Claire Ambler (1928, Doubleday)/Part 3/Chapter 4
THAT was what Mr. Sherman Peale wanted, as Claire already understood. He was a grayish, meagre man with a brown face and alert bright eyes that had seen a great deal, but were as lively and unjaded as those of his eighteen-year-old daughter who now turned aside with the unhappy Walter. Claire catalogued Mr. Peale as an "interesting" man, for which rating she had previous information from the public prints. He was an exploring anthropologist and had just returned to face batteries of interviewers after a long immersion in the steamy jungles of the Orinoco, a river of apparently no interest to him at the present moment. With a breath-taking clarity he explained what did interest him.
"I saw you the moment my daughter and I came into this room, Miss Ambler," he said. "Yours was the one face that stood out, and I knew you were the one person here I wanted to know. I've been living entirely among savages for several years and I'm afraid I've thus relapsed into a habit of primitive frankness of speech lost by our own race some thousands of years ago. Can you stand it?"
"I think perhaps," she said, "I can even equal it."
At that, his youthful eyes glinted forth sparklings of pleasure. "Well, suppose you give me a sample of your own."
"Of my own frankness?" She laughed, and then, with a light audacity, she said, "I saw you as you came in, Mr. Peale, and humbly hoped for a little notice." And, though she should have blushed to say it, this was the mere truth: she had observed the advent of the distinguished gentleman, and had instantly thought, recognizing him, "There's a man I'd like to know!" The reason she should have blushed was that this thought of hers had been in her head during her rejection of Walter Rackbridge: the unfortunate Walter might well have been entitled to all of her thoughts for those few crucial moments. But no one had quite all of Claire's thoughts at any moment whatever; she was never wholly free of that "double" sense of hers, that curse of "seeing" herself as somebody else, even when she truly suffered. And thus, even while she had rejected Walter and had said to herself of Sherman Peale, "There's a man I'd like to know," she had simultaneously been her own audience, seated aloof and observing the actress. Moreover, as audience, she had said: "Walter goes. That brown-faced man coming in and looking at me, could that be He?" And she had let the brown-faced man become aware for an instant of her eyes upon him; so here he was—of course!
"You'll get the notice, Miss Ambler," he said, delighted. "I hope you can stand it as well as the frankness."
"I think I can. Has it begun?"
"Decisively!" he rejoined; and he went on at once: "After a man has been cut off a long time from his kind, he comes back to them as a lonely stranger. My wife used to go with me upon my expeditions; but since her death I've gone alone. Coming back to New York has seemed to me the loneliest of all my expeditions, though it might surprise you to hear me say so, Miss Ambler. I've moved among crowds of people ever since I landed, two weeks ago; I've been obliged to make speeches at science association dinners—even at other dinners. I've been in a whirl of lunches and parties and reporters and celebrities; I've even danced until three in the morning. Yet I've never felt so alone in my life; it may be nostalgia for swamps and savages, but I don't feel that I've been in actual human contact with a fellow-being since I left South America. When I saw you I had a queer thought, and as you say you can stand savage frankness, I'll tell you what it was. I thought, "There's someone who would understand me."
"It might be overestimation," Claire said. "But how could you feel quite so alone with a daughter like that to go about with you?"
"Kitty? Good heavens! To me she's the greatest stranger of all. I left her a little schoolgirl of fourteen in her aunt's charge, and I've come back to find a curiously sophisticated adult person whose very vocabulary is less open to me than that of some primitive tribes who express themselves principally in grunts and squeals. Bless me! I'm afraid I shall never become acquainted with Kitty. That good-looking youth with her now already knows more about her, I haven't a doubt, than I ever shall."
