The Only Poet (13 page)

The argument went round in her mind like a wheel, until she avidly laid hold of the one aspect of the situation which gave her hope. Since the spell had been laid for money it might be lifted for money. If Danny's cough did not stop she must go to New York and buy off the magician of Pell Street. It would be a very difficult business. The raising of the money she would find easy enough, for there were possessions of hers that Danny had never seen, jewels she had bought with her savings to dodge the income tax, and never wore because of her profound indifference to personal decoration. But it was going to be the most difficult thing in the world to get to New York.

She could not go without him. She could not accept a dancing engagement there, for her public appearances seemed
to
him the most shocking violation of their intimacy. The trip would be expensive, and she was always urging economy on him. He loathed New York. Perhaps he would let her go alone, if she told him all about it. But she could not tell him. No one could expect that of her.

Doctor Paulton came in, with Danny behind him, fixing his tie.

‘Nothing at all the matter, Mrs Staveley, I'm glad to say. Your husband's a very fit man.'

‘Then why does he cough?'

‘Oh, there's a slight chronic inflammation. But that's nothing. I'm sure there isn't anything behind it.'

She stared at him with wide eyes. She heard also another voice: ‘The doctors will find no fault with him, but he will waste away. And in the thirteenth month …'

‘Really, Mrs Staveley, there's nothing to be alarmed about. I expect he's right himself – he probably does smoke too much.'

‘But he's smoked ever since he was at Eton. Haven't you, Danny? Why should it suddenly hurt him now?'

‘I couldn't say. These things start quite suddenly. I can't find any fault with him.'

She shuddered. That phrase decided her, and she began feverishly: ‘Well, that's that. But to tell you the truth I wanted you to have a look at me as well. I don't feel fit. I'm nervous. I'm terribly nervous. I want a change. I want to go back to New York.'

It did not sound convincing, but then she did not mean it to be. She was addressing herself not to Doctor Paulton's reason, but to his twinkling and inquisitive glasses. She was aware that his soul was licking its lips and panting: ‘I always thought this marriage couldn't last: Danny Staveley and this neurotic little dancing-girl. Bound to be a crash some time. I wonder who's in New York?' She knew that she had only to continue to press her point, and he would say: ‘Let's have a look at your eyes. Yes, you are a bit anaemic, aren't you? I'm not sure if you aren't right. The sea trip would do you good. And the New York air's wonderful. Yes, try a little holiday over there.'

She was just opening her mouth to set this train of events in motion when Danny, setting the bow of his tie in her dressing-table mirror, murmured indolently, ‘We could get off any time after next week.'

‘What, Danny?'

‘I said, we could get off any time after next week. I must go to that dinner they're giving to old Lantry on Friday. After that I'm free.'

She was dumbfounded. She could not speak. The love that welled up in her whenever she saw Danny doing something characteristic, something that marked him off as unique among human beings, suffused her and came to her eyes in tears. One of his moments of divination, she perceived, had come to him now. He knew that she was really, seriously, painfully sick in her soul, and that for some reason this trip to New York was the only medicine that would cure her; and so in spite of what seemed to him the extreme unpleasantness of the enterprise, he had quietly yielded to her. All her manoeuvres with Doctor Paulton had been unnecessary. She was reminded of the first night she ever saw him, when she had tortuously plotted and planned to meet him, and he had simply walked over to her table with his friend. For some reason she felt abashed.

She dropped back on the pillows, and conveyed to Doctor Paulton that that was all she had wanted of him. She longed for him to go. Suddenly she felt equally disgusted with herself and with him. She was ashamed because she had proposed to make use of his prying quality for her own ends.

As soon as she and Danny were alone she said softly, brokenly: ‘We'll go on one of those boats with a good swimming-pool. Then it won't be so bad for you, will it?'

He answered mildly: ‘It won't be bad at all. I dare say I'll like it. I'll go down this morning and see about cabins.'

