Read Online This Side of Glory by Gwen Bristow - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Gwen Bristow
Ads: Link
honey, I hope you are,” he said. “God bless you, Eleanor.”
The next day Eleanor and Kester were married. It was the last week in May. They went down to the Gulf Coast, too happy to think of anything but that they were together.
Chapter Three
1
T he Gulf was like a sheet of purple glass. Beyond the beach the palms waved their fans and feathers around the hotel, which in the sunlight glittered white as the sand. The days followed one another in dazzling succession. Eleanor and Kester swam and hiked, or lay on the beach in their tremendous space of sand and sun and purple water, looking at each other, saying little or sometimes for hours on end saying nothing at all. The miracle of their being together was endless. Eleanor wondered if all the years of her life would be time enough for her to get used to it.
It was her first acquaintance with tranquillity. She had been a busy, decisive person, wanting this and that and driving ahead to get it, bored with leisure, forever looking around for something to use up her tumultuous energy. But here she had drifted into quiet. Remembering the tension of the last months at home she wondered now if its cessation were not due less to her escape from Fred’s disapproval than to her present physical release. She smiled sometimes as she recalled how little she had really known of that, though she had thought herself so wise. Kester was a magnificent lover. But she was too aware of happiness to care much about examining it.
There were the mornings when she would realize through her sleep that Kester had kissed her throat, and she would open her eyes and look at him in serene adoration. There were the long hot days when they went out and swam in the sea, and he brought her fruit punches while she lay on the wharf with her hair spread out to dry, the wide skirt of her bathing dress billowing in the wind and her legs in their long black stockings flashing as she swung them over the edge. “You’re very beautiful like that,” he would say to her, as he sat down by her and they sipped their drinks quickly before the sun could melt the ice. There were the evenings when they danced in the lounge and she found that he was an excellent and tireless dancer who never seemed out of breath even in the fastest contortions of the turkey-trot. When she remarked that many people were horrified at these wild new dances Kester asked, “Didn’t you ever read about the shudders they had a hundred years ago when the waltz was new?” She had not; it was always Kester who brought up such amusing scraps of information strewn in his memory by the library his ancestors had accumulated at Ardeith. Even if she had not loved him she would have found him the most enjoyable companion she had ever known, but she loved him with an intensity that increased by its own exhilaration, and at night when she went to sleep with Kester’s arm under her and her head on Kester’s shoulder she could feel herself asking with her last conscious thought, “Oh dear God, is there anything, anything more wonderful than this?”
During that summer she grew familiar with his sunshiny virtues and his lovable if exasperating faults. Kester knew and liked everybody and everybody liked him. Waiters and bellboys were devoted to him, and after the first day or two the other guests greeted him as if they were lifelong friends of his, while Eleanor, who could have gone from New Orleans to Shanghai without speaking to a soul, was amazed to find herself sharing the popularity Kester so effortlessly gathered. Everybody assumed that she must be like Kester, which she wasn’t, but she enjoyed it; when people said to her, “Mrs. Larne, knowing you and your husband has made this the pleasantest holiday I’ve ever spent,” she felt she was receiving a tribute that really belonged to him, but she glowed with pride at possessing such a husband. For with all his geniality Kester never said or did anything that was not impeccable. She had
The next day Eleanor and Kester were married. It was the last week in May. They went down to the Gulf Coast, too happy to think of anything but that they were together.
Chapter Three
1
T he Gulf was like a sheet of purple glass. Beyond the beach the palms waved their fans and feathers around the hotel, which in the sunlight glittered white as the sand. The days followed one another in dazzling succession. Eleanor and Kester swam and hiked, or lay on the beach in their tremendous space of sand and sun and purple water, looking at each other, saying little or sometimes for hours on end saying nothing at all. The miracle of their being together was endless. Eleanor wondered if all the years of her life would be time enough for her to get used to it.
It was her first acquaintance with tranquillity. She had been a busy, decisive person, wanting this and that and driving ahead to get it, bored with leisure, forever looking around for something to use up her tumultuous energy. But here she had drifted into quiet. Remembering the tension of the last months at home she wondered now if its cessation were not due less to her escape from Fred’s disapproval than to her present physical release. She smiled sometimes as she recalled how little she had really known of that, though she had thought herself so wise. Kester was a magnificent lover. But she was too aware of happiness to care much about examining it.
There were the mornings when she would realize through her sleep that Kester had kissed her throat, and she would open her eyes and look at him in serene adoration. There were the long hot days when they went out and swam in the sea, and he brought her fruit punches while she lay on the wharf with her hair spread out to dry, the wide skirt of her bathing dress billowing in the wind and her legs in their long black stockings flashing as she swung them over the edge. “You’re very beautiful like that,” he would say to her, as he sat down by her and they sipped their drinks quickly before the sun could melt the ice. There were the evenings when they danced in the lounge and she found that he was an excellent and tireless dancer who never seemed out of breath even in the fastest contortions of the turkey-trot. When she remarked that many people were horrified at these wild new dances Kester asked, “Didn’t you ever read about the shudders they had a hundred years ago when the waltz was new?” She had not; it was always Kester who brought up such amusing scraps of information strewn in his memory by the library his ancestors had accumulated at Ardeith. Even if she had not loved him she would have found him the most enjoyable companion she had ever known, but she loved him with an intensity that increased by its own exhilaration, and at night when she went to sleep with Kester’s arm under her and her head on Kester’s shoulder she could feel herself asking with her last conscious thought, “Oh dear God, is there anything, anything more wonderful than this?”
During that summer she grew familiar with his sunshiny virtues and his lovable if exasperating faults. Kester knew and liked everybody and everybody liked him. Waiters and bellboys were devoted to him, and after the first day or two the other guests greeted him as if they were lifelong friends of his, while Eleanor, who could have gone from New Orleans to Shanghai without speaking to a soul, was amazed to find herself sharing the popularity Kester so effortlessly gathered. Everybody assumed that she must be like Kester, which she wasn’t, but she enjoyed it; when people said to her, “Mrs. Larne, knowing you and your husband has made this the pleasantest holiday I’ve ever spent,” she felt she was receiving a tribute that really belonged to him, but she glowed with pride at possessing such a husband. For with all his geniality Kester never said or did anything that was not impeccable. She had
Similar Books
