Chiffon Scarf (3 page)

If they had been rivals, then they were so no longer because Averill had won. Had far outdistanced her. Lucky Averill.

Smart Averill, she thought finally—splashing milk-white froth in the enormous tub.

But what a long and extraordinarily exact memory she had!

Slipping the soft folds of green over her shoulders and surveying herself in the long mirror, she found herself curiously pleased because she had taken pains in selecting the gown; there is a certain subtlety in cut and fit and line of a really good gown; it shows off its wearer as the setting of a jewel adroitly flatters the stone it holds.

Celeste, helping her, adjusted the girdle with its long floating ribbon of silver and of violet. She set out silver slippers; she touched and patted Eden’s hair. She was silent, unobtrusive, helpful. Eden couldn’t remember when she had last been assisted in dressing by a trained and skillful maid. Lucky Averill.

In the corridor outside her door she met Creda.

“Darling!” said Creda. “How wonderful! But, my dear, you look simply stunning! From what Averill has said I expected you to be quite worn down and aged by the business world! What a perfect gown! You must be terribly prosperous! My dear, you’re so marvelously slim!”

After that, “Hello, Creda,” seemed inadequate.

“You’re looking very stunning yourself, Creda,” said Eden. “But then you always do.”

Which was true enough. Creda’s long lashes dropped over her brown eyes—pansy eyes, soft and warm. She was so very pretty and so very conscious of it that it was curiously obtrusive; it came between you and Creda. She had light blonde hair; she had the most doll-like, round and dimpled face; she had a small, rosebud mouth—she had delicate, fat little hands which fluttered quite a lot; she wore girlish clothes. Inevitably there came a time when one looked at Creda and realized with a kind of jolt that she wasn’t a girl in her teens, she was a matured and, perhaps, an extremely selfish woman. For her round, girlish face could suddenly grow a little fixed and hard and her eyes could gleam rather shrewdly from those soft, long eyelashes. She weighed at least thirty pounds more than a girl in her teens would be likely to weigh.

She was, however, very much younger than Bill Blaine; Eden knew that. And so far as Eden knew, their marriage which had lasted now for five or six years, had been a reasonably happy one.

Creda was, that night, very youthful in a ruffled marquisette, black over white with a demure little-girl collar, and Creda’s entire, plump white back was visible through the fine black mesh. She slipped her arm through Eden’s and began to talk. Creda’s incessant talk, too, was deceiving; it seemed like the frankest, most indiscreet babble—and never told you anything unless Creda wanted you to know it.

Tonight it was sheer babble.

The wedding was going to be simply lovely. It was grand of Eden to come; Averill so loved having her. Averill had always adored Eden—in spite of their differences. Eden would adore Averill’s young man. He was too marvelous. He adored Averill. In short, thought Eden rather tersely, everybody adored everybody else and wasn’t everything just too ducky.

The others were having cocktails on the terrace just outside the library. Creda fluttered across the room toward the open french windows, beyond which were brightly cushioned chairs and the murmur of voices and the soft clatter of glasses and ice in a cocktail shaker. Eden followed.

Averill was talking vivaciously, a cigarette in her hand Bill was dispensing cocktails; Noel sprang toward Eden and Creda as they came out the french windows; he was smiling his eyes like blue stars under his peaked black eyebrows; he was impeccably tailored and triumphantly handsome.

He took Eden’s hand and tucked it under one arm and put Creda’s fat little hand on his other arm.

Where—oddly, suddenly, it clenched. As if Creda had tripped and clutched at his arm to save herself from falling

But she hadn’t tripped. She hadn’t indeed taken a step and was standing perfectly still.

Eden happened to see that. Then Noel said:

“May I present Major Pace?”

Major Pace was short, fat and curiously buoyant; he was half bald, with knowing, heavy-lidded eyes set in a swarthy face. He bowed and Eden put out her hand briefly. Then he moved to Creda and the little, white fat hand on Noel’s dark sleeve slowly unclinched itself, withdrew from Noel’s arm and was placed in Major Pace’s thick-fingered, dark hand.

“How do you do,” said Creda.

They’ve met somewhere before, thought Eden unexpectedly. And then Noel said:

“And this, Eden darling, is Jim.”

