Bellefleur

by Joyce Carol Oates

  The previous day, something very peculiar had happened between Garth and his uncle Gideon, which was never to be satisfactorily explained.

  It seemed that several of the children—Little Goldie, Christabel, Morna—were in the old garden room, playing with the twin ginger kittens everyone adored (though they were not kittens any longer, really, being about five months old now, with long slender bodies and very white whiskers, and unusually large feet), when Mahalaleel, the kittens’ father, appeared suddenly at one of the windows, mewing to be let inside. In an uncannily human gesture he brought one paw slowly down against the glass, unsheathing his claws, and the children looked around, startled. (For Mahalaleel had been gone from the manor for nearly two weeks, and Leah had about given up on him.)

  So the children let him inside, and were delighted at his interest in the kittens, whom he began to groom with all the assiduity of a mother cat. In the posture of a sphinx he reclined before them, gripping them both between his front legs, washing now one, now the other, with his rough pink tongue, his eyes half-shut with pleasure. And the kittens (who did appear to be kittens again, suddenly diminished beside their magnificent fluffy-haired father) pressed against him, purring loudly. Little Goldie had not seen Mahalaleel close up. She knelt to watch him wash the kittens, her brown eyes fixed upon him with a curious intensity. How beautiful Mahalaleel was, though tiny cockleburrs were sticking to his fur—how silky, how luxurious, with the roseate highlights of his thick coat, and the pattern, so intricate as to be almost vertiginous, of its myriad colors: gray and pinkish-gray and orange-and-bronze and frosted black! And his pale green eyes with their black, somewhat dilated centers. . . . Little Goldie murmured that she had never seen a cat like Mahalaleel. She leaned closer, staring. Her long hair fell slowly forward, framing her small face.

  “Do you think I could pet him?” she said.

  “Oh, no, I wouldn’t—he doesn’t know you yet,” Christabel said.

  “Oh, go ahead, he’s friendly,” impish Morna said.

  So Little Goldie quite innocently reached out to touch Mahalaleel. And whether because the creature was genuinely startled by the movement of her hand, or whether because he imagined she meant harm to the kittens—or whether he was simply outraged that a stranger should presume to stroke his head—he snarled and lashed out at her. And in that single instant he scratched the poor child’s forearm quite badly—the tender inside of the arm, near the elbow. Blood sprang out from four distinct slashes and ran quickly down her arm to drip onto the floor.

  “Oh! Oh, look what he did!” Little Goldie cried in astonishment.

  She was more surprised than frightened, but the other girls screamed for help (Christabel in particular, since the sight of blood terrified her), and they were fortunate enough to attract the attention of one of the adults—Gideon—who was just passing by. He hurried inside, saw what had happened, clapped his hands angrily to frighten the hissing Mahalaleel away—Mahalaleel and the kittens as well—and dropped to his knees to examine Little Goldie’s wound. “Now don’t cry, you’ll be all right,” he murmured, wrapping a handkerchief around her arm, soaking up the bright blood. “You shouldn’t have gotten near that bastard of a cat. But you’ll be all right: these are only scratches.”

  It must have been the case that Garth was also nearby, perhaps dawdling in the corridor; because he too heard the girls’ screams, and ran into the room less than a minute after his uncle. He came to a stop abruptly, staring at Gideon and Little Goldie, who were both kneeling on the tessellated floor. The girls told him what had happened—how naughty Mahalaleel had been—but he did not seem to hear. “What happened,” he asked in a queer strangled voice, “what happened to her—”

  Gideon glanced around at him, and said, “Go get Lissa, will you, and say there’s been a little accident—one of the cats has scratched Little Goldie—we need bandages, and some disinfectant—”

  “What happened, what are you doing,” Garth said.

  He towered above them, six feet tall, his jaw suddenly slack, his long thick arms hanging loose. Gideon repeated what he had said, but Garth heard nothing; he was simply staring at them.

  “For Christ’s sake, Garth—” Gideon began: but Garth suddenly seized him and wrenched him away from Little Goldie, and threw himself on top of him, shouting incoherently. His fists rose and fell, he kneed his uncle in the chest, tried to close his fingers around his throat. It all happened so quickly that the girls stared in amazement, too surprised even to call for help for several seconds. What was happening! Had Garth suddenly gone mad!

