by Belva Plain
THE Dale Forest School had been a steel magnate’s redbrick Georgian mansion. Austere and dignified, it reposed in a grove of ancient shrubbery surrounded by lawns, which were in turn surrounded by open woods and meadows. Outbuildings and playing fields now occupied the meadows.
Across from all this space the outskirts of the village had spread some years before. These streets were filled by dowdy, comfortable, late-Victorian houses complete with turret and wraparound porch.
Eve parked the car, borrowed from Lore, and went up the walk holding Jane by the hand. It was absurd to be applying for a position with a child in tow. But there had been no place to put Jane this morning.
“I brought your new coloring book,” she said. “Now, sit right here at the door and don’t move. Don’t move, do you understand? I won’t be long.”
“I want to go with you. I want to.”
“Please, Jane. You know how to be a very good girl. Please promise me not to move.”
Jane studied her. “You’re sad, Eve,” she said solemnly, as she sometimes did.
For the first time, Eve admitted it. “I am, a little.”
“Don’t be sad. I promise I won’t move. I’ll be a very good girl, Eve.”
She had a lump in her throat as she walked down the great hall. For God’s sake, don’t let me sprout any tears, she prayed, then straightened her back and addressed the receptionist with firm assurance.
“I have an appointment with Mr. Will Bright.”
The headmaster had serious eyes that forced her to look at him when she was so nervous that she wanted to look at the floor, or the book on his desk, or out of the window, where the crimson oak flamed. He had a slow, patient manner and a short, fair beard that called attention to his mouth. Did he wear the beard to look older?
“So you speak French and German equally well?”
“I speak them both fluently, as well as I speak English.”
“There is not nearly as much demand for German as for French. Still, it would be excellent for us to offer both.”
He kept looking at her. Apparently, it was her turn to speak.
“I will take tests right now if you have any,” she offered.
“Yes, of course, for the record, but not now. I assume, if you say you are fluent, that you are. What do you know about teaching?”
“I’ve been thinking that if you know the subject, can it be so hard to teach it? I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but isn’t it better, more important, to know the subject than to have a lot of courses in teaching method without knowing the subject that well? I keep reading that that’s part of the trouble in the schools these days.”
Mr. Bright smiled. “Let’s get back to method for a minute. It’s your first day in, let us say, French class. What will you do?”
“Why, I will turn to page one, the first lesson in the textbook, and proceed from there. Read it together, explain it, take questions, and test them on it the next day.”
“Not bad. Now it’s your turn. Don’t you want to ask me something?”
What do you ask? Would it be too crass to ask about money before inquiring about the philosophy of education, progressivism versus traditionalism, et cetera, et cetera? But money was what she had come for. The time in California, the rent, the airfare, the dentist, and all the other expenses had already eaten deeply into what Dad had left, and was eating into it this very minute at the motel. She felt a surge of panic.
“I suppose,” she said, “I should really not begin like this, but what I have to know before we talk any more is the salary.” Her voice fell. “I’m in great need,” she finished, as if to apologize.
His glance went to her wrist, where the heavy gold bracelet watch gleamed. Clearly, her appearance did not indicate great need. The fine navy suit that had gone with her to college did not look four years old, nor did her handbag and linen blouse. Dad always had said that well-made clothes are cheap in the end. Dad could not possibly have imagined this scene, this room where she was, in effect, making a plea.
Will Bright was frankly curious. “Do you want to tell me about it?” he asked.
So she told, not everything, just the skeleton of the story concerning the death of her parents and the fiasco of the will.
He nodded with recognition. “I’ve had plenty of good meals at the Orangerie in these past two years. Ever since I graduated ten years ago, I’d been wanting as far back as I can remember, to live on a farm. But I also wanted to go on teaching. The two never seemed compatible, though. Then a second cousin of mine died and left me his run-down place a couple of miles from here, just around the time when this school was looking for somebody. I had the credentials, and—” He broke off. “Let me get it straight. The child is your little sister, and you are her guardian?”
“Yes, that’s how it is. I need a position that will make allowance for that so I can care for her properly.”
She saw that he was moved and that he spoke with regret. “We’re too new to have much of an endowment yet. We can’t offer much.”
Into the stillness through the open window came the chiming voices of passing children. The autumn air was warm, seeming to smell of apples. She felt a homelike peace in the atmosphere; it touched the piled papers and the marigolds on the desk; it was friendly.
When she looked up, she met the questioning eyes again, and they, too, were friendly. The wall clock read eleven. She had been here almost an hour.
“I don’t need a lot,” she said.
“How’s that?”
“Well, I do need, but not an awful lot,” she said hopefully. Saying so, she felt a touch of pride.
“Suppose I let you know definitely by the end of the week what we can possibly do. You can decide then whether it will be enough for you.”
Eve was astonished. “Are you saying that if I’m satisfied, you’ll hire me?”
“Provided that you pass the language tests. Yes, I’ll take a chance on you. Where do we reach you?”
Giving him Lore’s address, she explained, “She’s my aunt. There’s no room for us in her apartment, so Jane and I are staying at a motel.” She stood abruptly. “I left Jane in the hall. I’m sure she’s all right, but I’d better hurry.”
