The Theoretical Foot (18 page)

v

Sunlight flickered through the leaves of the twisted old fruit trees that bent over the tables at the end of the terrace as if benevolently. The sound of voices was soft as the people sitting there talked vaguely, easily, after their lunch. The little fountain murmured and chuckled. Below, upon the white lake a whiter paddleboat churned almost gaily toward Chillon.

Daniel tipped back his head sleepily and let the last warming swallow of beer in his glass pour down his throat. He opened his eyes wider than they had been for several minutes looking about. What was everyone doing? By God, he had almost fallen asleep!

Little Susan lay curled up on the deck chair, one hand reached out automatically toward the dark somnolent bulk of Joe Kelly, and she looked sleepy too. Daniel wished she would stop sniffling. She was cute, though, with the hayfever or whatever it was she had. Her eyes were as big as a puzzled kitten's. She was terribly polite, in a solemn drunken way.

He wished Lucy would stop talking. She was a boring old bag. What did Nan see in her to bring her over here as her apparently chosen friend. Was it charity? Women were queer. Honor said that Lucy was a good foil for Nan, that this was probably the long and short of it.

Daniel smirked slightly as he looked at the two mismatched women sitting side-by-side across from him. Nan lay easily in the deck chair that made her seem smaller and more exquisite than she was. Her yellow dress curved roundly over her girlish breasts; her
hair was a golden cloud. One hand, as relaxed and delicate as a skeleton of some sea bird, lifted a cigarette dreamily to her mouth then fell away again, while beside her Lucy smoked nervously.

Daniel looked at Lucy with impatient dislike, noting with the impervious cruelty of a very young man her fat strong fingers with their bitten nails, the brownish spots across the backs of her hands and wrists. He saw with disgust her shapeless mouth awkwardly smeared with lipstick, the monstrous tangle of her dank wadded-up hair. He speculated coldly on the probable shape of her large body without all the braces of whalebone and cloth. She undoubtedly had a strong smell, he'd already decided.

She and Nan Garton were the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of womanhood. He recognized an apt criticism when he saw it and felt pleased with himself.

Honor would appreciate this if he felt like telling her. Honor hated Lucy Pendleton, he knew, though she had never said anything cruel about the old woman. Instead, the few times they had just spoken of her, Honor had been kindly and had smiled in that remote way that women can, smiling
meaningfully.
Why the hell couldn't women just say what they thought? he wondered.

Honor looked at him suddenly, as intently as if she'd heard him thinking. She held a crust of bread in one hand and lay back looking . . . No, she was not looking at him at all but at something in the apple boughs above him. He stretched one foot out in order to gently nudge her chair. Her brown eyes dropped their gaze—how large and somber they were. She stared unsmilingly at him for a strange moment and bit into her bread, looking displeased as if she loathed the taste of it.

Honor was a queer one. What she needed was some fun, he decided. When they got back to America, he'd try to take her out dancing occasionally if he wasn't too booked up during Christmas vacation and show her a good time. Or did she have a good time without him, with men he had never met? He felt a little ashamed of himself—why should Daniel feel patronizing toward Honor when he knew so little about her?

But then what did he know about anyone? He sighed and picked up his empty glass aimlessly and was suddenly filled with depression. What was the use of thinking about them, when they were all of them so secret? Was he a secret to them as well? He hoped so, and yet at the same time he felt almost unbearably lonesome. Through his head floated a tune that had been lurking there ever since his morning dreams. Now it was clear and strong and he knew it was Sibelius's “Valse Triste.” It was corny, all right, but it haunted him now as it had done ever since he first heard it weeks before in a little record shop in Paris.

The song crept through his dreams with its sad and haunting rhythm so that nothing could clear it away. Playing it on the gramophone only made it worse and made him long intolerably to say things he could and should never say. It pressed him toward madness and made him feel Nan in his arms very close to his heart.

Daniel looked at her, suddenly sure that she, too, would be looking at him, but she was smiling at Timothy. Daniel shrugged his shoulders and shook his head to free it of the dangling melody that tricked him.

He watched Timothy smile back at his sister and then when the older man turned and looked solemnly at him he felt quite jolly all of a sudden and young again. To hell with feeling sad, Daniel thought. Women complicate things. Men, real men like Tim, are the answer.

Daniel looked back at his friend nonchalantly with his heart full of gratitude and affection. Tim Garton was a
real man,
that was it. That was why Tim was probably the most important person in the world for Daniel, as important as love and duty and so on, much more important even than romantic love and so much more important than . . .

