Chapter XVIII

CHAPTER XVIII How difficult, how impossible communication is, Marta thought. . . . At the moment, she and Pauline were about four feet apart in space, with no material obstacle to confidences)and no external distraction. The difficulty lay in the fact that an emotional truth is clothed in circumstance, and derives from a series of untraceable causes dating back to creation. To make it understandable, and the action resulting from it, one would have to reconstitute the universe as it was at pre cisely that interval of time, with the auditor in the center of it and gifted with omniscience. Now, for in stance, Pauline, in a chrysanthemum kimono, was propped against the pillows of the lower berth, frown ing slightly at a handful of letters scattered over the coverlet. lVlarta lay flat on her stomach in the upper berth. A curtain swayed, a draught from an invisible source blew on her bare shoulders. The white-painted box of a stateroom in which they were confined slanted crazily on the Channel waves. And if later Marta were to endeavor to explain, say to Alma-though she wouldn't, but say Alma, whose receptive sympathy was N EVE R ASK THE END 221 unfailing-how futile this attempt at explanation had been, she would be impelledto describethese externals, as if they were important. And they would convey nothing to Alma. Their significance was purely asso ciational, not valid outside the minds of the participants.

Just so, when Marta spoke to Pauline of Keith, the name evoked intimacies in which Marta had no part. They summoned to mind wholly different scenes; the effort was vain ... Or was it? Pauline's clairvoyance was the more startling for being intermittent. She said: "After you'd gone away, and Keith was going, the last day, he took me to lunch. I don't know why. Nor why I went." She lied; she couldn't face the knowl edge: his motive. "Except that it didn't matter. ['d got over it. And I thought what an attractive young man he was, as if I'd never seen him before." "Yes," said Marta, amazed. Pauline had voiced exactly what she had in the back of her mind. "He was no damn good. But attractive." She had become aware of both qualities simultaneously. At a· certain moment, on a Sunday afternoon, eighteen years ago, when she looked up expecting to see Pete Olson, and it was Keith who let himself in.

The apartment was so devoid of any pretension to taste that finallyone ceased to notice it. She could re capture it only as a background to some particular scene. The wallpaper and rug were distressingly ef florescent; there was a table, a desk, several chairs, an upright piano, and the red corduroy sofa where she 222 N EVE R ASK THE END sat with her book laid on her knee. And Keith pausing with his hand on the doorknob, as if habit had brought him so far, and he could not determine whether to go or stay. She must have barred her mind to any other infer ence. So she saw him objectively, and was struck by his extraordinarily graceful slouch, which he could afford, being so admirably built. Five foot ten, a hun dred and sixty-five pounds. His features were not strictly handsome, though he had a fine forehead, broad and candid, in contradiction to his rather heavy jaw and wide sulky mouth. He did walk like an Indian, the sliding step of the natural dancer. The new dances were evolving about then; some of them originated in the West, and Keith learned them almost before they were invented .... Marta said: Hello. Pauline isn't back yet. He crossed over and read the title of her book.

What do you get out of this! he asked.... Poetry ... Perhaps he meant, what is it that absorbs your whole attention? ... Like music? But how ... She was an noyed at herself for being drawn into discussion, for the inanity of the argument. She said, Listen: This flower that smells of honey and the sea . .. Because it had nothing for him but the music; the ghostly and elegiac sentiment would not touch him.... OtUt of the world· of the unapparent dead) where the lost Aprils are and the lost Mays . .. She tried to pitch her voice to the note heard by her inner N EVE R ASK THE END 223 ear when she read to herself. Make him hear it.... The book lay open on the floor. She kicked it under the sofa, out of harm's way. Held so close, she was conscious of a detached admiration for the flawless finish Nature had bestowed on him. Most of us lose it in childhood. He possessed it in mature perfection, as if for once the intention were fulfilled. What was remarkable was the tone and texture of his hair, his :eyes) his olive skin. Like his eyes, his hair wasn't a flat black, but the darkest brown, the color that painters use, with no high lights; and fine,· thick, straight, so that it lay as it was brushed. Even -at the edges the clipped ends were not coarse. He was holding her crossed hands; by contrast, his were very brown and if anything too shapely for a man. It was his hands told her. Too much ...

She stopped resisting; she wasn't going to have a scuffle. They must not, that was all. . . . Instigation of the devil. You did things just because you must not, of course. To find out But there were some things you·really must not do He wasn't in earnest; it was curiosity, pique, a dare; he was laughing •.•Are you going to cheat? he asked ... They always said that: be a good sport. It exasperated her. What did it mean, what obligation? ... Let me go, she said ambiguously, and I will. ... What else were they doing? She wanted to anyhow, a perversely chaste impulse, for the sake of his beaux yeux. She kissed his eyes and then his mouth. Once.

224-NEVER ASK THE END He walked across the room and stood staring at her. He was dead white. She wouldn't have believed he could lose that brownness. What did you do to me? he asked. She shook her head. It had happened to him. She wouldn't have believed that was possible either. Not to him. He said: Who taught you that? She had never seen anyone so pale. As if he were about to faint. You're in love with Chris Jackling, aren't your Pauline must have told him. Not any more, she said. She made some defensive gesture. He said: No, I won't-I couldn't stand it again. . . . Good night. He'll be over it tomorrow, she thought, unable to face any other'contingency. She could not disentangle the sequence of events, nor exactly how long it lasted. Less than a month. She had no means of avoiding him, nor he of speaking to her. Twice he managed brief asides, two singular declarations. I'd like to wring your neck, he muttered, accepting a cup of coffee. And again as she sat in her accustomed place, near the piano, Keith leaned down to offer her a light, and said under the music: Will you marry me? She answered in the same violent whisper: No! Shut up!

Her purpose was concentrated on keeping it from Pauline. Because Pauline wouldn't believe the truth. She wouldn't, Marta realized acutely, hear it. Marta found an excuse of business to go away for a week to the branch office at the Coast, leaving no address. . . . When she returned, Pauline mentioned, as if it were N EVE R ASK THE END 225 rather a joke: Keith's been on a tear. Then he's cured, Marta thought; and sank into emptiness again. But he wasn't. When he telephoned the next day she recognized a measure of right in his flat statement: You've got to talk to me. She answered in the same matter-of-fact tone: All right, four o'clock:at Webster's livery, tell them to saddle the grey for me, shorten the stirrups .... She used to ride occasionally. Very few people did, though less than twenty years since Silver ton was a cow-town, a casual sort of ranching center. Things changed so quickly . . . If Keith wasn't accus-' tomed to riding, she thought, he'd have to keep his mind on it. But he rode with natural ease.

It was all wrong.. She was stilJ a.t a loss to relate that afternoon to anything. Then where did it belong in her life? . . . Open country began at the edge of town, so they did not need to follow a road. Along the river grew scattered box-elders and firs, and in sheltered nooks between the low hills. Keith grinned and said: I'm on my good behavior. They tied the horses. The dry clean prairie sad smelled of the sunshine, which was like thin golden gauze. Keith stretched out com fortably, propped on his elbow, his unstarched silk collar miraculously fresh. He said gently: Will you marry me? But why? Marta had a clear and detached picture of herself. A girl in a brown duck. riding skirt, short jacket, and strapped pumps. Not even a pretty girl. A strand of straight light brown hair had blown out from under her shapeless soft hat, tickling her nose.

226 N EVE R A S· K THE END She tucked it back, a habitual gesture. Her round face had a temporary wind-tan, a biscuit tint; with her yel lowish grey eyes, no color became her, and rouge made her look sallow. Her hair wouldn't stay up, and no style that was genuinely smart suited her. She wasn't so thin then; Keith said the best that could be said of her, that she had pretty hands, and a neck like a dove. She replied again: No. Keith said: You will, though. She _suggested: Pau line. • . . Good heavens, he said, Pauline chucked me. You know all about that. What more could I have done? ... He had been willing to marry Pauline; he accepted her decision.. That let him out. . . . Marta got the impression that he had always obliged any wo man, within reason; she doubted if he had ever seduced one. (Yes, one.) He was genuinely amoral, indiffer ent even to the challenge of virtue or vanity.... He said to lVlarta: You're the first girl I've ever been in love with. Or thought I was. Or said so.

She took him up: ] supposed you were bravely over it. Last week . • • He grinned again: It was no go, he said. You've got me. I was drunk for a couple of days, that's all. I couldn't •••• She said: Well •••But you have ••• He said: Sure. And maybe you have. I don't lmow, nor care. Not if you were a hooker. Will you marry me? A conviction was forming dimly in the depths of her consciousnessthat she would shortly, in any event, N EVE R ASK THE END 227 be going away. She had already tried to persuade Pauline to ma.ke the venture Ea.st with her. They had overstayed their time in Silverton, or missed their chance. Whatever else happened, Pauline and Keith would not marry, not after this. So Pauline might soon be ready to go. • • • Marta lied, making terms. Six months. Then if Keith were still of the same mind, she might marry him. She gained a half agreement from him of a month. He was not to try to see her alone; and if he gave Pauline cause to suspect them, Marta would never speak to him again . . . Rubbishy phrases. Pickedup from cheap fictionprobably, utterly insincere.Sinceritywouldbesaying whatyoumean. You don't know what you mean..•. Keith was fairly honest.

