[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Unfortunately, it's not so simple. Your boy friend was probably forbidden by his father to tell
you about yourself. No wonder he's nervous."
"Still--if he really loved me--"
"If he loved you he probably forgot all about who you were. Love makes you nutty. Love
had something to do with the session of truth-blurting I had this afternoon. You won't understand
that and I'm not sure that I do myself. I avoid introspection as, much as possible--which, in my
case, is very little. Anyway, Barney probably woke up one bright morning to find out that he had
hung himself. Hence the wild look. Hence the crazy behavior."
"If I could be sure of that--"
"My dear child! I've lived in this town for many, many years. I know the ins, the outs, the
ups and the downs. Barney is cream. He is he. He is something. Nobility clings to him. He'll be a
rotten lawyer. Why? Because he wouldn't have had the duplicity to think of such a swell get-
rich-quick scheme as marrying you. He's too naive. I've seen him around town. He fancies
himself as a hard old cynic looking at the world through weary Yale eyes in which there is a
touch of Harvard Law School. It's silly. A good mirror would go through him like an X-ray. If
the Avery honor and the Laforge honor were put on a balance together, the Avery honor would
throw the other into the reaches of space. Solid. That's what Philadelphia thinks it is--and the
Averys are almost the only relics of the source of that now vain aspiration."
"That makes me feel pretty small," Janet said in a tone inclined rather toward
expansiveness.
"Ah. Never feel small. Never allow yourself to feel small. The smaller you get in your
own eyes, the quicker people are to see it. A paradox of the first water, so help me." Muriel
smiled evanescently. She poured a third drink. "The truth is--I envy you. You two. If there is a
golden youth--you're it. I see your marriage bed. Knowledge enough to make you ecstatic and
not yet a burden of knowledge. If people only knew where to stop learning! That difficult point
that leaves a few facts unknown and thereby makes room for philosophy. This is potent liquor
my father--your father--"
"Our father."
"Our father was in the habit of drinking. It goes to the tongue." She drained the glass.
Suddenly she grasped Janet's shoulders. "Do you believe me?"
"I--"
"You've got to believe me. Got to."
"It would make me very happy to believe you."
"And most people are happy only when they believe lies. God, child, you're lucky. Swear
you believe me."
"I want to talk--"
"I said swear. Think of Barney. Think of him! You're a slut to doubt him." Her fingers
pressed into Janet's flesh.
"That's true. I--I swear, then. But you shouldn't take the trouble I--"
"Don't cry. Stop it! I'm not taking trouble. I have a certain person in mind who is going to
suffer--" Her voice rose.
Janet stood. "I'm going."
Muriel smoothed her hair with both hands--a gesture almost masculine. "We'd better. It's
dinner time." She glanced around the library. "There was one thing--"
Muriel crossed to a painting which was covered by a heavy drapery. She drew back the
cloth. It revealed the portrait of a woman and her resemblance to Janet was so great that she
could not forbear an exclamation.
"That's Daisy Storey."
"My mother."
Muriel nodded. "I think this portrait is the best proof of what I've told you about yourself
that you could have. You look alike--exactly." She allowed the other girl to stare for a long time.
In the last few hours Janet had learned that she was no longer an orphan. Now, seeing her
mother's portrait, the weight of that truth became ponderable. By and by she turned away silently
and reluctantly.
They walked to the door. Muriel reached up to the wall bracket. Once, very slowly, her
eyes traveled around the library. She turned the switch and in the darkness she whispered, "Ah,
there, ghost!" Janet almost leaped into the hall.
The three women sat at the dinner table. Severance stood in the background. One of the
candles guttered in a draft from the front hall.
Muriel stared intensely at Chloe.
"You're positively pasty tonight, auntie."
The hard blue eyes sparkled. "Your own complexion, my dear niece, is none too
permanent."
Muriel clapped her hands. "Touch!"
Janet looked at one and then the other. A nascent gladness in her was running like
subterranean water through the rocks of circumstance which locked her in. Such bitterness was
very far away. That she was anything but a guest still seemed impossible.
"Boned squab," Severance said.
Muriel smirked at Chloe. "How perfect! And once the bones are taken away, see how
flabby it becomes! You can mash it with a fork. I know an old lady who is kept upright entirely
by whalebone. In her corset, you know. And she could never keep up with the fashions because
she had to wear a choker--with whalebone in it, too." Chloe put her hand to her throat and pulled
at her high collar. "She'd collapse without it, you know. And then there was another old lady who
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]