She looked up. Into a brown face, straight and, somehow, soldierly. That was her first fleeting impression. Then Jim’s eyes caught her own and held them. Neither spoke.

Perhaps three seconds passed. It seemed much longer, for in those three seconds something came to life that was never to be stifled, some boundary was crossed that could never be recrossed, some secret was discovered and could never be undiscovered again.

“Well—” said Noel.

As if it came from a great distance Eden heard Noel’s voice, roused and slowly put her hand toward Jim. He took it as slowly.

“So—you’re Eden.”

“Haven’t we—” began Eden. He finished it for her.

“Haven’t we met before? No—I should have remembered.”

A little ring of stillness encompassed them. There were voices, there was laughter and movement all about but it was outside that invulnerable, encompassing ring.

Not quite invulnerable. For Eden was finally aware that Averill had approached them.

“You’re to take Eden in to dinner, Jim. I want you two to know each other.”

Eden sought for words and found none. Averill turned to reply to something someone else said; everyone was talking. Quite suddenly the isolation, the enfolding ring of stillness, deeply shared, was gone but it left a poignant memory that was almost like a shock except it was so sweet.

Someone in Eden’s clothes, wearing her face, answering to her name, smiled, spoke, drank a champagne cocktail that was put in her hand. Afterwards Eden told herself it was the cocktail and the champagne.

But when they went into dinner and she brushed momentarily against Jim’s arm—when they sat at the candlelighted, lace-draped table with the great pool of crimson roses in the middle of it, and her hand accidentally touched Jim’s, when they turned and again looked almost searchingly into each other’s eyes—she felt actually drunk. So the light pressure of arm against arm, the actually fleeting brush of his hand against her own lasted for moments afterward.

Her heart was confused, tremulous in its beating. Little waves of the maddest exultation ran along her pulses.

Something indescribable had happened to her; it had happened instantly, without warning. The roses were redder; their perfume sweeter. The flames of the candles, the soft talk and laughter, the warm summer night—all of it had all at once a sharp, deep significance that was mysterious. But it was deeply provocative, too, as if she were on the threshold of a new, terribly exciting world.

“I’m drunk,” she thought. “It’s the champagne. It’s—”

And Jim turned to her and spoke.

“You came,” he said slowly, “for the wedding. That’s why you came—” He stopped, as if only then aware that he was speaking.

But that was right of course; he was to marry Averill. On Friday.

Averill. Who had won when it was important.

Besides there was Noel and her own deliberate, thought-out decision to marry Noel if he could be induced to ask her.

D
INNER MUST HAVE TAKEN
its prescribed, leisurely course; Eden must have moved, eaten, replied when spoken to. Averill, Noel and Major Pace did most of the talking. Bill, as always, drank more than he talked, listened blandly, smiled good-naturedly at everything and offered no opinions that were not of the most general nature. Noel was charming with Creda who sat at one side of him; Averill was adroit with Major Pace who was suave, polished and urbane—unexpectedly graceful in conversation.

Creda, who usually talked a great deal, said almost nothing and was nervous; she avoided Pace’s eyes, yet once Eden saw her watching him with almost deadly seriousness from behind her deceptively demure eyelashes.

And Jim, after that one checked remark, said almost literally nothing.

She wouldn’t look at Jim. She wouldn’t even let herself look at his hand—brown, lean, with strength and perception in its wiry slenderness—which lay on the lace cloth beside hers for a moment. Wouldn’t look at it because when she did she so desperately wanted to touch it. To feel it turn so her own hand could nestle within it.

It was a mad thought—as the night was mad. She forced herself to listen to the talk, and they were speaking of the flight the next day.

“I’m going up, you know,” said Averill to Major Pace.

His smile complimented her; his eyes remained cold and disapproving.

“Jim took her up when she was first set up in the plane—” began Bill when Averill interrupted.

“The feminine pronoun here refers always and exclusively to the engine,” she said to Major Pace.

Bill went on: “Jim and one of the mechanics took the engine up for the first time. Now it’s my turn and Averill’s.”

“You liked the engine’s behavior in the air?” inquired Major Pace.

“She’s a honey,” said Noel. “When you see her actually perform, Major, you’re going to be even keener than you are now.”

