Part 9

Zimbule, too, tossed by the intricate intrigue of the play into the arms of one character after another, exhibited a nonchalance and rare perversity which lifted her performance into the realm of something rich and strange. In her scene with Harold, the scene of the charioteer with the boy-sculptor, a scene written in a mocking, cynical spirit, she far transcended anything, however curious, that the author had imagined. To this episode, in which Clinias, betrayed with the mistress of Hippolyte, attempts to conciliate the burly athlete, she gave a touch of mystic sensuality, aided by Bunny’s music, which, in its definite contradictions, its wholly inappropriate rightness, wailed on. Harold, naturally, was lamentably bad. The curtain fell in silence, but, almost immediately, there rose a great storm of applause.

It belongs to Zimbule and Bunny, said Campaspe. Let them take the calls. Bunny, morbid with grief and chlorosis, and yet transfigured with excitement, was discovered hovering in a corner. As the curtains parted again, Paul pushed him on to the stage. Zimbule strolled on unconcernedly from the other side, dragging the reluctant Harold in her wake. Bunny groaned and buried his face in his hands. There were cries of Bravo! and Brava!

There has never been anything like it, Ronald, Campaspe exclaimed. I don’t feel as if I had been part of it at all. I was so occupied looking and listening. Did I remember my lines?

You were perfect, Firebird. The Duke was distrait.

Strange. I don’t remember having spoken a single word.

* * * * *

Drains had departed. The acrobats were dressing. The actors in their costumes mingled with the throng. Many of the guests, like sharks after a slain leviathan, crowded into the dining-room for supper, chaud-froid, truffle salad, spumoni.... Others lingered in the theatre. In the garden a little group of lanky, pale youths, demi-puceaux, congregated. The silent Ceylonese passed, expertly, up and down, through and about, with cigarettes and trays laden with minuscule glasses and fat bottles of Danziger Goldwasser.

Little by little, the excitement dwindled, and there were signs that the New York season would soon come to an end. One of these was the demeanour of the Duke who, from time to time, frankly yawned, making no effort to conceal his dehiscent jaw. Bunny had disappeared shortly after his tragic curtain call. Zimbule accepted her encomiums as if she found them exceedingly tiresome. She seemed exalted, disembodied. Campaspe, conscious of impending drama, hovered in her wake.

With a fiercer intensity Harold felt that a fatality assembled the elements which made up his life. He had begun to think of himself as an automaton, set up and wound to give pleasure ... to whom? Not to himself. Not too much, apparently, to these others. Was he giving, then, some form of pleasure to his father. Was his father taking a perverse joy in watching him struggle in these nets of silk and gilt. At least, and at last, he was free of Zimbule. Once the curtains had fallen she had released his hand and left his side.

Campaspe, in her clinging blue robe, followed Zimbule down the stairs, listening to the re-echoing Remarkable! Marvellous! Divine! Extraordinary! Kolossal! Epatante! The crowd had seen something, heard something, tasted something, touched something, smelled something. And Campaspe, as always, had experienced the reflex of the crowd. That was about all there was left, she admitted to herself, but it was wonderful when it happened. Zimbule seemed tired and listless, petulant even. She shook hands and received compliments languidly, without any interest, Campaspe thought, and yet she still sensed a strange vibrancy in the girl, a curious electrical quality, preserved for future transmission. Where, and to whom? Campaspe looked about for Harold. He was nowhere to be seen. The Duke, too, had disappeared, and several escaping guests shook hands with Campaspe, mistaking her for the hostess. She asked Zimbule if she would like to change, and the girl assented, almost eagerly, Campaspe noted. They installed themselves in the magnificent bathroom and Campaspe dispatched Frederika to the top floor for their dresses. Meanwhile, she watched Zimbule, as the child quickly divested herself of her ivory tunic and the single protective piece she wore beneath this, and soon stood in her sandals, rose and perspiring in her nudity, before the black mirrors. How wonderful it was that this girl, who had never taken any care of her body, should possess such a perfect body, perfect in its proportions, perfect in its details. Women with beautiful bodies never suffer from modesty or a sense of shame, Campaspe said to herself, and she remembered that some man had told her recently that he had been married for five years but had never seen his wife’s feet. He had been certain that her feet were ugly or deformed or that they suffered from one of the diseases that feet suffer from. Looking at this child, exquisite in her lack of shame, her natural ignorance of an occasion for it, Campaspe assured herself that the man had judged his wife justly.

You are lovely, she said.

Zimbule, already silent for some time, said nothing now, but her face brightened with an appreciative smile, and there was something interrogative also in her expression.

