Contact, and Other Stories

by Frances Noyes Hart

And suddenly March was over, and it was April, and there was the day when she took a new volume out of the brief case—so new that it still had its paper cover with large black letters announcing that it contained desirable information about Small Country Houses for Limited Incomes, Colonial Style. She read it with tremendous intensity and a look wavering between rapture and despair; once she sighed forlornly, and once she made a small, defiant face at some invisible adversary—and once she patted a picture lingeringly.

After she had gone, Benedick took his sister-in-law’s automobile, and drove out to Connecticut, and bought a house—a little old white house with many-paned windows, that sat on a hill with lilac bushes around it, and looked at the silver waters of the Sound. It was perfectly preposterous that she shouldn’t have a house if she wanted it, and he was glad that she wanted a small country house, Colonial style, even though it didn’t necessarily imply a moderate income. For the first time in his life he was glad that his income was not moderate. When he got back to town he bought a gray roadster—not too heavy, so that she could drive it. She might want to be in and out of town a lot; you never could tell.

He told his sister-in-law that he was going to raise Airedales, because it was impossible to buy a decent puppy these days, and he discoursed lucidly and affably about a highly respectable Scotch couple that he was going to get to look after the white house and supervise the Airedales. After that he devoted most of his leisure hours to antique shops and auctions, where he purchased any amount of Sheraton furniture and Lowestoft china and Bristol glass and hooked rugs and old English chintzes for the benefit of the Airedale puppies and the Scotch couple. He hadn’t as much time as formerly, because he had been growing steadily more uncomfortable at the thought of explaining to those gray eyes and gay lips the undeniable fact that he had twenty-four hours of leisure to dispose of every day of his life; so he had wandered over to the dark office one morning and remarked casually to the gray gentleman at the desk that he might blow in every now and then and see if there was anything around for him to do. It appeared that there was plenty around—so much that he took to blowing in at about nine and blowing out at about five—and he did it not so badly, though a good clerk might have done it better. He continued to spend a generous hour over lunch, however, proving a total loss to the firm for a considerable time after he returned, sometimes in such an abandoned mood that there was a flower in his buttonhole.

And then it was May, and the sapphire feather was gone, and she would come in through the brown door with flowers on her drooping hat and pale frocks tinted like flowers, cool and crisp as dresses in a dream. She still had the brief case, but it was absurd to think that a stenographer would wear such hats; anything so ravishing would cost a year’s salary. When he wasn’t too busy watching the way her hair rippled back, showing just the tips of her ears, he would wonder whether she were a great heiress with an aversion to jewellery or a successful novelist who had to choose between pearls and Raoul’s. He had never seen even the smallest glint of jewels about her; never a gleam of beads at her throat or a brooch at her waist or a ring on her fingers—sometimes he thought that it would be pleasant to slip a long string of pearls about her neck and a band of frosted diamonds about her wrist, to see her eyes widen at their whiteness. Still, this way she was dearer, with flowers for her jewels—better leave the pearls alone—pearls were for tears.

It was incredible how radiant she looked those days; when she came through the door with her flying step and her flying smile the very kitten would purr at the sight of her; her eyes said that the secret that they knew was more delightful and amusing than ever, and her hands were always full of flowers.

And then there was the day that she came in looking so exultant that she frightened him; it wasn’t fair that she should look so happy when she didn’t know about the house on the hill, or the gray roadster, or the lucky person who was going to give them to her—it wasn’t fair and it was rather terrifying. Perhaps it would be better not to wait any longer to tell her about them; she couldn’t be disdainful and unkind through all that happiness. Of course he would lead up to it skilfully. He wasn’t a blundering schoolboy; he was a man of the world, rather more than sophisticated, with all his wits about him and a light touch. He would catch her eye and smile, deferential and whimsical, and try some casual opening—“Our friend the kitten” or “good old Jules slower than usual—spring turns the best of us to idlers!” and the rest would follow as the night the day—or better still, as the day the night. It mightn’t be a bad idea to upset something—his wine glass, for instance; he raised a reckless hand, with a swift glance at the next table—and then he dropped it. She was reading a letter, an incredibly long letter, page after page of someone’s office paper covered with thick black words that marched triumphantly across the sheets, and her face was flooded with such eloquent light that he jerked back his head swiftly, as though he had been reading over her shoulder. He could not speak to her with that light on her face; he sat watching her read it through twice, feeling cold and sick and lonely. He was afraid—he was afraid—he would speak to her to-morrow——

To-morrow came, and with it his lady in a green muslin frock, and a shadowy hat wreathed with lilacs; he noted with a slow breath of relief that she had no brief case, no book, no letters. His coast was clear then at least; this day she had no better comrade to share her table—he would go to her, and ask her to understand. He had risen to his feet before he saw that she had not taken off her hat; she was sitting with her head a little bent, as though she was looking at something on the table, her face shadowed by the drooping hat, her hands clasped before her—and then Benedick saw what she was looking at. There was a ring on her finger, a small, trivial, inconsequential diamond, sparkling in its little golden claw like a frivolous dewdrop; and suddenly she bent her head, and kissed it. He sat down, slowly and stiffly—he felt old. He did not even see her go; it was Jules’ voice that made him lift his head.

“Ah, le printemps, le printemps! V’là la jolie demoiselle qui s’est fiancée.”

“Yes,” said Benedick. “Spring—in spring it is agreeable to have a fiancé.”

“Monsieur, perhaps, knows who she is?”