Linda Lee, Incorporated: A Novel

Wasn't the fault, then, more with the institution than with the individuals?

Lucinda remembered having once heard a physician of psycho-analytic bent commit himself to the statement that in ten years of active professional life he had never entered one ménage where two people lived in wedded happiness. And sifting a list of married acquaintances, Lucinda found it not safe to say of one that he or she was happy; of most it was true that they had the best of reasons for being unhappy. It was true of Nelly Guest and Jean Sedley, it was true of herself, doubtless it was true of Fanny. Lucinda had yet to meet Lontaine, and if Fanny's looks were fair criterion, she was the most carefree of women; and yet…

Fanny caught Lucinda eyeing her and smiled.

"What under the sun are you thinking about so solemnly, Cindy?"

"You, dear. You haven't told me anything about yourself yet."

"No chance. Give me half a show" – Fanny glanced askance at Jean and Nelly, now amiably engaged in bickering about the merits of various modistes – "and you shall know All."

"I'd dearly love to. You must lunch with me at home some day soon; and then I want you and your husband to dine with us – say next Thursday?"

"I don't know. That's one of the exciting things about being married to Harry Lontaine, one never knows what tomorrow will bring forth. We've got to go to Chicago soon, because – daresay you know – father relented enough to leave me a little legacy, nothing to brag about, but nothing people in our position can afford to despise, either."

Lucinda made a sympathetic face and said something vague about everybody in England still feeling the pinch of the War. But Fanny elected to scorn generalizations.

"Oh, the only effect the War could have had on our fortunes would have been to kill off the half a dozen relatives that stand between Harry and the title. But he was out of luck – served three years in France and Flanders and got all shot up and decorated with the dearest little tin medals on the prettiest ribbons, while his precious kinsmen held down cushy berths in the Munitions and kept in training for the longevity record."

"But how proud you must have been – !"

"Of Harry? On account of his decorations? My dear: heroes are three-a-penny in England today. You see, everybody, more or less, barring Harry's family, had a shot at active service, just as almost everybody has a shot at marriage sooner or later; only, of course, the percentage of unscarred survivors of the War was higher."

(Fanny, too! What a world!)

"For all that, I do want to meet your husband."

"You will, soon enough. He's lunching some men down in the grill, a business luncheon, American cinema people; and I told him when he got rid of them to wait for me in the lounge. Very likely we'll find him there on our way out."

"How nice. He's interested in the motion-picture business then?"

"In a way. That is, he was, in England, for a while, after the War. And when we decided to come over about my legacy, he secured options on the American rights to some Swedish productions. Somebody told him you were having a run on foreign films over here, so Harry said he might as well try to turn an honest penny. I told him it wouldn't do him any harm, he'd enjoy the adventure."

"I see," said Lucinda a bit blankly. "I don't know much about it, of course, almost never go to see a motion picture; that is, unless it's Elsie Ferguson, I've always been mad about her."

She looked round to the waiter who was substituting a finger-bowl for her neglected sweet. "We'll all want coffee, Ernest, and you may bring it to us in the Palm Room."

"Four demi-tasses: yes, Mrs. Druce."

"Nelly! Jean!" These Lucinda haled forth from the noisome morass of the newest divorce scandal. "Fanny's first husband is waiting for her in the lounge, and she's getting nervous."

"Good-looking, I suppose?" Jean Sedley enquired, and got a merry nod from Fanny. "She ought to be nervous. A New York Winter is the open season for other women's good-looking husbands, it doesn't do to leave them standing round loose – here of all places!"

VI

Fanny's husband came in shortly after Lucinda and her guests had settled down to coffee and cigarettes in a Palm Room now rapidly regaining its legitimate atmosphere of a lounge, as the extemporized tables were vacated, dismantled, and spirited away.

He fitted so neatly into the mental sketch of Lucinda's unconscious preconception, that she was naturally prejudiced in his favour. She liked Englishmen of that stamp, even if the stamp was open to criticism as something stereotyped, liked their manner and their manners and the way they dressed, with an effect of finish carelessly attained, as contrasted with the tight ornateness to which American men of the same caste are so largely prone.

Tall and well made, Lontaine had the good colour of men who care enough for their bodies to keep them keen and clean of the rust that comes of indoor stodging. The plump and closely razored face seemed perhaps a shade oversize for features delicately formed, and the blue eyes had that introspective cast which sometimes means imagination and frequently means nothing at all more than self-complacence. He affected a niggardly moustache, and when he spoke full lips framed his words noticeably. His habit was that of a man at ease in any company, even his own, who sets a good value on himself and confidently looks for its general acceptance.