He said: If I can. He took her hand and kissed the palm submissively. I'm all in. May 1 put my head on your lap? She touched his hair with her fingertip and he shut his eyes and turned his face against her white silk blouse. Riding back, he seemed entirely certain that she must marry him. And she was equally sure his infatuation wouldn't last. They drew these opposite convictions from the same premises. After leaving the horses at the stable, she forbade Keith to see her home, and walked through the high airy darkness. A fitful wind carried the scent of dust. Passing sprinkled lawns, she smelled white clover. It wasn't late, not ten o'clock, but a cloudy moonless evening, and honest folks were abed. Who lived in these rows of respectable small 228 N EVE R ASK THE END houses? In the four years of her sojourn, the town had grown ·from ten thousand to forty thousand; and out of that number she was acquainted with perhaps a score. She had aided in bringing the thirty thousand there, which was fantastic. She had a very serious and responsible job. Her employers, Jernegan, Shelby & Sundstrom, owned half a dozen companies, close corporations: a land company, a coal mine, grain ele vators. They had sold to settlers thousands of acres of land; she had made out the deeds. They had built forty grain elevators throughout the state, on an initial cash capital of five thousand dollars. She knew, for she kept their personal accounts, opened their letters, signed their names for them, drew on their private bank balances. A queer hobgoblin sort of job, being a shadow, living in other people's pockets. Listening to them think. Then at half-past five every day she went about her own simple affairs, powdered her nose, flirted, read poetry, broke her heart. While the town expanded around her., more and more houses were built; people moved into them and began to raise families.. Going to the office, Marta would stumble over water-main pipes or avoid excavations, with mild surprise and a tinge of annoyance. She liked the town better when it was small. The high ideal of the Chamber of Com merce, which yearned for a population of a hundred thousand, was repellent to her.. ' Suddenly she had be come a stranger. She was not part of the town, though she had been part of the making of it. With its future N EVE R ASK THE END 229 she had no concern. It seemed to her inevitable that she should go away,as it seemed to Keith that he should marry her. Absurd. She was so much older, Keith being only twenty-four while she was twenty-three.

And solitary, in the dark, blown about by the gusty wind. When Keith "bowed his comely head," ac knowledged himself beaten, it took the heart out of her. Nobody was immune. Even if you were no damn good ... They had forgotten about dinner. She would have to rummage in the kitchen for a crust! She wondered if Pauline would be home yet. She wanted to see Pauline, just the same. You belong to your family in spite of your self; your friends belong to you in spite of everything. Pauline was home. She said at once, in that gay quickvoice: Why didn't you bring Keith on up? It would have been as futile to lie as to tell the truth. Marta did neither. She said scarcely anything. She wanted to tell the truth. Pauline could not hear. And what Pauline said Marta was unable to remember, not a word of it. Probably because the words did not signify. It was the lack of meaning that made the scene so hopeless. After a useless protest, Marta became coldly sullen .... The illusion of first love is that it is unique, so it excludes sympathy, and carries with it a sense of divine right. A sublime non-sequitur -you must love me because 1 love you ... Neverthe less, Marta knew now that she had been wholly in the wrong. She should have told Pauline in the beginning.

230 N EVE R ASK THE END What hurts most is the isolation, being left out, de ceived. To hear by chance.•.. Rich Anderson had seen Keith and Marta riding out of town. He mentionedthe fact to Pauline through mere loquacity. Marta had a rec ollection of reining in at the bridge for Rich's car to pass. No doubt they should all have known better. One knows better than to be struck by lightning. When Pauline was gone, Marta sank in an inert huddle on the sofa. She went to sleep there presently, lacking a sufficient incentive to go to bed. While Keith, the next day, was asking her again to marry him, she was quite numb, genuinely light-headed with inability . to think •... Sometimes since she had reflected, it would have been more sensible-but that wasn't what he wanted. No more than it was what she had wanted from Chris. They did not, in a literal sense, want anything. They had it, however briefly. A moment perishable and immortal, beyond judgment and above .material satisfactions. And with the dignity of finality, like death, for it will not return. It takes you in your pride, your sins, your triviality. . . • Keith had slept with dozens of girls. So that wasn't it. Though it did not occur to him that marriage was still further from the point. An honorable estate, demandi,ng constancy, self sacrifice and forbearance; besides, it keeps the world go ing. What did he care whether the world went on or not?

She said: Toss for it. Heads, I'll marry you to morrow. Keith found a silver dollar in his pocket. Sudden death? She nodded. It came heads.

N EVE R ASK THE END 231 She had to get it over with ... Yet when she told Wint Shelby~he owed him that-she found herself crying helplessly. Because all that anyone got was second-best. The pieces of life wouldn't fit together. Wint was a better man beyond comparison. He was strong and steady; even in his unscrupulousness he was straight, did what he chose to do and stood by it. If he was a little hard and quietly possessive, he knew when he had lost. Perhaps they were too much alike. They had a great respect for each other, and neither could manage the other. They were hell-bent on mak ing their own mistakes. And besides . . . The utmost probity, ability, or virginal innocence wouldn't have made Keith so-attractive. Marta did not respect him and had no grudge against him. Either attitude would have been irrelevant. She hadn't been in love with him, but she remembered him asleep with his head on her arm. Bread and salt is less than that.