The way he was not asking her one question but was simply doing the thing she evidently needed, made her whisper to herself, ‘Oh, you darling! You darling!' But the next moment she stiffened with fear. If Danny's intuition had told him a part of the truth, wouldn't it tell him the whole? Wouldn't he know that she was a criminal who had planned his death? She slipped out of bed and ran into the bathroom with her face turned from him.

That dread transfixed Theo with horror again and again during the next few days. It came to her on the deck of the
Berengaria
when it was slowly riding into New York harbour like a great lady, letting the common little wenches of ferry-boats and tugs scuttle out of her way, towards sky-scrapers that stood in the October sunlight like clusters of lilies.

She hardly saw them, for the magician had come between her and all beauty. Her thoughts were intent on the jewel-case she carried in her hand. The diamond and emerald necklace alone ought to buy him off, but if that was not sufficient there was also the string of rubies. But she hoped she would not have to give them to him, for she had tried them on after she had taken them out of the bank, and had found they suited her; so she wanted Danny to see her wearing them.

When the people round her exclaimed at the sky-scrapers she looked at them blankly yet piercingly, considering them as a screen behind which lay Chinatown. It struck her suddenly that though Chinatown certainly existed there, the magician might not. He might have died. He might have gone away. In that case her diamonds and rubies would be worthless. She shuddered; and Danny slipped her hand into his and pressed it. She knew the same alternation of joy and panic. She had a magic-working man, he knew things that were hidden from all, she was frightened, therefore he knew she was frightened! Yes, one could have gloated over it till the end of time, had it not been for the thought that if his divination had torn the outer veils aside it might yet tear another, and see why she was frightened …

The double feeling came to her again that night. They were staying at the Vanderpool, and Danny's brother and his Southern wife came to dine with them. Theo might have been very happy. New York had lifted her up, as it always does the stranger, to that glorious stage just before drunkenness, when the mind seems standing transparent and sparkling in a happy world like an ice peak in a sunlit blue sea. Snuffing up the old atmosphere she said in the old slang, ‘Yes. New York's all right! It's a good act, it gets a good hand!' and sat back to enjoy herself.

It should have been all right, for Danny seemed very happy at seeing his brother, who was very like him, though of course without that special adorable quality; and the Southern girl was innocently thrilled at meeting anybody who had been so famous as Theodora Dene. They were all getting on tremendously well together, and making plans to go on expeditions together, when Danny coughed.

Then Theo remembered why she had come to New York. She smiled fixedly at the little wife's bloomy smile, and thought desperately: ‘When will I be able to get off for an hour or two by myself? They are making plans to go up the Hudson – to go to Westchester County – and so on – and so on. But oh, when will I get away by myself to save Danny?'

She had to take her eyes away from the face of the girl, who had never been desperate, whose husband did not cough. She looked down on her lap, and a kind of darkness came over her.

Through this private night came Danny's voice: ‘I'll come out with you tomorrow afternoon, but I don't think Theo ought to. She'd better rest in the afternoon, or at most crawl round looking up her old pals. She's been run down, you know. That's why we came on this trip.'

Again it came, that mixture of delight and fear. Only this time the fear was stronger, for as they exchanged smiles she saw that behind his smile lay misery, just as it lay behind hers. His divination was feeling after her guilt, like a grave hunting-dog dropping its muzzle to its scent, its ears going up as it realizes that here is danger. It would be just, it had been well-trained, it would destroy vermin …

But he trusted her. She stayed in bed all the next morning, saying that she had a headache. After luncheon he came in and sat by her for a little. The blinds were down, so that she could see only the kind, heavy stoop of him. He did not talk much, keeping up the pretence of her headache, but he took her hand in his. When the telephone rang and told him that George and Marie were waiting downstairs he bent over her and kissed her very tenderly.

‘Goodbye, my dear.'

‘Goodbye.'

He said mildly: ‘You'll be going out, I suppose.'

