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Book 1Seven
It was settled that, for the present, Lucy should go to the studio every day when Sebastian was in town. In the morning she awoke with such lightness of heart that it seemed to her she had been drifting on a golden cloud all night. After she had lain still for a few moments to feel the physical pleasure of coming up out of sleep, she would run down a cold hallway and take her bath before the other occupants on her floor were stirring. When she entered the bakery downstairs, the savour of coffee was delightful to her. Mrs. Schneff served the early comers herself, in a blue gingham dress and a white apron. She asked Lucy "how come" she ate more breakfast now than she used to. Lucy laughed and told her she was making more money now. "Dat is goot," said the plump bakeress approvingly.
After breakfast Lucy went upstairs and put her room in order. She could never make her bed look so high and smooth as Giuseppe`s, but that was because she had no box-springs, or blankets soft as fur.
The weather was miraculous, for January. She always started very early for Michigan Avenue, and had an hour or so to walk along the Lake front before she went into the Arts Building. There was very little ice in the water that January, and the blue floor of the Lake, wrinkled with gold, seemed to be the day itself, stretching before her unspent and beautiful. As she walked along, holding her muff against her cheek on the wind side, it was hard to believe there was anything in the world she could not have if she wanted it. The sharp air that blew off the water brought up all the fire of life in her; it was like drinking fire. She had to turn her back to it to catch her breath.
At ten o`clock she went into the studio and brought the freshness of the morning weather to a man who rose late and did not go abroad until noon. She warmed her hands at the coal grate while he finished his cigarette. If Sebastian had been slow in dressing, Giuseppe answered her knock, his dust-cloth on his arm, and hung up her coat, telling her that the maestro would be out subito, subito. He called her Signorina Lucia. After she and Sebastian set to work, Giuseppe went in to do the bedroom, leaving the door open a little so that he could listen.
One morning when Sebastian finished singing "It is enough . . . I am not better than my fathers," Lucy turned impulsively on her stool to look at him. She never allowed herself to make any comment (she knew he wouldn`t like it), but often she had to make some bodily movement to break the tension. There in the doorway of the sleeping-chamber stood Giuseppe, his red hands crossed over his stomach, his head inclined, his sharp face and quick little eyes melted into repose and gravity. He caught up the laundry bag from behind the door, and pausing just a moment on the ball of his foot, looked Sebastian straight in the eye. "Ecco una cosa molto bella!" he brought out in a husky voice, before he vanished through the entry hall.
Lucy found she clung to Giuseppe as if he were a protector among things that were new and strange. Several times she met him in the street, going on errands in a grey overcoat much too long for him and a hard felt hat. Or seeing her he would snatch off his hat, and his face, his whole body, indeed, would express astonishment and delight, as if it were wonderful, almost supernatural, that they should encounter one another thus.
Her acquaintance with Giuseppe progressed rapidly, but with Sebastian she seemed to get little further than on the first day. He kept well behind his courteous, half-playful, and rather professional manner,--a manner so perfected that it could go on representing him when he himself was either lethargic or altogether absent. His amiability puzzled Lucy, and rather discouraged her.
When she used to see Sebastian by chance occasionally, on the street or in the Park, his face seemed to her forbidding. Sometimes she thought it stern and indifferent, but more than once it had struck her as melancholy. In the studio there was none of that. He met her with a smile, and throughout the morning was friendly and affable. Yet she went away feeling that the other man, whom she used to see secretly, was his real self.
Trivial, accidental things gradually broke down his reserve. Once, as she was coming down the Lake side of Michigan Avenue, just before she crossed to the Arts Building, she happened to glance up, and saw Sebastian standing at an open window, looking down at her. He leaned out a little and waved his hand. After that he was at the window almost every morning. This made a difference in the way he greeted her at the door; it was as if they had already met in the street and were coming into the studio together. There was a keener interest in his eyes when he took her hand, and he looked down into her face as if she were bringing him something that pleased him. He once told her so, indeed. She had just put her hat on the hall table. He took it up, stroked the brown fur, and ran his finger-tips along the slender, drooping red feather.
"You know, I like to see this little red feather coming down the street. I watch for it, and should be terribly disappointed if it didn`t come. You seem to find walking in the cold the most delightful thing imaginable. Montaigne says somewhere that in early youth the joy of life lies in the feet. You recall that passage to me, Lucy. I had forgotten it."
He often told her amusing stories. It was not a habit of his, but he liked to hear her laugh. He never remarked upon this (compliments, he believed, had a disastrous effect upon any charming natural expression), but he provoked it for his own pleasure. A beautiful laugh was rare, certainly; after she left him he used to screw up his eyes and try to imitate it in his mind. Nothing about her drew him to her so much as this purely unconscious physical response.