I wonder if he will think so, she breathed at last.

Frederika had returned with their white evening gowns, and she helped them to don them. Campaspe, dressed first, directed her maid to draw on Zimbule’s stockings and her little satin shoes.

Shall I ask you both to my house tomorrow? was her suggestion.

Zimbule threw her a swift glance of gratitude. I shan’t wait till tomorrow, she said, the colour mounting to her cheeks. She had rubbed off the last vestige of make-up, but she was still as rosy as a country milk-maid.

Tomorrow, too, if you like, Campaspe encouraged.

Oh! well! We’ll be in bed, I hope.

Some one was pounding on the door.

Who’s there? Campaspe demanded.

Ronald, came the reply. They’ve all g-g-g-gone, and I want to go to b-b-b-bed.

Campaspe opened the door.

We’re dressed, she said. Ronald, the opera was a success. New York has had a summer season. I can pass the autumn in Sicily with perfect safety.

Did you like it? was his indifferent query. It bored me. It was fun to plan, but stupid to do....

Where’s Harold? Zimbule asked.

Harold? repeated the Duke, alarmed by the idea that there might be still others who had not departed.

Mr. Prewett, he dress upstairs, volunteered one of the Ceylonese servants.

Good God! Not gone yet, groaned the Duke.

_We’re_ going now, said Campaspe.

Good-night, Firebird, and thank you.... He kissed her.... Good-night, little O’Grady. You shone.

Thanks. Good-night, Mr. Ronald. Zimbule could never be persuaded to call the Duke anything else.

They went on down the stairs, Frederika following with their bags.

Can I drive you home? asked Campaspe.

No, thank you. I have a taxi waiting. I ordered it some time ago.

At the foot of the stairs an obstruction appeared: Bunny.

Zimbule was direct: I’m not going home with you, Bunny.

You can’t do that to me! His tone was appealing rather than threatening.

I’m not going home with you. Don’t make a row. It won’t do any good. I’m roosting with Campaspe.

Oh! God! Zimbule, what have I done? What’s the matter? The boy began to weep.

Cut that! You haven’t done anything.... I’m going home with Mrs. Lorillard.

She was determined: this much was apparent even to a vision obscured by tears. Bunny stepped back, splashing himself like an ugly blot against the blue wall, and the three women made their way out.

Good-night, Campaspe, whispered Zimbule, as she kissed her friend. Good-night.

She slipped into the waiting taxi, after a direction to the chauffeur, uttered in too low a voice for Campaspe to catch it, and the vehicle shot away into the black night.

* * * * *

Harold was the last to leave, for Bunny had slunk out as soon as he caught the sound of departing wheels. Harold did not even meet the Duke in the corridor and, as the door of his bedroom was closed, he refrained from knocking. After hesitating a moment in the deserted street, he decided to walk home; it was so hot and so quiet. Turning into Fifth Avenue, brilliantly lighted in spite of the late hour, he walked north until he touched Eighteenth Street.

Soon he was home. Ascending to his floor, he took out his key and prepared to open the door. To his amazement, he found a key already in the lock. Oliver? But Oliver did not stay here nights. Thieves, assuredly, would never leave a key in the door. Still, for a second or two he hesitated, pondering as to whether he should go back for Pedro, the hall-boy. Then he turned the key and entered.

The apartment was perfectly dark. He pressed a button which illuminated the living-room. Nobody there. Passing into the bedroom he pressed another button. His eye fell first on a chair on which was heaped a congeries of feminine apparel. Then he turned to his bed. Curled up, quite uncovered in the heat, sound asleep, in much the same attitude that he had seen her assume with Bunny, lay Zimbule.

Harold stared at her for a moment. Then, his heart beating violently with rage and fear, he pressed the button extinguishing the light. He tip-toed to the hall, pressed the other button, and passed out, closing the door softly behind him.

As he descended in the elevator, Pedro blinked and eyed him curiously, and as Harold rushed out the front entrance, slamming the door violently, the boy whistled softly to himself. Then, with a smile, Pedro lit a cigarette and, like Madama Butterfly, sat down to wait for the dawn.

