What Will People Say? A Novel 46 – Hughes · Verses Across
Literature · Romance
What Will People Say? A Novel 46Chapter 46
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Literature · Romance
What Will People Say? A Novel 46
Chapter 46
HughesEnglish
Willie Enslee was as little masculine as a man could be without being in the least effeminate. Ten Eyck, whose French was more fluent than exact, called him "petite." His head was small and childish, and the more infantile for a great rearward overhang that would have looked better on a yacht. His voice was high and trebling in its sound. His costumes were always of next season or the season after next. Yet, carefully as he dressed, his clothes never dignified him nor he them. Rich as he was, he attracted few parasites.
Now, no one realized Willie Enslee's defects half so thoroughly as did Willie Enslee. But his failings did not amuse him as they did other people; he could not laugh with the world at himself. He knew the world laughed at him, and not without cause, and yet he hated the world for its laughter. He hated everybody he knew almost as much as he hated himself. To this misanthropy there was one exception--Persis. He hated her, too, in a way, for she never concealed her scorn of him, and she ridiculed his foibles before his face; but he found her so beautiful that he loved her while he loathed her, desired while he abhorred.
He found her cold and flippant to his most earnest moods, but he assumed that she was cold and flippant to everybody else. She certainly had that reputation, and he comforted himself with the feeling that, while she may have failed in response to his ardors, it was not because she was in love with anybody else.
So little jealousy he had--or, rather, so slow a jealousy--that the silly theory of Forbes' flirtation with Mrs. Neff sufficed to prevent him from paying the slightest attention to Forbes' conversation with Persis. Lack of jealousy is sometimes a form of conceit. Perhaps it was this feeling that no woman could prefer any other man to an Enslee that led him to ignore the ordinary caution of a lover. Perhaps it was just his idolatry of Persis, his inability to believe her capable of the infamy of duplicity.
But somewhere in his soul there must have been a latent spark of suspicion which might some day burst into a consuming flame, for into his dreams came now and then little glints of uneasiness. He dismissed them as the results of indigestion, but they persisted.
One day, shortly after his return from his Westchester estate, he sat down in the living-room of his town house to read the evening papers. All of them published the announcement of his engagement to Persis, under the general heading of "June brides." There were portraits of Persis in various poses and costumes. Willie saw no picture of himself, and the allusions to him were mainly concerned with "William Enslee, Esq., son of the famous William Enslee."
Willie took so much pride in the fame of his betrothed that he was not jealous even of her monopoly of the newspaper attention. He felt only a great pride in being the future owner of all that beauty.
He lolled on the divan and smoked the cigarettes of prosperity. The divan was so comfortable, and his satisfaction so soothing, that he grew drowsy. His jaw fell open as his eyes fell shut. The newspapers dropped to the floor, and he was asleep.
Into the room, which was now almost ready for the closing of the house and the emigration to Newport or the country, came his mother, a young matron whose aristocratic face and figure were markedly Spanish. Her black hair was fogged with gray at the temples, as if with a careless powder-puff. She pushed back the covering of the mirror over the mantel that she might catch a glimpse of her hair.
She brightened at the vision she saw within, and not without reason, for she had broken many hearts in Cuba and in New York before the elder William Enslee won her and married her. The only result of the union had been that at his death he left a widow who was more attractive than a widow has a right to be, and a son who was less attractive even than is expected of a millionaire's son.
As Mrs. Enslee stared at her image in the looking-glass Willie's heavy breathing caught her ear, and she heard that he was asleep even before she saw him. And then she spoke sharply:
"But you mustn't sleep here. Go to your own room--or the club."
"Let me alone," Willie protested, with querulous anger, still befuddled, and relapsing at once into sleep.
"When I was young parents weren't spoken to like that," said Mrs. Enslee, forgetting how she used to speak to her parents. She paused to muse upon her man-child. She felt sorry for him, but sorrier for herself for having him. As she watched him he began to mumble a gibberish. She bent closer to hear. Then his hand, hanging limply near the floor, began to clench and twitch.
Suddenly from his lips broke a half-strangled gurgle, then a wild shriek of "Persis! Persis!"
His own outcry seemed to waken him. His eyes flew open, and he stared about him as if searching for some one whose absence bewildered him.