  The two men rolled over and over, colliding with the legs of a chair, knocking the chair against the wall. Someone ran to the doorway. There were shouts and more screams. Gideon shoved Garth away with his knee, but Garth, his face a bright hideous red, managed to throw himself down again, his fingers outstretched. He was babbling that he would kill his uncle—that nothing was going to stop him.

  Somehow they struggled to their feet. Gideon’s nose was bleeding freely, there was blood—his, or Garth’s—smeared on Garth’s face and shirt; their chests rose and fell convulsively. Though people were yelling for them to stop they did not hear. They were staring at each other, circling each other. Garth’s mother hurried into the room, with grandmother Cornelia close behind. “Oh, what are you doing!” the women screamed. “Oh, stop! Garth! Stop!”

  Garth rushed his uncle, who caught him in his arms, and, grunting like animals, the two of them staggered backward, crashing through the French doors (so that glass flew and there were more terrified screams). Then both fell backward against a low balcony railing; and over the railing, and into the rose garden six feet below. The fall did not appear to hurt either of them—perhaps they did not notice it—for their struggle increased in intensity.

  Noel came limping over, in his work clothes, shouting for them to stop. He carried a hoe and was accompanied by the farm overseer, and several hired hands, who gaped stupidly at Garth and Gideon. But the fighting men (for Garth was a man, nearly as heavy as his uncle) paid no attention.

  Now Gideon was on top, slamming his fist into Garth’s face; now Garth was on top, shrieking, trying again to close his fingers (which were bleeding) around his uncle’s throat. They rolled over and over in the desiccated rosebushes, unheedful of the thorns and the innumerable scratches on their faces and hands that had begun to bleed. From an upstairs window aunt Aveline shrieked: “Turn the fire extinguishers on them! Quickly! Quickly before one of them is murdered!” Vernon appeared, his straggly beard blowing, and made the mistake of approaching them—and suddenly he was propelled violently backward, the book he was carrying thrown out of his hand. (He fell in one of the open trenches, where a new pipe was in the process of being laid, and badly sprained his ankle. But in the excitement no one noticed.) Several Bellefleur dogs ran over, barking hysterically.

  “Oh, where is Ewan,” Lily cried, leaning over the railing, “where is Ewan—Ewan is the only one who can stop them—”

  But Ewan was nowhere to be found. (He had taken one of the pick-up trucks into the village.) Nor was Leah home: she and Germaine were in Vanderpoel for the weekend. Hiram appeared, shaking his cane, shouting for order; order, or he would call the sheriff; but naturally the men paid no attention, and would even have knocked him to the ground as they rolled in his direction, had he not danced quickly aside.

  “Help me, you idiots,” Noel cried to his workers, and though he boldly seized Gideon by the hair they did not dare come near: and he soon lost his grip on his son. He was panting convulsively: he stumbled backward, his hand pressed against his chest. (So Cornelia cried, “You, down there, take care of that foolish old man! Don’t let him near those two!”) The dogs barked and yipped and whined, circling the men, their ears laid back.

  On the balcony, stepping on the shattered glass, Little Goldie stared at the struggling men, her small fist pressed against her mouth. Her pale arched eyebrows were brought sharply together, in a look of horror; her
skin had gone white, so that her innumerable pale freckles appeared to darken; her blond hair was all atangle. It might have been noted, from the rose garden especially, that she was, in that stance, particularly beautiful—a prematurely adult young girl, with small, hard breasts, a tiny waist, slender hips and legs. “Oh no oh no oh no,” she whimpered; but the men took no heed of her either.

  Garth lay back, panting, and Gideon stumbled to his feet, dripping blood from his nose. For five or six seconds they rested: and then Gideon ran at his nephew, and the two of them again scuffled, and the women screamed. Albert appeared. And young Jasper. Hiram was trying to break up the fight by prodding the men with his cane, but to no avail; both were oblivious of his timid blows. Jasper and Albert tried to grab hold of Garth, futilely; Noel tried again to seize his son by the hair, but one of Garth’s wild fists caught him in the mouth. (And cracked the poor man’s dentures.) A shoe flew loose—it was Gideon’s—and shreds of Garth’s shirt—and skeins of blood.

  “Stop! You must stop! I command you to stop!” Grandmother Cornelia shouted, her wig askew.