Daniel sat up, startled. What was it he almost said? Was Timothy more important than Sara? Sara? Why, he'd known her since being born! She taught him how to walk and talk and speak. He got away from her, had pushed himself away from her, freed himself from being her little brother by a thousand acts of deliberate
maturity. Why should it startle him now to find himself thinking of someone more important than she was when he had proved to himself for years now that she was unimportant? He could get along without her. Then why did he compare everything to her? Even after all these years? Why should his mind drag her into relevant things like his liking for Tim Garton? Damn Sara! Why couldn't she leave him alone?

Daniel looked at her, his face blank over his seething resentment, and was furious to see Sara's blank face looking back at him, mirrorlike. Then he grew even more furious to recognize the stab of almost womanly concern that surged in him, to notice once again the new thin line of her cheek, and the strange set to her mouth. Was she too tired with all of them living there with her and Tim? Was she pushing herself to work too hard to make things smooth and comfortable for all of them and to keep them peaceful and well fed? Why did she drive herself so? Was she some kind of martyr?

He looked anxiously at her, now full of worry. This summer had grown tighter as time passed with only occasional hours of laziness and gaiety such as last night, after Nan and her strange friend had gone upstairs. Then Sara had been like the girl he remembered from childhood but even more fun, full of laughing foolish talk and sudden exciting flashes of dark wisdom. Daniel had felt happy sitting there beside the cold fire in the night, with his brandy, and Honor a little tight in the big chair and Tim sitting beside Sara on the floor with his white head shining. Daniel felt it was fine to grow up and find that your sister was a real person instead of a conscientious nursemaid. And now she was gone again, turned back into a remote efficient woman who could make him feel uncomfortable and ill at ease with one look, could flatter him with glib subtlety and make him a fool altogether. Why did she hide? Was it his fault? Was it just that she was tired? Why didn't she stop worrying him?

Daniel pulled himself slowly to his feet and took the empty glass from Tim's hand. Lucy was bustling toward the kitchen pretending to be gay, lilting like a Salvation Army lassie. Perhaps she
was getting on Sara's nerves? Dan followed Lucy with beer bottles in his fingers and went down into the cellar.

It was cold and quiet down there. He stood for a few moments looking intently at the green glass wine bottles lying on their sides.

“Hold, men, hold,” he hummed thoughtlessly:

“We are very cold.

Inside and outside

We are very cold . . .”

He stuck the fingers and thumb of one hand into five little glasses left from the drink before lunch with Tim and Honor and the new people and finished the old song more loudly:

       
“If you don't give a silver,

       
Then give us gold!

       
Hold men . . .

       
Hold!”

“Damn right,” Daniel said. “Damn right! That's the way!”

He walked upstairs carefully holding the fragile glasses before him like five thimbles and put them gently on the sideboard.

Honor looked at him impersonally and raised one eyebrow at Lucy Pendleton's broad soft back and Daniel nodded slightly. The old bag
was
a bore with her lilting chitter chatter chatter. Tomorrow would be his turn with lunch dishes, oh,
fabulous
day!

He was permitting himself one full look at Lucy as he strode toward the steps into the living room. Her eyes—wide, pale, blue, the strangest size he'd ever seen—now looked straight into his but she did not see him. Was she thinking of a fine phrase or of her demon lover?

Daniel shivered—what was he, a ghost? That everyone looked through him today? Were all of them ghosts?

vi

When the dishes were wiped and put away, Honor went gratefully to her room. Lucy Pendleton, poor Lucy, trying so hard to be young and to have fun . . . Lucy? She always made Honor feel tired out with pity and with her having to pay attention to the woman's foolish gabble. Why did people have to talk?

The little bedroom was fresh and beautifully empty. François had managed, somewhere between Honor's late rising and his noontime leap up to the village to shop, to leave it tidy. She grinned thinking of his discreetly agonizing description to her, one morning, of trying to clean poor Lucy's room with her in it.

“At least I get out,” Honor had said to him bluntly.

François reared back, flushing, then covered his embarrassment with several coughs and a murmur, “But naturally, Mademoiselle is always most thoughtful.”

He then flipped his duster, moved a vase, and plumped three pillows in the silent living room, before coming close to her and hissing, “Mademoiselle understands, of course, that I understand artists. I know that they must not be disturbed. I wait for Madame Pendleton to emerge from her chamber. She does not. I knock politely. I behold her in the middle of her room on her small stool, which appears somewhat
too
small. Around her are all the
accouterments
of the true artist . . . several pads of different-sized paper, boxes of paints, an easel, of course, palette, water bottle in spite of the immediate neighborhood of the washbasin on its stand, and
naturally many vases and pots and jugs holding the various models that we collect for Madame. She looks up. I bow, indicating without speech my brushes and dusters. She speaks to me in a flood of what I know to be either German or Italian, perhaps both . . .”

At this point François had stolen one glance at Honor's face, then permitted himself a single cackle as he lowered his eyes.

“And then?” Honor asked it unwillingly, hating to encourage this malicious old auntie, but not being able to keep herself from being swept along by his relish of the description.