_Chapter VIII_

The next day began for Campaspe about one o’clock in the afternoon. The sun was high and bright, but the atmosphere was refreshingly cool; it was one of those charming days with a gentle sea breeze which alternate with sultry, humid weather in any New York summer. Campaspe sipped her coffee in bed, and glanced over her mail. There were letters from her two boys who were passing the summer with their grandfather at Southampton. These she opened first. Esmé had caught a blue-fish and Basil wanted a cowboy’s suit with chaps, a red-flannel shirt, a sombrero, and a lariat. Both of them desired to see their mother. Wasn’t she coming down? She tapped an envelope against her open lips as she thought of her sons. Campaspe loved her children, and occasionally she had them with her. It was constitutional of her, however, to believe that she was only doing her best for others when she entirely pleased herself. She had decided, quite wisely, events had proved, not to leave New York again this summer. In the fall she would see the boys before she went to Europe and they were sent to boarding-school. It was better so. Boys, she felt, developed more rapidly and more individually if they did not live too much with their parents. Their grandfather, she knew, would permit them to do anything they wanted to do, and she was satisfied that this was the only way to bring children up successfully. Cupid, to be sure, went down to Southampton about twice a month. He was romantically attached to his sons and cherished a father’s conventional ideas, but he, as much as their grandfather, could be depended upon not to interfere with their wishes. He wanted them to love him, and Campaspe felt certain that he would never thwart their desires for fear of sacrificing that love. Ironically enough, the boys loved their mother more than they did their father. This, in a way, justified her course of action; not that Campaspe ever sought justification for her acts, but sometimes it gave her a certain human amount of pleasure to realize that she was right.... Later, in boarding-school, there would be interference, of course, but that was external interference of the kind the boys might afterwards expect in life and consequently good for them; it had nothing to do with the family.

The next letter she opened was from Laura, who was spending the summer in the Berkshires. She, too, wanted Campaspe to join her. All the world, it would seem, was calling for Campaspe, but this was invariably true, she realized, when one was enjoying oneself. It was only when one felt lonely and bored that nobody asked one to do anything or to go anywhere. The thought came to Campaspe that she was seldom lonely, seldom bored nowadays. Only in her extreme youth had she experienced these and kindred unpleasant emotions. She had a practical nature; she hated the ineffectual. She had conquered fear; she conquered any feeling that annoyed or troubled her. She had mastered a formula for handling life, made life her slave, and this formula infrequently failed her.

After her bath, she donned a dressing-gown of pale green crêpe de chine, purfled in silver frogs, their legs extended in queer swimming postures, and sat down before her little writing-desk.

Dear Laura, she wrote:

You are bored in the Berkshires. I am amused in New York. Why should I go to you. Return, rather, to me. I know, of course, you can’t or won’t. You always consider the feelings of your children or your husband and, as a consequence, always keep them unhappy or uncomfortable. If you lived your own life, they would adjust their lives to yours. I suppose, as a matter of fact, that you are living your own life, doing what you really want to do, just as much as I am. People who suffer usually like to suffer and talk about it. There is Wilson Goodward, for instance, always complaining about his hard knocks, his consistently bad luck, always insisting that nothing ever comes out right for him. He likes to suffer and he likes to talk about his suffering. It is his way of making himself important. He cannot impose his personality on others in any positive way, he cannot work his will with life, and so he employs negative tools. Naturally, I don’t mean all this for you. What I really think about you is that you are domestic, that you love your family, and that you adore excursions into the country with them, but before your more sophisticated friends, Laura, you feel ashamed of your true emotions and you believe it is necessary to apologize for your natural feelings. In time, probably, you will cease to do this and begin to lecture me as, perhaps, I seem to be lecturing you now! But I am not, really. I am merely chattering, as I would chatter if you were here. I am too happy to give advice to any one.... I am deliriously happy!

Such a summer! Ronald is here--you know, the Duke of Middlebottom; at least, you have heard me speak of him. He’s done such an amusing thing: taken a town house in New York in July to transfer the London season here. At least that’s what he says he has been doing; I think he may have other reasons for being here. At any rate, he has carried his masked purpose far enough to give New York a July “opera season.” Only one night, but what an opera! It really wasn’t an opera at all, but there was music, which Bunny wrote, thereby convincing me that he is a genius. There was one moment when all veils were rent. You should have seen Mrs. Pollanger! But _all_ of them sat naked, just as they will again in hell. That was _my_ moment: I felt that Bunny, unconsciously, had done that for me. Certainly, nobody else appreciated it. It made no impression whatsoever on the person he _thought_ he had done it for. She is a snake-charmer, or was for a day or so, really the most unusual and nicest child--she is nearly seventeen--I have ever met. She follows her instincts, actually follows them; not the way I do, consciously and scrupulously, after years of trying to do something else, but involuntarily, automatically, and she has done so from birth, I should imagine.... I have had great fun teaching her how to dress, how to walk, how to speak, not too apparently; just a hint here and a hint there, which she accepts and takes advantage of, makes her own, so to speak, only too greedily. She is a born duchess, _natural_ like a duchess--never alarmed lest she be doing something that others will consider wrong or in bad taste--and, consequently, an aristocrat, entirely free from vulgarity. For you know it is my belief that only those are vulgar who make pretensions to be what they are not. Perhaps you would consider her vulgar. Some day, it is entirely possible, I may consider her vulgar myself. I can see her in the future, driving past me without bowing, when she reaches a social station in life which she regards as higher than mine. At present, she is only concerned with love, but she will doubtless go beyond that. She will be disappointed and disillusioned by love, as all of us are some time or other, and she will probably marry a rich man and live unhappily ever after, because, au fond, she is an animal, and she will only be happy so long as she lives like an animal, naturally and a little libidinously. She is just through with Bunny, who adores her.