He talked well, with assurance, some humour, and a fair amount of information. He had lived several years in the States, off and on, and on the whole approved of them. In fact, he might say there were only two sections of the country with which he was unacquainted, the South and the Pacific Coast; defects in a cosmopolitan education which he hoped to remedy this trip, as to the Coast at least. He had pottered a bit with the cinema at home, and it was just possible he might think it worth his while to jog out to Los Angeles and see what was to be seen in that capital of the world's motion-picture industry. England, he didn't mind admitting, had a goodish bit to learn from America in the cinema line. They were far too conservative, the cinema lot at home, behind the times and on the cheap to a degree that fairly did them in the eye when it came to foreign competition. On the Continent, too, the cinema was making tremendous strides, while in England it was merely marking time. If you asked Lontaine, it was his considered belief that the really top-hole productions of the future would come of combining American brilliance of photography and investure with European thoroughness in acting and direction.

This by no means unintelligent forecast was uttered with an authority that impressed even Lucinda, elaborately uninterested as she was. Conscious of a rather pleasing deference in Lontaine, who was addressing himself to her more directly than to any of the others, she maintained a half-smile of amiable attention which would have deceived a sharper man, and let her thoughts drift on dreary tides of discontent.

Hour by hour the conviction was striking its roots more deeply into her comprehension that life with Bel on the present terms was unthinkable. And yet – what to do about it? She hadn't the remotest notion. Obviously she would have to arrive somehow at some sort of an understanding with Bel. But how? The one way she knew had failed her. And she knew no one to confide in or consult.

Her father had died several years before her marriage, her mother soon after. Of her immediate family there remained only an elder sister, married and living in Italy.

She saw herself a puny figure, with only her bare wits and naked need for allies, struggling to save her soul alive from a social system like a Molock of the moderns, a beast-god man has builded out of all that he holds hateful, all his fears and lusts and malice, envy, cruelty and injustice, and to which, having made it, he bows down in awe and worship, sacrificing to it all that he loves best, all that makes life sweet and fair…

A losing fight. One were mad to hope to win. Already Bel was lost, caught in the mad dance of the system's bacchants, already drunkard and debauchee… Nor might all her love redeem him… And O the pity!

Aware of pain welling in her bosom, a sense of suffocation, tears starting to her eyes, she jumped up hastily lest her friends should see, mumbled an excuse, and made her way out to the foyer, turning toward the women's cloak-room.

A few moments alone would restore equanimity, a little rouge and powder mend the wear of her emotions.

The foyer was still fairly thronged; she was almost in Bel's arms before she saw him, so near to him, when she stopped in shocked recognition of his grimace of affection, that she caught, as she started back, a heavy whiff of breath whiskey-flavoured.

She heard him say, "Why, hello, Linda! what's the hurry?" and cut in instantly with a gasp of indignation: "What are you doing here?"

"Thought I'd look in on your party. You know, you asked me – "

She could not trust her tongue. If she said more in her anger, she would say too much, considering that time and place, lose what poor vestiges of self-control remained to her, make a scene. She cried all in a breath: "Well, go away, then! I don't want you, I won't have you!" – and pushing past Bel, fled into the cloak-room.

He lingered half a minute, with perplexed eyes meeting the amused stares of those who had been near enough to catch an inkling of the altercation; then drew himself up sharply and ironed out all indications of his embarrassment, assuming what he believed to be a look of haughty indifference.

But he was hurt, stricken to the heart by Lucinda's treatment. He couldn't think what he'd done to deserve it, he felt sure she couldn't have noticed the few drinks that had constituted luncheon for him. But whatever had been the matter, obviously it was up to him to find some way to placate Linda. He was through with Amelie and all such foolishness, from now on he was going to be good to Linda; and it wouldn't do at all to begin his new life by getting on the outs with her.

His gaze focused intelligently upon the glass case that displays the wares of the hotel florist. Women liked flowers. But there were four in Linda's party, her guests would think it funny if he joined them bringing flowers for his wife only… A tough problem. He decided to step round to the club and mull it over…

He had disappeared by the time Lucinda felt fit to show herself again. Inwardly still forlorn and disconsolate, but outwardly mistress of herself, she resumed her chair; and had hardly done so when she saw Richard Daubeney pass by with his luncheon party, pause at the door and take leave, then turn back and make directly for her corner. And instantaneously Lucinda experienced a slight psychic shock and found herself again the individual self-contained, the young woman of the world whom nothing could dismay.

Dobbin knew everybody except the Lontaines; and when the flutter created by his introduction had subsided, he found a chair by Lucinda's side and quietly occupied himself with a cigarette until the conversation swung back to the pageant; whereupon he took deft advantage of the general interest in that topic to detach Lucinda's attention.

"I couldn't resist the temptation to butt in, Cinda. Hope you don't mind."

"I do, though, fearfully. It's always nice to see you."

"Many thanks. Appreciation makes up for a lot of neglect."

"Poor old soul: somebody been neglecting you again?"

"Somebody's always neglecting me and my affectionate disposition. That's why I've wiggled to your side, wagging a friendly tail, ready to lick your hand at the first sign of an inclination to adopt me."

Lucinda eyed him in grave distrust. "Dobbin: are you trying to start something? I thought we'd settled all that last night, agreed I wasn't in a position to adopt stray men, no matter how nice."

"That was last night. You've had time to sleep on it. Lots of things can come up overnight to change a woman's mind. Don't tell me: I can see something unusual has happened."