He sighed and shrugged. “Then? Then? After much hesitation—I do not like to interrupt the creation of even a minor masterpiece—I enter. Then, Mademoiselle, François cleans the chamber of Madame Pendleton as if it were his own mother's, in a thousand small dabs and darts, lifting first this pot of wilted begonias, then that vase of dead bluebells, dusting off the feet of the artist herself. François hesitates. After all he asked himself, should he disturb these living objects? And if so should he attempt to do so in French? Or in any of the other tongues that Madame seems to prefer? Should he say . . .?”

And here François had ducked his head and sidled bustling from the room before the abrupt entrance of Sara. Honor burst out laughing and Sara, surprised at first, smiled as she seemed to comprehend the noise of dishes and spoons swelling from the kitchen like a cloud.

“Poor fellow,” she murmured, picking up a duster from under the chair. “It is really harrowing to be surrounded by such sensitive plants as he! My God, how he suffers! How he broods.”

Honor felt full of love remembering the warm funny way Sara spoke. Sara was
good.
How could she ever wish to leave her?

At the thought of quitting La Prairie, putting behind her the summer days and the sweet irksome company of her sister, the girl's heart sank and her stomach heaved a little with alarm. How could she want to escape all this comfort and all this beauty? School would be the same, with the infuriating red tape of registration for classes, and the rushing and fatigue and the
heartbreaks, and the classes and leaves falling everywhere, and she would never see Jacob again. And now she knew she needed to pretend to be sophisticated.

She often thought of getting a job, but the barrier of her parents' amused disapproval was too much for her. Besides, what was she trying to do?

Oh, Jake! she called desperately. Jake! Why did we fall in love? Why did I have to love a small, thin, tortured man such as you instead of some proper stockbroker, the smooth young elegant handsome nitwit, who would bore my family but let them not worry about my bread and my bridge debts? Damn, damn,
damn
!

She stood by the window where the long white curtains hung motionless lazily wondering what to do with herself until teatime.

I'll write to Jacob, Honor decided. I said I wouldn't but if I don't I may go nutty or some such thing. He'll never get the letter so what harm will this do? I'll write him a really nice pleasant friendly letter, so that if he ever did get it by chance he wouldn't be upset and think I was neurotic or being a nymphomaniac or anything. Dear Jacob . . . my dear Jake . . .

Or I might start a short story instead. I might write about a tall sensitive girl with brown eyes and a bitter mouth. That would be something new. I could tell all about her intimate life and dreams. That would be new.

Where is Timothy? He understands that I have to get rid of Sara. He knows without my telling him more than I know myself, I think. If I don't get rid of all my old fears and sessions with Sara I can never
be.
The way I am now is not being. I am in a static state, static or stillborn, but where is Timothy?

She went into a little dressing room and took off all her clothes and stood looking at the white heap of them on the dark green floor. Finally she picked them up one by one with her toes, enjoying as she did the scarlet flash of her painted toenails. Then she rubbed her body with the rough mitt damp with cologne water and put on some lipstick. Finally she drank a large glass of water, put on a white burnoose, and lay herself down slowly on the bed.

Several pages of
Les faux-monnayeurs
meant nothing to her.

She started to get dressed. She needed to get in her walk up the hill with Nan and Lucy Pendleton but realized now how passionately she could not do it, could not possibly bear to listen to Lucy chattering without feeling her face growing stiff, wondering again disgustedly why Nan had linked herself to such a bore. No, it was impossible. Nan would go in a little while to poor Lucy's room and tell her that she had a bone in her leg or some-such antique nonsense, some 1890 quaintness that would make Lucy feel they were girls together, females who spoke the same intimate tongue. Honor hated to be female like that and exchange hints about monthly periods and so on. She would maybe take a shower—a long one—then go to Lucy's room and tell her she wasn't going. I might go a little early and tell her some more lies about high times in the sorority house . . . I suppose I should be ashamed of myself but she does love these stories and I do feel so damn sorry for her. If I thought I'd be like that at her age, so lonely and dull, I'd kill myself right now. Nan isn't that way. My parents aren't. The trouble with Lucy is that she seems to be hungry always and is so stupid that she cannot satisfy herself. God, will I ever be like that? This noon she gobbled with her crooked little finger held out to look elegant and then she sneaked food when we were supposed not to see. And I knew that it's not only food that she starved for . . .

Is Sara like that, in her own complex way? Is she trying to feed her own spirit on my devotion to her? Or does she even know that I'm devoted? I am. I love her more than anyone in the world probably.

But where is Tim?

There was a tap on the door. She knew that it was he, and she whispered, “Yes?”

He stood smiling down at her.

“May I sit for a while, Honor? Sara and I've been counting laundry and I'm dizzy.