  In the end, however, they stopped only because—instinctively, unconsciously—they felt it was time to stop. Garth crawled away, sobbing; Gideon remained on his side, propped up by one elbow. It might have been the case, since Garth was the one to crawl away, that he had been defeated (and so most of the witnesses argued), but Gideon’s blood-streaked face showed no triumph.

  But what was the fight about?—what on earth had happened?

  Garth hid away in his room, and wouldn’t answer; Gideon, though looking a bloody wreck, and so exhausted he could hardly walk, staggered to his Aston-Martin and drove away, ignoring the shouts of incredulity that were raised behind him.

  How did it begin?—weren’t Garth and his uncle usually on good terms?—didn’t they like each other?—what had gone wrong?—why did they suddenly want to kill each other?

  So the family asked; but no answers were forthcoming.

  Great-Grandmother Elvira’s Hundredth Birthday Celebration

  On the day before great-grandmother Elvira’s hundredth birthday, in honor of which a large celebration had been planned by the family, it was observed by Leah and others that Germaine was uncommonly nervous, and even rather cranky—the usually happy little girl refused to be drawn into the others’ excitement (most of the children, and many of the adults, were in a near-frenzy of excitement over the party—for not since Raphael Bellefleur’s time had so ambitious a social event been planned at Bellefleur Manor); she kept to herself in the nursery, or in her mother’s boudoir, or in Violet’s drawing room, staring anxiously out the window, with a concentration that seemed adult, at the November sky (which was perfectly cloudless); she was so distracted that a footstep behind her or a gentle “Germaine . . . ?” or one of her favorite kittens, flying across the floor, was enough to frighten her into a little scream. Leah sought her out and knelt before her, framing her face, gazing into her evasive eyes. “What is wrong, dear? Don’t you feel well?” she asked. But the little girl answered disjointedly, squirming out of her mother’s embrace. The sky tasted muddy, she said. Muddy-black. There were eels in it. The cellar smelled: rubber and skunk and something burnt on the stove. Tiny spiders were crawling up her legs and stinging. . . .

  “She must be coming down with something,” grandmother Cornelia said, approaching the child but not touching her. “Just look at her eyes. . . .”

  “Germaine,” Leah said, trying to hug her, “there certainly aren’t spiders crawling up your legs! You know better! Those are just goose-bumps, you’re cold, you can’t seem to stop shivering, can you . . . ? Are you getting sick? Is it your stomach? Please tell me, dear.”

  But she pushed Leah away and ran to the window, pressing her cheek against the pane so that she could peer up, anxiously. Her forehead was furrowed and her lips, which were unusually pale, were drawn back from her baby teeth in an ugly grimace.

  “She’s such a strange child,” Cornelia whispered, shuddering.

  “. . . Are you coming down with a cold, Germaine? Please tell me. At least look at me. There’s nothing up there to look at!” Leah cried. She caught hold of Germaine again, and again framed her face, this time holding it rather roughly between her hands. “I don’t want you to babble such nonsense. Do you hear? Not in front of me and certainly not in front of anyone else. And certainly not tomorrow when our guests arrive. Eels in the sky, skunks in the cellar, spiders, what nonsense!”

  “You’ll be frightening her, Leah,” Cornelia said.

  But Leah paid no attention to her mother-in-law. She was staring into her daughter’s face, holding her squirming head still. The eyes were dilated, the skin was pale and clammy, there was an aura of—of what?—something dank, wet, sour, brackish about the child. After a long moment Leah said, “Something is going to go wrong, isn’t it. Something is going to go wrong after all my work. . . .” But then, with a little cry of disgust, “But you don’t always know. You don’t always know.”

  She pushed Germaine away and straightened, and said to her mother-in-law in a vexed, tearful voice, “She doesn’t always know, does she!”