Lucy knew more or less about Sebastian`s outside life from his telephone conversations. When she left the piano, he always made her rest before she went out into the cold. He sat down and talked to her, but they were very often interrupted by the telephone,--the house operator put no calls through until after eleven-thirty. Lucy could not help hearing his replies and learning something about his engagements, his business affairs, who his friends were. With women his talk was usually gentle and soothing, as if the lady at the other end were in a flurry, or very insistent. He told the most transparent lies in refusing invitations, didn`t seem to try to make them plausible. But he always said something agreeable; asked to be remembered to the lady`s charming daughter, or thanked her for recommending a book which he had liked very much. Every day his concert agent, Morris Weisbourn, called him up as soon as his wire was open. Their talk was usually very brief. But one morning when he answered Weisbourn`s call Lucy heard a sudden change in Sebastian`s voice.
"What`s that, Morris? When did this letter come? . . . No, she wrote me nothing about it. We don`t discuss business matters in our correspondence, that is what you are for. . . . Send a draft for the amount she mentions, and get it off today, not later. . . . Of course I can. Simply let the bills go over. . . . Very well, then meet me at the Auditorium for lunch, and I`ll write a cheque for it."
When he came back from the telephone he lit another cigarette and took up the story he had been telling her about his first meeting with Debussy. But there was something bleak and unnatural in his smile, and Lucy hurried away.
She knew, as well as if a name had been mentioned, that the woman who had written for money was Mrs. Sebastian, and she thought it a shame. He always spoke of his wife in a very chivalrous way, and admiringly. She had heard him explain over the telephone, to a friend just arrived from the Orient, that Mrs. Sebastian was not with him because she dreaded the Chicago winter climate. When he happened to tell Lucy about something he and his wife had done or seen, he seemed to recall it with pleasure, became animated and gay. But she felt sure that things were not like that with them now. Perhaps this was why he was unhappy.
His manner, when she was with him, was that of a man who has an easy, if somewhat tolerant, enjoyment of life. Some of the people who telephoned him he seemed really fond of, and she knew that he was attached to James Mockford, "one of the few friends who have lasted through time and change," as he once remarked. But he seemed very careful never to come too close to people. She believed he was disappointed in something--or in everything.
She had been playing for him nearly three weeks, when quite by accident she saw again that side of him which his genial manner usually covered. One evening Giuseppe knocked at her door, bringing a note from Sebastian. He would not be at the studio tomorrow morning, as he had to attend the funeral services of a friend.
Lucy looked through the evening paper and found that Madame Renee de Vignon, a French singer, returning from California, had died in her hotel last night after an illness of only twenty-four hours. There would be a funeral service for her at eleven o`clock in the small Catholic church near her hotel. Afterwards her body would be sent back to France.
The next morning, a little before the hour announced, Lucy stole into the church. There were not a great many people there, and in the dusky light she easily found Sebastian. He was kneeling, with his hand over his face. When the organ began to play softly, and the doors were opened and held back to admit the pallbearers, he lifted his head and turned in his seat to face the coffin, carried into the church on the shoulders of six men. A company of priests and censer-bearers went with it up the aisle toward the altar. As it moved forward, Sebastian`s eyes never left it; turning his head slowly, he followed it with a look that struck a chill to Lucy`s heart. It was a terrible look; anguish and despair, and something like entreaty. All faces were turned reverently toward the procession, but his stood out from the rest with a feeling personal and passionate. He had forgotten himself, forgotten where he was and that there were people who might stare at him. It seemed to Lucy that a wave of black despair had swept into the church, carrying him and that black coffin up the aisle together, while the clergy and worshippers were unconscious of it. Had this woman been a very dear friend? Or was it death itself that seemed horrible to him--death in a foreign land, in a hotel, far from everything one loved?
During the service he remained kneeling. From time to time he drew out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead, but he did not lift his face or his broad black shoulders until the coffin was carried back toward the door. As it passed him, he gave it one long, dull look, out of half-closed eyes. He was among the first to leave the church. When Lucy reached the steps outside, she could see him far down the street, walking rapidly, his back straight and stiff.
Once before, in November (how long ago it seemed!), she had seen him coming out of a church, the Cathedral, when she happened to be passing. He merely came out of the door, down the steps, and turned straight north, without looking about for a cab as he usually did. She felt sure, by the look on his face, that he was coming from some religious observance. She went into the Cathedral; there was no service going on, there were not a dozen people in the building; but she knew that he had been there with a purpose that had to do with the needs of his soul.
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