Eloise was charmed — with all that royalty money in the bank she could afford it. Exceptions to the regime of burnished newness were few — the manuscript and notes for her unfinished book, the ancient typewriter on which she had written everything she ever published, some heirloom jewellery.
Then Binghamton reared its head.
She called him, in desperation, at the last possible moment and explained. This was the one lecture she hadn’t been able to cancel or postpone. The only possible way to handle everything in time for the honeymoon plane reservations was for her to go to Binghamton now — and so, would he pick up just those one or two things at her place and get them checked somewhere safe.
She’d leave the door on the latch and put everything where he could see it when he came in. There was a dear, dear man, what would she ever do without him? Lance soothed her and said of course he would do it, or anything else his little princess commanded; all she had to do was just give him tiny little hints, she needn’t even ask. He said they would meet at the airline terminal in the morning, and added a number of other remarks having much to do with a new life in a new world and little to do with this narrative.
As it turned out, his agreement was impulsive and impractical. It was acutely inconvenient for him to do anything of the kind. He realised this as he set down the phone, and experienced one second of horror at his impracticality. This was followed by a towering disdain for himself — What, call yourself in love? Deny your little princess a little favour just for a little inconvenience?
His pendulum swung violently to the other extreme. He jammed his hat on, snapped one order — “Take care of everything, Joe” — at his thunderstruck assistant, and took, not an hour, but the entire day for his princess’ small favour.
Once he had accomplished the enormous thing, he ceased to worry or even think about it — perhaps the secret of his considerable success — and, turning his back on chaos, gave himself over to the service of his beloved.
He found the place easily, took the elevator upstairs and went down the narrow corridor to her room. He stood there for a long moment, lost in emerald mists of reminiscence and shocking-pink clouds of anticipation, then removed his hat and turned the knob. He clicked the lock as he closed the door behind him and stood, smiling fatuously into the sweet disorder of her parting from this chrysalis.
Much of the furniture was gone, and the pieces that were left were all tagged — for the Salvation Army, for the superintendent, for one or two persons whose names he didn’t recognise. In one corner of the room was a tumbled clutter of miscellany — a scratched tabouret, some pictures with broken frames, a four-foot model of an Eskimo kayak, a mound of books, papers and magazines, dusty curtains, drapes and slip-covers. Tacked to the north wall, strung around the tabouret and tacked again to the west wall, was a piece of twine, forming a sort of fence around this particular jetsam. Hanging from it was a piece of paper folded in half. On the paper, lettered legibly and tersely, were the words THROW OUT.
Piled just inside the door were the things she wanted to keep, from all her past, to take into her life with him. There were the old typewriter and a mahogany case — the heirlooms. On the top of the case sat a cardboard box, the kind in which one buys a ream of bond paper. It was lettered WIP, which he properly translated as WORK IN PROGRESS.
On this lay the heavy gold-and-leather frame in which he had enshrined his picture. All my love, Lance, and, eclipsing this, was a folded sheet of paper. He picked it up. It read, Lance, I do love you so, Ellie.
Although it was hardly inspired copy, it stopped his heart for a giddy moment. Anyone else might read those words as just those words — he heard them in her eager half-whisper.
He was delicately fanned by her long lashes as they swept up on do and down on so. He knew her special fragrance and even, for a moment, sensed a sort of nearness which was not heat nor odour nor sound, but just — nearness. He let his breath whistle through his nostrils and stood there, shaking his head and murmuring her name.
He opened his eyes on the dangling sign which said, so pitilessly, THROW OUT, and for the very first time felt a small curl of regret. She had so submissively agreed to his half-playful dictum to wipe out the past, that he had never thought of what it might cost her.
He crossed to the twine barrier and ran his gaze over the clutter behind it. He suddenly bent and took up another bond-paper box, also with WIP inscribed upon it. It was dusty and cracked, and written across one corner was Furilla’s Rose.
Here, he thought, were the work-sheets, the carbons, the notes — all the mysterious machine-filings and mould-castings from which a great novel comes — filings and castings Eloise had lived with, slaved over, hoped and dreamed upon — her second novel. Now, because of his arbitrary whim, they were tossed on a heap with a broken kayak and some dusty drapes, under a sign which commanded THROW OUT.
His passion for her mounted the shoulders of his strange reverence for books, a reverence sometimes encountered in the non-reader, and rose towering over him. He took the box over to the stenographer’s chair pushed against the window, sat down with it on his lap, opened it, read—
Furilla threw back the drapes and let in a gush of dawn, a very shout of ruddy gold. Then, standing before the tall pier-glass, she flung away her robe and made another daybreak, another rosier morning in the room.
Yes, it was the famous opening of Furilla’s Rose. How strange it looked in typescript, in grey-haloed carbon! What currents, what depths flowed and swirled in his kitten-princess!
He leafed on.
“Bitch!” Kane shouted hoarsely. “You... you bitch!” His red-rimmed eyes swung close as he bent over her, sitting cool and poised. “Say something, damn you! Can’t you hear me?”
“Yes, thank you,” said Furilla quietly, “I’ll have a crumpet.” She smiled up into his purple, baffled face and added, “Yes, I hear you. The last thing I heard, the last thing a lady could hear, was when you offered me a crumpet.”
That’s my Ellie! thought Lance deMarcopolo fondly. It, it was ugly; she didn’t know it was there until it went away.
He skimmed on, through the tremendous sequence where Furilla met Maserac and went to live in his house. Maserac was an Older Man, and poor Furilla was quite sure that Older Men were safe.
“I’m a very lonely man,” said Maserac, “and to have you in my big old house would be like having the sun shining in all the windows at once.”
“Oh, you mustn’t be lonely! I’ll come, I’ll do everything for you.”
He tilted her heart-shaped face up with his strong old hand and looked piercingly down into her eyes. “Ah, Furilla — do you know what... everything... might mean?”
“Yes, oh yes!” she cried. “You never had a little daughter. I’ll be your very own dear little daughter!”
Maserac’s hand fell away. “I’m ashamed,” he whispered, “so ashamed!”
That was a close one, thought deMarcopolo admiringly. He turned the leaf over, and a blue slip fell out. He bent and picked it up. It was from a desk memo pad and was imprinted with Office of the Publisher. He didn’t mean to read it, but he couldn’t help it.
It’ll be just like having the sun shining in all the windows at once.