“You left her in the hall?” He stood up at once and followed her.
Jane was on the last page of a coloring book. “You took so long!” she cried.
“I’m sorry. Mr. Bright, this is Jane.”
“That’s a funny name,” Jane said, giving her hand as she had been taught to do. “What’s your other name?”
“Will,” said Mr. Bright. “Is that funny, too?” Jane thought about that. “No, it’s nice, but not as nice as Peter for a boy. My dog’s name is Peter.”
“My dogs’ names are Pat and Barney.”
“Where are they?”
“At my home. It’s in the country, not far from here. Do you go to school, Jane?”
Hurriedly, Eve explained that this was her next immediate project. “Naturally, school depends on where we’ll be living.”
“If you should come to us here, I have a suggestion. One of our teachers owns a house down that street. The whole top floor is for rent. Four good-sized rooms. Then Jane could go to school here. Tuition is free for faculty children.”
Eve looked at him. Heaven keep me from having tears again, even tears of gratitude.
“Oh, I hope it works out,” she said, sounding prayerful.
“I hope so, too,” said Mr. Bright.
Although she had never done it before, she telephoned Lore at the hospital. “It sounds wonderful,” Eve said. “Only it’s happened too fast.”
“Don’t say that.”
“No, it’s too wonderful to be true.”
“Oh, my,” said Lore, ignoring her. “You’ll be so near that we can be a family again. What kind of a man is he?”
“Goodness, I don’t know. Young, nice-enough-looking. Kindly.”
“So you’re feeling a little better?”
“Well, I mustn’t let my hopes rise too high, but for the moment I’ll admit that I am.”
“You know, this seems almost like a repeat of my life with Caroline. Down at the bottom, and ready to start right up again. Yes, just like your mother. God bless you, Eve.”
PART THREE
1993
JANE
SIXTEEN
“Of course you know that he married her,” Jane said.
“That’s the one? Will?”
“The same and only Will Bright. He must have fallen in love with her that first morning; in fact, he admits he did, and they’ve just had their twenty-eighth anniversary. Wait till you see her, David. She’s absolutely beautiful. You would never think she was fifty-three years old. When you meet her, you’ll see that she looks as young as I do, and I’m thirty-six.”
“Do you look alike?”
“Heavens, no. She’s a copy of our mother.”
Both heads turned toward the corner of Jane’s living room, where, as if enshrined, a small bouquet of roses stood next to the photograph of a young woman wearing a graceful dark dress and a strand of pearls.
“Eve is tall, like her. All Eve’s children are tall. I’m the shrimp.”
“Hardly. And don’t belittle yourself, no pun intended. You’re a remarkable woman, and I love you. You know you’re remarkable, don’t you?”
Jane shook her head. “No, I know I’m fairly smart, I’ve always worked hard, and I’ve been very lucky. Another pancake?”
“No, thanks. I’ll just fill my coffee cup and that will do. We ought to have a new coffeemaker. I’ll get one downtown.”
It pleased her that he enjoyed domestic things, and she smiled at him. He returned the smile, and they sat together in the warm, Sunday-morning light.
Directly in view, across the street and one floor below them, was somebody’s lavish garden terrace, and below that, an oblique glimpse of the avenue, seventeen floors below. Behind David’s shoulder in the opposite direction was the bedroom, where the metal four-poster bed was draped in white net. Often Jane amused herself by buying incongruous objects, a fussy, comfortable, Victorian love seat to be placed near a pair of stainless steel cabinets, or a black-and-white photo montage of New York’s skyscrapers near a bold red flower print in frank imitation of Georgia O’Keeffe. Somehow, the effect was charming. Most people who walked into the apartment for the first time exclaimed it: “Charming!”
The apartment was small. You had to pay fortunes in New York if you wanted what most people would call comfortable space. As it was, she was probably paying more than she could sensibly afford, but she was having such pleasure in it! To be still young, to have a doctorate in psychology, a busy practice, and a marvelous lover like David, who wanted to marry her—what else could she ask for?
“Yes,” she repeated slowly, “I’ve been very lucky. I had a wonderful childhood with Will and Eve. They gave me a beautiful life in their little farmhouse. It’s not been easy for them, either. Even with two salaries, teaching’s no road to riches, I needn’t tell you, especially with four kids in college and graduate school. Four, one right after the other, and all very, very special people.” She laughed. “Some people, Eve told me, thought that I was their illegitimate child, born a few years too soon. The same thing happened on the campus in California. I barely remember the place or the man with whom she was then so in love that it nearly crushed her when they broke up. Yes,” she said in reminiscent mood, “you can bet that that one didn’t like being mistaken for my father. He wasn’t fond of children, to say the least.”
“That’s the man who wanted to come back to her?”
“Yes, he wrote a contrite, pleading letter after one year in Guatemala. He’d made a terrible mistake, he had discovered that archaeology was after all not what he wanted to pursue for the rest of his life, he missed Eve dreadfully, and he was ashamed of himself.”
“Quite a confession.”