  THE PARTY TO celebrate great-grandmother Elvira’s hundredth birthday was to have been, at first, a family party: and then Leah hit upon the idea of inviting Bellefleurs from other regions, and even other states (Cornelia and Aveline were drawn into her enthusiasm, each supplying lists of names, in some cases of Bellefleurs no one had seen for decades, in such distant places as New Mexico, British Columbia, and Alaska, and even Brazil): and then Hiram hit upon the idea of inviting people from outside the family, since it had been so long since the manor had been open to a number of important, influential guests: and naturally Leah responded to his suggestion with zeal. Meldroms . . . Zunderts . . . Schaffs . . . Medicks . . . Sanduskys . . . Faines . . . Scroons . . . Dodders . . . Pyes . . . Fiddlenecks . . . Bonesets . . . Walpoles . . . Cinquefoils . . . Filarees . . . Crockets . . . Mobbs . . . Pikes . . . Braggs . . . Hallecks . . . Whipples . . . Pepperells . . . Cokers . . . Yarrows . . . Milfoils . . . Fuhrs (though of course they probably would not even acknowledge the invitation) . . . Vervains . . . Rudbecks . . . Governor Grounsel and his family . . . Lieutenant-Governor Horehound and his family . . . Attorney General Sloan and his family . . . Senator Tucke . . . Congressman Sledge . . . the Caswells and the Abbots and the Ritchies and . . . and perhaps even Mr. Tirpitz (though it was unlikely that he would come). . . .

  Leah hired a male calligrapher to write out the invitations, which were sent out on oyster-white cards with the Bellefleur coat of arms embossed in silver on them; if the celebration is to be held, she declared, everything should be done perfectly. A Vanderpoel caterer was retained. More domestic help was hired. Since guests were coming from so far away they would have to spend the night, or even several nights: so the castle’s innumerable guest chambers would have to be aired and cleaned and polished and perhaps even repainted and in some cases fumigated. Furniture would have to be reupholstered. Rugs would have to be cleaned. Old stained varnish would have to be scraped off, and new varnish applied. More china must be bought; and more crystal; and silverware. Paintings, statues, frescoes, tapestries, and other ornamental objects would have to be cleaned and switched around from room to room. (How odd, how very odd, Leah thought, studying for the first time certain of the things Raphael Bellefleur had acquired, presumably by way of dealers and buyers in Europe. She wondered if he had actually looked at them before he had them hung: for what could one possibly make of these copies of Tintoretto, Veronese, Caravaggio, Bosch, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Rosso . . . ? There were enormous cracked oils and ten-by-fifteen faded tapestries and frescoes and altarpieces of The Rape of Europa, The Triumph of Bacchus, The Triumph of Silenus, Venus and Adonis, Venus and Mars, Deucalion and Pyrrha, Danae, The Marriage of the Virgin, The Annunciation, Cupid Carving His Bow, Diana and Acteon, Jupiter and Io, Susannah and the Elders, there were Olympian feasts and battles and orgies, in which leche
rous satyrs leered, and thick-buttocked “graces” clutched wisps of diaphanous clothing comically inadequate to cover their nakedness, and gods with ludicrously tiny phalluses were being stripped by putti who were really dwarves with comically foreshortened legs and bulging foreheads. . . . On one wall of Leah’s and Gideon’s own bedchamber was an immense time-darkened oil depicting Leda and the Swan, in which Leda was an obscenely plump maiden with a dazed expression, reclining upon a much-rumpled couch, and starving off, with a feeble arm, a stunted but ferocious swan with a phallic neck so meticulously rendered it must have been a joke. . . . Leah stared at these things, shining a flashlight on them, feeling lightheaded, and occasionally even nauseous, wondering if she was imagining their satirical bizarrerie; wondering if Raphael had intended to purchase such grotesque art, or whether the poor man, for all his money, had been hoodwinked. They would have to come down someday. But there was no time, now, to replace them with other works of art; nor would there be enough money.) She even wanted to open the Turquoise Room, about which she had heard so much, but was dissuaded, not by the other Bellefleurs’ pleas, but by the extraordinary sensation that coursed through her when she laid her hand upon the doorknob. . . . (But someone had nailed the door shut, in addition to locking it. Nailed it shut with six-inch spikes. “A pretty sight, in the corridor for any guest to see!” she said.)

  A week before Elvira’s birthday Leah realized that the estate must smell. It was a farm, there were farm animals, how could it not smell? So, over Noel’s weak protests, she arranged for an entire herd of Holsteins, what remained of the horses, and a number of hogs and sheep to be shifted by truck to other parts of the estate. (The family had just acquired, at rather a bargain, some seven hundred acres of fairly good land along the Nautauga River, adjacent to the land once farmed, and poorly farmed at that, by the tenant farmer Doan and his idle family.) “I don’t see any reason to advertise the fact that we are farmers,” Leah said. “And anyway we aren’t, really—most of our income comes from other sources.”