“It's queer,” he went on. “Laundry always stinks even with the most clean of people.”

And with that Tim slipped to the floor beside her bed and sighed gratefully. Honor reached out her hand for a cigarette as he lit one and smiled back at him. She loved to see him there, so compact and real looking. It made her feel good.

For a few minutes they smoked and said nothing. The little fountain splashed beneath the window. A hornet thrust itself three or four times furiously against the white curtains. Finally Honor said, “Tim, I've been thinking as much as I'm capable of and I feel all mixed up, you know?”

He looked at her impassively. His eyes became warm and turned brilliantly blue. She felt he was so terribly sorry for her but there was no such thing as patronage in his whole soul.

“Yes. You seem to be. Maybe it's because you're in a foreign country and have been in love and are generally a little uprooted.”

Honor rolled about almost peevishly on the bed as if she were a child.

“But I feel so
pointless
,” she said with despair in her soft voice and in her hot brown eyes. “Why is it, Timothy? I'm young and good-looking and pretty intelligent most of the time. And I am simply consumed with boredom, boredom with my own self, and the life I've lead, and the time I waste, and sometimes I think it's Sara's fault.”

“Well, I don't say you nay, do I?”

She laughed. “No. It's simply such a crazy idea that I almost contradict myself.”

“It seems fairly plain. When you were young and didn't dare think for yourself, you depended upon Sara and . . .”

“Yes, for so many years I believed that what Sara did was the best, and what she said was the wittiest and the wisest, and what she wore was the most handsome. And now, damn it, I still do! Even when I fight against it, I think, would Sara wear this dress? Would Sara have said such a dull thing? And so on. It is hell.”

“You're wrong, though, Nor, to let yourself be boring because of her influence. Of course I'm prejudiced . . . But if anything you should be even more interesting.”

“But she spoiled everyone
else
for me, Tim!” She laughed. “No fooling, though most people seem stupid and gauche because of her. God knows I try to get away from her influence and be myself, even to the point of deliberately wearing clothes and doing things that she would absolutely sneer at, like . . . well, wearing high-heel shoes as I did this morning with slacks.”

Timothy chuckled. “Anticlimax department. But I do see what you mean. But, Honor,” and he hitched himself closer to her bed and put his hand, small and strong, over one of her long honey-colored ones, “I think you're confusing what Sara was when you were a little girl, and what
you
were, with what you both are now. You're still trying to be a child, with her, and make her what she was years ago. You must never confuse your love. You must love straight. I know you love Sara, but you're confused. You must kill that bad love, do away with it, cut it out as if it were diseased. This will maybe hurt you and always you'll hurt a little, but you will be stronger, Honor. You're letting false love poison you and turn into hatred that's dangerous for your whole life. This Sara you used to love is long gone but you—now a mature and intelligent woman—have let the old mildewed ghost of her haunt all your actions and thoughts, in part so you can blame anything you dislike about yourself on her. And you can't really love the Sara of today or yourself or anyone else in the world until you get rid of that ghost. You must kill it. You must kill what you love best, if your love for it is crooked and unhealthy.”

Honor heard him sigh. “It's simply necessary. And even then,” he went on in a minute, “you are never free.”

It did not seem at all strange, she thought wonderingly, to have Tim speaking to her in this way. She knew that if anyone else had done it, even Jacob, she would've turned the things he said into a joke, and changed the whole color deliberately, frightened and startled by truth. But today in the small airy bedroom, she lay quietly accepting what she knew she must hear.

She looked at Tim sitting on the floor beside the bed. His eyes were almost closed and his head was thrown back so he appeared more than ever like a fine delicately boned goat. I hope he doesn't
try to make it all easy, she thought passionately, or say anything about preaching sermons or anything like that.

“It's like my kitten,” he went on as softly as if he were talking to himself. “When Sara went away once I got a kitten named Bazaine. Before she left, Bazaine was just a kitten, warm and capricious and sweet. But I grew very lonely and gradually Bazaine became the only important thing in my life. I dreamed of that little cat and I was happy only when it was close to me or crouched by my chair. The more intently I loved it the more it began to be like Sara in my mind and heart, so that my longing to have her come back was changed into a strange unhealthy obsession with my kitten that was without passion but all absorbing. Though I could hardly remember what Sara looked like, I saw her in the flat pointed face of the kitten and heard her voice in its little calls and murmurs.

“Then the cat grew sick and coughed and made pitiful messes everywhere. I told François to buy some chloroform and he said the kitten would get better. The next day was Sunday and I told him not to come down from the village. I wanted to have Bazaine alone.

“All day Sunday he lay in my arms. When I put him down for a moment or two he would lift one paw and touch my face. He smelled. Sometimes he tried to clean himself but he was too weak. I gave him warm milk with brandy but that made him sicker.