Claire's eyes followed his glance to where his daughter sat with Walter; and to the girl of almost twenty-five Miss Kitty Peale was no such mystery as her father found her. She was a slim little fair creature, exquisite peach-bloom in a knowing small gray hat, an amber-coloured blouse and skirt, the latter perhaps eighteen inches long, pale yellow silk stockings naturally much in view, and beautiful amber shoes from the Rue St. Honoré—superb small works by an artist in footwear and worth preserving in a collection. She was not inappreciative of them, herself, and, as she chattered to Walter, sometimes slightly elevated one or the other of them, bestowing a momentary glance of thoughtful pleasure upon it from beneath her lovely ashen lashes. Her stockings pleased her, too, undoubtedly; though she frequently tweaked the little skirt down to cover part of a knee-cap. She had many such little fluttery and impulsive gestures, and her voice was also fluttery and impulsive. She uttered laughter and little outcries as of surprise throughout her talking, so that she seemed continually to have an obbligato accompaniment of mirth and wonderment.
"Ah, me!" Claire thought. "That's just what I was like, then. Poor Walter!"
But, to her surprise, as she glanced at him, Walter seemed less downcast than she had expected. His equanimity was the more puzzling to her because she could hear perfectly what the child was loudly prattling to him. "So you're actually Charlie Rackbridge's cousin! I know him awf'ly well, really! I think he's perfectly peachy wonderful—just as a boy in college, I mean of course. I went down to both the games he played in before he broke his collarbone; but of course I'm not wildly collegiate; Charlie's peachy in his own place, I mean! I never dreamed I'd meet a cousin of his this afternoon." Here she looked wistfully for one second into Walter's eyes; then, with an air of mockery, tapped his arm with the tips of her fingers. "And such a cousin!"
"She's a terrific little belle, I'm afraid," her father said to Claire. "She has a squadron of boys hanging about and seems to spare no one. She tells me she prefers 'older men,' and I suppose she means young gentlemen about as old as the one she's proceeding to enthrall just now. I haven't a doubt she'll annex him before she leaves his side and will probably tell me, after we go out, that she has an engagement with him for the evening. She'll break several previous ones, incidentally, but she'll patch all that up later somehow. I'm sure I don't know how she does it."
Claire thoroughly knew how Kitty did it; and she shivered slightly, remembering how she herself had done it. "There, but for the grace of God in making me almost twenty-five, walk I!" she thought; and then hearing what Kitty said next, she was startled.
"I saw you the minute I came into the place," Kitty chirped loudly. "And I wondered right away who you were."
At this, Claire perceived that in one detail, at least, even the grace of God had not granted to twenty-five any superiority over eighteen. Kitty was beginning with Walter just as her father and Claire had begun with each other. "Good heavens!" the girl almost twenty-five said to herself. "Did I do it like this at eighteen? Am I still doing only the same things I did then—endlessly repeating them as long as I can stay in the ring?" And, dismayed, she wondered if there was any real difference between her present situation with Mr. Sherman Peale and Kitty's with Walter Rackbridge. Hadn't Kitty probably asked herself, at first sight of Walter, "Is this He?" She indeed probably had! And just as Claire was already certain that if she chose she could make Mr. Peale take any amount of interest in her she thought desirable, wasn't the eighteen-year-old girl capable of a like certainty in regard to Walter? "Not that Walter would," Claire thought; and then, hearing his response to Kitty's overture, she had another surprise.
"I'm glad you wondered," he said gravely. "I think I'd like to be wondered about—by you—very much."
Claire stared at him incredulously, for he seemed to mean what he said; and she remembered how quickly desolated gentlemen are caught, sometimes, on the rebound. This thought disturbed her, not because she was at all a dog in the manger, or could be jealous of another's seizing upon what she, herself, rejected, but because she had a liking for Walter that was almost a fondness, and she admired him. His native talent and a genius for work had made him one of the best young architects in New York; he was kind, generous and able—a man much too good to be caught on the rebound by an eighteen-year-old bit of peach-bloom. And here Claire consoled herself with a difference between eighteen and twenty-five. "Never a thought in that little head except about herself—not one! She's making poor old Walter believe she's thinking of him; but eighteen can't think of anything except itself. The poor thing ought to know better than to trust her—she might actually marry him! Such things have happened often enough."