Well, she had got it over. Eighteen years ago. But does anything ever end? If our perversities and follies are not of the substance of life, surely they color it permanently. And perhaps they originate from deeply buried, irresistible compulsions. The children of un happy marriages so often come to matrimonial wreck, it must be by unacknowledged purpose. Marta sus pected that she married Keith because she knew it wouldn't last. So she would escape both marriage and the reproach of virginity. From this predestined failure Pauline had drawn 232 N EVE R ASK THE END her firm conviction that Marta could fascinate any man. A femme fatale! Marta speculated sardonically if numerous public reputations were not reared upon a similar foundation. As Coolidge's masterly executive gifts were established by his keeping out of the way of the Boston police strike •.. Unfortunately, Pauline's delusion was peculiar to herself, and so did not benefit Marta. The men did not share it. She herself doubted if it would have been possible to discover a woman more disastrously incompetent in the traditional arts of femininity.

She had been unlucky in love, unsuccessful in mar riage; she had not even Pauline's pretty coquetry ,her skill in prolonged indecisions.... It was no odds now. lilT8'11 to the woods nQ more, the laurels all are clipped ••. The steamer rolled increasingly, with a quartering motion that would have turned Lord Nelson green. Still peering over the edge of her berth, head down ward like a bat, Marta pondered on freewill and pre destination-would she and Pauline be here, at 'this hour and place, midnight and midchannel, if Pauline had been the one to marry Keith. No, the marriage itself would have constituted a divergence. But she voiced the question. "1 can't imagine," said Pauline. "We had an in sane plan to go to the Peace River country! Maybe I'd be there in that frozen wilderness, a squaw with ten children. Awful!" It was pure fantasy. Think ing didn't recall Keith; only sometimes a phrase, a N EVE R ASK THE END 233 tone, a resemblance, went to the quick•... No, thought Marta,not children-Keith knew better••••"You did me the greatest favor," Pauline said. ('What became of Keith, do you ever hear?"

"Not since the war," said Marta. "He joined up; but he didn't get killed." "He wouldn't," said Pau line.. "Rich Anderson did. Good heavens, I believe it was at that place on the Marne where the guide gave us a lecture." ... What a long way we go to find our graves, Marta thought. If you looked at a map, you couldn't possibly guess.••• Pauline shuffled through her letters. "What have ] done with that address Alice Trego gave me?" she said to herself. "Pol something." Marta surmised: "It must be in Cornwall." Why? Pauline asked; and Marta quoted: By Tre, Pol and Pen, you may know the Cornishmen. Pauline sniffed, and Marta reminded herself once more not to impart undesired and tedious information. Positively nothing about Tristram and Iseult. • . . Whatever the name, Alice's aged parents resided there, and Pauline had promised to visit them. Alice was a trained nurse, and had attended Pauline when Cathy was born. "She loved Cathy," said Pauline. And she used to help straighten out George after his worst sprees • . . How did a Cornish girl happen to be nursing in Seattle, Marta asked. Pauline said, Alice's father was for forty years a railway guard running from London to Liverpool, before retiring to a rural cottage; consequently Alice's 234 N EVE RA S K THE END aunt was married to the second steward on a liner, making her home in Brooklyn. Now Alice herself was married to a druggist in Everett, Washington, and had babies of her own. Lines extending to infinity. There would have been Phenicians, three thousand years ago, who had cousins in Cornwall. ....

Would it matter, Marta asked, if she didn't feel equal to this excursion? "Ernest shattered my morale." "It's Polwhele," said Pauline. ('I'll rush down tomor row-it must be tomorrow now-and be backbefore .•." Before Russ arrived in London, they both understood. Pauline gathered up her scattered correspondence. "Dear Lady," she muttered. " 'Your postcard cheered me with the assurance that amid the distractions of foreign travel you still can spare a thought for the folks at home.' Shall] go on?" she enquired. uOr is this making you sick?" The ship groaned and quivered. Marta said: "Which? Does he finish with: It is now the wee sma' hours and I must close?" "Not close. Cease. And it's the witching hour," Pauline amended. "Well, I'll cease if I don't get some sleep. And you'll find the name of Ernest engraved on the ivory tablets of my brain. Do you realize, woman, that this accursed boat docks at Harwich at six, and they'll call us at five?" Marta drew her berth curtain. The man who wrote that letter, she thought, is in love with Pauline. Like Tristram and Iseult .... On the other hand, if you wear the white flower of a blameless life, so does Ernest. Get thee to a nunnery . . .