Her heart nearly burst, for she saw that he had said that to raise the occasion on to the plane of honesty, no matter what she might do. She answered gravely, ‘Yes.'

It was necessary that she should get up at once so that she should find the magician at the first possible moment. But because, just after Danny had closed the door and got into the passage, he had given a short dry cough, she was in such a state that her maid had to dress her. The resemblance of that to another period of her life sent her into a paroxysm of weeping; by her own evil nature she had performed the incredible feat of making the days when she had got Danny, which should have been gloriously happy, into the same Hades as the days when she had not got Danny.

She dressed and put into a bag that locked the diamond and emerald necklace, the rubies, her cheque-book, and also a pearl and sapphire brooch. She would give it to the magician if she had to, even though Danny knew it and might miss it and ask questions and know she lied in answer. She was going to save Danny.

Her nerves were so raw that the jolting of the taxi tortured her. She had forgotten that New York boasts the worst streets of any Western capital, and that it is slower to ride in its choked traffic than to walk. It seemed that forever she looked out of the window and saw the same pale people walking sluggishly on the broad pavements with the small mean shops behind them.

When the taxi stopped and she paid the fare she looked round and then turned back suspiciously to the driver. ‘Is this right?'

He was ruder than an English taxi-driver would have been, and kinder. ‘Sure! This is Chinatown. You paid me to bring you here, not to doll it up for you. Say, was you looking for somewhere else? This is where you said.'

It did not seem possible that this should be where she had come that night. The lower parts of the houses had that dark, dingy, greasy look, like gravy left in a plate after a graceless meal, that makes squalid New York as squalid as magnificent New York is magnificent. The upper pagoda parts were tawdry as stage scenery dragged out into the daylight. There were Chinese people about, but they looked rather ridiculous in ill-fitting American clothes. There was one little yellow man crossing the road now, who might have been the little man who had picked her up in front of the bill-board that night. As she looked at him he grimaced and a convulsion ran through him, so that he nearly pitched forward on his knees. She knew what that meant; she had seen a chorus-man do it once. It meant cheap, adulterated dope. This was a loathsome place, half a warren of mean vice, half a show got up for tourists. It was impossible that anything which happened here could possibly affect the stainless life that she lived with Danny.

It was in her mind to call the driver to wait and get back into his taxi, when the grimacing yellow man stumbled on the kerb and made as if to lurch against her. She wheeled round and backed against the taxi; and wilted as if she had seen a finger pointing at her in denunciation. For there was the green door. The taxi-driver had brought her to the right place.

She waved dismissal to the taxi-driver, who started up, saying cheerfully, ‘One time they bumped off a society dame in that chop-suey over there.'

There was of course a risk in coming here. But to save Danny she must go on.

The door, as on that night, opened at a touch. There seemed to be an unbelievable number of steps. She paused on each landing because her heart beat so. If the magician were dead or gone away there was nothing in the whole world she could do. Up the last flight she ran with her hands covering her face. When she was on the top landing she stayed so, rehearsing what she was going to say. ‘I came here six months ago and you laid a spell for me … I can give you money … Some money, not much .… Oh, I can't give you all that …' She would of course give all she had. She would go home and get some more things if he made her. But she did hope she would not have to give him those rubies. She wanted Danny to see her wearing those rubies.

And when she opened her eyes it was as she feared. The black door was swinging open and the wooden screen that was carved like a tree was off its hinges and propped up against the door-post. Somebody had begun to take down one of the embroidered panels, so that it hung away from a nail at its corner. The plank floor was bare. Plainly the place was being deserted. The magician was dead or gone away. There was nothing in the whole world she could do.

‘Oh, Danny, my Danny!' she moaned. ‘What shall I do?'

Desperately, not really expecting anyone to answer, she drummed with her knuckles on the open door. And the breath left her when from behind the panel that hung away there stepped a woman in a Chinese coat. That, indeed, meant little, for though she was white she was not the woman whom Theo had seen before, for she was old and rough-headed, and the coat was grubby. But still she might know.