Ah, that peach-bloom! Dangerous to any man of any age, if it wished to be Claire knew. Peach-bloom! Alas—twenty-five!
The explorer was speaking to her. "There's another thing I'd like to ask you if you can stand."
"Well then, ask me. I'll answer you."
"I'm asking because of my loneliness," he said seriously. "You see, a civilized thinking man is naturally lonely among savages, no matter how much he may find to interest him. Well, I discovered long ago that he can be quite as lonely in civilized quarters of the world, and I've just been making a re-discovery of that uncomfortable fact. The truth is that I'm a peculiar man; I've never been at all like anyone else I've ever known, and, naturally, as queer a person as I can't expect many people to understand him, nor can he hope to find many true companions. Yet that's what I've yearned for all my life, understanding and companionship. I'm as abrupt as I am frank, Miss Ambler; I always make up my mind about people at my first glance and I've already told you I saw understanding in your face. What I want to ask you is if you think you could stand seeing something of me. Do you think you could?"
She laughed. "We might mutually have some burdens to bear, if I could, Mr. Peale."
"No," he said, leaning toward her earnestly. "I'm serious. Perhaps I'd better tell you a little about myself." And with this he began an autobiography that seemed to Claire to be one of perfect candour yet strongly favourable to its subject. Half an hour later, when musicians had begun to play in the next room, Mr. Peale's memoirs had not reached his adult period. Nevertheless, in spite of his naive self-absorption, Claire did not consider him a fiasco; the narrative was vigorous and undeniably interesting; moreover, she saw that she had no further need to exert herself. All she had to do was to listen with a deeply understanding expression and, if she did this often enough he would presently wish her listening to be continuous. Before they parted, to-day, he would ask her how soon he could see her again: she set his proposal of marriage—if she chose—at about a month in the future; less than that—if she chose. But she did not choose; for already she knew the brown-faced man was not He. There was no He; no true mate awaited her or ever would come out of space to claim her—twenty-five was all that claimed her!
She jumped up to the first dancer who presented himself, and departed from Mr. Peale with a word of apology so quickly spoken that he had no opportunity to ask her when he might continue his narrative. He meant to "cut in," and hovered in the offing, waiting to do so; whereupon, finding herself swept near a door, she said hurriedly, "That's all; I'm going home," slid from her partner's arms and out into the hallway. But just as she effected this evasion, Miss Kitty Peale dancing near her with Walter, was claimed, and left him for another.
Kitty somewhat recklessly allowed it to become evident that she was reluctant to make the exchange, and as she was borne onward her eyes lingered upon her previous partner.
"Don't forget," she called sweetly. "Eight-thirty to-night."
And Claire, as she went toward the outer door of the apartment, heard Walter's response, a single word: "Forget?"
The incredulity he expressed was sufficient.
"Idiot!" Claire said reminiscently, as she waited for the elevator; and when she had reached her own apartment, and, after a dexterous avoidance of her mother, was in her own room, she said "Idiot!" again.
She looked at a little clock of lapus lazuli and gold upon a table, and sat down before a mirror to remove her shoes: she must undress, then dress for a dinner. "Dress, undress, dress, undress!" she murmured wretchedly, half-aloud. "Undress, then dress again. And what the devil is it all about?"
She had taken off one shoe; she held it in her hand and sat staring at it, her head bent over it, until she noticed a tiny drop of water upon the shining black surface of its long, curved heel;—a tear had fallen there without her being aware of it in her eye.
She hurled the pretty shoe across the room, so that it struck noisily against the wall. "Oh, my gosh!" she whispered in sharp despair. "Twenty-five! I can't stand it and it can't be stopped! Nothing in the world can stop it! Twenty-five!"