And that brings me to Paul, who is the only person I never really worry about. Paul is so good and kind and amusing and helpless and _lucky_. At present, he is being taken care of by a rich and eccentric old gentleman, who has put his son in Paul’s charge, for a new kind of education. Harold Prewett--that is the boy’s awful name--is, I should imagine, undergoing a course in worldliness. His father must believe that he is a prig. Harold is by no means a prig. He is a boy with fine instincts, who has been compelled by circumstances, as I see it, to lead a secluded life. Paul’s way of living, and mine, do not suit him at all, and I think he must be very unhappy. He is not, however, as dependent upon fate as Paul. Harold is still young; some day he will assert himself. Indeed, even while I am writing these words, it has occurred to me that it may be his father’s grim intention to develop the boy’s character in this ruthless fashion so that he will assert himself the sooner. How, where, or when, I have no idea. But this is one of the reasons I have no wish to leave New York. I cannot afford to miss the scène à faire.

There are, I have discovered, and I insert the discovery parenthetically for what it may be worth, two kinds of people in this world, those who long to be understood, and those who long to be misunderstood. It is the irony of life that neither is gratified.

I am perfectly frank with you, dear Laura, always; there seems to be no other reason for writing long letters. You know that I seek my thrills in a curious, vicarious way. You know that what befalls others is of more interest to me than what befalls myself. Indeed, you must be aware by now that I do not care to have anything happen to me at all. If I can prevent it, things never do happen to me, and _I can prevent it_. I have even arranged it so that I do not suffer physical pain when it is inconvenient for me.

This is a very long letter about matters in which you will, conceivably, take only a vague interest, but I am clearing my mind for the day, revealing myself to myself, revolving my ideas so that I may the more fully enjoy them. Now that I have written this letter, indeed, there seems no real occasion for sending it, but I will not deprive you of such small amusement as you may derive from a perusal of its pages.

love from your, +CAMPASPE+.

Having finished the letter and addressed the envelope, Campaspe dipped her fingers into a shallow bowl of water-lilies that stood on the desk and with the moistened tips wet the gum of the envelope and pressed the flap closed. Leaving the letter for Frederika to post, she rose and descended to the garden.

Campaspe’s garden, at the rear of the house, was enclosed in high brick walls on which were trained espaliered fruit-trees. Dwarf shrubs forced their miniature trunks between the mossy crevices of the flagstones of various sizes and colours that paved the ground. Over these a quaint tortoise of considerable size and incredible age, named Aglaë, wandered in a disconsolate manner. There were a few comfortable chairs and, in one corner, under the shade of a spreading crab-apple tree, a table. In the opposite corner rose a rococo fountain which Campaspe, entranced at first sight, had purchased in an antiquary’s shop in Dresden. This fountain gave the atmosphere to the whole place. On a low pedestal, in the midst of a semi-circular pool, a marble Eros, blindfold, knelt. His bow drawn taut, the god was about to discharge an arrow at random. Beneath him, prone on the marble sward, a young nymph wept. The figures were surrounded by a curving row of stiff straight marble narcissi, the water dripping from their cups into the pool below, in which silver-fish played.

Charmed by the sun and the contradictory coolness of the day--nature, she had noted, could be as contradictory and perverse as life itself--, Campaspe, propped up against cushions, lay back in a comfortable chaise-longue. Frederika had followed her with a pile of books, which she placed on a table by the side of her mistress, but, for the moment, Campaspe did not disturb these. She closed her eyes and half-dreamed in the bliss of her security. She hoped that no one would call. She had too much to think about. Campaspe enjoyed being alone. In fact, it was essential to her happiness that she be alone for at least a part of every day, occasionally for the whole day, and sometimes for a period of two or three days. It was during these self-imposed isolations that she most thoroughly enjoyed the hours in which she was not alone. Retrospection, revery, was her pleasure, her desire, her vice. She had no other. Yet, today, she did not give orders that she was not receiving.