Part 6 (1/2)
”My head's never been touched with dye,” Mrs. Condon shrilly answered.
”You lying little ape. And well does that young woman know it. She complimented me herself on a true blonde.” The girl had, too, right before Linda.
”You ought to be thrashed out of the city.”
”Your money will be given back to you,” M. Joseph told her.
Outside they found a taxi, and sped back to their hotel. Above, Mrs.
Condon removed her hat; and, before the uncompromising mirror, studied her wrecked hair--a frizzled vacancy was directly over her left brow--and haggard face. When she finally turned to Linda, her manner, her words, were solemn.
”I'm middle-aged,” she said.
A dreary silence enveloped them sitting in the dark reception-room while Mrs. Condon restlessly shredded unlighted cigarettes on the floor. She had made no effort to repair the damages to her appearance, and when the telephone bell sharply sounded, she reached out in a slovenly negligence of manner. Linda could hear a blurred articulation and her mother answering listlessly. The latter at last said: ”Very well, at seven then; you'll stop for us.” She hung up the receiver, stared blankly at Linda, and then went off into a harsh mirth. ”Oh, my G.o.d!” she cried; ”the old ladies' home!”
XI
With her mother away on a wedding-trip with Mr. Moses Feldt, Linda was suddenly projected into the companions.h.i.+p of his two daughters. One, as he had said, was light, but a different fairness from Mrs.
Condon's--richly thick, like honey; while Judith, the elder, who must have been twenty, was dark in skin, in everything but her eyes, which were a contrasting ashen-violet. She spoke at once of Linda's flawless whiteness:
”A magnolia,” she said, in a deliberate dark voice; ”you are quite a gorgeous child. Do you mind my saying that your clothes are rather quaint? They aren't inevitable, and yours ought to be that.”
They were at lunch in the Feldt dining-room, an interior of heavy ornately carved black wood, panels of Chinese embroidery in imperial yellow, and a neutral mauve carpet. The effect, with glittering iridescent pyramids of gla.s.s, ma.s.sive frosted repousse silver, burnished gold-plate and a wide table decoration of orchids and fern, was tropical and intense. It was evident to Linda that the Feldts were very rich indeed.
The entire apartment resembled the dining-room, while the building itself filled a whole city block, with a garden and fountains like an elaborate public square. Linda, however, wasn't particularly impressed by such show; she saw that Judith and Pansy had expected that of her; but she was determined not to exhibit a surprise that would imply any changes in her mother's and her condition. In addition, Linda calmly took such surroundings for granted. Her primary conception of possible existence was elegance; its necessity had so entered into her being that it had departed from her consciousness.
”I must take you to Lorice,” Judith continued; ”she will know better than any one else what you ought to have. You seem terribly pure--at first. But you're not a snowdrop; oh, no--something very rare in a conservatory. Much better style than your mother.”
”I hope you won't mind Judith,” Pansy put in; ”she's always like that.”
A silence followed in which they industriously dipped the leaves of mammoth artichokes into a b.u.t.tery sauce. Linda, as customary, said very little, she listened with patient care to the others and endeavored to arrive at conclusions. She liked Pansy, who was as warm and simple as her father. Judith was harder to understand. She was absorbed in color and music, and declared that ugliness gave her a headache at once.
Altogether, Linda decided, she was rather silly, especially about men; and at times her emotions would rise beyond control until she wept in a thin hysterical gasping.
The room where, mostly, they sat was small, but with a high ceiling, and hung in black, with paG.o.da-like vermilion chairs. The light, in the evening, was subdued; and Pansy and Judith, in extremely clinging vivid dresses, the former's hair piled high in an amber ma.s.s and Judith's drawn severely across her ears, were lovely. Linda thought of the tropical b.u.t.terflies of the river Amazon, of orchids like those always on the dining-room table. A miniature grand piano stood against the drapery, and Judith often played. Linda learned to recognize some of the composers. Pansy liked best the modern waltzes; Judith insisted that Richard Strauss was incomparable; but Linda developed an overwhelming preference for Gluck. The older girl insisted that this was an affectation; for a while she tried to confuse Linda's knowledge; but finally, playing the airs of ”Orpheus and Eurydice,” she admitted that the latter was sincere.
”They sound so cool,” Linda said in a clear and decided manner.
There was a man with them, and he shook his head in a mock sadness.
”So young and yet so formal. If, with the rest, you had Judith's temperament, you would be the most irresistible creature alive. For see, my dear child, as it is you stir neither tenderness nor desire; you are remote and perfect, and faintly wistful. I can't imagine being human or even comfortable with you about. Then, too, you have too much wisdom.”
”She is frightful,” Pansy agreed; ”she's never upset nor her hair a sight; and, above all else, Linda won't tell you a thing.”
”Some day,” Judith informed them from the rippling whisper of the piano, ”she will be magnificently loved.”
”Certainly,” the man continued; ”but what will Linda, Linda Condon, give in return?”