His mother peered into his eyes, and he clutched her by the arms, staring at her. Then he mumbled:
"Oh, it's you," and smiled foolishly, and laughed as with a great relief.
"What is it, my boy?" said Mrs. Enslee.
"I must have dropped off to sleep. It was only a dream."
"What was it?" Mrs. Enslee repeated; but he spoke with a sickly cheer:
"That's the one consolation about nightmares, when you wake up--thank God, they're not true!"
"But what did you dream?" Mrs. Enslee demanded till he explained:
"Well, it seemed to be my--er--wedding-day. And I was standing there by Persis--I was--er--fumbling in my pocket for the--er--ring, and feeling like a fool--because she's so much taller than I am--and the preacher said, 'If anybody knows any--er--reason why these two should not be--er--wed, let him speak now, or forever--'"
"Yes, yes," said his audience of one.
"There was--er--silence for a minute. Then a man stood up in the church--I couldn't see his face--but he was tall, and he called out--er, 'I forbid the banns! She loves me. She is only marrying that man for his--er--money!' I turned to Persis and said: 'Is that true?' And she said: 'I don't know the man. I never saw him.' And then, when she said that, he gave her one look and--er--walked out of the church. And the--er--ceremony went on. But Persis shivered all the time--er--just shivered, and when I kissed her her lips were like--er--like ice. Then the music began, and we marched down the aisle--and then--then we--er--er--no, I won't tell you."
"Go on--please go on!" the mother pleaded; but Willie grew embarrassed, and his eyes wandered as he stammered:
"Well--at last--we were in our room--and I--er--she shrank away from me as if I were--er--a toad. And she swore she hated me--and loved the--er--other man. Then I saw everything red--I hated her. I wanted to throttle her--to tear her to pieces. But she ran to the window and fell, all--er--tangled up in the veil and the long train. I tried to save her--but I couldn't. And then--when it was too late--my love for her came back, and I cried, 'Persis! Persis!' and--er--woke up. Mother, do you believe in--er--dreams?"
"No, no, of course not," said Mrs. Enslee, without conviction. "Or else they go by contraries."
"Ugh! How real they are while they last. I can't get over it."
"Well, of course, I'm not superstitious," Mrs. Enslee insinuated; "but, if you are, perhaps--I just say perhaps--it might be a sort of omen that you'd better not marry Persis, after all."
"Not marry Persis!" Willie gasped.
"There are other women on earth," Mrs. Enslee suggested.
"Not for me!"
Mrs. Enslee pondered a moment before she took up the debate again. "But do you think she loves you as much as you'd like to be loved?"
Willie laughed. "Huh! nobody ever loved me like that; nobody ever will."
"Except your mother," said Mrs. Enslee, laying her hand on his hair. Willie hated to have his hair smoothed, and he edged away, laughingly bitterly.
"I'm afraid even you've found me--er--unattractive, mother. I couldn't have been much to be proud of even as a little brat. I never had a chum as a boy. I never had a girl--er--sweetheart. It wasn't that I didn't like other people, but other people can't seem to--er--like me."
He pondered the mystery so tragically that Mrs. Enslee caressed him, and said: "You mustn't say that. I adore you."
Willie eyed her with a cynical stare. "Don't be--er--literary, mother. I remember when I was a little boy how lonely I used to get in this big old house. Poor father was so busy heaping up money I hardly knew him by sight. Once he--er--passed me on the street and didn't speak to me! Then at night you used to give big dinners. I had to eat early and alone up in the--er--nursery. But I used to lie awake for hours, and when the doors opened I could hear laughter. And often there was music. You used to go down to dinner after I had gone to bed."
"But I always stopped in to kiss you good night, didn't I?" the mother urged, in self-defense.
"Sometimes you would forget," Willie sighed. "Then I'd be left there alone with the governess. I didn't want to--er--speak French to a governess. I wanted to--er--talk to my mother. And when you did stop in to kiss me, your lips sometimes used to--er--leave red marks on my cheek."
"Willie!" Mrs. Enslee gasped; but he went on:
"I couldn't put my arms around your neck for fear I'd--er--disarrange your hair, and even that was--er--dyed!"
Mrs. Enslee turned on him in rage. "Willie! How dare you?"
He rounded on her fiercely. "You know it was! You know it was!"
"You little beast!" Mrs. Enslee cried; but Willie laughed maliciously.
"See! See! Now you're showing your--er--real feelings to me."