Again there was a cold, remote look in Pace’s dark eyes.

“I must see the engine perform, naturally,” he said.

Averill glanced once at Noel.

“Naturally,” she said to Pace. “Shall you be in America long, Major? Or ought I ask?”

Pace smiled.

“One never knows,” he said.

Averill, refusing to be rebuffed, accepted it smilingly.

“We’ll have coffee on the terrace,” she said and rose. The men did not linger over the table but strolled with Averill and Eden and Creda along the wide wall, across the shadowy library and again onto the terrace. It was by that time a soft, deep twilight. Cocktail glasses had been removed and the butler brought a tray with coffee and another with liqueurs. There were cigarettes and deep-cushioned chairs and soft fragrances from the garden below.

But all at once it was not tranquil.

For Noel almost immediately went into the library and returned with a roll of blueprints.

Eden sought a deep armchair a little at one side. She must talk; she must behave as if nothing had happened; later she could define the wave of emotion that had caught her—if she had to; conquer it as she must. But just now she must be sure that no one guessed.

She was thankful for the immediate interest of all those others when Bill Blaine cleared a place on a long, glass-topped table with a sweep of his big hands and Noel spread out the roll of blueprints, holding them flat with his hands.

For instantly there was a kind of taut little motion among them as if an invisible thread attached to each had given a little jerk and pulled them all upright and alert.

Major Pace walked over to stand beside Noel; he looked curiously strong—almost threatening, standing there with his thick pudgy hands spread out upon the blueprints.

“We’ll need these, Mr. Carreaux. If the trial flight is satisfactory.”

“It will be,” said Noel. “I can assure you of that.”

“I hope so.”

“There’s no doubt of it,” said Bill Blaine. He was lounging back in a cushioned chair, his shirt front bulging, his face a little red, the stem of the tiny glass he held looking absurdly fragile in his great hand.

“Tell him, Jim, what a superb performance the engine gave us.”

“You tell him,” said Jim shortly.

Bill Blaine glanced sharply at him, frowned and sat up. “Now look here, Jim, you needn’t act like that. If you don’t want to sell the engine, we won’t sell it. We’ve told you that any number of times.”

“The engine is yours to sell,” said Jim briefly.

There was a little silence. Pace, thick and stolid with his fat hands spread upon the blueprints, did not move and was taking in not only every word, Eden suddenly felt sure, but every nuance of meaning that lay behind words.

Averill turned like a slender, sleek column in white to look thoughtfully at Jim—thoughtfully and a little angrily. Eden knew what that small tightening of her mouth meant. Creda put her liqueur glass to her lips and set it down again with a small clatter.

Then Bill heaved himself out of the deep chair, went to Jim and put his great hand on Jim’s shoulder.

“Now look here, my boy,” he said bluffly. “We own the engine legally, that’s true. But you’ve made it; we all realize that. And no matter how definitely it seemed to us to be to our mutual advantage to sell it to Major Pace—we won’t do it if you don’t want us to. You must believe that.”

“You know exactly how I feel, Bill. I’m afraid I can’t change.”

Major Pace removed his hands from the blueprints and they rolled together with a soft little whisper.

“You understand, Mr. Carreaux,” he said to Noel, “I’ve made my best offer. I am not, as you know confidentially, acting for myself. I can’t go a penny higher than the price I’ve been empowered to offer and my offer is, of course, contingent upon the success of the flight tomorrow.”

“I understand that, Major,” said Noel in a placative way.

“Then may I ask Mr. Cady’s objections to selling?” said Pace.

Averill made a little motion with her hands as if to stop Jim but he replied promptly:

“Certainly, Major Pace. It’s simply that I hoped to manufacture the engine ourselves. Here in our own plant.”

“That means then that your market would be limited.”

“Jim—” began Noel uneasily but Jim said:

“Limited to what?”

“Why, to American firms, of course,” said Major Pace.

“Naturally,” said Jim Cady after a pause.

“Oh. Then your real reason for objecting is not that you object to selling your product but that you object to selling to my country?”

“Just what is your country, Major Pace?” said Jim quietly.

“Jim, that’s not fair,” said Noel quickly. And Bill Blaine said as quickly: