Possession (Bromfield)/Chapter 13
In another part of the Town far on the Hill above the Flats, the Setons and their guest sat down to Christmas dinner at an hour somewhat earlier than that kept at Shane's Castle, for Harvey Seton, in the manner of many men who have made their own success, created social laws for himself, as if in some way he could thus place himself above the rules. Certainly he could not have brought himself to follow the fashions set by Shane's Castle. He was, he said, a simple man and hoped to remain so until he died.
The shadow of this unspoken defiance appeared to cloud the cheer of Christmas Day at the Setons. There was in the air a certain conscious tension, a vague uneasiness which manifested itself in a dozen ways . . . in the unflinching frown of the father, in the extreme politeness of the mother, in the nervous and concentrated giggles of May herself. The most uneasy of them all was the guest himself. Alone of all the group the simian Jimmy appeared to enjoy himself; and in this there was nothing strange or unusual, for it was an atmosphere in which he flourished and one to which he was highly sensitized. With the sharpness of a sickly, precocious nature, he understood that the air about him was heavy with foreboding. He knew that it required but a spark to precipitate a crisis with all the suddenness of an explosion. He waited now, joyful, expectant, watching the others with an impish satisfaction.
There was in the dampish atmosphere of the room an odor of unwonted richness . . . the smell of a roast goose, strange and exotic in this household. But Christmas was a season which caused even Harvey Seton to unbend a little. It was the only occasion when the Christianity of the man was tempered even for an instant by anything faintly suggestive of warmth. His manner as he carved was touched, despite the thinness of the slices which fell from the breast of the bird, by a majestic air, which suggested more than ever his likeness to a grotesque Gothic saint; (he might have been one of those early fathers who battled and gave up their lives for some minute point of dogma.)
As he stood whetting the knife coldly against the steel, a sense of awe penetrated slowly one by one the hearts of those about the table . . . all save Jimmy. With his small pointed head barely visible above the table's edge, he waited. And presently, as if he could restrain his impatience no longer, he banged his knife sharply against the edge of his plate.
The effect was instantaneous. It brought from the harassed mother a sharp scream and a violent slap on the wrist.
"Don't do that again or you'll be sent to bed without any goose!"
But Jimmy, knowing his safety, only grinned and varied the method of torture by scratching the fork against the cold surface of the plate so that it produced a dreadful whining sound.
There were, to be sure, reasons for this strange condition of nerves. Since the night when Clarence arrived out of the blizzard, things had not progressed. Indeed, it appeared that, on the contrary, they were moving backwards. By now, everything should have been settled, and yet nothing was done; there had been no declaration, no hint. The wooer remained wary, suspicious; and the consciousness of his failure penetrated even the sluggish workings of May's brain and hurt her pride. Mrs. Seton it baffled. She was conscious that some event, some obstacle, some peril which she was unable to divine had raised itself during these past few days full in the middle of her path.
"My," said May presently, "it's much warmer. I expect it's the January thaw."
Then the silence descended and again there was only the whine of Jimmy's fork and the metallic click of the carving knife against the plated dish which bore the goose.
As for Clarence, he managed to conceal that wavering sense of uncertainty and terror which had assailed him with increasing force as the visit progressed. It was a terror which, strangely enough, centered itself in the father, for Clarence, in his chivalrous fashion, regarded women as creatures whom one could put aside. Never having been assailed, he had no fear of them. But the face of the Methodist elder, slightly green and intensely forbidding, filled him with uneasiness. When the corset manufacturer turned to address him, the fishy eyes accused him of unspeakable things.
In all those days in the dampish house there had been no mention of the encounter aboard the transcontinental express. If Lily Shane had been a light woman with whom (Heaven forbid!) Clarence had spent the night, he could have been no more silent concerning the adventure. Somehow he understood that the very name of Lily Shane had no place in the household of the Setons. And the longer he kept silent, the more glamorous and wicked the secret had become, until now it had attained the proportions of a monstrous thing. Each time the Elder looked at him the offense increased a degree or two in magnitude.
Yet in the end he betrayed himself. Perhaps it was the strained silence, perhaps the unbearable whine of Jimmy's fork against the cold plate. In any case there came a moment when even Clarence could bear the strained silence no longer. He knew that something must be said. What he chose to say was calamitous and no sooner had the words passed his lips than he knew his error.
He said, "Do you know a woman called Lily Shane? I met her on the train."
It was purely an effort at conversation; he knew well enough that they knew her, but the effect was terrific. Mr. Seton's carving halted in mid-air. The mouth of Mrs. Seton went down at the corners. May giggled nervously and Jimmy, sensing triumph, raised himself until he displayed several inches of skinny neck above the table's edge.
"Yes," said Mr. Seton in a hollow voice, "we know about her. She is not a good woman." What he said was mild enough, yet it carried overtones of the unspeakable, of bacchanalian orgies, of debauchery. And the mother, seeing her chance, took it.
"She is not nice, you know. There are things about her . . ." She would have gone on but a look from her husband halted her. It was a look which said, "We do not discuss such women before May and Mr. Murdock." So Mrs. Seton coughed and suppressed her revelations. Instead she made a conversational step aside. "I suppose she looks old and worn now. A woman leading that sort of life always pays in the end."
At this point Clarence, like a plumed knight, went to the defense of the damozel. "No, I wouldn't say that. She seemed quite young and beautiful." And then as if he had gone too far, he added mildly, "Of course, I don't know her well."
"It's better to avoid women like her," rejoined the father. "Take a word of advice from an older man. Women like that can ruin men . . . just by talking to them. They are creatures of the Devil."
Somewhere within the mind of Clarence a great light broke, and he saw everything clearly. He understood then that all the visit differed from his expectations not because the Setons had changed but because he had encountered Lily Shane. . . . She lay at the root of the trouble. Yes, women like her were powerful. There was no denying it.
The talk came easily enough now. Mrs. Seton, following her instincts, saw an opportunity to destroy the single menace which she fancied stood between her and her success. "She is a cousin, you know, of Ellen . . . that Tolliver girl. They all have bad blood in 'em."
But she had taken a false turning and, though she never knew it, her implications were in their effect fatal. Without understanding it she brought into the room both Ellen and her cousin Lily Shane, and Clarence saw them there, aloof and proud, more clearly than he had ever seen them in the flesh. He saw in them the same qualities, the assurance, the subtle, bedeviling recklessness, the outward indifference that concealed beneath it things undreamed of.
And then May giggled, nervously, as if she were smirking at the veiled improprieties which her mother kept concealed. The sound was more terrible than the scraping of the fork against the cold plate, for suddenly May stood revealed, and Clarence, in the nicety of his soul, was horrified.
"I couldn't tell you the whole story," continued Mrs. Seton. "Perhaps Mr. Seton could. I think you ought to know."
But the thoughts of Clarence had wandered away from the little group, away from the goose and cranberry sauce on his plate. Indeed they had wandered a long way, for they were centered now on the great black house he had seen for an instant high above the flames of the furnaces, so distant, so unattainable. In his mind he had created a picture of the house, of what sort of a dinner must be in progress within its sooty, decaying walls. It was a picture, to be sure, far more magnificent than the reality and therefore more fatal to his happiness. The old ambitions began to stir once more, ponderously and terribly.
And far away he heard May saying, "She doesn't stay much in the Town. She thinks it isn't good enough for her." And then following the cue of so bad a campaigner as her mother, "Neither does Ellen. They're both stuck up. They think there's nothing good enough for them in the Town."
"You'd think," rejoined Mrs. Seton, "to see Ellen in her homemade clothes that she was a princess!"
A fierce resentment, bordering upon savagery, colored her voice. In the course of the conversation the fat, complacent woman became transformed into a spiteful, witch-like creature. And in the brain of Clarence there echoed a soft voice which said, "Ah, the Setons! To be sure, I know who they are but I don't know them," dismissing them all quite easily, without resentment, without savagery, even without thought, forgetting in the next moment their very existence.
And then the lightning struck.
The shrill voice of Jimmy, impatient of results, suddenly cut the dampish air like a knife. "I know what it is! She's had a baby and she was never married! . . . She's had a baby and she was never married!"