Mrs. Enslee controlled her pain and her wrath, and implored: "Come, my boy, let's be friends."
"Oh, that's all right, mother," said Willie. "Friends is the word. It's too late for anything else."
"You're in one of your nasty moods, Willie," said Mrs. Enslee, retreating from this hateful situation. "But we were talking of Persis. You must decide about her."
"I have decided."
"You won't marry her, then?"
"Not marry her?" Willie repeated, like a sarcastic echo. "Of course I will. And why not?"
Motives are hard tangles to unravel, especially a mother's toward other women. Perhaps Mrs. Enslee was really afraid of Persis. Perhaps she wanted to assure herself of the future ability to say, "I warned you." Perhaps it was just motherly jealousy of the new proprietress of Willie's time and attention. In answer to Willie's "Why not?" she insinuated: "People might say she is marrying you for your money."
"Well, what of it? What if she is?" Willie stormed. "What else is there to marry me for? My--er--beauty? What does it matter, so I get her? Why do dukes marry--er--chorus-girls--when they can afford 'em? Because they want 'em! That's why, isn't it? What fools they'd be not to take 'em if they want 'em and can get 'em?"
His mother shrugged his troubles from her shoulders and left him to ferment in his own vinegar. But Willie was not happy. He was getting what he asked for, and it was not what he wanted. Perhaps he had never been truly happy in his whole existence. He had been amused at times, but usually then with a cynical delight in somebody's misfortunes or mistakes.
How could he have been thoroughly happy when he had never been truly well? What health he had was a negation, a convalescence; it was at best a not being sick. He was of a fabric that broke down and wore through constantly. He could understand the definition of happiness as "having a splinter in your finger and getting it out."
But the joy that comes from bounding arteries, glowing skin, a galloping heart, a volcanic desire to laugh because the soul is bursting with laughter, or to sing for mere song's sake, or to be an instrument in the symphonic universe when it is playing one of its mighty ensembles--that cosmic happiness was unknown to Willie Enslee.
When he found a rapture he always found something the matter with it; there was a worm in the apple, a slug in the salad, a fly in the ointment, a flaw in the diamond. And so it was with his one big ambition--Persis. He had won his choice of all the world's women. And now his mother was asking if he thought she loved him, and if people would not question her motives. She was already perhapsing and better-notting.
And he was dreaming dreams that somebody else had a priority in her heart. Of course, dreams were follies. According to some superstitions, they went by contraries. But they are as hard to disbelieve as a convincing play. One may not be sure that Josephine was untrue to Napoleon; but he knows that Mrs. Tanqueray II. had a most inconvenient lover, and that her past spoiled her husband's daughter's future.
So Willie, emerging from the playhouse of his nightmare, wondered who it was that was likely to interrupt his wedding with Persis. He suspected everybody except Forbes. Him he canceled at once from the list, because Forbes had met Persis only a week ago, and had never seen her alone, and had, furthermore, devoted himself to Mrs. Neff. He set Forbes down as a fortune-hunter willing to marry a much older woman of moderate means. He doubted if he were important enough for an invitation to the wedding.
He could not decide upon any other man to fit the faceless vision of his nightmare, that shadowy being who stood up in the dream-cathedral and claimed Persis for his own. He was tempted to ask Persis. But he was not tempted long. Naturally she would deny it; but what if she should confess? Then he would have to give her up. And he wanted her more than anything else on earth.
He resolved that the one safe step was to get Persis safely married at once and take her away from all of her acquaintances. Aboard his yacht would be one secure asylum. When they tired of that they could travel Europe, and the moment any old friend appeared he could decamp with her overnight.
He chuckled triumphantly over this plot, and set about its perfection. He rejoiced to be in a position to compel Persis by way of her father's necessities. The support he had advanced to the "old flub" he could threaten to withdraw unless the wedding were hastened. That would clinch it.
And then he glowed with the imagined scenes of the honeymoon. Persis might not love him as he wished, but he would have her for his own. He would have as much of her as any man could be sure of in possessing a woman. He knew he was not handsome, but he knew handsome men whose homely wives were notoriously false to them. Did he not know of wild romances that had ended in mutual contempt? Did he not know of unpromising beginnings that had ended in happiness? Monogamy was a gamble at best. And at worst he should have Persis for his own for a while.