“But by then she was already rather taken with Will. Yes, and I was, too. He was marvelous with children, a kind of Pied Piper. His school was so free; we often had classes under the trees and we heard grand music and had a lot of nature study, hikes through the woods, and—David, are you really interested in hearing all this? You’re not asking me about it just because you have a good heart?”
“Certainly not. If I’m going to be a son-in-law—no, brother-in-law—to these people, I should want to learn about them, shouldn’t I?”
“Well, then. Let me tell you for starters why I know a few things about birds. Will is a birder. On Saturdays he used to take any of the older kids who cared to go along on his excursions. Eve was the teacher’s aide. I never found out whether she had volunteered, or he had asked her to help. Probably it was a little of both. I imagine from hints she’s dropped that they were both very shy at first. Anyway, she had to drag me along on those hikes, and that’s why I can tell you when ducks stop off on their migration to Canada, and that when you think you are hearing ducks quacking in a pond in the spring, you’re really hearing wood frogs.
“So that’s the atmosphere in which I grew up. When Eve married Will and we moved into his house, I thought nothing of it. It simply seemed natural. I loved it. I loved the wedding. I was not yet eight years old, and I wore a lovely, long dress, pale green, that Lore made for me.”
“Speaking of weddings,” David interrupted, “it’s time. Lawyers like things to be legal, you know. And since I’ve become a partner—”
“I’ve no objection. None at all,” she said.
“What about a really nice diamond? I feel temporarily affluent.”
Jane put out her hand. “Let’s get a very nice wedding band instead because I already have the ruby, and I have to wear it every day.”
“It means that much to you?”
She thought of the day that Eve had removed the ring from her own finger and given it to her. She had been eighteen, old enough to wear and understand this gift that her father had made to her mother: a gift of love for a woman so soon to die.
“It is a symbol,” she said now. “Does that make sense to you?”
“Dear Jane, it makes sense.” And David reached across the coffee cups to press her hand. “But tell me. What’s made you keep me waiting so long?”
“I don’t know. Family history, I guess. My mother’s mistake, deep in the subconscious. It affected Eve, and indirectly I’m sure, it’s affected me.”
“You’ve all carried a lot of very heavy baggage.”
“Not I, not really. It’s Eve who still carries it. She’s a strong woman. She may have been born as long ago as 1940, but she was a modern woman long before anyone ever talked about ‘modern women.’ She hardly ever speaks about what she went through. It’s other people who told me things, people like Emmy Schulman, who helped my parents when they were bewildered refugees. And then, of course, there was Lore, who knew everything about the family, who was part of it, all the way back to our grandparents. My God.” Jane sighed. “I can’t believe she’s dead.”
“How old was she?”
“Eighty-four or eighty-five. Well, at least she had a quick, easy death. They found her after her heart attack yesterday morning with the ‘Prelude’ and ‘Liebestod’ still on her record player. Eve’s taking it very hard, Will said. It’s harder for her than for me. I associate Lore with dinner at our house every Sunday, being at all my school plays and games, and having long, grown-up talks together when I was a teenager. But Eve has other memories. They must hurt like hell.”
“About her father—”
“I never think of him as her father. Joel was her father,” Jane said stoutly.
“Still, facts are facts. It must have been a blow between the eyes for her.”
“Yes, I remember being stunned myself when I learned about it. I think Eve didn’t want me to know, but Will insisted. I was about twelve when I overheard them talking about me. Will said, ‘If you don’t tell her, somebody else will. Think of how you found out.’ Eve though
t the truth would mar my opinion of her mother.”
“You always say ‘her mother,’ ” David remarked.
“I suppose I do. Eve says, ‘Mom,’ but the name doesn’t come naturally to me. Sometimes I stare at that photograph, and still she doesn’t seem like my own mother, only a lovely woman whom I never knew. And Dad is a loving man whom I remember in fits and starts. He smoked cigars all the time and gave me a Raggedy Ann.”
What odd things you remember, she thought. There was that day when one of Eve’s pupils invited us to her house, and it turned out to be our old house. I can still see the wallpaper. Peonies, Eve said, my mother’s favorite. And when I told Lore, Lore said something about how far the family has fallen. Eve didn’t like to hear her talk like that.…
She finished abruptly. “I’m making too much of all this, and I don’t know why.”
“Because I asked you to. You’ve said yourself, Miss Psychology, that it’s bad for people to suppress things.”
“All right, Mr. Curious, what else do you want to know?”
“Nothing specific, although I do admit to being curious. It is an interesting family.”
“Everybody alive is interesting.”
“Of course. But what I mean is, you’ve had such astonishing ups and downs. There’s your grandparents’ awful story, naturally. Then came all the success, and then that business with your father’s will. To lose all that hard-earned wealth, and the beautiful house! It’s mighty hard to go downhill when you’ve been at the top. I still don’t see why Eve didn’t fight for it.”
“I’ve told you why. I think she was simply too tired to assume another burden. Ever since childhood, she’s been carrying the horrible burden of her father. How would you like to be the son of a rotten Nazi and live with that all your life?”
David grimaced. “I wouldn’t like it at all.”
They were both silent. A woman across the street came out to water the asters and dahlias in her terrace garden, while they watched as the sun broke through the clouds, gilding the day.