not minded taking the time to explain to Petra—standing by her desk, looking down into her lifted, serious eyes,—that this particular committee worker was hysterical, and hopelessly sentimental, as well as outrageously interfering. Children were better off—he expounded it at some length, just to stay there near Petra—better off in degraded homes than in public institutions. But he would promise to do something in his own way, leaving the meddlesome social worker out of it, if he found that anything could be done without violating ordinary human rights to privacy.... It was at such moments as this that Petra was herself with Lewis and that something real was regained—and retained for as many precious minutes as it lasted—of their first intimacy on the edge of the June meadow.

But suddenly Petra had looked past him, in their whispered colloquy this afternoon, and smiled. McCloud had come in and was waiting until “the boss” should leave off and Petra be free for him to take for a noon spin in the glittering, swanky, sports roadster which, as a salesman, he had at his disposal. Looking from one to another of them in that minute, Lewis had been impressed more profoundly than ever with how alike they were. The eyes were the identical shade of blue. Such a terribly intense blue! They might be brother and sister. Or first cousins. But it was always startling,—as freshly and poignantly startling, every time he saw them together, as if he had never before noticed it. And they were both so vibrantly young! Tall, long-limbed, wide-shouldered, strong-chinned—and then again that intense blue of their eyes! They might be Siegmund and Sieglinde in love, and above the incest-taboos of mere mortals, belonging to each other by their very resemblance....

“Lewis, you look ghastly!” Cynthia broke into her brother’s swift lapse into revery, shattering it with her concern for him. He was grateful. It was not very easy, seeing Petra give to Neil what she had once seemed to give to himself—and then withdrawn—with such adamant mysteriousness.

“You do. Simply ghastly! You’ve put off your vacation too long this year. When are you taking it?”

“Well, that’s why I got you in to-night, to tell you. I’m taking a little one right away. Going off to-morrow. With Dick. Down to Mount Desert. We’re starting early in the morning. I’m driving. We’ll be there several days. Sailing. Climbing. Dick’s in some sort of difficulty. Something he wants to talk over, anyway. And it’s a good time to go. I can take the proofs with me.”

“Oh, need you? Don’t. It’s too silly, on a vacation! But then it’s too silly to call it a vacation, anyway—a few days! Yes—I’ve seen myself Dick’s worried. But why doesn’t he confide in Harry or me—or Clare? Why does he think he can spill it all out on you—you of all people—who have altogether too much of this talking-it-all-out-stuff in your daily grind! It’s pretty inconsiderate of him, I think. Clare’s wise, capable of complete detachment, and besides all that, utterly devoted to the creature. I suppose it is sympathy he wants. Or perhaps—I wonder—is he all snarled up over Petra? If he is—Clare’s certainly the person to hash that over with!”

Lewis said, “No, I don’t believe Dick has anything on his mind that has to do with Petra. Why do you put that idea into my head, Cynthia? If I had thought it was that—but it isn’t—I’d have gone alone. Cynthia, you are the world’s prize idiot. Do lay off prying and finish your coffee. It must be stone cold. How does Harry abide you! If you start crowing here, they’ll put you in jail as a disturber of the peace. No, you can’t have another cigarette. If I’m going in the morning, I’ve got to get back to work now. It’s fun getting you furious in a position where you have to consider your dignity. You’re really quite sweet, all bottled up like that, but foaming around the cork. Come along, sweetheart. Let’s get going.”

People turned to look at them as they left. Their conversation had been far too animated for husband and wife. No, it was romance, it must be. But how distinguished they were! It was always interesting, dining at the New World! You might catch a glimpse of anybody there. It was cosmopolitan and very chic for Boston.

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